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This is the On The Media Midweek Podcast. I'm Becca Clark-Calendar, one of OTM's producers. I'm working this week on a big piece for the show that is time to coincide with the grand finale of March Madness.
It's about the wild, wild world of sports gambling. And when I was looking around to see what else the show has done on basketball, the answer was not much. But I did find this amazing piece in the archive that we haven't played for a while. It's an interview that Brooke did in the WNYC live event space back in 2012 with Knicks legend Walt Frazier. Here's Brooke.
His first act brought down the house, or at least Madison Square Garden, in 1970. I wasn't a sports fan, but his speed, his cool, his name was in the ether. Walt Clyde Frazier, New York Nick. Frazier cuts to his left, now stops and jumps, yes!
Frazier out of the backcourt. And one looking very west across the backcourt. Looses to Frazier. With his mutton chops and his fedora, he rolled on fancy wheels through New York City, an icon of laconic cool. In that historic 1970 championship game, Nick's team captain, Willis Reed, playing with a terrible injury, was the hero. But Frazier's lethal steals and stealthy buckets clinched the win. Willis provided inspiration.
And, you know, in a way, I provided a devastation. Frazier's little rhyme there foreshadows his second act, the one you may not know if you don't live in New York. He's an ex-color commentator on the MSG network, famous for his truly astonishing suits, coordinated ties and pocket squares, and for his vocabulary, his rhymes. That's what got me. I'm all in the Nepal, it's splendor on the glass. Hey!
Erratic, dramatic, charismatic, acrobatic. That's JR. Penetrates, creates. Rising on Pecuia. And the left hand ain't that Pecuia.
I'm still not a sports fan, but drawn into the hoopla over then-Knicks prodigy Jeremy Lin, I found the legend of my youth, now voluble and amiable, but still cool. I read about his childhood in segregated Atlanta, changing the diapers of his many sisters, playing on dirt courts, his passion for yoga, his retreat in St. Croix, his restaurant, Clyde Frazier's Wine and Dine.
How did he manage it without combusting like so many superstars, without even a surgical repair? We invited him to WNYC's Jerome L. Greenspace and asked NPR sports reporter Mike Peska to kick it off with his own meeting with the man.
The year was 1994, and I had just seen a game at Madison Square Garden. Got outside, bought a pretzel on the street, and was walking away. My friend and I turned around, and there was Walter Clyde Frazier. And so I kind of smeared the mustard off my face, and I put the pretzel in my other hand. I felt that I rebounded, and then I proceeded to astound Frazier.
by extending my hand and saying, Clyde, it is a pleasure to be meeting and greeting you. And he said, nah, nah, nah, meeting and eating. And I turned to my friend like a giddy schoolgirl, and we just said, I'm Joyce! And now, at 5'3", hailing from Park Slope, Brooklyn, the host of On the Media,
Author of The Influencing Machine. Frank Starr! Foot four, Basketball Hall of Famer. Commentator for the MSG Network. He played his college ball at Southern Illinois. He's a seven-time NBA All-Star. Two-time champion, Walt Clyde Frank! Ladies and gentlemen, Walt Frazier! Thank you!
I started off by asking Walt about the genesis of his nickname, Clyde. When I was a rookie, I wasn't playing well. So in order to pacify myself, I went shopping. So I dress up in my room and go in the mirror. Well, I'm not playing good, but I still look good. So one day we were in Baltimore. It was a hat store, and I see this Barcelona hat.
brown velour, but it had a wide brim. And like today, they were wearing, everybody was wearing a narrow brim. So the first time our warders had it, everybody laughed at me. My teammates, the opposition. Two weeks later, the movie, Bonnie and Clyde, comes out. So I walk in the locker room, everybody go, hey, look at Clyde. So that shows you kids that if you have something you believe in, don't listen to nobody else.
A former teammate said that the legend of Clyde, your legend, was partly a media creation, but that you happily went along with it. Yeah, that's true. Clyde is an alter ego of mine, which operated between 12 and 4 a.m. LAUGHTER
So the rest of the time, I'm Walt, nice guy from Atlanta, Georgia, that changed diapers and do all that stuff. You know, Harvey Arriton, in his brilliant book, When the Garden Was Eden, said that you put on Clyde the way that Leonard Nimoy puts on his Spock ears, that it's...
if alien, or maybe it's comfortable because it's alien. Did it help you deal with the scrutiny? Normally, I'm home alone. I never had an entourage. And, you know, when I was cloud, I had a driver. And that was quite a car. Yeah, yeah, the Rolls Royce. But normally, I'm a very quiet and shy person. People laugh when I say that, but I'm a shy guy that likes to walk around in mink coats and a Rolls Royce. LAUGHTER
Well, let me ask you about the style in your game. You, more than anyone, monumentalize the steal. Stealing on the court, as you describe it, demands cool, playing possum. It's like poker at 100 miles an hour. I'm playing possum. I'm balling you to sleep. I give you room so you think that you can do something. So sometimes early in the game, I could steal the ball, but it wouldn't have the same impact.
So now you're dribbling the same way and all of a sudden I come and I make the steal, it could turn the momentum of the game and then... You're describing a pool hustle. It's a cat and mouse game that I played on defense. But defense was my favorite part of the game, primarily because when I was in college, one year I was ineligible to play because of poor grades. So as a punishment, the coach made me play defense every day in practice for a whole year. I'd never played offense.
So I said, well, if I'm going to be a defensive player, I'm going to be the best damn defensive player of the year. We were talking in the green room about the earliest rules of the game. You said the game was very, very boring when it started. And why was that?
Because, you know, they started on a peach basket, but it had the bottom in it. So every time you scored, they had to get on a ladder and go and take the ball out of the peach basket. So it took them seven years to figure out to take the bottom from underneath the basket. LAUGHTER
But it seems like the game in recent years has changed a lot, too. I was watching the Knicks game last night, and it seems to be built very much around star shooters. It wasn't team play like the Knicks of the 1970s. Well, that's true. That's one of the more blatant changes in the game. Shooting a lot of threes and dunks and nothing inside of the arc. To me, the most glaring difference in the game today, other than the money...
It's the size of the players. Like when I played, I was a big guard at 6'4". Today, I'd be a shrimp. I'm a point guard today because the average height of an NBA player is 6'7". Do you wish that the three-pointer had never been invented? I mean, do you find it dispiriting that everybody focuses on taking these really long shots? Well, it's a blessing and a curse. But today, the game is entertainment.
Today is who's in the stands, the celebrities, and that type of thing. So it's more focused on getting the young kids to buy the video games and the merchandising, the jerseys, and ESPN. We never had ESPN. So these guys know today if you do something, a good dunk, you're going to be number one or number two on ESPN. The only time you're going to see a good defensive play is if you block a shot to win a game. Other than that, it's all embellishing offense.
Do you find it boring? No, I've accepted it. When I first started, I was like, these guys can't play. I was like, nobody can shoot. What are they doing? Today, a guy would rather make a stupendous dunk shot and go 0 for 10. Just the way the game has evolved. The three-point shot, it's cinematic. You say it's changed because of TV, but has it actually changed the rules of the game? Oh, yeah.
They took away the hand check. Why? Because they wanted more continuity. They wanted more ball movement. Nobody liked the game. People were complaining, the game is too rough. There's no movement. There's not enough shooting. So television pays the cost to be the boss. I think other than that, the rules have been better. Like when we played, the shot clock was on the floor.
And I attribute a lot of my steals to guys trying to find that shot clock. Last second shot, and they're trying to look for that clock, and then I'd have the ball going the other way. But today, both shot clocks are above the basket, so it's much easier. You don't have to try to look for it. So I like a lot of the changes, making the game more popular. It's an international sport now when you look at basketball. When I played in the 70s, everybody was from the U.S.,
Today, a third of the players are from all over the world. It's like tennis. So it's a very popular game. I mean, look at Dennis Rodman. He's becoming a political... He's going to bring peace to the world. You mean America's great diplomat. Yeah.
The 70s, New York in the 70s, America in the 70s. This was an incredibly racially charged time. Did it get to you? Well, I actually came along at the right time. Guys like Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, those were the guys that really kind of paved the way. So when I came into the NBA, black players, we never had to stay in separate hotels like Russell and those guys had to do. So,
I really pay homage to them for making those sacrifices. And then having guys like Bob Cousy and Hondo Havlicek, the white players, also supporting the effort to integrate basketball. Basketball has come a tremendous way now. When you look at, maybe it's 80-20 black now compared to 60-40 white when I came into the league. And I'm from the South, so I still believe that if not for sports, the South would be segregated. Really? Yeah.
It really propelled them to look at people differently. They wanted to win, and they knew that black players were dominating the game, and they started integrating the schools, and that made it happen. But as far as when black and white meet, there's no color, it's just respect. And when you're playing, and that's why guys accept each other more in sports than any other venue, because of the respect of talent when guys compete.
You once said, I was never afraid of being an individual, even if it meant I was going to be ostracized for it. Well, that's never going to happen, but the wide lapels, the wild colors, not the austere style of the third millennium we're currently in. You couldn't care less, right? I think when you're a visionary, you can't be concerned with...
What people think. So I used to just walk up and down Fifth Avenue, look at how women were dressed, how men were dressed. And my tailor was only a few blocks from there. So I see different color combinations and I run to my tailor and I have things made up. And a lot of times I talk to kids and I say, don't be afraid to veer from the path and leave your own footprints.
I think today when I go in our schools, everybody walk alike, they all talk alike, they all look alike. There's no individuality. Everybody's a follower. There are not too many leaders. So we've got to get back to not being afraid to do what you want to do. But the other part of my always being cognizant of dressing for success was growing up under the oppression of segregation.
And being the oldest of nine kids, so whenever I went downtown, I was not only representing my family, my neighborhood, but my race as well. So my mom was always telling me, Walt, you got to set a good example for the kids. So whenever I went out, I was aware of that. And even today, I'm still aware of that, especially when I got into broadcasting.
So many of you know I wasn't using, they say, $100 words when I was a Nick player. But once I got into broadcasting, I didn't want to embarrass myself, my family, or my friends. So right away I knew, I said, man, I have to improve my vocabulary. So how did you do that? Bounding and astounding, creating, penetrating, erotic, acrobatic, certainly charismatic, but where did it come from? I started on radio.
So the guy that I was working with, he never gave me a chance to talk. And radio. I know radio. That's a definite disability. So sometimes I start talking and I couldn't shut up. He'd go, excuse me, Walt. He'd just run right over me.
So then I was getting bored and I just came up with, like if the Knicks were making passes and I knew he had to catch his breath. And I go, they're dishing and swishing. That was about all I could get in. They're ubiquitous. They're provocative. So to improve my vocabulary, I used to get the Sunday Times, the arts and leisure section when they critique the plays.
Oh, the plays. Yeah, riveting, mesmerizing, provocative, profound. So people think I'm a voracious reader, but I have books and books of words and phrases. When I first started, I just studied these books over and over and...
Ironically, you can use cliches and no one will ever say anything, but if you use ubiquitous twice, they'll go, "He used that word twice already." And then all of a sudden I fell in love with words. Words are like people. The more you see them, the more you relate to them. And even today, just like fashion, I'm always looking for new words and how I can incorporate them into my style.
We took audience questions and one woman asked about how pro athletes make the transition from the limelight. That is a daunting task that I would say 80% of professional players never make. Their marriages dissolve, drugs and alcohol problems. Many of the players I played with or against are destitute now. Sometimes the players are so bad the teams have to bury them when they die.
Sports Illustrated did an article, I guess, two or three years ago about 80% of the guys, once they leave the game, professional players, seven or eight years after they leave the game, they're broke. And I think the best thing that happened to me was getting traded, leaving New York. Going to Cleveland? Going to Cleveland. I was all dressed up and no place to go. LAUGHTER
I used to get dressed up and go out and where my meet guys go, "Clyde, where you going?" So I became a homebody. I was reading a lot of self-help books, you know, because I knew I only wanted to play a couple of more years. So I was reading books that would help me make that transition into not playing. And it still took me a couple of years to get over that. So you can imagine today how players
We should fly commercially. We stayed in holiday inns. Today, these guys in the Ritz Carlton's, the Four Seasons, they have their own private plane. They're making millions of dollars. So how do you come down from that? How do you make that transition from that if you squandered your money?
How many players do you think, like you, never received a technical violation, never mouthed off at a ref, never got tossed out of the game? Maybe 1%. I give kudos to my coaches for that. In grade school, high school, college, they never allowed the teams that I was on to talk back to the refs. We never had prima donnas. Everybody had the same rules, you know, in college. But you also didn't like the fines.
Phil Jackson asked me once, Clyde, how could you pay $50 for a pair of alligator shoes? You know, back in that day, the alligator shoes cost $50. And I go, how can you pay $25 for a technical? Okay. Give it all you got, take your very best shot, and may the best team win. The time is now, the name of the game is action.
Thanks for listening to the Midweek Podcast. Tune into The Big Show this weekend for my report on sports betting and for Micah's reporting on the past, present, and future of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that until recently delivered aid to Gaza.
