Hampton Style - July 11, 2008 -

The spectators that filtered out of Arthur Ashe Stadium in the early hours of the morning were exhilarated but hushed, more of a congregation than a crowd. It was the summer of 2006, and after a US Open night match that had lasted almost four hours, they collectively knew they'd witnessed something epic and extraordinary.

When it was announced two days before that 36-year-old tennis legend Andre Agassi was scheduled for a second-round showdown with young hotshot Marcos Baghdatis, a ripe and powerful force at just 21, a foreboding spread. Having pledged to retire after this Open, it was an unspoken resignation among tennis fans that this match would be the swansong of Agassi's 21-year professional career, and the anticipation led me, and many others, to set my alarm for 5 a.m. and make the dawn pilgrimage to Queens, where I waited in a somber queue to buy a ticket to a match that would hurt to watch but had to be witnessed.

As history records, we got a lot more than our ticket's worth.

On a hot August night two years ago, the retiring titan wore down the plucky rising star over a course of five sets and well into the next morning, until Baghdatis was a limping, weeping boy willing the match to end. It's an awesome spectacle when one's ability hangs in long enough for mind and body to coalesce, and what the crowd witnessed that night was akin to physical and psychological warfare-there wasn't a sleepy eye in the stands as a fit and strategic Agassi put Baghdatis to rest. As my counterparts and I left the grounds that evening, a weight had lifted. His end was still nigh, but the tennis great had risen one last time to offer a more fitting conclusion to My Life with Andre.

Since that night, life for Agassi has switched gears a little-apparent as I chatted to him one morning recently after he'd dropped his son at school and was nursing his daughter through a bout of chicken pox-but he too remembers the game as a monumental bout.

"What was really difficult about that match was that I knew it was over for me. I was a person who'd lived my life being led by the process, so it was very hard to be at a stage of my life where the end was inevitable. I almost had to call on parts of myself that I never even knew existed, because I am less inspired when I know what the ending is going to be. I knew I'd had my last performance but I still hadn't had my curtain call, if you will. So it was very odd, it was hard to focus, much harder than it had ever been. As a result of finding a place where I could get my arms around it, I think I just hit a whole different level of connection to the sport," he reflects. "I was giving all of me, and [the crowd] were in return giving me all of them. The best memories I had on the tennis court... It was something."

It certainly was. Plagued by sciatica and injuries for the past year, only cortisone injections in his lower back had gotten a pain-addled Agassi on the court, then post-match, he and Baghdatis were laid out to receive treatment on adjacent tables in the locker room-flat and still, like corpses, but slapping each other's hands.

Agassi went down in the next match, his last, to someone whose name I can't recall, but it doesn't matter; this fellow owes more to timing than technique. A vanquished Agassi was, however, triumphant.

He saluted sobbing fans with signature kisses and bows after their 5-minute standing ovation, delivered a memorable speech-"The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn't say is what I have found... You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments... Over the last 21 years, I have found you. And I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life"-then Andre Agassi quietly exited the stadium.

More than a few people have expressed they felt the heart went out of men's tennis the day Agassi left the building, and I too, as a fan of the game, feel there is an Andre-shaped hole that will never be filled. But the salve for gloomy types nursing this nostalgia is that an off-court Agassi has devoted his days to more than commentating and car-pooling. With all the drive, sincerity and inspiration that made the sports star so beloved, a "retired" Andre is now championing an even nobler cause.

I knew I was going to give back at some point-it was an important thing for me as my life started to succeed and prosper. The focus on children was always clear, but the needs were so many, and in the beginning we helped a number of causes-shelters for abused kids, after-school programs, clothing children-and we still tend to those. But then the realization came that we were sticking Band-Aids on real issues. This led me to education; it was a real organic process," recalls an impassioned Andre Agassi, referring to his role as education provider. In 1994, the Nevada native founded the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which has raised more than $70 million for at-risk children, and in 2001, the foundation opened a K-12 public charter school for at-risk children in Las Vegas. To date, more than 180,000 children have been aided by its funding of educational programs.

But through his labors, Agassi has come to realize that providing funds within individual communities is not enough to bring about real progress, and he now wishes to shake things up on a national level. This is the reason Agassi will be touching down in the Hamptons next month, to host an intimate fund-raising event for the foundation. "My hope is to build partnerships in New York that will fuel a national movement," Agassi stresses.

Anyone who ever heard a sharp and succinct Agassi entertaining the crowd during a post-match interview has no doubts of his oratorical skills, but no one expected such a private individual to become the national ambassador for education.

"I now feel like this is why I played tennis; it was my vehicle to commit to this. And the rewards, the motivation, the focus, the desire-all of it-just transcend anything I've ever experienced inside the lines. A lot of people are doing this around the country, but if I can get the microphone and shout about it, then it's worth it."

Those who followed the tennis trajectory of Andre Agassi would agree that it appeared a career played out in two halves. A lively product of genes and conditioning-"It's a lot of both" he acknowledges-Agassi was a child tennis prodigy, nurtured under the determined instruction of his Olympic boxing champion father. (Tales explaining his early development describe his father hanging tennis balls above baby Andre's crib to hone eye-coordination, or having him play with bats and balloons in his high-chair.) Agassi's abilities saw the stubborn and impatient teen being comped tuition at an esteemed tennis academy for more than a year, but he was only too eager to pursue a professional career and made his first appearance on the circuit at just 16. Exhibiting both a formidable talent and rebellious streak on the court, the young Andre was more rock star than pro-athlete, breaking new grass when he rocked Bon Jovi-grade hair, chains, an earring and colorful ensembles (he skipped playing Wimbledon from 1988-1990, opting to stay at home rather than conform to their strict all-white dress code). Compared to the homogenized sportsmen of today, Agassi's sartorial undertakings were hallmarks of a strong and confident individual stamping his territory like no one in tennis ever had before. Crowds flocked to see his game and his controversy.

"I had an overwhelming life for a teenager, and I reacted to the pressure in a lot of cases," reflects Agassi, looking back on his younger self. "As you grow you start to better realize who you are, and you can communicate it more effectively, more to the true nature of yourself. I recognize many current qualities in myself that were there 20 years ago. I had a lot of the same cares and concerns for children; I felt like I had kids when I was 20 years old whenever I was around them. But I also had to grow a lot... Those who knew me said that my eyes betrayed me; I couldn't hide what I was feeling, as much as I wanted to."

So those closest to the star saw behind the hair, I suggest. "I guess it's better when life just strips away your options," laughs a closely cropped Agassi.

After a successful and dominant early career-one that included titles for Wimbledon, the Australian and US opens, his first number-one seeding in 1995, as well as an Olympic gold medal for men's singles in 1996-a recurring wrist injury and off-court distractions saw Agassi's form become increasingly inconsistent, and then begin to spiral. At the time Agassi had a high-profile marriage to actress Brooke Shields, but the couple divorced after two years. By the end of 1997, his professional ranking had slipped to 141. A lasting testament to Agassi's substance and character is that he worked his way back up the rankings-not by wildcard entries but by playing in Challenger Series tournaments (a circuit for players ranked outside the world's top 50). You imagine it'd be a humbling experience for a former world number-one to have to grind his way through these low-level games, but Agassi was strengthened, not broken, by the experience.

"It was important to me to work my way back. It didn't bother me that I was 141 in the world. I was always one who felt before I understood. It was harder to get my bearings on what I was looking for, or what I was going to be focused on, but once I did, I got this traction, and I could put my head down... The only thing that came through to me over and over again was the opportunity to be better every day. And I just thought 'Geez, it's so easy to be better than 141 for me, so let's do it.' Okay, 130, 110, then back in the top 100... I didn't know whether I was going to lead, and I could never have dreamed to be at the top again-I just wasn't convinced I still had that. But that's what happens when you put a bit of momentum in your life; it always surprises you," he smiles.

Agassi seems almost thrilled by recalling the hard slog of that challenge.

"It's just that when you work for something, and spend a lot of time thinking about it, you value it more. I'd spent a lot of time thinking about what I used to have, and what I was trying to recapture," he confirms.

The one-on-one gladiatorial nature of the tennis arena is what underpins the pure thrill for most fans of the game. But the downside for players of the non-team sport is that your career expectancy is vastly clipped when you're forced to perform or else pack it in. When David Beckham's famous foot started to lose its "bend" he could seek solace in the lucrative pastures of Madrid and Los Angeles-here one can be buffered by younger, on-top-of-their-game teammates and special-guest schedules, all the while stashing away a nice little nest egg for retirement. At the other end of the spectrum, a tennis player approaching 30 is usually steps away from a trip to the glue factory-or at least the protection of the commentators' booth. The truth is, Agassi had to work harder and smarter than he ever had before at a time when even those younger than he were entering the slow lane. This is not a fact that is lost on him.

One of the things that makes the sport so great is that there is nowhere to hide, there is no one to pass the ball to, you can't call time-out, you can't sit on the bench. And you have to get over the finish line-you can't just play well for a period then run out of clock. There's no way of getting around your weaknesses. If there's something missing, it's going to get exposed, so you do learn a lot about yourself in that environment," notes Agassi.

After committing to making a comeback, Agassi undertook a rigorous training and conditioning regime, so when the "best service returner the sport has ever seen" reappeared courtside in 1998-shorn, mature, focused and in the most superior fitness of his life-there was a lump in the throat of fans and players the world over.

By the end of that year, Agassi had bagged five titles and executed a meteoric leap to be the world's number-six player; he started the year at 141, making it the highest jump into the top 10 made by any player during a single calendar year. He won five titles in ten finals, and in 1999 Agassi made history when he came back from two sets to love down to beatAndrei Medvedev in a legendary five-set French Open final, becoming only the fifth male player to have won all four Grand Slam singles titles during his career. German Steffi Graf, another former tennis great on the brink of retirement, was the French Open women's finalist that year, and the revived champions shared the traditional winners' dance that evening. They left the Open with winner's cups and each other's phone numbers. When Agassi married the golden goddess of tennis past in 2001, spectators around the world collectively nodded, "Yes!" (Coincidently, Agassi is the only player to have earned all Grand Slam titles along with an Olympic gold, and Ms. Graf is the only female player to have achieved the same.) The couple has two children; a son Jaden Gil, 6, and daughter Jaz Elle, 4.

Agassi agrees with my split-career theory, but for him it has a different foundation. "It's like when they talk about youth being wasted on the young. I felt like I'd played the game long enough to really appreciate so many things that I wasn't able to when I was younger; when you have a child and you understand people's lives better because you've lived it, and you have the opportunity to be number-one in the world at 34 years old, and you're traveling the world with your child... I had so many reasons to appreciate it on so many levels as I got older, and in that case I feel I was privileged to have not just a second career but a second career that was so much more fulfilling than even the first part," says Agassi wholeheartedly.

A trait peculiar to Agassi was that the older he got, the more he played like someone who still had his best tennis ahead of him-and he did. "I realized there were so many opportunities to improve and so many ways to make yourself better. I knew there'd come a time when that wasn't still possible, I just never felt like it was there until really the last nine months of my career-it turned pretty quick for me-but from 29 to 35 I felt like I was always excited for the next day; I felt like I was going to learn something and be better as a result of it," he admits.

Powerhouse game aside, the new-age Agassi was unrecognizable compared to the first-and I'm talking about more than tonsorial streamlining here. Andre was still a relentless and strategic competitor behind the net, but crowds hushed to hang on his post-match comments and stood to catch his appreciative kisses and bows. He was gracious and warm, a sporting gentleman, and fans the world over broke with patriotic codes to name tennis's former unruly child their favorite contender. It seemed the strengthened body matured the mind, matured the game.

"I certainly did it better because I was smarter about how I went about my profession, particularly in terms of the training...but the heart, mind and spirit was so much more fulfilled. It was all of it," acknowledges Agassi.

Now that the racquets are packed away in the wardrobe and Agassi's body appears to have reconditioned itself from a lifetime of training and competition, it seems Agassi has little problem falling into step as an at-home parent.

"I get a lot of victories along the way, I still get my wins. It's such a great time in life with the kids right now; they're 6 and 4 years old, and they still think we're pretty cool. How many times my little girl says 'Daddy' in one day, I can't even count. She can say it 12 times in three sentences: 'Right, Daddy, right, Daddy, right?' It's hard to say that my relaxation doesn't come from the gift of the life I get to live," Andre states resolutely. "If I could change the temperature of my life one way or the other, I'm not sure I would touch it."

Agassi's school in Las Vegas is a model for how simply equipping children with the right tools and encouragement can see great results. The school will have its first graduation class this year and Agassi currently has a pre-school in the pipeline.

"The Hamptons event is not about me raising money to take back to Las Vegas; I want to really make the case for how our legislation needs to look in order to have results in the public-education system. We are so far behind in terms of what kids around the world are experiencing; our education system is pacifying, it's just putting these kids through the system, but not intent on teaching them," Agassi stresses.

"With Las Vegas we had a great laboratory to make a change. We have horrible funding and horrible results, so we built this school, and we're giving resources to the children who need it most. As a result of that we're changing lives. We realized that we had a problem in our public education system, but there is an answer," he assures.

It always seemed to me I'd missed sports' golden age; the decade of my birth didn't allow for characters with the cultural and social significance of Babe Ruth or Muhammad Ali. But having grown up watching the victories, unraveling, maturing, and then more victories of the truly original and formidable Agassi, he held this magnitude for me and his retirement heralded not just the end of a career but an era.

For those who are still holding a candle for the days when Agassi held center court, you can move on, safe in the knowledge that he has a multitude of passions and a renewed purpose. And, like the sportsmen of a time that won't come again, although generations to come will never know what it is to watch Andre Agassi play tennis, he will have impacted their lives in a way that will long outlast five sets.