Spiffing up soccer with a song — actually, an anthem

May 24, 2013 – 12:50 pm

Sam Borden of The New York Times tells the tale of how “Champions League” — the anthem composed by Tony Britten specifically for the UEFA Champions League competition — has gained as much popularity as the soccer it introduces since it debuted 20 years ago.

The Lords of European soccer, Borden writes, were seeking an image upgrade after some dark, dreadful years, blotted in particular by the Heysel tragedy at the 1985 European final in which 39 fans were killed:

Craig Thompson, a former managing director at the marketing company, TEAM, said there was a negative perception of European soccer at the time — “there had been a lot of hooligan incidents, fan disasters and all that,” he said — so the aim in creating the Champions League was to “class it up.”

The lyrics are in three languages, and the work is something of a riff from Handel’s “Zadok the Priest.”

Borden notes the original recording was in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields chorus.

“I wasn’t trying to pretend to make a piece of art,” Borden quotes Britten as saying. “I was concerned that it did what it was designed to do.”

Neither did it contain the irritating drums in the clip below, something you thankfully won’t hear when Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich line up at Wembley Stadium Saturday.

By Wendy Parker | Posted in sports culture | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

An American soccer historian, honored and remembered

May 14, 2013 – 5:38 pm

The example of Dave Wangerin — an American Midwesterner who moved to the United Kingdom to get his soccer fix — continues the spirit of When Saturday Comes.

Wangerin, who died at the age of 50 last summer, was given space in the iconoclastic British soccer “webzine” to ramble on about American soccer history, an obscure segment of a sport that has labored in obscurity on these shores for most of its history.

The American game has been derided even worse on the British Isles, especially our when it comes to our use of the word “soccer” over their “football.” But that’s another subject.

soccer-in-a-football-world-the-story-of-americas-forgotten-game-david-wangerinWangerin, who eventually settled in Scotland, didn’t care about nomenclature. His 2006 book, “Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America’s Forgotten Game,” was published as a broader sporting public in America was starting to take note of its present, thanks to wider availability on television that yielded greater mainstream media attention.

To honor Wangerin’s memory, as well as his devotion to the story of the game in the United States, the editors of WSC have created an annual writers competition, open to “those who don’t make their living from writing.”

(The deadline to submit an entry is May 31, and the winner gets a cash prize of £250 and his/her article published in the magazine. Here’s one of the candidates for the first contest.)

That WSC should do this for an American writer who preferred to write about the lost history of the game in his native land speaks to the expansive embrace of a publication that seems as novel now as it did when it first hit the stands in 1986. It was a smart fans’ perspective on the world of English soccer as it transitioned from a being a haven for blatant fan violence to a sport gobbled up through immense, and rapid, corporatization.

Before the the infamy of the Hillsborough and Heysel tragedies had truly sunk in, the audacious creation of the lucrative Premier League enabled some fans to forget, or just to move on with new celebrity footballers to cheer or mock. But the magazine, still edited by co-founder Andy Lyons, hasn’t hewed to any new fashion or sentiment in all that time.

As occasional WSC contributor Barney Ronay wrote to mark the magazine’s 25th anniversary:

“Its longevity is perhaps grounded in the unwavering refusal of its editorial staff to bend with fashion, agree to go on TV, pop up as a talking head in a year-end countdown clip-show, cash in with a series of annoying and hastily scrawled books, or basically extend far beyond their own pages.”

And this:

“It is, though, still perhaps easier to praise WSC by saying what it isn’t. This is the only place where you will find no sponsor-driven interviews with a captive star; no celebrity-driven features, of the Top-10-favourite-player-mucus-expectorating-incidents; no forced gaiety or feigned interest in the passing clouds of the day; and best of all, no barriers.”

For an American who came to soccer in the years following the World Cup in the U.S. in 1994, the tone and approach of WSC was as surprising to me as it was refreshing. Before the slick likes of FourFourTwo came along, WSC possessed — and still possesses — more than a voice, or a point of view: It possesses an honesty that’s rooted in a keen understanding of what a game means to people on more than a consumer level. (Which is why I found it ironic that I could occasionally buy a copy at my suburban Barnes and Noble. After the international mailing costs for a subscription became prohibitive, I was glad to see it on a nearby newsstand.)

WSC was the perfect creative place for Wangerin to flesh out his history of American soccer. His book is straightforward and clear-eyed, never cynical but also not overly celebratory. After all, this is a sport that had few notable “victories” — on and off the field — until the World Cup came here (bearing the chapter title “Revenge of the Commie Pansies.”). But even in the wake of that event, and the forthcoming launch of Major League Soccer, Wangerin exemplified the caution of an historian well-versed in his subject. WSC Book

The post-World Cup enthusiasm that created some of the first American fanzines and blogs at the dawn of the Internet age was tempered by this sobering reality:

“MLS sensed the opportunity to appeal to the fan as a consumer. In fact, ‘MLS Unveiled,’ as the event was christened, struck many as an outright capitulation to the creative excess of designers, with no one on the soccer side brave enough to channel their creative juices.”

If WSC has remained resolute in its approach, so did Wangerin. While he ended the book concluding that “there has never been a better time for soccer in a football world,” he also remained concerned about how its past was being preserved. In what turned out to be final article of his life, Wangerin sent a rough draft to the then-new Howler Magazine last spring, fretful what the warehousing of artifacts from the closed U.S. Soccer Hall of Fame reflected about the stewardship of the game’s history.

Published posthumously, “Homeless at 100″ captured the essence of a writer who was unrelenting in his insistence that the story of American soccer be unfurled in full, and not, as many like to trace, with the triumph of playing host to the World Cup:

“One suspects that this, 1994, is the year the federation would doubtless prefer as its starting point: the birth of American soccer as a multi-million dollar enterprise, something to sink marketing teeth into. To say that, from that moment, it has never looked back may reek of cliche . . . Still, as Cicero wrote, not to know what has been transacted in former times is to be always a child—and for all the progress professional soccer has made in America, it is still in the first flush of youth.”

By Wendy Parker | Posted in soccer | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

A proper tribute for the historian of women’s golf

May 13, 2013 – 1:05 pm

In The New York Times on Sunday, Lisa Mickey penned a fine tribute to the golfing writer and journalist Rhonda Glenn, who has retired from the United States Golf Association after nearly 50 years of mostly uninterrupted service.

While she’s done a bit of television — incuding a brief stint as the first female sportscaster at ESPN in 1981 — Glenn is best known to hardcore golf fans as the author of “The Illustrated History of Women’s Golf,” published in 1991.

IllHistoryWGolfGlenn displays a subtle sense of humor and playfulness when writing about Mary Queen of Scots as “the game’s first famous female player.” Mary met her dreadful demise in 1587 — at the behest of another female monarch — and Glenn notes that “women’s golf went into something of a decline after that.”

While the LPGA, which was formed in 1950, was popularized by Babe Didrickson Zaharias, Glenn details the careers of women golfers unknown to many. She chronicles the beginnings of the Curtis Cup, the rivalry between amateur greats Joyce Wethered and Glenna Collett Vare and the flamboyant British amateur-turned-journalist Enid Wilson, among many others.

Glenn also mulls what might have been for British women’s golf with the death of amateur standout Pam Barton, who died in a 1943 air crash.

The beginnings of the LPGA and its leading personalities — Zaharias, Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Betsy Rawls and the Bauer sisters — get worthy treatment from Glenn, a collegiate and amateur golfer who also gives the latter its proper due.

But to me the highlight of the book is Glenn’s chapter on Mickey Wright, the winner of 82 LPGA titles and whom both Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson said possessed perhaps the best swing ever by any golfer, regardless of gender.

Wright dominated the LPGA in the early 1960s the way Nancy Lopez followed in the late 1970s and Annika Sorenstam in the middle of the last decade. The only woman ever to hold all four major titles at once, Wright crafted her elegance and power with a club into the highly visible star power the tour needed in the years after Zaharias’ death from cancer.

Glenn includes sequential photos of Wright’s swing in action, and breaks it down not mechanically, but with a keen understanding of what made the golfer tick: “She viewed golf as a form of self-expression rather than as a contest between people.”

But Wright pulled away from full-time play due to injuries and the stress of being the icon of her sport. Glenn, who interviewed the reclusive Wright while she wrote the book, adds that the pressures building up also came from Wright’s own impossibly high standards: ”Her gift was her burden.”

Glenn later pushed for the USGA to add a Mickey Wright room in its Golf House museum; it opened last year. As Wright tells Mickey:

“That room in the museum is not just a tribute to me; it’s a tribute to all the women before me. If it weren’t for her, there would be no recorded history of women’s golf.”

In linking out to Mickey’s piece, ESPN.com’s Don Van Natta Jr. Tweeted today: “I could not have written ‘Wonder Girl,’ my bio of Babe Didrikson, without the help of the incomparable Rhonda Glenn.”

Said former LPGA golfer Barbara Romack, a longtime friend of Glenn, to Mickey:

“She loves the job telling the story.”

By Wendy Parker | Posted in golf, sports history | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Saving a museum for a forgotten team

May 4, 2013 – 7:46 pm

Some good news for sports museums, which were challenged for visitors and revenues even before the recession: The Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society has been saved from likely closure.

The small museum devoted to a largely unsuccessful team that left that town nearly 60 years ago moved into trophy company space as part of the reconstituted Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame at the end of April.

After operating since 1998 in suburban Hatboro, the A’s museum fell upon hard financial times (and some claim mismanagement), and earlier this year appeared to be on the brink of shutting down.

Much of the musuem’s memorabilia — at least what wasn’t auctioned to prepare for the move – is devoted to the glory years of the A’s in Philadelphia, from 1929 to 1931, when they won two World Series and rivaled the best team the game had to offer, Babe Ruth’s “Murderer’s Row” New York Yankees.

simply the best(The essential magazine read is William Nack’s Sports Illustrated cover story in 1996; the most recent book treatment is Brett Topel’s 2011 self-published title, “Simply the Best.”)

Connie Mack’s best teams featured eventual Hall of Famers Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Al Simmons and Mickey Cochrane, all of whom he economically acquired to build a powerhouse club. But days after the A’s won the World Series over the Cubs, the stock market crashed, and the Depression took a toll at baseball ticket booths. Notororiously parsimonious by nature, Mack had sold the cornerstone pieces of his club over the next three years.

The Philadelphia A’s not only never reached another World Series, they were among the consistently worst teams in baseball before moving to Kansas City in 1954. Mack died a year later.

But the memories — and the stories — resonate deeply with those who recall them, or who wish to preserve them for future generations. Lou Brissie, one of Mack’s late-era journeyman pitchers (and the subject of a 2009 book by Ira Berkow, “The Corporal Was a Pitcher”), told a suburban Philadelphia newspaper last month that Mack wrote to him and other baseball-playing veterans on World II duty, offering to give him a chance in the game after he suffered serious wounds in Italy.

Brissie, who’s now 88, got his chance while wearing a leg brace, pitching for the A’s from 1947 to 1950, and he still maintains ties to the historical society.

Now the last official connection to the Philadelphia A’s has moved back into town, closer to the now-demolished Shibe Park (later Connie Mack Stadium) where the team played. I’ve always felt being close to hallowed ground makes the work of preservation easier, and I’m hoping this is the case with the relocated A’s shrine.

It’s been 20 years since University of Pennsylvania historian Bruce Kuklick published “To Every Thing a Season,” his history of Shibe Park and its impact on a community of north Philadelphia that’s as much an afterthought to locals as the A’s. to every thing a season

In a 2011 interview with Philly Sports History, as the Phillies were three years removed from a World Series title, Kuklick couldn’t help but place that achievement in a larger historical perspective:

Finally somebody says, “Sure the Phillies are great. Sure Chase Utley is great. But is he the greatest 2nd baseman that’s ever played here? Absolutely not. He doesn’t even come close.” People don’t realize that the 1929, 1930, and 1931 A’s are better than even this team today, which I think is the best team this franchise has had.

Here are parts two and three of the Kuklick interview. A snippet:

That ballpark is right in the middle of the city. And you are in the middle of an urban area. And you walk into this park, and it’s dark and there’s concrete around, and then you come up to one of the entrances to the field, and you see this green diamond. There’s just something there that’s just incredible.

And another one:

My wife and I went on vacation one time to Club Med, and we were talking to some people, and we said, “Where are you from?” and this guy said “Wrigleyville.” He didn’t say Chicago. And we knew exactly where he was talking about. That ballpark is known all over the Western World. And every once in a while, I think, “Gee if they had only had the foresight.” But basically that area went through a really terrible period. It’s now come up considerably on its own. It’s a lot less nasty and dangerous than it was.

By Wendy Parker | Posted in baseball, sports history | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

No shortage of topics for baseball history books

May 3, 2013 – 1:45 pm

Robert Birnbaum surveys newly-released baseball books at The Daily Beast – many of them in an historical vein, of course — and as usual I came across something unanticipated and refreshingly welcome.

In addition to Stuart Banner’s history of the antitrust exemption, Dennis D’Agostino’s salute to legendary baseball writers and Robert Weintraub’s examination of the immediate post-World War II game comes this gem from Edward Achorn: “The Summer of Beer and Whiskey.”

Summer of Beer and WhiskeyIf that doesn’t grab your attention, the subtitle ought to stoke your thirst (pun intended): “How Brewers, Barkeeps, Rowdies, Immigrants and a Wild Pennant Fight Made Baseball America’s Game.”

It’s the story of how Chris Von der Ahe, a German-born saloon owner, founded the St. Louis Browns in 1883 — and later the American Association, which became the American League — as a way to sell more beer. Achorn, the editorial page editor of The Providence Journal, writes that Von der Ahe knew practically nothing about baseball. But his suds-selling scheme opened the game up to everyday working people, and in particular immigrants like himself.

Unlike the National League, which didn’t play on Sunday and didn’t sell alcoholic beverages at the ballpark, Von der Ahe did both, selling tickets for 25 cents for any and all comers to enjoy booze and ball on the Lord’s Day. From an excerpt on the NPR website:

With cheap tickets, Sunday ball, and beer, he grabbed control of the dying game in St. Louis and, in a turnaround at least as improbable and dramatic as the one engineered by the 2011 Cardinals, infused it with new life and popularity—while perhaps saving all of professional baseball in the bargain. Von der Ahe also played a role in founding a flamboyant new major league, whose influence echoes loudly through Major League Baseball to this day.

(Achorn, author of several baseball history titles, including Twitter star Old Hoss Radbourn, is interviewed by NPR’s Jacki Lyden here.)

The title of the book comes from how National League snobs regarded the maverick league, calling it the “beer and whiskey circuit.” But Von der Ahe’s entrepreneurial ruse changed the game during a time when the fate of what’s become the national pastime wasn’t always certain.

In addition to Birnbaum’s survey is a notable “project” by Los Angeles Daily News columnist Tom Hoffarth, who recently embarked on a review of 30 baseball books in 30 days — it’s become an annual thing. Sports media writer Ed Sherman did this Q & A with Hoffarth last month: 501 Baseball Books

I’m also huge on history-related books, but only if they’re written well, not like a college dissertation but with a writer’s flare to insert color and not just research. This year, another book by Robert Weintraub nails it with “The Victory Season.” The opposite is true with a bio on “Smoky Joe Wood.”

Hoffarth also references baseball book maven Ron Kaplan, proprietor of Ron Kaplan’s Baseball Bookshelf and author of  the recently released “501 Books Baseball Fans Must Read Before They Die.”

The book is organized into 15 chapters, detailing books according to categories, such as biography and memoir, the minor leagues and for young readers.

The meter’s running, folks. I say it’s time to get cracking with some of those.

By Wendy Parker | Posted in baseball, sports books, sports history | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

More Belthian quality comes to the Interwebs

April 19, 2013 – 11:56 am

Alex Belth — one of this blog’s favorites — is expanding his curatorial powers with a new feature on Deadspin called The Stacks.

He describes it as a “blog devoted to classic magazine and newspaper writing,” most of it sports, but not all. The initial posts are reprints of pieces by Gay Talese, John Schulian and Leigh Montville, with related links, as well as blogs, artwork and other material that has caught his finely-tuned eye for the good stuff thanks to his magnificent Bronx Banter blog. What a treat already. Picture 1

In his introduction, Belth explains that his growing fascination with mid-20th century popular culture has inspired him to start this project:

The point is simple: find classic pieces of writing that can’t be found on-line and give them a home. Introduce them to a new audience or present them to readers who haven’t read them in years. That’s what I’ll offer in this space, a simulcast of what’s being reprinted in this Banter series.

This off-shoot site is intended to be a living archive, so there will be material that is reprinted for the first time on-line but also, I’ll provide plenty of posts with links to worthy material that’s already on-line but that you may have missed. It won’t all be sports, it won’t all be links to articles. Sometimes it will be interviews or author profiles.

If I were a pious soul, I’d say Belth is doing the Lord’s work here. It’s not a nostalgia trip to preserve “offline” classics and introduce them to new readers, but the realization of the best of both old and new media in one place.

By Wendy Parker | Posted in sports journalism | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

History-making Huskies find the right gear

April 10, 2013 – 2:39 am

NEW ORLEANS — On a night when the NCAA honored some of the legendary names of the early years of women’s college basketball, the Connecticut Huskies continued to remake the contemporary history books.

Their 93-60 win over Louisville on Tuesday ties them with Tennessee for an NCAA record eight national championships. And UConn rolled in record-setting fashion in the most lopsided title game, eclipsing the 23-point margin of victory by Tennessee when it won its first championship in 1987.

UConn's eighth national championship ties Tennessee for the NCAA record. (Photo by Wendy Parker)

UConn's 8th national championship ties Tennessee for the NCAA record. (Photo by Wendy Parker)

That was the last time a freshman, Tennessee’s Tonya Edwards, was voted the best player at the Women’s Final Four. On Tuesday, UConn rookie Breanna Stewart ended that drought with a 23-point, 9-rebound outing to complete a brilliant tournament performance.

For UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who also ties retired Tennessee legend Pat Summitt with those eight titles, the victory “validates a lot of what we wanted to do, what we aspired to be.”

But he found other comparisons — referring to an ESPN graphic showing him on a list of college coaching greats, including John Wooden, Mike Krzyzewski and Adolph Rupp — not quite right.

“I never beat Coach K in a game and I never coached against John Wooden,” said Auriemma, who like Wooden is undefeated in national championship games. “The only person I compare myself to is Pat Summitt. To be there in that spot with her means a lot to me.”

Before he could join her at the top of that list, Auriemma had to figure out how to rectify what at least by UConn’s own standards could be called a funk.

Two confounding last-minute losses to Notre Dame in early March didn’t inspire much confidence.

Neither did Stewart, whose play at times had Auriemma mussing his hair more than usual.

But he said he felt “something click” in UConn’s NCAA second-round game against Vanderbilt, and in successive games against Maryland and Kentucky. By the time their reached the Final Four, Stewart and the Huskies were clicking from every spot on the floor.

“I think a lot of people on the outside doubted it,” senior forward Kelly Faris said of UConn’s reversal of fortunes.

She said that after the Notre Dame loss in the Big East Finals — their third of the season to the Irish — Auriemma told them in the locker room that “I’m going to show you how to win a national championship.”

Added Faris: “I don’t know how the heck he does what he does but he’s pretty darn good at his job. I’m glad he’s on my side.”

Among the things Auriemma did was to tweak  his lineup, bringing speedy guard Bria Hartley off the bench, in part to provide a spark. Stewart, a lanky 6-foot-4 forward Auriemma predicted would be one of the greatest UConn players ever upon her arrival, placed enormous pressure on herself to succeed quickly in a program where national championships are expected.

Extra shooting time in the gym with associate head coach Chris Dailey gave Stewart some solace, and the confidence to crack through mental barriers.

“She has a little kid’s attitude towards everything that happens,” Auriemma said. “She sees the fun and the joy in everything, and there were times that all went away, and I was really, really worried about her.”

Against Notre Dame in Sunday’s semifinals, Stewart scored 29 points, and was just as sterling in the championship game. As impressive as her scoring was her full Final Four storyline — 14 rebounds, four assists, four steals and seven blocked shots.

In addition to her languid shooting form, Stewart demonstrated her pure athletic ability after a missed UConn shot against Louisville, bolting high for the rebound and grasping the loose ball with her long left arm before heaving it back up and into the basket in one motion.

“I don’t think people understood how much we needed her,” Faris said. “If we don’t have her, we’re not here.”

Stewart demurred when asked about her Most Outstanding Player honor: “I appreciate it. But we just won the national championship and that’s the best thing.”

In Louisville (29-9) UConn was facing what Auriemma called “the only team that’s been better than us the last month.” The Cardinals shocked defending national champion Baylor in the Sweet 16, upended Tennessee and prevailed over Cal in the national semifinals in large part due to superb 3-point shooting.

Geno Auriemma said the only team better than UConn in March has been Jeff Walz' Louisville Cardinals.

Geno Auriemma said the only team that's played better than UConn in the NCAA touranment has been Jeff Walz' Louisville Cardinals. (Photo by Wendy Parker)

Before Tuesday’s game, Louisville men’s coach Rick Pitino, who traveled from Atlanta after his team won the NCAA title Monday night, gave the women’s players some pre-game inspiration.

They started out fine, leading UConn 14-10 when the Huskies went on a blistering 19-0 run in the first half. It wasn’t just Stewart, who had 18 of her 23 points before halftime. Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis tied an NCAA title game record with six 3-pointers as UConn’s 93 points, including 13-for-26 shooting from 3-point range, represent the second-most by an NCAA champion.

“They just hit big shot after big shot,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. “What makes them so unique i their ability to score from all five positions on the floor. You got to kind of pick your poison.”

And UConn limited Louisville to 5-for-23 from the 3-point line, holding hotshot guard Shoni Schimmel to just nine points.

UConn’s historic performance came as former stars in the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women were honored at halftime, along with administrators during the period of organized women’s college athletics from 1972-1982.

Among the standouts on hand were Theresa Grentz, of the first three  AIAW championship teams from Immaculata College, as well as Naismith Hall of Famers Lusia Harris (Delta State), Carol Blazejowski (Montclair State), Ann Meyers (UCLA), Lynette Woodard (Kansas).

They witnessed an 18-year-old player who’s been pegged to be the next great star at UConn — joining the company of Rebecca Lobo, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird and Maya Moore in the pantheon of contemporary college greats.

With them, Auriemma has won all of his titles in the past 18 seasons. It was in 1991 in New Orleans that the upstart Huskies joined storied Tennessee, Stanford and Virginia in the Final Four.

“When we left and we didn’t win, I thought: ‘What if we never go back? What if it’s that one and done?’

“And when we won our first national championship in 1995, I thought: ‘Lots of people won one. What if we don’t win another one ever again?’ So I’m always looking into the future and thinking: ‘Is this it? Is this the last one?’”

With Stewart around for three more seasons and just two regulars departing — although one of them is the invaluable Faris –UConn’s run appears to be far from over.

“I don’t see how that’s going to change,” Walz said on Monday about UConn’s dominance, “unless he decides to retire, which I think he should.”

Instead, further comparisons to Wooden and his 10 NCAA titles will continue, probably to Auriemma’s chagrin.

“To see where we’ve come from and what’s happened at Connecticut in the last 18 years, I would say that never in our wildest dreams did we think this was possible.”

By Wendy Parker | Posted in women's sports | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

The understated appeal of the undercard

April 6, 2013 – 8:41 pm

NEW ORLEANS — They’ve been underdogs so long that they relish continuing in the role even at the Final Four, and especially after dispatching one of the biggest names in the sport.

The Louisville Cardinals — Undercards? — do have a -2 figure beside their name on at least one Las Vegas sports betting line going into Sunday’s national semifinal game against California.

For the Golden Bears, reaching the Final Four for the first time isn’t as much as a surprise as an affirmation that women’s basketball in the Bay Area doesn’t have to be synonymous with Stanford.

Cal faces Louisville in what’s considered the undercard, both in scheduling and marquée appeal. But being regarded merely as the opening act for UConn-Notre Dame IV disregards what the two programs, and the two coaches in particular, represent for the long-term future of the sport.

UConn’s Geno Auriemma and Muffet McGraw of Notre Dame have 19 Final Four trips and eight NCAA titles combined in a rivalry that will be contested for the fourth time this season — with all previous games Notre Dame wins — and the last time in the soon-to-be-dismantled Big East.

Gottlieb 4.6.13

Lindsay Gottlieb has taken Cal to its first Final Four at the age of 35.

But Cal’s Lindsay Gottlieb and Louisville’s Jeff Walz personify a younger, rapidly ascending generation of coaching stars in a sport that has been dominated by a small handful of icons for years.

In her second season in Berkeley, Gottlieb has pulled together a southern California-centric core of players who have endured plenty of heartbreak away from the court, and who aren’t shy about personal expression.

“I’m very secure in the fact that they play for the California across their chest,” said Gottlieb, from a family of lawyers in Scarsdale, Calif. “I’m okay that one of them has a mohawk (starting guard Layshia Clarendon) and another one has pink braids (starting forward Gennifer Brandon). It’s a really unique group that is just comfortable in their own skin and playing for Cal.”

While Walz has been to the Final Four before — the Cardinals fell to UConn in the 2009 NCAA title game — Louisville’s stunning 82-81 upset of defending NCAA champion Baylor and player of the year Brittney Griner in the Sweet 16 still prompted many of the questions during Saturday’s official press conference.

Walz, 41, could have gone all Belichick and rattled off a load of coach-speak and refused to talk about any opponent but the next one. But in savoring the long afterglow of what may be the biggest upset in the history of the NCAA tournament, Walz revealed a glimpse of a coaching style that’s as open and free and easy as it is intense and demanding.

Starting with the open-collar shirts on the sideline, a dramatic difference from Rick Pitino’s pricey Italian threads, because “I can’t stand to wear a suit and a tie.”

“It’s comfortable, I enjoy it,” Walz said of his sartorial preference. “And I’m going to continue to wear it. I’m trying to start a trend, it just hasn’t picked up.”

But it’s his work with high-maintenance, big-personality players that’s notable. While Walz inherited Angel McCoughtry, the mercurial All-American and centerpiece of the 2009 team, he recruited openly cocky junior guard Shoni Schimmel, who hails from the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon.

Shoni Schimmel has fueled Louisville's improbable run to the Final Four.

Shoni Schimmel has fueled Louisville's improbable run to the Final Four.

In the heat of an already-heated game against Baylor, Schimmel drove on the break against Griner, whipped out a behind-the-back dribble, then flipped in an over-the-shoulder layup that scaled Griner’s reach and bounced off the glass and in. When Griner pulled herself up off the floor Schimmel met her, eye-to-eye, emitting something like a primal scream.

“I just had to do the little circus shot because I just mess around in practice sometimes doing it and it worked out for me,” she said.

Which is just fine with Walz, whose younger sister is Jamie Walz, a hotshot guard in her playing days who became a Kentucky high school basketball scoring legend. He said Schimmel’s maturity this season has led to better decision-making.

“She came in with flair, that’s what she does,” he said. “I understand how she plays. I recruited her. I let her play. I let kids play. I work them hard in practice but when it comes to the game, they’re going to take some shots that aren’t great shots. And that’s okay.”

It was 22 years ago at nearby Lakefront Arena that Auriemma and UConn experienced a Final Four for the first time. On Friday, he and McGraw gave Gottlieb what she called “the most genuine hugs” in joining some select company. When asked if he still enjoys it, Auriemma was wistful and sarcastic at the same time.

“Leading up to this is getting harder and harder and harder for me every year,” Auriemma said. “And Lindsay doesn’t know it yet, but 10 years from now she’s going to look back on this this year and go, ‘Man, that’s when it all turned for me. I used to love this game.”

By Wendy Parker | Posted in women's sports | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

More gradual steps or a big leap for the WNBA?

March 29, 2013 – 1:20 pm

Can the outgoing trifecta of women’s college basketball’s most visible stars attract a bigger spotlight for the WNBA?

That’s what both the league and ESPN are banking on as they held a tightly-staged press conference Thursday to announce an extension of their long-standing television partnership.

The six-year deal, which Sports Business Journal reported ahead of time is worth an estimated $12 million a season, was unveiled along with the WNBA’s new branding campaign and logo.

Picture 1At times during Thursday’s media event, it was hard to tell whether it was about ESPN’s self-proclaimed commitment to women’s sports more than the WNBA. But it is quite clear that Brittney Griner of Baylor, Skylar Diggins of Notre Dame and Elena Delle Donne of Delaware, who figure to be top three players taken in the April 15 draft, have generated the kind of national press that the WNBA has dreamed about.

For as loaded as the pro league has been since its inception with former college All-Americans and Olympians, their visibility drops during a time of year when most fans (this one included) don’t have much basketball in mind.

The question at the top is one that has been posed many times before. Here’s another one: Remember Diana Taurasi? UConn’s iconic guard and three-time national champion has had a stellar WNBA career leading Phoenix to two titles, as well as three Olympic gold medals and European crowns in Russia.

But as she completes her first decade after college, Taurasi’s feats have largely flown under the larger national sports radar. When Griner joins Taurasi in Phoenix — the Mercury won the draft lottery — will that truly generate a closer look at a WNBA that has been around for 16 years? Griner’s potential dominance in the pros could be as unprecedented as her spectacular impact on the college game.

Diggins has become something of a national sports celebrity thanks to her social media acumen, counting the rapper Lil Wayne (reports of his death have been greatly exaggerated) among her many admirers. Whether she goes to Chicago with the No. 2 pick or Tulsa at No. 3, she’s easily the personality player of this trio. But will that interest wane as she takes her game to the dead of summer, and then overseas, where the real money is earned by female pros?

Delle Donne, the one-time UConn signee, is as pure a shooter and scorer as the women’s game has had in years, and there’s no doubt she can gun it in the pros. She’ll have to learn to play some stellar defense in the W and get used to its rather rugged physicality.

The hope is that they’ll do for the WNBA what Magic Johnson and Larry Bird’s arrival did for the NBA — broaden its appeal far beyond the purists.

The WNBA is coming off its lowest average attendance for a season since it began in 1997, and Griner is a once-in-a-lifetime-player whose presence has been compared to that of Wilt Chamberlain.

While reading through some Tweets of WNBA players during the press conference, it’s easy to understand why seasoned pros, most of whom are now playing in Europe, Asia and Australia for their real living, might chafe at the hype.

Most revealing were the comments of Erlana Larkins, a former college standout at North Carolina who plays for the WNBA champion Indiana Fever and is currently winding down her Turkish domestic league season. In response to another Tweet she said:

league has superstars that have proven themselves how can u be a superstar & have yet 2 play in a pro game yet

And this:

Griner is huge & everything but unless she gets get weight up she won’t be as prosperous as everyone thinks

While I groused (only once!) on Twitter about ESPN’s relentless promotions of “3 to See” during the NCAA Tournament, from a business and promotional point of view it makes sense.

At the same time, the Phoenix marketing staff isgiving away tickets to men in an attempt to appeal to a segment of the sports-watching public that supposedly doesn’t think much of female athletes.

Not only that, but the Mercury has set up Twitter hashtags #ManUp and #CureTheCooties as part of this campaign.

Yes: “Cure the Cooties.”

Welcome to the fourth grade, fellas.

A franchise with Brittney Griner coming on board is resorting to a gimmick like this?

While they indulge in the hard sell of “enlightening” men about the women’s game, the Mercury and the WNBA still aren’t addressing why more women don’t watch and become fans. They are dealing in a bottom-line reality that NBA commissioner David Stern has laid out for the women’s league to achieve beyond his departure: To become more financially self-sustaining.

Star power is what got the NBA where it is, so expect a further deluge of ESPN’s “3 to See” branding at the next level. Name recognition beyond what appeals to hard-core fans explains the prominence of Bill Laimbeer during Thursday’s presser. He’s back in the league after guiding the former Detroit Shock to multiple WNBA crowns, and now is GM and head coach of a New York Liberty franchise that has been floundering for too many years.

As Shelley DuBois noted at Fortune.com, three of the WNBA’s 12 teams have turned a modest profit, as well as the league overall. The money per team as part of the new ESPN contract is $1 million a season and that’s nothing to dismiss: “In a way, the cold business of it is heartening: This deal wouldn’t have taken place if it wouldn’t work financially.”

Bingo. The business of women’s sports, especially professional team sports, will always be a sliver of what their male counterparts enjoy, but this is a notable development. Increased ticket sales — not patronizing giveaways — and corporate sponsorships remain just as important as branding campaigns and buzzwords.

As for the new logo, I’ll admit it doesn’t do much for me. Instead of a female dribbling, she is now shooting a layup, which is supposed to signify another phase in the development of women’s pro basketball.

But the less gimmicky the WNBA becomes, the better. If we’re going to have cheesy promos, I’m totally old-school, a hopeless nostalgiac for the funky funky 70s that ESPN reprised in the early years of the league. What’s easy to forget now is how effective these ads were, and how much of a sense of fun they evoked. There’s nothing wrong with keeping that going.

By Wendy Parker | Posted in women's sports | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (1)

The genuflection of the baseball poets

March 5, 2013 – 2:15 pm

I love baseball.

I love poetry.

But I hate baseball poetry. Or, more precisely, I absolutely despise the pretentiousness of baseball poets, no time more than the present, with another season soon upon us and the exhortations of spring and splendor are being uttered.

There is nothing subtle about how I feel, and it hurts me to confess that my favorite poet and the forever bard of America, Walt Whitman, is to blame for all this.

The Poetry Foundation, which sponsors The Writers Almanac that Garrison Keillor narrates daily on NPR, features on its website an essay entitled “Baseball and Verse, from Tinker to Evers to Big Papi: Grand slam poetry: our twin national pastimes,” which makes me want to hurl.

And not from the pitcher’s mound.

Picture 1Levi Stahl enthusiastically reminds us that it was Whitman who “fell for baseball in its first heyday, saying that it had ‘the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere.’ ”

And it descends from there in treacly fashion, with doses of Longfellow, Frost, Japanese haiku and even Marianne Moore tossing out a first pitch.

Take me out to that ballgame. Not.

Stahl includes the dreadful Donald Hall poem, “The Baseball Players,” and concludes that “baseball’s very rhythms are those of poetry, acknowledging that if everything can change in a moment, then attention to those moments is an essential duty.”

Gag me.

Stahl is channeling the same Donald Hall, once an American poet laureate, who says on Ken Burns’ overwrought film on the same subject that “baseball, because of its continuity over the space of America and the time of America, is a place where memory gathers.”

Enough. Please. Enough. Mudville is weeping torrential rains. Casey is going go all Carlos Zambrano and take his bat and smash all this.

I wrote yesterday of baseball and memory through prose, and specifically the prose of literary stylists and baseball historians Roger Kahn and Roger Angell.

As I think about why my revulsion for baseball poetry is so deep, I have no rational protest to offer except this: I don’t think the poetic form is suited to reflect the full humanity of baseball.

It seems that our best versers are capable only of sentimental, pastoral ramblings. Oh sure, they write about the failure inherent in the sport — the batting averages, the losses, the errors — but rarely do they plumb deep into the game’s heart of darkness. This is as close as Gail Mazur comes in “Baseball,” a not-so-surprising conclusion to a not-so-surprisingly named poem:

the question of what makes a man
slump when his form, his eye,
his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t
like the bad luck that hounds us,
and his frustration in the games
not like our deep rage
for disappointing ourselves

Gee, thanks Gail. This has always kept me up at night, but now you’ve eased my concerns.

I apologize to those who get into baseball poetry for my crankiness here. Baseball brings out the worst in some of our best poets, who spit out the most overwrought metaphors and the falsest of pieties.

They are more hacktastic than even the hackiest deadline hacks who ever wrote for a newspaper.

It’s what you get if Frank Merriwell could have gotten the hang of rhyming couplets. Abstract, one-dimensional characterizations of a game whose more essential meanings are left for artists in other forms to flesh out.

If you disagree with me, then perhaps you will be comforted by this collection of baseball poems, also lovingly compiled by The Poetry Foundation.

I’ve read more than I care to, but in my next post comes the antidote, thankfully in prose. Stay tuned.

By Wendy Parker | Posted in baseball | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)