This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/12/27/sports-rush-dallas-stars-home-for-the-holidays/ For Dallas Stars fans, December 31st is a night to party. OK, yes, that’s true for the entire rest of the world, too. But adding ice hockey into the mix of sparklers and champagne has become a tradition in North Texas sports. Since moving to Dallas, the Stars have played games on New Year’s Eve 19 times, all but one of them at home. They’ve won a dozen of those, so this bit of holiday scheduling has more often than not made for a happy new year.
Marty Turco was the winning goaltender in four of these matchups (and drew another). In this video interview, he explains why he liked the annual affair and reminds us of a couple of the more memorable contests. Rush Olson has spent more than 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, Mint Farm Films, and
FourNine Productions. RushOlson.com Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports
At charity events this year, I saw folks throw footballs or
hit tennis balls to people. I heard wild stories about ballgames and
boxing matches. And I witnessed some moments of generosity and respect
worthy of the holiday season.
Regular readers of this blog may know that when I’m not lounging in
the palatial Fort Worth Weekly office suite, I do other creative work. A
good chunk of it involves adding to the presentation of events, and
especially sports-related charitable ones. Read on for some detail on
some event-related moments that left an impression.
Nancy Lieberman Charities Dream Ball
February, 2017
photo by Thomas GarzaFrom a sports content standpoint, it might not get better than this,
especially if you’re a boxing fan. At the end of the evening, a
roundtable discussion moderated by ESPN SportsCenter anchor Jay Harris
featured Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman, and Lonnie Ali (Muhammad’s
widow) talking about Muhammad Ali’s legacy. We streamed it via Facebook
Live and you can watch the panel, plus Lonnie Ali receiving an award, here.
Taste of the Cowboys May, 2017 photo by Lori Gunter FrenchThis event raises funds for the North Texas Food Bank, and the Dallas
Cowboys serve as the face of the event (especially the bearded face of
Travis Frederick and his fellow offensive linemen). They held this
year’s event at the team’s new practice facility, The Star. It features
prominent local chefs serving samples of signature dishes, so the food
is a highlight, but the most fun part might involve football. After the
live auction concludes, a bunch of current and former Cowboys players
take the stage. The auctioneer requests additional donations to the food
bank, and when an audience member raises his or her hand to contribute,
a player throws him or her a football. The completion percentage isn’t
terribly high, but you do see a few good catches interspersed. It’s a
cool spectacle and no doubt drives donations.
Behind the Masque Gala May, 2017
Former Stars goaltender Marty Turco runs a charity called C5 Youth Foundation of Texas, and they do amazing work
helping kids from challenging backgrounds navigate their teenage years
and get into college. They annually hold a masquerade ball as a
fundraiser, and this year the featured entertainment involved an
improvisational comedy troupe from the Hideout Theatre.
The comedians managed to lure the easygoing Turco on stage, where
they quizzed him about his day, which included hot yoga, picking up
spirits for the event, and playing nine holes of golf. They then made up
a song about his activities. In the middle of the routine, Turco
laughed so hard his chair broke. It couldn’t have been scripted any
better.
Talk of the Town July, 2017 photo by Carrie AdamsMaybe the most poignant moment of my year came at the Talk of the Town event. I’ve written in detail
about why, but the quick holiday summary involves a Skype appearance by
Dallas Stars announcer Dave Strader. Strader’s fight against cancer had
prevented him from being physically present at the event, but he wanted
to participate. So he joined his counterparts from the Mavericks,
Rangers, and Cowboys electronically and it lit up the room, especially
the table full of his Stars co-workers.
Nancy Lieberman Charities Celebrity Golf Classic September, 2017 image by Dave FrenchOne reason golfers play this tournament is the opportunity to rub
elbows and trade foot wedges with notables from the worlds of sports and
entertainment. It was nice seeing the likes of Seth Curry, Tony
Casillas, Jose Guzman, and others show up to the support the charity,
but one of the highlights was talking to comic actor Burton Gilliam near
the 10th tee. My work that day involved shooting video, and we got to
talking about camera technology. When he first got into the business,
there was no digital technology allowing you to see what you had just
shot as soon as you’ve done it. One shot movies on actual film, and you
didn’t know what you had until it had been developed. Burton told me
they once had to completely reshoot a scene when he was making Paper
Moon because of something they hadn’t seen the previous day. It gives
one an appreciation for all the scenes moviemakers did get right back in
the day. The main reason this one made the list though, is the scene at the end of this video. You’ll note Mr. Gilliam still has his acting chops.
Dirk Nowitzki Foundation Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic September, 2017 image by Dave FrenchDirk and Jessica Nowitzki have put on a celebrity tennis event
the last two falls at the SMU tennis center. The tennis was a lot of
fun, with a mix of world-class players like Donald Young and celebs from
other professions like Owen Wilson and J.J. Barea. The evening before,
they hold an exclusive VIP dinner
and a silent auction. My personal favorite moment came when a video we
had edited elicited tears from some audience members, but the best
overall moment came during the silent auction that followed. As bids
rose for various package, celebrities started stepping up. Former Dallas
Star Mike Modano offered to fly in for a dinner package that already
included Dirk, and other celebs joined. There were a number of cool
gestures made and a lot of generous bids made it a six-figure night for
the children’s causes helped by the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation.
Those are just a few highlights of the year in sports charity events, and I could name many more
great moments and events (and I do feel guilty for not mentioning every
single event I worked or attended in 2017 – they were all fantastic).
Sport can be a force in doing good things, and a lot of people
contributed a lot of time, energy, and money to improving people’s lives
this year. Here’s to more of that in 2018.
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, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine
Productions.
So, how do you watch sports? This used to be a simple question,
right? You either went to the game or you turned on the television
(after checking the newspaper or the TV Guide to see if one of a handful of television stations had scheduled it).
Has the sports viewing landscape has grown more complicated in the
last 30-40 years? Instead of a few broadcast stations, you now have a
multiplicity of outlets, and, consequently, a lot more games. And no
longer do you just adjust the rabbit ears on the household’s only TV.
You have a wide choice of devices on which to consume broadcasts. You’ve still got the legacy broadcast networks, and they do still
show some sports. They each own cable channels dedicated solely to
sporting content, like ESPN and the Fox regional sports networks (RSNs).
They’ve got joint ventures with other entities, like the SEC Network,
the Longhorn Network, and the Big Ten Network. Other companies compete
with them, too, as the likes of beIN Sports, the Tennis Channel, and
AT&T-owned RSNs try to carve out market share.
And
telecasts don’t actually require a television channel. The likes of
Amazon, Facebook, YouTube, MLB Advanced Media, and others allow one to
stream video feeds of athletic contests. The networks themselves, in
fact, operate “over-the-top” services to enable streaming of events
whose rights they control, like FOX Sports GO or WatchESPN.
So do all these choices make it more complicated to watch sports? I
don’t think so, especially when you consider the entire process of
game-watching.
If you just want to watch sport the way the casual fan did in the
1970s, you still can. Check the TV listings in the newspaper sports
section that morning, watch a game or two on network affiliates on
Saturdays and Sundays, and occasionally go to one of your local team’s
matches. What
if you wanted to plan ahead a bit, though? Even just knowing when your
team played required effort. You either had to have clipped the schedule
out of the newspaper when it came out at the beginning of the season or
you had to acquire a physical copy, often in the form of a pocket
schedule. You would have acquired one of those by traveling to a local
merchant, assuming you had been able to find out which ones sponsored
the team, or the team offices. And you had to hope it hadn’t changed
since the printing date. Game times, broadcast carrier changes, and
rainouts could all invalidate a given date on an analog schedule.
Today, you simply pick up your phone on a whim and use a search
engine (or a league or team app) to find the latest schedule in a
minute.
And say you wanted to watch a game played in another city that didn’t
involve your local team? If it didn’t happen to be the game of the week
on TV, what would you do? How would you even know the game was being
played? If you had purchased a season preview magazine at the beginning
of the season and prevented your spouse from throwing it away, it might
have schedules for all the teams. You could write a physical letter to
the out-of-town team and include a self-addressed stamped envelope, or
call the team long distance after first dialing directory assistance for
the number. The newspaper might list games a day or two out. Once you
decided you wanted to see the game, you had to drive or fly there, and
you’d have had a lot fewer flight options before deregulation.
Isn’t it much simpler to just watch it via an ESPN network or one of
those NHL Center Ice or NFL Sunday Ticket packages that permit you to
access out-of-market contests (and you get a whole season for a less
than most plane trips)?
And what about the ancillary parts of watching a game? If a player
intrigued you and you wanted to find out more about him, you might have
had access to some limited information in a game program. If you wanted
to see the rest of his career statistics, you might have needed to buy
packs of bubblegum cards until you can across his entry, or travel to
the library or bookstore and hope they had the latest edition of the
Baseball Encyclopedia or the like. And in terms of asking your buddy
what he thought about the game? Well, you could go to a payphone at
halftime and hope he was home, though if the game wasn’t on TV he
wouldn’t know what you were talking about until he read the story in the
paper the next morning or saw 20 seconds of highlights on the evening
news. Now you ping him on an easy-to-use social media or messaging app.
For most women’s sports, and any minor league sports, you would have
had to go to even greater lengths to find out the information you wanted
or see a game played. Almost no television coverage existed, and all
the rigmarole noted above for getting to games was extra challenging for
non-mainstream sports.
Today, sources like StubHub
let you attend even the sold-out games without the complications of
resorting to black-market ticket scalpers, and the electronic means
listed above let you find a way to watch them with minimal effort.
We often refer to the past as a simpler era. Maybe that’s true in
some respects, but not the sports viewing world. It’s never been easier
to watch what you want.
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, Mint Farm Films, and FourNine
Productions.
One could characterize Wild Spaces, Open Seasons: Hunting and Fishing in American Art, on display
at the Amon Carter Museum through January 7, as an exhibition about
sport. The paintings and sculptures on display offer American artists’
depictions of a pair of prominent outdoor sports. Gifford Reynolds Beal’s The FishermanWe think of sport as something one does for enjoyment, and many
Americans hunt and fish to relax. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates
the country’s population contains nearly 36 million anglers and some
11.5 million hunters. Some might enjoy solo recreation, as in Gifford
Reynolds Beal’s The Fisherman.
Others prefer a recreational experience with friends, often accompanied
by a round of post-excursion disputation, as seen in John George
Brown’s Claiming the Shot: After the Hunt in the Adirondacks. DTR352683
Claiming the Shot: After the Hunt in the Adirondacks, 1865 (oil on
canvas) by Brown, John George (1831-1913); 81.3×127 cm; Detroit
Institute of Arts, USA; Founders Society Purchase, R.H. Tannahill
Foundation fund Much of the exhibition’s art doesn’t depict what we might think of as
sporting, though. A competitor engaged in a game involving
knife-fighting a bear, as in Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait’s 1856 painting A Tight Fix – Bear Hunting, Early Winter, would have a short career.
In
place of jolly hunting parties, we see men and women pursuing game for
the reasons most humans would have up until the last century: survival.
The tribesmen engaged in Charles Russell’s Buffalo Hunt (or
those in Alfred Jacob Miller’s painting of the same name) no doubt risk
their lives bringing down a great horned beast not for the thrill of the
chase, but because hungry family members await their return. John
Quincy Adams Ward’s The Indian Hunter bears the look of someone who knows he must brave danger to eat (as does his dog).
Charles
M. Russell (1864-1926); The Buffalo Hunt [No. 39]; 1919; Oil on canvas;
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas; 1961.146In
pre-industrial times, hunters and fishers had to win at their contest
with nature to eat. Only the upper classes hunted for sport. The
well-to-do young man in John Singer Sargent’s Young salmon fisher, Alec McCulloch likely will not go hungry if nothing’s biting. The smiles in The Hunter’s Return by Thomas Cole would have no doubt been panicked frowns had the party returned to the wilderness cabin empty-handed.
During the 19th century, the American experiment had begun to set the
stage for hunting and fishing to transition from subsistence
occupations to widespread recreational pursuits. Agricultural
innovations and the Industrial Revolution made it possible for the
masses to move beyond spending long days at labor just to produce a
day’s food supply themselves. They could now trade a shorter period of
less taxing work for provender generated by a smaller number of more
efficient agricultural producers. Fewer and fewer Americans needed to
pick up their guns, bows, nets, or poles to feed themselves. When they
did so, it was because they enjoyed it.
So if you think of Wild Spaces, Open Seasons: Hunting and Fishing in American Art as an exhibition of sports art (fitting in well with other sporting elements in the Amon Carter’s collection, as documented here and here), that’s fine. While there are still many who work in the commercial fishing industry (and a few who hunt wild game for a living), most of us do have the luxury of viewing hunting and fishing as more pastime than profession.
It’s because we have more time – a lot more time – than our
hunter/gatherer ancestors for fun, including sports (and visiting art
museums). This exhibition thus shows more than just beautiful works by
accomplished artists. It also shows progress. Wild Spaces, Open Seasons: Hunting and Fishing in American Art is on display at the Amon Carter Museum through January 7. Caught on Paper is a supplemental exhibition inspired by Wild Spaces, Open Seasons.
It features 50+ outdoors-themed works on paper from the Amon Carter’s
collection. It will remain on the walls through February 11.
![Charles M. Russell (1864-1926); The Buffalo Hunt [No. 39]; 1919; Oil on canvas; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas; 1961.146](https://www.fwweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Buffalo-Hunt-cat58-russell.jpg)
