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I love doing big, busy spreads with a lot of activity going on. This one was for Cricket magazine. See if you can find the sports-related “wrongs” in this illustration.

(c) Cricket Magazine/Carus

Everyone knows Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr., but there are many other African Americans who have contributed to the rich fabric of our country but whose names have fallen through the cracks of history.

We’ve asked some of our authors who chose to write biographies of these talented leaders why we should remember them. We’ll feature their answers throughout Black History Month.

Today, Crystal Hubbard shares why she wrote about Arthur Ashe in Game, Set, Match, Champion Arthur Ashe:

“Arthur Ashe is one of my heroes because he was a great athlete, but he was also a great human being. Tennis propelled him to fame, and he used his stature to bring attention to causes that people might otherwise have ignored. He used sports to help change the world for the better, not to get rich or gain popularity.

“I am most impressed by Mr. Ashe’s efforts to focus the world’s eyes on Apartheid. Through sports, he managed to bring attention to South Africa’s policy of racial segregation, and he was the first major sports figure to do so. Having grown up in segregated Richmond, Virginia, one would think that Mr. Ashe would have confronted Apartheid with anger, but he didn’t. A combination of intellect, tenacity, compassion, and fearlessness fueled his crusade. At the beginning, he was a one-man silent storm, and his approach worked. He drew others to his cause without fire and righteousness, but with reason and hope.

“Mr. Ashe is an example of how one person can truly make a difference in the lives of many. He showed me that someone from the humblest of beginnings can make a monumental change in the way we think about people who are different from us, or who need our help.”

Further reading:

Black History Month: Why Remember Robert Smalls?

Black History Month: Why Remember Toni Stone?

Black History Month Book Giveaway

Once again Tonto Fielding found himself in the service of billionaire, Ewbank Manchip. Tonto had earned a reputation as an amateur sleuth, ever since he famously solved the “who stole the kishke,” case. Manchip was certain that his business and tennis doubles partner, Eduardo Boner, was out to exploit, harm, and deceive him, even though no evidence existed to support this expectation. After an initial inquiry, I assured Manchip that he was being hyper-vigilant for potential threats, and had to explain to him that his suspicious nature would elicit a hostile response from others at the club. People were starting to perceive him as hostile, stubborn, and sarcastic. That was why no one else would partner with him on the courts. He responded by indicating that this only served to confirm his original theory. I had to explain that another billionaire would have no need for stealing one of his slippers. “That ball at the net was Boner’s to take. Yet he let it drop only to spite me,” he said.

Tonto then believed that a rational discussion about paranoia was hopeless. He had to solve the crime. It wasn’t really that hard for a master sleuth. I only had to follow the trail, which led to an fiendishly adept thief named Spot.

By Anatoly Liberman Suggestions on the origin of tennis go back to the beginning of English etymological lexicography, and one can teach a semester-long course by using only the attempts to discover who, where, when, and why called the game this. The game of tennis is not called tennis in any other language, unless a borrowing from English is used (as happened to hockey and football among others), and some people thought this was reason enough to insist on the English origin of the word. They asked questions like: “Why should we go

Wimbledon started this week, and many British eyes are on Andy Murray, who has a decent chance of being the first British Men’s Singles Winner since Fred Perry in 1936. So, no pressure then. Anyway, with the sun shining in England (for once), the strawberries in season, and the tennis on the telly, I thought I’d bring you a selection of tennis (and sport) related entries from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. These are from the 6th edition, but we have the lovely new seventh edition publishing in Britain in September.

“We are merely the stars’ tennis-balls, struck and bandied
Which way please them.”
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi (1623) act 5, sc. 4

“If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street, that’s concentration. I didn’t grow up playing at the country club.”
Serena Williams, Sunday Times (2 June 2002)

“I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”
Robert Frost, quoted in Interviews with Robert Frost (1966)

“When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.”
William Shakespeare, Henry V (1599) act 1, sc. 2

“Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead centre of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.”
Franklin P. Adams, Nods and Becks (1944)

“He played the King as thought under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.”
Eugene Field, in a review of Creston Clarke as King Lear, Denver Tribune (c.1880)

“Many a good run I have in my sleep. Many a dig in the ribs I gives Mrs J when I think they’re running into the warmint… No man is fit to be called a sportsman wot doesn’t kick his wife out of bed on haverage once in three weeks!”
R.S. Surtees, Handley Cross (1843)

“A sportsman is a man who, every now and then, simply has to get out and kill something. Not that he’s cruel. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s not big enough.”
Stephen Leacock, My Remarkable Uncle (1942)

I’m a fairly bookish person, I think. I’ve always been an avid reader, at school and at college; I did English Lit at university; I worked in a bookshop during said university time; I’ve talked passionately with friends and colleagues about books, stories, poems and graphic novels I’ve loved; I get flustered when someone disagrees with me about a book or author I admire; and now I work in publishing, for some very good, literary imprints.

I’m also a lover of sports. Football and tennis mainly, but if there’s a major occasion going down I want in on the preferably widescreen action: Rugby World Cup? Ashes? Olympics? Man, oh man. Bring. It. On. The number of man-hours I’ve spent recently checking whether Arsenal have actually bought Andrei Arshavin must run into the… well, let’s avoid career suicide and just say I’ve checked a fair bit. And I’ve got lots of bookish friends who also love sport, and have never felt the two were a clash. 

However, some of my bookish friends who don’t like sport have a ‘never the twain shall meet’ attitude about it all. Sport is a realm of hooligans, loud and unpleasant noises, fighting, drinking, and ugly, ugly people. No one civilised could possibly enjoy such things: what’s all this running about? Why is that man chasing that man with the round thing next to his foot? Why do these people seem to hate each other? Where’s the story? Why does anyone care? And why is everyone so shouty? To these people, writing intelligently about sport must be anathema. If the thing itself isn’t much cop, intellectually or morally what can any writing on the subject bring to it? 

Aside from some obvious answers, such as how a study into the history of league football in England can highlight some important social, financial and political facts, there’s a lot to be gained in literary terms from looking at the actions of a game, the theory behind a training regime or even the philosophy behind a moment on the pitch, tennis court or baseball diamond. I’m not being at all original when I say that sport is all about little narratives; moments of heightened drama that, in microcosm, reflect the drama of everyday life. It’s the world writ large over a small space of time, on a small stage, right in front of you. Remember the recent Wimbledon men’s final? If you saw it you will and it’s a perfect example. It had everything: a great champion and a young upstart challenger; an unexpected beginning; a comeback to rival all comebacks; it had all the twists and turns of a world-class thriller or action movie; and it had an outcome that turned the tennis world on its head, utterly captivated and divided the watching crowd and millions at home, and, quite frankly, kept me up all that night.

And if the events themselves weren’t stirring enough, writing on the subject has been and is practised by some of the finest wordsmiths in the business. Anyone read Norman Mailer's The Fight? Or William Hazlitt’s essay of the same name? Camus was a semi-professional goalkeeper before he became a philosopher/novelist/20th century intellectual icon, after all – he was even capped for Algeria. Simon Barnes of The Times is one of the absolute best in the business. To prove it, here’s a selection of his columns. I challenge you not to find something in there that makes you think about sport in a new way. The late, great and much-lamented David Foster Wallace wrote an awesome essay on Roger Federer (come on Rog! You can get back to number 1!) for the NY Times not too long ago. It’s called ‘Roger Federer as Religious Experience’: do you need any more proof that serious writers can find serious topics and, most importantly, unearth genuine revelations from the practice of sports writing?

*sighs*…makes me glad to be alive…

You do? Well, handily, I’ve got the book for you. Ed Smith's What Sport Tells Us About Life is a brilliant, timely, witty and, yes, deeply intelligent look at what lessons can be learned from the world of sport. It’s full of the stuff sporting arguments and discussions are made of. Why did Zidane headbutt Materazzi at the end of the World Cup Final? What part does luck play in a professional’s career? When can talent become a curse? Ed’s musings on such questions have drawn enormous praise. Nick Hornby said ‘I could eat this stuff up with a spoon’; Mark Lawson said the book was ‘recommended to anyone interested in sport, history or simply human nature’; Stephen Frears (yes, Stephen The Queen Frears!) called it ‘a tremendous book’; Simon Barnes (we love you, Simon!) says to you (yes, you: don’t look at anyone else): ‘DON’T MISS IT’. It’s out in paperback on January 29^th so there’s no excuse.

If it’s good enough for Simon (and Stephen and Nick and Mark), it’s good enough for me. And if you’re still not convinced about sport and it’s still not good enough for you, it’ll certainly be good enough for that person you know who has seen the light and goes to work every morning wondering what it would be like to score a winning goal in a World Cup Final. Or is that one really and truly just me?

Joe
Literary Publicity

I was playing tennis today - about the only exercise I've managed to fit in this week and somehow, only the Supreme Surrealness knows how, when the tennis pro hit a ball to me hard to do a backhand volley, the ball hit my racket, the racket hit my glasses, the glasses hit my face and then went flying across the court.

End result - remember those really expensive new glasses I had to buy about a month and a half ago because the puppy ate my old pair? Well...those nice new (expensive) frames are kaput. As in broken. Beyond repair. Fortunately the extremely expensive complex lenses emerged relatively unscathed, despite one of them popping out of the frame when in broke.

So I'm back looking at life through puppy chewed glasses, and waiting to see if the slightly swollen, red eye ends up turning black.

Go freaking figure.

Happy Australia Day. What better thing to celebrate than the wonderful country where I live. As the new Australian of the Year, Lee Kernaghan said in his acceptance speech, there is no greater honour than to be Australian. Anyway, here I am dressed up for the Corrigin Australian Day Breakfast. I had fun with the temporary tattoos, though you can see only one in the photo. The other essential

or so to speak...

When I played tennis in my 20’s, I was a baseline hitter. I hated the net. I was scared of it. It made me feel vulnerable and unsafe – probably because I couldn’t volley for beans.
I liked staying back in my comfort zone by the baseline, just taking what came at me.

In my 30’s I had a marital hiatus from tennis. My Ex didn’t play and I didn’t find anyone around who I could hit with. It’s not like there was a local tennis club anywhere near the farm. And to be honest, I think I forgot about how much I loved to play. I forgot about a lot of things I loved to do, for that matter, while I was married.

Today during my sanity break (aka tennis clinic) it struck me that since taking up the sport again in my 40’s my style of playing has changed. I approach the net given the slightest opportunity. I like the immediacy of it – when my arm moves the racket to block a shot almost without my mind having time to think about it. I love when I’m able to take the pace of my opponent’s shot and turn it right back at them. Sure, there are times (more times than I like) when I panic and swing instead of just blocking the shot back But those times are getting fewer. And my confidence is growing – I don’t just wait at the baseline waiting for what comes…I’m able to move up to the net and try to make things happen.

What dawned on me today, after almost reflexively hitting a series of pretty decent volleys, was that the changes in my tennis game mirror the changes in my life. It’s all good.

I'm watching the Roddick Federer match and just wanted to make public I've thought for a very long time...Roger Federer has the most incredibly elegant backhand . It's a pleasure to watch him play tennis for many reasons, not the least of which is just the way he moves around the court and his consummate skill. But that backhand...it's like hearing Mozart or seeing a Monet. It's just beautiful.

I'm a two hander myself, and strangely, my backhand is better than my forehand. But watching RF almost makes me want to try a one hander. The problem is, I'm sure mine wouldn't look nearly as elegant. And as a one hander, I'm sure it wouldn't be very powerful.

So I think I'll just...watch Roger. *sighs dreamily*

In addition to the satisfying spectacle of Maria Sharapova being picked off by a younger (and quieter!) player, I was also treated this past weekend to a superb exposition of teen angst, in the unlikely Broadway musical Spring Awakening. Based on Frank Wedekind's 1891 German play, the show and catchy tunes are pure YA: love, sex, death, and grades. Go see it. Take the kids!

Off to New York for my last year's birthday present from Elizabeth, seeing my namesake challenged by the Jolly Green Newbie. Back to our usual programming on Tuesday.

Last week, the Webmeister helped me go pick out a new hybrid bike. Bear in mind that my buttocks had not been on a bicycle saddle for nigh on 25 years. Well, except for the one time I tried a spin class about 8 years ago and ended up with two extremely painful black and blue marks on my butt, one on each cheek. I couldn't sit comfortable for a week and never darkened the spin class door again.

Four things made me risk getting back in the saddle. 1) I was inspired by all the people I saw commuting by bike in Germany, including several extremely well dressed and slender women. 2) Given that beer and apple strudel consumption has wrought havoc with my waistline, I figured I need to up the cardio. 3) I now live in a relatively FLAT part of town. The hills are mild, not murderous like they were near my old abode and 4) I actually live close enough to places I can bike TO, like the library, the grocery store, Dunkin Donuts etc. You know, the essential destinations.

This week I'm also doing an hour a day tennis clinic put on by the Town of Greenwich for a very nominal fee. I haven't played since before the move, and I've missed it a lot, so I'm really enjoying it. Well yesterday I biked to the tennis court for the clinic. It was a lovely ride and I felt nice and warmed up by the time I got there. While this all was fine and dandy, I forgot about biking home. Well, I didn't exactly forget, but it's kind of like labor - you know the baby has to come out somehow, but you'd rather not think about the specifics.

By the time I got home, my legs were jello-erific. Fortunately, J, my Number One Fan who lives down the street, was running a lemonade stand in her driveway, so I was able to gather some delicious and much needed refreshment before cycling the home stretch.

Bottom line: Riding a bicycle is like...well...riding a bicycle. You don't forget how. You just forget how much fun it is, that's all.

Before I changed careers to become a librarian there was one thing I could count on every Monday morning and Friday afternoon—someone would be talking about weekend sports around the water cooler. But since I became a librarian, first in an academic library and then in a public library, I noticed that my colleagues rarely mentioned the “F” word, by which I mean “Football”. This morning as I was weeding old magazines and journals at home I came across an issue of Booklist from 6/1/06 and 6/15/06 in which columnist Will Manley of The Manley Arts: The Worried Librarian writes, “In my role of chief worrier of the world, it’s important for me to avoid worrying about trivial things. For instance, I don’t care who wins the Super Bowl or the World Series. I will leave the worries of spectator sports to those who have a psychological need to assign some sort of cosmic meaning to games involving balls of various shapes and sizes.”

Fellow Librarians, this kind of attitude is a difficulty. It is especially important to care about sports if you are attempting to attract male readers. According to research from Neilsen Sports “over 60% of American households say that they have a football fan”. When I worked as a youth services librarian I once asked some middle school boys to help me make a book display. They were unenthusiastic until I told them I wanted to do a display about sports. Their eyes lit up and they buzzed about in the stacks selecting books “that kids would like about basketball, football, hockey…” When I was a young adult librarian the books I put on display about sports flew off the shelves. Sports books displays work.

February is Super Bowl time and also the beginning of Black History Month. Yesterday in the NFC and AFC title games history was made as two African-American head coaches go to the Super Bowl for the first time, Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts (Read more at Superbowl.com). Create a book display. And if you are a night-owl there is some fantastic tennis going on down under at the Australian Open, live on ESPN2 in the wee hours of the morning. Perhaps create a display featuring books about the country of Australia, tennis and Australian writers?

Even if you are a librarian who does not care about sports (and I know there are many librarians who do care about sports) bear in mind that many of your patrons are sports fans.