By Pete Williams

For the last few years, SportsBusiness Daily and SportsBusiness Journal have asked top sports personalities for their thoughts, ideas, aspirations and likes. Since they won’t be calling me, I’ve posted my own. If you’re at all a sports fan, it’s worth taking the survey.

What I like in an insight: Fearlessness

An influential person in my career: John Glennon

An out-of-the-box idea: Silent Night (no walk-up music, between-innings emcees, and piped-in stadium crap at minor league baseball games)

A business deal: NASCAR standing up to FOX and moving races back to the afternoons. Why can’t Bud Selig and Roger Goodell follow NASCAR’s lead?

A sports facility: Dunedin Stadium

A sports event: ACC basketball tournament

A strategy: Focus on the product on the field not value-added entertainment nonsense

A hire: Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay Rays

A brand: Costco, Chipotle, Southwest Airlines, Rita’s Ice, Bill’s BBQ

A trend: Participation in running events and triathlon way up, sports attendance down. No coincidence.

An innovation: ESPN Deportes….It’s the only way I can stomach ESPN – and my Spanish is getting better.

A story that bears watching: Continued decline in interest in pro sports

An idea or invention I wish I had thought of: Fathead…I had the Manute Bol growth poster in my room for years!

A fantasy job: Pro triathlete

What I like:

About my job: very few meetings

Sports: The enlightened, multi-layered world view of athletes, agents, owners, and sports executives.

Sports business: How no other industry gives so little but expects so much of its customers and the public.

Sports media: The mute button.

Sports technology: Anything by Garmin

The future (or direction) of sports business: Launch of niche sports leagues and the decline of the Big Four, mirroring the demise of newspapers and television at the expense of the Internet.

Sports fans: What P.T. Barnum said.

What I would like to change:

One – just one – healthy food option at a stadium concession stand.
Bring back twi-night doubleheaders.
No commercials of any sort played at stadiums.

That the inventor of Stadium Click-Effects and other “in-game entertainment systems” be tied to a large hill of fireants.

No walk-up music.
That parents not allow their children to ask for autographs. Within a generation, this tired trend (only a century old) would be dead.

Agents may not be quoted or interviewed on air by any media outlet.

If you call a news conference, you must take questions. Otherwise just film it, post it online and don’t waste my time.

If you own a sports team and take public money for your sports venue, which is to say all owners, you must face the media once a month.

No music recorded before 2000 played at sports venues. Nobody will miss “Glory Days,” “Centerfield,” and “YMCA.”

Sax player B.K. Jackson is permanent national anthem performer at all major events.

Change in what I do: Faster swim times.

See: Kids admitted free to all NFL and MLB preseason exhibitions. If NASCAR can let children into qualifying events and everything but Sprint Cup races, NFL and MLB can do the same for its non-events.

See more of in sports: Mastery of the basketball fundamentals. A 6-2 guard shooting 40 percent would be out of the NBA 25 years ago. These days he’s an All-Star.

See more of in sports business: Mike Veeck and his disciples.

See less of in sports business: Sports radio and self-serving, meaningless rankings of powerful people.

Eliminate: All-Star games, pre-game shows, sideline reporters, and magnet schedules touted as “giveaways.”

What I don’t like in general: Bad manners

Pet peeve: Crowd shots and especially booth shots. Let me watch the freakin’ game!

In sports: It’s impossible to take kids to games. Too noisy, too many drunks, and too many distractions. Sports teams try to sell everything but the game to fans and then wonder why kids have no interest in the sport.

In business: Lines. Don’t make me wait to spend money on your product.

About sports fans: People who complain about the cost of beer at sports events.

What I like in people: Showing up.

That would surprise those who know me: I’m an open book.

Above all else: Time with family

Heroes: Mom, Dad

Players: Dale Murphy, Arthur Ashe

Coaches/Managers: Bobby Cox, Tony Dungy, Terry Holland, Bruce Arena

Teams: The 1980s Washington Bullets, 1977-78 Richmond Braves

City: Tampa Bay (entire market)

Memento: Cork I caught in self-defense off bottle of champagne popped by Francisco Cabrera in Braves clubhouse following Game 7 of 1992 NLCS. If only it were authenticated.

Time of year (because): October – baseball postseason and best month of college football weather

Music: Male vocalists with testosterone (or at least nicotine) voices: Bob Seger, George Thorogood, Bruce Springsteen, John Hiatt.

Books: Stephen King’s “On Writing,” “Born to Run,” “Veeck as in Wreck”

Authors: Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen

Magazines: Competitor, Wired, Sports Illustrated

Web sites: SlowTwitch.com, CorePerformance.com, WSJ.com, ESPN.com

Gadgets: Polar heart rate monitor

Chores: Power washing

Hobbies: Triathlon

Trips: Eurailing after high school

Movies: “Office Space,” “Braveheart,” “The Patriot,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life”

TV: True Blood

Concerts: George Thorogood in small venues

Artist: Jim Warren

Food: Chipotle

Dessert: Rita’s Ice

Drink: Spicy Rivanna from Burnley Vineyards near Charlottesville

Scent: Freshly-opened packs of 1970s Topps baseball cards

Vacation spot: Sandbridge Beach

Cars: Convertibles.

Quote: “Choose Your Next Words Carefully.” (King Leonidas – also Jim Leavitt)

By Pete Williams

I was sad to learn about the death of Manute Bol over the weekend at the age of 47. It’s tough to use the words “sad” and “Manute Bol” in the same sentence because the man brought so much joy.

Given the humanitarian work he performed after his NBA career in his native Sudan, it seems trivial to ponder the impact he had in professional basketball. But for those of us who suffered through the miserable decade of 1980s Washington Bullets basketball, an era that continues to the present day, Manute Bol was a welcome relief.

He stood 7-foot-6 with a wingspan that seemed longer. During his rookie season of 1985-86, he blocked an NBA record 396 shots. There was one game against the Milwaukee Bucks that season where he blocked something like 18 shots. On one possession, he blocked three or four Bucks’ shots. (He had not figured out how to deflect a shot toward one of his own teammates.) I can still see Don Nelson, the Bucks coach at the time, pulling his hair out as he stomped along the sidelines.

Manute Bol was unstoppable that season. Mel Proctor was the TV announcer for the Bullets at the time. I’ve never heard a more excited play-by-play guy than Mel during Manute’s first few games.

Moncrief drives the lane…BLOCKED BY BOL!…kicked out to Terry Cummings, short jumper…BLOCKED BY BOL!!…Mokeski down low – NO! BLOCKED BY BOLLLLL!

Bol was the tallest man ever to play in the NBA at the time, which became more evident two years later when the Bullets drafted Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues, at 5-foot-3 the shortest ever.

The Bullets, then as now as the Wizards, were a notoriously cheap, horribly run franchise. But they had the greatest sports giveaway ever: the Manute Bol growth poster.

Kids could measure their growth against Bol, but the poster was more than that. It was 12 feet high and about six feet wide. It pictured a life-sized image of Bol with his arms stretched out, standing below a backboard. I tacked one up in my room, somehow without assistance. Since the ceiling was just eight feet high, I folded the poster where wall met ceiling and tacked the backboard to the ceiling. (I can’t believe I can’t find a picture of this poster online.)

I kicked myself a few years ago when the people at Fathead came up with their life-sized wall decals of sports figures. After looking at the Manute poster on my wall (and ceiling) throughout high school, why didn’t I think of that?

It might seem intimidating having a life-size image of a giant Dinka tribesman posted in the middle of your bedroom. Actually, it always made me smile.