JC
CBS News interviewed James Blake on his comeback to tennis. He is the pro that was making waves with his moves on the court (and off — modeling and showing up in ads and billboards everywhere) a couple of years ago. He talks to 60 minutes about his accident — he slammed neck-first into one of the poles holding up the net — and talks a little bit about how it has been to be a mixed athlete (thanks for the tip, Sara!).

James Blake’s mother is white and British, and his father was black and American. When he was in junior tennis, the father of another player said to Blake, “I feel sorry for you because of your heritage. Both sides will hate you, blacks and whites.”

“And my mom immediately said, ‘I choose to look at it the other way. You could be loved by both sides.’ And that’s what I wanted to think of it, too,” says James. “And I had a ton of white friends. I had a ton of black friends. I just thought I had friends.”

Many of his opponents are his friends, but not Lleyton Hewitt, who made race an issue during a match with Blake four years ago. Hewitt complained that James was getting better calls from a linesman because the linesman was also black.

“Yeah, and you know, to me that seemed crazy because for someone, a white player, to complain of racism seemed a little silly to me,” says James. “He just got a couple of calls he didn’t think went his way. It’s unfortunate, but he fought through it and played great.”

James just turned the other cheek, as Arthur Ashe might have done, which makes sense because now Ashe is Blake’s role model, and in his image James hopes to be a role model for the next generation. “And I don’t want them reading about me in the police blotter. I want them reading about me in the sports pages. And possibly even some humanitarian efforts,” says James.