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Sonny Rollins
Greatest Living Jazz Soloist
Sonny Rollins: I have always been a person that has had a strong sense of right and wrong, a strong spiritual guide or guardian angel or belief maybe, I don't know how to explain it, but a conscience maybe. There was always something inside of me that was talking to me all the time. When something talks to me, like the thing with the drugs, I realized something said, "Yeah," and it finally came to me, "This is not the way to go." I just have that in me, and when I find something that I want to do, I block out everything else, and I would do it. It's the sense of right and wrong, so it doesn't matter to me that people were saying, "How can you leave the music? Because they won't accept you back if you go away. You will lose your edge," and all. This was inconsequential to me, because I had an idea that I wanted to improve my self, my musical arsenal, if you will. So I do what I want to do, and that's that. I am very strong about that, and this has held me in good stead, just listening to the inner voice. This is what I do, and I am happy about it, that I have that much determination, if you want to call it that. That's what I have done all my life, and the sabbaticals were the same.
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Sonny Rollins
Greatest Living Jazz Soloist
I realized I wasn't sounding as good as my reputation was, so I wanted to kind of get to that point where I wouldn't be ashamed to go on the bandstand, which happened to me one time on a job I was playing with Elvin Jones, at that time, was the drummer playing with me. We used to go around, had a big sign, "Sonny Rollins is coming to town," everybody was there, but I didn't sound good, and I knew I wasn't playing up to what I should be. So I said, "Okay, I am getting out of here. I am going to go and woodshed," as they say, and get myself together.
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Pete Rozelle
Pro Football Hall of Fame
You're in a strange position, because you work for these people, and yet, it's up to you to enforce the constitution and by-laws that they set up. So there's discipline involved, and you have to take issue with them on some things they might want to do, and say, "Well, you can't do that." But they were pretty good. Most of them understood. I know that George Halas was, of course, almost the founder of the National Football League, a great Chicago Bear coach and owner. And I remember, I had to call him in, and he flew in from Chicago. Called me from the airport, and asked if we could meet out there. I said, "No, I want to see you in my office. And he came in and we talked over whatever the problem was at the time. But he didn't get mad. He was very supportive of me. He had respect for authority and knew they had to have a strong commissioner. Not someone who would do just what was, at the time, the thing to do, but one that would stick to their guns and do what they felt was right.
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Pete Rozelle
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Pete Rozelle: There were reports that some players had been betting on games. It was never established they ever bet against their own team. But in the final analysis, I developed enough information through investigation that -- the big one was Paul Hornung, who was a great star with the Green Bay Packers, and Vince Lombardi was his coach. I remember when I called Vinnie and asked him to come in to see me. So he flew into New York. He was a remarkable man. Paul was the star of his championship team, and I laid out the information that we had about Paul, what Paul had been doing. And again, never betting against the Packers, but betting on football. Vince looked at it, he said, "Well, you have no choice, do you?" I said, "I don't think so, Vinnie. Let's go get a drink." He really handled it like a man. Because coaches have an inordinate interest in their football players, and he wanted that talent on the field, and they will argue almost on any case, saying, "Well, you should let him play." But Vince was outstanding in that way. He, the man in authority -- from respect for his authority with the players, with everyone in the Green Bay organization -- but he also gave authority to the commissioner.
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Pete Rozelle
Pro Football Hall of Fame
Pete Rozelle: That was a direct challenge to the NFL constitution, which said you have to have a three-quarters approving vote if you're going to move your franchise. And we had Davis challenge that in his move from Oakland to Los Angeles. And it was sitting there in the constitution, and I couldn't just say, "Oh, I'm not going to press this." I brought it to the attention of the owners, and I said, "I think we have to defend this constitution." So we had two trials over a couple of years. They were long ones. And the trial was in Los Angeles, where he ultimately won with the jury. So he was permitted to move from Oakland to Los Angeles. And that decision in itself triggered a couple of other moves. From Baltimore to Indianapolis, that bothered people in the Baltimore area of course. But stability is a great thing in sports, and the fans feel a definite loss when they lose a franchise, it's not good for a sport.
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Bill Russell
Cornerstone of the Boston Celtics' Dynasty
So he says, "I'm going to make a list of six guys, and you make a list of six guys. And we find one guy that fits on both lists, that could be our new coach." There was no match. So he says, "Well, I'm going to hire this guy." I says, "Oh no. If you hire this guy " -- he brought his name up -- " if you hire him, I'm retiring with you." He says, "You mean that?" "Yes, I do. I'm not going to play for him. I don't even want to be in the same room with him." And so he said, "What do you want me to do?" I go, "Okay. I'll take it. You offered it to me first, I'll take it. But if it doesn't work -- and we'll see whether it works or not -- we can bring in somebody else, even if it's midseason and I will never complain and I'll play just as hard for him as I play for you." Because we were both interested in what was good for the Celtics and not what makes him look good or me look good or bad or whatever. It has nothing to do with anything. That's how I became the player-coach. But one thing I have to add is that, because I'm kind of hard-headed, I refused to have an assistant coach. And one of the reasons -- not the total reason, but one of the reasons -- was I knew that to do a good job right I had to completely, totally immerse myself into the position. And if I hired an assistant coach I would start laying off things for him to do that I should be doing, things that I watched Red do for ten years. See, he never had an assistant coach. Like one time he said to me, "Do you want me to hire you an assistant coach?" I said, "Yeah, we'll just hire one of yours." He had never had one!
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