The Outsider: A Memoir (8 page)

Once my reputation and my notoriety spread, the agents came calling. It happened pretty much immediately following that first victory in Jacksonville, right after I turned pro. I was happy to let Mom handle the business end of it, allowing me to concentrate on my game. I trusted her judgment completely. Even though she was criticized for it, Mom wasn’t shy about being a manager. Mark McCormack, the fabled founder of IMG, the biggest sports agency in the world, went to her and asked me to join his stable of players. When that didn’t work out, he paid a visit to the La Costa club in Carlsbad, California, where Pancho was now the head pro. McCormack tried his best to persuade Pancho that I’d be much better off with IMG than with Riordan. Pancho took McCormack’s offer to Mom but recommended against it.

“Gloria,” he explained, “if Jimbo signs with McCormack, he’ll just be one of 10 other guys, and when opportunities come along they’ll be ahead of him. He has got to be somewhere where he is number one. You and Bill, you’re doing a good job. Stick with it.”

It wasn’t a big surprise that I got a call in March 1972 to join the US Davis Cup squad for a tie in Kingston, Jamaica. I had practiced with the team the previous fall, so I knew the setup and the captain, Dennis Ralston. I was happy to go and looking forward to representing my country.

The team that met up in the Caribbean consisted of Ralston, Erik Van Dillen, Tom Gorman, Stan Smith, and me—a strong lineup, but not so strong that I thought I would be squeezed out of the singles. Yet that’s exactly what happened: Ralston threw Van Dillen in ahead of me, and I was left to slice the oranges.

I was pissed because as far as I was concerned, I had earned and deserved an opportunity to play. I felt that if I wasn’t there to compete, then I shouldn’t be there at all. As it turned out, none of that mattered. Before practice one afternoon, I got a call in my hotel room. Mom was on the line from Los Angeles, where she was staying in my apartment.

“Jimmy, we have a problem. I’d like for you to come home.”

I didn’t even question her. I took the first flight out.

I had to wait through the night, and then I caught a plane from Kingston to Miami, then from Miami to LA, only to have to stop in Houston on the last leg, due to a storm. The whole way, I tried not to let my fears take hold and think the worst—that maybe Two-Mom had just fallen and injured herself.

I called Mom from Houston to let her know my flight had been delayed.

“Is it Two-Mom?”

“Yes,” she replied, her voice quavering. “She’s gone.”

How could Two-Mom, the woman who had done so much for me, who had made me laugh, chased after my stray tennis balls, cooked and cleaned for me, treated me to ice cream and soda—how could she not be here anymore? How was it possible that she would never see me walk onto Centre Court at Wimbledon, play for my country, win the US Open five times, or any of the things we had dreamed about together? She would never know what became of me. I would never feel her hand on my shoulder and have that feeling of comfort, the sense that “everything will be OK.” We’d been through so much hard work together—in the East St. Louis backyard, in Jones Park, the armory, on the junior circuit—and now, just as everything was beginning to pay off, just as things were starting to get good, she had left us. It wasn’t fair.

Did I cry? Not in public.

Mom had been with Two-Mom when it happened; the two of them were inseparable. They had traveled to Beverly Hills from East St. Louis to enjoy the early-spring sunshine and help me prepare for my first professional summer, once I had returned from Jamaica.

Mom was in the kitchen, making something to eat, when Two-Mom came in from her bedroom. She had a strange look on her face, like some big revelation had suddenly come to her.

“Gloria, I know why they . . .”

That was her last breath. She collapsed, suffering a massive heart attack, and died instantly. Mom watched her own mother die in front of her. The thought of that, and of Mom having to remember that moment for the rest of her life, was like a punch in my gut.

Looking back, I should probably have paid more attention to the hints of Two-Mom’s decline. Coming across her on that landing in my first apartment in LA, when she was wheezing and rubbing her chest, was certainly a sign that she wasn’t in the best of health, but the idea that indestructible Two-Mom might have a weakness was just unthinkable. Her passing shook all of us—me, Johnny, Pop, my dad, and Mom most of all.

I’ve often wondered who the “they” were that Two-Mom was talking about in her final words on earth and also how the sentence ended. I know why they are giving Jimmy a hard time? I know why they don’t want Jimmy to play? She wanted to tell Mom something important, but she never got the chance.

On the flight to LA I had been thinking of two things that Two-Mom taught me, which remain the foundations of how I live my life still: “Take care of your business” and “If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.” Her instructions were elementary, just five or six fundamentals, but that is all you ever really need. As for my tennis, it’s simple: I would not be where I am without the love and hard work of my grandmother.

Throughout my career I carried notes from her in my socks, and I read them before every match and if I ever found myself in trouble while playing. I wasn’t ever embarrassed to pull out those slips of paper. At any time, I don’t care who you are, you have to be able to go back to the basics.

Don’t forget to take the ball early.

Don’t forget to keep your eye on the ball.

Don’t forget to reach up on your serve.

Mom and I arranged for Two-Mom to be taken back to Belleville for a private funeral. Pop said that’s what she would have wanted. She was popular in the local area and it could have been a big public event, but when it came down to it, as Pop explained, Two-Mom cared about family above everything else.

As I stood by her graveside on that March morning, I looked across at my father, my brother, Mom, and Pop, all of us wrapped up in heavy coats against the chill, united in our grief. For the first time in many years we felt like a family, the thing that mattered most to Two-Mom. But she was gone. It made me wonder, had tennis already done too much damage, or was there more to come?

Back at the house, I took Mom to one side.

“I’m done,” I told her. “I’m quitting. Everything that we put into this, all the work, and now just as things are starting to pay off, this happens. I’m out.”

I was serious. I wanted to walk away.

“I’ll go back to school for you, Mom. I’ll get that education you always wanted me to have. I’ll figure something out.”

“Jimmy, that’s your choice. But Two-Mom loved tennis; it was a huge part of her life. She dedicated herself to it so that you could become the best you could be. Do you really want to walk away from all of that?”

I needed time to think, which is something I did best while walking my dog. For years, it had been Pepper by my side, but when he passed on, my schnauzer Charlie took over as my wingman. Walking with Charlie after talking to Mom, I had a vision of Two-Mom standing by the fence in our backyard, slightly crouched, the handbag she always carried clutched to her side, looking intently at me through her wing-tipped glasses, watching me serve, making mental notes to discuss with Mom later. Could I really let her down, after everything she had done for me?

“You’re right,” I told my mom when Charlie and I returned. “I can’t walk away.”

And it was never talked about again. And I still miss Two-Mom every day.

By the summer of 1972, the battle lines had been drawn. Everyone knew that Riordan, my mom, and I were a force to be reckoned with. As for the so-called tennis establishment, screw ’em. It’s no different from how I had been brought up. Us against them, Jimmy, us against them.

The French Open that year was an emotional minefield. My nerves were still raw from losing Two-Mom, and it was only the second time in my life that I had traveled outside the United States. I had always fantasized about walking onto the red clay of Roland Garros and looking up into the stands and seeing Mom and Two-Mom sitting there. Now that was never going to happen and it hit me hard.

I arrived in Paris with a strong reputation on the strength of my two pro-tournament wins, but my concentration wasn’t where it needed to be for me to perform at my best, and I lost in the second round to Harold Solomon in straight sets. I had grown up with Harold, and we were friends, but he was also my nemesis throughout the course of my career. He was an amazing player, like a human backboard—there seemed to be no shot that he couldn’t return—and that ability to keep the ball in play for endless rallies would give me and a lot of other guys fits.

I could rationalize the defeat as the result of my grief over Two-Mom, but I could feel the pressure building, and it was pressure I was putting on myself. I was desperate to show the world that the game Two-Mom had worked so hard to give me was good enough to compete with the best.

A month later, I’m on the grass of the Queens Club, in London.

Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.

Jimmy, you’ve got to serve. Jimmy, serve. Serve.

Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce.

Toss it up, Jimmy. Toss it up. Serve.

I can’t. I need to count. That’s 10, no, 11. Start again. Bounce. One bounce. Two times, six times, no, eight.

I’m facing the veteran Australian Neale Fraser and struggling to find my rhythm. The umpire threatens to default me if I don’t speed things up, but it feels beyond me. I need to bounce the ball a certain number of times before I serve, and if I lose track I have to start over again. It was kind of like jumping rope when Pop was training me.

It’s my first match in London, in freakish 100-degree heat, and I can’t stop bouncing the ball. I’ve bounced it 42 times and finally someone in the stands yells out, “Come on, Connors, serve already!”

“I can’t,” I answer sheepishly, and just a little pathetically.

Bounce, bounce, bounce,
and JUST TOSS THE DAMN THING!

And I do.

Thank God, now I can play.

I went back to the hotel that night and actually practiced bouncing the ball and letting it go. Can you imagine how restful that evening was? What I didn’t realize then was that what was going on with me actually had a name: obsessive compulsive disorder. I began to feel obliged to check at least 10 times that every door in my apartment was locked, every window closed, before I could go to bed for the night. I had trouble sleeping, worrying that I had overlooked something; I would drag myself out of bed repeatedly, test everything once again, return to bed, and immediately become convinced I had probably miscounted. Even getting out of the apartment could be a chore. I’d be at the point of leaving when it would hit me. Check again, check again, and check again. You’ve got to be sure. Living with OCD was a pain in the ass.

It took a physical toll on me—sometimes I found myself passing out from exhaustion—but I didn’t realize that I needed to get help. How could I go to a doctor and tell him I couldn’t leave my own house? I had to beat this on my own.

At major tournaments like Wimbledon and the US Open, signs of my OCD went way beyond my relentless ball bouncing. I insisted on being driven to the stadiums by exactly the same route every day, or acute anxiety would set in. Weirdly, I had no trouble sleeping in hotel rooms because there was only one door, but at home it was a different matter. The constant need to be sure everything was OK brought on new compulsions. To turn on lights I had to flick the switch three times first; before taking a drink I’d tap my glass four times; at traffic lights and stop signs I had to tap on the brakes four times. (Aren’t you glad you weren’t behind me?)

I ultimately managed to control the ball-bouncing—sort of. I’d allow myself four bounces, but if that didn’t feel right, I’d have to keep at it until it did, releasing the ball only on an even number. Over the last 30 years I’ve gotten a handle on most of my various rituals. I’ll say it again: I hate being beaten more than I like to win. OCD has always been a part of my life, but I don’t dwell on it. It only makes it worse. I’ve had three hip operations, and I need an even number. How do you live with that?

If only I had been able to talk to Two-Mom about the OCD. Of course she would have said, “Oh, get over it. There’s no such thing. What do you want for dinner?”

7

LOVE GAME

A
week before the Queen’s Club tournament in June 1972, I attended an official dinner to celebrate the US team’s victory in the Wightman Cup. They had defeated the British 5-2 in a contest played that year at Wimbledon. One of the US team members was Wendy Overton, a friend of mine and a top-10 doubles player, who needed a date for the dinner and asked if I could go.

I probably wasn’t very good company for Wendy that evening, though, because all through the meal I couldn’t take my eyes off cute, young Chris Evert across the way. I knew who she was—Mom and I had caught a ride to Coral Gables with Chris and her parents back in 1965—and I wanted to get to know her better. I would glance over at her table and see her smiling at me, or I would try and catch her eye when she was in mid-conversation with the Wightman Cup team coach, Bill Graves.

When dinner was finished, I walked over and introduced myself. It was a nice opening to take the conversation to another level.

I was always told that you should always leave a party with the girl you came with, so at the end of the festivities, I made sure to take Wendy back to her hotel. It didn’t take me long, though, to find out just what room Chrissie was staying in.

For the first time that year, the Queen’s Club was also hosting the ladies’ Rothmans grass-court championship, which was the warm-up tournament for Wimbledon, so it wasn’t hard to make sure I ran into Chrissie again. The dining-room area of the club was small, and one day when Chrissie was sitting there before one of her matches, I pulled up a chair next to her at lunch and turned on the charm faucet! I wasn’t looking for a steady girlfriend. But I thought we could have some fun together.

Later in the week, I called her at her hotel and asked her to dinner.

We went to the famous Rib Room, at the Carlton Tower Hotel. Then we moved on to what had become my favorite stop in London, the Playboy Club, a haven for every vice I ever had. It had great food, was full of beautiful women, and upstairs there were blackjack and craps tables. Does life get any better than that? Not for me, it doesn’t. But that night I can honestly say I just wanted to be with Chrissie. We had a lot in common—the same anxieties and pressures, the same expectations and hopes. Chrissie could be serious-minded and dedicated, but when she relaxed she was easy to be around, and I could make her laugh. That night we ran around London, acting like kids in high school—which, by the way, she still was.

Some things stay private. Or as Two-Mom always told me, “Keep a little mystery about yourself.” On the way back to our hotel, we kissed for the first time. I know this will take a lot of you by surprise, but I played the gentleman and said goodnight.

Chrissie and I both won at Queen’s, taking my year’s total to three victories—and then it was on to Wimbledon, where the press caught on to us as a couple. They constantly snapped photographs as we walked around the grounds or when we hit the town after our matches. She was only 17, but Chrissie was already making a name for herself in tennis—she had reached the semis of the US Open the previous year, losing to Billie Jean King—and I wasn’t fooling myself which one of us the papers were interested in. It really didn’t bother me; I just thought the whole thing was fun, running away from photographers and ducking behind cars. We were just kids having a good time.

When the draw for Wimbledon was announced, it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to ease my way into the tournament under the radar. Instead, I was scheduled to play the second match on Centre Court, on opening day, against seventh-seeded Bob Hewitt. Playing on Centre Court in my first match at my first Wimbledon was something I had dreamed about my whole life. What the hell. There was no more exciting place to launch a career.

I had heard many stories about the whole Wimbledon experience from some of the older American players, like Charlie Pasarell and Stan Smith, but nothing impressed me more than the Rolls-Royce, which I was told would pick you up and take you to the grounds. Wow! Nineteen years old, and I’m going to be riding in a Rolls? Yeah, I’ve arrived. So you can imagine my disappointment when I walked out of my hotel and saw that my ride was not a Rolls—they had cut that out the year before—but instead just a regular old taxi. And just when I thought I was hot shit.

As it was my first Wimbledon, Bill Riordan, Pancho, and Mom were all there. Mom always watched my matches; we never thought anything about it, and I don’t think too many people really paid much attention to her. Not until that Monday afternoon of my opening match on Centre Court, that is. There, as I faced Hewitt, the myth of Gloria Connors, the pushy stage mom who never let her son out of her sight, was born.

“Come on, Jimmy,” Mom called out, midway through the second set.

That’s all she said. She called out three words of encouragement to her son at a crucial stage in the match. Jeez, given the press reaction the next day, you would have thought she had run onto the court like a streaker and incited a riot. Overnight, she became the loud-mouthed American woman who didn’t understand, or didn’t care, about the sacred traditions of the All-England Club. Come on, what’s that all about? I guess they didn’t like it that the new generation, the one I represented, was pushing out the old. Mom was an easy target. We found the whole thing pretty funny, especially when a tabloid cartoon showed me holding hands with a giant gorilla as I walked onto Centre Court and stood looking up at the referee. The caption read, “Sorry, everyone, Mom couldn’t make it today.”

Those British hacks: Oh, what a sense of humor they have.

I caused a major upset by defeating Hewitt, who had arrived on the back of wins at two prestigious tournaments staged in England in those days, the Bristol Open and the British Hard Court Championships, in Bournemouth.

When I walked off Centre Court, I discovered that my clothes had been moved from the junior locker room, or Locker Room 2, into Locker Room 1 with the rest of the big boys. I had arrived, and it didn’t take long.

I beat my good friend and lifelong rival, the great Adriano Panatta, of Italy, in the third round before losing in the quarters to Nasty, the second seed, in straight sets. It wasn’t bad for my first visit to Wimbledon, and Chrissie, on her debut, made it through to the semis, where she lost to Evonne Goolagong, the young Australian champion, in a much-anticipated match.

I may not have won the tournament, but I did leave London with a girlfriend.

I gave a less than dazzling display on the grass of the 1972 US Open, losing in the first round to Tom Gorman in five sets (Nasty went on to win his first Slam, beating Ashe in the finals), but that major disappointment was offset by three more tournament victories, in Columbus, Cincinnati, and Albany, taking my career total to six by the end of the year. They were pretty decent results and more than justified my decision to turn pro. If only Two-Mom had been there to see it.

The new year then brought a string of wins on the Riordan circuit, which I was determined to use as a springboard for my second trip to Europe. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out the way I wanted, especially not in Paris. If it hadn’t been for the doubles, I’d have been on a boat back across the English Channel straight after my first-round loss to the unseeded Mexican Raúl Ramírez, a defeat I marked by hurling a couple of racquets across my hotel room in disgust. I’d given a lousy performance. In one respect I was lucky: My aim hadn’t improved from earlier in the day. If it had, I’d have been adding the cost of a new lamp to my hotel bill.

Nasty and I made it through to the doubles finals, where we lost to Tom Okker and John Newcombe in a tight five-set match. Given that Nasty also had the singles final to play (he defeated Niki Pilic, of Yugoslavia, in straight sets), it was no great surprise that we ran out of steam. In fact, Nasty didn’t drop a set the entire tournament, except when he was playing with me. I’m not reading anything into that. Well, not much.

The contractual dispute between the WCT and the ILTF had resulted in several players being barred from taking their place at Wimbledon the previous year, and in 1973, matters deteriorated further still. At the center of the controversy this time was Nasty’s opponent in the French finals, Pilic. It wasn’t clear whether he had refused to play in a Davis Cup tie or wasn’t allowed to play, but the consequences were that his national authority suspended him. The ITLF backed the decision, and Pilic was dropped from the Wimbledon draw. In protest, most of the ATP members withdrew from the tournament, leaving just a few top players like Nasty, Jan Kodes, and Roger Taylor, of England. This watered-down field played a part in my promotion to sixth seed, and my target was a place in the semis, if not the finals.

I coasted through the first four rounds, dropping only one set, on the way to a meeting with Alex Metreveli, of the Soviet Union, in the quarterfinals. There, I ran smack into an Iron Curtain. Bang! I was gone, but at least Nasty and I were alive in the doubles.

Nasty, the number one seed, had gotten dumped from the singles in the fourth round by American Sandy Mayer, and afterward he called me at my hotel.

“Jimmy, Nikki wants to leave. She’s had enough.” His wife, Dominique, didn’t want to hang around for what she saw as the sideshow of the doubles.

“I get it, Nasty, don’t worry. If you don’t want to play, no big deal. It’s not worth it.”

Maybe he didn’t want to let me down—after all, it was only my second Wimbledon—or maybe he didn’t want anyone to think he was giving in to Dominique too easily, I don’t know, but Nasty decided to stick around.

We laughed and joked our way to the finals, where we faced the Australians, John Cooper and Neale Fraser. We decided that every chance we got, whenever Cooper and Fraser got anywhere near the net, we’d hit lobs, over and over again, and no one played like that on grass. They were quality players who probably didn’t think this was nearly as funny as Nasty and I did, and they fought hard, taking us all the way to the fifth set before we eventually won. It was my first Grand Slam title, and although it was only in doubles, I couldn’t wait for the formal presentation in front of the Centre Court crowd.

But by the time the officials were ready to present, it was no longer us, only me. Dominique had eventually had her way and told Nasty he couldn’t hang out after our victory. The crowd applauded when I walked, alone, out onto the sacred grass, with an awkward grin on my face, and as I held up the twin trophies, I imagined Nasty laughing as he sipped his first drink on the flight home to Romania.

Not long after, Spencer Segura and I went to Romania ourselves, for an exhibition match in Bucharest. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. Remember, Romania during this time was behind the Iron Curtain, yet when we arrived, even as two young Americans, we didn’t have to clear customs. We were treated as VIPs because we were with Mr. Nastase, and normal rules did not apply.

Driving from the airport to the hotel meant passing through numerous military checkpoints. Normally, this would have meant having our papers scrutinized, or maybe even a search of the car, but not for us. Each time we approached one of those security posts, the officers in charge would recognize Nasty’s car and immediately raise the barrier and move off to one side, standing stiff and proper in their huge gray coats, saluting as we passed. All Nasty could do was smile.

We weren’t kidding ourselves that we were seeing the real country, however. This was Romania for the 1 percent, and Nasty was their superstar. He took his responsibilities to his countrymen seriously. He didn’t hide himself away. He walked the streets, waving to the crowds and talking to anyone who approached him. The only glimpse Spencer and I ever had of the real Romania was at the airport, when we were leaving. Waiting at the gate to board our flight back to London, we were surrounded by a group of locals, pleading for help.

“You are American, you help us get on the plane, please?”

“Here, take this piece of paper. It has my name and address. Please, when you are back at home, arrange a visa for me to leave here.”

“Can you buy me an American passport? Please, I must have one.”

It upset me that we couldn’t do anything to help. Once we were on board, I looked out of the window across the runway, where a dozen men were clearing the snow off the tarmac with brooms. By one of the hangars I could see airport workers huddled around the flames of a fire they had lit in an old oil drum. Away from the glamour of Nasty’s Bucharest, Romania reminded me of those old black-and-white newsreels of the Great Depression, where people lost everything and yet still kept going.

Nasty had the language and the temper of the devil but a face that plenty of women loved. At the same time, he recognized the important position he held, representing Romanian culture and promoting his country as best as he could. He was charming, funny, and caring. He loved to party and stay out late, but drinking and gambling were not his thing, and I never saw him take drugs. As I said, for Nasty, it was all about the women, scores of them, each more beautiful than the next. Nasty claimed in his autobiography that he’d slept with over 2,500 women. I couldn’t tell you if he was exaggerating, since I was only around for 1,500 of them. His strength and stamina both on and off the court were impressive, to say the least.

Once, when Spencer and I were in London, Nasty wanted to go out with us. You know this is only going to lead to trouble. As always, Nasty attracted a gorgeous woman, and he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. So back to the hotel we went, where Nasty stashed his handful in my room, which was right next door to the room he was sharing with his wife, Nikki. Spencer and I played checkers in the corner (two out of three of us were losers), and now all of a sudden Nasty’s trying to be quiet since he remembered that his, um . . . wife was next door. He opens the door to walk out into the hallway, tells us goodnight, turns, and is face to face with Nikki. How he got himself out of that I’ll never know. Oh, and I forgot about that one. Make it 1,501.