Richard Williams: Venus And Serena's Father Whips The Pros And Makes His Family No.1 In Tennis

Ebony, June, 2000 by Kevin Chappell

NEARLY 15 years ago, an unknown father stood on a crumbling tennis court in Compton, Calif., and told his little daughter Venus that she was going to be one of the best tennis players in the world.

This was a bold prediction, for the father was a neighborhood tennis coach and he knew that the odds of this happening were astronomical. After all, no Black person had dominated the game of tennis since Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975, and no Black woman had won a major tournament since Althea Gibson won the U.S. championships and Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958.

But as it turned out, the father (aka Richard Williams) knew best. To the consternation of the tennis establishment and the delight of tennis fans, young Venus and her younger sister, Serena, climbed to the top of professional tennis. The journey was capped off last year by Serena's U.S. Open win, in which she beat No. 1-seeded Martina Hingis in straight sets.

Now Venus and Serena are the darlings of tennis, ranked in the top 5 in the world, and the Williams family--Richard, his wife Oracene, and his youngest daughters, 19-year-old Venus and Serena, 18--is the No. 1 family in tennis, according to Tennis magazine.

During their meteoric rise, Venus and Serena have quieted detractors who panned their father's style and language. They said Richard Williams was arrogant, that he served from the mouth and that he hurt his daughters' chances, not only by criticizing the racism and the stuffiness of the people who run tennis, but criticizing the game itself. "Education is power, not chasing around some tennis ball," he always told them.

In an exclusive interview from his home in Palm Beach, Fla., Richard Williams says from day one others attempted to tell him a "better" way to raise Venus, and later Serena, to be tennis champions. And while he has maintained a public persona of a man who couldn't care less what others thought, he does admit now that the negativity did get to him. "When people criticize you, I don't care how much you say it doesn't bother you, it does," he says. "It bothers you when people criticize you, especially when you're doing the best that you can do. Because once you are doing the best you can do, you realize there is nothing else you can do. They are criticizing you, and you can't fight back, you can't make a noise. It's almost like someone has beaten you dead. It's somewhat disturbing."

To his credit, Richard Williams stuck to what he believed in, and managed to raise daughters who were not only great tennis players, but intelligent, mentally strong young women.

Williams says his family and the African-American community helped him cope during the toughest times. "If I didn't have my wife and my kids by my side, I would have never been able to do anything," he says. "Then, I had Black people--my people--who were so high on what we were doing. Every time I was criticized by those people who thought I was doing things the wrong way, there were Blacks who told me I was doing it the right way."

But it wasn't easy. He recalls a time when Venus competed in a tennis tournament in the Southern California area. She wasn't a household name, and all the other players knew was that she was Black and poor. "I overheard some people say we shouldn't even be there," he says. `They are from Compton,' [they said]. `What are they doing here. They can't play.' People would pick at us all the time. They should be glad that I am a good man because if I wasn't a good man, I would have picked up a stick and knocked the hell out of somebody. There comes a time when you get tired of people picking on you."

Looking back on the times that he fought for his daughters to be treated fairly, Williams says, "So many people want to jump on a poor guy out of Compton," he says. "I came out of the worst ghetto in the world and was simply trying to prove to the world that it doesn't matter where you come from to be good in tennis. You don't have to be brought up in the country club to do this. You can actually come out of the ghetto and play tennis."

Richard Williams says the criticism his family has received has only brought them closer together. "Over a period of time, we gained so much confidence in what we were trying to do," he says. "A person can pick at you so long, enough that, instead of making you weak, it makes you strong."

Williams says that he and his family decided a long time ago that they "didn't care what people thought. The only thing that would matter in the end was what [we] thought," he says. "And it worked out beautifully."

As with any father, Williams says his memories of raising his daughters --like the first time he took Venus onto the tennis court--have also kept him focused and motivated. "The first time I knew Venus was going to be a good tennis player was' the first time I took her out on her very first day," says Williams, a former tennis coach for neighborhood kids in Compton. "I was working with some other kids, and had a shopping cart that would hold 550 balls. It took three kids who were teenagers a long time to hit those balls. They wanted to take breaks. Well, while they were taking a break, Venus wanted to hit every ball in that basket. She wouldn't stop. Every time you tried to stop her, she would start crying. She was only 4 years old. That doesn't mean she hit every ball. A lot of them she missed. But she would swing at every ball. When she got to the last ball in the basket, she told me to say, `Last one,' and I said, `Okay, last one.' And to this day, I say the same thing to her when she's practicing."