Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hindsight a precious commodity in sports
What do you wish you knew when you were younger?
The simplest questions bring the most interesting answers.
Dave Wannstedt, former Dolphins coach: “The importance of depth in … no, no, it’d be quarterback. Definitely quarterback. I don’t think I understood the importance of quarterback. I knew the importance of defense, running the ball and special teams. I think the one thing I wish I’d known is you need a great quarterback — you need two quarterbacks, really. I was hard-headed that way everywhere I went. The Dolphins. The Bears. Pitt. You can only win so much running the ball and playing defense and special teams. I thought you could coach around the quarterback. You can’t. That’s the one thing I wish I’d realized more right from the start.”
Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys owner: “How to view risk versus reward. If you’re on a par-5, do you hit the second shot over water to go for the green or not? That’s something you can only learn with experience. I’ve learned there’s nothing wrong with laying up and not going over the water all the time. At the same time, to achieve anything great there has to be some risk involved. How do you balance the two? That’s an answer I wish I knew at a younger age.”
Udonis Haslem, Heat forward. “Everything. And I mean everything. I used to just run and jump and bring a lot of effort. That’s what you do when you’re young. But with some experience you learn things. How to take care of body. How to practice. How to play a game with my head more than physically. My workouts now are very calculated where when I was young I was just working hard. If I could go back, I’d take a notebook full of stuff that I know now and help that kid who was just running and jumping around.”
JoAnne Carner, Hall of Fame golfer: “I’d learn to say, ‘No’ earlier than I did.
That might’ve been the best thing I learned. It took a while. It started with me having difficulty swallowing. I went to a ear, nose and throat guy. He said it’s just stress — there’s a muscle in the neck area that responded to stress. He said, ‘You’ve got to cut out outside activities. Don’t go to that many cocktail parties or speeches or things like that. Back off those.’ That’s where I first started to learn how to say, ‘No’ to people and things I hadn’t to that point. I played golf. I cut out most of the other stuff. And I felt better.”
Alonzo Highsmith, former University of Miami football star: “I wish I’d known what would happen when I switched from defense to offense. I did it because I was a team player. [Coach] Howard Schnellenberger asked me to do it. He thought I could make All-American as a linebacker, but I could make a bigger impact on the team as a fullback. He needed a fullback. People said, ‘Are you crazy?’ My high school coach always tells the story when they sent my film to Penn State, Joe Paterno said, ‘We don’t like highlight films. Can you send us the whole game?’ That was my whole game as a linebacker. Hugh Green said if I went to Pitt, I can take his number out of retirement. Bear Bryant said, ‘If you come to Alabama, we’re going to take Cornerlius Bennett and move him to the other linebacker.’ But I moved to fullback and my first year [in the NFL], I tore my ACL and it was never repaired right. I see old coaches, and they still ask how I moved to fullback. I don’t talk about it. But if I’d known what would happen …”
David Samson, former Marlins president: “I wish I knew it’s perfectly OK when there are people who are not doing things the way I would do them or at the pace I do them. There is more than one way to get to the goal that I have without doing it the way I do it. I was 31 when I started running a major league team and didn’t realize that. It was based on age and insecurity and overcoming the fact that I was employed by my stepfather and getting people to not think about that fact. Over time, as I got more comfortable within my skin and my ability, I was comfortable doing at a different pace and different manner than my own. But it took too long to get there. I wish I’d know that earlier.”
Jermon Bushrod, Dolphins guard: “I wish I’d known how to take care of my body better when I was younger. How to treat pain, for example. When I was young, I’d just take painkillers. A lot of Aleve. You learn as you go along. Now I get a massage two or three times a week. I have a physical therapist. I stretch. I take hot tubs. I have a room just for this type of stuff. When I was young, I’d go off the Aleve for a couple days and my body felt it was hit by a car I felt so bad. I’ve learned how to treat my body better as my career’s gone along.”
Tyler Johnson, Heat guard: “Just to slow down. Sometimes you want to go, go, go. Chris Bosh used to tell me I’d go from fast to fast. And I did. I didn’t understand the game enough. Now I go from pretty fast to fast. I’m trying to slow it down a little bit. Before, I always wanted top push the tempo. It could be 13 seconds left in the quarter, and I’m trying to take the ball and just go. It’s understanding situations, timing, when to go and when to go slower.”