“I lived in my car for about three weeks in a shopping center parking lot,” LaCroix said. “I couldn’t believe I was doing it, but I didn’t have any other options at the time. I was a little too stubborn to ask for help from anyone else.”
Interviewing for a tennis club that wasn’t even built yet, he packed up all his belongings and moved to Boca Raton in hope that he would land the job.
There were construction delays, there was uncertainty with his position—and there was a Walmart parking lot where he slept, ate and showered.
“It was definitely a character-building experience for me, but if you want something bad enough, you suck it up and you find a way,” LaCroix said. “That’s one of the great things that tennis has always taught me, you’re going to struggle and you’re going to suffer a little bit, but you have to just endure that. There’s a lot of great life lessons to be had through tennis that got me through this.”
