Agassi Unstrung

Agassi also gets gooey about Graf and their two children. But unless you're part android, the notes a road-weary, heartsick Agassi writes to his toddler son will move you. Fathers may wonder why they don't do the same thing. I know this one did.

Toward the end of his career, a tennis commentator said Agassi went from "punk to paragon." Agassi, who has dedicated his post-tennis life to expanding the Las Vegas charter school he founded, hated that handle. He insists the Agassi of the mullet and acid-washed jeans wasn't a punk; he was just lost. And "paragon" is simply hyperbole. Agassi's evolution, however, is still striking. So we'll offer him a more fitting, if less catchy, epithet: from anguished soul to outstanding author.