| Published When We Feel Like It |
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14, No.4
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California State Senator Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, has proposed a controversial bill that, if passed, would revolutionize college sports in California. Senate Bill 193, also known as the Student Athletes' Bill of Rights, passed the state Senate in May and is eligible to be voted on by the state assembly in January. Inspired by the work of former UCLA football Ramogi Huma and his Collegiate Athletes' Coalition, the bill addresses student-athletes' rights by removing limits on the "amount earned from bona fide employment not associated with their sport," eliminating job and transfer restrictions, and easing restrictions about hiring licensed agents. It has drawn the support of United States Olympic freestyle skier and University of Colorado football player Jeremy Bloom, who noted that the bill and other similar proposals "will go a long way in helping student athletes' lives and will also encourage them to stay in school and receive their full education. Moreover, it will take steps to introduce change in a system and institution that has too much control." Add reform. . . While it would appear that Murray's staunchest allies would come from the student ranks, a survey of college newspapers around the nation finds many of them lining up against Murray's plan. An editorial in the University of Houston's Daily Cougar proclaimed: "Murray's plan is too much, too early. It's broached the subject, but doesn't necessarily have the right answer." At Santa Clara University, the editors wrote: "The 'Student Athletes' Bill of Rights' would devastate collegiate sports in California if passed . . . It's asinine that senators Kevin Murray and John Burton would even consider sponsoring something that would destroy NCAA membership throughout California, regardless of their egalitarian intent." Cal State Sacramento's State Hornet notes that, "This is an inefficient method for instituting change of this overarching governing body." And the Oregon Daily Emerald writes, "If Murray and Burton really have the best interests of students at mind — as they claim — they'd back off the bill." Of course, if the bill passes the Assembly, the only opinion that will matter belongs to a former body-builder named Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Bad Science. . . Over the years several journalists writing about drugs in sport have trotted out the "Goldman Surveys" to illustrate the point that athletes are so driven to win that they would knowingly take dangerous drugs to be assured of success in competition. The story derives from Bob Goldman's 1992 book "Death in the Locker Room II," in which Goldman, an osteopath, writes that he asked 198 world-class athletes whether they would be willing to take a drug one time that would enable them to win every competition entered during a five-year period, even if they knew the drug would kill them at the end of that period. Goldman reports that 52 percent said, "Yes." Add bad . . . With the spate of stories in recent months about THG, BALCO and other drug-related issues, the Goldman findings have once again been cited. Mark Emmons of the San Jose Mercury News referred to them in a November 11 article. Two weeks later, AP's Rob Gloster led his piece with: "Steroids expert Bob Goldman has surveyed hundreds of athletes every few years for two decades, from bodybuilders to Olympians to pros. He wanted to know how far athletes will go to win. The answer: to the grave." Within days more than seventy websites had recycled the AP story. Final bad . . . The Goldman's surveys may have the patina of scientific respectability, but they are suspicious on two counts. First, all of these athletes are responding to a hypothetical question. Not one of them is truly facing a guaranteed death in five years. Second, the surveys are merely anecdotal. They are not based upon accepted statistical sampling. As Goldman told SportsLetter, in 1999, the survey results are culled from his own informal questioning of athletes with whom he comes in contact. The survey never has been submitted to a peer review and never has been published. Other investigators of steroid abuse strongly question Goldman's claims. Dr. Charles Yesalis, of Penn State University, a noted expert on anabolic steroid use, has found that less than 25% of both adolescents and elite powerlifters say they would take anabolic steroids if it was proven that steroid use would lead to heart disease, liver cancer, or sterility — much less guaranteed death. Moreover, Yesalis says that in his own face-to-face discussions with more than 1,000 admitted steroid users over the years, only a small fraction of them said they would use steroids no matter what the consequences. Where is Ron Popeil when you need him? . . . Searching for the perfect present for that special pugilist in your life? How's about the oversized chair designed to resemble a boxing glove. Crafted by Germany-based de Sede Design, the nearly three-foot-high chair is available in three grades of leather — as well as in left- and right-handed styles — and costs from $9,790-$12,880. Then there's "G.O.A.T.," which stands for the "Greatest of All Time" and is a massive book that pays tribute to Muhammad Ali. Published by Taschen, "G.O.A.T." comes wrapped in a silk-covered box; at nearly 800 pages, it weighs in at 75 pounds and is "bound by the official bindery of the Vatican." According to German magazine Der Speigel: "This is not a book. This is a monument on paper, the most megalomaniacal book in the history of civilization, the biggest, heaviest, most radiant thing ever printed — Ali's last victory." The price? A hefty $7,500 for the "Champ's Edition" and $3,000 for the "Collector's Edition." Heavyweight, indeed. Add gifts . . . For the golfer in your life, there is the Personal Golf Scooter, an environmentally-friendly electric vehicle available for a modest $3,249. Or you could purchase the popular video game machine Golden Tee Fore! (2004 edition); according to the Incredible Technologies website, the "Golden Tee players consider New Courses Release Day to be one of the most important days of the year. Many players have described it as a combination of Christmas, Super Bowl Sunday, and their birthday all rolled into one." All for just $4,300. Then again, you can also "buy" your loved one his/her own tennis player via Great Britain's Lawn Tennis Association's Adopt A Player Scheme. Packages start at just £1,000 and include Wimbledon tickets. Final gifts . . . Of course, if your loved one happens to be a Sonoma State University alum or booster, you could spring for a race horse, or, rather, a share of a horse. It seems the Division II school needed to increase its athletic scholarship offerings to $250,000 by 2005. And so, the athletic department did what every financially hamstrung athletic department does: it purchased two thoroughbred race horses at an auction in Los Angeles — one of them a grandson of Seattle Slew — then began selling one-percent ownership shares of each horse for $1,000. Half of the amount raised — some $200,000 as of late November — will go to the school's scholarship fund. Because demand has been so high, the school is now contemplating purchasing a third horse. Whoa, Nellie! Cover image . . . Over the years, SportsLetter has tracked the relatively few times that Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine have featured women athletes on their covers. But British Runner magazine, which its editor describes as "Britain's No. 1 magazine for distance running," seems to have the opposite problem: it rarely features male runners on the cover. Seventeen of the last eighteen covers, from July 2002 to December 2003, have featured women runners. Add cover . . . Actually, the publisher might think about changing the name of the magazine to "Paula." Of those seventeen women's covers, five covers have featured star British distance runner Paula Radcliffe. Photo credit . . . The London-based Observer Sport Monthly recently ranked the "50 Best Sporting Images." It was no huge surprise that two photographs of Muhammad Ali, taken by Sports Illustrated ace Neil Leifer, ranked first and second. But it was a major upset that Leifer's iconic shot of Ali standing over Sonny Liston, his fist cocked, ranked second, behind Leifer's aerial image of Ali walking to his corner after knocking out Cleveland Williams. Altogether, four boxing photos made the Observer's Top 10, trailed by soccer (three), rugby, auto racing and track (one apiece). Add photo . . . Perhaps the most glaring omission from the Top 10 is the infamous photo of Italian marathoner Dorando Pietri staggering across the finish line at the 1908 London Olympics. The image, which inspired Irving Berlin to write one of his first hit songs ("Dorando" 1909), is "perhaps the first image of a sporting event to achieve the status of great sports photography," according to Paul Wombell, the director of London's The Photographers' Gallery, quoted in the book "Sportscape: The Evolution of Sports Photography" (Phaidon, 2000). [pg. 62] The list of lists . . . There must be a special school where magazine editors are taught to Drive Up Circulation with Lists! Everyone has a list. A quick-and-dirty review of recent magazines turns up all kinds of lists. Tennis (November/December 2003) offers the "10 Greatest Matches of the Open Era." Food was on the minds of some editors — Runner's World (December 2002) "20 Super Foods," Muscle & Fitness (January 2004) "The 7 Best Body Building Foods." The current issue of World Handball tempts us with "The Best of the Best" team handball photos of 2003. Outside (December 2003) features a neo-swimsuit issue with "25 Sports & Adventure Goddesses Who Rule." Meanwhile, their fellow wilderness buffs over at Backpacker (April 2003) present "The Wild List" including "Sweetest spots for stargazing, skinny-dipping, and spotting UFOs." Student Sports (November 2003) rates "The Top 10 High School Sports Movies," with "Hoosiers" taking first place. Black Belt has lots of lists, usually involving small numbers — "5 Kenpo Eye Strikes," "5 Kenpo Animal Strikes," "4 Hard-Core Sambo Street Strategies" and "4 Extreme Submission Techniques." In August, though, they got a little crazy with "12 Tips for Defeating Any Attacker." Add lists . . . Our favorite list comes from Bowlers Journal (November 2003). The special 90th anniversary issue lists the "90 Defining Moments" in bowling history. Among the top ten moments are "10th pin added to ninepins" (#2), "Automatic pinsetters introduced" (#3), "Air conditioning" (#9), and - best of all - "Repeal of Prohibition" (#5). From the Department of Bad Timing. . . On the day after the misguided souls at the BCS picked Oklahoma to play LSU in the Sugar Bowl, the Los Angeles Times' sports section published an advertisement that read: "Sugar Bowl Tour for USC Fans." Add timing. . . While the 8th African Games were being contested in Nigeria on October 4-18, the front page of the official website proclaimed throughout the event that the Games venue, the New Abuja Stadium Complex, is "currently being built." Final timing. . . The cover of the December 2003 issue of Hoop Magazine featured New Jersey Nets center Alonzo Mourning, with the headline, "A Star is Reborn." Mourning announced his retirement in November because of a kidney ailment. From the Department of Mysterious Timing . . . The deadline for Heisman Trophy Award voters to cast their ballots was Wednesday, December 10. So how was it possible for an advertisement about the Heisman Trophy Presentation television show - featuring photographs of final candidates Chris Perry, Eli Manning, Larry Fitzgerald, and Jason White - to appear in Sports Illustrated on the very day of the voting deadline? The Philly phanatic . . . You've seen him negotiate a truce between Allen Iverson and Larry Brown, and you've seen him as a commentator on "Slamball." Now, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, you will see former Philadelphia 76ers GM Pat Croce provide judo, tae kwon do and karate coverage for NBC during the 2004 Olympics. Croce noted that he took the job on one condition: "I said, 'As long as I get to train with [Team USA].' Because I still train. At 5:45 [in the morning], I'll be there training with all the black belts." No doubt, dude. This photo, from Croce's 1984 book "Stretching for Athletics" (Leisure Press, 2nd edition) shows Croce in his prime. Remember the Titan . . . Ten days after the 2003 Titan Games ended this February in San Jose, Calif., the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reported that the games were a big success, quoting then United States Olympic Committee CEO Lloyd Ward as saying, "These athletes don't usually draw this well so the concept is sound," and that the event was expected to be held in San Jose in 2004. Ten months later, the Atlanta Business Chronicle, part of the same company as the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, presented a very different picture. The Chronicle contends that the San Jose games "drew smaller-than-expected crowds and not as many big-dollar corporate sponsorships as organizers had hoped." Add Titan . . . The Chronicle reports that though San Jose has first right of refusal for the 2004 games, it appears likely that Atlanta will host the games next June, during the build-up to the Athens Olympic Games. In attempting to paint Atlanta as an ideal place for the games, possibly on a permanent basis, Georgia State University marketing professor Ken Bernhardt told the Chronicle: "There probably isn't another city in the country that has the halo of the Olympics around it like Atlanta has, and this would boost our standing as a leader in sports events." Atlanta? Olympic halo? Dead celebs . . . Dale Earnhardt remains the only athlete to have cracked Forbes' ultra-exclusive "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities" annual survey. Earnhardt, who first made the list last year at $20 million (tied for third with John Lennon), ranked No. 7 in 2003, with $15 million. Writes Forbes' Davide Dukcevich: "Argentines have Evita. Italians have Padre Pio. And the South has Dale Earnhardt." The artful dodgeball . . .Sports cinephiles are eagerly awaiting two films in 2004: "The Game of Their Lives," about the 1950 U.S. World Cup soccer team and directed by David Anspaugh ("Hoosiers," "Rudy"), and "Miracle," about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and starring Kurt Russell as coach Herb Brooks. But the dark-horse entry is the as-yet-untitled comedy about the sport of dodgeball, starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. The film is written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who created Reebok's "Terry Tate: Office Linebacker" commercials. According to Rusty Walker, executive director of the Mississippi-based International Dodge-Ball Federation, "The movie has over 50 of the new IDBF sanctioned dodge-balls and I have heard that the cast and crew are having a BLAST playing dodge-ball and getting paid to do it! We've been talking with them since the beginning and it sounds like they're having a blast!" Add dodgeball . . . Not everyone thinks so highly of the sport. In the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, Eastern Connecticut State University physical education professor Neil Williams ranked dodgeball as the No. 1 entry into the "Physical Education Hall of Shame." Dodgeball, Williams later told CNN, is "an aggressive game, always has been an aggressive game. But as for hitting the students below the waist, there's a lot of damage that can be done there as well, and students don't aim as well to begin with. They also miss occasionally and hit each other in the head when they don't intend to. The red rubber ball that you're talking about hurts no matter where it hits you." Guess we won't see Prof. Williams strolling down the red carpet with Stiller and Vaughn. Final dodgeball . . . Prof. Williams may soon have another target: the athletes at the Washington, D.C.-based World Adult Kickball Association. The WAKA website not only salutes the 2003 world kickball champs — the Kick Asphalts — but gives readers access to the lyrics of the theme song of kickball, "Everyone Loves Kickball," written by Pete Papageorge. The chorus: "EVERYBODY LOVES KICKBALL/EVERYBODY LOVES KICKBALL/When the sun is out and the sky is blue/There is nothin' else that I would rather do/Than play kickball/EVERYBODY LOVES KICKBALL."
You're out . . . The U.S. National Baseball team's loss to Mexico in the recent Olympic qualifying tournament knocked them out of the Athens Olympic Games and evoked much hand-wringing, and elicited this response from 2000 team manager Tommy Lasorda: "I can't believe it! It's a shock and a disgrace that the Americans won't be represented in the Olympics. Baseball is America's game. It doesn't belong to the Japanese or the Cubans or the Koreans or the Italians. This is sad, very sad." The emotion of the moment — as well as the ongoing debate about the future of baseball in the Olympic program — must have gotten to the editors at Sports Illustrated. A November 17 Scorecard piece noted that "The IOC has already discussed dropping baseball, an Olympic sport since 1984, but the proposal was tabled until 2005." In fact, baseball was a demonstration sport at Los Angeles, as it was in Seoul. It became an official Olympic sport in 1992. Add out . . . Actually, baseball's association with the Olympic Games pre-dates 1984 by many decades. Some writers claim that a baseball tournament was part of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Games. The tournament, however, seems not to have taken place within the officially recognized time period of the Games, and probably involved only Americans. There also were baseball exhibitions in conjunction with the 1912, 1936, 1952, 1956 and 1964 Games.
Bert Sugar
Bert Randolph Sugar is this generation's most acclaimed boxing journalist. He served as editor of three prominent magazines: Ring Magazine, Boxing Illustrated, and Fight Game. Currently, he offers his acerbic commentary on HBO's website and for various television networks. As old school as 15-round championship bouts and three-martini lunches, Sugar still composes on his trusty Smith-Corona electric typewriter. Behind the ever-present fedora, cigar, and — ahem — iced beverage lurks a keen mind and a sharp wit. Sugar is a former advertising executive — he wrote the words for the famous "N-E-S-T-L-E-S: Nestles makes the very best. . ." ad campaign — who changed career course to become a sportswriter. He has written more than 50 books, many of them about boxing, but with such diverse titles as "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pro Wrestling," "I Hate the Dallas Cowboys: And Who Elected Them America's Team Anyway?" (editor), "Hit the Sign and Win a Free Suit of Clothes from Harry Finklestein," and "'The Thrill of Victory': The Inside Story of ABC Sports." His most recent work is a compilation of his boxing writing good-naturedly entitled "Bert Sugar on Boxing: The Best of the Sport's Most Notable Writer" (Lyons Press). The book includes profiles, historical pieces, and Sugar's "rants and raves." The 67-year-old Sugar refuses to slow down. Among other projects, he has recently completed a screenplay, co-written with Academy Award-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg ("On the Waterfront"), about the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling heavyweight championship fight. Spike Lee is slated to direct. He is also writing a children's book and contributes a regular column for Smoke Magazine. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Richmond, Va., Sugar now lives in Chappaqua, N.Y., or "right around the corner from the Clintons," as he says, with his wife and "assorted animals." — David Davis SportsLetter: How did you get started as a writer? Bert Sugar: I just wanted to be a writer. I would've written on bathroom walls with lipstick. . . I was in advertising, and on the night of the blackout in New York City, in 1965, three of us advertising men went down to the bar and by candle-light began to write a book called "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?" It was later made into a film with Doris Day. SL: What drew you to boxing? BS: Several things. I boxed as a kid — I was in CYO and in the Golden Gloves in Washington, D.C. I was only white kid training in Billy Edwards' gym. I was known as "the great white hopeless." Second, growing up in D.C., what were my choices? There were the Washington Senators, whose double-play combination was short to second to the right field stands. And the Redskins at that time were really bad. I followed all sports, but I loved boxing. When I came to New York, I decided I wanted to be a sportswriter. Unfortunately, most of the jobs were taken. So I did what Roy Campanella did. When he tried out for the baseball team and the coach said, "Take your positions," he saw no one behind home plate. So he became a catcher. At the time, I was going to Toots Shor's every day, where all the sportswriters gathered, and saw that the up-and-coming writers were covering baseball and football. And basketball was the hot new sport. I looked around and saw that the writers covering boxing were all older men. There was no new blood coming, so I stepped into the void. SL: What was it like to hang out in Toots Shor's? BS: That was fun. The writers sat at the bar all day and all evening — Paul Gallico, Bob Consadine, all the great ones - telling stories and talking to Toots. A young upstart named Howard Cosell used to hang around, before he was anybody, talking nonsense. Joe DiMaggio would sit in his booth, smoking his cigarettes. There was a real pecking order. Walter Smith - better known as "Red" — was my hero. He was the sweetest of men — he and Jim Murray both. I tried to sit close to Red and listen to him and soak it all in. One day, I saw him reading his column. I asked him what he was doing. He said, "I just want to see how the editors screwed it up." It was a gathering spot, a real saloon, and there was camaraderie among the writers. I don't think the sportswriters today have that. They stay up in their rooms and compute their frequent flier miles. They don't tell stories anymore; they surf the web. I learned to wear a hat at Toots Shor's. All the old-time newspapermen - like Harold Rosenthal, who broke in Roger Kahn at the Herald-Tribune — wore hats indoors. I asked them, Why do you wear a hat? They told me that, in the old days, when newspapers used linotype presses, the linotype would throw off metal filings and this would come down on their heads. So they wore hats indoors to keep off the filament. I said, if I want to be a writer, I'll wear a hat. SL: In the past few months, several fights have ended with controversial decisions, including Oscar De La Hoya-Shane Mosley II and Roy Jones, Jr.-Antonio Tarver. Is there a problem with the judges or is it the way fans watching on television view the fight? BS: For the record, I had Mosley winning and I had Tarver winning. To answer your question: I think it's more the latter, but it's probably both. Look, a biased judge is a biased judge is a biased judge, whether through innocence or venality. This isn't new. Everybody agrees that Jimmy Young beat Muhammad Ali. Now, when the public roots for someone, that fighter is going to win in their mind's eye, no matter what. It's all subjective. And if you don't turn down the sound when you're watching the fight, you're going to be unduly influenced by what the announcers say. SL: Should they change the system to one where the judges' scores are posted after each round? BS: Not at all. That takes away the most exciting element of boxing - and one of the most exciting in all of sports — that moment when ring announcer Michael Buffer or Jimmy Lennon Jr. comes to the mic and intones with the solemnity of Moses the decision. That's true drama, and I wouldn't want to see that aspect of boxing disappear. Also, they tried that in 1977, when Ali fought Ernie Shavers. NBC showed the judges' scores after each round. Angelo Dundee [Ed Note: Ali's longtime trainer] was smart enough to have somebody watch the fight in the locker-room and see the scorecards. He knew that Ali couldn't lose, so Ali went into a shell for the last rounds of the fight. He just didn't fight 'cause he didn't have to. So all that did was deprive fans of action. SL: At this point, the most exciting American fighter out there is James Toney. Why has the U.S. had so much trouble developing young fighters recently? BS: You're talking primarily in the heavyweight division. The heavyweight has gone north — as in, north of 250 pounds. A kid who's 250 pounds and reasonably coordinated is better off being a football player. He gets a college scholarship, a signing bonus when he turns pro, a pension plan, all kinds of safety nets. A fighter gets his brains bashed in. Anyone with a quarter of a brain who thinks this out will choose football. Boxing has always been the sport of the dispossessed — whether it's the Irish, the Jews, the Italians, or African-Americans. If kids get other chances to make a living and not get hit in head, they'll opt for the other chance. That's why we no longer have the Maxie Rosenblooms coming out of the tenements anymore. Second, boxing is not that glamorous anymore. You can't find it on network television. If you're not hooked up for cable television or can't afford pay- per-view, then you never get to watch boxing. So boxing has lost contact with a generation of potential fighters. The only exception to this — the only demographic where boxing hasn't lost its edge on glamour — is among Latinos. SL: Why isn't the Olympics still perceived as the stepping-off spot for young American fighters? BS: That used to be our farm system, from Floyd Patterson to Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), to Joe Frazier to George Foreman. In '76, all the fights were in prime-time, so the American audience was introduced to Howard Davis, the Spinks brothers, Sugar Ray Leonard. After '76, there was less and less exposure to the point where, in 1996, the only fight they showed was at 2 in the morning. And that wasn't even on the schedule: the only reason they showed it was because David Reid, an American, knocked out a Cuban with one punch. Now boxing [in the Olympic Games] is downplayed to the point where it's a minus 10 on the Richter scale. SL: Is the dominance of Latino fighters — and Latino fans — a trend that will continue? BS: For a while - yes. It's big for them. They build rings in their backyards for their boys, like Oscar De La Hoya's father did. This started with Roberto Duran — he opened the floodgates — and then Julio Cesar Chavez furthered it. SL: Are you in favor of a national commission to "govern" boxing? BS: Yes, but understand its shortcomings. Boxing is the most international of sports, and each country has its own system. A national commission would only govern U.S. boxing, so there would still be potential conflicts world-wide. And that's not even considering the Indian reservations, which now host many boxing cards and are their own sovereign nations. On the positive side, it would probably get rid of the governing bodies — what I call the "alphabet soups." SL: What else would you do to clean up and/or reform boxing? BS: The safety of fighters is important. I think there should be some sort of national information bank so that fighters can't fight in one state one week and then fight under a different name in a different state the next week. I'd also like to see them do something on the pension side. Somebody — the promoters, the television networks — has to give something back to the fighters, to offer insurance and pension plans. If the fighter fights so many rounds, he gets "X" amount of money into his pension plan. And I think there should be uniform rules for fights — whether it's the three-knockdown rule or whatever — in every state. SL: In the book, you write that you don't like to watch women box. What's wrong with women in boxing? BS: Let me say from the start: women have every right to fight, just like men have every right to strip at Chippendale's. I'm not against women's sports — I enjoy women's tennis better than men's tennis. At least they have volleys that last more than three seconds. I was raised in a southern climate. I've always believed that men are stronger and women are smarter. I just don't want to see women with their noses coming out of their ears. And I also don't think most women can fight - I think they're there for the novelty. SL: What fights would you most like to see today? BS: A third Barrera-Morales. De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather, if Mayweather can move up in weight. Mayorga-Mosley. The heavyweight division is on the cusp of being called off due to lack of interest. The most serious boxing fan wouldn't recognize Corey Sanders if he walked down the street in his robe, with boxing gloves on. SL: How will history judge Lennox Lewis? BS: I rank him as the greatest heavyweight champion of the 21st century. He doesn't break into my top 25 all-time heavyweights. SL: How will history judge Mike Tyson? BS: Ironically, much better than Lennox. Mike has almost become a pitiable character. That said, there's still resonance of deep feelings for Mike. I don't think there ever was with Lennox, going back to the Olympics when he fought for Canada. Mike Tyson had a following — and it's still there. We remember Tyson as a youth, when he beat Michael Spinks in 91 seconds — and we don't remember him being counted out on his back. SL: How will history judge Oscar De La Hoya? BS: Very well. Oscar is the boy-next-door type. I think he'll come out very well, particularly with the fact that he beat Trinidad, regardless of what three judges said. SL: Do you think he'll fight again? BS: I knew damn well that if Mosley won, De La Hoya wouldn't quit, like he said he would. Oscar is an ATM machine, and he's not going to quit with an "L" as his last fight.
On October 6, 2001, Poly faced off against Concord, Calif.-based powerhouse De La Salle, thus pitting the nation's number-one ranked team, Poly, against the number-two ranked team , De La Salle. The game itself was an historic moment, marking the first-ever national championship high school football game. Before a sellout crowd at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach, De La Salle, which entered the game with an improbable 10-year, 116-game winning streak, prevailed, 29-15. De La Salle's winning streak has now reached 151 games. Wallace used the occasion to research and write "One Great Game" (Atria Books), about the two contenders. On the surface, the schools are polar opposites. Poly is a public school located in a gritty, urban setting, with a melting-pot mix of Cambodian, Vietnamese, African-American, white, and Pacific Islander students. De La Salle is a Catholic, private school nestled in the bucolic setting of northern California, with predominantly white students. As the big game approaches, Wallace explores that dichotomy. The result is a book about high school football that is about much more than sports. It is about how sports shape community in America, and how communities and schools gain identity through sports. In so doing, Wallace joins the pantheon of authors who have used high-school sports as a departure point to examine such issues, including H.G. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights," Madeleine Blais' "In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle," and Darcy Frey's "Last Shot." Now 51, Wallace lives in New York City with his wife and son. We talked when Wallace returned to Long Beach on his book-promotion tour, then completed the interview via email. —David Davis SportsLetter: When did you decide to write this book? Don Wallace: My niece was surfing in Indonesia, and she bought a chess set for my son for Christmas. When she came home, she wrapped it in the sports pages of the Long Beach Press Telegram. I read the paper and saw the announcement of the game between Poly and De La Salle. I said to myself, if this is the first time a number-one and-two ranked teams have ever met, then this is a national championship game and it's the first ever. I just felt the hair rising up my neck. Also, I had been writing a memoir about the Civil Rights era and my experiences at Long Beach Poly. I had published two sections of it in Harper's. I was at the point of bringing this to the publishers when the Poly-De La Salle game came up. I thought the football game would give me the hook to tell the world about Poly, about Long Beach, about race, about sports. SL: There have been several prominent books about high school athletes in the last dozen years, with Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights" leading the way. Why haven't there been more books about high school football? DW: "Friday Night Lights" is still selling extremely well in paperback, years after it first was published. Normally, the publishing industry would stand up and salute if you brought that to their attention. But I think there's a real bias against football writing. Publishing is concentrated on the East Coast. In Manhattan, there's no such thing as high school football — schools there don't play football anymore. The majority of editors [in publishing] are women. They look around and say, no one's doing football books, which creates a perception that football books don't sell. When I was in high school, we had a brief flurry of football literacy. We had "Paper Lion" [by George Plimpton], "North Dallas Forty" [by Peter Gent], "Instant Replay" [by Jerry Kramer edited by Dick Schaap], "Meat on the Hoof" [by Gary Shaw], "Out of Their League" [by Dave Meggyesy]. Then there was this tremendous falloff. What happened was irritating to me: baseball writers have taken over, with their bow ties. They're terribly erudite, and they talk about the Euclidian geometry of the diamond. I was arguing for the primacy of football, but there was nothing to back me up. Actually, what probably helped me was the movie "Remember the Titans," which was a big surprise hit. That was quite influential in the perception of football. Whenever you have a creeping success, suddenly everyone takes notice. SL: You're a proud Poly alum: what was the school like when you went there? DW: My uncle Max played on Poly's first team, in 1907. I was the third generation in my family to play football at Poly — I was a senior during the '69 season. That's considered the beginning of the low point of Poly football. That coincided with the social changes were taking place in Los Angeles, including the sweep of what was called "white flight" following the Watts Riots. First, South Central L.A. and Compton changed from pretty much all white to almost all black in a matter of 18-24 months. Then, north Long Beach was the next stop. People's attitudes were hostile and completely divided. At the time, Poly was still living with one foot in the 1940s and 1950s and one foot in the very troubled 1960s. On the student-social level, it was run by white fraternities and sororities, which dominated campus life — all of the political offices, the homecoming queens, the student newspaper positions. But this Berlin wall of old-style, fraternal- and sorority-based control was crumbling. There were two race riots in my three years at the school. The first race riot — when I was a junior — was tough, but it wasn't catastrophic. The second one, when I was a senior, was a famous race riot. The school was closed. The community invaded from the outside, and the school erupted from the inside. It was extraordinarily violent and convulsive. People were locked in their classrooms eight-ten hours. People were beaten. SL: What was it like to return to Poly? DW: Some 30 years later, when I drove in, I found I had flashes of post-traumatic stress syndrome. I was clenched up, waiting for that moment when someone comes up and takes your lunch money. But the total opposite happened. As I walked in, I found that everyone was smiling at me and saying, "How do you do, sir? Can I help you?" One other big change; they don't use the big front door anymore. It's unsafe. They use a side door so everyone who comes in gets eye-balled. It's out of the firing line for drive-bys. Demographically, the majority of students is now Cambodian — 38 percent. The rule at Poly, as I learned, is not to have any majority. It's a "minority rules" situation. SL: Why has Poly attracted such amazing football talent, from Morley Drury to Gene Washington to Willie McGinest? DW: Geographically, when Long Beach began in 1888, it was very attractive to live here- it was the Miami Beach of California. Long Beach is just large enough at 400,000 people to attract real talent. For years, Long Beach spent more on education than most West Coast areas. And the city boasted of it as a marketing device to bring in people from the mid-west. Historically, people came here to work in the oil fields, in aircraft plants, in shipyards. My football classmates were the sons of riveters: they were tough. Then, World War II brought African-Americans. Poly wasn't a segregated school and began to get this reputation as a classy place. SL: Is Poly just a football factory? DW: The biggest problem Poly faces now is that the football program is too professionalized. They're under tremendous stress to send people to the top ranks, to produce Division I athletes. Which means that, on the one hand, you have transfers banging on the door. Then you have players who grew up in the system from when they were four and five. Those two currents have some very strong friction-making encounters. This is the balancing act the coaches go through, and this has resulted in turmoil. SL: Is De La Salle a football factory? DW: The most impressive thing, on a sports level, is that De La Salle has total buy-in. No parent comes on the field and whispers in the coach's ears. At Poly, there are 10-50 people —- parents, friends, hangers-on — on the field at every practice. They work out at De La Salle 49 weeks out of the year. It doesn't mean you can't miss a workout now and then, but the team is in lock-step. Those workouts, as opposed to any other high school team I've ever seen, are run on 30- and 60-second whistles. It's like this, like this [snaps fingers]. The kids are trained by masters of strength and conditioning, and they're trained to look after each other. They critique each other's form and won't allow you to do a lift without the proper technique. They would stop you and break down your technique and make you re-work it right on the spot, even if it delayed everything. SL: Were they suspicious of you being part of the "Poly family"? DW: De La Salle couldn't have been more open. They let me into places they'd never let anyone before, into their chapels, into their team meetings, into their locker-room. In return, they never asked anything. That was the most impressive thing. SL: What else was different about De La Salle? DW: The greatest difference is that De La Salle draws from a middle- to upper-income base, regardless of race. They're not an all-white team. What they have is, within their Hispanic, Pacific Islander, and African-American student body, stable families. The kids eat three good meals a day and they go home and sleep in a stable household. The poverty level in the Concord area is two percent. In Long Beach it's probably 32 percent. That's the base difference. Their lives are together. They're not being shocked by big changes. The poor lose their jobs more, the poor don't have healthcare. They are more affected by dozens of things — including violence, asthma, poor eating choices — because they're not exposed to the proper choices. I asked the De La Salle players the supplement question — you know, how are you able to gain 10-15 pounds without taking supplements? They said, "Well, we eat steak, all the steak we want." SL: Were you surprised by the outcome of the game? DW: This was a classic match-up of well-coached teams with great talent on both sides. There were people who, in their gut, had the outcome already figured out, but nobody really knows anything. But it was very tough going into the game because there were journalists handicapping it like crazy. Many of them said, "Well, Poly's faster." In truth, De La Salle was just as quick as Poly. They may not have had players with the 10.3 speed of [Poly sprinter-receiver] Derrick Jones, but across the board they were faster. One reason for that is they don't carry a big squad. They carry a tiny squad — 45 kids — who have worked out for three solid years. But with a well-knit, well-trained, three-years-in the trenches brotherhood like De La Salle, playing both ways [offense and defense] is always going to be better. Actually, you realize that one of the problems Poly has is carrying 80-90 kids. They have to give players their time. They have to platoon and substitute. About the only place where it's an advantage is on the defensive line, where if you can keep rotating in the 280-pounders, the average team is going to fold. But De La Salle is anything but average. SL: Will we ever see a winning streak like De La Salle's, in any sport? DW: The De La Salle streak is unique, but that doesn't mean some badminton team in Pakistan won't surpass it. It's not even the longest streak in sports; the San Francisco Chronicle did a nice job researching winning streaks recently, and a wrestling team from Brandon High in Florida had the longest streak [Editor's Note: According to the Tampa Bay Tribune, the streak recently reached 375 consecutive dual meets.] But a win streak achieved in a major sport against nationally ranked competition, such as De La Salle's, is probably never going to happen again. What makes the De La Salle streak so significant is that it's in one of the sports where streaks are most rare. It's harder to put wins together in football than in baseball and basketball, simply from a management point of view: the game puts more people on the field, has more complex components, and is subject to the quirks of an oblong, inflated ball played in all weathers. What elevates the De La Salle streak is that it is a modern one, achieved against ever-stronger competition. I don't think you can place a lot of value on the high school football win streaks of the 1920s, '40s, or even '50s. It was a different era, when athletes didn't train year-round and teams didn't stray out of their regions. They also didn't try to play a unified national schedule. Mitigating against the De La Salle streak is the fact that, in the early years, they played a regional schedule in a relative backwater that yielded only a couple of good teams a year. So they got a five-year head start on building their streak. But then that's the way these things happen; as De La Salle got better, they attracted marquee opponents. They didn't run away from the biggest powers in the state, and they beat them. SL: Is there any way to quantify how much pressure each De La Salle team faces? DW: The existence of the streak is acknowledged but not placed on any kind of pedestal. There's no breast-beating or trash-talking at practices or in the locker-rooms, nobody screaming in somebody's face, "You're going to make us lose!" That's the influence of [head coach] Bob Ladouceur, and his assistants, and it's important that he's backed up by De La Salle's principal, Brother Christopher Brady. I've heard "Coach Lad" start a sentence on many occasions with a matter-of-fact, "When we lose. . . ." The pressure the players receive from some parents, former players, fans, rivals, the community and their fellow teenagers is constant. It didn't strike me as oppressive; I've experienced far worse in 9-and-under soccer leagues and in pickup basketball games. But that doesn't mean it isn't there as a powerful undertow. The players have built this streak as much as the coaches, and I think they have their ways of enforcing what it takes to keep it going. Hazing may have been involved in the early years — what sport or team hasn't had some of that? — but the rituals now are about bonding, without rites involving humiliation or abuse. As the father of a teenage boy, as a former teenager and athlete myself, I almost don't know how the kids handle it — except that, having watched a season's worth of practices and key games, it's evident that complete preparation gives these kids a reservoir of self-esteem, competence, and leadership that allows them to play at a level far above other teams. They know this going in; they play looser and better. And it helps that the coaches and the school consistently underplay the streak and even publicly debate whether it's a "good" thing or not. SL: How does coach Ladouceur handle the pressure? DW: I think Ladouceur handles the pressure by living fully and responsibly in the moment of every hour of every day. He's like a Zen monk or a samurai or, to place it in a Christian context, a missionary; he wears his heart on his sleeve, so he doesn't have to spend all his energy on his public image or his fame, such as it is. Like all great teachers of kids, he draws energy from the teaching, from the young minds he is trying to reach. Of course, I also know he hits the exercise bike at 7 a.m., so he's mortal like the rest of us and finds a good workout necessary to keeping equipoise. And he reads books in areas unrelated to football, about human potential and inspirational people in history. Finally, although he is very private and does not include his family in his public persona, I know these are his most important relationships: his wife and children. SL: You mentioned that high-school football seems to be headed toward a BCS-like playoff system. Is that the future of high school football — and is that good for high school football? DW: In the three years since the game in my book, the great American marketing juggernaut has improvised a format for selecting, hyping, and broadcasting a high school football "Super Game" of the year. The Long Beach Poly-De La Salle game is still the king in terms of Nielsen ratings, but the De La Salle-Evangel Christian game this fall, the first nationally televised game, was the clincher. It got national coverage, including a big New York Times pre-game story. It drew .56 in the Nielsens, but just as importantly established a story line we can expect to see in the years to come, for as long as De La Salle remains unbeaten: the saintly, white-hatted Spartans against the rogue, black-hatted challengers such as Evangel. Proof of this is that just this week De La Salle signed to play Mission Viejo, a team with a much-criticized program and coach. Given the increased professionalization of the major high school polls and their close symbiosis with the media — and given the likelihood that the De La Salle streak will continue for another couple of years — I foresee that the non-league, or pre-season, games will become an alternative season tucked into the old-style league. Down the line it's really scary: I can see the various regional powerhouses opting out of their leagues and even state championships in order to pursue TV "Super Games." It's already a reality for De La Salle and Evangel, both of whom have left their regions and leagues far behind in terms of scheduling. Is this good for high school football? No. The soul of the game is in its community roots. For high school sports in general, it may also be a disaster, because football knits together school sports and often subsidizes athletic facilities. Unlike what goes on with the college game, at the high school level football is still a relatively benign, or positive, presence.
Recent scholarship on golf carts, home field advantage, sexual aggression and David Beckham. Walking vs. Riding and Performance among Professional Golfers. Charles O. Dotson and Seppo E. Iso-Ahola. International Sports Journal. 7 (1) 2003 Golfers Casey Martin and Ford Olinger have sued the PGA and the USGA seeking the right to ride golf carts during competition. In each case, the governing bodies have maintained that "walking is a fundamental aspect to competitive golf and allowing the use of a cart would provide an unfair advantage." The Senior PGA Tour allows the use of golf carts and therefore provides "a potential model for addressing the issues of cart riding and its influence on golfers' performance." The data indicate that "Walk-ride behavior among senior PGA touring professionals has no influence on tournament performance . . . [R]iding does not provide an advantage over walking among professional golfers. If anything, although trivial, the opposite may be true . . . In no case would we predict riders to perform better than walkers." The Home Advantage Revisted: Winning and Crowd Support in an Era of National Publics. D. Randall Smith. Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 27 (4) 2003 "Home teams win over 50% of sporting contests." In the past 20 years, the level of home advantage in the NBA, NHL and MLB has declined. "Distancing of players from fans via free agency and rapid salary escalation, coupled with marketing designed to create national publics, can produce declines in home advantage . . . [T]he social bases of home advantage have been eroded by economic forces and league marketing." Sexual Aggression and Sports Participation. Dave Smith and Sally Stewart. Journal of Sport Behavior. 26 (4) 2003 The study investigated the "sexually aggressive attitudes and behavior among contact sport athletes, non-contact sport athletes and non-athletes" at an English university. Two hundred eighty-two males completed several questionnaires. The results indicate that contrary to recent academic and media reports male "athletes do not have a greater propensity than non-athletes to commit sexual assault." One David Beckham? Celebrity, Masculinity, and the Soccerati. Ellis Cashmore and Andrew Parker. Sociology of Sport Journal 20 (3) 2003 David Beckham's "identity remains fluid and negotiable in accordance with the role and audience he seeks to address and the ends he seeks to achieve." Nevertheless, Beckham subverts "soccer's masculine conventions." His "inclusive popularity should be seen as a positive step in terms of the masculine norms which he clearly transcends and the subversive trends and behaviors he explicitly displays. " His identity "alongside his popular cultural appeal, has the potential to inform and impact upon a generation of young people both in terms of their sexual politics and the way in which they formulate their relational behavior."
War is hell. We present the unnamed "Elephant of Catania," mascot of the recently concluded World Military Games in Catania, Italy. Sicily and Mt. Etna are underfoot.
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