[ BYUH TENNIS ]
Being selfish made Brigham Young-Hawaii's Peter Madarassy a great tennis player, but becoming a team player may have made him even better.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
BYUH tennis player Peter Madarassy
has successfully adopted a team mindsetBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comMadarassy was selfish because he had to be to survive the grinder that is the world of professional tennis.
He would spend 22 hours a day preparing for a two-hour match. When Madarassy ate, he would eat foods that helped him win tennis matches. He would sleep for as long as the experts said a winner sleeps, no more and no less. The rest of the time would be spent on a tennis court learning skills that would make him the winner he was supposed to be.
The formula worked well enough for Madarassy to play in 11 straight professional tournaments, winning more matches than he lost and climbing out of the ranks of the wild cards until he suffered a foot injury and had to start all over. He tried to come back, but found a short in the wiring that made him so great before. All the pieces were still there -- he could still break an opponent's strings and cover the court in the event that they could return one of his shots -- but the program that put them all together wasn't. Humans call it getting a life.
"I was scared to win," Madarassy said. "Confidence is everything and I just ran out of it. I am emotional, but you have to be tough to be competitive. You have to have this edge, be a machine and don't be soft. The worst thing you can do is be soft."
They didn't destroy Madarassy, just made him think about other things, things like education. Madarassy then began shopping around for colleges, a place where he could actually sit in a classroom and learn with real people rather than studying textbooks over a meal and sending completed exams to a faceless professor halfway around the world. Madarassy's father was just as demanding about education as he was about not wasting his tremendous talent for tennis. So Madarassy shifted his focus to being a student.
But a fish doesn't just leap out of the bowl knowing how to breathe. There are certain adjustments to be made, the most important being that the people with their noses pressed against the glass are easier to deal with when you don't have to actually deal with them.
"When I came here I had a hard time fitting in," Madarassy said. "I don't think many people liked me. Tennis players are selfish; you have to be, or they will run over you. They will destroy you. I was still in that mindset when I landed, getting mad when some people pick up things slower than I did. I had to learn from scratch how to be a team player."
Within his first few months at BYUH, Madarassy was the No. 2 player in the nation and had beaten the only man above him. He stayed at No. 2 despite the win, and was surprised at how little it mattered to him. When the numbers said he was the No. 600 player in the professional world, he cared as much as a man who gets paid by the ranking should. When they said that he was No. 2 but his team was only fourth best, Madarassy got angry and saw for the first time what was really important.
"I'm No. 9 in the nation (now), but I know I am much better than that," Madarassy said. "It is just a number, really. My first year I was No. 2 and beat the No. 1 player but the team finished fourth and I wasn't happy at all. Everyone remembers national champions, not No. 1 players."
Collegiate tennis is a team sport. Serena Williams could sign up to attend Chaminade tomorrow and the Silverswords probably wouldn't beat the defending national champions. So Seasiders coach David Porter had to find out if Madarassy's commitment to the team came from his mouth or his heart.
He brought in Jan Krejci to not only knock Madarassy off his mantle as "best player in Hawaii," but make him the second best on his top doubles team. But Krejci's appearance made the team better, and Madarassy forged a fast friendship with the talented newcomer.
Madarassy teamed up with Krejci to form the No. 3 doubles team in the nation. They have lost only four times together, two of them to HPU's Mikael Maatta and Jan Tribler, and Madarassy says that the reason they are so successful together isn't because they are two of the best singles players in the nation. It is more because he has learned the value of having someone to lean on.
"The best reason is because we are friends off the court," Madarassy said. "He (Krejci) never gets mad at me, but I sure get mad at him. It is a bad habit I am trying to lose. I want to win so bad that I want him to play his best tennis and just can't bear his missing shots. I am just too emotional, I always apologize. There is no rivalry."
Madarassy didn't become a team player overnight. He needed to be shown just how powerful teamwork can be, and got that lesson during what was the hardest time of his life.
In the middle of the Seasiders' title run last year, Madarassy's biggest fan -- his father, a former hockey player who serves as his inspiration -- was dying of a lung problem in Budapest. The younger Madarassy shuttled between Hungary and Hawaii, checking on his father and comforting his mother, all the time winning tennis matches for his team.
When Madarassy finally started taking matches off, as his coach, teachers and teammates begged him to, the Seasiders lost to Hawaii Pacific. And Madarassy lost his father.
If he was still on the tour, Madarassy would have had to suffer through the trial alone, depending on the toughness that got him through difficult matches to get him through the passing of a hero. He prides himself on his discipline and mental toughness, but isn't sure he would have been able to handle it without the help of those around him.
Although he is not a member of the Mormon Church, his friends and teammates paid for him to return to Hungary for his father's funeral. Porter says it is a common thing in the church, that students fast on the last Sunday of every month and donate the money they would have spent on meals to the church for just such an occasion.
"I didn't want to go," Madarassy said. "But the coach and the team all said, 'Don't worry about the match it is not important.' They would give me cards and calls when I got back home. (Their church) paid to fly me back to Hungary for the funeral. I am still amazed by their behavior."
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