Andre Agassi Remorseful on '60 Minutes'

A reflective Andre Agassi gave his first TV interview on CBS' 60 Minutes since the shocking excerpts from his autobiography were released to the public less than two weeks ago.

Katie Couric pressed Agassi on many of the revelations from his book, including the pressure he felt from his father, his secret sentiments toward the sport that made him famous and the admission that he frequently used crystal meth with his trainer in 1997.

"I have to call it like it is," Agassi said when asked about the motivations behind revealing his past. "And hating tennis was a deep part of my life for a long, long time."

Agassi was visibly emotional -- saying he was scared, isolated and "living a fraud" during his years in the tennis spotlight.

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Most of his troubles during his career stem from the intense pressure that his father put on him from a young age. Agassi remembers his father taping ping pong paddles to his hands at a very young age and telling him to 'hit anything in his way.'

"I think he drove me because he drove himself hard," he said. His father had him practicing four to five hours a day on the court by the time he was six years old, but the pressure didn't stop there.

Agassi remembers the terrible fear he felt toward the ball machine he nicknamed "the dragon" because his father put a "souped up" engine in there that launched the balls at 110 mph. Now, at 40 years old, he can still remember the terror that "the dragon" brought to him as a child.

All of this was a way for his father to help his son realize the "American Dream" for his family, even if it meant Andre lived a lie to do so. "I needed to do it for the family," Agassi said. "Possibly an unfair burden for a child, but one that I had to carry."

Since his father thought school was a waste of time that should be spent practicing on the court, Agassi felt a deep anxiety over the need to make it as a pro. All this pressure clearly built up a sense of resentment inside the budding tennis star, so he simply maintained the image to keep his endorsements.

"I hit a big wall," he said. "I lost desire, lost interest and lost inspiration. I got disinterested in tennis."

That's when the drugs started. He was in such a bad way that he was looking for anything to help him get past the hardships. "My decision (on whether to take crystal meth) was why not? Can't feel any worse.
"There was a sadness that came with it initially, followed by the energy and a chemically induced reconnection to live. I was looking for anything ... to make me reengage to life."

He further admits to not thinking at all about the ramifications of his actions. "I knew what I was doing, but tennis wasn't a concern to me because I didn't care about tennis," he said. "My own body wasn't a concern to me because I didn't think that highly of myself."

One thing he was not clear on was the number of times he used crystal meth. Despite Couric's best attempts to get him to put a number to his usage, the best Agassi could come up with was that it was a "foggy time" in his life and he used the drug "way too many (times)" in 1997.

It seemed like Agassi was remorseful of his behavior during this time, but Couric never pushed him on his motivations behind coming clean now. I still find myself searching for the lesson from the former tennis star and now pedagogue of children, but can't quite nail it down.

Perhaps he is warning his students of the dangerous path that drugs can lead down. "In life, bad decisions lead to more bad decisions," he said. The problem with this is that Agassi was never punished for his actions.

When he failed a drug test, he wrote a bogus letter claiming he ingested the drug in a spiked drink his manager gave him. Agassi did express gratitude about the second chance he was given, but he earned that chance by lying to tennis authorities.

So what is the message to the kids? Agassi messed up. He asks for compassion instead of condemnation, understanding instead of judgment.

"Regardless of how somebody else would perceive the life I've lived, the fact that I perceived it that way and found a way to get through, I think, is a hopeful and inspirational story."

I hope that it is: for tennis, for himself and most importantly the children who look up to him.

Follow Chris Sesno on twitter: @csesno