--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Classiest sportsman takes final bow tonight at retirement ceremony
by Paul Daugherty, The Cincinnati Enquirer
Monday, August 25, 2003
He was your father's tennis player, or should have been. Pete Sampras was the man in the gray flannel suit. Officials at the U.S. Open had to convince him to come to New York today to announce his retirement. That figures. Sampras lived for the circumstance. He hated the pomp.
He's officially done with sports now, just when sports needs him most. He won 14 Grand Slam singles titles and never congratulated himself once. Now that every minor personal achievement in sports is cause for look-at-me choreography, we wonder why we didn't appreciate Sampras more. We thought he was dull.
"Old school," said Phil Smith, spokesman for the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters. Said tournament mastermind Paul Flory, "Pete went about his business in a businesslike way." Sampras played 14 times at the Mason event, more than anyone but Michael Chang, and won it three times, second only to Mats Wilander's four wins.
Sampras transcended tennis. You could be a Sampras fan and not a tennis fan. That was me. Over the years up in Mason, I'd witnessed the most boorish behavior jocks can offer.
One year Brad Gilbert, then Agassi's coach, spent a practice session cursing an acquaintance he said owed him money. As tens of pre-teens watched their idol Agassi practice, Gilbert treated them to language you wouldn't feed your dog.
Another year, Boris Becker's coach yanked a tape recorder from my hand and walked with it into the players' locker room, where media weren't allowed. The ensuing scene almost got me banned from the tournament. Yet another year, Stefan Edberg came to his press conference after having lost in the finals, and admitted he didn't know how many sets he was playing. That's showing respect for your customers.
Sampras was pure grace. He made the term "sportsman" sound not so quaint.
He strayed here just once. Pat Rafter rallied to beat him in three sets in the '98 final. After winning a second-set tiebreak, Rafter had the crowd in his hip pocket. When Rafter served for the match, the line judge ruled the ball out. The chair overruled.
Sampras stared holes in the guy, then ripped the crowd for its support of Rafter. "We are in the United States, aren't we?" Sampras wondered during the awards ceremony.
"Pete always had the same hangdog expression," Smith said. "He never got upset. Then that day . . ."
It only made Sampras human, and more believable as the classiest "sportsman" we've seen in years.
Sampras has gotten married. His wife had a son last November. He's 32. In individual sports, it is almost impossible to serve two masters well. You can be a great player or a great family man, not both. The talent and energy for both was what separated Jack Nicklaus.
Sampras wants to play golf and be a good husband and father. Tennis wouldn't allow that, at least not at the level he expected to play it.
Unofficially Sampras was done as soon as he beat Agassi for the Open title last September. He always said he wanted to go out like Koufax. He did. He left us smiling, if not dancing. Pete Sampras was never the type to make you dance, which is OK. We miss the subtle stars most.