Discussing Andre Agassi

In the last couple of days I have been asked repeatedly about Andre Agassi’s revelation that he used crystal meth back in 1997 when his tennis career was spiraling downward. I’m not completely sure why this story doesn’t interest me more. It might be because the revelation is clearly an attempt to hype Agassi’s memoir (not that I would ever knock someone for trying to sell books) or it might be because I don’t find it that shocking.

I’m not downplaying the dangers of crystal meth. I know a little about methamphetamines because that’s the drug Paul Goydos’s wife Wendy got hooked on years ago that was almost undoubtedly responsible for her death earlier this year. From what I’ve heard and read there are few--if any--drugs more addictive. Agassi apparently got lucky because he never got hooked. He is part of a very small minority.

What DID jump out at me in reading Agassi’s version of all this, was his tale of testing positive for the crystal-meth during an ATP Tour drug test. He describes making up a lie—that he had accidentally gotten it into his system because his assistant frequently spiked his sodas with the stuff—and the tour buying the story.

This is the kind of story that ranks up there with the dog ate my homework or I was kidnapped by gypsies as an excuse. And yet, the tour apparently accepted it without any follow up questions and Agassi (and his image) skated.

To me this is far more an indictment of the people at The ATP Tour than it is of Agassi. When a drug-user gets caught, especially if he is a public figure, the first thing he does is think up a lie. If the people in charge are paying any attention at all they should know he’s going to lie. First question: Have you fired the assistant yet? Second question: Clearly you must have understood you had been drugged when this happened, did you see a doctor? Did you think to tell us about this before your drug test?

Oh well, that’s tennis. If Martina Hingis had still been a big star when she tested positive for cocaine at Wimbledon a couple years ago my guess is the powers-that-be would have found a way to accept her explanation too.

To be honest, I was never a big Agassi fan. Part of that, no doubt, is that I first encountered him early in his career when he was still a coddled, immature, jerk. I’ve told the story here about the incident in Vienna in 1990 when he first tried to embarrass Bud Collins by getting him to hit with him after a pre-Davis Cup practice session and then, when it became apparent that Bud, even giving away 40 years, could keep the ball in play quite comfortably, he tried to hit a ball right at Bud’s head.

There was also the spitting incident in New York during the 1990 U.S. Open, when Agassi spit at an umpire, then denied it to the supervisor and somehow avoided a default. When the supervisor, Ken Farrar, later saw the tape he was embarrassed that he had bought Agassi’s story.

And then there was the Wimbledon-ducking. For three straight years when he was a ranked, rising star, Agassi skipped Wimbledon so he could take a break before returning to Europe post-Wimbledon to play on clay for big appearance fees. His list of excuses—and that of the yes-men he was surrounded with—was comical. I remember him playing an exhibition here in Washington in 1990 with John McEnroe, one of those deals where they agreed to split sets and then Agassi won the third. After the match, Harold Solomon, who had organized the event, interviewed both players on court. At one point he said, “So Andre, when are we going to see you play Wimbledon again. (Agassi had played it once, losing in the first round).

 “Let me answer that this way,” Agassi said. “How many here think Wimbledon is the most important tournament?” Quite a few fans cheered. Then he added,  “okay now, FOR AMERICA, how many think the U.S. Open is the most important?” Some cheers, hardly overwhelming. “You see,” Agassi said, turning to Solomon. “I told you.”

I was standing at that moment with McEnroe, who shook his head and said, “that may be the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. Does he really think anyone is buying that crap?”

No one was. Agassi took big guarantees overseas, then often tanked matches and flew home. He blatantly gave up in a Davis Cup match in 1989 against Carl Uwe-Steeb (yeah, THAT Carl Uwe-Steeb) and became kind of a joke in the locker room in spite of his remarkable talent. He did finally go and play Wimbledon and won it in 1992, creating the famous scene where Nick Bollitieri, his long-time coach could be seen signaling him from the friends box to “stay down,” on his knees to play to the crowd.

After the 1997 flameout when his marriage to Brooke Shields fell apart and he got completely out of shape and dropped to No. 141 in the world, Agassi made a remarkable comeback. He worked himself back into shape, became No. 1 in the world again, completed the career Grand Slam and became—remarkably—a beloved figure in tennis.

I wasn’t around the sport much during the last few years of his career but people I respect like Mary Carillo and Sally Jenkins said he did mature a good bit. Marrying Steffi Graf was clearly good for him, he got far more involved in his charity work and acted like an adult, especially (as often happens) when he became a father. That said, when he broke down after his final match at the U.S. Open in 2006, someone who knows him well said to me, “It’s written in the script—‘cry now.’” Okay, so the guy was always a showman, I’ll give him that one.

The crystal meth admission may seem strange to some because it could affect his new-found, ‘good guy,’ image. I don’t think it will. I think people will say, ‘that was a while ago, he made a mistake, he’s fessed up to it.’

And maybe that’s as it should be. He’s certainly not the first athlete to cover up drug-usage and if that was the only drug he used, as dangerous and dumb as it was, he wasn’t trying to cheat his sport like all the steroid users, many of whom are still lying about what they did.

So, I’m not going to buy Agassi’s book because I don’t have much interest in reading it. And I don’t expect my autographed copy to arrive in the mail anytime soon. That’s fine too.

I’ll end this on a story I told in, "Hard Courts,” the tennis book I wrote in 1991. In August of 1990 Agassi and his entourage—which in those days consisted of his agent, his agent’s assistant, his masseuse, his racquet stringer, his religious guru (who he once fired after losing a match) his workout guru, his equipment rep and his brother, who was apparently paid to be his brother—flew into the Cincinnati airport late one night for the tournament played there.

The airport, as anyone who has been there knows, is actually across the river in Covington, Kentucky. A woman from the tournament had been sent to greet Agassi and entourage and direct them to limos that would take them to their hotel. As soon as Agassi got off the plane, he found the woman and said, “Look, you better get security out here right away. If you don’t, I’m going to be MOBBED by all my fans trying to get through the airport.”

The woman, who told me the story later that week, looked at Agassi and said: “Andre, it’s 11:30 at night. We’re in Kentucky. Unless you’ve been on Hee Haw lately, no one here is going to mob you.”

There are some stories you just can’t make up.

Updated - This Weeks Radio Appearances (The Sports Reporters, Tony Kornheiser Show, The Gas Man Show)

I made my regular appearance on 'The Sports Reporters' with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in my regular spot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's) yesterday. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment on a multiple topic day -- Navy and Duke football, Andre Agassi's book revelations and of course, brief Redskins talk.

Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's segment: The Sports Reporters


This morning I was back at the regular time with the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show (Thursday's, 11:05 ET) while at the Patriot League Media day for basketball.  It was a typical segment with Tony, and we discussed everything from dinner to a Sally Jenkins article, but spent most of the time on the Agassi talk (which led into a good discussion on tennis players vs. golfers).

Click here to listen to the radio segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show


I make regular appearances on Seattle's The Gas Man Show on Thursday evenings (5:35 PT), and this week we started off talking the Seattle Sounders (I covered the original team a couple times back in my earlier days) then led into Redskins talk - what is the endgame for Snyder and this team?

Click here to listen to the radio segment: The Gas Man Show

Athletes Saying Hello as its Time to Say Goodbye; Covering Tennis with Bud Collins

During my annual visit to the U.S. Open on Wednesday I encountered an old friend who asked if I had seen any of the ceremony honoring Andre Agassi or had watched during the telecast when he spent some time in the booth talking about his career and the state of the game today.

I said I hadn't done either but that someone had told me Agassi had been critical of today's players for not being more media and fan friendly. Needless to say I found that ironic since Agassi spent a good deal of his career ducking the media at every turn. It was only when his Image is Everything image started to lose some of it's luster that he started inviting reporters to visit him in Las Vegas and letting them drive one of his cars so they would think he was a good guy. (It wasn't me, it was a colleague at the old National Sports Daily.)

I bring this up not to rip Agassi, who did grow gracefully into tennis old age and was probably as popular with fans--in large part because of the work done by his image-makers--as anyone. I do remember his tearful farewell speech after he lost at the Open three years ago during which someone who knew him well turned to me and said, "I guarantee you the place where he starts to cry is written into the script."

Okay, maybe I am bashing him a little, I have too many memories of him refusing to be interviewed by Mary Carillo because she asked 'tough,' questions (he insisted on Cliff Drysdale who thought, 'great playing today Andre,' was a tough question) or of the day in Vienna when he was practicing for a Davis Cup match and asked Bud Collins to hit with him for a while. "You're the tennis expert, let's see how you play," Agassi said. Bud had not, in the view of Team Andre, exalted him the way he expected to be exalted. Bud, in case you don't know it, was a very good player once upon a time, won a national mixed doubles title in the 60s. He was 62 on the day in question and facing hip replacement surgery. Agassi was 21.

Agassi hit a few easy balls at Bud and was surprised when they came right back at him. It's easy to tell someone who knows how to play the game very quickly, there's a fluidity to the way they swing the racquet.

Agassi picked up the pace and Bud stayed with him. Finally, clearly frustrated that he hadn't been able to humiliate Bud, Agassi took a short ball and hit it as hard as he could right AT Bud. Bad hip and all, Bud managed to dodge it. He put down the racquet and said quietly, "I think that's enough for today Andre."

Actually I started out to write this about athletes who want to say hello when it's time to say goodbye. All of a sudden, as their careers come to a close, they decide the media isn't so bad--in fact, they decide that being IN the media is a pretty good idea. Agassi hasn't done that, he's done a lot of very good charitable work along with his wife Steffi Graf, but he still loves the spotlight--which is fine. Having said that, I think I'd rather write more about Bud Collins than about people like Steve Carlton who talked to no one when he was winning Cy Young Awards and then held press conferences when his ERA with the Twins was well over five runs a game. Or about Sterling Sharpe, who never talked to the media as a player but was happy to take ESPN's money when he retired. Not to mention my old pal Mr. Television, Bob Knight.

You see, Bud Collins is one of the great men in the history of the planet. More than 40 years ago he was the first newspaper guy to crossover and do TV and he did both so well for so long that he is still writing for The Boston Globe today. Wednesday, he was scurrying around at The Open (at 81) doing a spot for ESPN, checking out various matches and--as always--taking time to answer questions from young reporters.

I first met Bud at the 1980 U.S. Open when I was sent up the last four days to write sidebars and caddy for the late, great Barry Lorge, who was then The Washington Post's tennis writer. Barry introduced me to Bud, who instantly told me he was fan of my work--stealing what was supposed to be my line. I had first watched Bud do tennis on TV in the late 1960s when the local PBS TV station in Boston began televising what was then the U.S. Pro Championships from Longwood. I'd been reading him whenever I could get a Globe for as long as I could remember.

On Friday afternoon, I was writing a story about Chris Evert's upset--and it was an upset at the time--of defending champion Tracy Austin. The men's doubles finals was going on (in those days they played the doubles in-between the women's semis) and I heard The Globe's phone ringing. Bud was outside the press box watching the doubles, so I picked up the phone to take a message.
When I told the guy that Bud wasn't there and I'd take a message, he said, 'look, is there anyway you can find him, this is Abby Hoffman calling."

Yeah right, I thought. Abby Hoffman had just gotten out of jail, which was front page news. This was only twelve years after the Chicago Seven became famous and his name was still a notorious one. "I'm serious," the guy said. "Please try to find him."

For some reason, I believed him just enough to put the phone down and go find Bud. "There's a guy on your phone claiming to be Abby Hoffman," I said.

"Oh he probably wants tickets," Bud said as if I had told him his next door neighbor was on the phone.

He was right. Free from jail, Hoffman wanted to come to the Open that weekend. It was only later that I found out Bud had coached Hoffman at Brandeis.

Bud has lived an extraordinary life. He has traveled the world and made more friends and helped more journalists than you can count. He has twice lost wives to cancer and his sister and brother-in-law, who ran a drug rehab center, were murdered in their sleep by a former patient who had come back to try and 'free' his girlfriend. Through all that tragedy he has never lost his zest for life or his willingness to help out or his love of tennis or people. Even Dick Enberg, who partnered with Bud on NBC for years, once expressed amazement at his patience with the people in tennis.

"How in the world do you stay so enthusiastic when you have to deal with these guys every single day?" he asked.

When I first started covering tennis, it was Bud who introduced me to people, Bud who sneaked me into the off-limits players tea room at Wimbledon and Bud who kept telling me that I needed to hang in there and cover the sport no matter how frustrating it became. I still remember him cheering me up when one of my first tennis interviews went horribly wrong in 1985.

Gabriela Sabatini was a rising star back then, just 15, but quite beautiful and ranked in the top ten in the world. I jumped through about 47 hoops at The French Open and was finally granted a 20 minute interview with her in the player's lounge following a match. I knew she didn't speak a lot of English and I didn't speak very much Spanish so I needed an icebreaker question, something to relax her a little bit. Finally, I hit on it; Sabatini had made her pro debut the previous fall at the U.S. Open and had reached the third round. The USTA had brought her into the interview room after her loss and she had been shy and sweet. Someone asked what she would do with the $8,000 she had won for making the third round.

"My parents just bought me a little dog," she said. "I will buy him a present."

Aha, I thought, I'll ask what she bought the dog.

So I did. The minute the question was out of my mouth, I knew I'd made a horrible mistake. Sabatini burst into tears. "The dog," she said, choking out the words, "the dog died."

So there I sat with this 15-year-old kid with people scurrying over demanding to know what I had done to make her cry. It was all I could to keep from crying myself.

When I told Bud the story he laughed and said it was time to go get a glass of wine--which wasn't hard to do in Paris.

On Wednesday I reminded him that I often said he liked people so much that he would have found something good to say about Mussolini.

Bud shrugged. "Well," he said. "The guy did play tennis."