Serena Williams’ Legacy Lives On In Black Girls Like Me

I wasn’t a big sports fan growing up. If someone were to ask me to name five athletes as a kid, my response  would have probably been, “Uhhh, Serena Williams, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Peyton Manning, and Tiger Woods.” Today, I’d include some basketball players like LeBron James or Stephen Curry but Williams would still be at the top of that list. Williams has forever stayed in my rotation not just as one of the few sports stars I can name off the top of my head, but also as one of my favorite athletes, and favorite cultural figures – period. In her illustrious career, Serena Williams transcended tennis. And now, as Williams prepares to transition away from playing tennis — she made the retirement announcement official in Vogue this week — I can’t help but look back on the impact she’s had on me, her sport, and the culture.

Williams is undoubtedly iconic, from all the records she’s broken (including her own) to her becoming the face of tennis, a sport that was once dominated by white men. Her dominance was always so inspiring to me —  she didn’t just take up space in a world full of country clubs and rich white elites, she owned tennis. Serena Williams is tennis.

I remember watching TV as a kid, and when all the children’s programming, like Arthur, WordGirl, and Cyberchase, would turn into afternoon talk shows, like The Tavis Smiley Show and Maury, I would scroll through the channels looking for something to hold my attention. I would land on ESPN and there she’d be, leaping side to side, muscles taut and ponytail swaying. The enigmatic presence of Serena Williams became so familiar to me; her unmistakable signature grunts, the thwack of the tennis ball as it connected with the racket. She was an undeniable force on the court.