Dan Majerle: A CMU Tradition
1/25/2023 5:04:00 PM | General, Men's Basketball
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THUNDER: Phoenix’s Dan Majerle Takes Valley of the Sun by Storm; Reprinted from Centralight Magazine, April 1992. Centralight Magazine reprinted from the January 12, 1992 story from Phoenix Gazette.
PHOENIX, Ariz.—His face is on your TV screen. His voice is on your radio. His name is on your clothes. His glistening pectorals are on the pages of your calendar. At certain restaurants, he has a hand in your food.
Dan Majerle, it seems, is everywhere in the Valley of the Sun, and that's a long way from the quaint resort town where he grew up swimming in the cool waters of Lake Michigan and dreaming of becoming a hockey player.
Majerle, 26, grew up with two brothers, Steve and Jeff, in Traverse City, Mich., where high school football is king and the social event of the year is a summer festival in honor of cherries. His father, Frank, cuts hair for a living, and his mother, Sally, runs a sewing shop called Hickory Stitches.
Soon she will add new products to her shop when she begins selling the Thundemine collection of athletic clothing, calendars and posters introduced last month by Majerle and the Phoenix Suns.
It makes her smile to think that this is the same guy who rarely picked out his own blue jeans as a teenager.
"Our boys were never hard to buy for because they really didn't care that much," Sally Majerle said. "They were more concerned about the gym being open than they were about the labels on their clothes."
Majerle admits he's a little concerned about how his mom will react to some of the "hard body" photos in the calendar In fact, he rejected a couple of suggested photos.
Whether they make her blush or not, Sally Majerle says she'll still feel proud of the son she raised and the NBA player he's become. She's content that clothes didn't make the man, and success hasn't spoiled the boy.
"It's kind of amazing, really," she said of Majerle's fame. "But I still see him as a mother, and he still tells me how much he'd like to be a hockey player.
"I tell people here (in Traverse City) that if he was to come walking down the street, he wouldn't seem any different than when he was in high school."
Walking down those streets, friends still call him by his high school nickname. Mars, instead of Thunder, the moniker he earned with his aggressive slam dunks at Central Michigan University and one that stuck with him in the NBA.
Blue-collar style
It's a nickname befitting a player who has taken the Valley by storm. As early as his rookie year, Majerle's blue-collar style of play endeared him to fans, and today it's nearly impossible to find one who'll admit they booed the Suns' decision to draft him in the first round in 1988.
Instead, they clamor for his autograph and a chance to meet him. Take the day he scheduled some minor work to be done at his home. The serviceman showed up wearing a suit and tie, and brought along his daughter to have pictures taken.
The most popular athlete in the Valley? Majerle smiles at the suggestion.
"That's flattering," he said. "It's nice, but really I enjoy the fans as much as they enjoy me. I like going out and meeting people, and I think that's the best part of being an athlete—the people you get to meet and talk to and become friends with."
If not the most popular, then certainly he is one of the most marketable. Along with his TV, radio and magazine ads, he's the first NBA player to have his own clothing line.
Kurt Schoeppler, who handles some of Majerle's marketing affairs for International Management Group, is working out details that also would make Majerle the first to endorse a line of shoe laces.
Effective marketing
"The Suns do a good job of marketing their players," Schoeppler said. "In Dan's case, we're finding some difficulty because we discover he's already doing things we're trying to land for him."
The clothing line was a natural, according to Suns Merchandising Manager Jason Cohn. "We have the best pulse on our players," Cohn said, "and the consumer has told us that Dan is our most popular player at the checkout counter "
"The clothing line gives you an idea of his potential," Schoeppler said of Majerle. "No one else in the NBA has that. Magic Johnson? No. Patrick Ewing? No, Dan's the first.
"Working with him on this has been so easy, almost too easy. But that is the way Dan is. He's not the kind of guy to endorse a product and then not be a part of it. What you see is what you get."
Majerle insists that he believes in the products he represents and thinks it's unfair when athletes like the Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan are criticized for the income they receive off the basketball court.
Jordan, the marquee name of products like Wheaties cereal and Nike shoes, rakes in an estimated $21 million a year in endorsements.
"He does a lot of them, but I think he probably believes in those products, the same as I do with mine," Majerle said. "People ask me all the time if 1 eat Subway sandwiches because they see me on their TV ads, and I really do. I go there all the time.
"If (Jordan).-.is a real marketable figure, which he is, and he believes in his products, he'd be crazy not to do it and take the money. I think anybody else would do the same thing." On the other hand, he says, it's something that needs to be kept in perspective.
"Sometimes you can start running around doing all of these things that take you away from basketball and forget what got you here," Majerle said. "You have to realize that basketball is still No. 1, and everything else is secondary."
Fame in perspective
Majerle, who renegotiated a contract in April that will average out to $2 million a year through 1996, also realizes that his fame and endorsements probably will never reach Jordanesque proportions.
While he's adored in the Valley, he isn't a household name nationally. Teammates like Kevin Johnson and Tom Chambers, even Kurt Rambis, are better known.
But Schoeppler sees that kind of recognition in Majerle's future.
"He's very much the guy in Phoenix but is unique to Phoenix," he said. "In Los Angeles or New York or Chicago, Dan would be huge.
"If not for a back injury last year, he probably would have won the Sixth Man Award, and we fully expect him to become an NBA All Star. Those are the types of things that will catapult him nationally."
If and when that happens, Majerle's parents don't expect it to turn him into a different person than the one they nurtured on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay.
"It's a little strange when I'm out there and we go out to a restaurant and people keep coming up asking for autographs," Frank Majerle said. "But he hasn't let it go to his head...he's the same ol' Dan."
Except that, these days, he chooses his clothes a little more carefully.
—By John Davis, Phoenix Gazette
Dan Majerle, it seems, is everywhere in the Valley of the Sun, and that's a long way from the quaint resort town where he grew up swimming in the cool waters of Lake Michigan and dreaming of becoming a hockey player.
Majerle, 26, grew up with two brothers, Steve and Jeff, in Traverse City, Mich., where high school football is king and the social event of the year is a summer festival in honor of cherries. His father, Frank, cuts hair for a living, and his mother, Sally, runs a sewing shop called Hickory Stitches.
Soon she will add new products to her shop when she begins selling the Thundemine collection of athletic clothing, calendars and posters introduced last month by Majerle and the Phoenix Suns.
It makes her smile to think that this is the same guy who rarely picked out his own blue jeans as a teenager.
"Our boys were never hard to buy for because they really didn't care that much," Sally Majerle said. "They were more concerned about the gym being open than they were about the labels on their clothes."
Majerle admits he's a little concerned about how his mom will react to some of the "hard body" photos in the calendar In fact, he rejected a couple of suggested photos.
Whether they make her blush or not, Sally Majerle says she'll still feel proud of the son she raised and the NBA player he's become. She's content that clothes didn't make the man, and success hasn't spoiled the boy.
"It's kind of amazing, really," she said of Majerle's fame. "But I still see him as a mother, and he still tells me how much he'd like to be a hockey player.
"I tell people here (in Traverse City) that if he was to come walking down the street, he wouldn't seem any different than when he was in high school."
Walking down those streets, friends still call him by his high school nickname. Mars, instead of Thunder, the moniker he earned with his aggressive slam dunks at Central Michigan University and one that stuck with him in the NBA.
Blue-collar style
It's a nickname befitting a player who has taken the Valley by storm. As early as his rookie year, Majerle's blue-collar style of play endeared him to fans, and today it's nearly impossible to find one who'll admit they booed the Suns' decision to draft him in the first round in 1988.
Instead, they clamor for his autograph and a chance to meet him. Take the day he scheduled some minor work to be done at his home. The serviceman showed up wearing a suit and tie, and brought along his daughter to have pictures taken.
The most popular athlete in the Valley? Majerle smiles at the suggestion.
"That's flattering," he said. "It's nice, but really I enjoy the fans as much as they enjoy me. I like going out and meeting people, and I think that's the best part of being an athlete—the people you get to meet and talk to and become friends with."
If not the most popular, then certainly he is one of the most marketable. Along with his TV, radio and magazine ads, he's the first NBA player to have his own clothing line.
Kurt Schoeppler, who handles some of Majerle's marketing affairs for International Management Group, is working out details that also would make Majerle the first to endorse a line of shoe laces.
Effective marketing
"The Suns do a good job of marketing their players," Schoeppler said. "In Dan's case, we're finding some difficulty because we discover he's already doing things we're trying to land for him."
The clothing line was a natural, according to Suns Merchandising Manager Jason Cohn. "We have the best pulse on our players," Cohn said, "and the consumer has told us that Dan is our most popular player at the checkout counter "
"The clothing line gives you an idea of his potential," Schoeppler said of Majerle. "No one else in the NBA has that. Magic Johnson? No. Patrick Ewing? No, Dan's the first.
"Working with him on this has been so easy, almost too easy. But that is the way Dan is. He's not the kind of guy to endorse a product and then not be a part of it. What you see is what you get."
Majerle insists that he believes in the products he represents and thinks it's unfair when athletes like the Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan are criticized for the income they receive off the basketball court.
Jordan, the marquee name of products like Wheaties cereal and Nike shoes, rakes in an estimated $21 million a year in endorsements.
"He does a lot of them, but I think he probably believes in those products, the same as I do with mine," Majerle said. "People ask me all the time if 1 eat Subway sandwiches because they see me on their TV ads, and I really do. I go there all the time.
"If (Jordan).-.is a real marketable figure, which he is, and he believes in his products, he'd be crazy not to do it and take the money. I think anybody else would do the same thing." On the other hand, he says, it's something that needs to be kept in perspective.
"Sometimes you can start running around doing all of these things that take you away from basketball and forget what got you here," Majerle said. "You have to realize that basketball is still No. 1, and everything else is secondary."
Fame in perspective
Majerle, who renegotiated a contract in April that will average out to $2 million a year through 1996, also realizes that his fame and endorsements probably will never reach Jordanesque proportions.
While he's adored in the Valley, he isn't a household name nationally. Teammates like Kevin Johnson and Tom Chambers, even Kurt Rambis, are better known.
But Schoeppler sees that kind of recognition in Majerle's future.
"He's very much the guy in Phoenix but is unique to Phoenix," he said. "In Los Angeles or New York or Chicago, Dan would be huge.
"If not for a back injury last year, he probably would have won the Sixth Man Award, and we fully expect him to become an NBA All Star. Those are the types of things that will catapult him nationally."
If and when that happens, Majerle's parents don't expect it to turn him into a different person than the one they nurtured on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay.
"It's a little strange when I'm out there and we go out to a restaurant and people keep coming up asking for autographs," Frank Majerle said. "But he hasn't let it go to his head...he's the same ol' Dan."
Except that, these days, he chooses his clothes a little more carefully.
—By John Davis, Phoenix Gazette
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