After the party, it's the hotel lobby…then the golf course!
From the desk of Team Challenge: Part One of Three - 27 June 2008
If you get enthusiastic over lamb tenderloin with mint jelly, parched desert heat and an embarrassment of professional sports star power, then you should have been on hand for the Team Challenge 2008 pairings party.
The atmosphere was electric with tea lights and tee talk, cocktails and conjecture, as the sports stars entertained press and fans—as well as themselves—poolside at the Fantasy Springs Resort and Casino. A red carpet ran from the resort lobby to the event, where the participants in the day’s pro-am talked shop about the performance they saw from their respective all-stars.
“We had LaDainian Tomlinson on our team. Great guy. He was hitting the ball really well,” said Team Challenge’s Dick Newbert. “He probably could have done better without us.”
The subsidiary buzz centered on the fan involvement factor, and how exactly that would play out in the resulting match. In the captain’s summit, baseball’s Ozzie Smith had wondered aloud about the actual effect ProCoaches would have on the game’s outcome. Would they undermine or accentuate a team’s performance?
(NB: Personally, I chose to ProCoach the baseball team—partly out of childhood nostalgia, partly out of deductive reasoning. A rising fastball is much harder to get a hold of than a dimpled ball on a tee, right?)
Baseball’s Bret Saberhagen was the all-star member of the pro-am victorious team. And he lankily strode to accept his trophy in pegged pin-stripe pants, looking more Rock Band than MLB.
Celebrity star power wasn’t limited to athletes. In attendance were one of America’s most beloved dead presidents, David Palmer, also known as actor Dennis Haysbert, and Meet the Spartans’ Kevin Sorbo, who according to the press was vying to reinsert himself into the celebrity golf world. To my eye, he was just hanging out. We even duck-faced over Martin Short’s eponymous comedy bits.
Short as himself and Jiminy Glick provided the color, entertainment, and several acid words. There was no doubt Short knew where he was; he name-checked the township harder than a guy on a blind date. Still, he had a decent line ripping into Charles Barkley: “You look pretty good for a guy who’s let himself go.”
But, Barkley had the last laugh on himself, opining what a crazed move it was to agree to lead an event based out of a casino, referencing his departure from the world of recreational gaming. (Basketballer-turned-commentator Kenny Smith lent the voice of reason and levity to the matter when the press asked which would affect Las Vegas harder: the prime mortgage drop-out or Sir C’s moratorium on book-making. “I hope Vegas doesn’t need Charles that bad,” Smith replied.)
It was great to see the stars do a walking round through the casino before resting up or heading out. As a regular guy, it’s always a treat to stumble into celebrity. And the resort visitors sure got an eye-load, as John Elway, LT and Michael Strahan cruised around peeking down on tables and soliciting elbow stabs and head bobs from the numerous patrons.
A short while later in The Velvet Palm, the penthouse disco, Commissioner Barkley got things moving on a heretofore dead dancefloor with a ginormous MC hand wave. And just like that he was joined by Vince Coleman, doing some slo-mo robot moves, and LT, working a hi-speed elliptic move. (LT gives the same impressions at social events that he does on the field; he can do anything, and is seemingly everywhere.)
Eventually, Strahan and his wife showed up; she won an MVP award. Most visually attractive person.
At a time when imbedded journalism usually means something awful is being covered, it was a privilege to see Team Challenge blossom from an idea to a conference call to a fully realized event.
Saturday and Sunday, there will be two great rounds of team golf broadcast on FOX Sports, culminating in a valiant victory for the sport, the players and the charity they represent. I’ll be right back.
—Jeremy Wilson