A Book Review by Peter Moore

Having appreciated the book review Peter sent me last month as a guest blogger on Treading Grain (he reviewed Metaxas’ new book on Bonhoeffer) I offer this one he sent me on Andre Agassi.

“REFLECTING ON THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ANDRE AGASSI”

As a life-long tennis player, and lover of biographies I couldn’t resist plunging into Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open published last year by Knopf. It appeared under the Christmas tree, and as soon as I had a little time to myself, I grabbed it and began reading.

I had grown up going to the U.S. Open as a child. We would head over from Westchester County to Forest Hills, Long Island when the “Nationals”, as they were then called, took place at the West Side Tennis Club. In my younger years I was more interested in the “Florida specials” (orange juice, ginger ale, and a maraschino cherry) that could be purchased at exorbitant prices at the Club bar than I was in the tennis. But that soon changed. I watched all the greats over the decades going back to the late 1940’s and struggled to make my own play a dim reflection of theirs.

Many decades later I would get in line at the U.S. Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows at 7:30 AM with my folding chair and cup of Starbucks and await the opening of the box office so that I (and whichever family members I could persuade to come with me) could get cut rate tickets. Rarely would I miss a chance to attend that great festival of tennis. I even fulfilled a life-long dream once of making it to the Wimbledon tournament in England!

And, of course, in the Arthur Ashe Stadium on Long Island I saw Andre Agassi play many times and watched him morph from a hirsute teen-ager into a balding thirty-something. But other than the fact that he was an American idol, and someone whose game I shamelessly coveted, I knew nothing about him.

Well, Open certainly opened Andre Agassi up to my scrutiny in a way that few autobiographies do. First of all, I discovered that he hates tennis – and always has. No, that’s not an overstatement. He really hates this game, and he and his second wife, Stephanie Graf, another tennis great, hope that their children grow up not playing the game (or so he says).

Then there is his relationship to his father, whom he refers to in a most unflattering way. Every effort he made to love his Dad was rebuffed, and it’s clear that Andre is a man-child who grew up never knowing his father’s full approval – even after he began to win the Grand Slam tournaments for which he is so famous. No kid ever had such a “Simon Legree” father: a man so driven to see his son succeed that everything was sacrificed including his education. Several men became father-substitutes to Andre, and he was fortunate to have found ones whose loyalty and love went a long way to preserve his sanity – even during years when he was on drug binges and lied about them to maintain his official status with the tennis authorities.

There are not-so-flattering portraits in the book of some of the rivals Andre faced over the years including Jimmy Connors, Roger Federer, and – of course – his bête noir Pete Sampras. Pete comes out all right in the end, but not before some strong words escape Andre’s pen.

It’s Andre, however, who is the one you love, or at times love to hate – either way seems easy as you read the 386 pages of this tell-all expose. One of his life-long friends turns out to be an evangelical minister who leaves the pastorate to write and perform rock music – but who shepherds Andre through some very troubled times. Though his faith seems mixed up with laudatory comments about Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Andre clearly confesses the Triune God, and when he finally zeroes in on a life-long vision it is to help other kids who need a lift in life. Andre’s money and that of others has endowed a charter school, The Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, for underprivileged children in his hometown Las Vegas, with some $85 million.

My own feelings, as I read the book, vacillated between pity and affection. Forced to play a game that brought emotional and physical pain, deprived of a father who understood him or knew how to love him, catapulted from obscurity into international spotlight, he crawls his way out of being a flaming nonconformist into becoming an elder statesman. Somehow all the fame and wealth never keeps him from being real – whether he’s cursing a linesman for a bad call or worrying sick that people will discover that his fabled mane is really a toupee.

I was reminded that these people who are held up as stars and celebrities, and who jet around the world in private planes and hide from public scrutiny in darkened limousines are nonetheless genuine people with cries of the heart that only those really close to them (and sometimes not even they) get to hear. Andre has blown open the fabled image of success and invited us to see a broken soul greatly in search of healing. His eyes stare at you from the cover and beg for understanding and acceptance. May he find those in the God who deeply loves him.