I think anyone who saw a teenage Andrea Jaeger outfox Martina Navratilova at the 1980 Colgate Series Championships -- using a grab bag of drop shots, moon balls and blistering passing shoots to defeat the serve-and-volley specialist 6-4 4-6 6-1, on indoor carpet! -- expected to see her on the cover of the New York Times someday, holding up a Grand Slam trophy or two. How I loved those marble-fastemed blond pigtails, cocky attitude and that newfangled Wilson Ultra PWS. (She and Mel Purcell were so cutting edge!). But injuries sent her life on a different path, from running a camp for children with terminal cancer to becoming a nun -- like her tennis career, that apparently only lasted a few years too--to cofounding Athletes for Hope. I can only think her devotion to children brought her from her home in Colorado to this painful moment:
Jaeger is not even mentioned in the article, leaving me to wonder if the photographer even knew she was a two-time Grand Slam finalist. But The Daily Mail did a whole piece on her, noting that she traveled to Scotland after the 1996 massacre in Dunblane, at a school where a young Andy Murray was a student.
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