Could This Sport Help You Keep Your Resolutions?

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site :http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/12/29/resolve-to-pickleball-in-2016/

Photo courtesy of Richard Kaiser

You’re about to make a New Year’s resolution, aren’t you? This is the year you’re going to start exercising, right?

Maybe you’re thinking you’ll get back into tennis or racquetball, but you’re not sure your older joints will take the pounding as well as they did when you were 22. Also, you might have sold your racquets at your mom’s garage sale and are leery of the expense of acquiring new ones. I recently played a sport that might solve your problem. It’s called pickleball.
Now, to be clear, I don’t want to discourage you from getting into tennis, racquetball, MMA, or whatever you want to try. Those are all great sports, and whichever one helps you keep that resolution is fine by me. If you already like racquet sports, though, or think you would, it’s worth exploring pickleball, too.

If you’ve ever played another racquet sport competitively, you’ll pick it up quickly. I played high school tennis, but I haven’t played the sport regularly since then (and I wasn’t that good back in the day –– just ask my former double partners). Within minutes, however, I was keeping rallies going and playing games. One of my playing partners, defending senior (50-plus) national singles, doubles, and mixed doubles champion Scott Moore, says a short learning curve is not terribly unusual for former tennis, racquetball, squash, badminton, and table tennis players.

Did you notice how I casually worked in that I was playing with a national champion? I played doubles with Moore and his family and the points and matches were competitive. Do I think he pulled out all his tricks? No way. But my ancient racquet-sport muscle memory allowed me (and him, I am pretty sure) to have a rewarding pickleball experience the first time I played. In fact, Moore said one of the sport’s appeals is that even a player of his level can have a good time playing with partners of varying ages and abilities.

You actually use a paddle, not a racquet, and the ball resembles a wiffle ball. You can lay four pickleball courts out on a tennis court at one time, though you do need to add a few lines to make it just right. The net is basically a small version of a tennis net.

Photo courtesy of Richard Kaiser

The court’s smaller size means you’ve got a lot less ground to cover than some other sports, especially if you play doubles (as most pickleballers do). The rules and scoring are simpler than tennis’s (no loves, deuces, or tie-breakers to worry about).

Are you considering making pickleball part of your resolution planning? It turns out that a New Year’s resolution from a couple years ago is what got Moore serious about pickleball. He had grown up in Fort Worth playing tennis and later tried other racquet sports, too. He discovered pickleball a few years ago, and when he started playing it a lot, he found he had natural talent. As 2013 turned into 2014, Moore resolved to get good enough to win on a national level.

“I embarked on a year-long journey of working out, eating healthier, and practicing and stretching 5-6 days a week, all with the end goal in mind,” he said.

He trained hard enough to lose 20 pounds, and became a world-class player.

Eventually both he and his son/training partner Daniel won regularly in singles and doubles at the biggest competitions in the country.

They are now professional players, and Scott Moore, who currently lives in Colorado Springs, said they earned about $5,000 each in 2015. His own results were remarkable.



“I became the first ever trifecta winner at the Tournament of Champions, and at nationals as well,” he noted. Daniel Moore won big, too, and the father believes his eldest son to be the best pickleball player in the world.

The USA Pickleball Association hosts tournaments and bills the sport, which has been in existence since 1965, as one of the fastest growing in the country. It has proven especially popular in retirement communities, and pickleball seems to be seen as a more viable lifetime sport even than tennis because of its lower movement requirements. I also think younger children might find it an easy entry into the world of racquet sports because of the smaller courts. The cost of entry is often lower than some other sports, with a good paddle costing $70 (and cheaper ones less) and durable balls upwards from $3. Net systems, if needed, are under $200. Scott Moore represents paddle manufacturer Paddletek, and more firms seem to be getting into the sport, as global brand Wilson did in 2013.

Tennis clubs have started to embrace pickleball as a way to retain and recruit members. Some of Fort Worth’s private clubs have lined courts (we played at Rivercrest), but the sport hasn’t taken off in Texas yet. Perhaps your resolution will jumpstart it.

By the way, actual pickles have a lot of nutritional value, if you don’t have a dietary issues with salts and avoid the ones with substantial sugar. So a resolution that involved eating more pickles and playing some pickleball might really make 2016 a happier new year.




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.


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An Early Present in Texas

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/12/22/baseball-makes-the-arlington-city-councils-nice-list/

As Rangers Captain pulled the small box from under the tree, he knew it didn’t contain a bicycle. While he started to unwrap it, his friends from the Arlington City Council explained their gift.

“Well, see, we knew you wanted a hotel, but we weren’t sure what kind you liked. And restaurants are so hard to wrap. Plus there was no way a big live music venue was going to fit under the tree.”

The palomino opened the box and saw the familiar faces of multiple Ben Franklins staring at him. He looked back at his friends from the council.

“So we just got you cash. Is $50 million enough? Merry Christmas.”



Rangers Captain, the Texas Rangers’ official mascot, is a friend of mine, and I would love to see what crazy shenanigans he would pull with $50 mil. In this case, he’s just serving as a metaphor. Last week, the horse’s employer got word that the City of Arlington would chip in $50 million toward a team-led development next to Globe Life Park in Arlington. The Texas Live! initiative expects to include an annex for the city’s convention center, a hotel, retail shops, restaurants, and a 5000-person capacity “signature event space.”



The City Council unanimously approved the agreement last Tuesday evening following a short presentation by City Manager Trey Yelverton. The council needed only a cursory presentation at that meeting because they had seen a longer one earlier in the day at their executive session.
One expects Santa and his key elves also have executive sessions to make the tough decisions about who gets sugar plums, American Girl dolls, and entertainment complexes, versus who gets coal. They elfishly discuss weighty issues like whether getting an infraction card from your French teacher outweighs your otherwise passing citizenship marks (it didn’t when I was 11, thank goodness) or the odds of Ralphie using a new BB gun to shoot his eye out.

No outsiders attend Santa’s meetings because direct flights to the North Pole are difficult to come by. They don’t attend Arlington executive sessions because the council can legally close them to discuss matters like economic development negotiations. In both cases, the stakes are high. Tantrums can result from a child finding the wrong action figure under the tree, and $50 million, well, that’ll buy a lot of action figures.

So we want to know that a robust debate has occurred during these confabs. If Santa wants to bring Jack his new football even though the brat made his little sister cry twice in October and again in November, we’d like to think that an elf will push St. Nick to justify the decision before they tromp back to the workshop to start stitching pigskin.

How about the council? Did they ask the right questions to justify their largesse, either at the December 15 executive session or three briefing sessions that preceded it? It is possible they did ask those questions, received satisfactory answers, and have thus wisely invested their constituents’ funds and earned a spot on the nice list. While we don’t know what queries they may have posed, we can consider which ones might have seemed wise to ask the city staff who prepared the agreement.

1. Was there any way to get this development done by spending less than $50 million?
The agreement reads that “but for the Program and the payment of the Grant to ABDEB, Developer would not develop the Entertainment Complex Project as same would not likely be economically viable.” A council member would definitely want to drill down into the numbers and figure exactly the point at which it would become financially viable for the current developer or another one to put a project like this together. Is it $50 million plus additional incentives? Or could it have been less? Would they have taken a sawbuck and a fruitcake?

2. Could we have done this a different way than through the expenditure of city funds?
Did the council consider every possible avenue other than subsidies? Did they think outside the box? Could they have just sold off the convention center to a hotel magnate? Could they have lobbied the state to allow the city to float a casino on Mark Holtz Lake?
They’ve been exploring ballpark land improvements since 1991 or so. Hopefully in that time they considered every possible method for spurring development in their beloved entertainment district.

3. Are the economic impact studies accurate?
How correct are the multipliers? Did they include local residents’ use or just visitors? They don’t just add up total dollars spent and call that economic impact, do they? Are the jobs figures accurate and meaningful?



City Manager Yelverton showed a graphic at the December 15 evening session indicating more than $325,000,000 dollars in “Net Benefits for Local Taxing Districts Over the First 30 Years of the Facility Operation.” Did the council look at multiple studies to justify the numbers? Did they compare it to numbers from other cities? What did they see that made them confident they could predict the actions of a volatile marketplace with relative precision? Did whomever operated the Ouija board do it properly?

4. Why hasn’t it gone in before?
Many times when an untapped market to sell people things – like hotel rooms, event space, and parking for such – exists, entrepreneurs recognize the opportunity and invest in it. Why has that not happened without city funding in the Arlington entertainment district? Certainly there are a number of underutilized parcels of land near the amusement parks and stadia. Was there city bureaucracy, like restrictive zoning rules or tax structures, that might have prevented someone from building the desired hotel and meeting space on her own dime? Or if nobody in the worldwide marketplace thought there was a viable opportunity for a high-end hotel to succeed commercially, what information did the city have to show they were wrong, that, in fact, customers will fill a high-end hotel and its adjacent spaces? And why weren’t city council members already jumping on the opportunity years ago and investing their own personal monies in it?

5. Do the demographics work?
I worked for the Rangers when the team was considering the Glorypark project, a ballpark development plan more ambitious than this one. I wasn’t involved in the club’s strategy work for it, but certainly was interested in how it would come together. That undertaking, like this one, envisioned upscale retail and dining properties as an important part of the development. A colleague and I sat in her office looking at a map of North Texas income demographics. We looked for the pockets of people with the means to patronize such establishments. We had trouble finding them nearby. For the most part, they didn’t live in Grand Prairie, East Forth Worth, and North Central Arlington. Has that mix changed since then? Or will Texas Live!’s offerings be spectacular enough that Parkies and Southlakers will trek to Arlington for the shopping and dining? Or does research indicate that a lot of well-heeled folks would bring their bling to Arlington if they had the right hotel to stay in? Glorypark didn’t find the right mix, so hopefully the council ensured Texas Live! will.
They might also have looked at the demographics of the folks who visit Arlington’s attractions. Do Six Flags attendees yearn for upper-crust dining experiences after they’ve spent a July day riding El Aserradero? Or do they, plus, say, Globe Life Park’s thousands or upper deck fans, prefer the types of fast food and fast casual establishments that already succeed nearby? Did the council have access to psychographic research about what those folks want?

6. What are the opportunity costs?
If the $50 million is used for this purpose, it can’t be used for something else. Are there other candidates to receive the money who might have even more productive ideas for it? If you simply rebated the money (which came from levies on energy companies) back to residents in the form of lowered taxes, what growth opportunities might they create with it? What substitution effects might exist, whereby spending in one place is offset by reduced spending elsewhere in the city?

7. Are there hidden costs?
Did the economic impact estimates factor in productivity lost to construction detours? If you have a 5,000-seat entertainment center, how much business will it cannibalize from the 7,000-seat College Park Center into which you sunk $18 million? The ballpark has hosted events in Lot A, where the majority of the construction will take place. If those go away, have you factored that loss into the numbers?

8. Are there negative effects on existing Arlington businesses?
Does a subsidized development allow its occupants to undercut other businesses? If a Cacharel, for instance, has a tenuous grip on its status as a North Arlington luxury dining destination, could a competitor in a ritzy hotel run it out of business? Is that fair? If you expect to drive existing businesses away, will that have been factored into the economic impact calculations?

9. We like going to watch baseball games in our hometown. Could we use this grant as leverage to get the Rangers to extend their lease with us a few more years?
That apparently wasn’t part of the deal. Was it discussed? Was a cost-benefit analysis done on how important that might have been? Do the economics still work for 40 years if the Rangers are playing in Fort Worth, Dallas, or Little Elm from 2024 onward?

10. Will this deal discourage anyone else from building a hotel?
If the Arlington Ballpark District Entertainment Block (the partnership between the Texas Rangers and developer The Cordish Companies) builds the hotel, the city reimburses them for the property’s HOT (hotel occupancy taxes) for 30 years. How will that affect the local market for hotel construction? Will other developers be scared away because they can’t compete with the ABDEB’s hotel cost-wise? Is it possible that you could actually end up with less hotel capacity in the entertainment district in the long run? Will it hurt the existing hotels? Hopefully questions about the long-term future of Arlington’s hotel industry were asked. These same questions might also be asked about the effects of the other tax rebates involved in the deal.

11. Will another live entertainment venue work?
It would be good if the council looked at some analysis of how a market with College Park Center, the Levitt Pavilion, Verizon Theatre, the American Airlines Center, Fair Park Music Hall, Gexa Energy Pavilion, and more is underserved for venues and why a competitive opening exists for this part of the undertaking.

12. What’s next?
Is a development the size of half a parking lot enough to make the entertainment district a hot destination? Yelverton alluded to potential further endeavors near the existing convention center. Has the council seen studies about how Texas Live! will drive others to invest in, say, the spots where the Siemens offices closed or the Pitt Grill went out of business? Will those developments require city grants as well or does the data indicate they will spring up on their own? If the data could show that a Flying Saucer is coming back to the area, I’d really like that.

13. If I gave you pudding, eggs, and flour, could you make a Boston cream pie?
OK, that last one wasn’t a question for the council to have considered. It’s actually a line from an Adam Sandler song in the Christmas movie Mixed Nuts. In that film, some private citizens perform an unambiguous public service and receive a cash reward for it. In the case of Texas Live!, the issues behind its December government grant seem a lot more involved than the clear-cut case of the Seaside Strangler, or even the makeup of Santa’s naughty and nice lists. Did the council ask enough questions to make the right decision? Will the Rangers win the pennant next year? Is there a Santa Claus? As the chorus of Sandler’s tune noted, there are “so many things for me to wonder.”



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.


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A Bowl Game for Charities

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/12/15/a-bowl-game-for-charities/

When you think about it, college football bowl games are supposed to serve a lot of functions. They need to provide an athletic experience for players, energize alumni, generate attention for their host cities and sponsors, generate business for the local tourism industry, and likely deliver on a whole host of other ambitious goals enshrined in a prospectus somewhere.

One other responsibility every bowl takes on: raise monies for charity. With the possible exception of Orlando’s AutoNation Cure Bowl, no other game wears its charitable, um, heart in its title like the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl.

An organization called the Heart of Dallas works with ESPN to run the bowl, which is held at the Cotton Bowl annually and this year will feature Washington against Southern Mississippi on December 26th. As the “Heart of Dallas” name seems to imply, the group of local sports and entertainment industry professionals aims to donate bowl funds raised from sources like sponsorships and broadcasting deals to area nonprofits.

“The mission of the Heart of Dallas is to use the power of sports and entertainment to fuel bold social change in our community,” said Kern Egan, Executive Vice President of Lagardère Sports and Chairman of the Heart of Dallas Board of Directors.

North Texas has lots of worthy charities, so for a group not affiliated with one particular cause, choosing where to allocate funds can become a challenge. In 2015, it fell to the Heart of Dallas Young Professionals, a HoD section designed to engage under-40 sports and entertainment workers, to come up with an innovative solution.

“We had money to give away, which is a huge blessing, and we wanted to be creative about it and do something unique,” explained Mallory Martin, President of the Heart of Dallas Young Professionals. “When we thought about how to do that, rather than just simply voting in a room somewhere who is deserving, we wanted to have them pitch in a creative way and have people do it with us.”

The HODYP wanted to do it in an entertaining way that would also increase awareness among area nonprofits and young business professionals. They came up with a “Shark Tank” for nonprofits idea. Community groups would state their own cases in front of judges and a live audience, with funds awarded to those who made the most compelling cases. They would call it, in sporty fashion, the Fast Pitch.




They solicited applications from nonprofits across North Texas, culling more than 50 submissions to eight finalists who would get to make their pitches at the event itself. Judges would decide how to divide the funds raised from the bowl game plus the event and its sponsors (including a title sponsor, as the event became formally known as the Heart of Dallas Inaugural Fast Pitch Event, presented by Lagardère Sports). Those who made the best pitches would get the largest shares, but nobody would walk away empty-handed.

“For an inaugural event to give away $100,000 is really amazing. And the fact that all eight charities, who all had amazing missions, were awarded a significant amount of money is really a unique experience that added a lot of value,” said Jayda Batchelder of Education Open Doors, one of the nonprofit finalists.

“I’ve never been to a fast pitch or a competition for social entrepreneurs like this that gives every person a prize,” added Jackie Anderson of Equal Heart.

Angela Field and Asija Woodson

In addition to the “regular shares” to be awarded by the judges, the Fast Pitch had two special awards. The event’s attendees would get to vote on a People’s Choice Award, which would see 5,000 additional dollars awarded to the charity that most impressed the group of mostly industry professionals and other nonprofits. They also added an award to recognize an outstanding athlete making an impact on the field and a positive difference off the field by enriching lives of others. The honoree’s presence added something to the event as well, according to Asija Woodson, a young participant in the Rae’s Hope program who had come to help make her group’s case.

“What was fun about tonight was meeting all these new people and plus I got to see Dirk Nowitzki.”
As the winner of the Community Excellence Award, presented by Anheuser Busch, the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation received its own $10,000 grant to further the work it has done with children’s welfare since 2001.

Mike Leslie and Dirk Nowitzki

“If you live anywhere near here and have spent the last decade or so getting to know him via what he does on the court or in the media or in the community, it’s just you never hear a bad word about him,” explained Egan of the selection of Nowitzki’s foundation for the honor. “Somebody that high-profile that stays that grounded and is still that interested in making sure he’s making an impact, not only where he’s from in Germany, but also right here in Dallas across an ocean, is really special.”
Nowitzki explained why he and his wife Jessica (who serves as executive director of the foundation) took the time to attend the event in the midst of the basketball season.

“They (the Heart of Dallas) try to link sports with charities, similar to what we do, because parts of my foundation have projects that help with wellness of kids. So I thought it fit. The whole thing is a fit for me as a person as well as for this organization.”

The presence of a future Hall-of-Famer added buzz to the event, and the pitch phase added excitement. WFAA-TV’s Mike Leslie served as emcee to bring each nonprofit to the downstairs stage at D.E.C on Dragon. All the presentations started with a video about the cause in question of up to 2:30 in length. The group then had three minutes for a spokesperson to present its case, followed by 90 seconds of questions from the five-judge panel.

“It was a great experience for us to get up here on stage to tell about our organization, to see all the other wonderful organizations explain what they do and the empowerment that we all have to help this world make a better place,” said Rae’s Hope’s Angela Field about giving her presentation, whose props included a bicycle.

Eight strong pitches meant eight tough choices for those dividing the available funds.
There were a lot of compelling causes and great stories. They all tugged at your heartstrings,” said Martin, who served as one of the judges. “So at the end of the day, we just really looked at the work that they were doing, the number of people that they could impact, (and) does it tie in to what we’re trying to do as an organization, the Heart of Dallas. So we just had to make our decision based on that.”

DJ Souljah

As the judges deliberated, 300 attendees grooved upstairs with DJ Souljah and a professional violinista, then heard Leslie interview Nowitzki before the Heart of Dallas Young Professionals Steering Committee presented the checks to the recipients.

Every group walked away with at least $2500 and plans for how the funds would further its mission.

Jayda Batchelder

“It’s going to go to Education Opens Doors to help us expand our program across the city this school year,” said Batchelder, whose organization received the largest judges’ award of $25,000. “Our mission is to enable students to purposefully navigate through high school to college, and so we have a comprehensive program we implement in schools. This money will go directly to support at least 500 more students this year to have the yearlong life-changing program.”

“With this reward, we are going to buy a box truck that we have kind of been racking our brains figuring out how to get. With this box truck, we can pick up thousands of pounds of food to distribute to thousands of individuals,” said Anderson, whose enterprise focuses on child hunger remedies.
Equal Heart’s executive director Keven Vicknair saw value in winning the People’s Choice Award beyond the funds to purchase the new truck.

“It gave us validation that what we’re doing, people understand the value,” she said. “They understand, and they get excited about it.”

We expect traveling fans of the Huskies and Golden Eagles to get excited about what their team does on the field the day after Christmas. They likely won’t realize the ways their ticket purchases and viewer eyeballs affect the locals involved in the event. Egan, however, sees the bigger picture.
“We’re fortunate to have a bowl game with our name on it,” he said. “What we really want to do is use those funds that ESPN provides us and mobilize a very energetic group of young professionals in our industry to see what they can do to network, and grow, and use their skills and resources to make the most impact possible here.”

For the Heart of Dallas Young Professionals, the networking aspects of their program intertwine with the charitable side. The youngest presenter, Woodson, summarized the true beauty of such an arrangement.

“Those who have the patience and who take time out and do something for the community just to give back, those are the ones who end up most successful in life.”


All photos courtesy of Danny Bollinger.

Disclosure: The events company that spearheaded the execution of the Fast Pitch event, Matchpoint Agency, hired me to produce some of its audio-visual elements.

Heart of Dallas Inaugural Fast Pitch Event presented by Lagardère Sports charitable award winners :

America SCORES Dallas – $7,500
Behind Every Door – $5,000
Bryan’s House – Open Arms, Inc – $10,000
Dallas Tennis Association – $7,500
Dirk Nowitzki Foundation – $10,000
Education Opens Doors – $25,000
Equal Heart – $20,000 (+ $5,000 for People’s Choice Award)
HopeKids North Texas – $7,500
Rae’s Hope – $2,500


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

Delectable Hockey Made From Scratch

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/12/08/delectable-hockey-made-from-scratch/

Dallas Stars fans have had a lot of reasons to take pride in their team this season. They’ve played exciting hockey, hovering at or near the league lead in goals scored all year. Supporters have no doubt loved the team’s moxie, demonstrated most recently by taking six points from four road games (including three in the Pacific time zone) in six days. And they’ve certainly enjoyed seeing the Stars compile the National Hockey League’s best record while featuring a number of guys who’ve never played for another NHL team.

The Stars drafted their leading goal scorer in the fifth round in 2007. They took their top-scoring defenseman in the same round three years later. Jamie Benn and John Klingberg join nine other men on the current roster whom the Stars either drafted or signed after the player went undrafted.

That Dallas would see success from homegrown players comes as no surprise to Stars fans who have expected a wave of young players to move the franchise forward for a few years now. The team’s top minor league affiliate, the AHL’s Texas Stars, have been to the Calder Cup finals twice this decade, winning the title in 2014. The ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads have not missed the playoffs as a Stars affiliate and won their league’s Kelly Cup in 2007.

This Stars team may end up being really good. Really, really good, even. The Stars have had a number of strong teams since coming to Dallas, but one can make the case that this is the most homegrown good team they’ve iced.

By way of comparison, I looked at the six Stars teams that have made the conference finals since homegrown Hall-of-Famer Mike Modano joined the team in 1989. The era had the draft remaining as an established commodity, Eastern European players becoming easier to import, and free agency in place. The rules for building a team changed over that period, but not so appreciably as to make comparisons irrelevant, as they would have been during the Original Six or WHA periods.


To calculate, I looked at the top 22 skaters as measured by playoff games played, plus the top three goalies in the organization. I figured that playoff participation let you truly know who the core players were, and that criterion also takes into account the trade deadline deals that impact a team’s finish. I made exceptions to add crucial performers who missed significant parts of the playoff runs, including the likes of 1998 Joe Nieuwendyk, 2000 Brian Skrudland, and 2008 Philippe Boucher. For this year’s team, I looked at the current roster plus the top three goaltenders.

We can start with the late 90s Stars teams. From 1998-2000, Dallas went to three straight conference finals, skated the Stanley Cup in 1999, and lost in the finals in 2000. General Manager Bob Gainey built those groups with savvy trades, money from Tom Hicks, and between seven and nine homegrown players a year. The free agents in that pre-salary-cap time included Brett Hull, Ed Belfour, and Pat Verbeek, and we should probably also note that a large contract kept Nieuwendyk from testing free agency. In addition to those high-dollar signings, trades matched the talent of Sergei Zubov and Daryl Sydor with the grit of Cup-winners from Gainey’s old Montreal organization, like Skrudland, Craig Ludwig, Mike Keane, and Guy Carbonneau. Those players combined with organizational products in their primes, like Modano, Jere Lehtinen, and Derian Hatcher, to produce the greatest era in franchise history.



The first team to make it to the finals in the Modano era came when he was 20 and the franchise had not left Minnesota. GM Bobby Clarke gave first-year coach Gainey 10 homegrown players with which to work, 12 trade acquisitions, a pair of veteran free agents, plus Stew Gavin on a waiver draft claim (the waiver draft got eliminated in the 2005 labor agreement). Dallas fans might recognize Stars draftees on that team like Neal Broten, Modano, Mike Craig, and Shawn Chambers (a supplemental draft selection who left the organization but returned as a free agent to win the ’99 Cup). That group, which also included former first-rounder Brian Bellows, lost to Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup Finals.

2007-08 provides this year’s version the best competition for the title of “Most Homegrown Good Stars Team.”  They had 14 guys who had never played for another NHL franchise. The four free agents included defensive stalwarts Philippe Boucher and Stephane Robidas. The seven trade acquisitions were headlined by trade deadline pickup Brad Richards and the stalwart Zubov. They posted 97 points and lost the conference finals in six games to Detroit.
There’s a case to be made that the ’07-’08 Stars were more indigenous than this ’15-16 batch, since they had the 14 draftees (all but three from the top two rounds). Heck, a third of their general managers that season were kind of homegrown (Brett Hull played here before sharing GM duties with Les Jackson after Hicks let Doug Armstrong go). But a development pipeline shows its depth not only by the players who come through it to play a key role for your team, but also by how effectively you can use it to acquire other talent.  Here current GM Jim Nill and his predecessor, the former Star Nieuwendyk, have made a real impact on this year’s success.

The Stars traded a total of 13 players (plus three draft picks) to acquire top-six forwards Tyler Seguin, Patrick Sharp, Jason Spezza; solid defensemen Jason Demers and Alex Goligoski; and co-number one goalie Kari Lehtonen. Of the 13 traded players, all but one had never been the property of another NHL team. The lone exception, Seguin trade inclusion Joe Morrow, came to the Stars in a deal for former top pick Brenden Morrow.
Those other Stars teams had some success dealing players who came through the organization. Jackson (who had a hand in shaping all these teams in some front office position or another) and Hull’s package for Richards included draftees Jussi Jokinen and Mike Smith. Dave Gagner’s 40 goals and strong playoff run in 1991 made the deal for Jari Gronstrand and Paul Boutilier look pretty good. And even in hindsight, no Stars fan would undo Gainey’s swap of Jarome Iginla for Conn Smythe Trophy-winner Nieuwendyk. But the 2015-16 Stars have benefitted from using young talent to acquire top-caliber performers more frequently than any of their predecessors.

Speaking of youth, only one of the 11 homegrown Stars this season is older than 26 (Benn’s brother Jordie, 28) and there’s more talent waiting in Cedar Park. This team could be good for a while.

Nill no doubt understands how the draft-and-develop approach can win. The Red Wings team that beat the ’07-08 Stars group went on to win the most recent Motor City Stanley Cup. Eight of their top ten playoff scorers were guys the longtime Detroit Assistant GM helped draft. Stars fans hope a playoff leaders list that includes names like Benn, Klingberg, and Nichushkin brings the same hardware to North Texas.



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

Defense First for UTA Mavs Basketball

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/12/01/defense-first-for-uta-mavs-basketball/

The University of Texas-Arlington men started their victories over some of the best-known names in college basketball at 5:50 a.m.

“We do a defensive boot camp every year and that’s kind of where we try and instill toughness and grit with our guys,” explained head coach Scott Cross. They held the camp on outdoor courts this year, adding to the grit factor. The timing required a certain resolve, too.

“We had a couple of sessions at, like, 5:50 in the morning. So now you’re getting (started) before the sun comes up,” Cross explained. “The guys are working, diving on the floor, defensive stance, and everything. It’s an hour workout and it’s probably the hardest hour they’ll ever experience.”



The Mavericks have recorded difficult road wins over Ohio State and Memphis on their path to a 5-1 record this season. They’ve provided some outstanding individual offensive performances, with Erick Neal and Kevin Hervey winning back-to-back Madness Sun Belt Men’s Basketball Player of the Week Awards. However, they lost their top four scorers from 2014-15 and haven’t won games this year by outshooting opponents. The Mavs have shot 39% from the field as a team, about the same as their opposition,

“You would think if you shoot under forty percent, you’re going to lose basketball games, but the only one we lost was Louisiana Tech,” said Cross.

The Mavs have had almost 60 more attempts from the field than their foes, due in large part to a substantial edge in offensive rebounds. They’ve also had more steals and fewer turnovers. So when you watch them take on their next major conference foe tonight on the Longhorn Network, keep an eye on what happens when UTA doesn’t have the ball. Defense has been the key to their fast start.

“I think it’s been a big part of it,” Cross said. “All the guys buy in.”

Texas-Arlington uses a variety of defenses, including three full-court presses to go with a matchup zone and man-to-man in half-court situations. His players and staff choose sets based on the game situation. No matter what, the defenders have to stay active, even when they go to the zone.

“Even though it’s the zone principles, they’ve always got a man,” said Cross. “Every one of the offensive players should be accounted for. If they’re not, if somebody’s running around and nobody’s with him, then we’ve made a mistake. It’s all about communication.”



To demonstrate how communication fuels good defense, the Mavericks practice the skill. As they prepared for the Texas game at Monday’s practice, when Cross introduced a new concept designed to counter one of the Longhorns’ offensive sets he solicited names for it from the players. As the drills continued, a cacophony of “fours” and “I got balls” and “get high posts” resonated through College Park Center, as it no doubt will at Austin’s Erwin Center this evening.

“It starts with their voices being loud. We try to encourage it in everything we do.”

Some of the first drills the Mavericks run at practice emphasize guarding the dribbler and running at shooters. As much as any previous year, the team has the personnel to execute the schemes well. Long guards who close out quickly help control the perimeter when the Mavs extend their zone: opponents have shot barely 27% from three-point range. Their point guard’s speed also causes issues for opposing ballhandlers.

“Erick Neal is a guy that can really badger the ball and create chaos because he’s the quickest guy out there,” Neal’s coach said, while also praising the work of the post players.
“I’ll give a guy like Jorge Bilbao a lot of credit. He’s our toughness and grit. It starts with him. He has no backdown from anybody he plays against.”

Cross also cited the contributions of Bilbao’s backup, Nick Pallas.

“Those two guys have really anchored our defense.”

Eventually, one does have to score to win ballgames. Cross wants the aftermath of a successful defensive possession to generate offense. Pushing the ball up the floor can create easy baskets when other shots aren’t dropping.

“We play fast. The last five years, we’ve had a top-fifty tempo team in country,” Cross said of the role the transition game plays for his team. “I do give our guys freedom offensively to play fast.”



Cross guided the Mavericks to the only NCAA Tournament berth in the program’s history in 2008. He feels that the true benefits of the big wins they’ve had before Christmas will come as St. Patrick’s Day approaches and the games get more meaningful.

“The biggest thing is just giving our guys confidence, You go into a season and you feel like you can play with anybody, but there’s always that doubt until you knock one of them off,” said Cross. “I think that confidence will help us throughout the season.”

The team may not have reached its ceiling yet. If the shooting improves to match the defense, they could accomplish a lot. But what if the defensive intensity dips? Over his ten years as UTA head man, Cross has developed methods to ensure that doesn’t happen – methods that involve alarm clocks.

“I started a hustle point chart. We keep track of offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, deflections, dives on the floor, loose balls, charges, and whether we give up and-ones, us versus the opponents. If we lost the hustle points and lost the game, we woke them up at six in the morning and did extra conditioning,” he explained. This year’s team had a taste of what Cross euphemistically calls “championship conditioning” after a scrimmage loss.

“They didn’t like it,” he noted.

This group of UTA student-athletes may not like early mornings, but they have to feel pretty positively about their early season results. If they keep them up, their rewards will include a run to the postseason, as well as a more collegiate approach to sleeping habits.



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.


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An Incredible Comeback

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2015/11/25/a-west-texas-comeback/

A small-town Texas quarterback has two minutes to drive his team 58 yards for a touchdown. If he doesn’t do it, the playoff loss will end the season and his high school football career. For many kids, it would represent the most stressful situation of their lives. Friday night in Huntsville, however, a schoolboy QB and his teammates knew they had faced challenges far greater than those posed by onrushing defensive linemen. 

Two and a half years earlier, senior signal-caller Mason Tobola had seen his town put through stress that dwarfs that of even the most high-pressure football game. He witnessed a fertilizer plant explosion that killed fifteen people, injured scores of others, and damaged surrounding buildings beyond repair. That night, students had to help the injured, and in the intervening years, they’ve watched their hometown of West, Texas rebuild damaged structures and psyches. The experience has left those who made it through with valuable perspective.

“I think it opened up everyone’s eyes on the team. It made everybody realize how hard they had to work to accomplish the simplest tasks in life,” Tobola said.



Some three minutes of clock time before the West Trojans found themselves needing a touchdown to extend their season, the players had had a lot of work to do. They had just gone down by two scores. Their opponents, the Kirbyville Wildcats, had shown resolve of their own in overcoming a nine-point halftime deficit to post 20 unanswered points and forge a 32-21 lead with just over five minutes to go in the 4th quarter.

A coach could have found it a challenge to stay positive when his tired players missed tackles and lost control of their biggest game of the year. As his players trudged off the field following Kirbyville’s PAT, however, West Head Coach David Woodard remained relentlessly upbeat.

West Head Coach David Woodard

Coach Woodard also serves as the district’s athletic director and has kids of his own attending schools in the West ISD system. Since the April, 2013 tragedy, he has had to constantly find ways to keep himself and his charges looking forward, even as he dealt with the added challenge of rebuilding his own destroyed house.

“Kids feed off of you and they know how you feel and what you’re doing and what you’re thinking,” Woodard said. “You can’t let those negative thoughts get in your head.” He was talking about the football game, but he could have easily been referring to his responsibilities as an administrator, husband, and father.

The district has actually found a good bit of success recently on its fields and floors, many of which sustained damage in the explosion. West High School has fielded several playoff teams, including this fall’s girls volleyball squad, and the baseball team won the 3A state title this past spring. The football team, however, had not won a playoff game since 2007.

West has historically been known for strong baseball and softball teams, but football on Friday nights still matters a lot in a small Texas town. That medical personnel had to use the football stadium for triage in the explosion’s aftermath only heightened the sport’s symbolic importance. When the team won only one game in the fall of 2013, it created yet another obstacle to overcome. The way the team handled it set an example for more than just their peers.

“We all learn a lot from kids,” said Woodard. “What they’ve accomplished in these couple of years since the blast and going 1-9, it showed us adults that if you decide you want to do something and you want to work hard to get it done, then it can get done.”

A handful of today’s seniors played as sophomores on that one-win 2013 team, with underclassmen having watched it as JV, freshman, or eighth-grade players. Tobola, who started under center that year as a tenth-grader, explained that he and his teammates had turned things around “through experience and hard work, through 7-on-7, and lifting weights, just getting down and dirty and making it happen.”

The 2014 season saw the team go 7-3. They missed the playoffs after a final weekend loss to Comanche. The near-miss gave them added resolve headed into 2015.

“Everybody thought it was about time to step up and time to make playoffs and go into the postseason,” said Tobola.

They did it, too, losing only one regular season game en route to the program’s first 10-win season since 1992. In the opening round of the playoffs, Tobola kicked a PAT to defeat Troy by a point in overtime.



Playing on a neutral field at Sam Houston State’s Bowers Stadium in the area round, the Trojans found themselves down 12-0 early. It could have been worse save for a Kirbyville encroachment infraction that nullified a first-quarter pick six. Both teams, in fact, seemed a touch ragged in a penalty-filled first half. West overcame any jitters, however, to score three second-quarter touchdowns and take a 21-12 halftime lead.

Kirbyville, who had gone 10-1 on the season themselves, looked like the stronger team for most of the game’s final two quarters. When the Wildcats scored their third second-half TD with 5:38 left in the fourth quarter, the raucously supportive West fans quieted. Perhaps they thought about the season, that even it were to end there in Huntsville, they would fondly remember it as a marvelous experience for the school, the town, and the players.

But the season didn’t end there. The Trojans quickly drove 69 yards, with Tobola running the last four to cut the deficit to 32-27. The defense produced a three-and-out, and that’s when the Trojans found themselves with the ball and one chance to extend their season. Tobola threw to Bailey Horn in the left flat and Horn somehow eluded a horde of Wildcats to turn the short pass into a long touchdown. Kirbyville still had time for their own rally, and three quick first downs moved the ball into West territory. However, senior Trevon Harold, who had played on the 2013 varsity as a sophomore, tipped a second-down pass and junior Dawson Sulak intercepted it. The Trojans’ amazing season would continue. They will play Teague in Midlothian on Friday.

Tobola, who plays offense and defense, and kicks and punts, had fought through a fourth-quarter injury. His teammates overcame fatigue, nerves, pain, and everything else with which an athlete must deal to win a pressure-filled contest.

In the minutes following the game, as the players slapped hands with the students, parents, and neighbors who had driven more than two hours each way to support them, Coach Woodard explained what made the difference for his team. “To be able to battle back twice tonight, early in the first half and then the last five minutes, it just shows so much of what we’ve always been talking about – a kind of a never-give-up, that resiliency attitude. (I’m) so proud of them.”



Kirbyville could take pride in their players as well. The Wildcats deserved to win the game. They played their hearts out, showing skill and sportsmanship. They, too, had faced tragedy, as their coach had buried his brother earlier in the week. On the field after the game, one boy cursed his missed chances. Another wept. The loss will pain them for a long time, even as they proceed on through high school and into life, One hopes that the Wildcats will react to strife the way the West students have, and let the lessons of a setback set them up to succeed.

David Woodard understands the long-term importance of the lessons his athletes learned the hard way.

“They’re just a great group of kids that have their head on straight and that are successful in football and athletics right now. In three or four or five, ten years, you’re going to hear about them being really successful in life as well.”




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