His Legacy Lives On

Charlie Pasarell thinks of Arthur Ashe every day.

We all should.

Pasarell thinks about Ashe -- his best friend, his touchstone, a man that today, 10 years after Ashe died of complications of AIDS, Pasarell says is a “hero” and “role model” -- and Pasarell cries a little. We all should.

Ashe is missed by Pasarell. We all should miss Ashe.

Ashe is missed every day for his intelligence and thoughtfulness, for his grace under pressure and his willingness to take strong stands.

Ashe is missed for his smile, for his soft voice and loud ideas.

Ashe is missed for his versatility. He could talk to athletes and presidents, children, adults, teenagers, senior citizens, blacks and whites and Latinos and Asians and everybody would listen.

Ashe is missed for being a man who didn’t cause anger or hard feelings no matter what position he took about politics or sport or life.

His handling of his illness and the publicity it received helped change the perception of AIDS -- which he had contracted in a blood transfusion during heart surgery -- to a disease that struck good, decent people, instead of a fearful plague confined to some category of “bad” or “deserving” people.

“Sometimes,” Pasarell said, “we use the phrase ‘sports hero’ too easily. It is easy to use that term in regards to Arthur.”

Pasarell first met Ashe when Pasarell was 13 and Ashe was 12 and the two played at the Orange Bowl junior tournament in Florida. “But we became good friends for life,” Pasarell said, “when we were teammates at UCLA.

“Even when we were young, I could tell that inside Arthur was a very special man. When you talk about sports heroes, it should mean someone who is more than just one of the great athletes of all time. Arthur was certainly that.

“But to be a hero, you should have done something beyond athletic endeavors. What you stood for, fought for, what you used your celebrity status and stardom for, should be important and should have helped others and made a difference in our world. That’s what Arthur did and that’s what he would have continued doing if he were alive now.”

If Ashe were alive, he would be 59. He would still, Pasarell believes, be active in support of his sport and passionate about righting many wrongs. He would still be advocating that minority children focus on sports only to help them get educated. He would still rail against Prop. 48 and any other lowering of standards that Ashe felt hurt instead of helped black athletes.

“I remember when Arthur was on the Roy Firestone interview show,” Pasarell said, “and he spoke of how it was harder for him to have lived as a black man in America than it was for him to have contracted AIDS. How telling is that? And because it was Arthur speaking, so many people listened.”

Ashe was the first black man to win Wimbledon in 1975. He was the first black male to win U.S. national titles, both the U.S. Open and U.S. amateur championships.

He was a devout supporter of Davis Cup, as a player and coach. No matter what slights he had suffered in his life (he grew up in segregated Richmond, Va.), Ashe still felt patriotic and wished other players took playing for their country seriously.

But even after Ashe suffered a heart attack in 1980 and was forced into retirement from tennis, he pursued life vigorously.

He spoke often about racial issues. He pleaded for young blacks to consider education and not sports as the way to a better future. He wrote newspaper columns and in 1988 published a well-regarded, three-volume history of blacks in sports titled, “A Hard Road to Glory.”

James Blake, an African American tennis player, is representing the U.S. in Davis Cup this week in Croatia. Blake gained much of his love for tennis and Ashe while coming through the Harlem Junior Tennis Program, a program that is part of the Arthur Ashe National Junior Tennis League. The NJTL was started by Ashe and Pasarell as a way to get minority and underprivileged children involved in tennis and, through tennis, teach them about both sport and education.

Blake speaks passionately about Ashe. He knows that reputations fade and knowledge of history languishes. He hates to think that Ashe, not the tennis player but the man, will be consigned, in another 10 years, to nowhere.

“When Arthur was told he had contracted HIV,” Blake said, “no one ever heard him say ‘Why me?’ He showed no self-pity. He just went on helping others.

“Even more than the obvious African American athletic role model, Arthur is a role model because he showed that being a well-rounded college graduate was more important than anything tennis gave him. Arthur used everything good that ever happened to him to do more good for others.

“I can only dream that someday someone would consider me in the same breath as Arthur Ashe. I can only dream of handling myself with the same sportsmanship and live life with the same grace as Arthur Ashe did.”

Blake is off to a good start. He is a Harvard graduate. Ashe would have loved that.

He understands what made knowing Ashe so very special, what made listening to Ashe so very worthwhile.

Whenever Ashe spoke, it made you think. Whenever Ashe acted, it was with purpose and backbone and thinking and reason.

MaliVai Washington, who in 1996 was the first African American male Wimbledon finalist since Ashe, and who is now a television tennis commentator, understands perfectly what still makes Ashe so special.

“There are a lot of tennis players who have won more majors than Arthur,” Washington said, “but I can’t think of a single player who has impacted the world community as much as he did and still does. He realized his purpose on earth went far beyond hitting a tennis ball. That, to me, is inspirational.”

How many athletes can you say that about? How many people?

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com