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THE HANGOVER FEBRUARY 2021 VOLUME 132 | NO. 1 SI.COM | @SINOW GETTING TO THE SUPER BOWL IS EASY HERE'S WHY GETTING BACK IS SO HARD BY GREG BISHOP

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L FEBRUARY 2021 I VOLUME 132 | NO. 1 N COVER CREDIT S: JOHN IACONO (2); AL TIELEMANS (2); WALTER IOOSS JR.; HEINZ K LUE TMEIER; DAMIAN S TROHME Y ER; CHRIS O’ME AR A /AP; R ANDY PIL AND/ E THE TENNESSEAN/USA TODAY NET WORK ; MICHAEL ZAGARIS/GET T Y IMAGES; AUSTIN MCAFEE/ICON SPORTSWIRE/GET T Y IMAGES. THIS PAGE: DAVID E. KLUTHO U P RISING SON Sacrifices made by his mother sent Tatum on the path to becoming one of the NBA’s elite scorers. DE PA RT M E N T S LEADING OFF P. 4 SCORECARD P. 10 FACES IN THE CROWD P. 28 POINT AFTER P. 80 COVER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY THE SPORTING PRESS FEBRUARY 2021 1



LINEUP ICED OUT With other current and former NHL players of color, Aliu, a one-time Flame, formed the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which has repeatedly butted heads with the league. MIK E W ULF/CAL SPOR T MEDIA /AP NFL NBA FEATURES MEDIA NHL 30 42 ADVENTURE 58 70 SUPER BOWL LOSERS JAYSON TATUM 50 PETE AXTHELM AKIM ALIU Curse, hangover The young Celtic SLED DOG MISSION The gritty, witty The ex-NHL player or something is developing into sportswriter was thought he’d set much simpler? one of the NBA’s Almost a century ahead of his time. off hockey’s racial What’s behind most dangerous ago, a tiny town in reckoning after the struggle to players—and his Alaskan territory Imagine what sharing his story bounce back quashed its own he could have a year ago. But young son into been if drinking today he’s more from losing on the one of its social epidemic with a hadn’t killed him fed up than ever biggest stage? serum delivered 30 years ago media stars by 20 sled drivers BY ALEX PREWITT BY GREG BISHOP BY L. JON WERTHEIM BY CHRIS MANNIX and 150 dogs BY L. JON WERTHEIM SPORTS ILLUSTRATED (ISSN 0038-822X) IS PUBLISHED MONTHLY WITH FOUR EXTRA ISSUES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR BY MAVEN MEDIA BRANDS, LLC. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 225 LIBERT Y STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10281-1008. 3 OWNED BY ABG-SI LLC. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 1411 BROADWAY, 4TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10018. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT NEW YORK, NY AND ADDITIONAL MAILING OFFICES. POSTMASTER: SEND ALL UAA TO CFS. (SEE DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS TO SPORTS ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE, P.O. BOX 37576, BOONE, IA 50037-0508. U.S. SUBSCRIBERS: IF THE POSTAL SERVICE ALERTS US THAT YOUR MAGAZINE IS UNDELIVERABLE, WE HAVE NO FURTHER OBLIGATION UNLESS WE RECEIVE A CORRECTED ADDRESS WITHIN TWO YEARS. CANADA POST PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40624074. YOUR BANK MAY PROVIDE UPDATES TO THE CARD INFORMATION WE HAVE ON FILE. YOU MAY OPT OUT OF THIS SERVICE AT ANY TIME. MAILING LIST: WE MAKE A PORTION OF OUR MAILING LIST AVAIL ABLE TO REPUTABLE FIRMS. IF YOU WOULD PREFER THAT WE NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME, PLEASE CALL OR WRITE US. © 2021 ABG-SI LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUBSCRIPTIONS: FOR 24/7 SERVICE, PLEASE VISIT SI.COM/MY ACCOUNT. YOU CAN ALSO CALL 877-747-1045 OR WRITE SI AT P.O. BOX 37576, BOONE, IA 50037-0508. FEBRUARY 2021

LEADING OFF STARS ALIG IN DECEMBER, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL MADE A LONG OVERDUE ANNOUNCEMENT: PL AYERS ACTIVE IN THE NEGRO LEAGUES FROM 1920 T O ’4 8, BEF ORE T HE SP OR T ’S IN T E GR AT ION TOOK HOLD, ARE NOW RECOGNIZED AS MAJOR LEAGUERS. THE MOVE WILL REWRITE PARTS OF THE RECORD BOOK AND COULD E VENTUALLY MAKE SOME FAMILIES ELIGIBLE FOR BIG LEAGUE PENSIONS. AND NOW SOME OF THE GAME’S GREATEST TALENTS HAVE WHAT THE Y’VE ALWAYS DESERVED—AN EQUAL, EX ALTED PL ACE IN B A SEB A L L’S HIS T ORIC A L F IRM A MEN T ELECTRIC SLIDE Josh Gibson (crossing the plate during a Negro leagues All-Star Game in 1944) may well be the best power-hitting catcher—any league, any era. He was known as the Black Babe Ruth, though some who saw him play refer to the Bambino as the white Josh Gibson. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMAN /GETTY IMAGES

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AVERAGE HERO According to his Hall of Fame plaque, Gibson hit almost 800 career home runs. That will be hard to confirm, but once MLB verifies his .441 average in 1943, Gibson will own the highest single-season mark in big league history. PHOTOGRAPH BY NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

FOLLOW @SIFULLFRAME LEADING OFF DO LOOK BACK Between 1948 and ’52, a past-his-prime Satchel Paige (with the Kansas City Monarchs, c. 1940) won 28 games in the American League. With his Negro leagues victories counted as official stats, his major league career total will grow to at least 170. PHOTOGRAPH BY NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM

CROWD-PLEASERS If the Negro leagues lacked big league status, it was in name only: The Homestead Grays, who split time between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., drew huge crowds at Forbes Field (pictured, with Robert Gaston hitting in 1942) and Griffith Stadium. PHOTOGRAPH BY CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART, CHARLES “ TEENIE” HARRIS ARCHIVE



SCORECARD GAMEPLAN p.14 EDGE p.16 FULL FRAME p.19 WHERE ARE THEY NOW? p.24 FACES IN THE CROWD p.28 10

TAKING ON THE NCAA SHAPED BY FOOTBALL AS A YOUNG MAN, THE AUTHOR, THE JUNIOR SENATOR FROM NE W JERSE Y, IS COSPONSORING LEGISLATION TO GIVE ATHLETES MORE RIGHTS AND PROTECTION PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY SI PREMEDIA; COURTESY OF STANFORD ATHLETICS (BOOKER) BY SENATOR CORY BOOKER imagination. Football taught me about character, honor, leadership, GOT INTO the college of discipline, grit and so much more. The men I played with, I my dreams because of a who coached me, believed in me, taught me and demanded from 4.0 and 1,600. me, all shaped me in profound and Not GPA and SAT, but yards per indelible ways. I can never repay carry and receiving yards. them or my sport for what it did Well actually, that is a slight for me; but I am on a mission to exaggeration. Forgive me—the pay it forward and join with others older I get, the better I was. to bring much-needed justice and I was, however, a high school fairness to college athletics. All-America football player, earning a scholarship to play tight I came to see during my playing end at Stanford. days, and in the years since, that I would not be where I am today the NCAA is an exploitative, without football. I am not talking de facto for-profit industry that simply about what I do as a U.S. takes advantage of college athletes, senator—though that, too—but endangers their health and safety, who I am. I poured so much of robs many of them of their peak my early life into a sport that earning years, undermines their returned to me gifts beyond my promise of a college education and often leaves them injured with a FEBRUARY 2021 11

SCORECARD lifetime of out-of-pocket medical the data. For example, just 56% of The NCAA must change. TOM WILLIAMS/POOL/GETTY IMAGES bills and no support to pay them. Black male athletes, who generate That’s why my colleagues in an outsize amount of college sports the Senate and I have unveiled College sports is a $14 billion revenue, graduate within six years. legislation to create a College industry that is significantly Athletes Bill of Rights. generated by the unpaid work of Once an athlete’s eligibility is When it is passed into law, the young people. While I came from gone, and thus their scholarship athletes’ bill of rights won’t just a family able to support me during expires, they are of little use allow college athletes to monetize my college years, many athletes do to the billion-dollar industry. their name, image and likeness, it not, and they struggle to meet the Painfully, they have no guarantee will provide them with revenue- costs of going to school that are to be able to return to finish out sharing agreements so they can beyond what a scholarship covers. their education beyond their own actually reap some of the profits These athletes rack their heads to ability to pay out of pocket for they help create. find creative ways to contribute whatever classes they may need The legislation will institute to their families back home or to complete a degree. Moreover, enforceable, evidence-based health scrape together money for a plane many athletes are saddled with and safety guidelines, and it will ticket home or for their parents to lifelong injuries that sometimes focus on improving academic come see them play. And if they don’t fully manifest until years outcomes and ensuring athletes do something against the NCAA’s after their college careers are over biased rules—like sell an old and incur significant who sustain sports-related injuries jersey—the penalties can be swift medical expenses. on the field or court receive support and brutal. from the institution they hurt Even while athletes themselves representing. Meanwhile, a player’s jersey with play in college, the NCAA their number and name on it is sold does an insufficient job While the NCAA has recently in stores for more than what some of protecting them. Since begun to pay lip service toward of their parents may make in a day. 2000, 30 college football allowing college athletes to market players have died from their skills using their name, image The NCAA likes to create a heat-related illnesses and likeness, its history shows fiction that a scholarship for an caused by conditioning that while it will often nod toward athlete’s education is proportionate workouts that went too the need for reforms, it fails to recompense. But the hours far. Even now, there substantively implement them. athletes put in make it hard for are no enforceable them to have a fair shot at the penalties attached to For example, in 2014, NCAA full education they are promised. the NCAA’s concussion president Mark Emmert came College athletes can commit 30 to guidelines, and, given before a U.S. Senate Commerce, 60 unpaid hours a week to their the enormously high sport, with no reasonable time stakes of college sports, left over to take on a traditional the incentives for most coaches—a part-time job or internship if they win bonus, the opportunity to need extra money. The NCAA participate in postseason play does not adequately enforce time and the likelihood of being hired restrictions, making it challenging by a larger program that will pay to balance a full course load, earn a higher salary—create perverse a degree on time and meet the incentives to push boundaries. demands of one’s sport. Taken together, these failures While the NCAA is so fond of amount to nothing short of the term student-athlete in court, systemic exploitation on the part they rarely adopt the student-first of the NCAA that has robbed mantra in practice. The NCAA generation after generation of touts a 90% graduation rate, but college athletes of the justice, that tells only part of the story— fairness and opportunity that these and is very dependent on how they young people deserve. cut and/or fail to disaggregate 12 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

GREG NELSON UNDER FIRE address these issues—it’s that past time that the exploitation of it won’t. It delays, deflects and college athletes ends and it is way Napier (above) led the Huskies to denies until public outcry forces it past time that college athletes have k_\\džDŽDžLjE:88Z_Xdg`fej_`g# to make change. fairness, justice and access to the Ylk_`jZfdd\\ekjXYflk^f`e^kf full opportunities they earn. Y\\[_le^ipdX[\\_\\X[c`e\\jÆXe[ For example, a few months before ZXl^_kk_\\Xkk\\ek`fef]9ffb\\i# that hearing, in the spring of 2014, I do not have faith that the n_f_X[af`e\\[k_\\J\\eXk\\`eÊDžLJ% Shabazz Napier helped lead UConn NCAA can be trusted to make the to win the men’s national basketball changes necessary. Not only is the Science and Transportation championship and then shared NCAA financially incentivized not Committee hearing on many in an interview that there were to upset the status quo, it now also of these issues and seemed to some nights he went to bed hungry wants Congress to grant it even understand and agree with some because he couldn’t afford to eat. more power by enacting a national of the concerns my colleagues standard to preempt the laws and I expressed. He even said, After news outlets across the of many state governments that “I think this hearing is a useful country picked up on Mr. Napier’s have recently begun seeking more cattle prod that we know the world comments and the NCAA came fairness for college athletes. is watching.” under fire in the press, it took the entity a little over a week to Congress must act to protect the But six years later—which, in an approve a rule change aimed at well-being of college athletes. And athlete’s life, can be their entire addressing issues surrounding all of us—former players and fans career—college athletes have little college athletes’ access to meals. alike—must join in the effort. to nothing to show for the NCAA’s promises. That issue and so many others Indeed, the older I get, the have been around since I was a better I was, and the clearer it It’s not that the NCAA cannot college athlete in the 1990s. It is is that we must do better for our way past time for change, it is way college athletes. FEBRUARY 2021 13

SCORECARD GAMEPLAN: THE SMART FAN’S GUIDE TO RIGHT NOW SAINTS’ DAYS A NEW SERIES EXPLORES A FOOTBALL PROGRAM’S EFFECT ON A COMMUNITY WATCH “TO BE a Saint you have to love everyone.” So says Aiden, one of the central players in the new Netflix documentary We Are: The Brooklyn Saints, which follows a youth football program in the East New York neighborhood of the borough through a season. The fly-on-the-wall look at young athletes from hardscrabble areas is hardly a novel concept, but what elevates this four-part series (apart from the excellent direction of Emmy winner Rudy Valdez) are the offhand moments of genuine sweetness. Whether it’s the teddy-bearish Aiden (54, above) boasting he was “raised for hell week” as the 9U team gets ready for its last week of practice COURTESY OF NETFLIX before the opener, or a coach calming an upset player, or one teammate telling another to take out his mouth guard at the water fountain, the interactions show how the program has become a de facto extended family, not just for the kids, but for their parents as well. “They say it takes a village to raise a child,” one dad says. “The Brooklyn Saints is that village.” —Mark Bechtel 14 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

MAYBE TECHNOLOGY JUST NEEDS A ©2020 MARS OR AFFILIATES

SCORECARD EDGE: GEAR. TECH. FITNESS. PUMP UP PRODUCTIVITY STAY HUNGRY CATCH SOME FEELING SLUGGISH OR IN A SLUMP? A PERFORMANCE QUALITY ZZZ’S EXPERT SHARES HOW TO UNCOVER MOTIVATION Along with HE DODGERS, Lakers, Storm training institute that works with good nutrition, Olympic athletes, executives and hydration and T and Lightning—these are just a members of the U.S. Special Forces— daily exercise, says taking advantage of our “inherent few of the teams that triumphed goal-setting machinery” can boost the human and brought home championship trophies motivation, enhance performance and body needs in 2020. But after reaching the pinnacle, increase productivity by 11% to 25%, how do the pros find the drive to try for referencing the theory developed in the seven to another title just a few months later? 1960s by psychologists Edwin Locke eight hours of Or, on the other hand, as the new year and Gary Latham that still holds true restful sleep unfolds, how does one unearth motivation today. Set manageable, process-oriented after a period of uncertainty and unrest? objectives that align with your passions per night to Whether you’re coming off a major high or and lead to higher-level aspirations, perform at low, the approach is the same, according to Kotler says, then maximize productivity peak levels. performance expert and author of the new with positive psychology basics (right). book The Art of Impossible, Steven Kotler: “You have to give the body goals so it MAKE “If you summit the mountain, or get your knows where to go,” he says. CONNECTIONS ass kicked by life and don’t summit the mountain, it’s about resilience, grit and BY JAMIE LISANTI Social support resetting goals to absorb the current ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN LAKSMAN is critical, challenge into a greater goal,” he says. Kotler—who also founded Flow Research especially in Collective, a neuroscience research and the current times of less face-to-face contact. Actively seek out meaningful conversations with loved ones. MANAGE ANXIETY LEVELS A five-minute gratitude practice, meditation session or a simple workout are all tools that can help calm the mind and control the nervous system. 16 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

FULL FRAME SCORECARD TWO 19 TALL PHOTOGRAPH BY WALTER IOOSS JR. T MIGHT seem hard to I imagine now, with the Rockets’ coming off a season when they routinely started no one taller than 6' 7\", but there was a time when NBA teams collected big men. Sports Illustrated’s 1986–87 NBA Preview featured a photo act of seven pairs of giants in their home city’s skyline, including the original Twin Towers (Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson) and a duo photographed at the Twin Towers (Bill Cartwright and Patrick Ewing of the Knicks). No pair was bigger than 6' 10\" Moses Malone and 7' 7\" Manute Bol of the Washington Bullets. Walter Iooss Jr. photographed them, fittingly, at the Washington Monument. The photo turned out great. The pairing, so-so. The Bullets finished 42–40—but they did lead the league in blocks. For more, follow @sifullframe

SCORECARD HISTORY COURTSIDE CONSTANT HERB TURETZKY HAS BEEN THE NETS’ SCOREKEEPER SINCE THE FRANCHISE’S FIRST DAY BY BEN PICKMAN P HO T O GR A P HS BY ERICK W. RASCO ERB TURETZKY attended As the official scorer for the out the clock in the final game of the team now known as the Brooklyn 1976 ABA Finals, Turetzky, wearing H the New Jersey Americans’ Nets, Turetzky, 75, has worked his bright-red scorer’s blazer with 2,212 games through Jan. 3, a world a Nets logo stitched onto the breast first-ever ABA game in record for pro basketball, including a pocket, put the finishing touches October 1967 expecting to be just streak of 1,465 straight. Throughout on the score sheet, the last in ABA a spectator. He was eager to see each game Turetzky’s head is on history, as fans stormed the floor. forward Tony Jackson, a fellow a swivel, following the ball. Using Brownsville, Brooklyn, native, a Nets souvenir ballpoint pen, he As Turetzky walked toward the battle the Pittsburgh Pipers’ records field goals, free throws locker room, guard Brian Taylor Connie Hawkins. Turetzky, a made and missed, personal and ushered him into the team’s student at LIU Brooklyn, arrived technical fouls. He tracks timeouts celebration. “Herb was always there early at the Teaneck Armory in his and, of course, keeps a running for us,” Taylor says. “He was more red ’64 Plymouth Fury convertible. summary of the score. A group of than just the official scorekeeper. Max Zaslofsky, the Americans’ coach statisticians works alongside him, and GM who had attended the same but when coaches and referees have high school as Turetzky, greeted him questions, they look for Turetzky’s as he walked in. “Herb, can you help familiar face. “It puts you at ease as us out and keep score of the game a referee, knowing that everything’s tonight?” Zaslofsky asked. been handled,” says longtime ref Bob Delaney. “Max, I’d love to,” he replied. “I’m here, so why not?” Turetzky—a former teacher who also owned a trophy company—has Turetzky sat down at a wooden seen plenty in his 54 years with the folding chair at half court and jotted Nets. After the New York Nets ran down the lineups. “I’ve never left that seat since,” he says. “I’m still here and I’m still going.” 20 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

He was like our shrink.” Taylor part of a memorabilia collection TEAM PLAYER grabbed Turetzky and pulled him that encapsulates the history of the into the shower, where Turetzky, franchise. There is a photograph Turetzky, who has been on the job still in his blazer and holding his signed by all the members of the Zflikj`[\\]filjLjp\\Xij#b\\\\gjXj_i`e\\ attaché, was doused in champagne. original Americans team and kfk_\\E\\kj`e_`jXgXikd\\ek% It was there he saw star Julius autographed scorebooks from the Erving, reclining against a Nets’ title runs of 1974 and ’76. He There are signed jerseys and bathroom wall. “I’m just trying to has three tickets that would have sneakers, a Jason Kidd matryoshka relax and understand what we just been for Game 7 of the ’76 Finals doll and a DVD of the 1994 film did,” Dr. J told him. against the Nuggets had New York Above the Rim, in which Turetzky not closed out the series in six, appears as an extra. “It’s Nets That red blazer is currently in autographed by Erving, Denver star history,” says Turetzky’s wife of an 11-by-14-foot room in Turetzky’s David Thompson and both coaches. 50 years, Jane. “But it’s our family penthouse apartment in Queens, history as well. It’s our lives.” FEBRUARY 2021 21

SCORECARD 4 2 3 1 5 1. DR. J BOBBLEHEAD 2. AUTOGRAPHED BALL 3. 1967–68 POSTER 4. 1971 TICKETS Turetzky picked this up An eyewitness to so The Americans’ inaugural Turetzky stumbled upon at a Spurs-Nets game much great hoops, season ended with a a block of unused ducats last season and got a Turetzky had top ABA forfeit in a one-game from a 1971 game against hug from longtime friend talent (including Erving, playoff because the the Memphis Pros that Erving, who calls him Louie Dampier and Armory was hosting the had been rescheduled, “the official scorekeeper Dan Issel) sign a red- circus and an alternative costing the four fans who extraordinaire.” white-and-blue ball. arena couldn’t be found. missed it a total of $18. 22 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

68 7 5. SHAQ’S SHOES 6. FINAL SCOREBOOK 7. GAME 7 TICKET 8. BLAZER A 1993 Shaquille O’Neal A lot of ink went into The Nets won the 1976 Turetzky was easy dunk brought down the the official scorebook ABA title in six games, to find during the ’76 basket near Turetzky’s in the 1975–76 season: rendering this ticket, championship locker son, David, who was a ball The Nets averaged signed by New York coach room celebration thanks boy. Shaq’s advice the 111.8 points per game, Kevin Loughery (642 to the bright-red blazer following year: “Stay away led by Erving’s 29.8 career Ws) and Denver’s he wore, which no longer from falling baskets.” and Brian Taylor’s 16.7. Larry Brown (1,327), moot. smells of champagne. FEBRUARY 2021 23



SCORECARD WHERE ARE THEY NOW? the most ever by a female swimmer. Coughlin grew up in Vallejo, close GRAPE to Napa Valley, and her parents EXPECTATIONS loved going to wine tastings, a habit Natalie picked up after she THE MOST DECOR ATED FEMALE OLYMPIC turned 21. As often as possible, she SWIMMER, NATALIE COUGHLIN BRINGS THE made time for a glass of wine at SAME DEDICATION SHE SHOWED IN THE night, even with the demanding POOL TO HER NEW PASSION: WINEMAKING requirements of her sport. BY EMMA BACCELLIERI “I just loved the process of it,” she says. “I loved the entire ritual of ALIZA J. SOKOLOW (2) ATALIE COUGHLIN’S BOTTLED UP drinking wine. Just like I love the ritual of making my coffee every N approach to her wine label Gaderian is a two-person morning, I love having a glass of business, so Coughlin has a wine with dinner. And so I saw it as is hands-on. The former hand in virtually every aspect, something I could do in moderation Olympic swimmer does everything including label design. while training.” at the Saint Helena, Calif., winery, from sampling grapes to designing through the wine just with your She didn’t plan for her passion imagery for the bottles. But arms,” she says. to become a job, though she had “hands-on” is literal, too: Now always admired the wine career of in her fourth year of harvesting “And as a swimmer, of course, I a close friend, Shaina Harding, who and production, Coughlin has have really long arms. It’s perfect.” had worked her way from cellar rat learned that her favorite part of to associate winemaker at a local winemaking involves physically That’s just one way the vineyard. When Harding decided diving in. 38-year-old Coughlin’s second she was ready to make her own wine career has felt as natural as her in 2017, she thought she had the It’s called punching down. While first: She earned 12 Olympic ideal business partner in Coughlin. pinot noir grapes are fermenting medals from 2004 to ’12, tied for in four-foot square bins, they must “I said yes immediately, without be vigorously stirred down, or knowing what that would mean,” punched. Wineries often do this Coughlin says. “That’s kind of my with equipment—both because of style—and maybe that’s where the frequency (at least twice every sports come in. Swimming has given day) and the difficulty (not everyone me such confidence that, maybe can stir through four feet of grapes stupidly, I’ll accept an opportunity without assistance). like that and figure it out as I go.” For Coughlin, however, it’s Harding brought technical simply a joy—even if she must expertise, and Coughlin had the sanitize her arms from shoulders promotional skills, honed during to fingertips before plunging them her career as a world-class athlete. in. “You’re kind of swimming “I’d never managed my personal brand or anything like that,” Harding says, “but Natalie’s been doing that since she was a teenager.” The pair decided to name the label Gaderian Wines, after an Old English word meaning to gather, and off they went. Coughlin enrolled in classes on viticulture and oenology at UC Davis, but her most important lessons came from working FEBRUARY 2021 25

SCORECARD DIVING IN Coughlin, who won 12 medals at three Games, now uses her stroking power to punch down grapes. “There’s only so much you can read or learn from a book,” says Coughlin. “You really have to learn by doing it, and the wine is—it’s alive. When you’re making it, it’s bubbling, it’s making noises.” alongside Harding—asking her differently. That’s kind of the fun for Gaderian, happy to keep the HEINZ KLUETMEIER (2) business partner to treat her “like of all this.” label relatively small. But 2020, an intern,” she says. “There’s only unsurprisingly, has been tricky. so much you can read or learn The actual production, of Smoke from the California wildfires from a book. You really have to course, is only half the battle. damaged their fruit, which is learn by doing it, and the wine The rest comes in packaging and sourced from local growers. is—it’s alive. When you’re making promoting—where the winemakers COVID-19 affected restaurant it, it’s bubbling, it’s making noises, have tried to position their label and retail distribution. For now, smells are coming off of it. It’s all so as open and approachable, writing most sales of their five varietals, different as the process goes on.” the descriptions of their vintages which range from $26 (2019 rosé) on their website in the language of to $45 (2018 pinot noir and 2018 Years of tastings had made a friend giving a recommendation. Petit Syrah), come from online. Coughlin a relatively educated (Of the 2018 Invisible Vineyard drinker, but it wasn’t until she chardonnay: “You’ve got to get Coughlin also faced a happier sort began making wine herself that you some of this! It tastes like a of obstacle: Pregnant this summer, she learned just how the taste creamsicle melted in your mouth.”) she could taste the wine that was develops over the various stages in production only by sampling it of production, and how different it “I wasn’t quite sure how detail- and then spitting it out. (She and might be from one harvest to the oriented [Natalie] was going to her husband, Ethan Hall, had their next. “Like our 2019 chenin blanc want to be with the production and second child in October.) Now she had all these wonderful pineapple the labels and the photographs, and Harding hope to pick back up notes, just as a result of how things but she’s been so into crafting the at full speed in 2021. ripened that year and the growing brand and all those subtle details,” conditions,” Coughlin explains. Harding says. “She’s just as fiercely “It’s just one of my passions,” “And the 2018 had been great, but competitive in the wine industry as Coughlin says. “I’m hands-on we’d made it exactly the same, used she was when she was a swimmer.” because I love this.” the same fruit, and it came out Coughlin and Harding remain Even when it means a shoulder- the only two full-time employees deep swim into fermenting grapes. 26 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

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VIDEO SPOTLIGHT For more on Faces follow: @facesinthecrowd and @Faces_SI @facesinthecrowd.si FACES IN THE CROWD By DAN FALKENHEIM Photograph by DAVID E. KLUTHO BLAKE FISHER THE NIGHT before he made his Blake carried a framed photo of commitment to Notre Dame official, Breonna on signing day, Dec. 16, Hometown: Avon, Ind. five-star recruit Blake Fisher thought at Avon High’s fieldhouse. There School: Avon High about his late sister, Breonna. he saw Maison Gibson—the Sport: Football Disabled and afflicted by a virus that jovial 13-year-old boy with Down Date of Birth: March 25, 2003 attacked her heart, she couldn’t walk syndrome whom he met during a Position: Left Tackle or talk and died in 2011, at age 10, blowout in the 2019 opener. After when Blake was eight. “She would that game Blake asked coach chuckle at stuff I’d say,” he recalls. Mark Bless to make Maison a “When people say my sister’s keeper, captain, and he joined the Orioles’ it was that type of bond.” sideline for the rest of the season. 2 8 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

“That’s my little bro,” says Blake of UPDATE three months. She defending champ, Maison. “Seeing him, that put a huge spent time in her Gabriela Ruffels, on smile on my face. Having a special- COMING Irvine, Calif., garage, the 38th hole. Four needs sister . . . it makes me want to UP ROSE mashing old balls weeks later Rose, 17, go above and beyond for those kids.” into a net and shot an 8-under EARLIER THIS practicing her 280 at the LPGA’s At 6' 6\" and 330 pounds, Blake year, because of putting stroke. ANA Inspiration is the state’s top-rated prospect, the pandemic, in Rancho Mirage, a punishing blocker who drives Rose Zhang didn’t Then, in August, Calif., to break defenders 15 yards downfield. He set set foot on a golf Rose battled through the tournament’s a school record with seven pancakes course for nearly tendinitis in her left amateur record by in a 54–13 defeat of Ben Davis High. wrist to win the U.S. one stroke and earn “I know I’m the baddest dude on the Women’s Amateur at an exemption for the field at all times,” Blake says. “It’s Woodmont Country U.S. Women’s Open like the quarterback is my mom and Club in Rockville, Md., in June. the running back is my sister: I don’t beating the tourney’s want either one getting touched.” A Stanford commit, Rose Notre Dame fans dubbed Blake appeared in the “The Mayor” after he took on the role Oct. 2, 2017, issue of unofficial lead recruiter, shouting of FACES IN THE CROWD out players on Twitter, maintaining after winning the a group chat with commits and Girls Junior PGA meeting with guys when they visited Championship. South Bend. The result: The Fighting She finished 2020 Irish landed their best class since as the world’s 2013. Blake connected with alumni, No. 1 amateur. “I too, and counts Cowboys middle don’t really look linebacker Jaylon Smith as his mentor. at rankings,” Rose Says Blake: “He’s told me, ‘Don’t try says, “but it’s super to be the next anybody. Be the next nice to see.” Blake Fisher.’ That’s my plan.” KELVIN KUO/USA TODAY SPORTS (UPDATE); COURTESY OF KEYARAH BERRY Sport: Basketball Town: Rockmart, Ga. ANDRE CLARK (BERRY); COURTESY OF KERRY HECK (HECK) Keyarah, a 5' 11\" senior forward for Rockmart High, scored 50 points and had six rebounds and five steals in a 69–63 win over Ringgold. Last year she averaged 32.1 points and led the Yellowjackets to their first Class 2A semifinal. Through 11 games Keyarah, who has committed to Indiana, was 571 points shy of the state’s career scoring mark. RYLEIGH HECK Sport: Field Hockey Town: Voorhees, N.J. NOMINATE NOW Ryleigh, a junior forward for Eastern Regional High, scored five To submit a candidate goals and had one assist in a 9–0 defeat of Shawnee High to secure for Faces in the Crowd, the Vikings’ 22nd consecutive Group 4 title. A North Carolina email [email protected]. commit, she finished the season with a state-high 76 goals. For more on outstanding amateur athletes, follow @Faces_SI on Twitter.



HANGOVER? CURSE? Or something more benign? Only eight times in 55 years has a team that lost the Super Bowl returned to play it again the next year. We asked runner-up coaches, players and execs—and took a deeper dive into the data—to find out: Why is it so hard to get back?

In the weeks and when the Falcons blew a lead to the Patriots to lose ROBERT BECK months and years Super Bowl LI. As those three digits transformed into that followed 28–3, a synonym for choking on the grandest stage in sports, Dan Quinn Quinn meditated every morning. He read books on grit, did everything leadership and grief. He studied his team’s collapse, over to reconcile, and over—he always knew how the horror movie would compartmentalize end, but he watched until he also knew the villain’s outfit and move past and precisely how much blood dripped from the knife. 32 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM The Atlanta coach also ate a lot of lunches with coworkers in the spring of 2017, dining out so often that he came to worry about his weight. He needed to check in with roughly 30 members of the organization, from ownership to roster cornerstones. The Falcons had blown the largest lead in Super Bowl history; they were close enough to smudge the Lombardi Trophy with their fingerprints before it all fell away. Quinn knew that most of his dining compan- ions recognized a vague yet terrifying idea grounded in anecdotal rather than empirical evidence: Some call it a hangover, others a curse—either way, it marked impending doom for the NFL runner-up. Over the first 50 Super Bowls, only seven teams that lost returned to the grand stage the next season—and the Bills of the early 1990s accounted for nearly half the total. And none of those 50 teams, of course, had stumbled quite like the Falcons against the Pats, who studded each of their championship rings with a 283-diamond reminder. Quinn met with quarterback Matt Ryan, one of the steadier stars in football who needed to imprint his sto- icism upon teammates. Quinn told offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan that he had shouldered too much blame for the ineffective fourth-quarter play-calling, urging Shanahan to “get back that moment and prove that you can win.” Quinn explained to others the significant dis- tinction between a wound and a scar: the wound new, open and painful; the scar healed, cool and numbed. The upcoming season, he insisted, would be its own entity, entirely separate from the previous one. Over the next four months, they would turn wounds into scars. The coach tried every angle he could think of. He peddled positivity—the kind he had gleaned from his mentor, Pete Carroll, after the Seahawks won then lost a Super Bowl, in the 2013 and ’14 seasons. Quinn noted the accomplishment in simply reaching a championship, pointing out that the 1972 Dolphins compiled the only undefeated season in the Super Bowl era only after losing the title game the year before. (He didn’t mention they were the last runner-up to win it the next season.) The coach also reminded his players that they had chosen a competitor’s existence, and that sometimes competitors get their butts kicked. He paraphrased veteran NBA coach Doc Rivers: “You gotta be willing to get your heart broke, to be so emotionally in, to have a chance.” Quinn understood the challenges that every champion- ship game loser must confront: the emotional toll, the shorter offseason, the condensed recovery time, the chal- lenge of re-creating the magic that made the run possible,

the departure of key players and coaches. (Shanahan, for Quinn remains proud of the ’17 team that overcame a SUPER BOWL LOSSES instance, left to take over the 49ers.) Quinn could still taste 4–4 start to return to the playoffs, where it toppled the the glorious beers he had chugged, as the defensive coor- Rams on the road and had a chance on the goal line in the dinator, after Seattle’s triumph in Super Bowl XLVIII, still final seconds to beat the eventual champion Eagles. But the remember the bludgeoning bitterness after Russell Wilson’s Falcons have not had a winning campaign since, and, in late interception against those crafty Patriots in XLIX. He 2020, they squandered five fourth-quarter leads (December remained firm. “I don’t think there’s any curse,” he said included a 24–7 third-quarter advantage over Tom Brady’s then, and says now, and will say probably forever. Bucs that ended in a 31-27 defeat), as if haunted by the one they blew four seasons ago. Quinn was fired in October, I N THE WEEKS and months and years that followed and while he refuses to connect the confluence of fluky, 28–3, the Falcons suffered numerous injuries, lost quite miserable and sure-seems-meaningful events that ended a few games, made some bad signings, whiffed on some his tenure, he will allow for the same sentiment that most draft picks, botched simple kicks and blew games late. Super Bowl losers subscribe to: In the following season(s) This was, in most ways, life in the NFL, but in their case weird stuff happens, leading fans and outsiders to look for each mistake was amplified because of the Super Bowl patterns in random events. Maybe they’re seeing ghosts. collapse; 28–3 had come to define them. Maybe they’ve unearthed a profound truth. WORTH ANOTHER LOOK In 2018, a Falcons fan named Jonathan Yaeger took a Quinn confronted his team’s Super Bowl deep dive into losing Super Bowl teams. Like most fans, heartbreak—and the Falcons won a playoff he knew the basics: The ’98 Falcons, who went 14–2, game the next season. But fewer than four lost Super Bowl XXXIII and won nine games total over years later, his tenure in Atlanta was over. the next two seasons; the 2000 Giants, who dropped Super Bowl XXXV, didn’t make it past the wild-card round until ’07; the Raiders team that tripped up in XXXVII had scratched out one winning season since; the Bears went to Super Bowl XLI, lost to the Colts and finished last in their division a year later. The Eagles, six months removed from their XXXIX disappointment, endured Terrell Owens’s knocking out driveway sit-ups while helicopters circled overhead, the tempestuous wideout fracturing the locker room before a 10-loss season under Andy Reid. “Losing sucks because you have regrets, doubts,” the quarterback of that team, Donovan McNabb, told Sports Illustrated last January. Before the interview that afternoon McNabb had stood before the Chiefs, Reid’s new team, and implored them to win so they wouldn’t feel the way he still felt— tortured, reliving the same two plays over and over, 15 years later. In one particularly rough stretch, between 1998 and 2007, many stars felt that way, as only two of those Super Bowl losers (the 1999 Titans, the 2005 Seahawks) returned to the postseason the next year. During that span, runners-up won an average of 12.6 games in the years they reached the Super Bowl, but just 7.6 the season after. Still, to Yaeger, a Georgia Tech alum with a degree in engineering, none of that suggested anything more than mere coincidence, the result of a small sample size. Most Super Bowl hangover believers, he says, had not considered an obvious control group for comparison. They ignored the larger puzzle. The Patriots, of course, were an exception to any jinx, in that they seemed to return to the Super Bowl every season. But even the magnificent Tom Brady suffered his most significant injury the year after Giants receiver David Tyree pinned a football to his helmet to hand New England a Super Bowl defeat, and a season-ending, first game, first quarter, defender-falls- into-leg injury to a star quarterback seems a little curse-y. FEBRUARY 2021 33



SEATTLE SETTLED Fik-Shun who, after falling on his face during a nationally SUPER BOWL LOSSES televised competition, canceled gigs and considered retire- The Malcolm Butler pick ( left) ment before accepting what had happened and moving in XLIX was the last pass the forward. That summer, the coach told SI that examining Seahawks threw in a Super Bowl, the depths of his own pain had been “thrilling.” but Wilson and Carroll ( below) have returned to the playoffs “You’ll never know,” Carroll said. “I can’t make you un- five times since. derstand. You pour everything in your life into something and—it goes right, it goes wrong—it’s in you. It becomes part of you.” The Seahawks reached the playoffs in five of the next six seasons, including that one. The Falcons, under Carroll’s protégé Quinn, took a similar tack and won that playoff game the following season. In fact, since 2010, Super Bowl bridesmaids compiled a 110–66 col- lective record the season after. Eight of those 11 teams made the playoffs. And yet, one team took a contrary approach, because that one team always does. Randy Cross, the three-time Super Bowl champion offensive lineman with the 49ers, would travel to One Patriot Place for TV broadcast gigs, and he never detected any acknowledgement of a previ- ous season: That meant not only no Super Bowl rings or trophies, but also nobody lamenting a championship game JOHN IACONO (BUTLER); DONALD MIRALLE (WILSON AND CARROLL) The Pats’ continued success started Yaeger down a re- loss, either. “It’s like,” Cross says, “they would physically search tunnel. He began digging into the rate at which just ignore anything that had anything to do with the Super Bowl winners performed the next season. At that year before.” point, in 2018, he found they won an average of 0.31 more games than the losers and produced only one additional Cross became a radio host and settled in Atlanta, where division champ and fewer second-place teams. Meanwhile, fans have lamented the hangover as if they were looking the winners and losers made the playoffs at the same rate to confirm it. Cross notes that the team still played at a (70%), although the winners in general advanced deeper. high level the following season. But weren’t the Patriots actually right? Didn’t obsessing about a curse in some As for the hangover? It didn’t take an engineering degree ways perpetuate it? Or: Was the actual curse as simple as for Yaeger to wonder how the high rate of return to the lacking the advantage that was Brady and Bill Belichick? playoffs and the Super Bowl (14%) made for any sort of hangover or curse. Shouldn’t all teams be that unlucky? Cross watched this offseason as the Niners started yap- ping about a revenge tour after losing the last Super Bowl, S UPER BOWL LOSERS attempting to turn wounds into to those Chiefs that McNabb addressed. “Nah, man,” Cross scars often follow two distinct approaches: Either they thought, “that ain’t gonna end well.” try to speed the healing by addressing the wound directly, or they ignore the wound until it scabs over naturally. In He had no earthly idea the weird stuff yet to come. recent years, most teams leaned on the heal-it-immediately approach, hiring consultants who focused on performance, S AN FRANCISCO GM John Lynch called on the last mental health and holistic healing. day of 2020 from a Marriott in Arizona, his team’s temporary home since a Thanksgiving-weekend ban on After Wilson’s interception, Carroll brought in guest contact sports in Santa Clara County, home to the 49ers’ speakers throughout the spring of 2015, often choosing headquarters and stadium. The team found out about the those who had overcome public and embarrassing defeats. ban on a bus headed to a game against the Rams, giving Like Du-Shaunt Stegall, a professional dancer known as officials roughly 48 hours to relocate all operations across state lines. For the latest franchise to lose a Super Bowl, FEBRUARY 2021 35

SUPER BOWL LOSSES the move registered as just one more hiccup in this, the strangest of seasons. One that Lynch, while careful not to make excuses, would prefer never to repeat. “Yeah, this is not ideal,” he says of the team’s nomadic existence. Last February in Miami, Lynch skipped down to the field hoping to celebrate a 49ers triumph. As he settled onto the sideline San Francisco led by 10 in the final quar- ter, and Kansas City faced a steep third-and-15 against the NFL’s best defense. The Chiefs converted on an improb- able heave from Patrick Mahomes to Tyreek Hill and won with a comeback that wasn’t 28–3 but was close. Crushed, Lynch forced himself to go to the postgame party, which was about as festive as a review of the employee hand- book with human resources. The GM found his coach, Kyle Shanahan, the former Falcons coordinator who had just missed the redemption he spent three years maniacally chasing. Quinn had texted Shanahan that week, writing, in part, “Let it Rip like a motherf-----!!!!!!” Shanahan had. With the exact same result. “Bouncing back shouldn’t be a problem,” Shanahan told reporters. Lynch knew his team had the right foundation, but he same breaks. Due to a salary-cap crunch Lynch had to trade PETER MUHLY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES wasn’t so sure about the bounce back. As a Hall of Fame All-Pro defensive lineman DeForest Buckner to the Colts. safety who spent his prime in Tampa, he saw up close He couldn’t afford to retain wideout Emmanuel Sanders, the challenges even Super Bowl winners must confront. who signed with the Saints. The Niners faced the NFC’s Lynch remembers then–Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden, toughest schedule, but Vegas oddsmakers remained bull- after winning Super Bowl XXXVII, lamenting how many ish, giving them the third-best odds (9-to-1, trailing the players started radio shows before the start of the next Chiefs and Ravens) to win the Super Bowl. “We felt we season. “Does anybody else want one?” Gruden boomed. had done some things where, on paper, we might even Lynch thought the Bucs had a better team in 2003, but be a better team,” Lynch says. they finished 7–9, and he suffered his first “real bad” stinger against the Colts that marked “the start of my He’ll never know. In 2020, an NFL-record $80 million demise.” As he transitioned into personnel, Lynch some- worth of 49ers landed on injury reserve or were inactive due times studied Belichick at the NFL scouting combine, to injury or COVID-19 protocols. Eighty-four players took noting the Patriots’ “skeleton crew” at the event, allowing at least one snap, while 53 started on offense or defense. key staffers to recover after inevitably longer seasons. Three opted out of this pandemic season before camp started. In Week 2 alone, the 49ers took on the Jets without The day after the loss, the Niners held a team meeting. a host of injured starters (George Kittle, Richard Sherman, An emotionally spent Shanahan ceded the floor to Lynch, Dee Ford and Deebo Samuel), and, in one haunted af- who—prompted by a text from Hall of Fame quarterback ternoon against the Jets, they lost Jimmy Garoppolo, Kurt Warner, a winner of one Super Bowl and loser in Nick Bosa, Raheem Mostert and Solomon Thomas to two others—told players they should celebrate a special injuries at MetLife Stadium. That’s not a few missing season, even if it didn’t feel that way right then. Lynch players. That’s half a Pro Bowl roster watching games from also went through the history of Super Bowl–losing teams the same suite. “Just a bloodbath,” Lynch says. that didn’t play football in New England. “We believe we’re different,” he said. “Let’s go show it.” With a date against the Giants in the same stadium a week later, the Niners stayed in West Virginia, rather than It’s never easy, of course, to keep a team together, form crisscrossing the country; they even hired their own MRI the same connective tissue, stay just as healthy, seize the truck to handle scans. The truck, of course, broke down. 36 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

All that happened before the positive COVID-19 tests, Just 22 days later, he was stopped one yard short of scor- before San Francisco was forced to finish the season in ing the game-winning touchdown against the Rams in Arizona, before players impressed Lynch with their unending Super Bowl XXXIV. fortitude, despite the 6–10 mark. Thank God I played in the His first canker sore appeared a day or two after a defensive backfield, Lynch thought, where coaches trained defeat as heartbreaking as the 28–3 collapse. But then him to forget the worst of football—like a third-and-15 con- came a second sore, then five, then 10. By the time the version in the Super Bowl—and move on to the next play. count reached 22, Dyson visited the doctor, overcome Cursed? No, Lynch says. He’s blessed with a foundation by stress. The nurse who treated him looked as if she that can be easily replenished for another run in 2021. wanted to cry. She had to burn them off, one by one. “It He’s like Kevin Sherman, whose son Richard has one was just how my body dealt with, I guess, an emotional ring but lost two other Super Bowls, one on the Mahomes loss,” Dyson says now. comeback and the other on the Wilson interception—“I The feeling never really left him, a professional ath- don’t think I’ve ever gotten over it,” Kevin says. He calls lete who before the last seconds of that Super Bowl had the 2020 49ers’ transformation into a MASH unit with- always delivered in the final moments—the Miracle in out a home “just a fluky type of Nashville being the latest example. deal.” Weird stuff happens. “It’s like Now, for the first time, “I felt like I let it’s nobody’s fault,” Papa Sherman the city down,” he says. says. But a season like that sounds ST. LOUIS’S ARC Dyson spent the next six months a lot like a cur . . . “Nope,” he says. Martz ( left) and the training harder, skipping vacations, “2020 doesn’t count.” Rams lost two years determined to earn redemption. “You after they tackled Dyson look at the paradox of, wow, you’re one yard short ( below). not even supposed to be part of the Super Bowl, but you had this wild play to get there, and then when you get to the biggest game of your life, you don’t score,” he says. The canker sores were a physical manifestation of the mental toll inflicted by losing just one game, the one game being just that important. Hangover? Dyson laughs. No way. He points out that Tennessee went 13–3 the next season. If anything, the Canker Sore Curse was isolated to Dyson alone, as he completed only one healthy season in his final four years, never getting back to the big one. But as he watched the Falcons crumble while ahead 28–3, he thought they would come back from a defeat as epic as his own. He hoped they would, at least. JOHN BIEVER K EVIN DYSON KNOWS what it’s like to wrestle ghosts, T HOSE SAME RAMS, the ones that to try to explain what’s impossible to understand beat Dyson by three feet of green for someone who hasn’t lived it. That’s how many come turf defended, would lose their own to believe in curses, for the tidy explanation they offer. Super Bowl two seasons later (XXXVI, Dyson caught 18 touchdown passes for two NFL fran- against the Patriots, as Tom Brady for chises and yet will always be defined by two plays with the first time became Tom Brady). The next season they the Titans from the 1999 season: the Music City Miracle went 7–9 and missed the playoffs. Like Carroll, Quinn and the Tackle. First, Dyson caught a disputed lateral on and Dyson, the coach of that St. Louis team, Mike Martz, a kickoff return and sped 75 yards into the end zone to says the sting “never goes away,” adding that he never upend the Bills in the final seconds of a wild-card matchup. watched the defeat again after grading his players in the aftermath. But if there’s any curse involved—he certainly wouldn’t call it that—it’s the salary cap. Teams like the Rams often marshal resources, like poker pros pushing all their chips toward the center of the table, for one last run. The All-in Curse. FEBRUARY 2021 37

SUPER BOWL LOSSES Most football aficionados remember those Rams by the Then he pivots, back toward an old foe. “It’s like the nickname for their offense, the Greatest Show on Turf, situation up in New England right now,” Martz says of the led by Hall of Famers like Warner and Marshall Faulk. Patriots, who finished 7–9 this season. “They mortgaged They had reached two Super Bowls in three years, and so many years so they could [try to] win Super Bowls. that meant bigger contracts for more players. And that But eventually, you’re gonna have to pay the price.” In meant less flexibility in the years ahead. Those 2002 Rams other words, weird stuff happens because weird stuff is would lose several defensive starters, including middle supposed to happen in the NFL. linebacker London Fletcher, a player Martz describes as the Warner of his defense, one of two or three players G OING ALL IN and coming up short is one problem. “most vital to our success.” The other: not doing enough. There’s a delusion grounded in being so close—in Dyson’s case, one yard; in In his six years with the franchise, the ’02 season marked Quinn’s, one quarter—to winning that one specific game. Martz’s only full losing season. It wasn’t surprising. It was football, a convoluted sport designed like a Rube Goldberg A performance consultant like Mike Forde (Chelsea machine, where dozens of variables—90 players, scheme, Football Club, San Antonio Spurs, various NFL teams) weekly game plans, health, weather—must sync perfectly. sees this mistake often, and not just in the NFL. Especially Catastrophe on two dozen of the more than 1,000 snaps for older teams, or teams that have been close repeatedly, each team runs over the course of a season can be the there’s a tendency to make fewer changes than necessary. difference between a Super Bowl run and a losing record. Injuries happen. So do free-agent departures. That the THE OTHER ONE THAT GOT AWAY ’01 Rams went for it, knowing the dismantling ahead, spoke more to calculated risk, their best—and maybe Sherman (25) suffered his second last—chance to make another run with that group. Their Super Bowl defeat last February, then was ’02 hangover was a function of the NFL’s natural order. among the many San Francisco stars who Curse? Martz, too, laughs. “We lost a lot of good players.” missed the majority of 2020 due to injury. SIMON BRUTY

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Marino never won a title? When both of Manning’s rings resulted from catches that bordered on miraculous? It’s something known as counterfactual thinking. Teams compare their feats to what might have been, rather than what actually was. The Bills should view their run of four straight Super Bowl appearances—all losses—as histori- cally great. But none of them do. The weird stuff that happens? It can be partly psycho- logical. But even Thaler says, “I would be shocked if there was anything more to the Super Bowl losing curse than to the Sports Illustrated [cover jinx].” BILL’D UP A LL OF WHICH leads us back to the same place, to RICHARD MACKSON 28–3 and the Falcons’ collapse to end all collapses. The early-’90s Buffalo teams should be Jason Pauley, who worked for six years as a locker room celebrated for their unprecedented manager for the team on game days (but still rooted for run of success, but instead became the Giants) quit his full-time job at IBM in 2017 and took defined by four straight losses. a year off. With ample free time and a background in data analysis, he dove even deeper into the statistics of The coaches who do that aren’t listening to themselves Super Bowl losers. when they say that each season is its own entity. They’re too loyal, Forde says, too hopeful, which can make a Like Yaeger, Pauley started with a control group of the coach and front office ignorant of the team’s deficiencies. first 50 Super Bowl winners and found them strikingly “There’s an over-reliance to keep the band together similar to the teams that lost. But he didn’t stop there. and have another run at it,” he says. Call it the Curse of Attempting to quantify the emotional component, he split Wishful Thinking. “You’ve got to look at the next season in the losers into four categories: teams that lost in blowouts, isolation, which is hard because there’s a human capital, in convincing defeats, in close games (defined by one emotional aspect to it that wants [teams] to believe in score) and in games decided after the final two-minute the magic,” Forde says. warning. Teams in the “close game” category made the playoffs the following year more often (86%) but came Richard Thaler, the 2017 Nobel Prize winner in from the smallest sample size (seven Super Bowls). Each economic sciences and longtime professor at the of the other categories had return rates above 64%; as a University of Chicago Booth School of Business, once whole, 70% of losing Super Bowl teams got back to the cowrote a deep research paper on decision-making at the playoffs the next year. NFL draft. He came to view the overvaluing of early selec- tions as the “most blatant violation of market efficiency” Next, Pauley wondered how other playoff teams, the he had witnessed in his long and celebrated career. ones that didn’t make the Super Bowl, fared in the follow- ing season. He found that they made the postseason at Teams operate inefficiently, Thaler found, and that ex- a much lower clip (53%). To factor in the likelihood that tends to their thought process concerning the Super Bowl playoff teams have better chances the next season, due to itself: They overvalue a single game. Was Eli Manning returning players and postseason experience, he examined really a better quarterback than Dan Marino, as some squads that won 12 or 13 games in any season but did not pundits posited, because he won two Super Bowls and reach the Super Bowl. They returned to the playoffs at a 51% rate. The Super Bowl teams, even the losing ones, boasted the highest rate of return to the playoffs. Ultimately, Pauley came to believe that the NFL playoffs represent a simple mathematical concept: regression to the mean. The outliers—teams that won far more games (for instance, 14–2 teams) or fewer (2–14 ones) than the mean—tended to fall closer to the league average the next season, due to factors like a year of good health turning bad, a tough schedule, or a couple of bad bounces in games that often come down to a handful of plays. This is parity, more or less—the very parity the NFL tweaked its rules for decades to achieve. As for the Super Bowl hangover for the losers, or a curse on the teams that don’t make it back, Pauley suggests a simple, declarative conclusion: There isn’t one. 40 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM



JAYSON TATUM is evolving into one of the league’s most dangerous players— as his son becomes one of its youngest social media stars

BY CHRIS MANNIX PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID E. KLUTHO Y

It’s God, then Mom—or at least that’s the running order of most acceptance speeches. After the man upstairs, Kevin Durant thanked his mother when receiving his MVP award in 2014, a powerful moment that, naturally, later evolved into an internet meme. Ditto Giannis Antetokounmpo, who had tears in his eyes when he paid tribute to his mom at the NBA awards show in 2019, while Mrs. Antetokounmpo, seated in the gallery, brushed away a few of her own. Jayson Tatum isn’t an MVP (yet) but if (when) that day comes, God’s likely to get second billing. Who knows where Brandy Cole would be if 22 years LITTLE ago her world didn’t change forever? Class president, a DEUCE COUP hotly recruited volleyball player at University City High in suburban St. Louis, Cole toyed with the idea of applying to Tatum’s three- MIT, with an eye toward becoming a biomedical engineer. year-old son has A relationship with Justin Tatum, a Saint Louis University basketball player, led to an unexpected pregnancy the succeeded in summer after she graduated. A positive test confirmed becoming something it. Then another. Then another. For weeks, Cole was in denial. She didn’t tell her mother, Kristie, who had been of a celebrity in a teenage mother herself. Early in the pregnancy, while his own right. working at a Walgreens, Cole collapsed. “I was anemic,” she says, “and didn’t know it.” She was taken to the hospital, Jayson Jr. (right, in where a nurse, phone in hand, came into the room and said November 2019) was she had a call from Brandy Cole’s mom. When she asked for Brandy, Cole told the nurse she had never heard of her. one of the breakout stars of the bubble; Soon, though, reality would set in. And so would Cole’s focus. She wouldn’t put her life on hold. While raising Jayson, after he arrived, Cole earned a bachelor’s degree from Missouri–St. Louis, Stevens tweeted, “I then a master’s and a law degree—but he would come first. Her son would go to private schools, even if it meant frequent walked down the visits to predatory payday lenders to make ends meet. It hallway with Deuce meant humbling experiences. When food was scarce, Cole would send Jayson to a neighbor’s to pick up leftovers. today, which is the “Chicken pot pie was the go-to,” says Tatum. He would eat highlight of my the filling. Cole would make do with the crust. 70 days here.” It meant supporting her son’s dream. Cole sold cellphones, K ATHRYN RILE Y/GE T T Y IM AGES worked in an office at UPS, underwrote workman’s comp policies for Travelers, did grant writing for nonprofits— anything to make ends meet. In between she kept up a full class schedule. Often, Jayson would tag along, fid- dling with a Game Boy or sleeping next to her in a lecture 44 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

hall. “He should have college credit hours,” says Cole. drills, five minutes each, nonstop. “I basically tried to kill JAYSON TATUM That dream was basketball. In second grade, his teacher him,” jokes Hanlen. asked the class what they wanted to be when they got Afterward, Jayson called his mom. “He said he thought older. There were doctors, lawyers, veterinarians. Jayson he was going to pass out,” says Cole. “But [also] that you said he wanted to play in the NBA. The teacher told him were going to have to carry him off that court.” The next to choose something more realistic. His mother believed day, Hanlen brought in Scott Suggs, then a sharpshooting it was. When Jayson was 13, she called Drew Hanlen, a guard at Washington. Hanlen pointed to different spots skills trainer who worked with prominent NBA players. “I on the floor—the wings, the top of the key, two mid-post want you to train Jayson,” Cole said. “I’ll take out a loan spots, seven in all—and directed Suggs and Jayson to to pay you if I have to.” go one-on-one. Jayson lost all seven times. “He just got worked,” Hanlen said. “But he kept coming back.” Initially, Hanlen declined. Cole rang Besta Beal, her former high school volleyball coach—and mother of And working. Through Chaminade Prep, where Tatum Bradley Beal, a Hanlen client and a Florida-bound star. emerged as National Player of the Year in 2016. At Duke, Soon after, Hanlen got a call from Bradley. “J is like a where he overcame an early foot injury to earn All-ACC little brother to me,” Beal said. “Can you help him out?” honors in his lone season. And in the NBA. At 22, Tatum got his first All-NBA nod last season, his third, and picked Hanlen relented—but remained skeptical. “A lot of kids up right where he left off in this one. Before he was placed want to be great,” says Hanlen. “But most aren’t willing in the league’s COVID-19 protocol, the 6' 8\", 210-pound to do the work.” The first workout was grueling. Cardio

JAYSON TATUM forward was averaging career highs in scoring (26.9) and rebounding (7.1) through the first 10 games. “His ceiling is really high,” says Hanlen. “And he’s just getting started.” T HE EDUCATION OF Jayson Tatum began in an unsur- prising place: on YouTube. Justin Tatum’s basketball career ended in 2005. He had always supported Jayson financially as best he could, and when he returned from overseas, he took on a prominent role in coaching Jayson. His early instructions: Watch how the pros score. Not when they score. How they do it. “He didn’t want me looking at the end result,” says Jayson. “He wanted me looking at their footwork and how they got open, how they came off the pin-down, how they came off the screen. To look at all the things before the shot.” Justin was tough. “Early on,” says Cole, “I thought Justin was insane.” (The two never married but have maintained a cordial relationship.) Jayson recalls a middle school game he was struggling in. At halftime, Justin burst into the “[TATUM WILL] LEAD THE NBA IN SCORING SOMEDAY,” SAYS HANLEN. “YOU WILL BE ABLE TO RUN A CHAMPIONSHIP OFFENSE THROUGH HIM.” locker room. “He grabbed me by my jersey and literally Tatum in the locker room, calling him a “soft-ass St. Louis FROM LEF T: DAVID E. K LUTHO; BRIAN BABINE AU/NBAE/GE T T Y IMAGES picked me up and put me against the wall,” says Jayson. kid.” Tatum erupted for 21 in the second half. “And I just remember, everybody was just watching it like, Damn, is this really happening? And I had tears coming Talent can breed arrogance. Tatum, though, has always down my eyes the whole second half.” The result? “I had been coachable. Hanlen saw it early. Video of Kobe Bryant, like 25 straight after that.” Michael Jordan and Tracy McGrady helped Tatum absorb the nuances of a jab step. In high school, Tatum would When Justin began coaching high school ball he would occasionally shoot from only certain areas. “He’d basi- bring Jayson to practice, sticking him in drills with kids cally be using other teams for practice,” says Hanlen. At six or seven years older. “It was a struggle for him,” Justin Duke, Tatum struggled early with his shot. Following the said in an interview with NBC Sports Boston last February. loss to N.C. State, Hanlen flew to Durham. At the time, “Jayson probably cried a couple of times, but he always Tatum’s three-point percentage was 29.5%. The next day, came back. He always wanted the challenge.” the two drove to a nearby high school. Over two hours, Hanlen altered Tatum’s arm angle by 30 degrees. “Basi- Justin’s coaching proved revealing. “Jayson plays better cally lowered his shot pocket,” says Hanlen. Tatum shot mad,” says Cole. Normally, though, angering Tatum is 41.2% from three the rest of the way. difficult. He routinely shrugs off criticism, and Cole will often check his arm, asking whether he has a pulse. “He’s Absorbing coaching is one thing. But Tatum also imple- very logical,” says Cole. “When there is adversity, he doesn’t ments it quickly. “Share something with Jayson once,” says think crying about it will fix anything.” At Duke, following a close loss to N.C. State, Cole was incensed by criticisms TRIPLE THREAT she read on social media. Tatum’s response: Mom, you don’t Tatum—who is averaging more than know any of those people—why are you reading it? twice as many three-point attempts as he did two years ago when he relied on “Nothing becomes personal to him,” says Duke coach midrange Js—nailed a three to beat Mike Krzyzewski. “He has great humility. I like to say that in any environment, his boat still has oars.” But when Tatum the Bucks in the season opener. does get angry—look out. After Tatum scored seven points in the first half against Virginia, Krzyzewski jumped on 4 6 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM



JAYSON TATUM Celtics coach Brad Stevens, “and he usually does it the next MAMA’S BOY time down the floor. Stevens recalls a sequence during an Tatum owes much of his success to exhibition game in Charlotte in Tatum’s rookie season. The Brandy (right), who saw to it that her son went BRIAN BABINEAU/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES Hornets ran a play the Celtics hadn’t worked on defend- to the best schools and got the best training— ing. Tatum got lost the first time. When Charlotte ran the all while she worked toward three degrees. same play a few possessions later, Tatum broke it up. Last season Celtics assistant Jay Larranaga showed Tatum a conference finals without Kyrie Irving and Hayward, and clip of Kemba Walker getting to the rim with an in-and- would welcome the two stars back. But chemistry issues out dribble. The next night Tatum scored on a similar plagued the 2018–19 Celtics, and the team fizzled out in move. “His brain never gets sped up,” says Larranaga. the second round of the playoffs. Tatum, who had been a “You tell him something in a game and he is able to focal point of the offense during Boston’s ’18 playoff run, immediately apply it.” struggled to adapt to a new role, and his shooting percent- ages dipped. His shot selection, particularly an affinity for As Tatum blossoms into one of the game’s elite all- midrange jumpers, drew criticism. Faced with failure for around players, it’s easy to forget that drafting him was the first time, Tatum blamed himself. “He took a lot on,” considered a risky proposition for Boston. In 2017, the says Shrewsberry. “He has such high expectations for where Celtics, thanks to a fruitful trade with Brooklyn four years he wants to be.” Adds Hanlen, “He was overthinking. He earlier, owned the first pick. Washington’s Markelle Fultz took [Boston’s struggles] really personal. He wasn’t living was widely projected as the top player. A few weeks before up to his own expectations.” the draft, Boston’s brass f lew to Los Angeles to watch Tatum work out. Krzyzewski was already in the Celtics’ Tatum’s takeaway from that snakebit season? “Don’t take ear, insisting Tatum was “by far” the best offensive player anything for granted,” says Tatum. “The year before when in the draft. In an empty gym at St. Bernard’s High, Tatum shot 275 threes. He made 83% of them. “He shot 34% from three in college,” says Stevens. “But that wasn’t real. That ball hit the net like it was supposed to.” The Celtics were sold. Boston flipped spots with Philadelphia, which had the third pick. The Sixers took Fultz (Boston officials insist that Fultz’s subsequent shooting woes were not apparent in his workout.) As ex- pected, Lonzo Ball went next to the Lakers, leaving Tatum sitting at No. 3. Confirmation that it was a wise move came quickly. “His skill level for such a young kid was so impressive,” says former Celtics assistant Micah Shrewsberry, who left in 2019 to become an assistant at Purdue. “He was fluid in everything he did for a guy his size.” Tatum averaged 17.7 points in Summer League. At his first practice, he grabbed every rebound and deflected a handful of passes. “None of us knew how good a defender he was,” says Ste- vens. At an open workout in the fall, Tatum knocked off Gordon Hayward in a shooting contest. “There’s a swagger to him,” says Shrewsberry. “He didn’t want to be an NBA player. He wanted to be a great NBA player.” I T’S A CHILLY evening in Detroit in early January when Stevens boards a bus to the airport after a win over the Pistons. Tatum scored 24 points, the last two on a game- winning jumper in the closing seconds. Stevens praises the shot, but quickly shifts the discussion to two games earlier, against Memphis, when Tatum, on a play run for Jaylen Brown, made a hard cut that sprung Brown for a shot. “A play like that,” says Stevens, “is just as good.” Tatum’s rise hasn’t been without rocky moments. After a breakout rookie season, Tatum entered his second year with high expectations. So, too, did Boston, which had pushed LeBron James’s Cavaliers to seven games in the 48 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

we went to the Eastern Conference finals, I thought that finals against the Cavs, Tatum attempted to implement s--- was normal. That this was just how it was supposed to Bryant’s suggestions mid-series). But the thing that really be. And then the next year I realized things can go south. stuck with Tatum was a conversation. Bryant recalled how And it made me really appreciate the year before and just San Antonio had created a special trap to flummox him how valuable things like that are.” in the mid-post. To beat it, Bryant would reposition the Lakers’ big men so they would be open when the Spurs A roster shake-up before last season saw Irving exit and deployed the defense. The lesson: Good players can beat Tatum return to a leading role. Presented with opportunity, their man. The best beat the other team. Tatum seized it, averaging 23.4 points. His three-point percentage jumped back above 40%. His playmaking, That’s the kind of leadership Boston is looking for. “We’re something Tatum has worked diligently on, improved. Last asking him to share what he sees,” says Stevens. The rest is by example. As much as Tatum has accomplished, there is more to unlock. After the 2018–19 season, Tatum worked on adding a side-step three; he shot 43.0% on those last season, an NBA best. Analytics suggest his best shots come off isolations, slot drives and post-ups. But Tatum is grow- ing more comfortable with downhill pick-and-roll threes, while Boston envisions him eventually thriving in catch- and-shoot situations. Hanlen says that a focus during the brief offseason was getting to the free throw line more. “He’ll lead the NBA in scoring someday,” says Hanlen. “You will be able to run a championship offense through him.” Basketball, though, is no longer Tatum’s singular focus. His son, Jayson Jr.—Deuce, as he is known—was born dur- ing Tatum’s rookie season. Cole recalls the early-morning phone call in 2017 when an 18-year-old Tatum told her that he was going to be a father. “I think he expected me to go crazy,” says Cole. But Cole flashed back to her own experience, how the support of her family helped her through it. “The last thing he needed was for me to “HE’S VERY LOGICAL,” BRANDY SAYS OF HER SON. “WHEN THERE IS ADVERSITY, HE DOESN’T THINK CRYING ABOUT IT WILL FIX ANYTHING.” COURTESY OF BRANDY COLE summer, in the NBA bubble, Boston faced Oklahoma City go off,” says Cole. “I told him it would all work out.” in an early scrimmage. During one sequence, a Thunder And it has. Deuce is a fixture at Celtics games. (Tatum defender drifted away to defend the pass on a Tatum drive. Chris Paul, loud enough for many in the quiet arena to hear, and Deuce’s mother, Toriah Lachell, maintain a healthy barked that Tatum wasn’t going to pass. Enter Playmaker coparenting relationship.) A video of the two celebrating Tatum. In the Celtics’ second seeding game, Tatum handed Tatum’s first All-Star selection went viral last January, as out a career-high eight assists in a win over Portland; a few did footage of the two reuniting in the NBA bubble after games later, he dished out six against Orlando. This season Brandy brought him to Florida. When Tatum agreed to coaches say his passing out of double teams has improved. a five-year, $195 million extension in November, Deuce was there to watch him sign the contract. He’s become an Leadership, at least the vocal kind, doesn’t come natu- inspiration. “[Jayson] says all the time, when Deuce gets rally to Tatum, but there have been strides there, too. After older, he wants him to say, ‘My Dad is cold,’ ” says Hanlen. his rookie season, Tatum worked out with Bryant. Growing up, Tatum idolized Bryant. He studied his game religiously. He’s his motivation, just like Jayson was to Brandy. (Celtics coaches privately grumbled that when ESPN re- Around the house, Brandy likes to grumble that Jayson leased an episode of Details, a Bryant-helmed show that cost her a college experience. Tatum’s favorite punch line: took a deep dive into players, during the 2018 conference “I think it all worked out.” It did. Thanks, Mom. FEBRUARY 2021 49

ALMOST A CENTURY AGO, A TINY TOWN IN ALASKAN TERRITORY QUASHED ITS OWN EPIDEMIC WITH A SERUM DELIVERED BY 20 SLED DRIVERS AND 150 DOGS. DOGGONE IT, IF THEY COULD DO IT . . . WHILE THAT CURE’S DISTRIBUTION WAS A MARVEL, THE RETELLING OF THE WHOLE ORDEAL WAS FAR FROM PERFECT BY L. JON WERTHEIM