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NORTHERN TRUST OPENFebruary 3, 2010Jerry WestPACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA LAURA HILL: We'd like to welcome Jerry West, the executive director of the Northern Trust Open, to the interview room. And Jerry, I think it was May 28th, your birthday, when we announced you as the executive director. I know you've been hard at work. It must be really exciting to see this week finally come and see all the improvements and the changes for the event that you've brought forward. JERRY WEST: Well, it has been fun, and a lot of people ask me why would you want to get involved in something like this. The PGA TOUR to me is really pretty unique in their charitable giving, and when you hear the number that they've given back to charities in the local communities, I think it makes anyone who cares about giving -- and I'm at the point in my life where I really feel fortunate, and living here in Los Angeles has been so great to me, they talked to me about two different occasions, and I'm retired, and I said to myself why do I want to do this. But it really is about giving back to the community. The people I've been involved with so far, we had great -- I had a day yesterday that a lot of you would like to participate in. I had a chance to play golf with our ex-president George W. Bush, Phil Mickelson -- there was six of us playing at LA Country Club, the South Course. It was a fun-filled day for me. But more importantly spend time around a man I hate to call Mr. President because he almost seems like your next door neighbor. It was a great day for me, and I wouldn't have had that opportunity personally if I hadn't been involved in this tournament. It's been fun. We're hopeful that this will be an event that everyone will come to. I've talked to a number of the players out there, and they said this is one of their favorite golf courses, and our field, I think, is pretty indicative of that. Q. If we were just having a drink on a napkin, give us the best stories from yesterday with Phil and -- JERRY WEST: (Laughing) Well, a few years ago -- I don't know if it's okay to mention brand names or not in here, but Titleist sent me some golf balls that had 44 and had my signature on them, okay. So one of the people we were playing with I play with on occasion, Margie Perenchio, who is a great friend of mine and a terrific golfer, as a matter of fact they won the pro-am golf event here last year. She threw one of the balls to the president, and I was playing the same ball. And he hit a ball in one fairway and I was a little bit longer than him, and I think he said, which ball is that one. I said, well, I think that one is yours back there. But along the way, he gave me two George Bush balls. I said to him last night, we had dinner over at the Beverly Hills Hotel, great evening, by the way, wish y'all could have been there, very small crowd. I said to him, you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to take one of your golf balls and I'm going to take it out there and put it just on the out-of-bounds line to make sure everyone knows that you hit it there. He looked at me and said, I don't think I want you to do that. I said, I'm not going to hit one of your balls out of bounds that's for sure. But it was really a fun day. Phil made about nine birdies, and he was great to play with and very congenial. A lot of laughing going on out there. I like to kid and I like to spar, and a lot of sparring going on out there. A lot of fun. Q. Who were the other three, and did you still finish in under three hours? JERRY WEST: Well, we had six, and we still finished -- we had some secret service guys. I asked the president, do they ever smile, and he says no. (Laughter.) Q. Can you talk about any surprises coming into this job that it's turned out to be like, wow, I didn't expect it to be like that, besides maybe the amount of hours you put in obviously? JERRY WEST: Well, you know the thing I've been pretty impressed with is the integrity of the pro players. These guys are the nicest people. They're willing to help. I think they realize how important it is for them to be fan friendly, unlike some other sports where players are really protected. These guys are out there for everyone to see. When they're out there playing, they're very serious about what they're doing, but they really do care. I've been so pleased at some of these people I've watched from a distance. I admire golf a lot. Anyone who plays an individual sport, I know how difficult it is. Some of them I've known over the years, and -- the older ones. The younger ones have been just great to me. Really, it's my pleasure to be involved in it. It's not something that -- I take what I do seriously, but I certainly don't take myself seriously. We've had a good time. We've really raised revenues a lot, and we think they're going to be a lot greater the next year. Q. I'm sure you have a vision for what you want this tournament to be. How much of it were you able to accomplish do you think in such a short time, nine months or so? JERRY WEST: Well, I will tell you there's been more articles written about this golf tournament this year than I have seen in the last 15 years. And again, my relationship with the press has really been good. I do have a passion, I really do. I don't like to do anything haphazardly. I think it's embarrassing. And when you've involved with the TOUR and what they contribute to the local communities and the economic background that helps all businesses and everything, it's really impressive. But the players themselves are such gentlemen, and frankly, their language is a little bit different than the language I heard when I was a basketball player and worked in the basketball business. So it's been fun. You know, and I will tell you, I'm really pleased with what we've done so far. It takes a lot for me to be pleased, by the way. Q. Obviously the measure at the end of the day is in your case charitable contributions, and that's how you'll know how well you did at this event. Considering what they've done in the past here, how much do you think you can grow that in the first year? JERRY WEST: Well, we think we're going to do considerably better. I'm not sure yet because the tournament is not completed and all the final figures are not there, but we think we're going to do considerably better. I'll give you an example of something. This event we had last night was really special. A friend of mine Brian McKnight, he's an R & B singer, great singer and Roy Ru, one of our Legends Club members, he brought a 15-year-old kid over from South Korea who was a classical pianist. He's a real prodigy. If you people could have been there last night, it was a very special night, and the President got up and made an incredible speech, okay. It was one of the most touching evenings I've spent. Roy is from South Korea, and he knows my brother was killed there. He and I, it's almost like I made a new friend, one of the nicest people I've been around, and so philanthropic that it's just mindboggling, but a really good guy. He got up last night, and he says he travels about 500,000 miles a year, and he put the evening on himself. He got up and started talking, he already belonged to 14 golf clubs and he also had 14 different sets of golf clubs. He's truly a golfer, he loves golf, and he's great friends with the President. It was a really, really good evening. That's one of those special events that I would have never been invited to before, and I can tell you I will cherish that. It was -- I've been involved in great things where winning is really important, but this was really more about friendship and giving last night, and it was a great night for all of us. Q. Tiger Woods is a noted absentee from the PGA TOUR at the moment. Since last May you've made it one of your objectives to try and get Tiger back at Riviera. Just curious how close you came to getting a commitment prior to those events last November. JERRY WEST: I don't think anyone could have answered that. I've known Tiger since he's been 16 years old. His father and I and him talked on a number of occasions. We hosted him at a lot of games. I wrote him a letter and talked to him about the President's coming, and the only thing I said to him was we would love for him to play in this tournament. I understand the enormous amount of requests he gets for doing things, and I know he has to be picky, but obviously the one thing I was hopeful for is they go from here to Pebble Beach, and we would love to have him here someday; to watch a real genius at work is incredible, and it would add greatly to our field. But we do have a great field, we really do. I met Y.E. Yang out at the Chevron tournament, and I told him, I said, why don't you come and play in the tournament over here, and his agent is a basketball fan, but he's a basketball fan, also. I said, I'll tell you what, if you come play, I'll give you my four seats to the Laker game, and I also have a parking pass. Now, I have to go. I have to go to the game tonight to present Kobe Bryant a ball, and I'm going to stick a knife in it when I give it to him (laughter.) But I'm going to have to find a ticket for myself. But he's going to go; Ernie Els is going to use my tickets on Friday night. And the Lakers have been so nice to make a hospitality-like event before the game and also provide tickets for them. I really appreciate their contribution. We have a number of players out here that do like basketball. Q. Did you watch the game on Monday night, and what feelings -- tell us what you went through that night. JERRY WEST: I'm not much for -- somebody asked me how did that feel for somebody like me. I really honestly -- I know I scored 25,000 points, but I have no idea what it was. There's been so many people that have scored more than 25,000 points because they started playing younger, and I also missed two full seasons in my career, at the height of my career. I had a chronic hamstring problem and I tore it one time, and I missed a lot of games at the height of my career when scoring points was the easy part of it. But I think the one thing that I most admire about basketball players and probably people that play individual games is the ones who are really basketball players and the ones who are really golfers. Some people can go score on a golf course but they can't win. I know how hard the game is. But basketball to me is about the best all-around players. I admire him so much. There's two, three things I'm going to say to him tonight that I wouldn't -- if he wants to repeat them, then he can repeat them. But I have a real special place in my heart for him. Q. How long could you -- I know you have a contract, but how long could you see yourself doing this tournament? I'm sort of wondering what your thoughts were when you went into it since you kind of came out of retirement to do this, and maybe now having gone through all the buildup how long you can see yourself -- JERRY WEST: I've never been presumptuous enough -- even when I worked as an executive with the Lakers and we won a lot, won a lot of games, won a lot of championships, I never, ever felt that I could dictate something like that. Sooner or later people have to want you to be involved, so I never presumed that someone would want me involved. I don't do that. I don't look at myself that way at all. You know, as I say, we'll see how this works out, and I'll talk to them after if they think I can help, and more importantly if we can raise more money for charity then obviously I would consider doing it again. Q. It's more of a fun question than anything. In regards to Kobe and yourself, all the sports talk shows, and I'm sure anybody sitting in a bar anywhere right now, they're all saying, is he the greatest Laker, who's the greatest Laker. You've got yourself, you've got Elgin, you've got Magic. What do you think right now? Or is it too early in his -- JERRY WEST: Do you think I would dare answer that question? Q. Sure! JERRY WEST: I don't think so. The Lakers have probably been one of the most fortunate franchises of all. They've had some of the truly greatest players of all time playing. I don't think a franchise, for players of the caliber that are in the Hall of Fame, I think the Lakers have had the greatest ones involved, and they're going to have more great ones involved in the Hall of Fame. I'm just happy that people would think I belong in that group. I love to compete. That's what my life is about, competing, and I love to win. Pretty miserable to be around when we didn't win, to be honest with you. But that's what really drove me, my passion. If you don't have passion for things in life, you shouldn't do it. You should not do it. I don't like to do anything in a haphazard manner. As a basketball player I was a very serious basketball player. I didn't run around beating myself on the chest. I didn't run around hugging the other players. That's not something -- I don't believe in that. You say hello to them after the game, but I certainly don't believe in that. Q. Will you divulge any of the scores from yesterday? JERRY WEST: Oh, my gosh, I really don't know. There was one person that picked the ball up two or three times. I'm not going to repeat who it is. (Laughter.) But I will tell you the President has got a beautiful driver swing, he really does. If he would play, I think he would be a very nice player. And Phil was just ridiculous, okay. Anyone would like to be that good. But it was fun to play with him, and everyone really enjoyed him. But the President was exceptionally fun. A lot of needling going on out there, and a few people getting to know me. I'm fun to be around, okay. I'm fun to be around. And more importantly if you like to be a kid -- I like to be a kid, okay, I really do. But I also love to needle people, too. It was a great day yesterday. As I say, I'm really -- this is one thing. I think we all have misgivings about things we do in our lives. This is one thing, when I first said I would do it, I said, what in the world am I doing? I had a great year last year. I have a lot of interests that keep my mind pretty occupied, and in the last week I will tell you, I probably slept four or five hours a night. My mind has not shut off, because I want this to be special, and if we can make it special and get more people to come out here, that's the reason why I'm in involved, because we are going to give money to local charities, and I'm hopeful in a city like Los Angeles that we can get to raise $6, even $10 million for the local charities. I don't believe that you -- I believe you set lofty goals, very lofty goals, because I think it makes you keep reaching. I think it makes you keep working, and that's really -- I'm hopeful what we can do here. Q. The needling part, did you by any chance needle Phil at all about the wedge yesterday? JERRY WEST: I refuse to comment on that. (Laughter.) Q. Oh, come on. JERRY WEST: We had a discussion. We had a discussion, but it was pretty private. We had a great time, though. We had a really great time. Q. When I interviewed you at media day, I said if you truly are Mr. Clutch, you're going to do something about the weather, and it looks like you're coming through, because it was supposed to really be bad early in the week, all weekend, and now just Friday is what we hear. JERRY WEST: Well, I think some of you people here have helped us. We've been talking to the weather guy, and we're going to make sure that they stay away from the rest of the week. Every player I've talked to this morning talked about what great shape this course is in, and I think that's a credit to the Riviera Country Club, their staff, their greens keepers and everything, and my relationship with them has just been fantastic. Northern Trust, incredible title sponsor. The money they've given to local charities and this -- what is it, 18-day countdown we had before the tournament, that was really fun. And then yesterday the Tickets For Charity program, they presented someone a check for $20,000. So they've been great in giving back to the local community. That's what makes you feel good. I have to do a -- I'm supposed to be an expert in I guess some kind of a lawsuit, and you get paid for it. And somebody said to me, well, how -- I said I have no idea. You don't have to pay for me because I'm not going to do anything but tell my opinion about what it takes to be an executive and what the requirements are. But they said, well, we have to pay you, and I said, well, the money is going to go to Special Olympics and I have a special place in my heart for them. This is really what drives me today. I love to give. I really do like people a lot, and sometimes people don't get to know that when they see you on the basketball court or somewhere. But I've had a special relationship here with the people of Los Angeles. If I can do anything for the city, I'll do it. Q. Did Phil let you hit a shot on his Ping Eye 2? JERRY WEST: You have to be diplomatically correct sometimes or politically correct sometimes. I know people like to talk about things like that, but I'm sure that -- I never liked controversy. You know, I don't know the rules real well, but it sounds like to me he's playing with a legal club. I know the other players playing with him, no one says anything to them about it I don't think. Are there other players playing it? But they always throw rocks at glass houses. He's a pretty popular figure out there and an enormously great player. You know something, there should be something done about it. I think it's a ridiculous thing. Rules and regulations, golf obviously is a lot more stringent in their requirements anymore. But I know in basketball that would never come up, okay. That would never come up in basketball because the rules are pretty explicit. So until they find a way to settle the controversy between the two bodies, I guess it will still be out there. But as I say, I'm not a golf expert at all. We were watching him hit golf balls today, and I said, my God, it sure sounds different when they hit it than when I hit it, I know that. Q. Do you ever remember calling somebody out at another team or another player? In your sport what would that be? How would that be -- JERRY WEST: I would never do that. I would never do that. It's just not something I feel comfortable doing. I think in every sport there's people that are more outspoken -- in basketball we had more characters in basketball, okay. People that do -- we've had an incident in the NBA here recently where the Commissioner suspended two players for a full season over someone that -- something that said it was a joke. And I'm not sure any of you knew Abe Pollin, the former owner of the Wizards. He is one of the most incredibly nice men ever, and he changed the name of that team from Bullets to Wizards because of all the crime and the deaths in the D.C. area. And I'm sure that he would be incredibly displeased because Gilbert Arenas was one of his favorite players. But I think that's best left to people who know what they're talking about. I don't like controversy. It's not something -- I think writers like it, and when other people complain about something. But I think golfers are much more frank than probably other athletes. But it's not something I -- if we had a player on our team that was not conforming to what I thought was the standard set for the Los Angeles Lakers, and we held our players to a higher degree of excellence, I would bring a player in to talk to him, but it would never be to -- it would be almost like a father talking to his son to be candid with you. These kids are depending on a lot of people today. We get younger kids out there, as we're seeing on the PGA TOUR. But I've always felt that for some of these young kids -- I pay more attention to the younger players than I did the old ones to be candid with you. But I just don't like controversial things, and it's easy to be controversial if you just open your mouth at the wrong time. I don't understand the rules. Someone tried to explain them to me, and that was like me listening to this young 15-year-old South Korean kid play the piano last night. Absolutely amazing. You don't know how he did it. But to me with golf, I don't understand square grooves, round -- I don't understand it. You've just got to hit the damn thing and try to find it. I certainly myself wouldn't comment on it. LAURA HILL: Jerry, thanks for spending some time with us, and have a great week. JERRY WEST: Thank you. I really appreciate it. End of FastScripts |
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