King Richard, the long-awaited biopic starring Will Smith as Richard Williams, the father of tennis phenoms Venus and Serena Williams, finally debuts today – and I can’t wait to see it. Then again, I was fortunate enough to see parts of this unbelievable story firsthand as I got to know the Williams in the 1990s.
I first heard about Venus in 1990. I was the tennis writer for the Dallas Morning News and became aware of a 10-year-old, black girl from Compton who was killing it on the courts throughout Southern California. I asked then-sports editor Dave Smith if I could go to L.A. to write an article about Venus. He told me no because he thought I was only angling for a free trip home. Dave did a helluva job running what was then, arguably, the number one sports section in the country but oh, how wrong he was about not letting me go to L.A. to check out Venus in 1990.
Venus turned pro on October 31, 1994, beating 59th-ranked Shaun Stafford in the first round of Bank of The West Classic in Oakland. In the second round, Venus almost beat the world No.2 Arantxa Sanchez, leading 6-3 3-1. I was covering the Lakers by then and didn’t have an opportunity to meet Venus until a few years later when I was an on-air correspondent for CNN-SI, reporting on a variety of sports.
At the Acura Classic in Manhattan Beach in August 1997, I hit it off with the Williams. Oracene Price, Venus’s mother, was so excited to see a black female sports correspondent that she gave me her home number. I still remember how beautifully she wrote her name on the piece of paper. A week later, I was at the family’s home in West Palm Beach for a piece to air on CNN-SI prior to the U.S. Open.
Sitting down to chat with Richard on August 14, 1997, I realized how eager this man was for input, reassurance and validation that he was doing the right thing when it came to orchestrating the careers of Venus and Serena. Although Serena had already turned pro in 1995, Richard brought her along slowly so she could focus on school. The start of the U.S. Open was two weeks away and Richard asked ME if I thought he was doing the right thing by not letting Serena make her U.S Open debut. ME???? What the heck did I know?
“My dad learned how to play by looking at tennis magazines and watching videotapes, but for the most part he taught himself his own theories.”
Venus Williams in Come to Win
Judging by the tennis and business successes of Venus and Serena, obviously Richard and Oracene did a phenomenal job with their daughters. As much as I think I know about the Williams, I know the biopic, hitting theaters and debuting on HBO Max today, will provide a lot more insight into this brilliant man who, in my opinion, never received the respect he deserved.
In the preface of Come to Win, the New York Times bestseller I co-authored with Venus, Venus wrote, “As the oft-repeated story goes, my father once heard tennis commentator Bud Collins say to Romanian tennis player Virginia Ruzici, the 1978 French Open champion, “Forty thousand dollars isn’t bad for four days’ work.’ My dad thought it was a joke, but the next day he read it in the paper. He told my mother they were going to have two kids and get them into tennis. My dad learned how to play by looking at tennis magazines and watching videotapes, but for the most part he taught himself his own theories. My mother learned to hit very well, as did all of my sisters. Isha, the second oldest, could have been a great but for the intense back spasms she experienced.
“I was born in June 1980 and Serena followed fifteen months later. Because I was probably about three years old at the time, I don’t remember the first time I picked up a racquet. Later, my father said that when he took us to the public courts to practice, I was the only kid who wanted to hit all of the balls in the shopping cart. I wasn’t happy until I did it, and if I had to stop before the cart was empty, I’d start crying. On the last ball I always wanted to say, ‘Last one,’ and that was very special to me because it signified reaching a goal, though most likely wouldn’t have articulated it that was as a young girl.”
It wasn’t just tennis that Richard taught his daughters. In the first paragraph of Come to Win, Venus wrote about how her parents encouraged their children to “think entrepreneurially.
“When we were growing up in Compton, California, the whole family would have these sit-down meetings led by my dad, who is a philosopher type. He’d ask questions such as ‘Why is it that the poor person stays in the ghetto and the rich person gets richer?’ or ‘Why is it that when you do something for someone it doesn’t work as well as when you help them help themselves?’ We wouldn’t always have an answer, but that was, in a way, beside the point. He was training us early on to be independent thinkers. Of course, he was also training us to be financially independent.
“I remember him talking to us about the mechanics of buying properties out of foreclosure. While I was too young to absorb the details, the basic ideas seeped through. And if he was teaching us about real estate when we were young, you can only imagine how much my parents stressed the importance of education.”
Richard Williams finally gets his due in King Richard. Cheers to director Reinaldo Marcus Green, writer Zach Baylin and Will Smith for serving a winner.
Tremendous work. I look forward to seeing this movie