On the Court For A Good Cause

This post originally appeared in the Blotch section of the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To consume it there : https://www.fwweekly.com/2017/09/19/sports-rush-court-sports-for-a-good-cause/

Donald Young, 28, won a tennis tournament Saturday. He and doubles partner Justin Whitman triumphed in the final and received trophies. Young has played on the ATP Tour since 2004 and won 115 professional matches, but this performance earned him no ranking points. So why did one of the top American players – a man who’s been ranked as high as 38th in the world – come to Dallas to play this event? He did it for basketball and a good cause.

Saturday at SMU, the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation held its second annual Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic. The fundraiser began with a dinner event and auction the evening before and continued with the open-to-the-public tennis tourney Sunday. A group of celebrities  included non-tennis professional athletes like J.J. Barea and Mike Modano; former tour players like Mark Knowles, Andy Roddick, and Benjamin Becker; and, for good measure, actor Owen Wilson (who has a decent forehand). A dozen amateurs made sizable donations to the foundation for the privilege of playing with and against those luminaries. Each amateur and pro accumulated wristbands as they won tie-breakers with different partners, with two of each with the most bands meeting in the final. Young and Whitman defeated Barea and Jim McKinney in that last match.

In this video interview, Young talks about the whys and hows of playing in such a setting, and also touches on what the U.S. women’s showing at the recent U.S Open (four Americans reached the semi-finals) means for the sport in this country.


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.

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Fox Sports Southwest’s Mavericks Day Experience

This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/09/28/sports-rush-fox-sports-goes-to-mavs-media-day/

photo courtesy Hutton Harris

The entire Dallas Mavericks roster hit the court in full uniform for the first time Monday. I’m here to provide you some exclusive insight into how their season will go based on what I saw. When you’re watching games deep into April and beyond next year, you’ll think about what you learned in this blog post.

Now, unfortunately, today’s insight doesn’t involve how well the players shoot, dribble, pass, foul, dunk, travel, flop, move the ball, defend the three, or draw illegal defense calls. It has to do with how they did on their Fox Sports Southwest liner reading.

The work they performed Monday will indeed affect Mavs fans all season. Having signed a multi-year deal with the franchise to carry most of the team’s games, the network – unlike a player – can’t get traded or placed on the inactive list. So count on seeing the recordings they made of the Mavericks’ smiling, surprised, or dancing faces on the air all season long.


Yes, I said dancing. Fox Sports Southwest producer Stephen Hill got several of them to at least attempt a dance move or two. Their female counterparts at the Wings seem to always be moving in rhythm. Hill told Dirk Nowitzki of his teammates, “They all said they don’t dance.” The Big German could only shrug. If Hill manages to put a promo together, you can judge their shimmying acumen for yourself.


The day consisted of each member of the roster visiting various stations around the American Airlines Center to get photographed or interviewed. For the most part, the players at the Fox emplacement in the Jack Daniels Old No. 7 Club needed to say lines to camera for various creative video projects.

My crew’s gig involved setting up the green screen, lights, and video cameras. The Barea-to-Mejri height variance of an NBA team makes for certain challenges in camera placement. Director of Photography Dave French came up with the idea of using a tall speaker stand and a robotic camera control so that he could focus and pan at normal-person height while the Panasonic cam remained level with the player’s face.


We started with the team broadcasters. Jeff “Skin” Wade showed up with a change of clothes, avowing that he could not get out of his suit fast enough. Skin was also relieved to discover said suit did not contain any green that might make him green-screen unfriendly.

Wade, Mark Followill, and Derek Harper cruised through their liners pretty quickly, because they’re, you know, professional broadcasters.

Most of the uniformed personnel, beginning with Justin Anderson and concluding with Qunicy Acy, handled their scripts pretty well, too. I’ve had colleagues from overseas tell me they believe American athletes are better on camera than those from other countries, perhaps because more of them have had at least some post-secondary education or because they just get more chances. In this case, the players needed to inform viewers about important facts like that FSSW is the TV home of Mavericks basketball, that MFFL (Mavs Fan For Life) parties are the best, and something about the network offering viewers a free Pomeranian puppy if they watch a certain number of games (okay, I might have made the last one up).


Anderson was especially animated and Andrew Bogut’s Australian enunciation added a unique element. Devin Harris, a veteran, didn’t even have to wait for Hill to finish giving him his “Only on Fox Sports Southwest” line – he’d done these media days before. Rookie A.J. Hammons, on the other hand, had a great smile but required a couple more takes. He’ll be fine once he’s got a few more of these under his belt.

The best chance for self-expression came as the group did the promos for streaming Mavs games via the Fox Sports Go app. The players needed to hold a mobile device and pretend to watch a game on it. Harrison Barnes pretended to exhort his teammate to “Make a shot, Dirk!,” while Wesley Matthews added some self-serving play-by-play : “One more pass – you don’t see Wesley open in the corner right now?!”

By the way, Dwight Powell delivered an emphatic “Get Fox Sports Go.” line to camera. If you don’t have the app, you WILL immediately download it after the big power forward instructs you to do so.
The most ambitious shot of the day consisted of French perched on a chair with a camera on a gimbal to get what will hopefully be a cool angle on Nowitzki’s signature fadeaway. Actually, we already consider the move a success since the DP didn’t fall off the chair.

So now you know the scoop on the 2016-17 Dallas Mavs. The advanced stat geeks have yet to weigh in on whether a successful media day can build momentum for a big season. But if the Mavericks go on a deep run, we’ll happily take the credit – and watch these promos extend their airdates for a few more weeks.

Disclosure : As you might have guessed, Fox Sports Southwest paid me to help with their production on Mavs Media Day


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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41-Love : Dirk Nowitzki's Tennis Event

This post originally appeared at the Fort Worth Weekly's website. To view it there : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/09/21/sports-rush-41-love/

Charity sporting events seem to usually possess an interesting mix of competitive energies and laid-back attitudes. One always wants to win, and to play well, but the outcome usually falls lower on the priority list than maintaining a chill vibe.

Sunday’s Dirk Nowitzki Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic offered donors a chance to play doubles alongside pedigreed names from the worlds of sport and entertainment. The mix felt just about right. The players played hard, everyone laughed a lot, and the group left the SMU Tennis Center as friends.

Nowitzki already counted many in the draw as buddies, but he hadn’t met quite all of them in person before the event. His Mavericks teammates Harrison Barnes and J.J. Barea played (and Dwight Powell, Rick Carlisle, Donnie Nelson, and Michael Finley made non-playing appearances). Actors Ben Stiller and Boris Kodjoe (the former a newcomer to the game and the latter a former college player) represented the entertainment sphere. The tennis world filled several slots, including the top-ranked American man, John Isner, current tour players Benjamin Becker and Mitchell Krueger, and the last American to win a singles title in a Grand Slam tournament, Andy Roddick.

Stiller noted at the pre-match press conference that the “pro celebrity” event seemed heavily weighted toward world-class athletes and away from guys like him who had been in lots movies but only took up the game at age 45. A handicap system aimed to address the potential imbalances, and the team with a lower handicap could take a point or two for themselves any time before match point in the 10-point tie-breakers that made up the round-robin pools. Implementing that strategy usually consisted of taking away a pro’s service point, because who wants to return an Isner or Roddick serve if you don’t have to?

By the way, if I played against Isner in an event like this, I would ask him to rip a serve at me full speed. I would want to know what it felt like to try to return it (or maybe even just see it).
Nowitzki jokingly called obviously “in” shots “out,” but perhaps the best competitive, yet fun, element came via the non-serious trash talk that cropped up every so often. Barea began it in the pre-event media session when declared that he likes to come to his German teammate’s home in the offseason and “whoop his butt” on the tennis court. In the championship match, Kodjoe and Roddick engaged in some spirited banter. Roddick told his partner not to take it easy on Kodjoe because he was ugly (I’ve been informed by certain female experts in such things that the [married] thespian is anything but unattractive). Kodjoe remarked that Roddick’s partner, Tonya McKinney, might have difficulty seeing around the former ATP star’s allegedly sizable posterior when he crouched as she served. And when Kodjoe and his partner, Alberto Lombardi, took their handicap point, Roddick incited the crowd to boo because they would now be receiving “less tennis” for the price of their donation.

Roddick’s team came out on top anyway and he will no doubt display the plate he received next to his 2003 U.S. Open trophy. The event wasn’t about winning, of course. It was about the charitable purpose (raising money for the foundation Dirk and his wife Jessica administer) and about having a really unique and fun experience. Even for the pro tennis players, it wasn’t a typical hit-and-giggle, as they got to mingle with NBA stars and other famous faces.

The biggest giggler was Dirk Nowitzki, who no doubt took great joy in the combination of tennis playing, fundraising, and fellowship. The Mavericks forward seemed perpetually jolly through the previous evening’s pre-party and all the way through the day Sunday when he stopped through the workroom to thank the event staff. Roddick commented that “We’re all huge admirers of Dirk and what he has done for Dallas and what he continues to do for Dallas.” Indeed the big German-now-Texan deserved his weekend full of smiles.

Video
Mitchell Krueger interview – Fort Worth native Mitchell Krueger is a pro tennis player looking to great into the upper echelon of the sport. He got to participate in the Dirk Nowitzki Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic and talks about his experience there and his goals for the rest of 2016. 

Dirk Nowitzki Pro Celebrity Tennis Classic highlights – My company put this together for the event with the help of Ludisian Legion Entertainment.  

The Event Pre-party – This is the only video of the event pre-party, held at Dallas’ Joule Hotel. The elegant affair featured a performance by Ben Harper and appearances by Nowitzki and some of his Mavs colleagues, as well as Ben Stiller. 

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.

RushOlson.com
Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports
Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

North Texans In The Games

This post originally appeared on the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau blog. To read on that site : https://www.fortworth.com/blog/post/north-texas-goes-for-gold/

Texas is larger, geographically speaking, than over 150 of the countries participating in this summer’s Olympic Games. For that matter, the population of North Central Texas, at 7 million-plus, exceeds that of more than 100 Olympic nations. So, as you might expect, the region has produced its share of Olympic athletes. We offer a representative sampling, both current and historical, to give you some perspective on what the area has contributed to the world’s premier multi-sport athletic competition.

Natives

Starting life here isn’t a bad route to the Olympics. Here are a few competitors born in the metroplex.
-Lanny Bassham went to the University of Texas-Arlington and was born in Comanche, Texas. He took a silver medal in shooting in the 1972 Munich Games and won gold in Montreal in 1976.
-Michael Carter of Dallas and SMU won silver in 1984 in the shot put and went on to a successful NFL career.
-Michelle Carter won four state shot put titles at Red Oak High School and is competing in her second Games in Rio, She’s also the daughter of the other Carter on our list.
-Claire Donahue was born in Dallas and the butterfly swimmer earned gold for her role in the 4x100m medley relay in London in 2012.
-Jackie Galloway was born in Wylie and attends SMU. She has dual citizenship and was a 2012 alternate on Mexico’s taekwondo team. Galloway is competing for Team USA in Brazil.
-Ricky Grace was born in Dallas, but played basketball as a naturalized Australian in 2000.
-His father Calvin played for the Cowboys when Grant Hill was born in Dallas in 1972. Grant’s sport was basketball and he won gold in it with the USA in 1996.
-Fort Worth North Side’s Darrow Hooper garnered a silver medal in shot put in the 1952 Helsinki Games.
-Michael Johnson runs a high-performance training center in McKinney. The Dallas-born sprinter ran his way to four gold medals over three Olympics.
-Madison Kocian of Dallas is a big Rangers fan and part of the powerhouse U.S. gymnastics team in Rio that took home the Gold medal. 
-Colleyville’s Stephen Lambdin is making his Olympic taekwondo debut at the 2016 Games.
-There’s a Grand Prairie park named after Arlington native Jennifer McFalls, who won softball gold in 2000.
-Area native Katie Meili went to Nolan High School in Fort Worth. She just won a swimming bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke in Rio.
-Equestrian athlete Clark Montgomery hails from Mineral Wells and honored the area’s tradition of horsemanship as he competed in eventing in Brazil.
-Courtney Okolo of Carrollton will sprint for Team USA in this year’s track and field competition. -Sergio Reyes boxed his way from Fort Worth to the 1992 Games in Barcelona.
-Louise Ritter from Red Oak and Texas Women's University competed in three Olympiads. The high jumper won a gold medal in 1988.
-Fort Worth Paschal’s Jack Robinson won gold in the second-ever Olympic basketball tournament in 1948.
-Pole vaulter Guinn Smith of McKinney took gold in the 1948 Games in London.
-Stacy Sykora from Burleson H.S. played volleyball for the U.S. in three Olympic Games.
-Chrishuna Williams will run the 800 meters in Rio. She was born in Dallas and attended DeSoto High.
-Deron Williams played basketball at The Colony High School before winning gold in the sport with Team USA in Beijing in 2008.
-Gymnast Rowland Wolfe was born in Dallas and went to Woodrow Wilson High School. He was a gold medalist in men’s tumbling in Los Angeles in 1932.
-Lance Armstrong of Plano brought home a bronze medal in the time trial in his third Olympics in 2000, though he later returned it amid the doping issues that derailed his cycling career.

Naturalized North Texans/Collegians

Plenty of folks have come to North Texas to train or attend school (or both). The local universities tend to be well-represented, with TCU and SMU having been especially prolific producers of Olympians.

-Tamika Catchings of Duncanville High will shoot for her fourth basketball gold in Rio.
-Tervel Dlagnev will compete in the Rio Olympics’ freestyle wrestling competition in the 125kg weight class after having finished tied for fifth in 2012. Born in Bulgaria, he attended Arlington High School and competes internationally for Team USA.
-U.S. Army veteran Vincent Hancock lives in Fort Worth and won two consecutive skeet shooting gold medals before failing to medal in Rio de Janeiro.
-Texas Wesleyan graduate Mark Hazinski competed for the United States in men’s table tennis doubles in 2004.
-Jerry Heidenreich was an SMU swimmer who won four medals, including two golds, in Munich in 1972.
-Nastia Liukin was born in Russia, but was competing out of Plano as she trained to win a gold, three silvers, and a bronze for Team USA in 2008.
-Steve Lundquist from SMU was 1984 double gold medalist in swimming for the United States.
-Earle Meadows was born in Mississippi, but he won the Fort Worth city pole vaulting championship four years in a row after he relocated. He took gold in the discipline in 1936 in Berlin.
-Longtime Greenhill School swim coach Jim Montgomery won three golds and four medals overall in the pool in 1976 in Montreal. He currently runs the Jim Montgomery Swim School in Dallas.
-Martina Moravcová from SMU earned two silver medals over five Olympics for Czechoslovakia and Slovakia. She still lives in Dallas.
-Gymnast Carly Patterson graduated from Texas Women’s University and lives in Allen. She won gold in the individual all-around in 2004 in Athens.
-Jasna Rather is the Texas Wesleyan table tennis co-ed team coach. She’s competed in four Olympics, two with Yugoslavia and two with Team USA. She won a bronze in 1988 in doubles for Yugoslavia.
-Doug Russell was born in New York City, raised in Midland, and swam collegiately at UTA. He won two gold medals swimming the butterfly stroke in 1968 in Mexico City.
-Sarah Scherer attended Texas Christian University. She’s competing in air rifle for Team USA in Rio after making her second straight Olympic team.
-TCU’s Raymond Stewart won a silver medal on Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team in 1984. He competed in four Olympics, though he was later implicated in an HGH doping scandal.
-Multiple gold medal winner Dana Vollmer was born in New York, but raised in Granbury. The swimmer has already made it back to the medal stand in Brazil.
 

The Pros

A number of athletes have played for area pro teams and competed in the Olympics, too.

Dallas Cowboys

Yes, we know American football isn’t an Olympic sport. But some Cowboys have represented their home nations in other sports. In addition to these summertime athletes, former running back Herschel Walker competed in the bobsled during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.

Bob Hayes is not only a Cowboys Ring of Honor member, he won two golds sprinting in Tokyo in 1964. He remains the only athlete to have won a Super Bowl ring and an Olympic gold medal.
Lawrence Okoye is in camp trying to earn a Cowboys roster spot this year. In 2012, he made the Great Britain Olympic squad and finished 12^th in the discus in London.
Australian Colin Ridgeway punted briefly for the Cowboys in 1965 after having competed as a high jumper in the 1956 Melbourne Games.
 

Dallas Mavericks

The global ties of General Manager Donnie Nelson (a former Olympic assistant coach for Lithuania and China) have ensured an international roster in Dallas. Current or former Mavs have hooped for the national teams of Australia, Brazil Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britan, Nigeria, Serbia & Montenegro, Spain, the USA, and Yugoslavia. Stars like Dirk Nowitzki, Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash, and Adrian Dantley made it. So did lesser-known (in this country, at least) names like Uwe Blab, Wang Zhizhi, João Vianna, Tom LaGarde, and Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Al-Farouq Ajiede Aminu (2012) and Josh Akognon (2016) were the Nigerian representatives. Off-season signees Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, and Nicolas Brussino will play in Rio for Team USA, Australia, and Argentina, respectively, before joining the Mavericks for training camp.
 

Dallas Wings

Erin Phillips plays hoops for the Dallas Wings and is competing for her native Australia in Rio. Her teammates Odyssey Sims (Irving MacArthur) and Aerial Powers were on the select squad that played practice games against Team USA.
 

Texas Rangers

Baseball will return to the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo and perhaps Yu Darvish will have a chance to make his second Games appearance at home for his native Japan. Former Ranger Koji Uehara also pitched for the Japanese team and three former Rangers (Rob Ducey, Aaron Myette, and Matt Stairs) have played for Team Canada. Rikkert Faneyte represented the Netherlands twice. Several prominent Rangers have performed for Team USA, including the likes of Will Clark, R.A. Dickey, Tom Goodwin, Rick Helling, Phil Nevin, and Bobby Witt.


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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