Tag Archives: Mike Bryan

The Celebrated Jumping Princes of Tennis

by Woody

Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here) and orderable at all bookshops.

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Some people favor “The Frog Prince” fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm while others more greatly applaud “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mr. Twain, but a different frog tale is my favorite – but let me not get ahead of myself.

When I am asked, as still happens from time to time, who is my favorite athlete from my three decades as a sports columnist, my mind instantly fastbreaks to Magic Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Arnold Palmer because they treated me with a grace and kindness that surpassed their athletic prowess.

Familiar pose: Bob and Mike holding a championship trophy.

A dozen more superstars earn hues in my rainbow of favorite athletes, but wisdom from John Wooden proves decisive in settling the matter. Asked once to describe his ideal basketball player, Coach Wooden replied: “I would have the player be a good student, polite, courteous, a good team player, a good defensive player and rebounder, a good inside player and outside shooter. Why not just take Jamaal Wilkes and let it go at that.”

Thusly, this description of my favorite athlete: “I would have him or her be a good role model, polite, courteous to fellow competitors, umpires, fans and media, a good teammate, sign every last autograph for kids, be good at every facet of their sport with no weakness, clutch under pressure, and possess charisma by the bucketful. Why not leave it at Mike and Bob Bryan and let it go at that.”

Actually, ever since I first started writing about them when they were barely taller than a net post, I have referred to these identical twins from Camarillo as Mikeandbob, singularly. This proved prophetic because in tandem as a single force they authored a singular career as the undisputed all-time greatest doubles team in tennis history.

Their resume of doubles championships, each punctuated with their trademark Bryan Bros. Leaping Chest Bump, is longer than Abraham Lincoln’s inseam but here is a Gettysburg Address-like summary of their greatness: Four score years ago, at age 6, Mikeandbob won their first doubles title – in a 10-and-under(!) event; dominated the juniors at the national level soon thereafter; won the NCAA doubles crown at Stanford; won a record 119 professional titles together and 1,107 matches overall; won a record 16 Grand Slam titles together; were ranked No. 1 in the world a record 438 weeks; named ATP Doubles Team of the Decade for 2000-2009 and 2010-2019; won an Olympic gold medal and bronze, too; and helped Team USA capture the Davis Cup.

For good reason Mikeandbob have been named Tournament Honorees for the upcoming 122nd edition of The Ojai Tennis Tournament and on April 26, three days before their 46th birthday, will be feted at a special dinner at the Ojai Valley Museum. (Tickets are available at www.theojai.net/events.)

When Mikeabdbob were 5 years old, their father Wayne took them to The Ojai for the first time and retells: “The Center Court is in a majestic park with huge oak and sycamore trees. When the stands are packed it is an incredibly inspiring setting. When Mike and Bob first gazed upon the scene they were breathless for what seemed like five minutes. Their eyes got big and you could almost hear their little minds thinking, ‘Wow. I want to play here someday.’ ”

Wayne laughs and continues: “It only lasted a short time, however, and the next thing I knew the boys had raced off to the nearby creek in the park to catch frogs.”

But the magic had already happened. The frog catchers would one day become “The Celebrated Jumping Twin Princes of Tennis.”

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Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Tiny Grads and Big Emotions

by Woody

For the past week I have had a song stuck in my head. More accurately, a stanza from “Turn Around” and it goes:           

“Turn around and they’re two. Turn around and they’re four. Turn around they’re a young man heading out the door” – or a young woman, of course.

Wayne Bryan, father of the legendary tennis tandem Mike and Bob, shared these lyrics with me back, back, back when my daughter was born. It remained on my mind, and in my heart, until Dallas and her younger brother Greg headed out the door as young adults.

Maya marches in to “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Wayne, who had these lines of wisdom hanging on a wall at home as a constant reminder of how fleeting the time he would have with his twin sons was, later explained in his parenting book “Raising Your Child to be a Champion in Athletics, Arts, and Academics”:

“I found this to be so true. Mike and Bob hit their first tennis balls at age two on Monday, went to kindergarten on Tuesday, entered high school on Wednesday and graduated on Friday. At Stanford, they went up there on Monday and they were going out on the professional tour after their sophomore years on Tuesday.”

By Thursday, Mike and Bob were retiring with 16 grand slam championships and 119 tour titles together after spending 438 weeks ranked No. 1 in the world, and by Friday had their own children to turn around and see grow as if in time-lapse.

It’s no different for grandparents. One day I turned around and my first grandchild, Maya, was born; the next day I turned around and she was two; and yesterday – last week, in truth – I turned around and she was four and graduating from preschool and headed to pre-K.

Grownups sometimes, oftentimes actually, forget how little things are amplified into big things for youngsters. Indeed, I don’t think I have ever seen Maya happier, not even on Christmas morning, smiling so wide she almost sprained her face with joy at her recent graduation ceremony.

The happy and proud graduate and parents.

Nor seen her more proud, for she was beaming like human sunshine. To her, the certificate, rolled up like a baton and tied with a red ribbon, might as well have been a diploma from Harvard.

I wish you could have seen Maya and all her classmates in their miniature full-length gowns of royal blue and matching mortarboard caps, complete with gold tassels, as they marched in among balloons and “Happy Graduation” banners while “Pomp and Circumstance” played.

Beforehand, I would have thought all of this was over-the-top silly. It proved to be as wonderful as fresh strawberries in wintertime. I dare say there wasn’t a pair of eyes in attendance (or watching the video afterwards) that weren’t moist, some even spilling over a little. To be sure, additional lyrics from “Turn Around” gripped my heart and squeezed gently:

“Where have you gone my little girl, little girl, / Little pigtails and petticoats where have you gone? / Turn around you’re tiny, turn around then you’re grown / Turn around you’re a young wife with babes of your own . . . Turn around and they’re young, turn around and they’re old / Turn around and they’ve gone and we’ve no one to hold.”

After the little honorees had all walked across the stage, the principal announced, “You finally did it! The Class of 2023!” Again, at first blush this might seem grandiose silliness for preschool, and yet—

—turn around, turn around, Maya and her friends will be marching with their high school graduating Classes of 2036.

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Column: What’s in a Name?

by Woody

Mike, Bob, Imogen, Mo’ne and more

No rhyme or reason, just odds and ends . . .

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As a Luddite who continues to embrace e-books as I would a bouquet of poison oak, I love what my friend Drew Daywalt, author of the mega-award-winning-best-seller children’s book “The Day the Crayons Quit,” said in an interview with thecaliforniamom.com:

crayons.png AM“As for books, I think they’ll always be necessary as long as humans are curious, even though their form might change over the ages – our current trend obviously being toward e-books.

“One thing I can say about my own kids is that they like picture books in traditional paper form. Even though they love the iPad for its games and videos and interactive qualities, they still prefer good old-fashioned paper and page turning for reading.

“I’m not sure what it is, but if they’re anything like me, they get that rush from the tactile sense of a real book; the feel of the paper, the rustle of the pages, the smell of the ink, the reveal that comes from the turn of the page.

“And even though books are competing with other new media, I don’t think the form is in trouble, even if the format may be. Theater didn’t kill books, radio didn’t kill theater, TV didn’t kill radio and the Internet didn’t kill TV, music or books. Things are changing, but the fundamentals will always remain.”

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Here’s hoping the Internet doesn’t kill newspapers.

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In a terrific “Life in Pictures” profile this week in New York Magazine, I like how the humor of 36-year-old identical twins Mike and Bob Bryan – currently gunning for their 100th career doubles title at the U.S. Open – came through, such as:

Mike: “Bob would say he is the better driver. We shared a Mercedes and I totaled it.

Bob: “I am the better driver.”

And Bob again: “We have to warm up our bodies a little more than we used to. A couple of years ago, I went gluten-free, like Mike. But after we won a tournament, I had a huge waffle.”

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If you are reading this while waiting for a fetal ultrasound, here are the most popular baby names of 2014 (so far) from the website Nameberry.com:

Girls – Imogen, Charlotte, Isla, Cora, Penelope, Violet, Amelia, Eleanor, Harper and Claire.

Reaction XX: Oh-em-gee! Imogen is No. 1? Who knew so many young parents were such big fans of Shakespeare’s play “Cymbeline” and specifically the king’s daughter?

Boys – Asher, Declan, Atticus, Finn, Oliver, Henry, Silas, Jasper, Milo, and Jude.

Reaction XY: It’s nice to see literature playing a role here, too, with “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Atticus), “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and, of course, “The Vampire Diaries” (Silas).

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There are some people (pronounced “fuddy-duddys”) who scoff at today’s trending baby names and miss the old days of Robert, David, Jennifer and Mary.

I just wish today’s kids, by any name, were not 10 percent less healthy and fit – according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – than they were just 10 years ago.

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On the topic of children, the Ventura County Human Services Agency is hiring 36 additional social workers in the next few months to keep up with the growth in child abuse complaints.

The historic local expansion should be applauded, although far better news would be if the agency could make record layoffs due to a lack of child abuse cases.

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Add kids’ names. I predict a new challenger to overtake Imogen: Mo’ne.

Mo’ne Davis is the charismatic, hard-throwing 13-year-old GIRL wunderkind pitcher from Philadelphia who has graced the cover of Sports Illustrated for not only pitching a shutout in the Little League World Series but for striking out gender stereotypes.

Heck, Mo’ne might overtake Atticus, Silas and Finn, too.

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One mo’re name. The NFL fined Cleveland Browns rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel $12,000 for flipping off the Washington Redskins’ bench during a preseason game.

It is just the latest punk move by the Heisman Trophy winner whose nickname should be changed from “Johnny Football” to “Football’s Justin Bieber.”

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

Wooden-&-Me-cover-mock-upCheck out my new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece”