With the NBA season finally upon us, I find myself thinking about an NBA legend who never laced up the sneakers – legendary Celtics announcer, Johnny Most. I’ve written about sports voices before, those I loved (Dave Zinkoff) and those I hated (John Sterling). With Johnny Most, I had trouble deciding.
A few weeks ago I noted the tendency of well-regarded athletes to be exposed as heels, and asked for examples of the reverse, the widely despised guy who shows a classy side. I preferred examples that focused not on the personal side of things (that’s an old story, the jerk who gives to charity and has a soft spot for mom) but on the playing field. In particular, I was looking for athletes or coaches known to be cutthroat but who, in the heat of battle, revealed themselves to value something other than victory.
As the joke goes, there are two sides to every story–no two ways about it. You’d have to work awfully hard to find another side to David Stern’s decision to veto the recent three-way deal among the Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Hornets, and Houston Rockets. This move (made possible because the NBA owns the Hornets) was one-sidedly dumb.
Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory” describes a man with all of life’s blessings who mysteriously commits suicide. Numerous less famous poems by Robinson similarly suggest man’s impenetrability. Many of his poems take place in the imaginary town of Tilbury, a quaint place whose inhabitants we meet but don’t really get to know. That seems to be the point. Our sense of knowing other people tends to be illusory.
The ongoing debate over Tim Tebow’s legitimacy as an NFL quarterback revolves around philosophy as much as football, and has broad implications for sports and beyond.
Stephen Jay Gould divided modern thinkers into two categories: neo-Platonists committed to the “central tendency” of any given system, and their antagonists who emphasize “richness of variation.” This division nicely tracks the polar positions on Tim Tebow.
As has been widely noted by Joe Frazier’s eulogists, it’s almost impossible to discuss Frazier apart from Muhammad Ali. What two athletes are as closely linked in the public imagination? Maybe Russell and Chamberlain. Conceivably Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
As the Penn State scandal unfolds, it’s worth reminding ourselves that sports can provide the occasional grace note, the pleasurable escape from a troubled world. Remember Jason McElwain, the autistic team manager for a high school basketball team who went on a three-point shooting spree? Or the college softball players who carried an injured opponent around the bases to complete her home run trot?
For everything you need to know about the NBA lockout, look not at what separates the two sides but rather at what unites them. When an agreement seemed within reach last week, we learned that the players and owners were both committed to salvaging an 82 game season.
Given the late start, that would have meant extending the season a few weeks – no problem. But it also would have required each team cramming in several more games each month. That, in turn, would have meant teams playing on three consecutive days.
In a recent article in the New York Times, Mark Heisler nominated Marv Marinovich and Jim Pierce as the two worst parents in sports history. Marinovich, a former professional football player himself, began training his son Todd to be a quarterback before the boy left his crib.
Some months ago, my column compared GOP presidential wannabes with famous athletes. The comparison that received the most attention was Sarah Palin/LeBron James (glitzy superstars tarnished by quitting). But the presidential field looked different then. Indeed, of the politicians in the piece, only Mitt Romney (Pat Riley) and Newt Gingrich (Buddy Ryan) remain in the race. It’s time for Part II, bringing in the new cast of contenders.
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