STRAIGHT TALK
By Jeffrey Zaslow

Issue date:
April 17-19, 1998

Michael Chang:

The best parents are "selfless," says the tennis star. "My parents gave everything to us."

This week: Chang plays in the U.S. Clay Court Championships in Orlando, Fla., defending his No. 1 seed.

ichael Chang is best known for wielding a mean tennis racket, but the superstar often puts it down for a fishing rod -- and time with his family.

This day, Chang relaxes at a tiny fishing lake in Orange, Calif., with his brother, Carl. They are inseparable. "When we were growing up, family was everything," Michael, 26, explains as Carl, 30, casts a line.

For a long time, his father, a chemist, fiercely managed Michael's career. In 1991, Carl took over. At first, as Michael sank in the rankings, some dismissed Carl as just a "chaperon." But the brothers, devout Christians, prayed together and stuck together. Now No. 10 in the world, Michael earned $12 million in 1997. Tennis magazine named Carl 1996 Coach of the Year.

Michael traces his success to his parents' sacrifices. He's grateful they fed his tennis ambitions by moving from Minnesota to California, then traveling the nation for tournaments. His mom would quote a Chinese saying: "A mother will move many times for the sake of a child."

If he ever becomes a father, Michael says, he wants to emulate his parents, who invested every spare penny, every spare moment, in their sons' future. "If we wanted to play tennis at 9 o'clock at night, my dad said, 'OK -- let's go!' "

Michael, who fondly recalls fishing all day as a family, has learned more about parental selflessness by breeding tropical fish, African cichlids. "The female holds the eggs in her mouth. [After they hatch], she lets them out and they feed." A sense of family is instinctive, he says. "If there's danger, the cichlids go right back in their mother's mouth."

Photo Credit: BRIAN DAVIS FOR USA WEEKEND

Zaslow is an advice columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.