Goodbye to Two Geniuses
Andre Agassi lost to 25-year-old Benjamin Becker yesterday, ending his tennis career. When it was over, the fans gave him a standing ovation, and Agassi blew kisses to each side of the court.
“You have pulled for me on the court and also in life,”
Agassi said. “I found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments. And I’ve found generosity. You have given me your shoulders to stand on to reach for my dreams, dreams I could never have reached without you."
Andre Aassi grew up in front of all of us who watch tennis, and became a good and gracious man. I'll miss him.
I'll also miss
Steve Irwin, better known as the Crocodile Hunter. Irwin was the Australian naturalist who hosted a television show of the same name.
Yesterday, he was killed when a stingray's tail whipped across his chest and pierced his heart; he died on the way to the hospital.
Irwin's was a remarkable story. When he was a boy, his parents started a small attraction, the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park, where young Steve worked from an early age. By the time he was nine, he was trapping crocodiles to remove them from populated areas. In 1992, Irwin started to host "The Crocodile Hunter," a show featuring his close-up interactions with wildlife.
Did you ever see The Crocodile Hunter? I loved it. Irwin was immensely genial, likeable, self-deprecatory, and a little nuts. (Watch him run and grab a poisonous snake by the tail, then drop it in a pillow case!) But his enthusiasm—"Crikey!" he'd blurt at particularly dramatic moments—and love for nature were a constant, and his message wasn't that nature was dangerous and menacing, but that nature is beautiful and astonishing. Irwin was a hunter who never killed anything. He bought land for preservation in countries around the world, including this one. And he urged people to boycott products made from rare animals, such as turtle shells and the hideous shark-fin soup. "Since when has killing a wild animal, eating it or wearing it ever saved a species?" Irwin said.
Today in Australia Irwin was killed by a stingray while working on a new documentary, which is not a great way to go, partly because it's got to hurt to have your heart pierced while scuba-diving, partly because it takes a lot of work to get stung by a sting ray. (Only two or three people in Australia's recorded history have died from stingray barbs.) It's a fluky way to go. Stingrays are pretty shy creatures; in my experience, as soon as you get close to them, they flap away, staying at least just out of reach. Irwin obviously pushed things too far.
Steve Irwin was just 44; he was taken too soon. But give him credit: The man packed a lot of life into those 44 years, and did a lot of good.
Steve Irwin and friend.
