Cooler Still

The New Yorker has a Talk of the Town piece about Walt "Clyde" Frazier, the former New York Knicks star, and his new restaurant "Clyde Frazier's Wine and Dine," at which he arrived for a menu tasting "wearing shoes of lizard skin and lapels a shade brighter than a legal pad."

Some things never change.  Here's the piece I wrote about Frazier last year:

Still Cool

"Everyone has a certain rhythm that he dribbles to."  -- Walt Frazier

One of the great things about growing up on Long Island was the ability to ride the LIRR with friends to Penn Station at a relatively young age, go upstairs to Madison Square Garden, and watch a Knick game.  When I was a kid, in the late 60s-early 70s, the Knicks were an amazing team, and going to the Garden was truly magical.  The Knicks won two World Championships (1970 and 1973), and revolutionized the game by emphasizing the importance of team play and defense ("Dee-Fence").  The team included some remarkable personalities -- Dollar (later Senator) Bill Bradley, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Willis (The Captain) Reed, Dave DeBusschere, and my all-time favorite player, Walt "Clyde' Frazier.

Clyde was one of the greatest defensive players in basketball history, often dramatically stealing the ball while the opposing player appeared to be dribbling past him.  But he was an offensive force as well, a great passer and a clutch scorer.  His greatest performance was probably Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals.  While an injured Willis Reed made his iconic, inspirational appearance, it was Frazier who took control of the game, scoring 36 points with 19 assists, to lead the Knicks to their first World Championship.

Clyde defined what it meant to be cool.  On the court he couldn't be ruffled, he never showed emotion, he was cool.  Off the court, he was completely different -- outrageous and flamboyant -- but that was also cool because of his complete confidence in expressing who he was.  He was nicknamed "Clyde" because of his wide-brimmed hat which looked like one Warren Beatty wore in Bonnie and Clyde.  He drove a Rolls Royce, wore full length mink coats and flashy suits.  

In 1974, he published a book which I still cherish:  "Rockin' Steady:  A guide to basketball and cool."

It was mostly about basketball, but also included his wardrobe inventory (with such categories as knots, kicks and lids) and had "a general guide to looking good, and other matters," in which he revealed grooming secrets, demonstrated how to catch a fly (with techniques for when the fly "is in a sitting position" and in midair), and stressed the importance of "being your own man." All things a 14 year old needed to know.

And, of course, there were the sneakers:  "Puma Clydes"










The New York Times' just published a profile on Frazier, who is currently an announcer for the Knicks.  (Walt Frazier -- Always in Style.)  It is wonderfully reassuring that after all these years, Walt Frazier has a "menagerie of 100 or so suits that hang on five racks and with patterns of tiger stripes and leopard spots; designs of bold plaids and checks; and colors of yellow, red, salmon and orange," including the one pictured above, a polyester cow-print suit with brown-and-black splotches.

Jeremy Lin And The Failure Of Sports' Racial Stereotypes

By Travis Waldron, cross-posted from ThinkProgress

Sports fans, the national media, and even National Basketball Association insiders are wondering how everyone missed out on Jeremy Lin, the where-did-he-come-from point guard for the New York Knicks who has set the sports world on fire over the last two weeks. Lin, after all, was barely recruited out of high school, undrafted out of Harvard, cut twice by NBA teams, sent to the NBA Development League, and nearly cut again, all before emerging to score more points in his first five starts than any player in NBA history.

The New York Times found what seems like at least part of the answer this week: Lin is of Taiwanese descent, and according to some coaches the Times talked to, “recruiters, in the age of who-does-he-remind-you-of evaluations, simply lacked a frame of reference for such an Asian-American talent.”

Racial stereotypes, taboo in virtually every other aspect of American society, still play a huge role in sports, particularly in how the media, analysts, and scouts evaluate talent and make comparisons. Analysts use adjectives like “crafty” and “intelligent” to describe how white athletes overcome their general lack of athleticism, while marveling at the sheer athletic ability of black players who supposedly lack the intangibles of their white peers. Whites are often touted as the tough-nosed, blue collar players; blacks, the ones who make it look easy.

The stereotypes then carry over to the comparisons we make between athletes. Analysts spent years looking for the “next Larry Bird,” putting the label on virtually every talented white player to reach the NBA. On a statistical level, though, the “next Larry Bird” was actually Kevin Garnett, a 6-foot-11 black forward who has been in the NBA since 1995, just three years after Bird retired. We ignore that black quarterback Donovan McNabb had a lot in common with white quarterback Mark Brunell, and that neither played much like white quarterback Dan Marino or black quarterback Warren Moon.

The same stereotypes are in play with Lin. Few other Asians have ever played in the NBA, and the majority have been tall centers like Yao Ming and Wang Zhizhi (Lin is 6-foot-3). The stereotype for Asian NBA players was easy, then: they’re tall, or they don’t exist. Now that Lin has proven that wrong, others persist. With no Asian to compare him to, analysts are matching Lin to the next closest thing — white point guards like Steve Nash who came out of nowhere to star in the NBA. That may be a compliment to Lin — Nash is a two-time MVP — but other than blossoming in similar systems and having lighter skin than most of the other players, Lin and Nash’s games bear little resemblance.

The stereotypes, many of which exist subconsciously, likely aren’t going anywhere. Which means whenever the next Jeremy Lin comes along, fans, the media, and even the biggest experts won’t see him coming.

Still Cool

Clyde in his a polyester cow-print suit

"Everyone has a certain rhythm that he dribbles to."  -- Walt Frazier

One of the great things about growing up on Long Island was the ability to ride the LIRR with friends to Penn Station at a relatively young age, go upstairs to Madison Square Garden, and watch a Knick game.  When I was a kid, in the late 60s-early 70s, the Knicks were an amazing team, and going to the Garden was truly magical.  The Knicks won two World Championships (1970 and 1973), and revolutionized the game by emphasizing the importance of team play and defense ("Dee-Fence").  The team included some remarkable personalities -- Dollar (later Senator) Bill Bradley, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Willis (The Captain) Reed, Dave DeBusschere, and my all-time favorite player, Walt "Clyde' Frazier.

Clyde was one of the greatest defensive players in basketball history, often dramatically stealing the ball while the opposing player appeared to be dribbling past him.  But he was an offensive force as well, a great passer and a clutch scorer.  His greatest performance was probably Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals.  While an injured Willis Reed made his iconic, inspirational appearance, it was Frazier who took control of the game, scoring 36 points with 19 assists, to lead the Knicks to their first World Championship.

Clyde defined what it meant to be cool.  On the court he couldn't be ruffled, he never showed emotion, he was cool.  Off the court, he was completely different -- outrageous and flamboyant -- but that was also cool because of his complete confidence in expressing who he was.  He was nicknamed "Clyde" because of his wide-brimmed hat which looked like one Warren Beatty wore in Bonnie and Clyde.  He drove a Rolls Royce, wore full length mink coats and flashy suits.  

In 1974, he published a book which I still cherish:  "Rockin' Steady:  A guide to basketball and cool."

It was mostly about basketball, but also included his wardrobe inventory (with such categories as knots, kicks and lids) and had "a general guide to looking good, and other matters," in which he revealed grooming secrets, demonstrated how to catch a fly (with techniques for when the fly "is in a sitting position" and in midair), and stressed the importance of "being your own man." All things a 14 year old needed to know.

And, of course, there were the sneakers:  "Puma Clydes"










The New York Times' just published a profile on Frazier, who is currently an announcer for the Knicks.  (Walt Frazier -- Always in Style.)  It is wonderfully reassuring that after all these years, Walt Frazier has a "menagerie of 100 or so suits that hang on five racks and with patterns of tiger stripes and leopard spots; designs of bold plaids and checks; and colors of yellow, red, salmon and orange," including the one pictured above, a polyester cow-print suit with brown-and-black splotches.