Howard Jeruchimowitz:
Welcome everybody. My name for those who don't know me is Howard Jeruchimowitz, Class of '94, parent of the Class of '23. I'm back at Brandeis which is exciting. Wanted to welcome everyone to this very exciting event presented by Dr. Lewis and moderated by Doug Stark. I want to first introduce Doug Stark, Class of '94. There's a bio Doug sent me, and I'll tell you some highlights of that, but I really know Doug as my hallmate, my roommate, my suite mate, Brandeis friend, and now friend for over 30 years. It's a privilege to do an event like this with Doug. Doug is very active in the sports community. He is currently the director of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport.
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
He was previously worked for the Basketball Hall of Fame, as well as the United States Golf Association Museum. Very relevant for tonight and this is the part I am going to read, Doug is a prolific author in the area of basketball, in particular Jewish basketball which has been totally fascinating reading all of Doug's books about where basketball has originated from and how involved the Jewish community actually was in the sport. I'm just going to rattle these off.
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
He's the author of books including The SPHAS: The Life and Times of Basketball's Greatest Jewish Team, Wartime Basketball: The Emergence of National Sport during World War II, When Basketball Was Jewish: Voices of Those Who Played the Game, Breaking Barriers: A History of Integration in Professional Basketball, James Naismith Reader: Basketball in His Own Words. He's also a child author for a book that he co-authored called... I lost that one for a minute. Oh, how do you pronounce that Doug?
Douglas Stark:
Shikey Gotthoffer.
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
There you go. Thank you Doug. He's also self-published three reference books, and he's currently working on the original March Madness 1939 World Professional Basketball Tournament and a book about Jewish basketball Doug. You can see Doug enjoys basketball. Some of his books by the way, I noticed when I was back on campus during the store, I'm at Brandeis, I pointed them all out my daughter. You've got a nice little section in the bookstore. I don't even know if you know that. With that, I want to turn it over to my friend Doug who's going to introduce Dr. Lewis, and then we'll get going with some fun stuff tonight. Doug.
Douglas Stark:
Okay, great. Thank you Howard. Tonight, I'm pleased to be here. We have a very interesting program. I'm sure most of you over the summer saw the ESPN documentary The Last Dance which gave a fascinating behind the scenes look at the Chicago Bulls towards the end of their dynasty during the Jordan and Phil Jackson era. Usually, there are books by former players, coaches, general managers that give you a little insight into how teams have operated, but there are not many books if any at all from a team's orthopedic surgeon. This might be the first. We're pleased to have an opportunity to hear from Dr. Lewis and his unique perspective.
Douglas Stark:
His book is the The Ball's in Your Court: A Doctor Shares Life Lessons from Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Abraham Maslow and Other Inspiring Teachers. I'll give a quick overview of Dr. Lewis, and then he'll give everyone a presentation, and then we'll reconvene for a discussion. Michael Lewis is an orthopedic surgeon at the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute. He has been chief of staff at NorthShore University HealthSystem Skokie Hospital. He was named the best teacher of the year at Rush university Medical Center. He has also been an orthopedic consultant to the Chicago White Sox baseball team, the Chicago Wolves hockey team, and the Chicago Bulls basketball team with whom he earned two championship rings, and maybe he's wearing them this evening, I don't know.
Douglas Stark:
Dr. Lewis has been honored to treat numerous world-class athletes from several continents including all-star professional basketball and baseball players and Olympic medal winners. Being an avid tennis player who has successfully competed at the national level in his age group, he understands how important active participation in their chosen activities is to his patients. He's also the author of six books, which we'll get to also a little bit during the discussion. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Lewis.
Michael Lewis:
Well, thank you so much. I would echo Howard's compliments about your books, which I've been reading and enjoying very much, Doug.
Douglas Stark:
Thank you.
Michael Lewis:
If you could spend two years with Michael Jordan or Phil Jackson, what lessons would you hope to learn from that experience? I was so privileged to have the unique experience of having a close relationship with the players, with coach Phil Jackson and with the general manager, Jerry Krause. This book, The Ball's in Your Court, is an attempt to answer those questions. I'd like to start with a one-minute video with quotations from the book followed by a short presentation illustrated by my photographs. This video is dedicated to Mollie Martin in her memory. She was my high school debate and speech teacher and was a significant influence. During these very challenging times, we're preoccupied with how we're going to cope with COVID and think about how you're feeling during these times.
Michael Lewis:
Are you feeling like this matador in a bull fight in Barcelona Spain, or like this rodeo rider holding on for dear life in a rodeo in Houston, Texas? Are you feeling a bit hostile like these polar bears discussing whether to wear a face mask, but I am hoping that by the end of this presentation, you'll feel a little bit more like these Magellanic penguins from the Falkland Islands. Now why should you pay any attention to a country doctor from Houston, Texas and one answer is that I've been extraordinarily blessed to be in the right place at the right time. Probably the best example of that was illustrated by this man, Abraham Maslow because in 1960, I was in the right place at the right time because Abraham Maslow, the father of humanistic psychology, was my professor for several courses and was a mentor to me.
Michael Lewis:
We're going to certainly talk more about Abraham Maslow and the Brandeis experience in the early 1960s. On the subject of being in the right place at the right time, I was so fortunate to be able to study with this man. This is Sir John Charnley who invented the hip replacement seen here and since his invention, literally several million people including my wife have benefited by his hip replacement. When I first moved to Chicago, our practice was the doctor for the Chicago White Sox. I'm seeing here examining Wilbur Wood, the all-star knuckle ball pitcher for the White Sox. I was one of the first people in the midwest to perform knee arthroscopic surgery, and our practice was the doctor for the Chicago Bulls basketball team.
Michael Lewis:
I was so fortunate to earn two championship rings. Let's go back in time to the 1990s when right here in Chicago, Illinois, we had the greatest athlete on the planet. Michael Jordan is seen here flying through the air. What a magical time that was, and I'd like to share one Michael Jordan story with you. This was a playoff game against the Indianapolis Pacers during the playoffs in 1998. Michael Jordan went up for a rebound and was poked in the eye and blood was pouring from his right eyelid. He and I walked off the court together, and I had a decision to make.
Michael Lewis:
Do I suture the eyelid which would close the wound, but it would mean he couldn't go back into the game, or do I Steri-Strip the wound, which would have meant that he could go back, but the Steri-Strips might not hold and the bleeding might start pouring out of the eyelid again? As I was making this decision, I envisioned the headlines in the Chicago Tribune the next day. Imagine yourself being in this headline, Bulls lose playoff because Michael Lewis dropped the ball. It was certainly a few very tense moments, but we did Steri-Strip the wound and I didn't breathe for the rest of the game, but the Steri-Strips held. It was a real lesson in humility because I could have done everything right, but the results may not have turned out well.
Michael Lewis:
This gentleman speaking of being in the right place at the right time, we're now back to Brandeis University in the 1960s. This gentleman is Abram Sachar who was the first president and was the president when I was at Brandeis. We are honored to have Michael Oberman on this call who was Abram Sachar's driver and confidante and consigliere. Hopefully the end of this conversation, Michael can tell us a little bit more about Abram Sachar. When he started Brandeis University, virtually everyone told him that it was impossible to begin from scratch a great liberal arts school and a great research university, but he responded with his very famous saying which is, "If you're going to leap across a chasm, you'd better not do it in two steps."
Michael Lewis:
He didn't do that and the result is, is that he did create a great liberal arts university and a great research institution. When I arrived at the Brandeis Campus in 1960, the tuition was $1250. Men and women lived in separate dormitories. The women had curfews and believe it or not, the women wore white gloves to the President's team. Abraham Maslow was a giant in psychology at that time, primarily because he really changed the direction of psychology. Prior to Maslow, Freud was preeminent and Freud studied people who were emotionally unhealthy. Maslow had this radical idea, which is let's look at the people in the world that we most admire and see what they're like.
Michael Lewis:
I have this slide Maslow on management, because Maslow today is even more esteemed than he was 60 years ago. He has taught in virtually every business school in the country in the arena of trying to increase management and employee satisfaction. A concept that Maslow created was the idea of self-actualization, and for a frightened directionless 18-year-old, this was for me like the holy grail. What is self-actualization? Self-actualization is fulfilling your potential to make the world better, and self-actualization isn't a place where you arrive, but it's a process. It's a path to follow, and there's several characteristics that people on the road to self-actualization possess.
Michael Lewis:
One is you may not be able to control external events in your life, but you do have control over your reaction to events. Another way of saying that is you can't stop the waves, but you can try to learn how to surf. This is a good excuse for me to show a picture of my son-in-law and grandson who live on Maui surfing, and my other grandson body surfing on Maui. Why when we're talking about self-actualization, do I have a picture of Dennis Rodman? A very fair question. You might be thinking about what is your favorite hair color. Is it yellow? Is it red? Is it perhaps green? Is it a combination of white and red or red and black or some combination?
Michael Lewis:
Well, the reason that I'm showing images of Dennis Rodman is on this subject of that you can change your reaction, you can change your attitude, you can change your ideas about reality. Specifically, I was treating Dennis Rodman for an injury and he was basically assiduously ignoring my sage advice. Then two weeks into the injury, just by coincidence I happened to walk into the training room when Dennis was talking to Steve Kerr about this rockstar Janice Joplin. I mentioned that when I was an intern in 1969, I'd heard Janice Joplin in concert. Suddenly, you could see the wheels turning in Dennis's head and clearly, he thought, "Well if this dude was cool enough to hear Janice Joplin in concert, maybe his medical IQ is higher than I thought, and maybe I should start listening to his advice."
Michael Lewis:
He did start listening to his advice, and I'm happy to say that he contributed significantly to the championship run that year during their fifth championship season. This was for me a very good example of my medical skills didn't change, but Dennis's attitude did change. Another example is represented by Bill Wennington seen here, and this is handling adversity. I had the challenging task of having to tell Bill Wennington that he had sustained a significant foot injury and he was unable to participate in the playoffs that year, because the injury was so significant. Of course, he was upset, but his reaction was, "I've had a good run. I've been in the league for 10 years.
Michael Lewis:
Most people are in the league for three to four years, so I'm grateful for the opportunity that I've had." A lesson that I try to tell my residents and my children and grandchildren is the true test of a person's character isn't how they act when things are going well, but it's how they act when they're facing adversity. This is Shizuka Arakawa who won the gold medal in figure skating, and it was estimated during her many, many years of practice that she fell probably 20,000 times, but what was most important is that she got up 20,000 times. It's how you handle adversity. Another quality that people on the road to self-actualization have that Maslow highlighted is creativity, and Maslow famously said one of his most famous quotes, "A first-rate soup is better than a second-rate poem."
Michael Lewis:
This was very helpful to me because like a lot of people, I thought that creativity had to do with painting a painting or creating a poem, but as he pointed out, starting a business or raising a family or being a contractor or an auto mechanic could be a very creative act. This is really helpful in understanding a broader definition of creativity. Another component to creativity I learned from this man, this is Dewitt Jones who was a good friend of mine, who is a famous National Geographic photographer. I highly recommend his TED Talk, which is creating what's best in the world. I visited him on the Island of Molokai which is a Hawaiian island where he lives, and one of his principles is there's more than one right answer, there's more than one lens through which to view the world in ourselves.
Michael Lewis:
I'll share a personal example. These are the largest sand dunes in the world, and this is in the country of Namibia which is in Southern Africa. This is a photograph I took from an airplane. This was one right answer, one way to view the dunes. Early one morning, my wife and I climbed to the top of this dune literally at 4 in the morning because for three minutes at daybreak, the sun cut across the dunes at this angle. If you look hard, you can see the Nike swoosh and the dunes, but this was another right answer. Then we climbed down and we took a image of the dunes from ground level, another right answer and finally, backing off much further, this is a dead lake which is 800 years old.
Michael Lewis:
Because the air is so dry, these trees have been basically petrified and then dried in this condition for 800 years, but again another right answer. Part of creativity is plan B, is that there's more than one right answer. Another component to creativity is the importance of discipline. The famous writer Somerset Maugham was asked if he only writes when inspiration strikes him and he says, "Yes, I wait for inspiration, but fortunately, it strikes every morning at 9:00 sharp." Another very important quality that Maslow emphasizes for people on the road to self-actualization is the importance of friendship and love. There is a very, very important study that's actually still taking place.
Michael Lewis:
This is the Harvard Longitudinal Study where they took 338 college freshmen at Harvard University starting in 1938, and they followed them and performed extensive psychological and medical tests every few years since then. The most important conclusion which is quite profound is that more important than money, more important than power, more important than fame is that close relationships are what leads to a more satisfying life. Now speaking of close relationships, here we are at Brandeis University in 1960. This was then and this is now. This is a group of seven Brandeisians who met at as freshmen at Brandeis. I'm the second to the right and some very fashionable Crocs and every year for the past 60 years, we've met, we've taken vacations together.
Michael Lewis:
Here we are together in the Cayman Islands and this has been such a rich source of joy in all of our lives. Another quality that Maslow emphasizes is the importance of focusing beyond yourself, and an example of that is that my wife and I were so privileged to visit Geoff Tabin, my friend, the ophthalmologist in Ghana in 2006, where we witnessed Geoff performing several hundred cataract surgeries. As a result of this experience, all of the proceeds from my books go to the Himalayan Cataract Project. This is a gentleman, Kwame Mansu, who for many years was blind with cataract because of cataracts, and this was the very moment that Kwame could see for the first time in years.
Michael Lewis:
When I asked him what was the first thing that he wanted to do, it was to see his grandchildren for the very first time. At the end of the book, there's this poster which lists other qualities of people on the road to self-actualization and other life lessons. We're now ready and I hope you'll be as enthusiastic as this snowy owl is for the further discussion and question and answers. Thank you for listening.
Douglas Stark:
Okay, thank you Dr. Lewis, certainly very interesting presentation. We are going to have a discussion with some questions, and then we invite everyone to post some questions they'd like in the chat box. If you could add your class year, that would be helpful, just so we can get a sense of who is here. As I was reflecting on your presentation, I noticed your photography, the teachers who have had big influences in your life and all of the life lessons, or found a way to get interwoven throughout this book. I guess my first question would be, why did you decide to write this book and what were you hoping to accomplish with this book?
Michael Lewis:
Well, it seemed to me that I had, as I said at the beginning of the presentation, a unique opportunity because of my unique perspective. Also in so many cases being in the right place at the right time, being the doctor for the Bulls, being the doctor for the White Sox, having Abraham Maslow as a mentor, and it just seemed that there were so many life lessons that I try to apply to my life and that I hoped would resonate with other people. It just seemed that there was a wider audience because of this unique perspective.
Douglas Stark:
Chicago has obviously a very rich sports history. You've been involved with the White Sox, the Wolves, the Bulls, all of whom have very colorful characters, Bill Veeck, Jordan, Pippen, Rodman, Phil Jackson and obviously I'm sure that's where a lot of the discussion will head tonight, but earlier you would refer to yourself as a country doctor from Texas. Can you tell us a little bit about growing up in Houston in the '50s and how that shaped your life, and how you made your way to the East Coast and to Brandeis?
Michael Lewis:
Yes. Well 600,000, that was the population of Houston, Texas in 1950. In Houston, we were very proud that we were the 14th largest city in the country. The population for Houston now is over six million, and we're the fourth largest city in the country. Growing up in the 1950s was before the Civil Rights Movement, it was before the assassination of JFK and Martin Luther King, it was before the Vietnam War. If you were Caucasian and a male, it was virtually a given that if you worked hard, that you would become successful. It was a much simpler, a more innocent, a more naive time, and Texas was really the wild west. I knew so many people who made a fortune one day and lost a fortune a few months later, and then regained the fortune a few months after that.
Michael Lewis:
It was really the frontier spirit, but it was also very provincial. When I first came to Brandeis and I talked about this in the book, I really felt out of my depth being surrounded by you fancy easterners.
Douglas Stark:
Your time at Brandeis was shaped a lot by Abraham Maslow, which you've talked about. Can you share some other thoughts about him, or your time at Brandeis?
Michael Lewis:
Well, there are many other qualities to self-actualization, and one experience that I had at Brandeis was a very profound experience. I don't know if this tradition continued, but every week, when we were there, there were prominent speakers who just talked about their life experiences. One for me extremely memorable experience was the psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim. Now Bruno Bettelheim subsequently his work came under very heavy criticism, but this was in 1962 and it was the time of the freedom rides. At the end of his speech, it was a question and answer time. One student said, "Professor Bettelheim, why don't you go on a freedom ride?" He was a short man who was about 5'6" six, and he got very red in the face.
Michael Lewis:
He got off the podium, walked down the aisle, stood over this quivering student, pointed his finger in his face and said, "Don't tell me what to do. If you're talking about a freedom ride, you go on a freedom ride. I'm doing what's important for me." It was a very profound lesson about don't talk the talk, walk the walk because in college, it's very easy to talk the talk and not take responsibility for your action. That was for me a very powerful Brandeis experience, and it also fit in with Abraham Maslow's idea about autonomy and taking responsibility for your actions.
Douglas Stark:
When we met last week to do a prep and a dry run for this, we decided we'd like to just take a few minutes to talk about our experiences at Brandeis and obviously, Brandeis was a very a formative time in your life as it probably was in mine, Howard's, and most everybody on this call. I guess Howard, I'd ask you if you wanted to share an experience or two about Brandeis.
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
Yeah, I mean Brandeis for me I think are two things. One of them is the community and one and the second is the friends you make. I think Dr. Lewis actually touched on both of them in his presentation, the friendships you have for now 60 years. I hope Doug and I are our friends that long. We haven't fought that much, Doug. The meaningful stuff at Brandeis for me and it's probably biggest one I was very dedicated to the justice, I still am to this day. I have just an affinity to it, and both Doug and I were fortunate to still have Abram Sachar alive during our formidable years at Brandeis. When we were juniors or heading into our junior year, that was when Abram Sachar passed away.
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
I just had the fortune of getting to know Dr. Sachar, interviewed him, at lunch with him, and just the thought that Dr. Lewis and all the alums that came before us had this just large figure on campus for all those years. I had the opportunity in his final swan song to get to know him. I was so moved by Dr. Sachar that in the summer when he passed away, I hopped in my car and drove to Brandeis. My mom's like, "Where are you going?" I was like, "Well Dr. Sachar just passed away. I must put out an issue, a special issue for the justice." Nobody was there of course and I slept on someone's floor on campus.
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
I think three of us were there from the editorial board somehow got three of us there, and we just basically stayed up an entire weekend and put out an issue dedicated to Abram Sachar that now sits in a frame in my office of my law firm, and that's how much he meant to me. That was the first thing, the community and the faculty. The second thing I'd say is the friendships you make. The reason why Kaylee, my daughter chose Brandeis and we looked at a lot of schools, but I knew she was always going to go to Brandeis. She looked at me one day and says dad, "I want to go to a school where I can make the friends that you made and clearly, Brandeis is the place where you made the friends and the kind of friends I want to make."
Howard Jeruchimowitz:
It was an easy choice for her going to Brandeis. She got money from other schools, scholarships from other schools, and it was a no-brainer for her, and that Brandeis means a lot to my family. I'll make one last point just for comical relief. The admission fee when Dr. Lewis went to Brandeis $1250. I pay approximately $70,000 for Kaylee to sit in her room and take five virtual classes. Something's wrong here. Anyway, back to you Doug.
Douglas Stark:
Okay, thank you and I would echo Howard's comments about most of my lifelong friends from Brandeis, I met mostly first semester freshman year, but actually during my senior year, I was minoring in the history of art and trying to figure out what would I do with my history major. There was a course offered called introduction to museums, and it was given by Carl Belz who was at the time the director of the Rose Art Museum. He had played basketball at Princeton University in the '60s and still held at the time the record for most rebounds in a game which was 27.
Douglas Stark:
He still felt it was going to hang on as long as Pete Carroll was coaching the team in his small ball style of play, but every time I would go to his office hours talking about the next assignment or art or museums, all he wanted to talk about was basketball and Karl Malone. He was amazed by how wonderful Karl Malone was, but on some level, he had a big influence in steering me towards a career in museums and certainly the basketball just came with it. Dr. Lewis, if we can get back to... Yeah, go ahead.
Michael Lewis:
Response to that. I've published two books on photography, and my training actually was at Brandeis from Leo Bronstein, an art history professor who talked about color as emotion and taught me about composition and how to look at a work of art. I didn't have any photography training. It was that art history professor that really stimulated my subsequent interest in photography. I also might point out that the last year of the Bulls championship, Karl Malone nearly beat out Michael Jordan for the most valuable player that year. Michael Jordan was furious, which I'm sure was extra motivation in winning the sixth championship.
Douglas Stark:
Why don't we stay on the topic of the Bulls? What was your reaction to The Last Dance when it aired this summer?
Michael Lewis:
My reaction was that it was a wonderful trip down nostalgia lane, and it really gave us a sense of how magical and superhuman Michael Jordan was. At the same time, it did not do justice to Jerry Krause, the general manager. For dramatic effect, it created Jerry to be the evil empire. Jerry unfortunately died a few years ago and wasn't around to defend himself, but he was not a people person. He was a PR disaster. Even if he had been, he probably wouldn't have done a very good job, but Jerry in his way was as much a genius as Michael Jordan or Phil Jackson, and that certainly wasn't brought out.
Michael Lewis:
One story to me that profoundly illustrated Jerry Krause, which is in the book was that one night, it was during the playoffs, he was leaving the United Center which is where the Bulls play basketball and his bags were packed. I said, "Jerry, where are you going?" He said, "I'm going to Europe to scout a player." I said, "Jerry it's the playoffs," as if he didn't know that. I said, "Why don't you just look at a tape," and he said that he wanted to watch the player's body language when he was on the bench, when he wasn't playing. That was to me a profound example of his level of perfectionism and how he was able to hire Phil Jackson as a coach, to discover Scottie Pippen, to have the nerve to bring in Dennis Rodman.
Michael Lewis:
My overall impression was I think for a lot of us, it was magical, but at the same time, it didn't do justice to Jerry Krause.
Douglas Stark:
You mentioned Phil Jackson, and Phil was hired to replace I believe Doug Collins, and had a very strong run before moving on to the Lakers. What did you learn from Phil and how important of a coach is he?
Michael Lewis:
I think well, that's a very good question. I think in basketball especially, a coach is well certainly important in every sport, but there are only 12 players as opposed to 45 in football or 25 in baseball. Phil Jackson's qualities as a coach as I saw them were one. he had extraordinary credibility. He had a championship ring as a player. He also had overcome adversity. While he was a player, he underwent spinal fusion surgery, and he'd also paid his dues as a coach and as an assistant coach. You had to earn your stripes with him because he had the credibility. Secondly, he had very high emotional quotient. He knew exactly what buttons to push for each player, and he also knew what buttons to push for the team as a whole.
Michael Lewis:
The distractions were incredible. Traveling with the Bulls had to be like traveling with the Beatles. There were just thousands of people everywhere. To keep the team focused, to keep the train from not falling off the tracks was a huge challenge, which he did extraordinarily well. One of his techniques was us against them. It was all for one and one for all, the wolf pack imagery. Another quality of Phil's that I particularly liked was his emphasis, his Zen Philosophy, which actually fits into Maslow. Phil studied Maslow interestingly enough, which was being in the moment and enjoying the moment, and not being distracted. Those were a few of the Phil's qualities.
Douglas Stark:
Much has been written about Michael Jordan, and you mentioned your story about whether to suture him or provide a stereo strip. What else could you tell this group about Michael Jordan that people may not know? What other nugget out there would you think people would be interested in knowing?
Michael Lewis:
Well, I'll give you the number 179. One hundred and seventy-nine is the number of playoff games that took place for that the Chicago Bulls participated in during the Michael Jordan era. How many playoff games do you think Michael Jordan participated in? The answer 179. Michael had an extraordinary commitment to the game. A very specific personal example was one night, it was a game against Minnesota. Ten minutes before the game, he could not move his neck and I said naively, "Michael, why don't you consider not playing tonight?"
Michael Lewis:
He looked at me like, "I was crazy," and said, "People have come from hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away to see me. I'm not going to disappoint them," and naturally he went out and scored 33 points that night. Another to me very powerful example was his extraordinary ability to focus. One night, he and I were in the training room together. It was just the two of us and as many of you know, his father who he loved greatly had been murdered during a robbery, and the alleged killers were on TV. Michael just looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, and I took that as a sign even though again he profoundly, deeply loved his father, but he realized that getting upset and being distracted by his father's alleged killers wasn't going to bring his father back.
Michael Lewis:
He was going to focus on the game. He was going to focus on the task at hand. His ability to stay focused to me was just extraordinary. I mean there are many other examples, but just one other example was in more than 10 years of being in front of the media on a daily basis with people asking good questions and inane questions, mean-spirited questions, he never once said something really stupid. His self-control also was remarkable.
Douglas Stark:
We've been talking a lot about Jordan and Phil Jackson, and I'm just going to jump ahead to two questions that relate to each other that have shown up in the chat, and one is what was the relationship like between Jordan and Pippen, and what did you learn about how somebody like Phil Jackson could deal with super egos? Then the other question that's come in is The Last Dance stressed how competitive Jordan was and how he would challenge teammates including physically. Was there some resentment when Jordan would beat up on these guys? How did Phil handle the team dynamics and the egos and the relationships?
Michael Lewis:
Well, that's a very interesting question. First of all, I actually have spoken to the players about that question of resentment, because Michael Jordan famously literally got into a punching match with both Steve Kerr and Will Perdue. He punched both of them in the face, and I can tell you that one of the other players told me directly that everyone was actually afraid of Michael. If you didn't live up to his standards, you were not going to last for very long. Steve Kerr got Michael's respect by standing up to Michael, and that made a very big difference. As far as Phil's handling superegos, Phil again was exquisitely sensitive about knowing which buttons to push for each person.
Michael Lewis:
For example, there was one person on the team, who let's say at times got a little bit depressed, or had low energy and in one of the medical meetings, Phil said that he was going to give him more playing time to try to boost his spirits a bit. There were so many behind the scenes maneuverings that Phil did that demonstrated his high emotional quotient, his knowing exactly what buttons to push. As far as Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Michael had enormous respect for Scottie. They worked out together on a daily basis, and the only championships that Michael ever won were with Scottie Pippen. There was an enormous mutual respect there.
Douglas Stark:
I have a question that I've been mulling over, mainly from an insider's perspective. How does the medical staff of a professional team operate? Do you have a staff? What type of medical facilities exist in the United Center? I'm sure there's an ambulance and a relationship to a hospital. Do you travel with the team to weigh games? Are you at every practice? I mean how does that side of the team's operation work?
Michael Lewis:
The answer is, is that during the playoffs, the doctors traveled with the team, and that of course was very exciting being able to travel on the plane with the players and the coaches. The trainer during most of my time there was Chip Schaefer who was very bright, very talented, had the full respect of all of the players in Phil Jackson. He was very good at handling everything that a trainer could handle, and we only needed to deal with more serious matters. My partner and I were the two orthopedic consultants for the team, and we would alternate. One of us had to be at every home game, and we covered the visiting team during the regular season. It was just during the playoffs that we flew with the team. It was rare when someone needed to be hospitalized, or required surgery.
Douglas Stark:
You spoke earlier about Jerry Krause being the visionary, attention to detail. Early in your career with the White Sox, you had a chance to get to know another visionary sports executive, Bill Veeck who was quite a character in his own right. Most people may not know he got his start with the St. Louis Browns during World War II. Why was he such an unforgettable character? What can you tell us about Bill Veeck?
Michael Lewis:
Well, there are just so many stories I could tell you about Bill Veeck. Bill Veeck had a wooden leg, and he cut a hole in the wooden leg, which he used as an ashtray. The first time I saw him put his cigarette out in his wooden leg, and my eyes almost popped out of my head. You mentioned the St. Louis Browns. Bill Veeck had an extraordinary sense of humor, and he himself told me the following story. The St. Louis Browns, when he owned the team, had the lowest attendance in the league. One day, a fan called the stadium and Bill Veeck, the owner picked up the phone. The fan said, "I'd like to come to the Saturday matinee." The fan said, "What time does the game start?"
Michael Lewis:
Bill Veeck said, "How many in your party?" He said, "Six." Bill Veeck said, "What time would be convenient for you?" He had a wonderful sense of humor. He also was extraordinarily creative. He once showed me a hundreds of index cards, each with a different idea on them. He's the one that invented the exploding scoreboard. His idea was to have Harry Caray sing take me out to the ball game during the seventh inning stretch. He put the names of players on the back of uniforms, just so many amazing ideas that came out of his head. He thought it would be more interesting to give one person a thousand cans of beer than to give a thousand people one can of beer.
Douglas Stark:
Another question that's come up in the chat is, how does a doctor balance concern for the athlete's well-being with the pressure to win?
Michael Lewis:
Well, that's a great question and to Jerry Krause's credit, Jerry Krause never in any way put any pressure on us to not do what was right, and he knew that we wouldn't. He knew that we didn't need to be the Bulls' doctors, and that we would never put ourselves in a position to compromise the player. My understanding is, is that not every organization worked that way, but that was very much to Jerry Krause's credit.
Douglas Stark:
Another comment/question was it is great that we have at least two Brandeis alumni on the Bulls Roster, Dr. Lewis and Marc Boff, who is the assistant athletic trainer. I wonder if there have been any others, and I guess that may be a question for everybody, or Dr. Lewis, do you know of any other Brandeis alums that might have intersected with the Bulls?
Michael Lewis:
I do not.
Douglas Stark:
Okay, and then another question is, what is the name of the man whose TED Talk you recommended?
Michael Lewis:
D-E-W-I-T-T Jones.
Douglas Stark:
Obviously, the book has been out for some time, and you've been giving a number of these talks. What's been the reaction to your book so far?
Michael Lewis:
Well, I am thrilled with the reaction. Bill Wennington and Wilbur Wood, both of whom I'm in contact with both said that they loved the book and highly recommended it, but the most thrilling reaction for me was a person who's become a friend of mine said that he was so inspired by the book when he first read it that he donated $10,000 to the Himalayan Cataract Project and has just recently donated another $10,000 for the Chicago Public Library to put each of my books in all 81 branches of the Chicago Library System. I'm thrilled with the response to the book.
Douglas Stark:
Getting back to the comment about Brandeis alums with the Bulls, there's been a Jeff Cohen who is the class of 64, was the assistant GM of the Boston Celtics for a while in the early '80s. He was the athletic director when Howard and I were there, and another alum wrote in that when they were student at Brandeis, the Celtics practiced there. It was the red hour back court, or red hour back arena. I believe there is another Brandeis alum who is moving up the ranks of the Celtics now in scouting as well, and somebody wrote in Glenn Wong, a '70s grad, noted mediator for major league baseball. Now that Dan Larson's here from Brandeis, maybe that's a good topic for another Zoom call, is Brandeis alums in the sports world because there seems to be a lot of them, and it could be quite interesting.
Douglas Stark:
How about we got a chance to see a few of your photographs in your presentation, can you tell us about some of your other books that you've written? One World A View of 7 Continents, Invitation to Joy, and Seeing More Colors, and maybe just give everyone a little bit of sense of your other passion, which seems to be photography.
Michael Lewis:
Well, one of the books, the Seeing More Colors book is 100% about Abraham Maslow and each chapter in the book, it does have my photographs, but each chapter in the book is one of the qualities that Abraham Maslow emphasized for people on the path to self-actualization. The other two books, One World A View of 7 Continents are photographs from all seven continents. My wife and I have been extraordinarily fortunate to be able to travel to all seven continents, and again we saw some of those images during the talk, but that was a book of photographs from all seven continents.
Michael Lewis:
Then the book Invitation to Joy are exclusively a book of images of birds from all seven continents, and also there are descriptions and there are quotations to go with each image, and finding the right quotation with each image was as much fun as taking the picture. For example, there was an image at Wrigley field and the quote was from the political columnist George Will who said, "All I remember about my wedding day is that the cubs lost a double header."
Douglas Stark:
There's another comment Nelson Figueroa was is still the only Brandeis graduate to make it to major league baseball. I think he pitched with the Mets, the Phillies, Arizona. I think he's a commentator now with SNY in New York for the Mets games. I guess Dr. Lewis in closing here, is there any anything else you'd like to share with us about your career as a doctor, your time with the Bulls, some of the life lessons that you've been able to draw on from all these people, the importance of teachers in your life?
Michael Lewis:
Well certainly, I think the importance of mentors is underappreciated in our society. One of the life lessons, if I had to just pick one life lesson, is performing acts of kindness without expectation of anything in return, and I give a sports example in the book to illustrate that life lesson, the importance of grit and persistence. We mentioned the word autonomy. One of my favorite quotations is from Oscar Wilde, "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." Another quote that I love is from the poet Mary Oliver, "Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it," and that's really what I tried to do in the book.
Douglas Stark:
Great. Well, I think we're running up on our time here. Dr. Lewis, I'd like to thank you very much for a very insightful talk. I'm sure and hopefully everyone was able to glean some interesting stories and inspiration. Howard as club president, I'd like to pass it along to you if you have any parting words to the group.
Michael Lewis:
Thank you Doug. First, I want to thank Doug for agreeing. Doug is not a Chicago alum, lives in Rhode Island, but he was kind enough to join our group to help moderate and ask such probing questions of Dr. Lewis that made this very entertaining and interesting. Dr. Lewis, our sincere appreciation for putting this together. I know at the time we were talking about this over the summer, and I'm glad you were patient to let us put this on at the right time. We thank you and we hope we get to do some of these more on maybe a national platform, or some more sports type events.
Speaker 5:
Thank you so much everyone for putting this program together. It was so enjoyable. We had talked about Abram Sachar. I'm not sure if Michael Jordan is still on the call...
Speaker 5:
No, Michael Oberman.
Speaker 5:
Michael Oberman. He's often confused with Michael Jordan. If he had any comment to say about Abram Sachar.
Margo Oberman:
Well first, I'd like to comment about Dr. Lewis. It's obvious that he was the doctor for the Wolves, the Bulls, and the White Sox because he doesn't know anything about the Bears. They have 53 guys on the Roster Mike, not 45. Yeah, sure. Look, there was some talk before about your experiences at Brandeis. Just serendipitously, I needed a extra job to help pay for my $1250 tuition, and I got assigned to be Dr. Sachar's driver, which loosely translated into fact totem. Most of the things I did were like pick up his laundry, and I would proofread speeches for spelling errors, certainly not for anything else, but when you get to be the body man for somebody that great, you really get some experiences particularly when you're only 20 years old.
Margo Oberman:
I think there were two things that were just outstanding about Abram Sachar. The first one was that he had balls. I mean I don't know any other way to say it. Here's a guy who hired Herbert Marcuse in the middle of the McCarthy era, here's a guy who had to struggle for every penny. Can you imagine what it was like trying to start a university in 1948 for every penny and yet, he refused to budge from his vision of truth even into its innermost parts. You could sit and listen to the conversations that he'd have with a donor who was reluctant to give money because of student sit-ins on the campus, and how he would patiently explain to these people, this is what education is all about. I mean he was a complete educator.
Margo Oberman:
The other thing was that he was at home with every human being on the planet. I mean here was a guy, I'd come to work in the afternoon and I'd say, "Well, what are we going to do this afternoon Dr. Sachar?" He said, "Well, we're going to the airport." I said, "Wow. Who are we going to see?" He says, "Well, we're going to pick up Indira Gandhi," and he was at home with a conversation with Indira Gandhi. Another time we went and picked up John Kenneth Galbraith, who by the way is one of the tallest scholars that ever lived. He was a very tall man, but by the same token, I can remember that I was carrying a bundle of books for him up the hill to one of his lectures.
Margo Oberman:
There was a workman working on the sidewalk, and he stopped to talk to this guy, "How's it going? How's your job? Are we treating you all right?" He was perfectly at home with a cement layer and with Indira Gandhi, an extraordinary man. Finally, his eloquence was nonpareil. I mean he could put words together like nobody I had ever experienced before, and I was fortunate to experience or to hear a lot of the world's best speakers in my life. He was extraordinary. He had this terribly squeaky high-pitched voice. He wasn't Centaurian at all, but when you listen to the words that came out of his mouth, you were enraptured and it didn't make any difference what he was talking about.
Margo Oberman:
He could have been talking about World War II history or the founding of Israel, or local politics in Central Illinois where he started his career at the University of Illinois. He was erudite, an extraordinary human being, so that was my impressions of Sachar. I might also point out that it seems that Mike Lederman and I are both married to Jewish mothers. They somehow allow us to use their computers to join Zoom messages. I know Mikey were logged in under her me. Anyway, Mike, I thoroughly enjoyed your talk.
Michael Lewis:
Thank you. Thank you everyone again.