PBD Podcast | EP 149 | Pro Tennis Coach Rick Macci
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PBD Podcast Episode 149. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Adam Sosnick and pro tennis coach Rick Macci
Follow Rick on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Mx6GBx
Check out The Rick Macci Tennis Academy: https://bit.ly/3vIa7OT
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About:
Rick Macci is an American tennis coach and former player. He is a United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Master Professional, and seven-time USPTA national coach of the year who has trained five number one ranked players: Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, and Venus Williams.
About Co-Host:
Adam “Sos” Sosnick has lived a true rags to riches story. He hasn’t always been an authority on money. Connect with him on his weekly SOSCAST here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I0VW88nOW4PJkyREjT7rJic
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: booking@valuetainment.com
0:00 - Start
14:48 - Was Will Smith still in character when he slapped Chris Rock?
29:57 - Breaking down what it takes to be the best
39:15 - Men vs Women in sports
53:15 - BREAKING NEWS: Elon Musk officially buys Twitter
1:11:00 - Mental toughness from young athletes
1:21:55 - The biggest dads in sports
And if you don't know who he is, if you've watched the movie King Richard, King Richard went.
to Rick Massey and said, you need to come to Compton to meet my kids.
It was played by John Bernthal, which I believe it was 225 people that went and auditioned for that role to play you.
And he was the one that won it.
And some stats that you need to know about, eight Grand Slam champions have been coached by him.
Five players ranked first place.
322 USTA National Championships.
52 Grand Slam Championship wins.
Seven time USPTA coach of the year.
Four Hall of Fame inductees.
And in 2017, it was the youngest ever to be inducted into the USPTA Hall of Fame.
Andy Roddick, he coached.
Jennifer Capriotti, he coached.
Maria Shiropova, which he may ask for number, he coached.
Serena Williams, he coached.
Venus Williams, he coached.
And some people may be watching and say, Pat, this is, I mean, what are you doing talking tennis?
Let me tell you why I'm talking tennis.
I got four kids, and my kids play sports, and my dad's obsessed with tennis.
And I watched this movie, and I said, dude, I want to talk to this man.
So thank you so much for making the time for being on the podcast.
No, I'm glad to be here.
I'm fired up and ready to go.
Yes.
I mean, right when the camera was on, Adam's like, turn on the camera.
He's on fire.
So first of all, you know, for folks, I mean, at this point, again, most people know your story from the movie, right?
They know you from the movie.
But how did you get into the tennis world?
How did this happen all the way down to when the movie happened and you're seeing yourself on the big screen?
What does it feel like seeing John play you?
So walk us through that story.
Well, let's go back down the yellow brick road.
You know, when I was born in Greenville, Ohio, a small town southwest of Dayton.
My dad died when I was 10.
I used to play golf.
I was very good in golf.
And there was tennis courts like a half mile from my house.
I went down there one day because we couldn't afford to go to the country club anymore.
I picked up a racket.
I started hitting the ball against the wall.
I really liked it because it always came back.
And I was a pretty competitive guy to fast forward.
By 18, I was number one in the Ohio Valley.
I got really good real quick.
I played basketball in the Hall of Fame for basketball and tennis, my hometown.
Dabbled a little bit on the satellite, but I knew at a young age, I like helping other people more than I like helping myself.
So I got into coaching when I was like 22.
As time went on, I said, if I really want to go for this, I got to go to California, Florida.
Early 80s, I went to a place called Greenleaf Golf and Tennis Resort in Haynes City, Florida.
Was there for a while?
And then in 1985, a doctor from Winterhaven, Florida brought his son to me, a nine-year-old boy named Tommy Ho.
He held the racket like a ping-pong paddle.
He had a really funny grip, but I saw a lot of potential to fast forward that story.
He became the most dominant junior tennis player ever.
He won Kalamazoo at 15 years old as an 18-year-old in 1988.
The youngest at record still stands today.
He won more gold balls in Sampers, Agassiz, Chang than anybody.
And from his success, a guy named Stefano Capriotti brought Jennifer to me, who lived right here in Lauder Hill, said, I want to teach my daughter how to serve.
She kind of served like Chris Everett.
She was kind of a Chrissy clone, which is not bad, especially mentally.
Jennifer won the 18s as a 12-year-old when I had her.
That record still stands today.
One to 18s.
It's brutal.
That doesn't happen now because psychologically.
I mean, you've got to be like, how do you lose to a 12-year-old recovered from it?
You know what I'm saying?
She's 18, senior in high school.
You lose to a 17 year old.
Yeah, no, she probably retired a lot of people that had big dreams.
But, you know, but I had the Daily Double in 1988.
Those records still stand today.
So from that, a couple years later, I get a phone call from this guy named Richard Williams.
And he said, I have two daughters.
I heard of them in the New York Times.
I guess Venus was undefeated in the 10 and under.
And he goes, really funny guy.
The only thing I knew about Compton was like riots and that type of stuff.
And he goes, if you come to Compton, I promise I won't get you shot.
Okay.
And I thought the guy was hilarious.
And I never go see someone.
They either come to the academy or I see them at a junior tournament.
So I just figured I'll take a shot.
So obviously it's the best vacation I ever took going to Compton, California.
So I go to Compton.
I flew out there one weekend in May, right before summer.
And it was just like yesterday.
You know, that night, Venus, Serena, Richard, Orsine come to the hotel, Venus on one leg, Serena on the other, hugging, kissing, close-knit family, just like you see in that movie.
Richard pulls out a piece of paper.
He grilled me like I was in a deposition.
You know, I thought, like, well, if he wanted someone in their circle, he wanted a role model, a father figure, and someone who's been there, done that.
So I didn't, I wasn't defensive about it.
I kind of respected that he was taking the temperature.
So he said, we're picking you up tomorrow at seven o'clock.
That bus you see in the movie.
Okay.
So at seven o'clock, they pick me up.
I get in the passenger side.
I get harpooned in the buttock.
There's a spring sticking up.
I look in back.
You got Venus and Serena back there.
There's McDonald's rappers.
There's four months' worth of garbage.
There's ball hoppers.
It was crazy.
It was like, it was like I was in a movie.
Now, remember, I'm at a five-star resort.
Now I hear I'm in Compton.
I'm in this bus that's wobbling around.
He goes, we're going to East Compton Hills Country Club.
So we go, and about 10 minutes into the ride, I'm looking around and I'm going, this is a strange place for a country club.
We pull up to a park.
We get out.
There's about 20 guys shooting hoops.
There's people smoking.
There's people drinking.
There's people passed out.
We get out.
Now listen to this.
It's 1991.
All right.
They go, hey, Richard.
Hey, King Richard.
They called the guy King then.
We had to go across because they knew who he was and they knew who the girls were.
They go, hey, VW.
Hey, Meek.
Serena's middle name is Serena Jameka Williams.
So we go across the basketball court.
It parts like the Red Sea.
Like these kids are celebrity and they're two little hamburgers at nine and 10 years old, you know?
So we go across the basketball court onto the court.
I had a box of Wilson balls shipped there.
And he goes, Rick, we don't use new balls.
I want old balls.
I want them digging.
I want them bending, you know, digging out the balls.
I got it.
It was a little different.
So now we go onto the tennis court.
Me and you wouldn't even play on the court.
Okay.
There was a shopping cart attached to the net post, the same shopping cart you see in that mood in the movie.
Richard had like seven chains wrapped around it.
He looks at me, goes, Rick, I got to secure it.
It won't be here in the morning.
So it took him 20 minutes to get the cart ready, puts the old balls in.
So I start drilling Venus and Serena.
Now, remember, I had Jennifer Capriotti.
Now she was already 14, top 10 in the world.
She was already on the pro tour.
So my blueprint for greatness was probably more than anybody in the world.
Yeah.
So she had her racket back in the parking lots, low center of gravity, great fundamentals by the late, great Jimmy Everett.
So now I'm out there with Venus and Serena, arms, legs, hair, beads flying off their head.
I'm going, what in God's name am I doing in Compton, California?
They were maybe 70, 80 in the nation, which I see that all the time.
So after about an hour, it's a great lesson for anybody.
Any parent, coach, or Rick Macy.
Okay?
You don't judge a book by the cover.
The cover could be terrible.
The book amazing.
Okay.
The cover amazing.
The book great.
So you got to understand.
Now I said, let's play competitive points.
And the whole landscape changed.
When I said game on, the footwork got better.
They were popping the popcorn extra butter.
The preparation got better.
The burning desire, there was a rage inside these two little girls.
The burning desire to get to the ball was brutal.
Wow.
And now listen, I have, listen, I've told so many people, and I have a lot of kids that try hard.
This was different.
There was something inside of them, even though it was a train wreck on the outside.
And when I saw, they ran so hard.
And now I'm projecting in my head, 510, 145, six feet, a buck 60.
And I'm thinking where this is going to go.
And I, right then and there, Richard, come here.
And this is in the movie.
I said, and it was more about Venus because she was a little more mature.
Serena was like a little prankster.
She was nine.
I go, you got the next female Michael Jordan on your hand.
And he puts his arm around me.
He goes, no, brother man, I got the next two.
I've seen it on everybody.
No, no.
And so, but wait.
So then Venus goes, Daddy, can I go to the bathroom?
Okay.
They're hugging, kissing, close-knit family, just like you see in the movie.
Okay, they were just like, bang, they were like that.
Venus goes out the gate, walks on her hands for five feet, does backward cartwheels for five feet.
And then I'm going, whoa, whoa, whoa.
So remember, this was 1991.
If you were big and strong in women's tennis, you weren't really nimble.
So now I'm thinking, not only can these kids be number one in the world with the right coaching and financial backing, they can change everything because they can transcend the sport.
They were going to bring a different actor.
You knew this when he saw that.
But I didn't.
But the moral of the story, okay?
The moral of the story is I didn't see it on the outside.
It's what I saw on the inside while I took the chance, all the sweat equity, millions of dollars, and I rolled the dice because everybody thought I was crazy.
And I get that question a lot now.
Why would I do it?
That's what I tell people all the time.
What you may see is very different than Rick may see.
What you may see is very different than what Rick Macy.
That's awesome.
You said you had to invest millions of dollars.
Is that what you just said?
Yeah, no.
Yeah.
Listen, I probably put four to five hours a day of me one-on-one.
There was hitting partners, ballet, boxing, taekwondo, Disney tickets, you know, a house, $92,000 motor home.
You got to understand, I took on the whole family.
You were funding all that, you're saying?
Yeah, you know, I'm not IMG.
I'm not a billion-dollar corporation, but I believed in a couple things.
I believed in Venus, Serena, Richard, and most of all, myself.
Whether this took four years, eight years, I knew this was different.
You got to remember, I had capriotti, and I just knew, but I knew a lot of work had to be done, you know, technically.
But at the end of the day, everybody wants to know now, especially after the movie, why did I take a chance?
Because I had to take the whole family and move them here.
But it wasn't a risk because my mom always told me, if you're going to bet, bet on one thing, yourself.
And I don't bet.
And the only thing I really ever bet on was Venus and Serena.
And the best trip I ever made in my life was going to Compton, California.
What role did the mother play?
Huge, okay?
She was silent, but deadly.
When she spoke, okay, she got everybody's attention.
So she wasn't as involved on the court and stuff like that, but off the court, you got to remember the reason why Venus and Serena, they were like my own daughters.
And Richard was my best friend.
And even though if you see the movie, so stubborn, and I tell people, I should be in the Hall of Fame just putting up with that guy for four years, you know?
I mean, it was, but it was because a world-class dad, okay?
The life lessons that he taught these kids and the mother every single night.
And I don't see that nowadays.
Every single night after the lessons, after the training, whether it's good, bad, happy or sad, Rick, thank you very much.
Crazy.
And every day they brought their books to the court.
If it rained, go to Rick's office and study.
These are the things that people don't know.
So what he did as a father every day, okay, he was taking these girls home at night at 10 and 11.
You got to make sure you have the goods if you go this.
He was like out there.
He would interview them on a, on it, put up his tripod.
He'd be asking them questions at 10 and 11, preparing them for the future of how to answer the question without answering the question.
Because remember, you're two little African-American girls going into predominantly white sport, and people are saying you're legendary.
Then you got Rick Macy saying you're going to be better in Caprioti.
So this took nuclear proportions because we're talking NBC, ABC.
This was, they got more press than people number one in the world on the Pro Tour before it even happened.
Okay.
And he, but that started at birth.
That was baked in extra crispy how mentally strong they were before I met him.
But he was teaching them life lessons all the time and left the heavy lifting to me.
Now, let me ask you this.
So during that time when everything's going on and then the movie comes out, and then when the movie comes out, you see what happens with Will Smith winning the academy and all that stuff that takes place with the slapping.
And then you said something off camera about Will, if you're comfortable sharing.
Give me the perspective from the movie coming out to then Will winning Oscar to then the incident that took place.
What did that do to the whole story?
Well, first off, that's a great question.
When I went to the red carpet and the after party and I met Will, and it was kind of interesting.
He was more excited to meet me than me to meet him.
It was kind of a weird dynamic because you got to remember when you're a character and you're into someone that deep, okay?
And I didn't really understand that because that's not my world, okay?
No one had a better front row seat than Rick Macy, other than maybe the wife, because I was there every day, five hours a day, six days a week.
That doesn't sound like a lot, but you go 365 days a year for four years.
There's a lot of crap that could go on and blow the whole thing up.
So I'm there every day, and that's why I love Richard, even though he was out there on a lot of stuff.
So Will got so into the character.
When I saw the movie, when we had the screening in Voca, it blew me away.
The subtleties, the nuances, the walk, the talk, the idiosyncrasies.
It took him two hours just to put on how he had to look like Richard.
It was beyond Richard.
And this is what I've told other people when I spoke to him.
So, and you got to remember, this happened during the pandemic.
So, this guy was probably going into the shopping mall.
He was probably going home talking to his kids like that.
He became Richard.
And there was one scene in the movie where it was in my office in 1994 before Venus was going to make her debut.
All right.
And I don't know, it's day one or some TV show.
And the guy asked Venus, Do you think you can win?
And Venus goes, I know I can.
And then the guy pressed her, you say that so confidently.
And Venus goes, I am confident.
And then the guy goes, Why are you confident?
And she goes, Because I am.
And then Richard blew a gasket.
He comes running onto the set, okay, and just tortures the guy.
And I'm sitting here going, Oh my God.
What do you mean?
Did he assault him?
No, no, no, no, he didn't assault him, but he got that far from his face.
He got up in his grill.
He got in his grill, just said, Listen, leave her alone.
She's a little, you know, a little black girl.
You know, your ass is going to be in the ground.
You know, he just blew a gasket.
Richard was so protective of those girls.
Okay.
And Will even made reference to that when he saw that in 94.
Will brought that up, but I'm sure that was discussed a lot during the movie.
So now you go through the movie, and the minute I saw it, I've told other people, he's going to win an Oscar, even though I don't know how that stuff works.
In my opinion, he was going to get an Oscar.
So now, when he's at the Oscar, that reaction was beyond bizarre.
That doesn't mean I'm justifying it, but something inside of him made him do that.
Because looking back, I'm sure he wished he wouldn't have done it because the ripples worsen now the action.
But maybe the guy thought he was Richard Williams.
So that's very, very, that's my take on it.
It doesn't justify.
He has to own it.
But at the end of the day, it was bizarre.
When he did that, when he got up on stage, I know, not that you're a psychiatrist or doctor or anything like that, but you have a front row seat to all this, right?
Richard Williams, Venus, Serena, Will Smith.
I saw you on the red carpet with John Bernthal.
When he went up there and slapped Chris Rock, what percentage of that was he was in the Richard Williams character moment, still in it?
And then what percentage was everything that he's been dealing with in his own personal life with Jada?
Is it a cumulative effect?
I mean, you said that he was basically becoming this guy, Richard Williams.
What's your analysis?
Yeah, you know, another great question.
I think a lot of it is Richard because initially he laughed.
I just think that he wasn't even thinking.
I mean, it was just Richard.
I know it's hard for people on the outside to look at like that, you know, but they become these people.
And he even kind of said that when he was giving his speech.
100%.
The crazy father.
But people aren't going to say, you know, that's justified.
But I could see that because that was out of character to do something like that at that moment when he's at the pinnacle because he's done a lot of great things in movies.
What do you think, Pat?
Well, you ever seen the moment when Jack Nicholson's having dinner?
Jack Nicholas.
Which one's the actor?
Jack Nicholson.
Jack Nicholson's having dinner.
Okay.
He comes out of a restaurant and a reporter comes up and he says, hey, Jack, did you hear about what happened to Heath Ledger?
What happened to him?
He just, he was found dead.
He says, what?
He says, yes.
Do you remember what his next line is?
No, because they were both a joker.
He says, I told him never to play Joker.
Shit.
You never seen this?
I got it.
He says, I told him to never play the Joker.
Now, there's a part of that on what you're saying that I can agree with.
Because if you're playing a role that long for that much, I can see how you can take method actor.
Yeah, yeah, I can see how you can take that and become that.
Like, you know, they say Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest actors of all time because of the way even what's his name talked about it.
Ethan Supley talked about it last week, where, you know, he gets into it so much.
Yeah, that's like he's just fully a part of it, right?
And he just, you don't even know who you are.
You leave.
Daniel Day-Lewis, when he played The Last of the Mohicans, you know, he went out there and lived out there to know what he gets in it.
Oh, he gets in.
When he was the butcher in Five Towns?
Well, maybe he should have skipped the maybe Will should have skipped going to the Oscars that day because that slap change.
But one more point.
You know, it's different.
Like if you're in a movie and you're an actor, that's one thing.
But remember, he was playing a person.
This is a bio.
That's a little different than just acting.
You know what I'm saying?
I mean, he was.
And a live person, too.
There is a difference.
There's zero excuses for his behavior.
Zero behavior.
So there's no way, you know, that's kind of like saying a professional athlete who is super, super, super competitive goes and slaps like Latrell Spreeval of Spreeville, what he did to his coach.
I don't remember that when he coached this choke, choked his coach.
And, you know, or some of the other stories you hear about Rudy Tomjanovich years ago running the other guy knocks him in.
You remember the whole thing?
Oh, that's the center of court.
Yeah.
Yeah, center of court.
So there's no exception.
Larry Bird?
Who did that?
No, not Larry Bird.
Larry Bird got out of the business.
Maybe that was Irving.
Dr. J punched Larry a few times where Moses Maron was holding him back.
But that's completely different.
But do you think the backlash against Will is actually justified to the point where what he did was that bad?
Yes, we agree.
Not a good thing to do.
But he didn't beat the crap out of somebody.
He didn't murder somebody.
He slapped another man.
So, you know, they're talking, Will's getting canceled.
Never again.
It's like this was the biggest Hollywood blockbuster star out there.
I get it.
But do you think it's overblown?
I don't think it's a culmination.
I don't think it's just one thing.
I think it's a culmination of a lot of different things he's dealing with.
I think it's 50, 80% of the stuff that we don't know about, and it's 20% of the stuff that we know about.
The 80% of the stuff that we don't know about it, we're all speculating.
You know, just what we did a couple days ago with the whole shirt, free will, the campaign that we put together.
But anyway, it's going back to this with.
You know what it is, by the way?
What?
There's certain things that we may see, and there's certain things that Rick may see.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, I think it's a med.
No, it's a good one.
I should use that.
It's a medley of stuff.
If he'd have done that on the street, it's no big deal.
But because he did it in that backdrop, and they have to do something, even if it's just to do something.
That's what's bad about the whole thing.
They just have to react.
They can't just say, don't worry about it, bro.
You know, it's okay.
They have to do something.
It's kind of like the Johnny Depp story, right?
You know, the Johnny Depp story that's going through, you know, with what's the ride that they're going through.
I don't know if you're following the story or not with the two of them that they're doing.
Well, he's Hollywood these days.
He's on the red carpet.
How could he not?
No, I'm on the court.
I'm going to stay on the court.
Yeah.
That's why we'll have.
But this whole story that's going on and all these videos become in, what do you call it?
All these videos become in like the recordings that they're talking about.
And, you know, everything is public.
I don't even like that.
I don't even like the fact that so you guys chose to do the Epstein case and you did that private, but you're doing this public.
Like it should be the other way around.
That one affected people's lives.
This is between two people, leave them alone and they're getting embarrassed publicly.
And the recording you're hearing about, you don't know what people are really dealing with.
Johnny Depp, one guy said something.
He said, In the last 50 years, there's not one story of Johnny ever raising his hands on anybody, right?
Meaning, Will Smith, the last, I don't know, 30 years, there's not one story of Will doing what he just did.
And Will's played a lot of different roles.
He's played Ali.
He's beat the shit out of people.
And he literally could have come out and said, Well, I felt like I was Ali for a minute.
And I, yeah.
So, but the point is going through.
He's going through a lot.
So that's a completely different conversation.
But let me come back to you with King Richard and the coaching.
So, you know, I rented out a room at the Breakers Hotel.
Okay, which you know where Breakers at.
It's at the Palm Beach area.
And I do meetings there all the time.
But one of the meetings I held last year, which was in July, did you go to this one or no?
Well, we watched Nick Bolitieri's documentary.
I don't know if you've seen that one on Netflix or not.
If you haven't seen it, it's a pretty solid documentary.
Now, this guy is a guy that I knew up, but I didn't know him, know him, because I'm not in the tennis world.
I didn't follow tennis, you know.
But I watched the documentary and I said, huh, so pretty epic personality.
I think he says, yeah, I've been married seven or eight times.
I lost count how many times I've been married.
And, you know, his style was all psychological.
And, you know, the way he would, you know, coach people and pin them against each other and play games and sit on the other side with Courier while I sit on this side.
And all of these games he played with his style of coaching versus yours.
You guys are not far from each other.
You're 30, 40 miles away from each other when he was coming up.
And I don't know.
I think he's in Miami, right?
Is he in Miami or is he in?
Bradington.
Okay, Bradington.
South Florida.
And which is what?
Like 40 miles, give or take.
I don't know.
He's about three and a half hours.
He's all right.
No, he's on the West.
He's on the West.
Why did I think he's down here?
He used to be, but now he's at India.
No, he started it.
Yeah, he started in Miami long ago, but he went to Bradington in the early 80s, early 80s.
He's been all over South Florida.
What is the style of coaching?
Because conversations will come up.
Who's the greatest tennis coaches of all time?
And he has this stuff that's put out there.
Your name comes up.
Brad Gilbert's name comes up.
A lot of names come up, right?
This is the part of the competitiveness that we like to talk about.
How different is your style of coaching versus his style of coaching?
Well, I'm very different than everybody.
I'm just cut from a different cloth.
I tell people all the time, you know, my favorite student of all time, who's ever on the other side of the net, that hour, that minute, that second.
My name's on the door, but I still teach 50 hours a week, whether it's to you, your son, the number one 80-year-old guy in the country, or someone top 10 in the world.
So I'm on the court all the time.
There's no big machine behind me like marketing and pushing this thing and trying to become, there might be people more famous, but you know, that's just stack up kind of the resumes and just line up and see where everything is and really who you've worked with.
But what I do is a little different.
It's like a medley or a smorgasbord of everything.
In one hour, there's going to be a lot of mental training.
There's going to be a lot of tactical, strategical.
There's dealing with the parents.
It's putting Humpty Dumpty together and how I do this and the art of communication, okay, of how I do this.
I've been on a tennis court since age 22, more than anybody in the world.
And I'm still, that's my living room, you know.
And so what I do is very, very different.
And I connect with people and I can extract greatness out of people.
How do you do that?
Well, I got to find out what buttons to push.
Maybe what buttons I push with you are going to be different.
I get people to believe.
Okay.
But it's a package.
Like anybody who's great, it's not just one thing.
Okay.
It's a combination of a lot of things.
And so how I talk to an eight-year-old girl is going to be different than a 20-year-old guy.
and how I put this together to motivate and get them to think big and stay in touch with them, whether it be an emoji or a gift.
There's just this constant getting stuff out of people.
And the best reward is not all those people you mentioned who became number one or people that won Grand Slams.
I mean, since 85, there's over 322 USJ national titles.
Okay, that's a lot.
It's the people who maybe clean their room better or get better grades or they're not on drugs or they come back and they say the work ethic and these things they've learned from Rick Macy.
So it's more the ripple effect.
But what's great about this, I don't try to do that.
That's just part of the coaching.
I don't need to pick up a chair and throw it at the person like Bobby Knight.
Okay.
I know when to hug him.
Okay.
I know when to kick him in the butt.
There's an art to this.
And that's why.
How's your birthday?
What month's your birthday?
December 7th, 1954.
December 7th.
Got it.
And I saw online you had three daughters.
Do any one of them play tennis or no?
They did at a young age.
That's another great question.
Because they're all very athletic.
Okay.
And when they were like eight, six, and five, I took them to the tennis court.
And it's like 110 degrees.
And we ran laps around the court.
And they went right out the gate to the drinking fountain.
I said, okay, gymnastics.
We're going to the air conditioning.
I think, listen, this is a brutal sport.
And I said, listen, I'm the type of guy, either in or out.
I either go for the jugular or we don't do this.
And two of them were undefeated in gymnastics, by the way.
And listen, they're all healthy, happy.
And I raised all three of them by myself at age 13.
So just for that, I should be in the Hall of Fame.
You raised them all by yourself.
From age 13, all three, besides working the crazy amount of hours.
But it's helped me also how I deal with other people.
It's been just another part of, you know, your maturation.
Just out of curiosity, how many times have you been married?
Twice.
Twice.
Okay, so Nick's got to beat an amount of time being married.
Yeah, he's five of them.
Only reason I ask this question is the following reason.
I'm in the army.
I'm about to go into special forces.
Okay.
So 18 Delta.
I'm going to fifth group.
I love it.
My captain, my colonel, Lieutenant Colonel Peacock's got all the orders I wanted.
Everything I wanted.
He got me.
I'm going to go to Vicenza, Italy.
I'm going to go to, they're telling me to DLI because I speak four or five languages.
I'm going to go to Sears.
I'm going to go to.
And then he says, but before we become special forces, I need you to go and interview with five special forces, three or five special forces guy to interview with.
And I went and started talking to him.
So tell me about the life.
What is to be special forces?
What is to be special forces?
Yeah.
He says, well, you ever want to have kids?
Yeah.
You ever want to have family?
Yeah.
You ever want to get married and stay married for a long time?
Yeah.
Never join special forces.
Why?
Because this is your wife, your kids, your personal life, everything.
You have to give everything to this to make it at this level, right?
Do you think there's an element of that in the world of what you guys do?
Because you're dealing with the kids.
You're dealing with the parents.
You're dealing with the athletes.
You're dealing with trying to build a business.
You're dealing with guys.
You and Nick were going back and forth with Capriote recruiting and his recruiting.
Your guy, you're recruiting.
His guy's like, well, now he's, but I never try to recruit their Venus.
I never try to recruit.
This competitiveness that happens because that's part of, I'm in business.
And that happens all the time, right?
It's annoying.
It's frustrating.
It's challenging.
Do you think eventually it gets to a point that you say, you know what?
I'm going to retire from the marriage side and I'm just going to give my life to tennis and that's the game I'm going to play.
Am I reading it correctly or I'm completely off?
No, you're in the game.
Okay.
I haven't been married since 2000.
So now it's 2022.
Got it.
You know, and you know, I work seven days a week, you know, and I open up the park every morning and I'm just all in because I answer everybody's call, everybody's email, even though there's 10 other guys that work for me and four fitness trainers.
And, you know, I just, everything in life, you have to be happy and you got to do what works for you.
And what works for me, you're right, because I don't, if I'm on the phone, I don't want someone to say, you got to get off or don't answer the phone, okay?
Or, you know, this, this, because you got to remember, the way I do it, because I control, my model is different.
I have a different model, my academy than anybody in the world.
I drive that engine, okay, because I'm on the court all the time.
We're not a glorified boarding school like IMG in Bradington.
That's about marketing.
That's about volume.
Everybody has courts, palm trees, sunshine, or whatever.
But just like you saw in the movie, if you have potential and you want to dive in and you want Rick, okay, I'll help you.
And that's a big thing.
Who's delivering the goods for your kids?
So your offer is you're going to get more hands-on from me than if you go to a different place, you're going to get it from the coaches who report to the coaches, who report to the coaches.
You're going to get the copy of the copy of the copy.
Is that kind of what you're saying?
That's what's different with you than others?
Absolutely.
That's why the model works.
I mean, I drive that engine because people, you know, they obviously look at the track record, you know, been there, done that.
But I'm just like, I'm just one of the guys.
I'm so down to earth and, you know, genuine about this whole stuff.
I always keep my eye on the ball.
And like I said, I treat everybody exactly the same.
It doesn't matter if they're top 10 in the world or they just want a lesson and they're five years old.
You said you want people to be all in or else like your daughters, well, right after the tennis practice, 110, they go drink water.
You're like, nope, you're going to go gymnastics.
That's what you're going to do.
And they both couple them are undefeated.
But go back to, you said, I said, what's your style of coaching?
You said, button.
I know how to push buttons.
Well, may work with you, man.
I work with this person.
Okay, great.
I totally get it.
Give me, I can come up with 20 different buttons.
I've run a sales team for the last 20-something years.
We have licensed 35,000 insurance agents and we have 20,000 insurance agents.
And to drive them, you're right.
It's very different.
What's going to move her is not going to be what moves him.
It's not going to be what moves them.
Everyone's different.
From your lens, making it at the 0.0001% of your world that you're in.
How many different buttons are there?
Give me a few of them.
Well, okay, let's just go back to Venus and Serena because I knew what I had.
Every time I talked to them and say they hit a certain shot, I would say something like this.
That was good, but Hingis is going to get that.
That was good, but Capriotti is going to get that.
Or Steffi Graf.
So here I am talking to an 11-year-old.
Even though it was a world-class shot, our eye was on a bunch different situation.
And like Venus always says, he goes, Rick, I was almost brainwashed to be number one.
You know, it's a different way to communicate with them.
You know, even when you miss, it's a positive error.
Because what I teach more than anything is courage.
Okay.
I teach people to pull the trigger.
I know how to, even though, because most people have people try not to miss.
Okay.
And you're just going to be a nice little college player.
Okay.
And if you look at, especially a lot of the girls I've trained, they all play kind of similar.
They cut the court.
They take the ball early.
They're fearless.
They attack.
They swarm.
Biomechanically, they're put together a little bit different.
Okay.
So that would be one thing right off the bat, just the way I explain it.
It's a positive error.
Listen, two more inches, 10 more pounds.
You get to the ball.
You set your set and you're smiling.
That's going to be a winner.
You miss that because you're 11.
You know, I got this, and then I feel, you know, kind of where the kids at.
If they need a little bit more or I got to be stronger, you know, with them.
I just feel the temperature.
Give me an example of stronger.
Okay, I make kids run for every ball.
I tell them the fences are out in Palm Beach County.
I don't care if the ball's out.
You know, one time, Venus, I told, I tell everybody this, but you run for every ball.
Just because the ball's out, anybody can put their finger up and call out.
You run for every ball, even if it's 10 feet out, because someday, somewhere, somebody is going to put you in that position.
And if your brain has been there, I've been there, that neighborhood, I'm going to feel comfortable.
Okay.
And one time I told this to Venus, and I had to keep telling her about it.
So Richard goes, well, if you don't want to run, I'm out of here.
So you can just run home.
So he made him run home 10 miles.
Yeah, I remember that.
When you say you have to run after every ball, and I played tennis, and I played football, and I remember there was in football, you'd have to, when you used to run routes, you would catch the ball, turn, and you would run upfield.
And I would always be like, well, I have to run 40 more yards.
And in tennis, you know if a ball's clearly going out, if you want to kind of save your breath, you know, you'll let it go out.
Are you saying that you would make them run to the end of the court, even though they knew it was out?
What's the advantage of that?
No, I try to get them.
Okay, it's the ability to improvise.
You know, there's a fine line between great and good.
Great can hit clutch shots when they're off balance and improvise.
And I'm actually developing inner qualities, drive, persistence, but run for every ball.
See, a lot of the kids are glad just because it went out.
Like, you know what I mean?
So if it's four feet out, I make them run for the ball, try to figure out how to improvise.
Plus, they're relaxed.
They feel no pressure.
And then they can practice a shot.
And so that's always been a staple of the training.
Because I said, if you want to be different, you got to train different.
And if they don't listen to me, they're probably not going to listen to a lot of people.
So that's just one little snippet.
But I get people to do things because I'm always about, okay, I get the ingredients.
Okay.
I put it in the oven.
I bake it and then I put the icing on it.
When I have a 12-year-old, I'm already projecting how they're going to play at 18.
And I'm playing for 18.
I'm not developing a 12-year-old game.
That's why I've had more kids become number one in the nation at 12.
They come to me at seven or eight, bang, they're number one in the nation.
Not that that means anything because that doesn't mean you're going to be top 10.
But I knew it was Sheripova.
I knew it with Jennifer.
I can just, I didn't know it with Roddick, even though he had a lot of competitive things I like.
Men's tennis is different.
Total different physicality.
The girls is a little easier.
But at the end of the day, this is kind of how I do the teaching.
And probably the best compliment.
I certify coaches.
They come from all around the world and they're on the court with me four, five hours a day, three, four hours, I mean, three or four days.
And they watch me teach and they ask questions and they video.
And even if these people played on the tour, okay, they're all blown away because they have no idea.
You just don't read a book and say, here's how to coach.
They don't even have any idea about how to deal with the parents, how to motivate the kid.
They didn't realize it was this cafeteria of stuff.
And this is what happened to you.
That's what you said about men and women's tennis is different.
I just wrote it down.
I just wrote it down here, but I want to stay on this.
We'll come back to this with the men and women.
Matter of fact, let's just address it right now since you brought it up.
You know, there was an interview I saw where Serena's with Jimmy Kimmel.
I think it's Kimmel.
I don't think it's Fountain.
I think it's Kimmel.
And they're like, well, you know, you can get out there and compete with men.
He's like, no, no, no.
I just want to compete with.
He says, you don't understand.
For me to go up against Andy Murray, there is no way I can compete against Andy Murray.
You know, it's a very different game.
The muscles are different.
And she just unpacks it for Jimmy.
And Jimmy's kind of like not wanting to hear that message because Jimmy wants to say, you know, women can go out and compete with men.
For somebody who's coached both sides, you know, what do you think about what Serena said?
Do you agree with her that it's very, very different to have a woman compete against them?
Because she said a different sport.
Yeah, no, the way she said, I would lose 6-0, if you want to put the story up, John.
I would lose 6-0-6-0 in five minutes.
They told a, I don't know what article I was reading that said one of the, not professional, the amateur ranking that they have, they said 450th place of amateur ranking for men's would be the women's number one.
Some weird number like that.
Do you agree with that or do you have a different case?
This came at the height of the Leah Thomas, William Thomas swimming debate, which whatever number he was and then became number one in the world.
Anyway, your thoughts?
Tennis is, you know, that's kind of tricky, but I agree 100% with Serena.
She's right.
And when she's saying it, she's coming from fact.
She, you know, it wouldn't be five minutes.
It would be longer than that.
And she might scrape a game or two if she popped a few serves into the corner.
But it's just more physical.
The guys cover more real estate on the court because they're just bigger and stronger.
That doesn't mean the girls wouldn't participate.
You would have four, eight, maybe some 10-ball rallies, but it'd be a slow death to the end.
Then bang, you know, it's in the serves.
I mean, come on.
128.
Yeah, no, no.
I mean, oh, Pelpka, these guys are hitting 140.
And what are the women serve?
Tops.
They can go into the 120, but the guys are, unless they hit the corner, it's coming back.
You're talking 140 versus 120 max.
Yeah, but it's not even the serve.
I mean, you still got to get it in, and you're only serving half the match.
So it's just, it's, I don't want to say it's a different sport because listen, the women are amazing.
The guys just cover more real estate.
You don't realize it because both guys are covering the real estate.
You know, it's like a good high school guy bringing the ball up in the NBA, dribbling the ball.
If the guy wanted to, he could steal it from him every time.
But you don't see that in the NBA because the other guys, this is good.
Here's what's crazy about this, though.
Here's what's crazy.
You know how sometimes they'll say, wow, women don't make enough, the same amount of money as men do in soccer.
You know how that conversation, oh, women, basketball doesn't make as much money at NBA players.
I am completely okay watching women's tennis, maybe more than men's tennis.
It's so weird.
The interest is there because it's still competitive.
And yes, Serena and Venus and these girls are making a lot of money.
They're making millions on top of millions of dollars of money.
The dollar is not that big of a difference comparable to the eyeballs that they're getting versus in basketball.
How many people are watching WNBA or watching, you know, this is a story Tyder just pulled up, if you want to put it up.
FC Dallas under 15 boys squad beat the U.S. women's national team in a scrimmage.
This isn't soccer?
This isn't soccer yet.
This is when you kind of see that there's certain sports it doesn't help.
Anyways, I saw Serena talking about, well, let's go back to, let's go back to the coaching style.
So your coaching style, would you say, did you mirror any other coaches from other sports?
Like, are you a John Wooden guy?
Because you sound like a John Wooden guy.
A few other people have said that.
Not really.
You know, I think growing up in the Midwest and just how I was brought up from my mom and just, you know, it's from the heart.
You gain the knowledge as you go down the yellow brick road, you know, and you always got to want to continue your education.
But the ability to educate, motivate, you know, it's that.
And so I really never, the biggest influence would be probably Dr. Jim Lair, who was the number one sports psychologist that we spent some time together in the early 80s.
He was a pioneer.
And now there's many guys out there, but he was the first of the Mohicans, in my opinion.
He was a pioneer.
So, and I was always intrigued with the mental part.
That's how I became kind of good at my own little bubble of not having a lesson.
Didn't he write a book or something?
He's wrong about 20.
Yeah, but he said that one book that was mental toughness training.
Oh, that was a first book.
This guy's a legend, by the way.
No, no, Jim's like one of my best friends.
Have you read any of this guy's books?
I'm not familiar with it.
It's insane.
If you pull anyway, so yeah.
So he, so you know, yeah.
So, you know, and we used to play all the time.
Yeah.
You know, when this was early 80s at Greenleaf, so that would be really the only person.
I never, you know, you get the knowledge as you go on, and it's just your love and concern for the person.
And, you know, when you see the movie, you know, it comes across loud and clear how Bernthal played me.
Even though his mustache looked like a shrubbery, I had this little piece of astro turf.
It took me 30 years to grow.
You could see how much I cared for the girls and that Richard was my best friend.
And we were just on a mission.
And when your students feel that, that you would do anything, you can get them to jump over mountains.
And everybody feels that way when I'm on the court with them.
It doesn't matter.
Just the way I'm wired.
That's all.
You know, I think there are different levels of coaches for different times.
Meaning, you know how Nick Saban tried to go to NFL and he wasn't a good coach.
Not that he wasn't a good coach.
He didn't win and he went back to college.
He crushed it, right?
Calapari went to the NBA with the Nets, I believe.
Yeah, and then he went back to college and he crushed it, right?
Petino.
Petino, by the way.
Celtics.
But the one that worked was Pete Carroll.
He went to college to NFL, back to college, back to NFL.
And then, you know, he did very well.
And Pete Carroll is more like, come on, we can do it.
You know, he's like more.
It's like a player.
He's more like, yeah.
But Bill Belichick is not like that.
That's not Bill Belichick.
That's not his style.
Do you think there is styles of coaching that work at a certain age with a kid that maybe, if let's just say, if I'm trying to develop my kids' confidence, maybe they would do better with a style of a coach like yours or Wooden, that someone's going to give them confidence.
And then when it goes into the pros, like, hey, listen, man, here's how this thing works.
Here's how it's going to be.
And then someone's going to be kicking their asses to challenge them and realize here's what we have to do.
And I understand there's still the relationship part.
Come, we'll cook for you.
Let's have a good time.
You know, you need to know that I trust you.
You need to know that I believe in you.
But the level of intensity goes slightly higher as the levels increase and the age increases.
Would you agree with that?
Kind of.
You know, it depends on the person.
It's so individual.
You know, you just can't, it's not one size fits all.
It's because you're dealing with different people.
Now, tennis, it's one-on-one.
Football, there's a whole cast of characters, just like the NBA.
You know what I mean?
You can see the Brooklyn Nets.
I mean, they're saying, you know, get rid of Nash.
I mean, we don't need a coach.
That's kind of what they thought.
But the NBA comes down to like at the final few minutes and there's strategic things that a coach can come in.
But I also, I need to chime in here.
I think the coaching, when you said I went to the NFL, then the college, whatever, you got to look at the team also.
I mean, you know, the quarterback, and you got to look at the players.
Then even when you asked me the question about like Venus, Serena, Caparotti, Roddick, Moskina, Pierce, Sonia Kennan, okay, all these people that I coach, I helped them enormously, but I feel I helped so many other people a lot more.
Okay, because to win the Derby, you got to have the horse.
You're not going to do it with a donkey.
I can make the donkey have great mechanics, but it's still a donkey.
Okay.
So you got to remember.
You got to remember the coaching.
It kind of goes both ways.
I mean, I don't think it'd be difficult.
You know, right now for somebody to start coaching Nadal.
Okay.
I mean, it's already, you got to understand, or each, even when, when Patrick started coaching Serena, nothing gets Patrick.
Okay, but she already had like 15 grand slams.
I mean, you just can't screw it up.
Okay.
So that putting this thing together, okay, the cards you're dealt with at a young age in a lot of ways, even from your family, it's more complex than just saying you need someone to kick your butt when you're older because you got to know how to deal with that person.
And even in the NBA, you know what I mean?
They treat people different.
You don't think people, the coaches of the Lakers treat LeBron differently.
I mean, come on, you got to understand.
He wanted to get Spostrom fired when he's in Miami.
So it's a tricky thing.
LeBron, anytime they start losing, he wants to coach the money.
No, you know, it's silly.
Yeah, it's silly.
He's been like that for a long time.
And that's become a habit with a lot of people.
Well, he's the goat.
Other than MJ, who?
LeBron.
LeBron.
Doesn't that defeat the term of the purpose of the word goat?
Greatest of all time.
You can't be the greatest of all time.
I mean, arguably.
Can I ask Rick a question?
Because, you know, we're talking a lot about coaching and what it takes to be a great coach and your technique.
I actually want to flip it because Pat had mentioned he's got four kids.
Three of them are actually starting to do sports, right?
I mean, Tico's a little bit, but Dylan for sure, Senna, I believe as well, gymnastics, right?
And all my friends, all their kids are starting to become, you know, six, eight, 10, 12.
They're, you know, we got kids in sports.
My relationship, I used to be, I was a sick athlete in Miami football, basketball.
I had the worst relationship with my dad.
He was the most overbearing, like at every game, yelling, talking shit, yelling at me.
I'm yelling at him.
I mean, you dealt with Richard Williams.
What does it take to be a good parent to our sportsman, to our sports girl, right?
It's like, what, what are the qualifications that you see that the parent needs to have for their kid to be successful?
Well, first off, first off, another great question.
You know, they have to be more of a psychologist than a coach.
That's number one.
Remember, they're always going to look at you like dad or mom.
And it's very different how you have that relationship with a boy and a girl.
Because with a girl, the dad's always more involved because it's daddy's little girl.
They're more protective.
You know, besides Richard Williams, Caprioti, Jim Pierce, I've had some of the, you know, the fathers from, you know, outer space or whatever.
So these guys were all in.
But you got to remember at 18, or they get a boyfriend or they get their driver's license, you could be toast.
So you got to be real careful.
It creates divorce.
It creates problems.
You got to be real careful with this.
But on the other hand, you got to know how to push them, but you got to support them.
You got to try to make them the best athlete you can.
You got to instill confidence in them.
You got to get them to believe.
You don't know what's inside a young child.
Nobody does.
I got a better feel than most people.
And that's why I've had people move mountains and they never thought they could do this or that.
And they get a full ride to UCLA or Georgia or they end up, you know, 50 in the world someday.
They never thought they could do that or their parents.
And so that would be the role of the parent, but it's, it's a problem because they're all in.
They're on the fence like Little League Baseball.
They're psychotic.
You know, they can't wait to the weekend.
It's the Super Bowl.
Remember, that's them playing.
That's not even their kid.
They're like Will Smith and Richard.
You know, they're them.
It's their kid.
And I had this with Greg Olson.
He played for the Panthers.
And I just did his podcast.
Yeah, he's in, he does this huge sports thing.
And he goes, Rick, I think I'm becoming one of them.
And he's been there, done that.
And he's an NFL Pro Bowler.
And you got to understand, it's your kid, and you got to make sure you can separate it because it can burn the kid out.
You got to motivate.
Listen, no one died.
You know, the sun's going to come out up tomorrow.
It's about the process of getting better.
And I tell her body, if you're not getting better, you're getting worse.
It's not where you start.
It's where you finish.
This is a long-term process.
What's the goal?
Get the best college scholarship.
The grades are important.
Just keep getting better.
You got to get better.
But it's hard to do that because it's all about winning because people come up.
How'd you do?
I lost.
I won.
You want to talk about the cocktail party?
I get all that stuff.
But it's a journey.
And that's what I loved about Richard Williams when he said we're not playing any junior tournaments.
And this is in the movie.
In the movie, it kind of had me freaked out.
Like, wait a minute.
You didn't tell me that in Compton.
I was okay with not playing because Venus and Serena would run over broken glass to get to a ball and then they'd run back over it to get the next one.
They were so competitive.
If there was a piece of bread on the table, they'd fight to get it.
So they didn't need to compete to learn how to win and lose.
So I knew on Monday we weren't dealing with a junior tournament.
Why'd you lose?
We were just developing.
Now, but I'm not so stuck in my way as a coach, as you mentioned.
Wait, I coached Venus Serena.
They didn't play any junior tournaments.
Here's the blueprint.
Shut it down.
No, I'm not like that.
Okay.
I got to feel the temperature.
Some need to play more, some less.
But no, that's a great question.
By the way, breaking news, Elon Musk officially bought Twitter.
Oh, damn.
Twitter and Elon Musk strike a deal for takeover.
It's a done deal.
Let's read the story.
Can he go up so he can zoom in?
I can read that.
Title go up a little bit, go up a little bit, go up a little bit, zoom in.
Control plus, control plus.
Okay, so let's see right there.
Twitter Inc. on Monday accepted Elon Musk's bid to take over the company, given the world's richest man controlled by influential social media network, where he is also among its powerful users.
The deal marks the close of a dramatic courtship and a sharp change of heart at Twitter, where many executives and board members initially opposed Musk's takeover approach.
The deal has polarized Twitter's employees and users and regulators over the power take giants wheeled in determining the parameters of acceptable discourse on the internet and how companies enforce their rules.
The two sides worked through the night to hash out a deal.
Earlier on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported Twitter and Mr. Musk reached an agreement to value Twitter at $44 billion.
A takeover, if it goes through, would mark one of the biggest acquisitions in tech history and was likely to have global repercussions for years to come related to how billions of people use social media.
Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and Splace Exploration Technology, must find a way to balance his commitment less moderation with the business needs of a company that has struggled to reconcile freewheeling conversations with content that appeals to advertisers on Monday after the journal reported that a deal was closed.
Mr. Musk indicated, tweeted to indicate that he wants the platform to remain destination for wide-ranging discourse and disagreement.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech is all about.
So five step on what this guy's going to do.
Move number one, he bought Twitter.
Move number two, he's going to take it private.
Move number three.
Okay.
And what this guy's going to do, that's going to piss off a lot of people.
He's going to bring Jack back.
He's going to bring Jack back, Jack Dorsey, because Jack left because it just worse than working out with the board.
Everybody thought Jack was the bad guy.
Jack didn't own 51% of the company when he left.
He only owned a couple percent when he left.
He'll bring Jack back.
He will eliminate Tom Brady's picture from the combine because that's what he owes to him.
And then he's going to bring a guy back that's going to, when he does that, forget about it.
When he brings back your best friend, he brings Trump back, which he was a student of yours, by the way.
I got great stories with the Trump sir.
Wait, wait, Tom.
Hold on.
You coached Trump?
What do you say?
You want me to get into that?
So he's coming back on Twitter.
So if Trump comes back, and if there's anybody that's going to bring Trump back on Twitter, it's going to be who?
It's going to be Elam.
It's going to be Elon.
If he look at that picture right there when you're talking about it.
I haven't teached that shot.
I didn't teach him that shot.
Anyway, so that story is official.
Wow.
And this guy, if you would.
How excited are you right now, Pat?
You know what I'm excited about?
I'm excited about the fact that people can officially go out there and say stuff and not have to worry about every other ward is going to be taken out of context and they're going to be taken down.
I think people are free again.
I agree, Pat.
Yeah, I agree.
Good.
We're on the same page.
So you said you have a Trump story.
Tell us.
I got a lot of them.
Anyways, this was the late 90s.
And I had a girl who was number one in Florida in the 18s.
She was 14 years old.
And she was actually with IMG, which is a management company.
And the father approached me about coaching her.
And she modeled.
And she sang also.
And she was good at both, besides playing tennis.
And he approached me about coaching her and represented her because he didn't think IMG took her modeling and singing serious enough.
And they wanted her to deliver the goods as a tennis player before we got into the other stuff.
So he came to me and I said, I have an idea.
And I knew Trump had a management company called Tee Management.
So we set up.
I called the pro there and we went there.
He goes, yeah, listen, Donald comes out every Saturday.
He goes through the by the spa.
He'll come through the tennis, say hi to everybody.
Then he goes and plays 18 holes.
So be out here practicing Saturday.
So we were there practicing on a Saturday.
I had Monique, this girl hitting with the guy 180 in the world.
They're just ripping groundstrokes back and forth.
Now, you got to remember the Trumpster, he's walking through there every day.
He's probably seeing hamburgers and cheeseburgers, the club players.
And he's seeing this girl out there, you know, who looks decent, okay, just crushing groundstrokes.
And he goes up to the pro they have there and starts talking and he points down.
And so he comes down to me.
He introduces himself.
He goes, who is that?
I got a box at the U.S. Open.
Their score looks really good.
So I tell him the story, blah, He goes, listen, anything I can do, let me know.
So he goes off.
Two weeks later, me and the dad fly to New York.
We meet with general counsel.
Okay.
We do the deal for them to represent Monique.
Okay.
I'm going to run the tennis part.
Okay.
There's like 20% involved.
Team management gets 10.
I get 10.
So this was like the middle of summer.
Then what happens?
So we had a flight at 6 o'clock.
We go into Donald's office.
He goes, you're going back to Florida?
I go, yeah.
He goes, I want you to come back on the plane with us.
Okay.
I said, no problem.
So we go back early.
Great guy.
Okay.
So we get on there.
There's a lot of people going from New York down to Mar-a-Lago for the weekend.
Donald's in there throwing potato chips at people, pretzels, peanuts.
He's just like, just the nicest guy.
All right.
He sat with me, and there's a lot of people on this light for two hours.
He got up now and then talking about Herschel Walker, New Jersey generals, tennis, football, baseball, basketball.
I mean, just such a down-to-earth guy, communicator, okay, a very versatile guy.
Remember, he's not president.
This was 19, this was 2000.
He was thinking about it, but he was doing that probably to get some publicity.
So back then.
So then he invites me to come to Mar-a-Lago whenever we want, so on and so forth.
So now, this is the best.
So now the U.S. Open comes.
I'm going back and forth with Nike and Fila.
I'm negotiating to get this girl a contract.
So listen to this.
This is epic.
Midnight, hallway, on a napkin, okay, I secure $1.8 million, $600,000 guaranteed, okay, for a 14-year-old girl to wear Fila clothing.
I do it on a napkin in the hallway with general counsel.
He goes, Rick, you got to come to Trump Tower the next day, and we'll tell Donald we did this deal.
So we go there the next day.
He goes, Bernie Diamond was the guy, and he goes, we go into Donald's office.
He goes, it was amazing how Rick was doing this whole thing.
And it was just amazing.
He got $1.8 million.
So I know that the Trumpster is already adding up what I made him.
He goes, listen, I knew when I was at Mar-a-Lago, you were the best, and you're the best.
I said, of course you call me the best.
I just made you $180,000.
He goes, well, you're really even the best now.
So, no, so listen, he was just a down-to-earth guy.
And, you know, when he became president, that next, because I went to bed that night, I didn't know what happened.
Next day I woke up.
I put all 50 kids out there and it's on YouTube.
I gave the speech of all time.
You talk about forget Rocky Balboa, forget 69 Mets, forget Venus walking off the street and almost beaten number one.
This is the greatest upset in the history of life.
This guy had daggers, knives, bullets, the media coming every direction at him.
Okay.
He doesn't need this stuff.
He's mowing down people left and right and the media.
Okay.
You got to understand how mentally strong it is.
Forget the personality.
You got to look at the character, the drive, the persistence, the inner qualities of this guy.
Forget all the nonsense.
If you just look at how the guy's wired, okay, you got to respect that.
Okay.
And this is, listen, I'm not a political guy.
At the end of the day, I just love winners.
Are the rumors true that you're considering being part of his cabinet in 2024?
If he asked me, I wouldn't.
I'm going to be on the tennis line.
50 hours a week.
Craziness with the Trump story or is that the one that you got?
Yeah, yeah.
It's hard to beat that one.
You got it.
That's like epic.
I like that.
I like that story you got there.
By the way, tennis-wise, you said Carlos Alcaraz is going to be the best of all time.
Yeah, and I was the flavor of the month in Spain after that quote.
Listen, I was actually at the Miami Open and I went down there for the semis and finals with Christian Rood, the best player ever to come out of Norway.
He got to like 39 in the world, where his son, Casper, is now like five in the world or six in the world.
He's from Norway?
Yeah, he's from Norway.
We get a big fan base in Norway, just so you know.
Okay.
So listen, at the end of the day, I went down there, we reunited, sat in the box with him, and I did get to see Casper play Alcaraz.
And I call him Alcatraz because he puts everybody in prison.
But I've seen him play before, and I already called it.
But all the nuances he brings, the athleticism, his hips turn faster.
People don't see this than anybody I've seen.
He has a drop shot from outer space that he can just be just like, it's sick.
But he's a showman.
He loves crowds.
He was born for this.
He's steady, cut from the same cloth as Nadal.
His serve still needs a little work.
I'm going on the record.
I mean, I predict a lot of things.
I think he'll go down, barring injury, greatest player of all time.
Wow.
How old is he now?
I said this with Federer when he was 19.
I said this with Pete too, Sampers, okay?
Because I look at this thing very different.
And I said, I even told people, I think he'll be number one by the end of the year.
How old is he right now?
And he's 18.
He's 18.
Was he ranked in the world?
He's now entered the top 10.
He's in the top 10.
Number 9.
Let me ask you.
Never been done.
But wait, one more thing.
He's so complete.
There's no holes in his game, but he eats pressure for breakfast and he can move.
He'll win the French Open.
You're going to hear it right here.
He'll win the French Open double figures.
Okay.
I'm just telling you where this is going to go, but he can play on all surfaces.
He's going to be more vulnerable when guys have big serves like anybody.
No one's going undefeated.
No one ever has in any sport.
All I'm saying is it's a generational player.
I've seen this movie for 30 years.
And I said, he's Federer, Nadal, and Jokovich wrapped in one.
Okay.
He was born to do this, barring injury.
We're seeing something that's so special I can't even tell you.
Interesting.
I'm looking at the top 10 rankings here.
Please explain why no American is in the top 10.
And I feel like no American men's tennis player has been in the top 10 for like a decade plus.
What's going on in America?
You think I've been asked that question before?
Yeah, I mean, you're an American tennis coach.
What's going on with America?
Okay.
Well, the last guy, the last of the Mohicans, was Andy Roddy.
Right.
He wasn't even as good as any of the guys that we're talking about, Federer, Nadal, Jokovich.
He wasn't even as good as Sampras Agassiz.
Nothing.
You know, you're right about that.
But I feel Andy overachieved.
He won one Grand Slam, could have won two if he doesn't miss that high back and Bali against Federer at Wimbledon.
But at the end of the day, here's what happens.
The great athletes, I don't mean good.
There's a lot of good athletes, very good friends with Francis, Tealfo, Riley Opelpka, who I coached a little bit at 12 and 13.
Taylor Fritz is not bad.
There's a difference between great and good.
Great is rare air.
We're all good, all of us in this room.
You know, it's a different fraternity.
And I tell people all the time, if I'd have had LeBron, okay, at age 10, mail it in, number one tennis player in the world.
Okay.
The guy would have served a buck 50.
He'd have been lightning in a bottle, ferocious competitor.
The best athletes go to football, baseball, and basketball.
It's easy to grab a ball and shoot a jumper.
It's easy to go outside and tackle your neighbor.
Okay.
Tennis is expensive.
And so the best athletes in other countries, I mean, look at Medvedev.
The guys like Gumby on steroids.
So a 6'6, and the guy moves and his tentacles are everywhere.
Jokovich is made of rubber.
You know, they get better athletes.
We get good athletes.
Okay.
You're saying our best athletes end up playing basketball, football, baseball.
You're saying?
Yeah.
And then there's the mental part, how you're brought up.
Your environment has a lot to do with it.
Remember, I called Venus and Serena what I saw under the hood.
I didn't see it on the outside.
If I based on the outside, I would have taken a cab to the airport and left Compton.
I mean, I based it on the inside.
Okay.
I knew what I could do technically.
And this is what happens.
And I've talked to the USTA about this.
They don't want to look for the needle in the haystack.
What I would do, to answer your question, five, six, seven, eight-year-olds, yes, that young.
Okay.
Did their parents play the Olympics, NBA, NFL?
Okay, you get the genetic base.
So you got a few things covered.
Running, jumping, better maybe environment.
Corder might have that.
Okay, Corda, he might win a few grand slams.
He'd be the one American.
I think that could do that.
So you got these bases covered, running, jumping, competing.
And then biomechanically, you get him with someone like Rick Macy who can get your serve, not just 140, but it's going to go in.
And you got a forehand like Feddere and a backhand like Joker.
So you put, there's no weaknesses, but you put them on a great athlete.
But you get these kids young.
You do running, jumping, you draw blood like they do in the Olympics.
You can test for all this stuff and you got to fund it.
You've got to put money into the internet.
How do you make your money?
Like, I'm always watching like Nick.
I'm like, I'm going all in with this.
I'm not going to.
How do you make your money on the back end?
Is it like boxing where the training gets like 5%?
Or is it like UFC where the corner man gets 10%?
What's the business model for you?
Because Nick was done broke.
He had no money.
At the end of the documentary, you're watching it.
The guy's got nothing to his name, lost everything, and he gave his life to these.
Oh, you didn't see that?
The guy ended.
He didn't have any money.
I think the way it ended.
What's the tennis courts in UMG or something like that?
IMG.
They got all his stuff.
They got all his land.
They got everything that he owned.
They took from him because he had nothing left.
And they specifically changed the name to not have Nick's name anywhere.
They didn't want Nick Bolateri's name anywhere.
So what is the business model for a Nick or Rick to make money?
Okay, well, let's go back a little bit.
There's a backstory.
Nick got $7 million when IMG took over his thing, but he might have been $7 million in debt.
That's not a lot of money.
I don't know that whole thing.
So they took that blueprint and they made it into something football, baseball, basketball.
They turned it into something that's just epic.
But eliminated everything having to do with his name.
Like almost like this is non-existent.
Here's the founder of the organization and there's nothing about him.
And IMG is massive right now.
It's 85 grand a year.
I don't know what the number is, but it's a pretty big number.
Yeah.
But to answer your question, the situation with the Williamses was different because I had to fund the project besides wet equity.
You know, when you say, do guys get it on the back end, you're right.
They might get it on the back end and not get paid.
You know, a lot of these peep coaches, they might do something for Osaka or someone, and they don't even have a contract.
And sometimes it's not enforceable because of a minor and the parent.
It becomes tricky, you know, with some of these contracts.
How are you protected, though?
But I don't get into these type things.
I only did that with Venus and Serena.
Well, if you want me to coach you, okay, I do a private for $800 an hour.
You know, it's a very different thing.
I don't do it for like free.
If you want to leave, it's a business.
I don't do it.
So you don't care if they leave you at this point.
making 800 bucks an hour yeah it's a straight but with venus and serena that was different Okay.
That was a whole different thing.
Did you make money on the back end?
Yeah, we worked it all out.
I don't want to get into the real details.
No, of course, I don't want the details.
I just want to know money was made on the back end.
Absolutely.
You know, but that was a very different thing, and I haven't done it since.
And you could imagine, even after the movie, I've probably been asked to do it over a thousand times because my kids better than Venus and Serena.
Yeah, I don't know about me, you know, like sitting there saying, okay, you put all this time, all this, and then all of a sudden, Agassi go signs a contract with this person, that person, this person, Nick's like left out.
And hey, what happened to all those years?
No, you know, you're asked out now.
No, what happened?
This guy, and, you know, credit's not given.
And anyways, I'm sure if you read the letter that Agassi wrote to him at the end, it's a pretty painful letter that he wrote to him about the ending of the story.
Agassiz's family is related to me.
I'm Armenian Assyrian.
So he lives in Vegas, Susan, all those people that go into UNLV.
But anyways, going back to this, a topic of, you said something earlier.
You said, I don't have time to, you know, I only want the best.
I only want the best.
I only want the best.
Okay, fine.
How do you react when you see a Ben Simmons?
Oh, I strained my back in the game yesterday.
Oh, but the Phillies still have to pay me.
The 76ers still have to pay me 20 million bucks.
Oh, you know, Simone Biles.
Oh, this is too much pressure.
You guys don't know how much pressure it is.
I know.
I'm sure there's a lot of pressure from everybody.
Oh, you know, Naomi Osaka, somebody said, you suck.
Can I get the mic and say something?
I thought that was very weird to have something like that happen.
You know, how do you handle, you know, everything that these kids are going through and now they're becoming adults with social media, with all of that.
Yet you said Dr. Lore, however you print the layer, however you pronounce his name, he wrote those engagements, something about engagement, full engagement.
Everything's about mental toughness.
Everything's about emotional toughness.
Everything's about that.
Everything.
How do you manage what these kids and athletes are saying nowadays?
It's too much anxiety for me to play sports.
How do you manage that?
Yeah, well, first off, one of the things I try to teach everybody, having the ability to forget is more important than remember.
Probably not just sports, but life.
I mean, some people are still mad about stuff 20 years later.
And that's a skill.
You got to have the ability to flip things in your mind and take a negative and turn it into a positive.
And it's hard because everything's black and white.
Like you said, with social media, everybody is more sensitive to all this stuff.
But at the end of the day, with Simmons and Biles and Naomi, since I don't really know them and how they're wired, I'm just looking from the outside.
You know, it's ironic because it's easy maybe to take that approach because they're still all making a lot of money.
You know, Osaka is getting $50 million a year.
You know, Simmons is making all this money.
Same with Biles.
So I don't really know them, but looking from the outside, it's a bad look for anybody.
You got to toughen up.
That's what people are going to say.
But I don't really like to comment on that because I don't know them.
If you asked me about someone else and I knew them, I could tell you exactly what the temperature was and why that is going on.
Well, let me ask you this.
When you coach the folks that you coach, Kerry Caprioti, all the names that you just said, right, that you coach, Roddick, all those guys.
How would you have handled it if one of them, or maybe did you ever have a player that came up that constantly was like mental and emotional anxiety, all of that?
And you just eventually said, look, the pros just may not be for you.
You know, you may want to go to a different job because this comes with a lot of pressure.
How did you handle that when that came up when you were coaching them?
Well, that does come up in the juniors because people get nervous.
I've never had anybody like at the mountaintop say that like some of these people that you've discussed.
I mean, that's a whole, that's a whole different deal when they've had all that success and money and they've went through the process and they've learned how to win and lose and they've won grand slams.
It's a little different, but we don't know what's going on in their personal life.
There could be just a lot of other stuff that's going on.
So once again, I got to, I would talk to them, okay, that this comes with the territory.
If you want to be great, this is what it's all about.
You know, having the ability to forget.
It's a skill.
Okay.
If you're going to react to everything, you might nibble near the top, but you ain't going to stay there because greatness can stay there because they're consistent mentally.
So unless I knew exactly, a perfect example is Roddy.
You know, he was so mentally strong.
I knew his forehand was going to be nuclear and the serve that I helped him achieve was going to be supersonic.
But he was just a dog.
You know, he was bulletproof.
I loved watching him play.
I interviewed him five, six years ago.
Oh, Roddick.
Yeah, I had Roddy Convale Tim and I was just a guy.
Man, he was exciting to watch.
You know, he had limitations, but at the end of the day, he had the best quote of everything.
When he started making all this money, he goes, listen, everything else around me has changed, but it's still me and you and the court.
I'm going to kick your butt.
Got to actually, I don't want to say push back on you, but I got to follow up.
I know you said you, you know, you don't really work or you're kind of from a distance with the Ben Simmons of the world and the Simone Biles, but Naomi Osaka is a tennis player, a female tennis player.
You've coached dozens, if not hundreds of female tennis players.
You coached Serena and Venus Williams.
Hello.
She made her name beating Serena, I believe, right?
And she cried and she won, you know, I don't remember what tournament it was, but U.S. Open.
She was a big winner.
Yeah.
And then now this past year, she's had her issues.
I mean, if you can kind of get into the mind of her, because I believe you probably do know her better than any other, you know, the players that we mentioned.
But if you were her coach or if you were advising the coach, what specific things would you do?
Because you do have experience with this exact type of person.
Yeah, no, you know, like I said, there has to be a lot of stuff off the court because her life has changed.
When you go from maybe having not a lot to be the richest female athlete on the planet, okay?
And, you know, she's in Japan, she's just iconic.
So you're either in or out.
To me, I'm black and white about this stuff.
You got to be so mentally strong.
If you're going to be in, you're in.
If you're out, you're out.
You can't be half in.
And you can kind of see that in her performance.
She's not all there because if you don't want to die to win every point, you're going to lose against better players.
I mean, that's what people don't see.
They might see, oh, my kid has a better server forehand.
They don't know what's under the hood.
And her mental toughness was her strength.
And now that she's being sensitive and stuff like that, I would have a very different conversation with her.
I don't even know if I'd want to coach her if a player responded like that unless I had more information.
Then I'd have a little better feel.
Let me ask the question a different way because I know what you're walking.
You're in the business, so you can't really give the answer on a mic that you, you know.
Anyway, so I understand.
I respect that.
But let me ask the question a different way.
When you were coaching in the 80s, 90s, you've coached in five different decades.
No, am I saying it correctly?
There were six different decades, five different decades, right?
Yep.
Okay.
So how much was this the topic of discussion in the 80s, 90s, 2000?
Amazing question.
Never.
Okay, that's the question.
That's what you're saying.
No, it's never.
Never.
Yeah.
Never.
You're saying mental toughness or what?
Anxiety, depression?
Like, oh my God, I can't handle this.
No, no, it's because it's a real thing these days.
No, They're making it a real thing, is what you're saying.
Yeah, no, it's the social media.
It's entitlement.
Kids are brought up different.
You know, there's, you know, kids are a little more spoiled.
You know, things are easier.
You know, it's just different.
Even physical fitness is different.
Kids got in shape by just running around outside playing tag.
Now you got trainer.
It's a different world and it's created a lot of marshmallows mentally.
You know what I'm saying?
And so, but that's, that's the question right there.
This never ever came up to the point where you even kind of felt it, let alone would express it like that.
I mean, so that means it's very deep.
So how can kids be mentally tougher?
It sounds like you agree with exactly what Pat was going to be.
I agree exactly what you're talking about.
How do you keep your kids?
You're coaching these days.
Let me ask you a different question.
Let me ask a different question.
You're the expert.
We're just amateurs here.
We're not in the world.
We're in a completely different world we're in.
Okay.
How much of this is a problem that was non-existent, that's been created purely out of the, you know, out of the imagination of, you know, how they say all these new, What's the phobics that we have?
Afraid of this, afraid of that, afraid of this, whatever.
And then you need these new medicines.
You need this new, this, new, this, big pharma's making all this money based on different fears that they're making.
And all these medicines that people are taking is based on all these phobias that was created by these scientists who represent these big pharmas.
Again, these are stories we've all read about.
How much of it is just fabricated that's got these kids believing I really have this issue?
Yeah, a lot of it.
You know what I mean?
Because it's like everybody wants a quick fix, okay?
To get anywhere, you got to take the stairs, not the escalator.
You know what I mean?
Everybody wants a quick fix on everything.
But no, you're right.
This never existed.
But I need to dive in about the family component.
A lot of this also is the mom and dad.
Okay.
Because not that they have total control over it, but they are raising kids.
They are raising kids.
Some just throw them out there and let them grow like grass.
Other water it and fertilize it.
You know, so the parents, you know, they want their kid to be rough and tough and be competitive and take a punch.
And then they go to the ball and buy him a Gucci bag.
So, you know, it's just a bizarre thing that it's a lot of it is the parent, you know, and I'll go back to where I started, you know, this interview.
Richard.
Richard Williams.
What I saw at 9 and 10, okay, which other people didn't.
It wasn't on the outside.
The outside was a train wreck.
Sorry, Venus, Serena.
It was a train.
I've already told him that.
It was a train wreck on the outside.
But on the inside, I never saw it.
So that box was checked and a few others because I knew that's the wild card.
You don't know how people are going to freak out under pressure.
A quarterback when some guy wants to knock him out, you know, when the game's on, you don't know that.
And I saw they, the minute I changed the game to like competitive, it kind of freaked me out.
And I've never been freaked out about anything.
So, but that was done at a young age.
And that's probably why Richard Williams was just saying all this insanity because he saw the same thing.
But it took someone that had that eye because on the outside, you can't see it.
So sports dads, okay, let's go through some of those.
Okay.
You got Tiger's dad.
Okay.
You got LeVar Ball.
You got the Mannings father, who's got two boys, two Archie men who's got two boys with two Super Bowls each, which is insane, right?
Yep.
You got King Richard.
You got Emmanuel Agassiz.
You got a lot of these stories, right?
MJ's dad.
MJ's dad, yeah, but you know, okay, fine, you can put MJ's dad there as well.
All these stories with these dads.
So then the question becomes the following.
You know how when I talk to investors, I say, what's most important?
The entrepreneur, the talent in the entrepreneur's team, the idea, the technology, what's most important, right?
Or you'll ask, hey, Tom Penn, who was a GM for the Philadelphia 76, I think it was GM, and then he went to ESPN.
So what's most important?
The ownership team, a great coach, a superstar player, or a great GM, right?
You ask these questions.
Okay.
In these specific examples, Williams, okay, Agassiz, you know, Mannings, all this stuff.
Who gets the bigger percentage of success?
Okay, and I know this is the last thing you want to be pressured to talk about.
I think it's what percentage is parents?
What percentage is kids?
No, it's to me, the biggest percentage is always the parents.
You got to remember, this is your genetic.
And by the way, how big of a percentage, by the way?
It could be well over 75%.
This is the genetics.
Listen, the genetics, I'll say it again.
I've never had anybody come to me and the parent did nothing and the other parent did nothing and the kid became a world-class athlete.
I've just never seen it in my sport.
Can you repeat that, folks?
So some people ask me and they say, why do you bring somebody who's a tennis coach?
We never talk tennis here.
I'm a parent and I only bring people here to my show that I'm interested in, not you're interested in.
This is called the PBD podcast because I want to learn on how to become a full, complete, package, better human being, and a leader.
Okay.
Listen to what he just said.
I judge myself.
People ask me, oh my God, Pat, you're so impressed.
I'm like, dude, you don't know my dad.
You give me way too much credit.
My dad raised the damn standards on work ethic.
And if you say you're going to do something, you do it in honesty and all this stuff.
I get way too much credit.
You should give more credit to my dad.
80% of the credit should be to my dad on how he raised me, how he challenged me, how it was never enough.
It was so freaking annoying sometimes.
Right?
And obviously, dad and mom, mom played a different role as well.
But it's such an important dynamic on what you just said.
Can you repeat that sentence one more time?
You've never seen a.
No, I've never seen someone become a world-class player, okay, in my sport that the mom or dad didn't do something in sports, you know, with the genetics, like whether they played high-level college or high school or maybe the family tree.
It could be a grandfather who was an Olympic sprinter or, you know, a Russian who was a swimmer.
So there has to be something.
I've never seen it ever, okay?
But you're saying physically genetics.
Are you also saying how they interact with their child?
Physically.
Now, the mental part, okay?
Because remember, if they're with Rick Macy or whoever, they're with me X amount of time a day.
The rest of the time, when you go home and close that door, you're with family.
You don't know what's percolating.
You don't know what life lessons are going into that kid's head, how they're wires.
You know, it's major league.
To me, it's the most important.
That's why, once again, you asked me about American tennis.
And listen, I'm not throwing a net out there over the whole country or everybody.
You're always going to have those flyers.
But at the end of the day, the Eastern Europeans, you got people, they're rougher, they're tougher.
It's like when I saw Serena, she was like a little pit bull.
Once she got a hold of you, she wanted to let go.
And I just said, I got to get this kid strokes in a serve.
And so that's, you know, and that's half the battle.
How you're going to handle, you know, and how you're going to compete.
And you can teach that and nurture it.
And I do that, but it's hard to rewire things that have been put in these kids' heads.
So you know how the story of what's that one movie with Russell Crowe, The Beautiful Mind, where you go into that one place that he has and it's got all these formulas.
Like, what the hell is in this guy's mind?
What does he think about?
Or even Greg Kating, who found who killed Tupac and Big Enny, he's got this whole report of names there in even The American Gangster, where there's this one scene where it's like, who is the drug dealer behind everything?
And, you know, it's Denzel Washington.
It's typically when you see like somebody, you know, performing at a high level, somebody in that lineage raised the standards, was tough, was a son of a bitch, was difficult, was challenging.
Nothing was ever enough.
And Papa Pa, like when Agassi tells a story, with my dad, nothing was ever enough.
I don't know if, you know, his story is a different story as well.
It's almost like, yeah, buddy, but you would have never married Graf if that wasn't your dad.
You would have never met her.
You would have never been a champion if it, if I wasn't, I totally get it.
Frustrating.
Totally get it.
I get that.
Fully understand it.
But it's almost like, you know, Mike talked about in the last dance where he says, when you're going through it, it's so difficult.
When my dad was, this is what Michael says in the last dance.
Do you remember that one scene when he says, you know, hey, Michael, why don't you go play outside?
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, you're just not, let me and your brother do what they're doing.
He says, in that moment, it drove me.
It was so difficult to go through it.
But he made it through.
And look what level of a champion he became.
It becomes mentally and emotionally tough to be able to handle all this pressure.
So I don't know.
I think the part that you talk about that people are raising more soft people today and parents is like, oh my gosh, you okay?
Oh my gosh, you okay?
Oh my gosh, you okay?
I don't know a lot of, oh my gosh, you're okay growing up as a kid.
So listen, some people today will call that terrible parenting.
Rick, how dare you say such a thing?
You're not empathetic.
You're not compassionate.
You don't understand what it is.
You know, so all this stuff that you talk about, but the percentage of making it to the top level, take Elon Musk's dad away and his dad doesn't say what he says to him.
Does Elon Musk become who he is today?
I don't know about that.
Do you have another Tiger Woods ever?
Tiger Woods won the 2007 U.S. Open with a broken knee.
Unbelievable.
That's a rare specimen right there with his dad.
Did you watch his documentary?
Well, yeah, and he said Phil Michelson is a better player than he is, right?
But he didn't have the work ethic that Earl Woods instilled in Tiger Woods.
That killer instinct.
Did you watch the documentary?
Parts of it.
Have you watched the documentary?
Like half of it.
Dude, I highly recommend you watch the whole thing.
Did you get it?
No, I did not.
I'm telling you guys, so here's the mistake I made.
One night I started watching at 10.30 and it's three hours.
I said, I'm going to watch it today and I'm going to finish the next three nights.
I sit up to two o'clock in the morning.
I watch part one and part two.
It's that ridiculous.
That's why I'm a big fan of Tiger.
I mean, even all the stuff that he has, I'm just a fan of Tiger.
I'm a fan of people that are willing to tolerate that much pain.
It is so difficult to become a Williams.
It is so difficult to win at that level.
Well, Pat, let me ask you, because you started the conversation or this question with, you know, are kids conditioned these days and the phobia these days?
And obviously you transitioned to you wouldn't be who you were without your dad, zero.
Right.
And he's a coach.
God would have chosen somebody else as my dad.
You don't know who I am.
My question to you is then, Pat, as a father, you told the story a couple podcasts ago about you went up to, I think, Dylan's coach and you're like, no, you could be hard on him.
That's fine.
You know, you told that story.
You know, but you're seeing what kids are dealing with these days, everything that Rick just said about social media and the phobias.
How are you taking this information and becoming a better dad to your kids in today's generation?
So he made a very good point in sales.
I made a mistake early on of driving everybody the same way because I drove this one guy, this one way, and it worked with him.
I said, this is going to work with everybody.
He hated it.
She couldn't handle it.
He quit.
Like, what happened?
How come you can't be like this person?
Well, they're different personalities.
You can't drive everybody the same way, right?
One needs more encouragement.
The other one needs to say, well, I think that guy woke up an hour before you made 100 more calls than you.
That worked with him, but it discouraged this one.
Then the other one was good with the selfish desires.
He wants the big house, the accolades, the fame, all that stuff.
But this other one could give a shit about all that stuff.
This one wants to do it for mom and dad to make them proud.
That other person loves America and his country.
He wants to do something to give back to the country that gave him his freedom.
And this other guy's from El Salvador, he loves his country, but he came here.
He can't stand the fact that what happened to El Salvador, he wants to make money.
The one they go back and be in office in El Salvador.
That person's driven in a different way.
So not everybody is driven the same way.
So with my kids, I asked him a question earlier about different ways of coaching.
Like what your kids need when they're younger is just for them to love the game.
Then the next phase is what your kids need at this age is more fundamentals, right?
Like learning, like, you know, perfect practice makes perfect, not practice makes perfect.
They have to add the perfect practice makes perfect.
Okay.
So now they need to learn the fundamentals the right way.
Like, I'm not teaching TikTok to throw the ball.
I'm the wrong guy to teach you how to throw the ball.
You can teach them how to throw the ball better than I can teach them how to throw the ball, right?
Because you're an athlete.
I was not, right?
So now it's getting the fundamental people around them and to also like the game.
A little bit of competition, a little bit of pressure.
Then the real pressure is showing up when you're getting at the 10 to 14 age.
You're kind of seeing a little bit, can they handle it or not?
You need a little bit more support, all this stuff to watch them.
I don't know.
I just watch to see we're all different.
And with the kids, yesterday we're playing baseball outside.
Dylan wants to go 45 more minutes.
Let me hit five more balls.
Let me hit five more balls.
Let me hit five.
No, no, that wasn't long enough.
Five more.
I'm like, at this point, we missed church yesterday.
We missed church yesterday because of Dylan.
Well, I'm disappointed in my children.
So I'm like, five more balls.
I know I missed you.
You want that passion?
I mean, that's gold right there.
You're not pushing.
That's from within.
Well, my oldest said, Daddy, I want to go inside and draw more movie characters.
See you later.
But the point is, his you later is Hollywood and movies, storytelling.
It's not baseball.
So I'm trying to, as a parent, like your daughters, they don't want to play tennis, but they crush it in gymnastics.
It's that you not getting in the way of what is their strength and yet still having to teach them mental and emotional toughness no matter what game they play.
So my son's like, I don't like baseball.
Why don't you like baseball?
He had one very bad moment in baseball.
It's private between him and I.
And like, so I whisper to him, I said, come here.
Is that why?
And he kind of looks away.
So that's why, isn't it?
Because at one moment, yeah.
I said, that's between you and I.
He says, but I don't like baseball.
I said, do you not like baseball?
Do you not like it?
Because it links to a painful moment.
I said, what are you going to do when you make a movie one day?
And everybody says it's a terrible movie.
How are you going to handle that?
Good point.
What are you going to think this thing is a baseball thing?
This is a life thing, baby.
This is everything we do.
We do podcasts.
It's just the shittiest podcast ever.
Then the next podcast.
Just the best podcast ever.
Then the next podcast.
You guys suck.
Two podcasts later.
Just the greatest.
They're going to be the biggest.
It's such a bipolar thing that you got to be able to manage it.
No, you got to be able to do it.
Of course.
Parents need to be more than anything, psychiatrists, not coaches, right?
Yeah, psychologists.
Psychologists.
Yeah.
But let me just go back to something you said earlier about the coaching part because I think this is important.
Okay, I can have a kid who's dead tired, okay?
And they can't go anymore.
And I might say, okay, we're going to do a 20-ball suicide, where I just run them side to side, okay?
And they get to 18 and they just can't go anymore.
And all of a sudden, I say, $20, you get this ball.
And let me tell you something.
There's turbo inside the kid that I've never seen before.
Or if I say, I'll give you a hoodie, like the one I have on, or you get a Gatorade, or I'll give you five bucks, or water.
Capitalism.
Okay, here's what happens.
When there's grades or there's rewards, I don't care how tired you are.
You could be throwing up.
Okay.
I always have the quote, one more, one more.
As in W.
Okay.
And this is what I do with everybody.
Okay.
I get them to push boundaries, challenge their limits, not limit their challenges.
And so it's amazing.
The water ball, if I say water ball, okay, out of nowhere, you got like Uson Bolt.
You know, you just got this lightning.
The kid's like, dragon, whatever, because the mind controls the body.
Okay.
And, you know, I talk to them about Navy SEALs.
I talk to them about all these type of things and I give situations.
I love that.
When I say waterball, all the parents, like, they just laugh because 98% of the kids, all of a sudden, it's like they just run like you have no idea.
Where before they're letting the mind control the body.
Or if I put kids together and they could be dead tired and we play tag in an area, okay, all of a sudden they're not tired anymore.
They're shaking and baking.
They're juking.
They're bobbing.
They're weaving.
They're running all over the place, even though they're dead tired because of one word.
Fun.
When it's fun, okay, you are not tired anymore, whether it's business, whether, and just telling you, and this is how it comes across in the movie.
So do I do things differently?
I feel the temperature, okay, and I react accordingly because I keep balls and strikes on every lessons.
You got to get better or you're getting worse.
Last, what's your opinion on Nick's style of leadership?
Nick Boliteri, Nick and I are pretty good friends.
You know, we go way back.
It's a very different situation with Nick.
Early on, he was the first, though, Mohicans.
He put that thing together in Bradington.
He was the first one to really do an academy where he got guys together.
He just figured, put them together, combat, and put people together that were living in New York or Wisconsin or Michigan, bring them to Florida, battle it out, and you'll get better.
Nick was a great motivator.
He'd give you the shirt off his back.
Okay.
Then when it became, I think technically or biomechanically, he was always very limited, not because he wasn't a good player or anything.
But when it becomes easy and then IMG gets involved, you don't really continue your education.
But he had that IMG machine, you know, pumping Bolleteri's name out for 30 years.
Okay.
But what Nick has done for the game of tennis and the academy business, I think is amazing.
But I very seldom have been on a court with him.
Just like if someone would ask, well, how does Rick Macy coach?
What they should do, get on the court with me.
I'll be there at six tomorrow morning.
And they can hang with me for six hours and they'll have a different understanding than what they see on Instagram, of YouTube, even though I got the top-selling videos in the country.
Okay.
There's a lot of meat on the bone.
I help a lot of people for free, but once live and in color, and you can interact and you can see all the subtle nuances of how things are done, why to say it, when to say it, how to say it.
There's a whole art to this, and that's coaching.
And so when you went to Saban and the Dolphins, sure, you need the goods or you need the thoroughbred to win the derby, but also you got to relate.
You got to know how to relate to people.
And that's what great coaches do.
So it doesn't matter who's on the other side of the net.
I can get them to do more than what they ever thought they could do.
I love that.
By the way, did you see the recent story of, and we'll do this last one and wrap up, is Djojovich, is that the one or no?
Novak Jokovich.
Novak Djokovic slams Wimbledon ban on Russian tennis players as crazy and says political politics should be out of sports.
Let me read this story.
He says, parallels between the Ukraine war and the Kosovo war in the late 90s, which took place when he was a child.
He said, I will always condemn war.
I will never support war.
Being myself a child of war, I know how much emotional trauma it leaves.
In Syribia, we all know what happened in 1999.
In the Balkans, we have had many wars in recent history.
However, I cannot support the decision of Wimbledon.
I think it's crazy.
When politics interferes with sports, the result is not good.
What do you think about what he said?
I totally agree with the Joker.
He'll probably go down until Alpharez catches fire, Alcatraz, as the greatest player ever to hold a tennis racket when it's all said and done, because he has a lot left in the tank.
But I totally agree with him.
That shouldn't have anything to do with it.
You know, it has nothing to do with it.
Wimbledon's always been a little different.
If anything, they should give, you know, the $30 million they got from an insurance policy they had for the pandemic.
By the way, you probably didn't know that.
They got 30 million when they didn't do Wimbledon from because they had it in the clause.
If there was a pandemic, they get 30 mil.
And they didn't have the tournament and they got 30 mil that year.
Who did?
Wimbledon.
They had it in an insurance policy back in the early 2000s.
Is this public info?
Yeah.
You know, so they get 30 million from who, exactly.
The insurance company.
If they had to cancel it because of a pandemic, which who would put that in an insurance the day you think that you have a pandemic, it's not going to happen.
That's actually great planning by Wimbledon.
Great planning.
But what I'm saying, they should give some cheddar to Ukraine instead of banning Russian tennis players.
I think it, I agree with the Joker.
I think it's like insane and it's unfortunate.
Holy shit, do you know what the actual number is?
$141 million.
Look at that right there.
Yeah, Forbes, Wimbledon's organizers set for $141 million payout after taking out pandemic insurance.
You know what the premium is per year?
You know what the premium is per year?
Probably a million per year.
$2 million per year.
Look at that.
$2 million per year.
Got him $141 million.
Wimbledon was rooting for a pandemic.
They were okay with it.
The leader in the clubhouse, the pandemic.
But I agree with the Joker.
I just feel it's unfortunate.
I hope other tournaments don't do the same thing because the players, I mean, tennis is a tough sport.
You got to pay your own expenses.
It's global.
It's not like NBA.
Their stuff's not guaranteed.
It's very expensive.
And I think to deprive them of that opportunity is unfortunate.
Well, listen, I hope the audience has enjoyed this as much as I've enjoyed it.
Yeah.
This was awesome.
I'm so glad we were able to do this.
Rick, you're a qualified badass.
I'm so glad we had you on.
And not only that, but you're a cool sport, great sport, telling cool stories.
Learn a lot, a lot.
Listening to you.
You got two more.
You got two more minutes.
I got Serena's story.
Tell me.
Okay.
People love this.
I told this and it went viral.
Okay, we're on the court.
Serena is 11 years old.
It's July, okay, 110 degrees.
A lizard can't even go across the court without getting cooked.
Okay.
So it's, and Venus is on one court.
Serena's on another, always side by side.
And I told Serena, you got to move your feet.
And she looks at me, and you know that look.
You've seen it at the U.S. Open.
She goes, Why?
I said, You say you want to be number one.
She goes, Now she's 11.
Okay.
She goes, I will be number one.
I said, How do I get you to move your feet?
She goes, Rick, I'm really hungry.
Can you have Scott go to the snack machine?
I want some hot curly fries, a Snickers bar, a Pepsi.
And on the way to work today, Daddy drove by a stand and they were selling Green Day t-shirts.
Can you have Scott get a Green Day t-shirt?
And I said, Wait a minute.
If I get you the Snickers bar, the curly fries, the Pepsi, Scott gets the Green Day t-shirt.
Will you move your feet?
She goes, Rick, you see that tall, skinny girl over there?
She's pointing to Venus because Venus was like that.
I'll make her look slower than molasses.
So I go, Scott, go to the snack machine, get the hot curly fries, Snickers bar, the Pepsi.
Tomorrow on the way to work on Linton Boulevard, get the Green Day t-shirt.
So he brings all the goodies.
Serena goes under the canopy, has her snack, goes back on the court for one hour straight.
She's sitting cross-court and down the line with a guy like 450 in the world.
They had hitting partners.
Sweats pouring off this little girl like Niagara Falls.
No water break.
An hour straight, just going berserk.
One hour straight.
I'm on the other court now with Venus.
She goes, Hey, Rick, it's 3:15.
I'm done.
And you better have that Green Day t-shirt here in the morning.
Now, you gotta, and I told her that because you gotta remember, she's a mother now.
And when I told her some of these stories at the after party, she's literally crying, okay, on the ground because she can relate.
I mean, she wasn't as mature as Venus.
That's why she turned pro at 16 and Venus 14.
But that's a great Serena story.
But at the end of the day, like you asked me earlier about coaching, she was in the tank.
She was already played four hours.
I got the best out of her.
I won.
She won.
Richard won.
And the rest is history.
I love that.
That's the power of Green Day, baby.
There you go.
Green Day.
The power of, I read a book called Parental Capacity.
And it said, if you want to win at the highest level for your kids, if you want your kids to win at the highest level, you need the right supporting cast around you, coaches, teachers, professors, tutors, uncles.
You need the right people around that keep challenging and lifting your kids up.
The right ones can help that kid become somebody.
And obviously, you played a very, very big role in what these Williams sisters did.
And it's great to be part of history.
It's great to have a movie be done and a guy like John Bernthal, one of my favorite actors, play you.
That's like a dream come true, man.
It's exciting stuff there to have you on.
So having said that, tomorrow we have who we have a Diamond Dallas page tomorrow.
And then Thursday, we have Paul Merifer.
That should be very interesting right there, what that's going to be like.
Having said that, brother, it was great having you on, Rick.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me, Rick.
I may take a lesson with you, man, and see what you got with this one hour.
I say we do it recording.
I say we recorded and you see what we can do.
I'll let you know.
That would be hilarious.
We'll do it.
And we'll video and I'll let you know where you're at technically, genetically, strategically.
And maybe at the end, I might say we have to take up golf.
