!Blake5 By Andrew Friedman, TW Contributing Writer
Most professional athletes, or celebrities of any kind, love nothing more than to talk about themselves
James Blake is not that athlete. I know this firsthand because I had the privilege of coauthoring his autobiography Breaking Back last year, and got many of the more interesting details about James from third-party interviews. It was his longtime coach, Brian Barker, who told me that when James suffered a fractured vertebrae in May 2004, he refused pain medication of any kind because he preferred to be in touch with what his body was going through.
Similarly, a high-school friend of Blake's, Laura Sposato, told me that James didn’t announce the details of his father’s funeral (Thomas Blake Sr. passed away in June of 2004 after a long and painful bout with gastric cancer). James was also tight-lipped about the 2006 ceremony held to rename the tennis courts at his old high school in Fairfield. Ct.,The James Blake Tennis Courts, declare May 1st James Blake Day, and at which the mayor gave him a key to the city. When I queried him on these events, he matter-of-factly confirmed them, explaining that he didn’t want to inconvenience his friends for a ceremony in his honor, and that his father certainly wouldn’t have wanted them to cash in a vacation day on his behalf.
In fact, I think that one of the most challenging things for James in writing his book was divulging details that, ordinarily, he wouldn't share - like the fact that he played (and won) a match in Newport just two days after his father died. He also declined to mention his dad’s passing in his post-match press conference that day. “There was no way Dad would have wanted this to turn into a pity party for his two sons,” he wrote in the book (Thomas,Jr. also won a match a few hours after his father died). They only played those matches because of their father's deathbed command: “You two get on with your life.”
Thomas Blake Sr.'s final days remain one of the things James has been most intensely private about; he didn’t even tell his own mother what he and his dad talked about in their final afternoons together in the spring of 2004 - not until about three years later. Thomas Blake, Sr.'s untimely death was a brutal blow to the Blakes; it's a topic they have no desire to share or dwell upon.
But there are times when circumstances demand that you do uncomfortable things, even painful things, for a larger cause. So yesterday, James drove down from Fairfiled, Connecticut, into New York City, tracing the same route he used to follow when visiting his father at *Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center*, where Thomas, Sr. was initially treated after his cancer diagnosis. James arrived with his mother Betty in a small, sunny function room on the ground floor to announce the Thomas Blake, Sr., Memorial Research Fund, an initiative to raise one million dollars for cancer research in his father’s name. It was an intimate, low-key event with only a smattering of journalists and doctors in attendance.
After some brief introductory remarks by Harold Varmus, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, James took to the podium. There were no opening jokes as he got right to the point: one of the things that most haunts him and his family about Mr. Blake’s last year was that many doctors expressed regret that the cancer had not been detected earlier - the implication being that it might have made the difference between life and death. So this initiative, appropriately, focuses on screening for, and early detection of, cancer.
James’ goal is for the Fund to raise one million dollars by the end of this year. They’re halfway there, and seeking the support of people everywhere (this means you) to help make it a reality.
There are a number of ways you can support this initiative: You purchase J-Block merchandise—those Carolina blue t-shirts, hats, and sweatbands that have been around since James’ comeback in the summer of 2005. Most fans came to know the J-Block as the group of very vocal friends supporting James from a corporate suite during his classic five-setter with Andre Agassi, and they’ve since become a fixture at his matches at the Pilot Pen in New Haven (which he’ll miss this year due to the Olympics) and at the US Open.
I’ll be the first to admit that the J-Block sometimes crosses the line separating good-natured enthusiasm from irritating fanaticism. But few of you may know that all the revenue from the sale of J-Block merchandise goes toward cancer research—neither Nike nor James recoup or earn a penny. So there's a greater good at work when you buy a t-shirt or hat at Olympus US Open Series events this summer, or order some at tenniswarehouse.com (the merchandise should be available there within the week).
