Memphis Commercial Appeal [imgl]http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3078/paul0ot.jpg[/imgl] "Who's that?" asked Michael Heisley, the Grizzlies owner, looking across the gym. That's Pau Gasol. "WHAT?" said Heisley. "I thought it was Kimani Ffriend." And so we are reminded what a beard can do. Shakespeare: "He that hath no beard is less than a man." Voltaire: "Ideas are like beards; men do not have them until they grow up." Greek proverb: "A beard signifies lice, not brains." OK, so it's not unanimous. But here we are, the second day of Grizzlies training camp, and the big news continues to be the big guy's beard. "I call him Mountain Man," said Shane Battier. "I keep waiting for ... what was the name of Grizzly Adams's bear?" Ben. In the TV series, anyway. In real life, the bear was called Bozo, which sounds like Bonzi, who plays for Sacramento now. The Grizzlies are left with Gasol, looking rested and bearded, and he's not about to commission a poll. "It's an expression of individuality," he said. "I'm not doing stuff for people to like." See? He sounds tougher already. You don't like his beard, he'll beat you to a pulp. OK, maybe not to a pulp. "I didn't get in fights when I was a kid," he said. "I had a good education." So did Abraham Lincoln. He stayed up studying by candlelight, remember. And look what a beard did for him. It was 1860, a month before the election. Lincoln got a letter from a girl named Grace Bedell. "I am a little girl only 11 years old but want you to be President of the United States very much," she wrote. "I have got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin." Lincoln let his whiskers grow. The rest is history. He was elected president, freed the slaves and shaved his beard in a promotion for Gillette. Wait, that was the Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon. But you get the point. Albert Einstein wore a beard. So did Sigmund Freud and Ernest Hemingway. Jerry Garcia and Karl Marx wore beards. Santa Claus still does. All the best pirates had beards: Redbeard, Blackbeard and Bluebeard. Of course, pirates died young. Otherwise there would have been a Graybeard. But they had quite a time while it lasted! Pillaging and looting and pulling down offensive rebounds. Everyone says Gasol gets pushed around too much. Maybe the beard is a start. "I'm pro beard," said Grizzlies personnel director, Tony Barone. "It exudes the Spanish toughness he needs." Spanish toughness? A quick story about that. In 1587, Sir Francis Drake attacked the Spanish City of Cadiz. He destroyed 31 ships and occupied the city for three days. The attack is still known as the "Singeing of the King of Spain's Beard." Of course, Drake wore a beard himself, so that's pretty much a wash. History's great fighters were split on beards. In one corner, you had Samson. In the other corner, Alexander the Great. Alexander believed that beards provided a convenient handle for the enemy, making it easier for them to cut off his soldier's heads. Alexander banned his men from wearing facial hair. Just like George Steinbrenner, really. The Yankees won a few. But this is about Gasol, about basketball, about the role of hair in the NBA. Michael Jordan knew how to use a razor. So did Charles Barkley and Karl Malone. The last great bearded NBA player was Bill Walton, who once said of his beard, "it's the only beard in the history of Western Civilization that makes Bob Dylan's beard look good." Source
