 much better understanding -- not only of the opposite sex, but of their partner."
The show, which comes to Stamford's Palace Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 22, is billed as an informed look at "the battle between the sexes." But as Venable explained, it's more about bridging gaps than picking fights.
Part stand-up comedy, part theater piece (and part therapy session, evidently), "Defending The Caveman" draws on prehistoric anthropology and modern psychology to explain the differences between men and women. As it turns out, both sexes have been bred with certain behaviors that can be traced to early humans.
Men were hunters, creatures of rigid necessity. Women were gatherers, a role that involved collecting food and rearing children. They were multi-taskers. The Caveman's contention? Men and women operate on different wavelengths, and it takes an understanding and appreciation of that dynamic to foster a healthy partnership.
"It's about being more compassionate in your relationship," Venable said.
This dyanmic isn't universal, of course. Some men have argued that they, not their wives or girlfriends, are the clean freaks in the relationship. But from what Venable has observed, "Caveman" has most couples roaring with laughter -- and recognition.
"The great thing about the show is that it resonates with so many people," he said. "I'm breaking down the fourth wall, looking at the audience and talking to them, seeing them nudge each other. They're like, `Yes, I know exactly what he's talking about.' "
Becker premiered "Defending The Caveman" in 1991 to universal applause. It has since become a perrenial favorite, performed by a network of actors at venues nationwide. It took more than three years to write, as Becker, inspired by the frequent comment from women that "all men are ***holes," conducted an exhaustive study of psychology, sociology and history to make the case for his gender.
But contrary to the title, "Defending The Caveman" isn't a chauvinistic, chestbeating defense of men and their willfull ways; it is a bridge-building endeavor, a heartwarming attempt to break down the divide that separates men and women.
"There's positive things to say about both sides," Venable said. "Women will be pleasantly surprised when they come away from the show and find out that I've taught their husbands a thing or two."
Scott.gargan@scni.com; Twitter: @scottgarg
Palace Theatre, 61 Atlantic St. Saturday, Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $50-$30. 203-325-4466,.The commemorative basketballs sit in a row over the fireplace. They line a shelf over the bar. They fill bookcases and mantels throughout the den and office.
Everywhere you look in Tom Jernstedt’s basement, there are basketballs — 40 in all. The top two levels of the Jernstedts’ three-level home overlooking Indianapolis’ Canal Walk are immaculately decorated by Tom’s wife, Kris. The bottom floor, well, that’s all Tom.
There’s the basketball from John Wooden’s final game. There’s a USA Basketball keepsake from the World Championships. And too many to mention from past Final Fours that Jernstedt conducted.
On the shelf behind his desk is a basketball signed by everyone who attended his wedding with Kris. Fittingly, they used a basketball instead of the traditional guestbook.
“I’ve never counted them before,” Jernstedt laughed, acknowledging how the number of basketballs had grown over time.
That’s what happens when you spend 38 years at the NCAA in charge of a three-week phenomenon, the men’s basketball tournament. All of those basketballs represent a professional life spent promoting and protecting the college game, all the while cultivating March Madness into this springtime spectacle.
Everything that we’ve come to know about the tournament — March Madness, Final Four, billion-dollar TV contracts, basketball in domes, brackets — can be traced to Jernstedt. He came to the NCAA in 1972 for what was supposed to be a cup of coffee and decided to stay awhile.
Practically every major development in the NCAA tournament since then happened on Jernstedt’s watch.
He was there when the Final Four moved to its Saturday-Monday finish. He was there for the first $1 million TV contract. He was there for the first $1 billion contract.
From Jan. 5: Executive Editor Abraham Madkour and Champions editor Tom Stinson introduce and discuss the 2015 class of The Champions: Pioneers & Innovators in Sports Business.
He presided over big changes like the controversial tournament expansion to 64 teams and little changes like the implementation of the RPI as one of several tools to evaluate teams.
When a basketball committee member fell asleep in his chair during team selections, Jernstedt discreetly gave him a nudge. When volatile coach Bobby Knight erupted, which was often, Jernstedt was there to absorb it so others didn’t have to.
At times, Jernstedt came off as commercially conservative — he liked a clean venue without the barrage of sponsor mentions that might distract from the competition. Other friends called him a visionary for acts like shepherding the Final Four back to a dome in 1982 at the Superdome, even though the NCAA’s first experience in a dome — the 1971 Final Four in the Astrodome — had been a disaster because of bad sight lines and seats too far from the court.
During his time at the NCAA, Jernstedt was the chief administrator for several sports, as well as its COO, but basketball is what kept him there for so long despite several opportunities to become a conference commissioner or athletic director.
“Tom is the quintessential ambassador for college sports,” said Greg Shaheen, who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Jernstedt at the NCAA.
Jernstedt spent his summers as a youth picking berries and beans. It’s just what you did growing up in Carlton, Ore. Hopping in the back of a pickup truck and riding off to the fields became a rite of passage for the teens from Yamhill Carlton High School, long before travel baseball and football camps filled summer calendars.
Carlton, population 1,054 at the time, was a small farming and logging community between Portland and the Oregon coast. Even though the consolidated high school merged the two nearby towns, it was still small enough for a pretty good athlete like Jernstedt to emerge as a star in three sports.
Tom Jernstedt’s basement reflects his 38 years of promoting and protecting the NCAA basketball tournament, including being decorated with 40 basketballs from some of the game’s biggest stages and greatest moments.
Jernstedt played football, basketball and baseball in the days before obtuse coaches started demanding that kids specialize in one sport. And he played them pretty well, despite a foot that didn’t always cooperate.
At age 6, Jernstedt contracted polio, which put him in the hospital in Portland. This was in the early 1950s, just a few years before the polio vaccine was widely available. But Jernstedt said he was lucky. He described it as a mild case of polio that doctors caught early and were able to treat.
with the normal heel-to-toe motion, although many of his friends never knew what he had to overcome.
But, contrary to his professional life dominated by basketball, Jernstedt excelled at football. Despite commitments at various times to play quarterback for Houston and then Washington, Jernstedt, a left-hander, wound up at the University of Oregon.
Neither Jernstedt nor Shea could break into the lineup, so they often found themselves sitting next to each other on the bench. Sometimes they’d rub mud on their uniforms so that they looked like they’d played.
Jernstedt, from his spot deep on the Ducks’ roster, still managed to make an impression on Oregon’s coach, Len Casanova, who helped launch the coaching careers of future greats George Seifert, John McKay and John Robinson from the Eugene campus.
Jernstedt became senior class president at Oregon and briefly contemplated a career in politics.
A few years later, after a stint in sales, Jernstedt returned to his alma mater to run events for the Ducks. Casanova, his former coach who became athletic director, never forgot the quarterback at the end of the bench. Jernstedt left a job selling coffee for McCormick in Northern California for $12,000 a year and a company car, to make $6,000 a year at Oregon.
“I couldn’t get there quick enough,” he said, recalling his desire to get out of sales, despite the pay cut.
The turning point for Jernstedt’s career in athletic administration came in the spring of 1972, when he helped run the NCAA track and field championships at Oregon. The night before the competition was about to begin, the chairman of the NCAA’s track committee, a Kansas State coach named DeLoss Dodds, informed Jernstedt that there was a problem. The intervals for the mile relay were marked incorrectly.
This information, of course, had to be relayed to the Ducks’ track coach, Bill Bowerman. By this time in his career, Bowerman, a former Army major, had won four NCAA championships and was among the most decorated track coaches in the nation. Charges against the