Prelude Beats Other Sports' Similar Attempts

(Originally published on June 5, 2008)

For the record, the Prelude to the Dream isn't the first time sports figures have been spurred by charity to participate in a whimsical event that brings the athletes back to the roots of their chosen craft.

It's just the only one that has ever been worth a damn.

Anybody remember the 1992 one-on-one matchup between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving at Atlantic City's Trump Taj Mahal? The cause was an awesome one, benefiting AIDS research. (It was motivated by and held just months after Magic Johnson's HIV announcement). But it sure didn't become an annual event.

How about some of those touch football games you see around Pro Bowl time with retired NFL greats? Mildly entertaining, wildly forgettable.

One-on-one hoops or touch football can be important for building the skills necessary to compete at the highest level, but in themselves do not provide for much of an entertainment factor.



Racing, on the other hand, has a distinct advantage in that the developmental stages of a career-like racing on the dirt-can be just as crowd-pleasing as when people reach the big time of the Sprint Cup.

Wednesday night, NASCAR's best proved that to be true. Sure, feature winner Tony Stewart left the outcome in little doubt by checking up on the field. (Not that anyone really had a problem with that. When the host has to sweat 50-caliber bullets over weather potentially nixing a 23,000-strong crowd and PPV audience, he deserves a fast car.)

But there were plenty of other moments, like Robby Gordon proving he can handle dirt not situated in the Mexican desert during his heat duel with Carl Edwards. Cup teammates Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick raced so close in their prelim that they could probably smell what the other had for lunch-two days prior.

Sure, the feel-good element of helping raise $1 million for a second Victory Junction Gang Camp helps to fill in the gaps where the crowd or TV viewers didn't feel entertained. But chances are there wasn't that much.

If this were just about charity, Allen Iverson might be facing LeBron James at the Bellagio next month.