Mariah Burton Nelson: Venus, Serena Williams, Compete and Care

SISTERS SHOW
HOW TO COMPETE -- AND CARE
Newsday, September 11, 2001
© Mariah Burton Nelson

Author's note: This article happened to be published in New York's Newsday on September 11, 2001. I live in the DC area myself. At about midnight that night, I said to a friend, "Oh - I forgot all about my article in Newsday."
"Guess what, Mariah?" responded the friend.
"So did everyone else." It was the first time we'd smiled all day.

Ask Venus or Serena Williams if they consider themselves competitive, and they might ignore your question - as they notoriously do when reporters ask dumb things. But when I speak to ask professional women and ask them, How many of you are competitive?" just a few -- usually the younger ones, and the athletes -- raise their hands. "How many are competitive but won't admit it?" I tease them. Laughing, more raise their hands.

Women need to compete in school, at work, and in sports if we want to succeed. Yet many of us are reluctant because we might lose -- and we don't have enough experience to know that losing isn't fatal. Or we're reluctant because we might win and we empathize too much with the loser. Or we're ambivalent about winning because we'd just as soon not get called driven, overbearing, militant, domineering, arrogant, ambitious, abrasive, or worse.

Plus, competition allegedly requires things like "killer instinct," and who can identify with that? When men say, "We battle it out on the court, or in the board room, then go have a beer afterward," we sense that there must be a better way, but we can't quite tell what it is.

Venus and Serena are showing us the way. The Williams sisters are showing us -- not only women, but men too -- how to care and compete at the same time.

This is why Venus and Serena are so compelling, especially when they play each other. More people watched their historic U.S. Open final on television on Saturday than the ho-hum football match-up between Nebraska and Notre Dame. Sure, it's also because they're black, bold, beautiful, and bigger than life, with bulging muscles and tall, powerful bodies. But what's most fascinating about them is this: Right before our eyes, they're answering this question: How can we bring our whole caring selves into competitive situations, without being killers one moment and buddies the next?

The Williams sisters are openly loving -- "I love you, okay?" Venus said to Serena after defeating her, 6-2, 6-4 in the final -- and also openly ambitious.

"They were always so confident, and a lot of people thought it was the wrong way, because a woman who is confident is scary," their father, Richard, explained to the Washington Post. "Now, they are helping other women on the tour to say, 'I'm good,' to say 'I want to win.' When we first came out, that was something no one wanted to say, it was stigmatized. Now, you hear it all the time."

It's this combination of love and ambition that makes their story so interesting -- and instructive. "This was our first Grand Slam final together, and that's the way we'd like it to be, because both of us win in a way, but I hate to see Serena lose in any way, even against me," said Venus.

She doesn't pretend competition is easy. If it were, who would bother? But she didn't let her kindness cloud her priorities. "When I lost a couple of points, I wasn't feeling so sorry for her anymore."

Serena, on the other hand, is "too competitive," according to both sisters. "It's not fun because no one wants to golf with me," Serena admits, and this "too-competitiveness," this lack of clarity about what winning means, and doesn't, might explain why she tends to crumble while playing her older sister, having lost five of their six professional matches.

Martina Navratilova had to figure this out -- how to care and compete at the same time -- when she and Chris Evert were engaged in an epic rivalry in the seventies and eighties. Basketball star Nancy Lieberman, who coached Navratilova for a while, "felt I had to hate Chris in order to reach the top," Navratilova said. She tried that for a while, but it didn't work for her, so she went back to sharing bagels and laughter with Chris in the locker room. The two remain friends.

Our opponents offer us tremendous opportunities, to which anyone who has hit tennis balls against a backboard can attest. Opponents not only challenge us to do our best, they sometimes surpass us, and in that process show us how impressive we ourselves might one day be.

The all-Williams U.S. Open final was historic: it was the first sister-sister Grand Slam final; the first time two African-Americans played for a major singles titles; and the first prime-time-television U.S. Open women's final. But these young women are not just black female tennis players, they're leaders. They're demonstrating how to care and compete at the same time. By daring to compete against each other, and by openly expressing their feelings about it, they are giving us a glimpse of how we ourselves might approach competitive opportunities: with conviction, confidence, courage -- and compassion.

Mariah Burton Nelson is an author, athlete, and professional speaker who uses sports stories to show people how to lead and succeed with courage, compassion, commitment, and confidence. For reprint permission contact the author; information below.