Billy Martin said, “There is nothing greater in the world than when someone on the team does something good, and everybody gathers around to pat him on the back."
When I repeated that to the writer Frank Deford, he said, “Did Billy really say that? (Laughing) I remember Billy telling me that he was responsible for something like 40 victories a year as a manager. That sort of goes contrary to that, but that’s a very sweet sentiment. And I would subscribe to that absolutely. I’m enough of a romantic to be for that. Sweetness and light.”
I once asked a number of successful sports figures and writers what they considered the best thing about sports. Eddie DeBartolo, whose San Francisco 49ers won five Super Bowls in the 23 years he owned the team, put it succinctly. “Winning,” he said.
“Edwin Bennett Williams called it ‘contest winning,’ said former New York Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi. “I guess with him it was winning a trial, and then he became the owner of the Redskins. There’s no high like the moment when you’ve just won a game. You watch the players file into the locker room and you look at each one’s contributions. The euphoria in the locker room after a win, particularly on the road, because there is no sensation like silencing the road crowd. And then you are together for the trip home. There’s nothing like that plane ride home after a great victory.”
Peter Kenyon, who as chief executive built the English Premier League soccer clubs Manchester United and Chelsea, echoed DeBartolo. “Winning is our mantra, and it won’t happen without winning,” he said. “[We] are in the ultimate competitive industry. People talk about being on the stock market and being measured every quarter. Well (laughing), we’d love to get to be measured every quarter.”
“You have a winner and a loser virtually every day [in sports],” said Dave Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Times. “I say that as a writer. People ask me, ‘Would you have rather gone into writing a general column or writing about politics?’ In politics, you seldom know who the winner is and who the loser is for 10 or 15—maybe 100—years. In sports, you know every day who won.”
Sal Galatioto, president of Galatioto Sports Partners, said, “The best thing about sports is the fact that you get a group of people that come together for one purpose, and you know what that purpose is at the beginning of the season: It’s to win. These athletes—say what you will about how much they get paid—most of them work extremely hard. They are incredibly talented. They do things that normal people just can’t do, although it looks easy on TV sometimes.
“And it’s that coming together for a common purpose and then achieving that goal which is amazing to me. And that’s why Americans love the underdog. The U.S. hockey team that wins the Olympic gold medal, or the baseball team that comes out of nowhere to win the World Series. Everybody roots for the underdog. It’s the way it is. It’s part of America.”
Donald Dell, the founder and chairman of ProServ and one of the giants in sports business, said, “Ironically, one of the great things about sports is teamwork, which is much more prevalent in team sports than it is in tennis.”
Roger Staubach called the best thing about sports “the hard work that goes into being successful. They can pay Michael Jordan all the money in the world,” he said, “but he’s going to fight and practice and work hard. Tiger Woods is out there making big bucks, but he’s got to work on his game. In sports, you can’t be successful without working at it. Some people have so much talent that they get away with working less, but you have to work at it.
“There’s a team aspect to it. You’ve got goals and aspirations. You want to get to where you want to get to, but you’ve got to take someone with you, and I think sports makes you realize the importance of someone other than yourself. You learn that you are there when someone needs you and they’re going to be there when you need them.
“And the other thing is perseverance. I think that in life, you get knocked down, you’ve got to pick yourself back up. When you’re knocked down, though, you don’t cook the books, you don’t give up on your faith, you don’t change up on your values. You just continue to fight. Sports taught me that, taught me a lot about resilience and perseverance, and those are all important things in business.
“You’ve got to work hard, you’ve got to realize that you can’t do it by yourself. You need good people and you’ve got to expect the unexpected and that challenges and difficulties happen, and you’ve got to fight through it and you still maintain your values when you do it. You find out the best in people when things are difficult, and sports teaches you that, too. There are just a lot of great things in sports that are transferable into business.”
Rick Reilly, voted National Sportswriter of the Year eleven times by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, said, “The best thing [about sports] is that you can’t fake it. Just because you’re Tom Seaver’s son doesn’t mean you get to play in the big leagues. But if you’re Martin Sheen’s son, you get a job. Believe me, if Tom Cruise’s child wants to act, he’ll get to act. And if Aaron Spelling’s daughter wants to act, she gets to act. These people who are famous for being famous…it doesn’t work in sports. You have to prove it, and you have to prove it every year. Derek Jeter doesn’t just get to get by next year because he was in a lot of ads this year. It’s not like being the pope. It’s not a lifetime appointment.”
To be continued
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