I'm sorry, but this book reads (if the excerpt in Tennis Magazine is a good indication of the way the book reads) as if Bodo channeled Sampras rather than help Sampras write the book. You take a rivalry between Sampras and Agassi, and the best you can come up with about their down moments off the court is:

"We sat around the locker room and talked about this or that, mostly about sports, and it was very comfortable. Andre was inquisitive. He liked to compare notes on players and he was eager to see how others perceived the same things he was thinking about. Andre had a great grasp of strategy; it was a great asset, given the type of game that he played. I respected Andre for another big reason as well: I knew what he was capable of doing on a tennis court."

Is there not a better way Sampras (Bodo) can bring Agassi to light or life? What about a personal anecdote the two players shared or an actual conversation. For example, take "Break Point," the book I wrote with Vince Spadea, who certainly had less to do with Andre than Pete did, and a passage written in that book:

"We practiced before the tournament began (Scottsdale), and then Andre took a couple of guys in his entourage and me to lunch at TGI Fridays. He was driving a big black Suburban he called the "Black ***," and I sat in the back watching "Aliens" on one of the three screens while Andre flew around Scottsdale like Jeff Gordon. At Fridays, Andre ordered a chicken sandwich and fried calamari, and I thought, 'This guy's roots. He's worth eight million dollars and he's eating fried calamari at Friday's?'"

Which passage is more interesting and describes Andre in a more personal and colorful manner. I, personally, don't want to read the same bunk I've read about Sampras and Agassi in countless Tennis Magazine articles, mostly written by Bodo, in an auto-biography by Sampras. When I plunk down my $25, I want to hear how he truly feels about Agassi, and delve into some personal and professional confrontations they've had. I hope I get more than the same old stuff about Pete when I read Andre's book.

   I hear what you're saying, but ultimately doesn't a large part of it come down to the subject himself and how much is he willing to reveal?

I was interested in his mind-set facing Agassi and he touched on that a bit in the book saying essentially anytime he got Agassi moving he always felt good about his chances because athletically he was superior. But what I got from the book is Sampras (at least outwardly) didn't seem to be the most introspective guy in the world when it came to the actual tennis - either that or he is more introspective than he lets on and just wasn't wiling to share a lot of that in the book. For instance, one part of the book he says the only time he remembers actually scouting an opponent was before the Wimbledon semifinal vs. Voltchkov where he looked at some video of Voltchkov and that was only because he had never seen Voltchkov before. Also, my sense reading it was he was a bit of a loner who wasn't spending a lot of time in locker rooms or hotels hanging out with other players.

   Some of the parts that resonated with me the most were scenes where Sampras was with a more outgoing or assertive personality - like the Davis Cup final vs. Switzerland doubles match with McEnroe when McEnroe completely lost it on court and Sampras, in a rare display of emotion basically told McEnroe to shut up and let it go - or the times when Sampras himself felt or showed emotion: like the outer court match at Wimbledon when he screamed "shut the F--- up!" at the British fans after beating the last British hope (then denied saying it int he press conference afterward) or when he was going for the record sixth straight year at #1 and was so stressed his hair was falling out in clumps and he was getting ulcers, etc.

   On the one hand I hear what you're saying on the other hand it kind of reminds me of his playing days: Agassi, to many people, is more charismatic and interesting and Agassi was almost always more revealing or at least more apt to articulate his thoughts and feelings (arguably one of the best players of the Open Era in terms of dissecting a match and his thought process,e tc.) whereas Sampras was a much more introverted person and a more intuitive player who, according to the book, seldom spent much time dwelling on opponents or tactics. So that in itself poses a challenge in that you've got a guy whose nature is not to sit back and be over analytical in terms of his tennis or career and in writing a book you're asking him to do precisely what he seldom seemed to spend a lot of time doing. In other words his strength as a player can be a weakness as a writer (or subject) because essentially you're asking him to do something he's not accustomed to doing.
 

   I think the interesting thing to me is that from a very young age he was able to sustain that sort of single-minded focus and self-belief. At one point in the book he says that from an early age he was convinced he would be a pro and looking back it strikes him as kind of blind faith because of all the things that could have derailed him: injury, apathy, lack of growth or progress, etc.

   Where I felt he could have done more or gave more was in terms of the relationships he had as he went along. Sometimes I felt those sections were kind of muted as if those people and events were kind of white noise or background music he never wanted to interfere with his job. You point out the Agassi aspect perhaps they felt getting too much into Agassi could have overshadowed Sampras in his own book and it sounds like they had a cordial relationship - they just didn't hang around much. But that scene at one of the Davis cup meetings where Sampras gets pissed at Ken Flach for askig how he's going to serve agaisnt a particular opponent was kind of revealing to me: he wasn't a group-orientated kind of guy and he didn't seem to like to think a lot about matches. He was much more of an intuitive player who just let it flow which obviously made fora  tremendous career but poses a problem when you're trying to get a guy to reflect on that career when self-reflection and analysis is not a strength.

    I was surprised I don't think (from what I can remember) he wrote almost anything about Delana - the first girlfriend who lived with him for a while, after the beginning of the book he doesn't get much into his family, and I thought Gullikson's influence was kind of diminished in the book, but that's probably because that's how he felt. The Fischer aspect was interesting in that on the one hand he credits him with shaping his foundation but ont the other basically suggest Fischer really doesn't know much about the game (he says Lansdorp thought Fischer was a quack and wouldn't let him come near the Lansdorp sessions) - he knew how to recognize talent and how to build a player, but not necessarily coach himself, according to what I got out of it. But I hear what you're saying about the anecdotes: for instance in the McEnroe book I still remember the story of his parents taking him to Central Park where McEnroe, at like age 6, had such great eye-hand coordination he was lining shots off his dad's whiffle ball pitching to the point where people were coming up to his parents convinced the 6-year-old McEnroe was a dwarf or circus performer because no one had seen a kid that young with that level of eye-hand coordination or McEnroe riding the subway to school every day and seeing a "blind" man begging for change and how the guy removed the glasses at one point and kind of gave McEnroe the wink to let him know he really wasn't blind at all, which McEnroe suggests reinforced his own idea that there are a lot of scam artists int he world and things aren't as they seem.

   I liked the book overall and always like Bodo's writing, but to get back to your original point I do thikn it comes down to the subject too and how much he or she is willing to reveal. Someone like Ashe, for instance, was perceived as remote at times, but reading his books when he wrote about how he felt a strange kind of kinship with McEnroe (when Ashe was McEnroe's Davis Cup captain) because McEnroe was able to express the sort of darker impulses that Ashe himself always suppressed, that to me was kind of fascinating. To me, that was a case of a guy who was actualy able to step outside himself and kind of analyze who he was and why he made the choicese he did (which can be difficult for anyone to do) and I didn't get that same kind of revelation reading this book maybe because to borrow Sampras/Bodo's own phrase he "wasnt' wired that way", but felt it was still worthwhile. I am interested to read Agassi's as well because if Agassi really opens up and gives you the grit and details of his evolution it's a fascinating story.
 

It all depends on how you want to approach writing a pro athlete's auto-bio for him. Bodo and Friedman, with Sampras and Blake, respectively, wrote the book in deference to their subjects. They wanted to make them look as good and gallant as possible. Whether it was with John Starks, Walt Frazier or Spadea, I didn't take the same approach. I wanted to show them as close as possible to the way they are, with warts as much as heroism. With Spadea, we talked about the blinders he wore during much of his life. How he has had a checkered go of it with women and that he doesn't love all of his American brethren on tour.

Why talk down to the reader? If they examined their own lives they'd know that this is the reality of most human lives and to expect differently b/c a person is a pro athlete know to many and admired by many doesn't change that dynamic.  The admissions and honesty doesn't have to be brokered just to create controversy, but if a player's career has been colored by controversy, for example with Spadea, the rejection of PMac to put him on the 2004 Davis Cup singles team or the many coaches he's had during his career, I think it's foolish to try and whitewash the rifts.

We all know Agassi was a very controversial figure. Hopefully, his co-writer and he will embrace those topics rather than run from them.

I think it was Ilie Nastase who was asked about his book and he said I haven't read it yet.

Actually, I think that was Charles Barkley. I don't think too many people read Illie's book, either, so Illie has an excuse there. Too many athletes write their books after they retire and that hurts book sales. Maybe it helps honesty b/c they feel they can express themselves more openly after their out of the locker room than when they're in it. But the best athlete auto-bio I ever read was "Ball Four," and I think that was b/c Bouton was still mired in the thick of things. The second best was Bill Bradley's "Life on the Run," and Bradley was still playing, too. The third was Clyde Frazier's "Rockin' STeady," and Clyde was an all=pro when he wrote it.

I heard Jim Bouton in an interview discussing Ball Four. He said Commissioner Bowie Kuhn hauled him into his office and demanded that he retract everything in the book and blame it on his co-author Lennie Shechter (hope I have the name right). Bouton said that he got so much coverage from Bowie Kuhn's stunt that he sold thousands more books and the publicity was far more than he could have ever received on a standard book tour. That was the same Bowie Kuhn who scheduled playoff games in late fall and would not wear an overcoat to show that it really wasn't freezing or snowing. 

I woud say that Johnnie Mac and Andre are probably much more animated in conversation than Pete Sampras.  I wouldn't analyze much deeper than that.  All the world's a stage and Pete considered himself a tennis player while Andre  prided himself an entertainer.  Mac would and continues to do anything for attention.  Pete let his racquet do talking.

Lendl,

That's a fair and probably accurate statement, but then if Sampras saw himself only as a tennis player, why did he choose to write a book? No one was forcing him. There weren't book publishes bidding for his book the way they did for Agassi. Obviously, Pete either wanted the adulation writing a book can bring, the ego boost, or the money, probably all three.

Or Pete might have been inspried reading Break Point and said to himself, that was so good, I think I want to write one too )  The timing would suggest so,

It's a great book so far from what I have read. Perfectly representative of Pete as he was on the court, generally contained and private but also very honest too at times. Very well written by Bodo, he is definitely a GREAT writer. Before it came out RP sent me a lot of the anecdotes and they are hilarious. I sent them to a freind who LOVES Sampras and he loved them too, some are really funny. But then my friend read the whole book and enjoyed it but was a bit disappointed because he wanted to know more about Pete's personal life rather than just the tennis.

But Pete is Pete and his nobility and quiet dignity are part of his appeal.  Just as Vince's quirkiness and unique personality is what makes him so likeable.

 

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:

Yeah, that's a good point: Pete (and Bodo in writing it) stayed true to himself and in that sense the book is successful. And those instances in the book where Pete reveals his temper - the anecdote playing doubles with McEnroe vs. Switzerland in the Davis Cup final was one of my favorites in the entire book or when Pete gets really pissed because he says CNN's Jim Huber refers to his wife, Bridget, as "the Yoko Ono of tennis" (sounds like Pete was so incensed he probably would have taken a shot at him had he seen him face to face) or when Pete screams at the British fans at Wimbledon to "shut the F--k up!" after beating the last British hope - are telling because there is that sense there was a kind of cauldron of emotion within churning away at times he suppressed that, which may explain why he had the ulcers, lost clumps of his hair, etc. while trying to hold on to #1 for the sixth straight year.

In the sense of how he approached the game it was pretty simplistic - he really seldom seemed to spend too much time and energy on strategy because he was such a great player and so confident in his game (When he was on) seems like he just felt if he played to his level the other guy was almost always going to have to adjust to him rather than vice-versa (obviously clay is an exception). As tennis fanatic, I would have liked a bit more details on some little things like how he developed his serve. Because at one point he says his serve was always pretty good when he was in juniors but it was more like a cricket bowler's motion - a bit stiff and over the top - then in his second or third year on the tour he says it "just kind of clicked...." but he doesn't really articulate how or why and seemingly doesn't really know the answer. So here you have arguably the greatest serve in the history of the sport that he suggests just kind of clicked (made me feel like the old Robert Johnson went down to the crossroads legend). But in retrospect maybe that's one of the things that made him such a great player - he was obviously a tremendously gifted athlete, he worked very hard as a junior (he credits Lansdorp for just drilling him on that mid-court forehand shot over and over and over when he was a kid and how that shot became such a big weapon for him as a pro) and he kept his approach very simple - in other words he seldom seemed overly analytical.

A great point he makes in the book was he felt one of the real keys to his success was that he rarely choked. He said there were times he was just flat, times he played poorly and obviously times he just got outplayed, but he didn't recall too many times where he had a match in hand and just choked it away. I got a similar reaction from a friend that Scoop's friend had: he was looking for some more personal info, but given he's always been a pretty private guy, not really surprised by that. In press conferences, Pete would sometimes show that real biting sense of humor in a one-line sarcastic response, so I kind of wish that came through a bit more, but he kind of suggests he felt burned by the media when he did let loose (don't know if anyone remembers that NY Times Magazine cover story on the Agassi/Sampras rivalry back in the '90s where Pete gave the writer total access and he came off looking a little like a self-centered frat boy while Agassi was portrayed as a more sensitive, sensible, worldly character). Sure, there are things I would have liked to have learned more about, but still It's well worth reading, IMO.

I agree with Scoop

 

Pipe down pardners....an earthquake didn't just happen.

 

Pete is Pete. And the book is exactly what I would have expected coming from Sampras. Pete Bodo may have dressed it up a bit more.  Perhaps many were hoping for a more in depth, behind-the-scenes, or tell-all book from Pete.  But that wasn't Sampras' style.  

 

Spadea is quirky, unique, and had to use every bit of it to squeeze out a book interesting enough for anyone other than a serious interest in tennis to read.

 

Sampras was a single-minded, extremely focused guy. I still feel he had a significant chip on his shoulder, and he never was able to express himself well enough, or with enough humor or self-deprecation, to make the general public (even most tennis fan) really connect with him.

 

He'll always be contrasted with Agassi. But it's an unfair comparison.  And I don't think Pete would trade his career results with Andre for the adoration or popularity Andre enjoyed.

DMan1,

 I tend to look at Sampras-Agassi as the Nicklaus-Palmer of the tennis world.  Nicklaus accomplished a great deal more than Palmer on the course, but Palmer was always the more popular and more charismatic figure.  Nicklaus was too focused, too direct, too "dull", etc. 

The more time passes though, the more people choose to remember Nicklaus as a beloved figure whose popularity rivaled that of Palmer. 

I think the same thing will start happening with Sampras vis-a-vis Agassi.   

I wish Pete had taken a chapter and described how he played each of his top opponents-Agassi, Becker, Courier, Henman etc. He could take one match with each and analyze what he did to win or what he didn't do and lost (not that he had many losses). Arthur Ashe wrote an article many years ago for SI about how be beat Jimmy Connors at Wimbledon when Jimmy was considered invincible and Arthur was consider over the hill. It remains one of the best tactical discussions about tennis you will ever read.  

Vinko:

   You would be interested to note that Pete reveals in the book he used to blast the "Hey Song" before every big Grand Slam match.

   Just kidding.

   Actually, that was a great part of the book - at the end he lists his top rivals, assesses their strengths and weaknesses and does talk about how he played them. He has everyone from Edberg to Becker to Krajicek to Korda to Rios to Muster, etc. And suggests that Michael Stich was one of the toughest opponents for him to play. So he does touch on that at the end of the book and I really enjoyed that part of it.
 

My heart skipped a few beats when I read about that Hey Song in Pete's book. I was just about to write a sternly worded letter to Pete when I saw the just kidding paragraph. That was a close one.

Here is my idea for Pete's book for the next printing. He could include a CD with commentary about his most memorable matches. His first slam against Agassi at the Open would have to be included as well as that classic match with Correitja.at the Open. He could also cover the big serve matches with Goran at Wimbledon and his loss to Federer there. His best match from Austrailia would be the comeback against Jim Courier and he could toss in his early matches with McEnroe and Lendl to show how his game matured. He could get these players to come on the CD and comment on how they played against him.