Since I’m scheduled to fly to Pebble Beach first thing Tuesday morning—and dreading the trip given my complete hatred of the entire flying experience—I’m writing this on Monday night just prior to Golf Channel’s airing of the documentary based on, “Caddy For Life.”
I can honestly say I’m very proud of the documentary and I hope if you did not watch it Monday night you will watch one of the re-airs that will occur periodically throughout this week.
When Keith Allo from Golf Channel first contacted me last summer about the notion of turning ‘Caddy,’ into a documentary I was pleased—and skeptical. The experiences I have had with my books becoming—or not becoming—movies has been checkered to say the least.
Many of you know that “A Season on the Brink,” did become a movie. The general consensus is that it was one of the five worst movies ever made. I would rank it number one on that list but then I’m biased. I had no control at all when that movie was made. It’s a long story not worth rehashing in detail here but the synopsis is that a long-forgotten guy named Mark Shapiro (unless you are a big follower of bankrupt theme parks) was trying to blackmail me into doing things for ESPN I had no interest in doing. When I refused to be blackmailed he did two things: ordered Joe Valerio, the executive producer of The Sports Reporters to stop using me on the show and put out the word that NO ONE was to allow me to see the script of ‘Season.’
Of course I did see the script in advance and knew it was God-awful. ESPN hired a distinguished screenwriter who, sadly, knew nothing about basketball to write the script and he produced a cartoon. The funny part of the story was when critics savaged the movie, I dropped Shapiro a note saying that it didn’t need to have turned out the way it did except for his massive ego. (Pause here to note my ego’s pretty big but I was never in this guy’s ballpark). He wrote me back—I still have the e-mail—saying the reason the reviews were so bad was because I had ripped the movie publicly.
If only I had that kind of power the world would be a much better place.
Flash forward: There have been a number of false starts with other books, but none ever made it to a screen. In one case I’m grateful because I read a script sent to me by a movie company that optioned, “Last Shot,” that was so bad it actually had the potential to be worse than ‘Season on the Brink.’
It has always been my belief that I’ve written two books that had the potential to be truly compelling movies. One is ‘A Civil War,’ the book I wrote about the Army-Navy football rivalry. There’s been interest in it at times but it has never gone anywhere. Years ago I sent a copy of the book to Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup among others) who I respect as much as anyone in Hollywood—not that I know that many people in Hollywood. I’d met Shelton and gotten to know him a little when he was on the golf tour doing research for Tin Cup. He called me and said, “This is a great book but it’ll never be made into a movie.”
“Why not?”
“Because Leonardo DiCaprio can’t play one of the players. Maybe if you could cast him as a waterboy you’d have a shot. You need STARS to get a movie like this made and there’s not star in Hollywood who can legitimately play a college football player.”
I thought Shelton was stretching the theory but that was ten years ago and the movie hasn’t been made. Maybe I can get The Jonas Brothers to play college football players? My daughter would watch.
The other book I thought was a natural for a movie was, ‘Caddy For Life.’ When Bruce Edwards first asked me to write the book in 2003 shortly after he was diagnosed with ALS it never occurred to me that it was that kind of story. But spending that year with him, seeing his remarkable courage up close and the amazing resilience and loyalty of his family, his wife Marsha and his pal Tom Watson, I came to believe the book was going to be made into a movie.
This time Shelton agreed with me. He thought a big star would want to play Bruce—maybe even his buddy Kevin Costner—and that Gary Sinise would be perfect to play Watson. A number of producers were interested in optioning the book as soon as it came out. For the record, getting a book optioned is one step in a journey of a thousand miles towards getting a movie made. When you read in the publicity notes for a book that it has been “optioned to be a major motion picture,” 99 times out of 100 the movie will never get made. I have now had, I think, eight books optioned.
This is the first time I’ve felt good about the end result. With the help of my friend Terry Hanson, ‘Caddy,’ did get optioned eventually by a production company called, “Live Planet,” that was owned in part by Matt Damon. He was (is) a big golf fan. He planned to be co-executive producer on the film. We interviewed screenwriters and chose David Himmelstein who wrote a superb script. ABC loved the script and green-lighted it (that’s Hollywood talk) with one caveat: They needed to wait until the end of the year (2007 I think) to get their budget from Disney. The plan was to get my old friends at ESPN to pay some of the costs from their movie budget since the first run would be on ABC and then the movie would be re-run a bazillion times on ESPN.
The ESPN people, in spite of my involvement, said they loved the script. The New Year arrived. We got a call from the people at ABC. There was a problem: Because ESPN’s movies had been so BAD—starting with, you guessed it, ‘Season on the Brink,’ their movie budget had been slashed to close to nothing by Disney. Without the ESPN money, ABC Entertainment didn’t have the dollars to make the movie.
End of story.
Until the phone call from Allo. Golf Channel wanted to make a documentary and they wanted to make it right. They wanted to start by making a large contribution to The Bruce Edwards Foundation, the organization I’d started in 2005 to raise money for ALS—with HUGE help from Watson and The Edwards Family. They understood that the script had to work for me but more important as far as I was concerned for the family and for Watson. They wanted me to be co-executive producer and do most of the on-camera interviews.
They were as good as their word on all of it. Stage Three Productions in Philadelphia was hired to actually produce the documentary and the people there, led by Steve Ciplione and Kelly Ryan did, I think, a masterful job. If this reads like a press release, sorry. This is the first time I have seen one of my books on a screen somewhere and felt really good about it.
Bruce was an extraordinary person and his relationship with Tom was a remarkable story about two men who were, as their pal Neil Oxman so eloquently put it in the book, “closer than brothers.”
I hope you watch. I will be surprised and disappointed if it doesn't make you cry.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Showing posts with label Bruce Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bruce Edwards. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Piecing together the documentary; Under normal circumstances, today would be start Woods’ PGA Tour season
SOMEWHERE IN FLORIDA—I’m a little bit dizzy this morning since this is a four-stop trip to try to start piecing together the documentary based on ‘Caddy For Life.’ Yesterday was spent with Bruce’s parents, Jay and Natalie and his aunt, Joan Walsh. To say it was an emotional and draining afternoon (especially for them) is an understatement. This afternoon will be spent with Tom Watson and I expect that experience to be similar. Tomorrow morning is Marsha, Bruce’s wife.
Wow.
After I got finished reading the stories this morning about President Obama’s state-of-the-union (I heard it in the car and was impressed but then everyone knows where my political leanings are) I picked up the sports page of USA Today and there was a cover story on all the financial issues facing The PGA Tour in what is now being called the, “Tiger Recession.”
Under normal circumstances today would have been Woods’ first official round of the year since he usually launched his season at Torrey Pines in San Diego, a place where he’s won seven times on tour—this tournament, which has a new corporate name with Buick gone (I like to think of it as The Andy Williams Invitational. I liked it when the celebs had their names on tournaments rather than corporations. Of course if the tour did that today there would probably be an ESPN talking head invitational) and that classic U.S. Open back in 2008.
If you think about it, that Open was Woods’ last truly great moment in golf. Yes, he came back and won six times last year and was voted player-of-the-year on the grounds that he was clearly the best player. I would have voted for Y.E. Yang only because if you gave Tiger a choice between his six wins and Yang’s two—one being The PGA Championship in which he caught Tiger to win on Sunday—there’s no doubt he’d have taken Yang’s year in a heartbeat.
Those six wins are all overshadowed now by the ongoing Tiger soap opera, “As The Eldrick Turns.” If you think ‘Lost,’ is keeping its outcome a secret, you’ve never met Woods or his band of not-so-merry-men. It is remarkable, if you think about it, that Woods has been able to basically drop out of sight for two months when every paparazzi on earth has been stalking him. Clearly his talents go well beyond golf. He can become The Invisible Man whenever he chooses to do so.
Until he comes back— like most people, I’m still guessing Doral or Bay Hill—there are going to be lots of stories like the one in USA Today this morning. Sales are down in San Diego without Tiger; TV ratings are down for tournaments he never played in anyway, apparently because people are depressed about Tiger’s absence. The Tour is worried about its future because there are currently 10 tournaments that do not have title sponsors for next year.
I have a message for all those people: lighten up.
Does the tour miss Woods? Of course it does. Has the NBA missed Michael Jordan, who last played a meaningful game in 1998? Does football miss Brett Favre? Oh wait, he hasn’t retired yet—although he may sometime in the next 15 minutes in an exclusive ESPN report that will be replaced an hour later by another exclusive report that he’s might play next season and, the network has learned from his agent, WILL watch The Pro Bowl on TV on Sunday.
Woods is, without question, the most transcendent star golf has ever had. Arnold Palmer is still the most important player in the history of the game because he brought TV and corporate America to the table in the 1950s and 1960s when calling golf a niche sport was being kind. Jack Nicklaus is still the greatest player until the day Woods goes past his 18 professional major titles.
But because of the era in which he has played and because of his ability to absolutely dominate at a time when people were claiming golf had too much depth for anyone to dominate, Woods is that rarest of athletes in that he brings people who are not fans of his sport to the table. They know who he is and care about how he’s doing even if they can’t name a single person he’s competing against. The only other athlete on earth who currently fits that description is Michael Phelps.
So, when Woods isn’t playing golf, the audience for golf drops precipitously. We’ve known that for years. The “Tiger Effect,” usually causes everything to double: corporate sales, TV ratings, media coverage. I’m one of the few guys in the business who—the majors aside—is just as happy, if not happier, to cover a tournament without Tiger. It isn’t as if we’re going to have a long sitdown in the locker room. Following him on the golf course, which I do at times during the majors, is always a headache: So many people, so much security, so much scrambling for position to actually see a shot hit. My job’s easier when Tiger’s not playing at the weekly tournaments. My job’s more fun when he’s playing in the majors.
But I’m the exception. Everyone else wants Tiger out there. He moves the interest needle like no one else. That said, there WAS a golf tour before Tiger came along and my guess is there will be one after he’s gone.
If, for some reason, Tiger is out for a long time (unlikely) there will be all sorts of doom-saying surrounding the sport. Let’s say for a minute that the tour was forced to make corporate deals for next year that brought about a 20 percent drop in purses. That’s highly unlikely, but if it did, the players would still be playing for $4 to $5 million a week. The winner this week in San Diego would have to settle for an $800,000 first prize. The 125th ranked player on the money list might make only $600,000 for the year.
That’s still triple what golfers were making on tour when Tiger arrived in 1996 and it is a lot more money than most Americans are making today. No business wants to go through a recession but golf can survive one. What’s more, there finally does appear to be some seriously talented young players coming along to challenge Tiger. Note the word challenge. I’m not saying any of them is the next Tiger because in all likelihood there is no next Tiger. But the sport will survive without him whenever the day comes that he walks away.
What will be interesting to see is, once the initial surge of interest that will come with his re-entry (which will be huge) has passed, if he remains as popular as he once was. My guess is he’ll still get screaming galleries but his days as a truly iconic figure OFF the golf course have passed. Once he’s back and winning again, there will be those—starting with Tiger and his team—who will talk about all he has “overcome,” to win again.
That’s when I’ll switch over to watch The Nationwide Tour. I will be perfectly happy to watch Tiger Woods the golfer perform his magic again. But I don’t want to hear one word ever again about how tough a life Tiger Woods the person has had.
I spent yesterday with a family that dealt with real tragedy, whose son dealt with the greatest adversity of all without every complaining. I don’t ever want to hear from Tiger Woods how tough it is to be Tiger Woods. I also don’t want to hear how golf is going to die because he’s gone for a while. It won’t. If fewer people want to watch, so be it. Those who really care about the sport and not just a celebrity will be tuned in this weekend. I’ll be one of them.
Wow.
After I got finished reading the stories this morning about President Obama’s state-of-the-union (I heard it in the car and was impressed but then everyone knows where my political leanings are) I picked up the sports page of USA Today and there was a cover story on all the financial issues facing The PGA Tour in what is now being called the, “Tiger Recession.”
Under normal circumstances today would have been Woods’ first official round of the year since he usually launched his season at Torrey Pines in San Diego, a place where he’s won seven times on tour—this tournament, which has a new corporate name with Buick gone (I like to think of it as The Andy Williams Invitational. I liked it when the celebs had their names on tournaments rather than corporations. Of course if the tour did that today there would probably be an ESPN talking head invitational) and that classic U.S. Open back in 2008.
If you think about it, that Open was Woods’ last truly great moment in golf. Yes, he came back and won six times last year and was voted player-of-the-year on the grounds that he was clearly the best player. I would have voted for Y.E. Yang only because if you gave Tiger a choice between his six wins and Yang’s two—one being The PGA Championship in which he caught Tiger to win on Sunday—there’s no doubt he’d have taken Yang’s year in a heartbeat.
Those six wins are all overshadowed now by the ongoing Tiger soap opera, “As The Eldrick Turns.” If you think ‘Lost,’ is keeping its outcome a secret, you’ve never met Woods or his band of not-so-merry-men. It is remarkable, if you think about it, that Woods has been able to basically drop out of sight for two months when every paparazzi on earth has been stalking him. Clearly his talents go well beyond golf. He can become The Invisible Man whenever he chooses to do so.
Until he comes back— like most people, I’m still guessing Doral or Bay Hill—there are going to be lots of stories like the one in USA Today this morning. Sales are down in San Diego without Tiger; TV ratings are down for tournaments he never played in anyway, apparently because people are depressed about Tiger’s absence. The Tour is worried about its future because there are currently 10 tournaments that do not have title sponsors for next year.
I have a message for all those people: lighten up.
Does the tour miss Woods? Of course it does. Has the NBA missed Michael Jordan, who last played a meaningful game in 1998? Does football miss Brett Favre? Oh wait, he hasn’t retired yet—although he may sometime in the next 15 minutes in an exclusive ESPN report that will be replaced an hour later by another exclusive report that he’s might play next season and, the network has learned from his agent, WILL watch The Pro Bowl on TV on Sunday.
Woods is, without question, the most transcendent star golf has ever had. Arnold Palmer is still the most important player in the history of the game because he brought TV and corporate America to the table in the 1950s and 1960s when calling golf a niche sport was being kind. Jack Nicklaus is still the greatest player until the day Woods goes past his 18 professional major titles.
But because of the era in which he has played and because of his ability to absolutely dominate at a time when people were claiming golf had too much depth for anyone to dominate, Woods is that rarest of athletes in that he brings people who are not fans of his sport to the table. They know who he is and care about how he’s doing even if they can’t name a single person he’s competing against. The only other athlete on earth who currently fits that description is Michael Phelps.
So, when Woods isn’t playing golf, the audience for golf drops precipitously. We’ve known that for years. The “Tiger Effect,” usually causes everything to double: corporate sales, TV ratings, media coverage. I’m one of the few guys in the business who—the majors aside—is just as happy, if not happier, to cover a tournament without Tiger. It isn’t as if we’re going to have a long sitdown in the locker room. Following him on the golf course, which I do at times during the majors, is always a headache: So many people, so much security, so much scrambling for position to actually see a shot hit. My job’s easier when Tiger’s not playing at the weekly tournaments. My job’s more fun when he’s playing in the majors.
But I’m the exception. Everyone else wants Tiger out there. He moves the interest needle like no one else. That said, there WAS a golf tour before Tiger came along and my guess is there will be one after he’s gone.
If, for some reason, Tiger is out for a long time (unlikely) there will be all sorts of doom-saying surrounding the sport. Let’s say for a minute that the tour was forced to make corporate deals for next year that brought about a 20 percent drop in purses. That’s highly unlikely, but if it did, the players would still be playing for $4 to $5 million a week. The winner this week in San Diego would have to settle for an $800,000 first prize. The 125th ranked player on the money list might make only $600,000 for the year.
That’s still triple what golfers were making on tour when Tiger arrived in 1996 and it is a lot more money than most Americans are making today. No business wants to go through a recession but golf can survive one. What’s more, there finally does appear to be some seriously talented young players coming along to challenge Tiger. Note the word challenge. I’m not saying any of them is the next Tiger because in all likelihood there is no next Tiger. But the sport will survive without him whenever the day comes that he walks away.
What will be interesting to see is, once the initial surge of interest that will come with his re-entry (which will be huge) has passed, if he remains as popular as he once was. My guess is he’ll still get screaming galleries but his days as a truly iconic figure OFF the golf course have passed. Once he’s back and winning again, there will be those—starting with Tiger and his team—who will talk about all he has “overcome,” to win again.
That’s when I’ll switch over to watch The Nationwide Tour. I will be perfectly happy to watch Tiger Woods the golfer perform his magic again. But I don’t want to hear one word ever again about how tough a life Tiger Woods the person has had.
I spent yesterday with a family that dealt with real tragedy, whose son dealt with the greatest adversity of all without every complaining. I don’t ever want to hear from Tiger Woods how tough it is to be Tiger Woods. I also don’t want to hear how golf is going to die because he’s gone for a while. It won’t. If fewer people want to watch, so be it. Those who really care about the sport and not just a celebrity will be tuned in this weekend. I’ll be one of them.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Updated -- This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man, Tony Kornheiser Show):
Today I joined The Sports Reporters' Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment focused on Gilbert Arenas and his suspension and college basketball.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
----------------------
I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke about the 'Caddy For Life' Golf Channel documentary I am working on and player exemption scenarios for this year's US Open at Pebble Beach.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
---------------------
On Thursday I joined the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show in my normal Thursday slot. We talked about golf today (the documentary, Phil Mickelson's brief words on Tiger, Rocco Mediate) before transitioning to Maryland basketball.
Click here to listen to the segment (starts within 1st minute): The Tony Kornheiser Show
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
----------------------
I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke about the 'Caddy For Life' Golf Channel documentary I am working on and player exemption scenarios for this year's US Open at Pebble Beach.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
---------------------
On Thursday I joined the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show in my normal Thursday slot. We talked about golf today (the documentary, Phil Mickelson's brief words on Tiger, Rocco Mediate) before transitioning to Maryland basketball.
Click here to listen to the segment (starts within 1st minute): The Tony Kornheiser Show
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Working on a documentary for ‘Caddy For Life’; Notes on the comments, including good McEnroe story
On Friday, I didn’t have time to write because I had to go to Philadelphia. This afternoon, I head to Florida for four days. The reason is Bruce Edwards.
It is difficult to believe that almost six years have passed since Bruce died of ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—after a remarkably brave fight that began only 15 months earlier when he was diagnosed at The Mayo Clinic in January of 2003.
Bruce, who caddied for Tom Watson for most of 30 years beginning in 1973, was literally the first person I ever talked to at a golf tournament. It was at The Memorial in 1981 when I had been sent there for the week to, “find some stories,” (to quote my boss George Solomon) to write the next week when The Kemper Open came to Washington.
The first afternoon I was there I spotted Bruce sitting on the putting green. Watson was the No. 1 player in the world at the time so I instantly recognized him, the guy with the easy smile who was always stride-for-stride with Watson walking down the fairways, Watson’s bag looped easily over his shoulder. I introduced myself and we sat and talked for more than two hours about his life, about other caddies and other players. A friendship that lasted until the day he died was born that afternoon.
If you’ve read, ‘Caddy For Life,’ you know that the story I just recounted is how the book begins, so forgive me if some of this seems familiar.
Soon after he was diagnosed, I talked to Bruce at The Masters. The disease was already beginning to ravage his body: he was thin, he admitted that walking the hills at Augusta was tough on his legs and his speech was slurred. He told me that a number of people had suggested he do a book on his experiences as one of the first truly professional caddies on the tour; on his relationship with Watson and on what he was going through. He asked me if I would do the book.
As I’ve said before, I was hesitant at first for a purely selfish reason: I didn’t want to watch a friend die from up close. Make no mistake about ALS. It kills you and it kills you in an awful way, your body collapsing while your mind stays intact. But after about 60 seconds of trying to think of a way to say no, it occurred to me that I had to say yes. Bruce had been a good friend for 22 years.
What’s more, this wasn’t the kind of vanity book people often brought up to me. I swear to God every coach who has ever been fired believes his life story is the next, ‘Season on the Brink.’ I had a coach call me once who had been involved in a major recruiting scandal. I didn’t think his story was close to being a book but, trying to be polite, I said to him, “There might be some interest in your story regionally and there are guys who could write it for you that I know. But if you tell the truth about everything that went on, it might make it impossible for you to coach again.”
There was silence on the phone. And then: “You’re misunderstanding me John. I’m not going to talk about any of that. I just want to write about the highlights of my career.”
The highlight of his career had been reaching ONE sweet sixteen.
Bruce had a real story to tell. I saw it as a three part love story: his love affair with caddying and golf; the love between he and Watson that had grown through the years and the love he and his wife Marsha had for one another. They had dated in the 1970s, gone separate ways for almost 25 years and then re-united shortly before Bruce was diagnosed.
I wrote the book and I’m very glad I did as painful as it was. Bruce and I were scheduled to do a book-signing together in Augusta on April 3rd, 2004 but he never made it there. He died the next morning—the first day of The Masters.
The book ended up being a bestseller and there was a lot of talk about a movie. In fact, ABC was fired up enough about doing it that it commissioned a script. David Himmelstein wrote it and I can tell you it was GREAT. When I read David’s opening scene, which was a description of Bruce and Marsha’s wedding in Hawaii, that was attended by—among others—Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player (Watson was the best man)—I called David and said, “This first scene pisses me off.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t think of the idea to start the movie with it.”
To make a long story short, the head of ABC Entertainment loved the script. Matt Damon’s production company was going to produce the movie with Damon (a huge golf fan) as executive producer. The movie was going to be co-paid for by ABC and my pals at ESPN, since they would re-run it early and often after it aired on ABC.
But it never happened and, if it wasn’t so damn sad, the reason would be funny: At the start of 2007, Disney slashed ESPN’s movie-making budget because the movies made by ESPN Original Entertainment had been so bad and had lost so much money. The first movie ESPN had made? ‘A Season on the Brink,’ which was absolutely god-awful. When I said it was god-awful at the time the ESPN people went nuts. I got a letter from one guy saying the reason the reviews were so terrible was because I had ripped the movie. If only I had such power.
So, ‘Caddy For Life,’--the movie--never happened.
But now, The Golf Channel is planning to turn it into a documentary, one that will air the week of this year’s U.S. Open—which is at Pebble Beach, the site of Tom and Bruce’s greatest moment, the 1982 Open.
I am, of course, thrilled. TGC has pledged to make a large contribution to, “The Bruce Edwards Foundation,” and after the movie airs Watson will come on to talk about ALS and the desperate need for research money.
That’s why I was in Philly Friday, to interview Bruce’s sister Gwyn and his old caddying buddies, Neil Oxman and Bill Leahey. On this trip I will do on-cameras with Bruce’s parents and his beloved Aunt Joan in addition to Watson, Gary Crandall (another caddying pal) and finally, Marsha, who still lives in the house that Bruce built with the money he made during his brief time caddying for Greg Norman. He always called it, “The Norman House.”
Friday had a number of emotional moments and I know the next few days will too. But hearing Bruce stories always makes me smile and the cause is certainly a worthy one. Plus, I think the documentary can be very, very good and it would be nice to see one of my books turned into something on screen I can be proud to have taken part in.
-------------------------------
Two notes on recent postings: Someone pointed out yesterday that Brett Favre answered every question postgame on Sunday and ducked no one and no issue in the wake of the Saints win over the Vikings.
I have mentioned in the past how much I respect athletes who do that after a crushing defeat, the best example in my experience being Bill Buckner after game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Favre deserves a lot of credit for being a stand-up guy when standing up literally wasn’t easy for him. A lot of athletes in his situation would have used their injury—in this case his left ankle—as an excuse to, “get treatment,” in the training room and duck the media or at least squeeze them since most guys were on tight deadlines with the game ending so late.
So, good for Favre. And, has anyone noticed it took about an hour for ESPN to come out with its first, “ESPN has learned that Brett Favre says, ‘it is highly unlikely,’ he will return next season.
First of all you don’t ask ANY athlete about retiring in the wake of a loss like that because they just aren’t thinking straight. And Favre? What do you think the over-under on the, “ESPN has learned,” updates between now and March 1 is. If you make the number 12, I’ll take the over.
Someone else asked recently if I had any stories about Katherine Graham, the legendary publisher of The Washington Post, who was still very much running the paper when I first got there.
I have quite a few but for now, here’s the most memorable. In 1985, I was sent to Europe to cover The French Open and Wimbledon for the first time and spent that summer covering a lot of tennis. On the morning of the U.S. Open men’s final between Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe, I was in the press box at the National Tennis Center when I heard Bud Collins say, “John, you have a guest.”
I looked up and here came Mrs. Graham, who played a lot of tennis and was a big tennis fan—one reason why the tennis beat was a big deal at The Post.
“John, I just had to come up and see you before the match,” she said. “I wanted to tell you how much I have LOVED your tennis writing this summer.”
“Well, Mrs. Graham, thank-you, I’m really glad you like it…”
“And what I especially like is the way you write about John McEnroe. I can tell you like him. I do too. Deep down, I think he’s a good guy.”
(I had written a long McEnroe profile during the Open).
“Well, thanks. I agree. If you get to know John he really IS a good guy.”
We talked for a few minutes. Needless to say I was thrilled that Katherine Graham (!!!) had taken time to find me and compliment me on my work.
A little while later the match was ready to start. I was sitting downstairs near the court with my pal Pete Alfano, then of Newsday, later The New York Times. Everyone was seated. McEnroe was getting ready to serve. The umpire called, “play.”
There was one small problem. There was one spectator who hadn’t quite made it to her seat courtside just yet. McEnroe was giving her, “the glare,” which meant he was just about to say something that would no doubt not be polite. I looked at the spectator and gasped: It was Mrs. Graham.
My entire career passed before my eyes. “Yes Mrs. Graham, John’s really a good guy…”
I grabbed Alfano’s shoulder. “Oh my God, I’m done, I’m finished,” I said.
McEnroe was now bouncing a ball off his racquet, waiting and glaring. Mrs. Graham had no clue what was going on. The crowd began to murmur. Finally, after what felt like about an hour, she got to her seat. A few people clapped sarcastically. John—God Bless him—never said a word.
Then he lost in straight sets. A few years later I asked him if he remembered that moment. He did. “If the match had already started I probably would have said something,” he said. “You’re lucky I wasn’t in a bad mood yet.”
Oh God was I lucky.
It is difficult to believe that almost six years have passed since Bruce died of ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—after a remarkably brave fight that began only 15 months earlier when he was diagnosed at The Mayo Clinic in January of 2003.
Bruce, who caddied for Tom Watson for most of 30 years beginning in 1973, was literally the first person I ever talked to at a golf tournament. It was at The Memorial in 1981 when I had been sent there for the week to, “find some stories,” (to quote my boss George Solomon) to write the next week when The Kemper Open came to Washington.
The first afternoon I was there I spotted Bruce sitting on the putting green. Watson was the No. 1 player in the world at the time so I instantly recognized him, the guy with the easy smile who was always stride-for-stride with Watson walking down the fairways, Watson’s bag looped easily over his shoulder. I introduced myself and we sat and talked for more than two hours about his life, about other caddies and other players. A friendship that lasted until the day he died was born that afternoon.
If you’ve read, ‘Caddy For Life,’ you know that the story I just recounted is how the book begins, so forgive me if some of this seems familiar.
Soon after he was diagnosed, I talked to Bruce at The Masters. The disease was already beginning to ravage his body: he was thin, he admitted that walking the hills at Augusta was tough on his legs and his speech was slurred. He told me that a number of people had suggested he do a book on his experiences as one of the first truly professional caddies on the tour; on his relationship with Watson and on what he was going through. He asked me if I would do the book.
As I’ve said before, I was hesitant at first for a purely selfish reason: I didn’t want to watch a friend die from up close. Make no mistake about ALS. It kills you and it kills you in an awful way, your body collapsing while your mind stays intact. But after about 60 seconds of trying to think of a way to say no, it occurred to me that I had to say yes. Bruce had been a good friend for 22 years.
What’s more, this wasn’t the kind of vanity book people often brought up to me. I swear to God every coach who has ever been fired believes his life story is the next, ‘Season on the Brink.’ I had a coach call me once who had been involved in a major recruiting scandal. I didn’t think his story was close to being a book but, trying to be polite, I said to him, “There might be some interest in your story regionally and there are guys who could write it for you that I know. But if you tell the truth about everything that went on, it might make it impossible for you to coach again.”
There was silence on the phone. And then: “You’re misunderstanding me John. I’m not going to talk about any of that. I just want to write about the highlights of my career.”
The highlight of his career had been reaching ONE sweet sixteen.
Bruce had a real story to tell. I saw it as a three part love story: his love affair with caddying and golf; the love between he and Watson that had grown through the years and the love he and his wife Marsha had for one another. They had dated in the 1970s, gone separate ways for almost 25 years and then re-united shortly before Bruce was diagnosed.
I wrote the book and I’m very glad I did as painful as it was. Bruce and I were scheduled to do a book-signing together in Augusta on April 3rd, 2004 but he never made it there. He died the next morning—the first day of The Masters.
The book ended up being a bestseller and there was a lot of talk about a movie. In fact, ABC was fired up enough about doing it that it commissioned a script. David Himmelstein wrote it and I can tell you it was GREAT. When I read David’s opening scene, which was a description of Bruce and Marsha’s wedding in Hawaii, that was attended by—among others—Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player (Watson was the best man)—I called David and said, “This first scene pisses me off.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t think of the idea to start the movie with it.”
To make a long story short, the head of ABC Entertainment loved the script. Matt Damon’s production company was going to produce the movie with Damon (a huge golf fan) as executive producer. The movie was going to be co-paid for by ABC and my pals at ESPN, since they would re-run it early and often after it aired on ABC.
But it never happened and, if it wasn’t so damn sad, the reason would be funny: At the start of 2007, Disney slashed ESPN’s movie-making budget because the movies made by ESPN Original Entertainment had been so bad and had lost so much money. The first movie ESPN had made? ‘A Season on the Brink,’ which was absolutely god-awful. When I said it was god-awful at the time the ESPN people went nuts. I got a letter from one guy saying the reason the reviews were so terrible was because I had ripped the movie. If only I had such power.
So, ‘Caddy For Life,’--the movie--never happened.
But now, The Golf Channel is planning to turn it into a documentary, one that will air the week of this year’s U.S. Open—which is at Pebble Beach, the site of Tom and Bruce’s greatest moment, the 1982 Open.
I am, of course, thrilled. TGC has pledged to make a large contribution to, “The Bruce Edwards Foundation,” and after the movie airs Watson will come on to talk about ALS and the desperate need for research money.
That’s why I was in Philly Friday, to interview Bruce’s sister Gwyn and his old caddying buddies, Neil Oxman and Bill Leahey. On this trip I will do on-cameras with Bruce’s parents and his beloved Aunt Joan in addition to Watson, Gary Crandall (another caddying pal) and finally, Marsha, who still lives in the house that Bruce built with the money he made during his brief time caddying for Greg Norman. He always called it, “The Norman House.”
Friday had a number of emotional moments and I know the next few days will too. But hearing Bruce stories always makes me smile and the cause is certainly a worthy one. Plus, I think the documentary can be very, very good and it would be nice to see one of my books turned into something on screen I can be proud to have taken part in.
-------------------------------
Two notes on recent postings: Someone pointed out yesterday that Brett Favre answered every question postgame on Sunday and ducked no one and no issue in the wake of the Saints win over the Vikings.
I have mentioned in the past how much I respect athletes who do that after a crushing defeat, the best example in my experience being Bill Buckner after game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Favre deserves a lot of credit for being a stand-up guy when standing up literally wasn’t easy for him. A lot of athletes in his situation would have used their injury—in this case his left ankle—as an excuse to, “get treatment,” in the training room and duck the media or at least squeeze them since most guys were on tight deadlines with the game ending so late.
So, good for Favre. And, has anyone noticed it took about an hour for ESPN to come out with its first, “ESPN has learned that Brett Favre says, ‘it is highly unlikely,’ he will return next season.
First of all you don’t ask ANY athlete about retiring in the wake of a loss like that because they just aren’t thinking straight. And Favre? What do you think the over-under on the, “ESPN has learned,” updates between now and March 1 is. If you make the number 12, I’ll take the over.
Someone else asked recently if I had any stories about Katherine Graham, the legendary publisher of The Washington Post, who was still very much running the paper when I first got there.
I have quite a few but for now, here’s the most memorable. In 1985, I was sent to Europe to cover The French Open and Wimbledon for the first time and spent that summer covering a lot of tennis. On the morning of the U.S. Open men’s final between Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe, I was in the press box at the National Tennis Center when I heard Bud Collins say, “John, you have a guest.”
I looked up and here came Mrs. Graham, who played a lot of tennis and was a big tennis fan—one reason why the tennis beat was a big deal at The Post.
“John, I just had to come up and see you before the match,” she said. “I wanted to tell you how much I have LOVED your tennis writing this summer.”
“Well, Mrs. Graham, thank-you, I’m really glad you like it…”
“And what I especially like is the way you write about John McEnroe. I can tell you like him. I do too. Deep down, I think he’s a good guy.”
(I had written a long McEnroe profile during the Open).
“Well, thanks. I agree. If you get to know John he really IS a good guy.”
We talked for a few minutes. Needless to say I was thrilled that Katherine Graham (!!!) had taken time to find me and compliment me on my work.
A little while later the match was ready to start. I was sitting downstairs near the court with my pal Pete Alfano, then of Newsday, later The New York Times. Everyone was seated. McEnroe was getting ready to serve. The umpire called, “play.”
There was one small problem. There was one spectator who hadn’t quite made it to her seat courtside just yet. McEnroe was giving her, “the glare,” which meant he was just about to say something that would no doubt not be polite. I looked at the spectator and gasped: It was Mrs. Graham.
My entire career passed before my eyes. “Yes Mrs. Graham, John’s really a good guy…”
I grabbed Alfano’s shoulder. “Oh my God, I’m done, I’m finished,” I said.
McEnroe was now bouncing a ball off his racquet, waiting and glaring. Mrs. Graham had no clue what was going on. The crowd began to murmur. Finally, after what felt like about an hour, she got to her seat. A few people clapped sarcastically. John—God Bless him—never said a word.
Then he lost in straight sets. A few years later I asked him if he remembered that moment. He did. “If the match had already started I probably would have said something,” he said. “You’re lucky I wasn’t in a bad mood yet.”
Oh God was I lucky.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Morning Thoughts from the Ridiculous to the Sublime---from the NCAA to Bruce Edwards
I have two things on my mind this morning: one sublime, the other ridiculous.
The ridiculous--surprise--is the NCAA. There was an item in the paper this morning about a study which shows that NCAA justice comes down a lot harder on smaller schools than power schools. Naturally, the NCAA says that simply isn't true, that the study is somehow flawed.
I don't know if the study is flawed or not but I do know this: the NCAA comes down a LOT harder on those who don't make TV money for them than on those who do. In fact, the best description I ever heard of NCAA justice--yes, Kentucky fans I've used this line before but this time it isn't directed at you--came when Jerry Tarkanian made the comment after the cash fell out of the Emory Air Express package en route to a Kentucky recruit's father that the NCAA was SO mad at Kentucky that it was going to put Cleveland State on probation for another three years.
Tark was one of those characters who was impossible not to like. Did he color outside the lines during his years at Nevada-Las Vegas? No doubt. And, ironically, it was Vegas that received a one year delay when the NCAA was about to impose postseason sanctions in 1991. Why? The Rebels were the defending national champions and the folks at CBS were having conniptions about not having them in the tournament with four starters back.
What I liked about Tark was that he didn't play silly games like, "I'm an educator first," with you. He was a basketball coach, paid to win games. Someone once asked him why he took so many transfers. "Because," he said, "their cars are already paid for."
In December of 1986, Navy played at Vegas in a national TV game. David Robinson was a senior and Navy was good. Vegas--which went on to win 37 games and lose in a wild game to Indiana in The Final Four--was a lot better. Tark could have named the score but he pulled his starters fairly early and the final margin was probably about 20. It could have been 40.
After the game, I was standing with Tark when his AD walked over. "That was a good thing you did taking the starters out," he said said in a very a serious tone. "The coach on the other bench is a Christian too."
Tark thanked him and he walked away. When he did, Tark looked at me and said, "Good thing for Pete (Herrmann, then the Navy coach) that he's not Jewish, huh?"
Funny thing was, I was thinking the exact same thing.
Here's the problem with the NCAA--and by the NCAA I mean the presidents and commissioners who control it--they're never wrong. Here's the quote from some NCAA flak according to USA Today. This is from an e-mail since I guess at the NCAA flaks don't speak directly to the media. According to the flak, the claims in the study "are based upon an inadequate explanation of the facts..." (Really, how does she know that?) "It should (also) be noted that...probationary periods are not designed to be punitive but rather remedial in nature."
Seriously, she said that. Apparently the non-powers need more "remedial," time than the powers and the historically black schools--who get nailed by a wider margin than anyone else, REALLY need it.
Why--WHY--can't someone at the NCAA say something like, "we need to take a look at this study. If there is merit to it, we should re-examine what we're doing."
No, they can't do it. We're right, you're wrong. It is no different than the BCS. Why does the BCS continue to exist? Because we (the presidents) say so. Everyone else is wrong, we're right because we're always right. Seriously, doesn't the self-righteousness of it all make you sick? Go back and read that statement. Remedial not punitive? In the words of John McEnroe, "you can NOT be serious."
The saddest part is that they are serious.
On to the sublime. I was asked this morning by the folks at Golf Channel to sit down and answer some questions for those "Top Ten," shows they do. I opted out of things like, "Tiger's greatest comebacks," and "Tiger's greatest celebrations," because there are plenty of media guys who will line up to sing Tiger's praises. I'm not needed for that.
One of the topics was caddy/player relationships. At the top of the list--as it should be--was Tom Watson and Bruce Edwards. Bruce was a good friend, which is why, when he was diagnosed with ALS in 2003 he asked if I would write a book about his struggle, about his relationship (30 years) with Watson and about his life as one of the first fulltime caddies on tour, I was reluctant at first because I knew what ALS was going to do to him, but eventually said yes and I'm grateful that I did. I learned so much from Bruce during that year about dealing with REAL adversity and about friendship and loyalty and about courage. (Courage is NOT making a 12-foot birdie putt or a jump shot with time running down).
Bruce died in April of 2004--on the first day of that year's Masters. Since then, along with Watson, I have put on a celebrity tournament in Bruce's name. We've raised about $2.5 million in four years--our fifth one is this coming Monday--but we are still SO far from a cure it can get very discouraging for everyone. The neurological diseases are the toughest for the scientists to figure out and ALS may be the most difficult one in the lot. Worst of all, it is an absolute death sentence. The only question is when. Bruce died 15 months after being diagnosed and I know he was happy that he didn't linger unable to walk, talk or move at all--which is what happens to those who do stay alive for longer periods.
I was re-telling one of my favorite Bruce/Tom stories when I started to choke up. It wasn't the one about the chip-in at the '82 Open--although the untold part of that story is Bruce's pep talk to Tom walking off the 17th tee after Tom said, "that's one's dead," when he saw the ball sail left of the green. This was another time at Pebble Beach when Tom wasn't playing very well and asked Bruce for layup yardage at a par-five (they were actually playing, I believe, Spyglass) over water.
“It's 237 to the hole," Bruce said.
"I want the layup yardage," Tom said.
"Yeah, I know, it's 237 to the hole. Hit the four wood."
"I want to layup."
At that point, Bruce took out the four wood and a five iron and threw them both on the ground. "It's 169 if you layup," he said. "But if you do, I don't even want to be seen with you because you're a -----."
And he stalked away. "He shamed me into hitting the four wood," Tom said later.
Bruce could do that because he knew Tom would understand why he was doing it and because they were friends. Other caddies would worry about getting fired--especially if the ball ended up in the water. (Which it didn't).
I miss Bruce all the time and I know Tom misses him more. But I take solace in something his dad, Jay, said to me during the first "Bruce," as we call the golf tournament. When Bruce had to tell his parents he had ALS they were, needless to say, devastated. They went to see their pastor that Sunday and he said to them, "I know this sounds impossible but something good will come of this."
Jay and Natalie have come to the 'Bruce,' every year. They usually get in a cart and drive around to say hello to everyone. At the end of the first one Jay took me aside and said, "I told Nat as we were driving around today that I know now what our pastor was saying. Something good did come of Bruce's illness."
I wish it hadn't. I wish Bruce was still here giving everyone--and I do mean everyone--a hard time. In the meantime my goal and Tom's goal remains the same: we want someday to tell all the people who have helped put on the 'Bruce," that we aren't holding the event anymore because the cure's been found.
Now THAT would truly be sublime.
The ridiculous--surprise--is the NCAA. There was an item in the paper this morning about a study which shows that NCAA justice comes down a lot harder on smaller schools than power schools. Naturally, the NCAA says that simply isn't true, that the study is somehow flawed.
I don't know if the study is flawed or not but I do know this: the NCAA comes down a LOT harder on those who don't make TV money for them than on those who do. In fact, the best description I ever heard of NCAA justice--yes, Kentucky fans I've used this line before but this time it isn't directed at you--came when Jerry Tarkanian made the comment after the cash fell out of the Emory Air Express package en route to a Kentucky recruit's father that the NCAA was SO mad at Kentucky that it was going to put Cleveland State on probation for another three years.
Tark was one of those characters who was impossible not to like. Did he color outside the lines during his years at Nevada-Las Vegas? No doubt. And, ironically, it was Vegas that received a one year delay when the NCAA was about to impose postseason sanctions in 1991. Why? The Rebels were the defending national champions and the folks at CBS were having conniptions about not having them in the tournament with four starters back.
What I liked about Tark was that he didn't play silly games like, "I'm an educator first," with you. He was a basketball coach, paid to win games. Someone once asked him why he took so many transfers. "Because," he said, "their cars are already paid for."
In December of 1986, Navy played at Vegas in a national TV game. David Robinson was a senior and Navy was good. Vegas--which went on to win 37 games and lose in a wild game to Indiana in The Final Four--was a lot better. Tark could have named the score but he pulled his starters fairly early and the final margin was probably about 20. It could have been 40.
After the game, I was standing with Tark when his AD walked over. "That was a good thing you did taking the starters out," he said said in a very a serious tone. "The coach on the other bench is a Christian too."
Tark thanked him and he walked away. When he did, Tark looked at me and said, "Good thing for Pete (Herrmann, then the Navy coach) that he's not Jewish, huh?"
Funny thing was, I was thinking the exact same thing.
Here's the problem with the NCAA--and by the NCAA I mean the presidents and commissioners who control it--they're never wrong. Here's the quote from some NCAA flak according to USA Today. This is from an e-mail since I guess at the NCAA flaks don't speak directly to the media. According to the flak, the claims in the study "are based upon an inadequate explanation of the facts..." (Really, how does she know that?) "It should (also) be noted that...probationary periods are not designed to be punitive but rather remedial in nature."
Seriously, she said that. Apparently the non-powers need more "remedial," time than the powers and the historically black schools--who get nailed by a wider margin than anyone else, REALLY need it.
Why--WHY--can't someone at the NCAA say something like, "we need to take a look at this study. If there is merit to it, we should re-examine what we're doing."
No, they can't do it. We're right, you're wrong. It is no different than the BCS. Why does the BCS continue to exist? Because we (the presidents) say so. Everyone else is wrong, we're right because we're always right. Seriously, doesn't the self-righteousness of it all make you sick? Go back and read that statement. Remedial not punitive? In the words of John McEnroe, "you can NOT be serious."
The saddest part is that they are serious.
On to the sublime. I was asked this morning by the folks at Golf Channel to sit down and answer some questions for those "Top Ten," shows they do. I opted out of things like, "Tiger's greatest comebacks," and "Tiger's greatest celebrations," because there are plenty of media guys who will line up to sing Tiger's praises. I'm not needed for that.
One of the topics was caddy/player relationships. At the top of the list--as it should be--was Tom Watson and Bruce Edwards. Bruce was a good friend, which is why, when he was diagnosed with ALS in 2003 he asked if I would write a book about his struggle, about his relationship (30 years) with Watson and about his life as one of the first fulltime caddies on tour, I was reluctant at first because I knew what ALS was going to do to him, but eventually said yes and I'm grateful that I did. I learned so much from Bruce during that year about dealing with REAL adversity and about friendship and loyalty and about courage. (Courage is NOT making a 12-foot birdie putt or a jump shot with time running down).
Bruce died in April of 2004--on the first day of that year's Masters. Since then, along with Watson, I have put on a celebrity tournament in Bruce's name. We've raised about $2.5 million in four years--our fifth one is this coming Monday--but we are still SO far from a cure it can get very discouraging for everyone. The neurological diseases are the toughest for the scientists to figure out and ALS may be the most difficult one in the lot. Worst of all, it is an absolute death sentence. The only question is when. Bruce died 15 months after being diagnosed and I know he was happy that he didn't linger unable to walk, talk or move at all--which is what happens to those who do stay alive for longer periods.
I was re-telling one of my favorite Bruce/Tom stories when I started to choke up. It wasn't the one about the chip-in at the '82 Open--although the untold part of that story is Bruce's pep talk to Tom walking off the 17th tee after Tom said, "that's one's dead," when he saw the ball sail left of the green. This was another time at Pebble Beach when Tom wasn't playing very well and asked Bruce for layup yardage at a par-five (they were actually playing, I believe, Spyglass) over water.
“It's 237 to the hole," Bruce said.
"I want the layup yardage," Tom said.
"Yeah, I know, it's 237 to the hole. Hit the four wood."
"I want to layup."
At that point, Bruce took out the four wood and a five iron and threw them both on the ground. "It's 169 if you layup," he said. "But if you do, I don't even want to be seen with you because you're a -----."
And he stalked away. "He shamed me into hitting the four wood," Tom said later.
Bruce could do that because he knew Tom would understand why he was doing it and because they were friends. Other caddies would worry about getting fired--especially if the ball ended up in the water. (Which it didn't).
I miss Bruce all the time and I know Tom misses him more. But I take solace in something his dad, Jay, said to me during the first "Bruce," as we call the golf tournament. When Bruce had to tell his parents he had ALS they were, needless to say, devastated. They went to see their pastor that Sunday and he said to them, "I know this sounds impossible but something good will come of this."
Jay and Natalie have come to the 'Bruce,' every year. They usually get in a cart and drive around to say hello to everyone. At the end of the first one Jay took me aside and said, "I told Nat as we were driving around today that I know now what our pastor was saying. Something good did come of Bruce's illness."
I wish it hadn't. I wish Bruce was still here giving everyone--and I do mean everyone--a hard time. In the meantime my goal and Tom's goal remains the same: we want someday to tell all the people who have helped put on the 'Bruce," that we aren't holding the event anymore because the cure's been found.
Now THAT would truly be sublime.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)