It was a very cold, damp night in New York yesterday, so what could be more fun than going to hang out with a bunch of jocks to play a high-octane game of tennis and general-sports trivia? The natural venue for this kind of thing is a sports bar awash in draft beer, buffalo wings, and fried blooming onions, but in this case, the locale was one the most prestigious art-auction houses on the planet, Sotheby’s.
The event was a fund- and awareness- raiser for a great cause, the USTA'S Tennis and Education Foundation. This used to be tennis mom Pam Shriver’s pet cause, but she’s been so busy with her kids that she passed the baton to U.S. Davis Cup captain and all-purpose great guy Pat McEnroe—who's on track to become a tennis dad in about six weeks.
If you’re looking to ramp up or shake up your pattern of charitable giving, consider this terrific tennis-related charity.
So this was the deal: A few dozen USTA T&E Foundation donors (or prospective donors), sports celebs, and USTA staff (including the CEO of men’s tennis, Arlen Kantarian) got together in Sotheby’s seventh-floor auction room, where they broke up into teams of up to 15 players each. Seated at separate tables, the teams answered two different 15-item questionnaires. Then they swapped answer sheets and the hosts projected the questions and answers on a big screen for grading.
The sports celebs who played included Virginia Wade, former New York Knick and NBA all-star John Starks, John and Patrick McEnroe, Jim Courier, Roberto Clemente Jr., Katrina Adams, Chris Russo of WFAN's "Mike and the Mad Dog," and former New York Giants star tight end, Howard Cross. Oh, I almost forgot, we also had sports trivia master Howie Schwab, of ESPN's “Stump the Schwab,” looking resplendent at toney Sotheby’s in his hockey jersey.
I was at the same table with Cross, so our team was named the Double Crossers. We were the biggest (if not necessarily brightest) squad, with gamers like L. Jon Wertheim of SI's Tennis Mailbag fame, TENNIS magazine Associate Editor and Spiritual Counselor Tony Lance (the official Keeper of the Flame of All Tennis Nuttery), and Bahar Uttam, CEO of World TeamTennis's Boston Lobsters.
Well, the Double Crossers flamed out under the pressure, getting only seven of the nine U.S. gold medalists from the recent winter Olympics (can you believe we couldn’t come up with of Ted Ligety?) and screwing up one of the trick tennis questions, the size of Rod Laver’s left forearm. We guessed 15 inches; it apparently was measured at 12—which looked to me like the size of the finger on which Howie Cross was wearing his Super Bowl ring.
I know, I know, who cares . . .
So here’s some news you might be interested in: I have it from pretty good sources that the upcoming NASDAQ-100 tournament in Miami is going to officially introduce Hawkeye-based instant replay. Right now, it looks like the ATP and WTA have agreed on using it in a discretionary rather than universal way. That is, neither the chair umpire nor any other officials will be monitoring every point and reversing bad calls. There will be a “challenge” system, much like the NFL uses. As I understand it, though, the WTA is fighting for unlimited challenges, while other constituents want to limit players to as few as three unsuccessful challenges per set. Challenges that are upheld will not count against a player.
More: Andre Agassi has never said he won’t play Davis Cup again, and he has solid relations with the USTA and the folks in the Davis Cup trenches, starting right at the top with captain Patrick McEnroe. This could present an interesting dilemma for McEnroe, given the way Agassi has struggled this year, should Agassi decide he wants to play for his nation one more time. Can you imagine saying “Thanks, but no thanks, Andre?”
More: The USTA took a long, hard look at the disappointing level of support for the U.S. Open Series and is making some changes intended to tighten up the loopholes and persuade more players to take part. One proposed change is the “Pierce Rule,” which would require players to enter more than one U.S. Open Series tournament to be eligible for bonus money.
Last year, Pierce played just one event (San Diego), beating Ai Sugiyama in the final, and still wound up earning a $275,000 bonus because of her run as a U.S. Open finalist. By contrast, Andy Roddick played four of the six men’s events, won the Series, and ended up with a measly 15 grand (due to his first-round loss in Flushing Meadows).
More: Former WTA doubles standout Katrina Adams, who’s now officially a New Yorker affiliated with the Harlem Junior Tennis Program (look under “B” for Blake), tells TW that the cavernous armory where the program is housed is about to undergo a massive renovation and emerge as a posh, state-of-the-art public tennis facility.
That means the end of an era, for nobody who ever played at the armory can ever forget the dungeon-like locker rooms or the surreal feeling of playing in monmouth building with 200-foot tall ceilings, in what little light was allowed in by the leaded windows. Imagine playing in a medieval version of the Astrodome. I know, because I played there a bunch.
It was old school, like Howie Cross, the tight end who was content to flatten opponents with pancake blocks while leaving the flashy pass-catching stuff to smaller, skinnier guys.