HBO Documentary on Marty Glickman: Swish!

Marty Glickman (HBO Sports)

Whether you grew up in Canarsie or The Bronx, whether you attended Cardinal Hayes or Power Memorial, whether you were a fan of Joe Namath of the Jets or Fran Tarkenton of the football Giants, or whether you rooted for Mickey, Willie or the Duke, one thing was for sure. You loved Marty Glickman.

Marty Glickman was a gifted runner and accomplished athlete, an Olympian in fact, but to nearly all native New Yorkers and to a growing legion of sports announcers, Glickman was "The One." He was the best of the truly infuential sportscasters who pioneered sports from its coveted place in the radio industry to the world of live, televised and remote newscasting of the most important games of his day. Glickman's technique - that of a picture-painter and story-teller - influenced dozens of followers, many the current leaders of the sports broadcasting world, including Bob Costas (NBC, MLB Network, HBO), Mike Breen (ESPN, MSG Network) and Marv Albert (TNT, YES).

The story of Marty Glickman runs far deeper than that of any other pioneer in the field of sports broadcasting, however, as Glickman's life as a young athlete, then a Marine Corp. veteran returning from World War II, then as an accomplished broadcaster shunned because of his religious beliefs tell a deeper and most interesting story which is the subject of Martin Scorsese - Jim Freedman produced documentary which premieres on Home Box Office on Monday, August 26. "Glickman" is the first documentary film by Freedman, the producer, director and writer behind the tribute to a sportscaster who treated all the way he wanted to be treated, yet rarely could count on the same in return.

Born in the Bronx in 1917, Glickman's running abilities earned him the nickname of "The Flatbush Flash" as a high school runner and football running back who earned a scholarship to Syracuse University. Glickman defeated then world record holder Ben Johnson in the 60-yard dash and by doing so, earned the right to compete for a place on the USA's 1936 Olympic Track & Field team. His efforts on the track gave him a third place finish in a 100-meter qualifying race, but Glickman was placed fifth, most likely because of biased officials looking at his faith rather than the race results. It began a nasty turn of events which carried on at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin where the great Jesse Owens claimed three gold medals and his place in athletics infamy while Glickman was replaced on the 400-meter relay team, again because of his Jewish faith.

Glickman returned to the United States after the Olympics and was offered a $15 a night broadcast gig and he married his high school sweet-heart and began his broadcasting career in earnest, mainly doing radio re-creations of baseball games. However, when the second world war called upon the youth of the US, Glickman enlisted and was sent to fight in the Marshall Islands. When he returned, Glickman picked up on his broadcasting talent where he found a new niche, in the sport of basketball. It was his vivid descriptions of the fast-paced college and pro games at the birth of the popularity of the "city game" that brought Glickman to the forefront. "Television on radio," said CNN broadcast and talk show guru Larry King.

Yet, when it was time for the NBA to move from its very first and very modest tv deal on Dumont, to the more prominent and nationally broadcast NBC sports deal, Glickman was shunned again, this time by league officials who claimed they sought a "more Midwestern" voice for the national deal, yet the undertone of a religious biased decision was once again holding Glickman back from the job he earned outright.

Throughout the ordeal, Marty Glickman remained diligent and treated his colleagues, the athletes and his co-workers with respect as his graceful manner and strong command of a new, descriptive language of sports, often simple and location-based description, painted pictures for listeners of professional football games on radio and even high school football on tv. In fact, Glickman gave Freedman, the documentary's main producer, his very first job in the field when the younger Freedman was asked by Glickman to produce a weekend broadcast that his older brother could no longer help create.

"Glickman captures the nobility and excitement of Marty himself," said another "Marty" - in Martin Scorsese. "Inventive, accessible and veracious, a New York staple who ignited sports and taught America the only way to experience the games."

You can follow @GlickmanTheFilm or @HBODocs on twitter and can check listings on HBO and HBO 2 for the complete broadcast schedule.

AND1 Steps Up to Help St. Francis de Sales in Rockaways

Every now and then, a blog post doesn't need much of an introduction. In this case, I'd like to just thank the people at AND1 apparel for their good deed and its future impact on the community of Belle Harbor (Rockaway peninsula in New York City). It's a place that all basketball-lovin' NYers hold close to their hearts and from the story below, you'll see why and what that means to Terence Mullin, a former St. John's guard, member of NYCs #1 basketball family, and Lenn Robbins, a NY Post columnist for college basketball.

Enjoy ... and try to drop a $20

See this:

By Lenn Robbins (New York Post college basketball columnist).

Basketball...The City Game

MARCH 9 - Basketball, the city game, has always struck me as being a cathartic sport. The drumming beat of a basketball being dribbled. The calming swish of a basketball licking the nets. A player can lose himself for hours in a school yard — just him, his ball and his dreams.

Sometimes dreams get wrecked and there’s nothing we can do about it. A knee gets blown out. A 6-foot-3 high school power forward doesn’t have another growth spurt. Only the good Lord determines who among us will be blessed with talent and drive to make a dream come true.

A lot of people’s faith were shaken in late October when Hurricane Sandy tore through the metropolitan area. There were deaths. There was destruction. But never did I see the death of hope.

I saw hope at places such as Saint Francis de Sales in Belle Harbor, one of the hardest hit areas. The parish and school became the epicenter of relief efforts on the Rockaway Peninsula.

Food, clothing and flashlights poured in, love, compassion and support flowed out.

Monsignor John Brown slept in a classroom on several nights with displaced families. The word, “No,” was never uttered at the neighborhood school on Beach 129th Street.

As the days and weeks went by, as debris was cleared, as homes were either torn down or attempts to rebuild began, St. Francis de Sales tried to return to some semblance of normalcy. The basketball court in the gym, which was badly damaged after being used as a supply center/shelter was covered by insurance and restored. But the outdoor courts, the uniforms, the socks were a total loss.

Those losses might sound trivial compared to the loss of life and home, but you have to understand what basketball means in Belle Harbor and Breezy Point. Every summer for the past 25 years, the St. Francis de Sales Summer Classic has become the Rockaway Peninsula’s focal point for residents.
On any given night hundreds of families gather to talk about their kids, their community, their jobs, their heartbreaks and their celebrations. The Summer Classic, which runs from mid-June to mid-August and provides organized ball for second-graders to greybeards, is the city version of summer camp.
“It’s kind of the focus and backbone of the community,’’ former St. John’s player Terence Mullin told The Post. “Every player down here either plays hoops and/or surfs. That’s what Rockaway is. I mean you look around the neighborhood, there’s four hoops, five hoops on every single street.’’

Players from Brooklyn, The Bronx, Westchester and other neighborhoods in Queens flock to St. Francis de Sales during the summer. Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, Armond Hill, Kenny Anderson, Ernie Grunfeld are among the hundreds of NBA players that made this their summer home.

There might not be a home this summer. The four outdoor courts were torn up by the storm and the triage center it was used for. The rims hang sideways. The fence is Swiss cheese.

But there is hope. Terence bumped into Terry Lyons, another St. John’s grad and former NBA media relations guru during a 12-12-12 benefit at a local watering hole, and the two chatted about the storm’s devastation. Lyons thought Mullin still lived in Brooklyn. He was blown away by Mullin’s story of what had happened at St. Francis de Sales. (Blog Editor Note:  Lyons works with the good people at AND1 and is helping them re-launch their brand after company was purchased by a longtime NYC basketball loving family).

“I told him we’d been hit pretty bad and he said, ‘We’re going to get the courts fixed,’ ’’ said Mullin. “The next day he calls me and says ‘AND1’ is on board. It was amazing.’’

AND1, the sneaker and apparel company that turned out some of the coolest hoops videos ever, has pledged $5,000 to start a fund to help rebuild the courts that help rebuild a community that continues to rebuild.

It’s a generous start but Terence Mullin, who coaches and runs a camp at St. Francis de Sales, said it will take about $100,000 to finish the job and replace the uniforms, socks, headbands. It also will tell a community that felt somewhat abandoned after Hurricane Sandy that it has not been forgotten.

It certainly would nice to hear the sound of basketballs being dribbled and the swish of a ball going through the net at St. Francis de Sale this summer. If charity isn’t cathartic, what is?

Those wishing to donate can do so by going to: www.stfrancisdesales.kintera.org

Garden of Dreams and Jeff Kazee ... Give Some More

A high five for my guy Jeff Kazee as he raises awareness for MSG's chairy efforts and the garden of Dreams for Kids:




I have enjoyed the music of Jeff Kazee and the Kazeedigs. I hope to broker a deal to get him up to the Boston area for his debut. It will be a real treat for the Boston music scene.

Ramble On ... Sunday Notes...Nike Re-use a Shoe and Welcome to new Blogger

The "Ramble On" columns seem to be gaining some 'critical acclaim' as a number of people have mentioned or emailed that they enjoy the wide-ranging scope of the notes. I will try to continue the Ramble On note column with a weekly posting, hopefully on Sundays.

I started the Ramble back in October. It is a fun way of tossing out random thoughts, a joke or two, and some serious, thought-provoking items. I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to post comments, call or email with your thoughts or suggestions.

And, now, back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Click on the Ramble on headline above for an interesting program which is being run by Nike.

When it comes to some spring cleaning, it will be time to take some of the old athletic shoes (tennis shoes, basketball shoes, cross trainers - any brand) and donate them by dropping them off or mailing to the Nike collection centers listed on the web site. (Niketown at 57th Street for you NYers).

The shoes, after they go through a special grinding process, will eventually become part of a composite playing surface for playgrounds or soccer fields.

Good stuff.

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PGA Tour.com launched a new feature last week. It is a monthly blog by tour commish, Tim Finchem. Interesting to the way they framed it right up front to be "monthly."

Here is the first entry:


Commissioner's Blog: Welcome to '08
Jan. 21, 2008
Editor's note: PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem begins a monthly blog for
PGATOUR.com with this edition. The commissioner wants you to send him your
questions and comments about the TOUR and in future installments, he will open a
dialogue with fans about the things near and dear to TOUR fans.


Hello and welcome to the second year of the FedExCup on the PGA TOUR. We are
very excited about this year and are really anxious to talk with you, our fans, on a
consistent basis throughout the year.
We have redesigned PGATOUR.com to make it cleaner and easier for you to
navigate. We hope you enjoy it, but let us know if you do or you don't and
what changes you think we should make to make it even better. In a month
or so we will have additional features up and running to allow us to interact
with you on a better and more consistent basis. We will be making message
boards available to you so that you can talk to us and to each other and you
will also be seeing more blogs not only from me but from our players, our
management staff and others in the world of golf. We'll also set up a section
where you can ask me any questions that are on your mind and we will answer as
many as we can. We hope that you will tell us what you think, both good and bad,
about the PGA TOUR so that we can continue to make it as interesting and enjoyable
for you as possible.

I'll be heading out to the Buick Invitational in San Diego next week to meet with our Player Advisory Council. If you don't know, the Player Advisory Council has 16 members that are elected by our players. We meet and talk with the Player Advisory Council many times throughout the year and get their recommendations on issues that will be presented to our Policy Board. Our Policy Board is the board of directors of the PGA TOUR and consists of four players -- Joe Ogilvie, Brad Faxon, David Toms and Stewart Cink, and four independent businessmen, who are currently Vic Ganzi, CEO of Hearst Corporation, Ed Whitacre, recently retired Chairman and CEO of AT&T, John McCoy, former CEO of Bank One, and Ken Thompson, Chairman of Wachovia. Also, the President of the PGA of America (currently Brian Whitcomb) makes up the ninth member of our Policy Board.

The main topic that we will be discussing at our meetings at the Buick Invitational concerns our new anti-doping policy. While we continue to believe this really is not an issue on the PGA TOUR, unfortunately, the current state of the world necessitates any major professional sport to have such a policy. We will be educating our players on this policy and the prohibited substances weekly throughout the first half of this year and will begin drug testing some time in the second half of the year.

Other matters that we will talking about at our player meeting this week and in the future weeks leading up to our Policy Board meeting at the end of February will be ways to make the Playoffs more exciting. We are looking at ways to have more players get into contention for the FedExCup through exceptional play during the Playoffs and we are also looking for ways in which more players in the field of THE TOUR Championship will have an opportunity to win. We would be very interested in your thoughts on this subject.

Well, that's all for now, and I look forward to talking to you again in the coming weeks.

Tim

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Nice to see the NY Knicks on 'over-the-air' with the MLK Jr. Day game against the Boston Celtics on WNBC-4. I have to applaud the MSG Network crew for giving the game that special "Big Game" feel upon the opening. Of course, when you have Mike Breen on the job it is a Big Game. He is ... simply... the best in the business.

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I saw this item on John Edwards' daughter, Cate, and thought I would share it. I like her approach to the campaign. She is 25 years old, bright, and capable of helping her father's campaign efforts.

John Edwards' Daughter Says Dad Is 'Cool As A Cucumber' In South Carolina

If Cate Edwards is sweating the results of Saturday's Democratic primary in South Carolina, she's not showing it. Then again, that could have more to do with her upbringing than anything else ... after all, her dad -- former North Carolina senator John Edwards -- has been at this for a while now.

"He's totally relaxed with all this, he's as cool as a cucumber," the 25-year-old Edwards laughed when MTV News caught up with her Friday (January 25) in South Carolina. "When I watch him go into the debates, I'm always a bit nervous, but he's totally in his element. The policies he's proposed -- college education, creating jobs, universal health care -- it all comes from personal experience, so it's easy for him not to be nervous."

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1580370 /20080125/index.jhtml?rsspartner=rssYaho oNewscrawler

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Vito's blue dog worries me a bit.