Word: play
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...another thing, the animal-rights movement, having attacked the fashion industry for its use of real animal skins, has, in part, boosted the new fad by encouraging designers to play with the unreal thing in their lines. Designer Christian Lacroix's fringed panther-print polymid shawl ($470) is hot stuff. Patrick Kelly has scored with skinny dresses in leopard stretch velvet ($340), and even purist Giorgio Armani uses mock lynx for a duffle coat in the Emporio Armani line ($685). After dark, the more the merrier seems to be the rule. Says Annie Allanche, a manager at Paris' Irie boutique...
Despite his success with the athletic elite, Braden is more concerned about the masses. "People have been pushed out of sports," he says. "What we've done in this society is to build huge stadiums to let 22 people play on the grass." Most Americans, he feels, participate largely by watching sports on television. "People think that's all that's left for them," he complains. Statistics seem to bear him out. The number of active tennis players, for example, has declined from around 32 million in the late 1970s to some 20 million today...
...college, he rewards good performance with cheers and compliments like "Keep that up, and you'll be famous by Friday." Slow learners feel comforted by his gentle way of identifying with their struggle to improve. "Don't forget," he tells his charges, "every day 2 million Americans play tennis and 1 million of them lose...
Psychology is the softest of the sciences Braden uses in coaching. Physics and physiology also play important roles. His lectures are sprinkled with such terms as force vectors and parabolas, as he explains why he recommends certain strokes and movements. "The ball doesn't know if you are hitting forehand or backhand," he says, "or if you're wearing your lucky shorts. It only knows how the racquet meets it. You can't violate the physical laws because Mother Nature will get you every time...
...third of seven children of an impoverished Appalachian coal miner who moved north to seek work, Braden was born and raised in the industrial town of Monroe, Mich. On his way to play football one day, Vic, then 11, passed the local tennis courts just as someone opened a can of balls. "You could hear the fizz," he recalls. "I could smell the rubber. It was an amazing kind of olfactory thing. I made up my mind I wanted one of those things...