Dub-Bulls: How the 1996 Bulls led the small-ball revolution by going big

Excerpt from “How The GOAT Was Built: Six Life Lessons From the 1996 Chicago Bulls”

Lesson #4: Think creatively about your shortcomings

by Jack M Silverstein (@readjack)

Twenty years later, my number one vision of the Chicago Bulls in the spring of 1996 is 20 limbs and an approximate 35-foot combined wingspan fanned out like a flying octagon — five players between 6’6 and 6’11, four with point guard skills, four who could defend three positions, and a genius on the sideline joining his players in synced consciousness.

In short, they were awesome.

It’s no coincidence that the Warriors are too.

While watching Golden State this season, my thoughts have returned time and again to one question and one question only: Why? Why these Warriors? Why after Shaq & Kobe and Duncan’s Spurs and the Big 3 Heat and the Big 3 Celtics — why is THIS the team that finally made a successful run at 70 wins, much less 73?

Keith Richards, The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper and musical evolution

Esquire Magazine released an interview last month with Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards, who made headlines by dishing on his most famous musical contemporary — The Beatles.

Adrian Peterson and the quest for immortality

Adrian Peterson and the quest for immortality

by Jack M Silverstein, @readjack

Originally published on ChicagoSide, September 13, 2013

One of the coolest pieces of sports memorabilia I ever saw was at Bookman’s Alley, the great old used bookstore in Evanston. It was a poster made of cloth displaying the schedule for the 1927 Chicago Cardinals season, like the 1920’s version of a team schedule refrigerator magnet.

The schedule read:

September 25          Chicago Bears

October 2                 Pottsville Maroons

October 9                 Dayton Triangles

October 16               at Green Bay Packers

October 30               Red Grange

November 6             Green Bay Packers

November 13           at Red Grange

November 19           at Frankford Yellow Jackets

November 20           at New York Giants

November 24           at Chicago Bears

November 27           Cleveland Bulldogs

How Back To The Future Part II helped make the greatest trilogy in movie history

How Back To The Future Part II helped make the greatest trilogy in movie history

by Jack M Silverstein, @readjack

The year I turned 25, I started writing letters to my great-grandchildren. Every time an important event occurs, I write a letter that begins, “Greetings from the past.” Then I group them together by year. The letters will be delivered to my great-grandchildren on their corresponding birthdays. When they turn 25, they will get the letters I wrote when I was 25. When they turn 30, they will get the letters I wrote when I was 30. And so on.

The first two years were done on individual sheets of paper. After temporarily losing the 27-year-old letter, I started writing them in books. Collectively, I call them the Time Journal.

My inspiration? Back To The Future.

Eric Nesterenko, Black Hawks legend, in Studs Terkel’s ‘Working’

In 1972, his final season with the Black Hawks and his second-to-last season of professional hockey, winger Eric Nesterenko gave Studs Terkel one of the most honest and insightful quotes that any athlete has ever committed to the annals of history:

“The whole object of a pro game is to win,” Nesterenko said. “That is what we sell. We sell it to a lot of people who don’t win at all in their regular lives.”

Tonight, the Blackhawks open the Stanley Cup Finals in Tampa with a chance to bag their third championship in six seasons. Prior to that, the franchise had gone 49 years without a championship. Nesterenko was a part of that team.

In honor of the latest Blackhawks Cup chase, I have typed out Nesterenko’s full interview with Terkel, part of the 1974 book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.

It remains one of the great athlete interviews I’ve ever read.

For 1.

For 1.

February 25, 2015

by Jack M Silverstein (@readjack)

All I want to hear is love.

Don’t talk to me about prospects — ours for the playoffs or the talent that might replace him.

Don’t talk to me about fault — his or his coach’s or anyone else’s.

Don’t talk to me about the future — his with us or ours without him.

Don’t talk to me about legacy — about Penny or Prior, about Fields or Woody.

Don’t talk to me about pain — unless it’s his.

Don’t talk to me about anything other than what he means to you. As a Bulls fan. As a Chicagoan.

That’s it.

That’s all I want to hear.

People With Passion: Alex Beh (2015 edition)

People With Passion

Filmmaker Alex Beh

E-mail exchange, Feb. 2-3, 2015

When we last spoke, back in April of 2010, filmmaker Alex Beh had recently released Babe, his fourth short film. In the intervening five years he has directed three more shorts, directed several music videos, starred in commercials for Bud Light and Burger King and has now released Warren, his feature film debut.

John Heard (left) and Alex Beh (center) in “Warren.”

The movie stars Beh as the title character, a Chicago man drifting through his late 20s while his parents (John Heard & Jean Smart) get divorced and his ex-girlfriend (Sarah Habel) turns up back in town with a fiancé. Beh is the lead but dishes out plenty of screen time for his co-stars, with particularly strong performances from the veterans Heard & Smart. Let me be the first to say that Heard — whose credits include Home Alone, After Hours, Big and The Sopranos — gives one of the best performances his career as Warren’s hard-drinking, love-lorn, soon-to-be-divorced father.

While Beh prepped for Warren‘s Chicago premier last night at the Midwest Independent Film Festival, Beh and I traded e-mails the past two days about his experience making the film. The following is an edited version of that exchange.

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin archives, 2015

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin archives

Plus Chicago Lawyer and Leading Lawyer stories

(all titles are links)

2015 (click here for 2013-2014)

(NOTE: the Law Bulletin is subscription-based. Links marked SUB need subscription.)

(If any links don’t work, please email me at jsilverstein@lbpc.com. Thanks!)

The 35,000 square foot rotunda in the 65,000 square foot Roundhouse at the DuSable Museum for African American History. (photo by Jack Silverstein for Chicago Daily Law Bulletin)

6 JAN 2015 — Expansions at Polsinelli & Heyl, Royster

8 JAN 2015 — Fundraiser for The Roundhouse at the DuSable Museum

9 JAN 2015 — Law School Notes: Deans react to the 2015 Association of American Law Schools (AALS) conference (free PDF)

12 JAN 2015 — Amicus Curious: Employment lawyer Marc J. Siegel (SUB)

15 JAN 2015 — 7th Circuit: No privacy in police cars (SUB)

16 JAN 2015 — Obituary of attorney Joseph Tecson (SUB)

19 JAN 2015 — Amicus Curious: Employment lawyer Paul Burmeister works with musicians’ unions to help save small town orchestras (SUB)

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin archives, 2013-14

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin archives

Plus Chicago Lawyer and Leading Lawyer stories

(all titles are links)

2013 – 2014 (click here for 2015)

(NOTE: the Law Bulletin is subscription-based. Links marked SUB need subscription.)

(If any links don’t work, please email me at jsilverstein@lbpc.com. Thanks!)

Robert Ashmore, subject of my Law School Notes story, Dec. 13, 2013. (Casey Black Photography)

2 DEC 2013 — Amicus Curious: Baker & McKenzie’s Robert Knuepfer receives Hungarian Order of Merit

6 DEC 2013 — Law School Notes: Northwestern Law launches Master of Science in Law

9 DEC 2013 — Amicus Curious: ISBA’s Dave Anderson retires (SUB)

10 DEC 2013 — Schiff, Hardin represents the Randolph Group in Weiman Products sale (SUB)

11 DEC 2013 — Scharf, Banks, Marmor’s holiday party (SUB) (free PDF)

12 DEC 2013 — LAF raises $19,000 for Giving Tuesday (SUB)

13 DEC 2013 — Law School Notes: John Marshall’s BELAW program helps Logan Square businessman start pedicab operation (free PDF)

Quotables.

Time to Settle Accounts

January 2, 2015: Quotables.

“My goodness,” I thought after reading a quote on Boston sportswriter Tom Curran’s twitter feed attributed to Denver Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib. “Did he really say that?”

The quote was simple in its brilliance: “People that dry-hump stats to make a point probably prefer reading sheet music to hearing the song.”

I’d found my way to Curran when Neil the Boston Fan said hello on twitter, sparking a conversation about sportswriting, and which Boston sportswriters tickle Neil’s fancy. He mentioned Curran, and then that Talib quote, perfect in its construction.

It seemed personally crafted for me, since I’ve been known to dry hump a stat or two.