(Harish Balasubramani/Illustrations director)
The following
article is something that I will share with all of my managers! It is a really good look at the value and
importance of a really good manager if you realize that you are more than ‘just
a manager.’
Tony Luftman was a
manger on the 1995 UCLA men’s basketball team that won a National Championship. One thing that stuck out to me was how he
feels that he was a big part of that team, even though he never played in a
game. I want all of my managers to feel that
included every season as well.
You can find the
original article here.
Like clockwork, Jim Harrick’s cell phone buzzed on April 3.
So did those of other members of UCLA’s 1995 men’s
basketball championship team, like Ed O’Bannon, Tyus Edney and Steve Lavin.
Another year, another text from Tony Luftman, a manager on the
1995 team, with the same simple message:
“Thank you for letting me be a part of your team.”
But more than 20 years ago in 1994, Luftman hadn’t yet developed
into that reliable friend. He was just another wide-eyed rookie on the team – a
college freshman who had failed his first big test.
It wasn’t a history midterm or a pop quiz in math, but in a
meeting with one of the best teachers UCLA had to offer.
The invitation didn’t seem real: a dinner with legendary coach
John Wooden.
The manager found himself sitting anxiously in Wooden’s Encino
condominium, meeting the legendary coach for the first time and describing the
transition to life as a college student.
“Well, I’m just a manager,” Luftman said before Wooden abruptly
cut in.
“Well, I’m just a coach,” Wooden said, pausing before he went
on. “Tony, ‘just’ implies a sense of diminished value or importance. No one is
‘just’ anything.”
So he wasn’t “just” another basketball manager.
He was a crucial component in UCLA’s 1995 championship run to an
NCAA record 11th national title.
“Wooden talked about a train, and that you needed every part of
a locomotive to go down the track,” Luftman said. “Helping the team was my way
of contributing. I wanted to be out there to help the players focus on playing
and the coaches to focus on coaching.”
Just like different people were needed on that championship
team, different experiences and memories at UCLA needed to come together to
help Luftman grow as a person.
Even before Luftman, now a broadcaster with the NHL and MLB
networks, stepped foot on campus as a student, UCLA and the basketball program
were shaping his future.
The Southern California native had attended game after game with
his season-ticket holder parents, learning about and admiring Wooden’s 10
national-championship teams.
It was during one of these games where a bewildered young
Luftman stared at the baseline, puzzled by the odd number of ball boys on
either side.
He met Steve Harris, UCLA’s then-basketball manager, who
offered to let him be a ball boy against Louisville the next week. Luftman
accepted, but not before telling Harris his future plans.
“One day, I’d like to be a manager,” he said.
Ball boy duties turned into working UCLA basketball camps in the
summer. Summer camps turned into an offer to attend UCLA as the team’s manager.
For Luftman, being a Bruin was within reach.
He was ready for the Westwood of his imagination – walking where
Jackie Robinson walked, playing where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won championships – a
filtered and picturesque UCLA experience.
It didn’t come as easy to him at first.
The reality was slogging through English discussions, navigating
the dating game and embarrassing himself in practice almost daily.
Some days he fell flat.
During one practice, a distracted Luftman chatted away with
then-assistant coach Steve Lavin before noticing the shot clock, which he had
been tasked with monitoring, was about to sound off in three seconds, 60 feet
away from where he was sitting.
The “Mission: Impossible” theme went off in his head.
Luftman sprinted for the other end of the court, diving for the
clock in a futile attempt to stop the horn from blaring in Pauley Pavilion,
before falling on his face.
Practice paused, players stopped their drills and Harrick turned
towards the crash.
“Luftman, what the hell is going on over there?” Harrick said.
“Sorry coach, my fault!” Luftman said.
Humiliating or not, the embarrassment didn’t kill him. Those
memories, good and bad, laid the foundation.
Whether it’d be remembering that Edney couldn’t eat gummy bears
for fear of a stomachache, that O’Bannon had a soft spot for the Little Rascals
and preferred Cheetos over cheese puffs or Wooden lecturing him on the
importance of word choice, each story fostered a friendship and each memory was
stored away for later.
But few memories could top the electrifying feeling of
walking in with the team and cheering on his friends in Pauley for the first
time.
“It’s the closest I’ve come to having a heart attack,” Luftman
said. “I thought I was going to die the first time I walked out. The cheers,
the roaring, the 8-clap. You can’t duplicate that.”
Two memories did top that one, though – his independent study
course with Wooden was one, the national championship win with his friends was
the other.
Every week, Luftman trekked to Wooden’s home, where photographs
of the championship teams and the coach’s former players hung on the walls, to
sit down and learn from the Wizard of Westwood.
Nothing was off limits during those lessons.
Wooden offered advice on relationships – “It’s OK to disagree if
you disagree agreeably” – and coaching. The former coach said he felt guilty
about setting such a high standard for future coaches like Harrick, Lavin, Ben
Howland and now-coach Steve Alford. Luftman soaked in every eloquent answer.
There was still that one question he was itching to ask Wooden
though.
“Coach, what was it like to win your first championship?”
Wooden began quoting Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa to
Luftman, who was just thrilled with getting an answer from his hero and not
quite registering what the UCLA legend was truly saying.
Thirty-one wins later, Luftman had the chance to answer that
question on his own.
The Bruins were on the cusp of winning their first men’s basketball
championship since 1975, Wooden’s last championship before he retired.
“We believed we were going to do something special,” Luftman
said.
Coach Harrick believed that, too.
In a team meeting before the team flew to the Final Four in
Seattle, Harrick pointed up at the banners and reminded them they had a chance
to get number 11.
They did.
With an 89-78 win over Arkansas on April 3, 1995, UCLA ended the
season with the championship trophy. With a pep rally and banner reveal
ceremony underway at Pauley Pavilion two days later, Wooden had a question for
Luftman.
The coach looked for him first and shuffled through the crowd
toward the manager who stood in the right back corner of the room.
“He said with a wink, ‘Tony, congratulations. How does it feel
to win your first national championship?’” Luftman said. “Instead of coming up
with a two-minute answer, all I could say was ‘It’s really cool, it’s really
cool.’”
Luftman returned to electric, raucous Pauley Pavilion as a fan
when UCLA took on Arizona this year, reminiscent of his
college days.
But he wished he had one more game as a manager.
“When (Pittsburgh quarterback) Terry Bradshaw went into the hall
of fame, he said, ‘What I wouldn’t give to have my hands under (Pittsburgh
center) Mike Webster’s butt one more time to take a snap.’ I remember thinking,
that guy’s crazy,” Luftman said. “But when I was at the Arizona game, I was
thinking, ‘What I wouldn’t give to walk out of that door and onto the court
with my friends.’”
Instead of sitting on the bench, he greeted Tanya Alford, coach
Alford’s wife, who said it was about time UCLA got another banner to hang in
the rafters.
He agreed before pointing to the one of the banners floating up
top, describing that season to his wife.
“We were something.” Luftman said. “There’s a quote from a
hockey coach before the Stanley Cup finals: ‘Win today and we walk together
forever.’”
Whether or not the Bruins win another championship, that 1995
banner is permanent proof that wherever Luftman and his team walk, they will
always be something.
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