They Could Never Forget Him : Reaction: To Charlie Pasarell, Ashe was a competitor, a teammate and a friend.

They came from places that tennis does not. Charlie Pasarell from the heat and streets of Puerto Rico, Arthur Ashe from the segregated courts of Richmond, Va.

Theirs was a brotherhood born out of struggle, a brotherhood that began, shyly and tentatively, on a tennis court in Miami in 1955.

“The first time I saw him, I played him,” Pasarell recalled Saturday night from his home in Palm Springs. “It was the Orange Bowl Juniors and we were both 12. It was the quarterfinals and I won, 6-2, 2-6, 6-2. I’ll never forget that day, nor that score.”

Pasarell remembers something that happened 38 years ago because he remembers just about everything that happened in his life where it involved Ashe. Their friendship grew steadily through a parade of junior tournaments and really blossomed when the legendary coach, J.D. Morgan, brought both to UCLA in the early 1960s.

And there was no falloff of feeling when they went their separate ways after their playing days ended, Pasarell to become a top official in the development of the current pro tour and Ashe to become a network broadcaster, consultant to tennis and human rights activist.

So when Pasarell picked up the phone to call his good friend early Saturday night, he did so with a strange feeling.

“I had talked to him Monday, and he said he was OK,” Pasarell said.

“But when I got back tonight, after some meetings, I thought about calling him. I had a nagging feeling that I should. We call each other about every 10 days or so, but tonight was different. I just felt like I should call.

“Then, when a friend of his answered the phone and sounded kind of funny, I had this terrible feeling. I asked for Arthur, and his friend said, ‘Are you joking?’ And I told him, no I wasn’t. And then he told me.”

Arthur Ashe was dead.

Last April, when Ashe had called the news conference in New York to tell the world that he had AIDS, one of the first people he had called to be there with him was Pasarell. Pasarell had been in New York on business. Ashe had decided, in only a few hours, to make the announcement because he feared USA Today was about to print the story, which it wasn’t.

So when he spoke to a shocked nationwide television audience, many of whom had been so stunned by the earlier announcement of Magic Johnson and his AIDS virus, Pasarell was a stone’s throw away. It was luck that he was there. It was also strangely fitting for this kind of brotherhood.

But during the aftermath of that, the quiet time when Ashe seemed fine and able to continue at the frantic pace he always had, the reality of the situation never left Pasarell.

“He had the good days and the bad days he always talked about,” Pasarell said. “But the way he was, when he had a bad day, you’d always figure the next one would be a good one. He made you think that.

“But always, in the back of your mind, you wondered when. It was always there.”

But when he made that phone call Saturday night, Charlie Pasarell was not ready for the news.

“It’s still such a shock, even though I knew . . .” Pasarell’s voice tailed off, choked with emotion and, perhaps, memories.

It was 1964, and UCLA was headed for the NCAA championships in East Lansing, Mich. Morgan, later to become the athletic director at UCLA and the keeper of the store during the John Wooden years of basketball fame and fortune, hated to fly.

“I don’t think he was ever on an airplane in his life,” Pasarell once recalled.

So Morgan sent the entire Bruin team on ahead on a plane and decided to drive to East Lansing, but not alone. With him went his two star players, Ashe and Pasarell.

“I don’t know how to talk about that, especially now,” Pasarell said Saturday night. “They are fond memories. It was a special time, very special.”

For years, the ATP Tour has had its gala honor dinner in New York, then more recently in Florida. It is a special night for tennis, a time for honors and fellowship. This year, the gala dinner will be in Indian Wells, Friday night, March 5. It will be there, mostly, because Pasarell has done so much to make his Newsweek Grand Champions Tournament a top stop on the busy pro schedule.

It was to be, in many subtle and indirect ways, a tribute to him. At the top of the list of those to appear, of course, was Arthur Ashe. Proceeds were to go--and still will--to his AIDS Foundation.

But the word “gala” may not quite apply this year, may not quite be appropriate. Pasarell, minus the brotherhood that started on that tennis court in Miami 38 years ago, knows exactly why.

“I think the world is now a little better off for all the great things Arthur did,” he said. “And I think the world will miss him.”

*

Tributes poured in as the news traveled Saturday night.

Tennis legend Jack Kramer, reached in Atlanta, said: “You knew it would happen, but you didn’t let yourself think. The fascination about Arthur was in the things that he achieved and the wonderful dignity he had.”

Tom Gorman, current Davis Cup captain, also reached in Atlanta: “I’m really proud that Arthur was a friend of mine. This is a great loss for tennis.”

Jim Lampley, Ashe’s television broadcast partner at Wimbledon the past five years, who learned of Ashe’s death five minutes before he went on the air for HBO at Madison Square Garden for the heavyweight title fight between Riddick Bowe and Michael Dokes, said: “ . . . Arthur took so much medication you never knew when his body would begin to resist the medication. He was a very serious, committed man, about a lot of things. He epitomized sportsmanship, in every way. He understood the importance of integrity. I’ll miss him, big time.”

Jesse Jackson, also attending the Bowe-Dokes fight said: “I knew Arthur Ashe for 30 years. I’m broken-hearted.

“Here is an athlete who, as a boy had to play on segregated courts in Virginia. He needed petitions to be able to play on public courts. He would not let that kind of society break his dreams or his dignity.

“Arthur was an uncommon athlete. He put his life in dark places. He was a fighter.”

And Jimmy Connors, the man whom Ashe beat in the 1975 Wimbledon final to become the first black man to ever win there, reached in San Francisco, where he is playing a tournament, said: “Arthur was always good at keeping everything inside . . . but I wonder what he was thinking during all this (his fight with AIDS). He’s had such a great impact on many things other than just playing tennis.

“You know, the competition we had brought us close. Now, I hear this, and you wonder just when is all this stuff going to end.”

Times staff writers Thomas Bonk and Earl Gustkey contributed to this story.

* ARTHUR ASHE DIES: A1