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Open: An Autobiography Paperback – August 10, 2010
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“Honest in a way that such books seldom are.” —The New York Times
Andre Agassi had his life mapped out for him before he left the crib. Groomed to be a tennis champion by his moody and demanding father, by the age of twenty-two Agassi had won the first of his eight grand slams and achieved wealth, celebrity, and the game’s highest honors. But as he reveals in this searching autobiography, off the court he was often unhappy and confused, unfulfilled by his great achievements in a sport he had come to resent.
Agassi writes candidly about his early success and his uncomfortable relationship with fame, his marriage to Brooke Shields, his growing interest in philanthropy, and—described in haunting, point-by-point detail—the highs and lows of his celebrated career.
- Print length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateAugust 10, 2010
- Dimensions5.17 x 0.81 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-100307388409
- ISBN-13978-0307388407
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Editorial Reviews
Review
A New York Times Notable Book and a Forbes, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post Best Book of the Year
“Agassi may have just penned one of the best sports autobiographies of all time. Check—it’s one of the better memoirs out there, period. . . . An unvarnished, at times inspiring story [told] in an arresting, muscular style. . . . Agassi’s memoir is just as entrancing as his tennis game.”
—Time
“Fascinating. . . . Inspiring. . . . Open describes Agassi’s personal odyssey with brio and unvarnished candor. . . . [Agassi’s] career-comeback tale is inspiring but even more so is another Open storyline. It could be called: The punk grows up. . . . Countless athletes start charitable foundations, but frequently the organizations are just tax shelters or PR stunts. For Agassi helping others has instead become his life’s calling. . . . Open is a superb memoir, but it hardly closes the books on an extraordinary life.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Honest in a way that such books seldom are. . . . An uncommonly well-written sports memoir. . . . Bracingly devoid of triumphalist homily, Agassi’s is one of the most passionately anti-sports books ever written by a superstar athlete.”
—The New York Times
“Not your typical jock-autobio fare. This literate and absorbing book is, as the title baldly states, Agassi’s confessional, a wrenching chronicle of his lifelong search for identity and serenity, on and off the court.”
—Los Angeles Times
“The writing here is exceptional. It is can’t-put-down good.”
—Sports Illustrated
“An honest, substantive, insightful autobiography. . . . The bulk of this extraordinary book vividly recounts a lost childhood, a Dickensian adolescence, and a chaotic struggle in adulthood to establish an identity. . . . While not without excitement, Agassi’s comeback to No. 1 is less uplifting than his sheer survival, his emotional resilience, and his good humor in the face of the luckless cards he was often dealt.”
—The Washington Post
“The most revealing, literate, and toes-stompingly honest sports autobiography in history”
—Rick Reilly, ESPN
“Much more than a drug confession—Agassi weaves a fascinating tale of professional tennis and personal adversity. . . . His tale shows that success is measured both on and off the court.”
—New York Post
“Not only has Agassi bared his soul like few professional athletes ever have, he’s done it with a flair and force that most professional writers can’t even pull off.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“[A] heartfelt memoir . . . Agassi’s style is open, all right, and his book, like so many of his tennis games, is a clear winner.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Hard-won self-knowledge irradiates almost every page of Open.. . . Not just a first-rate sports memoir but a genuine bildungsroman, darkly funny yet also anguished and soulful. It confirms what Agassi’s admirers sensed from the outset, that this showboat . . . was not clamoring for attention but rather conducting a struggle to wrest some semblance of selfhood from the sport that threatened to devour him.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A riveting and reflective memoir by a man who rose to the top of his sport—despite hating it.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Celebrity tell-alls have rarely been this honest and this interesting.”
—Baltimore Sun
“A vivid portrait of the internal battle faced in some measure by every athlete.”
—Bloomberg News
“Articulate. . . . Expertly rendered.”
—The Morning News (Boston)
“Refreshingly candid. . . . This lively, revealing, and entertaining book is certain to roil the tennis world and make a big splash beyond.”
—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Andre Agassi played tennis professionally from 1986 to 2006. Often ranked number one, he captured eight Grand Slam singles championships. Founder of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, he has raised more than $85 million for the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy for underprivileged children in Las Vegas, where he lives with his wife, Stefanie Graf, and their two children.
Visit the author's website: www.agassifoundation.org
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I open my eyes and don’t know where I am or who I am. Not all that unusual—I’ve spent half my life not knowing. Still, this feels different. This confusion is more frightening. More total.
I look up. I’m lying on the floor beside the bed. I remember now. I moved from the bed to the floor in the middle of the night. I do that most nights. Better for my back. Too many hours on a soft mattress causes agony. I count to three, then start the long, difficult process of standing. With a cough, a groan, I roll onto my side, then curl into the fetal position, then flip over onto my stomach. Now I wait, and wait, for the blood to start pumping.
I’m a young man, relatively speaking. Thirty-six. But I wake as if ninety-six. After three decades of sprinting, stopping on a dime, jumping high and landing hard, my body no longer feels like my body, especially in the morning. Consequently my mind doesn’t feel like my mind. Upon opening my eyes I’m a stranger to myself, and while, again, this isn’t new, in the mornings it’s more pronounced. I run quickly through the basic facts. My name is Andre Agassi. My wife’s name is Stefanie Graf. We have two children, a son and daughter, five and three. We live in Las Vegas, Nevada, but currently reside in a suite at the Four Seasons hotel in New York City, because I’m playing in the 2006 U.S. Open. My last U.S. Open. In fact my last tournament ever. I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have.
As this last piece of identity falls into place, I slide to my knees and in a whisper I say: Please let this be over.
Then: I’m not ready for it to be over.
Now, from the next room, I hear Stefanie and the children. They’re eating breakfast, talking, laughing. My overwhelming desire to see and touch them, plus a powerful craving for caffeine, gives me the inspiration I need to hoist myself up, to go vertical. Hate brings me to my knees, love gets me on my feet.
I glance at the bedside clock. Seven thirty. Stefanie let me sleep in. The fatigue of these final days has been severe. Apart from the physical strain, there is the exhausting torrent of emotions set loose by my pending retirement. Now, rising from the center of the fatigue comes the first wave of pain. I grab my back. It grabs me. I feel as if someone snuck in during the night and attached one of those anti-theft steering wheel locks to my spine. How can I play in the U.S. Open with the Club on my spine? Will the last match of my career be a forfeit?
I was born with spondylolisthesis, meaning a bottom vertebra that parted from the other vertebrae, struck out on its own, rebelled. (It’s the main reason for my pigeon-toed walk.) With this one vertebra out of sync, there’s less room for the nerves inside the column of my spine, and with the slightest movement the nerves feel that much more crowded. Throw in two herniated discs and a bone that won’t stop growing in a futile effort to protect the damaged area, and those nerves start to feel downright claustrophobic. When the nerves protest their cramped quarters, when they send out distress signals, a pain runs up and down my leg that makes me suck in my breath and speak in tongues. At such moments the only relief is to lie down and wait. Sometimes, however, the moment arrives in the middle of a match. Then the only remedy is to alter my game—swing differently, run differently, do everything differently. That’s when my muscles spasm. Everyone avoids change; muscles can’t abide it. Told to change, my muscles join the spinal rebellion, and soon my whole body is at war with itself.
Gil, my trainer, my friend, my surrogate father, explains it this way: Your body is saying it doesn’t want to do this anymore.
My body has been saying that for a long time, I tell Gil. Almost as long as I’ve been saying it.
Since January, however, my body has been shouting it. My body doesn’t want to retire—my body has already retired. My body has moved to Florida and bought a condo and white Sansabelts. So I’ve been negotiating with my body, asking it to come out of retirement for a few hours here, a few hours there. Much of this negotiation revolves around a cortisone shot that temporarily dulls the pain. Before the shot works, however, it causes its own torments.
I got one yesterday, so I could play tonight. It was the third shot this year, the thirteenth of my career, and by far the most alarming. The doctor, not my regular doctor, told me brusquely to assume the position. I stretched out on his table, face down, and his nurse yanked down my shorts. The doctor said he needed to get his seven-inch needle as close to the inflamed nerves as possible. But he couldn’t enter directly, because my herniated discs and bone spur were blocking the path. His attempts to circumvent them, to break the Club, sent me through the roof. First he inserted the needle. Then he positioned a big machine over my back to see how close the needle was to the nerves. He needed to get that needle almost flush against the nerves, he said, without actually touching. If it were to touch the nerves, even if it were to only nick the nerves, the pain would ruin me for the tournament. It could also be life- changing. In and out and around, he maneuvered the needle, until my eyes filled with water.
Finally he hit the spot. Bull’s- eye, he said.
In went the cortisone. The burning sensation made me bite my lip. Then came the pressure. I felt infused, embalmed. The tiny space in my spine where the nerves are housed began to feel vacuum packed. The pressure built until I thought my back would burst.
Pressure is how you know everything’s working, the doctor said.
Words to live by, Doc.
Soon the pain felt wonderful, almost sweet, because it was the kind that you can tell precedes relief. But maybe all pain is like that.
MY FAMILY IS GROWING LOUDER. I limp out to the living room of our suite. My son, Jaden, and my daughter, Jaz, see me and scream. Daddy, Daddy! They jump up and down and want to leap on me. I stop and brace myself, stand before them like a mime imitating a tree in winter. They stop just before leaping, because they know Daddy is delicate these days, Daddy will shatter if they touch him too hard. I pat their faces and kiss their cheeks and join them at the breakfast table.
Jaden asks if today is the day.
Yes.
You’re playing?
Yes.
And then after today are you retire?
A new word he and his younger sister have learned. Retired. When they say it, they always leave off the last letter. For them it’s retire, forever ongoing, permanently in the present tense. Maybe they know something I don’t.
Not if I win, son. If I win tonight, I keep playing.
But if you lose— we can have a dog?
To the children, retire equals puppy. Stefanie and I have promised them that when I stop training, when we stop traveling the world, we can buy a puppy. Maybe we’ll name him Cortisone.
Yes, buddy, when I lose, we will buy a dog.
He smiles. He hopes Daddy loses, hopes Daddy experiences the disappointment that surpasses all others. He doesn’t understand— and how will I ever be able to explain it to him?—the pain of losing, the pain of playing. It’s taken me nearly thirty years to understand it myself, to solve the calculus of my own psyche.
I ask Jaden what he’s doing today.
Going to see the bones.
I look at Stefanie. She reminds me she’s taking them to the Museum of Natural History. Dinosaurs. I think of my twisted vertebrae. I think of my skeleton on display at the museum with all the other dinosaurs. Tennis-aurus Rex.
Jaz interrupts my thoughts. She hands me her muffin. She needs me to pick out the blueberries before she eats it. Our morning ritual. Each blueberry must be surgically removed, which requires precision, concentration. Stick the knife in, move it around, get it right up to the blueberry without touching. I focus on her muffin and it’s a relief to think about something other than tennis. But as I hand her the muffin, I can’t pretend that it doesn’t feel like a tennis ball, which makes the muscles in my back twitch with anticipation. The time is drawing near.
AFTER BREAKFAST, after Stefanie and the kids have kissed me goodbye and run off to the museum, I sit quietly at the table, looking around the suite. It’s like every hotel suite I’ve ever had, only more so. Clean, chic, comfortable— it’s the Four Seasons, so it’s lovely, but it’s still just another version of what I call Not Home. The non-place we exist as athletes. I close my eyes, try to think about tonight, but my mind drifts backward. My mind these days has a natural backspin. Given half a chance it wants
to return to the beginning, because I’m so close to the end. But I can’t let it. Not yet. I can’t afford to dwell too long on the past. I get up and walk around the table, test my balance. When I feel fairly steady I walk gingerly to the shower.
Under the hot water I groan and scream. I bend slowly, touch my quads, start to come alive. My muscles loosen. My skin sings. My pores fly open. Warm blood goes sluicing through my veins. I feel something begin to stir. Life. Hope. The last drops of youth. Still, I make no sudden movements. I don’t want to do anything to startle my spine. I let my spine sleep in.
Standing at the bathroom mirror, toweling off, I stare at my face. Red eyes, gray stubble— a face totally different from the one with which I started. But also different from the one I saw last year in this same mirror. Whoever I might be, I’m not the boy who started this odyssey, and I’m not even the man who announced three months ago that the odyssey was coming to an end. I’m like a tennis racket on which I’ve replaced the grip four times and the strings seven times— is it accurate to call it the same racket? Somewhere in those eyes, however, I can still vaguely see the boy who didn’t want to play tennis in the first place, the boy who wanted to quit, the boy who did quit many times. I see that golden- haired boy who hated tennis, and I wonder how he would view this bald man, who still hates tennis and yet still plays. Would he be shocked? Amused? Proud? The question makes me weary, lethargic, and it’s only noon.
Please let this be over.
I’m not ready for it to be over.
The finish line at the end of a career is no different from the finish line at the end of a match. The objective is to get within reach of that finish line, because then it gives off a magnetic force. When you’re close, you can feel that force pulling you, and you can use that force to get across. But just before you come within range, or just after, you feel another force, equally strong, pushing you away. It’s inexplicable, mystical, these twin forces, these contradictory energies, but they both exist. I know, because I’ve spent much of my life seeking the one, fighting the other, and sometimes I’ve been stuck, suspended, bounced like a tennis ball
between the two.
Tonight: I remind myself that it will require iron discipline to cope with these forces, and whatever else comes my way. Back pain, bad shots, foul weather, self- loathing. It’s a form of worry, this reminder, but also a meditation. One thing I’ve learned in twenty-nine years of playing tennis: Life will throw everything but the kitchen sink in your path, and then it will throw the kitchen sink. It’s your job to avoid the obstacles. If you let them stop you or distract you, you’re not doing your job, and failing to do your job will cause regrets that paralyze you more than a bad back.
I lie on the bed with a glass of water and read. When my eyes get tired I click on the TV. Tonight, Round Two of the U.S. Open! Will this be Andre Agassi’s farewell? My face flashes on the screen. A different face than the one in the mirror. My game face. I study this new reflection of me in the distorted mirror that is TV and my anxiety rises another click or two.
Was that the final commercial? The final time CBS will ever promote one of my matches?
I can’t escape the feeling that I’m about to die.
It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life. Advantage, service, fault, break, love, the basic elements of tennis are those of everyday existence, because every match is a life in miniature. Even the structure of tennis, the way the pieces fit inside one another like Russian nesting dolls, mimics the structure of our days. Points become games become sets become tournaments, and it’s all so tightly connected that any point can become the turning point. It reminds me of the way seconds become minutes become hours, and any hour can be our finest. Or darkest. It’s our choice.
But if tennis is life, then what follows tennis must be the unknowable void. The thought makes me cold.
Stefanie bursts through the door with the kids. They flop on the bed, and my son asks how I’m feeling.
Fine, fine. How were the bones?
Fun!
Stefanie gives them sandwiches and juice and hustles them out the door again.
They have a playdate, she says.
Don’t we all.
Now I can take a nap. At thirty- six, the only way I can play a late match, which could go past midnight, is if I get a nap beforehand. Also, now that I know roughly who I am, I want to close my eyes and hide from it. When I open my eyes, one hour has passed. I say aloud, It’s time. No more hiding. I step into the shower again, but this shower is different from the morning shower. The afternoon shower is always longer—twenty-two minutes, give or take— and it’s not for waking up or getting
clean. The afternoon shower is for encouraging myself, coaching myself.
Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. Pitchers, golfers, goalkeepers, they mutter to themselves, of course, but tennis players talk to themselves—and answer. In the heat of a match, tennis players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing and conducting Lincoln-Douglas debates with their alter egos. Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players—and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer’s opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face- to- face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They’re inches away. In tennis you’re on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement, which inevitably leads to self- talk, and for me the self-talk starts here in the afternoon shower. This is when I begin to say things to myself, crazy things, over and over, until I believe them. For instance, that a quasi-cripple can compete at the U.S. Open. That a thirty-six-year-old man can beat an opponent just entering his prime. I’ve won 869 matches in my career, fifth on the all-time list, and many were won during the afternoon shower.
With the water roaring in my ears— a sound not unlike twenty thousand fans—I recall particular wins. Not wins the fans would remember, but wins that still wake me at night. Squillari in Paris. Blake in New York. Pete in Australia. Then I recall a few losses. I shake my head at the disappointments. I tell myself that tonight will be an exam for which I’ve been studying twenty-nine years. Whatever happens tonight, I’ve already been through it at least once before. If it’s a physical test, if it’s mental, it’s nothing new.
Please let this be over.
I don’t want it to be over.
I start to cry. I lean against the wall of the shower and let go.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (August 10, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 400 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307388409
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307388407
- Item Weight : 13.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.17 x 0.81 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #8,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Football Biographies (Books)
- #8 in Basketball Biographies (Books)
- #350 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Andre Agassi played tennis professionally from 1986 to 2006, winning over $30-million in prize money. Often ranked #1 in the world, he won eight Grand Slam singles tournaments and an Olympic gold medal. He is only one of five men to have won all four Grand Slam singles titles and the only man in history to have won GS titles on all three playing surfaces (hardcourt, grass, and clay). He also won the Tennis Masters Cup and was part of a winning Davis Cup team. He is the founder of the Andre Agassi Charitable Foundation, which has raised over $60 million and opened the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a K-12 charter school for some of the underprivileged children of Las Vegas. He lives in that city with his wife, Steffi Graf, and his two children.
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The progression of his life throughout the book was fast-paced, fascinating and, most importantly, honest and real. Though a play on words, the title of the book is perfect. Rare is a self-portrayal as critical and incisive. Andre exposes events devoid of any hint of the self-importance one would normally expect from a celebrity of his stature. In a word, his presentation of his life is humble.
The scenes are described in stunning color, emotion and presented startlingly clear mental images. He also captures many of the scenes with hilarity (the scene when Andre's father meets Stephanie's father is worth the price of the book). Both haircut scenes (his and his son's later in the book) were comical.
Perhaps most interesting to many is his incredible portrayal of the mentally and physically grueling nature of the tour. I got the feel of almost actually being there when he describes the actual games. His explanation of the Sampras rivalry was priceless. His descriptions and views on other players, particularly Connors, like most of the book, gives the sense of being there. He seemed fair in his assessments and, like his tennis game, stayed just inside the line. The relationship with Shields was presented clearly without being critical. One gets no sense that she was at fault for the divorce or a bad person, generally. A difficult line to walk for anyone in such circumstances, but he managed it artfully. The description of his run-in with meth could not have been more forthcoming and, to me, was courageous given the hysteria surrounding the issue in America.
I was sometimes surprised by the almost perfect diction, grammer and prose used in some scenes given the absence of a co-writer. After all, although Andre comes across as intelligent in television interviews, he has only a self-proclaimed 9th grade education. Regardless, he finally fessed up at the end that one of the better writers in this genre assisted. This, of course, is to be expected and does nothing to detract from the genuineness of the book.
My only complaint is that the book was not longer and needed more explanation for why he continually reminded the reader of his paradoxical "hate" for tennis. The words "hate tennis" appear 17 times in the book. Generally, it's just another person who he is letting in on his dirty little secret. I think 2 or 3 times as a shock to the reader would have sufficed. It seems his writing helper could have steered him clear of this overuse. Overall, thIs was a minor nuisance and has the nominal value of reminding the reader of his emotions at the time.
The real question was why he hates tennis. The answer to the question seems apparent in that he was forced to play from an early age and into his his early teens. His father was cast in an unfavorable light as the slave master, but it is apparent that he has now moved beyond that difficulty. Anyone generally hates something that is forced upon them. Regardless, it is unfortunate that he didn't explore the why a little deeper.
Regardless, this is one of those reads that you just want to go on because it's so well done. Some might be put off by the rather lengthy descriptions of the games, but for me, reliving some of those moments in such dramatic detail was awesome, particularly since he describes his emotions in the moment so perfectly.
I believe this is one of the more unique, well-written and inspirational books of its kind. It's an absolute must read for Agassi and sports fans, generally. Beyond that, almost anyone should read this as a testament to the ability to overcome the demons in one's soul and life difficulties generally.
Agassi presents such an honest portrayal that my estimation of him as a person increased immeasurably. Finally, the success of his foundation and work on his charter school as described were inspirational. I was never a huge Agassi fan, but I am now.
I live far away from the States. I was waiting long for this book to arrive. In a mean time I read many reviews, excerpts, comments. Too many. But I just had to. It was previously written here what this book is about. I will not try to make a better description as I don't have skills to do that. I would just like to share with you what I learned from this book and how powerful it is.
One thing that makes the book special is the fact that it is written in a present tense. This is a powerful move. Obviously it is not done without a reason. What I think, Andre wants us not only to feel the story better, but he also doesn't try to make it just the memoir of the past but rather shows what he actually thought in those particular moments of his life. It is written in a way that when there are 70's you can hear the voice of a child, in the 80's the voice of teenager and later you hear the voice of mature adult. But still all the time you hear the voice of the same person, Andre.
Andre said "I didn't transform, I formed". It's unbelievable how for so many years he was misunderstood by media and partly as a result of that by us. But Andre shows that even though he might have been perceived as special, different, star-status, high-life person, his life has not been as much different from average people's lives like us. It's about having choices and not having them, about making good and bad decisions, about promises which we all make and fail to keep, about weaknesses, about ups and downs, about duties, responsibilities and dedication, about being a son and being a father, being a husband and being a wife, about the power of friendships, about love. Aren't these, the issues that all of us struggle with in our lives? And who of us wouldn't like to be a superstar, the "number one"? In paradox Andre wanted to be rather like us - the "average one". What we can learn now is that one can be more special being an "average" than being a "special". These are our actions and abilities to give to others that define us.
Although the story rolls around tennis, Andre rarely boasts about his talent and his great matches. He doesn't talk much about the moments when he came up on top. Even in some of his greatest victories he defends his opponents because of various reasons. It even seems that he talks more about his painful losses than great triumphs. Andre's fans may feel disappointed in this modesty. The point however is, that this is not tennis that is most important here. What matters most are his relations with people who he admires and truly loves. And these are his friends and his second wife. Haven't you ever found out that at the hard times, there are only your closests who let you "stand on their shoulders"? Andre makes us remember that.
The book is almost 400 pages long, but many stories and matches are described quickly without explication. Some may be disappointed. But this journey is so wealth that I doubt one thousand of pages would be enough. On the other hand it gives the story a great pace and that absorbs, you can't put it down. I don't think it could've been done better. And isn't it just how the life goes? Week by week, month by month, year by year. Fast, without stopping, without much time to think or look back. In this book you can just feel it. Feel the story of beautiful real life.
You can find more than I found. No doubt. I will also look for more. I'm sure there is more in this book. This story is for those who love tennis but also for those who look for answers in their lives. For people who try to find their places in the world. But also for those who just want to have a good read. For those who want to cry and who want to laugh. This book is really what he wanted it to be - a powerful book. Andre Agassi gives us a chance to learn on his example, his life. The life that hasn't been perfect. The life with struggles and mistakes. But also the life that could've gone different ways, but eventually found the right path. He knows that the only way to make it a powerful and inspirational story was to make it true, honest, to make it "Open". Like for many others, Andre gives us opportunity, and it is our "choice" if we want to take that with us.