Mike, Andre Agassi’s father, died: the “tyrant” who brought out the best and worst in a legendary tennis player

Emmanuel Mike Agassi, the father and head coach of former tennis No. 1 Andre Agassi, died last Friday, September 24, although the news was known in the last hours after the confirmation of the athlete himself. The tortuous father-son and coach-student relationship was illustrated in the brilliant autobiography entitled “Open” that the sports star published in 2009.

At age 90, the former tennis player and boxer of Armenian origin said goodbye to the world while passing his last days in the Nathan Edison Hospital of Las Vegas, a city in which he crushed his children with tough training sessions with the intention of overcoming his sporting frustrations.

While the 51-year-old former tennis player and current trainer did not issue statements about what happened, not even through his social networks, the newspaper Reviewjournals of the city in question reported that the Andre confirmed the news via text message last Tuesday, September 28.

“My father yells at me twice. Sometimes three, sometimes 10. ‘Stronger’, he says, ‘stronger. Faster. Damn it, André, hit faster. ‘ It hurries me. Yells at me. It is not enough that I hit all the balls that the Dragon shoots at me; you want it to hit harder and faster than the machine. He wants me to beat the Dragon ”. The “dragon” he refers to was a high-repetition ball machine, so little Andre could practice all day endlessly.

The words that were captured in his autobiography Open portrayed their father as “a tyrant”, as he often calls him in his book, in which revealed that he made him compete against the ball machine to be the best.

“Dad says if I hit 2,500 balls a day, I’ll hit 17,500 a week and almost a million a year. Believe in math. Numbers don’t lie, he said. A child who hits a million balls a year will be unbeatable … “, He explained about the type of training that came to make him hate the sport.

Emanoul Aghassian, as he was known in Armenia, he arrived in Las Vegas escaping from Iran in 1964. It was in the United States that his new life began: changed his name that of Emmanuel Agassi to avoid persecution, married Elizabeth Betty Dudley and had four children.

Andre will never forget the job his father had gotten at the Hotel Tropicana casino, since it was on the courts of that property that he began to hit his first balls together with his older brothers Rita, Phillip and Tami. However, it was the youngest of the children that he dedicated the most time to.

In Andre he found the possibility of doing what he could not achieve as an athlete at the London Olympics 1948 y Helsinki 1952, in which He appeared as an Iranian boxer without being able to overcome the first rounds.

However, the intensity and pressure with which he trained the little boy was such that he ended up making him hate the discipline, despite becoming one of the legends of the sport. His teaching methods tormented the little boy. The screaming, challenges and extensive training sessions they paid off on the court, but outside they became an ordeal.

“Mike Agassi’s efforts as a coach and passionate tennis defender inspired countless lives. However, his most appreciated trait is his great heart to help those in need, something that all his children have carried out in a remarkable way, “said the director of the US Tennis Association in a statement. Nevada, Ryan Wolfington.

After fulfilling his goal with Andre, Emmanuel Agassi dedicated himself to being part of the hotel community and Las Vegas casinos, to the point of becoming an ambassador for Bally’s, Landmark and the MGM Grand.

In April 2015, after the fury of the biography of his son that put him at the center of the scene, Mike decided to give an interview to the Italian newspaper The Republic from his “beautiful mansion in Las Vegas” where he acknowledged his drastic training methods: “Let’s be direct. Was I a tyrant? Yes. Was I harsh and severe? Yes. But I repeat: better a father, a father, together with his sportsman son, than a coach. And in fact to today’s parents I say: “Reveal yourselves, do not let your children be robbed by technical centers, specialized schools, gurus. They love by contract, if they do, not by blood “.

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