So, Andre Agassi's Box Buddies: You're getting into snack foods now?
I wouldn't say I'm getting into snack foods. I'd say I'm extending my reach in helping public education. I was approached to do a for-profit venture that I had no interest in, and I said, Well, wait a second ... so 100% of the proceeds go to my foundation.
You offer applesauce that comes in a tube. Do you eat applesauce?
I don't. Truth be told, we lean toward being healthier, but obviously if it were superhealthy, no one would eat it.
Why, since leaving tennis, have you increasingly focused on education?
Because it was the only way, I eventually realized, you can make systemic change. I didn't have a choice in my life, and I didn't have education. I was lucky and found myself good at tennis, but without that, I don't know where I'd be. I look at the circumstances of these kids, and without education, I know exactly where we'll be--we'll be building prisons instead of schools.
Anything you'd change about your charter school in Las Vegas if you were starting it now?
I would've started off in preschool and slowly expanded. Instead I started in third grade, fourth and fifth, and I panicked as we spent all our time trying to get these kids up to speed.
You're a partner in an investment fund specifically for school buildings. Why that?
I had a $40 million campus in the most economically challenged area of Las Vegas. I assure you, Ambien is no match for a $40 million mortgage. The single greatest impediment to the growth of best-in-class charter schools is not the software but the hardware--the actual facilities. We come in with private capital and allow schools time to incubate.
You wrote in your memoir Open that you hate tennis. Do you hate philanthropy as well?
No, no. Actually, philanthropy got me to not hate tennis. Tennis is lonely--I would have been better off in a team sport. When I started to make a difference in children's lives, I felt like I finally had my team.
After reading in Open that crystal meth made you tidy your house, I was thinking of trying it.
It does help you clean your house. And then it takes everything away from you.
You and your wife Steffi both had domineering dads. How are you handling your kids' sporting abilities?
My daughter is on two hip-hop dance competition teams, and she loves it. If she continues and my son continues baseball, of course I'd support them. But I know those careers can come to an end in one day.
Do you watch tennis?
More than ever. I don't have to solve for it anymore, so I watch it with much more enjoyment.
Roger Federer challenged you to serve at 113 m.p.h. recently, and you hit 114. Can you reliably do that?
He knows my game. It'd be easier for me to hit a serve 114 on the nose than to give me five tries to hit 68. There's not a circumstance in the world where I'd hit a 68-m.p.h. serve.
Me neither.
But 114 is like an aggressive second serve.
Any hairstyle you regret?
Yes. All of them before I shaved my head. I haven't seen a picture that I don't want to burn.
Bonus reader question from Germany: Have you picked up any German habits while married to Steffi?
I've now incorporated into what you would call "appropriate conversations" the word Scheisse. They use this word in any environment. Somehow they can say s--- in German and it's O.K. Nobody bats an eyelid.