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Jimmy Connors: 12 things I learned from Connors memoir 'The Outsider'

Here are a dozen interesting items from "The Outsider: A Memoir" by tennis great Jimmy Connors.

5. Quick transition to California

AP
Singer-composer Paul Anka, (r.), auditioned a song he wrote especially for tennis star Jimmy Connors (l.), “Girl, you Turn Me On,” that Jimmy went on to record. Here, music critic Pancho Gonzalez looks on.

  • By Ross Atkin Staff writer

Although Pancho Segura, an instructor at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club in Los Angeles, agreed to take Connors under wing, Connors initially experienced culture shock in 1968, when, as a 16-year-old, he was first introduced to California. Shortly after arriving from working-class city of East St. Louis, Ill., he said the family had a meal at a Wilshire Boulevard restaurant where his eyes were caught by two unusual menu items: veggie burgers and soy smoothies. “I don’t think we’re in East St. Louis any more, Toto,” he remembers thinking.

He told his mother L.A. wasn’t for him, but she encouraged Jimmy and his grandfather to spend a day driving around the city. That did the trick, as he not only was captivated by seeing such sights as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the famous hillside Hollywood sign, but quickly realized that tennis was “hot” in Los Angeles, unlike in East St. Louis, where it was an outlier on the sports scene. Quickly he made friends with a number of tennis-playing celebrities, including many from the show business world. Pretty much ever since he has lived in California, and now calls Santa Ynez, near Santa Barbara, home.

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Mark Sappenfield
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