It’s Too Bad Earl Woods Can’t Appreciate Richard Williams

The two should arrange a time and place, then greet with a firm handshake and a hug. They should pull up a chair, crack open a few cold ones, engage in some small chit-chat, then ask each other the same question: So how are the kids?

Richard Williams and Earl Woods would probably enjoy each other’s company. They are the proudest pops in sports. Imagine how golf and tennis would be if one raised a lamb instead of a Tiger, and the other had a pair of boys instead. Yes, they should meet, compare notes, brag a little.

Except there will be no such summit, according to Woods.

“I’ve never met him, and I don’t want to meet him.” That’s how Woods was quoted in Sports Illustrated recently. For some reason, Woods placed Williams on a tee like he would a Titleist, grabbed a driver and swung away.

“I don’t think much of the way he’s handling his daughters,” Woods also said. “He hasn’t allowed them to reach their full potential.” And: “All you have to do is listen to them. You can hear the girlish attitude and the girlish conduct. . . . The girls are not on the road to maturity. They’re in a time warp. I feel sorry for them.”

Wednesday at the U.S. Open, moments after Venus Williams won her second-round match in 48 minutes, her father pulled a brown cigarette from a pouch.

“He has a right to think what he wants to think,” Richard Williams said. “Anything he says, I’d probably agree with.” This was Williams at his bizarre best. With his family under attack, he refused to return a verbal volley. Instead, he gushed about Woods, both the father and son. He said meeting Earl Woods “would be the greatest opportunity of my life.” He called Tiger Woods “the greatest golfer, the greatest everything.” He sounded sincere.

“I’m a big fan of Earl Woods,” he added. “I like what he’s done.” This feeling should be mutual between two fathers responsible for reviving two sports. They personally nurtured and developed three of the most dynamic athletes on the planet. They did not desert their children soon after birth, the way too many African-American fathers do. They gave their kids time, love, attention, expertise and prepared them for a fantastic life.

They deserve an equal amount of applause. But if there’s a choice to be made, if one’s performance must be deemed more impressive than the other’s, then Richard Williams wins the fifth set.

He had the kind of obstacles that Earl Woods can’t imagine. While Woods was raising his son on the 18th hole in middle-class Orange County. Williams was 15 miles north, putting in extra hours on the cracked asphalt courts of south central Los Angeles. While Woods tutored one child, Williams had to play doubles.

Tiger Woods had the assistance of national tournaments, professional instruction, a Merv Griffin cameo and a Stanford education, all before he turned pro. Venus and Serena were trained by a self-taught father, high-schooled on the fly and bypassed the juniors, which is like a baseball player skipping the minors.

For all his eccentricities, everyone knows Richard Williams has done damn good. For all of those hand-held message boards he carries to tournaments, he’s harmless, definitely not the stereotypical tennis dad. He certainly doesn’t belong in the same company of Damir Dokic, the lunatic father of promising teen Jelena Dokic. You don’t see Williams being forcibly removed from the National Tennis Center as Damir Dokic was Wednesday after he went nuts in the players’ cafeteria over the price of food.

Earl Woods should take another look. Venus and Serena are well-spoken and fairly sharp for teen-agers without degrees. If they are indeed “girlish,” it’s probably because they’re . . . girls. Neither sister is far above the field as Tiger is, but individually as well as collectively, they’re as dangerous as it gets in tennis. If one wins the Open, then three of the last five majors would belong to the Williams household. You still get the feeling they’re just warming up.

And don’t rule out the possibility of a sister someday going on a Slam tear, like Tiger. Martina Navratilova went Tiger once. So did Steffi Graf and Monica Seles.

“It’s been done,” said Venus, now on a 21-match win streak.

Venus, Serena and Tiger enjoy their lofty place in sports today largely because two fathers followed their own separate plans to perfection. Richard Williams and Earl Woods have plenty in common. Too bad they share almost everything except the same room.