The Innovator Behind "The Super Bowl" - and More

      I love the “back stories” of professional sports – the business tales of how franchises ended up in particular cities, how players negotiated contracts, why certain teams have certain nicknames, how trades were negotiated among teams, etc.  And I love any story of a smart entrepreneurial innovator, too.  So when I can combine the two – that, as Seinfeld's Kenny Bania would say, “is gold, Jerry, gold!”

      And so it was that Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League was, in 1966, sitting in a room with fellow professional football owners, contemplating the name that should be given to the just announced football championship game that would ultimately pit Hunt’s Chiefs against the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League.  Hunt had frequently watched his children playing with one of the hot commodities among Kids of the Sixties – a highly-charged, super-high bouncing spherical toy called the Super Ball, and he suggested – by his own admission somewhat kiddingly – that the name of “the big game” could be, “The Super Bowl.”

     Hunt himself considered the name a bit corny and felt it could be improved upon, but before long, Hunt’s pet term had gained momentum among sportswriters, commentators and players alike.   And thus – you have Lamar Hunt, and the Wham-O Corporation to thank for the term, “The Super Bowl.”  If nothing else, this information might help you if the subject comes up on a trivia night. 

     Lamar Hunt’s contributions to what has become America’s most popular sport go far beyond the branding of the name for the event that is the biggest spectacle in American sports.

      Lamar Hunt was the kind of innovator and entrepreneur I wish I’d known. 

      The son of oil magnate H.L. Hunt, Lamar, at age 26, was in 1958 a polite, studious-looking yet determined young man who longed to bring the National Football League to his hometown of Dallas.    His initial foray was with the Wolfner family of Chicago –owners of the financially-troubled Chicago Cardinals.  No deal, said the Wolfners to Hunt’s request to purchase the team.  After all, they’d received solicitations from a number of other wealthy sportsmen – Bud Adams in Houston, a group from Minneapolis and another from Denver – and in each case the answer to those who wanted to purchase the Cardinals also was a firm, “no thanks”.

      Dismayed but not deterred after numerous meetings with the Wolfners, Hunt approached then-NFL Commissioner Bert Bell with an idea to acquire an expansion NFL team.  Again, the answer was no.  Hunt made a similar request of powerful George Halas, the owner of the Chicago Bears.  Halas was no more accommodating than Bell toward Hunt’s quest to become a member of the NFL fraternity. 

       In meeting after meeting, the answer was no.  And then, a light went on.  If the NFL wouldn’t allow a new team of his to be part of the professional football “club”, Hunt would simply create “a league of his own”.    Those other NFL suitors in Minneapolis, Denver and Houston were contacted and courted, along with others in New York City, and Los Angeles.   Drawing up league bylaws on American Airlines stationery while on a flight from Miami back to Dallas, Lamar Hunt created The American Football League. 

      And this is the part of the story I really love.  Hunt was such a stickler for detail and such a skilled relationship-builder that even as he completed his organizational plans and had potential owners in other AFL cities locked up, he went back to Bert Bell to ensure the final, definitive answer to his quest for an NFL team.  (Ironically Bell, fearful of being slapped with congressional anti-trust penalties, actually ADVOCATED for the new league in a congressional hearing in the summer of 1959).

     And thus the American Football League was born - a product of Lamar Hunt's determination and creative thinking.

     I loved the old AFL because it was so innovative and it “upset the apple cart” of the old boys league NFL.  It was the AFL that first featured names on the backs of player jerseys.    The AFL pioneered using stadium scoreboard clocks to keep track of time, instead of the archaic practice of having a referee on the field use a stopwatch.  The AFL employed a 14 game schedule, and introduced the two-point conversion, both innovations at the time.   And of course, there was the fan-friendly, wide-open style of the AFL.  Long before Aaron Rodgers was even born, Daryle Lamonica was lighting it up for the Oakland Raiders of the AFL.

     There are many, many reasons behind the popularity of the National Football League, and in particular Super Sunday.  As you are watching Sunday, (and you know you will) please pause – if even for a moment – put down the Buffalo Wings and beer, and remember the innovative Lamar Hunt, who was a big, big reason why the big game is so popular.

     Thanks for reading, as always.

      

     

     

      

Best Way to Honor Stan: Business as Musial

       I don’t know that there is much more to say about Stan Musial for now  – the greatest Cardinal’s funeral was Saturday, and there's little someone like me can add to something like Bob Costas' eloquent and touching tribute to Stan.  So now, at the end of this emotional week, the focus of attention will shift squarely to finding the proper way to honor The Man's legacy.

      By now, if you read this blog, you know that the effort to honor Musial by naming a bridge over the Mississippi River after him is not an idea I favor, and you can read why by scrolling down a few inches.  Adding to what I wrote last week is the fact that there is now a petition drive underway to name the new Mississippi River bridge after a construction worker who died while working on the structure.  It’s hard to take issue with that sentiment– it would certainly mean a lot to his grieving family.

     I guess nothing’s simple.

     So here is how I think we should best honor the memory of Stan Musial:  Let’s simply keep doing what we have been doing for the last century or so, shall we?
     It can start with the Cardinal organization. 

     It always seemed to me the Cardinals have in many ways been a reflection of Stan Musial himself.  Like the player, the organization probably hasn’t gotten the respect it has deserved over the years from national media representatives,or fans outside of St. Louis.  Ask most sports fans who don’t live here which Major League Baseball franchise owns the second most World Series titles behind the Yankees, and my guess is relatively few would answer, “St. Louis.”  That's how it is in flyover country, and so it was for Musial.   No one said life, or sports, was fair.

    But what the Cardinals – and Musial - lacked over the years in publicity, they more than made up for in tradition, loyalty and class. 

    Like Musial, the team has remained true to its roots.  Young prospects in the organization are taught to do it “the Cardinal Way”, placing an emphasis on the fundamentals of the game:  pitching, timely hitting, speed and airtight defense.  On the field, or off, there isn’t much room for the kind of grandstanding and showboating that apparently Musial abhorred.    When organizations like the Pirates, the Astros, Padres and Indians clad their players in garish and often nightmarish uniforms during the disco ‘70s, the Cardinals pretty much kept to tradition:  White home jerseys.  Red caps.  Birds on Bat logo.   Today’s Cardinal jerseys are as Spartan and clean as can be:  aside from the trademark logo, they’re your basic service-industry, no-frills standard issue.   On-field gimmicks at Busch Stadium have been few too:  you won’t find pre-game sausage races or disco demolition nights here. 

     In St. Louis, the game’s the thing.

     The standard of excellence ripples up from the field up into the stands, too.  Like Stan Musial, St. Louis Cardinal fans have always been noted for politeness – sometimes to a fault – in stunning contrast to some of their counterparts in bigger markets such as New York and Boston.   Cardinal fans support the team in good times and bad, and wouldn’t think of trading allegiances.  Just like Stan, who hinted at retirement once when it was rumored he was going to be traded away from St. Louis.

    Off the field, if you follow today’s Redbirds on Twitter, players like David Freese, Jason Motte and Yadier Molina leave you with that same feeling of politeness.   The social media habits of a Nyjer Morgan or Brandon Phillips wouldn’t be tolerated here.  Had social media been around in his day, could you imagine Stan Musial tweeting about how the Cards were going to “punk” their opponents that night?

    My way to honor Stan Musial?   How about this:  let’s keep the statue (or replace it with a better one). It stands in its proper place at the main entrance to Busch Stadium, welcoming millions of fans to the Capitol of Cardinal Nation.  Let’s find an on-field tribute this season.  Let’s put a commemorative patch on our players’ jerseys.

    But above all, let’s just carry ourselves in the way we always have.  In the manner of Stan – the way he did it, and the way he would have wanted it.  Class. Humility. Dignity. Sportsmanship.

   In other words, Business as Musial.

   Thanks for reading.

Go Find Your Marathon

       As a fifty-something year old man, I tend to hang out with and feel most comfortable with folks generally my age or thereabouts – people who remember where they were when JFK was shot, people who saw the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, people who recall growing up without microwaves, cell phones, computers and, for God’s sake even without whole house air conditioning!

      We like each other’s company because we have a lot in common.  But there is one “commonality” I do not share with my contemporaries.   I have noticed over the years that many of my similarly-aged friends – interestingly mostly women – have taken up the sport of running.  Let me rephrase that.  They have become not just runners, but runners of MARATHONS:  they travel all over the country competing in long distance running events.

      I once asked the question of one of these friends: Why do you do it? 

      She had quite a bit of difficulty putting it into words, mentioning highly idealistic concepts like freedom, accomplishment, sense of self worth etc.  To be frank, she didn’t do a very good job of convincing me.

      But I think I saw what she was trying to say to me a few months later.  Two years ago, our company agreed to sponsor a local marathon and, as the man in charge of that sponsorship,  I took an early morning trip downtown on race day just to see what we were getting ourselves in to.

      I decided to camp out at the finish line.  And that was the moment it became clear to me just why my friends and thousands of others were pushing themselves to the brink.

      One by one, minute by minute and then, half-hour after half-hour, the race participants crossed the finish line.  These were not chiseled and buffed million dollar professional athletes, their skills honed by a team of trainers and managers.  They were our moms and dads, our next door neighbors, the guy down the street.  They prepared for the big day in sweaty gymnasiums, city streets and suburban subdivisions. Many bore the scars of surgeries.  Several proudly displayed the wrinkles they’d earned by, well, by just plain living.

      Some raised their arms.  Some pumped fists.  Many cried, as did their children, their spouses, their friends who greeted them at the end of the journey.

      Those images provided the answer my friend couldn’t put into words.  You just knew that these were people who wanted to “make their mark”.  To do something that others couldn’t.  To do something hard.

      You just knew they’d been told they were crazy, that they’d get hurt, that they were wasting their time.  But as you looked into their faces, you could see through the tears, the raised arms, and the pumped fists, the words, “I DID THIS!!”   They were saying, “I was right.  I believed in myself when others didn’t”, and they didn’t have to say a word.

      Moral to the story:  We may not all be built to run a marathon, but all of us have our great goals and great passions.  Don’t let the naysayers kill your dreams.

      Just do it.

      Yeah, I am old enough to remember when JFK was assassinated.  I also remember when he outlined America’s goal to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960’s, saying, “We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”  

      Now, go out and find Your Marathon.    As always, thanks for reading. 

Not Quite a Fan of the Stan the Man Span

     If you live in or around my hometown of St. Louis, you surely know by now of the latest effort to honor the memory and legacy of the great St. Louis Cardinal Stan Musial, who died this past weekend at age 92.  A local radio station, via a petition drive, and a Missouri lawmaker, via proposed legislation, are calling for the new bridge over the Mississippi River linking Missouri and Illinois at downtown St. Louis - a bridge currently under construction - to be named The Stan Musial Bridge (or a flavor thereof).
       Some are calling it, "The Stan the Man Span"

       At the risk of being the contrarian, fly-in-the-punch bowl, "no fun" guy, and being labeled a traitor to Cardinal Nation, it seems to me there's a lot of rhyme, but not as much reason behind the whole idea.  

      If naming a bridge for the greatest Cardinal ever and one of the best performers at his craft is the way St. Louisans want to remember Stan the Man, I certainly won't lose any sleep over it.  But here are some things to think about before we dive headfirst toward home plate on this idea.

      First, "naming" roadways just doesn't appear to be our thing in St. Louis.  Drive around Chicago enough and you will soon learn the intricacies of the Dan Ryan, the outbound Ike and the southbound Stevenson  interstates. And -- if you are strong willed enough to handle it - take a drive through New York City sometime to experience the thrill and excitement of navigating the Van Wyck on an empty stomach.   True, two of our bridges over the Mississippi are named MacArthur and MLK - for the U.S. general and the civil rights leader, but then again, our most heavily used bridge, the Poplar Street Bridge, is actually named for a former mayor.  And really, who ever calls it the Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann bridge?  

       Naming roadways for sports icons hasn't exactly been our strongest suit either.  Who will recall that, for a time, a section of Interstate 70 was named the "Mark McGwire Highway"?  And how many know today that a portion of Interstate 64 is known as the "Jack Buck Highway"?  Jack Buck was a tremendous broadcaster and wonderful man, but naming a stretch of highway after him?  Pardon me while I stand, and look for the connection. 

      It seems to me that naming the Span for Stan is a nice feel-good thing to do, and certainly it will provide for a sweet and sentimental dedication ceremony if and when it happens.  But then what?  Years from now, when the events of this week have faded, will it be, "Hey honey, don't wait up for me, traffic on the Musial is all backed up again!?"   Do we really want our city's greatest sports hero's name uttered in derision by out-of-town drivers and younger local motorists who don't know what The Man meant to St. Louis?   Do we really want to hear local traffic reporters warn us that, "the Musial is a mess this morning, traffic is backed up on the Musial, best to stay away from the Musial"?  

      As I say, I won't lose any sleep over the idea of naming the new bridge for Stan.  But my own suggestion is this:  let's keep the honors closer to where Stan Musial excelled, honed his craft and thrilled generations of fans -- on the playing field.   Some have suggested the wonderfully appropriate and elegant gesture of having all Cardinals players wear Stan's Number 6 on vintage 1940's era jerseys for this year's home opener, and subsequent home openers in years to come.  Others have offered up the intriguing idea of naming the actual "grounds" at the Cardinals' ballpark, "Musial Field at Busch Stadium."
       Let's think this one over.  The best place to honor Stan Musial is not on a concrete slab, where harried pedal-to-the-metal drivers fail to absorb the significance of the name "Musial" as they fiddle with their smart phones, dial-punch their radios and curse at the guy  who just cut them off in the center lane.
        Clearly the best place to honor Stan is within the pastoral confines of the ballpark, the place where he excelled.  A place where mom and dad and grandma and grandpa can share their stories of The Man with those of the next generation, preferably on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.

         Thanks for reading.  As always, your constructive feedback is welcomed. 

Multi-tasking is Evil! Or is it?

     At  a large corporation at which I once worked, there existed an exercise which is designed to point out the perils of multi-tasking.  This exercise was championed by some executives within the company, and often was trotted out to break up the monotony of the infamous “all-day offsite meeting.”

     Here’s how the test worked:  Participants were asked to set up a ten-line by ten-column grid.  In column one, the subjects were asked to list the first ten letters of the alphabet, in upper case.  In column two, participants were told to list the first ten numerals.  In column three, a list of the first ten Roman numerals was required.  In column four, a list of the first ten lower case letters was asked.  And so on.  The length of time it took to complete the exercise was recorded.

     Then, the subjects were asked to provide the same data – only this time, they were told to enter it column by column.  In other words, list the first upper case letter, then the first numeral, then the first Roman numeral, etc.  The length of time it took to complete this second phase of the drill also was recorded.

     Invariably, Part A of the exercise took less time than Part B, meaning multi-tasking is bad, right?  Multi-tasking means your train of thought is interrupted too often to produce good results, right?

     Not necessarily. 

     A 2012 study by researchers at The Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that those who frequently use different type of media at the same time appear to be better at integrating information from multiple senses, in the case of their study, vision and hearing.  The finding may be linked to the experience the subjects had in spreading their attention to different sources of information while multi-tasking.  Sixty-three people, and this is significant, aged 19-28, took part in the study. 

     Is there a bottom line here?   I believe so.  If you are a manager of people, particularly one who likes his employees to be planted at their desks for eight hours each day, hunkering over their computers seemingly in a trance, you might want to re-think that traditional view – particularly if your workers are under age 30.  It could just be that “Generation Y” – young people who grew up multi-tasking, are wired differently from those of us who grew up in the technological dark ages of the 1960’s and ‘70’s.

     It could just be that the next award winning idea that saves your company money or creates new revenue will come from a 23-year old staffer who is accomplishing great things for you – even while dialed into instant messaging, music, the web, e-mail, online videos or social networking.

     Thanks for taking Just a Minute, or so…..

Yes, Thank You Still Counts!

     Ours is an era of mass e-mails and bulk correspondence.  Of junk mail delivered directly to our doorsteps.  Of millions of websites featuring billions of opinions from anonymous sources, ranging from the thoughtful to the absurd.  Of phone calls to banks, doctors offices and businesses that are answered by dehumanized automated answering robots.
      Yes, there's no doubt this is the age of de-personalization, and it has been for years.
      Which is what made a tiny occurrence in my little world this week seem all the more special.
      My friend and business associate Susie Mathieu celebrated a birthday this week.  As it is the law in most jurisdictions (kidding), I wished her a happy day via Facebook.  And lo and behold, she replied to me with a personalized, individual response.  In fact, it appeared Susie replied personally to EVERY one of her Facebook friends who had wished her a happy birthday.  In some cases her response included a joke or very specific response.  In other cases, the replies were more generic.  But everyone who took the time to congratulate her received a personal reply.
        It's not surprising.  Susie, the longtime public relations director of the St. Louis Blues hockey team, is a savvy PR pro who made a successful career out of treating her clients in the media well.  In addition, she's just good people.
        It IS refreshing -- refreshing to see someone take the time to issue personalized and individual thank you's to her more than 250 Facebook friends.
        Personally, (get it?) I view it as one of those "little things that say a lot".  Cumbersome?  You bet.  It would sure be a lot easier to post a "blanket thanks" on your Facebook wall.  But small things like personal thank you's should placed in the category referred to in the customer service business as "going the extra mile."   I'm fond of a saying: "It's hard to go wrong when you do the right thing."  I think that's the case here.
        Thanks for giving me Just a Minute, or so.....As always, your comments welcome!
     

When in doubt, leave it out....

     One of the benefits of attending a journalism school with a great reputation was that it attracted a wide array of guest speakers - many of whom were pretty heavy hitters in the media world -- all of them very willing to impart their wisdom upon us bright-eyed and eager reporters-to-be.

     So it was pretty darned cool that afternoon when ABC anchor and reporter Sam Donaldson came to speak to our class at Gannett Hall at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. I don't recall much of what he had to say - I'm sure the hour or so he spent with us included his telling tales of how he "made it" in the business, and numerous anecdotes about his encounters with presidents and heads of state.

    I'm quite sure there were heavy doses of "sage advice" from the ABC correspondent too.  I know this because one bit of his advice stuck with me over the years:  "when in doubt, leave it out."

    What Donaldson was talking about that day basically was this: if you aren't sure about a fact within a story - and it's not vital to your report - leave it out.

     I wish more of us would invoke, "when in doubt, leave it out" when it comes to posting items on social media tools such as Facebook - particularly in the area of politics.

     I have a very strong political point of view.  I have friends who have a point of view similar to mine.  When we meet, we often discuss the world through our shared prism.  I also have friends with a point of view that is totally dissimilar to mine.  For us, polite conversation turns to almost anything except politics.

     For some reason, the old bromide about never discussing religion and politics seems to go by the wayside when it comes to political opinions expressed on social media.  Some friends seem to think it's a good idea to post controversial political links and comments on their Facebook pages. 

     Note to them:  it's not.

     What you want to post is, of course, your business, but you certainly must realize that in today's polarized, red-state-versus-blue-state, liberal-versus-conservative, Democrat-versus-Republican, 50-50 country, you are probably ticking off about half of your friends with your highly charged political commentary.

     Sometimes that leads to only a good-natured back-and-forth online discourse.  Other times, it might lead to casual friends blocking you from their social media awareness, or ultimately, their lives.

     Do you really want to risk alienating or losing friends over something you post on a social media tool?

     And its not just friendships that are put in jeopardy.  We've all heard the horror stories about people who post incriminating pictures and stories on social media.  But what about the posting of contoversial political comments?  I am familiar with a person who runs a local business and posts vitriolic commentary about those with opposing views.  He runs a small, startup business.  One would hope those who would direct business his way wouldn't be affected by the stream of hate that comes from his keyboard.  But why would he take that chance?

     I feel fortunate to be able to take advantage of the social media tools that have been advanced in this, the back half of my life.  They allow me to reconnect with long lost friends, co-workers and relatives.  I'd rather not lose any of these hard-earned friendships over something I post on a social media tool. 

    If you feel the same way, then c'mon and join the cause and, "when in doubt, leave it out...."

    Just the ramblings of an ordinary average guy.