From the "superbrat" of tennis to Davis Cup captain -- quite a transformation.
John McEnroe, who stirred up crowds with his spectacular play and volatile on-court behavior, was a recent guest of Gary Miller on ESPN's Up Close. McEnroe discussed his current role as U.S. Davis Cup captain, and looked ahead to his team's next match against the Czech Republic. McEnroe also discussed his relationship with Pete Sampras.
An edited transcript of McEnroe's March 28 comments follows.
Miller: When we look back at your "superbrat" days, do you laugh at it? Do you get embarrassed?
McEnroe: I enjoyed parts of it. I think that you saw some intensity and some effort, but you know, it's a question mark with tennis these days. At least people knew I was into it and I laugh in a way, because of all the things that go on now in other sports. These guys are literally murdering people, which is no laughing matter, and yet I'm sitting there yelling at somebody and all of a sudden because it's tennis and they think of tennis players as some guys who wear long pants, or some sissy sport, which is a matter of fact I grew up thinking it was and shied away from it initially. My goal when I grew up was to sort of bring it to the masses. When I went to public tennis courts, I'd see people yelling and cursing and throwing their rackets. They relate to the game the same way as I do. It's a very frustrating game. It's difficult to learn and that they would relate to me as a person. I always found it funny when I played the U.S. Open (I grew up in Queens), you're lucky if you get from the airport to your apartment or house and people have been calling you a jerk only 10 times, in the car! To me, the fact that people start calling me "jerk" and say, "Come on McEnroe, play! You jerk!" I say something back to them and they seemed like they are surprised; that to me was funny because that happens all the time.
Miller: Does any of it have to do with being an individual sport? Do you think you might have not been so crazed and angry in a team sport where you are relying on other people?
|  | | John McEnroe's on-the-court mannerisms added spice to the pro tennis scene. |
McEnroe: I think that you see that, for example in the Davis Cup. You're working together, even if it's a small group of individuals, you have to try to cater to their individual personalities. I'm not going to sit out there, when (Pete) Sampras is playing, and start going crazy, because that's not his personality. (Andre) Agassi's got his thing. Some guys need to be pushed. When (Chris) Woodruff played the fifth match (vs. Zimbabwe, in the first round), at the end of the second set and we're two matches all, and one set all, the crowd is going bananas because Chris is up set point in the second set and has lost that set, and he's starting to tell me he's getting tired. I said, "Wait a second, we've gone all the way down here. There's a tremendous upside to you winning this match. You're going to come back and be a hero. It sounds corny but for whoever was watching that day on ESPN, I think people saw something different that they normally don't see in tennis, and it was just not permissible at that time. You got to shake them up and say, "Listen, don't tell me you're tired and don't tell me that this guy is starting to play well. You're better than this guy." That's where the aspect of knowing what the other guy's personality comes into effect. As a matter of fact, the night before, Chris said to me, "Be more like yourself." The first match I felt I did a poor job coaching. I was sitting back and I didn't want to be the center of attention, I wasn't playing, after all, at the end of the day these guys have to play. It's not me out there playing unless I decide that I'm going to go out there and play the best of five sets, which I'm not in condition to do at 41 years old. I'm good for a couple of sets. At the end of the day, you've got to push them and prod them, but they have to go out and play the match. I just felt like he needed at that time and I know that he'll look back on that when I sort of got into his face a little bit. He came through as well as I've seen a player do on such tough conditions and he's going to remember that for the rest of his life.
Miller: You gave them a standard football, basketball, get-in-their-face pep talk when they got down on that match, didn't you?
McEnroe: I did. I felt initially I was very quiet. Like I said the first day, I was sort of sitting back and I felt like that's not me, and even the player's felt that. "What's wrong with John? Is he sick?" It takes time and I'm not out here all the time coaching. The Davis Cup is a little trickier. You're playing four weeks a year, hopefully, that's the maximum. So you're out there and everyone has coaches. Every player down there had their own separate coach. We've got cooks, stringers, trainers, this, that. There are so many more people than when I was playing the Davis Cup. You have to pick your spots and it takes time and to go down to Zimbabwe which is right after the Australian Open. Agassi just came off of his tremendous victory. Pete and Todd Martin had pulled out at the last second. Woodruff had been home in Tennessee for 28 hours. You're talking about a serious rag-tag team that we put together there.
Miller: What is the current state of your relationship with Sampras, who is pretty sensitive about the fact that you got on him about pulling out (of the match vs. Zimbabwe). He said, "I've never tanked anything in my life." Now he's on your Davis Cup team.
McEnroe: I've learned with my own children that the key to anything is communicating. What happened was basically we have to communicate more. Before he had even pulled out, I did a story in an English newspaper where I would talk to the guy and comment on the matches in the tournament. He (Sampras) had always talked about how difficult the trip was going to be to Zimbabwe, how tough it would be for him and if he had a tough loss, like he ended up having against Agassi (in the Australian Open). I was watching him, and he was hitting second serves 120 mph, and that was a great match, particularly that fourth-set breaker, so it was hard to believe that he couldn't go play Byron Black and beat Byron Black and literally have to play one match. We could be up 3-0, 3-1 and that would be the end of it. That was tough to swallow, and I had to look at myself and say, "I wasn't really prepared for Plan B." I felt like I worked hard to explain to Pete how important it was, I felt for tennis and for Pete Sampras, to play something that we don't look as selfish as we normally look. After all, tennis IS a selfish game by nature, you're out there all by yourself. But there's something magical about sort of getting together, even if it's just for a couple weeks a year, to do something for your country to me, and to try to tell them that. We've had great moments. Pete and I won the Davis Cup in '92. We played doubles together. He said he loved me after the match. I felt that was a fantastic moment. It was a very emotional moment for me. I was going through a tough personal time. I didn't even feel like I could step on the court. This was in '92. I felt that my family, my children, my teammates, the country, maybe that's a little corny, but the people there were into it. I felt like they rallied behind me and it was a tremendous moment. I know Pete, in '95 as well, had a great Davis Cup run where he basically single-handedly won. I think my job is to sort of make sure that this ear is where all the agents were talking to him and people who don't care about him, in my opinion, and people that frankly don't get it. I had to sort of talk to him in this ear and explain to him how important it was for the sport because you can't have one of the greatest players of all time not play. Even though he didn't play the first one, I felt like, give it a week or so and let us both cool down a little bit. Experience the moment, because it was a great moment. I didn't want to take anything away from Woodruff. An hour after Chris had won that match, I already had the USTA president saying, "Listen, we got to talk about Pete." I said, "Can it wait until tomorrow morning?" This guy had just experienced something unbelievable and we rallied as a team. We all know that we have to deal with that situation and it's a tough one, because here we are, we got to get Pete back on track and we did talk a week later and I think we cleared the air and I think we're on track again. At the same time it's tough to have to tell people and give people a call, like Chris Woodruff and Jim Courier and others that you feel are team guys and tell them, "Listen, thanks a lot for coming to Zimbabwe, but maybe we'll see you at some point in the future."
Miller: You have played the senior circuit as well. We talked a little bit about your outbursts in the beginning. Johann Kriek, a guy whose very mild mannered?
McEnroe: (interrupts) Wait, wait, wait. I don't know about that.
Miller: He said, "If I'm the only one who has the guts to say that he should be kicked off the tour, fine. I work too hard to be treated like this. That guy McEnroe has got a screw loose." Pat Cash has said the same things. When other guys that you have played with say negative things, does it hurt more, does it mean anything more?
McEnroe: I think it does, but you're talking about two crazy individuals. I don't take it too seriously. These guys have got a couple screws loose also. You take it with a grain of salt. I think the good news is that we're out there on the Seniors Tour. I kid around out there. They don't pay me unless I question a couple of calls. If I go out and beat a Kriek 6-2, 6-2, they're like, "What the hell is wrong with McEnroe, he hasn't said anything." Listen, there's not people knocking the doors down to watch the Seniors Tour. I do think it's a viable alternative and sort of an icing on the cake for the main tour. You see some personality. You see some tennis where you actually have some sense of a point building up and what people get from the sport. I think it can be a positive addition, but at the same time, we're lucky if we have a couple of events the entire year that it's on (the TV coverage) the same day. I watch wrestling, I'm thinking my God, my kids, they keep telling me, "I wanna go to the wrestling." I'm thinking we should do more than that. I should give Connors a little pop on the change over. We should get out there and do something nutty instead of pretending like we have to be really serious and nice. I think I'm doing something right. This may be wrong to say and I know at times I have gone too far, but I mean, come on, we're not talking about Wimbledon here. Without Connors and myself, I believe, and Borg. That's like saying, let's have the Seniors Tour of golf and forget (Jack) Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. Arnold Palmer is 104 years old, God bless the guy, and I loved Arnold Palmer. But people still, to this day, when they go to a Senior Tour event, they're following Arnie. Arnie's Army is still hoping to get that one last breaking of par.
Miller: So you think they come to see you make outbursts, just like in NASCAR, they want to watch somebody crash?
McEnroe: I think NASCAR is bigger than that. I must say, I respect how well they do. There's no question. They go to a hockey game, and unfortunately they want to see a fight. Then they see something absolutely obscene happen with (Marty) McSorley where it's just way beyond what is acceptable to anyone. Then you say you want to go to a NASCAR race, but do you really want to see somebody possibly kill himself? So in tennis, we're talking about a couple of whimpy guys going out there and yelling at an umpire and maybe getting into an outburst that's hardly at the level of seriousness of God forbid something really bad happening, or in a boxing match when you see a guy die in the ring. To me, if anything, I think tennis is a really safe game, relatively speaking, compared to the other ones. I do happen to think it's a great game and we should encourage more people to play because there are a lot people out there who have a tough time with the team concept. Maybe they need to be out there by themselves and they would enjoy that type of competition. I really think it's a great sport. I wish it was in the high school curriculum or grammar schools more.
Miller: How often do you change your mind after you make bold statements? You have little girls now, are you willing to admit that you're wrong when you make outrageous statements?
McEnroe: At least I'm honest... what about the politicians pretending like they never said what they said in the first place. There's no question that I sort of looked down upon women's tennis when I was playing, because it would be annoying when people would say, that woman could play on the Men's Tour. You got to be kidding. Every now and then you have a player like Chris Evert who would put those people in their place and she showed respect to the male players. "We'd lose 6-0, 6-0," which of course is what the guys want to hear. At the same time, I think that women's tennis has done an incredibly good job at promoting themselves and now all of a sudden you see more personality in women's tennis than you do in men's tennis. You have Agassi obviously, and Becker was around before, but if you look at the women's game, the Williams sisters and what (Martina) Hingis did when she played Steffi Graf last year and you have the (Monica) Seles story and you have what Steffi Graf did and (Lindsay) Davenport is the classic example of someone who was struggling with herself, the way she looked and her conditioning, and all of a sudden it's an unbelievable story. To me, I kid around now that the male players should take equal prize money while they can because in a couple of years the women are going to say, "We're not taking equal prize money, we want more than the men." The sad thing is that no one cares about the fact that the men play the best of five sets and that the women play the best of three, or the fact that the men play better. That's not the issue. I think that it's the same as the NBA and the WNBA. If you put the WNBA on right after the NBA, you'd realize there's a major difference. I think the difference is the same in tennis. Don't let people kid you into thinking that the women can go out there and compete with us. At the same time, it's not about that. It's about entertainment. If people want to come out for an hour and a half and see Lindsay play Venus Williams, they should pay the money for that and the men better do something about it because there's a bunch of guys out there that people aren't relating to.
Miller: How do you handicap the Davis Cup (quarterfinal round vs. the Czech Republic)?
McEnroe: I handicap it like we should pretty much win all the matches, in all honesty. We've got Agassi and Sampras, there's two of the greatest, so right away, that's four out of five (matches) if they play up to their capability. I think they're going to be pumped up in L.A., at the Forum, who knows what's going to happen at the Forum, so I think it's a great opportunity for tennis. I think ticket sales are doing well. There are some seats still available. It's exciting for a Davis Cup to play in L.A. It's a great opportunity to sort of get that entertainment aspect into it.
Miller: You're the Davis Cup captain, yet you still would have liked to play doubles and they didn't allow you to. Who makes that decision?
McEnroe: The captain makes the decision. I could actually pick myself, but I'm not sure how good that would be for team morale. I'm hoping if it ever came to it, that a Sampras or Agassi would say, "listen the only way could win this is if I play with you, John." Then I would consider it. I think I'd get more pleasure, I have been part of five teams that have won, it's been very pleasurable. I would take pleasure in winning some as a captain and hopefully helping some players improve themselves, get better, instead of me going out there. Of course, I still have those dreams. I can't lie and say, there wasn't a part of me that didn't want, when I saw how poorly we were doing in the doubles in the last 7 or 8 years, to be part of it. I felt that I could make a difference. I feel like I'm a good team guy. I've been around. Doubles is a lot different than singles; you only have to cover half of the court. Your hands are the last things to go in tennis. I still feel like my volleying ability and what I bring to the table would have helped. Tom Gullickson, who was the captain for six years, thought otherwise. He thought I was joking. "Who's this old fart? What is he saying?" I've been playing quite a bit on the Seniors Tour. I felt that I've been playing this way for 7 or 8 years.
Miller: You had a chance to win the mixed doubles at Wimbledon last summer with Steffi Graf. You've been bitter at Steffi for backing out near the end, and you have her fiancee on your team, Andre Agassi. How does that make it interesting?
McEnroe: Well, bitter is the wrong word. I was more disappointed than anything because I really believed we were going to win. I did say before we started, I said "Listen, Steffi, if we start this thing, let's finish it because I believe we could lose in the first round, but at the same time we could win it." We were having a lot of fun doing it. I think Steffi was having a great time. It was too bad. Of all things, I remember coming into the locker room, and being upset about it and who was there but Andre (Agassi). I'm like, "How could she?" A couple of months later, Andre says, "Hey guess what, I'm with Steffi." I went, "Really?" That was quite a learning experience. That shows you that anything can happen.
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 U.S. Davis Cup captain John McEnroe joins Gary Miller on Up Close.
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