Exceptional

I am feeling weepy today. 

Serena Williams will take the court
at the Arthur Ashe stadium this evening.  It is possible that this will be the last time she participates in the U.S. Open or any professional tennis match. Though she dislikes the word “retire,” Serena told Vogue magazine that she is “evolving away from tennis” to grow her family and her business interests.

Just shy of her 41st birthday, Serena is a 23-time grand-slam champion.  Even though I don’t know much about tennis, I do know that is a remarkable record.  And while I have no money on the game, I am rooting for Serena to come out on top at the Open.  I want to see her go out in glory.

I was in high school in 1973 when Billy Jean King took on Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes.  It seems ridiculous today that that tennis match was such a big deal, but women’s sports and women, in general, took a back seat to men.  It was not long after Billy Jean King won that match that I graduated from high school and went to work in an office.  What we would call sexual discrimination today was the order of business back then.  I remember young women law clerks being told that a woman would never sit in the board room or new female associates being told that if they were thinking of having children, they could kiss their careers with the firm goodbye.

Young women of that era worried constantly about their weight as they squeezed themselves into short skirts and high heels, served the coffee, picked up the boss’s dry cleaning, and typed the boss’s kid’s term papers.  Women made little money because it was considered pin money:  “Buy yourself a nice dress,” money.  Leave the real earning power to men.

We did what we had to do, and thankfully, we tossed an evolving, improving world to the next generation.  Serena caught the ball and hit it farther than any woman of my generation, white or black, could have imagined.  She is beautiful and powerful in a way that the ancient Greeks and Romans would have memorialized in statues.  Her spirit is indefatigable, and she is a force that transcends envy.  One can only feel awe. 

So, I am cheering for Serena today.  Do it for yourself, Serena.  Do it for all of us.  And do it in the Arthur Ashe Stadium, the namesake of another tennis great who dared to pick up a racket in 1949 and changed the rules of the game.

The wheels turn slowly.  Some of us push, others drive, and then there are the exceptions, the few who fly.  Many of us fought the good fight.  We are coming to the finish of the race.  You help us to keep the faith, Serena.  Show ‘em how it’s done.

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