Why Serena Williams’ win matters
Written by Byron Mason, Sunday July 11 2010
In this world of sports metaphors, one truth holds some importance, and that’s winning. Beyond the Xs and Os of the sport itself, beyond the comparisons to life, we watch sports for this survival of the fittest and this eat or be eaten outcome. As Lombardi once said “Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything.”
Serena Williams win at
“Just win, baby” is the trademarked rallying cry used by Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders. It also was used when trying to excuse away all the extracurricular antics of his teams and coaches. Winning covered a multitude of sins. That the Raiders were criminals, drug users, party animals or fighting amongst themselves only became a topic once they were no longer competent at their jobs; when they couldn’t compete and win. Then the “side show” became the excuse for not winning.
We tend to forget that the winner gets to call the shots; that history only remembers who won and that the winner is celebrated no matter what height, race, sex, color or off field appetites. Williams’ wins dispels her collections of indiscretions.
Her off the court interests, the modeling, clothes designing and movie making are frowned upon. She is considered too uncivilized for the prim and proper English observer of the sport; so much so that she was planned to play a match away from the main stadium the day the Queen arrived “unannounced”. A scheduling malfunction, the organizers claimed.
Yet Williams, unlike the hapless Raiders, continues to win. This
Williams continued: "I’m telling you, I don’t think about that kind of stuff. My thing is I love my dogs, I love my family, I love going to the movies, I love reading, I love going shopping. I would like to be remembered, ‘yeah, she was a tennis player, but she really did a lot to inspire other people and help other people.’ That’s what I think about, not about Serena Williams won X amount of grand slams."
L. Jon Wertheim in his recent SI article (dated July 12, 2010) called Serena Williams the GOAT: the greatest of all-time.
Wertheim in addressing a question about this wrote on the web:
“I realize that Serena is incredibly polarizing. Sometimes, she gets a raw deal from the establishment. Other times, she brings it on herself. I realize that for some of you, her outburst at the U.S. Open last year, will always disqualify her from "greatest anything" consideration. I also realize that, as long as she's still playing, it may be silly to make a declarative statement one way or the other. But I think in the end, the preening and the Indian Wells fiasco, and the "lying and fabricating," and the Mariana Alves controversy, and the boots and the catsuit and, even the 2009 U.S. Open are reduced to footnotes. And we're left with the portrait of the Greatest Ever.”.
Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/jon_wertheim/07/07/serena.mailbag/#ixzz0tPfvLTSH
The Greatest ever. Not the greatest in our era; not the greatest black tennis champion, but the best ever.
Serena, just win baby.
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