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TennisOne Lessons
What's An Athlete? By Joel Drucker
I will confess that the rocket fuel for this column grows out of a highly-personal experience. It's the following phrase: "He's not what you'd call a good athlete, but he's a good tennis player." What exactly does this mean? My American Heritage dictionary defines an athlete as, "one who participates in competitive sports." Wouldn't logic dictate that if you're good at a competitive sport, you're likely a good athlete? Why must tennis apologize for itself? I've never heard anyone say, "He's not what you'd call a good athlete, but he's a good basketball player." Why can't tennis players of any skill level let themselves be called athletes? There seems to be a long-held assumption that athleticism is a finite notion, as singularly and perpetually defined as one's eye color. A friend of mine recently told me he thought talent and performance were synonyms. How can that be? To me, this kind of attitude constitutes a form of fatalism, an irritating negativity that can greatly blunt growth and enjoyment of an activity. I'm only so talented, goes the thinking, so why bother pursuing more.
I partially blame the popularity of the major sports for this culture of complacency. Skills are often attributed strictly to numbers that seem to predestine success or failure. In football, it's the 40-yard dash time. In baseball, the speed of a pitch. In basketball, well, that's a sport you just play and your athleticism is instantly apparent, right? An instant display of athleticism is rare in tennis. As we all know, it's a sport where getting out of first gear is not so easy. Only if you take at least a few lessons can you master the techniques necessary to experience the game in a more rich form (Exhibit A: learning to serve with a backhand grip). And even when ball-hitting skill surfaces, it hardly tells the story. I once watched a gymnast hit some tennis balls. She had good balance and reasonable hand-eye coordination. A friend gushed over what an athlete she was. Yes, I said, she can move and hit, but that's only part of what it takes to, per the dictionary, "participate in a competitive sport." Can she fight when losing? Does she know how to close out a match? How does she deal with an opponent throwing all sorts of punches at her?
John Lucas, an All-American in both basketball and tennis, once told me, "In team sports, you can hide, you can throw yourself in with the others, you're not out there completely exposed. In tennis, you're naked." So perhaps all that vulnerability reveals each of us in our physical glory and, invariably, we're all likely to come up lacking. And where the mental part is less visible, the physical certainly is. If the pros' strokes can break down under pressure, what's that say about the rest of us? The result: a self-denying tennis culture, one where various aspects of athleticism are taken as a given. It's a crime against an activity we all truly know is one extremely difficult sport. My new hero in the crusade for the athlete in all of us is Andre Agassi. He refuses the accept the notion that we're each given a finite dollop of athleticism.
"I'm always trying to make myself a better athlete," he says. "You can make yourself stronger, faster, more flexible - all of that will make you a better athlete and a better tennis player." If someone this far up the mountain can increase his athletic skill, the upside is massively greater for us weekend warriors. Why does this bug me so much? I'll confess: All my life I've let people tell me I'm not that good an athlete. And in many ways - but not all -- I'm not. The world is not ready to see me on a basketball court. But then again, I'd like to see Michael Jordan try and pass me when I come to net on his backhand 50 times with my puny 4.5 approach shots. Then we'll see who's the athlete. Your comments are welcome. Let us know what you think about Joel Drucker's article by emailing us here at TennisOne . |
