Only weeks after the news broke that tennis star Arthur Ashe had contracted the HIV virus as a result of blood transfusions in the early 1980s, he came to Kalamazoo to receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He had first come to Kalamazoo in 1958 to compete in the USTA Boys’ National Tennis Tournament, and was champion of both tennis and human rights for many years. Ashe received his degree at a private College dinner on April 30, 1992.