Success Magazine Articles
Below is a selection of articles written by Don that were published in Success magazine. To read the entire article, just click the 'Continue Reading' link that follows each preview.
Power of the Team
Jeff Gordon has applied to life much of what he's learned in racing -- and believes the elements required for success in both are not that different.
In the final minutes of last year’s Subway Fresh Fit 600 in Phoenix, Jeff Gordon was in the lead and poised to win the race with three laps to go. As he pulled into the pit for his final stop, his crew bounded over the wall, replacing all four tires and refueling the No. 24 car in less than 13 seconds.
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Building a World-Class Team
Mike Krzyzewski's principles for building a world-class team may not surprise you. Even so, how is Coach K able to do it year after year, team after team?
Most coaches would consider leading a team to an Olympic gold medal a capper for a pretty good year. The same goes for winning an NCAA national championship. Or a FIBA world championship. Mike Krzyzewski, head coach of the Duke Blue Devils and Team USA, led teams to each of these honors… within about 24 months.
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Cal Ripken Jr. committed to being better at his craft. Every day. For two decades.
Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means. Albert Einstein
If Albert Einstein was right, Cal Ripken should have been a CEO or politician rather than a shortstop,because Ripken led by example over and over… and over again.
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Home for the Holidays
Warrick Dunn's tribute to his mom makes the American Dream a reality for needy families.
Thanksgiving night, 2007. In a nationally televised game, Warrick Dunn, the diminutive running back then playing for the Atlanta Falcons, took a quick handoff early in the second quarter and plunged his 5-foot-9-inch, 180-pound frame into a mass of 300-pound linemen. On the other end of the run, he found history.
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Focusing on Improvement When you’ve Reached the Pinnacle
How Roy Williams Motivates His Team
Roy Williams knows about expectations. The veteran coach of the University of North Carolina’s vaunted basketball program has, in years past, fielded teams of which little was expected. And he has come to play with teams when anything less than a championship would seem, at least in the public eye, a failure.
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The Ultimate Upset
Upstart Villanova proved March Madness, like life, is all bout your performance on the court.
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is nicknamed March Madness for two reasons: One, that’s the month when the three-week tournament mainly happens each year and, two, the tourney’s legacy includes dynasty teams and dramatic underdog stories. March Madness, as in life, is all about how you perform on the court. Nothing else matters—your size, your fame or the name on the front of your jersey.
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The Straight Shot
How Arnold Palmer became the richest athlete in the world.
Sitting in his unpretentious Orlando office, not a trophy in sight, Arnold Palmer bounced from answering calls about a clothing deal in Japan to e-mail about a golf course in Dubai to interviews with reporters from across the United States.
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Winning Every Day
Pat Summitt’s Strategy Centers on Goal-Setting
Eight times Pat Summitt’s University of Tennessee women’s basketball team has ended the season by lifting high the national championship trophy. Not once was that her team’s goal.
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Tony Dungy's Champ Life
Family, Faith and Football
It’s a badge of honor among many sports coaches to tout long hours studying videos, nights slept on office couches and devotion to winning so all-consuming that everything else be damned. Tony Dungy doesn’t wear that badge. Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, has long believed that he, his staff and players should be as devoted to family time as they are to playing time, as focused on giving to charities as they are to taking the ball away from opponents.
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Sports Illustrated Articles
Below is a selection of articles written by Don that were published in Sports Illustrated magazine. To read the entire article, just click the 'Continue Reading' link that follows each preview.
One Of A Kind
After courageously battling medical troubles more severe than the public knew, the incomparable Walter Payton lost his fight for life at age 45
I visited Walter Payton at his house in suburban Chicago a couple of weeks ago and watched as the 45-year-old man who was one of the greatest running backs in history slowly shuffled his way into the living room. He sat beneath a vibrant portrait of himself with a group of children.Continue Reading »
Pssst... Wanna Buy Some Clubs?
Golfers spend millions a year on counterfeits and knockoffs. To find out how this burgeoning industry works, we went right to the source: southern China
The trap, months in the planning, had been laid. The quarry, a beautiful Chinese businesswoman named Lily Wan, had taken the bait. The sting, code-named Operation Tiger Lily, a joint venture of Callaway Golf investigators and the Orange County (Fla.) sheriff's office, was about to take place. Continue Reading »
Every Parent's Nightmare
The child molester has found a home in the world of youth sports, where as a coach he can gain the trust and loyalty of kids--and then prey on them
Norman Watson still misses the game he loves most. He misses the dusty world of Little League baseball. He misses riding to the games on a motorcycle, and he misses managing and umpiring and the feeling that Little League gave him, the sense that in a life of drift he somehow belonged. Continue Reading »
Under the Gun
Battling the clock, wretched facilities and random violence, Iraq's new Olympic committee races to build a team for Athens
It was after midnight, and what lay ahead was a 14-hour ride across the desert of western Iraq. Still, the passengers on the decrepit bus were beaming. The Iraqi soccer team, fresh from a 4-0 victory over Oman in an Olympic qualifying round on March 3, was headed home to Baghdad.Continue Reading »
Son Of Saddam
As Iraq's top Olympic official, Uday Hussein is accused of the torture and murder of athletes who fail to win
As he stood at the double-door entrance to the office of Iraqi National Olympic Committee president Uday Hussein, the boxer knew what awaited on the other side. He had just returned from a Gulf States competition, where he had been knocked out in the first round. Now it was time to pay the price. Inside the yellow-and-blue office, Uday, the older of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's two sons, paced the floor, waving his expensive Cuban cigar and glaring out the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Baghdad. "He was yelling about how Iraq should not be embarrassed by its athletes," recalls Latif Yahia, employed for nearly five years as Uday's body double--he would stand in for Uday on occasions that were deemed a security threat--and one of his closest associates to have escaped to the West. "He kept saying, 'This is my Iraq. Embarrassing Iraq embarrasses me.'" Continue Reading »
Troubling Questions
Which of the following statements is true? A) NCAA test-score stadards for freshmen have never been stricter. B) Athletes are cheating to meet those standards as never before. C) Recruiters, high school coaches, middlemen, even proctors are helping them do so--and getting away with it. D) All of the above.
It's a straight shot on Interstate 15 from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, a numbing drive past stray tumbleweed, distant peaks and last-chance filling stations. As they covered that route in her black Saturn on a June evening three years ago, Crystal Collier wondered why her friend Nate Cebrun was in such a hurry. Cebrun told her he had a 10 p.m. meeting at the L.A. Airport Marriott. "I knew it must have been a very important meeting," Collier says. "He was driving 90 miles an hour and taking all kinds of chances." Continue Reading »
Q & A: George W. Bush
The President discusses Aggies and Horns, his Rangers days and his sports idol
President George W. Bush has been a Texas sports fan since he was a young child. He grew up in the West Texas town of Midland, where his family moved from Connecticut when he was two. The former governor and onetime managing partner of the Texas Rangers recalls his excitement at seeing the first issue of Sports Illustrated at a friend's house in 1954.Continue Reading »
Totally Juiced
With the use of steroids and other performance enhancers rampant, according to a former MVP and other sources, baseball players and their reliance on drugs have grown to larming proportions
Arizona Diamondbacks righthander Curt Schilling thinks twice before giving a teammate the traditional slap on the butt for a job well-done. "I'll pat guys on the ass, and they'll look at me and go, 'Don't hit me there, man. It hurts,'" Schilling says. "That's because that's where they shoot the steroid needles." Continue Reading »
End of the Run?
Victor Conte's allegation that Marion Jones was a drug cheat could bring her down -- but she's ready to fight back
Olympic champion Marion Jones has been called Golden Girl and the World's Fastest Woman, but during an interview with ABC's 20/20 broadcast last Friday, Victor Conte Jr., the man at the center of America's biggest doping scandal, called her a fraud. Continue Reading »
When the terror began
Thirty years later, the hostage drama that left 11 Israeli Olympians dead seems even more chilling and offers grim reminders to today's security experts
For a citizen of a country manacled to its past, Dr. Georg Sieber had a remarkable knack for seeing the future. In the months leading up to the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West German organizers asked Sieber, then a 39-year-old police psychologist, to "tabletop" the event, as security experts call the exercise of sketching out worst-case scenarios. Continue Reading »
Paying the Price
The end of the road comes for a figure in a recruiting scandal that refuses to die
When rookie free agent Albert Means was cut by the Houston Texans last month, it likely signaled the end of his unremarkable football career. Once the most promising high school defensive lineman in the country, he'll be remembered for being at the heart of a recruiting scandal that left one booster headed to prison, two schools on probation and several coaches' careers in disarray. Continue Reading »
Web of Deceit
Smooth-talking agent Tank Black allegedly ensnared nearly two dozen NFL and NBA players, including Vince Carter, in a mind-boggling series of scams and defrauded them of some $ 15 million
Fred Taylor called his agent Pops. That's because Tank Black didn't merely negotiate the contract of the Jacksonville Jaguars running back, but he was also, as Taylor puts it, "like a second dad." Continue Reading »
Life of the Party
Few NHL players are as affable and widely beloved as the Rangers' Kevin Stevens, but he's lucky to be alive after a hellish night smoking crack with a hooker
The sharp knock on the door and the brusque shout of "Collinsville police" shattered the predawn quiet, the ominous soundtrack to a life that had fallen off a cliff. There is no telling where the sickly thud will occur when any mortal hits bottom, especially one as talented and handsome and gregarious and beloved as Kevin Stevens, a man without an enemy in the world if you overlook the demon of addiction. Continue Reading »