March 2, 1999 - The Truth about Posses

I thought it would be fun to post some of my old columns from the "Boston Sports Guy" site (where I wrote columns from May '97 to June '01), if only because none of them have a home on the internet right now. This particular one was written right as I was starting to find a groove and my column was starting to resemble what it's like now, only if nobody was killing five of the best jokes or making me re-write them so they weren't as funny. Two weeks after this column was posted, I wrote my first "Vegas Weekend" mega-feature called "Viva Las Vegas." I'd call it a breakout month but I probably had 3,000 readers at the time. So, um... no. Enjoy the dated bitterness towards Antoine Walker and John Harrington, as well as a cameo from the eventual Gregarious Raconteur. I only fixed around ten inexcusable grammatical mistakes and left everything else alone. You'll notice that I still had a bad habit of using too many exclamation points, something I finally stopped doing a year later thanks to electroshock therapy.

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RAMBLINGS FEATURE
Everything you ever wanted to know about posses (but were always afraid to ask)

by Bill Simmons

Sometimes the NBA isn't FANNNNNN-tastic... it's just plain weird. Especially in person. I have attended every Celtics game this season and continually find myself captivated by mundane things that the average fan might not even notice at home. For instance...

* Whose idea was it to have a guy in a Leprechaun outfit run around and call himself "Lucky"? And why hasn't this guy been shot at yet?

* Why do people get excited to see themselves dancing on a 30-foot Jumbotron?

* Why do some coaches stand for the whole game? Don't they get tired?

* Why do NBA players watch blooper highlights on the Jumbotron when they should be listening to their coach during timeouts? Don't they know everyone can tell that they're watching the Jumbotron?

* When they have those Foxwoods "Make a three-pointer for $77,777" contests after the first quarter, why does the chosen fan always shoot it like they're shooting a foul shot? And why does it always drive me crazy?

* Where do they find these halftime acts? For example, where do they find two guys who do flips on a trampoline wearing skis? Do you find people like that in the Yellow Pages?

* Why do cheerleaders come out during timeouts and shoot t-shirts into the balconies with a cannon? And when will somebody in the first row of the upper balcony reach for a t-shirt, tumble over the railing, and hurtle 50 feet to their death?

* Why does Antoine Walker spend so much time winking and smiling and pointing at the members of his posse in Section One? Doesn't CyberTwan realize that he comes off like an egotistical butthead?

* And most importantly, what the hell is a posse?

Which brings me to the theme of today's column... just WHAT THE HELL is a posse? Where do these guys come from?

Without further ado, here's everything you ever wanted to know about a posse (but were afraid to ask):

Q: WHAT IS A POSSE?

A: A posse is a group of friends and family members that hangs out with a professional athlete or an entertainer; it can also be known as an "entourage" (only that doesn't sound as cool).

From what I can determine, posse members have the following duties: 1) Provide constant support and encouragement to the HOP (Head of Posse); 2) accompany the HOP in public, especially at nightclubs or public events; 3) provide protection and security for the HOP due to the sheer strength of numbers; and 4) perform odd jobs for the HOP (optional). In return, posse members are rewarded with food, drinks, money, shelter and second-hand women.

Q: WHEN DID THE POSSE BECOME POPULAR?

A: All rock bands aside, three famous people were responsible for the growth of the posse phenomenon during the 1960's:

* ELVIS PRESLEY: Before Elvis came along, nobody had ever seen a full-fledged entourage/posse in action. Yet Elvis -- who was way ahead of his time, in more ways than one -- surrounded himself with buddies, high school friends, and other various sycophants whose basic duties were to 1) drive Elvis around and 2) find Elvis women.

Elvis' posse was so infamous that "Saturday Night Live" even immortalized it in a sketch called "Tiny Elvis," where an 18-inch Elvis barked ordered at his obsequious buddies and forced them to laugh at his jokes. At one point Tiny E's looking at a salt shaker and saying "Hey Joe, look at that salt shaker! That thing is HUGGGGGGE!" while his buddies break up in forced laughter. Highest of high comedy.

* FRANK SINATRA: The Chairman of the Board brought Elvis' concept of a posse to a new level, surrounding himself with other entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford and calling their little group "The Rat Pack" (the most star-studded posse of all time, without question). Bonus points here for two things: 1) The Rat Pack helped fix the 1960 Presidential Election, and 2) instead of run-of-the-mill groupies, Sinatra's posse actually had their way with famous actress and mob mistresses on a consistent basis. These guys were so damned good that HBO made a movie about them last year called "The Rat Pack," certainly a watershed moment in posse history.

* MUHAMMAD ALI: Ali liked to be surrounded by people all the time (especially when training at his compound) so his entourage grew gradually until everyone around Ali had some sort of function. One person was his masseuse; another was a chef; others alternately served as chaffeurs, bodyguards, personal secretaries and assistant trainers; some hung around simply for the purpose of places to party (i.e., finding him women that were "ready to go"). The most famous member of Ali's posse was Drew "Bundini" Brown, who served the purpose of "firing Ali up" during training and with his constant chatter... and apparently got paid for it. Unfortunately, Ali's posse ended up being more of a distraction than anything; he was always giving away money and letting his friends profit from his name, a bad habit that ended up bankrupting Ali in the mid-1980's.

Following Ali's lead, most famous athletes believed they hadn't really hit "the big time" until they were surrounded by their own considerable number of buddies/sycophants. You could especially see the after-effects of the Ali Era in boxing -- every famous boxer after Ali had a posse, whether it was Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns or Mike Tyson. Heck, even Gerry Cooney had a posse!

Q: WHICH CELEBRITIES GOT REALLY CAUGHT UP IN THE POSSE THING OVER THE PAST 20 YEARS?

A: Eddie Murphy... Mike Tyson... Tommy Hearns... Leo DiCaprio... Shaquille O'Neal... Deion Sanders... and pretty much every major rap star who ever lived. Also, Pedro Martinez doesn't just have a posse, he has an entire country.

Q: DOES MICHAEL JORDAN HAVE A POSSE?

A: Absolutely. MJ hung out with his high school buddies from North Carolina during the NBA season, even flying them in during road trips so they could play cards and golf with him. Jordan also had a bodyguard and a personal secretary on the road; he even had his own personal TV lackey (Mr. Shameless, Ahmad Rashad).

Q: WHAT WAS THE SCARIEST POSSE OF ALL-TIME?

A: Without a doubt, this distinction goes to rapper Tupac Shakur. Tupac was tight with feared record producer Wayne "Suge" Knight and one of the two big L.A. gangs (either the Crips or the Bloods, I can't remember) and immortalized "gansta thug rap," even writing a song promising to kill rival Biggie Smalls called "Hit 'Em Up" that included the Pulitzer Prize-winning lyric, "We ain't singin', we bringin' drama ... fuck you and your motherfuckin' mama."

Of course, Tupac ended up getting killed, but that didn't stop his buddies from blaming Biggie for the murder and putting some caps in his ass a few months later.

Q: WHAT WAS THE SCARIEST SPORTS POSSE OF ALL-TIME?

A: Mike Tyson's posse in the mid-90's (after his release from jail), when he was managed by two thug high school buddies (Rory Holliday and John Horne) and notorious promoter Don King. All the elements were in place here, especially 1) a bad HOP (head of posse) with a criminal record and a penchant for beating up men AND women and 2) gangsters running his career AND his personal life. It also helps when everyone dresses like extras from "New Jack City."

(QUICK INTERJECTION: I loved those guys! If they had sold trading cards for Mike Tyson's posse, I would have bought them. I'm dead serious. Can you imagine the Beckett's book value of a rookie John Horne card with Horne posing in a four-piece beige suit? I'd swap my Larry Bird rookie card for that thing in a heartbeat.)

One of my favorite TV moments of all-time occurred after the second "Tyson/Holyfield" fight (the ear-biting fiasco), when intrepid TV reporter Jim Gray interviewed Horne and Holliday and inadvertently angered them with a typically hard-nosed Jim Gray question. You could actually SEE the other posse members inch towards Gray on camera -- all looking angry as all hell -- as a terrified Gray ended the interview (his voice shaking) and threw it back to the studio, after which he was presumably beaten like a piece of veal.

Q: CAN WHITE PEOPLE HAVE POSSES?

A: Absolutely! Elvis had one. Porno star John Holmes had one. Leo DiCaprio has one. So does Johnny Depp. Eric Lindros has one. Wrestling promoter Vince McMahon has one in the WWF (he calls it "The Corporation"). Speaking of wrestling, in the WWF's rival organization(WCW), white guys Kevin Nash and Scott Hall formed an anti-WCW posse called the new World order (or nWo) that garnered about a gazillion dollars of t-shirt money and even spawned off its own sub-posse, called "the Wolfpac."

(I mean, you KNOW your posse is hot when you're feuding with your own sub-posse.)

But would you believe the best-known white posse of the post-Elvis Era belonged to Bill Walton??? It's true. The Mountain Man had a memorable entourage when he played for the Trail Blazers in the late-70's -- according to David Halberstam's book "Breaks of the Game," Walton's house in Portland was a central location for all the radicals, hippies, DeadHeads and political activists during the late-70's (they were even monitored by the FBI during that time!). Of course, if you had a Battle of the Posses Tournament, Walton's gang would have been annihilated by Tyson's posse in the first round... but that's besides the point.

For some white guys, it's obviously impossible for them to drum up a posse that wouldn't draw snickers and guffaws. Like Chris Dudley... who would want to be in HIS posse? Or Andrew DeClerq... would everyone in DeClerq's posse have to get the same Dirk Diggler haircut that he has? And can you imagine any of the following people having posses: Rudy Galindo, Jim Courier, Don Zimmer, Mark O'Meara, Steve DeBerg, or Jason Elam? Gimme a break.

As an aside, if I could vote for one white guy to have a posse, it would have to be Keith Van Horn. A band of gangsta Mormons? Why not? I wouldn't mess with 'em.

Q: WHAT WAS THE GREATEST POSSE HEADQUARTERS OF ALL-TIME?

A: "The White House." This was what the Dallas Cowboys used to call a rented house in Miami where they vacationed on weekends during the off-season so they could do drugs, cheat on their wives, hook up with strippers, carouse, and do all that other good stuff that's near and dear to all of our hearts. According to stories published after Irvin's arrest two years ago, "White House" members included Michael Irvin, Nate Newton, Erik Williams, Emmitt Smith, and Leon Lett, among others.

I always loved the concept of the "White House" -- it probably provided 10,000 jokes for me and my buddies over the past three years. I remember one afternoon I was watching football with my buddy Jack-O and we saw Fox's Pam Oliver on television interviewing someone and looking especially worse for wear. That led to the following exchange:

--SG: Man, look at those bags under Pam's eyes. How late was she up last night?
--JACK-O: Musta been a long night at the White House!

Q: WHAT'S THE MOST RIDICULOUS POSSE IN SPORTS?

A: Shaquille O'Neal's posse. Hands down.

Shaq's posse is so ludicrous that Sports Illustrated actually devoted a cover story to it two years ago! Shaq had so many hangers-on living at his house that he couldn't even remember what some of their "jobs" were; one posse member's sole responsibility was to wash all of Shaq's cars. Unbelievable.

Q: IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A FEMALE ATHLETE TO HAVE A POSSE?

(Too many jokes... must make joke... reigning myself in... stomach about to explode... MUST MAKE JOKE!!!... seizure coming on... must move on before line is crossed...)

Q: WHERE DO POSSE MEMBERS COME FROM? DO THEY HAVE REAL JOBS?

A: Of course not!

If an athlete/celebrity is earning enough money, he can afford to import one or two buddies from high school or college (usually high school) to live with him (or at least near him). Usually the buddy in question will swallow his pride and perform various odd jobs for the HOP -- pseudo-chaffeur, pseudo bodyguard, pseudo cheeleader -- and generally make the HOP feel important and secure.

For instance, as we mentioned before, Antoine Walker's buddies attend all home games and have the following duties:

1. If Antoine does anything good -- a big three, a big dunk, etc -- these guys have to stand up and point at Twan and generally cause a ruckus.

2. They need to show up on time. During one home game, Walker's buddies arrived late, which meant he kept having to glance over to Section One to see if they arrived yet. Of course, there was a game going on, but that's besides the point.

3. They have to look good, dammit! They're representing CyberTwan! That means they have to show up for games wearing cool clothes... and they definitely can't bring any ugly women to Celtics games.

4. When Antoine isn't getting the ball and glances to his buddies in disgust, they must respond by shaking their heads or muttering obscenities under their breath.

5. When Antoine gets a foul called against him and glances to his buddies in disgust, they must respond by shaking their heads or muttering obscenities under their breath.

6. After the game, Twan's posse needs to tell Twan things like "You were great tonite, dog!" or "You the man!" or "You used that ^%#%$@%!*&! like a rented biz-atch!" or even "Yo, Kenny's not passing you the ball! What's up with that? He's selfish! You should have had 35 tonite!"

Which reminds me...

Q: WHAT'S THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH SPORTS POSSES?

A: This is a two-part answer...

1.
As we described in the previous few paragraphs with Antoine's entourage, posse members can create trouble for overall team chemistry. Since it's the posse's job to support/pump up the HOP, they invariably avoid telling the HOP anything that he doesn't want to hear. Therefore, if the HOP's team is losing, the posse members will be blaming everyone BUT the HOP (supposedly, this was the main reason why Dallas had to break up their Jimmy Jackson/Jason Kidd/Jamal Mashburn trio three years ago).

Let's use Antoine for example: During Boston's first two home games, Twan wasn't getting the ball enough from point guard Kenny Anderson, who admittedly was struggling and looking for his own shot first. During the second game (a win over Cleveland), there were two or three instances where Twan was open on a fast break and Kenny saw him... but opted to either drive to the hoop or pass to someone else. Clearly, there was a problem here, exacerbated by the fact that Walker immediately glanced over to his posse after every slight with a "Did you see that?" glare on his face (as the posse members all responded with head shakes). I even pointed this out to my father during the Cavs game and predicted it would become a problem. Swear to God.

So what happens? Antoine struggles on the ensuing road trip, partly due to the fact that his point guard isn't getting him the ball... the posse members watch all the games on TV and tell him on the phone that Bob Cousy is saying that the point guard should be getting the HOP the ball more... and the thing finally explodes at the end of a road trip, as Twan and Kenny get into a screaming match in Washington.

2.
As history has proven, posse members usually don't exhibit the best judgment -- one reason why the NBA has become so concerned about entourages in the past few years. Lately, we've have seen a number of instances where somebody "close to an NBA player" has gotten arrested for drugs, illegal handguns, assault, etc. In fact, Sixers star Allen Iverson was in the papers TWICE last year -- in separate instances, two of his "bodyguards" were arrested for marijuana possession and for carrying an illegal firearm.

You don't read about it much, but nothing terrifies a team more than one of its players running with a bad crowd. For instance, the biggest rumor in Boston for the past two years was that Red Sox owner John Harrington wanted to unload Mo Vaughn because he was hanging out with drug dealers in the Brockton area. True or untrue, it's the only rational reason why the Sox would push their star slugger out of town (if they believed those rumors).

Was Mo hanging out with some shady people? Who cares? People forget this, but some athletes grow up in places where the vast majority of their childhood buddies end up either in jail, dealing drugs, or doing drugs. Hell, even Mo Vaughn himself has said this on a number of occasions -- read any story about his life and Mo always mentions something along the lines of "all of my friends from school are either in jail or dead" (he talks about this in every speech he delivers to inner-city kids). Sometimes -- as amazing as this sounds -- athletes feel more comfortable around that element because THAT'S WHAT THEY GREW UP WITH. It doesn't mean they're doing drugs... it just means they're hanging out with the types of people that they've known all their lives.

Think about it. Sounds weird... but it's true.

Q: WHAT SPORTS GUY'S FAVORITE POSSE STORY OF ALL-TIME?

A: Another two-part answer...

1.
I told this story last week in the "Celtics Chronicles," but I'll tell it again: Near the end of the first half of last Wednesday's Magic-Celtics game, rapper Master P and his posse showed up and filed into their row in Section One, about ten of them, looking like they just stepped out of a Doctor Dre video (one of the guys even had an old-fashioned brown felt hat with a feather, ala Huggy Bear from "Starsky and Hutch"). After about 15 minutes of hard-core handshaking with the people already sitting in the players' section, the gang sat down for a whopping 45 minutes; at least three of them gabbed on cell phones the whole time, trying to seem important, while the others watched the game and acted exceptionally cool.

Suddenly -- and without warning -- the posse left en masse during a timeout in the fourth quarter; they didn't even leave enough time for the requisite 15 minutes of farewell hand-slapping and hugging. Walker, Ron Mercer and Walter McCarty all noticed (they were out of the game at the time) and paid homage to the departing entourage with a variety of smiles, winks, and points. Amazingly, some of the Orlando guys even slapped palms with Master P as he walked by the Magic bench. Swear to God. It was comical.

But here's the best part: While all of this was going on, the entourage was filing by Bob Cousy's seat in Section 22. You should have seen the look on Cooz's face. HIGH comedy. His face gave new meaning to the word "perplexed."

Now THAT's why I love this game!

2.
Two years ago, Allen Iverson and Jerry Stackhouse were feuding on the Sixers (Stack was pouting because Iverson wasn't giving up the ball enough). Since both men had a considerable number of members in their respective posses, eventually the bad blood spilled over into their respective posses... leading to a fight between somebody in Stackhouse's posse and somebody in Iverson's posse after a Sixers practice... which set off a full-scale brawl between both posses until Sixers players and coaches and security personnel on hand were able to finally break it up.

Shortly thereafter, Stackhouse was traded to Detroit.

It's one thing when two players don't get along, but when two POSSES don't get along...

Q: FINALLY, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET YOUR OWN POSSE?

A: That's a tough question. And frankly, my answer is pretty tough to swallow. From what I can tell, only athletes, politicians and entertainers can have their own posses. I know it hurts... but it's true. Unless you're famous and have insta-access to money, women and free tickets, people just don't want to be part of your posse.

I found this out the hard way two springs ago when I landed this "Sports Guy" gig. Immediately, I called my best friends from high school -- Jim, Geoff, Bish, Camp and Gus -- and implored them to move down to Boston and live with me. As I figured it, they could just hang around my house and cheer me on as I wrote columns. For instance, if I wrote an especially good joke, I could stand up at my desk and chest-bump Gus ... Geoff and Jim could sit on the sofa watching TV, and after a good paragraph, I could point at them and nod defiantly and bang my own chest as they cheered me on ... maybe Camp could even hang out in the kitchen reading Boston Globe columns and shouting out things like "Shaughnessy sucks! You know who the best mother#%@$% columnist in Boston is? Big Poppa! That's who!"

And of course, Bish would always be on hand to drive the SportsguyMobile and find women for us after I finished each column.

Unfortunately, a few problems surfaced:

1. Unlike the members of all the aforementioned posses from this column, my high school buddies actually have their own jobs and careers.

2. It's hard to fit six guys in a two-bedroom apartment in Charlestown; somebody would have had to sleep on the floor. We would have had to draw straws and it might have gotten ugly.

3. Camp is a loose cannon. He might have gotten into a beef with somebody at a nightclub and ended up getting one of us wacked.

4. I only have one car. Major problem there. Everyone would have to take turns washing it and there might have been some tension.

5. Since I'm not a celebrity, there's no possible way I could have supplied a constant stream of fresh women to keep everyone in the posse happy... well, unless the girls were consistently drunk.

6. I'm barely making enough money to support myself, much less five other guys. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Digital City Boston turned down my request to sign an 6-year, $71 million contract extension.

In the end, I had to abandon the idea. But someday ... someday ... I'll be big enough in this town to have my own posse. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't officially made it in this industry until I'm surrounded by a few freeloading friends who hang on my every word.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

**END**

Copyright by Bill Simmons, 1999