JerseyMan Magazine V6 N3

John O’Hurley From “Seinfeld” to the dogs

BILL LYON ON STEPH CURRY

George Anastasia’s

MOB SCENE

TALKIN’ PHILLY SPORTS Comcast SportsNet anchors Amy Fadool, Marshall Harris and Jen Daniels discuss the current state of our Philadelphia sports teams

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ELECTION 2016

AMERICA’S DISENCHANTMENT Volume 6 • Number 3

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PUBLISHER

FROM JerseyMan Magazine THE VOLUME 6 • NUMBER 3 ____________________________________________________________________________________

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BY KEN DUNEK

Ken Dunek Publisher CONTRIBUTING EDITOR George Brinkerhoff

t has been said that silence is golden.

And I’ve often wondered what that meant.

Might have figured this one out.

Silence is meditation--going within ones self to find true purpose and meaning.

Silence is energy as we quietly gain strength to accomplish our daily tasks.

Silence is serenely finding a peace that is constantly trying to elude us.

Silence echoes the magnification of a raindrop on a windowsill, or a cricket in the still of the night.

Silence is prayer as we ask a superior power for guidance.

Silence is respect for a grieving friend.

ART DIRECTOR Steve Iannarelli CONTRIBUTING WRITERS George Anastasia, Jan L. Apple, Michael Bradley, George Brinkerhoff, Sam Carchidi, Alexandra Dunek, Ashley Dunek, John Hopkins, Robert Kennedy, Mike Kern, Sam Kraft, Bill Lyon, Anthony Mongeluzo, Daniel R. Morroni, Gervase Peterson, Nina Radcliff, MD, Matt Rooney, Don Russell, Andrew Ryan, Nick Santangelo, Kurt Smith, Dr. Rubina Tahir DC, T. Jordan Wompierski ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANTS Liz Boccolini Alexandra Dunek

There is so much static in our world, so much extraneous noise that needs to be constantly filtered, so many voices clamoring for attention.

EVENTS COORDINATOR Ashley Dunek

So treasure the early morning whispers of wind, and the late night exhaustion that limits your words.

SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR Jamie Dunek

As Henry Miller wrote in “Tropic of Cancer,” I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.”

Silence really is golden.

And thankfully it is something we all can afford.

Editorial 856-813-1153 Advertising 856-912-4007 Printing 856-813-1153 Controller Rose M. Balcavage Sales Associates Ashley Dunek, Jamie Dunek, Terri Dunek, Allison Farcus, Chris Kazmarck, JP Lutz, Tinavalen Nguyen, Debbie Sarcone JerseyMan Advisory Board Peter Cordua. . . . . . Cordua, Pastore & Associates Nick DeRose . . . . Legacy Treatment Services As Chief Business Officer for Legacy Treatment Services, Nick DeRose oversees various aspects of Legacy’s operations and growth, while working to enhance their presence in the community. Nick uses his position to work toward the elimination of mental health stigma and is committed to Legacy’s mission to change the behavioral health and social service outcomes for people of all ages from surviving to thriving.

Joseph Devine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kennedy Health Ted Flocco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ernst & Young Bob Hoey. . . . . . . . . . . Janney Montgomery Scott Jeffrey Jaskol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Jaskol Group Steven Kantor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . KEH Insurance Robert Kennedy. . . . . . . . The Kennedy Companies Julie LaVan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LaVan Law Anthony Mongeluzo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PCS Toni Pergolin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bancroft Mike Regina. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Big Sky Enterprises Paul Tully . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eagle Wealth Strategies JerseyMan Magazine/PhillyMan Magazine, products of the partnership of Joe LaGrossa, Ken Dunek, and Alex Kazmarck, are published by New Opportunity Publishing, LLC, with offices at 7025 Central Highway, Pennsauken, NJ, 08109. Copyright 2016.

JerseyMan Magazine VOLUME 6 • NUMBER 3

FEATURES

INSIDE

16 WHAT’S POPPIN’?

LUC BELAIRE IS, IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD

22 STEPH CURRY

BY BILL LYON

A FLYER FOREVER

AT THE LINC AND CITIZENS BANK PARK

44 RYAN PETERS

WITH AMY FADOOL, MARSHALL HARRIS AND JEN DANIELS OF CSN PHILLY

NAVY SEAL, ATTORNEY & FREEHOLDER

56 IT’S ALL IN THE NAME

THE CARVERTISE STORY

70 THE WALK OF A LIFETIME

FROM HIS ICONIC ROLE ON “SEINFELD” TO HOSTING THE NATIONAL DOG SHOW AND MUCH MORE, THE MULTI-TALENTED JOHN O’HURLEY CONTINUES TO ENTERTAIN

KEVIN McCLOSKEY’S IMPROBABLE JOURNEY TO THE MASTERS

74 MY HERO

TALKIN’ SPORTS

38 BIG STADIUMS, BIG SHOWS

COVER STORY

PHILLY

28 ED SNIDER

48

DR. GREG HALLIGAN OF ST. CHRISTOPHER’S HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN

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H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H

ELECTION 2016 AMERICA’S DISENCHANTMENT

COLUMNS 12 JOTTINGS • 20 GEORGE ANASTASIA’S MOB SCENE 24 THE ENTHUSIAST • 26 GET FIT • 68 JOE SIXPACK 78 THE ENTREPRENEUR COACH • 82 DR. NINA 85 THE HEALTH REFEREE • 86 THE CIGAR GUY 89 TECH TIME • 90 WHAT WE WEAR 93 THE WINE MAN • 94 SAY GERV? BY GERVASE PETERSON

jerseymanmagazine.com Cover photography by Josh Chiu • www.joshchiu.com Art direction: Steve Iannarelli

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JOTTINGS

_____________________________________________________________________________

BY GEORGE BRINKERHOFF

South Jersey native and NASCAR star Martin Truex, Jr.: Making good moves on and off the track

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URE MARTIN TRUEX, JR. knows a thing or two about how to go fast and make things count. He puts the pedal to the metal and the heel to the steel. On Sunday, May 29th, 2016, NASCAR driver (and JerseyMan) Martin Truex, Jr., did just that and drove to victory in a gem of a race in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Charlotte, NC by leading an event record 392 of 400 laps and a series record of 588 of 600 miles. The race was the fastest Coca-Cola 600 ever with an average speed of just over 160 miles per hour.

Yet he also knows exactly how to take his time and make things count, as he demonstrated on May 12th in Camden, NJ at the dedication of the latest room for the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey. Martin and his longtime partner Sherry Pollex introduced the House’s newest bedroom designed to accommodate families while their children are being treated at South Jersey hospitals. The room was built and decorated thanks to a generous donation by the Martin Truex, Jr. Foundation, an organization founded by Truex, Jr., and Pollex in 2007 with a focus on raising awareness and funding for childhood and ovarian cancer initiatives.

“Helping families dealing with childhood cancer is something that Sherry and I have been supporting for many years now,” said Martin.

“Having been born and raised in South Jersey, we jumped at the chance as soon as we learned of the opportunity to support the Ron-

Martin Truex, Jr. and his longtime partner Sherry Pollex were on hand to dedicate the new ‘Best Friends’ room, designed to accommodate families at the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey.

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o, you ask, just where might the oldest Derby for three-year-old horses in America have been held?

Well, I know what you’re thinking.

But ‘tweren’t in Old Kentucky! The Jersey Derby, known as the oldest Derby in the country, was first run on June 7, 1864, in Paterson, NJ, 11 years before the inaugural Kentucky Derby. The first Jersey Derby, held during the height of the Civil War, was sponsored by the Passaic County Agriculture Society, with Norfolk capturing the mile and a half event before an estimated crowd of 10,000. The Jersey Derby ran in various forms and venues until 1893 and was not run again until 1942 when Garden State Park in Cherry Hill, NJ opened its doors and renamed the race the Jersey Handicap.

Norfolk

ald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey. I am honored to partner with such an awesome organization and grateful to be able to give back to my home state in this way. Our hope is that each family who spends time in the ‘Best Friends’ room will feel cared for and comfortable while having to be away from their own home, family and friends.”

Really fine job making things count where needed on both days, Martin, and congratulations!

To learn more about the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation, please visit martintruexjrfoundation.org and to get more information regarding the Ronald McDonald House of Southern New Jersey, visit their website at www.ronaldhouse-snj.org.

A Whole Lotta Awesome Let’s time warp back to the 90’s and reacquaint ourselves with our favorite stocky, mullet wearing, beer drinkin’ Phillies first baseman and everyman philosopher, John Kruk, aka, the Krukker: “Let’s be honest. We’re losing by eight runs, and all I’m thinking about at that point is getting back to the hotel by midnight because that’s when room service closes. All of a sudden, we start getting hits and more hits, and I’m saying, ‘I’m not going to make it.’ If you’re not going to get room service, you might as well win.” – John Kruk, after his Phillies scored nine runs in the ninth inning to beat the Dodgers, 12-11 12

The Oldest Derby

In 1948, Citation became the first Triple Crown winner to compete in the Jersey Derby, and won with an 11-length victory.

After the 1977 fire that destroyed Garden State Park, the race was run at Atlantic City Racetrack. The race was again run at Garden State Park upon its reopening in 1985. Kentucky Derby winner Spend a Buck opted for a possible 2 million dollar bonus payday in the Jersey Derby, rather than the Preakness Stakes and his shot at the Triple Crown, by capturing the Cherry Hill Mile, Garden State Stakes, Kentucky Derby. The Jersey Derby was the final race necessary for the bonus in that year, in a promotion by Garden State Park’s CEO William Brennan. Spend a Buck won by a neck.

The Derby continued at Garden State Park until 1999 and thereafter was held at Monmouth Park through 2013.

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Addiction

Spotlighting the Perils of Addiction

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Ricky Russert (right), wrote and starred in SLLiP

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f you’re not familiar with short films, maybe this is the one to start with. Abuse of opioids in multiple forms is widespread in our culture, and recently and very sadly was underscored by the death of the rock star Prince. SLLiP is a 25 minute narrative short film, based on true events, that demonstrates in dramatic fashion the effects of addiction on both the man who develops the problem after a work injury and his family. Ricky Russert (of the Emmy award winning Cinemax show “Banshee”) is the writer and principal actor, and he wrote SLLiP originally based off true events with his brother. The story developed as he spoke with more people affected by addiction. The film is getting traction having been accepted into at least 7 film festivals so far in 2016, including Atlantic City’s Garden State Film Festival and the Hoboken International Film Festival. “Addiction to prescription drugs is destroying the lives of count-

Dir. Rob Lewis

less loved ones. We hope that our film can help bring further awareness to this epidemic​in a cinematic emotional rollercoaster,” Russert told us. Russert further told us that he wanted to acknowledge the incredible support by Executive Producers Johnny and Bobbie Dandrea from Marlton, NJ, without whom the film would not have been made. Incidentally SLLiP is ‘Pills’ spelled backwards. Check it out on Vimeo at vimeo.com/ondemand/sllip and on Facebook at facebook.com/SLLiP-theFilm-672818099506880/.

#SLLiPtheFilm

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WHAT’S POPPIN’?

Luc Belaire is, in every sense of the word. BY ASHLEY DUNEK

Clockwise from top left; New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski, fashion designers Betsey Johnson and Jeremy Scott, at Pimlico for the Preakness Stakes, DJ Steve Aoki

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RETT BERISH IS CEO of Sovereign Brands and creator of labels, Armand de Brignac, more popularly known as Ace of Spades, D’usse Cognac and Luc Belaire.

Luc Belaire has taken the bubbly game by storm.

In just over three years of its existence Luc Belaire and the “Black Bottle Movement” has exploded, in large part because of the support from several music artists, pro-athletes and TV personalities, who are loyal friends and supporters of the sparkling wine with the chic look.

Even if you’re not interested in athletes and rappers who overindulge in the good life, like unofficial ambassador and hip hop powerhouse Rick Ross and his crew who go by the nickname “Black Bottle Boys,” you have to appreciate this: Sovereign Brands launched the crème de la crème of wine and spirits and literally tossed the bubbly world into a frenzy, all without spending the Benjamins… baby (I couldn’t resist the throwback P Diddy innuendo).

No full page ads in GQ. No highway billboards on I-95. No prime time commercial spot on FOX. Welcome to 2016 and the incredible power behind social media marketing.

Luc Belaire, following in the footsteps of its predecessor Ace of Spades (who was bought by rap mogul Jay Z in 2014), has reached unfathomable success and popularity from the likes of Instagram and Twitter and has naturally attracted celebs of every kind. Names like Jennifer Lopez, famed DJ Steve Aoki and rap star Snoop Dogg are just a few examples of their A-list fans. What makes this even more impressive is that these stars aren’t paid ambassadors or spokespersons: they’re not posting pictures on Instagram to rake in money, they just love the product. This is a true testament to the brand; I hear J LO doesn’t do much for free.

The classic look of the sleek black bottle is elegant and attractive.

The sparkling, pink-hued Rosé, a blend of Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah

grapes, is refreshing and delicate. The light and crisp Brut Gold is made of 100% Chardonnay grapes and offers aromas of flowers paired with a fruit forward flavor. Are your taste buds tickled yet?

All of these qualities were appealing enough for Rick Ross to send world champ Floyd Mayweather $10,000 of Luc Belaire as a pre-victory gift before his fight of the century vs. Manny Pacquiao. If that wasn’t enough to stir up excitement, the Denver Broncos celebrated their Super Bowl 50 victory exclusively with Luc Belaire at their official after party.

Prior to that, 2015 champs the New England Patriots sprayed 50 bottles of Luc Belaire after their 2015 victory, not to mention indulging with one 15-liter, $12,000 bottle of Rosé. League MVP Stephen Curry and his 2015 Championship team, the Golden State Warriors, are also chose to celebrate their big W with the infamous black bottle. Needless to say, Luc Belaire has certainly developed the reputation of being the bubbly of choice for celebrating pro sports championships.

To add a little more glitz to their glam, Luc Belaire offers both their Rosé and Brut Gold in a luminescent “Fantôme” edition that lights up at the push of a button. It’s not surprising that this innovative and elite look attracts some heavy hitters.

A combo of great marketing and an impressive celeb association has skyrocketed the brand to new heights. Since its launch in 2013, Luc Belaire’s popularity has expanded into 80 countries around the world in what is being called the “Black Bottle Movement.”

The hype doesn’t solely rely on hip hop artists and pro athletes. As a family owned company that knows first-hand the difficulties that come with starting your own business, it passionately launched “Belaire Backed,” a program that supports other start-ups and entrepreneurs. This has only widened the attraction to the brand.

Whether you’re a hip hop fan, a supporter of business-savvy entrepreneurs or a bubbly connoisseur, one thing is apparent: Luc Belaire is what’s poppin’. n

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Greg Luzinski induction into the All Sports Museum of Southern New Jersey – Bridgeton, NJ Legacy Foundation’s Monte Carlo Night honoring Anthony Mongeluzo with The Legacy Award

(L to R): Dave Hitchner with granddaughter Alex, former Phillie great Greg Luzinski and Phillies PA Announcer, Dan Baker

Anthony Mongeluzo (R) receiving the Legacy Award from Roy Leitstein, CEO, Legacy Treatment Services

Barnes Foundation Event hosted by Beneficial Bank featuring Tory Burch

(L to R): Dan Mackie, Tracy Dirkes, Jeremiah Phillips and Emily McIntire

(L to R): June Sernak of American Red Cross, Tory Burch and Sandy Spadaro of SS Marketing Solutions

Career-minded Rowan College of Burlington County Students “Dress for Success” – Mt. Laurel, NJ Fifteen Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC) students are the recipients of professional makeovers thanks to the “Dress for Success” event, sponsored by the RCBC Foundation. (Far Left) Rowan College at Burlington County President Paul Drayton, (Center) Burlington County Freeholder Deputy Director Kate Gibbs, and (Far Right) Assemblyman Joe Howarth with Rowan College at Burlington County’s “Dress for Success” students (L to R): Christa Benoit, Jeremy Gottlieb, Claudia Marconi, Quentin West, Christine Liddie, Kaitlyn Mango, Michael Blood, Lauren Ortiz, Caylor-Ann Rose-Green, Kelly Kennedy, Sarah Fazekas, Ronita Chambers, Hassan Coulibaly, Brian Muthangya, and Thomas Viola.

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Run the Hook 5k & 10k Road Race – Sandy Hook, NJ

Over 1,000 runners braved the wind and participated in the Run the Hook 5k and 10k Road Race in Sandy Hook, NJ. Photos: Joseph Keys/ Key Frame Photography

Bishop McHugh Regional Catholic School (NJ) 7th Grader is State Free Throw Shooting Champion Keith Palek, age 12 of Woodbine, N.J., earned a State Championship at the Knights of Columbus Free Throw Shooting Contest on April 3.

Keith is a seventh grade student at Bishop McHugh. He is pictured here with his parents, Keith and Jenessa Palek, who coach basketball for the school.

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MOB SCENE

_______________________________________________________________________________

BY GEORGE ANASTASIA

It’s Always About the Money

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That, he quickly added, is not a moral issue but rather a business decision.

Murders attract law enforcement attention and murderers when faced with the prospect of a conviction and a life sentence are prime candidates to become cooperators.

“A mob guy’s not likely to flip if he’s looking at 36 months in prison for extortion,” Honig said. “But a murder conviction….”

The former federal prosecutor ticks off a half dozen cases that he handled in New York in which a cooperating witness, often wearing a body wire, was instrumental in winning a conviction. On the walls of his office are framed newspaper front pages touting the trials in which mobsters were brought down.

His current position doesn’t put him in a courtroom, but it has kept him up to date on

Elie Honig

the ways of the wiseguy. What’s he’s seen, and what one recent case clearly demonstrates, is a move toward high tech.

“Their goal is to make a lot of money and touch nothing,” Honig said. “Technology allows them to do that.”

In May the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office announced the indictment of 10 members and associates of the Genovese crime family who were generating millions of dollars through bookmaking and loansharking. The case was a joint investigation conducted by the Division of Criminal Justice and the Waterfront Commission.

ubbed “Operation Fistful,” the probe centered on a check cashing business in Newark owned and operated by crime family associate Domenick Pucillo. It was a new and sophisticated twist on one of the mob’s oldest businesses.

Honig shook his head in mock admiration as he described what has been alleged in the pending case against Pucillo, 58, of Florham

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“A mob guy’s not likely to flip if he’s looking at 36 months in prison for extortion,” Honig said. “But a murder conviction….”

Park, and several of his co-defendants. The check cashing operation was a front for the loansharking business. Gamblers who had borrowed money from the mob brought checks to the business to cover their debts.

The payments included the vig—the interest

Photo NJ Office of the Attorney General

lie Honig says it’s not that complicated.

The mob goes where the money is.

“As long as there’s money to be had, that’s where you’ll find them,” said the young, energetic former federal prosecutor who now heads the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice.

Honig is in a position to know.

He made his bones prosecuting mobsters for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, winning cases in which dozens of gangsters were convicted, including high-profile targets like Gambino crime family capo Danny Marino and Genovese family leader Ciro Perrone.

Four years ago Honig, who grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ and graduated from Rutgers University before heading off to Harvard Law School, traveled down the turnpike from Manhattan to take the post of Deputy Director of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Criminal Justice. In February 2013 he was sworn in as Director.

His office, with a staff of more than 500, is responsible for developing cases against drug cartels, corrupt politicians, street gangs, white collar criminals and, of course, wiseguys, of which New Jersey has more than its share.

It’s the only state in America in which seven different Cosa Nostra families have deeply rooted operations.

“The five New York families,” Honig says matter-of-factly. “The DeCavalcante Family [New Jersey’s only indigenous organization and the group on which The Sopranos was based] and the Philadelphia family.”

And while violence is down in that particular underworld, the business of crime is still going strong.

“They’ve cut down on the murders,” Honig said.

charged each week on the loan.

“It was like they had set up a financial institution to handle their loansharking business,” Honig said.

No more ledger books and betting sheets.

The bookmaking operation that was also part of the case was similar to one uncovered in an earlier Division of Criminal Justice investigation dubbed “Operation Heat.” Six top members of the Lucchese crime family are now serving prison sentences as a result of that case. Both gambling rings were built around a betting room in Costa Rica. Gamblers called in their bets or used the Internet.

When they got in a hole—and gamblers always get in a hole—the mob was there to provide a loan. In the current case, the check cashing business was the conduit through which the cash flowed.

The concept of loansharking hasn’t changed in a hundred years, more than that if you trace it back to Shakespeare and Shylock. You borrow money and pay it back with interest.

Big interest.

For the mob, that’s usually two or three points per week. The vig on a $10,000 loan, for example, at three points is $300 a week.

n describing the Pucillo operation, the Attorney General’s Office said, “The scheme was designed so that, when the victims made loan payments by check, it appeared that they were cashing checks in the ordinary course of Pucillo’s check-cashing business. When they took out loans, victims were required to sign partially completed checks which Pucillo and his co-defendants could complete and cash through the… business to collect weekly interest or payments of principal.”

Some of the earnings were then put back on the street as loans.

Money makes money.

The Operation Fistful case alleged that Pucillo and his associates made $4.7 million in interest on the loansharking business and took in more by providing drug dealers and other underworld operatives with what amounted to a money-laundering service. Pucillo and company charged a fee for each transaction and eventually set up a satellite operation in a Brazilian restaurant in Newark. The restaurant, according to the indictment, cashed over $400 million in checks in a four-year period and collected $9 million in fees.

The sports book generated millions more.

The case also included charges that several other members of the operation took control of a trucking company in the Port of Newark and, while delivering vehicles to dealerships

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throughout New Jersey, systematically looted the company by, among other things, forging checks drawn on the company account and cashing them—where else?—at Pucillo’s check cashing business.

Nine other members and associates of the Genovese organization were indicted with Pucillo, including reputed mob capo Vito Alberti, 57, of Morristown, and mob soldier Charles “Chuckie” Tuzzo, 82, of Bayside, NY. Other defendants included mob associates Robert “Bobby Spags” Spagnola, 68, of Morganville, and Vincent Coppola, 38, of Union.

Spagnola was described as Pucillo’s partner in the check cashing operation, which also included an office in Florida. Coppola ran the bookmaking business. He is the son of jailed mob capo Michael “Mikey Cigars” Coppola, a suspected hitman who spent 11 years on the run before his arrest in 2007. The elder Coppola, who was eventually convicted of racketeering, has long been identified as part of a Genovese crime family crew that controlled the New Jersey docks.

Alberti and Tuzzo shared in the profits of the operation, the government said. It was a typical situation where mob associates are required to “kick up” to made members to

whom they report.

The Genovese family, Honig said, is more secretive and circumspect than the other New York families and the fact that Tuzzo is in his 80s and still active is not unusual.

“These guys never quit,” he said.

One of his biggest cases in New York involved the prosecution and conviction of Ciro Perrone, a Genovese crime family capo who ran a violent gambling and loansharking operation out of Ozone Park, Queens. Perrone did business from a social club, a butcher’s shop and a restaurant called Don Peppe’s.

Perrone was 87 when he was convicted in 2008.

“He was a mobster’s mobster,” Honig said.

“Old school. He had a ton of money. He kept a very low profile. And he was feared.”

His loansharking operation was somewhat less sophisticated than the one run through Pucillo’s checking cashing business, but the financial principles were the same. Perrone, however, used a more traditional method of collecting his cash, according to the case Honig built against him. Mobsters armed with baseball bats made sure payments came in on time.

It’s not that complicated.

“It’s always about the money,” Honig said. n

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BILL LYON ___________________________

Steph Curry: Silk on Satin Catch and shoot, catch and shoot….

This is a work of art.

Catch and shoot, catch and shoot….

This is silk on satin.

Catch and shoot, catch and shoot….

Feel the syncopation, feel the beat.

Catch and shoot, catch and shoot….

The ball rises in a majestic parabola and sweet as honey kisses the netting…sniiick….

This is the most graceful, the most elegant, the most hypnotic movement in all of sports these days—Stephen Curry unfurling a jump shot.

From way back. Way, way back. No, not there. Way, way, way back.

You watch him and it is mesmerizing. And contagious. You want to rummage through the hall closet in search of the long lost ball, dribble to the driveway and launch your version of Stephen Curry. And yes, there it is, all these years later, just as you remember….

Air ball.

He looks like a kid and plays like one, which is to say with an engaging, appealing mixture of freedom and joy, who cannot wait for tomorrow to get here because it is sure to

bring something new and wonderful…and ain’t life a hoot? It is if you are the point guard for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association, having resurrected that woebegone franchise from the Sea of Despair and, as an MVP is supposed to, brought it all the way to the championship. With another on the way? Why not?

After all, just look at the bloodline: His

––––––––––––––––– STEPHEN CURRY AND THE THREE-POINT SHOT HAVE BEEN EMBRACED BY THE NBA. LOVE THE THREE BALL. AND LEADING THE PARADE IS THE LITTLE KID. –––––––––––––––––

father, Dell, had a stellar 16-year NBA career and retired as the all-time leading scorer of the Charlotte Hornets.

Steph is 28 years old, 6-foot-3, 185 pounds, wiry, acrobatic, able to slip and slither through dark and dangerous places where the big men wait in ambush in the paint to swat him as they would a pesky fly, but he is too slick for them and, oh yes, he has a killer first step that leaves them in tangled-foot disarray, embarrassed and fuming, and there he goes, raining down yet another 35-footer and grinning that little kid grin and you want to ring the doorbell and ask: “Can Steph come out and play?”

So that’s his secret; that’s how he manages to seem impervious to any pressure: he opens the door and lets the little kid out to play, and oops, there goes another three… …wheee.

he legs are the key. Yes, the elbow has to be cocked just so, the grip sure and snug, the wrist ready to release with that dainty flip….Yes, they are all factored in, but it’s the legs that are the foundation. If your legs give in to the slightest twinge of fatigue it can throw all the other moving parts out of kilter. The whole movement is like the delicate innards of a Swiss watch, and, again, it starts with the legs.

And that is how Stephen Curry spends his summer vacations—working on his legs, his endurance, running and running and—pause for the dry heaves—running some more and don’t forget the iron, pump ‘til you puke, and yes, it’s insane, but when the game is tight and has come down to one last shot and your legs are still under you and you can elevate into firing position, then you say a silent prayer of thanks for all those hellish summer works.

He could play for the Harlem Globe Trotters, he’s that slick, making the balls dance, two at a time, behind the back, between the legs, over the woods to Grandma’s house and it’s all a blur, like a three-card monte dealer daring you to find under which card hides the pea.

And then when he’s got you hypnotized and has lulled you to sleep—BAM! That killer crossover, and he’s gone, up, up and away,

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rising in pluperfect form, body squared, and, oh my, you know it’s good even as the ball is just reaching its apogee.

He knows it, too. He knows it because he knows what goes into the making of it, the untold hours of—remember?—catch and shoot, catch and shoot.

They lay down 10 spots around the threepoint arc, 10 shots at each spot, and he commences: Catch and shoot, catch and shoot…100 in all, and they swear that he averages in the 80’s, and is pissed when he’s below that.

And, they also swear, his best is 70 in a row.

Seventy.

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ndulge an old man his daydreams: In another time in another sport, the sweetest strokes I ever saw belonged to Ted Williams, the last man to hit .400, and Slamming Sammy Snead hitting a tee ball. So now, move over for this kid.

He’s more than a one-trick pony, more than a selfish gunner. He averages 6.4 assists. His passing has improved each year, and sometimes, he admits, he gets carried away and makes a play more dangerous than need be. All things considered though, the Warriors can live with those occasional flights of fancy.

Turnovers are tolerated, mostly, irritants. (In his one and only appearance in Philadelphia he committed eight and berated himself loudly.)

A suspicion persists that some of his misdemeanors are due to—ssshhh—Steph becoming bored. He makes it look too easy, too effortless.

No one should have this much fun…just ask the little kid.

I was a teenager, circa 1950’s, when the jump shot was invented and rendered us landlocked practitioners of the two-handed push shot obsolete. A generation or so later, along came the leapers and their pyrotechnic dunks, proof that man really could fly…well, for at least a little while.

Now it has come full circle. Stephen Curry and the three-point shot have been embraced by the NBA. Oh, there will still be a firestorm of rim-ringing throw downs, still be the tried and true pick and roll. But more and more the talk is about spacing, widening the floor for the snipers and the sharpshooters. Love the three ball. And leading the parade is the little kid.

He shoots 51 percent from conventional range and 46 percent from Three Land. He set the record for threes last year with 286 and has obliterated that this year with 403.

But, again, he’s more than a one-trick pony, leading the NBA last year in steals and free throw percentage.

When Stephen Curry was in high school, the jersey they gave him looked like a handme-down nightgown that slipped to his waist.

But what it couldn’t hide, they said, was his heart. n 23

THE ENTHUSIAST ______________________________________________________________________________________________

BY ANDREW RYAN

The Ever-changing, Rearranging Future of the Album

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HAT IS A GREAT ALBUM? Is it a snapshot of time, history or perspective? Is it dynamic living art or a story which contains within it an entire universe; every one with its own physics, boundaries, dimensions and atmospheres? And what amazes me most is how they just sit there, motionless on my shelf, existing within our own physical world, all but bursting with meaning and universal emotions.

Most importantly, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t have a favorite album and a memory connected with it. But I’m not here just to wax poetic and dump my purse all over the pages of this publication. I’m here because albums are dying… or getting more interesting… or, well, for now let’s just say changing. Because very recently one man has started rewriting the rules for what an album is meant to be in a pretty big way. It just so happens that man is simultaneously my favorite and most despised

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plain word vomit so masterfully I have never felt comfortable assuming his motivation for, well, anything, as if one day he will reveal himself as either an unquestionably brilliant artist or a legally-recognized lunatic and I’ll wind up on the wrong side of the fence. Of course I’ll probably never get my answer as history shows us the two are anything but mutually exclusive (just read some of Pablo Picasso’s poetry for chrissake).

nyway, time to fill you in. For those who do not follow Kanye on Twitter or any other interchangeable social media platform, he has spent the better part of the last year very publicly piecing together his latest album, perhaps, or perhaps not, un-coincidentally, The Life of Pablo. That included posting potential track lineups online only to change them weeks later, teasing his fans with snippets of new songs, speculating over the distribution platform, postponing the release date, and even changing the name of

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Illustration by Dan Dinsmore

Kanye managed to destroy the notion that an album was a static work of art.

Instead he’s created a living, breathing entity that will continue to grow as he does.

artist of this generation. You guessed, it folks, the one and only Kanye West.

In the interest of clarity—and if I’m being totally honest, word count (albums don’t buy themselves, although that sounds like something Radiohead might be working on)—I’ve written about Kanye a few times before (much to the annoyance of more than a few readers, I’m quite sure), calling him, for better or worse, the last and single most important rock star of the past decade. And I want to be clear about this: I chose the words “rock star” very carefully. Despite how one may feel about his music, personality, celebrity family, life choices or Twitter rants, he remains undeniably the most interesting man at the highest level of the entertainment world. He’s Jimmy Page in the 70’s, David Lee Roth in the 80’s and Kurt Cobain in the 90’s. His music pushes the boundaries of his genre while remaining more firmly planted in its roots than any of his contemporaries. He speaks his mind and blurs the lines between performance art and just

the album from So Help Me God to SWISH to Waves, finally settling on The Life of Pablo only a few days before wrapping up. While this transparent approach to creating an album was engaging and mildly interesting, it certainly wasn’t breaking any major rules.

After all was said and done we assumed we’d just be getting another Kanye album and move on with our lives. But the story doesn’t end there. About a week or so after the album’s exclusive release on Tidal (Jay Z’s answer to Spotify), Kanye took things to the next level by changing the album again. That’s like spinning Pet Sounds one evening and realizing the lyrics and song structures are different than when you last played it that afternoon. These changes started out as fairly benign for nonaudiophiles, messing with things like levels, reverb and vocal effects, but as time passed by he began adding new lines, removing and altering instrumentals and even rerecording entire verses with entirely new artists. Using technology to its fullest potential, Kanye managed to destroy the notion that an album was a static work of art. Instead he’s created a living, breathing entity that will continue to grow as he does.

t’s an exciting time to be alive in a way, as we all get front row tickets to either the destruction or the redefining of albums as we understand them. But I’m not going to take the coward’s way out this time and walk the line between embracing the future and remaining stuck in the past. Because in this instance I’m not too hopeful for what the future will bring. While almost all of us will agree that an artist has the right to change his work, there’s certainly enough evidence out there to suggest they shouldn’t. (Come on, Mr. Lucas. Everybody knows Han shot first.) We all have memories connected to our favorite albums, and I’m not sure I enjoy the prospect of waking up one morning to find those memories changed, even if they’ll be a little crisper and shot in 1080p.

I don’t like the Pandora’s Box that Kanye has opened. To me, a great album is a direct portal to one’s past. For as much as we may age and change over the years, it gives me a great sense of peace knowing the Clash’s London Calling will sound the same to me at ninety as it did when I was fifteen. My albums are my own history in that way; static mile markers by which I can understand who I once was. It’s for this reason and this reason alone that I’ll have to remain rooted firmly in the past on this issue.

Even if I find myself on the wrong side of the fence one day, at least I’ll know exactly who I am and how I got there. n

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GET FIT

For more guidance follow Alexandra

@TipsFromAFitChick on Instagram! _____________________________________________________________________________________________

BY ALEXANDRA DUNEK

Get Out! I’ll let you in on a little secret...

Sometimes… I can’t stand the gym.

You probably weren’t expecting to hear that, but it’s true. I have days where I just go through the motions of lifting weights, not really challenging myself or breaking a sweat. Now that summer is here, the weather opens up a window of opportunities for you to take your workout anywhere you’d like!

The beach The mountains The city Hiking trails Local parks Even your own backyard

FITFEATURE

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re you interested in challenging yourself?

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a martial art combat sport that teaches you selfdefense skills. Jersey local Mike Coluzzi teams up with Pete McHugh, owner of McHugh Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to share with us 10 reasons why BJJ can transform your life. The following is Mike Coluzzi’s experience: The day I walked into McHugh Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Mount Laurel, NJ, I was ready to “roll.” I was greeted by the owner, Professor Pete McHugh, with a firm handshake and welcoming smile, a good combination. I completed the pre-requisite paperwork and was issued my “Gi” (a martial arts uniform consisting of loose fitting cotton pants and jacket closed with a cloth belt). Within minutes, I was on the mat. Professor Pete led us through a very well organized class honed from years of experience. That is when I knew I was in the right place. Since that time, I found BJJ has led to an entirely new pathway of self26

Sculpt your body with plank variations, such as the full arm plank pictured here.

development. Each class is filled with physical, intellectual and mental challenges that allow a person to become “in-tune” with their mind, body and spirit through a very unique martial art. With the assistance of Professor McHugh, here are 10 ways BJJ can change your life for the better.

CONFIDENCE Confidence comes from experience. Knowing you can defend yourself is a game-changer.

More importantly, the personal growth you’ll experience from constantly challenging yourself—getting out of your comfort zone—will shine through in all areas of your life.

CAMARADERIE You’ll have a far deeper and richer friendship with a Jiu-Jitsu buddy (who tries feverishly to choke you) than with Bob from your fantasy football league, even though he brings his boysenberry home-brew on draft day.

ENDURANCE Imagine swimming with a St. Bernard, on your back, trying to choke you. It’s a great workout.

MENTAL TOUGHNESS You will undoubtedly be put in compromised, uncomfortable positions. Your ego will beg you to give up. But you don’t. You realize you’re still alive and that you can endure much more than you thought.

Pete McHugh and Mike Coluzzi

CRITICAL THINKING Jiu-Jitsu is dynamic problem solving under stress; it’s human chess. Strategy and technique trump power and aggression, but you’ve got to develop razor-sharp focus and learn to think quickly under pressure. And you will.

CHARACTER Jiu-Jitsu is a blast, but also very challenging. Really challenging. Getting good at it takes commitment,

Photo Jamie Dunek

There are so many places around you that can inspire you to get active if you take the time to try something different.

Spanning the Schuylkill River stands Falls Bridge in Fairmont Park in Philadelphia (pictured). This is where I chose to show you just how easy it is to keep up with your summer body.

effort and humility. If you don’t learn to check your ego at the door, you’re in for a long day when the geeky IT specialist wraps you up like an anaconda.

MOBILITY Jiu-Jitsu develops phenomenal hip and shoulder flexibility, core strength and coordination. Think wrestling meets yoga, with submission holds.

STRESS RELIEF Training is the ultimate palette cleanser for a rough day. I guarantee you won’t be worrying about those pesky work reports when you’re fending off an arm lock.

LONG-TERM GOAL SETTING It takes a long time to earn a black belt in BJJ. Luckily, it’s fascinating, so sticking around isn’t hard to do. The belt system is a great tool to keep you motivated, and public recognition for your progress is extremely rewarding.

SELF-DEFENSE No other martial art’s effectiveness has been proven time and again like Jiu-Jitsu. The best part is that it’s based on technique, strategy and leverage, not strength, size and aggression. It was designed for smaller, weaker practitioners to neutralize and defeat larger, stronger opponents.

That means it’s great for people from all walks of life, no matter age, gender, level of athleticism or disposition. n

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Ed Snider

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A FLYER FOREVER

BY SAM CARCHIDI

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Photo corporate.comcast.com

If there was a “Mount Rushmore” of non-athletes who have influenced the Philadelphia sports scene over the last century, one of the four carved faces would undoubtedly belong to Ed Snider.

Snider, 83, who died April 11 after a two-year battle with bladder cancer, daringly brought the Flyers to Philadelphia during the league’s 1967-68 expansion, convinced that fans would fall in love with hockey.

He was right.

“Ed,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said, “was the soul and spirit of the Flyers, who have reflected his competitiveness, his passion for hockey and his love for the fans from the moment he brought NHL hockey to Philadelphia.”

Snider also started sports radio WIP, the local sports/ entertainment giant PRISM and Comcast SportsNet. He created Spectacor in 1974 as a management company to oversee the Flyers and the Spectrum. In the next 20 years, Spectacor grew, as did its impact on the sports and entertainment business, developing and acquiring nearly a dozen related companies.

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., and the son of a grocery store chain owner, Snider was part of the group that

At right: Snider said one of his proudest accomplishments was the creation of the Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, which provides youngsters from urban neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Camden with the opportunity to learn and play hockey.

owned the Sixers for a while, and in the 1960s he was Vice President of Business Affairs and Treasurer of the Eagles before co-founding the Flyers with Jerry Wolman. He was also involved in numerous other business ventures over the years.

But the Flyers were his baby. He was there for their birth and for all the magical moments—the two Stanley Cups, the monumental 1976 win over the Russian Red Army, the eight trips to the Cup Finals—as Philadelphia became one of the NHL’s most respected franchises.

Since the Flyers entered the NHL in 1967-68, only Montreal and Boston have had a higher winning percentage.

But to me, what speaks volumes about the man’s true measure is something he said during a 2009 interview we did about the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation.

Snider said one of his proudest accomplishments was the creation of the foundation, which provides youngsters from urban neighborhoods in Philadelphia and Camden with the opportunity to learn and play hockey. The players get ice time, uniforms, instruction, skates and sticks for free.

After all these years, Snider said, he had found something as rewarding as the consecutive Stanley Cups his Flyers won in 1974 and 1975.

Asked to compare winning those titles to the joy he sees on the children’s faces as they play hockey at foundation’s rinks, Snider smiled.

“I can’t compare,” he said. “It would be like trying to compare your children. It’s all good stuff.”

He paused.

“But at my age,” said Snider, who was 76 at the time, “I want to leave something behind as my legacy, because I think this will grow and will continue to grow and will be a regular thing.”

The foundation, which started in 2005, partnered with the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 2010 to complete a $14.5 million construction project, completely refurbishing four public rinks for year-round use. The project included new classrooms, learning labs and public meeting space.

“It’s been a big thrill for me because for

years we wanted to do something for innercity kids,” Snider said. “I feel sad for what they have to go through in life. … The ice time helps them improve skills and keeps them off the street.”

It was uplifting to see Snider—a man worth an estimated $2.5 billion and known to be a tough negotiator in the business world—so in touch with his inner self, so proud to give back to the community.

It brought to mind a quote from Snider that seemed very appropriate: “Money should be the reward, but not the reason.”

n a West Coast trip earlier this season, the Flyers and their coaching staff visited Snider at his mansion in Montecito, Calif., on Dec. 31. It was the last time they were together.

Jay Snider, who served as the Flyers’ president from 1983 to 1994, said that his father was in unbearable pain that day but that the visit was therapeutic for him.

“He rallied for that, and I saw him do it on a few other occasions, where somebody came to see him or he got a certain phone call,” Snider said. “I talked to him after that day [when the Flyers visited] and it was extraordinarily hard from a pain standpoint. He had a lot of difficulty standing and sitting. He had to fight through pain every day for months and months.”

After returning form that West Coast trip, the Flyers turned their season around. They jumped past four teams in the standings, went 26-12-7 the rest of the way and earned a surprising playoff berth.

The Flyers played the season for the beloved Snider, chairman of the team’s parent

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company, Comcast-Spectacor.

“He is the Philadelphia Flyers,” captain Claude Giroux said.

Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast Corp., said he and Snider had a routine this season. About 30 seconds after every Flyers victory, Roberts said, he would phone Snider at his California home.

“No matter how sick or how much pain Ed was in,” Roberts said, “he wanted and needed to talk about the Flyers. Ed lived for those wins. I lived for those calls.”

Most sports teams are run by faceless corporations. Not the Flyers. In a way, Snider ran the franchise like a mom-and-pop store. He kept close tabs on personnel decisions. He was loyal to past players, many of whom still work for the organization.

Snider oozed with pride about the team, which was named by his sister, Phyllis. During the franchise’s early years, his first wife, Myrna, worked side-by-side with her husband to build the business and was instrumental in the design of the iconic Flyers logo.

That logo was recently showcased in a Flyers-related episode of the popular ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, which dedicated its May 11 show to Snider’s memory.

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en days after Snider’s death, a celebration of his life was held at the Wells Fargo Center, home of the team he loved like one of his six children and 15 grandchildren.

In a moving one-hour, 50-minute ceremony that included speeches from three of his children, business associates, friends, NHL commissioner Bettman, Mayor James Kenney and former Flyers great Bob Clarke, Snider was 29

Snider with Bobby Clarke

The last full sentence Snider ever spoke was, “I can’t thank the Flyers enough for everything they’ve given to me and my family.” remembered as a man of passion and wisdom.

“When I pass and when we all pass, we don’t know where we’re going,” said a tearful Clarke, the Flyers captain when they won Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975 and someone who has worked in several capacities with the team.

“For me, I really hope when I get there, I get the chance to play one more game in the Orange and Black for Mr. Snider’s Philadelphia Flyers.”

Jay Snider was choked with emotion as he addressed the crowd, estimated at 3,000.

“The last full sentence he ever spoke was, ‘I can’t thank the Flyers enough for everything they’ve given to me and my family,’ “ Snider said.

Photos of Snider through the years—from infancy, to making a “choke” sign to a referee, to his drinking from the Stanley Cup—were shown during the ceremony.

Lindy Snider said an Ayn Rand quote was a “favorite of Dad’s” and she began her speech by reciting it: “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed.”

Lindy Snider said the quote “defines what it means to be a visionary—in modern terms, an entrepreneur. It defines Dad in his most public of roles, and we, his family, were so fortunate to have a father to love, admire and want to emulate.”

She said there were “five things that truly defined our Dad and all that he did. Have a personal code, a work ethic, courage, love and passion for all that you do, and family. The parallels between the public and private side 30

mirror each other. The values he taught us as children he practiced in his life.”

Drew Katz also saluted Snider. Katz’s father, Lewis, and Snider were best friends. Lewis Katz, co-owner of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, died in a plane crash about two years ago.

Drew Katz said Snider was like a “second father” to him and that he could never repay him for the love and support he showed during a trying time.

Katz drew laughter from the crowd when he said Snider once kicked Donald Trump out of the owner’s Wells Fargo Center suite “because he wouldn’t stop talking to Ed during the game. No one came between him and his hockey games,” Katz said.

He said Snider was as tough as nails on the outside, “but soft as could be on the inside.”

On a personal note, as the Flyers’ beat writer for The Inquirer, I sat with Snider in his office before the season started and he told me his cancer had returned but that he didn’t want it in the newspaper. He wanted the focus to be on his team, not his cancer battle.

He also told me, correctly as it turned out, that the Flyers were going to make the playoffs, not realizing how much the players would rally late in the season in honor of their ailing owner, one of the most influential people in the history of Philadelphia sports.

Rest in peace, Ed. Your passion is ingrained in your franchise and in the fans—many of whom would not have been attracted to hockey if it wasn’t for your foresight—that you left behind. n

PROFILE

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“The World’s Seventh Most Interesting Man”

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John O’Hurley doesn’t sit still very often, but when he does, he has an extraordinary life to reflect on.

BY KURT SMITH

HE FIRST TIME

John O’Hurley read a Seinfeld script, he instantly saw the genius of the Show About Nothing, even if he didn’t consider it genius at the time.

O’Hurley had to be nudged to play off-thereservation catalogue owner J. Peterman, a role that, given his own eccentric demeanor and storytelling ability, he seemed born to play. When he gave in and read the script, he couldn’t believe that Seinfeld was the number one show on TV because the show didn’t read funny.

“It was the un-funniest show to read,” the portrayer of the now iconic character remembers. “There’s no setup. If I showed you, say, a Golden Girls script, you can see, setup setup setup, punchline, setup setup setup, punchline. Generations of script writers lived off of that form.

“Then Seinfeld came in. It grew out of standup comedy, observational humor. It was basically the notion of being in an elevator, that is New York, the sense of small spaces and rudeness and everything is always on edge, relationships or whatever. It was all about conversation, because everybody talks in New York. That’s why Peterman existed, because he was not only about language, he was about the long form. The writers got to write monologues every week, rather than writing one or two lines for each character.”

If you’ve ever looked at a J. Peterman catalogue (yes, J. Peterman is a real person), you can see why it appealed to sitcom writers whose strength was dialogue. A typical en-

O’Hurley with the real J. Peterman

try reads like this one, for the “Grace Under Pressure” cotton T-shirt: “MI6 operatives sat at noirish watering holes with Gestapo and Portuguese secret police, all waiting for the other to reveal the whereabouts of the Nazis’ cache of gold or an allied shipping lane. Wealthy refugees negotiated the sale of their art collections.

Prostitutes doubled as informants. You’ve heard of Casino Royale? That’s this place.”

That’s the real J. Peterman. It was as if the character’s lines wrote themselves.

“They wanted him to sound the way the catalogue was written,” O’Hurley recalls.

“They didn’t even have the full script written,

because it was the most disorganized show on television. So all they had was the catalogue and a couple of lines. I’m going through this and thinking, ‘OK, this is 40s radio drama and bad Charles Kuralt.’ So it had this sort of Centurion poet standing on a cliff type of feel about everything. Even a walk to the men’s room was an adventure. (imitating Peterman voice) ‘I have no idea what I’m going to find serving a basic desire!’”

The J. Peterman catalogue not only still exists, it’s partly owned by O’Hurley now. The two men have walked on Madison Avenue together and heard New Yorkers shout “Peter33

O’Hurley spends time in the Philadelphia area each year, hosting the National Dog Show “It is the happiest day of the year. It’s as simple as that.”

man!” at O’Hurley, ignoring the in-the-flesh Peterman.

One of the catalogue’s newest offerings is the Urban Sombrero, in an ongoing and humorous Kickstarter campaign that has raised $96,000 as of this writing.

In case you haven’t seen that episode, the Urban Sombrero is an invention Elaine conjures up when the chronically unstable Peter-

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man breaks down and runs off to Burma, leaving the company operations in Elaine’s hands.

The Urban Sombrero—a hat that combines “the spirit of Old Mexico with a little big-city panache”—turns out to be a colossal flop, to the point where Elaine overhears men on the subway talk about how the Urban Sombrero ruined their lives. In the show, Peterman reacts to the idea with similar distress, muttering “the horror…the horror.”

Indeed, if you were working for a clothing firm and heard someone suggest the idea of an Urban Sombrero, you might imagine you were in a Seinfeld episode. It took 20 years of cajoling from the fictional Peterman to persuade the actual Peterman to make this essential “sky piece” available.

What caused the eventual change of heart?

“I think he finally realized that at some point he was going to have to embrace the Seinfeld audience of 80+ million and try to draw them across the aisle into the Peterman world. There was a little bit of unconscious reluctance to accept them. When you think

about it, I’ve basically stolen his identity; I’ve become his company. All of a sudden this poor man has nothing left; he’s lost his identity. He never understood, I don’t think, the Seinfeld phenomenon.”

Pop culture reverence aside, for us Philly area folks, O’Hurley points out the advantages of the Urban Sombrero as an ideal Jersey shore accessory.

“It’s the absolute answer to the SPF problem. When you can’t decide between 15, 30, 60 or 70 and you go, oh my God, what do I choose? The Urban Sombrero. And not only that, it says, I think I’m gonna take a nap. Why not do it with a little bit of a panache?”

’Hurley spends time in the Philadelphia area each year, hosting the National Dog Show in Oaks that has become almost as much of a Thanksgiving Day tradition as the Macy’s parade. The National Dog Show was created way back in 1879 by the Kennel Club of Philadelphia; O’Hurley has been hosting it since 2002.

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Like the Peterman character, it seemed an obvious choice to make O’Hurley the emcee of the show. Coupled with his game show host experience (To Tell the Truth in 2000, and Family Feud from 2006 to 2010), he has an exceptionally thoughtful appreciation for canines. He’s authored three books about dogs and their impact on our lives: It’s Okay To Miss The Bed On The First Jump is a New York Times bestseller, and “The Perfect Dog,” a children’s poem, has been adapted into a children’s musical that is now part of National Dog Show Week.

“If you have a dog in the room,” O’Hurley relates, “everyone comes and pets the dog. If there’s a dog in an elevator, everyone is looking at the dog. Whatever the natural behavior of the dog is, everyone is going, awww. They calm us down; they round the edges in our lives. They take the brittleness out of things.

That’s what dogs do.

“If you’re around 2,000 of them, they don’t care if they win. Everybody else seems to be happy so they’re happy. And they’re appreciated, and they know it, and there’s a sense of energy that they know that something important is going on. All of those things lead to just a great environment for everybody.

“It is the happiest day of the year. It’s as simple as that.”

The well-traveled host not only says nothing

“I’m very, very lucky. I’ve been in the right place at the right time, but all of those things I did, I did because my imagination said I’m supposed to do this.” but nice things about visiting Philadelphia, he can do so without even dropping the name of an iconic sandwich shop.

“My favorite thing about Philly is the authenticity of the history there. The actual documents, walking around and actually being in arm’s reach from some of the most important legislation that was ever done in this country, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

“I did the musical 1776 many times, and I think that every time I pass that building, that they all stood in and sat in, and how sweaty that must have been and how miserable they must have been, and yet to put their names on any one of those documents was basically signing a lynching mob. I think of that every time I pass that building…. My goodness, the courage they had to do what they did.

“On top of that, I love walking up and down the streets and seeing the preservation of the areas. I love staying in some of the little boutique hotels. We love Oaks too, mostly because my wife refers to Neiman Marcus as the moth-

ership out there in the King of Prussia Mall, which is the best place in the world to shop.”

ou don’t have to be a Seinfeld fan or a National Dog Show viewer to have seen John O’Hurley’s visage frequently.

He is a theater star who has played King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spam-A-Lot and currently still plays Billy Flynn in the long running musical Chicago. On stage, he possesses a fine singing voice. Tom Williams of Chicago Critic opined it best: “John O’Hurley brings a big voice and a commanding presence.”

He is a self-taught classical pianist who has released several acclaimed CDs, and is now starring in his own creation called A Man With Standards. “It’s my one-man show of the music of the period when I grew up, a period of time when men had standards. It’s basically piano, and I expanded it all the way up to a full orchestra. It’s fun. I have all these melodies in my head, I’ve got to get rid of them somehow.

It’s a dangerous place up there.”

He has ballroom dancing skills too; he made

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it to the finals of the first season of Dancing With The Stars, and won a dance-off following a hotly disputed (to say the least) loss in the original final.

And he was probably the most elegant host of Family Feud in the history of the show.

“I’d worked with them on a show previous called To Tell The Truth. You remember, will the real so-and-so please stand up? They were looking for a new host for Family Feud and I said yes. It’s a different style of hosting; with To Tell The Truth I sat down, I had a nice little thing to read with a story, panelists, that type of stuff. With Family Feud, there’s no script; you are literally out there hoping the net will appear.

“That was when I began what I call the prayer. I say God, let me be surprised. That’s all I say, and that’s what I say before I go on stage. It relaxes me to say that I’m not in control of this thing, so I can go out and relax.

It was like hosting a cocktail party; we really cared about the fact that all these people came to your party.”

Last but not at all least, he’s the father of the first ever third-grader vice president of his school. According to O’Hurley, at the age of nine, his son had already mastered the art of persuading people to eschew politics as usual…which at the school meant voting for a sixth-grader…and won in a landslide.

On his Twitter account, John O’Hurley

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The Peterman Monologues For many years, the Seinfeld audience didn’t get to see much of J. Peterman at his maniacal finest: delivering a lengthy monologue.

“Every show was ten minutes too long,” O’Hurley says. “The first thing to go, we’ll cut the Peterman monologue. These things that I’d spend two and half hours on.” O’Hurley’s all-time favorite was in an episode where he incorrectly suspects that Elaine might be having a fling with a co-worker, and he encourages them with tickets to a circus. He still remembers the monologue verbatim: “Don’t worry, Elaine. I too am no stranger to love on the clock. As a young man, my father apprenticed me to a honey factory in Belize. The chief beekeeper was this horrible hag of a woman with nulled teeth and a giant wart that she called a nose. She was not attractive, even by backwoods standards. But love is truly blind, Elaine, and as the days went on, working closer and closer together, that sweet smell of honey in the air, I knew I had to have that horrible creature. And I did. So you and Bob have a good time tonight.”

It may be an exception to the show’s script not reading funny, but that classic, sadly, was also cut from the show. O’Hurley says you can watch some of the monologues on the Seinfeld DVDs. “They put a good many of them back in because they’re funny. I actually hosted the presentation of the DVDs. They decided when I talked about that, oh we gotta go back and add that.

“It was just lunatic stuff.”

proclaims himself to be the World’s 7th Most Interesting Man. When asked who #1-6 are, his answer is no one specific. Just that there are probably only six people in the world having a better day than he is.

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t’s a humorous worldview of a goodnatured optimist whose attitude has taken him far. But truthfully, it’s a challenge to think of many people who have led more interesting lives. Not many of us have been a recurring character in the most popular sitcom in history, hosted national game shows, emceed a National Dog Show, made it to the finals of Dancing With The Stars, written three books, played leads in traveling hit musicals and released several CDs of classical piano music.

Someone hosting a success seminar could paraphrase that old cliché: You have the same 24 hours as John O’Hurley. Or they could attend one of O’Hurley’s own motivational speeches; he does that too. He calls his presentation The Peterman Guide to Living an Extraordinary Life.

“I wake up every day with this goal: I have to find a way to stay relevant every single day of my life. And what I live by is this premise, and this is what I speak about: You have two choices in life. You can have an ordinary life, or you can have an extraordinary life, and it has nothing to do with power or money; it has everything to do with the power of your choices.

“God speaks through imagination. He puts pictures in your mind of what you’re supposed to be doing. Your rational mind knows everything you’re afraid of, and it has an agenda, but your imagination? No agenda. It only knows the best of what you are capable of, and it always pushes you forward to the next thing you’re supposed to be doing.

“I’ll talk to hedge fund guys on Wall Street, two thousand people in the room, and every one of them is taking notes, and I love that.

And I say, if you do not believe that what you imagine has value, what I would ask you to do right now is put your pencils down, get up out of your chair, drop to the floor, curl yourself in a little fetal ball and wait there for the sweet embrace of death. Because you will not improve your life one iota unless you value what you imagine, not what you know.

“And everyone picks up their pencils and starts writing again.”

“I’m very, very lucky. I’ve been in the right place at the right time, but all of those things I did, I did because my imagination said I’m supposed to do this.”

With all respect to Jonathan Goldsmith, it’s a shame that O’Hurley didn’t star in the Most Interesting Man In The World spots. The Dos Equis people would have had a lot to work with: “He was once asked to star on Seinfeld…and proclaimed the script unfunny.” n 37

BIG

BY MICHAEL BRADLEY

STADIUMS SHOWS

Concert goers pack Citizens Bank Park

Behind the scenes at Philadelphia’s largest concert venues.

W

hen Kevin Beale and Sal DeAngelis visited Minneapolis in early May for the Paul McCartney concert at Target Center, they arrived at 4 p.m., caught the sound check, watched the VIP guests arrive for meet-and-greets, saw the arena fill with fans and stood backstage as the lights went down and the former Beatle tore into his concert opener, “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Two songs later, they were gone.

The early exit had nothing to do with the fact that the men aren’t exactly in McCartney’s Baby Boomer demographic. They hadn’t gone there for the music. As two of the people charged with making sure the summer concerts staged at Citizens Bank Park run smoothly, Beale and DeAngelis are interested less in the artists than everything that surrounds them. Making sure a

38

will stage some ancillary events at the ballpark, Bruce Springsteen comes back to the park in September for the first time since his two-night residence in 2012.

It’s all part of a growing major outdoor concert lineup in Philadelphia that encompasses the Phillies’ and Eagles’ homes and will bring some of the biggest stars in music to town for bona fide spectacles.

“In the last 10 or 11 years, the industry has become much more competitive for summer shows,” Beale says. “But not every artist can fill a stadium. The big acts are always interested in trying to do something with us.”

usic fans have plenty of reasons to visit Lincoln Financial Field this year. The Linc will host a variety of shows, beginning with Beyoncé in June.

Kenny Chesney’s annual show and tailgate extravaganza takes place on June 25, with Guns ‘n Roses slated for July and Coldplay’s arrival in August. It used to be that stadiums hosted festivals—like Live Aid/8—and multiband shows, but more and more artists can fill a big space these days, and the local teams are more than happy to offer their home fields as venues.

“Obviously, money is an important reason to do it,” says Frank Gumienny, senior VP and CFO of the Eagles. “The stadium was expensive to build, and we undertook a $130 million renovation last year, so it’s important to make some money that we can reinvest for our fans.

“But it’s also about the people who own our suites. They get first right to buy suites for other events, and the bigger and better the events we have, those suites have more value. Finally, these events get our sponsors’ names out to a larger audience.”

Gumienny reports that this year and 2015, which included performances by pop superstars Taylor Swift and One Direction, will be the most active for concerts at the Linc.

The stadium hosted the NCAA men’s lacrosse championships in May and will stage Copa America Centenario soccer games in June, not to mention 450 or so smaller events throughout the year. Few—including Eagles games— include as much preparation as does a concert.

Gumienny reports that stadium staff members are already in discussions with promoters and artist representatives for summer 2017. Like their Citizen Bank Counterparts, Linc reps spread out across the country in advance of shows to learn how others handle staging issues and then use that information to help perfect their processes.

For instance, in early May, two staffers went to Dallas to check out Beyoncé’s concert at Jerry World. Two others were dispatched to Los

M

Beale

DeAngelis

show for 40,000 people is remembered for the performance, and nothing else, requires considerable planning and experience.

“We left because we saw everything we needed to see,” says DeAngelis, the Phillies’ director of security.

The two men were in Minneapolis to “advance” the McCartney show that will roar to life in the Phils’ home on July 12, three days after Billy Joel and his piano play there for

the third straight year. They met with McCartney’s people and the concert’s promoter. They watched how security personnel worked with the artist and the fans. And a few days later, they e-mailed their counterparts at the Target Center to learn whether anything happened that wasn’t anticipated.

“We’ve been talking with the McCartney people for three years, trying to make it work,” says Beale, the Phillies’ director of suite sales and services. “We never got to the finish line with him, because the dates didn’t match up.

“Last October, we started looking at dates again for this summer.”

A match was made, and Sir Paul will play outdoors in Philadelphia for the first time since the Beatles staged an 11-song set at JFK Stadium in 1966. That comes three days after Joel’s performance, which is becoming an annual thing. After a hiatus induced mostly by the Democratic National Convention, which

39

Angeles to observe how the Rose Bowl pulled the show together. In addition to learning how early fans entered the stadium and what the singer’s security force needs to feel comfortable, they found out that Beyoncé wants white carpeting in her dressing room.

But it’s hardly about the little things. There are people to handle the rugs and M&Ms. Setting up the stage, protecting the field and Lincoln Financial Field lit up for a Taylor Swift concert

40

putting down the seats is when the real work starts. According to Jason Miller, the Eagles’ senior VP of operations, set-up for a Saturday concert begins on a Monday at 7 a.m. Over the course of the next few days, an army of workers spends 12-16 hours a day making sure the turf is protected, the giant stage and all the lights are constructed and the thousands of seats get lined up properly on the field.

Gumienny

Miller

“It helps tremendously that we have done this before,” Miller says. “I think we look at it as a challenge. This is a job with a lot of different challenges, and we’re here to make it all work.”

Concerts haven’t always gone so smoothly at the Linc. It opened in 2003 and hosted three nights of Bruce Springsteen shows. The logistics of the events went smoothly, but those folks sitting in the upper deck faced a muddied sound delivery. That’s no longer the case. The sound is clear, and the experience is good.

Of course, there will be a lot of football games played on the same grass where thousands will be stomping their feet to Kenny Chesney. Because there are hydronic tubes beneath the field to keep the roots of the grass warm throughout the year, it’s unwise to drive large cranes onto the turf. So, the field has to be covered and protected before any building can be done.

That’s a lesson the Eagles learned early, and as a result, the turf is rarely harmed. The Phillies had to make some adjustments after the first show at Citizens Bank Park—Jimmy Buffett in 2005. A drenching rain kept up through most of the concert, and the next time the Phillies played at home, fans were treated to a pinstriped outfield, because long rows of grass had been discolored by a combination of the water and the people. It was still completely playable, but it didn’t look so good.

While the Eagles’ staff works with the union folks to handle the stage construction, etc., the Phillies leave all of that to the concert promoter, often Live Nation. The team likes to have five days for a concert set-up and breakdown, with three days in advance and two days for the load-out, which begins the second the musicians leave the stage. The extra time on the front end also extends to the parking lots, which are often loaded with tailgaters.

There is plenty to consider on the day of the show. “A concert crowd is different than a baseball crowd,” Beale says. “It depends on the act. A country show features a lot of tailgating, while Billy Joel fans don’t show up until 20 minutes before the concert.” Many artists have pre-show meet-and-greets. They offer premium packages that offer a chance for

42

Citizens Bank Park ready for the concert crowd to arrive.

fans to watch the sound check.

DeAngelis says, “There are a lot of moving parts” to security at a show. For instance, if people haven’t been to a stadium for a game, they may not know what items are banned.

Thanks to metal detectors at both stadiums, it takes longer to get in, so those fans who arrive late will be waiting longer. There is likely more alcohol consumed before and during a show than at a ballgame. And if there is a large female demographic, such as for Taylor Swift or Bon

Jovi, some bathrooms have to be switched from men’s to women’s, necessitating signage swaps.

It’s a lot of work, but the payoff for everyone is huge, even those who are working the show.

“We have a great staff and organization,” Gumienny says. “I really believe that there are worse things in the world than to work a Bruce show or a Kenny Chesney show.”

“Yes,” adds Miller. “They’re all dancing at the end of the concert.”

Just like everyone else is. n

J Photos courtesy Ryan Peters

Proof Positive JUST TELL RYAN PETERS he can’t do something and his fiercely competitive spirit will prove you wrong! Peters has been operating under this M.O. since childhood. “I have two brothers and we were heavy into sports, heavy into competition,” explained Peters, 34, who was born and raised in Mount Laurel, NJ. As a high school freshman at Delran’s Holy Cross High School, a female classmate called Peters a jock, telling him he wasn’t smart enough for the English honors course they were taking. That compelled him to enroll in more honors classes, becoming not only a soccer standout, but a high-achieving student as well.

Yet never in his wildest dreams did Peters imagine he’d one day become a United States Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land team), proudly serving his country on the front lines in the global war on terrorism, embarking on top secret missions, trekking in darkness through fields of explosives in Iraq with a 20-man platoon to raid the house of a “high value target” (HVT) who was a member of al-Qaeda.

(Peters clarified this HVT was not bin Laden.)

An attorney with Pepper Hamilton LLP’s Philadelphia office since 2012 and specializing in commercial litigation, a Burlington County freeholder since January and a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserve, Peters was not raised in a military family. His paternal grandfather served in World War II; beyond that, he had little knowledge of military ways.

His father, Terry, is a truck leasing consultant; mom, Debbie, a homemaker. “I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” recalled Peters, who resides in Hainesport with his wife of 44

Navy SEAL, Attorney & BurlCo Freeholder Ryan Peters

BY JAN L. APPLE deposition to investigate fraud, as a freeholder helping the homeless or veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and traumatic brain injuries, as board vice chair of the Liberty USO and as a speaker for the Ashley Philadelphia Leadership Council to combat addiction.

ETERS’ UNEXPECTED PATH to the military began on a soccer field as a high school junior at a travel team tournament.

“We were six-time state champions,” said Peters, recalling the day when several college recruitment coaches were keeping a watchful eye. Among them was the head soccer coach from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

He approached Peters after the game and told him he wanted Peters to play for the academy.

That conversation was followed with a formal letter to Peters’ parents. “I was being heavily recruited by colleges,” said Peters.

An administrator at Holy Cross told Peters he’d never make it at the academy. “She said they wanted people who followed rules, not people like me.” Peters was determined to prove her wrong.

After visiting numerous colleges, a trip to Annapolis was eye opening. At other schools, Peters relayed, there was partying, drinking.

Not so at the Naval Academy. “You wake up early, work out, get yelled at,” he said. “There’s no drinking, there’s a uniform, it’s hard, not everyone makes it through.” Peters also remembered it being “awesome.”

“My mother cried her eyes out,” said Peters of when he decided to enroll. “Students are given free tuition and receive a small monthly

P

Ryan Peters and his family when he returned home from deployment in 2014, surprising daughter, Kaylee, at her school.

10 years, Stacy, and their children, Kaylee, 8, Kevin, 5 and Benjamin Danger, 3.

Yet being a Navy SEAL, he explains, defines his every moment. It’s about being a team member and never, ever departing from that team. “Never quit, never fail; I will go wherever you send me; I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions,” are central components of the SEAL ethos, as Peters explained. He applies this ethos in all aspects of life: as a father, a husband, when conducting a

Peters during an active tour of duty

Peters punched his fist through the drywall and knew at that moment that he wanted to become a Navy SEAL. “Whatever it takes, I want to be on the front lines of this war,” stipend. In exchange, they are obligated to serve a minimum of five years in the military following graduation.”

Peters explains that the academy is an engineering school; his strengths are in reading and writing, not math and science. As a political science major, he persevered—tackling required courses in calculus, chemistry, physics and electrical engineering.

When Peters arrived in Annapolis, his head was shaved and life forever altered. Many of his classmates were from military families: children of ambassadors, senators, high-ranking officials.

“We were called plebes by upper classmen,” said Peters. “It’s from the Roman word plebian, the lowest person in society.” Freshmen could only respond with five phrases: “Yes, sir; No, sir; I will find out; No excuse and Aye, aye.”

Peters’ athleticism helped him survive a grueling schedule. He’d wake up at 5 a.m., attend classes from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., play soccer until 7 p.m. and then study as hard as he could until passing out. “Adapt and overcome,” said Peters. “There was no other option.”

N SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, Peters was in physics class when the announcement came that a plane had hit the Pentagon.

Students were instructed to go to their rooms.

O

“We only had one television channel on our computers, CNN,” said Peters, who watched with friend Jade Edwards as the two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. They were told this was likely a terrorist attack and Annapolis, with a highly concentrated number of military, could be a target. Edwards told Peters that her uncle worked at the Twin Towers; he died that day. Peters punched his fist through the drywall and knew at that moment that he wanted to become a Navy SEAL. “Whatever it takes, I want to be on the front lines of this war,” he thought.

Peters stepped up his game, becoming captain of the Division I varsity soccer team and studying even harder. With about 900 in his graduating class, some 300 wanted to undergo SEAL training. Ultimately, only 17 would do so.

In October of his senior year, Peters, along with fellow classmates, was handed an envelope; inside would be his military assignment. “I was ecstatic,” recalled Peters, discovering he’d been granted his first choice.

In May 2004, Peters graduated cum laude from the academy. He had recently become engaged to Stacy Simek, a Mount Laurel native and graduate of Lenape Regional High School and Towson University. The two knew each

other during high school; a romance blossomed when they reconnected in college.

In June, Stacy accompanied Peters to Coronado, CA where he and four housemates underwent nine months of Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training, aka BUDS. “This is the toughest military training,” said Peters. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

A typical day might begin at 4 a.m., then a one-mile run to and from breakfast, a three-mile run to meet the instructor, a dip in the frigid ocean, covering your body in wet sand, doing 100-plus pushups, navigating obstacle courses, running again with a 30-pound sandbag in your backpack. They averaged 15 miles of running daily as well as a two-mile ocean swim. The fourth week, dubbed Hell Week, trainees operated on no sleep.

“Stacy was our SEAL mom,” said Peters.

“She was amazing. She cleaned and sharpened our knives, shopped for and cooked our meals, answered phone calls from concerned mothers, even counseled the other trainees on girl problems.”

Following BUDS, there was parachuting from airplanes; diving and survival training, encompassing how to evade capture and what to do if interrogated.

In October 2005, Peters was presented with 45

the SEAL Qualification badge—the Trident.

In December of that year, Peters and Stacy Simek were married at a church in Moorestown. Less than a year later, Peters deployed to Iraq (the first of four deployments) at the height of the war. His assignment: direct action missions for HVTs, which included tactical interrogations.

Admittedly, Peters felt fear during missions.

“You don’t give in to the fear,” he said. During one operation, a SEAL from his platoon was shot and killed. “It’s like losing a brother,” he explained.

Peters returned to Virginia Beach, where he and Stacy had been living. In April 2007, he was deployed to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.

Stacy was pregnant with their first child.

On Peters’ third tour of active duty, he returned to Iraq. Amidst a raging war, he watched civilians marvel at their right to vote, dipping their thumbs in ink to cast their ballots.

Being apart from his wife and daughter became an increasing strain. Stacy told him it was time to return to New Jersey.

After five years of service, Peters pursued a career that could support his growing family and match his skillset. He graduated with honors from Rutgers University School of Law. In February 2015, Peters received a call from Burlington County Republican Chairman Bill

46

Burlington County Sheriff, Jean Stanfield, swearing in Ryan Peters as a Burlington County Freeholder in January 2016.

With Peters is wife Stacy, and their three children.

Layton. There was an open freeholder spot, as Mount Holly Mayor Rich DiFolco had dropped out of the race. Layton asked Peters if he was interested in running for office. He jumped at the chance.

“Public service is my passion,” said Peters, underscoring that Burlington County has the highest population of veterans in New Jersey.

“I now have a platform to help people.” He cites one project where Habitat for Humanity is building a house for veterans, and another where funds were raised by Rancocas Valley Regional High School to purchase a comfort dog for a veteran.

“It’s been awesome,” said Peters. “This is my chance to give back.” n

TALKIN’ PHILLY SPORTS INTERVIEW BY T. JORDAN WOMPIERSKI

IT’S BEEN EIGHT YEARS since Philadelphia’s last professional championship, courtesy of the 2008 Phillies, and fans are growing impatient for another title. At times, though, it seems like it could take a lifetime before a Philadelphia pro team reigns supreme again.

We recently sat down with three of the top on-air personalities from Comcast SportsNet—Amy Fadool, Marshall Harris and Jen Daniels—who know the coaches, players and GMs, and have their fingers on the pulse of Philly sports, for a roundtable discussion on the current state of Philly sports and what the city’s passionate fans have to look forward to.

EAGLES

Carson Wentz in the fold now, will Q With Sam Bradford remain the Eagles’ starter

for the full 2016 season, or will we see Wentz at the helm before the season is over?

MARSHALL HARRIS: No, we will not see Sam Bradford as the starter for all 16 games, because Sam Bradford doesn’t have a track record of staying healthy for all 16 games. At that point, you insert Carson Wentz, unless it happens, let’s say, the first week of the season. But as soon as he has his feet under him, Carson Wentz will be ready to go and will leapfrog Chase Daniel. He’s gonna play. I just don’t believe Sam Bradford can stay healthy for 16 games.

Overall, it’s really going to come down to who’s playing well, who’s healthy and what Doug 48

Pederson decides to do. Remember, that’s a rookie head coach, so that will be one of the factors. The problem is, the leash is going to be short with Sam Bradford, just because people are, I won’t say tired of his mediocre act, but just tired of his act in general. They’re clamoring for Wentz. He’s the most popular player on the team, the backup quarterback.

That’s just not a good situation.

AMY FADOOL: It’s interesting. Sam Bradford

wants to be the man for a team, but the only way you can do that is if you stay on the field for 16 games. He has yet to show that in his career, except for his very first year.

I don’t think he’s going to get usurped by Carson Wentz, but I think it will be an injury, probably, unfortunately for him, or maybe it’s just mediocrity. If it’s early in the season, it might even be Chase Daniel for a minute, but

Sam Bradford knows. The writing is on the wall. This isn’t his team. It’s not his team to go forward with. It’s Carson Wentz’s team. If he wants to be the man, it will be somewhere else, but he has to show that he can have that consistency for 16 games.

JEN DANIELS: I would be surprised if they

were near the top of their division this year, so what’s the point of continuing with Bradford, if he does stay healthy, when you have a guy that you drafted that’s your franchise QB that’s waiting in the wings? It would make sense to me to just get him in there and get him some playing time toward the latter part of the season. You have the number two overall pick sitting there on the sidelines waiting, and if your team’s not winning, I don’t see how [Bradford] could last the entire season.

Q What will the Eagles’ 2016 record be?

AF: I say 8-8. The over/under that Vegas set was seven; I took one game over.

JD: I was gonna go with seven wins.

MH: I’m gonna go with 7-9.

AF: Mark it down. Amy Fadool is optimistic about an 8-8 season.

MH: But that tells you everything you need to

know. She’s optimistic about an 8-8 season. I’m optimistic about a seven-win season.

SIXERS

Hinkie stepped down from his Q Sam position as general manager in April,

paving the way for Jerry Colangelo to hire his son Bryan as GM. Would Hinkie have been able to successfully see his rebuilding process to fruition, or is the franchise in better hands with the Colangelos?

MH: I think that’s yet to be determined. Here’s

the thing: All of the people are saying, “We have a basketball mind finally in charge,” but let me remind you of the last time that Bryan Colangelo had the number one overall pick. Andrea Bargnani. Where is he? What’s he doing now? I’m not on this bandwagon where, “Oh, they’ve been saved now! They can go ahead and start building with all of the pieces that trader Sam brought in.” I liked what Hinkie was doing. I said, two years ago, when somebody asked me when this was gonna be done, I’m like, “Well, the summer of 2016 is when we’re going to find out what they’re really doing.” That seems to be the case. The problem is, now Sam Hinkie is gone, so I don’t know in terms of trades, in terms of who’s gonna do what. I’d love to see the Sixers go out and get D’Angelo Russell and get him over here.

AF: Colangelo has a good track record, and yes,

I know that Andrea Bargnani is not good, but for every bad, there are a couple of goods. He did a really good job out in Denver; he did a really nice job in Toronto. You’ve seen what they’ve been able to sustain, certainly in Toronto the last couple of years. You’re seeing the fruits of his labor in those two places. I think the one thing that tells me is that you don’t know how these things work out for years down the line.

Basketball is a very fickle sport. If you get a LeBron James or you get a guy like that, he can certainly make your franchise, but those guys are few and far between. Even when you have a guy of that caliber like a Kevin Durant, it doesn’t guarantee you a title. It’s interesting.

I don’t know if you can quantify it by saying they’re in better hands. They’re in different hands, and I don’t know if it’s better or worse.

It’s definitely going to be more traditional basketball than we’ve seen, as far as the trajectory of picking up players and evaluating them, rather than the Sam Hinkie analytics of the asset. I was fine with Sam Hinkie for a bit, but last season was a little tough for me to swallow because it was just not a good product at times out there. You could see the frustration on the players and certainly Brett Brown. I talked to him about that a couple of times and he said the losing was real. The pain was real for them. They’re hoping that they’ve created something different, that [Hinkie] put the foundation in to work to build something, and now that Bryan Colangelo is on, hopefully he sees that vision and they can kind of get things going back to at least towards something that resembles basketball.

JD: That’s the thing that’s been missing. We’re right in the Wells Fargo Center. We want to walk out there and watch these games, and like Amy said, the lack of compete that team had last year—through no fault of Brett Brown’s— they just didn’t have the players. I understand having to rebuild, but this team, they made the playoffs what, six years ago, but they haven’t been real winners since the days of [Allen Iverson]. It’s hard to continue to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild for three, four, five years and not be able to put a product out there that can compete. I think Bryan Colangelo will come in and bring in some free agents and hopefully a number-one pick that can help this team.

MH: Colangelo is a guy who’s lauded amongst

his peers and amongst fans. He has had some success at making teams better. Not necessarily at a championship level, but making teams better. The last thing you want to see, whether you’re a Sam Hinkie guy or not, is for [Colangelo] to go out and get middling free agents to come and fill some of those starting roles, who aren’t that good, and sign them to bad contracts. Then you’re right back where you started, somewhere between

JD: I’ll take that four spot.

AF: I’ll take that over last year. Doing those Sixers pre- and post-game shows was exciting.

a few years of disappointing draft Q After lotteries, the Sixers finally hold the coveted

number one pick in the 2016 draft. Which player do you think the team will select?

AF: Ben Simmons.

JD: Yeah, Ben Simmons.

MH: Ben Simmons. At the end of the day, he’s

the guy with the highest ceiling, and you’re in this to get stars and superstars, not guys who had a nice year and have potential to be really good.

JD: I think that’s the thing a lot of people forgot about. I know he didn’t have a great season at LSU, couldn’t get into the NCAA tournament, but you think about the way he was talked about coming into this past season. He’s a game changer. If he’s a once-in-a-lifetime or once-in-a-generation player, you can’t take the chance of passing up on that.

AF: I actually watched probably more LSU basketball unfortunately than anybody probably should have been subjected to. It was a tough season. There was basically no offense run. Johnny Jones, who’s the LSU coach, and I can’t believe still has a job honestly, would put the ball in Ben Simmons’ hands and tell him to bring it up. So people talk about how he can’t shoot, but he wasn’t asked to shoot.

He was asked to do literally everything on that team. He was the point forward; he would run the one; he would play the two, the three and the five. That’s insane. He’s basically LeBron James out there without being LeBron James.

MH: For the people who are like, “This guy

can’t shoot,” he can score, number one, and scoring is scoring. Number two, you look at LeBron James, when he came into the league.

Was he a great shooter? You look at Michael Jordan, when he came in the league, was he a great shooter? No, those guys got better over the years. I think people who are like, “He can’t shoot,” just, yo, relax. I know you probably still have Evan Turner disease, but sometimes guys do get better at shooting.

MARSHALL HARRIS

THE LEASH IS GOING TO BE SHORT WITH SAM BRADFORD, JUST BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF HIS ACT IN GENERAL. THEY’RE CLAMORING FOR WENTZ. THAT’S JUST NOT A GOOD SITUATION. 49

Photos Josh Chiu

‘‘

the four- and the eight-hole in the playoffs. And then it’s like, “Why did we just go through all of this?”

soon will it be until the Sixers are Q How competitive again?

AF: I mean, I think a winning season is sooner rather than later.

JD: I think they’ll be way more competitive this year. They had 10 wins last year.

MH: Brett Brown, at the end of the season,

was talking about the fact that people have to remember Joel Embiid is not gonna play backto-back next year, and we just found out from Scott O’Neil that he’s not even going to play in the summer league. Forget about Simmons and [Brandon] Ingram. Embiid is the guy that adds the superstar [element], like, if he’s healthy, we can go places. If that guy can play, they can do things sooner rather than later. If it turns out that you’ve got Greg Oden 2.0, if you’ve got Andrew Bynum 2.0, we have a problem.

Not a problem that can’t be solved, but that just means more waiting. More waiting for good players.

MH: But not when the second of a back-to-back

comes by and he can’t play that game.

AF: I will still have Christmas! Don’t take Christmas away from me! The day after Christmas is still a good day.

JEN DANIELS

BEN SIMMONS IS A GAME CHANGER. IF HE’S A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME OR ONCE-INA-GENERATION PLAYER, YOU CAN’T TAKE THE CHANCE OF PASSING UP ON THAT.

50

not coming, yet. But I will celebrate like it is Christmas when he does hit the court.

Photos Josh Chiu

‘‘

AF: I shudder at the words “Andrew Bynum.”

I’m so down on the Joel Embiid experiment, and I was so up on it. I understood why they had to take him. Here’s a guy that I watched at Kansas, and it’s funny, I actually talked to Jim Lynam about it before that season, and he and I were talking about how there’s a guy better than [Andrew] Wiggins on Kansas, and I watched him that year, and I was like, “Wow, it’s this Joel Embiid guy.” Joel Embiid, at this point, has not played basketball for two and a half years. He has not played since like February of his freshman year of Kansas, and this is a guy who had only played basketball for like five total years before that. It’s terrifying to think that there’s a franchise that could really put their entire weight of their franchise on this guy, but that’s the type of player he could be. You see it. I get so excited, but then I get so mad. Every time I see his workout video, I get excited, and I have to remind myself that Christmas is not tomorrow, and Joel Embiid is

PHILLIES

they’re going to be able to win games. If they don’t score runs, they won’t. The pitching is going to be there night in and night out.

like, 2012 or 2013, he was trying too hard to capitalize and catch that wind one more time, when that was a very aging core at that point.

in Major League Baseball this season, briefly finding themselves atop the Nation League East in May. This also happens to be their first full season without Ruben Amaro Jr. as the general manager. Why the sudden turnaround? Was Amaro that detrimental to the Phillies in his last few years as GM, or was it the opposite, in that he did a great job setting the table for Andy MacPhail and Matt Klentak?

JD: It’s funny. I was thinking about it today, because it’s like, we keep saying, “Well, they’re only 20 games in. They’re only 40 games in.”

But eventually, it’s going to be, “Oh, we’re halfway through the season.” I think Pete MacKanin is managing it so well. We talked to him the other day and he said obviously the middle of May isn’t the same as the middle of September, but they’re not even concerned with that. The guys are just so loose on that ball club; they’re just having fun every time they go out there. Sometimes it’s those little things that make the biggest difference. They don’t have the pressure on them. They know they’re surprising a lot of people, but they’re having fun doing it.

But he did realize it, maybe a little bit later and maybe too late depending on how you look at it, and he did a good job of trying to re-stock. They had really sold the farm in a

Phillies were projected to be terrible in Q The 2016, but they’ve been the biggest surprise

MH: He did an excellent job setting the table.

You look at the last year’s worth of deals that he made, going back to Jimmy Rollins, really.

He brought in lots of young arms, lots of young talent, and here they are on the precipice of doing something special. I know we’re just a quarter of the way through, but a quarter of the way is not 10 percent of the way. It’s a quarter of the way. You can say, “Hey, this is what this team is.” It’s pretty simple. If they score runs,

‘‘

AF: The pitching has really come through. You asked if Ruben Amaro, Jr. was detrimental, and yeah, you could possibly argue that in, AMY FADOOL

YOU HAVE TO HAVE GOOD PITCHING. GONE ARE THE DAYS OF THE MENTALITY OF, “WE’RE JUST GONNA JACK THE BALL OUT OF THE PARK.” I DON’T THINK THOSE DAYS ARE COMING BACK.

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big way to get some of those arms back, to get Cliff Lee back and to get all those guys, but you look at some of the deals they made and they’re starting to pay off. The Hunter Pence deal, which obviously brought Tommy Joseph, among others. But then he made a couple of deals that set them up, and they knew they were going to have to make them. So he did get good guys in return for some of the pieces. Yes, it was later than people would want and it was later than I would want, because you could see it, but I can’t fault the guy for trying to capture lighting in a bottle again, because they were so good in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. It was kind of a marriage of the two. Ruben did help set them up and he was a little bit detrimental, but I wouldn’t say it was one over the other.

MH: The Cole Hamels deal, look at the rewards

from that already. You can see that he had a positive effect. Let me tell you this. When Matt Klentak walked through the door, he was sitting pretty. You’re talking about the number one pick in the Rule 5 draft, the number one overall pick in the amateur draft, and of course you look down and you see arms on arms on arms down in AAA and AA and even A.

mentioned the draft. Like the Sixers, Q You the Phillies also have the top overall pick in

the 2016 draft. What do you think they’re going to do with that pick? With the Sixers, it seems like the clear choice is Ben Simmons, but it’s not so clear cut for the Phillies. It’s tempting to take the local pitcher, Jason Groome, but as you just said, the Phillies are already looking pretty good in the pitching department.

AF: I think you always need pitching. Pitchers on pitchers on pitchers.

MH: Here’s why I think you always need

pitching. Let’s say they take Groome, the kid from Barnegat. If they take him, and you’ve got all these other arms, eventually they’ve gotta go get some bats, and the way they may get bats may be through trades. Now you have enough of a surplus in arms that you can make a trade to help get that core outfielder that you so desperately need, to help get a second baseman if you want to upgrade there, to get bullpen help if you need that. You can never have enough arms. I’ll be a little bit surprised if they get a position player.

JD: Especially because those pitchers who are at the top of the draft board, A.J. Puk is a huge left-handed pitcher who, if he projects out, would be a great addition to the staff, or like Marshall said, just having those pitchers there, knowing that if you need to make other deals, they’re almost expendable.

AF: You look at the teams that have been successful over the last 20 years, and they don’t have just one number one. They’re got two 52

number ones, or three number ones. You go even back even to the Braves back in the 90s. I mean, that’s a team that won 14 straight pennants.

They had some offense, but they had a couple of pretty good guys in the rotation in Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux. When the Phillies were rolling, they had their guys, and you want to have a good balance between the two, but as you’ve seen this year, pitching is how they’re winning, because they don’t score runs. You have to have good pitching. Gone are the days of the mentality of, “We’re just gonna jack the ball out of the park.” I don’t think those days

are coming back. They like to play the small ball and it seems to be working for them. I’m on board with taking another pitcher. I don’t think you can have enough pitchers.

FLYERS

Gostisbehere is one of several blue Q Shayne chip defensive prospects in the Flyers’ system, so the team looks to be in good shape on the back end in the coming years. Offense, though, might be hard to come by. The team’s premier forward, Claude Giroux, was practi-

cally invisible during the playoff series against the Capitals. Braden Holtby, the Capitals goalie, had the same number of points as Giroux: one (both had an assist in the series). It has since come out that Giroux was injured, but some have suggested the Flyers would be better off trading Giroux. Does Claude Giroux have a long-term future in Philadelphia, or could he find himself in a situation similar to that of former captain Mike Richards and be sent packing in his prime?

JD: Who are we trading him for? I mean, it’s so hard. He didn’t just have one injury. He had surgery on his hip and his abs. I think he was playing well during that run up until the point it was clear he was injured. Obviously, as the captain, having that “C” on your jersey, you take on a lot of the heat if you’re not performing well or your team’s not performing well, but I don’t think I would trade him. I’d like to see him healthy. With the power play unit they had going, they were exciting to watch and I think he was doing well, but it was clear when he was injured it was really affecting his play.

MH: You know who my favorite GM is in this

Mason’s play in goal was another Q Steve huge reason the Flyers made the playoffs,

but when Mason faltered, Michal Neuvirth was spectacular in relief. Should the Flyers keep both goalies heading into next season for a goaltending competition, or would it be best to trade one and declare the other as the undisputed starter?

AF: No, I think you keep both of them, but I don’t know if you call it a competition, because I think that implies that it’s a controversy. I think you keep it how it was this year. You didn’t know. You basically found Michal Neuvirth on the scrap heap. He was on the bargain shelf and you picked him up for eight dollars, and he really turned out to be quite the guy.

But there’s one thing, as you mentioned, the Flyers have not had consistently, and that has been good goaltending. You gotta go back to the guy that’s now in charge of everything. It’s been an issue for them for a while. I don’t know why you can’t have a two-goalie situation like they did with the 1 and 1A and just rotate them out.

city right now? It’s Mr. Hextall, because he’s the guy who’s not panicking about anything.

The fact that he didn’t do anything at the trade deadline kind of sums up the type of approach I’ve been waiting for somebody, anybody, to have in this city.

Steve Mason didn’t seem to take too kindly mid-season of getting benched for those two weeks, but he came out strong and he basically led them to the playoffs down the stretch, so I think it worked well for them.

He is going to wait for Claude Giroux to come back because he believes he can be that player again.

enough credit has been given to Dave Hakstol.

The way he managed that situation, I don’t think he could’ve done a better job managing it. I mean, he was a rookie head coach, and his teams in college tended to finish better than they started. That was the case here, and part of that was the way he handled the goaltenders.

So yes, you bring them both back, and then you just play it by ear. I think they trust their coach. You let Dave Hakstol do what he does.

AF: Hextall definitely preached patience, and that was something you had not seen with the Flyers in the past. They had been kind of getting that, “Well we only need that one more big defenseman, or a fellow winger to be a goal scorer up there.” But it wasn’t one or two pieces with this team. You saw that this year, and I think Ron Hextall, who helped build a pretty nice franchise, a Stanley Cup winner out there in L.A., where the aforementioned Mike Richards and Jeff Carter went. But you saw what he did there and you saw they were committed to it. I like that they not only said that from the outset of the beginning of the season, but they kept their mantra throughout and they’ve seemingly done that even through the draft. There is a lot of excitement for them at the lower level. You see some of the big defenseman that are down there—Morin, and Provorov—and you say, “Wow, you can call those guys up,” but they’re like, “Well they’re not quite ready yet.” And you saw that with Shayne Gostisbehere. They did take their time with him and it turned out for the better, and that just reaffirms that they are taking the right path.

Yes, Claude Giroux did not have a good playoff, but he did have a decent year, and when you 54

look at the injuries, it’s hard to judge without looking through those eyes.

MH: Not only did it work well, but I don’t think

JD: I think Neuvirth and Mason seemed like they understood the situation. They were OK with the way things were handled. They understood whoever had the hot hand was gonna stay in goal. Once that becomes an issue where one of them wants to be the guy and he doesn’t think it can happen here, then you deal with it, but I couldn’t see a reason not to bring them both back.

THE OVERALL STATE OF PHILLY SPORTS

taking only their curQ Asrenttheyrostersstandintonow, consideration, which is the best Philadelphia sports team today?

JD: I’m gonna say the Flyers. They’re the only ones who made the playoffs.

MH: Yeah, they went to the playoffs.

AF: Obviously it’s always 20/20 when you look back, but the Flyers went to the playoffs, so it’s hard to judge right now. The Phillies are fun, and it’s something you have that cautious hope about. I want to say it’s the Phillies, but I just don’t know yet. I know it is a smaller sample size. So how can you not say it’s the Flyers?

They went to the playoffs. They’re the best team right now.

team will be the next team to bring Q Which a championship to Philadelphia?

AF: Come on, Villanova just brought a cham-

pionship!

OK, which of the major four Q True! professional teams will bring the next championship to Philadelphia?

MH: I got this. It’s the baseball team. It’s the

Phillies.

AF: Oh, come on, man.

MH: Here’s why. They already have the young

staff and guys still ready to come up. They’re already playing good baseball. They’ve got a good idea of what’s going on with young players. And you know who hasn’t even opened his checkbook yet? It’s about to be real.

As soon as this Ryan Howard money comes off the books, everybody gets paid. John Middleton is opening checkbooks like “what.”

AF: You just want to go give it to Mike Trout.

That’s who he wants to give the money to.

MH: That’s fine. The Phillies are set up the best

to do well sooner than later.

AF: I’m gonna go off the books. I’m gonna say

the Birds. I say the Eagles. I don’t know why.

I just have a feeling. You have fewer games to win, so I’m going to go and hedge my bets and go with the Birds. You can catch lightning in a bottle. You’ve seen it before, if you get a good defense. I look at the Baltimore Ravens from a couple of years ago; they weren’t a great team but they were a good enough team, and they got those wins. I think about the Steelers; they’ve been a good team but not a great team and they’ve won.

MH: Are you just describing, like, every Andy

Reid team?

AF: No, but that man did get his feet closer than anybody else has gotten in a long time.

JD: I’m going to go with the Flyers. With the

core that they already have there—Giroux, Simmonds, Voracek—we talked about their two goalies, and like we spoke about earlier, the guys down in the minors. The Flyers are gonna win it and then the Eagles are gonna win it. There are going to be a lot of parades. n

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CARVERTISE

It’s All in the Name

BY NICK SANTANGELO

Photos courtesy Carvertise

W

hen a man offers up a Malcolm X quote as evidence of the strength of his convictions, it’s readily apparent that he won’t be denied his goal.

For Mac Nagaswami, the goal in question was considerably less weighty than that of the civil rights leader he quotes. Nevertheless, it was important enough to the founder of “community marketing” company Carvertise that he had to accomplish it “by any means necessary.”

Carvertise pays its “carvertisers” to drive around with their personal vehicles wrapped in advertisements. The concept is a novel one, but the intuitiveness of the name makes it, if not easy to explain what the company does, at least easier than it used to be. Carvertise launched in 2012 as Penguin Ads, and Nagaswami quickly realized the name was a problem. No one understood what they were.

Nagaswami changed the name, quickly trademarking Carvertise and buying up Carvertise.org, Carvertise.net, Carvertise. gov and so on. He had a problem, though: someone already owned Cavertise.com, and that someone wasn’t about to part with it for nothing. After months of unfruitful email exchanges with someone he knew only as

56

dirtworshipper@yahoo.com, Nagaswami had had enough. Being a self-described “get up off the couch, roll your sleeves up kind of guy,” Nagaswami decided to confront the problem head-on. He would drive, with his mother, to the Cary, NC, home of this worshipper of dirt.

OFF-ROADING

The Carvertise CEO was a student at University of Delaware at the time and admits that he was “nervous going down there and going up to this door.” Former classmate and Carvertise co-founder Greg Star says that it was Nagaswami’s seemingly odd decision to bring his mother along that helped diffuse what could have been an awkward situation.

After driving for more than 10 hours, Nagaswami reached his destination around 6:30 PM. No one was home. They grabbed a bite to eat, and then decided to try again. This time, a Jeep that Nagaswami had previously spotted in a Google Maps image of the home was in the driveway. Someone was now home. Noticing a “no solicitors” sign and having no idea who would answer the door, he had his mother knock. After she said hello to the man who answered, Nagaswami ran up, introduced himself and said he wanted to buy Carvertise.com.

“He was just shocked,” recalls Nagaswami of the man he and his mother dropped in on.

“He opened the door, and funnily enough he actually told me about six months ago that he knew who I was. He looked me up, so he somehow found out.

“I had made up these aliases when I was emailing him from different email addresses, saying ‘I’m a student at University of Maryland, and I’d love to buy your domain name for a school project.’ I’d email from a different address saying, ‘I’m an artist who wants to buy this domain.’ There were like three or four different stories.”

In one of his “stories,” Nagaswami used his mother’s name. “Dirtworshipper,” whose real name is Dave Boehler, found this odd. Boehler had become a millionaire thanks to his buying and selling of myriad domain names, and the buyers were almost always men. Suspicious of this purported female buyer, Boehler did some Googling and figured out it was Nagaswami trying to buy the domain—a fact he didn’t reveal to Nagaswami until just a few months ago, years after that night he opened the door to find the Carvertise CEO and his mother on his doorstep.

Boehler had actually made an email offer to sell Carvertise.com to one of Nagaswami’s

Being a self-described “get up off the couch, roll your sleeves up kind of guy,” Nagaswami decided to confront the problem head-on. He would drive, with his mother, to North Carolina to get the name he wanted. pseudonymous online identities for $10,000, but wary of answering emails about his domains and not wanting for money, he went silent when Nagaswami countered with a lower offer. But Nagaswami says he “was like a dog with a bone.” He had to have that domain name. When they finally met in person and got past Nagaswami’s unorthodox approach, the men eventually settled on a deal for something Boehler did want: a piece of Carvertise.

Nagaswami got the domain name in exchange for five percent of his company, so everything ended up working out, though it may not have if not for his secret weapon.

“That story would have not gone down like that if my mom was not present,” he says. “She just diffused the entire situation.

When I popped up on the doorstep at 9 PM at night, it’s pitch black outside and here’s this kind of stranger. It’s very bizarre. Me basically introducing my mom I think completely killed the tension. It’s not a standoff anymore. It’s like, this is kind of funny.”

That is something we want you to be careful of,” cautions Star.

What you can do is supplement your main income with the flat rate of $100 a month by doing little more than driving your car.

In describing this arrangement between Carvertise and its “carvertisers,” Star says that it might just be a case of something being easy after all.

“It’s just a very easy way to make money,” he says. “These are people who aren’t introverts, so they like talking to people. They like meeting people. They like grabbing attention. It just fits well with [their] personality. And the fact that we’re not a scam helps.”

When asked how Carvertise differentiates itself from scammers making promises that

don’t sound altogether different from his company’s, Star begins by saying Carvertise treats its drivers “like they’re part of the community, like they’re part of the team.” That sounds nice, but it’s a little vague and a little too similar to the corporate talk most every company uses to describe how it treats its employees.

But Star continues with some more tangible methodologies: Carvertisers are paid up front in their first month, and payments are directly deposited into their bank accounts.

Star’s best answer, however, might be his most blunt: “We just try to be as legitimate as possible. If people contact us and ask, ‘Is this a scam?’ we answer, ‘No, it’s not a scam.’ We’ve been around for over three years. We have over 500 cars on the road.”

EASY PEASY

Nagaswami got the domain name, and Penguin Ads went the way of the dodo. Good thing, too, because Carvertise is undoubtedly a more apt name for a company that pays people to put ads on their cars. But the company’s pitch can still sound as initially odd to people as a stranger and his mother showing up on your doorstep unannounced to buy a web domain.

“Yeah, it’s not easy, but nothing is easy, right?” Greg Star asks rhetorically in reference to the difficulty of explaining Carvertise to brands. Star’s question also seems fitting when applied to the concept of getting your money for nothing. That too might seemingly never be easy, but Carvertise has tried to change that for a few hundred drivers in Delaware, and now the nascent company has its eyes set on the Philadelphia and South Jersey markets.

The concept of getting paid to drive around with ads on your car is actually pretty simple.

There are a few qualifiers, of course. Drivers have to drive at least 25 miles per day, possess a “clean driving record,” own a 2005 or newer model year car and have a factory paint job. It’s also important to note that you are not going to get rich or even earn a sustainable income simply by driving for Carvertise. “If someone says earn like a thousand bucks a month for wrapping your car, that is going to be a scam.

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ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS?

It seems to be pretty effective, too. Currently, applicants might spend months on a waiting list before getting approved for a campaign, and while Star either doesn’t have or isn’t willing to share precise retention numbers, he estimates that he could count on one hand the number of drivers who opted out after their first campaign. It probably helps that Dave Boehler is far from the only individual the company has confronted in person, although these days it tends to plan such meetings ahead of time.

“We meet every driver face-to-face,” says Star. “A lot of times we meet their families because they come to the wrapping center, and we order food and do an orientation. It’s exciting to be part of, you know? Not only are they getting paid, but they’re supporting a brand they like, and they’re on the front lines of this new trend. And so it’s really exciting culturally for them to want to be a part of it.”

It might be a little much to suggest that there is some sort of cultural motivation behind carvertisers agreeing to turn their personal vehicles into something like NASCAR stock cars, especially since they’re getting an extra Benjamin in their bank accounts every month for their troubles. Star hasn’t completely lost sight of what truly persuades people to get involved with Carvertise, though. He allows that “money is part of it. Money is kind of doing it.”

Still, while money is the initial impetus, Star holds onto the idea that there is something more at play here. He believes that it’s the brand connections that bring drivers back after their first three- or six-month campaign concludes. He offers up Thomas Jefferson University Hospital as an example of this.

“People can really get behind advertising for a hospital, because hospitals do great work, right? So it’s the same thing with brands like Buffalo Wild Wings. People enjoy Buffalo Wild Wings. People get behind that. So it’s a combination of money, and then also it’s fun to be a part of. You know, supporting a brand that is doing good work and that people like.”

Maybe there’s something to that. Maybe people really are able to just get behind brands they like. Thankfully, for the company formerly known as Penguin Ads, that was the case with Dave Boehler. n 58

MIND YOUR BUSINESS

ADVERTISE WITH US contact: ken@jerseymanmagazine.com

Photo illustration Steve I.

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America Votess2016

e t a H

It’s the most unpopular choice facing voters in American history. Here’s the depressing tale of how we got there… and what it might mean for our future.

W

e’ve all heard someone say it at an office water cooler, supermarket check-out line, family barbeque or during one of those late night show man-on-the-street interviews. Maybe you’ve even uttered some variation of the following. I’d be willing to bet on it: “I’m sick and tired of the political attack ads!”

“Why can’t politicians stop the negativity and tell us what they’re for?”

“Washington needs to find a way to work together for the people’s sake.”

Fair enough, America.

I believe that YOU believe you’re being honest.

Color me skeptical all the same. Here’s my equally fair question: if any of that “we want to believe in someone for a change” sentiment is true, then why did you just select two presidential candidates whom most Americans (yourselves included) absolutely loathe?

The evidence is overwhelming: Americans hate the Donald and the Hillary, too.

Public opinion pollsters and U.S. political scientists everywhere are going to spend the next few months—and possibly many decades to come—studying the data and searching for an answer. There’s something truly historic happening out there. With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton poised to receive their respective parties’ presidential nominations in the summer of 2016, a record number of American voters will head into polling

H BY MATT ROONEY H stations this November, if present trends hold, without any love lost where either major party candidate is concerned. They’ll be choosing, as the old saying goes, “the lesser of two evils.”

Of course, there’s no need to wait for November for the academics’ verdict.

Let’s take a preliminary look at the main catalysts driving what is an unambiguously uninspiring (read: depressing!) choice no matter whom you ultimately choose to support… or perhaps more accurately, whom you decided to vote against….

Hate By the Numbers First, we need to reconcile ourselves to the scope and severity of the situation.

“No past candidate comes close to Clinton, and especially Trump, in terms of engendering strong dislike…,” Harry Enten, a senior political writer and analyst for the popular and celebrated FiveThirtyEight blog, recently opined while analyzing the objectively ugly polling data.

He’s understating the situation. Context is helpful in understanding the historic nature of the unprecedented hate fest cited by Enten. For example, even at the height of the controversial Iraq War and its aftermath, then-President George W. Bush’s average so-called “strongly unfavorable” rating (the measure of how many Americans, simply put, viewed him very unfavorably) hovered in the low-to-mid 30% range heading into the summer leading up to Election 2004. Yes, a lot of people hated the second Bush. Millions! But a larger number of citizens in that famously polarized election cycle felt the opposite emotion or something

less severe in either direction.

Donald Trump’s position after locking up the GOP presidential nomination? Fifty-three percent, measurably worse than Dubya and miles worse than any other Republican or Democratic nominee in modern American political history.

The former Secretary of State is less reviled than the reality star but, in case any Hillary fans are tempted to celebrate, only by a whisker.

“Clinton’s average ‘strongly unfavorable’ rating in probability sample polls from late March to late April, 37 percent, is about five percentage points higher than the previous high between 1980 and 2012. Trump, though, is on another planet,” Enten explained in his May 2016 analysis. “Trump’s average ‘strongly unfavorable’ rating, 53 percent, is 20 percentage points higher than every candidate’s rating besides Clinton’s. Trump is less disliked than David Duke was when Duke ran for the presidency in 1992, but Duke never came close to winning the nomination.”

“In fact, I’ve seen never anything like Trump’s numbers heading into a general election for someone who is supposed to be competitive,” added Enten, expressing the bewilderment shared by political nerds of all stripes.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking Trumphobia and Clinton antipathy is strictly personal or largely ideological. Americans simply don’t think Trump or Clinton would do a particularly good job in the Oval Office. In fact, A December 2007 Gallup/USA Today poll discovered 41% of Americans believed U.S. Senator and war hero John McCain would be 63

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Forty-three percent of Americans think both Trump and Clinton would burn the house down if trusted with the most powerful elected position on the planet. a good or even “great” president, and 17% thought he’d be poor or terrible. Only 21% thought Barack Obama, then a freshman U.S. Senator, would do a bad job.

Eight years later? Forty-three percent of Americans think both Trump and Clinton would burn the house down if trusted with the most powerful elected position on the planet.

The picture isn’t much less depressing when you look at supporters—folks who presumably find something, anything, redeeming about their horse in the race to come.

One Reuters/Ipsos poll released in early May found 47% of Trump supporters stated that stopping Clinton—not electing Trump—was the primary reason why they were ready to back the notoriously bombastic real estate tycoon.

That’s four points more than the number who support him (a pitiful 43%) because of his beliefs and positions.

Again, Secretary Clinton’s numbers weren’t

any stronger; 46% support Clinton in order to stop Trump; just 40% are charged-up to vote over her actual substantive agenda.

With friends like those, who needs the other party? Right?

It’s Personal… By Design?

Yes, the math is hideous. What’s behind it all?

Well, to begin with, while I already cautioned you that it isn’t strictly personal, it’s still mostly personal. No doubt about it. Americans really don’t like these two. At all. Every poll comes up with different reasons for voters’ loathing.

An April 2016 AP-GfK poll found voters complaining that Trump wasn’t compassionate and Clinton wasn’t honest.

My two cents? Neither Trump nor Clinton has built a brand on likeability. Put another way, neither candidate has ever tried very hard to make you like them.

Think about it: when Donald Trump goes fullon narcissist and flaunts his wealth or callously gesticulates on stage to mock a reporter’s handicap at a rally (yes, that happened!) or even insinuates on national television that his primary opponents’ father participated in the Kennedy assassination (yup, that also happened), that’s not a candidate who’s interested in winning by uniting the electorate.

That’s a guy who plans to divide and conquer and, at least where the GOP is concerned, he’s already achieved “yuge” success.

For her part, Hillary Clinton has bitterly complained about an alleged “vast right-wing conspiracy” going all the way back to 1998.

She accused half of the country of having it out for her husband while the former president’s notoriously undisciplined sex drive indirectly resulted in the second-only impeachment of an American president. More recently? Even hardened supporters cringed when she coldly declared “What difference does it make?” when questioned by a congressional committee over deaths of four Americans in a 2012 Benghazi terror attack.

Gone are the days of #Hope and #Change.

We’re light years removed from “I like Ike.” No, these aren’t visionary, forward-thinking candidates who care if you vote FOR them, or what they believe, or who they’re planning to help or if they believe anything at all. Love or loathe them, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton never pretend to be anything other than vehicles for collective displeasure and retributive judgement.

They build walls, not bridge gaps. As the polling data I’ve cited bears out, folks, if you’re voting for Trump or Clinton, you’re doing so because they’ve promised to punish the people whom you happen to hate more than them.

For most voters this year, revenge is indeed a dish best served cold… apparently with a generously-portioned side of Donald or Hillary.

Dinner is served.

2016 Isn’t Ideological But It’s Definitely Cultural Fair or not, Trump and Hillary are also exceptionally easy to stereotype in a country that remains politically polarized, and when we talk about polarization, Americans aren’t warring one another over tax policies or nuclear treaties.

The new battle lines are transgender bathroom laws, Starbucks versus WalMart and nationalism versus internationalism.

It’s a cultural thing! And those cultural differences not only turn off members of the 64

H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H opposing ideological coalition, but they also make it harder for the presumptive nominees to unite their respective parties heading into the general election.

“In 1966, which is not exactly millennia ago, Trump’s vulgarity would have had him banned from appearing on anyone’s black-andwhite TV—even after midnight. Today, he is the front-runner. Today, in fact, he is coveted not by the blue channels but by the news channels. He is ratings. He sells. He is Viagra without commercials,” bitterly complained the conservative National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy in a recent screed.

“Clinton, in short, remains a proponent of bread-and-circuses liberalism, not a critic of corporate power or structural economic inequality,” Huffington Post Senior Political Economy Reporter Zach Carter lamented from the opposite side of the aisle. “Sanders hasn’t pushed her to the left. At best, he has driven her to say weird things in public.”

A little bit country and a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt.

A lot of it.

Unlikeable? Disinterested? Culturally alienating?

Check, check and check.

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There’s also the simple matter of familiarity breeding contempt. It’s not overly common for both general election candidates to boast near-universal name recognition before the primary is even over. Being a known quantity remains a double-edged sword.

Everyone on both coasts and everywhere in between is well-acquainted with the Donald and the Hillary.

Consequently, there isn’t a voting-age adult in the United States who hasn’t developed a strong opinion where either politician is concerned.

That’s not to say it’s impossible for voters to change their preconceived notions.

“It’s a phenomenon we have never really seen before—an already extremely well-known figure who can completely flip his favorability ratings in the span of weeks [without the intervention of a national emergency or similar event],” New Jersey-based pollster Patrick Murray of Monmouth University told IBT Times back in August 2015 as Trump’s pre-primary momentum began to pick up speed. “But of course, that rule has applied to our experience with typical politicians. Trump is completely outside the box.”

Whether lightning can strike twice in one election cycle remains to be seen.

Looking Ahead: Will Voter Rage Realign the Electorate? Or Burn it Out? What this historic hate-fest means for America’s political tomorrow—near and short term— isn’t entirely clear.

The two most likely outcomes? (1) The voters tune out of a record-setting level of negativity in the fall contest and we see some of the lowest turnout in decades, or (2) the electorate realigns and the Democrat and Republican parties are forever transformed, for good or for ill.

Only time will tell.

What we do know sitting here today, is, at a time when America’s challenges are mounting and the stakes have never been higher, a strong majority of Americans are poised to select a leader whom they neither like nor trust to get the job done.

That’s sad no matter how you slice it.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote during his time in Paris how, in his estimation, “[t]he tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Here’s hoping angst works just as well for the soil of American democracy. It’s what we’ve got to work with in 2016. n

JOE SIXPACK

Samuel Adams is now canning Rebel Raw Double IPA, made with seven hop varieties.

______________________________________________________________________

BY DON RUSSELL

Hung Up on Hops

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t wasn’t all that long ago that if you wanted to sound like you knew what you were talking about on the wonkish topic of hops, all you had to do was remember a few key varieties.

Hallertauer is the perfect match for the soft water of Bavaria’s lagers. Cascades gives that grapefruit flavor you love in those the west coast ales. And EKG is not a stress test—it stands for East Kent Goldings.

Alas, in the past five years, dozens of new hop varieties have cropped up, and it’s almost impossible to keep them all straight: Denali, Equinox, Eureka, Mandarina Bavaria, Waimea, Falconer’s Flight. The list goes on.

Heck, some are so new, they don’t even have a name yet. When Philadelphia hosted the Craft Brewers Conference in May, I joined many of 12,000 brewing professionals who lined up for samples of an ale made with a hop named simply Experimental #04190.

“Earthy,” one brewer said after inhaling.

“I get a little bit of citrus. Or maybe green tea,” another told me.

Nearby, other brewers stuck their noses into bricks of compressed hops, rubbing the green buds between their fingers, examining their resins for aroma.

There was a citrusy variety called Lemondrop. Another one called Triple Pearl smelled like oranges. And Topaz was dank and pungent like marijuana.

There’s no doubt about it: Today, hops— that simple, vine-like plant—is the single most important ingredient in beer. Brewers might protest and say it’s the character of roasted malt; they might marvel at the chemical complexity of yeast fermentation. But based on what I see on shelves at my local beer store, hops is the star.

That’s partly because playing with hops is an easy way to tweak recipes. Change the variety and quantity, and you can turn a simple, dry pale ale into a sweet, fruity session IPA. This spring, for example, Firestone Walker launched a new series under its Luponic Distortion

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label, each one featuring a different variety of hops. “We can completely evolve, change and redirect this thing as new hops come to us,” brewer Matt Brynildson said. “Luponic Distortion is this beer that can keep morphing and stay interesting and remain out in front of this crazy hop wave.”

But there’s more to these new hops varieties than just new recipes. Namely, you. You have changed.

Think about it. You started with the gateway brews—lager and pale ale. They gave you a taste for hops, so you moved up to the stronger stuff: India pale ale.

Now look at yourself—you’re into double and triple IPAs, imperial stouts. Simple “noble” European hops like Czech Saaz are no longer good enough. These days, you’re dry-hopping uncut El Dorado. What’s next? Mainlining New Zealand Motueka?

Today’s beer drinker is never satisfied; he’s

a once extraordinarily hoppy beer now seems pedestrian.”

Tom Kehoe, president of Yards Brewing, has seen it time again.

“When we first brewed our Extra Special Ale, people would tell us it was way hoppy,” Kehoe told me. “Now people tell us they can’t taste the hops at all.”

The brewery has repeatedly tweaked its India Pale Ale and to boost its hops character.

What began as a malt-forward English-style IPA has evolved into a hops-dominated west coast IPA.

ards isn’t the only one. Remember when Victory HopDevil IPA was as hoppy as it gets? These days hopheads shrug at it and reach for Dirt Wolf imperial IPA instead. And how about Sierra Nevada Pale Ale? It’s kid stuff today, compared to the California brewery’s Torpedo Extra IPA.

Y

Smelling hops at the Craft Brewers Conference

always reaching for the next, hoppier thrill.

Russian River Brewing in California, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, calls the phenomenon “Lupulin Threshold Shift.”

Named after the hop glands that make the plant so bitter, the shift is defined as “When

As scientists continually develop more potent varieties, and as brewers tinker with methods to draw even more aroma, flavor and bitterness from the plant, it’s worth examining: Are beer drinkers building up resistance to hops?

If we were talking about recreational drugs, addiction specialists would say the resistance is a result of neuroplasticity. That’s what happens when the brain’s synapses, upon repeated exposure to drugs, physically change. Euphoria wanes as the brain begins reacting not to the drug’s physical effects, but to the act of procuring and ingesting the drug.

Could there be a similar hops addiction—one in which tracking down the latest, hoppiest ale is more important than the actual flavor of the beer?

I ran the theory past Gene Muller, president of Flying Fish Brewing, and he said that might explain why he often hears beer drinkers claim they won’t drink anything weaker than a double IPA. “You wonder how much of that is actual perception of hops,” Muller said. “Or are they just drinking the label?”

While the passion for hops hasn’t forced Flying Fish to change its recipes, Muller said it did lead the company to cease bottling its balanced ESB in favor of the newer, hop-dominant Red Fish red ale and Exit 16 double IPA. Author Stan Hieronymus tackled the Lupulin Threshold Shift in his comprehensive tome For the Love of Hops: The Practical Guide to Aroma, Bitterness and the Culture of Hops (Brewers Publications).

While noting that some experts reject the phenomenon, Hieronymus writes that hop addicts may undergo what is known in human olfactory psychophysics (the study of odor) as “adaption.” The more the brain becomes accustomed to hoppy aromas, the more it “expects a more bitter drinking sensation.”

Thus, we can expect to see brewers continue to engineer the distinctive aroma of their beer. Samuel Adams is now canning new Rebel Raw Double IPA, made with seven hop varieties. Rogue Ales of Oregon has gone one better with 8 Hop IPA. Where will it end?

As Firestone Walker’s Brynildson said, “The door is now being blown wide open on all of these insane new experimental hop varieties.” n

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Photo courtesy Bridget McGeehan

SPORTS GUYS

The Walk of a Lifetime

Kevin McCloskey’s Improbable Journey to the Masters

BY MIKE KERN

Above: Kevin McCloskey (right) and his wife Bridget with professional golfer Graeme McDowell at the Masters Par 3 Contest.

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June 8th is Kevin McCloskey’s “Alive Day.”

I

T MEANS MORE TO HIM than his birthday, because on that date eight years ago, he almost died. And there were times when he wished he had.

That’s how much he thought his life as he’d known it was over.

He was riding in a HUMVEE in Afghanistan with three other U.S. Army soldiers when the vehicle struck a land mine. None of the others were injured anywhere near as seriously as he was. McCloskey, who was 20 at the time, lost both legs and the sight in one eye. He would spend seven weeks in a drug-induced coma to help him start the recovery process. It was a journey that at first he wasn’t sure he wanted to take. But the self-described neighborhood guy from Northeast Philly, who’d played football as a youth and wrestled at North Catholic High School, eventually found his way back.

Understandably, it just took a while.

“I was fighting myself,” said McCloskey, who also was left with a fake hip, pelvis and

wrist. “I was in and out of depression. Not that I ever felt sorry for myself. My dad told me something along the lines of, ‘God gives this to somebody that he knows can overcome it.’ I just had to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

He didn’t return home until Halloween, the same day the Phillies were celebrating their World Series win with a parade down Broad Street. There was a parade for him, too, on the block where he lived in Mayfair.

“I still get filled up talking about it,” McCloskey recalled. “That was the moment I realized everyone was behind me.... When I got hurt, and they started putting tourniquets on me and telling me I was going to be OK, I just wanted them to let me go.

“But maybe there was a reason why it happened to me.”

Back then, he could never have envisioned the kind of leading role golf would have in that.

And the relationship began purely by fate.

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rowing up, the only thing McCloskey really knew about the game was that his dad held putting contests in their house while he watched that week’s tournament on television. “I always thought [the sport] was kind of nerdy,” McCloskey acknowledges. But three years ago he was at Juniata Golf Club, where some friends were playing in an outing. He drove a cart out to the hole they were on, which happened to be a 160-yard par three where you could win a prize by hitting a ball closer to the pin than the designated pro. His friends talked him into trying, so he took one of their drivers and hooked a shot that went off a tree and a fence before bouncing onto the green.

“It was one of those days where I just didn’t feel like sitting in the house,” he said. “I guess that was my calling.... But who uses a driver on a hole that short?”

McCloskey is now a 15 handicapper. And in April he found himself at Augusta National on the day before the start of the Masters, caddying for 2010 U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell in the Par 3 Contest. On the final hole he even got to hit a tee shot, which would find the water. That wasn’t the point. He was the big winner that day just for making it that far.

“I walked where no one else gets to walk,”

Ian [Poulter] came up on the side of me and said, ‘Don’t [screw] this up. They’re cheering for you.’

And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’ said McCloskey, the youngest of three children.

“It’s not even a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Going to the Masters is once-in-a-lifetime. This was way past that.”

McCloskey was chosen through his participation in the PGA Tour’s “Birdies for the Brave” initiative for wounded veterans, which was also how he got a set of clubs built for him

by Callaway. Last August he’d been a guest at The Barclays at Plainfield (N.J.) Country Club, the first event in the FedEx Playoffs, where he did commercials for the Tour and Callaway.

McDowell holds a charity event for children’s medical research each year in his native Northern Ireland, and one of the auction items was a trip to Augusta. The person who put in the highest bid donated it to the Birdies for the Brave. And that’s how McCloskey ended up at the season’s first major with his wife of one year, Bridget, who he’s known since grade school.

“My dad’s dream was always to get there,” said McCloskey, whose golf balls have a purple heart on them courtesy of the Philadelphia

Section PGA, which has a HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) program that provides free instruction for military vets. “When I got the call, the first thing I thought about was him. When I told him I was going, his face lit up like Christmas morning. They asked me if I’d be OK walking those hills. I told them they could strap a 50-pound anvil on my back and I’d make it around.

“They could have picked anybody. I guess somebody liked me.”

They were paired with Ian Poulter and Kevin Streelman, the defending Par 3 Contest champ. But the afternoon was mostly about the man carrying McDowell’s bag. And making memories.

“They brought us down Magnolia Lane,” McCloskey said. “You can bring a camera on Wednesday, so we took tons of pictures. I made sure I remembered all the details so I could tell my dad. They said, ‘We hope you don’t get star struck.’ We went to the caddie shack, and you kept bumping into somebody. It was really cool.

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“[McDowell] talked about Philadelphia. He knew all the sports. Then he asked about my injuries, Afghanistan, how I grew up, my wife and family, about everything. He was just a regular guy. His dad tried to talk me into taking the [caddie uniform] with me. But I don’t think they want you to do that. He said, ‘You didn’t put a deposit down,’ and kept winking at me. I didn’t catch on at first. There was so much to take in.”

And absorb he did, until finally it became his turn in the spotlight.

“The first putt, [McDowell] came over and asked, ‘What do you think?’” McCloskey said. “I said a hole right, maybe a little inside a hole.

He said, ‘I like it. I like it a lot.’ It goes in and he says, ‘That’s my caddie.’

The greens were so fast.

“When we got off the green at eight, people started clapping and cheering, saying, ‘Thataboy, Kevin,’ like that. I didn’t get it, because Kevin Streelman had just hit it into the water. So I was like, ‘They’re cheering for that?’ Then Ian came up on the side of me and said, ‘Don’t [screw] this up.

They’re cheering for you.’ It must have made its way around that Graeme’s caddie had lost his legs, you know. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’

“I get up and [McDowell] hands me his 9 iron. For me, that’s about 120 [yards]. The hole’s playing 126. So it might not be enough. But I didn’t want to say, ‘You’d better give me another club.’ This is what he gave me, so this is what I’m swinging. I took a few practice swings, everything feels good. Right when I put the club behind the ball, [there’s] silence. You didn’t hear a bird chirp. That’s when it hit me. But I have to swing. As I took the club back, it felt good. Then I realized the ball’s in the front of my stance. I never even set up [properly]. I tried to shift my weight, but I ended up hitting the ground and the club skipped into the ball. It started to draw, which I wanted it to, but then it took a real-quick duck hook into the water.

And everyone [groaned]. Graeme said, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s tougher than you think. Don’t you wish they would just talk sometimes?’

“I couldn’t believe I hit it like that. But I don’t know anybody else that got to hit it at the Masters. So I couldn’t care less. No one can understand that kind of pressure. It’s insane. And these guys do it all the time.”

e and Bridget walked the real course during the opening round after attending an exclusive sponsor’s party the night before. The experience will be hard to top. And he made a lasting impression on his host.

“I realize how lucky I am to be in the position I and my peers are in,” McDowell said via email. “I think it’s important to remember that.

Spending time with Kevin really reinforces how much some people have sacrificed for their country. I’m not an American by birth but I am proud to live here. I’m married to an American and we are bringing our family up here. Meeting him makes me even prouder to be associated with this country and its people.”

To celebrate his “Alive Day,” McCloskey held a third annual golf tournament to raise money and awareness for Homes For Our Troops, an organization that builds specially adapted, mortgage-free housing for the most seriously disabled vets from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s just going to get bigger and bigger,” said McCloskey, who’s having one built for him and Bridget. “I wouldn’t be here if not for all the people behind me. I always say if I were given the chance to have my legs back, I wouldn’t take them back. I respect who I am. And I don’t think we are anything unless we do that.”

It’s a story worth celebrating. And maybe the best part is, it still has a long ways to go.

“When I think of all he’s been through, he essentially had to start his life over,” Bridget said. “Golf has had such a huge influence on Kevin’s recovery, his state of mind. It’s almost like golf gave him a purpose again.

“It’s really been inspiring.”

The patrons at Augusta would heartily concur. n

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PROFILE

My hero.

“Superman”, “My mother,” “Champion,” “Role model,” …were among the answers I received when I asked people what comes to mind when they think of the word, “hero.”

We all have heroes for different reasons. I have many in my short 26 years of life. My family makes up most of them. But there’s one person in particular who deserves a huge portion of the recognition.

I am a germ cell cancer survivor, a triplet, partially deaf, and my hero is Dr. Greg Halligan of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

E

very year, 19 out of 100,000 children are diagnosed with cancer and two percent of those children will have germ cell.

This specific type of cancer is treated with a drug in chemotherapy called platinum, which is very effective but also causes eighth nerve deafness.

“We don’t know what causes cancer in anybody. Germ cell tumors we know are more

common in multiple births. So twins, triplets…we do see a higher incidence of germ cell tumors. We think it’s possibly related to the fact that when you were in utero, right after conception, cells get sort of mixed up and go into the wrong place,” says Halligan.

Dr. Greg Halligan is a pediatric hematologistoncologist at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children who treated me during my battle with a rare tumor.

He was born and raised in Toms River, NJ by parents Rosaline and Francis, along with brother Francis and sister Kathleen.

His father was a pharmacist and Halligan worked alongside of him while in high school.

He attended boarding school, the Academy of Staten Island (NY), before majoring in biology at Siena College (Loudonville, NY), a small Catholic college.

“I wasn’t planning on being a doctor; I was going do research on immunology. It’s response to infection, response to injury. So, I planned to do research and get a PhD in that. I went to Brussels to work with a man who had just gotten a Nobel Prize for Immunology, Dr. Andre Govaerts.

“When I was doing research for a year, I got interested in medicine. I was doing similar courses to what the med students were doing, so my mentor there said, ‘Why don’t you switch over and do research in medicine?’ So I went to medical school and that’s where I found out I liked pediatrics and oncology.”

Dr. Halligan credits his success to mentors such as general pediatrician Dr. David Smith and pediatric-oncologist Dr. Don Pinkel, who is also a founding medical director of St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

BY ALEXANDRA DUNEK

“He [Pinkel] was the one who integrated Memphis and when they wanted to start St. Jude’s, they didn’t know where they were going to put it. They decided on Memphis, and went down there and said you’re building this hospital here and I have to be able to house any patient I want in the hotel across the street. They said, oh that’s not possible… you can’t have black and white people in the same hotel. He said if that’s the case then we won’t use your hotel.

“They credit that as being the first time that anything in Memphis was integrated.”

ne of the most significant accomplishments in Halligan’s career is participating in ongoing clinical trials over the past 30 years for childhood cancer research.

“And we are changing cancer from a lethal disease to a chronic disease, so that there are cancers that maybe we still can’t cure, but we are treating them long enough and hoping that we will find a cure in a year or two years. So people shouldn’t give up, and it’s not the death sentence that it used to be. It used to be when a mother found out in 1950 that her child had leukemia, it meant that 99% of them would be dead within the year, so it was very lethal.

In 1960 it got better, and in 1970 it really went from 20% to about 45% survival rate. I got on the bandwagon just in the right time. In the late 70’s early 80’s it went from about 45% to 70% very quickly.”

Dr. Halligan has been with St. Christopher’s since 1977, and has not only had a dramatic impact on my life but also the lives of other children, who come from all over the world to be treated at this very hospital.

I’m lucky enough to say that Dr. Halligan is my hero. If you were to ask any of his patients or their parents, without a doubt they would say the same. To me, he really is a superman, a father figure, a champion and, most importantly, a role model. n

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Q&A What is the most rewarding thing about your job?

Dr. Halligan: Seeing people like you come back, 25 years later, and especially when 50 years ago this would have been a lethal disease, it would have killed a baby, typically with chemotherapy, and that change only started in the 1970’s.

What’s the one piece of advice for families dealing with cancer?

Dr. Greg Halligan 74

Dr. Halligan: Don’t give up. If one child out of 100 can survive it, why shouldn’t your child be the one?

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Michael Moynihan, Michael Moynihan Charles Muracco, CLM Advisors Erin Murray, ELM Consulting Co. Ryan Niedoba, Niedoba, Beppel & Company, LLC Sandy O, Creative Juice Joe O’Donnell, Fulton Bank Joe O’Malley, Stewart Business Systems Marc Oppenheimer, Parx Casino Michael Pallozzi, HFM Advisors Rob Paul, Impact Office Rachel Pastore, Kokua Technologies Damon Pennington, ATS Group, LLC Toni Pergolin, Bancroft Tom Peric, Galileo Communications, Inc. Devon Perry, VisitSouthJersey.com Jeremiah Phillips, Profound Sound & Video, LLC Jaime Picozzi, Sprint Emil Pilacik Jr., EMCO Technology, Inc. Tony Plakis, ADP Frank Plum, PayDay Payroll Resources Inc. Chuck Polin, The Training Resource Group Joseph Purcell, EisnerAmper Carmen Raroha, 1847 Financial Mike Regina, Big Sky Enterprises, LLC* Jesse Rendell, Rendell Management & Consulting William Rhoads, Rhoads Metal Works, Inc. Matt Ribaudo, Synergixx Jill Ross, Beneficial Bank Andrew Ruhland, National HR Wendell Sammons, Wells Fargo Amy L. SantaMaria, Kaplin Stewart Meloff Reiter & Stein, P.C. Derek Schaffer, Home Mortgage Corporation Dr. Joseph Schneider, Brain Balance Achievement Centers Carla Scott, DVIF&G June Sernak, American Red Cross Jennifer Sherlock, Jenna Communications, LLC Michael Sherman, Vanguard Building Solutions, LLC Gary Shickora, Northwestern Mutual Bill Shipp, Wells Fargo Joe Silva, Silva Financial Services* Lisa Silveri, DRANOFF Properties Realty Inc. Joe Simone, Regional Resources Energy Group Jatinder Singh, Account Vision, LLC Marc Sinkow, Synch-O Andrew Smith, Data Intensity Michael Smolensky, Law Office of Michael A. Smolensky, LLC Greg Star, CARVERTISE Adam Steele, Steele’s Landscaping Josh Steinberg, Farmer’s Insurance Scott Tanker, Tanker Consulting Services Jack Tarditi, Conner Strong & Buckelew Eleanor Togneri, Business ExSellence* Brad Tornberg, E3 Consulting* Mike Tornari, ARSC Federal Mission Solutions Paul Tully, Eagle Wealth Strategies Les Vail, Gloucester County Chamber of Commerce* John Vanderslice, Sandler Training Angela Venti, Investors Bank Michael Vertolli, ComTec USA Jon Vogel, 215Marketing Josef Vongsavanh, Center City Photo Jason Watson, McAdam Financial Group, LLC Cate Weaver, CSG Global Jo-Ann Weiner, J.L.Weiner & Associates, LLC Andrew Whipple, Wells Fargo John White, NRM Financial Group, LLC Michael Winsey, Mercer Jason Wolf, Wolf Commercial Real Estate Dolores Woodington, Team Builders Plus Vittoria Zaslavsky, BB&T Bank Jim Ziereis, Tropicana, Atlantic City Jack Zoblin, Cory Communications *JerseyMan/PhillyMan Ambassador

THE

Entrepreneur Coach

by John Hopkins

inspireme@inspiritgrowth.com

Resourceful, Resilient, Re-Energized Teams Better Tools, Better Learning, Better Performance… It’s in the “How”!

S

ome people like to work individually. Some like to work in groups. Some like to work individually in groups. Either way, people have to work in teams. Positions have to be played.

Other positions have to be backed up. The old saying still applies: “There is no ‘I’ in team.” At the same time, we have to honor and respect the differences we all bring to the table. So what if we could respect our differences, see them as strengths, play into them to limit weaknesses and do so in a way that honors the individual yet synergizes the group? And what if, in the meantime, we all become individually and collectively more resourceful, resilient and re-energized?

SELF-COACHED TEAM BREAKTHROUGHS Converting these opportunities into realities is achieved by a logical, streamlined, step-by-step approach. Like anything else that needs building or ongoing repair and maintenance, getting teams moving collaboratively in the right direction requires a plan and tools. At a time when the “tyranny of the urgent” challenges us to think more clearly, be more focused and “right results”-driven, we need to balance our teams to achieve selfcoached team performance breakthroughs. It’s not simply the “what” but, most importantly, the “how.” There are eight steps on how to achieve team performance breakthroughs.

Each step is supported by a simple tool. All 8 steps are part of a practical, time-saving, web-based sequence that helps teams more easily collaborate from beginning to end for any type of project, new idea, strategic initiative and/or special problem to be resolved. When our teams have the right tools, an understanding on how to use them and a trusted system that connects them, they can self-manage to more measurable business results.

they do best. They tell us they need ways to prioritize better, avoid being distracted from technology and how to better monetize it. Why? We have not evolved our daily working systems to meet the demands of today’s workplace. We need tools, props and guardrails that we can customize to help us “get stuff done” better. A summary of the steps and tools includes: 1. Team Predict-Abilities – How team members can easily predict and match the needed behavior of people to ensure each team member is in the right role for optimal individual and team performance…in 10 minutes.

2. Growth Initiatives – How quarterly initiatives are simply and easily prioritized to best ensure sustained execution of the company strategy.

3. Execution Principles – How to make better decisions of any kind by anyone across the organization that instills better business fundamentals… in two minutes.

4. Belief Planning – How teams can better activate their initiatives by building shared belief in a clear, consensus-driven performance plan... in less than 15 minutes.

5. Team Goal-Setting – How to build accurate, consensus-driven S.M.A.R.T. goals that advance the shared belief in Step #4 to gain the mutual trust necessary to get to finished…in less than 20 minutes.

6. Agile Execution – How and where self-coached agility in task management is captured to sustain goal execution success in a simple, well-organized way.

7. Payback Justification – How team members, regardless of financial savvy, simply estimate the initiative’s financial impact, clarify best case and define how it could fail.

8. Self-Coached Performance – How regular progress checkpoints are staged for team members to update others on matters for attention to stay focused on the initiative while strengthening verbal and visual presentation skills.

INVEST IN YOUR BUSINESS BY INVESTING IN SELF-COACHED TEAM PERFORMANCE

WHAT GETS MEASURED…GETS DONE What business owners and teams keep telling us is that they have trouble focusing. The speed and various reaches and touches of technology in their daily lives are disruptive. They want to be more centered in what 78

As the business owners and head coaches of our teams, we need to give our athletes the right equipment and the best courts and fields to play on. Everything is done by people, with people, for people and through people. Help your team think better, plan and act so they can discover and unlock the best of what is within. Inspire your team by providing them the right tools and learning systems. When you do, they will be more resourceful, resilient and re-energized and return more impactful and personally rewarding performance.

Learn more. Contact john@inspiritgrowth.com.

PROMOTION

WHICH HOME RENOVATION PROJECTS PAY OFF?

W

ith winter finally behind us, it’s time to think about those inhome renovations you might want to tackle—or have someone else tackle for you.

You may be asking yourself which renovations not only make the most sense for your budget; but, will pay off the most in the end, especially for resale?

Most people think that money spent now on an addition or bathroom remodel is sure to be recouped when you sell your home, right? Unfortunately, no.

The truth is that very few homeowners completely recover the costs of their remodeling projects. In 2015, the average cost-to-resale-value ratio for remodeling projects was 62.2 percent, according to the Cost vs. Value Report from Remodeling magazine.

The most financially rewarding projects tend to be smaller, such as replacing windows, entry and garage doors, and kitchen appliances, countertops and cabinet fronts. Exterior projects that typically stretch your renovation dollar include installing new roofs, fiber-cement siding and manufactured stone veneer.

If you have your heart set on building a master bed and bath addition or splashing out on a luxury kitchen, do it. But you should know that such projects are unlikely to increase the value of your home commensurately.

Of course, remodeling cost-to-value rates vary according to region (they’re higher in Western and some Southern states), the quality of the work and neighborhood standards.

So, if you’re thinking of taking on a remodeling project, weigh the pros and cons first. Then decide if it’s better to fix some of the smaller items before jumping into a larger, more costly remodeling project.

Cordua, Pastore & Associates is an accounting firm providing services to smalland medium-sized businesses. At Cordua, Pastore & Associates, clients experience a service-minded staff whose goal is to customize their relationship with clients in order for clients to reach their goals.

www.corduapastore.com 80

Man & Woman of the Month JerseyMan/PhillyMan Magazine wants to recognize one man and woman in our region every issue for their extraordinary achievements in community service. At the end of the year, each of the ten nominees (5 men, 5 women) will be recognized at a dinner in their honor.

CELEBRATING OUR MAN & WOMAN OF THE YEAR HONOREES

Jerry Flanagan Gerald “Jerry” Flanagan is the creator of the JDog brand and founder of the JDog Junk Removal system and serves as our President and CEO. Jerry’s business career has been focused primarily in the retail sales industry, where he has held various positions and founded, owned and operated a number of businesses. He is an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Army. He did basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina and then went to Ft. Gordon, GA for Advanced Individual Training. He was later stationed at Ft. Stewart Georgia and achieved the rank of E-4 Specialist. Jerry is based at our corporate office in Berwyn, PA.

Dr. Sue Lehrman In the year since she was appointed dean of Rowan University’s internationally accredited William G. Rohrer College of Business (RCB), Dr. Sue Lehrman has been on the fast track to develop a strategic plan for the future of the college—and of business education in South Jersey. To that end, Lehrman began her tenure with her “Two Months, 200 Stories” initiative, during which she spoke with more than 200 stakeholders— including faculty, staff, students, alumni, and members of the business community—to gather insights as she develops a plan for RCB’s future that outlines the college’s direction and articulates measures of success.

Committed to supporting entrepreneurs and business leaders as they seek to become innovators of the future, Lehrman last fall gathered University leaders across all curricula for a design charrette that explored ways to promote entrepreneurship across the campus. One of the outcomes was the establishment this year of Hatch House, an on-campus center designed to enhance student startups, entrepreneurial ecosystems and program offerings. Hatch House is a partnership between RCB, the College of Engineering and the College of Science & Mathematics. In her role as dean, Lehrman leads more than 40 tenured faculty and adjuncts focused on establishing RCB as a center for next generation thinking, strategic problem solving and business acumen.

2nd Annual

Lehrman’s distinguished 20-year career in higher education has focused on organizational innovation and renewal, as well as entrepreneurship, program development and team building. She formerly served on the board of directors of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

A Masquerade-Themed Celebration Event Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016 • 6-10pm Ballroom at the Ben 834 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19107

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT

jerseymanmagazine.com 81

DR. NINA

_______________________________________________________________________________

BY NINA RADCLIFF, MD

Sweet Dreams May Be the Key to Better Health Sleep is a treasure. And its importance goes beyond boosting our mood

or banishing under-eye circles. Good quality sleep is a key part of a healthy lifestyle, and can benefit our heart, weight and mind, and help us fight off infections and injuries.

And, too, a good night’s sleep is often the barometer of good physical and mental health. In other words, when you are happy and healthy, you sleep well. It’s as simple as that, right? Well, partly. Now there is a growing body of evidence that sleep deprivation in and of itself can be a catalyst for a number of chronic health problems.

Losing weight without breaking a sweat? I’m all for that!

HEART DISEASE Insomnia is associated with an increased risk of developing and/or dying from heart disease (the number one killer of men in women in the United States). While the cause and effect is not completely understood, a lack of sleep is known to elevate stress hormones which in turn elevate blood pressure and heart rate, thereby making the heart work harder.

Additionally, stress hormones cause inflammation in the body. This can speed up the development of atherosclerosis—fatty plaques that buildup inside blood vessels and decrease blood flow. These plaques can also rupture and cause complete blockage.

INFECTION Want to avoid catching a cold or the flu? Then hit the sack! While we are sleeping, our body utilizes energy to recharge and rejuvenate our immune system. If our immune system is not charged and ready, it increases our chances of getting sick. Studies have even shown that vaccinations—which stimulate the immune system to create antibodies to fight off bacteria or viruses—can be less effective when we are sleep deprived.

PAIN Talk about a Catch 22. Experiencing pain

Want to avoid catching a cold or the flu? Then hit the sack! While we are sleeping, our body utilizes energy to recharge and rejuvenate our immune system.

Dr. Nina’s What You Need to Know: Getting a Good Night’s Sleep Can Be the Key to Good Health MIGRAINES Poor sleep not only can cause a headache or migraine, but can also make them more frequent in people who suffer from them. Research has shown that sleep deprivation actually increases proteins that trigger pain in nerves. But there is good news. In a recent study published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, researchers found that treating insomnia in those suffering from 82

chronic migraines produced large reductions in headache frequency.

WEIGHT GAIN Not getting a good night’s sleep can make even the most disciplined eater lose their discipline. Sleep deprivation causes our body’s hunger and appetite hormones to skyrocket. In one study, researchers found that when participants were sleep deprived by 80 minutes (one hour and 20 minutes), they consumed an average of 549 additional calories a day! Add to that the fact that deep levels of sleep coincide with a “fat burning time zone.”

prevents you from sleeping. But not sleeping can increase your sensitivity to pain. Sleep deprivation has been shown to increase proteins that trigger sensitivity of our nervous system and decrease proteins that “calm” it down. The best treatment for that pain may be to get a good night’s sleep.

DIABETES Sleep loss can cause insulin resistance, a precursor for diabetes. Insulin’s job is to allow glucose to enter the cell in order to serve as a fuel. When there is insulin resistance, cells do not respond to the hormone properly. Over time, this can lead to the development of type 2 diabetes. And in those who have diabetes, not getting enough sleep can make it challenging to manage your blood sugar levels, even when it appears you are doing everything that your doctor tells you to.

CANCER Researchers have found a shocking link between a lack of sleep and several types

of cancers, including prostate, breast and colon cancer. This association is likely due to the fact that insomnia affects the immune system, which plays an important role in fighting off abnormal growth, or cancer, in our body. All the more reason to get our ZZZ’s.

DEMENTIA Deep sleep cycles are necessary for preserving our memory. During these sleep stages, memory consolidation and sorting occurs, much like when you back up your hard drive on your computer. Additionally, insomnia has been associated with increased levels of Alzheimer’s biomarkers. One way to maintain our memory is to remember to sleep!

DEPRESSION Sleeping well and our mood are intimately connected. So much so that curing insomnia in people with depression has been shown to double their chances for a full recovery.

Let’s add sleeping well to our list of “To Do’s” in our journey to live healthy lives. I am the first to admit that that is easier said than done. I speak from experience, not just as a physician who helps patients to sleep, but also as someone who has suffered from insomnia.

However, we must remember that good health requires good sleep. In fact, it is imperative.

Let’s make a commitment to sleep tight and not let the bed bugs bite. n

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THE HEALTH

REFEREE

______________________________________________________________________________________________

BY DR. RUBINA TAHIR, DC

Welcome To The Draft!

Here Are The Top Picks For Natural Relief Of Muscle Soreness:

M

USCLE SORENESS is an uncomfortable obstacle that can decrease productivity throughout the day.

Muscle soreness, or myalgia, is linked to strenuous workouts, sitting at a desk all day, overuse syndromes and even fatigue. Whether you are in business mode or beast mode, there are natural options available that can remedy muscle pain.

Kick the creams, gels, ice packs and over the counter pain killers to the curb. Nutritional choices are safe and effective ways to promote healing.

It’s round one, pick one of the draft and what are you going to choose?

Number 1 Draft Pick: n Turmeric AKA Curcumin Turmeric is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent. A study by the Journal of Pain Research demonstrated that taking one gram of Turmeric twice a day had a more potent pain-relieving effect vs. that of 500 mg of acetaminophen (Tylenol). SCORE! The benefit for the body is effective pain management and healing for muscle injuries.

Other First Round Picks To Be Aware Of: n Cherries Did you know that eating 45 cherries per day can decrease levels of inflammation in the body? A study done by the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition identified the natural anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of tart cherries. Thus, cherry consumption can be of benefit for those with arthritis, muscle pain and fibromyalgia. Furthermore, the study concluded that cherry consumption before and during strenuous exercise may have a protective effect in reducing muscle damage and pain.

“ Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

– Hippocrates

n Fish Oils All it takes is seven days of supplementation to ramp up the concentration of omega 3’s in the body. Studies show that this increased level in the body can fight inflammation. Fish oils are favored for prevention and stop muscle pain before it starts. If you are worried about aftertaste, go for the lemon-flavored version.

n Magnesium Feeling tight, sore, crampy or stiff? Magnesium is a mineral that our muscles are particularly fond of due to its relaxational properties. How so? Low magnesium levels result in a buildup of lactic acid, causing pain and tightness. You can achieve better flexibility with magnesium supplementation, and elongated muscles are less susceptible to soreness/ injury. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for magnesium is 350400 mg per day. n Probiotics Not just for tummy trouble. Probiotics are good bacteria that have a variety of health benefits. There are a handful of studies that support a strain of probiotic Bacillus coagulans GBI-30 6086 for assisting with muscle damage. GanedenBC30, a specific brand studied by the Journal of The International Society of Sports Nutrition, had positive results for reducing muscle damage, increasing recovery and maintaining athletic performance after muscle-damaging exercise when consumed with protein. n MSM AKA Methylsulfonylmethane This sulfur compound is a popular addition for a healthy lifestyle because of the support it provides for the joints of the body. When it comes to muscle health, MSM decreases muscle soreness and fatigue. Cytokines are molecules that are associated with inflammation. MSM works to stop these levels from rising immediately after exercise. This lets you focus on giving it your all!! n Bromelain An excellent choice during the summer months, bromelain is a complex mixture of enzymes derived from pineapple (Ananas comosus). Bromelain possesses anti-inflammatory properties, helping to minimize swelling and is very effective for promoting the healing of damaged tissues. Incorporate pineapple into your smoothies and salads to support muscle health. n Ginger Ginger contains powerful anti-inflammatory properties to alleviate muscle pain. The Journal of Pain published a study in 2011 in which 74 adults completed exercises to trigger muscle pain and inflammation. Throughout the duration of the study (11 days), participants consumed two grams of ginger a day or a placebo. Results: the ginger group had a 25-percent decrease in exercise-induced muscle pain 24 hours post-workout.

What an exciting draft with great picks for muscle soreness! Prevention habits are good to implement early in order to reduce the risk of chronic muscle pain. Fortunately there are natural ways to deal with muscles soreness, and diet is a tool for success. Pain shouldn’t have to be part of your day, so consult with a professional about which options will work well for you. n References:

1. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2015, 12:28 doi:10.1186/s12970-015-0089-4 2. J Pain Res. 2013;6:201-5. doi: 10.2147/JPR.S42184. Epub 2013 Mar 8.

3. Dean, Carol: The Magnesium Miracle 4. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2015, 12(Suppl 1):P36 doi:10.1186/1550-2783-12-S1-P36

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The Smoking Dog THE CIGAR GUY ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Sponsored by

BY SAM KRAFT

Ezra Zion - Eminence

T

oday I’m reviewing Ezra Zion’s first take on a Maduro wrapper cigar. It was released at the 2013 IPCPR and has both Nicaraguan and Mexican tobacco. Like all good cigars, this one has an origin story. The legend goes that Kyle and Chris, of Ezra Zion, were visiting a Nicaraguan factory in search of the perfect tobacco for their new blend.

While on tour, a group of men was seen going into a back room.

This group was led by none other than the godfather of cigars himself, Jorge Padron of the Padron family. The men were there to collect tobacco for their world renowned stogies. Kyle and Chris turned to their guide and asked the obvious question, “How do we get THAT tobacco?” Not every Joe Schmo and Mary are privy to THAT tobacco, so of course their guide’s initial answer was no. After much haggling and the promise of 20 or so bottles of 12-year-old Flor de Cana rum (the king of rums in Nicaragua), the two were able to enter that legendary room.

From there, the story finishes with the Eminence.

This tale has made it into the chatter of various lounges and could very well be true. Regardless of industry gossip, the Emi-

86

nence tells a story of its own. Right from the gate, the appearance of this stogie is beautiful. The wrapper is a dark chocolate, slightly bumpy, with clear veins. Its smell alone previews the richness to come.

From the first draw the Eminence has dry spice with dark cocoa flavors. Though it is robust, the flavors are also quite sweet. After a couple puffs the spice fades into the background and some wood flavors poke through. The cigar begins to smooth out, leaving mostly chocolate and cocoa on the palate. The flavors are relatively consistent throughout the whole smoke. The ash is a beautiful white and contrasts magnificently with the inky wrapper. The spice slowly peaks towards the last third of the cigar, yet never becomes exceedingly harsh, while the sweetness never fully disappears.

The Eminence is a full-bodied smoke, so I would not recommend it for light smokers. However, I would highly suggest it to someone who wants to try their might with a full-bodied cigar.

Because of its sweet/smooth experience, anyone who loves lots of flavor will enjoy this. I paired it with a Yards Benjamin Franklin Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce.

Be safe, have fun and enjoy your smoke! n

TECH TIME

______________________________

#TechTank

BY ANTHONY MONGELUZO

The Future of the Mobile Office is Here

F

IVE YEARS AGO, I introduced JerseyMan Magazine and PhillyMan Magazine readers to my new invention, The TechTank. I wrote about the future of mobile offices and technology you can use while on the road. The TechTank has been a time saver and in many ways a life saver for me. I no longer text and drive. I no longer talk on the phone and drive. I am no longer unproductive in a traffic jam, and most importantly, I am enjoying a much better work and life balance by converting drive time into office time.

During these five years, though, I have done a lot of thinking about what my next TechTank would look like, and I am sharing it with all of you. The new TechTank is a Ford Transit Van. (Always buy American!)

I truly believe if you are a busy professional, this is a game changer. been changed a bit but will give you a taste of what I am writing about. I was thinking of having a TechTank contest. The winner gets a ride home from the office. If you think that’s a good idea, let me know.

You will also be able to see the new TechTank every weekend on Fox29 News on TechBytes segments from the #TechTank. I look forward to your feedback, and feel free to continue the conversation with me on Twitter @PCS_AnthonyM or reach out to me at Anthony@helpmepcs.com. n

It is approximately 25 feet long, and if you are under 6’5” tall (Sorry JerseyMan/PhillyMan publisher Ken Dunek!), you can walk around the car comfortably. We will have the ability to carry five people in the back seat and an additional passenger now in the front. We have lighting that boasts the natural light of the day, and you can program the lights into more fun colors during the evening. We have two, 22-inch computer monitors, a 46-inch display and a 36-inch display that are available for presentations or TV. We could have added an extra seat in the back, but I decided on a wet bar for entertainment purposes and those longer drives to events. If you are hungry, feel free to pack a lunch and store it in the refrigerator. There are multiple wifi-points and power outlets throughout the car for everyone’s convenience.

Lastly, one of the neat features is the control unit that handles the speakers and sound, which seamlessly switches audio channels between the PC, a connected Bluetooth phone, the TVs and other devices.

I truly believe if you are a busy professional, this is a game changer for your business and your life. I’m looking forward to showing all of you this state-of-the-art mobile office in the future at some JerseyMan/ PhillyMan events.

This is truly the TechTank 2.0. Attached is the initial layout, which has 89

WHAT WE WEAR

_______________________________________________________________________________

BY DANIEL R. MORRONI

Trimming Your Figure with Custom Clothing

C

ertainly, those on the thin side can wear slim-cut suits-but what about the rest of us?

Many people believe that a larger figure needs a roomy suit in order to be comfortable.

You might be surprised to discover that, in reality, the opposite is true: having excess fabric in your suit can make it less comfortable.

Gentlemen with a more mature figure can wear slim-cut suits-if the suit is perfectly tailored.

When your clothing is made from exactly the amount of fabric you need and cut exactly for how you move, it develops a degree of comfort and mobility that a lesser suit cannot duplicate.

By adjusting the dimensions of the chest and skirt areas of the suit coat, we can create a slimming look without a tight, uncomfortable fit. Even a change of one-quarter inch, if taken in just the right places, can make a big difference in look and comfort.

In fact, with proper tailoring choices, your custom suit will give you a slimmer appearance along with increasing your comfort.

Leave behind the days of wearing loose suits with excess fabric bunching up and restricting your movements.

“To attain style in dress, you must look perfectly happy and relaxed in your clothes which must appear part of you rather than a wardrobe you have just donned.”

– Hardy Amies

Pocket Squares: Silk or Cotton The type of fabric used to create your pocket squares determines the weight, dressiness, and appropriate folding methods.

A silk pocket square adds color without weight. The lightweight, flexible fabric is more difficult to fold-but looks fantastic when simply gathered into a “puff” and slipped into the pocket.

Silk also has a glossy sheen that is your best choice in formal occasions, as it’s inherently dressier than cotton.

A cotton pocket square is matte rather than shiny, making it eminently suitable for everyday businesswear and summer suits. Cotton’s relative stiffness makes it easy to fold and achieve crisp edges if desired.

Rather than limiting yourself to pocket squares made of only one of these fabrics, we suggest you collect several cotton and several silk, so that you can be prepared with the perfect square for any occasion. n 90

THE WINE

MAN

_______________________________________________________________________________

BY ROBERT KENNEDY

The Many Health Benefits of Wine

W

e’ve all heard and/ or read that many health benefits arise from drinking red wine (perhaps even more so if it’s really good red wine). There’s also a contingency out there which debates these benefits and simply doesn’t buy the whole red wine theory that a positive cause and effect exists between the two. Whatever your position, let’s take a closer look at exploring which benefits do exist and the reasons why, possibly dispelling some myths along the way.

Let’s first begin with some of the negative health risks of drinking red wine, both in moderation and excess: What we know is even when drinking red wine moderately, headaches known as RWH (Red Wine Headaches) can develop. (This was a topic of an earlier column of mine.) These are not a result of a hangover due to excessive drinking, but by one, or perhaps a combination of several causes, including tannins, dehydration and/or, to a lesser extent, sulfites found in red wine. Of course, overindulgence can be the root cause of many negative health benefits to our system.

These risks include liver cirrhosis, severe and dramatic increases in heart disease, weight gain, diabetes in men and a possible dependence on

men. (Since factors such as weight and height vary differently between men and women, less consumption is recommended for women.)

So we now know that there are true health risks with consuming red wine, mostly when over-consuming, but not always. We need to recognize them and steer clear! But what about some of the positive benefits when enjoyed in moderation? Let’s start with the most obvious: antioxidants.

Health professionals cannot emphasize enough the impact that antioxidants play on our health and longevity, including increased elevations of good cholesterol in the bloodstream, known as HDL. One powerful antioxidant found in red wine, resveratrol, and to a lesser extent another, procyanidins, are polyphenols found in the dark colored skins of grapes, among other places. (Unlike white wine, red wine is fermented with the skins, thus the reason for the higher concentration of antioxidants found in red versus white wines.)

Among other important lifestyle choices such as nutrition and routine exercise, lowering the risk of certain diseases points directly to antioxidants, and in particular, resveratrol.

Resveratrol is also found in blueberries, raspberries and peanuts, and are chock full of antioxidants. As the medical community has recognized for many years, antioxidants

Moderate imbibing combined with a healthy lifestyle makes a long, prosperous and wonderful quality of life more likely for each one of us. alcohol. In some very severe cases of regular overindulgence, pancreatitis may develop.

Excessive consumption of any alcoholic beverage can adversely affect, and will most certainly reverse and outweigh, any of the positive health benefits from drinking in moderation. The moral of this story? Yep! Always drink moderately. By definition, moderate wine drinking is typically defined as one to one and a half, 5 oz. glasses per day for women and one to two, 5 oz. glasses per day for

protect the body’s tissues and cells against damage that can lead to certain diseases. The resveratrol polyphenols found in red wine can reduce certain illnesses such as lung, colon, prostate and breast cancer. Procyanidins, also found in red wine, are widely thought of as possibly extending the life span of humans, and, as importantly, lowering the probability of developing Alzheimer’s and dementia. The secret of resveratrol and procyanidins in the possible fight against Alzheimer’s disease is to

I invite commentary, questions and suggested topics by contacting me at Robakennedyjr@gmail.com

break up the amyloid-beta protein. (Increases of amyloid-beta protein are widely linked to Alzheimer’s disease.) However, it should be noted that a more conclusive position in the medical field points towards some level of preventative heart disease and lower rates of heart attacks, strokes and type 2 diabetes more so than a battle against the development of cancer. Perhaps this might explain a phenomenon known as the “French Paradox,” a concept noted during the 1990’s. The French had lower death rates and heart disease then in the U.S. and U.K., perhaps due to their moderate red wine intake.

The many positive health benefits for those drinking red wine certainly may outweigh those for people who don’t drink the wonderful fermented red grape juice that has existed almost as long as mankind. However, to enjoy the advantages of what great wellness these little red grapes bring to us, it must be clearly underscored: Moderate imbibing combined with a healthy lifestyle that includes good nutrition and a regimented exercise program makes a long, prosperous and wonderful quality of life more likely for each one of us.

Cheers to our health! n 93

SAY GERV?

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BY GERVASE PETERSON

S

ay Gerv? I have three kids and everyone says my youngest is my favorite. How can I explain that I don’t have a favorite and make it convincing?

– Tyrone, Center City, Philadelphia Tyrone, I’ll tell you the way I explained it to my kids. I had them at different stages in my life so it’s not that I have a favorite (which I do. We all do), it’s just that I have a special relationship with all of them in different ways. I had my first, Donelle, when I was young and still figuring out what I wanted in life. Then I had Genell, three years later. Even though I was still young, I’d had practice being a dad and knew what mistakes not to make. Years later I had Storm, and I was in a good place financially and mentally with a great support system around me. Two years later Gunner came while I was on an island in the South China Sea. Now everyone says Storm is my favorite, but it’s not that. It’s the fact that she had the best Gervase as a dad over her siblings. I love all my kids the same and they’re all my favorites. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. _________________________________________ Say Gerv? My sister got pregnant by her boyfriend who is a recovering drug addict.

How should I handle this?

– Vinnie, Voorhees, NJ Vinnie, you tell your sister that you love her and no matter what she decides that you will support her. Now is not the time to start being negative and swinging the “holier than thou” stick.

The good thing you said was “recovering drug addict,” which I take as he isn’t using anymore.

That’s a positive. He now has to keep on that path and with help, love and support it will make that journey easier for him. And I’m sure your sister is on an emotional roller coaster, as an unplanned pregnancy can be. Communication is key as a baby not only changes the lives of the parents, but also the immediate family members too.

So have a positive, open, healthy conversation with your sister. Remember, this is her life and

Say Gerv? My grandmother is going into a full time nursing home. She never wanted that, but as a family we can’t care for her at home. What do we do?

– Benny, South Philly, PA

Send your questions to: and look for his answers in the next issue!

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Justin, first off you should have discussed this with your wife, but (yes there is always a but) you can make that call without having a discussion about it. I’m sure there are plenty of times your wife has made decisions without your input. I’m sure some of those decisions worked out and some didn’t. It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t like your nephew. The key is trust. You wife should trust that if you are having this party then everything is going to be ok.

Family is important and even though your wife may not be fond of your family, you love your family. I think you’re doing a great thing by having the party at your house. It’s a nice, loving gesture that your nephew will remember forever. So enjoy yourself, create some great memories and pass wifey a bottle of wine and tell her to chill. n

Benny, don’t beat yourself up over your decision.

You are doing what’s best for your grandmother and that’s what’s important. I was my mother’s caretaker for years, and when I finally had to put her in a nursing home it was the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my life. I felt like I let her down and I failed her. She was getting worse and I just couldn’t do it by myself anymore. But it ended up being the best thing for her. She had 24-hour care that I couldn’t provide. That was the best thing for her even if she didn’t think it was. Benny, just do your research and find your grandma a good nursing home, because there are some bad ones out there. And just think, Benny, years down the road you may be in this situation yourself and your kids may be making this same decision about you. You may want to show them how to handle it now and not leave it up to them. You know, just in case.

Gervase Peterson is a cast member from the reality series “Survivor.” Gerv is an actor and entrepreneur and keeps busy fulfilling personal appearance requests and speaking engagements all across the country.

‘‘

I love all my kids the same and they’re all my favorites.

Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Got a question for Gerv? saygerv@jerseymanmagazine.com

Say Gerv? I told my nephew (who my wife isn’t fond of) he could have his graduation party at my house since I have more room, but my wife is upset because I didn’t discuss it with her first. Should I cancel it now?

– Justin, Marlton, NJ

she has to deal with the consequences of it. Oh, and congratulations, Uncle Vinnie. Hey, that has a nice ring to it! _________________________________________

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