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.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, October 17, 2011
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
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
Thursday, October 13, 2011
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.”
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.”
Friday, October 7, 2011
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.”
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.”
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