Friday, November 6, 2009
Andre Agassi is Still a Legend
Even Andre Agassi himself did not predict this kind of success from the pre-release promotional stunt for his book "Open," due to come out on November 9. Few excerpts of the book released to the media are meticulously chosen, including the crystal meth use and comments about his troublesome relationship with his father. Few days later, they became the talk of every major sports publication, with still to come, an appearance on "60 Minutes."
For all the noise that it is generating, believe it or not, it is not the first time news in the tennis world. Other players, such as Magnus Norman and some South American players have already evoked Andre Agassi's drug use in the past. This player said this, that player said that, so say we all! Then what? At the end of all this, will Andre Agassi's past accomplishments lose any of their valor? Will this cast a shadow over his career? Will the hundreds of children that he is helping through his foundation look at him differently? I hardly doubt it.
Agassi used crystal meth back in 1997. It was during a tough time in his career, perhaps the apogee of his crisis as a tennis player, when he fell out of the top 100 and looked like he may disappear into oblivion and be remembered only as one of the most under-achieving talents of the game's history. There is nothing to condone there. He also admits that he lied about his use of the substance.
Yes! He actually says that he "lied."
He uses the one so-called "dreadful" admission word that, no matter how many negatives can come out of it, shows frankness and openness, compared to the hundreds of words of a public apology read in a statement that resembles the artificial grouping of words that you may read in a clinical instruction manual.
This is an autobiography, where the reader is expecting to read any number of confessions or insights on the writer that he or she cannot read from regular source of information. It is often on a personal level. Not only does Agassi satisfy that curiosity, but he does it candidly, not offering the usual "I have embarrassed everyone, I apologize for any unfortunate consequences that this irresponsible behavior may have caused, blah-blah" type of public apology that comes only after being caught and having no other choice but to control the damage, and lacking any sincerity.
Although rare, it is not a first; Pat Cash offered similarly frank confessions in his "Uncovered" that came out in 2002. To this day, it remains the best autobiographical book by a tennis star that I have ever read. I am thrilled to see that finally someone else may have decided take the same approach.
Sometimes, one can tell whether the move was favorable or not by looking at who is attacking it with zeal. Martina Navratilova, who will interview anybody (and everybody) who has a camera to remain in the spotlight, and who fills her commentator moments on TV by taking a page (or pages) out of Marquis de Sade's books to "lower" everyone else in order to keep herself "elevated," was fast to criticize Agassi. Coming from someone who once got mad on live TV at a show host for not having her face included in a Slam generic that showed ephemeral images of the game's history, I would say Agassi and his publishers struck all the right cords in their efforts to generate publicity for the upcoming book.
As I maintained above, Agassi will remain a legend regardless of the outcome of all this media chatter. From all the pre-release signals, the book is destined to sell well. When the dust settles, everyone will know that he was not the only who has done this during the times where the control of banned substances was not as strictly policed as today.
John McEnroe, whose book, while entertaining, is not a candid autobiography by any means (one has to read Tatum O'Neal's autobiography to discover the depth of McEnroe's drug use), Vitas Gerulaitis and others have been known to use drugs; some past players have openly speculated that other players, such as Thomas Muster, and yes, even Martina Navratilova herself, have been known to have used performance-enhancing substances.
Agassi is perhaps in that group of players who may have never gotten away with what he did in today's strict drug policies. However, I would speculate that this "group," while remaining smaller than those of most other sports, is not a tiny group either, and that his offense would be minor compared to most others in it. On the other hand, he is one of the very few who are "big" enough to write about it in his autobiography.
You can call it a "publicity stunt" (I do, especially considering that he has picked the Pulitzer-Prize winning J.R. Moehringer as his co-writer); you can call it a "sell-out." What seems certain is that the book should be as entertaining as what Agassi the tennis player has shown as during his career on the court. In the least, all indications show that it will satisfy the criteria of writing an "open" autobiography in the true sense, and not the limited version of "self" that the writer wants everyone else to see and applaud.