Over the years I’ve been asked to broadcast some events that fall into the category of “not so interesting.” One was the Olympic bobsled competition. “How do you call a bobsled race?’, I thought to myself. So I asked an expert who broadcast the sport for German television. He said, “Here they come……there they go.” There you have it.
Another time I did the National Chicken Flying Championships. Here they stuffed a chicken in a mailbox attached to a six foot post, and then pushed the unsuspecting bird out of the mailbox with a plunger. The chicken that flew (or fell) the furthest, was the winner. This did not have the excitement of, say the seventh game of the World Series.
I bring this up because there are a lot of events out there that fall into the category of boring. But none — not a single bobsled race, chicken flight, walking race, or hot dog eating contest — can come remotely close to an NFL preseason game when it comes to downright tedium.
Why would you waste three hours (or nine if you watch all three preseason games) of your life watching several people who’ll be driving beer trucks before September 1, when you could be watching reruns of ‘Dr. Pimple Popper’?
Moreover, how can we pass judgement on what our San Francisco 49ers might be in 2024 when even the head coach gives up play calling responsibilities to essentially an intern?
Okay, I’ll acknowledge the fact that a guy who provides a lot of offensive punch is merely a practice observer while his agent quibbles over a lousy few million dollars with the team. Truth be told, the 49ers have the whip hand. I know it’s a compromise but Brandon Aiyuk might just have to settle for a Maserati instead of a Lamborghini. I feel his pain.
The bigger issue is the left tackle — maybe the best ever. Trent Williams is essential and I’m sure Topic A in the 49er front office. With all due respect to Brandon Aiyuk, Williams is a more crying need.
Beyond that, yes, there are nicks and bruises, pulls and strains, and a sick and wounded list that reads like a MASH unit. But the able bodies that will be at full strength come the opener on September 9, are amongst the best in the league.
I’m just not ready to buy into the gloom and doom preseason outlook quite yet. This is a team laden with All Pro players. It’s also a team that should get better as the season goes on. There are good teams – maybe even teams the equal of the 49ers in the NFL this year — and in the end injuries will have a big role in who’s left standing. But lest you think the home team here in these parts is going to be groveling with the likes of the Patriots, Giants, Panthers and Titans, I’m saying they’ll be in the fray to the end.
Although it wouldn’t hurt to maybe offer some small change to Jed York so that he can pay his left tackle what he’s worth.
There is an old joke about a man who cross bred a parrot with a lion. “What is it called?,” he was asked? “I don’t know. But when it talks – you listen!”
That was Al Attles.
The former Warriors player and coach passed away Tuesday at the age of 87. He was all things to all people. He was “coach”. He was “teammate.” He was “friend,” “confidant,” “teacher,” and “guru.” And what he was more than anything else to everyone who ever knew him was “there.” If you wanted his advice, his counseling, his friendship, or his expertise, Al Attles was “there.”
I met Al Attles when I was a 24 year-old wannabe sportscaster at KCBS Radio. His nickname was “The Destroyer”, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in The Destroyer’s path. I asked him some stupid question that today would be met with a glare and a curt rebuff, and he put his arm around me, walked me to the bench and said, “Don’t be nervous, just ask your question.” I did, it was still stupid, and Al Attles answered it as though I was doing a story for ’60 Minutes’.
“The Destroyer,” was absent that day, and in fact, I never saw anything in the man that would remotely make me think he was one of the most feared players in the league. But at 6’0” and 175 pounds, Al Attles on a basketball court was an enforcer. Even teammate Rick Barry, who never spoke highly of anyone but himself in terms of basketball respect, told me once, “You just don’t mess with Al Attles.”
Alvin taught me a lot about basketball. Over the years I spent a lot of time with him, on the court, in his office, at his house in the Oakland hills. He also taught me about life. He talked about how to treat people, how to coach people and make them better.
Over the next week or so, you’re going to read a lot of words from a lot of people whom Alvin Attles influenced. In all the years I’ve known him, I never heard a single person say so much as a disparaging word about him. I referenced earlier that when he spoke you listened. That was not kidding. He had the definitive “Voice of God.” He made James Earl Jones look like a soprano. I had the voice of a basketball coach; he had the voice of a Shakespearean actor. I always told him he chose the wrong profession. A profession incidentally, that he had never intended to be a part of.
Al Attles played his college ball at a Historically Black University, North Carolina A&T. He wasn’t there on a basketball scholarship. He earned a much more difficult scholarship to attain than one for shooting hoops. He was there on a music scholarship. The selection process to make the basketball team was a lot easier than being good enough to qualify for the marching band.
The people who influenced me as a sportscaster seem to be dropping all around me. Don Klein, my boss at KCBS who taught me about how to call a game. Willie Mays, who adopted me for some unknown reason and filled me with wisdom. And now Al Attles, who made a stupid kid look not so stupid and showed him what a good guy really looks like.
Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native. Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.
