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Pelé's story
No, that's not the Pelé you're thinking of. This is a tennis player who got his nickname after the greatest football player of all time. Did he ever made the headlines or something? No, he didn't. Maybe a small note somewhere, but I wouldn't know.
So why am I telling his story? Judge for yourselves after you read it. I think I should, and I feel the readers here might the best ones to read this. I did not dig up after details, I wrote everything from memory, and maybe I'll miss here and there, but I won't miss the bottom line, whatever it is.
Pelé was my tennis teacher in the begining of the 80's, in a town called Florianópolis, capital of the Brazilian state Santa Catarina. If you know your tennis trivia, you'll recognize the birthplace of a three times Roland Garros champion. For some odd reason, there were good clay courts there, and in an area of around 20 square kilometers, there were three good places to play, one of them where I lived as a child, a place called Carvoeira. The other two were clubs called Elase and Astel, where Kuerten learned to play.
Pelé was in charge of the two courts on Carvoeira. He would do everything, from maintenance to teaching children and adults. He taught me, and I was damn good. A head case, but damn good. Always playing with kids 2 or three years older than me, that until I was twelve years old, when I started to think of other things and slowly get away from tennis. Pelé was a great teacher, and a great player. He was short, really short, around 1,65 meters, with a big black-power haircut. And he could open bottles with his teeth. His real name was "Lindomir", and, believe me, that is a strange name. In Portuguese, strange names immediately tells everyone from what social stratum you came from. Anyway, just a few people knew his real name.
But he would simply beat anyone around, short or tall, young or old. All other teachers were simply no match for him. Fast and skilled, he could hit the ball very hard when he wanted, on the racquets that he strung himself. And, back then, he already knew the "mental" part of the game, in a way I would only see people talking about 10 or 15 years later. I still remember him telling me to talk to myself, not only for stimulus, but also for advice, in an impatient, pushing tone.
When he was young he won the state championship, and was invited to play in a national championship in the following months. But, one day before he would travel to São Paulo (I guess it was São Paulo), he broke his arm going after a football that fell on a creek, on the neighbourhood that he lived -- "the hill", which in Brazil is a synonym to favela. He never got another chance, even if he probably haven't fought hard for it. He would make do with little, what deprived him from breaking free from the sub-existence he always had.
Anyway, it was there, on the "hill" that he somehow learned to play tennis. He used to say that he found an old racquet when he was a kid, and started to hit oranges with it. It might be a big fat lie, but it does not matter. He probably found a way to work as ball boy somewhere, and learned from there. Later he would always find some kid from the "hill" to work themselves as ball boys, and quite a few became tennis teachers after some years.
He taught a lot of people. Maybe, probably, he taught the first teachers of Florianopolis' most famous sportsman, as he was there since the late seventies, and Guga was a child in the late 80's, playing in courts full of Pelé's former apprentices (Pelé himself never worked there). Or maybe not. But, again, it does not matter. He was part of the wave which led to Guga. For a while, he was the wave.
But things never really clicked for him. He never broke out of poverty. After some years, when tennis was slowing down, he started to help in a bar nearby the court (and, obviously, started to drink too). The people who, for such a long time, benefited from his craft, simply were not paying attention, and he quietly left the courts to live of small, simple jobs. The last time I saw him, he was working on a gas station near the center of the town, in 1990. He saluted me vividly. Some years later I heard he was dead, I do not know the cause.
And that's it. There's nothing else I can add. But Florianópolis, thanks to Gustavo Kuerten, is part of tennis history now, and Pelé is very important part of Florianópolis story, even if unsung, even if unheard. People probably already have re-written this story, with fancier names on it. But I remember, and now you, my dear fellow tennis fan from some another corner of the world, know it too.
So, next time you see your favourite champ playing, striking, winning and taking the gold home, remember that this champ has a story, has a path on a road opened by others before him. Others like Pelé, as less glamorous as it gets, as unknown as it gets.
Thank you, teacher. Thank you, unknown soldiers of tennis.
No, that's not the Pelé you're thinking of. This is a tennis player who got his nickname after the greatest football player of all time. Did he ever made the headlines or something? No, he didn't. Maybe a small note somewhere, but I wouldn't know.
So why am I telling his story? Judge for yourselves after you read it. I think I should, and I feel the readers here might the best ones to read this. I did not dig up after details, I wrote everything from memory, and maybe I'll miss here and there, but I won't miss the bottom line, whatever it is.
Pelé was my tennis teacher in the begining of the 80's, in a town called Florianópolis, capital of the Brazilian state Santa Catarina. If you know your tennis trivia, you'll recognize the birthplace of a three times Roland Garros champion. For some odd reason, there were good clay courts there, and in an area of around 20 square kilometers, there were three good places to play, one of them where I lived as a child, a place called Carvoeira. The other two were clubs called Elase and Astel, where Kuerten learned to play.
Pelé was in charge of the two courts on Carvoeira. He would do everything, from maintenance to teaching children and adults. He taught me, and I was damn good. A head case, but damn good. Always playing with kids 2 or three years older than me, that until I was twelve years old, when I started to think of other things and slowly get away from tennis. Pelé was a great teacher, and a great player. He was short, really short, around 1,65 meters, with a big black-power haircut. And he could open bottles with his teeth. His real name was "Lindomir", and, believe me, that is a strange name. In Portuguese, strange names immediately tells everyone from what social stratum you came from. Anyway, just a few people knew his real name.
But he would simply beat anyone around, short or tall, young or old. All other teachers were simply no match for him. Fast and skilled, he could hit the ball very hard when he wanted, on the racquets that he strung himself. And, back then, he already knew the "mental" part of the game, in a way I would only see people talking about 10 or 15 years later. I still remember him telling me to talk to myself, not only for stimulus, but also for advice, in an impatient, pushing tone.
When he was young he won the state championship, and was invited to play in a national championship in the following months. But, one day before he would travel to São Paulo (I guess it was São Paulo), he broke his arm going after a football that fell on a creek, on the neighbourhood that he lived -- "the hill", which in Brazil is a synonym to favela. He never got another chance, even if he probably haven't fought hard for it. He would make do with little, what deprived him from breaking free from the sub-existence he always had.
Anyway, it was there, on the "hill" that he somehow learned to play tennis. He used to say that he found an old racquet when he was a kid, and started to hit oranges with it. It might be a big fat lie, but it does not matter. He probably found a way to work as ball boy somewhere, and learned from there. Later he would always find some kid from the "hill" to work themselves as ball boys, and quite a few became tennis teachers after some years.
He taught a lot of people. Maybe, probably, he taught the first teachers of Florianopolis' most famous sportsman, as he was there since the late seventies, and Guga was a child in the late 80's, playing in courts full of Pelé's former apprentices (Pelé himself never worked there). Or maybe not. But, again, it does not matter. He was part of the wave which led to Guga. For a while, he was the wave.
But things never really clicked for him. He never broke out of poverty. After some years, when tennis was slowing down, he started to help in a bar nearby the court (and, obviously, started to drink too). The people who, for such a long time, benefited from his craft, simply were not paying attention, and he quietly left the courts to live of small, simple jobs. The last time I saw him, he was working on a gas station near the center of the town, in 1990. He saluted me vividly. Some years later I heard he was dead, I do not know the cause.
And that's it. There's nothing else I can add. But Florianópolis, thanks to Gustavo Kuerten, is part of tennis history now, and Pelé is very important part of Florianópolis story, even if unsung, even if unheard. People probably already have re-written this story, with fancier names on it. But I remember, and now you, my dear fellow tennis fan from some another corner of the world, know it too.
So, next time you see your favourite champ playing, striking, winning and taking the gold home, remember that this champ has a story, has a path on a road opened by others before him. Others like Pelé, as less glamorous as it gets, as unknown as it gets.
Thank you, teacher. Thank you, unknown soldiers of tennis.
