SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2020 D1
N2-3 PRO FOOTBALL
Baker Mayfield and the
Browns continue a rare run.
4-5 SKIING
Backcountry is a wild ride.
(Watch out for avalanches.)
6 BOXINGErrol Spence Jr.’s win
sets him up to face
Terence Crawford
next, right? Wrong.
Death stalks us always. It is a bitter
truth we tend to shove from our
thoughts in typical times. But during a
pandemic, we cannot. It is before our
eyes daily, in the news, in our communi-
ties, sometimes in our
homes.
We lose beloved public
figures every year, of
course. But this year we
lost them with an awful
and steady rhythm, often
for reasons that had nothing to do with
the coronavirus.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. John Lewis.
Chadwick Boseman.
Sports was not immune. Who can
forget the helicopter crash in January
that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter
Gianna and seven of their friends?
The losses continued. Tom Seaver.
Bob Gibson.
Their obituaries reminded us of ath-
letic greatness, better days and bril-
liance too often overlooked. Joe Mor-
gan, Don Shula and John Thompson.
But also Vicki Wood, among the first
women to compete in NASCAR. And
Nancy Darsch, the brilliant basketball
coach. And Eva Szekely, a Jewish swim-
mer from Hungary who survived the
Holocaust and won Olympic gold.
Our personal sports icons have a way
of living alongside us, enduring and
powerful in our memories. We marvel
at their talent, their ability to perform
during the tensest moments. Their
stories become guides. Their victories
and bitter losses become signposts
marking the march of time.
Last week, I lost such an icon.
The great decathlete and humanitar-
ian Rafer Johnson died at 86.
When I read the news, I shuddered. I
bowed my head and said a prayer of
thanks for the way his story had
shaped me — and for the one time we
met.
My memories of Rafer Johnson stitch
well into my childhood, my teens and
beyond. I remember 1984, sitting in
front of a television with my parents as
we watched the opening ceremony of
the Summer Olympics.
Johnson, then 49, strode the stairs of
the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to
light the Olympic torch.
The Life
He Led
Guided
My Path
Rafer Johnson, who lit the flame for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, is one of the icons whose death hit particularly hard in a year full of loss.MIKE NELSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGESKURT
STREETER
SPORTS OF
THE TIMESContinued on Page D2Andre Iguodala’s family members
were reluctant card game participants.
He is, after all, the father who used a
casual family game night of Uno to in-
voke Sun Tzu’s military teachings in
“The Art of War.”
“I know what color he has in his hand,”
Iguodala, the Miami Heat veteran, said
as he recalled a recent game. “I know
what color she has in her hand. I know
what card she’s about to throw in.”
Afterward, he told his 13-year-old son,
Andre II, that his cutthroat mentality
had little to do with winning.
“I’ve learned to pick up on my sur-
roundings,” Iguodala said. “That’s some-
thing I’ve taught him and that I try to
teach him. ‘When you’re watching me
play, see how I’m playing, knowing your
opponent.’ It’s like ‘The Art of War’ and
giving him a few tactics on just seeing life
a certain way, where you’re ultra alert
and you try to use those things to your
advantage. Data is the key.”
That philosophy has been vital for the
36-year-old Iguodala. Players his age
make it this far only by countering the
loss of young legs with the wisdom of
miles traveled.
“There’s no such thing as having
enough knowledge,” Iguodala said.
He plays as though he has already wit-
nessed a sequence, arriving with a quick,
solid poke of a ball on defense or deliver-
ing a pass before a teammate steps into
the previously unoccupied space, tend-
encies learned through a lifetime of
studying the game.
He credits that knack to playing for
hours a day growing up, watching film as
a young player, and witnessing up close
the work of the league’s defensive stal-
warts of that era, players like Scottie Pip-
pen, Bruce Bowen and Metta World
Peace.
“From there, you just store the infor-
mation, learning the trends of the
league,” Iguodala said. “Most teams run
the same exact plays, so you know where
the ball is going before it gets there.”
The mind-set expands beyond the bas-
ketball court to entrepreneurial ventures
in technology and e-commerce, worlds
he started exploring before his 2013trade to the Golden State Warriors solidi-
fied his link to Silicon Valley.
“The folks that follow the tech space,
they all know the data is king and we all
know the importance of data,” Iguodala
said. “And not just the importance of
data, but how you use it and how you can
use it to expand and build your com-
pany.”
When this year dawned, all data on the
basketball side suggested that Iguodala
would not figure in the N.B.A. postsea-
son for the first time in a long while.
The Warriors traded Iguodala to the
Memphis Grizzlies last off-season after
he had played in five consecutive league
finals, earning the finals Most Valuable
Player Award in 2015. The trade created
a standoff in which Iguodala and Mem-
phis agreed that he would not report to
the organization as the Grizzlies found a
future home for him.
For a while, Iguodala appeared more
often at the enterprise software com-
pany Zuora, where he is a board adviser,
than on any N.B.A. radar.As N.B.A. Days Wind Down, Iguodala Is Ever Prepared for Next Move
By JONATHAN ABRAMSAndre Iguodala, 36, is known for his anticipation on the court. But he has also
become deeply engaged in technology ventures and athlete advocacy.KELLEY L COX/USA TODAY SPORTS, VIA REUTERSContinued on Page D6