March 26, 2006

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  And I’d Like to Thank My Coach J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times David Brownstein, standing, Scott Zakarin, right, and Rich Tackenberg. March 26, 2006 And I’d Like to Thank My Coach By MIREYA NAVARRO LOS ANGELES WHENEVER Bryce Dallas Howard teased her dad, the actor and director Ron Howard, about how much actors are paid, he’d say, “It’s so that they can afford their therapist.” But decades after her father made it in Hollywood, Ms. Howard, 25, is making her own way in acting, and she’s therapist-free. She sees a life coach instead. Ms. Howard, who is on location filming “Spider-Man 3,” said her coach helps her navigate the demands of show business on her own terms, including making time for writing and protecting a degree of privacy during press interviews without losing her cool. “It’s not about rehashing the past,” said Ms. Howard, who said she’s “really into self-improvement.” She called Sherri Ziff Lester, her coach, after a manager friend passed on her name last year. “With Sherri,” she said, “it’s, ‘Let’s talk about this week.’ She asks me a series of questions so that I see my priorities and decide what I need to do.” Life coaching has become a staple on television, with coaches helping sort out the lives of single men, ugly ducklings, sexually unsatisfied wives and other women in shows like “Nip/Tuck,” “The Swan,” “Starting Over” and “Modern Men.” Life coaches, with their vague self-helpish title, have also come in for considerable skepticism and ribbing. “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” just this week devoted a sketch to poking fun at the coaching and “coachees” who become coaches themselves. But behind the scenes life coaches are also finding plenty of work in the entertainment business. As their ranks swell nationwide — the International Coach Federation says its membership has doubled to 9,500 personal and business coaches since 2001, 56 percent of them in the United States — a growing roster is specializing in celebrities and Hollywood. Although the federation does not keep track of coach specialties, coaches who devote themselves to the entertainment business — many of them former actors, television network executives, film producers or scriptwriters who sell their services as insiders — say they have seen more acceptance and a doubling and even tripling of demand for their services in the last three or four years. Life coaches, who are unregulated and vary widely in their training and credentials, say they help clients define and pursue career and personal goals. The action- and results-oriented approach, they add, is appealing in a business where so much seems left to chance and few are prepared for success when it happens. In a profession with a propensity for coaching — the acting coach, the voice coach, the writing coach — there appears to be room for one more coach, the one in charge of happiness, not to be confused with the old-school therapist. “The difference between life coaching and therapy is that psychotherapy is about helping people heal their wounds,” said Phil Towle, a psychotherapist and life coach, “and coaching is about helping people achieve the highest level of their fulfillment or happiness or success, whether they’re wounded or not.” Mr. Towle’s work (at the rate of $40,000 a month) with quarreling members of the band Metallica was chronicled in the 2004 documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.” Performers, directors, writers and others can now find workshops and programs with names like Center Your Celebrity and War and Peace in the Writers’ Room, and they can find certificates for free coaching sessions in gift bags at events like the Oscars and the Video Music Awards. Coaches say personnel officials at studios and production companies are also increasingly calling on them not just to groom executives in management skills (the traditional use of executive coaching in major corporations), but also to troubleshoot in situations like helping a young producer handle personality and power clashes on a production. Scott Zakarin, 42, a film and television producer who most recently produced the reality series “Kill Reality” on E! and “The Scorned,” the movie spawned by the show, credits his coach with saving his company. He said he turned to a life coach, David Brownstein, a few years ago because of confrontations and finger pointing in his production company and now has Mr. Brownstein on call as he strives to run his business without subsuming what he calls the visionary nature of his work. Mr. Zakarin, who said he knew Mr. Brownstein when the coach was a film producer himself, said friends who have formed their own production companies have their own life coaches to deal with similar problems. “Once they have their offices feng shui’d, coaching seems to be the next thing,” he said. Penelope Brackett, a career and life coach in New Jersey, said she was virtually alone when she started coaching performers in theater, television and film in New York in the early 1990′s. In the last two years, she said, even drama schools have embraced the concept of “getting a life and not just building a career or devoting yourself to craft excellence.” A former actor, director and producer who last year published “Seven Keys to Success Without Struggle,” a life-coaching book for performers, written with Lester Thomas Shane, Ms. Brackett said she is regularly asked to give seminars at universities like Brandeis and Rutgers. Life coaches, who work in person or by phone and whose rates usually start at over $100 a session, partly credit the increased demand for their services to decentralized and scattered families: the life coach, some say, takes the place of the mother, father or some other elder, who gave counsel through life’s decisions and conflicts. That many people have more than one career and are searching for pursuits with more meaning also plays a role, they say. In Hollywood coaches deal with short-term goals like easing writer’s block so that a script gets finished as well as more encompasing challenges like hardening up-and-comers to take rejection or keeping those who make it from losing their heads in celebrity. “Being famous is not what it looks like on E!” said Ms. Ziff Lester, a former writer on television shows like “Beverly Hills 90210″ and “Baywatch.” “It hits you like a tidal wave, and unless you can navigate that ocean, you will drown.” Carmit Maile, 31, the redheaded member of the Pussycat Dolls sextet, who recently changed her name from Carmit Bachar, said she started telephone sessions with Ms. Ziff Lester last July to keep her focused on what she wants to accomplish. The Dolls debut album, “PCD,” went platinum, and just last week they embarked on a national tour, opening for the Black Eyed Peas. Ms. Maile, who said she found a certificate for Ms. Ziff Lester’s services in a gift bag given to performers at a concert last year, added that she does not want success to keep her from working with children with cleft lip and palate. Ms. Maile, who had surgery for cleft palate, said she endured rejection in show business and wants to be a role model for girls like her who are not picture perfect. “My worry is to get lost in the shuffle of superstardom and not make an impact as a human being,” she said, calling her coach a facilitator to help her stay the course. “There’s so much that goes on that it’s easy to lose your grounding.” Success can bring just as much soul searching behind the camera. Jeff Davis, 30, the creator and an executive producer of “Criminal Minds,” a drama on CBS, went to a coach as he was trying to cope, he said, with “the struggles of political fights and wrangling of egos” that he found when his show went on television. “I found myself going from writing scripts in a coffee shop one day to producing a television show in the blink of an eye,” he said. He described the difference as “working with 100 people, finding myself swamped with questions and having to become a leader when you’ve hardly been doing it on your own.” Mr. Davis, who said he was referred to his coach, Mr. Brownstein, by his studio, added, “I never had so many meetings in my life.” Through coaching sessions twice a month, Mr. Davis got in touch, he said, with “my inner killer” and learned when to summon it and when to be nice. He said he also realized he wanted to create another show, for which he said he is about to write the pilot. The results, he said, have won him over to life coaching, despite his initial skepticism. “The entertainment industry can certainly use some help, considering the number of lunatics who work in it,” Mr. Davis added. “It’s literally like having a personal trainer. A life coach’s job is to push you.” But critics see life coaches as the ultimate overindulgence. “This is for people with too much money,” said Jon Winokur, a Los Angeles writer who included the term life coach in his Encyclopedia Neurotica, a 2005 volume of “tics, twitches and safety-valve nuttiness,” which also includes entries like “retail therapy.” “You can find a market or a constituency for all kinds of insanity here,” Mr. Winokur said. The American Psychotherapy Association does not have an official position on coaches, but Kelly Snider, speaking for the association, said “coaches need to be responsible for recognizing if there’s a problem that must be dealt with by someone in the field of psychology.” The International Coach Federation acknowledges that only a fraction of its members have gone through its certification process, which requires specific training and exams, because coaching has become more formalized only in the last decade or so. It urges consumers to shop around for those specifically trained in coaching skills. Those who pay for life coaches, sometimes at a financial sacrifice, say they need the supportive kick in the pants. “Life coaching has organized me and helped me do stuff more strategically,” said Ari Shine, 30, a singer and songwriter who sees T. C. Conroy, a Hollywood coach who draws on her experience in the music business, including work with bands as a production coordinator. She is the former wife of Dave Gahan of the British band Depeche Mode. Ms. Conroy’s session with Mr. Shine on a recent Thursday took the form of brainstorming over the best booking agent for him. During another session, with Nancy Noever, a production manager for television commercials in her 40′s who is trying to sell her first television script, the coaching blurred the professional with the personal. “Weight is never where I want it to be, financial is never where I want it to be, time management is never what I want it to be,” Ms. Noever said, as she sat on a sofa sipping from a water bottle across from Ms. Conroy, who took notes on a clipboard. “I have to figure out why can’t I put myself first.” “Why you haven’t put yourself first,” Ms. Conroy corrected, noting she could do it. Ms. Noever plotted ways to pay attention to her priorities — finishing the last 15 pages of her script, starting to lose 25 pounds, getting rid of her debt — with the expectation of not doing it perfectly the first time, as long as she set things in motion. “I’m much more important than a McDonald’s commercial,” she said, her confidence renewed. Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

  Memory Trick How to Remember Lists of Words With the Memory Trick The memory trick, which is similar to the method of loci, is a 2500 year-old way to memorize lists of words that are as long as 10, 25, even 100 items long. It can be done simply by spending about 30 minutes memorizing certain pictures. After that, you will be able to remember at least 25 words forward, backward, or out of order. Steps Think of twenty-five picture-words. Here’s an idea for the first five. Keep in mind, they can be anything. Number one – visualize a solitary, lonely lighthouse, one that stands way off by itself. It even looks like a “1.” Number two – eyeglasses. Think of it as “two, two eyes, two glasses for reading.” Number three – stool. A stool usually has three legs. That’s why it’s a symbol for three. Number four – window. Four, because it is a rectangle with four sides and four corners. It may even have four panes. Number five – hand. A hand has five fingers. Spend about half an hour memorizing their parts in the list. Repeat them in your head. Start by saying “one” and picturing the lighthouse in your head. Then “two” and picturing eyeglasses in your head, etc. Test yourself by making a list of random words (25 of them) and trying to remember them by putting each word with the corresponding picture. If number one on your list is a lion, try picturing a lion roaming around your lighthouse. If number five is a car, try picturing a giant hand waving out the back of the car. After putting the words with pictures, say the list to yourself a few times. Ask someone to call out the numbers one through 25 forward, backward, and out of order, so you can say the list to them. Tips The picture-words can be anything that makes you think of the number. Anything that looks like a one, or sounds like one or even is part of a song with one, can be used for one. The crazier your words with pictures are, the more you will be able to remember them. A cat (corresponding with the number 9, for 9 lives) shampooing itself will definitely make an impression. You are more likely to remember something strange. Alternatively, instead of associating pictures with numbers (i.e. Lighthouse = 1, glasses = 2, etc as suggested here), it can help if you memorize letters of the alphabet. Since we all grew up saying “A for Apple, B for Bell” etc, the association of objects with letters is considerably easier to make than objects with numbers. Drawback of course is that this is limited to a list of 26 or fewer items. Instead of imagining these colorful images, consider whispering them to yourself. Another easily rememberable technique is to use a common set of word-number pairs, such as: 1=bun, 2=shoe, 3=tree, 4=door, 5=hive, 6=sticks, 7=heaven, 8=gate, 9=vine, 10=pen Linking pictures to something humourous or phyically painful helps with remembering your list. Warnings Although this method will help you memorize items, it is always a better idea to read material to understand it better Related wikiHows How to Remember Lists of Words With the Roman Room Trick How to Remember Henry VIII Wives by Their Initials How to Remember Your Password

  Kiddie Corps Carries L.S.U. to Final Four Streeter Lecka/Getty Images Glen Davis, who had 26 points, shooting over LaMarcus Aldridge. March 26, 2006 Atlanta Regional Kiddie Corps Carries L.S.U. to Final Four By RAY GLIER ATLANTA, March 25 — The turning point in Louisiana State’s season came Jan. 7, when it lost by a point to Connecticut, then ranked No. 2, in Hartford. It was the Tigers’ fifth loss in 13 games, but at least they could feel good about coming close against a powerhouse on the road. Suddenly, the Tigers did not feel like an 8-5 team. They felt much better about themselves than their record should have allowed. “It was an eye-opening experience for us and our capabilities as a team,” said Darrel Mitchell, L.S.U.’s only senior. “For us to go up there and do that showed us a lot.” The Tigers then reeled off seven straight victories, and they have ridden that momentum into the Final Four by beating Texas, 70-60, in overtime Saturday in an N.C.A.A. tournament regional championship game in the Georgia Dome. It was the Tigers’ 11th victory in their last 12 games. L.S.U. (27-8), seeded fourth, scored the first 7 points in overtime and went on to finish off the second-seeded Longhorns (30-7). The Tigers were led by their fearless inside players, the sophomore center Glen Davis, who scored 26 points, and the redshirt freshman forward Tyrus Thomas, who had 21 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocked shots. Davis and Thomas, who were born in 1986, the last year L.S.U. appeared in the Final Four, bounded around the court and yelled to fans after the final buzzer. They have been the benchmark players for a team that has relied on stifling defense and inside scoring in winning four games in the tournament. L.S.U. will next play U.C.L.A., which defeated Memphis, 50-45, to reach the national semifinals Saturday in Indianapolis. The Tigers lost five games by a total of 11 points before they started Southeastern Conference play in January. They were picked to win the conference’s Western Division, but with only one senior, it looked for a while like they might have trouble finishing out games. “It’s just a will and determination to get back up again after you get slugged by a tough team,” Davis said. “You got to be willing to take some shots.” The Tigers allowed some shots Saturday, particularly by Texas center LaMarcus Aldridge, but he made just 2 of 14 field-goal attempts and finished with 4 points. Aldridge averaged 18 points and shot 54 percent from the field in the first three games of the tournament. “West Virginia is nonphysical around the goal and allowed him to shoot freely,” L.S.U. Coach John Brady said of the Longhorns’ opponent in the regional semifinals. “Glen got a body on him, without fouling, and pushed him outside.” The 6-foot-10 Aldridge said that he had simply missed shots and that Davis and Thomas had not done anything in particular defensively. Aldridge, who, if he declares this year, is considered to be a top N.B.A. draft pick, would not discuss whether he would return for his junior season. Texas forward P. J. Tucker, the Longhorns’ leading scorer, also had an off night, making just 4 of 11 shots from the field and finishing with 10 points. Texas was able to stay in the game because it made 10 of 29 3-point attempts, while L.S.U. made 3 of 18. The Longhorns trailed, 52-49, in regulation when Daniel Gibson hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 32 seconds left to tie the score. Davis rushed a shot from the left wing that would have won it in regulation for the Tigers. But L.S.U., which lost close games to Houston, Ohio State, Northern Iowa and Cincinnati in December, knew what to do under the pressure of overtime. Tasmin Mitchell scored immediately to make it 54-52. After a steal, L.S.U. guard Garrett Temple watched Davis get double-teamed on the foul line, then sneaked under the basket and took a pass from Mitchell for an easy field goal to give the Tigers a 56-52 lead. After another Texas turnover, Davis hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key and L.S.U. led by 59-52 two minutes into overtime. It was just Davis’s sixth 3-pointer of the season. “It’s called thinking without thinking,” he said. “Most of the time when I’m shooting or when I’m shooting 3′s, I’m thinking about it too much. So I was just in rhythm, and I felt it was a great shot and I made it.” Texas closed within 59-54 with 2 minutes 26 seconds to play, but the Longhorns could not get any offense inside from Aldridge or Tucker and had to launch desperation jump shots that would not fall. “There’s no ifs and buts about it, I mean, they played great D,” Texas forward Brad Buckman said. The Tigers also got an impressive offensive effort from Thomas, who was the game’s dominant player in the first half. He dunked three times after lob passes and had 8 points on 4-of-6 shooting at halftime. Thomas then carried L.S.U. the first 10 minutes of the second half. He made 10 of 14 field-goal attempts over all, many on short baseline jumpers, and was just as valuable on defense by discouraging shots inside with his shot-blocking ability. “We’re still humble and hungry,” Thomas said after the game. Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home

  Florida Not Experiencing Any Sophomore Jinx Jeff Mitchell/Reuters Florida has four sophomores in its starting lineup, including, from left, forward Joakim Noah, guard Taurean Green and forward Al Horford. March 26, 2006 Minneapolis Regional Florida Not Experiencing Any Sophomore Jinx By LEE JENKINS MINNEAPOLIS, March 25 — The starting lineup for the Florida Gators was assembled mainly by the university’s department of housing and residence education. The day Joakim Noah walked onto campus, carrying all of his possessions in three duffel bags, he went looking for his new roommates. Meeting the roommates can be an agonizing exercise for any college freshman. But Noah found them in a most predictable place — in the gym, on the basketball court. That was the first sign they would get along. Noah became known as Sticks, because of his lanky frame. Taurean Green was nicknamed Beanie Baby. Al Horford was The Horf. Corey Brewer was C.B. To outsiders, they were Florida’s decorated recruiting class of 2004. To one another, they became the 04′s, the nickname they bestowed upon themselves. They have led Florida, seeded third in the Minneapolis Regional, to a 30-6 record. The Gators play top-seeded Villanova (28-4) on Sunday in the regional final. Now that the 04′s are one game from the Final Four, they are measuring their progress in terms of campus accommodations. As freshmen, they lived in a dorm in the Springs Residential Complex, two to a room, one bathroom for the four of them. As sophomores, they were upgraded to a suite in the Keys Residential Complex, where everyone has his own bedroom. “Next year, we’re thinking about moving into a house,” Horford said. “But houses are hard to find.” Florida fans will undoubtedly rejoice at the news that the four roommates are house hunting, an indication that they may actually return for their junior seasons. All four are starters and three — Noah, Horford and Brewer — are projected first-round picks in the N.B.A. draft. But if they leave, there will be no more lotion wars, no more water fights and no more science classes that require them to dress like insects. For all the hotbeds of basketball talent in the South, none has been more impressive than the four-bedroom suite in Gainesville, Fla. Without the residents of that one apartment, Florida fans would be concentrating on spring football. With them, the Gators’ basketball team has won 30 games in a season for the first time. Green runs the offense, Noah runs the break, Brewer drives the lane and Horford anchors the post. Their rapport, uncanny for a batch of sophomores, developed before coaches even put them on the court together. When the 04′s were not watching movies, playing video games or eating pizza last year, they would head to the basketball court. They took any pickup game they could get, as long as they were on the same team. Green needed to learn where Noah wanted the ball. Horford needed to know when Brewer was going to shoot. They were, in a sense, practicing away from practice. “We would play every day,” Horford said. “It’s going to be us four against you, wherever you want. That’s how it started.” The pickup games provided relief from the frustration of the college games. Because of Florida’s accomplished upperclassmen, Green was forced to play shooting guard. Brewer was labeled a defensive stopper. Horford was pigeonholed as a rebounder. Noah spent most of his time on the bench. If one of them had achieved stardom without the others, the dorm-room dynamic might have become touchy. But their struggle kept them together. The expectations of each as recruits were equally high, mainly because of their famous bloodlines. Noah’s father, Yannick, was a tennis star. Green’s father, Sidney, and Horford’s father, Tito, played in the N.B.A. Brewer, the lone McDonald’s all-American among them, was also the only one whose parents were not professional athletes. “We clicked immediately,” Brewer said. “I think it was because we are so different.” Noah is from New York, by way of Paris, and is the most likely to engage in a political debate or watch a foreign film. Horford is from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, and likes to show off his Spanish accent. Brewer is from Portland, Tenn., and is as unassuming as his hometown. Green is from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and grew up with N.B.A. stars stopping by for dinner. The players can tell one another’s stories, having spent an estimated 18 hours a day together for the past two years. “We don’t get tired of each other,” Green said. “We say we do, but we’re just joking around. It’s to a point where we know when to give each other space.” That was more difficult in their freshman year, with the cramped quarters and lone bathroom. This year is peaceful by comparison. Of course, by next year, the 04′s could have as much space as they want. Or they could find that a cozy four-bedroom in Gainesville has all the square footage they need. Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top

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