What's in a Bauble (Bobble)?

Bobblehead Article Forthcoming

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O'Malley Family Back in Baseball-Only Not in the Way Dodger Fans Had Hoped

Wow, Peter O'Malley is now part of an ownership group that MLB gave approval to buy the San Diego Padres.  While he is not the control person (Ron Fowler is), things could get interesting.

Bob Kersee-Crazy is Relative

By Michael Takeuchi
Reprinted Article from April 2012


There has always been a method to legendary track coach Bob Kersee's madness, including holding a training camp here in Santa Barbara this week.

And with his athletes' collection of hardware — particularly of Olympic gold medals — it is hard to dispute how he works.

One of his longtime athletes, Allyson Felix, can attest to this. The sprinter, who has garnered a 4x400-meter Olympic relay gold medal, two Olympic silver medals in the 200 and a total of seven IAAF world championship golds while working with Kersee since 2005, smiled broadly when asked to describe a coach for whom she has genuine fondness.

"He's crazy," Felix laughed after a recent hard sprint session at the Westmont track on Thursday morning. "But he knows that's what we think. But that's also what we love about him. He's super demanding, and comes up with these insane workouts.

"Sometimes you hate him for it, but in the end, we both know that you're going to love him for the results it brings."

After being told how his athletes described him at a late-afternoon workout on Thursday at San Marcos High, he cackled.

"Crazy does come up often when describing me," Kersee said, beaming. "But Allyson, who is a great member of this positive atmosphere we have, and the rest know that if a coach doesn't have crazy somewhere in their resumé, then you really haven't won a championship yet.

"So if getting in their head makes them understand that I am going to get the best out of them by any means necessary, then so be it."

After moving to the U.S. from the Panama Canal Zone in his childhood, Kersee has always had a fascination with sports, particularly the aspect of coaching. Starting at the youth level, he made his way to UCLA, where he has spent the last 28 years, first as head coach, and currently in his position as an assistant.

While successful in Westwood, he has built his stellar reputation on the international stage, starting with several athletes from the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, like 200/400 double gold winner Valerie Brisco-Hooks, and his wife Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who holds a total of six Olympic medals, including a gold in the long jump in 1988, and back-to-back golds in the heptathlon (1988, 1992).

That hardware, along with four IAAF World Championship medals, led to her being named by Sports Illustrated as the "Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century."

The amount of Olympic gold medals, which also include three from hurdler/sprinter Gail Devers, is enough to pull a small town out of a recession. It is also a number that escapes the 2005 USA Track and Field Coach of the Year.

"I really don't know, to be honest" Kersee said. "It's probably somewhere around how many championships the Montreal Canadiens (24) or New York Yankees (27) have won. But in truth, I haven't won any because as it should, the athletes get the glory and coaches get the blame.

"Maybe they've been so successful because I didn't want to get the blame."

Along with Felix, who is aiming for a 100/200 double gold in London, the last two women's Olympic 100 hurdles champions Joanna Hayes (2004) and Dawn Harper (2008) are here in camp along with fellow hurdlers Michelle Perry (two-time world champion) and Ginnie Crawford (two-time U.S. champion), along with 400-meter hurdler Nicole Leach, the 2007 NCAA champion. His men's group includes 2004 Olympic 200 champion Shawn Crawford, and hurdlers Bano Traore and Kenneth Ferguson.

Each arrives in camp with a different story, but all express hope that Kersee will guide them to another Opening Ceremony.

"I've been working with Bob since 1995, so I guess I'm the senior here," Hayes said. "After being injured for a while, I never officially retired. I had a baby 16 months ago and gained 43 pounds in the process, then coached in high school and middle school, cross country of all things.

"I then started coming around the track to Bob's group and realized I missed being part of it. I don't know if I'll make the team or not, because of athletes like Dawn, but at least I'll have closure and a good experience doing it. I think all of us realize that if anyone can lead us, he is the coach to get us there."

During the morning session at Westmont, Kersee was a vocal presence, exhorting each athlete through their workout with a vocal vigor followed by an almost imperceptible "good job" after. In the afternoon, amidst the youth soccer players and track runners populating the track, he playfully kicked errant balls, clowned with kids and even encouraged a young runner not to dwell on the negative.

He then introduced his group to Santa Barbara resident Joyce Brisby, a former long jump prodigy of Kersee's that cleared over 15 feet as a nine-year-old in 1972.

And then, it was back to work, something that Kersee still feels with a passion.

"People ask me when I'll retire, but I'm in pretty good health and still enjoy it too much — especially with this group they have now," Kersee said. "They know it, but when I introduce them to someone like Joyce who I coached as a kid 40 years ago, it really shines through to them and others how much I love doing this and hope to be doing for a long time to come."

Olympic Champion- Mo Farah Learns to do the Mobot-Video

By Michael Takeuchi


 Colleague Mike McKean passed this video onto me about the origin of the Mobot-click  link below and enjoy.

http://sky1.sky.com/a-league-of-their-own/a-league-of-their-own-s5-ep5-the-mobot



I am still in awe of Mo Farah's 5000/10000 double gold.  I couldn't imagine not only running what he did, but doing so with a country's hopes on one's shoulders.  I have to admit I teared up a bit during GOD SAVE THE QUEEN even though I am an American.

 It was truly a magical moment in a splendid Olympics.  Other than Canada's 4 x 100 unfortunate disqualification, there didn't seem to be any bad feelings during track and field, in my mind the greatest sport(s) there is (are).

TAKING IT INTO THE (JOHNNY) GRAY ZONE

By Michael Takeuchi
(Twitter @Irontak)

**UPDATE (8/10)
   In what was the greatest 800 ever, Kenya's David Lekuta Rudisha's wire-to-wire run broke his own world record  in  1:40.91 (!) to capture gold,  Botswana's Nijel Amos (1:41.73) won silver and Timothy Kitum grabbed bronze in 1:42.53. Gray's runner Duane Solomon ran a 1:42.82 while US teammate Nick Symmonds clocked  1:42.95, which placed them a respective fourth and fifth in a  field where two runners went under 1:42, five under 1:43, and all eight broke 1:44.
 
http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_800ok.htm
Solomon's 800 time was fourth best American, tops among runners not-named Johnny Gray.  In addition to his AR 1:42.60,  Gray ran a 1:42.65 and 1:42.80.  Solomon has not reached his peak and could break that record as early as this summer. Gray emailed on Thursday and one could tell just how excited he was for his runner.

On Thursday, August 9, 2012, Johnny Gray II wrote: 

 2nd best US time ever, number 1 American for the year and fourth in the world!Thank you so much!

*Note a slightly similar story by this author appeared in the Santa Barbara News-Press.  The link is provided at the bottom.

  Johnny Gray's emails don't just say something, they shout things.  Despite it being an email,   I had to turn down the volume a bit lest the neighbors complain.  But who could blame him?  Duane Solomon, the 800-meter runner he coaches just exploded with a p.r. at the Diamond League meet in Monaco in late July

"HELLO MIKE!
    I know you heard about Dwayne's 1:43.44 race in Monaco? Well that made him the fifth fastest American ever!  I told you he was ready! He is looking really good and to    come off a plane and run 1:43.44 against a tough field like   that gave him big confidence!"

                                               Johnny

   And when one spend times with, that enthusiasm is infectious whether it is a big meet,  a warm-up session of a workout or an email.  But while electronics keep people in touch, there is nothing like a personal experience that gives one a better idea on the person.
  And once one meets Johnny Gray,  the visitor discovers that it is an unforgettable one.   With a warm smile and a running dialogue that calls to mind former Harlem Globetrotters frontman Meadowlark Lemon, he is a sight to behold.  In conversation, he seizes your thought and takes you into the "Gray Zone" a place where he often took opponents while being the best American 800-meter runner in history.
  The four-time Olympian speaks his mind and doesn't worry about "on the record" and  "off the record".  I have to say,who as a mediocre high school runner in the 1980's I looked up to Gray, who STILL holds the A.R. (1:42.60 in 1985)  because he was the one who didn't sit back and wait to kick, he seized the race from the start while taking runners into that oxygen deprived "Gray zone."
  He did exactly that when he won bronze medal in Barcelona in 1992.  When asked after the race what would he have done differently, he reportedly responded.
 "I would have taken it out harder!"
   And after molding Khadevis Robinson to five national championships, former UCLA runner Cory Primm to a solid year last year, in Solomon, he has the guy who he thinks could be right there in today's Olympic final.  Despite a tough field that includes  world record holder (1:41:01) and 2011 IAAF world champion Kenyan David Rudisha, Gray expressed unwavering faith in his athlete.
 "If he sticks to the plan..., he'll make the Olympic final," Gray said in Los Angeles several weeks ago. "And if he does, he just has to let Rudisha take him to the Promised Land. I think Nick (Symmonds) is a good racer, but if I were a betting man, I would bet on Duane.  He has the potential to be the next great American 800-runner."
   And Robinson?
  "How many (national championships) has he won since I stopped coaching him?" Gray laughed.
  The answer of course was none. While Solomon and Symmonds as well as Rudisha advanced, Robinson failed to make the Olympic finals earlier this week.   He said that Solomon is poised to shock some people for several reasons.
 "Duane has the talent, but what's so good about him is that he's loyal, coachable, and sticks to the plan," Gray said. "He never comes to practice saying, 'Coach I need more of this or that because if he did that, that means he's listening to people on the outside, like agents.  I never understood that because what does an agent want you to do?  Race as much as you can so he can get his percentage."
  "It's funny.  Because in the past, these kind of people used to say that I'm not smart.  Tell me, if I'm not smart, why am I the only American to go under 1:43?  Then I'd rather not be smart  because all the smart Americans can't do it.   I'm telling him the same thing I did with my coach, listen.  He taught me to trust my shape and he  taught me that when I ran against athletes that are dirty, don't let that make you join them. Make them realize that they need to stay dirty to keep up with you."
  "My coach taught me to turn  a negative into a positive which made me stay true to myself and not allow the opinion of another to dictate who I am. I let the coach who took this journey with me (Merle McGee) help me dictate who I am.
  "And now Duane Solomon is allowing me to take the journey with him every morning at 6 a.m.- going through the ups and downs with him-realizing you gotta give some butt to get some butt.
  "He's gone through that and now he's starting to reap the benefits from everything that he's gone through.  Hard work outdoes talent that doesn't work hard.   As long as he continues to keep working hard, he could be the next American to go under 1:43. My American record is soft for him, he could break that within the next year. But right now we're after bigger things because he can do every bit of what Rudisha is doing as long as he continues to improve."

 At UCLA's Drake Stadium, with Gray paced like a panther while vociferously urging him on, Solomon did a 700-meter workout in 22.85 in the first 200,  47.32 at 400, 61.64 at 600 and finally a 1:27.72 finish.  Shortly after that, he followed it up with a 34.21 300.  Both sets were under Rudisha's world record pace.
  "That's HUGE!"  Gray bellowed.  "I never did that!"
  While his athlete recovered, Gray continued to pace and encourage Solomon with a smile on his face-proud not only of the split, but the fact that he showed willingness to go into the "Gray Zone."

Mike Takeuchi can be reached via email at Miketakeuchi88@gmail.com

Santa Barbara News-Press article link:

http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=SPORTS&ID=566463112920825893&Archive=true

REPOST Avery Brundage: The Enigmatic Man Behind the Modern Day Olympic Movement

By MIKE TAKEUCHI

  Reposted to make it easier to locate.  Thank you!



       




"No Monarch has ever held sway over such a vast expanse of territory." International Olympic Committee President and onetime Montecito resident Avery Brundage in 1960.
Among the myriad descriptions of Avery Brundage -- champion of the amateur, dictator, shrewd businessman, womanizer, art collector, anti-Semite, generous donor, Nazi sympathizer -- one thing is certain: The controversial man was the most powerful sporting figure in the 20th century, and during his reign, he lived much of his time in the Santa Barbara area.
From 1946 to 1973, the president of the International Olympic Committee became a local fixture by owning several properties, including the Montecito Country Club, collecting rare Asian art, picking up civic awards, and enjoying high society. While simultaneously, as president of the International Olympic Committee, he was given unflattering nicknames like "Slavery Avery" for his iron-fisted rule when he lorded over his minions -- the athletes themselves.
Local resident and 1960 Olympian Jeff Farrell looked back on Mr. Brundage's life with mixed emotions. When Mr. Farrell won two gold medals for swimming in the 4 x 200 meter freestyle relay and the 4 x 100 medley relay, he alternately expressed pride in having Mr. Brundage award him with the medals, while expressing some rancor at the same man for preventing him from earning any money while training.
"He was the last caretaker of the thought that ... athletics should be for the wealthy," Mr. Farrell said.
In his recent book "Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World" author David Maraniss wrote that Mr. Brundage believed "that the Olympic movement in its reach and meaning, far surpassed any government, religion, or philosophy." And Mr. Brundage, in his roles first as leader of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and then later the IOC, was the one who wielded the iron fist to obsessively ensure that the Olympics were free from professionalism. He also later tried to bar women from competing and cancel the Winter Olympics. Both attempts were unsuccessful.
Born in Detroit on Sept. 28, 1887, Mr. Brundage was a fine athlete in his own right; he competed in the decathlon in the 1912 Olympics -- dropping out after eight events en route to a 16th-place finish.
The gold medal winner that year was none other than Jim Thorpe. After it was found that he played professional baseball, Thorpe was subsequently stripped of his medals. As an Olympic official, Mr. Brundage would later uphold the Native American athlete's ban.
While living in Chicago, Mr. Brundage's success as a construction and real-estate magnate paralleled his rise in world sport. The foundation for his rise in power occurred prior to the 1936 Berlin Olympics where Adolph Hitler wanted to prove his country's and the Aryan race's superiority. A young African American sprinter named Jesse Owens would resoundingly dispel the German dictator's theory.
Less known was Hitler's desire to exclude Jewish athletes and officials from the Games -- causing cries for a boycott from the United States. While stating publicly that this couldn't happen and that athletes of all races would get equal treatment, Mr. Brundage, who at the time was the U.S. Olympic Committee president, took a fact-finding mission to Germany where he was wined and dined by Hitler while being "convinced" that Jewish athletes wouldn't be excluded. Mr. Brundage later stated that he found no wrongdoing in Berlin -- an act that still rankles the Mr. Maraniss, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer.
"He was most reprehensible in his anti-Semitism," Mr. Maraniss wrote in an e-mail. "Opposing the boycott is certainly defensible, but his actions were not. When I found letters he wrote to German officials beforehand bemoaning the 'Jewish cabal' and urging them to find positive articles about Hitler and the Nazis to overcome the negative stories that U.S. journalists were sending out of Germany -- that was too much."
Two years later, his company was awarded the building contract for the German Embassy in the United States because of "sympathy toward the Nazi cause."
A decade after Berlin and two Olympics cancelled because of World War II later, Mr. Brundage and his wife Elizabeth purchased the "Escondrijo" (Hiding Place) estate on Ashley Road in Montecito and  renamed it La Pineta or The Pines. In a 1980 Sports Illustrated story by William Oscar Johnson, the home included zebra skin rugs, Olympic flags, priceless Asian art, and jade dishes. The home would later be destroyed in the 1964 Coyote Fire. The couple later moved to the Brunninghausen Estate on Hot Springs Road.
In 1946 he purchased the Montecito Country Club, followed in later years by the El Paseo and the Presidio areas in downtown Santa Barbara, as well as the Montecito Inn. While he enjoyed moderate success in his local businesses (he sold the Country Club in 1973 for over $4 million), much of his money was made from construction around the country.
Along the way he amassed Asian art from the Neolithic Period to the Ch'ing Dynasty -- most of which he donated to the City of San Francisco starting in 1959. The 7,700 piece collection, (which museum spokesperson Michele Dilworth declined to value) is housed in that city's Asian Art Museum.
During his residence here, he was showered with adulation, positive press and numerous awards. In 1949, Mr. Brundage was given the now discontinued Chamber of Commerce Excelentisimo Senor de Santa Barbara Award by Semana Nautica president, R.F. MacFarland. In accepting the award, Mr. Brundage lauded the summer sports festival for maintaining its dedication to amateur sports -- an irony not lost on an athlete like Mr. Farrell, who later served as the summer sports festival's president for several years.
"Mr. Brundage had banned an athlete (miler Wes Santee in 1956) for only taking expense money," Mr. Farrell said. "I remembered being worried that I was going to get in trouble for making five dollars and hour to teach swimming. Apparently it was OK to make money life guarding, but it wasn't okay to make money on swimming."
A 1968 article stated that "Mr. Amateur Sport" and the rest of the IOC board never charged the Olympic Committee a dime in expense money. At that time, he was worth more than $20 million.
"The executive committee members came from the ruling class -- millionaire, dukes, princes, and such," Mr. Maraniss said. "It was easy for them to talk about the purity of amateurism and how no one should be paid for sport -- because they didn't need the money."
Although he ruled with a strong hand, Mr. Brundage had his weaknesses. Among them were women. Many of his local deeds, including La Pineta, were put in the name of his lover and business partner Frances Blakely. While his wife stayed at home, he had many trysts, including fathering two children in 1951 and 1952 with a woman in Redwood City. Two years after Elizabeth Brundage died in 1971, he married Princess Mariann Charlotte Katharina Stefanie Reuss, a daughter of a prince of a German principality, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
Thirty six at the time, Princess Mariann was as vibrant as Mr. Brundage was sickly (exacerbated by the stress from the 1972 Olympics massacre) and lived a lavish life in Montecito and Germany.
"She was as nice as he wasn't," said an acquaintance who did not want to be named.
Mr. Brundage spent the remaining years of his life in poor health. He died in Germany on May 8, 1975, with considerably less money than he had prior to his second marriage. According to a Sports Illustrated story, Princess Mariann, at this time living with local insurance millionaire Donald Pate, successfully defended a Superior Court suit (presided by Judge Patrick McMahon) brought on by his  longtime friend and chief financial adviser, Frederick J. Ruegsegger on expenditures made after Mr. Brundage's death. It was a fitting end to what Mr. Maraniss describes as a complicated man.
"I found Avery Brundage to be one of the most contradictory characters I've ever written about," Mr. Maraniss said. "He was not especially likeable, yet the fact that at some points in his career nearly every faction hated him for some (reason) or other seemed to me like a bit of a saving grace. There is something to be said for a person like that."
"His devotion to the Olympic Movement was greater than his belief in anything else. He truly believed that the Olympic Movement was greater than any ideology or religion. Perhaps this was a form of egomania, but at times it served him -- and the Olympics -- well. If nothing else, he kept the Olympics alive during the very difficult middle decades of the 20th century."