Right thing. I just try to live my life everywe know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate hunger, and we have a lot of work to do. Walmart committed 2 billion to fighting hunger in the u. S. As we work together, we can stamp hunger out. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Tavis the aggressive take no prisoners style of play that defined to conners as a tennis champion is so taken for granted is hard to remember that this workingclass kid from east st. Louis about redefined how tennis was played. Some might say not necessarily for the better. He challenged judges, argued his case when earlier champions had been praised for their gentlemanlike demeanor. He won with gusto. Remaining in the top 10 for 16 years. 5 as one. Getting to the semifinals at age 9. He writes in a provocative new book called the outsider, a emoir. Good to have you on this program. On my staff was o ec laws . White folk in one of the first names that comes for me is Jackie Joyner kersee. What is in the water . I will take the company. My mom, my dad, my grandparents came from east st. Louis. Wasringing with the way it in the 1940s and 1930s and 1950s, a key round in 1952. My grandfather was mayor of east st. Louis and commissioner police commissioner. Good riddance. I loved it. I knew there was a time when i wanted to go. My mom taught me tennis and gave me an opportunity to play. Tennis was not the real thing. If you were not playing baseball or basketball or football, you were on the outside. When i was 16 and was ready to go. Tavis i am just revenue. I am from the with the midwest. How you madeabout the shift to california at 16 years of age. I want to go back to where you started. That is with your mom. And your grandmother. In part because i do not know of any other tennis great who was as influenced by his mother and by his grandmother as opposed andre under agassi agassis dad laid it on him so heavy to play, hell most hated tennis. This was your mother and grandmother. How did that happen . I am sure she got involved in it by mistake. My mom came along and really only i noticed three people through the course of my life who loved tennis that much. Grandmother, my grandmother, and pancho segura. My mom would teach tennis to supplement the income. I wanted to be around it. I loved being around my mother and grandmother. I took to it. With the time spent with them and also with tennis, it was a perfect match. Tavis does that make you a mamas boy . It was ok for Wayne Gretzkys gadd to give him a hockey stick or joe montana cost debt to give, football or larry birds dad to give him a basketball but it was not ok for Gloria Connors to give hiher son a tennis rack. It was the 1950s. Women had not started coming to the forefront yet. My mom took a chance. She was giving a game to get off the streets and have something to work at. Maybe get an education out of it. Nobody knew where that was going especially when you are three or four or five or six years old. I happened to take to it. I loved it and i brother, john, who is 17 months older. He was involved in it at the same time and he was older so he was always first. He got along with it. As we got older he broke from that and wide to go and run and be with his buddies and do other things. D the hanging of with my mom and grandmother. How did i do with the mamas boy . What was so different about that . I did not think there was any big deal until someone started making a big deal. Tavis the last thing someone wants to be called is a lawless boy or a sissy. I can laugh about it now. Im not 19, 20, 21 years old with a bad attitude. Tavis that is why i am asking. If your attitude was anything like it 20. You did not get a couple people . I was too small for that. I handled it another way. That drove me even more to the people. Everybody wants to know what made you like you were, why we like that . What she still in that direction . I am playing it out right there and they miss it. A lot of them were missing it. Maybe they drove me. The meaning from the outside to meet. They drove me more than they expected or thought they were. Tavis let me flip this notion of driving. Agassi was driven so much by his father he started to heat tennis. Was there ever a moment never pushed into it. Tavis you never resented at all. I did not see that. Actually the campaign i cannot pay them back enough. They allowed me to play in the gave me the opportunity to play. I also had a very normal childhood. A lot of people thought it was only tennis and tennis only. And never got to do anything else. So much wrong with that. Tennis was always there for me which was lucky. I would go play baseball or basketball, football, hang with our brother, do whatever. I would come back and say what you hit 15 minutes with the ball with me . Tavis tell us about the first time that you be your mother. It was by accident. My mom was a good player. A fine player. Have liked to have continued your own career. She took me to the nationals and we were warming up. She said okay, let serve them up and place that. That is where she always got me also. It was never just kidding. It was playing in trying to undo what you would do when you were on the court. It happened to beyond. I ended up winning the set and i go to the net and i am shaking. I should not really do that, i am sorry, mom. Shed realized she gave me that. That was the day she was waiting for because she knew of i could beat her, there was another step out there and she had to figure that out, too. Tavis the thing i love about this book in the era that we live, where parents of stars, movie stars, athletic stars, the parents of stars who started these kids out and never know when to let go. And often i can give you a bunch of names in this town of parents who, when the child star realizes they need something different, the parent does not want to let go and if the kids the parent go, all hell breaks loose inside the family. Your mom was not like that. She knew at a certain point that you were beyond her coaching, that you needed something different. She did not try to hold onto. That is her main genius. In my opinion. She had given me the game certainly. She gave me the game that lasted throughout my career. She knew that there was more to just tennis. I was taught by a woman, certainly. The womens game was different back then. I needed to be around a man. Someone who would give me that mentally of thinking and bring out that toughness and that Killer Instinct and that drive to try to be the best. For her to let me go was really quite something. When i left i was apprehensive. There was no doubt. She turned me over to when iendto her friend was 15. There as they were speaking. I was just watching them speak. Stood there and talk to my mother. How many times did he hear my kid has got some talent . Millions of times, i am sure. Why did he take me . It has always been a thought on my mind. Was it because of his friend, gloria conners, Gloria Thompson . Did he see something or did he hear something . When he took me and i understood that was for reason. Even though i moved from a little town in illinois to los angeles, i was there for reason. What with Everything Else that would swirl around me when i got involved, tennis was my main concern. Tavis in retrospect, what do you most appreciate about what you did receive . He gave me everything. Outside of the game. My mom made it clear and pot to understood my game was intact. Anything else he could give me outside of that not just on the court but off the court. Life experiences, everything. He did. I am sure been Close Friends with the sun was a great opportunity but looking back the tennis part of it, the encore, the attitude, the flare for showmanship, the entertainment value of that, the concentration part of it, the Killer Instinct part of it. Everything started to transform because i never was really around any of that until i went to california and because my mom was not able to give me that, she made me when i was. She did not make me who i became. Pancho had more to do with that and i certainly had a lot to do with that on my own. Tavis when did you know that you were good enough to be a pro and to be a really good pro . 17. I had some moderate success meeting a few players. I have their virginity to play the great australian, roy emerson. Even gete matches to into the tournament and to play him in the firstround i did not know if i was excited about that or scared to death. To go in to play him, we played on the poolside court at the l. A. Tennis club and the only to people there were pontoons spencer. I am warming up and i am saying, this is an opportunity of a lifetime and theres nobody here. That did not last long. I won the first set off of him and the word started buzzing around. Pretty soon the crowd started forming and watching the action and watching a play. I ended up winning the match. I have been in or emersons baht when i got older, too. He came from the u. S. Open. The last guy was a 17 yearold bigger kid but it was an opportunity of a lifetime to me. And to have taken advantage of that. I walked off of there and i can still remember poncho and spencer walking up to me, going to the locker room. I walked off the match, i was in a locker next to Pancho Gonzales. Winning told me if i keep working and go at it the right way and keeping discipline, i have an opportunity. Tavis let me a fast forward and we will come back. I am fascinated by your comment moment ago that later in your career you knew what it felt like to be in his shoes. What did it feel like years later when that was happening to you at the hands of these young guys . I went from looking for somebody or it could make my reputation to being a reputationmaker. The older you get as i got older i became a situation player. The bigger the situation, the better i would play. 37, 38ut when your 36, years old and having a long match the before and having those aches and pains and play against the young kid who is willing to do anything to show his stuff and to get that reputation. It is hard work. , the more i at understood what it meant. And why i was starting to do that and what i wanted to push myself to continue to play and to have one more opportunity. That is something a lot of athletes in this, i think. A lot of them walk away too soon. They do not get everything out of their system. They have a lot of what it is around. Yre sitting i got that out of my system. I pushed it to the brink. When i walked away, i had enough. Tavis you are right. Some people leave too soon. There are others who leave and should stay gone and still try to come back. What is it about those people in the latter category who cannot leave it lay where was . There is nothing like it. Nothing like a feeling. Tavis does that make life interesting for the time you have left . Sometimes you get caught up in chasing that feeling which is impossible to find that there is nothing like putting like what you are and what you have live in front of 25,000 people. Millions upon millions more on television and having them be in your living room watching you. Just being down there with you. The feeling of the performance and the excellence in everything. Unless you have done it is hard to understand. Long there is a fine line between that. It came down to my career where i was out with a wrist injury. Major reconstructive wrist surgery. That was my main drive. I did not want to tell me to walk away. I need to walk away on my own terms. I cannot compete now. I do not feel like working hard enough. I do not have it. I did not want my rest telling and give ithad it my chance and it turned out to be the best 11 days in my career. Tavis what did it feel like to be in that moment at 39 . It was a different game when i came into tennis. I gave it a different attitude. People like it and a lot of people did not. Essaying says do not be afraid to do we do a saying says do not be afraid to do what you do. I felt when way i i came into tennis. Tennis was a great release for me. Justo i wanted more than 2500 people and once in awhile on tv and all that. And tennis in my generation became that. Fast forward to the 1991 open. Tennis at that time in those 11 days, the fans in the game itself gave me everything i was ever looking for. If i had walked away right then and there and said i have had enough, it would have been just fine. The crowd, the noise, their enthusiasm, their excitement for not only the play but for the atmosphere and everything that was surrounding the whole time i was in the tournament. It was indescribable. I was in the eye of the hurricane. What was going on, everything around me. I would call home. My kids were in school so they could not be there. My wife could not be there. She said, do you know what is going on here . And i said, what . What that did is it transcended tennis a little bit. 39 or 40 was not sold any more. Understood get off the couch and get back into it. Whether it is jogging or working or playing with your kids. The couch is for later on. It is time to get up and get moving. Tavis i was watching you. One of the most thrilling and exciting matches ever. You gave a lot of us some joy over those days. You mentioned earlier, you had changed tennis. To your point, to the minds of some for the better and to the minds of some for the worst. However one defines a, you americanized the game with the attitude and the style, the bigness and brashness. Was that changing it for the better or for worse . I was not alone. It was more than just me. Sport was a country club and it had a lot of great champions. Except for maybe Pancho Gonzales and his attitude and so forth. Did i change it for the better . I do not know. To grab ony changed to more people that identify with who was out there playing and their style of play. It became more bluecollar. We were starting to reach out and grab the fans from the other sports. We give them a reason to watch guys playing tennis as opposed to watching hit the ball back and forth. Guys were willing to go out there and they had their own personalities on the court and off the court which was a big part of it. They also gave those who would never have watched tennis and emotional involvement in what we were doing. Which gave them a chance to look in on us, see what we were doing and they happened to like it. It was a good time. Tavis there are some of san and downs in this book to be sure. When you lost your friend, another great player. Almost 40, at the u. S. Open turning this upsidedown. And battling a major drug issue and get it 40. How does it speak to your own mortality when a guy you have played with and then the circuit with dyes and 40 . It was interesting. When i was making the run in 1991 at the open, he was doing the interviews. I was walking the streets talking to him. He was transcending his own life, becoming a broadcaster. He got involved in golf. A lot of things he was doing, his addictions were changing for the positive. Event, iack after that started a senior tour. His personality and his ability corporationsith and fans and so forth really made the tour a success. To lose him at such a young age we were friends. He had a lot of other friends that were around. Borg was a great friend and mcenroe was a great friend. His relationship with me and i am proud to say this, he felt safe. Was being involved in that. With being involved in that. If i were to ask him to stay one more day, everything might have changed. He had his foundation that was necessary. He had an event he had promised to be too and he wanted to see his mom. I said, though i have a safe trip to go and have a safe trip. That was last time i saw him. I still think about that today. The impact it had on me and the tennis world, losing somebody that was so poor and to the game like he at such a young age was devastating. I still cannot get over it. Tavis your not going anywhere anytime soon. When that moment does, because we all have to go that way sunday, what do you want your legacy to be . No one writes a memoir without wanting to put their own thoughts on the record. What you want us to say about you . I am sure theres going to be a lot of things set out there. Theyre going to be good and bad. I would think that if you want to put it on the tennis side say every time i walked out there and give it everything i ever had. Complete and satisfied and not one what is. I would say on the personal side i lived my life the way wanted to live it and gave it everything i had. Nothing is perfect along the way. And downs. E ups you come out of those and continue on. But i am also not begging. I am not begging to be remembered. I did my thing. If you remember, that is even better. If you do not, there is so many other things going on. Tennis has gone on. The way the kids play now and what they have to offer and the way they go about things. The way science has changed their training and the way they played. Tennis has gone on to a different level big business wise of course. Theas the guys before me, arthur ashes and bobby riggs that laid the groundwork for me to have the opportunity to play. I hope what my generation did was such a great part of lange the groundwork to wear tennis has become now. Tavis i have not even scratched the surface on this memoir. ais called the outsider connors. Y jimmy that is our show for tonight. Thanks for watching. As always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Tavis hi, im tavis smiley. Join me next time for a conversation with. Om reiss a book about an unsung military hero. That is next time. We will see you then. There is a saying that dr. King had that said there is always the right time to do the right thing. I just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. We know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate hunger, and we have a lot of work to do. Walmart committed 2 billion to fighting hunger in the u. S. As we work together, we can stamp hunger out. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Be more. Pbs. Narrator welcome to film School Shorts, a showcase of the most exciting new talent from across the country. Experience the future of film, next on film School Shorts. Film School Shorts is made possible by a grant from maurice kanbar, celebrating the vitality and power of the moving image, and by the members of kqed. [ rooster crows ]