The Outsider: A Memoir (6 page)

That was the kind of thing Pancho saw as his challenge—and mine. He told me not to worry about what anyone else said. “They’re tall, Jimbo”—it was OK if Pancho called me that—“but they move like turtles with broken legs. Listen to me, and I can help you be a champion. You have a choice: You fight to be the best, or you settle for being one of many with all the others.” That was a big moment for me. It was then that I fully realized I wasn’t in California just to escape East St. Louis. With Pancho’s help, I was there to be number one.

I worked hard with Pancho, but it wasn’t any less fun. He’d run Spencer and me all over the court from corner to corner. We’d be exhausted and he’d be laughing his ass off because he knew we never wanted him to think we weren’t up to the task, no matter what he threw at us.

“Boys, you’ve got to understand this is what you’re going to face when you take on the best.” There was always a purpose.

Pancho’s methods were similar to Mom’s. If I made a mistake in practice, like not staying low enough on a backhand down the line, he would stop the session, explain the problem, and show me exactly what I’d been doing wrong and how to fix it. If I would miss a backhand down the line, he would actually come onto the court and show me how to do it. I was a visual learner, so being able to see how it was done correctly was important for me. Pancho didn’t want bad habits creeping into my game, like not moving my feet properly or not getting my racquet back soon enough. If I messed up in a match, he would wait a day or two before telling me what the problem was. I remember a match against Roy Emerson at the LA Tennis Club during which I didn’t take the ball early enough and move forward at the right time. Pancho said nothing for 24 hours. Then he took me back on the court and demonstrated how I
should
have played Emerson.

He was, and remains, my mentor, along with Mom. Without the two of them, I would never have become a champion. What Pancho taught me during those years at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club would fill 10 volumes if I tried to compile the lessons. But it really comes down to three words: confidence, aggression, and strategy.

When I started up with Pancho, my groundstrokes were already in place. Running down every ball came naturally, and my concentration and footwork were probably as good as anyone’s. Thanks to Pop’s training I could reach the ball quickly, which gave me extra seconds to decide where I was going to hit my return. Pancho’s training added a layer of sophistication to my game.

His first step was to make me more aggressive. I had always been a traditional baseliner, keeping the ball in play and slugging it out in long rallies. Pancho taught me to put my opponents on their heels, forcing them to place shots inside my service line.

Pancho called that area of the court the “winning zone.” “If you have the ball there,” he would say, “you control the point, you have options—short, deep, volley.” Pancho showed me how to put my opponent in a defensive situation and bury him. My killer instinct took over as my confidence grew.

“Coach,” I used to say to Pancho before a match, “I’m going to make that guy walk bowlegged like you.” He loved that.

If I took a chance and missed, that was OK, because I knew I’d get better. I had no fear, especially on the big points, the ones that make a difference in the match. You can be in the best shape of your life, hitting the ball great, but if you can’t come through when it counts, you ain’t walking away with the trophy. That’s where Tiger Juices come in.

A huge part of my tennis education with Pancho was on the mental side of the game. It’s a given that every professional can hit the ball well, but the difference between the 100th best player in the world and the number one is minuscule, and it isn’t found on the court. It’s in your head and guts. They didn’t call Pancho “Sneaky” for nothing. He was brilliant at messing with your head. He would do the opposite of what you expected. If you moved in to cover a drop shot, he’d lob you; if you stayed back to force a rally, he’d come up with an angled volley. Pancho always knew the right shot to play, because he used the score to his advantage.

We used to sit at one of the tables in the club snack bar and Pancho would draw diagrams on cocktail napkins to illustrate how to play key points. The strategy would depend on the match situation. If you’re ahead, you do one thing; if you’re behind, you do something else. At 30-15, you can force the next point, move in quickly on your return, and put your opponent under immediate pressure. If you’re down 30-40, you have to nail your first serve, and make sure you pull your opponent out of position, then keep him pinned back with deep balls to prevent him from attacking. It sounds simple, yet making it happen is anything but.

Before my matches, Pancho would pull out those cocktail napkins again to show me the strengths and weaknesses of my opponent and how I could combat their particular approach to the game. He would create these scenarios, like it’s 30-30 on the other guy’s second serve, then explain how the guy would probably play the point. When these moments came up in a real match, I could anticipate them and get the edge. Or he would notice certain traits, like how to tell from the angle of my opponent’s racquet if his shot was going to be short. Or the way an opponent tossed the ball up on his serve might indicate whether it was coming down the center or out wide.

Pancho didn’t have to keep hammering any of this into my head. I ate it up. I devoured every word. Tennis isn’t rocket science, but Pancho simplified things in a way that made perfect sense. Because I trusted him, I wasn’t afraid to incorporate his instructions into matches, no matter how high the stakes. I never, ever thought I had reached the point where I knew everything about the game. I worked hard every day. There was nothing else in the world I would rather have been doing.

All the top juniors in Southern California found their way to the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. The competition back then was the best in the country, and not only between young players. On any given day you might see Arthur Ashe or Stan Smith hitting balls on the back courts. The world’s best players would come to us, or we’d find them at UCLA or USC.

Almost every guy I played would have a different weapon, a different skill—big serve, baseline, power, net game, height, speed, topspin, you name it—and I faced these variations on a regular basis. Nothing I came across in the world’s major tournaments ever surprised me.

Tennis never became a drag, because we never played in the same place two days in a row. If we weren’t at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club or over at one of the LA colleges, we might be up in Bel Air playing at Bobby Kreiss’s court, in the garden behind his house. Spencer and I would sit around having a Coke, watching Bobby’s father put his three sons through their paces, and after a while we’d join in. We were all friends, so there was more to practice than just the tennis; it was a chance to be with our buddies while we worked.

Some of Pancho’s pals—like Bobby Riggs, Pancho Gonzales, Charlie Pasarell, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, and Roy Emerson—would stop in to see him when they were passing through Los Angeles. Any time these guys were hanging around and talking, Spencer and I would be in the corner, soaking up as much information as possible. We never spoke ourselves; we just listened. At the end of the day, Gonzales might say to me, “Come on, kid, and hit some balls with me.” Me? Play with Pancho Gonzales? Hell, yes!

Gonzales wasn’t an easy guy to get to know—he could be moody and difficult—but after a while he seemed to accept me, and I loved watching him play. For a big man he was surprisingly elegant, moving about the court with agility and finesse. And he could do things with his racquet that I’d never seen before, particularly when he was at net, where he angled his volleys with deadly precision. I learned a lot, not just by studying his game but by seeing the kind of killer instinct he brought to every match. “The great champions were always vicious competitors,” I remember him saying. “You never lose respect for a man who is a vicious competitor, and you never hate a man you respect.” That seemed a pretty good code to live by.

One afternoon, I’d been watching Gonzales play for about an hour. After every couple of games, he walked to the back of the court and beat his Spalding Smasher against the concrete wall.

“Excuse me, Mr. Gonzales, but with all due respect, what the hell are you doing?”

“Kid, look here. The top of my racquet is out of shape now. I want to see how the ball reacts when I hit it off the strings there. Maybe I can find a new shot. I don’t know, but I’m going to try and figure it out.”

“See this tape around the rim? It’s lead,” he continued. “It makes the racquet heavier so I can let the racquet do some of the work. Here, take some and try it yourself.”

That proved to be a huge part of my success with the T2000, because it added the extra weight that I needed to be able to keep that racquet under control. If I was tired, I would take the lead tape off. If I was feeling good, I would add a little more for increased power.

During my first year in Beverly Hills, I went with Spencer, Dino, and the two Panchos to Phoenix for a pro-am tournament. We flew there on a plane owned by Kirk Kerkorian, a businessman who helped make Las Vegas into what it is today. No one loved playing or being around tennis more than Mr. Kerkorian. I was buzzing before we even got to the airport. Private jet?! Oh, yeah.

I played Gonzales in a singles exhibition. It was sweltering in Phoenix, and during one of the changeovers Pancho paused to give me a piece of advice.

“Kid, I want you to drink some orange juice. It’s hot and you need the fluid.”

I wasn’t really an OJ guy, but this was Pancho Gonzales, so I said, “OK.”

“Just take a couple of sips,” he warned me. “Too much and you’ll cramp.”

At the next changeover, he told me to do the same thing again, and the next, and pretty soon I started to stagger. He had been giving me screwdrivers in that heat! You know, vodka and orange juice. You’d think at 16 years old I would have noticed. I could barely hit a ball and the two Panchos couldn’t stop laughing. They taught me a good lesson: Tennis and alcohol don’t mix—not on the court, anyway.

At the time I saw it as a sign that I had been accepted, but, more than that, the two Panchos were showing me that it was OK to have some fun and to entertain the fans while you were playing.

At some point during that trip I called the landlord of my apartment to ask him to check up on my car. The Corvette had become like a pet to me, since I didn’t have my dog.

“Yeah, about your car,” the landlord said, “your friend came and picked it up. I gave him the spare keys you left. Next time you probably should tell me things like that before you leave.”

What?! “I didn’t have someone come to take my car,” I told him. “What the hell?”

“Well, he knew all about you and he had a set of keys to your apartment. He said you must’ve forgotten to say something about it.”

“Someone is screwing with you. Call the cops and tell them my car has been stolen.”

I gave him the phone number at my hotel and when I came back later that evening, there was a message for me to get in touch with the police station.

“No, Mr. Connors, we don’t actually have your car, but we did find it. It was pulled over this afternoon with three men in it. We spoke to the driver and everything checked out, so we let them go.”

“What do you mean, it checked out? I never said anyone could take my car. Who was driving?”

“Your brother, John Connors.”

That figured.

I should’ve guessed it was Johnny and his buddies taking some time off from Belleville. Sure, guys, come to LA, we’ll go to the beach and drive up and down Sunset Boulevard in my brother’s convertible. I had to laugh. Sort of.

Not long after the trip to Phoenix, I watched Pancho Gonzales at the Pan Pacific tournament. He missed an easy shot, and in frustration he spun around and threw his racquet toward the back curtain, just barely missing the line judge’s head. Gonzales didn’t blink; he just walked over, picked up the racquet, and went back to playing. The crowd started shouting and booing, while Gonzales acted as if nothing had happened, going on to win the match. It was clear he couldn’t care less if they were for him or against him; he just played the way he wanted to. I liked that.

People used to say Pancho Segura encouraged me to act up on court, but that’s not true. It wasn’t one person in particular but the environment in which I learned the game. Those old pros knew how to entertain, they understood what people wanted, and in the same way that I absorbed parts of their games and made them my own, I also took on their attitudes. Tennis in those days was struggling to find its place in the sports landscape, so something had to be done to attract larger crowds. The guys today don’t seem to see tennis in the same light; it’s all business to them. I understand that; they all play great tennis, but I’ve got to ask: Where is the show?

If Pancho Segura didn’t encourage my theatrics on the court, neither did he discourage them. It used to make him laugh when I would turn to the line judges and suggest, for example, that they “eat me.” I used to ask myself: Just what does that mean? And what kind of sick fuck comes up with that?

But Pancho always had a word of warning. “Jimbo, remember it’s all about timing. Don’t let anything get in the way of your tennis. Just make sure after you act up, you get your concentration and your head back into the game.”

Let’s just say I couldn’t follow every single piece of advice he gave me.

5

THE MAIN LOCKER ROOM

I
’ve been a gambling man all my life.

As a kid I’d bet on anything: a game of pool or the football or basketball game playing on TV. Hell, I’d throw quarters against the wall just to see which side turned over, heads or tails. Pop said gambling ran in our blood, and I never was a boy to disappoint him. The riverboat casinos that popped up on the Mississippi in the early 1990s only seemed to confirm the truth of Pop’s statement, as you’ll find out later. Whether it was tossing quarters against the wall or starting a riverboat gaming company, it was all the same to me.

The truth is, I formed bad habits. If I win three games, I want to win five; if I win five games, I want to win six. I play until I can’t anymore. Excuse me, sir, know where I can find a hot meal?

At the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, we’d sit by the pool and play backgammon whenever we weren’t practicing. When Pancho and Bobby Riggs were around, they might try to get some action going. Come nine o’clock at night we usually had a live one, maybe Spencer versus Riggs’s son, Larry, or me against some guys from UCLA who thought they could make a little extra spending money. It was never any kind of formal agreement—too much pressure, right?—but we all knew where we stood. If I was playing I didn’t mind putting down some cash on myself, and Pancho once staked $10,000 of his own money on a match between me and Erik Van Dillen, the top under-18 in the country. To hear Pancho tell the story today, adjusted for inflation, it was a million bucks. But no one, he said, would take the bet. Too bad. I would have won Pancho a shitload of money.

How could I not love hanging around that world of Segura and Riggs? Seeing how they operated, and their passion for the game, made a big impression on me. I learned all the little things from them, like playing fair, staying friends after a match, and being able to make a deal on a handshake, things that became a part of my life throughout my whole career. All the downtime I spent talking with Pancho elevated our relationship to the level of more than just mentor and protégé. He became like a father.

Two-Mom introduced me to Bill Riordan, a brash, cigar-smoking maverick and a promoter who ran his own circuit around the United States. He would come to play a huge role in my life throughout the first half of the 1970s. He’d slip me a few bucks under the table for expenses when I played for him as an amateur, which was the first time I felt like I was being paid for playing tennis.

Two-Mom had recommended Bill because she thought he was someone who could make things happen. She was right. He was Barnum & Bailey rolled into one, a promoter’s promoter who could carry on a conversation with three different people at once, on three different subjects, and never miss a beat. When he swaggered into the room, you knew something good was going down. He was a big character—flamboyant, fun to be around. Bill never minced words. He once sent Donald Dell, a co-founder of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and a very influential figure in tennis, a telegram that read, “Dear Donald. Fuck you. Stronger message to follow.”

The Riordan circuit, which he named the Independent Players circuit, gave me a place to hone my skills, and to gain confidence in my game. The first tournament I played on Bill’s tour was the National Indoor Championship, held in a gymnasium in Salisbury, Maryland. And it was there that I met Himself. Mr. Ilie Nastase.

It’s February 1969. I’m 16 years old and Nastase has just beaten me 7-5 in the third set. The minute I get into the locker room I start throwing my racquets around. I had opportunities on the court and I blew them. I’m about as pissed as I’ve ever been, and now I have to get on a plane and go back to high school. Then Nastase walks in. He doesn’t speak much English but somehow communicates that we should go out and get some dinner. Despite the language barrier, we manage that night to start a friendship that has lasted to this day.

“Nasty,” as he liked to be called, was already famous when I met him. In fact, he was the first international tennis star planet Earth had ever known. He was plenty big in the States, but around the world he stopped traffic. You couldn’t walk down the street with Nasty anywhere overseas without being mobbed. His vice was women, and they loved his good looks, his charm, and his floppy jet-black hair. Hanging around with him could flat wear you out.

He was the ultimate player—practically born in a pair of tennis shorts. He had the game, and when he played it he made everyone else look like Skippy the Punk, me included. The way he played, his imagination on the court, was unequaled. Nasty’s only shortcoming, if you can even call it that, was his mental capacity to handle pressure. If he had something on his mind, he couldn’t shake it. He’d hang on to it game after game after game. His emotions would get the better of him and end up costing him matches.

In a lot of ways, Nasty was my second mentor after Pancho. I liked his attitude, his style, and his flair. I was less impressed by his work ethic; he didn’t bother practicing. He felt, because of all his talent, he didn’t need to. I, on the other hand, had to work for everything I got.

In May 1970 I reached the finals of the Southern California men’s tournament, where I lost to Pancho Gonzales. He was 42 years old but still one of the best players in the world. I was a few months shy of my 18th birthday. Anyway, the match would soon pay some dividends.

A month later, I beat Bobby Kreiss in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, to win the Southern California juniors tournament, and in September that year I played my first Grand Slam. I qualified to make the first round of the US Open only to lose to Britain’s Mark Cox, on grass. Grass? As far as I was concerned that surface was for cows, not tennis.

You would’ve thought that making the main draw of my first Grand Slam would’ve been a big deal for me, but it wasn’t; it just felt like the next step in a natural progression. Believe it or not, I had other things on my mind, like playing doubles with Pancho Gonzales. Segura had asked Gonzales to enter us in the US Open doubles. He wouldn’t give other players the time of day and he’s going to play doubles with me? Holy shit!

Gonzales could have had anyone as his partner, but he agreed to play with me, perhaps because he saw my potential in the Southern Cal final.

We made it through to the quarters, a pretty decent achievement, given my lack of experience on grass. We beat some good teams, probably solely based on how intimidating Gonzales was. Whenever we came to a major point in a match, like 4-4 in a best-of-nine tiebreaker, and we could pick who faced the serve, Gonzales would say, “You take it.”

What?

“Uh, are you sure, Pancho?”

He would smile, “You take it, kid. Don’t be afraid. Trust yourself. And don’t miss!”

Pancho knew I was young and inexperienced, and he also knew that putting me under pressure would show him whether I could handle it or not. He only encouraged me, pushing me to the limit he thought I could handle. Deep down he had a soft heart, but because he was such a fierce competitor, he couldn’t let just anyone see it. His excitement when we won was never extreme, because he knew we had another match to play, but I will never forget how he treated me after our loss. It wasn’t a big deal and he would explain to me why we’d lost and what we probably should have done to win the match. He was proud of the way I handled the pressure and felt that, if I continued playing, I could take my place among the best. His faith in me was no small thing and helped push me to the next level.

The Pacific Southwest Championships was held in Los Angeles right after the US Open and attracted a star-studded field. It was a massive opportunity for me to show again that I could play with the big boys. I won five qualifying matches to get to the main draw and a match against the great Australian, Roy Emerson. Roy had come into town after a defeat in the doubles finals at the US Open and a fourth-round singles loss to Stan Smith. I’m sure he wasn’t looking forward to facing an 18-year-old who had something to prove.

When we walked onto the court, there was hardly anyone in the stands other than Pancho, Spencer, and a few of my other good friends.

Pancho had used up half a dozen cocktail napkins briefing me on Emerson’s game. He told me to hit the ball low to his forehand and keep him away from the net.

“Whenever you can, Jimbo, play to that. Attack him hard. Don’t let him settle.”

The historic LA Tennis Club has seen all the legends, but this match on the poolside court turns out to be one that will be remembered for a long time. After I take the first set on a tiebreaker, word starts to spread and spectators start filtering over. The standing-room-only area for the fans quickly fills up.

I lose the second set in a tiebreaker and feel the match slipping away. Then I start to remember everything Mom and Pancho have told me. Don’t be afraid of the big points. Trust yourself. Be aggressive. Don’t let up. No fear.

I have a break point early in the third set. Now I’m dealing with my first opportunity for a major win. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Relax. Don’t think, just play; all the hard work and preparation have been done. I remember Pancho’s advice to hit deep to his forehand, and when Emerson gives me a short reply, I hit a high forehand volley into the open court for a winner. Game, set, match, Connors.

When I shook hands with Emerson at the net, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Despite my outward confidence, it wasn’t until I actually beat one of the world’s best players that I really started to believe I could play at that level.

I was in shock as I made my way off the court. Pancho and Spencer were the first ones to congratulate me. I think Pancho was prouder of me then I was of myself, and to celebrate he said he was going to take us out for a dinner at my favorite restaurant, the Steak Pit, on Melrose in West LA.

“Give me a minute and I’ll be ready,” I told Pancho and Spencer on my way to the locker room.

There were two locker rooms at the LA Tennis Club, and before the match I had been given a place in the second one, designated for juniors. Now it was a different story. As I walked down the hallway, an official came up to me and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Connors—your clothes have been moved into the main locker room. Please follow me.”

He showed me where they had put my bag, and it was right next to Gonzales’s locker. I realized as I stood in that hallowed space that I had finally reached the big-time.

I left the club with Pancho and Spencer and made sure I was out of sight before I went berserk. It finally sunk in. Once I got to the restaurant I called my mom to let her know the result of the match. There was dead silence on the other end of the line. “Mom? You there?”

She was speechless.

My run didn’t end there. I defeated the South African, Ray Moore, in the next round, before losing to Clark Graebner, one of the highest-ranked players in the United States at the time, in the quarterfinals. Even though the loss bothered me, beating Emerson had just made my young career.

After graduating from high school, in 1970, I won a tennis scholarship to UCLA. At the time I thought if things didn’t work out for me in tennis, I might become a lawyer. Maybe I should’ve stayed with that plan, because over the years lawyers have screwed me over more than anyone else. I’m sure I would’ve made a decent defense attorney, because I never would have allowed my clients to be steamrolled.

There was just one flaw in my early legal ambitions, and that was my academic issues. Unable to concentrate on reading, my mind was always somewhere else. I’m not someone who can juggle a lot of conflicting thoughts. That’s why tennis works for me—when the ball is in play, that’s all I need to think about.

Still, I had to figure out a way to get through college. So I paid a senior to help me out—$20 for every term paper. I didn’t do it out of disrespect for the teachers; there just weren’t enough hours in my day to deal with studying. I’d get in from playing tennis at eight o’clock in the evening and I’d be too tired to hit the books. As far as I could see, this “extra help” was the only solution. The senior would Xerox “my” paper and give it to me to put in my own handwriting. It worked for a while, until even the chore of copying over the assignments got to be too much and I made the mistake of handing in one of the Xeroxed pages. The professor wasn’t impressed and called me out in front of the whole class. What could I say? I was busted.

It was the best one year of college I ever attended.

I had decided to go to UCLA after Coach Glenn Bassett told me that if I would come to UCLA he wouldn’t recruit anyone else that year. He was an excellent motivator and worked hard with me on my conditioning. He left my game alone and focused on my fitness and strength, with sprints and long-distance runs as well as lots of hitting during our four-hour practice sessions. With his guidance, and the experience I was getting from playing tons of matches against older, more seasoned players from other schools, my game took another step forward.

Given that I was a freshman often pitted against juniors and seniors, I struggled in some matches but grew stronger as the season went on, and I felt I had a legitimate shot to win an NCAA title in singles. I faced my old friend and nemesis Roscoe Tanner in the final and knew I was in for a dogfight. Roscoe had a huge serve that he used to keep his opponents on their heels. But I was able to return most of his rockets, and I caused him problems with my groundstrokes. Ultimately, I simply refused to lose and my fierce desire got me through. Not only did I take the singles title on my own; I became the first freshman to win the NCAA championship—but I also helped UCLA blow away the opposition in the team standings. All in all, not a bad way to cap off my college career.

After winning the NCAA, I was supposed to jump on a plane to London to play my first Wimbledon, but I had injured my shoulder from playing so much tennis and I had to take some time off. Once my shoulder felt stronger, I went to Louisville to practice with Nasty for a couple of days before my next event. Arriving at the tournament, I made my way to the locker room and there’s Eddie Dibbs in the process of painting Nasty black. What the hell? I knew Nasty and Arthur Ashe were playing doubles, and I also knew their relationship was strained at best, even if deep down they had affection for each other. But this?