Back on the Record with Bob Costas (2021) s01e03 Episode Script

BACK ON THE RECORD
WITH BOB COSTAS
And we welcome you to the September
edition of "Back on the Record."
Later, new Laker and
new author, Carmelo Anthony,
a panel that includes two of the most
significant figures in sports,
NBA Players Association executive
director Michele Roberts
and DeMaurice Smith, who holds
the same position in the NFL.
And we start with one
of the most significant figures
in the entire history of sports
back in the spotlight now,
as he's the worthy subject of Ken Burns'
latest documentary,
which premiered this week on PBS.
Here's a glimpse of Ken Burns'
"Muhammad Ali."
Can I have
some of your cornflakes?
I don't want none.
I won't take none.
I won't eat none
if you don't want me to.
Look at that pretty horsey!
- Where?
- Is that a white horse?
See? No, no.
Stand up, look over there.
Stand up, you got to stand up,
over them hills.
See the people There he is.
What?
And we welcome
the documentarian Ken Burns
who's credits we will not list since the
program runs for only an hour,
and one of the people featured
in the documentary,
Muhammad Ali's daughter
Rasheda Ali.
Welcome to you both.
Rasheda, let's start with you.
We just saw one of the many
glimpses
of your dad's humanity in the film.
What moved you most
when you saw it?
A lot of things moved me,
specifically, the family videos,
the private family videos
of my dad.
In the opening scene, you saw,
you know, stealing cornflakes
from my older sister, Maryum.
There was footage of Daddy
holding me in his arms,
saying, "Don't you know your father's
the greatest boxer of all time?"
I've never seen that.
So watching my mom and my dad,
they were young parents.
And us growing up
in Cherry Hill, New Jersey,
it was just really beautiful
to watch my dad
as a father unfold on film.
It was just really
a beautiful moment for me.
Much of what you remember of your dad,
he's in the throes of Parkinson's.
It's a different version
of Muhammad Ali.
What did it mean to you
to see so much of him,
not just in the ring,
but outside the ring
as the true Muhammad Ali,
if that's a fair way to put it?
You know, I look at my dad,
and, as you watch the film,
you see obviously his
uncanny ability
to just really shock people in the ring.
So you see his abilities
in the ring is legendary,
but I think his stances
outside of the ring,
the stances he took
against the Vietnam War,
against the government,
his fight for racial equality
for his people,
and, finally,
his struggle with Parkinson's.
Those are the parts that I feel
made my dad an icon.
There's so much to get to.
The documentary runs nearly
eight hours, and it's four parts.
We can't even scratch
the surface,
but I've heard you say
that Muhammad Ali
is as relevant today
as he was then.
Absolutely, Bob.
And this is a film co-directed
by my daughter Sarah Burns
and her husband, David McMahon.
This is a guy who intersects
with all the major themes
of the last half of the 20th century.
The role of sports in society,
the role of the Black athlete,
the nature of Black manhood
and masculinity, race,
civil rights, war, politics,
faith, religion, sex,
all of these things, we're grappling
with them still today,
and he's there as a kind
of beacon and a guide.
And he's also incredibly
contradictory at times.
So he's an irresistible subject.
And the reason you put cornflakes,
stealing cornflakes at
the beginning of the film
is because when you have an icon,
you tend to grow an opacity,
you can't see them anymore.
You just know
the bold-faceness of them.
And that tells you there's
not a parent on Earth
that hasn't stolen French fries or
cornflakes or whatever from their kids.
This tells you that this is
a human being as well.
And it's important to first enter
into his story as a human being.
The documentary pulls no punches,
no bad pun intended here.
Was it difficult, or in some
sense did it provide
some sort of closure for you
to see your father's flaws and
imperfections depicted on the screen?
You know, I was uncomfortable.
Daddy was not perfect.
He said he wasn't perfect.
He told people
what his weaknesses were.
I did see him at times,
especially with his treatment,
with Joe Frazier.
Those weren't his best moments.
He was an unflawed hero.
But it really was
refreshing to see.
And I told Ken after I saw it
that you're constantly seeing this man
who's constantly evolving
into a better man.
And I will say that, you know,
Ken, Sarah, and David McMahon
did an outstanding job of telling
this very complicated story,
because some things are
black and white,
but this kind of goes
in the complicated section,
without losing who my father's
real essence was,
his heart, his compassion,
his love for people.
So I was really grateful
that they shared his flaws,
which there were,
but they didn't lose who he was.
He was sincere,
he was compassionate,
he was loving,
and they kept that in there.
And you saw him
as you watch him
constantly evolving
into a better person.
And by the end,
you almost forgive him
for the infidelities
and the treatment
of Joe Frazier
and with Malcolm X and all that
because you feel
that none of us are perfect,
and neither was my dad.
We'll get to some of that in a moment.
But to the particular point that
Rasheda raises about Joe Frazier,
here's one of the glaring
contradictions.
Here's a man of obvious
kindness, generosity, compassion,
and yet, let's take a look at this clip
regarding Joe Frazier and the build-up
to one of the three fights.
I'm gonna stop all these people
talking about Joe Frazier.
The still think Joe Frazier
can whup me.
I'm gonna show them. You see how
he's bouncing? See his head?
Ali insulted Frazier's intelligence,
claimed he smelled bad,
and snuck into one
of Frazier's training sessions
to harass him from
the catwalk above the ring.
By my measure,
the two worst episodes
of Ali's life were his casting
aside of Malcolm X,
and his treatment of Frazier
going into the third fight,
the Thrilla in Manila.
Got to hold the gorilla.
Got to capture the gorilla.
He called him the gorilla,
which rhymed
with the Thrilla in Manila
And he often used what were clearly
racist tropes against his opponents.
And yet he was one of the
giants of Black Consciousness
and of the Civil Rights Movement.
That's exactly right. And this is where
it's so stunning and necessary.
He is a great architect
of the drama of his fights,
not just within them,
but before them.
He's a great promoter,
he's a great hyper.
And it gets away
from him at times,
and it gets away from him
in an inexcusable way,
particularly
but not limited to Joe Frazier.
And in the case
of Joe Frazier, Todd Boyd,
the scholar who appears in the film,
says, you know,
"He's using the language
a white racist would use"
"to describe another Black man."
You know, to describe a Black man,
and here's, as he says,
the ultimate conscious Black guy
doing this, this is impossible.
And then Todd pauses, and he said,
"I just think, in this instance,"
"he used his powers
for evil and not for good."
All of sudden, you begin to realize we
are dealing with a kind of superhero,
a larger-than-life Greek hero
who has flaws and weaknesses,
along with the great strengths.
Achilles had his heel
and his hubris to go along.
And so this is one of the most
unfortunate of circumstances
in his professional life.
In the '60s and '70s,
there were others
within sports who made
significant contributions
to raising consciousness
about a variety of issues.
Billie Jean King, Curt Flood,
Arthur Ashe, Kareem, Jim Brown.
And others. Bill Russell.
But for a combination of reasons,
Muhammad Ali stands apart
and alone.
It has to do with sacrifice and risk.
He risked everything.
You have to understand,
this is a young, 20-something kid
who says, "I am not going
to be inducted into an army,"
where we know he'd just have
a cushy kind of show-job.
He's not gonna do it.
It's against his faith.
But because he's a Black man
in America in the '60s,
it can't be treated
as a faith decision.
It has to be seen
as a political decision,
giving a middle finger
to the United States.
And just from a sports standpoint,
he loses three prime years
at his absolute peak.
The fights just before the draft
takes him out of circulation.
Three and a half years Are among
the masterpieces of boxing.
What comes later are
dramatic fights,
but they're not the kind
of mastery that he had.
So we're talking about a hero
evolving on his journey,
but he carried
a burden no one else had,
and he looks at the camera, he said,
"I'm willing to face
machine-gun fire today"
"rather than go against my faith."
Among the many things
that makes him singular.
Others may have been as committed.
He is so beautiful in his youth.
He is so charismatic,
he is so funny and entertaining,
even those who reviled him laughed
when they saw him on Dick Cavett
or they saw him
with Howard Cosell.
He has this combination
of personal qualities.
Plus, boxing was central
to American sports fans now.
Most American sports fans
could not name
the present heavyweight
champion of the world.
It was then a very big deal.
And those he fought against
helped to define him.
They were secondary to him,
but they were not minor characters.
Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier,
George Foreman.
I agree completely.
We can't remember
I've been interviewed so many times
about this film, and I've asked
the sports writers,
"Who is the current heavyweight
champion?" And they don't know.
- I think after Muhammad Ali
- It's not Tyson Fury anymore, is it?
I don't know. It is Tyson Fury.
Where's my prize?
- You get the prize.
- It's Tyson Fury.
But this is the centrality
that I think we forget.
This was the most known
human being on the planet
because of his boxing skills.
He dies the most beloved person
on the planet
because of the kind of evolution
that Rasheda talks about.
And our inability, even today,
to tolerate contradictions
and undertow within people,
to presume that a hero
has to necessarily be perfect,
is a gigantic flaw because we lose
the whole definition of hero,
which is a struggle within that person
between their strengths
and their weaknesses.
And sometimes it's not a struggle.
It's a war.
It's not a negotiation. It's a war.
So what you have
in Muhammad Ali
is the arc of the entire
back half of the 20th century
and into our present moment,
taking place within
this dynamic human being
who is hilariously funny,
who is gorgeous.
"I'm pretty as a girl. 180 amateur
fights, 22 professional fights."
- "And I'm pretty as a girl."
- "I'm pretty as a girl."
This is who he is, and he is gorgeous.
I mean, if Michelangelo
was going to be sculpting
David today, he goes,
"Maybe not David.
Let me do Muhammad Ali."
And he's also the greatest
athlete of the 20th century
and I'm willing to have
that barstool argument, of all time.
- That's a barstool argument.
- Yes, it is.
He's quite possibly
the most consequential athlete.
In terms of pure athletic skill,
you can make a case for Michael Jordan
or for Babe Ruth in his time,
make a case for Wayne Gretzky,
et cetera, et cetera.
But the combination of
excellence and consequence
- Only Jackie Robinson rivals.
- Only Jackie Robinson.
- And as great a player
as Jackie Robinson was,
he wasn't as great as Willie Mays,
Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth or Joe DiMaggio.
This is what I think that Jackie
Robinson redefined Black masculinity
and Black manhood
for his generation.
And then Muhammad Ali came around,
tore up the script, and said,
"No, it's this other way."
And so, for many of us
growing up, as you remember,
you didn't know quite how to deal
with him at the beginning.
He wasn't exactly the way an athlete
was supposed to behave
and certainly not a Black athlete.
And Liston seemed
more familiar,
but then all of a sudden, the joie
de vivre, the love, the cause,
the things that he was
willing to sacrifice
transformed him
into a figure beyond anything.
We're still not talking about after
coming back from the draft interruption
and what he does
with the three Frazier fights,
what he does in Kinshasa,
what he does between the two Norton
fights and the two Spinks fights.
These are I call those fights
the kind of collected works
of William Shakespeare,
'cause they're drama
at the highest level.
I've been lucky enough to be around
so many memorable sports events.
But when people ask me
for the short list,
always at or near the top
is your dad lighting the torch
in Atlanta in 1996.
It was a perfectly staged moment
where he literally stepped
out of the shadows.
Only about a dozen people knew
it was gonna be him,
and I was not among them
because Dick Ebersol,
who's idea it was to have your dad
be the last torch bearer,
he met some resistance.
Some of the organizers said,
"He may be a hero to you,"
"but down here in the South,
he's still a draft dodger."
And Dick convinced them. "You're wrong.
Wait and see what happens."
And then he told me
and Dick Enberg,
"I'm not gonna tell you.
You'll recognize him or her."
When he stepped
out of the shadows,
I still get goose bumps thinking
about it and talking about it.
It's 25 years ago, this summer.
It is incredibly
a moving moment,
and I think that's
the moment when I think
all of the scales kind of fell away
from our eyes.
There may be a few unreconstructed
brethren out there
who still are holding
some grudge against him,
but this is a man who
is going to, 20 years later,
die the most beloved person
on this planet.
And that is not the beginning
of the rehabilitation,
it comes with the first Frazier fight,
but it's where we let go.
- I call it reconciliation.
- It's reconciliation.
A moment of reconciliation
where it all came together,
and he himself told us, because he hung
around for some of the competition
In Atlanta, he said,
"I felt like I was born again."
This is a story about freedom,
and it's really tough
for a Black person
in this country to escape
the specific gravities
of the cruelties visited upon them.
This is about courage
in and outside of the ring,
willing to face a firing squad.
And this is about love,
that he understood
as much as anybody I've ever met
in the course of our investigations.
And at that moment,
I think we finally allowed him
to be who he always said he was.
People say, "Well, he was divisive."
It may be that we were divisive
and that we could begin to shed
the baggage
that we'd been carrying around
about him that was completely false.
When you see that moment, yet again
What does it make you feel and think?
First of all, I didn't even know
he was gonna light the cauldron,
so, for me,
the first thing I thought was,
"What a perfect person that the Olympic
committee would choose."
And my dad was honored.
He was so happy to be a part of this.
But we can't forget the fact
that my dad
had visible signs of Parkinson's and
he almost didn't want to do it.
Because he was uncomfortable
shaking in front of
- Remember how vain he was
- Yes.
At one time and his willingness
to present himself,
once the most voluble
and entertaining of athletes,
encased within the afflictions
of Parkinson's.
The willingness to do that
was so poignant.
He was very brave.
And he was courageous for him
to step out of his comfort zone
when he didn't have the voice
that he used to have.
He didn't have the gait,
the walk, that he used to have.
He had the masked face
of Parkinson's.
So he was uncomfortable,
but he was so honored.
Like you said, he was born again
because he was finally considered
an Olympic hero.
And I was so proud of him
that he did that.
This is common with all of us.
When someone we love is gone,
especially a parent,
do you find yourself saying,
"I wish I had said this to him"?
Or, "I wish I could have
asked him that"?
Look, my eyes
No
Because when I was
with my father
I said all I had to say, especially
on his last days, last hours here.
I told him
that I'll do the best
that I possibly can
to carry on your life
and legacy. And
Every moment
that we spent together
I cherished.
They were like gold,
and watching this film,
this beautiful film
I'm sorry. I'm just thinking
about Daddy now.
I was so inspired
and just so moved by his love
and his commitment
to his faith.
What he was willing to give up
and sacrifice
I really, really miss that,
especially now
in this time where we need
that kind of courage,
that kind of love,
that kind of power.
And as you watch this,
it's impossible
for you not to take that
and be automatically inspired
by his actions,
'cause he didn't have an easy life,
it wasn't an easy journey.
But to watch him go through this
evolution was just extremely
Motivating. And so, no, to answer
your question in short.
I said everything I had to say
to Daddy. I still talk to him every day.
And I think he's with us right now.
I think his energy is still with us.
And I think his cause is still with us,
and he's motivating us
to this day.
What can we possibly add, especially
given the limitations of time?
Thank you, Rasheda.
Always great to see you, Ken.
- Great to see you, Bob.
- Okay.
Carmelo Anthony still to come.
But first,
the subject is COVID vaccines
and those who remain defiant
in their refusal to do
what's best for themselves, their teams,
and their fellow citizens.
- Here's Bomani Jones.
- All right, thank you, Bob.
Now, listen to this.
The Buffalo Bills, located in an area
deemed high-risk for COVID-19
transmission in September,
made the responsible decision
to require
proof of vaccination
for their home games.
Some fans caught wind of
this and complained on Twitter.
Considering Bills tailgates
are famous for people doing
wrasslin' cosplay
with fiery folding tables,
maybe they prefer permission
to try and kill each other.
But whining in public worked out for
some of those fans, when two Bills,
Cole Beasley and Reid Ferguson,
responded by offering
to buy tickets for them
to attend Bills games
at stadiums that aren't governed
by common sense.
Now, is that good for whoever's
sitting next to those people? Yikes.
We usually love stories
where rich athletes
toss a little pocket change to make
a fan's dream come true.
But when the only reason
you're bankrolling
someone's trip to hang out
with 70,000 unmasked people
is that person has chosen not
to protect themselves and others,
you're just being a jerk.
Are Beasley and Ferguson
entitled to their opinions?
Sure. I'm entitled to mine.
They're being stupid.
They may oppose the NFL's
vaccination protocols all they want,
and they may be disappointed
that cause some of their fans
can't see the team
at Highmark Stadium.
But this isn't about personal liberty.
It's community transmission.
Beasley has been one of the most
pointlessly defiant players
in the NFL in 2021, using his
Twitter account and terrible logic
to rail against
the NFL and NFLPA's attempts
to stop players, coaches,
and staff from getting sick.
Man said he beat the odds
to get to the NFL,
so he figures
COVID can beat the odds
and overcome a vaccine
and make him seriously ill.
I thought we buried them
all in 1996,
but Beasley sounds like a "No Fear"
T-shirt has come back from the dead.
Be as mad as you want,
Cole, but understand,
this is about us, the big us,
not just the vaccinated,
not just those
who don't want the vaccine,
but also those
who would take it but can't.
Don't inflict your selfishness
upon those of us
who are more worried
about dying than you are.
And, please, do not pass it off
as charity. Bob?
And on that note, joining Bomani now
on the panel,
the executive directors of the NBA
and NFL Players Associations,
Michele Roberts
and DeMaurice Smith.
Okay, let's continue
where Bomani left off.
By the way, we reached out to Cole
Beasley through his representative.
We have not heard back
from either one.
What do you say to
the Cole Beasleys of the world?
I mean, everybody is certainly entitled
to their own opinion.
No one's entitled
to their own facts.
I think, for me, where we sit,
we did, I thought,
a good job of making sure
that our players had
the choice to take the vaccine,
that is wasn't mandated by
the National Football League.
But, you know, honestly, Bob,
more curiously,
no one here is talking
about Dion Dawkins,
another player on the Buffalo Bills
who chose to get the vaccine,
quote, "because he knew
it was the right thing to do,"
but, nonetheless, got COVID,
felt like he was going to die.
To me, I would much rather talk
about the Dion Dawkins of the world,
who, actually,
I think, made the right choice.
And, frankly,
being an African American man
who, I think,
sets a very good example,
for why I think we should
embrace this vaccine,
knowing that it is
scientifically validated
and knowing
that it actually saves lives.
Look, I'll have a conversation
with Cole Beasley.
We will always have conversations
with Cole Beasley,
but at the end of the day, I would
rather champion the fact that,
I think, over 94% of our players
have got the vaccine
and knowing how important
that that message
needs to be emphasized
in our communities.
And that number
in the NBA is around 90%.
Yeah, it's around 90%.
It'll probably go up.
Camp opens on Monday, so we'll get
a more accurate count.
When you compare what the professional
athletic community has done,
by way of taking vaccinations,
to the rest of us,
we're doing pretty darn well.
It's the rest of us that need
to take, as D says,
a look at what the athletic community
is doing and try to mimic that.
Fair enough,
but you have also said that,
"I give those who choose
not to be vaccinated a pass"
"because it's a sincerely held
view or opinion."
You know, there are 70%
of Republicans in this country
who sincerely believe that
Donald Trump won the election.
Are we supposed
to respect that?
Are we supposed to respect when
someone says the Earth is flat?
- I hope it's not.
- Including one of your constituents?
I hope it's not the case
that those people who believe
that Donald Trump won the election
are doing that
because God tells them so.
The players I've spoken with who
do genuinely hold religious beliefs
that they shouldn't are getting
that message from their churches,
from their pastors,
and they are sincere.
So I think it's an unfair comparison,
to be perfectly candid with you.
I think one thing
that's important to note is that,
as a union, you, I feel like,
have a duty whatever
If they say, "We're going to make you
guys do something," whatever it is,
the word "make" means an obligation
to push back on it
and then figure out
where it goes from there.
But I wonder the balance that you wind
up having, because the math of it says
your constituencies are
better off being vaccinated,
but you also have to protect the rights
of those who, for whatever reason,
decide that they don't want to do it.
So what was it like for you guys,
coming up with the approach to try
to get this across to players
as, like, "These are the options, but we
really do want you to do this thing"?
Well, it's to do
what we think is right
and what's grounded
in science and fact.
And we told them that that was
the position of the union,
that we believe they should
take the vaccine.
But at the same time, to your point,
Michele and I are constrained
by the fact that we're union leaders.
It's nothing that I run away from.
It's nothing that she runs away from.
We live in a world where,
if a player decides
to fight something that's
not collectively bargained,
we're constrained
by two things.
One, the collective bargaining
agreement, and, second,
that every player has a duty
of fair representation.
So imagine a world where the
league mandates the vaccine.
One or two or many of our players
decide not to get the vaccine,
would this union step in
and defend their right
to not be forced to take a vaccine that
wasn't collectively bargained? Yes.
Your CBA runs to 2030,
so maybe we're speaking
theoretically here,
but there's always the possibility
that a CBA could be reopened.
Could a league say, any league say,
given what we've now learned,
we want a clause inserted
in agreements going forward,
a sort of force majeure clause
that says
if we have overwhelming evidence
that we can't run our business
this way,
that we require certain things
of our athletes, we require
They're conditions of employment. And
a condition of employment in this case
would be that you have
to be vaccinated.
Would seem like
a legitimate position to take
where the mutual interests
of a players association
and a league would coincide.
Michele?
Sure. That's something that
Our CBA expires, I think, in 2023.
It's something that we can have a
conversation about and agree to.
But it is still the case
that it has to be agreed to.
I mean, look, D didn't say to the NFL,
nor did I say to the NBA,
"We're not gonna have
compulsory vaccination."
We took it to our players.
They voted, and I'm constrained
to uphold that vote.
And so, if and when
And you know what, Bob?
There probably will be that kind of
conversation. No one saw this coming.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was
that kind of conversation going forward.
And it may be that this
experience will find itself
convincing players
that going forward
we're gonna allow this to be
a mandatory vaccination.
But right now it's not,
and as D says, if I have
to litigate it, I'll litigate it.
This applies to you,
at least for the time being.
Two cities, New York and San Francisco,
have city ordinances
that say you cannot enter
an indoor facility
for a big event
unless you are vaccinated.
That wouldn't have an impact on the NFL
in either of those cities.
We're not talking
about domed stadiums.
But we are talking about the Nets,
the Knicks, and the Warriors.
And we know that each
of those teams,
we have reason to believe,
has unvaccinated players.
That's gonna put their teams
at a competitive disadvantage.
As of right now,
the visiting team
Because they're not residents,
I guess, is the technicality,
the visiting team would be
at full strength.
But the Nets, Knicks, or Warriors
at home would not be.
You have hit
the nail on the head, Bob.
And that is a conversation
that is happening
in those three locker rooms
as we speak.
It's our position
that the league is not,
in that instance, compelling
the player to be vaccinated.
But the city,
San Francisco, New York,
can compel vaccination for people
that come into their facilities.
So these players, these teams are
having conversations right now.
It may be that they will conclude
that it's in the best interest
of their team, not withstanding
their personal objection,
that they'll get the vaccination.
But if they don't, then New York
is saying loudly and clearly,
"You're not getting into Madison Square
Garden or Barclays Center."
And as it stands, we'll have to cross
that road when we get there.
And to broaden this out to the NFL,
Sean McDermott, who happens
to be the coach of the Bills,
at last check, they weren't
quite at the league average,
somewhere in the 80% range
in terms of their roster.
He says, "This is placing us
at a competitive disadvantage"
"because we must abide by the protocols
close contacts and all the rest."
"Sometimes we won't be able
to practice, to have a full roster."
Jerry Jones, never to be
confused with a left-winger,
has said,
"Look, sports is all about we."
"We always talk about we. This is
all about I. What's going on here?"
Welcome to the everyday life
of a union leader in sports.
- All right, want to move on?
- We can do that.
- Ball's in your court.
- Okay.
We have had some discussions
here about different things.
And one thing we've talked about is
the idea of empowerment of players.
And one thing is starting early
before they get you guys
with name, image, and likeness
and as it goes on in college sports.
How does it help How are you guys
related or dealing with players,
or even just the cause in general,
with name, image, and likeness?
Like, what is the relationship
with the current unions
and that movement that we're
seeing on the college level?
Well, you know, I hate to always jump
into the legal side of it,
but Michele and I are lawyers
and, frankly,
used to try cases against each other
back when we had other jobs.
You told me that Michele had a
decidedly winning record against you.
Let's just say that I respect
her trial acumen.
Bob, you got it right.
I know all of our unions supported,
whether it was amicus briefs
or taking legal positions
against the NCAA because
name, image, and likeness,
in and of itself, is a conversation
about the identity of these athletes.
And an organization making a decision
that they could unilaterally
own something
that truly defined
what a person was,
to me, is not only inconsistent
with traditional labor views
but inconsistent
of what it means to be a human.
Let me jump in, though. This shouldn't
effect professional athletes.
Professional athletes
can do what they want
in terms of endorsements
and personal appearance.
It could on a couple of levels.
You know, one, you're
now seeing a number of players
either accept businesses before
they even get into college.
I think one high-profile
quarterback in Alabama
already as an NIL contract
in the millions of dollars.
It won't impact us,
but it's important for us
to recognize
and, I think, support
the idea that athletes aren't
two-dimensional individuals.
Why would we ever sit back
and allow somebody
like the NCAA to define
an athlete as someone
that doesn't have control over
his name, image, and likeness?
And I think that's a battle
for all sports,
whether or not it's a professional
league or an amateur.
You had a thought you wanted to make
We'll ask you to do it briefly
About the American gymnasts,
about Aly Raisman
and Simone Biles and others and how
they were out there alone
without any sort
of organized representation.
Look, and that is every parent's,
every person's nightmare.
You're dropping your kids
off at a university
to pursue a sport that they love.
And when someone comes
across a predator
who takes advantage of them
and they raise the issue,
and whether it was the FBI
or the Department of Justice
or other law enforcement people,
they turn a blind eye,
but worse than that,
all of this is going on
while none of them have an
organization that has their back.
And NCAA, that prides itself
I think the slogan is,
"We stand behind every athlete."
At least in that case, that's exactly
where they were. Behind.
And to have a group of people
who found themselves,
for the most part, alone,
fighting this,
I think is one of the most shameful
things I've seen in sports.
Two very quick things
before we have to run here.
Tom Brady recently made the point.
It's fine that NFL players have roughly
48% of the league's total revenues.
But look at the equity
in these franchises.
Look at how exponentially
franchise values have grown.
How do the players tap into that?
And there are huge differences,
which we don't have time to detail,
between football and almost any
other sport, in fact, any other sport,
which makes your job different
and more difficult.
Sure, and, look, Tom has always
been a great union guy.
Has always supported the NFLPA.
We had a good conversation
after his Instagram post.
To be blunt,
what drove Tom crazy was,
why aren't more football players
taking ownership of being
active people in their union?
How come we aren't standing up?
And his particular context was,
when a group of players
and our player leaders decided
that we shouldn't be going to OTAs
because we're giving away
our services for free,
the first team on board that said we
weren't gonna go to work for free
was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
led by Tom Brady.
OTAs being off-season
workouts, training
Organized training activities, which
is another way for the league to say,
"Please come on in and give
your services away for free."
But when he sees other teams
and other quarterbacks
make the decision to go in and continue
to give away their work for free,
but get a competitive edge,
perhaps, from it
He doesn't care He's Tom Brady.
He's not staying up at night worrying
about a competitive advantage.
That is an excellent point.
Continue.
But I think what drove him crazy,
and what our conversation was,
he knows that the leverage
and the strength of players
is when we do things as a unified,
solidified group of people
with a common interest,
and for that, he's right.
When players come together,
like they did,
when players responded
to someone who called
their mothers a certain name,
to your point, Bomani,
that was the first time,
and maybe one of the only times
when I've seen NFL owners afraid.
A unified group of people
deciding that we're gonna kneel
in defiance to something?
Well, that gets under the skin
of people who don't look like me.
So, at the end of the day,
I love the fact
that we've got a quarterback
like Tom Brady
who's willing to call out
other players like himself.
Last thing, and it's directed toward
you, having already stipulated
that the NFL world is different from
the other organized team sports.
The vote among the players
on the last CBA was close.
And a number of them,
Aaron Rodgers, among them,
J.J. Watt among them, said, "We didn't
get enough for what we gave up."
It's a dangerous sport,
we all know that.
They add an extra
regular season game.
You got some concessions.
On balance
Actually, we got
more than concessions, Bob.
We increased our revenue
by more than a point.
That's over a billion dollars.
So I know where you're going,
but I'm not gonna sit back
and allow the conversation to be framed
as "we got some concessions."
- When we increased
- You won some points.
When we increased the salary
and the money coming to players,
and there's a B after that,
for "billion,"
I would never call that
a concession, right?
I mean, if somebody made a decision
to pay you a billion dollars,
would you say that you got
a concession? No.
- That I got what was coming to me.
- 100%, and so it was a close vote.
It was majority rule.
The majority of players voted
for the deal, and that's where we are.
Bomani, D, Michele,
thanks to you all.
And now we turn our attentions
to Carmelo Anthony,
who's memoir, right here,
is just out.
It's called, "Where Tomorrows
Aren't Promised."
It's a thoughtful and, at times,
poignant recollection
of his youth and the circumstances
that shaped him.
Our recent conversation
includes the book, of course,
but we started by talking
about his new basketball home
and the reasons he's gone there.
You're going to Lakers.
You make no bones about it.
- You're searching for a ring.
- Absolutely.
I mean, this is the perfect time
to do that,
and I think the time
is now to really play on that level.
I done been to the
West Conference Finals,
I done been to the second round and
first round, and now it's time to play.
People would be interested to learn,
if they hadn't heard it previously,
that you and LeBron go all
the way back to high school.
You played in high-level
high-school games.
Yes, we met at USA Basketball.
We've both been in USA Basketball
families since we was 15, 16 years old.
So that's when we first originally met.
We've been connected ever since then,
but we've always been playing against
each other, especially in high school.
When I was at Oak Hill, he was
at St. Vincent/St. Mary's,
we played together on ESPN.
And we just been connected
ever since that day.
The game between your Oak Hill
and his St. Vincent/St. Mary's,
that was an epic game.
- Yes.
- Televised on ESPN.
You both had great games,
but your team won.
We won. But people don't understand
that that game was in the middle
of All-Star Weekend in Philadelphia.
So we had the whole, you know,
hoopla of All-Star Weekend,
and everybody who came to the game
to see me and him play.
And it was just a surreal
feeling at that moment.
This Laker roster is not
exactly wet behind the ears.
- You're 37.
- Yes.
LeBron's 36. Trevor Ariza is 36.
Rajon Rondo and Dwight Howard
are each 35.
Russell Westbrook is 32,
and there's four other guys on the
roster who are also in their 30s.
I mean, the next step is
an old-timer's game.
We love it.
You know, basketball is basketball.
The only thing that we have to,
like, really lock in on is our health.
You know,
we just got to stay healthy.
And I think that would be
the only thing that's in our way
as far as getting to where
we need to get, is our health.
So we just got to stay healthy.
I talked to Mike Krzyzewski,
your coach
on three of the four
Olympic teams you played on,
one of the most respected
people in all of sports.
He couldn't say enough about
how much he appreciated you,
not just as a talent,
but as a person.
And one of the lines he threw
at me was,
"This guy will accept any role
you give him."
Absolutely.
Because I had to accept
different roles on those teams
that Coach K coached,
and it was different players,
different style of players.
I went to him and said, "Coach,
just let me know what I need to do."
Or, "Coach, I'm gonna do this.
You know, don't worry about that."
So I took it upon myself to, like,
accept a lot of the different roles,
but I also knew what was
at stake on those teams.
You have said, "I've always,
or at least often, been the villain,"
"and so I just got used to it."
But everybody who knows you
doesn't just agree with the villain
characterization, they go the other way.
Krzyzewski says,
"I want this guy on the bus."
"I want him on the plane.
I want him in the locker room."
"I want him on the floor
in every big moment,"
"even if the moment isn't about him."
That completely belies the image.
Yeah, well, the narrative
of what the villain is,
like, you got to have a hero,
you got to have a villain.
So I don't mind playing
the villain role.
But I think that was thrown upon me,
that was given to me by force.
So I took it, I embraced it,
and I know who I am.
I know who I am as a person,
I know what I can do,
I know how I think, I know how I move,
and I don't mind being the villain.
You're the tenth
leading scorer in NBA history.
You'll soon pass Moses Malone
for ninth.
One year with the Knicks, you led the
NBA in scoring, nearly 29 a game.
The rap on you with the Knicks was,
he's controlling the ball too much,
everybody else is standing around.
Krzyzewski says, "You want
to get the ball to Carmelo"
"when he's about to make
something happen."
"Either he's gonna shoot it,
or he's gonna pass it"
"to the open man who will make
something happen."
"It was a matter of the personnel
surrounding him with the Knicks"
"that that couldn't happen as often
as some people wanted it to."
- Yes.
- Have I got that right?
That hit the nail right on the head
because you have to be who you are
in order to have
some type of success,
in order to establish
yourself and who you are.
My years on the Knicks, I mean,
it was a couple teams
that we had that was very good,
but most of the time,
it was just me trying to figure it out
and bring guys along
and putting the ball in my hands
and me trying to make
something happen.
And for some reason,
I was the only person
who got ridiculed
for that around the whole NBA,
and I think throughout
the history of the NBA.
Nobody. Maybe Kobe.
But it baffled me,
'cause I'm like, "Why me?"
I'm the only one
I do this at a high level.
I work on this every single day
for years and years and years,
but to put that narrative
and that stigma on me,
I just thought it was unfair
at that point.
This is your 19th season
coming up in the NBA.
Ten times an All-Star.
There was a period where you were
knocking around a little bit.
You went to Atlanta for a while,
you got waived.
You went to Houston,
Chris Paul and James Harden,
but that lasted only
for a few games.
You go to Chicago,
and they released you.
And at one point, you said,
"I was so embarrassed."
"I took a hit to my ego that I didn't
even want to go to my kids' games."
Absolutely.
The ego hit came in Houston.
I mean, Atlanta and Chicago
came from three-team trades
and just trying to get money
off the books,
them helping other teams out.
But the Houston situation
is kind of what really made me
take that hit to my ego
'cause I had just came
from being an All-Star
here in New York
and then going to OKC.
And in Houston, they was telling me,
"Melo, you are the missing link."
"This is what we need.
This is what we want."
So I accepted that, but when I got
there, it was a different story.
My ego just took a bruise,
'cause I'm just like, "Why me?"
"Like, why is this happening
to me out of all people?"
Tough one. LeBron or Kobe?
Man, I'm gonna break it down
to you why. I would say
I would say Kobe,
in the sense of
what Kobe has done,
how he's done it,
what he had to overcome to do it.
Playing a villain role, you know,
all the stigma on him
and just everything
he had to overcome
and just his mentality,
his tenacity,
the way he approached the game,
Kobe is a different breed.
LeBron is another
different breed.
His approach to the game
is second to none.
The way he know the game,
him being a student of the game,
him being a teacher of the game.
Him being able to turn it on
and turn it on and turn it on.
Him understanding what it takes
to play at the high level
and to be at the high level
and to stay at the high level,
taking care of his body,
taking care of his mind,
not letting nothing come
in between that.
They're similar in that way.
Kobe was
- They're maniacal about preparation
- Yes, absolutely.
So those two mindsets and their
mentality is very similar.
As far as game goes,
I think they're completely
two totally different people,
two totally different players.
You've always been interested
in social issues.
The Carmelo Anthony Foundation
speaks to that.
Boeheim reminded me,
when I spoke with him recently,
that you gave $3 million to Syracuse
right after you signed
your first pro contract.
The league is more outwardly concerned
with social-justice issues now.
- Yes.
- Are you happy about that?
And what do you think that the players
in the league can do better,
not just symbolic things, but to have
more of a positive, practical effect?
I'm very happy at where
the NBA is at now,
as far as allowing
the guys to go out and speak
on various issues that affect our
community and us, as individuals.
You see that now. You see more
and more athletes,
starting to come out and talk about
things, tackle certain issue.
You see guys at city halls
and the courthouses just
fighting for different laws.
I'm happy from that standpoint.
I'm happy that everybody's
starting to use their voice.
The support of the NBA
has been, like, phenomenal.
I will say that, because
if it wasn't for Adam Silver
allowing us to go out there
and just be individual, be humans,
and also understand that we have family,
we have friends in these environments.
If he would have fought that,
then I think the NBA would be
totally different today.
What do you say
if someone says this,
"I am in substantial agreement
with the social justice causes"
"that animate a lot of NBA players."
"But 2020 in the Bubble
was a unique situation."
"There weren't any fans
in attendance"
"when the Bucks decided after
Jacob Blake got shot in Kenosha"
"that they'd walk off
and make a statement."
"It was immediate aftermath
of George Floyd."
"It was a special situation, and now
concentrate on all the issues,"
"but some of us just want
to watch the game,"
"and we don't want it in our face
when we're watching the game."
"Even if we'd watch
a documentary about it"
"or watch me interview Carmelo
Anthony for half an hour about it"?
It was tough.
2020 in the Bubble was tough,
due to all of the, you know,
the social justice issues
that was occurring
at that point in time,
and COVID on top of that.
And you're trying
to bring sports back.
So you're trying to put us
in this bubble,
so the mindset of that is,
you guys have to work with us
in order to make this happen,
meaning the NBA.
You guys have to work with us,
because if we gonna do this,
if we're gonna make you
guys happy
by putting us in a bubble
and playing basketball,
then we have to address
these issues together.
And from that standpoint,
it worked.
I personally thought that it was
gonna be thrown in people's face.
Like, every time it was
gonna just be overbearing.
But when I was in it,
it didn't feel like that.
It felt needed.
It felt like it had to happen.
- In that moment in time.
- In the moment, yes.
And now the issues
shouldn't be abandoned,
but maybe the approach evolves
as the circumstances evolve.
Yes, well, it's 2.0 now.
We got to figure out what's next.
How we gonna make an impact?
We spoke up, we marched.
You know, there was riots.
There was conversations. There was
tears. You had teams that was
Milwaukee Bucks didn't play, they
protested. So we're past that now.
Now it's, what impact
are we gonna make?
What change are we gonna make?
Each league has its own COVID
policies, and they're evolving.
There's overlap,
but there are differences.
In the NBA as we speak,
all the coaches,
all team personnel, everybody who
interacts with the players on game day,
the fans who sit in proximity to the
benches, all have to be vaccinated.
But there's no mandate that the players
have to be vaccinated.
Most of them are, but there's no
mandate that they all have to be.
- How do you feel about that?
- I think it's smart to be
- I was against it.
- Against what?
I was against getting the vaccine,
but I say that because
I wasn't educated enough.
And I have my own personal reasons
and thoughts and rhyme to the reason,
but as I become more educated,
understanding a lot of people
can be put at risk,
and we wanted to get back
on the court.
We wanted fans to get back
on the court.
As you can see, the NBA has always
been the pioneer in kind of just
putting the fork down and saying,
"This is how we gonna do it."
And then you start seeing everybody
else kind of follow our lead.
I'm for it. You know,
I want guys to be healthy.
- You have been vaccinated?
- I'm vaccinated, yes.
It took a while for me to get
vaccinated, and it was hard.
It was a mental challenge and
I had to talk to a lot of people.
- What was your misgiving?
- I just didn't know too much about it.
I just was feeling
like it was rushed, you know?
That we wasn't getting
the right information.
- But now it's FDA-approved.
- Yeah. It's FDA-approved.
And the evidence is overwhelming that
it's more than helpful and effective.
Yes, so, you know, at that point,
it was just a lot going on,
and I felt like we were being rushed
and forced to take a vaccine.
It's something that a lot
of people wasn't educated on.
I enjoyed reading your memoir
very much.
It's short, it's relatively quick read,
but we can't do it full justice here.
It's very thoughtful.
But just a few things
You spent part of your childhood
in Red Hook, Brooklyn,
a general area which, at one time,
was called the crack capital.
Absolutely.
Then you were at the
West Baltimore Murphy Homes,
which was more commonly known
as the Murder Homes.
And in your memoir, you detail how you
could be in a playground shooting hoops,
and on one side, there's little girls
playing jacks or jumping rope.
On the other side, there's gangbangers,
hustlers, dope addicts.
This is the environment
you grew up in?
That was my environment, and you had
to embrace that environment.
There's no telling
what you was gonna see
on any given moment
or any given day.
So I wasn't gonna let
that deter me from anything.
I'm gonna play basketball. Whatever
y'all doing over there, y'all doing.
This is my environment,
and this is what happens
in those environments.
Where you grew up in
Baltimore, roughly speaking,
that's where the HBO series
"The Wire" is set.
- How accurate?
- The backdrop is very accurate.
The storyline is
I would say is very close
to being as accurate
as it can be due to television.
I just know the story.
I know the people the story is about,
so I think that's what keeps me
close to that, you know?
I used to walk to school
and walk through the middle
of production to get to school,
not knowing what they was shooting
or what they was filming.
And then years later,
here comes "The Wire."
So for us to have that, and the
rest of the world sees that?
Now it's like,
"You know, we're here."
"West Baltimore is here.
We have a story to tell."
"People know where we from."
"There's gonna be an awareness
brought to our community."
And that's how we accepted that.
Something I found poignant
in your memoir
of your childhood
and young adulthood,
your mom would take you to the
Museum of Natural History
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
She had a sense that
she wanted her children
to have some feeling
for a broader world.
Yeah, and that was done on purpose.
No matter what was going on,
we were going to the museum.
We were going places,
and my mom was very big
on tapping into other aspects of life.
Your dad died when you were just
a small child, two or three years old.
His name was Carmelo.
There was a time when you tried to pass
yourself off as Tyrone Johnson.
- Why?
- I
I just didn't understand.
Like, I didn't have
no understanding of my name.
I mean, I knew I was, you know,
Puerto Rican, you know?
I knew my dad was, my family
I just didn't understand why.
You know,
I grew up in a Black household.
So Carmelo is not a common name
in a Black household.
So I'm going from Red Hook in New York
where it's so diverse.
You know, you have Puerto Ricans,
you have Irish, Italians, Blacks,
and then you go to Baltimore
where it's predominantly Black.
I didn't see Carmelo fitting in that.
But now
you more than embrace it.
And although you barely have
real-time memories of your dad,
you wanted to know everything
about him, and you're proud of him.
Yeah, definitely I'm proud of him.
I think I know my dad more,
and I feel like I feel closer
to my dad now than I ever did.
You know, for so long,
I didn't do the research.
I didn't try to figure out and discover
who my dad was or my roots.
And then once I started doing
my own kind of self-discovery,
that's when I started tapping
into who my dad,
and realizing it's a lot
of similarities.
And I'm still I'm able to carry
that torch for him right now.
- I hope you get that ring.
- Me too.
- Great to see you again, Melo.
- Thank you, Bob. Appreciate it.
Carmelo's book actually ends the night
he's drafted by the Denver Nuggets
and enters the NBA,
and that's purposeful.
Tales of his professional
basketball exploits
will have to wait for another book.
In this one, Carmelo wanted
readers to consider
the textured coming-of-age
story he wanted to tell.
Okay. Our closing segment
is called "Consider This."
And tonight we consider
the most ill-considered rule
in major American team sports.
Until a few years ago, we would've had
to have given serious consideration
to baseball's 40-man
September rosters,
which for decades had
down-the-stretch,
heat-of-the-pennant-race games
played under
weirdly abnormal conditions
with 8 lefties
in a 20-man bullpen
and 6 pinch runners available
in a dugout so crowded,
it resembled a subway platform
at rush hour.
But with baseball having come
to its senses on that one
and with a ghost runner
on second in extra innings
not being part
of any postseason games,
the dubious distinction now
belongs to the NFL
and its blatantly unfair
and wrongheaded overtime rule,
especially when applied
in the postseason.
The idea that a playoff game,
including the Super Bowl,
can end automatically after
a first-possession touchdown
in overtime is insane.
And one definition of insanity,
by the way,
is doing the same thing over and over
and expecting a different result.
And yet, consider what's happened
in just the last few years.
The Falcons' Matt Ryan
was the NFL's MVP in 2016.
In "Super Bowl LI," the Patriots
won the overtime coin toss,
scored a touchdown,
and Ryan never touched the ball.
Pointing this out
takes nothing away
from the Patriots' remarkable
comeback in that game,
nor does it absolve the Falcons
for giving the game away
with dubious
fourth-quarter strategy,
but if the flip
had gone the other way,
the same thing could've happened
to Tom Brady and the Patriots,
and it did happen to Aaron Rodgers
in back-to-back postseasons,
first against Seattle
and then against Arizona
and to Patrick Mahomes
against Brady and the Patriots
in the AFC title game
a few seasons later
and to Drew Brees a season
after that.
And yet, the NFL, usually so shrewd
about the presentation of its product,
continues to run
the considerable risk
of keeping some of its
biggest stars on the sidelines
in the biggest moments
in the biggest games.
This rule, ending a game
on a touchdown
but allowing it
to continue after a field goal
is like saying that if in the seventh
game of the World Series,
the team batting in the top of the 10th
scores on a home run, the game is over.
But if they score on a single or a
sacrifice fly, then the game continues.
To call this both capricious
and illogical would be kind.
Think about this.
Here we have a league
that measures within a millimeter
to determine a first down,
that looks at six different
angles to parse a call
on a play in the second
quarter of an October game
between the Jaguars and the Jets
but then lets playoff games,
including the Super Bowl,
be so influenced by something
as random as the toss of a coin.
Let's not worry
about the NFL's regular season.
There are reasons then
to get things over quickly.
But in the playoffs,
no one's going anywhere.
In fact, the audience is building
and so, too, are the stakes
and the drama.
At the very least,
each team must be guaranteed
at least one possession
and better yet, why not play 10-minute
periods in the postseason
until a game is actually decided,
thereby restoring much
of the strategy
that now is all but completely missing
in overtime, clock management.
The race against time and all the
strategic moves that surround it
are part of the game's theater
and appeal.
Why take those crucial elements
out of the conclusion
of the games that matter most?
If some of this rings a bell, yes,
I made this very point
a few years ago on NBC.
Inexplicably, the NFL
didn't listen to me then.
But they still could listen now
before it happens again
in the Super Bowl.
And speaking of clock management,
our final seconds are now ticking away.
I'll be busy with the
baseball postseason in October.
We're back on the record
November 12th. And we'll see you then.