Barry Buss: "You Can Get There From Here"

0:00:10.3 Jack Broudy: Hi, I'm Jack Brodie and welcome to living at the 45 today. I'm honored and really privileged to be speaking with Barry bus, man, I didn't know before, but I sure know them now through his book, a really fantastic read. Hello, everybody. And I've had an interesting run, I was just telling Barry, I've had an interesting run in the last couple of weeks, I talked to Roscoe from that... Once again, older than both of us, but from that era... And I'm about to speak with Dick gold in about an hour, hour and a half. And it all brings me back way back, it was really heavy and that's why I wanted to get back to Barry. I was just telling you, we don't know each other personally, but I feel like I kinda know you... 'cause if you went through that time.

0:01:02.2 Barry buss: I was a ranged player, but nothing... I was one of the guys that you beat up on your way to the semis, but.

0:01:09.1 Jack Broudy: You know, it's really... Like I said, it was such a weekend for me, I couldn't put your book down... You said in the beginning, I think you said something like, if it helps one person, I've done my job well. You already did your job because it really... It salvaged my funky, strange, weird, bizarre weekend I had...

0:01:30.6 Barry buss: By the way, I'm a fellow dead had to sign to a tendon, I hope he got all the hippy illusions in my book there.

0:01:37.0 Jack Broudy: I did, I did, I do. Siri was waiting to see if the thunder don't get you, then the lightning will. I was like, When are you gonna use that? It.

0:01:45.5 Barry buss: Had a one that wheel turns around and you cover a little more crowd, I was gonna steal that line there were...

0:01:53.8 Jack Broudy: I caught them all, I can email. Yeah, that was one of my early questions now, and I saw West LA fade away and you're talking to a guy who saw over 100 shows Himself... Perfect, and I'm from the LA... I was working with some guys at UCLA, John pale in particular, and I guess Tony Graham almost had a similar existence to you, except for... I don't remember him throwing tantrums, he was... He just, he led his rack and do the talking before he was a good party. I remember, I remember I met him in 1978, and a guy on a... When he was.

0:02:35.8 Barry buss: A center. Yeah, I think he still does too...

0:02:38.6 Jack Broudy: He kinda does, he still... It's really funny, I guess you must be friends with him on Facebook, you see all the posts at.

0:02:46.4 Barry buss: The leeches living large out there, mastroianni. Good. Yeah, you get in his bones, were it... Listen, we grew up... Growing up out of the tennis boom and then ended up in LA in the 70s and 80s, it was a unique time to come up age, it was the concentration of talent and just the energy around just not just junior tennis, professional tennis college S, USC, Pepperdine, UCLA, for... Yeah, I was just at... When everybody went to play college tennis, it wasn't... Not too many kids were jumping straight to the pros, so everybody did a couple of years and...

0:03:26.0 Jack Broudy: And that was before the foreigners invasion right now. You can't even find an American colors.

0:03:33.7 Barry buss: Not a lot of Jack's miss out there, but they're there, you gotta just know to it, listen, it's just gotten... I think when I was playing back then the whole world hadn't quite started playing, so we... I think when the Olympics came in 84, I think that's whenever ever the world really caught on now, every country's got numerous guys who can bowl and they're all eager and hungry, and tennis has become the ticket for these guys, they don't have pro football and baseball and basketball, and it's either soccer or tennis, and these guys are just exactly what it 'cause we are, and it's no wonder that they're having their accomplishments, Eros a few weeks ago, reminded me that when he first started, he... No money in it.

0:04:16.4 Jack Broudy: No. And that changed. About the mid-70, right? Rowen MacEnroe came in. That's when the money started coming in.

0:04:22.8 Barry buss: Right, right after battle of the sexes at the existed, you got bored. And then all the sponsorships, those guys, and they became international superstars, Connors in particular, and then on the girls side at Chris ever, and they were very marketable and I think intense sports marketing, finally that the marketing people finally realized sports was a great avenue to advertise through so they started the family circle cup and all the... They started throwing a ton of money at tennis, and we've got kind of a revolving cast of sponsors, or there's Colgate or now it's Bambara BO, but there's always a major corporation behind underwriting a lot of the Ten of stuff now and that... It's been a while.

0:05:04.5 Jack Broudy: And guys like McCormick without, who started it, he really helped a lot and what's his name? A World Championship attendance, Lamar hunt, and nobody knows these guys, but they really helped foster... That.

0:05:17.9 Barry buss: Was a lot of... Was big business. Yeah, no, no, it was... He's been a lot of growing pains through it, and for every boom, there's not a Boston, everything panned out. Rotten came in way, he has a lot of... A lot of teams out there, but no shortage of entrepreneurial energy out there, even the USTA, they filed bankruptcy a few times in the last few decades. Yeah, I think they're doing okay now.

0:05:43.7 Jack Broudy: Yeah, I think they're doing a Kami. Still think the US Open is their meal ticket.

0:05:48.2 Barry buss: Yeah, no, we were just there for the first couple of days. I've never seen it so busy and so active and it's healthy, plus after covid, everyone's joining a guess to get out, I think... I.

0:05:58.2 Jack Broudy: Think OTT was an interesting time. Like I said, it really brought up a ton of memories, I think one of the first things I wondered about, and you didn't mention it much in your book, and.

0:06:09.8 Barry buss: So of course, I'm not gonna ask direct questions about your book 'cause people should just get out there and read it because the matches were fun to watch and all that stuff, and I'm sure you have plenty more stories and... Or even in the book.

0:06:23.9 Jack Broudy: I have stories, I have stories about my college tennis, I can't even tell it... By the way, I wanna compliment you on one thing, your brutal honesty, Jesus, man, I don't know if I have the waves to be quite as honest as you...

0:06:41.0 Barry buss: Yeah, a lot of it's just being in recovery, I've been in recovery for a long time, and if you're not taking thorough and fearless for moral inventories of yourself, and part of it's just just kinda getting healthy... The book is a lot of things. It's a cautionary tale of what can happen if signs aren't missed, but it's also a book of hope, there you can... You can get yourself in some holes out there if you're not careful with substances or undiagnosed mental health stuff that I had going on, but you can get there from here, you can... You can't have the life that you always wish for, but you're not gonna get there hiding, you gotta own... You gotta be accountable. I have no shame for what I did, I did what I did, I wasn't a bad person, I was a sick person trying to navigate my way through a world that wasn't really built well for me, was having a large time figuring it out, and he was until I was finally really got sober the last time through that things are user well, and I think part of also there's a little stigmatization around mental health and substance abuse, and everyone's a little reticent to talk about these things, and so I kinda took a chance here it's not easy.

0:07:46.2 Barry buss: Putting yourself out there like that. I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't till the response to the book has been remarkably positive, so I... I, I know James Blake from San Diego. I saw her. Is very nice. Endorsement of your book or testimonial, whatever you wanna call it. It was very nice. And he's a bright guy. I like him a lot, and I've always of the good tennis players, he's one of my favorites, 'cause you know these guys and we grew up with these guys, and I don't wanna mention any needs, but there were plenty of Northern Cal... And even if you in Southern Cal, just.

0:08:20.6 Jack Broudy: Real assholes, so to speak, and they turned guys like me who were... I wasn't a first round loser, but I was definitely a third round loser and yeah, those guys turned me off, you know, so it's nice when you do meet someone like a James Blake who seems like a regular... And then Mike, Brian, no, there's some nice guys out there.

0:08:41.2 Barry buss: Class acts out there yet, but there's some real... There's some real dicks out there, let's face it, and they really affect you the most in the juniors, I guess, as they eat it, get older, everyone seems to mellow. I'm more friendly with certain people, actually were a couple of more Stanford...

0:08:57.9 Jack Broudy: I will mention their names, but they really walked around, they had to stick up their butt on the jury... I have so many questions. I guess the first one for me is, like I said, I didn't mention it much in the book, but our dads came from the greatest generation, right. And they were similar in some ways, my dad was not as tough as yours, probably why I didn't become as good a player as you... I think a lot of times, you know, like an ACT, his dad was free, I met out in the 12s, a player and my dad was gone. Do you always say, if you haven't beat my son, you haven't played tennis.

0:09:41.4 Barry buss: I got a lot of in that old school parenting. Yeah.

0:09:45.1 Jack Broudy: That Don Rickles that Don Rice's pat on the back. You know what I mean? That's what our dads were growing up, they were brought up with that sarcasm that... Where it's cool to be mean to your friends and your son and everyone else, your dad did it a little bit more... A little more viciously than my dad did it, my dad did it, but he still teased the hell out of me, and so I always felt like I was super underrated, or maybe I was overrated by people in my neighborhood, but underrated by my father, so I wonder... I think, I think what you mean about your dad more than it had me thinking about you... You know what I mean?

0:10:24.6 Barry buss: Yeah, yeah. He's a complicated person. I think as I've gotten older and reflect back on more, I know when you're in it, it's always complicated emotionally for you, but listen, he came from... He's a generate, he's a depression kid, and they did.

0:10:39.4 Jack Broudy: It to the world or to go...

0:10:41.6 Barry buss: Yeah, so they never had these opportunities. But he was a passionate person, He loved tennis, he loved all kinds of things, and he never had the chances to become to that where our generation had, and so I think when he was kind of obsessed with special people too, so he wanted me to be something unique and different, and the generation gap between having enough to eat and having enough strong rackets is quite a significant area for them, so it wasn't easy for them to wear him particularly to be comfortable with the comfort that are generation of that. So to have the opportunities that we had in a not fully in gross ourselves and then 100% always was a tension for him, 'cause if he had had those opportunities, and that's where living by curiously through me a little bit too much in identifying... His ego got attached to my performances and somehow... So when I want, he won and when I lost, he lost when I acted up, he acted up. So it got complicated, and though he was able to provide the opportunities for myself, as did many parents of our generation, he didn't understand how to support me through those situations, 'cause it's a lot more than just paying for lessons and getting kids to tournaments and things like that it's a whole process that you gain your child to believe in themselves, that's what this is about, you got everyone in a fans back ends.

0:12:02.8 Barry buss: Can you believe in yourself? And that starts really early. And he didn't know that part of it, and we suffered from that, so...

0:12:11.5 Jack Broudy: Yeah, you know, it's funny, I was reading... Right after I read your book this weekend, I read Dick goes new book.

0:12:17.6 Barry buss: And I thought to myself, Damn, Barry should have played for this guy, he just had them last night about that.

0:12:23.3 Jack Broudy: I know I saw it. I would have aged him... No, or maybe he would have changed, you know.

0:12:30.0 Barry buss: He would have done... Actually, we did, I think he did. We did talk about me coming there, but he didn't have any money for his freshman year, he began get all these guys all sit and stuff and I would... To how to pay for a whole year there. So no, knowing what I know now, and I didn't know much back then going through the process, but yeah, he was... He got an awful lot out of his players and they all seem to come out pretty well adjusted and transitioning to professional tennis or professional life pretty well, not all, but for the most part, all of them.

0:13:00.0 Jack Broudy: Not all of them. I, I interviewed a couple and all...

0:13:02.3 Barry buss: Yeah, that's not so much dig, I just think that's the tennis grind, and it does eat a few of us up along the way, but now he was a wonderful man, and I always just always admired him, competing against his guys, he just felt like We... Bethesda Ford got your meeting, not just a player, but a legendary coach too, and it's a nice father.

0:13:20.9 Jack Broudy: I'll make sure I'll make sure to give them your best in an hour or so.

0:13:24.0 Barry buss: Or... Caster, wonderfully supportive of everything. That's where one here. So it's good. Yeah, I met him about 30 years ago. I always like the guy, you know, it's funny, his book reads just like I've always known him, and I haven't known them well, but I've always known two things, he's a hell of a great guy and one hell of a recruiter.

0:13:43.2 Jack Broudy: And the book sort of just solidified those two things that I already knew. It was funny too, you mentioned some of them, going back to the greatest generation, you mentioned some of the things that they could be tough about, my dad would use the words like lazy at... Lazy bum. Lazy bums. That's a word. That's a phrase I remember. You know what I mean? That guy is a lazy bum.

0:14:10.0 Barry buss: But they also had a lot of... Had Dick brought to the table, they had those integrity talks, loyalty talks, no excuses talks, Yuki.

0:14:21.1 Jack Broudy: Was quite a different generation, it's unfortunate, I don't see it that much today, you don't hear half of the words you used to hear...

0:14:28.0 Barry buss: Right, right, right. Which is probably not a bad thing. I think one of the things, you know, and this is an unscientific, what's more anecdotal, I think part of become a successful player, at the end of the day, we are our own coach, and of course, and it's that inner voice that we're training, that one that's constantly going through our head, 247, that voice is the one we have to rely on and how we train... How we develop that voice, that comes from a lot of different areas, that comes from culture, comes from peer groups, it comes from my parents, it comes from our coaches, and we learn through mirror. Let's speak. Let's be honest, I have a granddaughter now and I give her the full Google good. She comes back at me with the good of, I feel like I wanna open up a child care and I'm done doing some good work there, and so when you were saying things to our children in our players and stuff, they start saying that stuff to them, so it's really important that we're careful with those words 'cause they can't, they're gonna adopt, they're gonna mirror our opinions of them and take them on themselves a lot, and that stuff, so when you're getting an abusive language and lazy on my dad, he's calling...

0:15:32.0 Barry buss: Yellow would call me a coward, things like that. Yeah.

0:15:34.3 Jack Broudy: My dad... Would you say that you notate almost 60 years old, I remember how that stuff maybe you feel...

0:15:42.9 Barry buss: So that doesn't just get... Gets laced in, it's like a little virus in your operating system and doesn't go away that easy once you get kind of projected on you that you're an inferior, that you suck, that you're lazy, that you're a failure, that you are these things and people... The parents are just saying this out of frustration, and they're not in their best place, but it doesn't mean that you can't take those words back, they're really... They're complicated, and we're young people trying to navigate a very complicated sport and it's not... So gotta be careful there, it's not determinant on how we're gonna do, but it can be contrapuntal in any way, so that's part of... I'm trying to illustrate that point now, parents, as they work with your kids here, it's just crucial to have enough discipline of your own emotional responses to be careful what you say to kids at a certain time, so there's a time to put your parent hat on, say, Hey listen, I'm gonna tell you what I saw the other day when they're ready for but not really wanna walking off the corner in the car, it's... Right.

0:16:41.1 Jack Broudy: Right, right. You know, I read a book and did a podcast about two weeks ago... Yeah, about two weeks ago with a guy named Frank GM Pollo, you sure. Did you read his book? 'cause you might have an E. He's got a few.

0:16:55.8 Barry buss: Of them out there. I have not... I actually talked to Frank about coordinating stuff together, but I have not.

0:17:01.0 Jack Broudy: Because he's very... He's got the same thoughts. He wrote a book called The tennis parent Bible, and I read it and then we chatted for quite a while and very interesting, a lot of the same stuff that we're coming up with here...

0:17:15.0 Barry buss: Alright, right. It's difficulty is this analogy, we just went... We're here in Nashville. I went to a Titans game on another day, and the first commission a guy miss the field... Go at the buzzer to win the game. And I saw that, yeah, yeah, yeah. For 45 seconds, the stuff that I was saying, That poor guy, I just had four hours here, we're watching this game come on, everybody can make... Is just unbelievable. What came out of my mouth now, of course, pedantic, I probably bought his jersey, so we're dealing with this kind of the thrill of victory and in defeat, all hanging on a moment here, and in tennis, it's no different. So I get that. Tennis is hard. Parenting is Artemis, parenting is extremely difficult, so learning how not to... You're gonna identify with your child when your child's plan, a part of you is playing too, and it's just so important to understand that train... That's really... Tennis is already stressful enough. Your child needs to feel safe, when this doesn't go there, it's not gonna go their way frequently for odd reasons, whether it's choking or tanking or whatever is going on out there, or just not rise into the occasion, and it's so super important.

0:18:20.7 Barry buss: And we keep them... We're careful there in that space, I think... Yeah, yeah, outs funny. I don't think I can do this in one hour, and it's a hot... Happy to... More than happy to come to my Francis is getting personal.

0:18:39.0 Jack Broudy: I told your player, it's really funny reading your book though, I always thought you guys... And I coached guys like Sam query and I... See, I've had a little bit of luck coaching much more than I did playing, and so I've always rubbed elbows with you guys, I've always rubbed all about... Whether it was John pale, Martin, Sam, Stevie Johnson, Steve form, a lot of Coco Vander away, a lot of good players. I've influenced somehow, whether they use my boards or whether I gave him lessons, but I was always involved. Guy, Fred Taylor. It's amazing when I read some of her, like I said, I'm not gonna go over the stories today, 'cause someone would just read the book and they'll see some great exciting matches and some tanking and some choking and some huge come back. So he would come back, victories, unbelievable. It's like I was playing them, that's how well it read, but it's amazing how... Even at your level, which is what I was always aspiring to be, I was always... You know, when I was ranked in the 70s, an national in my New England, I got to count the zoo, so your top six or something, and I think you...

0:19:49.0 Jack Broudy: Nationally, I was always... After they ranked 60-some odd people, and then it said alphabetically alphabetical honor's. Right, and I was ranked alphabetically from 62 to 300 or whatever. Right, right. Thank god, but my name is Brody. So I was at at the top, I was up at the top, so I would sort of... I think at 17, I think I was telling people I was 84 because I was right at the top. But it's amazing how your stories don't differ that much from mine, I would have thought they'd be so different being at a higher level on a full step up that... But it's not... The nerves are the same, they're wanting to please your dead or not get screamed at on the way home and all that stuff, and even the thoughts of cheating and the temper tantrum, it's amazing to me 'cause I always looked at you guys... Growing up, I looked at guys like Finkelstein and who else you know the whole time, and I'm older than you, but you might remember some of those guys... Manson member man syndrome. Right, and I just thought they had a different life, I'm like, Well, life's easy for them because they play naturally, they don't have to think about these other things, but it seems like even at the highest level, you're still thinking like the guy in the second round...

0:21:08.1 Jack Broudy: Well.

0:21:08.3 Barry buss: I think we're all... We talked briefly about this, there's just kind of pendulum between unshakable belief and crippling doubt, and depending on where you are and your confidence, if you're on a good run or you're on a losing streak, it can fly around, and where are your value... Feeling in the moment, hitting that shot on that particular point on that you probably miss thousands of times in May, a thousand times the thoughts that come forward at that moment are gonna be determined into your success or failure, so we all... This is the impossible sport, you can't play it perfectly if you're a perfection is trying to play this Boothe sport, that's impossible to perfect, there's always going to be doubt now, how do you push the down back, can you just allow yourself to just kinda turn the head off and be able to play. And for the better part, most of the time, we are able to, but everyone comes up and pull to that point where we have a little bit of doubt, and it seems that the guys who are consistently more successful, they weren't necessarily better players, but they would just be able to eat out those closer matches, they just didn't panic as much, they seem to be able to stay a little calmer in the storm, it's not that they were out...

0:22:18.6 Barry buss: I ended up on sports center it in the shot of the day or anything, they just... They just didn't get... They just didn't crack, they were able to stay a little more resolute in the moment, and that's where... That's where the Inter-voice training, that's where I think a lot of it has to do with being very successful when you're young, getting that confidence to that building up. I got beat up for many years when I was 10, 12, 14, I get in your head that you're just not as good as these guys, especially if you're a draw watcher and you're paying attention to the results and you're like, Oh, I... You want the orange ball, these guys are... You can build them into things that they're not... And so part of that is just how do you come into your belief when I actually started getting really good, I still... My belief in myself wasn't equal to my abilities, I still was playing way better than I thought it was, at some point I thought this whole thing was just gonna wear off and go back to my old Meisel, but... So it is a challenge, you know, it's too, but everyone's battling out there and the same emotions, and we don't have the great...

0:23:15.8 Barry buss: Guys don't have a monopoly on it.

0:23:18.8 Jack Broudy: No, no, no. And I was even thinking as you were speaking, I was coaching a kid, Steve Forman, you know him... I do not, no.

0:23:30.8 Barry buss: Yeah, he's a younger guy, he was one in the country, 12, 14, 16, he got to the finals of Kalamazoo once or twice. I know once, I don't think he played the second year, the 18s, I don't think he played it first year he got to the final.

0:23:44.4 Jack Broudy: So he was a good player. I played one for Virginia.

0:23:48.0 Barry buss: Wake Forest. Wake Forest, you.

0:23:49.7 Jack Broudy: Know when we went to the orange able and 12, he lost in the finals of the back draw, and the guy who won the tournament four years later were the 16s back of the orange ball, I said to Steve You, 'cause I'm... I coached him all the way through and I said, Hey, where is that guy? He was a huge guy. He won the 12st. Oh, he says, Oh, he doesn't play anymore, and so you're right, we build these guys into gods when we're 12 and 13 years old, and it's so funny, and I remember a guy... You won't remember. He's too old for you, I think. You remember how he shown filed... No, of course, yeah, absolutely.

0:24:29.8 Barry buss: You do a story. But yeah, it was.

0:24:32.8 Jack Broudy: A very sad story, and I started thinking of all the people I knew growing, I grew up with him. He would win the New England indoors when I was losing the quarters.

0:24:44.7 Barry buss: So I knew him and Mitch Finkelstein and all those guys, but how he always... I've never forgotten how He... Because that was the first unfortunate death that I had come in on, I was only 17 when I heard about my fellow 17-year-old committed suicide, and I just thought, Why... You know, I mean, if I were him, always were, if I were him, I would just be loving life, you know, everything's perfect. How much do you credit? 'cause I'd even pick it up in the book, the bipolar stuff, I really picked up more of what I kinda grew up with with pales and Martin and all those guys, success came to me frigging easy and but... And pot was too easy to get, and.

0:25:31.5 Jack Broudy: It was sexy, all the... I played the low... You remember the cost pro celebrity turned in it. I played that at 22 years in a row. I played ones with Mel Brooks and another time with Ralph from Rose remember. So anyway, and everybody was there, right, Vinnie Mills and far, and everyone's there, and it just seemed like too easy of a time, I didn't really pick up the bipolar, I just picked up the typical... He's a great player, he's got all the town in the world, so... Why not fuck around? How to have a good time. Yeah, always kind of jealous in BSU guys because I was... I didn't really screw around like that, you did it in high school, so you were an early developer... I was a a 14. Yeah.

0:26:19.0 Barry buss: Think... I think we're gonna find out when all is said and done here, we're just on kind of the cutting edge of a public conversation about mental health and so forth, a lot of substance abuse, a lot of alcoholism, there is an underlying driving force. And whether it is a mood disorder or anxiety, sort of whatever it may be, certainly in my case, what's hard with your mind, kind of bring this up in the book where we have kind of a public life, a private life, a kind of a secret life, and public life at what everybody knows of us, or privatize our family and so forth, but the secret lives or the... You can have secret behaviors, and if you're a gambler or whatever you think you event, but eventually they come out is a lot, you can't... Or eating disorders, things like that, but if you have secret thoughts that's different 'cause you either yours and the challenges you have nothing really to compare them to, if I'm over-eating and I'm getting heavy, I can see everyone's not eating that way, it's easy to see that I'm out of out of line here a little bit, but when you're thinking the way I was thinking back then, and it wasn't so much constant, it was constant.

0:27:24.6 Barry buss: The speed of thought was concerning, and that's where drugs and alcohol really helped me slow me down, but in my matches... And I remember I was playing tag with Ken and imagine you always played Todd with Kintore was like a magnet. Every time I got a draw there, can you be right next to me, man, but... But I just remember how fast my brain was going at seven all in the third set, and it was just red-lining the whole time and I'm just... And it finally hit me, I guess, just no way these other guys are having that same experience, they just can't because there's someone I'm winning in spite of myself, and these guys are somehow are able to stay pretty cool through the whole process. So that was the first time it really hit me that, Hey, this can't be... This isn't normal. That can't be normal, but you don't... It sounds like... So I was 16, 17 years old. I wasn't about to go talk to anybody about this, like my head is just going on, if I told you what was what I was going through my mind, and then these matches, you would commit me...

0:28:18.9 Barry buss: Someone wasn't about to tell anybody. Rayet was full of shame about the whole thing, and then as I got into my 20s, then I started really starting to cycle a lot, the depressions where the real tele... That's when you literally just can't move for a couple of days, you're just sitting there staring at the wall on that stuff, you kinda keep to yourself 'cause you're just trying to... You're trying to figure it out, you're selling what's going on with me here, and then that cycling, I'm just going up and down and up and down. And just being just... You can start... You get a sense that something's not right, that other people aren't experiencing the world as you are, and it feels the behavior... So that one, I did get my... Finally get my diagnosis at 37, I was like, Whoa, okay, thank God at least there's some defining... There's some... Now I know why and maybe some of the things were happening, it wasn't the solution, let me say at least had an explanation, I didn't have the exact solution... Yeah, that was gonna take some time, but yeah, it was... So it's complicated. Yeah.

0:29:14.4 Jack Broudy: I mean, I don't know. You probably right. Like I said, I always thought you guys... And I always keep you saying You guys... Let's just say top 10 guys. I tell you guys all played unconsciously, sometimes we... And sometimes we did, you know what mean? As they say, You're playing out of your mind, you don't say they don't use that term anymore, but that was a big turn or in the zone, but I see guys played out of your minds and variably unconsciously where I was always thinking like I was the kind of guy, I start to match a little like my guy, Steve does sometimes bugs me, but I would start the match eating out of my back and and if I miss two back hands, I'd be chipping the rest of the match kindled these days, and he'll start the match with two and then by the end of the first said He's chipping and he doesn't go back to a two-hander, which always really blew my mind 'cause Steve was... He was definitely up there with you guys, I mean, he was maybe the greatest college... Maybe the greatest college player of all time, but yeah, it always bugged me about that because he had a good back and he just didn't believe in it, but I couldn't understand it, I understood how I couldn't believe in mine 'cause I was just just...

0:30:30.0 Jack Broudy: That's what I mean. I would always go to the ship and I would see you guys on big points, like pals or Graham or any of those guys, you guys would swing away... You'd go for the passe shot where I'd go for the lab.

0:30:42.9 Barry buss: You know what I want... We practice an awful lot, I think what gets lost, we played an awful lot of tennis, and the art of this is to somehow take the freedom of your practice play and then just bring that into your match play, and then just have that practice like you play Black practice to the density, and we played an unbelievable number sets back then, so we just jumping right into a tournament, it was just like practice. We were so used to going forward on big points and so forth now obviously when things got tight and that he'd be moments of tension and the matches where it wouldn't be so easy to delete it fly, 'cause when you get close to winning or just the human side of it, but we definitely practiced, like we play... And we're playing each other. So we're familiar with each other, so it was a little simpler. Back then, we were playing the same guy, same tournaments, Southern California, you're playing a guy saying Guys four or five times in a year, so you're just getting... You get comfortable with them. And so you got up, we got a fighters chance every time you're gonna go, and just how you had to bring your best game 'cause these guys could all play, you weren't gonna be able to a nurse you away through a match against with these guys, so you had to bring your out, bring some offense and a go for it, 'cause the game was a little bit more aggressive back then, I think too, there was a lot more attacking...

0:31:55.9 Barry buss: You know what I'm saying? So torturous now, the courts are slow, the guys have heavy span, the strings are different, it's just a different game, or the hard day was in the corner to corner and cutting things off and taking it early, so it was a little bit different, these guys are... They're playing in almost a different sport nowadays, it's almost a different sport with different sticks meant entirely yet, so they're just different, they have to play a different style in there, but yeah, we all have belief, it's just that there comes a certain point where were you just where you get a little French on it, and we're trying to... The more we just try to train that out of you as best you can and... It's just not that easy. Yeah, you know, I was wondering what you're gonna look like 'cause I... I said, I never met you in person, but reading your book, like I said, when people read your book, they're gonna feel like they get to know you pretty damn well, but one of my favorite... I wrote a few of my favorite lines, one of my favorite lines in the book, really, that really rung true was tennis the oscillation between unshakable belief and crippling doubt.

0:33:05.5 Jack Broudy: And I think when people... I don't know, somehow... I don't know if you remember writing that sense, but I read through your book, like I do any book, I'm kind of a big reader, and the boy, I had to stop and read that one two or three times and just thought to myself, Wow, that encompasses a whole hell of a chapter right.

0:33:23.9 Barry buss: There... That's a worthy conversation. Yeah, yeah, it is. We could spend an hour talking just about that alone, but it's amazing to me, like I said, and I think this is something people are gonna wanna hear, 'cause not everyone is a top... I would say most of us are the grinders, most of us are the journeyman, right. And there's only two guys in the finals.

0:33:46.2 Jack Broudy: And usually the same two guys are as Roger and roughly and joke image. It's always the same, it's always the same couple of people, whether it's willing or Sandy mayor or whatever, Rocco, it was always the same couple of guys at the top, but.

0:34:03.5 Barry buss: It really is amazing to me how the thought process is still pretty similar at all levels, and I think people are gonna wanna know that, because I think most tennis players think that they're unique. Yeah, I had this conversation with her college tennis friend of mine, where back in the day where you play the other six singles matches going on and everybody... When you always knew where your team was, whether your team was close to getting that fifth plan and stuff, and whether your match was gonna count or not.

0:34:34.4 Jack Broudy: In... Of course, of course. Tattoo needed five.

0:34:37.5 Barry buss: You just needed five. And there's not a single guy out there will tell you when the straight face that they weren't praying that the guy would finish to close the match out before them, 'cause they didn't wanna be the one to happened to play the deciding match, 'cause... I mean.

0:34:49.6 Jack Broudy: I've been that night machinists.

0:34:54.6 Barry buss: I think one of the things we kind of overlook in the sport is just acknowledging how stressful it is, it's not all that fun when you're in the middle of that, so it's.

0:35:03.9 Jack Broudy: A real love... Hey, it's a real bestial about... You wanna use a Rolling Stones? It's total beast of burden.

0:35:10.6 Barry buss: That's a beast of burden. There's points out there where I think when we're under sustained stress for a long time, what all people really want is that they want the stress to be overweight. Yeah, so I don't get whether you're playing a tennis match or whether you're watching a scary movie or whatever it is you're watching, it's got you on edge, you can only stay stressed for so long, you need that relief, so either that's where a lot of tanking comes in... Or you get people like, I just can't take this anymore. I wanted to over a test.

0:35:38.4 Jack Broudy: Why I hate people quit tennis after college, and most of the guys who play the seniors right now, I got guys trying to push me to play men's 65 and really hard, and I'm just not into it because I don't know if fucking deal with it again. I don't wanna feel like that, I don't wanna... But all these guys that play in the 60s, in the 50s, in the 70s, the guys who didn't play high school or juniors or college, and so they've got this... This rambunctious, Oh, let's go. I'm gonna jump rope, I'm gonna do it. And I'm like, We sit... Most of us when you finish college, you were like, Oh, thank God that right is over to... Let's have some fun.

0:36:17.5 Barry buss: Exactly, we get it out of our system when we're younger, and I marvel I were to have the Boston watch in the 85 Nationals, and these guys are FIS pumping in at on the tiebreaker and they're 85 years old and just say.

0:36:32.3 Jack Broudy: They're just built different. Man, just they were so into a... This is awesome, that's...

0:36:38.9 Barry buss: Classes have to tell you, they played a match tiebreaker where both guys had three match points to win the gold ball, them had to be... I think it ended up 13-11, there had to be 20 winners hit and this thing you guys were spectacular at down the Deeming, amazing.

0:36:55.5 Jack Broudy: They're 85 years old on a grass court, getting drunk at like an ER pays... Could they just hit any smaller ones? They.

0:37:02.4 Barry buss: Were spectacular. I can't say enough of just the level of play under the gun, me saved match points with just winner... It was amazing, they had the ball very hard, but they're just the 85, but it was just so... In Hemet, they know how to get in the right spot, they got to balls and you just like, There's no way he's getting to that. So for the top of us, the war is over, and we put our weapons down a long time ago, we came out of the bush, so some people are just wired differently, they need that, that's their life forcing... And see.

0:37:33.2 Jack Broudy: For me, it was just, it was all about college. For me, I just wanted to get some money to go to college and go to a good college. I went to Chapel Hill and then went to UCSD. And.

0:37:42.4 Barry buss: Then when I went to UCSD, that's when I met all my so-call friends, and Chapel Hill was a whole different animal. In fact, the south is so different than the west.

0:37:51.7 Jack Broudy: Yeah.

0:37:52.6 Barry buss: It's so different. Playing in the South and in the West, just a different mentality. Plus, you're not too close to Hollywood and all that stuff. You know, it's funny, I taught the guys I got to know well at UCLA or a little bit older than me, I actually did regret going to UCLA just because of the trappings of LA, and it's just super hard to call it a night and 930 and when you have to get up six training in... All of that activity is going on. Tuas, another challenge that you don't really need, or you need to be able to stay laser-focused and do some sand, gotta sacrifice a lot to make it in this game, and it's part of it and put yourself in West LA and the 80 is... It's just... Yeah, I don't know how much it's a temptation of that lifestyle is to... Especially when you're a world class times player, you know it's... And I wasn't world class, but it hit me hard too... It was just too much to handle. I mean, for starters, it was a sexy or sport, all the sellers were playing it, I mean, when you watched Colombo.

0:38:53.7 Jack Broudy: 10% of them was about the tennis pro who Rita then he gets murdered by the husband or what... I mean, that happens. Well, yeah, that's right. And we had the labs. I mentioned far before I met her many times. Super nice lady, by the way. People don't even know. I mean, she was one of the sweetest Gale. It was such a shame. She's another shame because she got caught up in the Hollywood stuff, but she was a Hollywood gal, Charlie's Angels and all, but I met her through Vinny and Martine and.

0:39:32.4 Barry buss: That whole scene. But yeah, it was such a different time. It was a sex of your sport, it was a sexy or sport. Everybody was playing it. Everyone was a outhouse.

0:39:43.2 Jack Broudy: He was nothing. Golf was nothing.

0:39:45.5 Barry buss: Yeah, it was, it was definitely a second sister... Yeah, but you built a nice house, you put a cord, it was just... What people were doing was, SWE grew up in the tennis boom, the 70s, where you're a unique time, and obviously tennis participation numbers will always be somewhat in decline from the peak of that, but if you know... We came out here in the California 19, 78, they were popping up 20 court clubs West in rolling, I was Plaza south, and they were just dropping... It was big, it was big business back then on, they all didn't survive, but Bob, you go a couple of miles and there was another 2 core facility coming up, you... It's crazy.

0:40:19.4 Jack Broudy: And now they're tearing courts down or putting in a pickle ball in their place.

0:40:23.7 Barry buss: And not even... We're not gonna talk... That's the only time we're gonna say that word, but it's not for me personally, but... Yeah, but I mean places like... He was at Hotel Del Coronado.

0:40:36.3 Jack Broudy: Yeah, remember they used to have Ben Press was there, God rest his soul. A nice guy. Really nice guy, actually. But yeah, they had 20 cords and now they have... And now they have two. Right, right.

0:40:50.4 Barry buss: Yeah.

0:40:50.6 Jack Broudy: That was a problem with tennis, you know, it just... It became such a big boom, but then people started realizing, and I think that between the hours of 11 and three, the real estate is being wasted, you made more money off a parking lot or a laundromat... Yeah, you're really gonna take 7200 square feet, two 12-year-olds spend two hours out there, is that the best use of your scarce land? It doesn't... Plus format, less than 10. Let's be fair, tennis is hard, and this is very hard to learn if you don't have a... I just started my wife a couple of years ago during covid, you never had a ball before.

0:41:22.4 Barry buss: And then she created a monster, man, she's into it now, but there's no way it's someone who is an adult who's gonna be able to just pick the game up without a coach, unless you've got a both of the money, it's just a very hard game to learn, or you gotta be terrible for a couple of years, everyone... You could even get to the point where you can complain the game, so that when you're comparing it or competing with other sports which are much simpler to... We'll say Pick up all one more time. It's one of the attractions of it, it's just you, it's... Colour of entry is very low. So Spartans is always gonna struggle a little bit in that sense, if the people who gravitate to tennis either of a parent or you got some form of kind lineage there, fortunately there's enough of us out there keeping it going, but it's... Well, I'll have a shameless plug here, it is difficult to learn by... Did you take a look by any chance.

0:42:18.7 Jack Broudy: To... I think another part about California is the whack jobs out here. I'm not here anymore, I just moved, but I still feel like I live there. I got into this guy, Rudolf Steiner.

0:42:34.3 Barry buss: Anthroposophical society, and that's what I mean, there's a lot of weird shit out in the West Coast, and this was up in San Francisco, of course.

0:42:42.1 Jack Broudy: And I went to the college there to study this guy, and I learned about the figure eight and the hips, but not in the hips, but in Mathematics, he was a mathematician, and I learned about this and I was watching agate at the time, I'm like slow motion. I said, he makes a figure eight in his hips, and then I started noticing, Oh, all the players that were a notch ahead of me, I always rotated my body, I thought pivoting was enough, but now there's... To me, a secret sauce is this small figure eight in the hips, that's what all the great athletes seem to do, so then I invented those swivels and all that, so I think it does... I will agree. It's hard to learn, but I think it could be easier. I'll tell you we... You put someone on those two swivels and you do you feed him a few balls and you tell them to swivel their feet, they'll improve so much faster, Menon of my goals is to try and save the game because I've been watching tennis go down since 1979... Right, right, right. So I think there are easier ways to play the...

0:43:44.2 Barry buss: I definitely agree with that. Yearning, wildest out there, we're letting everybody kinda do their own thing and it... And invariably, you're gonna get some... Some Ill be better than others.

0:43:55.2 Jack Broudy: Listed there was like three of us in San Diego that had all the players...

0:44:00.8 Barry buss: Right, and there was like six of us, and so Colton, all the players. And that's it. And then the other 4500 coaches you never heard of, but... Who was a Woody blocker? I used to compete against him. Angelo passage is a good friend of mine.

0:44:17.3 Jack Broudy: Yeah, yeah, angel, his kid and my kid would play doubles together, so we'd be on the same side or we'd be opposing each other 'cause they earn the finals. So I bumped into Angel a lot, but like I said, there was like a half a dozen of us who had all the kids, right, and then everyone else was grinding and hustling, it kind of reminded me of the juniors a little... I was the grinder and the juniors, but lucky for me, coaching seemed to be my thing...

0:44:42.9 Barry buss: Okay, good.

0:44:44.4 Jack Broudy: I'm a better facilitator than I am, or I guess... So let me ask you something. Yes, my music, I'm a musician by the way, I play guitar, and I've played in bands since I was 13 years old. So I have to know, I can't get there from here. I play that by Rem, and I'm like, This guy is totally... Does he play guitar in.

0:45:05.6 Barry buss: A... No, it's fascinating. I probably, I probably deserve it, or I probably know more about music for not being able to play a single note of any of you don't... Don't say to seven year for.

0:45:16.6 Jack Broudy: Its... Can you sing a... Like, I.

0:45:19.3 Barry buss: Can't sing at Lick and nor will I even dry. No, I just know there's something about the... There's a tone to the day, there's a ton of fish is a tone kind of on beyond music, and so I just got in, there was a fascination with just the bands and the venues in the rooms, and just the whole scene, and then once I got into the Dead scene in the 80s and stuff, I just felt at home. I said, Wow, these are my people. I say, I always felt they had... They had something to teach me, these people seem to have something I didn't have, and it was a freedom of spirit in nature. And just something about that was enormously attractive to me, and just before I knew it, I was... I started going and I haven't stopped. I took my wife, I say my wife to see fish some years ago, and she looked over at me, he goes, I... Do you ever hope you don't spend nights alone wondering why you're single, taking your days to this music like...

0:46:17.5 Jack Broudy: Okay, so my wife will go see Dave Mason, she'll see people like that, she will not see anything close to the dad, she's like, Yeah, well, they just go on these rambling things or 10 minutes in the area. It's not for everyone, but there are 60 root-off Steiner colleges throughout the world. So he's a very interesting guy, and he talks about how when you pluck a guitar string, it moves in a figure eight.

0:46:42.4 Barry buss: And.

0:46:42.8 Jack Broudy: The fastest animal in the world is the hummingbird, and it's because it's the only bird whose wings moving a figure eight. So I got into this figure eight men started watching Agastya. Galway, you said that was a big deal, 'cause to me, I read the book several times and it helped me for a little while, and then it sort of faded away, talk about not fade away. It sort of faded away and became more fluff, and then what I did with my stuff with this rummy stuff, Rudolf Steiner stuff was trying to take the inner game and turn it into the outer game, so it wasn't so much about relaxing, but if you understand that the figure eight is the first move you make is a baby rolling over in your crabbing figure at is inherently in you. Now you can really get into that inner game because you have... You understand the movement. So that was my only issue with Galway. It became a little fluffy for me.

0:47:44.1 Barry buss: I think the language is so much somewhat opaque, the concepts are not... They're kinda kinda Eastern, but they're not anecdotal enough, it's almost like I was reading as philosophy book in many... Or psychology book, but I think part of his analysis is pretty accurate in the sense of there is a... Particularly when you get in the interference part, we're all trying to quell the interference, we can never do it perfectly, but it is something that will always take away from performance, and I just... When I hit me when I was struggling at that time, and I just... Memento High School Library and was trying to find something on sports and Psychology, and it was the book that they had, and I just remember opening to a random page and it just taught me was the simple drill. I just try to keep your mind quiet, which was exactly the opposite of everything that was happening for when I was competing, and it just had a noticeably positive effect in the sense it just allowed me to focus much, much easier. I kept me significantly calmer, wasn't as reactive, I could kind... Like things just kind of pass by, but it takes...

0:48:49.0 Barry buss: There's a famous quote from throw, if you wanna create a path in the field, you have to walk that path over and over and over and over again to get it to harden and be a path, and it's no different with thinking if you want certain thoughts to permeate your daily thinking and you're... Particularly in tennis, you're Mashable, you gotta think those thoughts over and over and over again, kind of what you said, we did a little bit and then we kind of fade out of it. I think if you can incorporate it as a practice, a mindfulness practice, through consistent practice, like meditating and doing it often and regularly, I do all that stuff up... Yeah, and listen, it's hard and listen, we're in the Western world and pace is fasting and things are going, so it's not that easy to have that stuff by your side. I come back to it as often as I can, and it does help me in my day-to-day life. And keeping me centered and grounded, but as a tennis player, I've used it frequently with other players, especially when my more panicky players, the ones that are just so reactive to stuff, you've got to be able to focus on one thing where there's the ball or you're breathing or whatever it is, and get your mind a quiet and allow you allow your body to do what you're trained it to do, and I think that's really where a lot of his success came from.

0:50:01.9 Jack Broudy: I think it was so apropos for the time. Let's face it, his book was like smoking a joint base, it.

0:50:09.4 Barry buss: Was exactly... There's a lot of six, there was a lot of 60-70, so it was on a New Age before new ages of thing was, but it was different, but it also was applicable and it still... Listen, there's a lot of the... You take five or 10, you take 10 super thoughts out of there and apply them today, and without any... And you have a lot of adherence to... There's a lot of it. It's held up over time, I think. Yeah.

0:50:30.2 Jack Broudy: And I'll bet you read some of the others I read back and I wasn't even thinking, this wasn't even in my notes, but I remember reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle made.

0:50:40.0 Barry buss: Robert Percy.

0:50:41.4 Jack Broudy: That's right. And the Peaceful Warrior send... What was the other on... Jonathan Livingston Segal, remember that or.

0:50:49.9 Barry buss: Suri was a big person fan, and I even took Tom back in the late sandstone person, even today, where I talk to kids and we were just kind of on this conversation where if you... If you say you wanna be a professional tennis player and say, Well, yeah, what do you think of when you think professional tennis player? And most people think romantically, they'll think I'll travel and prize and fame and fortune, and celebrity, and then the classical thinker will think, Okay, it's non-stop at sacrifice, it's pain, it's losing, it sits travel, it's constant on the road, and it's a grind. So you have this romantic thinker in the classical thinker, which is what he kind cross country motorcycle analogy that he brings, and what do you think about on the long road trip, you're thinking is a beautiful views or is it you're gonna have a store as bugs in your face all the time. So it depends on what kind of mind you have, do you have a classical mind or romantic point and... So.

0:51:50.8 Jack Broudy: I'm pretty sure I had a romantic one... Yeah, we all have it could have a little bit of both. You don't wanna be... You gonna be realistic about your things, you know, I mean, I'll give it a private example, you can... When official announce a tour, my head immediately goes, Let's go, we're going for a week one, we're going here, here you go here, that's my romantic... Get my main... Then the classical side of comings are waiting time now, you got a job, you got a family. People who watch this went from the.

0:52:14.7 Barry buss: Couch...

0:52:18.2 Jack Broudy: That's a really good analogy. That's funny. Yeah, people don't realize is, I played the watch tour. You remember that one? Down in Florida? Yeah, yeah. So for guys like me, me and these two guys I met, we stayed in one bedroom hotel and people were sleeping on the floor, and I would generally lose in the second round, third round to someone who didn't speak English...

0:52:47.8 Barry buss: Right, right. And that was the realistic part, and I only could take it about six months and then I was done, I said, Okay. And then lucky for me, my coaching being in So Cal, a few people come your way, and I was a good enough coach to keep them until my Steiner days and then my Steiner days really put me in a whole new level because it was really fascinating stuff I think you, of all people, maybe I'll send you a couple of links of some books, I think you dig this guy who of.

0:53:18.9 Jack Broudy: You know who he is too. He invented by biodynamic farming.

0:53:24.3 Barry buss: He invented the wall to our schools. He started the Waldorf Schools.

0:53:28.7 Jack Broudy: He did all that pain, you're with me what you stand and you love.

0:53:32.0 Barry buss: That. I always got room for another Eccentric Genius out there...

0:53:35.8 Jack Broudy: Yes. He's a renaissance man. All that stuff is Diner. Even a dull simmer, he invented that, I believe he... And he created the dulcimer, which is what Jon... That's what Joni Mitchell used to play. So he's quite a guy. He's quite a guy. Yeah, I'll send you some of this stuff, I think you would just be blown away. Absolutely, but he's like The Galway on steroids, he takes all that fluffy stuff and put some rationale behind it, how do you achieve... How do you look like a tree blowing in the wind and the branches make that big... Figure it. How has that done? And he... He gets down to brass tacks. That's.

0:54:14.0 Barry buss: Cool, and it might even help you with your tennis coaching because this guy really... He changed my world and he's been dead for 100 years.

0:54:21.6 Jack Broudy: Know it's been an hour, but I'd love to do it again sometime if you're into it, because I have another dozen questions to ask... Yeah.

0:54:29.1 Barry buss: Okay, no, let's do it. Yeah, let's get another time and I totally... Mecha, me on. And yeah, it's been a real good... We'll be texting you. Okay, man, appreciate you.

0:54:41.0 Jack Broudy: Thanks a lot. Have a great day. Thanks for. So.

0:54:43.0 Barry buss: Appreciate it, oo.

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