The NBA: How a Regional Fascination Became an International Obsession

Mrs. our American stories we tell stories about everything here on the show story comes to us from a man who simply known as the history is videos watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. You guys also heard your American stories today. The history guy remembers a truly extraordinary Civil War era when Mary Edwards Walker. He was the only woman in United States history be awarded the medal of honor. Here's the history of the metal of our United States highest award for valor was established by the United States Army in 1862 to recognize those soldiers who distinguish themselves by gallantry and intrepidity in combat with an enemy of the United States.

Since that time, 3459 medals of honor have been awarded and only one has gone to a limit. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker and hers is a story worth remembering Mary Edwards Walker was born in 1832 in upstate New York.

The youngest of seven children. Her parents were farmers and freethinkers. The free thought movement was a movement that challenged authority and tradition and that truth should be derived from logic and reason, and it was that upbringing that not only allowed her to escape traditional gender roles of her time but to develop a sense of independence and justice. Mary's parents were determined to give all of their children a good education and she studied at Valley seminary in Fulton, New York.

She always had an interest in physiology and anatomy and so she worked as a teacher in order to earn enough money to be able to attend medical school, graduating with honors from Syracuse medical College in 1855 the only woman in her class. She struggled though to build a successful practice as female doctors were very rare in that time, and often trusted when the war started she volunteered with the union are seeking a commission as a field surgeon, but the union Army didn't hire female surgeons and so she was only allowed to serve as a nurse, which is how she served after the battle of first run. She then started volunteering her services as a field surgeon and treated soldiers after the battles of Fredericksburg and Chickamauga but finally in 1863 she was hired as a contracting acting assistant surgeon.

The first female surgeon in the Union Army with the pay of a Lieut. although she was still a civilian.

She didn't much care about rules or the enemy line. She would go where she needed to go to treat people and she would frequently travel behind enemy lines to treat civilians in the state to deliver a baby or treat sick and that's what she was doing in April 1864 when she was captured and arrested by the Confederate Army as a spot she was held as a prisoner of war until August of that year when she was finally exchanged. She continued in federal service and was made acting assistant surgeon to Ohio's 52nd infantry Regiment. She also managed a hospital for female prisoners and later managed an orphanage. She was recommended for the medal of honor by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Gen. George Henry Thomas rock Chickamauga there's no record of the original nomination but when the metal was awarded by Pres. Johnson in 1865 it commended her because she dedicated herself with patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers both in the field and in the hospital, to the detriment of her own health. She always said that she got the award because she was the only doctor brave enough to go behind enemy lines to treat people throughout her life.

She shall be independent thought of her upper and one of her great causes was dress reform. She believed that women's fashion of the day was injurious to health. She complained that corsets were restricting and that large skirts with multiple petticoats were not only uncomfortable and restricting, but they also collected dust and dirt.

She wrote two books on the subject of dress reform complained that women's fashion was not just dangerous to the health but also expensive. She would often dress in a mid length skirt and men's trousers which he felt was much more tactical and protected a woman's modesty, but later in life she would often give speeches involve men's dress attire. She said I don't wear men's clothes I wear my own clothes while she was passionate about that because it was one of many. She was also part of the temperance movement. She was an abolitionist and she was a suffragette and she testified before Congress several times on the issue of women's suffrage in 1917. The Army did a review of their medal of honor was and remove 911 names including Mary Edwards Walker, the recently revoked her metal was that she was actually civilian at the time and that her deeds were not in combat but her metal was returned posthumously by Jimmy Carter in 1977 in her life she had so many causes. For example, during the war, she realized that there were lots of women were coming to Washington DC to visit injured soldiers brothers.

Her husband and so she started to society to help women who were visiting the capital find a safe place to stay and to find their loved ones and all the many very hot and after the war she passionately advocated to provide pensions for Civil War nurses soon argued that they should be given the right to vote. In gratitude for their service. All her life she had to struggle to make a living. She was never able to establish a successful medical practice because sadly in her time. People just did not trust female physicians. She finally passed away on the family farm in 1919, at the age of even in her time. She was more known for her eccentricities and her accomplishments, and she's largely forgotten today, and that's just wrong because her accomplishments were astounding, especially with what she had to face in her day in the only female winner of the medal of honor deserves to be remembered and a special thanks to Greg and a special thanks to the history. I am darn it does remember Mary Walker 3004 73 medal of honor recipients is the only woman, and by the way Lawrence measure she believes she got that honor by being the only doctor brave enough to go behind enemy lines treat soldiers that she would not be able to get a medical practice going in this country that tells you a lot about how far we've come. People just didn't trust the idea of going to see a woman in thinking they get good treatment story Mary Edwards Walker here on our Americans books. If you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past. Know that all of our stories about American history from ward innovation culture and faith brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College Place for students study all the things that are beautiful like all the things that are good in life. If you can get the Hillsdale Hillsville will come to you with their free and terrific online courses to Hillsdale.edu to learn more. Geico asks how would you love a chance to save some money on insurance. Of course the would and when it comes to great rates on insurance.

GEICO can help like with insurance for your car, truck, motorcycle, boat and RV even help with homeowners or renters coverage class at an easy to use mobile app available 24 hour roadside assistance and more. And GEICO is an easy choice switch today and see all the ways you can save it's easy. Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today and then we returned to our American stories. Founded in 1946 we consider the national basketball Association for the MBA to be a cultural icon, but it certainly didn't start off that way and it took the hiring of a man named Larry O'Brien to get on the path to being a serious organization here with the story of the rise of the MBA is a business is Pete Corrado, author of from hang time. The prime time taken away. The MBA in its early days in the 1940s, 1950s was really originally it was a league team for face in the Midwest and East Coast. The furthest team West was St. Louis, so it really was a regional league and was a league that really struggled for mainstream acceptance it for years it had trouble getting a favorable national television contract for years if played in arenas that really were antiquated or run down nowhere close to the entertainment meccas that we see today was a second-tier professionally. They fought always been America's game. Its roots were established for years and years and years and the NFL had gained a foothold television thanks to the 1958 NFL championship game was the league's first overtime game and they didn't have anything like that. It was really an afterthought to college basketball which was huge 1950s and even to the Hom Globetrotters. In fact, NBA games typically were the previews or the first act so to speak to Holland globetrotter came to college basketball game, especially New York City and if you replay her autobiographies or player biographies from the 1950s 1960s and 70s. A lot of these players had second jobs you know they had other business interests. They were making exorbitant salaries, you know now if you sign a professional contract as a highly touted rookie with any of the four major sports you're pretty much set for life back then that wasn't the case. So the MBA in 1940s 50s even in the 1960s was a league that was looking for relevant it was looking for a foothold into America sporting culture the MBA need to make a leap to become legitimate and by putting Larry O'Brien in that position. It is the first step toward saying hey were a business, we mean business, Larry O'Brien was a major fixture and Democratic national politics. He was somebody who as time goes on.

I think we forgot what a political figure he was in the 1950s in the early 1970s Larry O'Brien was part of JFK's Irish Mafia evasively help Jeff take it to the White House. He was on the plane coming back from Dallas after JFK was assassinated.

After that he was a member of Lyndon B. Johnson, his Postmaster Gen., and after that he was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Eddie for two terms.

The cover of Time magazine, so he was somebody who was a major, major figure in national politics, Larry O'Brien. By the time 19 the mid-1970s rollaround. He had become a relic he's retired.

For the most part he is somebody who is really looking for something to do and when.

J. Walter Kennedy decides that he's had enough being dandies. Commissioner, he looks to Larry O'Brien. He preached that ally, O'Brien specifically asked him to take over and liar behind says no because here's the thing, now when someone is elected to be the Commissioner of a of a sports league that is a clear pinnacle for Roger get out the NFL for Rob Manfred at Madeley baseball Gary Bettman at the NHL.

That is a pinnacle when you die, the leader obituary with the fact that you are the Commissioner of the NHL Madeley baseball for lie O'Brien. This was a step down so we MBA really courted him because for two reasons.

First, they knew that he was a basketball fan because he was someone who grew up watching the Celtics had season tickets. The next blurb I was on somebody was going to give the league instant credibility and the MBA. Ultimately, one lie O'Brien over after numerous attempts because they convinced him look, you'll have absolute power here.

This isn't going to be a real figurehead position you like to be able to do things here will be able to make decisions and carry out policy, you'll have impact and his election as Commissioner His Highness Commissioner was significant for two reasons. First, he gives the MBA as I mentioned before instant credibility.

This is a league that was really struggling for national relevance. It was struggling to become a player and Larry O'Brien give the MBA cachet. It was headline news that he was that he was the MBA Commissioner may people take notice. So there is that in the second thing is is that he brings order to the empty the heads of the MBA before lie. O'Brien, Marie Karloff and Jay Walter Kennedy. They came of age of the they were ingrained in the MBA didn't have outside influence and Larry O'Brien came in and he was not associated with the MBA. He didn't have allegiances. He was somebody who just wanted what was best for the MBA.

So he came in with no biases. He was his own man and he also had the ability the ability to manage Larry O'Brien ran the best meetings and that may not sound like much, but after understand that meetings before in this in the 50s and 60s were contentious bickering affairs, like a Thanksgiving dinner with different political opinions being penny back and forth so Larry O'Brien coming in in just a look at this. What were doing were just can get done last acts.

It doesn't sound like much, but for a league that couldn't get out of its own.

It was huge. This really comes across in the NBA's absorption of the ABA American basketball Association because Larry O'Brien. No just want to get the deal done and when wanted to leave for meeting to try and figure out how to what teams to absorb and what what money should change hands. You know that the meetings are going on and on a 1976 and in the closing days are O'Brien just said to the owners look up or down, meaning we could stay here and bicker about these contracts or take the money, get a new plane cash or checks and make make a small fortune before the days and and for the ABA which had a lot of bankrupt owners and financially struggling owners lab. I was able to just distill their problem into a simple question up or down, and that's of the MBA and in the end he needed someone to just get down to the brass tacks of running a business, but one of his greatest gifts was somewhat policy enacted or edicts that he handed down. He did his fair share what Larry O'Brien did was he recognized talent and he could delegate and one thing that he did is that he hired a young lawyer who was outside counsel for the MBA named David Stern and bought him in as a second and David Stern later went on to become the MA Commissioner and in my mind is the most influential sports Commissioner of the last 50 so Larry O'Brien's ability to recognize David Stern as somebody who could do the dirty work who could get to know the GM's and the team owners and the union representatives having David Stern clear a path and basically get a five-year start to become the Commissioner of the MBA that was Larry O'Brien greatest legacy and I think that's why he is one of the most overlooked figures in the rise of the and were listening to Pete Corrado telling the story of the MBA and what's so interesting about this take is is looking at it from a business angle. No business of sports. No sports, no business of entertainment. No entertainment in the 40s and 50s.

While the league didn't extend past St. Louis. Good luck with the TV contract in the old days, NBA players had summer job and then comes Larry O'Brien and then comes David Stern is second in command when we come back more of the remarkable story of the MBA with Pete Corrado, author of from hang time to prime time here on our American Stern and we returned to our American stories and the story of the MBA. We last left off, MBA, Commissioner Larry O'Brien fed hired a young lawyer by the name of David Stern to be his second in command and Stern himself would soon take over Larry's job changing the MBA forever. Here again is Pete Corrado blurb on one of those boxes where it came at 9 o'clock. He went to his office to shut the door and you saw my 5 o'clock David Stern was everywhere he was at the arena as he was talking to the GM's.

He was talking to the rest he was talking to the network that aired NBA games so every week.

David Stark would go on a conference call with the broadcast crew at USA Network.

The cable station that aired NBA games and there's one meeting where David Stern says look guys focus on the stock. Don't worry about the records. Don't worry about who's when who's losing focus on the start. If it's a terrible matter. Was he the clippers are playing the Celtics. Let's say focus on don't have a tech talent there folks that people know and that to me was David Stern's genius was that he was able to recognize that to generate interest. He had identify ways for Joe and Jane public to watch a fast logging beyond two minutes and that was the start that was with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird into a serving focus on them and that star system is what sustain the MBA and was sustained to this day, that is the return and it comes about in a number of ways.

Verse is the skeleton of MBA entertainment, which is what David Stern creates so MBA in him becomes this sort of archive of game footage and player interviews and all this material gets called into halftime features and advertisements that extol the best and brightest of the empty later on. MBA entertainment takes all the studies that they stored from games and and whatnot and intranet into videos highlighting players so you have a Michael Jordan videocassette have a Magic Johnson videocassette yellow. I reverberated David Stern partners with the television stations facility with CVS and comes up with a game plan each game with you have at least two players by that to the casual bands want to see. They want to see stuff they had anything held and covered and you also have NBA properties, which again is that David Stern led development which focuses on apparel that focuses on players. Players faces what they do. So you know if that is getting a 76ers T-shirt getting Irvington for getting Charles Barkley is getting a Magic Johnson or a Magic Johnson sweatshirt. So it is a multipronged attack that David Stern and it all comes down to the players because think of it this way, kids. I think get their support right from their grandparents from their family from allegiances and if you are somebody who is getting in the MBA has a lone wolf like I will. I had parents who were not particularly not not really sports fans. My parents didn't know what Hannah baseball problem. A gravity for players. Think of 40 and 50 know the players through commercials. If you highlight their best attributes like Magic Johnson smiled for a live birth competitiveness you are going to win people over, and it also helps if you work with a television network like CVS CBSSports that knows how to frame the gains as television when you have magic versus Larry your not just focusing on these two great players you're focusing on the two sterling franchise in the MBA and the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers you're focusing on East versus West and you're turning all those components into a narrative that anybody can get so the NBA finals. Any NBA game isn't just a sporting event becomes an episode of television, where the same way that if you want to television pilot you get the character's storyline and you get no happy ending or ending the same thing happens with NBA games on CPS get a beginning, middle and end. Get a flash introduction you're caught up with me with where things are and then you get a game that is filmed almost like a movie with quick cuts and close-ups and reaction shots. You get personality into the game and that personality bleeds through every product whether the VHS tape, whether it's a T-shirt does matter what it is because as David Stern said it's not what people think about you is how they feel about that is the mantra of the MBA. It is an emotional lead and that is the lifeline for the NBA's story for success over the past 3540 but Marvin Gaye's national anthem at the 1983 MBA authoring in Los Angeles. To me, is a pivotal point in the ending sisters because that's when the MBA became the world's cool sport. You have to remember that for the longest time, the national anthem was performed in a very straightahead fashion but Marvin Gaye's national anthem comes at the right time when hip-hop is making its ways in the American culture and also a major cultural figure, Marvin Gaye, Motown and sexual healing, singing the song and is also the sign that the MBA wasn't in a play by the rules of the NFL.

Obviously baseball it was going to do it because here was an unabashedly African-American version of that song that reflected who was on the court. You had a majority of African Americans players plan but it also represented what you saw on the court missed our play that national anthem. If anyone hasn't heard it is a soulful stirring rendition that incorporates R&B, gospel singing over a prerecorded. It reflected what the MBA was and what it could. It was a cool sport.

It was in a sport for your mom and your dad and your grandma and grandpa. It was sport that was for the cool kids at the table for that further the teenagers for the young American who wanted something different. That one was that belong to and that national anthem set the stage for everything that happened afterward in the NBA's cultural history because it was defiantly nontraditional, but in a way that was entertaining and fun and exciting different for any young sports fan growing up in that era, and afterward that's with the MBA representative for South Africa representing different players looked different. They carry themselves in a different way of thinking was filmed differently.

The players did things differently. They talk differently. That anthem also change the way the MBA organize a false argument became more than just East versus West very best for my it also became. What can we do to give the audience the best time possible. So Marvin Gaye in a lot of ways launch a business revolution and even listening to Pete Corrado tell a heck of a story about the MBA.

There were huge hoops friends in my house when I was a kid I did Bobby Knight's camp Than my high school basketball team twice to hear the story told so well by someone like Pete blog brings back a lot of memories when we come back more of Pete Corrado on the story of not only Larry O'Brien but how David Stern helped turn the MBA into the cool game. The cool thing in American culture and returned to our American stories in the final segment on the rise of the national basketball is only last left off Pete Corrado, author of from hang time to prime time telling us about how David Stern Marvin Gaye television drama of the MBA and its superstar players launched into the success it is today.

The MBA was at a high point. They were about to partner with the growing cultural force that would take them even higher. Here again is Pete Corrado the MBA really started to become a mainstream force in 1979.

The arrival of Magic Johnson 1929 is also the year that rappers delight. It's the airwaves Ran and the Nova Is a Youth Culture, Especially Youth Culture in the 1980s and Early 90s.

The MBA Has Always Been about Doing What Was Relevant and a Tradition That It Has No Credit so Partnering Hip-Hop with the MBA or Rather the End 800 Hip-Hop Was Really a No-Brainer. Hip-Hop Has a Youthful Audience That Has Money to Spend and Wanting This New Doesn't Want the Same Old Thing Doesn't Want They Don't Want to Listen to Mick Jagger on Stuff They Don't Want to Hear Stories of Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown They Want What's New NBA's Partnership with Hip-Hop Was a Match Made in Is Also Not Surprised Because Hip-Hop Really Started As a Byproduct of City Culture.

Basketball Is Very Much a City Game, They Did Take Place. Gymnasiums Obviously Did Take Place in the Suburbs but Basketball's Biggest Influences Is in the City You Don't Need Much Room to Put up a Basketball Court. You Don't Need Much Room to Put Even a Hoop in the Game Really Was a Way for City Kids Assimilated American Culture Procedure Using African-American, so It May Seem Odd or Unusual That the Enemy to Partner with Hip-Hop but Really It's Not As the MBA Is Becoming a Youthful League That's Going Mainstream Thanks to Stars like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson Hip-Hop Is Enjoying the Same Renaissance MTV Start Playing Rap Videos Rat Starts to Mimic with courses and books and also incorporate elements of rock, for example, walk this way, you gotta fight for right departing those songs have books that a young thing get into even if they don't like rent and it's different. It's the new rock 'n' roll.

And that's that the communications and also you have artists that now are really more like entertainers, the Smith family have God help us to know ice. They all kinda coming to that era.

So as any MBA became the topic that also generates a line of culture and a line of clothing that specifically sneakers that hooks not only the young audience, but the players so it is a natural marriage of the two.

The two go hand-in-hand. Even to this day and all the forces aligned with with Michael Jordan with Nike and with the market and here's why for a number of the MBA stars for always putting model citizens to do is Irving thinking packet is team oriented stars such as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird part of arrival for they were just born so Michael Jordan comes with issue that is courting potent band by the MBA. It doesn't look like any issues you ever seen it's gotten white, black and red. It is completely formed and they have Michael Jordan who embodies the spirit of that she because he is a soloist. He is not part of a team is not established. He is brand-new is marketed as a rebel by going over players by putting the ball in the hoop in ways that many feel has not seen and play. He's an extraordinary cleric, then he is somebody that looks good on these extremely attractive he's amendable height of 6 foot six.

He is a matinee idol for basketball. So all those things come to And current issue into a cultural force is not just to shoot you are flying the necking inversion of the leather jacket for the Davey Crockett and when it's embraced by not only basketball fan provide hip-hop artists by city kids by whomever and when clothing comes out The shoe the cat out of the Michael Jordan really represents the beginning of the fact of the of the sneaker clothing fashion trend popular culture. I think because he was somebody who who you could represent you could aspire to be. Just by wearing a shoe and if your teenager and you want to be rebellious. It's very easy to talk up $65 or hundred dollars or hundred $50 to become rebellious to become part of of of a movement, especially that movement is represented by somebody who is as magnetic was a brilliant player. Michael Jordan is a very easy Association to make and if process so if you want to be like Steph Curry or Kevin Durant for gotta retiree Irving buying their shoe find their pal is awaiting a close and Michael Jordan is a start. DMA now is a global business. I mean it it is it is worth billions and billions of dollars and it has thousands of employees across the globe. It is constantly trying to so it's ease of development in different areas of the world. I mean, I think Africa is now the latest continent to come under the NBA's person, so it is it is just now this behemoth and the MBA is part of our part of her life, whether online or watching TV minutes in which I think most people know know who Lebron James and Jennifer Durrant is there cultural institutions.

I think we forget that the MJ wasn't always like this. The MBA wasn't always a colossus in international costs. What's amazing to me that the MBA we see today came about because the efforts of people log basketball. We just love the MBA lovely could these are people that just work tirelessly to elevate the game. Love your passion about David Stern I O'Brien, Firebird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, but the NBA's Rockies is the result of so many people that have fallen into the cracks of history, men and women like Paul Gilbert, excessive bill for kick head shaker and finally development. Then these men and women who who work tirelessly and sacrifice and some embarrassing scuffs to turn the MBA into a part of our lives, their efforts have been have been forgotten and it's a crying shame NBA's rise to success didn't come about because of Michael Jordan, David Stern, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. It's a story of dozens and dozens of people working together to create what was seated in a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to author Pete Corrado's book from hang time to prime time is available on Amazon and the usual suspects. What a story it tells and it starts early.

Baseball is America's pastime football second.

By the late 50s, but it took Larry O'Brien, David Stern and a bunch of others to put the MBA on the map, and indeed it took some great players to Bird and Magic also combining with rap music in this remarkable remarkable merger of cultural forces. The partnership between the two.

A match made in heaven. As Pete said, then came Jordan Nike in the market.

Let's face it, Jordan was a matinee idol, a master salesman and a virtuoso performer in the MBA turned into a pop culture forced indeed.

My own daughter. Reagan Christmas one of the Nike blue North Carolina air Jordans proofing that he still in the MBA still a cultural force. The story of the MBA here on our American story