Image is Everything
Not surprisingly people have been raking him over the coals for this. And not surprisingly Agassi will go on 60 minutes to ask for compassion.
Now I've never been much of an Agassi fan. Nor was I all that keen on Pete Sampras. I like Courier and to be honest I didnt' follow tennis all that much in the 90's. Agassi has always annoyed me, with his obvious pandering and calculated planning of his image. From those Canon commericals to his marriage to Brooke Shields he just seems to try way too hard for my liking. Sampras wasn't better. Dude was dull as fuck. The only thing I liked about him was his white man's afro.
With that said though, I'm kinda shocked at all the virtol that Agassi's been receiving. Not to say that he didn't bring it on to himself. Of course he did. But the reactions have fascinated me.
"Why is he saying this now?"
"Ugh I can't believe the ATP covered for him while others got banned!"
"He's such an attention whore!"
"This makes tennis look so bad! Why is he doing this?"
And many more. It seems a lot of the responses pertain to the last statement. The image of tennis is tainted now, many claim, because of this. Never mind the likes of McEnroe, Connors, and Nastase's bad behavior on court has already sullied tennis's image as a wholesome sport decades ago, but in spouting this response, posters are behaving no better than the man who declared "Image is everything" all those years ago. And while many are hopping mad because of the ATP's response to his excuse of testing positive for meth, well, what else could've they done at that time? If they have investigated it would've been a three month ban at the most. WADA didn't exist then and at that time drug abuse in sports primarily focused on steroids which crystal meth isn't. And they didnt' actually cover for him so much as chose to believe his lie. In 97 he wasn't much use for them promotion wise anyway. He was playing horribly and had to resort to playing challengers to get his game back. Sure he's famous but at that time he was getting publicity for all the wrong reasons. Why would the ATP waste their time promoting a guy who seemed like he was a has been then?
So what have we learned? Simple. If a kid grows up to be a public figure of any sort, be perfect. And if they can't be perfect then they sure as hell better make sure they cover up their flaws and never expose them to the world. That message seems kinda sad to me thuogh. On the one hand yeah, you put yourself out there and you have to be prepared for potential backlash. But at the same time, shouldn't we demand honesty, not just from athletes, but from everyone? So many people live lives of quiet desperation and fraud because they are either scared of harsh public judgment, or they have a lot to lose career or family wise. Whatever his reasons for writing this book, I'm not gonna condemn Andre. I don't plan on buying it, but I won't condemn him either.
