You Can Get There From Here:
Part 5

Barry Buss

Early in the morning, I'm awakened by a knock at my door. It's my Mom. Says it's Coach Bassett on the phone and he sounded upset. Groggy, I scrambled myself together. Picking up the phone, Coach started right in, said we needed to talk immediately. I agreed to meet him later that morning.

Long slow death drive up to Westwood on the 405. How much did he know? Was my college career over before it started? We met at the courts. Coach asked me point blank if I had a problem with drugs. He was the first person to ever ask me this. And all I had to do was say yes but I just couldn't.

I wasn't ready to be that honest. I told him it was a mistake, that I got caught up with some wrong guys and that it wouldn't happen again. He said he had heard differently, that I was the problem and did he need to be concerned. Apologizing profusely, I again pleaded my case, giving Coach my word I wouldn't be a problem.

How Much

How much did he know?

The weekend before college. Its moving day. Moving out, moving in. Packing up my 65 Bug, I drove my personal belongings up to school first. I pulled in to Sproul Hall, one of the four giant residence halls on campus. My room was in the athletes dorm. Closer to school. Closer to practice. Not necessarily in that order.

Walking down the long hall looking for my room, I passed by one emotional scene after another. Tough scenes really. Dads assembling, Mom's decorating. Recreating their children's home life at their new life. It all felt voyeuristic. Watching the hugs. Long hugs, with tears. Proud ones. Sad ones. Serious life check moments. The years. They go by so fast. Little baby girl all grown up. Mom and Dad, rulers of a now empty nest.

How will they survive without each other?

For my furniture, I borrowed a truck. Friends of mine helped me load it. My parents watched from the living room. All packed up and ready to go. But there would be no hugs, or tears, or help even. Just waves from their chairs and a couple good lucks.

My moving away from home moment, the ritual drained of all ceremony and meaning. Just like the past 18 years of moments. Just nothing. A big blank space where our family should have been. My coming of age moment. More a coming of rage.

Half hour north on the 405, I was off to start a new life. Dorm life. Halfway houses toward adulthood. Coed, free wheeling. No curfews. Few rules. Liberated from all the pesky restrictions of living at home with your parents.

Moving out, moving in, moving up, tennis style. As a tennis player, I was used to moving up. All the age groups, from New England to SoCal, from local to National, now junior tennis to college tennis. I was now one of the guys I once idolized through the fences at Ojai. Four years, all expenses paid. There was only one more move up from here. The Professional Circuit.

Torrance to Westwood. Working class engineering crowd to right across the street from the gates of Bel Air, Sunset Blvd and Beverly Hills. Everyone here was a BMOC. Famous kids of famous parents. Jane Mansfield's daughter Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order fame lived down the hall, Heather Locklear of Dynasty lore used to call the dorms home. Former Miss USA's lived cross campus on Sorority Row. My Dad wrote software. Star struck right from the start, I was out of my galaxy here.

Royalty

Athletic royalty passed through UCLA also. Jimmy Connors once called these dorms home. As did Arthur Ashe and Jackie Robinson and Kareem Abdul Jabaar. Walking past Pauley Pavilion on my way to class, the aura of the great John Wooden radiated all around.

You felt his presence, you passed Pauley with reverence. It was like being in church, everyone conversing in hushed tones. Just a generation ago, UCLA won 11 NCAA basketball championships in one the greatest runs in collegiate sports history. Now a part of that great tradition, walking the UCLA campus I felt the greatness. It surrounded you, enveloped you. NCAA Championship banners hung everywhere. I now played in the Pac-10, the conference of champions. Greatness was in the air. Was it in me too?

Social life. Westwood Village in the 1980's. Nothing like it. Girls, parties, beer. Every floor. Every night. Now I was really on my own. Fake ID in hand, I could drink whenever I wanted. And I did. I was an adult now. I could go to bed late, get up even later. I soon discovered class attendance was not mandatory. So I didn't go. At all. I'd deal with all that later. I was just so happy to be on my own. Or away from my dad. Clemency for my imprisoned soul.

And the party was on. Fraternity row a mere stumble away. It was the Fall of 1982. Just Say No was still years away. The idea of drug testing college athletes had yet to be hatched. So there were drugs. Lots of them. West LA in the 1980's. Just use your imagination.

Tennis. First week of practice. The alumni were in town. Marcel Freeman, Blaine Willenborg, Brian Teacher. Coach pairs me with stylish South African Robbie Ventor. It was Ventor that first turned me on to UCLA tennis, watching him through the fence at Ojai. Now he was across the net from me, a top 100 in the world player now. I needed to bring my best.

We were on the middle court. Coach Bassett hustled back and forth, barking out the drills. His enthusiasm off the charts, his energy unmatched. Constant chatter, constant encouragement. I'd been at UCLA less than a week and I'd already run through a wall for him.

Coach approached our court. We were doing cross courts. My forehand to his Ventor's one handed lefty backhand. The kind of pattern I loved. Take it early, rip it hard, flat, and deep. Back him up. Break him down.

Yet he's not backing up and he's not breaking down. He's not even showing a crack. He's getting more solid by the shot. I dug in. I'm trying to make him miss but it's not happening. Coach walked on our court. He's locked in. I'm locked in. Ventor's locked in.

I Can Play

I'm hitting every ball as hard as I can. Earlier, harder. He never flinched. I never eased off. Total focus. I refused to miss. Both of us. Five minutes in, still hitting the same ball cross court. Coach was clapping. Coach was yelling. Coach was cheering us on. Coach finally yelled switch it up. I nearly collapsed from exhaustion. Ventor looked my way, catching my eye. He nodded in approval. I can play here.

My arm sore one day, Coach sent me to the trainers for treatment. I didn't want the day off. I didn't want him thinking I was soft. But rules were rules. Returning to the courts, I saw the team huddled around in a circle. The laughter was loud, the joking quite animated. They were hiding somebody.

The circle breaks, out emerged Jimmy Connors, my first tennis idol. Fresh off another US Open victory, he was at the courts, preparing to practice with the squad. On my courts, with my team. Of all the days to be hurt.

Professional drop ins to practice were not aberrations. If you were a tour player in Los Angeles looking to hit some balls, every weekday at 2:10 sharp at the Sunset Canyon Courts of UCLA, world class practice went down. Two rows of courts. Five adjacent in the front. Six adjacent in the back. Men in the front. Girls in the back. Just because. For it was 1982.

Practice. The same routine. Stretch. Run. Agility drills. Court assignments. MWF, one on one. Tu/Th two on ones. Coach led. Coach driven. Constant cadence. You knew where Coach was at all times. You knew when you could ease off, you knew when to crank it up. And the drills. Grinding monotonous repetitive drills. Almost 40 years ago, yet I could recite our practices right now like I just finished one.

I'd never trained like this before. It was brutal, but I got it. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Hour and a half of drilling as hard as you could go. Then sets. Two of them. Practice sets, but there was nothing practice about them. It all counted here. Our practices were group auditions, with no role safe, a daily casting call for a starring slot on UCLA Men's Tennis.

There were 12 of us on the team, all highly accomplished. Yet only six singles slots available. I wanted a spot. I wanted the part. I'd never wanted anything more in my life. I would look for Coach. Watch me Coach, See me. I'll show you. Every time he walked by, I hit harder, I grunted louder, I moved faster. I needed him to see me. Did you see that Coach? Do not take your eyes off me. Watch me want this.

I Wanted More

Practices already a grind, yet I wanted more. I started practicing in the morning too. Before scheduled practice. Double sessioning. Be the first to the courts in the morning. Be seen by Coach. Show him my hunger, for everything counted.

Friday's soon became challenge match day. Three out of five sets. Let's Go. I won my first couple matches cleanly, but lost another heartbreaker to Willenborg after having a match point. The loss hurt. Not fatal, but dangerous.

If I lost one more match, I was finished for the season. Final challenge match. Playing South African Craig Ventor, younger brother of Robbie. Elegant player, he's taking it to me right from the start. I lose the first two sets badly. Thank God for best of five. Third set I started to settle down. I won the third then grinded out a close 4th. On to the 5th set. Lose this and any chance of playing for UCLA this season was shot. Darkness setting in, we were the only two left playing. Me, Ventor, Coach, last spot in the line-up at stake. And I played a spotless set, winning 6-2 comfortably. Fall Quarter over, I think I'd done enough to win a part. All that remained now was the call back.

The Orange Bowl

Christmas break. Coach wanted us to stick around and keep grinding. Yet I was still eligible for one more junior tournament. The Orange Bowl. The Junior World Championships. In Miami. On green clay. At the legendary Flamingo Park. I'd never played an international event. But I wanted it. I remembered reading about the Orange Bowl as a little kid. Jimmy Pugh beat Jimmy Arias in the 12 and under Finals. I remembered thinking how much better were these guys than me and how would I ever catch up to them? I couldn't win a local tournament. They were competing for the World Championships.

To get there would take money though. Broke, my club got in on the act. They wanted to sponsor me. They started raising money for me to attend, putting a sign up sheet right in the hallway. And the donations started rolling in. Until my Dad saw the sheet, immediately tearing it down in a fury, a lethal shot to his false pride.

A member's company sponsored me anyway. Danache Custom Brokers, a step up from Chico's Bail Bonds, yet the assistance was greatly appreciated. My best friend Kelly Jones decided to play also. We agreed to play doubles. Arriving at the event, I look for the draws. Kelly and I were seeded #1. We're the number one seeds at The World Championships.

How do you get there from here?

I returned home from Miami to a chilly reception. My grades had arrived. Complete disaster. An F, NP and an incomplete. I barely went to a single class and I slept through my Calculus Final. My professor allowed me to retake the final. If I got an A on the final, she'd give me a C. And I did. After one quarter at school I had a GPA of 1.0 and 4 units.

January 1983: I returned to school, finding myself immediately placed on UCLA's subject to dismissal list. STD. More scarlet letters. Coach was stressing. I told him I was doing well when I so wasn't. Now I had nightly study hall, to make sure I was doing well.

They Didn't Like It

My Parents were stressing even more. They didn't like any of it. They were mad at Coach, said he wasn't keeping keeping an eye on me like he promised. He actually was though, just not about school. Coach cared about one thing. My tennis. And I'd been in college for only three months and an unsustainable imbalance was developing. All tennis. All fun. No school. It was all way out of whack and if I I wasn't careful, my college tennis dreams would be over before I ever played a match.

At practice the day before our first match. Our line up still not decided. I'd been training great, winning all my sets. Our number one player returned to school from a semester at Tour. Danny Saltz. Crazy mother fucker. His first day back, Coach throws me at him on Court 1 for the last set of the day. My final audition. Whole team watching. The heckling was on. Stay calm. Stay focused. It's close. It's late. I took him out in front of the whole team and most importantly, Coach. It was going to be hard not to play me now.

After practice. Team meeting. I'm tight as a fresh string job as Coach reads off our first match's line-up.

At 1: Danny Saltz. At 2: Jeff Klaparda. At 3: John Davis. At 4: Michael Kures. At 5: Chuck Willenborg.

One spot left, seven of us sitting there. I wanted this more than anything I've ever wanted. Please tell me you saw me Coach.

At 6: Coach called my name.

My Name

I got the role. I called home, excited to relay the news that I'd be starting tomorrow. Dad responded by asking about school. Then he started in about my parking tickets. The coolest of cool receptions. Not a single word about making UCLA's starting line-up.

I got off the phone quickly. I would have asked them to come, but from his tone, I'm pretty sure Dad was going to pass. Whatever. Fuck him. Another round of weird coming up. Nervous night. Up late, excited. Can't sleep. Nothing new. Against all odds, I'd made the team. A real team. Not that fake JDC team stuff. I was now a starting freshman on the defending NCAA Champion UCLA Bruins kind of team.

Next afternoon. My first match. Both teams meet on Court one for introductions. Small smattering of a crowd. I look up to the stands to see if my folks came. Nothing. I'm going it alone again.

But I'm not. I have a coach and a school and a dozen teammates. We lined up. Match ups announced, introductions began. Our top player is hurt. I'm playing five. My name gets called. I step forward. Applause, hand shakes, shy, embarrassed by the attention. I look down. I see the front of my shirt. The Nike swoosh on the right, the 4 letters UCLA on the left. (nothing scarlet about those letters) I'm short of breath.

I think of all the players who've worn those letters before. Ashe, Martin, Connors, Teacher, Teltscher. A who's who of American tennis. I'm now a part of something important; the famed college tennis legacy that was UCLA.

Playing for my school, playing for my Coach, playing for my team mates. Definitely no longer on my own. Head running. Heart thumping. Hands sweaty. I feel alive. Too alive. Way too keyed up. Trying to impress everybody, I'm over hitting everything.

I'm missing by big margins. Coach sees me spazzing, but he stays calm. He's seen this a few times before. A frantic freshman in his first match. He walked on my court, sitting down next to me. He spoke to me in calm tones. It felt strange to be treated so. Walking back to the baseline, he put his arm on my shoulder. Settle down, settle down. My body relaxed, my mind followed. That foreign feeling of being nurtured. The touch of a hand, a soothing voice. I felt safe with Coach, like a child in protected custody. Nothing ever felt so good on a tennis court. And my mind quieted and my body settled down. I didn't lose another game.

Our team won easily. At the post-match chalkboard talk, Coach decided to have a little fun with me.

"I've seen some fired up freshman in my day. Almost had to call the fire department on Buss over here."

Everybody laughed. And that day they gave me a nickname. The Magic Buss, from The Who song. From that day forward they called me Magic. I was a part of something now, a team that cared about me. It all felt good.