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I tell J.P. he seems saintly to me. Gandhi-like, void of all bitterness. His eyes, though damaged by years of working in the harsh glare of the prison’s lime quarry, are filled with wisdom.

His eyes say that he’s figured something out, something essential.

I babble as he fixes me with those eyes and shakes my hand and tells me he admires my game.

We follow him into a great hall, where a formal dinner is served. Brooke and I are seated at Mandela’s table. Brooke sits on my right, Mandela on her right. Throughout the meal he tells stories. I have many questions, but I don’t dare interrupt him. He talks about Robben Island, where he was held for eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. He talks about winning over a few of the guards. As a special treat, they would sometimes let him walk to the edge of a small lake with a fishing pole, to catch his own dinner. He smiles at the memory, almost nostalgic.

After dinner Mandela stands and gives a stirring talk. His theme: we must all care for one another—this is our task in life. But also we must care for ourselves, which means we must be careful in our decisions, careful in our relationships, careful in our statements. We must manage our lives carefully, in order to avoid becoming victims. I feel as if he’s speaking directly to me, as if he’s aware that I’ve been careless with my talent and my health.

He talks about racism, not just in South Africa but around the world. It’s nothing but ignor-ance, he says, and education is the only remedy. In prison, Mandela spent his few free hours educating himself. He created a kind of university, and he and his fellow prisoners were professors to each other. He survived the loneliness of constant confinement by reading; he especially loved Tolstoy. One of the harshest punishments his guards devised was taking away his right to study for four years. Again his words seem to shimmer with personal relevance. I think of the work Perry and I have undertaken in Vegas, our charter school, and I feel invigor-ated. Also embarrassed. For the first time in many years I’m acutely aware of my lack of education. I feel the weight of this lack, the misfortune of it. I see it as a crime in which I’ve been complicit. I think of how many thousands in my hometown are victims of this crime right now, deprived of an education, unaware how much they’re losing.

Finally, Mandela talks about the road he’s traveled. He talks about the difficulty of all human journeys—and yet, he says, there is clarity and nobility in just being a journeyer. When he stops speaking and takes his chair I know that my journey, compared with his, is nothing, and yet that’s not his point. Mandela is saying that every journey is important, and that no journey is impossible.

Bidding Mandela goodbye, I’m magnetized. I’m pointed in the right direction. A friend later shows me a passage in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Death in the Family, in which a woman deep in mourning thinks:

Now I am more nearly a grown member of the human race … she thought that she had never before had a chance to realize the strength human beings have, to endure; she loved and revered all those who had ever suffered, even those who had failed to endure.

This is close to what I feel as I leave Mandela. This is what I think when the helicopter lifts away from his compound. I love and revere those who suffer, who have ever suffered. I am now more nearly a grown member of the human race.

God wants us to grow up.

NEW YEAR’S EVE, the last hours of this dreadful year, 1997. Brooke and I throw another New Year’s party, and the next morning I wake early. I pull the covers over my head, then remember that I scheduled a practice with a kid on the tour, Vince Spadea. I decide to cancel.

No. I yell at myself. You cannot cancel. You’re not that person anymore. You’re not going to start 1998 by oversleeping and canceling a practice.

I force myself out of bed and meet Spadea. Even though it’s only practice, we both want it.

He turns it into a battle, which I appreciate, especially when I win. Walking off the court, I feel winded but strong. The old kind of strong.

This is going to be my year, I tell Spadea—1998 is my year.

Brooke comes with me to the 1998 Australian Open and watches me dispatch my first three opponents, and unfortunately watches as I face Alberto Berasategui, from Spain. I go up two sets to love, then unaccountably, impossibly, for no reason, I lose. Berasategui is a nasty opponent, but still, I had him. It’s an unthinkable loss, one of the few times I’ve ever lost a match when ahead two sets to none. Is this a detour in the comeback or a dead end?

I go to San Jose and play well. I meet Pete in the final. He seems glad to have me back, glad to see me again on the other side, as if he’s missed me. I have to admit, I’ve missed him too. I win, 6–2, 6–4, and toward the end, part of him seems to be pulling for me. He knows what I’m attempting, how far I have to go.

I tease him in the locker room about how easy it was to beat him.

How does it feel to lose to someone outside the top hundred?

I’m not too worried about it, he says. It’s not going to happen again.

Then I tease him about recent reports of his personal life. He’s broken up with the law student and he’s said to be dating an actress.

Bad move, I tell him.

The words catch us both off guard.

In the media room, reporters ask me about Pete and Marcelo Ríos, who are dueling for the number one rank: Which of them do you think will ultimately be number one?

Neither.

Nervous laughter.

I think I’m going to be number one.

Raucous laughter.

No. Really. I mean it.

They stare, then dutifully write my insane prediction in their notebooks.

In March I go to Scottsdale and win my second straight tournament. I beat Jason Stolten-berg, from Australia. A classic Aussie, he’s solid, steady, with an enviable all-around game that forces opponents to execute. He’s a good gut check for me, a good test of my nerves, and I pass. Anyone who crosses me right now is going to have to deal with something they don’t want to deal with.

I go to Indian Wells and beat Rafter, but lose to a young phenom named Jan-Michael Gambill. They say he’s the best of the young bucks coming up. I look at him and wonder if he knows what lies ahead, if he’s ready—if anyone can possibly be ready.

I go to Key Biscayne. I want to win, I’m crazy to win. It’s not like me to want a win this badly. What I normally feel is a desire not to lose. But warming up before my first-rounder, I tell myself I want this, and I realize precisely why. It’s not about my comeback. It’s about my team. My new team, my real team. I’m playing to raise money and visibility for my school.

After all these years I’ve got what I’ve always wanted, something to play for that’s larger than myself and yet still closely connected to me. Something that bears my name but isn’t about me. The Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy.

At first I didn’t want my name on the school. But friends persuaded me that my name can bring cachet and credibility. My name might make raising money easier. Perry chooses the word Academy, and it’s not until later that I appreciate the way this forever links my school to my past, to Bradenton Academy and the Bollettieri Academy, my childhood prisons.

I DON’T HAVE MANY FRIENDS IN LOS ANGELES, and Brooke has countless friends, so most nights find her out being sociable and me at home, alone.

Thank God for J.P. He lives in Orange County, so it’s easy enough for him to drive north now and then, sit with me by the fire, smoke a cigar, and talk about life. His pastoring days seem like ancient history, but during our fireside talks it feels as if he’s speaking to me from an invisible pulpit. Not that I mind. I like being his solitary congregation, his flock of one. In early 1998 he covers all the big topics. Motivation, inspiration, legacy, destiny, rebirth. He helps me sustain the sense of mission I felt in Mandela’s presence.