birdie_man
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What would you be doing Brian?
Without golf teaching....
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Brian Manzella
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Me and my Pop...
Great question with Father's Day coming up...
My Dad--Biagio (Basil) "Tony" Manzella--or just Basil, was one of a kind. A great story-teller and super all-around guy, my Dad was the most POPULAR guy I ever knew. Everyone liked him.
Part of his "success" was to treat EVERYONE the same. Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Cheifs, Golf Pros, old folks and little kids. I NEVER heard my Dad use the word "son" one time in my whole life. He called me "boogs" or "Simon" or "stick" but never Brian. He used SIR to every male over the age of 25, even when my Dad was twice their age.
He also called EVERY GIRL of any age, Sugar, or Honey. He was SOoooooo good at it, noone EVER got offended. I could NEVER figure out how he did it, but now I find myself doing it all just like him. I guess he really knew what he was doing. No, strike that----I KNOW he knew what he was doing.
Daddy was probably the best athlete I ever knew. He had to quit school in the middle of his first year in High School, so we'll never know how good, but he could do anything really well.
He threw a football so perfect that two of his sons were QB's and the other two could have been--just from watching. When my oldest brother, Chick was in High School and the other two, David and Joe were 7th or 8th graders, they were all mouthing off among themselves about who was the fastest. This kind of stuff happens in homes that house non-athletes, but this home had a track star (Chick) a football super-star (David) and a physical freak of nature name Joe who used to shoot baskets at basketball games he attended---from the stands---well----just for fun, and once punted a football OUT of a stadium, just to prove he could.
Anyhoo, my pop was about 38 years old at this point and said nonchalantly, "I will take the three of you over to the track across the street and whip all of you."
You never heard laughter like that in your life.
After the boys camed back from the track---SOUNDLY DEFEATED--they never mouthed off around Dad again.
One time at least 10 years after that, my Dad and I watched a football game that was lost when the kicker missed a 30-yard field goal. "I could make 6 of those easy kicks in a row in my slip-ons, without warming up," said my dear ole Dad. I was a kicker of some repute, and I asked him if he ever did it before. He said he hadn't and I preceded to tell hom how hard it was.
After those six kicks SAILED through the uprights after coming off of a almost 50-year old man's slip on WHITE TG&Y shoes, I was almost converted too. The final conversion came when he said the same thing a couple of years later about free throws and then calmly sank 88 of 100 at the local gym.
When Basil was in the service he was FLEET champ in ping-pong, something I knew as a little kid, but really had no idea how many ping-pongers are in a fleet.
He told me----absolutely innocently----that he won a competition they had on an aircraft carrier to see who could long-jump the farthest. "How far did you jump?," I asked. 22"10' or something like that, he replied. Whatever the number WAS, it WAS 3 inches short of the world record at the time (I checked) and he did it in tennis shoes on the DECK!
Just for good measure, Basil Manzella played 1st base on the New Orleans City Champion softball team for years, won the LEAGUE highest-average in about a dozen Bowling leaugues, and became a heck of a golfer who once shot even par on a Championship course while only playing on weekends.
Imagine knowing you were THAT good at sports, and LOVING sports as much as he did and never getting the chance to really play something.
Well, It bugged him a little, and he wished he could coach, but what he did instead was be as good a raising a champion as Earl Woods ever was.
I was the best drummer in the land under 10 years old (at age 7) and nearly won an ADULT TV Talent show, telvised on the Gulf Coast when I was 7. But I wanted to play BALL!
He taught me to catch a football by DROP-KICKING it to me. Even Doug Flutie is only so-good at this little kick--whick my Dad surely KNEW--but that wasn't the point. The point was that while the other kids caught underhanded soft-tosses, I DOVE, fully layed out most of the time, for my first 1000 catches, a fact not lost on three generations of footballers at Norman Playgound, the black football version of Venice Beach.
The problem was---how do you say it PC---I was "vertically challenged." At 5'9" and 165lbs. with a 4.9 forty time, no matter how good of a footballer he rasied---and I am STILL a better footballer than a golfer---I wasn't playing anywhere good without getting killed. So I switched to golf full-time as a college freshman, and a year later was good enough to get a full-ride for the rest of my college career with NO HELP AT ALL except a couple of old black pros and a guy who sold balls at the Driving Range.
My Dad could see that with a so-so putter and the wrong temperment for tournament golf, I wasn't going to be the best player in the world by a long-shot. So he spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what I COULD be #1 in the world at.
In a city full of poor instructors and in a world of the "guys in the magazines" that my Dad would always say "Why in the heck can't they make sense of it," He accurately predicted that If I really "put my mind to it" I could become the best golf instructor in the world.
I may not be there yet, but even my worst critics would have to admit, ole dad picked the right "spot" for his boy.
He died in 1987 at only 59 years old. By then I was "on my way" as he said it, easily the best teacher a city of a million people and 60 pros at age 25, and now, almost 20 years later, a whole lot closer to OUR goal.
But trust me on this: IF HE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT FOR ONE MINUTE I COULD not BE THE BEST, he would have gotten me out of it and into something else.
What else?
I wanted to be a sportscaster, I went to school with that in mind, and to be honest, I am doing a little TV these days and have a little talent for it, so there is still hope.
But, I like lots of things, and no matter what I would have chosen, I'd have raised hell in whatever it was.
Great question with Father's Day coming up...
My Dad--Biagio (Basil) "Tony" Manzella--or just Basil, was one of a kind. A great story-teller and super all-around guy, my Dad was the most POPULAR guy I ever knew. Everyone liked him.
Part of his "success" was to treat EVERYONE the same. Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Cheifs, Golf Pros, old folks and little kids. I NEVER heard my Dad use the word "son" one time in my whole life. He called me "boogs" or "Simon" or "stick" but never Brian. He used SIR to every male over the age of 25, even when my Dad was twice their age.
He also called EVERY GIRL of any age, Sugar, or Honey. He was SOoooooo good at it, noone EVER got offended. I could NEVER figure out how he did it, but now I find myself doing it all just like him. I guess he really knew what he was doing. No, strike that----I KNOW he knew what he was doing.
Daddy was probably the best athlete I ever knew. He had to quit school in the middle of his first year in High School, so we'll never know how good, but he could do anything really well.
He threw a football so perfect that two of his sons were QB's and the other two could have been--just from watching. When my oldest brother, Chick was in High School and the other two, David and Joe were 7th or 8th graders, they were all mouthing off among themselves about who was the fastest. This kind of stuff happens in homes that house non-athletes, but this home had a track star (Chick) a football super-star (David) and a physical freak of nature name Joe who used to shoot baskets at basketball games he attended---from the stands---well----just for fun, and once punted a football OUT of a stadium, just to prove he could.
Anyhoo, my pop was about 38 years old at this point and said nonchalantly, "I will take the three of you over to the track across the street and whip all of you."
You never heard laughter like that in your life.
After the boys camed back from the track---SOUNDLY DEFEATED--they never mouthed off around Dad again.
One time at least 10 years after that, my Dad and I watched a football game that was lost when the kicker missed a 30-yard field goal. "I could make 6 of those easy kicks in a row in my slip-ons, without warming up," said my dear ole Dad. I was a kicker of some repute, and I asked him if he ever did it before. He said he hadn't and I preceded to tell hom how hard it was.
After those six kicks SAILED through the uprights after coming off of a almost 50-year old man's slip on WHITE TG&Y shoes, I was almost converted too. The final conversion came when he said the same thing a couple of years later about free throws and then calmly sank 88 of 100 at the local gym.
When Basil was in the service he was FLEET champ in ping-pong, something I knew as a little kid, but really had no idea how many ping-pongers are in a fleet.
He told me----absolutely innocently----that he won a competition they had on an aircraft carrier to see who could long-jump the farthest. "How far did you jump?," I asked. 22"10' or something like that, he replied. Whatever the number WAS, it WAS 3 inches short of the world record at the time (I checked) and he did it in tennis shoes on the DECK!
Just for good measure, Basil Manzella played 1st base on the New Orleans City Champion softball team for years, won the LEAGUE highest-average in about a dozen Bowling leaugues, and became a heck of a golfer who once shot even par on a Championship course while only playing on weekends.
Imagine knowing you were THAT good at sports, and LOVING sports as much as he did and never getting the chance to really play something.
Well, It bugged him a little, and he wished he could coach, but what he did instead was be as good a raising a champion as Earl Woods ever was.
I was the best drummer in the land under 10 years old (at age 7) and nearly won an ADULT TV Talent show, telvised on the Gulf Coast when I was 7. But I wanted to play BALL!
He taught me to catch a football by DROP-KICKING it to me. Even Doug Flutie is only so-good at this little kick--whick my Dad surely KNEW--but that wasn't the point. The point was that while the other kids caught underhanded soft-tosses, I DOVE, fully layed out most of the time, for my first 1000 catches, a fact not lost on three generations of footballers at Norman Playgound, the black football version of Venice Beach.
The problem was---how do you say it PC---I was "vertically challenged." At 5'9" and 165lbs. with a 4.9 forty time, no matter how good of a footballer he rasied---and I am STILL a better footballer than a golfer---I wasn't playing anywhere good without getting killed. So I switched to golf full-time as a college freshman, and a year later was good enough to get a full-ride for the rest of my college career with NO HELP AT ALL except a couple of old black pros and a guy who sold balls at the Driving Range.
My Dad could see that with a so-so putter and the wrong temperment for tournament golf, I wasn't going to be the best player in the world by a long-shot. So he spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what I COULD be #1 in the world at.
In a city full of poor instructors and in a world of the "guys in the magazines" that my Dad would always say "Why in the heck can't they make sense of it," He accurately predicted that If I really "put my mind to it" I could become the best golf instructor in the world.
I may not be there yet, but even my worst critics would have to admit, ole dad picked the right "spot" for his boy.
He died in 1987 at only 59 years old. By then I was "on my way" as he said it, easily the best teacher a city of a million people and 60 pros at age 25, and now, almost 20 years later, a whole lot closer to OUR goal.
But trust me on this: IF HE WOULD HAVE THOUGHT FOR ONE MINUTE I COULD not BE THE BEST, he would have gotten me out of it and into something else.
What else?
I wanted to be a sportscaster, I went to school with that in mind, and to be honest, I am doing a little TV these days and have a little talent for it, so there is still hope.
But, I like lots of things, and no matter what I would have chosen, I'd have raised hell in whatever it was.
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birdie_man
New
Cool Brian.
How'd he die?? Heart?
How'd he die?? Heart?
birdie_man
New
Brian BTW...how do you figure you have a bad temperment for golf?
Too high strung?
Sometimes I feel like that too....that's what I like about football and hockey actually....you can just give er' full steam and be as intense as you want basically.
Too high strung?
Sometimes I feel like that too....that's what I like about football and hockey actually....you can just give er' full steam and be as intense as you want basically.
Brian Manzella
Administrator
Yup.
Yes, in his sleep, "The only way to go," he used to say.
birdie_man said:
Yes, in his sleep, "The only way to go," he used to say.
Brian Manzella
Administrator
Charley Hustle? Ha!
I out hustled every player on every team in every game I ever played...
"A total wild man who would kill you going for the ball"--Mike Finney
But, in golf, hustle will get you this stat:
Brian Manzella approx. lifetime tournament Driving accuracy %: 65-70%
after a three putt: 15-20%
birdie_man said:
I out hustled every player on every team in every game I ever played...
"A total wild man who would kill you going for the ball"--Mike Finney
But, in golf, hustle will get you this stat:
Brian Manzella approx. lifetime tournament Driving accuracy %: 65-70%
after a three putt: 15-20%
tongzilla
New
I was going through the Freezer, and I found this. I thought it was a good read, even though it's a bit off topic
http://www.brianmanzella.com/forum/showthread.php?p=69740#post69740
http://www.brianmanzella.com/forum/showthread.php?p=69740#post69740
Brian Manzella
Administrator
Happy Father's Day!
To all the Dad's on the forum.
I though this one needed a little light, so I moved it to the front row.
To all the Dad's on the forum.
I though this one needed a little light, so I moved it to the front row.
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