Tuesday, March 23, 2010

A Thought for the Day

March 23, 2010 at Noon, at the Union League Club, Chicago.


As a member of the Rotary Club of Chicago, I was asked to present the “Thought of the Day” for Tuesday’s luncheon. Some, when asked to do their turn choose to say grace. Others share a famous quote, and some go the more spiritual route by reading some sort of interfaith prayer.

But of course, I had to bring sports into it. Go figure…



About 35 years ago, a man named Bill Shankly uttered these important words:

“Some people think that football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious that that.”

After all, Shankly was in many ways, a combination of both the Vince Lombardi and Phil Jackson of English Football. He won three league championships and a couple of FA Cup titles in his time coaching the team known as the Liverpool Football Club.

But I don’t think Shankly’s point was that football (or any sport) is the most important thing in life. Or that the games we play are more important than our work, faith or family.

He was getting at something entirely different. He was talking about means by which we entertain, inspire and excite ourselves through every minute of every day of this thing we call "Life".

When not on the sidelines, Shankly spent many of his evenings during England’s recession-plagued 1970s in front of a type writer. A couple times a week, he personally responded to fans who had written in; many of whom were just been looking for some inspiration from their Saturday football team. Others knew him as the man who would buy tickets for some fans who loved the sport but who truly could not afford them.

A good win for Liverpool was glorious. A loss made him feel like he had let the fans down, whether of not this was actually the case. Years later, he remarked that the idea of retiring was like facing the electric chair.

All in all, Shankly’s success in sport and --more importantly—in connecting with people made for a rollercoaster at times, but would underscore something very important.

That is, whatever you do, or what ever your favorite past time is…
Love people, love life, and have a passion for it all.

So, as Spring arrives to Chicago, the sun breaks and baseball season looms, let’s agree to let these beautiful things that entertain, inspire and excite us NOT be seen as mere distraction from time at an office.

Rather, take them as the necessary elements in what helps us enjoy and continually build our passion for life.

And, Go Cubs.


Frye writes at least weekly about sports and life. Updates can be found here at MySports/Complex and on his Facebook page of the same name.

Sometimes, rarely, when speaking, sports isn't even mentioned.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Henry the 8th Returns to London


So now Carlo Ancelloti’s head is on the chopping block. And Chelsea’s Russian owner, Roman Abramovich has notified his underlings to sharpen the guillotine, in case it need be used against the Chelsea coach.

Beheadings already? Yes, but we shouldn’t be surprised.

Well, we’ve seen this all too recently before. Two years ago, then-coach Avram Grant’s head came off after Chelsea failed to win the European Cup. It was a hard fought 1-1 score line against –no slouch—a tough Manchester United team, in which Chelsea lost on penalty kicks.

That’s what you get for running the second best club in Europe and the world. But some argued Grant took what wasn’t his. The squad was hand-picked and crafted by Grant's predecessor. And with the stain of defeat and dourness of Chelsea fans, only Anne Boleyn’s beheading might have been more anticipated.

Following that, in the fall of 2008, Jose Filipe Scolari, the Portugeezer who coached Brazil to a World Cup title, took on the Chelsea opportunity as the new manager. Scolari was axed mid-season because Chelsea was only among the top four. Sure, the team was not playing their best at the time. Yet, a top squad and a revered coach didn’t equal instant dominance, and the former oil-oligarch monarch, Abramovich, got mad and Scolari’s high-priced head, like Catherine Howard's, rolled as well.

Following Scolari, Dutchman Guus Hiddink took the reigns with reasonable success, half way through. Hiddink turned the team around to finish a strong second place, booking another season in Europe’s Champions League.

Yet on the front end, Hiddink said that he would only finish out the’08-09 season, and then quit. Why? Because instead of coaching world class players like Lampard, Drogba, Terry, Anelka and Ballack, he had other plans. Rather, he would return toward the Urals to coach the national team of Russia.

Hiddink’s last game at Chelsea saw the club win the FA Cup at Wembley Stadium. Not bad, for a thrilling short term fling.

Before all of these dismembered heads and annulments from Chelsea’s own Henry VIII, however, there was “The Special One”.

Like Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, Jose Mourinho was greeted with huge crowds and great enthusiasm at his coronation at Chelsea in ’04. Yet, Mourinho was given an honorable discharge after the unsatisfactory feat of going undefeated for a full year, and then some. Under Mourinho, Chelsea won the league twice and built a track record of dominance, leaving rivals like Man United, helpless, embarrassed and naked in the wind.

The club played their best football in decades, maybe ever, while Jose played mind games with the press and other coaches. For all of these feats, Chelsea fans loved him, and Mourinho got away with anything he wanted.

Yet the manager’s flamboyance and side gags eventually began angering the owner, so much so that a second place his third year, got Mourinho an arranged divorce a few weeks into the 2006 season. In splitting with Mourinho, Chelsea had to reach deep into its pockets to provide a suitable, albeit painful settlement, leaving fans shocked and dismayed.

While Abramovich and his big money may have started a new religion in the UK for Chelsea with top players and management, like Henry VIII, Chelsea’s owner has failed to make strides of dominance in Europe by way of such fickle political maneuverings.

Nowadays, the executioner wears no black hood


Other big clubs have tried the same coach-of–the-month sampler, savoring only bad tastes at the end. Newcastle United, who was once the world’s 15th richest club in 2003, according to Deloitte & Touche, has been left in shambles.

The grave Newcastle dug itself began with the indecision and instability of running a club with two different owners and eight different managers in seven seasons starting in 2003 back when they were a respectable team. In 2009, Newcastle played their worst football ever, lost tens of millions in income, and are now scrimmaging scarcely televised games against Barnsley and Blackpool.

Leeds United did a similar bang up job, by selling their best players to pay mounting debts used to acquire them in the first place. Accordingly, Leeds fans point to Chairman Peter Risdale’s incompetence and haphazard dismantling of one of England’s most storied clubs. Once a mighty force in Europe, Leeds are now situated two divisions down, aside other weakened and financially crippled castaways.

One difference compared to Medieval Times is that, nowadays, the executioner wears no black hood. Instead of bells tolling or horns a blast, the death knell for a football manager comes out publicly, via the modern channels of the press release and sports wire. Hopefully the damned are notified of their pending execution at least before the papers.

Some might say, maybe Machiavelli or others, that the end (owning a mega rich, top flight English Football club) justifies the means (firing, firing, angering fans, and more firing).

I’m not a historian or social scientist, but my hunch is that, for both English football’s elite and Machiavelli, stability was a value far underrated.

No matter what the near future may hold, let’s hope that, like Katherine Parr, the last wife of Henry VIII, the club will always go on to outlive and outlast the club monarch.


Frye writes weekly about sports and life. Updates can be found here at MySports/Complex and on his Facebook page of the same name.