Agassi’s Latest Winner Comes Off the Court

In these times of crisis, the world of sports tends to be like most other segments of society. It has more talkers than doers. It is easier to rise to the pulpit than to the occasion.

Last weekend, in this city struggling to recover its pre-Sept. 11 glitz, a 31-year-old man in a dark suit, head shaven, walked onto a stage at the MGM Grand to address a crowd of about 7,000. . He wasn’t tall, nor particularly husky, and as he made his way to the microphone with a slightly pigeon-toed gait, it was a little hard to fathom that this was, indeed, one of the greatest tennis players of all time.

Then he spoke, and it was quickly evident that, in his case, greatness can be measured in terms above and beyond backhands and forehands and Grand Slams.

His name is Andre Agassi and he is a doer.

Spread out before him, at tables that cost thousands and seats in the balcony that cost hundreds, were people still bothered and bewildered by the events 18 days previous. Their world, everybody’s world, had been rocked. This was the sixth time that Agassi’s foundation had held a fund-raiser to benefit underprivileged children in southern Nevada, but this occasion was like none of the others because, since Sept. 11, nothing is as it used to be.

Money was not being raised for firefighters or policemen or victims here. There was no direct connection to the events of Sept. 11. Except that for the foreseeable future, there will be few public gatherings in this country that aren’t somehow connected. In union, there is strength. And, perhaps, healing.

Yet it would be conceivable for somebody not a doer to miss the nuance, to fumble the opportunity, to miss the chance by not taking one.

The event was already two hours old when Agassi walked forward. The cocktail hour had moved nicely into a fancy dinner and through a live auction that produced an incredible $1.9 million. Behind him was the Las Vegas Orchestra, as well as a collection of some of the top musicians in the world recruited by Hollywood’s David Foster.

In the show, there would be Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Dennis Miller, Don Henley, Ray Romano, Tim McGraw, Robin Williams and more. It was to be, as always, a granddaddy of fund-raisers.

But it needed to be keynoted. The stage was there, but it had to be properly set. Any other time, the jock thing would be easy, acceptable. Thank the big-spenders for spending big. Tell a story sprinkled with sports references. Smile a lot and sit down.

Not on this night. Not this close to Sept. 11. Not if you have grown into an influential icon off the court as well as on. Not if you are a doer.

“We are a nation of healers,” Agassi began.

And later: “We hear our friends’ heartbeats before we hear our own.”

It was oratorical excellence well beyond the athletic norm. It wasn’t quite Lou Gehrig being “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” but it was the articulation of emotion that connected perfectly with an audience of emotional wrecks. On this night, activism was therapeutic, and Agassi was sitting in the doctor’s chair.

As he talked about seeing some little girls on a street corner, doing business under a sign that said “Lemonade for America,” the mind flashed back to a time 15 years ago, when Agassi’s net worth was similar to that lemonade stand’s.

He had been given a wild-card entry, at the request of his then brother-in-law, Pancho Gonzalez, to play in Charlie Pasarell’s pro tournament in the desert. He was 15, a junior player of some promise with long rock-star hair and a two-handed backhand that was already a marvel.

He won his first match, but lost in the second round to Mats Wilander, then among the top players in the world. After his loss, Agassi went to an ice cream stand, ordered a cone and was told it would be $3. He didn’t have that much money, so he handed the cone back to the vendor.

Still an amateur, and thus unable to collect his first-round winnings, he and his brother Phil, who had traveled with him to La Quinta in an old van, went to tournament director Pasarell. They were so broke they didn’t have enough for gas back to Las Vegas, or even a hamburger.

Pasarell told them that amateur players were entitled to expenses, and had them sit down in his office and itemize, on a yellow legal pad, what they had spent and would spend going home.

Half an hour later, the Agassi brothers had produced a list of McDonald’s hamburgers, cheap hotel rooms and gas vouchers that added up to about $200. Pasarell looked at it long and hard, frowned and told them the list wouldn’t do, that it just couldn’t be correct, that this just wasn’t the way things were.

Then he smiled and told them he was certain the meals had been more, the hotel room must have been more expensive and the gas had to be higher. And he sent them off with a check roughly the equivalent of a first-round victory, about $1,500.

Three years later, Agassi won the tennis masters title in Germany and first prize of $1 million. That night, he ran into Pasarell in the Frankfurt airport and told him the check he had received in the desert two years earlier had meant more, and probably always would.

Now, it was 12 years and several hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsements and prize money later, and Agassi was speaking of the little girls at the lemonade stand as symbols of how this country has pulled together.

“Our spirit has not been broken,” he said. “Our spirit has been revealed.”

Then, reminding everyone that his event was entirely underwritten by sponsors and by his foundation, and that “every dime goes right to the kids,” he announced that the 2001 event, only 18 days removed from the most mind-numbing, paralyzing event in this country’s history, had just set a record for generosity.

“Tonight, we raised $4.2 million,” he said.

Nearly two hours later, the show ended with all the performers on stage, singing “God Bless America.” It was corny and hokey and schmaltzy--and exactly what everybody in the audience wanted and needed.

And it happened because somebody in sports picked the right time to be a doer.