Of LIeberman and Legacies

This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/02/24/of-lieberman-and-legacies/


Before the night began, media members did interviews. The program officially started with the national anthem, as many sporting events do. The lights illuminated a pair of basketball goals, and Hall of Famers paraded past them as the crowd applauded.

photo by Thomas Garza

Those assembled had not come to see a game, however. Monday night’s happening was a charity gala. Six years ago, a steakhouse could accommodate it. These days, they hold it at a concert venue and it is attended by nearly 800 well-coifed people.
The attendees included, by my count, nine members of various Halls of Fame (assuming you include Pudge Rodriguez, who was elected to Cooperstown this year and will be formally inducted this summer – any Rangers fan would concede that).  One of those Hall of Famers directs her name, effort, passion, connections, and just about everything else you could think of toward making the affair a success. I was fortunate enough to try to help her make her Nancy Lieberman Charities Dream Ball a memorable one. This article offers a few highlights that you as a fan of sports or philanthropy or Deion Sanders in a jaunty hat may enjoy.

The Red Carpet

photo by Thomas Garza

Pretty much everybody who comes in gets to greet Ms. Lieberman. Ben and Skin broadcast their radio show live and local TV stations cover it as well. Some inside scoop – we let a number of student photographers infiltrate the working press to make it feel even more big-time for the regular guests.

The Emcee

photo by Thomas Garza

Jay Harris from ESPN used to work with Nancy at the network. He has attended a number of these events, but had never drawn emcee duties before. He was fantastic to work with behind the scenes and just as good on stage. He improvised with aplomb whether things went right or wrong and when he read the script, he made it his own. His most impressive performance might have come during the live auction. Harris interacted with auctioneer Tim Willett as if they had hosted SportCenter together for years. The banter back and forth was flawless, and hopefully helped make the charity a few more dollars.

Michael Irvin and Roger Clemens

photo by Thomas Garza

Neither the Hall of Famer nor the seven-time Cy Young winner were scheduled to speak at the event. Both did to spur the crowd to contribute funds to the cause. Irvin took over the podium during the Heads and Tails game (where people buy a chance to win airline tickets) to announce he was buying some chances and to encourage others to do the same and also have a good time while doing it.

photo by Thomas Garza

Clemens had already contributed a day of batting practice at his house to the silent auction. He addressed the crowd to announce he would also add a suite at an Astros game and a jersey autographed by a favorite Rangers or Astros player.

Stomp Wars
Nancy Lieberman Charities partnered with Rock-T from the Rickey Smiley morning show to create a mentoring program, and Rock-T also was able to bring some adept step dancers to the program. Their performance was tight, but they had already impressed me before the show even started. As I went over the show with our DJ Poizon Ivy (who also does the Mavericks and Wings and is a tremendous collaborator and spinner of tunes), two boys who would be performing came up to us unchaperoned. They went over cues and music like they were industry veterans. There is hope for the youth.

David O. Brown

photo by Thomas Garza

The night’s first award went to the former Dallas police chief. We had pre-produced a video in which his colleagues praised him for his emphasis on enabling officers to engage with the community (and one of those initiatives involved building basketball courts with Nancy Lieberman Charities). Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings introduced him and quickly quieted the room when he soberly reminded everyone of the tragic events of last summer and how Brown had handled them. When Chief Brown took the podium, he delivered powerful messages about coming together. Keep an eye on that guy.

Muhammad Ali
The late champion’s presence permeated the night. Nancy Lieberman considers him one of her greatest influences and friends, and the gala’s second award went to his wife Lonnie. One of the evening’s most poignant moments came when the evening’s namesake stepped forward to put a hand on Lonnie’s shoulder and weep with her as they shared the emotion of remembering a friend and husband.

photo by Thomas Garza

The night culminated with a roundtable discussion featuring SportsCenter anchor Harris moderating Lonnie Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and George Foreman in a discussion of the G.O.A.T.’s legacy. Harris navigated it smoothly, with favorite moments coming via amusing stories from the two former boxers that led Lonnie Ali to smile at the memory of the man she loved. We streamed this portion of the program live and it has been archived at Nancy Lieberman Charities’ Facebook page. The former Cassius Clay meant a lot to each panelist in his or her own way, and the idea that we would be able to get them all together at one time to discuss his impact seemed incredibly compelling. It may never happen again.

The Bottom Line
Between table sales, donations, auction items, sponsors, and other revenue streams, the event grossed a million dollars, the vast majority of which will fund programs designed to improve kids’ lives.

photo by Thomas Garza

Disclosure : Nancy Lieberman Charities has sometimes paid me to produce elements of their events


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.

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Is It Good TCU Didn't Go Big?

This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/02/07/sports-rush-maybe-its-good-tcu-didnt-go-big/

Fort Worth teems with good people. I was born and raised in Cowtown and can’t imagine a more warm-hearted bunch of folks.

Persons of quality character – like the ones in Funkytown – can often resist the temptation to compromise their morals for the sake of worldly gain. It’s best if they don’t have to, though. A little over 20 years ago, circumstances kept a group of locals from having to make some choices that certain neighbors of ours haven’t handled well.

You’ve perhaps followed recent developments in Baylor football. Over the last year, an apparent pattern of widespread misconduct in the supervision of the football program has led to personnel changes and lawsuits. The most recent allegations, if true, illuminate a culture in which conscience seemed to have had no place in the discussion. They also indicate that such attitudes were held by top school administrators, coaches, boosters, and even local law enforcement personnel. The ethically indifferent approach seems to have facilitated sexual assaults and other offensive crimes.

Make no mistake, we’re talking about serious charges. This is not buying a bus ticket for a player to go see his family for the holidays. This isn’t even letting him drive a free Lexus. This is actual criminal activity.

Some people’s jobs depended on football success. The boosters may have done it for the chance to feel reflected glory from a school they used to attend. They all allegedly decided those rewards outweighed any potential long-term repercussions or personal sense of shame.

The Waco university has experienced scandal before. In 2003, a former Baylor basketball player killed a teammate. A corrupt coach tried to use the murder to help him cover up NCAA violations. In 2012, both the men’s and women’s basketball programs received sanctions from the governing body.

The Baylor Bears compete in the Big 12 conference, one of the country’s top five Division 1 athletic conferences. Since its formation, the league’s schools have won national titles in 17 different sports (including two by Baylor in women’s hoops). Competing for such stakes intensifies the pressure to win. It also boosts the potential reward for boosters’ egos and staffers’ career paths.

So how does all of this concern TCU and nice Fort Worth people? Well, Baylor got into the Big 12 in large part because TCU did not. That happened back in 1996 and at the time caused a great deal of local upset. TCU trudged off to the Western Athletic Conference, then Conference USA and the Mountain West before recently winding up in the conference that had shut them out before.

Over those years, TCU kept a lower profile than its neighbor 90 minutes to the south. That had to be frustrating for Frog fans, but not competing against the UTs, A&Ms, and Techs in high-stakes matchups also kept it out of emotionally-charged rivalries with those huge taxpayer-financed institutions. Horned Frogs didn’t have to hear from Longhorns or Aggies about getting trounced year after year in the marquee sports like Bears supporters did.

I think that was a good thing for TCU. If they had been the lone private school to get into the Big 12, they would have had to endure the heightened expectations of trying to compete as the smallest member of the conference against subsidized rivals – as Baylor did. Less pressure means less incentive to find a way to work around the rules, be they ones of athletic associations or common decency. The Frogs have gradually built up some remarkable football achievements in the Franchione/Patterson era with a sparse record of disciplinary hiccups.

As noted earlier, Fort Worth is full of good people. The Horned Frogs might well have avoided a moral crisis no matter what conference they occupied the last 20-odd years. We do, however, have to keep in mind what happened to bring about the demise of the league they had joined in 1923.

The Southwest Conference collapsed in part because of the prestige its members lost due to widespread NCAA violations. TCU had its own 1980s transgressions, thanks to boosters paying student-athletes behind coach Jim Wacker’s back. But it’s another Christian school that might provide the best cautionary note. Southern Methodist’s delinquent culture didn’t result in criminal charges, but they did implicate the governor of Texas (Bill Clements) and the sanctions they received forced the cancellation of two full football seasons – the death penalty.  Incidentally, the Mustangs’ men’s basketball coach for much of that era was found to have committed multiple violations at the school in his sport in the 1980s. Dave Bliss repeated that modus operandi when he coached Baylor in the early 2000s, culminating with his appalling approach to a homicide.

TCU doesn’t have to repeat past errors, whether their own or someone else’s. Hopefully for the Frogs, those years away from competing with their bigger in-state rivals have helped the university establish a healthy atmosphere for its athletic programs. Now that they are once again facing top-level foes in the Big 12, they will need it.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through Rush Olson Creative & Sports and FourNine Productions.

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51 (or LI) Ways Fort Worth Connects to the Super Bowl

This post originally appeared on the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau blog. To read on that site : https://www.fortworth.com/blog/post/51-fort-worth-ties-to-the-super-bowl/

Super Bowl LI will be played as close to Fort Worth as any for the foreseeable future (sites have been scheduled through 2021). Houston hosts the 51st championship game on Feb. 5, 5:30PM CST, and while Fort Worth has never hosted the game, the city has made an impact on it.




On the field, players from Cowtown high schools and TCU have contributed. Outside the lines, Fort Worthians have performed anthems, acted in commercials, and helped get the big game on TV.

Here are 51 Fort Worth ties to the Super Bowl
 

I. TCU-ex Larry Brown earned the Super Bowl XXX Most Valuable Player honors for his cornerback play in the Cowboys' win over the Steelers.
II. Former Fort Worth resident Jessica Simpson sang at halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII.
III. Byron Chamberlain of Eastern Hills High School caught three passes as the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl XXXIII.
IV. Former TCU star Kenneth Davis was on four Buffalo Bills Super Bowl teams.
V. Fort Worth-born author Dan Jenkins wrote the novel "Semi-Tough" about a fictitious Super Bowl matchup between the Giants and Jets.
VI. Polytechnic's Greg Hawthorne earned a ring with the Pittsburgh Steelers for Super Bowl XIV and also had a rushing attempt with the New England Patriots in SBXX. In 2015, he returned to visit his alma mater as part of the NFL’s Super Bowl High School Honor Roll program.
VII. Every year, the Davey O'Brien Foundation awards the Davey O'Brien Award to the player they judge to be nation’s best college quarterback. They hold the ceremony at the Fort Worth Club. Four players who won the award named after the former TCU star have also won Super Bowls: Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, Jim McMahon and Steve Young.
VIII. Former TCU safety Colin Jones played for the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl L (50).
IX. Jeris White was born in Fort Worth when his father was stationed here. He played the final game of his NFL career for the Washington Redkins in Super Bowl XVIII.
X. Fort Worth attorney Judy Mallett, Miss Texas 1973 and a graduate of both TCU and Texas Wesleyan Law School, played fiddle in the halftime show of Super Bowl VIII.
XI. Fort Worth Country Day alum Alan Cross appeared in a 2006 Super Bowl spot for Sprint (debuting a new feature for downloading songs to a phone - how cool is that?). Cross remembers asking the producers if he could keep his wardrobe, which is not uncommon, but they refused - apparently they had sprayed all the clothing with fire retardant because the cast had to run around a burning couch in the spot.
XII. Speaking of CDS graduates, Patrick Jeffers won Super Bowl XXXII as a member of the Denver Broncos.

XIII. Marshall Newhouse was the only ex-Horned Frog on either team's roster as he won a ring with Green Bay in Super Bowl XLV, the first played in Tarrant County. Newhouse was on injured reserve and didn't actually get to play in the game, but his cousin, Robert Newhouse, played in three Super Bowls for the Cowboys.
XIV. Trimble Tech's Henry Ford played defensive tackle for the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV.
XV. Fort Worth native Kirk Franklin co-hosted the NFL-sanctioned Super Bowl Gospel Celebration in New Orleans in 2013.
XVI. Former TCU Athletic Director Danny Morrison served as president of the Carolina Panthers during their Super Bowl appearance last year.
XVII. Fort Worth lawyer Bryan Wilson, aka The Texas Law Hawk, parlayed his internet video success into an appearance in a Super Bowl commercial for Taco Bell.
XVIII. Tommy Joe Crutcher played at TCU and at linebacker for the Green Bay Packers in the first two Super Bowls.
XIX. Crutcher was joined on those first two Packers Super Bowl teams by DB Doug Hart. Hart was born in Handley, which was later annexed by Fort Worth, and attended Handley High School.
XX. United Community Centers of Ft. Worth participated in the Verizon Community Mondays promotion leading up to Super Bowl XLV in Arlington.
XXI. Eastern Hills grad Uwe von Schamann kicked two extra points and a 20-yard field goal in a losing effort for the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII. He added three more field goals and a PAT as Miami lost SBXIX to the 49ers.
XXII. TCU offensive lineman Norm Evans became an original Miami Dolphin in 1966 and played in three Super Bowls with the team in the 1970s.
XXIII. Pat Summerall announced 16 Super Bowls. He also once hosted the show “Sports Stars of Tomorrow,” produced by GameDay Productions, a production company based in Fort Worth.
XXIV. Ex-TCU defensive back Lyle Blackwood played in two '80s Super Bowls as part of the Miami Dolphins' noted "Killer B's" defense (so named because they had several players whose last names began with the letter "B").
XXV. Charley Pride recorded his live album “In Person” in Fort Worth’s iconic Panther Hall in 1968. Pride sang the national anthem at Super Bowl VIII in Houston.
XXVI. Fort Worth native Suzanne Mitchell had to leave her job as Tex Schramm's assistant to direct the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders full-time after a Gwenda Swearingen wink to the camera during Super Bowl X helped turn the squad into an international spectacle.

XXVII. Former TCU player Greg Townsend, a four-time All-Pro, won a Super Bowl ring with the Los Angeles Raiders in Super Bowl XVIII.
XXVIII. F-16 jets manufactured in Fort Worth by Lockheed Martin have performed several Super Bowl pregame flyovers. 
XXIX. During the leadup to Super Bowl XLV, ESPN originated much of its television and radio studio programming from Sundance Square.
XXX. Fort Worth businessman (and former TCU quarterback) Kent Nix was on the Packers' practice squad for Super Bowl I.
XXXI. Trimble Tech alum Raymond Clayborn’s recovered fumble was one of the few highlights for the New England Patriots as they got trounced by the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XX.
XXXII. According to the Los Angeles Times, Fort Worth entrepreneurs advertised to sell souped-up TV antennas to Angelenos trying to dodge the TV blackout of the first Super Bowl. The cost? Two dollars with a refund if it didn't work.
XXXIII. Fort Worth native and television producer Lance Barrow has worked multiple big games for CBS, including acting as coordinating producer and lead game producer for Super Bowl L (50).
XXXIV. Occasionally, Fort Worth resident Aden Bubeck plays bass for Miranda Lambert, who sang "America the Beautiful" with Blake Shelton at Super Bowl XLVI.
XXXV. The late Mickey McCarty, a former TCU Horned Frog, played three games for the Chiefs during their Super Bowl-winning season of 1969-70.
XXXVI. Fort Worth-area native Kelly Clarkson sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XLVI.
XXXVII. TCU alum Guy Morriss, later a successful college coach, played in Super Bowls with two different teams: the Eagles in Super Bowl XV and the Patriots in Super Bowl XX.
XXXVIII. On November 21, 1980, for the only time that year, a TV program drew more U.S. viewers than that January’s Super Bowl XIV's 76 million. The reason? Fort Worth native Larry Hagman. Some 83 million people tuned in to find out who shot his J.R. Ewing character on the show Dallas. 
XXXIX. In 2008-09, Jared Retkofsky of TCU went from hauling furniture for Fort Worth's Bonilla Moving to serving as Pittsburgh's long snapper when they won Super Bowl Super Bowl XLIII.
XL. Bob Schieffer was born in Fort Worth and graduated from TCU. He has hosted the CBS political interview program "Face The Nation" from the site of the Super Bowl on multiple occasions as part of the network's coverage of the event.
XLI. The Coors Light Super Bowl Party for Super Bowl XLV happened at Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth with Blake Shelton performing.

XLII. Former TCU All-American Bob Lilly helped the Cowboys to their first two Super Bowl appearances. They lost in Super V, but won the next year in Super Bowl VI.
XLIII. In 2005, the Rolling Stones played the Super Bowl XL halftime show. They have also played in Fort Worth on more than one occasion and released a DVD/CD recorded at Will Rogers Coliseum entitled “Some Girls: Live in Texas '78.”
XLIV. Tony Franklin of Arlington Heights scored four points on a field goal and an extra point for the Eagles in Super Bowl XV.
XLV. Former TCU Cheer Captain Madelyn Wilson was part of the Patriots' cheerleading squad for Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona.
XLVI. Sherrill Headrick, of North Side High School and TCU, played linebacker in the first Super Bowl (it wasn't even called the Super Bowl then) for the Kansas City Chiefs.
XLVII. Between them, Fort Worth-based TV stations KXAS and KTVT have aired 24 Super Bowl game broadcasts.
XLVIII. Norm Bulaich played his college football career for TCU and ran for 28 yards on 18 carries as his Baltimore Colts beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V.
XLIX. Fort Worth Zoo animals, including meerkats, a coati, a saltwater crocodile, and a black bear, have gone 5-4 on Super Bowl predictions since 2009. The Zoo decorates something edible with team colors and the creatures choose (and consume) one. Las Vegas oddsmakers in that time have gone 2-5-1 with their own straight-up game picks.
50. TCU grad Marcus Cannon has overcome cancer to play in two Super Bowls with the New England Patriots. He will be the only former Horned Frog on the field this weekend as he makes his third appearance in the big game.
LI. The Dallas Cowboys have won five Super Bowls, and have played home games, over their history, in the Fort Worth suburbs of Dallas, Irving and Arlington.

Numerical assignments do not reflect order of importance or correspond to any particular game.



Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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