John McEnroe: Boy or Midget?

John with his parents, John Sr. and Kay in Douglaston. Like many athletes who weren’t blessed with a large frame and Olympian genes, John McEnroe describes his rise to the top of the tennis world as improbable. But it really wasn’t. From the time he first picked up a racket, he had a few intangibles that would work in his favor – an unquenchable thirst to win, a frenetic competitiveness, and amazing hand-eye coordination. John Patrick McEnroe Jr. was born on February 16,1959, at the American military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, where his father, John Patrick McEnroe Sr., often known as J.P. McEnroe, was stationed with the air force and his mother, Kay, worked as a surgical nurse. After J.P’s discharge in 1960, the family moved to Flushing, New York, and later settled in Douglaston, a middle-class section of Queens. There were two younger McEnroe brothers, Mark (born 1962) and Patrick (born 1966), the latter of whom became a fine tennis player himself. J.P. earned his law degree in night school, and was talkative, demanding, and full of life, with a loud joke or opinion always on hand. Kay, a no-nonsense mother who describes herself as someone who likes “everything…