Richard Williams is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 coach, and the father of Venus

Venus Williams

Venus Ebony Starr Williams is an American professional tennis player who is a former World No. 1 and is ranked World No. 101 as of 10 October 2011 in singles and World No. 20 in doubles as of 2011. She has been ranked World No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association on three separate...

 and Serena Williams

Serena Williams

Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player and a former world no. 1. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked her world no. 1 in singles on five separate occasions. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002 and regained this ranking for the fifth time on...

.

Biography

Williams is one of six children and only son of single mother Julia Mae Williams. He has been known to exaggerate aspects of his upbringing. A childhood friend told Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...

writer L. Jon Wertheim

L. Jon Wertheim

L. Jon Wertheim is a sports journalist and author. He has been a full-time staff member for Sports Illustrated since 1997 and has covered tennis, the NBA, sports business and mixed martial arts...

 that Julia did not grow cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, as Richard has claimed. Williams also claimed to be a star athlete in high school, but no records of his exploits exist.

After graduating from high school, Williams moved to California, where he met a woman named Betty Johnson, whom he married in 1965. They had two daughters and three sons before divorcing in 1973.

Williams met Oracene Price

Oracene Price

Oracene Price is an American tennis coach. She is best known for being the mother of Venus and Serena Williams, top professional tennis players. She is the former wife of Richard Williams, whom she divorced in 2002. As a coach and parent, she has regularly been called unflappable and...

 in 1979, who had three daughters by her late husband. They married in 1980 after Venus was born. They lived for a time in Lansing, Michigan

Lansing, Michigan

Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...

, but eventually moved to Compton

Compton, California

Compton is a city in southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city of Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county and on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city to incorporate. The city is considered part of the South side by residents of Los...

.

He began taking Venus and Serena to the public tennis courts, then soon got them into Shreveport tennis tournaments. In 1995, Richard pulled them out of a tennis academy, and coached them himself.

Serena won the US Open in 1999; Venus beat Lindsay Davenport

Lindsay Davenport

Lindsay Ann Davenport is a former World No. 1 American professional tennis player. She has won three Grand Slam singles tournaments and an Olympic gold medal in singles. In 2005, TENNIS Magazine ranked her as the 29th-best player of the preceding forty years...

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

Straight Outta Compton

The lyrics on the album were mainly written by Ice Cube and MC Ren. Critics of the album expressed their view that the record glamorized Black-on-Black crime, but the emcees stated that the group was simply showing the reality of living in the areas of Compton, California, and South Central Los...

!" (in reference to a song by NWA

NWA

-Nwa:*Nwa, Kale, a village in Burma*Nwa, Cameroon, a commune in the Nord-Ouest region of Cameroon-Groups or organizations:* Northwest Airlines, a defunct U.S...

 based on an area in Los Angeles) and jumped over the NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 broadcasting booth, catching Chris Evert

Chris Evert

Christine Marie "Chris" Evert is a former world number 1 professional tennis player from the United States. She won 18 Grand Slam singles championships, including a record seven championships at the French Open and a record six championships at the U.S. Open. She was the year-ending World No...

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

External links

• SportsIllustrated.com, about the Indian Wells incident
• http://www.sportsline.com/tennis/story/10725357