Denise Rosch reporting
It's a personal look at a sports hero many fans thought they knew. Andre Agassi's autobiography "Open" hit bookstores Monday. In it, he talks about snorting crystal meth and hating the game that made him famous.
"I finally had time. I finally had time to look back at my life and make sense of it. 'cause I didn't know myself."
He's a man who's lived nearly his entire life in the spotlight. A world tennis champ, philanthropist, and now, author. At 39 years old, Andre Agassi is every bit the picture of success.
But he says it came at a huge price.
"I grew up in a house where if you won or lost determined if you were all going to eat dinner together or if everybody was going to grab their plate and just go in their own space because if was just a heavy pressure."
In his newly released autobiography, Agassi talks about being forced as a young child to hit hundreds of tennis balls a day by his father. Later he attended a tennis camp he called a prison.
The bottom line is it was a game he hated.
"A lot of people live a life that they don't want to live, that they hate; they do a job that they hate but they find reasons to do that. And I slowly started finding my reasons. And tennis gave me my school and tennis gave me my wife. And then I felt the scales get balanced and my love really started to grow."
We caught up with Agassi Monday morning leaving the KNPR studios after another round of questions about his book. Those questions included inquires into the bomb-shell admission, on page 243, about crystal meth use.
The public criticism, he says, is no surprise.
"The anger and disappointment is clear but I've spent many years being angry and disappointed at myself. "I think role models teach you two things: I think they teach you what to do and what not to do."
Agassi told us the one person who won't be reading the book is his dad. His father saying there's simply no reason to. Then again, that's not who "Open" is for. On the dedication page, it's his wife and two children who are mentioned.
"What I would say I want for my children is ultimately peace of heart. I want them to have options, I want them to have choices. To choose something and care about it deeply so they can discover themselves through it."
That's what Agassi didn't have until much later in life, opening a school in west Las Vegas and helping raising millions for children's charities.
"I would change everything if I could and I would change nothing. It's been a powerful journey.
