Chapter 10 Breakthrough

At a crossroads. Seventeen years old, a little young for a midlife crisis, maybe more a mid career crisis. On the cusp of a life changing opportunity and I was breaking bad. What a time to blow up. I obviously needed help. What kind of help and from whom remained unclear, but finding answers to what drove my self-destructiveness would be as good a place as any to start.

I'd finally told on myself. I wish it could have been to my parents, yet when I needed them most, only mistrust lie between us. I couldn't even tell them I was in trouble. Yet I shouldn't have had to tell anybody anything. It should have been obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention I was a walking talking blaring SOS signal (more scarlet letters) and that all was not right with me.

But asking others for help was not how I was growing up. It was do it yourself before do it yourself was a thing. And self-help? It was all self and no help. Everyday I walked out the door of my house I walked out alone, left to fend for myself with little understanding of my body or my mind or the rules of the world I walked. Not all that dissimilar from my earliest tennis tournaments. Was tennis preparing me for these crossroads moments all along?

Lack of power. That was my dilemma. I had lost control. Control if I would get high, control when I would get high, control over how high I would get, and certainly control over my behavior when high. Put it all together and I was out of control. But telling on myself was a long overdue step in a sane direction. But now what?

Words without deeds. My next sane move demanded action. I called my connection, quitting my one remaining job. Dealer. I turned in my unsold supplies of mushrooms and pot with scale and baggies and all. But how was I going to live? What was I going to do for money? 

The next step involved a ceremonious purging of the stash. That meant throwing away all the pipes and bongs and lighters and papers and pills and paraphernalia. An emphatic act of defiance, one part empowering, one part oh shit, what am I doing? For through all my bravado about quitting, a nagging uncertainty lingered. 

What if I couldn't stop?

I had one month until Ojai, my last hope of a chance at salvaging my year. Stripped bare, I enacted a plan. Planning again. I stopped everything; smoking pot, drinking beers, popping pills, taking mushrooms. The plan was addition by subtraction. Stop doing unhealthy things and see if my health improved.

And the results were immediate if not unsettling. The clouds parted, the fog lifted, the dial tone in my brain soon resumed a-ringing. Not far behind were my charred lungs, as my perpetual hack and wheeze abated, but not without some discomfort, for the physical withdrawal was not without a little pain.

My mind was a different story. Without its medicines, it immediately went back to overdrive, revving away uncontrollably. Full tilt anxious manic thinking. Talking to myself, arguing with myself, having full on debates in raised voices with people, yet none of them in the room, sometimes even screaming at them. I knew I was detoxing, but this was ridiculous. 

And at night it only got worse...

I would force myself to bed early, knowing it would take hours for the committee in my head to tire and finally leave me be. The same conversation every night, looping through my mind. Punishing. Belittling. Unforgiving. What a fuck up I was, were people going to find out, what if I couldn't stop, then what, where was I going to college or should I even bother, why can't I win a match, did I have to be so weak in the head, I miss getting high, I wanna get high, I can't get high, at least right now, what about just a little to help me sleep. But I never did just a little, and the last thing I did after getting high was go straight to sleep. Relentless. Repetitive. Brutal. My ass kicking machine firing at full tilt for hours on end, all night long, my thoughts running circles over my tired body til I'd finally drift off from sheer exhaustion. 

Yet tennis continued to get played. Tired and frazzled during the day, practice started getting loud again. Guttural screaming, rackets breaking, turning heads and ears from courts away. Was I on the fringe of a resurgence or a mental breakdown? Either way, getting angry felt cathartic. A week ago I was so close to quitting tennis, yet here I was, purging the last 6 months of dysfunction with every outburst. 

In the end it meant I still cared. And in spite of how bad everything was going, I was still out there on the tennis court still trying to make something of myself. The inertia. Playing my sets. Competing like my future hung in the balance, because maybe now it did. There was no getting off the tennis highway. Not now. Not yet. I'd come too far to quit. But it was getting a little late. With Ojai now only a couple days away, to have any chance of doing well, I needed to calm the fuck down on the court. A repeat of my Long Beach behavior and no college program would have me.

One day on a break at school, desperate to understand my mind better, I ventured to the library,  searching for anything on sports and psychology and how the two were related. It being 1982, the pickings were slim. Yet, as I scoured the stacks, I came upon an all encompassing tome with an intriguing title. Timothy Gallwey's The Inner Game of Tennis.

Tennis and psychology. What a combo. As I began to skim the thin book with all its opaque concepts, I came upon a formula. Performance = Potential - Interference. Tennis, now reduced to a math problem. Cool. I was good at Math. But how to quantify? Better yet, how to apply? Potential wasn't my problem. I could hang with anyone in the country. It was the interference that was of concern, the drugs, the anger, the destructive self talk, the manic racing mind. Was it possible the solution to my problems resided in a book?

I skimmed quickly through the pages, retaining little, all the concepts new and confusing. Getting flustered, I opened the book to a random page and began reading an equally random passage. ((FIND PAGE/PASSAGE)) It was a test. How long could I keep my mind free from thoughts? Interesting. More addition by subtraction. Could no thoughts be better than old thoughts?

Trying the exercise, I couldn't make it more than a couple seconds. Yet I tried again, and again, gradually doing better each time. And then it said to assist in keeping the mind free from unwanted thoughts, focus on an object. Like the breath in meditation, observe your thoughts, yet do not attach to them. Let your thoughts pass by. And when the mind strays, and it will, don't get frustrated, don't panic, just train your concentration to continually come back to the object. 

Any method to help quiet my mind couldn't hurt, so I applied it that afternoon in practice. And though my concentration bar couldn't be much lower, playing calm made an immediate difference. No swearing, no racket throwing, but even better, the object I chose to focus on, the ball, made an immediate impact in my play. 

 

Sounds silly, an advanced tennis player deciding to watch the ball. But I took the experiment a whole step further. At no time did I take my eyes from the ball.  During the point, between points, on changeovers, all the while trying to keep my mind as still as possible. I found it the perfect antidote for my ever meandering mind. And for the first time in months I felt a bit of hope heading up to Ojai for the make or break tournament of my year.

In Ojai, I arrived at the Thatcher School, an uber private boarding school where students have to care for a horse their first year (Just like my high school!!) The beautifully terraced courts were abuzz with players, their teams and dozens of college coaches meeting and greeting everyone and anyone in their last ditch efforts to land a late recruit. Yet none of them were stopping to greet me, for word travels fast in the tennis community. Long Beach was a month ago. I was damaged goods. I'd been recalled, pulled from the shelves. Buyer beware. Approach at your own risk. 

I got through my first couple rounds without drama or incident before meeting Tim Pawsat again bright and early in the morning in the round of sixteen. Knowing full well all the college coaches would be watching, I tried something new. I went for a new look. Weller Evans, former ((ATP director)) had a garage sale of all the old ATP clothing he'd picked up in locker rooms over the years. So I picked me up a couple outfits for the occasion, opting for a sharp Sergio Tachini kit, with one problem. I'd never played in a collared shirt before. Never once. But I was willing to try anything to change my luck, so I showed up bright and early, rocking the matching outfit, vest and all

Round of 16 at a SoCal event. The buzz. Same as it ever was. Players, coaches, parents. Everyone with their teams. Yet one more time, I arrived and stood alone. No one was recruiting me. No one was coaching me. And my Dad hadn't been to a match in over a year. I hadn't seen my peers and their teams since my Long Beach debacle, yet nobody approached me. I tried to stay to myself, but it seemed they were whispering about me. Was I getting paranoid. They seem to be avoiding me. Or was I avoiding them?

For part of my standing alone was I was embarrassed. Awkward. Feeling out of place at a tennis tournament. Because I broke the code. I wasn't handling my shit like I was supposed to. So I was getting a little time out from the community. Suspended from the fraternity. There were unwritten rules about how this tennis got done. Respect the game, your opponent, the grind, and the people playing next to you. For everyone is on edge trying to hold it together. There's no place for kids wigging out, nobody wanted that energy around. So some well-deserved shunning and social ostracizing. A little discipline and punishment. Yet as far as I was concerned, a little time out from the scene was welcomed, for I had little constructive to say for myself. 

But that would all change soon as I took the court with USC bound Tim Pawsat.  From the first ball in the warm up, I could just tell I was going to have a day. The potential part of The Inner Game of Tennis' equation was in full display.  All the years, hitting hundreds of thousands of tennis balls, the muscle memory physicality of it all was falling in to place at precisely the right moment. Now if I could only stfu for two whole sets and finish a match. 

The intricacy of a well hit tennis shot. The precision, the power, to take a ball on the rise, coming at you in excess of 100mph and be able to hit it on the dead run right in the sweet spot to increasingly smaller targets shot after shot after shot. The probability is daunting. Some days shots fly a foot here, an inch there. And then there's those days of the zone. Where it doesn't matter what you aim, every shot hits its mark. 

My game had always been foot to the floor aggression on every ball. A high wire act of low percentage shots, where somehow in practice they would fall, yet during matches, Gallwey's interference would kick in. But for now I couldn't miss, racing out to a 6-1, 5-1 lead. Everything was working, the ball appeared like a slow-pitched softball. Serving for the match, I implored myself to continue to stay calm, quiet mind, focus on the ball. Yet my inner voice with the old tapes broke through my trance like state. For the confines of my sub-conscious knew all too well what winning this match meant. 

Back to thinking, with all my angst and doubt rushing forth, nearly paralyzing my play. Hoping my opponent would just go away (like all nervous players do), Pawsat kept fighting (like all great players do). He dug in, breaking me easily and holding comfortably himself. With one more chance to serve out the match, I felt the magnitude of the moment. This was it. I needed to hold right now or I may never recover from this. And to my credit, I didn't play a bad game. He just played better, saving a couple match points with winners. Either way, it was happening again. The interference once again attacking my performance, the silent torment of the inner game

The battle in my head, trying to remain calm and composed and quiet while feeling my hopes of a college career slipping away again. Quite the conflicting forces. The physiology of choking was overwhelming. Yet I was playing great, and I was still ahead, but I failed to serve it out twice.  Now I had to break to win, with all our match's momentum residing across the net on my opponent's racket. 

Back on serve with Pawsat serving at 4-5, I tried to reassure myself. I was hardly a mental giant, but I knew a few things. I kept talking to myself... You haven't lost anything. Matter of fact, you're still ahead. Just one more game. Keep moving. Keep focused. Stay loose. Move and swing, move and swing. This was still my big chance, but waiting around for him to hand it to me wasn't going to happen. So in a personal moment of bravery and courage I didn't think I possessed, I went for it. Reaching match point again, I got a look at a second serve, where a voice in my head said go for it, and I did, hitting a forehand as hard as I fucking could for a clean winner and the win, right in front of all the right people at exactly the right time.

What a roller coaster, what a rush. I walked out the court's gate somewhat shocked, a mix of nerves and elation at how well I'd played yet still almost choked it away. I looked for someone to celebrate with, yet I was first off, which meant everyone else was still playing, leaving me to walk all alone to the desk to report my score, knowing I just played the match of my life, yet without a single sole to share it with.

Yet this was not surprising. Anyone paying attention to SoCal junior tennis the past 6 months had seen the chokes, had watched the behavior, had heard the rumors, and if they didn't see the Long Beach meltdown, they sure as hell heard about it. So I played a great match. Hardly enough to override the trainwreck of a year I'd been having. So I would celebrate this win by myself. But not for long. 

Because tennis. There was always another match, now an even more consequential one in need of  prepping for.

Partisan crowds at junior tennis events were rare, especially large boisterous home town crowds. You might get an occasional over-zealous parent or an enthusiastic cluster of close friends, but nothing beyond a minor annoyance. My next match against Ojai's own Steven Aniston (footnote) would be an exception. Steve Aniston, uber-talented and home grown. Steve by himself was tough enough (he had just beaten me at Long Beach before), but Steve and 500 of his loud and crazy high school friends was going to be a tall order

Yet our match held even more significance. Coaches were everywhere. And none of them there to see me. Steve was still unsigned and undecided, the best junior player in SoCal not committed to a school yet, meaning he was in high demand, attracting the attention of all the college coaches, most notably UCLA's Glenn Bassett. If there was ever a time to play hard and keep my mouth shut, this was it.

Match time. And right from the start, I was getting an earful from Steve's courtside crew. But the calm I practiced for most of my morning match continued on to the afternoon. I stayed cool, I stayed focused, trying everything in my power to keep my focus on the ball and not react, for all the right people were courtside watching. This was no time for a show.

I got off to a great start, winning the first set easily. But as junior matches go, Steve and I started getting in to it. A couple close calls, a couple in your face fist pumps, but as his crowd continued to heckle me on my every error, I never flinched. And the match got tight. Yet strangely at no point did I ever feel like I was going to lose. I stayed the course, grinding away, one long rally after another. 

Before long, I reached match point. Another long exchange ensued and somewhere in the middle of the point a feeling enveloped me that there was absolutely no way I was going to miss and this match was mine and surely enough, I drew the final error and another important win, this time in front of all the right people at just the right time.

Exiting the court, I accepted congratulations from the first wave of onlookers, yet all the while keeping my eye on Coach Bassett, who waited patiently away from the throng. As the crowd parted, I tentatively started away, but just at the last moment, Coach Bassett caught my eye and waved me over.  I approached him somewhat sheepishly. How much did he know?  I did know he was at Long Beach and had seen the worst of my meltdown, hearing through the grapevine him saying I would never ever play for him at UCLA.

As we met, he enthusiastically shook my hand, saying I played great and that my match reminded him of a hostile conference road match and how impressed he was that I maintained my composure. I graciously thanked him. But then he brought up my past behavior, said he saw me completely lose my shit at Long Beach and how concerning that was for him. He jokingly compared me to a couple of his more tempestuous players from the past in Connors and Buehning, saying they were bad, but that he'd never seen anything like me. But he continued on praising my game and my fight, before pausing and asking me point blank... 

If I were to ever play tennis for him at UCLA, which player would he be getting? 

With my heart skipping with excitement at just the thought of playing for UCLA, I didn't have the foresight to tell him he'd be getting both. What I did tell him was I was having some trouble at home, but that the worst was behind me, assuring him as best I could that he'd be getting the guy he just watched play right then and there.

Satisfied with my response, we parted amicably, but not before him saying he was coming to watch me in the semis the next day. He said if he liked what he saw tomorrow he'd like to talk to me about playing for him at UCLA that next Fall. 

Later that evening, back at my hotel winding down from a monumental day awash with emotions. So much to process. From mentally fragile to mentally tough, all in a few days? All from a page in a book? Could I keep it going? I finally played my best tennis when I needed to most, and managed to hold my shit together in the process (funny how those two go together). Now it was time to check in at home. Dad and I were barely talking but he knew I was in Ojai, following along in the newspaper. And once again I stared down at the phone, knowing I had to call, part of me wanting so badly to share my big day with him, yet another part of me afraid to call, because I likely wasn't going to get the response I sought.

And the thought of not calling at all crossed my mind, to punish him for abandoning me these pivotal years when I needed help on multiple fronts, but I knew that was wrong and I felt badly for even thinking that way, to want to hurt his feelings. But maybe by abandoning him he could see what that felt like for me and it shouldn't have been like this, all these mental gymnastics on the eve of the most important tennis day of my life. But I picked up the phone and told him the great news from the day and surprisingly, Dad got all pumped up at my results. And the conversation continued like we were besties as I let myself get sucked back in, letting my guard down enough to share the moment with him and when he said he was driving up the next morning to watch my semi-final match with Leach, the little dormant child in me awoke with excitement that My Dad was coming to watch me compete again.

For as fucked up as our relationship was, I really did want him there...

On a scalding hot Sunday morning at Ojai's Libby Park, on the courts where I first saw great college tennis played, I took those same courts beneath the towering eucalyptus trees (add picture) with the overflowing bleachers of fans and coaches and parents and history, all in attendance this morning to actually watch me play for the prestigious Ojai Championships in the year 1982.

As for my opponent, Leach was always a problem. I knew I could outplay him, but could I actually beat him? For when it mattered most, he was simply better, tougher, and more experienced than myself. Helping my chances were I had grown. It was one thing to give him a good run at 5'6, 140 with a wood racket. Now I was 6'1 175 with the latest in racket technologies, the groundbreaking Head Graphite Edge, where at least for now, I could outhit guys I once had to grind with all day. 

I took the court, and as I looked around the surroundings, my new methods of calm and concentration were going to be tested. Full stands, loud crowd, college coaches dressed in their school colors carrying clipboards and all and my Dad, strategically standing up and away from the throngs, head dipped, arms crossed, staring and smoking, same as he ever was. And world class player and junior tennis nemesis Rick Leach across the net, with his Dad Dick Leach, coach of USC,  parked courtside as we readied for another battle.

Match time and I came out swinging, winning the first set easily. He dug in, grinding me down in a close second set, and here we were, for the fourth consecutive time, going to a deciding third set. I was literally playing the best I could possibly play. My only problem was so was he. Early third set, I continued my calm ways, eventually getting up a break and serving for the match at 5-3 in the third where I reached a match point.

A complicated point ensued. Somehow I got stuck in the middle of the court, chucking up a half-assed lob in self defense, to which he smashed an overhead toward the sideline directly beside me. Luckily I had a perfect view, clearly seeing green court between the ball and the white line. His shot was out. I called it out instantly. I'd won the match, I'd finally beaten my nemesis, but before I could even approach the net to shake hands, the Prince reps watching by the fence near where Rick's overhead  landed started barking at me..

"No way...you can't call that out!!!" 

Simultaneously Rick started throwing his own shit fit at the net, pleading to me that the ball was good and how could I call that out. And there I stood, standing in the middle of the court being accused of cheating on match point in front of a packed house of fans and coaches and my Dad and I froze. Do I dare add another scarlet letter? All I had to do was walk up to the net, shake hands, and it was over. I saw it clearly, I called it instantly, and after all the bullshit I'd been through on a tennis court with him in the past, I owed him nothing. 

But the crowd created doubt in my head. I stood paralyzed in the middle of the court, unsure what to do. I didn't want to end the match like that, I couldn't end the match like that, it was the best match I'd ever been involved in my life. But I knew I was sure, and I called it instantly, but the sniping continued, and as I looked to the stands to my crew, my friends, my Dad, not a sole uttered a word in my defense, and in what was only a few seconds but seemed an eternity, I reversed my own call on match point and gave him the point. Back to deuce. I would ace him on the next point. Another match point, but he saved that one too with another perfect diving drop volley. (These fuckers were tough) He would eventually break me, and in a matter of minutes, I collapsed from the strain of it all, losing 7-5 in the third to Leach once again. 

Sitting on the bench, I began to pack up my stuff. Confused and shocked at what just happened, as I rose to leave the court, I begin to cramp. Hobbling, I slowly began to work my way over to the waiting crowd. As I was greeted, one person after another approached, saying great match and then telling me they clearly saw the ball out. 

Geez guys, lot of good that does me now...

After the first wave of friends and fans, I reached the college coaches, who all in unison said that was one of the best matches and unquestionably of the greatest displays of sportsmanship they had ever witnessed and would I come play college tennis at their universities all expenses paid. I hadn't walked 100 feet and had half a dozen scholarship offers from all the schools that had sworn me off mere weeks prior. Even Mister Leach offered me a scholarship to USC, though he had no money left for my freshman year, but after that I was welcomed with open arms if I'd consider being a Trojan.

Things were happening fast. A month ago I was a drugged out mess, likely heading to Long Beach State to wallow away in college tennis anonymity. Yet here I was, completely wiped out physically and emotionally from the best tournament of my young life, being fawned over by the elite of the  elite of the sport I'd dreamed my whole life to be great at, maybe even special, being offered 100,000 dollar scholarships at our nation's premier universities, all right in front of the Dad I hadn't had a meaningful conversation with since that ugly night in my room when he called me a failure.

Yet it was that same Dad who paced nervously at the top of the hill watching all the coaches and patrons fawn over me. And I wished he would have come down, to be a part of the moment. But he stood back, arms crossed, expressionless. 

Same as he ever was... 

He knew this wasn't his place, that this was my moment, that I had done this all on my own which maybe in his convoluted thinking was what he always wanted for me, to be fiercely independent, to make my mark on life by myself for myself without having to rely on others, which is noble and all that, maybe not when you're 15 years old trying to break through at the most demanding sport imaginable. 

As I finished with the coaches and spectators, I started my way up the steep hill, my limping pronounced, my pace slowing, my entire body in severe discomfort. As my father approached to help, I buckled over in agony, the leg cramps now raging through my abdomen, reducing me to only guttural groans. The symbolism of that moment, myself prone before him, incapacitated in pain, and him, helpless, only able to stand back and watch, unable to aid in anyway, a recreation of that scene in our garage so many years ago only with the roles reversed. And tennis once again. The deliverance of such great heights and depths, of joy and pain, and as the cramps finally eased, I was able to straighten up, my equilibrium back, to where we finally met, me dropping my heavy bag and soaked clothes at his feet as he handed me his water, asking me..

 "You gonna make it???"

 To which I replied "I think I just did Dad".

And as I bent over to retrieve my stuff, he rubbed my soaked head with his hand. And the gentleness of his hand on my head. I just didn't know how much I needed the feel of a fatherly touch.

"Here, let me at least grab your bag." 

I handed him my stuff. And we walked side by side toward his van and for the first time in a long time, we were having one of those moments, a father and his son who had been through a lot together, and if this was the best we could do, in lieu of all that had transpired between us, I was OK with all that.
 

Reaching his van, I slid my still cramping body in to the back of the car, unsure of what lay in store for another long drive home. As we began to drive away, my Dad pulled in to the first store he could find to get drinks for the trek home. As he went in, I spread out in the back, trying to relax, the discomfort of my cramping unrelenting. 

Approaching the van brown bags in hand, he opened the sliding door and handed me a Gatorade, imploring me to drink it down fast and that it should help. I did as instructed. As I handed him the empty Gatorade bottle, he reached deeper in to the bag and handed me a large blue can of Foster's Lager beer. Pulling one out for himself too, we both popped open our beers... our first beer together, he still standing there at the opening of the van, staring in at me, way uncomfortable were these quiet moments  between us, his eyes full of emotion as he searched for the right words

"Wow"...He said

"Yeah, huh?"..I uttered back..
 

A quiet pause ensued, both of us taking pulls from our Foster's. As he began to close the sliding door, he stopped half way, looking back at me and saying..

"That's the best thing I've ever seen you do.."...and all the pent up anger and sadness and heartbreak and angst all came out as I starting weeping like a baby. And this time, he just stood there and let me cry. 

As I composed myself, he handed me the other brown bag with another Fosters in it..
 

"Lets get home now... And don't tell your Mother about the beers"

And as he slid the door shut, I managed a laugh through all the sobbing. What an exhausted mess I was. And as we set forth on our couple hour drive home, a feeling of detente emerged in our complex father son world.

 A father, and his son, doing alright for a moment in time...