Stories Inside the Man Cave
Stories Inside the Man Cave
From Championship Tennis to Prison: Michael Center's Journey of Resilience
Michael Center, former University of Texas tennis coach, shares his journey from being arrested as part of the nationwide college admissions scandal to writing his book "Breaking Serve" about his path to recovery.
• Center's coaching career began unexpectedly at 25 when offered the women's tennis coaching position at Kansas
• The University of Texas tennis program faced facility challenges when their courts were demolished to build a hospital
• Center was arrested by FBI agents at his home on March 12, 2019 as part of "Operation Varsity Blues"
• He explains how his involvement stemmed from attempting to raise funds for new tennis facilities
• Center maintains that university officials were aware of the student's admission through proper documentation
• His team won the national championship just months after his arrest, which he had to watch from afar
• Center served his prison sentence during COVID-19, spending 42 days confined indoors as the virus spread
• The book "Breaking Serve" focuses on resilience and recovery rather than blame
• Center now does public speaking and coaching while helping others overcome adversity
If you're interested in Michael's book or having him speak to your organization, visit breakingserve.com or purchase the book on Amazon.
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Honest is a strong word, and we all need honesty when it comes to plumbing and HVAC beats. Somebody who will take care of the repairs efficiently and with quality. Honest Plumbing in Air is who I trust, and they take pride in that word. Honest Plumbing in Air, where a handshake still means something. Thank you for making time to watch episode 481. It is Let's Talk About It. And you know, throughout these past four or five years, we've had some inspiring guests, some of which have been authors of books. Life, adversity in life has motivated people to not only have a new perspective in life, but to write books. For example, Katie Russell Newler back in 2020 talked about her book. It was basically about being a cancer survivor, losing her mother to cancer, and fulfilling a dream to visit all the Major League Baseball Parks across the country, a dream that she and her late mother said that they were going to do. And it is an amazing book. Then Brandon Puffer, the former Major League Baseball player whose dreams and baseball career cut short due to imprisonment. Just one bad night, one bad decision. And Brandon Puffer, one of the greatest human beings I have ever met. Then we have the former Baylor moms who wrote a book, co-authored a book to inspire current college athletes, parents on how to navigate the tough landscape it is of being a parent of a college athlete. Well, today we're gonna meet a man who is one of the more respected coaches in college tennis. His life came to an screeching halt, so to speak, an abrupt change when he was the head coach at the University of Texas. Michael Sinner and his book.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes you have to wait to reach the pinnacle, and I guess I uh I've I've finally gotten there.
SPEAKER_01:Oh man. I just you just made my whole week, my whole 2025.
SPEAKER_00:Don't tell chip, don't tell Chip Brown, but but Brown.
SPEAKER_01:He's a man cave VIP alumni, Chip. Sorry, brother. Uh he's been elevated over here. Uh hey, but you've got a great story. You were uh you've recruited, coached, and and really have had a really a good life, good career to talk about. And honestly, when you and I talked about this uh before we planned out this episode, it was an awful occurrence that you know a lot of people couldn't imagine going through something as you did. But man, what you've done with this, it's such a great story. And before we get to that, be sure to follow us on all of our social media platforms. You see them all there. There's so many. Uh, and you can the best part about YouTube, you can subscribe to it, but that word's misleading, you can subscribe to it for free. And we got to give a shout out to all of our sponsors, including Honest Plumbing and Air, where a handshake still means something. You know, we really don't have the four seasons, but I would highly recommend before we get our first freeze, which probably won't happen until December, get the HVAC everything inspected before it's too late. You don't want that to happen. So give uh honest plumbing and air a call. So, Michael Center, before we get into the meat of this great story, your tennis playing career and coaching career. When did this love for tennis begin? And how did you get into coaching tennis?
SPEAKER_00:Well, before I answer that question, Sean, you keep calling it a great story. I don't know if I call it a great story. Well, that's true. It's it's an interesting story, but when you live it, it was not a great story. So I just want to clarify that it's an interesting, compelling story. I I will say that. Okay. Uh I became a coach. I played, you know, I played high school basketball and I played high school tennis. And I I was a decent high school tennis player, not a great player. Uh, won the state championship, but I was not a national stud by any stretch of the imagination. I went to the University of Kansas and played there for four years, had a phenomenal experience there, uh, great coach, and decided I wanted to go to graduate school and and pursue a master's in athletics administration and sports psychology. I I envisioned myself becoming an athletic director or perhaps a commissioner of a conference. That was my long-range goal. And and as I was working and just completed my degree, I get a call from a guy named Scott Peroman, who was my college coach, who had just they just switched the uh divided the program where he used to coach both teams. Now he was just coaching the men, and they were hiring a women's coach. And he called me and said, I want you to come back and be the women's tennis coach at the University of Kansas. I was 25 years old.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I hadn't thought about coaching at the time. I'd served as an assistant for him for a year, kind of just as a filler. I enjoyed it, but I I hadn't didn't plan on pursuing that as a as a career. And I ended up going back and I loved it and and I became a college tennis coach. But um, you know, at that time there was no money in a in a sport like that. You just you worked because you loved it, and I didn't think it would last forever, but you know, I ended up doing it for nearly 30 years.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I can relate to there's not a lot of money into it. Those first two jobs in in my former media career. I look back now and I'm thinking, how did I have a life and how did I live? But we, you know, you and I can relate. We made it happen. You you make sacrifices, but you did receive a really great opportunity. And I and I know tennis, men's and women's tennis at the collegiate level aren't revenue sports. And but that's it's hard to talk about or under forget people to understand what that's like because it's football, basketball, and some schools even baseball. But you get a big time opportunity and a really good program, men's and women's at University of Texas in Austin. And for from 2000 to 2019, when you took that job, the the Pennick Allison courts at that time, there weren't many facilities like that, correct? Across the country.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Pennick Allison was built and opened in 1986. So when I arrived, it was 14 years old. Um, it was still a top-tier tennis center. It needed a little refurbishing, it needed a little paint and you know, a little updated, um uh a little up some updates in certain areas, but it was still uh a great um facility to to coach. And the obviously the University of Texas is a it's one of the elite uh institutions and athletic departments in the country. So I had been at TCU, I really enjoyed TCU. We had a really nice team, it was a really great school, but I felt like the challenge of being at the University of Texas was something I couldn't pass on.
SPEAKER_01:You were tasked to do something that I thought from afar, and I'll and I'll go ahead and tell the story. And in 2013, the UT Dell Seaton Hospital, there were plans to okay, we're gonna eliminate the Irwin Center, which is the what we call here in Austin, the old school Austinites, the super drum. It's where UT men's and women's basketball played for several years, since I think 1977 on. It had a great run, but that was going to be a part or is now a part of the UT Del Ceton Hospital, but the Pennick Allison courts were in the way, so to speak. So you how does a coach of a non-revenue sport how do you accept that fact when you're told that and then be told you need to raise the money to, I mean, how do you get people to donate to a non-revenue sport to have another?
SPEAKER_00:When I arrived at Texas in 2000, I really felt that we should try to construct some indoor courts. We had no indoor courts to to practice or play when it rained or it got cold. And so I felt like we needed that. But that took about 10, 11 years to put that project together, to find the right place to raise. We raised about$8 million. Um we had two really significant donations made uh by the Weller family and by a gentleman named uh Graham Whaling, so it's called the Egder uh the Weller Tennis Center and the Graham Whaling Courts. Um but that was for indoor courts, which you don't have to have to play tennis at the University of Texas. You have to have outdoor courts, there's just no way around it. So when we found out that the that the tennis center was gonna be torn down to put the the Dell uh you know hospital up, we Delos Dawes was the athletic director at the time. We had talked and we were gonna build the facility at Whitaker Fields at 51st in Guadalupe, and he was very specific, you have a$15 million budget to build the facility. Well, Deloth left in, I think, October of 2013, if my memory serves me correctly. And Steve Patterson came in, and Chris Plonsky assumed a very large leadership role within the department. And I was told soon after, a few months later, that that$15 million was no longer available and that we would not be building at Whitaker Fields, and that we needed to raise myself or anyone or the athletic department$10 million. And when we reached$10 million, that we would put a shovel in the ground. Now that was a daunting feeling. That was the first time I felt like, oh my God, are we gonna have a tennis program? And how in the hell am I gonna come up with$10 million? And we need it today. We need it like six months ago, right? And we need a place to build the courts, which we didn't have either. We decided we weren't gonna build them at Whitaker Fields, which was not the the greatest location. Anybody knows the campus knows that's 30 blocks north of the stadium, and it's not that easy for the kids to get back and forth. But we didn't have a we didn't not only didn't have a facility, we didn't even have a location, let alone the$10 million. So we were stuck at that point, and we were practicing at Whitaker. We would go out there, we had a little um uh mobile unit with a porta potty kind of attached inside, and we would go out there and and practice. And then we would use Caserville Tennis Center for some matches. Sometimes we play at Westwood, sometimes we'd play out the polo club. So we were like uh we were just traveling all over the place and picking guys up and driving all over town to to get things done. But yeah, that was a daunting uh feeling of how the heck are we gonna get this done?
SPEAKER_01:Well, and it and it's for the viewers just and and and listeners to you know educated, it it's it's a constant for all ADs, it's constant thought of where certain programs are gonna be five, 10 years from now. Um, fundraising, it's it's it's constant at these power four programs. And for a tennis coach from non-revenue, uh you know, that's tough. And I'll tell you when I was working at K View, uh, it was that time, and Mike Barnes and I were working together at K View here in Austin, and we were talking about it, and then we thought, that'd be a great story. Um, where in the hell are they gonna play? And I uh you had the Coswell Tennis Center, and what everything you mentioned, I'm thinking, how are they gonna do this? And I just kept wondering, is center, is he really in charge of fundraising too?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I wouldn't say that I was in charge of fundraising. We have a foundation that's in charge of the fundraising, but I think that was a very difficult task for them, right? To be honest with you. And I had most of the connections within the tennis community. You know, I'd been there for quite a while. I knew the people that were interested in the program, so I did feel that it kind of fell on my shoulders to do it. And I because I don't want to say that the foundation didn't try, but we none of us were having success in raising money, where we would go and say, Hey, help us build outdoor courts, and people would say, Well, the university tore the courts down, they made that choice. They're the ones that should replace the facility, which made sense. No one said that with the indoor because we never had an indoor, right? But with the outdoor, it was like, why would I give money to something that you guys chose to tear down? And so that was that was a tough sell, I have to admit.
SPEAKER_01:And then you fast forward to I think, yeah, the year 2019, and it was a team that had national championship ambitions, you you thought it was, and very competitive. But that year, how could you sum it up in a few words what the how to describe what that year 2019 was like for you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we've had a uh we I knew we had a good team. We had four seniors and two juniors in the starting lineup, and we had been a top five team in 17. We had we had been a top five to eight team and in 18, but we didn't finish the year the way I thought we could finish it. And I felt like I'd made a couple mistakes with the lineup, and I I really looked at myself in the mirror after that 18 season. I was pretty unhappy with with the way we completed it. And we got off to a good start, 19. We just we we I felt like I knew what I needed to do with our lineup, with our training, with with how I spoke to the team, and that this team was ready. And we we were two in the country. We had one loss to Ohio State at the national team indoors um uh going into the spring, and and I felt like we were in position to be one of the teams for sure. There were probably two or three teams that that could win it all. North Carolina, maybe the fourth team, and we had already beaten North Carolina, uh Wake Forest, um, Ohio State, and um and Florida, maybe four or five teams. But we we were definitely in the mix and could do it. My world, my world uh changed drastically on March the 12th. Uh it was a Tuesday morning, uh 2019. We were supposed to play rice that evening. Uh, I was getting up, I was taking my time that morning. We we were we weren't playing till six o'clock or seven o'clock that night. And we had a huge match scheduled at home on Thursday against Ohio State, the only team that had beaten us. We had really uh pumped that match up. I expected a massive crowd uh for that match, and and I felt like we were in a great position to beat them and and become the number one team in the country. And um I get this knock on my door, uh, not really a knock, a crashing noise on my door. I thought someone was injured or hurt and and needed help, and I sprinted to my door. I was in my underwear and a t-shirt. It was early in the morning, and in come, I don't even know, seven, eight, nine FBI agents who immediately shackled me at my ankles and uh and my wrist and wouldn't tell me what was going on and whisked me downtown uh and threw me in a cell. So it was a you know, it was a harrowing experience, to be honest with you. It was and it all happened in front of my family, which was uh, I don't think it needed to be done that way. I don't think it was necessary. Some people had it done, some people didn't have it done, but um they wanted to embarrass me, and they wanted to embarrass as many people as they could that day, and and that's what they chose to do.
SPEAKER_01:What Michael Center's talking about, it was the alleged alleged admission scandal across the country, and and I'll be honest with you, I I I I remember this story when it broke. Didn't think much of it until I saw your name, and then I gained interest because I was working that day, and I remember you know, we we were part of promoting the the match against Ohio State at the gorgeous brand new facility right there by Dishfall Field, the baseball stadium, and I'm thinking, okay, now I'm having to be the professional and go do a live shot from the tennis center. And I'm thinking, all right, well, what about the human side of it? Are you okay? In the video of you after you were arrested. I was just blown away by this. So from a national nationwide perspective, put this in perspective for everyone, what this admission scandal was all about.
SPEAKER_00:Well, in a nutshell, um, there was a guy in California, and he was orchestrating um through coaches, administrators, um, ways to help kids be admitted to school. Um, we all know that that goes on in in various ways across the country. Kids get into school, you know, lots whether you're relatives with someone that's on the legislature, whatever, you know, people have gotten into school. Um I had done it one, I got involved in it one time when we were trying to raise money for this facility. It was a poor choice on my part, but I did present it to the school. Uh, I sat down with someone, I explained to them that this young man would never play tennis at the University of Texas. I was desperate to raise$10 million. The father was well off and he could help us. And so they issued the national letter of intent, knowing that this young man would not play tennis, that he was going to become the basketball manager. So he had to be vetted, he had to go through a physical, he had to do uh be signed off by the athletic director, he had to meet with the compliance people one-on-one, he had to go through everything. So there was no secret to this. Um, this young man then was hired by the athletic department, became the basketball manager. Shaka Smart was the new coach, and he's working. And when you work as a student athlete or student like that, you are required to meet with compliance every three months. So there's a it's you don't just walk in the door unknown and just go through the system. Everybody knows who you are, where you are, and they assign him a specific room in Jester Hall to live in. So no one at that point had come to me and said, How in the world did this young man go from being a basket tennis player to the basketball manager? Not one person, because the fact of the matter is everybody knew who he was. So I'm sitting there in this cell now, and I'm my mind is racing. I have no idea what's going on. And the only thing I can think of is this this young man. And I'm thinking, well, the one thing I know for sure, the University of Texas will stand behind me. There's no doubt in my mind. There's way too many signatures, way too much evidence. They'll come out and they'll say, We we know we were involved, we helped this young man get admitted, we accepted money for not only for the university, but through the athletic department. It totaled, I don't know,$600,000 to$700,000. And this will start to go away. Well, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. And immediately I realized when I well, it started when I walked outside the first day, and I don't know if you were there, but there were about 30 to 40, maybe 50 people screaming my name, taking my picture. I'd never seen anything like it. And I was horrified. One guy almost tripped and killed himself chasing me to take my picture, and I'm like reaching over, like, buddy, it's not worth it. Get up. You know, I don't want you to hurt yourself over this. And I remember saying to the media that day, I said, Hey, I don't really know everything that's going on here, but the team plays tonight, and it's gonna be a far more interesting story to go watch the team play against rice tonight than screaming my name and taking my picture. Well, I started to go home, and when I went home, in the next few days, I started to realize that this was a national story. This wasn't about just me. This was this had movie stars and all these people involved. And and I'm still thinking, well, the university will, even though they had fired me immediately, they cannot not eventually come out and say, hey, this is what happened, this is how this happens. Well, within two to three weeks, I have to go, and the prosecutor says to me, you know, this is what we're gonna charge you with. And I said, Well, this is how this happens. These are this how these things work. You understand that how the national letter of intent works. And he said, What's the national letter of intent? I said, Well, it's only the most important piece to this whole story because that's the letter that shows the documentation with all the signatures that this is how this kids get admitted to school. And he he says, I said, Well, they knew. And he said, No, they didn't. Texas knew nothing. I said, Of course they did. It's not possible to be admitted without them knowing, it just doesn't work that way. Either you agree to what I say happened, or I'll I'll make sure that we add charges on to you and and and I'll make sure you go to jail for a long time. And at that point, I just said uh guilty, you know, within 24 hours because I I just didn't have it in me. I I couldn't fight that. If they if they had no interest in the truth, zero. And the university showed no interest in defending me. So what was I supposed to do at that point? I knew that I had not defrauded them. I knew I'd made a mistake, and I owned up to my mistake, and I told them my mistake, because I accepted some money well after the fact, even though I I tried to give most of it away, that's still wrong on my part. But at that point, they're not the school wasn't going to defend me, and the and and the department wanted they wanted guilty convictions more than anything. And even when we did this book and we wrote it, the guy that helped me called the prosecuting attorney. And he asked him, he's like, Well, what tell me about that conversation? And he said, I don't remember anything about that conversation. The only thing I knew is I had 57 people and I wanted to get 57 guilty, please. And that's the mindset that they had. They were not looking for my side of the story or the truth or what happened. They wanted people to to say guilty. And once you say you're guilty, your rights essentially just disappear. And so that was the beginning of my story. And now we're six years later, and I felt like I had a chance to tell my side. So that's why one of the reasons I wrote the book. Along with I wanted to show that I'm not like here to point fingers and say this is this person's fault or that person's fault. This is just the truth on how these things happened, and this is how you come back from something when something doesn't go well in your life, and that's really the intent of the book.
SPEAKER_01:You serve time in prison, and during that time, shortly thereafter, during that initial phase, you have to watch your team win the national championship.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that happened two months after this happened. Just be well before I went to prison. This happened right away.
SPEAKER_01:You couldn't really enjoy or celebrate your your your guys, your team, because you had this over your head. You're you're dealing with it.
SPEAKER_00:That was one of the most joyous and painful days of my life. To watch a team win the national championship that that I had coached and recruited, you know, that four seniors and two juniors. So I'd been with these guys for five years. Some I recruited longer than that, six years, win the national championship and not be there was without a doubt one of the most painful experiences of my life. I I cried like a little baby that night. It was it was it was it was on ESPN. I watched the whole thing at the school, basically told the players to stay away from me. They had they ended up having no contact with me after they came back. They were that I was told they were told to avoid me. Uh it was beyond painful to go through that.
SPEAKER_01:You had so many details, and people obviously are learning about this, and you you serve you're behind bars, a different life that you never would have imagined, and yet you come out on the other end and you become an author of this book right here, Breaking Serve, and a nice little better close-up of it. Alright, so here's the book that we're talking about. Um perfect tennis net for and it's a it's a good description from championship coach to prison and your journey back. Now you're years into your journey back, and there's a you I pulled out a few points from the book, and you you mentioned it. The operation varsity blues. When we think of varsity blues, we think of the movie about high school football in an imaginary town in the state of Texas. This was far from it. Briefly talk about this operation from a detailed point of view because it involved you and several other people.
SPEAKER_00:As far as what operation varsity blues exactly was.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, like I said, uh a little earlier, the the this gentleman in California, this guy Rick Singer, was was orchestrating um and working. Some people were deeply involved in doing this over and over and over and and running it like a business. There was a there was an administrator at USC that was deeply involved in in puring these opportunities and and being paid. And so it was, and then there were some operating. I think Felicity Husman's daughter, they had someone take the SAT, which I didn't even know was possible. I I thought that that was a possibility. I would have never even imagined that you could do something like that. So I didn't I didn't know any of these people. We did it, I did it, got involved because I needed money for the tennis center. Um, that was my only I I told the guy that this guy called me that was in and out of the basketball office all the time, um, very close to the team, very close to one of the coaches. And um he called me and I knew him. He'd been involved in tennis, and he just said, Hey, can you help this guy get into school? I said, Well, I mean, they have to sign a letter of intent. And uh, I don't know, but um you know, we can you can we use this as a fundraising opportunity for for tennis? And and he said, Yeah. And so I said, I don't want to get in trouble, I don't want to do anything wrong. I've never been in trouble. And he's like, Oh no, this is fine. You don't worry about this. Well, uh That wasn't very good advice. So um I I shouldn't have gotten involved. I did, but that was the premise of it. Uh people were getting admitted to school, being placed on teams. Now the difference between a lot of these schools, most of these schools, they were all private, uh UFC, Georgetown, Yale, whatnot, where you would get coded as a as a student athlete, but you didn't have to sign a financial aid agreement which was attached to a national letter of intent. So people could go in, they'd be coded, and then they would just kind of disappear. I think that's what Lori Laughlin's kids did. I don't know the exact details, but at Texas, it was just different. And that's why I'm like, well, our system was different. You have to sign a national letter of intent, the same as Vince Young or Colt McCoy would sign that same piece of paper, this young man signed it. So everybody knows who you are. You do not walk in to school at the University of Texas a student athlete in any shape or form without everybody knowing who you are.
SPEAKER_01:And so even a walk-on.
SPEAKER_00:Well, this isn't even a walk-on because with when you sign a national letter of intent, there has to be a financial aid component. So he had a book scholarship, so that was worth about$400. So everybody, whether you're a full see in tennis, we had we were equivalency sport. Some sports were headcount sports like men's basketball or football, where you just get a full. In tennis, we divided it up. So this was a common scholarship for a tennis player, but everybody had to sign that to be admitted to be on our team. And uh that's just the way it worked. And so they had to go through the same process that, like I said, uh a star football player would have to go through.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:So I wasn't trying to hide this from them. Um, it was made very clear to them. And and then they called me back a couple of years later, and I said, No, I don't need to engage with this. We're we're gonna get our tennis center, I knew at this point. And and I thought I'd never speak to them again until they called me one day. I was getting on an airplane, just kind of set me up, and the FBI and and was listening, and I guess they felt like they had enough information just off this one phone call because they knew absolutely nothing about me, nothing about the university, nothing about tennis. Um, and that's all they needed, and and that's when it uh they decided to rest me. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:You another part of your book, um it's called The Ten Months of Uncertainty. One can only who has not read the book would can only imagine that's your life not in the free world behind bars. How do you sum up? What did you learn maybe during that 10 month period?
SPEAKER_00:That well, the 10 months was prior to serving a six-month sentence. So what happens is I actually went and I was I was uh I pled guilty at the end of of uh April, I believe, and I was told that my sentencing would be in October. Well, then they said no, you have to wait till February. So then all my family, everybody's gonna go with me on February 4th. Then you'll get an email maybe a two days before saying, nope, we want you to come February 24th. You have no control over anything in your life. It's so amazing that they can treat a person like this. But so all your tickets, everything that you've done has to be changed. And then and they don't have to give you any notice or any even explanation. So all of a sudden, I'm finally get there on February 24th and I'm sentenced to six months, which I'm supposed to then report on April the 6th, 2020. Well, we all know what happened in March of 2020, COVID hit the world, and and the United States shut down essentially in the middle of March of 2020. So now I'm reporting. They have no protocol, they don't know what to do, they don't know how to handle this. So to quarantine you, they put me in a medium security cell, which is like a true prison cell where they shut the door and you're in a 10 by 10 cell where you know you're you're isolated, that they said was for COVID reasons. Well, the first 48 hours they put me on suicide watch for no apparent reason, in my opinion. They said, You look nervous. I said, Yeah, I'm nervous. I've never never thought I'd be going to prison. And they they embarrass you, they they dehumanize you, they have you take your clothes off, they turn the lights on for 48 hours, they you the air conditioning was off. I'm sweating like a like I've never sweat in my life. And then they put me in another place for 12 days before I put in this camp, which is like a mini minimum security place. Well, then COVID ravaged the entire place. We everyone caught COVID. We're all trapped in a room together. For 42 days, I didn't walk outside. Uh, I'm just indoors with people who are coughing and wheezing and and sick. And um so it was quite an experience there for four and a half months before I was sent to what they call a halfway house where they're supposed to help me reintegrate into society. I asked them why I am here. I don't really need this at this point. Uh, I just got out of COVID. Now you're putting me into a new population. And basically they said, Tough, you we make money off you by having your body in this bed. Wow. Wow. You're gonna stay here so that we can get paid by the government to have this bed filled. So finally I got home. I had two weeks with this ankle monitor, and but I couldn't leave the the region for a year without permission. My father got very sick and ended up passing away about three months after I was home. And um, so it was a pretty traumatic period in my life, to say the least.
SPEAKER_01:You and I were talking about therapy, and I can't imagine uh how impactful that has been for you to transition back because you uh you and I uh were talking about it. I've been uh in therapy myself uh for the better part of this year. Um that has that been something that has helped you through this?
SPEAKER_00:I did go to therapy. Um I I I met uh several times with with one guy, I met with another person as well. I I I'm I'm a big believer that therapy can help a lot of people in this world, and there's no shame in getting therapy. Um, I've gotten a lot of help from my friends in my family. I've been very fortunate that have a lot of people stand behind me throughout this process. Um, and so I I've used therapy, but I I've also leaned on on some really good friends in my in my family, my wife and my children, and my mother and my aunt and my brother uh have all been incredible supporters. So I'm a lucky guy. I mean, this story is kind of amazing when I when I retell it, but I'm a very fortunate person and that I have such a strong support system that that stood with me throughout all this.
SPEAKER_01:Now that's amazing, and that's true for everybody. And I, you know, I think we all live for you see a story like this, let's just say this is not you, you weren't involved, and you read this book. Um, people walk away, you know. We I think we're all seekers to an extent. We and that's one of the reasons we read books like this, because it's relatable to an extent. And what you went through, I I wish that upon nobody.
SPEAKER_00:But I don't I don't wish that on anyone, my worst enemy. I I I am not into redemption, and and and as far I mean as far as being vindictive towards someone is the word I wanted to use. I don't think this helped me, I don't think this would help anyone go through something like this. It was it was unnecessary, but it happened, and that's the way life is. Sometimes things happen that that are out of your control. But there's this book was written, not to to point fingers or to say, woe is me, but this book was written to say, this is how I recovered. These are the things that I chose to do, to to coach myself through these moments and uh and come out on the other side. And and the the most amazing piece to this is so many people have responded in a way of saying, Thank you. I'm going through a difficult time in my life. Reading your book has inspired me to make me believe that I can do it. And that's been the neat part about this book.
SPEAKER_01:Inspiring people you would never think that you would reach. Exactly. I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read something from the goat of college swimming. Okay, um the very back of your book, Eddie Reese, um, who has built the I I mean, I hate to use the word unbeatable or untouchable program that is UT swimming and diving. The GOAT Eddie Reese. For those who are maybe watching other parts of the country or don't know swimming very well, UT head swimming coach, um, 15-time NCAA champion, three-time U.S. Olympic head coach. This is what he had to say about you, and it's written right here on the back of your book. Michael Center is a very good coach and an even better person. He always takes the time to take care of people. He's gone through a very tough time. The penalty he paid was difficult to accept, and the recovery was more difficult. Recovery was possible, as you said, with the great support from family and friends and relying on his personal values. He is a special person. You didn't ask him to say that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Eddie, Eddie was uh an incredible mentor of mine at Texas. Uh, when I really needed help, I would go and see Eddie. Uh, I would sit in his office, ask him questions, whether it's how to coach the team, how to train the team, what he thought about things, uh, about life. And we always had a little deal that when he won the national championship, I would buy him a subway sandwich. But, you know, so I had to buy a lot of subway sandwiches during my my time at Texas. But I think we forged a really neat relationship. Um, I looked up to him and uh I asked him to write something on my behalf, and you know, he came up with it. And you know, to have Eddie on the back and DeLoss in there in the in the in the in the book really meant a lot to me. Um they were just two incredible people during my career that just meant a lot to me and did a lot for me, and I learned a lot from both of them. So yeah, that was that was fantastic to have Eddie to have Eddie do that.
SPEAKER_01:And he he's such a character and an even high quality person, as well as De Lost Dodds is as well. Um, you get to if you get the book, you'll understand more about him and and center's coaching pillars, which leads us to this. We uh I think you need a book signing. And do you have any in Austin booked yet? Pun intended.
SPEAKER_00:I don't have a book signing at this point. I um I'm doing one this weekend at TCU, and we're uh we're gonna have a book signing on Saturday morning, and then I'm gonna give a clinic, a tennis clinic to follow. So it should be a fun day. I know you and I are neighbors. We live in the same neighborhood in in Austin, so I know that you like to hang out at the boulevard, so I'm gonna put it on you. Oh spread room. If we can get one set up there, because I did have someone ask if we could do a book signing in Austin. And um, so that that's uh that's that's a project I'm gonna put on you.
SPEAKER_01:Let's work on that. And because the bully is also a sponsor of this podcast. Uh their partners, uh, you know, they they do a great job, and they're one of the last few remaining Austin OG, um, holes in the wall, but a great place, and you know, it's a good place. You you you everyone knows your name, but we will work on that. All right, the uh man cave story. Mac Brown had a great one. You have to go back to his episode to listen to it. Uh, it was absolutely hilarious. But Mac has such a great memory and know remembers everybody's names that he even met when probably when he was three years old, he remembers everybody. But uh Man Cave story consists of anything that's as comical today as it was when it happened. Is there anything tennis related during your coaching days, maybe during a match, or anything that happened with any of your teams or players that would be Man Cave story worthy?
SPEAKER_00:Uh had had many of them, had many of them. Um one time we were playing, and my good friend, he was a longtime coach at USC. We were we were I was at the University of Kansas and he was at Fresno State, and we both had good teams that year. We were both in the top 10 in the country, and we were playing a match in Lawrence, Kansas, and we were playing on these very fast indoor courts, and the ball, there were two or three dead spots on a few of the courts, and obviously I knew where they were, and I knew there was a critical point, and I would always wear a suit, a coat and tie. I was a young coach, I would only wear a suit and tie to night matches indoors. Get all dressed up. I thought I was a basketball coach or something back in the day. And the guy hits a critical point. I think it's in a tiebreaker in the third set with the match on the line. It hits that dead spot, it kind of dies, but it's in. It's clearly in. I know that spot. I know the ball is in. The umpire is sitting there. I love this guy. We're still friends. He sent me a note the other day, but he's kind of eating some popcorn as he's sitting over there on the sideline, on the side of the court uh doing the match. And he says, the guy calls it out, and the umpire says, Yeah, the ball's out. And I mean, I lost it that day. I started throwing my jacket, tearing my tie off, screaming at the top of my lungs. I had a little more juice in those days, but uh yeah, I had a few stories like that in my youth when I started coaching and we ended up losing seven, six, and a third. That was a critical point. And I talked to the kid like eight years later, and I said, What did you think? He said, Oh, yeah, that ball was good. It was good. I'm like, Oh, thanks for telling me now. So uh, but that's the way it works in college tennis. You call your own lines and then you have to have the umpire overrule it if you disagree. But yeah, I had a few funny stories along the way. But it was it was a lot of fun. I had a great, great time coaching. I I missed coaching. I love the kids. I loved, I loved a lot of it. I know it's changed a lot since I I last did it. We didn't have NIL and some of the things that they're deal dealing with today, but but I had a lot of fun. I I I enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great story. We'll have to find it, try to find a way to dig up that uh an old photo of you coaching tennis in a full-on suit.
SPEAKER_00:I can't, that's how I would do it. I would get all dressed up and I would, you know, walk in. I like I, you know, it when Larry Brown was the coach at Kansas, you know, he was like Pat Riley and Larry Brown were the two guys that were the best dressed coaches.
SPEAKER_01:They were hands down. Hands down.
SPEAKER_00:These guys, when they walked on the court, everybody not only wanted to watch their team, but they wanted to see what they were wearing that night. And so I'm like, all right, I'm gonna be like Larry Brown. I'm gonna wear a yeah, I'm gonna get some a nice suit or a couple nice suits and some ties, and and uh I'm gonna go out on the court and and look like I know what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it worked for you.
SPEAKER_00:We won a few, but it was it was pretty funny that that that's how we used to do it.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great man cave story, Michael Sinner. We're gonna take a very quick break and we're gonna do, we're gonna end another episode of Stories Inside the Man Cave the way we like to, and that is with positivity. We'll see you on the other side of this break.
unknown:All right.
SPEAKER_01:The Saxton name resonates in Austin. Jim's late father, James Saxton, is a Longhorn legend, a Heisman finalist while playing for Daryl K. Royal. And Jimmy is a UT football legacy from Westlake. He has been insuring Austin for decades. He and his staff will give you old school hospitality when servicing your insurance needs. Michael Center, long term tennis coach, and now an author. Breaking serve. Gotta get your it's pretty simple. I got mine. Just so everyone knows, he did not give me a copy. I voluntarily purchased on Amazon because I like to support authors. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're more than welcome. It's a good read. Once you get into it, it can't stop. I just have not had a chance to truly finish it. And if we're gonna be honest, it is uh 131 pages, and it ends with your final thought, and I don't want to ruin that for anybody. But we love positivity in a world that appears or feels as if there's a lot of negativity. Tell me something good, my brother.
SPEAKER_00:Tell you something good, you know. I think you know, people talk about this all the time, but but having gratitude, and I I'm I'm so good right now. I I'm spending time on the court, I'm helping kids, I'm talking about this book. People have loved the book. It's been so exciting to see the the commentary and the testimonials. I think we I saw today we've had 26 reviews on on Amazon, and they've all been five-star. And uh so it's been an incredibly therapeutic. You talk about therapy, this has been therapeutic for me to see people respond to this book in such a positive way. And so, you know, I I look at it like my life got got turned upside down, but at the end of the day, I'm a really lucky guy, and and this project has made me even feel luckier. And and like I said, I've got a great family, I've got great friends. So, you know, if anybody's gone through anything, and my feeling is adversity finds us all, it's gonna find you. So if you've had adversity in your life, whether you're a tennis player or not, I think this book can help you. And the the the one of the best commentaries I got was, I'm gonna use your five pillars in my everyday life to help me get through life. And I'm like, wow, that was pretty powerful. So um, that's my sense of positivity. I'm lucky. This book has been a blessing to me, and uh, I hope you guys uh people go out and get it and enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01:And we're gonna keep promoting it. And I really what's good for me is for you to be so transparent and uh talk about this entire story in its entirety and to really paint the picture of what you had to endure, and to be honest with you, all of our lives can be uh abruptly interrupted, and we don't know the answer why sometimes, but I I'm inspired by your mental fortitude and for you to give back after something like that. Get yourself a copy of Breaking Serve. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just like to say one thing. I have a website called breakingserve.com. You can get the book there as well, as well as on Amazon. And I'm doing some public speaking. So if you're interested in in me coming to speak to your team or your organization, you can just send me an email through the website. And I'm doing more and more speaking now. Um, and hopefully we'll get this uh book signing set up and and I'll come to Austin. And I'm in Fort Worth right now a lot doing some work, but but I'm at back and forth, and we'll we'll do a book signing there. That'd be fun.
SPEAKER_01:We got to get it set up at the legendary we call it the bully, the boulevard bar and grill in Far West Boulevard in Austin. We'll we're gonna take care of that, and I guarantee you we're gonna get that set up. Michael Center, appreciate you, brother. Thank you. Okay, you have a great night. Thank you. Anytime we can talk about people that comes from uh adverse situations and overcoming that, uh, such as Michael Center's story. You know what? It's always good to talk about it.