by Craig Sager
I stared deeply into the picture I kept on my desk at work, of him and me “hosting” Inside the NBA together in 1989. This had been my first and only television appearance. He recapped the night’s action while I sat in my high chair holding a basketball and gobbling the M&M’s that my mother was sneaking onto my tray from underneath the anchor desk to keep me smiling. This is the image that had replayed in my head all these years when he would leave home to venture off to his next big game. I pictured a time in the future when it would be the two Sager men working side by side. That picture represented the life I felt I was born to pursue. This picture got me through sleepless nights working in empty offices and long drives through the middle of the night from high school gyms.
I had a difficult decision to make. I didn’t want my dad’s absence at the playoffs to be the clue that something was wrong. That was a sad and unavoidable reality. Surely there must be something I can do, I thought to myself. The rumors would spread like wildfire if the media got ahold of this first, I reasoned. Motivated to do something, I composed a tweet, with a collage of pictures of my father’s life off of the sidelines with my sisters and me.
My Dad’s 3–4 week acute leukemia treatment starts tmrw. Be thinking of him & let’s get him back on the sidelines soon.
For over an hour I stared at my phone and walked around my house trying to figure out if I should push SEND. I had a general idea of the speed that news can travel on social media. My chronic fear of nepotism that could shade all the work I’ve put in over the years gave me doubts about whether or not I should get in the middle of this unknown journey ahead. Then I asked myself, “What would my dad do if he were me?” At 7:46 p.m., I sent it.
I felt responsible for the barrage of questions that employees of Turner and other members of the sports media were about to be blindsided by. My Twitter account was the only source to go by at the time, and that’s a dangerous game to play. But rather than the political onslaught I anticipated, we received an outpouring of support that was inspiring. The sports world rallied behind the world’s biggest sports fan, and he walked into his treatment the next morning with more support and momentum than any of us could have dreamed of.
Day one of my father’s treatment brought a new wave of the unexpected. The news of his diagnosis was out, and now my focus shifted back to what my role would be. Having my father stationed right down the road from me for a long period was a hard concept to grasp. I wasn’t used to knowing exactly where he was at all times. I started to wonder what this would mean for our relationship. Sacrificing family time for work was the natural order of things—the whole family had been guilty of that. Was this our reset button to discover a new way of life? I was finally going to get to catch up with my dad. I could watch the NBA playoffs with him and tap into his knowledge in real time. We were going to get the father-son time that we had been too busy to get before. Maybe there was something positive that could come out of this—it became the only thing that I wanted.
When I got to the bone marrow floor, I entered the sanitation corridor that kept his wing sealed off from the outside world. The potpourri of sanitizer and latex permeating the space was a reminder of how uncomfortable hospitals made me. I took a deep breath of the sterilized air and let it fill my chest. It was time to get over it. I reached for the stack of blue hospital gowns and then slipped on the matching shoe covers. The first set of doors closed behind me as I tied the gown. I stepped toward the second set of double doors separating me from my father’s new home and completed the checklist by securing my surgical mask. I got greenlighted to press a metal plate, and doors slowly opened, revealing a freeway of nurses, doctors, and patients who were all moving with purpose.
I scanned my surroundings and found myself face-to-face with a wall of informational pamphlets on leukemia next to the family waiting room. Seeing those for the first time really stung. I was reminded how oblivious I was to the complexity of this disease and how much time and effort my medical illiteracy was going to need to be rectified. I made my way to the far corner of the floor, where his spacious room with plenty of windows waited.
Dad raised his arm and gave me a fist bump and a “Let’s do this.” Every bit of his focus was on beating leukemia, staying positive, and getting back on the sideline. I could see the endless supply of strength and determination that had been exhausted earlier that week. He was back.
Tara August, vice president of talent relations at Turner, came in to visit my dad the minute after I walked in the room. After setting down a massive stack of magazines for us, she applauded the amazing support he had received. She pulled out her phone and showed my dad the Keith Olbermann piece that had aired the night before on ESPN2, after my tweet, a segment detailing my father’s boldness and positive outlook on life, ending with the words “Leukemia picked the wrong opponent.”
Tara and I were in tears watching him see it for the first time. His smile grew as the video continued, until the dramatic ending we were waiting for him to hear.
“Wow,” he howled before jumping in the air and going around the room for a round of high-fives. The short-lived delight ended when a doctor came in to start an hour-long procedure and asked us to step outside. Tara met me in the hallway.
“We have an idea,” she said. “How would you like to go to San Antonio tomorrow and interview Coach Popovich in place of your dad for Sunday’s game?”
“That would be a dream come true,” I responded, with complete sincerity and the overwhelming astonishment I was experiencing.
She called the Spurs, and I could hear her ask Popovich if he would be okay with a sit-down interview Sunday morning before the 1:00 p.m. tip-off with the Dallas Mavericks. She nodded to me and put her thumb up when he said yes.
“Don’t worry,” Tara assured me. It will be taped, so we can edit it and do it over again if we need to. Just make sure your father doesn’t find out.” Turner wanted it to be an uplifting surprise for him.
I managed to hide my bewilderment, excitement, and nervousness when I returned to his room. After a few more minutes, I plainly told him he would see me again this weekend, and I said goodbye. That afternoon, Tara emailed me my flight details and let me know that a car service would pick me up first thing in the morning. Yet I now faced a true Sager conundrum.
What was I going to wear?
*
I drove up to my dad’s house in Canton that night to try to pick out an outfit. I never knew what he was going to wear at a game. His style is his creation, and I’m usually just as shocked as the rest of the world watching. He had more than ninety blazers in his closet, what seemed like four hundred ties, and I could not even estimate the number of dress shirts, which came in every shade, texture, and pattern imaginable. I mixed and matched and tried to find something that would sit between his current style and something he would have worn when he was my age. I sat on the floor of the closet, clothes surrounding me.
I remembered all the combinations that I had seen him wear before, and I wanted to find something new. Finally, I found one jacket that still had a tag hanging from it. He never wears the same outfit on the air twice, and this would allow me to christen a new jacket for him. It was charcoal gray with a maroon-and-orange windowpane pattern and felt like the perfect blend of my unadorned fashion sense and his. I had a groovy $9 pair of maroon velvet pants and I was set.
Once I landed in San Antonio on Saturday, I attended the production meeting with producer Craig Silver and the rest of the crew. We planned out the broadcast and talked specifics on how my sit-down would go with Coach Popovich, all the while sharing stories about my dad. I tried my best to hide how nervous I really was. I also had to convince them that I had a plan for my shaggy red hair, which hadn’t been cut in over a year. The nicknames—like “Thor” and “Ginger Clay Matthews”—that I heard on a daily basis amused me, but I wanted to hide my shoulder-length locks as much as possible. I told the crew not to worry, confident that I’d figure something out.
After the production meeting, I made a beeline for the River Walk (Paseo del Rio), a five-mile-long public walkway along the San Antonio River, full of restaurants, bars, and shops. The first father-son trip we ever had was to San Antonio, for the Western Conference finals in 2003, when I was a teenager, and I had fallen in love with the city. The two of us returned to the Alamo City nine years later for the 2012 Western Conference finals and hit up the River Walk for the first time as adults. I remembered all the bars we went to, and I made my way down to our go-to spot, Mad Dogs, to do exactly what my dad would do as a twenty-five-year-old version of himself covering the playoffs.
I ordered my first Bud Light of the night and soaked in the live music and excitement around me. I was back in San Antonio partying at the River Walk. I had to call my dad and tell him, but before I even reached for my phone, I caught myself and remembered I was on a clandestine operation. For the first time in my life, I realized what life would be like if I were unable to call him. It felt real. I experienced complete emptiness and my whole body ached. I felt like I had been dropped into the bottom of the ocean. Having no one to share that night with gave me the loneliest feeling I had ever felt. But I realized that the biggest day of my life was ahead of me and tried to let that keep me occupied.
The next morning, I had a job to do. I woke up and went straight for a run on the River Walk like my dad did every morning before his games. Thankfully, it was an early Easter Sunday tip-off, and I had only a couple of unnerving hours before I was on my way to AT&T Center. I started to get dressed and attempted to put my hair up in a ponytail for the first time. My father was never a fan of my hair, and every day at least one person told me to cut it. I wanted to donate my hair to cancer patients in honor of my aunts, and I still had a long way to go, so cutting it wasn’t an option. Of course, I hadn’t been expecting to be on television anytime soon, either. I brought out the two hair ties that I had snatched from my family’s bathroom before I’d left and strained muscles and tendons that I didn’t know I had in order to reach back and lock down the perfect ponytail. My arms were burning, and I made sure nothing touched my head for the next five hours while avoiding making any sudden movements. I gained a whole new perspective on what women have to deal with.
Fully dressed now, I went down to the hotel lobby and hopped in a car with Reggie Miller, who was also catching a ride to the arena to provide color commentary for the game.
“Oh, yeah, I love it, Sages,” laughed Reggie, using my dad’s nickname, when he saw the getup.
We got to the arena just before 10:00 a.m., thirty minutes before my scheduled sit-down with Popovich. I had no idea what was about to happen or even what we were going to talk about, as the game had yet to be played. I stood in the hallway minutes before the interview, with a camera crew ready to set up and start rolling the second Popovich rounded the corner. Talking to Popovich was actually the only thing I wasn’t worried about. I loved him from afar, my family admired him, and playing college football had long ago squashed my fear of any imposing coach.
I felt like a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? except there was no million dollars, and no lifelines to keep me from looking like an idiot on national television.
Popovich came out of his office and introduced himself. He was much taller in person than I had thought, and his strong hand shook mine as we exchanged hellos. He mentioned to the crew that he wanted to speak with me in private for a moment, and I followed him into his office and took a seat across from his desk as he closed the door.
“Craig, I want you to know how much I respect your dad,” he began, and followed with details of his admiration and an instruction.
“If you aren’t taking care of your responsibilities, you aren’t going to be able to take care of those around you. Make sure you do what you need to do.”
Then he leaned over and handed me a handwritten letter that he wanted me to give to my dad when I got home.
I was still wondering when we were going get this interview over with.
“Oh, and I don’t want to tape this thing,” Pop said, matter-of-factly. “That won’t work. Let’s do this live after the third quarter, just like your dad would.”
This was Popovich’s idea and no one else’s. It hadn’t come up once in Turner discussions, and no one asked him to do it. I was going to literally fill in for my father, and it was Popovich making the call. It would be special, but … wait. It would be live on national television! What started as a tribute had just become my chance to experience a lifelong dream and something truly life-changing.
Nervously, I agreed, and Pop and I exchanged hugs. As we left his office, I told the surprised crew about the change of plans. I wondered if I even had the authority to accept Pop’s proposal, but I remembered who was standing next to me.
Since the original plan had been to be done with this long before tip-off, I was supposed to be sitting in the stands and not on press row during the game. Now, with the change in plans, I would move from the stands down to the court at the start of the third quarter and share a seat with sideline reporter Jaime Maggio, who would also make sure I was where I needed to be for my “hit.”
During the pregame show on TNT, host and friend Ernie Johnson teased my upcoming appearance during the game. At the time, I had no idea if my father was watching, though I assumed he would be. As the game went on, I became more and more nervous. What the hell am I doing? But I thought about all of the lessons that I have learned from my father, about using your brains to figure things out, and about a willingness to be different, and then I thought about how he would have handled this situation. He would have found a way to make it work, and I would do the same.
As the quarter ended, I stood under the basket, ready to run out to the spot on the floor Jaime had pointed out to me, where I should meet Coach Popovich. Jaime was instructed by the truck to open the interview and then hand the microphone to me to take over. The horn sounded, and I rushed to the designated mark, dodging cords, cheerleaders, and the chaos all around me.
Popovich walked over and was surprised to see Jaime.
“I thought Junior was doing this?”
“He is,” answered Jaime. “We’re going to throw it to him.”
“No, just hand him the mic,” he ordered. “Don’t complicate this.”
I grabbed the mic and looked for a cue or something to tell me what the hell was happening. I stared at the camera, having no idea when to start talking, or even if I was already on live television. I had no earpiece to hear the truck for my cue. It was just Pop and me out there together, in the eye of the storm that I felt circling around me.
“Five seconds,” warned Jaime, out of camera range. I started a countdown in my head. It was so loud I could barely think.
“It’s a tie game in San Antonio,” I opened as Popovich watched with a grin. When I saw his face, I felt safe, and the bliss of the moment took over. It turned into a quick “How’s it going, it’s nice to see you” as I tried to regain my focus and stop smiling long enough to ask my questions.
“How would you assess your team’s performance so far?” was my first question. “What do you need to do in the fourth quarter to pull away and close this one out?” was the second.
Pop took it easy on me and actually answered my questions, and I just focused on keeping a steady hand and not letting the microphone shake. My feet were shaking with adrenaline, and my legs were starting to as well. Then, Pop looked directly into the camera.
“Craig, we miss ya. You’ve been an important part of all of this for a long time, doing a great job. We want your fanny back on the court, and I promise I’ll be nice.”
He patted me on the shoulder, told me “Good job,” and was on the bench coaching his team seconds later.
I was processing what had just happened as we were told to clear the court. I looked up at the packed arena and captured the moment in my mind. I treasured each step I was taking in my father’s shoes, and it was a mesmerizing e
xperience. Big moments and big interviews are what my dad has fearlessly done his entire career. Now I had one.
11
POP
Gregg Popovich has never really liked the press and does pregame and postgame press conferences and interviews only because it is mandated by the NBA—and even then, he tends to respond with a scowl or, at best, one-or two-word answers. Now he has to do in-game interviews as well, so you can imagine how much he loves those.
Our interviews after games became legendary, as Pop’s body language and curt responses to my questions made for a really taut relationship. In 2003, when I was covering the Olympic trials in Puerto Rico and Pop was an assistant coach on the team, we ran into each other in the hotel lobby. We exchanged pleasantries—I could tell that he didn’t have much interest in talking with me, but I engaged him in a personal conversation. In retrospect, maybe I saw this chance meeting as an opportunity to break the ice. I let him know that he and I had almost been teammates at the Air Force Academy, that if not for my appointment to West Point instead of Colorado Springs, I would have been a cadet with him. As I talked, his lips reluctantly curled upward into a smile, and his contributions to the dialogue grew to three or sometimes four words, and when we parted ways, he gave me a smile and a handshake that felt genuine.
Years later, during the 2012–13 season, while covering a San Antonio–Oklahoma City game, I listened in as Pop ripped into Tony Parker during a timeout. After the game, I asked Parker on-air about the tirade. The next day at the NBA’s mandatory meetings between coaches and broadcasters, Pop laid into me in front of Marv Albert and my colleagues. He called me an “ambulance chaser” and threatened to never speak with me again for asking Parker about Pop’s tirade. He then insisted that he wouldn’t share any information with Marv or the crew anymore.
