Farewell ... ERNIE BANKS YOGI BERRA "This is FRANK GIFFORD deinitely MOSES MALONE the most DEAN SMITH incendiary KEN STABLER project that I’ve ever LOUISE SUGGS worked on." JERRY TARKANIAN THE MOVIE P. 54 CONCUSSION Will Smith shines a light on football's darkest corner and the future of America's game BY BEN REITER P. 2 9 WorldMags.net
A DIAMOND IS FOREVER
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM FOREVERMARK
® © FOREVERMARK 2015. WorldMags.netA DIAMOND IS FOREVER IS A TRADE MARK OF THE DE BEERS GROUP OF COMPANIES. THE COMEBACK 24 WorldMags.net Kevin Love Patience paid off as the Cavs’ forward returned 12.28.2015 | VOLUME 123 | NO. 25 from a shoulder injury By Chris Mannix
29 Brain Trust In the film Concussion, Will Smith shines a light on the dark side of the sport he loves By Ben Reiter 38 IN MEMORIAM Year in Review After battling cancer, 54 both Shelley Smith and Craig Sager returned to the air to become FAREWELL one of the year’s A look back at the sports inspiring media stories figures who died in 2015 By Mark Bechtel 50 + FRANK GIFFORD John Skipper 1930–2015 ESPN’s president is The legendary Giants running steering the network back blazed a trail from the into a hazy future gridiron to the broadcast booth By Jack Dickey PHOTOGRAPH BY Robert Riger/Getty Images
Departments ON THE COVER: Michael Grecco for Sports Illustrated 6 SI Digital Hair: Pierce Austin by Criterion; 9Inbox Makeup: Judy Murdock by Criterion; Styling: Dayna 14 Leading Off Pink for Walter Schupfer 72 Point After Lee Jenkins: *SPORTS ILLUSTRATED WILL NOT Will the Chargers PUBLISH NEXT WEEK. THE NEXT ISSUE bolt from San Diego? WILL BE DATED JAN. 11, 2016.
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net SI.COM SI FOR DEC. 28, 2015 ’Tis the Season DIGITAL BONUS To Go Bowling
When Your Dream Dies From the SI Vault Dec. 26, 1994
After a high school football referee blew a call that helped cost him a lemson vs. chance to work Oklahoma a championship Iowa vs. game, his life no Stanford longer seemed worth living Notre Dame vs. By Rick Reilly Ohio State Alabama vs. To read this and Houston vs. IM SABAU/GETTY JAMIE IMAGES; LEFT: DAVID TOP MADISON/GETTY FROM CLOCKWISE Michigan State Oklahoma State vs. Ole Miss Florida State other stories from the HALVERS GRANT IMAGES; SENTINEL/TNS/GETTY DOWELL/ORLANDO M. STEPHEN SPORTSILLUSTRATED archives, go to The New Year’s Six, highlighted by playoff games on Dec. 31 featuring No. 1 Clemson SI.com/vault vs. No. 4 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Michigan State Plus, hear Reilly in the Cotton Bowl, are the talk of the bowl season, but 35 other games will also be discuss his story at played over the next month. For a complete schedule, plus staff predictions for each SI.com/podcasts matchup, go to SI.com/college-football
What will the The Future of Hydration SB 100 NFL look like The team at the Gatorade Sports AGES; MIKE ZARRILLI/GETTY IMAGES; STACY REVERE/GETTY I STACY REVERE/GETTY IMAGES; ZARRILLI/GETTY MIKE AGES; come Super Bowl Science Institute is working GATORADE JETTER; BY FRANCES ILLUSTRATION IMAGES; ON/GETTY 100? SPORTS to democratize the individual ILLUSTRATED hydration needs of all athletes and Wired have through a level of personalization teamed up to forecast the many changes in store for the currently only available to professional teams. Go to NFL over the next five decades in the Super Bowl 100 SI.com/sportsfuel to learn series, presented by Gatorade and Microsoft Surface. Go more about democratizing to SI.com/sb100 or Wired.com/sb100 to see into the science of sweat. the future, including potential advances in medical science, gene-splicing and virtual-reality training. MAGES;
6 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Introducing the newly redesigned Volkswagen Passat with Blind Spot Monitor, one of seven available Driver Assistance features.* Passat. Where family happens. When equipped with optional Front Assist
vw.com Simulated image. *Driver Assistance features are not substitutes for attentive driving. See Owner’s Manual for further details and important limitations. For more information, visit www.iihs.org. ©2016 Volkswagen of America, Inc. WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
TOO MANY DISCOUNTS? NO SUCH THING.
AT PROGRESSIVE, WE’VE GOT TONS OF WAYS TO HELP YOU SAVE. Like our great discounts for being a safe driver, paying in full or just going paperless! And don’t forget the average savings of over $548 our customers get by switching to Progressive for their car insurance. Giving you the discounts you deserve. Now that’s Progressive.
1-800-PROGRESSIVE PROGRESSIVE.COM
Progressive Casualty Ins. Co. and affi liates. Insurance prices and products are different when purchased directly from Progressive or through independent agents/brokers. All discounts not available in all states. National average annual car insurance savings by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive in 2014. WorldMags.net WorldMags.netINBOX FOR DEC. 14, 2015 COVER
Of the three Heisman finalists Deshaun Watson graces the cover, and Derrick Henry is featured in an article. Meanwhile, Stanford’s For the sake of accuracy, Christian McCaffrey, Taylor’s phrase, “Josh who broke Barry Plesce does not have Sanders’s all-purpose CTE,” should read: “No one yardage season record, Thank you for Tom Taylor’s special report knows if Josh Plesce has gets only a sidebar? on brain injuries (Brain and Brawn). CTE or will develop CTE.” Karl Wustrack Anything that brings awareness to Daniel Schuetz, Normal, Ill. San Francisco this issue is extremely worthwhile.
PAGE But I fear in emphasizing the study 19 of CTE, you may have minimized the It is true that some SCORECARD danger of concussions. Studying CTE people may be more In writing about susceptible to free-agent pitchers is, of course, extremely important, as Veblen goods, but so is improving our understanding developing CTE than Tom Verducci hits on others. It’s also true another economic and treatment of concussions. that not every smoker concept: the Winner’s Neil Desmond, Towson, Md. gets lung cancer, but Curse, which explains smokers are infinitely that the winner of an auction is the bidder While Matt McCarthy discussed the time more likely to be stricken who most overvalues and money spent on expensive imaging with the disease ROSENBERG) the item and, therefore, technology as a tool in rehabilitation, than nonsmokers. most overpays for it. my fear, as a physical therapist for We did not wait to Gerald M. Burris learn who is most Jefferson, Ga. 35 years, is that insurance companies would deny coverage if early imaging susceptible before predicted that someone such as creating strategies for Doug Markgraf would not improve. effective prevention. PAGE 84 Time and money are needed to train As it relates to CTE, POINT AFTER more rehabilitation professionals to we may never be able to Barry Bonds’s job with treat concussions and TBI effectively. quantify susceptibility, the Marlins is a lucky and to wait for such GRAF); CARLOS M. SAAVEDRA FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ( Robert Sembler, Madison, Conn. break, not a walkway knowledge before acting to Cooperstown, as would be immoral. Our Michael Rosenberg suggests. As for the societal goal should be notion Bonds should be to learn how to prevent inducted because some IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE SWIMSUIT ISSUE The annual CTE. If that turns out [PED user] has probably SI Swimsuit Issue will be published in February. If you’re a not to be possible already made it: If without banning football some cheaters prosper, subscriber and would prefer not to receive it, call our customer should they all? service center toll-free at 1-866-228-1175. If you choose not (and boxing), so be it. Patrick Moore to get the SI Swimsuit Issue, SI will extend your subscription. David Rush Indianapolis Cambridge, Mass.
Letters E-mail SI at [email protected] or fax SI at 212-467-2417. Letters should include the writer’s full name, address and home telephone number and may be edited for Contact clarity and space. Customer Service and Subscriptions For 24/7 service, go to SI.com/customerservice. Call 1-800-528-5000 or write to SI at P.O. Box 30602, Tampa, FL 33630- SPORTSILLUSTRATED 0602. To purchase reprints of SI covers, go to SIcovers.com. Advertising For ad rates, an editorial calendar or a media kit, email SI at [email protected]. STREETER LECKA/GETTY AL TIELEMANS IMAGES FOR SPORTS (COVER); ILLUSTRATED (MARK WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED WorldMags.net
SERENA WILLIAMS
For more in-depth coverage go to si.com/sportsperson
FEATURING SCENES FROM THE SPORTSPERSON GALA, INCLUDING MUHAMMAD ALI LEGACY AWARD WINNER JACK NICKLAUS
#SIsportsperson
CELEBRATING EXCELLENCE WITH
! " # # $ WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
FROM THE STAFF OF
Founder: Henry R. Luce 1898–1967 Chief Content Officer: Norman Pearlstine
Chief Executive Officer: Joseph Ripp
Editor, Sports Illustrated Group: Paul Fichtenbaum Managing Editor, Sports Illustrated: Christian Stone Managing Editor, SI.com: Ryan Hunt Managing Editor, SI Golf Group:David Clarke Deputy Managing Editor: L. Jon Wertheim Executive Editor: Mark Mravic Group Creative Director: Christopher Hercik Assistant Managing Editors: Stephen Cannella, MJ Day (SI Swimsuit), Hank Hersch Director of Photography: Brad Smith Senior Editor, Chief of Reporters: Richard Demak; Senior Editor, Director of Operations: Stefanie Kaufman Senior Editors: Darcie Baum (SI Swimsuit), Trisha Lucey Blackmar, Adam Duerson, Matt Gagne, Mark Godich, Jim Gorant, Gary Gramling, Emma Span; Senior Contributing Editor: David Bauer Art Director: Edward P. Truscio; Copy Chief:Gabe Miller; Director of Premedia: Geoffrey A. Michaud Senior Writers: Chris Ballard, Michael Bamberger, Don Banks, Greg A. Bedard, Greg Bishop, Seth Davis, Thayer Evans, Lee Jenkins, Peter King, Tim Layden, Chris Mannix, J. Austin Murphy, Dan Patrick, S.L. Price, Ben Reiter, Michael Rosenberg, Alan Shipnuck, Andy Staples, Phil Taylor, Pete Thamel, Gary Van Sickle, Tom Verducci, Jenny Vrentas, Grant Wahl, Luke Winn, Alexander Wolff Senior Contributing Writers: Roy Blount Jr., Frank Deford Associate Editor: Elizabeth Newman; Assistant Editor: Janine Berey (SI Swimsuit) Staff Writers: Chris Burke, Albert Chen, Ben Golliver, Brian Hamilton, Emily Kaplan, Robert Klemko, Andrew Lawrence, Joan Niesen, Alex Prewitt, Lindsay Schnell Deputy Chief of Reporters: Lawrence Mondi; Writer-Reporters: Dan Greene, Sarah Kwak; Reporters: Stephanie Apstein, Ben Baskin, Kelvin C. Bias, Alexandra Fenwick, Tom Taylor Research Assistant: Susan Szeliga; Editorial Assistants: Alyssa Conroy (SI Swimsuit), Kalyn Kahler Photography:Erick Rasco (Deputy Editor, Technology); Claire Bourgeois, Chris Chambers, Miriam Marseu, Marguerite Schropp Lucarelli, Jeffrey Weig (Picture Editors); Linda Bonenfant, Cristina Scalet (Associate Editors); Carlos Miguel Saavedra (Assistant Editor); Daniel Jimenez Design: Eric Marquard, Stephen Skalocky, Liana Zamora (Deputy Art Directors); Stephen Goggi, R. Scott Wells (Associate Art Directors);Josh Denkin(Designer) Copy Chief, Special Projects: Pamela Ann Roberts; Copy Desk: Rich Donnelly, Robert G. Dunn, Jill Jaroff, Kevin Kerr, Katherine Pradt, Nancy Ramsey, Anthony Scheitinger, John M. Shostrom (Copy Editors) Premedia: Dan Larkin (Manager); Gerry Burke, Sandra Vallejos (Associates) Special Contributors: Robert Beck, Andy Benoit, John Biever, Andrew Brandt, Simon Bruty, George Dohrmann, Michael Farber, Bill Frakes, John Garrity, Richard Hoffer, Steven Hoffman, Christopher Hunt, Walter Iooss Jr., Heinz Kluetmeier, David E. Klutho, Neil Leifer, Bob Martin, Robert Mays, Jack McCallum, John W. McDonough, Pierre McGuire, Michael McKnight, Peter Read Miller, Craig Neff, Steve Rushin, Damian Strohmeyer, Al Tielemans SI.com: B.J. Schecter (Executive Editor); Mark Beech, Bobby Clay, Richard Deitsch, Andy Gray, Mike Harris, Ted Keith, Richard O’Brien (Senior Editors); Ben Eagle (Special Projects Editor); Melissa Jacobs (Staff Editor); Matt Dollinger, Ben Glicksman (Associate Editors); Avi Creditor(Senior Producer); Lorenzo Arguello, Colin Becht, Eli Bernstein, Michael Blinn, Bette Marston, John Rolfe (Producers); Sarah Barshop, Gabriel Baumgaertner, Peter Bukowski, Ben Estes, Daniel Friedman, David Gardner, Dan Gartland, Kelsey Hendrix, Chris Johnson, Stanley Kay, Ryan Krasnoo, Jamie Lisanti, Amy Parlapiano, Adam Pincus, DeAntae Prince, Eric Single, Jonathan Tayler (Associate Producers); Allen Kim (Associate Projects Editor); Bill Carey (Director of Digital Strategy); Stephanie Haberman (Audience Engagement Editor); Stefanie Gordon (Social Media Producer); Mitch Goldich, Leslie Green (Associate Social Media Producers); John Blackmar (Photo Director); David Kaye (Senior Photo Producer); Alicia Hallett (Deputy Design Director); Louis Gubitosi (Interactive Designer) SI Video: Ian Orefice (Senior Executive Producer); Collin Orcutt (Coordinating Producer); Maggie Gray (Anchor); John DePetro, Vanessa Manca (Producers); James Butts, Lee Feiner, Nolan Thomas (Associate Producers) Golf.com: Kevin Cunningham, Peter Madden (Senior Producers);Joshua Berhow (Producer); Marika Washchyshyn (Multimedia Producer); ColemanMcDowell (Associate Editor); Brendan Mohler (Assistant Editor); Betsy Hicks (Social Media Producer) SI Kids: Mark Bechtel (Managing Editor); Beth Power Bugler (Creative Director); Elizabeth McGarr McCue (Senior Editor); Sam Page, Christina Tapper (Associate Editors); Dante A. Ciampaglia (Editor, SIKids.com); Drew Dzwonkowski (Designer) Administration: Joan Rosinsky, Tracy Mothershed
Publisher, Sports Illustrated Group: Brendan Ripp Vice President, Sales, Sports Illustrated Group:Jon Tuck Chief Marketing Officer, Sports Illustrated Group:Damian Slattery Senior Vice President, Communications and Development:Scott Novak Vice President and General Manager, SI.com: Patty Hirsch Vice Presidents, Finance: Nancy Ryan, Andrew Weissman Vice President, Consumer Marketing: Anup Swamy Vice President, Operations:Robert Kanell Vice President and Deputy General Counsel: Steven Weissman Vice President, Human Resources: Roxanne Flores Consumer Marketing and Revenue: Steve Mastrocola (Director); Lucia LaCivita, Tori Mastrangelo (Senior Managers); John Banks (Manager); Samantha Kazanecki, Yuri Kim, Christine Poisson (Associate Managers); Colleen Kasper (Assistant Manager) Time Inc. Retail Sales and Marketing: Eric Szegda (Vice President); Rose Cirrincione, Amy Mandelbaum (Directors); Jake Semmel (Senior Manager);Joshua Lewis (Assistant Manager) Consumer InSight:Andy Borinstein (Executive Director); Brian Koenig (Research Manager) Business Insights and Analytics:Mac Dixon (Senior Research Manager) Advertising Sales: Atlanta: Ross Dinnsen (Southeast Sales Director); Kelly Branigan; Boston: John S. Cooney (New England Executive Director); Erik Nelson (Franchise Sales Manager); Dan Andrusko; Chicago: Thomas R. Buerger (Executive Director); Jessica Holzberg, Connor McCarthy, Kitty Westol (Franchise Sales Managers); Hope Agase; Detroit: Andrew Robinson (Group Ad Director); Mike Bologna (Franchise Sales Manager); Kelly Konarski; Los Angeles: Jessica Studholme (Executive Director, West Coast); Matt Estrada, Julia Keefe (Franchise Sales Managers); Katherine Trinh New York: Danny Lee (Executive Director); Katie Brown, Michael S. Cohen, Alison Edell, Billy Haire, Matt Ryter, Brian Vrabel, Peter Weinstock (Franchise Sales Managers); Laura Gabriel, Rachel Jay (Digital Account Executives); Drew Margolis, Billy Rose, Jenna Willetts; San Francisco: Carrington Staahl (Northwest Franchise Director); Alena Haas Experiential Media: Hillary Drezner (Executive Director); Kennedy Byxbee (Marketing Manager), Andy DeGory (Associate Marketing Manager) Client Marketing: Suzanne Bursiek (Executive Director); Elizabeth Furbish, Roger Iapicco (Directors); Megan Donovan, Gabrielle Geronimos, Alex King (Senior Managers); LeAire Wilson, Joelle Zerillo (Managers); Sarah McCarrick Sales Planning: Kelly Mullen (Director); Lindsey Hoeg (Manager); Kerry Dunne, Elizabeth Miller, Michael Ratner (Planners) SI Digital: Krys Krycinski (Head of Product); Todd Patrick, Michael Phillips (Senior Product Managers); Edward Schwendemann (Product Manager); John Cassidy, Nic Lanzillo, Ines Major, Matt Walker (Product Designers) Brand Marketing: Hollie Vose (Creative Services Director); Orville Clarke (Art Director); James Renouf (Designer); Kristin Jennings (Project Manager); Alec Morrison (Custom Content Director) Activation and Athlete Relations: Amy Gruetzmacher, Sara Jaramillo (Managers); Perri Horowitz Content Management Group: Karen Carpenter (Executive Director); Prem Kalliat (Director); George Amores, Joseph Felice, William Welt Finance: Rosemary Garcia (Associate Director); Kari Kus, Caitlin Licare, Catherine Keenan (Managers); Michael Brown, Audra Cimino, Matthew Mantell, Robert McKee Operations: Carrie Mallie (Senior Director); Valerie Langston (Director); Donald Stone (Senior Manager); Mieko Calugay, Ron Redfern (Managers); Annmarie Avila, Drew Carlos, Kylie Ann Cespedes, Bharath Medehal(Assistant Managers); Jose Hillary, Gerald Michael (Specialists) Communications: Elizabeth Marsh (Director); Daniel Leonard (Associate Director); Tess Povar (Publicist) Administration: Theresa Fitzpatrick, Liz Johnson, Joann Portnoy, Lee Strohmenger
Time Inc. Executive Vice Presidents: Jeff Bairstow, Rich Battista, Lynne Biggar, Colin Bodell, Greg Giangrande, Lawrence A. Jacobs, Erik Moreno, Evelyn Webster Executive Vice President, Global Advertising Sales: Mark Ford; Senior Vice Presidents, Advertising Sales and Marketing: Andy Blau (Finance), Mark Ellis (Sales), Matt Bean (Editorial Innovation) Vice President, Sales: Lauren Newman; Vice President, Digital: Dan Realson; Vice President, Creative Director: Cara Deoul Perl Vice President, Marketing Ad Solutions: Steve Cambron; Vice President, Strategic Client Solutions: Christine Woo; Vice President, Finance: Lori Dente Vice President, Business Research and Insights: Caryn Klein; Vice President, Digital Ad Operations: Nancy Mynio Vice President, Yield and Programmatic: Kavata Mbondo; Executive Office Manager: Lori Kaplan Senior Vice President, Video: J.R. McCabe Senior Vice President and Chief Data Officer: JT Kostman ; Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing and Revenue: Jeff Blatt; Vice President, Consumer InSight: Barry Martin Technology and Product Engineering: Colin Bodell (Chief Technology Officer); Alam Ali, Linda Apsley, Todd Chandler, Adam Days, Robert Duffy, Amanda Hanes, Hugues Hervouet, Simon Loxham, Leon Misiukiewicz,WorldMags.net Keith O’Sullivan, Ben Ramadan, Ashis Roy, Eric Schoonover, Vita Sheehy, Jimmie Tomei (Vice Presidents) WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net 1 Leading of Of 3
Marks of
1 2 Excellence QI’m just here to help the team. . . . Athletes mean it when they say it, but let’s be honest: Individual achievements are a lot of fun. And on the list of moments that made 2015 memorable, these record breakers and milestone reachers rank high. 1. Simone Biles: first woman to win three straight all-around gymnastics world titles. 2. Alex Ovechkin: NHL’s all-time leader in goals 34 by a Russian-born player. 3. Alex Rodriguez: 5 newest member of the 3,000-hit club. 4. Peyton Manning: NFL’s all-time passing- yards leader. 5. Katie Ledecky: first swimmer to win the 200-, 400-, 800- and 1,500-meter freestyle golds in a world championships. 6. Marcus Mariota: first QB with a perfect passer rating in his NFL debut.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB MARTIN FOR SPORTS 6 ILLUSTRATED (BILES); PATRICK MCDERMOTT/NHLI/ GETTY IMAGES (OVECHKIN); BRAD PENNER/USA TODAY SPORTS (RODRIGUEZ); JUSTIN EDMONDS/GETTY IMAGES (MANNING); THOMAS LOVELOCK FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED(LEDECKY);KIM KLEMENT/USA TODAY SPORTS (MARIOTA)
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
1
3
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net 2 Leading of Of 3
2 Technicolor Dreamboats QShining individual moments aren’t the only images from 2015 seared into our brains. Good luck to those who wish they could unsee the NFL’s garish Thursday-night Color Rush uniforms, which answered the never-asked question, What if Timothy Leary had opened a sporting- goods store? If nothing else, the unis kept Twitter busy coining descriptions for the combos. Jets-Bills (1) was the Christmas Bowl. Buccaneers- Rams (2) was Ketchup vs. Mustard. Titans-Jaguars (3)? Indescribable.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CARLOS M. SAAVEDRA FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (JETS- BILLS); DILIP VISHWANAT/ GETTY IMAGES (RAMS-BUCS); PHELAN M. EBENHACK/AP (TITANS-JAGUARS)
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
4
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net 3 Leading of Of 3
Self on The Shelf QThe selfie is nothing new, but the possibilities of the genre expanded greatly in 2015 with 1 2 the proliferation of the selfie stick. And annoying as the device can be when you’re getting bonked in the head at Disney World or the Louvre, it helped some of the world’s best-known athletes capture impromptu— and indelible—moments this year. 1. Tennis pros Maria Sharapova and Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Australian Open. 3 2. Peyton Manning, Derek Jeter, Mia Hamm 5 and Michael Jordan at Gatorade’s 50th- anniversary party. 3. Floyd Mayweather at a press conference announcing his September fight against Andre Berto. 4. Drivers who made NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup, at Richmond International Speedway. 5. Usain Bolt and his 4 x 100-relay teammates after Jamaica won gold at the world track championships.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOECASTRO/EPA(SHARAPOVA/ KOKKINAKIS); STEVE BOYLE/ GATORADE/AP (MANNING/ JETER/HAMM/JORDAN); JAYNE KAMIN-ONCEA/USA TODAY SPORTS (MAYWEATHER); BRIAN LAWDERMILK/GETTY IMAGES (NASCAR);ANDYLYONS/GETTY IMAGES (JAMAICANS) WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net WorldMags.netTHE COMEBACK A SERIES FROM THE EDITORS OF
AND
Injuring his shoulder during the that would get me back.” There wasn’t. An MRI playoffs was devastating, so to make revealed a torn labrum, and sure it didn’t happen again, Love underwent surgery a few days later. Cleveland would Kevin Love focused on strength as be without its starting power well as healing during rehab forward, and Love, in the first postseason of his career, BY CHRIS MANNIX watched the Cavs make it all Photograph by FERNANDO MEDINA the way to Game 6 of the Finals NBAE/Getty Images from the sideline. “It was hard, man,” says Love, “to see your KEVIN LOVE SAW It was a simple play, but so team battling like they were Jonas Valanciunas was the one that resulted in and not be able to get out out of the corner of his eye the injury: Against Boston in there. It’s not something I and braced for the impact. Game 4 of the Cavs’ first- ever want to feel again.” It was Oct. 18, six months round playoff series last April, after undergoing surgery Love, chasing down a loose PARK CITY, Utah, is to repair a dislocated ball, became entangled with 7,000 feet above sea level, left shoulder, and now Celtics forward Kelly Olynyk. an ideal altitude for athletes Valanciunas, Toronto’s With Love holding inside seeking an edge. It’s the hulking, 7-foot, 255-pound position, Olynyk yanked home base of the U.S. ski center, was bearing down on Love’s left arm. His shoulder team, Moore’s employer him in search of a rebound. popped out, sending him before he joined the Cavs Love extended his forearm, racing back to the locker in 2013. Love had taken a driving it into Valanciunas’s room in agony. The training liking to Park City in recent chest. Love’s shoulder staff attempted to push the years, spending birthdays muscles tensed. And then . . . shoulder back into the joint, and off-season weekends no pain. After the next but the first attempt failed. in the picturesque village. whistle Love caught the eye The second one too. Each When Moore and Love of Alex Moore, Cleveland’s try came with excruciating talked about where to rehab high-performance director. pain. The third one worked, in the off-season, Park City “Feels fine,” Love said. the pain subsided, and Love emerged as a natural “O.K.,” Moore replied. immediately wondered, Is choice. “It’s a ski town,” “Then let’s go.” my season over? He texted says Moore. “Nobody really his agent: Is there anything we knows or cares who he is.” can do? “You see guys in the When the two convened TO THE RIM Love has been comfortable playoffs playing with one arm in July, Love was ready to shouldering a heavier or one hand or with a rolled get to work. Moore set mini scoring load as a key cog ankle,” says Love. “I needed goals. He divided Love’s rehab in the Cavs’ offense. to know if there was anything into two-week stretches and
WorldMags.netDECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 25 KEVIN LOVE WorldMags.net constructed a program aimed three-point shot. Then low- at building strength and post moves. During summer power with exercises such as 2014, Love and McClanaghan dumbbell floor presses. At first zeroed in on Love’s midrange it was 20 reps of 20 pounds. game, with an emphasis on Then 35 pounds. Eventually, the high post and step-back Love got to 80. “We didn’t jumpers. “He was really progress until we hit certain locked in this summer,” parameters,” says Moore. says McClanaghan. “I was Sleep was closely tracked: shocked at how in shape Nine hours at night with a he was. I didn’t know what 90-minute nap during the day, effect the rehab was going to measured by sleep monitors. have. But he showed up and it Keeping Love patient proved to was the same old Kevin.” be the biggest challenge. “It’s When training camp Keeping Love patient during rehab proved to be the biggest challenge. “It’s pretty tedious training,” says Moore. “Setting mini goals helped.”
pretty tedious training,” says opened, Love was ready. TANGLED “We all came back this year a Moore. “The roadblocks you But the Cavs were cautious, After locking arms with lot more comfortable with our Olynyk (right) while hit are, This is boring; I want limiting Love to individual situation and in our own skin.” chasing a loose ball, Love to do more. Setting those mini drills and three-on-three was out for six months. This year the distractions goals and being able to see situations early, sitting him have dissipated. Last summer the progression helped.” out for the first five preseason Love signed a five-year, The thin air offered an games and playing him just first year with Cleveland, and $113 million contract to opportunity to improve Love’s 35 minutes split between the he resisted being pigeonholed return to the Cavs, ending conditioning. Hiking, bike next two. With Moore, Love as a three-point shooter. He speculation about his rides and long walks on a has maintained a disciplined was called out on social media future. At week’s end he was treadmill were incorporated “prehabilitation” schedule: by LeBron James, criticized averaging 17.3 points and into his workouts. The result: two 40-minute upper-body by his coach, David Blatt, 10.5 rebounds while playing Love dropped 15 pounds from workout sessions a week; 20 for inconsistent play and nearly identical minutes where he was at the end of minutes of stability work four was asked regularly about (32.8) as last season. James last season. to five times per week. “He’s his pending free agency. has declared Love to be the Shooting was the next probably doing 400% more “All of us, Kevin included, “main focus” of the offense, hurdle. In August, Love work on his upper body than went through not an easy while Blatt has experimented flew to California, where he did before all this,” says year last year, in terms of with small lineups that feature he reunited with renowned Moore. “Whenever you have the adjustment, in terms of Love at center. trainer Rob McClanaghan. had an injury, there is a greater the attention, in terms of the After scoring 18 points They started slowly, with chance you can reinjure. We’re tremendous expectations in a win over Portland last form shooting. Then very cognizant of that.” people have for the team and week, Love dressed quietly righthanded hook shots. “It Mentally, Love is in a better the challenge we have to meet in front of his locker. He took a while to feel like that place too. Last season was those expectations,” says Blatt. answered a handful of glitch wasn’t there in my left draining. After being the questions from reporters SI.COM arm,” says Love. focal point of the offense in before breezing out the door. IMAGES JIM ROGASH/GETTY Every summer Love tries his last four years with the For more on Love’s Kevin Love, lightning rod, to add a new layer to his Timberwolves, he struggled to recovery, including video is gone. Kevin Love, All-Star game. One year it was the adapt to a reduced role in his that takes you inside the forward, appears to be back. ± training room and onto the court, go to SI.com/thecomeback 26 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
YOU’RE NOT YOU WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY.®
®/TM trademarks ©Mars, Incorporated 2015. Other trademarks are property of theirWorldMags.net respective owners. SATISFIES WorldMags.net
$, - )
JHLFRFRP_ $872_ORFDORIĆFH
! "##$%&' WorldMags.net ( ) *"#+, WorldMags.net
Edited by EMMA SPAN
THE DOCTOR IS IN In Concussion, Smith immerses himself in the role of Dr. Omalu, who told the NFL what it didn’t want to hear.
Brain Trust Will Smith shines a light on the dark side of the sport he loves BY BEN REITER
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL GRECCO FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
WorldMags.net / 29 MEDIA FIGURES JOHN OLIVER THE RIO GAMES DAILY FANTASY OF THE YEAR BRITISH INVASION THE STARS ARE ALIGNED THE BROPOCALYPSE 38 WorldMags.net40 42 44
ONE LATE SUMMER Her stomach was filled morning in 2014 in with a pink, chalky liquid. Lodi, Calif., Dr. Bennet Many opiate addicts, Omalu Omalu was doing what he knew, guzzle Pepto-Bismol does most days. He was to counteract the nausea methodically dissecting a induced by their habit. The human body to determine woman had likely died of why it had died. an overdose of OxyContin, For Omalu, who is 47 as Omalu explained to two years old and the chief unlikely visitors who were subsequent descent into it from the inside out. He medical examiner of watching the procedure. headache-wracked insanity. identified the condition San Joaquin County, the Twelve Septembers Webster’s illness led him as chronic traumatic act of performing an earlier, when he was to live in his pickup truck, encephalopathy—CTE—and autopsy is a spiritual and working in the Allegheny to pull out his teeth and he attributed it to the 70,000 delicate one. He treats County Coroner’s Office in superglue them back in and hits to the head he estimated each body, including the Pittsburgh, a very different to repeatedly shock himself Webster had endured during young Hispanic woman body lay on Omalu’s table. with a taser. his football career. who now lay before him, When he was a boy in Unlike the woman in At first, Omalu thought as if it were still sentient. Nigeria, Omalu had idolized Lodi, however, Webster did the NFL would welcome He gently washes it. He the United States, and not provide Omalu with his findings—especially cuts through its skin only while he continued to do an obvious answer. He after CTE kept turning with clean instruments. so after immigrating in appeared to be a physically up in the brains of He communicates with 1994, he had yet to become healthy 50-year-old man other former players it. “I need your help,” he interested in America’s whose brain showed no he examined who had will think. “We are in this game, football. Though visible abnormalities. suffered from mental IMAGES ASTUTE/ABC/GETTY MAE IDA together. Please help me he lived in Pittsburgh, he Omalu kept digging. He illness and had committed find out what happened had never heard of Mike eventually found, under a suicide: Terry Long, to you.” Webster, the beloved Hall of microscope, that Webster’s Justin Strzelczyk, Andre After Omalu opened the Fame center for the Steelers, brain was riddled with dark Waters. Instead the league, young woman’s abdomen, and hadn’t heard the local tangles of tau protein, which and the football-loving she gave him the answer. whispers about Webster’s he believed had choked public, attempted to
30 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net CAITLYN JENNER JESSICA MENDOZA SPORTS BOOKS ESPN’S JOHN SKIPPER CHANGING THE GAME BREATH OF FRESH AIR OF THE YEAR THE FIFTH COMMISSIONER 46WorldMags.net48 49 51
At first, Omalu (left) thought the far down the list of Hollywood’s motivations. NFL would welcome his findings. Almost all of the major Instead the league attempted to studios have lucrative NFL connections. “It was discredit and intimidate him. threading a needle,” says Landesman, who played Peter Landesman, the dad,” Smith says. “The most center at Brown and is screenwriter and director. fun I’ve ever had in my life a former investigative The other was Will Smith, is watching that kid play.” journalist. “Fox couldn’t who at 47 remains one of As he considered taking make this movie. NBC the world’s biggest movie the role of Omalu, though, couldn’t. Disney couldn’t stars. They were there to Smith thought back to a make it. Viacom couldn’t. research a film that would different element of his So there was just one tell the story of Omalu’s son’s football career. “Back studio to go to.” struggle, and shine a light then I was worried about As Landesman tells it, in on the NFL’s head trauma spinal injuries,” he says. the summer of 2014 Sony crisis with an impact that “The concept of permanent almost immediately bought only Hollywood can provide. neurological repercussions his just-finished script, If, as a character in was never a discussion. which was based on a 2009 the film remarks, “The I had no idea. More than GQ article by Jeanne Marie NFL owns a day of the anything, I was compelled Laskas. Smith was attached week, the same day the to tell the story as a parent.” within days, and the movie church used to own,” then Smith was moved by was green lit in a matter Hollywood owns the rest of Omalu’s personal journey, of weeks. By October, the weekend. The movie is that of an immigrant who principal photography had called Concussion. It will be finds himself taking on one begun in Pittsburgh. discredit and intimidate released by Sony Pictures of his adopted nation’s most Not everything about him, branding him a on Christmas Day. Says powerful institutions, and the buildup to Concussion’s quack. “I was bruised and Smith, whose 22 previous he disappears into the role. release has been so smooth. battered,” Omalu says. movies have grossed a “The contortions of his face, In early September The New “I was marginalized. I combined $2.8 billion, the contractions of his facial York Times published a story was ridiculed.” Doctors “This is definitely the most muscles, the way he tilts his headlined sony altered on the NFL’s Mild incendiary project that I’ve head, his gesticulations— ‘concussion’ film to Traumatic Brain Injury ever worked on.” watching it, I thought prevent nfl protests, Committee blasted Omalu’s somebody came, took my emails show, which conclusions as “completely WHILE ONE REVIEW of soul away from me and ran quoted communications wrong” and demanded the Concussion bills it as “the with it,” says Omalu. revealed by the hack of the retraction of the paper he NFL’s greatest nightmare,” Smith connected with studio’s emails. The article had published. Smith’s view differs. “It’s Omalu for another reason. claimed that Sony had Though he was driven not an anti-NFL movie,” Says Smith, “Bennet said “found itself softening some out of Pittsburgh, in recent he says one afternoon in a really cool line: ‘The points it might have made years Omalu has found early November, as he sips truth doesn’t have a side.’ against the multibillion- vindication. He perhaps an espresso after a photo I love football. I love the dollar sports enterprise.” never felt it so deeply as shoot in Los Angeles. NFL. My belief is that the One email from Dwight he did on that morning in Smith is a lifelong information will only make Caines, Sony’s president of Lodi in September 2014. football fan. His older son, it better for all of us.” domestic marketing, read, One of the two visitors to Trey, played the sport in A desire to disseminate “We’ll develop messaging his autopsy chamber was high school. “I’m a football the truth usually ranks with the help of N.F.L.
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 31 SCORECARD WorldMags.net consultant to ensure that (In the cut scene, Goodell Denial and many other as the scale and reach—a we are telling a dramatic receives a midnight call at media outlets, including Will Smith movie, released story and not kicking the his home from NFL doctors, Sports Illustrated— on Christmas—with which hornet’s nest.” informing him of the death Concussion covers little new it tells the story, and Both the filmmakers and by suicide of former Chicago ground. What it does is tell explains the science that the NFL deny that they Bear Dave Duerson.) the story of Omalu’s fight, of underpins it. Says Omalu, cooperated on the film, and “This movie, like all the plight of former players “The truth is the truth. that they exchanged more movies based on nonfiction like Webster, Strzelczyk The truth has always been and Waters and of the the truth. But now the NFL’s cynical denial of it, truth is emerging on the “I love football,” says Smith. “I love the in an unsparing and often mountaintop, in great light.” NFL. My belief is that the information horrifying way. Viewers might object to certain IN THE NFL’S headquarters will only make it better for all of us.” elements of Concussion: a on Park Avenue in New love story between Omalu York City, past glass doors than a few early, cursory stories—if we’re smart and and his wife, Prema (played emblazoned with the words emails about it. While if we care—goes through a by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) that respect—integrity— Landesman concedes that strong vetting process to be seems shoehorned in; the responsibility to he cut from an early version sure we tell the best, most way certain scenes seem team—resiliency, there of the script a scene that truthful, most impactful to have been exaggerated were no circled wagons to be depicted commissioner version of the story,” for dramatic effect. But seen on a Tuesday morning 1 Roger Goodell—who is Landesman says. anyone who has seen the in early December. Just 2 ⁄2 played by Luke Wilson, and Besides, to those who have movie—which the author weeks before Concussion’s who has very little screen followed the NFL’s head of the September Times release, the league’s defense time—he did so because he trauma crisis—via Laskas’s article hadn’t—would have against it had been most couldn’t verify the event article, the Times’s extensive trouble believing it had been notable for its mildness. It had actually occurred, coverage, the Frontline softened. made no objection when though he believes it did. documentary League of Concussion is new as far trailers for the film were
PRETENDER And in this
Sweet and Sour Science corner . . . Southpaw. WEINSTEIN COMPANY (SOUTHPAW); GARFIELD/THE SCOTT PICTUR BROS. BARRY WETCHER/WARNER Jake Gyllenhaal gives a Boxing gave us the best and worst passionate performance sports movies of the year as star-crossed light heavyweight champ Billy Hope, but the film is little CONTENDER Creed more than a ploddingly may be, in essence, predictable assemblage Rocky VII, but director of genre clichés. In the Ryan Coogler’s dynamic, obligatory big–bout richly textured film is finale Billy lands an thrillingly fresh, full of all-redemptive left speed and pop. As uppercut, prompting Adonis Johnson, a ringside TV son of Rocky’s late commentator to friend and rival bellow, “Who would Apollo Creed, the have seen this impressively athletic coming?!” The Michael B. Jordan answer, alas, is ES/AP (CREED) (near right) displays anyone who’s ever a real fighter’s blend seen a boxing movie. of grit and gentleness. —Richard O’Brien
32 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED WorldMags.net WorldMags.net PAINFUL TRUTHS and others like him? To Omalu’s autopsy of Dr. Ellenbogen, who points Webster (far left) out that Omalu’s theory first set off the CTE alarm bells, remains a hypothesis, it’s a and the suicides value proposition. “I respect of players Duerson Dr. Omalu’s opinion,” he (top, near left) and says. “I have a very different Seau (bottom, near view of this. As a practicing left), who were neurosurgeon that takes found to have the care of kids and adults, disease after an autopsy, brought I think it’s much safer to the condition into get kids out there, doing the public eye. exercise, playing the sport of their choice—and we can ameliorate the risks.” (Of course, it might be even safer to have kids exercise in ways that might not carry with them the risk of a long- term neurodegenerative condition.) shown during its games, and safety and what the it was such a notable one “There’s no higher starting on Thanksgiving. league’s doing to pursue demonstrates how far the priority at the league than “I don’t know if we could the goals that we’ve set, league has come from the the health and safety of our have or couldn’t have, then we welcome the days when ESPN ran its sport,” says Miller. While but we certainly didn’t conversation.” Jacked Up segment, which he mentions the NFL’s do anything to stop them What follows is an highlighted that week’s 88 Plan, which has so far from advertising,” says Jeff impressive, and dizzying, most brutal hits and is provided 210 retirees with Miller, the NFL’s senior discussion of all of the shown, to cringing effect, up to $100,000 a year to vice president of health and measures that the NFL has in Concussion. “I’ve read pay for medical expenses safety policy. taken to make its game less one or two reports from for neurological diseases, In his office, with damaging to its players: this season where we could the league’s response to Richard Ellenbogen—the of multimillion dollar have done things better,” Concussion is clear. Its head of neurosurgery at the research grants, and rules says Ellenbogen, of the primary focus is not on the University of Washington changes, and concussion reports that unaffiliated uncontrollable past, which and the cochairman of the protocols, and independent neuroconsultants now file the film depicts, but on the league’s Head, Neck and neurologists, and youth for each team after each present and future. Spine Medical Committee— safety programs, all of game. “Out of 500? Boy. If on speakerphone, Miller which demonstrate that the any surgeon or any doctor IF THE NFL IS LOOKING outlines the NFL’s reaction league is now taking its head had a complication rate that forward, Keith McCants—a to a film which, to his trauma problem seriously. low, they’d be celebrated.” linebacker who played F PARKS (BERNSTEIN) knowledge, no one in the The topic of Case But what if the problem six pro seasons with the office had yet seen. “We’ve Keenum—the St. Louis is not just with concussions, Buccaneers, Oilers and been interested in talking Rams’ quarterback who but with the very nature Cardinals—can’t help but about issues of health and on Nov. 22 was allowed of the sport, and with the look back. McCants was safety for the purposes of to stay in a game after he thousands of subconcussive arrested multiple times for improving our game at was clearly concussed, hits that Bennet Omalu drug-related offenses after other levels, [and] investing strugging to get up and believes felled Mike Webster he left the league, due to an in scientific research wobbling on his feet—is around those things, for broached. Ellenbogen, who quite some time,” Miller stresses that he is not paid Bonnie Bernstein interviews says. “If this movie offers by the league, admits that Will Smith and David Morse, an opportunity to publicly the event was an error. But who plays Mike Webster in
TONY TOMSIC FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (WEBSTER); MICHAEL J. MINARDI/GETTY IMAGES MINARDI/GETTY J. MICHAEL (WEBSTER); ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR TOMSIC TONY (DUERSON); PETER READ MILLER FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED JEF (SEAU); talk about player health he argues that the fact that the film. For the entire video interview, go to si.com/120
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 33 SCORECARD WorldMags.net addiction that stemmed, “If I knew what I know look at the numerator strictly about knowledge. he says, from drugs he was now, if I knew giving people and you gotta look at the Historically, in the long administered to keep him concussions would kill denominator.” run, knowledge never playing. “They shot me up people, I would never have While Concussion is a makes things worse, even with morphine, cortisone, put on a jersey,” he says. work of advocacy, it’s also, if it may not feel good for toradol, whatever it took “If you break a bone, that’s inevitably, more than that. a minute. Bennet Omalu to keep me on the field,” fine. If you break a knee, The film’s social media is not an angel. The NFL’s he says. “Then they kicked that’s fine. But to break a hashtag is #ForThePlayers, not the devil. It’s about my ass to the curb.” brain, that’s unacceptable. but it might also be the process of change and At 47, McCants no longer “They say NFL is short #ForTheBoxOffice, or the introduction of new, goes outside at night, for for ‘Not For Long,’ ” he maybe #ForTheOscar. inconvenient information, Smith has already and that’s always going to been nominated for a be painful.” Golden Globe. Adds Smith, “I think “I was just telling the legacy of this movie this particular story as is, it illustrates and truthfully, beautifully articulates what happened and impactfully as I in a way that is visceral could,” says Landesman. and cinematic, so you “The consequence of the can’t ignore it.” As of storytelling is beyond mid-December, though, my control.” the review compiler The long-term Rotten Tomatoes rated consequence of which Concussion reviews Omalu dreams? It’s not at 63% positive on its the end of football. “If Tomatometer; the website you make up your mind BoxOffice.com—considered to play, I would be the by many to be the most SET THE TONE very first person to stand accurate source of publicly Smith and Omalu (with Landesman) believe players beside you and support available box office should go into the NFL with open eyes. that right,” he says. But he projections—was predicting hopes that children will that the film, competing fear that he will get lost, says. “Well, that don’t be one day banned from against the new Star Wars, and in conversation he just stand for how long participating in contact would pull in a domestic often loses track of the you’re going to play. It sports, like tackle football, total of $55 million, and topic at hand. In early stands for how long you’re until they have reached $12 million on its opening December, McCants going to live.” the age of consent and weekend. That opening attended a screening of can decide to undertake haul would translate to Concussion in Atlanta. He THE SCIENTIFIC a potentially dangerous around 1.45 million ticket cried throughout his six- community’s grasp of activity for themselves, buyers, which is about 6% hour drive from Tampa, football’s long-term as with smoking and of the number of viewers emotional at the prospect neurological effects on drinking. drawn by the average of even seeing it. He cried its participants remains As of early November, Sunday Night Football during the movie, too, only in its nascent stages. nearly 40 current and game. overcome at its depiction of CTE’s prevalence, exact former NFL players had Don’t expect Roger what some players, like his causes and biological reached out to Smith, Goodell to be lining up old friend and Cardinals mechanisms—why not asking to see the movie. at his local multiplex on teammate Andre Waters, every player seems to To him, that portended an Christmas. “I’m guessing had endured. “I now know suffer from it—are only ideal result. “At a minimum, he doesn’t see a lot of why Andre killed himself, minimally understood. if the players are aware, movies, because he’s sort of I know why Junior Seau “There are many people they have the final say of working 24/7,” says Miller. killed himself, I know why that go on to very how they interact with “But if I find out from him MELINDA SUE GORDON Keith McCants wanted to successful careers,” says one another on the field,” that he intends to see it, I’ll kill himself,” he says. Ellenbogen. “You gotta he says. “For me, this is let you know.” ±
34 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
Current Episodes | Full Seasons | Hit Movies Original Series | Commercial-Free Option Subscribe Now Get One Week Free
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
2016 Odyssey Special Edition Lease* $0 fi rst month / $370 for 35 months thereafter* (for well-qualifi ed customers)
Like holiday cookies, these deals won’t be around long. Hurry in and put zero down on an Odyssey or Accord today.
*Subject to availability through 1/4/16 on approved credit through Honda Financial Services. Closed-end lease for 2016 Accord LX Sedan. MSRP $23,740. Actual net capitalized cost $22,933. Total monthly payments $9,500. Option to purchase at lease end $13,770. Closed-end lease for 2016 Odyssey SE. MSRP $35,325. Actual net capitalized cost $32,714. Total monthly payments $12,950. Option to purchase at lease end $20,136. Requires dealer contribution, which could affect fi nal negotiated transaction. MSRP includes destination, excludes tax, title, license, registration, options and insurance. Lessee responsible for maintenance, excessive wear/tear and up to 20¢/mile over 12,000 miles/year. Dealer sets actual prices. See participating dealers for details. © 2015 American Honda Motor Co., Inc. WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
2016 Accord LX Sedan Lease* $0 fi rst month / $250 for 38 months thereafter* (for well-qualifi ed customers)
DOWN FIRST-MONTH SECURITY DUE AT LEASE $ PAYMENT $ PAYMENT $ DEPOSIT $ SIGNING Excludes tax, title, 0 0 0 0 license & dealer fees.
ShopHonda.com WorldMags.net SCORECARD WorldMags.net C Is for Camera Shelley Smith and Craig Sager—SI’s media figures of the year—are happy to be back on the air after their brave battles with cancer BY RICHARD DEITSCH
THERE ARE THINGS on camera but also because once a month from his and told the reporter it was KYLE/NBAE (SMITH); DAVID LIAM ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR BECK ROBERT that Turner Sports their public battles with home in Atlanta for the first time he “enjoyed reporter Craig Sager and cancer inspire others. aftercare maintenance. doing this ridiculous ESPN reporter Shelley Smith Sager was diagnosed “Obviously I am not interview we are required share—a love of family and with leukemia in cured,” Sager said in to do because you are here laughter, battle scars from April 2014 and returned early December. “We still and back with us.... Now interviews with Spurs coach to the NBA sideline last have ongoing battles. But ask me a couple of inane Gregg Popovich, and long March after an 82-day everything is going good questions!” tenures with the same media hospital stay. He worked and I feel great.” Says Sager, “I spent outlets. (Sager has been with for just three weeks On Dec. 3, Sager months in a hospital Turner for 34 years; Smith is before a recurrence of the worked his first Spurs hoping to go back to work. in her 19th year at ESPN.) cancer forced him to take game since he finished his I love my job, and the They are also cancer another sabbatical. Over second round of leukemia one thing that people ask
survivors. the last 21 months Sager treatments, which meant me about most are my (SAGER) IMAGES /GETTY Sager and Smith share has been to five hospitals a return of the NBA’s most interactions with Pop. I the 2015 SI Media Person of and endured 14 rounds of enjoyable sideline duo: didn’t know what I would the Year honor not only for chemotherapy. He travels Sager and Popovich. The say or ask him or what he their sustained excellence to Houston’s MD Anderson Spurs’ coach hugged Sager would say. When he gave
SIDELINE MATES Smith and Sager look forward to sharing laughs at the NBA All-Star Game in February.
38 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net me a hug, it was one of the most touching moments Six to Watch in 2016 I can remember in my Sports media names that will command your attention 34 years at Turner.” Smith announced on Oct. 1, 2014, that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and over the next six months the reporter underwent multiple radiation treatments. She returned to ESPN last April—opting not to wear a wig—for coverage of the
AGIC/GETTY IMAGES; KEVIN REECE/AP 2015 NFL draft. “My bald ES; ZIMMERMAN/WIREIMAGE/ PAUL head means I have a fight, and I look at it as being fortunate to have a battle,” she said at the time.” Smith finished her treatments last June. “You 12 3456 are never really cancer- free, but right now there is no evidence of disease,” 1. BILL SIMMONS 4. CARI CHAMPION Smith says. His HBO talk show, spanning sports In the spirit of Andy Dufresne Smith and Sager are and popular culture, will debut in escaping the shackles of Shawshank longtime press-row 2016, as will a new content site. Look, State Penitentiary, Champion broke mates, and both are too, for Simmons’s podcast efforts to free this year from her soul-sucking
FROM BRIAN LEFT: TO/FILMMAGIC/GETTY IMAGES; ANDREW TOTH/GETTY IMAG GETTY IMAGES; ANDREW TOTH/WIREIMAGE/GETTY HILL/FILMM IMAGES; TAYLOR scheduled to work the 2016 bulk up, with more former Grantland role as the never-give-an-opinion All-Star Game on Feb. 14 staffers joining up. The former moderator of the unctuous First Take. in Toronto. “She gives me ESPNer will be motivated to take the With a regular gig on SportsCenter a lot of inspiration, and audience away from his old employer. and a compelling podcast (Be Honest with Cari Champion), 2016 should be she’s been very courageous Zihuatanejo for the broadcaster. through her battle,” . Sager says. “When we are 2 JEFF GORDON The four-time NASCAR Cup Series together, she’s always fun champion will work as a full-time race 5. SKIP BAYLESS and lively, just a person analyst for Fox, teaming with three- The contract of ESPN’s vainglori- who is very likable.” time champion Darrell Waltrip and ous wrestling heel is up this sum- “I always make it a point announcer Mike Joy for a potentially mer, and he will likely be courted by to sit next to Craig because very interesting booth. He’ll have to fill FoxSports1, which is looking to up he’s so much fun,” Smith big shoes: The trio of Joy, Waltrip, and the ante with its roster of sports says. “He has a passion for Larry McReynolds (who is moving out bloviators. With Bayless’s ESPN2 what he does, and I love of the booth) was one of the best in show, First Take, enjoying excellent having it rub off on me. He’s the sport’s history. ratings this fall (averaging more than 400,000 viewers), he has plenty also had it much harder of leverage. than me because of his . reoccurrence [of cancer]. 3 RACHEL NICHOLS A former ESPNer returning to the His strength really helps Mothership—Nichols worked for ESPN 6. VIN SCULLY me. He’s fighting so hard, from 2004 to ’13 before moving to The greatest living sports and I say to myself: I can do CNN—Nichols is scheduled to host her broadcaster, 88 years young, this. I can’t wait to see him. own still-to-be-determined show, a announced last August that the I’m also hoping my hair will rarity in the business for a woman. 2016 season will be his last. Savor be looking better than his The network will benefit from her this man—and celebrate every Scully by then too.” ± journalistic chops. Dodgers game next season. —R.D.
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 39 SCORECARD WorldMags.net JOHN OLIVER occasionally organizes soccer matches.” If you’re going to stage a World Cup The British Invasion in Qatar, you might as well do it on the sun—“although Sometimes you need an outsider’s to be fair, the sun has a perspective—especially a hilarious one much better human rights record.” But Oliver does his greatest service when he straps on a pith helmet to look at sports in the country he has called home for nine years. As increasingly obscene sums slosh around college sports and players still can’t count on something as simple as a guaranteed scholarship, he reminded us that Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney makes $3 million a year and has trademarked his name for use on shirts. When Oliver revealed an anagram from Dabo Swinney’s name, #SoybeanWind went viral. The fruited breeze conjured NO ONE CALLED inured. Or maybe it NCAA takedown, and by that hashtag is as fresh out the unclothed just takes a lifelong the 19 minutes the show a breath of air as any emperors in sports this year Liverpool fan. Liverpool spent on those loathsome emitted by a sports media with more skill than John is a club that has known stadium schemes, figure all year. Oliver, host of HBO’s Last outsized portions of glory, because every reference —Alexander Wolff Week Tonight. In one show frustration and tragedy; in to accounting chicanery it was the shamateurism of short, it’s a team you can’t or tax-exempt municipal college athletics; in another, follow without at some bonds is leavened by a the scam that billionaire point asking yourself big sensibility honed at Oliver’s THE YEAR IN owners run to get taxpayers questions that usually begin previous office, the snark to pay for new stadiums; in with “Why?” Which is what tank that was Jon HOT still another, the crypto- Oliver does with sports at Stewart’s Daily Show. (OLIVER); HERBERT/AP IMAGES GERALD (CURRY) BROWN/GETTY M. FREDERICK gambling heart of the daily large, only in front of about It’s not that Oliver TAKES fantasy sports industry; four million viewers each doesn’t love sports; in a string of others, FIFA week and tens of millions it’s that he loves “Steph Curry’s and its capo, Sepp Blatter more on YouTube. sports so much that kid is cute. That (whose explication to Oliver’s sports segments in gallantry and doesn’t mean she Americans is a task Oliver, work because the four indignation, he should have been an expatriate Brit, regards trained journalists on rushes headlong at presser. There as a sacred duty). the Last Week Tonight to their defense. are professionals Perhaps it takes a staff take the time to And he loves nothing on deadlines there foreigner to fully frame build cases so strong that more than soccer. w/ jobs to do, too.” outrages to which rebuttal is futile. Audiences FIFA is “an international —Brett Friedlander, Americans have become sat for that 20-minute crime syndicate that Star News Online, on Twitter
40 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
Play my “Friday Night” playlist.
What album is this?
Tell me the news.
Dim the lights.
Connected to your life. Controlled by your voice.
Hands-free and always on to read the news, answer questions, play music, check trai c, weather and much more. Just ask.
INTRODUCING
WorldMags.net SCORECARD WorldMags.net CARNIVAL CRUISE The Rio Games will be the first held in South America.
THE 2016 OLYMPIC GAMES
The Stars Are Aligned I STOCKMAN/GETTY (STADIUM); MATTHEW IMAGES MENDES/GETTY BUDA The Rio Games will be the biggest sporting event on TV—ever
HERE’S AN OLYMPIC-SIZED zone: Unlike London (five hours ahead guarantee: The Rio Games are going of the East Coast) and Sochi (nine hours to be the most-watched television event ahead), Rio is just one hour ahead of the in U.S. history. More than 219 million eastern time zone. NBC says it will show people viewed the London Olympics—the more live events during this Olympics than THE YEAR IN current record for one event—but Rio offers any before. There’s also Rio itself, with its a substantially more television-friendly visually arresting carnival of backgrounds, HOT climate. Why? First, there’s the huge swath from beach to jungle to mountains to city. of established Olympic stars competing in “It gives us a backdrop unlike any we
Rio, meaning NBC’s marketing efforts will have had for an Olympics,” says Jim Bell, (HARPER) IMAGES FIUME/GETTY GREG VIEW); (AERIAL MAGES TAKES be substantially easier. The bold-faced names the executive producer of NBC’s Olympic include Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt, Gabby coverage. “There will inevitably be some “If you want to Douglas, Missy Franklin, Roger Federer, challenges when we could have multiple choke Bryce Harper— Serena Williams, Kerri Walsh Jennings and things happening at the same time, but and I suspect if you played with him, you a plethora of NBA and WNBA stars, not to coming off a Winter Olympics where the might—ask him to mention Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy time delay was nine hours, it gave us zero come up the tunnel competing in golf, which makes its Olympic opportunities to do anything live in prime and then choke return after a 112-year absence. time. So we are ready to embrace these him.”—Lee Judge, Then there is the advantageous time challenges.” —R.D. Kansas City Star
42 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net SCORECARD THE YEAR IN WorldMags.netHOT DAILY FANTASY than $1 billion. Investors included everyone from TAKES sports leagues to networks The Bropocalypse to Bob Kraft. “Now women, long As quickly as it had considered the Their ads were ubiquitous, but as become the entrepreneurial more civilized sex, suddenly as they had arrived, FanDuel story of 2015, daily feel the need to fantasy’s arc began to join us louts in our crassways?...If and DraftKings ran into trouble resemble that of Internet women are into poker. In October a mixed martial DraftKings employee was arts today, what’ll ON SUNDAY OF the this was the last big bash accused of using internal be their male- NFL’s Week 14, the before the lights went out. data to win $350,000; the like misbehavior 120 finalists of FanDuel’s Daily fantasy went individual was cleared of tomorrow?” World Fantasy Football mainstream in 2015, as wrongdoing, but the story —Bud Poliquin, Championship filled a hotel commercials featuring bloomed into a full-blown Syracuse.com ballroom in San Diego for bros boasting of winning national controversy, wi a football bacchanalia. millions off their $5 lineups politicians cracking down Flickering screens aired became ubiquitous— on companies they believed live games, celebrity hosts FanDuel and DraftKings in were illegal gambling story felt like a worked the room (Joe one month spent more than sites exploiting a legal cautionary start- Montana! Dan Marino!), the entire beer industry loophole. One minute up tale: a case of too and staggering sums of on advertising, with spots daily fantasy was a topic much, too soon. There cash (in all, $12 million in running every 90 seconds during a presidential will now be extensive legal prize money) were awarded at one point—and the debate, the next an NFL proceedings and even based on, in part, Blake number of players soared. player, Pierre Garçon, congressional hearings. It’s Bortles’s performance. The In the summer there was made headlines by suing impossible to predict where event was the glittering talk of mammoth IPOs for FanDuel, claiming players daily fantasy goes from culmination of a year DraftKings and FanDuel, were being exploited here. Only this is certain: in which daily fantasy the two main daily fantasy without compensation. In 2016 there will be—to exploded into a billion- operators. As recently as As attorneys general everyone’s relief—fewer of dollar industry. Yet you this fall both companies began investigating daily those damn commercials. couldn’t help but wonder if were valued at more fantasy in their states, the —Albert Chen
Oct. 4 Reports surface of TOTALPRIZEPOOL a DraftKings (MILLIONS) employee winning Sunday Million + Millionaire Maker Source: Eilers Research, LLC 16 $350,000 using internal data Oct. 30 201 NFL 2015 NFL Garçon files Season Season 14 a class-action lawsuit against FanDuel on 12 behalf of NFL Dec. 11 players Appeals 10 Oct. 13 court judge Congress allows the sites calls for an FTC to continue 8 investigation into operating in the daily fantasy N.Y.—for now JEFF BOTTARI/ZUFFA LLC/GETTY IMAGES (ROUSEY) industry 6 Nov. 10 New York AG orders sites to 4 cease accepting bets from N.Y. 2 residents
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 WEEK
44 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net SCORECARD WorldMags.net CAITLYN JENNER followers in just four hours, the fastest accumulation in the site’s history. Changing Still, it wasn’t clear if the unprecedented media metrics reflected progress The Game or prurience. What was 2015 challenged undeniable: One of the ACCEPTANCE assumptions most iconic and celebrated SPEECH male athletes of the second Between her about gender half of the 20th century interviews and her BY AMY ELLIS NUTT had, as a woman, suddenly embodied the zeitgeist of ESPY awards speech the second decade of the (left), Jenner IT WAS A media 21st. “Caitlyn coming out got millions moment unlike any as a woman is such a big of people other—except, perhaps, moment,” says Christina talking about the one five weeks earlier, Kahrl, a national baseball trans issues. on April 24, when 1976 writer and editor for Olympic gold medal ESPN.com who is an out decathlete Bruce Jenner transgender woman. “That announced to ABC’s forces people collectively to Diane Sawyer (and nearly understandtransness.... 17 million other Americans), Sports gives us this “I am a woman.” But that opportunity to talk about must-see, appointment- something we’d never talk TV moment was only the about ordinarily.” groundbreaking,” Kahrl created the GO! Athletes overture. The curtain Just days after Caitlyn says. “Fundamentally it mentorship program, came up for real on June 1 Jenner’s magazine debut, gets into how much of which works with LBGTQ when Vanity Fair magazine 35-year-old Chris Mosier, our expectation about athletes. “I feel like I released its July issue with a transgender man [physical] advantages shouldn’t have to change a breathtaking cover: competing in the sprint are just automatic gender my body for the IOC.” Jenner, 65, thick brown duathlon in his age group, hair tumbling over bare became the first known out “No one can now say they don’t shoulders, wearing little trans athlete to qualify for besides a white satin corset. a U.S. national team—the know someone who is transgender.” The headline was just three team that matched his words: call me caitlyn. gender identity rather assumptions. And Chris Nonetheless, Mosier and When Jenner joined Twitter, than the gender he was automatically challenged Kahrl believe sports, and
she topped one million assigned at birth. “It’s that with his ability.” specifically transgender FOR IMAGES PRICE/GETTY E. AMY (TOP); IMAGES WINTER/GETTY KEVIN Mosier, however, will athletes, can play a leading be unable to compete role in changing public at the 2016 world attitudes. “There’s been a THE YEAR IN championships unless the big shift in understanding,” rules of the International Mosier says. “With Caitlyn HOT TAKES Olympic Committee, coming out, no one which currently require can now say they don’t “The game is too complex? I’ve any transgender athlete know someone who is never bought into that, ‘Baseball’s to have made a full transgender.” just too complex.’ Really? A third surgical transition, are of the sport is from the Dominican changed. “These policies Amy Ellis Nutt is the author of Republic. The Dominican Republic are just completely out of Becoming Nicole: The has not been known in my lifetime as touch with reality,” says Transformation of an (COWHERD) SXSW having world-class academic abilities.” Mosier, who in November American Family. —Colin Cowherd, then of ESPN
46 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net SCORECARD WorldMags.net JESSICA MENDOZA Breath of Fresh Air A breakthrough year for women in the booth
and to just lay out that JESSICA MENDOZA MADE broadcasting history last inning so viewers in October when she served as an ESPN analyst for could feel the intensity the Astros-Yankees American League wild-card game, of such an impressive becoming the first woman to call a nationally televised moment. MLB playoff game. Last week SI caught up with the SI: What was your 35-year-old two-time Olympian (in softball). approach to negative commenters on Twitter SI: How satisfying was game, my first time in a and Facebook? this baseball season for Sunday Night Baseball JM: I came in knowing you professionally? booth. But once the game there would be resistance. Mendoza: It was a began, it was about the Whether I was great, whirlwind. I really performance on the field. decent or horrible, people look forward to I loved delving into what were going to have a diving into baseball makes Jake so unique, strong reaction because on a more consistent how he was able to be so it was different. So my basis throughout the dominant even in the ninth approach was to do my entire season. job, and I honestly stayed SI: What was the away from social media single most memorable for a bit. broadcasting moment for SI: What have you been you and why? told by ESPN about your JM: Probably the bottom assignment next year? of the ninth for [Cubs JM: Still hammering out pitcher] Jake Arrieta’s no- all of the details, but I am hitter [on Aug. 30] versus looking forward to being a the Dodgers. I had a lot of part of our MLB team on a nerves coming into that weekly basis. —R.D.
Who to Follow on Instagram Best Candid Shots of a Camera-Shy Most Adorable Look Best Selfies Showcasing Most Exuberant Glimpse into Teammate, Snapped at an MVP Family Mohawks, Actual Hawks the Glamorous Life of a GOAT by Fellow Mets Stephen Curry Mario Balotelli Serena Williams We Follow Lucas Duda
@stephencurry30 @mb459 @serenawilliams @wefollowlucasduda (MENDOZA); IMAGES INSTAGRAM (4)PHIL ELLSWORTH/ESPN
48 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net The Secret Game by Scott Ellsworth A retelling of the inspiring story of the first integrated basketball game, Game, by a former Smithsonian historian, details the showdown between an all-black Barbarian Days team from North Carolina and a by William Finnegan group of Duke medical students This memoir is equal parts Sports Books who played in an empty gym in adventure travelogue and Durham, N.C., on a Sunday morning in enchanting meditation on Of the Year 1944. The meeting not only shaped surfing and its rich and BY SARAH KWAK the sport, it helped change a nation. complicated culture.
FROM SI
Hockey’s Greatest The Audacity of Hoop A Better Goodbye The Best Team Money Can Buy by Sports Illustrated by Alex Wolff by John Schulian by Molly Knight SI’s hockey experts rank the 10 SI senior writer Alex Wolff This gem of L.A. noir fiction builds In her thorough account of the best of everything in a coffee table examines the life, leadership to a deadly showdown between remaking of the Dodgers from 2013 collection that captures, in classic and presidency of Barack good guy Nick Pafko, a former boxer to ’14, Knight unfolds a revealing stories and iconic photographs, the Obama through the lens of haunted by the man he killed in the behind-the-scenes tale of one of spirit of the toughest game on ice. the sport he loves. ring, and sleek thug Onus DuPree Jr. MLB’s most storied franchises.
COMFORT & LOOKS ARE FINALLY ON THE SAME TEAM
WorldMags.net SCORECARD WorldMags.net EVERY TWO weeks, a Browns devotee) you can hear the because members of the potential future of sports organization enjoyed coverage, as recorded his Longform Podcast, in in an unoccupied office which Linsky and others in the Berea, Ohio, interview nonfiction headquarters of the writers. While Linsky Browns. There, Max likened Brownscast to THE YEAR IN Linsky sets up two a combination of Hard microphones before Knocks and The Player’s speaking with a member Tribune, it is essentially HOT of the organization— Longform Podcast: Browns anyone from All-Pro left Edition. TAKES tackle Joe Thomas to Linsky is quick to equipment manager Brad point out that he does “Tom Brady, liar. Bad, right? But it’s worse. Melland, depending on not consider Brownscast No, not it. Him. Tom the episode of Brownscast, to be journalism, given Brady. He’s worse a team-owned podcast. that the team owns it. than a liar, worse than “Brand storytelling” But he says Cleveland has a cheat. He’s a man BROWNSCAST is the marketing not meddled much. From oflowintegrity.... catchphrase, and the Browns’ perspective, The revelation that podcasting continues to the opportunity to Brady had destroyed enjoy a post-Serial boom. share their brand with his cell phone before Pod People So a team-sponsored the safety net of final his interview with Ted The Browns cut podcast represents two control is a no-brainer, Wells makes it clear of the biggest trends in and Linsky expects to what species, what out the middleman sports and media coming see similar projects kind of cretin, we’re together, like freemium start around the league looking at. Tom Brady, virtual-reality selfies. soon. Other NFL teams shameless....Now Except this mashup works. mimicking the Browns? we see the depths of Cleveland tabbed How’s that for a change? Brady’s desperation.” Linsky (who is not —Jacob Feldman —Gregg Doyel, The Indianapolis Star
messages containing user-captured images Looking a GIF Horse in the Mouth and videos of live broadcasts. (Innumerable millennials first saw Odell Beckham Jr.’s latest Will leagues get antisocial? (LINSKY); TIM SHARP/APMICHAEL HICKS (BECKHAM) (BRADY); PATRICK IMAGES SMITH/GETTY circus catch in secondhand digital form.) A true crackdown on this not-quite-legal content would O.K., so it wasn’t quite #GIFAGEDDON, as subvert much of the free buzz that propels TechCrunch dubbed it. But that day in games and plays into the public discussion. October, when Deadspin and SB Nation saw Which is why it is not likely to happen. The their Twitter accounts briefly suspended future, suggests Kurt Wagner, an editor for sharing GIFs of NFL, college football at tech website Re/code, could look and UFC contests, seemed to mark an something like YouTube’s model, in which inflection point: Leagues were paying rights holders can earn revenue from attention to the expansive online ads placed against videos uploaded peanut gallery where their copyrighted by third parties. Leagues are also content is bandied about freely. partnering with Twitter to promote their Fans tweet about typical NFL games own sponsored clips. Explains Wagner, upward of 300,000 times to an audience “You’ve just gotta make sure everybody in the tens of millions, with many of those heir money.” —Dan Greene
50 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net JOHN SKIPPER The Fifth Commissioner ESPN faces big changes to the sports TV model BY JACK DICKEY
THIS JUST IN, from Disney CEO Bob Iger, told the Injury Added to analysts on the third- Insult Dept.: The man who quarter earnings call that began 2015 in perhaps the ESPN had experienced most envied role in sports “some modest sub[scriber] media—as the president of losses.” (A later SEC filing ESPN, John Skipper is in suggested that ESPN had essence a fifth professional gone from 100 million sports commissioner— subscribers at its 2010 will end it with his right peak to 92 million this foot immobilized in a fall.) The stock market has boot to hold in place his been known to reel when Achilles tendon, torn in a its articles of faith are volleyball game at a Disney questioned. Until Aug. 4 management retreat. the market had believed, Already, before that with only isolated pockets recent interview with year that ended in October, fateful pop in his heel, of doubt, that Disney’s SI (accompanied by an Disney’s cable networks, Skipper had been having media networks business— ESPN publicist) in his led by ESPN, did have their a year destined to miss of which ESPN is the major office at ABC’s corporate best year ever in terms SportsCenter’s Top 10. In driver—was positioned headquarters in New York. of revenue ($16.6 billion; October he laid off over for near- and long-term But, he says, “That 10% better than 2014) 300 employees, many of dominance. Disney stock narrative is extraordinarily and operating income them beloved behind- had gone up more than overwrought and ($6.8 billion; up 5%). the-scenes ESPN lifers, 250% in the five preceding fundamentally inaccurate. But it’s ESPN’s future, to cut costs. He calls it years. But one day after We just had our best not its present, that several the hardest week of his Iger’s announcement, the year ever.” media industry analysts career. He also shuttered market’s fear had hacked a He was talking about have questioned. And the Grantland, the esoteric staggering $18 billion off success on all fronts, but real issues are bigger than sports and culture site the company’s $205 billion as the Connecticut-based talent departures. The founded in 2011 by Bill market cap. ESPN has a Greenwich pessimists reason that Simmons, whose long- Skipper, armed with a patrician’s aversion to abandonment of pay-TV time-coming divorce from master’s degree in English discussing money, Skipper service (cord-cutting, ESPN was finalized in lit, couldn’t have missed the would not elaborate on the as it’s known) will be May. Another popular twist: ESPN, whose dimmer company’s finances. So sufficiently widespread in multiplatform talent, Colin journalistic lights have long take it from Disney’s latest the next several years to Cowherd, defected to the fashioned oversimplified, SEC filing: In the fiscal gut the Worldwide Leader’s competition at Fox Sports. tough-to-shake narratives— business model, as well Jason Whitlock headed LeBron is too soft! Peyton as those of regional or there too, after his own isn’t clutch!—was now stuck competing national sports editorial venture, The with its own. TV networks. Were ESPN Undefeated, stalled. “ESPN, because of the and its peers to slump And none of that seemed position it holds in the substantially, it would to resonate quite as much landscape, it deserves rattle the worlds of sports as the August afternoon scrutiny and attention,” and media like little in when Skipper’s boss, Skipper said, during a recent memory. ANTONIO HERNANDEZ/ESPN IMAGES HERNANDEZ/ESPN ANTONIO WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 51 SCORECARD WorldMags.net FIRST, A STEP BACK. to more than $9 billion in into sports. ESPN pays have gotten dauntingly Just how did we get here? estimated annual revenue. $1.9 billion a year to expensive. Many Decades ago, before For that, it can thank the NFL, $1.4 billion to broadcasters are paying the flourishing of cable what the industry calls the NBA and more than double compared with deals television and longer still the bundle. Your cable bill $600 million for the negotiated a decade ago, before digital cable and gets set like this: For every College Football Playoff, far outpacing inflation over streaming online video, the channel, each cable or among many other deals. the same period. Are rights big networks could devote satellite provider negotiates NBC paid $4.4 billion now too costly? “I think only so many of their a fee with the channel’s to broadcast the Olympics everyone in this business broadcast hours to sports. owner that it will pay for from 2014 to ’20, and has been saying that for Fans were often stuck each subscriber who gets will pay $7.7 billion more 30 years,” says Mark following their teams on that channel. In 2016, to broadcast the Games Lazarus, chairman of the radio or in the papers. according to estimates through ’32. Yahoo paid NBC Sports Group, which a reported $20 million has recently paid reported to stream one Bills- sums of $400 million Jaguars game in October annually for NASCAR and at 9:30 a.m. Eastern. $150 million for the English Local deals can be just Premier League. “We keep as eye-popping: Time buying them and creating Warner Cable agreed in value for our partners and ’13 to pay the Dodgers ourselves.” But, he says, an annual average of “Everyone’s being a little about $300 million to more selective these days.” televise their games; earlier this year the lowly THE MUSHROOMING of Diamondbacks sold the the sports media business rights to their games to has had consequences Fox Sports Arizona for everywhere—it birthed ESPN has laid off hundreds of an annual average of $30 million–and-up $80 million. annual salaries for baseball employees in two of the past three Thanks to increased players (not to mention years—and these are still boom times. competition among similar-sized checks for traditional players—the league commissioners) and But as technological from media research firm recently launched Fox funded the construction of advances brought pay SNL Kagan, ESPN will Sports 1 and NBC Sports countless new stadiums. TV television to more than run cable providers more Network, for instance—and money was the driving force 100 million homes, televised than seven bucks per deep-pocketed digital behind the mad scramble sports became omnipresent subscriber per month—or concerns, sports rights for conference realignment and broadcasters’ best bet. more than $86 annually in college sports, and it Sports were exclusive—no from 90-plus million may soon be the central competitor could televise people. Consumers have THE YEAR IN issue of a 2017 NBA the games to which your often wondered if the lockout. The steadiness of network had bought rights— bundle provides value. HOT guaranteed rights fees has and, with a few exceptions, But broadcasters and also limited team owners’ sports alone necessitated live distributors naturally love it. TAKES exposure to year-to-year viewing. Sports had loyal, Where does the money volatility in ticket sales and rabid audiences too, people go? Some of it goes into sponsorships—so you could “Not[just]soccer... likely to desert their cable the pockets of Disney’s women’s sports in blame the sports-TV boom providers if they couldn’t shareholders. Some of it general aren’t worth for tanking, too. find their games. So cable goes to pay ESPN’s 8,000 watching.” The sports world has channels made every effort employees, producers —Andy Benoit, watched nervously in to buy rights from leagues. and writers and hosts SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, recent years as bundled JOE FARAONI/ESPN Sports fans alone, and cameramen among on Twitter (Andy pay-TV service has lost though, did not push ESPN them. But a lot of it goes would like us to convey some of its shine. Netflix, his sincere apologies)
52 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net the leading streaming successful business model video service, has added in the history of media, Victory from the Jaws 16 million domestic which is what we have, subscribers since 2012, willy-nilly,” Skipper says. Of The Undefeated? which was the last year ESPN will not be going U.S. pay television added the way of newspaper A new editor will try to save ESPN’s rather than lost subscribers, chains anytime soon. “Black Grantland” according to research firm The multiple threats to MoffettNathanson. its established way of Skipper says ESPN wasn’t doing business—higher Grantland wasn’t In June, Whitlock was surprised. “I think we had rights fees, new cable the only ESPN ousted as the head of a pretty good awareness and digital competitors, property to suffer a The Undefeated (he that there is some strain cord-cutters—are not thunderous takedown left ESPN for good in on the large-bundle pay TV existential ones. But they this year. There October), seemingly business,” he says. “We’ve may well cut into ESPN’s was also the KO of confirming concerns had pretty good insight margins, which have long The Undefeated, a about his divisive on that for several years been the industry’s envy. website intended to management style. In produce hard-edged October, ESPN announced and have pretty accurately Analyst Rich Greenfield, journalism about race it had hired Washington forecast where we thought of BTIG Research, recently and sports but pinned Post managing editor that would be.” downgraded Disney stock to the canvas before it Kevin Merida (below) as The power players of because of cord-cutting, had a chance to step the site’s new editor- sports media have so far saying that ESPN “appears into the ring. Pegged in-chief. Since then, responded to changing poised to become Disney’s by pundits as the however, The Undefeated consumer tastes in every most troubled business.” “Black Grantland,” The has published only one way except one: the way Skipper was picked for Undefeated began in article. It still has no they get paid. Cord-cutting the job in 2011 thanks to his 2013 under then ESPN official launch date. is not yet a viable option reputation as an executive writer and talking head Lost in the website’s for committed sports fans. equally savvy with business Jason Whitlock, an often failure to get off Most rights holders don’t and creative affairs, blustery and outspoken the ground were the make their games available the perfect president to media juggernaut. opportunities to for live online streaming imagineer a future for Despite its hype, produce timely, thought- in their home markets, the empire. He gave life however, the website provoking journalism and and those that do—most to Grantland and Nate failed to lock in a launch social commentary. Case NBA teams and, starting Silver’s FiveThirtyEight date and published just in point: As November’s next year, 15 MLB teams, in spite of their negligible five articles in its two- strike and protests including the Yankees, bottom-line significance. year run under Whitlock. by the University of Tigers and Cardinals— But the company has laid Missouri football team require consumers to have off hundreds of employees made headlines amid an existing subscription to in two of the past three allegations that the school’s president had a video provider. The same years—and these are still failed to address racial goes for the streaming boom times. incidents on campus, sites and apps controlled “I believe that we are The Undefeated lay by NBC, Fox, and ESPN. navigating our way through dormant. The one article (WatchESPN, ESPN’s these challenges,” Skipper by an Undefeated writer streaming outfit, had a says, “and the report that in November was about gangbusters college-football we have problems we can’t South Carolina State season, with a 53% increase figure out is inaccurate.” defensive end Reggie over 2014 in total minutes His contract, extended this Owens rescuing a family viewed.) year, runs through 2018. from a car accident. “I’m quite confident What might life be like in A feel-good story, we will figure out how to a reined-in ESPN? That’s but hardly a front- adapt to the new world.... one thing the ever-curious line dispatch on race But it would be reckless executive hopes he never relations in sports. to abandon the most has to find out. ± —Elizabeth Newman COURTESY OF THE WASHINGTON POST WASHINGTON THE OF COURTESY WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 53 FarewellWorldMags.net
WorldMags.net From the Giant who became a broadcasting mainstay toWorldMags.net the Moses who led Philadelphia to the promised land, from Tark the Shark to Yogi Berra, 90 Mr. Cub to the Snake, indelible figures across Even as a kid, Berra had a gift a wide range of sports passed away in 2015 for the one-liner. When asked, “How do you like school?” his BY MARK BECHTEL stock reply was “closed.” So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Yogi dropped out at age 14, embarking on a litany of odd jobs, each of which inevitably ended when it interfered with baseball. Berra could have wound up behind the plate for his hometown Cardinals, but they had room for only one catcher from the St. Louis Italian enclave known as the Hill, and that was Joe Garagiola, whose family lived across the street from Yogi’s. So after a highly decorated stint in the Navy, Berra landed with the Yankees, for whom he played from 1946 to ’63, coining so many Yogi-isms along the way that to many he was known more as a quipster than a catcher. Which is a shame, because as backstops go, none have been more complete than Berra. In the first seven years of the 1950s, he won three MVPs and never finished worse than fourth in the voting. He lacked book smarts—he preferred horror comics and once asked Ernest Hemingway which paper he wrote for—but he knew the game, digesting information on hitters that allowed him to be a superior pitch-caller. In addition to the 10 World Series he won as a player, he competed in seven more as a coach and a manager with the Yanks and the Mets. When the beloved Berra died, his memorial mass was attended by luminaries from sports, politics and show business, a fitting tribute for the man GETTY IMAGES GETTY who said, “Always go to other people’s funerals; otherwise they won’t go to yours.”
WorldMags.net SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 55 WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net WorldMags.netThe Lives They Led Dean Smith, 83 Even in death Smith was looking out for his players. In March, a little more than a month after the former North Carolina coach passed away, each of his 180 letter-winners was informed that Smith had left him $200, so he could have a nice dinner out. The gesture should have come as no surprise because few coaches emphasized camaraderie and Bill Monbouquette, 78 J.P. Parise, 73 Dave Meyers, 62 character more than Smith. A three-time All-Star for A surprise inclusion on Team After leading UCLA to the Hired as head coach at the Red Sox, Monbo fanned Canada in the 1972 Summit 1975 NCAA title with 24 points Chapel Hill in 1961 in the wake 17 Washington Senators in front Series, Parise got tossed from and 11 boards in coach John of a gambling conspiracy that of Dwight Eisenhower in 1961 the deciding eighth game for Wooden’s last game, the 6' 8" cost legendary Frank McGuire and no-hit the White Sox in ’62. going after a referee with forward known as Spider was his job, Smith was told by Perhaps his most significant his stick raised. (The ref’s drafted by the Lakers with the administrators to—above all— contribution for Boston—the last pro-Soviet bias diminished No. 2 pick, then dealt to the run a clean program. Fans had major league team to integrate— afterward.) In 14 seasons in the Bucks in the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar other expectations. Following a was in standing up to manager NHL, the rugged winger made blockbuster. Meyers—whose loss to Wake Forest in January Del Baker, who was race-baiting two All-Star teams and scored sister Ann was also a UCLA hoops ’65, Smith was hanged in effigy an opposing player in front of an overtime goal that gave the star—retired at 27 after four on campus. Eventually, though, Pumpsie Green, the Sox’ first Islanders their first postseason solid seasons and became an Smith satisfied everyone. African-American player. series win, in 1975. elementary school teacher. More than 96% of his players graduated, and just one of his 36 teams finished with a losing Garo Yepremian, 70 record: his first, which went As a placekicker Yepremian 8–9. After that Smith guided brought to mind a professional the Tar Heels to 30 seasons of soccer player (which he had once at least 20 victories, including been). As a passer he brought to 27 in a row, as well as national mind a professional tie-maker titles in 1982 and ’93. He (which he also had once been). , YEPREMIAN); ,
LUSTRATED (MEYERS) LUSTRATED retired with the record for Plucked out of his basement tie wins, with 879. shop by the Dolphins in 1970, Smith’s innovations on Yepremian led the league in field the court are many—the four goal accuracy three times and corners and thanking the ended the longest game in NFL passer, to name just two—but history, a ’71 playoff duel against he also went places other the Chiefs, with a 37-yarder in coaches rarely did away from double OT. The next year Miami the game. Speaking out on again made the Super Bowl. Late issues such as the death in the game Yepremian had a kick penalty, the Vietnam War and blocked. He picked up the ball and nuclear weapons, Smith was lofted a pass, which the Redskins a shining example that there intercepted and returned for a was more to life than what touchdown. The Dolphins held on happened on the hardwood. to win 14–7. Being known for the In addition to being named biggest blunder in Super Bowl the 1993 coach of the year, history didn’t bother the native he received the Presidential of Cyprus. “Fortunately,” he said, STEVE BABINEAU/NHLI/GETTY IMAGES (PARISE); RICH CLARKSON/CLARKSON CREATIVE FOR SPORTS IL SPORTS FOR CLARKSON/CLARKSON CREATIVE RICH (PARISE); IMAGES BABINEAU/NHLI/GETTY STEVE JOHN D. HANLON FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (SMITH); FOCUS (MONBOUQUETTE (SMITH); IMAGES SPORT/GETTY ON ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR HANLON D. JOHN Medal of Freedom in 2013. “I’m a happy-go-lucky guy.”
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 57 The Lives TheyWorldMags.net Led Ernie Banks, 83 When Banks, a 22-year-old shortstop, signed with the Cubs in 1953, he was lacking two things: a baseball glove and much idea of what he was doing. So teammate Eddie Miksis loaned him some leather, and coach Ray Blades gave him a book called How to Play Baseball. Banks had been barnstorming with the Doris Hart, 89 Anthony Mason, 48 Elmer Lach, 97 Negro leagues’ Kansas City Safe to say that July 7, 1951, After kicking around Turkey, Described by a rival GM Monarchs, who discovered him was the apex of Hart’s career. Venezuela and various minor in 1950 as “the meanest, while he was playing fast- On that day she won three leagues, Mason joined the shrewdest, nastiest so-and-so pitch softball, since Booker T. Wimbledon titles: singles, Knicks in 1991–92, and his NBA in the league,” Lach was also Washington High in Dallas had doubles and mixed doubles. career, which lasted 13 years, one of the greatest passers in no baseball team. Hart suffered from serious took off. At 6' 7" and 250 pounds hockey history. In his 14-year Banks was a quick study. leg ailments—her right leg was he was the chief bruiser on a career with the Canadiens— In 1954 he hit 19 homers nearly amputated when she team full of them, but he was for whom he centered the and finished second in the was a girl—that restricted her also a wizard passing out of the Punch Line between Maurice Rookie of the Year vote. After TONY TRIOLO FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (BANKS); BETTMANN/CORBIS (HART); NATHANIEL S. BUTLER/NBAE/GE mobility. As a result, she used post, becoming in effect a point Richard and Toe Blake—Lach switching from a 35-ounce her wits to win 35 major titles, power forward. As New York had 215 goals and 408 assists. bat to a 31-ounce model, the including the singles in each of coach Pat Riley put it, “He’s deft, He retired in ’54 as the NHL’s power came; the lighter lumber the Grand Slams. almost cute.” all-time leading scorer. allowed him to wait on a pitch
and then flick it over the I SPORTS FOR (ANDUJAR); SCHARFMAN HERB IMAGES SPORT/GETTY ON FOCUS fence at the last second. (He finished with 512 home runs.) Said one Chicago teammate, “Ernie swings a bat like Joe Louis used to throw a punch— short and sweet.” In 1958 and ’59, Banks became the first back-to-back MVP winner in National League history. He did it all, of course, for the chronically abysmal Cubs. During the first 15 of his 19 seasons the team never Joaquín Andújar, 62 Chuck Bednarik, 89 Billy Casper, 83 finished within 12 games of (CA ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR COOKE JERRY (BEDNARIK); LLUSTRATED TTY IMAGESTTY (MASON); BRUCE BENNET Labeled by SI as a “hot dog He was nicknamed Concrete Only six golfers have more wins first place. Still, all of that you’ve got to relish,” Andújar Charlie because that’s what on the PGA Tour than his 51, losing never dampened Banks’s was a fiery righthander who he sold when he wasn’t playing but Casper’s serious on-course enthusiasm for the game. His won Game 7 of the 1982 football, but Bednarik certainly demeanor hid a warm, tender sunniness irritated some, most World Series for the Cardinals, could have picked up that personality—he and his notably manager Leo Durocher, then pitched in their Game 7 moniker for his toughness. One wife, Shirley, adopted six who took Banks’s demeanor for
loss in the ’85 Series—until he of the last two-way players in children—and led to his being a lack of intensity. “I’m just a (LACH); IMAGES T STUDIOS/GETTY was tossed for arguing balls NFL history, he didn’t dabble overshadowed by Nicklaus, human being trying to survive and strikes. The two-time at center and linebacker. He Palmer and Player. “There the only way I know how,” Banks 20-game winner had a zeal for played, in his words, “the whole should never have been just said in 1969. “I don’t make life, once saying, “It’s great to schmear,” a true 60-minute the BigThree,” said proturned enemies. If I’m not crazy about
be alive because when you are man. The 10-time All-Pro led the broadcaster Johnny Miller. “It somebody, he’ll never know it. I SPER) dead, you can’t drink beer.” Eagles to titles in 1949 and ’60. should’ve been the Big Four.” kill him with kindness.”
58 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net The Lives TheyWorldMags.net Led
Jerome Kersey, 52 Marcel Pronovost, 84 Jethro Pugh, 70 Bevo Francis, 82 The 6' 7" forward from A bruising defenseman who Playing on a Cowboys D loaded Unleashing a lethal jumper, the Division II Longwood College wasn’t afraid to fling himself in with future Hall of Famers, Pugh 6' 9" Francis scored 116 points in Farmville, Va., finished front of a slap shot, Pronovost didn’t make a single Pro Bowl for tiny Rio Grande (Ohio) College second to Michael Jordan in broke his nose a dozen times during his 14-year career out in a 1953 game. When the NCAA the 1987 Slam Dunk Contest. In and was stitched up so often of Elizabeth City (N.C.) State. refused to recognize the record 17 seasons—11 in Portland—he that writer Stan Fischler called But the tackle was a mainstay because it came against a two- was known not just for scoring him “the most embroidered man on the Doomsday Defense, year school, Francis went out (19.2 points per game in ’87–88) in hockey.” The Hall of Famer starting in four Super Bowls and and had a 113-pointer the next but also for chasing down fast- won five Stanley Cups with leading the team in sacks for season. After touring with the breakers and swatting their Detroit and Toronto, played in five consecutive seasons, from Harlem Globetrotters, he turned shots, inspiring announcer Bill eight finals—including in 1961, 1968 to ’72. “If it weren’t for a down the NBA for a job in a mill Schonely to coin the phrase, despite a broken ankle—and name like Jethro Pugh,” he said so he could be near his family in “Mercy, mercy, Jerome Kersey!” made 11 All-Star teams. in ’74, “I might be anonymous.” Highlandtown, Ohio.
Calvin Peete, 71 Peete was flashy. He drove a Caddy that he claimed was maroon but others swore was pink. He played in boots with spikes. And safe to say, he was the first PGA golfer who had diamond chips in his front teeth. Peete had a good AUGUSTA NATIONAL/GETTY IMAGES (PEETE); TIM DEFRISCO/NBAE/GETTY I DEFRISCO/NBAE/GETTY TIM (PEETE); IMAGES NATIONAL/GETTY AUGUSTA reason for getting them: As a teenager in Florida he worked peddling clothes to migrant
farmworkers, and he wanted to (PRONOVOST, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED FRANCIS); (PUGH) TONY TOMSIC FOR stand out to his clientele. Peete eventually had the chips taken out after a few years on the PGA Tour, which he joined in 1975 at age 32—just nine years after taking up the game. A broken left arm as a child prevented him from straightening it on his swing, but Peete was still MAGES (KERSEY); AP (KERSEY); MAGES the most accurate player of his day. He won 12 times, including the 1985 Tournament Players Championship.
60 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
Dean Chance, 74 Like Angels roommate Bo Belinsky, Chance enjoyed the Hollywood lifestyle. But the righthander made plenty of headlines on the mound as well. As a 24-year-old in 1964, Chance threw 11 shutouts—only Bob Gibson has more since the Dead Ball era—and became the youngest winner of the Cy Young Award. He had 110 victories by age 27, but injuries limited him to just 18 more.
Jerry Tarkanian, 84 Neal Walk, 67 If Tark the Shark proved anything, it was that being a cheater and being brutally honest are not mutually The only player to have his exclusive. All three of the NCAA programs he coached ended up on probation, which didn’t make him the ideal jersey retired by Florida, Walk mouthpiece for constant attacks against the hypocrisy of the NCAA. It didn’t make him wrong, either. His was drafted by the Suns in primary gripe was that the organization—“the NC two-A,” as he called it—only paid lip service to weeding out 1969 after they lost a coin toss corruption. “The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky, they’ll probably slap a few more years’ probation on Cleveland for the top pick. (Lew Alcindor State,” he said after a Wildcats assistant got busted FedEx-ing an envelope of cash to a recruit’s father. went No 1.) A 6' 10" center, The irony is that while Tarkanian started off as one of the minnows at Long Beach State, he eventually built Walk suited up for three teams UNLV into a Goliath by embracing players other programs avoided. His 1989–90 team beat Duke by 30 in a over nine seasons, averaging national title game seen by many as a victory of sinners over saints. (The Blue Devils avenged the loss, taking 12.6 points. After undergoing the ’91 final by two.) Tark’s run with the Runnin’ Rebels ended in ’92 after pictures surfaced of his players in surgery for a spinal tumor in a hot tub with a convicted point shaver. A brief stint with the Spurs and a seven-year stay at his alma mater, 1987, he kept playing; in ’90, Fresno State, followed, but he never replicated the success he had in Vegas. “Most people will tell you that President Bush named him
ROBERT BECK FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (TARKANIAN); ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR BECK ROBERT FREHM/AP RON (CHANCE); AP (WALK) their favorite time in this town was when I was coaching here,” he said in 2010. Wheelchair Athlete of the Year.
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED The Lives TheyWorldMags.net Led Ken Stabler, 69 The headline of a 1977 story in PEOPLE provides some insight into the Raiders’ quarterback: The Super Bowl Was ‘A Meat Market’—No, Not the Game, the Women After Ken Stabler. (Recounting the many women who wanted Stabler to sign their breasts, he said, “I’d rather have a challenge than someone just coming on.”) Marques Haynes, 89 Stu Miller, 87 Roy Tarpley, 50 To those who knew football, Growing up near Tulsa, Haynes His fastball was in the 80s, In his second season with though, the Snake was much didn’t have a basketball, so he so one can imagine how the Mavericks, the skilled more than a philandering and learned to dribble with a tennis slow Miller’s changeup was. 6' 11" power forward averaged eminently quotable good ol’ boy. ball. The education took. Haynes Announcer Russ Hodges once a double double and was the Stabler picked up his was the best dribbler in the quipped, “There’s one that 1988 Sixth Man of the Year. nickname for his scrambling world, able to pat it three times almost turned around and went He never again played a full prowess at Foley (Ala.) High. a second: At Langston (Okla.) back.” But it was effective. The season because of injuries and His smooth southpaw delivery University he dribbled out the righty twice led the league in addiction. In ’95 the NBA banned made him one of the most 1 final 2 ⁄2 minutes of a game. He saves, and he pitched in the him for life for violating terms of dangerous quarterbacks in was a pro for 46 years, 13 of first of two 1961 All-Star games, his rehab program. “If Roy had the land at Alabama, where he them as a Globetrotter, and in when he infamously balked after stayed healthy,” said teammate led the Tide to an undefeated 1998 became the first Globie to a gust of wind buffeted him on Brad Davis, “he could have been season in 1966. He was make the Hall of Fame. the mound at Candlestick Park. one of the top 50 players ever.” Oakland’s second-round pick two years later, but owner WALTER (STABLER); IOOSS JR. FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED HEINZ KLUETMEIER FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (H Al Davis was worried about MIKE POWELL/GETTY IMAGES (TARPLEY); WWE (RHODES); NEIL LEI NEIL (RHODES); WWE (TARPLEY); IMAGES POWELL/GETTY MIKE Stabler’s right knee and had him play minor league ball in Spokane, Wash. Stabler finally joined the Raiders in 1970 but didn’t become the starter until ’73, at 28. The gunslinger led the NFL in game-winning drives in three of his first four seasons, ending with a win over the Vikings in the hedonistic Super Bowl XI.
It’s easy to say that Stabler (H PHOTOGRAPHY DENNEY DON (SHERMAN); ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR FER Dusty Rhodes, 69 Allie Sherman, 91 Lauren Hill, 19 parlayed that success into a life Proof that not all wrestlers The 5' 11" QB from Brooklyn Though she had just 10 of beach bumming and boozing, are muscle-bound specimens, College joked that during his points for Division III Mount but he was headed for that no the man born Virgil Runnels five NFL seasons he was the St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Hill matter what. His success meant
embraced his flab, building an best lefthanded holder on extra was runner-up for 2014 AP he had a nicer boat. In 1977, SI ( AYNES); SPORTING IMAGES NEWS/GETTY everyman persona. He referred points. Sherman made a much Female Athlete of the Year. writer Robert F. Jones spent a to himself as the son of a bigger splash as a coach. A What she lacked in scoring, week with Stabler in Gulf Shores, plumber (which he was) and the student of football who helped she made up for in inspiration. Ala. “Gettin’ nowhere fast,” the American Dream. “From the first resuscitate the T-formation, he Hill played in four games—the Snake said. “As philosophies go, time I walked into a ring, I had led the Giants to the title game first before a crowd of 10,250— it’s as good as any. What counts charisma,” the Hall of Famer said in each of his first three years despite having an inoperable isn’t so much where you’re in 1989. “There was something (1961 to ’63) and hired the NFL’s brain tumor. Her charity going—I mean, we all end up in about me that was going to first full-time African-American has helped raise more than the same place—but what counts MILLER); ILL) revolutionize the sport.” assistant coach. $2 million for cancer research. is the getting there.”
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net The Lives TheyWorldMags.net Led
Bill Guthridge, 77 Bob St. Clair, 84 Darryl Dawkins, 58 Stuart Scott, 49 A Final Four point guard under Like many O-linemen, St. Clair Despite his claims that he Hired by ESPN2 in 1993 when Tex Winter at Kansas State in enjoyed a porterhouse. Unlike was from Chocolate Paradise the network’s mandate was to 1958, Guthridge was a longtime most, he liked it raw. It was one on Planet Lovetron, the 6' 11" appeal to younger viewers, Scott assistant to Dean Smith at of the eccentricities that earned Dawkins was a high school moved over to ESPN to anchor North Carolina, where he was the 6' 9", 263-pound St. Clair phenom from Orlando. He SportsCenter three years later. the shooting and big man coach. his nickname: the Geek. A 49ers jumped straight to the NBA in He kept his hip-hop–influenced Guthridge succeeded Smith tackle from 1953 to ’63, he was 1975, averaging 12.0 points and voice, introducing countless in ’97–98 but led the Tar Heels asked, upon entering the Hall of 6.1 rebounds over 14 seasons. phrases (Boo-Yah!) to the for just three seasons before Fame in ’90, if players of his era Dawkins was best known, though, sports lexicon. He hosted retiring. Two of his teams reached would succeed in the modern for his backboard-shattering everything from NFL coverage to the Final Four, making him only NFL. St. Clair’s reply: “The dunks and outlandish personality, a David Blaine special, all while the second coach to advance that question is, Could these candy- earning the nickname Chocolate remaining as cool as the other far in two of his first three years. asses have played with us?” Thunder—from Stevie Wonder. side of the pillow.
Al Arbour, 82 A 1981 TIME story noted MITCHELL LAYTON FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (ARBOUR); JAMIE SQUI JAMIE (ARBOUR); ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR LAYTON MITCHELL that Arbour, then the Blues’ coach, “sent his players to an S.CLAIR); IMAGES (DAWKINS); NOREN TROTMAN/NBAE/GETTY (ST. GRANT HALVERSON/GETTY ophthalmologist to work on hand-eye coordination and hired a figure-skating coach to improve footwork.” (Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Arbour was the last NHL player to wear glasses on-ice and that, as a stay-at-home defenseman for four teams, he scored all of Harvey Pollack, 93 12 goals in 626 games.) Such Pollack’s career in pro RE/GETTY IMAGES (GUTHRIDGE); PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME/AP OF HALL FOOTBALL PRO (GUTHRIDGE); IMAGES RE/GETTY innovative thinking—Arbour basketball began with the was also ahead of the curve Philadelphia Warriors in 1946. on scouting and the use of He worked in p.r. (he organized video—served the man known the famed shot of Wilt as Radar well: From 1980 to Chamberlain holding a 100 sign ’83 his Islanders teams won after his historic 100-point four straight Stanley Cups. game) but was known more for IMAGES (SCOTT); AP (POLLACK) Arbour also hoisted the Cup revolutionizing stats. Because four times as a player, and his of Pollack, the NBA began to 740 victories with the Isles are track minutes, steals and an NHL record for a coach with a turnovers; during 1979–80 he single team. coined the term triple double.
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net Mal Whitfield, 91 After serving with the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, Marvelous Mal was still on active duty as an Air Force staff sergeant when he won gold in the 800 meters at the 1948 Olympics. He was then deployed to Korea, where he went on 27 missions as a tail gunner—and trained by running on airstrips at night with a .45 on his hip. Whitfield repeated his gold medal performance at the ’52 Games, finishing his career with five medals. Three years later he began holding clinics in Europe and then Africa. For the next 50 years he was a sports ambassador; SI called him a “diplomat in short pants.” Whitfield visited more than 130 countries, helping 5,000 athletes attend colleges across the U.S. on sports scholarships. IMAGES (SIFFORD); NEIL LEIFER FOR NEIL SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IMAGES (SIFFORD); THANIEL S. BUTLER/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES (WILLIAMS) Charlie Sifford, 92 Eddie LeBaron, 85 Minnie Miñoso, 90 John Williams, 53 After successfully challenging At 5' 7", LeBaron quarterbacked Miñoso played in five decades, His career at Tulane was the PGA Tour’s whites-only a Pacific offense that led the the last two as little more darkened by his implication in a clause in 1961, Sifford faced nation in 1950. Twice wounded than a publicity stunt. But in point-shaving scandal, but when abuse ranging from annoying as a Marine in Korea, he didn’t his prime there was nothing the player nicknamed Hot Rod (his golf balls kicked into arrive in the NFL until ’52, when gimmicky about the Cuban-born was acquitted in 1986, he found traps) to abusive. Through he was Rookie of the Year with outfielder’s game. Chicago’s a home in Cleveland. A 6' 10" it all, Sifford persevered, the Redskins. LeBaron came first black major leaguer, power forward with a handle and winning two tournaments—and out of retirement in ’60—he was Miñoso had speed and plenty a sweet shot, Williams had his constantly taking the high practicing as a lawyer after of pop: In 1949 he smacked the best NBA season in 1989–90, road. “I just wanted to show earning his degree at George second pitch he saw as a White when he averaged 16.8 points that a black man could play Washington—to take the first snap Sox for a 415-foot homer, and and 8.1 rebounds; the next year this game and be a gentleman,” ever for the Cowboys. He was their he finished in the top 10 in the the Cavaliers made him the
BETTMANN/CORBIS PRITCHARD/PGA MONTANA OF AMERICA/GETTY (WHITFIELD); (LEBARON); CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARCHIVE PHOTOS/TNS/SIPA USA NA (MIÑOSO); he said in 2009. “I did that.” starting QB for two years. AL in slugging six times. league’s highest-paid player ever.
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 65 The Lives TheyWorldMags.net Led Frank Gifford, 84 One thing that can’t be disputed was Gifford’s adaptability. His father, an oil-field roughneck, moved the family more than 45 times looking for work in California and West Texas. Gifford went to Bakersfield (Calif.) High but didn’t have the grades to get into USC, so he spent a season at Bakersfield Junior College. Flip Saunders, 60 When he finally joined the An amateur magician (“I’m great Trojans in 1949, the high school at kids’ birthday parties,” he quarterback was forced to play boasted when introduced as defense for two years before the Wizards’ coach), Saunders becoming a halfback. performed his most incredible Gifford spent the beginning feat over the course of nearly of his 13-year career with the a decade. He led the previously Giants at left half and led the and subsequently moribund NFL in yards from scrimmage in Timberwolves to eight straight ’56, when he was named MVP. He playoff berths, the only moved to flanker after a vicious appearances in their history. In hit from Eagles linebacker Chuck 17 seasons he had a .525 winning Bednarik forced him to miss the percentage for three teams. ’61 season. Gifford also lined up at defensive back, making seven Pro Bowls—at three different positions. After retiring in ’64, Gifford transitioned to a career in front of the camera. His first film work had come when he was at USC, in the Martin-and- Lewis film That’s My Boy. (He kicked a field goal as a stand- in for Lewis.) In ’71 he replaced JO (SCHAYES); AP (GIFFORD); ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR PESKIN HY Keith Jackson on Monday Night Football for its second season, and he was a mainstay on ILLUSTRATED (SAUNDERS); ROBERT BECK FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (MUFF ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR BECK ROBERT (SAUNDERS); ILLUSTRATED Dolph Schayes, 87 Camille Muffat, 25 the broadcasts for 27 years. A master of the corny joke—he successfully wooed his wife on their A medley swimmer for France Gifford was the rare former first date with the same tomato-ketchup bit that Uma Thurman told at the 2008 Olympics, Muffat player—a Hall of Famer, at that— John Travolta in Pulp Fiction—Schayes was the first player in NBA focused on the freestyle for who did play-by-play, but his history to reach the 15,000-point plateau. He had size (6' 8", which the London Games, where she most important function was was big during the league’s early days), but he didn’t rely on it. He grew set an Olympic record in the as a grounding presence (and up in the Bronx playing three-on-three, where camping out under the 400 meters while also winning traffic cop) in a booth with Don hoop wasn’t an option. First at NYU and then over 15 seasons in the a silver and a bronze. She was Meredith and Howard Cosell. NBA, Schayes spent much of his time on the perimeter either launching killed—along with nine others, When Al Michaels was brought SPORTS FOR W. MCDONOUGH HN a high-arcing, two-handed set shot known as Sputnik, which he clung including Olympic boxer Alexis aboard in ’86, the multifaceted to even as the jumper came into fashion, or blowing past defenders Vastine and record-setting Gifford became a color off the dribble and finishing with either hand. The 12-time All-Star also sailer Florence Arthaud—in a commentator, and he spent his averaged 12.1 rebounds for the Syracuse Nationals and 76ers (after helicopter crash while filming a final season with MNF as the the team moved to Philadelphia), then coached for four seasons. reality show for French TV. studio host. AT)
66 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net WorldMags.net Moses Malone, 60 As a center at Petersburg (Va.) High, Malone was such a coveted recruit that Oral Roberts’s pitch came from Oral Roberts himself, who promised to cure Malone’s mother’s ulcers. Other recruiters slept on the porch of the rundown home he and his mom, Mary, shared. The 6' 11" Malone, who had always been shy, would lie on the floor and hide when they came calling. Eventually, he signed with Maryland. The irony is that Malone endured the process for nothing. The Utah Stars of the ABA offered him $3 million over seven years to turn pro straight out of high school, so he did. The league folded in 1976, after Malone’s second season, and his rights were passed around until he ended up with the NBA’s Buffalo Braves, for whom he played just six minutes in two games. The Rockets snapped him up off the Buffalo bench (for two first-round picks), and Malone finally had a home. The big man led Houston to the Finals in 1981 and earned his second MVP the following year. He then moved to Philadelphia, where he won a third MVP and his only NBA title, in ’83. That was the famed fo-fo-fo season, Malone’s way of predicting the 76ers would sweep their way to the championship. (It took them 13 games, not 12.) His lack of eloquence was often commented upon; in reality, he grew reluctant to talk as a kid because he had bad teeth. Malone found his solace on the court and, particularly, on the backboards; the 12-time All-Star led the NBA in rebounding five times. “He always loves his basketball,” said Mary in ’79, “and [that’s] what give that boy his courage.”
68 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED WorldMags.net WorldMags.netThe Lives They Led
Charlie Sanders, 68 Hot Rod Hundley, 80 Walter Byers, 93 Billy Pierce, 88 For 43 years Sanders was a The fancy-dribbling 6' 4" guard— The first executive director The Go-Go White Sox were part of the Lions’ organization— he turned down overtures to of the NCAA, Byers held the known for their speed on the the longest tenure of anyone become the rare white Harlem role for 36 years, overseeing a base paths, but they boasted outside the Ford family, Globetrotter—was the No. 1 pick period of astronomical growth in velocity on the hill as well. Pierce which owns the team. Before in the 1957 NBA draft out of popularity and revenue—as well was a wispy lefthander whose broadcasting, coaching and West Virginia. A two-time All-Star as their less savory by-products, heater was second only to that working in personnel, Sanders in six years as a Laker, he scandal and corruption. After of the Indians’ Herb Score in was a tight end for 10 seasons. became a broadcaster for the he retired in 1987, Byers turned the 1950s. He won 20 games An excellent blocker, the Hall Jazz in ’74, his rapid-fire voice on his creation, writing a in ’56 and ’57, and should have of Famer also had fantastic so distinctive in Utah that three highly critical memoir decrying done it in ’55, too, when he led hands, catching 336 passes. times when he called directory college amateurism as “an the American League with a He was named to the NFL’s assistance he was asked by the airtight racket of supplying 1.97 ERA, but he went 15–10, All-Decade team for the 1970s. operator, “Are you Hot Rod?” cheap athletic labor.” losing four 1–0 decisions. T STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES (MOORE) O LIBRARY/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES (HUNDLEY); IMAGES LIBRARY/NBAE/GETTY O Ed Sabol, 98 ENNET Bored with his job selling overcoats for his father-in-law, Sabol found his calling at age 46 when he bid $5,000 for the rights to film the 1962 NFL championship game. No matter
; VERNON BIEVER/AP (SANDERS); NBA PHOT NBA (SANDERS); BIEVER/AP VERNON ; that his only experience was shooting his son Steve’s high school games: Sabol was the top bidder. And with that, NFL Films was born. (Steve, 20 at that time, Dickie Moore, 84 would become his partner and
RS); JOHNRS); G. ZIMMERMAN FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (PIERCE); BRUCE B After breaking his hand in a successor.) Instead of simply fight, Moore played the second regurgitating highlights, Sabol half of the 1957–58 season in built programs around themes, a cast and led the NHL with featuring sharp editing, comic 84 points, raising the question interludes, dramatic music and of what he might accomplish if voice-of-God narration. The cash healthy. The answer, provided brought in by Sabol’s productions the next season: He set an NHL didn’t begin to approach the record with 96 points. The Hall revenue generated by TV deals. of Famer’s two scoring titles But as former Browns and came during his Canadiens’ Ravens owner Art Modell said, string of five straight “We sold the beauty of the game HEINZ KLUETMEIER FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (MALONE); ART SHAY FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (SABOL) ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR SHAY ART (MALONE); ILLUSTRATED SPORTS FOR KLUETMEIER HEINZ RICH CLARKSON/CLARKSON CREATIVE FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (BYE Stanley Cups. through NFL Films.”
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 69 The Lives TheyWorldMags.net Led
Bill Arnsparger, 88 Earl Lloyd, 86 Mel Farr, 70 Louise Suggs, 91 1 In 11 ⁄2 seasons as the Three years after Jackie A standout in UCLA’s Dream Called Miss Slugs by Bob Dolphins’ defensive Robinson integrated major Backfield, Farr later made Hope for her ability to clobber coordinator, Arnsparger was league baseball, in 1947, Lloyd his mark in Detroit: He was the ball, Suggs was one of the architect of two units so broke the NBA’s color line, one named the 1967 Rookie of the the 13 founders of the LPGA dominant that they became day ahead of Chuck Cooper and Year as a Lion and laid down Tour, in 1950. She won 61 pro known by their nicknames: Sweetwater Clifton. The 6' 5" backing tracks on Marvin Gaye’s tournaments over 12 years, the No-Name Defense, which Big Cat played nine seasons— ’71 Motown classic “What’s including 11 major titles, and in helped the 1972 team finish winning a championship with Going On.” Injuries limited his ’57 became the first female to undefeated, and the Killer B’s, the Syracuse Nationals in ’55— NFL career to seven seasons, achieve the career Grand Slam. which led the ’82 Dolphins to before embarking on a coaching but he became known to a new Suggs was also a respected the AFC championship. He also career. In ’71, Lloyd became the generation of Detroiters for the teacher, regularly contributing coached three seasons at LSU, fourth black head coach in the Mel Farr Superstar commercials to SI’s TIP FROM THE TOP column winning the SEC title in 1986. league, with the Pistons. promoting his Ford dealerships. in the 1950s.
Buddy Baker, 74 NASCAR’s Gentle Giant—who once released a country album
with several of his fellow ISC ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES (BAKER); FOCUS ON SPORT/GETTY IMAGES (ARNSPARGER drivers that included a cover of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”—was at his best when the (LLOYD); ART SHAY SPORTS ILLUSTRATED FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (S (FARR); FOR JOHN G. ZIMMERMAN cars were going fastest. Baker excelled on superspeedways, becoming the first stock car driver to break the 200-mph barrier, on a practice run at Talladega in 1970. Baker drove “as if all of his 215 pounds were concentrated in his right foot when he saw the green flag,” SI wrote in 1980. That year Baker won the Daytona 500 with an average speed of more than ); NBAE PHOTOS/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES 177 mph, the fastest 500-mile speed in auto racing history. Although Baker never won a points championship because he rarely raced a full season,
in ’98 he was named one of UGGS) NASCAR’s 50 best drivers.
70 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net WorldMags.net More Farewells
Frank Borghi, 89 One of many St. Louisans on the 1950 U.S. World Cup team, Borghi made several key saves in a 1–0 upset of England.
Jack Haley, 51 The son of a surfing legend played nine years in the NBA and was known as Dennis Rodman’s sidekick on the 1995–96 Bulls.
Milo Hamilton, 88 John David Crow, 79 Guy Lewis, 93 The voice of seven big league teams over more than 50 years Bear Bryant’s only Heisman One of the first Southern called Hank Aaron’s 715th homer for the Braves’ local affiliate. winner, Crow won the trophy coaches to recruit black players, in 1957 while at Texas A&M, Lewis had two Final Four runs Tommy Hanson, 29 rushing for 562 yards and in his 30 years at Houston, his The righty pitched five major league seasons, never topping picking off five passes. In alma mater. He took the Cougars his rookie campaign with the Braves (11–4, 2.89 ERA in 2009). 11 professional seasons as a twice in the 1960s behind Elvin running back, Crow made four Hayes and three more times in Lindy Infante, 75 Pro Bowls and was named to the ’80s with the Phi Slamma A successful offensive coordinator with the Bernie Kosar–era the NFL’s All-Decade team of the Jamma team, all along clutching Browns, Infante had the top job with the Colts and the Packers. ’60s. He did it all with a bruising a polka-dot towel. Said former style that earned him Bryant’s Cougars star Clyde Drexler in Roddy Piper, 61 highest compliment: Crow was 2013, “He’s the father of modern Calleda“250-poundyappingadrenalgland”bySIin1985,the “a boy who will butt you.” basketball in the South.” kilt-wearing Piper was named WWE’s all-time villain in 2012.
(STATHOPLOS) 91
N); BRUCE Lon Simmons, E A Ford C. Frick Award winner, the former minor league pitcher did play-by-play for the 49ers, A’s and San Francisco Giants.
Justin Wilson, 37 The former Formula One driver and two-time Champ Car season runner-up was killed in a wreck in an IndyCar race. From the SI Family
Merrell Noden, 59 A man of many interests (he ran a 4:11.9 mile, LLUSTRATED (NODEN); HEINZ KLUETMEIER FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
ORTS ILLUSTRATED (LEWIS); HY PESKIN FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (ROS Al Rosen, 91 Mel Daniels, 71 was a Phi Beta Kappa at Princeton and A year before he led the Indians The ABA’s all-time leading taught Shakespeare to prisoners), Noden to a 111–43 record, the third rebounder also won two MVPs covered a wide array of topics as a writer baseman nearly made history. and led the Pacers to three titles. for the magazine, including one he may have been uniquely As the MVP in 1953, he led the For a man unafraid to mix it qualified to tackle: the exercise habits of Charles Dickens. AL with 43 homers and 145 RBIs up—he was ejected for fighting in and would have won the batting his first game—the 6' 9" Daniels Demmie Stathoplos, 76 title but was thrown out on a had an intriguing hobby: poetry. In 1991 she became the first woman to bang-bang play on his final plate He wrote thousands of poems, receive the Old Hilltop Award, given by appearance. Rosen had a short often in the early morning after Pimlico Race Course for thoroughbred racing stint (predictably) as president a game. “They’re just a means coverage. Stathoplos also helped shape SI’s of the Bronx Zoo Yankees, then for me to clear my mind,” he Olympics coverage as an editor, always with an eye out for in ’87 was Executive of the Year said. “My favorite poet is Poe. the underdog and a wry one-liner at the ready. WALTER IOOSSWALTER JR. FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (CROW); ANDY HAYT FOR SP ROBERTS FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (DANIELS); LANE STEWART FOR SPORTS I with the Giants. He’s my man.”
WorldMags.net DECEMBER 28, 2015 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / 71 POINT AFTERWorldMags.net Of course, pep rallies and blood drives don’t build stadiums, and owner Dean Spanos swears he tried for 15 years to negotiate a deal in San Diego. But ownership never submitted a formal You Deserve plan. In fairness, the city of San Diego was on the brink of bankruptcy in the Better, San Diego mid-2000s, and six mayors later Chargers stadium strategist Mark Fabiani is ´ BY LEE JENKINS keeping that outdated image alive. “At one time half the council went to jail,” MY FIRST Chargers game was on Sept. 21, 1986, and How Texans owner Bob McNair said last week. their 18-point lead had been cut to four with two minutes “It’s hard to negotiate when you’ve got to left. I was nine, standing above the west end zone at Jack Murphy beloved go to the jail.” Billionaires must need fact- Stadium with my dad and my foam finger, and Redskins receiver are the checkers too: One San Diego city council Gary Clark was improvising routes because he couldn’t hear the Chargers in member spent 15 months in prison seven play calls. Despite the din, Washington marched 69 yards in years after he resigned. 44 seconds, and Clark split two defenders for the game-winning San Diego? In August mayor Kevin Faulconer TD. “I feel sorry for San Diego,” Redskins coach Joe Gibbs said. “We’re 4–10,” announced a proposal that called for the My last Chargers game, if the owner has his way, was Rivers said city and the county to pay $350 million Sunday. Quarterback Philip Rivers choked up in the huddle. toward a $1.1 billion stadium in Safety Eric Weddle cried on the field. The Bolts beat the after what Mission Valley, the team’s preferred site Dolphins 30–14, and “Stay . . . just a little bit longer” blared may be when the saga began. “Dean kept telling from the loudspeakers. Some players lingered with fans until the team’s me, ‘If I get full support from the city 6 p.m. “We’re 4–10,” Rivers kept telling himself, “and they act council and the county commission, we’re like it’s the playoffs.” It was a beautiful funeral. final game going in,’ ” says former Chargers COO On Jan. 13 in Houston, NFL owners will vote on two there, “and Jim Steeg, part of the mayor’s stadium stadium proposals for the Los Angeles market: One would [the fans] advisory committee. “Now he had full send the Rams to Inglewood; the other would dispatch the support to get it done. I thought it was Chargers and the Raiders to Carson. The vote has paralyzed act like there to do. The Chargers didn’t engage.” three constituencies, but I’m raising an old foam finger for the it’s the The Spanos family wants to be in city that supported its team through a half-century without playoffs.” Carson, where they also have history. a championship, that drew 150,000 people to a Super Bowl In 2003 the Chargers signed a five-year parade after a loss, that protested when the organization opened contract to hold training camp at the the parking lot five hours before kickoff instead of seven. Home Depot Center there. Their first My hometown is not Green Bay or Dallas, but it doesn’t need to practice drew two dozen spectators, and tarp the upper deck, either. This season the Chargers rank 18th the team fled after the second year. in home attendance, the Raiders 30th and the Rams 32nd. Last Qualcomm Stadium is often inundated season they ranked 16th in local TV ratings, the Rams 27th and with opposing fans, predictable given the Raiders 32nd. When the Bolts were good, from 2004 through San Diego’s transplant population and ’09, they sold out every home game and drew 10,000 people to tourist appeal, but the same dynamic rallies after big road wins. Since the Spanos family bought the Will awaits the Chargers in L.A., with even franchise in 1984, the Chargers have advanced past the divisional Los Angeles more out-of-towners. This is not the round twice. They fired a coach (Marty Schottenheimer) who support an Nets crossing the Hudson River. It is the went 14–2 and kept one (Mike Riley) who went 1–15. They drafted NFL team? Eagles moving to NewYorkCity. “I think Ryan Leaf and said goodbye to Drew Brees. But the community Join the of the kids who came here with their never turned. The team’s blood drive broke the world record discussion on dads, and now want to take their own Twitter by using
for the largest single-day, single-location donation. The football kids, but might never get the chance,” ANN JOHANSSON FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED #SIPointAfter camps once lured 14,000 kids. The city government agreed for and following Rivers said Sunday night, eyes red, voice nearly a decade to buy every unsold ticket. @SI_LeeJenkins heavy. “I feel sorry for them.” ±
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (ISSN 0038-822X) ispublishedweekly,withanextraissueinFebruaryandskippedissuesinJanuary,February,AprilandJuly,byTimeInc.PrincipalOffice:225LibertyStreet,NewYork, NY 10281. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40110178. Return undeliverable Canada addresses through the UPM process: GST #888381621RT001. U.S. Subscriptions: $65 for one year. SUBSCRIBERS: If the postal service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within two years. Your bank may provide updates to the card information we have on file. You may opt out of this service at any time. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. See DMM 707.4.12.5. NON-POSTAL and MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Post Office Box 62120, Tampa, FL 33662-2120. MAILING LIST: We make a portion of our mailing list available to reputable firms. If you would prefer that we not include your name, please call or write us. ©2015TIMEINC.ALLRIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTIONINWHOLEORINPARTWITHOUTPERMISSIONISPROHIBITED.SPORTSILLUSTRATED ISAREGISTEREDTRADEMARKOFTIMEINC. CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUBSCRIPTIONS: For 24/7 service, please use our website: www.SI.com/customerservice You can also call 1-800-528-5000 or write to SI at P.O. Box 62120, Tampa, FL 33662-2120.
72 / SPORTS ILLUSTRATED / DECEMBER 28, 2015 WorldMags.net xxxxxxx WorldMags.net
WorldMags.net WorldMags.nethappy ale-idays
CRISP LIKE AN APPLE. BREWED LIKE AN ALE.
WorldMags.net ©2015 REDD’S BREWING CO., MILWAUKEE, WI