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They ran the race, broke barriers and above all won based on the merit of their gifts and skills. Althea Gibson, Jackie Robinson, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are pioneers in their respective sports – tennis, baseball, basketball and golf. Between them there are enough inspiring stories and moments of triumph to fill history books, instead the lesson we find behind the lives of these groundbreaking individuals is that there is still room for many, many more. In continuing our celebration of Black History Month, we pay tribute to four more prominent figures.
Althea Gibson
“I always wanted to be somebody.”
Harlem, NY native Althea Gibson lived a life of firsts as a woman, African American and athlete. Often referred to as “the Jackie Robinson” of tennis, Althea Gibson overcame incredible odds to achieve great victories by breaking the color barrier.
As a youngster, Gibson was a runaway who had trouble in school and whose family was on welfare. Blues musician Buddy Walker witnessed Gibson playing table tennis and introduced her to tennis on a court in Harlem, where she was discovered by black physician, Walter Johnson who secured sponsorship for her further training.
After graduating from Florida A&M University, Althea Gibson was finally able to compete in the best tennis tournaments in the world because the color barrier had been broken. Throughout her career she would win both singles and doubles championships in the French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open. In an era of no big endorsement deals and prize monies, Gibson would retire and write an autobiography, record an album, Althea Gibson Sings, and even appear in a motion picture.
In 1964, she became the first African American to join and play in the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA). And in 1971, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
On the brink of suicide following two aneurysms and a stroke, Althea Gibson’s plight was published in a tennis magazine leading to the former champion receiving almost a million dollars in checks from admirers and fans worldwide. Althea Gibson died of respiratory failure in 2003 and is buried in Orange, New Jersey.
Eldrick “Tiger” Woods
“No matter how good you get you can always get better and that's the exciting part…”
Golf Digest magazine has predicted Tiger Woods will become sports’ first billionaire athlete by the year 2010. Not bad for a thirty-two year old who has done more for the game of golf in terms of generating interest among a multicultural audience than any other player. The surge in interest is due to the fact that Woods is multiracial.
Eldrick, who would legally change his name to Tiger at 21 years old, wowed audiences as a two-year old putting against comedian Bob Hope on The Mike Douglas Show. The child prodigy would begin winning junior championships in 1984 and turn professional at the age of twenty after completing two years at Stanford University. Woods walked away from his education to earn over sixty million dollars in endorsement deals from Nike and Titleist. Within his first year as a pro, Woods enjoyed the fastest ascent to number one in golf rankings with major wins at the Masters, and the honor of being named PGA Player of the Year.
To date, Woods has been PGA Player of the Year a record nine times, won the Masters four times, and he is the second player to Jack Nicklaus to win all four major pro golf championships more than once.
In keeping with his father Earl’s edict to give back and serve, Woods practices philanthropy with a foundation, a touring inner city golf clinic, an educational facility in Anaheim, California that focuses on technological advancement and he supports a junior golf team.
Michael Jordan
“I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying.”
During Michael Jordan’s sophomore year of high school, he was deemed too short at five feet eleven inches tall to play varsity basketball and was rejected. However, he persevered, grew four inches and the following year he was selected to play averaging 25 points per game and became a member of McDonald’s All-American Team his senior year. In 1981, he entered the University of North Carolina where he would become a standout athlete and earn national honor for his athletic prowess.
One year before he graduated from UNC, Jordan entered the NBA draft and was ultimately selected by the Chicago Bulls as a guard. He would win MVP titles in the league multiple times until his retirement in 1993, his first retirement.
Proving that he was the king of reinvention and fulfilling dreams, Jordan reemerged in minor league baseball with the Chicago White Sox’s farm team, the Birmingham Barons and played for a year before returning to the Chicago Bulls until his second retirement in 1999. In 2000, he returned to the NBA as a part-owner and president of the Washington Wizards. Post September 11 (2001), Jordan returned as a player for the Wizards, donating his salary to the families of the victims of the attack. He would retire as a player for the third time in 2003.
Currently, Michael Jordan is part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats in his home state of North Carolina, as well as managing member of basketball operations. He spends his free time playing golf and managing his varied business interests including a continued stake in Nike’s Air Jordan brand.
Jackie Robinson
“I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”
Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson is to be credited as the man who ended 80 years of segregation in professional major league baseball. He crossed the color line in his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Prior to this momentous occasion, African Americans were relegated to playing in the now famous Negro Leagues, paraprofessional teams filled with men who played baseball for the love and as a pass time because the salary was minimal.
He was born to sharecroppers in Georgia but later moved to California after his father abandoned the family. Growing up in poverty, the super athlete would later attend but not graduate from UCLA, where he has the distinction of being the first student to letter in four sports: basketball, football, track and field and baseball.
For two years, Robinson served as a second lieutenant in the U. S. Army, and was threatened with court martial, because he refused to sit at the back of a segregated battalion bus. In 1955, he won his first and only World Series ring against the New York Yankees.
After his death, he earned a Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Robinson was also an astute businessman whose ventures include Freedom Bank as well as a political activist who spoke out in favor of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X’s efforts to change conditions for African Americans.
Jackie Robinson would die in 1972, and a year later his widow, Rachel would establish a foundation in his honor, which continues to serve communities and college students of color worldwide.
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