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Let’s (Long Beach) Post up: The power of the Pyramid at 25 years young

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By Tom Hoffarth/Steve Lowery
Our latest for the Long Beach Post sizes up how far the Long Beach State campus Walter Pyramid has come a quarter century after its open — a Top 25 list of events we’ve decided to rank based on hindsight and proper context.
(With apologies to Kobe Bryant, slipping from No. 1 to No. 2 based on how this really has to be a Long Beach State-heavy-duty list).
Considering how many centuries other pyramids have survived, it has a lot of history to catch up on.
Jordan Lance. Pyramid. 2015As an inspiration for artistic interpretation, illustrator Jordan Lance, who graduated from the CSULB art program in 2015, feels it belongs with a series he was once commissioned to do on city’s prominent touchstones along with the Breakers Hotel, Villa Riviera, the International Tower and the Queen Mary. Read more

A sign of the (L.A.) Times: Our November Sports Media Misery Index: #AngerWatkins #SkipAngry

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By Tom Hoffarth
Our latest sports media piece for the Los Angeles Times has our consernational compass pointed at Stephen A. Smith and ESPN’s plans to keep him gainfully employed, Jessica Mendoza’s confusion over a gray area in what kind of access she can get as an ESPN employee, stories that try to keep normalizing gambling, and a new Lindsey Vonn HBO documentary.
And one more thing while we’re thinking about it:
* If you’re going to be honest in advertising, David Feherty’s “Brilliantly Stupid Not So Special Year End Special” (Golf Channel, Tuesday, 6 p.m. with several replays) does a swell job when compared to other programming on the network that has one believing his golf game will actually improve by investing an hour into an infomercial/how to improve your short game.

A SIGN OF THE (L.A.) TIMES: WHEN ‘FORD V FERRARI’ SPINS AWAY FROM HOLLYWOOD’S FAST-N-FURIOUS WAYS OF DEALING FACT VS. FICTION

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By Tom Hoffarth

As the cover story for the March 25, 1957 edition of  Sports Illustrated, Carroll Shelby is called “The Gentle Leadfoot,” and referred to as “America’s hottest driver” as he headed into a big race at Sebring.

ShelbySI“You know, when I’m driving a race car I feel like I don’t have a problem in the world,” Shelby says in the piece. “I haven’t even tried to analyze why I do it. I guess there is just something there — a certain challenge.”
All the while, he wore these bibbed, striped carpenters’ overalls he says he bought for $3 at J.C.Penney’s “when I was in the chicken business.”
The beauty of the story is writer Kenneth Rudeen allows Shelby to talk through most of it, in his voice. That’s part of the Shelby sales pitch charm, playing up his Texas-bred stereotypes that followed him to a car designer, salesman and legend.

(Just for some context in that 1957 SI issue, the magazine also has a piece about the new Major League Baseball rookies who were likely to do well in the upcoming season. That included Baltimore’s Brooks Robinson and Cleveland’s Roger Maris. In its preview of the NCAA basketball final four — Kansas, San Francisco, North Carolina and Michigan State — there’s a story about how Kansas sophomore Wilt Chamberlain has become a “magnetic obsession.”)

In an expansion of our piece in Monday’s Los Angeles Times about how the new box-office hit “Ford v Ferrari” has been viewed by those who like to separate fact from fiction — it is a “based on a true story” about how Shelby and driver Ken Miles battled with Ford executives trying to beat Ferrari at the coveted 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 1960s, finally coming through at the end of the decade with four straight wins — we had a conversation with Shelby’s 48-year-old grandson, Aaron, about this. Read more

A SIGN OF THE (L.A.) TIMES: WAS NOAH EAGLE BORN TO BE AN NBA BROADCASTER? THE CLIPPERS HAVE A NEST FOR HIM TO PROVE IT

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By Tom Hoffarth

Was Noah Eagle born to be an NBA play-by-play man?

On the date of his birth — Dec. 11, 1996 — his father, Ian, was there in the hospital that morning. But his load management (OK, it wasn’t a thing then) called for him to call another New Jersey Nets game that night.

The 4-11 Nets were up against the 16-6 Seattle SuperSonics, George Karl’s team with Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Sam Perkins and Detlef Schrempf. The Nets were trying to find their way with coach John Calipari’s roster of Kerry Kittles, Robert Pack, Kendall Gill and Shawn Bradley, and Ed O’Bannon off the bench.

The Nets kind of surprised the Sonics by pinning a 110-101 loss on them.

noahNoah Eagle can tell you about that game as if he was there, he knows it so well. And it has shaped his career path to calling games now for the Clippers.

“I believe I’ve basically studied the NBA since Day 1 on this Earth,” he says. “From that day, the NBA has been my biggest love. Movies, TV and music are right behind it. It’s all about finding a way to show I know the history of the game and pop culture and staying current. If I can blend it and be creative, that’s what I’ll do.”

The Clippers’ 22-year-old radio play-by-play man is our weekly L.A. Times media column profile. In the process of pulling this piece together, we’ve got our writers’ cut of notes, quotes and more antidotes worth passing on to add more context.

(But first, check out this clip below: On Feb. 17, 2018, Ian and Noah Eagle were both calling a Syracuse-Miami college basketball game — Ian for CBS; Noah, a junior at Syracuse, doing it for the school’s WAER-FM radio station. They met up for a pre-game segment.) Read more

A sign of the (L.A.) Times: Santa Anita took all precaution to avoid catastrophe. Then the final race of the Breeders’ Cup happened

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A week before the 36th Breeders Cup took place at Santa Anita Race Track, we focused our sports media piece in the Los Angeles Times on how NBC would approach the recent history of calamity resulting in 36 thoroughbred deaths since last December.

After a Tuesday’s conference call with reporters, NBC allowed handicapper Randy Moss to add to the discussion:  “I know the eyes of the world are on Santa Anita and are on the Breeders’ Cup, and it’s obviously critically important for the Breeders’ Cup that they get through this weekend without an incident, but an incident-free weekend doesn’t necessarily mean that the reforms are working, and an injury this weekend doesn’t necessarily mean that the reforms aren’t working.”

It wasn’t injury free.

JockeywinOur followup story posted on how NBC covered the injury suffered by Mongolian Groom near the end of the Breeders’ Cup Classic — the horse was euthanized, but the announcement didn’t come until about two hours after NBC went off the air — is open for further interpretation. No matter how much NBC reporters may have prepared viewers for this possibility, when it did happen, it was still quite unnerving.

Take a trip down memory lane — what’s your top Staples Center memories from the first 20 years?

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By Tom Hoffarth

Staples Center has gone platinum, for those who aren’t sure about the proper gift to present for someone’s 20th anniversary.

The date falls on Oct. 17, with a Kings’ game against Buffalo for some saber rattling. We often overlook these sort of celebratory moments. Not this time.

south-park-12

We’ve got the “centerpiece” story in the current issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal (the first quarter of it linked here) about how those who were around from well beyond the groundbreaking can’t believe the $32 billion economic impact the arena has had on the downtown South Park area.

We’ve noted in our latest L.A. Times weekly column our favorite life-intimidates-media moment from “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in 2001 (here’s even more background), followed by a Lakers-Clippers game in 2017. The “Shaq” episode also made it on TheRinger.com’s 2017 list of the top “Curb Your Enthusiasm” shows of all time… as it should be. Read more

LET’S (LONG BEACH) POST UP: HOW TOM PONTAC’S THEORY TO OUT-RUN PARKINSON’S WORKS FOR HIM

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By Tom Hoffarth/Edited by Steve Lowery
Our latest piece for the Long Beach Post focuses on an 83-year-old marathon enthusiast who finds himself more about how to overcome hurdles along the course of life — such as overcoming cancer and dealing today with Parkinson’s Disease.
“To tell you the truth, I’m just happy I can still move through this earth and feel special about myself,” says Tom Pontac, who has run every Long Beach Marathon — and then some, in the race’s incarnations before that 1982 launch. Even if the last few appearances have been scaled back to the 13-mile half-marathon variety. Read more

A sign of the (L.A.) Times: Jay Bilas may have some biases … but it’s all about doing what’s fair in NCAA Land

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By Tom Hoffarth
Jay Bilas isn’t leading a self-endorsed 2020 presidential campaign to head up the NCAA’s hierarchy.
It won’t stop others to crusade on his behalf.
Going into 25 years as an ESPN college basketball analyst, Bilas says he doesn’t believe “there’s a snowball’s chance” of him soon replacing NCAA CEO Mark Emmert, entrenched since 2010 and a frequent Bilas social media foil.

 Read more

A sign of the (L.A.) Times: How did the Clippers come to find Ralph Lawler’s replacement? He was there all along.

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By Tom Hoffarth
Kawhi Leonard and Paul George made one big splash for the Clippers this summer.
But the thing that could have a ripple effect for the franchise’s long-term success was how they went forward with the broadcasting roster following the retirement of Ralph Lawler.
Brian Sieman was there all along, having done a dozen years on radio. And the team looked high and low for a “bigger name.” Then decided he was the guy.
It’s an awkward process we try to explain in the latest L.A. Times sports media column with much more between the lines that we could explore.
Could Spero Dedes have gotten this Clippers job? Sure, but he’s also committed to national NFL and college basketball assignments. Like many broadcasters today who want to be more nimble than a symbol of the team’s narrative.
Sieman could have left. He didn’t. And the Clippers are lucky to have him, as we pointed out a while back in the revival of our best-and-worst of L.A. sports broadcasting lists.
The Clippers made the hiring of Sieman as well as Chauncey Billups and Noah Eagle official on Monday with their own press release.
We attempted to ask questions of Gillian Zucker, the Clippers head of business operations who somehow was the point person for this process. She wasn’t available.
So here are some of the things you won’t find in the Clippers release here in the LA Times.  Fasten your seatbelts.
More:
= ClipsNation.com has Sieman on its latest podcast.

 

Giving you the (LA) Business (Journal): The bigger picture of how the new Inglewood Stadium (do we have to call it SoFi already?) has added value for eyes in the sky

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If you’ve had the chance to land a window seat on any inbound plane for LAX, the view of the 75-percent finished Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Development in Inglewood is quite spectacular.
The white sprawling roof of the 70,000-seat stadium for the Rams and Chargers starting in 2020 makes it now easy to spot from many vantage points in Southern California.
Including overhead.
In talking to LASEC managing director Jason Gannon for a cover story in the latest issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal, the recent naming rights deal with American Airlines for the plaza area was a strategic move because of how many ways this $5 billion venue can be appreciated.
“The most incredible part of the roof and its footprint — it encompasses about a million square feet — is that it speaks to not just the physical scope and size of the project but how it fits appropriately within the entire project.
“Through (the naming rights deal with American Airlines), they were telling us that as their planes were approaching LAX, the No. 1 question from customers who might not be familiar with Los Angeles in general was about the structure they could see below. To us, that speaks not just to the location of the project but in the long term now it creates and elevated view so that you don’t have to be on the site to experience it in so many different ways — that has never been done before.”

IMG_7763As a story in the Wall Street Journal also points out, there are nearly 200,000 passengers on flights coming into and out of L.A. each day.
A link to a brief version of the LABJ story, with more available in the print edition.

 

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