Amidst a summer of tumult and confrontation, poetry repeatedly emerged.
No, we’re not talking about the poetic shot-making Roger Federer gave us during his Wimbledon comeback against Marin Cilic.
Rather, we first refer to Venus Williams. When asked what touches her, the 36-year-old legend shared that when she was young and had just read the ancient poem Beowulf, she came to appreciate the classic poem “Deor” – a powerful 10th-century reflection on transience and detachment.
“One of my favorite poems,” said Venus, “is an Old English poem called ‘Deor.’ It [tells us that] when tragedy happens, this too will pass. No matter what you’re walking through in life, whether you’re at the top or the bottom, that too will pass. I find it very inspiring.”
One of tennis’ most innovative zen thinkers – Napa sage Steve Stefanki – also spoke of English poetry. During his induction into the Northern California Tennis Hall of the Fame, the veteran teaching pro recalled his father, a fighter pilot who was both a fierce disciplinarian and a philosopher. One of his dad’s best friends ran an orphanage, and one day his dad asked them how they kept all their kids under control. His friend replied that it was all about Rudyard Kipling‘s “If,” the poem celebrated at Wimbledon that features the classic line, “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.”
As a kid, Stefanki said, he had to memorize “If,” and now he works with it extensively at his tennis center. He recalled that his dad told him, “You don’t want to be a follower in life – you want to be a leader. But to be a leader, you have to be a follower, too. You can’t impose your will on anything.”
Stefanki then surprised many by explaining that training dogs is a part of his work at his Barrow Lane Center. “You can’t dominate a dog or an animal. You have to create a void, an emptiness, and let that animal come to you…Tennis is a sport where everyone is chasing and running around. I’m like, all they’re doing is scrambling around in chaos. But how do you become centered within all that chaos? Where is the center point of the circle?…Where do you get peace of mind in tennis?
“People are thinking, ‘What do I do, what ball do I hit?’ [But] Federer never gets to that level. He says, ‘I wonder what they’e going to give me today?’ And then, because of his proper training, he can adapt to everything – high ball, low ball, wide ball, whatever – because he’s dancing… My wife Lee and I studied ballroom dance…[There] you pretend you’re the leader. Then you pretend you’re the follower, because…he who commits first is lost.”
To Stefanki, “Everything is interconnected…We need to understand the tradition of play and what it means…Tennis is not about becoming good and winning.
“It’s a place where you can study and learn about yourself, your fears, your emotions. It tells us that the most important thing is that the opponent is your teacher. What if you won the tournament, and you respected the opponent so much that you gave him the trophy?…When we were kids…[tennis was about] hanging out with a Coke and a hamburger and being around your friends. Nowadays kids have an entourage. They have their coaches, and everyone’s afraid to play. They don’t even talk to their opponent because the opponent isn’t a teacher, he or she is an enemy.
“Why does tennis think that dominance is so important? When you win, you’ve just demeaned your opponent. You’ve made him feel bad. But what if you gave him the trophy and thanked him….When our students first arrive, we have to teach them how to stand, how to walk, how to have eye contact and how to respect – because tennis is about respect.
“With [Kipling’s] idea of Triumph and Disaster, the player starts like this: ‘If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.’
“I’m a dreamer, and I can think too, but I try not to let [my thoughts] direct my life…This idea of the USA having to have the best player [in the world], that’s not the answer. It’s not even the purpose, in my mind…At Barrow Lane, after you play, you sit and you eat and you talk and you experience life…The last line of ‘If’ tells us, ‘If you could fill the unforgiving minute, with 60 seconds’ worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, and what is more you’ll be a man, my son.’ And that is tennis, my dad’s idea of tennis.”
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For Serena Williams‘ dad, the idea of tennis was to have his daughters make money and revolutionize a largely white sport. Like Stefanki’s dad, Richard Williams was a tough disciplinarian and a fighter. But instead of combating enemies with bombs, he fought his foes in Jim Crow America with his fists and indomitable will.
Serena uses her serve, not her fists. Her ferocious – “I will not fall” – fighting spirit is the key to her success. She was friends with the late visionary poet Maya Angelou, and during Wimbledon, Serena went on the BBC to read the late poet’s fierce, combative poem “Still I Rise”:
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
