Not to say playing on my own was impossible. It just didn't make any sense. Players my level were either playing college tennis or touring professionally. They most certainly weren't practicing intermittently, struggling to stay in college, scrambling to support themselves, all the while partying like they'd just won the lottery.
But some tennis did get played. For competition, I started entering local weekend tournaments. Raging the bars all week, I'd play terribly at these rinky-dink events. With nobody to play and little money to win, my plan began to lose steam. So not inspiring it all was. And I began to fall behind. In tennis. In school. At work. For the party raged on. But even it had its limits. The Saudis were gone, interrupting my cash flow, yet my burn rate never wavered.
Ripping through my bankroll, I had to get resourceful. After another lost weekend at my fraternity, I quit the House, hoping some distance from the action might help settle me down. With my beloved VW Bug on its last legs, I bought our barely running family Van from my older brother, the same van we drove cross country 5 years before. Ah, the memories from that hellish slog.
With money getting tight, I started scrambling. I picked up a job waiting tables at a local restaurant while picking up some lessons in the area. Yet my partying raged on. Either hungover or still wasted, I struggled making to work, often blowing off my shifts and my lessons. I soon got in to debt, owing everybody all over town, always having to borrow money for booze and drugs. I needed to slow down, but had no idea how. So it didn't happen. The opposite actually. I needed more to feel the same. And once I started, I simply couldn't stop.
I soon got in a little trouble, getting myself kicked out of the dorms. With no money and no place to live, I had to get creative. So I turned my Van in to a home. Inconvenient, yet practical. All temporary of course, until I figured out my next move, or so I would tell anybody who was still listening.
Nothing of what I set out to do was happening and people began to notice. My party friends started making comments...
Can't you have just one?
How do you train staying up all night?
Why did you quit the team, so you could party more?
How long do you plan on living in your van?
All simple questions. More questions I could not answer...
Yet I would defend my choices, pleading my case, rationalizing that I was living experimentally, pushing boundaries, living life on the edge in my way. But backers there were few. My UCLA team mates didn't understand and had quickly moved on. My peers from other teams were dumbfounded, openly voicing their disappointment. And my parents were completely out of the loop, giving me a major league time-out. I was once again truly on my own, but now with a screaming drug habit.
The year was 1984. The Summer Olympics were coming to Los Angeles with tennis finally an Olympic sport. Having trouble getting motivated for the local pro-ams, I needed an event to inspire me. And what better opportunity than trying to make the United States Olympic team and a chance to have the letters USA on my back once again.
Only six months removed from being a Bruin, I'd fallen off the tennis grid entirely. Because tennis. You're either playing or you're not. The Olympic trials were broken up in to three phases, with pre-qualifying and qualifying in Southern California. Under normal circumstances, I had a strong chance of making the team. These were my peers, the same guys I'd been playing forever. But with the USTA unsure of my status, which player would they be getting, I was put in the pre-qualifying. A snub for sure, but I was in no place to complain. I needed all the matches I could get.
Trying to get in shape for the trials, I made an attempt at sobering up. But the physical and mental withdrawals triggered my anxiety terribly. With my brain on fire, I began struggling with my sleep patterns again. Exhausted, yet unable to sleep, the committee in my head would debate all my dysfunctions on a rotating basis, chastising me incessantly for the fuck-up I was becoming.
But it wasn't just the nights where I struggled, the days were angst-riddled too. Hyper, energetic, productive for a few days, then I would crash. Lethargic and slothful, I would struggle to find the energy for the most basic of activities. And around and around I would go. Up for a couple, down for a couple. The cycling. Having cut my drinking back significantly, I questioned if it was the withdrawals throwing me so out of balance.
Either way, as the Olympic Trials approached, I was having a particularly
rough week. The night before my first match and I lay in bed catatonic; tired, numb, lifeless, just staring for hours at the ceiling in my van. Unable to sleep, yet I had no energy to function. How was I going to play a tennis match like this? I needed a lift and quickly. Unsure what to do, of course my mind turned to cocaine. I knew it would wake me up. Certainly not the way I wanted to play the Olympic Trials, but something had to give. In the past, I'd been able to play some inspired tennis under the influence. Maybe just pick up a little, in case I needed it.
And off to my dealer I trekked to secure the contraband. Back at the van, I still felt terrible, the mental dial tone of my mind unwavering. Unable to sleep yet struggling to wake up, I sampled a little bump, just to wake up a little, vowing to save the rest for my match. Yet I rarely did only a little and I never ever saved any. And some soon turned in to
more, with more soon turning to it all and as the sun rose on match day, I was all out and crashing as I hustled back over to my dealer's to secure more. Strung out on coke again. Not exactly
how I planned on making the United States Olympic Team. But this was no time for style points. I just wanted to feel better.
Except none of it was ok, not one part
of it. First round, I played a high school player. Never
heard of the kid. I started terribly, the combination of rust, nerves, no sleep and strong drugs. At Studio City's The Racket Center, a facility I'd played a 100 great matches at, yet I could not have felt more lost on a tennis court.
I shanked and sprayed my
way through a dismal first set. Now it was crunch
time. I'd been playing competitive tennis a long time, I had to be able to
muster up some magic from days past. Yet the
second set continued just like the first. Desperate, I took a bathroom break, snorting all the remaining blow I had. But matters only got worse as my nose started bleeding uncontrollably down my face and my shirt.
I had nothing left. I was going down and in the ugliest of fashions and with that
acknowledgement came the rage. And it came on strong. I shattered a racket, followed by a stream of profanity. Bleeding and screaming, the epithets viler and louder by the error. I'd crossed the point of no return. Head racing, my body numb, divorced from my mind, no longer able to direct its actions. And a crowd soon began to gather.
How much did they know...
Now I was being
watched, but having eyes upon me did little for my composure. I was having a break down and it was about to get ugly.
A roving umpire made his way toward my court. I was losing my shit and badly. What in the
hell was I doing to myself? Why this, why today? I swore I wouldn't do this again. I promised. And here I was doing it again, on a tennis
court, where I really wanted to do well. I was high and raging and bleeding, seeing red, bleeding red, my mind
racing faster and faster. Yellow line, red line. Another racket, more screams. Down to my last
racket, I see
the umpire coming, and like the person who pulls a gun at the police station because he can't shoot himself, I waited for the umpire to
enter before ripping off one final dark guttural stream of anguish. Packing up my shit, or what remained of it, I ran off the court before
they could default me. I raced out through the gate, past the lobby, past the aghast officials at the
tournament desk, straight to my van, damn near rolling it in the parking lot as I raced to the first liquor store I could find to begin the bender of all benders.
What a mess I'd made of a great opportunity. The following week, still in shock from my meltdown, I was walking on campus heading to class. Since the tournament, I hadn't been feeling well. Hardly the first time I'd felt such a malaise, but this spell felt different. It felt out of control, like I was free falling. And the feeling had my attention, like there might be something seriously wrong with me.
Continuing my walk just like any other day, as I passed the Psychology Building something triggered within me. Without breaking stride, I turned right, up the dozen or so steps to the main doors of the building and began walking down the hall, looking for an open door, any open door, where there might be someone I could talk to. About what, I had no idea. I just felt a powerful compulsion that in that moment I needed something or somebody to help me.
Half way down the hall, a came upon a door slightly ajar. Peaking in the office, I tentatively knocked. I heard a subdued voice say come in. As I entered, I came upon a woman working at her desk. Looking up from her work, she asked..
Can I help you?
And upon hearing those words my eyes instantly teared up, sputtering back to her I didn't feel well and I thought something might be wrong with me.
Attentive, she straightened in her seat and asked if I needed to see a doctor to which I responded it wasn't that kind of not feeling well. It was different. It was my head. And I began to explain to her my symptoms, that I felt like my brain was turning on me, that sometimes it gets going so fast I feel like its coming off the tracks then other times it screeches to a halt and I can barely state my name. Sometimes I can't sleep for days at a time, other times I can't get out of bed for days at a time. It just keeps cycling. Fast then slow then fast then stops all together and it keeps happening over and over again and I'm scared I'm losing my mind and I don't know what's going on and could you help me?
And as I stopped talking, I started sobbing uncontrollably..
Handing me some Kleenex, she asked me to sit, telling me she had an idea who might be able to help as she began nervously making phone calls. She was calm but she was not, sneaking glances my way as answering machine after answering machine met her pleading voice.
After three calls and no luck, she asked for my name and number, where I proceeded to explain to her that the number was a payphone I parked my van by and used as a home phone, to which she sat back in her chair, eyes widening and suddenly alarmed, no longer able to contain her uneasiness, asking me if I was homeless and do I have any family in the area and is there someone she can call right now to help me.
To which I stammered back that I'm sort of homeless, but not really, I'm living in my van, but its temporary and that my family is in Torrance. She next asked for my parent's phone number and I responded sharply No, no you can't. We're not speaking right now. It's not a good scene right now, so leave them out.
I paused, then asked..
But what would you tell them? I was just hoping to talk to someone, now you want to call my parents? What's wrong with me? I'm in trouble, aren't I. You can't call my parents. I'll do whatever you want, just promise me you won't call them. Its not cool right now. They know nothing about what's going on with me. They don't even know where I am. Haven't spoken in some time. That wouldn't help anything.
This was breaking down badly. She looked up at me with concern, my eyes watering again. She began to scribble hurriedly on her pad when I bolted up from my chair saying..
I have to get out of here...
As I gathered my stuff, she pleaded with me not to go, assuring me she won't call my parents and just to please sit tight for one more moment.
Frozen with fear, my heart racing, my mind right on its heels. I wanted to collapse, or just run out of there as fast as I could. But to where?
For I had nowhere to go...
She handed me a piece of paper and made me promise I would call the number. I took the paper. And right before heading out the door, I asked her if she knew what was wrong with me? She responded she didn't know, that she's not a Doctor, but the professor's name on the paper should be able to help me but I had to call the number.
I nodded ok and scurried out the door, even more perplexed than when I entered, though now thoroughly convinced something was definitely wrong with me. That I knew for sure.
And in my hand was a phone number. And at the receiving end of that number was help. Help. A phone call away. A UCLA professor who might know what was wrong.
Yet I never called the number, a decision I would regret immensely in the years to come.
Spring 1984. USC/UCLA tennis in Westwood again. A year prior I was undefeated, a match away from breaking UCLA's all time consecutive wins record. But today I would attend the tussle as a spectator. Yet my attendance was not of a polite nor passive experience. It would be myself and a half dozen fraternity friends, amply liquored up, making all sorts of noise rooting on our beloved Bruins.
Which on one level was fine, cheering on my former teammates, rooting on my school against our arch-rivals. But the heckling got ugly. I got personal. I knew the guys from USC really well. They were my peers, many of them good friends. Yet I got sloppy wasted, raining down abuse upon them as they competed under the same intense pressure I cracked under. Drunk. Loud. Messy. I got in shouting matches with the SC bench, with Coach Bassett asking me to tone it down on more than one occasion. It was an ugly day, the alcohol clouding out all sense of what was right and wrong
With the match running late, I had to leave before it was over to make my work shift. Leaving a UCLA/USC match, a match I should have been playing in, to put on an apron to make minimum wage waiting tables at The Good Earth Diner in Westwood Village.
Later that evening, bluffing my way through my shift, still buzzed and disheveled from the day, I saw from the corner of my eye the entire USC team congregating by the podium waiting to be seated. My manager, knowing some of my tennis history, thought it a good idea to seat them in my section, to which I responded in a full panic...
"Absofuckinglutely not, do not sit them anywhere near me and if you do I'm walking out of here right now and not coming back. Sit them upstairs, sit them outside, fuck, tell them we're closed. But do not sit them anywhere near me, got it?"
My manager, taken back some, acquiesced. But not before the whole Trojan team saw us hashing it out. And as they walked to a section far from my own, I looked upon a group of guys I'd known for many years. Guys I'd battled with, guys I'd trained with, guys I'd partied with and considered my friends. Guys I looked up to my whole tennis life and respected immensely. Yet they were the same guys I just heckled and harassed without mercy for hours at the sport I quit and here they were before me in a horribly awkward moment.
And if karma existed, they would have been seated in my section and been the worst customers imaginable. For I deserved that, and likely more. And as a final shot of retribution, when the bill came to be paid to have stiffed me, for I had just spent the past few hours stiffing them.
But the optics of the moment were undeniable. My plan of quitting college tennis to play on my own hadn't worked, and if I hoped to salvage anything from these fleeting years, I needed to get back to where I belonged, playing college tennis for UCLA.
With nothing to lose, I called Coach Bassett the following week. Nervous because of my behavior, I didn't expect much, but he didn't shoot me down outright either. He said the next year was out, he had the team he wanted. But the following year was a possibility, but that he had concerns, telling me he couldn't have a repeat of the year before and that I needed to show him I could handle the stressors of school and big time college tennis. He said he couldn't promise anything, but that he'd keep an eye on me, checking up on my grades, my tennis and my behavior, and after next season, give me his decision.
So there was a chance, but I was going to need to change. I was a 19 year old teenager with a future who already had a past. And within my short life, wreckage had already been done. To my family. To my tennis. To my schooling. To myself. How much damage was still unclear, for most of my private struggles were still private. What I did know was trusts had been broken and if I didn't clean up my act soon, I would no longer be wanted around.
Back to planning. Addicts, we're good at it. I needed a full system restore, a return to the last working set of circumstances. But it would take a lot more than picking a date and pushing a button. I needed back within the structured discipline of a college tennis program. It wasn't a perfect system, every system had its faults, but what I was attempting to do was a complete failure and no system at all. I'd taken way too much for granted leaving the UCLA program. Could I reverse such a terrible decision?
Fool me once. As a junior, Coach swore I'd never play for him at UCLA, but he saw just enough to take a chance on me. And I set a couple records for him, but I also quit on him a couple times, once in a dual match then completely my sophomore year. When we first met at Ojai couple years back, he asked me which player would he be getting. Now he knew. He'd be getting two players, a package deal with a broken seal. With the jury still out on whether I was worth it, would he take a chance on me again?
Being watched now, my year of assessment went surprisingly well. With a lot at stake, I was able to settle down, getting some good grades while cutting back on the partying. Not completely of course. I simply couldn't. But enough to play some decent tennis again and give myself a shot.
I entered some real tournaments again, notching a couple decent wins along the way, so I still had some game. In one of the larger events, I drew Witsken once again. If our names were in the same draw, we were magnets for each other.
He had just turned pro and was already having some breakthrough results. Would my 5th chance at him be the charm? We got at it again. I came out swinging, getting up a set and a break. Again. I soon lost the break and the set. Again. What else, but another long 3 setter. On serve at 4-5, I'm serving at 30-15. I proceeded to double fault three times in a row. The triple double. The Magic Johnson. Choked it all away. Whoever knew the Heimlich maneuver, please hurry to court three. A terrible ending, for I was playing really well. June of 1984, Little Rock Arkansas, second round, center court. You never forget your chokes.
We approached the net to shake hands. He shook his head in understanding. Because tennis. We've all been there. We've all done it. We feel pity for an opponent who chokes one away. Gathering our stuff, I approached his bench to apologize to him and his USC teammates for my behavior at that USC/UCLA match where I heckled them incessantly.
He accepted my apology graciously enough, but that was it. And it stung a little, for we used to be good friends and practice partners. But he showed no interest in the struggles I'd been having or the reasons behind my quitting. For I'd broken the code. I disrespected the game and the players playing it, the original sin in our secret tennis fraternity. Trust had been broken. I'd been ex-communicated from the one group I wanted to be a part of more than anything, to be considered a peer of tennis' elite. I'd pissed it all away. And it had nothing to do with ability or results. I'd broken my commitment, to the sacrifice of what it took to become great at tennis. And it was going to take a lot more than an apology to win back their respect.
With my year of observation winding down, it was late Spring again, which meant one more trip up to Ojai. So much history for me there. Did I have anymore magic left in me? With word out I was looking to play college tennis again, I knew I was being watched. Yet I stayed to myself, avoiding everything and everyone that could be construed negatively. I was auditioning once again, what role I would land still quite unclear?
Tourney begins. I have a good first day, picking up a couple good wins. But instead of being watched, I was watching for them. Yet nobody appeared. Playing for myself on a back court at a distant club, all alone, no team watching, no coach in support, no little kids with their faces pressed to the fence. I was playing unattached, a free agent in hopes of being picked up. Yet nobody came by to watch. Was I that radioactive?
The following day. Couple tough matches on the schedule with the first at the God awful time of 730. I got up early, bundled up head to toe for the cold morning valley air. Still dark, I drove myself in to town to the local CoCos for breakfast. I was the first customer to arrive. I chose to sit alone at the counter. With a cup of coffee in hand, players from other teams began to file in. Yet I kept to myself, head down, working on my pile of pancakes.
But from the corner of my eye I saw them all be seated. It was the Stanford team, and the Cal team, then the USC team. A who's who of college tennis, yet I'm not one of them. I'm no longer a who. I'm a quitter. A deserter. An imposter riddled with embarrassment and shame. Yet I'm there, sitting at the counter. Still trying. Getting ready for my match, trying valiantly to get back to where I once was.
Looking back, I see them notice me. We nod our heads in recognition. They acknowledged me but didn't engage. Looking my way, they spoke in hushed tones. What were they saying? How much did they know of my past couple years?
I turned back to my plate, imploring myself to stay focused, reminding myself what other people think of me is none of my business. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Coach Bassett. He was his typical positive firing on all cylinders bundle of energy and before I could even say good morning he started telling me how great it was to see me up early getting ready for my match and that he'd heard I'd played well yesterday and to keep it going and that he wanted to talk to me about next year when we got back home to LA.
I sputtered back sure thing Coach, as he turned away to start his day.
Maybe he didn't know that much..
I got through the weekend sans heroics or theatrics. I was doing tennis alone again. How lonely it all felt.
Driving home, I was buoyed by my conversation with Coach, that maybe I'd done enough to get back to playing for UCLA once again.
Coach called me that Sunday evening, asking me to meet the next day after practice at the old Sunset Canyon courts. I got there early, sitting up in the stands looking down at my old courts. So many memories. The highs. The lows. The streak. The breakdown. I wished I'd have been a little tougher, a little wiser, a little more mature, a little healthier to manage such a wonderful opportunity.
But I might have another chance now. I saw Coach appear as he darted down the stairs. Seeing me, he started my way. I walked his direction to meet him half way. He asked me to sit. He started right in, telling me he'd made his decision and that his answer was no and that he wanted to let me know as soon as possible so I could make other plans if I wanted to play somewhere else.
Stunned. I sat there quietly, expecting some kind of explanation or dressing down but I got neither. He stood up quickly, shook my hand and wished me the best of luck before turning away back up the steps as quickly as he arrived.
Wow. Not at all how I hoped that was going to go. Whatever Coach knew, he knew enough. I sat there for the remaining hour of sunlight, the shadows from the giant Eucalyptus trees stretching out over the courts longer and longer as the sun continued to set behind me. Students filled the courts, the courts I once called home, hitting and giggling away as they played tennis. What a concept, having fun on a tennis court.
And as the last glint of sunlight faded, darkness crept slowly upon the courts and myself, yet I remained seated, staring out at what was, and what could have been, and what would never be again...
Coach made it clear. I wasn't welcomed in Westwood anymore. It was time for me to go.
It was time for a West La Fadeaway...
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