Just Skimmed Through Andre's Book

[Texastennis]

Agassi and Seles made NB - he'd be just another coach with an academy without them - I think he's made many times over what he would have made without them and since arguably their favors had far more imnpact on them in terms of making them the players they were, I think he would do well to appreciate that. His payoff has been huge.

[db24]

I have not heard of a book by Agassi;s father.Can you provide the title and any comments.
Db24

[sureshs]

Originally Posted by db24

I have not heard of a book by Agassi;s father.Can you provide the title and any comments.
Db24

Agassi Story
by Mike Agassi, Kate Shoup Welsh (With) , Dominic Cobello (With) , Andre Agassi (Foreword by)

[Morrissey]

Originally Posted by llama

Actually, I don't "love" Agassi. And I could care less if you hate his guts. I make no apologies for being interested in complex, compelling people, other than mindless robots. Mea culpa that "one dimensional people" bore me to tears. Just a quirk of mine. And the only thing that causes me to respond to these posts is that I loathe this "holier than thou" attitude of people. They seem so positively affronted that Agassi had the NERVE to not be the person they thought he should be! And he CONFESSED it!! What kind of a person would do THAT???? He had the audacity to say he HATED tennis! Why - this wasn't the perception of him at all. How DARE he? How dare he mess up our little tennis world! So neatly stacked with everyone in their proper place.

What I hate is the hypocrisy. How many times in your life, when your own personal world is lousy, do you meet an acquaintance who queries "How are you" - and you say "fine, just fine" when all the while you're miserable. You think you might have an STD, you're in trouble at work, your significant other might not be your significant other for long. But still you put up a facade. Just being "civilized" you tell yourself, although you'd love a shoulder to cry on. Well, Agassi was "civilized for a long time, saying the right things, smiling the right smiles, all to make tennis fans feel that all was right in their own little world, with Agassi in his proper position as "elder statesman", spending his spare time bemoaning the fact that Pete Sampras was better than he was. How DARE he have different feelings! How DARE he hate tennis for a good part of his life - and have the nerve to ADMIT it!!!! How DARE he perceive Sampras as less than the GOAT!!! And as for DRUGS!!!! Why - no one respectable EVER touches drugs! And to admit it! What kind of a person does that??? Oh, I don't know, maybe a decent person who, for no other reason than he wants to confess, does so. Depression???? Why, that's not appropriate either. In little tennis minds Agassi has it all, money, fame, Graf - how DARE he admit to depression!!

So to make yourself feel better about this betrayal you say say - ah! but of course it's because he's so bitter, he's so filled with envy of Pete Sampras, this must be the reason. This makes you feel so much better.

I'd venture a guess that he rarely gives Pete Sampras a second thought - but if it makes YOUR world feel better that he's reeling with jealousy - then carry on.

After seeing the thread "Who's hotter, Shields or Graf?" I gave my head a shake and said -for God's sake WHAT are you doing hanging around this place???? I'm most defnitely not a hormone-driven adolescent....so no more posts for me. A little voice inside me just whispered "you're better than this - and I am".

Wow! Excellent post. Can we just close this thread after this post? Because nothing that comes after this will ever be this good. My vote for post of the year. And I critisized Agassi for releasing this book. But this post was just too honest and bare that it may be too much for the non-Agassi fan to ever accept. That post deserves a sticky.

[David_86]

Wow! Excellent post. Can we just close this thread after this post? Because nothing that comes after this will ever be this good. My vote for post of the year. And I critisized Agassi for releasing this book. But this post was just too honest and bare that it may be too much for the non-Agassi fan to ever accept. That post deserves a sticky.

Considering that this person thinks there are people in this world who are mindless robots, I wouldn't give him a Pulitzer Prize just yet. Maybe he has been hanging around a ward that still practices lobotomies. That attitude stinks of someone who thinks a person can't be suicidal unless they show the world their cuts.

[35ft6]

Originally Posted by Morrissey

Wow! Excellent post. Can we just close this thread after this post? Because nothing that comes after this will ever be this good. My vote for post of the year. And I critisized Agassi for releasing this book. But this post was just too honest and bare that it may be too much for the non-Agassi fan to ever accept. That post deserves a sticky.

I agree. Nice one, llama. I'm sure some of these people will be praising Sarah Palin's book any second now...

[chalkflewup]

I don't care if Agassi or Seles made him or not but, it's clear to me that NB loves the game of tennis.

[35ft6]

Originally Posted by Texastennis

Agassi and Seles made NB - he'd be just another coach with an academy without them.

Agassi definitely helped NB become famous, but this is a weird chicken or the egg dilemma. I think NB probably helped Agassi just as much as the other way around. If we were talking about almost anybody else, I might agree with you, but NB came up with a radically different approach to tennis. At some point, you have to admit a guy probably isn't "just another coach" when he attracts so many top players and trained so many number ones.

[scotus]

Originally Posted by 35ft6

Agassi definitely helped NB become famous, but this is a weird chicken or the egg dilemma. I think NB probably helped Agassi just as much as the other way around. If we were talking about almost anybody else, I might agree with you, but NB came up with a radically different approach to tennis. At some point, you have to admit a guy probably isn't "just another coach" when he attracts so many top players and trained so many number ones.

Agreed.

It should be remembered that Bollettieri would have become famous with Courier even without Agassi and Seles.

[Moose Malloy]

you guys do know that Bollettieri coached many top pros well before Agassi or Courier? players like Brian Gottfried, Jimmy Arias, Kathy Horvath, Carling Bassett, Aaron Krickstein, Paul Annacone. Why do you think Mike Agassi sent Andre there? His academy was already quite famous by then.

[Texastennis]

Yes that's true - but nothing like the fame (and fortune) he had with Agassi onwards. Courier would also have been NB's first GS winner in any case, but Courier wouldn't have made him famous the way Agassi did because Agassi was a media phenomenon on a whole different level than Courier from the get go .

I think it's clear that Agassi's father taught him the gamestyle he had - hitting the ball very early etc. NB isn't responsible for Agassi playing that way. I think what was probably more important for the development of the Agassi game there was the competition he had with hitting partners there that he obviously wouldn't have got in NV.

[35ft6]

Originally Posted by Texastennis

I think it's clear that Agassi's father taught him the gamestyle he had - hitting the ball very early etc. NB isn't responsible for Agassi playing that way.

And all the other players, their fathers get the credit also? And what about Brad Gilbert? I think you're confusing hitting the ball with playing tennis.

[Texastennis]

"The other players" didn't have the success Agassi had.

I do think Brad Gilbert did a lot on the "play tennis" as vs "hit the ball" front. I'd say he had more impact than NB.

[Moose Malloy]

Courier would also have been NB's first GS winner in any case,

Courier was no longer coached by NB when he won the '91 French(he was with Higueras)

Ditto with Seles, she left him before she won her first major.

I believe Andre's 1st major('92 W) is the only major win NB has coached any player to(maybe Pierce with him when she won the '95 Australian as well)

here's a very interesting article from SI, June 1980 describing Nick B's Academy & his 'military like' regimen for its students(Arias, etc)

"He'll Make Your Child A Champ"

likes to call himself the Michelangelo of Tennis, to impart the notion that he is an artistic genius who carefully molds youngsters into superb players. That might make for a nice image, but it's way off. To understand how Bollettieri teaches kids, it is important to know that he's a former paratrooper, and that what he turns out on the court are little troopers, once-dear children transformed into steely-eyed tennis fanatics who scowl across the net. This is called producing champions.

Bollettieri does it as well as anyone. As the director of the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort in Longboat Key, Fla., just outside Sarasota, he heads a program that in a few years may prove to be the spawning ground of the game's foremost players. Nearly 100 teen-agers from around the world are at the academy 9� months a year, embracing a rigorous discipline, displaying an ascetic devotion. They attend local schools during the mornings, then grab a sandwich and change into tennis clothes for a long afternoon of boot camp training, in which demerits are handed out for missing a shot and resting without permission.

The academy is, in effect, a tennis factory. And Bollettieri is the foreman, a controversial figure whose bizarre training methods are well known and often discussed in living rooms across America where there is a collection of junior tennis trophies on the mantel. Last year Bollettieri's machine dominated the world's top junior and 21-and-under events, winning 17 titles. This year he wants more, and so far his plant is producing ahead of schedule.

Bollettieri is a perfectionist who denies his students the simplest pleasures. At their living quarters, lights go out at 10 p.m., and the students are not allowed to watch television on weekdays. On the court, Bollettieri gets mad if the kids twirl their rackets or if they take too long picking up practice balls. He says the easiest part of his job is on the lesson court, where if a youngster doesn't heed directives he can make the kid run on the beach and afterward deny him water. Bollettieri's hardest task: breaking the bond between child and parent.

Bollettieri calls it "getting with the program," and you are either with the program or out of it. Tuition is $1,100 monthly; there is a waiting list, and the occasional malcontents are weeded out and discarded like dead tennis balls. The students live in a former motel in nearby Bradenton that has been converted into a spartan dormitory, and every so often they are bundled off to the public library so counselors can tear apart their living quarters in search of things as innocuous as cupcakes. On weekdays, junk food is as verboten as TV watching and tearful phone calls to parents.

If this is beginning to sound like a minimum security tennis correctional camp, well, it is. One of Bollettieri's heroes is the late Vince Lombardi, who uttered the line: "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." That phrase could be the academy's motto.

Over the years, the 48-year-old Bollettieri has been a big winner, but he has been a loser, too. Four years ago he was out of work and had to borrow a car to drive from Fort Lauderdale to Sarasota to look for a job. Says Julio Moros, his chief administrator, "All we had when we started was Nick's name, and it was not a big name."

When Bollettieri became the Colony's Director of Tennis, he invited a top junior, Anne White of Charleston, W. Va., to live and train with him. Others followed and the idea mushroomed. Now among the academy's students are a fair sampling of the world's top juniors, including Kathleen Horvath, who last fall, at 14, was the youngest female ever to play in the U.S. Open; 15-year-old Jimmy Arias, the youngest player ever ranked on the ATP's computer, who's thought by some experts to be the best junior prospect in the country; and Carling Bassett, 12 years old and a millionaire's daughter, the offspring of John Bassett, the Canadian industrialist and sports entrepreneur. Because of their considerable skills, this triumvirate lives in Bollettieri's house, where he can maintain an around-the-clock vigil and foster an unrelenting commitment.

more at http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...3505/index.htm

[35ft6]

Originally Posted by Texastennis

"The other players" didn't have the success Agassi had.

What I'm trying to say is that almost every player is introduced to tennis by their parent. They usually don't go to an academy or hook up with a world class coach until they're 12 or older. So should ANY coach get credit by your logic? Should the coaches at the French federation get credit for coaching France's top players, or should the credit go to their parents? How is NB different from any other coach in that he's getting a player who's already pretty good (that's the only way they get special attention from Nick, or any top coach or organization for that matter...)?

[zapvor]

does NB have a biography?

[scotus]

Originally Posted by zapvor

does NB have a biography?

Yes, he has a book out called "My Aces, My Faults". The title could be the other way around.