More than a speech

NEW YORK -- The monument to Andre Agassi, the way he wants us to know and remember him, is not the farewell speech he made here at last year’s U.S. Open.

There have been few moments like it in sports, few times when a legendary athlete is able to take years of achievement and perfectly verbalize his emotions about them, giving us one minute of extraordinary oratory punctuated by his tears.

He didn’t say he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, but the message was the same and Lou Gehrig wouldn’t have minded sharing. Among other things, Agassi told the 23,000-plus crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium: “You have given me your shoulders to stand on to reach for my dreams, dreams I could not have reached without you.�

When it ended, you had witnessed Abraham Lincoln and John Wooden by way of Michael Jordan.

And when it ended, it really did. No boxing retirement here. No senior tour, no exhibition schedule, no move to the broadcast booth. Agassi had gone from long-haired, low-ranked phenom in 1986 to eight Grand Slam titles, an Olympic gold medal and long runs at No. 1.

When he lost in the third round of last year’s U.S. Open to a young player named Benjamin Becker, a bad back on one side forcing a sore leg on the other -- “I didn’t know how to limp,� he laughs now -- he said goodbye and meant it.

“If somebody would have walked up to me then,� he says, “and guaranteed me that if I went to the Australian Open, I would win, I would have said no. I had had a moment that needed nothing additional.�

--

Brick, mortar and a foundation

The monument to Andre Agassi, the way he wants us to know and remember him, is brick and mortar.

It is at the corner of Lake Mead Boulevard and J Street in northwest Las Vegas, an area where the homes have bars on the windows and selling prices under six figures.

The Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy is a $41-million structure. Much of it has already been paid for, mostly from funds raised at the Agassi Foundation Dinner, the 12th annual edition of which is scheduled for Oct. 6 at the MGM Grand.

It is an independent public charter school, meaning that it is exempt from some state restrictions and, in return, must produce a higher level of results. It has been open since 2001, has 600 students, kindergarten through 10th grade, and will have its first high school graduating class in 2009.

It is the brainchild of Agassi and Perry Rogers, Agassi’s agent, manager and best friend.

“We met when I was 11, he was 12,� Agassi says. “We were playing tennis, but he mostly had a crush on my sister. He didn’t get my sister, but I got a life partner.�

Agassi went on to become one of the best tennis players ever, Rogers to a law degree from Georgetown and sports agent career. When Agassi began his foundation, Rogers was there. And when the foundation had some money but no real idea as to how to use it, Rogers bumped into one.

“We had been chasing our tail,� Agassi says.

Rogers sat on an airplane next to a man who told him about charter schools, and the seed was planted.

They decided to put the school in a low-income area. People told them they would fail merely because the location would bring low expectations, for both teachers and students. Agassi and Rogers responded that they would use the school to show that, given resources, any student can succeed. Anywhere.

“We are trying to remove all the excuses for waste in education,� Agassi says.

The school is populated mostly by students from within a two-mile radius, but those who get to attend are chosen by a lottery system. The makeup of the school at the moment is 94% African American, 3% Latino, 2% Caucasian and 1% Asian. Attendance is free; of the approximately $8,200-per-student annual cost, the Agassi Foundation endowment picks up about $3,000, or about $1.8 million annually overall, while the state of Nevada, which is 49th in the country in school funding, pays the rest.

In each of the last three years, the school has earned National Exemplary status -- a ranking based on test scores and other measures of student proficiency. One of those years, it was the only school so honored in Clark County.

There is no graffiti at AACPA. The school day runs from 7:30 to 3:30, eight hours instead of the usual six.

“You get 16 years of education in 12 that way,� Agassi says.

The students wear uniforms.

“We want them judged on what they do, not how they look,� Agassi says.

The younger students have open baskets, not lockers. Part of the school’s code of respect is to honor the belongings of others. Older students have lockers, but no locks. In the high school, there is a theater-style lecture hall so that, when AACPA students get to college, they won’t be intimidated in that setting.

Parents sign agreements to spend at least 30 minutes per night doing homework with their children. The lobby is a large hall with comfortable seating and lots of computers, usable by both students and parents. The school has days for mammograms for mothers, others for dental exams for students and parents.

“We had students walking around with abscessed teeth,� Agassi says. “They thought that was how you were supposed to feel all the time.�

There have been growing pains.

Three years ago, at a parents’ meeting triggered by the dismissal of several teachers, a parent got into an altercation with a police officer and was arrested. Two months ago, a cheerleading coach who was not a staff member was arrested for prostitution.

Through it all, a major emphasis remains discipline.

Last season’s boys’ basketball team got to the final of its state charter school tournament, but lost -- to a team it had previously beaten -- after the AACPA coach benched three players because of behavior problems.

--

30 Grand Slams and two kids

The Agassi household in Las Vegas has more Grand Slam tennis titles than most countries.

Besides Andre’s eight, wife Steffi Graf has 22. Each won Olympic gold, and at least one title at the Australian, French, Wimbledon and U.S. Open events, the four major stops in the sport. They are the only two people to achieve that, and Graf is the only person to win all four events, plus an Olympic gold, in the same calendar year. Her Golden Slam was in 1988.

He won slightly more than $31 million, she slightly more than $21 million in tennis careers that also brought them many multiples of that in endorsements.

Her departure from tennis was much less emotional than his. She pulled a hamstring in an early-round match at La Costa in August 1999, and announced her retirement 10 days later. Two months earlier, she had won the French Open. One month earlier, she had made the final at Wimbledon. When she retired, she was No. 3 in the world. She was also the highest-ranked player ever to retire.

“She is very clear about her decisions,� Agassi says. “She has such resolve. She says this is who she is and there is no gray area.

“When she retired, she just didn’t feel the need to go on. She would say, if I don’t feel it, I can’t pretend for you.�

He is 37, she is 38. They are life partners and business partners.

She is involved in his foundation and has one of her own, Children for Tomorrow. Together they are building a luxury hotel at the Tamarack Resort in Idaho.

Among their investments is 24-Hour Fitness, and when he made an appearance at the club on La Paz Road in Laguna Niguel on July 28, hundreds showed up. He was greeted by proclamations from local politicians, plates of strawberries and cauliflower were served, and offices set up to sell new memberships were packed.

They have two children, Jaden Gil, 5, and Jaz, 3. Jaden will turn 6 in October and his first day of school is Monday -- the same day the U.S. Open begins in New York.

Turns out the famous TV commercial a few years ago that played to the perception of perfect tennis genes was more Madison Avenue than fact. In it, tour player Taylor Dent was hitting against a youngster, and hitting harder and harder and seeing the ball come back faster and faster until the youngster’s mom and dad drove up to take him home. Mom and dad, of course, were Andre and Steffi. The youngster was not Jaden.

Somewhat surprisingly, Agassi says that, had he a choice of what path his children would take, it would not be tennis.

“I’d like it more if I didn’t know their learning curve,� he says. “I’d like it better if I could discover it when they do.�

Agassi says Graf visits the prep academy occasionally.

“Sometimes, when she sees what’s being done here,� he says, “she goes in one of the rooms and cries.�

--

Graduation walk

For somebody whose education was never formal and ended with a high school equivalency certificate, Agassi seems to love the academic setting.

One day, he brought his friend and fellow tennis pro James Blake to visit his school.

He took Blake, the former Harvard student, to a high school English class. That day, there were words on the blackboard to define, hard words, and one student got 93% of them correct.

“I tried and got none of them,� Agassi says. “The Harvard guy got two.�

Another day, former President Clinton came to visit. He stood in the back of an eighth-grade social studies class and listened as students stood in front of the class and pretended to be a famous person they had researched. One student described an African American pilot who had originated a flying formation that better protected planes from the enemy. Clinton finally raised his hand, told the students the man was a friend of his and proceeded to tell them stories about his friend.

Best friends Rogers and Agassi had a heated disagreement about the lobby of the high school. Hung on the wall there are pictures of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi and 9/11 firefighters, among others. They are there to show students what they can become.

Rogers wanted Agassi’s picture right there with the rest. Agassi blanched at the thought. Eventually, a compromise was reached and a smaller picture of Agassi, off to the side, was hung. It is a photo of the moment he won the French Open in 1999, his signature title achieved with several improbable comebacks, including overcoming a two-set deficit against Andrei Medvedev in the final.

Above the photo are words from a Winston Churchill speech: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never.�

The inner courtyard at the academy leads from K through 6, to middle school, to high school. It has a walkway designed symbolically for students to be able to see where they are going, and also to look back at where they have been. The high school end of the courtyard is near completion. Part of that construction is a bridge, a story above everything else, that goes over an outdoor amphitheater and into another room.

Neither the bridge, nor the room it leads to, will officially be used until 2009. Then, on a day in May, when the first graduating class is ready, the rest of the student body will be summoned and placed below in the amphitheater. Above them, one by one, each graduating senior will walk across the bridge, stop part way and peel off a piece of paper that has covered his or her name and the name of the college he or she will attend.

Each senior will then continue into the room, where a book will be sitting and a page left for them to write a message for those standing below to read as they graduate.

“Only those who graduate will be able to write in the book,� Agassi says, “and only those who graduate will be able to read it.�

--

September in New York

Agassi will be in New York sometime during the two weeks of the Open. He will receive an award named for the late tennis player and Tennis Week publisher Gene Scott and also do some work with the Robin Hood Foundation.

He is not sure when, or if, he will make an appearance at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Most likely, knowing what a stir it will cause, he is just not saying. But he is clear about wanting to see old friends and still having that excited feeling about September in New York.

“Brad Gilbert called the other day,� he says of his former coach, “and he was going out to a practice and I could hear the sounds and almost feel the halls there.�

Last year, he left those halls at the end of a news conference to an unprecedented standing ovation from more than 100 sportswriters.

It was another monument to the man who has uncanny perspective about himself, and others.

“You are not guaranteed these moments,� he says. “I pinch myself every day.�

--

Bill Dwyre can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

--

ON THE WEB

For a video of Andre Agassi’s farewell speech and a photo gallery of the American tennis star through the years, go to latimes.com/tennis.

--

Open season

A look at the U.S. Open, the year’s final Grand Slam tennis tournament:

* When: The 14-day tournament begins Monday. The women’s singles final is Sept. 8 at 5 p.m. PDT; the men’s singles final is Sept. 9 at 1 p.m.

* Where: The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York.

* Surface: Hard courts.

* 2006 men’s singles champion: Roger Federer of Switzerland.

* 2006 women’s singles champion: Maria Sharapova of Russia.

* No. 1-seeded man: Federer, bidding for his 12th Grand Slam title -- which would tie him for second in tennis history -- and fourth consecutive U.S. Open title.

* No. 1-seeded woman: Justine Henin of Belgium, trying for her seventh Grand Slam and second U.S. Open title.

* Prize money: The men’s and women’s singles champions receive $1.4 million each. The total purse, covering all events, is at least $19.6 million, a record; it could top $22 million because the leaders in the U.S. Open Series are eligible for bonuses. Federer and Sharapova finished atop the series standings; each would take home a Grand Slam-record $2.4 million by winning the tournament.

* TV: Channel 2, USA Network.

Associated Press