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Sherrington: After losing a leg and beating addiction, Ralston is back in tennis

Dennis Ralston paid a high price for life as the U.S.’s No. 1-ranked tennis player three straight years in the ’60s. The expectations that nearly crushed him were the least of it.

The physical cost came to 16 knee operations, the first when he was only 18. The last two — a replacement for each knee — were a half-century later. As if that weren’t enough, tennis also took his left leg just below the artificial knee.

And that wasn’t the worst of it, either.

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No, the worst would be the dozen years he spent in a fog of painkillers that, as the former SMU coach put it recently, “kills your soul.”

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The misery started innocently enough in 1999, with a prescription of Vicodin to help him train for a seniors match at Wimbledon. All he wanted, three decades after winning in doubles at Wimbledon and losing in singles, was to be the first to play Wimbledon after a double knee replacement. The drugs helped.

But Wimbledon came and went, and pretty soon the Vicodin wasn’t enough anymore. He moved up to OxyContin. “Hillbilly heroin,” according to those who snort or inject it. He started at 10 milligrams a day. Before long, he was up to 80 milligrams.

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“If you took one of those,” he said, “it might not kill you, but it would flatten you.”

Consider for a moment who this is, telling this story. Once among tennis’ biggest names, Ralston was one of the so-called “Handsome Eight” who changed the face of the sport, taking it from amateur to professional. One of the original bad boys of tennis. He went from “Dennis the Menace” to captain and coach of champion U.S. Davis Cup teams. A member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The man who coached Chris Evert in the ’80s and Yannick Noah and Gabriela Sabatini in the ’90s and SMU for more than a decade.

All about the pills

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None of it meant anything to him by the turn of the century. He couldn’t remember anything. Couldn’t laugh. Couldn’t feel. Couldn’t rest, often walking in his sleep, if that’s what you could call how he hobbled.

“Pretty soon,” he said, “my life was run by, ‘Will I run out of pills?’”

Numbed by drugs, he’d pull up to a traffic light in Colorado Springs, where he ran the tennis program at the prestigious Broadmoor resort after leaving SMU, and drive right through it. Red, green or yellow, it didn’t matter. Unable to concentrate on business, he ran afoul of the IRS. Lost everything. In the fall of 2010, he and his wife of 47 years, Linda, moved in with their older daughter in Houston.

Even before he got back to Texas, his life had taken another hard turn. Two surgeries on his left foot had resulted in staph infections. Doctors told him he’d be in a wheelchair six months. Even then, there were no guarantees against the infection returning.

Ralston couldn’t bear the uncertainty of what his doctors were telling him.

“Let’s take it off,” he told them.

Two days later, they amputated his left leg three inches below the knee.

Ralston had once been so physically gifted that, when Jack Kramer, one of tennis’ greats, was asked if he had a weakness, he said Ralston could use more spin on his second serve. Otherwise, Kramer said, “He had everything.”

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Maybe once. Not anymore.

“The first time I woke up without my leg,” he said, “I went through what a lot of people go through. Are you going to be able to walk?

“Will you be able to do anything?”

From there, it only got worse. A fall at his daughter’s house injured his neck. Two more surgeries followed. His dependence deepened.

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Finally, on Thanksgiving in 2010, Ralston’s children told him they hardly knew him anymore. He had to stop using painkillers.

He told them to give him through Christmas and he’d start over. They told him he was going to Betty Ford the next day.

Over the next month of rehab, Ralston learned a lot about himself. Therapy started at 6:30 in the morning and lasted until 9 at night. Lumbering around the clinic on his new prosthetic leg, he said he felt like the hunchback of Notre Dame. But he met some interesting characters. One was a former Canadian Football League player who challenged him to pingpong. Ralston wasn’t interested. The guy wouldn’t let up. Reluctantly, Ralston agreed.

For the next 40 minutes, he didn’t think about pain or what it would take to stop it.

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“See, dude?” his challenger said. “You can put your mind places you didn’t think you could.”

Ralston learned he had more problems than just his legs or addiction. He took a grief class at Betty Ford. He was asked to make a list of everything that bothered him. He figured it’d take 10 minutes.

“Two hours later,” he said, “I’m crying my eyes out.”

He wrote a letter to his parents, who’d told him back in Bakersfield, Calif., when he was a kid that he couldn’t play football. Bad for his knees, they’d told him. He wrote his wife, he wrote his children.

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He even wrote his lost leg.

We fought the good fight. We battled hard and you took me places. And we lost. But I’m going to be fine.

He says he hasn’t had a single painkiller since he left Betty Ford more than 18 months ago. He’s gradually putting his life back together. A few old tennis pals raised enough money to get him started teaching again. Last year he took a job teaching at Grey Rock Tennis Club in Austin, formerly Circle C, under Fernando Velasco.

“I don’t want to sound like a preacher or anything,” Ralston said, “but it’s like the Lord has been looking out for us.”

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His recovery has gone so well, Ralston has even started playing again. He asked Velasco if he’d play doubles at a local USTA event earlier this year.

They were trounced in two sets. For once, losing didn’t kill him.

“Just to see him trying, it was so uplifting for all of us,” Velasco said. “To see this man who was one of the greats in the world just trying to get to the ball and hit it …

“It’s a miracle come true.”

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Happy to be back

Ralston, who turns 70 this month, says he isn’t trying to prove anything by playing occasionally. He still hates losing. It annoys him that he can’t get to shots. But he’s glad he can play. He likes the notion that it might inspire the disabled. He likes talking about his addiction, hoping that by opening up about his experience he can educate others.

And he still loves tennis. Even after all it’s cost.

“I’m very fortunate to have done something I love,” he said. “I loved my years at SMU and helping people get better. I’ve been in the game for six decades. I still feel I can help people. I still enjoy teaching.

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“I don’t ever want to retire. I couldn’t retire.”

By his count, he’s already sat out 12 years of his life. It was more than enough.

Follow Kevin Sherrington on Twitter @KSherringtonDMN.