Word: gibsonized
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...kept garden apartment in East Orange, N.J., is home to a woman who shook hands with the Queen of England at Centre Court in Wimbledon, a woman who was a queen herself, the reigning tennis champion twice in a row at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open. But Althea Gibson has vanished from sight...
...streets of East Orange, no one knows where Gibson lives. "Althea who?" is a common response. "You mean the great track star?" says one man. In city hall, behind the counter at the Department of Property and Taxation, the clerk recognizes her name ("Oh, we know exactly who she is") but says, "Are you sure she hasn't passed? I could have sworn I heard she passed...
...more like passed over. Last week, at the ceremonies starting the U.S. Open and inaugurating the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, Gibson's name echoed in the list of past tournament winners. But few commentators noted that she was missing among the living champions gathered for the extravaganza. Andre Agassi's supposed snub of the opening ceremony was much easier to headline. But Gibson's absence was heart-wrenching. The new stadium was named for a man who broke race barriers in the '60s and '70s. Althea Gibson broke race barriers in the '50s: she was the first black...
That is just one of the many ironies of her life. Here's one more: while Ashe's heroism extended to the way he died, a dauntless crusader in the war against aids, Gibson is suffering in silence from a series of strokes and ailments brought on by a disease she is simply said to have described as "terminal." When pressed, her friends will admit she can no longer pay her medical bills...
Cynthia Cooper has written a play that includes Gibson and has attempted to correspond with her. But, says Cooper, "Billie Jean King told me [Gibson] was very private and really didn't like to be bothered." King herself remembers a different Gibson, before she turned recluse. "She would always come into the locker room to say hi and just make an effort to be really friendly to all of us." But then the silence settled in, and it has taken King years to arrange to see her; finally this week she has an appointment to visit, together with Zina Garrison...