While the end of summer is always a bit of a downer, this year it was more so because of the passing of two men, both of whom are inspirations to a great many of us.
Richard Jewell died. You may recall that he was the former security guard who was wrongly accused of perpetrating the bombing at the 1996 Olympics. Although he was eventually cleared of any involvement and declared a hero, his legacy as such will forever be tainted by the indelible smear left when he was falsely accused as the bomber in the days that followed. Unnamed sources whispered unsubstantiated rumors to ambitious reporters chasing The Story. As hindsight would bear out, it was not journalism’s finest hour. An innocent man’s good name was decimated in the media feeding frenzy that transpired back then; his story should serve as a stop-and-think moment for everyone involved in the news reporting business. Jewell died last week at age 44, hero to many, including this guest columnist in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
I was also saddened to learn about the death of Arthur Jones, the inventor of Nautilus exercise machines who definitely knew a thing or two about effective public relations. Although I never met the man, he had a major impact on the health of my body and earlier journalism career.
My history with Nautilus equipment goes back nearly 30 years. Although they were initially rather ungainly contraptions, they made weight training considerably more efficient because their patented elliptical cams allowed for a greater range of movement than conventional free weights and dumbbells. The introduction of Nautilus equipment represented a real breakthrough in fitness training. Back then, the prevailing wisdom was that the movement itself was not as important as the number of times that you did it, essentially suggesting that only gym rats could hope to get a good workout. Then along came Jones and his Nautilus machines suggesting you could do more by doing less.
Nautilus equipment – there’s a machine now for virtually every major muscle group – is designed to provide high intensity training via just a dozen or so repetitions of a specific exercise to work a specific area. Jones wasn’t a believer in long-term cardiovascular exercise. He argued that total fitness could be achieved simply by working all your muscle groups to exhaustion.
It’s fortunate for Jones that he understood the power of public relations and how to harness it. After all, he was a lone fish swimming against the tide when he first came out with his initial “Blue Monster” machine. Early on, he finessed some of the leading sports heroes of the day to endorse his equipment, including famed Miami Dolphins running back Mercury Morris and tennis champ Chris Evert. Various actresses and models also endorsed the equipment, including Bo Derek, who at the time was best known for the movie “10.”
In 1980, various health clubs in my native Canada introduced Nautilus equipment. What I found especially intriguing is that they were incredibly popular with women who, at the time, rarely trained with weights. Shortly thereafter I came across a renowned orthopedic surgeon who used Nautilus equipment for rehabilitation purposes. Working as a freelance writer at the time, I wrote a few articles for a major Canadian magazine and newspaper (not available online) about how Nautilus was luring women into the fitness fold. I’m still extremely proud of the prescience of those articles, which helped me land a job at my hometown newspaper, The Toronto Star.
Jones was a colorful character who didn’t mince words, according to many accounts. In his New York Times obit, his son William is said to have characterized him as “a rough-and-tumble character who had six wives, a nearly lifelong smoking habit and an affection for exotic animals like rattlesnakes and crocodiles, which he kept at his farm.” The elder Jones was also known to make more than a few eyebrow-raising comments in his time. (Interestingly, Jones’ other son Gary was one of the inventors of the Hammer Strength line of exercise equipment, unquestionably the best training equipment on the market IMHO).
Jones died last week at the age of 80, living life not so much in the fast lane anymore. And as a result, Jones will no doubt be remembered by most for the good that he did, for the positive contributions he made to touch the lives of people around him and leave them better off for it. It is very sad to me that the same could not be said for Richard Jewell.
Rest in peace, gentlemen.
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[...] helps ensure that media debacles such as the reckless maligning of innocent individuals like Richard Jewell and Dr. Steven Hatfill happen with a lot less frequency north of the border. Indeed, in Canada [...]