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SubscribeTennis’s downfall amid the current dearth of American stars; Shame on me for tuning to ESPN Radio this morning
Thu, Sep 9 2010 03:12
| Melanie Ouidin, PGA Tour, Venus Williams, Tiger Woods, Mike Greenberg, US Open, Tennis, Serena Williams, Andy Roddick, Mike Golic, ESPN
| Permalink
Two days ago I was getting ready to make my weekly appearance on “Washington Post Live,” which airs locally on Comcast SportsNet.
I enjoy doing the show and like the people I work with on it—both in front of and behind the camera. My only complaint—as with just about all media outlets in Washington—is the Redskins obsession. Every day of the year—not the season, the YEAR, there is a required, sponsored (of course) Redskins segment.
On Tuesday, Ivan Carter who hosts the show was going through the show rundown with me and with Charlie Casserly, who was the other guest that day. Since it was the day after Maryland-Navy and Boise State-Virginia Tech, there was a segment on those games. There was, of course, the Redskins segment and another on the NFL and a separate segment (God help us all) on Albert Haynseworth. Finally, Ivan brought up the last segment, which is called, ‘leftovers,’ quick items, quick comments on each.
One was that day’s Ryder Cup selections. There were two other football issues that were relevant. Finally, he said, “And Randy Moss is unhappy because he doesn’t think the Patriots are going to offer him a new deal at the end of the year.”
Really? Randy Moss is unhappy? Randy Moss wants a new contract? Has he left camp? No. Is he threatening to leave camp? No. He just says he doesn’t think the Patriots want him back. Well, that’s film at-11-stuff isn’t it? Moss is 33 and wants one last big contract AT THE END OF THE YEAR and this is news?
Of course it isn’t. So, I suggested instead we talk briefly about Patrick McEnroe stepping down as Davis Cup captain after 10 years and the fact that—in my opinion—Jim Courier should succeed him.
Ivan looked at me blankly. “You’re kidding? You think anyone cares about that?”
Casserly shook his head and said, “John, I work for CBS and they televise the (U.S.) Open but seriously, it’s TENNIS.”
I knew they weren’t wrong. I argued briefly that the show was already full of football and what was wrong with talking about tennis for THIRTY SECONDS?
I lost the argument.
Which, of course, gets back to what I keep saying over and over again: tennis has become nothing more than a niche sport. Even with the hours and hours of airtime ESPN is giving the Open, I’m not sure anyone other than Bud Collins and my friend Tom Ross is paying any attention. As I said last week, I’m SURE the USTA will announce record attendance and there will be all sorts of happy talk about how great the sport is doing but if anyone inside the sport every poked their head into Comcast Sports Net—or almost anywhere else—for a minute, they might be in for a rude awakening.
I am now firmly convinced that while some of this has to do with the sport’s complete mismanagement at the top—the people who run tennis remind me of something Lefty Driesell once said about one of this athletic directors: ‘the man could screw up a one-car funeral,’—it also has a LOT to do with the current dearth of American stars.
Oh sure, there are the Williams sisters on the women’s side but they simply don’t move the meter outside the tennis bubble. I once thought some of this might be racial but Tiger Woods has proven me wrong on that. We are (Thank God) finally at the point where most people don’t care what color you are as long as you can play and you can entertain them.
What’s more, the Williams’s have been around a long time now. People are always looking for the next thing, which is why there was so much swooning last year when Melanie Oudin made the quarterfinals. There’s also the grunting factor—especially with Venus. This may reflect a personal bias but the grunting/screaming makes me crazy. It is why, even though she can play and she’s gorgeous, I can’t watch Maria Sharapova play unless it is on TV and I can hit the mute button.
It may also have something to do with the fact that neither Williams sister has ever given an opponent credit after a loss.
Who knows? On the men’s side, there’s no one close to being as good as Venus or Serena. The current crop of American men have won ONE major—Andy Roddick’s 2003 U.S. Open. Roddick is now 28 and looks like he’s beginning to fade. James Blake, who never made it out of a quarterfinal at a major, has been beaten up by injuries. Mardy Fish has bloomed late into a top 20 player but no one thinks he’s going to win anything big and Sam Querrey has shown some promise but blew a serious chance to make the Open quarters. The new hot kid is Ryan Harrison, who won his first round match at the Open before blowing three match points and losing a fifth set tiebreak in the second round.
Then he walked off without signing any autographs for any kids or acknowledging the crowd which had cheered him on every point. Sounds like he’ll fit right in as a tennis player.
The point is this: The sport needs American stars. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are great champions and, apparently, pretty good guys. (I always believe Mary Carillo on these matters). But they don’t push the non-tennis-geek meter at all the way Tiger pushes the non-golf-geek meter off the charts or even a little bit. There have to be U.S. stars—real STARS—in both tennis and golf. Golf has plenty of them, tennis, right now, has none.
I’m not saying an American star would fix the ills of the game and the way it’s run but it would be a big step in the right direction. It might even get the sport 30 seconds of time on ‘Washington Post Live.’
*****
I know I am a broken record not just sometimes but often on certain subjects—one being just how bad ESPN can be. It can also be good—like whenever anyone named McEnroe is talking about tennis or when Mike Tirico or Mike Patrick are doing play-by-play. And I like PTI whether I’m fighting with the hosts or not fighting with the hosts.
But the radio stuff is brutal—so shame on me for ever listening. That said, this morning I was en route to the pool when The Junkies went to a fantasy segment (I’d drive into a tree before I’d listen to that) and my two music stations were doing traffic and weather. I took a deep breath and turned to ESPN’s morning pitchmen (seriously, is there ANYTHING they don’t sell?).
They were trying to be funny. I should have gotten out while I still could. After they had made their NFL picks—or some of them, I really don’t know—they announced that next they were going to share with us the picks of their producer’s mother. This has become fairly common shtick on sports talk radio, having mothers or grandmothers or nuns make picks. It peaked four years ago when Tony Kornheiser’s producer’s mother picked George Mason to make The Final Four—and the Patriots made it.
What allegedly made THIS funny is that the producer is British—as is his mother. So, they played back tape of her picking The Browns in the AFC North—“I’ve never heard of them so why not?” (wow is THAT funny or what?) and asking her son if picking a 15-9 score in the Super Bowl was okay.
It was cringe-worthy and un-funny. That’s fine—that’s pretty much what that show is. I would love to hear though how smart the two pitchmen would sound if, say, someone called and asked them to analyze the cases The Supreme Court is going to take on when it goes into session this fall or make state-by-state predictions on the upcoming midterm elections.
That aside though, THIS is what killed me. “She’s WAY into the Jack Daniels at this time of the morning,” one said. “Oh yeah, the other said, probably on her second fifth.”
Really? First, she didn’t sound drunk at all to me. She just sounded like someone who didn’t know football and played along with a joke for her son’s sake. Second, if she WAS drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning or ANY morning (as they implied she was) that’s funny? Seriously? Making fun of someone’s clothes merits a two-week suspension but calling someone a drunk on the air, that’s funny.
Boy do I not get ESPN. Thank God for that.
I enjoy doing the show and like the people I work with on it—both in front of and behind the camera. My only complaint—as with just about all media outlets in Washington—is the Redskins obsession. Every day of the year—not the season, the YEAR, there is a required, sponsored (of course) Redskins segment.
On Tuesday, Ivan Carter who hosts the show was going through the show rundown with me and with Charlie Casserly, who was the other guest that day. Since it was the day after Maryland-Navy and Boise State-Virginia Tech, there was a segment on those games. There was, of course, the Redskins segment and another on the NFL and a separate segment (God help us all) on Albert Haynseworth. Finally, Ivan brought up the last segment, which is called, ‘leftovers,’ quick items, quick comments on each.
One was that day’s Ryder Cup selections. There were two other football issues that were relevant. Finally, he said, “And Randy Moss is unhappy because he doesn’t think the Patriots are going to offer him a new deal at the end of the year.”
Really? Randy Moss is unhappy? Randy Moss wants a new contract? Has he left camp? No. Is he threatening to leave camp? No. He just says he doesn’t think the Patriots want him back. Well, that’s film at-11-stuff isn’t it? Moss is 33 and wants one last big contract AT THE END OF THE YEAR and this is news?
Of course it isn’t. So, I suggested instead we talk briefly about Patrick McEnroe stepping down as Davis Cup captain after 10 years and the fact that—in my opinion—Jim Courier should succeed him.
Ivan looked at me blankly. “You’re kidding? You think anyone cares about that?”
Casserly shook his head and said, “John, I work for CBS and they televise the (U.S.) Open but seriously, it’s TENNIS.”
I knew they weren’t wrong. I argued briefly that the show was already full of football and what was wrong with talking about tennis for THIRTY SECONDS?
I lost the argument.
Which, of course, gets back to what I keep saying over and over again: tennis has become nothing more than a niche sport. Even with the hours and hours of airtime ESPN is giving the Open, I’m not sure anyone other than Bud Collins and my friend Tom Ross is paying any attention. As I said last week, I’m SURE the USTA will announce record attendance and there will be all sorts of happy talk about how great the sport is doing but if anyone inside the sport every poked their head into Comcast Sports Net—or almost anywhere else—for a minute, they might be in for a rude awakening.
I am now firmly convinced that while some of this has to do with the sport’s complete mismanagement at the top—the people who run tennis remind me of something Lefty Driesell once said about one of this athletic directors: ‘the man could screw up a one-car funeral,’—it also has a LOT to do with the current dearth of American stars.
Oh sure, there are the Williams sisters on the women’s side but they simply don’t move the meter outside the tennis bubble. I once thought some of this might be racial but Tiger Woods has proven me wrong on that. We are (Thank God) finally at the point where most people don’t care what color you are as long as you can play and you can entertain them.
What’s more, the Williams’s have been around a long time now. People are always looking for the next thing, which is why there was so much swooning last year when Melanie Oudin made the quarterfinals. There’s also the grunting factor—especially with Venus. This may reflect a personal bias but the grunting/screaming makes me crazy. It is why, even though she can play and she’s gorgeous, I can’t watch Maria Sharapova play unless it is on TV and I can hit the mute button.
It may also have something to do with the fact that neither Williams sister has ever given an opponent credit after a loss.
Who knows? On the men’s side, there’s no one close to being as good as Venus or Serena. The current crop of American men have won ONE major—Andy Roddick’s 2003 U.S. Open. Roddick is now 28 and looks like he’s beginning to fade. James Blake, who never made it out of a quarterfinal at a major, has been beaten up by injuries. Mardy Fish has bloomed late into a top 20 player but no one thinks he’s going to win anything big and Sam Querrey has shown some promise but blew a serious chance to make the Open quarters. The new hot kid is Ryan Harrison, who won his first round match at the Open before blowing three match points and losing a fifth set tiebreak in the second round.
Then he walked off without signing any autographs for any kids or acknowledging the crowd which had cheered him on every point. Sounds like he’ll fit right in as a tennis player.
The point is this: The sport needs American stars. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are great champions and, apparently, pretty good guys. (I always believe Mary Carillo on these matters). But they don’t push the non-tennis-geek meter at all the way Tiger pushes the non-golf-geek meter off the charts or even a little bit. There have to be U.S. stars—real STARS—in both tennis and golf. Golf has plenty of them, tennis, right now, has none.
I’m not saying an American star would fix the ills of the game and the way it’s run but it would be a big step in the right direction. It might even get the sport 30 seconds of time on ‘Washington Post Live.’
*****
I know I am a broken record not just sometimes but often on certain subjects—one being just how bad ESPN can be. It can also be good—like whenever anyone named McEnroe is talking about tennis or when Mike Tirico or Mike Patrick are doing play-by-play. And I like PTI whether I’m fighting with the hosts or not fighting with the hosts.
But the radio stuff is brutal—so shame on me for ever listening. That said, this morning I was en route to the pool when The Junkies went to a fantasy segment (I’d drive into a tree before I’d listen to that) and my two music stations were doing traffic and weather. I took a deep breath and turned to ESPN’s morning pitchmen (seriously, is there ANYTHING they don’t sell?).
They were trying to be funny. I should have gotten out while I still could. After they had made their NFL picks—or some of them, I really don’t know—they announced that next they were going to share with us the picks of their producer’s mother. This has become fairly common shtick on sports talk radio, having mothers or grandmothers or nuns make picks. It peaked four years ago when Tony Kornheiser’s producer’s mother picked George Mason to make The Final Four—and the Patriots made it.
What allegedly made THIS funny is that the producer is British—as is his mother. So, they played back tape of her picking The Browns in the AFC North—“I’ve never heard of them so why not?” (wow is THAT funny or what?) and asking her son if picking a 15-9 score in the Super Bowl was okay.
It was cringe-worthy and un-funny. That’s fine—that’s pretty much what that show is. I would love to hear though how smart the two pitchmen would sound if, say, someone called and asked them to analyze the cases The Supreme Court is going to take on when it goes into session this fall or make state-by-state predictions on the upcoming midterm elections.
That aside though, THIS is what killed me. “She’s WAY into the Jack Daniels at this time of the morning,” one said. “Oh yeah, the other said, probably on her second fifth.”
Really? First, she didn’t sound drunk at all to me. She just sounded like someone who didn’t know football and played along with a joke for her son’s sake. Second, if she WAS drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning or ANY morning (as they implied she was) that’s funny? Seriously? Making fun of someone’s clothes merits a two-week suspension but calling someone a drunk on the air, that’s funny.
Boy do I not get ESPN. Thank God for that.
Comments (11)
Here we go on the BCS - the Broncos are the horse we’re riding right now; Courier should be Davis Cup captain, Beretta is best call for Army AD
Tue, Sep 7 2010 11:13
| Patrick McEnroe, Boise State, Virginia Tech, Jim Courier, Army, Bob Baretta, Tony Kornheiser, BCS, ESPN
| Permalink
I’m not going to write here in any detail about Monday’s Maryland-Navy game because I wrote about it in today’s Washington Post. The column was posted here a short while ago. I sum the game up this way: Maryland deserved to win. Navy deserved to lose. You will not see the name Ricky Dobbs in the same sentence with the words Heisman Trophy at any point in the future.
The most important game of the college football weekend was the last one played (and played and played and played; my God is it time to do something about the length of college football games). That was the one between Boise State and Virginia Tech. I believe many people who went to the game will be reading this shortly after they arrive home at about noon today. Nothing quite like the parking lots at FedEx Field—especially at midnight on a school/work night when you are an angry Virginia Tech fan I would imagine.
Virginia Tech is a very good football team. It is well coached and resilient as it proved when it rallied from an early 17-0 hole to lead on several occasions in the second half. My guess is the Hokies—if they don’t get too down about this loss—will win the ACC for the fourth time since they joined the league. I’m still not sold on the Miami comeback thing or on Jimbo Fisher although we’ll have to see.
The point is this: We now know that Boise State is the real deal—if there was any doubt before Monday night. The Broncos traveled across the country, went into a hostile stadium and bolted to an early lead. Then, when the home team, led by a talented senior quarterback rallied and took the lead, they didn’t get frazzled. When they had to drive the length of the field late in the game to win, they did exactly that.
You fans at Alabama and Texas and Ohio State and Florida who are screaming that your team would whip the Broncos, that’s fine. Like I said last week—play them. (Note to the poster who pointed out that LSU HAS scheduled some very good teams home-and-home in recent years and on future schedules: you’re right—but they’re all from BCS Conferences).
If Monday night’s game had been played in Seattle, Washington instead of suburban Washington, Boise State wins by at least 10. The setting played a critical role in Virginia Tech’s comeback. Would Boise State beat those top-ranked teams on a neutral site? I don’t know, but I’d love to see them get the chance.
And now, like it or not BCS apologists (that means you Kornheiser) there’s a possibility they might. If Boise State can beat Oregon State at home on September 25th, there’s a good chance it will run the table—just as it did last year when the BCS hypocrites stuck them and an equally undefeated (I know there’s no such thing) TCU team in the Fiesta Bowl to ensure that neither would get the chance to beat someone like Georgia Tech or Iowa or Cincinnati in one of the BCS games—which they surely would have.
The best-case scenario for the BCSA (BCS apologists) now is that two of their schools go undefeated. Then they can use the, “tougher schedule,” excuse to leave Boise State out of the championship game. If, however, there’s only one unbeaten or even worse if no one goes undefeated, the BCS has a problem. Because if Boise State is left out of the championship game in favor of a one-loss BCS school, there are going to be a lot of voices a lot louder and more influential than mine screaming fraud. Because that’s exactly what it will be.
Don’t get me wrong, the problems with this system go well beyond Boise State. Unbeaten teams from Utah and Hawaii and TCU have also been denied the chance to play for the national championship. In 1998 Tulane went unbeaten and didn’t even get to play in a BCS Bowl. That was before Congress began throwing the term, “cartel,” around and all of a sudden a formula was found to “allow,” non-BCS schools access to the BCS Bowls (read money) though not—as yet—to the title game.
If you go unbeaten in any sport, you should get to compete for a championship. Period. That’s why some form of playoff should have been in place years ago. That’s why Boise State’s win Monday night was important because even though it isn’t going to bring down the BCS, it is another brick in the wall. This is sort of like the plagues of Moses. It took ten to get to Pharaoh but he eventually had to capitulate. Don’t get me wrong: I am NOT advocating the death of the first born of All BCS, just extreme discomfort for all who defend it. I think watching ‘Around the Horn,’ on a non-stop loop forever might be appropriate.
Or maybe listening to Colin Cowherd too. (This is a new one for me. I’ve always thought the guy was just kind of a clown, another ESPN guy made a star by ESPN promoting him non-stop, but Monday when I heard him blaming the people who went bankrupt and lost their homes for the fall of the economy, that was it for me.)
My favorite BCS team for the rest of the season will be Virginia Tech. Because the more the Hokies win, the better it is for Boise State. And if you believe at all in what is right and good for America, you are a Boise State fan. And a TCU fan. Throw in Utah while you’re at it if you want. But the Broncos are the horse we’re riding right now.
*****
Completely different subject: Patrick McEnroe stepped down as Davis Cup captain yesterday. He’s got three kids and a lot on his plate and figured that ten years was enough.
The leading candidates to replace him are Jim Courier and Todd Martin. This is a no-brainer. Martin is a good guy who was a solid player but Courier is a four-time major champion who was a Davis Cup stalwart. He’s also very bright and wants the job for all the right reasons. The USTA should put Martin on hold, keep him involved with the work McEnroe is doing with young players and name Courier as the captain. It’s an easy call.
One other easy call: Bob Beretta should be the next Athletic Director at Army, replacing Kevin Anderson who left for Maryland. Beretta has been at Army for 20 years and gets the place. He’s smart, he’s been Anderson’s right hand for six years and can hit the ground running. What’s more, he won’t see the job as a stepping stone to a bigger job the way Anderson did and the way Rick Greenspan did—even though Indiana’s decision to hire Greenspan was right up there with New Coke when it comes to disasters. In fact, Army STILL hasn’t completely recovered from Greenspan’s Reign of Error. (See Berry, Todd for details).
Beretta is an easy choice and the right choice. My concern is that Army will conduct a ‘nationwide search,’ hired one of those God-Awful headhunting firms and screws it up—as it did with Greenspan.
The most important game of the college football weekend was the last one played (and played and played and played; my God is it time to do something about the length of college football games). That was the one between Boise State and Virginia Tech. I believe many people who went to the game will be reading this shortly after they arrive home at about noon today. Nothing quite like the parking lots at FedEx Field—especially at midnight on a school/work night when you are an angry Virginia Tech fan I would imagine.
Virginia Tech is a very good football team. It is well coached and resilient as it proved when it rallied from an early 17-0 hole to lead on several occasions in the second half. My guess is the Hokies—if they don’t get too down about this loss—will win the ACC for the fourth time since they joined the league. I’m still not sold on the Miami comeback thing or on Jimbo Fisher although we’ll have to see.
The point is this: We now know that Boise State is the real deal—if there was any doubt before Monday night. The Broncos traveled across the country, went into a hostile stadium and bolted to an early lead. Then, when the home team, led by a talented senior quarterback rallied and took the lead, they didn’t get frazzled. When they had to drive the length of the field late in the game to win, they did exactly that.
You fans at Alabama and Texas and Ohio State and Florida who are screaming that your team would whip the Broncos, that’s fine. Like I said last week—play them. (Note to the poster who pointed out that LSU HAS scheduled some very good teams home-and-home in recent years and on future schedules: you’re right—but they’re all from BCS Conferences).
If Monday night’s game had been played in Seattle, Washington instead of suburban Washington, Boise State wins by at least 10. The setting played a critical role in Virginia Tech’s comeback. Would Boise State beat those top-ranked teams on a neutral site? I don’t know, but I’d love to see them get the chance.
And now, like it or not BCS apologists (that means you Kornheiser) there’s a possibility they might. If Boise State can beat Oregon State at home on September 25th, there’s a good chance it will run the table—just as it did last year when the BCS hypocrites stuck them and an equally undefeated (I know there’s no such thing) TCU team in the Fiesta Bowl to ensure that neither would get the chance to beat someone like Georgia Tech or Iowa or Cincinnati in one of the BCS games—which they surely would have.
The best-case scenario for the BCSA (BCS apologists) now is that two of their schools go undefeated. Then they can use the, “tougher schedule,” excuse to leave Boise State out of the championship game. If, however, there’s only one unbeaten or even worse if no one goes undefeated, the BCS has a problem. Because if Boise State is left out of the championship game in favor of a one-loss BCS school, there are going to be a lot of voices a lot louder and more influential than mine screaming fraud. Because that’s exactly what it will be.
Don’t get me wrong, the problems with this system go well beyond Boise State. Unbeaten teams from Utah and Hawaii and TCU have also been denied the chance to play for the national championship. In 1998 Tulane went unbeaten and didn’t even get to play in a BCS Bowl. That was before Congress began throwing the term, “cartel,” around and all of a sudden a formula was found to “allow,” non-BCS schools access to the BCS Bowls (read money) though not—as yet—to the title game.
If you go unbeaten in any sport, you should get to compete for a championship. Period. That’s why some form of playoff should have been in place years ago. That’s why Boise State’s win Monday night was important because even though it isn’t going to bring down the BCS, it is another brick in the wall. This is sort of like the plagues of Moses. It took ten to get to Pharaoh but he eventually had to capitulate. Don’t get me wrong: I am NOT advocating the death of the first born of All BCS, just extreme discomfort for all who defend it. I think watching ‘Around the Horn,’ on a non-stop loop forever might be appropriate.
Or maybe listening to Colin Cowherd too. (This is a new one for me. I’ve always thought the guy was just kind of a clown, another ESPN guy made a star by ESPN promoting him non-stop, but Monday when I heard him blaming the people who went bankrupt and lost their homes for the fall of the economy, that was it for me.)
My favorite BCS team for the rest of the season will be Virginia Tech. Because the more the Hokies win, the better it is for Boise State. And if you believe at all in what is right and good for America, you are a Boise State fan. And a TCU fan. Throw in Utah while you’re at it if you want. But the Broncos are the horse we’re riding right now.
*****
Completely different subject: Patrick McEnroe stepped down as Davis Cup captain yesterday. He’s got three kids and a lot on his plate and figured that ten years was enough.
The leading candidates to replace him are Jim Courier and Todd Martin. This is a no-brainer. Martin is a good guy who was a solid player but Courier is a four-time major champion who was a Davis Cup stalwart. He’s also very bright and wants the job for all the right reasons. The USTA should put Martin on hold, keep him involved with the work McEnroe is doing with young players and name Courier as the captain. It’s an easy call.
One other easy call: Bob Beretta should be the next Athletic Director at Army, replacing Kevin Anderson who left for Maryland. Beretta has been at Army for 20 years and gets the place. He’s smart, he’s been Anderson’s right hand for six years and can hit the ground running. What’s more, he won’t see the job as a stepping stone to a bigger job the way Anderson did and the way Rick Greenspan did—even though Indiana’s decision to hire Greenspan was right up there with New Coke when it comes to disasters. In fact, Army STILL hasn’t completely recovered from Greenspan’s Reign of Error. (See Berry, Todd for details).
Beretta is an easy choice and the right choice. My concern is that Army will conduct a ‘nationwide search,’ hired one of those God-Awful headhunting firms and screws it up—as it did with Greenspan.
Comments (12)
Favre and ESPN made for each other; Tiger, Rodriguez talk
Fri, Aug 6 2010 09:29
| NFL, Ed Werder, Brett Favre, Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez, ESPN
| Permalink
Brett Favre is like the scene of a car accident. You know you shouldn’t look, that you should just keep going, but you find yourself slowing down to see if it really is as bad as it appears to be.
Of course he and ESPN are the perfect team: ESPN will report ANYTHING as long as it can claim it as some kind of news—even embarrassing infomercials like, ‘The Decision,’ which will be parodied for years to come—and Favre craves that sort of attention. Poor Ed Werder and Rachel Nichols must be paying income taxes in Mississippi by now.
Favre has now retired more times than Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman and Evander Holyfield. What is most amazing is he has done it without ever missing a GAME. Think about that: he cries in March; waffles in July and shows up in time to play in September. Why anyone—even the poor ESPN drones—would think for one second that he’s not going to play this season is a mystery. Heck, if the Vikings throw in an extra million or two he might fly to Washington en route to Minneapolis and take Albert Haynesworth’s conditioning test for him.
What we know about Favre after all these years and retirements and comebacks is the following: he can’t stand not being the center of attention. When he does finally have to retire in 2027, it’s going to kill him. Because as anyone can tell you, doing games or studio work on TV can’t give you the buzz or the high or the adoration that playing gives you. The one and only exception to that rule might be Dick Vitale.
We also know that this is all about BRETT, not about anyone else. Whatever team he happens to play for is just a tool to add to the legend of BRETT. What he did to the Green Bay Packers, to a town that embraced him and worshipped him, was shameful. Every year he rolled out the Hamlet act, topped in 2008 by the tearful farewell in which he told the Packers it was time for them to get Aaron Rodgers ready to play. Which they did until Brett decided about 15 minutes later he was just kidding and forced a trade to the Jets.
What he did to the Jets would have been worse except he’d only been messing with their heads for one year. He retired—again—this time by conference call and the Jets were naïve enough to take him at his word (If Favre told me the earth was round I would be very careful about sailing very far to the east or west) and put him on the retirement list. That meant he didn’t even have to wait for a trade as with the Packers, he was free to sign with the Vikings and then start his Hamlet routine with THEM.
Why does the guy get away with all this? Simple: he can play. If you can play you can lie, cheat, steal, bully, do drugs—you name it. They cheered Alex Rodriguez in Yankee Stadium the other day, didn’t they? People still cheer for Tiger Woods, whose crimes against his wife and children are not only unspeakable but were repeated over and over again. Why? Because they loved watching him play at his best and they want to see it again. Have you noticed that lately Tiger has been playing the “father card,” claiming he hasn’t been able to practice as much this year because he wants time with his kids?
My God! Do people actually believe this stuff? The answer’s yes—there will be people today who will post on this blog that who am I to question Tiger’s devotion to his kids, that people change, blah-blah-blah and his personal life is none of my business, just let him play golf.
You see, that’s the point. I didn’t bring up his kids—HE did. I didn’t talk at length about how being a father changed my life after my first child was born when I’d just been in Vegas cheating on my wife and my new-born child.
And I haven’t stood tearfully in front of assembled media and retired; then done it again and again when I was just trying to manipulate the system to get to a different team for more money. Look, there is NOTHING wrong with Favre playing until he’s 50 if he can play. Last year he clearly could still play—even though the old Achilles heel, the really dumb pass at the worst possible moment jumped up and nailed him at the end of regulation in the NFC Championship game. Even so, if you didn’t know the background, you’d have watched Favre in that game and been amazed by his guts and toughness: clearly hurt, even wobbly, he limped out there and kept moving his team down the field.
The day after that game, I jokingly wrote that the over-under on the first ESPN report that Favre was going to retire again would roll in about Wednesday. I was off by 24 hours—it came on Tuesday. Favre, ESPN reported, was “leaning towards retiring.”
Yeah, sure and there’s a new Tiger Woods who has embraced Buddhism.
Personally, I look forward to watching Favre play this season. He is a freak of nature and he makes the Vikings a viable contender. To me, the NFC North is football’s most interesting division because of the traditions involved, because a late-season game at Lambeau or Soldier Field is throw-back football (I didn’t say I wanted to go, but watching on TV is always fun) and because each city has a fascinating football culture in its own way. Yes, even Detroit.
But please don’t wake me up to tell me he’s retired again or un-retired or is getting his ankle checked or is talking to Ed Werder on a tractor or is throwing to high school kids or texting teammates. He’ll be in camp in time for the third exhibition game, which is the one the starters play at least a half in. He might play a series or two in the last exhibition game and then he’ll play all 16 games unless someone knocks him into next week at some point—which hasn’t happened since he first came into the league in 1953 so why should it happen now?
And then, 15 minutes after his last snap of the season, ESPN will report he’s leaning towards retiring. ESPN is Charlie Brown. Favre is Lucy holding the football. If you aren’t old enough to get that reference, look it up. Good Grief.
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Of course he and ESPN are the perfect team: ESPN will report ANYTHING as long as it can claim it as some kind of news—even embarrassing infomercials like, ‘The Decision,’ which will be parodied for years to come—and Favre craves that sort of attention. Poor Ed Werder and Rachel Nichols must be paying income taxes in Mississippi by now.
Favre has now retired more times than Sugar Ray Leonard, George Foreman and Evander Holyfield. What is most amazing is he has done it without ever missing a GAME. Think about that: he cries in March; waffles in July and shows up in time to play in September. Why anyone—even the poor ESPN drones—would think for one second that he’s not going to play this season is a mystery. Heck, if the Vikings throw in an extra million or two he might fly to Washington en route to Minneapolis and take Albert Haynesworth’s conditioning test for him.
What we know about Favre after all these years and retirements and comebacks is the following: he can’t stand not being the center of attention. When he does finally have to retire in 2027, it’s going to kill him. Because as anyone can tell you, doing games or studio work on TV can’t give you the buzz or the high or the adoration that playing gives you. The one and only exception to that rule might be Dick Vitale.
We also know that this is all about BRETT, not about anyone else. Whatever team he happens to play for is just a tool to add to the legend of BRETT. What he did to the Green Bay Packers, to a town that embraced him and worshipped him, was shameful. Every year he rolled out the Hamlet act, topped in 2008 by the tearful farewell in which he told the Packers it was time for them to get Aaron Rodgers ready to play. Which they did until Brett decided about 15 minutes later he was just kidding and forced a trade to the Jets.
What he did to the Jets would have been worse except he’d only been messing with their heads for one year. He retired—again—this time by conference call and the Jets were naïve enough to take him at his word (If Favre told me the earth was round I would be very careful about sailing very far to the east or west) and put him on the retirement list. That meant he didn’t even have to wait for a trade as with the Packers, he was free to sign with the Vikings and then start his Hamlet routine with THEM.
Why does the guy get away with all this? Simple: he can play. If you can play you can lie, cheat, steal, bully, do drugs—you name it. They cheered Alex Rodriguez in Yankee Stadium the other day, didn’t they? People still cheer for Tiger Woods, whose crimes against his wife and children are not only unspeakable but were repeated over and over again. Why? Because they loved watching him play at his best and they want to see it again. Have you noticed that lately Tiger has been playing the “father card,” claiming he hasn’t been able to practice as much this year because he wants time with his kids?
My God! Do people actually believe this stuff? The answer’s yes—there will be people today who will post on this blog that who am I to question Tiger’s devotion to his kids, that people change, blah-blah-blah and his personal life is none of my business, just let him play golf.
You see, that’s the point. I didn’t bring up his kids—HE did. I didn’t talk at length about how being a father changed my life after my first child was born when I’d just been in Vegas cheating on my wife and my new-born child.
And I haven’t stood tearfully in front of assembled media and retired; then done it again and again when I was just trying to manipulate the system to get to a different team for more money. Look, there is NOTHING wrong with Favre playing until he’s 50 if he can play. Last year he clearly could still play—even though the old Achilles heel, the really dumb pass at the worst possible moment jumped up and nailed him at the end of regulation in the NFC Championship game. Even so, if you didn’t know the background, you’d have watched Favre in that game and been amazed by his guts and toughness: clearly hurt, even wobbly, he limped out there and kept moving his team down the field.
The day after that game, I jokingly wrote that the over-under on the first ESPN report that Favre was going to retire again would roll in about Wednesday. I was off by 24 hours—it came on Tuesday. Favre, ESPN reported, was “leaning towards retiring.”
Yeah, sure and there’s a new Tiger Woods who has embraced Buddhism.
Personally, I look forward to watching Favre play this season. He is a freak of nature and he makes the Vikings a viable contender. To me, the NFC North is football’s most interesting division because of the traditions involved, because a late-season game at Lambeau or Soldier Field is throw-back football (I didn’t say I wanted to go, but watching on TV is always fun) and because each city has a fascinating football culture in its own way. Yes, even Detroit.
But please don’t wake me up to tell me he’s retired again or un-retired or is getting his ankle checked or is talking to Ed Werder on a tractor or is throwing to high school kids or texting teammates. He’ll be in camp in time for the third exhibition game, which is the one the starters play at least a half in. He might play a series or two in the last exhibition game and then he’ll play all 16 games unless someone knocks him into next week at some point—which hasn’t happened since he first came into the league in 1953 so why should it happen now?
And then, 15 minutes after his last snap of the season, ESPN will report he’s leaning towards retiring. ESPN is Charlie Brown. Favre is Lucy holding the football. If you aren’t old enough to get that reference, look it up. Good Grief.
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Comments (13)
A day of the sublime and the ridiculous
Fri, Jul 9 2010 09:44
| Paul Goydos, Jim Gray, NBA, LeBron James, Michael Wilbon, ESPN
| Permalink
Today is a day to write about both the sublime and the ridiculous.
The sublime came early yesterday when my good friend Paul Goydos shot 59—FIFTY-NINE!—in the first round of The John Deere Classic. For those of you who don’t follow golf, Paul was the fourth player in the history of The PGA Tour to shoot 59 in an official tour event. In all likelihood, he won’t even win this weekend—although he’s off to a pretty decent start—but he is now a part of golf history.
The ridiculous, of course, was ESPN’s LeBron James infomercial/love-athon. Let me just say two things quickly now: 1. ESPN flat out lied about when James would actually announce where he was playing. It insisted the public would know, “in the first ten minutes,” of the show. Jim Gray FINALLY stopped asking questions about the ‘process,’ at 9:27. I’m not good at math but 27 is considerably more than 10 last time I checked. 2. Some ESPN suit named Norby Williamson proudly declared yesterday that ESPN was in complete control of the show, “other than what comes out of his (James’s) mouth.” If so, everyone involved should submit their resignations this morning. ESPN at its best is very good; at its worst completely awful. This went beyond anything it has ever done for horrific.
Okay, let’s get back to Goydos because it is a far more pleasant topic. I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I’m in the tank for Paul and have been almost since the day I met him at The Buick Open in 1993 when I was researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”
On that day, his opening line at a press conference was, “Most of you have never heard of me. There’s a reason for that. I’ve never done anything.”
My kind of guy. He ended up being the cult hero of the book and we’ve been friends ever since through a lot of ups and downs in both our lives. If you follow golf, you know that Paul’s wife Wendy got hooked on methamphetamines years ago trying to find some relief from constant migraine headaches. She ended up in and out of rehab but never was able to get completely clean. Paul ended up a single dad, dropping off the tour for a year to be with his teen-age girls. Then, a year ago in January, Wendy died of an apparent overdose.
I still vividly remember Paul’s phone call that day. I was driving home from a basketball game at Bucknell. I knew he had missed the cut at Hawaii but as soon as I heard his voice I knew he wasn’t calling to complain about his golf. Wendy was 44.
What makes Goydos a unique character is his sense of humor, which is about as dry and self-deprecating as I’ve ever seen—his opening comment that first day I met him being a good example. Later he was explaining how he plays his best golf when he gets his slice going. “I know when you’re on The PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade,” he said. “But when you hit a seven iron and it goes 20 yards to the right that’s not a fade, that’s a slice.”
Paul has always described himself as “the worst player in the history of The PGA Tour.” Given that he’s been out there 18 years, has won twice and lost a memorable playoff to Sergio Garcia at the 2008 Players Championship even before yesterday, he’d have trouble making that case.
But he’s certainly not your typical golfer. He’s got a homemade swing and kind of slumps around the course, looking like a guy you might run into at the local muni on Saturday morning. He grew up on a muni in Long Beach and went to Long Beach State. When a problem with one of his hands—he couldn’t grip a club—seemed to end his golf career he did some teaching in the Long Beach school system, often working at inner city schools. That background has certainly given him a different view of life than most of his fellow pros.
Rarely does Paul get openly excited about a round of golf. I remember years ago when he played a U.S. Open qualifier at Woodmont and shot 63 the first 18 holes.
“Great playing,” I said.
“I didn’t make a single putt,” he answered.
“And shot 63?”
“Well, I guess I hit it pretty well.”
Yesterday was different. When I talked to him on the phone yesterday afternoon, he’d done hours of media because he’ll never say no when people want to talk to him. “Actually it caught me by surprise,” he said. “I mean, I know 59 is an iconic number, I was fully aware of what was going on the last few holes. I wasn’t going to sit there and pretend it wasn’t a big deal. I remember thinking on the 16th tee, ‘okay, lots of guys have the chance to shoot 59 but only THREE have actually done it. Let’s do everything possible to be number four.’”
He made three birdies to do it, holing a seven-footer on 18. “That’s the most nervous I think I’ve ever been over a putt in my life,” he said. “I KNOW winning is a bigger deal than shooting 59 but I also know people will remember me for this more than for the two wins or even The Players—which was a pretty big deal when it happened.”
Of course he had a memorable line which he had been repeating all day: “Most people dream of shooting their age. I shot my height.” He is 5-9 so shooting his height isn’t easy.
The irony is that a week ago when I’d seen him in Philadelphia he’d been legitimately down about his game—not just Goydos, worst-player-in-history down, truly down. He’d had a chance to win at Pebble Beach in February before making a nine at the 14th hole on Sunday. Since then, he hadn’t played well.
“I probably let that get to me more than I realized,” he said. “On the other hand, a four month slump for me isn’t exactly big news. I have one just about every year.”
I hope he’s out of it now. The day after a great round is the toughest one there is for a golfer. The good news is he starts out five shots clear of the field except for defending champion Steve Stricker, who went out in the afternoon and shot 60. “To start your round 12 shots behind the leader and finish it one shot back is pretty impressive,” Goydos said.
To shoot 59 is more impressive. And trust me, it couldn’t happen to a better guy. I hope he can keep it going through the weekend.
Okay, back to the ridiculous. We all knew the so-called, “Decision,” would be bad TV but did anyone imagine how bad? The painful stalling with more mindless chatter and a Stu Scott narrated paean to The King—in which he called him the greatest player in the game—was brutal. I can’t wait for Stu’s next conversation with Kobe Bryant. Even Chris Broussard, who had the story, hedged. “I hear Miami but it could be Cleveland, New York or Chicago,” he said.
I wonder: Was he ORDERED by ESPN to hedge to stretch out the “suspense.”
There were commercials galore; reminders who was sponsoring the show and then the five minutes of torturous questions from Gray—again, no doubt under orders from the suits. No one—NO ONE—cared about the damn process at that point.
Michael Wilbon, after the opening silly, “how tough was this,” question tried to get James to say something but he was strictly on message. Everyone in Cleveland was a great guy. He just wanted to win, blah-blah-blah. It was funny how he kept talking about, “everything I’ve done for the city.” Yeah, there are all those championship banners he helped hang. Oh wait, that’s not The King, he’s hung ZERO banners. Look, he has a perfect right to go wherever he wants but please don’t sit there and tell people in Cleveland how much you’ve done for them. The last thing they saw you do was wimp out against the Celtics.
Worst of all though was after the announcement finally was over and Wilbon’s attempts to get James to answer questions had failed, was Scott saying, “And the King has ANOTHER big announcement to make.” The big announcement was that someone ELSE was giving a bunch of money to The Boys and Girls Clubs. The only thing missing at that point was Jerry Lewis. Then again, Scott posing as any kind of journalist is funnier than Lewis and Martin at their peak.
I’m a little embarrassed that I watched but it was a little bit like trying to drive past an accident without rubber-necking. My new favorite owner is Dan Gilbert.
By the way, the NCAA announced—AGAIN—yesterday that it is ALMOST ready to announce what it is going to do with the 68-team NCAA Tournament format. (They called it the “enhanced,” 68 team field). I think they’re negotiating with ESPN for a special called, “The Decision."
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
The sublime came early yesterday when my good friend Paul Goydos shot 59—FIFTY-NINE!—in the first round of The John Deere Classic. For those of you who don’t follow golf, Paul was the fourth player in the history of The PGA Tour to shoot 59 in an official tour event. In all likelihood, he won’t even win this weekend—although he’s off to a pretty decent start—but he is now a part of golf history.
The ridiculous, of course, was ESPN’s LeBron James infomercial/love-athon. Let me just say two things quickly now: 1. ESPN flat out lied about when James would actually announce where he was playing. It insisted the public would know, “in the first ten minutes,” of the show. Jim Gray FINALLY stopped asking questions about the ‘process,’ at 9:27. I’m not good at math but 27 is considerably more than 10 last time I checked. 2. Some ESPN suit named Norby Williamson proudly declared yesterday that ESPN was in complete control of the show, “other than what comes out of his (James’s) mouth.” If so, everyone involved should submit their resignations this morning. ESPN at its best is very good; at its worst completely awful. This went beyond anything it has ever done for horrific.
Okay, let’s get back to Goydos because it is a far more pleasant topic. I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I’m in the tank for Paul and have been almost since the day I met him at The Buick Open in 1993 when I was researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”
On that day, his opening line at a press conference was, “Most of you have never heard of me. There’s a reason for that. I’ve never done anything.”
My kind of guy. He ended up being the cult hero of the book and we’ve been friends ever since through a lot of ups and downs in both our lives. If you follow golf, you know that Paul’s wife Wendy got hooked on methamphetamines years ago trying to find some relief from constant migraine headaches. She ended up in and out of rehab but never was able to get completely clean. Paul ended up a single dad, dropping off the tour for a year to be with his teen-age girls. Then, a year ago in January, Wendy died of an apparent overdose.
I still vividly remember Paul’s phone call that day. I was driving home from a basketball game at Bucknell. I knew he had missed the cut at Hawaii but as soon as I heard his voice I knew he wasn’t calling to complain about his golf. Wendy was 44.
What makes Goydos a unique character is his sense of humor, which is about as dry and self-deprecating as I’ve ever seen—his opening comment that first day I met him being a good example. Later he was explaining how he plays his best golf when he gets his slice going. “I know when you’re on The PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade,” he said. “But when you hit a seven iron and it goes 20 yards to the right that’s not a fade, that’s a slice.”
Paul has always described himself as “the worst player in the history of The PGA Tour.” Given that he’s been out there 18 years, has won twice and lost a memorable playoff to Sergio Garcia at the 2008 Players Championship even before yesterday, he’d have trouble making that case.
But he’s certainly not your typical golfer. He’s got a homemade swing and kind of slumps around the course, looking like a guy you might run into at the local muni on Saturday morning. He grew up on a muni in Long Beach and went to Long Beach State. When a problem with one of his hands—he couldn’t grip a club—seemed to end his golf career he did some teaching in the Long Beach school system, often working at inner city schools. That background has certainly given him a different view of life than most of his fellow pros.
Rarely does Paul get openly excited about a round of golf. I remember years ago when he played a U.S. Open qualifier at Woodmont and shot 63 the first 18 holes.
“Great playing,” I said.
“I didn’t make a single putt,” he answered.
“And shot 63?”
“Well, I guess I hit it pretty well.”
Yesterday was different. When I talked to him on the phone yesterday afternoon, he’d done hours of media because he’ll never say no when people want to talk to him. “Actually it caught me by surprise,” he said. “I mean, I know 59 is an iconic number, I was fully aware of what was going on the last few holes. I wasn’t going to sit there and pretend it wasn’t a big deal. I remember thinking on the 16th tee, ‘okay, lots of guys have the chance to shoot 59 but only THREE have actually done it. Let’s do everything possible to be number four.’”
He made three birdies to do it, holing a seven-footer on 18. “That’s the most nervous I think I’ve ever been over a putt in my life,” he said. “I KNOW winning is a bigger deal than shooting 59 but I also know people will remember me for this more than for the two wins or even The Players—which was a pretty big deal when it happened.”
Of course he had a memorable line which he had been repeating all day: “Most people dream of shooting their age. I shot my height.” He is 5-9 so shooting his height isn’t easy.
The irony is that a week ago when I’d seen him in Philadelphia he’d been legitimately down about his game—not just Goydos, worst-player-in-history down, truly down. He’d had a chance to win at Pebble Beach in February before making a nine at the 14th hole on Sunday. Since then, he hadn’t played well.
“I probably let that get to me more than I realized,” he said. “On the other hand, a four month slump for me isn’t exactly big news. I have one just about every year.”
I hope he’s out of it now. The day after a great round is the toughest one there is for a golfer. The good news is he starts out five shots clear of the field except for defending champion Steve Stricker, who went out in the afternoon and shot 60. “To start your round 12 shots behind the leader and finish it one shot back is pretty impressive,” Goydos said.
To shoot 59 is more impressive. And trust me, it couldn’t happen to a better guy. I hope he can keep it going through the weekend.
Okay, back to the ridiculous. We all knew the so-called, “Decision,” would be bad TV but did anyone imagine how bad? The painful stalling with more mindless chatter and a Stu Scott narrated paean to The King—in which he called him the greatest player in the game—was brutal. I can’t wait for Stu’s next conversation with Kobe Bryant. Even Chris Broussard, who had the story, hedged. “I hear Miami but it could be Cleveland, New York or Chicago,” he said.
I wonder: Was he ORDERED by ESPN to hedge to stretch out the “suspense.”
There were commercials galore; reminders who was sponsoring the show and then the five minutes of torturous questions from Gray—again, no doubt under orders from the suits. No one—NO ONE—cared about the damn process at that point.
Michael Wilbon, after the opening silly, “how tough was this,” question tried to get James to say something but he was strictly on message. Everyone in Cleveland was a great guy. He just wanted to win, blah-blah-blah. It was funny how he kept talking about, “everything I’ve done for the city.” Yeah, there are all those championship banners he helped hang. Oh wait, that’s not The King, he’s hung ZERO banners. Look, he has a perfect right to go wherever he wants but please don’t sit there and tell people in Cleveland how much you’ve done for them. The last thing they saw you do was wimp out against the Celtics.
Worst of all though was after the announcement finally was over and Wilbon’s attempts to get James to answer questions had failed, was Scott saying, “And the King has ANOTHER big announcement to make.” The big announcement was that someone ELSE was giving a bunch of money to The Boys and Girls Clubs. The only thing missing at that point was Jerry Lewis. Then again, Scott posing as any kind of journalist is funnier than Lewis and Martin at their peak.
I’m a little embarrassed that I watched but it was a little bit like trying to drive past an accident without rubber-necking. My new favorite owner is Dan Gilbert.
By the way, the NCAA announced—AGAIN—yesterday that it is ALMOST ready to announce what it is going to do with the 68-team NCAA Tournament format. (They called it the “enhanced,” 68 team field). I think they’re negotiating with ESPN for a special called, “The Decision."
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Comments (11)
‘The Decision” of LeBron -- breaking through new barriers of narcissism, aided by his sycophants
Thu, Jul 8 2010 01:33
| Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, ESPN
| Permalink
I really didn’t want to touch LeBron James or the NBA free agency circus again until it was over and it was possible to write about where the players had landed and how that might change the landscape of the league.
But the whole thing is so comically out of control at this point it can’t be ignored. The last week has been an embarrassment to just about everyone involved and it will reach a crescendo of Saturday Night Live parody tonight during the one hour “special,” which is apparently being called, “The Decision.”
When President Obama makes a decision on what to do next in Afghanistan that will be worthy of capital letters and an hour of TV time. This is a basketball player, one who has won zero championships up until this moment, finally getting around to telling people where he’s going to play basketball the next few years.
Please-PLEASE—do not tell me for one second that any of this is excusable because James and company are going to throw a few dollars at Boys and Girls Clubs. He can write that check any day he wants to and ask Nike to match it and not put everyone through this ridiculous sideshow tonight. One funny note: Apparently ESPN, embarrassed by the notion that the first half of the show would be some kind of tribute to LeBron, has insisted the announcement come in the first 10 minutes. I would love to see what happens to the ratings during those last 50 minutes. Do you think anyone other than people in the city James decides to anoint are going to want to stick around to hear Stuart Scott lob softballs at him?
“LeBron, my man, just how tough has the last month been for you and your family?”
Of course ESPN isn’t the only guilty party in all this by a long shot. James has always had the classic star athlete’s massive ego, that’s hardly a scoop or a surprise, especially given the way he’s been treated since high school. I still remember the first time I saw him in person. It was at one of those high school all-star camps in New Jersey and even then he had an entourage worthy of Andre Agassi at his best/worst. Even then ESPN was already trying to make him into a marketable, larger-than-life star, putting his high school games on TV to cash in a little bit on his teen-age mystique but also to align itself with him since he was probably going to be a big star in the NBA.
Which he has been. At his best, the guy is absolutely brilliant. But because of the over-marketing and hype of the 21st century he has been built into more than he is. Yesterday, Mike Gastineau, one of the smart guys in sportstalk radio started a question by saying to me, “If the city of Cleveland loses the greatest player of all time…”
“STOP!” I screamed. “STOP!”
“Okay,” Mike said, “maybe he’ll BECOME the greatest player of all-time.”
“STOP!” I screamed again.
You see I’m not prepared to declare James the greatest player in the game NOW. Until James starts winning championships, Kobe Bryant has that title. I’m not 100 percent sure that, when healthy, Dwyane Wade isn’t at least in the conversation for number two. That’s an argument for another day as is the fact that James isn’t close to Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson right now. Don’t talk to me about skills or dunks, talk to me about making plays that win big games. Big games, for the record, don’t take place in February. Hey, when it really matters, I’d take Walt Frazier or Jerry West over James in a heartbeat. Julius Erving wasn’t bad either.
Of course that may change. He may grow into a champion. Jordan didn’t win a title until his seventh season and ended up with six.
For now though the issue is what we’ve had to watch for the past week. Forget the now ONE MILLION times we have heard the words, “From what I’m hearing James is…” Heck, before this is over he may announce he’s going to play for Cleveland STATE. He’s got eligibility left.
Honestly, I do not care where he plays. Unless he goes to Miami, I don’t think any of the teams he might play for next year will be better than the Lakers or for that matter the Celtics (if healthy) or the Magic. If I’m wrong, fine, good for James and his teammates—although my sense is if and when a James-led team does win a title it will be all about LeBron. Apparently that’s his view of the world.
We’re all guilty. Someone asked the other day if I was so sick of the LeBron hype why did I keep writing about him? Because, sadly, it’s a story, just like the whole tawdry Tiger Woods affair (the whole thing not the individual affairs) is a story. I like to go off the beaten path as much as anyone and more than most. But when people are asking you about something on a minute-to-minute basis and you can’t escape it whenever you turn on TV, radio, the internet or pick up a newspaper, you sort of have to write and/or talk about it.
But let’s understand what the story is: It’s the story of an athlete who, even by today’s standards, is breaking through new barriers of narcissism, aided by his sycophants (ESPN included); the media, the public and an NBA system that has always been about stars not about teams for as long as David Stern has run the league.
There’s an old saying that the truly great players care first about the name on the front of their uniform not the one on the back. It may well be that James will turn out to be that way next season: Part of his deal may be to put, “LeBron,” on the front of his new uniform.
But the whole thing is so comically out of control at this point it can’t be ignored. The last week has been an embarrassment to just about everyone involved and it will reach a crescendo of Saturday Night Live parody tonight during the one hour “special,” which is apparently being called, “The Decision.”
When President Obama makes a decision on what to do next in Afghanistan that will be worthy of capital letters and an hour of TV time. This is a basketball player, one who has won zero championships up until this moment, finally getting around to telling people where he’s going to play basketball the next few years.
Please-PLEASE—do not tell me for one second that any of this is excusable because James and company are going to throw a few dollars at Boys and Girls Clubs. He can write that check any day he wants to and ask Nike to match it and not put everyone through this ridiculous sideshow tonight. One funny note: Apparently ESPN, embarrassed by the notion that the first half of the show would be some kind of tribute to LeBron, has insisted the announcement come in the first 10 minutes. I would love to see what happens to the ratings during those last 50 minutes. Do you think anyone other than people in the city James decides to anoint are going to want to stick around to hear Stuart Scott lob softballs at him?
“LeBron, my man, just how tough has the last month been for you and your family?”
Of course ESPN isn’t the only guilty party in all this by a long shot. James has always had the classic star athlete’s massive ego, that’s hardly a scoop or a surprise, especially given the way he’s been treated since high school. I still remember the first time I saw him in person. It was at one of those high school all-star camps in New Jersey and even then he had an entourage worthy of Andre Agassi at his best/worst. Even then ESPN was already trying to make him into a marketable, larger-than-life star, putting his high school games on TV to cash in a little bit on his teen-age mystique but also to align itself with him since he was probably going to be a big star in the NBA.
Which he has been. At his best, the guy is absolutely brilliant. But because of the over-marketing and hype of the 21st century he has been built into more than he is. Yesterday, Mike Gastineau, one of the smart guys in sportstalk radio started a question by saying to me, “If the city of Cleveland loses the greatest player of all time…”
“STOP!” I screamed. “STOP!”
“Okay,” Mike said, “maybe he’ll BECOME the greatest player of all-time.”
“STOP!” I screamed again.
You see I’m not prepared to declare James the greatest player in the game NOW. Until James starts winning championships, Kobe Bryant has that title. I’m not 100 percent sure that, when healthy, Dwyane Wade isn’t at least in the conversation for number two. That’s an argument for another day as is the fact that James isn’t close to Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson right now. Don’t talk to me about skills or dunks, talk to me about making plays that win big games. Big games, for the record, don’t take place in February. Hey, when it really matters, I’d take Walt Frazier or Jerry West over James in a heartbeat. Julius Erving wasn’t bad either.
Of course that may change. He may grow into a champion. Jordan didn’t win a title until his seventh season and ended up with six.
For now though the issue is what we’ve had to watch for the past week. Forget the now ONE MILLION times we have heard the words, “From what I’m hearing James is…” Heck, before this is over he may announce he’s going to play for Cleveland STATE. He’s got eligibility left.
Honestly, I do not care where he plays. Unless he goes to Miami, I don’t think any of the teams he might play for next year will be better than the Lakers or for that matter the Celtics (if healthy) or the Magic. If I’m wrong, fine, good for James and his teammates—although my sense is if and when a James-led team does win a title it will be all about LeBron. Apparently that’s his view of the world.
We’re all guilty. Someone asked the other day if I was so sick of the LeBron hype why did I keep writing about him? Because, sadly, it’s a story, just like the whole tawdry Tiger Woods affair (the whole thing not the individual affairs) is a story. I like to go off the beaten path as much as anyone and more than most. But when people are asking you about something on a minute-to-minute basis and you can’t escape it whenever you turn on TV, radio, the internet or pick up a newspaper, you sort of have to write and/or talk about it.
But let’s understand what the story is: It’s the story of an athlete who, even by today’s standards, is breaking through new barriers of narcissism, aided by his sycophants (ESPN included); the media, the public and an NBA system that has always been about stars not about teams for as long as David Stern has run the league.
There’s an old saying that the truly great players care first about the name on the front of their uniform not the one on the back. It may well be that James will turn out to be that way next season: Part of his deal may be to put, “LeBron,” on the front of his new uniform.
Comments (6)
FIFA could be more of a mess than the NCAA – who knew?
Mon, Jun 28 2010 03:03
| Alexi Lalas, Sepp Blatter, soccer, FIFA, The World Cup, ESPN
| Permalink
I didn’t think it was possible but it may be that there is an organization in sports that is more of a mess than the NCAA. That organization would be FIFA—which if you don’t speak French stands for, “Federation Internationale de Football Association.”
In English I believe that translates into Absolute Joke.
As I’ve said before, I’m hardly a soccer expert but the number of blown calls—I don’t mean controversial calls, I mean BLOWN ones—in this World Cup has been completely ridiculous. It happened again twice on Sunday where the officials somehow missed a clear goal scored by England and a clear offsides on a goal scored by Argentina.
These were not the kind of errors where we needed to see the plays from 15 different angles and then thought, yes, there it is a mistake was made. These were, ‘Oh My God what were they thinking?’ screw-ups. In both games, the better team ended up winning the game but that begs the point. Upsets do happen, in fact upsets are what make us watch sports. If we all know that Germany and Argentina are going to win why bother to watch?
The fact that The English goal that was disallowed would have tied the score at 2-2 a few minutes before halftime after Germany had jumped to a 2-0 lead certainly gives one pause. The momentum would have had to be with the English at that point. Germany’s two second half goals that made the final score an embarrassing 4-1 were both scored on counterattacks that occurred with England pushing forward to try to get the equalizer. (How do you like that for soccer talk, huh?).
The Argentine goal that was allowed in spite of an obvious offsides is tougher to argue in terms of the outcome because Argentina appeared in control of the game at that stage.
But all of that entirely misses the point. FIFA’s response to all this is two-fold: “We don’t comment on calls on the field.” (Good thing, because the only reasonable comment it could make would be the same as yours and mine: OH MY GOD!). And, more important, FIFA sees no reason to go to replay.
Really? Are you completely insane?
Alexi Lalas, the former U.S. World Cupper who is now one of ESPN’s 47 soccer analysts, said repeatedly on Sunday that Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA, believes this sort of controversy is good for soccer because it gets more people talking about the game. Let’s examine that statement for a moment: If Lalas is to be believed, then Blatter thinks that totally botched calls are good for soccer. He believes that it’s a good thing that we will never know what might have happened had England tied the game (as it DID) 2-2. Maybe Germany wins 4-2 but we will never know. It’s a good thing, according to that way of thinking, to shortchange the players who work four years to prepare for The World Cup.
Blatter and his cohorts are also idiotic in their insistence that all games from the round of 16 on can be decided in a shootout if the game is tied after 120 minutes. To begin with, overtime should be sudden death. This isn’t basketball where teams score constantly. This is soccer where a goal is gold—thus the term golden goal in the old days for a sudden death overtime goal—and where a team that scores in overtime prior to the final should be able to go home and rest its legs.
What’s more, there’s magic in sudden victory and sudden death in all sports. That no longer exists in World Cup soccer.
Worse though is the notion of the shootout. As I’ve said before, you don’t decide the most important soccer games played every four years by NOT playing soccer. You play until someone scores and if it takes 250 minutes so be it. Sure, the winner will be exhausted but that’s the price you pay for not winning more quickly. Knowing you have to score to win would also changes strategy in overtime and cause teams to push up more knowing that they can’t just play for the shootout—which is Russian Roulette in shorts. At the very least there is NO excuse for allowing the final to be decided by a shootout.
Worst though is Blatter and cohorts insisting that replay should not be used at all. At the absolute minimum it should be used to decide goal/no-goal. How long would it have taken to decide if Frank Lampard’s goal for England was good on Sunday? About 15 seconds—if that. That call made Jim Joyce’s missed call at first base on the final out of Armando Galarraga’s imperfect game look too close to call.
At least Joyce said he blew it. At least Bud Selig said a mistake was made and more replay needed to be looked at by Major League Baseball. FIFA? Nothing. No comment from anyone. Who died and made Sepp Blatter the world’s last jock dictator?
If soccer wants to be taken seriously in this country two things must happen: The U.S. must continue to improve and not blow opportunities like the one it blew Saturday when it lost 2-1 to Ghana, missing out on a genuine opportunity to make the semifinals—Uruguay is good but beatable—for the first time since the first World Cup in 1930.
And second, you can’t have people sitting around talking about calls that are completely missed. Argentina dominated Mexico but the only real talk after the game was about the missed offsides call that led to one of the goals. It is NOT good for a sport when the focus is on the officials and not on the players. There are certain calls in every sport that can’t be fixed by replay.
In soccer, goal/no-goal almost always can be corrected if need be—and if it is too close to call, the ruling on the field stands—and a clear offsides that leads to a goal can also be corrected. There should also be postgame penalties when someone is clearly shown to have taken a dive if only to cut back on the acting going on.
Sunday was a disgrace on every possible level. The only thing worse than the calls was the reaction to the calls. If what Alexi Lalas says about Sepp Blatter is true, Blatter should be fired first and then locked in a room and forced to watch ‘Around The Horn,’ on a continuous loop for the next ten years.
Yes, he’s that bad.
---------
While some of the details are dated, on Washington Post Live on CSN Washington last week, John discussed with Ivan Carter and Barry Svrluga the World Cup and soccer's growth in the United States. Click to play the video below:
In English I believe that translates into Absolute Joke.
As I’ve said before, I’m hardly a soccer expert but the number of blown calls—I don’t mean controversial calls, I mean BLOWN ones—in this World Cup has been completely ridiculous. It happened again twice on Sunday where the officials somehow missed a clear goal scored by England and a clear offsides on a goal scored by Argentina.
These were not the kind of errors where we needed to see the plays from 15 different angles and then thought, yes, there it is a mistake was made. These were, ‘Oh My God what were they thinking?’ screw-ups. In both games, the better team ended up winning the game but that begs the point. Upsets do happen, in fact upsets are what make us watch sports. If we all know that Germany and Argentina are going to win why bother to watch?
The fact that The English goal that was disallowed would have tied the score at 2-2 a few minutes before halftime after Germany had jumped to a 2-0 lead certainly gives one pause. The momentum would have had to be with the English at that point. Germany’s two second half goals that made the final score an embarrassing 4-1 were both scored on counterattacks that occurred with England pushing forward to try to get the equalizer. (How do you like that for soccer talk, huh?).
The Argentine goal that was allowed in spite of an obvious offsides is tougher to argue in terms of the outcome because Argentina appeared in control of the game at that stage.
But all of that entirely misses the point. FIFA’s response to all this is two-fold: “We don’t comment on calls on the field.” (Good thing, because the only reasonable comment it could make would be the same as yours and mine: OH MY GOD!). And, more important, FIFA sees no reason to go to replay.
Really? Are you completely insane?
Alexi Lalas, the former U.S. World Cupper who is now one of ESPN’s 47 soccer analysts, said repeatedly on Sunday that Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA, believes this sort of controversy is good for soccer because it gets more people talking about the game. Let’s examine that statement for a moment: If Lalas is to be believed, then Blatter thinks that totally botched calls are good for soccer. He believes that it’s a good thing that we will never know what might have happened had England tied the game (as it DID) 2-2. Maybe Germany wins 4-2 but we will never know. It’s a good thing, according to that way of thinking, to shortchange the players who work four years to prepare for The World Cup.
Blatter and his cohorts are also idiotic in their insistence that all games from the round of 16 on can be decided in a shootout if the game is tied after 120 minutes. To begin with, overtime should be sudden death. This isn’t basketball where teams score constantly. This is soccer where a goal is gold—thus the term golden goal in the old days for a sudden death overtime goal—and where a team that scores in overtime prior to the final should be able to go home and rest its legs.
What’s more, there’s magic in sudden victory and sudden death in all sports. That no longer exists in World Cup soccer.
Worse though is the notion of the shootout. As I’ve said before, you don’t decide the most important soccer games played every four years by NOT playing soccer. You play until someone scores and if it takes 250 minutes so be it. Sure, the winner will be exhausted but that’s the price you pay for not winning more quickly. Knowing you have to score to win would also changes strategy in overtime and cause teams to push up more knowing that they can’t just play for the shootout—which is Russian Roulette in shorts. At the very least there is NO excuse for allowing the final to be decided by a shootout.
Worst though is Blatter and cohorts insisting that replay should not be used at all. At the absolute minimum it should be used to decide goal/no-goal. How long would it have taken to decide if Frank Lampard’s goal for England was good on Sunday? About 15 seconds—if that. That call made Jim Joyce’s missed call at first base on the final out of Armando Galarraga’s imperfect game look too close to call.
At least Joyce said he blew it. At least Bud Selig said a mistake was made and more replay needed to be looked at by Major League Baseball. FIFA? Nothing. No comment from anyone. Who died and made Sepp Blatter the world’s last jock dictator?
If soccer wants to be taken seriously in this country two things must happen: The U.S. must continue to improve and not blow opportunities like the one it blew Saturday when it lost 2-1 to Ghana, missing out on a genuine opportunity to make the semifinals—Uruguay is good but beatable—for the first time since the first World Cup in 1930.
And second, you can’t have people sitting around talking about calls that are completely missed. Argentina dominated Mexico but the only real talk after the game was about the missed offsides call that led to one of the goals. It is NOT good for a sport when the focus is on the officials and not on the players. There are certain calls in every sport that can’t be fixed by replay.
In soccer, goal/no-goal almost always can be corrected if need be—and if it is too close to call, the ruling on the field stands—and a clear offsides that leads to a goal can also be corrected. There should also be postgame penalties when someone is clearly shown to have taken a dive if only to cut back on the acting going on.
Sunday was a disgrace on every possible level. The only thing worse than the calls was the reaction to the calls. If what Alexi Lalas says about Sepp Blatter is true, Blatter should be fired first and then locked in a room and forced to watch ‘Around The Horn,’ on a continuous loop for the next ten years.
Yes, he’s that bad.
---------
While some of the details are dated, on Washington Post Live on CSN Washington last week, John discussed with Ivan Carter and Barry Svrluga the World Cup and soccer's growth in the United States. Click to play the video below:
Comments (14)
World Cup fever; Soccer is solid niche sport with bursts of popularity
Thu, Jun 24 2010 10:34
| Pele, Johan Cruyff, soccer, The World Cup, MLS, ESPN
| Permalink
So now we have World Cup fever. Sort of.
There’s always a buzz when the United States is doing well in an international event—especially if it is on television and there’s no doubt this World Cup is on TV—non-stop. My friend Sally Jenkins wrote a column about being in a New York bar yesterday morning and the electricity inside when Landon Donovan scored the goal that saved the U.S. from being eliminated after an embarrassing 0-0 tie with Algeria. Instead, the Americans escaped with a 1-0 victory to reach the knockout round where it will play Ghana on Saturday in a very winnable game.
That’s all good. With ESPN’s non-stop promotion of the event during the last year and with the U.S. team managing to make it this far, there will be tremendous focus on soccer the next couple of weeks. There’s even a chance the U.S. could reach the semifinals to play one of the world’s true powerhouse teams. A win over Ghana would lead to a game with Uruguay or S Korea, both good teams but not in the same class with Argentina, Germany, Brazil—the teams that (along with defending champion Italy, which is struggling) usually dominate international play.
So, it is a day for U.S. soccer fanatics to celebrate. As I’ve said before, I like soccer and I love the electricity of The World Cup. I’ve covered soccer, back in my early days at The Post. I would never claim to be an expert on the game, but I like it and I’ve liked most of the people I’ve encountered through the years. Just a couple of weeks ago I ran into D.C. United Coach Tom Sohn and his assistant Ben Olsen at a TV studio and they patiently explained to me why the U.S. had a very good chance to win or tie in its opening game against England.
Having said all that, soccer is going to remain a niche sport in this country unless—and even then it isn’t guaranteed—the U.S. wins the World Cup. The closest we’ve ever come was a third place finish in 1930 and there aren’t too many folks around with memories of that occasion. In fact, from 1934 to 1986 the U.S. team didn’t even make it to the World Cup tournament. Since then expansion to 32 teams, being named the host team (1994, which gives you an automatic berth) and improvement in U.S. soccer have allowed us to at least make the tournament the last six times it has been played.
In 1994, playing at home, the U.S. reached the round of 16. In 2002 it got to the quarterfinals. If it could reach the semifinals, there’s no question TV ratings would be as high as they’ve ever been for soccer and, with all the ESPN hype, there would be as much talk about it as there has ever been. Some of that will carry over, no doubt, but it doesn’t mean attendance at MLS games is going to suddenly double or TV ratings will triple. One thing soccer people have always had trouble doing is understanding that, YES, soccer is the world’s sport but NO, it is not the United States’ sport. Even with all the ESPN hype it is worth nothing the U.S.-England game didn’t get nearly the rating the four letter people had been projecting.
Football—American football—is our number one sport and that isn’t going to change. Baseball and basketball come next and then there’s hockey and golf and once there used to be tennis. Soccer is always going to fit somewhere in that second tier, moving up or down depending on circumstances. This is certainly a chance for it to move up.
Some history here: When I covered the North American Soccer League in the late 1970s, the Cosmos were a true phenomenon. They had brought Pele here and followed that by bringing genuine international stars like Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia to their team. They drew huge crowds in Giants Stadium on a consistent basis. The Washington Diplomats traded for Johan Cruyff, who had arguably been the No. 2 player in the world behind Pele in the early 1970s, and even the Dips drew well in RFK Stadium—averaging more fans in 1980 than D.C. United averages now, including a crowd of more than 53,000 one Sunday afternoon for a game against the Cosmos.
“Soccer—the sport of the 80s,”—that was the NASL’s slogan. Then Pele retired, the league over-expanded and by the mid-80s, the NASL was completely gone, one of the great league collapses in sports history. It wasn’t until after the 1994 World Cup that MLS was launched and, even then, it was done so with the notion that salaries would be modest and the pursuit of big-money superstars would be controlled. For most of the first 10 years that’s exactly what the league did. The big experiment—bringing in David Beckham, created buzz for a while until everyone realized Beckham couldn’t play anymore, even on those days when he did limp onto the field.
In 1999, the U.S. women’s soccer team created great interest—why?—because it was WINNING and because some of the players were extremely attractive. Most people forget the U.S. and China played to an incredibly dull 0-0 tie in that World Cup final and remember Brandi Chastain ripping off her shirt after scoring the winning goal in the shootout. (Seriously soccer fans how can you hope to have your sport taken really seriously if you continue to decide World Cup knockout games in shootouts? It’s the equivalent of deciding postseason baseball games with a home run Derby; postseason football with a field goal kicking contest or a major golf tournament with a chip-off. Ridiculous. You have to play to a real soccer result).
After that U.S. victory, women’s soccer was going to be the next big thing. I remember a dopey New York publishing guy named David Hirshey going on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show saying there was going to be an “explosion,” in women’s soccer (the fact that he was publishing a women’s soccer book may have influenced him). So a league was launched and it failed in a couple of years and now there’s another league where they play mostly in high school stadiums in front of crowds of maybe 5,000.
You see there is NOTHING wrong with being a solid niche sport that has an occasional burst like the one going on now. Hockey isn’t that much different: People were riveted by the Olympics this year and ratings DID go up during the Stanley Cup playoffs but nowhere close to what the big three get in ratings in postseason—or for that matter what the NFL gets for a routine Sunday afternoon.
So, soccer fans, enjoy these next couple of weeks. Maybe the U.S. will pull off a Miracle on Turf. More likely it might reach the semis, which would be a fabulous achievement. People WILL be paying attention and will be talking about it. But don’t be disappointed or rant and rave when normalcy returns and crowds of 15,000 show up at MLS games and the TV ratings are in the 1’s and 2’s again. Actually, that’s progress and it’s okay.
Just don’t think soccer is going to be the sport of the teens. The last group that made that mistake was the NASL and we all know how that turned out.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
There’s always a buzz when the United States is doing well in an international event—especially if it is on television and there’s no doubt this World Cup is on TV—non-stop. My friend Sally Jenkins wrote a column about being in a New York bar yesterday morning and the electricity inside when Landon Donovan scored the goal that saved the U.S. from being eliminated after an embarrassing 0-0 tie with Algeria. Instead, the Americans escaped with a 1-0 victory to reach the knockout round where it will play Ghana on Saturday in a very winnable game.
That’s all good. With ESPN’s non-stop promotion of the event during the last year and with the U.S. team managing to make it this far, there will be tremendous focus on soccer the next couple of weeks. There’s even a chance the U.S. could reach the semifinals to play one of the world’s true powerhouse teams. A win over Ghana would lead to a game with Uruguay or S Korea, both good teams but not in the same class with Argentina, Germany, Brazil—the teams that (along with defending champion Italy, which is struggling) usually dominate international play.
So, it is a day for U.S. soccer fanatics to celebrate. As I’ve said before, I like soccer and I love the electricity of The World Cup. I’ve covered soccer, back in my early days at The Post. I would never claim to be an expert on the game, but I like it and I’ve liked most of the people I’ve encountered through the years. Just a couple of weeks ago I ran into D.C. United Coach Tom Sohn and his assistant Ben Olsen at a TV studio and they patiently explained to me why the U.S. had a very good chance to win or tie in its opening game against England.
Having said all that, soccer is going to remain a niche sport in this country unless—and even then it isn’t guaranteed—the U.S. wins the World Cup. The closest we’ve ever come was a third place finish in 1930 and there aren’t too many folks around with memories of that occasion. In fact, from 1934 to 1986 the U.S. team didn’t even make it to the World Cup tournament. Since then expansion to 32 teams, being named the host team (1994, which gives you an automatic berth) and improvement in U.S. soccer have allowed us to at least make the tournament the last six times it has been played.
In 1994, playing at home, the U.S. reached the round of 16. In 2002 it got to the quarterfinals. If it could reach the semifinals, there’s no question TV ratings would be as high as they’ve ever been for soccer and, with all the ESPN hype, there would be as much talk about it as there has ever been. Some of that will carry over, no doubt, but it doesn’t mean attendance at MLS games is going to suddenly double or TV ratings will triple. One thing soccer people have always had trouble doing is understanding that, YES, soccer is the world’s sport but NO, it is not the United States’ sport. Even with all the ESPN hype it is worth nothing the U.S.-England game didn’t get nearly the rating the four letter people had been projecting.
Football—American football—is our number one sport and that isn’t going to change. Baseball and basketball come next and then there’s hockey and golf and once there used to be tennis. Soccer is always going to fit somewhere in that second tier, moving up or down depending on circumstances. This is certainly a chance for it to move up.
Some history here: When I covered the North American Soccer League in the late 1970s, the Cosmos were a true phenomenon. They had brought Pele here and followed that by bringing genuine international stars like Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia to their team. They drew huge crowds in Giants Stadium on a consistent basis. The Washington Diplomats traded for Johan Cruyff, who had arguably been the No. 2 player in the world behind Pele in the early 1970s, and even the Dips drew well in RFK Stadium—averaging more fans in 1980 than D.C. United averages now, including a crowd of more than 53,000 one Sunday afternoon for a game against the Cosmos.
“Soccer—the sport of the 80s,”—that was the NASL’s slogan. Then Pele retired, the league over-expanded and by the mid-80s, the NASL was completely gone, one of the great league collapses in sports history. It wasn’t until after the 1994 World Cup that MLS was launched and, even then, it was done so with the notion that salaries would be modest and the pursuit of big-money superstars would be controlled. For most of the first 10 years that’s exactly what the league did. The big experiment—bringing in David Beckham, created buzz for a while until everyone realized Beckham couldn’t play anymore, even on those days when he did limp onto the field.
In 1999, the U.S. women’s soccer team created great interest—why?—because it was WINNING and because some of the players were extremely attractive. Most people forget the U.S. and China played to an incredibly dull 0-0 tie in that World Cup final and remember Brandi Chastain ripping off her shirt after scoring the winning goal in the shootout. (Seriously soccer fans how can you hope to have your sport taken really seriously if you continue to decide World Cup knockout games in shootouts? It’s the equivalent of deciding postseason baseball games with a home run Derby; postseason football with a field goal kicking contest or a major golf tournament with a chip-off. Ridiculous. You have to play to a real soccer result).
After that U.S. victory, women’s soccer was going to be the next big thing. I remember a dopey New York publishing guy named David Hirshey going on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show saying there was going to be an “explosion,” in women’s soccer (the fact that he was publishing a women’s soccer book may have influenced him). So a league was launched and it failed in a couple of years and now there’s another league where they play mostly in high school stadiums in front of crowds of maybe 5,000.
You see there is NOTHING wrong with being a solid niche sport that has an occasional burst like the one going on now. Hockey isn’t that much different: People were riveted by the Olympics this year and ratings DID go up during the Stanley Cup playoffs but nowhere close to what the big three get in ratings in postseason—or for that matter what the NFL gets for a routine Sunday afternoon.
So, soccer fans, enjoy these next couple of weeks. Maybe the U.S. will pull off a Miracle on Turf. More likely it might reach the semis, which would be a fabulous achievement. People WILL be paying attention and will be talking about it. But don’t be disappointed or rant and rave when normalcy returns and crowds of 15,000 show up at MLS games and the TV ratings are in the 1’s and 2’s again. Actually, that’s progress and it’s okay.
Just don’t think soccer is going to be the sport of the teens. The last group that made that mistake was the NASL and we all know how that turned out.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Comments (10)
Positive feelings about Golf Channel documentary 'Caddy For Life'; book to movie process
Tue, Jun 15 2010 12:08
| Tom Watson, Steve Ciplione, The Bruce Edwards Foundation, Bruce Edwards, The Golf Channel, Stage Three Productions, Ron Shelton, Matt Damon, Kelly Ryan, Keith Allo, ESPN
| Permalink
Since I’m scheduled to fly to Pebble Beach first thing Tuesday morning—and dreading the trip given my complete hatred of the entire flying experience—I’m writing this on Monday night just prior to Golf Channel’s airing of the documentary based on, “Caddy For Life.”
I can honestly say I’m very proud of the documentary and I hope if you did not watch it Monday night you will watch one of the re-airs that will occur periodically throughout this week.
When Keith Allo from Golf Channel first contacted me last summer about the notion of turning ‘Caddy,’ into a documentary I was pleased—and skeptical. The experiences I have had with my books becoming—or not becoming—movies has been checkered to say the least.
Many of you know that “A Season on the Brink,” did become a movie. The general consensus is that it was one of the five worst movies ever made. I would rank it number one on that list but then I’m biased. I had no control at all when that movie was made. It’s a long story not worth rehashing in detail here but the synopsis is that a long-forgotten guy named Mark Shapiro (unless you are a big follower of bankrupt theme parks) was trying to blackmail me into doing things for ESPN I had no interest in doing. When I refused to be blackmailed he did two things: ordered Joe Valerio, the executive producer of The Sports Reporters to stop using me on the show and put out the word that NO ONE was to allow me to see the script of ‘Season.’
Of course I did see the script in advance and knew it was God-awful. ESPN hired a distinguished screenwriter who, sadly, knew nothing about basketball to write the script and he produced a cartoon. The funny part of the story was when critics savaged the movie, I dropped Shapiro a note saying that it didn’t need to have turned out the way it did except for his massive ego. (Pause here to note my ego’s pretty big but I was never in this guy’s ballpark). He wrote me back—I still have the e-mail—saying the reason the reviews were so bad was because I had ripped the movie publicly.
If only I had that kind of power the world would be a much better place.
Flash forward: There have been a number of false starts with other books, but none ever made it to a screen. In one case I’m grateful because I read a script sent to me by a movie company that optioned, “Last Shot,” that was so bad it actually had the potential to be worse than ‘Season on the Brink.’
It has always been my belief that I’ve written two books that had the potential to be truly compelling movies. One is ‘A Civil War,’ the book I wrote about the Army-Navy football rivalry. There’s been interest in it at times but it has never gone anywhere. Years ago I sent a copy of the book to Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup among others) who I respect as much as anyone in Hollywood—not that I know that many people in Hollywood. I’d met Shelton and gotten to know him a little when he was on the golf tour doing research for Tin Cup. He called me and said, “This is a great book but it’ll never be made into a movie.”
“Why not?”
“Because Leonardo DiCaprio can’t play one of the players. Maybe if you could cast him as a waterboy you’d have a shot. You need STARS to get a movie like this made and there’s not star in Hollywood who can legitimately play a college football player.”
I thought Shelton was stretching the theory but that was ten years ago and the movie hasn’t been made. Maybe I can get The Jonas Brothers to play college football players? My daughter would watch.
The other book I thought was a natural for a movie was, ‘Caddy For Life.’ When Bruce Edwards first asked me to write the book in 2003 shortly after he was diagnosed with ALS it never occurred to me that it was that kind of story. But spending that year with him, seeing his remarkable courage up close and the amazing resilience and loyalty of his family, his wife Marsha and his pal Tom Watson, I came to believe the book was going to be made into a movie.
This time Shelton agreed with me. He thought a big star would want to play Bruce—maybe even his buddy Kevin Costner—and that Gary Sinise would be perfect to play Watson. A number of producers were interested in optioning the book as soon as it came out. For the record, getting a book optioned is one step in a journey of a thousand miles towards getting a movie made. When you read in the publicity notes for a book that it has been “optioned to be a major motion picture,” 99 times out of 100 the movie will never get made. I have now had, I think, eight books optioned.
This is the first time I’ve felt good about the end result. With the help of my friend Terry Hanson, ‘Caddy,’ did get optioned eventually by a production company called, “Live Planet,” that was owned in part by Matt Damon. He was (is) a big golf fan. He planned to be co-executive producer on the film. We interviewed screenwriters and chose David Himmelstein who wrote a superb script. ABC loved the script and green-lighted it (that’s Hollywood talk) with one caveat: They needed to wait until the end of the year (2007 I think) to get their budget from Disney. The plan was to get my old friends at ESPN to pay some of the costs from their movie budget since the first run would be on ABC and then the movie would be re-run a bazillion times on ESPN.
The ESPN people, in spite of my involvement, said they loved the script. The New Year arrived. We got a call from the people at ABC. There was a problem: Because ESPN’s movies had been so BAD—starting with, you guessed it, ‘Season on the Brink,’ their movie budget had been slashed to close to nothing by Disney. Without the ESPN money, ABC Entertainment didn’t have the dollars to make the movie.
End of story.
Until the phone call from Allo. Golf Channel wanted to make a documentary and they wanted to make it right. They wanted to start by making a large contribution to The Bruce Edwards Foundation, the organization I’d started in 2005 to raise money for ALS—with HUGE help from Watson and The Edwards Family. They understood that the script had to work for me but more important as far as I was concerned for the family and for Watson. They wanted me to be co-executive producer and do most of the on-camera interviews.
They were as good as their word on all of it. Stage Three Productions in Philadelphia was hired to actually produce the documentary and the people there, led by Steve Ciplione and Kelly Ryan did, I think, a masterful job. If this reads like a press release, sorry. This is the first time I have seen one of my books on a screen somewhere and felt really good about it.
Bruce was an extraordinary person and his relationship with Tom was a remarkable story about two men who were, as their pal Neil Oxman so eloquently put it in the book, “closer than brothers.”
I hope you watch. I will be surprised and disappointed if it doesn't make you cry.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
I can honestly say I’m very proud of the documentary and I hope if you did not watch it Monday night you will watch one of the re-airs that will occur periodically throughout this week.
When Keith Allo from Golf Channel first contacted me last summer about the notion of turning ‘Caddy,’ into a documentary I was pleased—and skeptical. The experiences I have had with my books becoming—or not becoming—movies has been checkered to say the least.
Many of you know that “A Season on the Brink,” did become a movie. The general consensus is that it was one of the five worst movies ever made. I would rank it number one on that list but then I’m biased. I had no control at all when that movie was made. It’s a long story not worth rehashing in detail here but the synopsis is that a long-forgotten guy named Mark Shapiro (unless you are a big follower of bankrupt theme parks) was trying to blackmail me into doing things for ESPN I had no interest in doing. When I refused to be blackmailed he did two things: ordered Joe Valerio, the executive producer of The Sports Reporters to stop using me on the show and put out the word that NO ONE was to allow me to see the script of ‘Season.’
Of course I did see the script in advance and knew it was God-awful. ESPN hired a distinguished screenwriter who, sadly, knew nothing about basketball to write the script and he produced a cartoon. The funny part of the story was when critics savaged the movie, I dropped Shapiro a note saying that it didn’t need to have turned out the way it did except for his massive ego. (Pause here to note my ego’s pretty big but I was never in this guy’s ballpark). He wrote me back—I still have the e-mail—saying the reason the reviews were so bad was because I had ripped the movie publicly.
If only I had that kind of power the world would be a much better place.
Flash forward: There have been a number of false starts with other books, but none ever made it to a screen. In one case I’m grateful because I read a script sent to me by a movie company that optioned, “Last Shot,” that was so bad it actually had the potential to be worse than ‘Season on the Brink.’
It has always been my belief that I’ve written two books that had the potential to be truly compelling movies. One is ‘A Civil War,’ the book I wrote about the Army-Navy football rivalry. There’s been interest in it at times but it has never gone anywhere. Years ago I sent a copy of the book to Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup among others) who I respect as much as anyone in Hollywood—not that I know that many people in Hollywood. I’d met Shelton and gotten to know him a little when he was on the golf tour doing research for Tin Cup. He called me and said, “This is a great book but it’ll never be made into a movie.”
“Why not?”
“Because Leonardo DiCaprio can’t play one of the players. Maybe if you could cast him as a waterboy you’d have a shot. You need STARS to get a movie like this made and there’s not star in Hollywood who can legitimately play a college football player.”
I thought Shelton was stretching the theory but that was ten years ago and the movie hasn’t been made. Maybe I can get The Jonas Brothers to play college football players? My daughter would watch.
The other book I thought was a natural for a movie was, ‘Caddy For Life.’ When Bruce Edwards first asked me to write the book in 2003 shortly after he was diagnosed with ALS it never occurred to me that it was that kind of story. But spending that year with him, seeing his remarkable courage up close and the amazing resilience and loyalty of his family, his wife Marsha and his pal Tom Watson, I came to believe the book was going to be made into a movie.
This time Shelton agreed with me. He thought a big star would want to play Bruce—maybe even his buddy Kevin Costner—and that Gary Sinise would be perfect to play Watson. A number of producers were interested in optioning the book as soon as it came out. For the record, getting a book optioned is one step in a journey of a thousand miles towards getting a movie made. When you read in the publicity notes for a book that it has been “optioned to be a major motion picture,” 99 times out of 100 the movie will never get made. I have now had, I think, eight books optioned.
This is the first time I’ve felt good about the end result. With the help of my friend Terry Hanson, ‘Caddy,’ did get optioned eventually by a production company called, “Live Planet,” that was owned in part by Matt Damon. He was (is) a big golf fan. He planned to be co-executive producer on the film. We interviewed screenwriters and chose David Himmelstein who wrote a superb script. ABC loved the script and green-lighted it (that’s Hollywood talk) with one caveat: They needed to wait until the end of the year (2007 I think) to get their budget from Disney. The plan was to get my old friends at ESPN to pay some of the costs from their movie budget since the first run would be on ABC and then the movie would be re-run a bazillion times on ESPN.
The ESPN people, in spite of my involvement, said they loved the script. The New Year arrived. We got a call from the people at ABC. There was a problem: Because ESPN’s movies had been so BAD—starting with, you guessed it, ‘Season on the Brink,’ their movie budget had been slashed to close to nothing by Disney. Without the ESPN money, ABC Entertainment didn’t have the dollars to make the movie.
End of story.
Until the phone call from Allo. Golf Channel wanted to make a documentary and they wanted to make it right. They wanted to start by making a large contribution to The Bruce Edwards Foundation, the organization I’d started in 2005 to raise money for ALS—with HUGE help from Watson and The Edwards Family. They understood that the script had to work for me but more important as far as I was concerned for the family and for Watson. They wanted me to be co-executive producer and do most of the on-camera interviews.
They were as good as their word on all of it. Stage Three Productions in Philadelphia was hired to actually produce the documentary and the people there, led by Steve Ciplione and Kelly Ryan did, I think, a masterful job. If this reads like a press release, sorry. This is the first time I have seen one of my books on a screen somewhere and felt really good about it.
Bruce was an extraordinary person and his relationship with Tom was a remarkable story about two men who were, as their pal Neil Oxman so eloquently put it in the book, “closer than brothers.”
I hope you watch. I will be surprised and disappointed if it doesn't make you cry.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Comments (11)
Wall and Arenas together? Wizards have options; Kobe great, but not in same sentence with Jordan
Wed, May 19 2010 10:23
| John Calipari, NBA, Kobe Bryant, Gilbert Arenas, Michael Jordan, Washington Wizards, John Wall, ESPN
| Permalink
Let’s give the NBA this much: The league has a certain flair for the dramatic. I mean seriously, did anyone think the New Jersey Nets and their new Russian multi-billionaire owner were going to get the first pick in the draft lottery last night?
Did anyone really think the league was going to turn away Irene Pollin, the widow of long-time Washington Bullets/Wizards Abe Pollin as she stood there wearing her husband’s 1978 NBA championship ring and give the top pick to the towering, scowling Mikhail Prokhorov? No way. Maybe if Prokhorov had sent one of the Russian tennis players/super models to represent him he might have had a shot.
No, I’m not one of those conspiracy nut jobs who thinks the first lottery in 1985 was fixed so that the Knicks would get Patrick Ewing. (It was awfully convenient for the league though wasn’t it?). And no, I don’t think David Stern ordered that the ping-pong balls bounce the Wizards way on Tuesday night. I just knew the Nets and Prokhorov weren’t getting the pick. Maybe it was just the odds—which were three-to-one against the Nets in spite of their 12-70 record. Forget about checking the ping pong balls, re-check the system.
All that said, what exactly did the Wizards win? According to ESPN, they won John Wall—no ifs, ands or buts. Within seconds of the Wizards being awarded the top pick, ESPN was on a satellite hook-up with Wall asking him what he was going to do next season to fit in with Washington.
Does ESPN now do the actual drafting for teams? Has the network informed Ted Leonsis, the new owner and Ernie Grunfeld, the current general manager, that the team is taking Wall? The interview with Wall was conducted from his home in California—at least that’s what I thought Mark Jones said—so I guess he’s taking a break from his post-graduate studies at Kentucky (if you listen to John Calipari talk Wall must be on the verge of getting his Masters and his PhD).
Here’s my question: Do the Wizards really want to draft Wall—ESPN’s expertise notwithstanding? Gilbert Arenas is still on the roster and he’s still owed $80 million by the team. IF the Wizards can convince someone to take Arenas, his contract, his guns and his baggage, then I would absolutely take Wall, who has unlimited potential at what I still think is the most important position in the game—even at the NBA level.
But Wall and Arenas together? Is the NBA going to pass a rule allowing teams to use two basketballs? There are some people who think Arenas can play the two-guard spot fulltime because he shoots the ball well enough to play there. Really? Have you been around the guy the last few years? Do you think he’s going to move without the basketball and hope the guy with the ball (Wall) decides to find him? I don’t think so. And who is he going to guard?
Time will tell of course. The Wizards have options now, thanks to Mrs. Pollin and the anti-Prokhorov karma that went on last night. Maybe they can trade down, get a starter from someone AND a high pick. They gutted their roster after the whole Arenas guns debacle this past season so there shouldn’t be anyone on the team who is untouchable. Leonsis has to decide whether he wants to keep Grunfeld around and then let him go to work. If he’s going to fire Grunfeld he needs to do it NOW, not after the draft. This is a critical time for a long woebegone franchise and, now that they have won the lottery, they can’t afford to go down the Kwame Brown road they went down nine years ago.
On the subject of the playoffs: You have to be impressed with the Celtics and, to be honest, unimpressed with the Magic. Orlando handled the end-game last night like a team that had never been in a close game. There were too many mistakes to count, topped by J.J. Redick’s mind-block with the basketball on the last possession. I can hear the, ‘not very smart for a Duke guy,’ jokes coming out of Chapel Hill and College Park right now.
Those jokes would be accurate.
The only thing that would come close to a LeBron-Kobe Finals for the league would be Celtics-Lakers, maybe the only NBA matchup left in which the TEAMS are as significant to the plot as the superstars. The Celtics don’t have a superstar, just four very good players, which may be why they’ve become so tough to beat. That and the fact that they’re all smart enough to know that this is probably the last roundup, that they aren’t likely to be this healthy this late in the season again anytime soon.
The Lakers of course, have Kobe Bryant and I keep hearing people ask if he belongs in the same sentence as Michael Jordan if the Lakers win and he gets a fifth championship ring. The answer is simple: NO. Bryant’s a great player, certainly a better, tougher and more clutch player right now than LeBron James, but let’s not get carried away. I will say this one more time: There was ONE Jordan. All these comparisons get out of hand. I still remember years ago hearing a TV announcer who will go un-named (but you can look at him live) compare North Carolina freshman guard Jeff Lebo to Jerry West. Seriously.
Let’s get over that. Championship rings ARE important in terms of measuring a superstar but they aren’t the be all and end all. If they were, Robert Horry and Steve Kerr would be Hall-of-Famers. So, if Kobe does win a fifth ring, more power to him and let’s move him up another notch in the category of special players.
But in the same sentence with Jordan? No.
Here’s the list of players who can be put in the same sentence with Jordan, regardless of position: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson. I’m not saying any are better, I’m just saying you can put them in the same breath with Jordan and maybe—MAYBE—make the argument they were as valuable or more valuable at the peak of their skills.
And, in case you’re interested, there’s NO ONE in this year’s draft who is going to end up in that sentence. That doesn’t mean there aren’t very good players but those guys are once-in-a-generation, not once a year.
*******
One thing about yesterday’s blog: I didn’t want to imply there is NO good sports talk anywhere in the country. Someone mentioned Ralph Barbieri and Tom Tolbert in San Francisco—yup, good radio guys and good interviewers. My pal Mike Gastineau in Seattle is also very good and, yes, his colleague Mitch Levy who is on mornings on KJR is a very good interviewer. Mitch just happens to have an ego that makes mine look non-existent and doesn’t know the difference between funny and insulting. Tony Kornheiser is obviously unique and also my friend as everyone knows. And Mark Patrick in Indianapolis, whose son happens to be new Nationals relief pitcher Drew Storen, also does very good and very smart work. Chris Myers does a long-form interview show on Fox sports radio that’s also an excellent listen. There are others I know I’m leaving out but those guys come to mind quickly.
--------------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:
Did anyone really think the league was going to turn away Irene Pollin, the widow of long-time Washington Bullets/Wizards Abe Pollin as she stood there wearing her husband’s 1978 NBA championship ring and give the top pick to the towering, scowling Mikhail Prokhorov? No way. Maybe if Prokhorov had sent one of the Russian tennis players/super models to represent him he might have had a shot.
No, I’m not one of those conspiracy nut jobs who thinks the first lottery in 1985 was fixed so that the Knicks would get Patrick Ewing. (It was awfully convenient for the league though wasn’t it?). And no, I don’t think David Stern ordered that the ping-pong balls bounce the Wizards way on Tuesday night. I just knew the Nets and Prokhorov weren’t getting the pick. Maybe it was just the odds—which were three-to-one against the Nets in spite of their 12-70 record. Forget about checking the ping pong balls, re-check the system.
All that said, what exactly did the Wizards win? According to ESPN, they won John Wall—no ifs, ands or buts. Within seconds of the Wizards being awarded the top pick, ESPN was on a satellite hook-up with Wall asking him what he was going to do next season to fit in with Washington.
Does ESPN now do the actual drafting for teams? Has the network informed Ted Leonsis, the new owner and Ernie Grunfeld, the current general manager, that the team is taking Wall? The interview with Wall was conducted from his home in California—at least that’s what I thought Mark Jones said—so I guess he’s taking a break from his post-graduate studies at Kentucky (if you listen to John Calipari talk Wall must be on the verge of getting his Masters and his PhD).
Here’s my question: Do the Wizards really want to draft Wall—ESPN’s expertise notwithstanding? Gilbert Arenas is still on the roster and he’s still owed $80 million by the team. IF the Wizards can convince someone to take Arenas, his contract, his guns and his baggage, then I would absolutely take Wall, who has unlimited potential at what I still think is the most important position in the game—even at the NBA level.
But Wall and Arenas together? Is the NBA going to pass a rule allowing teams to use two basketballs? There are some people who think Arenas can play the two-guard spot fulltime because he shoots the ball well enough to play there. Really? Have you been around the guy the last few years? Do you think he’s going to move without the basketball and hope the guy with the ball (Wall) decides to find him? I don’t think so. And who is he going to guard?
Time will tell of course. The Wizards have options now, thanks to Mrs. Pollin and the anti-Prokhorov karma that went on last night. Maybe they can trade down, get a starter from someone AND a high pick. They gutted their roster after the whole Arenas guns debacle this past season so there shouldn’t be anyone on the team who is untouchable. Leonsis has to decide whether he wants to keep Grunfeld around and then let him go to work. If he’s going to fire Grunfeld he needs to do it NOW, not after the draft. This is a critical time for a long woebegone franchise and, now that they have won the lottery, they can’t afford to go down the Kwame Brown road they went down nine years ago.
On the subject of the playoffs: You have to be impressed with the Celtics and, to be honest, unimpressed with the Magic. Orlando handled the end-game last night like a team that had never been in a close game. There were too many mistakes to count, topped by J.J. Redick’s mind-block with the basketball on the last possession. I can hear the, ‘not very smart for a Duke guy,’ jokes coming out of Chapel Hill and College Park right now.
Those jokes would be accurate.
The only thing that would come close to a LeBron-Kobe Finals for the league would be Celtics-Lakers, maybe the only NBA matchup left in which the TEAMS are as significant to the plot as the superstars. The Celtics don’t have a superstar, just four very good players, which may be why they’ve become so tough to beat. That and the fact that they’re all smart enough to know that this is probably the last roundup, that they aren’t likely to be this healthy this late in the season again anytime soon.
The Lakers of course, have Kobe Bryant and I keep hearing people ask if he belongs in the same sentence as Michael Jordan if the Lakers win and he gets a fifth championship ring. The answer is simple: NO. Bryant’s a great player, certainly a better, tougher and more clutch player right now than LeBron James, but let’s not get carried away. I will say this one more time: There was ONE Jordan. All these comparisons get out of hand. I still remember years ago hearing a TV announcer who will go un-named (but you can look at him live) compare North Carolina freshman guard Jeff Lebo to Jerry West. Seriously.
Let’s get over that. Championship rings ARE important in terms of measuring a superstar but they aren’t the be all and end all. If they were, Robert Horry and Steve Kerr would be Hall-of-Famers. So, if Kobe does win a fifth ring, more power to him and let’s move him up another notch in the category of special players.
But in the same sentence with Jordan? No.
Here’s the list of players who can be put in the same sentence with Jordan, regardless of position: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson. I’m not saying any are better, I’m just saying you can put them in the same breath with Jordan and maybe—MAYBE—make the argument they were as valuable or more valuable at the peak of their skills.
And, in case you’re interested, there’s NO ONE in this year’s draft who is going to end up in that sentence. That doesn’t mean there aren’t very good players but those guys are once-in-a-generation, not once a year.
*******
One thing about yesterday’s blog: I didn’t want to imply there is NO good sports talk anywhere in the country. Someone mentioned Ralph Barbieri and Tom Tolbert in San Francisco—yup, good radio guys and good interviewers. My pal Mike Gastineau in Seattle is also very good and, yes, his colleague Mitch Levy who is on mornings on KJR is a very good interviewer. Mitch just happens to have an ego that makes mine look non-existent and doesn’t know the difference between funny and insulting. Tony Kornheiser is obviously unique and also my friend as everyone knows. And Mark Patrick in Indianapolis, whose son happens to be new Nationals relief pitcher Drew Storen, also does very good and very smart work. Chris Myers does a long-form interview show on Fox sports radio that’s also an excellent listen. There are others I know I’m leaving out but those guys come to mind quickly.
--------------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:
Comments (14)
Sportstalk radio -- where is the line drawn between inane and insane these days?
Tue, May 18 2010 01:50
| Sports Radio, WFAN, Mike Greenberg, Steve Czaban, Mike Golic, ESPN
| Permalink
I have long ago copped to the fact that I listen to sportstalk radio even though it is the entertainment equivalent of eating high caloric food that tastes bad—and doing it on a continuing basis.
Most mornings, after I drop my son off at school, I drive to the health club where I work out to try to get in a swim. That’s not so easy these days since I’m usually in-between book promo interviews most of the day and night. My family pretty much hates me right now. (Swimming update for my Masters friends: I’m a LOT better than when I started back but still months away from even thinking about a meet. The good news is I MIGHT be able to finish a 100 fly off the blocks at this point but I can’t swear to it). I always turn on the radio and go back and forth between the two local sports talk shows available in the DC area in the morning.
I like The Sports Junkies. I like them personally and I’ve been on with them often, most recently on Monday to talk about, ‘Moment of Glory.’ If they’re talking sports, I listen to them. If they’re interviewing an actor I’ve never heard of—as they were this morning—or talking about their next trip to Atlantic City, I usually move on. Which leaves me with the morning guys who work for the four-letter network.
I’ve never met Mike Golic and get tired quickly of his, ‘when I played the game…’ act or the incredibly worn-out jokes about how much he likes to eat. In fact that’s pretty much what the show is: worn-out jokes between the two hosts (Mike Greenberg is a perfectly pleasant guy); a non-stop raft of commercials and drop-ins for nine million sponsors and interviews with big names (ESPN can get the big names as we all know) in which the toughest question is usually something like, ‘skip, are you concerned about having lost two in a row?’
This morning though, was a new low—and a new low for me because it took me a solid five minutes to decide this was a morning to listen to music. Greenberg and Golic were actually debating whether it was wrong for the Celtics Rasheed Wallace to wear a Philadelphia Flyers cap in public since he’s a Philly guy now playing in Boston.
I honestly don’t know if Greenberg was serious about thinking this was somehow wrong or if it was just an unbelievably slow news day. Maybe they had already dealt with Phil Jackson’s silly, ‘I may retire,’ talk or there just weren’t enough NFL mini-camps going on this week. Maybe there’s a 40-hour weekly limit on talking about LeBron. My theory is that he’s going to give up basketball to become Tiger Woods’ swing coach. Put that one on the internet and see how quickly someone reports it as fact.
Seriously folks, where is the line drawn between inane and insane these days? Last Friday I co-hosted a local show here in Washington with Steve Czaban, a very nice guy who is—by his own admission—a creation of the 21st century talk-show world. Czaban does not try to pass himself off as a journalist on any level—although the show he co-hosts is called, “The Sports Reporters,”—which is clearly an oxymoron—and he’ll pretty much take a swing at any topic if he thinks it will generate interest among listeners.
Maybe Greenberg thought Rasheed Wallace’s cap would interest listeners. All I can tell you is if Golic is the voice or reason in an argument you’re in trouble.
Anyway, during the show last Friday—my main purpose in being there was to flack, ‘Moment of Glory,’ if truth be told—I suggested we talk about the Nationals. They were on a pretty good roll and the question I wanted to address was how good they might become this summer when Stephen Strasburg arrives. Could they maintain the pace they were played at for the first five weeks and be a legitimate postseason contender?
Czaban wanted to talk more LeBron even though we had talked about him at length in the first hour. “The Nats are playing well, things are going well, there’s nothing to discuss,” he said. “Sportstalk radio is built on controversy, on things going wrong, on ripping people who are failing.”
You know what, he’s probably right. When I listen to WFAN nothing generates emotional phone calls like the Mets because the Mets are constantly screwing up. (I’m not even bringing up the Wilpons AGAIN passing on the chance to fire Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel in Atlanta last night. My God, are they waiting for Casey Stengel to become available?).
In Washington nothing generates interest like the Redskins—12 months a year—especially when they’re losing games in the fall. People want to vent and everyone has a solution for whatever is wrong with the team. Even when a team is winning, most fans want to talk about the next game or the next problem or even the next season. I think I’ve said this before but my most vivid memory from the night Maryland won the national championship in 2002 was that of Maryland fans behind me screaming at Chris Wilcox that he HAD to come back for his junior year. When Duke won the national championship this year, their fans chanted at Kyle Singler, “one more year!”
One national championship from the kid wasn’t worth, you know, 15 minutes of celebration?
That is the way of jock world though, no doubt. It is certainly the way of sportstalk radio and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. Here’s my answer to Greenberg’s question this morning: My guess is 99 percent of the fans in Boston could care less what Rasheed Wallace wears on his head as long as he helps the Celtics win. And if they don’t win, he can wear a cap with the logos of all four of Boston’s teams and no one will care about that either.
My God, let’s go to a break Mike. It’s been at least seven minutes since the last nine-minute break so it must be time. It is also time for me to get satellite radio. Not to mention a life.
--------------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:
Most mornings, after I drop my son off at school, I drive to the health club where I work out to try to get in a swim. That’s not so easy these days since I’m usually in-between book promo interviews most of the day and night. My family pretty much hates me right now. (Swimming update for my Masters friends: I’m a LOT better than when I started back but still months away from even thinking about a meet. The good news is I MIGHT be able to finish a 100 fly off the blocks at this point but I can’t swear to it). I always turn on the radio and go back and forth between the two local sports talk shows available in the DC area in the morning.
I like The Sports Junkies. I like them personally and I’ve been on with them often, most recently on Monday to talk about, ‘Moment of Glory.’ If they’re talking sports, I listen to them. If they’re interviewing an actor I’ve never heard of—as they were this morning—or talking about their next trip to Atlantic City, I usually move on. Which leaves me with the morning guys who work for the four-letter network.
I’ve never met Mike Golic and get tired quickly of his, ‘when I played the game…’ act or the incredibly worn-out jokes about how much he likes to eat. In fact that’s pretty much what the show is: worn-out jokes between the two hosts (Mike Greenberg is a perfectly pleasant guy); a non-stop raft of commercials and drop-ins for nine million sponsors and interviews with big names (ESPN can get the big names as we all know) in which the toughest question is usually something like, ‘skip, are you concerned about having lost two in a row?’
This morning though, was a new low—and a new low for me because it took me a solid five minutes to decide this was a morning to listen to music. Greenberg and Golic were actually debating whether it was wrong for the Celtics Rasheed Wallace to wear a Philadelphia Flyers cap in public since he’s a Philly guy now playing in Boston.
I honestly don’t know if Greenberg was serious about thinking this was somehow wrong or if it was just an unbelievably slow news day. Maybe they had already dealt with Phil Jackson’s silly, ‘I may retire,’ talk or there just weren’t enough NFL mini-camps going on this week. Maybe there’s a 40-hour weekly limit on talking about LeBron. My theory is that he’s going to give up basketball to become Tiger Woods’ swing coach. Put that one on the internet and see how quickly someone reports it as fact.
Seriously folks, where is the line drawn between inane and insane these days? Last Friday I co-hosted a local show here in Washington with Steve Czaban, a very nice guy who is—by his own admission—a creation of the 21st century talk-show world. Czaban does not try to pass himself off as a journalist on any level—although the show he co-hosts is called, “The Sports Reporters,”—which is clearly an oxymoron—and he’ll pretty much take a swing at any topic if he thinks it will generate interest among listeners.
Maybe Greenberg thought Rasheed Wallace’s cap would interest listeners. All I can tell you is if Golic is the voice or reason in an argument you’re in trouble.
Anyway, during the show last Friday—my main purpose in being there was to flack, ‘Moment of Glory,’ if truth be told—I suggested we talk about the Nationals. They were on a pretty good roll and the question I wanted to address was how good they might become this summer when Stephen Strasburg arrives. Could they maintain the pace they were played at for the first five weeks and be a legitimate postseason contender?
Czaban wanted to talk more LeBron even though we had talked about him at length in the first hour. “The Nats are playing well, things are going well, there’s nothing to discuss,” he said. “Sportstalk radio is built on controversy, on things going wrong, on ripping people who are failing.”
You know what, he’s probably right. When I listen to WFAN nothing generates emotional phone calls like the Mets because the Mets are constantly screwing up. (I’m not even bringing up the Wilpons AGAIN passing on the chance to fire Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel in Atlanta last night. My God, are they waiting for Casey Stengel to become available?).
In Washington nothing generates interest like the Redskins—12 months a year—especially when they’re losing games in the fall. People want to vent and everyone has a solution for whatever is wrong with the team. Even when a team is winning, most fans want to talk about the next game or the next problem or even the next season. I think I’ve said this before but my most vivid memory from the night Maryland won the national championship in 2002 was that of Maryland fans behind me screaming at Chris Wilcox that he HAD to come back for his junior year. When Duke won the national championship this year, their fans chanted at Kyle Singler, “one more year!”
One national championship from the kid wasn’t worth, you know, 15 minutes of celebration?
That is the way of jock world though, no doubt. It is certainly the way of sportstalk radio and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. Here’s my answer to Greenberg’s question this morning: My guess is 99 percent of the fans in Boston could care less what Rasheed Wallace wears on his head as long as he helps the Celtics win. And if they don’t win, he can wear a cap with the logos of all four of Boston’s teams and no one will care about that either.
My God, let’s go to a break Mike. It’s been at least seven minutes since the last nine-minute break so it must be time. It is also time for me to get satellite radio. Not to mention a life.
--------------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:
Comments (17)
Thursday’s NCAA decision – why it happened, and what it means; NFL draft
Fri, Apr 23 2010 11:44
| NFL, NCAA, college basketball, CBS, Greg Shaheen, Turner, ESPN
| Permalink
Something important happened on Thursday—and it wasn’t the NFL draft. I’m always amused when I flip to the draft, especially on ESPN, how no matter what happens, the experts claim they knew this was coming and this is a great pick for whatever team is involved. Every once in a while Mel Kiper will question a pick—usually whomever the Oakland Raiders draft because that’s a pretty safe bet—but for the most part every franchise is doing a great job and every player drafted is a wonderful person.
If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “quality kid,” on Thursday night I’d be making almost as much money as the NCAA is going to make on its new basketball TV contract.
Which brings me to the important news of Thursday: The NCAA basketball committee actually did something right. Instead of going forward with plans to expand to a ridiculous 96 team tournament, the committee reigned itself—and the ever-greedy presidents, commissioners and athletic directors—in at least for a while, recommending expansion for next season to 68 teams.
Let’s not pretend for even a second that this was done for any of the right reasons: preserving the integrity of the regular season and the conference tournaments; allowing a tournament bid to continue to have meaning; continuing an event that may have been as good as it has ever been in 2010. This happened for a couple of reasons: there were logistical issues in terms of changing existing rental agreements to add another round of games (two more days in the building) as early as next spring. Plus, the NCAA took a pounding in recent months when the plan to go to 96 teams leaked out and looked especially bad at The Final Four when NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen literally refused to answer a simple question about missed class time that would have been caused by the extra game.
I was the one who asked that question (repeatedly) and the exchange received a lot of attention because Shaheen simply wouldn’t admit in that public forum that OF COURSE there would be more missed class time. A number of people have pointed out—correctly—since then that the issue is a minor one since the players already miss lots of class time and a lot of them have no intention of returning to class once the tournament is over.
I knew that when I brought the issue up. The only reason I did it was to point out the hypocrisy and basic dishonestly of the NCAA dishing out all the ‘student-athlete,’ garbage it dishes out. In fact I got a bit nauseous when I read the canned quote yesterday from acting NCAA President Jim Isch saying, ‘this is a great day for the 400,000 NCAA student athletes.” Memo to Isch: Shut up and cash the checks.
I’ve had a few people say that my exchange with Shaheen in Indy somehow played a role in this. My ego’s big, but not that big. I DO think the drumbeat across the country from people saying that 96 teams was bad for basketball and a CLEAR money-grab did have an affect because the NCAA is, if nothing else, ultra-image conscious. What’s more, even though the new TV agreement with CBS and Turner is for 14 years, I don’t expect the number of teams to stay at 68 for the life of the agreement. I think it will go up either in one fell swoop in a few years or gradually, the way it went from 25 teams in 1974 to 64 in 1985 with stops along the way at 32, 40, 48 and 53.
The addition of three teams probably means four play-in games in Dayton instead of one. Undoubtedly the committee will ship the eight lowest-seeded one-bid league teams there instead of doing the right thing and sending the last eight at-large teams to play. (You seed the four winners as No. 12 seeds). Sending the at-larges means better TV—more name teams—and it is fairer since the tournament is probably the zenith for most of the one-bid league players while the players from the name schools are mostly looking forward to pro careers or being back in the tournament again before their college careers are over. Don’t think for a second the committee does the right thing on this one. Additionally, the adding of the three teams means the one-bid teams get their seedings pushed down a little more: the added three teams will all be seeded ahead of most of the one-bid schools. Consider this: Cornell was NOT seeded ahead of a single at-large team this season. Nice job by the committee there.
The real winner in all this is Turner. CBS could not have outbid ESPN for the rights without a cable partner. What’s more, ESPN was pitching the NCAA on the fact that it had the outlets to televise all games rather than regionalizing the first three rounds as CBS has been doing. Turner’s presence with three networks of its own---TBS, TNT and truTV—will allow the new partnership to do what ESPN was proposing to do.
Clearly, Turner is putting up a lot of the $10.8 billion the contract is worth because beginning in 2016 it will alternate televising the Final Four with CBS. No way CBS gives up any part of that event without a lot of money being involved. Regardless, we should all be happy on two levels: The tournament bubble will not be expanded—at least for now—to include the 12th place teams in The Big East and the ACC—and the ESPN takeover of all sports is slowed at least for a little while. Consider this: if ESPN had gotten the deal your main studio host for the entire NCAA Tournament would have been Chris Berman—guaranteed. He might have brought Mel Kiper and John Gruden with him too.
Speaking of which I did watch some of the draft last night—switching frequently over to watch Johan Santana pitch and the New Jersey Devils flounder. First of all, what’s with the players hugging Roger Goodell? I mean, enough with that. Second, I know it is a live event but is it just me or was ESPN completely out of synch most of the night? There were all sorts of awkward silences on the main set and the kicker came when Goodell introduced all the military folks—which to me, as much as I respect all those people, is nothing but pandering by the NFL—and no one on the set other than Tom Jackson seemed to know what was going on. Steve Young kept rambling, then they showed Goodell briefly and then Young, Kiper and Gruden kept talking to one another as if they were off mike. It was highlighted by Berman—on camera—trying to give them all the ‘cut,’ sign to let them know they were on camera and on mike.
When Berman tried to recover by saying, “this is always the highlight of the first round…” it was pretty much falldown funny. Even so, the worst TV of the night was on the NFL Network. I love Deion Sanders, really enjoyed getting to know him when I did my book on the Ravens a few years ago. But his interviews with the players just drafted were brutal: “Dreams come true, they can expect hard work from me in (fill in the city). Greatest thrill of my life.”
Back to you in the booth. Time for another shot of a player and his posse talking on a cell phone while Goodell waits for him to hug 43 people, put on a cap and come on stage. I think tonight I’ll stick to the Mets.
If I had a dollar for every time someone said, “quality kid,” on Thursday night I’d be making almost as much money as the NCAA is going to make on its new basketball TV contract.
Which brings me to the important news of Thursday: The NCAA basketball committee actually did something right. Instead of going forward with plans to expand to a ridiculous 96 team tournament, the committee reigned itself—and the ever-greedy presidents, commissioners and athletic directors—in at least for a while, recommending expansion for next season to 68 teams.
Let’s not pretend for even a second that this was done for any of the right reasons: preserving the integrity of the regular season and the conference tournaments; allowing a tournament bid to continue to have meaning; continuing an event that may have been as good as it has ever been in 2010. This happened for a couple of reasons: there were logistical issues in terms of changing existing rental agreements to add another round of games (two more days in the building) as early as next spring. Plus, the NCAA took a pounding in recent months when the plan to go to 96 teams leaked out and looked especially bad at The Final Four when NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen literally refused to answer a simple question about missed class time that would have been caused by the extra game.
I was the one who asked that question (repeatedly) and the exchange received a lot of attention because Shaheen simply wouldn’t admit in that public forum that OF COURSE there would be more missed class time. A number of people have pointed out—correctly—since then that the issue is a minor one since the players already miss lots of class time and a lot of them have no intention of returning to class once the tournament is over.
I knew that when I brought the issue up. The only reason I did it was to point out the hypocrisy and basic dishonestly of the NCAA dishing out all the ‘student-athlete,’ garbage it dishes out. In fact I got a bit nauseous when I read the canned quote yesterday from acting NCAA President Jim Isch saying, ‘this is a great day for the 400,000 NCAA student athletes.” Memo to Isch: Shut up and cash the checks.
I’ve had a few people say that my exchange with Shaheen in Indy somehow played a role in this. My ego’s big, but not that big. I DO think the drumbeat across the country from people saying that 96 teams was bad for basketball and a CLEAR money-grab did have an affect because the NCAA is, if nothing else, ultra-image conscious. What’s more, even though the new TV agreement with CBS and Turner is for 14 years, I don’t expect the number of teams to stay at 68 for the life of the agreement. I think it will go up either in one fell swoop in a few years or gradually, the way it went from 25 teams in 1974 to 64 in 1985 with stops along the way at 32, 40, 48 and 53.
The addition of three teams probably means four play-in games in Dayton instead of one. Undoubtedly the committee will ship the eight lowest-seeded one-bid league teams there instead of doing the right thing and sending the last eight at-large teams to play. (You seed the four winners as No. 12 seeds). Sending the at-larges means better TV—more name teams—and it is fairer since the tournament is probably the zenith for most of the one-bid league players while the players from the name schools are mostly looking forward to pro careers or being back in the tournament again before their college careers are over. Don’t think for a second the committee does the right thing on this one. Additionally, the adding of the three teams means the one-bid teams get their seedings pushed down a little more: the added three teams will all be seeded ahead of most of the one-bid schools. Consider this: Cornell was NOT seeded ahead of a single at-large team this season. Nice job by the committee there.
The real winner in all this is Turner. CBS could not have outbid ESPN for the rights without a cable partner. What’s more, ESPN was pitching the NCAA on the fact that it had the outlets to televise all games rather than regionalizing the first three rounds as CBS has been doing. Turner’s presence with three networks of its own---TBS, TNT and truTV—will allow the new partnership to do what ESPN was proposing to do.
Clearly, Turner is putting up a lot of the $10.8 billion the contract is worth because beginning in 2016 it will alternate televising the Final Four with CBS. No way CBS gives up any part of that event without a lot of money being involved. Regardless, we should all be happy on two levels: The tournament bubble will not be expanded—at least for now—to include the 12th place teams in The Big East and the ACC—and the ESPN takeover of all sports is slowed at least for a little while. Consider this: if ESPN had gotten the deal your main studio host for the entire NCAA Tournament would have been Chris Berman—guaranteed. He might have brought Mel Kiper and John Gruden with him too.
Speaking of which I did watch some of the draft last night—switching frequently over to watch Johan Santana pitch and the New Jersey Devils flounder. First of all, what’s with the players hugging Roger Goodell? I mean, enough with that. Second, I know it is a live event but is it just me or was ESPN completely out of synch most of the night? There were all sorts of awkward silences on the main set and the kicker came when Goodell introduced all the military folks—which to me, as much as I respect all those people, is nothing but pandering by the NFL—and no one on the set other than Tom Jackson seemed to know what was going on. Steve Young kept rambling, then they showed Goodell briefly and then Young, Kiper and Gruden kept talking to one another as if they were off mike. It was highlighted by Berman—on camera—trying to give them all the ‘cut,’ sign to let them know they were on camera and on mike.
When Berman tried to recover by saying, “this is always the highlight of the first round…” it was pretty much falldown funny. Even so, the worst TV of the night was on the NFL Network. I love Deion Sanders, really enjoyed getting to know him when I did my book on the Ravens a few years ago. But his interviews with the players just drafted were brutal: “Dreams come true, they can expect hard work from me in (fill in the city). Greatest thrill of my life.”
Back to you in the booth. Time for another shot of a player and his posse talking on a cell phone while Goodell waits for him to hug 43 people, put on a cap and come on stage. I think tonight I’ll stick to the Mets.
Comments (9)
Day two from the ACC Tournament, watching results roll in
Fri, Mar 12 2010 12:01
| NCAA Tournament, Joe Lunardi, Big East, Boston College, ACC, ESPN
| Permalink
AT THE ACC TOURNAMENT DAY TWO—I really didn’t expect much from the basketball here in Greensboro yesterday and I pretty much got what I expected.
None of the four games is going to be sent to the Hall of Fame anytime soon although the winners certainly breathed a sigh of relief. For Virginia, getting a win—any win—was a big deal. The same was true of Miami, although the story of that game was Wake Forest absolutely failing to show up. Georgia Tech-North Carolina was like sitting in a dentist’s chair for two hours since neither team had a point guard who could get his team into an offense. And Clemson-North Carolina State was a typical 9:30 (or in this case 9:45) game in this tournament. Both teams looked tired from the start and the building was more than half empty by halftime. Given that the score was 25-21 you couldn’t really blame people for leaving.
What was most interesting about yesterday—as it is often is—was watching other tournament results come in from around the country. Three of the four Big East double-bye teams lost and the only one that did win, West Virginia, needed an off-balance three at the buzzer to beat Cincinnati. In truth though, none of those upsets really meant anything: Syracuse will still be a No. 1 seed even though it lost to Georgetown. Villanova might drop to a No. 3 because it finished poorly and Pittsburgh might drop one line on the seeding chart. The three winners—Georgetown, Marquette and Notre Dame—were all in the tournament already so their victories simply give them the chance to improve their seeding.
The games that mattered were those involving teams trying to play their way into Sunday’s bracket. Everyone had decided that Washington-Arizona State in the Pac-10 Tournament was going to be an elimination game: winner goes, loser heads for the NIT. Except that Arizona State never made it past Stanford last night and they are OUT. I know they are OUT because I heard Joe Lunardi say it after the game.
I happen to like Joe Lunardi, I’ve known him for a long time. And I give him credit—sort of like Mel Kiper—for making money by doing something my friend Bill Brill has done for about 40 years, usually aided by about four or five beers and little else.
In fact, another of my long time friends, Keith Drum—who once was sports editor of The Durham Herald-Sun but now scouts for the Sacramento Kings—has an idea for the expanded tournament.
“Since ESPN is going to offer the NCAA billions for the tournament rights, they should throw in an extra billion and say, ‘in return for this last billion, we want you to do away with the basketball committee and just put Joe Lunardi in charge,’” Drummer said to me yesterday when we were joking about the minute-to-minute, ‘who’s in and who’s out,’ list.
“Lunardi can start doing hourly updates on January 1. The NCAA will save lots of money not having to fly the committee around and put them up in expensive hotels and it will be good for the teams too: When Joe says a game is a MUST win for them, they’ll KNOW it’s a must win, no ifs ands or buts.”
Personally I think it’s a great idea. Joe can be totally honest about his picks. “I left Villanova out because I work at St. Joseph’s and even if they’re 24-6, the heck with them. They can play in the CBI.”
Jay Wright’s a good guy. He’ll get over it.
Right now the big issue for Joe—and for the overpaid and overpampered selection committee—is how to find 34 teams worthy of an at-large bid. Seriously, there aren’t 34 teams out there, which makes the notion of trying to dig up 65 teams next year even more ridiculous.
Here’s some of the math we did yesterday: The Big East is getting seven at-large bids. (Remember with each of these conferences you add one to get their total because of the automatic bid: Big East gets eight total, seven at-large). The two teams that had a chance to play their way in—Seton Hall and South Florida—bombed out. They’re gone. The ACC is going to get six—yes, Georgia Tech gets in even if it loses to Maryland because there just aren’t any alternatives out there. The Big Ten gets four—again, Illinois may not be worthy but it doesn’t matter. They’re going to get in. The Big 12, which may be the most underrated league in the country, also gets six—even though it feels as if Texas hasn’t beaten anyone since New Year’s. The SEC is going to get three—Florida probably clinched its spot Thursday—and the Pac-10 will get one unless Stanford or UCLA wins the tournament in which case it will get two.
So, the big six conferences have locked down 27 spots—fewer than usual. Obviously there are teams from those leagues that could play their way in over the weekend. But for now let’s stick with 27.
The Atlantic-10 will get at least two at-larges and The Mountain West will also get at least two. The WCC will get one—Gonzaga. Conference USA might get one but having UAB and Memphis lose last night didn’t help. Add all that up and you have 33 teams (at most) with teams like Wichita State, William & Mary and either San Diego State or UNLV hoping for a miracle. The better the favorites do the next few days, the better the chances that one of those teams might sneak in.
That said, none of those schools or the other bubble teams trying to play their way in right now—teams like Minnesota or Tulsa or Mississippi—will have much to complain about if they don’t get in.
Of course if this was a 96-team field all those teams would be in easily and we’d be wondering if Miami’s win over Wake Forest vaulted it over North Carolina for one of the final spots. That’s certainly something to look forward to, isn’t it?
One last note for today: As I watched the Clemson-NC State game with almost no one in the arena, I thought of something Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey said earlier this week. I asked him to compare The ACC Tournament (in which he coached eight times as a Duke assistant) and The Big East Tournament.
Here’s what he said: “At the ACC Tournament you see all the fans from the schools sitting together, wearing their team colors, for the most part very polite, rarely raucous. There are always a lot of ladies in the crowd.
“At The Big East Tournament it’s guy’s night out. People sit with their buddies, regardless of school, they have a few beers and they get into it as the night goes on.
“A few years ago Anthony Solomon, one of my assistants, had his family there. We were playing the late game against U-Conn. His kids were little, maybe six and four. Late in the game we made a big run to get back into the game. There were a couple of guys in U-Conn shirts sitting in front of the Solomon’s. One of them turned around, pointed at the kids and said, “You know don’t you that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”
On that note, it’s time to go watch some more basketball.
None of the four games is going to be sent to the Hall of Fame anytime soon although the winners certainly breathed a sigh of relief. For Virginia, getting a win—any win—was a big deal. The same was true of Miami, although the story of that game was Wake Forest absolutely failing to show up. Georgia Tech-North Carolina was like sitting in a dentist’s chair for two hours since neither team had a point guard who could get his team into an offense. And Clemson-North Carolina State was a typical 9:30 (or in this case 9:45) game in this tournament. Both teams looked tired from the start and the building was more than half empty by halftime. Given that the score was 25-21 you couldn’t really blame people for leaving.
What was most interesting about yesterday—as it is often is—was watching other tournament results come in from around the country. Three of the four Big East double-bye teams lost and the only one that did win, West Virginia, needed an off-balance three at the buzzer to beat Cincinnati. In truth though, none of those upsets really meant anything: Syracuse will still be a No. 1 seed even though it lost to Georgetown. Villanova might drop to a No. 3 because it finished poorly and Pittsburgh might drop one line on the seeding chart. The three winners—Georgetown, Marquette and Notre Dame—were all in the tournament already so their victories simply give them the chance to improve their seeding.
The games that mattered were those involving teams trying to play their way into Sunday’s bracket. Everyone had decided that Washington-Arizona State in the Pac-10 Tournament was going to be an elimination game: winner goes, loser heads for the NIT. Except that Arizona State never made it past Stanford last night and they are OUT. I know they are OUT because I heard Joe Lunardi say it after the game.
I happen to like Joe Lunardi, I’ve known him for a long time. And I give him credit—sort of like Mel Kiper—for making money by doing something my friend Bill Brill has done for about 40 years, usually aided by about four or five beers and little else.
In fact, another of my long time friends, Keith Drum—who once was sports editor of The Durham Herald-Sun but now scouts for the Sacramento Kings—has an idea for the expanded tournament.
“Since ESPN is going to offer the NCAA billions for the tournament rights, they should throw in an extra billion and say, ‘in return for this last billion, we want you to do away with the basketball committee and just put Joe Lunardi in charge,’” Drummer said to me yesterday when we were joking about the minute-to-minute, ‘who’s in and who’s out,’ list.
“Lunardi can start doing hourly updates on January 1. The NCAA will save lots of money not having to fly the committee around and put them up in expensive hotels and it will be good for the teams too: When Joe says a game is a MUST win for them, they’ll KNOW it’s a must win, no ifs ands or buts.”
Personally I think it’s a great idea. Joe can be totally honest about his picks. “I left Villanova out because I work at St. Joseph’s and even if they’re 24-6, the heck with them. They can play in the CBI.”
Jay Wright’s a good guy. He’ll get over it.
Right now the big issue for Joe—and for the overpaid and overpampered selection committee—is how to find 34 teams worthy of an at-large bid. Seriously, there aren’t 34 teams out there, which makes the notion of trying to dig up 65 teams next year even more ridiculous.
Here’s some of the math we did yesterday: The Big East is getting seven at-large bids. (Remember with each of these conferences you add one to get their total because of the automatic bid: Big East gets eight total, seven at-large). The two teams that had a chance to play their way in—Seton Hall and South Florida—bombed out. They’re gone. The ACC is going to get six—yes, Georgia Tech gets in even if it loses to Maryland because there just aren’t any alternatives out there. The Big Ten gets four—again, Illinois may not be worthy but it doesn’t matter. They’re going to get in. The Big 12, which may be the most underrated league in the country, also gets six—even though it feels as if Texas hasn’t beaten anyone since New Year’s. The SEC is going to get three—Florida probably clinched its spot Thursday—and the Pac-10 will get one unless Stanford or UCLA wins the tournament in which case it will get two.
So, the big six conferences have locked down 27 spots—fewer than usual. Obviously there are teams from those leagues that could play their way in over the weekend. But for now let’s stick with 27.
The Atlantic-10 will get at least two at-larges and The Mountain West will also get at least two. The WCC will get one—Gonzaga. Conference USA might get one but having UAB and Memphis lose last night didn’t help. Add all that up and you have 33 teams (at most) with teams like Wichita State, William & Mary and either San Diego State or UNLV hoping for a miracle. The better the favorites do the next few days, the better the chances that one of those teams might sneak in.
That said, none of those schools or the other bubble teams trying to play their way in right now—teams like Minnesota or Tulsa or Mississippi—will have much to complain about if they don’t get in.
Of course if this was a 96-team field all those teams would be in easily and we’d be wondering if Miami’s win over Wake Forest vaulted it over North Carolina for one of the final spots. That’s certainly something to look forward to, isn’t it?
One last note for today: As I watched the Clemson-NC State game with almost no one in the arena, I thought of something Notre Dame Coach Mike Brey said earlier this week. I asked him to compare The ACC Tournament (in which he coached eight times as a Duke assistant) and The Big East Tournament.
Here’s what he said: “At the ACC Tournament you see all the fans from the schools sitting together, wearing their team colors, for the most part very polite, rarely raucous. There are always a lot of ladies in the crowd.
“At The Big East Tournament it’s guy’s night out. People sit with their buddies, regardless of school, they have a few beers and they get into it as the night goes on.
“A few years ago Anthony Solomon, one of my assistants, had his family there. We were playing the late game against U-Conn. His kids were little, maybe six and four. Late in the game we made a big run to get back into the game. There were a couple of guys in U-Conn shirts sitting in front of the Solomon’s. One of them turned around, pointed at the kids and said, “You know don’t you that there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”
On that note, it’s time to go watch some more basketball.
Comments (3)
Duke - UNC game continues troubling season for Tar Heels; Six days to Selection Sunday
Mon, Mar 8 2010 07:26
| March Madness, Duke, UNC, Roy Williams, Boston College, Mike Brey, ESPN
| Permalink
So, here we sit, less than a week from Selection Sunday with tournaments going on all over the place. What makes the next few days so cool is that all the bracketology becomes pretty meaningless because upsets blow up what everyone has been speculating about for the past two months.
That said, this past weekend certainly provided us all with a raft of interesting story lines.
I begin with Duke-North Carolina, not because Duke finally beat the Tar Heels at home to end a four game Cameron losing streak or because Duke tied for the ACC regular season title with Maryland by completely embarrassing the Tar Heels.
To me, the fascinating story line is this game was Carolina. Duke is good and will be a No. 1 or a No. 2 seed depending on what happens this week in conference tournament play around the country. Fine. I still don’t think the Blue Devils are a Final Four team. They’re too dependent offensively on their big three and if Brian Zoubek gets into foul trouble—as he often does—they’re in trouble against a team with a big front line. Who ever thought anyone would write that line: ‘If Brian Zoubek gets in foul trouble…’ The Plumlee brothers aren’t ready to be go-to guys in March. But we’ll see. One never knows how brackets will play out or who will get upset along the way.
What was tough to believe on Saturday night was how quickly Carolina disappeared. The game was pretty much over at 9-3. It isn’t as if the Tar Heels are often intimidated by loud crowds and the days when the Duke students (I refuse to call them by their cliché nickname) were clever enough to really distract anyone have long since passed. (“Our House?” That’s the best they can do? Last I looked it was Tyler Hansbrough’s house for four straight years.)
Carolina had nothing to lose Saturday and everything to gain. All the pressure was on Duke: four game home losing streak to the Tar Heels; needing to win to tie Maryland for the ACC title; senior night; not to mention the endless ESPN hype. Certainly Roy Williams isn’t scared to coach in Cameron. He sat next to Dean Smith on many a night when Dean told his players to, “listen for the silence,” at the end of the game and then walked off with a big smile on his face listening to just that. Even with the loss on Saturday, Ole Roy is 4-3 in Cameron.
So why did his players look scared? Why did they simply die when Duke hit three early three’s? The score was 53-26 at halftime. Are you kidding? Was that North Carolina or North Carolina-Asheville in the visiting uniforms? I know Carolina’s had injury problems this season and there’s no doubting the talent drop-off with Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green gone. But there’s still enough talent to be better than this team has been. The only team Virginia’s beaten in the last month is Carolina—in Chapel Hill, by double-digits.
Look, these aren’t Matt Doherty’s Tar Heels, the group that went 8-22 in 2002. This is a team coached by ROY WILLIAMS, who is deservedly in the Hall of Fame, who has won two national titles in five years and who has been to SEVEN Final Fours, which puts him behind only Dean Smith, John Wooden and Mike Krzyzewski. His numbers as a coach in 22 years are ridiculous.
In the last few weeks Roy has taken to pummeling himself in public, to doubting himself and his team to somehow comparing the way he feels about this season to what happened in Haiti. Frankly, it’s been sad to watch, especially if (like me) you like and respect Roy.
I’m not the least bit worried about him or his program long term. The fact that Ed Davis was having a disappointing sophomore season even before he got hurt may lead him to return next year. With Harrison Barnes signed up to join the cast, with Davis and some of the other young players back, Carolina should be much better—although Roy needs to find a point guard considerably better than Larry Drew II.
In the meantime though, it will be fascinating to see the approach the Tar Heels take to their Thursday evening first round ACC Tournament matchup with Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets may need to win two games in the tournament to make the NCAA field and if they fail, the argument can be made that they’ve had the most disappointing season of any team in the country given their talent level.
Tech will be—should be—a desperate team. Which Carolina team shows up? The one that won at Wake Forest nine days ago or the one that was back-pedaling the minute it set foot on the floor two days ago in Cameron? It’s actually okay for the Tar Heels to lose this game but if I was Ole Roy the next three days would be pretty miserable for my players. I’d call them a few names Coach Smith never used and challenge them to prove that they have pride in the name on the front of their uniform.
To me, the last two months have been shocking. I would not have been surprised if Carolina had been a bubble team this season. But a bubble team for the NIT? To quote the wise man John Patrick McEnroe Jr: You can NOT be serious.
Meanwhile, for me, the most disappointing outcome of the weekend was Winthrop’s upset of Coastal Carolina in the final of the Big South tournament. Nothing against Randy Peele, who is a good guy and has done a nice job replacing Gregg Marshall down there. Winthrop has now made the tournament nine of the last 12 years which is a great run at any school.
But Cliff Ellis making it back to the NCAA Tournament at the age of 64 after being fired at Auburn in 2004—one year after taking the Tigers to the sweet sixteen—would have been a wonderful story. Like Bobby Cremins at College of Charleston who came back six years after leaving Georgia Tech, Ellis came back after a three year sabbatical and did a wonderful job rebuilding the program in Conway, South Carolina. Now the Chanticleers will settle for the NIT, which is nice but not the same as The Dance.
Six days to Selection Sunday. It will be fun. As I’ve said here before, savor it, because if the NCAA has its way and ESPN throws enough Disney Dollars in its direction, this will be the last one where truly good teams will be on the bubble. A year from now a team like Carolina—16-15 and 5-11 in the conference—will go into the ACC Tournament figuring one win will wrap up a bid. Compelling stuff, huh?
Oh well, we can worry about that later. In the meantime, I’m psyched for the MAAC Final tonight. And then for The Southern Conference Final. Not to mention The Patriot League on Friday. You get the idea.
That said, this past weekend certainly provided us all with a raft of interesting story lines.
I begin with Duke-North Carolina, not because Duke finally beat the Tar Heels at home to end a four game Cameron losing streak or because Duke tied for the ACC regular season title with Maryland by completely embarrassing the Tar Heels.
To me, the fascinating story line is this game was Carolina. Duke is good and will be a No. 1 or a No. 2 seed depending on what happens this week in conference tournament play around the country. Fine. I still don’t think the Blue Devils are a Final Four team. They’re too dependent offensively on their big three and if Brian Zoubek gets into foul trouble—as he often does—they’re in trouble against a team with a big front line. Who ever thought anyone would write that line: ‘If Brian Zoubek gets in foul trouble…’ The Plumlee brothers aren’t ready to be go-to guys in March. But we’ll see. One never knows how brackets will play out or who will get upset along the way.
What was tough to believe on Saturday night was how quickly Carolina disappeared. The game was pretty much over at 9-3. It isn’t as if the Tar Heels are often intimidated by loud crowds and the days when the Duke students (I refuse to call them by their cliché nickname) were clever enough to really distract anyone have long since passed. (“Our House?” That’s the best they can do? Last I looked it was Tyler Hansbrough’s house for four straight years.)
Carolina had nothing to lose Saturday and everything to gain. All the pressure was on Duke: four game home losing streak to the Tar Heels; needing to win to tie Maryland for the ACC title; senior night; not to mention the endless ESPN hype. Certainly Roy Williams isn’t scared to coach in Cameron. He sat next to Dean Smith on many a night when Dean told his players to, “listen for the silence,” at the end of the game and then walked off with a big smile on his face listening to just that. Even with the loss on Saturday, Ole Roy is 4-3 in Cameron.
So why did his players look scared? Why did they simply die when Duke hit three early three’s? The score was 53-26 at halftime. Are you kidding? Was that North Carolina or North Carolina-Asheville in the visiting uniforms? I know Carolina’s had injury problems this season and there’s no doubting the talent drop-off with Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green gone. But there’s still enough talent to be better than this team has been. The only team Virginia’s beaten in the last month is Carolina—in Chapel Hill, by double-digits.
Look, these aren’t Matt Doherty’s Tar Heels, the group that went 8-22 in 2002. This is a team coached by ROY WILLIAMS, who is deservedly in the Hall of Fame, who has won two national titles in five years and who has been to SEVEN Final Fours, which puts him behind only Dean Smith, John Wooden and Mike Krzyzewski. His numbers as a coach in 22 years are ridiculous.
In the last few weeks Roy has taken to pummeling himself in public, to doubting himself and his team to somehow comparing the way he feels about this season to what happened in Haiti. Frankly, it’s been sad to watch, especially if (like me) you like and respect Roy.
I’m not the least bit worried about him or his program long term. The fact that Ed Davis was having a disappointing sophomore season even before he got hurt may lead him to return next year. With Harrison Barnes signed up to join the cast, with Davis and some of the other young players back, Carolina should be much better—although Roy needs to find a point guard considerably better than Larry Drew II.
In the meantime though, it will be fascinating to see the approach the Tar Heels take to their Thursday evening first round ACC Tournament matchup with Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets may need to win two games in the tournament to make the NCAA field and if they fail, the argument can be made that they’ve had the most disappointing season of any team in the country given their talent level.
Tech will be—should be—a desperate team. Which Carolina team shows up? The one that won at Wake Forest nine days ago or the one that was back-pedaling the minute it set foot on the floor two days ago in Cameron? It’s actually okay for the Tar Heels to lose this game but if I was Ole Roy the next three days would be pretty miserable for my players. I’d call them a few names Coach Smith never used and challenge them to prove that they have pride in the name on the front of their uniform.
To me, the last two months have been shocking. I would not have been surprised if Carolina had been a bubble team this season. But a bubble team for the NIT? To quote the wise man John Patrick McEnroe Jr: You can NOT be serious.
Meanwhile, for me, the most disappointing outcome of the weekend was Winthrop’s upset of Coastal Carolina in the final of the Big South tournament. Nothing against Randy Peele, who is a good guy and has done a nice job replacing Gregg Marshall down there. Winthrop has now made the tournament nine of the last 12 years which is a great run at any school.
But Cliff Ellis making it back to the NCAA Tournament at the age of 64 after being fired at Auburn in 2004—one year after taking the Tigers to the sweet sixteen—would have been a wonderful story. Like Bobby Cremins at College of Charleston who came back six years after leaving Georgia Tech, Ellis came back after a three year sabbatical and did a wonderful job rebuilding the program in Conway, South Carolina. Now the Chanticleers will settle for the NIT, which is nice but not the same as The Dance.
Six days to Selection Sunday. It will be fun. As I’ve said here before, savor it, because if the NCAA has its way and ESPN throws enough Disney Dollars in its direction, this will be the last one where truly good teams will be on the bubble. A year from now a team like Carolina—16-15 and 5-11 in the conference—will go into the ACC Tournament figuring one win will wrap up a bid. Compelling stuff, huh?
Oh well, we can worry about that later. In the meantime, I’m psyched for the MAAC Final tonight. And then for The Southern Conference Final. Not to mention The Patriot League on Friday. You get the idea.
Comments (6)
'Championship Week’ was one brilliant idea from ESPN - March Madness starts tonight; Wilbon talk
Tue, Mar 2 2010 09:24
| March Madness, college basketball, Michael Wilbon, Jim Boeheim, Cornell, Mike Brey, ESPN
| Permalink
While the big-name college basketball teams are sorting themselves out over the next 12 days—the top teams trying to pin down high seeds; the mid-level teams in the power conferences trying to play their way from the dreaded bubble into the NCAA basketball tournament—this is also the time when the little guys get their moment in the sun.
March Madness actually begins tonight. The Big South starts its postseason tournament. By the end of the weekend, if you count The Ivy League, five automatic bids will have been handed out.
For me, the one bid tournaments are about as much fun as anything that takes place during the basketball season. Very few of the kids playing are going to be one-and-done and you aren’t going to hear a lot of speculation about their pro futures. All they care about at that moment is the game they are playing because most are one loss away from the end of their season. A majority of the seniors are one loss away from the end of their careers.
That’s what makes these tournaments so much fun. When Mike Brey was coaching at Delaware he often said that winning The America East Tournament was the equivalent of getting to The Final Four for Duke—which was where he had coached prior to moving to Delaware. “And winning a game in the NCAA Tournament is like winning the national championship,” he added.
We all know that on rare occasions one of the little guys will slip through to the sweet sixteen. George Mason’s Final Four run in 2006 belongs in a different category but it is worth remembering that the Patriots didn’t come out of a pure one-bid league. In fact, they got into the tournament as an at-large team, much to the chagrin of Jim Nantz, Billy Packer and others.
The real one bid leagues are the one where no one even discusses an at-large bid, where the committee has already penciled the champion in as a No. 15 or No. 16 seed most years. Of course there can be exceptions going in either direction. In 2006, coming off a first round upset a year earlier over Kansas, Bucknell came out of The Patriot League as a No. 9 seed—and promptly lived up to it by beating Arkansas. This year, the opposite is true in the league. The only conference team likely to avoid being sent to the dreaded play-in game in Dayton is top-seeded Lehigh. Anyone else wins the PL Tournament—which begins tomorrow but doesn’t end until March 12th because of (you guessed it) television—and they’re probably headed for Dayton. At the moment that teams cuts the nets down though, it won’t be thinking about Dayton. It will be nothing but pure joy.
That’s why Brey’s description is so apt. When you watch these teams play for their championships you can see how much it means to them. None of them are thinking about the fact that they may face a first-round game against Syracuse, Kansas or Kentucky. Or that they might be going to Dayton. It doesn’t matter. They want to be champions and they want to see their name go up on the board on Selection Sunday and they want to be part of The Dance.
Sure, it is all cliché but it is real. I remember being in Lafayette’s locker room after the Leopards beat Navy 10 years ago to win The Patriot League title when I was researching, “The Last Amateurs,” and it was about as joyous a place as I’ve ever been. A week later, as a No. 15 seed, the Leopards were beaten badly by Temple but that didn’t change the memories or the feelings they had for one another after beating Navy.
The little guy that no one wants to play this year is Cornell. It will be interesting to see how the committee seeds The Big Red. They have one bad loss—at Penn—but their other three losses are to Seton Hall and at Kansas and Syracuse. They’ve won road games at Alabama, at Massachusetts and at St. John’s. They played a tougher non-conference schedule than most schools in the BCS conferences play.
Jim Boeheim has said Cornell should be a No. 4 to a No. 6 seed. That won’t happen. I think if they had run the table in the Ivy League they might have sneaked into a No. 9 seed ala Bucknell four years ago. Now, I think they’ll be more like a No. 11. One thing about the committee—they hold a bad loss against a little guy against it more than they do a big guy.
That’s all for a week from Sunday. For now, the next 10 days are about the little guys having that moment they will all remember forever. If you think the U.S. hockey team looked heartbroken, check the faces of some of the losers in these conference tournament finals—especially after a last-second game-decider. The Olympians all believe they’ll get another shot in Sochi in four years and many will. Most of the kids who lose one-big finals know they won’t get another shot. Most teams that rise in these conferences are led by seniors so this may be their last chance.
ESPN has done a lot of bad things through the years but ‘Championship Week,’—giving the one-bid kids their moment in the sun—was brilliant. It also wasn’t a coincidence. It was the brain-child of Tom Odjakian, who worked at ESPN then and works at The Big East now. Odjakian is a Lafayette graduate. He wanted his school and others like it to have a chance to play their championship game on national TV. This is what he came up with. Good for him. This will be fun.
The money teams will be everyone’s focus soon enough. For now, let’s get fired up for a potential Coastal Carolina-Radford final in The Big South. Or Stony Brook-Vermont in The America East.
Let the you-know-what begin.
*******
Okay, I had a number of people contact me yesterday about comments Michael Wilbon made about me during an online Washington Post chat yesterday. Wilbon’s angry with me because we have a fundamental disagreement about Tiger Woods—and, I guess it is fair to say star athletes in general.
This though is about Woods. He defends him. I don’t. There’s really no need to go through the details: What we’ve both written and said is out there if you want to find it.
Wilbon got mad two weeks ago because I joked on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show that he had put aside his professionalism when it came to Tiger. As he proudly told The Post in his chat he called my cell phone and left a profanity-filled message. I responded by leaving him a message that was, I think he’d agree, considerably calmer but sticking to the essential point: we disagree on Woods. He isn’t going to back away from his position; I’m not backing away from mine.
I don’t know if the question during his online chat yesterday was a setup. I do know the person I’m really mad at is some guy I’ve probably never even met calling me, ‘Junior.’ Anyway, Wilbon responded by saying on the one hand he didn’t ‘give a damn,’ what I thought but on the other hand said he’d called and screamed profanities at me. If nothing else, the profanities let me know he cared. I was touched. He also said something about not being ‘subservient,’ to me. I don’t think I’ve ever asked Wilbon or anyone I’ve worked with to be subservient to me. In fact, I’ve never written these words: “As I was being driven from Bristol to New York on Sunday.” (Nor will I).
The only thing Mike said that’s just untrue is that I confuse my opinions with facts and legitimacy. Having been a columnist for a long time now I not only know the difference between opinion and fact I’m accustomed to people disagreeing with my opinions—sometimes angrily. It’s part of the job. As for legitimacy, that’s clearly up to the readers too.
Wilbon also says he’d put his journalistic credentials up against mine any day. That’s fine. Mike’s been very good at what he does for a long time. I feel pretty comfortable with my journalistic credentials though and here is where we differ (in my opinion): Guys like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaq—the rich and famous guys Wilbon thinks of as friends—have public relations machines that tell the world how great they are. If they do something good, it should be reported. But when they screw up, they don’t need us taking a bullet for them. The people in sports who maybe need a boost every now and then (when they do something good) are the kids in The Patriot League; the football players at Army and Navy; the golfers who end up in Q-School.
Those are the stories I enjoy doing the most and the people I tend to gravitate towards. That doesn’t mean the big names don’t have stories to tell—I think I’ve told my share of those stories too. And gotten to know many of them along the way. WIlbon loves hanging with big names and telling people about it. I'm looking forward to dinner with Paul Goydos this week. Neither one of us is right or wrong. We're just different.
Let me close by saying this: When Abe Pollin fired Jordan several years ago Wilbon was one of many in Washington who ranted against him for doing it. Pollin’s decision was proven correct when Ernie Grunfeld came in, hired Eddie Jordan as coach and rebuilt the Wizards into a playoff team—four straight years—before Gilbert Arenas’s injuries and stupidity brought the team down again. When Pollin died, instead of simply writing the words, ‘I was wrong,’ about Pollin’s decision (hell, we all get it wrong sometimes; I thought Tiger would be playing golf this month) he went off on some tangent about how it was a shame Abe never forged a better relationship with Jordan.
Come on Mike, you’re better than that.
In conclusion? Wilbon and I have been friends for 30 years. We’re pissed at one another right now. I hope we’ll sit down and agree to disagree and move on at some point in the future. In the meantime though I guarantee this: I will NOT criticize his clothes. He dresses VERY well.
Final note of the morning to poster Case: Not sure if you were joking but I was never scheduled to work The Patriot League quarterfinals. I’m in Florida right now—it’s raining dammit—to do some golf this week and some baseball. The league’s known since August I was going to miss that game. I’ll be back for the semis on Sunday. But thanks for paying attention!
March Madness actually begins tonight. The Big South starts its postseason tournament. By the end of the weekend, if you count The Ivy League, five automatic bids will have been handed out.
For me, the one bid tournaments are about as much fun as anything that takes place during the basketball season. Very few of the kids playing are going to be one-and-done and you aren’t going to hear a lot of speculation about their pro futures. All they care about at that moment is the game they are playing because most are one loss away from the end of their season. A majority of the seniors are one loss away from the end of their careers.
That’s what makes these tournaments so much fun. When Mike Brey was coaching at Delaware he often said that winning The America East Tournament was the equivalent of getting to The Final Four for Duke—which was where he had coached prior to moving to Delaware. “And winning a game in the NCAA Tournament is like winning the national championship,” he added.
We all know that on rare occasions one of the little guys will slip through to the sweet sixteen. George Mason’s Final Four run in 2006 belongs in a different category but it is worth remembering that the Patriots didn’t come out of a pure one-bid league. In fact, they got into the tournament as an at-large team, much to the chagrin of Jim Nantz, Billy Packer and others.
The real one bid leagues are the one where no one even discusses an at-large bid, where the committee has already penciled the champion in as a No. 15 or No. 16 seed most years. Of course there can be exceptions going in either direction. In 2006, coming off a first round upset a year earlier over Kansas, Bucknell came out of The Patriot League as a No. 9 seed—and promptly lived up to it by beating Arkansas. This year, the opposite is true in the league. The only conference team likely to avoid being sent to the dreaded play-in game in Dayton is top-seeded Lehigh. Anyone else wins the PL Tournament—which begins tomorrow but doesn’t end until March 12th because of (you guessed it) television—and they’re probably headed for Dayton. At the moment that teams cuts the nets down though, it won’t be thinking about Dayton. It will be nothing but pure joy.
That’s why Brey’s description is so apt. When you watch these teams play for their championships you can see how much it means to them. None of them are thinking about the fact that they may face a first-round game against Syracuse, Kansas or Kentucky. Or that they might be going to Dayton. It doesn’t matter. They want to be champions and they want to see their name go up on the board on Selection Sunday and they want to be part of The Dance.
Sure, it is all cliché but it is real. I remember being in Lafayette’s locker room after the Leopards beat Navy 10 years ago to win The Patriot League title when I was researching, “The Last Amateurs,” and it was about as joyous a place as I’ve ever been. A week later, as a No. 15 seed, the Leopards were beaten badly by Temple but that didn’t change the memories or the feelings they had for one another after beating Navy.
The little guy that no one wants to play this year is Cornell. It will be interesting to see how the committee seeds The Big Red. They have one bad loss—at Penn—but their other three losses are to Seton Hall and at Kansas and Syracuse. They’ve won road games at Alabama, at Massachusetts and at St. John’s. They played a tougher non-conference schedule than most schools in the BCS conferences play.
Jim Boeheim has said Cornell should be a No. 4 to a No. 6 seed. That won’t happen. I think if they had run the table in the Ivy League they might have sneaked into a No. 9 seed ala Bucknell four years ago. Now, I think they’ll be more like a No. 11. One thing about the committee—they hold a bad loss against a little guy against it more than they do a big guy.
That’s all for a week from Sunday. For now, the next 10 days are about the little guys having that moment they will all remember forever. If you think the U.S. hockey team looked heartbroken, check the faces of some of the losers in these conference tournament finals—especially after a last-second game-decider. The Olympians all believe they’ll get another shot in Sochi in four years and many will. Most of the kids who lose one-big finals know they won’t get another shot. Most teams that rise in these conferences are led by seniors so this may be their last chance.
ESPN has done a lot of bad things through the years but ‘Championship Week,’—giving the one-bid kids their moment in the sun—was brilliant. It also wasn’t a coincidence. It was the brain-child of Tom Odjakian, who worked at ESPN then and works at The Big East now. Odjakian is a Lafayette graduate. He wanted his school and others like it to have a chance to play their championship game on national TV. This is what he came up with. Good for him. This will be fun.
The money teams will be everyone’s focus soon enough. For now, let’s get fired up for a potential Coastal Carolina-Radford final in The Big South. Or Stony Brook-Vermont in The America East.
Let the you-know-what begin.
*******
Okay, I had a number of people contact me yesterday about comments Michael Wilbon made about me during an online Washington Post chat yesterday. Wilbon’s angry with me because we have a fundamental disagreement about Tiger Woods—and, I guess it is fair to say star athletes in general.
This though is about Woods. He defends him. I don’t. There’s really no need to go through the details: What we’ve both written and said is out there if you want to find it.
Wilbon got mad two weeks ago because I joked on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show that he had put aside his professionalism when it came to Tiger. As he proudly told The Post in his chat he called my cell phone and left a profanity-filled message. I responded by leaving him a message that was, I think he’d agree, considerably calmer but sticking to the essential point: we disagree on Woods. He isn’t going to back away from his position; I’m not backing away from mine.
I don’t know if the question during his online chat yesterday was a setup. I do know the person I’m really mad at is some guy I’ve probably never even met calling me, ‘Junior.’ Anyway, Wilbon responded by saying on the one hand he didn’t ‘give a damn,’ what I thought but on the other hand said he’d called and screamed profanities at me. If nothing else, the profanities let me know he cared. I was touched. He also said something about not being ‘subservient,’ to me. I don’t think I’ve ever asked Wilbon or anyone I’ve worked with to be subservient to me. In fact, I’ve never written these words: “As I was being driven from Bristol to New York on Sunday.” (Nor will I).
The only thing Mike said that’s just untrue is that I confuse my opinions with facts and legitimacy. Having been a columnist for a long time now I not only know the difference between opinion and fact I’m accustomed to people disagreeing with my opinions—sometimes angrily. It’s part of the job. As for legitimacy, that’s clearly up to the readers too.
Wilbon also says he’d put his journalistic credentials up against mine any day. That’s fine. Mike’s been very good at what he does for a long time. I feel pretty comfortable with my journalistic credentials though and here is where we differ (in my opinion): Guys like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaq—the rich and famous guys Wilbon thinks of as friends—have public relations machines that tell the world how great they are. If they do something good, it should be reported. But when they screw up, they don’t need us taking a bullet for them. The people in sports who maybe need a boost every now and then (when they do something good) are the kids in The Patriot League; the football players at Army and Navy; the golfers who end up in Q-School.
Those are the stories I enjoy doing the most and the people I tend to gravitate towards. That doesn’t mean the big names don’t have stories to tell—I think I’ve told my share of those stories too. And gotten to know many of them along the way. WIlbon loves hanging with big names and telling people about it. I'm looking forward to dinner with Paul Goydos this week. Neither one of us is right or wrong. We're just different.
Let me close by saying this: When Abe Pollin fired Jordan several years ago Wilbon was one of many in Washington who ranted against him for doing it. Pollin’s decision was proven correct when Ernie Grunfeld came in, hired Eddie Jordan as coach and rebuilt the Wizards into a playoff team—four straight years—before Gilbert Arenas’s injuries and stupidity brought the team down again. When Pollin died, instead of simply writing the words, ‘I was wrong,’ about Pollin’s decision (hell, we all get it wrong sometimes; I thought Tiger would be playing golf this month) he went off on some tangent about how it was a shame Abe never forged a better relationship with Jordan.
Come on Mike, you’re better than that.
In conclusion? Wilbon and I have been friends for 30 years. We’re pissed at one another right now. I hope we’ll sit down and agree to disagree and move on at some point in the future. In the meantime though I guarantee this: I will NOT criticize his clothes. He dresses VERY well.
Final note of the morning to poster Case: Not sure if you were joking but I was never scheduled to work The Patriot League quarterfinals. I’m in Florida right now—it’s raining dammit—to do some golf this week and some baseball. The league’s known since August I was going to miss that game. I’ll be back for the semis on Sunday. But thanks for paying attention!
Comments (21)
ESPN punished Tony for being Tony –- what complete hypocrites
Wed, Feb 24 2010 10:15
| Hannah Storm, Bob Knight, Washington Post, Tony Kornheiser, Jim Nantz, ESPN
| Permalink
Okay, let’s start this morning with the disclaimer: Most people know that I like Tony Kornheiser and I don’t like ESPN. So, when I discuss Tony’s two week suspension from the network, specifically from Pardon The Interruption, I do so being fully aware of the biases I bring to the table.
Tony and I have been friends for 30 years. I began reading him while in college when he was still at The New York Times and thought he was about as good a writer as anyone going. When he came to The Washington Post we became friends quickly: both of us were (and are) wise-guy New Yorkers and Tony became someone I sought out when I needed advice or guidance. When the idea of trying to do a book on Bob Knight came to me in 1985, Tony was the very first person who said, “you should absolutely do this. It can be a great book.”
He was pretty close to a lone voice (there were a handful of others) because most of my friends and family thought I was crazy to take a leave of absence from The Post to do the book. Fortunately for me I followed my gut instinct and Tony’s advice.
We’ve been through lots of ups and downs. We’ve had periods where we didn’t speak to one another over fights I swear to God I can’t remember anymore. Tony can be an absolute pain-in-the-butt (as can I)—which may be one reason why we’re still friends. He’s lectured me on my behavior and decision-making at times and I’ve done the same to him.
Now, there are some people who love Tony’s work, in print and on-air and think he’s the funniest, smartest guy going. There are others who think he’s a whining curmudgeon and can’t understand why anyone would want to listen to him, much less hire him.
I can tell you one entity that loves Tony’s work: ESPN. That’s why the network bought his local radio show years ago and took it national. (For the record it was Tony who opted to go back to local radio because he got tired of having dull ex-jock, ESPN-talent shoved down his throat as guests). That’s why it built PTI around him and Mike Wilbon. That’s why it chose to put him on Monday Night Football, it’s FLAGSHIP property for three years. ESPN pays Tony a lot of money because it likes who he is on-air. YOU might hate him. ESPN loves him.
Part of what makes Tony Tony is the fact that he’s constantly making fun of people. God knows he makes fun of me all the time, whether about my clothes, my waist-size (still 36 but not with much margin these days) the stupid nickname he stuck on me when I was 23-years-old or my opinions, which often differ from his.
That’s Tony. It is who he is. When he trashed Marv Albert years ago during Albert’s troubles, I said to him, “how can you do that, you’ve been friends with him for years.” Tony shrugged and said, “it’s what I do. It’s my job.”
We disagreed on that one. We often disagree. He defended Mitch Albom when Mitch made up the column about the two Michigan State players at The Final Four five years ago. I thought it was a disgrace and that Mitch’s reaction to the whole thing was worse than that.
Part of what Tony does on the radio is sit and watch TV monitors during the show and make comments about what he’s seeing or sometimes hearing. He kills Ann Curry from The Today show regularly. A few weeks ago he talked about the fact that Jim Nantz had put on weight. Actually that’s not what he said. He said Nantz had gotten fat. It’s worth remembering that Tony refers to himself often as, “bald, fat and old.” The e-mail address for his show is: This Show Stinks. That’s Tony.
ESPN certainly didn’t mind Tony trashing Ann Curry or Jim Nantz or me. But criticizing ESPN is simply not allowed. Remember last summer when all ESPN affiliates were banned from discussing the networks’ unpardonable decision to not mention that Ben Roethlisberger was being sued in a civil suit for assault? The affiliates were told they could NOT bring up the case or ESPN’s decision not to report the law suit.
The last time anyone tried to exert control like this was the old Soviet Union. Misbehave at ESPN and they send you to the Gulag. That’s why I’m not on Sports Reporters anymore. I made a crack to a reporter about ESPN’s desire to own and operate all of sports—and the fact that it appeared to be succeeding. That was it, I was sent to The Gulag, where life has been fine actually. People ask me if I miss The Sports Reporters and my answer is this: I miss the people I worked with on the show. I do NOT miss dealing with ESPN even a little bit.
Tony’s been given a two week Gulag sentence—suspension—because he made a couple of wise cracks about Hannah Storm’s outfit on sportscenter last Thursday. Let’s not even get into the question of whether the outfit was or was not tasteful. It IS ridiculous that people constantly judge women on TV based on their looks and what they’re wearing. Tony does it but he also does it to guys. He’s not trying to be sexist, he’s trying to be funny.
So let’s say he swung and missed on this one. I didn’t see the outfit but even if I did, I’m willing to accept that the comment about looking as if she was “wrapped in a sausage,” was over the line. I’m not even entirely sure what that means.
When Tony started getting nailed on the internet for the line, ESPN, ever-vigilant, sprung into action. Tony instantly agreed to apologize to Storm and did—on the phone and on his show the next day. That should have been the end of it.
Look, I have some experience with this. When I uttered my infamous profanity during the Navy-Duke game five years ago, I apologized right away on the air after first offering to resign. The Navy people, specifically Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk and Eric Ruden, who oversees the radio network both said the same thing: “You made a mistake, you acknowledged the mistake, you apologized. We’re done. See you next week for the Air Force game.”
Most people took the same approach: apology accepted. To this day I still have clever people occasionally say to me, “think you can get through the broadcast without saying ----- today?” That’s the price you pay. Just as a guy came up to me at a basketball game last night and said, “Hey, how’s your pal Bobby Knight?”
To quote Tiger Woods and Peppermint Patty, I blame the media.
The TWO apologies should have been enough. But ESPN couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to let people know that it is America’s great defender of women. That’s because in the past it has been anything but that. So, after Tony apologized to Storm both privately and publicly, he was told he was going to be suspended. At first it was going to be three days but clearly someone up high decided this was a great time to REALLY jump on a high horse so the suspension became 10 days. Then there were predictable self-righteous statements from Bristol about how the network simply couldn’t allow this.
Oh please.
ESPN is, for the most part, a celebration of mediocrity. I was reminded of that this morning when I heard the various taped paeans from sports people to ‘Mike and Mike’s,’ 10th anniversary. (Question: Does Greenberg think that every single coach or manager alive is named, ‘coach or skip?’ Question: Is Golic capable of asking a single non-football question not written for him by a producer?)
There are exceptions to the mediocrity rule, some people who are very good and some shows (notably PTI) that are smart and funny. Actually, now that I think of it, PTI is the ONLY daily show on TV or radio (unless you are an insomniac and listen to Bob Valvano which I do when driving home very late at night) that is consistently smart and funny. Take Tony off the show and it becomes a less loud version of ‘Around The Horn.’ That show is occasionally saved by the presence of Bob Ryan (or at least made less unbearable) and Wilbon, when he isn’t sucking up to famous athletes, brings smarts and experience to PTI. But there’s no show without Tony.
So here’s what ESPN did: It subjected Tony to public humiliation so it could take a phony bow and claim to be a great defender of women. It did this to punish Tony for being Tony. The guy they hired because they liked who he was. What complete hypocrites.
Then again, this is about as surprising as Dick Vitale screaming or the NCAA making a grab for money. It is who ESPN is. And, no doubt, always will be.
Tony and I have been friends for 30 years. I began reading him while in college when he was still at The New York Times and thought he was about as good a writer as anyone going. When he came to The Washington Post we became friends quickly: both of us were (and are) wise-guy New Yorkers and Tony became someone I sought out when I needed advice or guidance. When the idea of trying to do a book on Bob Knight came to me in 1985, Tony was the very first person who said, “you should absolutely do this. It can be a great book.”
He was pretty close to a lone voice (there were a handful of others) because most of my friends and family thought I was crazy to take a leave of absence from The Post to do the book. Fortunately for me I followed my gut instinct and Tony’s advice.
We’ve been through lots of ups and downs. We’ve had periods where we didn’t speak to one another over fights I swear to God I can’t remember anymore. Tony can be an absolute pain-in-the-butt (as can I)—which may be one reason why we’re still friends. He’s lectured me on my behavior and decision-making at times and I’ve done the same to him.
Now, there are some people who love Tony’s work, in print and on-air and think he’s the funniest, smartest guy going. There are others who think he’s a whining curmudgeon and can’t understand why anyone would want to listen to him, much less hire him.
I can tell you one entity that loves Tony’s work: ESPN. That’s why the network bought his local radio show years ago and took it national. (For the record it was Tony who opted to go back to local radio because he got tired of having dull ex-jock, ESPN-talent shoved down his throat as guests). That’s why it built PTI around him and Mike Wilbon. That’s why it chose to put him on Monday Night Football, it’s FLAGSHIP property for three years. ESPN pays Tony a lot of money because it likes who he is on-air. YOU might hate him. ESPN loves him.
Part of what makes Tony Tony is the fact that he’s constantly making fun of people. God knows he makes fun of me all the time, whether about my clothes, my waist-size (still 36 but not with much margin these days) the stupid nickname he stuck on me when I was 23-years-old or my opinions, which often differ from his.
That’s Tony. It is who he is. When he trashed Marv Albert years ago during Albert’s troubles, I said to him, “how can you do that, you’ve been friends with him for years.” Tony shrugged and said, “it’s what I do. It’s my job.”
We disagreed on that one. We often disagree. He defended Mitch Albom when Mitch made up the column about the two Michigan State players at The Final Four five years ago. I thought it was a disgrace and that Mitch’s reaction to the whole thing was worse than that.
Part of what Tony does on the radio is sit and watch TV monitors during the show and make comments about what he’s seeing or sometimes hearing. He kills Ann Curry from The Today show regularly. A few weeks ago he talked about the fact that Jim Nantz had put on weight. Actually that’s not what he said. He said Nantz had gotten fat. It’s worth remembering that Tony refers to himself often as, “bald, fat and old.” The e-mail address for his show is: This Show Stinks. That’s Tony.
ESPN certainly didn’t mind Tony trashing Ann Curry or Jim Nantz or me. But criticizing ESPN is simply not allowed. Remember last summer when all ESPN affiliates were banned from discussing the networks’ unpardonable decision to not mention that Ben Roethlisberger was being sued in a civil suit for assault? The affiliates were told they could NOT bring up the case or ESPN’s decision not to report the law suit.
The last time anyone tried to exert control like this was the old Soviet Union. Misbehave at ESPN and they send you to the Gulag. That’s why I’m not on Sports Reporters anymore. I made a crack to a reporter about ESPN’s desire to own and operate all of sports—and the fact that it appeared to be succeeding. That was it, I was sent to The Gulag, where life has been fine actually. People ask me if I miss The Sports Reporters and my answer is this: I miss the people I worked with on the show. I do NOT miss dealing with ESPN even a little bit.
Tony’s been given a two week Gulag sentence—suspension—because he made a couple of wise cracks about Hannah Storm’s outfit on sportscenter last Thursday. Let’s not even get into the question of whether the outfit was or was not tasteful. It IS ridiculous that people constantly judge women on TV based on their looks and what they’re wearing. Tony does it but he also does it to guys. He’s not trying to be sexist, he’s trying to be funny.
So let’s say he swung and missed on this one. I didn’t see the outfit but even if I did, I’m willing to accept that the comment about looking as if she was “wrapped in a sausage,” was over the line. I’m not even entirely sure what that means.
When Tony started getting nailed on the internet for the line, ESPN, ever-vigilant, sprung into action. Tony instantly agreed to apologize to Storm and did—on the phone and on his show the next day. That should have been the end of it.
Look, I have some experience with this. When I uttered my infamous profanity during the Navy-Duke game five years ago, I apologized right away on the air after first offering to resign. The Navy people, specifically Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk and Eric Ruden, who oversees the radio network both said the same thing: “You made a mistake, you acknowledged the mistake, you apologized. We’re done. See you next week for the Air Force game.”
Most people took the same approach: apology accepted. To this day I still have clever people occasionally say to me, “think you can get through the broadcast without saying ----- today?” That’s the price you pay. Just as a guy came up to me at a basketball game last night and said, “Hey, how’s your pal Bobby Knight?”
To quote Tiger Woods and Peppermint Patty, I blame the media.
The TWO apologies should have been enough. But ESPN couldn’t resist the opportunity to try to let people know that it is America’s great defender of women. That’s because in the past it has been anything but that. So, after Tony apologized to Storm both privately and publicly, he was told he was going to be suspended. At first it was going to be three days but clearly someone up high decided this was a great time to REALLY jump on a high horse so the suspension became 10 days. Then there were predictable self-righteous statements from Bristol about how the network simply couldn’t allow this.
Oh please.
ESPN is, for the most part, a celebration of mediocrity. I was reminded of that this morning when I heard the various taped paeans from sports people to ‘Mike and Mike’s,’ 10th anniversary. (Question: Does Greenberg think that every single coach or manager alive is named, ‘coach or skip?’ Question: Is Golic capable of asking a single non-football question not written for him by a producer?)
There are exceptions to the mediocrity rule, some people who are very good and some shows (notably PTI) that are smart and funny. Actually, now that I think of it, PTI is the ONLY daily show on TV or radio (unless you are an insomniac and listen to Bob Valvano which I do when driving home very late at night) that is consistently smart and funny. Take Tony off the show and it becomes a less loud version of ‘Around The Horn.’ That show is occasionally saved by the presence of Bob Ryan (or at least made less unbearable) and Wilbon, when he isn’t sucking up to famous athletes, brings smarts and experience to PTI. But there’s no show without Tony.
So here’s what ESPN did: It subjected Tony to public humiliation so it could take a phony bow and claim to be a great defender of women. It did this to punish Tony for being Tony. The guy they hired because they liked who he was. What complete hypocrites.
Then again, this is about as surprising as Dick Vitale screaming or the NCAA making a grab for money. It is who ESPN is. And, no doubt, always will be.
Comments (40)
Racing, Olympics and ESPN-ABC Announcers; Goydos keeps his sense of humor
Tue, Feb 16 2010 10:00
| Paul Goydos, Dick Vitale, Brent Musburger, college basketball, Bob Knight, Winter Olympics, ESPN
| Permalink
I apologize for not having written a blog yesterday. On my way home Sunday from the Holy Cross-Bucknell game I kept having to pull over because there were potholes on Rte. 15 that I was afraid to go through at 200 miles per hour.
Sorry stock car fans, couldn’t resist. But seriously, the biggest event in racing delayed for more than two hours because the track has potholes in it? Who was in charge of track maintenance, the NCAA? Look, I know nothing about auto racing—I covered the Indy 500 once; thought the start was about the most thrilling thing I’d ever seen and then had little idea what was going on for the rest of the race. To be fair, that was the year when officials had to go back and look at the tape to figure out who finished second to Rick Mears. So it wasn’t just me.
But I don’t think you have to be a racing fan to understand that two delays caused by potholes is not exactly great theater nor is having the race finish when it is already dinnertime in the east. Apparently Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second. Where was Danica Patrick? Oh, that’s right she was in the race Saturday that only the real racing geeks pay any attention to at all. She’s the biggest star in the sport—at least based on how often she’s on TV—and she runs in the equivalent of the NBA rookie game.
She got more attention for finishing 32nd in that race than all the other drivers combined did for the entire week. Gee, I wonder why. Couldn’t have anything to do with her looks could it?
Meanwhile, back at sports I know something about…(which means there isn’t going to be too much talk about the Olympics although I got a kick out of Bode Miller caring enough to win a bronze medal in the downhill and an American with a great name—Johnny Spillane--winning the first U.S. medal in Nordic skiing since Bill Koch in 1976. Seeing Koch’s name reminded me that when he won his medal (a silver in the 30 kilometer cross country race) I was in college and avidly reading The Washington Post. One American writer had thought to show up for the race—Lenny Shapiro from The Post—who was my hero then as he is now. He talked to Koch and wrote a great story about him and his solitary quest to be a Nordic skier in a country that had zero interest in Nordic skiing.
I swear I’d watch more of the Olympics but every time I switch over it seems that NBC is either in commercial or Bob Costas is saying, “let’s return now to figure skating….” Bring back Janet Lynn and I’ll return to figure skating. I finally figured out last night as I clicked back to college hoops as two more figure skaters graced my screen why I simply can’t stand it anymore: it’s not a sport, it’s a reality show. All it lacks are early tryouts with people who can’t stay up on their skates and Simon Cowell telling them that they suck).
Okay, now you are looking live at today’s blog. Sorry, I spent some of last night listening to Brent Musburger and Bob Knight. Talk about memories. Brent is now 70 and Knight is 69 but they both clearly love being in places like College Station, Texas doing a game on a Monday night in February. Hey, good for them. I wish I had that kind of energy sometimes.
Brent sometimes sounds like he’s doing an imitation of Brent but who cares? If ABC-ESPN gets the NCAA Tournament contract this summer, there’s going to be a battle royale over there about who gets The Final Four games. Dick Vitale HAS to do color because he’s Dick Vitale and he’s been waiting more than 30 years to go to The Final Four and not sell pizzas all week. I’d pair him with Knight because Knight’s sarcastic presence might tone Dick down a little and they could be the sort of Odd Couple that Al McGuire and Billy Packer became.
The smart betting on play-by-play would have to be Dan Schulman, who is the company’s rising play-by-play star and works most of the time with Vitale. Nothing against Schulman but I’d stick Brent right there in-between Vitale and Knight. It would be the climax to a comeback that began 20 years ago when CBS unceremoniously fired him on the eve of the 1990 national title game. And the guy still gets it done when the red light goes on.
Okay, I’m rambling. Some day I’ll tell the story about Brent and I almost getting into a fight about 10 minutes before the national championship telecast went on in the air in 1989 in Seattle. Billy Packer was standing there preparing, as he said later, to open the telecast himself. The whole thing has a happy ending. Brent and I have gotten along fine for years now.
The downer of the weekend for me was my buddy Paul Goydos coughing up the lead on the back nine at Pebble Beach. Anyone who knows me at all knows that Goydos and I have been friends since 1993 when I first began researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”
I was at the Buick Open on the first day killing time in the afternoon before going to meet Billy Andrade for dinner. Larry Mize had shot 64 in the morning and the only player in the afternoon wave who had gone low at all was a rookie named Goydos, who had shot 66. After a lengthy debate, Chuck Adams and Mark Mitchell, the two on-site PGA Tour PR guys, decided to bring Goydos into the interview room.
“There’s no one else to bring in this afternoon,” Mitchell said. “Plus, it’ll be good experience for Paul.”
With nothing else to do, I wandered into the back of the interview room to see if there was any reason at all to listen. The first thing I heard Goydos say was, “I’m sure none of you have ever heard of me. There’s a reason for that: I’ve never done anything.”
Hang on, I thought, this guy might be worth listening to for a few minutes. He launched into a 10-minute monologue that was supposed to be a recap of his round but was more like a standup routine. “At 17 I hit 7-iron. When I’m playing well it’s because I get my slice going. I know if you’re on the PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade but when you hit a 7-iron and it goes 20 yards to the right, that’s a slice.”
I needed to meet this guy. I introduced myself as he was walking out, said I was doing a book on life on tour and wondered if we could talk at some point. “Sure, I’ll talk to you all you want,” he said. “But you’re wasting your time writing a book on the tour. No one’s going to buy it.”
Fortunately Paul is better at golf than predicting book sales. He became the character in the book few people had heard of but continued to follow long after it was published. We became good friends. He’s won twice on tour and pieced together a pretty good career for someone who likes to describe himself as, “the worst player in the history of the PGA Tour.”
He had a great chance to win on Sunday, but came undone on the back nine with a couple of bogeys and then, disastrously, a quadruple-bogey nine that sent him spiraling to a disappointed tie for fifth. Talk about hitting a pothole.
On Monday I sent him an e-mail offering condolences. Typical Paul, this was the answer I got back: “Well, when I made my back-nine 9 on Sunday at The Hope it was on a par-three. This time it was on a par-5. I guess that’s progress.”
You have to love a guy who NEVER loses his sense of humor. There aren’t many people you can say that about.
Gotta go. I think Costas is about to introduce some more figure skating.
Sorry stock car fans, couldn’t resist. But seriously, the biggest event in racing delayed for more than two hours because the track has potholes in it? Who was in charge of track maintenance, the NCAA? Look, I know nothing about auto racing—I covered the Indy 500 once; thought the start was about the most thrilling thing I’d ever seen and then had little idea what was going on for the rest of the race. To be fair, that was the year when officials had to go back and look at the tape to figure out who finished second to Rick Mears. So it wasn’t just me.
But I don’t think you have to be a racing fan to understand that two delays caused by potholes is not exactly great theater nor is having the race finish when it is already dinnertime in the east. Apparently Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second. Where was Danica Patrick? Oh, that’s right she was in the race Saturday that only the real racing geeks pay any attention to at all. She’s the biggest star in the sport—at least based on how often she’s on TV—and she runs in the equivalent of the NBA rookie game.
She got more attention for finishing 32nd in that race than all the other drivers combined did for the entire week. Gee, I wonder why. Couldn’t have anything to do with her looks could it?
Meanwhile, back at sports I know something about…(which means there isn’t going to be too much talk about the Olympics although I got a kick out of Bode Miller caring enough to win a bronze medal in the downhill and an American with a great name—Johnny Spillane--winning the first U.S. medal in Nordic skiing since Bill Koch in 1976. Seeing Koch’s name reminded me that when he won his medal (a silver in the 30 kilometer cross country race) I was in college and avidly reading The Washington Post. One American writer had thought to show up for the race—Lenny Shapiro from The Post—who was my hero then as he is now. He talked to Koch and wrote a great story about him and his solitary quest to be a Nordic skier in a country that had zero interest in Nordic skiing.
I swear I’d watch more of the Olympics but every time I switch over it seems that NBC is either in commercial or Bob Costas is saying, “let’s return now to figure skating….” Bring back Janet Lynn and I’ll return to figure skating. I finally figured out last night as I clicked back to college hoops as two more figure skaters graced my screen why I simply can’t stand it anymore: it’s not a sport, it’s a reality show. All it lacks are early tryouts with people who can’t stay up on their skates and Simon Cowell telling them that they suck).
Okay, now you are looking live at today’s blog. Sorry, I spent some of last night listening to Brent Musburger and Bob Knight. Talk about memories. Brent is now 70 and Knight is 69 but they both clearly love being in places like College Station, Texas doing a game on a Monday night in February. Hey, good for them. I wish I had that kind of energy sometimes.
Brent sometimes sounds like he’s doing an imitation of Brent but who cares? If ABC-ESPN gets the NCAA Tournament contract this summer, there’s going to be a battle royale over there about who gets The Final Four games. Dick Vitale HAS to do color because he’s Dick Vitale and he’s been waiting more than 30 years to go to The Final Four and not sell pizzas all week. I’d pair him with Knight because Knight’s sarcastic presence might tone Dick down a little and they could be the sort of Odd Couple that Al McGuire and Billy Packer became.
The smart betting on play-by-play would have to be Dan Schulman, who is the company’s rising play-by-play star and works most of the time with Vitale. Nothing against Schulman but I’d stick Brent right there in-between Vitale and Knight. It would be the climax to a comeback that began 20 years ago when CBS unceremoniously fired him on the eve of the 1990 national title game. And the guy still gets it done when the red light goes on.
Okay, I’m rambling. Some day I’ll tell the story about Brent and I almost getting into a fight about 10 minutes before the national championship telecast went on in the air in 1989 in Seattle. Billy Packer was standing there preparing, as he said later, to open the telecast himself. The whole thing has a happy ending. Brent and I have gotten along fine for years now.
The downer of the weekend for me was my buddy Paul Goydos coughing up the lead on the back nine at Pebble Beach. Anyone who knows me at all knows that Goydos and I have been friends since 1993 when I first began researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”
I was at the Buick Open on the first day killing time in the afternoon before going to meet Billy Andrade for dinner. Larry Mize had shot 64 in the morning and the only player in the afternoon wave who had gone low at all was a rookie named Goydos, who had shot 66. After a lengthy debate, Chuck Adams and Mark Mitchell, the two on-site PGA Tour PR guys, decided to bring Goydos into the interview room.
“There’s no one else to bring in this afternoon,” Mitchell said. “Plus, it’ll be good experience for Paul.”
With nothing else to do, I wandered into the back of the interview room to see if there was any reason at all to listen. The first thing I heard Goydos say was, “I’m sure none of you have ever heard of me. There’s a reason for that: I’ve never done anything.”
Hang on, I thought, this guy might be worth listening to for a few minutes. He launched into a 10-minute monologue that was supposed to be a recap of his round but was more like a standup routine. “At 17 I hit 7-iron. When I’m playing well it’s because I get my slice going. I know if you’re on the PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade but when you hit a 7-iron and it goes 20 yards to the right, that’s a slice.”
I needed to meet this guy. I introduced myself as he was walking out, said I was doing a book on life on tour and wondered if we could talk at some point. “Sure, I’ll talk to you all you want,” he said. “But you’re wasting your time writing a book on the tour. No one’s going to buy it.”
Fortunately Paul is better at golf than predicting book sales. He became the character in the book few people had heard of but continued to follow long after it was published. We became good friends. He’s won twice on tour and pieced together a pretty good career for someone who likes to describe himself as, “the worst player in the history of the PGA Tour.”
He had a great chance to win on Sunday, but came undone on the back nine with a couple of bogeys and then, disastrously, a quadruple-bogey nine that sent him spiraling to a disappointed tie for fifth. Talk about hitting a pothole.
On Monday I sent him an e-mail offering condolences. Typical Paul, this was the answer I got back: “Well, when I made my back-nine 9 on Sunday at The Hope it was on a par-three. This time it was on a par-5. I guess that’s progress.”
You have to love a guy who NEVER loses his sense of humor. There aren’t many people you can say that about.
Gotta go. I think Costas is about to introduce some more figure skating.
Comments (8)
Working on a documentary for ‘Caddy For Life’; Notes on the comments, including good McEnroe story
Tue, Jan 26 2010 10:00
| Brett Favre, Tom Watson, Washington Post, Bruce Edwards, Katherine Graham, John McEnroe, ESPN
| Permalink
On Friday, I didn’t have time to write because I had to go to Philadelphia. This afternoon, I head to Florida for four days. The reason is Bruce Edwards.
It is difficult to believe that almost six years have passed since Bruce died of ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—after a remarkably brave fight that began only 15 months earlier when he was diagnosed at The Mayo Clinic in January of 2003.
Bruce, who caddied for Tom Watson for most of 30 years beginning in 1973, was literally the first person I ever talked to at a golf tournament. It was at The Memorial in 1981 when I had been sent there for the week to, “find some stories,” (to quote my boss George Solomon) to write the next week when The Kemper Open came to Washington.
The first afternoon I was there I spotted Bruce sitting on the putting green. Watson was the No. 1 player in the world at the time so I instantly recognized him, the guy with the easy smile who was always stride-for-stride with Watson walking down the fairways, Watson’s bag looped easily over his shoulder. I introduced myself and we sat and talked for more than two hours about his life, about other caddies and other players. A friendship that lasted until the day he died was born that afternoon.
If you’ve read, ‘Caddy For Life,’ you know that the story I just recounted is how the book begins, so forgive me if some of this seems familiar.
Soon after he was diagnosed, I talked to Bruce at The Masters. The disease was already beginning to ravage his body: he was thin, he admitted that walking the hills at Augusta was tough on his legs and his speech was slurred. He told me that a number of people had suggested he do a book on his experiences as one of the first truly professional caddies on the tour; on his relationship with Watson and on what he was going through. He asked me if I would do the book.
As I’ve said before, I was hesitant at first for a purely selfish reason: I didn’t want to watch a friend die from up close. Make no mistake about ALS. It kills you and it kills you in an awful way, your body collapsing while your mind stays intact. But after about 60 seconds of trying to think of a way to say no, it occurred to me that I had to say yes. Bruce had been a good friend for 22 years.
What’s more, this wasn’t the kind of vanity book people often brought up to me. I swear to God every coach who has ever been fired believes his life story is the next, ‘Season on the Brink.’ I had a coach call me once who had been involved in a major recruiting scandal. I didn’t think his story was close to being a book but, trying to be polite, I said to him, “There might be some interest in your story regionally and there are guys who could write it for you that I know. But if you tell the truth about everything that went on, it might make it impossible for you to coach again.”
There was silence on the phone. And then: “You’re misunderstanding me John. I’m not going to talk about any of that. I just want to write about the highlights of my career.”
The highlight of his career had been reaching ONE sweet sixteen.
Bruce had a real story to tell. I saw it as a three part love story: his love affair with caddying and golf; the love between he and Watson that had grown through the years and the love he and his wife Marsha had for one another. They had dated in the 1970s, gone separate ways for almost 25 years and then re-united shortly before Bruce was diagnosed.
I wrote the book and I’m very glad I did as painful as it was. Bruce and I were scheduled to do a book-signing together in Augusta on April 3rd, 2004 but he never made it there. He died the next morning—the first day of The Masters.
The book ended up being a bestseller and there was a lot of talk about a movie. In fact, ABC was fired up enough about doing it that it commissioned a script. David Himmelstein wrote it and I can tell you it was GREAT. When I read David’s opening scene, which was a description of Bruce and Marsha’s wedding in Hawaii, that was attended by—among others—Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player (Watson was the best man)—I called David and said, “This first scene pisses me off.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t think of the idea to start the movie with it.”
To make a long story short, the head of ABC Entertainment loved the script. Matt Damon’s production company was going to produce the movie with Damon (a huge golf fan) as executive producer. The movie was going to be co-paid for by ABC and my pals at ESPN, since they would re-run it early and often after it aired on ABC.
But it never happened and, if it wasn’t so damn sad, the reason would be funny: At the start of 2007, Disney slashed ESPN’s movie-making budget because the movies made by ESPN Original Entertainment had been so bad and had lost so much money. The first movie ESPN had made? ‘A Season on the Brink,’ which was absolutely god-awful. When I said it was god-awful at the time the ESPN people went nuts. I got a letter from one guy saying the reason the reviews were so terrible was because I had ripped the movie. If only I had such power.
So, ‘Caddy For Life,’--the movie--never happened.
But now, The Golf Channel is planning to turn it into a documentary, one that will air the week of this year’s U.S. Open—which is at Pebble Beach, the site of Tom and Bruce’s greatest moment, the 1982 Open.
I am, of course, thrilled. TGC has pledged to make a large contribution to, “The Bruce Edwards Foundation,” and after the movie airs Watson will come on to talk about ALS and the desperate need for research money.
That’s why I was in Philly Friday, to interview Bruce’s sister Gwyn and his old caddying buddies, Neil Oxman and Bill Leahey. On this trip I will do on-cameras with Bruce’s parents and his beloved Aunt Joan in addition to Watson, Gary Crandall (another caddying pal) and finally, Marsha, who still lives in the house that Bruce built with the money he made during his brief time caddying for Greg Norman. He always called it, “The Norman House.”
Friday had a number of emotional moments and I know the next few days will too. But hearing Bruce stories always makes me smile and the cause is certainly a worthy one. Plus, I think the documentary can be very, very good and it would be nice to see one of my books turned into something on screen I can be proud to have taken part in.
-------------------------------
Two notes on recent postings: Someone pointed out yesterday that Brett Favre answered every question postgame on Sunday and ducked no one and no issue in the wake of the Saints win over the Vikings.
I have mentioned in the past how much I respect athletes who do that after a crushing defeat, the best example in my experience being Bill Buckner after game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Favre deserves a lot of credit for being a stand-up guy when standing up literally wasn’t easy for him. A lot of athletes in his situation would have used their injury—in this case his left ankle—as an excuse to, “get treatment,” in the training room and duck the media or at least squeeze them since most guys were on tight deadlines with the game ending so late.
So, good for Favre. And, has anyone noticed it took about an hour for ESPN to come out with its first, “ESPN has learned that Brett Favre says, ‘it is highly unlikely,’ he will return next season.
First of all you don’t ask ANY athlete about retiring in the wake of a loss like that because they just aren’t thinking straight. And Favre? What do you think the over-under on the, “ESPN has learned,” updates between now and March 1 is. If you make the number 12, I’ll take the over.
Someone else asked recently if I had any stories about Katherine Graham, the legendary publisher of The Washington Post, who was still very much running the paper when I first got there.
I have quite a few but for now, here’s the most memorable. In 1985, I was sent to Europe to cover The French Open and Wimbledon for the first time and spent that summer covering a lot of tennis. On the morning of the U.S. Open men’s final between Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe, I was in the press box at the National Tennis Center when I heard Bud Collins say, “John, you have a guest.”
I looked up and here came Mrs. Graham, who played a lot of tennis and was a big tennis fan—one reason why the tennis beat was a big deal at The Post.
“John, I just had to come up and see you before the match,” she said. “I wanted to tell you how much I have LOVED your tennis writing this summer.”
“Well, Mrs. Graham, thank-you, I’m really glad you like it…”
“And what I especially like is the way you write about John McEnroe. I can tell you like him. I do too. Deep down, I think he’s a good guy.”
(I had written a long McEnroe profile during the Open).
“Well, thanks. I agree. If you get to know John he really IS a good guy.”
We talked for a few minutes. Needless to say I was thrilled that Katherine Graham (!!!) had taken time to find me and compliment me on my work.
A little while later the match was ready to start. I was sitting downstairs near the court with my pal Pete Alfano, then of Newsday, later The New York Times. Everyone was seated. McEnroe was getting ready to serve. The umpire called, “play.”
There was one small problem. There was one spectator who hadn’t quite made it to her seat courtside just yet. McEnroe was giving her, “the glare,” which meant he was just about to say something that would no doubt not be polite. I looked at the spectator and gasped: It was Mrs. Graham.
My entire career passed before my eyes. “Yes Mrs. Graham, John’s really a good guy…”
I grabbed Alfano’s shoulder. “Oh my God, I’m done, I’m finished,” I said.
McEnroe was now bouncing a ball off his racquet, waiting and glaring. Mrs. Graham had no clue what was going on. The crowd began to murmur. Finally, after what felt like about an hour, she got to her seat. A few people clapped sarcastically. John—God Bless him—never said a word.
Then he lost in straight sets. A few years later I asked him if he remembered that moment. He did. “If the match had already started I probably would have said something,” he said. “You’re lucky I wasn’t in a bad mood yet.”
Oh God was I lucky.
It is difficult to believe that almost six years have passed since Bruce died of ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease—after a remarkably brave fight that began only 15 months earlier when he was diagnosed at The Mayo Clinic in January of 2003.
Bruce, who caddied for Tom Watson for most of 30 years beginning in 1973, was literally the first person I ever talked to at a golf tournament. It was at The Memorial in 1981 when I had been sent there for the week to, “find some stories,” (to quote my boss George Solomon) to write the next week when The Kemper Open came to Washington.
The first afternoon I was there I spotted Bruce sitting on the putting green. Watson was the No. 1 player in the world at the time so I instantly recognized him, the guy with the easy smile who was always stride-for-stride with Watson walking down the fairways, Watson’s bag looped easily over his shoulder. I introduced myself and we sat and talked for more than two hours about his life, about other caddies and other players. A friendship that lasted until the day he died was born that afternoon.
If you’ve read, ‘Caddy For Life,’ you know that the story I just recounted is how the book begins, so forgive me if some of this seems familiar.
Soon after he was diagnosed, I talked to Bruce at The Masters. The disease was already beginning to ravage his body: he was thin, he admitted that walking the hills at Augusta was tough on his legs and his speech was slurred. He told me that a number of people had suggested he do a book on his experiences as one of the first truly professional caddies on the tour; on his relationship with Watson and on what he was going through. He asked me if I would do the book.
As I’ve said before, I was hesitant at first for a purely selfish reason: I didn’t want to watch a friend die from up close. Make no mistake about ALS. It kills you and it kills you in an awful way, your body collapsing while your mind stays intact. But after about 60 seconds of trying to think of a way to say no, it occurred to me that I had to say yes. Bruce had been a good friend for 22 years.
What’s more, this wasn’t the kind of vanity book people often brought up to me. I swear to God every coach who has ever been fired believes his life story is the next, ‘Season on the Brink.’ I had a coach call me once who had been involved in a major recruiting scandal. I didn’t think his story was close to being a book but, trying to be polite, I said to him, “There might be some interest in your story regionally and there are guys who could write it for you that I know. But if you tell the truth about everything that went on, it might make it impossible for you to coach again.”
There was silence on the phone. And then: “You’re misunderstanding me John. I’m not going to talk about any of that. I just want to write about the highlights of my career.”
The highlight of his career had been reaching ONE sweet sixteen.
Bruce had a real story to tell. I saw it as a three part love story: his love affair with caddying and golf; the love between he and Watson that had grown through the years and the love he and his wife Marsha had for one another. They had dated in the 1970s, gone separate ways for almost 25 years and then re-united shortly before Bruce was diagnosed.
I wrote the book and I’m very glad I did as painful as it was. Bruce and I were scheduled to do a book-signing together in Augusta on April 3rd, 2004 but he never made it there. He died the next morning—the first day of The Masters.
The book ended up being a bestseller and there was a lot of talk about a movie. In fact, ABC was fired up enough about doing it that it commissioned a script. David Himmelstein wrote it and I can tell you it was GREAT. When I read David’s opening scene, which was a description of Bruce and Marsha’s wedding in Hawaii, that was attended by—among others—Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player (Watson was the best man)—I called David and said, “This first scene pisses me off.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I didn’t think of the idea to start the movie with it.”
To make a long story short, the head of ABC Entertainment loved the script. Matt Damon’s production company was going to produce the movie with Damon (a huge golf fan) as executive producer. The movie was going to be co-paid for by ABC and my pals at ESPN, since they would re-run it early and often after it aired on ABC.
But it never happened and, if it wasn’t so damn sad, the reason would be funny: At the start of 2007, Disney slashed ESPN’s movie-making budget because the movies made by ESPN Original Entertainment had been so bad and had lost so much money. The first movie ESPN had made? ‘A Season on the Brink,’ which was absolutely god-awful. When I said it was god-awful at the time the ESPN people went nuts. I got a letter from one guy saying the reason the reviews were so terrible was because I had ripped the movie. If only I had such power.
So, ‘Caddy For Life,’--the movie--never happened.
But now, The Golf Channel is planning to turn it into a documentary, one that will air the week of this year’s U.S. Open—which is at Pebble Beach, the site of Tom and Bruce’s greatest moment, the 1982 Open.
I am, of course, thrilled. TGC has pledged to make a large contribution to, “The Bruce Edwards Foundation,” and after the movie airs Watson will come on to talk about ALS and the desperate need for research money.
That’s why I was in Philly Friday, to interview Bruce’s sister Gwyn and his old caddying buddies, Neil Oxman and Bill Leahey. On this trip I will do on-cameras with Bruce’s parents and his beloved Aunt Joan in addition to Watson, Gary Crandall (another caddying pal) and finally, Marsha, who still lives in the house that Bruce built with the money he made during his brief time caddying for Greg Norman. He always called it, “The Norman House.”
Friday had a number of emotional moments and I know the next few days will too. But hearing Bruce stories always makes me smile and the cause is certainly a worthy one. Plus, I think the documentary can be very, very good and it would be nice to see one of my books turned into something on screen I can be proud to have taken part in.
-------------------------------
Two notes on recent postings: Someone pointed out yesterday that Brett Favre answered every question postgame on Sunday and ducked no one and no issue in the wake of the Saints win over the Vikings.
I have mentioned in the past how much I respect athletes who do that after a crushing defeat, the best example in my experience being Bill Buckner after game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Favre deserves a lot of credit for being a stand-up guy when standing up literally wasn’t easy for him. A lot of athletes in his situation would have used their injury—in this case his left ankle—as an excuse to, “get treatment,” in the training room and duck the media or at least squeeze them since most guys were on tight deadlines with the game ending so late.
So, good for Favre. And, has anyone noticed it took about an hour for ESPN to come out with its first, “ESPN has learned that Brett Favre says, ‘it is highly unlikely,’ he will return next season.
First of all you don’t ask ANY athlete about retiring in the wake of a loss like that because they just aren’t thinking straight. And Favre? What do you think the over-under on the, “ESPN has learned,” updates between now and March 1 is. If you make the number 12, I’ll take the over.
Someone else asked recently if I had any stories about Katherine Graham, the legendary publisher of The Washington Post, who was still very much running the paper when I first got there.
I have quite a few but for now, here’s the most memorable. In 1985, I was sent to Europe to cover The French Open and Wimbledon for the first time and spent that summer covering a lot of tennis. On the morning of the U.S. Open men’s final between Ivan Lendl and John McEnroe, I was in the press box at the National Tennis Center when I heard Bud Collins say, “John, you have a guest.”
I looked up and here came Mrs. Graham, who played a lot of tennis and was a big tennis fan—one reason why the tennis beat was a big deal at The Post.
“John, I just had to come up and see you before the match,” she said. “I wanted to tell you how much I have LOVED your tennis writing this summer.”
“Well, Mrs. Graham, thank-you, I’m really glad you like it…”
“And what I especially like is the way you write about John McEnroe. I can tell you like him. I do too. Deep down, I think he’s a good guy.”
(I had written a long McEnroe profile during the Open).
“Well, thanks. I agree. If you get to know John he really IS a good guy.”
We talked for a few minutes. Needless to say I was thrilled that Katherine Graham (!!!) had taken time to find me and compliment me on my work.
A little while later the match was ready to start. I was sitting downstairs near the court with my pal Pete Alfano, then of Newsday, later The New York Times. Everyone was seated. McEnroe was getting ready to serve. The umpire called, “play.”
There was one small problem. There was one spectator who hadn’t quite made it to her seat courtside just yet. McEnroe was giving her, “the glare,” which meant he was just about to say something that would no doubt not be polite. I looked at the spectator and gasped: It was Mrs. Graham.
My entire career passed before my eyes. “Yes Mrs. Graham, John’s really a good guy…”
I grabbed Alfano’s shoulder. “Oh my God, I’m done, I’m finished,” I said.
McEnroe was now bouncing a ball off his racquet, waiting and glaring. Mrs. Graham had no clue what was going on. The crowd began to murmur. Finally, after what felt like about an hour, she got to her seat. A few people clapped sarcastically. John—God Bless him—never said a word.
Then he lost in straight sets. A few years later I asked him if he remembered that moment. He did. “If the match had already started I probably would have said something,” he said. “You’re lucky I wasn’t in a bad mood yet.”
Oh God was I lucky.
Comments (3)
Tennis - a niche sport with the inmates (players) running the asylum; ESPN is at it again
Wed, Jan 20 2010 11:51
| Roger Federer, Australian Open, US Open, Tennis, Serena Williams, Andy Roddick, ESPN
| Permalink
There was a brief story in this morning’s New York Times about Serena Williams complaining following her first round match at The Australian Open about the $92,000 fine she received after last year’s U.S. Open for screaming at and physically threatening a lineswoman during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters.
If you want to know why so few people in this country care about tennis anymore this is EXACTLY the reason why.
Think about it: In any other sport if an athlete threatened an umpire, a referee or any official the only question would be how long they would be suspended for not IF they would be suspended. The Grand Slam Committee, which administers tennis’s four major championships took months to even make a decision about how to punish Williams and when it finally did she was, for all intents and purposes, let off the hook.
The ONLY way to get the attention of a multi-millionaire athlete is to take away the one thing that matters from them: the ability to compete. Tiger Woods had been fined more than any golfer in PGA Tour history for his profanity, for his club-throwing, for the behavior of his caddy. Not only have the fines not been a deterrent on any level Woods has actually defended his caddy for throwing people’s cameras and screaming his own profanities at people he thinks aren’t behaving properly in the presence of King Eldrick 1.
To fine Serena Williams $92,000 wasn’t just a wrist slap it was a light wrist slap.
Just to review what occurred: A lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams when she was serving to stay in the match in the second set. It was, without question, a critical call and the kind of call rarely made at such a moment. I have yet to see a replay that shows one way or the other whether the foot fault was so blatant that it shouldn’t have been called.
Regardless, Williams went completely ballistic, screaming at the lineswoman while walking towards her menacingly holding a ball in her hand and threatening to shove it down her throat. For this she received (properly) a warning that involved a point penalty. Since the foot fault put her at match point that was it—match over.
It was a terrible way for a great match to end. No one seems to know if it was a good call, a bad call a borderline call. Doesn’t matter. There was no excuse for Williams doing what she did. To make it worse she was, for all intents and purposes, un-apologetic for two days. She issued a non-apology/apology on Sunday that was so un-gracious and insincere (nice work by her agents there, huh?) that she had to issue another apology on Monday for the apology.
The ONLY way to punish her was a suspension. But it wasn’t going to happen. She’s the best female tennis player in the world and she and her sister Venus are still the two top draws in the women’s game—especially on television. Williams and her arrogant agents knew this, they knew she wasn’t getting suspended under any circumstances because the people who run the four Slams would go crazy if she was suspended for any one of them and the TV people would go crazier.
So she was fined what amounts to a token amount of money for someone in her tax bracket and given one of those stern, “don’t do it again,” warnings. As in, “if you do this again we’re REALLY going to get mad.”
Then, having been let off the hook, Williams turns around and whines she was fined too much money. She even said she thought the fine might have been as high as it was because she’s a woman. PLEASE, I’m begging you, SHUT UP. If The Grand Slam Committee had any backbone at all, the would say, ‘okay, that’s it, we let you off without a suspension contingent on good behavior—this isn’t good behavior, you’re out of The French Open.’
That, of course, will happen the same day that I’m inducted into The Duke Sports Hall of Fame. (For those of you who don’t know my relationship with Duke that would be on the Twelfth of Never).
This is why tennis has become a niche sport with TV ratings slightly higher than hockey—or maybe not quite as high during non-Grand Slam events. There are no rules for the stars. For years appearance fees were supposed to be against the rules and the rules were never enforced. When Marshall Happer was chairman of the now defunct Men’s Tennis Council he tried ONCE to enforce the rule on Guillermo Vilas and basically got himself fired for his trouble. Now, the rules are such that most tournaments are allowed to pay appearance fees that basically make tennis into a never-ending exhibition season except during the four majors.
The players are so spoiled by promoters and so coddled by their agents that it is almost impossible to like them. Roger Federer is a good guy but when his business buddy Woods showed up at the U.S. Open final a couple years ago for what was, in truth, a Nike photo-op, he disappeared into a private room with Woods for 45 minutes after the final and no one had the nerve to go in and say, “Roger, you just won the U.S. Open how about coming in and spending 10 minutes with the media.” (which by RULE every player is supposed to do when requested).
Nope, can’t do that, can’t ask one of the stars to simply follow the rules.
Every time I bring this up the tennis people go crazy. The people running the game, including my friend Bill Babcock who runs the Grand Slam Committee, start telling me how popular the game is in Europe or in Australia. Guess what Bill that makes tennis into soccer—a niche sport in the country that matters most in sports. That may sound chauvinistic but it’s true. And please don’t cite U.S. Open attendance figures to me either. The USTA is practically flagging people down on The Grand Central Parkway (okay, I’ve use that line before) to get them to buy tickets prior to the final weekend. Once upon a time you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal an Open ticket.
Heck, The Davis Cup, which is often the most dramatic event in tennis, isn’t even on live TV (The Tennis Channel doesn’t count folks, it is watched by the same 14 people every day) anymore.
Tennis at its best is still great to watch. Federer-Roddick at Wimbledon was absolutely one of the sports highlights of the year. But the people running the game—or, more accurately not running it—have turned it into a niche sport where the inmates (the players) have been running the asylum for years.
Which is truly a shame.
--------------------------------
I know I take shots at ESPN a lot (usually with good reason) but seriously how much hubris does it take to do something like this hokey, ‘announcer swap,’ they’re doing tonight? I mean seriously WHO CARES?
ESPN honestly believes who their announcers are a bigger deal than the games being played. What difference does it make if Dick Vitale is screaming about the NBA or the NCAA—or for that matter women’s basketball which he was doing the other night. So Mike Breen is calling a college game and Dan Shulman—who calls NBA games a lot anyway, right?—is calling an NBA game.
Please. Next thing you know they’ll have college coaches begging their fans to show up for their let’s-hype-ourselves every Saturday show. Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
If you want to know why so few people in this country care about tennis anymore this is EXACTLY the reason why.
Think about it: In any other sport if an athlete threatened an umpire, a referee or any official the only question would be how long they would be suspended for not IF they would be suspended. The Grand Slam Committee, which administers tennis’s four major championships took months to even make a decision about how to punish Williams and when it finally did she was, for all intents and purposes, let off the hook.
The ONLY way to get the attention of a multi-millionaire athlete is to take away the one thing that matters from them: the ability to compete. Tiger Woods had been fined more than any golfer in PGA Tour history for his profanity, for his club-throwing, for the behavior of his caddy. Not only have the fines not been a deterrent on any level Woods has actually defended his caddy for throwing people’s cameras and screaming his own profanities at people he thinks aren’t behaving properly in the presence of King Eldrick 1.
To fine Serena Williams $92,000 wasn’t just a wrist slap it was a light wrist slap.
Just to review what occurred: A lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams when she was serving to stay in the match in the second set. It was, without question, a critical call and the kind of call rarely made at such a moment. I have yet to see a replay that shows one way or the other whether the foot fault was so blatant that it shouldn’t have been called.
Regardless, Williams went completely ballistic, screaming at the lineswoman while walking towards her menacingly holding a ball in her hand and threatening to shove it down her throat. For this she received (properly) a warning that involved a point penalty. Since the foot fault put her at match point that was it—match over.
It was a terrible way for a great match to end. No one seems to know if it was a good call, a bad call a borderline call. Doesn’t matter. There was no excuse for Williams doing what she did. To make it worse she was, for all intents and purposes, un-apologetic for two days. She issued a non-apology/apology on Sunday that was so un-gracious and insincere (nice work by her agents there, huh?) that she had to issue another apology on Monday for the apology.
The ONLY way to punish her was a suspension. But it wasn’t going to happen. She’s the best female tennis player in the world and she and her sister Venus are still the two top draws in the women’s game—especially on television. Williams and her arrogant agents knew this, they knew she wasn’t getting suspended under any circumstances because the people who run the four Slams would go crazy if she was suspended for any one of them and the TV people would go crazier.
So she was fined what amounts to a token amount of money for someone in her tax bracket and given one of those stern, “don’t do it again,” warnings. As in, “if you do this again we’re REALLY going to get mad.”
Then, having been let off the hook, Williams turns around and whines she was fined too much money. She even said she thought the fine might have been as high as it was because she’s a woman. PLEASE, I’m begging you, SHUT UP. If The Grand Slam Committee had any backbone at all, the would say, ‘okay, that’s it, we let you off without a suspension contingent on good behavior—this isn’t good behavior, you’re out of The French Open.’
That, of course, will happen the same day that I’m inducted into The Duke Sports Hall of Fame. (For those of you who don’t know my relationship with Duke that would be on the Twelfth of Never).
This is why tennis has become a niche sport with TV ratings slightly higher than hockey—or maybe not quite as high during non-Grand Slam events. There are no rules for the stars. For years appearance fees were supposed to be against the rules and the rules were never enforced. When Marshall Happer was chairman of the now defunct Men’s Tennis Council he tried ONCE to enforce the rule on Guillermo Vilas and basically got himself fired for his trouble. Now, the rules are such that most tournaments are allowed to pay appearance fees that basically make tennis into a never-ending exhibition season except during the four majors.
The players are so spoiled by promoters and so coddled by their agents that it is almost impossible to like them. Roger Federer is a good guy but when his business buddy Woods showed up at the U.S. Open final a couple years ago for what was, in truth, a Nike photo-op, he disappeared into a private room with Woods for 45 minutes after the final and no one had the nerve to go in and say, “Roger, you just won the U.S. Open how about coming in and spending 10 minutes with the media.” (which by RULE every player is supposed to do when requested).
Nope, can’t do that, can’t ask one of the stars to simply follow the rules.
Every time I bring this up the tennis people go crazy. The people running the game, including my friend Bill Babcock who runs the Grand Slam Committee, start telling me how popular the game is in Europe or in Australia. Guess what Bill that makes tennis into soccer—a niche sport in the country that matters most in sports. That may sound chauvinistic but it’s true. And please don’t cite U.S. Open attendance figures to me either. The USTA is practically flagging people down on The Grand Central Parkway (okay, I’ve use that line before) to get them to buy tickets prior to the final weekend. Once upon a time you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal an Open ticket.
Heck, The Davis Cup, which is often the most dramatic event in tennis, isn’t even on live TV (The Tennis Channel doesn’t count folks, it is watched by the same 14 people every day) anymore.
Tennis at its best is still great to watch. Federer-Roddick at Wimbledon was absolutely one of the sports highlights of the year. But the people running the game—or, more accurately not running it—have turned it into a niche sport where the inmates (the players) have been running the asylum for years.
Which is truly a shame.
--------------------------------
I know I take shots at ESPN a lot (usually with good reason) but seriously how much hubris does it take to do something like this hokey, ‘announcer swap,’ they’re doing tonight? I mean seriously WHO CARES?
ESPN honestly believes who their announcers are a bigger deal than the games being played. What difference does it make if Dick Vitale is screaming about the NBA or the NCAA—or for that matter women’s basketball which he was doing the other night. So Mike Breen is calling a college game and Dan Shulman—who calls NBA games a lot anyway, right?—is calling an NBA game.
Please. Next thing you know they’ll have college coaches begging their fans to show up for their let’s-hype-ourselves every Saturday show. Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
Comments (12)
Rules need to be enforced, and changed, to shorten length of games
Tue, Jan 19 2010 09:55
| college football, NBA, college basketball, NHL, MLB, Officials, ESPN
| Permalink
Can we talk this morning about how long it takes to play games these days?
As someone who has spent most of his adult life dealing with deadlines while covering games I’m always aware of how long a game is taking even when I’m sitting at home half-watching while I’m reading something.
It’s truly gotten ridiculous.
I kind of went around the bend on this eight days ago when Louisville and Villanova played a game in which something like 90 free throws were shot and a 7 o’clock tipoff ended (in regulation) at 9:45. Even Brent Musburger, who was doing the next game in the doubleheader couldn’t resist commenting when he was doing an update that, “I hope your game ends before ours does fellas.”
There were about two minutes left in the first half of Oklahoma State-Oklahoma by the time Louisville-Villanova finally ended.
Last Saturday I spent the day at home with games going on from 11 a.m. on. Not one game I watched all or part of ended inside the two -hour window that TV plans for a college basketball game. Most didn’t come close. There are now NINE TV timeouts in every game—and by the way is there some way to stop calling them, ‘media timeouts'? I have never asked for nor been given a time out in my life. They exist for TV and, occasionally, for radio. One of those timeouts is the first called time out of the second half, which is “technically,” a 30 second time out but “becomes,” a full timeout.
Utterly ridiculous. Here are some other things that delay games: the mindless halftime interviews with the coaches. Understand that when the breathless sideline reporter is asking the coach what went wrong/right in the first half and usually getting gems like, “we have to rebound better,” or “I thought we shot the ball very well,” the halftime clock isn’t moving. It’s frozen until the coach pulls free—which Wake Forest’s Dino Gaudio almost literally had to do on Sunday night because the reporter insisted on asking him what he planned to do to rebound better (gee, I don’t know go out and recruit taller players the next 15 minutes?)—and gets to the locker room.
There are also times—especially on ESPN—where coming out of commercial the producer will insist on getting the ‘talent,’ on camera for 30 seconds to say something brilliant like, “What a great atmosphere here tonight,” while play is held until they’re finished.
Wait, I’ve got more: There are two rules changes that need to be made: 1. Once a player is handed the ball to shoot his first free throw he can’t have contact with his teammates until the second shot is out of his hands. All of this slapping hands after the first free throw— they do it make or miss nowadays—is silly and if you add it up over a course of a game adds five to ten minutes. 2. When a player fouls out this bit with both teams running to the bench for an impromptu time out needs to stop. Coaches do not need 30 seconds at that point to decide who to sub. They know who they’re subbing and if they don’t—tough. Give them 10 seconds and tell the players to get lined up at the free throw line in the meantime.
Another thing: Officials need to be far more vigilante about getting teams out of their huddles. This deal with coaches having to stand on the court and talk to one another before they talk to the players is ridiculous. To quote Red Auerbach: “You’re getting paid millions to be the head coach you damn well ought to know what to say to your players during a time out.”
The other night I was at a game (honestly I don’t remember which one) and one team was lagging coming out of the huddle. When the official went in to get the players, the coach actually held up his hand to say, “give me a minute here, I’m not quite done.” The response to that should be simple: Signal the official who has the ball to start the 10 second clock and then put the ball on the floor and start counting to five. Remember when officials did that? People got out of the huddle then.
I know these are all little things but they add up. College basketball games shouldn’t be taking two-and-a-half hours. When we get to postseason they get longer: halftime on CBS goes to 20 minutes instead of 15 (plus the time for the silly coaches interviews); 30 second time outs become 45 seconds to get in extra commercials. At this rate it won’t be long before the national championship game ends at midnight on the east coast.
It’s also worth noting that the 20-minute halftime came about in 2003 when the war in Iraq started on the first day of the tournament. CBS asked for the extra five minutes to do war updates. Fine. But the next year the time outs were still 20 minutes and they’ve remained that way ever since, which certainly isn’t good for the players. I’ve been in locker rooms. By about the eight minute mark, everyone is getting antsy to get back on the court. When I brought this up with the NCAA basketball committee a few years ago someone said, “Well, you know when you’re in a dome it takes longer to get to and from the locker room.”
Five minutes longer? How about 10 seconds longer—if that.
This problem isn’t unique to basketball. College football is a joke. I’ve said for years the first down rule should be changed to stop the clock ONLY in the last two minutes of each half. The notion that you need to stop the clock on a first down with 13:47 left in the first quarter is ludicrous. Four hour games are just too long even if they have dramatic finishes. They may not seem so bad watching at home where you can keep clicking around to other games during the endless commercials but if you’re in the stadium those commercials are torture. Nothing is worse than a Notre Dame on NBC where some commercials last longer than the careers of a lot of college basketball players.
Baseball, especially in the American League or if Tony LaRussa is managing, can take days to play. There are two rules changes that need to be made: Trips to the mound should be limited not to one per inning per pitcher but to one TOTAL for the starting pitcher and one more TOTAL after he leaves the game. A catcher shouldn’t be allowed to go out to the mound more than once per batter. Learn how to change signals with a runner on second base in spring training.
Far more important is keeping batters in the box. We now have a generation of hitters who routinely step out after EVERY pitch. They re-adjust their gloves, tug on their helmet, kick at the dirt, take a deep breath and step back in. PLEASE. Simple rules-change: You can step out one time during an at-bat. The only way you can step out more than once is if you’re hurt or knocked down. While we’re at it, make umpires ENFORCE the 20-second rule on pitchers with the bases empty.
The NFL has gotten better although it is maddening when TV takes back-to-back time outs after a touchdown or field goal: team scores, extra point is kicked—commercial. Kickoff—commercial again. As I said, at home it isn’t so bad. In the stadium, especially when it’s cold—brutal. The NBA needs to make two rules-changes: teams get one time out in the last two minutes and no more and get rid of the move-the-ball-to-midcourt after a time out rule. In what other sport are you allowed to advance the ball half the playing field as a reward for calling time out?
Hockey’s pretty good overall although having the hockey package this year I’ve noticed there are a number of linesmen who think fans come to the arena to watch them drop the puck. I know they want it to be fair and get it right but for God’s sake drop the thing and let’s move on.
The biggest change though is still college basketball. I know I sound like I’m 100 when I harken back to my days as a kid when games were played in 90 minutes. Those days are gone and aren’t coming back but it is completely out-of-hand. I know TV needs its time outs but NINE—seriously NINE? Throw in a couple more commercials at halftime. We can live without the yammering studio shows anyway. Throw in a couple of simple, sensible rules changes and for the love of God get rid of the halftime interviews. The coaches hate them, the fans hate them, please tell me who likes them?
I’m guessing it must be some of the same people who, at the “urging,” of John Calipari are planning to fill Rupp Arena one Saturday to jump up and down in front of the cameras for ‘GameDay.’ My God, The Apocalypse really is upon us.
As someone who has spent most of his adult life dealing with deadlines while covering games I’m always aware of how long a game is taking even when I’m sitting at home half-watching while I’m reading something.
It’s truly gotten ridiculous.
I kind of went around the bend on this eight days ago when Louisville and Villanova played a game in which something like 90 free throws were shot and a 7 o’clock tipoff ended (in regulation) at 9:45. Even Brent Musburger, who was doing the next game in the doubleheader couldn’t resist commenting when he was doing an update that, “I hope your game ends before ours does fellas.”
There were about two minutes left in the first half of Oklahoma State-Oklahoma by the time Louisville-Villanova finally ended.
Last Saturday I spent the day at home with games going on from 11 a.m. on. Not one game I watched all or part of ended inside the two -hour window that TV plans for a college basketball game. Most didn’t come close. There are now NINE TV timeouts in every game—and by the way is there some way to stop calling them, ‘media timeouts'? I have never asked for nor been given a time out in my life. They exist for TV and, occasionally, for radio. One of those timeouts is the first called time out of the second half, which is “technically,” a 30 second time out but “becomes,” a full timeout.
Utterly ridiculous. Here are some other things that delay games: the mindless halftime interviews with the coaches. Understand that when the breathless sideline reporter is asking the coach what went wrong/right in the first half and usually getting gems like, “we have to rebound better,” or “I thought we shot the ball very well,” the halftime clock isn’t moving. It’s frozen until the coach pulls free—which Wake Forest’s Dino Gaudio almost literally had to do on Sunday night because the reporter insisted on asking him what he planned to do to rebound better (gee, I don’t know go out and recruit taller players the next 15 minutes?)—and gets to the locker room.
There are also times—especially on ESPN—where coming out of commercial the producer will insist on getting the ‘talent,’ on camera for 30 seconds to say something brilliant like, “What a great atmosphere here tonight,” while play is held until they’re finished.
Wait, I’ve got more: There are two rules changes that need to be made: 1. Once a player is handed the ball to shoot his first free throw he can’t have contact with his teammates until the second shot is out of his hands. All of this slapping hands after the first free throw— they do it make or miss nowadays—is silly and if you add it up over a course of a game adds five to ten minutes. 2. When a player fouls out this bit with both teams running to the bench for an impromptu time out needs to stop. Coaches do not need 30 seconds at that point to decide who to sub. They know who they’re subbing and if they don’t—tough. Give them 10 seconds and tell the players to get lined up at the free throw line in the meantime.
Another thing: Officials need to be far more vigilante about getting teams out of their huddles. This deal with coaches having to stand on the court and talk to one another before they talk to the players is ridiculous. To quote Red Auerbach: “You’re getting paid millions to be the head coach you damn well ought to know what to say to your players during a time out.”
The other night I was at a game (honestly I don’t remember which one) and one team was lagging coming out of the huddle. When the official went in to get the players, the coach actually held up his hand to say, “give me a minute here, I’m not quite done.” The response to that should be simple: Signal the official who has the ball to start the 10 second clock and then put the ball on the floor and start counting to five. Remember when officials did that? People got out of the huddle then.
I know these are all little things but they add up. College basketball games shouldn’t be taking two-and-a-half hours. When we get to postseason they get longer: halftime on CBS goes to 20 minutes instead of 15 (plus the time for the silly coaches interviews); 30 second time outs become 45 seconds to get in extra commercials. At this rate it won’t be long before the national championship game ends at midnight on the east coast.
It’s also worth noting that the 20-minute halftime came about in 2003 when the war in Iraq started on the first day of the tournament. CBS asked for the extra five minutes to do war updates. Fine. But the next year the time outs were still 20 minutes and they’ve remained that way ever since, which certainly isn’t good for the players. I’ve been in locker rooms. By about the eight minute mark, everyone is getting antsy to get back on the court. When I brought this up with the NCAA basketball committee a few years ago someone said, “Well, you know when you’re in a dome it takes longer to get to and from the locker room.”
Five minutes longer? How about 10 seconds longer—if that.
This problem isn’t unique to basketball. College football is a joke. I’ve said for years the first down rule should be changed to stop the clock ONLY in the last two minutes of each half. The notion that you need to stop the clock on a first down with 13:47 left in the first quarter is ludicrous. Four hour games are just too long even if they have dramatic finishes. They may not seem so bad watching at home where you can keep clicking around to other games during the endless commercials but if you’re in the stadium those commercials are torture. Nothing is worse than a Notre Dame on NBC where some commercials last longer than the careers of a lot of college basketball players.
Baseball, especially in the American League or if Tony LaRussa is managing, can take days to play. There are two rules changes that need to be made: Trips to the mound should be limited not to one per inning per pitcher but to one TOTAL for the starting pitcher and one more TOTAL after he leaves the game. A catcher shouldn’t be allowed to go out to the mound more than once per batter. Learn how to change signals with a runner on second base in spring training.
Far more important is keeping batters in the box. We now have a generation of hitters who routinely step out after EVERY pitch. They re-adjust their gloves, tug on their helmet, kick at the dirt, take a deep breath and step back in. PLEASE. Simple rules-change: You can step out one time during an at-bat. The only way you can step out more than once is if you’re hurt or knocked down. While we’re at it, make umpires ENFORCE the 20-second rule on pitchers with the bases empty.
The NFL has gotten better although it is maddening when TV takes back-to-back time outs after a touchdown or field goal: team scores, extra point is kicked—commercial. Kickoff—commercial again. As I said, at home it isn’t so bad. In the stadium, especially when it’s cold—brutal. The NBA needs to make two rules-changes: teams get one time out in the last two minutes and no more and get rid of the move-the-ball-to-midcourt after a time out rule. In what other sport are you allowed to advance the ball half the playing field as a reward for calling time out?
Hockey’s pretty good overall although having the hockey package this year I’ve noticed there are a number of linesmen who think fans come to the arena to watch them drop the puck. I know they want it to be fair and get it right but for God’s sake drop the thing and let’s move on.
The biggest change though is still college basketball. I know I sound like I’m 100 when I harken back to my days as a kid when games were played in 90 minutes. Those days are gone and aren’t coming back but it is completely out-of-hand. I know TV needs its time outs but NINE—seriously NINE? Throw in a couple more commercials at halftime. We can live without the yammering studio shows anyway. Throw in a couple of simple, sensible rules changes and for the love of God get rid of the halftime interviews. The coaches hate them, the fans hate them, please tell me who likes them?
I’m guessing it must be some of the same people who, at the “urging,” of John Calipari are planning to fill Rupp Arena one Saturday to jump up and down in front of the cameras for ‘GameDay.’ My God, The Apocalypse really is upon us.
Comments (15)
A plea to AP voters – vote Boise State No. 1; Kudos to Bobby Cremins and Roy Williams
Tue, Jan 5 2010 10:08
| College of Charleston, Boise State, Norman Chad, TCU, Bobby Cremins, UNC, BCS, Roy Williams, ESPN
| Permalink
Okay, here we go again.
A year ago at this time I publicly pleaded with my brethren who vote in the AP football poll to pick Utah No. 1 on their final ballots for two reasons: First, you could make a case the Utes were as deserving as Florida after they blasted Alabama in The Sugar Bowl and second, to send a message to the BCS bullies that a lot of people are sick and tired of their system and aren’t going to take it anymore.
Not surprisingly, I was largely ignored. So much for independent thinking among members of the fourth estate.
Well, if nothing else, I don’t give up easily. I come before everyone today to ask those with AP ballots to please—PLEASE—vote Boise State No. 1 in their final poll. My reasoning is the same as last year: The Broncos went 14-0 and whipped Pac-10 champion Oregon, the one BCS school that had the guts to schedule them. They beat a TCU team in The Fiesta Bowl that had gone unbeaten in The Mountain West Conference which, if you check, did not lose a bowl game until the Horned Frogs crossed paths with Boise State.
TCU won on the road at Clemson and hammered Virginia—the only BCS schools willing to play THEM.
Now, you BCS apologists will talk about the depth of the SEC and the fact that Boise would finish no better than third in that league. That might be true. But there’s no proof is there? Until and unless the power teams are willing to schedule Boise instead of Chattanooga and Charleston Southern we can’t know what would happen if Boise played Alabama or Florida or, for that matter, Texas.
That’s the entire point of deciding championships on the field: there’s no arguing, you just go out and play. The BCS folks are so arrogant and so gutless they wouldn’t even give TCU and Boise the chance to play their schools in bowl games—matchups that would have been far more compelling than Georgia Tech-Iowa or, for that matter, Florida-Cincinnati.
Why didn’t the BCS want TCU and Boise matching up with their conference champions? Simple: Utah-Alabama; Boise State-Oklahoma; Utah-Pittsburgh. Can’t have that. Can’t have people saying things like, “Florida had to come from behind in the fourth quarter to beat Alabama and Utah dominated Alabama so…”
And please don’t give me the, “Alabama wasn’t motivated with no national title to play for,” excuse. How’d Florida look the other night bashing Cincinnati (a BCS school for those scoring at home) with no national title to play for? What’s more when was the last time you saw a Nick Saban team fail to show up to play—in a major bowl game no less? No. Utah just whipped Alabama. Given a chance Boise and TCU might have done the same thing, which is why they weren’t given the chance.
That’s why the AP voters should Just Say No to the BCS, which isn’t a pox the way drugs are a pox but is pretty damn sickening. They should vote Boise No. 1 and the winner of Alabama-Texas No. 2. The Alabama-Texas winner will still get a trophy and all the BCS hype as national champions and that’s fine. I can’t tell you for sure that Boise would beat either of those teams anymore than anyone can tell me those teams would beat Boise. And we’ll never know because the BCS bullies won’t allow us to find out.
Here’s the problem: For all of our vaunted claims of being independent thinkers, most of us in the media aren’t. Earlier this season I wrote to a friend who had not voted Navy in his top 25 but had five—FIVE—teams from the lousy ACC in his top 25. He wrote me back and said, “I know Navy beat Notre Dame but it did lose to Temple.” I pointed out two things in response: Temple might finish in the top four in the ACC and Navy had played the Owls without their starting quarterback, without their best slotback and had lost in the last minute. He wrote back, “Oh, didn’t know that.”
A week later he STILL didn’t have Navy in the top 25.
What’s more, there are guys voting in the poll who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Guys who work for ESPN? Are you kidding? ESPN and the BCS are business partners. That’s like letting me vote for the best books of 2009. Let’s see, “Change-Up,” looks pretty good at No. 1, followed by “Are You Kidding Me?” and at No. 3 I’ve got the paperback version of, “Living on the Black.”
Most of the voters—the ESPN guys aside—cover BCS teams. Like my friend, they not only don’t see Boise State live (perhaps TCU since it played two ACC teams) but they don’t even see the Broncos on TV because they’re covering games every Saturday. Maybe they saw the Oregon game but I bet a lot of them said, “well, that was way back in September.” Who would you bet on today in a rematch?
You see, this problem’s not going away because the BCS schools will just continue not to schedule power schools from the non-power conferences. Can San Jose State get a game with a BCS power? You bet. Boise State? Not so much. Karl Benson, the commissioner of the WAC, who is one of the more honest guys I’ve encountered in athletic administration through the years, said earlier this season Boise had contacted TEN BCS schools about playing them the next couple of years ON THE ROAD and all ten had said no thanks.
So, here’s my final plea: spread this around. Go online and get the list of AP voters—it’s there every week, which is more than I can say for the ridiculous coaches' poll—and write to anyone you can and say VOTE FOR BOISE STATE. It doesn’t even take a lot of guts to do it. It isn’t like saying, ‘I’m voting for Villanova because it won the highest level tournament there is in college football.’ This is a team that met every challenge it was asked to meet. It is now 2-0 when given a shot at a BCS game and is willing to play anyone, anytime.
By the way, don’t be surprised when the final poll comes out if Florida finishes ahead of Boise State too. That’s how little faith I have in my colleagues. I would love for them to prove me wrong and vote Boise No. 1. But it isn’t going to happen. The irony is it would be a great STORY. Sadly, a lot of these guys don’t know a great story when they trip and fall over it. And if that upsets some of them—fine—prove me wrong and I’ll gladly shut up.
-----------
A number of people wrote me yesterday to ask why Norman Chad continues to annually take a gratuitous cheap shot at me in his Washington Post column. There are two answers: I really don’t know because I’ve never exchanged an angry word with him and didn’t when we worked a few desks away from one another at The Post years ago, and, answer number two, I’m pretty sure I do know.
My guess—and that’s all it is but others who know Chad think I’m right—is that Chad was supposed to go to Hollywood and become a big star writing screenplays because he’s so smart and so talented. I happen to think he is smart and talented but the screenwriting thing never happened for him and now he makes a living commenting on poker and writing the same, tired column he’s been writing for about 20 years, once a week. Twenty years ago he was funny. Now he’s just bitter. The column says the same thing every week: I watch a lot of TV, I’ve been divorced twice, I like bowling, I drink Rolling Rock and I’ll prove how smart I am by calling other people dumb. He’s even turned on Tony Kornheiser in his bitterness because Tony, well, is very, very successful.
So, about once a year comes the shot that I’m a no-talent and to be honest I think it makes Chad (and the paper) look kind of silly and I doubt if it changes anyone’s feelings about my work one way or the other. All I can say is if I ever end up doing commentary on poker please—PLEASE—ask no questions, just have me dragged away and put inside a small room someplace where I can’t hurt anyone.
-------------------
And finally: Kudos today to Bobby Cremins for The College of Charleston’s stunning upset of North Carolina last night. There is no one—I mean NO ONE—in college basketball who doesn’t enjoy Cremins. He’s been one of the game’s true characters for a long time.
The line that best summed Bobby up came from an ACC referee who I asked about all the league’s coaches when I was working on, “A March to Madness.” Of Cremins he said, “if Bobby Cremins says you missed a call, you missed the call.”
Bobby almost never argues with officials. One reason for that is that he often can’t remember their names. When I was working on the book, I often sat next to the Georgia Tech bench. Almost without fail, Bobby would walk over to me a couple of minutes before tipoff and say, “John, do me a favor and tell me which official is which.”
It reminded me of Al McGuire who would often come over before doing a telecast and say, “give me one kid on each team I can talk about.”
The funny thing is, for all the wackiness, they were both so damn good at what they did. Apparently Bobby still is damn good at what he does.
Kudos also to Roy Williams for playing the game AT Charleston because of his long-standing friendship with Cremins. There are very few big-time coaches who will schedule a reasonably good mid-major on the road. Roy does it. He lost a game but my guess is his team will be fine and his career is still in pretty good shape. That may not sound like much but if I told you the number of coaches who have told me through the years, “NO WAY,” will they play a mid-major of quality on the road it would blow your mind.
So good for Bobby. And good for Roy too.
A year ago at this time I publicly pleaded with my brethren who vote in the AP football poll to pick Utah No. 1 on their final ballots for two reasons: First, you could make a case the Utes were as deserving as Florida after they blasted Alabama in The Sugar Bowl and second, to send a message to the BCS bullies that a lot of people are sick and tired of their system and aren’t going to take it anymore.
Not surprisingly, I was largely ignored. So much for independent thinking among members of the fourth estate.
Well, if nothing else, I don’t give up easily. I come before everyone today to ask those with AP ballots to please—PLEASE—vote Boise State No. 1 in their final poll. My reasoning is the same as last year: The Broncos went 14-0 and whipped Pac-10 champion Oregon, the one BCS school that had the guts to schedule them. They beat a TCU team in The Fiesta Bowl that had gone unbeaten in The Mountain West Conference which, if you check, did not lose a bowl game until the Horned Frogs crossed paths with Boise State.
TCU won on the road at Clemson and hammered Virginia—the only BCS schools willing to play THEM.
Now, you BCS apologists will talk about the depth of the SEC and the fact that Boise would finish no better than third in that league. That might be true. But there’s no proof is there? Until and unless the power teams are willing to schedule Boise instead of Chattanooga and Charleston Southern we can’t know what would happen if Boise played Alabama or Florida or, for that matter, Texas.
That’s the entire point of deciding championships on the field: there’s no arguing, you just go out and play. The BCS folks are so arrogant and so gutless they wouldn’t even give TCU and Boise the chance to play their schools in bowl games—matchups that would have been far more compelling than Georgia Tech-Iowa or, for that matter, Florida-Cincinnati.
Why didn’t the BCS want TCU and Boise matching up with their conference champions? Simple: Utah-Alabama; Boise State-Oklahoma; Utah-Pittsburgh. Can’t have that. Can’t have people saying things like, “Florida had to come from behind in the fourth quarter to beat Alabama and Utah dominated Alabama so…”
And please don’t give me the, “Alabama wasn’t motivated with no national title to play for,” excuse. How’d Florida look the other night bashing Cincinnati (a BCS school for those scoring at home) with no national title to play for? What’s more when was the last time you saw a Nick Saban team fail to show up to play—in a major bowl game no less? No. Utah just whipped Alabama. Given a chance Boise and TCU might have done the same thing, which is why they weren’t given the chance.
That’s why the AP voters should Just Say No to the BCS, which isn’t a pox the way drugs are a pox but is pretty damn sickening. They should vote Boise No. 1 and the winner of Alabama-Texas No. 2. The Alabama-Texas winner will still get a trophy and all the BCS hype as national champions and that’s fine. I can’t tell you for sure that Boise would beat either of those teams anymore than anyone can tell me those teams would beat Boise. And we’ll never know because the BCS bullies won’t allow us to find out.
Here’s the problem: For all of our vaunted claims of being independent thinkers, most of us in the media aren’t. Earlier this season I wrote to a friend who had not voted Navy in his top 25 but had five—FIVE—teams from the lousy ACC in his top 25. He wrote me back and said, “I know Navy beat Notre Dame but it did lose to Temple.” I pointed out two things in response: Temple might finish in the top four in the ACC and Navy had played the Owls without their starting quarterback, without their best slotback and had lost in the last minute. He wrote back, “Oh, didn’t know that.”
A week later he STILL didn’t have Navy in the top 25.
What’s more, there are guys voting in the poll who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Guys who work for ESPN? Are you kidding? ESPN and the BCS are business partners. That’s like letting me vote for the best books of 2009. Let’s see, “Change-Up,” looks pretty good at No. 1, followed by “Are You Kidding Me?” and at No. 3 I’ve got the paperback version of, “Living on the Black.”
Most of the voters—the ESPN guys aside—cover BCS teams. Like my friend, they not only don’t see Boise State live (perhaps TCU since it played two ACC teams) but they don’t even see the Broncos on TV because they’re covering games every Saturday. Maybe they saw the Oregon game but I bet a lot of them said, “well, that was way back in September.” Who would you bet on today in a rematch?
You see, this problem’s not going away because the BCS schools will just continue not to schedule power schools from the non-power conferences. Can San Jose State get a game with a BCS power? You bet. Boise State? Not so much. Karl Benson, the commissioner of the WAC, who is one of the more honest guys I’ve encountered in athletic administration through the years, said earlier this season Boise had contacted TEN BCS schools about playing them the next couple of years ON THE ROAD and all ten had said no thanks.
So, here’s my final plea: spread this around. Go online and get the list of AP voters—it’s there every week, which is more than I can say for the ridiculous coaches' poll—and write to anyone you can and say VOTE FOR BOISE STATE. It doesn’t even take a lot of guts to do it. It isn’t like saying, ‘I’m voting for Villanova because it won the highest level tournament there is in college football.’ This is a team that met every challenge it was asked to meet. It is now 2-0 when given a shot at a BCS game and is willing to play anyone, anytime.
By the way, don’t be surprised when the final poll comes out if Florida finishes ahead of Boise State too. That’s how little faith I have in my colleagues. I would love for them to prove me wrong and vote Boise No. 1. But it isn’t going to happen. The irony is it would be a great STORY. Sadly, a lot of these guys don’t know a great story when they trip and fall over it. And if that upsets some of them—fine—prove me wrong and I’ll gladly shut up.
-----------
A number of people wrote me yesterday to ask why Norman Chad continues to annually take a gratuitous cheap shot at me in his Washington Post column. There are two answers: I really don’t know because I’ve never exchanged an angry word with him and didn’t when we worked a few desks away from one another at The Post years ago, and, answer number two, I’m pretty sure I do know.
My guess—and that’s all it is but others who know Chad think I’m right—is that Chad was supposed to go to Hollywood and become a big star writing screenplays because he’s so smart and so talented. I happen to think he is smart and talented but the screenwriting thing never happened for him and now he makes a living commenting on poker and writing the same, tired column he’s been writing for about 20 years, once a week. Twenty years ago he was funny. Now he’s just bitter. The column says the same thing every week: I watch a lot of TV, I’ve been divorced twice, I like bowling, I drink Rolling Rock and I’ll prove how smart I am by calling other people dumb. He’s even turned on Tony Kornheiser in his bitterness because Tony, well, is very, very successful.
So, about once a year comes the shot that I’m a no-talent and to be honest I think it makes Chad (and the paper) look kind of silly and I doubt if it changes anyone’s feelings about my work one way or the other. All I can say is if I ever end up doing commentary on poker please—PLEASE—ask no questions, just have me dragged away and put inside a small room someplace where I can’t hurt anyone.
-------------------
And finally: Kudos today to Bobby Cremins for The College of Charleston’s stunning upset of North Carolina last night. There is no one—I mean NO ONE—in college basketball who doesn’t enjoy Cremins. He’s been one of the game’s true characters for a long time.
The line that best summed Bobby up came from an ACC referee who I asked about all the league’s coaches when I was working on, “A March to Madness.” Of Cremins he said, “if Bobby Cremins says you missed a call, you missed the call.”
Bobby almost never argues with officials. One reason for that is that he often can’t remember their names. When I was working on the book, I often sat next to the Georgia Tech bench. Almost without fail, Bobby would walk over to me a couple of minutes before tipoff and say, “John, do me a favor and tell me which official is which.”
It reminded me of Al McGuire who would often come over before doing a telecast and say, “give me one kid on each team I can talk about.”
The funny thing is, for all the wackiness, they were both so damn good at what they did. Apparently Bobby still is damn good at what he does.
Kudos also to Roy Williams for playing the game AT Charleston because of his long-standing friendship with Cremins. There are very few big-time coaches who will schedule a reasonably good mid-major on the road. Roy does it. He lost a game but my guess is his team will be fine and his career is still in pretty good shape. That may not sound like much but if I told you the number of coaches who have told me through the years, “NO WAY,” will they play a mid-major of quality on the road it would blow your mind.
So good for Bobby. And good for Roy too.
Comments (12)
Happy New Year -- What a great ending to 2009 for Navy, Air Force
If 2010 turns out to be as enjoyable as the last day of 2009, I am really looking forward to the New Year.
I got all my work done yesterday by noon, built a fire in my office fireplace (best thing about this house) and sat down to watch Air Force-Houston followed by Navy-Missouri.
You may ask why I wasn’t in Houston with Navy doing the game on radio. Believe me, there’s part of me that would have loved being there. But, as I’ve said before, I really despise the entire flying experience and that ratchets up during a holiday week. I could have flown down with Navy but they left last Saturday and I really didn’t want to spend six days in Houston during the holidays—especially when I had a family trip planned—and then fly back home on New Year’s Eve, landing sometime after midnight.
So, I stayed here and watched on TV.
Let me explain first how I feel about Air Force. I root against the Falcons twice a year: when they play Navy and when they play Army. In every other game I’m an Air Force fan. Obviously I’m closer to the programs at Army and Navy because of “A Civil War,” and my years now doing Navy on radio (13) and my close association with Army. This past September I was honored when I was asked to MC Army’s Hall of Fame banquet when Mike Krzyzewski was inducted. Plus, I have all those boyhood memories of going to games at West Point.
That said, I have great respect for Air Force and like the people I know there very much. Even though the Army and Navy people insist that life at Air Force isn’t as tough as at their schools—they call it, “the country club academy,”--I know that being a cadet at Air Force is about 100 times harder than going to any civilian school. I always respected Fisher DeBerry and I feel the same way about Troy Calhoun, who has done a remarkable job reviving the program the last three years. What’s more, his No. 1 lieutenant, Tim DeRuyter—also an Air Force grad—was at Navy for four years and became a friend so there’s an extra bit of personal connection for me.
So it was that I watched with both surprise and happiness as Air Force absolutely crushed Houston. The Falcons were up 14-0 in the blink of an eye and, although Houston threatened for a while, eventually pulled away to win 47-20. Wow. This was a Houston team that won at Oklahoma State and was 10-2 going into the Conference-USA championship game. Case Keenum was considered a Heisman candidate at one point during the season. Not yesterday: he threw six interceptions—the most in a bowl game since a guy named Bruce Lee threw six for Arizona in the 1968 Sun Bowl.
Keenum had written, “Jesus Saves,” on his eye black for the game. For some reason as the Falcons picked off one pass after another I thought about a famous billboard in Boston years ago when Phil Esposito was setting goal-scoring records for the Bruins. It said: “Jesus Saves….But Espo puts in the rebound!”
There was one disappointment at the end of the game: Instead of staying in Fort Worth for an extra 90 seconds to watch the Air Force players stand at attention for their alma mater, ESPN just HAD to throw it back to the studio so we could hear Lou Holtz and Mark May blather for a few extra minutes. It scares me a little that I actually agree with Holtz on something: he said the Mountain West should get an automatic BCS bid. Of course it should. My God, is there anyone out there who thinks the ACC is as good a league as The Mountain West right now? Or, for that matter, The Big Ten? How did Oregon State, which almost won the Pac-10, look against Brigham Young in the Las Vegas Bowl? Anyway, May, who is always scripted to disagree with Holtz tried to say the bottom of the league was weak. Really? How about the bottom of the ACC Mark? The Big Ten? Or, for that matter the Pac-10 and The Big 12? If TCU beats Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl the Mountain West will be 5-0 in bowl games this season. That’s a pretty deep league if you ask me.
Anyway, I digress.
Just as Navy-Missouri was kicking off, the plumber who had come to the house to fix a broken toilet came in to announce he was finished and—surprise—would like to be paid. I walked into the kitchen, wrote him a check, wished him a Happy New Year and came back in to find Navy trailing 7-0. Whoo boy, this might be a long afternoon. I later saw the replay of Danario Alexander’s 58 yard catch-and-run touchdown.
Then Ricky Dobbs fumbled on Missouri’s 20-yard line on Navy’s first series. I can think negative thoughts faster than almost anyone alive: Missouri was going to score again, make it 14-0 and it was going to get bad. I cursed the bowl system which sent Missouri to the Texas Bowl even though it had finished ahead of both Iowa State and Texas A+M in The Big 12. This was a big-time team, with a future pro quarterback…
I forgot two things: I forgot that the kids playing for Navy are a lot tougher than I am and NEVER think negative thoughts and I forgot about Buddy Green.
ESPN—more on them later—focused about 99 percent of its attention during the telecast on Dobbs. That’s fine. He’s a terrific player and a wonderful kid. Bob Davie did manage to give some credit to the slotbacks and at the very end of the telecast mentioned Green. With all due respect to everyone else at Navy, I’m not sure the MVP of this team wasn’t Green.
Two years ago, his defense, torn up by injuries and wracked by inexperience, got hammered week after week. It gave up 62 points in a WIN against North Texas State. Joe Flacco and Delaware sliced it and diced it for 59 points. There were freshmen all over the field and Paul Johnson even started spending time on the defensive practice field which you know didn’t make Green happy at all.
He never complained, never whined about the injuries or the inexperience. He just kept saying, “Hey, it’s our job to keep coaching them every week and hope they get better.”
They did. Last year the defense was solid. It made plays when it had to—a late interception to seal a game against Rutgers; an amazing fumble recovery in the final minute to steal a game from Temple. It finished the regular season with back-to-back shutouts.
This year though would be harder. Two weeks before the season began, Nate Frazier, by far the team’s best defensive player, a guy who had to be double-teamed on every play at nose tackle, was separated from the academy on an academic honors charge. There’s no messing around at the academies with stuff like that. There was no stalling until after the season; no one game suspension—he was gone.
The schedule was brutal: at Ohio State; at Pittsburgh; Wake Forest; Temple (which won 9 games); at SMU; at Notre Dame; Air Force; at Hawaii. Plus there was the matter of playing 11 weeks in a row without a bye with a team that is always smaller than every civilian opponent it plays.
Every week the defense made key plays. It gave up yardage—Green knows he can’t attack on every play so he sets the opposition up to make mistakes. Notre Dame never punted—but Navy kept stopping it inside the red zone and won the game. In a driving rainstorm with Dobbs hurt, Navy didn’t throw a single pass against Wake Forest—and won the game because the defense made plays. Did you see Air Force roll up more than 500 yards in offense against Houston? That same offense didn’t score a touchdown against Navy’s defense.
Yesterday, facing a team that he knew wanted to throw on every down, Green came out with two down linemen on most plays. Davie was literally open-mouthed. (He also kept referring to Navy’s legal cut blocks as chop blocks, which are illegal. Was that a little bit of the old Notre Damer coming out?) And Missouri kept falling into Green’s trap. It moved up and down the field almost at will but couldn’t score inside the red zone. In fact, Alexander’s touchdown—30 seconds in—was the only touchdown the Tigers scored all day. Final: Navy-35, Missouri-13.
“We’re like 11 hyenas out there,” Niamatalolo said. “Sooner or later we’re going to bring an elephant down.”
Naturally, ESPN didn’t stick around for the playing of the alma mater. It had to show its bowl week promo for the thousandth time. It was also ill-prepared for the broadcast: both Mark Jones and Davie kept mis-pronouncing names and confusing players—without every getting corrected by the truck apparently. It was annoying but didn’t matter.
A word about Niamatalolo: He’s an amazing guy. He’s as genuine as he appears on TV and he stepped into a brutally difficult situation following Johnson, who had become a legend in Annapolis. He’s now 18-10—playing tougher schedules than Johnson did—in two seasons, with a 4-0 record against Air Force and Army, a win over Notre Dame and a bowl win. He’s had to use five different quarterbacks during the two seasons because of injuries.
And he never complains about anything. You see, that’s not the way they do it the academies. I may complain but the players and coaches don’t. You want to talk about the best and the brightest, go talk to some of those young men (they’re not kids) and the men who coach them.
Like I said, it was a great day. Happy New Year to all.
I got all my work done yesterday by noon, built a fire in my office fireplace (best thing about this house) and sat down to watch Air Force-Houston followed by Navy-Missouri.
You may ask why I wasn’t in Houston with Navy doing the game on radio. Believe me, there’s part of me that would have loved being there. But, as I’ve said before, I really despise the entire flying experience and that ratchets up during a holiday week. I could have flown down with Navy but they left last Saturday and I really didn’t want to spend six days in Houston during the holidays—especially when I had a family trip planned—and then fly back home on New Year’s Eve, landing sometime after midnight.
So, I stayed here and watched on TV.
Let me explain first how I feel about Air Force. I root against the Falcons twice a year: when they play Navy and when they play Army. In every other game I’m an Air Force fan. Obviously I’m closer to the programs at Army and Navy because of “A Civil War,” and my years now doing Navy on radio (13) and my close association with Army. This past September I was honored when I was asked to MC Army’s Hall of Fame banquet when Mike Krzyzewski was inducted. Plus, I have all those boyhood memories of going to games at West Point.
That said, I have great respect for Air Force and like the people I know there very much. Even though the Army and Navy people insist that life at Air Force isn’t as tough as at their schools—they call it, “the country club academy,”--I know that being a cadet at Air Force is about 100 times harder than going to any civilian school. I always respected Fisher DeBerry and I feel the same way about Troy Calhoun, who has done a remarkable job reviving the program the last three years. What’s more, his No. 1 lieutenant, Tim DeRuyter—also an Air Force grad—was at Navy for four years and became a friend so there’s an extra bit of personal connection for me.
So it was that I watched with both surprise and happiness as Air Force absolutely crushed Houston. The Falcons were up 14-0 in the blink of an eye and, although Houston threatened for a while, eventually pulled away to win 47-20. Wow. This was a Houston team that won at Oklahoma State and was 10-2 going into the Conference-USA championship game. Case Keenum was considered a Heisman candidate at one point during the season. Not yesterday: he threw six interceptions—the most in a bowl game since a guy named Bruce Lee threw six for Arizona in the 1968 Sun Bowl.
Keenum had written, “Jesus Saves,” on his eye black for the game. For some reason as the Falcons picked off one pass after another I thought about a famous billboard in Boston years ago when Phil Esposito was setting goal-scoring records for the Bruins. It said: “Jesus Saves….But Espo puts in the rebound!”
There was one disappointment at the end of the game: Instead of staying in Fort Worth for an extra 90 seconds to watch the Air Force players stand at attention for their alma mater, ESPN just HAD to throw it back to the studio so we could hear Lou Holtz and Mark May blather for a few extra minutes. It scares me a little that I actually agree with Holtz on something: he said the Mountain West should get an automatic BCS bid. Of course it should. My God, is there anyone out there who thinks the ACC is as good a league as The Mountain West right now? Or, for that matter, The Big Ten? How did Oregon State, which almost won the Pac-10, look against Brigham Young in the Las Vegas Bowl? Anyway, May, who is always scripted to disagree with Holtz tried to say the bottom of the league was weak. Really? How about the bottom of the ACC Mark? The Big Ten? Or, for that matter the Pac-10 and The Big 12? If TCU beats Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl the Mountain West will be 5-0 in bowl games this season. That’s a pretty deep league if you ask me.
Anyway, I digress.
Just as Navy-Missouri was kicking off, the plumber who had come to the house to fix a broken toilet came in to announce he was finished and—surprise—would like to be paid. I walked into the kitchen, wrote him a check, wished him a Happy New Year and came back in to find Navy trailing 7-0. Whoo boy, this might be a long afternoon. I later saw the replay of Danario Alexander’s 58 yard catch-and-run touchdown.
Then Ricky Dobbs fumbled on Missouri’s 20-yard line on Navy’s first series. I can think negative thoughts faster than almost anyone alive: Missouri was going to score again, make it 14-0 and it was going to get bad. I cursed the bowl system which sent Missouri to the Texas Bowl even though it had finished ahead of both Iowa State and Texas A+M in The Big 12. This was a big-time team, with a future pro quarterback…
I forgot two things: I forgot that the kids playing for Navy are a lot tougher than I am and NEVER think negative thoughts and I forgot about Buddy Green.
ESPN—more on them later—focused about 99 percent of its attention during the telecast on Dobbs. That’s fine. He’s a terrific player and a wonderful kid. Bob Davie did manage to give some credit to the slotbacks and at the very end of the telecast mentioned Green. With all due respect to everyone else at Navy, I’m not sure the MVP of this team wasn’t Green.
Two years ago, his defense, torn up by injuries and wracked by inexperience, got hammered week after week. It gave up 62 points in a WIN against North Texas State. Joe Flacco and Delaware sliced it and diced it for 59 points. There were freshmen all over the field and Paul Johnson even started spending time on the defensive practice field which you know didn’t make Green happy at all.
He never complained, never whined about the injuries or the inexperience. He just kept saying, “Hey, it’s our job to keep coaching them every week and hope they get better.”
They did. Last year the defense was solid. It made plays when it had to—a late interception to seal a game against Rutgers; an amazing fumble recovery in the final minute to steal a game from Temple. It finished the regular season with back-to-back shutouts.
This year though would be harder. Two weeks before the season began, Nate Frazier, by far the team’s best defensive player, a guy who had to be double-teamed on every play at nose tackle, was separated from the academy on an academic honors charge. There’s no messing around at the academies with stuff like that. There was no stalling until after the season; no one game suspension—he was gone.
The schedule was brutal: at Ohio State; at Pittsburgh; Wake Forest; Temple (which won 9 games); at SMU; at Notre Dame; Air Force; at Hawaii. Plus there was the matter of playing 11 weeks in a row without a bye with a team that is always smaller than every civilian opponent it plays.
Every week the defense made key plays. It gave up yardage—Green knows he can’t attack on every play so he sets the opposition up to make mistakes. Notre Dame never punted—but Navy kept stopping it inside the red zone and won the game. In a driving rainstorm with Dobbs hurt, Navy didn’t throw a single pass against Wake Forest—and won the game because the defense made plays. Did you see Air Force roll up more than 500 yards in offense against Houston? That same offense didn’t score a touchdown against Navy’s defense.
Yesterday, facing a team that he knew wanted to throw on every down, Green came out with two down linemen on most plays. Davie was literally open-mouthed. (He also kept referring to Navy’s legal cut blocks as chop blocks, which are illegal. Was that a little bit of the old Notre Damer coming out?) And Missouri kept falling into Green’s trap. It moved up and down the field almost at will but couldn’t score inside the red zone. In fact, Alexander’s touchdown—30 seconds in—was the only touchdown the Tigers scored all day. Final: Navy-35, Missouri-13.
“We’re like 11 hyenas out there,” Niamatalolo said. “Sooner or later we’re going to bring an elephant down.”
Naturally, ESPN didn’t stick around for the playing of the alma mater. It had to show its bowl week promo for the thousandth time. It was also ill-prepared for the broadcast: both Mark Jones and Davie kept mis-pronouncing names and confusing players—without every getting corrected by the truck apparently. It was annoying but didn’t matter.
A word about Niamatalolo: He’s an amazing guy. He’s as genuine as he appears on TV and he stepped into a brutally difficult situation following Johnson, who had become a legend in Annapolis. He’s now 18-10—playing tougher schedules than Johnson did—in two seasons, with a 4-0 record against Air Force and Army, a win over Notre Dame and a bowl win. He’s had to use five different quarterbacks during the two seasons because of injuries.
And he never complains about anything. You see, that’s not the way they do it the academies. I may complain but the players and coaches don’t. You want to talk about the best and the brightest, go talk to some of those young men (they’re not kids) and the men who coach them.
Like I said, it was a great day. Happy New Year to all.
Comments (14)
What You Need to Understand About Dick Vitale: It’s All Real
Wed, Nov 18 2009 12:53
| Dick Vitale, college basketball, ESPN
| Permalink
I didn’t watch very much of ESPN’s 24 hours of college basketball on Tuesday. I actually thought it might be fun to get up at 6 a.m. to watch a basketball game but then realized I had to get up at 6:45 anyway to get my son to school. I was out for most of the afternoon though I caught snippets of the Temple-Georgetown game and then watched Duke-Charlotte until it became a route (which was about five minutes in); a little bit of Louisville-Arkansas and a lot of Gonzaga-Michigan State. I didn’t stay up for Kansas-Memphis because, well, I had to get up at 6:45 again.
Maybe that was the game Dick Vitale did because I didn’t see him or hear him on any of the other games and there’s no way ESPN would televise 146 games on the same day without Vitale. Then again, maybe they sent him to New York for that bogus, ‘Coaches vs. Cancer,’ thing where the four teams advancing to the semifinals were pre-ordained by the promoters regardless of whether they won or lost their early round games. The network, believe it or not, doesn’t consult with me on these things.
It’s remarkable to think about how popular Vitale is and how IMPORTANT he has become to college basketball. I remember 20 years ago some people saying that his act was bound to wear thing, that 10 years was probably about enough and that he would be yesterday’s news soon.
Not exactly. Vitale’s been at it for 30 years now and if there is one guy that ESPN really can’t afford to lose its Vitale. Seriously. If the network decided tomorrow to tell Bob Knight he had to wear a jacket-and-tie like everyone else and he took a walk people would hardly notice. My friend Jay Bilas is very good at what he does but at ESPN it really doesn’t matter if you’re any good. They just put you on the air, promote you and promote you and promote you and eventually people actually think you’re good. Quality doesn’t really matter. ESPN is all about quantity.
But I digress. I know there are people out there who insist they can’t watch a Vitale game without turning down the sound. There are moments when he goes off on one of his tangents or starts promoting every assistant coach alive for a head coaching job or defends guys who are indefensible that you shake your head. I get that and I know there are those out there who would be happy if Dick retired tomorrow.
But here’s what you need to understand about Vitale: it’s all real. The enthusiasm, the love of the game, of the coaches, the players, the settings, the fans and of just getting to be DICK VITALE. He loves every second of it and, unlike a lot of guys who have become rich and famous, he truly appreciates it. He never moans about how tough his life is because he knows he’s been remarkably lucky even though he has had some serious health scares in recent years.
Let me say this: I didn’t always feel this way. Dick and I battled a lot years ago because I really did think it was an act and he was a shameless, self-promoter. We had a few shouting matches, most notably one night at Duke when he came out before the game and began throwing copies of his (first) book to the students (I refuse to call them the Cameron Crazies, they need less publicity these days not more) while they dove on one another to grab it because it was free and because it was from Dicky V.
I was standing at the end of the court watching all this when Vitale tossed the last book and walked over to me.
“Hey John, why don’t you do that with your books?” he said.
“Because people BUY mine Dick.”
It was a cheap shot and Dick correctly took it that way. We had a pretty good shouting match right there during which I probably said some things I shouldn’t have said and he probably did too. But I started it.
We also did the Larry King (radio) show together once—a booking neither of us was thrilled about—and that became a shout-fest too. I was on him for his association with Nike and he was on me for being on him all the time. King said it was great radio. I’m not so certain.
Fast forward a few years to 1993 when my mother died very suddenly. I had written a cathartic piece in Basketball Times about her and not long after it was published I received a lengthy, handwritten note from…you guessed it, Dick. He talked about my mom and how proud she must have been of me and said that even though he and I disagreed often he had great respect for my work and for my passion. “That’s one thing we share John,” he wrote. “We’re both passionate about basketball and what we do and I will NEVER not respect someone like you who brings those things to the table.”
I sat there and one thought ran through my head: he’s a bigger man than I am. I wrote back and told him that. We’ve been friends ever since. In fact, Dick came and spoke—for free, he usually gets huge fees to speak—at my charity golf tournament three years ago.
So while I still understand those who say their ears hurt after a Vitale game, let’s all be honest: if there weren’t Vitale games college hoops wouldn’t be the same. A lot of joy would go out of the game and if there’s one thing big time college sports needs more of it is joy. Everyone is SO serious about things (myself included a lot of the time) most notably coaches who take THEMSELVES so seriously.
Not Dick. Can you imagine Knight or any of the other ex-coaches who fill the airwaves being passed up through the stands in student sections around the country? The passion is genuine but so is the joy, the fun he is so clearly having. I know Dick loves being on the air, loves being at the big games (we all do) but I also know he loves standing around in a press room before a game arguing about teams and players and staying up long into the night doing the same thing.
So, I missed him last night. I thought maybe he’d have Michigan State-Gonzaga but it was Steve Lavin who definitely has better hair than Vitale but is no Vitale.
Actually no one but Vitale is Vitale. You can make fun of him, you can joke about him, you can hold your ears. In my first kids mystery, “Last Shot,” which is set at The Final Four, the boy protagonist, Stevie Thomas, is about to be introduced to Vitale by my real life pal Dick (Hoops) Weiss.
“Does he bite?” Stevie asks Hoops.
Actually there’s almost no bite in Dick Vitale. Just a lot of love and a lot joy. It isn’t a college basketball season without Dicky V. And if you disagree with me, that’s perfectly fine, but you’re missing out on a slice of Americana.
Long live—and long talk, shout, scream, revel in it all—Dick Vitale.
Maybe that was the game Dick Vitale did because I didn’t see him or hear him on any of the other games and there’s no way ESPN would televise 146 games on the same day without Vitale. Then again, maybe they sent him to New York for that bogus, ‘Coaches vs. Cancer,’ thing where the four teams advancing to the semifinals were pre-ordained by the promoters regardless of whether they won or lost their early round games. The network, believe it or not, doesn’t consult with me on these things.
It’s remarkable to think about how popular Vitale is and how IMPORTANT he has become to college basketball. I remember 20 years ago some people saying that his act was bound to wear thing, that 10 years was probably about enough and that he would be yesterday’s news soon.
Not exactly. Vitale’s been at it for 30 years now and if there is one guy that ESPN really can’t afford to lose its Vitale. Seriously. If the network decided tomorrow to tell Bob Knight he had to wear a jacket-and-tie like everyone else and he took a walk people would hardly notice. My friend Jay Bilas is very good at what he does but at ESPN it really doesn’t matter if you’re any good. They just put you on the air, promote you and promote you and promote you and eventually people actually think you’re good. Quality doesn’t really matter. ESPN is all about quantity.
But I digress. I know there are people out there who insist they can’t watch a Vitale game without turning down the sound. There are moments when he goes off on one of his tangents or starts promoting every assistant coach alive for a head coaching job or defends guys who are indefensible that you shake your head. I get that and I know there are those out there who would be happy if Dick retired tomorrow.
But here’s what you need to understand about Vitale: it’s all real. The enthusiasm, the love of the game, of the coaches, the players, the settings, the fans and of just getting to be DICK VITALE. He loves every second of it and, unlike a lot of guys who have become rich and famous, he truly appreciates it. He never moans about how tough his life is because he knows he’s been remarkably lucky even though he has had some serious health scares in recent years.
Let me say this: I didn’t always feel this way. Dick and I battled a lot years ago because I really did think it was an act and he was a shameless, self-promoter. We had a few shouting matches, most notably one night at Duke when he came out before the game and began throwing copies of his (first) book to the students (I refuse to call them the Cameron Crazies, they need less publicity these days not more) while they dove on one another to grab it because it was free and because it was from Dicky V.
I was standing at the end of the court watching all this when Vitale tossed the last book and walked over to me.
“Hey John, why don’t you do that with your books?” he said.
“Because people BUY mine Dick.”
It was a cheap shot and Dick correctly took it that way. We had a pretty good shouting match right there during which I probably said some things I shouldn’t have said and he probably did too. But I started it.
We also did the Larry King (radio) show together once—a booking neither of us was thrilled about—and that became a shout-fest too. I was on him for his association with Nike and he was on me for being on him all the time. King said it was great radio. I’m not so certain.
Fast forward a few years to 1993 when my mother died very suddenly. I had written a cathartic piece in Basketball Times about her and not long after it was published I received a lengthy, handwritten note from…you guessed it, Dick. He talked about my mom and how proud she must have been of me and said that even though he and I disagreed often he had great respect for my work and for my passion. “That’s one thing we share John,” he wrote. “We’re both passionate about basketball and what we do and I will NEVER not respect someone like you who brings those things to the table.”
I sat there and one thought ran through my head: he’s a bigger man than I am. I wrote back and told him that. We’ve been friends ever since. In fact, Dick came and spoke—for free, he usually gets huge fees to speak—at my charity golf tournament three years ago.
So while I still understand those who say their ears hurt after a Vitale game, let’s all be honest: if there weren’t Vitale games college hoops wouldn’t be the same. A lot of joy would go out of the game and if there’s one thing big time college sports needs more of it is joy. Everyone is SO serious about things (myself included a lot of the time) most notably coaches who take THEMSELVES so seriously.
Not Dick. Can you imagine Knight or any of the other ex-coaches who fill the airwaves being passed up through the stands in student sections around the country? The passion is genuine but so is the joy, the fun he is so clearly having. I know Dick loves being on the air, loves being at the big games (we all do) but I also know he loves standing around in a press room before a game arguing about teams and players and staying up long into the night doing the same thing.
So, I missed him last night. I thought maybe he’d have Michigan State-Gonzaga but it was Steve Lavin who definitely has better hair than Vitale but is no Vitale.
Actually no one but Vitale is Vitale. You can make fun of him, you can joke about him, you can hold your ears. In my first kids mystery, “Last Shot,” which is set at The Final Four, the boy protagonist, Stevie Thomas, is about to be introduced to Vitale by my real life pal Dick (Hoops) Weiss.
“Does he bite?” Stevie asks Hoops.
Actually there’s almost no bite in Dick Vitale. Just a lot of love and a lot joy. It isn’t a college basketball season without Dicky V. And if you disagree with me, that’s perfectly fine, but you’re missing out on a slice of Americana.
Long live—and long talk, shout, scream, revel in it all—Dick Vitale.
Comments (11)
Other Games I’d Like to See; Comments on the Len Bias Documentary
Wed, Nov 11 2009 10:17
| college football, college basketball, Bob Knight, Gary WIlliams, Patriot League, Maryland, Lefty Driesell, ESPN
| Permalink
As I'm sure is apparent to anyone who reads this blog, I love doing Navy football games on the radio. There is only one drawback and that's the fact that I don't have the flexibility to go to games involving other teams, especially this time of year. Every week I look at the schedule and, while I look forward to the game I'm doing that Saturday, I see games I'd really like to be able to go to that week.
More often than not, these aren't the games the TV talking heads are analyzing and re-analyzing 47 times during the week. This Saturday, I would love to be at the Williams-Amherst game. I've never seen one although I know all about the traditions--thanks in large part to a superb piece my pal Larry Dorman wrote in The New York Times years back--and I know that just about every year the game decides the league title. This year is no different: Amherst is 7-0, Williams is 6-1. In their conference the schools play eight games, none outside the conference, so it is pretty easy to figure out who is in first place. To give ESPN credit, it did take its self-important College Game Day show up there a couple years ago, a rare acknowledgment from the BCS apologists that there is football outside the six major conferences.
There is also Penn at Harvard this Saturday which will pretty much decide The Ivy League title. Al Bagnoli has coached at Penn for 17 years, Tim Murphy at Harvard for 16. They have been the league's dominant coaches during that time, each winning multiple league titles and putting together undefeated seasons. Penn, by the way, has played more games than any college football program in history--it just went past 1,300 last month. In the 1890s, John Heisman played there. Later he coached there. That game would be a lot of fun to see.
The other game I'd really like to see on Saturday won't be played very far from Harvard: Lafayette at Holy Cross. I have an affinity, as people know, for The Patriot League because of the book I wrote a few years back, "The Last Amateurs," about Patriot League basketball and because I continue to do the league's basketball TV package. (It is on CBS College Sports this year for those of you who need to sign up to get that network). But because of my friendships with people in the league, I follow the football programs pretty closely too.
When I was working on the book, Lehigh was the dominant program in the conference. Now, the Mountain Hawks have fallen off and Lafayette, Holy Cross and Colgate--which reached the Division 1-AA national championship game a few years back--have come on to the class of the league. Holy Cross is a remarkable story. Six years ago, Crusaders Coach Dan Allen was dying of ALS, trying to coach from a wheelchair. He died not long after the 2003 season ended and was replaced by Tom Gilmore who has done a remarkable rebuilding job.
The key though for the Crusaders has been their quarterback, Dominic Randolph, who didn't even start in high school and is now getting serious looks from NFL scouts. Pete Thamel wrote a great piece in The New York Times on Randolph a few weeks ago which included quotes from his high school coach. One of them was, "Someday when Dom's an NFL quarterback people are going to say, 'so who's the dope who didn't start him in high school?" I love coaches like that. The final score of this game might be 70-63 because both teams can score but can't, as my old pal Bob Knight used to say, "guard the floor." Lafayette beat Colgate 56-39 last week. Holy Cross's only loss was to Brown in a game in which the two quarterbacks threw more than 100 passes and gained close to 1,000 yards.
Of course next week is Harvard-Yale, The Game as it is called. It's in New Haven this year. Navy is off. Maybe, if I can get a hall pass, I'll take a drive up there. I saw Harvard-Yale once, way back in my early days at The Post, in Boston. At either place, it is a unique experience. The only problem this year is that Yale isn't very good, although it does have a good defense.
I'm not saying the big time games aren't worth seeing or that I don't care about them. I do. I would probably care more if the games were leading to a playoff rather the silly BCS, but they are still worthy of attention. I've never been to USC-UCLA and would like to do that someday. I'd like to see Boise State play and I'd like to see TCU play. I know Gary Patterson from his Navy days and couldn't be happier for the success he has had since taking over at TCU. I'd like to spend some time at South Carolina and hang out with Steve Spurrier. He may not be the coaching superstar he was in his Florida days but he's still as entertaining and interesting as anyone in the sport. I'd like to see West Virginia play Pittsburgh, regardless of the team's records in a given year. There are plenty of other traditional games worth seeing and maybe someday I'll have a chance to do that. At least I get to see Army-Navy every year. That's one game I would never miss under any circumstances.
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I finally watched The Len Bias ESPN documentary the other night. I had avoided it, in part because I'm really not into the self-aggrandizing ESPN series which pop up as self-celebrations every five years, but more because I know the story, I lived the story and I didn't think I needed to see someone else's version of the story. But, I was flipping around the other night, missing baseball, with no hockey to watch and came upon it being rerun, so I stopped on it because my pal Mike Wilbon was on the screen at that moment.
I'm almost hesitant to write about this because every time I write about ESPN I know my bias against the suits who run the place is probably in play. But I sat there and watched and waited for someone to say something like, "Len Bias did this to himself." Instead, it almost sounded as if Len Bias was a martyr. One person after another came on screen to say what a great guy Len Bias was and then--this was the best part--how he had saved lives by dying as if he had run into a burning house to rescue people and died after carrying people to safety.
Look, I knew Len Bias well. I covered Maryland during his sophomore and junior seasons and saw him emerge as a star. I liked him and spent considerable time with him. Check the clips on the stories I wrote about him. He was bright, a talented artist, almost a mama's boy when I covered him. He admitted to me once that he took his laundry home for his mother to do whenever he had the chance. I also know during his senior year, when everyone knew he was going to be a very high draft pick, a lot of people who knew him became concerned about the hangers-on who had come into his life. I heard it from a number of people second-hand because that was the year I was in Indiana doing "A Season on the Brink."
Bias's death was stunning and it haunted Maryland for years and years. It was one of the reasons Bobby Ross fled as football coach and it led to Lefty Driesell being forced out as coach by the self-righteous chancellor John Slaughter. Slaughter then hired a high school coach, Bob Wade, who promptly got Maryland into an NCAA investigation that led to major sanctions. In 1997, when I was doing my book on ACC basketball--11 years after Bias's death--Maryland lost a game at Duke. Afterwards, I sat with alone with Gary Williams, who was in the process of rebuilding from the rubble left after Bias and after Wade. Gary was disconsolate and emotional at that moment. He later told me regretted saying what he'd said but at that moment I know it was what he felt.
"When a player comes to Duke," he said, "he expects to play in The Final Four. There are times when I think all our players want to do is get out of here (Maryland) without dying of an overdose of cocaine."
An over-reaction to a tough loss? Perhaps. But it symbolized just how much Bias's ghost continued to stalk the Maryland campus. I believe it was only after Gary took Maryland to the Final Four in 2001 and won the national title in 2002 that it was finally exorcised.
There's almost none of that in the ESPN documentary. There are just excuses: people didn't know how serious cocaine was in 1986 (they may not have known it could be instantly fatal but they certainly knew it was dangerous and illegal). The notion that Bias had never used before is repeated by almost everyone except the county prosecutor who says, "recreational users don't use that pure a form of cocaine."
Many, if not most of the people interviewed barely knew Len Bias. The exceptions of course, are his parents, Lefty Driesell and some of his ex-teammates. Understandably, they want to protect his memory. Even Brian Tribble, the guy who was doing cocaine with Bias that night, is portrayed as someone who just made this one horrible mistake--even though it was seven years later that he was convicted for drug possession.
Clearly a lot of money was spent on this thing and, since ESPN can self-promote better than anyone, it will get a lot of attention. I would like to think if it was any good, if it shed any new light on the tragedy, that I would say so and give credit where it was due. To me though, it came off as an infomercial. No one doubts that Bias's death was a tragedy and there's no questioning that it had a deep, long-term affect on many, many people. I liked Len Bias, enjoyed the time I spent with him. But he was no martyr regardless of how many people the director lined up to lionize him.
The summer that Bias died, Bob Knight spoke at The Five Star camp. He talked about the dangers of drug-use to the campers. "A lot of people think that using drugs is cool," Knight said. "Len Bias thought it was cool. He was so cool that now he's cold."
That may sound cold and harsh. Sadly, Knight spoke the truth--unlike most of the people on camera during the documentary.
More often than not, these aren't the games the TV talking heads are analyzing and re-analyzing 47 times during the week. This Saturday, I would love to be at the Williams-Amherst game. I've never seen one although I know all about the traditions--thanks in large part to a superb piece my pal Larry Dorman wrote in The New York Times years back--and I know that just about every year the game decides the league title. This year is no different: Amherst is 7-0, Williams is 6-1. In their conference the schools play eight games, none outside the conference, so it is pretty easy to figure out who is in first place. To give ESPN credit, it did take its self-important College Game Day show up there a couple years ago, a rare acknowledgment from the BCS apologists that there is football outside the six major conferences.
There is also Penn at Harvard this Saturday which will pretty much decide The Ivy League title. Al Bagnoli has coached at Penn for 17 years, Tim Murphy at Harvard for 16. They have been the league's dominant coaches during that time, each winning multiple league titles and putting together undefeated seasons. Penn, by the way, has played more games than any college football program in history--it just went past 1,300 last month. In the 1890s, John Heisman played there. Later he coached there. That game would be a lot of fun to see.
The other game I'd really like to see on Saturday won't be played very far from Harvard: Lafayette at Holy Cross. I have an affinity, as people know, for The Patriot League because of the book I wrote a few years back, "The Last Amateurs," about Patriot League basketball and because I continue to do the league's basketball TV package. (It is on CBS College Sports this year for those of you who need to sign up to get that network). But because of my friendships with people in the league, I follow the football programs pretty closely too.
When I was working on the book, Lehigh was the dominant program in the conference. Now, the Mountain Hawks have fallen off and Lafayette, Holy Cross and Colgate--which reached the Division 1-AA national championship game a few years back--have come on to the class of the league. Holy Cross is a remarkable story. Six years ago, Crusaders Coach Dan Allen was dying of ALS, trying to coach from a wheelchair. He died not long after the 2003 season ended and was replaced by Tom Gilmore who has done a remarkable rebuilding job.
The key though for the Crusaders has been their quarterback, Dominic Randolph, who didn't even start in high school and is now getting serious looks from NFL scouts. Pete Thamel wrote a great piece in The New York Times on Randolph a few weeks ago which included quotes from his high school coach. One of them was, "Someday when Dom's an NFL quarterback people are going to say, 'so who's the dope who didn't start him in high school?" I love coaches like that. The final score of this game might be 70-63 because both teams can score but can't, as my old pal Bob Knight used to say, "guard the floor." Lafayette beat Colgate 56-39 last week. Holy Cross's only loss was to Brown in a game in which the two quarterbacks threw more than 100 passes and gained close to 1,000 yards.
Of course next week is Harvard-Yale, The Game as it is called. It's in New Haven this year. Navy is off. Maybe, if I can get a hall pass, I'll take a drive up there. I saw Harvard-Yale once, way back in my early days at The Post, in Boston. At either place, it is a unique experience. The only problem this year is that Yale isn't very good, although it does have a good defense.
I'm not saying the big time games aren't worth seeing or that I don't care about them. I do. I would probably care more if the games were leading to a playoff rather the silly BCS, but they are still worthy of attention. I've never been to USC-UCLA and would like to do that someday. I'd like to see Boise State play and I'd like to see TCU play. I know Gary Patterson from his Navy days and couldn't be happier for the success he has had since taking over at TCU. I'd like to spend some time at South Carolina and hang out with Steve Spurrier. He may not be the coaching superstar he was in his Florida days but he's still as entertaining and interesting as anyone in the sport. I'd like to see West Virginia play Pittsburgh, regardless of the team's records in a given year. There are plenty of other traditional games worth seeing and maybe someday I'll have a chance to do that. At least I get to see Army-Navy every year. That's one game I would never miss under any circumstances.
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I finally watched The Len Bias ESPN documentary the other night. I had avoided it, in part because I'm really not into the self-aggrandizing ESPN series which pop up as self-celebrations every five years, but more because I know the story, I lived the story and I didn't think I needed to see someone else's version of the story. But, I was flipping around the other night, missing baseball, with no hockey to watch and came upon it being rerun, so I stopped on it because my pal Mike Wilbon was on the screen at that moment.
I'm almost hesitant to write about this because every time I write about ESPN I know my bias against the suits who run the place is probably in play. But I sat there and watched and waited for someone to say something like, "Len Bias did this to himself." Instead, it almost sounded as if Len Bias was a martyr. One person after another came on screen to say what a great guy Len Bias was and then--this was the best part--how he had saved lives by dying as if he had run into a burning house to rescue people and died after carrying people to safety.
Look, I knew Len Bias well. I covered Maryland during his sophomore and junior seasons and saw him emerge as a star. I liked him and spent considerable time with him. Check the clips on the stories I wrote about him. He was bright, a talented artist, almost a mama's boy when I covered him. He admitted to me once that he took his laundry home for his mother to do whenever he had the chance. I also know during his senior year, when everyone knew he was going to be a very high draft pick, a lot of people who knew him became concerned about the hangers-on who had come into his life. I heard it from a number of people second-hand because that was the year I was in Indiana doing "A Season on the Brink."
Bias's death was stunning and it haunted Maryland for years and years. It was one of the reasons Bobby Ross fled as football coach and it led to Lefty Driesell being forced out as coach by the self-righteous chancellor John Slaughter. Slaughter then hired a high school coach, Bob Wade, who promptly got Maryland into an NCAA investigation that led to major sanctions. In 1997, when I was doing my book on ACC basketball--11 years after Bias's death--Maryland lost a game at Duke. Afterwards, I sat with alone with Gary Williams, who was in the process of rebuilding from the rubble left after Bias and after Wade. Gary was disconsolate and emotional at that moment. He later told me regretted saying what he'd said but at that moment I know it was what he felt.
"When a player comes to Duke," he said, "he expects to play in The Final Four. There are times when I think all our players want to do is get out of here (Maryland) without dying of an overdose of cocaine."
An over-reaction to a tough loss? Perhaps. But it symbolized just how much Bias's ghost continued to stalk the Maryland campus. I believe it was only after Gary took Maryland to the Final Four in 2001 and won the national title in 2002 that it was finally exorcised.
There's almost none of that in the ESPN documentary. There are just excuses: people didn't know how serious cocaine was in 1986 (they may not have known it could be instantly fatal but they certainly knew it was dangerous and illegal). The notion that Bias had never used before is repeated by almost everyone except the county prosecutor who says, "recreational users don't use that pure a form of cocaine."
Many, if not most of the people interviewed barely knew Len Bias. The exceptions of course, are his parents, Lefty Driesell and some of his ex-teammates. Understandably, they want to protect his memory. Even Brian Tribble, the guy who was doing cocaine with Bias that night, is portrayed as someone who just made this one horrible mistake--even though it was seven years later that he was convicted for drug possession.
Clearly a lot of money was spent on this thing and, since ESPN can self-promote better than anyone, it will get a lot of attention. I would like to think if it was any good, if it shed any new light on the tragedy, that I would say so and give credit where it was due. To me though, it came off as an infomercial. No one doubts that Bias's death was a tragedy and there's no questioning that it had a deep, long-term affect on many, many people. I liked Len Bias, enjoyed the time I spent with him. But he was no martyr regardless of how many people the director lined up to lionize him.
The summer that Bias died, Bob Knight spoke at The Five Star camp. He talked about the dangers of drug-use to the campers. "A lot of people think that using drugs is cool," Knight said. "Len Bias thought it was cool. He was so cool that now he's cold."
That may sound cold and harsh. Sadly, Knight spoke the truth--unlike most of the people on camera during the documentary.
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One of Those Mornings -- ESPN, Redskins, and Book Reviews; Quick Note on the Mids
Maybe it’s the fact that it is raining (again) or that I know a week from now it will be getting dark by 5 o’clock . Or maybe it’s just the fact that getting my son out of bed and in the car to go to school on time is the parental equivalent of playing football without a helmet, but I’m in a lousy mood this morning.
Which may explain why two minor items in the paper set me off. The first was a short story in The Washington Post which was headlined, “Cerrato talks to ESPN.” I have to say that in some ways I agree with my colleague Mike Wise who wrote in today’s paper that it has become pointless to continue writing or talking about the sitcom that Dan Snyder and his henchmen Cerrato have turned the Redskins into.
That said, Cerrato simply should not be allowed to pick soft landing spots to spread the Snyder, “it’s not my fault,” propaganda. Since blackmailing Jim Zorn into giving up his play-calling duties to a bingo-caller nine days ago (on Snyder’s orders, Cerrato doesn’t comb his hair without Snyder’s permission) Cerrato has ducked the media. He went on his own Snyder-paid-for radio show on Friday to make the big announcement that Zorn wouldn’t be fired before season’s end (what’s the over-under on when that becomes a lie?) and tried to blame the team’s horrible start on—who else?—the media.
Then on Monday he did a softball interview with ESPN’s Sal Palantonio, claiming he and Snyder expected to be 3-3 at this point in the schedule without making it clear whether that expectation came in August or two weeks ago. He went on and on about the genius of Sherman Lewis as a play-caller and said calling plays was like riding a bike. Really? It’s that easy? No wonder the Redskins STILL haven’t scored more than 17 points in a game this year.
I’m certain—without actually checking with my colleagues yet—that real reporters were kept away from Cerrato by security after he was done with Palantonio. Here’s what I actually think reporters should do with Cerrato: Not speak to him. If Snyder wants to say something it should come from his mouth not from his mouthpiece.
The other item was actually more annoying because we’ve all come to expect nothing but claptrap from the Redskins. Apparently ESPN, as part of its never-ending efforts to self-promote itself puts on something called a “Monday Night Football chalk-talk,” when it comes to town. People get sucked into paying money to hear Mike Tirico, John Gruden and Ron Jaworski tell everyone how great the game will be and how thrilled they are to be in (fill in the name of the city).
Okay, fine, if people want to pay money for that, they’re entitled to do so. But last I looked Tirico, Gruden and Jaworski were member of the media—not journalists God forbid, but members of the media. Gruden is one of the many coaches rumored to perhaps be interested in taking a few million dollars from Snyder next year to coach the team. I think Vince Lombardi, George Allen and Paul Brown are also on the short list.
Naturally, since the Redskins are always the biggest story in D.C. a couple reporters showed up at the lunch to try to talk to Gruden. Except they weren’t allowed to. He was “not made available to the media,” according to The Post. Hmm. Does that mean that Tirico and Jaworski couldn’t talk to him either?
My guess is he’d be available if someone wanted to ask him how GREAT it is to work for ESPN. Maybe ESPN could have had Sal Palantonio interview him. “In an exclusive interview with ESPN, ESPN’s John Gruden tells ESPN that he has learned from Brett Favre’s agent that Favre may or may not play in 2010, ESPN has learned.”
I told you I was in a bad mood.
Completely different subject. My friend Mike Vaccaro, who writes an excellent column for The New York Post (yes The New York Post, there are some talented guys there) has just come out with a book on the 1912 World Series, which according to most baseball historians was the first one that was truly a national event.
Much to my surprise, The Washington Post reviewed the book on Sunday because The Post book section (what’s left of it since it was stuck in the back of the Outlook section a few months ago) usually reviews books on bridge or chess when it feels the urge to deal with anything related to sports.
But it is World Series week so, just to show that the section is actually aware of that, there were two reviews of baseball books. Mike’s book—“The First Fall Classic,”—was reviewed by Jonathan Yardley, who has been reviewing books for The Post since about 1898.
Let’s pause here for my disclaimer: I’m not a fan of book review sections like The Post or The New York Times. I think they’re run by pseudo-intellectual snobs and that most people who review books for a living do so because they can’t write books with any modicum of success. What’s the old saying: “Those who can’t do, teach?” I don’t believe that’s always the case but I do believe that, just as failed jocks like me find a way to stay in sports by writing, failed writers find jobs critiquing those who can write.
Yardley is the epitome of the self-centered, blowhard critic. He actually writes occasional reviews of classic old books as if anyone cares in 2009 what he thinks about “Catcher in The Rye.” In fact, he wrote a review a couple of years ago saying “Catcher in The Rye,” was not a good book. That must be why every teen-ager of the last 50 years has read it, why my son read it 35 years after I read it and why it is quoted from ALL the time.
Anyway, Yardley is one of those guys who thinks because he has a fantasy baseball team he’s an expert on baseball. So, he deigned to review Mike’s book. Amazingly, he actually liked it, saying up high that it was lively and entertaining. He then wrote most of the review about Ring Lardner—who he just happened to have written a biography of years ago that no doubt sold into the dozens—and why Lardner was such a great baseball writer. If the review was 1,000 words maybe 100 of them were about the book he was allegedly reviewing.
As a writer, nothing drives me crazy more than a non-review. You’re assigned to review a book you review the book, not one of your own books or go on and on about yourself—another Yardley habit. I have never, ever talked to Yardley about his work because it’s a waste of time. This time I couldn’t resist. I wrote him a note saying I was glad he liked Mike’s book but that I wished he had written more about Mike than about Lardner, noting that he had mentioned not ONE word about the book after the third paragraph except to scold Mike for not quoting Lardner’s story on the final game of that World Series—and then quoting it at length himself.
Here’s the response I got: “I think that review fully conveyed my admiration for Vaccaro’s excellent book and the pleasure it gave me.”
My response was just about as direct: “Typical book reviewer. Not only are you never wrong, you can’t even consider the possibility that someone might make a legitimate point. I’m still searching for the word, ‘excellent,’ in the review.’”
Like I said, trying to tell Yardley he might be anything less than perfect was a complete waste of time. What an absolute blowhard he is. Still, I felt better getting it off my chest.
One last thing on a happier note: Someone wrote a post yesterday wondering why I didn’t write about Navy’s win over Wake Forest Wake Forest
The Mids are now 6-2, one win from clinching a seventh straight bowl bid. They are a remarkable bunch led by a wonderful coach, Ken Niamatalolo. Dobbs won’t play again this week against Temple, which is coming to town on a five game win streak (with the Philly papers predicting the Owls will win out and go 10-2) and badly wanting to get even after blowing a 27-7 fourth quarter lead in Annapolis last year. That will be a tough out. But being associated with Navy and this team (like every year) even in the smallest possible way is something I greatly enjoy. I’m proud to have had the chance to do it for the past 13 years.
Okay, writing about Navy put me in a better mood. But it’s still raining.
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Passing the Travel Test in My Recovery; Sports Talk Radio on 11 Hr Drive
Fri, Jul 24 2009 05:08
| Sports Radio, Islanders, ESPN
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I have passed the first major travel test in my recovery. In fact, I think I’ve proven I can handle almost anything after yesterday’s Odyssey.
My son Danny is at a camp in Vermont and this is parents weekend. On Wednesday my doctor cleared me to make the trip. He just told me to pull off and walk around if I felt tired. To be honest, if he hadn’t cleared me I probably would have gone anyway. But it never became an issue. A number of people tried to convince me to get someone to drive me or at least help me drive.
NO. Being alone in the car is the least stressful way for me to get someplace. If I want to talk, I pick up the phone. Most of the time I’m very happy with a ballgame, music or—depending on the city—sportstalk radio. I know I should get satellite radio. It’s just one of those things I haven’t gotten around to yet.
The trip was supposed to take nine hours according to Mapquest. It took 11. There was lots of rain and lots of traffic. Delaware, as always, was a mess. Has anyone ever driven through Delaware without hitting construction traffic? The state needs to construct one of those one-way tolls because traffic always backs up both ways going into the Delaware tolls.
Before I got to Delaware though I got pulled over by a cop. Seriously. I wasn’t speeding and I wasn’t talking on the phone. My seatbelt was fastened. I was seriously baffled. “Are you aware,” the cop said, “that your expiration tags are on your FRONT license plate not your BACK license plate?”
I was absolutely not aware of that. Apparently, when I bought the car almost two years ago, the dealer put the tags on the front. I never noticed and, until yesterday, neither did anyone else. The cop, who was very pleasant about it, wrote me a warning.
“Just grab a screwdriver when you get where you’re going and change them,” he said. Sure. I’m Mr. Handy without an incision running down the middle of my chest. With an incision that’ll be no sweat.
There was more traffic in New Jersey. Here though I picked up WFAN coming out of New York. I am not a fan of Mike Francesa personally. He’s three of the most arrogant people I’ve ever met. But he does good radio and did good radio with his ex-partner Chris Russo, who I guess I’d know more about right now if I had satellite radio.
Francesa spent an hour of the show Thursday embroiled in some dispute between the New York Racing Association and Nassau County OTB over the fact that the latter had illegally streamed NYRA races earlier in the year. Now, the NYRA won’t allow them to televise races from Saratoga next week until they acknowledge that they did what they did.
Francesa was into the story because he thinks of himself as a horse racing expert (maybe he is for all I know) and likes to watch races from his home in Nassau County when he isn’t hob-knobbing at Saratoga—which is to horse racing people as St. Andrews is to golfers. The only interest I had in the story was that the head of the NYRA is Charles Heyward—who was once my publisher at Little-Brown.
After that, Francesa had on Charles Wang, the owner of the Islanders. I am among the several dozen people on earth who still cares about the Islanders. When I was a senior in high school and had just bought my first car, I frequently drove to the then brand new Nassau Coliseum to watch the Islanders, who went 12-60-6 that first season. I was a big fan of Billy Harris and Billy Smith.
The Islanders got good in their third year and won those four straight Stanley Cups starting in 1980. What was cool was I got to cover them quite a bit. In those days, The Washington Post had one hockey writer—Robert Fachet—who covered the Capitals. I always volunteered to help out with the playoffs after The Final Four. I covered the Islanders a lot and loved the fact that they were such good guys AND winners. I’m not sure I’ve met a nicer man in sports than Bob Bourne. Even Billy Smith, with his reputation (not undeserved) as a dirty player was a delight to be around.
Now, of course, the Islanders are brutal and Wang doesn’t just want a new arena he wants half of Long Island rebuilt around the Coliseum. The whole deal will cost at least $3.7 billion to complete. If the town of Hempstead and Nassau County don’t say yes, Wang is threatening to move to Kansas City. The interview didn’t assuage my fears.
WFAN actually was able to pick up the last out of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game, which was cool. By then I was on the New York State Thruway and—finally—out of traffic.
Francesa, who can get guests I’ll say that for him, then had on John Walsh from ESPN. I’ve known Walsh for years, always respected him. But I laughed out loud when he kept refusing to say ESPN made a mistake ducking the Ben Roethlisberger story for two days—why can’t these guys just say, ‘you know what, we missed on that one?’ He actually brought up Duke lacrosse as a reason to pretend the story didn’t exist which was downright silly. No one ever said Duke lacrosse shouldn’t have been covered they just accused some people (myself included) of rushing to judgment. It was comical listening to Walsh insist ESPN had done nothing wrong. Gosh, I wish I could be perfect like those guys in Bristol.
Thank God for WFAN’s signal because I was able to keep listening to Steve Somers, who can be fall down funny all the way through the two lane roads in Vermont.
“The Mets magic number,” Somers declared, “is two thousand and ten.”
He had that right. No Yankee game to listen to because of rain, they didn’t start until I was pulling into the hotel. As I checked in the woman at the front desk looked at me and said, “You look like you could use a room that’s a short walk from here.”
She had that right. But it’s all downhill from here. I hope.
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ESPN and the Handling of Andrews, Roethlisberger Stories; Reactions Prove Power and Influence
Anyone who has known me for more than five minutes knows how I feel about the executives who run ESPN. Although a number of the people I had the misfortune to deal with when I was still doing “Under the Boards,” (a title I invented and they kept after I left) and “The Sports Reporters,” the general ESPN approach hasn’t changed. I guess it was summed up best in an e-mail a guy named Mark Shapiro sent me a few years ago when I refused to let him blackmail me into doing things for the network I didn’t want to do.
“You just blew up your entire career,” Shapiro wrote.
He’s now working for the lovely and talented Dan Snyder running Six Flags—the theme park you may have read about recently while they were preparing to file for bankruptcy.
That said, there is no doubting the power and influence of ESPN. Most athletes would crawl through mud to be on ESPN as proven by the number of them who appear on the ‘Sportscenter,’ commercials and perhaps even more by how many of them show up for the God-awful ESPY’s show. When someone in sports is looking for a soft landing in the midst of a major controversy, they go looking for ESPN—the most recent example being Alex Rodriguez. That’s why Bob Knight was so angry years ago when Jeremy Schaap dared to ask him real questions in the wake of his firing at Indiana.
This past week has been another example, if we’re being honest, of the power that ESPN wields even though the two incidents that made news were embarrassing to the network in entirely different ways.
The first story was the Erin Andrews affair. Clearly, Andrews was a victim of some crazy sleaze-ball who made a video of her while she was in her hotel room in, I believe, Omaha for the College World Series. The video made the rounds for awhile and The New York Post (surprise) made it into front page news.
What’s crazy about this—seriously—is who really cares about Erin Andrews? No offense, but to me she’s just another blonde sideline reporter who asks questions like, “Coach what does your team have to do to come back in the second half?” She’s good-looking, but a lot of them are good-looking. Think about this: Has an Erin Andrews interview ever made news? Not that I can remember.
I’m not saying this to put her down. She’s fine, perfectly competent doing a job I don’t think should exist. But the hysteria over this video is remarkable. You would think it was Princess Diana while she was still alive or Michelle Obama that had been photographed, not a sideline reporter.
Sure, the internet is part of it. Everyone and anyone can be famous now for 15 minutes. For once, I don’t really blame ESPN for its reaction to The Post story, which was to ban guys who work for The New York Post from their airwaves, at least for a while. All the guys involved are solid, legitimate reporters who are completely innocent in all this. But you have to stand up for one of your own and that’s what ESPN is doing. I still work for The Washington Post and if The Post blows a story on The President, I feel embarrassed even if I had nothing to do with it. To this day I feel proud to say Woodward and Bernstein were working for The Post when they broke Watergate. So, you take the good with the bad when you represent a news organization—even one that can, at times, be as sleazy as The New York Post.
The other ESPN controversy surrounded Ben Roethlisberger, who was charged with sexual assault in a civil suit in Nevada. For two days, ESPN didn’t report the story and ordered all its various outlets—other than its station in Pittsburgh—not to report the story.
This reaction proves three things:
--------The one sports entity in this country that still wields more power than ESPN (by far) is the NFL. Given a choice between reporting a story embarrassing an NFL star or not reporting it, ESPN opted (initially) not to report. If it had been a player in ANY other league, the story would have been out there—especially a star player.
--------ESPN’s decision-making is, at times, completely ridiculous. If you allow one of your stations to report the story, how can you ban everyone else from reporting it? It’s like a newspaper saying, “we’ll just run one paragraph,” and hope nobody notices. Either it’s a story or it isn’t a story—period.
--------ESPN’s importance is undeniable. Even The New York Times ran a full blown story this morning on ESPN’s decision to not report the story and then the fact that it reversed itself yesterday.
What is remarkable to me isn’t that ESPN made a questionable decision (at best) on Roethlisberger but that the decision is such big news. Again, part of it is the world we live in, part of it is that ESPN is such an omni-present force in sports. The shame of THAT is they so rarely (The V Foundation being a notable exception) use their power to do anything other than try to make themselves rich and powerful.
There’s so much they could be doing with that power besides telling everyone all the time how powerful they are. But then, what do I know? I blew my career up years ago.
I’ll bet though that I can still get into Six Flags.
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Favre Needs to Stop Talking, Playing ‘Hamlet’; ESPN’s Gone Overboard
Wed, Jul 22 2009 05:01
| NFL, Brett Favre, ESPN
| Permalink
Well, here we go again with Brett Favre.
It’s still a week until training camps open and we’ve all got Favre Fatigue again. Seriously, wouldn’t it be great if there was a complete news blackout regarding Favre and if he shows up for the Minnesota Vikings training camp, great. If not, that’s great too. He certainly doesn’t need to announce his retirement if he doesn’t show up. He’s already done that about 14 times.
Look, as far as I’m concerned, Favre can play another 10 years if that’s what he wants to do and if there’s a team willing to pay him to do so. It’s his career, his body, his life and his legacy. It’s not up to me or you or anyone else to tell Favre or anyone else when to retire.
Unless you’ve been a great athlete—which I certainly haven’t been—I don’t think you can understand how hard it is to walk away. It isn’t just the money, it’s The Life. Mike Mussina said it well once when he talked about how much he would miss having a locker when he retired. “As long as you have a locker in a Major League clubhouse you feel like you’re part of something special,” he said. “It makes you feel special.”
Nolan Ryan talked about feeling invisible when he was on the Disabled List and knowing how much that feeling of not mattering anymore would increase when he couldn’t pitch anymore. Peter Boulware, an All-Pro linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, asked a simple question: “What else can I do in life where 70,000 people are going to stand up and cheer for me when I do my job?”
The answer, of course, is nothing. Favre’s no different. He’s one of the most revered athletes in history and he loves the way that feels. Who among us wouldn’t?
But here’s my problem with Favre: he needs to stop playing Hamlet. For five years in Green Bay he warbled through offseasons talking about retiring. Then he DID retire only to come back. He went through an embarrassing battle with the Packers, landed in New York and was a big part of the Jets collapse last season. Then he retired AGAIN—and the Jets took him at his word and released him—before turning around about 15 minutes later to say he might want to play in Minnesota.
I mean enough already.
Some of this is the fault of ESPN. I truly believe that ESPN is actually to blame for almost everything that is wrong in our society dating back to the kidnapping of The Lindbergh baby. ESPN is obsessed with everything NFL and everything Favre and wants us to believe it breaks every single story even when it doesn’t. If Favre sends back his steak in a restaurant because it isn’t cooked enough, ESPN is going to report it and give four of its reporters credit for breaking the story.
“Brett Favre tells waitress steak is too rare,” ESPN’s Ed Werder reports. “Favre tells ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that steak was only slightly under-cooked and he asked very politely if it could be put back on for, ‘just a minute or two.’ However, according to ESPN’s John Clayton, Favre said steak was, ‘almost raw.’”
That’s not as far fetched as it might sound. It sounds ridiculous for a reporter to say an athlete should talk less but this is an exception to the rule. Favre needs to stop talking until he gets to training camp. And I swear to God if he comes back and plays this year and then announced his retirement again next winter, the media shouldn’t write or say a word about it until he actually isn’t in uniform on the opening weekend of the 2010 season.
Even then you might want to wait another week to make sure someone doesn’t get a quarterback hurt the first weekend and sign him.
We all know that Favre isn’t even close to being the first athlete to retire and then have second thoughts. I’m still not completely convinced that Sugar Ray Leonard and Michael Jordan aren’t coming back again. Heck, Mark Spitz tried a comeback TWENTY years after Munich.
What’s a little different with Favre is the turnaround. It’s not as if he sat out a season and got, as Jordan once put it, “the itch.” It was a matter of a couple of months in Green Bay, hours—or so it seemed—in New York. It makes you wonder what he was thinking when he made the announcements. You even have to wonder if he made the announcement in New York so he’d be able to sign un-impeded in Minnesota, which is where he wanted to go last summer only to be blocked because the Packers still had him under contract. The Jets graciously released him—in part, I’m convinced because new coach Rex Ryan didn’t want to deal with an, “As The Favre Turns,” scenario during training camp.
My guess is Favre will pronounced himself fit and report to training camp next week. Or, let me put it this way: If he DOES say he’s staying retired, the over-under on when the first reports surface that he’s reconsidering is about 10 days. I might take the under.
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