From: jonas@beor.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Josef Nelissen)
Subject: Becker as a german hero (was Re: Ivanisevic's boasting)
Organization: Rechnerbetrieb Informatik  /  RWTH Aachen
Date:  9 Nov 92 07:02:26 GMT

Gess Shankar <gess@knex.Gwinnett.COM> writes:

>Anne Bilek <anne@boombox.micro.umn.edu> writes:
>> 
>> The funny thing is, all of these characteristics are equally attributable
>> to someone like Becker, who is talented in all areas but known for his
>> big serve, also has been known to shoot off his mouth, and (for a while)
>> had every one of his victories touted as a victory for Germany.  
>> 

>I do not recall Becker himself making reckless statements such as these.
>The German media did indeed claim his victories as victory for Germany.
>They probably were in bad need of a sports hero and lionized Becker in a
>big way. In fact, this sort of adulation and consequent high expectations
>put a lot of pressure on Becker in his younger days. But I thought he always
>carried himself off rather well. But I may be wrong about this. Any Becker
>fans care to comment (especially German fans).


Yes, Becker was made a heroe by the german media as he won his first
Wimbledon title in 1985. But you must recall the situation:

Germany hadn't had a good tennis player (either woman or man) for a
couple of years (though there were over one million active players
here) and then came this guy and won Wimbledon as the youngest
player ever and the first unseeded! I remember these days pretty well;
I was joining the army and we had to guard some Pershing 1 missiles
and in normal life there were test alarms every now and then - but
when Bobele (german nickname instead of BOOMBOOM) was playing there
weren't any :-) (our boss being a great tennis fan :-)))))))))).

O.k. since then things turned a little, Steffi Graf came up, Michael
Stich won Wimbledon as well, and germany won the Davis cup which was
another great event in our sport history, and since the results turned
out to be so well over the years, the counting of victories of german
players as victories for germany diminished.

O.k., I could write a few more lines about this, but before I turn to
rambling, I will end this section (eventually I'm not the only german
to read this newsgroup, perhaps Stefan or Cordula will have another
viewpoint regarding this subject)

According to reckless statements, of course Becker uttered some:

I personally recall the one about the "Hafenstrasse" (to cut a long
story short: there were some anarchists in Hamburg Hafenstrasse (a
street there near St. Pauli) which caused a lot of trouble to the
government, and Bobele once said that he would like to see some of
them in the spectators rather then some other people (hope that I
recall this right) or that he could perhaps join some of there
feelings towards society). 

Before the Olympic Games in Barcelona he said that he would like it
very much to drink a cup of coffee with some other participants there,
which caused great trouble with the national olympic committee, who
thought that the athletes should first think of winning medals for their
country and not of hanging around drinking coffee. Perhaps I should
mention as well that Becker had just signed a advertisment contract
with a famous german coffee-roasting company ;-)))))))))

But there were - to the best of my knowledge - no statements of Bobele
which could be seen as nationalistic, lest someone would count
sentences like: "I like to play for my country." or "It's a very good
feeling to win for germany" as such.

BTW one or two years ago Becker *didn't* play for germany in the
Daviscup, but after this year he joined the team again.

-- 
Josef Nelissen, Lehrstuhl fuer Angewandte Mathematik, insbesondere Informatik,
RWTH-Aachen, Ahornstr. 55, W-5100 Aachen, Germany, Tel. +49 241/80-21060,
FAX +49 241/80-21079, e-mail jonas@beor.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
* To know everything would be impractical. The access time would be enormous. *
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis