In my youth I despised John McEnroe. Bjorn Borg was my tennis hero - God is probably a more apt moniker - and every time the stoic Swede and the tempestuous McEnroe faced off in an important match I truly believed it was a referendum on the general state of things in the world.

Since that time my respect for McEnroe's talents on court - in addition to his evident passion and intelligence - grew and I in fact started to root for him in the latter stages of his career, as when he played an "unknown" Pete Sampras in the US Open semifinals in 1990. And when he surprisingly became a television announcer I found him to be a breath of fresh air, injecting much needed humor and pointed comments into tennis discourse. But lately I've found myself coming nearly full circle with my opinion of my fellow New Yorker, and I view the near constant praise he receives despite - or because of - his huge ego and temper as the perpetual coddling of a spoiled and overgrown child.

McEnroe intruded into my blissful childhood of the late 1970s, and by 1981 things had changed. I saw it as not merely coincidental or ironic but in fact conspiratorial in 1981 when McEnroe wrestled the No. 1 ranking from Borg after twin victories at Wimbledon and the US Open and at the same time Ronald Reagan had assumed the presidency. The 80s - and darkness - had indeed set in and something tangible had changed. The right wing emerged victorious, Lennon was killed and McEnroe reigned. (As is obvious, I was an overly dramatic kid).

I considered McEnroe's ranting and on-court tantrums not as the exasperated pleas from a tormented genius but rather the cries of a borderline-type personality who couldn't always get his way. His defenders called him a "perfectionist" and a special talent, an artist even, someone to be treated gently because of how unique he was.

But talent should never be used as an excuse to forgo dignity when interacting with others. That being said, "geniuses" are often difficult, complicated people - Dylan, Ali, Picasso are examples of 20th century geniuses who transcended their milieus and were/are also famously complicated. However, to even put McEnroe in that category was wrong - he didn't fundamentally change the way the sport was played or alter the landscape of tennis.

That's perhaps the comparison that irritated me the most at the time, that McEnroe was somehow the only tennis player with an artistic sensibility. Though he did display perfect form at the net and his serve was nothing if not unique, McEnroe's ground strokes were downright ugly at times. Stefan Edberg, a few years McEnroe's junior was his equal if not better at net and Jimmy Connors' footwork was textbook. But very few players have been labeled artists before or since - until Federer, rightfully so, is now. Perhaps if Edberg or others would have been so praised had they expressed more "personality" on court?

Now of course McEnroe had his partner-in-manners in the one-and-only Connors. But, despite his frequent bad-boy, vulgar displays there was something truly rebellious and actually more authentic about Connors. McEnroe is famously known for his love of rock music - and rock and roll attitude - but in fact Connors was more "rock and roll" than McEnroe.

Connors was raised and taught tennis by two women, his mother and grandmother in lower-middle-class Belleville, Ill. And when he argued with the fans, press or umpires Connors always seemed to inhabit a populism of some sort, evidenced by the beloved following he built up throughout his long career. (And talk about rebel, Connors even had the audacity to start his own tour with manager Bill Riordan in the early 1970s, causing much consternation amongst his peers.)

On the other hand McEnroe, the rebel-wannabe, is the one who had the establishment upbringing - fathered by a successful Manhattan attorney and a loving mother, spending his childhood in the leafy enclave of Douglaston, Queens, and educated at one of the most prestigious private schools in Manhattan. And to stretch the political analogy further, Connors was the troubled but human Nixon or Pete Rose to McEnroe's more natural and insidious Reagan. (Joel Drucker's fine book, Jimmy Connors Saved My Life, renders brilliantly the difference between the two hot-tempered American southpaws).

But my dislike of McEnroe as player and person faded gradually in the early 1990s. One could not help but admire his hanging around the top 10 in the sport while in tennis old-age, his early 30s. As I grew into my early 20s, nearly a decade younger than McEnroe, I began to see similarities between him and me - both Irish Catholic New Yorkers with curly hair, a love of tennis and a passion for music and conversation. And since I was known to be a bit over-expressive myself on occasion (I preferred to use Yeats' words, calling it a passionate intensity) I thought hey, maybe I had this guy wrong all those years ago. All of a sudden I was a fan of McEnroe - oh how my 12-year-old self would have imploded!

Then when he started his foray into broadcasting I truly thought he had mellowed and decided to focus his energies on analysis, sprinkled with humor, enriching and lifting up the sport and himself along the way. This is the way that I felt about him as a fan and then a writer who covered tennis. I'd look forward to his announcing, waiting for an amusing aside regarding his playing days and friends or an unusual insight into strategy.

That's it, I felt, McEnroe's transformation was complete as he approached 40 and became a guardian of the sport and its greatest promoter-champion. He actually began to embrace a more populist view of things, especially when it came to fans. He started to ridicule the USTA and criticize, correctly, how events were not fan-friendly, especially the US Open. He'd encourage spectators to cheat down to the lower seats late at night. I was not only a new fan of McEnroe's, I began to cheer him on. I wanted more of him.

But then over the last several years I started to return to my initial impressions of McEnroe as an egotistical jerk who was never told 'no' and felt compelled to utter any thought that came to mind. He started talking far too much over points and made dramatic proclamations on a routine basis. Perhaps he never did grow up after all. His references to his hot-tempered past, egged on with yes-men sidekicks like Ted Robinson and others became tiresome. Perhaps McEnroe was, and is, being told to talk about himself because viewers like it. But to me, this self-deprecating humor was more self-promotion. He wanted to be the center of conversation and attention. The fawning over him has become downright pathetic.

All these thoughts came to light over the last few weeks with two separate events - McEnroe's being disqualified from a senior event in Rhode Island and the publication of a New York Times Magazine profile last Sunday, mostly praising the man. Though the Times piece was balanced, it still focused on McEnroe, now 49, trying to grow up - making light of how he gets irritated in traffic, no less. Mmm - a New Yorker who is impatient - that's news! Or how he "ices" people still with his stare when he's upset - but not as much as he used to. This is worthy of newsprint? Are we supposed to follow his evolution to becoming a nicer, more balanced human being? Is this to be congratulated?

And most egregious of all was the writer's comparison of McEnroe with Ted Williams, who is without question one of the top three hitters of all time. Not only is McEnroe not the dominant figure, as athlete, in his sport that Williams was, he also didn't have the justification for the rage that Williams sometimes exhibited. Williams had true hardscrabble beginnings and felt a sincere sense of injustice for those put upon (never more so demonstrated than in his treatment of the first black players in Major League Baseball). Where was McEnroe's justification for rage? What was his reason(s) for making fun of others - yes, linesmen are people - feel terrible?

At the Hall of Fame Champions Cup in Newport, McEnroe was disqualified from the match for swearing, arguing with the umpire and making obscene gestures at fans. Yep, it was official, the brat is still a child. As MaliVai Washington, his opponent that afternoon stated., "There are a lot of things I can deal with - disputed line calls, stoppage in play. I have an issue when my opponent starts berating people, fans and umpires." Well put.

John McEnroe is no doubt a superb athlete and an outrageously successful businessman by any measure. I'm a mediocre recreational athlete. And as a writer well - let's say McEnroe is closer to Ted Williams than I am to Graham Greene. But it doesn't make my opinion any less viable. Though I'm sure McEnroe would think it does. He'd probably call me a wannabe no-talent nobody - and perhaps he wouldn't be too far from the truth. And I must admit that I'll choose not to turn the volume off when watching US Open coverage the next 10 days. I'll listen to the man-child, probably even enjoying the commentary on occasion - but knowing all along to put McEnroe's persona in perspective.