MIKE EIKENBERRY:  STILL PLAYING THE ODDS 
6/19/06
by Sara James

The Richmond Times Dispatch article title said:  "Eikenberry King- The 'Lazy' Way".  That's how the reporter with the city tennis beat described Mike Eikenberry in June, 1971. 

"Tennis is a lazy man's game the way Mike Eikenberry plays it, but please spare the rocking chair.  He only looks lazy.  He only looks tired," Bill Deekens wrote.

"People say I'm lazy, but that's my style," said Eikenberry after his city championship win.  "Those double faults were a help.  You don't use up any energy while they're happening," he said of Dickinson's play.  

Paul Dickinson, who had earned a spot in the final with booming shots and an all-out attack game, felt the heat on the asphalt courts of Byrd Park.  Deekens reported that Dickinson "was the more impressive of the two with his put away shots.  He made the picture plays with either forehand or backhand as Eikenberry shrugged and waited for the next point and the law of averages.

"Eikenberry looked less than wilted after the 147 minute match," reported Deekens.  

"I do remember Mike taking a pair of scissors and clipping his bangs before the match," Dickinson recalled when I dropped by his office near Willow Lawn to talk about their match-up 35 years ago.  Paul gave me the photo above, the one where he is draped exasperatedly across the net.  "Try not to make me look too bad," he requested. 

With the temperature over 90 degrees, Eikenberry's strategy was designed to coax the most errors out of Dickinson, who as a VMI star had already lost twice to Eikenberry.  "I used a chip return of serve, rather than going for a winner and risking error," he said.  Eikenberry didn't even bother to go after some of Dickinson's impressive returns of serve.  "I didn't want to waste the energy.  Paul hits the ball so hard, it's either in or out."*

Dickinson, whose father Al was a city star during the Bobby Leitch era, upset four time city champ Bruce Sylvia to get to the final.        Paul Dickinson>>

In fact, leading up to his match-up with Eikenberry, Dickinson performed the biggest upset of the '71 tournament by defeating Sylvia.  In that match, Dickinson "ruined my whole strategy.  He didn't make many errors...he hit more good shots than I did," said Sylvia.**

So it is with tennis. Sometimes playing the odds works.  Sometimes it doesn't. And so it is with life.

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Mike Eikenberry grew up in Peru, Indiana, a place with 10,000 people.  It is Hoosiers country, where basketball is the biggest game in town.  The town had its own "Sam Woods", who made it is his goal to get everyone to play tennis when they weren't playing basketball.  Because of his efforts, tennis became almost as popular as hoops, and from 1955-1965, the Peru High School tennis team was undefeated in high school match play.

Mike, a sixth grader,  was pitching a baseball and running on the track team when he was introduced to tennis.  "I was late to the season opener where I was scheduled to pitch.  I was running a 4 X 50 relay race at a track meet.  This is how good I was:  when I got the baton we were in first place.  By the time I finished my leg, we were dead last. I had to leave there to go to my baseball game.  I was late.  My dad was the coach and he was pretty ticked off at me.  That was the last time I ran track."

Mike's dad threw him into tennis.  "The town's coach convinced my dad that tennis was the best thing for my basketball game. The coach thought every good athlete should be playing tennis.  So, I got up at 7:00 am every morning to play tennis to help my movement for basketball."

While working on his basketball prowess, Mike went undefeated in his high school tennis both singles and doubles matches.  

And tennis must have helped.  Mike, by now an All American, 6' 6" hoops star, was offered a basketball scholarship to the University of Virginia.  

"I was playing in a game two games before the end of the season when I went for a lay-up.  A guy slammed into me from below.  I fell on my right elbow and fractured it.

"I was determined to play in the final...I had been offered basketball scholarships and I felt it was important to get out there.  I couldn't hit a shot the entire night.  In fact, my shots didn't even hit the rim.  

"The opposing crowd was chanting:  We like Eik!....It was pretty intimidating," Eikenberry recalled.

Eikenberry said the scholarship offers "disappeared" after his performance, when schools became concerned he wouldn't be able to play.  He was left with only three basketball offers:  LSU, Army and UVA.  The University of Indiana offered him a tennis scholarship.

"My dad felt the University of Indiana was the last bastion of communism, so that was out.  Bobby Knight was the assistant coach at Army at the time (1965), but I wasn't militarily-oriented.  LSU got some bad feedback from players, so I went to UVA on a full ride, thinking I might get into law eventually."

Mike said that his basketball career at UVA was less than spectacular. "They were stupid or whatever to offer me the scholarship. It was very hard to score from where I was sitting."

Mike instead found success on the college tennis team.  "I was the first person ever to convert a full basketball scholarship into a tennis scholarship my senior year."  He became #1 on the tennis team.

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The military draft lurked and Mike had a low number.  He considered his options.  "I had a job offer teaching math and coaching basketball and tennis at Armstrong HS.  At the time, math was considered a 'critical subject' area.  I could decide to teach/coach or attend law school and take my chances of being drafted.

"I decided to teach."

While at Armstrong, Eikenberry won the city singles tennis title with his relaxed, easy-does-it approach to the game.  

"Eikenberry is deceptive," said a side-court watcher to Bill Deekens at the time. "You don't think he's doing anything and he's doing everything."

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After eventually playing the odds with the draft board, he made it through law school.  "At graduation, I told everyone that all I knew is that I definitely didn't want to be a lawyer," he said. "That wasn't too popular a comment at the time."

Mike met a "jobber" while he was playing tennis at Westwood Club.  The jobber, John Bowry, told him he should use his connections to set up a company.  The jobber would use his own connections to make whatever it was Mike wanted to manufacture and sell.

Mike turned to 35 tennis pros who each invested $1-2,000 to form a company that made tennis apparel.  "I guaranteed them I wouldn't take any profit from the company until they made their money back," Mike said.

The company- Four Star Tennis Apparel - was grossly undercapitalized, Mike explained.  He didn't take a salary, and lived off his wife's income as a legal secretary for a year.  "We were doing OK until we got to the bottom of a container of shorts that we had purchased from Taiwan.

"All the shorts at the bottom of the boxes were defective. We had no idea where the guy who sold the shipment to us was by then.

"The profits we had made were eaten up by those defective shorts."

Mike started a camp at UVA to teach tennis.  His first camp had 30 kids attending.  He told his business partners he would pay them back with notes at 15% or they could take 200% of their investment in apparel.  

"I worked to pay everyone back until I owned 100% of the company," he said.

His camp, Four Star Tennis Camp, operated on a referral basis.  He paid a referral fee to pros who sent players to the Charlottesville campus.  It grew.  Mike ran the camp at first, and then hired director Phil Rogers to assist with the 1,000 or so kids who came every summer.

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In 1994, the first symptoms of Parkinson's Disease showed up.  Mike could no longer run the camp.   Phil and Mike parted ways.  Eikenberry doesn't want to talk about it.  "There are always two sides to every story," he said.

Last year, Mike had a successful DBS (deep brain surgery) to implant electrodes into his brain.  In his chest, under his skin, he carries a battery pack that sends volts of electricity every millisecond into his brain.  

"Now I'm up and about again.  It has miraculously helped my speech and my balance.  No more tremors."

MIke recently wrote letters to lobby for stem-cell research.  "My request is not party-oriented," he said.  "I ask people to ask Congress to support stem-cell research to end the fear for millions currently suffering from not only Parkinson's, but Alzheimer's, MS, Lou Gehrig's, Huntington's and other chronic, debilitating illnesses."

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Mike Eikenberry, the calculating player on the court, waiting for his opponent to make the errors, still plays the odds.

He is the 'self-proclaimed' new Commissioner of the U.S. Professional Poker League.  "I'm glad to say physically this is something I am able to do," he said.

Mike has written an amateur poker book and is currently looking for a publisher.  He sent me some short stories he wrote with titles: "Quieting Mr. Obnoxious", "Can You Ever Tell for Sure?" and "Undefeated Loser".  

From: Can You Ever Tell for Sure?

"A player's shaking hand, when he bets into a big pot on the final round of betting, is a reliable tell.  It does not mean the player is nervous and thus bluffing.  On the contrary, the player was tense and holding his muscles very tight.  However, he just received a card making him a very strong hand and his muscular system is relaxing, thereby, causing a tremor in his hand.  He is not bluffing....

You must be careful against experienced opponents.  They will often give a 'false tell' to induce their opponent into making a wrong decision, e.g. a player who is bluffing will purposely tremor while betting in order to convince his opponent to incorrectly fold.

I have easily become a master of this false tell the last few years.  I have a medical condition creating a tremor in my left hand.  Therefore, I bet with my left hand when I am bluffing."

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Mike now lives in Denver, Colorado.  He wrote a short note recently thanking me for taking the time to listen.  He included his philosophy:  "I try to live every day as if it were my last.  And I believe that a day of laughter will add one more good day to your life." This time, Mike is not bluffing.   ---------------------------------------------

Mike Eikenberry, 2006