JohnFMurray.com

Among the athletes to make it this year are Brett Favre, Dwyane Wade, Tiger Woods — and Nick Taylor.

It’s not just athletes, either. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Ted Turner are on the list. Taylor’s name is listed right below Nelson Mandela.

“I thought about calling Christina Aguilera and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’re on this list together .. ,’ ” Taylor joked.

While it’s just a subjective list, it’s another accomplishment no one could have imagined.}

The Wichita Eagle – Jeffrey Parson – Nick Taylor has won a gold medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and six U.S. Open tennis titles, but he’s refining his game with help from two men who aren’t afraid to push Taylor for more.

Nick Taylor has won a gold medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and six U.S. Open tennis titles, but he’s refining his game with help from two men who aren’t afraid to push Taylor for more.

For all his fancy degrees and scientific titles, Jeremy Patterson might as well have been a garage door to Nick Taylor that day. It was last September, and Taylor — one of the top wheelchair tennis players in the world — went to Patterson for advice. Patterson is a clinical exercise physiologist and an assistant professor at Wichita State, so Taylor thought he could provide some guidance on an exercise routine Taylor had recently started.

“I thought I was asking questions that would get a five-minute answer,” Taylor said. “I’m still getting the answer.”

That’s because Patterson shunned anything resembling a pat on the back, telling Taylor that 85 percent of his work was all but useless. He challenged Taylor to find his way onto a rowing machine — despite Taylor’s missing biceps and triceps, or an inability to bend his legs.

Taylor was taken aback.

“I don’t think he knew how far I would go with it,” Taylor said. “I don’t think he realized that telling me I couldn’t do something would just tick me off into doing it even more.”

Patterson did not understand, Taylor thought, what exactly went into Taylor overcoming the disease arthrogyposis multiplex congenita — which barely allows him to move his misformed hands and feet — to become a champion.

Patterson did not know that Taylor, as a 15-year-old, spent countless hours in front of his grandma’s garage, finding a way to hit a ball back to himself.

With blistered and bloodied hands, Taylor willed himself to be able to play, willed himself to move from two-handed shots to his own version of a left-handed swing that allowed his right hand to control the wheelchair. He invented a serve that starts with balancing the ball on his foot and propelling it up, for goodness sake.

This professor from Australia, Taylor was sure, did not know that Taylor was considered miraculous for playing tennis at West High, much less for going on to become the top-ranked quadriplegic wheelchair player in the world. Patterson had not seen the hardware — including a gold medal from the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and trophies for six U.S. Open singles and double titles — Taylor had earned with grit and sweat.

Nearing age 27, Taylor found the reserve of determination most cannot understand and directed it at that rowing machine, at the man who seemed to scoff at the notion Taylor needed to be treated differently.

As he was losing 18 pounds of fat and adding five pounds of muscle — startling numbers that transformed his capabilities off the court even more than on it — Taylor was sure Patterson was starting to understand.

Only there was something Taylor didn’t know initially, either. He wasn’t aware that Patterson had spent most of his adulthood studying people with physical limitations or liabilities. Patterson was intensely curious as to how science could help their lives.

Numerous times, Patterson met people with congestive heart failure, broken spirits who had been told they had a year or two to live. So he presented them with a four-year exercise plan, the defiance and fortitude inherent.

Taylor couldn’t know he had met someone who believed in the willpower and personality as much as Taylor himself.

Just recently, looking back eight months later, Taylor pondered it: Perhaps Patterson knew exactly the type of person he was challenging.

“Maybe he did,” Taylor said. “He’s a smart guy. Maybe in the first five minutes, he read me.”

To be honest, it’s not that difficult.

Another Aussie

The words come pulsating out of the computer’s speakers as images of Taylor crushing tennis balls whir on the monitor.

“ONE, nothing wrong with me. TWO, nothing wrong with me.”

It’s part of a self-made video Taylor put on Youtube.com (search for “greatest kick serve”) in hopes of landing sponsorship. The song is “Bodies” by Drowning Pool, a pseudo-anthem for the mosh-pit crowd. Taylor had never heard it until a friend suggested it for the video.

“The rest of the song is kind of crazy,” Taylor said, “but those 12 seconds work perfect.”

Taylor’s world ranking in singles is down to No. 3, and it bothers him. The simple explanation is a significant increase in competition and that Taylor’s limitations are way beyond the norm.

Most of the players Taylor faces have considerable arm movement, much less the muscles themselves. Taylor’s doubles partner, David Wagner of Portland, Ore., is a former college tennis player who was paralyzed in a swimming accident.

“He has to tape the racquet to his hand, but he’s got full shoulders, a full upper body,” Taylor said. “He’s enormous. His arms are the size of my head.”

In a “nothing wrong with me” approach, though, the logic is not good enough for Taylor.

And Darius Schwarz knew that right away. Schwarz grew up in Australia after age 5, and he was one of that country’s top junior tennis players.

Now 26, Schwarz was hired in January 2005 as the associate head teniis coach at WSU. Since Taylor was always hanging around practice, lending an experienced eye to the point he is almost part of the program, Schwarz got to know him quickly.

The two clicked. Through hitting sessions and dinners, they became friends.

That has been crucial in the coach-player relationship for one reason: honesty.

“We spend so much time away from the court, there’s more than just tennis,” Schwarz said. “That allows me to say what I really think all the time.”

So Schwarz pushes Taylor, especially on how to construct points to take advantage of the tendencies of stronger players. The standard, “You did your best,” is not a favorite of Schwarz despite his “no worries” attitude off the court.

Schwarz even took the time to work in Taylor’s backup chair, trying to get a better idea of playing that way.

“Nick had to lower all the speeds on it,” Schwarz said. “On his chair, he has all the speeds set to maximum. Seriously, no one else can drive it. We’ll get it off the bus and have a guy jump in it thinking it’s easy, and he’ll almost lose it into a parked car.

“The dexterity and fine motor skills he needs to run that are out of this world.”

Seeing a friend investing himself like Schwarz was heartening to Taylor. But for a guy whose competitive nature swallows up everything else, what mattered most was that Schwarz was not going to be content with Taylor’s current success.

“Most people meet me and go, ‘Oh my God, how do you do it?’ And that’s fine, it’s a compliment,” Taylor said. “Darius and Jeremy looked at me and went, ‘That’s cool, man, but you know, if you did this, this and this, it could be better.’ That’s what I needed.”

Not slowing down

Noted performance psychologist John F. Murray annually selects a list of the top 100 performing individuals living, people who epitomize “the principles and lessons of high performance psychology.”

Among the athletes to make it this year are Brett Favre, Dwyane Wade, Tiger Woods — and Nick Taylor.

It’s not just athletes, either. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Ted Turner are on the list. Taylor’s name is listed right below Nelson Mandela.

“I thought about calling Christina Aguilera and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’re on this list together .. ,’ ” Taylor joked.

While it’s just a subjective list, it’s another accomplishment no one could have imagined.

At 27, able-bodied tennis players are normally on the downside of their careers.

And Taylor has options outside tennis. This June, he is scheduled to complete a master’s degree in sports administration to go with two bachelor’s degrees — all from WSU.

“Before I went to Athens, I was thinking about making it my last tournament,” Taylor said. “Then I got there. Before the opening ceremony, I knew I wasn’t quitting. It was just too cool.”

Asked what could change his mind now, Taylor smiled.

“For the right girl,” he said, “I might not do anything.”

He thinks his left thumb joint, where the pressure of his unusual swing mounts, “might explode,” which could force him off the court.

Other than that, Taylor said his biggest fear is funding. He travels the world playing tennis. Just in his World Team Cup (the wheelchair equivalent of Davis Cup) experience alone, he has been to France, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Netherlands and Brazil.

The travel is terribly expensive. While most wheelchair players fly separately and room together, Taylor has to have a travel partner — his father, Bill — to take care of basic needs.

So everything costs double. Head provides him with racquets, adidas provides clothes and Invacare donates wheelchair parts. PantherVision, a company that makes hands-free lighting equipment, is Taylor’s only monetary sponsor, though.

And the prize money, for most tournaments, is less than the entry fee.

So Taylor relies on sponsors and donations, and the “near begging” gets old, he said.

“That is what could make me quit,” he said. “But the sport is exploding. I don’t want to quit, and tournaments start handing out better prize money or great sponsorship deals, like my friends in Europe get, become available.

“Plus, I don’t want to give up tennis. It’s everything to me. I could compete in this sport forever.”

The B-word

Boiled down, the transformation of Taylor is driven by one thing: Beijing.

That’s where the Olympics and Paralympics will be held next year, and Taylor is aiming for gold medals in singles and doubles.

The team will be selected by a point system based on results starting late next month. So after an intentionally slow winter, Taylor plans to compete in every major tournament after May.

It’s why he hangs on Patterson’s every word, why his mood is based on each of the numerous tests he takes for Patterson.

“I’m a lab rat for him, and that’s fine with me,” Taylor said. “He’s tried a lot of innovative things, some of which didn’t work but most of which did. As competitive as I am, I want as much feedback as I can get.”

There are almost no limits to the feedback Patterson can provide, considering all his high-tech tools. He approaches Taylor’s fitness the same way he approaches that of former WSU runner Nathan Wadsworth, who trains under Patterson and recently finished 21st in the Boston Marathon.

“Nick’s an elite athlete, and he has to be treated as one,” Patterson said. “With the rowing machine, he can’t do it like an able-bodied person, but I thought he could find a way. He picks up on things very quickly, adapts very rapidly. Clearly, he’s had to do that his entire life.

“So while that might seem intimidating, I told him he needed to learn it. I knew he liked the challenge.”

When Taylor grunts to get his legs in place and carefully manages to work his hands around a V-grip connected to the rowing machine, he is looking way ahead.

The perhaps two hours he will spend essentially leaning forward and backward from his midsection are a path, a way he can see to somehow improving on the court.

When everyone else seemed unsure, Patterson and Schwarz created the possibility.

And that’s all Taylor asked.

“With my physical limitations, I had pretty much perfected what I could do in tennis,” Taylor said. “They have allowed me to think of new potential. It’s like I’m a whole new guy.”

Among the athletes to make it this year are Brett Favre, Dwyane Wade, Tiger Woods — and Nick Taylor.

It’s not just athletes, either. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Ted Turner are on the list. Taylor’s name is listed right below Nelson Mandela.

“I thought about calling Christina Aguilera and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’re on this list together .. ,’ ” Taylor joked.

While it’s just a subjective list, it’s another accomplishment no one could have imagined.}

The Wichita Eagle – Jeffrey Parson – Nick Taylor has won a gold medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and six U.S. Open tennis titles, but he’s refining his game with help from two men who aren’t afraid to push Taylor for more.

Nick Taylor has won a gold medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and six U.S. Open tennis titles, but he’s refining his game with help from two men who aren’t afraid to push Taylor for more.

For all his fancy degrees and scientific titles, Jeremy Patterson might as well have been a garage door to Nick Taylor that day. It was last September, and Taylor — one of the top wheelchair tennis players in the world — went to Patterson for advice. Patterson is a clinical exercise physiologist and an assistant professor at Wichita State, so Taylor thought he could provide some guidance on an exercise routine Taylor had recently started.

“I thought I was asking questions that would get a five-minute answer,” Taylor said. “I’m still getting the answer.”

That’s because Patterson shunned anything resembling a pat on the back, telling Taylor that 85 percent of his work was all but useless. He challenged Taylor to find his way onto a rowing machine — despite Taylor’s missing biceps and triceps, or an inability to bend his legs.

Taylor was taken aback.

“I don’t think he knew how far I would go with it,” Taylor said. “I don’t think he realized that telling me I couldn’t do something would just tick me off into doing it even more.”

Patterson did not understand, Taylor thought, what exactly went into Taylor overcoming the disease arthrogyposis multiplex congenita — which barely allows him to move his misformed hands and feet — to become a champion.

Patterson did not know that Taylor, as a 15-year-old, spent countless hours in front of his grandma’s garage, finding a way to hit a ball back to himself.

With blistered and bloodied hands, Taylor willed himself to be able to play, willed himself to move from two-handed shots to his own version of a left-handed swing that allowed his right hand to control the wheelchair. He invented a serve that starts with balancing the ball on his foot and propelling it up, for goodness sake.

This professor from Australia, Taylor was sure, did not know that Taylor was considered miraculous for playing tennis at West High, much less for going on to become the top-ranked quadriplegic wheelchair player in the world. Patterson had not seen the hardware — including a gold medal from the 2004 Paralympics in Athens and trophies for six U.S. Open singles and double titles — Taylor had earned with grit and sweat.

Nearing age 27, Taylor found the reserve of determination most cannot understand and directed it at that rowing machine, at the man who seemed to scoff at the notion Taylor needed to be treated differently.

As he was losing 18 pounds of fat and adding five pounds of muscle — startling numbers that transformed his capabilities off the court even more than on it — Taylor was sure Patterson was starting to understand.

Only there was something Taylor didn’t know initially, either. He wasn’t aware that Patterson had spent most of his adulthood studying people with physical limitations or liabilities. Patterson was intensely curious as to how science could help their lives.

Numerous times, Patterson met people with congestive heart failure, broken spirits who had been told they had a year or two to live. So he presented them with a four-year exercise plan, the defiance and fortitude inherent.

Taylor couldn’t know he had met someone who believed in the willpower and personality as much as Taylor himself.

Just recently, looking back eight months later, Taylor pondered it: Perhaps Patterson knew exactly the type of person he was challenging.

“Maybe he did,” Taylor said. “He’s a smart guy. Maybe in the first five minutes, he read me.”

To be honest, it’s not that difficult.

Another Aussie

The words come pulsating out of the computer’s speakers as images of Taylor crushing tennis balls whir on the monitor.

“ONE, nothing wrong with me. TWO, nothing wrong with me.”

It’s part of a self-made video Taylor put on Youtube.com (search for “greatest kick serve”) in hopes of landing sponsorship. The song is “Bodies” by Drowning Pool, a pseudo-anthem for the mosh-pit crowd. Taylor had never heard it until a friend suggested it for the video.

“The rest of the song is kind of crazy,” Taylor said, “but those 12 seconds work perfect.”

Taylor’s world ranking in singles is down to No. 3, and it bothers him. The simple explanation is a significant increase in competition and that Taylor’s limitations are way beyond the norm.

Most of the players Taylor faces have considerable arm movement, much less the muscles themselves. Taylor’s doubles partner, David Wagner of Portland, Ore., is a former college tennis player who was paralyzed in a swimming accident.

“He has to tape the racquet to his hand, but he’s got full shoulders, a full upper body,” Taylor said. “He’s enormous. His arms are the size of my head.”

In a “nothing wrong with me” approach, though, the logic is not good enough for Taylor.

And Darius Schwarz knew that right away. Schwarz grew up in Australia after age 5, and he was one of that country’s top junior tennis players.

Now 26, Schwarz was hired in January 2005 as the associate head teniis coach at WSU. Since Taylor was always hanging around practice, lending an experienced eye to the point he is almost part of the program, Schwarz got to know him quickly.

The two clicked. Through hitting sessions and dinners, they became friends.

That has been crucial in the coach-player relationship for one reason: honesty.

“We spend so much time away from the court, there’s more than just tennis,” Schwarz said. “That allows me to say what I really think all the time.”

So Schwarz pushes Taylor, especially on how to construct points to take advantage of the tendencies of stronger players. The standard, “You did your best,” is not a favorite of Schwarz despite his “no worries” attitude off the court.

Schwarz even took the time to work in Taylor’s backup chair, trying to get a better idea of playing that way.

“Nick had to lower all the speeds on it,” Schwarz said. “On his chair, he has all the speeds set to maximum. Seriously, no one else can drive it. We’ll get it off the bus and have a guy jump in it thinking it’s easy, and he’ll almost lose it into a parked car.

“The dexterity and fine motor skills he needs to run that are out of this world.”

Seeing a friend investing himself like Schwarz was heartening to Taylor. But for a guy whose competitive nature swallows up everything else, what mattered most was that Schwarz was not going to be content with Taylor’s current success.

“Most people meet me and go, ‘Oh my God, how do you do it?’ And that’s fine, it’s a compliment,” Taylor said. “Darius and Jeremy looked at me and went, ‘That’s cool, man, but you know, if you did this, this and this, it could be better.’ That’s what I needed.”

Not slowing down

Noted performance psychologist John F. Murray annually selects a list of the top 100 performing individuals living, people who epitomize “the principles and lessons of high performance psychology.”

Among the athletes to make it this year are Brett Favre, Dwyane Wade, Tiger Woods — and Nick Taylor.

It’s not just athletes, either. Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Ted Turner are on the list. Taylor’s name is listed right below Nelson Mandela.

“I thought about calling Christina Aguilera and saying, ‘Hey, you know, we’re on this list together .. ,’ ” Taylor joked.

While it’s just a subjective list, it’s another accomplishment no one could have imagined.

At 27, able-bodied tennis players are normally on the downside of their careers.

And Taylor has options outside tennis. This June, he is scheduled to complete a master’s degree in sports administration to go with two bachelor’s degrees — all from WSU.

“Before I went to Athens, I was thinking about making it my last tournament,” Taylor said. “Then I got there. Before the opening ceremony, I knew I wasn’t quitting. It was just too cool.”

Asked what could change his mind now, Taylor smiled.

“For the right girl,” he said, “I might not do anything.”

He thinks his left thumb joint, where the pressure of his unusual swing mounts, “might explode,” which could force him off the court.

Other than that, Taylor said his biggest fear is funding. He travels the world playing tennis. Just in his World Team Cup (the wheelchair equivalent of Davis Cup) experience alone, he has been to France, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Netherlands and Brazil.

The travel is terribly expensive. While most wheelchair players fly separately and room together, Taylor has to have a travel partner — his father, Bill — to take care of basic needs.

So everything costs double. Head provides him with racquets, adidas provides clothes and Invacare donates wheelchair parts. PantherVision, a company that makes hands-free lighting equipment, is Taylor’s only monetary sponsor, though.

And the prize money, for most tournaments, is less than the entry fee.

So Taylor relies on sponsors and donations, and the “near begging” gets old, he said.

“That is what could make me quit,” he said. “But the sport is exploding. I don’t want to quit, and tournaments start handing out better prize money or great sponsorship deals, like my friends in Europe get, become available.

“Plus, I don’t want to give up tennis. It’s everything to me. I could compete in this sport forever.”

The B-word

Boiled down, the transformation of Taylor is driven by one thing: Beijing.

That’s where the Olympics and Paralympics will be held next year, and Taylor is aiming for gold medals in singles and doubles.

The team will be selected by a point system based on results starting late next month. So after an intentionally slow winter, Taylor plans to compete in every major tournament after May.

It’s why he hangs on Patterson’s every word, why his mood is based on each of the numerous tests he takes for Patterson.

“I’m a lab rat for him, and that’s fine with me,” Taylor said. “He’s tried a lot of innovative things, some of which didn’t work but most of which did. As competitive as I am, I want as much feedback as I can get.”

There are almost no limits to the feedback Patterson can provide, considering all his high-tech tools. He approaches Taylor’s fitness the same way he approaches that of former WSU runner Nathan Wadsworth, who trains under Patterson and recently finished 21st in the Boston Marathon.

“Nick’s an elite athlete, and he has to be treated as one,” Patterson said. “With the rowing machine, he can’t do it like an able-bodied person, but I thought he could find a way. He picks up on things very quickly, adapts very rapidly. Clearly, he’s had to do that his entire life.

“So while that might seem intimidating, I told him he needed to learn it. I knew he liked the challenge.”

When Taylor grunts to get his legs in place and carefully manages to work his hands around a V-grip connected to the rowing machine, he is looking way ahead.

The perhaps two hours he will spend essentially leaning forward and backward from his midsection are a path, a way he can see to somehow improving on the court.

When everyone else seemed unsure, Patterson and Schwarz created the possibility.

And that’s all Taylor asked.

“With my physical limitations, I had pretty much perfected what I could do in tennis,” Taylor said. “They have allowed me to think of new potential. It’s like I’m a whole new guy.”

Such is the life Sebastian Telfair led and managed to live through as a high school basketball player. Not just any high school basketball player, arguably the greatest player in the illustrious history of New York City high school basketball. As a high school sophomore, junior and senior Telfair became the first high school basketball player to ever lead his high school basketball team to three consecutive New York City high school basketball championships. But as is so often the case, the legend that is Sebastian Telfair appears to be crumbling, the life and future of a 21-year old hanging in the balance.

Telfair was the 13th overall pick in the 2004 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers out of Lincoln High School . At 6′ (many believe he’s no taller than 5’10), he is the shortest high school player ever to be drafted by an NBA franchise. He had committed to the University of Louisville and coach Rick Pitino during his senior year, but decided to turn professional instead. Telfair is the cousin of New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury, and the half-brother of former NBA player Jamel Thomas.

On February 15, 2006, a loaded handgun was found in Telfair’s pillowcase on the Blazers’ private jet at Boston ’s Logan International Airport . Telfair told authorities the gun belonged to his girlfriend and that he inadvertently grabbed the wrong bag when leaving for the team’s road trip. The gun was registered to Samantha Q. Rodriguez, Telfair’s girlfriend of five years.

On February 21, the Massachusetts State Police announced that no charges would be filed against Telfair in the incident ( Massachusetts has very strict gun laws, the violation of which can lead to a prison sentence). On February 23, the NBA front office announced that Telfair would receive a 2-game suspension for breaking the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which prohibits NBA players from carrying firearms while on league business.

On October 16, 2006, Telfair had a chain reported to be worth $50,000 taken from him while he was outside P-Diddy’s restaurant, Justin’s. The following night, Telfair left a preseason basketball game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden to attend a police lineup, where he did not make any identification.

A rumor began to circulate that he was seen making a phone call roughly an hour before rapper Fabolous was shot outside of the same club. Telfair voluntarily surrendered his cell phone records to police, and is not under investigation for any involvement, despite rumors to the contrary. It was later found that the chain belonged to Geonne Telfair, Telfair’s younger sibling, and Telfair was reimbursed for the stolen property.

Telfair and a friend, Al Eden Fuentes, were arrested early on April 20 2007 and charged with felony possession of a weapon, after a traffic stop. The traffic stop was prompted when Telfair was spotted driving his 2006 Range Rover 77 mph on the Bronx River Parkway , a 45 mph zone. Telfair was driving under a suspended Florida license. When the police searched Telfair’s vehicle, a loaded .45 caliber handgun was found under the passenger’s seat. Both Telfair and Eden claimed to not have any knowledge of the handgun. Police have yet to determine the registration status of the handgun.

While the police have yet to determine how they’re going to handle the gun charge the Boston Celtics have made a decision regarding Telfair’s future with the Celtics. Traded from the Trail Blazers to the Celtics on June 28, 2006, the Trail Blazers traded Telfair along with center Theo Ratliff and a 2008 second-round pick to the Boston Celtics for guard Dan Dickau, center Raef LaFrentz, and the 7th overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, Randy Foye, who was traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves for the 6th overall pick, Brandon Roy. On April 24, 2007 Celtics managing partner Wyc Grousbeck announced that Telfair’s nameplate on his Celtics locker had been removed and did not expect him back for the 2007-08 season.

“I wanted to let you know that we have removed Sebastian’s nameplate from his locker in Waltham ,” wrote Grousbeck in an email to the Boston Globe. “The facts and circumstances of his case have not been determined but he does not have a Celtics locker and we do not anticipate that he will.”

Have the Boston Celtics overreacted or has Celtics managing partner Wyc Grousbeck made himself judge and jury? Telfair has one year remaining on the $7.591 four year rookie contract he signed with the Blazers. NBA contracts are guaranteed and the Celtics will be responsible for the $2.56 million owed to Telfair. The Celtics can try and trade Telfair or attempt to challenge Telfair’s contract in the courts, but at the end of the day Grousbeck acting as judge, jury and in this case executioner has placed the Celtics in an un-winnable position. Telfair has had his share of legal “issues” but as a matter of record he has yet to be convicted of anything accept bad judgment.

“It is fair to say that if the charges were true, it wouldn’t make me too proud to have somebody I know who was speeding without a license and with a gun in the trunk,” said NBA commissioner David Stern to reporters during halftime of the New Jersey-Toronto playoff game Tuesday night according to a report in the Boston Globe. “I don’t know what the ultimate disposition of that is going to be but our players do have an obligation to conduct themselves in a way that demonstrates the appropriate respect for the game.”

Sports Business New spoke with Travis L. Gonzolez, Head of Global Basketball Public Relations for adidas Thursday afternoon. Even before he was drafted by the Trail Blazers adidas signed Telfair to a reported endorsement contract worth between $6 million and $10 million. The role adidas played in Telfair decision to enter the NBA draft after high school is featured prominently in the ESPN award winning film “Through the Fire”, which followed Telfair’s last year of high school through the moment he fulfilled his lifetime dream of being drafted by an NBA team.

Gonzolez, who has known Telfair since he was in the eighth grade, told SBN adidas the NBA’s official outfitter has yet to decide if they will continue their relationship with Telfair. The standard morality clause which allows a company to end their contractual obligations if they believe that person has done damage or harm to the reputation of their product through their actions (and no the same set of rules do not apply to the Celtics) will consider all of their options before making a decision.

“At the very least we owe Sebastian the benefit of the doubt and the time to investigate fully what did or didn’t take place,” Gonzolez told SBN. “We’re not jumping to any conclusions but at the end of the day we will do what’s best for adidas.”

“I’ve known Sebastian for a long time and in my heart of hearts I know he’s a good person who cares deeply about others and what people think of him. Not many people know this, but Sebastian is personally responsible for the welfare of 17 people, that’s a great deal of pressure for anyone, let alone a 21-year old.”

Telfair’s attorney, Ed Hayes spoke with The Boston Globe about the Celtics actions and doesn’t seem impressed by the organizations decision.

“I just think that what [the Celtics] did was with the season over they saw a chance to take a public relations shot and they did,” said Hayes. “He doesn’t do drugs. He doesn’t smoke. He takes good care of his family. He’s never been involved in any of those deals with beating girlfriends or causing trouble in nightclubs. He is not a guy who embarrasses you. He’s a nice young guy. He’s had a tough year.

“Why do that [make a public statement about removing the nameplate]? Why not say, ‘Give it a little time. We’ll see what happened.’ They should show more restraint after they told him not to cooperate with police against a group of hoodlums [in the Fabolous case] who have been terrorizing athletes and celebrities across the country.”

The real question that needs to be answered isn’t what the Celtics did and what adidas might or might not do, but how did a 21-year old with at least $12 million end up making so many questionable decisions? SBN spoke with John F Murray, PhD, clinical and sport performance psychologist based in Palm Beach , Florida (one of the best in the business) about Telfair. Telfair grew up in a series of tenement buildings located in the shadow of Cooney Island , the dilapidated Brooklyn amusement park.

One of the stories told in “Through the Fire” relates to Sebastian’s older cousin Stephon Marbury. Marbury left Georgia Tech after his freshman year facing the same challenges Telfair listening to a consistent message from everyone around him – your skills as a basketball player is expected to deliver our family from poverty into the lap of luxury. Towards the end of “Through the Fire” one of Telfair’s older brothers is seen driving a Bentley Sebastian has bought him and Sebastian’s mother is excited she’ll never have to cook again. Her meal ticket is about to sign a multi-million shoe contact and join the NBA. How much is Sebastian Telfair a product of the environment he grew up in?

“I think it’s a huge factor. So much of behavior is learned and if a person learns to cope with problems in a certain way they will tend to repeat that in the future. Much of this comes from parents, the neighborhood we are brought up in and the groups we gravitate toward. Some kind of positive role model is always helpful in a child’s background to encourage smart choices and knowing the consequences of behavior is crucial. Give this, there is still free-will and all citizens are responsible for their actions regardless of upbringing as that is the only way society could survive Murray told SBN.

Still John Murray made it clear that is no excuse for the poor decisions Sebastian Telfair seems to be making.

“I think it depends on who that person chooses in his mind as role models. If a person decides that gangs and gang behavior provide the answer, and that crime will pay, it can lead to disaster. If, on the other hand, a teacher, religious leader or parent has greater influence, that person might go in a totally different direction. Coming from a rough background does not necessarily lead to criminal behavior. Great leaders often come from nothing and rich nurtured children can end up in the gutter or addicted to drugs. It comes down to positive influences and the right choices, and learning that cheating or crime is not the right answer to the problem of survival.

USA Today columnist Ian OConnor wrote “The Jump which looked at the life and times of Sebastian Telfair and how he was handling the biggest decisions of his life and those around him as a 17 and 18-year old. Telfairâs appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, was the subject of an award winning documentary and during his senior year at Brooklyns Lincoln High School appeared on ESPN at least three times. In every sense of the word Telfair was a child prota©ga©, however in his case he was put on a pedestal without a support system around him that could have helped provide some guidance.

“Knowing limits is important. As talented as a 13-year-old might be, if he learns that his talent alone is the ticket to unlimited success and glory, and that the rules do not apply to him, and that the media will always love him for his ability to place a ball through a hoop, he is severely missing the lesson that life is hard, and that discipline and proper choices is what leads to true success and well being, Murray told SBN.

As for a teenager being showcased on ESPN, Murray offered this, How is anyone supposed to deal with that? The only answer is maturity, which is kind of hard for a young person who expects to live forever. This is why it is so important to have programs and mentors in place to hammer home the message that true success will only come from a certain degree of humility and a strong dose of self-esteem as a person independent of a person’s athletic prowess. It can all end with injury. There are no guarantees that it will always continue. People need to expand their awareness about life and find other avenues to identify with besides only sport or there could be a huge crash when the sport ends either by retirement or early for any number of other reasons. Success is always temporary and players need to understand that very well.

“He needed to hear the message that everything that goes up must eventually come down and that money or fame is never the answer to all your problems. Many of the clients I see are less happy with tremendous wealth than when they are fighting to make it in their sports. What does that tell you? Figure it out. Happiness is not a function of fame and wealth. Inner peace and self-esteem is far more valuable even if it does not always pay all the bills.

The pressure on Sebastian Telfair growing up in poverty, living around so many failed dreams and dreamers, death visiting his doorstep would be a great deal for anyone to deal with. But having to deal with the expectations of delivering his entire family to The Promised Land is a position an 18-year old should never be subjected too.

“Let’s face it … It’s very unnatural to come from nothing financially and then to have a huge windfall as a result of athletic talent. Who can teach coping with this if nobody has experienced it in this person’s social network? It has to come from the outside. Those who win the lottery often find their lives a wreck after they get paid off because they have not been educated to prepare for wealth. Everyone then wants a piece of their wealth and relationships change completely. There is a need to teach restraint and to educate those who receive windfalls overnight – especially among those who are from lower income families and totally unprepared for the stress. The pressure of that can be almost more devastating that having no money. Murray told SBN.

“It is highly unnatural. That is why good sport psychologists are so important actually in the NBA and all sports. You are talking about a stress actually – and no matter if the stress is good stress or bad stress it is still stress and it needs to be coped with religiously. Stress management programs and individual counseling can avert many problems before they occur. You might not be able to change 17 years of upbringing, but you can learn to anticipate problems and find solutions that have better consequences than carrying a loaded weapon around and getting tossed off a team.

At 21 Sebastian Telfair has a long life to lead and one that will hopefully include many years where his ability to thrill basketball fans will be appreciated by an NBA team and its fans. That team may not be the Boston Celtics, but given the challenges Telfair and the Celtics have faced in recent years another chance may be what Telfair needs. More important than basketball (regardless of if Telfair ever plays basketball again he still has millions of dollars to his name) is what Sebastian Telfair does with his life and what he can learn from the challenges he’s currently facing.

“Where do we begin? I would first of all try to get him to commit to a certain number of sessions and then we would spend a long time talking about his well being, happiness, what makes him tick, what he wants out of life, etc…. And then we could devise a plan of action to help him become more well adjusted. His life has been very unusual, and he probably needs a lot of mental coaching or mentoring, whatever you want to call it. Murray said.

And what of the Celtics, Murray shared some interesting thoughts on where the Celtics responsibility falls in regard to Telfair’s NBA future.

“I applaud the fact that teams are starting to get smart and tough! He still has a lot of money coming to him. He needs to now use some of that money for serious mental coaching. He will be a much happier person when he does. Hopefully he will get another great chance, but reversing this kind of behavior is going to take a lot of work.

“I’ve been telling teams for 25 years the same deal: You can’t afford to take a guy like that,” Robert Troutwine said.

Teams are listening — for one weekend, anyway.

Commissioner Roger Goodell’s crackdown on player misconduct, and his new policy holding franchises accountable when things go wrong, likely will make teams squeamish about taking draft-day risks.

Goodell made examples of Titans cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones and Bengals receiver Chris Henry. Jones got a season-long suspension, and Henry got an eight-game punishment for misconduct.

Team executives got the message.

“They’re going to run the risk that the commissioner may carry a heavy hand when it comes to teams that draft people who have known character issues,” said Floyd Reese, the former Titans general manager who drafted Jones last year. “As a franchise, you’re probably putting yourself in harm’s way if you draft somebody with character issues.”

The Cincinnati Bengals are the best example of how draft-day risks can deflate a franchise. They had nine players arrested during a nine-month span, six of them draft picks from the last two years. Two of them — Henry and linebacker Odell Thurman — are suspended by the league.

Coach Marvin Lewis said the Bengals will look more closely at character in this draft, but he thinks talk of teams being frightened away from players is overblown.

“I don’t know that it’s going to affect the teams quite as much as people think it’s going to,” Lewis said. “I think it will affect the players, because they have seen (Goodell) deal with things swiftly and harshly.”

The San Diego Chargers are a close second to the Bengals in misconduct — six players arrested, including linebacker Steve Foley, who was shot by an off-duty officer and released by the team in March.

General manager A.J. Smith said Goodell’s crackdown hasn’t changed the way his team evaluates draft picks.

“It didn’t affect us at all,” he said. “Everything with us and our investigative process is extensive. We do the best we can. We bring in good people with good character.”

They can’t say they don’t have enough information.

The NFL does background checks that include school discipline, arrests, court cases, driving records and limited financial records. The checks are done on players invited to the league’s combine, and the information is made available to teams.

Teams use various other methods to get information. This year, six NFL teams — the Colts, Patriots, Eagles, Jets, Rams and Panthers — are using Troutwine & Associates, Inc., to develop profiles on players. Troutwine, an industrial psychologist, uses a 75-question assessment that provides insights into a player’s temperament, judgment and attitudes.

Other teams use other psychologists or questionnaires to gain insights.

“Character is important,” said Troutwine, whose first NFL draft work came in 1985. “Ultimately, you win with those people. I don’t understand why people overlook that.”

The answer involves rationalization.

When a player slips in the draft because of misdeeds, he becomes more tempting with each passing round. Players taken in later rounds will get smaller salaries, so teams see less financial risk if problems follow and are more likely to overlook the problems that made them slide.

Psychologists say that’s a huge mistake.

“They say, ‘We won’t take him in the first round,’ then the guy drops to the fourth round and they take him,” Troutwine said. “Well, his character didn’t clean up in the fourth round. He didn’t get any smarter in the fourth round. There are some people that don’t get that. If he’s a bad character guy, you don’t want him.”

Coaches tend to think they can keep a player in line, even when he has failed to meet the expectations of others. And the predraft interviews with eager-to-impress players can leave a good — and totally misleading — impression.

“You sit him down, you bring him in, you talk to him,” Giants general manager Jerry Reese said. “You let him look at you eye-to-eye.”

Often, it’s a tough call. That’s when a team’s commitment to character is revealed.

“For many years, people have been putting a lot of emphasis on character,” said Gil Brandt, a former Cowboys personnel director now employed as a NFL.com analyst. “Sometimes, you think you can change a person, and that’s very hard to do.”

Psychologists would like to see the NFL use its input not only to size up players in the draft, but to help them once they join the league. Sports psychologist John F. Murray said the NFL has a lot of room to grow in that area.

Murray praised Goodell’s crackdown on misbehavior, but wonders whether it will have a long-lasting impact on how the NFL handles its players.

“I like to hope it would,” Murray said. “I’m pessimistic because I’ve seen so many things happen after the last eight or 10 years and thought things might change, but they didn’t.”

AP Sports Writers Bernie Wilson in San Diego and Teresa Walker in Nashville contributed to this report.

‘74 Dolphins Lead After Eight Weeks of Super Bowl Study

Palm Beach, FL – April 19, 2007 – After eight weeks of studying every play in Super Bowl history from 1967-1974, the 1974 Miami Dolphins have emerged as both the “most dominant team” and the “best performing team” owing to their .580 to .421 defeat of the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl VIII on a “Mental Performance Index” (MPI) statistic which measures how closely a team came to perfection in a game. A review of all MPI statistics, reports and videos can be found from links at the bottom of http://www.MentalPerformanceIndex.com.

This study has been called “The Super Bowl of Super Bowls” since every Super Bowl team is competing with every other team to determine which team was the overal best performing and most dominant team. Also targeted in the study are questions and analyses about questions such as keys in winning and losing. For example, the study will test the traditional belief that defense wins Super Bowls. Perhaps this is merely a myth and perhaps it is true. Perhaps offense, special teams, or overall pressure play is more important, and this study will show it.

This Super Bowl of Super Bowls was made possible by developing a unique and accurate scoring system. The MPI system standardizes performance (on a scale of .000 to 1.000 to allow cross-decade comparisons) and incorporates mental factors in the scoring to arrive at a more accurate estimate of performance.

Team “dominance” is determined by subtracting a losing team’s Total MPI Score from the winning team’s Total MPI Score. In order of dominance using this approach, the leaders after the first eight Super Bowls are: (1) Miami 1974; (2) Kansas City 1970; (3) Dallas 1972; (4) NY Jets 1969; (5) Green Bay 1967; (6) Green Bay 1968; (7) Miami 1973; (8) Baltimore 1971.

Team “performance” is calculated purely by the Total MPI Score of the team in question. The best performing teams so far after eight games are: (1) Miami 1974; (2) Kansas City 1970; (3) Green Bay 1967; (4) Green Bay 1968; (5) NY Jets 1969; (6) Dallas 1972; (7) Miami 1973; and (8) Baltimore 1971.

A summary of the “Total MPI Score” for each team for the first eight games is given below. MPI Super Bowl statistics are given in parentheses for each team:

VIII—Jan. 13, 1974—Miami 24 (.580), Minnesota 7 (.421)
VII— Jan. 14, 1973—Miami 14 (.511), Washington 7 (.485)
VI—–Jan. 16, 1972—Dallas 24 (.538), Miami 3 (.445)
V—– Jan. 17, 1971—Baltimore 16 (.469), Dallas 13 (.471)
IV—- Jan. 11, 1970—Kansas City 23 (.549), Minnesota 7 (.409)
III—- Jan. 12, 1969—N.Y. Jets 16 (.543), Baltimore 7 (.457)
II—– Jan. 14, 1968—Green Bay 33 (.547), Oakland 14 (.466)
I—— Jan. 15, 1967—Green Bay 35 (.548), Kansas City 10 (.464)

The study will continue every week until December when all the statistics will be reviewed.

Contact: John F Murray
Palm Beach, Florida
Tel: 561-596-9898

Instead, the 102-year-old Chico woman became the oldest golfer ever to make a hole-in-one on a regulation course.
Because of the slope of the green, McLean and her partners couldn’t see where her ball landed after she teed off.

“Where’s my ball?” McLean asked.

Her friends, Elizabeth Rake and Kathy Crowder, found it in the cup.

“I said, ‘Oh, my Lord. It can’t be true. It can’t be true.’ I was so excited. And the girls were absolutely overcome,” McLean said.

It was McLean’s first ace.

“Well everybody wants a hole-in-one, and I said, ‘Why can’t I have a hole-in-one?’ I came within inches once,” McLean told television station KNVN.

McLean, who used a driver, broke the age record of 101 set by Harold Stilson in 2001 at Deerfield Country Club in Florida.

McLean, who has been featured in golf magazines before, will appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on April 24 to celebrate her accomplishment.

“For an old lady,” she said, “I still hit the ball pretty good.”