At eleven-thirty in the morning on Saturday, February 19th, I stepped on the main court at the Southport Racquet Club in Fairfield County, Connecticut, for a semifinal tournament match. It was the one-year anniversary of rupturing my left Achilles tendon, and it was my third tournament in four weeks after a thirteen-month tournament layoff.
2010 had been a rough year. In addition to tearing my Achilles, my business partner had to undergo treatment for cancer and missed a number of months of work, my aunt died, my uncle died and my father had a stroke.
Despite the seriousness and sadness of each of these events, I had been most stressed by a lengthy business negotiation. I had never before been in a negotiation where bad behavior simply was a business calculation by the other side, and as the acrimony increased, I had a recurring thought: “this guy was never an athlete.”
Being separated from squash, I had begun to develop a utopian view of squash—one where structure and rules prevailed, and everyone was a great sport. During the negotiation, I yearned to get back on the court.
By the start of 2011, the negotiation finally was over, and my business partner and my father had recovered well. But when I finally entered tournaments, I not only didn’t play well; I didn’t compete well either.
The first two tournaments had been round robins, and I had gone zero for seven in matches. Out of twenty-nine games, seventeen had been 11-8 or closer and I had won none of them. I had won games, but when it was close, I consistently fell short.
Part of the reason surely was being out of the practice of competing, and part of it was that I wasn’t moving well because of the Achilles. But another part of it was an unfair standard to which I was holding my opponents. In my ache to find order and fair play, I found myself unreasonably disillusioned by normal competitive behavior.
Each perceived injustice took me back to the negotiating table, where I had been shaken by the other side’s gall. For the most part, my squash opponents weren’t doing anything outrageous, but in looking for Utopia, disappointment is easier to find.
Predictably, as games got close, I started doing negative mental math (“if x hadn’t happened, now I would have game ball”), and I felt both frustrated and sorry for myself—emotions not conducive to winning close games. The losses piled up.
Unhappily, when my match at Southport against a young British ex-Pat, Phil Wilkins, started, I wasn’t as aware of all this as I am now. I had only a few conscious thoughts. Be tough. Play better. Move faster. Be tough, dammit.
On the second point of the match, Phil hit a sharp backhand rail and I ran into him as I went for the ball. I called let, but continued moving to the ball (“Move faster!”) to see if I could get it. I did, and I was pleased. I was moving better.
The referee called the score, but he called it wrong, saying the score was 2-1. I corrected him, but he maintained that it was 2-1. I had been having trouble keeping score this weekend, but I was sure that we had only played two points—how could it be 2-1? There was confusion for a moment, but then I suddenly realized that the referee had called “no let” on the previous point.
Luckily, the crowd and the tournament chairman didn’t agree, and the referee quickly was replaced. The new referee had been watching, and he ruled that it was a let. In other words, everything went my way.
I should have been happy, but the Greek chorus in my mind had already begun to sing. Visions of the negotiation started to ring in my head. I began to look for injustice.
At one point, Phil hit a ball out, but with all the chatter in my head, I didn’t hear the ref call it. How could they not see that? I thought, and I carelessly tinned the next shot. Even after I learned that I had won the point, I still was stewing.
The key thing was that it all was in my mind; the match was being well refereed, and Phil was playing tough, but fair. Internally, however, paranoia reigned, and I was creeping closer and closer to the edge.
Despite everything, and down two games to none, I somehow was hanging in there in the third. I went down 9-6, but battled back to 9-8. We played a long point, and finally—finally!—he made a mistake and hit the ball back toward himself. I was there and ready, but then instead of the stroke call I was looking for, the referee said “Let.”
I snapped.
This was no Serena moment, mind you. No yelling. No screaming. I just let out a huge groan, dropped my racquet, shook Phil’s hand, and walked off the court. The referee, the crowd, and Phil all beseeched me to continue to play. “Why?” I said, “I can’t win.” It was accusatory. It was immature.
Later, after a shower and a change, I found Phil and apologized. He was quite generous. I also apologized to the tournament chairman and to various spectators. When I was riding the train back to the city, I replayed the match over and over. Slowly, I began to realize just how scared I had been.
I was scared of not being tough enough, scared of my own mortality, scared of not being able to come back from another surgery, scared of being wrong, scared of losing another close game, and scared of not living up to my own sense of sportsmanship. Instead of facing the fear, though, I caved to it and, in so doing, I cratered it all.
Almost immediately afterward, however, I was sitting on the floor outside the court as the quickly descending fog of shame engulfed me. Before I could process it, the referee let me have it: “I used to be impressed with you, but after that, I have lost complete respect for you.”
I wish he had waited a few minutes because I think I retorted something dumb. But his message was smack on target.
And though I didn’t quite know it yet, he wasn’t the only one: I had lost complete respect for myself. I hope I can earn it back.
