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Tennis Pioneer Althea Gibson Dies at 76

Posted on: Monday, 29 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

Althea Gibson was an intensely private person whose public triumphs and commitment to helping others left an indelible mark on generations of athletes.

Gibson, a sports pioneer who broke tennis' color barrier in the 1950s as the first black entrant and champion at Wimbledon and the U.S. national tournament, died Sunday. She was 76.

Gibson, also the first black player on the LPGA Tour, helped pave the way for later stars such as Arthur Ashe, Venus and Serena Williams, and Tiger Woods.

"I am grateful to Althea Gibson for having the strength and courage to break through the racial barriers in tennis," Venus Williams said Sunday. "Her accomplishments set the stage for my success, and through players like myself, Serena, and many others to come, her legacy will live on."

Gibson, seriously ill for several years, died of complications from a severe infection and respiratory illness, according to a spokesman at East Orange General Hospital.

As health problems plagued Gibson in recent years, she isolated herself and spoke to few people. She didn't attend a ceremony marking her 75th birthday at last year's U.S. Open or the 1997 dedication of that tournament's new Arthur Ashe Stadium.

"Her contribution to the civil rights movement was done with her tennis racket," said Fran Gray, a longtime friend who co-founded the Althea Gibson Foundation that helps urban youths learn to play tennis and golf.

"Althea came up in a hard time. Segregation was no easy thing. It was a feat that she accomplished under really devastating and debilitating odds because she wasn't wanted."

The 5-foot-11 Gibson used an attacking serve-and-volley style to dominate women's tennis from 1956-58, winning 11 Grand Slam titles: five in singles, five in doubles, one in mixed doubles.

"Who could have imagined? Who could have thought?" Gibson said in 1988 as she presented her Wimbledon trophies to the Smithsonian Institution.

"Here stands before you a Negro woman, raised in Harlem, who went on to become a tennis player ... in fact, the first black woman champion of this world."

In 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Gibson became the first black player to compete in the national tennis championship - the precursor to the U.S. Open. She went to Wimbledon in 1951.

Her first major singles title came in the 1956 French Open, and she won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in 1957-58.

There was no pro circuit or prize money and few endorsements at the time, so Gibson tried to earn a living other ways, recording an album, appearing in a movie, and getting $100,000 for playing tennis exhibitions on tour with the Harlem Globetrotters.

After retiring from tennis, she integrated women's golf, playing in 171 tournaments from 1963-77, without a title.

In and out of competition, she was a role model for many.

Billie Jean King, a Grand Slam champion who helped found the Women's Tennis Association, was 13 when she first saw Gibson play.

"It was truly an inspiration for me to watch her overcome adversity," King said Sunday. "Her road to success was a challenging one, but I never saw her back down. Althea did a lot for people in tennis, but she did even more for people in general."

In 1975, Gibson became state commissioner of athletics in New Jersey. She then served on the state athletics control board until 1988, and the governor's council on physical fitness until 1992.

Recently, Gibson and Gray collaborated on a book, "Born to Win: The Althea Gibson Story," due out next year.

In recent years, Gibson had two cerebral aneurysms and a stroke, and she struggled financially.

Gibson was married twice; husbands William Darben and Sidney Llewellyn have died. She didn't have children, Gray said.

Gibson was born Aug. 25, 1927, in Silver, S.C., the eldest of five children. A self-described "born athlete," she picked up tennis while growing up in New York, slapping rubber balls off a brick wall. Gibson won her first tournament at 15, becoming the New York State black girls' champion, and boxer Sugar Ray Robinson helped pay traveling expenses.

"No one would say anything to me because of the way I carried myself," Gibson said. "Tennis was a game for ladies and gentlemen, and I conducted myself in that manner."

She attended Florida A&M on a tennis and basketball scholarship - a sign at the tennis courts reads, "The House that Althea Built" - and then began her ascent in the American Tennis Association, founded in 1916 for black players.

Disappointed by her early showings at major tournaments, Gibson thought about quitting tennis and entering the Army in 1955 but her coach talked her out of it.

A year later, she blossomed during a nine-month tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department, winning 14 of 17 tournaments and reaching the finals of the other three.

That began her run of greatness, and she was The Associated Press' Female Athlete of the Year in 1957 and 1958. After her 1957 Wimbledon victory, she was given a parade in New York City.

More than 30 years passed before another black woman, Zina Garrison, reached the Wimbledon final, in 1990. Venus Williams won that tournament 10 years later, and sister Serena won the 1999 U.S. Open. In 1968, Ashe became the first black man to win the U.S. Open; he won Wimbledon in 1975.

Funeral arrangements were being handled by the James E. Churchman Jr. Funeral Home in Newark. A date for the funeral had not been set as of Sunday night.

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Associated Press writers Howard Fendrich and Deepti Hajela in New York contributed to this report.

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