by John McEnroe
What was crazy was that some of the parents thought I was trying to steal their children from them. “Why would I want to do that?” I felt like asking. “I’ve got enough of my own.” Plus, I didn’t want to travel all the time, which I’d have to do if I was coaching full-time, nor would I want to sit there holding their hands 24/7, being positive, telling them how great they were all day long. Believe me, coaching is not an easy gig, especially with kids like Young and Tomic who have been previously coached by their parents (and still are). There’s a whole dynamic you’d be getting into the middle of which I think would be tough to handle.
Donald Young in particular is a cautionary tale, as far as I’m concerned. He is someone who was picked out at a very young age for greatness. I’d hit with him when he was nine years old because he was a ballboy at one of my seniors events in Chicago. Even then, he had very natural hands, a great feel for the ball and was very fast. He won the Orange Bowl 16’s in 2003 when he was only fourteen (the Orange Bowl is like an unofficial junior world championships), turned pro in 2004, and in 2005, he won the Australian Open junior title, at fifteen and a half.
For a while he was the number one junior in the world, which was an amazing achievement at that age, but I think the reason he’s not yet produced on the big stage in the way that he could’ve is that he was put under too much pressure too young. He was given huge Nike and Head contracts when he was still a kid and lost his way a little in the glare of expectation. I think if he’d had Tony or the Hop to help him keep his eyes on the prize, he could have done a lot more by now. Throughout this time his mom was coaching him and whenever I hit with him, she’d want to know anything I told him. I didn’t think that was the most productive dynamic.
Bernard Tomic is another player who clearly had a lot of potential right from the start. Coincidentally, it was Tomic who beat Donald Young’s record as the youngest ever winner of the Australian Open junior title when he won it in 2008, at fifteen years and four months. But Bernard’s father, John, would always be screaming at him. I didn’t even know the guy then—not that I do now, although I did manage to play him at ping-pong at Queen’s in 2016 without anyone sustaining serious injury (I won 21–16, which was fortunate as I’d never have heard the last of it if he’d whipped my ass)—and I remember thinking, “Jesus, what’s he doing to this kid?”
The stories about John Tomic have been legendary ever since his son arrived on the junior circuit, and in 2013 he got barred from the ATP tour after being convicted of assaulting his son’s training partner. We had a little run-in a couple of years later when I pointed out in a commentary that Bernard was tanking against Roddick in the US Open, but I’m glad to say it didn’t get physical, as John is clearly someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. Obviously there’s no way I’d ever take on any kind of coaching role with a player whose father had an anger management problem. I mean, hey, I’m still dealing with my own issues there!
It’s a difficult line to walk at the academy between doing what we have to do to keep the most talented prospects under our roof, and not giving in to insanely inflated parental demands. When you’ve got a rival institution trying to poach one of your best fifteen-year-olds by offering them a personal coach to travel with them to eight tournaments a year—for free—it’s tough to know the right response. Part of you thinks you don’t really want to get into that, but then on the other hand it’s the reality of today’s tennis world, so there’d be no point in me bringing up the fact that when I went to Europe for the first time in 1977, I only got five hundred bucks to cover all my travel and expenses (and that included booking my own hotels) for six weeks. Never mind having my own coach.
When it comes to supporting my own kids’ tennis efforts, I’ve been determined not to be the classic pushy tennis parent. My kids are all athletic, but thankfully none has wanted to compete in tennis at a high level, although they’re all good players and several of them have played for their college or high school teams. Tennis is such a tough sport to enjoy, in a way, because you always feel there’s so much more to improve on. Plus, God knows, they’re endlessly compared to me. “Ava McEnroe?” someone will go. “Oh, McEnroe, I see…”
This college essay my daughter Anna wrote in 2013 gave me a much clearer idea of the kind of pressure my kids faced when they walked out on a tennis court. I asked her permission if I could reprint it here as I really like the way she described the pleasure she gets from the game as well as the burden of her family inheritance. We haven’t negotiated payment yet, though.
Anna’s Essay
I like the spring of the ball when it bounces onto the cement court. I like its almost penetrable skin that gives with just the slightest crunch of my knuckles. I like watching the ball float through the air when I toss it; I like watching it glide up indefinitely until, just when I need it to, it plummets down to earth reaching my racquet at the perfect moment. I like that my tennis shoes make me an inch and a half taller and I like the way the racquet makes me feel so powerful. I like the feeling of satisfaction I get when my arm swings forward and slams my racquet against the perfectly flimsy neon tennis ball. It’s a release. Any anger, resentment, sadness or anxiety that had previously been bottled up inside of me is gone, banished when the taut strings of my racquet reach the iridescent ball. I like all those things. I love tennis. Watching it, playing it, feeling my adrenalin pump just as I see the ball smash in my direction; it almost makes it worth the hours I put in. But this feeling doesn’t usually last long. It lingers for a minute or two until I snap back into reality and remember where I am. The John McEnroe Tennis Academy.
So despite the exhilaration I feel while actually playing tennis, it’s the underlying sense of insecurity, all the accompanying baggage, that truly defines my playing of the sport. I am Anna McEnroe, and to the eyes of a spectator, I was molded from the clay of Roland-Garros and run on the grass at Wimbledon. I am a McEnroe, a McEnroe who plays tennis well; a McEnroe who plays well, but not well enough.
This is not to say that my last name has caused me only troubles. The benefits of it are almost embarrassingly clear. My father is respected by almost everyone he meets; therefore, we are treated differently; mostly we are treated better. It also comes with attention, sometimes bad, usually good, always unwanted. It comes with big houses and beautiful paintings and trophies that line our living room. It comes with pride… but also with stares and glares and jealousy. Jealousy of something I was born into, something I cannot control; something that makes me different from the average person. It comes with lies and rumors and almost forgotten headlines that one day, fifteen years later, I stumble upon and find out truths about my father that I never knew before. It’s a mixed bag, is what I mean; a blessing with built-in curses.
What probably bothers me the most is that people assume being a tennis prodigy is genetic. As if I being the daughter of John McEnroe would somehow mean that I was exactly the same person as he is. So when I do step onto the tennis court, it’s the stares ripping into my back that I feel. It’s the giggles and the sniggers I hear—a McEnroe who can’t play tennis?! That gives me the passion I have for the sport. It’s not the passion to play that keeps me going, but instead the passion to improve. To me, what is worse than the stares and judgment I receive is the incomprehensible idea that I would not be able to prove them wrong. I can play tennis. I am a McEnroe. I will not allow these outside forces to taint the trust I have in myself. I believe in myself. So, I play to prove them wrong, to prove myself right, and to make my name my own.
I just wanted my kids to be able to enjoy the sport I love—that’s why I discouraged them from playing in tournaments. I know how tough that road is, and I’ve consciously tried to shield them from it, because it gets even uglier out there once you start traveling around trying to make it, even as a junior. It’s a totally insane scene, with a lot of pressure and a lot of crazy parents, and there’s no way I’d want to encourage my kids to seek out that life, unless they were exceptionally
gifted and really wanted it.
Whenever I’ve come along to support them playing tennis—which I’ll admit isn’t too often because of the obvious difficulties that brings for them and for me—it seems, whatever I do, I get it wrong. If I sit on my hands and have a blank face, they say I’m not supportive. If I start encouraging them vocally, they think I’m being pushy and embarrassing. I guess that’s what being a parent is all about: your kids will always reproach you for something, right? And if I ever try to give them advice, they say, “Dad, you’re not my coach.” Yeah, you’re right.
14
“I thought I’d thought of everything’’
David Gilmour, ‘‘Learning to Fly’’
Negotiating my kids’ feelings about how much I should or shouldn’t get involved in their on-court activities over the years (or their lives in general, for that matter, as they’ve grown older) has been as much of a diplomatic minefield as running my own tennis academy. Diplomacy wouldn’t be an attribute most people would put at the forefront of my skill-set, but I hope I’ve picked up a few of the basics. Over the years I’ve certainly had some eye-opening encounters with some of America’s political leaders, not all of whom are the best role models in this (or, indeed, any) regard.
We used to own a nice home in Sun Valley, Idaho, which we’d go to when the kids were little. We all learned to ski there, and we liked it because it was a low-key resort—below the radar, not like Aspen, for example. We weren’t bothered by the paparazzi, either, even though some well-known people had homes there, like our friends, Tom Hanks and his wife Rita, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and his then-wife Maria Shriver. Arnold and Maria would have this great party every New Year, and it was fun to hang out and ski and socialize a bit and sometimes even play ice-hockey together, along with Democratic Senator John Kerry (later President Obama’s Secretary of State), who being Colorado-born is a pretty good athlete among his many other accomplishments.
One of the great things about skiing is that everyone is in disguise because of the clothes you have to wear, so it’s easy for well-known people to enjoy doing it with family and friends as they don’t tend to get recognized as much, and that makes for a relaxing holiday. I’d sometimes go skiing with Arnold because we had the same instructor, Adi Erber. As it happens, Arnold’s a far better skier than I am—being Austrian, he obviously learned on the Alps when he was young. And me, I’m a bit of a “girlie-man” on the slopes.
One morning, we were going up on the chairlift together. It was soon after it had come out in the media that he’d groped all these women. At that stage, Arnold was running for Governor of California for the first time. This was years before the news broke that he’d had a child with a woman who worked for Maria and him. Even so, those initial allegations weren’t exactly something to be proud of.
We were making our way up the mountain, and we’d had a hit of the peppermint schnapps that Arnold kept in his hipflask—sure beats coffee for loosening you up for the slopes, let me tell you. “So, Arnold, what did you say to Maria that morning?” I asked, kind of in a concerned way. I was expecting him to tell me that he’d gone, “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” and that he’d had to beg for forgiveness. He turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and boomed out, in his strongly accented English, “I told her, ‘Maria, you must have wiener schnitzel on the table at six o’clock!’” I nearly fell off the chairlift. It was so shocking, it was funny.
“Get the hell out of here, you didn’t say that!” “Yes, yes, John. I told her that she had to have everything ready!” The guy was unbelievable. And lucky. Because Maria stood by him that time and in my book that was absolutely the reason why he got to be governor.
Another leading politician I got to spend some time with who was no stranger to scandalous allegations was Bill Clinton. It was at the US Open in 2000, and President Clinton was sitting in a sky box while I was in the CBS commentary booth alongside Dick Enberg and my old friend and former mixed-doubles partner, Mary Carillo. While Pete Sampras and Lleyton Hewitt were fighting it out in their semi-final, Clinton sent a note saying he’d like to talk to me. I dropped everything, and for once was happy there were three people in the booth, as it allowed me to head straight over to meet him, along with Patty, Kevin, Sean and Anna. The next forty-five minutes or so were spent listening to Bill Clinton talking about every subject on earth, from golf and tennis—which, as it happens, he knew far more about than I ever imagined—to geopolitics and the future of the planet. At one point, the cameras picked us out, set the timer and calculated that I did not say a word for eight solid minutes. A McEnroe record! Clinton seemed to know everything about everything so I was happy to do the listening for once.
I got a more detailed look at how our political machinery works around the time of the 2004 election, when I started to get invited to more fundraising and lobbying events for the aforementioned fast-skating Senator John Kerry. He was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination at the time (which he won, though unfortunately the actual election was a step too far). Having known (and liked) him socially, I was impressed by John as a candidate and found him to be a genuine guy who had done some admirable things, including his military service in Vietnam. He’d volunteered and served there with honor for a whole year, which was not a distinction everyone in US politics could claim. To me, the fact that George W. Bush of all people started trying to cast doubt on his war record, even though it turned out he had only been a reservist and hadn’t seen action himself, summed up what politics should not be about but all too often sadly is—at least in America: cheap point-scoring where candidates forget what the final goal is, which is surely to safeguard and improve the lives of the people who elect them.
At one stage when I was casting around for a new direction outside tennis, people began telling me I should think about going into politics. One friend even suggested I should run for Mayor of New York, which happens to be the toughest job in the country apart from being President. But the more I was around people like John Kerry, the less I wanted to do it. Here was someone I believed to be very much one of the good guys, still having to live his life as a constant back-slapping charade, and I don’t know how he stood it.
Later, toward the end of the campaign, at another fundraiser up on 5th Avenue, across the park from our place, Kerry looked so tired he could hardly stand up. It was one of the few times where you could see how much of a toll this was taking on him. There were only about twenty people there, all presumably wealthy donors, and when this one guy came up to him, I saw Kerry had that look in his eye as if he was thinking, “Nearly there, one more hand to shake, then I can finally sit down, have something to eat and drink and relax.” All of a sudden, this guy is right in his face asking, “Hey, John, how are you? Remember me?” Kerry did a good job of summoning up all his politician’s charm to utter the reply, “Yeah, sure, great to see you!”
These politicians are so good at that, I’m always amazed by them. But instead of taking John’s reply at face value, the guy started pressing him, “Yeah? Really? You remember me? What’s my name?” And so on. He would not let it go. Kerry was trying to get out of it, and still this asshole wouldn’t drop it. I wanted to tell him, “Come on, cut the guy a little slack,” but I thought that would only make the situation worse.
What would I have done if I’d been Kerry? Sure, I’ve matured enough that initially I would probably have done exactly what he did. “Yeah, great to see you… sorry, remind me of your name again,” and tried to be all nice about it. But eventually, I would have lost it. “Come on, give me a break, will ya? Back off!” All of which is a long way of saying that politics is probably not for me.
I was a late starter in that field anyway, and am somewhat ashamed to admit that I didn’t vote for the first time in a US presidential election until 2000, when I put my cross on the ballot for Ralph Nader. I’d tried to vote in 1984 when, believe it or not, I was going to vote for Reagan, largely because my dad—who was still very much runnin
g the show at that point, as far as my finances were concerned—had said it would be good for tax reasons for me to vote as a Long Island resident (which I still was, then) rather than a city resident. As for which candidate I was going to choose, I wasn’t going to vote for Mondale because he was hopeless, so that left me no other choice but Ronnie.
Anyway, I was coming back from London on the Concorde on the day of the election when the plane got diverted to Washington, and I couldn’t get back to New York that night. So because you’re registered to vote in a certain area—which I think is wrong, personally, but that’s another story—I couldn’t vote. I ended up getting to a friend’s Washington apartment in the early evening, before the polls had even closed, and the TV was already announcing that Reagan had 550 electoral college votes and Mondale had like 3. I remember thinking “Why was I even trying to vote? This whole thing is total bullshit.”
So that’s why my conscience doesn’t have to carry the burden of a vote for Reagan, although looking back I do actually think that not voting was no less shameful. I only really started to consider that—what a lousy example you’re setting if you don’t even care—after I’d had kids. But even though I began thinking about voting as my family started to grow, I still didn’t do it. With Bush versus Dukakis, the Democratic candidate was kind of hopeless again, and I’d met George H. W. Bush and didn’t think he was too bad a guy (in fact, I liked him). So that election couldn’t draw me into the polling booth.
Once Clinton came along, I could see that he was super-smart and he seemed cool, but—and maybe this was my Catholic upbringing—I didn’t like the way the scandals came down, and this was way before Monica Lewinsky. If I had voted in 1996, I would’ve probably voted for Bill against Dole, but then by the time I finally felt guilty enough to make my debut at the polling station, in 2000, at the grand old age of forty-one, Al Gore was so pompous in his manner that I voted for Nader, the green guy, because I liked what he stood for. Obviously it didn’t mean anything, because in New York Gore won by like a billion votes anyway, even though he somehow managed to lose to George W. Bush overall—who in my view he should have destroyed—despite actually receiving more votes than Bush.