My Sharoni

Got this awesome bracelet from my buddy @EricLeGrand52, benefitting his Patriot Saint Foundation. Rockin it proudly!

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Great seeing ESPN’s AdamSchefter & Rich “Big Daddy” Salgado at Nassau County Sports Commission Awards. I’m flanked by greatness!

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A Woman on Top

Wendy Booker is no stranger to being on top.

She has summited six of the world’s seven highest peaks. She has twice attempted to summit Everest, reaching an elevation of 23,000 feet. She has competed in 150 bike rides, triathlons and marathons.

Wendy Booker has done many times over what most humans can only hope to achieve once in their lifetime, and she has done it all with while living with Multiple Sclerosis. 

Wendy is not an athlete by nature. Twelve years ago, after being diagnosed with MS, she decided to run the Boston Marathon. She wanted to see how hard she could push herself, how hard she could fight back, as she puts it, “before the wheelchair.”

“26.2 miles was the distance of a lifetime for me,” Wendy says, “but it really opened me up to what I’m doing now.”

She continued to push herself, taking on the kinds of physical challenges that her doctors initially warned her to avoid, given her diagnosis. In her late 40s, Wendy went from being an interior designer and casual runner, raising three children in Massachusetts, to a woman living with MS who learned how to become a global mountain climber.  In 2004 at the age of 49, Wendy Booker took on one of the toughest mountains in the world, and became the first person with MS to stand atop the peak of Denali in Alaska (North America’s highest mountain).

What inspired her to take on the even greater contest of summiting the world’s Seven Summits, a task that many elite, able-bodied athletes fail to ever complete? Wendy realized that the Seven Summits were a metaphor for the challenge she faced in MS. “Multiple Sclerosis is a global challenge; it doesn’t exist only here in Massachusetts, specific to me,” she says. To date, Wendy has summited six of the seven peaks, and is the first person with MS to have done so.

Of course, being “on top” doesn’t necessarily mean you always reach the peak. Upon her first two attempts at summiting Everest, Wendy failed to complete the ascent. She reached an impressive elevation of 23,000 feet at the base of the Lhotse Face, but ultimately was forced to turn back. According to Wendy, it was her most humbling moment, because it was the first time that her disease truly prevented her from achieving her goal.

She points out that failure is an important part of the journey. “It teaches you humility, and as my father used to tell me: ‘It’s not what happens to you but how you react to it.’ Failing to reach your goal is okay, but it doesn’t mean you stop. You just need to change how you get there.”

To that end, Wendy decided, if she couldn’t reach the “top of the world” by summiting Everest, she’d head to the literal top of the world—the North Pole. She began her Polar Trilogy (North Pole, South Pole and Greenland) in the spring of 2011, with her journey to the North Pole.  In January 2012, on the 100^th anniversary of its discovery, Wendy journeyed to the South Pole, in commemoration of the bold explorers who went forth into the unknown in search of their goals all those years ago. Greenland is yet to come.

“I learned to appreciate and respect what true athletes go through, in terms of training and preparation of mindset,“ Wendy says. “It’s not all a walk in the park. You really get down and dirty. On a mountain like Denali in Alaska, you’re up there for a month with no shower, no water, no nothing. I love that.”

What started twelve years ago as a personal mission to prove to herself, her doctors, her family, even to her body—that she could live life to the fullest with this disease, has become something far greater. Wendy’s mission, like the physical goals she sets for herself, is truly global. Her wish now is to educate, motivate and inspire anyone facing a challenge of any scale.

“If I can do it, you can do it,” Wendy insists.

Self-discovery, serendipity, and stubbornness: These are what Wendy calls her “three-S’”. “Everybody has them,” she says. Wendy sees MS as a fortuitous accident –she was only offered the chance to climb Denali when she met a man with MS looking to assemble a group of people living with MS to be the first to ascend the mountain.  Wendy credits her parents with inspiring this mindset. Her father was a POW under the Japanese in WWII; her mother will turn 91 this year. Throughout her life, she says she never heard either one of them complain. “Their attitude was always, ‘step up to the plate,’ stay positive, laugh, be happy,” she says. Wendy also gives a great amount of credit to the drug therapies that are now available for MS, and tries to stress the importance of starting and adhering to a therapy to all those living with the disease, as often as she can.

“Many of the choices we make in life are based on perception. If I can change the perception that MS means a wheelchair or a disability or that a challenge means you have to give up on things…that’s what I really want to do,” Wendy states.

 “It’s been 12 years, and that wheelchair isn’t even on my mind.” 

*****************

To learn more about Wendy’s efforts, and to follow her on her incredible journeys, visit: www.wendybooker.net

Queens Girl Takes Unique Path to TV →

Proud to be repping my native borough of QUEENS! “Queens Girl Takes Unique Path to TV” (thanks to writer Jason Pafundi for making it happen).

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Gridiron Grunts: This New Player is a Game-Changer

On Sunday, February 5^th, over 100 million Americans will tune in to what is arguably the biggest televised sporting event of the year: Super Bowl XLVI.

In what promises to be a tense rematch, the New England Patriots will attempt to exact revenge on the New York Giants for their 2008 Super Bowl loss. Die-hard football fans and casual spectators alike will gather to indulge in food, stake their wages, and comment on a slew of highly anticipated commercials.

There’s one thing, however, that most Super Bowl viewers will be missing out on: The ability to chat with their favorite players.

It may seem far-fetched to assume that anyone other than a handful of privileged reporters would be afforded the luxury of speaking directly to the stars of the day, but technology has once again changed the game. There’s a new player in town: Gridiron Grunts.

Gridiron Grunts is a unique mobile communication platform created by athletes, for athletes and their fans.  The application allows pro-football players to deliver unfiltered audio messages, known as “grunts,” directly to their fans. It also allows fans to send their personal audio messages, in turn, directly to the players.

Gridiron Grunts is the brainchild of two former NFL players, offensive lineman Jeb Terry and defensive linebacker Ryan Nece. A seemingly odd couple given their respective positions, Jeb and Ryan became close friends during the four years they played together for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As pro-athletes, they became intimately familiar with the communication barriers that exist between athletes and their fans. According to Jeb, they view Gridiron Grunts “as a way for athletes to control and manage their brand in a way that they haven’t been able to do in the past, while creating authentic communication with fans.”

It is the authentic communication with fans that Ryan Nece, a Super Bowl champion himself (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Super Bowl XXVII), emphasizes the importance of. He notes that athletes on Twitter and Facebook have the option of designating their communication to a manager or publicist.  Because the Gridiron Grunts platform relies on voice, the player himself must deliver the message.  Leveraging the power of the human voice to foster the opportunity for a literal conversation between athletes and fans is what makes Gridiron Grunts so unique, according to Ryan.

Gridiron Grunts boasts an impressive roster of current NFL players, including popular Patriots players Wes Welker and Rob Gronkowski, Giants breakout star Victor Cruz and Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw—all of whom, barring injury, will be out on the field this Sunday.

One thing is certain: Two of those four athletes will emerge from the weekend victorious, as Super Bowl XLVI Champions.

Undoubtedly, the winners will want to share their elation, the defeated may want to explain their failures, and fans of either team will want to question, comment, lament and celebrate. Gridiron Grunts will be the place where the stories of Super Bowl XLVI are told, in the words of those who experienced it.

Gridiron Grunts is available for download on Apple iPhone: http://tinyurl.com/gridirongrunts  and Droid: http://tinyurl.com/droidgrunts

Follow Gridiron Grunts on Facebook: www.facebook.com/gridirongrunts
Follow Gridiron Grunts on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@gridirongrunts

Behind the scenes at NY Giants defensive end Justin Tuck’s “R.U.S.H. for Literacy” holiday event at Kenneth Cole’s SoHo store in NYC.

Forget In-Game Texting. PlayUp.

Sports bring people together. Fans celebrate the wins and commiserate over the losses, unite to heckle rivals and debate calls, plays and missed opportunities. They take to Facebook and Twitter to express opinions and monitor new information, and many spectators can be found texting furiously mid-game, be it from a stadium, a bar, or a living room couch.

The urge to exchange information during any given sporting event is likely an innate component of the spectator experience. The ways in which (and ease with which) spectators are now able to do so seems to be evolving by the minute, thanks to constant advances in mobile technology.

Enter PlayUp, the latest social network for sports.

PlayUp is a free iOS application that allows users to follow live games and create or join private or public “rooms,” in which they can interact with friends and fans. Each virtual room is connected to a live game, affording users the ability to cheer, trash talk, and debate strategy while keeping tabs on scores and updates. Unlike text messaging, the rooms allow for communication with a select group of individuals en mass, and unlike the clutter that occurs on a Sunday afternoon across Twitter time-lines and Facebook feeds, the chatter within any given PlayUp room tends to be focused solely on that particular match-up.

Founded in Australia and initially catering to the likes of Aussie-rules football, soccer and cricket, PlayUp launched its US platform in early October.  The app will provide stats and chat services for every professional sport in the US as well as for NCAA football and basketball, and thousands of other events from around the world. PlayUp estimates that their platform will feature over 25,000 events in 2011-2012.

The app interface is clean and easy to navigate. The ability to track live scores for a multitude of games occurring across the globe at any given moment while interacting with other fans—be they strangers or personal friends—bound by a common interest, is certainly the highlight of the platform.

The one major drawback that this Twitter-addicted user found: PlayUp is not yet integrated with Twitter. Toggling between the two platforms is tiresome, and will likely turn some users off.

PlayUp is currently integrated with Facebook, and according to PlayUp USA’s CEO, Jonathan Press, they do plan to integrate with Twitter and other text-based services in the future. This may just be the key to PlayUp’s success—as anyone who visits Twitter during a live game knows, the steady stream of real-time information cannot be replicated on a less fluid, more insular platform like Facebook.

PlayUp is ripe for development and plans to add games, contests and other components to enhance fan experience in the near future. Its most unique feature however, is one that may be overlooked in the excitement over the technological capabilities: PlayUp offers sports enthusiasts from across the world the ability to not only connect with like-minded fans, but to learn about sports they might otherwise know nothing about. An American football fan can drop in on an Australian rugby room as easily as an Indian cricket fan can stop by an NCAA hoops room.

It’s a small world, after all.

PlayUp is available in the iTunes App Store

A Mobile 26.2 Miles: NY Road Runners Launches Mobile Spectator App

Last year, roughly 2.5 million spectators lined the streets of New York City to cheer on the ING NYC Marathon participants. If that seems like a surprisingly high number, consider this: The event has a worldwide broadcast reach of 330 million, and is considered to be the largest and most inclusive marathon in the world. In fact, the marathon brings roughly $340 million in revenue to New York City—that’s more than a Yankees playoffs run ($90 million) and the Jets and Giants seasons ($160 million) combined.

It should come as no surprise then, that New York Road Runners has partnered with MapMyFitness to develop a GPS-based mobile spectator app which aims to simultaneously take advantage of this revenue generating opportunity and enhance spectator experience—whether fans are watching the race locally on the streets of New York City or remotely, from any location in the world. 

The app’s unique features, sleek interface and user-friendliness are impressive. Most of the good stuff comes at a price, of course: While a free version of the app is available, it’s the “premium” version ($2.99) that boasts the treats. The free version offers a professional athlete leader board with athlete profiles, an interactive course map (including special offers and NYC visitor information), and a photo and video gallery. The premium version offers live streaming of the men’s and women’s races, live streaming of NBC4 New York’s broadcast, and live tracking of 10 runners simultaneously.

Two of the more notable features: The ability to track any runner in the race (i.e., non-professional participants) and something called “Friend Finder.” Friend Finder  is a consent-based feature which allows spectators and/or race participants using the app to locate one another using GPS—be it at the finish line or among the throngs of spectators lining the streets in any one of New York’s five boroughs.

 

How well certain features will work when accessed via WiFi or 3G based services, remains to be seen—on that point, this frustrated AT&T customer remains rather skeptical.

From a broader perspective, however, the most interesting thing about the app has nothing at all to do with the marathon. The revenue generating potential created by its location-based “partner offers” looms large and could easily be applied to a multitude of sporting events, big or small.

According to Ann Wells Crandall, EVP of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships for NYRR, national runners bring an average of two to three spectators with them to the race, while international runners bring an average of five spectators. This is a potential boon for local businesses—one which they can capitalize on by partnering with the NYRR and offering discounts or freebies to the millions of onlookers and participants in their vicinity. Spectators braving the November chill may very well be interested in a free cup of coffee from the Dunkin Donuts located a block from where they’re standing, or an offer for a discount on a locally-baked bag of bagels.

The technology is scalable and translates relatively easily to other sporting events, regardless of size. A stadium full of football fans, for instance, is a captive audience that remains relatively untapped in this sense. Imagine an app which, using the same technology, enables a fan to find the concession stand that meets their needs, replete with QR code discounts and giveaways, explore various tailgates amid a sea of cars, and recommend local pit-stops for the long ride home.

It just so happens that in the case of the marathon, New York City is the stadium—packed with 2.5 million cheering fans.

The New York Road Runners Mobile Spectator App is available for the iPhone, iPad and Android platforms via the iTunes App Store: http://bit.ly/NYRRapp

Get “Fark’d Up” with Logan Morrison

Farkas Original Eye Black has partnered with pro athletes Logan Morrison and Jim Leonhard to launch “Athletes Against Stickers,” an organization which promotes the on-field superiority of eye black over stickers, and the role of professional athletes in setting a positive example for youth players on and off the field… (cont’d) 

http://farkaseyeblack.com/logan-morrison-farkas-eye-black-enter-charitable-partnership-to-get-farkd-up/

Curt Schilling is Bullish on Epstein, Bearish on Boston

On the heels of what is arguably one of the worst collapses in MLB history, the finger pointing and mud-slinging has only just begun in Boston. It appears, however, that there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for another city. As the saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Proving the adage true, the Chicago Cubs have inherited a potential savior in Theo Epstein.

Curt Schilling, who with Epstein, helped lead the Red Sox to World Series titles in 2004 and 2007, certainly thinks so.

“[Theo Epstein] is a brilliant baseball mind,” Schilling stated. “He’s going to put together a player development factory. He’s inheriting a very different team than when he came to Boston. It might not be instantaneous, but if it’s an 8 year, 10 year run, the Cubs will have a World Series - if not more than one - and they will have a player development factory in place.”

I sat down with Schilling on Thursday night at the unveiling of his company’s new video game “The Reckoning,” to discuss his ventures in the world of fantasy gaming and to get his take on Theo Epstein’s move and the Red Sox fiasco.

After flourishing under Terry Francona in Philadelphia, Schilling played a role in bringing Francona on as manager of the Red Sox. It comes as no surprise that he has been outspoken about his opinion on the matter of Francona’s recent treatment by the organization.

“What was done to Terry after he left by the ownership group of that team and by other people in that organization was flat out character assassination,” said Schilling. “I think that the fans in the Red Sox nation are rightfully very upset, embarrassed. It was disgraceful. The guy walked away, he took the high road. [Francona] could’ve thrown a lot of people under the bus but he didn’t do it and still hasn’t…and he was kicked heading out the door.”

To drive his point home, Schilling compared the Red Sox organization to its age-old rival, the New York Yankees:

“I think that in some way, [the Red Sox] have always looked at New York and said ‘Wow, I’m glad we don’t have those kinds of headaches.’ I think that in a day, they became much worse than anything George Steinbrenner ever was. At least [Steinbrenner] was honest and upfront and you knew it was him. This was a very chicken way to assassinate somebody’s character and I feel bad for [Francona].

Who exactly is responsible for airing Francona’s dirty laundry? Schilling asserts that there is only one possibility: “It’s the three men at the top and people around them in the executive team.”

Curt Schilling doesn’t limit blame to the executives, however. He also holds his former teammates accountable for the Red Sox historic September collapse. Schilling said that despite Terry Francona’s personal problems, he had the team moving in the right direction. “The bottom line is that those players quit on each other, they quit on the team, they quit on the organization and they quit on the fans,” Schilling said. “It’s all on them and, knowing some of them, that’s the most disappointing thing; that they quit and [Francona] paid for it.”

As for what the future has in store for the Red Sox sans Theo and Terry, Schilling states the facts: “The manager may be gone, the GM may be gone, but the same players that were part of one of the greatest collapses in the history of baseball, they’re coming back and that’s a bigger problem.”

Indeed, the Red Sox likely have a lot of soul-searching (and explaining) to do between now and the start of next season. In the meantime, Schilling says that he is happy for both Epstein and for the Chicago Cubs. “I think it’s going to be a phenomenal move. He is going to do phenomenal things for that franchise.”

I’ll be sure to follow up with Curt Schilling in eight years to see if his prophecy about Theo Epstein and Chicago has proven true.