Emotional Intelligence and My Journey

Emotional Intelligence, or my lack of it, shaped my early life in profound ways, especially as a young, precocious teenager striving for a career in tennis. And yet, in spite of myself, by age eighteen, I had become one of the most promising young players in the country. I was a member of Junior Davis Cup, a rising freshman star at UCLA, and by the spring of 1983, I was on an extraordinary run.

What happened? How did I go from the top of college tennis to my life spiraling so out of control?

The truth is, it had been happening all along.

That April, I stepped onto the court for the defending NCAA champion UCLA Bruins, undefeated, having won my first twenty-two dual matches, tying Jimmy Connors’ freshman record, and on the brink of breaking every single-season record in UCLA’s storied history.

It looked like greatness was calling, before it all fell apart

Within a year, I had quit the team, dropped out of school, given back the scholarship I had worked so hard to earn, and retreated to living in my VW van, numbing myself with alcohol and drugs, day after day, night after night, begging the most obvious question.

I was pursuing the demanding tennis life with undiagnosed and untreated emotional health problems, problems I began to dangerously self-medicate at the precarious age of fourteen and that I would struggle mightily with for much of my adult life, finally getting the help I needed at age 37 only to find my wires dangerously crossed by that time, where only a series of absurd miracles and likely divine interventions permit me to be here with you now to share these words.

I got very lucky. And though my story may be extreme in many ways, the important takeaway from my experiences is that subjecting emotionally vulnerable people to unrelenting stress, particularly the stress of the competitive tennis life, not only doesn't improve one's overall well-being, but it can make those issues demonstrably worse.

Hence, why I am passionate about the emotional health and wellness of those who choose to compete in our sport.

For context, what happened to me took place forty years ago, at a time when very little was known about addiction, mental health, or mood disorders. There were no support systems, no safety nets, no programs for kids like me. But what alarms me most today is that even with all the knowledge, research, and resources we now have about emotional well-being, we still seem to be losing ground. Rates of burnout, mental health crises, and despair of athletes across all sports continue to rise.

Which raises an important question- Are we missing something, or simply not acting forcefully enough on what we know?

The inspiration for First Ball To Last came during a book tour for my memoir You Can Get There From Here. During a Q&A, a woman asked me if there was anything that could have been done to help me back then, as a talented but troubled teenager battling addiction and emotional turmoil. My answer was simple: No. It was simply a different time.

Then she asked me the harder question: What about today? What if a kid like you showed up now—all kinds of talent, yet all kinds of problems on and off the court? Are there programs available today to keep young, promising lives from spiraling out of control?

I wasn't able to answer her question that evening. But upon returning home, I got to researching. And what I found was that, despite all these years, while much progress has been made in awareness, the answer was still largely no, with effective programs still lacking.

So I've taken it upon myself to create the program I wish I and countless others like me had when we were young competitors. A program designed to be performance-enhancing as well as life-enhancing, providing tennis players of all levels and ages not just emotional tools to best navigate the tennis life but an unshakeable foundation for life and all its subsequent challenges.

So I welcome you to my life's project.