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Drawing Room: Valley Artist Remembers Athletes of the Past

By Patti Myers
Copyright © 2007 The Desert Sun
Used by permission.

Local author and cartoonist Murray Olderman is photographed inside his Rancho Mirage home in 2005. Next to him on his drawing table are his color caricatures of golfer Tiger Woods and USC head football coach Pete Carroll. Topps baseball cards contracted Olderman to hand sketch cards for one-of-a-kind special edition packets. Photo: Taya Kashuba Gray, The Desert Sun

Rancho Mirage (Jan. 28, 2007) -- With his work spanning six decades, Murray Olderman not only talks about the history of sports, he's lived it.

Olderman stacks voluminous files in his Rancho Mirage home, alongside his sketchpads, computers and scanner.

Pictures of the greatest athletes in sports adorn his home-office walls, with Olderman prominently in each frame, whether he was handing out an award (he founded the Jim Thorpe Award for the NFL's MVP and the Maurice Podoloff Award for the NBA's MVP) or receiving one for his work.

Olderman was talented enough to juggle a dual career, one that kept him along the sidelines for more than 60 years. From tennis to golf, boxing to basketball, the versatile award-winning sports journalist, cartoonist and author released "Mingling With Lions" last year. He also published his first non-sports book, "Angels in the Forest" - a story in which he collaborated with local Holocaust survivor Earl Greif.

His "Mingling With Lions" is a personal retrospective of first-hand accounts of working with and beside some of the greatest players in sports history.

"These are stories about my relationship with them the way I saw them," said Olderman, who continues to work as a writer and illustrator for local and national publications and is offering some of his collections of video tapes, annuals, murals and sports memorabilia through his Web site at www.MurrayOlderman.com. "These people have a certain public persona. I wanted to show them how I saw them as people. I came from a gentler age when the relationships with athletes weren't quite as adversarial. You had a chance to mingle with them."

Living History

Along with his enlightening conversations with legendary boxers Rocky Marciano and Jack Dempsey, Hall of Fame golfers Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus and baseball stars Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, Olderman recalls his special relationships with colorful and detailed script and whimsical illustrations.

He often would run alongside Marciano during a training workout through the streets of Brockton, Mass.

Olderman walked 18 holes, pen and notebook in hand, behind an up-and-comer named Nicklaus and waited as Nicklaus received his first professional paycheck - $33.13.

"I saw him blast his first drive 275 yards in front of 42 people - I counted them," Olderman explained in his book. "I followed him all four days watching him, hooking drives, flubbing putts, but he became easy to deal with, accessible, whether he was playing well or lousy."

All the stories, however, didn't have the best of beginnings - or endings.

"I talked about Jim Brown and Reggie Jackson," said Olderman, who stays active playing recreational tennis at age 84. "I had some real confrontations with them. But I told it the way I saw it and the way I saw them. I felt that there are enough people who are interested in the history of sports that would like to know more."

He said Howard Cosell's pompous persona as a broadcaster was the flip side of his poised and intelligent side in real life.

Olderman said Marciano was one of the stingiest men alive.

"He never carried money because it meant he might have to pick up the tab," Olderman noted in the book.

Olderman's illustrations were a staple in the sports pages of the 1960's and 70's, while today's sections are filled with on-court and in-court accounts, fantasy league stats and quick-hit information.

"Back then, I was making as much money as the guys I was writing about and that's not true today," he said. "There's a great disparity and the attitude of athletes toward the writers has changed. They consider it an intrusion. They used to appreciate the attention they got and it affected relationships.

"I don't deplore change. The athletes today are bigger, faster, stronger and more dedicated because there's much more at stake, but they've crossed the line into entertainment. There's still a little bit of little kid in athletes, but when they get to the level that, for instance, Roger Clemens is, they're entertainers. They're making big money and they don't mingle as well."

Some can't. Others won't.

With multi-million dollar contracts, agents and public relations firms pulling at the athletes from every direction, writers are often herded into press conferences and players are whisked away as soon as the last question is answered.

Olderman witnessed that first hand when he covered the Pacific Life Open.

"I think Roger Federer is a terrific athlete," Olderman said. "But you can't get close to him. He seems like a nice guy, but you can't sit down and talk with him, unless it's arranged or you're on the circuit (traveling writers)."

That rarely happened when Olderman began his career.

As a high schooler, he wrote for a New York county weekly, attended college, peddled himself as a writer/illustrator which led to a full-time job that progressed into national syndication. His work was distributed to more than 700 daily newspapers by the now-defunct Newspaper Enterprise Association.

Olderman blossomed into one of the leading authorities on pro football, attended the first 32 Super Bowls, became president of the Professional Football Writers Association of America and was inducted into the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Hall of Fame in 1993.

Olderman taught during the summer session at the University of Oregon for seven years following semi-retirement. He shared time between there, Northern California and the Coachella Valley until he moved here permanently in 1988. The father of three has been married to wife Nancy for more than 60 years. While not a big sports fan, Nancy often accompanies Olderman to events. He also continues to write and draw at home.

Olderman's work is so highly-regarded he was contracted to draw a one-of-a-kind card series for Topps in 2005. His illustrations have come full circle with the baseball card company.

"When I was quite young, I got an assignment to draw cartoons in baseball cards. That was back in 1958-59. I was freelancing, had a lot of energy."

He still does.

After 40 years, he was contracted for a special series of original drawings. He sketched 195 of them in two months.

"We just thought it would be a cool twist to have him create his own set," said Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi. "We have a product called Topps Gallery with the focal point being artists' renditions of players. We had done some Star Wars with several artists, and it was huge, so we thought this would be a great program to carry over into sports. It was a natural fit because of his history with the company."

"You can see how fast they go on eBay," he said. "These are hard to find one-of-a-kind cards."

Longtime columnist Ira Berkow of the New York Times has worked alongside Olderman on countless occasions, from the Super Bowl to spring training. He noted that Olderman's unique combination of journalism and artistry is missed in today's sports pages.

"He has combined both the brilliance of sports writing with the charm of sports illustration, and for more than a half a century he has been one of the wisest and most artistic sports observers in America."

Longtime NFL writer Jerry Magee of the San Diego Union-Tribune said Olderman was one of the few writers who became close with Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis.

"Very few get close to Al Davis and he was one of them," Magee said. "He was back in an era where some of the newspaper guys would get close and Murray was one of them."

Olderman still maintains contact with his subjects and doesn't seem to waste a minute in his "so-called" retirement years, but he does admit there are some things he's missed along the way.

"Someone I would have enjoyed getting to know is Michael Jordan," he said. "It's hard to pick someone out that I would have liked to know better. I first saw Jordan on the Olympic team in '84, but here again it was a matter of access.

"Like Tiger Woods, you can't get beyond the facade. Very few people can penetrate it."

Olderman did when he sat side-by-side with the greatest in sports history and it's forever remembered in Mingling with Lions.