"It's so bad, it's funny," said St. Joe's Marie Wozniak about Phil Martelli's half-hour Thursday night "HawkTalk," shown in the Philly area on Comcast SportsNet. But is the St. Joe's coach offended by what his school's athletics publicist said? "No, she's right," said Martelli. "It's such bad television that you have to laugh." The show, which captures Martelli's self-mocking spirit, is taped, but there is a rule against retakes. It's silly and stupid. "We do it in 35 minutes. We don't worry about the artistic value," said Martelli. "Most coaches' shows suck. They're just rehashes of stuff you already know. But I don't take myself too seriously. And we have fun." So much fun that College Sports Television is now picking up "HawkTalk" (into March) and showing it nationally directly after the local airing.
The X Games (Jan. 24-27) overlapped in Aspen with Gay Ski Week (Jan. 25-Feb. 1). One enterprising local put the two together ... a wild party at Club Chelsea called the Extremely Gay Games.
The night after giving a speech at the National Youth Sports Dinner, Lakers coach Phil Jackson was given a technical foul in a game against the Warriors. Jackson is the national spokesman for Positive Coaching Alliance, a youth program supported by such high-profile people in sports as Pistons coach Larry Brown and A's pitcher Barry Zito and sponsored by NikeGo and Fannie Mae. Its coaching techniques include the aim to give young athletes five positive comments for every criticism, but Jackson said he only aspires to that ratio. When asked about the speech and the technical, he said, "I'm not there yet."
It's all about style. Greg Norman, who earned an off-tour reputation designing clothes and golf courses, helped design his own boat. The 228-foot "Aussie Rules" is the world's largest aluminum and composite private yacht. There is diving equipment for 30 people onboard and a decompression chamber. The yacht carries four Yamaha Waverunners and five boats of 42, 30, 22, 18 and 13 feet. The 42-footer has a gourmet galley for cooking up the catch while it''s still fresh. The Shark built the yacht with all the frills for $70 million.
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| Fine dining takes to the high seas on Greg Norman’s 228-foot all-the-extras yacht. |
It may be "Cold Pizza," but in the green room at ESPN2's new morning show the fare includes low-carb, high-protein Atkins energy bars and bags of nuts.
Horsing around before the taping of BET's "Rap City" last week, WNBA superstar Swin Cash pretended to be a supermodel and walked the runway for guests and crew. That may be prophetic for the captain of the 2003 champion Detroit Shock. She was also the star at a special lunch hosted by Vogue magazine on style, which included the magazine's editors, cosmetics guru Bobbi Brown, Dylan Lauren (Ralph's daughter and owner of a fashionable New York candy boutique called Dylan's Candy Bar), Tony-award winner Sutton Foster and Ivanka Trump (Donald and Ivana's daughter). Photos to appear in April's Vogue.
Will it float? Spirits were bubbly last week when MLB representatives Wendy Selig-Prieb, John McHale and Jonathan Mariner, along with HKS architect Mike Woolen and finance expert Rick Horrow, visited proposed stadium sites in the Norfolk, Va., area. One top site in downtown Norfolk is near the water, so a running joke was to build a floating stadium. Another, given Norfolk's naval history, was to build it to look like a ship. "There were lots of funny ideas floating around," said Will Somerindyke, the 26-year-old who founded the Norfolk Baseball Co. with his 26-year-old partner, Jason Osborne. The two former Merrill Lynch moneymen put together an ownership group in hopes of landing the Expos. But, Somerindyke said, "The stadium's not going to float, and it's not going to look like a ship."
"Stand Up for Your Rox," a double-entendre marketing campaign, will be launched this spring by the Brockton Rox of the Northeast League. To flesh out the campaign, the Rox asked for input from a group of other minor league baseball teams, including clubs owned and operated by Mike Veeck and Marv Goldklang. "We hold meetings each fall to talk about promotion, marketing and operations," said Jeff Goldklang, Marv's son. After last fall's meeting, the group, including the Charleston Riverdogs, the Fort Myers Miracle, the Hudson Valley Renegades, the St. Paul Saints and the Sioux Falls Canaries, created a Web site to share marketing ideas. "Everyone in our organization can contribute ideas that we can all use," said Goldklang. The best follow-up idea on the Web site to go with "Stand Up for Your Rox," said Goldklang, is to play off the idea of "two balls, no strikes."
Contact John Genzale at jgenzale@nyc.rr.com.
