Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open, was surprisingly wonderful. How rare to find an athlete with such articulate self-awareness. His memoir thoroughly convinced me that he really does hate the game of tennis, the game brutally forced on him as a child. Unfortunately, he can't quite stay away from it either, because it is the thing he knows how to do best in the world; the thing that makes him feel in control (as he never was during his childhood). A fascinating contradiction, and likely one that many child-stars have experienced.What I kept wondering is: Why does this work so well?
Yes, we know it's bad to harass children to death...but take a look at those boffo results. (Obviously, this is what dad was thinking, too.)
Granted, it doesn't work on every child prodigy... After all, there were three sons before Andre, who failed and couldn't deliver, forever regarded by their father as disappointments and losers. Andre felt the pressure, as another tortured child, Michael Jackson (fifth son, to Andre's fourth) certainly felt it. I also think of Mozart, Patty Duke and countless others, including even Agassi's two wives: Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf. (Agassi is so deeply defined by his childhood-prodigy experience, that I seriously doubt he could bond with any woman who did not in some way share it.) At one point, Shields refers to Jackson as "just like us, he never had a childhood"--and it is clear that the show-biz kids identify very strongly with each other; the psycho-stage-parent thing is its own unique gestalt. (To his credit, Agassi doesn't take potshots at the infamous Teri Shields, but I would have.)
Agassi's father, an Iranian immigrant and former boxer working in Las Vegas (extremely determined to hit the big time), started on him when he was tiny. Andre daily faced a machine nicknamed "The Monster"--shooting tennis balls at him at a furiously fast rate. And little Andre hit them back, over and over and over, hour after hour, day after day. These sections are very difficult to read, since they are basically an account of child abuse. But it's legal child abuse. The book introduces us to a whole world of tennis camps and stage-dads, endlessly haranguing and pimping the kids. It's grueling and horrific. The Florida "tennis camp" is like Basic Training; they even sleep in barracks and eat gruel, shipped out by bus to a local school for prearranged half-days, which guarantees the kids plenty of time to practice, practice, practice. Hours and hours and hours. Andre learns to channel his considerable anger over these circumstances, into his game. He becomes a very aggressive, precocious player and enjoys beating everyone who takes him on. As a teenager, the capitalists come calling, giving him the endorsements he needs to drop out of school (in ninth grade) and hit the road. For a working-class kid who has always lived hand-to-mouth, the money is jaw-dropping and intoxicating, and he is quickly hooked on the life of a star. He collects an entourage, and the real games begin.
My question for discussion is: Does this child-prodigy-routine work or doesn't it? I offer Andre, Mozart and Michael Jackson as proof that their dads seemed to be onto something. And as long as stage-parents can produce these kinds of results? The Oliver Twist-tennis camps will still be in business.
Would he have won eight Grand Slams without his father's horrible machine, firing those endless tennis balls at him and teaching him to return even the strongest, deadliest serve at astonishing speeds?
Can we make champions without child abuse? Would Michael Jackson and Mozart have existed without child abuse? Of course not.
It's a paradox. We watch the champions, we watch the movies, we watch the stars, and we are dazzled... but we also disapprove of the process by which they learned to dazzle us.
I speak as one long dazzled by Agassi's return volleys. And now I ask myself: was I dazzled by the results of child abuse? Apparently so.
Andre makes us aware. He had the awareness forced on him, and now, he shares it with us.