Nick Bollettieri
https://twitter.com/JoyGivingSeries/status/899811090858561536
Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the legendary Nick Bollettieri. Legendary because his track record in the world of tennis is impeccable. He started the first tennis boarding academy in 1978 called the The Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy. He coached 10 #1 players by the likes of Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Jim Courier, Tommy Haas, Maria Sharapova, Jelena Jankovic, Yannick Noah, Martina Hingis, the Williams sisters and many others. He was inducted in the International Hall of Fame and has a variety of other accolades and accomplishments throughout his career so far.

He lives in Florida, but was in California for a brief visit to his mentee, Coach Sean Abdali, Owner of The Tennis Club at the Newport Beach Country Club. Nick was in between lessons, so I wanted to quickly ask him about athletes and how it important it is for them to give back to their community, especially when big endorsement deals come in. He agreed, and suggested the best way to an athlete’s heart is by reminding an athlete where he/she came from. “There is nothing like helping one’s own community.”, said Nick. This conversation came up because recently Juan Mata of Manchester United came on the record saying he will give 1% of his $10M salary to Common Goal a fund run by street soccer, which supports soccer charities around the world. Thankfully, Juan is not the only charitable athlete, as many others have stepped into the realm of philanthropy notably LeBron James, David Beckham, Eli Manning, and Serena Williams.
I asked Nick, what he thought of this “giving” trend in the world of sports. Nick was not around the bush with his sentiment, that even though it is important to be involved in the community and give back, first it is important to set the athlete up to succeed financially. Nick believes that before an athlete can become philanthropic, the athlete must surround himself/herself with the best management team. A team that will help the pot grow and not deplete. He gives an example of his own management team back in the 80’s when he was giving scholarships to many of the world’s top ranked tennis players. His team said he was going bankrupt. He actually did lose quite a bit of money, experienced financial difficulty and never wants to see young talent lose their hard work and earnings to fancy cars and houses. Before we could go deep about the topic of philanthropy he really wanted to emphasize that a management team and being financially responsible was essential to an athlete before any type of charitable giving.
I was curious then to really understand what he thought about athletes establishing funds and foundations for passion causes. He said although he experienced some bumps he would never take back the experience of giving to people. He is very passionate about giving to young, aspiring, athletes the chance to play. He references his collaboration with Arthur Ashe and how they held a tennis program for inner city kids so that they had a chance to stay away from drugs and violence, and come pick up a racquet, at his expense. This story he repeated with sincerity, and said, “even when you experience financial hardship, when you give you don’t feel the pain of losing.”
Nick just celebrated his 86th birthday, and his still very enthusiastic about the game and creating rising stars. He is an inspiration and a stunning image of work ethic, wins and loses, charisma, truth and integrity.

