Year of the Dunk (24 page)

Interviews:
Polly de Mille, Jamie Osmak, Alice Price.

“I brag for humanity”:
Thoreau,
Walden
, 38.

a Saudi elite soccer player:
Hoffman,
Norms for Fitness
,
Performance and Health
, 55.

“conspiring against her lone efforts”:
Monroe E. Price,
Objects of Remembrance
, 53.

Interviews:
Charles Austin, Willy Lenzner, Kim Geary, Josh Price, Nathaniel Mendelsohn, Todd Wright.

very tall Jesus:
Leif Bugge, “1996 Atlanta Olympics, Men, High Jump,” YouTube video,
https://www.​youtube.​com/​watch?​v=​y-5lBjj-​aS4
, accessed April 16, 2013.

“like you fall into step”:
Benjamin Markovits,
Leagues Away: A
First-hand Account of Playing Professional Basketball Overseas
(unpublished manuscript), 47.

“ghost images”:
John Jerome,
Sweet Spot in Time
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980), 39.

“did not have a brain”:
German Berrios and Rogelio Luque, “Cotard's ‘On Hypochondriacal Delusions in a Severe Form of Anxious Melancholia,' ”
History of Psychiatry
, Vol. 10, No. 38 (June 1999), 269–78.

“I'm a dead plant”:
A. Vaxevanis and A. Vidalis, “Cotard's Syndrome, a Three-Case Report,”
Hippokratia
, Vol. 9, No. 1 (2005), 41–44.

Interviews:
Edward Coyle, Terrell Mercer.

“See those little white marks?”:
Edward Coyle interview, Sept. 2013.

the first time a course in teaching physical education:
Weston,
The Making of American Physical Education
, 55.

“one long orgy of tabulation”:
Harold Rugg,
That Men May Understand: An American in the Long Armistice
(New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1941), 182.

“a modern-day Socrates”:
Steven Horvath and Elizabeth Horvath,
The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory: Its History and Contributions
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 15.

a “scientist's scientist”:
Ibid., 31.

became the first member:
Ibid., 26.

a dog treadmill:
Ibid., 25.

Harvard football players:
Horvath and Horvath, The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, 62–72.

“the Hobbling Effect”:
G. Edgar Folk, “The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory: Contributions to World War II,”
Advances in Physiological Education
34 (Sept. 2010), 119–27.

“founding father of ergonomics”:
Horvath and Horvath,
The Harvard Fatigue Laboratory
, 73–83. The researchers mentioned here are G. Edgar Folk, Ashton Graybiel, C. Frank Consolazio, and Ross McFarland.

dramatically increased his power output:
Edward F. Coyle, “Improved Muscular Efficiency Displayed as Tour de France Champion Matures,”
Journal of Applied Physiology
, Vol. 98 (June 2005), 2191–96. The article's acknowledgments include this now poignant note: “The author very much appreciates the respectful cooperation and positive attitude of Lance Armstrong over the years and through it all.”

“hang tough and keep livin' strong”:
Lance Armstrong email to author, Jan. 17, 2006.

“No worries at all”:
Lance Armstrong email to author, Jan. 20, 2006.

I wrote a personal essay:
I'm referring here to Asher Price, “Me and Lance Armstrong: A Caring Touch in an Hour of Need,” Aug. 25, 2012. Portions of that short essay reappear here and there in this chapter.

“I would never beat my wife”:
“Allegations Trail Armstrong into Another Stage,”
Los Angeles Times
, July 9, 2006.

an error in his calculations:
“Scientific Error Reignites Debate About Armstrong's Past,”
New York Times
, Sept. 10, 2008.

Interviews:
Benjamin Markovkits, Daniel Lieberman, Edward Coyle, Robert Dennison, Terry Todd, Vishy Iyer.

form of expression that embodies:
Caponi-Tabery,
Jump for Joy
, 109.

“you can listen to Jimi”:
White Men Can't Jump
, 1992.

Blacks had a “natural advantage”:
“Black Runners ‘At an Advantage,' ”
Guardian
, Sept. 14, 1995.

“breed his big black”:
“Racial Remarks Cause Furor,”
New York Times
, Jan. 16, 1988.

“They have different muscles”:
“Not-So-Golden Bear; Nicklaus Records His Worst Bogey of All,”
Boston Herald
, July 31, 1994.

“biological factors specific to populations”:
Jon Entine,
Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We're Afraid to Talk About It
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2000), xi.

“circumscribe possibility”:
Entine,
Taboo
, xiii

“strong implications for Jewish comedy genes”:
“A Feckless Quest for the Basketball Gene,”
New York Times
, April 8, 2000.

“That's a Jewish sport”:
“Nobody Does It Better,”
New York Times
, April 16, 2000.

“blacks have something that gives us an edge”:
Entine,
Taboo
, 80.

shoot out tentacles to catch prey:
Vogel,
Prime Mover
, 72.

weighed only 92 pounds:
Michael Bárány and Kate Bárány, “Strife and Hope in the Lives of a Scientific Couple” in
Selected Topics in the History of Biochemistry: Personal Recollections
, Vol. VI, ed. R. Jaenicke and G. Semenza (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2000), 95.

well-to-do farmer:
Transcript of Michael Bárány interview conducted by Saree Kaminsky for the Shoah Foundation interview on April 11, 1995,
http://www.​chem.​umn.​edu/​groups/​baranygp/​michaelbarany/​MichaelBáránySr_​Shoah_​interview_​transcript_​draft.​pdf
.

denied admission to university:
Bárány and Bárány, “Strife and Hope,” 91.

directed to a train depot:
Ibid., 94.

two-day supply of food:
Ibid., 94.

“transformed the cattle wagon into hell”:
Ibid., 94.

It was Christmas Day:
Shoah Foundation interview.

“lost God”:
Ibid.

slicing some bread:
Bárány and Bárány, “Strife and Hope,” 103.

began to study the lives of muscles:
Ibid., 98.

deemed a capitalist:
Shoah Foundation interview.

“escape was not absolutely simple”:
Ibid.

help them escape:
Ted Morgan, “Lord of the Venus Flytrap,”
New York Times Magazine
, March 31, 1974, 18.

cow had stepped on a land mine:
George Barany, “The Spirit of Survival: Life Lessons of Holocaust Survivors,” memorial speech delivered at Mount Zion Temple, St. Paul, Minn., April 20, 2012.

seven months' pregnant:
Shoah Foundation interview.

through ten miles of snow:
University of Chicago news release, “Michael Bárány, 1921–2011,” Aug. 2, 2011.

carried two suitcases:
“Lord of the Venus Flytrap.”

“That was a nice walk”:
“The Spirit of Survival.”

left their house so early:
“Strife and Hope,” 119.

17 good reasons to do push-ups:
Ibid., 135–36.

“inadvertent comparative biochemists”:
Ibid., 122.

cited more than 1,700 times:
Michael Bárány, “ATPase Activity of
Myosin Correlated with Speed of Muscle Shortening,”
Journal of General Physiology
(July 1, 1967), 197–218.

“logical and predictable”:
“The Spirit of Survival.”

straight to graduate school:
“Lord of the Venus Flytrap.”

“professors who held hands”:
“Michael Bárány, 1921–2011.”

between two hefty bookcases:
Jacob L. Krans, “The Sliding Filament Theory of Muscle Contraction,”
Nature Education
3, No. 9 (2010), 66.

muscles that are likely beefsteak-red:
Edward Coyle interview with author, Feb. 2014.

paler, whiter set of muscles:
Ibid.

certain ratio of fast- and slow-twitch:
Robert Dennison correspondence with author, March 2014.

ACTN3 influences the speed:
David Epstein,
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance
(New York: Current, 2013), 152–57. Also: D. G. MacArthur and K. N. North, “A Gene for Speed? The Evolution and Function of Alpha-Actinin-3.”
Bioessays
26, No. 7 (July 2004), 786–95.

ACTN3 gene showed up in the top power-oriented athletes:
I. D. Papadimitriou et al., “The ACTN3 Gene in Elite Greek Track and Field Athletes,”
International Journal of Sports Medicine
29, No. 4, (April 2008), 352–55.

significantly slower in a 40-meter sprint:
C. N. Moran et al., “Association Analysis of the ACTN3 R577X Polymorphism and Complex Quantitative Body Composition and Performance Phenotypes in Adolescent Greeks,”
European Journal of Human Genetics
15, No. 1 (Jan. 2007), 88–93.

“misconstrued as rooted in biology”:
John Edgar Wideman, “The Architectonics of Fiction,”
Callaloo
13, No. 1 (Winter 1990), 43.

Gabor knew the Nazis would arrest him:
Price,
Objects of Remembrance
, 25.

“it was a feat I was never able to match”:
Terry Todd, “Philosophical and Practical Considerations for a ‘Strongest Man' Contest,” in
Philosophical Reflections on Physical Strength
, eds. Mark A. Holowchak and Tery Todd (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), 49.

Atlas Sports Genetics began selling:
“Born to Run? Little Ones Get Test for Sports Gene,”
New York Times
, Nov. 39, 2008.

failing to prove up its testing:
Alberto Gutierrez of the FDA, letter to 23andMe CEO Ann Wojcicki, Nov. 22, 2013. A March 25, 2014, letter from Gutierrez to Wojcicki termed the firm's “corrective actions” as “adequate.”

18 percent of humans who lack:
N. Yang et al., “ACTN3 Genotype Is Associated with Human Elite Athletic Performance.”
American Journal of Human Genetics
73, No. 3 (Sept. 2003), 627–31.

I'm better suited:
A. K. Niemi and K. Majamaa, “Mitochondrial DNA and ACTN3 Genotypes in Finnish Elite Endurance and Sprint Athletes,”
European Journal of Human Genetics
13, No. 8 (Aug. 2005), 965–69.

Michael Jordan's outstretched hand:
Insidehoops.​com
, “Database of Rare and Interesting NBA Player Measurements.”

Interviews:
Mark Goldston, Tim Frank, John Porcari, Cedric X. Bryant, Jesus Moreno.

pitched antiperspirants and hairspray:
“L.A. Gear Names New President, Chief Operating Officer,”
Business Wire
, Sept. 26, 1991.

its first drop in earnings:
“Reebok's New Models, Fully Loaded,”
New York Times
, Feb. 14, 1989.

shoe you'd wash your car in:
Mark Goldston interview with author, July 2013. (As with much of the material in this chapter.)

brash overachiever:
Ibid.

“They watch you do it”:
John Edgar Wideman, “Michael Jordan Leaps the Great Divide,”
Esquire
114 (Nov. 1990), 138–216.

sunny, unseasonably warm February day:
I called the National Weather Service in Atlanta to look up the weather on Feb. 13, 1989, for me. It was sunny and temperatures were above average.

bounded onto a stage:
“Reebok's New Models, Fully Loaded.” “We want to make shoes that look great and perform well,” Mark Goldston said that day in Atlanta. ‘ “We call it performance-panache.”

High Priest of High Tech:
Goldston interview with author.

housed, like an Oreo cookie:
Ibid.

“players may not wear any shoe”:
“Basketball Shoe Sales Skyrocket After Ban,”
Los Angeles Times
, Oct. 29, 2010.

“It's the ultimate validation”:
“NBA Bans Sneakers Made by L.A. Based Company,” KTLA News, Oct. 20, 2010.

“jumped higher instantly”:
“Science of Jumpology,”
http://www.​athleticpropulsionlabs.​com/​technology/​technologybasketball/​science-​of-​jumpology.​html
, accessed Aug. 1, 2013.

“narcissistic” urge to look good:
“Marketing Pro Leaves Reebok in the Dust,”
USA Today
, Aug. 21, 1989.