Hakeem Olajuwon

Hakeem would take his reputation as one of the NBA's best role models into his retirement. Sports Illustrated has helped launched a number of related publishing ventures, including:. He also gained recognition for his sportsmanlike behavior on the court and his charitable pursuits off the court, and became known as one of the sports world's more intelligent individuals, speaking several languages and having a very developed sense of art appreciation. While the list of "examples" of the jinx is extensive, an individual record 49 cover appearances by Michael Jordan and team record 61 covers by the New York Yankees have not hindered their success. Olajuwon was still consistently recognized as one of the league's elite centers despite his strict observance (e.g., fasting during daylight hours) of Ramadan, which occurred during the NBA season during virtually all of his career and is usually a handicap for Muslim athletes. Other notable cover coincidences include:. "I'm not changing the spelling of my name, I'm correcting it", he explained. "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx" -- was born, as some noted that bad things seemed to happen to people soon after they appeared on the magazine's cover.

He officially announced the altering of his name from Akeem to Hakeem on March 9, 1991. When Major League Baseball player Eddie Mathews, pictured on the cover of Volume 1, Issue 1, suffered a hand injury a week later that forced him to miss seven games, the "Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx" -- a.k.a. However, Olajuwon began exploring his spiritual side later in his career, becoming a devout Muslim and deciding to alter his name to the proper Arabic spelling when he became more pious. Since its inception, Sports Illustrated has annually presented the "Sportsman of the Year" award. Throughout Olajuwon's college career and early years in the NBA, he was often an undisciplined player, talking back to officials, getting in minor fights with other players, and amassing personal fouls. 8-9, 268-273, 354-358, 394-398, 402-405). Shortly after his retirement, his #34 jersey was retired by the Rockets. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp.

In 1996, the NBA's 50th anniversary, he was named one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. More importantly, perhaps, many feel that 24-hour-a-day cable sports television networks and sports news web sites have forever diminished the role a weekly publication can play in today's world, and that it is unlikely any magazine will ever again achieve the level of prominence that SI once had. Olajuwon is also in the top ten in scoring, rebounding, and steals; he is the only player in NBA history placed in the top ten for all four categories. The proliferation of "commemorative issues" and crass subscription incentives seemed to some like an exchange of journalistic integrity for commercial opportunism. (Note: the NBA did not keep statistics for blocked shots until Abdul-Jabbar had been in the league several years). Critics said that it rarely broke (or even featured) stories on the major controversies in sports (drugs, violence, commercialism) any more, and that it focused on major sports and celebrities to the exclusion of other topics. On August 8, 2001, he was traded to the Toronto Raptors, where he would play his final NBA season before retiring as the all-time leader in blocked shots, well past second-placed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Mulvoy's top writer Rick Reilly had also been raised on SI and followed in the footsteps of many of the great writers that he grew up admiring, but many felt that the magazine as a whole came to reflect Mulvoy's complete lack of sophistication.

Houston then began a rebuilding effort, bringing in young guards Cuttino Mobley and Steve Francis, the 2000 Co-Rookie of the Year. Mark Mulvoy was the first top editor whose background contained nothing but sports; he had grown up as one of the magazine's readers, but he had no interest in fiction, movies, hobbies or history. Olajuwon continued to lead the team throughout the late 1990s, teaming with Drexler, Barkley, and the newly-acquired Scottie Pippen, but no combination of the four brought Houston a return to prominence. By the 1980s and 1990s, the magazine had become more profitable than ever, but many also believed it had become more predictable. During this period, Olajuwon perfected his set of faking and spinning moves, all of which became known as his trademark Dream Shake and developed intense rivalries with some of the other great centers of that era, as well as his openly hated rival Karl Malone. After the death of Henry Luce in 1967, the creative freedom that the staff had enjoyed seemed to diminish. He did eventually win the long coveted NBA championship, leading the Rockets to the title in both 1994 and 1995, bringing the first pro sports championships in Houston history. 236-238).

He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1993. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. Olajuwon also won Defensive Player of the Year honors and league MVP in 1994. "Bonus pieces" on Pete Rozelle, Bear Bryant, Howard Cosell and others became some of the most quoted sources about these figures, and Deford established a reputation as one of the best writers of the time. He finished second in scoring in both '95 and '96. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during Gil Rogin's term as Managing Editor, the feature stories of Frank Deford became the magazine's anchor. Olajuwon also won the rebounding and blocked shots titles, becoming the third player ever (after Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton) to lead the league in both categories during the same season. 108-111, 139-141, 149-151, 236).

He also made the second and third team several times. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. After losing Sampson first to injury and then to trade, the Rockets struggled, though Olajuwon himself thrived individually, being named to the all-NBA First Team in 1987, '88, '89, '93, '94 and '97. An intense rivalry developed between photographers, particularly Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer, to get a decisive cover shot that would be on newsstands and in mailboxes only a few days later. The Rockets had immediate success as Olajuwon teamed with the 1984 Rookie of the Year Ralph Sampson to form the original NBA "Twin Towers" duo, taking Houston to the Finals in 1986 where they succumbed to the Boston Celtics. By 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of "fast color" a year; in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly. Olajuwon averaged 20.6 points, 11.9 rebounds and 2.68 blocks in his rookie season, finishing as runner-up to Michael Jordan in the 1985 Rookie of the Year voting, and was the only other rookie to receive any votes. In 1965, offset printing began to allow the color pages of the magazine to be printed overnight, not only producing crisper and brighter images, but also finally enabling the editors to merge the best color with the latest news.

He was noted as a prankster by his teammates, and once claimed to CBS broadcaster Billy Packer that his favorite food was ice cream. The magazine's photographers also made their mark with innovations like putting cameras in the goal at a hockey game and behind a glass backboard at a basketball game. He was considered the top amateur prospect in the summer of 1984 over fellow collegians and future NBA stars Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Stockton, and was selected first overall by the Houston Rockets in the 1984 NBA Draft. 5-8, 160). Olajuwon came from Nigeria, and played collegiately at the University of Houston, teaming with Clyde Drexler to form Phi Slamma Jamma. (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. He was affectionately called "Hakeem the Dream" for his grace on and off the court. The steady creation of landmark stories (e.g., "The Black Athlete - A Shameful Story" by Jack Olsen and "Paper Lion" by George Plimpton) showed that sports fans could be readers, and a generation of sportswriters patterned their own writing after what they read in SI.

Olajuwon was arguably one of the best centers to ever play, along with Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, Patrick Ewing and David Robinson as the best pivots in basketball history. Many would say that the magazine legitimized sports -- and being a sports fan -- for a huge segment of the American population. Hakeem Abdul Olajuwon (born Akeem Abdul Olajuwon on January 21, 1963 in Lagos, Nigeria) is a former college and professional basketball player whose glory days were with the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association. Its writers developed their own characteristic style by daring to tell people what was important. Many of the staff had serious doubts that the English-born Frenchman could possibly know anything about American sports, but Laguerre won them over, and during his term as Managing Editor (1960 - 1974), SI became a model for other middle-class American magazines. senior European Correspondent André Laguerre to come to New York and help define the magazine's character.

In 1956, Luce asked Time, Inc. From the start, however, SI did introduce a number of innovations that are generally taken for granted today:. 6, 27, 42). (MacCambridge, 1997, pp.

Much of the subject matter was directed at upper class activities (yachting, polo, and even safaris), but upscale would-be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market. The early issues of the magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience. The popularity of spectator sports in the United States was about to explode, and that popularity came to be driven largely by three things:. The goal of the new magazine was to be "not A sports magazine, but THE sports magazine." Launched on August 16, 1954, it was not profitable and not particularly well run at first, but Luce's timing could not have been better.

After unsuccessfully offering $200,000 to buy the name Sport for the new magazine, they acquired the rights to the name Sports Illustrated instead for just $10,000. 17-25). (MacCambridge, 1997, pp. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life Magazine's Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, who was not a sports fan, decided the time was right.

At the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and didn't think sports news could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter. In fact, there was no large-base, general sports magazine with a national following when TIME patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill the gap. Two other magazines named Sports Illustrated were actually started in the 1930s and 1940s, but they both quickly failed. .

Its "swimsuit issue," which has been published since 1964, is now an annual publishing event that generates its own television shows, videos and calendars. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. It has over 3 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men, 19% of the adult males in the country. Sports Illustrated is a popular weekly American sports magazine owned by media giant Time Warner.

Michael MacCambridge, 1997, The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine, Hyperion Press ISBN 0786862165. Ceased publication in December 2005 because of a weak advertising climate. Circulation of one million readers between the ages of 18 and 24. Distributed free on 72 college campuses through a network of college newspapers.

Dedicated to college athletics and the sports interests of college students. Launched on September 4, 2003. Sports Illustrated on Campus magazine