MCHS: 2000 Olympian Jeff Tarango
by Robb Fulcher
Editor’s note: Mira Costa high tennis player Jeff Tarango (Class of 1986), of Manhattan Beach, competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and finished 17th in singles, at the culmination of his 12-year pro career. Later, as a coach, he worked with Andre Medvedev and Maria Sharapova. The following story is reprinted from Easy Reader, September 14, 2000.
Jeff Tarango, of Manhattan Beach, was packing his passion along with his tennis racquets for the trip to Sydney, Australia for his first Olympics in 2020.
Tarango, whose temper and gamesmanship at times upstages his intelligent, world-class game, said he sees the Sydney Olympiad as the chance of a lifetime and an indelible stamp on an 11-year pro career.
“I’m really excited,” the 31-year-old Tarango said during an interview on the sun-soaked Manhattan pier Saturday before leaving for Australia.
“On the [pro] tour you’re playing for yourself, and for money, but with this I’ll be playing for pride, for my country, and for my hometown. This seems like such a reward,” he said.
“I feel I’ve already exceeded the number of years a player can expect on the pro tour. You normally can’t be in the top 100 in the world for more than about three to six years. Usually injuries get you. There are those exceptions now like Chang and Agassi and Sampras. But still, I feel very gifted to have had this career.”
Tarango, who will be competing in singles at Sydney, has already played against almost all the players he will face. But he said the competitive heat will be turned up several notches.
“The stakes are a lot higher. I think a lot of the guys will be fighting for every point, and digging for those drop shots where, if you’re in the middle of the 40-week tour, you might let it go rather than risk getting hurt.”
Tarango began to envision his spot on the US Olympic Team last year, when he realized his ranking might well land him in Sydney.
“I started to look into the selection process, I saw it as a goal,” he said. “Dick Gould, the coach at Stanford University, always had us do that, set a goal each year so you know what you’re doing.”
Long before Tarango thought of himself as an Olympian, he won a CIF championship as a Mira Costa Mustang, went on to stand out at Stanford, then left in his third year to go pro. Since then he has earned $2.9 million in prize money, scrapping all the way for his share.
To meet Tarango it is hard to see him as a player who has generated headlines for his ejection from a tournament last year for calling officials “Nazis,” or for walking off the court at the tennis temple of Wimbledon in 1995, and accusing a competitor of faking an injury.
Tarango was more gracious by a good distance than many interview subjects, discussing any topic with perfect openness. He went out of his way to pay his respects to Gould and to Mira Costa Coach Jeff Varner. He expressed his gratitude for his career, his hometown, his Olympic berth, his wife and 3-year-old daughter, the bright, sunny day.
Tarango sees the whole temper thing this way:
Since Muhammad Ali turned sports protocol and promotion on its ear, gamesmanship has been part of the game, and the athlete’s personality – all of it – has been part of the package the fan wants to see. Tarango’s not a machine; he’s human.
“In basketball you have [NBA Coach] Pat Riley on the sidelines fighting for you,” he said. “I don’t have Pat Riley in my corner, I just have myself. I have to fight sometimes to get an honest call. I’m only fighting for my stake…I think a lot of times what people are seeing is frustration coming out.”
“I have always made tennis a more exciting game. People say ‘tantrum’ like it’s a bad thing, but it also works to make tennis a headline sport.” He pointed to John McEnroe as an example of a marquee player who left none of his passion under wraps.
“You can’t get mad at someone for caring about the game,” Tarango said. “Some people think you should handle your emotions by going home quietly and then screaming into a pillow. Tennis is blood, sweat and tears. You can’t get the blood and sweat, and then be a robot.”
Tarango said he and a handful of other pro players have worked with Mark Miles, chief executive officer of the tour, to loosen some of the rules of conduct.
Asked about his plans for the future, Tarango said he and some other players are working on an Internet coaching site for young people.
“I feel we can make a big contribution. The problem with coaching is that, with the money you can make now on the tour, players don’t go into coaching when they quit. Even on the tour there are only four or five great coaches,” he said.
“A lot of kids who want to play tennis now can’t afford $40 or $50 an hour for lessons, and tennis is an easy game. Coaches make it hard. I never imagined this to be a difficult game.” ER