ESPN
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There are those who doubt the truth of Rockne’s account, that Gipp turned to his coach on his deathbed and said, “I’ve got to go, Rock. It’s all right. Sometime, when the team is up against it …”
But it made for a great story, not to mention a stirring halftime speech. And it helped keep the legend of George Gipp alive.
HORSES CALLED MEN
THOROUGHBREDS NAMED AFTER FAMOUS PEOPLE
Thoroughbred owners must submit proposed names for their horses to the Jockey Club, the governing body of the sport of kings since 1894. According to registrar Rick Bailey, there are some 450,000 names in his database, all of which adhere to these essential rules:
The name must pass a phonetic check, meaning that it can’t even sound like another registered name. (C Biskit sounds like Seabiscuit.)
The name can’t be longer than 18 characters.
No obscene names are allowed. (True story: Years ago, a Florida sportswriter was given two weeks’ notice and made to work on the agate pages. He spent much of his remaining time renaming horses to make them offensive. When finally caught, he said, “What are you going to do, fire me?”)
No personal names, unless permission is received. And it sometimes is. Below is a list of thoroughbreds with famous names:
Horse Inspiration
Chris Evert tennis player
Oscar Schindler Oskar Schindler, the German entrepreneur and humanitarian
Howie Long NFL Hall of Fame DE
Jaklin Klugman his co-owner, the actor Jack Klugman
Herschelwalker Herschel Walker, NFL RB
Willard Scott weatherman
Brian Boitano ice-skater
Ann Landers advice columnist
Joe Namath NFL QB
Mickey Rooney actor
Fred Astaire actor-dancer
Rickover Admiral Hyman G. Rickover
Leo Castelli art dealer
Barbara Bush First Lady
Nijinsky and Nijinsky II ballet great Vaslav Nijinsky
Jimmy Stewart actor
Frank Deford sportswriter
Shecky Greene comedian
Shecky Greene the man (left) and Shecky Greene the horse (right).
GETTING NOTICED
HOW TO SHINE AT A TRYOUT
Jeff Bradley is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and the father of two preteen boys who travel all over New Jersey to compete in baseball, soccer, cross-country, and golf. Jeff also happens to be the younger brother of Bob Bradley, coach of the U.S. men’s national soccer team, and Scott Bradley, a former major league catcher who has coached baseball at Princeton University since 1998. When it comes to athletic advice for his two boys, Jeff is not shy about asking his brothers for their input. Here are their responses to the question “What’s the best way for a player to get noticed at a tryout?”
Show your best attribute.
Scott: “Being average across the board is probably not going to get you noticed at a tryout with a lot of players, so it’s important that if you have one special tool—a good arm or foot speed, for example—make sure to put it on display. One great asset is more likely to get you recognized than five midlevel skills.”
Don’t let attitude be a question.
Bob: “Dress to play, including the right footwear for multiple surfaces, because you never know when weather or the availability of facilities can force a tryout to a different venue. The player who comes prepared for every set of conditions will make a good impression.”
Hustle, but don’t go crazy.
Scott: “Run on and off the field for sure, but don’t feel the need to dive for balls that are clearly out of reach, or to sprint everywhere, unless a coach orders it. Being a slug will get you bad marks for sure, but going over the top can also make a coach think your hustle is for show.”
Don’t forget that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Bob: “When a coach is trying to evaluate a large number of players, he’s not going to see everything, and he’s going to make some decisions that are wrong. So coming up short at a tryout does not mean you’re a bad player. At the next tryout, you could be the player getting recognized while another good player gets overlooked.”
SLIM AND NONE
YOUR CHANCES OF BECOMING A PRO
Now that we’ve told you what a coach might be looking for in a tryout, we have to tell you something else you may not want to hear: the chances of an athlete’s getting paid to play a sport, whether with a college scholarship or a salary. Here, thanks to Tom Farrey’s excellent book on youth sports, Game On, is a chart outlining the odds of a high school athlete’s playing his or her high school sport in college:
Sport Number of Division I Teams Odds of Making a Division I Team Total Number of Teams Odds of Making Any School’s Team
MEN
Rowing 24 1 in 2 59 1 in 1
Fencing 21 1 in 5 36 1 in 3
Gymnastics 17 1 in 8 19 1 in 7
Rifle 22 1 in 15 35 1 in 9
Ice hockey 58 1 in 22 133 1 in 9
Lacrosse 56 1 in 28 214 1 in 9
Swimming and dving 141 1 in 30 381 1 in 14
Water polo 21 1 in 33 46 1 in 18
Football 234 1 in 42 614 1 in 18
Skiing 14 1 in 47 35 1 in 21
Baseball 286 1 in 48 873 1 in 17
Cross-country 299 1 in 48 865 1 in 18
Golf 289 1 in 53 762 1 in 20
Track and field 261 1 in 56 656 1 in 24
Tennis 265 1 in 59 742 1 in 21
Soccer 197 1 in 67 737 1 in 19
Wrestling 86 1 in 100 224 1 in 42
Basketball 326 1 in 111 1,000 1 in 35
Volleyball 22 1 in 111 79 1 in 37
Ken Rosewall can claim to be both the youngest (18 years, 2 months in 1953) and oldest (37 years, 2 months in 1972) Australian Open men’s champion.
Sport Number of Division I Teams Odds of Making a Division I Team Total Number of Teams Odds of Making Any School’s Team
WOMEN
Rowing 85 2 in 1* 141 3 in 1
Equestrian 13 1 in 2 39 1 in 1
Fencing 27 1 in 4 45 1 in 2
Rifle 27 1 in 4 36 1 in 4
Ice hockey 29 1 in 11 74 1 in 4
Gymnastics 63 1 in 16 85 1 in 12
Lacrosse 80 1 in 26 264 1 in 9
Water polo 31 1 in 26 61 1 in 15
Swimming and diving 188 1 in 30 489 1 in 14
Golf 228 1 in 31 483 1 in 16
Cross-country 321 1 in 33 940 1 in 14
Field hockey 77 1 in 37 257 1 in 11
Skiing 16 1 in 39 39 1 in 19
Soccer 301 1 in 42 913 1 in 15
Track and field 295 1 in 42 704 1 in 22
Tennis 309 1 in 62 876 1 in 20
Softball 264 1 in 72 911 1 in 23
Bowling 28 1 in 83 45 1 in 50
Volleyball 311 1 in 91 982 1 in 29
Basketball 323 1 in 100 1,025 1 in 31
If those numbers are not sobering enough, consider that a person’s odds of winning an Olympic medal are 662,000 to 1, slightly longer than the odds of getting hit by lightning (576,000 to 1), and that the odds of becoming a pro athlete are 22,000 to 1, making it about twice as hard as winning an Academy Award (11,500 to 1).
But fame and fortune should never be the reasons for playing sports. The skills acquired from self-improvement, the camaraderie of being part of a team, the health benefits from exercise, the lessons that will last a lifetime—those are the reasons.
*As a sport, rowing is a statistical anomaly. Colleges tend to have large women’s teams, in part to offset large rosters of football players on the men’s side. As a result, there are more women on NCAA-sponsored crew teams than there are on high school squads.
THROWS LIKE A GIRL
THE WOMAN WHO STRUCK OUT RUTH AND GEHRIG
At the 2003 All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago, softball star Jennie Finch pitched against a gauntlet of major leaguers—Mike Piazza, Albert Pujols, Mike Cameron, Paul Lo Duca—and struck them all out with a so
ftball thrown from 43 feet away. As impressive as her feat was, it pales in comparison with one performed by a 17-year-old girl 72 years earlier.
The girl was Jackie Mitchell, and she grew up in Memphis, next door to a future Hall of Famer, Dazzy Vance. Vance noticed her talent and taught her to throw his favorite pitch, a curveball that dropped off the table. In 1931, while attending a baseball school in Atlanta, the 17-year-old came to the attention of Joe Engel, the owner of the Chattanooga Lookouts. He offered her a contract to play for the Lookouts, which she signed on March 28.
As it happens, the New York Yankees were traveling north from spring training in Florida, and on April 2 the Bronx Bombers stopped in Chattanooga to play an exhibition game. A crowd of 4,000 showed up. Lookouts starting pitcher Clyde Barfoot gave up a double to Earle Combs and a single to Lyn Lary, at which point manager Bert Niehoff brought in the left-handed Mitchell to face none other than Babe Ruth.
Dressed in a baggy uniform custom-made for her by Spalding, Mitchell missed high with her first pitch. But Ruth swung at and missed her second pitch. And her third pitch. He let the fourth go by, but it caught the corner of the plate for strike 3. According to accounts, Ruth “kicked the dirt, called the umpire a few dirty names, gave his bat a wild heave, and stomped out to the Yanks’ dugout.”
Quite possibly, Ruth was putting on a show. But the next batter, Lou Gehrig, swung at and missed three pitches. After a standing ovation that lasted several minutes, Mitchell walked Tony Lazzeri. At that point, Niehoff replaced her with Barfoot.
A few days after Mitchell had struck out two of the greatest players of all time, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided her contract and declared women unfit to play baseball. Mitchell continued to play for the barnstorming House of David team, but she retired from baseball altogether at the age of 23, preferring to work for her father, an eye doctor.
It was kind of ironic, her helping the shortsighted.
Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth watch female pitching phenom Jackie Mitchell demonstrate her fastball in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1931.
CREATURE FEATURE
THE ORIGINAL PHANATIC’S BEST AND WORST
When it comes to mascot knowledge, Dave Raymond is the veritable wrangler of all things fuzzy and neon green. The original Phillie Phanatic, Raymond is now the “Emperor of Fun and Games” (translation: CEO) of Raymond Entertainment Group, a company that designs mascots and advises teams on the marketability of turquoise fur. Here are his lists of five best and five worst mascots:
The Best
The San Diego Chicken. “He is the first mascot to truly entertain,” Raymond says of Ted Giannoulas, the original chicken. Introduced in 1974 by a radio station to distribute Easter eggs at the San Diego Zoo, the Chicken became a fixture at Padre games and landed on The Sporting News list of top 100 people in sports in the twentieth century. He was once sued by the producers of Barney the dinosaur for beating up a look-alike.
The Phillie Phanatic. “Totally unexpected,” says Raymond of the Phanatic’s success. “There’s a backstory to what made the Phanatic a phenomenon. The Phillies’ brass did not try to shove the Phanatic down the fans’ throats. They let the mascot grow naturally, by encouraging him to entertain the players as well as the fans. That broke down the barrier that exists between fans and athletes and showed that those who competed on the field were human.”
Go, the Phoenix Gorilla. Says Raymond, “He is the best physical performer of all professional mascots.” Whether jumping through rings of fire or kibitzing with fans, Go has become one of the Phoenix Suns’ biggest draws. And as Raymond says, “Honestly, who would ever imagine a gorilla in Phoenix?”
Clutch, the Houston Rockets Bear. Raymond presented Clutch with the NBA’s inaugural Mascot of the Year award in 2005. Clutch has height (at 6-foot-8) and hops, and he shares a pedigree with the Phanatic: Both Raymond and Bob Boudwin, the original Clutch, are graduates of the University of Delaware.
Rocky, the Denver Nuggets Mountain Lion. According to Raymond, “The NBA is the best league for mascots because they believe in the value of character development. It is the only league that gives awards to top performers and treats them as a valuable addition to game operations.”
The Worst
The San Francisco Giants’ Crazy Crab. Bad mascots are indictments of teams that do not see value in fan entertainment. Topping the list is the anti-mascot, the Crab, who debuted in 1984 to embody all the complaints about Candlestick Park. “The fans hated it so much they pelted it with veggies every time it came out,” says Raymond. Manager Frank Robinson attacked the Crab in a local commercial spot, but the Crab made a bobblehead comeback in 2008.
Izzy. The official mascot of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Izzy was derided as “blue sperm” by the media. Says Raymond, “It was originally called Whatizit after it was unveiled in 1992. Nobody knew what it was then or now, and neither did the Olympic Committee.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers’ Steely McBeam. Raymond points out that despite the mascot’s resemblance to Bill Cowher, Steelers fans “hate Steely.” As one fan wrote on a website, “We the members of Steeler Nation are now embarrassed. Steely McBeam does not represent the toughness of our city or of our team.”
The San Antonio Missions’ Henry the Puffy Taco. The mascot of Seattle’s Double-A affiliate offends Raymond’s sensibilities because “he wanted me to run over him with my four-wheeler. He was a little crazy.”
The Villanova University Wildcat. Raymond’s reason for disliking him is very simple: “My father is former University of Delaware football coach Tubby Raymond, and we both hated the Wildcat. Hey, I can’t be balanced all the time.”
1996 Olympics mascot Izzy.
UP A TREE
WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE THE STANFORD MASCOT
If you’re looking for a college mascot that embodies creativity, spirit, and the fine line between irreverence and anarchy, look no farther than Palo Alto, California. There, you will find the Stanford Tree, born in 1976 after a contest to determine who or what would replace the politically incorrect Prince Lightfoot. (Losing out were a manhole and a french fry.) The first sapling happened to be the band manager’s girlfriend. Tree Week arrived in 1987, a highly rigorous period that has involved leeches, staged fights, bribery, and BB guns.
Patrick “Patchez” Fortune was the man behind the leaves in 2008, and as you can see by his personal, almost comprehensible game-day diary, it’s not easy being green:
10:00 A.M. Rise and shine! I shake off the morning dew and stretch my branches. Something smells funky. Oh wait, it’s just my magical vest (the only remaining part of the original Tree costume). I limber up by performing my extensive stretch routine—the grueling dance workout this afternoon doesn’t take well to wooden trunks.
12 NOON. Down three raw eggs. Suppress a gag. I think I’ll try wheatgrass shots next week. I need to watch my weight.
12:05 P.M. Check out my sylvan appearance in the mirror. Chicks dig leaves. I align my floppy Cyclops eye in the center, fix my sparse leaves. (No, I’m not balding, just a work in progress.) I polish my pearly whites with some Pine-Sol.
12:15 P.M. Unlock my Treecycle from the bike rack. Ride to the tailgate via my eco-friendly mode of transportation. Make sure to avoid the Claw fountain, which nearly claimed the life of one of my predecessors.
12:30 P.M. Feed me! I wander around the tailgate scrounging for food. Sometimes photosynthesis just doesn’t cut it.
1:30 P.M. Find my bandmates, the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band (LSJUMB for short). I admire the Dollies (our esteemed white-gloved dancers) and give each one a little Tree bump.
1:45 P.M. Breathalyzer conducted by the Palo Alto Police Department. Too bad I can’t use a urine sample for this. I just have to Tree up. The last time we had a Tree felled by inebriation, things got ugly.
2:00 P.M. Game time! Before I hit the field for my opening gambol, I take a moment to meditate. I am the one.
2:00 P.M.–5:00 P.M. F
ollow Tree motto: Maintain. We beat San Jose State 28–10.
5:00 P.M. I make like a Tree and leaf. Actually, I’m escorted out by the Tree Protective Services, who have to strong-arm their way through belligerent fans and adoring Stanfordites.
5:30 P.M. Time to make an appearance at various postgame celebrations around the Farm.
2:30 A.M. Lights out. Sleep tight, and don’t let the termites bite.
GREENER GRASS
TIPS FROM GEORGE TOMA, A LEGEND IN HIS FIELD
If you’ve ever marveled at a beautiful manicured playing field, or even if you just want grass that’s always greener, meet George Toma, the oft-proclaimed God of Sod. Toma, author of Nitty Gritty Dirt Man, is now officially retired as the groundskeeper for both the Kansas City Chiefs and the Kansas City Royals. Having helped prepare the field for every Super Bowl ever played, he offers these guidelines for starting a field from scratch:
Select your space. Whatever area you choose for a field, whether it’s a lot or a backyard, be sure it’s a safe place for children.
Clear away any rocks, stumps, roots, broken glass, bottles, and debris. Look over the lot for depressions. Decide whether the lot is bare dirt or if it’s loaded with weeds. If there’s some grass down that you want to save, you can put down a fertilizer with a herbicide, called a weed and feed. If it’s all weeds, sometimes it’s best to just cover the whole thing with weed killer, such as Roundup. This is a job for adults, not kids.
Have an adult rent a lawn aerator from a hardware store like Home Depot. An Aerifier punches holes in the ground and loosens up the soil that is compacted. It’s better to do this with a machine rather than by hand because it would just take too much time and effort. If your lot is in bad shape, you might have to go over it multiple times.