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Summertime, after my last talk with Coach about my future at UCLA. I’m about to head over to a new job, teaching tennis in my old hometown of Torrance on cracked public park courts with metal nets to a bunch of beginners, all for 6 bucks an hour when the phone rang.
It was Coach. He had a job for me, teaching members of the Saudi Arabian royal family who were staying in Beverly Hills for the summer. They wanted to learn tennis and would I be interested?
Hell to the yes, I said. I called the number immediately.
It was the estate of Prince Khalid Mohammed bin Saad, who was looking for a tennis pro and could I come to his house that afternoon. I said absolutely I could. Hanging up the phone, I instantly called my other job, quitting it before I ever started.
That afternoon, I rolled up to the Prince’s house in my 65 VW Bug. The property was called the Foothill Estate. I could tell you all about it, but just look it up.
With remodeling going on all around and the tennis court still under construction, the Prince and I hopped in a limo,…