Razor and Mr. T, the show that Ralph Barbieri co-hosts, has been the Bay Area's most popular show for males ages 25-54 since 2000.

This is the final article in a five-part series about figures in the sports world that have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. 

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Broadcasting career:

Ralph “Razor” Barbieri has been a staple on the KNBR sports radio station since 1984. He helped pioneer the sports talk genre and his show with co-host Tom Tolbert, Razor and Mr. T, has been the highest rated show in the Bay Area in the 25-54 male demographic since 2000. It airs every weekday from 3-7 p.m. Barbieri is known for his raspy voice and no-nonsense style in interviews.

Parkinson’s: 

Barbieri was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2005. ”It was like someone dropped an anvil on my head,” said Barbieri. “I was shocked and devastated.”

Barbieri kept the diagnosis to himself for a while, partly due to fear that people in the business world knowing about his disease would be professional suicide. Barbieri would disguise himself in medical centers and paid for pills in cash to eliminate any semblance of a paper trail. At work he would purposely swing his right arm when he walked and at home he faked an injury to avoid having to throw batting practice for his son’s little league team. Barbieri refused therapy and support groups. In short, the disease ate him from the inside.

After a while, Barbieri had had enough. ”I’m really looking forward to having people know,” Barbieri said. “I’m just tired of hiding and pretending I should be embarrassed by this. I allowed it to crush me.”

“If he hadn’t told me, I never would have suspected anything,” radio partner Tom Tolbert said. “He still seems ready to go every day, still energetic, still loves to do his job.”

Luckily, the disease has been progressing slowly and hasn’t seemed to affect Barbieri’s mental faculties. He takes about 85 pills a day, most of which are herbs, and also uses acupuncture, meditation, yoga and exercise to combat the effects of Parkinson’s.

Further Resources:

SF Chronicle

Wikipedia Bio

Razor and Mr. T homepage

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Football career:

Back in NFL’s earliest years, offensive tackle Forrest Gregg helped establish the Green Bay Packers as one of the all-time great franchises, leading them to five championships. He set a then-league record with 188 consecutive games played from 1956-71, and won a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys. Gregg also served as a head coach for the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals and the Green Bay Packers and coached at his alma mater, Southern Methodist University. His finest season as a coach occurred in 1981, when he led the Bengals to a 12-4 record and a victory in the AFC Championship game. Gregg made nine Pro Bowl teams and was selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.

Ex-Green Bay Packers offensive tackle Forrest Gregg showing off one of his six NFL championship rings.

Parkinson’s:

In February 2011 Gregg noticed that something was wrong when he gave a talk at his old high school in Sulphur Springs, Texas. ”Being a football player and a coach, those guys are all loud, and I noticed that my voice had softened considerably,” Gregg said. “And I wasn’t getting around as well as I had been. I started to stoop over. And I didn’t like that.” Gregg’s left hand had also started to tremble.

Gregg sought medical attention and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in October 2011 by Dr. Rajeev Kumar, a Parkinson’s expert and medical director of the Colorado Neurological Institute’s Movement Disorders Center in Denver. Dr. Kumar believes that multiple concussions that Gregg sustained during his football playing career led to the onset of Parkinson’s later in his life.

Gregg went public to help others recognize symptoms and get treatment early enough before degenerative effects occur. ”I don’t pretend to say that I’m important to the scheme of things in the whole world, but I can do something and help along people who have this disease,” Gregg said. “So, I’m kind of just saying that I have it, I want to do something about it and I think I found the right people to help me along the line.

His symptoms include hand tremors, stooped posture, shortened stride and a softened voice. He also had REM sleep behavior disorder, a condition where Gregg acted out his dreams, often violently. This may have been a warning sign for Parkinson’s disease. Currently, Gregg is on medications to slow the progression of his disease and treat his sleep behavior disorder.

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What had you accomplished by age 24? Most people, if they’re lucky in today’s economy, are working a low-paying job with their newly-earned college degree. Maybe they’re in graduate school. Or living in their parents’ basement.

For Sam Fox, by age 24 he had raised over $170,000 towards Run While You Can, the organization he founded to honor his mother’s fight against Parkinson’s disease. Oh, and Fox ran from Canada all the way down to Mexico, covering 43 miles per day for 61 straight days. Wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ggXINfopVQ

Sam Fox was born and raised in Rhode Island. In high school, Fox showed natural athletic talent and earned 15 varsity letters in four sports. Fox was a four-year varsity letterman in track and field at Yale University and won a gold medal in the high jump at the Penn Relays in 2007.

Fox was inspired by his mother, Lucy Fox, in her decade-long fight against Parkinson’s disease. Lucy has been Sam’s inspiration, and her acres of well-tended plants and vegetables have impressed upon Sam the values of hard work. Despite her diagnosis, Lucy’s outlook on life hasn’t changed. She remained upbeat and, while she had to give up hiking and kayaking, still maintains her garden and makes her own beer.

Sam Fox, an avid outdoorsman and Ivy-league athlete, decided that he would run the Pacific Crest Trail to raise money and awareness for Parkinson’s disease and to honor his mother. The Pacific Crest Trail runs from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and covers 2,400 miles. For two straight months, Fox ran well over a marathon per day to complete his goal. He chronicled each day in a blog and a documentary about his run, titled Run While You Can, is set to come out in the spring of 2012.

Further Resources:

Run While You Can homepage

Today Show video

Run While You Can documentary

This is the second article in a five-part series about figures in the sports world that have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. 

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Basketball career:

Brian Grant averaged 10.5 points and 7.4 rebounds per game over 12 NBA seasons for the Sacramento Kings, Portland Trail Blazers, Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers and the Phoenix Suns. The 6’9″ power forward/center played at Xavier University before being drafted with the eighth overall pick in 1994. Grant was known for his defensive prowess and rebounding skills and signed a seven-year $86 million deal with the Heat. After dealing with nagging injuries and diminished playing time, Grant retired in 2006.

Images from Shake It Till We Make It. Guest appearances include notable Parkinson's victims Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali and former basketball coach Pat Riley.

Parkinson’s:

Brian Grant was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in Nov. 2008 and went public with his diagnosis in 2009. Grant had done a lot of charity work during his playing career, including acting as a spokesman for Ronald McDonald House Charities and running the Brian Grant Free Summer Basketball Clinics, but he recreated the Brian Grant Foundation after his diagnosis to increase education and awareness of Parkinson’s.

The Brian Grant Foundation holds an annual fundraiser called Shake It Till We Make It in Portland, OR to raise money for those affected by the disease. This year’s fundraiser is a two-day event over the summer, which includes celebrity appearances and a golf tournament.

Grant’s foundation teamed up with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center to support research towards a cure and improved therapies for the disease.

The Brian Grant Foundation includes Powering Forward, a web resource designed to help educate people diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Powering Forward includes tips for the newly diagnosed, videos from physicians caregivers and family members, and methods for maintaining quality of life.

Further Resources:

Wikipedia

NBA Stats

Brian Grant Foundation

Powering Forward

Shake It Till We Make It

The Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center has raised more than $45 million.

This is the first article in a five-part series about figures in the sports world that have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. 

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Boxing career:

Former boxer Muhammad Ali is known as “the greatest of all time” for his accomplishments in the ring. He won an Olympic golf medal and became the world heavyweight champion at the tender age of 22 after upsetting Sonny Liston. He later joined the Nation of Islam, changing his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, and was stripped of his title and banned from boxing for over three years after he refused to enlist in the Vietnam War when he was drafted. Ali went on to to become the sport’s first three-time heavyweight champion and participated in some of the most famous fights of all time, including the “Fight of the Century,” “Rumble in the Jungle” and the “Thrilla in Manila.” A brash and divisive figure back in his fighting days, Ali is now one of the most beloved American athletes in history.

Parkinson’s:

Soon after his retirement in 1981, Muhammad Ali began showing symptoms and announced his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease in 1984. By that time Ali had developed tremors, his speech was slurred and his body movements had slowed. Ali’s symptoms have progressed to the point where he no longer speaks in public. It is thought that the repeated blows to the head that Ali experienced over the course of his boxing career caused the disease.

In 1997 he opened the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. It aids people with Parkinson’s and their families through its “renowned medical and research team, extensive physical occupational and speech therapy choices and unmatched educational and life-enhancing activities.” Currently, it is the most comprehensive Parkinson’s disease center in the world and its annual Celebrity Fight Night fundraiser has raised more than $45 million.

Further Resources:

Wikipedia

Muhammad Ali official website

Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center

Career timeline

The Chronicle lost out big time with the 49ers loss. Anthony Dixon collapsed in anguish after the 49ers loss today against the Giants/Photo by Lacy Atkins of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bay Area sports fans are used to painful seasons, but usually it’s a chronic pain. Especially with the Niners, the usual season sees poor play spread out over the entire season. We aren’t disappointed, because we never expected much.

Then there was today.

Today, 49er faithful and Bay Area-bandwagon hoppers alike felt the most acute sort of pain as Kyle William’s presented the Giants with a ticket to the Super Bowl 46.

But the pain wasn’t just felt at the Stick, in local bars and in living rooms around San Francisco. It was felt in the offices of the San Francisco Chronicle–and not just among the sports writers. Much in the way that Obama’s election in 2008 was a boon for newspapers around the country, the 49ers going to the playoffs has meant big bucks for the Chron.

The paper has produced two special sections dedicated entirely to the 49ers in the past two weeks.

Saturday, January 14

This day will be remembered by 49ers fans for one of the most exciting games in recent Niner history, with the Red & Gold topping the Saints to get within a game of the Super Bowl. But it will be remembered by folks at the Chronicle’s back office as the day thier “49ers NFL Postseason” special section came out.

Not only did the section, according my entirely unscientific survey of local newsstands and newspaper boxes, sell much better than the usual lackluster Saturday paper, but it was a cash cow in terms of advertising.

The 22 page section featured roughly 12 full pages of advertising. Everything from car dealerships to banks to Bud Light wanted to wish the 49ers luck while getting their name in a section that people will keep around as a memento.

In terms of editorial content, there were a few good articles and nice illustrations, but it was no heavy investment on the part of the Chronicle’s writers.

Sunday, January 22

Readers today were faced with an even fatter 26 page special “49ers NFC Championship Special Section” that was home to no less than 17 pages of advertisements. And those remaining nine pages of content? Photograph-heavy, and aside from a pretty cool illustrated spread in the center of the section, not all that i. Nonetheless, advertisers once again bit at the opportunity to get into a section sought after by excited fans.

Super Bowl…

The Chronicle would no doubt have produced a section for the Super Bowl, had the Niners have made it there. According to the previous progression, that section would be able to support a thirty-page section with just seven pages of content.

For a newspaper that often has next-to-zero ads in the sports section, that’s pretty freaking fantastic.

And aside from the financial gain, these sections endear readers to the Chronicle. It puts the newspaper in sync with what the community is feeling. For all the hype about the death of newspapers, people still flock to them for mementos. That’s why newspapers sold way more papers the day after Obama was elected: People wanted a 75-cent poster to remember the moment.

And the day after a Niners Super Bowl victory? The Chronicle wouldn’t be able to print enough papers to fill the demand.

So know that just as heads fell and curses flew around the Bay when Kyle muffed the ball, somewhere the staff of the Chronicle sales department was cursing for their own reasons.

Thank you very much for your excellent play at the quarterback position and your upstanding citizenship for the Stanford Cardinal over the last three years. It’s been a true pleasure watching you turn our football program from a laughingstock into a national powerhouse, as well as watching your maturation from a highly touted recruit out of Texas into the clear-cut #1 overall pick in next year’s NFL draft.

I will forever cherish the memories of Stanford’s success because they came during my last three years of high school, a pivotal time in my life. You and the Stanford football team gave me something I could be a part of during the teenage years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF9PFJI_t5I

I’ll never forget Stanford’s 56-48 victory over USC in triple overtime this season. Hands down, it was the most exciting football game I’ve ever seen. My friends and I watched in disbelief as you threw a pick-six that nearly lost the game, but then bounced right back from the interception and led a game-tying touchdown drive to send the game into overtime. Your finals stats (330 yards, 4 total TDs), were of course, amazing, but I was most impressed with the poise you displayed after nearly losing the game for Stanford. Other top memories include the diving, one-handed catch against UCLA and the huge hits you laid on Cal and USC defenders.

I’m 18 years old and past the days of blind adulation for sports heroes, but I can see that you are the real deal. Back in the day, my role model was San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds. Now, with much sadness, I recognize that Barry was not the person I should have looked up to. You, on the other hand, combine ungodly talent with the respectability off the field that Barry never possessed.

Your football prowess is undeniable: good decision-making, accurate throws and surprising speed when the pocket breaks down. Whether you win the Heisman trophy is irrelevant; people call you the best QB prospect since Peyton Manning and you’ve thrown 30+ TDs and completed 70% of your passes over the last two seasons.

Besides being the best college football prospect in fifteen years, a great role model, and a stellar student, Stanford QB Andrew Luck also has a killer beard. (The Big Lead)

But Andrew, what truly sets you apart from other great athletes doesn’t have anything to do with your play on the field. You are a shining light when college football’s ethics are at an all-time low. Fans are disillusioned by reports of the rape of juveniles by an ex-Penn State coach, the cover up of tattoo scandals at Ohio State and rampant recruiting violations. Your decision to stay in school, which meant foregoing the enormous contract that you would have received as the top pick in the NFL draft, was a breath of fresh air in an age when the main goal of the NCAA and its players seems to be about money. Despite the attention and praise you have received this season, you have remained humble and down-to-earth. You don’t preen after touchdowns or sulk if you don’t put up big stats because you are the ultimate team player. All that matters to you is that the cardinal and white gets the victory. You also define what it means to be a student-athlete. You aren’t just some bimbo that can throw a football well; from what I’ve read about, you are a talented architecture major.

Lastly, I respect the hell out of you for the beard you’ve rocked the whole season. Man, that bad boy is nasty, and I love it. Most big-time quarterbacks are total pretty boys (Tom Brady, Mark Sanchez), but you refuse to conform. When you take the field you look like a lumberjack that just happened to be blessed with a golden arm, and it’s totally awesome.

Andrew, thanks again for all the memories. You were an integral part to the Stanford football program and my high school experience. I’ll be rooting for you in the NFL, no matter what team you end up on. Good Luck.

Sincerely,

James

The instant city, as defined by Inskeep, is a city that grows when “cataclysmic events … tilt the surface of the earth, raising the angle until human beings [tumble] downhill into the city at the bottom of the slope.” For Karachi, that event was the partition of India in 1947. When the British, who controlled India, left, the country was split in two: one Hindu state (India), and one Muslim state (Pakistan). In one of the largest population transfers in history, millions of Muslims fled from India—where they were being killed by Hindus—and landed as refugees in Karachi.

That is how Karachi grew from 400,000 people in 1947, to one million by 1950. Since then, the city has grown to 13.1 million people. There you have it, the instant city.

But the book really shines in its explanation of Pakistan. A Muslim country, quasi-democratic, in possession of nuclear weapons and deeply intertwined in America’s fighting in Afghanistan, the country’s future will have a serious impact on the world.

Inskeep, who was based in Karachi for two years as part of his work with NPR where he hosts the flagship news program “Morning Report,” neatly explains Pakistan through the use of stories and interviews with Karachi characters. It can be hard to keep track of the numerous people introduced in the book, but it is their stories that bring Karachi to life, and go a long way toward explaining Pakistan as a whole.

The history of Karachi and Pakistan serve as an example of the ethnic tension that exists in countries across the world. Inskeep brings this tension to life by using much of the book to track the lead-up, and aftermath, of the bombing of a religious procession through Karachi. Terrorists attacked a procession of Shi’ite Muslims, a minority in the Sunni Muslim dominated Pakistan.

Ethnic violence can sometimes consume Karachi. Sunnis kill Shi’ites, and Shi’ites retaliate. Sindhis, with roots in Karachi going back to well before the partition, resent the Mohajirs, or “Urdu-speaking people,” who came to the city from India. Amadhis, a sect of Islam, have been persecuted and attempts have been made to have the government declare them not to be Muslim at all. But Hindus, who made up over 50% of Karachi in 1947, and were central to the ethnic tension in Karachi sixty years ago, now only make up 2% and are largely sidelined in the new ethnic tensions.

From this, Inskeep makes the obvious, and yet often overlooked point, that whenever populations soar, as in the case with instant cities, people look to form groups. Before it was Muslims pitted against Hindus, now it is Muslims pitted against Muslims, with distinctions that may look insignificant to an outsider, but that drive political persecution and frequent killings.

Beyond providing a broad overview of Pakistan’s history, and an in-depth exploration of Karachi politics, “Instant City” also serves to illustrate the frustration of living in a city, and country, with minimal rule of law and largely unfettered capitalism.

Over half of Karachi’s residents live in unauthorized housing, built by “land mafias” that battle, often with guns, over real estate development. Electricity, which powers among other things air-conditioning in one of the world’s hottest climates, is shut off periodically during the day due to a lack of infrastructure. And yet well-connected developers, with friends in the right political parties, can create elite enclaves that hog resources. As a frustrated architect interviewed in the book explained, “Here we have a situation where people are dying … and people are not able to have electricity for the kids having their exams going on. And over here, when you come back in the evening, you see night golf,” he said referencing a golf course replete with floodlights, developed by high-ranking military officials.

But Inskeep goes deeper than the residents who are forced to dig their own sewers, the bombings at hospital emergency rooms, the routine assassinations by men on motorbikes in traffic, and the plethora of other ills that plague Karachi. He tells the stories like that of the Edhi ambulance service, which single-handedly, without any help from the government, provides almost free ambulance service and general medical care to the poor. He tells the stories of the organization helping residents dig their own sewers. He tells the story of the woman running the subsidized hospital whose emergency room was bombed. Inskeep manages to find people doing remarkable things in a city with so many problems.

The Karachi of Inskeep’s book can be summed up by the way he describes the stairs at Edhi’s offices. “Studies show that people are less likely to trip when each step is the same height and depth. American building codes enforce this idea, but improvisation prevails in Pakistan—it’s normal to pick your way up steps of several heights and depths,” Inskeep writes. “So it is that Americans make a smooth and ordered climb in a world that was designed for their comfort and safety in ways they may not even realize, while Pakistanis must adjust and learn the feel of every step.”

[This review first appeared in The Observer, the student newspaper of Jewish Community High School of the Bay.]

Terrance Bullitt and the Red Raider defense contained the Oklahoma offense just enough to sneak out of Norman with a win.

fashion. In East Lancing, MI, the #6 Wisconsin Badgers and #16 Michigan State Spartans found themselves in a back and forth affair. After Wisconsin went up 14-0 in the first quarter, State rallied to hold a 23-14 halftime lead. Wisconsin managed to comeback and tie the game at 31 with 1:26 left on the clock. But on the final play of the game Michigan State’s Kirk Cousins heaved a 44-yard Hail Mary, which was deflected into the hands of Spartan receiver Keith Nichol to stun the Badgers 37-31 and rock the top 10. Then, after hours of lightening delays and a 9:30 kickoff, Texas Tech stormed into Norman and came out with a 41-38 win over the third ranked Sooners on their homecoming night. Red Raider QB Seth Doege went off with 441 yards and four touchdowns through the air, including a clutch fourth quarter touchdown pass to Tramain Swindall that sealed the victory for Tech. In addition to downing a top 3 team, Texas Tech also snapped Oklahoma’s 39 game home winning streak.

Stanford running backs: Who needs Andrew Luck when you can rush for 446 yards against a top 25 team? Stanford proved that it wasn’t just a one man show when four Cardinal running backs scored touchdowns in a 65-21 win over the Washington Huskies. Stepfan Taylor and Tyler Gaffney both topped 100 yards on the ground and Anthony Wilkerson wasn’t far behind with 93 yards and two touchdowns. As #4 Stanford marches into LA to take on USC, Cardinal fans hope that Luck has a chance to rack up stats and not let the running backs get in the way of his Heisman campaign.

Arkansas: Excluding their loss to Alabama, Arkansas has been playing like strong team as they showed with their second major comeback of the year (the first coming in their 42-

After overcoming a 17-point deficit at Ole Miss, Arkansas is back in the top 10.

38 win over Texas A&M), this time erasing a 17-point deficit at Ole Miss to win 29-24. The eighth ranked Razorbacks are still lurking on LSU’s schedule, and although the 1-2 matchup between LSU and Alabama is clearly the marquee game in the SEC, it could be the LSU-Arkansas rivalry game on Thanksgiving weekend that could be the game that has the greatest impact on the national title picture.

The U: After looking like a lost cause, Miami has risen from the dead, improving their once dismal record to 4-3 with a 24-7 upset of #22 Georgia Tech. After the initial loss to Maryland, the Canes have looked like a new team, especially with Jacory Harris playing like he was supposed to with 12 touchdowns and only 4 interceptions. In their other losses, Miami has lost in the final minute at currently #12 Virginia Tech and in the final quarter at home to still undefeated Kansas State. Al Golden is on track to salvage the season and barring NCAA sanctions, the Miami program.