In both the media and sports worlds there is no shortage of egos.  To be successful the ego probably needs to be in play but not destructive.  Max was asked how he keeps his under control.

“I think that’s a battle,” he said.  “I think the worst thing that can happen to you sometimes is you get complimented by people.  I think in Minnesota we really live in the (type of) society that if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.  …But you don’t see all the people that don’t say anything to you that think you stink.

“I will tell you the one thing that has kept me humble over the years is I’ve seen people that I didn’t think were very good, and I’ve seen people go up to them and tell them how great they are.  They may be don’t think I am any good either.

“But you’re constantly battling that (ego) because this is an intoxicating profession in some respects that you’ve got to be very leery of I think, and really guard against.  It’s easy to get sucked up if something goes well.”

There’s another challenge that Max is well aware of and that’s the cultural change in how the news is reported.  The delivery systems including TV, radio and web have become more diverse leaving those in the news business trying to figure out how they can both most effectively and profitably report the news to consumers.  Max isn’t sure what the rapidly changing landscape will look like in the future but he’s sure there will be a need for successful reporters.

“If you do your job well, if you become a great reporter, then there’ll be a need for you and it won’t matter what the media mix is,” he said.  “But I think the more interesting question is what’s the media going to be.”

Mike Max, though, is too busy week-to-week to worry a lot about the future.

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Phil Jackson will likely call it a career after next season, according to his friend and former college coach Bill Fitch.  Jackson, 64, ended speculation a few days ago about coaching for the 2010-11 season when he said he will return to the Lakers, a team he’s coached to NBA championships the last two years.

The hesitation to continue a 19 year NBA coaching career that has produced 11 titles was based on health concerns, presumably focused on discomfort caused by the travel and other physical demands of a 24-7 job that takes up about nine months of the calendar.  Yet Fitch, a former NBA championship coach himself who coached Jackson while at the University of North Dakota, wasn’t surprised about the decision to return to the Lakers for one more year.

Fitch said Jackson’s hips bother him but he isn’t “near death’s door” and that the Lakers players and others in the organization were counting on him to coach next season.  To make a rare three-peat as NBA champions a reality in 2011.

“What else is he going to do?” Fitch asked during an interview with Sports Headliners. “He’s a competitor.  They’re (Jackson and his staff) still coaching.  This season (the last one) never ended for the Lakers.  Any time you’re going after that three in a row… . That’s what he’s back for.  He’s back to play the second half of the game.”

But Jackson will be approaching his 66^th birthday by next summer and Fitch does believe the end will arrive for a coaching career that produced a record number of NBA championships. “This will be it,” said Fitch.  “He’s done after this year (2011).

“I think that’s probably part of the program.  He’ll either announce it before the season starts or he may announce it today… .It’s going to be a hard decision for him but I doubt very much that he’ll go past this (next) year, win, lose or draw.”

In his announcement last week Jackson referred to a “last stand.”  That willingness to return was predicated on his competitive drive and relationships with people including girlfriend Jeanie Buss, daughter of Lakers owner Jerry Buss.  It wasn’t driven by money, in Fitch’s opinion.

There’s been speculation the Lakers didn’t want to compensate Jackson for $12 million or more as in the past.  Fitch said he could see Jackson telling his agent, “‘Hey, whatever it takes.  Whatever they (the Lakers) need.  We’re going to do this for a year.’ ”

Jackson is divorced and has dated Jeanie Buss for years.  She is a Lakers executive and has considerable authority in running the franchise.  Fitch said Buss has been a positive influence in Jackson’s life, a woman with magazine model looks and business school smarts.

“She’s a smart lady,” Fitch said.  “I’d be the first to tell him, ‘She could have done a lot better than you, Phil.’ ”

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Fitch, who coached the Gophers from 1968-70, has been “zinging” Jackson for years, going back to North Dakota days in the mid-1960’s.  It was there that the Fighting Sioux were among the elite of Division II basketball teams and Jackson, 6-10, became an All-American before starting a pro career with the New York Knicks.

Fitch, who also had a background in baseball, had known of Jackson when he was not only a basketball player but an imposing pitcher in Williston, North Dakota.  The location of Williston helped Fitch steer Jackson to North Dakota, even though Jackson’s basketball skills would have transferred well to bigger schools.

“…Not too many people east of the Mississippi (River) can tell you where Williston is, let alone get there,” Fitch said.

He admired Jackson as a person and player in college.  He never speculated that the studious and philosophical Jackson would become a coach.  “I thought he would end up probably being a college professor and president of a college somewhere,” Fitch said.

Instead Jackson became a great NBA coach, perhaps the best of all time.  Fitch said that success is based on Jackson’s extraordinary basketball knowledge and his full faith in using his assistant coaches and their abilities.  Obviously having talented players has been a huge factor as well.

What has characterized Jackson’s profile, too, is a calm on-court demeanor, at least somewhat a product of his Zen philosophy.  While coaching in a game, Jackson seems to accept player performance failures and sort of mystically store those failings away for teaching moments later.

“I don’t know one coach who could sit there and be that calm. …He’s a master of it.  He’s proven there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Fitch said.

Jackson has been able to associate himself with Zen philosophy when others in the NBA wouldn’t have dared to try or been successful.  “He’s on a different street there,” Fitch said.  “If nine other coaches tried to get by with it, out of the nine probably half of them would fail.”

Jackson has seldom failed and undoubtedly doesn’t plan to do so in 2011, likely his last magical ride.

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