05/29/2026
There’s something strange that happens in midlife when you meet people who mattered to you growing up.
Not just celebrities. Not “famous people.” I mean the people who represented something to you at a certain age. The guys whose posters were on the wall. The athletes you watched with your dad. The names that felt larger than life when you were fourteen years old and trying to figure out who you wanted to become.
You don’t realize it until later, but those people become part of your personal history. They’re tied to neighborhoods, car rides, routines, smells, songs, and entire periods of your life.
And when you finally meet them decades later, there’s always this weird little moment where the adult version of you shakes hands while the kid version quietly watches from the corner of the room.
That happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I flew to New York to interview Patrick McEnroe.
I grew up on Long Island playing tennis and being driven to the Port Washington Tennis Academy, where Patrick, John, and a generation of great players trained. Back then, that place felt like the center of the tennis universe. If you were a kid on Long Island with a racket in your hand, the McEnroe family was the pinnacle.
I trained with guys like Stan Ross and Bob Litwin. Those names may not mean much to most people, but around Long Island tennis they were legends. They coached great players, knew everybody, and carried all the stories. Vitas Gerulaitis lived in my neighborhood. We’d ride by his house hoping to catch a glimpse of him or one of the McEnroes before eventually getting chased away like idiots…
This Sunday read my full column about my experience and watch the entire interview with the great Patrick McEnroe.
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