It was said that he looked “like some kind of aging vegan long-distance runner.” But truth be told, Steve Jobs was not much of an athlete. But so what. His mindset and inventions impacted sports. Then again, they affected everything.
Jobs’ passing brought to the forefront his curious, counter-intuitive claim that death was the “single best invention of life.” It cleared the decks and ushered in the new.
Once just another transformed-by-LSD hippie who was searching for meaning, Jobs roamed ashrams in India in pursuit of truths before morphing into a don’t-mess-with-moi mega-capitalist. He recalled that the seekers of his generation “wanted to more richly experience why we were alive…People went in search of things. The great thing that came from that time was to realize that there was definitely more to life than the materialism…We were going in search of something deeper.”
Eventually, the man Rolling Stone called “the Bob Dylan of machines” became a less than serene Buddhist who, more than anyone, brought together the human and the digital.
Okay, his passing didn’t have much to do with tennis, but for me there were connections, sad truths and links with the game changers of our sport. It wasn’t just that the good too often die young. Arguably tennis’ best man, Arthur Ashe, died at 49. Jobs passed at 56.
More than this, Jobs’ death brought to mind the geniuses of our game: the tireless widget maven, Howard Head, who invented oversized rackets; IMG founder Mark McCormick, who created a whole new profession — player representation; super-salesman Jim Baugh, the former Wilson exec who orchestrated eye-popping product presentations and marketing whiz Arlen Kantarian, who transformed the U.S. Open into a primetime extravaganza.
While Jobs founded his empire out of a garage, Nike founder Phil Knight began his when he poured liquid urethane into his wife’s waffle iron.
Adept master and brash elitist, Jobs was just crazy enough to think he could change the world. he was said to have had both the best and worst qualities of humans. An unsparing boss, he suffered from mood swings and had a penchant for unleashing tyrannical McEnroesque snits that, according to his biographer, Walter Issacson, “could stun an unsuspecting victim with an emotional towel-snap, perfectly aimed.” And, of course, Jobs was a perfectionist: think Ivan Lendl, who was the first tennis star to pay fierce attention to conditioning, nutrition and match preparation.
In other words, Jobs was obsessive (God forbid, there would be three screws in the iPhone) in a manner that brings to mind picky Rafael Nadal fidgeting at absurd lengths over the precise, way-too-orderly, placement of his water bottles.
Chill, brother.
But ultimately, a genius is a genius, and our genius is the Alpine magician Roger Federer, the fellow who prompted Brit Eleanor Preston to ask “is it possible that he is the most perfect tennis player — the most perfect man — in the history of everything, ever?”
Never mind that both Federer and Jobs both had dual heritages (Jobs had a Syrian dad and an American mom; Federer’s heritage is Swiss and South African.) Both collaborated with their fiercest foe. Jobs joined with Bill Gates and once famously turned to the Microsoft boss and quoted Paul McCartney, saying, “You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.” Federer has joined Nadal for many a fundraiser, and the duo often seems more like friends than foes.
Early in their careers, both Jobs and Federer internalized an ample sense of self-worth — a near-haughty confidence — that could be imperious. At his peak, Roger said “I don’t see why I should be vulnerable…I was unbeatable. It was just unreal.”
Ultimately, in their oh-so- different fields, the two who had such deeply innate understandings of their craft, brought incalculable joy and long amazed us with their sometimes studied, sometimes uncanny, always seamless ability to link form and function — elegance and effect. “Design is a funny word,” mused Jobs. “People think design means how it looks. But, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works.”
In his black turtleneck, Levi 501s and New Balance 992 sneakers, the man who said “Thomas Edison did a lot more to improve the world than Karl Marx and [spiritual guide] Neem Karole Baba put together,” dazzled as he came on stage looking like James Taylor to launch his market-shifting (“why didn’t we think of that”) digital gizmos that bristled with clean design and empowered folks from Delhi to Detroit. Jobs’ products liberated and were at the core of the information age. You can argue that no one since Nelson Mandela has had the impact of the Reed College dropout who as a college student would walk cross-town just to get a free meal from the Hare Krishna Temple.
In contrast, Our Roger is but a sportsman. Still, for nearly a decade, he’s thrilled millions. No one on this planet plays a major sport with his captivating Baryshnikov-like grace and flawless technique. No one has such a lean, efficient support system or schedules his year like the wise Swiss man or appears on court with such flawless (not a follicle out of place) precision.
Jobs’ innovations (the Apple II, the Macintosh, Pixar, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and Apple’s retail empire) re-shaped the world. Federer’s work (including his 16 Slams titles and perhaps the best record in all of sports, reaching 23 straight major Slam semis) merely changed a game, brought wonder and created a whole new level for his craft. Both Jobs and Federer are driven, fiercely competitive, “think-different” winners with a laser-like focus. Federer is said to be “the man who could not avoid beauty,” while one recent twitter eulogy said Jobs “touched the ugly world of technology and made it beautiful.”
But there’s no real comparison — right?
Still, genius is something that lures, inspires and lifts us to different dimensions. The creative work of a single imaginative soul can re-shape the landscape. All is stripped away as transformative achievements are made with dismissive ease — deep simplicity. The forehand had been stroked a billion times. But Federer unleashes his lethal version with an almost dreamy balance and stunning ease, such a free flow. Roger’s almost ethereal feel for his sport is most easily seen in his spontaneous trick shots, his no-look ‘tweeners, his deft little off direction flicks and his balletic overheads off of overheads. The London Times suggested Federer at his peak had “a character trait few possess…the instinct for championship: the understanding of oneself, not just as a mere winner, but as the best of all. It is something so powerful that it more or less guarantees the occasional miracle.” To the late David Foster Wallace, Roger “catalyzed our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, movement through space, and interact with matter.”
As for Jobs, he not only crafted many a miracle, he seemed to interact with matter itself — the businessman as wizard. Here a deep intuitiveness prevailed. For “the king of the world at making things flow better,” creativity was “just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something,” Jobs noted, “they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious after a while…because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”
So ultimately, after we slice and dice (and synthesize), what’s the most basic connection between these two special souls — Apple’s Jobs and tennis’ Federer? Well, you could say they did their best work in sneakers.
