The Outsider: A Memoir

by Jimmy Connors

  The intensity of the heat drained Eddie and me of energy but not determination. It was a war of attrition, and the winner would be the last man standing, but hopefully not in my puddle. Eventually, relying on guts and relentless stubbornness, I was able to outlast Dibbs. Unlike Patti, it wasn’t pretty.

  After DC, Patti agreed to come with me to Indianapolis for the national Clay Courts, her second-ever tennis tournament. But before that, we had to fly back to LA so I could pick up some fresh clothes. There wasn’t a dry-cleaner in the world who wanted to touch what I’d been wearing to win that tournament.

  In Indianapolis, I wanted Patti to stay, but she had to fly back to LA after my first match for a modeling assignment. Fortunately, Patti returned in time to see me play some of the best clay-court tennis of my career, beating Mac in the quarters, Orantes in the semis, and Spain’s José Higueras in the finals. I realize that it wasn’t simply that I wanted to impress her but that something more important was happening: I was happy.

  Patti, an independent woman in every sense, insisted on paying for all her plane tickets. “I’m here because I want to be with you,” she said. “Nothing else.” Even though she didn’t know much about tennis, she enjoyed cheering me on; after the matches were over, she wasn’t interested in them. Which was fine with me. I’ve never wanted to live and breathe tennis after I walked off the court. Tennis was important, it was my business, and it had offered me an escape from East St. Louis, but when it was done, it was done.

  I could relax with Patti after my matches. We didn’t need to be seen out and about in public. Pretty quickly I knew she was the person I’d been looking for all my life. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere else, and I hoped she wasn’t either.

  My winning streak continued through mid-August at the first-ever Grand Prix tournament staged at the Topnotch Resort, in Stowe, Vermont, where I beat Tim Gullikson in straight sets, my 69th tournament win. By then, the press had noticed Patti but didn’t know who she was. She became the “mystery woman” for the gossip columns, and Patti and I let them keep guessing. We wanted to hold on to our privacy for as long as possible.

  Our cover was blown at the US Open in September, the first Open at Flushing Meadows, when photos of us together appeared in various magazines. However, we still managed to keep Patti’s identity secret in the early stages of the tournament. She was watching me practice on the first day she arrived, and during the session I noticed Chrissie approach Lornie. Later, I asked him what they talked about.

  “Oh, nothing much. She just asked who the girl was.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I just said, uh, a new fan.”

  “Good.”

  The next day at practice, I was hitting with Chico Hagey, a tennis player from San Diego. We were the only ones out there; it was raining and the courts were wet. I was taking it easy, feeling relaxed and not running down every ball. At one point, Chico hit a winner down the line that I, standing like a statue at the net, made no attempt to reach. As I walked back to the baseline, I pulled my sweat pants down and mooned him for just a second to let him know how I felt about his shot. I assure you that, had I noticed the group of spectators who had gathered to watch the session, I would have been more discreet, but the days of keeping a little mystery about myself were apparently over.

  It’s two sets all and I’m down 2-5 in the fifth against Adriano Panatta when I climb out of my hole and go up 6-5. Panatta is serving at deuce and I’m about to hit one of the most memorable shots of my career.

  Panatta puts his serve wide to my left. I manage to get my racquet on it crosscourt, but shorter than I wanted. The ball lands in Pancho’s “winning zone,” inside the service line. Shit. Move, Jimmy.

  He’s going down the line, but his half-volley isn’t deep enough. I return down the line, but he hasn’t moved, so he’s got the whole court wide open for a crosscourt winner. I’m on a full run, hoping to get there just in time.

  The ball is dying. I’m not going to make . . .

  Feels like I’m going to hit the wall of spectators courtside.

  I swing.

  And I watch as the ball goes around the net-cord judge’s head and . . .

  I can’t see what’s happening.

  The line judge is keeping his hands down.

  Fucking-A! It’s IN?

  I’ve seen the footage since that match. The ball flashing over the highest part of the net, past Panatta, who doesn’t move a muscle, the shot clipping the line, me leaping in the air, arms raised in triumph. I knew then that the match was mine. It can destroy you to have a sure winner snatched away like that. Sure enough, Panatta double-faulted the next point, a lucky escape for me, and I moved on to the quarters.

  The shot of my life? Panatta said it best after the match.

  “In Italy we say he never dies.”

  Yeah, that about sums me up.

  I liked Borg. Still do. We were acquaintances when we were fighting each other to be the best during the 1970s. Later on, in the 1990s, when the Senior Tour came along, we became closer. But back then he was very quiet and kept himself apart from most of the guys, except his coach, Lennart Bergelin, and Vitas. When he wasn’t on the court he was up in his room reading. Was it comic books or Shakespeare? I don’t know. But he sure wasn’t going to tell anyone.

  The press dubbed him “Ice Borg.” He was cool and kept his emotions to himself. I used to throw my best material at him on the court and he never cracked a smile. Jeez, what a waste. The fans saw, and still see, Borg in a different way from, say, Mac, Nasty, Vitas, or me. We were transparent. Fans could relate to us, maybe imagine going out with us for a beer, talking about sports, or girls, but no one knew what to expect from Borg.

  However, as he got older it was like he’d been let out of a cage. The trouble is, I didn’t have the stamina to keep up with him, but to be honest with you he was a lot of fun. But more on that later.

  When Borg and I played, the tennis felt almost secondary to our battle of wills. His topspin style, speed around the court, and patience went against everything I stood for. I wanted to hit the ball flat, take chances, and be aggressive. Against him, that was a tough task. When Mac and I played we brought the best out in each other, because I played to his strengths and he played to mine. With Borg it was as though we were playing our own game regardless of what the other guy was doing, until one of us came out on top. Seems funny to me that I never beat him at Wimbledon, where I thought I had the advantage, and in turn he never beat me at the US Open, where maybe he had the edge. Go figure.

  Against Borg I knew I had to be at the top of my game, especially because there was so much attention and drama created around every match we played. That’s why I said I’d follow him to the ends of the earth; I didn’t want him to feel too comfortable if he beat me. I didn’t want him to settle in and gain more confidence. There were only two other guys I felt that way about, Mac and Lendl. The three of them were my toughest challenges. They raised their games when they faced me, no doubt about it; they all wanted to kick my ass. I took it as a compliment.

  I beat Borg at Flushing Meadows that year as bad as he beat me at Wimbledon, and because of that I became the only player ever to win the Open on three different surfaces. It was my fifth career Grand Slam title and my third US Open title.

  The turnaround in my relationship with the New York fans that had started with my victory at the Garden in January felt complete that day at the Open. After the match, I thanked all 20,000 of them.

  “I play my best tennis when I come to New York. Whether you like me or not, I like you.”

  At the end of September, Patti and I went to Vegas for a couple of days of R&R. Then we were off to Argentina, where I was playing a four-man exhibition against José Luis Clerc, Nasty, and Borg—which I ended up winning. Then I was winging my way to Australia to play the Sydney indoor tournament.

  Patti had her own apartment on Maple Drive, in Beverly Hills, but since I was going to be out of the co
untry, I wanted her to stay in my place with Mom because, as I told her, I thought she’d be safer there.

  “You just want to keep an eye on me,” Patti said. “You’re not fooling anyone.” I was also hoping she and Mom would get closer, and I think they did. Patti told me they cooked together, went shopping, and enjoyed each other’s company.

  From Australia I was off to Japan for the Tokyo indoor tournament. I didn’t like being away from Patti and I had a conversation with a guy who worked in Mom’s office, Joe Roundtree, in which I confided I was thinking about asking Patti to marry me. I asked Patti to fly to Japan and had Joe accompany her. Of course, he spilled the beans on the plane. Later, Patti told me that her first thought was “Whoa, we haven’t been together that long,” then she thought it was sweet and it made her feel good to know that I was serious about her.

  Patti and I were slow-dancing in a Japanese nightclub and I was worried that, if I waited too long, she might get to know me better and lose interest!

  “Let’s go back to the hotel and make a baby,” I said. The words just came out of my mouth. Being a good Irish Catholic, it was my way of asking her to marry me.

  “OK,” she said, and that was her way of saying yes. We’re from the Midwest. That’s how we roll.

  She told me afterward that it was the moment she knew for certain that I really loved her. She hadn’t thought about starting a family before then. As she said later, “I grew up during women’s lib. It wasn’t my be-all-and-end-all to be a mother. But when you said those words, I melted.”

  We were married a few weeks later, in a small Shinto ceremony in Japan, just the two of us and a friend. Quiet, and exactly what we wanted. The next March we had a simple family blessing in Belleville. Mom and Johnny were there, plus Patti’s parents, her aunt Nita, and her sister. The whole thing lasted about 90 seconds. I wore a flannel shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. Patti looked pretty in a rose and lace-silk dress.

  We could have made a big thing of it with Patti’s connections. I’m sure Playboy would have enjoyed laying on a lavish event for publicity, but that wasn’t what we were about at the time. We’ve talked about the possibility of renewing our vows, but we’ve had a lot of friends who have done that, and the marriage took a nosedive afterward. I’m too superstitious to go down that road.

  I think it’s fair to say that when Patti and I announced that we’d gotten married, we weren’t exactly everybody’s best bet to succeed as a couple, and mainly for one reason: Most people thought I was probably too tough to live with.

  But the truth is, even our friends had their doubts.

  Many years later, when we were at a seniors’ event in Dallas, drinking a few margaritas with Eddie Dibbs and Dick Stockton, the conversation turned to our wedding.

  “You know, when you guys got married,” Dick said to us, “out of all the tennis players and wives on the tour, we thought you’d never last. In fact, we thought you’d be the first to go.”

  Well, 33 years later we are still going strong, although I am not saying we haven’t had some rough patches, mostly as a result of my stupidity. But we’ve come through it all.

  Mom didn’t always make it easy, either. When we first got together, she was happy Patti was around, a nice Midwestern girl, but as we grew more serious, Mom found it hard to accept that Patti was another woman in my life who I was turning to for advice. I can understand that, I guess; she thought she was protecting me, worried as she was that Patti might be out to take advantage of me, which is sad, because nothing could be further from the truth. Patti had a successful career when we met. She didn’t need anything from me.

  Mom kept Patti at arm’s length for a lot of years, which was difficult for Patti to deal with, because she’s such a strong family person. “Gloria, all I want is to be a family,” Patti said to Mom once. “I understand what you are protecting. I know that you have poured your life’s blood into Jimmy and his career. Let me be a part of that.” Still, Mom found it hard to see that Patti saw something in me other than fame and fortune.

  Six weeks after Patti gave birth to our son, we moved from LA to Florida. Mom never came to see us there, nor did she visit when we moved back to California a few years later. Mom loved being in Belleville. I got that. She had friends there and her coaching, but that wasn’t the reason for her staying away from us. She was making a statement.

  Yet she always loved spending time with our kids, having them sleep over at her house as often as possible. In fact, she would do too much, organizing events and outings when all the kids wanted to do was hang around the friends they’d made in Belleville. I think Mom had to feel she was needed, and then she overcompensated, when in reality she had nothing to prove. All Patti and I ever wanted, all the kids ever wanted, was for Grandma to share our lives both at home and in Belleville.

  Is there a secret to a long marriage? I don’t know; all I can talk about is what works for us, and that comes down to one thing. We love each other. Patti said it at our wedding in Belleville when Mom asked her how she knew I was the man for her.

  “Jimmy made me laugh,” Patti answered, “and the others made me cry.” That’s a huge part of it. We still crack each other up today, just as we did on that first night together at Pips.

  We also understand each other’s need for independence. Without that we wouldn’t have made it this long. For the first two decades of our marriage, I was probably away, on average, 38 weeks of the year, on the main tour and then later with the seniors. You have to know how to survive on your own in those circumstances. That still applies today, and fortunately we have our own passions. With me it’s golf and playing tennis, while Patti competes in high-level ballroom dancing, takes care of our home, and has a lot of good friends.

  Patti recognized early on that I was two people: the one on court who pumped my fists and swore at umpires and the one who came home to her and the kids.

  Patti didn’t find it easy to cope with the different sides of my personality. When I played tennis, I’d leave any personal distractions behind. If Patti and I had a fight (and we’ve had a few) that wasn’t resolved before a match, I’d come off the court afterward and go find her. Knowing I had another match to play, she had the wisdom to say, “OK, Jimmy, we’ll talk about it later.”

  That need of mine to avoid confrontation off the court could be frustrating in another way, because I would let things fester. If something upsets me, I won’t bring it up until much later, when something completely unrelated sets me off. Whenever that happened, Patti would look at me and smile, as if to say, “What’s wrong with you? That’s six weeks ago, that’s over.” And I would calm down.

  All of this took a while for us both to learn since our relationship worked backward. We were lovers first, soon husband and wife, followed quickly by mother and father, and then we were friends. Best friends. I guess I just can’t do things like everyone else.

  We were living in LA and waiting for the birth of our first child, who was already two weeks past his due date of July 20. I had just come back from Wimbledon and arranged to take some time off so that I could be around for Brett to make his grand entrance. I had committed to a series of exhibitions in Europe, and I could only be released from my obligations by an “Act of God,” or they would sue me. Patti and I agreed that having a baby qualified as an AOG, but the tournament organizers didn’t see it that way. I stayed with her in LA as long as I could, driving her nuts as we waited for the baby to arrive. I couldn’t leave the house without asking Patti, “Are you sure it’s OK for me to play golf?”

  “Please go,” Patti would say. She wanted me out of her hair so she could take a nap and get a break from my anxiety.

  Finally, I was off to Europe but made it back on American soil for a tournament in North Conway, New Hampshire. It was Tuesday morning, July 31, and I called Patti before I got ready to go out and play my match. We’re talking. Then . . .

  “Ow! Ow. What was that?” Patti says.

  “What? What’s wrong?�
� I asked.

  “I think I’m having my first labor pains.”

  Holy shit!

  She had a standing appointment with her doctor, our good friend Lloyd Greig, and she calmly drove herself to his office. When she got there, she and Lloyd called to confirm she was in labor.

  “How long do I have, doc?” I asked.

  “About eight hours,” he said.

  OK. No pressure. I’m only 3,000 miles away.

  I went out and beat Eliot Teltscher in under an hour in straight sets. Now we had to find a way to get me out of New Hampshire and back to LA. There was a small airfield nearby, where Mom and I rented a Learjet and headed west. On the plane I was a nervous wreck. The worst and best thing about it was there was a phone on the plane. I tried to reach Patti every 15 or 20 minutes but never got to talk to her. As if I weren’t worried enough, one of the engines lost power over Kansas City. We went into a free fall until the engine got some air and fired back up again. And if you’ve ever been in one of those situations, you know you soil your shorts in a hurry. We stopped in Kansas City to refuel, then continued on to California.

  There was no phone in the labor room, so every time I called Patti, I was put through to the nurse’s station. They had Patti’s friend, Judy, come to the phone.

  “I don’t want to talk to you. I need to talk to Patti!” I shouted. Grace under pressure—it’s one of my strengths.

  “She’s fine, Jimmy, she’s fine,” Judy said calmly, “but she hasn’t had the baby yet.”

  We finally got into LAX, where my good friend Dr. Earl Woods met us. He had stopped at the hospital to check on Patti before picking us up. “Whatever you do, don’t let Jimmy drive,” Patti had cautioned Dr. Woods. But I jumped behind the wheel and got us to the hospital, half an hour away, in about five minutes.

  When I walked in her room, Patti had already been in labor for 13 hours. “You look like shit,” I said