You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will (21 page)

The most common response to Mirabelli’s alleged revelation was this:

If anyone would do this, it would be Schilling
.

That probably wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, but it was good enough for the guy who wants to believe nothing happens either organically or by chance.

Beyond the fact that Schilling has many detractors who would love to see his reputation take a hit, the claim has no basis.

More than anything, the bloody sock was the result of great camera work by the guys working for Fox.

Like the frozen envelope and Duke beating UNLV, Schilling’s sock was just a strange but explainable instance of sports being sports.

Buster Douglas beat the unbeatable Mike Tyson and overcame 42-1 odds along the way. Everyone was shocked, but it turns out there were signs that something crazy could happen. Douglas’s mother, Lula Pearl, had died three weeks earlier, motivating Buster to train harder in her memory. Tyson was heavier than usual and had recently parted with longtime trainer Kevin Rooney. Throw into the mix Tyson’s combustible relationship with his wife at the time, Robin Givens, and the ingredients were there.

Adrenaline-filled, stress-free, motivated athletes—Buster Douglas, Curt Schilling, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, and Bobby Hurley—often overachieve.

The single most baffling and unexplainable moment in American sports history has to be the “Miracle On Ice.” A group of American hockey players, who had been humiliated the week before the 1980 Olympics by the Russians, 10-3, somehow beat the same USSR team and went on to win the gold medal. That Soviet team came into that game 27-1-1 since the 1960s in Olympic play, and the ragtag group of Americans was not considered a serious threat.

But wonderful, crazy, wild, and unpredictable things happen.
At the end of the game, Al Michaels famously asked, “Do you believe in miracles?”

Yes I do, Al, yes I do.

But don’t mistake that for gullibility—there are many things I
don’t
believe in. And that list starts with—but is not limited to—frozen envelopes, tank jobs, and fake blood seeping through a white sock.

Whenever I hear the term
control freak
, it makes me think we should come up with another term—or at least another category—for strong, willful people in control. Something with a little more positive spin. It just seems like many of these supposed control freaks are actually pretty good at turning around companies or businesses.

The late technology whiz Steve Jobs was a control freak, wasn’t he? It certainly seems that way if you read his biography. He wanted a say in everything Apple was creating, and in the end the consumer won. Sometimes feelings would be hurt, but tension and disagreement are often part of any creative process.

Think about all those crazy control freaks in football. Bill Belichick of the Patriots and Jim Harbaugh of the 49ers would be one and two on any NFL-control-freak list. Belichick won’t even allow his assistants to talk to the media. They also happen to be, quite possibly, the two best head coaches in the league.

Nick Saban of Alabama and Urban Meyer of Ohio State also own reputations as almost maniacal behind-the-scenes leaders. Nothing happens at either school until both coaches
have a final say. They override assistants on the smallest matter without guilt. Aren’t they considered the two best college football coaches in the country?

Anytime you read a business book about turning a losing culture into a winning one they always talk about a need for attention to detail. It all starts with that. The best CEOs are lauded for it. Yet how do you know and manipulate every detail, in any rapidly changing business, without seizing control of a department or an idea that’s under you? Is that a freak or is it a progressive boss willing to adjust on the fly and having the ability to spot small problems before they become big ones?

Why shouldn’t a more experienced and frankly superior football intellect like Belichick override a less experienced and less talented assistant coach? All coaches aren’t equal. Neither are all technology employees at Apple.

Let’s face the truth about control. We all like it when we have it and we mostly resent it or fear it when we don’t.

It’s different in personal relationships, where harmony often supersedes production. You’re not competing against other couples. You’re rarely on
a deadline to get an argument resolved. Needing control creates resentment, which often creates a trip to divorce court.

But in business and certainly football, I want the smartest coach who is willing to occasionally hurt some feelings to get it right. If assistants are offended, then get new assistants. Belichick seems to win with a revolving door of assistants and coordinators. To me, he’s a
control maven
, not a freak.

Years ago I was approached by a radio executive who had grown tired and disgusted by a brand of on-air dialogue he considered too angry and mean. Rush Limbaugh was dominating the national airwaves with his now-familiar style of firebrand conservatism, and local markets—eager to capitalize on the ratings—were attempting to clone their own versions of Limbaugh.

This radio executive was offering me an afternoon slot as a general talk-show host to leave sports talk. He felt my socially liberal views would combat the evil forces of right-wing talk radio and right-wing politics.

I had a different opinion of Limbaugh. He didn’t bother me, and I didn’t see him as a threat to the radio industry or the nation. His anthem doesn’t work for me, no matter how often he repeats it. I felt his popularity, and the popularity of his message, was wildly exaggerated.

When the executive told me he felt I could be a formidable counter to Limbaugh, I said, “You do realize that Bill Clinton is on his second term and he’s wildly popular, right? People listen to political radio for affirmation, not information. Rush isn’t changing minds or views—he’s just reaffirming them.”

The job offer flattered me, but the job didn’t interest me. Moreover, I didn’t think the executive’s logic was valid. I left him with four words: “Don’t worry about it.”

Limbaugh was one of the first, but by no means is he the last. Even today, conservatives dominate talk radio. Fox News still maintains a massive following, but the GOP is falling further behind in presidential elections.

Why? How is this possible?

Popularity shouldn’t be confused with influence. The media, as a whole, has less impact than politicians, public-relations staffs, and radio executives believe. There’s a reason that people call those conservative talk shows hosted by Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck “The Echo Chamber.” People listen and regurgitate what they hear, making the noise louder than it is meaningful.

Limbaugh’s power comes from his narrative. He makes conservatives feel he has their backs, which gives him virtually no impact outside of a self-contained group that is already predisposed to believe what he says.

He’s not changing minds. He’s not making voters think twice about their political beliefs. There’s so much anger and vitriol between the two sides that many people would consider it a personal failing—a refutation of who they are—to switch sides and vote for someone from the “enemy” camp.

What Limbaugh offers is connectivity, the personal reinforcement for people out there to know someone else thinks the way they do. His ability to create an enemy—the mainstream media—was a stroke of genius. The us-against-them mentality forges loyalty. And when it’s packaged as a hardy band of underdogs (conservatives) fighting a monolithic force (the liberal media)? Hell, even better.

It’s the Letterman vs. Leno dynamic. I have a friend, Tim Kelleher, who interned for Letterman, and he said their goal was to make the audience feel they were in on the joke. There’s always been an inside-the-rope-line quality to Letterman’s show that you don’t get from Leno. The loyalty is generated by the fact that not everyone gets the joke. And a Letterman joke that bombs—strangely—still ends up working.

There’s a similar principle at work in sports. Leagues and teams fret over negative publicity or—even worse—irrelevance.
Negative publicity at least gets your name out there. Being ignored is a death sentence.

Oftentimes, these teams and leagues argue that they’re producing a good product. This misses the point. Like Limbaugh, they need a narrative to lead the way.

The MLS or NHL might feel neglected, but I’m here to tell them a cruel truth:

It’s not us. It’s you
.

Tell a better story. Get more compelling stars, or do a better job telling us about the ones you already have. Give us a reason to be excited about your sport and we’ll be there.

Conveniently, there’s a perfect blueprint out there for all you underserved sports to follow: MMA.

There’s no plausible reason for this sport to exist, let alone thrive. Best-case scenario, it should be stumbling down a hospital hallway with frantic nurses on each side and a priest in tow. It has survived obstacles and setbacks that would have destroyed even the best-financed and most shrewdly promoted enterprise.

Think about it. The sport didn’t even have a legitimate
name
until ten years after it started. It was called various forms of “cage fighting” until it was called No Holds Barred, which sounds like a cross between a bad hairspray and a Guns N’ Roses ballad. Not that long ago, the only places fights could be legally staged were on Indian reservations, which meant most of its events were held in remote spots in the mountains outside San Diego or the Central Valley.

When the sport finally settled on the more valuable MMA label, it had to change some of its most popular rules to reduce violence and make itself more palatable to a wider audience. In effect, MMA had to eliminate some of the elements that made a certain segment of the population like it in the first place.

Once it fought its way into the public consciousness and earned a spot on pay-per-view cable, senator John McCain led a successful push to throw it off the air. McCain didn’t like its viciousness and vulgarity and coined the term “human cockfighting” to describe it.

Yet popularity soared.

Cage fighting was virtually ignored by the mainstream media, which usually mentioned it only to disparage it. To watch the best fights, fans have to pay separately; to watch the lesser fights, fans have to find the channel that falls between Lithuanian ballet and the Montana Wood-Carving Championship.

Yet popularity soared.

It had a primary rival—boxing—which had something in the neighborhood of a hundred-year head start. It’s still barred in New York, America’s largest city. It has very few true “name” stars, and its participants don’t come through the ranks in high-profile college programs, like football and basketball.

And yet—you guessed it—popularity soars.

How? Why?

Under Dana White, the UFC connected with fans. It created an underground renaissance built on anticorporate bravado. It developed an image of a dark, secret league that only insiders understood. The loyalty this generated was incredible.