[00:00:00] Joe Towne: Hey, welcome to The Better Podcast. I’m Joe Towne.

Today’s guest is Andrew Bernstein. He’s a hall of fame photographer who for over three decades has been the official photographer for most of LS, professional sports teams, including the Lakers who he’s covered since the 1983 all-star game, the Clippers, the Dodgers and the Kings outside of LA. He was the official photographer for the United States dream team.

During the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Bernstein has covered 40 NBA finals and 38 all-star games as the senior NBA photographer. After photographing Kobe Bryant for 20 years, he collaborated with the five-time NBA champion on the worldwide best-selling book, the Mamba [00:01:00] mentality, how I play. He now teaches workshops, sharing Kobe’s Mamba mentality with the next generation of learners.

He co-authored a book with hall of fame, coach Phil Jackson, who allowed him in all 11 of his championship locker rooms. He’s been in huddles with pat Riley and the Showtime Lakers. He’s had a front row seat to see Marvin Gaye’s epic halftime show during the all-star game at the forum, he’s even photographed president Carter while he was still in college.

His photos have graced the covers of sports illustrated throughout the years. And in 2018, the Naismith Memorial basketball hall of fame named Bernstein, a Curt Gowdy award recipient, acknowledging his contributions to basketball media. This prestigious award is presented annually to members of the electronic and print media whose longtime efforts have made a significant contribution [00:02:00] to the game of basketball.

Bernstein is the second photographer to receive this honor. Let’s jump right into the conversation with Andrew Bernstein on finding magic in the frames.

here’s what I’m curious to start off with. If your life today at a newspaper, what would the current headline of your. 

[00:02:31] Andrew Bernstein: Uh, anything’s possible. 

[00:02:38] Joe Towne: I love this. Okay. Wait, say more. I’m double-clicking I really want to read this article. Anything is 

[00:02:43] Andrew Bernstein: possible. I mean, uh, you know, or a better one, given my Springsteen roots, no surrender with like three exclamation points.

Okay, 

[00:02:56] Joe Towne: perfect. Okay. No surrender three [00:03:00] exclamation points. If I’m diving into this article, what 

[00:03:04] Andrew Bernstein: is it telling me? Well, um, Hmm. I think the gist that you would get after you got all the biographical information, the accolades, the, uh, the journey really speaks to, um, really never giving up, never listening to the other voice in my head, the negativity that was thrown at me from when I first decided to become a photographer than a sports photographer in my personal life as well.

Um, having to, uh, sort of pivot and make, make some tough decisions and choices and, uh, and hang in there when you know, what was really hitting the fan and, uh, keep moving forward, man, keep putting one foot in front of the other. And now at this point in my life, you know, 40 plus years into a career. I’m actually making a left turn for the rest of my work life that has its own set of [00:04:00] landmines, that I was not really prepared for quite frankly, but I’m learning as I go.

So, uh, you know, overcoming adversity, Joe, pretty much and, and never given into, um, to anybody saying no to me, 

[00:04:16] Joe Towne: I love it. It sounds like this article is a bit of a retrospective and maybe there’s some sort of philosophical nature of happening as your life is taking this left turn because it’s you, I want to add a sub question to this, which is, so what is the photograph that would be under the headline?

No, surrender three exclamation points. 

[00:04:37] Andrew Bernstein: I think the photograph would be, uh, is I’ve been in, um, 40 NBA championship locker room. It’s usually the first one in when the champagne starts flying and you know, it’s a very cathartic experience for the, for the players. You know, they’ve been through basically nine months of having to, [00:05:00] you know, get to that mountain top to that journey.

And it’s, it’s tremendous celebration, but yet I’m in there having to do my job, you know, and I’m getting soaked and, uh, I’m taking as much champagne. On my body, as they’re putting in their bodies, you know, and I’ll buy equipment. So the photo would probably be me in the middle of that scene. Um, I have, uh, maybe a picture or two that had been shot over the years by friends in that, in that crazy scenario in my mind’s eye.

That’s what I see, you know, I see, I just see me in the middle of all of that chaos. 

[00:05:40] Joe Towne: So I imagine as each journey up the mountain has a starting point, you know, 40 plus championship locker rooms. Can we go way back for a second? I would love to know what was the first big dream you remember having, 

[00:05:58] Andrew Bernstein: is it photography [00:06:00] related?

You know, my craft, 

[00:06:02] Joe Towne: it can be anything, let it take me back to Brooklyn, you 

[00:06:05] Andrew Bernstein: know? Well, yeah, my first dream was that that I was actually Superman and, uh, that came to fruition when, when I was from a toddler until probably close to three years old. Um, you know, my I’ve seen pictures of it, but my family tells the story that I would never take off my Superman costume.

You know, I had the Superman suit and my mom, this is true. Had to sew holes in it while I was still wearing it, you know, so that, so, so at about three years old, I’m living in a. And sort of a rowhouse situation in Brooklyn. It was a nice suburban area, but it, you know, the attached houses, two family houses is what we call them.

And my bedroom was upstairs. I shared it with my older brother and my mom came in to the bedroom and there I am [00:07:00] standing on the radiator, uh, with the open window, with my arms out, they can, uh, in the Superman suit thinking that I could do it, you know, and she grabbed me. I don’t think I was just gonna actually do it.

You know, I think I was just sort of pretending, but, um, they got with his other who the hell knows it was a bit, a long way down. And then my dad came home and he probably put bars on the window. They locked all the other windows of the second floor and put bars on the ones in my bedroom. So that was pretty much my first dream, you know?

Yeah. 

[00:07:37] Joe Towne: First stream. Yeah. It’s interesting. I grew up on long island, not too far from Brooklyn, maybe a 25 minute ride away. And for a chunk of time, two and a half years, I was living in a commune. It was a vegetarian household. There were people that kept kosher. There were musicians, there was mathematician.

They only had one rule which [00:08:00] was out of the 10 rooms. If anybody was uncomfortable with anybody, they couldn’t move in to be 10 yeses. Only took one note and it was a lot of like artists basically. And I was obsessed with mighty mouse. And so I stood with my Cape at the edge of the cliff with a dog by my side, and feeling the wind and wishing I could fly.

So it sounds like we both had that maybe 

[00:08:31] Andrew Bernstein: impulse, kindred spirits,

[00:08:36] Joe Towne: mighty mouse started out as super mouse. The character came from an idea by animator is adore Klein at the Terry Toons studio who suggested a parody of the popular Superman character, making some sketches of a superhero fly. Paul Terry, the head of the studio, like the idea of a Superman parody, but suggested a mouse [00:09:00] rather than an insect in his first film, the mouse of tomorrow, which debuted in 1942, super mouse beads in super soap, swallows, super soup munches, super celery and plunges head first into an enormous piece of super cheese from which he emerges in a flash as super mouse.

His costume is like Superman’s with a flowing red Cape and his powers are similar to it can fly through the air and repel bullets with his chest, super mouse sores to the rescue of his fellow mice and dispatches the neighborhood cats to the. In Pandora’s box 1943, he battles bat winged cat demons, and his origin story was changed.

Now he becomes super mouse by eating vitamins, a through Z. The hero made seven films in 1942 to 1943. Before his name was changed. His real name, Mike mouse, identity class [00:10:00] anthropomorphic, rodent mutate occupation superhero he’s based in Moundsville and his enemy is oil can Harry he’s affiliated with the league of super rodents scrappy, a young mouse orphan who becomes his friend and to damsels in distress, Pearl pure heart and Mitzi mighty mouse can fly.

He’s super strong. He has x-ray vision and can perform some sort of self hypnosis, which allows him to control inanimate objects and turn back time. Mighty mouse is known for his catchy theme song, mighty mouse theme here. I called him to save the day written by composer. Marshall bearer mighty mouse appeared in comic books by several publishers, including his own series, mighty mouse and the adventures of mighty mouse, which ran from 1946 to 1968.

He’s also one of the few superheroes to be nominated for an Oscar for the cartoon gypsy life in 1940. [00:11:00] Terry Toons sold its library in the 1950s and mighty mouse became the first cartoon character ever to appear on Saturday mornings. Marvel comics produced a 10 issue comic book series set in the new adventures continuity in 1990 and 1991.

He’s had his own arcade game made by Atari. He was featured in a power of cheese, TV, commercial, and in April of 2019, the writers, John and Eric Homer signed on to write a script about him for paramount animation. So there was a lot of sport that happened on your street, right? I mean, stickball football, basketball street hockey.

And I think you said as a family, when the Dodgers left town, you know, you all mourned, you were black armbands, right. Which is what you traditionally do when you lose and you have loss in your life. [00:12:00] So what did you love most about sports and what did it mean to you from that young age? 

[00:12:07] Andrew Bernstein: Well, I was born in 58 and that’s the year the Dodgers moved at a Brooklyn and, uh, my family were such diehard.

Brooklyn Dodger fans that, that they literally did wear black armband 

[00:12:23] Joe Towne: on May 28th, 1957, major league baseball owners, unanimously voted to allow both the New York giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers to up and leave the big apple for California. The Dodgers stopped playing baseball in Ebbets field, and the lights went out in Flatbush.

Korea is the practice of tearing a garment as a tangible show of grief. That practice goes back to the Bible where there are numerous instances where people tear their clothes to show sorrow. This act is making manifest. The anguish one feels at [00:13:00] the loss of life. Korea today is done for the closest relatives for whom one Morton’s parents, children, siblings, and spouse.

One may also tear for other relatives, but you have to really like them. The black armband was first adopted as a sign of mourning in 1770s, England after queen Victoria’s husband, Albert died in 1861. The Royal servants were ordered to wear black crepe armbands for at least eight years to honor him. The black armband made its appearance as a new symbol of.

During the second half of the 20th century in 1965 in Des Moines, Iowa, three students, John tinker, Mary Beth tinker, and Christopher Eckhart wore the armbands to protest the Vietnam war. They were probably suspended from school though. Later, the Supreme court decided suspending them violated both their first and [00:14:00] 14th amendment rights.

The black armband continued as a symbol of mourning in sports like in 1907 during spring training chick stall, one of the most feared and consistent hitters of his time committed suicide, both the Boston players and their opponents on the field wore black crepe bows to honor him. This was the first time a baseball team had warned them, but it certainly hasn’t been the last in the Jewish tradition.

You will hear it said, may their memory be a blessing or in the case of Walter O’Malley and Horace Stoneham, the owners of the Dodgers and giants who ripped the hearts out of their city, throw the bums out 

[00:14:45] Andrew Bernstein: the men in the family, my dad, my uncles, my grandfathers. So when you see photos, when I would see photos of myself as, as a newborn.

Baby all the men are wearing black armband the picture, you know, and it’s [00:15:00] like, okay, well, you know, something good actually happened that year, you know, but it kind of lost track of that. But sports was, uh, was the way I bonded primarily with my, with my friends. Um, I was the shortest guy on my block, my entire, my entire childhood teenage years until I went to college.

Um, I didn’t grow really until I was four feet, 10 in seventh grade. So I didn’t really grow until ninth grade pretty much. And, but I love playing sports. You know, I love playing. We had a hoop on our garage and then we would go out and play tackle football on concrete in the school yard, in the winter, you know, and, and in the winter we would also, we would clear the snow off the street on my street, east 24th street in Brooklyn and play street hockey.

With rollerskates, you know, we didn’t have roller blades in those days. It was the four wheels skates, you know, and [00:16:00] my, my dad and my uncles would come out, you know, on Sunday and play with us and we would play of course, stick ball. And you remember in Brooklyn or in New York, you know, they’d have the manhole covers in the street and we, yeah, well, we call them sewers.

They weren’t really sewers. The sewer was at the end of the street, but we would play sewer to sewer, you know, like we w that would be the goals for hockey or football or, um, or baseball home plate, you know, that kind of thing. Um, and, and God help anybody who left their car parked on the street. Cause it was open game.

That really, it was, yeah, it was, you know, you took your life in your hands and, uh, you know, it was like right out of Wayne’s world, you know, a car would be coming down the street, we will have car, you know, and everybody would get out of the way. So, you know, that was the bonding with my friends. Um, you know, bike riding was a big thing in Brooklyn.

I remember I had, I had the banana bike with the, you know, the sissy [00:17:00] bar and the whole thing, you know, and we’d ride bikes. Like we we’d, uh, flipped cards, baseball cards. I would cut out a Hebrew school and just flip cards with my friends in the alley. You know, in terms of my formative years, it was a bonding situation.

My dad, um, is really the only time I spent with my dad. That was when he was doing since woodworking. My dad was a doctor, psychologist worked a lot, so he had a little wood shop in the basement and the big joke was, you know, go, go down and help dad. And he would just ask you to hold this, you know, hold the screwdriver, hold the, you know, the cord, hold the nails, whatever it was, he would actually let you do anything, you know, but you know, at least I got to spend a little time with him, but, but sports was really it.

He took me to Mets games from when I was young. I mean, that’s, the Mets came in and 62, I think we started going to med schemes and maybe 66, 67. And then of course by 69, when they won the world [00:18:00] series, the amazing Mets, the manager of the Mets, Gil Hodges lived around the corner from us. We lived on east 24th street.

Bedford avenue was the next street over. Then he lived two blocks up from that. And we kids made a, made a parade down Bedford avenue for Gil Hodges. You know, it was pretty, pretty amazing. Yeah. But, uh, the real bonding over sports with my dad came from ranger games. Um, my dad had season tickets in the family.

We’ve had season tickets for the Rangers for probably two generations going back to the old garden. And I actually went to the old garden belt up on eighth avenue. Um, or was it 10th avenue forgot, but the old garden before the new Madison square garden.

[00:18:47] Joe Towne: The first Madison square garden was actually already an existing venue known as PT. Barnum’s great. Roman Hippodrome or Barnum’s monster classical and geological. Hippodrome located at the Northeast [00:19:00] corner of Madison square park. It was demolished in 1889. Cornelius Vanderbilt grandson sold the property to a consortium of esteemed buyers, including JP Morgan, PT, Varnum, and Andrew Carnegie designed by Stanford white.

It had a bozos Morrish design and cost over $3 million, which is $88 million in 20 $20. It had a tower modeled after the Gerald in Spain. On top of it was a statue of Diana. It also had a rooftop garden, which was a major venue for entertainment in the gilded age and was the site of designer Stanford White’s murder at the hands of Harry Kay thought, a jealous rival in a love triangle.

The third Madison square garden wasn’t at Madison square at all. It was an indoor arena built in 1925. It was located on the west side of eighth avenue, between 49th and 50th streets in Manhattan on the site of the city’s trolley car [00:20:00] barns designed by the noted theater architect. Thomas W. Lamb, it was built at the cost of $4.75 million in 349 days by boxing promoter, Tex Ricard who assembled backers to fund the project.

The new arena was dubbed the house that Tex built the arena, which opened on December 15th, 1925 was 200 feet by 375 feet with seating on three levels. It could see 18 and a half thousand people for a boxing match. It had poor sight lines, especially for hockey and fans sitting virtually anywhere behind the first row of the side.

Balcony could count on having some portion of the ice obstruct. The fact that there was poor ventilation and that smoking was permitted often led to a haze in the upper portions of the garden. Madison square garden three was the home of the New York Rangers in the NHL and the New York Knicks in the NBA [00:21:00] while the Ringling brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus had debuted at the second garden in 1919, the third garden saw large numbers of performances.

The circus was so important to the garden that when the Rangers played in the 1928 Stanley cup finals, the team was forced to play all games on the road, which did not prevent the Rangers from winning the series. The circus would continue to perform as often as three times daily throughout the life of the third garden, repeatedly knocking the Rangers out of the garden at playoff time.

The very first event held at the third garden was a bicycle race held from November 24th to 29th, 1925, several weeks before the official opening of the arena on March 9th, 1942, a mass Memorial service to the 2 million Jews who’d been murdered by the Nazis and access occupied Europe. Up to that date in the Holocaust was held in the venue over 40,000 [00:22:00] people.

President John F Kennedy’s birthday party in may, 1962 was held at the garden where Marilyn Monroe memorably saying happy birthday, Mr. President in 1968 Madison square garden, the third was demolished and its role and named past to the current Madison square garden, which stands at the site of the original Penn station.

[00:22:24] Andrew Bernstein: He would take me to the old garden and buy like the cheapest seats possible in those days. And those seats were called obstructed view seats. So there’d be like these big columns, these big posts, like holding up the seat, the roof, you know, and, uh, the kid me would sit behind you and put 50 cents or a dollar would sit behind these obstructed a PC.

It was hilarious. Wish I still had one of those tickets stubs because it literally said obstructed view. But we, uh, we, I went to almost every ranger home game from, I would say 11 until I went to college at [00:23:00] 17. You know, it was almost religiously like every, almost every, you know, not every Sunday, but they played Sundays and Wednesdays kind of primarily, that was just a great experience to spend the time with my dad, you know?

And then my uncle Julie, who lived in New Jersey would need us. And, uh, we’d all hang out together. And it was, there was an adventure. Every time we went to the garden gates, 

[00:23:23] Joe Towne: it really sounds to me like a few different things. One of them. Connection relationships, right? Relationship with your dad, with your uncle relationship with your friends.

And that, that was really the origin and the stickiness factor for sport. I’m curious, you know, whether it’s playing stick ball and the Mets are having this moment, or whether you’re playing street hockey and maybe imagining one of the Rangers, who are you like, do you imagine yourself as a specific player when you’re out there?

You know how a lot of kids will be like on this? 

[00:23:57] Andrew Bernstein: Oh, a hundred percent, man. I, I wanted to [00:24:00] be bud Haroldson more than anything in the world. He wore number three, he was the shortstop for the amazing meds. He was a kind of a flight kinda guy. Um, I started playing shortstop just because of him. And w where we played, literally baseball was on a field called Marine park in Brooklyn, which had zero blades of grass.

It was just dirt and more dirt. And then some like ground up glass and whatever, it was not, it wasn’t a piece of grass on that field, but that’s kind of where I learned how to play ball. You know, it’s fun, but I wanted to be bud Harrelson. My dad on the other hand, had this, the craziest desire and stay with me on this.

Cause it’s so weird, but they were going to, uh, they were going to close down the old gardens in 1972. I believe it was 72 and move to the new garden. Right. So we all knew that, you know, the last ranger game. What’s going to be on such date. Right. And [00:25:00] it was going to be actually the last event ever held that at the garden happened to be a ranger game.

And my dad had had this dream of bringing his skate to the game and towards the end of the fourth, the third period, sorry, the fourth quarter, the end of the third period, putting the skates on. And then at the Le in the last 30 seconds, jumping over the boards and skating in, on Eddie Giacomo and the goalie.

I mean, he was like, he never stopped talking about it. Oh, I almost thought he was going to actually do it, you know, but he didn’t instead. Uh, I don’t know. I think he went to his grave regretting that he never did that. Although he probably would have gotten her, obviously got arrested, but would have been pretty hilarious.

[00:25:48] Joe Towne: Yeah. It would have gone for it. So, you know, you, you talked about your dad, he is doctor, he’s a psychologist and you really, you come from an extraordinary crew. [00:26:00] Right. And the way you have talked about publicly talked about your siblings, They’re all remarkable in their fields, remarkable humans. So I’m curious, like how comes so many of you have become so successful in your fields?

Is there something in the water in Brooklyn that not only makes great bagels, but great humans? 

[00:26:18] Andrew Bernstein: Well, Brooklyn is a special place, Joe, you know, you’re from the island, which is kind of Brooklyn light, you know, but 

[00:26:26] Joe Towne: it’s not Brooklyn. Right? 

[00:26:27] Andrew Bernstein: Exactly. But you know, Brooklyn, you know, I, I’m still friends with about four or five of my, my friends that I grew up with, you know, from elementary school.

And then of course, high school. And, you know, we all have sort of, I don’t know, against all odds, um, succeeded some of us, but, um, you know, you have that Moxie, you know, you, you know the word Moxie, a lot of people don’t know what Moxy is, but it’s like in the little edge you got that little extra something,[00:27:00] 

[00:27:03] Joe Towne: the word Moxie means spunk or determination or boldness in 1876, Dr. Augustan Thompson created a potent medicine that promised to cure everything from sleep disorders to nervous. Moxy nerve food was its name. Additionally, the product claimed to cure paralysis, loss of manhood and softening of the brain.

When the pure food and drug act in 1906 required medicinal products to prove their claims Moxie became a soft drink. The state of Maine declared Moxie, the official state soft drink in 2005 in its heyday. Some claim that the soft drink named Moxie outsold Coca-Cola. It was often found at baseball stadiums, especially in the Northeast United States.

The beverage was a favorite of American writer, Eby white, who wrote [00:28:00] Moxie contains Gentian root, which is the path to the goods. The Abenaki are an indigenous ethnic group in north America, officially recognized in the U S as a native American tribe. And in Canada as a first nation, they are one of the Algonquin speaking peoples of Northeastern north America.

The word Moxie originates from the Algonquin Indian root masky meaning dark water or medicine. There are evergreen plants located in Maine with the name, for example, Moxie plump, as well as many Moxie named locations throughout Maine lakes falls, et cetera. In the 20th century, the word Moxie itself came to mean courage, spirit determination.

It’s an often quoted line from the stink and iconic 1973 film, which won seven academy awards, including best picture where a boss says to a rising talent. You got [00:29:00] Moxie. Moxie has sometimes been connected to the word chutzpah in crossword puzzles, but people have literally written into complain that they are not interchangeable while chutzpah can mean audacious and bold.

It can also imply arrogance, gall impunity, 

[00:29:17] Andrew Bernstein: new Yorkers in general are like that. But, um, but if you’re from Brooklyn, you got that, that little extra added sort of bonus of a. I’ve just never given up, you know, and somebody tells you, you can’t do something. It just fuels you to do it even more and want to prove them wrong and a little bit of a chip on your shoulder arrogance.

Um, but you know, I learned how to turn the arrogance into, into self competence and into motivation and drive. So it’s kind of, you know, that’s how, 

[00:29:49] Joe Towne: yeah. I want to come back to that. Cause I want to hear about that transformation. Cause that’s really important. I think for these listeners, I need, I’m wondering, do you have a philosophy, like a word or a [00:30:00] phrase that you keep coming back to perhaps that influences or guides your life?

[00:30:05] Andrew Bernstein: Um, my philosophy is that a donut don’t ever let, what someone else thinks about you influence how you feel about yourself. And I taught that to my kids. I’ve taught that when I teach, you know, friends of mine who whomever, because that’s one of the biggest pitfalls in life, how we judge ourselves as to how people judge us or they see us or what lens they’re looking through.

I don’t care what lens somebody is looking through. You know, I got my own lens and, um, as long as I am, you know, my integrity is there and I’m doing things for the right reason might not always work. Right? You gotta take risks and you have to fail. I learned really learned the hard way in various ways in business and in my personal life, I can’t let somebody, and as my therapist, I love dearly says, [00:31:00] um, don’t ever let somebody blow up, blow out your light.

You know, don’t just, don’t let them do it, you know, because you’re, you’re turning power over to somebody that doesn’t deserve to have that power. So, you know, I learned that a little too late in life. Um, I wish I had known that stuff a little earlier, but, you know, I learned it before, uh, while I’m still walking the earth before it becomes too late, you know?

[00:31:25] Joe Towne: Yeah. And it sounds like it, maybe it was born out of some disappointment or frustration or pain, but it sounds like you’re really paying it forward through your kids and through your classes. And I would love to hear a little bit about this first trip. So you bond with your dad through sports, you hold, you know, the occasional tool down in the basement, but it’s really key.

Who buys you your first camera? You go on this trip out west, I’m curious to know, like, what did that trip mean to you and what does it mean to you? [00:32:00] 

[00:32:00] Andrew Bernstein: Oh, that was so transformative. Um, I mean there’s a life event that I’ll always point to as, as, as really pointing me in various directions, but you’re giving me purpose creatively.

My dad. You know, it was an interesting dude, but he considered himself like an amateur, anything, you know, like, and one of the things that he thought he was really good at was being a photographer and, you know, all the home movies that we had, the millimeters, you know, everybody growing up in that era had, um, my dad was actually pretty good at using a camera.

It wasn’t even super eight. It was like eight millimeter first. And then he got into still photography and he bought himself a nice Canon FTB camera. I think it was. And I really had, had expressed no desire in learning photography or interest in it whatsoever. And all of a sudden, you know, we’re planning this trip out west the summer of [00:33:00] my 14th year.

It was this extensive trip that I had to backtrack a little bit related to sports the whole basis for this trip originally, right when my dad and I started planning, it was that my dad had become friends with a player on the Rangers named Glen saver. And Glenn of course, went on to become the, uh, the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers who won five Stanley cups.

Then he became the president, uh, the coach and president and later president of the Rangers and. It’s incredible icon legend to sports. We’ve actually interviewed on my podcast, legends of sport. I’m about to say, but anyway, my dad threw a whole convoluted set of circumstances. My dad became friends with a few guys on the Rangers, all of a sudden one random like Friday night, there’s like three New York ranger players at my house in Brooklyn with their wives having dinner.[00:34:00] 

Right. And this is true. And, uh, and my mom made this beautiful dinner and we had a pool table in the basement, you know, so the guys and I go in down at this point, I’m like, I think I’m 12, maybe 13 and, uh, playing pool and stuff. Um, anyway, Glenn was from Western Canada and a beautiful place, uh, outside the band.

And he, he had bought this gorgeous property and built a hockey camp on this property, um, in a, in a place called sunshine. And, uh, he invited me to come to the camp right after my 14th birthday that summer. Um, I didn’t really know how to ice skate. Honestly. I knew I had a role rural escape. I was really good at roller hockey, but I didn’t know, you know, the two rinks and all of New York at that time.

And, uh, True story. Mother’s day, uh, 1972. [00:35:00] Uh, my dad takes, it takes me and my mom and my little brother to the sky rink. I don’t know if you remember the sky rink in Manhattan and there’s literally an ice skating rink at the top of this building. And it’s teaching me how to do hockey moves and the, and the resurface, the ice.

And we go back out there and I go to practice a hockey stop and fall flat on my face. Right? Busted my nose three places. It was a myth. And of course the upshot of that is I got to cancel the hockey camp, right? I mean, that was the whole reason we were going. We were just going to go to Banff and go to the camp and spend, you know, 10 days to two weeks there.

So we changed the whole trip around and Glen said, Hey, understand, you can’t go to the camp and blah, blah, blah, but come out and visit, you know? And so we redid the trip that we were going to fly out to Ben, to, uh, Calgary, then drive to bam, go to Glen’s property. We actually camped out in this most pristine [00:36:00] place.

It looked like we were in the middle of the outs, honestly. And, uh, Glen was incredibly gracious and just an amazing host. And then from there, we proceeded to go all the way down to the grand canyon and then back all the way up the west coast and ended up in Vancouver. So it was almost a 2000 mile trip in two weeks.

Very long story short to bring it back to the camera. So my dad bought me a camera for that trip and you know, I’ve never expressed any desire to learn photography, but he brought me, this brought me this camera and he figured that he would show me the ropes. You know, he’d show me how to use the camera.

And, you know, in those days it was, you had to learn how to take, you know, take pictures. I mean, you had to learn how to put the film in. You had to learn how to expose. You had to learn how to focus and compose and all the things he really know that’s colored these days. But before we left, we went and bought probably 60 rolls of Kodachrome film, right in the yellow [00:37:00] box and Kodachrome film.

In those days, you could buy it with a mailer, right? So you’d buy the roll of film. It came with a prepaid mailer. The idea is you shoot the film, you put it, the film in the mailer. It goes from any post office in America to Rochester, they process it. And then boom, you know, three weeks later you have a yellow box waiting outside your door, right?

So we’re shooting everything, you know, from the old faithful to the grand Tetons and, uh, Mount Rainier and whatever it is Yosemite. And as we go, we’re putting, fill in the mailers and we’re mailing it from the most obscure place. I’m thinking we’ll never going to see this film ever again. Right? Well, lo and behold, we get home.

And there’s most of the film had already arrived already developed. And the slides, the slides in this, a little, these boxes, probably even 40 or 50 of those boxes waiting for us at home. So we start rifling through them, you know, and I’m looking at him, my dad’s looking at him and he’s [00:38:00] he’s uh, he’s oh, this is an unbelievable picture.

I took of old Facebook look at this picture. I took a Mount Rainier and I’m like that way, hope can I just, can I see that box? And he gives me the box and I’m looking through it. And I said, but, but that you’re in these pictures.

I said, that’s my role with bill. That’s my role bill. But that, as he very real, I’ve never had that look on his face was like, holy shit. This kid really went up to the, you know, but, um, I think he was also proud that I, that I actually learned how to be a photographer in that, on that trip, you know? And that set the stage because I fell in love with photography from that moment on.

And then of course, you know, I fast forward to when I made a decision to w what kind of photographer I was going to be, why not marry the two passions of my life, you know, sports and photography. 

[00:38:55] Joe Towne: And what I’m hearing in there is there’s this pivot, right? You have this idea, I’m [00:39:00] going to go hockey camp and then accident happens.

And your dad’s like, let’s keep the trip. Glen’s like still come out. And the happy accidents, the serendipity that came from that. Sparked this flame. So next stop sounds like you go to UMass. And I want to ask you about one of your first big subjects. Cause we’re not talking about old faithful. Now we’re not talking about the Tetons.

We’re talking about president Carter, right? You’re charged with shooting the president. Did you get nervous? 

[00:39:33] Andrew Bernstein: How did you know that 

[00:39:36] Joe Towne: way through a lens? 

[00:39:40] Andrew Bernstein: That was crazy, Joe, because I had started working my second week at UMass. I started shooting for the UMass daily collegian, which was a five day a week college newspaper, very prestigious paper.

They’d won a lot of awards where we were located at UW-Madison Western. Massachusetts was kind of middle of nowhere. The Boston globe [00:40:00] had to be trucked in from Boston. It was printed in Boston. You know, now it’s of course it’s printed all over the place, but it was printed in Boston trucked to the Western part of the state.

So it was an afternoon newspaper. So the paper that the townspeople of Amherst in the various towns around got in the morning on their front porch was our paper UMass Ellie Collegium, which was pretty cool. So we took it really seriously at the collegian. I mean, we, we tackled some really heavy subjects.

We didn’t hold back. We, of course, you know, it was, it was a political sort of, you know, mouthpiece for various editors who wanted to get their point across. But I learned so much. I had, uh, you know, worked a little bit. Yeah. I worked in high school for a newspaper art, uh, monthly newspaper, but much different working on a deadline and working, you know, in a real newsroom.

So when, when, um, this was in my, uh, freshman year, because. Well, what’s it. Yeah, it was [00:41:00] my freshman year that Jimmy Carter came through our campus on barnstorming tour where the election in 76 and why he came to UMass. I have no idea, but probably because of, you know, because the voting age wasn’t 18 at that point drinking age was, but the voting age.

So he, uh, I guess it was, you know, just for, you know, there are a lot of Democrats in that area in Western mass. And anyway, so he came there and I was assigned, I don’t know if it was random or not, but at that point I was assistant photo editor and the guy I worked for Chris was the photo editor assigned me to shoot him.

Uh, it was like on my watch and it was cool. I mean, it was, um, you know, it was just another candidate at that point. Like if you told me Teddy Kennedy was coming through or, you know, somebody who was more well-known at that time, that would have been, I think, more impressive to me. Here’s this guy with.

[00:42:00] Deep Southern accent. I didn’t really know. I really didn’t know who he was. I mean, obviously I knew he was running for president, but, uh, I don’t think anybody gave him a shot at that point. It was early in the campaign. So it was, it was super cool. And it ran on the, on the front page of the paper and you know, that’s always, the greatest thing is when you and, and your friends see your byline, you know, a photo of the paper.

So it was kind of cool. Yeah. 

[00:42:25] Joe Towne: Okay. So there’s an itch. That’s starting to happen. You’re shooting subjects. You’re part of this incredible newspaper, but there’s something that’s unfulfilled. You decide to transfer all the way across the country. So you decided to go to the art center, college of design, which primarily sounds like it’s known for commercial and advertising, but you connected to some mentors, bill Robbins.

What did being in that environment and still in you confidence-wise 

[00:42:54] Andrew Bernstein: well, they did everything to, to D instill it. Um, that’s a word. [00:43:00] Well, art center art center was known and it is probably still known as the top or one of the top three commercial art schools in the country, art and design schools. So it’s illustration, it’s a car design, the world famous for their car design program.

And photography actually had the most students in it, but it was, it was hardcore commercial advertising, fashion food. Uh, product very, very little editorial and like zero, I mean, less than zero news documentary sports, you know, forget about it. So I got there and like in my, and I applied there, honestly, because I needed to up my game, I was, I was doing great at UMass.

I had a great, you know, circle of friends. It was socially, it was an amazing place. Um, but on the photography side, when I sort of decided that it was [00:44:00] going to be my career, I wasn’t getting the instruction that I needed. I was just learning on the fly. There were no classes in photography at UMass, which, you know, I probably should have investigated when I was looking at schools, but that’s a whole other whole other story, Joe.

Um, so I, I applied to art center knowing that it was, um, you know, a hardcore commercial school, but I would get the technical training, the science, the history of photography and all that stuff. And it, it has known as the medical school of art schools. I mean, you literally are working 20 hours a day, seven days a week.

I mean, I remember sleeping in the dark room to make a class deadline and at eight o’clock in the morning printing all night, you know, stuff like that. So I kind of accepted the fact that. Probably not the right place, you know, on paper, but I think it’s the right place for me. And I got to make the best of it.

But I was told [00:45:00] literally from the second week I was there, like, why are you here? I mean, you know, this is not what you want to do. I had a couple of teachers who told me that, you know, I’m making a huge mistake in wasting my dad’s money. And only when, uh, quite honestly, when I met bill Robbins in my third semester as an eight trimester system there, when I met bill, I met Jim Picabo, who taught the only documentary class that we had.

Jim was a Vietnam vet photographer worked for the red cross. He personally knew 53, uh, news photographers who were killed in combat in Vietnam. He talked about that. So eloquently talked about, you know, everything he went through, but he also believed in the school and was fighting against the same stuff.

I was fighting against the knee. He wouldn’t let that happen to me. And so he, he pushed me bill, especially pushed me. I ended up working for bill and his student. And through bill, I met a guy named lane steward who was just sports illustrated staff [00:46:00] photographer, and that opened all the doors for me because through lane, he introduced me to the local LA sports illustrated photographers.

[00:46:10] Joe Towne: In 1936, a magazine named sports illustrated hit the market. It was huge in size, a monthly magazine. It focused on golf, tennis, and skiing with articles on the major sports in 1938, the name was sold to Dell publication. Dell’s version focused on major sports like baseball, basketball, and boxing. It too was a monthly magazine.

But during the 1940s, these magazines did not cover the current events because of the production schedules. This version lasted six episodes before closing Henry Luce. The creator of time magazine was not a sports fan, but he believed in the early 1950s that the American media landscape was missing something, a timeline magazine dedicated to sports [00:47:00] for more than a decade after it was first published, sports illustrated failed to turn a profit.

Its inaugural edition contains some clues as to why coverage range from a puff piece on the duke of Edinburgh to a guide on how to buy a puppy and a piece on poison Ivy by a doctor who speculated that its leaves might make for a good salad. The early issues of the magazine seem directed at upper class activities, such as yachting, polo, and safaris, but upscale would be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market.

A European correspondent for timing, Andre luggage attracted Henry Luke’s attention in 1956 with his singular coverage of the winter Olympic games in Kortina Dem Petso Italy with Laguerre. Sports illustrated began to feature both high caliber photography and outstanding sports journalism. People began to read [00:48:00] more about what they’d seen on television or read about in newspapers.

Laguerre was thus able to gain millions of new readers and generate billions of dollars in profit. The magazine also published occasional pieces by literary giant, such as William sirloin, Robert Frost and William Faulkner Laguerre later became the chief of the Time-Life news bureaus in Paris and London.

And for a time he ran both simultaneously the popularity of spectator sports in the United States was about to explode and that popularity came to be driven largely by three things. Economic prosperity, television and sports illustrated by the 1970s, sports illustrated became a go-to source for American sports news, retaining its strong brand and reputation for Sterling journalism.

Well into the age of ESPN and digital media sports illustrated quote covers the people, passions and issues [00:49:00] of numerous sports with the journalistic integrity that has made it, the conscience of all sports. It is surprising, engaging, and informative, and always with a point of view that puts its readers quote in the game and quote it’s famous covers have the ability to further establish the iconic images of athletes like Michael Jordan and Mohammad Ali reputations can further be enhanced with the publications sports person of the year issue.

The chosen athlete for that year appears on the cover and the long article detailing their triumphs and humanity is dedicated to them. Sports illustrated won a number of national magazine awards over the years. Its best-selling issue is this so-called swimsuit issue, featuring photos of fashion models, athletes, and other celebrities.

Several offshoots of the magazine were published, including sports illustrated, kids, sports illustrated, Almanac, sports illustrated, women and sports illustrated on camp. [00:50:00] 

[00:50:00] Andrew Bernstein: That’s where I, my education really started working for those guys. So I was having the classroom training, which is great, you know, I mean, it was, it was grueling, it was difficult, but I knew it was necessary because the whole, in a nutshell, art center teaches you that everything technical has to be second nature.

Like you can’t be on the assignment and start thinking of what lens am I supposed to have, but what’s the f-stop, but what kind of light sources that are, you know, or what grip equipment should I have brought, or it becomes second and third nature. So that part of it, I took with me and then I had to learn everything else, basically, you know, out in the field, especially this technique of lighting, indoor arenas, which was very, very, very specialized to sports industry.

Yeah. It 

[00:50:49] Joe Towne: sounds like they were really at the cutting edge and you were getting the balance of what you would eventually come to do along with this history and technical training and getting your craft down [00:51:00] so that you can reenter react in the moment and not be in your head thinking about slowing things down.

So I’m so curious about this conversation. You have, the NBA has its headquarters in New York and you’re invited and encouraged to go in and speak to them about the all-star game. So what are you seeking and what can you share from that conversation about agenting. 

[00:51:26] Andrew Bernstein: Well, I was hustling in those days, Joe.

I, I needed to work. I had a very interesting revelation with my dad, who I love dearly and my dad’s been gone for a long time, but, um, you know, I’d already done two and a half years at UMass, right. Which he paid for. And then I went to art center and art center, like I said, it’s eight trimesters. So it’s basically another three and a half years to get your degree.

Right. And after my, I believe that’s my fourth term at art center, [00:52:00] I get called into, I got the phone call actually from, from the admissions office that, uh, got a problem with your tuition payments for the upcoming semester. So I go in there and they said, ah, yeah, we didn’t receive, you know, your dad pays your tuition, but we didn’t receive it for this semester yet.

It was like two weeks into the semester. So I called my dad and he goes, yeah, that’s right. You’re on the four year college plan. We talked about that. And I’m like, but dad has still got, like, I got here to have two years to go here. And he said, you’re on your own. It was kind of a crappy way to fight it out.

Um, my dad was going through a lot at that point, uh, his wife. And, but anyway, that was, that was like getting hit with an anvil, you know, I’m walking down the street. So I went in there. I want to graduate from here. You know, a lot of people go to art center, either already have degrees or the degree doesn’t really matter in the field that they go into.

It was important for me to have the [00:53:00] closure of the degree. I know it was really important to my mom for some unknown reason that I have that degree. And I was just, just a sidebar to say that in 43 years, since I left art center, not one person has ever asked me if I have a degree or asked to see my diploma, but it’s really that I’m able to teach because I have the degree.

So that’s a great thing. So I go in there, I tell him I need a scholarship and they gave me a half scholarship, which meant I had to do work on campus. And I had to earn the other half, you know, my tuition and all my living expenses and everything else. So bill brought me into the studio and, uh, but that was just the beginning.

I mean, I was hustling for other stuff. I was trying to do freelance, this, that, and the other thing as an assistant, um, and started shooting a few assignments for myself with mostly assisting the SSI guys. And then once I graduated January of 81, then you know, I was on my [00:54:00] own. I hung my shingle out and opened a checking account with like nothing in it with my name and says photography.

Um, and, and, you know, just try to get as much work as I could. And I had through being an assistant, I had met so many people at the forum where the Lakers and the Kings, 

[00:54:18] Joe Towne: the forum is a venue with a ton of history, so much that it borders on the fantastic opening on December 30th, 1967, the forum was an unusual and groundbreaking structure.

It’s financier, Jack Kent Cooke. Was a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, turned multimillionaire who dreamed of building sports answer to the Taj Mahal in Los Angeles. Cook had already established himself in sports team ownership with the Toronto maple Leafs baseball team and the Washington Redskins of the NFL.

He purchased the Los Angeles Lakers in 1965 and [00:55:00] unwilling to stop their move, to establish a national hockey league franchise in the city. He achieved this goal in 1967 with the Los Angeles Kings. The venue was built in Inglewood, California on the site of a former golf course. The building was meant to evoke the Roman forum, a circular building with massive white columns.

The cost was $16 million architect. Charles Luckman vision was brought to life by engineers, Carl Johnson and Svend Neilson who were able to engineer the structure so that it had no major support pillars. This had previously been unheard of in an indoor arena, the size of the forum, the forum arena previously known as the great Western forum was nicknamed the fabulous forum by Lakers announcer chick Hearn alongside Madison square garden in New York city.

The forum was once one of the best known indoor sports [00:56:00] venues in the U S. Largely due to the Lakers success and the Hollywood celebrities often seen there for those living in Los Angeles, in the 1970s and eighties, there was only one place to see a rock concert or a sporting event. The fabulous forum, the queen of soul Aretha Franklin was the first singer ever to perform in 1968, between 1970 and 1977, led Zepplin performed 16 times at the forum, including a run of six sold out dates in 1977.

Part of their live album, how the west was won, was recorded at the arena. The Jackson five performed twice at the forum on June 20th, 1970 during their first national tour and on August 26th, 1972 during their third national tour, the 1970 show broke attendance records, the doors, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, [00:57:00] queen Nirvana, Madonna in 2011, prince performed an epic run of 21 shows there.

The forum hosted five NBA finals in its first six years, 1967 to 1973. The Lakers won the 1972 NBA finals at the forum in game five. They also won the 19 82 87 and 88 championships there. The forum hosted the 1991 NBA finals and was the site of the Chicago bulls first NBA championship victory. It was the site of several NBA all-star games, Olympic basketball in 1984.

It also hosted games three and four of the 1993 Stanley cup finals between the Kings and the Montreal Canadians. The only time the Stanley cup finals was held at the arena. Coincidentally Montreal is home rink at the time was also called the forum [00:58:00] in 1999. The Lakers play off lost to the eventual NBA champion.

San Antonio spurs was their last postseason game. Played there. They played two preseason games there. The following year before they moved to the staple center on March 24th, 2020. It was announced that the Clippers owner, Steve balmar had agreed to purchase the forum for $400 million. The forum is slated to hold the gymnastics events for the 20, 28 summer Olympics, 

[00:58:32] Andrew Bernstein: because I had to go in there so many times to light the building and deal with the PR directors and stuff that the PR director from the Lakers, um, it was, it was like November of 82 randomly said to me, like we haven’t dinner before a game.

You know, I was just hustling to get credentials wherever I could say, Hey, Andy, I’m, I’m hearing that the NBA is coming in here in February to have the all star game. So it wasn’t a weekend. It was just a game. [00:59:00] And, you know, maybe they need a photographer. I mean, you know, I said, well, you know, that’s interesting.

Cause I’m going back to visit my family for Thanksgiving. It was a couple of weeks away and you know, you know, somebody I could talk to in New York and gave me the name of the sky, poured him McKinnon. And at that time the NBA office probably had maybe 15 people working in it. You know, NBA properties had just started with like four people, NBA entertainment didn’t even exist.

Um, and I, I wrote to Mr. McKinnon and he invited me to come visit. Um, I think it was like, honestly, it was like the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. I mean, for some reason the dude was working and I went in and I had my nice little portfolio and he looked through it and looked over at me and he said, so let me understand some kid.

You live in LA, but you’re here in New York. I said, yeah, my family’s here. And he goes, so you live in LA, which means we don’t have to travel you [01:00:00] and we probably have to feed you and we don’t have to house you. And we have like, I dunno, $300, so sure. We’ll hire you. We haven’t even thought about hiring a photographer quite honestly, but you know, we’ll give you, give you the gig and next day, literally the next thing I know, I’m standing there in the middle of the court, you know, with the east all-stars the west all-stars and Marvin Gaye is singing the Anthem, probably the most iconic national Anthem.

I think it was voted actually the most iconic version of the national Anthem ever created. And I, I remember you’re looking around, I’m like, this is cool. And also guess what? I belong here because I earned this, you know, I worked, I worked to get to this point, maybe came, uh, maybe it came a teeny bit early, you know, but what the hell, you know, timing is everything.

[01:00:52] Joe Towne: Sometimes you got to take that leap. This is you were going exactly where I was hoping we would go, which is February 13th, [01:01:00] 1983, the forum we’re in Inglewood, California. I know how it turns out in the middle of it or the, the, the start of it. Marvin Gaye does this iconic national Anthem, but paint us a picture of a moment from that game before Dr.

J is MBP. How do you bring this moment to 

[01:01:22] Andrew Bernstein: life? Oh, that’s such a great question. Well, I had gotten it, it was a noon game, you know, so I think I had gotten there five in the morning, six in the morning, you know, I had to make sure that strobes put into working. I think I set those up the day before I was nervous as hell I was sweating bullets out there, but I was also competent that I could cover it the way they wanted it covered.

Of course there were things that they told me. They didn’t tell me that they sprung on me that day. Like, oh, we have to do a team picture of both teams. And uh, okay. Like how are we going to do that? [01:02:00] And I just, I just made it happen. I just made it work. I didn’t have, I don’t believe I had anybody helping me.

It was just me by myself. And plus I’m trying to do some behind the scenes stuff going in the locker room and you know, that, that became my forte, but that was really when it all started. Was that a 

[01:02:16] Joe Towne: plan or a spark of an idea on the day? Like, oh, while I’m here. 

[01:02:21] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah, it was kind of a spark of the idea, honestly, because you know, I’m seeing these guys walk in the building and how cool would it be to just get George Gervin and artists Gilmore talking with Kareem or, you know, Larry Bird and Dr.

J together, whatever, whatever it could be. That, that gave me a lot of confidence, actually, that as I moved forward in my career from that moment, but I, I did a good job. I produced, um, I still look back at photography. I shot at that game. It’s kind of cool to see, you know, I, uh, um, yeah, so it’s 

[01:02:56] Joe Towne: fun. So what is one of the moments from that day?

Like, [01:03:00] would it be inside the locker room? Would it be the team photo? Would it be a specific 

[01:03:05] Andrew Bernstein: moment? The thing that stands out the most honestly, was Marvin Gaye’s Anthem because it was just so amazing in the moment. Now it’s taken on a complete life of its own over the years, but players are still talking about it, uh, that you can YouTube it it’s, it’s unbelievable five and a half minutes version, but as, as he’s getting into it, At the three, three and a half minute, mark, the players are just starting to bop around and the fans are clapping.

And, and I was trying to figure out how, how can I record that? Like photographically, you know, and the players that weren’t facing him, like turned around and it was, it was cool. It was, I’ll always remember that. I love 

[01:03:48] Joe Towne: it. Okay. Now, and you’ve got so many moments that I could ask about, and there’s a bunch that I want to get to.

So I might jump a little bit in time here as we move through, but [01:04:00] you’ve been really fortunate to connect to so many great humans. And I’m wondering with Michael Jordan, what were you observing in your subject as you’re watching him achieve greatness? Right? Imagine this are probably some championship games or maybe some covers.

I’m not sure exactly which moment you might circle in on, but you talk about your subject and what are you observing in him as he’s achieving greatness? 

[01:04:29] Andrew Bernstein: Well, the first time I saw Michael played live was in 84 Olympics because he was on the U S team and they were playing at the forum. I actually didn’t photograph that.

I, I bought a ticket and went to watch them play. There was a look in Michael’s eye that I didn’t had never seen in any other athlete, honestly, to that point and this, this sort of relentlessness and competitive drive. Off the chart and you know, it was, it was wonderful to be able to document his career.[01:05:00] 

[01:05:02] Joe Towne: Michael Jeffrey Jordan is an American icon, a world renowned basketball player and businessmen. He’s known as MJ air Jordan, his biography on the official NBA website states by acclamation. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time born in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. He moved with his family to Wilmington, North Carolina, at five years old, a multi-sport athlete at Helmsley Elena high school.

He played basketball, baseball, and football. He tried out for the varsity basketball team during his sophomore year at five 11. He was deemed too short to play at that level. He played in the JV team and tallied several 40 point games. The following summer, he grew four inches and trained rigorously, eventually being selected as a McDonald’s all American, his senior year.

He accepted a [01:06:00] basketball scholarship to the university of North Carolina at chapel. Where he majored in cultural geography. Jordan was named ACC freshman of the year. He made the game winning Jumpshot in the 1982 NCAA championship game against Georgetown, which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing Jordan later described this shot as the major turning point in his basketball career.

The Chicago bulls selected Jordan with the third overall pick of the 1984 NBA draft after his junior year in 2021, a ticket stub from Jordan’s first games sold at auction for $264,000. Setting a record for a collectible ticket stub. He quickly became a fan favorite. Even in opposing arenas, he would go on to be voted the NBA rookie of the year.

His team was eliminated from the playoffs in four games by the Milwaukee bucks that year [01:07:00] on August 26th, 1985. Jordan shook the arena in Trista Italy during a Nike exhibition game by shattering the glass of the back board with a dunk Jordan’s. Second season was cut short when he broke his foot in the third game of the year, causing him to miss 64 games.

Jordan recovered in time to participate in the season and against the 19 85 86 Boston Celtics team. That’s often considered one of the greatest in NBA hits. Jordan set the still unbroken record for points in a playoff game with 63 in game two. However, the Celtics managed to sweep the series. His third season, he bounced back physically and became the only player other than wilt Chamberlain to score 3000 points in a seasoned averaging ELEAGUE high 37.1 points on 48.2% shooting.

In addition, Jordan became the first player in NBA history to record 200 steals and [01:08:00] 100 block shots in a season. Despite Jordan success, magic Johnson won the NBA most valuable player award the bulls advanced to the playoffs for the third consecutive year, but were again swept by the Celtics. The following year, they were knocked out by the.

And again, the following year, enter Phil Jackson in 1990, despite pushing the series to seven games, the bowls lost to the pistons for the third consecutive season. In 1991, they won their first championship together and they swept the pistons in four games in the finals. Michael Jordan won finals in VP, as they won their second in a row against Portland in 1993, became the first player in NBA history to win three straight finals MVP awards.

His first three-peat. And then after his father was murdered, he retired. [01:09:00] He said he lost the desire to play basketball. And he joined the white Sox minor league team, completely retrained his body to play baseball. Jordan said that this decision was made to pursue the dream of his late father, who always envisioned his son as a major league baseball player.

He unretired the following year and the bulls won three in a row. Again, there’s a lot more to it, but the last dance will do it better than I ever could. So just go watch that. Jordan led the NBA in scoring in 10 seasons NBA record and tied wilt chamberlains record of seven consecutive scoring titles in 1999, an ESPN survey of journalists, athletes, and other sports figures, ranked Jordan the greatest north American athlete of the 20th century above babe Ruth and Mohammad Ali Jordan has also appeared on the front cover of sports illustrated.

A record 50 times, Jordan was twice [01:10:00] inducted into the Naismith Memorial basketball hall of fame once in 2009 for his individual career. And again, in 2010, as part of the 1992 United States, men’s Olympic basketball team, AKA the dream. He fueled the success of Nike’s air Jordan sneakers, which were introduced in 1984.

Jordan also started as himself in the 1996 live action, animated film space jam opposite, none other than bugs bunny. He became part owner and head of basketball operations for the Charlotte. Bobcat’s now named the Hornets in 2006 and bought a controlling interest in 2010. In 2014, Jordan became the first billionaire player in NBA history in 2016, president Barack Obama honored Jordan with the presidential medal of freedom.

[01:10:56] Andrew Bernstein: It took him seven years to win his first trophy. People [01:11:00] might not really realize that you got a lot, a good sense of that from the last dance about his journey, but you know, he didn’t come in the league and win a title in this second year. I mean, it took him seven years to get there and he had to get through Boston.

He gotta get through Detroit. It was tough. And, uh, they, they literally invented rules like Detroit had the Jordan rules, you know, I mean, so, and then becoming the cultural phenomenon that he was, that was amazing. It was amazing to document that, to be part of that rock show. That was the Chicago. Was cool.

And that’s when I bonded with Phil Jackson and I was the guy on the inside for all of that, which was super cool and spending a lot of time with those teams. 

[01:11:46] Joe Towne: So let’s talk about Phil for a moment. You know, you, you were in all 11 championship locker rooms, you co-wrote a book with him journey to the ring a bit later, but what did [01:12:00] working with Phil Jackson teach you about 

[01:12:03] Andrew Bernstein: life?

Well, Phil is just a different kind of dude. I mean, Phil, Phil could be incredibly intimidating, like any, you know, like high school principal you ever had, but he also could, he, he was so deep and, uh, the things he would talk about in the locker room, or when you just had a side conversation with him or just listened to him in the press conference, um, I’m so fortunate that he trusted me and allowed me in, you know, in, in his first locker room 91.

I mean, the coach has to be the one who allows, you know, whoever gets in, in, and then, you know, by the second one, third one, he knew that, you know, I was the guy that he was going to see first. So you might as well give me the thumbs up. And then when he came to LA, you know, it was a whole other thing, and it was just a part psychologist part, you know, half [01:13:00] Buddha, Zen, Zen, master, um, task master.

I mean, he ran really tough practices too. You know, he doesn’t really have that reputation, but he, you know, Michael demanded that and then Kobe demanded that and he, he, he definitely, uh, you know, ran practices up to the expectation of this stuff. 

[01:13:21] Joe Towne: That’s great. So I’m really hearing this attention to detail.

That balance is the therapist and the sort of Buddhist. And I heard him say recently that the critical ingredient is love and that really what he’s seeking is following the moment being in harmony with the moment. And it sounds like maybe it’s comes from a balance of those two 

[01:13:44] Andrew Bernstein: things. Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting.

I was just remembering a conversation bill and I went out to dinner. We were in San Antonio. I was traveling with the Lakers and my kids were little. My kids were probably, uh, I dunno, three and two, four and three, and [01:14:00] I’d become a single dad. And it was just a lot of crap going on in my personal life. But, um, I needed some parenting advice.

Obviously we went to dinner, we didn’t talk about basketball. We talked about parenting and then, cause he’s got, he’s got a bunch of kids and, and uh, I finally said, Phil, what? So like what. The difference are the same between coaching and parenting. He goes, Eddie, it’s the same exact thing, except these guys just have a lot more money.

Amazing. Um, so he, he basically parented, you know, he coached the way he parents did and vice versa, I guess. 

[01:14:40] Joe Towne: Amazing. Okay. So he’s leading these practices demanded my Micheal attention to detail later with Kobe. So I’ve heard you talk about your first meeting with Coby. And when I think about the phrase, how we do small things is how we do all [01:15:00] things, you know, I I’m, I’m so curious about what that first exchange with Coby taught you about him, you know, particularly around the ability to focus in on small details.

[01:15:15] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah, well it’s media day, 1996 and he, you know, he was, he had just turned 18 years old. You know, he was drafted at 17, turned 18 in August to October now. And he came into the league with a lot of fanfare and hoopla and hype. Um, and he’s going to, you know, the Marquis. By far the marquee organization and the league, no offense to the Celtics, but in terms of just, you know, um, notoriety and, and star power and all that stuff, you know, being in Hollywood and I had never met him.

Um, anyway, long story short, come on. And I said, I go into introduce myself Coby and Hey, I’m Andy Bernstein, your team photographer. And he looks me straight in the eye while [01:16:00] he’s shaking my hand. Yeah. I know who you are. And in that moment, I’m thinking that he’s kind of a smart ass actually, cause she doesn’t know we never met.

I, he knows that. And I know that and I looked at him. I said, how is that? Cause we never met. And he goes, why don’t I had all your posters in my room growing up and look, I don’t know if you had sports posters growing up. I did. Nobody looks at the photo credit on the sports poster. It’s the, you know, it’s the guy, it’s the name of whoever it is.

And they have a little, little credit at the bottom. You know, if you have a magnifying glass, you could probably find it. Um, and here’s a guy who studied like every inch of that poster, you know? And I found out late much later that, um, he literally was studying my photographs, not only on posters, but, and not just my photos, but all photos to really understand.

How these players played, you know, what their muscle tone was like, how they took care of themselves, what their body [01:17:00] language was, whatever. It wasn’t just a pretty poster. Michael Jordan dunking. It was much, much more to him. It’s like, you know, like a science experiment pretty much. Um, so that was, that just convinced me in that moment, Joe, I was 20 years older than him.

And I was thinking, you know, at 18 I had that sorta edge. You know, I had that. I would have been arrogant enough to say that same thing to somebody probably. And we never talked about that. We just had this sort of thing between us and he, he was very welcoming to me behind the scenes. You know, I was 13 years in my career at that point.

And he had known my history with the Showtime Lakers and you know, if I was cool magic and Riley and all those Jerry West were cool with me back then, then obviously he’s going to be cool with me as long as I don’t screw it up. And you know, him and check. And I had a relationship with shack before Kobe even came in the league.

And then Phil, of course, when he came. So, [01:18:00] um, so we, we never really spoke about it until we started to do our book together. And that, from that first moment that I showed him, I said, we have to have this picture in the book of your first head shot. And he goes, oh, we don’t need that. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t tell the story.

I said, it absolutely tells the story is the story of our relationship. Right. But anybody looking at that picture and they see the rookie, the Kobe, you know, the young gun, um, they’re going to know that’s where it all started right at the start somewhere. So I literally took the first picture of him in the Laker uniform and they took the last picture of him in the Laker uniform.

And God knows hundreds and hundreds of thousands in between. Yeah. 

[01:18:43] Joe Towne: The point of connection sounds like it was impactful for you both and just continued to build trust from there. So I would love to talk a little bit about process here. So if I say the word competition, how do [01:19:00] you define that 

[01:19:01] Andrew Bernstein: competition is just there to make me better if I didn’t have any competition and what I did, I probably wouldn’t.

I’d probably have a ceiling on how far I would push myself. You know, Coby always talked about that competition was the greatest fuel in, in his career because it pushed him to want to just constantly. You know, put his foot on the throat of whoever he’s playing against. And he had a lot, a lot of respect just like I do.

I can rattle off names to you right now for the people that I have been in direct competition with, but I never wanted to be one up by anybody from a game. And I have to tell you just this one story I would spent years and years sitting next to John McDonough from sports illustrated, probably the number one basketball photographer, one or two that sports illustrators ever had John, um, [01:20:00] wonderful guy who spent a lot of time together off the court.

But we did have a comp. We did have a competitive edge between us that I felt really fueled. We never talked about it, but it fueled our competitive spirit, but also our creative juice, you know, and I remember a couple of times Joe, where I would get them, you know, we would be at, let’s say an NBA playoff game together.

And I would get the magazine on Tuesday morning at which I would religiously and I’d be rifle and through it. Cause I knew that the game John was at the same game that I was at and I’m looking at his photos and I would call, I call him. I said, John, when did this happen? I’d hope. When did this happen?

I’m sitting next to you. I didn’t see that Eddie would laugh. You know, he said something like, yeah, that happens to me sometimes too. And I see your picture. Yeah. And, you know, I watch his worth work ethic. I’m sure maybe he watches mine and, [01:21:00] and that goes for a lot of people. And I think that helps a lot of younger photographers to see old guys like me and John, John is in his seventies and still working his butt off, you know, out there doing what we do.

And, you know, hopefully haven’t lost too much of a beat, maybe a little, but we’re still doing it. And we’re still doing it at a high level because, 

[01:21:22] Joe Towne: and it sounds to me like the competition, the first thing you said was that it was about making me better. It had nothing to do with the other person it really had to do with this inward drive.

I’m wondering, what might you say is the dark. Of a relentless pursuit in a competitive edge. 

[01:21:39] Andrew Bernstein: Oh, Joe, that it’s opening up a big, a big door here. The dark side is there’s a few dark sides, but the main one, when we talking ambition drive professional sort of motivation is the dark side is not knowing when to turn it off.

[01:21:59] Joe Towne: [01:22:00] What do you think of when you hear the words? Dark side, dark side of the force, dark side of the moon. When it comes to personality, the dark side is the part of the self that lies hidden in the shadows of our personality. According to Tim Grover, we can channel the dark side and make it work for us.

We’ve seen that look in Michael Jordan’s eyes or Kobe when he became the black Mamba. Think about your favorite athlete who took on a sort of persona as they went into battle. Kids now want to be SIF at Halloween and not just jeopardize or rebels. According to Darth Vader, we don’t know the power of the dark side.

According to Yoda, if you give in to the dark side of the force forever, it will dominate your destiny. When thinking about the dark side of sports, we might think about the hidden costs of success, such as the time away from our loved ones or the physical toll it takes to beat elite. It could [01:23:00] refer to the fierce five winning.

In spite of rampant abuse, or it could refer to the fact that athletes are expected to provide unfettered access to their thoughts. Often within moments of the conclusion of a match, sometimes one that had a lot of emotion poured into it. And millions of fans who are either elated and celebrating or sad or angry, it could represent partying and excess and enormous wealth and power without the skills and support systems to handle it.

Or the dark side may also refer to the complex relationship between depressive experiences and human performance, especially in elite performers in the sporting domain, physical injuries and illnesses have typically attracted way more attention from athletes, coaches, physicians, and support staff than depression and other mental disorders and examination of German.

Elite athletes found that 15% reported depressive symptoms and also revealed [01:24:00] higher levels of depressive symptoms among the individual athletes and the team athletes more recently in a cohort of Australian elite athletes, it was found that approximately a quarter males, 23.6% female, 30.5% of the elite athletes in their study scored above the cutoff score for depression, suggesting the presence of a possible depressive disorder.

Collectively this research indicates that depression is prevalent in elite sport, as well as students. Dark side of the moon by pink. Floyd is a cautionary tale in two parts. The first half describes living a life that goes unfulfilled. The second half of the album consists of individual songs about different ideas and concepts that are detrimental to society.

One review of the album says there is hope in the sun, but there will always be a dark side of the moon, which is a symbolic representation of the Banes of [01:25:00] humanity. 

[01:25:01] Andrew Bernstein: Not having an off switch, always thinking that you could have done better. Or if I had only been in that spot for that football game, I would have gotten that picture.

Or if I wasn’t shooting the bench at that moment, I would’ve gotten that, you know, and always second guessing yourself. But, but as a freelancer, which I was, you know, pretty much essentially have been my entire career, I became a workaholic. I mean, I would never, there were moments of course, but, you know, overall, I, I always felt like I had to be thinking if I wasn’t shooting, I had to be thinking about shooting or planning something and, and part B to that.

You know, I, I always describe myself as a professional sports photographer, but I don’t spend, I don’t even think I spend 10% of my work life actually with my eye and the camera, like taking a picture. I mean, the rest of my professional life is everything about doing [01:26:00] business and keeping a business going and, and generating business and, uh, you know, working with the staff and, and all the peripheral people you have to have around you, you know, lawyers and accountants and everything.

I, I didn’t learn any of that. I had one business class in my entire time at art center. Thank God. It was by my mentor and basically Yoda in my life, Errol Gersen. Who’s now in his 50th year, by the way, in art center and still doing it. But, you know, I didn’t know. I didn’t even know how to open a checking account when I left art center, what do I know about taxes and about opening vendor accounts and, and, uh, God, anything having to do with business, um, you know, saving money, God forbid, you never saved money.

You spend everything you made on new equipment and whatever. So that, that was part of the dark side. Um, the other part, Joe, quite frankly, is, you know, I worked in a kind of a morally vacant profession. Um, you know, [01:27:00] professional sports is, is like in a whole other sort of universe of. Uh, the entitlement I’m telling you about the people who do sports, that’s not us, but you get kind of sucked into that, you know, and you get sort of, I mean, I did, uh, you know, if I wanted to be one of the boys, so to speak, I had to run with the boys.

I had to do what the guys were doing, and that was not healthy for me for a long part of my life and career. Luckily I, I realized it in time and, uh, I got the help I needed and I’ve been, you know, I’ve been on a recovery journey now it’s over 20 years, which is wonderful. But yes, there, the dark side, it has to be a dark side.

Tim Grover, who, you know, Coby’s trainer, Michael Jordan’s trainer has written amazing books, relentless and winning this, his new book, you know, he, he said, you cannot be great without a dark side because the dark side is part of you. Right? And there’s, there’s a lot of [01:28:00] Eastern teaching about that too, that we embrace the dark side.

[01:28:07] Joe Towne: Tim Singh Grover was born in London. Tim’s mother was a hospital nurse, and she decided to work in the United States because she wanted a better life for their children. She lived alone in Chicago for a year until they had enough for the rest of the family to join her. Tim moved to Chicago when he was four years old, his father took up a job in her hospitals.

Dealing with corpses Grover achieved both a BS and Ms. In kinesiology from the college of applied health sciences at the university of Illinois at Chicago, he is a former NCAA division one basketball player himself Grover is now best known as the choice personal trainer for an esteemed group of NBA players, players, such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, Charles Barkley, and also [01:29:00] hundreds of other NFL major league baseball, NBA and Olympic athletes.

So how did he get started? He saw an article in a local newspaper describing how Detroit physical play was affecting Michael Jordan. Mentally Jordan was tired of being overpowered by his opponents, but he had injured himself in a workout with a trainer once before and was not regularly working with one of them at the time, Grover believed he could help Jordan.

Some people say he contacted the bowls. Another rumor is that he wrote to every player on the bulls except one on purpose. And that MJ noticed one of the letters and got curious Grover eventually was vetted by the team’s head athletic trainer and the team doctor Grover finally met with Jordan in it.

He detailed his plan for helping the young swing man get stronger and avoid injuries. He would introduce a training regimen that would better prepare Jordan for the grind of NBA company. [01:30:00] Jordan was skeptical. Here was a 25 year old trainer with no prior experience working with professional athletes, laying out how the best player in the NBA could reach new physical Heights.

Eventually Jordan relented, I’ll give you 30 days. They worked with them for 15 years. It was during his time with Jordan that he caught a fight as technique to quote him. It’s the consistency of doing things over and over again and doing them with a purpose. Tim Grover was one of the first guys to work with players individually, to diagnose mechanical issues, prescribing specific drills, workouts, or body transformations for optimal performance.

He broke the one size fits all fitness model and it turned his Chicago facility into the premier spot for NBA players to work out Kobe Bryant called him the master of mental toughness. Dwayne Wade said, guys know, Tim can take them [01:31:00] to the next level and show them how to be the best at whatever they do just as he has done for me, Grover said the biggest Testament to his workout success was the number of games.

Jordan was able to play without injury. During a 10 year span, Grover said Jordan only missed six games. Grover recalled the biggest compliment MJ ever gave him regarding his training. A lot of people would approach Michael and say, can I use. Michael standard line was I don’t pay Grover to train me. I pay him to not train anybody else, which is the biggest compliment you can get for the first three years.

He didn’t quote unquote, allow me to work with anybody else and quote, despite having an incredible series of hall of fame clients. He also enjoyed bringing players back from career ending injuries, players like Tracy McGrady and Karen Butler, even Charles Barkley, who ruptured his quad tendon in 1999.

Tim didn’t like using the term [01:32:00] trainer instead preferring sports enhancement specialists, taking athletes at the highest level and making them even better as the owner of attack athletics. Tim is now a sought after motivational speaker and. He’s now more in the mindset space. He’s the author of winning the unforgiving race to greatness and relentless from good to great to unstoppable.

He says, there’s always a battlefield that’s going on in your head. And what he does now is teach people the ability to understand and see what winning is all about. 

[01:32:36] Andrew Bernstein: We sort of lean into the sharp points of life, you know, that we don’t run away from pain. We embrace pain as part of the experience. Right.

But we have to know when to push it aside and say, okay, you had your moment. You know, now I’m going to learn from that and move, move on. So I’ve, I’ve been doing a lot of, um, a lot of self care work. [01:33:00] Um, and, uh, it’s been, it’s been very helpful for me. It’s given me a lot of clarity and, uh, you know, more work to be done, but it’s a great 

[01:33:09] Joe Towne: pat.

It’s beautiful, Andy, and I really appreciate you going there with that question and a few things that I want to tease out of there. As I hear that, not knowing how to switch it off, doesn’t allow us to recover. And you literally ran with the boys and hung until you needed to go and recover yourself. And it seems to me that there might be a difference between perfectionism and.

That perfectionism is that never-ending drive without the ability to switch it off. Whereas with excellence, perhaps that’s the new stage that you evolved into and perhaps saw some of your colleagues evolve into that you document, I’m wondering, is there a difference for you between the two? 

[01:33:55] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah. Yes, because one of the other pitfalls, [01:34:00] Joe, I don’t know if it’s with excellence or perfection, but one of the pitfalls is that when you’re pushing yourself constantly and it’s onto the next thing and onto the next thing and the next biggest, bigger thing that’s going to, you know, get you to the next level, your career.

I found that I, and I still kind of suffer from this. I never really like sit back and say, oh, I created this or, wow, that was pretty good. Or, you know, it never, there’s never really a lot of self sort of, I don’t know, um, introspection, it’s just onto the next thing. The next thing, the next thing I know a lot of professionals suffer from that.

You know, guys who make multimillion dollar deals, you don’t think of, you just think about, you know, what it took to get there. You don’t think about really the accomplishment of that. Right? So. No, I’m kind of taking it in a little more social media kind of helps that because after every game I personally will go and find 10 [01:35:00] pictures from that game.

That then something that I like and post those back in the day, I, there were games. I would never even see the film that I shot until it was published somewhere. And I’m appreciating it a lot more, especially now with Kobe being gone and looking at pictures of him and remembering those moments. Like, I can literally remember some of those moments when some of those iconic photos were taken or you know, which at the moment, oh, it’s a great dunk picture.

Okay. So let’s go into the next step picture. Maybe it’s old age too. I don’t know, but, but there is some re a lot of reflection going on right now. Well, in, 

[01:35:38] Joe Towne: in the reflection, it’s not just scanning for the negative or scanning for absence. I’m hearing the word appreciation and perhaps the invitation here is to appreciate the thing I did appreciate the thing.

I worked really hard to accomplish even for a moment before then going, okay, what’s next? [01:36:00] And that’s sounds like a practice and we can all be invited deeper into that practice. 

[01:36:05] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah, that’s interesting, Joe. I mean, I’m just thinking on that, you know, Kobe used to talk about, he would never dwell on the shots he missed, but he also never dwelled on the shots he bade either.

You know, you talk about these game winning shots. I mean, he I’ve rarely ever heard him talk about, wow. You know, that was a dagger at the end. And, you know, it’s just, okay. You know, I did what I had to do in the moment that won the game with a game winning shot. And tomorrow’s another game. Um, Jordan was the same way 

[01:36:37] Joe Towne: even handedness to that, I guess.

[01:36:39] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah. I guess, I guess I think the lesson is you got, you should really appreciate things when they’re happening because they don’t necessarily, they’re not going to happen again. They might not, they might be better than the last time, but you know, live in the moment. 

[01:36:55] Joe Towne: There’s something I would love to talk about in regards to Kobi, which is [01:37:00] empathy.

And, you know, he said the biggest thing he would want to tell his younger self was about empathy and compassion. So there was a team meeting at Southwest college. Rick Fox says to Coby Kobe, we just want to feel like you need us. And Coby at first was like, what are you talking about? You’re a grown ass man.

Right? And then he realized it was a vulnerable thing for him to say. He says, that was one of the moments that cracked open empathy in him and where he really started prioritizing that. And I’m wondering, did you observe this shift in Kobe? And if so, what did you 

[01:37:38] Andrew Bernstein: notice. Yeah. You know, Coby never struck me as a very empathetic guy.

He was, he was an assassin on the court. I mean, he really was, and he expected the guys around him, you know, if nobody could play to his level. And I think he kind of figured that out. Um, but he expected guys to [01:38:00] give the most effort that they possibly could. Right. Part of the Mamba mentality is, is, is, is rising to your quote unquote potential, but then rising above that, you know, and he was always pushing himself past what he felt and what everyone else might’ve felt was was his ceiling.

No, he would just get better. Um, so, you know, that was kinda sorta the riff between he and Shaq, because Shaq was just so physically dominating that he relied on that he didn’t really rely on all the work that it took. You know, Kobe had to put a lot more work into his craft than Shaq did. Jack was just a beast out there.

Right. Um, so that was part of that sort of riff between the two of them. But, uh, I found probably towards the end of Kobe’s career, I must say when, when he, you know, was, was the grizzled veteran as a, uh, You know, the guy that [01:39:00] all the guys looked up to on the team that there that’s, when I saw the empathetic Kobe come like the young guys, the Brandon Ingram’s in the Larry Nance was, and, um, the Angela Russell’s and, you know, Coby didn’t have a lot of patience for the fact that the team wasn’t that good, but I could see that he, but, but there was empathy.

[01:39:25] Joe Towne: What is empathy? It’s the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings in a situation from their point of view, rather than your own. It differs from sympathy for one is moved by the thoughts and feelings of another, but maintains an emotional distance. Empathy is an enormous concept.

Renowned psychologists, Daniel, Goldman, and Paul Ekman have identified three components of empathy, cognitive, emotional, and compassionate cognitive, simply knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking [01:40:00] sometimes called perspective, taking however, having only cognitive empathy keeps you at a distance from people emotional.

When you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious, this type of empathy can also extend to physical sensations, which is why we cringe. When someone else stubs their toe compassion. With this kind of empathy. We not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are spontaneously moved to help if needed.

It’s the balance between the first two that allows us to act without being overcome with feeling or jumping right into the problem solving process. Empathy may not have started out as altruistic. It may have been using others as a social antenna to help detect danger from an evolutionary perspective, creating a mental model of another person’s intent could be life-saving babies display understanding that [01:41:00] people’s actions are guided by intentions and are able to act on that before they’re 18 months old, including trying to comfort their own parent.

We develop further by our own five or six it’s when parents promote and model empathy that they can raise more empathetic children. A 2016 study from Massachusetts general hospital found empathy to be the distinguishing factor in medical care satisfaction, empathy enables clinicians to connect on a deeper level with patients and hence act in their patient’s best interests.

Past studies have shown that empathy can also affect healthcare outcomes. It can reduce the length of hospital stays and even make the common cold go away faster. According to new research. Empathy is a habit we can cultivate to improve the quality of our own lives. Six habits of highly empathetic people, habit, one [01:42:00] cultivate curiosity about strangers.

Find what is interesting about people, habit to challenge prejudices and discover commonalities. We all have assumptions about others and can use collective labels that prevent us from appreciating their individuality habit. Three, try another person’s life like wife swap or undercover boss. When in doubt, use your imagination.

Habit four, listen to heart and open up listening is never enough. The second trait is to make ourselves vulnerable habit, five inspire mass action and social change such as rallying around the victims of a tsunami. We’re addressing bullying habit six, develop an ambitious imagination, which means not just having empathy for those who immediately come to mind, but developing empathy for those whose beliefs we don’t share.

[01:42:57] Andrew Bernstein: It was, I think he felt like his role [01:43:00] had changed to be more of a teacher and leader. Then he’s not going to take this team to the finals. You know, I think last what, four or five, six years of his career, they didn’t make the playoffs. So. You had to kind of changes, I think his own mindset and the way he did business with his teammates.

[01:43:21] Joe Towne: That’s really interesting to me thinking about his story about playing in the junior league and realizing he’s like, I’m going up against dudes with beards and I’m not gonna beat them today. So I have to take this long view and it almost feels like it bookends the beginning and sort of the end, this idea of, well, if I can’t win this game or win this one-on-one matchup today, then how do I center improvement and getting better?

And it sounds like at the beginning it was for himself and absorbing as much as he could. And then at certain point it included others and he was lifting up others around 

[01:43:59] Andrew Bernstein: him. [01:44:00] Yeah, he was obsessed. I mean, this is one of the other pillars in the mom, Mamba mentality is obsession. And he was absolutely obsessed with being the best basketball player.

Not that he could be, but that he probably couldn’t even imagine that he could be at that moment in time. He was so dominant in high school. Um, I’ve had the good fortune of meeting some very good friends of his teammates from high school. His coach realized school. He was just lower Marion. Yeah, lower Marion.

He was so head and shoulders above everybody else. And he knew it. I mean, he, he knew he was, that’s why he went to the NBA and. I don’t know if he wasn’t really prepared or he was just so tunnel visioned to make an impact in the league. But, you know, they, they kept him like, you know, sorta like a caged racehorse, you know, they wouldn’t let him out of the gate.

You know, Dale Harris was the coach and Dell had the thing where he didn’t play rookies very much, no matter who they were. [01:45:00] And Kobe didn’t really earn his time on the court that rookie year, you know, and you could just see him seizing on, on the bench, but also absorbing, you know, and not, not feeling sorry for himself.

I think he resigned himself to the fact, Hey, I’m not going to be playing. I’m just going to soak everything I possibly can in. And that’s where studying pictures of, of the guys that, that he admired, you know, Alan Iverson, Michael, um, Isaiah, you know, the players and the players that he wanted to emulate and, and sort of pattern his game.

And, you know, there’s very famous quote where somebody asked him, do you think that you’re the next Michael Jordan? He said, no, I think I’m the first Kobe Bryant. I mean, how could you be more competent than that? 

[01:45:49] Joe Towne: Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So most people will know this cause I’ll have teed it up that the other book that you wrote [01:46:00] was the Mamba mentality with Kobe.

You know, your photos are all through that and you collaborated with him how he plays. So you’ve already shared a couple of the main tent. I’m wondering if you could share one more, maybe one that means a ton to you. And I’m curious to know how they’ve affected your own life being around them. 

[01:46:19] Andrew Bernstein: Well, I want to leave that, that answer off with this.

When we, when we were deciding on the name of the book, right. And he had final say on everything and he, he was completely, this is not just me doing a book with a bunch of pictures and Coby writing captions. He was intimately involved, involved in every aspect of this book. And he, every single word in the book was from his mouth.

Okay. So let’s just say that, but when we were deciding on the name of the book, um, I, I had thought it was just going to be called the Mamba mentality. He wanted it to be the model mentality, colon, how I play. Right. He was already retired. [01:47:00] So we’re in the meeting to finalize this. And I looked over, I said, co.

Pardon me for saying this, but you’re not playing anymore. So why is it say how I play? I mean, it’s present tense. He goes because I’m, I’m still living my life the same way I played that, you know, how I play, how I live, how I conduct myself in business, whatever, it’s a way of life. It was so like blooming.

I said, well, of course, how else could you possibly say? So, you know, the mama mentality, Joe, in a nutshell has, has four tenants, four pillars, you know, obsession. We talked about Coby had a very famous quote. If you’re not as obsessed with what you do as I am, we don’t speak the same language. So that’s one, the second is relentlessness.

Never. Well, I’m sorry. The second one is curiosity. You stay curious, try to find out everything you can find out about your craft. Um, and if you don’t know [01:48:00] it find somebody who does, you know, this is how Coby won the Oscar with John Williams. You know, Coby had this, this famous thing where he would just call up famous people out of the blue, get their phone number, find them somehow, call it Barack Obama.

He’ll call Wayne Gretzky didn’t matter. And just to find out what made them tick. He calls up John Williams, somebody gets Sean Williams, his cell phone number, and they have like this hour and a half conversation. Next thing you know, they’re partnering, collaborating on an Oscar winning short film, the animated film.

Unbelievable. Right? So curiosity being the second relentless and it’s never stopping, right? We talked about this, you know, find your is no such thing as potential. You know, you just keep going, keep pushing yourself further and further. And the final tenant and final pillar is strength, overcoming adversity, overcoming people telling you, you can’t do it.

Um, in his case as an athlete, overcoming a [01:49:00] renders injury, you know, the guy, yeah. The guy blew his Achilles out. It’s pretty much the end of his career. He didn’t need to, you had enough money for sure, but he didn’t need to come back and prove anything to anybody. Um, but he would not let an injury define how he left the game.

I mean, Perry has done and that’s probably of the four pillars. I would say probably the one I take the most from, um, because it speaks to so many different things in life, you know, like we talked about. Never taking no for an answer, trying to prove people wrong, um, finding that inner strength, um, to overcome whatever it happens to be in your life.

And I’ll tell you some, his wife, Vanessa, uh, somehow by osmosis or something by being around him, um, the strength that she showed when she made that speech, um, at his Memorial, he, and Gigi’s Memorial, uh, I mean, I get emotional even just thinking about it. And [01:50:00] then she made a similar speech at his hall of fame and Fryman.

Um, the strength that she had, man, I, I told her, I said, you probably the strongest person, I think I’ve ever met in my life. And she thanked me, but you know, it just blew me away. So, you know, to answer your question, I would say, I would say strength because I think strength has, you have to have the other three to be strong and you know, you’re not obsessed if you’re not curious, if you’re not relentless, there’s not going to be strong about, you know, um, and he, he proved all, all of those tenants does over and over and over again.

[01:50:38] Joe Towne: This next section is more of a lightening round, like a quick hit thoughts of whatever first comes to mind when you hear me and talk about something. So if I say, what did it feel like being on the floor of the forum? What’s the first thing that comes to mind. 

[01:50:57] Andrew Bernstein: I mean, that’s that’s, that was my [01:51:00] home for years and years.

I just, I just went to, to a Harry styles concert at the forum. Of course it’s been all redone, but I was sitting there during the concert, just looking around at the nooks and crannies, the catwalk, the whole thing, having really nostalgic wonderful memories of working in there. 

[01:51:17] Joe Towne: Yeah. Yeah. I heard you talk about the rocket and the floorboards and feeling the vibration sitting down there and sounds like something unbelievable to experience.

Tell me about a sixth deer. First thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase a sixth gear. 

[01:51:33] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah. Six gears. That’s a, that’s a term that I use sometimes when I used to drive a stick shift, you know, and uh, first time I ever drove a Porsche, it had a sixth gear. Any every car I had, it only went up to five and I’m like, what the hell am I supposed to do with the sixth gear?

And the guy said, well, that’s when you’re, that’s when you know, you’re supposed to get a ticket because you’re in six gears. When you go at like 85, 90 miles an hour, [01:52:00] six gear to me is when, um, Really is when I’m exhausted or I’m just, you know, unspent and I, I, I just kind of pushed myself even further, you know, comes to mind.

For example, the NBA finals is, is a grind. I mean, it’s almost three weeks, you know, game, um, all the shoots, every other, every day, traveling, setting up blah, blah, blah, you get pretty spent. And I’ve learned how to, uh, how to pace myself, you know, what I can and can’t do when I’m not working. Um, but kick it into that next year.

The six years is really, it kind of, uh, separates the men from the boys, quite frankly, um, in any business, but in my business, especially 

[01:52:49] Joe Towne: when I think about qualities in a photograph, let’s say, you know, I’m speaking to the expert on this, but to me, there’s sort of these four qualities that come to mind for me, which is [01:53:00] emotion, energy movement, and stillness.

Sure. There’s a ton more that have everything to do with science to specific layers. But I’m curious to know in the realm of emotion, what’s an example of a photo that evokes a lot of emotion that you’ve taken well, Joe, 

[01:53:18] Andrew Bernstein: I have to say that any picture that is, uh, worth anything at. Has to evoke emotion.

Otherwise it’s just boring. And you just give it a second and move to the next picture. But any, any picture, any photograph that you linger on and you look at is conjuring up all kinds of emotions in, in the viewer. That’s my job. My job is to evoke emotion from you, or whoever’s looking at my pictures. Um, if I’m not doing that, then, then I’m not doing my job and I’m not producing the kind of imagery that, that people are paying me to do.

Quite frankly. [01:54:00] Yeah. 

[01:54:02] Joe Towne: I’ve heard you say that. And I think it’s really powerful because we never know what is going to evoke emotion in a different person, right. To one person. They may not feel that. And to me, Kobe sitting in the ice bath is one of those images you’ve created that evokes a lot of emotion in me, even though he’s not experiencing outwardly a lot of emotion.

Whereas Michael, next to his dad is experiencing a ton of emotion, but it doesn’t evoke the same in me. Like Duran hugging Steph. You know, I just feel that emotion in that photograph from you. How do you capture energy within a photograph? Because you talked about Michael’s eyes and I see that throughout your book with Kobe, the intensity in his eyes, how do you capture energy within a.

[01:54:47] Andrew Bernstein: Yeah, well, that’s such a, such a challenge in my business in sports well, sports, you know, there’s energy inherent in whatever it is you’re shooting. You know, if you’re shooting football, you know, running back, busting through the [01:55:00] line or wide receiver or something, baseball, you know, guy, you know, taken out a second basement on a slide or a tremendous catch or a pitcher or whatever basketball, of course, you know, I think it’s the most elegant sport.

I think it’s the most sort of the most ferocious of sports. I think the athletes are, I don’t want to say by far, you know, heads and shoulders above the rest of the athletes, but what these guys can do. Um, uh, just, it’s just mindblowing. Um, so I have to, but the challenge is you have to show all of that in one shot.

In one moment in time, you have to freeze that moment in time. That’s what makes what I do and what all of us do. Um, as a sports retired is so challenging, but it’s so rewarding to, and add on another layer to that. Joe is when I’m shooting basketball and hockey indoors, um, we’re using the strobe system, which, [01:56:00] which means you can only shoot one picture every four seconds.

So I can’t shoot a motor drive. Have, you know, let’s say, uh, I don’t know, LeBron going to the basket, you know, from takeoff to dunk, I can’t have a 12 image, 15 image burst and pick one out of there, which, you know, a lot of photographers can do and they have the luxury of doing it. I get one shot at it. So I have to time it at the compose.

It, I have to hope that nobody’s in the way, you know, his arm is in the wrong place, whatever, um, hopefully I guess, right. More than I guess, wrong. Um, but there’s a lot of elements that have to come together to freeze that moment in time. 

[01:56:44] Joe Towne: First thing that comes to mind if I say the word close spa, 

[01:56:48] Andrew Bernstein: if you say the word chutzpah, uh, oh, that’s so great.

What do I think? Uh, that’s a great question. Um, you know, I kind of maybe think of myself because [01:57:00] I talked myself into a lot of situations where other people might not have been able to talk themselves into. I think my definition of my own cliques book came when I had to talk myself into pat Riley’s huddle with the Showtime Lakers when I was a young photographer and I kept going into his huddle during timeouts or pregame or after, after the, uh, um, halftime and you get the guys together.

And every time I would approach the huddle, like he would see me, you know, and he would just give me one of these. You know, he would give me some choice words. He’s a Schenectady guy and, you know, kinda has some choice words. And then I don’t know if you haven’t heard if we talked about this, so you heard this story, but this was a really formative moment in my career.

And then I was getting really discouraged and this went on for game after game and he would just push me out and that was it. And then one game pre-game and he’s coming out and the guys are warming up and he’s about to gather the guys together, [01:58:00] pregame talk, before they started playing. And he gives me one of these from the bench.

Like, I’ll be like, oh my I’m thinking, well, that was a nice short career. That’s about to end right now. I went up and said, hi coach. And he looks at me, he goes kid. I was a kid. He looks at the kid, why the, you know, what are you trying to get in my huddle time after time? And I keep telling you to get the, you know, what out believe in the word out that you use and you keep coming back.

And he like looked at me like dumbfounded. I said, well, coach, you know, you’re in there with Kareem and magic and you’re drawing out plays and you’ve got bill Bertka your assistant. And Gary BD is there. And, and like, I want to see what’s going on, like as a fan. And I’m thinking the fans that are looking at my pictures want to see that.

And I just want to get in there and just get in the middle and show that. And he looks at me. He says, kid, I don’t know that you do at one time tonight. You just. [01:59:00] But if you, you know, what, if you mess it up, you’re not ever coming back. Right. So, okay. I did it next game. That was on a Sunday. As I remember the next game was on a Tuesday.

I went into got there early and made it some prints. I brought them to his office. I knew what time he’s going to be in his office. I put them on the desk and then he starts looking through them and then he looks up at me. He goes, you were in my F and huddle. And I, I said, yeah, he goes, okay, you did good.

And then from then on, I kept coming back and he and I have laughed about that Boba because he remembered that moment. He, he, he thought he was going to break me in that moment. I had the chutzpah and he going back to your word, I had the chutzpah of not giving up and, and doing it. So I think there was a lot of respect and a lot of self respect actually.

And self-confidence gained from that experience. 

[01:59:56] Joe Towne: Beautiful. Yeah. You, so there’s two questions. I ask people usually right before [02:00:00] we wrap up, which is what is something you do better than most people. And I feel like you just spoke to that so beautifully with that word and that story. And I’m curious, what’s something that you’re working at getting better.

[02:00:14] Andrew Bernstein: Um, um, I’m working at getting to be a better. The back nine of my life being better than the front nine. Quite frankly, I talk about this. We talk about this a lot in our recovery club meetings. There’s a lot of guys, my age, a couple of guys older than me. And, uh, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel is, is closer than it was at the beginning.

Let’s just put it that way of the journey. And, um, I’m trying to get better and understanding be live in the moment more, let go of things. Don’t let things fester, linger professionally. I, I took on a huge thing with commitment with trying to build this legends of [02:01:00] sport platform while I’m still doing my photography job, not just my photography job, but I have a whole photography business that has to be run and manage.

You know, now that everything is started up after COVID, you know, it’s everything’s back. So I’ve learned how to sort of ration my time, my energy understand that I don’t have the same bandwidth that I used to have. Um, I, don’t not the Energizer bunny. Um, I have to make time for myself. These are all things that have come, you know, learning the hard way, but it’s also revelations that I hope will help me get this legends of sport platform for the next.

[02:01:36] Joe Towne: Beautiful. Okay. And this tees up, what we can look out for you. I know that hopefully people at home already have the mama mentality. I know, see it on your shelf behind you. I know that people can listen in on your podcast, legends of sport, for sure they can watch it on YouTube, or they can listen in on those platforms.

And eventually it’ll be a platform and we’re going to pay close attention to when we can celebrate [02:02:00] that. And I would just love to close by saying thank you. I would like to say thank you for so immediately embracing me in conversation for opening up for being so funny and kind and sharing your wisdom and your heart.

And I just truly appreciate how you’ve shown up. In this relationship, which is so new and, uh, how we do small things is how we do all things. So I see you in there and I celebrate that and I so appreciate you, Andy. Thank 

[02:02:34] Andrew Bernstein: you. Well, thank you, Joe. I mean just the title of your podcast, you know, the better podcast.

I mean, we’re all we all want to get better and whatever it is in life, um, we’re coming out of a very, very dark time. Uh, you know, COVID wise politically everything else and, and having kids, you know, we, we want it to be better than it was for us. You know, the future in the world, things are not looking so [02:03:00] great on many fronts right now.

But, um, if we, I feel if we keep putting the energy out there, um, to be better, to do better, to love each other, more loving ourselves more because what we put out, you know, the universe brings back right then, you know, I think we’re doing our job in whatever small way we can. 

[02:03:20] Joe Towne: I’m thinking back to what you said earlier about the great advice you received about not letting your light go out.

And I’m hearing that, um, perhaps getting better means not only preserving our light, but brightening, ours, and bringing light back to all those around us. I see you doing that and I so appreciate your time and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day. 

[02:03:42] Andrew Bernstein: Thanks so much, man.

[02:03:50] Joe Towne: Okay. After hearing all of those stories, I’m also starting to believe that anything is possible. It’s incredible [02:04:00] to imagine how much Andrew has seen through his lens in his lifetime. What an incredible storyteller. My God, he can bring a moment to life. I feel like I was in the huddle with him quickly snapping pictures of the Lakers, or introducing himself to Kobe Bryant for the first time or busting his nose on the ice.

I love the phrase don’t ever let, what someone else thinks about you influence how you feel about yourself and don’t ever let somebody blow out your light. I’m taking those with me as well as the chutzpah takes some times to advocate for ourselves as. And businesspeople also, it takes a lot of trust built over time to be welcomed into the places that Andrew has been collaborating with.

The people that he has collaborated with. It’s clear that relationships matter to him and that he’s seen a lot in his days, [02:05:00] but his bright shining heart wants to offer something back. I feel so fortunate to have sat down with him. All right, you are not going to want to miss our next guest. Rachel true.

Rachel true is an artist and a new Yorker who I adore. She’s been a film and TV actress for several decades since she was a teenager and is a former fashion model. She’s maybe best known for her roles as Rochelle Zimmerman in the craft or Mary Jean and half-baked opposite. Dave Chappelle. She’s played Chris Rock’s girlfriend in C before she’s been in Sundance movies, cult classics, and she’s been on everything from the fresh prince of Bel air to 900 to 1 0 2, the drew Carey show Dawson’s Creek, and now better things.

She’s had her own show for many years on UPNs half and half. She’s an author and a writer of books and now TV and [02:06:00] film. She is endlessly creative. She makes her own clothes. She podcasts, she’s a health advocate and a techie as well as a. Come hang out with us next week on the final episode for this season with Rachel India.

True. And thank you all for continuing to believe in these conversations and for your letters. It is so moving to hear what is standing out to you. And I love that you continue to share them with others. And I hope we get to continue these conversations over time. We have been on quite a journey so far this season, and I feel on some level like we’re just getting started.

Thank you as always for being a part of this community until next week. Be well[02:07:00] .