Renee Blount says it loud and says it proud.
“I will always be a St. Louisan at heart.”
She cannot say it enough, how grateful she is for the coaching she got as a youngster growing up in St. Louis, particularly from Richard Hudlin and Earl Buchholz Sr.
She is 65 now and living by herself on the farm she owns in Keswick, Va., about eight miles outside of Charlottesville. It’s been some 30 years since she ended her career in professional tennis after a heart to heart talk with another of her mentors, Arthur Ashe.
It was 1993, and Renee went to see him at his apartment on New York’s Upper East Side as he lay dying from AIDS. She had left the tour for awhile and was contemplating a comeback.
“The room was dark,” she said. “The only thing that was light was the lights of New York in the windows. He said ‘Renee, come here.’ I sat down and we talked about the tennis tour, and then he changed the subject to something I could do and be successful at. He basically almost told me to move on.
“He didn’t tell me to stop playing, but he gave me examples of what else I could do. I knew he was getting ready to die, but he spent the time with me, even though … (Renee pauses to fight back tears) that’s how great he was.”
Renee’s farm sits on 150 acres that she and her late fiancé bought in the 1990s. The name, Lafayette Crossing Farm, is a reference to Gen. Lafayette, “whose men,” Renee says, “actually camped here” during the Revolutionary War. Renee renamed the road leading to the farm Grass Court.
Two of Renee’s fondest tennis memories are of grass courts at Wimbledon and the Australian Open. In a second-round match in Australia in 1980, she won the first set 6-1 against Martina Navratilova and had a match point in the second. She didn’t convert, and Navratilova survived.
“Martina never forgot about it,” Renee says. “Whenever she’d see me she’d say ‘you almost had me.’”
Renee tried to remember how many times she played at Wimbledon. Five? Seven?
“The first time I made it there, there was a players lounge where we’d eat. I remember Ashe sitting in a booth in a corner and I didn’t think he’d recognize me. He abruptly stood up and held out his hand, and I went to shake it and he said ‘welcome to the club.’”
It was at Wimbledon that she made it to the doubles quarterfinals. She got to the semifinals of mixed doubles at the French Open. Her best career rankings were 8 in doubles and 63 in singles.
She is also remembered for her 1979 victory at the Futures of Columbus, where she became the first black woman to win a professional tennis tournament.
“Those are some of the greatest memories that I’ve had,” Renee said. “I’d like to come back to St. Louis before anything happens to me and give back. I haven’t forgotten St. Louis.
“I tell everybody in Virginia about St. Louis and how great it was and how we had three of the top 10 women in the world – Mary Ann Eisel, Carol Hanks and Justina Bricka – and I said that outside of California and Florida we were one of the top places in the world.
“I remember Mr. Buchholz making his son Butch hit against me, and Butch would go right over there and do what he was asked. Arthur, Butch and Cliff (Buchholz) gave back and Butch gave back when I was younger. If it hadn’t been for St. Louis, I wouldn’t have made it. No way.”
Renee remembered her first time at Wimbledon in singles. Her father, Dr. Lee Blount, and mother, Mae Ellen, made the trip to England.
“I played Kerry Melville Reid, No. 3 in the world at that time. My father was very proud. I was very nervous.
“They give you a car for all the players in the main draw and you get chauffeur-driven up to the clubhouse. And all the English know you, they’re cheering, they know your name, and you realize you’re important because you might not be No. 1 in the world, but you made it to that elite group.”
Renee the teacher
It all started about a dozen years ago with a phone call from a crying mother. She told Renee she couldn’t find anyone at the clubs in nearby Charlottesville, Va., who was willing to teach tennis to her son. He had autism.
Renee told the mother to bring the boy to her. Renee had a tennis court on her property.
“I taught him. She was happy,” Renee said. “I said this shouldn’t happen again, and I said, “I’m going to make it possible for you all to come any time you want and have your children taught.”
What followed was that Renee founded the Keswick Tennis Academy, where kids with autism and similar disabilities could learn to play.
“I had a sister with an emotional disability,” Renee said. “I knew how hard it was for my family to find services for her, and people felt uncomfortable around her. It inspired me because I knew what it felt like to be a minority in something and people not accept you. It broke my heart.”
This was like a second, or third, career for Renee, who left St. Louis to attend Hampton University and play on the men’s team at a time when Bruce Foxworth was there. Then she moved on to UCLA, following in Ashe’s footsteps. Her second career was running her farm.
Now Renee was doing something very important to her – giving back.
“I was able to help children more than I thought I could,” she said, “and I happened to be good at it. People started bringing me their children, just anybody who wanted to come that needed my services. I was available.”
She would try to emulate the coaches who had taught her, primarily Mr. Hudlin and Mr. Buchholz.
“I go back to the days when I was younger and what it felt like,” she said. “None of my coaches yelled at me. They explained – Mr. Hudlin would explain, ‘If you don’t listen and you don’t do exactly as I say, then you’ll be asked to leave because I don’t have time.’ And I liked that.
“I didn’t know I had that ability from my past teachings to teach anybody here.”
It wasn’t lost on Renee that Arthur Ashe grew up just a few miles away in Richmond.
“Do you think it was something divine and maybe Ashe has placed me here in Virginia to help, and this is his way of giving back? I don’t think it’s an accident that I’m here.”