Jack’s Blog

There have been television shows about, articles in magazines, newspapers and on the internet about, and talk show hosts in all versions of the electronic media questioning athletes about their lifestyle.  Since nobody wants to be yesterday’s news, writers and reporters all try to discover a different angle, yet one that the fans will still be interested in, for their stories.

One slant that seems to be quite popular is the professional player’s house - and all that’s in it.  How many bedrooms, bathrooms and how many car garage sure, but also what do they have that “the rest of us” don’t have at all, not just fewer of?  This could range from expensive artwork (beauty’s in the eye of the beholder in this example), an entire wall that serves as an aquarium, theatres with a seating capacity of 50, bowling alleys, indoor basketball courts and some things that one wonders how in the world the idea ever even came up.

Some have speculated that several of these athletes grew up with nothing and are trying to either relive the childhood they missed or are sending a message to let everybody know how well they’re doing.  Probably nothing wrong with either, they’ve earned all of it (or found a sucker who felt paying them was a good idea).

One bright side is the luxury car dealers are overjoyed, as are the people who make indoor theatres (when was the last time you wanted to invite 50 people over for a movie - what do you have access to premiers?), bowling alleys and basketball courts.  Since this standard of living is new to them, they are prime suspects to victimized by unscrupulous scoundrels - another reason why the luxury car dealers and the people who build out of the ordinary stuff are overjoyed.

It’s difficult to criticize these guys for spending their money the way they do, but they have so much of it, one only hopes they’re getting good investment advice.  The average person, usually (although who knows what’s in store for the future), has a working life in which, although an occasional bump in the road happens from time to time, the pay check rises each year (at least a cost of living raise) until they retire.  The especially gifted athletes make gobs of money, but only over a short period of time.  Then reality hits.

I remember hearing of an athlete say, while being interviewed, how much he appreciated what he did for a living and how much he got paid to do it; that he was well aware of people out there making only $60,000 or 70,000.  I wonder how shocked he’d be if he was told the number of people - hell, the number of families - who are getting by on less - much less.

Since most of these guys are young when this fame and fortune is thrust upon them, it’s easy to understand why they lack perspective.  If they have advisors who look out for them, things will, in most instances, work out well.  It’s when the “Oh c’mon, man, remember the oath we took that if one of us made it big, that guy would take care of everybody?”  What you say at ten or eleven probably shouldn’t consititute any sort of legal commitment.

A good number of these players - and not only the highest of the high paid ones - have a charity they support or “foundation” in their name.  As far as all the toys that are bought, I refer to what my late, sensational mentor, John Savage (who had millions and millions) said when asked why he didn’t join the local country club.

“It’s like scratching something that doesn’t itch.” Â

In this day and age, most people (or at least the ones I know) have to get some kind of “deal” when they fly.  Usually, this means working the internet.  On our trip to Florida, Alex and I, along with his tennis-playing friend and his dad, went to one of those websites and came up with prices for flights that looked pretty good to us.  Since we needed to register on Sunday morning and were returning the following Saturday, we knew we could leave anytime on either Saturday, a fact that allowed us greater flexibility than in most of the situations when dealing with travel by air.

When we received our itineraries, we noticed we could fly out of Fresno (a minor miracle in itself), but wouldn’t be leaving until after 2:00 pm.  We’d connect in Denver and not arrive in Tampa until after midnight.  Then, we’d need to rent a car and make the 45 minute drive to Bradenton, home of IMG.  This would probably put us in bed by a little after 1:00 am.  Naturally, Murphy’s Law took over, our Denver flight was delayed and, yada, yada, yada, we didn’t get to bed until a little before 5:00 am.

Once we were finally settled and the boys got through registration, we had time to reflect on the day before and came up with a few yuks that seemed funnier at that time than they did when we were in the middle of our longer-than-necessary journey.

Story #1: On one of our flights, the temperature inside the plane was such that they could have hung meat in it.  I looked around to see if Rocky was working out on a slab of beef.  We made mention to the male flight attendant who explained to us that it was because we were sitting in the middle of the plane and the way the air circulated, the middle of the plane was always the coldest.  During my 30 years as a college assistant basketball coach, I’d taken hundreds of flights, but I can honestly say I’d never heard that explanation.  It’s surprising that airlines don’t advertise the “cold” and “hot” sections of the plane the way they used to the “smoking” and “non-smoking” sections.

Story #2: As we were about to land, that same attendant made the announcement, “Make sure you put down the shades on the windows.  We’re using this plane again in two and a half hours and when we get back on, we don’t want to die from heat frustration.”  This guy wouldn’t last a week in Fresno.  How frustrated would he be right about now?

Story #3: On the flight from Fresno to Denver, the configuration of the plane was two rows of first class seats, followed by rows of two and two, i.e. a window and an aisle seat on each side.  We had row 9 to ourselves - seats A, B, C and D.  After the doors were closed, I noticed the three or four rows in front of us were completely empty, so I asked the flight attendant if two of us could move to row 8 so each of us could have a little more room.

“No,” she replied.  “That’s business class and costs more.”

I was somewhat incredulous that a seat, no more than a few inches in front of me would cost more money.  At least there was a curtain separating row 2 (first class) and row 3 (”business” class).  The passenger behind me (row 10) said he had explored this option and told us that it broke down to $8/in, that the seats from rows 3-8 had five more inches of leg room, so the cost of the “business class” seat was $40 more.  When the snacks were passed out, I noticed the passengers in row 4 (the two guys who splurged) got the same pretzels and soft drinks we did and they didn’t seem any more comfortable with their extra room to stretch out.  During the flight, I snuck up and took a chance, sitting in row 8.  The results of my very unscientific survey determined if there was more leg room, my legs couldn’t tell.  Not only that, but I realized, by moving up a row or two, it would have taken me away from the cooler part (the middle) of the plane.  It smelled of a ripoff. 

We considered our not “upgrading” a wise move, one which allow us to blow the eighty bucks we saved on a real nice meal in Florida.

After realizing on Sunday how upset we were and how we’d stressed about getting in so late, the old adage truly applied:

“It’s not what happens to you that determines your attitude.  It’s your response to what happens to you that determines your attitude.”

BACK HOME! from a week at the famous IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL.  Our younger son, Alex, attended The Basketball Academy this past week (Mon-Sat).  While IMG is mainly known for its tennis component - begun by Nick Bollettieri (and his then-partner, Mike DePalmer, Sr.) - it’s expanded instruction to include basketball, baseball, golf and soccer.  On any given day, there are upwards of 500 participants on campus which, from a social standpoint alone, makes for a worthwhile week (especially considering the number of countries represented by the attendees).

Alex has been exposed to basketball from his birth in Pasadena when I served as associate head coach at USC.  I kid him that he has to belong to some kind of exclusive club of babies who were breast fed in three NBA arenas (The Sports Arena which SC and the Clippers shared; the Great Western Forum, then the home of the Lakers and where we were forced to play because of damage the Northridge earthquake did to The Sports Arena, and the Warriors’ home court, the Oakland Coliseum, where we played Cal one year.  Luckily, the crowds weren’t that big, so my wife, Jane, could move up to an upper section where Alex could “dine” without anyone around). 

When I became the Director of Basketball Operations at Fresno State, Alex would often accompany me to practice and never missed a home game (he and our older son, Andy, even made it to several road trips).  Alex is pretty observant and is blessed with superior hand-eye coordination, so when he sees a player perform a certain move, he usually has the ability to emulate it.  In seven years at Fresno State, we had about a dozen players make it to the NBA, so the skill level he got to witness was well beyond what most kids his age would ever get the opportunity to see - certainly from such an “up close and personal” point of view.

As far as playing the game, he’s been at it since he was four years old and has been coached by quite a number of people, each of whom contributed to his development - all the way from high school players and me to Dave Severns, recently hired by the Chicago Bulls as their assistant coach in charge of player development (a blog on Dave and his new gig will grace this site in the very near future).  Dave put Alex through many of the same drills he’s currently using with Kirk Heinrich and Derrick Rose.

Back to IMG and what separates it from the others.  Mainly, it would be the breadth of instruction.  As far as the best one-word description of the experience, intensity would probably be the closest.  Alex’s daily schedule consisted of, in addition to an average of four and a half hours of on-court instruction/workouts, between one to two hours of quickness and agility work (called Individual Performance Instruction or IPI), an hour in the classroom (discussing topics such as nuitrition and mental conditioning) and a hour session (Monday and Wednesday only) of strength and flexibility training.  While two full courts and twelve baskets make for an excellent basketball environment, the other facilties (indoor and outdoor) are simply phenomenal.

I braved one outdoor IPI session but the heat, humidity and bugs (I’ll take Fresno’s weather any day) kept me in the air conditioned gym, where I observed the college and professional players who were training there while Alex toiled elsewhere. 

During one of Alex’s morning on-court workout periods, the kids were rather sluggish and one of the coaches lit into them.  The intensity immediately picked up.  It reminded me of a line I heard from highly regarded Orange County speaker, Danny Cox.  I’m paraphrasing for the purpose of this blog, but it went something like:

“Employees will get excited as soon as the boss does.”

All in all, it was a fun, learning experience (albeit a somewhat expensive one) for Alex (and me).  He returned with a better knowledge of the game, a greater love for it, improved his skills and made some new friends as well - and, to me, that spells success.    ¼/p>