Richard Dove Williams Jr. (born February 14, 1942) is a former American

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

coach and the father of tennis players

Venus Williams Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is ...

and

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...

Early life

Williams is the oldest of five children and the only son of Julia Mae ( Metcalf) and Richard Dove Williams of

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...

. His younger sisters are Pat, Barbara, Penny, and Faye. After graduating from high school he moved to

Saginaw, Michigan Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greater ...

and then to California.

Tennis coaching

Serena Williams embraces Venus Williams as Father looks on

Williams took tennis lessons from a man known as "Old Whiskey" and decided his future daughters would be tennis professionals after seeing

Virginia Ruzici Virginia Ruzici (born 31 January 1955) is a former professional tennis player from Romania. She won the 1978 French Open singles championship. Career Ruzici became a professional tennis player in 1975. One of her main assets on court was her po ...

playing on television. Williams said that he wrote up an 85-page plan and started giving lessons to Venus and Serena when they were four and a half, taking them to practice on public tennis courts. Williams later added that he felt he took them too early and age six would have been more suitable. In 1995, Williams withdrew his daughters from a tennis academy and coached them himself. Within a few years, they were winning grand slam tournaments. Serena won the US Open in 1999 and

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

beat

Lindsay Davenport Lindsay Ann Davenport Leach (born June 8, 1976) is an American former professional tennis player. Davenport was ranked singles world No. 1 for a total of 98 weeks, and was the year-end singles world No. 1 four times (1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005) ...

to win the 2000 Wimbledon title. After that victory, Richard shouted "

Straight Outta Compton ''Straight Outta Compton'' is the debut studio album by rap group N.W.A, which, led by Eazy-E, formed in Los Angeles County's City of Compton in early 1987. Released by his label, Ruthless Records, on August 8, 1988, the album was produced b ...

!", in reference to a song by

N.W.A N.W.A (an abbreviation for Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was an American hip hop group whose members were among the earliest and most significant popularizers and controversial figures of the gangsta rap subgenre, and the group is widely considered ...

based in

Compton, California Compton is a city in southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated south of downtown Los Angeles. Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county and, on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city in Los Angeles County to incorporat ...

, the same area in Los Angeles where the family once resided. He jumped over the NBC broadcasting booth, catching

Chris Evert Christine Marie Evert (born December 21, 1954), known as Chris Evert Lloyd from 1979 to 1987, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. Evert won 18 major singles titles, including a record seven French Open titles and a joint-record ...

by surprise and performing a triumphant dance. Evert said that the broadcasters "thought the roof was coming down".

Personal life

Williams has been married three times. After moving to California he met Betty Johnson. They married in 1965 and had five children, three sons and two daughters: Sabrina, Richard III, Ronner, Reluss, and Reneeka, who were raised alongside Betty's other daughter, Katrina. Williams and Johnson divorced in 1973. In 1979, he met Oracene "Brandy" Price, who had three daughters from a previous relationship. They married in 1980 and had two daughters,

(born June 17, 1980) and Serena (born September 26, 1981). The family resided in

. Richard and Oracene divorced in 2002. Richard then met grocery store owner Lakeisha Juanita Graham, and they married in 2010. They have a son. They divorced in 2017. Williams has a son, Chavoita, from a relationship outside his marriages. In July 2016, Williams suffered a stroke. At the time his then-wife, Lakeisha Williams, stated that his condition was stable. In 2022, Williams was reported to have had two strokes.

In popular culture

A biographical film, '' King Richard'', starring

Will Smith Willard Carroll Smith II (born September 25, 1968), also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor and rapper. He began his Will Smith filmography, acting career starring as Will Smith (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), a ...

as Richard Williams, was released on November 19, 2021, in theaters by

Warner Bros. Pictures Warner Bros. Pictures is an American film production and distribution company of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment (both ultimately owned by Warner Bros. Discovery). The studio is the flagship producer of liv ...

and streaming on

HBO Max HBO Max is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in the United States on May 27, 2020, the service is built around the libraries of HBO, Warner Bros., Cartoon Netw ...

. The film was directed by

Reinaldo Marcus Green Reinaldo Marcus Green (born 1981) is an American director, producer and writer. His films include ''Monsters and Men'' (2018), '' Joe Bell'' (2020), and '' King Richard'' (2021), which was nominated for Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards. E ...

and written by Zach Baylin. Venus and Serena served as executive producers. Smith received critical acclaim for his performance and won numerous awards, including the 2022

Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The a ...

, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama and the Screen Actor's Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role in a Motion Picture.

Books

References

External links

SportsIllustrated.com, about the Indian Wells incident

Women's tour CEO reacts to Richard Williams' remarks on racism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Richard 1942 births African-American tennis coaches American tennis coaches Living people Sportspeople from Shreveport, Louisiana Tennis people from California Tennis people from Louisiana 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople Williams family (tennis)