Wednesday, March 10th, 2010SF Examiner: Monty has helped make Cal relevant againBy Art Spander BERKELEY — The Warriors years have been erased. Imagine they never happened. Think of Mike Montgomery going from a successful career at Stanford to a successful career at Cal. That’s what has happened in the Golden Bears’ media guide. Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company |
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Wednesday, February 17th, 2010SF Examiner: Warriors on the brink of irrelevanceBy Art Spander SAN FRANCISCO — So what’s worse news, that the Sharks aren’t playing because of the Olympic break, or that the Warriors are? Maybe Larry Ellison can sail his zillion-dollar boat right up to Chris Cohan’s doorstep, metaphorically if not literally, and get this sale under way. If there is to be a sale. Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company |
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Friday, January 29th, 2010RealClearSports: Thanks, David Stern for Doing the Right ThingBy Art Spander Thanks, David Stern. Thanks for doing what any sane-thinking person would have done, suspending the two Washington Wizards players who were so stupid, so arrogant to bring guns to practice. Thanks for attempting to restore to society some sense of what is right and wrong. © RealClearSports 2010 |
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Wednesday, January 6th, 2010SF Examiner: New year doesn’t bring much hope for Bay Area sportsBy Art Spander SAN FRANCISCO — This is a happy new year? The 49ers reveling because they didn’t lose more games than they won. The Raiders groping because they did lose more games than they won. The Warriors making us wish it were baseball season. The Giants and A’s making us wonder why we should wish it were baseball season. Copyright 2010 SF Newspaper Company |
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Friday, December 25th, 2009RealClearSports: A Different Christmas for Stephen CurryBy Art Spander OAKLAND — This is a different Christmas for Stephen Curry. His first as a pro. His first away from home. His first playing basketball for a losing team. Life is a learning process. Curry was ahead of the curve. His father, Dell, played in the NBA. Stephen knew more than others. But there was much he didn’t know. © RealClearSports 2009 |
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Friday, November 27th, 2009RealClearSports: Shaq Steps up When it CountsBy Art Spander The holiday had nothing to do with it, although the timing was exquisite. The gesture by Shaquille O’Neal happened to be announced on Thanksgiving, and that gave greater meaning to a unique act of kindness. © RealClearSports 2009 |
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Friday, November 27th, 2009SF Examiner: After 50 years in basketball, Attles remains a true WarriorBy Art Spander OAKLAND — He didn’t think his pro basketball career would last a day. It’s lasted 50 years. With one team, the Warriors. There’s a song in “Follies,” the Sondheim musical of aging chorus girls recalling the 1920s and 1930s, titled “I’m Still Here.” Good times and bum times, the lady has been through them all. So, in his own way, has Al Attles. And always with the Warriors, whether Philadelphia, where he and they started, San Francisco or Oakland. Copyright 2009 SF Newspaper Company |
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Wednesday, October 14th, 2009RealClearSports: Wooden Wins a Big One, No. 99By Art Spander He couldn’t win the big one. That was the criticism of John Wooden. Fifty years ago. Times change. Perceptions change. Integrity never changes. Couldn’t win the big one. Wooden was in his formative years at UCLA, a team competent enough in the old Pacific Coast Conference and its successor, the AAWU. But in the tournament, there was USF with Bill Russell, or Santa Clara with Ken Sears, and the Bruins were eliminated. Then they began to eliminate everybody else. Starting in 1964, UCLA won all the big ones, won 88 games in a row, won seven NCAA championships in a row, and John Wooden earned a reputation he’s never lost as the finest college basketball coach in history. The great man, the “Wizard of Westwood” — a phrase Wooden still dislikes; it came from the title of a book by Dwight Chapin and the late Jeff Prugh — turns 99 today, October 14. Ninety-nine, one short of a century. Sadly, he is looking his age, frail, fighting through one ailment after another, the sort of problems not uncommon to those who make it to their ninth decade. Delightfully, he never acts his age. He hates being pushed in a wheelchair. Doesn’t want to be fussed over. “I’m embarrassed not being able to get around,” he said a while back. “I don’t like it.” Who does? In our minds, it’s always yesterday, always a time of youth, when we never imagined what the future would be, never dreamed those old guys would be us. The India Rubber Man someone called Wooden. He was the All-America from Purdue in the early 1930s. He would hit the floor and bounce up. Then he would hit a basket. He became an English teacher and a coach. No, he became The Coach. After serving as a naval lieutenant in World War II. UCLA hired him from Indiana State in 1948. He headed west and almost headed back to Indiana. Life in southern California, call it the “Hollywood Effect,” was unsettling. Wooden considered leaving not long after he arrived. But he still was there when I entered in 1956, a freshman on the school paper, the Daily Bruin, sent to interview Wooden in less than elegant campus surroundings, a spartan office in a wooden bungalow maybe 150 yards from an antiquated gym so small (2,500 seats) and so closed-in it was, in a word-play on the Tennessee Williams drama, nicknamed “The Sweatbox Named Perspire.” Wooden was polite if impatient. Businesslike. Efficient. The Pyramid of Success, now marketed, was attached to the wall. He had his ideas. When he would get his players, Walt Hazzard (Mahdi Abdul-Rahman) and Gail Goodrich, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton, the ideas were brilliant. Twenty-seven years, 10 NCAA titles, 620 wins, 147 defeats. UCLA finally got its building, Pauley Pavilion, in 1965, and Wooden finally got an office worthy of his status. But deep down, he was still the no-nonsense guy from Middle America. For many years, Wooden has lived in an unpretentious San Fernando Valley condominium that is more museum than residence. Memories, homilies and most of all awards are on virtually every inch of the walls, atop every desk, table or trophy cabinet. There is a letter from Richard Nixon, a bobblehead doll of Tommy Lasorda, a Yankees cap from Derek Jeter, a photo montage of John Stockton, of whom Wooden wistfully noted, “Was the last player in the NBA to wear shorts, not bloomers.” He has books about Mother Teresa, a Medal of Freedom award from George W. Bush, a football autographed by Don Shula and, of course, photos of the UCLA teams he coached to titles before retiring in 1975. “Nell arranged those pictures in the Pyramid of Success,” explained Wooden, alluding to his wife, who died in 1985. “I didn’t like that, but I wasn’t going to change anything she did.” Nell Riley was the only girl John Wooden of Martinsville, Indiana ever dated. There’s a framed photo, leaning against a wall, of the two of them, John 16, Nell 16. The love of his life, to whom he still writes a letter the 21st of every month. Her name is alongside his on the basketball floor at Pauley. It was the only way he would allow the court to be dedicated, to both of them. Wooden is a baseball fan. He would come to UCLA games when they still played at a utilitarian facility on the land where Pauley was erected and harass the opponents, a classic “bench jockey,” insulting but never obscene. Wooden can talk about Babe Ruth. Or about Barry Bonds. John Wooden knew. John Wooden knows. In 99 years, he hasn’t missed much. Including winning the big one. As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award — given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football — he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009. - - - - - - http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/10/14/wooden_wins_a_big_one_no_99_96503.html |
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Wednesday, September 30th, 2009SF Examiner: Another Oakland athlete turns sourBy Art Spander OAKLAND — “Hello, vultures.” It was Stephen Jackson, the “get-me-out-of-here” guy getting in here with a welcome to the fifth estate, which is not to be confused with the four corners. A few weeks back, Jackson said he wanted the Warriors to trade him and, subsequently, was fined $25,000 by the league for “statements detrimental to the NBA.” But here it was media day — pro basketball is back — and here was Jackson, drawing a crowd seemingly larger than the one Sunday at the Coliseum for the Raiders. Richard Seymour of the Raiders draws a personal foul for tugging at an opponent’s braids, and when asked about the incident by a columnist, grows belligerent. Seymour pulled a player’s hair, but didn’t like it when someone else pulled his own chain. Then a day later, Jackson walks into the party, to borrow a line from Carly Simon, like he was walking onto a yacht, smug, smiling and when persuaded, truthful. He knew full well he was the Warriors’ story and after some feigned indifference — “I already answered, so don’t ask me” — spent a good half hour telling the story, long enough to break your heart or your bankbook. What happens to these athletes in Oakland? Are they stricken with Transpontine Madness? Is it being based adjacent to Berkeley? Is it the new parking rates, a ripoff as big as Jackson’s fine? Why did Matt Holliday bat zilch when he was with the A’s and turn into another Stan Musial with the St. Louis Cardinals? How come Seymour gets into a Raiders uniform and then gets into an argument? And why did Jackson receive a little $27 million bump in his salary and then attempt to flee? Jackson’s explanation is that outside of him, the Warriors aren’t very good, but he said it in more gentle prose. “We’re not getting any better,” was his analysis, followed immediately by, “No disrespect to all the guys on the team, and I’m not saying the job couldn’t get done with them.” Thanks, Stephen. Such reassurance. No wonder you were chosen captain. Jackson thought he could get it done with Baron Davis, pal Al Harrington and Jason Richardson, each of whom has been traded in the Warriors’ never-ending quest for instability. They all were on the team when the Warriors in 2006-07 made the playoffs for the first time in 13 years and the only time in 15 years. Now it’s Jackson his own self, and uncomfortably at that. “I know I had a big part in getting this organization back to the winning attitude, if not the biggest part, and every year I lost somebody that I felt helped me with that,” Jackson said. Jackson said he stands by his attempt to get out of town. “Even though I made the statements I made,” he advised, “I’m going to come here and play like I didn’t make them. I’m not going to lie down for nobody, even though we’ve been taking steps backward every year.” Almost makes you want to tear your hair out. Oh, sorry, Mr. Seymour. Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. E-mail him at typoes@aol.com. - - - - - - http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/Spander-Another-Oakland-athlete-turns-sour-62797762.html |
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Friday, September 25th, 2009RealClearSports: Call Them the New Jersey NyetsBy Art Spander Does this mean the Cold War is over? You only wish Mikhail Gorbachev still were around. He was the Soviet president who, in a misinterpreted warning to the West — the U.S. and allies, not the division always won by the Lakers – said, “We will bury you.” Instead, the Russians are buying us out. The guy considered the richest man in Russia, a label that once might have been a comedian’s punch line, Mikhail D. Prokhorov is going to become the principal owner of the New Jersey Nyets, um, Nets. Times indeed have changed. The Twitter Generation may not be aware, but the Russians, actually the U.S.S.R., of which Russia was the major part, used to be the bad guys. Now they’re the wealthy guys. A strange week over here in the United States. Jerry Jones opens this billion-dollar stadium, for which he is proverbially slapped for indulgence, and then a few days later people are enthusiastic because Prokhorov is going spend millions to take control of an NBA team. Prokhorov’s offer is being called a “rescue package” for current Nets owner Bruce Ratner, who bought the Nets six years ago with the idea of hauling them to Brooklyn, where apropos of nothing a great many Russian émigrés have settled over the decades. Six years ago, another Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, purchased the English Premier League soccer team Chelsea, which was immediately nicknamed “Chelski” by a lot of skeptical journalists. When it comes to games with round balls and nets, money seemingly is no object to the Russians. Nor is it a problem for Jerry Jones, a man who, despite coming across as pretentious and arrogant, still should be allowed to do what he wants with his. Nobody stood around and took shots at Louis XIV when he was having Versailles expanded to 700 rooms. Of course, if they had, it would have been the guillotine. Why can’t we be magnanimous toward Jones and his Cowboys palace? The reaction to Prokhorov investing $200 million generally has been favorable, although there is that skeleton in the closet … a 6-foot-9 one: Prokhorov was once a basketball forward. In January 2007 Prokhorov was arrested while on vacation at a French ski resort for supplying prostitutes to friends. He was released after several days, charges were dropped and Prokhorov said he will not do business again in France until there’s an apology. Prokhorov started out selling jeans in Moscow in the 1980s and, lo and behold, suddenly had a large stake in Norilsk Nickel, the largest producer of nickel and palladium on the globe. In April, according to the New York Times, he was pressured by the Russian government into selling his stake just before the world financial crisis hit the Russian stock market. He thus had something like $14.9 billion, and even after hosting his usual number of fancy parties still had a large reserve of cash and securities. Already owner of a share of the Russian hoops team CSKA Moscow, Prokhorov said one reason for his investing in the Nets is to provide Russian basketball a financial revitalization by allowing coaches and players to attend NBA training programs. The league already has played official games in China and Europe. Commissioner David Stern has suggested, if not predicted, the NBA will create a new conference or division of teams from cities such as Madrid and Paris. For a Russian to control a team is only another step in the process. Consider some of the owners in big-time sports, Dan Snyder of the Redskins, Mark Cuban of the Mavericks, even Al Davis of the Raiders, individuals making waves, making enemies, making money. To borrow from Doris Kearns Goodwin, they are a team of rivals. What’s one Russian billionaire more or less added to the blend? It’s simply that not very long ago, until the late 1980s, when Russians and Americans were involved the relationship was “them” and “us.” We boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. They boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. To think a quarter-century later a Russian would be involved with a franchise playing the one game invented in the United States would have been inconceivable. Japanese have invested in the Seattle Mariners. Conversely, Americans run Manchester United and Liverpool, two of most famous soccer teams on the globe. The Brits thought owners from the U.S. would muck up their sport. It hasn’t happened. On Prokhorov’s intent, Cuban of the Mavericks, a maverick in his own right, if a very intelligent once, said, “I love the idea. It will bring a whole new perspective, and with the dollar struggling, an entrée to new financial markets.” Money talks, no matter the language. As a reporter since 1960, Art Spander is a living treasure of sports history. A recipient of the Dick McCann Memorial Award — given for his long and distinguished career covering professional football — he has earned himself a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the PGA of America for 2009. http://www1.realclearsports.com/articles/2009/09/24/call_them_the_new_jersey_nyets_96490.html |
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