Barry Tompkins: Resolutions for Bay Area sports decision makers

This year I am being resolute.

I am forgoing anything that so much as resembles a resolution. My resolution over/under is roughly four days. At which time I begin berating myself for a complete lack of discipline that generally lasts until roughly the following New Year’s Eve.

That said, I’m heading for the treadmill as soon as I finish writing this yarn. Which should be by Tuesday.

I’m thinking that some of our other Bay Area heroes might be feeling the same way.

49er’s general manager John Lynch would likely be one of them. Last New Year’s he was resolute in being cautious. Remember all those pre-season “Don’t expect much” warnings he gave us? “We’re going to take our lumps,” he confided. And suddenly his two best defenders were gone for the year. His quarterback and his tight end were on the sick and wounded list and his wide receiver room had more ants in it than humans who could catch a football. We all sat back and said, “Boy, John Lynch was sure right about this team.”

Now it becomes obvious. John Lynch’s New Year’s resolution was, “This year I’m going to make those media cretins look like idiots.”

And Buster Posey’s New Year’s resolution last year I’m quite sure was something like, “I resolve to get somebody who can hit like Rafael Devers and pitch like Logan Webb.”

And this year, I’m quite sure Buster’s resolution would be something like, “I resolve to get somebody who can hit like Rafael Devers and pitch like Logan Webb — and, if it’s not asking too much, maybe a couple of guys who can catch it, throw it, and run the bases, too.”

Buster’s out there doing the best he can. But it seems that the guys in the suits who sign Buster’s checks are not really too willing to write a bigger check for a player — any player — who the Dodgers don’t think is worthy.

And that brings me to Steve Kerr. I’ve known Steve since he was at Palisades High School. At that time he looked like he was 12. When he went to Arizona he looked 16. And, when he retired from the NBA he looked old enough to vote.

Even through his time as a GM in Phoenix and his tenure as an NBA championship winning coach, Kerr looked like he could still be asked for an ID at BevMo. In the last couple of months, my friend Steve Kerr looks about 75.

He could look younger in a few weeks from now when his team will almost certainly ship a one-time franchise maker Jonathan Kuminga off to someplace for something — likely nothing that will move the playoff needle.

The last time I spent any real time with Steve Kerr was in Hawaii before he even came to the Warriors. I’m thinking his New Year’s resolution has something to do with clear skies and balmy breezes, and his only rotation issues would be from the lazy Susan on the luau table.

I have little doubt but that the two college football general managers here in the Bay Area have similar New Year’s resolutions: “I resolve to get lots of money from lots of people in order to avoid being pummeled by more generous donors from another institution of higher learning.”

Andrew Luck at Stanford and Ron Rivera at Cal are both great people. Both are guys you want to hang out with. Both have earned their chops. And both are in the business of extricating large sums of money from graduated poobahs so that they may buy athletes. Like someone who’s capable of throwing a football, someone who’s capable of catching a football, and somebody who’s capable of destroying anyone on another team who’s capable of throwing or catching a football.

Seems simple, doesn’t it?

Finally, I can’t let a New Year’s column go without talking about some who left us in 2025.

I confess. I read the obits. I do it predominantly to make sure I’m not in them. But I also do it because as the years go on I know all too many of the names in there. Some make me recall a moment in time.

George Foreman died this year. Not always the affable sort he was known to be, but always an entrepreneur. George lived in Oakland when he started his career, and had an office near the airport there. On the door of his office it said, “George Foreman Development Company,” so I asked him, “What do you develop?” His answer was what made him who he is. “George Foreman,” he said.

We lost a legendary basketball coach named George Raveling. I spent many years working alongside George calling games. He won everywhere he coached including at Washington State in Pullman, Wash., where he had to recruit against other (then) Pac-10 schools in L.A., the Bay Area and Seattle. “How do you get a recruit to come to play here instead of under the bright lights?” I asked him. “You fly ’em in at night, and you fly ’em out at night,” George said, “From the plane it looks like Paris.”

When George was a Villanova student, he was asked to be a part of the security for Martin Luther King when he gave the “I have a dream” speech. George was so taken by the speech that when it was over, he asked Dr. King if he could have his copy. King handed it to him.

George told me it was hand written. It still lives in a Raveling family vault.

I lost some colleagues this year, too. Gone are John Feinstein, an author and sports writer who could talk about much more than that, and Mike Patrick, an ESPN broadcasting colleague who was the pro’s pro.

I sat at dinner in Chicago one night with Harry Caray and Bob Uecker, who was maybe the funniest man I’ve ever been around in sports. He died this year.

I was at Jim Marshall’s wrong way run at Kezar Stadium; I interviewed Ron Turcotte, Secretariat’s jockey during the triple crown run;

They’re all gone.

And I’m headed for the treadmill. This year I mean it.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native. Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.