The Outsider: A Memoir (34 page)

22

OPEN HEART

I
n 1997, the committee of the Tennis Hall of Fame, in Newport, Rhode Island, approached me about becoming an inductee. I turned them down.

“I appreciate the offer, but the thing is, I’m not done playing yet.”

And I wasn’t. I was still active on the Champions Tour, and I’d agreed to sign up for Team Tennis with Kansas City for the next year. Retirement was a long way off.

The committee kept after me for several months. I appreciated their gesture—becoming a Hall of Famer was a huge honor—but I didn’t seek the accolade, and I’m not the kind of guy who wants to stand around and relive my past glories. I was either out there to play tennis, because I had something left to give, or I was finished. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that accepting my place in the Tennis Hall of Fame would give me a chance to publicly recognize all those people who had made my career possible.

So in 1998 I accepted the committee’s invitation. I wrote my speech on a flight from Kansas City to Newport on Saturday, July 11, 1998. Everything I said then continues to be true to this day, and parts of it are worth repeating now:

As everyone probably knows, because it has been written about far more than I would like, I was quite a loner over the course of my career. But standing here alone is not right. If I could, I would put some seats to my left and to my right. In the seats on my left, I would put my mother and my grandmother. They taught me the game, allowed me to play, and gave me the opportunity to reach for my dreams.

My grandmother was around for all the hard work of the first 15 years, but then left us when I turned pro at 19, in 1972. I know she’s looking down, and I hope I’ve made her proud. Her seat is next to me. My mother was left to take over the task of furthering my career. I don’t know if she always liked her inheritance, but she was able to wear three hats over the course of my life—as a coach, as my mother, and as my friend. For her to be able to balance all that, and still, after almost 46 years, for us to be able to sit down and talk to each other, is quite something.

She took a lot of criticism over the years for how she handled me, but it never really bothered her. She understood what she wanted to do with my career and for that, and for everything she has done for me in my life, there can never be enough thanks. You have all my love. Thank you. Have a seat.

To my right, I want to put my immediate family—my son, Brett, my daughter, Aubree, and my wife, Patti. My kids do not play tennis. By their choice, and perhaps a bit by my design, they have their own ideals and goals. They have grown up to be the kind of kids that make me, as a father, so proud.

My wife, Patti, well, I don’t think she knew 20 years ago what she was getting into. It was said and written over and over that Patti Connors was a saint to put up with Jimmy Connors, and that is probably the only darn thing the press got right in all that time.

The way I played tennis was very selfish. I had one thing on my mind, and that was to try to be the best. For those 20 years, Patti went along and made it possible for me to do so. The way she handled everything when I was gone from the family, taking care of both my children, taking care of the house, and then, after doing all that, finding time to be my wife, is truly amazing.

In 2005, I gave an interview to the
Sunday Times
, in the UK, and was accurately described as having “severed all ties” with the sport. The reporter, Paul Kimmage, asked why I’d chosen self-imposed exile, and I told him, “For the last five or six years, the most important thing in my life has been my family. It was nothing against tennis; tennis was my love and passion, but after thirty-odd years of it, I needed a break.”

That was all true, but not the whole truth.

I was at home in August 1998, and Patti and the kids and I were having dinner when Patti said, “Jimmy, I think I need to go to the hospital and get an EKG, because my heart is really racing.”

Patti, Aubree, and I went to the ER, where they saw that Patti’s resting heart rate was 120 and diagnosed her as having atrial fibrillation. They strapped her into a machine that was supposed to put her heartbeat into a regular sinus rhythm. We were there until 3 a.m., when her heartbeat came back down to normal

In addition, Patti had been losing weight for some time and having episodes of dizziness and nausea. It took a few weeks of anxiety and uncertainty before they identified the source of her problems, and in October she was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. They found nine good-size nodules on her thyroid. A week before she was to have surgery, we got our little puppy Tobey. Patti underwent the operation to have her thyroid removed, and luckily none of the nodules were cancerous. But she’ll remain on daily medication for the rest of her life.

Then, in January 1999, I got a call from Mom’s doctor, and he told me that she needed open-heart surgery.

“Listen, before you do anything, I need to call some doctor friends of mine to discuss this.”

“Jimmy, your mother won’t make it until tomorrow night. She needs a triple bypass and it has to happen in the morning.”

I started to panic. “But I have to make those calls. I’ve got to speak to someone.”

“Jimmy, you have to understand. Any delay at all and your mother will not live to see the end of tomorrow. Do you understand what I am saying?”

I did.

Patti was in LA for the day and I called her.

“I have to go back to Belleville, Mom’s got to have heart surgery tomorrow morning,” I told her.

“Well,” said Patti, “you’re not going without me.” I wouldn’t have expected anything less from her.

Patti raced home from LA to Santa Barbara and we made it just in time to see Mom before they put her under. That would have been impossible if I hadn’t owned a private jet, a Westwind, purchased when I established the Champions Tour. I would have been unable to fulfill my obligations to the sponsors and events without it. But the jet was never more important than on that day in January.

Mom looked so small and frail when they wheeled her into the operating room. It broke my heart. Then, when I saw her in the recovery room, it was as though she had collapsed in on herself, like all her vitality had escaped with the surgeon’s first incision. Worse, she was so cold. Patti rubbed my mother’s arm as she slowly came to. “Grammy, it’s me, Patti. Can you hear my voice? Are you in pain?” I had to leave the room.

For the next four months, I slept on the couch next to my mother’s bed in Belleville. She was too weak to feed herself without my help. She’d given me everything. Now it was my turn to be there for her, to do what I could to build up her strength, to do whatever it took for her to recover.

In time, we tried to get Mom to move to California, but she didn’t want to. We even rented a house for her next door to ours, but still she refused. For her, home was home. She had her friends and her students and it was familiar and safe.

By the summer Mom told me to get back to my family, because she was feeling better. “Go home, Jimmy. Look after Patti. Play some tennis. You can’t stop just because of me. It’s not right.”

That was Mom, practical as ever. It reminded me of the time when she was in her late fifties and was robbed at gunpoint in Belleville. She’d parked her car behind a row of stores and had gone across the road to the shoe store. It was getting dark as she left the store, and a guy was waiting for her when she got back to her car. He held a gun in front of her face. Mom stared at him for a moment before speaking. “OK, buddy. You can have my money, but you’re not getting my license or my credit card. It’s too much of a pain in the ass to have to replace those things.” Thank God the idiot went for it.

In the summer of 1999 I played a handful of events while dividing my time between California and Belleville. Then, in November, Patti had to have another surgery. The doctors had been monitoring a growth on one of Patti’s ovaries, and as it continued to grow, they made the decision that it needed to be removed.

In the pre-op room at Cedars-Sinai hospital, Patti and I waited for our friend Dr. Greig, to arrive. We were concerned but not too worried.

A doctor we didn’t recognize came into the room and introduced himself as one of Patti’s physicians.

“I’m your cancer doctor, Mrs. Connors. We need to be one hundred percent sure during the operation.”

Cancer. For a second it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. I felt sick. Patti and I had seen the scans and we knew how big the growth was, and if it was cancer, it was going to be everywhere.

This can’t be happening.

What would I do without her?

Patti says the blood drained from my face.

When they took Patti into the operating room, I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

Tests confirmed it was a benign tumor, but in that moment in the pre-op room I’d been more scared than at any other time in my life. That’s when I decided I was done with tennis.

I’d already made plans to play a couple of events in 2000, and people were relying on me to fulfill my obligations. I talked with Patti and then Mom and we agreed that I would honor my commitments, but after that I would be finished. Honestly, it was a no-brainer for me. Patti and the kids needed me, and so did Mom. My hand was called, so I played it.

Over the next couple of years we still couldn’t get Mom to move to California, but Patti, Brett, Aubree, and I spent a lot of time with her in Belleville. She had recovered from her surgery, but she was never able to get back on the courts. The surgery had taken too much out of her. The combination of her osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis also started to take a toll on her.

On one visit to Belleville, Patti sat down with Mom for a talk.

“Gloria,” she said, “I want you to know that I realize and understand that it’s because of all your hard work, everything that you did with Jimmy, that we have a wonderful life. You made this possible. Thank you.”

Mom never once said to me that she was responsible for the life I’d been able to lead. But I think it meant a lot more to her to hear it from Patti. It’s just sad that it took so long before Mom opened up enough for Patti to be able to say those words. So often over the years, Patti had told me that she understood Mom better than Mom realized.

“I know what she’s protecting, Jimmy. I get that she poured her life’s blood into you. I want her to know that I see that and I love her for it. All I’ve ever wanted is to be part of her life. She just won’t let me in.” What matters most to Patti and me is that it happened in the end.

I guess I had too much time on my hands.

We moved from the ranch to Santa Barbara in April 2001. With the kids growing up and leaving home soon we didn’t need as big a house and property, not to mention the headaches of maintaining a ranch. As much as Patti and I loved the big skies and sitting outside by the pool late at night watching the stars, the ranch was pretty isolated, and we had to be aware of Patti’s heart condition. Her thyroid operation had dealt with the immediate problem, but she continued for years to have irregular sinus rhythms, and both of us would feel more comfortable closer to bigger medical facilities.

I had backed off on the gambling during the time I was taking care of Patti and Mom. Well, not completely. After everyone was back on their feet and we’d moved into our new home in Santa Barbara, the urge to gamble returned. I had bet heavily all during the Champions Tour, and sometimes my habit became out of control.

It’s Vegas, mid-1990s. I’ve just won the event and I’m at the blackjack table with Goldberg. I’m down and I’m pissed. I open the cover of my tennis racquet and dump my winnings on a square. I know how much it is: $70,000.

When the dealer goes to count it, I tell him, “Don’t touch the goddamned money. Leave it there. If you win, you take it. If I win, then you can count it and pay me.”

I’m dealt a 10 and a 6. The house has the same.

“Hit it.”

A 4. I’m on 20.

The dealer turns over his hand. He has a 16 and he must hit. It’s a 5 for 21. He sweeps my money away.

Goldberg and I stand up and leave. At the main entrance I turn to him.

“Fuck it, G. What am I going to do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m broke. Can you lend me money for a cab?”

I’d just lost 70,000 bucks, and although it didn’t feel great, I’d played the game and lost; that’s how it goes. If he’d dealt me 13 and I’d drawn a 10, I’d have been pissed. Who wants to lose before the game even begins? But for him to have 16 and draw a 5 to narrowly beat my 20, well, that kind of action is worth it. But, man, I wish I had all that money back that I pissed away over the years.

Pretty soon the craziness came home with me. I’d spend whole days doing nothing but watching football and basketball, reading six different papers, trying to figure out the patterns, looking for the edge, then making the calls.

“I like Boston minus four and a half.”

In the evenings I’d sit watching the games. I can tell you, not all our TVs made it through intact. Some I kicked in; one I even threw out the window. I was looking for something to replace the tennis, but it shouldn’t have been this. I knew gambling on someone else wasn’t my thing. My best results have always come when I’m betting on myself or making my own decisions. If I have the dice in my hands or cards in front of me, then I’m responsible. But if the quarterback throws a bad pass or a guy misses a basket, that’s out of my control.

But I needed the fix again. That’s what it had become, a fix that I wasn’t even enjoying.

Patti had had enough, and in a two-minute conversation she slapped some sense into me.

“We go out for dinner with the kids and you spend more time on the phone calling the sports lines to find out the scores than you do with us. Is that really how you want to spend your time?”

I needed help, so I attended Gamblers Anonymous. Once. That’s all it took. For five years after that, I didn’t make a single bet. Except at golf. I mean, come on—it’s golf.