Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Ah, basketball.

Look at that baby.

Don't horse around.

That's mine.

I tell you, Future Sport's great.

But my sport is basketball.

I got a pal with me today, Buck Williams, NBA Rookie

of the Year.

And he's going to show me how to play a little bit,

or I'm going to show him how to play a little bit.

Watch this, baby.

Eat your heart out!

Whoops.

I think the game's changed just a little since I played.

Whoops.

Today on Future Sport, we'll meet Buck Williams,

former All-American at Maryland, who

can play great offense and great defense.

The average 14 rebounds a game, as he was named

the NBA Rookie of the Year.

The decathlon has always been one of America's best Olympic

events.

Bill Toomey carried on that tradition in Mexico in 1968,

and you'll meet him.

And you'll also meet Ann Myers, a four-time intercollegiate

All-American, and the only woman ever to be drafted by the NBA.

Welcome back to Future Sport.

It's a pleasure to be with one of the greatest women

basketball players in the history of the sport.

And today, one of the best all-around female athletes.

Ann, we know that you have probably the best future,

probably of any woman in sports.

Where do you think sports are going?

I think it's getting better and better

for women's athletics.

There's so many more organized situations at an earlier age.

They're getting better coaching.

They're getting accepted as far as getting involved.

And so their attitudes are changing.

And also the chance that they get better opportunities

as far as a free scholarship is concerned,

and to go to school.

And after that, professionally making money,

doing endorsements, traveling, meeting people.

And for women to be involved in sports today and in the future,

it's just going to get better and better.

I'm already excited.

We just started.

Ann, you say that it's getting better, more opportunities.

Why?

Haven't the opportunities been forced

upon the male-dominated sports world?

Well, I think because of the attitudes.

Women could never, it was thought

that they couldn't do things.

And now today, for example, when I tried out

with the Indiana Pacers, the coach that I had,

he was raised in an era where he felt that women belonged

in the bedroom in the kitchen.

And they could not do things.

And you look at situations like the Olympics.

They're now accepting certain sports

that they feel women now can do physically.

And women have always been able to do it.

Well, now the women athletes are freer

and able to take the attitude now.

They're as good as anybody and go anywhere.

But you said coaching is also getting better.

Does that mean women coaches have been liberated?

They now think that they may be able to put men's teams

together in the NBA and NFL the way it should be?

Well, I don't think at this stage.

But again, I think there's a lot of women out there

that are capable of coaching football or basketball

or baseball because some of them know the game

as well as some men.

But again, the attitudes as far as accepting something

like that just aren't there.

But I have met a lot of people out there.

Again, to me it does not matter whether you're a man or a woman

as long as you can do the job.

But how do we get them there?

How do we get to that situation?

Let's say somebody now wants to coach the LA Rams

and now the woman owns the LA Rams.

So why doesn't she put a woman in there?

Why doesn't she investigate some of the women

out there who are available?

Because, again, as what I've seen with a lot of women,

her attitude hasn't changed.

Even though that she has made it,

a lot of women are tougher on women.

And because they're tougher on women,

they want to make sure that they can make it up in that world

and they're not willing to take the chance on a woman

putting them in that kind of position.

You were so good in many sports.

Why?

Did you force your way in?

Did somebody open a door for you when you were tiny?

Well, when I was growing up, I was fortunate enough

to be blessed with a lot of God-given talent.

But I grew up in a family with 11 children

and a lot of brothers.

So I was very physically active in a lot of sports,

and my dad exposed us to sports.

And so I was raised up on that kind of atmosphere,

and I was just involved in everything.

And I did a lot of different sports,

and it really helped me overall

just to achieve the things that I have achieved.

How has sports helped you with your whole life in general?

It's made me grow as a person.

Athletics, I think, are a great outlet for kids

as far as getting involved in learning how to work

with other kids and getting along with people,

getting along with a coach.

And on a sports level, when you get along with a coach,

it's like on a business level, getting along with your boss.

And you have to learn to work with people,

and you have to learn how to do that job fundamentally,

those skills.

And physically it has helped me,

and I feel very good about myself.

It's enabled me to have chances to travel

and to meet people that I would have never met before in my life.

And it's put me in the public's eye,

and so it's changed me as a person a little bit,

but I don't think I've become a little bit more aggressive

because I've learned about the business world.

But I'm very proud to be a woman,

and being involved in sports

because it's always been a male-orientated situation,

and sports have always been a man's job

or a man's position to be involved in.

And when you're a woman and you kind of break a barrier,

it makes it a little bit more exciting.

You know, Ann, why I like working in the research center

with Gideon Ariel is because when we bring the figures up on the screen,

no one knows.

I mean, if somebody else were in that room,

they wouldn't know whether it's a man or a woman,

and it makes it so nice

because you don't discriminate against anyone.

That's right, and that's how it should be.

And with everybody getting involved in sports,

the attitudes are changing towards that.

I'll tell you how else it should be.

It should be that I have the same kind of looks that you have someday,

but I've got to get rid of this bod.

Anyway, thanks for being with us.

Thank you, Vic.

Oh, I've enjoyed it.

Now it's time for another tip from our king of the road, Frank Shorter.

Vic, today's tip is for those runners who need their first pair of running shoes

or are going to the store to buy a new pair.

And what you want to remember is that no one brand is best for all runners.

There are five or six major brands of running shoes made in this country

that are very good for training and racing.

Go to a store that's willing to let their personnel spend the time with you

to try on several brands.

Run up and down the store and pick the shoe that feels the most comfortable

because you're the judge, and that's the one that's going to work the best.

Thank you, Frank.

Well, when Future Sport continues,

we'll be back with one of the greatest athletes in Olympic history.

That's Bill Toomey.

.

With us on Future Sport, 1968, the captain champion, Bill Toomey.

And also with us, Dr. Gideon Ariel.

Good chance to talk to a scientist in sports about science and sports on Future Sport.

Bill Toomey, great to have you with us, buddy.

Good to see you, Vic.

How you doing?

Dr. Ariel, I presume?

Why I say you're the scientist in sports is because Gideon has always told me stories about you,

that you were already horsing around with shoes, different kinds of shoes,

and special things to make you perform much better in the Olympics.

Is that true?

Well, you know, I think in any sport you have to look at yourself as almost like a resource.

And you have to evaluate, you know, what you have on hand.

And I had so many deficiencies in the beginning that I had to look for a lot of unique ways

to counteract those deficiencies being there.

In other words, I had to have a better nutrition than other guys because I was not as developed as they were.

I had to put, like, 30 pounds on.

So I had to work at lifting weights and finding out how to gain weight rather than lose weight.

And I realized that, you know, with terms that Gideon, you know, kind of imparted years later about coefficient of friction,

you just can't take any pair of spikes on any surface.

You really have to find out which one feels good, which one performs for you,

and give it kind of an empirical test rather than just a guess.

And I suspect that most of my competitors were guessing and a little bit lazy about the details.

And then all of a sudden my physical prowess caught up with the intellectual approach,

and that fusion, you know, was able to give me a lot of, you know, belief in myself that I was unbeatable.

When he used to lift weights, you know, you cannot take 400 pounds and lift right from here.

So he was lifting 400 pounds right here.

And when he couldn't do it, take a little bit of weight and go a little bit lower.

He would do what the computerized machine is doing today about more than 10 years ago.

It's hard to believe.

Yeah, and of course now, you know, it's difficult because with free weights you had a lot more flexibility.

And I think that free weights, along with the electronic things that are really measuring now, such as you guys are involved in,

you know, there's a whole wave of the future, but there's also maybe a look back and say,

hey, let's bring back some of the old equipment, because it didn't do too badly in the old bodies.

Hey, clarify something for me.

You're talking about variable resistance and taking weight off.

How did you get the weights off?

Well, that's the amazing thing.

I see Bill Thume sitting there, and he has two guys on the side, and I say, okay, guys.

Two guys follow me, yeah.

So what the two guys did, you know, it's like the two guys sitting in the background, now the computer does it automatically.

But Bill was probably one of the most intelligent athletes of all time.

This guy went 10 to the 100 meters. That's the same time that Jesse Owens went.

And he went to 400 meters.

A better track.

And he went 45.

I think age is a factor, too.

I was 29 in the Olympic Games, and I suspect when I was 23 or 24, I was completely different intellectually.

I mean, I didn't have the same kind of motivations at 29.

Obviously, I was an older guy.

I had more pressure on me, and therefore, you know, you've got to do better than everybody else because, you know, they think you're the old guy.

And old is an interesting variable also.

I think that a lot of the research that can come out is going to indicate that age has really been more of a mental thing than a physical thing,

and that what we've done is to pick up the crutches and to throw away the good life.

You know, you were ahead of your time, obviously, because when we talked to a lot of athletes who were running in the 60s,

they weren't really this interested in science.

The idea was kind of stay away from me, I've got my plan, I want to really go into this thing.

You were ahead of your time, but to understand the future, you have to understand the past.

Now let's talk about the future.

Where are we going?

How are things going to change from your day?

Well, I think I've got to make a comment that while we've had an increment in world records, you know, as you both know, in the same track and field and other sports,

there has been a noticeable kind of lag in many of the events where we have been the world leaders.

For instance, the shot put.

70 feet was more prevalent five, six years ago, and in the 1968 Olympics, the long jump, the 400 meters, the shot from Matson,

Evan still has the world record, Beeman still has the world record, that was 1968.

And so what I'm saying is that, you know, I think we've got to get our act together a little bit better.

I don't think we're interfacing the average coach who's developing the greatest number of kids with the greatest information,

and that interface is going to be a key to what we're going to be able to do in the future,

because the Eastern European countries, they are so totally organized, they can manipulate the information they want to the athletes.

You know, Bill, I'm often asked about computers.

They say, geez, you're going to follow things up.

The human has still got to be in control, and you're going to try to make robots out of people.

But my answer is always the same.

It doesn't matter how much data we give people, how good it is.

What's really fortunate in our society is the human being has a wonderful way of screwing up the data.

That's right.

And that'll keep everybody human.

Anyway, great to have you with us.

Thanks a lot, Dick.

Gideon.

Good luck.

I enjoy listening to your comments every night.

When Futuresport continues, we'll meet Buck Williams, NBA Rookie of the Year.

He'll show you his best stuff.

Welcome back to Futuresport.

It's time to meet Buck Williams, the NBA Rookie of the Year.

Why has he come to Cota da Caza?

Well, of course, he wants to meet the Rookie of the Year in eating low-cal donuts, the original fat album.

Buck, a lot of young kids go out there, and they practice really hard for an hour,

and they hope that that's going to make it for them someday.

How long did you practice in those sessions you're telling me about?

Well, some days I would go out to the basketball court, and I would basically stay out there all day long

because, like I said before, I come with a very poor family.

Unfortunately, we didn't have the financial base to go out and buy a lot of books for me to take trips to Europe,

and I really valued the time that I was spending on the basketball court.

So I would go out every day and just stay out there, and some days during the winter,

some of my friends would be in the house looking at me out on the playground playing,

and I was out there playing with my coat on.

They said, look at that fool out of the basketball court.

But I guess a lot of them didn't realize that that's what I wanted to do with,

and I worked very hard to get where I am.

A lot of those guys may be still looking out the window.

Now, I know your mom looked out the window a lot.

I want to ask you about a research project that was done once.

Most of the great athletes, male athletes, their mother somehow or another,

somewhere in the picture, was a primary motivator, far more even than the father.

Was that with your situation or not, or was it evenly balanced?

What's the story?

Well, I think my mother took most of the load.

My mother, she's a diehard, and she really worked very hard, and some people have a lot of talent,

and they really don't use all the talent they have.

My mother, she had a little amount of talent.

She went to the fourth grade when her parents took out of school to farm on the farm because they were sharecroppers.

So she didn't have very much education, but another education that she did have,

she tried to instill in us and try to make us be good people and try to treat everybody nice.

She was there, and she was a motivating force, which also influenced me

and made me work that much harder in the basketball court.

You know, your folks sound exactly like my folks, and I think we had about the same amount of money.

But for some reason, Buck, I didn't make it in the NBA.

You got any reason why?

Well, I think just due to the fact that I was poor, and I really wanted something special for my family,

and that desire deep down inside made me work much harder than the other fellas.

Say one got me to come to school driving a Corvette, and I didn't have a Corvette.

His family lived up somewhere in a rich neighborhood, and he didn't work as hard to strive for his goals

because he had everything he wanted.

But I didn't have hardly anything when I was coming up,

and that really made me work that much harder to attain from those things.

Well, things have really changed now, baby.

I mean, you got a lot of the things you want.

And by the way, Buck, that's the big issue today.

There are a lot of people out there buying tickets for athletic events,

and they're saying, why do I have to pay this much?

Because those guys are out there driving Rolls Royces and everything, and it's not fair to me.

Now, how are you going to answer these critics?

Well, one thing, Vic, what the fans fail to realize is that the NBA is really a business,

and we're entertainers, and we should get paid as entertainers.

And a lot of people don't say anything about the newscasters making that money

because it's not how they publicize per se against all one player in the league.

You guys go out to the arena, shoot buckets a couple hours.

It's nice out there. That's great pay.

Well, Vic, I've been playing for 10 years, and I estimated maybe 50,000 hours.

And when it comes down to it, there's not that much money,

considering the hard work and the time that I really put into it.

Buck, I think you've given us all a lot to think about

with the next time we read those headlines about big paychecks.

The Future Sport continues.

We'll be right back.

You know, an awful lot of tennis players are going to see the optometrist and the ophthalmologist

because they say, hey, Doc, I've got a problem.

I can't hit the ball on the center of the strings.

It's always hitting the frame.

Why? What's wrong with me?

Well, we find out there's probably nothing wrong with your eyes.

There may be, but probably not.

Remember, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.

It's fancy, but it's important for you to know.

The reason is, when this head lifts, that creates a force with the racket down.

And when the racket goes down, the ball's no longer on the center.

It's on the top.

So what's important for you to know is that when you swing,

this head should remain very, very still.

But why should people be lifting their head?

Why not just keep it still until you make sure you hit the ball?

It's the same for golfers, same for tennis players.

The problem is, you want to know where the golf ball's going,

and when you're playing tennis, you want to know what your opponent is doing,

where the ball is going.

People say, I want to know where that son of a gun is at the net

and what he's doing.

He's doing nothing.

There's only one ball, and you have it.

So don't look up at your opponent.

We have photographs of people hitting the ball running to the other corner.

We say, where are you going?

They say, I'm going to get my opponent shot.

They say, look, don't worry about his, because yours isn't going over.

So if you're developing some imagery processes that your opponent is just great

and they've got all kinds of unbelievable shots,

you've got to work on an image that will reduce your opponent to nothing.

What I've found is that you should do, when you're warming up,

if they look good to you, then immediately imagine them like this,

and they will never bother you again.

Well, that wraps it up for today's edition of Future Sport.

I'm Big Braden for Gideon Ariel saying so long from the Kota Research Center

in Kota, DeCaza, California.

Thanks for watching.