Football 2014

Another season of football is winding down with the Super Bowl just around the corner.  What were your impressions this time round?

In this corner of the couch my thoughts were fourfold: Injuries, Disrespect, Idiocy and Hope.

.Injuries. There for a while I thought I was the only one thinking that gridiron warriors were being wounded at an exceptional rate.  As the season went by however it became crystal clear that violent clashes between hardened men was taking a more frequent and terrible toll on the lives of  players at every level, particularly professional football. Watching a player ”slow to get up”, or seeming to be “shaken up” started to sound like commentators were engaged in some sort of plot to keep real danger away from the public mind. I keep thinking not only of injury to players in the here-and-now but also the disabilities that will plague their tomorrows. Constant pounding of bodies, even the helmet smacking and chest bumping of teammates after stellar plays starts to make you wince.

.Disrespect. Attitude toward opposing players was never a love-fest - nor should it be - but the level of trash-talk and even threats to officials has descended to an all-time low. I also wonder if constantly living violent lives on the field isn't linked somehow to the rash of domestic violence and spousal abuse that dominates the conduct of so many after the game is over.

.Idiocy. “Celebrating” touchdowns by gyrating in the end zone has certainly gotten out of hand.  Officials have cut players far too much slack. We deserve a new look at how long a time period such nonsense should be permitted, or if they should be permitted at all. And far worse is the invitation such idiotic behavior extends to those of racial bias when displays of chest-thumping and other mannerisms of the jungle are considered part of the game.

.Hope. By now just about everyone knows of the seriousness of concussions.  Some recognition and some steps – one forward, two backward – have been made by officialdom. But positive action must be accelerated all across the board. For starters by having truly competent medical personnel treat downed players from the very moment the injury whistle is blown. Parents are already having their youngsters opt out of football for less dangerous sports. Let's hope that next season and the years that follow will see a lot of improvement in these four areas.

Officiating

Making the call in any sports is NOT a no-brainer.  And having to do it within milliseconds is not for the faint-hearted either.  Officiating is a combination of personal self-esteem, experience, objectivity and practice, practice, practice.

No matter what the sport, referees, umpires, linesmen and all others who officiate at games are committed to providing level playing field for the competing athletes. In so doing they face a lot of stress. Is it tougher to work a major league baseball game than to help out on a Little League playing field?  That's a question for the ages. No one has yet compared the howling anger of adults fueled by stadium beer to the outrage voiced by a dozen or more soccer moms.  In long years in both settings, I would lean toward fearing soccer moms a tad more.

All of us who make the calls have searing memories of one game or another.  My personal Waterloo came when calling a service line for a tennis match in Philadelphia. I had just gotten off a red eye flight from California and gone directly to the grass courts of the historic Merion Cricket Club in nearby Haverford. Here is where the aforementioned self-esteem ran into Irish ego. When the referee Brooks Keffer asked me to “take the service line” I should have refused the honor right then and there because of fatigue from the cross country airplane ride. But I was cursed by the “I can do anything” Irish mentality.  I made several bad calls and a couple of them were against Vic Seixas, the Hall of Famer and perennial U.S. Davis Cup stalwart. Seixas was a big fan favorite in those days. All the more reason for those in the grandstand wanting to kill this linesman. None of course was more upset than Vic who could have wrapped his racquet around my head. My own story had a happier ending a week later during the U.S. Nationals at Forest Hills when I was complimented for exceptional work by the umpire.

Of all the stories about officiating, none is more trauma-inducing than a call the NFL's Ed Hochuli made in the nationally televised 2008 Chargers-Broncos game. Bronco quarterback Jay Cutler dropped back to pass and the ball slipped out of his hands to be gobbled up by a Charger.  Hochuli ruled it an incomplete pass, not a fumble. The play was not reviewable because the whistle had blown. The Chargers went on to win the game. Hochuli, a highly regarded official (and former president of the officials association) was devastated.  He received dozens of irate Email complaints, each of which he answered personally. His officiating ranking was downgraded.  He was quoted as saying “officials strive for perfection – I failed miserably.  Although it does no good to say it, I am very, very sorry.”

Hochuli has been back in action since then, still highly respected.  His son is a NFL official as well.  As for the rest of us, we lesser lights, making the right call is still the name of the game.

When we don't, we too are very, very sorry.

Football in the Southland

When it comes to passion, football here in the Southland is right up there with The War Between the States.  And fighting the good fight is the name of the game now just as it was back then.

I am long out of the sports press box these days. I'm not unhappy about this since sitting in the Heineken section of our Little Florida Hideout is much more relaxed than having to deal with uncomfortable seats surrounded by cynics who have to meet deadlines.

But I do love football. This sport is exciting to play and exciting to watch. This is certainly true when measured against the lifetime that passes between any two shots on the golf course. And baseball is no quick-step either. Yep, it's true that multi-camera locations and video replays have given some television viewers a perception that things are moving along at a quicker pace on the diamond even when they are not.

Football is unquestionably America's favorite sport. The game we watched on the tube the other day had over 100,000 people in the stadium. If you add the hundreds of thousands watching on TV and listening on radio, you have an audience to die for.

Unhappily, the professional end of this game is mired in the madness and disgrace of spousal abuse. My hope is that this NFL mess will be straightened out in the best interest of the sport itself as well as the public. But don't expect it to happen overnight. There is just too much money involved for the franchise owners and the people on the payroll, like Commissioner Roger Goodall, to completely come clean in the sunlight. PR spinning has a life of its own, so it will take time under the best of circumstances.

In the meantime it's good that we have college football, although this is not squeaky clean either.  We are talking about human beings here and you know what that means – there is both good and bad in all of us. Alabama's Nick Saban, admittedly a great football coach, is less commendable on the leadership front. Ballistic behavior when chewing out a player who dropped the ball, literally or otherwise, is not a good move when there are hundreds of thousands of adults, and their children, in a television audience watching it all.

Joan and I are automatically in the Florida camp when it comes to sports because we live in Palm Beach Shores, just north of the city of Fort Lauderdale. The CBS sports team commenting on that Florida-Georgia game we watched recently was headed by Verne Lundquist who has been in the announcing booth since Jim Thorpe was playing JV ball. His teammate Gary Danieleson is almost as bad as Phil Simms when it comes to on-the-field insights. Still the game speaks for itself. This Florida-Alabama contest was great even with the sound off.  Much has changed since Mr. Lundquist first spoke into a microphone. There are now players with shoulder-length hair, some even longer than that and orange-colored. There is also the relatively new wrinkle of adding “Jr” to the jerseys of same-name sons of former stars, even an occasional one with “Sr.” or “III.”

Surely the game of football has ardent fans in every section of the country, but the Southland brings a devotion that even Mom and Apple Pie can't touch. Whole families are involved 24/7, no holds barred.  If you are ever in the South on game day drop by any gridiron to see just what I mean.

2 ½ Commercials

Television remains addictive. In spite of tremendous competition from an array of sources ranging from the Internet to whatever device you happen to be carrying around in your hand 24/7, the power of TV programming cannot be denied.  And so it follows that advertising on this medium is a must for companies bent on moving product or services into a broader marketplace.

Incessant TV commercials impose a burden on our viewing pleasure, and certainly on our patience. While most of us would probably pay an annual fee to avoid them, the stumbling block would be an astronomical price tag for the blessing.  I know this sounds like heresy coming from a former Mad Man, but that's just the way it is. Everything in marketing is built around providing a platform from which to launch commercials. NBC anchor Brian Williams is a household hero (known to the two of us here at home as “Brinie”.) Even our idol falls short because he must make way for ads. “We'll take a break here” he intones after just 15 minutes reading from his teleprompter.  The thought crosses our minds “Geez, Brinie, where's the exhaustion, the “need to take a break” coming from? Of course this is all pretext leading into yet another batch of commercials.

Still there actually are some great TV commercials on the tube – many are evergreens. The Budweiser Clydesdale ads a case in point. Taking a tip from the TV show 2 & ½ Men, let me present 2 & ½ commercials presently honored in the Reilly Television Hall of Fame:

#1 is the AT&T Mobile commercials featuring the competent and friendly “supervisor” who talks about the value of multiple-user packages. Her name in real life is Milana Vayntrub. Milana is natural, her words believable.

#2 Progressive Insurance features memorable “Flo” as their rep steering viewers to the best deals by comparing her company's rates with others. Flo in real life is Stepanie Courtney who, like Milana, is an actress/comedian.

# ½ is the Geico gecko series accompanied by the wonderful voice of London-born actor Jake Wood.  The gecko is animated, not real-life like Milana and Stepanie, so he only scores ½.

There you have it. Television commercials can be entertaining and informative if they avoid overdoing it. Like strawberry shortcake – one helping is grand but having shortcake three meals a day for a month is, well you get it, far too much of a good thing. It's the same with great commercials.

Companies cannot afford not to advertise on television, but at the same time they must avoid irritating viewers, the ultimate purchasers. Let's hope more advertisers will be successful in creating a happy balance.

                          

Announcers

Looking back, one weekend in June was a couch potato sports fan's paradise.   Television covered the Belmont Stakes – third leg of racing's Triple Crown – as well as the Men's Singles championship of the French Open.

At the historic racetrack in Belmont, New York, (just outside Manhattan on Long Island) California Chrome was picked to be the first Triple Crown winner for decades.  However, Belmont is a notorious swamp for favorites and this year did not disappoint. Chrome's failure was no fault of her own, she was just worn out from repeated high stress competition in a relatively short span. One good thing came out of this race however. That was the opportunity see and hear the great Bob Costas in action.  Costas stands firmly at the top of the Communicators Hall of Fame.  He never misses a beat. His delivery is flawless. His is delivery without error or mispronunciation, and certainly no “fillers” like “y'know” and other verbal garbage.  He is at the blessed end of a spectrum where ex-jock Phil Simms routinely tortures listeners, one and all.  Which moves us to his on-air partner Jim Nance who consistently narrates the action with style and grace. Nance is a competent and genial life preserver for Simms who would have certainly gone down for the third time without him. Simms is not the only jock who stumbled in the broadcasting booth.  Football legend Red Grange never could get the name of his own announcing partner Lindsey Nelson right – calling him “Lisley” throughout.

The day after The Belmont coverage television sports panned over the seas to Paris and the French Open tennis championship where the fearsome duo of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were battling for the Singles title yet one more time.  It was arguably one of the best tennis finals ever. Covering play in the announcing booth were John McEnroe, Mary Carillo and Ted Robinson.  This trio have been there and done that before. The three of them know the sport very well (and McEnroe and Carillo have championship titles to prove it.) But Robinson gushes like he is watching a May pole dance. Carillo, who rarely shuts up, gets mixed up in her delivery reminding me of the sign-off on the old Bugs Bunny cartoons “Th..the..tha...that's all Folks! Where are Costas and Nance when we need them?

The fault lies less with the men and women calling the match than it does with the American Way of doing it.  The Brits have it right- let the play on the courts speak for itself.  Their on-air people make comment only when they have to.  This gives their words extra value and enriches the viewers/listeners appreciation of the game. Here in the good old USA where broadcasting is drenched with advertising commercials ad nauseum, such seconds of silence would be especially appreciated.

An Appreciation

Praise for a lawyer is rare enough these days.  I understand that. There is so much litigation in our world, we are sick of lawsuits and yes, many a lawyer him/herself. But like pedophile priests, the black brush of infamy from the few touches the many good. There are plenty of exceptions to this universal disdain of lawyers. 

I have honorable lawyer nieces and a nephew whose professional competence and personal ethics are noteworthy.  I am relatively sure that you too can point to model counselors in your own circle of friends and acquaintances. For now let's forget about the bums and bounders and highlight a positive member of the bar.  His name was Paul Derounian and he left us last night.

Paul was my lawyer and far more than that.  He was at my side when I was facing big professional and personal challenges. His steadiness and counsel were invaluable. Most of all I valued his belief in the goodness of others while he searched for win-win solutions. His “contact list” ranged from waiters and doormen to the high and mighty.  His law practice included executives, blue chip corporations and more than a handful of major celebrities. They admired his legal know-how and trusted him, as I did.

Second marriages are fraught with challenges.  Good people get hurt. Where children are involved the stakes are even higher.  When I hear someone say “I had a good divorce” it comes from the mouth of a fool.  There are no good divorces, only those that are less painful than some others. Paul was my best man when Joan and I married. That should give you another sense of why I held him in such high esteem.  At any rate, I always called him “the best man.”

Paul was no stranger to limos, the Hamptons, Hollywood and Vegas in addition to the corporate boardrooms of Manhattan and elsewhere.  But he took everything in stride just as he did in relating to the doormen and waiters I mentioned earlier.  Impeccable manners, respect for others, always. People instinctively knew that he valued them individually.

Paul was married to Liz, a strikingly attractive lady of intelligence and warmth in addition to her outward beauty, which once led to a memorable moment in Atlantic City. The Derounians had invited us to a casino for the opening night of one of his show business clients.  As Liz and Joan, who is attractive in her own right, were walking to our table all eyes in the room were on Mrs. Derounian. Joan turned to Liz and whispered “I just hate it when all these men stare at me!”

As is always the case, we grieve for ourselves when we lose a dear friend.  It is certainly true with me. My consolation comes from recalling the 1001 good memories I have of Paul Derounian.

He was truly The Best Man.

World War One

2014 marks one hundred years since World War One began.  It was called “the war to end all wars”, which of course it wasn't since it was followed by World War Two and a string of other disasters. Still, this first worldwide war remains a horror story unmatched in the saga of mankind. As we all know now, wars truly are hell for those who have to fight them, for those who lose the men and women who fight them, and for the communities with their most precious asset, the human resource of energy, creative juices and dreams for tomorrow, that will be forever lost as well.

As a sometime military historian (junior grade, to be sure) this century anniversary prompted me to take a very close look at the years from 1914 to 1918. That time was so horrific that my extensive reading of it was exhausting. To have actually been on the ground in the combat situations of trench warfare remains incomprehensible to modern minds. Years back I was fortunate in having face-to-face conversations with veterans of that war. Saying that I regret not having more such opportunities is to state the obvious. Now of course such meetings are impossible.

The next best thing in educating and informing yourself of that terrible history is to read the firsthand memories of those who were there in the fighting.  Here we owe a huge debt to the historian Lyn Macdonald. She had the foresight two decades ago to interview dozens of British WWI soldiers while they were still with us. I recommend two of her books “1915, The Death of Innocence” and “Somme. The first gives you an idea of what civilization was like as it transitioned to sheer madness. Somme takes you through the campaign that bled dry the flower of youth of the British Empire and scarred the souls of its people to this very day. In 2014 we are rightly outraged over a single death. Just imagine a casualty list of 60,000 men being killed or seriously wounded in a single day of that fighting!

Yes, I do think that parents should have some awareness of those terrible times so that their children and their children's children are not totally oblivious to the fact that World War One changed civilization forever.  What was more or less the same for hundreds of years was never to be that way again.

The literature on World War One is legion.  The average reader cannot take it all in. The challenge is to select a few books such as these two I've mentioned by Lyn Macdonald, and perhaps include the classic “Memoirs of an Infantry Officer” by Siegfried Sassoon, then take it from there. Or not.

Each reader will form his or her own opinion after reading these materials.  Mine is the terrible dehumanization that resulted from weeks and months of living in muddy knee-deep filth, wet and shivering, scared to death while awaiting whistles to go over the top. More often than not it was the last sound many ever heard.  After one big battle a staff officer in well-polished boots drove up in a staff car close as possible to the battlefield of a place called Passchendaele. Staring at the muddy horror he sobbingly cried: “Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?'”

The answer was “Yes”. And they did it time and again.