Howdy, Tribe. It's the morning of the final day of the Australian Open, and although the much-anticipated Men's Final is hours away, I'm off to a fine start. I had a leisurely brunch with Roger and Evonne Goolagong Cawley at the hotel, and just a little while ago I went out to try to find a stuffed kangaroo to bring back for sleep-deprived Steggy, who's again been so indispensable to TennisWorld.
The National Tennis Center was nearly empty, so I was surprised to hear the opening chords to the old Big Brother and the Holding Company mega-hit, Piece of My Heart. It takes major Wilanders to cover any song ever sung by Janis Joplin, but the chica doing it was up to the job. I wandered by; it turned out to be Mahalia Barnes, whose father, Jimmy, is a legend of Australian rock. Her band is performing to warm-up the tennis crowd later tonight, and they were doing the sound check.
I sat down to listen. I'd seen the late Janis Joplin a bunch of times back in my misspent youth - hey, maybe it wasn't so misspent after all! - and always felt that she was the real deal: a frizzy-haired, substance-abusing white trash chica from Port Arthur who had a few things in common with with Serena Williams, including a big a**. It was a sweet moment, made that much poignant by its surreality.
Here's an update for all you old-school readers who have been curious about what Evonne has been doing. Now 55, she's still living in Noosa Head with her husband Roger, a guy who, back-in-the-day, was often suspected of the same things Pierre Yves Hardenne was accused of when his divorce from Justine Henin-Hardenne became a public matter. He's just a hanger-on! He doesn't have a job! He's after her money!
But let me tell you something: I'm not real familiar with Hardenne's situation, but I know Roger Cawley's as well as if he were a blood relation. Roger was a clever, charismatic, entrepreneurial guy (he was a good athlete too, having played county-level tennis in England) when he fell head-over-heels in love with Evonne when both of them were in their early 20s. He feel in love with her talent, which made him one among millions. More importantly, he fell in love with her person - the graceful, natural, unaffected, Supremes-loving aboriginal girl who emerged from the stressed native culture here to become a multiple Grand Slam champion. Her saga that stands as the antipodal equivalent of the Venus and Serena Williams story.
It was clear that Roger chose wisely - that was a no-brainer. But Evonne, obsessively sheltered throughout her youth by Vic Edwards, the talent-worshiping coach who discovered and whisked her away from home to make her a champion, showed remarkable judgment as well. Their first meetings in London were clandestine; both of them knew that Edwards wanted Evonne to have no part of any man but himself. He also wanted her to wring every drop of potential out of her tennis game, and fooling around with boys would interfere with that. Roger fought Edwards for Evonne and Roger won; soon after Evonne accepted his proposal, Edwards gave her an ultimatum - it's him or me. She said she was marrying Roger, no matter what the consequences. He didn't blink, she terminated their relationship, and Edwards ultimately went to his grave with his eyes still shut.
Evonne and Roger have two kids, Kelly (an actress) and Morgan (a first-rate but injury-plagued soccer player who's now a personal trainer). Kelly is almost 30 and Morgan not far behind, but to them I'm still "Peter Draw Cat" - the guy who dropped into their lives now and then and spent a lot of time drawing pictures of cats for the toddler, Kelly.
Roger knew that when they married, their life would be all about Evonne. This is a leap of faith for any man; Roger knew exactly what people would say. But a few things helped make Roger and Evonne the flat-out wonderful couple they have been for almost 30 years now.
Roger was willing to put Evonne's needs ahead of his own in many critical, Big Ticket areas. But that would not have been sufficient to protect the marriage if Evonne had not shown a deep understanding of what the means, and a comparable ability to put the needs of her husband and family above her own at some critical times. In reality, Evonne was a part-time tennis pro, even in some of her greatest years (she won seven majors and, when she won Wimbledon in 1980, she became the first mother to do since 1914). This is a comment on both her athletic genius and, more importantly, her character and values. And here they are today: still together. Still attentive to each other to the point of dotage. Still ready to have a good time at the mere suggestion (And, boy, did we have some good times; Evonne once carried me - literally - out of the men's room in Trader Vic's in New York's Plaza hotel. Did I mention that she could handle her GE's like few women I've known?).
Roger was Evonne's hitting partner and coach, with a lower-case "c." When she went out to play Chrissie or Martina in some big final, preparation consisted of Roger snuffing out his Rothman's to have a 20-minute hit with the wifey. No wonder they find nothing unusual in the fact that Roger Federer's hitting partner, at least some of the time, is no more imposing or youthful a player than his coach, Tony Roche (I'm not sure of Tony's age, and carbon-dating is pretty unreliable anyway).
"I think Tony's done a great job with Roger, yea," Evonne remarked at one point this morning. "He seems to be hitting a lot more slice now, and you can really see Tony in Roger's volleys - that little underspin thingy he does. It seems pretty obvious to me."
Anyone familiar with Evonne's tennis would hardly be surprised to hear that she's a big fan of Federer's. Evonne was comparably smooth, equally creative. Her game it was like a summer breeze, and she would have won more than than seven slams if it didn't sometimes come and go like one, too. As it was, she appeared in a whopping 18 major finals, eight of them in her native Australia, where she is a both an icon and a national treasure. But she knows that tennis is a game for and of the young. She had her run, and a fine one it was. But that's all it was, and all the rest of it - the exposure, the status - means nothing to her.
"I don't watch much professional tennis now," Evonne said. "But I quite enjoy watching Roger. The other night (Federer's match with Andy Roddick), when Roger hit that backhand passing shot off his shoe tops - I got this feeling. Yea, that must have felt good."
Evonne would be the one to know. She was all feeling on the court; all improvisation and nuance and creativity.
In retirement, Evonne has gone off-grid, declining to trade heavily on her status as an Aussie icon. What is it with these Aussie chicas? Margaret Court, still the all-time Grand Slam women's singles title holder, is an evangelist and preacher; Evonne, still the all-time favorite player of legions, world-wide, works with aboriginal kids in an under-the-radar program that puts heavy emphasis on all-around personal development. This makes her happy. Even at the peak of her career, she never forgot where she came from, and always expressed a desire to work in the aboriginal community.
Evonne has some talented kids in her camp. She works closely with them, and I'm sure that they respond to her not because she's Evonne Goolagong, the great Aussie champion, but Evonne Goolagong, the lady who seems to have some innate understanding of who they are; the lady who is patient and encouraging and gentle. For of all her qualities, the one that stands out the most is her gentleness. It is, I think, why she is so good with kids. And I think that it all along it was the underlying reason for why so many loved her so; the high-backhand overheads and deft drop shots were just the dressing.
Some of the kids in her program are talented, but the road to glory is long and hard. Roger thinks they have some kids with big potential. He has always been a sucker for a beautiful game. He appreciates shot making skills and soft hands. His blue eyes lit up when he said, "You know, our best kids are attacking players."
Evonne leaned across the table and, in a conspiratorial whisper, added: "We don't try to tell them how to play, and we don't want to go against what their year-round coaches are telling them. But we do tell them, 'It's nice to have options. . .'"
Evonne always had options too. And she always seemed to choose the most valuable, productive ones. Sometimes, you travel awfully far in life, without ever going too far from where you started.