Here is our real time review of the latest edition of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Included in tonight’s edition are a story on George Karl and his son, both of whom had to deal with cancer at the same time, a story on oil billionaire Boone Pickens who has given a ton of money to his alma mater Oklahoma State for the athletics program, a heartwarning story of a family who donated their daughter’s organs after her suicide and the impact she has made, plus an update on Bernard Goldberg’s story on jockey’s struggling to make weight before their races. Real Sports has never failed to disappoint on its solid reporting. Let’s see how they do tonight.
Reported by Jon Frankel, this is about Denver Nuggets coach George Karl and his son, Los Angeles Lakers guard Coby. For George, the place he feels most comfortable is on the basketball court. It has come mostly at the expense of his family. A basketball nomad, he’s age56 and has led five NBA franchises to the postseason. Throughout his career, he dragged his family along with him. Coby didn’t even finish an entire year in school until he turned 9. The journey appeared over when he went to Seattle in 1990. Even though George had Coby at his side as the Sonics’ ballboy, the picture of a happy family was anything but false.
Karl’s wife, Cathy felt George was more in love with basketball. In 1998, Karl was fired from Seattle and the following year, she filed for divorce. Karl eventually went to Milwaukee where he had shared custody of Coby. And Coby was also in love with basketball and he played in high school. Finding that no college would take him, Coby walked on at Boise State. When George was fired in Milwaukee, he moved to Idaho to be closer to his son.
When the Denver Nuggets came calling, Coby pushed George to take the job. But then, George was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but then six months later, Coby was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Luckily, Coby’s cancer was not aggressive so he could delay surgery.
But George was not so lucky. He had to leave the team. He had surgery to remove the cancer and is back coaching the Nuggets.
Coby did have surgery to successfully remove the cancer. However, he later discovered that cancer had spread to his liver. But he was allowed to play and so he did. George went to watch his son play and said it was the worst he ever felt knowing there was nothing he could do for him. Coby played through his cancer delaying surgery once again. Eventually, Coby became the third leading scorer in Boise State’s history.
And last season, Karl was able to see his son in 12 games. This past April, Coby underwent 7 hours of surgery to successfully remove cancerous lymph nodes.
Undrafted by the NBA, Coby went through summer league and got himself a contract with the Lakers, even starting Opening Night this season. An amazing story. Being the 15th man on the roster, he doesn’t have a guaranteed contract and on some nights, doesn’t dress. But he’s willing to do anything to have a successful NBA career.
Coby’s long term prognosis is good. And George’s relationship with his ex-wife and daughter is good plus he has a daughter with a woman with whom he’s in a current relationship and all are said to be happy. Good story. My grade – B.
This was done by Bernard Goldberg. T. Boone Pickens flies into Oklahoma State every week to watch his beloved Cowboys play football. While he’s known to most of the world as a successful billionaire, he’s known to Oklahoma State students as the man who gave $165 million to the athletics department. The school has not been successful in football in several years. Pickens is 79 and says he wants results now. College football is big business. Ohio State spent $200 million on stadium renovations and Michigan is about to do similar renovations so they can generate ticket sales and revenue. The whole thing is to attract the best players to Stillwater, OK.
Goldberg spent a day with Pickens and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to look over Boone’s master plan to turn Oklahoma State into a national power. There’s construction all over the campus to make build new facilities. In addition to a new stadium, there will be a new building just for the football team.
Pickens himself is worth $3 billion after making investments in the oil business. He currently runs a hedge fund. Pickens says he’s betting his ass that this will turn around for Oklahoma State.
Critics feel the donation is out of whack and shows how wrong priorities are in college sports. Some university professors and students feel it sends the wrong message. In fact, two students have created a comic strip called “Boone State”. One chemistry professor feels what Pickens is doing is wrong and should be spent on other resources. But Pickens doesn’t care and he’s a big man on campus.
This all leads to questions as to how involved in the school’s athletics decision is Pickens and while he says he isn’t invovled in everyday decisions, he is involved in major ones. Pickens says it’s his money and he’ll spend it where he wants to.
Pickens’ management company is managing the money and its grown to $300 million. And yes, his name is on the football stadium.
There are no stipulations on what Pickens’ role can be. The professors feel the money should be spent on academics, but Pickens feels that if athletics is better, then more people will give money to other departments. It’s all very shady to me. Good story and raises good ethical questions. Grade – B+.
Segment #3 – The Gift Of Life
Presented by Frank Deford. This is the story of the Shroyer family who had to make a painful decision and Len Geiger who has a lot to be thankful this year. Kevin and Christine Shroyer of Lynchburg, VA. They had three beautiful children. Korinne was close to her father.
Len Geiger, a family man living in Georgia, was healthy, but then contracted a very rare disease. He had to eventually depend on oxygen and could not leave his house. Within two years of contracting this disease, he lost his job, his house, his family and was getting closer to death.
Around the same time, Korinne was telling her family that she was experiencing sadness. A therapist prescribed an anti-depressant. Then on May 20, 2002, Korinne sadly took her own life by firing a single shot into her head. She had found a gun he was trying to hide. Apparently the anti-depressant had caused suicidal thoughts and Korrinne died in the hospital six days later. The Shroyers decided to donate her organs.
Shortly afterwards, Len Geiger got a call that he had healthy lungs. They were Korinne’s as her parents donated her organs. Geiger had a new lease on life. He was able to ride a mountain bike, run marathons. He was healthy again.
The Shroyers were dealing with their daughter’s death and found it difficult to cope.
Len Geiger wanted to thank the people who had donated Korinne’s lungs. They wrote back. Soon, they were exchanging letters and eventually, Len decided to go to Virginia to meet the Shroyers.
Len said it was an emotional meeting. He saw Korinne’s pictures and saw how she grew up into a beautiful young woman. They spent several emotional hours. It was time to leave and as he was leaving, Christine asked if she could put her hands on his chest and asked him to breathe.
It was that first meeting that the two men learned that had several things i
n common. Both men liked to run. So they ran an 8 K race together. Kevin realized that their story was becoming more and more public. Kevin and Len have raced six races together including a marathon to raise awareness for organ donations.
Christine now joins them, and for now, Len can’t run, recovering from a weak hip after taking steroids to recover. Len then got married and had a daughter, naming her Ava Korrine.
A truly emotional story that first was tragic and is now very uplifting. My grade – A+.
Segment #4 – Riding on Empty
An update on a story originally done by Bernard Goldberg. Chris Herrell was a jockey who struggled to make weight. He was 150 pounds and had to make weight at 114. One day, his body gave out. After 14 years of making himself throw up to make weight, his heart just gave out.
Randy Romero told HBO that he would throw up three or four times a day. And if a jockey was three or four pounds overweight, he would do everything he could to drop it. Romero says he would only eat two meals a week. That’s not healthy. And Romero showed what is called a “flipping bowl” in the jockey’s locker room, a toilet where the jockeys would throw up. To make the weight, jockeys would take diuretics to help lose weight.
Romero said he almost lost his life struggling to make the prescribed weight by sweating it off by going into a machine and spent so much time there, he suffered burns on 70% of his body. He has suffered massive kidney failure and had to undergo dialysis in order to get a new kidney so he could live.
The jockeys are asking to raise the weight limits from 110 to 116 pounds. But trainers and owners don’t want that. They say extra pounds could be a disaster for a horse. Trainer D. Wayne Lucas says no. Lucas says jockeys have to make sacrifices to make the weight and if they don’t, they’ll be out of a job.
Despite the efforts, nothing much has changed in the five years since the original story aired. Jockeys still starve themselves to death. Emanuel Sanchez died in Virginia of massive dehydration.
The track physician of Golden Gate Field is now conducting the first comprehensive study on jockeys’ weight. He says the weight limits need to be raised.
Randy Romero now knows he won’t get the kidney because he has Hepatitis C and it can’t get under control. Romero is working with jockeys to get them to eat so they won’t flip and sweat.
But unfortunately, he feels the practices won’t stop. However, tracks are now monitoring jockeys’ hydration. How much it will help is not known. My original grade was A. It’s B here because the report was much shorter than the original report.
Final Comments
Bryant talked about Michael Vick’s problems. Bryant says what he did was wrong, but he notes that the punishment he’s received does not fit the crime. Bryant says while dogfighting is reprehensible, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, Arthur Blank is suing Vick for the signing bonus, two banks are after Vick for money they say he owes them, his sponsor feigning anger has dropped him after cashing in on his bad boy image, PETA has taken a bite out of him and so has “race baiters”. Bryant says what Vick did was wrong, but he asks haven’t we had enough?
This is as not as controversial as his lapdog comments about Gene Upshaw, but I disagree with this. Vick’s punishment has fit the crime. I give Bryant an F for his comments.
Overall grade, B-. Not as good as past shows, but this is still heads and shoulders above E:60.
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