Andre Agassi Speaks at Penn: Chronicling the Career of the Tennis Legend
Published by Daniel Lewis (Featured Contributor) on February 25, 2011 at Yahoo! Sports.
The Wharton School/University of Pennsylvania
On February 24, 2011, former tennis star Andre Agassi presented a lecture at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in which he discussed his recent autobiography, reflected on his career, and elaborated upon his ongoing philanthropy. As a member of the audience, sports journalist Daniel Lewis delves into the overarching themes of Agassi’s career.
In a Wharton Leadership Lecture hosted by the Lauren and Bobby Turner Social Impact Executive Speaker Series, Wharton alumnus Bobby Turner sat down with American tennis champion Andre Agassi for a lively conversation in which Agassi discussed his personal and professional career and his noticeably candid 2010 autobiography Open.
From the very first words of the lecture, Agassi captivated the audience, uttering the words, “I hate tennis.”
Exactly how could he hate the very sport that he had dominated over the years?
Agassi believes his hatred toward tennis began at a very young age. After all, tennis was a huge part of his life growing up with his father Mike, who hand-built a tennis court in his backyard in the Nevada desert and put his son on a mindless daily tennis regimen.
“Every morning it was wake up, play tennis, brush your teeth—in that order,” Agassi recounted.
“I watched what tennis did to our family, and I never liked how it felt. I never liked how winning or losing could be so important—that it could actually impact who you are as a family.”
His father would make him hit “thousands and thousands and thousands of balls” every day, which angered him and dissolved any remaining love he had for the sport.
“But that was quickly followed up,” Agassi said, “with them sending me, as a 13-year-old, away to tennis academy. I resented tennis taking away my childhood. I resented being abandoned and sent to the tennis academy,” which he likened to a prison or a military camp.
From the outside looking in, tennis fans in the early- to mid-1990s observed Agassi’s rigorous training pay off as he became a fixture at the sport’s highest levels.
Indeed, by 1997, Agassi had it all. Professionally, he had captured the world No. 1 ranking, an Olympic Gold Medal, and three of the four Grand Slam titles—the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. He also found himself wed to star actress Brooke Shields, whose previous boyfriends included Superman and the Prince of Japan.
Yet despite achieving this conventional definition of success in many aspects of life, Agassi found his life volatile and unsatisfying. He sensed himself fighting to overcome some of the intense resentment he had towards his father for taking away his childhood and choosing his career for him without concern for what he wanted for his own life.
As a prodigy of the sport, he also felt that he could not relieve himself of the pressure to win, and so he found ways in other parts of his life to rebel—to cry out for attention and for help. As a result, he lacked focus and a sense of satisfaction, despite his array of accolades.
“I lived with a very real angst with what it was I did. So I started to rebel, and I rebelled in a lot of ways. By piercing my body, painting my body, drugs, and all sorts of things. I took this childhood rebellion and this teenage rebellion, and I started to rebel on a world stage.”
He would begin using crystal meth during this time. He also began to don audaciously colorful outfits while also sporting eccentric hairstyles that became lasting images of his troubled persona. His talent and success in tennis became, ironically, his public stage to vent the hatred he had bottled inside himself. His marriage, predictably, fell apart after a mere two years.
“I had been No. 1 in the world in 1995. I won three grand slams and tens of millions of dollars, and I found myself very uninspired. I found myself waking up in a life that I didn’t choose. I found myself in a marriage that I didn’t want to be in. I found myself depressed, disconnected with the very life I was living because I never found a reason for what it is I did.”
“I had already achieved success, but I hadn’t achieved being content, hadn’t achieved joy, hadn’t achieved being connected to my life.”
Agassi soon found himself at the brink of collapse, tumbling down to No. 141 in the rankings as he lost as a wild card in the first round of a tournament in Stuttgart, Germany. It seemed as though his once-bright career was fading fast. After the loss, Agassi’s coach Brad Gilbert sat down with him in a hotel room and forced him to take a hard look at his downward spiral.
It was at this point that he recognized that, in order to resurrect his once-dominant tennis career, he had to play tennis for solely for himself—not for his father, not for fame, not for monetary gain.
“At that moment, I actually for the first time in my life gave myself the permission to quit. I’m not going to play for my dad anymore, I’m not going to play for monetary reasons anymore…I then said to myself, ‘What if I now choose it for me, and I choose it for my reasons? And what would those reasons be?’”
“I thought to myself, ‘I am going to give children what it is I never had. I always felt the lack of education in my life,’” noted Agassi, who began to perceive tennis as not merely a sport, but also as a vehicle to influence other people’s lives.
He began articulating his charitable vision to others, rallying philanthropists and business leaders alike to achieve goals that finally brought him a sense of satisfaction and serenity. It was at this time in his life that he married fellow tennis star Steffi Graf, whose own strong support network and personal understanding of his pains and pressures provided a nurturing anchor for him.
He leveraged this strong interest in charity to create a sense of purpose and vision for himself.
“I said to myself, maybe I can actually for the first time have a team…tennis is a lonely, lonely experience. I always thought to myself if somehow I could have a team I would be so much better off. And it occurred that…I can have a team. I can build my team. I can work for my team. And I set about building Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, and that became my team. That became my reason for caring, for being connected with my life.”
He began to use these new sources of motivation, as opposed to pressure, to breathe new life into his career. In fact, now when he whenever stepped on the court, he felt an unfamiliar feeling: fear. He found himself scared of defeat, a emotion that proved surprisingly invigorating to him.
“If you’re not scared of failing,” he asserted, “you don’t care enough to be involved. Fear of failure…allows you to know you care.”
Equipped with a purpose and determined to make a comeback, Agassi quit using crystal meth and put himself on an intense training regimen. With his ranking so low, Agassi was unable to play in some of the major tournaments, but he worked his way back up by participating in the Challenger Series, the tennis equivalent of professional baseball’s minor leagues.
Agassi harnessed his new sense of life as he climbed his way up the rankings. He would ultimately go on to win five more Grand Slam titles in addition to recapturing world No. 1 ranking in 1999 and 2003. In doing so, he became the first player ever to lay claim to all four Grand Slam titles in addition to an Olympic Gold Medal.
In many ways, Agassi came full circle during his career. His basic choices were taken away from him by his father at an early age, and so he responded by using his fame and fortune to give children more choices and opportunities by providing them with an education. Indeed, in 2000, he would follow through on founding the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk children in Las Vegas.
For his charity work, Agassi went on to win the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award in 2001. Furthermore, he became one of the most beloved figures in tennis, receiving a three-minute standing ovation after his final match at the 2006 US Open, and was recently a first-ballot inductee to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
As a whole, Agassi’s career serves as a testament to the power of aligning the one’s life with a worthy leadership vision. On paper, Agassi was no more professionally successful after bottoming out in 1997 than he was as a burgeoning player in the early 1990s. However, before 1997, his success came in spite of his lack of focus in life. During his resurgence, his success came as a direct result of his focus and commitment to a meaningful goal, and this success transcended mere money and fame in that it was accompanied by personal satisfaction.
From this perspective, his career raises an important life question posed by Agassi himself: “The question you have to figure out…is ‘how am I going to define success for myself?’”
For Agassi, it appears that his greatest success has yet to come as he pursues his goal of building hundreds of charter schools over the next decade and providing tens of thousands of at-risk children with the tools that will enable them to find their own success in life.
In a Wharton Leadership Lecture hosted by the Lauren and Bobby Turner Social Impact Executive Speaker Series, Wharton alumnus Bobby Turner sat down with American tennis champion Andre Agassi for a lively conversation in which Agassi discussed his personal and professional career and his noticeably candid 2010 autobiography Open.
From the very first words of the lecture, Agassi captivated the audience, uttering the words, “I hate tennis.”
Exactly how could he hate the very sport that he had dominated over the years?
Agassi believes his hatred toward tennis began at a very young age. After all, tennis was a huge part of his life growing up with his father Mike, who hand-built a tennis court in his backyard in the Nevada desert and put his son on a mindless daily tennis regimen.
“Every morning it was wake up, play tennis, brush your teeth—in that order,” Agassi recounted.
“I watched what tennis did to our family, and I never liked how it felt. I never liked how winning or losing could be so important—that it could actually impact who you are as a family.”
His father would make him hit “thousands and thousands and thousands of balls” every day, which angered him and dissolved any remaining love he had for the sport.
“But that was quickly followed up,” Agassi said, “with them sending me, as a 13-year-old, away to tennis academy. I resented tennis taking away my childhood. I resented being abandoned and sent to the tennis academy,” which he likened to a prison or a military camp.
From the outside looking in, tennis fans in the early- to mid-1990s observed Agassi’s rigorous training pay off as he became a fixture at the sport’s highest levels.
Indeed, by 1997, Agassi had it all. Professionally, he had captured the world No. 1 ranking, an Olympic Gold Medal, and three of the four Grand Slam titles—the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. He also found himself wed to star actress Brooke Shields, whose previous boyfriends included Superman and the Prince of Japan.
Yet despite achieving this conventional definition of success in many aspects of life, Agassi found his life volatile and unsatisfying. He sensed himself fighting to overcome some of the intense resentment he had towards his father for taking away his childhood and choosing his career for him without concern for what he wanted for his own life.
As a prodigy of the sport, he also felt that he could not relieve himself of the pressure to win, and so he found ways in other parts of his life to rebel—to cry out for attention and for help. As a result, he lacked focus and a sense of satisfaction, despite his array of accolades.
“I lived with a very real angst with what it was I did. So I started to rebel, and I rebelled in a lot of ways. By piercing my body, painting my body, drugs, and all sorts of things. I took this childhood rebellion and this teenage rebellion, and I started to rebel on a world stage.”
He would begin using crystal meth during this time. He also began to don audaciously colorful outfits while also sporting eccentric hairstyles that became lasting images of his troubled persona. His talent and success in tennis became, ironically, his public stage to vent the hatred he had bottled inside himself. His marriage, predictably, fell apart after a mere two years.
“I had been No. 1 in the world in 1995. I won three grand slams and tens of millions of dollars, and I found myself very uninspired. I found myself waking up in a life that I didn’t choose. I found myself in a marriage that I didn’t want to be in. I found myself depressed, disconnected with the very life I was living because I never found a reason for what it is I did.”
“I had already achieved success, but I hadn’t achieved being content, hadn’t achieved joy, hadn’t achieved being connected to my life.”
Agassi soon found himself at the brink of collapse, tumbling down to No. 141 in the rankings as he lost as a wild card in the first round of a tournament in Stuttgart, Germany. It seemed as though his once-bright career was fading fast. After the loss, Agassi’s coach Brad Gilbert sat down with him in a hotel room and forced him to take a hard look at his downward spiral.
It was at this point that he recognized that, in order to resurrect his once-dominant tennis career, he had to play tennis for solely for himself—not for his father, not for fame, not for monetary gain.
“At that moment, I actually for the first time in my life gave myself the permission to quit. I’m not going to play for my dad anymore, I’m not going to play for monetary reasons anymore…I then said to myself, ‘What if I now choose it for me, and I choose it for my reasons? And what would those reasons be?’”
“I thought to myself, ‘I am going to give children what it is I never had. I always felt the lack of education in my life,’” noted Agassi, who began to perceive tennis as not merely a sport, but also as a vehicle to influence other people’s lives.
He began articulating his charitable vision to others, rallying philanthropists and business leaders alike to achieve goals that finally brought him a sense of satisfaction and serenity. It was at this time in his life that he married fellow tennis star Steffi Graf, whose own strong support network and personal understanding of his pains and pressures provided a nurturing anchor for him.
He leveraged this strong interest in charity to create a sense of purpose and vision for himself.
“I said to myself, maybe I can actually for the first time have a team…tennis is a lonely, lonely experience. I always thought to myself if somehow I could have a team I would be so much better off. And it occurred that…I can have a team. I can build my team. I can work for my team. And I set about building Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, and that became my team. That became my reason for caring, for being connected with my life.”
He began to use these new sources of motivation, as opposed to pressure, to breathe new life into his career. In fact, now when he whenever stepped on the court, he felt an unfamiliar feeling: fear. He found himself scared of defeat, a emotion that proved surprisingly invigorating to him.
“If you’re not scared of failing,” he asserted, “you don’t care enough to be involved. Fear of failure…allows you to know you care.”
Equipped with a purpose and determined to make a comeback, Agassi quit using crystal meth and put himself on an intense training regimen. With his ranking so low, Agassi was unable to play in some of the major tournaments, but he worked his way back up by participating in the Challenger Series, the tennis equivalent of professional baseball’s minor leagues.
Agassi harnessed his new sense of life as he climbed his way up the rankings. He would ultimately go on to win five more Grand Slam titles in addition to recapturing world No. 1 ranking in 1999 and 2003. In doing so, he became the first player ever to lay claim to all four Grand Slam titles in addition to an Olympic Gold Medal.
In many ways, Agassi came full circle during his career. His basic choices were taken away from him by his father at an early age, and so he responded by using his fame and fortune to give children more choices and opportunities by providing them with an education. Indeed, in 2000, he would follow through on founding the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a tuition-free charter school for at-risk children in Las Vegas.
For his charity work, Agassi went on to win the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award in 2001. Furthermore, he became one of the most beloved figures in tennis, receiving a three-minute standing ovation after his final match at the 2006 US Open, and was recently a first-ballot inductee to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
As a whole, Agassi’s career serves as a testament to the power of aligning the one’s life with a worthy leadership vision. On paper, Agassi was no more professionally successful after bottoming out in 1997 than he was as a burgeoning player in the early 1990s. However, before 1997, his success came in spite of his lack of focus in life. During his resurgence, his success came as a direct result of his focus and commitment to a meaningful goal, and this success transcended mere money and fame in that it was accompanied by personal satisfaction.
From this perspective, his career raises an important life question posed by Agassi himself: “The question you have to figure out…is ‘how am I going to define success for myself?’”
For Agassi, it appears that his greatest success has yet to come as he pursues his goal of building hundreds of charter schools over the next decade and providing tens of thousands of at-risk children with the tools that will enable them to find their own success in life.