Winners:
A Kid Champion Champions Kids

By Alex Markels

Sometimes the news is good: "I've got a new boyfriend!" a cancer-stricken teenager excitedly confides. More often, however, the voice on the other end speaks in dire tones: a cancer thought to be in remission has recurred, a chemotherapy treatment has left a child without hair and medical bills are stacking up.

But regardless of who's calling or what they're calling about, Jaeger's calming voice and big sister-like disposition reach out over the phone line like a warm hug, encouraging, reassuring, in a way that's never fake or forced.

"When you're sick, there's so many people who say they want to help," says 19-year-old Rhea Olsen, who suffers from a rare form of muscle cancer. "Not many are willing to follow through and be there for both the ups and the downs. From almost the first minute I spoke with Andrea, I could just sense it was coming from her heart."

It's been more than eight years since Andrea Jaeger walked off center court for the last time---a chronic shoulder injury cutting short the career of one of the tennis world's most successful child prodigies. She won her first professional tournament at age 14, was ranked No. 2 in the world at 16 and reached the Wimbledon finals at 17. But shortly after her 21st birthday---before most young people have settled upon a career---Jaeger's was over.

Six operations and countless hours of physical therapy later, she still can't swing a racket competitively, nor can she ski in the mountains above her adopted home town. But these days, such things hardly seem to matter. What matters is her kids, hundreds of children with life-threatening illnesses and life-altering conditions who have come to look to Jaeger as their friend and protector. Since quietly starting her Kid's Stuff Foundation with her own money in 1990, Jaeger has thrust every ounce of her energy into helping them reclaim the joy of being kids.

A long-time visitor to children's hospitals while on the pro tour, Jaeger dreamed of creating a way to get the kids out of the sick wards, of taking them somewhere they can forget about being ill for a while. Last summer, after three tireless years of fund-raising and legwork, the first group of 25 kids, ages 7 to19, arrived in Aspen for ten days at Jaeger's Silver Lining Ranch program. They tossed tennis balls, rode horses at Martina Navratilova's nearby ranch, rafted on the Roaring Forks River and, most importantly, forged happy memories and new friendships.

This summer, with a ballooning budget of nearly $1.5 million, the Silver Lining Ranch has expanded its program to three sessions. Thanks to a recent donation of 14 acres of land near Aspen and a promise from Saudi Arabian Ambassador Prince Bandar to match every contribution dollar for dollar, Jaeger hopes to realize her greatest dream by 1995: the construction of a wheelchair-accessible building big enough to house twenty children at a time.

Jaeger says she owes much of her foundation's financial success to her friends in the tennis world. Stars such as Navratilova, John McEnroe, Andre Agasse and Chris Evert, as well as International Management Group, have donated more than half the organization's operating budget. They, in turn, have lauded Jaeger's efforts as setting a rare example in the tennis world.

"We (pro tennis players) are a very selfish group by nature," says McEnroe, who was among Kids' Stuff Foundation's first sponsors. "Andrea is one of the few players who actually do something for other people. Hopefully, this will inspire other players to get involved and realize that the world doesn't revolve around them."

In the competitive, often self-serving world of professional tennis, the transition from single-minded competitor to selfless humanitarian might seem an awkward one. But Jaeger says it was purely natural. "I was the kind of kid who would pick up the worms on the sidewalk on a rainy day and put them on the grass to save them," says Jaeger. "It's just who I am. It's always been inside me."

She says her life as a professional tennis player, ironically, gave her a unique commonality with the sick children she now devotes her life to. Like those she now helps, Jaeger's childhood was cut short, supplanted by the adult world she entered when she joined the WTA tour at age 14. "I was never one of the gang on the tennis circuit," she says, "so I can identify with being an outsider."

When she was named Rookie of the Year in 1980, for example, she recalls attending a benefit banquet for the March of Dimes. While the other players were drinking cocktails, Jaeger and the charity's leg-braced poster child were playing in the hallway. "She was the only one who was my age," says Jaeger.

She began visiting children's hospitals and speaking in front of high-schoolers on topics like teen suicide, in part, as a way to connect with people her own age. During her rehabilitation, she volunteered at the Moffit Cancer Center near her former home in Tampa, Florida, and received instruction in crisis counseling. But she says some of her best training came during her days as a pro. "There's no better place to learn about stress counseling than on the tennis tour," she says with a smirk.

Jaeger says she'd eventually like to earn a degree in child psychology, though her natural talent for soothing frayed nerves has already qualified her in the eyes of her young backers.

"She's a true friend," says Rhea Olsen, "and that's the best medicine I know of."

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