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      in Tennis

      When Coco Gauff and Zendaya Need Tennis Tips, They Ask Brad Gilbert

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      Gilbert, a former pro, coached Andre Agassi to a U.S. Open victory in 1994. Now he’s advising Gauff — in between calling matches — at this year’s tournament.Brad Gilbert — tennis junkie, junkballer, commentator, coach of legends — had roughly seven minutes to trade his coaching hat for a microphone, to shift from helping Coco Gauff manage her third-round match Friday night to interviewing Novak Djokovic in the tunnel before his.That match, by the way, ended just after 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, and Gilbert had spent Friday afternoon calling matches before heading to Gauff’s courtside box. It was well after 2 a.m. when he got back to the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott. Then he spent an hour analyzing the video of the match that Gauff’s next opponent, Caroline Wozniacki, had won that afternoon. Finally, around 3:30 a.m., he clicked off the light. Rise and shine arrived at 6.“Been coming to this place since 1981,” Gilbert, who travels with an espresso machine, said between sips of coffee as he headed to his office, a.k.a. the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, on Saturday morning. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”Indeed, this is the life Gilbert has chosen.For 40 years, he has been a near-ubiquitous presence in the sport, rising through the 1980s to the No. 4 ranking in the world, despite his quirky, awkward, ugly strokes, then pivoting to coaching and television work, often at the same time, in that hybrid way that is oddly common in tennis. Andre Agassi had him at his side when he won the U.S. Open in 1994, as did Andy Roddick, in 2003.Now, at 62 and a decade removed from top-level coaching, Gilbert is back in the trenches and quickly becoming a star of this year’s U.S. Open, albeit in a supporting role to the 19-year-old Gauff, who is among the biggest stars of this quintessentially American tennis party. One minute, Gilbert is chatting and applauding Gauff through a practice session. The next, he’s hustling through the crowds, fist-bumping fans who treat him like an old buddy on his way up to the ESPN commentary booth to mingle with a decidedly older set of stars from his era, such as Chris Evert, Patrick McEnroe and Pam Shriver.Gilbert with Coco Gauff during a recent practice session.Earl Wilson/The New York Times“A very funny man,” Gauff said earlier this summer of Gilbert, whose coaching exploits she knew little about, since, as she pointed out with a giggle, they mostly happened before she was born. “I didn’t want to be with someone who’s a wall. But he’s definitely not a wall.”Tennis fans love and hate his nerdy player nicknames. Stan Wawrinka, the Swiss tank of a player, is “Stanimal.” Carlos Alcaraz is “Escape from Alcaraz.” And on and on.It’s a good life. Has been for a while.Gilbert is the same as he ever was, Shriver said. She and Gilbert first bonded at the 1988 Olympics, two sports nuts who won medals while hopscotching from swimming to wrestling to track and field to take in the competition.“He loved scouting,” Shriver said. “Loved game plans.”Last year took an unconventional turn. For nearly a decade, Gilbert had been working with junior players on private courts in California. Then the phone rang with an odd request.Zendaya, the actor and music star, had signed on to star in “Challengers,” an upcoming movie about a professional tennis love triangle.Small problem: She had no idea how to play tennis. Could Gilbert teach her and her co-stars Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist how to play well enough to not look ridiculous? Also, could he set up and design the points in the action scenes?Sure, why not, Gilbert said. He and Zendaya started showing up at Pepperdine University tennis matches to help her understand the game. There were three months of training in California, then four months of rehearsal and filming in Boston and New York.When it was done, Gilbert looked around and saw that his friends from television were coaching top pros part-time. Darren Cahill was working with Jannik Sinner, the Italian ranked sixth in the world. Shriver was working with Donna Vekic, the talented veteran from Croatia.Gilbert wanted back in with a top American player. He put the word out and began to get some offers, but he wanted to make sure it was with the right player, a member of the elite whom he believed he could help and who shared his hunger.Gauff celebrated her first-round win against Laura Siegemund at the U.S. Open.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAfter Gauff lost in the first round at Wimbledon in July, another disappointing Grand Slam result for a player who believes she is ready to win the biggest titles, he got a call from her team. They wanted him to speak with her parents about sharing his been-there wisdom as an adviser alongside Gauff’s new and somewhat-inexperienced coach, Pere Riba.American? Check.Elite? Check.Hungry? Triple check.“A super kid,” he said of Gauff on Saturday.Gauff’s shortcomings were hardly a mystery: a shaky forehand and serve in tight moments; a struggle to maximize her prodigious strengths — her speed and ability to cover the court, her fitness, her blazing backhand, a laserlike first serve.Used the right way, those tools have gotten her far. Maybe Gilbert’s brain could get her over the line.“He loved discussing matchups, how to get to people’s weaknesses,” said Andy Murray, who worked with Gilbert earlier in his career. “It was very focused on the strategy and finding ways to win matches.”Gilbert and Gauff’s team have kept quiet about the specific ways he has helped her, but anyone who watches him and hears what he says from her box during matches can figure it out: Know what’s coming, and play to your strengths.“Make it physical, Coco,” is a constant refrain, a reminder that she can chase down balls all night long if she wants to, taking the legs and the heart out of opponents.Gilbert has little use for the statistics that have come into fashion among many elite teams. He ignores the screen in the coaching box that gives coaches real-time data.“I trust my eyes,” he said.He has been trying to introduce Gauff to his music, sending her links to songs by Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and the Eagles. Gauff, a fan of City Girls — a Miami hip-hop duo featuring artists Yung Miami and JT — has yet to share her thoughts.Still, at the moment, she and her team have every reason to trust his eyes, too. Gauff has won two of her first three tournaments with him on the team, and 14 of 15 matches, including three at the U.S. Open.Andy Roddick, right, embraced Gilbert after winning the U.S. Open men’s singles final in 2003.Vincent Laforet/The New York TimesThen there is this: Gilbert began working with Agassi in March 1994, and Agassi won the U.S. Open that September. Gilbert began working with Roddick in June 2003. Three months later, Roddick was the U.S. Open championThey were different players. Agassi, Gilbert said, had a photographic memory and an analytical mind that could take apart a match hours later, stroke by stroke, with total recall. Roddick was so exuberant that Gilbert had roughly 15 seconds to deliver any message before his attention went elsewhere.His take on Gauff? Kind of like Zendaya, he said.Both were prodigies who began working on their craft and breaking through as young children. They’re around the same height, about 5-foot-10. And Zendaya has the wingspan of someone closer to 6-4, he said. Great athletic physique. If only he had gotten to teach her tennis when she was younger.They were texting the other day, on Zendaya’s 27th birthday. She told him she was watching and was all in on Gauff. He said he was, too. Just as he wanted. More

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      in Soccer

      A Shocking Soccer Kiss Demonstrates the Power of Scandal

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      By generating public outrage, scandals make inaction costly: suddenly, doing nothing carries greater risks.After Luis Rubiales, the president of Spain’s soccer federation, forcibly kissed Jennifer Hermoso, a player on the national women’s team, in the wake of their World Cup win, many wondered whether it would be a #MeToo moment for Spain.Whether the televised kiss galvanizes a lasting movement against harassment and discrimination is yet to be seen. But the growing backlash against Rubiales highlights an often-crucial element of such public reckonings: scandal. During periods of social change, there is often a phase of widespread support for an overhaul in principle but a reluctance within the population to actually make those ideals a reality. Changing a system means taking on the powerful insiders who benefit from it and bearing the brunt of their retaliation — a hard sell, particularly for those who do not expect the change to help them personally.A scandal can change that calculus profoundly, as illustrated by the furor surrounding the kiss. Hermoso described it as “an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part.” (Rubiales, who has refused to resign, has forcefully defended his conduct and insisted that the kiss was consensual.)By generating public outrage, scandals make inaction costly: suddenly, doing nothing risks an even greater backlash. And scandals can alter the other side of the equation, too: the powerful have less ability to retaliate if their erstwhile allies abandon them in order to avoid being tainted by the scandal themselves. Action becomes less costly at the same time that inaction becomes more so.But although scandals can be a mighty tool, they are not available to everyone. Just as the growing backlash against Rubiales has shown the power of scandal, the events of the months leading up to it, in which many members of the Spanish women’s team tried without success to change a system they described as controlling and outdated, underline how difficult it can be to spark a scandal — and how that can leave ordinary people excluded from public sympathy or the ability to enact change.The unifying power of scandalTo see how this pattern plays out, it’s helpful to look at the influence of scandal in a very different context. Yanilda González, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, researches police reform in the Americas. In the 2010s, she set out to determine why, after Latin American dictatorships ended, democratic reforms often exempted police forces, leaving them as islands of authoritarianism.In her resulting 2020 book, “Authoritarian Police in Democracy,” she describes how police forces can be extremely powerful in political terms, sometimes using the threat of public disorder as leverage over policymakers who might seek to limit their power or threaten their privileges.Politicians were reluctant to incur the costs of pursuing reforms that might provoke a backlash from police. And public opinion was often divided: while some demanded greater protections from state violence, others worried that police reforms would empower criminals.But, González found, scandals could change that. Episodes of particularly egregious police misconduct could unite public opinion in demanding reform. Opposition politicians, seeing an opportunity to win votes from an angry public, would add to the chorus, and eventually the government would decide that change was the least costly option.The Harvey Weinstein scandal followed a similar pattern. For many years, Weinstein’s predatory behavior was an open secret in Hollywood. But then a Times article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, in which multiple women detailed the abuses they had suffered at his hands, generated a massive scandal. The public outrage at Weinstein’s behavior meant that the old Hollywood calculus, in which it was safer to keep quiet about the powerful producer’s abuses than to try to stop them, no longer applied. Weinstein’s former allies abandoned him.That generated pressure for change that went far beyond Weinstein. A slew of other #MeToo scandals exposed powerful men as abusers, harassers, and general sex pests. A national reckoning followed.‘The kiss’ shows scandal’s power — but also its limitationsLong before the televised kiss, many members of the Spanish women’s team had lodged protests against Rubiales and the Spanish football association’s leadership. Last year, 15 members of the team, frustrated by unequal pay and general sexism, sent identical letters accusing the team’s coach, Jorge Vilda, of using methods damaging to “their emotional state and their health,” and saying they would not play for the national team unless he was fired.Those 15 women were some of the team’s best players. They were organized. And they were willing to sacrifice a World Cup appearance to achieve change.But they were not yet “Queens of the World,” as one magazine cover proclaimed them last week, with a World Cup win that would put them on the front page of every newspaper in the country. And they didn’t yet have a scandal. No single event had generated sufficient public outrage to shift power from the football association to the players. The Spanish football association, including Rubiales, reacted with outrage to the letters, and vowed to not only protect Vilda’s job, but to keep the writers off the national team unless they “accept their mistake and apologize.” Though there is no precise formula, to capture public attention a scandal often needs to involve an exceptionally sympathetic victim, as well as shocking allegations of misconduct. Kate Manne, a philosophy professor at Cornell and the author of two books on structural misogyny, has written about how some people will instinctively align themselves with the status quo, sympathizing with powerful men accused of sexual violence or other wrongdoing rather than their victims — a tendency she calls “himpathy.” To overcome that instinct, she said, victims often have to be particularly compelling, such as the famous actresses who came forward about Weinstein’s abuses.Of course, most victims of harassment and assault are not famous actresses, or queens of the world. Manne noted that Tarana Burke, the activist who founded the #MeToo movement, spent years trying to bring attention to the abuse of less privileged women before high-profile scandals galvanized global attention. “She was trying to draw attention to the plight of the Black and brown girls who can be victimized in ways that don’t ever scandalize anyone,” Manne said. Public outrage has tended to be reserved for high-profile victims. But if norms shift more broadly against abuse and impunity, there can be positive change for ordinary people as well. Famous actresses may have focused public anger on Weinstein, but the #MeToo movement also brought attention to abuses of some less-famous workers, such as restaurant staff.Once the machinery of scandal does kick in, the consequences can be significant. As my Times colleagues Jason Horowitz and Rachel Chaundler report, many Spanish women saw Rubiales’ action as an example of a macho, sexist culture that allows men to subject them to aggression and violence without consequence.As public anger grew, politicians weighed in on behalf of the players. Late Friday night, the entire team and dozens of other players issued a joint statement saying that they would not play for Spain “if the current managers continue.” The next day, members of Vilda’s coaching staff resigned en masse.On Monday, Spanish prosecutors announced an investigation into whether Rubiales might have committed criminal sexual aggression. The same day, the Royal Spanish Football Association, which Rubiales currently leads, called on him to resign.The question now is not just whether he will be fired or step down, but if the broader outrage will lead to real change in Spain. “When we have these women who are, you know, figuratively and literally on top of the world in professional sports — and it’s captured live on video — then we have the makings of a scandal,” Manne said. It is too soon to tell where that might lead. More

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      in Soccer

      A Kiss After Spain’s World Cup Win Prompts Many to Cry Foul

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      A soccer federation chief kissed the Spanish forward Jennifer Hermoso fully on the lips during the medals ceremony, an unpleasant reminder to many of the sexism that has plagued women’s soccer.Spaniards celebrated their country’s first Women’s World Cup victory on Sunday afternoon by holding dance parties in the streets and sharing their giddy delight.But it was a kiss seen around the world that was the talk of social media.Amid the national jubilation, many were jolted by an impromptu kiss planted on the Spanish forward Jennifer Hermoso by the president of Spain’s soccer federation, Luis Rubiales, during the medals ceremony, an unpleasant reminder to many of the sexism scandals that have plagued Spanish women’s soccer.After the Spanish players defeated England 1-0 and lined up onstage in Sydney, Australia, to collect their medals before lifting the World Cup trophy, Mr. Rubiales enthusiastically grabbed Ms. Hermoso, kissed her on the cheeks and then kissed her fully on the lips, video of the encounter showed. Spain’s Queen Letizia was onstage at the time.¿Lo de Rubiales? pic.twitter.com/H7ZaAQ0RxU— Darío (@Youpsico) August 20, 2023
      Later, in another video, Ms. Hermoso is seen apparently making her distaste known, responding, “Hey, but I didn’t like that!”The video of what many concluded had been an unwanted smooch was widely shared on social media, spurring confusion among many Spaniards and prompting others to denounce it as highly inappropriate behavior. Some called it disgraceful and evidence of lingering sexism in soccer. Others demanded that Mr. Rubiales resign.As of Sunday night, he had not responded to the criticism. The soccer federation did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment from Mr. Rubiales as it was late in Spain.The kissing episode revived memories of the mistreatment of Spain’s female soccer players. For 27 years, the women’s national team had the same coach, who was infamous for dismissing the players as “chavalitas,” or immature girls. He was dismissed in 2015 after players protested.Current members of the women’s national team have also complained that they have been disrespected by top male soccer executives and denied the kind of elite equipment and treatment given to the men’s teams. The women have said that the facilities the federation provided for them are subpar and that Jorge Vilda, their coach, fostered an oppressive workplace environment, one in which the players’ every move was monitored by his staff.Last fall, many players revolted against the coach and federation, accusing them of mistreatment and withdrawing from consideration for the national team. Ms. Hermoso was seen as having tacitly supported the rebellion.The controversies did not stop Spain from winning this year’s World Cup. But the sudden kiss added another dimension to the women’s victory.In a live video posted on Instagram and shared on other social media platforms, Ms. Hermoso is seen celebrating with her teammates in the locker room after the final and smiling even as she says the kiss was not wanted.Adding to the confusion, Mr. Rubiales is heard in another video telling the players that they would be rewarded with a trip to Ibiza for their victory and adding that it would be an opportunity to celebrate his “wedding” to Ms. Hermoso — an apparent reference to the kiss.There is no indication that Mr. Rubiales and Ms. Hermoso are in a relationship.Nadia Tronchoni, an editor at El País, Spain’s biggest newspaper, noted in an opinion piece that Sunday’s victory was “more than a title” for Spanish women.“The women, the girls of this country celebrated the fact that our stubbornness has finally defeated machismo,” she said, referring to female players’ long struggle to be recognized. “Rubiales’s kiss to Hermoso reminds us that the road ahead is a long one.” More

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      in Soccer

      Biggest Gap for U.S. World Cup Players: Their Ages

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      The U.S. team includes past champions, veterans of the equal pay fight and 14 players experiencing their first World Cup. How they come together will shape the future.The story seemed like one Alex Morgan might tell around a campfire.Back in the day, the 34-year-old Morgan likes to begin, when players like her needed to find their way to their soccer games, they used something called MapQuest. It wasn’t an app on your smartphone, the kind with a reassuring voice that announced each turn and flashed a digital dot to show your location.It was a website, Morgan said, that generated a map and a list of step-by-step directions, which you had to print out on actual paper. Sometimes it fell to preteen kids like Morgan to read out the turns while a parent drove.“That was such a hard time,” the United States defender Naomi Girma, 23, recalled telling Morgan after hearing the story recently, feigning sympathy. “And she was like, ‘You don’t even know.’”Sports are often about gaps: talent gaps, experience gaps, compensation gaps. And in the weeks and months before the Women’s World Cup that began on Thursday in Australia and New Zealand, the players on the U.S. national women’s soccer team have found an unlikely bond in jokes, jabs and stories related to what may be their most notable feature: a generation gap.The team’s oldest player is Megan Rapinoe, 38, the iconic athlete who recently announced that she would retire after this World Cup and the end of her current professional season. The youngest is Alyssa Thompson, who is 18, just graduated high school and still lives with her parents. At least three of Thompson’s teammates — Morgan, Crystal Dunn and Julie Ertz — have children of their own.Thompson said that her older teammates sometimes play music that she doesn’t recognize, but that the different age groups find a middle ground with Cardi B. Sophia Smith, a 22-year-old forward, said she does recognize the music, though by genre, not by artist. “They sound like what my parents listen to,” she said.Alyssa Thompson, who at 18 is the youngest member of the squad, just graduated high school and still lives with her parents.Joe Puetz/Getty ImagesSmith admitted last month that she never has used a CD player and that she refuses to watch TV shows or movies if the video quality is “grainy.” One exception: videos of the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, a historic victory by the United States that spurred rapid growth of women’s soccer in America. Unlike some of her teammates, Smith has no memory of watching that team play — the final was played more than a year before she was born.Others recall a different game — the 2015 World Cup final, and Carli Lloyd’s stunning goal from midfield — as their touchstone moment. Four of their current teammates have far more vivid memories of that afternoon, because they played in the match.That generation gap, and how the U.S. team deals with it, is likely to be one of the prominent stories of the World Cup. But it is also a symbol of the latest pivotal moment in the evolution of the women’s game: a time of contentious debate about equal pay and human rights, and of battles for investment and demand for equal treatment with men. For the United States, a four-time World Cup winner, this tournament also presents a new, unrelenting challenge from rivals rising to meet the Americans’ level as leaders, spokeswomen and champions.Lindsey Horan, the U.S. team’s co-captain, is one of the veterans who won’t let the younger players forget that they have a role to play in that fight, and that winning games and championships is at the core of it.“There’s always pressure in this team,” said Horan, 29. “We live in pressure, and I think we make that known to any new, younger player coming into this environment that you’re going to live in that for the rest of your career on this national team.”The job for Coach Vlatko Andonovski has been to build a smooth-running machine from parts built in different eras. What makes the task even trickier for him this time is that the players at his disposal have a wide range of experience. Fourteen members of the 23-player roster are World Cup rookies. A few are sliding into roles long patrolled by veterans who are now injured, or retired, or facing their final games. It’s Andonovski’s first World Cup, too. “I’m not worried about the inexperience,” Andonovski said. “In fact, I’m excited about the energy and enthusiasm that the young players bring, the intensity and the drive as well. Actually, I think that will be one of our advantages.”“I’m excited about the energy and enthusiasm that the young players bring, the intensity and the drive as well,” said U.S. Coach Vlatko Andonovski.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBuilding chemistry among teammates isn’t that easy, though, especially when time is running out. Not even regular doses of Cardi B can change that. The team’s recent record reflects its struggles under Andonovski to fit new players into the roster of experienced ones.At the Tokyo Olympics — Andonovski’s first major tournament as U.S. coach — the team finished a disappointing third. Canada beat the Americans to reach the final, then won the gold medal. Just last fall, the United States endured its first three-game losing streak since 1993. One of the losses, to Germany, broke a 71-game winning streak on U.S. soil.The rest of the world, finally, appears to be catching up.Janine Beckie, a forward for Canada, said there were two or three teams at the 2019 World Cup that were strong enough to win it. But now, only four years later, she estimated that six or seven had to be considered serious title contenders.“This is definitely the most wide-open World Cup in history,” Beckie said. “I’m really interested in how this young U.S. team goes through this tournament. They can either have a fresh mind-set and recover quickly from game to game, or they can have players who are overwhelmed by the length of the tournament. Being there for a month from start to finish is really difficult, especially when you haven’t experienced that before.”That is why the older players on the U.S. team have been trying to prepare the newcomers for what to expect. So as they fielded questions about what to pack for a monthlong trip to the other side of the world — headphones, books and a favorite pair of comfy sweatpants were the bare minimum — the older players also have gone out of their way to make the younger players feel as if they have been on the team forever.“The important thing is, how do we make the young players feel comfortable?” said Emily Sonnett, who was a member of the 2019 championship team and this month is back for her second World Cup. “Because if you’re not having fun, why be here? And if you’re not comfortable, how are you ever going to play at your best?”Players young and old have come to learn that leading by example can be infectious. Rapinoe, whose outspokenness has at times made her the public face of her squad and her sport, has said the U.S. team considers it “incredibly important” to use its platform to “represent America and a sense of patriotism that kind of flips that term on its head.”For example, Rapinoe and others, including Morgan and the injured captain Becky Sauerbrunn, have spoken out about social issues like equal pay, sexual abuse, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and racial equality.Megan Rapinoe has said the U.S. team considers it important to “represent America and a sense of patriotism that kind of flips that term on its head.” Marlena Sloss for The New York TimesThe veterans haven’t pushed the younger players to be as involved in the same issues, players on both ends of the generation gap said. But many of the younger ones acknowledged that they feel a sense of duty to keep that aspect of the team alive.Girma said she was inspired by the national team’s activism to speak out about social justice issues while she was in college at Stanford. Shaken by the death of a college teammate there who killed herself, Girma and several of her contemporaries are now using their voices to highlight the need for mental health awareness.Forward Trinity Rodman, 21, said that responsibility is one the newer players have begun to embrace — “I’ve definitely tried to be more than a soccer player,” she said — but that every member of the team was united by a goal they all share.“We want to win so bad,” Rodman said, “and we’re going to do whatever we can to win.”That way, someday, they will have their own campfire stories to tell. More

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      in Golf

      There’s a British Open Winner Coaching High School Golf in Ohio

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      All of the noise is gone now. There is no entourage, no hubbub, no fuss. Instead of yukking it up with David Letterman, as he did 20 years ago this month, Ben Curtis is spending the morning teaching southeast of Cleveland and steeling himself for the roughly 750-mile drive to South Carolina for a family vacation.This kind of understated Friday morning is very much how Curtis likes his life two decades after he made his major tournament debut at the British Open — and won. His victory at Royal St. George’s was an international sensation: He went from being the world’s 396th-ranked player, the one who had spent part of tournament week sightseeing in London with his fiancée, to being the first golfer in 90 years to win a major title on his first try.He never captured another. Sporadic successes followed — ties for second at a P.G.A. Championship and a Players Championship, a spot on a Ryder Cup-winning team, a few other PGA Tour victories — but never the major-winning magic. He last played a tour event in 2017, finishing with career earnings of more than $13.7 million.Today, he coaches his son’s golf team at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent, Ohio, and teaches at a golf academy that bears his name. On Thursday, the Open will begin at Royal Liverpool. He could play in it, but he’d rather not.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Curtis celebrating with the claret jug after his victory in the British Open at Royal St. George’s in 2003.Andrew Parsons/PA Wire, via Associated PressLet’s start in 2003. After the first round, you were five shots off the lead. After the second, three. After the third, two. When did you start to think you could win?Saturday, I remember struggling the first nine holes, and then something — I don’t know if I just calmed down, maybe thought it’s over, I don’t know — happened. I shot three under on that back nine, and it just boosted my confidence. When we went to bed that night, I was like, “I’m going to win this thing.” I told Candace that, and she kind of went quiet until the next day.The back nine on Sunday wasn’t as smooth as Saturday’s. Was it the course or the pressure?Probably the pressure more than anything.The first nine continued what I was doing on Saturday. In any tournament, but a major especially, it’s hard to play really consistent for 27 holes without having some kind of hiccup. In the back of my mind, I kept telling myself, “It’s tough for everybody.”Ever watched the round?Twice.Twice in 20 years?We were at a friend’s house, woke up and he had the Golf Channel on since it was Open week. And so we sat there and watched it a little bit, and the kids slowly came down and we watched it. And then that kind of spurred it on to, “Hey, let’s take the time since the kids were older.”When I was playing, I never wanted to watch it because I was stubborn and wanted to concentrate on the future. Now I look at it though, and it’s like, “What were we wearing?”A few days after you won, you told The Times: “It won’t change me. It won’t change who I am.” Did it?I’m sure it did. But personality-wise or things like that, I would hope not.Did it change how you approached golf?I wasn’t used to the limelight, and so it was just difficult to go practice, to go find that quiet place where I could get work done. You try to schedule your day and you tried to have it down to within a few minutes, but if you’re trying to have a two- or three-hour practice session and it ends up being six and you’ve only practiced for two, it wears on you.People are coming up and you’re getting distracted — and not in a mean way, by any stretch — but then you realize you’re putting less and less time into the practice because of that. So that’s what was difficult, or even just going out to eat, and it made me realize I never wanted to be like that — like, I would never want to be in Tiger Woods’s shoes.I’d want to come in under the radar. I wanted to win every week, of course. Everyone does.I’ve heard you felt pressure to prove that the Open hadn’t been a fluke.Definitely. Especially when you’re young and you win early, there’s that pressure of you’ve got to do it again to prove your worth, I guess.Where does that pressure comes from? From within yourself? The media? The galleries?It’s a combination of everything. Luckily, social media wasn’t a huge deal back then. But I did feel it internally. I remember practicing and getting ready at the end of 2005, and my college coach just went: Screw this. Just be you. Don’t try to be somebody that you’re not, because you’re trying to emulate what the top players in the world are doing, and, well, maybe that’s not for you.That was probably the first time I had heard that in years.Curtis talked about his stunning victory in the British Open with David Letterman.Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS, via Getty ImagesJust go back to being Ben Curtis?Just go back to being me. That refocused me a little bit. I think it showed in the play that year, winning twice.You coach high schoolers now. What do you tell them about pressure?They’re worried about breaking 80 or 90, not winning majors. But to them, that’s a big deal. I remember the first time you break 80, the first time you break 70 and how big of an accomplishment that is. So that’s their major.I always tell them you can’t force it. It’s just going to happen. You work hard, and it’s just going to fall in there.You can only control yourself and your emotions and try to treat every shot like it’s the first shot. And 99.9 percent of the rounds do not go the way you want them because usually it’s derailed within the first shot or hole.Brooks Koepka says he thinks he can win 10 majors. Did you ever let a specific number like that enter your head?No, but I always dreamed of winning another one and had a couple of opportunities.Winning a major put you in the history books. Would your career have been easier if you hadn’t won so early?Probably, but it wouldn’t be as cool of a story. Like, if I had won two other events and then won a major and then kind of disappeared?Is there such a thing as winning a major too early?It’s not so much the winning the one too early, but maybe the way Koepka did it and winning a lot within a couple of years. Now, all of a sudden, you think you should win every week.And the hardest thing — and I fell into that trap, too — was trying to gear up your game just for the majors. If you just do that alone, if you’re not playing good going into it, what difference does it make if you don’t have the confidence? Confidence is the biggest thing.Curtis with his wife, Candace, in New York in 2003, shortly before they were married.Ozier Muhammad/The New York TimesI was talking to Max Homa recently, and he said he had realized he didn’t prepare for the majors how he prepared for everything else and that maybe he should smile more and laugh more.It’s true. When I won at the Open, we got there early just to get adjusted to the time change. I played on Saturday and Sunday, and then on Monday, Candace and I went into London and were these American tourists.Then I came back and played 18 on Tuesday and nine on Wednesday. But you can overdo it, and I think what Max is saying is if you treat it like any other event, you’ll be fine.It’s so hard to do. But every time I’ve won or came close, it was just, let’s go play golf. You play free.Wyndham Clark is going to Royal Liverpool as a first-time major champion. What’s your advice for him?Enjoy the moment, and don’t be afraid to say no. Try to stick to your routine. And the biggest thing is just expectations: Don’t expect to win. Just go out there and try to enjoy the moment. Just like Max said, laugh, have some fun. If you make the cut and have a chance to win, great. If not, you’re still the U.S. Open champ, and no one is ever going to take that away.You’ve played two Opens at Royal Liverpool. What do you make of it?It’s a really good golf course. I wouldn’t say it was my favorite.Would Royal St. George’s be the favorite?It’s up there, but I love Birkdale, just the look of it, the feel of the place. And obviously St. Andrews is special, but they’re all great. I hated Troon the first time just because I played badly.You can play the Open until you’re 60. Why not play it?One, I don’t want to put the work in. And, two, I’m not going to show up just to shoot a pair of 78s, 79s. It’s not fair to the other guys. You’re basically taking a spot away from a kid at a qualifier or somebody who is trying to play for the first time.I know what it takes to play well. I can go out here and play OK. But when you play 10 times a year, it’s a totally different thing.You last played a tour event in 2017. Was it hard to walk away, or was it liberating?A little bit of both. I think I could have a couple of years earlier and just kept hanging on and playing like crap, to put it frankly. Once I did, it was great.“When I teach, it’s not always about X’s and O’s and hitting it to this spot or in this swing plane or whatever,” Curtis said.Daniel Lozada for The New York TimesWhen did you recognize that you didn’t want that chaotic tour life anymore?When the kids got to school age. When they were young and you could take them with you, it was great. Then they went to school and their schedule is limited, and you’re traveling and playing in these tournaments, and you’re alone.I never played a huge amount, but when you’re used to having them out for about 20, 22 events a year and suddenly it’s only for six or seven, and now you’re out there for 20, 22 events on your own, it becomes tough. It doesn’t matter how nice the resort is. Every hotel room, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Ritz-Carlton or a Courtyard Marriott, it’s a rectangle room with a bathroom in it. And it’s tough on the family at home, too, because they want me home.A lot of retired golfers live in beachfront towns in Florida. You chose Ohio. Why?If you’re in Jupiter, you’re among your peers. Up here, we’re alone. The people are great, down to earth, and we wanted that for our kids. It’s just who we are and where we’re at. This is home.When you left the tour, did you think you wanted to coach high schoolers?No.Think you wanted to run an academy?It took some time. For the rest of 2017, I was thinking about what I wanted to do, and that’s when the academy came about. Ohio has a rich history of golf, and it seems like all of the greats come through here at some point in their careers. You look at Jack Nicklaus, growing up in Ohio, and Arnold Palmer lived in Cleveland for a while.I just started reflecting on how I grew up, and I was thinking, “Who around here is going to help these kids navigate the dreams that I had?” I had to rely on my parents, and then luckily I went to a college where the coach was super involved.When I teach, it’s not always about X’s and O’s and hitting it to this spot or in this swing plane or whatever. I have these good kids, and they want to swing it like Koepka. I’m like, “Listen, swing it like you. What your swing looks like now is not going to be what it looks like when you’re 25.”What persuaded you to coach the high school team?My son was on the team, and the coach decided to retire. I got a call from the athletic director and I was like, “Well, who do you have in mind?” And they were like, “You, and that’s it.”I asked them to take a couple of days and try to find someone. I didn’t want to put that pressure on my son, but he was like, “coach, Dad, coach.”What errors are you seeing that weren’t really a thing when you were learning to play?Kids are more worried about their swing technique and the way it looks than how it performs. As long as you shoot a 72 on the scorecard, it doesn’t matter how you shoot 72. It’s a good score! Just worry about that.Twenty years ago, you said that if you hadn’t been playing the Open, you “probably” would have been watching the tournament on TV. Will you be watching this time?It’s funny: It’s been seven years since I played, but I wake up now and realize it’s almost over. You totally forget. You get up and start doing your stuff, and it’s 2 o’clock and you think you’ll see what the golf is — and then it’s over.The first three years were like that, and I totally missed it. Now, I’ll watch it, and I enjoy it. More

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      Nikki McCray-Penson, Basketball Star and Coach, Dies at 51

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      After a standout college career at the University of Tennessee, she won two Olympic gold medals, played nine years in the W.N.B.A. and was the head coach at two universities.Nikki McCray-Penson, an all-American point guard for the powerhouse University of Tennessee women’s basketball team, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a three-time All-Star in the W.N.B.A., died on Friday. She was 51.Her death was announced by Rutgers University, where she was about to enter her second season as an assistant coach of the women’s basketball team. The school did not say where she died or cite a cause. McCray-Penson had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013.“Thank you my little sister, my friend, my foxhole partner, my teammate, my fast food snacker, my basketball junkie, my fellow Olympian, my gold medalist and now my angel,” Dawn Staley, the women’s basketball coach at the University of South Carolina, where McCray-Penson was an assistant coach for nine years, wrote on Twitter.At Tennessee, McCray-Penson was a two-time all-American and a three-time all-Southeastern Conference player. She helped lead the Lady Vols to three consecutive regular-season conference titles and two conference tournament championships.She began as a defensive specialist, but she evolved into an offensive force.“It bothered her that she was considered so much of a defensive player,” her Basketball Hall of Fame coach, Pat Summitt, told The Tennessean of Nashville in 1994, late in McCray-Penson’s breakout season, when she averaged 16.3 points a game as a junior. “She wanted to develop the total game, and she has.”In the same article, McCray-Penson said, “I had to learn to respond when being criticized and learn from mistakes. Pat is not going to motivate you.” She added, “You have to come out with an attitude about yourself, and that comes from maturity.”Sally Jenkins, a sports columnist who collaborated with Summitt on three books, said in a phone interview that there was a special connection between the coach and McCray-Penson. “Pat glowed when Nikki came to visit,” she said.She added: “There were a lot of players who came to Tennessee who were like 15-story buildings, but the elevators only went to the 10th floor. Some kids found a way to get to the top and develop all their promise. Nikki was one of those.”McCray-Penson at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. She was a two-time Olympic gold medalist.Darren McNamara/Getty ImagesAfter graduating from Tennessee in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in education, McCray-Penson became part of the U.S. team that would win the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. After an early-round victory over South Korea, in which McCray-Penson led the team with 16 points and nine rebounds, she said, “We want to be the best basketball team in history.”Overall, she averaged 9.4 points a game in the tournament and provided some of the stifling defense that limited opponents’ scoring. Four years later, when the U.S. team won the gold medal in Sydney, Australia, McCray-Penson averaged 5.1 points.By then, she had turned professional. With the Columbus Quest of the short-lived American Basketball League, which preceded the W.N.B.A. as a women’s league, she averaged 19.9 points a game, led the team to the league championship in 1997 and was named most valuable player.She did not stay with the A.B.L. for long. She jumped after one season to the Washington Mystics of the W.N.B.A., which had been created by the National Basketball Association.“I saw what the N.B.A. can do to promote women’s basketball,” she told The Associated Press in 1997.Starting in 1998, she spent four seasons with the Mystics, averaging 15.4 points a game and was chosen for three All-Star games. She had less success over the next five years, when she played in Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Antonio and Chicago. She retired in 2006.McCray-Penson in Norfolk, Va., in 2017, when she was the women’s basketball coach at Old Dominion University there.Steve Earley/The Virginian-Pilot, via Associated PressShe quickly moved into coaching: She was an assistant women’s coach at Western Kentucky University for two years before moving to South Carolina in 2008, where she joined Staley, her teammate on the 1996 and 2000 Olympic teams.After helping lead South Carolina to its first N.C.A.A. women’s basketball title in 2017, McCray-Penson was hired for her first head coaching job, at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. She coached the team to a 53-40 record over three seasons; in the 2019-20 season, she led the Monarchs to a 24-6 record and was named Conference USA coach of the year.In 2020, she was named the head coach at Mississippi State University, but she resigned for health reasons after a 10-9 record in her only season there.In 2022, Rutgers hired her as an assistant.“Simply put, Nikki is a winner,” Coquese Washington, the Rutgers coach, who was a teammate of McCray-Penson’s with the W.N.B.A.’s Indiana Fever, told The Associated Press. “She has excelled at the highest levels of our game.”McCray-Penson was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, in Knoxville, Tenn., in 2012.Nikki Kesangane McCray was born on Dec. 17, 1971, in Collierville, Tenn. Her survivors include her husband, Thomas Penson, and her son, also named Thomas. Her mother, Sally Coleman, died of breast cancer in 2018.“We know there’s no cure,” McCray-Penson told The Clarion Ledger of Jackson, Miss., in 2020. “We live with it. Every day, you don’t let that define you. You live life. You make every day count. That’s what I saw my mom do.” More

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      Miami Heat Prove Value of Patience, Even in NBA Finals Defeat

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      There was something novel and fun about the Heat as they pulled off upset after upset as the Eastern Conference’s No. 8 seed.Jimmy Butler studied a box score. Max Strus pulled on a sweatshirt from Lewis University, the Division II school in Romeoville, Ill., that had offered him a scholarship when high-major programs passed on him. And as fireworks crackled outside, Udonis Haslem — a power forward and a staple of the Miami Heat for the past 20 seasons — reflected on the final game of his playing career.“Proud of these guys, proud of my team,” Haslem, 43, said. “I told the guys I have no complaints, no regrets. They gave me a final season that I’ll never forget, and that’s all I can ask for.”Inside the visiting locker room at Ball Arena on Monday night, there was sadness but also some joy. There was resignation mixed with no small amount of pride. But most of all, in the wake of the Heat’s 94-89 loss to the Denver Nuggets in Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals, there was the sense that Miami had lost the series to a superior opponent and a worthy league champion, and sometimes it really is that simple.“We would have liked to be able to climb the mountaintop and get that final win,” Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But I think this is a team that a lot of people can relate to, if you ever felt that you were dismissed or were made to feel less than. We had a lot of people in our locker room that probably have had that, and there’s probably a lot of people out there that have felt that at some time or another.”The Heat couldn’t hold on to a slim lead in the fourth quarter of Game 5. They won one game in the series: Game 2 in Denver.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesSome of the story lines that accompanied the Heat on their deep playoff run may be irritatingly familiar by now. How nine of the players on their roster were undrafted. How they seemed to thrive on adversity. How Spoelstra flummoxed arguably more talented opponents with his zone defense. And how Butler and Bam Adebayo, the team’s two best players, filled their more unsung teammates with self-assurance.But there was also something novel and fun about how the Heat, as the Eastern Conference’s No. 8 seed, went about their business — pulling off upset after upset, surprise after surprise. They were just the second eighth seed to reach the N.B.A. finals.“I’m just grateful,” Butler said of being around his teammates. “I learned so much. They taught me so much. I wish I could have got it done for these guys because they definitely deserve it.”Most of all, perhaps, Miami’s playoff run was a testament to organizational stability, a concept that sounds about as bland as boiled potatoes. But the Heat — along with the Nuggets, who have stuck with their core and their coaching staff through a smorgasbord of ups and downs — have shown that being boring and exercising patience have value, that constant change is seldom the answer.Cheering the Heat in Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals in Miami.Rebecca Blackwell/Associated PressButler said he wished he could have won a championship for his teammates.Megan Briggs/Getty ImagesSpoelstra, who has been with the Heat since the mid-1990s, first as a video coordinator and later as an assistant, personifies that approach. He has been the team’s coach for 15 seasons, making him the second-longest-tenured coach behind San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich — no small feat when coaches in professional sports tend to be shuffled like playing cards. About a third of N.B.A. coaches were fired or quit in the 2022-23 season.And in an era in which some teams stockpile draft picks and strategize about the best way to land top-shelf prospects — this is less diplomatically known as “tanking” — the Heat have continued to prioritize developing their young players while striving to be competitive, even when it is hard and often unrewarding work.Spoelstra recalled training camp, which he described as hypercompetitive. At the time, the Heat were only a few months removed from a disappointing end to their 2021-22 season: a Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. The memory of that game seemed to fuel them.“We could barely get through those full-contact practices without everybody screaming at each other, yelling at the coaches that are officiating, arguing about the scores,” Spoelstra said.Erik Spoelstra has coached the Heat for 15 seasons.Kyle Terada/USA Today Sports Via Reuters ConAnd then something odd happened: Miami spent months wrestling with mediocrity. The N.B.A. is not an easy business. The Heat lost seven of their first 11 games. In late December, they had won only half. By April, they were bound for the play-in bracket, and with the No. 7 seed in the East on the line, they lost to the Atlanta Hawks. Needing to defeat the Chicago Bulls to secure the conference’s final playoff spot, Miami trailed by as many as 6 points in the fourth quarter — and then won by 11.The entire process, though, proved important. Despite their struggles, the Heat ignored the lure of quick fixes. They did not flip their roster at the trade deadline. Instead, they kept at the daily grind while banking on the belief that they would find their rhythm, that they would get it right when it mattered, that they were becoming more resilient.“Nobody let go of the rope,” Adebayo said.If the Heat slipped into the playoffs as an afterthought, they crashed the party once they arrived. They needed just five games to eliminate the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round (leading Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Bucks’ star forward, to offer his viral discourse on the definition of “failure”), then beat the fifth-seeded Knicks in six games. Miami proceeded to reach the N.B.A. finals by exacting a measure of revenge on the Celtics, walloping them in Game 7 of the conference finals — in Boston, no less.Miami Heat guard Kyle Lowry had 12 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists in Game 5.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesAs for facing a 3-1 series deficit to the Nuggets ahead of Monday’s game, some members of the Heat expressed as much confidence as ever.“We’ve been through so much adversity this season,” Adebayo said. “Who else would be in this situation?”Some of it could have come off as public posturing, except that the Heat seemed truly determined to extend the series. The Nuggets went 5 of 28 from 3-point range in Game 5, an effort that was due in part to the Heat’s aggressive defense. Butler, meanwhile, emerged from hibernation to go on a late-game scoring binge, and his two free throws gave Miami an 89-88 lead with 1 minute 58 seconds remaining.But the Heat went scoreless the rest of the way as the Nuggets seized their first championship behind Nikola Jokic, their do-everything center.“The last three or four minutes felt like a scene out of a movie,” Spoelstra said. “Two teams in the center of the ring throwing haymaker after haymaker, and it’s not necessarily shotmaking. It’s the efforts. Guys were staggering around because both teams were playing and competing so hard.”Spoelstra added that it was probably his team’s “most active defensive game” of the season.“And it still fell short,” he said.Udonis Haslem said he would retire after this season, his 20th with the Miami Heat.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesAfterward, Haslem said he was already thinking about next season and how the team’s returning players could build off their experience in the playoffs. He will not be among them.Haslem, who signed with the Heat in 2003 and won three championships with the team, is retiring. And while he played sparingly in recent seasons, he wielded outsize influence in the locker room. He also operated as a connective thread for the organization, as someone who understood pressure and hard work and the way things are done in Miami, from one season to the next — a phenomenon more commonly known as Heat Culture.Haslem pledged that he would still be around next season.“Somewhere close by,” he said. “Somewhere close by, I can promise you that.” More

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      The 1975-76 Denver Nuggets Almost Beat Dr. J to Win a Championship

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      Eight-year-old L.J. Jones thought his grandfather Ralph Simpson had been keeping a secret from him. So he demanded answers.“Grandpa, can I ask you something?” Simpson, 73, recalled his grandson saying, imitating the young boy’s serious tone.“Grandpa,” the boy said. “Somebody told me you was famous.”Simpson had to laugh. After all, he is not the most famous Ralph; that might be Ralph Lauren, or Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nor is he the most famous member of his family; that would be his daughter, the Grammy Award-winning soul singer India.Arie.“Grandpa’s not famous,” Simpson told his grandson. “I played for the Nuggets and played professional basketball.”Still, L.J. wanted to know, “Why you didn’t tell me?”Simpson started on the 1975-76 Denver Nuggets in the American Basketball Association. They were the only Nuggets group to make it to a championship round until this year’s team reached the N.B.A. finals. The 1975-76 squad lost the A.B.A. championship series in six games to Julius Erving’s New York Nets. The A.B.A. and N.B.A. merged before the 1976-77 season, and the Nuggets spent the next 47 years in basketball purgatory, with a few teams that inspired confidence but none that reached the finals.Ralph Simpson said his 1976 Denver Nuggets finals team was better than the Nets team, led by Erving, that won that year.Focus on Sport/Getty ImagesNow, the Nuggets are one win away from the first championship in franchise history. As they try to close the series at home Monday in Game 5 against the Miami Heat, they’ll be cheered on by some of the men who played for that A.B.A. title.“It has been so cool because the Nuggets currently making it to the finals has brought out a lot of memories for people that didn’t realize that Denver had an A.B.A. team that went to the finals,” said Gus Gerard, 69, a backup player on the 1976 finals team. He added, laughing: “The only frustrating thing for me is they’re showing all these highlights and it’s always the same ones of Julius Erving, the great Dr. J, dunking on us left and right.”Like today’s Nuggets, the 1976 team routinely demoralized opponents with its near unstoppable offense, but often felt like the underdog. The older Denver team also toiled in obscurity for much of the season.A Sports Illustrated article on May 29, 1976, lamented that “Denver games are not on national television,” and that “Denver box scores do not appear on most sports pages.” The article noted that some “large media outlets” still referred to the Nuggets as the “Denver Rockets,” which had been their name until 1974. The franchise changed its name because it planned to move to the N.B.A., where the name Rockets was already taken by Houston.The 1975-76 Nuggets had the best record in the A.B.A. They were led by three future Hall of Famers: Bobby Jones, Dan Issel and David Thompson. Nicknamed Skywalker, Thompson had been the top draft pick in 1975 in both the A.B.A., by the Virginia Squires, and the N.B.A., by the Atlanta Hawks. But he chose to sign with the Nuggets instead.“David Thompson, man, I used to get myself standing and watching him when I’m in the game,” said Byron Beck, 78, who played for Denver in all nine of its A.B.A. seasons and its first in the N.B.A. “You know, you catch yourself, ‘Oh!’ and he’s already gone doing something spectacular.”They were coached by Larry Brown, who won an A.B.A. championship as a player in 1969 with the Oakland Oaks, a men’s N.C.A.A. Division I basketball championship as a coach at Kansas in 1988 and an N.B.A. championship as a coach in 2004 with the Detroit Pistons.In 1975-76, the A.B.A. was contracting, having gone to seven teams from 10, and had only one division. The All-Star Game pitted the Nuggets against All-Stars from other teams.Claude Terry, then a Nuggets reserve guard, said he remembered going to the All-Star Game with his wife and their two children in a station wagon. He said he was “probably wearing old Levi’s and shoes that didn’t get messed up in the snow.”He added: “I don’t remember even being interviewed during the game.”Denver Nuggets Coach Larry Brown leaped off the bench at the buzzer after his team beat the A.B.A. All-Star team in Denver on Jan. 28, 1976.Sc/Associated PressThat season, the Nuggets packed their new McNichols Arena, which opened in 1975, with the pending N.B.A. merger in mind, and was demolished in 2000. Gerard remembered being swarmed for autographs and invited for free meals at restaurants, like the Colorado Mine Company.“They had, like, the best prime rib you ever tasted in your life,” Gerard said.Amid the excitement, there was also uncertainty. Preparation for the merger with the N.B.A. weighed on the players, who knew that only four of the seven A.B.A. teams would survive it. The Nuggets, Nets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs continued in the N.B.A.“Most of us didn’t have no-cut contracts,” Terry said, adding that players were “not nervous, but just trying to figure out what was next.”Terry said coming changes kept the players from appreciating what it to meant to play in the final A.B.A. season. Had there been social media at the time, Terry said they might have paid more attention to the significance.The Nuggets played the Kentucky Colonels in the first round of the playoffs and won in seven games. Then they faced the New York Nets, who had the best player in the series in Erving. Denver lost Game 1 at home. Facing elimination at home in Game 5, they won despite 37 points from Erving. Simpson and Issel led the team with 21 points each, and Gerard had 12 off the bench.If they could force a Game 7 in Denver, they were sure they could win it. But Erving led a furious fourth-quarter comeback in Game 6 to win the game and the championship.“We should have beat them,” Simpson said. “We had a better team. Even Julius Erving thought we did. But they got out on us.”Denver won Game 2 and Game 5 in the 1976 finals, but the Nets claimed the championship with a comeback win in Game 6.Richard Drew/Associated PressAs the years passed, though they stayed in touch with each other, some members of that Nuggets team became increasingly disconnected from the franchise. Most of them moved out of Denver, and went on to have careers outside of basketball.Thompson and Gerard went through well-publicized battles with drug addiction. Gerard later became a substance abuse counselor. He now works for the Fayette County government in Pennsylvania and still helps people recovering from addictions. Thompson participates in Nuggets fan events and attended Game 2 of the finals in Denver. He and Jones, who played for the Nuggets until 1978, started a religious nonprofit in North Carolina.Issel remained the most connected to the franchise. He played for the Nuggets until 1985, then returned as a broadcaster a few years later. Issel coached the Nuggets twice, the second time also serving as the team’s president. He apologized in 2001 after using a racial epithet toward Mexican people in response to a fan’s taunt, then resigned shortly afterward.This year, with his five grandchildren in tow, Issel went to Game 1 of the finals, which Denver won at home, 104-93.Simpson has been watching the games at home, and invites his grandchildren for a pizza party to watch with him. He didn’t get to play for Denver in its debut N.B.A. season because he was traded to Detroit, but the Pistons traded him back the next season. He stays in touch with A.B.A. and N.B.A. alumni by being active with the National Basketball Retired Players Association.Denver’s 47-year drought before returning to the finals is perplexing to him.“We’ve had some really good players,” said Simpson, who coached at a small school briefly and used to be a pastor in Denver. “I’m really surprised we haven’t won a title yet.”To win the franchise’s first, this year’s Nuggets have tried to focus narrowly on the task before them. Much like how the A.B.A. Nuggets weren’t thinking about history, these Nuggets aren’t using the franchise’s long drought as inspiration.“I don’t know much about it,” Denver’s Bruce Brown said. “Who was on that team?”He said he tries not to think about what a championship would mean for the franchise and for the city of Denver.“Then I’ll get too happy, too anxious,” Brown said. “I just try to stay in the moment.”The 1975-76 team’s try at making history has been obscured by the years, but Brown and his teammates are on the verge of completing the journey they began. More