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Burbank, California This year marks the 100th birthday of John Wayne. Yet 28 years after his death, the magnitude of his star is as bright as when Wayne was America's top box office draw. Think not? In January 2007 a Harris Poll named Wayne America's third most popular actor trailing only Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks. Wayne was the only deceased star on the list and ranked one click ahead of Clint Eastwood – not bad considering Clint won an Oscar this year and Wayne's last movie – The Shootist – was released way back in 1976. (See sidebar for complete Harris Poll List) Two years later sports – much like Wayne – played a huge role in society. Bucky Dent broke the Red Sox hearts; Reggie Jackson soon did the same to the Dodgers; Affirmed and Alydar waged three races for the ages from Churchill Downs to Pimlico to Belmont; Ali regained the Heavyweight title; Gary Player won the Masters; Rod Carew his seventh batting title, and Wilt Chamberlain was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Somehow the inaugural Ektelon-Natural Light Racquetball Championships got lost in all that sporting news. Now what in the hell does a long forgotten racquetball tournament have to do with John Wayne? Trust me, plenty.  John Wayne epitomized ruggedly individualistic masculinity, and has become an enduring American icon. By 1978, I was a couple years out of a two-year stint as a marketing/PR guy in the defunct World Football League. Surely you remember the Southern California Sun, the Portland Storm and the Chicago Winds. I worked for all of them. In the fall of '77, I accepted a job as PR director for the Phillips Organisation, Ltd., a San Diego-based marketing firm specializing in clients within the sporting goods industry. Phillips' biggest client was Ektelon, a racquetball racquet manufacturer on the cutting edge of a sport that was a phenomena from the mid-seventies until its popularity waned ten years later. Racquetball was chic and fun and everybody wanted in, including Anheuser Busch, which had somehow found a way to sell a brand of low-calorie beer to Americans. Thus the Ektelon–Natural Light Racquetball Championships were born. I was put in charge of the event supported by a young writer we hired away from the Escondido Times-Advocate newspaper by the name of...Armen Keteyian. One of our main responsibilities was to work with the brewery, which had bought its way into racquetball prominence by virtue of a check for $250,000. A key element to the tournament format was an agreement between Ektelon and Busch that a portion of any proceeds from the national tournament would be donated to a charity. That charity would be The American Heart Association whose spokesperson was...John Wayne. The American Heart Association had always made it clear to us that Wayne would have no involvement in the event, none whatsoever. But somehow when check presentation time arrived, schedules shifted, and the stars aligned to allow Wayne to accept the check at his home in Newport Beach. We were told that all we had to do was show up. The folks from AB would handle everything. I remember calling my dad, a WW II veteran and telling him that I was going to John Wayne's house. Wayne is my dad's favorite actor, and he couldn't have been more excited had he been meeting Wayne himself. When the day arrived, Ektelon vice president Ron Grimes and I met in San Diego for the 75-minute drive north to Newport Beach. There we would meet our associates from Busch and then proceed to Wayne's house. As we approached the house I was surprised at how accessible it was. There was no guard gate, no security, just the house at the end of Bayshore Drive as the directions suggested. Wayne lived in a large white ranch style home that overlooked Newport Bay. Ironically, the ten-bedroom house stood only a mile or so from the Balboa Pier where a body surfing injury some 50 years earlier had cost Marion Morrison his football scholarship at USC and forced him into a $35 a week job as a prop hand at the 20th Century Fox Studios. While moving furniture at Fox, storied film director John Ford spotted Morrison, and the legend of John Wayne was born. At the house a lovely woman by the name of Pat Stacy welcomed us. Stacy, who appeared to be in her mid-forties, introduced herself as Mr. Wayne's assistant. She was in fact not only his assistant but his live-in companion.
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