By Bob Markus
President Obama and I have few things in common, but there are a few familiar threads stitching us together. We're both from Chicago. We're both abominable bowlers. And neither one of us is very good at NCAA basketball bracketology. The Chicago connection, to be sure, is rather flimsy. I was born in Chicago; he wasn't. I am--or was--a lifetime Cubs fan; he favors the White Sox. He's famous. I'm not.
When it comes to bowling I might have a slight edge on him. Reportedly, his best game ever was a 129. I averaged 131 in the only year I bowled in a league. That was when I was newly employed by The Chicago Tribune and working the late shift on the sports copy desk. I'd usually finish work about 1 a.m. and then drive to a north side bowling establishment to compete in a "Night Hawks" league that started around 3 a.m. One of my teammates, in fact the one responsible for my predawn folly, was a fellow copy reader named Jim Fitzgerald. Jim was tall, mouthy, and a copious bleeder, a fact that was established the night he got too lippy with a pressman, who proceeded to knock him over the ball rack, scattering bowling balls like a cue ball breaking the rack in billiards. It was reaffirmed one night on the copy desk, when Fitz got into a wrangle with Pi Warren, a crusty veteran who considered anybody under the age of 40 to be "a boy scout." I was in the slot that night and Pi was handling the White Sox game, which meant he not only read copy on the beat writer's story, but was responsible for keeping a Tribune-style box score. I don't remember--or maybe I never knew--what words were exchanged, but at some point Fitzgerald reached over and slapped Warren in the face. Since deadline was approaching, Pi was not able to retaliate, not then, any way. But inevitably the game ended and Pi totalled up the box score and handed it to me. Then, putting down the toothpick he habitually chewed, he turned to Fitzgerald and said, "now, Junior." The fight that ensued was as brief as the one in the bowling alley, with Pi knocking the younger Fitzgerald into a large trash container. About that time the managing editor came over and, with arms folded, looked at me and murmered, "tsk, tsk," as if he expected me to be a fight referee as well as a slot man.
That brings us to our final point of intersection, the predicting of the Final Four and--ultimately--the NCAA national basketball champion. Obama and I both ended up with only one team in the Final Four, although the President still could be right about his national title pick. We'll find out Saturday, when Obama's North Carolina Tar Heels play my Villanova Wildcats in one game of the semi-finals. Since I picked Memphis to win it all, I have no shot at picking the winner, while President Obama will be riding the probable tournament favorite in North Carolina.
The Tar Heels are used to being in this position. Villanova is not. This is the Wildcats' first visit to the Final Four in 24 years. But perhaps they can take inspiration from what occurred that year on the floor of Rupp Arena in Lexington Ky. Playing a Georgetown team that was being touted as unbeatable, the Wildcats pulled one of the biggest upsets in basketball history. Treating Georgetown and its menacing center, Patrick Ewing, as if they were just another Big East opponent, Villanova shocked the world with its 66-64 victory. To do so, Villanova had to make 78 per cent of its shots--22 of 28--and in the second half they were nine for 10. With only 10 seconds to play, leading 66-62 and needing only to inbound the ball to seal the victory, guard Gary McLain fell on top of the ball on the sideline near press row, looked my way, and winked. "We got it," he chirped. Since I was sitting next to Leslie Visser, then a sports writer for a Boston paper, later a TV analyst, and always one of the world's most beautiful women, I assumed the wink was not meant for me.
There have been many thrilling NCAA Finals, but that one, for me, has to be No. 1. The others in the Top 10:
(2) North Carolina beats Kansas 54-53 in three overtimes in 1957. That Kansas team featured Wilt Chamberlain and, on the bench, a guard named Dean Smith. Yes, that Dean Smith. Almost unbelievably, North Carolina had had to go three overtimes to beat Michigan State and reach the final.
(3) Lorenzo Charles jams home Derek Whittenberg's air ball at the buzzer as North Carolina State upsets Houston 54-52 and Jim Valvano looks in vain for someone to hug. North Carolina had entered the 1983 tourney with a 17-10 record and was unranked.
(4) Loyola rallies from a 15-point deficit in the second half to shock two-time champion Cincinnati, 60-58, in overtime. The winning basket is scored by Vic Rouse on a tip-in with no time left. Rouse later tells me he had no idea the game was over and was preparing to head upcourt to play defense. Loyola played only five men and four of them were African Americans--this was in 1963, three years before Texas Western made history by winning the NCAA title with five black starters. What made the outcome so astounding was that conventional wisdom said that defense-minded, ball controlling Cincinnati could not be beaten if it got off to a lead.
(5) CCNY beats Bradley, 71-68 in 1950. Bradley was ranked No. 1 in the country while CCNY ended the regular season unranked at 17-5. Yet CCNY not only beat Bradley in the NCAA tourney, but in the NIT, as well. At the time, the NIT was considered to be atleast the equal of the NCAA meet.
(6)Larry Bird and Magic Johnson go head-to-head for the first time and Johnson's Spartans win handily over Bird's undefeated Indiana State team. I had a hard time envisioning the Spartans as 1979's national champions since I had covered them three times and they lost all three. One of them was on a half court buzzer beater by Wisconsin's Wes Matthews, another on a 30-footer by a Purdue player whose name has brought on a senior moment.
(7) Freshman Michael Jordan's jumper gives North Carolina a 62-61 win over Georgetown in 1982, but the game is remembered more for the Hoyas' Fred Brown throwing the ball right to Carolina's James Worthy in the final seconds.
(8) Kansas, an 11-time loser in the regular season, beats Oklahoma 83-79 before what amounts to a home crowd in Kansas City. Danny Manning scores 31 in this 1988 classic.
(9) Bobby Knight's last title comes on Keith Smart's baseline jumper at the buzzer. Syracuse loses a chance to seal the victory when freshman Derrick Coleman misses the front end of a one-on-one in the final half minute. Coleman had pulled down 19 rebounds, but not this one. Smart's subsequent game-winner gave Indiana the 74-73 win in the 1987 final.
(10) Rumeal Robinson's two free throws with three seconds remaining give Michigan an unlikely championship, 80-79, over Seton Hall in 1989. Michigan is coached in the tournament by Steve Fisher, an erstwhile assistant who took over when head coach Bill Frieder agreed to coach Arizona State the next year. Frieder offered to stay with the Wolverines throughout the tournament, but Michigan athkletic director Bo Schembechler would have none of it. "A Michigan man is going to coach Michigan," Schembechler said at the time.
There may be other games that should be on this list. Arizona over Kentucky 84-79 in overtime in 1997 and Kansas' overtime win over Memphis last year--after Mario Chalmers' three-pointer with 3 seconds left in regulation tied the game--come to mind. But as for me, I'll play these.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
By Bob Markus
Language is an ever changing thing and every so often a dictionary will expand its lexicon to admit new words. Often these come about through inventions or scientific discoveries. "Radar" comes to mind for the former, "antibiotics" for the latter. Sometimes a new word will evolve from street jargon. "Jive" and "hip," in its secondary meaning of being a cool dude, are some examples.
But the new word I want to talk about today is "bracketology." Bracketology can be defined as the process of picking the winners of every game in the NCAA basketball tournament with the object of (a) proving how much one knows about college basketball and (b) picking up some hard cash. Bracketology is a spring rite that has become imbedded deep in the American soul. In offices and homes throughout the land, players have filled out their brackets and thrown five bucks into the pool, hoping to strike it rich. There is a radio station in South Florida that is offering a prize of 100 million dollars to anyone who could pick the winners of all 64 games, including the play-in game. That is mission impossible, of course. It's difficult enough to pick who's going to make it to the Final Four, without picking the winners bracket by bracket.
There are various methods of making your selections. There's the go-with-the-coach- who's-been-there-before method. This suggests that North Carolina, Duke, Michigan State and perhaps Syracuse are good bets to win it all. Denny Crum, when he was coaching at Louisville once told me that the key to winning in the NCAA tournament is guard play. That's all right if you know which teams have the best guards, but kind of useless if you can't tell Stephen Curry (Davidson's star of last year's tourney)from lamb curry. Then there's the ouija board method, where you more or less throw darts at the bracket.
You could, of course, listen to the experts or make your own reasoned choices from the evidence presented during the regular season. None of these is fool proof and all can be utilized to some extent. I have to admit that I'm not as well-informed as I used to be when I was covering college basketball for The Chicago Tribune in the mid to late 1980s. I hadn't watched a full game prior to the start of the tournament and the local newspaper is not particularly college hoops oriented. I have read enough and seen enough to know that the Big East was loaded this year, a fact that was reemphasized when the powerful conference received an unprecedented three No. 1 seeds.
I also thought I knew that the Pac 10 had a down year, which is why I picked all six of their entrants to lose in the first round. Only California did, putting me a bit behind the eight ball. In fact, sad to say, I picked only 18 winners in the opening round of 32 games and four of them were No. 1 seeds vs. No. 16s, historically a done deal. But fortunately, all of the Pac 10 first round winners--all except Arizona--reverted to form in the second round. I was able to pick the winners in 13 of the 16 second round games which leaves me in position to have eight teams advance to the Elite Eight. I also have all four of my Final Four teams alive.
The one thing I don't have is Pittsburgh, Sports Illustrated's pick to win it all. You may recall that last week I projected Pitt to be the first No. 1 seed out of the tournament, suggesting the Panthers would lose a second round matchup with Tennessee. The Vols, of course, never made it to the second round. Since I'm already on record as picking Memphis to win it all I'm going to be a little uncomfortable watching the Tigers play another set of Tigers--Missouri's. I'm a Missouri grad and I'll be somewhat torn between wanting Memphis to win for the sake of my ego, or Missouri for the sake of my heart. I'll probably go for the second option.
For the record, my Final Four is Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma and Villanova. Villanova is definitely a long shot, but the last time they got to the Final Four, in 1985, they won it all. I don't think that will happen this time, but while everyone remembers the Wildcats' heart-stopping upset of Georgetown in the Finals, who recalls the team Villanova beat to reach the finals? In fact it was Memphis State, which has since dropped the State from its name.
Personal note: I'll try to return to my regular Tuesday blog date next week.
Language is an ever changing thing and every so often a dictionary will expand its lexicon to admit new words. Often these come about through inventions or scientific discoveries. "Radar" comes to mind for the former, "antibiotics" for the latter. Sometimes a new word will evolve from street jargon. "Jive" and "hip," in its secondary meaning of being a cool dude, are some examples.
But the new word I want to talk about today is "bracketology." Bracketology can be defined as the process of picking the winners of every game in the NCAA basketball tournament with the object of (a) proving how much one knows about college basketball and (b) picking up some hard cash. Bracketology is a spring rite that has become imbedded deep in the American soul. In offices and homes throughout the land, players have filled out their brackets and thrown five bucks into the pool, hoping to strike it rich. There is a radio station in South Florida that is offering a prize of 100 million dollars to anyone who could pick the winners of all 64 games, including the play-in game. That is mission impossible, of course. It's difficult enough to pick who's going to make it to the Final Four, without picking the winners bracket by bracket.
There are various methods of making your selections. There's the go-with-the-coach- who's-been-there-before method. This suggests that North Carolina, Duke, Michigan State and perhaps Syracuse are good bets to win it all. Denny Crum, when he was coaching at Louisville once told me that the key to winning in the NCAA tournament is guard play. That's all right if you know which teams have the best guards, but kind of useless if you can't tell Stephen Curry (Davidson's star of last year's tourney)from lamb curry. Then there's the ouija board method, where you more or less throw darts at the bracket.
You could, of course, listen to the experts or make your own reasoned choices from the evidence presented during the regular season. None of these is fool proof and all can be utilized to some extent. I have to admit that I'm not as well-informed as I used to be when I was covering college basketball for The Chicago Tribune in the mid to late 1980s. I hadn't watched a full game prior to the start of the tournament and the local newspaper is not particularly college hoops oriented. I have read enough and seen enough to know that the Big East was loaded this year, a fact that was reemphasized when the powerful conference received an unprecedented three No. 1 seeds.
I also thought I knew that the Pac 10 had a down year, which is why I picked all six of their entrants to lose in the first round. Only California did, putting me a bit behind the eight ball. In fact, sad to say, I picked only 18 winners in the opening round of 32 games and four of them were No. 1 seeds vs. No. 16s, historically a done deal. But fortunately, all of the Pac 10 first round winners--all except Arizona--reverted to form in the second round. I was able to pick the winners in 13 of the 16 second round games which leaves me in position to have eight teams advance to the Elite Eight. I also have all four of my Final Four teams alive.
The one thing I don't have is Pittsburgh, Sports Illustrated's pick to win it all. You may recall that last week I projected Pitt to be the first No. 1 seed out of the tournament, suggesting the Panthers would lose a second round matchup with Tennessee. The Vols, of course, never made it to the second round. Since I'm already on record as picking Memphis to win it all I'm going to be a little uncomfortable watching the Tigers play another set of Tigers--Missouri's. I'm a Missouri grad and I'll be somewhat torn between wanting Memphis to win for the sake of my ego, or Missouri for the sake of my heart. I'll probably go for the second option.
For the record, my Final Four is Louisville, Memphis, Oklahoma and Villanova. Villanova is definitely a long shot, but the last time they got to the Final Four, in 1985, they won it all. I don't think that will happen this time, but while everyone remembers the Wildcats' heart-stopping upset of Georgetown in the Finals, who recalls the team Villanova beat to reach the finals? In fact it was Memphis State, which has since dropped the State from its name.
Personal note: I'll try to return to my regular Tuesday blog date next week.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
By Bob Markus
It is one of life's little ironies that Bob (don't call me Bobby) Knight has become a member of the media he once openly despised. True, you could make a distinction between the print and electronic media, but, as someone recently and famously observed, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." Just so, you can put a microphone in front of a critic and he's still a critic. Many a sports writer has made the leap, most notably Brent Musburger, who was a sports columnist for Chicago's American before becoming rich and famous as a television play-by-play man. There are others, to be sure. But even more common is the transition from head coach to TV analyst.
One of the earliest, and still the best, to move from behind the bench to behind the microphone was the late Al McGuire, whose whimsical description of a game almost made up for the insufferable hubris of his usual partner, Billy Packer, also a former coach, albeit not a successful one. Notre Dame's Digger Phelps went from the shadow of the Golden Dome to the glare of the shiny dome, the latter belonging to the hyperkinetic Dick Vitale, who talks a better game than he coached. None of these coaches cum commentator was so openly contemptuous of the print media as Bob Knight.
Knight once used me as a horrible example of why he thought sports writers were
not worth the saliva it would take to spit on. I admit I gave him the ammunition he used to blow a hole in my ego. Always one to march to the thrum of his own bass fiddle, Knight was the only Big Ten coach to boycott the annual conference preseason press day. For years, despite the entreaties of Big Ten commissioner Wayne Duke, Knight refused to make the trip to Chicago for media day. Then one year--and I can tell you precisely what year it was--Knight unexpectedly appeared in the hotel ballroom where the event was being held.
When it became his turn to speak, Knight pulled a press clipping out of his pocket and began to read it aloud to the room packed with sports writers and broadcasters. Even before he spoke his first word I knew what he was going to say and started looking for the nearest bomb shelter. At the time, college sports was my beat at The Chicago Tribune, and each year, on the day after the 64-team NCAA basketball field was announced, I'd write a back page story consisting of--hopefully clever--little tidbits like: Top-seeded team most likely to lose in first round--Indiana. Or, a variation on the same theme like: Highest rated team to lose in first round--Syracuse. I can't remember exactly how I worded it, but that, in essence, is what I wrote before the start of the 1987 NCAA tournament. So it had to be sometime in November of 1988 when Bob Knight, whose Hoosiers had defeated Jim Boeheim's Syracuse Orangemen to win the 1987 championship, strolled to the podium, where other coaches had spent 10 or 15 minutes analyzing their teams' chances in the upcoming season, read aloud those two damning sentences and concluded "and that's why I never bother to come to these meetings."
Fast forward to the following March when Indiana is getting ready to play its first round game, as I recall, against Richmond. Bob Knight is answering media questions, when I raise my hand and ask something innocuous. Knight answers it and bestows that withering glare, the one that could freeze a lion in its tracks, on me and asks, "Are you doing your predictions this year?" When I tell him, yes, he asks to see a copy of it. I don't remember what I said of Indiana, but I remember giving a copy of it to Indiana's sports information director and asking him to deliver it to Knight. I'm pretty sure I had picked Indiana to win its opener, but had warned that the Spiders were dangerous and there could be an upset. I pencilled in a humorous little note wishing him luck. When I asked the SID what Knight's reaction had been, he replied: "I haven't given it to him yet." When the Hoosiers, indeed, were upset, I shuddered to think of Knight's reaction to my note if he didn't see it until after the game. The next time I saw him was on entering Kemper Arena in Kansas City two weeks later for a Final Four press conference. He was standing in the lobby, talking to a friend, and I said, "Hello, Bob." He didn't look at me, didn't answer me, and I prefer to think he didn't hear me. I haven't seen him since.
If you've read this far you probably think I was a Bob Knight basher. Not true. In fact, I often defended him. I thought he was a great coach, who didn't cheat, and tried to teach his players to do things the right way. But like football coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State, where Knight played basketball, Knight threw one temper tantrum too many. Now he's one of us. I wonder if he, too, thinks that ironic.
Note: I no longer follow college basketball closely enough to make any informed predictions. For what it's worth, I like Memphis to win the tournament and Pittsburgh to be the first No. 1 seed to lose (to Tennessee in the second round.) You can thank me later, after you've won the tournament, Pittsburgh fans.
It is one of life's little ironies that Bob (don't call me Bobby) Knight has become a member of the media he once openly despised. True, you could make a distinction between the print and electronic media, but, as someone recently and famously observed, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." Just so, you can put a microphone in front of a critic and he's still a critic. Many a sports writer has made the leap, most notably Brent Musburger, who was a sports columnist for Chicago's American before becoming rich and famous as a television play-by-play man. There are others, to be sure. But even more common is the transition from head coach to TV analyst.
One of the earliest, and still the best, to move from behind the bench to behind the microphone was the late Al McGuire, whose whimsical description of a game almost made up for the insufferable hubris of his usual partner, Billy Packer, also a former coach, albeit not a successful one. Notre Dame's Digger Phelps went from the shadow of the Golden Dome to the glare of the shiny dome, the latter belonging to the hyperkinetic Dick Vitale, who talks a better game than he coached. None of these coaches cum commentator was so openly contemptuous of the print media as Bob Knight.
Knight once used me as a horrible example of why he thought sports writers were
not worth the saliva it would take to spit on. I admit I gave him the ammunition he used to blow a hole in my ego. Always one to march to the thrum of his own bass fiddle, Knight was the only Big Ten coach to boycott the annual conference preseason press day. For years, despite the entreaties of Big Ten commissioner Wayne Duke, Knight refused to make the trip to Chicago for media day. Then one year--and I can tell you precisely what year it was--Knight unexpectedly appeared in the hotel ballroom where the event was being held.
When it became his turn to speak, Knight pulled a press clipping out of his pocket and began to read it aloud to the room packed with sports writers and broadcasters. Even before he spoke his first word I knew what he was going to say and started looking for the nearest bomb shelter. At the time, college sports was my beat at The Chicago Tribune, and each year, on the day after the 64-team NCAA basketball field was announced, I'd write a back page story consisting of--hopefully clever--little tidbits like: Top-seeded team most likely to lose in first round--Indiana. Or, a variation on the same theme like: Highest rated team to lose in first round--Syracuse. I can't remember exactly how I worded it, but that, in essence, is what I wrote before the start of the 1987 NCAA tournament. So it had to be sometime in November of 1988 when Bob Knight, whose Hoosiers had defeated Jim Boeheim's Syracuse Orangemen to win the 1987 championship, strolled to the podium, where other coaches had spent 10 or 15 minutes analyzing their teams' chances in the upcoming season, read aloud those two damning sentences and concluded "and that's why I never bother to come to these meetings."
Fast forward to the following March when Indiana is getting ready to play its first round game, as I recall, against Richmond. Bob Knight is answering media questions, when I raise my hand and ask something innocuous. Knight answers it and bestows that withering glare, the one that could freeze a lion in its tracks, on me and asks, "Are you doing your predictions this year?" When I tell him, yes, he asks to see a copy of it. I don't remember what I said of Indiana, but I remember giving a copy of it to Indiana's sports information director and asking him to deliver it to Knight. I'm pretty sure I had picked Indiana to win its opener, but had warned that the Spiders were dangerous and there could be an upset. I pencilled in a humorous little note wishing him luck. When I asked the SID what Knight's reaction had been, he replied: "I haven't given it to him yet." When the Hoosiers, indeed, were upset, I shuddered to think of Knight's reaction to my note if he didn't see it until after the game. The next time I saw him was on entering Kemper Arena in Kansas City two weeks later for a Final Four press conference. He was standing in the lobby, talking to a friend, and I said, "Hello, Bob." He didn't look at me, didn't answer me, and I prefer to think he didn't hear me. I haven't seen him since.
If you've read this far you probably think I was a Bob Knight basher. Not true. In fact, I often defended him. I thought he was a great coach, who didn't cheat, and tried to teach his players to do things the right way. But like football coach Woody Hayes at Ohio State, where Knight played basketball, Knight threw one temper tantrum too many. Now he's one of us. I wonder if he, too, thinks that ironic.
Note: I no longer follow college basketball closely enough to make any informed predictions. For what it's worth, I like Memphis to win the tournament and Pittsburgh to be the first No. 1 seed to lose (to Tennessee in the second round.) You can thank me later, after you've won the tournament, Pittsburgh fans.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
By Bob Markus
One of the most amazing coincidences in all of recorded history is the fact that on July 4, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the birth of our nation, founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, both died. There were no internet web sites to flash the news to the world. In fact the only web sites in those days were in the corners of basements where spiders loomed. There was no television, no radio, no telegraph, no means of quickly spreading the news to the farthest reaches of the land. It was likely weeks before a farmer in Missouri learned of the unlikely occurrence.
Apparently times haven't changed as much as I had supposed. It was a full week after the deaths of Johnny Kerr and Norm Van Lier, two Chicago Bulls icons as unlike in appearance and style as Adams and Jefferson were in their political beliefs, that I read about it in Sports Illustrated. How could this happen? I read the sports pages of the South Florida News every day. I watch Sports Center, not every night, but often. But somehow this jarring news got past me. I was shocked. Two men whom I had known well, admired for different reasons, had a beer with occasionally, were gone and for a week I had been unaware of it.
As a native Chicagoan, I was aware of Johnny Kerr from the moment he began playing basketball at Tilden Tech in his senior year. A scrawny 6-9, having grown eight inches in a year, he was all knobby knees and elbows--and a powerful force on a basketball court in an era when most high school seniors were 6-4 or 6-5, tops. I was in high school myself at the time and a big fan of high school sports. I had not seen Kerr play, but had read about him and his sidekick, George Macuga, a foot shorter, who led Tilden to the city championship and a rare, for a Chicago team, first round victory in the Sweet 16.
He became locally famous when he helped lead Illinois to a Final Four in 1952, and nationally known as a hard-working center for the Syracuse Nationals in the NBA. By then his lanky frame had filled out and he was a tough as nails post man for the Nats, who, in his rookie year, won their first NBA title. One of the best passing centers in the game, Kerr averaged 13.8 points and 11.2 rebounds over a dozen years in a career that ended in 1966. He played in 844 consecutive games in one stretch, a league record that wasn't broken until 1983. He should have been in the basketball Hall of Fame long ago and may make it posthumously. Just days before his death he was announced as one of 16 candidates for the Naismith Memorial Basketball of Fame.
I first met Johnny when he was named head coach of the Bulls in their inaugural season of 1966-67. The most memorable thing about Kerr as a coach was his habit of slinging a large bath towel over his shoulder while sitting on the bench. In moments of great excitement he would give the floor a mighty whack with the end of the towel. The NBA soon banned the bath towel. As a coach, Kerr never had a winning record, but he coached the Bulls into the playoffs in their first season and for that feat was named Coach of the Year.
I remember that once, early in his tenure, the Bulls had a particularly bad road trip and I wrote a column suggesting to Bulls fans that now was the time to support their teamm and they could do so by meeting the team plane at O'Hare Field at 6 the next morning. Naturally, I thought it was my duty to be first in line to greet the players as they stumbled half asleep off their plane. I think there may have been a dozen fans, including a small jazz combo, who showed up. The whole thing was done tongue-in-cheek, of course, something the bewildered players did not know, but Johnny Kerr surely did. He never held it against me.
After two years with the Bulls, Kerr went with fellow Illini Jerry Colangelo to become the expansion Phoenix Suns first coach. Colangelo had been the Bulls ticket manager and he and I often sat around at night over a few drinks, talking basketball, Jerry dreaming of being a general manager, a dream that came true when he was picked to be the Suns general manager. Colangelo, by the way, was a dynamite outside shooter and one night in Phoenix after a game he took off his suit jacket and challenged Suns guard Gail Goodrich to a half court shootout. He held his own, too.
Kerr lasted only a season and a half in Phoenix, before coming home and putting down roots. He became the TV voice of the Bulls and one of the most beloved sports figures in Chicago.
Norm Van Lier was another story and, in a way, a more interesting story. An original third round draft choice of the Bulls, he was traded to the Cincinnati Royals before ever signing a contract. After three years in Cincinnati, having been the NBA assists leader in 1971, he was traded back to Chicago. There he teamed with Jerry Sloan to become the meanest guard combo ever put together. The two of them led the league in floor burns and charges taken and, not incidentally, played some marvelous two-way basketball. Coached by Dick Motta, they were part of a team that, to my mind, played the game the way it should be played. Motta was a firebrand of a coach, whose intensity level ran white hot. Van Lier bought into Motta's notion that the Bulls were alone in the world, that everyone in the NBA was out to get them, particularly the referees. Later in his career it caused Van Lier some problems. His nickname, Stormin' Norman, was well earned.
I probably knew Norm a little better than I knew Johnny Kerr, although we never traveled in the same circles. My wife and I did meet Norm's wife at a restaurant opening and invited the two of them to dinner at our house. Norm turned up an hour late, alone, and obviously stoned. But we still had a fun evening. Norm was the kind of guy who says what's on his mind and, recently, that got him in trouble with the Bulls, for whom he was a TV analyst. Shortly before his death, after the talented but underachieving team had blown yet another late lead, he held up what he said was a mustard seed and said, "This is a mustard seed. Your heart is as big as a mustard seed. You have no heart."
That did not sit well with Bulls brass and when Kerr was honored by the team with a halftime ceremony and the unveiling of a statue, Van Lier was not invited to be a part of the special evening. Too bad. For all their differences, Johnny and Norm had much in common, including the fact that they both loved the Bulls. Unhappily, the one you love does not always love you back.
One of the most amazing coincidences in all of recorded history is the fact that on July 4, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the birth of our nation, founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, both died. There were no internet web sites to flash the news to the world. In fact the only web sites in those days were in the corners of basements where spiders loomed. There was no television, no radio, no telegraph, no means of quickly spreading the news to the farthest reaches of the land. It was likely weeks before a farmer in Missouri learned of the unlikely occurrence.
Apparently times haven't changed as much as I had supposed. It was a full week after the deaths of Johnny Kerr and Norm Van Lier, two Chicago Bulls icons as unlike in appearance and style as Adams and Jefferson were in their political beliefs, that I read about it in Sports Illustrated. How could this happen? I read the sports pages of the South Florida News every day. I watch Sports Center, not every night, but often. But somehow this jarring news got past me. I was shocked. Two men whom I had known well, admired for different reasons, had a beer with occasionally, were gone and for a week I had been unaware of it.
As a native Chicagoan, I was aware of Johnny Kerr from the moment he began playing basketball at Tilden Tech in his senior year. A scrawny 6-9, having grown eight inches in a year, he was all knobby knees and elbows--and a powerful force on a basketball court in an era when most high school seniors were 6-4 or 6-5, tops. I was in high school myself at the time and a big fan of high school sports. I had not seen Kerr play, but had read about him and his sidekick, George Macuga, a foot shorter, who led Tilden to the city championship and a rare, for a Chicago team, first round victory in the Sweet 16.
He became locally famous when he helped lead Illinois to a Final Four in 1952, and nationally known as a hard-working center for the Syracuse Nationals in the NBA. By then his lanky frame had filled out and he was a tough as nails post man for the Nats, who, in his rookie year, won their first NBA title. One of the best passing centers in the game, Kerr averaged 13.8 points and 11.2 rebounds over a dozen years in a career that ended in 1966. He played in 844 consecutive games in one stretch, a league record that wasn't broken until 1983. He should have been in the basketball Hall of Fame long ago and may make it posthumously. Just days before his death he was announced as one of 16 candidates for the Naismith Memorial Basketball of Fame.
I first met Johnny when he was named head coach of the Bulls in their inaugural season of 1966-67. The most memorable thing about Kerr as a coach was his habit of slinging a large bath towel over his shoulder while sitting on the bench. In moments of great excitement he would give the floor a mighty whack with the end of the towel. The NBA soon banned the bath towel. As a coach, Kerr never had a winning record, but he coached the Bulls into the playoffs in their first season and for that feat was named Coach of the Year.
I remember that once, early in his tenure, the Bulls had a particularly bad road trip and I wrote a column suggesting to Bulls fans that now was the time to support their teamm and they could do so by meeting the team plane at O'Hare Field at 6 the next morning. Naturally, I thought it was my duty to be first in line to greet the players as they stumbled half asleep off their plane. I think there may have been a dozen fans, including a small jazz combo, who showed up. The whole thing was done tongue-in-cheek, of course, something the bewildered players did not know, but Johnny Kerr surely did. He never held it against me.
After two years with the Bulls, Kerr went with fellow Illini Jerry Colangelo to become the expansion Phoenix Suns first coach. Colangelo had been the Bulls ticket manager and he and I often sat around at night over a few drinks, talking basketball, Jerry dreaming of being a general manager, a dream that came true when he was picked to be the Suns general manager. Colangelo, by the way, was a dynamite outside shooter and one night in Phoenix after a game he took off his suit jacket and challenged Suns guard Gail Goodrich to a half court shootout. He held his own, too.
Kerr lasted only a season and a half in Phoenix, before coming home and putting down roots. He became the TV voice of the Bulls and one of the most beloved sports figures in Chicago.
Norm Van Lier was another story and, in a way, a more interesting story. An original third round draft choice of the Bulls, he was traded to the Cincinnati Royals before ever signing a contract. After three years in Cincinnati, having been the NBA assists leader in 1971, he was traded back to Chicago. There he teamed with Jerry Sloan to become the meanest guard combo ever put together. The two of them led the league in floor burns and charges taken and, not incidentally, played some marvelous two-way basketball. Coached by Dick Motta, they were part of a team that, to my mind, played the game the way it should be played. Motta was a firebrand of a coach, whose intensity level ran white hot. Van Lier bought into Motta's notion that the Bulls were alone in the world, that everyone in the NBA was out to get them, particularly the referees. Later in his career it caused Van Lier some problems. His nickname, Stormin' Norman, was well earned.
I probably knew Norm a little better than I knew Johnny Kerr, although we never traveled in the same circles. My wife and I did meet Norm's wife at a restaurant opening and invited the two of them to dinner at our house. Norm turned up an hour late, alone, and obviously stoned. But we still had a fun evening. Norm was the kind of guy who says what's on his mind and, recently, that got him in trouble with the Bulls, for whom he was a TV analyst. Shortly before his death, after the talented but underachieving team had blown yet another late lead, he held up what he said was a mustard seed and said, "This is a mustard seed. Your heart is as big as a mustard seed. You have no heart."
That did not sit well with Bulls brass and when Kerr was honored by the team with a halftime ceremony and the unveiling of a statue, Van Lier was not invited to be a part of the special evening. Too bad. For all their differences, Johnny and Norm had much in common, including the fact that they both loved the Bulls. Unhappily, the one you love does not always love you back.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
By Bob Markus
When I first started writing a sports column for The Chicago Tribune, Brent Musburger, then a columnist for the Tribune-owned Chicago Today, gave me this advice: "Always write about the thing people are talking about the most." Good advice and I tried to follow it. But it's not always easy advice to follow. Some days it's as easy as eating gooseberry pie. Other days it's like trying to choke down a raw rutabaga. In the 10 months or so that I've been writing this blog, there have been more gooseberry days than rutabaga nights. After all, it's only once a week.
But as I look back at the week that was, I don't see anything that's likely to grab a reader by the throat and make him cry: "Can you dig it." Yes, there was Tiger Woods' return to the golf tour with mixed results. Been there, done that. Spring training has started and I suppose I could try spinning a few spring training stories, but the last good yarn to come out of spring training was the Yankee wife swapping story many moons ago. I'm amazed that it's never been turned into a TV sit-com, at least to my knowledge. Spring training used to be one of my favorite times of the year, especially during the 11 years I wrote a daily column. What could be better than escaping Chicago's winters, with the occasional 20 inch snow storm and the sub zero wind chills, and driving the family down to Sarasota, Florida or Scottsdale, Arizona for five weeks of sunshine and baseball? And it's not as if a guy had to work himself half to death, either. Get up at dawn, take your three-mile run through lemon-scented neighborhoods, shower, eat breakfast, and drive to the ball park. Arrive about 10, have your interview done by 11, write your column at poolside and ask your wife: "What's for lunch?" That was the routine in Arizona. For Florida, just substitute running on the beach for the lemon tree ramble and you've got it. Being a beat writer is a little more labor intensive. Basically you follow the same routine as the columnist, except that you have to stay to watch the ball game. Not that you'll write anything about it. If there's one rule a baseball beat writer learns, it's that spring training games are meaningless and they must never, never be written about.
The NFL's free agent signing period opened and the Washington Redskins gave $100 million dollars to a defensiive tackle named Haynesworth. The last time a Haynesworth made headlines in Washington he was being rejected for a seat on the Supreme Court. And as Forest Gump would say: "That's all I've got to say about that." The pro basketball and hockey seasons are heating up and college basketball's March Madness is close at hand. But it's not the time to get excited about them yet.
So I guess I'll have to go to my fallback position. My original plan when I started writing this blog was to write about the job itself, a job that seems to fascinate most male readers. This seems as good a time as any to tell you a little about what it was like to work in The Tribune sports department during the early 1960s. How I got there is a story in itself. After graduating from the University of Missouri journalism school, I worked for five years as a general assignment reporter on the Moline (Il.) Dispatch, but after spending a year trying to decipher the hen scratchings of country correspondents on the state desk, I wanted to make a change. I was told about an opening on the sports desk of a paper in Dubuque, Ia., drove up there, was interviewed and got the job. I gave my two weeks notice and was sitting on a bar stool in a tavern across the street from the paper, watching the Dodgers and Braves in a National league playoff, when I got a phone call from the sports editor in Dubuque. He told me that a friend of his had just gotten out of the army and he had given my job to his buddy.
So I was out of luck and out of work. I called home to tell my parents the news and my father, who knew a guy who knew a guy, asked me if I'd like a job on the Tribune. Sure enough, he did know a guy and I soon got a phone call from Clayton Kirkpatrick, then the city editor and later THE editor of The Tribune. He asked me what I wanted to do and I cleverly told him I wanted to be a copy reader. Now I have to tell you that nobody wants to be a copy reader, but I figured it was better than, as General Patton supposedly said (at least according to the movie) "shoveling shit in Louisiana."
I did not make a good first impression at The Tribune. I was flat busted and my only suit was in tatters. My father loaned me a suit--a white suit--which I wore for two weeks before getting my first paycheck. Oh, did I mention that this was in November? When I had my entrance interview with Neighborhood News Editor Paul Hubbard, he asked me why I'd left the Dispatch. "Because for the last year I was assistant state editor and it bored me to death," I answered. Hubbard cleared his throat and said, "I was the state editor in Springfield for 18 years." Oh.
It was the policy of The Tribune at that time to start every new hire in Neighborhood news. When an opening occurred in any other section, the job would be offered to a Neighborhood Newsie. I turned down one offer, whcih appeared to be about as boring as my job in Moline, but a month or two later the sports department was looking for a copy reader . I was low man on the copy desk totem pole, but all of the others wanted more meaningful employment, so I got the job. I was told from the start that I would be a copy reader for the rest of my life and under no circumstances would I ever write a story. That turned out to be not true. Meanwhile I found myself working among a cast of characters who would not be out of place in a John Steinbeck novel. Another time I'll tell you about them--the next time I can't find anything else to write about.
When I first started writing a sports column for The Chicago Tribune, Brent Musburger, then a columnist for the Tribune-owned Chicago Today, gave me this advice: "Always write about the thing people are talking about the most." Good advice and I tried to follow it. But it's not always easy advice to follow. Some days it's as easy as eating gooseberry pie. Other days it's like trying to choke down a raw rutabaga. In the 10 months or so that I've been writing this blog, there have been more gooseberry days than rutabaga nights. After all, it's only once a week.
But as I look back at the week that was, I don't see anything that's likely to grab a reader by the throat and make him cry: "Can you dig it." Yes, there was Tiger Woods' return to the golf tour with mixed results. Been there, done that. Spring training has started and I suppose I could try spinning a few spring training stories, but the last good yarn to come out of spring training was the Yankee wife swapping story many moons ago. I'm amazed that it's never been turned into a TV sit-com, at least to my knowledge. Spring training used to be one of my favorite times of the year, especially during the 11 years I wrote a daily column. What could be better than escaping Chicago's winters, with the occasional 20 inch snow storm and the sub zero wind chills, and driving the family down to Sarasota, Florida or Scottsdale, Arizona for five weeks of sunshine and baseball? And it's not as if a guy had to work himself half to death, either. Get up at dawn, take your three-mile run through lemon-scented neighborhoods, shower, eat breakfast, and drive to the ball park. Arrive about 10, have your interview done by 11, write your column at poolside and ask your wife: "What's for lunch?" That was the routine in Arizona. For Florida, just substitute running on the beach for the lemon tree ramble and you've got it. Being a beat writer is a little more labor intensive. Basically you follow the same routine as the columnist, except that you have to stay to watch the ball game. Not that you'll write anything about it. If there's one rule a baseball beat writer learns, it's that spring training games are meaningless and they must never, never be written about.
The NFL's free agent signing period opened and the Washington Redskins gave $100 million dollars to a defensiive tackle named Haynesworth. The last time a Haynesworth made headlines in Washington he was being rejected for a seat on the Supreme Court. And as Forest Gump would say: "That's all I've got to say about that." The pro basketball and hockey seasons are heating up and college basketball's March Madness is close at hand. But it's not the time to get excited about them yet.
So I guess I'll have to go to my fallback position. My original plan when I started writing this blog was to write about the job itself, a job that seems to fascinate most male readers. This seems as good a time as any to tell you a little about what it was like to work in The Tribune sports department during the early 1960s. How I got there is a story in itself. After graduating from the University of Missouri journalism school, I worked for five years as a general assignment reporter on the Moline (Il.) Dispatch, but after spending a year trying to decipher the hen scratchings of country correspondents on the state desk, I wanted to make a change. I was told about an opening on the sports desk of a paper in Dubuque, Ia., drove up there, was interviewed and got the job. I gave my two weeks notice and was sitting on a bar stool in a tavern across the street from the paper, watching the Dodgers and Braves in a National league playoff, when I got a phone call from the sports editor in Dubuque. He told me that a friend of his had just gotten out of the army and he had given my job to his buddy.
So I was out of luck and out of work. I called home to tell my parents the news and my father, who knew a guy who knew a guy, asked me if I'd like a job on the Tribune. Sure enough, he did know a guy and I soon got a phone call from Clayton Kirkpatrick, then the city editor and later THE editor of The Tribune. He asked me what I wanted to do and I cleverly told him I wanted to be a copy reader. Now I have to tell you that nobody wants to be a copy reader, but I figured it was better than, as General Patton supposedly said (at least according to the movie) "shoveling shit in Louisiana."
I did not make a good first impression at The Tribune. I was flat busted and my only suit was in tatters. My father loaned me a suit--a white suit--which I wore for two weeks before getting my first paycheck. Oh, did I mention that this was in November? When I had my entrance interview with Neighborhood News Editor Paul Hubbard, he asked me why I'd left the Dispatch. "Because for the last year I was assistant state editor and it bored me to death," I answered. Hubbard cleared his throat and said, "I was the state editor in Springfield for 18 years." Oh.
It was the policy of The Tribune at that time to start every new hire in Neighborhood news. When an opening occurred in any other section, the job would be offered to a Neighborhood Newsie. I turned down one offer, whcih appeared to be about as boring as my job in Moline, but a month or two later the sports department was looking for a copy reader . I was low man on the copy desk totem pole, but all of the others wanted more meaningful employment, so I got the job. I was told from the start that I would be a copy reader for the rest of my life and under no circumstances would I ever write a story. That turned out to be not true. Meanwhile I found myself working among a cast of characters who would not be out of place in a John Steinbeck novel. Another time I'll tell you about them--the next time I can't find anything else to write about.
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