But Seriously

by John McEnroe

  I was in New York the day before and my flight had already been canceled because of the terrible weather, so I was wondering how the hell I was going to get down to Birmingham anyway. I happened to be at dinner with some friends and Barry Sternlicht, the CEO of Starwood Capital Group, was there. I’d met him a couple of times; not only was he a big tennis fan but he also had a private plane. “I’m going to Miami tonight, you want a ride?” “Thank you very much, that would be great.” Every once in a while I get lucky with that sort of thing and I appreciate it every single time, let me tell you (thank you Allen and Deborah Grubman for inviting us to dinner that night).

  At least in Miami it would still be 75 degrees, so I figured Miami–Birmingham would probably be doable by the time we got there. Somehow we made it out of New York. But the winds were so bad that what should have been a two-and-a-half-hour flight turned into a very bumpy four-hour trip. Finally, we got to Miami at some crazy time like 2:30 in the morning. Thank God, my agent Gary, who lives there, was able to pick me up and drive me back to his apartment. The next day, I managed to get a regular flight out to Birmingham, even though it was still under three inches of snow. “Why the hell am I still doing this?” I thought. Especially as, right after Birmingham, I had to fly to Indianapolis and that was under a foot and a half of snow.

  The worst part of it was knowing that the most exhausting week of an already-exhausting month was yet to come, and there waiting at the end of it were the Bryan brothers. Knowing that I was entirely responsible for my own imminent humiliation didn’t help either. The schedule read as follows:

  Saturday night—fly to Madrid to stand in for Maria Sharapova in an advertising shoot for Movistar. [I forgot to mention that I’d agreed to take Maria’s place in a disastrously timed—but temptingly well-paid—last-minute extra European engagement. I know what you’re thinking: “McEnroe for Sharapova, now that’s what I call a like-for-like replacement!”]

  Sunday morning—arrive Madrid, shoot the commercial all day until 10 p.m.

  Monday—get up 5 a.m., fly to Paris, then on from Paris to Salt Lake City, Utah.

  Tuesday—play, then fly to Sacramento, California.

  Wednesday—play, then fly to Portland, Oregon.

  Thursday—play, Portland.

  Friday—fly to Palm Springs, California.

  Saturday evening—play Palm Springs.

  Sunday morning—fly Palm Springs to Dallas then Dallas to New York for match at the Garden the following evening.

  I held up OK in the beginning. The first day back after the Madrid trip I even beat Sampras, who admittedly was having some shoulder problems. The next day, I won a match against Courier, so that was good, too. I was actually playing pretty well. On the Thursday in Portland I played Agassi, and did well even though I lost.

  The straw that broke this increasingly travel-weary camel’s back was that the next trip, from Portland to Palm Springs, was one of the top-ten worst flights I ever took. There was so much turbulence—and Lord knows I’ve been in enough of it over the years—that at one stage I was thrown right out of my seat and hit my head on the ceiling, on the buttons that call the flight attendant, which I might have wanted to do if I hadn’t been feeling too ill and too scared to move.

  Palm Springs is not my favorite place at the best of times (and this was not the best of times). It’s so hot, it’s stuck out in the California desert, and it seems like people only go there when they’re ready to die. Unfortunately, it happens to also be where the Indian Wells tournament is held, which is now probably the biggest tournament of the year outside of the four majors. Larry Ellison, the billionaire Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist, had bought the tournament a few years earlier and was pouring tens of millions of dollars into a new stadium to give the tournament even more credibility than it already had. I couldn’t very well have not turned up to a seniors mini-tournament that was now (thanks to Larry and Ray Moore) called the John McEnroe Challenge for Charity, could I?

  After what had happened on the flight down from Portland, the prospect of getting back on a plane to New York via Dallas wasn’t that appealing. My agent assured me that I’d be on a bigger plane, so I wouldn’t get the turbulence, but I was still wary. “Are you sure? Because I really don’t need that again.” “No, no, don’t worry.” So I grabbed a few hours’ sleep and got up at 5 a.m. for my early morning flight out. Just as I was getting ready, Gary called me. “The flight’s canceled. There’s another storm coming in to New York.”

  So now we were scrambling to get me back in time to play this goddamn doubles match that I should have been preparing for all week, instead of crisscrossing the skies over America and the Atlantic, racking up an insane number of air miles and experiencing some of the worst weather conditions I’d ever flown in. Boy, how I wish, looking back, that I’d let that storm come in and not driven like a maniac for two and a half hours all the way from Palm Springs to LA to catch the last flight into New York before everything was canceled for the next twenty-four hours. Especially because when I got to LA I had maybe an hour and a half to kill, so I decided to go to my house in Malibu, which turned out to be a mistake, because when I got there and walked up into my room, I saw somebody in my bed.

  It was like the children’s fairy story with the three bears, except there was only one of me, and before I had time to ask, “Who the hell’s been sleeping in my bed?” I could see it was my step-daughter, Ruby—who Patty had forgotten to tell me was supposed to be staying in this other little place nearby that we were trying to fix up—and she was with a guy we’d never even met before. I was calling Patty, saying, “Oh my God, you won’t believe this!” As it turned out, this is pretty much the only part of the story that has a happy ending, because at the time of this writing Ruby’s still living with the guy—his name is Michael—and I like him a lot, but on the morning in question, it wasn’t doing my stress levels any good.

  I swear to God, by the time I stepped off that flight in New York, I’d shrunk to about 5’7” instead of being nearly 6’ tall. That’s how stiff and sore and beat up I was after all the traveling I’d done. I was in no condition to do anything other than go to bed and sleep for twenty-four hours, let alone play a game of tennis.

  At this point, I would like to be able to tell you that my brother and I crushed the Bryans with a barrage of aces, but it would not be true. Inevitably, the match itself was an unmitigated disaster. Patrick and I had barely played together since the Wimbledon seniors the previous summer, and stepping out onto the court that day was like walking the plank.

  After all the months of negotiations, we’d agreed to play one eight-game set. For whatever reason, most of the balls weren’t hit to me, even though I would have missed every one of them anyway because I could hardly stand up straight. I’d like to say that Bob and Mike—to give them each a first name, not that many people can tell them apart—sensed I wasn’t exactly knocking them dead and cut me a break. But no, I think they’d figured that Patrick wasn’t serving as big as me, and although he hit some balls that would normally be good enough in an over-45s doubles, these guys were just blocking, poaching and hitting everything all over the court. When they got to 7–0 after what seemed about seventeen minutes—the idea had been to play for around forty-five minutes to make it look like we belonged on the same court as them—it became one of the most embarrassing experiences I’ve ever had in tennis.

  It wasn’t the Bryan brothers’ fault that we were both laying serious eggs out there. They were even nice enough guys to throw us a bone and let us win a couple of consolation games—come to think of it, we may even have won one legitimately. So the final score ended up being 8–3. The 15,000 people who’d paid good money to see us play probably weren’t under any illusion that we stank. But I was so pissed at how bad they’d made us look that my thoughts about the matter were probably clear for all to see. By the end, I swear to God I was trying to find the nearest place to hide.

  I couldn’t blame the Br
yan brothers for wanting to prove a point to me, or for letting their tennis do the talking. I might have done exactly the same in their position. But in a way I guess the fact that Patrick and I hadn’t played so much as a practice set as a pair in preparation for a match which they had probably been building up to for weeks was the ultimate reflection of the insignificance of doubles.

  Did we deserve that beating? No. And was it something of an empty victory on the Bryans’ part—to come onto the court thinking “we’re gonna show them,” see that we were virtually cripples and then batter us anyway? I’d say so, maybe. It’s like, “Are you happy now? What did that do for you?” But I guess at the end of the day they’re still laughing all the way to the bank, because they’re making millions of dollars a year playing doubles when nobody cares.

  While I’m on the subject of doubles and what I’d do to try to breathe some life into them, I would definitely make some changes: firstly, it should be against the rules for players to stay back on their serves. Move up to the net, volley, do what so few singles players are doing, so that at least you’re doing something differently and better than the singles. Also, you lose a point whenever you high-five your partner after missing a shot or double-faulting. It’s such an annoying habit to me and I’m totally sick of it. I started doing a little bit of high-fiving when I played with Michael Stich at Wimbledon the year we won the doubles in 1992, but I sure as hell didn’t do it when one of us double-faulted.

  Nowadays, Lord knows, I’d be high-fiving my partner every few points if I was doing it after every missed shot or double fault. And by the way, I don’t bother talking tactics either during my matches. In the past, sure, I’d be talking tactics at changeovers or at crucial moments in the set. Nowadays, there’s no point. Unless we’re saying, “Get the damn return in.” I guess that’s a tactic? When we’re serving, “Could you just get your first serve in?” is about as far as us old-timers go tactically. But as for, “Shall we play the Australian formation?” That would be way too dangerous because it would involve one player crouching down at the net near the center line while his partner served, and he might need a chiropractor to get him back up again.

  22

  “I’m eighteen and I like it”

  Alice Cooper

  Our youngest daughter, Ava, turned sixteen in 2015. On March 28, to be precise. It was a milestone. For her, because she had a Sweet Sixteen party which Patty had of course planned in great detail. For us, because that’s when Patty and I realized it won’t be long before Ava flies the nest and we’ll be left on our own for the first time ever. We were almost done raising six children (though you’re never done, right?). How did that happen?

  Any parent knows how fast those childhood years go by, especially when your work takes you away from home as much as mine did. When I was with them in New York, I’d drive or walk the kids to school whenever possible, because I wanted to let them know that, although I was away a lot, once I was back home I was there for them. In recent times I’d get up every morning to make breakfast for Ava, cutting up pieces of fruit for her and making her scrambled eggs on brown rice toast, long after she was totally able to do it herself. I just wanted her to have a little company in those early weekday starts, because I think it sucks if you’re the only one who’s up and everybody else is asleep—though as you get older solitude can become more appealing.

  With six kids, it’s not always been easy to feel like I’ve given the right amount of time to each one, to make sure I got to the concerts, the basketball games, the teachers’ meetings, etc. But wherever I was playing tennis in the world, I’d always try to get the earliest flight home, and while I was away I’d be calling them the whole time to see how they were, doing the dad thing of, “How did that play go?” or “Whose party are you going to?” and their old favorite, “Be home by ten.”

  I always figured that having such a large family, there’d be maybe two kids that would be constantly saying, “Dad, we love you,” and hugging me, two that were sort of in the middle, OK with me, and two who would be pissed; for whatever reason they’d just have a problem. Then I’d be thinking, “I’m going to hang around with the two that are hugging me, forget the other ones!” Is that so wrong? I should emphasize at this point that I am actually joking, in case any of my kids are reading and thinking, “I knew it!”

  By the time this book comes out, Ava will be eighteen. When I was that age, I couldn’t wait to leave home. I loved my parents, but I couldn’t wait to go off and be independent—obviously I’d already done a fair amount of traveling by then, so I was used to being away. My mom and dad left me in no doubt about their ambitions for me: “Get a college scholarship,” they’d tell me. No pressure. They were pushy parents, though maybe not by today’s crazy standards, but there was always this expectation to succeed and, being a dutiful son, I obliged.

  In spring 1977, I got the news that I’d gotten into Stanford University, on the West Coast—with a scholarship, thank God—and my parents couldn’t have been prouder. Even though I only ended up staying there for a year, going to college was still one of the best decisions I ever made, because it allowed me to grow up as a person, be surrounded by an atmosphere of learning, and most of all to learn how to live on my own—and let’s not forget the partying. As it was, not long after the news came through that I was going to Stanford, I got that generous $500 grant I mentioned earlier from the USTA to travel to Europe for the summer of 1977 and play the French and Wimbledon juniors, and I quickly found myself having to learn fast in a couple of different and highly pressured situations.

  Talk about a steep learning curve! Paris was a total eye-opener in itself. And not just because I was in a city where, despite my many years of taking French in school, I couldn’t understand a word of what people were saying, though I was pretty sure the famously surly Parisians weren’t exactly complimenting me too much of the time. But the real mindblower was when my friend, Mary Carillo, who I’d grown up with in Queens and who was now a pro, took me off to the Louvre and the Jeu de Paume Museum to see some amazing impressionist paintings, which started my slow awakening to what great art could be.

  Back on court, I not only won the juniors but managed to get through the qualifying and a round of the main draw. This was a huge deal because it got me enough ATP points to get me into the qualifying round at Wimbledon. I also teamed up with Mary to win the mixed doubles in Paris, which gave me my first Grand Slam title when I was still only eighteen.

  At that age, I was at my best on clay. As a junior, all my national titles were won on that surface. It was only after I got to Stanford that I became bigger and stronger, all six feet (OK you assholes, five feet eleven and three-quarters) and 170 pounds of me, and it dawned on me that my natural style was serve-volley. The fast courts of the West Coast definitely didn’t hurt as far as that realization was concerned. Even though I’ve often been thought of as having an all-out attacking kind of game, I’ve actually always been a percentage player and don’t like to take chances. I’ve never been a big hitter, but relied on quick hands, good movement and a smart tennis brain to overcome opponents—my style was to try and help the guy on the other side of the net to beat himself. I didn’t take big swings or big risks on my returns. Block it back, come in if I see a quick opportunity, attack.

  My Paris trip must have given me a lot of confidence because I got through three rounds of qualifying at Wimbledon and suddenly I was into the main draw. How the hell had that happened? I was still an amateur and only supposed to be playing the juniors. Meanwhile, London turned out to be only slightly less strange than Paris. The main difference was that I understood most—though not all—of what was said to me. But the warm beer, the English reserve, the grass courts, all of that took some getting used to.

  The funny thing about it was that—as stuck in its ways as England seemed to be to me—it was going through some big changes at the time. That first Wimbledon I played, the whole punk scene was crazy. The Sex Pistols had made
it to the top of the charts in the week of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and I was walking down the King’s Road as a total unknown. At first I was thinking “these kids are a bunch of freaks,” but then, the more I thought about it, the more I started to feel some connection with them. Not long after, I would find myself being called “the punk of tennis.” I should’ve dyed my hair pink and gotten a Mohawk—they’d have loved that on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Just kidding!

  I got through the first four rounds without too much trouble, including a win against a future top-ten player, Sandy Mayer, an ex-Stanford player, and found myself among the big guys in the quarters, on Court One. For the first time, I’d be playing a seed. Phil Dent, the tough Aussie who had beaten me at Roland-Garros. As it turned out, I’d learned a lot from that defeat, not least how to figure out his game, which came in handy when I was two sets to one down and a break down in the fourth. For some reason, unlike in Paris where I’d been the one two sets to one up, I didn’t get tight, whereas Phil, who would have been desperate at twenty-seven to make it to his first Wimbledon semi-final, started to tighten up a little.

  Meanwhile, the crowd really got into the match, particularly after I’d broken a racket at the end of the first set and started to complain to the umpire about some of the bad line calls the sleepy line judges had made. The crowd was obviously shocked that a teenage nobody should behave like this in the temple of tennis, so they started to boo me, something that had never happened to me before. But instead of folding or getting mad at them, I actually found it funny that this normally reserved gathering of uptight Brits was starting to make some noise.