I tuned in to see 60 minutes this past Sunday. Not just to observe the latest commentary by curmudgeon Andy Rooney, but to see the interview piece with Andre Agassi. I was not impressed at all by the fact that Agassi exclaimed that he hated tennis, nor that his tennis success was unimportant to him, and was rather, his father’s dream. After all, parents living vicariously through their children is not something unusual, especially in the tennis realm and here in the Westchester county area. Quite often, young prodigies are pushed inordinately hard by overbearing parents to the point that fledgling players develop disdain for the sport, and sometimes even their own parents doing the pushing. No Andre, we have heard that story before.What did strike me as interesting was his admitted use of crystal meth and the willingness of the powers that be connected with the ATP tour, to cover up this infraction. Well, actually, the more I think about this, the less I am surprised. I mean, come on now, Major League Baseball (MLB) allowed, and maybe still allows, wide spread use of anabolic steroids to enhance their product and ultimately increase revenues. The National Football League (NFL) is most assuredly guilty of similar transgressions. Let’s be honest, almost every sport has some degree of illegal substance use associated with an inappropriate cover up. Tennis seems to fall right into rank with the other sports.
Why, one asks, would the ATP want to sweep Andre’s drug use under the rug? Well, the answer may be quite simple. Would ATP brass want one of its high profile players to be associated with drug use? Of course not. With tennis popularity soaring, prize money and sponsorship ever increasing, record crowds attending, and endorsement deals escalating each and every day, horribly negative publicity could derail that luxury liner in the blink of an eye and send the sport into a tailspin. Who knows, fans of the game could be lost forever, maybe sending them to find a new sport to follow, like, oh, I don’t know, NASCAR. Frankly, you have to be a pretty good fan of the game to spend $100 on a bottle of water, a crepe and an over sized tennis ball suitable for autographs at Flushing's own US Open. Many would simply not slide their credit card to support drug addicts playing on center court.
As for me, I like conspiracy theories. Try this one on for size. A highly ranked tennis player is caught using or tests positive for anabolic steroids. The ATP higher ups bring the player in and let him know that he must get "clean" and cease the drug use. He is forced into a hiatus and even misses the most prestigious event of the year, and the ability to defend his title. However, the ATP publicizes this as an injury timeout necessary to heal nagging knee maladies. Oddly, the player returns to the tour substantially less muscular, 20 pounds lighter, without his trademark tapped knees, in the best shape of his life, and yes indeed, playing great tennis.
This is a bit hard to fathom. A highly trained athlete is unable to stress his knees, and is thus unable to participate in repetitive running or cycling yet he loses 20 pounds of muscle when his only activity really could have been to weight train his upper body. Was Jenny Craig involved? The Atkins diet? How did the player come back not needing knee support? How did he stay in such great shape and exhibit super human endurance when he was not able to train on those injured knees? Well maybe, just maybe, it was not the knees that were the reason for the mini vacation. It’s just a thought...
Nuff said...
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