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Aileen Voisin: Hormone Therapy For Talks
[THE SACRAMENTO BEE: AILENE VOISIN]
Hormone therapy for talks -- less
testosterone
By Ailene Voisin
Bee Sports Columnist
(Published Oct. 29, 1998)
David Stern. Patrick Ewing. Billy
Hunter. Russ Granik. Jeffrey Kessler.
Dave Checketts.
What's wrong with this picture?
Ignoring the absence of women -- still
the norm in collective bargaining
negotiations and pro sports in general
-- none of these combatants is a
conciliator, someone with the
temperament to cajole, scold,
encourage, and motivated solely by a
desire to end the NBA's protracted
labor pains before they produce an
unprecedented Lost Season.
Timing, at the moment, is critical.
Two more weeks were trimmed from the
schedule Wednesday.
One more nasty flareup and NBA
commissioner Stern is threatening to
stop playing games period.
Though some progress is being
reported, this epic battle of massive
egos and clashing agendas already is
spilling into the streets. Vendors,
restaurant workers and ushers employed
at arenas are being cheated of
earnings that pay for food and rent.
Team sales and marketing employees are
facing layoffs. Staff hirings have
been delayed.
It should be obvious by now that there
is just too much darn testosterone for
one Manhattan hotel room to
accommodate.
Thus, in the pursuit of peace, I
propose the following: the
intervention of a three-member
mediation panel charged with getting
the parties back onto the same balance
sheet in the immediate future.
Mediators willing to look back and
possessed with the vision to forge
ahead. Remember the 1980s era of the
joint venture? That early '90s
rhetoric of "NBA-As-Family?"
At this point we'll even settle for
NBA-As-Scheduled.
Three potential mediators come to
mind: Billie Jean King. Bill Clinton.
Rosa Parks.
As the first professional female
athlete to make $100,000 in a year,
King spent a career battling the
tennis establishment, and at times,
her own peers. She is the epitome of
an impassioned advocate, at her most
forceful when fighting for equal
rights and fair pay. Yet her approach
is tempered by reasonableness and
reality.
When Michael Jordan says, "I have an
obligation as a veteran player (to
ensure) that the players of tomorrow
have the same benefits that I have,"
as he did Wednesday, King
wholeheartedly agrees. But then she
asks: "What of the players'
responsibility to enhance their
sport's image and further its fiscal
stability? What of those missed
autograph and team video sessions? The
indifference today's players display
toward the very people who pay their
salaries by buying tickets and
merchandise?"
Similarly, when New York Knicks
president Dave Checketts portrays
players as mercenaries, King inquires
about big-market bonanzas and the
outrageous price of admission at
Madison Square Garden. She can afford
those Knicks tickets; few others can.
Common NBA fans are being discarded
like so many worn-out sneakers. Greed,
she notes, is clothed both in uniforms
and suits.
Clinton delivers his scouting report
next. His grasp of the salary cap, the
Larry Bird exception, the rookie
contracts, dazzles even the few
Republicans in attendance. Stern is
awed. National Basketball Players
Association executive director Billy
Hunter is speechless. Jordan is
upstaged by a more charismatic
Southerner. Besides, anyone who can
keep an Israeli and a Palestinian
locked in the same house for nine
days, with neither taking a shot at
the other, has earned the right to
puff on the peace pipe.
So what would Bill do? Inhale?
First, he would do exactly what he did
last week with Yassir Arafat and
Benjamin Netanyahu. Appease. Chide.
Prod. Encourage. His infamous temper
would flare only once: when the owners
and players refuse to budge on the
percentage of basketball-related
revenue. The players want 57 percent,
the owners counter at 48. Clinton
suggests the parties split the
difference and settle on 52.5. Then he
demands that the parties keep talking
and orders the doors locked until an
accord is reached.
Finally, Rosa Parks steps slowly to
the podium with Hunter clasping one
hand, Stern clutching the other.
Clinton sheds a tear. Ewing bows. This
is American history, baby, Ms. Parks'
refusal to relinquish her seat on the
bus three decades ago a slam-dunk of
sheer courage. And though well into
her 80s, she still takes a back seat
to no one.
As chairwoman of the panel, she scoffs
when owners and players earning
millions speak of a struggle.
She reminds all of the social issues,
the drug use, the illiteracy, the
racism, and pointedly addresses the
perception that high-profiled agents
exert undue influence over an African
American union leader (Hunter) who has
spent a career protecting civil rights
and individual liberties for members
of all races.
Ultimately, she begs the participants
to open their hearts, close their
wallets, and envision the long-term
picture. Who will you become? What
message will you convey? What legacy
will you leave?
Struggle?
This is no struggle, she will say.
This is the NBA, games played and
governed by the rich and famous.
Surely there is a more important
fight.
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