I just enjoyed another can't-put-it-down biography - Open - tennis star Andre Agassi's autobiography.
It's a pretty amazing story. The guy is only a few years older than me and I remember vividly how he burst onto the scene with all sorts of hype - only to underachieve tremendously.
His lesser-touted peers Michael Chang, Jim Courier, and Pete Sampras all surpassed him.
Then, and I didn't even realize this because it happened in my later, self-orbital years when I had stopped following tennis, Andre finally turned the corner and won something like 8 Grand Slam events. (I had no idea! I thought he just won Wimbleton that once.)
Well it turns out that Andre suffered a lost childhood at the hands of his hard-charging father. And that he HATED TENNIS for many, many years. His chronicles of depression and self-loathing will definitely shock readers. I mean, how could he possible HATE tennis?
A hard-charging father myself I found this aspect of Andre's story to be of particular interest. I mean...his father was completely wacko in every regard.
Of course, ultimately, in Andre's climb to the top of the world rankings Mr. Agassi enjoyed the precise results he had been striving for.
Yeah there were some bumps and some *costs* along the way...
But there's plenty of downside to soft-charging parenting as well!
I'd bet anyone around the age of 40 and with a slight interest in sports will thoroughly enjoy this read.
ADDENDUM - Oh yeah, almost forgot. In one part of the book Agassi tells how he introduced Steffi Graf's hard-charging ESL father - his future father-in-law to his own ESL lunatic father.
Well, through broken English these two 'old coots' started fiercely arguing about the proper way to raise a tennis star - backhand techniques and whatnot - took their shirts off, challenged each other's manhood and just about came to blows!
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