Category: Sports

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Just Believe

Kentucky: 14th trip to the Final Four and seven national championships. Connecticut: fourth trip in a dozen years with two national championships. Butler: second consecutive trip. VCU: are you kidding me?

Quick… name a former VCU player who made it to the NBA? (There have only been seven; the one you may have heard of is Gerald Henderson who played 13 seasons. Kentucky is only slightly ahead with 77 NBA players.)

VCU was likely the last team to make the newly expanded 68-team NCAA field. On Selection Sunday, ESPN’s Jay Bilas said of the then 23-11 Rams: “You talk about the eye test, this doesn’t make it through the laugh test.”

All VCU did to reach its first-ever Final Four here in Houston was win a play-in game against USC, then beat Georgetown (5 Final Fours, two titles), Purdue (2 Final Fours), Florida State (1 Final Four) and Kansas (13 Final Fours, three titles). If by some chance they overcome Butler and take down the UK/UConn winner to claim the championship, it would be a bigger upset than an amateur winning next week’s Masters golf tournament. At 170-1 odds before the tournament began, VCU is a bigger long shot than Mr. Ed would have been against Northern Dancer in the 1964 Kentucky Derby.

The next time members of your team are feeling down because they aren’t winning more on the court of business success,  remind them about the little schools that could from Indianapolis and Richmond. All your players may need is a reason to believe… even if they’re currently the last choice in some expert’s bracket.

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Lifetime Decisions

The last time I turned on an NBA game on TV, I’m pretty sure Hakeem Olajuwon or Michael Jordan played in it. I watch the NCAA Tournament every year; however, the pros hold no interest for me. Except for the slam dunk competition at the All-Star game… now that’s exciting. Last night’s 28th edition will be remembered for Blake Griffin leaping over a car for the winning jam. I’ll remember it for another reason.

At the end of the broadcast, when you had changed channels or gone to bed, Ernie Johnson read the credits for the production crew. Half listening, I heard the name of a talented gentleman who directed many of the telecasts I worked on as a rising producer. He’s been part of the TNT team since the network launched. Then Johnson mentioned the executive VP… and my mind immediately jumped back to 1988.

You see, in March of that year, my former mentor – who had gone on to become the executive producer of Turner Sports – offered me a job as coordinating producer of the NBA. After much deliberation, including spending two hours in an empty church listening for the right answer, I turned him down. There were many reasons: I liked my job and was starting to work bigger events; I loved living in Fort Worth; I wasn’t open to relocating. The biggest one, though, was the night before flying to the interview in Atlanta, I went on a first date and something deep inside told me that I was supposed to stay near her.

As you might have guessed, that young lady became my wife 15 months later. We have three children. I’ve changed careers a few times during our marriage. She’s supported every one of them. We moved to Houston in 1998… met new friends, discovered new things, found ourselves called to serve new causes. Like any marriage, we share wonderful joy and tragic heartache together.

When I didn’t take the job, Turner hired someone younger than me. He’s apparently done great things the past 23 years: it’s his name I heard announced last night as their executive VP. That moment reminded me that each major decision you make truly does impact many people. Things would have been quite different had I said ‘Yes’ to Don McGuire instead of ‘I do’ to Kathy Lott. I’ve always known my prayers were answered that day. It’s a wonderful life.

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Unfulfilled Promises

The latest entry in ESPN’s terrific ’30 for 30′ film series is “The Best That Never Was” about former University of Oklahoma running back Marcus Dupree. It chronicles his meteoric rise to becoming the most highly recruited high school player ever, immediate success as an unstoppable freshman for the Sooners, fall from grace, career-ending injury in the defunct USFL, and resurrection five years later for one final moment in the NFL. Watching it, I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for his plight. Marcus Dupree seems at peace – some 28 seasons removed from when he dominated the sports headlines.

What you may not know is there was a player who preceded him at OU by two decades who also was a surefire-can’t-miss-future-Hall of Famer: Joe Don Looney. Coincidentally, The Sporting News featured an article 15 years ago titled “The Greatest Player Who Never Was.”

After graduating from Ft. Worth Paschal High School in 1960, Joe Don opted not to play college football. However, after flunking out of the University of Texas and getting kicked out of TCU, he enrolled to play at a junior college in Oklahoma, where he led the team to the Juco national championship. The following year, playing for the Sooners, Joe Don Looney was a first team All-American. Unable to control his attitude, temper and nighttime sojourns, he left the team – just like Dupree – in the middle of his second season.

He then played for five NFL teams in five seasons… interrupted by a year serving in Vietnam. After retirement, Joe Don Looney exhibited behavior fitting of his last name: experimenting with cocaine, LSD and heroin; living on a boat in Hong Kong; taking care of a guru’s elephant in India for seven years; building and living in a solar-powered dome house in the far-off mountains of West Texas, 70 miles from the Mexico border. In 1988, at age 45, Joe Don Looney died in a motorcycle accident when he failed to hit the brakes on a curve.

On one of the walls of his home was a quote from Agnes Repplier: “It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” The magazine article noted he once said: “If the end zone is where happiness is, I’d be living there. It’s not, so I’m living here.”

There are lessons to be learned from Marcus Dupree and Joe Don Looney… not the least of which is potential only goes so far.

– – – – – –

NFL Careers:

Joe Don Looney – 724 yards rushing, 26 catches, 13 TDs

Marcus Dupree – 251 yards rushing, 6 catches, 1 TD

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Rhythm Dance

Back in the day I created quite a few sports videos set to popular music for the various television entities where I worked as a producer. Two of my favorites were Kenny Loggins’ “Run for the Roses” (before the Cowboys played in the NFC Championship game the year the Super Bowl was to be at the Rose Bowl) and The Oak Ridge Boys’ “Thank God for Kids” (which, amazingly, will have its 29th airing this holiday season).

The key to setting sports to music is to combine the right beat with the perfect words and the best highlights. For some reason that came naturally to me during my television days. I’d hear a song every so often and would immediately envision how to use it. The amazing thing is most people – my musically inclined children included – would say I am not blessed with the gift of rhythm… at least when it comes to dancing or keeping a beat.

Yet in my daily life – both personally and professionally – I find rhythm to be one of my greatest strengths. Whether it’s sitting down to write my monthly e-newsletter, working in the yard, or participating in my latest hobby, I easily fall into the rhythm of the moment.

The words for my e-newsletter flow through my hands, as if magically, each issue. I simply sit at the keyboard and type. Mowing, gardening and the things that go with them allow me a few hours of escape, during which all kinds of inspirational ideas flow through my mind. During my hours each week in the pool, the silence sweeps me away to an almost meditative state. As the water flows around me, I find the rhythmic strokes much more relaxing than all the years running was my passion.

So, if you’re looking for peace, tranquility or inspiration, think about the rhythm in your life. Are you in sync? If not, look at where the interference is happening… and seek out that quite place inside you where alignment rests. You’ll find yourself more relaxed, more productive and, best of all, you’ll really like the feeling of harmony – and that could be the inspiration for a wonderful video of your life.

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Mental Telepathy

Inevitably whenever I’m watching a sports event on television, I’ll make a comment at a critical moment and the announcer immediately repeats it. Last night, just before Boise State went on its BCS-saving last-minute touchdown drive, I started singing, “Felix the cat, the wonderful wonderful cat… whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks.” Within five seconds, Kirk Herbstreit said, “I wonder if the Broncos will reach into their bag of tricks?” My son laughed and said: “Do you have a microphone directly into their headsets?” My response: “I spent 15 years producing those games and the last 15 watching them as a fan, so I sort of know what they’re thinking.”

College football is my passion. Amidst mowing the lawn, cleaning the garage, doing ‘Zen and the art of automobile maintenance’ on our 10-year-old Camry, swimming and enjoying quality family togetherness this Labor Day weekend, I found time to watch ‘College Game Day’ and five football games. That’s a lot of moments to figure out what’s going on and where the announcers will take things.

The opportunity here in business is to climb into the heads of your customers (both internal and external ones) – and fully understand situations from their perspectives. Too often, leaders are so caught up in how you personally see things that you fail to consider what the view looks like from the other side of the table, or counter, or phone line, or desk. Yet stepping outside your own narrow scope opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Try it – let go of your bias – and you’ll discover the ability to anticipate what’s coming next. It’s a winning strategy in any game.

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