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When we’re not drilling, we’re studying the psychology of tennis. We take classes on mental toughness, positive thinking, and visualization. We’re taught to close our eyes and picture ourselves winning Wimbledon, hoisting that gold trophy above our heads. Then we go to aer-obics, or weight training, or out to the crushed-shell track, where we run until we drop.

The constant pressure, the cutthroat competition, the total lack of adult supervision—it slowly turns us into animals. A kind of jungle law prevails. It’s Karate Kid with rackets, Lord of the Flies with forehands. One night two boys get into an argument in the barracks. A white boy and an Asian boy. The white boy uses a racial slur, then walks out. For a full hour the Asian boy stands in the middle of the barracks, stretching, shaking out his legs and arms, rolling his neck. He runs through a progression of judo moves, then carefully, methodically tapes his ankles. When the white boy returns, the Asian boy spins, whipsaws his leg through the air, and unleashes a kick that shatters the white boy’s jaw.

The shocking part is that neither boy gets expelled, which greatly adds to the overall sense of anarchy.

Another two boys have a low-grade, long-running feud. It’s mostly taunts, teases, minor stuff—until one boy ups the ante. For days he urinates and defecates into a bucket. Then, late one night, he bursts into the other boy’s barracks and dumps the bucket on his head.

The jungle feeling, the constant threat of violence and ambush, is reinforced, just before lights out, by the sound of drums in the distance.

I ask one of the boys: What the hell is that?

Oh. That’s just Courier. He likes to pound a drum set his parents sent him.

Who?

Jim Courier. From Florida.

Within days I get my first glimpse of the warden, founder, and owner of the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. He’s fiftysomething, but looks 250, because tanning is one of his obsessions, along with tennis and getting married. (He’s got five or six ex-wives, no one is quite sure.) He’s soaked up so much sun, baked himself so deeply beneath so many ultraviolet sunlamps, he’s permanently altered his pigmentation. The one portion of his face that isn’t the color of beef jerky is his mustache, a black, meticulously trimmed quasi-goatee, only without the chin hair, so it looks like a permanent frown. I see Nick striding across the compound, an angry red man in wraparound shades, berating someone who jogs alongside, trying to keep pace, and I pray that I never have to deal with Nick directly. I watch as he slides into a red Ferrari and zooms away, leaving a dorsal fin of dust in his wake.

A boy tells me it’s our job to keep Nick’s four sports cars washed and polished.

Our job? That’s bullshit.

Tell it to the judge.

I ask some of the older boys, some of the veterans, about Nick. Who is he? What makes him tick? They say he’s a hustler, a guy who makes a very nice living off tennis, but he doesn’t love the game or even know it all that well. He’s not like my father, captivated by the angles and numbers and beauty of tennis. Then again, he’s just like my father. He’s captivated by cash. He’s a guy who flunked the exam for Navy pilots, dropped out of law school, then landed one day on the idea of teaching tennis. Stepped in shit. Through a bit of hard work, and a ton of luck, he’s turned himself into this image of a tennis titan, mentor to prodigies. You can learn a few things from him, the other kids say, but he’s no miracle worker.

He doesn’t sound like a guy who can make me stop hating the game.

· · ·

I’M PLAYING A PRACTICE MATCH, putting a fairly good whooping on a kid from the East Coast, when I become aware that Gabriel, one of Nick’s henchmen, is behind me, staring.

After a few more points Gabriel stops the match. He asks, Has Nick seen you play yet?

No, sir.

He frowns, walks off.

Later, over the loudspeaker that carries across all the courts of the Bollettieri Academy, I hear:

Andre Agassi to the indoor supreme court! Andre Agassi, report to the indoor supreme court—immediately!

I’ve never been to the indoor supreme court, and I can’t imagine there’s a good reason for my being summoned now. I run there and find Gabriel and Nick, standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting.

Gabriel says to Nick: You’ve got to see this kid hit.

Nick strolls off into the shadows. Gabriel gets on the other side of the net. He puts me through drills for half an hour. I sneak occasional glances over my shoulder: I can vaguely make out the silhouette of Nick, concentrating, stroking his mustache.

Hit some backhands, Nick says. His voice is like sandpaper on Velcro.

I do as I’m told. I hit backhands.

Now hit some serves.

I serve.

Come to the net.

I come to the net.

That’s enough.

He steps forward. Where are you from?

Las Vegas.

What’s your national ranking?

Number three.

How do I reach your father?

He’s at work. He works nights at the MGM.

How about your mother?

At this hour? She’s probably at home.

Come with me.

We walk slowly to his office, where he asks for my home number. He’s sitting in a tall black leather chair, turned almost away from me. My face feels redder than his face looks. He dials and speaks to my mother. She gives him my father’s number. He dials again.

He’s yelling. Mr. Agassi! Nick Bollettieri here! Right, right. Yes, well, listen to me. I’m going to tell you something very important. Your boy has more talent than anybody I’ve ever seen come through this academy. That’s right. Ever. And I’m going to take him to the top.

What the hell is he talking about? I’m only here for three months. I’m leaving here in sixty-four days. Is Nick saying he wants me to stay here? Live here—forever? Surely my father won’t go for that.

Nick says: That’s right. No, that’s no issue. I’m going to make it so you won’t pay a penny.

Andre can stay, free of charge. I’m tearing up your check.

My heart sinks. I know my father can’t resist anything free. My fate is sealed.

Nick hangs up and spins toward me in his chair. He doesn’t explain. He doesn’t console.

He doesn’t ask if this is what I want. He doesn’t say a thing besides: Go back out to the courts.

The warden has tacked several years to my sentence, and there’s nothing to be done but pick up my hammer and return to the rock pile.

EVERY DAY AT THE BOLLETTIERI ACADEMY starts with the stench. The surrounding hills are home to several orange-processing plants, which give off a toxic smell of burned orange peels. It’s the first thing that hits me when I open my eyes, a reminder that this is real, I’m not back in Vegas, I’m not in my deuce-court bed, dreaming. I’ve never cared much for orange juice, but after the Bollettieri Academy I’ll never be able to look at a gallon of Minute Maid again.

As the sun clears the marshes, burning off the morning mist, I hurry to beat the other boys into the shower, because only the first boys get hot water. Actually, it’s not a shower, just a tiny nozzle that shoots a narrow jet of painful needles, which hardly gets you wet, let alone clean. Then we all rush to breakfast, served in a cafeteria so chaotic, it’s like a mental hospital where the nurses forgot to hand out the meds. But you’d better get there early or it might be worse. The butter will be filled with everyone else’s crumbs, the bread will be gone, the plastic eggs will be ice.

Straight from breakfast we board a bus for school, Bradenton Academy, twenty-six minutes away. I divide my time between two academies, both prisons, but Bradenton Academy makes me more claustrophobic, because it makes less sense. At the Bollettieri Academy, at least I’m learning something about tennis. At Bradenton Academy, the only thing I learn is that I’m stupid.