In an ideal world, reporters would report facts/news, commentators would offer their opinions about the facts/news and entertainers would not pretend to be reporters or commentators. That ideal world never existed in reality, but there were times and places where it came closer to existing than it does in our current time and place.
The issue is much broader than sports, but here we will focus on the decline of sports journalism. Anyone under 45 years old probably does not remember that there was a time when Tony Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon and other television personalities were first-rate sportswriters/commentators.
Here is an example of an excellent Wilbon column: Lacy Leaves Towering Legacy.
Here is an example of an excellent Kornheiser column: Astros' Ryan Going Out In Glory, if Not a Blaze.
Wilbon, Kornheiser and other talented reporters and columnists traded in their newspaper bylines for the fame and riches they could acquire by screaming at each other on television. Maybe most people who were offered fame and riches would have made the same Faustian bargain, but the deal comes with a price--for them, and for us. I discussed this with Woody Paige more than a decade ago and he readily acknowledged that he did not derive the same satisfaction or meaning from appearing on television that he did from writing a great article or column.
T.J. Simers, a long-time co-panelist with Paige on ESPN's "Around the Horn," once said that he hated the show but "I hear a cash register going off in my head when I do it. TV makes us do this. They want us to be stupid, to try to top ourselves. On 'Around the Horn,' if you're low-key and sensible, you aren't going to be on the show anymore. You have to be over the top. ESPN will hire you for your credibility, but after a minute they've had enough of that...The producer is yelling 'Conflict! Conflict!' in your ear. TV wants conflict. TV wants outrageous opinions."
It does not have to be that way, though I do not have much hope that things will substantially change any time in the near future. ESPN and its imitators have dumbed down sports discourse, and there is no clear path out of the murky swamp back to dry, sane land. Many of the top sportswriters traded in their credibility for TV's cash, and as a result we are now cursed with both low quality TV and with a large amount of low quality sportswriting. There are very few great all-around sports writers now, as the few who know sports often lack writing chops and the few who have writing chops often do not know sports. Someone who has a deep understanding of sports--the strategy, the personalities, the psychology of competition--and the capacity to tell a coherent and compelling story is rare indeed. That combination has always been uncommon, but if you look at an old copy of Sport--particularly when it was edited by Dick Schaap--or Sports Illustrated you will find many articles and columns that are thoughtful and thought-provoking. Sadly, there is no publication or online site that has that cachet now, or that deserves it.
Speaking of Schaap, he was perhaps the first great sportswriter to transition successfully to television, but Schaap found a way to conform to the limitations of that medium while also retaining his intelligence and wit. When he hosted the Sports Reporters there was more light than heat--more substance than hot air, more intelligent debating as opposed to mindless screaming and bickering.
It is too much to expect anyone to be another Dick Schaap, but it should not be too much to expect writers to get their facts straight, commentators to provide intelligent opinions about those facts and TV personalities to scream less and think more. I hope that the general public is not as dumb as ESPN and its imitators think but I fear otherwise.
Showing posts with label Woody Paige. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Woody Paige. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Monday, March 10, 2008
Woody Paige Interview, Part II
While going through my archives, I found an unpublished gem: in October 2004, I interviewed Woody Paige for an article about Larry Miller, holder of the ABA' s single-game scoring record (that article was eventually published in the July 29, 2005 issue of Sports Collectors Digest; you can read a reprint of it here). Paige has spent a lot of time--and made a lot of money--convincing people that he is some kind of buffoon but his real personality is nothing at all like the character he plays on ESPN. I've never met Paige in person and I had never been in contact with him prior to this interview but he spent the better part of an hour talking to me about a wide range of subjects in addition to sharing his memories of Miller's record-setting game, which Paige covered as a young beat writer. You can read Part I of the interview here.
One of the most interesting things that I found out from Paige is how ambivalent he feels about the work that he does on television. His comments in this regard provide some interesting insight about the differences between being a writer and being a "personality." Long before Paige began appearing on TV, he wrote for several different newspapers and sports magazines, including Sport, which was arguably the best sports magazine in the country when Dick Schaap was its editor in the 1970s:
Paige: "I was a contributing editor at Sport for a couple of years. When I was a kid it was actually a more meaningful magazine than Sports Illustrated. I always wanted to write for Sport and I did it for a couple of years. A guy by the name of Roger Director was the managing editor. He has gone on to be the producer of a number of TV shows."
Friedman: "Didn't he do Moonlighting?"
Paige: "Moonlighting, yeah."
Friedman: "I remember that. Actually, I used to watch Moonlighting and then later on I got some old issues of Sport and I saw the name and I was wondering, 'Is this the same guy?'"
Paige: "Yeah. I did some work with him on Moonlighting. He had been fired by Sport and I made some calls for him and got him some interviews. He ended up in LA writing for a show called Bay City Blues, which was a spinoff from Hill Street Blues. It was about a minor league baseball team, before that became popular. It sort of died quickly and Bochco started Moonlighting and said, 'While you are out here, Roger, write for this.' That's how that all developed, because Roger was just a sports guy."
Friedman: "I saw this thing that Skip Bayless wrote on ESPN.com where he talked about the interchange that you and he have on Cold Pizza and how early (in the day) that starts and what all is involved in that and how it is a little bit of a different approach for him from being a newspaper guy and book writer and then being on TV. He talked about how when he writes something he composes it and gets all his points in but when he is interacting with you he is never sure if he is going to get in everything he wants to say. It's kind of interesting."
Paige: "Yeah. He doesn't (get in all his points). I think that frustrates him except I would say this--and he understands this--if he got in everything that he wants to say, nobody would watch it. People would get bored because he would have to say 30 minutes worth of stuff. It kind of works out well. At first I was trying to compete with him, but the guy does incredible research and is very passionate about it. Well, I'm not passionate about it at all. He does that stuff and I kind of listen. He never agrees with me. This morning I said, 'You know, you're absolutely right. I don't have anything to add to that. Why would I pile on top of that? That was great.' When he does that stuff, (sometimes) I'm like, 'OK, calm down.' This morning I threw a muppet puppet at him and spilled coffee on him or something. It's interesting. I guess it's like a minor league version of what Kornheiser and Wilbon do. It's a different time and a different part of ESPN and a different kind of show. It's all a different world (from writing) and I don't know if there will ever be the same kind of self-satisfaction in that. I told a friend of mine today that television is an entirely different animal. You'll write a story and you'll go, 'God, I nailed that lead' or 'I really thought that I researched Larry Miller and I know that and I did as well as I could.' Every morning when I get through with Cold Pizza I go, 'Well, I killed another two hours off.' I don't mean that in a bad way."
Paige: "It's entertaining and informative but it doesn't have the same feeling--and it goes away. It goes away very quickly. At least, you can look a couple days later at your column or your freelance piece or whatever it might be. And at Around the Horn I've kind of become the resident goof on ESPN. That was a problem for me for a while, but today I talked to somebody who is in the hierarchy and that's whatever--well, I did my writing for a long time. I was a beat writer for a long time. People who I work with don't know that I actually covered beats for a long time. I guess they just assume that I came out of the womb writing columns. I did that (beat writing) and I wrote columns. I am doing this because it is another interesting challenge in my life."
Paige: "I just think that whatever you are doing in life and what other people are doing, if you just don't try something different--I told somebody at ESPN that this is more important to Skip than it is to me. And I've known him since we were kids. He wants to make his mark on TV. I wanted to see if I could make this work. I don't know if this makes sense to you or not."
Friedman: "No, it does. It absolutely does. He wants to transition from writing to broadcasting. "
Paige: "I guess I'm trying to figure out, more than anything, why do they care if I am on TV? I'm at the end of my career and this is an interesting way for me to see if there is something interesting out there. I don't have to go, 'Wow, I'm now Dick Vitale,' or whoever it might be. I just want to see if there is a way that I can make this all work. Then I can go off and write books or--"
Friedman: "I get it. I understand. It's funny, a lot of times my Mom will watch Around the Horn and they will mute you or you are doing certain things and she will say, 'Why don't they let him talk? He must be so mad' and I say, 'Mom, that's the shtick. That's the way the show works. That's what he signed on for.' That's what you are doing. Like you said that you are the resident goof--that is a role that you are playing."
Paige: "Yeah, this is kind of funny-- I said to a guy today that Burt Reynolds, who does a show on ESPN Classic, said to a Vice President at ESPN, 'Is that guy really as goofy as he seems?' He said, 'What guy?' Reynolds said, 'The guy who is on everyday.' Jason Myers, who is a vice president at ESPN, said, 'Are you talking about Woody Paige? We don't know whether his personality in real life is him or that is really him. We're trying to figure out who is the real Woody Paige.' So I guess the good point is no one really knows whether I am a soft spoken, introspective person or if I am the goof that I play on TV. I create a character. Vitale is not the guy he (acts like on TV)--I don't want to make a comparison because I'm certainly not (as famous). Eighteen year old kids love us both--I don't know what that says about 18 year old kids. I'm doing Dan Reeves and nobody really ever got that. I am doing Dan Reeves and Don Meredith. My writing was an amalgamation of Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Jenkins and some Jim Murray thrown all together. I was trying to figure out how to do this character and Dan Reeves used to do this southern 'You guys' kind of thing--"
Paige: "Yeah. That's a line that Dan Reeves used to say. Dan and I talked about it. I saw him this summer and I said, 'You know, that's the line.' It was a line stolen from Dan Reeves. The guy who does 'Let's get ready to rumble' stole that line from Muhammad Ali and makes $10,000 every time he utters it."
Friedman: "Michael Buffer."
Paige: "Yeah. Dan and I talked about it. He used to say to me, 'Why do I always have to straighten you guys out?' It's a direct steal from him. There's a little Vitale and there's a little Don Meredith, a guy who doesn't seem to really care a lot. You put that all together...Before we go on the air we get a packet of research material and I'll tell my guild assistant, 'You know, I'm only four victories behind Mariotti.' I'm talking to my assistant but I know that Mariotti is listening to me. He'll go, 'No, I have 12 more wins than you do.' Well, I don't even know and don't care and everything else, but Mariotti knows exactly how many times he's been on the show and how many times he's won. Well, that's the character he plays--the character he plays is him."
Friedman: "It's very easy to needle him about it because he is taking it very seriously."
Paige: "Yeah, the guy who is the executive producer said that (Mariotti) is like a human pinata for me. That's really the truth. I can just bang on him and bang on him and bang on him and he doesn't quite get it. You create a character and that's the interesting thing. I was a columnist for whatever (many years) and I thought that I was a good writer and I think that I am still a good writer but I didn't make a national mark--I did as an ABA writer. I think at least as a TV guy that I have created something that is interesting to me. So Skip and I are kind of enjoying this--we'd enjoy this a lot more if we got to sleep. If we got more sleep this would be fun. He kind of needs me to temper his incredible heat and passion, which surprised me. (There are) two things in his life--working out and sports. He said this morning that he had watched every Oklahoma game. Well, I believe that. The thing about me is I've watched maybe two minutes of Oklahoma this year. So we come from totally different perspectives."
Friedman: "Right. He's so passionate and fired up and has got all his ducks in a row of what he wants to say and you are shooting from the hip."
Paige: "Yeah. That's the thing about it. I told him that I tend to work without a net. He does hours of research. I do maybe six minutes (laughs). I go in there and at the end of the program today they say, 'What's your extra point?' I say, 'I don't know. I'll figure it out.' I don't get timed. I do four sentences. He can have my time, because I can make my point in five seconds."
Paige: "I really appreciate that and she's absolutely right."
Friedman: "I'll tell her you said so."
Paige: "Great."
One of the most interesting things that I found out from Paige is how ambivalent he feels about the work that he does on television. His comments in this regard provide some interesting insight about the differences between being a writer and being a "personality." Long before Paige began appearing on TV, he wrote for several different newspapers and sports magazines, including Sport, which was arguably the best sports magazine in the country when Dick Schaap was its editor in the 1970s:
Paige: "I was a contributing editor at Sport for a couple of years. When I was a kid it was actually a more meaningful magazine than Sports Illustrated. I always wanted to write for Sport and I did it for a couple of years. A guy by the name of Roger Director was the managing editor. He has gone on to be the producer of a number of TV shows."
Friedman: "Didn't he do Moonlighting?"
Paige: "Moonlighting, yeah."
Friedman: "I remember that. Actually, I used to watch Moonlighting and then later on I got some old issues of Sport and I saw the name and I was wondering, 'Is this the same guy?'"
Paige: "Yeah. I did some work with him on Moonlighting. He had been fired by Sport and I made some calls for him and got him some interviews. He ended up in LA writing for a show called Bay City Blues, which was a spinoff from Hill Street Blues. It was about a minor league baseball team, before that became popular. It sort of died quickly and Bochco started Moonlighting and said, 'While you are out here, Roger, write for this.' That's how that all developed, because Roger was just a sports guy."
Friedman: "I saw this thing that Skip Bayless wrote on ESPN.com where he talked about the interchange that you and he have on Cold Pizza and how early (in the day) that starts and what all is involved in that and how it is a little bit of a different approach for him from being a newspaper guy and book writer and then being on TV. He talked about how when he writes something he composes it and gets all his points in but when he is interacting with you he is never sure if he is going to get in everything he wants to say. It's kind of interesting."
Paige: "Yeah. He doesn't (get in all his points). I think that frustrates him except I would say this--and he understands this--if he got in everything that he wants to say, nobody would watch it. People would get bored because he would have to say 30 minutes worth of stuff. It kind of works out well. At first I was trying to compete with him, but the guy does incredible research and is very passionate about it. Well, I'm not passionate about it at all. He does that stuff and I kind of listen. He never agrees with me. This morning I said, 'You know, you're absolutely right. I don't have anything to add to that. Why would I pile on top of that? That was great.' When he does that stuff, (sometimes) I'm like, 'OK, calm down.' This morning I threw a muppet puppet at him and spilled coffee on him or something. It's interesting. I guess it's like a minor league version of what Kornheiser and Wilbon do. It's a different time and a different part of ESPN and a different kind of show. It's all a different world (from writing) and I don't know if there will ever be the same kind of self-satisfaction in that. I told a friend of mine today that television is an entirely different animal. You'll write a story and you'll go, 'God, I nailed that lead' or 'I really thought that I researched Larry Miller and I know that and I did as well as I could.' Every morning when I get through with Cold Pizza I go, 'Well, I killed another two hours off.' I don't mean that in a bad way."
Friedman: "No, I understand."
Paige: "It's entertaining and informative but it doesn't have the same feeling--and it goes away. It goes away very quickly. At least, you can look a couple days later at your column or your freelance piece or whatever it might be. And at Around the Horn I've kind of become the resident goof on ESPN. That was a problem for me for a while, but today I talked to somebody who is in the hierarchy and that's whatever--well, I did my writing for a long time. I was a beat writer for a long time. People who I work with don't know that I actually covered beats for a long time. I guess they just assume that I came out of the womb writing columns. I did that (beat writing) and I wrote columns. I am doing this because it is another interesting challenge in my life."
Friedman: "Sure."
Paige: "I just think that whatever you are doing in life and what other people are doing, if you just don't try something different--I told somebody at ESPN that this is more important to Skip than it is to me. And I've known him since we were kids. He wants to make his mark on TV. I wanted to see if I could make this work. I don't know if this makes sense to you or not."
Paige: "I guess I'm trying to figure out, more than anything, why do they care if I am on TV? I'm at the end of my career and this is an interesting way for me to see if there is something interesting out there. I don't have to go, 'Wow, I'm now Dick Vitale,' or whoever it might be. I just want to see if there is a way that I can make this all work. Then I can go off and write books or--"
Friedman: "I get it. I understand. It's funny, a lot of times my Mom will watch Around the Horn and they will mute you or you are doing certain things and she will say, 'Why don't they let him talk? He must be so mad' and I say, 'Mom, that's the shtick. That's the way the show works. That's what he signed on for.' That's what you are doing. Like you said that you are the resident goof--that is a role that you are playing."
Paige: "Yeah, this is kind of funny-- I said to a guy today that Burt Reynolds, who does a show on ESPN Classic, said to a Vice President at ESPN, 'Is that guy really as goofy as he seems?' He said, 'What guy?' Reynolds said, 'The guy who is on everyday.' Jason Myers, who is a vice president at ESPN, said, 'Are you talking about Woody Paige? We don't know whether his personality in real life is him or that is really him. We're trying to figure out who is the real Woody Paige.' So I guess the good point is no one really knows whether I am a soft spoken, introspective person or if I am the goof that I play on TV. I create a character. Vitale is not the guy he (acts like on TV)--I don't want to make a comparison because I'm certainly not (as famous). Eighteen year old kids love us both--I don't know what that says about 18 year old kids. I'm doing Dan Reeves and nobody really ever got that. I am doing Dan Reeves and Don Meredith. My writing was an amalgamation of Kurt Vonnegut and Dan Jenkins and some Jim Murray thrown all together. I was trying to figure out how to do this character and Dan Reeves used to do this southern 'You guys' kind of thing--"
Friedman: '''Why do I have to straighten you guys out?'"
Paige: "Yeah. That's a line that Dan Reeves used to say. Dan and I talked about it. I saw him this summer and I said, 'You know, that's the line.' It was a line stolen from Dan Reeves. The guy who does 'Let's get ready to rumble' stole that line from Muhammad Ali and makes $10,000 every time he utters it."
Friedman: "Michael Buffer."
Paige: "Yeah. Dan and I talked about it. He used to say to me, 'Why do I always have to straighten you guys out?' It's a direct steal from him. There's a little Vitale and there's a little Don Meredith, a guy who doesn't seem to really care a lot. You put that all together...Before we go on the air we get a packet of research material and I'll tell my guild assistant, 'You know, I'm only four victories behind Mariotti.' I'm talking to my assistant but I know that Mariotti is listening to me. He'll go, 'No, I have 12 more wins than you do.' Well, I don't even know and don't care and everything else, but Mariotti knows exactly how many times he's been on the show and how many times he's won. Well, that's the character he plays--the character he plays is him."
Friedman: "It's very easy to needle him about it because he is taking it very seriously."
Paige: "Yeah, the guy who is the executive producer said that (Mariotti) is like a human pinata for me. That's really the truth. I can just bang on him and bang on him and bang on him and he doesn't quite get it. You create a character and that's the interesting thing. I was a columnist for whatever (many years) and I thought that I was a good writer and I think that I am still a good writer but I didn't make a national mark--I did as an ABA writer. I think at least as a TV guy that I have created something that is interesting to me. So Skip and I are kind of enjoying this--we'd enjoy this a lot more if we got to sleep. If we got more sleep this would be fun. He kind of needs me to temper his incredible heat and passion, which surprised me. (There are) two things in his life--working out and sports. He said this morning that he had watched every Oklahoma game. Well, I believe that. The thing about me is I've watched maybe two minutes of Oklahoma this year. So we come from totally different perspectives."
Friedman: "Right. He's so passionate and fired up and has got all his ducks in a row of what he wants to say and you are shooting from the hip."
Paige: "Yeah. That's the thing about it. I told him that I tend to work without a net. He does hours of research. I do maybe six minutes (laughs). I go in there and at the end of the program today they say, 'What's your extra point?' I say, 'I don't know. I'll figure it out.' I don't get timed. I do four sentences. He can have my time, because I can make my point in five seconds."
Friedman: "I really appreciate the time you've taken. I appreciate the insights that you have given me into the business and your experiences. I do enjoy watching you on TV. My Mom watches and she's not a sports fan. She always says that they should give Woody more time. She loves hearing whatever you have to say."
Paige: "I really appreciate that and she's absolutely right."
Friedman: "I'll tell her you said so."
Paige: "Great."
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Woody Paige Interview, Part I
While going through my archives, I found an unpublished gem: in October 2004, I interviewed Woody Paige for an article about Larry Miller, holder of the ABA' s single-game scoring record (that article was eventually published in the July 29, 2005 issue of Sports Collectors Digest; you can read a reprint of it here). Paige has spent a lot of time--and made a lot of money--convincing people that he is some kind of buffoon but his real personality is nothing at all like the character he plays on ESPN. I've never met Paige in person and I had never been in contact with him prior to this interview but he spent the better part of an hour talking to me about a wide range of subjects in addition to sharing his memories of Miller's record-setting game, which Paige covered as a young beat writer:
Paige: "I covered the ABA from like '69, then I moved to Denver in '74 and I covered it until its demise. So I covered it for like seven or eight years."
Friedman: "So if you were covering it for Denver obviously then you were at the ABA Finals against the Nets and Julius Erving?"
Paige: "Oh, yeah. My greatest memory of that is that the Nuggets were up by 22. I walked by the Nets bench to go the bathroom and I heard Kevin Loughery say to the players, 'Just go out and beat them up. We're out of this game, go and hurt them.' I mean, not hurt them in the sense of hurting them physically, but in the sense that they're a soft team and the only way to get back in the game is to just bang on them. They came back and John Williamson was a mean guy and Taylor must have been on that club--"
Friedman: "Yeah, Brian Taylor."
Paige: "And Kenon. Kenon could be a banger. Billy Paultz was a banger. They went out and they did it and (Denver Coach) Larry Brown was defenseless to stop it. I mean, he couldn't stop it. Maybe Larry learned something (from that experience) by the time he got to Detroit. They (New York) came back and won the game and I always remember just the oddity of walking by the bench and hearing his strategy. It's kind of funny because I had to be within three or four feet (to hear it) because it's not something that I would be able to hear in a lot of large buildings, but the crowd was out of it because the Nets were down 22. If they go on to win the game then the Nuggets would (probably) have won the last ABA Championship. They got beat on a freaky play in the first game. Bobby Jones was a great defender and went up to defend Julius on the baseline and Bobby's shoe exploded."
Friedman: "I know--I read about that. I heard about that."
Friedman: "Do you remember the first game that you saw Julius in person and what you thought at the time?"
Paige: "Yeah, it was in Virginia. It was a game toward the end of the year. I don't know why I know that it was the end of the year, but I wrote pieces for Basketball Digest later and that's why I distinctly remember that Bob Bass had a great quote that I used. He said that whenever Julius went up for a shot, for one his dunks, a tomahawk or something, everybody's ears in the building popped. It sucked the air out of the building--a different way of applying it. I guess Al Bianchi was the coach in Virginia."
Friedman: "Sure."
Paige: "I got to know Al Bianchi pretty well and he said that you're going to see a kid tonight that you're not going to believe. Yeah, yeah, ok, sure. If he's so good how come I've never heard of him? I never heard of him coming out of UMass. You heard of most of the good players but I guess he left after his junior year or whatever. He couldn't shoot, he didn't have any outside shot at all, but I've never seen anything like him. He had the Afro. I remember thinking that this guy's going to play his career in a vacuum. The NBA really never saw him early, because he had to be so much more creative going to the basket and doing things because he couldn't shoot a lick from the outside. He was a terrible outside shooter. If you remember--and you're old enough to remember--Magic Johnson couldn't shoot."
Paige: "Well, Julius was that bad. (ed. note: To be fair to Erving, it should be noted that in his third season he shot .395 from three point range and he was a .778 free throw shooter during five ABA seasons, including .801 in his final campaign in that league). Nobody would guard him outside, obviously, because he couldn't shoot, so he had to do even more amazing things going to the basket than he did later when he could shoot from the outside. Yeah, I remember him distinctly. Two times in my life that I walked away (amazed). I went to see John Elway when he was a senior in college--because of the NFL strike--and I came back and told Dan Reeves, 'I've seen the future and it's John Elway.' He went, 'Yeah, he's a good quarterback.' Good quarterback? He's an incredible quarterback. That doesn't make me someone who discovered electricity."
Paige: "When I saw him play at Stanford he would throw a ball through a cornerback's hands. You've seen the thing where a guy drops a dollar and you try to slap your hands together to catch it before it hits the floor. Well, the cornerback couldn't react quickly enough. I mean the ball was right between his hands but he couldn't react quickly enough to stop it from going past him, like guys could do in the pros. We started talking about him. It didn't seem like there was any way Denver could get him, but you know that story. The only two times I ever felt that way were seeing John Elway in college and seeing Julius Erving for the first time. We all knew about David Thompson from playing UCLA. I knew Michael Jordan could play--I saw him in the national championship game. I never knew what he was going to be, but I knew that he could play and that he was going to be a great player. I never thought that he would be the greatest. But Julius Erving was a totally unknown player and to see him and go, 'My God, I have seen the Messiah of basketball!'"
Friedman: "What do you think would happen if somehow through a time machine you would have the young free flowing Julius from the ABA and Michael Jordan from whatever we might think is his best year, what do you think that would be like?"
Paige: "Oh, I think that there is a natural progression. I didn't get to see him, but people would say about Elgin Baylor that nobody will ever be as creative or as demonstrative or as good in that position. Then Julius Erving came along and just blew him away and you go, boy, Baylor couldn't hold his jock. Then Michael came along and he did stuff that Julius couldn't do. I mean, he took it a step further. But I think Kobe--forgetting everything else--in certain ways can do some things that even Michael couldn't do. I'd say that there is a natural order, as has been pointed out by Darwin."
Paige laughs, then continues, "There is a natural order. There was never anybody like Julius Erving, not (even) Elgin Baylor. Well, Michael Jordan was like Julius--shorter, better shooter. He had--probably because he had the North Carolina background--a much more functional game. I mean, he had a more solid game. Julius' game was based on the playground. Michael played in a very formalized system under Dean Smith. That is probably what made him able to take it (further)--because he could do things that Julius couldn't do in a formalized setting and win championships and he had Scottie Pippen, who had his back. I would have loved to see them (go head to head with both in their primes), but we got to see Larry Bird and Magic and I don't know how much more I could have taken. What was funny to me is that Julius Erving leaves Bianchi and those people in Virginia and you say, 'How in the world could you do that?' and Al Bianchi says, 'Wait until you see this next kid.' Yeah, sure, ok. Then you see George Gervin and you go, 'Where do they get these guys?' I mean, people that just show up out of nowhere and can play their asses off. Gervin had been in junior colleges and he was sort of like Jim Thorpe--you didn't know if he was playing for pro teams when he was 14 years old or what."
Friedman: "You're right. These guys come out of nowhere and then these guys could really play."
Paige: "Who in the world could imagine that one stupid club that lasted three years or whatever could come up with Julius Erving and George Gervin? I mean, where in the hell did that come from? The Boston Celtics did not come up with Larry Bird and then another Larry Bird. You don't come up with Magic Johnson and then another Magic Johnson. You (much later) come up with Kobe Bryant."
Friedman: "That franchise, in its earlier incarnation under a different name, didn't they have Rick Barry? He didn't want to go (to Virginia) when they changed the name--"
Paige: "They didn't discover him."
Friedman: "Oh, right, I see what you're saying--they didn't discover him (like they discovered Erving and Gervin)."
Paige: "Yeah, I mean Julius Erving and George Gervin came out of nowhere and suddenly are playing for the Washington Caps/Virginia Squires."
Friedman: "No, I see what you are saying--players that they discovered, not just who showed up on the team."
Paige: "Yeah. Did they totally discover them? Maybe not, but everybody says that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity and also discovered small town newspapers and the post office. Well, you know, other people equally 'discovered' some of those things, but Benjamin Franklin is remembered for it. I don't know that the Virginia Squires get the credit that they deserve for discovering a couple guys that nobody had ever heard of."
Friedman: "They just didn't have the financing to keep them, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I don't remember the owner's name, but he said that we did as much as we could and then we sent them along. They hung on as long as they could. Julius got to play in New York and got to play in Philadelphia, so we all got to see him, but by the time he got to Philadelphia he was not--he was a much more fundamentally sound player and smarter player and a classy player, but he was not the young man who just played such a natural game that--well, most people never saw what Julius Erving was really about. Would you like to see a young Julius against a young Michael Jordan? Yeah, but I would like to see Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth play in the same game, but you can't do that."
Friedman: "With Julius and Jordan I am interested in your perspective because you have seen them both in person. I always thought, observing more from a distance, it seemed to me that Julius had more of a tendency to defer to teammates. When he came to a team he wouldn't say 'It's my team.' He would always say that it was McGinnis' team and Collins' team--that we are sharing that role. It seemed to me that Jordan had a personality that whatever team he was on was his team and he made it clear to everybody on the other team and on his team that it was his team and that he was taking the last shot and averaging 30 points and everyone falls in line behind him. Do you think that there is any credence to that, that maybe Julius' personality was a little different than Jordan's in some way?"
Paige: "He (Erving) was for most of his career a much lower key person, yes. I think there is a great deal of truth to that. I'll tell you, on the other side, he was a lot better leaper than Jordan. People think of Michael as a great leaper, but he couldn't touch Julius' leaping. If you were to go see Julius today, Julius has the biggest hands I've ever seen. I mean, that's why (he was so exceptional)--when you add leaping ability to the incredible hands. You know, who cares, but the untold story about Artis Gilmore is that he couldn't palm a basketball. He was a guy who was 7'2" and had to put stickum on his hands and players hated playing against him because the ball was always sticky because Artis Gilmore couldn't palm a basketball. He had the smallest hands in the world. Julius had the largest hands. I mean he wore the size 14 or 18 glove that you would see on a defensive lineman now. That really never got noticed. He had just incredible hands, so he could do a lot more with the basketball than Michael ever could and he had better leaping ability. He was not the shooter that he (Jordan) was and he was not the leader. Fundamentally he was not the guy, because as I said, Michael Jordan played for Dean Smith, who had the great ability to take incredible players and turn them into really average players. Dean and I are friends, but I mean everybody who went there you think, 'This guy isn't going to be much of a pro' and then (after they do well in the pros) you go, 'Why didn't he play great there?'"
Friedman: "It's the system, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I think there is a great truth to that. He was much more of a leader than Julius was but that happened late. When he was in Philadelphia he took control of the team over McGinnis and when they played the Lakers and Pat Riley's club he was really a great leader at that point."
Friedman: "I don't know in would even call it being more or less of a leader--I think it (Julius Erving's style) is a different kind of leadership. I think Jordan was an assertive leader. Julius was more of a leader who led by example, it seemed to me. He would work hard, he'd show up, he'd practice, he'd play hard, but he wasn't the kind of person to get into someone's face--"
Paige: "A lot less vocal."
In Part II, Paige explains how he developed the persona that he uses on "Around the Horn" and which prominent NFL coach first asked the famous question, "Why I always have to straighten you guys out?"
Paige: "I covered the ABA from like '69, then I moved to Denver in '74 and I covered it until its demise. So I covered it for like seven or eight years."
Friedman: "So if you were covering it for Denver obviously then you were at the ABA Finals against the Nets and Julius Erving?"
Paige: "Oh, yeah. My greatest memory of that is that the Nuggets were up by 22. I walked by the Nets bench to go the bathroom and I heard Kevin Loughery say to the players, 'Just go out and beat them up. We're out of this game, go and hurt them.' I mean, not hurt them in the sense of hurting them physically, but in the sense that they're a soft team and the only way to get back in the game is to just bang on them. They came back and John Williamson was a mean guy and Taylor must have been on that club--"
Friedman: "Yeah, Brian Taylor."
Paige: "And Kenon. Kenon could be a banger. Billy Paultz was a banger. They went out and they did it and (Denver Coach) Larry Brown was defenseless to stop it. I mean, he couldn't stop it. Maybe Larry learned something (from that experience) by the time he got to Detroit. They (New York) came back and won the game and I always remember just the oddity of walking by the bench and hearing his strategy. It's kind of funny because I had to be within three or four feet (to hear it) because it's not something that I would be able to hear in a lot of large buildings, but the crowd was out of it because the Nets were down 22. If they go on to win the game then the Nuggets would (probably) have won the last ABA Championship. They got beat on a freaky play in the first game. Bobby Jones was a great defender and went up to defend Julius on the baseline and Bobby's shoe exploded."
Friedman: "I know--I read about that. I heard about that."
Paige: "And Bobby's not a guy who would make up a story or make up an excuse. He said he went up and the moment he went up his shoe blew apart and it distracted him for just enough time that Julius was able to get off the shot and make the basket. So, I mean Denver could have won the last ABA Championship...The Celtics would play Denver (in exhibition games) and you'd talk to those guys and they'd say, 'Yeah, these guys can play.' Because they (the Celtics) never saw the ABA. CBS put on eight games a year or something like that. They (the ABA) played in a lot of small towns."
Friedman: "Do you remember the first game that you saw Julius in person and what you thought at the time?"
Paige: "Yeah, it was in Virginia. It was a game toward the end of the year. I don't know why I know that it was the end of the year, but I wrote pieces for Basketball Digest later and that's why I distinctly remember that Bob Bass had a great quote that I used. He said that whenever Julius went up for a shot, for one his dunks, a tomahawk or something, everybody's ears in the building popped. It sucked the air out of the building--a different way of applying it. I guess Al Bianchi was the coach in Virginia."
Friedman: "Sure."
Paige: "I got to know Al Bianchi pretty well and he said that you're going to see a kid tonight that you're not going to believe. Yeah, yeah, ok, sure. If he's so good how come I've never heard of him? I never heard of him coming out of UMass. You heard of most of the good players but I guess he left after his junior year or whatever. He couldn't shoot, he didn't have any outside shot at all, but I've never seen anything like him. He had the Afro. I remember thinking that this guy's going to play his career in a vacuum. The NBA really never saw him early, because he had to be so much more creative going to the basket and doing things because he couldn't shoot a lick from the outside. He was a terrible outside shooter. If you remember--and you're old enough to remember--Magic Johnson couldn't shoot."
Friedman: "Of course."
Paige: "Well, Julius was that bad. (ed. note: To be fair to Erving, it should be noted that in his third season he shot .395 from three point range and he was a .778 free throw shooter during five ABA seasons, including .801 in his final campaign in that league). Nobody would guard him outside, obviously, because he couldn't shoot, so he had to do even more amazing things going to the basket than he did later when he could shoot from the outside. Yeah, I remember him distinctly. Two times in my life that I walked away (amazed). I went to see John Elway when he was a senior in college--because of the NFL strike--and I came back and told Dan Reeves, 'I've seen the future and it's John Elway.' He went, 'Yeah, he's a good quarterback.' Good quarterback? He's an incredible quarterback. That doesn't make me someone who discovered electricity."
Friedman: "Sure. I understand."
Paige: "When I saw him play at Stanford he would throw a ball through a cornerback's hands. You've seen the thing where a guy drops a dollar and you try to slap your hands together to catch it before it hits the floor. Well, the cornerback couldn't react quickly enough. I mean the ball was right between his hands but he couldn't react quickly enough to stop it from going past him, like guys could do in the pros. We started talking about him. It didn't seem like there was any way Denver could get him, but you know that story. The only two times I ever felt that way were seeing John Elway in college and seeing Julius Erving for the first time. We all knew about David Thompson from playing UCLA. I knew Michael Jordan could play--I saw him in the national championship game. I never knew what he was going to be, but I knew that he could play and that he was going to be a great player. I never thought that he would be the greatest. But Julius Erving was a totally unknown player and to see him and go, 'My God, I have seen the Messiah of basketball!'"
Paige: "Oh, I think that there is a natural progression. I didn't get to see him, but people would say about Elgin Baylor that nobody will ever be as creative or as demonstrative or as good in that position. Then Julius Erving came along and just blew him away and you go, boy, Baylor couldn't hold his jock. Then Michael came along and he did stuff that Julius couldn't do. I mean, he took it a step further. But I think Kobe--forgetting everything else--in certain ways can do some things that even Michael couldn't do. I'd say that there is a natural order, as has been pointed out by Darwin."
Paige laughs, then continues, "There is a natural order. There was never anybody like Julius Erving, not (even) Elgin Baylor. Well, Michael Jordan was like Julius--shorter, better shooter. He had--probably because he had the North Carolina background--a much more functional game. I mean, he had a more solid game. Julius' game was based on the playground. Michael played in a very formalized system under Dean Smith. That is probably what made him able to take it (further)--because he could do things that Julius couldn't do in a formalized setting and win championships and he had Scottie Pippen, who had his back. I would have loved to see them (go head to head with both in their primes), but we got to see Larry Bird and Magic and I don't know how much more I could have taken. What was funny to me is that Julius Erving leaves Bianchi and those people in Virginia and you say, 'How in the world could you do that?' and Al Bianchi says, 'Wait until you see this next kid.' Yeah, sure, ok. Then you see George Gervin and you go, 'Where do they get these guys?' I mean, people that just show up out of nowhere and can play their asses off. Gervin had been in junior colleges and he was sort of like Jim Thorpe--you didn't know if he was playing for pro teams when he was 14 years old or what."
Friedman: "You're right. These guys come out of nowhere and then these guys could really play."
Paige: "Who in the world could imagine that one stupid club that lasted three years or whatever could come up with Julius Erving and George Gervin? I mean, where in the hell did that come from? The Boston Celtics did not come up with Larry Bird and then another Larry Bird. You don't come up with Magic Johnson and then another Magic Johnson. You (much later) come up with Kobe Bryant."
Friedman: "That franchise, in its earlier incarnation under a different name, didn't they have Rick Barry? He didn't want to go (to Virginia) when they changed the name--"
Paige: "They didn't discover him."
Friedman: "Oh, right, I see what you're saying--they didn't discover him (like they discovered Erving and Gervin)."
Paige: "Yeah, I mean Julius Erving and George Gervin came out of nowhere and suddenly are playing for the Washington Caps/Virginia Squires."
Friedman: "No, I see what you are saying--players that they discovered, not just who showed up on the team."
Paige: "Yeah. Did they totally discover them? Maybe not, but everybody says that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity and also discovered small town newspapers and the post office. Well, you know, other people equally 'discovered' some of those things, but Benjamin Franklin is remembered for it. I don't know that the Virginia Squires get the credit that they deserve for discovering a couple guys that nobody had ever heard of."
Friedman: "They just didn't have the financing to keep them, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I don't remember the owner's name, but he said that we did as much as we could and then we sent them along. They hung on as long as they could. Julius got to play in New York and got to play in Philadelphia, so we all got to see him, but by the time he got to Philadelphia he was not--he was a much more fundamentally sound player and smarter player and a classy player, but he was not the young man who just played such a natural game that--well, most people never saw what Julius Erving was really about. Would you like to see a young Julius against a young Michael Jordan? Yeah, but I would like to see Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth play in the same game, but you can't do that."
Friedman: "With Julius and Jordan I am interested in your perspective because you have seen them both in person. I always thought, observing more from a distance, it seemed to me that Julius had more of a tendency to defer to teammates. When he came to a team he wouldn't say 'It's my team.' He would always say that it was McGinnis' team and Collins' team--that we are sharing that role. It seemed to me that Jordan had a personality that whatever team he was on was his team and he made it clear to everybody on the other team and on his team that it was his team and that he was taking the last shot and averaging 30 points and everyone falls in line behind him. Do you think that there is any credence to that, that maybe Julius' personality was a little different than Jordan's in some way?"
Paige: "He (Erving) was for most of his career a much lower key person, yes. I think there is a great deal of truth to that. I'll tell you, on the other side, he was a lot better leaper than Jordan. People think of Michael as a great leaper, but he couldn't touch Julius' leaping. If you were to go see Julius today, Julius has the biggest hands I've ever seen. I mean, that's why (he was so exceptional)--when you add leaping ability to the incredible hands. You know, who cares, but the untold story about Artis Gilmore is that he couldn't palm a basketball. He was a guy who was 7'2" and had to put stickum on his hands and players hated playing against him because the ball was always sticky because Artis Gilmore couldn't palm a basketball. He had the smallest hands in the world. Julius had the largest hands. I mean he wore the size 14 or 18 glove that you would see on a defensive lineman now. That really never got noticed. He had just incredible hands, so he could do a lot more with the basketball than Michael ever could and he had better leaping ability. He was not the shooter that he (Jordan) was and he was not the leader. Fundamentally he was not the guy, because as I said, Michael Jordan played for Dean Smith, who had the great ability to take incredible players and turn them into really average players. Dean and I are friends, but I mean everybody who went there you think, 'This guy isn't going to be much of a pro' and then (after they do well in the pros) you go, 'Why didn't he play great there?'"
Friedman: "It's the system, right?"
Paige: "Yeah. I think there is a great truth to that. He was much more of a leader than Julius was but that happened late. When he was in Philadelphia he took control of the team over McGinnis and when they played the Lakers and Pat Riley's club he was really a great leader at that point."
Friedman: "I don't know in would even call it being more or less of a leader--I think it (Julius Erving's style) is a different kind of leadership. I think Jordan was an assertive leader. Julius was more of a leader who led by example, it seemed to me. He would work hard, he'd show up, he'd practice, he'd play hard, but he wasn't the kind of person to get into someone's face--"
Paige: "A lot less vocal."
In Part II, Paige explains how he developed the persona that he uses on "Around the Horn" and which prominent NFL coach first asked the famous question, "Why I always have to straighten you guys out?"
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