Dolly Parton had her own style. Today’s athletes would be wise to copy it.
During the 1920s, the New York Yankees had a player named Bob Meusel, who played the outfield with Earle Combs and Babe Ruth for six years. He had to be a good player to share the outfield for so many years with Combs and Ruth.
Photo courtesy Society for American Baseball Research
But like so many athletes, the story goes, he wasn’t the friendliest player to sports writers. As his playing days drew to a close, he became more approachable and friendly, hoping, the legend says, that good press would lengthen his career.
According to an internet search, Meusel was “known by nicknames like “Silent Bob” and “Languid Bob” and was also notoriously cold, distant, and uncooperative with the media and fans throughout most of his career.”
In 1930, as his major league career was coming to an end with the Cincinnati Reds, Meusel finally began to soften his gruff demeanor and act friendly toward the press.” At that time, the New York Sun’s famous columnist Frank Graham wrote of Meusel’s changed demeanor, “He’s learning to say hello when it’s time to say goodbye.”
The Meusel story reminds me of a personal experience I had with a Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher when I was the sports marketing guru at Burson-Marsteller for almost 25 years, during the days it was the largest international public relations agency. Over lunch, the pitcher, who was one of the best of his generation, asked me why he gets so few requests to appear at functions.
I told him clients want personalities who will be friendly and chat with customers, pose for pictures with them, and sign autographs, and he had a reputation for being distant. “I’ll change,” he said. I also told him that before I would recommend an athlete as a spokesperson or to appear at a client function, I would ask my sportscaster friends how cooperative the person was, my theory being (as my mother told me when an early childhood romance went bust) that there are plenty of women) there are also plenty of athletes to choose from.
Dolly Parton (photo courtesy The New Yorker)
Those stories bring me to Dolly Parton.
–Ms. Parton did not let fame go to her head.
–She was cooperative with the media.
–If she took insults personally, she never showed it.
–She made herself available to all sorts of media, not only to ones that were known as flatterers.
–She was nice to everyone, not just to important people.
–She did not need to be pushed to mingle with fans.
Aside from after-game TV interviews where athletes are contractually required to appear, many athletes are standoffish with the media. That’s why it’s usually the same ones who make themselves available to the press after wins and losses.
Dolly Parton had her own style. Today’s athletes would be wise to copy it. If they did, they’d never have to worry that someone would say, “He’s learning to say hello when it’s time to say goodbye.”
