I was the new kid in the Buddha’s third-grade class. My family had just moved to central Long Island the summer of ’73, and I had already sweated with him at the nearby tennis camp where he gave lessons. On the court, Mr. Budah referred to himself in the third person: “Remember, the Budah says,” he would advise, “keep your knees bent and head down,” as if the universe—the all-knowing Buddha himself—not just my tennis coach, wanted me to swing through my backhand.

People listened to the Buddha. He was calm and serene and confident—a natural teacher. He had a deep voice, big hands, and strong arms that he would wrap around you, moving your weaker ones into position, helping you power through the ball. I heard the other kids’ mothers talk about how attractive he was—“silver foxy,” one mom called him. So I checked out his thick, black, curly hair speckled with gray, and noticed his muscular legs clad in the shortest of shorts, and considered him, imagined him, the way the moms saw him. I liked the idea that my coach was a fox, and, when he turned out also to be my elementary school teacher, I was proud that he already knew and liked me.