Updated: October 28, 2009, 11:22 AM ET
Crystal meth, hair weaves and majors
Andre Agassi knows how low he once sunk because of the grand view he has now
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By Rick Reilly
ESPN The Magazine
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Getty ImagesAndre Agassi at his emotional farwell from tennis at the 2006 U.S. Open.
If image really is everything, why would Andre Agassi admit in his new book that he used crystal meth? Not once but dozens of times? And why would he admit he lied about it to the ATP?
Why would a son admit how much he feared his Iranian father -- feared him and hated him since the age of 7? And why -- why! -- would a man admit he wore perhaps the world's only Mohawk toupee?
Why? Because this isn't just any book.
This is Andre Agassi's mea culpa -- "Open" (from Knopf, written with Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer) -- and from the beginning, he and Moehringer set out to write the most revealing, literate and toes-stompingly honest sports autobiography in history. From the parts I've been allowed to read, they might have done it.
"I just tell people, this book is honest," says Agassi, who worked with Moehringer for a full year, meeting nearly daily at the Las Vegas house Agassi once lived in with Brooke Shields. "It lives up to the le. It's my life, for better or worse. Get ready, buckle up and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times."
"Open" is the story of a flawed man who sees everybody's imperfections, but none moreso than his own. It's the tale of a man who knows how low he sunk if only because of the grand view he has now.
Agassi's early life was not his, never his, not from the beginning, not from the time his Olympic boxer father built a backyard prison especially for him, a tennis court he was figuratively chained to day after day, while his father's homemade ball machine -- the dragon, Agassi called it -- ceaselessly spit out balls faster, harder, forever.
Agassi bucked against tennis like a horse with a two-sizes-too-small bit. But he could not escape it. And so his life became a kind of lie, from his shoelace groundstrokes to perhaps the world's only fake Mohawk, a hairpiece that once came apart in the shower before the French Open. The day was saved by bobby pins.
Your own life is hard enough. Living somebody else's life for them weighs on a man like a stone backpack. By 1997 -- even after winning an Olympic gold medal in 1996 -- Agassi was down, depressed and stuck playing a game he didn't love. He was physically wrecked (wrist) and emotionally spent. He was with the wrong woman -- Shields -- and knew it.
He'd sunk to No. 141 in the world. He recalls sitting at home when his assistant, Slim, introduces him to one of the most addictive substances known to man:
- Slim says, You want to get high with me?
On what?
Gack.
What the 's gack?
Crystal meth.
Why do they call it gack?
Because that's the sound you make when you're high. Make you feel like Superman, dude.
As if they're coming out of someone else's mouth, I hear these words: You know what? F*** it. Yeah. Let's get high.
Agassi pulled himself out of the French Open that year and hardly practiced for Wimbledon. That fall it got worse. The ATP informed him at the end of 1997 that he'd flunked a drug test. He'd likely be looking at a three-month suspension. He would probably lose all his endorsements, and most of his fans.
What to do? Keep lying.
Agassi admits he wrote a letter to the ATP saying that Slim accidentally " ed" his drink, that it was not his fault. The ATP dropped the flunked test, with no discipline for Agassi. He admits in the book he felt "ashamed."
It was the lowest point in a life that would suddenly begin to soar. You can condemn Agassi all you want for the crystal meth -- and he'd deserve it -- but remember, Agassi dropped the habit soon after. Then, in 1998, he made the biggest one-year jump into the Top 10 in the history of ATP Rankings, going from his year-end 122 to No. 6. He'd win five of his eight major les after finding the bottom.
They call Agassi the greatest returner in history. They aren't kidding.
We all know what became of the showy, glitzy kid with all that fake hair and real talent. He shaved his hair off. He started being real. He learned to love tennis, and tennis learned to love him. The kid that never got past the ninth grade in school wound up funding and running the prestigious Andre Agassi Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas. The man that couldn't find the right girl finally married the one everybody wanted -- tennis goddess Steffi Graf. And the son who hated his father learned to love him and his own two kids.
Why is Agassi so scorchingly honest in these excerpts? Maybe because he once lived enough lies for five men. Or maybe because, as an educator, he's heard the truth can set him free.
But hopefully, by the time you close "Open," you'll know that this book is about more than the wrong turns he took. It's about how that broken road led him straight to the good man he is now.
I got sick from reading this, all my su ions about drug testing in professional sports turn out to be right. The managers of the different sports will never let one of the stars of their game get called out for doping, specially if the player is from an important country.The ATP dropped the flunked test, with no discipline for Agassi.
Does somebody trully bealives that Lance Armstrong never took anything illegal? Pftt...
Well being that it's meth and not some type of steroid or performance enhancement drug. I really don't see how you can compare it with Armstrong. I also think it was wrong when they suspended Hingis too.
What I find most interesting about this is his father. The stories I've heard from him are he was a crazy guy. Pretty much forcing his kids to be stars. Andre's older sister was also pushed hard and rebelled as well. She married an older Pancho Gonzales who was a crazy ass as well. Supposedly the father wanted to kill him. It must have been a very interesting childhood to say the least.
You are not getting it. It's not about the meth or the suspension is the "protection" he got from the ATP. Why didn't Gasquet or as you say Hingis get the same treatment?
Do you trully bealive that in a sport full of "cheaters" a clean guy would have dominated like Armstrong did?
Do you watch Dr House?
Because of the difference in time. That happened awhile ago while the other cases are recent. Different rules it seems. Not right but it is a 10 year gap. If he got busted for steroids and was slapped on the hand I would be livid.
Never seen Dr House. Of course he cheated, but I don't see how you can compare this to a slap on the hand for a recreational drug in the WTA.
There's a Dr House episode where a famous cyclist takes advantage of a disease he has to take enhacing drugs and don't get caught.
And who were you refering to when you said: "of course he cheated".
I'm sure that the fact that Agassi is a worldwide star from one of the biggest countries in the world (which means higher ratings and translates into more money) and that the others are not as big as him and from smaller countries has nothing to do with the ATP decision of penalizing them and not Andre.
Armstrong. He just hasn't gotten caught so you're innocent until proven guilty. They will probably catch him later in the future though. I'm sure they save the test samples.
I think he did get caught but nobody said anything 'cause it doesn't help anybody's interests to get that out in the spotlight, but that's just the "conspiracy theorist" in me talking.
Last edited by DAF86; 10-28-2009 at 04:24 PM.
And Hingis wasn't a world wide star?? She won multiple grand slams and was #1 for awhile. She was and still is very popular in the U.S. That's a big loss of money as well. Maybe not to Andre's extent but I think you have to look more at the time periods then the country that they are from. This was a down time for Men's tennis when Sampras was getting old and before Federer. I mean who else was out there? Kuerten, Rafter, Moya? Good players but not great. Kind of like baseball letting steroids pass after the strike but the difference was that this is a recreational drug while steroids is not. I agree with you in that they should have been consistent with Gasquet and Hingis but I think saying they weren't because Agassi is American is a stretch. Has to do more with time periods and the state of the sport at the time IMO.
I wouldn't be surprised but I can't say to know either.
When she got caught she wasn't etiher of those things. She wasn't a top player neither a big draw.
And I'm not saying that only players from a specific country get that kind of protection, I'm saying that players that draw a lot of fans (therefore money) into a sport get that kind of protection, the thing is: if you're from a big country you have a lot more chances of drawing that kind of atention.
Hingis was still a big draw. And Agassi fell of between 95 till 99. The whole Brooke Shields era.
No she wasn't, she was about to retire anyways if she didn't get caught.
Doesn't matter she was still a big draw. All former multiple grand slam winners are. And she retired young as well.
She definitely wasn't a difference maker like Agassi in 97 (with or without slump), or like Federer and Nadal right now, or even herslef when she was number one in the world.
I think we can agree that she wasn't. But you also seem to not acknowledge the state of Men's tennis back in the mid to late 90's.
Right now men's tennis is in great shape, some even say that this generation is the strongest in history and I'm sure that if Federer tests positive in a doping test the ATP would cover him up too. IMO this thing has nothing to do with eras and everything to do with the players involved.
Recreational maybe. Steroid use no way. At least I would be shocked it would be huge news if it ever came out. I guess the reason I don't really care about it with Agassi is because it wasn't performance enhancing. I agree Hingis and Gasquet got a raw deal. But I don't see that as proof they would cover it up for a huge star now. Although of course I won't rule it out.
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