That Magic Finger

Originally posted in May of 2015

From the time our older son was a toddler, he has shown a disposition for sport. Though quite shy by nature, when it comes time to run and hit fuzzy balls, his eyes sparkle and he exudes the kind of joy that I imagine all parents wish upon their children.

As he has grown to love competing on the tennis court, as a family, we have struggled to figure out how to deal with those who blatantly cheat. It's the dirty little secret of the junior tennis world, only it isn't a secret at all. In this gladiatorial sport that often involves the one-on-one intensity of boxing, there are some families who simply don't mind their children cheating others for a win. Our son is now 9 years old and we have been witness to ruthless repeated cheating by kids who clearly know better, all while their parents stand by with their steely gazes, clearly not bothered that their children are robbing others of their hard work.

We're not alone in questioning our son's involvement with highly competitive junior tennis. Former world number 1, Lindsay Davenport, now a mother of three children, has this to say:

"Junior tennis, it's rough. People cheat, you get yelled at by other parents. I saw a dad walk on court and smack my opponent with an open hand, right in front of me. The sport beats up a lot of players."

If you come from a team sport like baseball, hockey, or soccer, you may be wondering how rampant cheating is possible and where the referees are. For the most part, junior tennis operates on the honour system. Players call their own lines. So when a point is played and Jennifer blisters a winning shot past Stephanie, if the ball is relatively close to a line and Stephanie fears losing more than she respects the rules, she can call the ball out and move on. If it's Jennifer's lucky day, a roving umpire or tournament director might be passing by when the bad call takes place and issue an over-rule, but this rarely happens. Jennifer is often left with little recourse but to ask "are you sure?", only to have Stephanie respond with a flippant "yup!"

We all make unintentional mistakes. And junior tennis players who are barely a head taller than the net are more prone to making inaccurate calls than those who stand higher off the ground. The issue is that some kids cheat their opponents repeatedly, almost to a point where after each "hook," there will be a mass rolling of eyes and sad, knowing smiles or chuckles by those looking on - families who make up a local junior tennis community know which kids are known for hooking.

There is one boy in our provincial association who has what some parents jokingly call the magic finger. On any especially important point, if the ball is close to the line, even if the rest of the stadium sees it in, this boy will raise his little index finger toward the sky to indicate that there will be no winners against him, that the ball was OUT! How lovely to have a magic finger that allows you to win whenever you so choose.

When our son started with tournament play at 7 years of age, there were times when he was so brutally cheated that in those moments, paraphrasing filmmaker Alexander Payne, I would want to whack the offending player's scrotum with a spiked bat. Please excuse the vulgarity of this image - I am letting myself go just this once to convey how livid I have felt as a parent to see my sweet boy, playing by the rules, get ruthlessly robbed of his sweat and grit. For the record, I am a pacifist and do not condone violence in any form.

I have given considerable thought to why some children are chronic cheaters. I believe it comes down to some parents being obsessed with the goal of their child becoming the next Federer, Nadal, Sharapova, or if they have more than one child, the next Venus and Serena. For this dream to materialize, most junior tennis parents thirst for their progeny to be one of a handful of children out of hundreds of thousands to be given support by their country's tennis federation. These coveted positions equate to somewhere around $80,000 to $100,000 of annual support, funds that are typically used by juniors to receive top level training and to travel to International Tennis Federation (ITF) events where they can regularly experience world class competition against the chosen few of other countries. If you're one of the few in Canada who gets to battle it out against the best kids your age from other tennis-loving nations, well, this is probably your child's best chance to become good enough to reach and stay on the pro tour.

So this is the mindset that I believe causes some parents to say nothing or even nod approvingly when their children knowingly cheat. That other kid that you just robbed is simply another mosquito to swat away while on your path to the pros. How dare you lose to that mosquito! No dinner for you tonight.

Andre Agassi's father is arguably the most famous of all crazy tennis parents, as chronicled in Agassi's captivating autobiography, Open. Andre was one of the lucky ones. He weathered the trials of his childhood and made it all the way, as high as one can go in the tennis world with fame, wealth, and creating a legacy. But for every Agassi and Serena Williams that has made it to the top, there are undoubtedly millions of young athletes over the course of decades who have trekked through the junior tennis world and experienced the rotten fragrance of being repeatedly cheated by the same few offenders whose parents likely haven't lost sleep over their unsavoury values.

Yes, the sad reality is that the minority of kids who purposefully cheat on court are usually under intense pressure by their parents to win all the time. I have seen a few kids who are so innately competitive that they are naturally inclined to cheat, regardless of their parents' values, but I have found that there are more junior athletes who are good and fair by disposition but driven by parental pressure to make blatantly wrong line calls. For such kids, tennis doesn't appear to be a sport that they love playing with their friends; it's a blue collar job with no pay, and where their parents require countless hours practicing on court with insanely high expectations. In some cases, there is overt physical abuse like the father who was said to have struck his daughter over her head with a racquet after a loss at the Orange Bowl a few years ago. I have no doubt that this type of abuse happens in the shadows of practice courts all over the world more frequently than most of us can imagine.

I think that most parents who raise their children to be fair recognize when cheating is driven by moms and dads who prioritize winning over being honourable. Though we can have compassion for kids who are raised in such an environment, it's always tough to witness one of them repeatedly and knowingly steal from your child. But I can truthfully say that I no longer imagine spiked bats. As much as it can hurt at times, I have come to be genuinely grateful that at a young age, our son is encountering and learning how to deal with those who don't display much of a conscience. Such people exist in every walk and phase of life, so why can't he get an early start in discerning between those who strive to be fair and others who don't mind taking advantage of others?

Beyond learning what types of behaviour he should stay clear of and protect himself against, our son is loving the friendships he has formed with others who are in junior tennis for its inherent fun and excitement. Yes, one rotten apple in the barrel can spoil the whole bunch, but in junior tennis, our experience has been that over time, the sweet, crisp, and health-enhancing apples learn to recognize rotten behaviour and gravitate away from it.

Through most of my twenties and thirties, I had an almost unlimited well of compassion for others - if I got slapped on my right cheek, I would happily turn and brace myself to take two tight ones to my left because I thought I wanted to be Gandhi. Today, at 41, my heart still feels for others, but I've experienced enough to know how limited and precious our time here is, and that when a fellow human is consistently looking to take advantage of me, I would rather spend my time with others who believe in fairness and contributing to the greater good.

That greedy sibling who takes advantage of your parents; that employer or co-worker who repeatedly tries to make you feel small; that relative or supposed friend who looks to profit off of you without regard for your well-being - like it or not, these people exist in our lives, and no matter what kind of hurt or neglect they experienced in the past to create their lack of humanity today, we have to make decisions on how we use our time and resources, decisions that impact how healthy we are and how much capacity we have to experience joy and be of service to others. Our son is learning all of this from a misguided child's magic finger, and for this, I am grateful.