The mere suggestion makes him laugh a knowing laugh, until his face goes to stone-cold serious. See, all the tennis establishment ever wanted to do was play him for the fool.

"If we hadn't done it the right way, I would've been hanging from a tree with a rope around my neck," Williams said.

Maybe there was a method to his madness, maybe madness to his method. Whatever. Just understand: These two weeks at the U.S. Open were his vindication. Want to call him a crazy old windbag, dismiss him as delirious, well, you're missing the biggest picture of all: He did it. He won. Williams beat the system; he did it his way.

The rules were different for Richard Williams, different for his daughters. This was a black tennis father out of Compton, Calif., with different ideas on raising tennis prodigies. Had he turned out to be the next Stefano Capriati or Jim Pierce, Williams figures it would've been the last anyone heard of him.

Well, the daughters did everything Williams so boldly promised the world they would: They're starting on college courses, studying foreign languages, designing fashion wear, and there's no disputing him now when he says: "I think (Serena and Venus) are going to control women's tennis. Nothing can stop them."

Back when tennis was watching the collapse of Capriati, Williams was busy training Venus and Serena to see a world beyond the baseline. When Capriati had turned into a cautionary tale for the rest of tennis, the results of a 13-year-old shoved on tour were no use to him.

"I didn't show my kids examples of tennis players," Williams said. "What? Show them kids dropping out of high school, getting drunk and doing drugs? That would be a waste of my time.

"Too many (on the tour) are still without educations," Williams said. "Kids aren't encouraged to do it. They're still coming out too early, instead of finishing school. And nobody cares. The parents don't care, the coaches don't care, and the sponsors sure don't care. The only person out there preaching education, saying things need to change, and it's Richard Williams. For that, they try to make me look like a nut.

"In my mind, I just wish these kids would go out and get an education and use it," Williams said. "Play tennis, go to college and then go off and do something. Be an astronaut, be a mayor, be a teacher. They aren't opening books. All they do is get done playing tennis, and then come right back to it. All they want to do is get a job coaching, or get on TV as a commentator. Don't they get tired of doing the same thing they've been doing since they were 4 years old? To me, that's a nut. But, no, I'm the nut.

"It would be very important that my daughters never do that. No TV, no coaching, no tennis camps. You don't see Michael Jordan retiring and going back to basketball. He's a businessman. I tell my daughters about Dave Bing, retiring and running a steel company. Of course, I'm the nut, though. I'm crazy."

Yes, this Open was the validation of his vision, on the court and off. He used to go down to Paramount Sporting Goods in Hollywood, Calif., where no one had to tell the owners, Bill and Ted Hodges, why the Williams family had come calling out of Compton. Richard Williams did his shopping by bulk, buying buckets of worn-out practice balls for a reduced rate of 10 cents a pop.

As they handed his 17 year-old, Serena, the silver chalice and the champion's check for $750,000 at the U.S. Open on Saturday, the father drifted back to the days of dropping $30 for 300 balls and a dream.

"I always thought if we could get to the dead balls, we would have more speed than anyone else," Richard Williams said. "Everyone was saying, 'That's the wrong way to do it.' "

All the way to the end, all the way to his vindication.

Adrian Wojnarowski, a columnist for the Bergen (N.J.) Record, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.