What also doesn't seem right is that I once viewed Agassi as egocentric. Did he change or did I? Sometime after he began depositing Goran Ivanisevic's serve into some hard-to-reach corner at Wimbledon, Agassi took his Image is Everything persona and belted it into the practice courts.
But it would be three more years before Agassi would first shave his rapidly balding head. Suddenly, I could relate to him. Two years later, he had a marriage that went bad. Hey, I could relate to him some more. Then he dropped to No. 141 in the rankings. I stayed at zero. But it was about that time I started pulling for him, which in my business is okay, provided you are sitting on your living room sofa and not next to Mary Carillo at Flushing Meadows.
It wasn't long before Agassi would be sitting next to Mary Carillo at Flushing Meadows with a big trophy in his racquet bag. He had made it all the way back to No. 1. With none of the conceit. None of the arrogance. None of the pretense. None of anything that made him insufferable to those in his outer circle.
Image is everything? Not this time. Andre's F-stop doesn't go there anymore.
The last time we talked, he got me out of bed. He was eating breakfast in Cincinnati and wanted to chat up his Grand Slam for Children concert or one of his other myriad charitable pursuits. His people told my people—me—to leave the tennis questions to Mary Carillo.
But at 5:30 in the morning, all bets were off. So I asked Andre a question about tennis. And another. And another. Until they were rocketing over the phone line as if launched out of a practice cannon.
He answered every one. Put some thought into his answers, too.
Nowhere is it written that you have to admire a guy like that.
But I admire a guy like that.
So now it is written.
Ron Kantowski is a sportswriter for the Las Vegas Sun.