Every tennis writer worth his keyboard has written about the singular Anna Kournikova. The late, great Frank Deford, who died last night, was a dignified observer with a hefty gravitas. But he didn’t hesitate to step up and offer his take on the Russian sex kitten.
Deford noted that the Russian superstar looked “like a trim sloop, skimming across the surface, her long signature pigtail flying about like a torn spinnaker in the wind. Her lines are perfect — especially now that she doesn’t jam the second-service ball up her knickers.”
Good sportswriting, eh? He was good, some say the best. He died Sunday night at the age of 78. Deford loved to absorb the scene and to write on sports and life itself. He penned 18 books and nine novels, and also wrote tennis books on the likes of Bill Tilden, Jack Kramer, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Pam Shriver and Jimmy Connors. He wrote hundreds of articles for fine magazines like Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair. And he could talk, too. He not only was a handsomely paid speaker, he chatted with the literary crowd in Key West, with fishermen, cabbies and bartenders and was a compelling broadcaster on both HBO and NPR.
On the radio for 32 years, he offered what he called “little homilies” from a different perspective. In his 1656th and final broadcast, he proclaimed, “Someone had to stand up to the yakety yak soccer cult.” He thanked NPR for treating “sports seriously as another branch on the tree of culture. Sports allows you a lot more territory than just x’s and o’s. You can write about fascinating people and all the human emotions that are tucked into sports.” He was an ideas guys who elevated and humanized athletes, while all the while being the only sports writer who was featured in a slew of good commercials about a bad beer – “Tastes great, less filling”?
But Frank Deford had a problem. Not only was he a lowly sportswriter who in the 60s and 70s covered the hockey battles rather than the Vietnam war, he felt he didn’t get his due for his writing from the literary crowd and wasn’t appreciated by jocks for his sports acumen.
His friend, Inside Tennis writer Michael Mewshaw, explained that Frank was too into lowly sports to be celebrated by literary savants and too into highbrow writing to be accepted by sports fans.
So often, Deford’s insights rang true. Responding to the onslaught of patriotism that the Olympics inevitably stirs, he wrote: “Sports is not supposed to be an excuse for jingoism…The Games are supposed to be about excellence, not anthems.”
Bravo, Mr. Deford. Similarly, he sang Billie Jean King’s praises. He claimed, “There isn’t any question in this [20th] century that the most significant athletic figures are Jackie Robinson and King…[but] Robinson needed somebody to open the door for him. Billie Jean crashed down the doors herself…She said girls should play games.”
Speaking of girls, in “Raised by Women to Conquer Men” notes that Jimmy Connors returned serve by taking the ball on the rise and concludes his singular profile by noting, “It is strange that as powerful as the love is that consumes the Connorses, Jimbo has always depended on hate in order to win. And all along that must have been the hard way. There is no telling how far a man could go who could learn to take love on the rise.”
DeFord was also friends with Connors’ ace rival Arthur Ashe and traveled with the African-American to South Africa when he broke the color ban there. But, DeFord noted, “The South African government didn’t want any trouble. The fact that whites tolerated Ashe sort of started the process which landed up with Nelson Mandela, who then was in jail on Robben Island, becoming the President…It really turned the switch that changed everything.”
Closer to home, Deford claimed that the NCAA was “the OPEC of Sports…an impossible organization… [Goodness] the Big Ten has twelve teams and the Big Twelve has ten teams…Coaches make $10 million and players make nothing…America is the only place in the world where sports make money and athletes don’t get paid.”
But still, there were times I disagreed with the sports sage. He claimed that Wimbledon is the most overrated event in sports and that Steffi Graf (22 majors, thank you very much) was the most overrated player in tennis history. Ouch!
But most of all, Deford always caught my attention. His provocations were wise. He loved characters and once noted that the best, most hated sports villains have either disappeared or lost their zing. “In tennis, Ilie Nastase has become a novelist. Connors has become a doting daddy, and elder statesman McEnroe, while still surly, flounders in the rankings.”
As for Andre Agassi, he wrote, “The other celebrities that come to mind that Agassi models himself on are Marlon Brando and Richard Burton, two great young actors who gave up serious work for easy parts, easy money and to be with beautiful women.”
Deford himself did marry a beautiful model, but his life was hardly easy. For all his fabulous commentary, his greatest contribution was his tireless work to combat cystic fibrosis. His daughter Alex died from the disease when she was eight and “Alex: The Life of a Child,” his poignant book [and movie] about her struggle is one of his most celebrated works. Even when dealing with his family’s conflicts, he was unsparing. He argued, “The idea that tragedy brings a family together — my own experience is that that’s garbage…Apart from the sadness, there was relief: She was in such distress that we wanted her to die…After she died, I woke up one morning and suddenly I remembered that I didn’t have to get up and do the therapy any more.”
Deford also didn’t hesitate to criticize his own profession. “ESPN is all meat and potatoes,” he complained. “It’s pretty much scouting reports. There isn’t a great deal of humor, and when there is, it’s pretty sophomoric. The people…feel that their charge is simply to deliver just the facts, ma’am — inside baseball all the way. They don’t have any sense of trying to be poetic or graceful.”
Behind me today, in the French Open press room, David Waldstein, the venerable New York Times tennis writer, bemoaned the fact that they don’t make ’em like DeFord anymore. We mused: budgets are lower, careers are shorter, characters are smaller. Everyone is at home tweeting – journalism has changed.
But Deford was always a giant as well as a dreamy writer who gave sports fans and literary buffs alike a library full of work. He will be remembered. Billie Jean King told Inside Tennis, “Today we lost a legend in journalism and in life…[who] was a loyal champion of others and loved to tell the story of the human spirit. He was a brilliant writer, a man who lived with integrity, and [he was] a dear friend. Frank not only raised the bar for excellence in his field, he was the gold standard. His keen ability to tell a story and take his audience deep into the center of the issue were very special gifts.”
Deford always had a feel for the moment and, not surprisingly, ended his last NPR broadcast in early May with a certain spare, yet playful, elegance. “And now ladies and gentleman, boys and girls,” he said. “I bid you goodbye and take my leave.”
