Luke Jensen on College Coaching, Women, Life After Pro Tennis • Tennis-X.com • 2010
As I took notes, Luke Jensen, the second half of the French Open winning ‘93 doubles team, waited to board another plane. In his busy life, he travels during summers meeting potential college tennis recruits, keeps up with his role as the Syracuse University tennis coach, and plays the exhibition matches every so often. Yesterday, he was in Vancouver for a tennis clinic.
Today, he joined me in Sacramento, first chatting on the way to the airport over bad-quality peanut snacks. You know, the kind that make you feel ripped off, but you’re hungry for protein so you eat them and secretly like them, despite realizing the factory they came from was probably cockroach infested.
“Sometimes the days are pretty long. You start in the morning and go until night. Vancouver is one of the most amazing tennis destinations. It’s got these unbelievable clubs on the water. It really is great,” he said.
As a player, he explained, one must always drive himself to “an area of my game where I’d like to improve and be unique.” For example, Jensen and I share something odd in common: we are both ambidextrous. As a little kid, I was left-handed in everything but wrote with my right hand. To impress others, I practiced my name in cursive with a fuzzy Beluga whale-topped pencil until I learned how to write left-handed (Somehow, it didn’t make a difference with my two left dancing feet). Jensen explained that on court, learning to play with both strong hands follows the same suit.
“You have to have the mental approach to do it. You want to learn with your right or left hand? The same with tennis. I teach all my players to use the same thing. Murphy [his brother] has the ability to hit overheads and serves. It’s a neat challenge.”
Right now, “My job now is to get more players for the pro circuit for the future, whereas the current players just finished their finals this week. All of them are playing down [at a tournament] in Pennsylvania.”
Jensen talked about the lack of ambition found today.
“The players I recruit — so many of them don’t think they can be pros so they quit on their dreams. If they’re 16 or 17 and ranked 30th in the nation, they put an expiration date on their tennis. They stop practicing, gain 15 pounds. If you want to be a pro, you have to work harder. Rafael Nadal is still working on his game. You have to stay ahead of the curve. In the 14-and-under category, I was ranked 94th in the nation. I had no indication I was gonna be a pro tennis player, but that’s what I wanted to do. That’s all I thought about. I didn’t know how I was gonna do it, I just knew I wanted to be No. 1 in the world. I don’t see that out there a lot.
“If you’re 16 or 17 years old, you need to go to college. Clearly, if you’re not in the Top 100 in the world, you aren’t making money. Anyone outside the Top 100? They’re not making money. They make expenses. I see so many of these top players turning pro and they have no business turning pro. They can’t do like Venus Williams did at 17 years old, going to the US Open and playing the finals. Those people are beyond off-the-chart talented.”
Many players also overlook the non-sports benefits that college holds. “There are so many life lessons in there too. Being a complete person. The social experience! Dealing with pressures in the classroom and pressures from your peers. It’s an amazing time in your life.
“On my team, I have the highest GPA of any team in the athletic department. I’ve got people in pre-law, pre-med and business. What’s going to happen if they don’t become professional tennis players? Where do they go if they don’t have a backup plan? If you are actually winning on the tour, on the main WTA Tour against ranked players and Melanie Oudin is a good example, she’s in the Top 100 right now. She could’ve lost that match at Wimbledon. That’s a big risk. There’s timing involved. A lot of things go into it. Other players are just as talented, but some people make their break and other people don’t.”
Jensen said the sport has changed since his doubles days.
“The passway is different. When I played, there were people out there who focused solely on doubles and that was the entire draw, to have the best doubles players in the world. Now some of the elite teams in the world do play, but the other half of the draw is singles players who don’t put in the same amount of time for doubles. The game is definitely bigger and stronger. It has never been played at a higher level.
“The speed has definitely picked up. There are better athletes and…the technology. But if you stay with the game, [Jimmy] Connors is a good example of how he was able to pick up with the pace and the strength. This game is evolving all the time, but it’s also still rooted in how you play under pressure. You run or you run away from it. Can you put the ball where it needs to be when it counts?
“So, the champions with that mindset — it doesn’t matter when it is — those fundamental principles will always be the same because the court and dynamics will stay the same. The athletes will get better, but when you talk about competition? Justine Henin. Kim Clijsters. It’s amazing to come back and be at that level. Pete Sampras can come back and play any good match, but to do it in two solid weeks under the rigorous physical strain?”
As with every profile piece I write, I asked basic facts like his age. Jensen told me he was a hopeless old maid.
“I turn 44 next month. I’m doing nothing. My back hurts. My knees hurt. I’ll probably have a little cake, absolutely, but it’s going to be real low key.
“I am single. The opportunity hasn’t really come about. It hasn’t been right. I was on the tour so long, so focused on that up in Syracuse. You just get busy and everything. You’re engrossed in your career. You’re gonna have to really make time for a social life. How much time do you want to commit to it? That’s a whole ‘nother process.”
See, that’s another thing shared amongst myself and the two Jensens: we are all pathetically single spinsters for life. Luke and I decided at this moment to form a club where we would all split time wearing the same pair of jeans. Somehow, the pants would fit both a 32-inch hipped little girl and three tall, muscular pro tennis dudes of varying waist sizes. We would decorate the pants with eight pounds o’ Barbie glitter and co-pen an awesomely girl-powered chick lit novel about tennis involved in our single lives. We knew in a millisecond Murphy would be up for it, but we needed a fourth member and Jensen thought John McEnroe would find the idea too sissy. The search for a fourth person was now on.
In all seriousness, admittedly, half of what we joke about is true. I am already 22 and despite plenty of prospective offers I have toyed with, the last name DiCaprio has yet to show up on my caller ID. Grrrr. Jensen, like his brother Murphy, takes life at ease and suggests I do so. He will meet the dream woman he wants when he is ready for her. Come to think of it, he doesn’t know who she is. His mind draws a blank. I tried talking him up to meet Playboy babes hiding somewhere in upstate New York. On the contrary, he described needing a woman who can handle an outdoorsy lifestyle.
“Girls are all right with me! I probably do a lot of fitness training. I’m really into that outdoors stuff, getting out and hiking and fishing. In Syracuse, there is so much to do. It’s like an outdoor paradise. I live basically on a farm across the street from another farm that has longhorn cattle and alpacas. It’s crazy.”
A city girl is out of the question then. “If you’re coming from the city, everything’s boring, unless you go to Paris, LA or Chicago. Syracuse has a very slow pace.”
He wants a girl who can handle his work ethic. He is passionate.
“My thing right now, my obsession is trying to contribute to helping bring back American tennis in the same way the USTA and Patrick McEnroe are. You’ve got to first have a plan. I have a plan that is not something I invented or a system that I came up with. It’s something my family used to be professional tennis players. It just starts with a mindset. People are turning pro based on what potential they have, not based on reality.”
He told of the experience very few men have shared: winning a Grand Slam.
“For 99 percent of us, to play pro tennis we had to claw and climb our way up. We didn’t have the talent to just do it, land at that top of the mountain. There’s a lot of hard work, but some people could bypass that with extreme talent.”
Jensen said too many women disappear from tennis.
“There are so many players who just fall off the map. And the guys, you don’t just see guys burning out and taking off. Guys slip a little bit, but it’s the same core of guys with new guys sprinkled in once in a while.
“My formula is just like in the classroom — if your grades and test scores show you can’t be a doctor, you can’t be in medical school. I’m not saying you can’t develop over the next four years. I’m taking players who still want to be pros and turning them into pros over the four-year life span while they’re going to get their college degrees.
“What do we have, five players in the Top 100 in the world? We only have five players? With all of our money and resources and coaching in the country and all we can muster up is five? Something’s falling apart! The more people like Patrick [McEnroe] or myself who are trying to develop players at that level, the better they’re going to be!”
We got talking about the meaning of friendship beyond bracelets. He told me a few things at first about his friends way back when. They would get together often. Not so much anymore, but they try. I talked about how my once-huge circle of friends years and years ago now whittled down to a small, weird mix of fun people who don’t work often, middle-aged print journalists, jocks, guys I formerly dated/want to date/sometimes still semi-date-but-call-my-”friends” and really, really old people like a Manhattan neighbor in her 80s. We get together to eat fruit salad and complain about our physical health ailments.
“I am very fortunate to know people, especially in tennis, but I think what happens is my friends now have careers and families,” he said, “so it’s not the same friendship.” In other words, they don’t hang out as often. They have changed. Life goes on sometimes. “You fit it in when you can. You make a phone call when you can.”
I had to ask him about his French Open win in the ’90s. HAD TO. Particularly because I will never know what it feels like and each person I meet who has won a Grand Slam has a different take on it.
“It’s the most amazing achievement I can possibly think of. It’s not just winning a Slam but winning a Slam with your brother. It has so much more meaning and depth because of the journey from a small town in Michigan with no indoor courts, playing seasonal tennis, being a late starter. It’s to understand how hard that really was. At 44 years old, it still blows my mind we were able to accomplish it.”
Somehow, this led to a crazy discussion about vegetarianism, traveling, being unaware of people’s sexual orientations nowadays solely based on stereotypes — when asking someone out, male or female, one must clarify whether it is for a date, friendship or something in between — once again Melanie Oudin’s overall awesomeness for her age, the mind games in tennis one overcomes – the sad state of incredible tennis stars doubting themselves on court when they shouldn’t — and the fact that his brother co-wrote a few songs on my double disc CD out this summer. We got so wrapped in conversation that we didn’t hear the airline’s boarding announcement until Jensen was nearly poked in the eye by someone’s luggage.
“They’re boarding this plane now,” he said. He apologized a bit. “I don’t think my interview is doing any justice. Murphy’s the comedian.” Actually, he was pretty hilarious. By the time you read this, he will have flown to Florida, meeting another potential collegiate tennis player and will finally be off to Syracuse again, where he will take it easy for five minutes.
Q&A with John Kerry • PurePolitics.com • 2004
2004 is different for presidential races. Unlike some years, when one candidate has already sealed the nomination before others have had a chance to start campaigning, this time, there are more than a few people seeking the Democratic nomination who are definite possibilities. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is one of them, yet he doesn’t feel he should compare what he does to his opponents.
“I don’t compare myself to other candidates, I think that’s a huge mistake…I think if you’re running for President, you should just tell people where you stand and let them make judgments about what that means. I don’t like political labels, I’d much rather talk issues,” says Kerry. “I believe in just going out and talking common sense, and that’s worked pretty well for me.”
What Kerry may be most known for is being a veteran of the Vietnam War. He joined the Navy shortly after graduating from Yale University.
“The Presidency has three key job descriptions: chief executive of the fiscal and domestic policies of the United States – head of state and therefore, the nation’s chief diplomat – and Commander in Chief of the Nation’s military forces. I think my experience in the Navy helped teach me something about two thirds of that job, and I’m lucky to have had that experience and training,” Kerry said.
But it wasn’t when he first served in the Vietnam conflict that he realized the importance of the armed forces and patriotism. The Massachusetts presidential hopeful remembers a moment when he was younger and first saw the Normandy beach, site of World War II’s D-Day invasion, with his father.
“I think that beach, where thousands died for a freedom we defend today, symbolizes how my father and his generation, known as the greatest generation, answered the questions of their time,” Kerry believes. “They had the courage to win the war, but they didn’t stop there – they went farther and secured the peace, rebuilding Europe and setting the stage to win the Cold War. These were the kinds of lessons I was taught and which I brought to my work in the Senate and which I want to bring to the White House.”
The current situation on everyone’s minds is the Middle East. What are your thoughts?
First, we need to focus on the greater Middle East and the U.S. must look beyond stability alone as the linchpin of our relationships. We must place increased focus on the development of democratic values and human rights as the keys to long-term security. If we learned anything from our failure in Vietnam, it is that regimes removed from the people cannot permanently endure.
They must reform or they will finally crumble, despite the efforts of the United States. We must side with and strengthen the aspirations of those seeking positive change. America needs to be on the side of the people, not the regimes that keep them down. We as Americans must be agents of hope as well as enemies of terrorism. We must help bring modernity to the greater Middle East.
We must make significant investments in the education and human infrastructure in developing countries. The globalization of the last decade taught us that simple measures like buying books and family planning can expose, rebut, isolate and defeat the apostles of hate so that children are no longer brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers and terrorists are deprived the ideological breeding grounds. I believe we must reform and increase our global aid to strengthen our focus on the missions of education and health, of freedom for women, and economic development for all.
The U.S. should take a page from our Cold War playbook. No one expected communism to fall as suddenly as it did. But that didn’t prevent us from expanding society-to-society aid to support human rights groups, independent media and labor unions and other groups dedicated to building a democratic culture from the ground up. Democracy won’t come to the greater Middle East overnight, but the U.S. should start by supporting the region’s democrats in their struggles against repressive regimes or by working with those which take genuine steps towards change.
And we must have a new vision and a renewed engagement to reinvigorate the Mideast peace process. This Administration made a grave error when it disregarded almost seventy years of American friendship and leadership in the Middle East and the efforts of every President of the last 30 years.
A great nation like ours should not be dragged kicking and resisting – should not have to be pressured to the task of making peace. A great nation like ours should be leading the effort to make peace or we risk encouraging through our inaction the worst instincts of an already troubled region. Israel is our ally, the only true democracy in this troubled region, and we know that Israel as a partner is fundamental to our security. From Truman through Clinton, America has always been committed to Israel’s independence and survival – we will never waiver.
Israel’s security will be best assured over the long term if real and lasting peace can be brought to the Middle East. I know from my own trips to Israel that the majority of the Israeli people understand and expect that one day there will be a Palestinian state. Their frustration is that they do not see a committed partner in peace on the Palestinian side. Palestinians must stop the violence – this is the fundamental building block of the peace process. The Palestinian leadership must be reformed, not only for the future of the Palestinian people but also for the sake of peace. I believe Israel would respond to this new partner after all, Israel has already indicated its willingness to freeze settlements and to move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of a comprehensive peace process.
Without demanding unilateral concessions, the United States must mediate a series of confidence building steps, which start down the road to peace. Both parties must walk this path together – simultaneously. And the world can help them do it. While maintaining our long-term commitment to Israel’s existence and security, the United States must work to keep both sides focused on the end game of peace. Extremists must not be allowed to control this process. American engagement and successful mediation are not only essential to peace in this war-torn area but also critical to the success of our own efforts in the war against terrorism.
When I visited the region last year, in meetings with King Abdullah of Jordan, President Mubarak of Egypt, and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, it became clear that September 11 had changed the imperatives of these countries. The Bush Administration has missed an opportunity to enlist much greater support in the peace process and needs to focus on this urgent priority- now. The transformation of the Middle East, which can come from these efforts, will determine much of our own security.
With your experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, how has this shaped your paradigm of the conflict in the Middle East, North Korea?
I have been really lucky to have had a lot of experiences which impressed upon me how important foreign policy is to people’s lives and how it takes such up at dawn, personal effort to make it work. It was seared into me early as a foreign service brat moving around and living all over the place. When I was a little kid, I remember walking on the beaches of Normandy where thousands of young Americans died fighting for freedom. It was a few years after the war and my father was serving abroad in the foreign service. As we walked and my father pointed out burnt-out bunkers, exploded shells, and the skeletons of landing vehicles – I came face to face – at a young age – with the meaning of our nation’s sacrifices.
I think that beach, where thousands died for a freedom we defend today, symbolizes how my father and his generation, known as the greatest generation, answered the questions of their time. They had the courage to win the war, but they didn’t stop there – they went farther and secured the peace, rebuilding Europe and setting the stage to win the Cold War. These were the kinds of lessons I was taught and which I brought to my work in the Senate and which I want to bring to the White House.
How do you feel your time serving in the Navy will help you if elected president?
I think it’s been invaluable. I will bring the perspective to foreign policy and national security not just of the situation room, but of the front lines. These questions are important to me because I’ve seen what happens when soldiers’ lives are put on the line. You better have a smart foreign policy to back them up. The Presidency has three key job descriptions: chief executive of the fiscal and domestic policies of the United States – head of state and therefore, the nation’s chief diplomat – and Commander in Chief of the Nation’s military forces. I think my experience in the Navy helped teach me something about two thirds of that job, and I’m lucky to have had that experience and training.
What do you feel is the most important issue in this campaign?
Leadership to make America stronger – on all the issues. I really believe if we had leadership that dared to tell the truth and help Americans make tough choices, we’d be better on almost every issue – the economy, health care, national security, you name it. I can’t wait to remind this President that landing on an aircraft carrier does not make up for a failed economic policy.
You have been in the Senate for almost 20 years. When looking back, what do you think was the moment when you feel you truly made a difference? What are some of the issues and constituent concerns you worked with that you would like to bring to the White House?
You get a chance to make a difference every day in the Senate, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in bigger ways. As a Senator, I went to Harlem to visit a program called Youthbuild, where kids from court diversion programs, and dropouts were being trained in construction and getting their GED. It was incredible. With tough love, opportunity and responsibility, these kids were turning their lives around. So I went back to the Senate, and we made Youthbuild a national program. Today it’s in, I think, about 70 cities with thousands of graduates – that is just one of the things you can do to take your vision of how the country ought to work and take it nationwide. It’s such a rewarding feeling.
How do you view your political philosophy? How does it compare to other Democratic candidates?
I don’t compare myself to other candidates; I think that’s a huge mistake. Political pundits make small fortunes offering commentary on politicians. I think if you’re running for President, you should just tell people where you stand and let them make judgments about what that means. I don’t like political labels, I’d much rather talk issues. I believe in just going out and talking common sense, and that’s worked pretty well for me.
What do you remember most from working for Vietnam veterans in Washington? When Sen. Pell told you that you might become a member of Congress yourself, did you ever expect it to happen?
Those were tough times in America, and I remember still how much it was vets fighting for vets that really made the difference. We believed in each other. It was so hard to get politicians to listen, but we raised our voices, and we knocked on doors, and we fought with our heads and our gut. I still remember with pride at the outcome, that for our generation of Veterans the war did not end when we came home. For us, the fight continued – the recognition honoring our deeds came when Veterans pushed for it – Agent Orange, outreach centers, extension of the GI Bill – increased funding for Veterans Affairs, these all happened because Veterans remembered their brothers and sisters and never stopped fighting to keep faith with the promise to veterans. We had a sense of special responsibility to those who weren’t lucky enough to make it home.
Why should people vote for you in the upcoming election?
Because it is time we had a President who is on the side of the many, not the few – a President with a real economic strategy to get this nation moving again. That means investing in people; it means restoring fiscal discipline, and it means that when an Enron bilks the retirement savings of ordinary investors and shatters consumer confidence, those greedy few at the top are going to go to jail.
If you could seek advice from three people (alive or dead) during your run for the White House, who would they be and why?
My parents, because they really understood what patriotism and service are all about, and this would’ve been a very special journey for them.