Review of "Secrets, etc.", by Yannick Noah with Dominique Bonnot.
Paris: Plon, 1997. ISBN: 2-259-18654-8
Note that this book is available in French only, to the best of my knowledge.
Despite the impression which might be conveyed by the teasing title, this is not a kiss-and-tell memoir. Yannick generally takes the high ground, and those searching for numerous juicy stories of life on the tour will be disappointed. The secrets Noah wants to share with us are not of the "who slept with whom" variety. Rather, he tries to use his career as an athlete and coach to illustrate lessons that other athletes, or those of us in any walk of life, can use in our quest to improve ourselves and find happiness.
Noah not only provides lessons based on his own experience, but draws on the study of other top athletes ranging from Carl Lewis to Monica Seles to the Brazilian soccer team. His recommendations go as far as prescribing specific yoga exercises and dietary suggestions.
The author claims that he was brought to gather his thoughts on self-maximization by an examination of his own playing days. He feels not only that he underachieved as a tennis player, but also that he was a fundamentally unhappy man during his career. This realization led him to reflect on how the unhealthy approaches he adopted to both life and sport fed off each other, and created imbalances that hurt him in both spheres.
Like too many athletes, Noah was unduly influenced by the momentary highs and lows of sport, rather than regarding his career as an ongoing process of self-improvement. He admits that he lived off the ephemeral glory of his French Open triumph for too long, whereas he ought to have seen it as a victory that showed that he was on the right path toward being a great player.
He forgot the careful preparation that went into his great triumph at Roland-Garros, and persisted in thinking that he could recapture the magic without constantly setting higher goals and striving to achieve them. He writes (my translation): "The mistake most often made by athletes who have just had their moment of glory is to say, 'I won't change a thing, I'll do exactly the same thing that allowed me to win.' But the ground is no longer the same, the weather is no longer the same, and neither are your fellow travellers. Even the air is more rarified."
Similarly, Noah reveals that his personal life was also aimless. He had plenty of fun and many unforgettable moments, but was looking for love in all the wrong places. Indeed, his priorities were so out of kilter that he allowed himself to be seduced into thinking that a woman he had never met except via telephone was the woman of his dreams. She turned out to be a con artist who not only succeeded in getting gifts, money and jewelry out of Noah, but wrote a book about it!
Noah's metaphor for finding balance in sports and life is "the inner athlete", a notion inspired by Dan Millman's book of the same name. Alas, I couldn't begin to summarize his suggestions for getting in touch with the "inner athlete" even if I wanted to. It's a strangely eclectic mixture that one might expect from the multi-faceted Noah, a bouillabaisse containing elements of yoga, Eastern mysticism, beliefs derived from his African childhood, locker-room truisms, New Age feel-good warmth, and Tony Robbins-style motivational theory.
As bewildering as this theoretical stew sometimes is, it does have some consistency. Just as Noah himself has dabbled in these various areas and extracted what he finds useful, the reader, whether athlete or non-athlete, can do the same with his book and derive principles that will provide helpful guidance. Noah, the ultimate eclectic, would surely approve.
My major regret about "Secrets, etc..." is that Noah devotes only a few short pages of the book to his childhood in Africa. The story of a young man from a village in Cameroon, discovered by Arthur Ashe, then taken to the relative opulence of France to develop his talent, is a riveting one. One would think that Yannick's outlook would have been profoundly marked by a childhood virtually unique among tennis professionals. But unfortunately he has little to say about it. Maybe in the sequel?
Oh yes, there are some great colour photos, as well as a few tennis tidbits that fans will relish. For example:
Writing about the epic 1996 Davis Cup triumph of his French squad over Sweden, Noah comments on the twisted ankle suffered by Sweden's Stefan Edberg in his first singles match. Noah noted that during the week prior to the final, Edberg seemed profoundly unhappy. Accustomed to preparing his triumphs calmly and methodically, the reserved Swede now found himself in the midst of a whirlwind of publicity centered on his final professional appearance. Edberg was therefore ill at ease the entire week. Consequently, Noah, who is convinced that nothing happens by chance, feels that the ankle injury was a result of Stefan's body taking him out of a situation in which he did not really want to be. "His mind cried out 'STOP', and his body reacted." Reading this passage now, one cannot help but be reminded of the calf injury suffered in this year's Davis Cup final by another uneasy Davis Cup participant named Sampras...
And then there was the wild night before the final
of a tournament in Toulouse. Noah was invited to have a quiet drink with
a few friends, but wound up boozing and dancing until dawn. Staggering
out of the nightclub at 7:00 AM, he was ushered back to his hotel by friend
and fellow player Georges Goven, stopping along the way to roll around
in a gutter and perform an impromptu strip tease, tossing his clothes into
a crowd of bewildered onlookers. Yannick arrived at the hotel clad in only
his underwear. After several hours of sleep, he awoke to a meal of croissants,
strong coffee and aspirin, dashed to the stadium and beat Tomas Smid in
straight sets. We don't know if the "inner athlete" would have approved.
But a win is a win, right?
