Agassi’s past doesn’t diminish what his academy does now

"We must become the change we want to see."

-- Gandhi, reprinted at Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy

From all the purple prose being spouted in the press about his experimentation with meth and obsession with hair loss, for a minute I almost didn't know what to think of Andre Agassi.

Then I was reminded of the tour I took with Marsha Irvin earlier this year at the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy at 1201 W. Lake Mead Blvd. Irvin, the former Northeast Region superintendent at the Clark County School District, is the Agassi Academy's chancellor.

For those unfamiliar with that address, the school stands in the heart of the West Las Vegas in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Southern Nevada. With its 650 K-12 students, almost all of whom are drawn from the mostly African-American community, the academy is a powerful testament to the possibilities of education and learning. Last year, 100 percent of Agassi's first graduating senior class was accepted to college.

It's not an accident.

"It's an expectation," Irvin says, introducing me to students who are polite, well spoken and motivated. While it's obvious the neighborhood has many challenges, "We don't let that interfere with what we have to do. Just because that child might come from poverty does not mean that they're not intelligent or that they do not have a dream."

Agassi has worked to make sure those dreams have an opportunity to come true. The retired tennis star, whose autobiography "Open" continues to generate breathless opinions about whether his legendary career was tainted by his past drug use and attempt to conceal it from the sport's officials, is the subject of a "60 Minutes" segment set to air tonight.

But I have to laugh at all the hand-wringing over Agassi's admitted human failings. He was great on grass, but his feet are made of clay -- just like the rest of us.

It's funny that some of those same sports-page critics don't take to task the whole hustling racket of professional tennis for its practice of having its stars receive large appearance fees for tournaments where they essentially wave to the adoring crowds and then tank their matches before flying off on private jets to other events. If a baseball player did that, they'd call it the Black Sox Scandal. In tennis, it's just business.

Agassi was a great competitor who made a dramatic comeback later in his career. It turns out, that comeback came after his brief drug use.

For me, that's just white noise from the press box. But I've seen Agassi's academy. That's his life's truly great accomplishment. Compared to that, Wimbledon is just a loving cup and news clips.

You know something?

I think he agrees.

Agassi Academy students put in school days that last two hours longer than public school. Their school year is two weeks longer. There's tutoring after school and events on the weekend.

"I think we've learned more than we've taught, to be quite honest," says Agassi, who quit school in the 9th grade to pursue his tennis career. "It's been an education for me, certainly. There has been a lot of trial and error and learning from those decisions. But we're in one healthy place. Sometimes when I look at it now, it overwhelms me to see where we've come. But it's a continual process. It's like, this isn't a finished product even though the campus is built and we have the students performing at a high level. We continually have to learn how to make ourselves better and keep kind of pushing the standard."

That includes asking more of students and their parents.

"I think longer school days are essential," Agassi says. "You're looking at a third time on task. How do you make up for that when you've got an eight-hour day versus a six-hour day? Over the course of a school year, that's a lot of time. It's huge. Not to mention a longer school year, where you can mandate parental involvement. That's key: to not send these kids home to an environment that doesn't understand how to nurture what it is they spent their day believing they can accomplish."

This isn't some sports celebrity parroting a sound bite. This school helps define Agassi's character, spirit and soul. And he knows it.

"What I can say is what I've experienced here trumps by multiples anything I've ever felt or accomplished inside my profession," one of the most successful tennis players in history admits. "I take every accomplishment I've ever had, and it pales in comparison to watching a child go on to a future of their choosing. It does mean the world to me. It has for a long time. I'm proud of these kids. I'm proud of the lessons we all learn as a result of these children having a lot expected from them. It reminds us how every child deserves those high expectations. When you expect a lot from a child, it means you think a lot of the child, and we see that very profoundly happening here."

Where does the academy go from here?

"I don't think we're looking at growth now from a brick-and-mortar standpoint," Agassi says. "I think that growth now is watching these kids get sent off into the world, plant their roots, and then return to their community and make a difference in the next generation: give back what they feel has been given to them. When you start to see that trend, I think you can say you're experiencing growth."

We are witnessing that very thing in Andre Agassi.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295. He also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/smith.