To: Jeff Van Gundy, ESPN / ABC From: A fan of the facts Dear Jeff, Why am I perhaps not amazed that, in the same week that you confessed you are still a New York Knicks lover (via newsday.com), you had be rumored to be at the top of the list to train the Knicks' cross-borough rivals, the Brooklyn Nets? (via cbssports.com) You're the last of a dying variety of broadcasters who actually say what they are thinking, rather than attempting to pander to the masses or the managers. Better still, you appear to maintain and even acquire respect for it. When I was first and young watching sports, I was lucky for a few years to begin to see the late good Howard Cosell "tell it like it is". Whether his stance on an issue was common, if not right, was never the issue. The pull was the electric thrill of seeing a sportscaster using this kind of strong stand a proven way or the other. One of the first boxing matches I ever saw was Howard Cosell's last. From the staring in surprise at Randall "Tex" Cobb having the living crap beaten out of him. I, alongside millions, watched Larry Holmes, round after round, pulverize Cobb's face into a soft mash resembling beet soup and gelatin. And still the beating continued, on and on, showing no sign of ending if not decreasing. It was dreadful to the stage of madnessa'and the only voice of sanity was Cosell's, saying what I've to trust everyone else with half a sense of medical propriety was thinking: How come maybe not someone preventing this fight? He was so annoyed, he never broadcast another battle. By choice. He took a stand. That strain of broadcaster has passed, changed with common rich baritones, one just like the next, brimming with peppy bromides but carefully manicured in order to avoid any utterance that may function as the least bit opinionated, aside from controversial. I am of course not counting boring rabble-rousers like Stephen A. Smith and the ever-irksome Skip Bayless. They are only heat filling up time on ESPN, and their so-called ideas are, to paraphrase Shakespeare, stories told by two idiots, packed with sound and fury, signifying nothing. You're different, Jeff. Like you coached: packed with verve and enthusiasm and, primarily, integrity you broadcast. On your own sleeve your heart is worn by you. That's an ever more rare quality these days of speaking heads spouting glittering generalities. Like your undertake Dwight Howard's attitude here. Why it stands apart you understand? Because you are telling the truth, plain and simplea'a truth that everyone feels, however it seems no body nowadays has got the guts to voice. I daresay your repeated criticism of the league because of their inaction regarding wild flopping might have actually induced the fat cats within their ivory towers (any resemblance to David Stern is purely accidental) to make a move to improve league standing log off their heinies and actually. If the emperor were naked. you'd be the go-to guy for the part of town crier. I guarantee Cosell to you would be proud. I'm perhaps not saying you're always right, Jeff. Heck, I am not even saying you're always in your right minda'clutching onto Alonzo Mourning's knee in the centre of a fracas is a good way to get yourself a lung or a fractured cranium. But I have zero doubt you call it like you see it. Like explaining Jordan as a disadvantage mana'which affected MJ therefore deeply, he put it in to his Hall of Fame talk. Yet again, Shakespeare said it best: The person doth protest a lot of, methinks. Translation: I actually do not for one minute doubt your assessment of the situation. How about once you accused the group of a conspiracy to a target Yao Ming? (via the Nyc Times) Stern sure got angry, to the song of $100,000 and a veiled threat to oust you from the NBAA( via ESPN.com). Again, Stern's harumphing only made me think you more. In sports, we're lied to more regularly than we are told the facts. We're fed exactly the same tired rates and creaky observations contest after contest, without apology as well as pity. We are taught to value a broadcast rife with clever phrases and ex-jocks' jokes, style over substance, material without essence. Phooey, I say. I much prefer my activities with a part of reality, Van Gundy type. Therefore much in regards to the NBA in this period seems clever, soulless, sanitized and finished. By stark contract, you're natural, unfettered, vitriolic and quite definitely alive. And Jeff, to my ears and mind and heart, that's music. Maybe you summed yourself up best in Men's Journal, while explaining your own time as the instructor of the Knicks: We did not always win and we never surely got to the final step, but I really do not think there have been when supporters left a game title thinking, "They didn't bring it today often times. They half-assed it." Whether you stay behind the broadcaster's desk or return to the sidelines, no body will ever say you half-ass a second of what you contribute to professional basketball. Thanks for giving to it you have got. Thanks for keeping it real.
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