Chapter 4

It was March. I'd been at the Colony for three months.

The routine had become second nature.

Breakfast that I learned to eat quickly. Efficiently. Fuel rather than pleasure.

Court time that varied—sometimes on Nick's first court with the other players. But I wasn't on that first court regularly. That was for his best players. The ones who were already competing at the highest levels.

But I got to train just like them.

"Make them beat you," Nick said to me. "No free points. You run down everything. Make them understand you will run every-thing down."

Drills every day. Matches every day. Running every day. Jump rope every day.

Amy and I had the same birthday—the second day of the month. Mine was in July, hers in September.

We had a system to win our doubles tournaments. It was the number 2.

"Two more points!" Amy yelled. High-fiving each other. "Two more games," I said, pumping my fist.

Two more, two more. Everything was in 2s.

Two sips. Two bounces of the ball before we served. It worked and we won.

Left to right: Lisa Pamintuan, Leigh Hare, (unknown), Amy Schwartz

The Phone Call

I called my parents collect.

"Hi, this is Lisa calling collect."

The AT&T operator: "Will you accept the charges?" "Yes," my mom said.

"Hi, Mom."

"Lisa! We have a surprise. We bought a condo near the Colony.

We'll be there for Anna's birthday." "Great! Where?"

"Seaplace."

"Oh, I know it. I jog past it every day. Moe lives there." "March thirty-first," Mom said. "We'll all be there." "Okay. I'll ask Nick for the afternoon off."

"Good. See you then."

Then in late March, they came down for Anna's first birthday. They stayed at the new condo. On the afternoon of the thirty-

first, all my roommates came over.

Nick gave us the afternoon off.

Kathy, Amy, Carling, and two other girls and me left for Seaplace.

We sang happy birthday to Anna, who sat in her high chair looking confused and delighted by all the attention.

Mom had brought a cake from a bakery in town. Chocolate with pink frosting.

Anna got more of it on her face than in her mouth.

We all laughed watching her try to figure out what to do with it.

"She's gotten so big," I said.

Mom smiled. "When we show her your picture, she says 'Sasa.' She can't say Lisa yet."

I held Anna for a while after the cake.

She grabbed at my hair and babbled sounds that might have been words.

She was heavier than I remembered. More solid. More like a real person and less like a baby.

It was strange to think I'd missed three months of her life. But it didn't feel sad.

It just felt like how things were. "Hey, Sean. How is it going?"

He gave me an eye roll. "What do you think?"

My roommates talked with my parents. Asked them questions about home. About what I was like as a kid.

Dad took pictures. Mom kept looking at me like she was trying to figure out if I was different.

I was different. I knew that. But it was a good different.

When it was time to go back to the house, Mom hugged me tight.

"You look good," she said. "Strong." "I feel strong," I said.

"You're happy here?" "Yeah," I said. "I am." And I was.

The Colony was my life now. Not in a way that erased every-thing else, but in a way that felt complete. Sufficient. Right.

I woke up knowing what I was supposed to do. I went to bed knowing I'd done it.

Everything in between was purposeful. Structured. Aimed at a goal I could see clearly now.

The Last Day

By late May, Nick started putting me on Court 1 more.

Not every day. But more.

On my last day, Nick called me over after practice. "You'll come back," he said.

"I know."

"You've got what it takes."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "Five months. You did good, my dear."

I nodded. I believed him. I'd gotten what I came for.

Not everything—I wasn't finished. Wasn't close to finished.

But I'd gotten the foundation. The understanding. The toughness.

The belief that I could do this. Really do this. If I was willing to work hard enough.

Five months that changed everything.

A year and a half later, Nick opened the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton. A real facility. Purpose-built. It would produce champions: Agassi, Seles, Courier, Sharapova.

But it all started at the Colony. With us.

And now I had to go home and figure out what that meant.

Proof

The first tournament back was in Schererville, Indiana.

A local event. Nothing major. The kind of tournament I'd played dozens of times before.

I remember walking onto the court for my first match and feel-ing... different.

Not nervous. Not uncertain. Determined.

My opponent was a girl I'd played before. We'd split matches—sometimes she won, sometimes I won. It was always close. Always competitive.

Not this time. I won 6-1, 6-0.

My strokes were sharper. Cleaner. My forehand had this weight to it now, this heaviness that pushed her back behind the baseline. My serve had pace I'd never had before.

And my footwork—God, my footwork—I was getting to balls that I was diving for five months earlier.

But the biggest difference wasn't physical. It was mental.

I didn't hope to win points anymore. I expected to.

I didn't worry about making mistakes. I just played. Aggressive.

Confident.

After the match, my opponent's mother came up to my mom. "What happened to Lisa?" she asked. "She's... different."

My mom smiled. "She trained in Florida."

That became the explanation for everything that followed.

The Pattern

I won that tournament. Then the next one. Then the one after that.

Local tournaments became regionals. National results were stronger and stronger.

I wasn't squeaking by anymore. I wasn't grinding out three-set victories. I was winning in straight sets. Beating girls who used to beat me. Beating girls who were a year older and ranked higher.

And it wasn't just me.

Eric Korita went back to California and started winning every-thing on the West Coast. Kathleen Cummings went to New York and dominated the Eastern tournaments.

Wherever we came from, we went back and we won.

The tennis world noticed. Parents noticed. Coaches noticed. "Where did you train?" "Who's your coach?"

The answer was always the same: Nick Bollettieri. The Colony.

Running Out

By fall 1981, I'd run out of options in Indiana.

The practice matches weren't close anymore. They weren't even competitive.

I needed better competition. Tougher opponents. More hours on court.

Nick had moved his academy, the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy to Bradenton, FL. Thirty acres. Full-time training. Kath-leen Horvath and the older players were on tour now. The new crop of students were training with Nick at the Academy. He had kids staying in a motel off the main road since the dorms were not ready on the new 30-acre lot.

My parents knew I couldn't stay in Indiana. But they wouldn't send me to the NBTA.

No way would my parents let me stay in a motel.

Carling was now living with her parents in a condo and only Jimmy was at Nick's house. I think he got remarried. Marriage #4. No more six girls in two bedrooms.

So we found an alternative.

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