Mount Vernon High School

February 23, 2024 Image Ain't Everything In the late 1980's, the Canon camera company hired tennis superstar Andre Agassi to front their new ad campaign built around a simple idea: image is everything. A flashy and flamboyant rising star in the sports world, Agassi was the perfect pitchman. It seemed apparent that to him, image was in fact everything. From his neon outfits and matching headbands to his ridiculously awesome late 80's mullet haircut, Agassi's preoccupation with his persona was perfect for Hollywood, but eventually started hindering his performance on the court. That preoccupation came to a head - his head, in fact - in the summer of 1990. Agassi, ranked #3 in the world and emerging as a tennis superstar, advanced to the finals at the French Open, one of the four major tennis tournaments held each year. He was heavily favored to win the title. But the night before the biggest match of his career, Andre Agassi wasn’t focused on his tennis. He was focused on his toupee. What almost no one in the world knew heading into the 1990 French Open final was that some parts of Andre Agassi’s image were somewhat counterfeit. That long and flowing hairstyle - the calling card of his persona that fans around the world were (today, looking back, probably regretfully) emulating - was fake. Agassi’s hair started falling out a few years before, and he’d been secretly sporting a fake hairpiece to keep up his appearance. The night before the championship match, catastrophe struck when Agassi stepped into the shower. As he described in his 2009 autobiography Open, he felt his hair “suddenly disintegrate in my hands…it was coming undone, the thing was falling apart.” In a panic, Agassi’s brother used bobby pins in an attempt to piece the hair back together and attach it to Andre's head. But when the French Open final began, Agassi was mentally fried. He feared his hair would fall off, right there on Center Court with millions of people watching. His image, suddenly as fragile and unsteady as the fake hair on his head, was dangling by a thread. Agassi played distracted, disillusioned tennis and lost to Andres Gomez, a man he had beaten handily only a few weeks before. Andre Agassi’s 1990 toupee tragedy serves as a cautionary tale for any of us who are serious about becoming people worthy of winning in any important area of life. There’s no denying that for each of us, our image - who people think we are - is important. But the truth is, authentic success is way more concerned with our character than our image. Who people think we are isn’t nearly as important as who we actually are. And sometimes, if we aren’t careful, our commitment to our outward style can keep us from developing the inner substance that winning requires us to possess. Giving too much of our energy and our attention to our image can leave our opportunities for success disintegrating in our hands like a cheap toupee. Today I want to challenge and encourage you to see for yourself that in the important areas of life and performance, image ain’t everything. In fact, I’d argue that winning could care less about the fake persona you're working hard to project. I’d argue that winning really just wants to know if you’ve got the substance - the toughness, the discipline, the humility, and the courage that defines the champion and drives their performance, on the playing field and in life beyond it. Winning wants to know if you are in fact focused on the things that really matter. In 1990, Andre Agassi didn’t win because Andre Agassi wasn’t worthy of winning. He wasn’t focused on the things that really mattered, and - despite his unquestioned ability - he didn’t yet deserve the success he said he was after. But that French Open hair fiasco challenged Agassi to re-evaluate his priorities and re-examine the authority he’d given his image. He started to realize that the anxiety and uneasiness that came with trying to keep up that facade wasn’t serving him or his game, and that there might be more important things to spend his energy and attention on. It became more and more obvious that winning required more toughness, more discipline, more humility, and more courage than he’d demonstrated up til then. He realized that in the important areas of life and performance, image isn't everything. Character is. Soon after, Agassi decided to ditch the hairpiece and shave his head, revealing to the world the lie he’d kept hidden for years. In his first tournament after - the 1995 Australian Open - Agassi steamrolled his way to the finals with a renewed sense of freedom and focus. He defeated defending champion Pete Sampras to win his first Grand Slam, one of eight major titles he’d eventually capture in his career. Andre Agassi will go down as one of the greatest champions in tennis history - not because of his commitment to maintaining some counterfeit persona, but instead because of his commitment to building the kind of character that real success required him to possess. May we recognize that in the important areas of our life and performance, the same will be true for us. -Travis