A three-point play:
Tony Soprano playing Sonny Vaccaro.
Now that’s inspired casting.
Vaccaro, the recently retired gym shoe impresario, often has been called basketball’s godfather, so who better to play him in an upcoming movie than James Gandolfini, a.k.a. mob boss Soprano? Both Soprano and Vaccaro are larger-than-life characters, and both guys’ jobs involved shooting and cutthroat competition.
Gandolfini’s first post-Sopranos acting role apparently will be in HBO’s “ABCD Camp.” Vaccaro invented the free shoe company national summer camp when he was with Nike before taking it to Adidas and Reebok.
More Top Picks Best Walking Pad Accessories For Seniors
He also invented the national all-star high school basketball game and developed grass roots programs, in which shoe companies gave high schools free equipment and club teams gear and financial support in pursuit of the loyalties of top athletes, making kids “Nike players” or the like.
Finally, Vaccaro changed sports forever when he started signing college basketball coaches to endorsement deals and convinced his Nike bosses to sign Michael Jordan and market the heck out of him.
Some of this was good, and plenty was bad, but it combined to make Vaccaro one of basketball’s most influential figures ever.
He left Reebok last January but not the game. He is in the midst of a speaking tour that includes stops at Harvard and Yale and has talked of a book and a basketball academy.
He also is absorbing his share of kidding for having Gandolfini/Soprano portray him.
“That’s a natural connection,” he said Friday, “but really, James Gandolfini is a wonderful actor.
“I’m honored someone would see fit to do this.”
The movie also has talent behind it on the production and writing end, so it figures to be good. Unfortunately, though, it mostly will be a based-on-reality look at the ABCD camp instead of a biopic about Vaccaro.
That robs us of seeing some juicy subplots, such as Vaccaro’s relationship with George Raveling, a college coach-turned-Nike official. Raveling was best man at Vaccaro’s wedding, but they became bitter rivals fighting over top players after Vaccaro switched to Adidas.
Vaccaro’s unhappy exits from Nike and Adidas wouldn’t make for bad theater, either, nor would his reaction when he was left out of a meeting last year on basketball reform that included NCAA and NBA officials and shoe company representatives but not him.
We’ll just have to wait for the sequel.
Drug testing for Illinois high school athletes still seems inevitable. The Illinois High School Association’s membership, though, apparently will get a big say in the matter before the IHSA Board of Directors has the final word.
IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman said the board wants feedback from member school representatives at this fall’s town meetings and also plans to survey its schools afterward regarding the issue.
“I continue to think that’s where we’re headed,” he said of testing. “On the other hand, we want to make sure the direction is fully supported by the membership.”
Testing likely will gather enough support for the board to OK it, which once again would make paying for it the biggest question.
Hickman believes state funding is unlikely and that even if outside money became available, the IHSA in the long run will have to foot the bill, which has been estimated at $175 a test.
Possibilities for funding, he said, include a ticket surcharge on state tournament events and redirecting current association revenues.
According to Hickman, an initial program likely would cost about $100,000. That probably would be a bare-bones program involving random testing in just a few sports at the state series level.
Year-round testing is the best way to go, but that would be more expensive. So if testing is going to work, the IHSA and its members eventually are going to have to be willing to spend some really serious cash.
The board will address testing at its meeting Monday, though Hickman said it will mainly involve an update.
Hickman expressed relief that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association recruiting rule last summer. A federal appeals court had backed Brentwood Academy after the school sued the TSSAA for penalizing it for violating the rule.
The school alleged the association had infringed on its free speech rights under the First Amendment. The TSSAA said members join the association voluntarily, draw up rules and agree to abide by them.
High school officials nationwide fretted that a Brentwood victory might move state associations toward a collegiate recruiting model, where activity would be regulated instead of prohibited, especially in areas of speech, and where we might find high school coaches sending text messages to 13-year-olds.
More Top Picks Best Laminators For The Money
Those worries, fortunately, appear to be over.
“It seemed like a very common-sense conclusion the court came to,” Hickman said. “I think it would have been a major setback to have that case go the other way.”
———-