Mike Tollin, co-founder of SlamBall, shakes hands with KyShawn Jones of the Gryphons before a game at the Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas on July 27.There’s a line in an old Monty Python skit that Mike Tollin — the Havertown native and longtime Hollywood mover-and-shaker — likes to drop to remind his staff how long some projects can take before they make it to the screen.
“That’s become sort of a mantra for us,” said Tollin, the co-chairman of Mandalay Sports Media. “Something to live by. Here we are. It’s perseverance. You can look up any project we’ve had and it’s often several years if not more than a decade of trying to put something together.” And that old Monty Python line is what keeps Tollin pushing toward making films about Dick Allen and Jon Dorenbos, two significant figures in Philadelphia sports history whom Tollin befriended after admiring from afar.
SlamBall’s original run lasted two years on Spike TV and Tollin said the sport could have kept bouncing. But Tollin and Mason Gordon, who created the idea in 1999 by sketching it onto a napkin, thought in 2003 that they were falling short of their goal of creating a legitimate sport. The games weren’t aired live and there were no stats, standings, or ways to keep up with favorite players.