Thanking Sports

As the United States celebrates its national holiday for giving thanks, I thought about the debt of gratitude I owe to sports. Certain parts of the sports world deserve to be personally thanked, I decided. The list is not comprehensive, so if I inadvertently left you out, and you’re not an inanimate object, email me and I’ll swing some praise your way.

Perhaps the Most Thanks-worthy People in the History of Sports are Jackie Robinson, Willie O’Ree, Nat Clifton, Frtiz Pollard, Kenny Washington, Larry Doby, and the courageous athletes in all sports who broke down arbitrary barriers that based employment on something other than performance. Their heroism had positive repercussions beyond sport. A world with less racism is a more pleasant one, and it's harder to be a racist when the only thing your tow-headed son wants for Christmas is a jersey with his African-American or Hispanic hero’s name on the back. On a related note, thanks to my father for enrolling me in a youth sports program where I was the one who didn’t look like everyone else. That experience helps inform my outlook to this day.

More hair, less shorts. This shot went in, I swear.

Thank you to ESPN. Thank you for showing the world an all-sports network would work. Now we combine all of your networks with those of Fox, NBC, CBS, and the rest to have multiple sports television options at any time of day. We don’t even have to actually have a television, thanks to tablets and the like.

On a related subject, thanks, TV Remote Control. Most recently, as in, literally as I’m writing this, you enabled me to instantly switch away from a lopsided game just in time to see Gareth Bale steer an astoundingly precise free kick just under the crossbar. Good work by you.

I’d also like to thank Modern Apparel Manufacturing Processes. When I was a kid, you couldn’t get much in the way of sports gear. Now, you can buy shirts, pants, and garden gnomes not only for today’s marquee performers but for just about any team that ever existed. I own an Atlanta Knights jersey. The team’s defunct, the league’s defunct, but I’ve got a replica sweater for them. The Atlanta Knights! Oh, and I have an Alan Ogg Miami Heat cap I got off an order form on the back of a pizza box. Oh, dang, did I say that last one out loud?

Nobody else in the world owns both an Atlanta Knights jersey and an Alan Ogg cap. Nobody. Not that it's necessarily a good thing, but it's unique, at least.

Let’s show some gratitude for Modern Medical Techniques. The advancements you have made let the top sports entertainers return from injuries that might have ended the careers of players in earlier decades. There’s just no downside to that.

My taste buds have requested some praise for Dollar Hot Dog Nights. Just about every team in every sport has one now. Thank you, because, well, they are hot dogs that only cost a dollar - awesome. I look forward to the spread of this tradition worldwide. Who wouldn't want Euro Knackwurst Night in the Bundesliga?

Lots of Dogs commercial with Nolan Ryan

Thank you to Bill Murray in Caddyshack and Bob Uecker in Major League. Sports should be fun. And funny. Gut-bustingly funny.

Finally, I owe Sports in General a big thank you. Knowing sports helped me get every job I’ve ever had, other than bussing tables and delivering pizzas. Not wanting to negatively impact my stamina for basketball kept me from ever trying cigarettes. And I will never not have something to talk about with a fellow sports fan. We will always have a mutually agreeable conversation topic, whether we agree about the content of it or not. Happy Thanksgiving, Sports! Now let’s eat and go watch some football.

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

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

A GM has a tough job : the personal angle

A couple of years ago, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young found themselves signing autographs and taking questions from a group of children at a Texas Rangers community function. One of the kids asked the players to identify the nicest guy on the team. Kinsler, with no hesitation, responded with “David Murphy.” Young overheard and swiftly agreed.

David Murphy poses with two Rangers staffers at a commercial shoot. 

In fact, you’d have a tough time finding anyone who didn’t agree. During his time with the Rangers, Murphy earned a reputation as a good ballplayer and an even better person. One could expect a smile, a professional and friendly attitude, and an overall positive feeling to emerge from any interaction with #7. That includes the time when he changed that uniform number with no fuss to accommodate the return of franchise icon Ivan Rodriguez.

We devoted two paragraphs to praising David Murphy because he won’t play for the Rangers next year. He just signed a two-year contract with the Cleveland Indians.  We can rest assured that the signing pained the folks in the Rangers’ community relations department, marketing department, and anyone else in the organization who worked with him, including baseball operations. It’s the latter group who made the decision about whether or not to pursue a new deal with Murphy, and it’s part of the reason they have a hard job.

In a lot of workplaces, a boss can afford the hardworking, standup guy that everyone likes some leniency if his performance level dips. Murph had a down year on the field last year after a superb one the year before. His character indicates he’ll put in maximum effort to improve, and, at most companies, he’d maintain his position and market-level salary. But baseball’s 40-man roster and its even more obstinate cousin, the 25-man roster, permit no sympathy. A team’s budget and the league’s luxury tax combine to boot sentiment even further out of the dugout.

The need to evaluate strictly on performance runs counter to much natural human impulse. We tip the friendly and honest waiter even if our salads came out late. We contribute to charities offering wayward kids a second chance. Humans like doing generous things for other humans we like, and, unlike fantasy league GMs, real baseball ops people often have personal rapports with their players. Setting aside unequivocally positive relationships in an effort to win more games seems emotionally taxing, making an executive’s already demanding job even more stressful.

Jettisoning emotion has become even more necessary in the free agency era. With instant roster replacements more available than ever, an evaluator often has to reduce clubhouse character to, at best, the role of tie-breaker. The situation also cuts the other way, where an executive keen to win signs a player with whom he wouldn’t want his children to associate, keeping his fingers crossed that his decision will yield on-field success and no Incognitogate situation in his clubhouse or locker room. A good-hearted executive wrings his or her hands when faced with such a dilemma.

Speaking of children, the news of Murphy’s Cleveland contract apparently broke when his daughter informed her day care of it. One would assume that David’s new job will prevent him from spending as much time interacting with his daughter’s friends at the center. If their experience mirrors that of seemingly everyone else who has met the Indians’ new outfielder, they will be bummed about it. Welcome to your career, Mr. General Manager. Sometimes you have to make decisions that make little kids sad. That fact in no way makes you a bad person : it’s your job, and you have a tough one.

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

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

An Ode to Cup-Raising

Cups have come a long way from tea parties and backyard socials. Watching the Davis Cup this morning made us think about how Cups fit into the sports landscape. They supersede goblets, cauldrons, vats, and every other sort of container, with the possible exception of bowls. The list includes the Ryder Cup, the Stanley Cup, the World Cup, the Grey Cup, the Spengler Cup, the Sudirman Cup, the FA Cup, and, for college hoops coaches, the Rupp Cup. European football even used to have the Cup-Winners Cup, honoring those who had won Cups with the opportunity to win another Cup. Oh, and if you won that Cup, you got to go play for yet a third Cup, the UEFA Super Cup.⁽¹⁾

Lord Stanley's Cup

Dwight Davis donated the trophy bearing his name,⁽²⁾ and while historically the term “Cup: has denoted the physical award one received (and perhaps drank from) when winning, over the years the term has come to be used interchangeably with the completion itself.

The America’s Cup lays claim to being the “oldest trophy in international sport, ” with a history dating to the mid-19^th century.⁽³⁾ Apparently, however, the original winners considered melting down the 100 Guinea Cup, as it was first known.⁽⁴⁾ Can you really call it a Cup competition if you don’t have a cup?

As a matter of fact, you don’t actually have to play for a Cup to have a Cup.

FIFA calls its competition the World Cup, but its prize goes by the name "FIFA World Cup Trophy." They make it from gold and malachite.⁽⁵⁾ Soccer also has an actual gold cup, the CONCACAF Gold Cup competition. They do have a cup that they call a Cup, although, in a bit of a bringdown, it’s not made from solid gold, but rather “gold-plated metal.”⁽⁶⁾

In the NHL, you get your name etched on the Stanley Cup if you win the title. Sports cups seem to have often gotten their names from people, as opposed to corporate sponsors. Lord Frederick may have donated the cup, but the company Henry founded probably sells extra tools every June thanks to some naming rights exposure they didn’t have to pay for.

Have Solo and Dixie missed sponsorship opportunities? Would some competition change their vessel from cup to glass in exchange for a sufficiently sizable Riedel corporate partnership? Some Cups have gone for the money, of course. The America’s Cup struck a nice history/lucre balance by getting some partnership dollars without having to compromise the brand : the sailing competition just added another Cup. Since 1983, the team that wins the right to challenge the defending champion has received the Louis Vuitton Cup.

 “Cup” may be a popular name for trophies, but not so much for participants. After looking at player names in a number of major sports, we found only offensive lineman Keith Cupp, of whom an announcer could have proclaimed “Cupp cups the Cup” as Keith proudly raised it up. Unfortunately, he played a sport that names its hardware the Lombardi Trophy. Mr. Cupp also played only three games in his career, as a Bengals replacement player during the 1987 player strike.⁽⁷⁾ We’d love to count Curley Culp here, because he has an awesome name and Hall-of-Fame résumé, but that one “L” is too much to overcome.

In the sport where you actually try to put the ball in the cup, golf’s FedEx Cup (not to be confused with women’s tennis’ Fed Cup) presents a couple of conundrums. It has a corporate name, which, as we’ve established, stands out. While it’s not quite as romantic as Lord Stanley donating a cup, we assume the shipping company at least moved this one around some. And they call the Tiffany & Co. creation the “FedEx Cup Trophy.”⁽⁸⁾ Did they need to add that extra word at the end? It is the Cup, it’s what you play for, the PGA’s Holy Grail, if you will, speaking of important cups.  Maybe let’s call it the FedEx Cup Cup.

A cup commemorating a Cup

We should note, by the way, that you don’t have to actually be able to drink from a trophy to call it a Cup, although FA Cup corporate sponsor Budweiser tried using technology to overcome its trophy’s imbiber-unfriendly structure. Their virtual can imprint made it appear to your smartphone that you were guzzling suds from the FA Cup.⁽⁹⁾

Cups play an important role in sports. We compete to win Cups, we spill our beer out out of them when reacting to a score, we cup our hands in an effort to amplify our vocal support of our teams. Oh, and we use them for protection. The only comment we’ll make about that kind of sports cup is that baseballer Adrián Beltré famously doesn’t wear one. He’s clearly made out of stuff a lot stronger than a red Solo. So raise your glass, or, you know, cup, to him.

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

RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

Footnotes

⁽¹⁾http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Cup_Winners'_Cup

⁽²⁾http://www.daviscup.com/en/history/davis-cup-history.aspx

⁽³⁾http://www.americascup.com/en/about/history

⁽⁴⁾http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/reform/jb_reform_boat_1.html

⁽⁵⁾http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_Trophy

⁽⁶⁾http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2013/05/14/concacaf-unveils-new-look-gold-cup-trophy-be-awarded-july-28-chicago

⁽⁷⁾http://bengalsjungle.com/replacement-players.html

⁽⁸⁾http://www.pgatour.com/fedexcup/what-to-know--the-fedexcup-trophy.html

⁽⁹⁾http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/117739-budweiser-aurasma-drink-beer-fa-cup