Ashe nearly put mark on Fordham women’s team
If it wasn’t for Arthur Ashe’s tragic death at age 49 due to complications from AIDS in 1993, another item likely would have graced his résumé.
Former Fordham athletic director Frank McLaughlin told The Post that Ashe was close to accepting the Fordham women’s tennis position in the late 1980s before contracting HIV.
Although he wasn’t told why Ashe delayed accepting the offer, he soon found out when Ashe went public in 1992 that he had AIDS. Ashe learned of his diagnosis in 1988.
This is the 50th anniversary of Ashe winning the first U.S. Open in 1968 and the Flushing fortnight will be filled with remembrances.
While the U.S. tournament accepted professionals for the first time 50 years ago, Ashe was still an amateur — based at West Point as a lieutenant and also assistant tennis coach for Army. (Ashe was an ROTC trainee at UCLA.)
“He was so unassuming and I never thought he was appreciated enough,’’ McLaughlin said. “I tried for months to convince him to take the job and I think that was the reason he didn’t commit. He would’ve been the best influence on the kids. You can talk about his world-class tennis playing but he was an educator first.’’
McLaughin met Ashe in the 1980s when the threetime Grand Slam champion started a program “Athletes Career Connections’’ in which he lectured studentathletes at various universities, including Fordham.
“He would talk about little things like making sure your answering machine had a professional message in case a prospective employer called,’’ McLaughlin said. “I don’t think the kids appreciated it enough or realized who he really was. When the [AIDS] announcement came, they were like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the guy from the lectures.’ ”
“I remember driving around a golf course upstate [in the 1990s] and seeing him with his family on a Sunday and I just couldn’t stop crying.’’
Events planned at the Open include an “Ashe ’68 Virtual Reality Experience,’’ among other commemorations for a player often compared to Jackie Robinson. West Point military per
sonnel will honor Ashe on Labor Day at Ashe Stadium. Across the grounds, never-before-seen posters of Ashe during the 1968 Open will be on display.
Montreal’s Eugenie Bouchard, who sued the Open after slipping in the locker room in 2015, wasn’t granted a wild card by the USTA, though a settlement was reached. But Bouchard, whose career has fallen on hard times, went through qualifiers to make the main draw.
Serena Williams makes her U.S. Open debut as a mother on the Monday night card vs. Poland’s Magda Linette. Williams is 17-0 in the Open’s first round. She is 67-1 overall in Grand Slams in Round 1.
The last four women’s Slam winners are also the top four ranked players — No. 1 Simona Halep (French), No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki (Australian), No. 3 Sloane Stephens (U.S. Open), No. 4 Angelique Kerber ( Wimbledon).
Defending Open champion Rafael Nadal pulled out of Cincinnati to rest, but he actually didn’t rest. “Was preparation — I was resting of competing, not resting of working.’’