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Two of a kind James, Roddick take different paths to inspiration
Mark James and Andy Roddick are worlds apart. These worlds are never likely to collide. James is the wise-cracking veteran golfer of European Ryder Cup captain fame. Roddick shines as the brightest young beacon in American men's tennis since Andre Agassi had long hair and Pete Sampras was a teenage string bean. As tall as a mountain, as wide as the sky. That's the gulf between two characters on opposite ends of the sporting spectrum. And yet this week they were united in their ability to inspire -- in both words and deeds. James has just competed in his first golf tournament for nine months, his battle with testicular cancer won. The 47-year-old Englishman, like cyclist Lance Armstrong and figure skater Scott Hamilton before him, beat the disease and now serves as an inspiration to other cancer victims everywhere. His game is still off-color. He didn't make the cut at the Volvo PGA Championship. But that mattered not one jot. James, that familiar old hang dog look still visible, was back and healthy -- and with the dryest of all humors very much intact. His quick wit engaged us all during the most intense of golf competitions, the 1999 Ryder Cup at Brookline. His European team narrowly lost, but it wasn't for the lack of James keeping his troops as loose as the gathered media throng were entertained.
As the man affectionately nicknamed "Jesse" made his competitive comeback, he was asked how long he thought it would take to return to the level of performance he would like. He replied, with typical dryness of course: "I may never get to the level I would like, but then again I wasn't at the level I would like to be at before all this. "My level of expectation is always higher than my level of achievement, which is why I'm always depressed."
It's good to have him back -- and in Ryder Cup year at that. How fitting. How inspiring. Roddick offered his own form of inspiration. Nothing closely matching the recovery from a deadly disease, but inspiration nonethless. In a tennis match littered with poignant moments and waves of deja vu, Roddick defeated former champion Michael Chang in five grueling sets in the French Open second round. It was some kind of passing of the guard on the Roland Garros clay. Chang won the title there as a 17-year-old, famously cramping but surviving -- and astonishingly winning -- against Ivan Lendl en route to a staggering championship success. Roddick wasn't forced to serve under arm as Chang was that day, but his cramps had him writhing in pain in the deciding set before he too found those last drops of energy to secure his moment in French Open folklore. "I almost wanted to cry but wanted to scream and yell at the same time, " said the 18-year-old American, who kept his 2001 unbeaten record on clay intact for another day. One of Roddick's earliest tennis memories was watching Chang oust Lendl in 1989. "It was eerie how Chang beat Lendl while the sun was going down on the same court, " he explained. "I was thinking this is ironic, here I am fighting, cramped up, trying to crawl -- and that was how I got interested in the game." And now he's got the wider sporting public interested in him, almost regardless of how far he goes in the French from here. As sure as he was moved by Chang's victory 12 years ago, Roddick's epic triumph will inspire many other youngsters to dream the grandest of dreams. Roddick already has secured his first professional title this year. He has a serve of thunderous proportions. Now he's shown he has courage to burn. American tennis will embrace him with all the heart and warmth afforded the player set to fill the post-Agassi/Sampras void. Worlds apart they may be, but in their different ways James and Roddick offer worlds of hope and inspiration.
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