A Father’s Day Story: Ryan and Jerry West

By Seth Rubinroit

Father’s Day is the annual holiday that encourages families to reflect and celebrate the accomplishments of the father. However, few things make Lakers legend Jerry West more proud than to talk about his son, Ryan.

Lakers fans are very familiar with Jerry West. West is commonly known as “Mr. Clutch” for his ability to sink key shots, and “The Logo” because his silhouette was used to design the NBA logo. West was named an NBA All-Star fourteen-times, won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1960, helped the Lakers win the NBA championship in 1972, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980. His #44 jersey was retired by the Lakers, and hangs in the rafters at Staples Center. After he retired, he became a general manager, winning the NBA Executive of the Year Award with both the Lakers and the Grizzlies.

While West was the General Manager of the Grizzlies, he had the opportunity to work with his son, Ryan, who is a scout for the Grizzlies.

“I think any father is proud of their son regardless of what they decide to do, but with [Ryan] being involved with the Memphis team, it was fun for him and for me,” Jerry West said.

Life was not always so pleasant for Jerry and Ryan. Growing up, Ryan struggled to escape the shadow cast by his famous father.

“Obviously, your life is different growing up. A lot of people look at you a different way, and expect a lot of things from you,” Ryan West said. “People are always tugging at you, wanting something from you all the time. Growing up, it was kind of difficult dealing with those things.”

In order to prepare his son for life, Jerry was stern with his son.

“I think the most important thing in a household is to make sure the kids know you love them, to give them guidance, and more importantly discipline,” Jerry West said. “Without those things in life, you are probably not going to have very good opportunities to succeed.”

While they worked together for the Grizzlies, Ryan gained a greater appreciation and respect for his father.

“My dad is the best dad I could ever hope for. I would not trade anything that he has done, or has not done, for any other dad. He has been perfect,” Ryan West said. “I cannot thank him enough for everything he has done for me. He has always been there for me, supporting me. He has been a fantastic father.”

Since these interviews with Ryan and Jerry West, Jerry retired from basketball altogether, becoming the executive director of the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust Open. To honor his father,
Ryan makes sure that he is always wearing something with the NBA logo on it, even if it is just a pair of socks.

Unlike Ryan, we cannot wear clothes decorated with the silhouette of our father, but we can make sure in other ways that our fathers know we appreciate them on their special day.

By Seth Rubinroit
Photos by Seth and Sam Rubinroit

Life is good for Lakers’ center Andrew Bynum. He is returning from a right knee injury to a team that is poised to advance far in the playoffs. However, life would have been different for Bynum if he had decided to attend the University of Connecticut out of high school rather than declaring for the NBA draft.

“I do not really think about that,” Bynum said at the NBA Summer Pro League in 2006 about going to UCONN. “I think my decision was good. I am learning from Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant, so I do not think UCONN would have more than that to offer.”
Coming out of St. Joseph High School in New Jersey, Bynum was expected to step into a talented UCONN team and help offset the loss of forward Charlie Villanueva. After winning the Big East Regular Season Championship the year before, there were high expectations for the Huskies. Led by talented forwards Rudy Gay and Josh Boone, UCONN was ranked second in the 2005-2006 ESPN/USA Today Preseason Poll.

However, Bynum decided to declare for the 2005 NBA Draft, where he was selected tenth by the Lakers. Bynum was the youngest player ever drafted, as well as the youngest player to play in an NBA game. It quickly became apparent, however, that Bynum was not ready for the NBA. In his rookie season, Bynum appeared in 46 games, and averaged 7.3 minutes, 1.6 points, and 1.7 rebounds per game. He only made 29.6% of his free throws.
UCONN, on the other hand, flourished without Bynum. The team advanced to the Elite Eight. UCONN tied the record with four players being selected in the first round, with Rudy Gay, Hilton Armstrong, Marcus Williams, and Josh Boone all being picked. Denham Brown was also selected in the second round.
With so much talent on the roster, there were questions about how much Bynum would have played at UCONN. Boone averaged 10.3 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks at the power forward position. Armstrong was the Big East Defensive Player of the Year. Ed Nelson and Jeff Adrien played quality minutes at the post positions.
At the 2006 NBA Summer Pro League, UCONN teammates Rudy Gay and Rashad Anderson disagreed about to impact Bynum would have had with the Huskies.
Gay, who plays for the Memphis Grizzlies, said, “With the way Hilton Armstrong and Josh Boone [played], and with the athletic ability that [Bynum] has, I’m not sure how much [Bynum] would have played, but I’m sure he would have played a good deal with us.”
Anderson, on the other hand, said, “[Bynum] would not have [played] because he would not have dominated. He could not have played in front of Hilton Armstrong and Josh Boone.”
Hall of Fame UCONN coach Jim Calhoun answered the question about how much playing time Bynum would have received, saying before a game against the Pepperdine Waves in 2005, “He’d have a tough time starting in our frontcourt, and yet he would play for us. I do not think you can put a small price tag on that.”
Since Bynum decided to forgo college, the NBA has created a new rule that requires players to be removed a year from graduating high school before becoming eligible for the draft. This rule has allowed players to gain experience and realize and remedy their weaknesses, and made college basketball more exciting with players such as Greg Oden, Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, and O.J. Mayo dominating the game for a year before turning pro.
Hall of Fame center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who went to UCLA and now mentors Bynum with the Lakers, is a strong proponent of going to college.
“College is a good place for young players to learn the game in an atmosphere that is not high pressure,” Abdul-Jabbar said recently during an interview in his Long Beach office. “For someone with a lot of athletic talent to go from high school straight to the professional ranks is really detrimental because in the professional ranks, they do not have the time to learn what they need to learn slowly and completely. They try to rush to get it done, and in that rush, they miss-out on things, and their progress actually slows up. LeBron James came into the league when he was 18 years old, but he did not start dominating play until he was 23 years old. There was a three or four year gap where he had to learn things through trial and error. College is a much better environment for that to happen. Of course they do not pay you $30 million to go to college, and I understand that it is a hard choice, but college is a much better place to learn the game.”
Skipping college worked out well for the Lakers and Bynum, who is now one of the most promising young centers in the NBA when healthy. However, it would have been special to see Bynum play and develop on such a talented UCONN team.

Beware of Yellow Jackets
By Seth Rubinroit

For the Georgia Tech men’s basketball team, winning the ACC will be very difficult, if not impossible, considering how well North Carolina, Duke, and Wake Forrest are playing. However, the Yellow Jackets (7-2) have assembled a team that will surprise some people, and could cause some damage in the NCAA tournament.

The team is built around 6’9” sophomore Gani Lawal. Lawal is third in the ACC in scoring, first in rebounding, and fourth in field goal percentage. He also leads the ACC in double-doubles.
“[Lawal] is tough. He is an NBA player. He can do everything. He is strong and physical,” said Pepperdine head coach Tom Asbury, who witnessed Lawal have a double-double in the Yellow Jacket’s 86-58 victory over the Waves on Saturday.
In addition to Lawal, the Yellow Jackets have senior forward Alade Aminu, 240-pound forward Zachery Peacock, and 7’0” center Brad Sheehan to bang inside and grab rebounds.

“The key to the game is rebounding. With us staying on top of the boards, getting second chance points and extra possessions, it causes a lot of problems for other teams,” said Alade Aminu.
Gani Lawal added, “I try to hit the boards hard every time.”
Georgia Tech’s weakness, according to head coach Paul Hewitt, is its perimeter defense due to the injury to senior guard D’Andre Bell. However, senior guard Lewis Clinch is a reliable scorer, and freshman guard Iman Shumpert has been impressive handling the ball.
It will be an interesting test to see how the Yellow Jackets handle forward Taj Gibson and the USC Trojans Monday night.

Jim Brown: Initiating Social Change

By Seth Rubinroit

Photo by Sam Rubinroit

 

            Jim Brown became famous by knocking people down. As a fullback with the Cleveland Browns who was named NFL MVP three times and inducted into both the College Football and Pro Football Halls of Fame, he was known for his punishing running style that would leave would-be-tacklers sprawled on the field. Now, as the CEO of the Amer-I-Can Program, Brown has earned the reputation as someone who helps people up.

            The Amer-I-Can Program has given Brown the opportunity to create significant social change. The program consists of a 60 to 90-hour curriculum that teaches people life-management skills, and to take responsibility for themselves. Over the past twenty years, people ranging from gang-members and criminals to police officers and corporate CEOs have experienced positive changes in their lives as a result of the lessons taught in the Amer-I-Can Life Management Skills curriculum.

            “The reason I started [Amer-I-Can] was because of the gang violence,” Brown said at a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Amer-I-Can program at his house, which is nestled in the Hollywood Hills. “I decided I would do something about it. One night, I had a group of gang members from different gangs up here, and I found out that most of them wanted to change their lives. Then, I had more meetings and more gang members would come up, and we would work on peace between them, and we developed the academic curriculum.”

            In addition to the Life Management Skills curriculum, Brown started the Amer-I-Can Foundation for Social Change to raise money to fight crime in low-income communities by helping people improve their lives and exercise self-determination. To achieve this goal, Brown has partnered with Rudolph “Rock” Johnson, a former gang member who spent two terms totaling 17 years in jail before Brown helped him turn his life around. Johnson now runs a club basketball team in association with Amer-I-Can for high school students who otherwise would not be able to afford the cost of a traveling team, which gives the student-athletes the opportunity to display their basketball skills and hopefully earn a college scholarship.

            What separates Brown from other philanthropists is his belief in change rather than charity. Rather than throwing money at society’s problems, Brown has dedicated his time and energy to fixing them. For example, Brown has hosted rival gangs at his house to discuss peace between them, and personally intervenes to guide those who need his help.

            “[People] love to do charity because you can give someone ten percent of your income, and you are done with it,” Brown said. On the other hand, “change takes every ounce of everything you have in your body. But change is what is going to make the major difference. That is what is going to affect our kids.”

            In addition to his work with the Amer-I-Can Program, Brown is Executive Advisor to the Cleveland Browns, with whom he spent his entire NFL career. Brown commented on the situation with Brett Favre, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback, who recently joined the New York Jets after changing his mind about retiring from football.

“I was saddened by it because I would have hoped that [Favre] would have stayed in retirement and let his legacy stay intact,” Brown said. “[Favre] is a great player, and evidently is a decent human being. But, this pursuit of the game, to me, has gone to an extreme. However, he is within his rights. I left because I wanted to leave my legacy intact. I left at 29 years old. I was the MVP of the league, and we won the world championship in 1964, so I wanted to be able to tell you that 40 years later. Sometimes, an athlete stays around too long, and there are more things to do than just athletics, and there is a time to leave. But, if he wins a Super Bowl, we will all be wrong. ”

Brown, who retired after playing only nine years in the NFL, says he was never seriously tempted to return to football.

“When you have a cause bigger than sports, you do not think about going back and playing sports.”

 

            At first glance, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the 547 saves Trevor Hoffman has posted in his career, and the 469 saves Mariano Rivera has recorded. These extraordinary numbers might appear to make Goose Gossage’s total of 310 seem pedestrian.

            However, putting these achievements in their proper context, there is no simple way to compare Hoffman and Rivera’s save totals to Gossage’s. Today’s closers rarely pitch more than one inning on any particular outing. Teams now employ long relievers and setup men to bridge the gap between the starter and the closer. But, for most of Gossage’s career, there were no setup pitchers, and Gossage often had to pitch multiple innings to record his saves. In fact, Gossage saved 52 games in which he required at least seven outs to secure the win, compared to two such saves for Hoffman and one for Rivera.

For many years, the Baseball Hall of Fame voters failed to appreciate how drastically the role of the closer had changed. When Gossage, a nine-time All-Star selection, was first eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000, he received only 33% of the votes, which was well below the required 75%. Gradually, the voters became more astute, and Gossage earned greater support. Finally, in 2008, Gossage was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, garnering an 85.8% vote.

            I spoke to Gossage in February of 2006, long before he knew he was going to be elected into the Hall of Fame, at the RBI Dinner, where Gossage was being honored with the RBI Save the Children Award. RBI, or Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities, “gives kids who might otherwise not play baseball the opportunity to play baseball” according to Derrek Lee, the All-Star first baseman of the Chicago Cubs, who was honored at the same dinner.

            My conversation with Gossage in February of 2006 is revealing in light of his recent induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

On why he has not been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame:      

“I do not know. I think the bottom line is they have really forgotten how the game and the role of the relief pitcher has changed. I did a job it takes three guys to do now. To me, it has evolved into what it should be. Any time you can have a guy like Mariano Rivera or Eric Gagne available to your team every night, it is a huge advantage. Sometimes I was not available to the team because I had pitched multiple innings [the day before], and I think therein lays the difference. I think a lot of the voters, especially the young voters, have forgotten how the role has changed.”

On why the role of the closer has changed:

“I think it is how it has evolved. When I broke into the bullpen in 1972, it was kind of like a junk-pile down there– where old starters who could not start anymore went. Then, the specialty of relief pitching really became a huge part of your team, and now it has evolved further from what I used to do. Starters used to pride themselves on going nine innings, and finishing what they started. That is no longer the case. Now guys go five, six innings and that is a quality start. I do not think there is anything in baseball that is the same as it used to be. Home runs do not mean what they used to mean with the offense that has been put into the game by design. I just wish they would remember how the game has changed. It is still a great game, but it has changed.” 

On the lengths teams go through to fortify their bullpens today:

 “I am a firm believer you can never have enough pitching. Injuries always happen. With the Yankees, there were so many relief pitchers that we were wondering what we were going to do with all of them. Then, all of the sudden, come June, you had three or four guys go on the disabled list. They were veteran pitchers, so guys were breaking down and by the time August rolled around, we barely had enough guys to finish the season up, so I do not think you can ever have enough pitching.”