A Trip to the U.S. Open Forever Changed Me

A few months later, at home in Seattle, I received a phone call. “Hello, Kurt,” said the voice on the other end, “this is Arthur Ashe.”

He had struck a deal with Bollettieri to help pay for my stay at the Florida academy. I went there for the last semester of my senior year in high school. The place swarmed with tennis talent. My first bunkmate? Andre Agassi.

Fate holds a mysterious sway in our lives. If I had not been at the U.S. Open that year, I would not have ended up at Bollettieri’s academy.

If I had not attended the academy, I would not have had the confidence to attend the University of California, Berkeley, a perennial collegiate tennis power and the university that shaped my adult life. At Cal, I played my way from lowly recruit to a full scholarship and became the first African American to captain the men’s tennis team.

Fate has its way with us all.

My brother Jon and I ended up treating dad to a trip to New York for the 2004 U.S. Open, our first time back since the Equitable tournament.

It was there that I noticed he was sick. He struggled for breath and had lost not just a step but also a measure of his mental sharpness. On one sweltering afternoon, he wandered off and got lost.

Not too long after that, my father lay in a hospice. He was dying of amyloidosis, a blood disorder that attacked his brain, lungs and heart.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/sports/tennis/us-open-arthur-ashe.html