november-december 2004

by bill simons

INSIDE TENNIS: How ‘bout that Roger Federer?
CHARLIE ROSE: It was an amazing performance [in the U.S. Open final], as good a performance by an athlete at the top of his form as I’ve ever seen.
IT: Such grace, such artistry?
CR: That’s for sure. He’s got every move, every stroke, and a great court sense. He knows where the ball is going to be. He seems to move effortlessly. While Hewitt was racing just to get to the ball, Federer was always prepared to execute a series of weapons.
IT: He had an answer for every storm, whether from Hewitt, Agassi, Roddick or Henman — it hardly mattered. Great athletes just seem to be able to raise their level. Sampras had that ability.
CR: Part of it is natural ability, part of it is some element of heart that is indefinable, an X factor that some have, that Michael Jordan had. Some of it is simply confidence that comes from hard, hard work. Golfer Vijay Singh is a guy that really has become extraordinary. I’ve never known any athlete who was as good as there was in their field, who didn’t work harder than everybody else. All the great ones work hard. Michael Jordan…
IT: McEnroe?
CR: Well, McEnroe is an exception. But Jordan worked hard, Agassi works hard, [car racer] Michael Schumacher works out physically four hours a day. I once interviewed Martina Navratilova with a group of young people and somebody asked, “How hard will I have to work to be a champion?” And Martina said, “If you ask that, you probably won’t be a champion.” Because that’s just the way champions are. Tiger has loads of natural ability and like Agassi has been doing it for a long time and had early motivation from his father. Still he constantly goes back to the driving range after he’s finished a round and shoots until it’s too dark. Vijay does the same thing, and Federer has all of that.
IT: Courier would do long jogs after marathon matches, and Svetlana Kuznetsova, after winning the U.S. Open semi over Davenport, went back on court to hit. Amazing! You mentioned Andre. He’s said that what he loves about tennis is that it replicates life: problem solving, dealing with crises, overcoming obstacles. There’s nobody out there to help you. Is that something you see in the sport?
CR: Oh, I do. Not only that, it’s like Dianne Sawyer said, interviews are like tennis in that you hit the ball across the net, and where the person responds determines what you do. So it’s initiation and response, initiation and response.
IT: Like boxing.
CR: Like boxing. You use all kinds of changeups, like Federer did. I’ve never seen such a combination: dropshot, slice backhand, good serve, going to the net, and…
IT: A seeing-eye lob that, right at crunch time, lands on the line against Agassi to turn the match around.
CR: Exactly, all that kind of stuff. So, it’s like life. Sports in many ways imitates life. The only thing that’s different is that in sports there are always winners and losers and there is always a clear decision at the end. I’m not sure there’s a clear decision in life. People achieve some of the things they want and not others, and people change their evaluation of what is a good life as they proceed.
IT: But when the Cubs win, Chicago is happy. But why? It’s just a game.
CR: It’s because people search for community. It gives everybody a rallying cry and a community of interest. Sports is a way to invest your energy into something beyond yourself. It’s something you can share with others: neighbors, family, friends. Bob Costas said to me that the only thing he could talk to his father about was baseball, because his father respected his opinions on baseball, so it was a way to have an equal conversation.
IT: So you can walk in cold into the airport bar at Kennedy and there’s some stranger and you can just start talking…
CR: You have a connection, right away…
IT: Right. Chuck Klosterman wrote in Esquire, look, I don’t understand our nuclear policy towards Korea or the subtext of Moby Dick, but sports is something that at least I think I understand. I can sort of get a sense of control.
CR: I’m really interested in the nuclear policy in North Korea, maybe more than I’m interested in certain sports, but sure, we have sports in common. In the same way that people can talk about relationships, it’s something that everybody experiences. It used to be that women didn’t have the opportunity to participate in sports in a pervasive manner. They had less of a connection than their brothers had with their fathers. But that’s changed, because girls are out there playing soccer all the time now, and it’s given them something that their parents and grandparents didn’t have.
IT: The wonderful Asian-American player, Shikha Uberoi, who made a splash at the Open, said that her mother had to go to track meets in her sari and only then could change into shorts. But now she says women’s sports in India are increasing. But, you know how confusing, how unintelligible the world can be, while in sports there is a universe with at least some coherence.
CR: There’re rules and there’s order. Plus, sports has an advantage. Yesterday was a beautiful day at the U.S. Open, sunny and nice. So it’s a great way to spend the day.
IT: Sandy Koufax said that athletes were in the entertainment field, but really weren’t entertainers. There is a counter-feeling that…
CR: Sports is entertainment.
IT: And the greatest entertainer that tennis has produced?
CR: Probably McEnroe and Connors, but Laver was extraordinary because he was just magic. Obviously I didn’t know Bill Tilden. In fact, today when people talk about Roger, they go back to players of a different era because he is so graceful. I’m fascinated about how he became as good as he did.
IT: Isn’t one of the great elements of an individual sport like tennis that players evolve and grow over the years, right before our eyes? As a teen, Agassi was kind of a jerk, a frosted flake. But he’s grown into such a caring person…
CR: Different player.
IT: And when Federer was thirteen or fourteen, he was rabid, throwing rackets and yelling out to his parents who were watching his match from a balcony to “go away and get a drink.”
CR: True story?
IT: Oh yes. But has this guy ever grown. Yesterday, in a press conference he confided that he actually enjoyed being a superstar and liked being a role model. So what’s the role of heroes in our culture? Do we need them or is it something that’s gone awry and is often overdone?
CR: All of the above. Certainly I think we need heroes. They serve an important role. Myth serves an important role as well. On the other hand, they do go awry and parents are constantly faced with the challenge of saying that there are many kinds of heroes. Teachers are heroes and men and women who risk their lives as firemen, cops or soldiers are all heroes, much more than people like me who are on television. There are strong differences between “celebrity” and “hero,” and we need to remember that constantly. And we need to remember that “hero” is also a term that ought to include a lot of people who do their job without applause, without great income and without great privilege. I think of single mothers who raise their kids in a difficult neighborhood, yet get them to school. That’s a heroic thing. And they sometimes have two jobs just to make ends meet and to fight to get them in a good school.
IT: Michael Agassi comes from Tehran, lands up in Chicago with $2 and then trains and rears a great champion.
CR: I forgot that he came from Tehran.
IT: There’s a famous story about the legendary celloist Pablo Casals who in 1938 went out all week to the French Open, and after Don Budge won he went up to the legendary American and said, “Please come to my apartment tonight and I will play a recital for you and a few friends.”
CR: This is a true story?
IT: True story. So, Pablo plays for an hour and a half or so, just exquisite music, the gems of the repertoire, and as Budge is leaving he says, “Why did you do this for me Mr. Casals?” And he says, “Mr. Budge, you gave me so much pleasure, this is the least I could do.”
CR: That’s a great story. I mean, I love that. That’s a wonderful story.
IT: Just as a footnote, decades later the aging Don Budge came home to where his Scottish parents reared him, his old Oakland neighborhood, which had changed greatly over the years. And when we were done with a lengthy interview, he took me to the local soda shop and bought me a strawberry milkshake like he used to do after each of his matches as a teen.
CR: I’ll tell you what happens on this program all the time. Somebody will come in, like Reggie Miller, the great Indiana Pacer scorer, and they are sitting in the green room and they become intrigued, say with Arthur Schlessinger or Bill Buckley. I’ve had Isaac Stern, the great violinist, on with the most valuable player of the Super Bowl, and Isaac couldn’t wait to come out and talk to this guy before he left.
IT: In our September issue we had two interviews, one with Donald Trump and one with Richard Williams.
CR: What do they share in common — a lot. The interviews I remember most are those that tend to resonate with people. The one that resonated most is certainly Bruce Springsteen. But I’ve had people come up to me and say, your interview with McEnroe was one of my 10 favorite TV shows. I’ve interviewed almost everybody in tennis.
IT: What interviews are you most proud of?
CR: One was certainly Arthur Ashe. I didn’t even bring up the fact that he was living with AIDS until the last fifteen minutes. In his own mind he went back to growing up in Richmond and racism and tennis and relating to West Point. So there was an arc about the interview and it just resonated. Then we began to talk about AIDS.
IT: But that man, how he blossomed knowing he had so little life left. In his last year, just months before his death he was honored at the U.S. Open and the next day he was in handcuffs in front of the White House, arrested for protesting our Haitian refugee policy. What was it that struck you about Ashe — his renaissance interests, his intelligence?
CR: His dignity.
IT: Incredible for an athlete, an almost towering presence and integrity. But I want to switch to another question. Let’s for the fun of it take some real iconic figures of Western civilization and ask which of five great persons would be most drawn to tennis, who would find it most compelling. Would it be Mr. “Survival of the Fittest” Charles Darwin, the great storyteller Charles Dickens, the political theorist Karl Marx, the genius scientist and humanitarian Albert Einstein, or Pablo Picasso? Those are your five.
CR: Oh, definitely Picasso.
IT: Because?
CR: He experimented with so many forms, he was good with so many forms, starting with Cubism and becoming an impressionist painter. And he spanned generations and was recognized by his peers. But mainly because he was able to use art in so many different ways. There are a lot of differences between Federer and Picasso, but as a young man just beginning to hit his stride as a great player, he has everything and that’s what Picasso had. Picasso not only used different elements, he was constantly experimenting from portraits to sculpture, and he had every kind of stroke. That’s what Roger has.
IT: It’s amazing when you see Lleyton Hewitt, the greatest mover in our sport, become totally flat-footed by a flick of the Federer wrist.
CR: I was sitting courtside so I was just focusing on Federer, watching his footwork and watching how he held a racket.
IT: He does so many amazing things. Like at Wimbledon, Andy Roddick was just punishing everyone with his serve, but Roger just handled it, neutralized it – almost with ease. But let’s talk about some of the other greats in tennis, like Connors, who had his great run to the Open semis in ’91. Robert Lipsyte wrote something like “Here is the ultimate terrible two-year-old, tip-toeing through the hors d’oeuvres at a cocktail party. He’s totally outrageous, still we love him.” What was special about Connors?
CR: Heart. Great Heart.
IT: And people connected with that. And what about McEnroe?
CR: Passion.
IT: So has John McEnroe been good or bad for civilization? He seemed to be saying “Screw it all.”
CR: McEnroe’s great redeeming values are that he’s so articulate about the game and he loves the game and his commitment to Davis Cup. He loves tennis in a dramatic way, that’s what I love about him.
IT: And he’s a bold risk-taker.
CR: There’re so many interesting questions. I once said to Connors at this table, “How much more you would have won if you’d had a good serve?” His response was, “Well, I did pretty well without it.” And he was right. The question about McEnroe is, could he have had a longer career? And could Borg have had a longer career? Arthur once said to me that he regretted that he didn’t spend more time in tennis. That is some ways he was distracted by so much and he loved tennis so much, yet he wasn’t ever sure exactly how good he could have been.
IT: McEnroe wrote that “Borg was the one person I never got upset with, I always controlled my temper because I respected him and the situation so much.” Is there another side to that comment? Does that in some way indicate disrespect for other players? In other words, if he respected them, too, he could’ve controlled himself?
CR: Well, you could say that, but I would rather read it just as a positive reflection on Bjorn.
IT: A similarity is sometimes noted between the great inner athlete, Pete Sampras, and another inward athlete, Joe DiMaggio. Not only did they both have a Mediterranean heritage and come from California, but were both oh-so-graceful, indrawn record-breakers, with blonde Hollywood wives.
CR: Who he first saw watching her on TV.
IT: Both were solitary and reticent towards the press.
CR: No, talent is the only thing I see. I was lucky enough to know them both. Joe sat at this table, never did an interview, but he came in to talk about it. I liked and admired him and thought he had a certain grace, I also think he was visited by tragedy, the death of Marilyn Monroe, which stayed with him for the rest of his life.
IT: And the person you’d most like to interview, that you haven’t done yet?
CR: We were talking today about a great Muslim scholar we are trying to interview, then there’s Osama bin Laden. He’s somebody we all would like to do. I’d love to do Jack Nicholson, because I think he’s wonderful. I knew Marlon Brando well and he never did an interview with me and I was always sorry about that. He never wanted to do it. Jack never wants to do one either.
IT: I walked around Wimbledon with him, just doing a spontaneous interview. It was an incredible experience, a bit of a revelation. He’s really beloved, a bigger-than-life character.
CR: He’s terrific. The thing that I like about my job, my craft, calling, profession, is that I’m as interested in getting to know what makes Federer unique as I am about what makes a cleric in the Middle East the way he is, or what makes a great scientist, artist or painter the way they are. My interest is in culture and politics and business and technology and medicine and great scientists.
IT: So is there a downside?
CR: No. But I can tell you that the hottest place in hell in terms of interviewees ought to be for those who just come in and are only interested in promoting and not interested in revealing. Or the interviewers don’t listen to the answers or the interviewees don’t listen to the questions.
IT: Mike Wallace told me that the key to a great interview is preparation.
CR: Absolutely. He’s right and Larry King is wrong.
IT: What’s King’s point?
CR: Preparation is not important. But Larry does a great job – there’s no doubt about that. But Mike is right because preparation gives you the capacity to ask the most important question, whatever it is. Larry proves it doesn’t mean that without preparation you can’t ask interesting questions.
IT: We live in a sound byte world, a world of Hollywood blockbusters. Is there still a place in our culture for in-depth discussions, for quality discourse?
CR: Oh, I think so. Sure. So much of it is moving to sound bytes. That doesn’t mean that’s bad. It’s fine. But at the same time more and more people respond to [in-depth thought] because it’s so rare.
IT: Rare, I guess you could say, like a fine rose. Thank you so much, Charlie, for your time.??

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