Summary

“When something bad happens, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you.”

Richard Dove Williams embodies that statement born February 14, 1942, Richard is an American tennis coach and the father of Venus and Serena Williams. He took tennis lessons from a man known as "Old Whiskey" and decided his future daughters would be tennis professionals when he saw Virginia Ruzici playing on television. Williams says that he wrote up an 85-page plan and started giving lessons to Venus and Serena when they were four and a half and began taking them to the public tennis courts. He would later add that he felt like he took them too early, and the age of six would have been more suitable. Soon he got them into Shreveport tennis tournaments. In 1995, Williams pulled them out of a tennis academy, and coached them himself.

Serena won the US Open in 1999; Venus beat Lindsay Davenport to win the 2000 Wimbledon title. After that victory, Richard shouted "Straight Outta Compton!", in reference to a song by N.W.A based in Compton, California, the same area in Los Angeles where the family once resided. He jumped over the NBC broadcasting booth, catching Chris Evert by surprise and performing a triumphant dance. Evert said that the broadcasters "thought the roof was coming down.

As a coach Richard has 122 singles titles and 28 doubles titles Thanks to his two amazing daughters. If you would like to learn more about Richard, check out 2021’s King Richard starring Will Smith. Or check out 2014’s Black and White: The Way I see It Which chronicles his extraordinary life and his relationship with daughters and tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams.