Sports leagues don't shy away from scheduling games on holidays

This time last year, Phil Jackson, then the coach of the Lakers, complained that the NBA scheduled games on Christmas Day. It seemed, he said, that "Christian holidays don't mean anything" any longer. A few players echoed Jackson's sentiments, but the complaint died aborning.

This Christmas, Sunday, the league has scheduled five ... golddddd ... games. Four point guards, three referees, two free throws and an ad pitch in a timeout.

Of course, this year the pro basketball quintuple-header is not so much a Christmas bacchanalia as it is a debutante coming-out party for the NBA, inasmuch as the whole season so far has been lost to the lockout. If ever pro basketball was going to give up Christmas, it would not be 2011, because Christmas is to the NBA, well, what Thanksgiving is to the NFL. All that old-fashioned Currier and Ives/Norman Rockwell stuff -- with the family gathered around the turkey and then the Christmas tree -- is nice, but winter holidays are now primarily for gathering the family around whatever games are on television.

Anyway, sports are pretty agnostic when it comes to religion. As joyous as Christmas might be, the holiest day in the Christian calendar is Good Friday, and baseball has never shied away from scheduling games then. Nor, for that matter, has "Our National Pastime" been any more considerate about the most sacred times in other religions. Yom Kippur is most famous, athletically, as the day the World Series went on, as usual, but Sandy Koufax didn't pitch.

Muslim athletes have an even more trying time during Ramadan, when they must fast during daylight. I spent a day of fasting once with Hakeem Olajuwon, and I couldn't help but believe that his enforced dining routine had to have some debilitating effect on his ability to play 40 minutes or so a game.

Some people get terribly upset when players offer any displays of personal faith. Tim Tebow's kneeling has become a cause célèbre in some circles, but games are not government and athletes are not elected officials. And, good grief, that Tebowing sort of thing has been around forever. I remember playing Catholic schools in basketball when every kid on the team would cross himself before he took a foul shot. I asked a Jesuit priest I knew if that helped. "Well," he said, "it does if you're a good free-throw shooter."

Rather than worrying about Christmas Day, if I were the NBA, I'd be more worried about all those days on the schedule before Christmas this year, when nobody much seemed to care that the NBA was missing in action. If there's one thing the lockout showed us, it's that no matter how many shopping days before Christmas, we can very well do without any basketball days before Christmas.

Published Dec 21, 2011 | Modified Dec 21, 2011

FRANK DEFORD

Frank Deford is among the most versatile of American writers. His work has appeared in virtually every medium, including print, where he has written eloquently for Sports Illustrated since 1962. Deford is currently the magazine's Senior Contributing Writer and contributes a weekly column to SI.com. Deford can be heard as a commentator each week on Morning Edition. On television he is a regular correspondent on the HBO show Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. He is the author of 15 books, and his latest,The Enitled, a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007 to exceptional reviews. He and Red Smith are the only writers with multiple features in The Best American Sports Writing of the Century. Editor David Halberstam selected Deford's 1981 Sports Illustrated profile on Bobby Knight (The Rabbit Hunter) and his 1985 SI profile of boxer Billy Conn (The Boxer and the Blonde) for that prestigious anthology. For Deford the comparison is meaningful. "Red Smith was the finest columnist, and I mean not just sports columnist," Deford told Powell's Books in 2007. "I've always said that Red is like Vermeer, with those tiny, priceless pieces. Five hundred words, perfectly chosen, crafted. Best literary columnist, in any newspaper, that I've ever seen." Deford was elected to the National Association of Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. Six times at Sports Illustrated Deford was voted by his peers as U.S. Sportswriter of The Year. The American Journalism Review has likewise cited him as the nation's finest sportswriter, and twice he was voted Magazine Writer of The Year by the Washington Journalism Review. Deford has also been presented with the National Magazine Award for profiles; a Christopher Award; and journalism honor awards from the University of Missouri and Northeastern University; and he has received many honorary degrees. The Sporting News has described Deford as "the most influential sports voice among members of the print media," and the magazine GQ has called him, simply, "The world's greatest sportswriter." In broadcast, Deford has won a Cable Ace award, an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody Award for his television work. In 2005 ESPN presented a television biography of Deford's life and work, You Write Better Than You Play. Deford has spoken at well over a hundred colleges, as well as at forums, conventions and on cruise ships around the world. He served as the editor-in-chief of The National Sports Daily in its brief but celebrated existence. Deford also wrote Sports Illustrated's first Point After column, in 1986. Two of Deford's books, the novel, Everybody's All-American, and Alex: The Life Of A Child, his memoir about his daughter who died of cystic fibrosis, have been made into movies. Two of his original screenplays have also been filmed. For 16 years Deford served as national chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and he remains chairman emeritus. He resides in Westport, CT, with his wife, Carol. They have two grown children – a son, Christian, and a daughter, Scarlet. A native of Baltimore, Deford is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has taught American Studies.

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