About 6 years back someone sent me an email of a graduating address or
commencement address or something like that by a guy named Suzuki.  I
thought at that time it was a very thought provoking piece.  But the
only thing I remember from that is that he exhorts the students to
pick up a game like tennis saying that when they get older it will be
impossible to find a pickup basketball game.  But it was full of other
good stuff. Of course, if it was full of good stuff, why don't I
remember any of it :-)

i received this close on the heels of the fake KurtVonnegut
commencement address and was rather skeptical about its provenance.

Hi mithdan,

Based on the details you provided, I believe I've found the
commencement address to which you refer.

The author/deliverer of this speech is a fellow named Guy Kawasaki,
from Apple's Macintosh Development Team. Though you remembered the
name as "Suzuki," I'm going to make the leap and presume that this is
the same speech based on two factors:

1. You say you received the forward about six years ago - the address
was delivered at Palo Alto High School on June 11, 1995, making the
timing just about right;

2. The speech contains the exhortation to take up tennis:

"I played football. I loved football. Football is macho. I was a
middle linebacker-arguably, one of the most macho position in a macho
game. But you should also learn to play a non-contact sport like
basketball or tennis. That is, a sport you can play when you're over
the hill. It will be as difficult when you're 40 to get twenty two
guys together in a stadium to play football as it is to have a
conversation in Latin, but all the people who wore cute, white tennis
outfits can still play tennis. And all the macho football players are
sitting around watching television and drinking beer."

Again, this differs slightly from your memory of the speech, in that
Kawasaki suggests it will be impossible to get a bunch of guys
together for football, not pick-up basketball. However, it's so close
that I suspect the details just got shuffled around in the six years
since you originally read the address.

The full text of the speech can be found at
<http://www.stanford.edu/~dphan/kawasaki-speech.html>.

I found the following keywords helpful in finding the requested
information:

graduation speech tennis
suzuki commencement graduation address

Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Emjay-ga

Darn, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha- I knew it was a motorcycle.  Thanks a
lot.  And basketball a non-contact sport, must be different from what
I played :-)