This was fun ...

Somehow, through an old friend and PR colleague, Jack Gallagher, my name made its way to Ed Odeven, an editor at The Japan Times.  Today, Ed posted this:

The Definitive interview!

http://edodevenreporting.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/thedefinitiveinterviewwithterrylyons/

Posting Up

Be sure to visit Jack McCallum's new blog which will be promoting his new book, DREAM TEAM.  

Matt Dobek - by McCallum

Sports Illustrated - SI.com's Jack McCallum on Matt Dobek:

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Sports world loses gem in former Pistons p.r. director Dobek

By Jack McCallum

In mid-April, I flew to Detroit to interview Detroit Pistons public relations director Matt Dobek for a book I'm writing about the 1992 Dream Team. In Barcelona, Matt served as one of four press people attached to the U.S. team, his primary responsibility being coach Chuck Daly, with whom he worked in Detroit. Matt did a superior job, which wasn't surprising; he was a major player in those halcyon days of the NBA, someone who skillfully walked the line as both an advocate for his team and an honest resource for the press.

A few weeks after our interview, Matt called to tell me that he and three other longtime Pistons employees had been abruptly fired by the team. I'm not sure what happened with the other three (I didn't know them), but Matt was escorted out of the building, driven home by a security official and subsequently informed that he would be receiving no severance package. The stated reason for the firing was that Matt had violated a confidentiality clause in his contract.

On Saturday afternoon, he was found dead in his home. He was 51.

Even before the firing, Matt didn't seem happy. In mid-March of last year, longtime Pistons owner Bill Davidson died. Two months after that, Daly died of pancreatic cancer. While it's typical for a strong bond to grow between a coach and p.r. man, the one between Chuck and Matt went well beyond that. They hadn't worked for the same organization since 1992, but they had remained extremely close. During the 2007 NBA Finals in San Antonio, Matt and I and a few other NBA types were riding home from a get-together when Matt decided to call Chuck.

"It's 1 o'clock in the morning, Matt," I said.

"Don't worry," Matt said. "Chuck's up. I know when he sleeps."

Daly answered on the first ring and Matt passed around the phone.

Matt served as the family spokesman during Chuck's cancer ordeal, and in the last moments I spent with Matt, at the end of our interview in April, he handed me a CD of the Daly funeral service. "You might get a kick out of this," he said. "Rollie Massimino's eulogy was fantastic."

After the firing, we talked on the phone several times and he seemed depressed. (I'm not a doctor so I'm not making an official diagnosis.) The Pistons were, to a large extent, his life, and he felt betrayed by the manner in which he was fired and by what he saw as the lack of support from people in the organization, where he had run the p.r. operation since 1981.

I don't know if the Pistons had just cause to fire Matt. I do know that the organization is a mess. The Davidson family still owns the franchise, but the "For Sale" sign is out and the 2004 champions have sunk to the level of mediocrity, having gone 66-98 in the last two seasons.

In the late '80s and early '90s, the Pistons were NBA royalty. And Matt, who was young to be running the p.r. operation of a marquee team, couldn't have been happier. It's not an easy job because p.r. people in pro sports essentially serve four masters. First, the organization (owner, general manager, etc.), which wants nothing more than to project the image of the perfect one-happy-family team. Second, the coach, with whom the p.r. person has a de facto marriage, so closely do they work together for seven or eight months a year. Third, the players, whose wants and needs do not always coalesce with those of the franchise and the coach. And, fourth, the media, who demand inside info from the p.r. man, knowing full well that he can't always provide it.

The best in that business somehow figure out a way to work with all those groups, and Matt did it as well as anyone I've ever been around, especially considering the diversity of personalities on the Bad Boy Pistons of the '80s and early '90s. Over the years, Matt told me one or two things that no doubt deviated from the designated spokesperson party line, but that is the price of maintaining credibility with the media. Some bosses don't understand that. Never did I think that Matt was anything except loyal to the Pistons and never did he say anything to me that hurt the organization. He was a company man without sounding like one, and it was people like Matt who helped keep the Pistons palatable, even as the Bad Boys sometimes did everything to turn off the media.

His loss is most of all a personal tragedy for his family. But it goes beyond that, a loss for the NBA and the sports world in general.

Closing the Book on HofF Class of 2010 and The Dream Team ...

My good friend and longtime professional associate, Jack McCallum of Sports Illustrated, was hot on the trail to unearth all of the stories on the 1992 Dream Team.  Although McCallum witnessed every moment of the basketball side of the '92 Olympics and much of the off-court activities, he is still in search of the behind-the-scenes gems witnessed only by those of us who stayed at the team hotel and rode the team bus.

Editors note: The team hotel wasn't all that luxurious (picture a Courtyard Marriott) and the bus rides were often quiet (even Charles).


McCallum was up at the Basketball Hall of Fame for the Enshrinement of 2010 and is still reporting the most interesting of stories.  

Here is one that is a MUST READ:

EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER:  THESE GUYS ARE STILL...THE DREAM TEAM

By Jack McCallum - courtesy of CNN/Sports Illustrated

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- Some six hours later, they would be inducted en masse into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. But, at 2 in the afternoon on Friday, an assemblage of basketball's all-time greatest sat around a table in the ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel gossiping like high school kids in the lunchroom.

Most of the talking was being done by -- no surprise here -- Charles Barkley and Magic Johnson. Also at the table, listening and nodding affirmation from time to time as they pecked away at their grilled chicken, were four of their Dream Team mates -- Larry Bird, Clyde Drexler, Chris Mullin and John Stockton. Lenny Wilkens and P.J. Carlesimo, who were assistants on the 1992 gold-medal winning team, were there, also.

The occasion was a roundtable discussion in which the Dream Teamers reminisced about the '92 Olympics and their time together, Hall of Fame weekends being about nothing so much as reminiscing. NBA Entertainment will be slicing and dicing the 30-minute discussion into clips, probably for the next two decades.

The good people from NBAE had been trying for a while to get the thing started, but the gab session went on. As they entered the room, some of them started yakking immediately about how they wanted to "get it rolling," but then they wouldn't stop talking. Perhaps they realized that, as time goes on, the occasions when they will get together will become fewer and fewer.

Finally, another Dream Teamer, Karl Malone sauntered over from the other side of the huge room.

"If you guys don't mind," began Malone ...

"Anything you say, Karl," interrupted Drexler. "It's your weekend, man."

Malone stopped and embraced Drexler, who had just arrived for the weekend ceremonies at the Hall of Fame, where Malone and Scottie Pippen were to be inducted singly along with the Dream Team collectively.

Malone smiled. "I'm just getting old and grumpy, but I'd like to get this started," he said. This was not an easy group to order around but Malone's words immediately lifted the Dream Team chowhounds off their chairs.

Eighteen years later, they're still a team.

The ensuing discussion offered several priceless moments as a bunch of immortals sat around talking about the best time of their lives. The positive vibe of the thing might've come across as staged, except there was no script and the actual experience was pretty much like that. I covered the team from the opening of training in La Jolla, to the Tournament of the Americas in Portland, to the pre-Olympic camp in Monte Carlo, to the Games in Barcelona, and this was truly a special team with special feelings about each other, feelings that have endured. (You saw the same thing about the 1960 Olympic team, which was also inducted this weekend in Springfield. They won a gold medal 50 years ago in Rome, but the bond remains strong.)

There was Wilkens talking about the concern shown him after he severed his Achilles midway through the Olympics and had to limp through the final four games in a cast. "You guys always looked out for me, made sure I was getting around all right," said the Hall of Fame coach. "I never forgot that."

There was Pippen saying, "Chris, you'll be in next year," referencing the fact that Mullin was not voted in as an individual this year, an inexcusable oversight, by the way, considering the whole of the man's high school and college career, never mind what he did in the NBA. And there was Drexler patting Mullin on the leg in affirmation.

There was Mullin stopping in mid-sentence during a reference to the '84 Olympic team (which he and Michael Jordan were on) to say: "And you three should've been on it, by the way." He was talking to Barkley, Stockton and Malone, all of whom were cut by Bob Knight.

Small matter now. For they will always have Barcelona.

The only '92-ers who weren't at the roundtable were Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Christian Laettner, all of whom did arrive in time for that night's official induction at Springfield's Symphony Hall. The most glaring absence, of course, was that of coach Chuck Daly, who died of cancer in May 2009.

As the discussion evolved, it took on a familiar pattern, the players reprising the roles they had two decades ago. Magic and Barkley talked the most, the former showing his Sunday School sincerity, the latter in a rambling style that interspersed jokes and serious sentiments, often in the same sentence. (One of Barkley's highlights was his rambling tale of the day that Drexler brought two left shoes to a shootaround and was trying to skate through undetected.)

Bird didn't say much, but, when he did, everyone listened. Stockton had to be urged to talk at all and, typically, was self-deprecating when he did speak, partly because that's who he is, partly because he missed a great deal of the Olympics with an injury. Mullin didn't say much either but always made sense when he did; that's how he played. Pippen and Malone, who never stopped smiling the whole weekend, waxed eloquently about how the Dream Team represented the best moment of their professional lives. So did Drexler and Robinson.

Herewith a few highlights of the roundtable:


On the intensity with which the Dream Team practiced:

Magic: "One thing that really got us going was the first day [at training camp] when that college team [led by players like Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, Chris Webber and Allan Houston] came in and beat us. So we said the next day, 'Let's show them what the real NBA is like.' And we turned it on. And then Charles kind of gave an elbow.

Pippen: "It was Carlos Rogers ...

Magic: "And Charles gave it to him and said, 'Welcome to the NBA.'"

Drexler: "I remember Michael and Magic going at it at practice, stirring the pot, getting everybody going."

Wilkens: "Coach Daly was a little worried about our intensity after the Tournament of the Americas. So I went to Magic and told him, and he said, 'Don't worry. I'll take care of it.'"

Magic: "One of the things you guys [the coaches] did was pit West against East, me, Karl, Mullie, John, Clyde, David against Michael, Scottie, Larry, Patrick. Like that. So I went to Michael and said, 'I'm coming at you, so we can get this going, but don't turn into Michael Jordan on me.' Of course, that's what he did."

On the team clicking almost immediately:

Bird: "The main thing that happens when the best get together is that the game speeds up and you have to make plays a little quicker. Basketball is so simple. You can run the pick and roll to perfection; work for the open man; if you don't have a shot, swing the ball. But it doesn't always happen. On this team it happened. It wasn't about scoring because we could've just got it into Charles, who at that time was the most dominant player in the world offensively. But it wasn't about that. It was about playing the game correctly."

Stockton: "At camp, right at the beginning, you could make a list of the qualities you want on a basketball team. Competitive, smart, prepared. This team showed those qualities right away."

Barkley: "When you play with other great players, the game becomes so easy. Normally you play with certain guys and you're thinking, 'Uh, oh, I can't pass him the ball.' That didn't happen with this team. Like you throw a regular guy an alley-oop, all the stars have to be aligned correctly for it to work out. You play with David, hey, just throw it up there and he'll get it. Or sometimes you think, 'Don't throw the ball to a big man coming down on the break.' Well, you do throw it to Karl Malone."

Robinson: "We've all been on all-star teams and it [coming together] doesn't always happen. But this was basketball heaven. What surprised me, from the beginning, was how unselfish everybody was."

Malone: "The way we checked our egos from the beginning. That's what I remember the most."

Barkley: "I still tell everybody today: There wasn't a jerk on the team."

On Larry Legend:

Pippen: "For me, the chance to play with Larry Bird, who I idolized growing up, man ...

Bird: "Believe it or not, Scottie, I remember the first time you tried to guard me. [He meant in an NBA game.] I ain't gonna say what happened but ... Scottie came a looooong way."

Pippen: "I was probably one of these players that Larry did this to." (Pippen mimics Bird's fake overhead pass that made so many opponents turn their head as he went by them.)

Robinson: "I remember the first time I found myself guarding Larry out on a switch. 'Hey, I'm out here guarding Larry Bird,' I thought. And he said something like, 'This one's in your eye.' Then he made the shot."

Malone: "Larry got everybody in Boston at one time or another on that move where he took the ball out and looked down at the floor like something was there. And you'd look down and it would be all over."

Drexler: "When he got ready to shoot over you, he'd blow you a kiss."

On their reception in Barcelona:

Drexler: "You couldn't leave the hotel without an armed militia, helicopters overhead, police escorts. I remember setting up golf with Charles and it was a disaster trying to figure out how to make that happen with the crowds. Obviously it was a disaster when you saw his game."

On the game against Croatia when the Dream Team vowed to shut down Toni Kukoc, who had received a lucrative contract offer from the Bulls. And shut him down they did:

Barkley: "I remember Michael was, like, foaming at the mouth. 'Kukoc makes more money than Scottie and I put together! Wherever he goes, I got him!' And Michael and Scottie shut him down. It was hilarious."

Pippen: "I appreciate you guys talking like that, but it was truly a collective effort. If I got beat on the backdoor, David was right there. In truth? Toni did not have a chance in that game."

On the little things the team did for each other:

Robinson: "At that time, not everybody had won a championship. Michael and Scottie had, Larry had, Magic had. But nobody else. And everybody learned something from somebody. I'd see Karl lifting and how hard he worked. I'd see Mullie shooting in the gym and how hard he worked. And I thought, 'How do I go back to San Antonio and use this?' The experience definitely helped us back with our own teams."

Barkley: "The first day at Monte Carlo a couple of us went to the pool and found out, 'Whoa, a couple of women don't have shirts on.' So we started calling up guys. 'Hey, man, they don't have shirts on down here.' So every day after practice it was, 'Hey, man, where we going?' And the answer was: 'To the pool.'"

On their memories of the gold-medal ceremony:

Malone: "I never served in the military, so hearing that national anthem on that platform was the closest I ever came to serving my country."

Robinson: "I remember looking at everyone's face and saw what it meant to everybody. I'll never forget that."

On the 1996 Olympic team, sometimes called Dream Team II, which included Barkley, Malone, Pippen, Robinson, and Stockton and was coached by Wilkens:

Barkley: "The coach can't say it, but he knows it ? Dream Team II was a nightmare. We had guys bitching about playing time, arguing with Coach Wilkens. I said to Scottie and Karl, 'Man, I played with Larry Bird and Michael Jordan and we didn't have a problem, so what the hell is wrong with these guys?'"

Pippen: "The experience on the '92 team was a lot better than the experience on the '96 team. Not once did I think we would lose in '92. I can't say that about '96."

On Coach Chuck Daly:

Malone: "His hair and everything had to be perfect. When we'd go out on the floor I'd always look back and Coach Daly would be like ...". (Malone mimics a man touching up his hair and smoothing his collar.)

Wilkens: "Chuck worried about everything. I mean everything. But Karl's right. Before the game there would be Chuck ..." (And Wilkens mimics a man touching up.)

Barkley: "Here's what I always thought about Chuck. He was a really good dude. I can't believe he coached those pricks in Detroit."

Wilkens: "I remember standing next to Chuck and looking at you guys on the podium. It was a very emotional time for all of us and Chuck just grabbed my arm and held on. And I looked over, and there was a tear coming out of his eye. That said it all for me."

Ramble On ... (II)

The Boston Herald printed a nice two-page spread, suitable for framing, when the Sox won their second World Series in three years. (2004 and 2007).

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Let me get this straight? The ESPN Insider for college basketball recruiting has its Top 150 for 2008. St. John's is not listed next to one name in the entire Top 150?

Oh, there's a list for 2007, too. Let me check that.

Oh? No?

Where is 2009's list?

Oh? No?

Arizona, 'Nova and UConn already have verbals. St. Johnnie? Bada Bing.

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Sports Illustrated's Jack McCallum created the great "Sign of the Apocalypse" when he did Scorecard a few years back. Well, here is a sign for the Day after the Apocalypse: (as reported by the Sports Business Daily):

STATS INKS MULTI-YEAR DEAL WITH IFL FOR “FITESTATS”
By Eric Fisher, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

Stats LLC struck a multi-year partnership with the International Fight League to develop and license out a series of new mixed martial arts statistics, dubbed FiteStats. The parties have been working for nearly a year to develop nearly two dozen new statistical categories for IFL competition, and the revenue-sharing pact will include int’l distribution. A low-six-figure amount was spent to develop the statistical platform. The deal is expected to promote fantasy play and gambling around MMA.

BTW-MMA is Mixed Martial Arts.

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There is a team in Australian based NBL named the Singapore Slingers.

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If you're looking for a sleeper in your fantasy basketball league, take a flyer on Bostjan Nachbar, the small forward for the NJ Nets.

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The day before the NY Marathon, USA track will conduct the Olympic trials for the Men's Marathon. The race will take place on the streets of New York with a very different course than the one to be used in all five boroughs on Sunday when the NYC marathon is conducted. I was wondering just yesterday, will this be my last NY marathon as the Boston Marathon will soon be my annual favorite? I will miss the thrills of First Ave. but will trade it in for a house on Commonwealth Ave. anyday.

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If you are looking for a cool web site, check out Goodreads.com

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