On the Line (13 page)

That’s basically it. We’re Christians. We believe in Jesus Christ. We believe in God, Jehovah. After all, we are Jehovah’s
Witnesses—bearing witness to Jehovah’s word. Up and down, our beliefs are essentially in line with conservative Christian
values. But of course there are some key differences. We don’t celebrate holidays like Christmas and Easter, for example,
and we don’t accept blood transfusions—a belief that led in an indirect way to the development of bloodless surgery, a noninvasive
alternative to traditional surgery that has recently gained favor in secular communities. We’re also big into relief work,
which is like a sacred mission to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Show us a flood or a hurricane or some other natural disaster, and
we’re all over it, doing what we can to set things right—only here I don’t get how missionary or volunteer work can be assigned
to one faith or another. Here it feels like that’s an obligation that should be on all of us, no matter where or how we pray.

But like I said, we’re Christians—and I was an eager participant as a kid. I still am. I go to the Kingdom Hall all the time,
wherever I happen to be. I read the Bible all the time, wherever I happen to be. I read every night, before I go to sleep.
I soak up what I can, whenever I can. And, each time out, I’m lifted and transported and set down in a peaceful, spiritual
place. I’m constantly looking to build on my spirituality, to make myself a better person, to find all these different points
of connection with our God, Jehovah.

After all, it’s who I am.

The book of Matthew talks about how Jesus instructs us to go forth and make disciples of all nations, to preach His good news
throughout the land. So that’s what we do: we preach that good news. The more I go to meetings, the more I learn. The more
I learn, the more I look to share. And the more I share, the more I appreciate the value of religion in my life. It’s like
holding up a mirror to everything you do and all the choices you make, and seeing what comes back in the reflection. Obviously,
I’m not perfect. No one is perfect. Obviously, I make some mistakes and some bad choices. Everyone takes a wrong turn from
time to time. But I’m working on it, and I believe that as long as I’m working on it I’m doing okay. I’m striving, reaching,
pushing. Searching. I’m doing my best to please my God, Jehovah, wherever I happen to find Him in my life.

I find it such a strength and comfort where the scripture says that God reads the heart. A lot of times, because of my crazy
schedule, I start to feel like I’m letting Him down, because I’m so focused on my tennis. Because I can’t find a Kingdom Hall
and get to a proper meeting. Because I let my guard down sometimes and act on a bad impulse. But He reads my heart, and knows
at least that I’m headed in the right direction. He knows at least that I mean well—and that I mean to do better. And, just
as He can read my heart, others can as well. Lately, I’ve been focused on what we call informal witnessing, which basically
means preaching by the way we carry ourselves. On the tennis court, for someone like me, it can be in the way I react to a
tough match, or a bad call. Here, too, I don’t always react the way I should or set an entirely positive example, but I’m
working on it. I’ve gotten better at walking with pride and dignity out there, no matter how things are going in a match.
People are always asking me why I don’t go crazy over bad calls, or get all emotional when a match tilts the wrong way, and
it’s because I try to carry myself in a certain way. I don’t want to give my religion a bad name—and I never lose sight of
this when I’m out on the court.

That was a key for me during that difficult day at Indian Wells. Believe me, I thought of flipping off that hateful crowd
and storming off the court, but I reached for prayer instead. I asked Jehovah for the strength and resolve to get through
that match—not to win, but to see my way proudly to the other side. The winning would take care of itself. Or not, because
in the end winning wasn’t important. The real test was to hold my head high and power through, to set a positive example.

For years afterward, people who’d seen that match on television or read about it in the papers would ask me how I managed
to lift myself to the other side of all that venom and vitriol. Always, I tell them that
I
didn’t do anything.

It was all Him.

F
lorida.

For a tennis family, it shined as a place of great opportunity. True, there were some great tennis coaches and academies in
California. Plus, the weather was mild, so we could play all year long, but after a while Daddy started to think we needed
a change. Together, my parents talked about how we could get better competition, better schooling, better everything in Florida.
The more they talked, the more it seemed that was where we were headed. I didn’t pay too much attention to all the talk, but
at the same time it was impossible to ignore. It started to sound like the palm trees in Florida were even better than the
ones we had at home.

Anyway, Venus and I were young, so we didn’t really have such a strong opinion. We liked California well enough. We liked
going to the Kingdom Hall. We liked playing on all these different public courts, and playing with our sisters, and entering
local tournaments. We liked working on our game with our parents. It made for a tight family dynamic, I’ll say that. But once
everyone started talking about moving, it seemed like Florida was the Promised Land.

At first, my parents resisted the idea. They liked how things were. Mom cherished the Kingdom Hall where we went to meetings,
and the community of friends she’d made there. She liked her job, and our house, and our school. Daddy liked the routine he’d
set up for us girls. He liked the small network of hitting partners and tennis lifers he’d assembled to supplement our training.
He liked the setup he had with his security business. We had a good, solid rhythm going as a family. Still, they were open
to what Florida had to offer, because they were committed to providing us with the best training they could find to get us
to the next level, so they agreed to visit with a few coaches who flew out to meet with us. They showed us pictures of their
facilities, and there was no denying that they were nice. So many courts! So many brand-new tennis balls! So many kids wearing
stylish tennis clothes! It would be a whole new environment for us, and if you looked up and down their rosters of former
students, you could see a number of prominent names on the professional tour, so clearly these people knew their stuff. Some
of these coaches were even offering to subsidize our training, so we had to think about that as well.

Of course, all of these coaches were interested in Venus. She was the big prize in the Williams package, because at that stage
in our development she was the true rising star. These coaches wanted a chance to work with her and to grow their own reputations
on the back of her success, because everyone could see she’d be a champion. With me, nobody could really see that just yet.
Daddy could see it, I think. V could see it.
I
could see it. My mom could see it, too. But to the rest of the tennis world I was still just following in Venus’s footsteps,
playing in her shadow. It was like that reporter had said; the kid sister never makes it big, so why bother? Everyone made
like they were interested in both of us—in Isha and Lyn, too!—but I could see it was all about Venus. Even at nine years old,
I could see.

Absolutely, I minded all this on one level, but on another I didn’t give it a focused thought. I was happy for Venus, that
everybody wanted to work with her—really and truly happy. But at the same time I hated that all these people were writing
me off before seeing what I could do. No, I wasn’t physically imposing, like Venus was at that age. I played a much softer
game because I was still so small. But that didn’t take anything away from how competitive I was on the court. That didn’t
mean I couldn’t make my shots. I was a good player! But nobody really noticed because Venus was so much better. The good news,
I guess, is that nobody was saying anything negative about my game. It’s just that I wasn’t being touted as a rising superstar
like Venus. In comparison to V, I was going nowhere.

Our older sisters didn’t really want to go to Florida. Isha, in particular, was unhappy to leave her friends. I can’t say
I blamed her. I don’t think I would have wanted to be uprooted like that if I had been in her situation. She was entering
her senior year in high school, and that’s a tough time to pull someone from her social swirl—a young girl, especially. In
Isha’s case it was particularly upsetting, because up until high school she really didn’t have so many friends; all our time
was spent playing tennis, and with each other, and now that she was finally making all these new relationships and moving
around on her own she hated to have to give it up. It’s like she’d been let out of a cage and allowed to run free, and now
she was being coaxed back inside.

Tunde was already through with high school, but she didn’t want to make the move, either. She said it didn’t make sense for
her to move clear across the country. She’d moved out of the house and started in on college and a life of her own, so why
would she want to move? She was already into her own thing.

Lyn was younger, so she was more like me and V: she didn’t have much of a voice either way. And yet for a while in there it
was as if everyone had a different opinion. It wasn’t just whether we should go—it was
where
we should go to. It was what our lives would be like once we got there, what our family would be like. I just listened in
and worried what it would be like to split us all up, if that was what ended up happening. That was all I kept thinking about.
I mean, Compton was all I knew. Maybe it wasn’t the best or safest or most prosperous place in the world, but it was home.

Years later, my parents told me Compton itself was part of the problem. I didn’t recognize their concerns at the time, but
apparently there was a lot of gang-related violence, and drug use, and racial tensions. There were those gunshots ringing
out while we played. We were protected from a lot of that as kids, because we were always together, always playing tennis,
but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a problem. Tunde and Isha were starting to notice it, as they moved around town on their own.
Some of their friends were in and out of trouble. Kids who didn’t have a lot would sometimes take what wasn’t theirs, like
it was their due. People were struggling to get by and scrambling to stay safe, and after a while I guess this started to
play in to my parents’ thinking. They didn’t want us to grow up in such an uncertain environment for any longer than we had
to—and here it appeared we no longer had to.

More and more, it started to seem inevitable that we’d be moving to Florida. It seemed to be the natural next step in our
progression as tennis players, and since this had been a full-on family affair going in, it would be a full-on family affair
going forward. Well…
almost
full-on. Tunde would stay behind in Los Angeles, but the rest of us would drive to Florida and start up in a new house, a
new school, a new everything. We made a kind of exploratory trip, to check out a couple of these places before signing on
to one in particular. We spent an afternoon at Nick Bollettieri’s academy in Bradenton, Florida, where I thought everyone
was just so nice. The kids, too! I really liked playing there, but that was not where we ended up. We ended up at a place
called Grenelefe, which was run by a pro named Rick Macci.

Rick was one of those coaches who had come out to Compton to talk to my dad and watch us play. He’d worked with a lot of young
players. He spent a lot of time with us, and Daddy really put him through the wringer. He asked Rick all kinds of questions.
Daddy’s thing was if he was going to entrust his girls to someone new, he should learn everything he could about that person.
Not just everything about his tennis background and approach, but everything about everything. Daddy wanted to know his true
character.

Of course, Daddy wasn’t prepared to stop coaching us. That wasn’t part of the deal. His plan was to work alongside these other
coaches and to take advantage of the facilities they offered, and the stronger level of competition, and the new techniques
and strategies they might impart. But he would still be our coach. That was never in question. He wouldn’t be like those other
parents who dropped their kids off at the academy after school each day and then went about their business. No, he’d be down
on the court with us, racquet in hand, working to develop our game. He would direct our training. Looking back, I’m not so
sure these pros were too anxious to have Daddy as a colleague—but we were a package plan.

There’s a famous story that gets attached to Rick Macci’s visit with us out in Compton, but I’m afraid it’s been dressed up
a bit over the years. Still, there’s enough truth to it to make it worth telling. The story goes that Rick spent a bunch of
time watching Venus hit. He was impressed, but not especially so. Remember, this was a guy who worked with tennis phenoms
every day, so he was judging Venus against this group. Remember, too, that Venus was only ten, and I guess it’s hard to get
all pumped about a ten-year-old athlete, no matter how much hype and hoopla she’s managed to generate.

At one point, Venus asked for a break so she could go to the bathroom, and when Daddy said it was okay she dropped her racquet
and walked part of the way across the court on her hands. Then she did a couple cartwheels and handsprings. This wasn’t so
unusual, because we took gymnastics and we were always doing cartwheels and handsprings. According to all these stories that
have been written about us, Rick Macci looked at Venus’s acrobatics and said, “Mr. Williams, it looks like you have the next
Michael Jordan on your hands.”

And Daddy—bless him!—looked over toward me and said, “No, Mr. Macci, we’ve got the next
two
Michael Jordans.”