In Hot Water

June 18, 2003, Ettlingen, Germany, 8:33 a.m.

I lay back in the bathtub, closed my eyes, and allowed the piping-hot water to rejuvenate my sore muscles. At 51 years of age, a hot bath was a welcome tonic to the hours I was putting in on the tennis court. I was teaching 20 to 30 hours a week, batting balls back and forth with an assortment of housewives, lawyers, and hotshot juniors while giving them tips in my kindergarten-level German.

On weekends, I fired up my old serve in age-group tournaments in Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. I also participated in the Bundesliga interclub matches for 50-and-up seniors, playing as the "hired gun" for TC Wolfsberg (TC standing for "Tennis Club") in Pforzheim, about 15 minutes from Ettlingen. We played our interclub matches using a format similar to matches between college teams — six singles and three doubles matches, each worth one point. An Italian team in Trento had signed me to play for their club as well.

The reason I was playing so much tennis — and hustling lessons — was that I needed the money. For the last decade or so, financial problems had trailed me like the rats and mice that followed the Pied Piper in nearby Hamelin. I was experiencing great difficulty supporting my wife, Margaret, and our two daughters from her previous marriage, as well as an assortment of alimony and child support payments, the fallout of two marriages that ended in divorce. Oh, and there was a boat deal that went sour back in Florida that I still hadn't resolved to the owner's satisfaction. But I always saw the glass as half full: the next deal, the next endorsement contract, the next summer camp, or the next teaching job would be the one to put my financial problems behind me once and for all.

I topped off the tub with some more hot water and recalled how Margaret and I had moved to Europe two years earlier when I accepted an offer to coach Simon Dawson, a promising British player. We flew to Nottingham, England, where I tutored Simon, a good kid who worked incredibly hard on the practice court with me. In matches, however, nerves bested him to the point where he could hardly hit a ball. I felt for the youngster and wished I could have played for him, but after a summer of spotty results in 2001, his parents made the decision to let me go.

Not to worry — I had several contacts in France. I worked the phones and got a teaching job at the Racing Club de France, one of the most prestigious sports clubs in and around Paris. Margaret found a charming apartment that was part of a bed-and-breakfast near Compiegne, where France surrendered to Hitler back in 1940. When I arrived in France, I experienced a huge hassle in getting a work permit. It seemed that the French authorities severely regulated who could teach tennis and who couldn't — probably a form of protectionism for their homegrown teaching pros. I rustled up a few lessons under the table, but I was making nowhere close to the money I needed to cover our expenses. I hid that information from Margaret because I did not want her to worry.

We needed transportation, so I shopped around and found a cheap Renault Clio for two thousand euros, or around $2,250. This ordinary two-door wasn't much to look at, but at least we could get around. Only one problem: I didn't have two thousand euros to hand over to the Renault owner. I explained my problem to him, promising that I would pay as soon as my lessons picked up. Maybe he remembered me from my years playing at Roland Garros (which would have been a miracle since I lasted to the second week of the French Open only one time), but for whatever reason, he relented and handed me the keys to his well-used car. A month or so later, when he asked where his money was, I stalled him with a fresh set of excuses. He got mad and called the gendarmes, who paid a visit to our apartment. Margaret, who speaks excellent French, listened to the police describe how I had failed to pay for our Renault, which was news to her.

Now it was Margaret's turn to get angry with me, since I had been hiding the truth from her. I backpedaled, as I always did in these predicaments, and came up with another brainstorm: I could borrow the money from the parents of one of the few boys I was teaching. I had no idea how I would pay this unsuspecting family the money I owed them, but at least I would get the Renault owner and the police off my back.

It soon became apparent that France was a closed shop and would never grant me the necessary work papers. But then Rodolf Hanchin, who owned a tennis academy near Basel, Switzerland, contacted me about coaching there. That sounded like a great idea on my end. We packed our belongings in our Renault and drove to Basel, where I began teaching juniors living at the academy. Margaret, who didn't have anything to do, would join me on the lesson court, helping me coach the students. I liked having an extra set of eyes, but the Swiss academy owner didn't appreciate my coaching with Margaret there. In the Swiss mentality, having my wife on the court was like having two people holding the steering wheel of a car: it was unnatural and didn't work. I felt differently, and when I came to Margaret's defense, Rodolf and I clashed. The academy owner retaliated by sabotaging my work permit to stay in Switzerland.

Time to work my contacts again. I called Jürgen Fassbender, a former No. 1–ranked German player from the seventies, and outlined my yearlong odyssey in Europe. "Jürgen, I need a job," I pleaded. "Can you help?"

Jürgen, whose command of English was excellent, turned thoughtful. "Roscoe, I'd love to help you," he said. "Come to Germany, and we will get you back on your feet."

"What about a work permit?" That had been a problem in France and Switzerland.

"Permits are not so difficult in Germany, and I can help you there. I still have connections, you know."

I was one grateful — and itinerant — tennis coach when Margaret and I pulled into Karlsruhe in southern Germany, where Jürgen owned a club with some hotel rooms. He gave us a room and then introduced me to several guys from nearby Pforzheim, a cute town in the Schwarzwald region — the Black Forest. These players formed the second-best 50-and-older interclub team in Germany — but they had designs on winning the Bundesliga senior division the next season. Would I like to play with them? Of course! Although they couldn't pay me much (Bundesliga first-league teams like TC Blau Weiss Neuss paid professional players ranked from 120 to 400 in the world a lot to play for them), I thought that playing for Pforzheim would help me establish my name in Germany, which could translate into more income-producing lessons.

After Jürgen got me registered with the German Tennis Federation, I began teaching a bit and entering big...