THE FUTURE OF TENNIS ON POT

by David Arthur Walters

 
 
Scandalous information has surfaced over what some folks consider to be a superficial
flap over what new superficies the courts at Miami Beach Flamingo Park Tennis
Center should have. The contest was ostensibly between players who like their courts
hard and fast, and players who prefer theirs soft and slow. The ball bounces higher off
the soft courts, giving the player more time to  make moves and play the ball. The
Softs say more time to play the ball leads to greater overall skill development. And
this is why, or so they say, that the players from South America and Europe, who play
mostly on soft courts, can kick ass in America. Hard courts were favored by American
pragmatists over soft or “clay” courts because less maintenance is required. And it is
said that they have a more regular or “neutral” playing surface. A hard court
traditional gradually developed with the help of certain pros who preferred them. Alas
for those who love to play hard and fast, there are far more injuries on hard courts.
 
The Fivers, a faction of the Hards in Miami Beach, is demanding that at least five of
the new court surfaces at formerly famous Flamingo Park Tennis Center be hard. All
seventeen courts are presently soft ("clay") - the Center had five hard courts for a
spell, but they went  virtually unused and were removed, but now the Fivers want
them back. The Fivers claim to represent the true interests of youth, in particular the
girls and boys tennis teams at Miami Beach High School. Among their faction are,
among other distinguished local personages, Miami Beach High School principal
Roseann Dr. Sidener; her friend City Commissioner Deede Weithorn; Deede's
brother-in-law Victor Weithorn, who is general manager of GSI (Green Square Inc)
Bollettieri, the firm holding the contract for the management of the city's tennis courts
at Flamingo Park; and  James Bollettieri, the de facto consulting expert to the city on
the issue, son of famed tennis pro Nick Bollettieri. Another staunch Fiver is James
Bollettieri's friend, Jimmy Resnick, son of the late real estate mogul and former
Miami Beach commissioner of Abe Resnick. Incidentally, the  13,000 square foot Abe
Resnick Youth Resource Center - Police Athletic League building near the  tennis
center houses after school programs and the Police Athletic League gym. Mr. Resnick
has his own, hard court at home, and does not play on the Flamingo courts. He 
pressed for five hard courts at Flamingo, in an overall increase of the ratio of soft-to-
hard courts in the general vicinity from the existing 27:11 (27 Soft 11 Hard) to 22:28
(22 Soft 28 Hard).
 
Americans are a compromising people, so we also have the Mixers. The Mixers say
the Softs and the Hards should be integrated at each location. That is, some courts
should be soft and some hard at Flamingo Park, instead of all soft, as they are now
and as they were for nearly fifty years of Orange Bowl International Championships
tournaments - the tournament moved away, to Crandon Park, when maintenance
deteriorated. After speaking with Victor Weithorn at the Flamingo courts, I joined the
Mixers because compromise seemed, as he said, "reasonable."
 
Gary V. Pigott, Senior Director of Athletics for the Florida High School Athletic
Association, happens to be a Mixer. He was asked for a philosophical statement or
words of wisdom on the subject, and responded on June 22, 2010: "I would just say it
'makes sense' to me to offer both tennis court surfaces to all the tennis players that will
benefit by playing at this new facility.  After gathering all the data, the decision-
makers made what they believe is in the best interest of all the citizens of Miami
Beach."
 
Of course philosophers have debated at great length on the nature of reason and sense
and the best interest of all those involved. I had planned to draft a 12,000 word
excursus on that very subject but an investigator interrupted my train of thought when
he sent me a June 7, 1987 New York Times article stating that Victor Weithorn had
been implicated and arrested in a major drug bust. One Eugene J. Rondazzo was
arrested in Howard Beach in Queens. A telephone conversation on a public telephone
had been overheard, wherein it was stated that ten pounds of cocaine was coming in
from two guys in Miami: "The Florida men were identified as Victor Weithorn, 40, of
Miami Beach and Fabian Diez, 33, of Miami."
 
Coincidentally, another source, who wishes to remain anonymous because he fears
retaliation, sent me a long email he said he had sent to city officials,  after taking
precautions to protect his identity, asserting alleged violations of Green Square Inc.'s
contact with the city to manage the courts. He also mentioned the arrest:
 
"Should Victor Weithorn a convicted felon, inmate number: 26062-053 – (Federal
Case: USA vs. Randazzo, Docket number: 1:1987mj00703 filed 06/06/1987) be the
day-to-day manager as well as a principal of Greensquare a largely all cash basis
business providing goods and services to the Miami Beach residents?"
 
In addition, he repeatedly alleged that tennis pro James Bollettieri had been seen
smoking marijuana in the parking lot.
 
"Jim Bollettieri is routinely seen smoking marijuana at both Miami Beach tennis
facilities." And "Moral or Improper Use – Jim Bollettieri (Greensquare Principal) has
often been observed smoking marijuana at the public tennis facility." And "Why does
the city continually overlook that Jim Bollettieri smokes marijuana in the parking lot
and in plain sight of the children at the public facilities he has been entrusted to
manage?"
 
As we know very well, people feel strongly about marijuana use, and a strong faction
believes in its therapeutic value hence advances its decriminalization - marijuana has
been used for therapeutic effects for about 10,000 years, and probably long before
recorded history. Pot is a popular drug in South Beach where Flamingo Park is
located, and prominent persons have been sighted smoking pot at parties all over
South Florida -  Coconut Grove is still a favorite haunt of potheads.
 
Pot is also smoked frequently and openly at Flamingo Park's paddle courts near the
tennis center and kiddie playground, and alcohol is also  openly consumed there in
front of young children, as a normal activity among a certain sort of people. Once in a
while someone reports it to the police. The level of toleration for such activities is
relatively high. Flamingo Park like other parks has its moral controversies.
Fortunately for civilization, parks are by no means entirely a return to feral nature.
The police department was recently taken to task for alleged intolerance towards gays,
who have a long history of hooking up in the park - cops were accused of busting
heads. Of course South Beach is a famed gay locus, and some gays insist there should
be a park for them to turn tricks and otherwise have their trysts in, while other  gays
say that sort of thing should be kept indoors if done at all. Many gays think they are
being pushed off South Beach by the kind of culture the city administration strives to
attract., but that is not entirely true. The New Times broke a story recently over the
allegedly discriminatory firing of a popular black manager at the Police Athletic
League's youth gym a few yards from the tennis center, and his replacement by a
famous gay porno star. It was correctly said that a person's sexual orientation is not an
indicator of a tendency to sex predation, so the kids in the gym and adjacent children’s
center were just as safe as before.
 
Now those in favor of homosexuality refer to "bigoted" opponents as "homophobes",
and we hear potheads call the opposition to their smoking habits "hysterics - having to
do with the womb, the supposed irrational origin of female emotional outbursts
instead of the usual male cool and calm rationality. Homosexuality is no longer illegal
and is not considered immoral. And it is an valid open question if pot smoking is
immoral even though it remains illegal. The question here is whether pot smoking is
conducive to tennis playing. Kids smoke cigarettes and drink beers before the reach
legal age: they want to be like grown ups. Maybe they will smoke more pot if they see
their teachers taking tokes. Perhaps there will be matches between tennis pros stoned
on pot and tennis pros who do not touch the stuff.
 
I personally do not think pot is conducive to effective performance of any kind,
including tennis although I have not consulted with stoned tennis players. But I base
that on my own experience. I inhaled a ton of pot during the late 60s and early 70s -
the Columbian brand was best back then. I think it helped me creatively, and  smoking
it certainly chilled me out to being cool instead of giving vent to my raging hormones
in the jungle. But I know for a fact that I did not function well while stoned - my body
was sluggish and my mind muddled, so I gave it up. Maybe I should have taken up
tennis instead of modern dance. All that was many years ago, but I must carry the
signs of my youthful indiscretion: I visited the late A.C. Weinstein at the mayor's
office, and the first thing he said was, "I see you are very passionate, waving your
arms around. You smoke pot, don't you?"
 
That is my perspective on the subject of marijuana, and I know it's not the only one. I
know two kids who graduated high school with honors; they smoked the best pot
around, supplied by their dad, and especially loved it when studying calculus. I know
a famous modern dancer who used to smoke pot before performances, stay on count
and give marvelous performances. Still my last best friend in Miami Beach, who
dumped me because I live in the drug-, alcohol- and crime-ridden South Beach ghetto
known as Seventh Heaven, insisted vehemently over her wine that pot leads to hard
drugs, and wants to call the police at the pungent smell of the stuff. She might be
right, but I don't believe it. In my opinion alcohol is the drug that does the most
damage and leads to other drug abuses.
 
However that may be, the City of Miami Beach contract with GSI Bollettieri requires
background checks and drug screening of it principals, so I made a public records
request with the City Clerk of Miami Beach for those checks and screenings, if any.
And I emailed City Manager Jorge Gonzalez and his assistant Hilda Fernandez,
asking them if they had responded to the anonymous email asserting drug use and a
criminal record, not to hurt anyone's reputation but to expose any bad management on
the part of the city's administration.
 
I personally believe that, whatever one's background, one should obtain a good legal
job, and that an arrest and/or conviction record does not mean that a person should be
condemned to criminality for his livelihood. And sports keeps people busy and off the
streets. But employment law provides guidelines for discrimination, and I asked the
City Manager to let me know what our great city's process is on the issue. As for drug
use, it is illegal, and some parents do not approve of their kids being around role
models who use drugs, so I want to know if Jim Bollettieri was asked by city officials
about the alleged use and given a drug screening.
 
While researching the famous tennis pro Nick Bollettieri, I ran into a book review of
Andre Agassi's autobiography, OPEN, which included the subject of tennis and drug
use:
 
"At the age of 12, Andre traveled to Australia with a team of elite young players. For
each tournament he won, he got a beer as a reward. Then in the seventh grade he was
shipped off to the Bollettieri Academy in Florida, where his tennis flourished, but his
life turned feral. Drinking hard liquor and smoking dope, he wore an earring, eyeliner
and a Mohawk. Nobody objected as long as he won matches. The academy, in
Agassi's words, was 'Lord of the Flies with forehands.' Since the press and the tennis
community still regard Nick Bollettieri as a seer and an innovator whose academy
spawned dozens of similar training facilities, Agassi's critical opinion of him may
shock the ill-informed. But in fact, Bollettieri is the paradigmatic tennis coach: that is,
a man of no particular aptitude or experience and no training at all to deal with
children." (Excerpt from Michael Mewshaw’s review)
 
As coincidence would have it, I was in Queens at the time the drug bust noted above
occurred, and I remember very well that cocaine had powdered the entire city. I was
not in the drug trade, I was a working stiff, but I was acquainted with several people
in the neighborhood who were drug dealers and mobsters. And I was on the streets of
Chicago as a teenager, and I knew some small fry in the outfit. I even met Sam on
Rush Street, who told me the life was not for me, and lectured me on keeping my nose
clean. So I can sense the life when it is around me, get a hunch that a person has such
a history when I meet him, just like A.C. Weinstein intuited that I had smoked pot.
 
I would not be surprised to learn that people involved in the tennis profession might
have been in the drug pipeline or even connected to made men who lived or liked to
hang out in Florida.   The mother of one of my best friends, may he rest in peace,
married into the Lansky family, so he had a few tales to tell of his boyhood
experiences - he had nothing to do with crime, however, and was an American hero
and worked for a police department. Whether or not the old timers still around are
squeaky clean now, I don't know. When I first met Victor Weithorn at Flamingo Park
Tennis Court, and politely asked him a question, I thought I was encountering a tough
guy, and not some accountant who gave up numbers for tennis.  Indeed, I rejoiced
because I thought he worked for the city and was confirming my opinion that lots of
city officials are really hoodlums at heart. But when I played tough back, he came
around and briefed me on his perspective on the soft versus hard issue. I certainly do
not have it in for him or for Jim Bollettieri. I am not out to ruin their game down here.
If Jim sued me for libel, I'd have to dig up the video. If he offered me a  joint in a
private setting, I might take a puff, and then again, I might not - who knows what one
will do in a situation like that? I am just interested in the truth.
 
As I indicated in my 'Prologue to The Future of Tennis at Flamingo Park,' my
introduction to the matches between the Softs and Hards and Mixers at Flamingo is a
result of the way I was confronted by officials within the City Administration. They
have a prodigious amount of power to wield, especially given the fact that the
Commission is just part time. They seem squeaky clean, but their attitude, no matter
how sophisticated, seems to betray them. I believe they have been in office far too
long. I may be wrong, but I believe there is something very seamy growing under the
surface of their home court. More on that later, hopefully.
 
 Miami Beach
June 22, 2010