Austin 3:16 Says Marat Safin Need To Shut The Hell Up

There's been a lot of discussion amongst the neighborhood businesses over the past fourteen days regarding Andre Agassi's habitual usage of crystal meth. Public discourse will swing from both points of the pendulum. A segment of the population will denounce Agassi as a drug user, a liar and a phony. Another segment will praise Agassi for his truthfulness and facing his inner demons in a public setting.

I really don't care.

Agassi is a human being meaning he can formulate thoughts, act based on reason with a greater understanding of the world around him and make choices that he will ultimately need to answer to one day, whether to himself or somebody else. I think it takes a fair amount of courage to expunge your reputation. Make no mistake, he did do that. To a public which still adores him as a champion, and to admit you spent parts of a year of your life taking meth, shows a willingness to strip yourself naked and stand in front of a barrage of arrows that will unquestionably be slung your way.

My opinion (not that anyone really cares what I think) on Agassi hasn't changed. I still don't know him personally and only feel qualified to judge him on his tennis career. He was a great tennis player. Respect is a word usually thrown around in instances such as this. I haven't lost respect because he did drugs. I haven't gained respect for him because he was honest about his extracurricular activity. It would be wrong for me to start commenting about him based on a few excerpts from some book. I do know it took a considerable amount of courage to be as open as he was and I admire his honesty. I am not sure I could do what he did.

I was curious to see some of those arrows however and oh boy have they arrived. I was trolling around Yahoo! Sports when I came across a blog post which included quotes from some tennis players and their thoughts about Agassi. I will post the quotes below, give my opinion of each quote and give a score based on a few mathematical computations tying together logic, reason and understanding of Agassi's situation. Now I'm only commenting on a very small quote but it is done with the hope that these tennis pros would choose their words carefully. Plus I'm sitting here getting ready to watch San Francisco-Chicago and I'm bored.


Some Intelligent and Not So Intelligent Quotes About Agassi and Meth
(Scores will be out of 100)

Roger Federer: "It was a shock when I heard the news. I am disappointed and I hope there are no more such cases in future."

The Captain: This seems like the perfect Ferderer response. He was surprised to hear about it and hope no other tennis player ever does drugs. Maybe a little impractical but fine.

Quote Score: 91


Rafael Nadal: "If the ATP covered for Agassi then I think that's dreadful. If they covered for the player and punished others for doing the same kind of thing then that would seem to me to be a lack of respect for all sportsmen ... Now that he is retired, he comes out and says this? It's a way of senselessly damaging the sport."

The Captain: Yeah, I have issues with the ATP if they covered up Agassi knowing he was on drugs. Also goof, if you think it was his way of senselessly damaging tennis then you need to rethink a few things. If anything he is allowing tennis to move forward and if tennis does the right things, gain credibility. If they covered up for Andre, are they covering up for anyone else? What are they covering up? Is this a common occurrence? Answering those questions will only help tennis in the future.

Quote Score: 67


Serena Williams: "I don't even know what crystal meth is, so, you know, that's what my reaction to it is ... I haven't read anything about Andre Agassi's book. All I know is I have a book coming out. It's called 'On The Line'".

The Captain: If someone walked into my store and had a bag of crystal meth and asked me "what is it", unless it had a label with the words "crystal meth", I wouldn't know what it is either. But you're just being ignorant. Really Serena are you fucking insane? I'm sure you can at least figure out what it COULD be. You get asked how you feel about Agassi doing crystal meth, one of two things should pop up in your head - there is a drunk/drink called crystal meth or Agassi got caught fucking a stripper named Crystal Meth. You also got the name of his book wrong, ass.

Quote Score: -794,008


Venus Williams: "I'm sure his book will sell. But I can't say anything about Andre Agassi's life."

The Captain: I'm sure his book will sell too. That wasn't the question. We're asking your opinion on him taking crystal meth. You can say something. Anything. You can say while you're disappointed it doesn't change your thoughts about Agassi. You can say you don't care about his dabbling into those recreational highs. You said nothing.

Quote Score: -183


Andy Roddick: "Andre is and always will be my idol. I will judge him on how he has treated me and how he has changed the world for (the) better."

The Captain: Very optimistic. Judges Andre on what he knows about him personally and focuses on the good things he’s done in his career. You lose points because you may have let your personal feelings override your actual thoughts. Also I'm being picky because he stole Brooklyn Decker away from me.

Quote Score: 81


Former coach Nick Bollettieri: "I don't condone what he did - I've made mistakes too, but I've done more good than bad ... Let's look at what Andre has done, he funds a school for 400 kids from the inner-city. I know underneath he's a hell of guy."

The Captain: What bad things have you done? But ok, if I have to give any sort of half asses analysis he is somewhat rational and doesn’t think his decision should offset all the good that he’s done. I wouldn’t expect your former coach to say any less.

Quote Score: 83


U.S. Federation Cup captain Mary Joe Fernandez: "It takes a lot of guts and courage to come out and say something that nobody would have really known about. Maybe people can learn from it and not make the same mistakes."

The Captain: Mary Joe Fernandez, you are ever so rational, real and smart. I like you.

Quote Score: 100


Martina Navratilova: "Shocking. Not as much shock that he did it as shock he lied about it and didn't own up to it. He's up there with Roger Clemens, as far as I'm concerned. He owned up to it (in the book), but it doesn't help now ... Andre lied and got away with it. You can't correct that now. Do you take away a title he wouldn't have won if he had been suspended? He beat some people when he should have been suspended."

The Captain: Martina Navratilova, you are ever so irrational, fake and stupid. I hate you. Ok, where do we begin looking at this mess? First, Agassi did admit to taking crystal meth. It’s in his fucking book. It’s why you were asked that question. Roger Clemens never admitted anything. Do you even know what sport Clemens plays? And owning up helped him now. That’s what matters. Second, your perfect tennis association apparently knew he was lying and let him get away with the transgression. What does this say about tennis? He’s also not asking for anything to be corrected. I have no clue where that came from. Third, he was on Goddamn crystal meth. He had a horrible year:

Agassi in 1997
Tournaments Played: 13
Titles Won: 0
Overall W-L: 12-12
Year End Rank: 122

Speaking of Year End Rank…

Year End Rank – 1994-2000
1994: 2
1995: 2
1996: 8
1997: 122
1998: 6
1999: 1
2000: 6

The outlier is 122. He won jack shit in 1997. He had a shitty year because he was on drugs. He won no titles. He sucked as a tennis player. What titles should he give back? His 122nd ranking? Based on what’s going on with Yanina Wickmayer, if the first time drug suspension is one year, and Agassi missed 1997, he still would have won no titles. Personally I find more fault in the ATP that gave Agassi a pass. Your quote is stupid, like your face.

Quote Score: negative one billion points (I didn’t feel like typing out all those zeros)


Marat Safin: “I’m not defending the ATP, but what he said put it in a delicate position…The ATP allowed him to win a lot of tournaments, a lot of money. It kept his secret. Why does he need to be so cruel with it?”

“If he is as fair play as he says he is, he has to go to the end,” Safin said. “You know, the ATP has a bank account and he can give the money back if he wants.”

“Me, I don’t need money,” he said. “The question is: Why did he do this? What is done is done. Does he hope to sell more books? It’s absolutely stupid.”

The Captain: This isn’t from the same blog. I linked the AP article. Man this is some good good stuff right here so I didn’t want to leave it out. These quotes are fucked. These quotes are so fucked that it takes Martina’s quotes, takes them behind the woodshed and fucks those fucking quotes into submission.

I don’t know Safin. I do know that he has the brain of a dinosaur and is a fairly big moron. The “why does he need to be so cruel” may be the whiniest little bitch quote ever. I won’t retype the numbers but in 1997 Andre Agassi was a horrible tennis player. I don’t know how great the tennis rankings are. Maybe # 8 should really be # 2 some years depending on the metrics used. What I do know is that 122 is fairly low. This was the fewest tournaments and lowest win percentage since 1986, when he was 16. He had a bad year. Drugs do that to you. Should he have been suspended? It appears so.

Also, he won 0 tournaments that year so the ATP did a pretty shitty job helping him win tournaments. If Safin meant over the course of Andre’s career, that’s different but he apparently didn’t take drugs those other years. Whether a player gets caught, suspended or he beats the drug test (because of his status or the drugs being flushed out of his system, naturally or unnaturally) that player does have the opportunity to continue his playing career, assuming it is a one time offense. Agassi did that. Agassi is earned those titles and winnings. He should not have to give back money he earned in 2002 because of a drug he did in 1997.

Besides all of our previous discussion, we failed to mention on thing; crystal meth is not a performance enhancer. It’s a performance inhibitor. Agassi doing meth in no way helped his abilities, quickness, decision making or his overall tennis game. He probably had trouble doing simple daily tasks, let alone compete for Wimbledon. This is reflected by the fact that Agassi was a shit bag crappy professional tennis player in 1997.

Maybe Agassi wanted to sell more books, Marat. Maybe he wanted to clear his conscience, felt guilty about lying and used the book as a cathartic way of handling the inner conflict he had juggling his public image and his own personal image of who he is. I haven’t heard any interviews with him yet, but I’m sure somebody asked and his response was more in line of the latter. If he really wanted to sell books he could have talked about the amazing sex he had with Brooke Shields without coming across as a drug addict. I really don’t know. What I do know is that you’re a fucking moron.

Quote Score: negative seven hundred qatrillion points


Conclusion: Federer, Roddick and Fernandez – all fine quotes. Navratilova, Safin and Serena Williams – all give me a headache.