Citizen Segura’s American Tale

Never let it be said you cannot be born with nothing and end up with everything.

At least that’s the way it is in the U.S.A.

And, with apologies to Bruce Springsteen, you don’t even have to be born in the U.S.A.

Just ask Pancho Segura.

Pancho, you see, was not born in the U.S.A. He wasn’t even born in a bed. Heck, in his case, it was not even as exciting as being born in the back seat of a police car.

Pancho Segura was born on a barge adrift on an Ecuadorean river. His mother was trying to get from the family home in Quevedo to a hospital in Guayaquil and the river was the only “freeway” available. Unfortunately, the current was slow and the barge had no power of its own.

“We were a very poor family,” he said. “When you were poor in South America, you were poor.”

This is a man who has had a fabulously interesting life, maybe even a fabulously lucky life. It is not easy to get from where he started to where he is today. It is not easy to get anywhere off a barge, for heaven’s sake.

Segura, 70, is the director of tennis for La Costa Resort Hotel and Spa. That’s nice, but that is not why this has been such a special week. A gushing Segura became a U.S. citizen Thursday. That’s a highlight.

“You get what you put into it in this country,” Segura said. “You work hard, like I did and still do, you can make it. It probably helps if your great-grandfather came over on the Mayflower or your grandfather went to Yale or Harvard or MIT or the University of Pennsylvania, but this is the only country in the world where everyone absolutely has a chance.”

Segura’s success story is a special one, strewn with special people.

His father was a caretaker for one Juan Jose Medina, an Ecuadorean who made a fortune in the import-export business. Medina became his Padrino . . . his godfather. Medina got him a job as ball boy at an exclusive tennis club.

“I made some money putting in the lines and the nets and cleaning up the courts,” Segura said, “and I got to play two or three hours a day.”

This was warm, a caretaker’s son with no real money of his own learning the game in an exclusive club.

Segura learned the game so well that he became Ecuadorean champion and ultimately South American champion. Another guardian angel, Ecuador President Galo Plaza, had gone to school at Georgetown University. He saw potential in young Segura, so he arranged for a scholarship at the University of Miami.

This youngster certainly was developing some friends in very high places.

And Pancho Segura has not been one to squander opportunities. He won three national collegiate championships at Miami. He won national clay court championships. He won national indoor championships.

He came and he stayed.

His game brought him and his adopted country gave him a yellow brick road to fame and good fortune.

“This is the greatest country in the world,” he said, “particularly for athletes. This is where athletes can make money and be respected.”

Of course, total respect was a little elusive because Segura was playing the sport of tennis before its time. He turned professional at a time when the moguls who ran the sport looked down their lorgnettes at anyone who would do anything as despicable as taking money for playing such a pure sport.

Segura and chums such as Pancho Gonzalez had to veritably barnstorm to make their fortunes. They would play for six months in the United States and veer off to places such as Africa and India and Australia and Hong Kong.

“I played on islands that were specks in the Indian Ocean,” he said, “and I played for the sheik of Kuwait and I played at midnight in Madrid for $1,000. Errol Flynn used to send a car to pick me up.”

These guys did not travel with agents and psychologists and strength coaches. They traveled with each other and tried to beat each other’s brains out. They would make maybe $60,000 a year and pocket $18,000 after expenses.

“Nowadays,” Segura said, “guys get $75,000 for two sets.”

It is different now, but Pancho Segura likes where he has been and he likes where he is. He is pleased that he is now Pancho Segura, U.S. citizen.

But for the sport of tennis, life would have been considerably different.

It was long ago when his collegiate coach, Gardner Mulloy, put it in perspective for him.

“If it hadn’t been for tennis,” Mulloy told him, “you’d be back in Ecuador chasing alligators or climbing coconut trees for dimes.”

Pancho Segura never has forgotten that.