Latest Show Has 2 Good Features, 2 Disappointing Profiles

By George Stahl

NEW YORK (AQB)–The latest Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO this month includes two terrific features on the increased use of andro by high school students and on a reverse discrimination lawsuit filed by a former Orlando Magic assistant coach.

Unfortunately, the show (10:15 p.m. ET Monday) also contains two poor profiles on new South Carolina coach Lou Holtz and Miami coach Jimmy Johnson. Both suffer from the oft-repeated AQB criticism of Real Sports profiles – the lack of interviews.

[NOTE: This show's review is based on an advanced copy for the media, which doesn't include studio scenes with host Bryant Gumbel.]

This month’s star piece is Bernard Goldberg’s examination of the increased use of the muscle building supplement Androstenedine, or Andro, by high school students since Mark McGwire acknowledged using it last year in his record-breaking 70 home run season. McGwire has since said he has stopped using it.

Goldberg lists the problems linked to Andro use – heart disease, liver problems, stunting of growth, to name a few – and shows how easy it is to buy the supplement, which doesn’t require Food and Drug Administration approval because it is considered a natural substance.

But what separates this piece from other Andro stories is that Goldberg and producer Tim Walker tracked down a strength and conditioning coach at one of the nation’s top high school football programs in West Monroe, La., who approves the use of Andro so much that he has given it to his son since he was 12.

And what about the concerns some have about Andro? “I think you could say that about caffeine, drinking coffee, drinking Cokes, eating hamburgers, eating too much fat, not eating enough fat. You could pick any topic,” the father said. “I’m concerned as a parent. But myself and my wife and my son have talked about it and, at this point, until there are more studies done, we’re OK with it.”

And the son’s reaction? “My Dad is the one who gets it for me, so obviously he thinks it’s real good. Before we get anything new, or anything, he’ll research it to make sure it’s OK and not going to hurt me in the long run,” the 16-year-old said.

The other excellent feature is Armen Keteyian’s piece on former Magic assistant coach George Scholz, who was fired by the team after the 1992 NBA season. Since then, Scholz has pursued a lawsuit against the Magic, accusing the team of firing him because it wanted a black assistant coach. (Scholz’s replacement was former NBA player Tree Rollins, a black man).

Keteyian, who first reported on the lawsuit in his excellent 1997 book Money Players: Days And Nights Inside The New NBA with Harvey Araton and Martin Dardis, details the history of the case, which was thrown out of court in 1996 for lack of evidence despite the fact that four of the six jurors were planning to decide in Scholz’s favor. An appeal overturned the judge’s decision, and the case now returns to the court next month.

The show’s two profiles, sadly, do not match its two features. As we have said in the past, most recently with last month’s look at Derek Jeter, HBO’s practice of featuring quotes mostly from the profiled person misses a lot of the story. As my mother always says, you can tell a lot about a person by the friends they keep.

This is most evident this month in Frank Deford’s piece on the “new” Jimmy Johnson, who wants to ease some of the pressures of being an NFL head coach in order to spend more time with his family.

Deford, who wears a funky shirt in the piece, nicely documents how Johnson came to this self-realization at the funeral of his mother in December and how Johnson’s relationship with his two sons have changed since then. All three of them are interviewed.

However, the piece could have been so much better with interviews with assistant coach Dave Wannstedt, who was brought in after being fired by the Chicago Bears to help Johnson’s workload, and with Dolphin players, who could have commented on if they had noticed a difference in their head coach.

Sonja Steptoe’s profile of Lou Holtz also suffered from this problem. For example, despite the fact that one of Steptoe’s main topics is Holtz’s relationship with his players, her piece includes only one former player, ex-Notre Dame quarterback Tony Rice, and no current South Carolina players.

Is it me or is that a little one-sided?

The Holtz story was far from the best work from Emmy-winning Steptoe or producer Richard Brenner, who handled Real Sports’ look at the war between ESPN and Fox Sports in January. The piece included nothing on Holtz’s wife, who has been fighting throat cancer and whose opinion reportedly influenced Holtz’s decision to return. It also seemed disjointed, jumping from one issue to another without a smooth transition – something unusual for this well-produced series.

For a much better look at Lou Holtz, check out Chris Dufresne’s excellent story on Holtz in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.

Grade: B. Real Sports features are among the best on television, but its profiles…

Play dates: 10:15 p.m. Monday; 6 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Thursday; 1 p.m. Saturday; 5 p.m. Sept. 3; and 10 a.m. Sept. 5.

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