The LA Times Catches up with 1960 Olympian Bob Boozer

On Sunday, the New York Times featured an article written by The Big O, Oscar Robertson while the Los Angeles Times ran a feature on former Lakers great, Bob Boozer.  Jerry Crowe of the Times wrote:

CROWE'S NEST

Bob Boozer put his NBA dreams on hold to play for a dream team

Boozer, the No. 1 pick in the 1959 NBA draft, didn't sign immediately so he could play for the 1960 U.S. Olympic team. On Friday, that team will be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

by Jerry Crowe
August 8, 2010

Knee injuries delayed the professional basketball debuts of No. 1 NBA draft picks Greg Oden and Blake Griffin.

For Bob Boozer, it was national pride.

The top pick in 1959, he kept the Cincinnati Royals at arm's length for more than a year to maintain his amateur status in hopes of playing for Team USA in the 1960 Olympics.

"I always had this deep desire to represent this country on its Olympic basketball squad," Boozer says, "and at that time, you only had one go-round at it. Everyone told me, 'Your chances are remote,' et cetera, et cetera. Each person that tried to get me to sign on the dotted line expressed that, but I said, 'Hey, this is something I've got to go for.'

"I knew I only had once chance."

The 6-foot-8 former forward made the most of it, taking his place on a team coached by Pete Newell that tore through its Olympic competition in Rome by an average of 42.4 points a game.

Considered the greatest amateur basketball team ever assembled, it featured future Hall of Famers Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Jerry Lucas and Walt Bellamy.

"We," Boozer says, "were the first Dream Team."

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will pay homage Friday, enshrining the team en masse along with the 1992 Dream Team ( Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, et al) and eight individuals, among them Jerry Buss, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, Cynthia Cooper and the late Dennis Johnson.

Boozer, 73, is delighted to be in their company.

A member of the Nebraska State Board of Parole and a former Laker, he never regretted his decision to postpone the start of his NBA career to chase his Olympic dream.

He'd been a two-time All-American under Tex Winter at Kansas State, where the Wildcats utilized the triangle offense in reaching the Final Four in 1958, but was in no hurry to go pro.

"I had tunnel vision," says the gold medalist, who is no relation to Carlos Boozer of the Chicago Bulls. "I was going to stay out that year and try out for the Olympic basketball squad. No ifs, ands or buts about it, that's what I was going to do."

Still, he notes in a phone interview, "I couldn't possibly do it now, with the kind of money they're giving away."

But 50 years ago, while working for Peoria Caterpillar and playing for the company's team in the National Industrial Basketball League during the 1959-60 season, Boozer says he earned only slightly less than he would have made playing for the Royals.

At the AAU national tournament, the Cats won the championship, and Boozer was the tournament's most valuable player.

After the Olympics, Boozer rejoined Robertson in Cincinnati and launched an 11-season NBA career in which he played for six teams, averaging 15 points and eight rebounds a game.

In 1966, he helped the Lakers reach the NBA Finals and in 1971 he won a championship with the Milwaukee Bucks.

"That season with the Lakers was the most enjoyable season I ever had in the NBA because it was Hollywood, Los Angeles," Boozer says. "Jack Kent Cooke had parties at his place and you got a chance to meet movie stars. It was a fun time.

"I hated to leave, I know that."

But after the Boston Celtics broke the Lakers' hearts in Game 7, Boozer was left unprotected in the expansion draft and picked up by the Bulls. In Chicago, he enjoyed his most productive NBA seasons, making his only All-Star appearance in 1968.

"If good players get minutes," he says, "they're going to score."

In Milwaukee, Boozer rejoined Robertson and capped his career playing alongside a young Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

All the while, he was preparing for life after basketball, having spent several summers before his retirement working in a management-training program at the Bell System.

"You can tell when your career is over," Boozer says. "The training camps were harder, your body didn't bounce back as readily as it used to. It was more of a job, rather than fun.

"If we won the championship, I definitely was going."

They did and he bolted, spending the next 27 years working for Ma Bell, the last 10 as a federal lobbyist in Washington. In 1997, after a fitful month of retirement, Boozer was appointed by then-Nebraska Gov. Ben Nelson to the State Board of Parole, "and I've been there ever since."

He and Ella, his wife of 42 years, are grandparents.

In Springfield, Mass., this week, Boozer will be reunited with teammates who might be unaware of the path he took to the Olympics.

"I didn't realize he'd waited a year to make the team," Lucas said last week. "I think that's fantastic. I mean, he had the dream and he accomplished it. It's a tremendous story."

Boozer couldn't have done it any other way. Maybe it was a gamble, he says, but the reward was worth the risk.

"Winning that gold medal and standing on that podium with 'The Star Spangled Banner' being played — that's a feeling you can't understand unless you've experienced it," he says. "It's very moving, something I don't think you can duplicate."

Ramble On ... Bill Dwyre on Sports in the Year 2008

Bill Dwyre, one of my all-time favorites, does it again. In fact, I don't think there has been a better sports column written this year. Read on:


What's lost in a post-Donaghy sports world

Sports officiating's biggest problem isn't the refs, or even Tim Donaghy. It's the world of instant expectations that has blown the call.
June 21, 2008

Here's a book title you won't be seeing soon: The Joy of Being a Referee.

These are not salad days for those who blow whistles, drop flags or wear chest protectors. Same for those policing other sports, even those sitting in tall chairs and getting suntans at tennis matches.

It isn't just the Tim Donaghy saga.

Yes, he poisoned the pool and got us all thinking about the fragile line we walk by trusting the people in charge of our games. And yes, what he did, and his subsequent finger-pointing at others in the NBA, has punctured the core of officiating, no matter the sport.

Donaghy's legacy includes new shorthand for officiating malfeasance. We hear "Game 6, Lakers-Kings," and we know the subject. We don't even know if it is true, or Donaghy's wimpy attempt to look better in the face of his own sins by sniveling about how he wasn't the only one.

The problem is, we don't seem to be willing to wait for proof of guilt or innocence these days. Our world moves too fast. We hear it, text-message our assumptions and move quickly to the next arena of instant gratification.

Which may be more the problem, or reason for the current low-status of officiating, than even the despicable Donaghy.

We want it quick and clear. Decisive and over. Something doesn't look right? No matter. We have cameras, computers. Take a look. Get it right. Move along.

It is no longer of interest for us to watch John McEnroe approach the chair umpire after a questionable tennis line call and label the poor guy "The pits of the Earth." That was entertainment. It wasn't nice, it wasn't great sportsmanship, but it sure was McEnroe. And when it was over, the official always won.

Today, nobody argues with anybody in tennis. A camera with nice graphics shows us exactly where the ball bounced, we nod and the game goes on. Even the player who just lost match point accepts it as gospel. Interestingly, if you watch closely and talk to officials on the lines, you will conclude that even the almighty Hawk-Eye is wrong once in awhile.

We care only that it is neat and clean and fits perfectly into our current video game mind-set. Quick, visual and over.

The retaining of the "human element" in sports officiating has long ago lost its appeal. The games, especially on the pro level, aren't so much fun anymore as they are life and death.

If you watched the recent Lakers-Celtics series -- there are rumors that seven people in Greenland were the only ones who didn't -- then you saw the nightly ecstasy of creating agony for the referees. Sure, they are now all blood brothers of Donaghy, whether they like it or not, but never have so few taken so much abuse from so many. At last count, by gauging their reaction and that of the fans, no player from either team committed a foul. Ever. Not once.

The truth be known, the men who had the most to gain or lose, coaches Phil Jackson and Doc Rivers, kept their poise better than anybody else in the buildings. The players? Never have so many suffered so much injustice at the hands of so few. At one point, there was genuine concern that Sasha Vujacic might blow his hair net.

Interestingly, one of the mandates in the NBA the last few years, to the point where referees were calling trigger-quick technicals in exhibition games, was for players and coaches to stop showing up the officials after calls. No throwing up hands in anguish, no yelling at them, getting in their face, stomping off in disgust.

That disappeared in the playoffs, where every foul call triggered Hamlet. If players could play as well as they can act, the basketball would be unbelievable. If the NBA is looking for a new slogan for next season, how about this: Shut Up and Play.

Still, don't expect the NBA to go to much instant replay other than what it has now for shots at the buzzer, etc., because, if every foul were scrutinized, each game would last 20 hours.

But baseball, where some of the games seem to last that long, is apparently leaning toward more Kodak moments, starting Aug. 1. It would be limited at first to checking on home runs -- fair or foul, etc. But once you sign onto a computer, it never quite lets you sign off. Coming soon: John Hirschbeck with a BlackBerry under his chest protector.

Commissioner Bud Selig, from the pre-iPod generation, loved the human element of umpiring, but he'll be toast now if he stays that course.

For a while, life will go on in the usual ways. Olympic boxing judges will cheat. Figure skating judges will be homers. Hockey linesmen will train for their real job by working off-season as bar bouncers. And our image of NFL officials will be of men with heads under camera hoods.

There is, of course, golf, where players call violations on themselves, but even that is less redeeming than it once was, because cameras are everywhere, making sure.

Eventually, it will come to this.

A father will take a cellphone picture of his Little League son or daughter, being called out at home plate on a close call. He will sue, using his picture as evidence, win $2 million because of pain and suffering and get the 16-year-old umpire fired. His picture will, indeed, show that his child was safe at home.

We will read the story and ponder the phrase "careful what we wish for."

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com.


***

Rudy, Rudy...

The Trail Blazers will be pretty tough with Rudy Fernandez and 2009 Rookie of the year-to-be Greg Oden joining a lineup of budding stars. In case you didn't see the AP report last weekend:

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Guard Rudy Fernandez said that he plans to leave his Spanish ACB League team to join the Portland Trail Blazers.

Fernandez made the announcement at a news conference in Spain. The Trail Blazers can not comment, because of league rules, until he signs with the team on July 1.

"It has not been easy for me to take this decision, but it is the moment to face new challenges," Fernandez said. "Now, I have the chance to fulfill a dream and become part of the NBA."

The 6-foot-6 shooting guard averaged 21.2 points, 4.1 assists and 3.1 rebounds for DKV Joventut Badalona this past season.

The 24th overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft by the Phoenix Suns, he was acquired by Portland for cash considerations.

***

This item ran in Marc Spears' Boston Globe notes along with NBA Finals coverage on Friday:

A Maine attraction?

The NBA Development League recently announced the Celtics will keep the Utah Flash as their affiliate next season. Boston, however, has been interested in getting a much closer affiliate, perhaps in Portland, Maine.

Portland is hoping to field an NBDL expansion team by the 2009-10 season. Ex-Celtics assistant coach Jon Jennings, who would be a co-owner in Portland, is hoping to hear good news soon. Helping Portland's cause is the fact the franchise's lead investor is Bill Ryan, chairman of TD Banknorth Garden, and ex-Celtics coach and star K.C. Jones is a consultant.

"We're still negotiating with the NBA," Jennings said. "Things look very good purchasing the team, but it's still not a done deal. We've gone pretty far in satisfying everything the NBA requires. Hopefully, in the near future, we'll get some good news from the NBA.

"They are really impressed with Portland and we have a great ownership group and the arena and so forth.

"We'll see what happens with Portland," Ainge said. "We're jumping the gun. We'll see how it goes."

Said Jennings, "We feel it's the perfect scenario . . . It would help the Celtics grow their brand in Northern New England."

In the meantime, Ainge expressed satisfaction with being affiliated with the Flash. "We'll go back to Utah [for 2008-09]," he said. "We like our relationship."

"It's an honor to be associated with a team playing in the NBA Finals," said Flash GM David Fredman. "The fact that they sent two players to develop, I thought the relationship went well and both sides were happy. It makes sense that they want something geographically closer. I understand that."

Celtics rookie Gabe Pruitt and rookie forward Brandon Wallace, who was cut Dec. 13, played for the Flash this season. "You don't know how much you helped a player like that until later on," Fredman said. "But I still think Gabe has a chance to be a good NBA player."

***

I've written it before and I will write it again.

See this quote from a 2007 ESPN.com story on the NBA and TV:

"The Internet changed everything in the mid-1990s," says the NBA's Lyons. "Fans that weren't able to watch full games could enjoy up-to-the-second reporting, click on box scores instantly and download highlights on NBA.com. That's certainly helped fans follow the game.

"No matter what time you start a game, you're always going to inconvenience someone, somewhere. But the issue is, with TiVo and digital recording, how can fans get the best access to games? You look at almost every step of technology along the way -- whether it was flying tapes across the ocean to Italy in the 80s to satellite delivery and digital technology today -- the NBA has been at the forefront."

And, See this from the Boston Globe earlier this week about the NBA start times:


After NBA highs, a.m. lows
Late-night Celtics games rob devotees of sleep

By Christopher Baxter and Maddie Hanna, Globe Correspondents

Game after game, Celtics fans across Boston face the same, painful decision: basketball or bedtime?

Waiting in line for coveted tickets yesterday morning, George Hutt fondly recalled lazy weekend afternoons at his parents' home in Hingham, watching Celtics playoff games while the sun still glowed through the windows. But games this series have all started well after dusk, and the longtime fan has surrendered to heavy eyelids and the allure of digital recording.

"I hate it," said Hutt, 42, who lives near TD Banknorth Garden. "The only game I watched in its entirety was [Sunday] night, because I thought it was going to be the championship."

Tense midnight moments have quickly turned into sleepy mornings in boardrooms and classrooms across the region, and have left parents, youngsters, and radio talk show callers asking the same simple question: Why? Why do the games have to start at 9 p.m. and end so late, even on Sundays?

The answer, according to the National Basketball Association, is that the late start time allows the most people across the country to watch the games and appears not to deter even those who complain.

"It may be counterintuitive and against conventional wisdom, but there is no indication that the younger audience is impacted by later start times," said NBA spokesman Michael Bass. "And the reality is, if it's past their bedtime, in this day and age, kids in particular are extra tech-savvy and are finding ways to consume the game online through nba.com or YouTube."

But marketing specialists warn that the broadcast strategy may backfire, as children struggle to stay awake until the final buzzer.

"From an advertising perspective, from a common sense perspective, what the NBA is doing is clearly excluding a whole generation from being able to watch their games," said Christopher Cakebread, advertising professor at Boston University.

In 1986, the last time the Celtics made the finals, three games, including two on Sundays, were broadcast earlier in the evening, Bass said. There were also two earlier broadcasts during the 1987 championship series, he said, but since then the NBA has been starting games at 9 p.m.

The league is not alone. The NCAA men's basketball tournament and the World Series both start in prime-time spots. Sports are no different from popular television shows, trying to maximize their audience and advertising rates by starting at 8 p.m. or later, Bass said.

Viewership of the finals has varied game to game. Game 5 was watched by more than a million people in the region, according to NielsenTV tracking data.

But Joseph Johnson wasn't one of them. The 11-year-old Celtics fan, in town from Chicago visiting family, said that even the raucous championship atmosphere could not keep him awake.

"I fell asleep in the fourth quarter," he said, as he waited in line at the Garden for Game 6 tickets.

The question remains whether the NBA's plan will engage children who have not yet been captured by the sport, said Cakebread.

"Marketers aren't known for thinking long term," he said. "They're thinking, 'How much interest can I attract to the brand at this moment? We'll worry about 2012 or 2015 later.' "

But with the Celtics on the verge of their first championship in two decades, any disengagement was hard to detect yesterday at the Holland Community Center in Dorchester. Eric Brito, 10, said he watched all of Sunday's game, but felt it in the morning.

"I couldn't wake up, and then I fell off the bed," he said.

Giovany Perez, 8, said his mother made him go to bed Sunday evening, but he sneaked back to watch the game on television with his sister and brother later that night.

Even some parents who have held a hard line throughout the playoffs are begrudgingly making late-hour exceptions for the finals.

"I got little kids, you know, and they want to watch the game," said Doug Coughlin, 40, of Revere, who was wearing Celtics gear in the ticket line yesterday at the Garden.

Even Hutt, nostalgic for a time when sleep and slam dunks didn't conflict, plans to give up a few more hours of shut-eye to see the Celtics play tonight.

And he will actually be in the Garden if it comes to a Game 7. But, he said, "we're rooting for no Game 7."

Christopher Baxter can be reached at cbaxter@globe.com. Maddie Hanna can be reached at mhanna@globe.com.

-30-

Tiger ...

Tiger Woods hit a putt about eight minutes before the NBA Finals bewitching hour of 9pm EDT to force a playoff for the 2008 US Open golf championship. The 18-hole playoff will be contested today. Here is the LA Times story on Tiger and the exciting day in US Open golf:

Tiger Woods is the true master of suspense
He plays on a different level, letting the story build and holding everyone's attention, even though the inevitable almost always occurs. He did it again to perfection to force playoff at U.S. Open.

By Bill Dwyre

June 16, 2008

LA JOLLA -- Contrary to popular opinion, Tiger Woods is not a golfer. He is a leading character in an Agatha Christie mystery novel.

Need a story line to captivate and mesmerize? Get Tiger.

Want the story to have drama, action and a mystical hero? Get Tiger.

Want a guarantee that the buildup won't get to a peak and suddenly fall flat? Get Tiger and put a putter in his hands.

On the 72nd hole of the United States Open on Sunday, Tiger Woods did what he almost always does. He came through in the clutch. He gave us goose bumps. He made us wonder how anybody can succeed so often at such a high level in such an imperfect game.

We don't applaud him now as much as we shake our heads in amazement. We think he is flesh and bones like we are, but we are becoming less and less certain.

The game he plays is not one of those dominated by God-given size or speed or strength. It ebbs and flows with wind and heat and fat and skinny grass. Tuned bodies are fine but only if they work in unison with tuned minds.

At 5:52 p.m., West Coast time, Woods stood over a 12-foot putt on No. 18 at Torrey Pines. It was a situation that would have rendered mere mortals jelly-legged and useless. So much was at stake -- money, prestige, golfing immortality. So much had happened, certainly enough to rationalize a miss and nod satisfaction for a good effort.

Good efforts don't register with Woods. Only winning.

When he stood over the putt, he knew that making it would get him a spot in today's 18-hole playoff with Rocco Mediate. He also knew that, if he missed, his courage for getting that close on a left knee still not healed from recent surgery would be universally applauded. More so, he knew that if he made the putt, he'd have to walk another 18 holes.

This is not just another star golfer in his prime. If he wins today, he will move to within four of Jack Nicklaus' record 18 major tournament victories. At age 32.

This is a driven athlete with a flair for the dramatic and the instincts to perform and entertain while succeeding.

Still, there was no way he could top the theater of his Saturday round. That was a day when he made two eagles, including a long putt on the 18th hole that gave him the lead going into Sunday, and also chipped one in on the second bounce from an impossible side-hill lie in the rough.

Surely, the golf gods had given him enough. Surely, he couldn't keep turning up four-leaf clovers on the fairways of Torrey Pines on Sunday.

Surely, you jest.

He started with yet another double bogey at No. 1, a hole that is neither difficult nor notable. It was his third in four days and he has yet to set foot on the No. 1 fairway other than as a passageway.

After that, he kind of slashed around the rest of the day, losing three strokes to par in four holes and slipping from first to third on the leader board. On particularly bad swings, he bent in pain as the knee screamed at him.

He made a bogey on a par five, No. 13, and he hates that. Then he disappointed the crowd around the tee at No. 14, a hole set up at par-four and 267 yards to tease the golfers into going for it. Woods, later saying his five-wood wasn't quite enough and his three-wood was a little too much, laid up with a short iron.

Tiger made par and looked defeated and fatigued.

One group in front and one shot ahead was Mediate, who at 45 was having the time of his life. By now, the fans had adopted him, knew his story, knew that he had to qualify to get into the field and that, were he to win, he would be the oldest U.S. Open champion in history. It was a Rocco love fest and Rocco was returning the love of his newfound fans.

Mediate walked past the pond and onto the 18th green with waves to the huge crowd and an unwavering smile on his face. He had a 25-foot putt for birdie four, and when it slid past, he tapped it in for his one-under 283, waved goodbye to the crowd and did what most of the rest of the golf world did. He waited for Tiger.

Woods and playing partner Lee Westwood, the last group, were an entire hole back, barely visible from the 18th green as blue and red dots on the tee, 570 yards away.

The clock said 5:30. The huge scoreboard had just put up the numbers so that everybody knew that, from either in the last twosome, an eagle would win and a birdie would bring a Monday playoff.

The dots in the distance swung and soon Westwood was standing in sand to the right, Woods in sand to the left. Eagles were no longer an option, and birdie didn't look all that likely for Woods, when he hit an ugly nine-iron out of the trip and still 120 yards away in the right rough.

But this was Tiger Woods. It was also high drama. So when his third shot landed 12 feet away, tantalizingly makable, there was a roar of both appreciation and awe.

Westwood went 25 feet past the pin, two putted and stood aside for the final act.

Woods, like an orchestra conductor, baton poised for the right moment, making sure everything was perfect, circled his ball, sizing up the angles from side, back and front. One minute passed. Two.

Woods crouched, measured his line with hands mimicking binoculars. There were probably 20,000 people within a quarter mile of the green, and you could hear a bird chirp.

Finally, he stood over the ball, made two practice swipes, locked his gaze over the ball and froze in concentration. The putter went back and through, the ball bumped and rolled.

And it stopped where all of us, deep in our hearts, knew it would.

Mediate was nearby, watching on TV.

"I knew he'd make it," he said.

For golf, it was another best-seller. For Woods, merely another routine chapter.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Man ....

Jerry Crowe of the LA Times caught up with the infamous Rainbow Man who is serving time in a California jail. Here is his story:

CROWE'S NEST
Rainbow Man, once ever-present, shows his dark side

by Jerry Crowe

May 19, 2008

IONE, Calif. -- For more than 10 years starting in the late 1970s, Rollen Stewart was the nation's most celebrated sports fan, a wig-wearing, wigged-out self-promoter who showed up at virtually every major athletic event worldwide and always managed to plant himself smack-dab in front of a television camera.

He was known as the Rainbow Man, for the multicolored Afro wigs he sported, or Rock 'n' Rollen, for the party vibe he exuded. Later, after finding religion, he morphed into the John 3:16 guy, for the Biblical messages he espoused.

He says he drove about 60,000 miles a year to attend events, and he got more TV face time than the network announcers who sometimes left him tickets.

He found fame, as planned, simply by showing up.

But the fanatic who was always there, Stewart says, really was no fan at all.

"I despised sports," he says.

Stewart is 63 now, no longer wears an Afro or any other type of hairpiece to mask his baldness and last attended a sporting event about 20 years ago.

Serving three life sentences for hostage-taking, he has been imprisoned since 1992. The punishment was the result of a bizarre incident in which an armed Stewart locked himself in a hotel room near Los Angeles International Airport and kicked off an 8 1/2 -hour standoff with police, demanding a three-hour, televised news conference to air his views. Earlier, he had driven two day laborers to the hotel, both of whom escaped, and encountered a frightened housekeeper who locked herself in a bathroom.

Currently serving time at Mule Creek State Prison, about an hour southeast of Sacramento, he has been denied parole three times in the last six years, most recently in March, and does not believe he will ever be set free.

"Jesus will come back before I get out," Stewart tells a visitor from Los Angeles, his startlingly blue eyes revealing little emotion. "To justify their own unbelief, they use me as a scapegoat so they can sleep at night.

"But they've still got their Rolaids next to the bed."

Stewart says his "final presentation" in 1992 was mistimed -- the end of the world was nigh, he believed -- but otherwise does not regret his actions.

"It was a crime to prevent a greater harm," he says, explaining that it was his duty to warn the world of the coming Apocalypse. "If somebody's standing in the way of me going into a burning building, I'm going to knock them on their butt."

As Stewart reveals in "The Rainbow Man/John 3:16," a 1997 documentary by filmmaker Sam Green, his views were not always so extreme, nor his actions threatening. When Stewart, a former marijuana farmer, initially conceived the Rainbow Man in the late 1970s, it was to draw attention to himself.

In Stewart's autobiography, Green's film reveals, the author writes, "Instead of going to Hollywood and waiting in casting lines for years, I would be world famous overnight . . . and have complete control over my life."

He carried a battery-powered TV to see where the cameras were pointed, sneaked into the best seats and positioned himself for maximum exposure.

Stewart, however, tells a prison visitor that he is a "very quiet, shy person," adding matter-of-factly, "The Rainbow Man was not me; he was a character."

In order to play him, he says, he needed to be stoned.

"Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll," he says. "That was my thing."

In time, though, Stewart says he wearied of "chasing the Hollywood high," though he continued smoking pot. Nor did his unusual fame endear him to Hollywood. A beer commercial was about all he had to show for his efforts at self-promotion. In January 1980, after attending Super Bowl XIV at the Rose Bowl, Stewart says he was mesmerized by a TV evangelist and found Jesus.

Making his way through an estimated 80 rainbow wigs -- "They got dirty, and I told people it was my real hair," he says -- Stewart continued crisscrossing the country into the late '80s, this time showing up at sporting and other news events wearing T-shirts and carrying sheets touting Bible passages, most frequently John 3:16. "Sports was only a vehicle," he says, "because to a lot of people, that's their God."

Nine times out of 10, Stewart says, he wrangled free tickets. But as Stewart's act grew stale and less fun-loving, TV tried to limit his exposure.

As veteran announcer Brent Musberger told ESPN several years ago, "I know directors who threatened to kill the guy in their anger in the truck because he would get in behind very dramatic shots and the eye, as you watched the screen, would be attracted immediately to this wacko."

The late '80s brought the end of the Rainbow Man. Stewart's car was totaled, his money ran out and his wife left him, saying he choked her because she held up a sign in the wrong location. "No one can meet my standards," says Stewart, who has been married four times, "but I don't recall ever hitting her."

Homeless and living in L.A.'s Skid Row, he hatched another, more sinister character. Targeting churches, religious broadcasters and newspaper offices, he set off a string of stink bombs to warn of the world's impending doom.

That led, finally, to his standoff with the LAPD.

In prison, Stewart says, "They say I'm a threat to society."

Bill Dwyre is right on the mark ...

You want to read the best blog entry by any blogger in the Year 2008? Here it is, and, oh yeah, it's a cut and paste job - with all credit to its author, the one and only Bill Dwyre of the LA Times, one of the greatest reporters, editors and journalism professionals to ever live:

Media are off their game

By BILL DWYRE
Los Angeles Times

Story posted on Jan. 24, 2008

Friday was a strange day in Palm Desert.

At a historic golf tournament named in honor of one of the funniest men to ever live, the undercurrent of the day was anything but a laughing matter.

Sure, bogeys and birdies were chatted up during the third round of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, as they always are. But the bigger buzz, sadly, was racism and misguided media.

The first part of the story has been out there for about two weeks. Kelly Tilghman, Golf Channel anchor, made an inadvertent comment during some broadcast chatter on Jan. 4 that the only way to stop Tiger Woods was to "lynch him in a back alley."

It was a throwaway line, a joke, a stupidly miscalculated foot in her mouth.

Most people cut her some slack. She is well-liked among pro golfers and they, for the most part, said her two-week suspension was justified, and severe enough.

Mark O'Meara said Friday, "All the players are on the side of Kelly, because they know her and know she is a nice person."

Fred Couples said, "She's talking for four hours. You kind of understand."

Woods, who would stand to be among those most offended by any statement about "lynching," accepted her apology immediately.

But others, including civil rights activist Al Sharpton, felt a need to do more than merely shrug, say oops, and give her a pass because she is nice and popular.

So the controversy snowballed. Some segments of the media saw it for what it was and handled it evenly. Others, not being able to distinguish noise from substance, turned up the volume full bore.

Then it got worse.

A magazine apparently seen by hundreds, Golfweek, decided that it would report on the controversy by putting a picture of a hanging noose on its cover. Up went the volume again.

On Friday, the editor of the magazine was fired and the publisher and new editor spent much of the day saying they were sorry and admitting what a horrendous breach of judgment it had been.

"The guy [editor] had all week to sit around and think about this," Couples said. "He must be an idiot."

Nope. Probably not.

More likely, he is the product of the current age and rage of media, as well as society in general.

We blog before we report, when it should be the other way around.

We write more about ourselves than we do about our subjects. We have Facebook and YouTube, and we see the world as being all about us, on all topics, every day. News isn't news unless we agree with it.

We are afraid of quiet. Our children don't see the world around them in our minivans. They watch TV.

The editor of Golfweek who put the noose on the cover probably went home that night, thinking he had done what his bosses and the world around him kept telling him – to think outside the box, be creative, groundbreaking, innovative.

There is a fine line between those things and stupidity, of course.

Our society has a massive appetite for drama, and little for reality. We read about Britney Spears when we need to read about Afghanistan. And the media, which has the mandate – and the constitutional right – to lead us from this abyss, are all too often not doing so. Media, which once led public opinion, now all too often follow it.

We aren't just talking celebrity scandal sheets, weekly shoppers and sports-talk radio.

Last week, a Los Angeles bureau executive of the Associated Press, no less, put out a memo to staff that said they were to pay more attention to developments about Britney Spears. The message was: She is news.

No she isn't. She is titillation. She is a troubled young woman whom we cover with delight, rather than empathy. She is web hits, the current fool's gold of the newspaper industry.

Out of this toxic atmosphere comes the current chapter of the Kelly Tilghman story. Racism is ugly, even the inadvertent kind. Perpetuation of racism under the guise of journalistic creativity is worse.

The consumer, especially the more thoughtful type, is both aware and confused.

Seth and Kaye Ward of Fort Collins, Colo., are in Palm Desert to watch the tournament and "thaw out." They had heard about the Tilghman controversy, said they were dismayed by the magazine cover and mostly wondered why everybody can't lighten up a little, turn the volume down.

Seth Ward told about a dinner they attended in Colorado on Wednesday night, a dinner to honor Hank Brown, University of Colorado president.

One of the speakers "made a political joke," he said. "He said that, if Barack Obama won the election, we would no longer be able to call it the White House."

Ward said it was stupid, everybody knew it was stupid, and the guy who said it felt awful afterward. "The next day, that was the story," Ward said. "Not the guy who was being honored."

Racism needs to be reported. Blatant, inadvertent, miscalculated, all kinds. What doesn't need to happen is for it to become a forum for noise, web hits, marketing and lost perspective.

Tilghman will be back to work next week at the Buick Invitational at La Jolla. Tiger will play there. Both will be asked about this, as they need to be. In person. Having had time to digest all of this and think through a proper response.

Then it can end. Until the next issue, the next drama, the next chance for media to go overboard and, instead of leading the public, as is its sacred trust, continue to pander to it.

Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com.

To read previous columns, go to www.latimes.com/dwyre