Tribute to John McEnroe: Performance Variability Happens With Even The Greats ... You Cannot Be Serious!
Topic: 4) A Random Walk
CNN reports that John McEnroe's talk show is being cancelled after barely six months.


Now I've never watched his show, but John McEnroe is smart, colorful, and entertaining. Aside from antics early on in his tennis career, I have really identified with him: plays tennis left-handed, uses an all-court strategy, has natural athletic abilities, has played vintage Maxply Fort Dunlop racquets, followed players like Rod Laver, got bored with the age of modern tennis because of a lack of characters on the circuit, made significant steps toward personal and family improvement latter in life, and loves to play rock-and-roll (sure he plays guitar and I play the drums, but we both like Patti Smyth and Van Halen ... that's the only difference, right?).


Some other *small* accomplishments of John (from the McEnroe Show website):
A #1 New York Times' Best Seller, "You Cannot Be Serious"
7 Grand Slam Singles Championships
3 Wimbledon Singles Championships
4 U.S. Open Singles Championships
5 U.S. Davis Cup Championships
10 Grand Slam Doubles Championships
5 Wimbledon Doubles Championships
4 U.S. Open Doubles Championships
1 French Open Mixed Doubles Championships
7 Masters Doubles Championships
154 ATP Tour Singles and Doubles Titles
36 Champions Tour Titles
NCAA Singles Champion at Stanford University
1999 Induction in the International Tennis Hall of Fame
2000 Davis Cup Captain


John is a world-renowned sportscaster, and he has been *** #1 *** for much of his life. His unique persona even served as inspriation for the role of the American chess master in the musical Chess. His book is probably the only autobiography that I ever read outside of the ones forced on me back in high school. But John will now have the following credit as well:
[ranking] 833rd out of 834 shows that aired on all of cable television in the period from 6 a.m. Monday through 3 a.m. Tuesday. "McEnroe" beat only the Food Network's "How to Boil Water." (source)


All I can say is that John McEnroe is still an inspiration to me. Being #833 of #834 after being #1 in many other areas just goes to show that even proven greats can have underperforming ventures.


John, I'll jam with you any day.


Steve Shu
Managing Director
S4 Management Group
Email: sshu@s4management.com
Web: http://www.s4management.com