Sidney Moncrief became a basketball legend helping the
Arkansas Razorbacks to the 1978 Final Four and leading a Milwaukee Bucks
team that was one of the NBA’s best during the 1980s. Moncrief could
change a game in any number ways. He could hit the big shot. He
rebounded as well or better than any guard who ever played. And the
two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year could have an impact when his
team didn’t have the ball, too.
In retirement, he has had careers in business, in coaching, and in philanthropic pursuits. Moncrief
had the latter on his mind as he celebrated his 60th birthday this past
week. He created a series of events in his hometown of Little Rock,
Arkansas revolving around the charity he and his wife, Takisha, have
named Moncrief GameChanger.
Friday, they held a gala fundraiser that doubled as a birthday party.
The event at the Arkansas Arts Center included live and silent auctions
and featured appearances by former teammates and coaches like Ron
Brewer, Marvin Delph, Del Harris, and Junior Bridgeman.
The next day, they held a career readiness seminar for high school and college students at the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center.
You’ll see images of the facility in the video interview that is the
centerpiece of this post. It houses a museum of Arkansas’s
African-American history and its dark wood interior provided a welcoming
backdrop. Business professionals gave the young people tips on
preparing for the workforce through various presentations and breakout
sessions.
That
afternoon, the Moncriefs and several local coaching legends joined a
couple of Sidney’s brothers to put on a shooting clinic at Philander Smith College. They shared advice on basketball and life. The Moncriefs will do more career readiness forums in Little Rock in
October and December and plan to bring the program to North Texas as
soon as possible.
The Yankees announced last week that the last reason a Rangers fan
might reasonably have to cheer for them to win a ballgame will go away
at the end of the season.
Or at least that’s the way it is for me. I supposed, technically, a
Texan might need to pull for the Yankees to defeat a wild card rival
this September. And if that uncomfortable circumstance does occur, I’ll
hope the Bombers do win and all the runs score due to Mark Teixeira’s
first career four-home run game.
Tex declared last week he would end a 14-year Major League career
at season’s end. He has been gone from the Rangers since the mid-2007
trade that many fans likely consider his most lasting legacy with the
club. Indeed, the deal Atlanta made for the talented infielder placed
contributors Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison, and Neftali Feliz on two
Texas World Series teams. Feliz’s 2010 ALCS strikeout of another newly
retired Ranger-turned-Yankee, Alex Rodriguez, arguably ranks as the best
moment in franchise history. An injury-hampered Teixeira went hitless
in four games that series. But his contributions to Texas go beyond the
indirect ones he made to the franchise’s only World Series berths. He
did a lot more.
Doug Melvin drafted the Georgia Tech junior with 2001’s fifth overall
pick. Teixeira got to the big leagues by 2003. In 2004, he combined
with Michael Young, Hank Blalock, and Alfonso Soriano in a formidable
young infield. That club gave Texas fans plenty of thrills as they
unexpectedly stayed in the race all year before falling just short of
the postseason. We remember Michael Young having switched positions to
accommodate Soriano’s arrival, but do you recall Teixeira moving to
first base the previous year because of Blalock’s presence at third?
Teixeira would go on to earn five Gold Gloves at his new position. Tex
led the team in OPS in ’04 (a robust .929) and became only the second
Ranger (at the time) to hit for the cycle.
In 2005, he led the league in total bases and drove in two runs in
his first All-Star Game. He also took home both the Gold Glove and
Silver Slugger Awards. The batsman continued to put up big numbers for
the Rangers until, in July of 2007, the club traded the then-Scott Boras
client. He probably left a couple years shy of consideration for the
Rangers Hall of Fame, but you saw him play a lot of superb baseball at
The Ballpark in Arlington / Ameriquest Field in Arlington / Rangers
Ballpark in Arlington (he lasted through three different stadium names).
He had a legacy beyond the field, as well. In a duet with pitcher
Rosman Garcia, Tex sang the first rookie song at the inaugural Park
Place Dealerships Triple Play game show night. His singing set the tone
(in a nearly-on-pitch sort of way) for all those who followed. When
Rafael Palmeiro departed after 2003, he embraced the event as its player
spokesperson and helped build it into what has become a substantial
fundraiser for the worthwhile programs of the Texas Rangers Baseball
Foundation. He did a lot with the team’s foundation, and he and his wife Leigh started their own, as well.
Teixeira was intelligent and had a head for business, but he also had
a sense of humor and didn’t mind cutting up on camera. One year, he
even came up with the idea for a TV spot and didn’t mind putting on fake
tattoos to execute it. Making the commercials was my job and I certainly enjoyed working with him on set.
When you’re fan of a team, you develop an affection for its players,
and you often retain it even after they stop wearing the home colors.
When you’re employed by a club, and work with players, as was the case
for me during Tex’s Ranger years, it magnifies the experience. So when a
guy you like goes to another club, it’s hard to stop hoping he does
well – even if his eventual destination is the team you’ve been
conditioned to find most distasteful. That’s happened to me a lot, with
guys like Mike Napoli, Carl Everett, Ian Kinsler, David Murphy, and, for
sure, Mark Teixeira. There’s a lot to like about him, and hopefully his
life’s next chapter produces as many good things as his Rangers years
did.
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.
It’s not that I’d been evil, which Google has traditionally frowned upon.
I just wasn’t coming up with the right search terms on the world’s
leading search engine for learning about a particular business practice.
I needed some guidance on how to prepare a certain kind of investor
proposal and the results I found in the early pages of the search
weren’t as comprehensive as I hoped. Then I thought “What about
LinkedIn? They’ve got a search bar.”
“LinkedIn targets itself toward business,” I theorized, and might
therefore find results relevant to business endeavors like mine. About a
year and a half ago, they started letting all members create what are
effectively business blogs through their posts system. I know this
because I’ve used it. If your firm needed insights on Teams’ Brands & Regional Sports Networks or How Cricket Might Succeed in the U.S. or even Sports Trousers,
you’d find them on my page. If other folks also use LinkedIn to
position themselves as insightful in their fields, I figured I should be
able to turn up some helpful results.
Sure enough, the first article I found had a whole list of material
relevant to the document I needed to assemble. Its author works for a
company specializing in assisting entrepreneurs looking for finance. The
content marketing piece she put together certainly demonstrated that
she knew whereof she spoke. If we decided to go that route, her company
would definitely get strong consideration. In this case, at least,
LinkedIn proved more forgiving of my vague search terms than did Google. One can modify one’s search to look only through “posts,” and it
probably makes sense that if you’re looking solely for industry insight,
LinkedIn might be a good place to start. Google creates algorithms that
identify what you need with amazing accuracy. However, they necessarily
cover a worldwide web. LinkedIn covers only business, so it follows
that sometimes it might offer more refined results than even the best
general-purpose search engine.
Like many (almost all, probably) of you, I also use LinkedIn to
search for people. I’ve searched the names of former colleagues,
potential business partners, and newly met connections on the platform,
finding success more often than not. LinkedIn recently reduced the
number of searches non-premium members can use per month and I found
myself up against the limit last month. My cost-benefit analysis has not
yet assigned sufficient value to LinkedIn premium to induce me to
purchase it, so I ironically turned back to Google. LinkedIn has done an
excellent job of getting its users’ profiles noticed by the big G’s
spiders. With a little information beyond the person’s name, then, you
can often find his or her profile there if you’re limited on LinkedIn.
Of course, no matter where you search, it always helps if the person has
a unique name. If you’re looking for me, thank whichever of my
ancestors decided to make “Rush” a family surname (which my parents
repurposed into a first name).
Once I had tried this technique a bit, I came across the concept of
Google X-Ray searches. This feature allows you to search within a
particular website for results. It makes your LinkedIn search using
Google even more effective. Did I find better information about “how to
execute X-Ray searches” by looking on LinkedIn or Google? Both found
usable results. Which one will you find superior? It might depend on
your own preferences and how well you choose your search terms - both
can be pretty forgiving with the right inputs.
My next search project will be to identify the right type of investor
to work with us on our big sports/media endeavor. If you think you
might be him or her, don’t wait for my techniques to work. Feel free to
find me on LinkedIn yourself, which is luckily a bit easier thanks to
the Rush side of the family.
