Althea Gibson

Althea Gibson (August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003) was an American tennis player and professional golfer. She was also one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. She won both the Wimbledon Championships and the US Nationals in 1957 and in 1958. She was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. In the early 1960s she also became the first Black player to compete on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.

Being the Queen of Tennis is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown.

Quotes

• Being the Queen of Tennis is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown. Nor can you send the Internal Revenue Service a throne clipped to their tax forms...I reign over an empty bank account, and I'm not going to fill it by playing amateur tennis.
  • So Much to Live For, page 15, by Althea Gibson and Richard Curtis, Putnam (1968)

• Suddenly it dawned on me that my triumphs had not destroyed the racial barriers once and for all, as I had—perhaps naively—hoped. Or if I did destroy them, they had been erected behind me again.
  • So Much to Live For, page 76, by Althea Gibson and Richard Curtis, Putnam (1968)

Talk at a Women in Sports conference at Catonsville Community College (February 1980)

Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson Oxford University Press (2023)

• People thought I was ruthless, which I was. I didn't give a darn who was on the other side of the net. I'd knock you down if you got in my way.
• I was lean, mean, and hungry.
• It takes a lot to become a champion. You need to be a killer. If you can't look over that net and see Public Enemy Number One, then you aren't going to be a champ."

Quotes about Althea Gibson

• "She is one of the greatest players who ever lived. . . Martina couldn't touch her. I think she'd beat the Williams sisters."
  • Bob Ryland, quoted in Born to Win: The Authorized Biography of Althea Gibson. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0471471653. (2004)