Jim O’Donnell: Mark Pfeil brought class and kindness to so much around Jordan's NBA

CLASSICISTS CALL IT “institutional memory” while more tweety snipes label it “old fogey-ism.”

Bob Costas was stuck in the middle this week on his play-by-play call of the Yankees-Royals ALDS for Turner.

Some savored the learned work of Costas — even when he quoted Teddy Roosevelt (but not Rutherford B. Hayes). Others thought it had been brain-basted in Gotham mothballs.

So, at point of entry for a Bears-intense Sunday, the intent was to steer around institutional memory.

Then came word Friday of the sudden passing of Mark Pfeil.

FROM 1980-90, PFEIL WAS the resolute trainer and de facto traveling secretary of the Bulls. That tenure included the first six NBA seasons of all of the rare mirth and airy madness that would become Michael Jordan.

In 1990, in keenly organization-sensitive manner, Pfeil resigned. Two months later, he smoothly bobbed back up as trainer of the Milwaukee Bucks.

There, amid the vastly more positive vibrations of owner Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), John Steinmiller and all, the Nebraska native did 10 more seasons before happily pensioning out.

HE MIGHT HAVE MISSED the six championships on West Madison Street. But he quite voluntarily did not miss or misread all of the growing front-office toxicity that eventually would engulf itself at the United Center.

He and wife, Beth — once a bank vice president in downtown Arlington Heights — retired to the Carolinas. Their home, he contentedly informed, lay within “driving range” of nine golf courses.

And it was there on Thursday that he died at age 75.

TO TOAST PFEIL IS TO RECALL all of the energizing lure and magical night lights that once was the Chicago Bulls.

It was such a different world.

Jerry Sloan hired him on the recommendation of an entrepreneurial physical therapist named Dick Hoover. Every subsequent head coach — from the self-defeating Paul Westhead on up to sagebrush deity Phil Jackson — revered him.

JORDAN HAD TO STRAIN to match Pfeil's work ethic. That fact was made clear between the lines in “The Last Dance.” (He was especially prominent in the amazing video generated by Jeannie Morris and a crew from WBBM-Channel 2 Sports during a road trip with special access in 1987.)

On team journeys it could be guaranteed that he was the first member of the Chicago traveling party to awaken each morning.

HIS TWO GREAT VICES were brisk outdoor walking — often with team broadcasters Jim Durham and/or Johnny “Red” Kerr — or simply sitting in hotel lobbies.

There he'd either read newspapers or people watch. If a manufacturer's rep from Fort Wayne wanted to chat, Pfeil would chat. He'd refer to his business only as “physical therapy.”

He was an unobtrusive father hen. He kept confidences on all sides. He executed expectations like a crop duster sweeping the flatlands beyond Omaha.

TO THE END, PFEIL WAS MARKEDLY RELUCTANT to bad-mouth Jerry Krause. Although, Krause Management was one of his greatest Chicago skills — and the principal one he eventually tired of.

He schooled Jordan on some big-league backstage ways. Jordan schooled him on the wild-hare inclinations of a speculator of Diamond Mike proportions.

For almost all of their six years in association, the Jordan-Pfeil Bulls flew scheduled flights. One gray morning at some airport — Detroit, Washington, Newark, pick any — Pfeil saw Jordan scurry ahead of the herd to the baggage-claim area.

THERE HIS AIRNESS QUICKLY TIPPED an airline luggage handler $50. Pfeil raced up and said: “Hey Michael, you don't have to do that. I take care of all that. Don't worry about it.”

Jordan replied, “Just watch.”

Within moments, Jordan and a select bunch of ramblin' teammates were matching $100 bills on the ledge of the baggage conveyor belt.

They were betting on whose bag would come out first.

Guess who won?

“I learned within the first few weeks, you don't want to get in the way of M.J.'s competitiveness,” Pfeil later said.

HE MADE HIS NBA TAPING BONES in Chicago. But by the time of his decade in Milwaukee, the reputation of Pfeil for professionalism and extraordinary kindnesses was legend.

Through an old chum in Chicago, he learned that a 10-year-old fellow from Hampshire named Tim Frederick was quite possibly the biggest Charles Barkley fan on the planet.

Or at least he was in the far northwest exurbia of The Windy City.

A few days before a 1993 Suns game at the Bradley Center, Pfeil called to say: “Bring him on up. You'll sit in my seats with Beth. Then our team docs will walk you into the Phoenix locker room just before the game ends.”

Predictably, the plan worked to perfection. Out of respect for Pfeil, Barkley waited until the media cleared out and then sat alone for more than 10 minutes, mainly teasing and questioning the mesmerized lad.

WHAT WRITTEN WORDS CAN fully honor the instincts and legacy of a gentleman like that?

The Bulls were blessed to have Mark Pfeil. So were the Bucks and the NBA.

On the sidelines, the institutional memory people were merely other beneficiaries of such human, golden night lighting.

It was such a different world.

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.