Wish List

Ten first- and second-graders this year were asked to identify the one thing above all else they would want if given just one wish. Here are the results:

  1. A lot of money and a fish
  2. A flat-screen TV
  3. Unlimited wishes
  4. Yankees tickets
  5. A 38-foot fishing boat 
  6. To be at Six Flags forever
  7. $1 million
  8. More recesses
  9. My own private plan, scooter, and moped
10. For cars, trucks, houses, and tanks to be made out of LEGOs

Catching Heat

This morning at school, a teacher in an adjoining classroom stormed into mine to adjust the thermostat our rooms shared.
   
"It's freezing in [my room]," she said animatedly as she pushed up the dial after first extracting the cover plate looking for who knows what. "If that doesn't work, we'll have to call someone." As she was leaving, she turned back to explain something to me. "You're fine -- because you're a man and men are never cold." Very definitive. "You're always hot. Right!" It wasn't a question.

"If you say so," I mumbled.

"If I say so?" Talking very fast now. "My husband is always hot; my son is always hot...."

I was beginning to feel the heat. 

Go West, Young Men

The two sides in the current NBA labor negotiations continue to talk in an attempt to come to an agreement over a new contract, but wouldn’t the more prudent game plan for success emphasize less one-on-one and more team play? No doubt compromise will be necessary if there is to be a 2011-12 season. In the meantime, perhaps the league could bring one of the greatest clutch players from its past off the bench here in overtime to help break the tie.

Jerry West may not be the face of the NBA, but he is literally its silhouette. It is his image, after all, that is the league’s logo. West was in the news with today’s release of his autobiography, “West by West: My Charmed, Tormented Life.” But back in 2005, in an interview for SportsBusiness Journal, West told me something that is as relevant today as it was then:

“I’ve always felt that players should not be underpaid. Nor do I think that they should be overpaid. I just think that in today’s world, with the agents playing such a prominent [role] and free agency being so important, I think all of us would tend to overpay if we want a free agent. And paying money to players does not make you win. It’s been pretty evident in all sports.

“Does it give you a better chance? You would think it would. But you look out around the league today, and some of the teams with the biggest payrolls have not accomplished very much. I think it’s almost a testament to the agents: They can get people to buy into how great their players are when they might be average players, wanting these average players to make enormous salaries, which a lot of them do.”

Some time later, when I asked West who or what had had the biggest influence in his professional life, a career that included one NBA championship as a player with the Los Angeles Lakers and eight as a front-office executive with the team, he said this:

“Oh, boy. You know, I’ve always been a person who tried to learn something every day. I have some friends who have been very successful away from the basketball arena. And I marvel at the differences in personalities and the incredible instincts that they seem to have for making financial deals and acquiring companies and stuff like that.

“I had a pretty good education working for Jerry Buss for the Lakers when the league was not as prosperous as it is today. Being around him and some of his philosophies and how he viewed you should run a sports franchise… It’s pretty interesting, his philosophy. I learned a lot from him. I learned a lot from a lot of people.”

Maybe the NBA and its players could now tap into that knowledge before it is too late.

Devoid of Meaning

In yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Scott Ostler identified three things in sports which he labeled “devoid of meaning.” The three: a football coach's praise for an upcoming opponent, a boxer's boasts before a bout, and anything said during a labor dispute. “That stuff will produce enough hot air to blow-dry Def Leppard,” Ostler wrote.

With all due respect to Scott, I think he overlooked a number of other items devoid of meaning (sports division):

∙ Rex Ryan guarantees
∙ Belabored individual choreography after every play in football
∙ Motorsports
∙ Quickie half-time interviews with college basketball coaches
∙ Pitch-by-pitch replays
∙ Slo-mo exploding logos after said replays
∙ NFL quarterback ratings
∙ Oblique injuries
∙ Discussions about pitch count
∙ Commentary by Dan Dierdorf, Bill Maas, Stephen A. Smith, Craig Sager, Tony Siragusa, Rick Sutcliffe
∙ The BCS
∙ Signature home run calls
∙ Catch phrases
∙ Half-time extravaganzas
∙ Super Bowl pre-game shows
∙ Discussions of Super Bowl commercials
∙ Heaven-pointing athletes
∙ Hyperactive TV directors who insist of cutting away from live action to shots of fans in the stands
∙ Sportswriters whose postgame questions seek to gauge the level of excitement, disappointment, joy, surprise, and meaningfulness. You know, “How excited/disappointed/happy, etc. are you about today’s game?”
∙ The Pro Bowl
∙ The NBA Dunk Contest
∙ Fireman Ed
∙ The strike zone graphic used in this year’s MLB playoffs
∙ Bracketologists
∙ Solemn postgame interviews with losing coaches
∙ Heart-pounding athletes
∙ High-fiving adult spectators who have done nothing to celebrate
∙ National anthem balladeers (It’s an anthem, not a ballad)
∙ Tattoos
∙ Primal screams by athletes after a play while the game resumes without them

Standouts On and Off the Court

With the first two weeks of games canceled and the 2011-12 NBA season starting to slip away, the league and its players union continue to negotiate terms of a new contract. But with the U.S. economy struggling and basketball fans trying to manage household budgets and stretch their own dollars, public sympathy seems to be with neither side as the owners and players discuss ways to divide a multibillion-dollar pie.

Pro basketball Hall of Famer and NBA analyst Charles Barkley once proclaimed that athletes should not be considered role models. By their actions, two current NBA stars and former Duke All-Americas, Grant Hill and Elton Brand, disagree.

With a combined 28 years in the NBA, Hill and Brand have carried themselves in exemplary fashion off the court. They have established foundations in their names and donated their time and financial support to numerous national and community philanthropic programs, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Special Olympics, Covenant House, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and various other initiatives to serve disadvantaged youth and families, education, literacy, and recreation.

“One of the things we’ve always done in this country, and really all over the world, is look at our athletes as heroes,” said Grant Hill. “And with that comes a certain responsibility. Some athletes embrace it and some don’t.

“But I feel that what we do is a privilege, not a birthright. Sometimes maybe we lose sight of that and forget the effect we have on people, not just with our performance but how we conduct ourselves off the field or the court. It’s not a burden. There are only a handful who are fortunate enough to be looked at in this way.”

Elton Brand called it a “blessing” to be considered a role model. “Athletes—and celebrities in general— are held to a higher precedent,” he said. “That’s just the way it is. And I think we should be. We’re more visible, and the kids look up to you. The average person is not seen in that same light. They can do a lot of malicious things, and no one cares.”

Imagination in Sports

The death this week of Steve Jobs, and the many testimonials to his leadership and creative genius, reminded us just how rare the qualities of risk-taking and innovative thinking are in sports today. Einstein famously stated that imagination is more important than knowledge.

During the course of many conversations over the years with sports figures and sports business executives, I occasionally would ask them where they thought the imagination in sports could be found. And who, exactly, were the bold thinkers who dared to deviate from conventional wisdom. Here are some of their responses:

“That’s a very good question, said Daniel Okrent, the former ombudsman for the New York Times. “I would like to think that it’s in the mind of coaches and managers approaching things in innovative ways. I certainly think that the Billy Beane approach to putting together a baseball team took a great deal not only of imagination, but as much imagination does in a hidebound area, it takes courage as well. And he showed great success.

“It’s interesting to me looking at any sport for how it’s played today, and you look at it 25 years ago, and how all these sports have changed in major ways. And I think that’s all the product of a sort of evolutionary imagination in the heads of excellent coaches and managers.”

Said Sean McManus, the president of CBS Sports, “It’s a lot more challenging because everyone is doing such an unbelievably good and sophisticated job, whether it’s cable or network sports television. It’s really difficult to distinguish yourself. You can try some new production techniques or new technology, but basically we’re all doing an excellent job, and it’s more and more difficult to use your imagination to come up with new ideas.

“A lot of the imagination is coming on putting together the best quality broadcast team that you can. It’s why we moved Greg Gumbel into the studio and Jim Nantz out to do the football games. That, I think, in some ways took more imagination than coming up with the next great graphic or piece of music to use. Imagination is trying to distinguish your telecast from what everyone else is doing, especially when everyone else is doing such a good job.”

Jim Nantz, the No. 1 play-by-play man for CBS on the NFL, NCAA basketball, and golf, said, “I think everyone’s still trying to figure out how they can interface with technology, with the Internet, where to take their sports and reach even greater masses. As we sit here on the heels of these landmark TV deals in the NFL, you wonder how in the world the NFL can ever try to go beyond and top this.

“What seems to be kind of a niche thing is everybody having their own controlled broadcast system, whether it’s the NBA Network or the NFL Network. It will be fascinating to look in the next generation where they will be able to take those products. But I think that the leagues and the PGA Tour and so on are all trying to find a way for mass expansion through the Internet, and I guess that’s the next thing to come.”

Marv Albert, who has memorably worked virtually every major broadcast event in sports, said, “I think in sports television, there really is imagination, despite… sometimes too much graphically and too many attempted innovations. But on the other hand, when you look back…I find in watching some of the games that have been done in the past be it on YES or ESPN Classic or NBA TV or NFL TV, you see the difference.

“It’s unbelievable, even from a few years ago, how far they’ve come in graphics and the look and what the camera angles are. Just when you think not much more can be done, when you go back five years ago, the strides that they have made are monumental.”

Sandy Alderson, general manager of the New York Mets, looked beyond the media. At the time of our conversation, Alderson, then the CEO of the San Diego Padres, said, “I think the imagination in many ways is being exercised in the commissioner’s office. If you look back over the last 10 or so years, a lot of the innovations have come at the league level.

“Whether it’s inter-league play or unbalanced schedule, modest realignment, reduction in the time of game, closer management of umpiring…a lot of those things have happened in the commissioner’s office on commissioner Selig’s watch. So, I think a lot of the innovation that’s taken place in the game in recent years has been institutional more than originating with individual clubs or management styles.”

“Some of [the imagination] is in marketing,” said Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver. “Teams market a little bit differently, but a lot of the imagination has to be how you put your team together, and how you can envision them functioning as a team. I think most franchises select individual talent and then try to have the coach put them all together and be successful.

“In reality, you’ve probably got to do it the other way. You’ve got to try to figure out how to put a team together. There are so many variables with a team—in terms of talent, ego, strengths and weaknesses, and chemistry—that I think that’s where you have to use your imagination and sometimes be willing to do things that people may not think are the right thing, but in the long run create a better team vs. the best group of individual talent.”

Annika Sorenstam Takes Her Message to Harlem

In 15 years as a professional, Annika Sorenstam established herself as the dominant player in the history of women’s golf. In addition, she has participated in golf-course design and started an apparel collection as well as a financial group to advise professional athletes. Away from the game, Sorenstam is a global ambassador for the sport who devotes her time and attention to health initiatives and instruction for youngsters through the Annika Foundation and the Annika Academy.

In an interview earlier this year, we talked about the bold originals in the games, all too often a contradiction in terms in a sports world populated by copycats and risk-averse conservatives.

“For me, the independent thinkers in golf have always been Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Greg Norman,” Sorenstam said. “They have all been successful athletes who have taken their knowledge and their passion in different ways. They have been my role models. Their success in golf, of course, set them up to build a business or to extend their work into golf-course design or other pursuits apart from golf. That sets them apart from others who just play golf or [disappear] after they stop playing.

“Outside golf, I can think of Emmitt Smith, John Elway, and Billie Jean King who have succeeded away from sports. Arnold Schwarzennegger has been successful in sports. Well…bodybuilding, but he went from there into acting and then politics,” she said. “I admire people who work hard and are successful and have a lot of interests [outside sports] and contribute one way or another away from their sport.”

Sorenstam might well have included herself among that field. An independent thinker and philanthropist, she has stayed on course after golf to share her gifts and her success to try to improve the quality of life for others.

Yesterday, Sorenstam visited The Children’s Storefront, an independent school serving students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, in Harlem as part of a wellness transformation project led by two Cal State Chico professors and organized by the Annika Foundation, SPARK, and The First Tee. Sorenstam spoke to the students about physical fitness, diet, and the intrinsic lessons and values of sports and participated in a series of activities with the children, including jump rope.

Mark Attanasio: From the Bronx to the Brewers

The Yankees are not the only New Yorkers competing for a spot in the World Series this fall. Bronx native and Columbia law school graduate Mark Attanasio, the chairman and principal owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, will host the Arizona Diamondbacks this afternoon in the opening game of the National League division series.

Attanasio, who quotes from “Faust” (“Linger awhile, thou art so fair”) and cites “The Divine Comedy” as his favorite book and the Beatles’ White Album as his favorite music, made his mark as an investment banker. He bought the team from MLB commissioner Bud Selig in September 2004. Twelve months later, the Brewers went 81-81, ending a string of 12 straight losing seasons while their team valuation rose, according to Forbes magazine.

I spoke with Attanasio shortly after that. One topic he discussed at the time seems as relevant now as it did then. He came to baseball from investment banking, where he had to manage risk. How did he manage risk with the Brewers?

“You have to look at that both from the baseball and the business sides of the equation,” Attanasio said. “From the baseball side, you start by trusting good management. That involves not just the manager and GM, but also the scouts, the training staff — all the people who make up the baseball operation.

“[In 2005], our team had the lowest number of disability days of any team in the National League, which is really a testament to our doctors and training staff but also to the scouts and GM, because we are trying to get players who are durable and not injury-prone. I think the No. 1 risk you have on the baseball side in injuries. We work hard at trying to contain that risk, which is inherently a challenge.

“Obviously as well on the baseball side you need to manage your payroll in such a way that you don’t concentrate it too much in a handful of players. One thing I’m learning as an owner is you really use that 25-man roster, especially in the National League with no DH, you use every player on that roster. The 25th guy can affect the outcome of games. Many times, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

What about managing risk on the business side, I asked.

“On the business side, frankly it’s the business of baseball — outside of player payroll, which is the biggest expense — it’s no different from any other business in terms of managing,” Attanasio said. “You have a handful of revenue streams, which are attendance, media, parking, and concessions. You share revenues, both in terms of revenue sharing and things you get from national sources in baseball. And then expenses. You want your revenues to exceed your expenses.”