Alumni Review Point

The ‘Game’ of Celebrity

Frequent encounters with sports heroes leave a longtime sportswriter with more questions than answers. By Ron Thomas ’71

“What’s Barry Bonds really like?”

Or Jerry Rice or Jeff Garcia or Venus Williams? If you write about professional sports, the “What’s (my favorite star) really like?” question is standard cocktail party conversation. After 25 years as a sportswriter for San Francisco Bay area newspapers, I’ve come up with the only honest answer: “I don’t know.”

That revelation was reinforced last summer when Kobe Bryant was charged with raping a Colorado woman, a charge that the Laker forward has denied throughout the legal case against him. Many columnists wrote that Bryant, considered unusually levelheaded and responsible for his 24 years, was the last of the NBA’s young stars they would expect to be accused of sexual assault.

Those columnists put too much faith in their powers of observation. Truth be told, an athlete’s personal ethics and private behavior are mysteries to us all.

I’ve spent up to seven months out of a year covering the Golden State Warriors, the San Francisco 49ers, or the San Francisco Giants by attending games and practices both home and on the road. Each sport put me in contact with, or close proximity to, sports heroes on a daily basis as seasons progressed.

But if I said I truly “know” any of them I’d just be lying, because when I show up for a few minutes with my pen, notebook, and tape recorder, I’ve automatically warped any relationship we might have. Media-savvy athletes figure out that it’s smart to cooperate with people who largely shape public images, but in his or her private life, that athlete may be the world’s biggest jerk. In contrast, an athlete who ignores or despises the media may be a gem of a parent or humanitarian when outside a reporter’s reach.

Reporters see large doses of the public athlete and small glimpses of the private person, and while covering the Giants the previous two seasons, the unpredictable Bonds provided examples of both.

Baseball reporters traditionally gather notes by briefly talking with players several hours before a game, yet Bonds detests those one-on-one chats so much that hardly anyone bothers to approach him. After a game, it’s a “you-never-know” proposition. He might grudgingly answer your inquiries today; tomorrow he might grouse at your “stupid question” and refuse to honor it with a reply. After a 2002 World Series game, Bonds even warned reporters, “Back off. I might snap.”

But in large pregame press conferences that often occurred as he chased the home-run record the year before, Bonds was relaxed and forthcoming with quotes about a variety of topics. He’d rather respond to a stream of questions than be approached by reporters one-on-one before he starts his pregame routine.

Let his toddler daughter, Aisha, into the clubhouse, and Bonds melts like ice cream on a 100-degree day. Three years ago, Bonds happened to be holding her in his arms when a swarm of reporters surrounded him after a game. A TV reporter thrust out her microphone and Aisha became fascinated with the new toy, which fascinated Bonds. So his usual tense, five-minute staccato of brusque answers became a lengthy dialogue brightened by doting Bonds smiles.

Last season was different from any other because Bonds played most of it while his father, former baseball star Bobby Bonds, was dying. Quite often, Bonds excused himself from postgame interviews because he was headed directly to his father’s bedside. After the elder Bonds died last August, it seemed as if some of the rough edges on Barry’s demeanor had been smoothed over.

This year, Bonds is facing extra scrutiny because his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, has been indicted for allegedly providing his clients with illegal steroids. In March, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that investigators have been told that Bonds received some of those steroids and human growth hormone. Bonds, as he has for many years, unequivocally denied using any illegal substances. But if true, the accusation raises questions about his awesome home-run power.

Where does the truth lie? I would be foolish to pretend to know for sure.

Joe Montana, the 49ers’ legendary quarterback in the 1980s, was another enigma. Reporters were given access to players only at lunchtime and for a few minutes following the afternoon workout. Montana almost never showed up, except for Friday afternoons. If there were only two or three of us at his locker, he would joke around and might even grace us with a thoughtful answer about the upcoming opponent. If a few more reporters drifted our way, he would become as shy as a schoolboy on his first date and quickly walk away.

But ask teammates about Montana’s personality, and they’d say he was the biggest practical joker on the team. That was news to us reporters.

Which is the real Barry Bonds or Joe Montana? I’ll never know, because what I’m exposed to is bordered by the walls of stadiums, locker rooms, and press rooms—tiny boxes outside an athlete’s much larger private life.

I decipher the little bit I see and hear about the athletes I cover, a skill that I began to develop as a Rochester student from 1967 to 1971. As manager and statistician of the men’s basketball team, I picked up the foundation of my basketball knowledge and my understanding of a player’s thought process through conversations with my best friends on the team, Jackson Collins ’71 and Billy Staton ’71.

Our postgame breakfasts at Pat & Sandy’s Pancake House on Mt. Hope Avenue gave me an insider’s perspective that I craved later as a sportswriter, but it’s a vantage point that I have never come close to achieving.

If I ever deluded myself into thinking otherwise, David Waymer extinguished that illusion. After the 49ers acquired him from New Orleans in 1990, for two seasons he was a reporter’s instant notebook filler. A defensive back who gave us lots of insight about opposing receivers, he was friendly, funny, smart (note the Notre Dame pedigree), spoke with a delightful Southern twang, and was married to a beautiful woman—all traits that made him a favorite guest on San Francisco’s most popular weekend sports show.

In April 1993, he died of a cocaine overdose.

Who knew?

Not me, that’s for sure.

Ron Thomas ’71 is a freelance sportswriter in the San Francisco Bay area and the author of They Cleared the Lane: The NBA’s Black Pioneers.