“First in a Field of Two” is Barry Buss’s personal memoir about his junior tennis experience and the strains that put upon his relationship with his father and how this influenced his developmental life as a person and athlete. Barry and his business partner have developed a tennis/clinic seminar project and will be going to tennis clubs throughout the country to educate families concerning the environment of junior tennis, with his book as the foundation for the seminars. Psychologist, Dr. Allen Fox, who wrote the forward to the book says, “This book is a valuable guide for a tennis parent of how not to raise a tennis-playing child...Tennis culture portrays our sport as one big red carpet event riddled with fame, fortune and riches, and that’s all true for a lucky select few. But there are a lot more stories like Barry Buss....There is a lot in here for everybody.”
SZ: “First in a Field of Two” is a remarkable story of your tennis life and personal survival under the weight of formidable obstacles. It took courage coming to grips with this experience and making your journey visible for all to read. How has writing your story helped your life transition forward?
BB: Thank you. It’s a little early to tell what lasting impact writing my story will have on my life looking forward. Writing this book was a pretty gut wrenching endeavor I must be honest. It would have been nice to have written it once and been done with it. There was no master plan. After it was written I needed to rewrite, edit and proof read, format etc...all which involved revisiting the events again and again and again. I have always dreamed of being able to write a book of some relevance and I hope I have done that. I’m proud and exited for what the near future holds for me. I feel a lot lighter emotionally after getting all of this out and having my story be so enthusiastically received.
SZ: Your story at times is painful to read as your life struggles and addictions became increasingly out of control and detrimental to your goals and athletic talent. The book covers many issues: parental/child sport involvement, developmental issues, bullying, mental-emotional-physical abuse, athletic mental health issues, player/coach communication, are there preventative insights you hope readers will gain from reading this?
BB: It’s an important question that I wish I could give you a nice set of succinct takeaway answers that would leave everyone feeling good but I just can’t. Every young person pursuing excellence in our sport is in a unique dynamic. I wish it were as simple as a laundry list of Do’s and Don’ts that everyone could abide by to avert potential troubles. But it’s not. There are a few factors that are critical to having success in this environment, number one is education. Competitive junior tennis is an extremely
complex emotional terrain. I don’t think children are emotionally wired to experience the levels of anxiety, disappointment, frustration, fear, elation etc., that a competitive tennis player experiences on a nearly daily basis from a very young age all through-out their playing career. It’s imperative that these athletes are surrounded by an informed supportive team, coaches, team mates, parents, organizing bodies, everyone has a huge role and responsibility in keeping competitive junior tennis as healthy and nurturing an environment as possible.
Another is communication. All parties, player, coach, parents need to be able to communicate openly and freely about what’s going on. This is complex when you are dealing with emotionally involved young people. They don’t have the language skills to articulate what they are experiencing internally, so it begins to manifest in all sorts of red
flag behaviors, such as, cheating, tennis tantrums, tanking, choking, excuse making and in the more extreme cases like my own, a gravitation towards substance abuse and hyper dysfunctional behavior. We can’t be mind readers but we must become expert mood readers and be able to identify quickly when problems are arising and nip them in the bud as best as possible. For there comes a point in dysfunctional behaviors when they take over the host and then it’s too late.
Lastly, trying to keep the bigger picture in mind, or better yet having a bigger picture vision that is rational and attainable. There is an over emphasis on what families and players are trying to get “from” tennis instead of what they are trying to get “out” of tennis. Fame, fortune, riches, rackets, scholarships, trophies, you name it, all the material benefits that come with one type of “success.” Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with the success that comes from being able to win tennis matches. Tennis is competition in its purest sense and the countless hours of grinding hard work needs to be rewarded appropriately and often, but at some point and it’s not easy to see when one is immersed in it, but if one can keep in focus what the bigger life skills are that we take away from pursuing excellence at such a complex sport, then everyone is guaranteed a successful outcome.
Not everyone can be the best, you can only be your best, and no player or organization can take that away from you. Make tennis an inside job, a personal mission to be the best you can possibly be, so when you’ve hit your last competitive tennis ball, you have that innate belief in yourself that you can put 100% into the next life endeavor you choose and make the most of it. That to me is the ultimate return on one’s investment, to be able to walk away from our sport knowing that you did your absolute best and that no other measuring stick of success really matters. For there is a lot of life left after we put the competitive rackets away. The goal in all this should be to be able to developmentally segue into adult life whole and confident in oneself, instead of feeling battered and beaten and on one’s way to therapy or rehab to have your broken defeated self put back together. Sadly my experience from decades as a player and coach is that the segue is often quite difficult. I believe it does not have to be that way if all parties involved learn and perform their roles well.
SZ: After an amazing freshman year at UCLA, playing your way up to the number one men’s position then leaving the team at the end of the year, after being burnt out, did you complete your collegiate education?
BB: Yes, it was a tortuous circuitous route. I started in 1982, transferred twice, and eventually returned to UCLA in 1993-94 and graduated.
SZ: Through the years many junior players have known other players that are in an unreasonably hard, abusive parental situation, as an adult looking back, where do you think an intervention could have been made on your behalf? Where do safety nets need to be in place to help families in this type of distress?
BB: That’s a big question. So much of what happens in the harsher parent/child dynamics is done in private behind closed doors; or in the car on those long drives home. Obviously if physical abuse is seen or suspected that becomes the responsibility of the State and social services to intervene to protect the child, even then the efficacy of such interventions are hard to quantify. The more insidious emotional and psychological abuse that myself and many other peers of mine endured is because we live in a society where the family unit is considered sacrosanct. Who is going to perform an intervention? The USTA is not equipped for such things. Coaches are not skilled in such matters. There is no training of any of the responsible parties entrusted with developing young tennis talent. It’s beyond the skill sets at the larger mega academies.
It’s very complicated. No one should be interfering with how a parent raises their own child. Yet, at the same time the competitive junior tennis environment is a highly volatile environment in which to raise a child. We, the players, coaches, parents, governing bodies are all in and heavily invested from such a young age. I believe the awareness that the system is conducive to potential problems in child development has increased in my 40 years of being in and around it, but the knowledge and ability to enact the safety nets you ask of is still quite lacking.
Again, it’s about education. Parents need to be keenly aware of the environment they are putting their kids into. Sadly that education is earned through trial and error with a great deal of error in there. I don’t think you could find a single parent in the junior tennis world who, not having played the sport as a kid, would have anticipated the pressures and demands on every member of the family unit that having a successful junior tennis playing child can bring forth. For, as I share in the book, when I interviewed many of my peer group as to why they had not put their kids in tennis, a sport so many of them spent their entire childhoods playing, and where many had excelled at on a world stage, the prevailing response was, “I would never put my kid through that.” This comes from the parents who know the game and terrain like few others. Which begs the question who is guiding this generation of players and parents through the minefield that junior tennis can present? Ultimately the safety nets in place today come down to being a very engaged and knowledgeable parent, which I am happy to conclude seems to be the case for many parents, but certainly far from all.
SZ: In your story it felt that Glenn Bassett who was the UCLA tennis coach at the time admired and respected you as a player as did many other coaches and players. Do you think that coaches today at the collegiate level are better educated to notice and act on “red flags” when a player is having personal struggles? Are there better resources to support the student/athlete in collegiate settings?
BB: Yes, the coaches are much better at recognizing the red flags and kids in distress. There is not an adult in the tennis world who does not have first hand knowledge of a loved one or close friend who has not struggled in many of the issues I detail in the book so awareness is better than ever. I have friends in the college coaching business and I can list a couple dozen of stellar human beings who are coaching in the college ranks today. These people care about their players as if they were their own children. It’s awesome and quite powerful. The college tennis system is healthy and thriving. Parents should feel very secure in sending their kids off to these schools where their kids health and welfare is more important to these coaches than winning matches and that’s a great thing.
Colleges have athletic department counselors for troubled student-athletes. The NCAA drug testing regiment could be improved. Coaches are kept out of the loop if there is a positive test and are only informed upon a second positive, by then, it is in the hands of the athletic director as what to do with the troubled athlete. Again, with scarce resources devising a system that benefits all parties and is cost effective will always be challenging.
SZ: In hindsight if Coach Bassett had requested you see a counselor at UCLA would you have gone?
BB: Absolutely! I knew matters were not going in the right direction. Especially when the bipolar symptoms really started to accelerate and become obvious. With the full knowledge of bipolar illness that I have now, I was rapid cycling all throughout my playing career. I left the team my sophomore year and stayed in school. In my junior year it was getting out of control for me, and just randomly walked into the Psychology Dept. at UCLA, walked into the first door I could find open and told the receptionist I wasn’t doing well and could she help me. I was 20 years old, so even then I knew something was up and would have taken any help I could get. When I transferred to UC Irvine as a senior and started playing for Greg Patton, after my first challenge match and five sets of my freaking out on the court, Coach Patton arranged a meeting for me the next day with a school counselor for an evaluation - which I welcomed with open arms.
SZ: There is a chapter where you share your observations of the Player Boxes of Andy Roddick vs. Bernard Tomic during the 2012 U.S. Open. “Both players’ on-court temperaments being a reflection of their respective support systems; their emotional investment a perfect corollary with the level of emotional support in their Players Boxes.” How do you bring this awareness into your role as a tennis coach today?
BB: Let me preface my response with, I have never met either Roddick or Tomic nor people in their respective Players Boxes. That aside it’s not hard to draw strong inferences from observation. The Player’s Box is a powerful metaphor. Tennis is unique in that it’s the only sport I know of where coaching is not permitted during play, (with a few exceptions), so on one level it’s the most individual of sports. Yet at the same time the Player’s Box has quite a few seats in it; for parents, siblings, significant others, coaches, trainers, agents. The support system is quite extensive. For us mortals playing away from the cameras and bright lights, it's really no different. Everyone has an important role to play in the development of a successful junior tennis player and if any part of that support system is not holding up their responsibility, in time it will begin to show in the player’s performance.
I do my best to communicate often with the parents of my players. I give them frequent progress reports, not just on their child’s performance, but in their energy, attitude, effort, preparation etc.. If I see the kids acting out on or off the court, I have made it a staple of my work to get involved with the kids and parents to try to troubleshoot any problems as they arise. Sometimes it has worked out and through hard work with the child and parents, have been able to turn some young lives around, gotten some kids into college programs that weren’t going to get there without some serious work being done with them and their “Player’s Box.”
SZ: You are now a teaching pro. Where do you teach and what population of players do you teach?
BB: I take all comers. My current favorite student is a four year old who has the best happy dance you’ll ever see. He has turned his weekly tennis lesson into an art performance. My coaching arc has ranged from coaching college tennis, working as a hitting partner to many successful women tour players, to four fabulous summers in the Hamptons, to a couple of mega tennis complexes in Southern Cal. I now teach at a cool little park in Redondo Beach called Alta Vista.
SZ: You have a goal to compete in the National 50’s. How’s your training coming along?
BB: Ironically the fuel for writing the book came from my recent resumption of training when all my old junior stuff started to surface again. The on court anger, the fear to put myself out there completely and be fully vulnerable to frequent disappointments. I haven’t played competitive tennis in fifteen years and I thought the hardest part would be the physical conditioning but it wasn’t. It was the emotional part of playing that I was so rusty at. I will always be athletic and able to hit a tennis ball well, it’s all the other stuff that is the challenge. I always looked at playing as a sort of free therapy in our automated routinized world it is easy to become a stranger to oneself. Not so on the tennis court. The court is where I get introduced to myself in so many ways. If I’m having a great experience playing it’s because all facets of my life are in order. My physical health, mental health, emotional health and likely most importantly my spiritual health and ability to see the bigger picture and the role tennis has always played in my life. It’s a privilege and honor to be able to play a sport so many millions of people admire so much. I still love the feeling of playing great tennis, so if my body can hold up, I look forward to giving it one more good run in the 50’s and see what I can learn from the process.
SZ: The funding to publish “First in a Field of Two” was well supported on Kickstarter. Now that it’s written how/where can people purchase the book?
BB: A special shout out to all those who were so gracious and generous to support the publication of my book through Kickstarter. The book is available on Amazon and directly through me via the Kickstarter address.
SZ: Do you have any favorite quotes, stories or tips that give your life guidance today?
BB: Thoreau has always been one of my favorites. “A voice said to him - why do you stay here and live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you?
Those same stars twinkle over other fields than these.” This quote has always resonated with me to keep pushing the boundaries of my comfort zones in a lifelong pursuit of a better more fulfilling “glorious existence.”
SZ: Anything you would like to add?
BB: My story is more the exception than the norm and it should be read as an eye opening expose of what can happen to young people who are brought up in challenging situations. It is not an indictment of anyone or anything. I truly believe that everyone along my life’s path was doing the best they could, myself included. There are no guaranteed outcomes in life, but I know if one keeps trying to push forward to improve their lot in life, good things do come.
SZ: Barry thank you for taking the time to share your story. Hopefully it will reach those athletes that may be in need of some personal guidance.
*Featured guests are not current nor former clients of Susan Zaro
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