Mournful Ringing For Lone, Clear Bell -- Arthur Ashe Had Grace, Intellect

Jackie Robinson. Muhammad Ali. Arthur Ashe.

That's the short list of the most influential athletes of the second half of the 20th century. They're the ones who most profoundly spun the culture to a higher plane.

Robinson, dead at 53.

Ali, suffering from Parkinson's disease; his speech is slurred, his walk alarmingly slowed at 50.

Ashe, dead at 49.

Why?

I wonder if the strain of being a pioneer, of carrying the hopes and dreams of so many people, takes a toll. Can somebody tell me for sure it doesn't?

Arthur Ashe was my hero. He was a man of grace, of intellect, of moral purpose, of courage and integrity.

Unlike so many athletes who lend only their names to things, Ashe lent his body and soul. You could count on him. He wasn't just a show horse; he went the distance. Already weakened by AIDS, he came to Washington last summer knowing he'd be arrested, and protested the U.S. policy on Haiti.

I remember in the 1970s when Ashe went to South Africa, and played tennis there, and many American blacks and whites self-righteously criticized him for it and said he was a puppet for a racist regime, an Uncle Tom. Ashe braved their scorn, because it was more important for him to go to South Africa - under the condition that the crowd would have to be fully integrated, co-mingling, with no seating restrictions - to show all the people there, black and white, what a free black man could accomplish.

Later, after the show horses had moved on to the next neon sign, Nelson Mandela got out of a South African prison after 27 years. The first American he wanted to meet was Arthur Ashe.

You get to meet a lot of great athletes as a sportswriter, but not a lot of great men, such as Ashe. Most athletes run away from the public as soon as their games are over. They live in bubbles.

Ashe wasn't like that. He would engage the public, perhaps because he understood that change is a movement, a conga line, not a bolt of lightning, and that movements need popular support. So he was never afraid to take his case to the people. He had the courage to take the hard road, and he never gave up on a principle, even if it meant inviting ostracism from other black leaders.

The first sport I played was tennis. The first big event I covered was the U.S. Open in 1971. Ashe was my favorite player.

There was something about him that was so arrestingly cool. And then, every so often, he seemed bored with the chess-game quality of a rally, and he'd all but say, "Let's blow this pop stand," and hit a go-for-broke backhand. He had real passion, and it was a struggle to keep it controlled.

It was always a treat and privilege for me to see Ashe at the Open, because I knew I would learn something from him. Our conversations began with sports, but soon broadened to politics, arts, religion, ethics, whatever. He always had a noticeable serenity.

But in the past few years, as he grew thinner and more deliberate in his movements, he seemed almost spiritual. There's a custom in Judaism, that when they take the holy book from the ark and carry it around, you should touch it with your prayer shawl, then kiss the fringes of the shawl. I confess that when Ashe walked by, I was sometimes tempted to reach out and touch his hand or his clothing, as if he were holy.

I was sitting in the ringside press row for the Riddick Bowe-Michael Dokes fight at Madison Square Garden on Saturday when I heard Ashe had died.

An announcement was made. They asked for silence in the Garden as they tolled a bell 10 times, the metaphor on this fight night, for a requiem for a heavyweight.