Photography by Adrian Murrell/Getty Images
Before he became the best tennis player in the world (ranking No. 1 for five straight years), Jimmy Connors was just a kid in East St. Louis, Ill., hitching rides on freight trains and playing with his dog, Pepper. In his new book, The Outsider, Connors describes how growing up on the “wrong side” of the Mississippi River made him feel unwelcome in the country-club sport. He also admits to calling his mother 10 times a day during his career and reveals that he suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Here are some more facts about Connors’ youth in the Metro East.
• When Jimmy was 8, his mother, Gloria, who taught him the game on a makeshift gravel tennis court in the back yard, was brutally assaulted at Jones Park. Despite losing several teeth, Mom hit balls with Jimmy and his brother, Johnny, the next day.
• Jimmy’s maternal grandfather, Al Thompson, whom he affectionately calls “Pop,” was a Golden Gloves boxer who once sparred with Joe Louis.
• His paternal grandfather, John T. Connors, was the mayor of East St. Louis in the 1940s. He had ties to such infamous characters as Ralph “Shorty” Caleca and Frank “Buster” Wortman.
• Jimmy started playing at a very young age and had trouble wrapping his little hands around a racket—so he decided to use both for his backhand. Eventually, the two-handed backhand would revolutionize the game.
• After tennis practice, Pop, Johnny, and Jimmy would “ride the railcars,” going as far as Kansas City. “There we were, just off the courts, dressed in pristine tennis whites,” he writes, “and hopping into a boxcar with hobos.”
• When he was 16, Connors moved to California to train. He saw a veggie burger and a soy smoothie on the menu at a diner and thought, “I don’t think we’re in East St. Louis any more, Toto.”
