I hated losing and was a practice fanatic so I hung out at the Club all the time. I theorized that if I practiced more than the other guys I would eventually beat them.
Unfortunately, I had a somewhat rebellious and anti-establishment nature. I instinctively did not like being told what to do, and this was ultimately bound to lead to a clash with Perry T. Jones, the head of the Southern California Tennis Association and virtual Czar and dictator of tennis in Southern California.
One afternoon I was practicing on one of the back courts at the Club when Mr. Jones walked up and told me to vacate the court because the members might want to use it.
As I walked off I noticed that there were at least a half dozen empty courts, so I asked Mr. Jones why I had to stop practicing since there seemed to be plenty of spare courts. And, I added, I had a guest membership to the Club so I was authorized to practice when I wanted anyway.
Although I said it as nicely as I could, Mr. Jones took this as an affront to his authority and stormed off muttering, "We'll see about your guest membership."
Later that day I was informed that my guest membership had been revoked. I was then relegated to the public courts and mediocre practice opponents.
But the Southern California Junior Championship was scheduled for the following month, and I set about preparing with a vengeance.
I figured that Mr. Jones had his hopes pinned on Bob Delgado, the #1 seed and highest ranking player from the previous year, and I intended to beat Bob, win the tournament and force Mr. Jones to deal with me.
Although I was always a hard worker, now I doubled my efforts. I did extra road-work to improve my conditioning and virtually camped out on the practice courts. If there was no one to play with, I practiced my serve or hit balls on the backboard. I intended to win the tournament if it killed me.
When competition began, my concentration was ferocious. I had something to prove, which was my usual reaction to a challenge.
I ended up winning the tournament, beating Bob Delgado in the finals and, as the top junior in Southern California, was reinstated into Mr. Jones' good graces. My expenses were paid to represent Southern California in the National Junior Championships at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and my guest privileges at the Los Angeles Tennis Club were reinstated.
There are two lessons in this. One is, of course, that reacting productively to a setback is key to success.
But the other is that I would have been wiser to have kept my mouth shut in the first place. Questioning Mr. Jones was a bad idea. It was motivated by my inherent anti-authoritarianism rather than by my logic system.
My logic system would have been concerned with protecting my own best interests and would have concluded that these were not well-served by risking a fight with Mr. Jones over an afternoon's practice. Fortunately I got smarter as I got older.
Tennis matches are much like boxing matches. These are not necessarily won by the fighter with the most powerful punch. The ability to take a punch and absorb punishment without collapsing, flinching, whining, losing one's head, or becoming disheartened is equally important.
Similarly, victory on the tennis court usually goes to the courageous, the resilient and the persistent.
