Who’s the Peephole Pervert? I think I Know

Bill Belichick, seen here with his Erin Andrews-look-alike girlfriend, Linda Holliday at last year's NBA Finals, could be involved in the Andrews' scandal, especially given his past.

When footage has been illicitly captured on film, there can only be one suspect.

Sources with knowledge of the Erin Andrews’ voyeruism case have indicated that New England head coach Bill Belichick is a prime suspect in connection with the  film which shows Andrews disrobing in her hotel room.

This isn’t the first time Belichick has blatantly disregarded privacy laws.

Belichick, who was subsequently fined $500,000 by the NFL for his role in “Spygate”, ordered a Patriots’ video assistant to tape New York Jets’ defensive signals back in 2007.

Tips from Eric Mangini, the current head coach of the Cleveland Browns, have led to Belichick’s implication. Ironically enough, ESPN headquarters are located in Bristol, Conn., only a few miles from New England.

While Andrews wasn’t necessarily in the area when she was surreptitiously videotaped, one source said Belichick and his staff have numerous resources available to them.

The source even went as far as to speculate about Belichick’s involvement with covert efforts outside of the NFL.

According to the source, Belichick works intimately with the Department of Homeland Security and the C.I.A. in acquiring defense-oriented information about possible threats to the U.S.’ well-being.

“It’s no coincidence that it’s called the Patriot Act,” the source said. “And it’s no coincidence that Belichick is tightlipped with the media. I mean, have you seen his press conferences. I’ve watched White House briefings where more information was shared. The guy doesn’t even want to tip his hand as to whether the Patriots’ organization is interested in Michael Vick.”

Most recently, the C.I.A. has come under a hailstorm of controversy concerning its antiquated, and some say tortureous, interrogation tactics used on prisoners at several of its overseas camps, including Guantanamo Bay.

On at least 14 occassions, prison-camp guards used waterboarding to get prisoners to divulge secrets about Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

In recently declassified documents, it was revealed that the Bush administration OK’d such techniques. Bush’s actions were publicly questioned, many calling the former president’s decision “deplorable” and “sadistic.”

But in an exclusive interview with isaacavilucea.wordpress.com, Bush said he was persuaded by Belichick to use the outdated approach, after Belichick, pointing to his propensity to re-sign and forge ahead with aging players such as Junior Seau, told the former president that “old is new.”

“He said, ‘Look, George. You might get some flak for it, but sometimes it’s better to resort back to the old-school. That’s why I signed Junior (in 2006),” Bush said, noting the New England coach’s nostalgia for retro.

Saying he “wouldn’t be suprised” if Belichick was involved with the Andrews’ scandal, the former president detailed a possible motive.

“He was upset with ESPN for reporting on the Spygate scandal,” Bush said. “Just a week ago he called me and told me that ESPN was the Worldwide Leader in moral relatavism, because they sensationilized the whole filming defensive signals issue, but they failed to report anything on the Ben Rothieliesberger rape trial.”

Perhaps this is Belichick’s way of exacting revenge on ESPN, by exposing — no pun intended — the Worldwide Leader’s sideline reporter, concurred a source with knowledge of the situation.

“Bill doesn’t care if it’s illegal, as long as he’s winning games,” the source said. ”Even if this new scandal is unraveled, don’t expect any charges to be filed. Belly-Boy has very influential people on his side high up in the justice system. He’s not just a football coach. He’s an institution.”

True. The Kraft(y) coach has the scales of justice tipped in his favor.

Low Down

I’ve been dormant this whole week. Don’t know why. Haven’t reallly had time to throw up a post. Plan on getting something eye popping up soon.

The Aesthetics of Public Relations

 

Manny and Kobe don't always do what their PR reps tell them to, and that makes them respectable.

 

Call it the Miss Americanization of sports.

Now athletes want to feed the hungry. The NBA cares.

Philanthropy and community service have a place in sports, yes. But only if it’s genuine. If it isn’t a charade roguely dressed as a heartfelt endeavour. If it isn’t spot treatment to spiff up an image.

The thing is, I can’t tell the difference anymore. Every athlete gives back to the community. Every athlete makes pithy statements to the press. Every athlete “contritely” apologizes for their misgivings. Do they do it because they want to? Or is it just a staged exercise that’s detailed in a ”How to be a Conscious Athlete” pamphlet distrubuted by public-relation backers?

It’s why I find Manny Raimirez’s personality refreshing. Call him unapologetic. Call him a cheater. But for the most part – granted he did ”officially” apologize to his fans and teammates for his steroid-related suspension – Manny isn’t coaxed into doing anything Manny doesn’t want to do for the sake of saving face.

Saving face is a sucker’s industry.

Edward Louis Bernays, long considered the founding father of modern public relations, described public relations as, “management function which tabulates public attitudes.”

Sounds rather formulaic, doesn’t it? But there’s an art to it, too. And that’s why it wouldn’t suprise me if PR experts had this Picasso quote plaqued above their doors as their official doctrine.

 “Art is not truth.  Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.  The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

With the stroke of a few favorable pigments, a dash of charisma, the highlight of charitable deeds and the coloring in of blotchy splotches, public relation representatives create aesthetically pleasing, yet manufactured, images of athletes. Those images we see are nothing more than polished pixels void of humanity.

What Michael Jordan’s PR advisers were able to do with his image should be considered the Mona Lisa of PR business.

Jordan and his PR blokes mastered the art of manipulation. Nothing stuck to Jordan, not his affair with Karla Knafel, nothing. The only knock on Jordan was his addiction to gambling. But if you read The Jordan Rules, you get a fly-on-the-ball perspective of the real Jordan. Yet, his image is pristine, as All American as they come. In a column written by Skip Bayless, Bayless wrote that Kobe will never be in the same stratosphere with Jordan for many reasons, but mainly because he’s “hellbent on committing image suicide.”

See, Michael, according to Bayless, did many of the same things Kobe does. The difference was, when asked to comment on potentially damaging material, Jordan scurried away or invoked his Fifth-Amendment right. Michael and his PR flunkies filtered his image. Kobe didn’t do that, or didn’t do it as effectively.

We don’t know the true Michael Jordan. We know commercial Jordan. Who would have thought ”Air Jordan” could be so fitting? Jordan has his shoe empire, and he had more lucrative endorsements than Kobe does post-rape trial, but Jordan’s phony. He bojangled his way to wealth. Prostituted, really.

From time to time, Kobe flirts with the Jordan model, like in his documentary Kobe Doin’ Work. But he can’t seem to fully embrace being artificial. He can’t act, even though Hollywood envelopes him.

And we fault Kobe for failing to turn in a Denzel performance. Not only Kobe but all athletes. For once, can we endorse being real? Let’s not crowd athletes with expectations of how they should act. Let them be who they are. And you’ll come to find, they’re just like you and me. But the perceived chasm that exists between them and us isn’t a product of our infatuation or their beliefs that they are indispensible. It’s a side effect of the human wrangling. After all, when you tie up all of a person’s extremeties – with the threat of losing money – and brand them with a certain image, they don’t have the flexibility to deviate from their assigned lot. When the lights come on and the recorders are engaged, athletes do and say all the right things because they’re told to.

But left unattended, they make the same mistakes as you and I. Only, everytime athletes screw up, it’s a The-Day-the-Earth-Stood-Still moment. The irony is, if athletes/celebrities’ PR reps didn’t market them as infallible super-humans, their mistakes wouldn’t be sensationalized.

PR officials attempt to mask imperfection. But like everyone else, they are perfectly flawed. Don’t ask them to admit it, though. They’ll just turn it into a slanted press release.  

For the Record

Had a blogger ask if I was a Lakers fan, because that’s what all my posts have been on. Incredibly, I’m not. I’m actually a Spurs fan, but the Lakers – and the Phil/Kobe dynamic – fascinate me. Not to worry, though. I’ll write about other organizations beside the Lakers. And other sports, too, but basketball is my specialty.

The God Complex: Explaining Kobe’s Narcissism

Bryant's often compared to Michael Jordan, and it's one of the reasons Phil Jackson couldn't coach Bryant the first time around.

The treatment didn’t meet the prognosis. Not until Jackson’s second-coming.

In his book, The Last Season, Dr. Phil (Jackson) called Kobe Bryant ”narcissistic,” citing Bryant’s unwillingness to share the ball with others and his propensity to as take shots in rush-hour traffic as telltale symptoms.

Interestingly enough, Bryant showed many signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

His haughty attitude and look-at-me flair drizzled in only for good measure, Bryant also exhibited envy toward Shaq, according to Jackson, which he theorized was a product of money. Shaq was paid better than Bryant.

Yet, sheathed below Bryant’s ultra-confident outer layer, was an eroded individual lacking self-esteem — one that would curl up into a ball at the first sign of criticism.

And yet Dr. Phil, knowing this,  launched a full-fledged attack on Bryant in an off-the-record conversation with Chicago columnist Rick Telander.

”Someone told me that in high school, Kobe used to sabotage his own games, so the game could be close, so he could dominate at the end,” Jackson told Telander in 2001. ”To sabotage the team process, to be so self-centered in your own process . . . it’s almost stupefying.”

Surely, Jackson, known for toying with players’ minds, meant the jab as some sort of psychotherapy, aimed at convincing Bryant to buy into Jackson’s triangle philosophy. But it backfired. Although Bryant never really addressed the accusations — saying only that the claim was “ridiculous” — the comments pierced Bryant. It all came to head during a team meeting, where Rick Fox told Bryant and Shaq that they acted apart from the team.

“Quit your crying,” Bryant remarked. 

Jackson jumped in to defend Fox, noting that Kobe was “as much to blame, as Shaq, if not more.” Bryant responded: “You’re the one who should fucking talk. You said I sabotaged games.”

It was only natural that Bryant acted this way. A cocktail of conditions inevitably contributed to Bryant’s narcissistic tendencies. Having reached the precipice of basketball at the tender and impressionable age of 17, Bryant was a child prodigy.  From high school, people were enamored with him, particularly his coaches at Lower Merion High School. 

Perhaps, though, it was Bryant’s early-aged fixation with Magic Johnson which is most responsible for his attitude. He wanted to be like Magic, do what Magic did, only better. His attachment and unswerving loyalty to Johnson was so great that, when Magic announced that he had contracted AIDS and was retiring from the game of basketball, a kid Bryant sobbed.

What Bryant saw in Magic was the perfect portion of size, athleticism and court vision blended into perfect synergy.

But the league had evolved — or devolved, depending on your perspective — by the time Bryant reached the NBA. Assist-first players were trivialized, replaced by scorers. The NBA doctrine promoted vain, self-serving players byrewarding such players with large contracts and glory.

What’s to say when the player who is hailed the greatest of all time averaged more than 30 points per game over his illustrious career?

Ironically, the player Bryant admired most was the player he’d later be considered the antithesis of.

Bryant was weaned on the Showtime Era, and grew up through the Jordan Dynasty.

As a player, he has both Magic and Jordan’s tendencies, though Jordan’s tend to win out. The problem, initially, was caging his narcissism. But narcissism, as it often does, blurred with Bryant’s ultra-competitive spirit, confusing the wunderkind, and throwing Jackson off.

It’s why he’s one of the most misunderstood athletes on the planet. 

According to Ian Thomsen, a Sports Illustrated writer, when he conversed with Bryant some 11 years ago, he noted that Bryant was, “obsessed with winners like Jordan and Magic Johnson. He knew how many rings they had and he wanted to win more than either of them. He was obsessed with winners like Jordan and Magic Johnson. He knew how many rings they had and he wanted to win more than either of them.” 

By immediately comparing him to Jordan, we bear responsibility in molding the young Bryant. We gave him a grandiose sense of importance.

Now, here was Jackson, essentially telling Bryant he wasn’t what he was told he was. How was he supposed to react?

What Jackson would come to realize was that the best way to deal with a narcissist was to recognize his own narcissistic tendencies.

About column

Liked the way the first column turned out so much that I decided to run in the Daily Lobo. Except fine-tuned, a bit. Plan on writing more about Kobe and Phil. Just need to do some reading, first. Should have a post up on Monday, sometime. Look for it. Appreciate the support.

A Rivaled Misunderstanding

Jackson and Bryant were like two rival siblings. Yet, they had mirror-image personalities.

 

Though they quarrelled like two estranged lovers in a soap-opera, Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant’s NBA marriage could’ve been salvaged without intervention from Dr. Phil. 

Jackson could’ve solved the derision between he and Bryant himself.

But both were prouder than lions.

Now they had come to their senses, and they were ready to reunite.

Jackson’s decision to return to the Lakers was a shrewd maneuver. Varnishing his legacy and disproving the naysayers were only two of the many reasons Jackson opted for a return with the Lakers. 

The question that would remain, however, was if the Lakers could ascend the mountain again with Jackson navigating LA. Had Jackson, by publishing those acidic memoirs disparaging Bryant’s supposedly poisonous character, done irreperable damage to the two’s relationship?

After all, this was the same Bryant that, when asked about the notion of Jackson leaving the organization after the 2003-04 season, remarked, “I don’t care.”

If people were still wondering how this experiment would fare, all the doubting was answered when, in his first year back, Jackson led the Lakers back to the playoffs with Kobe as their captain.

Two years removed, Lakerland was detoxified of all previously held animosities between coach and player. How could this be?

Some oversimplified the circumstances, claiming that this was simply an earnest willingness on the part of Jackson and Byrant to compromise and co-exist. Yet, it seemed more complex, rather, like an ephiphany for both parties — the realization that Jackson and Bryant were strikingly similar. In a sense, Phil had clashed with himself.

Perhaps, too, Jackson felt responsible for the 2003-04 implosion and was looking to make ammends for allowing things to wind aimlessly abound.

While Kobe jetted back and forth during from the Lakers to attend hearing in his rape trial,  Jackson and Lakers’ managment were relatively accomodating. But the public feuding between Shaq and Kobe — likely a result of Bryant’s panicked tattling, where No. 8 alleged the Big Aristotle paid women exorbirant amounts of money to keep quiet his adulterous flings — served as another distraction. And with a starting five comprised of two one-year-paid traveling peddlers invested only in  cherry-picking a championship, the Lakers were defunct of leadership. Yet, Jackson didn’t intercede.

He allowed Shaq to blot over Bryant’s character like a Bingo card. Isolated, Bryant likely craved to be embraced by his team. But parched of support, Bryant turned into a one-on-one machine.

It was a natural coping mechanism. As humans, the logic is, “If you’re not with me, you’re against me.” Thus had to be Kobe’s thinking.

Jackson, at one point during his career with the Knicks, experienced the same type of detachment, which is detailed in his book, Mindgames: Phil Jackson’s Long Strange Journey.

After making significant contributions during New York’s 1972-73 championship, Jackson was shelved “on the eve of the championship” by injury. But “… More than anything, the fiercely independent, individualistic Jackson seemed to crave being a part of the group, just one of the many ironies of his curious makeup.”

Suffice it to say, Jackson had to have known how Bryant felt. He knew why Bryant acted the way he did. 

Despit Bryant’s stubborness and Jackson’s disdain for Kobe’s prior trangressions, the Lakers were able to coast on talent alone and reach the championship, if only because Derek Fisher’s .04-second miracle crushed a San Antonio team that seemed destined to repeat as champions.

But inevitably, LA was pushed aside in five games by scraggly scrubs and The Mask, all because Detroit did one thing better than the Lakers: Play fluidly as a unit.

The Lakers were mortal. But even after experiencing something so humbling, neither Jackson or Bryant could put aside their enormous egos.

Through seperation, they’d realize how immaterial their differences — and how strangely symmetrical their personalities were. Through personal reflection, each would come to see the man in the mirror. But first each had to wipe away the fog.

The Mystical, Masterful Zen

His return to the Lakers’ sidelines was unexpected, especially considering the way he fled the organization. But the reasons for his return were purely self-serving.

Despite his team-first approach, rooted in the teachings of Eastern philosophy, Phil Jackson returned to coach basketball, not out of piety or out of an unwavering love of the job, but to cement his status as a coach — and to chase Red Auerbach.

It goes without saying that, perhaps, Jackson left only to satisfy something he hadn’t yet accomplished. But under the guise that his departure was the product of Kobe Bryant’s tantrums, Jackson created an excuse — and, more importantly, an outlet for his reemergence.

Jackson may have deceived the greater public when he blamed Kobe Bryant for his departure from Los Angeles.

Jackson, citing irreconcilable differences, wrote that Bryant was “uncoachable” in his book, The Last Season, detailing the Lakers’ tumultuous 2003-04 season, which ended with LA getting pulverized by Detroit in the NBA Finals. Yet, he returned to coach Bryant after being pointedly critical of him.

Some attribute Jackson’s comeback to his girlfriend, Jeannie Buss, who was a part of Lakers’ management, though his decision may have just been an exercise based on a strand of Jordanian theory —  premature retirement only to make a glorious and publicized return to grandeur. But it wasn’t like Jackson was coming back to an immediate contender. The Lakers had partitioned much of its championship team. Kobe was the only mainstay left over from the team that three-peated as NBA champions.

So what was Jackson’s reasoning to unretire? Was it to prove a point to Bryant, that he couldn’t win without the Zen Master’s insight? As conceivable as that might have been, it’d be foolish to look at things in such isolation. Jackson came back for a multitude of reasons, but mainly, because, if he didn’t, all his detractors would’ve be right, in a sense.

The enduring knock on Jackson was that he was a suspect strategist who was blessed with great players, the likes of Jordan and Pippen, Kobe and Shaq. Yet, what nobody could take away from him was the fact that he was a brilliant manager of egos, credited with convincing the greatest player of all-time that autocracy wasn’t the way to hang championship banners from the rafters.

But he had failed, now.

Bryant, the self-absorbed superstar, had broken Jackson. He couldn’t manage Bryant, nor his overbearing sense of self-worth. Instead of dealing with Kobe, though, Jackson had requested No. 8 be shipped to another team at the conclusion of the season. “I won’t coach this team next year if (Bryant) is still here. He won’t listen to anyone. I’ve had it with this kid.” Of course, LA didn’t adhere to Jackson’s conditions, and, after five years and three championships, the Lakers parted ways with Jackson.

His critics had all the ammunition they needed.

Having bungled his relationship with Byrant, Jackson also had another asterisk on his resume. Phil wasn’t one to jump into tenuous, reclamation projects. When he took over for Doug Collins in Chicago in 1989, the Bulls were already competitors, having made the playoffs the year before only to lose to the “Bad Boys” of Detroit in the Eastern Conference Finals. And after Jackson left the Bulls, and later agreed to coach LA, he inherited another favorable situation. Upon assuming the reins, Jackson immediately produced, leading them to a 67-15 regular-season record and the 2000 NBA crown.

But this time was different. And Jackson knew it.

The move would ultimately prove beneficial in enhancing Jackson legacy from “really good” to legendary. The team he was about to come back to was in dismay — too young and inexperienced, and too dangerously dependent on Bryant. This was Jackson’s chance to prove he was great, that he had the ingredients as a coach to, indeed, convince a promising batter of talented individuals to developed into a cohesive group, a team. That he could start from scratch, build and ultimately win. That he didn’t need a cast of mega stars to do it. That he could capture Bryant’s attention and mold him into being accepted by his teammates and the greater NBA fraternity, instead of simply a secluded one-man assassin who was more concerned about personal glory.

If he could do this, then, and only then, could he be considered great.

(to be continued ….)

Update

Haven’t updated the site in a couple days. Nobody’s passed through. Had eight hits the first day and only two subsequently. Planning on having the Kobe/Phil column posted soon. Been busy with other work.

Start up

I’ve decided to start up a new blog. We’ll see where this takes me. Hopefully I can establish readership. Trust in this: I’ll attempt to not post anything unless it’s different than everything else you can find on the internet. My first official post will be a column about Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant. It will be mind blowing, to say the least. Look for it!