FeinsteinOnTheBrink

Catching up with Washington Post articles: Maryland's Honor Violation; Navy Steps in the Wrong Direction

2012-01-29T13:56:00.000-05:00

Here are two of my latest from The Washington Post --------

When the Maryland basketball team won the national championship in 2002, Gary Williams received hundreds, if not thousands, of letters congratulating him on taking the Terrapins to a place few dreamed they could ever go.

Williams read almost all the letters. Some meant more than others, coming from old friends and coaching colleagues. One stood out. It came from a former Maryland coach.

“Congratulations,” it read in part. “You have now made Maryland the UCLA of the East.”
The note came from Lefty Driesell.

It was Driesell who made the term “UCLA of the East” famous when he came to Maryland in 1969 and boldly predicted he would build a program somehow comparable to college basketball’s most incomparable program.

Driesell came up 10 national championships short of John Wooden but he did put Maryland basketball on the national map, taking the Terrapins to eight NCAA tournaments in 17 seasons, twice reaching the Elite Eight. He left in 1986 in the aftermath of the Len Bias tragedy.

It was Williams, after the disastrous three-year tenure of Bob Wade, who picked up the pieces of a shattered program and made Maryland matter again. Ultimately, he did what Driesell could not do, taking Maryland to back-to-back Final Fours and the national title that brought the kind of joy to the Maryland campus that for years seemed impossible in the wake of Bias’s death.

Click here for the rest of the column: Maryland's Honor Violation

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In November 1995, I was standing on the sidelines at Michie Stadium on a frigid afternoon watching the Army football team practice. Al Vanderbush, then Army’s athletic director, was watching with me. In the midst of small talk about plans for Thanksgiving, Vanderbush suddenly said, “Mind if I ask your opinion on something?”

Flattered, I said, sure.

“What would you think about us joining Conference USA?” Vanderbush said.

My answer was instinctive rather than thought-out: “You’re kidding, right?”

Sadly, Vanderbush wasn’t kidding, nor was anyone else at West Point. They thought that being part of Conference USA’s TV package would give them more exposure and more revenue and being part of a league would help in recruiting.

Put simply, the end result was a disaster, culminating in an 0-13 season in 2003. To be fair, Todd Berry, who was hired in 2000 to replace Bob Sutton as coach, and Rick Greenspan, the athletic director who hired him, had as much to do with that record as playing in Conference USA did. But the decision to join C-USA in 1998 led to Sutton’s firing and a fall from football grace so precipitous that, all these years later, Army is still recovering.

Click here for the rest of the column: Navy Steps in the Wrong Direction

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post columns: Hockey not the same without Ovechkin vs. Crosby; ACC basketball

2012-01-13T15:07:00.000-05:00

Just passing along my latest The Washington Post columns from this week.

Maybe it was force of habit, but NBC Sports Network (which was Versus until two weeks ago) decided Wednesday that America’s hockey fans couldn’t live without seeing the eighth-place team in the NHL’s Eastern Conference take on the 10th-place team.

That was the matchup at Verizon Center: The eighth-place Pittsburgh Penguins vs. the 10th-place Washington Capitals. This is the rivalry formerly known as Ovi vs. Sid the Kid.

Both superstars were in the building Wednesday. Alex Ovechkin was wearing his familiar red sweater with the No. 8 stitched in white underneath his name. Sidney Crosby was wearing a very unfamiliar blue pinstripe suit and making small talk in the press box in the minutes leading up to faceoff.

Crosby has played in eight games this season because of lingering concussion symptoms that began a little more than a year ago after he took a hit from former Cap David Steckel during the Winter Classic. Neither the Penguins nor the NHL have been quite the same since. In the opening round of last spring’s playoffs, Pittsburgh blew a three-games-to-one lead and lost in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning — the same team that then swept the Capitals; the same team that Steven Stamkos, currently the league’s leading scorer, skates for right now.

Click here for the rest of the column: Hockey just isn’t the same without Alex Ovechkin vs. Sidney Crosby

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In the spring of 2004, the nine ACC men’s basketball coaches were asked to consider a proposal to add Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College as league members.

The discussion, according to those in the room, was brief. The vote was emphatic: 9 to 0 against expansion.

“It might have been the only 9 to 0 vote we ever had in my 22 years,” former Maryland coach Gary Williams recalled recently, laughing at the memory. “Of course the commissioner and the presidents said, ‘Thank you very much,’ and did what they were planning to do. Our thoughts never left that room because they didn’t care.”

Almost eight years later, it looks as if they should have cared. Consider these names: Iona (which beat Maryland, easily), Wofford, Boston University, Holy Cross, Mercer, Coastal Carolina, Princeton, Harvard (twice) and Tulane. They all have wins over ACC teams this season.

This is the basketball conference in the country?

Click here for the rest of the column: Since expansion, the ACC has been merely another common conference in basketball

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Sorry state of ACC football, basketball; Odds and ends: Islanders, PGA Tour starts today, Army-Navy documentary

2012-01-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

I have one question this morning: Has West Virginia stopped scoring yet?

It is now fair to say that the ACC’s complete and total humiliation as a football conference is complete. If the league had one very small thing going for it the last few years it was that it had so destroyed The Big East as a football conference by raiding Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College, that it could always at least make the claim that, “Well, we’re not as bad as The Big East.”

Actually that might have made a pretty good slogan for ACC football: “Not as bad as The Big East!”

(That reminds me of a bumper sticker that my great friend Tom Mickle came up with years ago when he was the SID at Duke and the school hired a guy named Red Wilson as football coach. Everywhere you went in the fall of 1978 if you were anywhere close to Duke you saw the slogan, “Red Means Go!” Duke went 2-9 that season which, back then, was the worst season in Duke history. These days two wins gets whoever is coaching Duke nominated for ACC coach-of-the-year. The next spring I asked Mickle what his slogan was going to be for Wilson’s second season. “Duke Football 1979,” he said. That sounded optimistic to me).

Anyway, back to the wonders of ACC football circa 2012. The ACC got eight bowl bids this season. The only reason it wasn’t nine was because 6-6 Miami decided to take a chance that by staying home this year it might not be docked a potential postseason berth next season ala Ohio State, which couldn’t wait to send ITS 6-6 team to The Gator Bowl where it met another 6-6 team, Florida. You know the Gator Bowl used to be a halfway decent second-tier bowl. Now it has become a haven for the truly mediocre.

So, the ACC sent eight teams to bowls. Two won: North Carolina State, which managed to beat Louisville—if it were basketball that might be impressive—and Florida State, which came from behind to beat Notre Dame, a team that proved this season it can lose a close game to anyone. (For the record, Notre Dame beat one good team this season: Michigan State. Their other seven wins were over four teams with losing records; one team that is 6-6 and two teams that were 7-6. Impressive).

That’s the list of ACC bowl wins. The fact that the league got two BCS bids is absolute proof of what a farce the BCS is, as if we need any more proof than we already have. Virginia Tech is a very solid program and Frank Beamer’s an excellent coach, but the Hokies beat NO ONE this season and lost twice (soundly) to Clemson, the team that West Virginia is still scoring on as we speak. Yes, Tech kept the Sugar Bowl close before losing to Michigan in overtime. Fine. But any Hokie fan can tell you this is the school’s history the last dozen or so years: They keep it close playing big teams and ALWAYS lose. Sorry, beating Georgia Tech doesn’t count.

I’m writing my Sunday Washington Post column on the sorry state of ACC basketball. In talking to ACC people, the consensus is this: One of the things hurting basketball is the league’s insistence on trying to pump up its mediocre football. If you hire good coaches, you’ll win. If you hire bad coaches, they’ll lose. All the marketing money in the world isn’t going to change that. And the perception that Commissioner John Swofford cares only about pumping up his football dollars while letting North Carolina and Duke do all the heavy lifting in basketball isn’t helping things at all.

ACC people are already saying that Florida State will be ready for the national stage again next season. Of course that’s what they were saying about THIS season before the Seminoles became just another second-tier bowl team and lost to Wake Forest—among others.

Around Washington the joke is that the highlight of the NFL season comes in April. In the ACC it comes in August when the conference somehow lands five teams in the pre-season top 25 thanks to its PR and marketing hype before it all crashes once actual games are played. Virginia Tech will probably come in somewhere between 15 and 22 in the final polls. Florida State may sneak in at the bottom of the top 25.

That’s the list. That’s ACC football: 11 Gator Bowl teams and Duke, which would love the chance to buy tickets to watch The Gator Bowl. Of course Syracuse and Pittsburgh are on the way. Syracuse finished 5-7 this season. Pitt is 6-6 and playing on some god-awful bowl this weekend. Their addition will mean the ACC will have 13 Gator Bowl teams. And Duke—The Washington Generals of college football.

******

A few quick comments on other topics:

--Has anyone noticed that The New York Islanders have won three in a row and moved within 11 points of the final playoffs spot? (If you’re answer is yes I feel sorry for you. You’re as pathetic as I am.)

--I never root against a Mike Krzyzewski team. But I couldn’t help but feel really good for Fran Dunphy when his Temple team beat Duke on Wednesday. A really good coach but a better guy.

--The new golf season begins today in Hawaii with a grand total of 28 players showing up to play in the (insert car name here) Tournament of Champions. Three of the four major champions said, ‘thanks but no thanks,’ to a week on Maui playing with no cut for several million bucks. You think The PGA Tour needs to take a look at making some changes in this event before NO ONE at all shows up?

--A couple of posters asked how I could know that no new ground was broken in CBS’s multi-million dollar Army-Navy documentary when I said I didn’t watch the whole thing. What I wrote was that I didn’t see anything that broke new ground. People who HAVE watched the whole thing tell me they didn’t see anything new from start to finish. Rather than go back and watch it and give what would no doubt be a biased critique I will leave the final word (for now) to a reviewer who enjoyed the documentary and praised the idea, the slickness of the production and liked the people portrayed. “It does, however, come off as a recruiting film for both academies,” he wrote.

Gee, I’m stunned.

I have nothing bad to say about either academy as people well know. But I DO (modestly) think that the reason “A Civil War,’ resonated with a lot of people was that I did NOT attempt to glorify the players or the academies. Both by their own admission have plenty of flaws. I let them tell their stories. I thought that was enough.

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

The ‘six-and-six bowls’; bands charged for tickets; thank you for the response to the book (and my apologies) and much more…

2011-12-27T10:47:00.002-05:00

Let me start today with what is most important: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and, of course, Happy Festivus to all. I hope everyone thrived—and survived—the holidays.

We are now in the midst of the bowls, which began 10 days ago and go on until January 9th. As someone who was closely associated for 14 years with a school that aspired each year to reach a second tier bowl, I am not one to put down what I sometimes refer to as the ‘six-and-six bowls.’ I did a count last week and I believe there are 11 teams with 6-6 records who have ‘earned,’ bowl bids this season. That does NOT count UCLA, which is 6-7, or North Carolina State which was 5-5 against Division 1-A teams and padded its record to 7-5 with a pair of wins against 1-AA teams. (Sorry NCAA, still not buying into your new euphemisms for your football divisions).

As I said, having done Navy games for 14 years and knowing what it meant to the players and the fans to go to second-tier bowls for the past eight seasons, I don’t put these bowls down. I see a reason for their existence although the number of empty seats at many of them—including some of the BCS bowls—is remarkable and hearing the poor announcers trying to say the corporate names with a straight face time-after-time is laughable. Did you catch last night’s AdvoCare 100 Independence Bowl? Of course that game has come a long way from the days when it became symbolic of second-tieredness (I know, that’s not a word) when it was known as The Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl.

N.C. State is playing in what is now known as The Belk Bowl. If you scoring at home, that’s a department store that is based, I believe, in North Carolina. At least that’s where I’ve encountered it. The Belk, as I like to call it, is played in Charlotte. It has existed for about 10 to 12 years and this is, I think, its FOURTH corporate sponsor. When Navy played in it in 2006 it was The Meineke Car Care Bowl. It can be tough to know which bowl is played where because they change names just about every year. How about this: The Cotton Bowl—can’t remember the corporate name and I’m not going to look it up—is now played in Jerry Jones Stadium while the actual Cotton Bowl stadium hosts something called The Ticket City Bowl. This makes almost as much sense as the fact that Manhattan College is located in The Bronx.

I honestly don’t care who wins the national championship game whenever they finally get around to playing it. I sort of like Les Miles because he comes off as a goof ball but is clearly an excellent coach and I don’t like Nick Saban since he apparently thinks he’s God. (Don’t tell Tim Tebow). So, I’d lean to LSU but the chances that I’ll still be up at midnight when that game finally ends are somewhere between slim and none and slim has to be up at 6 the next morning.

How about this little piece of news for you: In order to send their bands to the championship game Alabama and LSU will each have to pay about $500,000 apiece. A large part of this is because they are being charged $350 a ticket for seats in the stands. Aah, the down home traditions of college football, right? Are you kidding: $350 a pop to get your band into the stadium? Here’s what the two schools should do: They should tell The Sugar Bowl people—who are in charge of the championship game this year—where to stick their $350 tickets, leave the bands home and give that money to one of The Katrina relief funds.

How do you think ESPN would like a band-less national championship game? I now believe I was wrong when I labeled the NCAA the most corrupt organization on earth. It is tied with all the bowls who use their power—teams desperately want to play postseason football SOMEWHERE, even in Mobile and Shreveport and Detroit—to blackmail the schools into paying for tickets that will never be sold and now, for tickets for their BANDS.

What next, buying standing room tickets for the players and coaches on the sidelines? Can these people be any more obnoxious and corrupt?

When Navy participated in bowl games in the past we were always required at some point to have on some bowl official in an ugly jacket as a halftime guest. Needless to say, I didn’t participate in those interviews. I don’t think I missed much.

*****

Since my book tour is now pretty much over, I want to thank all the people who came out to the book signings I did in Washington, Indianapolis and Raleigh. It was really heartening that so many people came although I have to apologize on behalf of Little, Brown for the lousy job that was done with distribution which caused book shortages at the signings and, apparently, in quite a few places.

This is a good news/bad news deal for any author. On the one hand I can say, ‘we’re into our fifth printing (which we are) in only three weeks.’ On the other hand that’s a sign that the publisher badly miscalculated how the book was going to sell and then was slow to react when the book began selling beyond what they expected. It’s embarrassing for ME when booksellers say they can’t re-order books and it is downright frustrating when for close to a week both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.com are posting that books can’t be delivered before Christmas because the book is out of stock.

I say that not to rip Little, Brown which, for the most part, has published me very well dating to ‘A Good Walk Spoiled,’ but so people understand that no one is more upset than I am when they can’t get the books that they want to get.

Obviously, sales have been good and the reviews and the feedback I’ve gotten have been gratifying. There are now—finally—enough books out there. I know that doesn’t help those who were looking for holiday gifts but given that the overall word-of-mouth has been excellent I hope people will continue to look for it in the coming weeks and months. The book was as much fun as I’ve had in a while.

*****

Finally: I’ve been asked quite a few times in the last few weeks if I watched the ‘Showtime,’ Army-Navy documentary. Any of you who know me know the answer to that question: No. I did see a couple of the promotional trailers they (endlessly) sent out and, because I know anything I say will come off as biased and jaded (which it is) I’ll keep most of my opinions to myself. All I’ll say is this: Given the money that was spent and the access that they had I thought there would be new ground broken. I didn’t hear or see anything about Army-Navy I hadn’t heard or seen before. The production was impressive and glitzy. I was also amused every time I heard someone from CBS talk about the project as if NO ONE had ever thought to do something like this before. Please.

Am I still pissed off? You bet. And I make no apologies for feeling that way. For those who are inclined to write and day, 'get over it,' I will. Just not quite yet.

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here (we hope): One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Two stunning announcements: John Thompson is retiring from radio, George Vecsey no longer a full time columnist

2011-12-17T12:39:00.001-05:00

I woke up this morning to find two stunning announcements in my morning newspapers.

One was a relatively small item inside The Washington Post saying that John Thompson would be retiring from hosting his radio show on WTEM when his contract is up in February. The other was a column in The New York Times written by George Vecsey that was his farewell as a fulltime columnist.

It isn’t as if either man is young—Thompson is 70 and Vecsey must be closing in on that age if not there already (his Wikipedia doesn’t include a birthdate but he started his career in journalism in 1960)—but having known both of them as long as I have it is still kind of stunning to think of either stepping away from the stage.

As anyone who lives in Washington undoubtedly knows, Thompson and I have had many battles through the years. We squabbled early and often over access to his Georgetown teams when I covered them for The Washington Post. In ‘One on One,’ I describe a scene where I was dumb enough to offer to go outside with Thompson after a game at Capital Centre and also tell the story about what happened when I wrote a piece in The Sporting News that included the phrase, “Hoya Paranoia.”

We have also disagreed for years over Georgetown’s—or more specifically John’s—refusal to participate in The BB+T Classic, the local tournament played in Verizon Center for the last 17 years that has raised almost $5 million for kids at risk in the D.C. area. We had a discussion about that subject as recently as two weeks ago. We still disagree.

But our relationship changed over the years, even before he got out of coaching. I think it is fair to say that two of the most important people in John’s life were Dean Smith and Red Auerbach. Most people know how I feel about Dean and Red. John was absolutely devoted to Red. So was I. We shared that. He would often thank me for all the time I spent with Red without mentioning that he often went to see Red at his apartment late at night, knowing Red was almost always up watching games. The only reason I knew about that was because Red told me.

I was never a huge fan of his radio show. If the subject was basketball you listened because John didn’t get into the basketball Hall of Fame by accident. Other subjects, not so much. If I wanted to hear what, “Joe the Fan,” thought of a subject I didn’t need to listen to the radio.

WTEM paid John a lot of money, in large part because he’s an icon in Washington. But it was also because he had David Falk negotiate his contract. I wouldn’t trust Falk to tell me the time of day but he’s not stupid. When the station decided to cut John’s show from three hours a day to two hours a day I’m told (reliably) that Falk called the station GM and said, “okay, so how much more are you going to pay John?”

“More?” the GM reportedly answered. “We’re making the show SHORTER not longer.”

“Read the contract,” Falk said. “It says any CHANGE in the format means you have to pay him more. This is a change.”

I know John has some things going on in his personal life that have made it tougher for him to put in five days a week on the show. I have no idea what WTEM will do to replace him. I’m pretty confident I won’t be offered the job. But in an odd way I’ll truly miss knowing John was there even if we agreed on very little. John once told me he didn’t like me but he respected me. I always respected him. And, being honest, I also like him.

I also like and respect George Vecsey. I would say he’s been a role model for me except I’ve never come close to handling myself as calmly and evenly as George did in almost all situations. I do think one thing we had (have) in common is that George liked to write about people—regardless of who they were or what they did. He covered religion, he covered country music, he covered sports and he covered politics. He was good at all of them.

I never got his obsession with soccer but he probably never got my love of golf. I still remember when he showed up for the last round of the 1998 PGA Championship at Sahalee (he was there mostly to see his daughter Laura who was working in Seattle at the time) and was stunned when he learned the media was allowed to walk inside the ropes.

I honestly thought George did some of his best work the last couple of years. I had meant to write him a note about that but—as I often do—forgot. When I ran into him somewhere I told him that I thought he was on a serious roll, not that my affirmation is a big deal, but I like to tell people when I think they’ve done good work because I know how much I enjoy it when people do the same for me.

It says something about how George handled himself and his job that all three of his children are involved in journalism in one form or another. Laura, like her dad, started out in sports and is now covering politics. Who knows, maybe she will come full circle too, as he did.

In any event, The Times will miss George’s thoughtful columns and his graceful prose. I have no idea who will replace him although I’m guessing it won’t be me. (Hey, give me some points for consistency). Being a New Yorker I have read The Times all my life. Once upon a time being a Times columnist was what I most wanted to be not because I haven’t loved every minute I’ve spent at The Washington Post but because I am a New Yorker at heart and I learned to read as a kid getting up in the mornings to read The Times sports section because I needed to know how the Mets, Yankees, Jets, Giants, Knicks and Rangers had done and didn’t want to wait for my parents to wake up.

Whoever replaces George Vecsey will be someone I will envy. He or she will also, to use a cliché George would never use, have very big shoes to fill.

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Book tour highlights; Why I’m not appearing on Tony Kornheiser’s show to discuss the book

2011-12-11T12:39:00.000-05:00

People have asked me often if I enjoy book tours. The answer is yes—and no.

I’d be a liar if I said I don’t enjoy getting the chance to talk about a book. Since the book usually comes out about six months after I finish writing it, a good interview tends to bring back a lot of memories about the process that produced the book. And, it is always gratifying when a host has taken the time to read the book. It makes for much better television or radio than when someone opens the interview by saying, “So, tell me what you’re book is about.”

What makes book tours difficult—besides the travel, which is never easy whether you fly or, like me, drive—is that you have one agenda and many of the people interviewing you have a completely different agenda.

There’s also the issue of the pressure you feel because you want people to buy the book and to like the book. The former is important professionally; the latter personally although my brother once played in a pro-am in Indianapolis year ago with a guy who said to him: “I bought your brother’s book (Season on the Brink) I used it for firewood.”

My brother shrugged and said, “As long as you bought it we don’t really care what you did with it. Buy a hundred and start a bonfire.”

In truth, in the 25 years since the publication of ‘Season on the Brink,’ people in Indiana have been almost universally kind to me. That’s one reason why I wanted to start the tour for ‘One-on-One,’ which is keyed to the 25th anniversary of that book, in Indianapolis. It didn’t work out exactly that way because I did spend a day in New York doing Mike Francesa’s show on WFAN and taping a ‘Fresh Air,’ segment, but it was close.

I did a book-signing at an independent book store called, “Big Hat Books,” which couldn’t have been more enjoyable. I’m a big fan of independents because they are so hard to find these days and because I’ve always found that the people who work there really CARE about books and writing and reading. That’s not to say the chains don’t have people like that, there are just fewer of them.

“Big Hat,” is run by Liz Houghton and a group of people who clearly care a lot about what they’re doing. Even on a miserable rainy night that reminded me of a lot of my nights in all those years ago in Indiana, there were more than 100 people crowded into the store and Liz told me her only problem was that she had run out of books—she’d ordered 250—and was having to take orders while she tried to get more from Little-Brown. (The really good news is that they’ve had to go back for two more printings in just one week).

Every person who asked me to sign a book or books was enthusiastic and had something nice to say—with one exception. “I agreed with Knight about the profanity,” one man said. “I thought there was too much of it.”

I told him I appreciated what he was saying but wondered if he knew that I left about 90 to 95 percent of Knight’s profanity out of the book.

“Really?” he said.

“If I’d written it all I’d still be writing,” I said.

“Oh my,” he said, clearly confused.

The next morning I appeared on ‘Bob and Tom,’—which was, as always, great. Twenty-eight books, twenty-eight appearances on that show. Maybe I should have dedicated a book to those guys.

From Indy I went to Chicago where, in spite of a cab driver who had never heard of WGN, I made it to my early-morning TV appearance there. Before I left town I taped an interview—which will air this week—for ‘Chicago Tonight,’ on WTTW, the local PBS station. Phil Ponce is the host, someone I’ve known since his days in Washington working as a reporter for the ‘Newshour.’ Not only is he a good guy and a good interviewer, he did read the entire book. His being prepared made my job easy.

Along the way, there were the usual frustrations: Reports of not enough books in Indiana (good news and bad news); a similar problem at Amazon, which at one point was saying it didn’t have enough books to guarantee delivery before Christmas (since corrected); an old friend on a Baltimore radio station trying to turn the interview into a Q+A about my column two weeks ago on Randy Edsall (there’s always one of those along the way); a couple of satellite issues causing cancellations during Friday’s TV satellite tour.

All in all though, the first week went about as well as could be hoped. After my TV satellite on Friday, I went to the DC convention center where the sponsor of the Army-Navy game, USAA, had set up a mini-‘radio row.’ My first instinct when I was asked to take part was to not do it—I’ve steered clear of all things Army-Navy all fall since my decision not to do Navy on radio—but the simple fact is it was a good opportunity to let more people know about ‘One-on-One,’ especially since large chunks of it, including the epilogue are about the kids (now young men) I wrote about in “A Civil War.”

The only problem with doing this was that as I talked about why Army-Navy is so special to me and the relationships I’ve had with the players I started getting very emotional about it all. As it turned out I was fine watching the game on television and I didn’t miss dealing with the extra security that comes when The President and Vice President are at the game. As I said I was fine—until they played the alma maters. Then, as always, I lost it. Some things never change.

This week I’ll be in North Carolina for a couple of days including a trip to Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh on Wednesday night. (7:30). That’s another very cool independent book store where I’ve been in the past. My hope is that Little-Brown will have to go back for another printing by the end of this week.

*****

One other note: Those of you who were expecting to hear me Tuesday on Tony Kornheiser’s show, you won’t. You WILL hear Tony talking about the book and why I’m not there. The simple answer is Chuck Sapienza, the station’s program director. No doubt you’ve heard Tony talk about how much he loves him in the past.

When I left the station last summer to go to WJFK in large part because Sapienza had cut the money I was being paid to appear from a small amount to almost nothing and WJFK offered a good deal more than that, Sapienza and I talked after he’d taken a weird cheap shot at me claiming he was glad to have Darren Rovell (who I like) on the station instead of me because Rovell is younger.

At the end of the conversation Sapienza said this: “Just so you know, I understand Tony will want you to come on when you have a book out and you can always do that and come on the station to talk about any new book you have.”

I thanked Sapienza for that and even made sure Chris Kinard at WJFK knew about it so there wouldn’t be any confusion when ‘One-on-One,’ came out. Kinard was absolutely fine with it.

Thursday, Tony called and said that after he had promoted my appearance, Sapienza had told him I couldn’t appear. When Tony reminded him about what he had said in the summer, Sapienza said, “I know. I changed my mind.”

He’s entitled to do that. What he isn’t entitled to do is to walk up to me Friday at the Army-Navy radio row and say, “I just want you to know it’s nothing personal.”
Of course it’s personal. He never thought I’d leave which is why he kept cutting the money back—almost daring me to do something about it. When I did, he took a cheap shot at me publicly; gave his word on something and then, ‘changed his mind,’ because he knew the station would back him. I’ve been told by several people at the station that his word has all the value of confederate money.

It’s fine. I doubt it will affect book sales very much if at all. I’d actually rather have Tony talk about the book than me. He’ll be funnier. But don’t tell me it isn’t personal.

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post column: BCS gives us a nighmare schedule instead of a dream tournament

2011-12-05T09:16:00.001-05:00

Here's my newest column for The Washington Post, on the miserable bowl lineup ----

Sunday night, I had a dream:

Now that was a thrilling Selection Sunday.

Oh sure, everyone knew that LSU, Alabama, Oklahoma State and Stanford were going to be the top four seeds in the NCAA tournament but no one had any idea how the last four spots would play out and there were plenty of surprises when the field was unveiled.

Boise State was seeded fifth, setting up a quarterfinal against Stanford that might come down to who has the ball last with Andrew Luck and Kellen Moore, the two most decorated college quarterbacks of recent years, going head-to-head. Wisconsin got the sixth seed after beating Michigan State to win the Big Ten title and will open against Oklahoma State. But the last two spots were real surprises: Baylor jumped from not even being on the bubble into the seventh slot after crushing Texas — who says the tournament takes away the meaning of the regular season? — and TCU, which looked like it was headed for the Las Vegas Bowl just a few weeks ago, got the coveted final spot and will open the tournament against LSU.

When the LSU-TCU matchup went on the board, one could hear the screams of pain and anger coming from Ann Arbor, Mich.; Manhattan, Kan.; and Fayetteville, Ark. There were barely whimpers from anyone in the ACC or the Big East. Those two leagues probably had their fate sealed when the committee voted against automatic bids for the tournament, meaning their three-loss champions will be headed for second tier bowls — which is where they clearly belong.

“When we set up the new system we said we wanted the eight best teams and, preferably, the teams playing the best football at the end of the season,” said committee chairman Gene Corrigan, the former ACC Commissioner who once helped invent the late, unlamented Bowl Championship Series. “This isn’t about what league you play in or how many tickets you might sell. This is about getting the best eight teams to play for a championship. Someone has to be disappointed, just like in the basketball tournament.”

Click here for the rest of the column: BCS gives us a nighmare schedule instead of a dream tournament

My newest book is now available at your local bookstore, or you can order on-line here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Book details: Interview with NPR's Fresh Air

2011-12-01T17:40:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I made an appearance on NPR's Fresh Air from WHYY to discuss the sports media and my newest book, One on One: Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game. Click the permalink, and the link below, for the segment.

Link to the NPR interview -- Author interview: Going 'One On One' With Sports' Greatest Stars

The book is now available at your local bookstore, or can be ordered here: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Book tour details; Sad and murky situation at Syracuse, Ohio State doesn’t change and extra talk on Edsall and Maryland

2011-11-29T10:14:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I’ve had a chance to write here in part because there has been a lot going on which has caused me to spend a good deal of time writing Washington Post columns but also because I’ve been pretty caught up in getting things lined up for my impending book tour.

I’m actually fired up about the book tour, which is unusual. Normally I dread them but I’m excited about this book and the early response it has gotten. Tomorrow I’m in New York where, among other things, I’ll spend an hour (4-5 o’clock) on Mike Francesa’s WFAN show. Francesa and I often disagree but I’ve always said his radio show is almost always a good listen and the fact that he read the book and wanted to book me for an hour is very encouraging. I will also be taping a ‘Fresh Air,’ interview which will air on Thursday. That’s a good combo—WFAN (and YES network) on Wednesday; a big-time NPR show on Thursday.

Next week I go to Indianapolis on Monday evening. I made the decision to be there on the official publication date of the book because ‘One-on-One,’ is, after all, keyed to the 25th anniversary of ‘Season on the Brink,’ so where else would I want to be on the day the book is officially released? I’m doing an appearance Monday night at The Big Hat bookstore, which is on Cornell Avenue in Indy.

The next morning I will be in-studio to do The Bob and Tom Show, which for me is a big deal. It’s a big deal because those guys are great at selling books. But beyond that, it’s a big deal because the very first interview I did for ‘Season on the Brink,’ was on Bob and Tom. Back then it was a local show in Indianapolis. I still remember it like it was yesterday: It was snowing and dark when I got to the station and I was on for a long time. They had read the book and were totally prepared for the interview—which I now know is how they always do business.

Since then I’ve been on the show countless times and have been on for every single book I’ve ever written. This makes 28. The same people who did the show then—on and off air—do the show now and I always look forward to talking to them and, in this case, seeing them.

After that I’ll do some local TV and radio in Indy, winding up by going on Dan Dakich’s radio show. It’s hard to believe that Dan, who I probably spent more time with than anybody during my ‘Season on the Brink,’ winter, is now a big media star. Except it isn’t that hard to believe because he’s very bright and is also very good on-air. He’s a rising star at ESPN, which makes me happy except for the part about working for ESPN. But Dan—unlike me—has the temperament to handle working for those guys, so good for him.

From there, I drive over to Chicago and from Chicago to Cleveland the next day. Then it’s home for a day of satellite TV and local TV and radio and then back on the road again the next week. It will be hectic but I made the schedule that way because, as I said, I honestly believe people will like reading this book.

Okay, maybe Bob Knight won’t like it. Tiger Woods may not hate it as much as you might expect. Then again, I’m not counting on either of them reading it. Knight will tell you he still hasn’t read, ‘Season on the Brink.’

Onto the news and the question is where to begin.

The latest out of Syracuse on Bernie Fine is devastating. We are not talking a Penn State scandal here because there’s no evidence that Jim Boeheim or any officials at Syracuse knew what is alleged to have gone on. The whole thing is so—you pick a word: slimy, sad, murky. I don’t know. But it is also confusing: the original accuser went to ESPN and The Syracuse Post-Standard eight years ago but they couldn’t find enough corroborating evidence to go with the story. Second accuser, the original accuser’s half-brother comes forward. Then, the original accuser releases a tape from years ago (why didn’t he release it years ago?) that is alleged to be Bernie Fine’s wife. The tape is sickening on many levels. Now a third accuser who has been accused of sexually abusing a child himself comes forward.

Boeheim, who was jumping up and down in Fine’s defense—understandable after working together for so many years—is now retreating rapidly and Fine has been fired. As with Penn State, this is far from over. There will no doubt be more allegations and, I’m guessing, more murkiness. Meanwhile, I’m so sick of all of this I want to hide under the couch.

Then again, there’s Ohio State. It is good to know that my pal the bow-tied E. Gordon Gee learned his lesson from the Jim Tressel mess. Clearly he learned that having a football coach who is bigger than the school is a bad idea. Clearly he learned that sending a message that football is more important than anything by guaranteeing a new coach $4 million a year is really good idea. Clearly he was unfazed by the number of Florida players arrested during Urban Meyer’s tenure there.

And, just as clearly, Meyer is a believer in upholding the Tressel tradition of lying with a straight face. Here’s my question: WHY would he keep denying he had been offered the job last week when it was apparent to EVERYONE that he was going to be the new coach on Monday? Why not just say, ‘no comment,’ or, ‘It would be unfair to anyone at Ohio State for me to say anything when they’re getting ready to play Michigan.’ Sure, people will see through that but they also saw through the, ‘no one has offered me the job,’ line which may have been technically accurate in some way but was clearly not true.

I don’t get it some times with these power coaches. They really believe if they say the sun will rise in the west that it WILL rise in the west and if you doubt them, how dare you.

Speaking of football coaches, I wrote on Monday that Randy Edsall should be fired after one year as Maryland’s coach. The response to the column has been overwhelmingly positive but I am still amazed at some people’s ability to NOT read. A handful of posters said I was hypocritical to call for a coach to be fired after one season, regardless of record. A few others—and my friend Steve Czaban at WTEM—rattled on about how Maryland can’t afford to buy a coach out in light of its financial crisis.

Note to Czabe: You need to read past the headline sometimes. One of my points was that it will cost Maryland MORE long term to keep Edsall than it will to buy him out now because people can’t STAND the guy. And the reason they—and most importantly the players—can’t stand him is because he’s never wrong and doesn’t take responsibility for his own failings. Edsall rattled on about ‘accountability,’ all the time. How about HIS accountability?

I didn’t call for Edsall to be fired for going 2-10. I would never advocate firing a coach after one year based on a poor record. Many great coaches have had poor records early in their tenure—although most didn’t take over a team that had been 9-4 the previous season. I think it takes at least two years, more often three, to really get a handle on where a coach is going.

But Edsall shows NO sign of understanding any of his flaws or mistakes or that he even has any. He has consistently blamed everyone but himself all fall. What put me over the top wasn’t giving up 42 straight points to North Carolina State on Saturday but Edsall comparing himself last week to Bob Kraft and the New England Patriots because Kraft talked about, the “Patriots Way,” in an interview. Trust me the “Patriots Way,” wouldn’t be nearly as effective without Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, but that’s beside the point. The point is Edsall said that he was doing the same things Kraft did and therefore, “I must be right.”

Wrong Randy. You’ve been wrong every second since you didn’t bother to go meet with your Connecticut players in person to tell them you were leaving—accountability?—and you’re still wrong.

My rule has always been you don’t judge a coach after one year—good or bad. There are exceptions to every rule.

My newest book is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post column: Terps need to end Edsall era -- now

2011-11-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Here's my newest column for The Washington Post, on the Maryland coaching situation ----

On Saturday, in the wake of his football team’s final humiliation of 2011, a 56-41 loss to North Carolina State in which the Wolfpack outscored his team 42-0 in the last 21 minutes, Maryland Coach Randy Edsall told reporters he was heading out to recruit for a couple of days and would then begin reevaluating his team and his program.

Edsall’s boss, Athletic Director Kevin Anderson, should cancel that recruiting trip. And Edsall’s reevaluation. Anderson should do the reevaluation. And here’s the conclusion he should reach in about 15 seconds: Maryland needs a new football coach.

Randy Edsall should be fired — today.

There are all sorts of reasons why such a conclusion can be labeled rash and overboard. For one thing, Maryland is in a financial crisis right now, one that has forced it to announce plans to eliminate eight varsity sports at the end of this school year. Adding a tab of $2 million per year for the next five years to pay someone not to coach the football team sounds ludicrous.

What’s more, it is unfair to judge a coach—good or bad—on the basis of one season, no matter how horrific it may have been. Maryland went from 9-4 to 2-10 this fall, losing its last seven games by double digits, culminating with the extraordinary meltdown at Carter-Finley Stadium.

Click here for the rest of the column: Terps need to end Edsall era -- now

My newest book is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post: After crazy weekend, another fine mess for BCS

2011-11-21T10:17:00.000-05:00

Here's my newest column for The Washington Post ----

Several weeks ago, Bill Hancock, the executive director of The Bogus Championship Series, spent a couple of days in Washington on a handshake tour of Capitol Hill and various media outlets in a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible organization he represents.

Hancock’s point appeared to be this: Because only one of the 36 postseason college football games is played with anything at stake, a system that allows teams to get to see the sights of places like Shreveport, La.; Mobile, Ala.; and Detroit is surely worth saving — regardless of whether there’s any fairness involved.

Given the results of this past weekend in college football, heck, Hancock might be right. Let’s just throw a bunch of parties and forget the football altogether, because there is absolutely no way that selecting just two teams to play for the national championship can be done fairly or correctly.

As of this minute, LSU clearly belongs in the championship game. Of course, the Tigers could lose to Arkansas on Friday or to Georgia in the SEC championship game and then they would fall back into the pack with everyone else.

During a visit to The Washington Post, Hancock rolled out the BCS’s latest bit of rhetoric. “College football is the only sport that gives the athletes the chance to end the season by having a party,” he said. “That’s what the bowls are, a chance to go to a nice place, experience it and have a party.”

Click here for the rest of the column: After crazy weekend, another fine mess for BCS

My newest book is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

2011-11-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have been asking through e-mails and posts the last couple of weeks about the publication date of my new book. The book is called, “One-on-One—Up Close with the Greats in the Game.” It is a professional memoir, keyed to the 25th anniversary of ‘A Season on the Brink.’ It’s more personal than any book I’ve ever written because I tell a lot of stories about my relationships with the people I’ve written about through the years. It begins on the night I approached Knight about doing what became, ‘Season on the Brink.’

The official publication date is December 5th (I will be in Indianapolis that night for a bookstore appearance—more details closer to the date) but the book should be in stores by Thanksgiving weekend. It can also be pre-ordered on line now.

It was great fun to do and the pre-publication reviews (Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, Book List) have been great so I’m really encouraged and looking forward to seeing what happens when the book comes out.

Pre-order today: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Penn State tragedy -- I didn't get it right last week

2011-11-14T16:04:00.001-05:00

One week ago when I wrote my first (of two) columns - here and here - on Joe Paterno and the tragedy at Penn State quite a few people—including my wife—felt that I didn’t put enough emphasis on what is by far the most tragic aspect of the whole debacle, which is what happened to at least eight young boys and, in all likelihood, far more than that.

I plead guilty—with an explanation.

Some people have speculated that I was just looking at it from the jock perspective, wondering what this would do to Paterno and Penn State rather than focusing more on the victims. Actually, that’s not true. I made a cardinal error: I assumed it was a given that the most tragic aspect of what was going on was what had been done to the boys and the fact that it could have been stopped years ago and wasn’t.

You know the old cliché about what happens when you assume.

That was mistake number one. Mistake number two—now that I have the benefit of seven days hindsight—was clearly my bias towards Paterno. Or, more specifically, my inability to wrestle to the ground the notion that someone I had put on a pedestal for so long could have fallen and crashed from that pedestal so hard.

My bias here wasn’t personal as it might have been with any number of basketball coaches or a small handful of football coaches—specifically those I’ve worked with on book projects and come to know well. I’ve met Paterno, interviewed Paterno, but can hardly claim to know him.

But I’ve admired him and his program since I was a kid. Growing up in New York City there were three college football teams I followed with passion: Columbia, Army and Penn State. I always enjoyed Paterno’s acerbic wit and his insistence that his players go to class and graduate and learn about more than football. I also liked the fact that everyone around Penn State always called him, ‘Joe,’ in a world where most coaches wear the title of ‘Coach,’ as if it was inherited at birth.

As far back as 1999 I wanted to do a book on Paterno. Right around the time that Jerry Sandusky was ‘retiring,’ I wrote Paterno a letter asking him for an audience so I could try to convince him to grant me access that fall to do a book. My request in the letter was simple: Don’t say no, just say you’ll listen. I honestly believed if I could get in the room with him and explain to him how little time I would actually need with him once the season started that I would have a shot.

I never got the chance. I still have the letter he wrote to me in response. It wasn’t a two-line blow-off, it took up an entire page. It was still a blow-off, but it was one that made me feel not totally rejected. He explained the timing of my request was bad because he was launching several non-football projects. He knew my work, respected my work but this wasn’t the right time. The added touch was a handwritten sentence at the bottom of the page: “Really enjoy listening to you on NPR.”

I knew Paterno was a Republican. But he listened to NPR. That was impressive too.

I was, needless to say, disappointed. Paterno was going to turn 73 at the end of that season and I thought the ’99 team might be his last chance to make a run at a national championship. Actually a loss to Minnesota after an 8-0 start began a five year spiral that climaxed when President Graham Spanier went to Paterno’s house to suggest he retire and apparently got thrown out of the house.

Good for Joe I thought back then. If anyone deserved to plan his own exit it was Paterno.

As I’ve written here before I took another swipe at getting in to see Paterno three years ago. Thanks to my friend Malcolm Moran who now teaches at Penn State (and wrote a wonderful piece in the Sunday New York Times on the mood up there on Saturday) I had lunch with a marketing guy named Guido D’Elia who had become very close to Paterno and had become his un-official gatekeeper.

D’Elia was, to put it politely, dismissive of the idea and of me. Paterno wasn’t ready to do legacy stuff he explained, even at 82. When I told him that I hoped he’d be ready soon and I’d like to have the chance to talk to him sooner rather than later about it, D’Elia said, “We’ll put you on the list.”

(I did a google search this morning to see if D’Elia’s name has surfaced at all in the last week. I found nothing. I find that strange).

The day wasn’t a complete loss though. Malcolm had arranged for he and I to do a two-man ‘forum,’ that night discussing journalism and college athletics. One of the people who showed up was Jay Paterno. Malcolm introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes. No doubt strictly to be courteous, Jay said, “Hey, if I can ever be of any help to you, here’s my contact info.”

He handed me his card. In one of the great upsets of the last 50 years I somehow didn’t lose it. I have lost more important phone numbers than perhaps anyone in history. Last year, after Penn State’s season was over, I dug out the card and contacted Jay. I told him I was looking for help and asked if we could have lunch—which we did.

I liked him instantly. He was smart, funny and totally un-impressed with himself. He was (is) also a Democrat who had worked for President Obama in ’08. Naturally I liked that too. I asked Jay to do one thing for me: Get me in to see his father. He said he would talk to him as soon as he came back from vacation.

Unfortunately (or, perhaps fortunately) unbeknownst to Jay, his father was already making a book deal with Joe Posnanski. I could hardly blame him for choosing Joe who he knew a lot better than me and who is very damn good. My guess was that my pal Guido was behind that deal but I honestly don’t know.

So that’s the background. I’ve been a Paterno fan for a long time and thought he’d make a fascinating book subject. Clearly I was right about that but not for the reasons I thought. I think I may have been in a little bit of denial a week ago about Paterno’s culpability. And, I’ll also admit that, then—as now—I can’t help but think about Jay Paterno.

He’s gone from having a bright future in coaching or politics (he was being encouraged by a number of important Democrats to run for Congress next year if his dad retired) to a future that is now completely murky. If feeling badly about that makes me a bad guy, so be it.

I hate this story in every possible way. I hate it first and foremost for those kids and their families who have been to hell and back and yet their journey’s far from over. I hate it on a much different level for The Penn State players and for all the Penn State people who honestly believed their program and their coach WERE different from the other big time programs. As I said this morning in The Post, I talked to a long-time coach last week, not someone close to Paterno at all and he said this: “If you ask me the list of all the big-time coaches I am absolutely certain don’t cheat here it is: Joe Paterno.”

Of course this went way beyond cheating. It is, without doubt, the worst thing that has ever happened in college athletics. That’s not to diminish the death of Len Bias 25 years ago or the murder of Patrick Dennehy eight years ago or the death of any college athlete. This involved innocent children being abused repeatedly and it is a story that is going to go on and on for years to come.

I didn’t get it right last week. I’m not sure I’ll ever get it right. In fact, I’m not sure there IS a right here. Just an awful lot of wrongs.

My newest book, to be published Dec. 5th, is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post: College basketball 2011: North Carolina is in shipshape condition

2011-11-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

My first college basketball article of the season for The Washington Post ---

If you want hoops hype in November, you can’t just throw two high-profile teams — in this case No. 1 North Carolina and Michigan State — in a gym.

You need to stage the game on a billion-dollar aircraft carrier: the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, the one that carried Osama Bin Laden’s body out to sea.

You need a top-ranked team that may have the best chance to go unbeaten since Indiana did it in 1976.
You need President Obama.

And of course you need Dick Vitale.

The only problem with Friday night’s much-ballyhooed “Carrier Classic” is that unless someone from Michigan State can figure out a way to heave all the basketballs overboard, the Spartans may have trouble staying on the court — and the ship — with North Carolina.

Yes, the Tar Heels are potentially that good.

Sometime this winter, North Carolina Coach Roy Williams needs to write a thank-you note to David Stern and Billy Hunter. The decision by the NBA commissioner and the head of the players’ union to go to war is one reason why it may be close to impossible to deny Ol’ Roy his third national title in eight seasons.

The Tar Heels had three underclassmen who were locks to be first-round picks last spring, led by then-freshman Harrison Barnes, who would have gone in the top three. Big men John Henson and Tyler Zeller, who both blossomed late last winter, might have been lottery picks, too.

But with everyone talking lockout, all three decided that one more year on a picturesque campus wasn’t such a bad thing. So they’re back in Chapel Hill, where they are joined by two freshmen who also might be first-round picks if and when the NBA holds another draft. One is 6-foot-9 James McAdoo, who some scouts rate ahead of Barnes as a pro prospect. The other is 6-5 shooting guard P.J. Hairston, who just happens to play the one position where North Carolina might need some help after a season-ending injury to sophomore Leslie McDonald.

Click here for the rest of the column: North Carolina is in shipshape condition

My newest book is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post column: Penn State scandal threatens one of sports’ greatest legacies

2011-11-07T16:20:00.004-05:00

My article from The Washington Post on the Penn State scandal ---

“Tragic” is the single most over-used word in sports Almost nothing that takes place within the context of sports is a tragedy. There is no such thing as a tragic loss or even a tragic injury.

What is happening right now at Penn State is, if not tragic, well beyond sad.

If the sexual abuse and assault charges brought by a Pennsylvania grand jury against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky prove to be true on any level, then this will be the single worst thing that has happened in college sports in just about forever.

That’s not to diminish what happened at Baylor in 2003, when one basketball player killed another. Or the death of any athlete, on the field or off.

Th Penn State case could prove tragic in a completely different way, because it involves Joe Paterno. No football coach has meant more to his sport in the past 50 years than Paterno, and his 409 victories at Penn State are only a small part of why he is who he is. In an era when so much is wrong with college athletics, Paterno always has stood for all that is righ.

When USC, Ohio State, Miami and North Carolina are caught cheating in one way or another, most people roll their eyes and say, ‘Here we go again.’ When public records from a lawsuit allege that an agent was bankrolling a basketball player and his mother starting when the kid was 14, the reaction is more eye-rolling. The university presidents publicly wring their hands, declare they’re shocked cheating is going on and go back to counting their money.

Click here for the rest of the column: Penn State scandal threatens one of sports’ greatest legacies

My newest book is now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

Washington Post column: Tide should be one and done

2011-11-07T10:16:00.001-05:00

Here is my newest The Washington Post piece ---

Our long national hypemare is over.

The game of several centuries — the last one; this one and, no doubt, the next one, was finally played on Saturday night.

Perhaps if LSU and Alabama had played into the next century, one of them would have scored a touchdown.

Here’s what we know after the Tigers’ 9-6 overtime victory in Bryant-Denny Stadium: LSU has a better kicking game than Alabama. Both teams have fabulous defenses. Neither team has a quarterback who is going to bring back memories of Joe Namath or Bert Jones or, for that matter, John Huarte. That’s a trivia note: Huarte won the Heisman Trophy in 1964; Namath did not, but that was back when Notre Dame still played big-time football.

There will be much debate about this game. The apologists, who were already lining up Sunday morning, are going to insist it was a great game because there were two great defenses on the field and there’s nothing wrong with that. Others will go the other way: The game was awful. The punters were on the field more than the quarterbacks.

Click here for the rest of the column: Tide should be one and done

Newest book now available for pre-order: One on One-- Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game

The many misperceptions of Tony LaRussa

2011-11-01T16:26:00.001-04:00

Tony LaRussa retired Monday, a surprise to almost everyone in baseball, especially since he always came across as one of those guys who they would have to rip the uniform off before they’d get him out of the dugout.

That’s one of a number of perceptions about LaRussa that I don’t believe were ever correct. The most important of them—and the one repeated most often—is that HE thought he was a genius. That myth came about because of George Will’s book, “Men at Work,” which portrayed LaRussa as some kind of baseball genius. I still remember bringing it up the first time I met LaRussa in 1992 during spring training and the way he reacted.

“I’m a baseball manager, period,” he said then. “If I have good players, I’ve got as good a chance to win as other guys—no better and, I hope, no worse. I appreciate George’s love for the game but I honestly wish the whole thing hadn’t come off the way it did.”

LaRussa could be difficult—his nickname in Oakland was, “The Load,” because dealing with him day in and day out could be so tough—but he really did absolutely love the game. I honestly think the reason he always talked to me, often at great length, in spite of his close friendship with Bob Knight, was because he thought I appreciated the game he loved.

He was, under the right circumstances, a GREAT interview because he almost always said something on a subject that no one else had said. He might sit slumped in his chair answering desultory questions about that night’s lineup, but if someone asked something that intrigued him, his eyes would light up and he’d be off.

This past summer I went to see him in Baltimore and told him I was planning to do a book next year on minor league baseball, spending the season bouncing around Triple-A looking for stories.

“No kidding, really?” he said. “That’s a great idea. Oh boy will you find stories there.” He started giving me names of people I should talk to and when his coaches came into the office for one reason or another he kept saying, “You gotta hear what John’s doing next year.”

Naturally I was flattered that he liked the idea. Beyond that though it reminded me that, for all the white noise that surrounds LaRussa whenever he’s in the spotlight, he truly loves baseball and loved being a part of baseball. That’s why I was surprised but not surprised when he decided to walk away.

I was surprised because I know he’ll miss it, especially the day-to-day preparation, the work trying to figure out ways to make good players great; decent players good and mediocre players decent. LaRussa got hurt early in his career (shoulder) and spent most of his time shuttling between Triple-A and the big leagues, hitting .199 for his career. (Maybe that’s why he liked the Triple-A idea so much, he can relate).

When he realized he wasn’t going to get rich playing baseball he went to law school but never practiced because he ended up managing the White Sox in 1979 by the time he was 35. Everyone knows the rest: 33 seasons with three teams; three World Series title; six pennants; third most victories by a manager in history. Not bad for a guy who never won a case.

I wasn’t surprised because LaRussa’s smart enough to know he is NEVER going to match the last two months of this season and he has a chance to go out as a winner in a way very few people get the chance to go out. Plus, he’s got a lot of other things in his life, among them his work for Animal Rights, a cause he’s championed for many years.

I know there are some in my profession who found LaRussa difficult, who reveled in his failures (like game 5 of The World Series). I get that. Others will point to his blinders-on defense of Mark McGwire and they’ll be right. In that sense—to me anyway—LaRussa was no different than guys like Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick: you stand up for your guys, no matter what. Sometimes when you do that you’re wrong and you look bad but you do it anyway.

I have a number of LaRussa memories but one stands out because to me, it personifies who he really was—and is.

In 1996 after he had taken the Cardinals job I went to a spring training game in St. Petersburg. I don’t even remember who the Cardinals played that day because, well, it was spring training. I spent about an hour with LaRussa before the game for a column, then sat in the stands with my pal Dave Scheiber, who worked then for The St. Petersburg Times, and watched the game.

In the ninth inning, John Mabry, who was playing first base for the Cardinals, made one of the greatest defensive plays I’ve ever seen, basically running up the tarpaulin, bouncing off it, reversing direction and then diving back the other way to make the catch. (the wind off the bay was swirling big-time).

I remember thinking how cool it was that in a meaningless March game I had just seen as good a play as I would ever see. The Cardinals ended up losing and I went to see LaRussa, largely because Scheiber needed to talk to some people in the clubhouse so I had a few minutes to kill. I had all I needed to write my column.

When I walked in to his office, LaRussa looked up at me and said nothing. He was studying something on his desk.

“How amazing was that play by Mabry?” I asked.

LaRussa looked up at me blankly. “Mabry?” he said. “Why do I care about Mabry? We just lost a f----- game.”

“A spring training game,” I said.

“They kept score didn’t they?” he said. I thought he was about to get angry at me for not understanding how pissed he was at losing—regardless of the time of year.

He put the papers down on his desk and rocked back in his chair. “Been watching baseball all my life I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better play,” he said. “Made the whole day worthwhile, didn’t it?”

That was LaRussa. He WAS pissed about losing the game. But when he thought about Mabry’s play for a moment, he realized he’d seen something special and he was able to enjoy it.

One last LaRussa note. When I was working on my first baseball book in 1992, I asked him once how badly the game would be damaged by another long work stoppage—which appeared inevitable then and came to be in 1994—and he smiled and said, “The game will be fine.”

I was surprised, so I asked him why he felt that way. He just shrugged and said, “Because in the end, the game is better than all of us.”

He was, of course, right. I’d add one addendum: the game was better because LaRussa was part of it.

******

A lot of people have been asking through e-mails and posts the last couple of weeks about the publication date of my new book. The book is called, “One-on-One—Behind the Scenes with the Greats in the Game.” It is a professional memoir, keyed to the 25th anniversary of ‘A Season on the Brink.’ It’s more personal than any book I’ve ever written because I tell a lot of stories about my relationships with the people I’ve written about through the years. It begins on the night I approached Knight about doing what became, ‘Season on the Brink.’

The official publication date is December 5th (I will be in Indianapolis that night for a bookstore appearance—more details closer to the date) but the book should be in stores by Thanksgiving weekend. I’m told it can be pre-ordered on line now.

It was great fun to do and the pre-publication reviews (Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, Book List) have been great so I’m really encouraged and looking forward to seeing what happens when the book comes out.

Washington Post column: Maryland football's accountability needs to start at the top

2011-10-31T17:22:00.000-04:00

Here is the newest article for The Washington Post -------

Let’s give credit where credit is due: Maryland football coach Randy Edsall is learning.

“Ultimately,” he said Saturday after the Terrapins’ latest embarrassing loss. “I am the guy who is responsible for this.”

If his team isn’t progressing on the field, at least Edsall is making some slow progress off the field.

Someday, Maryland fans may look back at the miserable scene that unfolded inside Byrd Stadium two days before Halloween 2011 and talk about the 28-17 loss to Boston College as the moment when the football program hit rock bottom before its turnaround began. Of course, a lot of people thought the 38-7 loss to Temple in September was that moment.

Temple is a much better football team than Boston College. The Eagles are flat-out bad, a team that hadn’t beaten a Football Bowl Subdivision team all season and had lost at home a few weeks back to Duke.

Click here for the rest of the column: Maryland football's accountability needs to start at the top

Back after the 'Morning Drive' experience; Thoughts on the goings on -- World Series, Moneyball, BCS, Stern and Gumbel, and Notre Dame

2011-10-25T14:20:00.000-04:00

I took last week off from the blog for the simple reason that I was waking up at 4:30 each morning in Orlando to co-host ‘Morning Drive,’ on The Golf Channel and I found it difficult to do the show, spend some time out at Disney (for the golf tournament not for Mickey Mouse—sadly) and THEN sit down and write. Twenty years ago I probably could have pulled it off; maybe even 10 years ago. Now, not so much.

Actually I had a choice most afternoons: I could swim or I could blog. I opted to swim. That probably worked out best for everyone.

Life’s back to normal now—or at least my definition of normal—and I have a number of thoughts on all that’s going on in sports, which is a lot.

Let me start though, with the ‘Morning Drive,’ experience. The 4:30 wake-up calls sucked (I’m one of those people who always wakes up before the alarm or the call regardless of the hour. I’ve always wondered how that works, but I swear to God I rolled over in bed at exactly 4:25 each day) but the rest of the experience was fun. Everyone I worked with could not have been more welcoming and I like the way the show sets up: the hosts talk a lot. I like to talk.

If you’ve ever watched the show you know the hosts dress casually, no jacket and tie. I was told to wear whatever I wanted but NOT Golf Channel gear. So, the first day I showed up in a Richmond basketball shirt that Jerry Wainwright gave me years ago after I spoke at the team’s pre-season banquet.

The Richmond shirt got far more attention than anything I said all morning. Kevin Streelman, who is a Duke graduate, was an in-studio guest. “What’s with the Richmond shirt?” he asked on-air.

Fred Couples, who came on to respond to Greg Norman criticizing his pick of Tiger Woods for The Presidents Cup team, answered my first question about what Norman had said this way: “Didn’t you go to Duke University?”

“Yes,” I said. “They gave me a degree if I promised never to come back.”

“So why are you wearing a Richmond basketball shirt? What’s your connection to Richmond?”

“Duke never sends me stuff,” I answered.

I thought wearing an Army shirt two days later would get a lot more comment than the Richmond shirt but it didn’t. I guess people DO know my connection to the military academies even though it isn’t what it used to be.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience. I wish we’d had more time with Kelsey Grammer, who was doing a satellite tour to promote his new show and undoubtedly looked at his schedule and said, ‘Golf Channel, why the hell am I doing Golf Channel?’ I still watch Frasier most nights when I’m home and I still think Niles is one of TV’s all-time funny characters. Trivia: Did you know that Frasier was originally created for a six-show stint on ‘Cheers,’ and was supposed to be written out after Diane left him at the alter? The producers liked the character—and Grammer—so much they kept him in the show and he ended up playing Frasier for 20 years, winning Emmys for playing him on THREE shows—he won one as a guest-star on ‘Wings,’ in addition to ‘Cheers,’ and ‘Frasier.’

Okay, enough of that. On to some real stuff.

--The World Series. Riveting. Four games out of five have been terrific and the one blowout had the Albert Pujols three home run performance. I truly hope that Pujols stays in St. Louis. Great baseball towns deserve great players and Pujols is clearly that. For the record though, Tony LaRussa’s explanation that no one told Pujols that the media wanted to talk to him after his gaffe in game two doesn’t hold even a little water. No one wanted to talk to him after game 2 of the World Series? Seriously? Oh wait, maybe it’s that he’s not an important player. No. That doesn’t work either. Come on Tony, you’re better than that.

Pujols should stay in St. Louis and Prince Fielder should stay in Milwaukee. The latter isn’t likely to happen. Fielder’s going to go where he gets offered the most money and one of the big-money teams will probably come in with a blow-away offer. Too bad. Milwaukee is also a wonderful baseball town.

--On another baseball note I saw, ‘Moneyball,’ on Saturday. It’s good theater. Michael Lewis is brilliant and Aaron Sorkin is a genius so that’s about as good a writing combination as you can have. That said, I’d recommend people read my friend David Maraniss’s op-ed in the Tuesday Washington Post because it sums up pretty well how I feel about the whole ‘moneyball,’ concept. In the movie, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder essentially don’t exist.

I’m not saying there isn’t merit to the whole ‘moneyball,’ way of thinking. I think the best organizations combine good scouting with all the Bill James stuff. I also think if Dave Roberts hadn’t stolen second base in game 4 of the ALCS in 2004, the whole concept would not be glorified the way it is. And the A’s and Beane haven’t looked quite so brilliant since the above-named players left town. Still, I enjoyed the movie just like I enjoyed the book although I couldn’t help but feel badly for Art Howe. (Philip Seymour Hoffman was great. He was also superb in ‘The Ides of March.’ I’m on a roll seeing movies of late).

--The BCS. Oh please. Or, as my good friend Bill Hancock said over the weekend, “good grief.” I’m hoping and praying for four undefeated teams so the politicians in two states can go ballistic when ‘their,’ teams don’t make the championship game.

--The NBA lockout, David Stern and Bryant Gumbel. The lockout is getting uglier by the minute. More and more people I talk to think the whole season is going by the boards. I’m still not buying it. I think both sides will cave after New Year’s; they’ll agree on something close to a 50-50 split on revenue and a harder though not totally inflexible cap. Stern is a tough guy to play poker against but he’s also smart enough to know he needs the playoffs on TV. Kobe Bryant isn’t getting any younger. For that matter, neither is LeBron James, believe it or not. I wonder how a second round pick like Maryland’s Jordan Williams, who hasn’t yet seen a penny and isn’t guaranteed a penny once the lockout ends, feels about leaving school right about now.

Gumbel is a very smart guy and you can bet he knew exactly what he was saying when he compared Stern to a plantation owner who is ‘treating men like boys,’ in his commentary on HBO’s ‘Real Sports.’ Gumbel knew what the reaction would be when he said what he said but he was clearly tired—as many people are—of Stern’s tactics and wanted to be SURE he got that message across.

I’m a Stern guy. I think he’s been a great commissioner. Can he be imperious? You bet. But I also know that implying in any way that what he’s doing has racial connotations is ridiculous. This is business, pure and simple. Stern’s been charged by the owners with getting them a better deal and he will do and say what has to be said and done to get that deal. Charles Barkley—of all people—brought up a telling stat: Since Stern became commissioner in 1984 the average player salary has gone from $300,000 a year to $5.1 million a year. And that’s in a league not nearly as successful as the NFL where there are STILL no guaranteed contracts. If Gumbel should have a problem with a commissioner or a group of owners for the way they treat their players he should focus on football.

Finally: Did Brian Kelly REALLY say the following when he was asked if he was concerned about quarterback Dayne Crist’s mental state after Crist fumbled a snap on the one-yard line with Notre Dame trailing Southern California 17-10: “No. I don’t have to worry about it he does.”? Seriously? He said that?

Wow. Talk about standing up for your players. Kelly also threw his whole team under the bus for a poor first half but refused to second-guess himself for his team’s preparation for the game coming off a bye week. Kelly cited his record coming off bye weeks the last 20 years as the reason he KNEW he didn’t do anything wrong.

So what’s his record coming off a bye week THIS year? Does this guy take responsibility for ANYTHING?

Washington Post column: BCS represents college football’s ongoing scandal

2011-10-24T09:21:00.001-04:00

Here is my newest column for The Washington Post -----

Amid the morass of college football scandals that have unfolded in recent months, there is one man who loves the sport who has benefitted greatly from the ongoing debacles at Ohio State and Miami and North Carolina and USC.

Bill Hancock.

Hancock is the genial executive director of the so-called Bowl Championship Series, which is the ongoing scandal in college football that is still being perpetrated on players, coaches and fans alike much the same way reality TV continues to be a pox that simply won’t go away.

This fall, Hancock’s bosses — the BCS presidents — have conspired to keep the wolves away from his door. First, many of them have allowed their athletic programs to run completely amok. The two people who symbolize what the BCS stands for are, without question, Miami President Donna Shalala, who did everything but rename her school “Shapiro U” while currently jailed booster Nevin Shapiro was lavishing money on her and the one-time “U,” and, of course, Ohio State President Gordon Gee, whose two trademarks are his bowtie and his foot planted firmly inside his mouth.

It was Gee who made himself the Neville Chamberlain of college athletics last spring when he was asked if he would consider firing Jim Tressel as football coach and he replied with a straight face, “Fire him? I just hope he doesn’t fire me.”

The shame of it is that Tressel didn’t stay at Ohio State long enough to get around to firing Gee before Tressel left in disgrace. Of course, the NCAA, led by its top stooge, President Mark Emmert, has been so busy calling meetings and being shocked to learn that cheating is going on that it has yet to take any action against anyone — and will probably come down with a really hard wrist slap when the time finally comes.

Instead it has been left to Roger Goodell, who at last glance was running the NFL, to impose any discipline on Tressel and Terrelle Pryor, his oft-tattooed quarterback. Goodell suspended both for five games when they fled Ohio State for jobs in the NFL.

Maybe Goodell can do something about the BCS. You can bet that Emmert won’t at any point in this lifetime. All of which brings us back to Hancock and the BCS.

Click here for the rest of the article: BCS represents college football’s ongoing scandal

This week's radio segments (The Mike Wise Show, The Gas Man, The Sports Junkies)

2011-10-13T10:50:00.001-04:00

Here is the link to this week's radio segments, including the new continuing appearance on The Mike Wise Show and The Sports Junkies. Click the permalink below, then the link to the audio links, for the newest available interviews.

Wednesday I joined The Mike Wise Show in my weekly spot at 11am. We spent much of this segment discussing the Washington Capitals in regards to what the team goals could be, and took at look at the pressure on Bruce Boudreau. Then we moved on to baseball and the turmoil going on with the Boston Red Sox, which leads to opinions of the Cubs hiring of Theo Epstein, then finished up on talk about the Eagles' struggles and the Maryland football outlook.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Mike Wise Show

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I joined The Gas Man, out of Seattle, for my weekly spot at 5:35 PT. On a somewhat sore subject, we started out talking about the NBA, David Stern and the lockout situation. We followed that up discussing Steve Spurrier and what is happening at South Carolina this week, and finished off discussing the comments coming out of Boston College about ACC expansion.

Click here for the audio: The Gas Man

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Last Friday I joined The Sports Junkies in my normal slot. This segment we spoke about Tiger Woods and his continued lackluster play and discuss why he doesn't play more before moving into talk about the Tigers and Jim Leland then finished off discussing Skip Bayless and ESPN with Chris Cooley.

Click here for the audio: The Sports Junkies

Having a tough time watching Steve Spurrier this week, I expect more of him

2011-10-12T10:16:00.002-04:00

There is probably no football coach I like more than Steve Spurrier. I first met the Ol’ Ball Coach (I know he is generally known more often as the Head Ball Coach) but my memory is that he referred to himself as the Ol’ Ball Coach years ago) when he was the offensive coordinator at Duke in the early 1980s and was primarily responsible for the development of quarterback Ben Bennett who—believe it or not—beat out Boomer Esiason for ACC player-of-the-year as a senior.

Bennett’s stats and Duke’s respectable record back then were due in large part to Spurrier. That wasn’t why I liked him though: it was his sense of humor, his irreverence and his honesty. The OBC told you exactly what he thought and he often did it in a way that made you laugh.

And he was very damn good at what he did. I’d make the case that his three years as head coach at Duke, when the Blue Devils went 20-13-1 and tied for an ACC title were as good a coaching job as anyone has done anywhere in college football in the last 30 years. If you don’t believe me just look at Duke’s record since he left.

He went on to fame and fortune and a national championship (1996) at Florida, then made the mistake of being tempted by the NFL after 12 seasons as head Gator. The mistake wasn’t so much wanting to see if he could succeed one level up as WHERE he went to find out: Little Danny Snyder land. Snyder was still a good eight years away from being willing to cede any control to a coach and the Redskins, in part because Spurrier was learning on the job, but also because Snyder was still making his coaches watch tape with him back then, were awful.

After two years, Spurrier decided he’d had enough and walked away from the remaining $15 million left on his contract. Once, when I brought up Snyder’s name to him and said I’d felt sorry for him dealing with the guy for two years, Spurrier laughed. “I don’t have anything against old Danny,” he said. “He paid me a lot of money to put up with all that s----.”

Yes he did.

Because he lost a lot of games and didn’t play coaches games trying to shift blame and because he just walked away, most of the media in Washington—many of them die-hard Redskin fans—made him an object of ridicule. (Still do). One radio guy who I consider a friend called him “pathetic,” when a story appeared in The Washington Post chronicling the fact that he had opted to stay out of coaching for a year so that his youngest son wouldn’t have to move as a high school senior.

Really, putting your son first is pathetic? Thinking that and saying it on the air—now THAT’S pathetic.

The good side of Spurrier is rarely talked about. He and his wife Gerry, who have been married more than 40 years, went out and adopted a new family after their own kids had grown. In 1997, I was trying to round up auction items for a charity and called Spurrier on a Friday morning to see if I could get a football autographed by his national championship team. His secretary asked if he could call back Monday since he and the team were about to leave for a road game. Of course.

Five minutes later the phone rang. It was Spurrier. This was before everyone had a cell phone.

“Isn’t the bus leaving right now for the airport?” I asked.

“You know, last I looked I was head ball coach of this team (he DID say head ball coach that time) and I don’t think they’re going to leave without me. What’s up?”

He didn’t send an autographed football—he sent two. There was a note: “See if you can bid this up a little and maybe do that trick where you say you’ll get two if the second bidder will match the first.”

I say all this because I’m having a very tough time with what is going on at South Carolina this week.

First, the school announced it was tossing Stephen Garcia off the football team once and for all. My guess is Garcia DID violate the terms of his FIFTH return from suspension to the team and, sadly, the internet rumor is that he may have failed a mandatory alcohol-test.

You know what? I don’t care. When Spurrier and the school still needed him to play quarterback, they kept bringing him back, saying he was a fine young man who deserved one more chance. Now, when he couldn’t produce in the final minute of the loss to Auburn two weeks ago and got benched, he’s off the team for good.

It just LOOKS bad. It looks like a classic case of, ‘we don’t need this kid anymore, so, as Athletic Director Eric Hyman said in his smarmy statement about ‘student-athletes,’ they wish him luck with the rest of his life and send him packing.

Seriously? That’s it? We were 100 percent behind you as long as you could win football games for us but now that your eligibility is just about up and a younger QB has taken your job, thanks for the memories? IF he failed an alcohol test, the school at the very least owes him help—whether it is counseling or rehab or both. Clearly, the last two weeks haven’t been good for him: he fails in the Auburn game; gets benched and then sees Connor Shaw, his successor, have a big game against Kentucky.

One thing I know for sure: Stephen Garcia won’t be an NFL quarterback—he’s the kind of guy who might get kept around to hold a clipboard EXCEPT that he’s had off-field problems. The fact that he got his degree last spring would indicate he was at least TRYING to deal with his problem, all the more reason why he should be allowed to remain part of the team, regardless of whether he ever plays another down.

Just as the Garcia news was breaking on Tuesday, the OBC showed up for his weekly press conference. But rather than talking about the win over Kentucky (yawn) or this week’s game against Mississippi State (more yawns) the OBC launched into a diatribe against Ron Morris, a long time columnist for The State Newspaper in Columbia.

Repeatedly he called Morris a “negative guy,” and railed against a column Morris wrote in the spring about the decision of South Carolina point guard Bruce Ellington to also play football this fall. In the column, Morris wrote that Spurrier had been, “courting Ellington since the end of football season,” to join his team. Morris didn’t say Spurrier was wrong to court him or that basketball coach Darrin Horn was upset about it. He went on to discuss how difficult it is for any athlete to play two sports in this day and age and speculated that playing football would hurt Ellington’s development as a basketball player.

Sis months later, Spurrier walked into a press conference and declared he wouldn’t talk while Morris was in the room. He said this had been bothering him for months, that he had never recruited Ellington until after Ellington had talked to Horn about playing football and it was, “his right,” to not talk to a reporter who was, “trying to hurt our football team.”

Of course it’s his right. But he’s wrong. I’ve known Morris for almost 30 years since his days in Durham. He doesn’t make stuff up. SOMEONE told him Spurrier was “courting,” Ellington. Maybe it was the kid. Maybe it was Horn. Morris didn’t make it up, I promise you that. And he didn’t write it to, “hurt the football team.”

I’ve been in a lot of battles like this myself. Years ago, the Maryland football team, under orders from its coach, “voted,” not to speak to me because I’d written a three-part series, with every single quote on the record, about why the program had hit a ceiling and was slipping. Of course the way I found out about the “vote,” was that several players called to tell me about it. When I covered Lefty Driesell, who is now a close friend, we fought almost daily.

Several years back, Gary Williams was complaining to me about Josh Barr, who was then The Post’s beat writer covering his team. Barr was (and is) good and when you’re good (like Morris) and not a cheerleader you are bound to clash with any coach you cover because every team has things happen that a coach would rather not see come out in public—even the good guys like the OBC and Lefty and Gary.

When Gary complained about Barr I said to him, “you understand, if I’d ever covered you on a daily basis we’d have been screaming at one another most of the time? Sometimes you have to write a story even if you know you’re going to get yelled at by a coach for writing it.”

Spurrier said he didn’t mind being criticized (and I think through most of his career that’s been true) but he didn’t like someone writing something that wasn’t true. I’m sure he means that. That said, Morris blistered him after the Auburn game, holding him responsible for the failed last drive. The OBC is human. You have to wonder if that column reminded him that he was upset about the Ellington story six months ago.

Regardless, he should have handled it in private with Morris. Scream, yell, curse—whatever. But don’t make yourself look like a bully. The OBC is a good man who is good at what he does. So is Morris. They should sit down and talk this out. And then Spurrier should make Stephen Garcia a student coach for the rest of the season and make sure he gets whatever help he needs.

I don’t expect a lot from football coaches most of the time. I do expect more from the OBC.

Washington Post articles from the weekend -- Washington Capitals; Wake Forest and Jim Grobe

2011-10-10T14:14:00.001-04:00

Here are my two newest articles for The Washington Post which ran on over the weekend --- 'Washington Capital's time for raising little banners is over' and 'Wake Forest's Jim Grobe achieves beyond the numbers.' ---

Shortly before they began their 38th season, the Washington Capitals unfurled a banner in the rafters of Verizon Center. It was another little one, the eighth among the nine they have raised that is a tribute to a regular-season accomplishment. The exception to the rule is the one that celebrates their Eastern Conference championship in 1998, the one year they have reached the Stanley Cup Finals.

The time for hanging little banners is over. Although opening night was hardly exultant, with the Caps pulling out a 4-3 overtime victory against the middling Carolina Hurricanes, this is a season that shouldn’t end until mid-June.

Win another Southeast Division title? Fine. A Presidents’ Trophy for the best regular-season record? Okay. But General Manager George McPhee didn’t go out this summer and add Tomas Vokoun, Roman Hamrlik, Jeff Halpern, Joel Ward and Troy Brouwer in order to win another division title or try to advance another round in the playoffs.

“I think if people think we’re good enough to win the Stanley Cup, we should embrace that idea,” McPhee said a few minutes before Saturday night’s game. “That’s where you want to be, in that handful of teams that’s good enough to win the Cup.

“That doesn’t mean you don’t go through the process of trying to do things right the entire season. But you do that to get to the point where you can be at your best in the playoffs.”

Click here for the rest of the column: Washington Capital's time for raising little banners is over

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When the time comes for Jim Grobe to retire, the chances that he will be voted into the College Football Hall of Fame are probably somewhere between slim and none with slim having little chance of prevailing. Almost halfway through his 17th season as a head coach Grobe has an overall record of 99-94-1.

And yet, if any of those voting were to take a close look at Grobe’s accomplishments he might be voted in by acclamation.

Consider — for starters — some numbers.

Grobe is in his 11th season at Wake Forest. After his team’s 35-30 victory Saturday over Florida State, the Demon Deacons are 4-1 and Grobe is now 66-61 at Wake. That record might not sound overwhelming until you consider that he is the first Wake Forest coach to have a winning record since D.C. “Peahead” Walker retired in 1950 with a record of 77-51-6. The last four coaches prior to Grobe’s arrival combined to go 95-159-2 in 23 years. Those four — John Mackovic, Al Groh, Bill Dooley and Jim Caldwell — weren’t exactly hacks. All but Dooley went on to become head coaches in the NFL and Dooley had a record of 132-91-3 in 20 years at North Carolina and Virginia Tech.

Grobe’s first job was at Ohio University where he was 33-33-1 in six years. Again, hardly Hall of Fame numbers. But if you consider that in the 10 years prior to Grobe’s arrival Ohio had four separate losing streaks of at least 12 games, that record becomes a lot more impressive.

Click here for the rest of the column: Wake Forest's Jim Grobe achieves beyond the numbers

MLB playoffs- Yankees, Rays; Question for Red Sox fans

2011-10-05T09:06:00.001-04:00

I know I’ve said it here often but I really do love baseball. And the best thing about the first round of the playoffs is that they actually play afternoon and early evening games—the kind you can watch to conclusion without worrying about being tired the next morning. Of course if you are a fan of the New York Yankees only a rain out is going to give you the chance to see your team play in the afternoon because they are locked into that primetime slot at 8:37 p.m. every night.

(Am I the only one who has noticed that in the MLB promo about memories being made in postseason about 90 percent of those memories involve the Yankees? I’m convinced if there had been the kind of video available in 1951 that we have today we would have seen the Yankees WATCHING Bobby Thompson’s shot rather than the home run itself).

The Yankees do provide almost unique theater—I say almost unique because the soap opera that is always the Red Sox is right up there. As of this morning, A.J. Burnett is now worth the $82 million the Yankees paid him because he managed to deliver 5 and 1/3 innings of one run baseball in Detroit last night. Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson would have retired in disgust if they ever came out after 5 and 1/3 innings in a postseason game, but these days any pitcher who can go five innings without getting shelled is a future Hall of Famer.

What’s funny about Burnett’s performance is that if Curtis Granderson doesn’t make a catch that DOES belong on next year’s October promo with the bases loaded in the first inning, he probably doesn’t get out of that inning and may never be able to pitch again in New York. Seriously. That’s how close it was. It sounds funny to say about anyone who plays for the Yankees, but Granderson (who made another terrific catch in the sixth inning) is underrated. In fact, he and Robinson Cano are both underrated because there’s so much focus on Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez and, to a lesser degree, Mark Teixeira.

Cano and Granderson are, without any doubt, the Yankees two best players—C.C. Sabathia and Mariano Rivera are in a different category as pitchers—and Granderson is, from what I can read and hear, the best talker in the clubhouse. Regardless, if the Yankees end up in The World Series, people can point to his catch as the reason. He saved their season.

One other Yankees note: I had to drive to Comcast SportsNet last night because Washington Post Live is now on at 10:30 p.m. (WAY past my bedtime) and, as I always do, I flipped on the Yankees broadcast because John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman crack me up. I like them both personally, but it is truly funny to hear the panic in their voices when the Yankees falter.

When Burnett gave up the home run to Victor Martinez in the fourth inning to close the gap to 2-1, Suzyn was semi-hysterical. “This is the problem with A.J. Burnett,” she said. “He’s like the little girl with the curl. When he’s good, he’s very good, when he’s bad, he’s very bad. In fact, he’s HORRID.” (The home run was the first hit Burnett had given up). Watching the replay, she added, “Uch, look at that. If you put it on a tee you couldn’t have laid it in there any better for him.”

She and Sterling spent the rest of the inning taking deep breaths as Burnett maneuvered through trouble. “Think he’s on a short lease?” Sterling said at one point. “You bet he’s on a short lease. This is an elimination game.”

Sadly, by the time I got back in the car after the show, the Yankees had the game in hand and Sterling was reduced to wondering if Joe Girardi might give, ‘Mariano,’ (he says it with about seven syllables and never uses a last name) an inning.

So, TBS gets a Yankees-Tiger game 5 and all the executives at Fox will be praying that the Yankees advance.

All four series have had some drama to this point—although I admit there was no way I could stay up for all of Milwaukee-Arizona last night.

I honestly don’t know how to feel about The Tampa Bay Rays. As Tyler Kepner, who writes so well about baseball for The New York Times, pointed out this morning, their seasons are almost always the same: they compete superbly because their front office is so good and because Joe Maddon is such a good manager, and they come up short at some point because they simply don’t spend enough money to get that extra key player—the way the Texas Rangers spent $80 million last winter to get Adrian Beltre.

The Rays have now been in the playoffs three of the last four years—truly remarkable given that they play in the same division as the Yankees and Red Sox, each of whom probably spends more on its postgame clubhouse buffet budget than the Rays spend on players.

What’s sad is to see fewer than 30,000 fans in the ballpark for a postseason game. The Rays drew less than 1.6 million fans this year. The ballpark is absolutely awful and that’s a big part of the problem. The other problem is that there are more Yankee fans living in the Tampa Bay area than Rays fans.

Major League Baseball never should have put a team in Tampa—not without a promise to build a stadium with a retractable roof, the kind the Marlins are getting next year after almost 20 years of playing in a football stadium that’s ALMOST as awful as the dome in St. Petersburg.

And yet, somehow, the Rays, after being truly terrible for 10 years, have made it work the last four years. It’s just a shame almost no one down there cares.

Finally, I have a question for any of you out there who are Red Sox fans: As soon as the last day of the regular season concluded, I was convinced there was a book to be done that would focus strictly on that final day, arguably the most dramatic in regular season baseball history. I thought—think—that if you go back to the eight teams involved in those four deciding games, focusing on the four teams fighting for the playoffs but also including the other four teams and get players, managers, coaches, broadcasters to walk you through that day in detail, you have one hell of a story.

My agent, Esther Newberg, who is one of those Red Sox fans who is STILL mad at Bill Buckner, says the story might be good but no Red Sox fan will buy the book even if you get really good stuff from Theo Epstein, Terry Francona, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz et al.

I understand that feeling. In 2008 when my book on Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina came out, I got a really nice note during spring training from Gary Cohen, the Mets longtime play-by-play announcer who is a good friend. Gary wrote that he loved the book, in fact thought it was the best one I’d written.

I wrote back, thanked him and asked him if it might be possible to come on for an inning or two one night to talk about the book, the process of writing it, why I chose Glavine and Mussina—typical promo stuff.

Gary’s answer was to the point: “John, I loved the book and you know I’d love to help in any way. But after the way last season ended (Glavine getting shelled for seven runs in 1/3 of an inning with the season on the line on the last day) there’s not a Mets fan alive who wants to hear the name Tom Glavine again anytime soon.”

He was, of course, right.

So, Red Sox fans, is Esther right on this one too?

Washington Post column: College Football Points and Views

2011-10-03T08:17:00.000-04:00

Here is the newest weekly article on college football for The Washington Post ----

The college football regular season inched past the one-third mark on Saturday — five weeks down, nine to go before the Bogus Championship Series announces its matchups — and, while a number of questions have been answered, there are many more that no doubt will keep people glued to their seats or their TV sets between now and Dec. 4.

Here are some of the questions and answers, although many of the answers are still incomplete.

Question: Can Virginia Tech backdoor its way into the so-called national championship game courtesy of a soft nonconference schedule and being part of the ACC — which, if it were a baseball player, would have been nicknamed “Mr. August” by the late George M. Steinbrenner because that’s when ACC football traditionally has its best moments.

Answer: No. You don’t just replace a quarterback like Tyrod Taylor without some hiccups, and the Hokies’ offense was exposed by Clemson on Saturday. The special teams mistakes were surprising, but the biggest issue was the complete inability of the offense to get anything done. The Hokies might still end up in the ACC championship game but that’s a little bit like making the NBA or NHL playoffs for them. Yawn.

Question: Will North Carolina State Coach Tom O’Brien be at the very top of Wisconsin Coach Bret Bielema’s Christmas card list?

Answer: He should be. To be fair to O’Brien, he was in a tough position last spring when quarterback Russell Wilson told him he planned to skip spring practice to play baseball and was not sure he would return to football in the fall if he had a good summer playing in the Colorado Rockies’ farm system. O’Brien was caught in the middle because his other experienced quarterback, Mike Glennon, had told him he probably wouldn’t return to be Wilson’s backup.

O’Brien named Glennon his starter and Wilson left. He hit .228 in the low minors and landed at Wisconsin, where he was eligible right away because he had his undergraduate degree. Voila!—the Badgers are legitimate national contenders and Wilson is a Heisman Trophy candidate. Their toughest remaining game in the regular season should be at Ohio State, but the Buckeyes aren’t exactly the Buckeyes this year. They’ve already been tattooed with losses twice. (Sorry.)

Click here for the rest of the column: College Football Points and Views

Covering sports and the perception of stories, angles and who’s ‘rooting’ for what

2011-09-28T12:26:00.002-04:00

Thanks to the magic—or the curse—of the internet, those of us who write for a living have a chance to get some idea what readers think of what we write soon after it goes into cyberspace or into a newspaper or even a magazine. Books take a little longer.

This can be a mixed blessing. One has to learn to take everything that’s posted with a large grain of salt—both the good and the bad. If you take a strong position on an issue there are always going to be people who will absolutely agree and people who will absolutely disagree. Certain people are guaranteed to get readers fired up: Mention Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame and you’ll start a firestorm of some kind. The same is frequently true of Tiger Woods or Mike Krzyzewski or Tom Brady. About the only person who almost everyone—at least in Washington—agrees on is Dan Snyder and if the Redskins every make a Super Bowl while he’s the owner most of those who can’t stand him now will say, “he’s changed, matured, learned from his mistakes.”

That’s why I try to read what people have to say but rarely respond because life is too short to get into constant exchanges with people, especially since 99 percent of the time you aren’t going to change their mind anymore than they’re going to change yours.

I bring this all up not because of anything that’s been written recently about anything of mine. On Tuesday I was reading Rex Hoggard’s story (linked here) on The Golf Channel website about Tiger Woods’ hiring of Joe LaCava as his caddy. Rex is about as balanced and reasonable as anyone I know and his account of the events leading to LaCava leaving Dustin Johnson after working for him for less than six months to go work for Woods was pretty straightforward.

No one begrudges LaCava his decision to go work for Woods. Even if Woods never comes close to being the player he once was, the tournaments he plays overseas for huge appearance fees—like the event in November in Australia where he’s reportedly getting $3 million—alone will make LaCava very well paid. And, at 35, the potential for Woods to make a comeback that could make LaCava very wealthy is still there.

What bothered some people, according to Hoggard, was that no one from Team Tiger bothered to make a courtesy call to Johnson to let him know he might want to hire his caddy. Most, though not all, players will let another player know if they are going to talk to their caddy. Woods isn’t the first—and won’t be the last—player to not make the courtesy call by any stretch but this isn’t the first time he’s been down this road.

Fifteen years ago when Woods first came on tour, Peter Jacobsen was injured. He asked Woods if he would like to use his longtime caddy (they’d been together 17 years) Fluff Cowen for his first few tournaments. Woods said yes. When he had almost instant success he asked Cowen to come work for him fulltime. To this day he hasn’t called Jacobsen.

Jacobsen completely understood Cowen’s decision—working for Woods made him both rich and famous even though he got fired less than three years later for becoming a little too famous for Tiger’s taste. But he wasn’t happy that, after going out of his way to try to help Woods at the start of his career, he didn’t get the courtesy call.

Hoggard didn’t even bring up Jacobsen-Cowen. He just pointed out that this is the way life on tour is sometimes and also mentioned that, after hearing Woods was interested in him, LaCava had contacted Team Tiger to say that, if asked, he probably would accept.

This was hardly one of my virulently anti-Tiger pieces that make some people froth at the mouth.

And yet, when I read the posts because I was curious to see where the golf geeks (if you’re reading GolfChannel.com you’re a golf geek, right?) came down on this issue, I found them fascinating.

Some people thought that, especially given all the bad publicity he’s gotten since November 27, 2009, that someone on Team Tiger should have told Woods to pick up a phone and call Johnson to let him know what was going on. Some thought it was a non-story— as in who cares?

But MANY thought Rex was Tiger-bashing, that this was another example of the media being out to ‘get,’ Tiger. A number of people wanted to know why the hell Tiger had to ask Dustin Johnson’s permission to do anything since LaCava wasn’t under contract to Johnson in any way. Good point. Except no one—including Rex—ever said Woods needed to ask permission to do anything. Read the story.

I would, at this point be remiss if I didn’t digress for a moment to point out to those who commented on my Maryland/ACC column in The Post the other day that I never said Virginia Tech hadn’t scheduled good teams in the past (although the Hokies didn’t beat any of them) just that they didn’t schedule any of them this season. I also loved Randy Edsall saying this morning that he never claimed he was rebuilding and, “didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus.” Then he proceeded to throw Ralph Friedgen so far under the bus that it may be tough to find even a guy the Fridge’s size underneath those wheels.

My favorites though are the people who insist that all of us who cover sports are ambulance-chasers who would be collecting unemployment if not for Tiger Woods. (Or Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and Serena Williams—among others). We are, according to these people, complete lowlifes who undoubtedly starve our pets and beat up little old ladies every chance we get.

As Rhett Butler once said to Scarlett O’Hara while she screamed, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,”: “My dear you’ve made your point fairly clear.”

Even people like me who find a lot of what Woods does away from the golf course reprehensible understand that he is one of the two greatest players of all time—I’d say the greatest regardless of how many majors he finally ends up winning because of his total dominance of the game while at his peak—and has brought attention to the sport that no one since Arnold Palmer came close to achieving.

Those in and on television root unabashedly for Woods to do well because it drives ratings. Many—if not most—in the print media want to see Woods succeed because it means they get more space and better play and, in all likelihood, get to travel to more tournaments. The better Woods is doing the more interest there is in golf.

Thus, the notion that any of us, simply can’t wait for Woods to fail or can’t wait to pounce on anything he does, is simply wrong. Do I root for him? Absolutely not. But do I sit around sticking pins in a Tiger doll? No. He’s a story—for good and for bad. I’ve always taken the approach that he’s got enough people who are paid to burnish his image and gloss over his failings that he doesn’t need me to do it. And anyone who thinks Rex Hoggard or 99 percent of the golf media have any kind of axe to grind with Woods simply don’t know the people involved or understand the business they are in.

So, if you want to disagree with what Rex writes or what I write or what anyone else writes, that’s perfectly fine. And, of course, you have an absolute right to call us lowlifes if that makes you feel good. Come to think of it, in a few cases, you’re right. But I’ll save that for another day and time.

Oh, one other note: For those of you who get SO upset when I make a political comment: Look, I don’t claim to be fair and balanced. Or that I’m reporting and letting you decide. I’m biased. I’m a Democrat. If you’re reading the blog you have to know an occasional shot at the right wing is coming somewhere, sometime. God knows there are lots of places you can find shots being taken at liberals like me so have at it.

Washington Post column: Randy Edsall’s attempt to redefine Maryland as a rebuilding program was a cop-out, other news and notes

2011-09-26T10:00:00.002-04:00

Here is my latest for The Washington Post -------

So now Randy Edsall wants Maryland fans to believe he was brought in to rebuild Maryland’s football program.

“This is a process we are in,” he said after the Terrapins’ humiliating 38-7 loss to Temple on Saturday. “It was not going to get changed overnight no matter how much I want it to.”

Maryland was 9-4 last season under Ralph Friedgen. Like most college teams it lost some key players and returned some key players. As has become evident since his firing last fall, Friedgen had let the program slip in at least one critical area — academics — and there’s no doubt his laissez-faire approach was a lot different from Edsall’s “thou shalt not wear your cap turned backward” regime.

There’s no point arguing about whether one way is right and other way is wrong. Edsall had success on the field at Connecticut, Friedgen had success on the field at Maryland for most of his 10 years. And, as any college president worth his bow tie will tell you, coaches aren’t judged by their players’ fashion sense or even their players’ grades. They are judged by wins and losses.

Saturday was not a good day for Edsall on any level and, while he was candid in admitting that his team wasn’t ready to play (no kidding) it was a cop-out for him to fall back on the “this is a process” cliche. Al Golden, who took over at Temple in 2006 when the Owls had been kicked out of the Big East and had gone 38-151 under three coaches in 17 seasons, had a real process to go through.

Click here for the rest of the story: Washington Post column

ND sits on the Big East television committee; Swofford pillaging; Why Serena’s fine was so low; PGA Tour playoffs and much more

2011-09-23T14:33:00.002-04:00

I suppose I could write today about the latest maneuverings among the money-grubbing college presidents but, to be honest, I find it hard to care that much. Any notion that tradition or rivalries or geography or doing what’s right has flown so far out the window it isn’t even worth railing about it.

All I know is this: If you put the BCS presidents in a room and someone threw a dollar on the floor it would look like the last scene of “Invictus,” with all of them diving on the floor to try to scoop up the bill. I do have one question though for those who run The Big East: What in the world was the president of Notre Dame doing on your television committee? That’s like giving President Obama final say on who his opponent is next November.

“So, Mr. President, who’s it going to be—Mitt Romney?”

“Don’t think so. Think I’d prefer Rick Perry or, wait, even better Sarah Palin with Glenn Rice as her running mate.”

(Calm down my right wing friends it’s just a joke).

This is the same sort of thing. “So, Father Jenkins, while you sit back there with your $10 million per year NBC contract that you share not a dollar of with us, what do you think we should do with this latest offer from ESPN?”

“Turn it down fellas. You can get more later.”

Unless, of course, your league gets raided by John Swofford, who in his biography lists, “pillaging the Big East,” as one of his favorite pastimes.

Oh, one other thing on my friend Father Jenkins: If you hear him say that Notre Dame might end up in the ACC rather than The Big Ten because the ACC’s ‘academic profile,’ fits Notre Dame better, here’s the English translation of that statement: “We’d rather play Duke, Wake Forest and Virginia a whole lot of the time instead of Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State and Wisconsin.” (Yes Irish fans I know they already play Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue).

Anyway, I really and truly don’t care about all the maneuverings. These are bad people doing bad things. Life is too short to pay them much attention. Call me when the 16-team conferences are in place and someone is ready to announce a football playoff. Until then, hey, hockey season starts in less than two weeks.

On the subject of bad people, let’s turn for a moment to the good folks at the U.S. Tennis Association. You might remember that a number of people were stunned when they only fined Serena Williams $2,000 for her outburst directed at the chair umpire during the U.S. Open final a couple weeks ago. How, many of us wondered, could they let her get off so easy for yammering on and on and, (among other things) accusing the chair of being, “the one who screwed me over two years ago,” when (A) NO ONE screwed her over two years ago and (B) it was a different woman.

Turns out there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. You see, if Serena had been fined $10,000 (or more, the max fine would have been $20,000 which is way too low) it would have been considered a “major offense.” Under the terms of the probation she was still on because of her profanity/threat-filled outburst in the 2009 semifinals, if she had committed a “major offense,” she could have been suspended for next year’s Open by The Grand Slam Committee.

Apparently Bill Babcock, The Grand Slam Committee’s administrator was ready to suspend Williams after looking at—and listening to—the tape. When the USTA realized that it could lose Williams for next year’s Open it made certain to keep the fine well below the “major offense,” level. Obviously, losing Williams would have hurt corporate sales and, perhaps most important, wouldn’t have made the all-important TV partners happy either. So, as usual when a name tennis player is involved, Serena skated.

That will certainly deter her from similar behavior in the future won’t it?

One other note on the geniuses who run the sport: Once upon a time Davis Cup was one of the great events in ANY sport. As tennis has lost luster, so has Davis Cup, to the point where I have suggested it be conducted over two years—meaning top players only have to potentially commit twice a year as opposed to four times a year—to make it special again.

Naturally, that suggestion has been ignored. And so, in order to squeeze it into the schedule, The Davis Cup semifinals were held the week after the U.S. Open. Are you kidding? Novak Djokovic finished off two grueling weeks of best-of-five tennis on Monday, thanks in large part to the USTA’s ludicrous scheduling, and then had to show up to be ready to play in Argentina three days later. What a shock that he couldn’t finish either of his singles matches.

Of course the tennis people will tell you all is well with their sport, which is why nothing ever gets fixed. When three of the top players in the world felt they were put at risk being asked to play on slippery, wet courts, the USTA’s reaction was, basically, ‘get over it fellas.’ Would they consider modifying their schedule so as not to stretch the first round over three days and then ask the players to play semifinals and finals on back-to-back days? (that’s with NO bad weather). Nope. CBS likes it the way it is and CBS pays the freight. Shut up and play.

Question for golf fans: Are any of you into The Tour Championship? I just can’t get excited about it and it isn’t because of the tour’s constant overhyping of the so-called playoffs. It isn’t because Tiger Woods isn’t there either because, as most people know, I enjoy watching and writing about and talking about other players. I do wish Rory McIlroy was there because he’s so much fun to watch play and to talk to when he’s finished playing. But it isn’t that either. I just feel as if nothing is really at stake except money. Player-of-the-year? Yeah, I suppose. If Keegan Bradley wins he deserves the award. If he doesn’t it should be him or McIlroy but I promise you there will be people campaigning for Luke Donald if he wins or Webb Simpson if he wins.

They’ve had wonderful years but my rule of thumb is simple: You can’t be player-of-the-year unless you win at least one major. Jim Furyk won it on The PGA Tour last year in large part because Graeme McDowell wasn’t eligible. McDowell was CLEARLY the worldwide player-of-the-year. If I’d been voting last year, with all due respect to Furyk who I’ve always like a lot, I would have voted for Phil Mickelson because his performance at The Masters was far more significant than Furyk’s three victories in non-majors.

But hey, that’s just me.

Oh wait, there’s a news flash coming in here: The AFC West is joining the ACC. Perfect: more mediocre football teams. Just what the ACC needs.

Washington Post column: Saturday was an eventful day for the ACC, on and off the field

2011-09-19T17:46:00.002-04:00

The following is the latest column for The Washington Post ----

The clouds and misty rain that shrouded Kenan Stadium for most of Saturday afternoon were an apt metaphor for the ever-changing world of college athletics. Less than 24 hours after Big East founder Dave Gavitt had died, the ACC was preparing to gleefully announce a raid that could signal the death knell for the league Gavitt created.

While word was quickly spreading Saturday that Syracuse and Pittsburgh were on the way, four current ACC teams were hosting the kind of games the conference presumed it would regularly be part of when it added Virginia Tech, Miami and Boston College seven years ago.

The results of those games — a split for the ACC, with wins for Miami and Clemson and letdowns for Maryland and Florida State — served as reminder: All these football-motivated moves don’t do nearly as much to help the ACC as they do to hurt the Big East.

Florida State’s loss to top-ranked Oklahoma likely means, once again, no ACC school will seriously contend for the mythical national title. More likely, the ACC champion will play a three-loss Big East champion in a bowl no one really wants to watch.

Adding Pitt and Syracuse doesn’t really change the league’s football profile at all. They are no different and certainly no better than Florida State, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Maryland et al: teams that will win a lot of little ones but not very many big ones.

Click here for the rest of the column: Saturday was an eventful day for the ACC

US Open reveals the best, and worst, of tennis

2011-09-13T09:32:00.000-04:00

One thing about the U.S. Open is that it reveals the best and the worst of tennis just about every year.

The best is always the actual tennis: Novak Djokovic-Roger Federer was a classic and the Djokovic-Rafael Nadal final was also played at a very high level. Sam Stosur’s upset of Serena Williams in the women’s final was a stunner because Williams had looked unbeatable throughout the tournament. There were also a handful of early round upsets involving young American players that gave some hope to those starving for the next American star.

All that was good. But, as usual, the USTA managed to muck things up with its usual incompetence.

The schedule is—and has been for years—a joke. The night matches go on MUCH too long even without rain delays. The USTA doesn’t care at all about the players—sending Federer out to begin a match at 11:50 at night?—or the fans in attendance. It cares ONLY about keeping the TV people who give them their lunch money (you should see those lunches) happy.

That’s why “Super Saturday,” the most overrated notion in sports, exists. Every other major championship puts together a schedule that gives the two finalists in both singles events a rest day before the final. The thought is that semifinals are often grueling and you want players rested before one of the most important matches of their lives.

The USTA says the heck with that. It stretches the first round across three days—robbing those who pay to see matches those days of a good deal of quality tennis—and then makes the men and the women go back-to-back from semis to final. In the old days, when the Saturday order of play was men’s semi; women’s final; men’s semi, the second men’s semi often ended late at night and the winner then had to come back about 18-20 hours later to play the final.

It also meant that the women’s final was the only major championship final in tennis where the two finalists had no idea what time their match would begin. Since they were second match on, the length of the first men’s match determined when they would begin. Which is ridiculous.

The USTA—god bless ‘em—fixed that about 10 years back when it moved the women’s final to Saturday night. This move was made NOT for the benefit of the players but—surprise—for the benefit of CBS which wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the Williams sisters by moving the final to prime time. Now, instead of getting all three matches for the price of one ticket on Saturday, fans have to buy tickets for the afternoon—men’s semis—and then a separate ticket for the women’s final at night.

Honestly, I think if you put the USTA executive committee in a room and threw a dollar on the floor you would see a repeat of the climactic scene in “Invictus,” in which all the players on the rugby pitch are scrumming desperately to get the ball.

Remember this: When Arthur Ashe Stadium was built it didn’t have to have 23,000 seats. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 would have been far more sensible; would have created a much better atmosphere and far fewer really bad seats and would have made it much easier then—or now—to put a retractable roof on the building. This year that would have meant NOT losing two straight days to bad weather, creating a FOURTH straight Monday men’s final—which, of course bled over into Dolphins-Patriots (thus losing viewers along the way)—and also created the specter of the world’s top players being sent out to play in dangerous conditions on the second rain day because the USTA was getting desperate to get some live play on for ESPN to show—even if it meant a player might do a pratfall trying to skid to a halt on a wet court.

And then there was Serena Williams.

This is, without question, one of the great players in the game’s history. To come back from almost a year away from the game and play the way she did this summer and right through to the final at the Open is extraordinary. Most of the time she makes it look easy.

But anytime things don’t go exactly as she wants them to, she loses her mind and behaves FAR worse than John McEnroe ever did. Jimmy Connors is another story; he’s still the all-timer when it comes to awful on-court behavior.

Two years ago, Williams threatened a line judge for calling a foot-fault on her during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters. Even though she kept issuing completely insincere non-apologies, The Grand Slam Committee of the International Tennis Federation (one thing you can be sure of in sports: the longer the title the less effective the organization) decided to fine her the grand total of $85,000 and put her on ‘probation.’ One might have thought the Grand Slam Committee had hired the NCAA to advise it on how to penalize people. The penalty was, to quote Mary Carillo, “a joke.”

That Carillo was 100 percent correct was proven again yesterday.

Williams did not play well in the final against Stosur, who has been a talented under-achiever in the game for a long while. After Stosur won the first set Williams immediately faced a break point to start the second set. She hit a forehand winner but as the ball was rocketing away from Stosur she screamed, “come on!”

Under the rules, that is considered a “hindrance,” the theory being her scream could have distracted Stosur as she chased the ball down. What the umpire probably should have done was either warn Williams not to do it again since it was pretty apparent Stosur wasn’t going to get to the ball or play a let—which the rules allow if the umpire thinks the “hindrance,” was accidental—as in someone’s cap flying off or their racquet slipping from their hands and going across the net.

Clearly Williams’ scream was intentional but it wasn’t meant as a hindrance. The umpire, Eva Asderaki, chose to enforce the letter of the law. Williams HAD screamed during the point. She awarded the point—and, thus the game—to Stosur.

Williams went nuts. Among other things she accused Asderaki of being the chair umpire in the Clijsters match—which she wasn’t.

“Are you the one who screwed me over the last time?” she said. “Yeah, you are. Seriously, you have it out for me. That’s not cool. That’s totally not cool.”

The fact that Williams still believes she was “screwed over,” in the Clijsters match tells you all you need to know about her mindset and about how much her ‘apologies,’ meant.

Williams wasn’t finished: “If you ever see me walking down the hall, look the other way. You’re out of control. You’re a hater and you’re unattractive inside…” And: “Code violation for this? I expressed who I am. We’re in America last time I checked.”

For this behavior The USTA and The Grand Slam Committee decided to really punish Williams. On Monday it announced it had fined her—wait for it--$2,000! Then the USTA wrote her a check for $1.4 million--$900,000 for finishing second in the Open; $500,000 for winning the summer U.S. Open series. Boy, they really showed her, huh? Just like they did last time with their ‘probation.’

The weasely excuse was that, because she didn’t use profanity, she hadn’t committed a “major violation.” It is okay to accuse someone (who didn’t) of “screwing you,”; threaten them; call them a hater and claim they “have it out for you.” That’s no big deal. Translation: They didn’t want to fine her for a major violation while she was still on ‘probation,’ because that might have forced them to actually penalize her in a meaningful way.

Can’t have that.

Even Chris Evert, who never has a bad thing to say about anyone publicly, couldn’t believe the fine was so minimal. Now working (sigh) for ESPN, Evert pointed out that Williams had yet to apologize and had refused to shake Asderaki’s hand at the end of the match. “It’s like dinner for Serena Williams,” Evert said of the fine. “When I saw the comments she made my first impression was just stunned. I was so surprised how disrespectful and rude she was.”

Naturally there were other ESPN analyst/enablers there to run to Williams’ side. Pam Shriver, who has become the classic see-no-evil jock apologist told The New York Times not only that she didn’t think what Williams did was a big deal but that—seriously, she said this—Williams might have felt pressure playing in New York on 9-11!

People ask me all the time why I don’t cover tennis so much anymore. This kind of stuff is why. The matches can still be brilliant. But the people around the matches consistently leave me with an awful taste in my mouth. I guess the good news is the next time anyone will pay serious attention to the sport won’t be until next June.

Washington Post column: Go time for FSU -- and ACC

2011-09-12T10:47:00.003-04:00

Here is the most recent story for The Washington Post, on ACC football ----------

Years ago there was an episode of “Seinfeld,” in which Lloyd Bridges played an 80-year-old man who kept trying to prove to Jerry how strong he was. Every time Bridges was about to perform a feat of strength he would slap his hands together, glare at Jerry and say, “It’s go time!”

Then, the instant he made his first move on the object in question, he would let out a cry of pain and scream, “Somebody call an ambulance!”

For the longest time now that has been ACC football.
Every August the unofficial slogan for the league has been, “It’s go time!” Then September comes along and the first thing you hear is, “Somebody call the Military Bowl!” Or The Chick-fil-a Bowl or any other meaningless, second-tier bowl that is the ACC’s annual version of an ambulance. Take your pick.

Well, here we go again.

This coming Saturday is go time 2011 for the ACC. Florida State, allegedly ready to reclaim past glory, hosts top-ranked Oklahoma, a team it lost to 47-17 a year ago in its “go-time” moment of a 10-4 season that was supposedly the beginning of a renaissance under new Coach Jimbo Fisher.

The Seminoles’ fall during the latter years of the Bobby Bowden era was precipitous. From 1987 through 2000, they were college football’s most consistent program (aided, no doubt by playing in a very mediocre ACC most of those years), winning at least 10 games for 14 straight seasons while compiling a record of 152-19-1. In the nine seasons after that, they became a “true” ACC team with an overall record of 74-42 and one 10-win season.

Click here for the rest of the column: For ACC, more false hope

US Open trip, seeing Bud Collins and should-be commissioner Mary Carillo; Strasburg returns; Upcoming weekly football column

2011-09-07T12:59:00.003-04:00

I know, it’s been a while. Things have been a little hectic plus, to be honest, there hasn’t been any one thing happening in sports the last 10 days or so that has made me want to jump to the keyboard and write.

The New York Times does a great job of covering the U.S. Open tennis tournament. There was a really good piece Tuesday morning written by Greg Bishop on exactly where American tennis is right now. Four American men reached the round of 16 for the first time since 2003—which is the last time an American man won a major title. (Andy Roddick).

Fine.

And Serena Williams is almost certain to win the women’s title, an amazing comeback after being out for almost a year following her foot surgery and the serious scare she got last spring when she ended up in the hospital because of blood clots.

I wish I could get more excited.

I think Serena is an amazing player. God knows how many majors she might have won if she had decided to stay focused on tennis. I don’t fault her for not doing that—she’s got a zillion dollars, she can do whatever she wants—but I have always been bothered by the way she and her sister never give their opponents credit on the rare occasions when they lose a match. And the entire foot-fault incident two years ago was disgusting on every level from Serena’s non-apologies to half-apologies; to her agent literally putting a hand on a TV camera after the match; to the Grand Slam Committee letting her off the hook; to ESPN basically covering up for her at every turn since the incident.

So, if Serena goes on to win as I suspect she will, I will take note of her greatness. But I really won’t care.

Once upon a time I liked Roddick. I especially admired his grace in defeat after his epic loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009. Lately though, as his tennis has slipped, he’s become a pill. The way he behaved during HIS foot-fault incident last year wasn’t as bad as Serena’s but it wasn’t pretty. And he’s now taken to lecturing the media on what it should and should not think and say and write about the state of American tennis.

You want to shut the media up Andy? Win something.

I did make my annual trip to the Open last Wednesday. I got lucky—especially given the weather now—by being there on an absolutely perfect day. I wandered the backcourts for a while and only got into one brief tussle with security people. I was walking into what I thought was an entrance to the new court 17 to take a look at it when a guard—after I was several yards past him—said, ‘hey, this is an exit.’

I turned around and said, “there’s no ‘exit-only,’ sign.”

“Yeah well, I’m telling you it’s an exit.”

I walked out but couldn’t resist another comment. (Hey, it’s who I am). “Tell the USTA to spend 10 bucks on a sign. It will make everyone’s life a little easier.”

All of a sudden a guy in a jacket with a walkie-talkie came hustling over.

“Is there a problem sir?” he said.

“No problem,” I said. “You guys just need to spring for 10 bucks for an exit sign.”

“We don’t need one.”

“Apparently you do.”

I was tempted to stay and jaw with the guy for a while but decided it was too nice a day and I’d made my point. Sort of.

I made my way over to court seven and almost burst out laughing when I saw who was playing.

Ryan Sweeting.

For at least the last three years, maybe four, whenever I have been at the Open, regardless of the day, Ryan Sweeting has been playing on an outside court. I know his game almost as well as I once knew John McEnroe’s game although I’ve never seen him win a match. At least this year he got into the draw on his own and not through a wildcard.

Since it’s become a tradition I sat and watched Sweeting play for a while. He was playing someone named Daniel Istomin, who is from Uzbekistan and looked a lot like a young Miloslav Mecir—minus the beard and the almost mystical softball ground game that players found so baffling. Sweeting actually won the first set but then lost his serve at 4-all in the second and went down quickly after that. I look forward to seeing him again next year.

The highlight of the day—as always—was the chance to see my two favorite tennis people, Bud Collins and Mary Carillo. Bud is 82 now but the pants are loud as ever and he is still cranking out columns for The Boston Globe. He still gets fired up when he sees a young American player flash potential. His only concession to age is sitting in an aisle seat in the press room so he doesn’t have to climb over people getting to and from his seat.

Carillo is, well, Carillo. All kidding aside she should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than everyone running the game and cares about it more than any of them too. There was a story in The Times today about the fact that there are fewer top umpires at the U.S. Open than at any of the other majors because the USTA pay less than the other majors do.

The USTA’s response was to hide: The only person allowed to speak on the subject was the PR guy who basically said, “we’ve got enough good umpires here.”

Sure, because it’s okay to have second-rate umpires working the matches that aren’t at night or on TV right? It’s okay for Ryan Sweeting and Daniel Istomin to have second-rate umpires because they’re on court seven where I’m the only one guaranteed to show up and watch.

If Carillo had been in charge I promise you she would have answered the questions herself and probably would have said, “If that’s the case we need to fix it. We make millions on this tournament every year, we can re-invest a few extra bucks to make the umpiring as high class as possible for EVERY player—not just the glamour guys.

And I guarantee you she’d invest in an exit sign.

Oh, one more thing: For all the talk among the tennis apologists about how wonderful the game is, the only sessions of the Open that sold out were the weekends. The USTA was all but giving away tickets for the weekday and weeknight sessions. This is NOT The Legg Mason Classic, this is a MAJOR championship and they can’t sell it out most days. Not good.

******

Stephen Strasburg came back to pitch for The Washington Nationals on Tuesday a little more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery. Clearly, he hasn’t missed a beat. He was consistently throwing in the high 90s with control—40 strikes in 56 pitches. The kid is a freak. I just wish the Nats weren’t babying him so much on the mound (hell, they babied him last year and he got hurt anyway) and in the clubhouse where one pretty much needs a court order to say ‘hello,’ to Strasburg in anything but a formal press conference setting. He’s 23-years-old and he’s making millions of dollars. Time to start acting like an adult…

I’m going to be writing a weekly football column for The Washington Post this fall on Mondays. Looking forward to seeing all sorts of different games—NOT just the big name teams although I’ll obviously do some of that. This Saturday night I’m going to see Georgetown-Lafayette. (Hey, Patriot League stuff!). Georgetown’s an interesting story: It was forced to upgrade to Division 1-AA a few years back because you can’t have a D-1 basketball team and a D-3 football team. That’s made it tough. Two years ago the Hoyas were winless. Last year they were 4-7. I’m interested to see how much progress they’ve made since a year ago…

You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve tried to resist the urge to take shots at ESPN lately, only because I think people roll their eyes when I do it all the time—not because they don’t deserve it. But I have to ask this question: If Sunday Night Baseball is, as ESPN claims, “baseball’s biggest stage,” just what exactly is The World Series?

Washington Post Column: Consolidation talk follows trauma of college football's offseason

2011-09-05T10:04:00.001-04:00

Here is the newest column for The Washington Post -------

For those who love college football, the hope was that the game itself would rescue everyone from the traumas of the spring and summer.

Sure enough, within hours of opening night — which now comes on a Thursday because most of the sport’s grand traditions have been squashed by greed — there was a spectacular game: Baylor kicking a game-winning field goal with around one minute left to upset TCU after the Horned Frogs had scored 25 fourth-quarter points to take a 48-47 lead.

To some, TCU is the closest thing college football had to a national champion last season. It went 13-0, won the Rose Bowl after the arbitrary rules of the BCS kept it out of the so-called national championship game and, unlike Auburn and Oregon, (which did play in that game) is NOT being investigated at the moment by the NCAA.

But before the celebrating in Waco had ended, the seismic cracks in the sport surfaced again. Only a few days after Texas A&M announced that it intended to leave the not-so Big 12, Oklahoma President David Boren was making noises about his school departing too, perhaps to join the newly minted Pacific-12 Conference. Oklahoma State would no doubt follow and Texas — which almost went west a year ago — and Texas Tech might join the party.

Oh God, here we go again. Next thing you know college football games will be taking six hours. Oh wait, that already happened — Saturday at Notre Dame.

While the Flailin’ Irish were finding a way to lose to South Florida between lightning delays, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott was meeting with the media in Dallas before Oregon’s loss to LSU. (Not a good weekend for the Pac-12 when you throw in UCLA’s loss to Houston and Oregon State’s stunning overtime loss to Sacramento State.)

Scott’s bio notes that he speaks French. He also speaks a language unique to college administrators, whether they are presidents, commissioners or athletic directors. In Scott-ese, expansion doesn’t exist.

“We don’t have any specific model or formula in mind,” Scott told the reporters in Dallas. “All I’ve said is that I expect that you will see further consolidation given the fragmentation of college sports.”

Click here for the rest of the column: Consolidation talk follows trauma of college football's offseason

This week's radio segments (The Mike Wise Show, The Gas Man)

2011-09-01T09:54:00.000-04:00

Here is the link to this week's radio segments, including the new continuing appearance on The Mike Wise Show. Click the permalink below, then the link to the audio links, for the newest available interviews.

Wednesday I joined The Mike Wise Show in my weekly spot. This week we started out discussing the Redskins and some of their personnel decisions, including Malcolm Kelly, before moving on to the University of Miami mess and finished off with talk on Stephen Strasburg's return and the Presidents Cup selection of Tiger Woods.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Mike Wise Show

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I joined The Gas Man, out of Seattle, for my weekly spot at 5:35 PT. This week was live from Flushing Meadows so we spent a good deal of time discussing tennis in general and the US Open in specific. Tennis, like golf, needs American stars for our country to pay attention and there are differing opinions on the best way to develop the talent and we take a quick look at John and Patrick McEnroe's opposing methods in this endeavor.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Earthquakes and the "PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup"

2011-08-24T23:55:00.001-04:00

I have always thought that New Jersey got a bad rap. Anytime someone says they are from New Jersey the first question they get asked is, “what exit?”

Everyone in New Jersey lives near an exit of The New Jersey Turnpike. Or so legend has it.

I am not a big fan of The Turnpike having driven it hundreds of times and the Garden State Parkway is often worse. But there are plenty of pretty places in New Jersey, especially in the western part of the state and if you pull off The Palisades Parkway just north of The George Washington Bridge you can find some spectacular views.

That said, the state is, well, quirky.

In many places, if you want to make a left turn, you have to turn right—and go around a jughandle to cross the road which always involves an extra light. You can’t put gas in your car. Full serve only. The prices are good—very good in fact—but when you are a control freak like me you don’t like waiting for someone to show up and ask you what you need. Often, if you’re traveling The Turnpike and don’t want to get off at an exit the lines at the rest stops bring back memories of the gas crisis 30-plus years ago. I always try to make sure I have enough gas to get through New Jersey, going north or south, even though if I was willing to wait on line the Jersey gas would be cheaper.

There’s another thing about New Jersey: You MUST get lost. There is no way to find anything without getting lost either because of roads criss-crossing one another; jug-handle turns or roads changing names when you aren’t looking. (To be fair, this can happen in downtown Washington too).

The first golf tournament I covered while researching ‘A Good Walk Spoiled,’ was the 1993 U.S. Open at Baltusrol. I don’t want to say I drove around in circles trying to find the golf course but I think two presidential elections were held while I was searching for the place.

When I finally found the media parking lot it was smack in the middle—I’m not exaggerating— of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s mounds of ashes in ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Another 45 minutes later, after riding on a school bus that I was convinced was going down at any minute, I arrived at the front gate of the golf club. (And friends of mine wonder why I obsess about parking).

I wasn’t the only person to have this sort of experience. Several bus drivers en route from the media hotel (which was at Newark Airport) got completely lost too. One was halfway to Pennsylvania before someone started screaming at him. The great Bob Verdi arrived one day and promptly told then-USGA Executive Director David B. Fay, “I don’t want to say we were lost for a long time but I need to shave again.”

So here we are in New Jersey 18 years later for the first round of the “PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup.” If you have nothing better to do the next few days, count the number of times my Golf Channel colleagues and my CBS non-colleagues use this phrase. I’d say the over-under for the four days might approach 100.

Plainfield Country Club is the site this year and I was able to find the place with relatively few glitches by paying close attention to road changes and by staying very patient with the cop who was trying to tell me the road leading to the clubhouse entrance was closed even though I had a parking pass for the clubhouse. (No ashes for me again, thank-you very much).

The players seem to like the golf course although it has a lot of blind shots and a lot of side hill lies. I’m sure Ian Baker-Finch will think it is magnificent.

I spent some time with my buddy Paul Goydos while he was on the range this afternoon. He asked me if I’d heard his line about Atlanta Athletic Club—I didn’t make it to The PGA so I hadn’t.

“Only golf course I’ve ever played with a three-shot par four and a drivable par-three.”

If you play golf you know how funny that line is. Goydos is always funny.

Joe Ogilvie is also funny. After the earthquake yesterday he tweeted that if an earthquake would push those on the left in Washington and those on the right in Washington closer to the center then he was in favor of earthquakes.

I was in my car when the earthquake hit. The car started to shudder and I thought something was wrong with one of my tires. It stopped and I drove on. A little while later I got in the car to drive up here and started to go through my call list, which I routinely do when I have a long trip. Except I couldn’t make any calls.

I finally got a call through to Matt Rennie, the deputy sports editor at The Washington Post.

“Jesus,” I said. “Something’s wrong with my phone, you’re the first person I’ve been able to get through to in half an hour.”

“Well an earthquake will do that,” he said.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“We just had an earthquake you idiot! You didn’t notice?”

That was when I remembered the car shuddering.

I was instantly reminded of the other time I was in an earthquake. It was not San Francisco 1989 but San Diego—also during The World Series—in 1984. I was in my hotel room getting ready to take a shower when the room began to shake. Unlike yesterday there was absolutely no doubt about what was happening.

It stopped and the phone rang. It was Tony Kornheiser, who was also in the hotel.

“Did you feel that?” he said.

“Yeah I did,” I answered. “I’m guessing it was an earthquake.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“You’re going to take a shower in the middle of an EARTHQUAKE?”

“Look, either there will be an aftershock and the building will come down or there won’t be and I need to shower before the game.”

“But there was an earthquake! I’m going down to the front desk.”

“Fine. I’m sure the building won’t collapse down there.”

For years Tony told the story about me getting in the shower in the middle of an earthquake.

Yesterday, shortly after I arrived here and checked into my hotel, Tony called.

“Did you feel the earthquake?” he said.

“Yeah, I did. I was in my car but I didn’t know what it was at the time.”

I told him the story about Rennie.

“So what are you doing right now?” he asked.

I told him the truth. “I’m about to take a shower.”

“I should have known.”

Time now to venture out again on the roads of New Jersey. I should be safe—at least until the hurricane hits. I hope we'll have hot water.

Washington Post column: Fixing college sports requires less talk, more action

2011-08-18T15:16:00.001-04:00

Here is today's The Washington Post column on college sports. ---------

When Mark Emmert was named NCAA president in April 2010, the natural question to ask was this: Who will he choose to emulate in his new role?

We now know the answer. He is Don Vito Corleone.

Earlier this month, Emmert called for a meeting of the five families — also known as the 50 university presidents — to discuss the seemingly out-of-control cheating going on in college football. With both schools from last season’s championship football game (Auburn and Oregon) joining Ohio State, USC and North Carolina in running afoul of NCAA rules, it was time to put an end to this war.

One can almost see Emmert standing in the middle of a long table surrounded by the presidents with all their various functionaries sitting behind them.

“How did it all come to this?” Don Emmert undoubtedly asked. “We are all reasonable men (and a handful of women). It is time for us to make the peace.”

The upshot of the meeting was that the presidents were all shocked — shocked — to learn there was cheating going on, even as they were being presented with their winnings as they left. They also said academic standards needed to be tightened. Novel idea.

Then they went back to raiding each other’s conferences, all in pursuit of extra TV dollars.

Just to review in case you weren’t paying attention: Nebraska is now in the Big Ten, which has 12 teams. The Big 12 has 10 teams. Colorado and Utah are in the Pac-10, which at least had the decency to rename itself the Pac-12. Brigham Young is an independent.

Wait, there’s more: Texas A&M wants out of the Big 12 to join the SEC. The SEC says no thanks — for now. The SEC might recruit Florida State, Clemson and Missouri. Or it might not. If the ACC were to lose Florida State and Clemson, it would try to raid the Big East again — because that worked out so well last time.

Click here for the rest of the column: Fixing college sports requires less talk, more action

'Hard-working' isn't reason enough for some umpires to stay in the Majors

2011-08-18T14:42:00.001-04:00

For the first time in a while I had the chance to collapse in front of the TV last night with the remote in my hand and flip from one baseball game to another. I have to admit in some ways I miss the old days when I would sit down and watch ONE game—usually keeping score—from start to finish.

Now, I’m addicted to the remote. Sometimes I will change the channel between pitches much less between innings.

As luck would have it, I hit on the Yankees and Royals at precisely the moment that Billy Butler hit his ‘home run,’ in the bottom of the fourth inning to give the Royals a 4-2 lead. Except for this: It wasn’t a home run. The ball clearly hit the padding just in front of the fence that is the home run line in left field in Kauffman Stadium.

It wasn’t an easy call. You couldn’t blame umpire Dan DeMuth for missing it as he ran out in the direction of the fence to judge where the ball landed.

Thank goodness for replay.

While the umpires went into their room to watch the replay the Royals network showed the replay from several different angles. There wasn’t any doubt the ball had hit the padding just short of the fence. As they watched the replay from several angles, Royals announcers Ryan Lefebvre and Frank White said the ball was clearly not a home run.

“Billy’s going to have to put his helmet back on and go out to second base,” Lefebvre said at one point.

When replay first came in a couple of years ago one of the concerns was that it would slow games down—they’re already slow enough—the way replay now brings football games to a complete halt. Commissioner Bud Selig insisted that wouldn’t be a problem and estimated most replays wouldn’t delay the game for more than two minutes.

This one should have taken perhaps half that time.

It took more than five minutes. After a while Lefebvre and White began to wonder what was going on.

“Maybe they’re taking the time to get a cold drink,” Lefebvre said. “So Frank, what’d you have for dinner?”

Finally, the umpires came out and DeMuth—the crew chief—signaled home run, which sent Yankees manager Joe Girardi into an understandable tizzy. He argued. His bench argued. His bench was warned to keep quiet. After all, even if the call was wrong it was, well, um, a call.

I bring all this up not because I care who won the game; I truly don’t, although I’ve had a warm spot in my heart for the Royals since I covered their 1985 World Championship team which included White—a truly wonderful guy. I don’t bring it up because I think DeMuth’s a bad umpire although I’m baffled at how he could look at replay and not change his call.

I bring it up because it seems like very few nights go by when some umpire in some game doesn’t badly blow a call. I’m not talking about missing a high strike or even not seeing a ball barely short-hop an outfielder. People miss those calls because they’re human.

I’m talking screwing up ball and strike counts. I’m talking about Jerry Meals horribly missed call at home plate in the 19th inning of a Braves-Pirates game last month. I’m talking Phil Cuzzi being out of position and missing calls more often than I go back for seconds.

Meals, to his credit, apologized just as Jim Joyce did last year when he cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game with a blown call at first base that should have ended the game. Meals is a solid umpire and Joyce is a very good one. They aren’t the problem.

Here’s the problem: there are too many umpires like Cuzzi and Tony Randazzo and C.B. Bucknor and Angel Hernandez—those are my big four; I’m sure other people have others guys on their list—who simply aren’t good at what they do. You might throw Bob Davidson on that list because he’s so obsessed with calling balks he misses half the other calls he asked to make in a given night. Joe West’s temperament is less-than-great but he’s a competent umpire.

On most jobs if you aren’t doing it well you get fired. Supreme Court justices—sadly—don’t get fired. Neither do Major League Umpires. Basically, unless you break the law, you’ve got the job for life once you are vested as a big leaguer. Everyone in baseball knows who the bad umpires—the really bad ones—are but no one does anything about it.

Four years ago when I was working on my book, “Living on the Black,” with Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine, Mussina went nuts during a game in Tampa over C.B. Bucknor’s strike zone. Mussina had a reputation among umpires as one of the easiest pitcher in the game to work with (so did Glavine) because he almost never complained.

“I worked games with him for, I think, 13 years and if he walked up behind me and started talking I wouldn’t know who it was,” Rich Garcia, a long-time umpire told me one day. “I don’t think I ever heard him talk. He never complained.”

Garcia, you may remember, was the umpire who blew the Derek Jeter-Jeffrey Maier call in the 1996 playoffs and then came in after seeing a replay and told the media, “I blew it.”

After the game in Tampa I asked Mussina why he’d gotten so angry. He patiently explained that when an umpire consistently misses pitches, especially when you’re older, you become convinced those extra pitches you have to throw will come back and get you sooner or later.

“A lot of guys think C.B. Bucknor should be a Double-A umpire,” I said.

“That,” Mussina said, “would be an insult to Double-A umpires.”

Mussina is now retired; Bucknor is still in the Major Leagues.

I don’t want to pick on any one individual. I’m sure these guys are nice men who work hard at their job. But that’s not enough—not in any job. You need to do the job WELL. Angel Hernandez has had an attitude problem since he first got to the big leagues and still does.

MLB keeps changing the way it administers umpires. The latest guy in charge is Joe Torre, who knows something about the game. But if he doesn’t have the authority to tell umpires they aren’t doing the job; to put them on notice that they might be sent to Triple-A (the same way a player not performing might be sent to Triple-A) if they don’t improve, then all the knowledge in the world doesn’t help.

On Thursday, Torre said that DeMuth had missed the call. He said the problem wasn’t with the angles he saw on replay but with the fact that he DIDN’T KNOW THE GROUND RULE ON WHAT WAS A HOME RUN!

Seriously. The ballpark was re-designed in 2009 so the rule has been there for three years. The umpires go over the ground rules prior to the first game of every series. Was DeMuth getting a cold drink while this conversation took place?

What’s more, DeMuth took the coward’s way out, refusing to talk to reporters after the game. And yet Torre talked about how hard DeMuth works and the fact that he’s a good umpire.

Great. How about a five game suspension without pay for not knowing the ground rules? While you’re at it, you might throw in the rest of the crew. Didn’t SOMEONE know the ground rules? Apparently not. Inexcusable. And yet, no one will be punished and tonight or tomorrow another ‘hard-working,’ umpire will badly botch another call.

Good players make bad plays; we all know that. But if a player makes enough bad plays or fails to perform he’s not going to have a job in The Major Leagues anymore.

No one is saying Jim Joyce should be umpiring anywhere but in the big leagues and he’s a proven class act.

But right now Armando Galarraga is pitching in Reno. That happens to players. It doesn’t happen to umpires.

It should.

This week's radio segments (The Mike Wise Show, The Gas Man)

2011-08-18T13:45:00.000-04:00

Here is the link to last week's radio segments, including the new continuing appearance on The Mike Wise Show. Click the permalink below, then the link to the audio links, for the newest available interviews.

Wednesday I joined The Mike Wise Show in my weekly spot, and this week we spent most of the time focused on the situation down at Miami. In it, I suggest my ideas for what direction the NCAA and it's leadership direction should go. After the scandal discussion, we moved onto golf and the Steve Williams saga.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Mike Wise Show

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I joined The Gas Man, out of Seattle, for my weekly spot at 5:35 PT. Click below for the audio of this week's segment. This week we started out discussing Tiger Woods and his continuing struggles, including insight from two weeks ago in Akron and where his next tournament may be (Europe?). As expected we transitioned into talk about the scandals in college sports, and specifically what can and will happen to the programs involved.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Steve Williams taking the low road; Odds and ends

2011-08-10T14:38:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago in a column for Golfchannel.com I suggested that the title of the book Steve Williams was proposing to write should be, “Somebody Had to Carry the Bag.” I have now revised the title. The book should be called, “The Low Road ALWAYS Taken.”

Let’s give old Stevie some credit. He did the impossible: Turned Tiger Woods into a semi-sympathetic figure for at least a couple of days. Some people have said he should have turned down CBS’s request for a post-round interview after his new man, Adam Scott, cruised to an impressive four-stroke victory at The WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

I had no problem with CBS asking to talk to him or in Williams talking. He was clearly part of the story: His split with Woods had been much talked about (mostly by Williams) since it happened and the fact that his new player won in the first week he was officially his full time caddie while Woods was struggling along to a 37th place finish in his first week back since May, was clearly a story.

Now, I’ve been around Williams enough to know he’s not stupid. Obnoxious, yes. Arrogant beyond belief, yes. Rude…You get the picture. But stupid? No. And he’s talked to the media enough in recent years that the notion that he was overwhelmed by it all doesn’t play. He said what he wanted to say; what he had planned to say. Let’s remember he repeated the whole thing a few minutes later behind the green talking to the rest of the media.

His message was clear: F--- you Tiger. Look, everyone gets upset about being fired and you can certainly make the case that Woods had no actual cause to fire Williams. He’s clearly a very good caddie and if Woods was going to fire him it should have been years ago when he was breaking cameras and screaming profanities at fans and publicly abusing Phil Mickelson.

He didn’t. This was a change made for change sake because Woods is struggling and perhaps because the relationship between the two men had cooled since Woods’ fall from grace almost two years ago. Williams had a right to feel wronged….Except for this: Caddies are like baseball managers. Ninety-nine percent of the time they are hired to be fired. Bruce Edwards with Tom Watson was an exception and so is Jim Mackay with Mickelson. There are a few others, but not many.

Williams knows that. He also knows that working for Woods made him rich beyond his wildest dreams even if the ending was graceless—whether it happened in person as Woods claims or by phone as Williams claims. When David Feherty practically fell on top of himself trying to ask a question in a way that would set Williams up to say something nice about Woods while taking his own post-victory bow, Williams wanted no part of it.

He talked about this being the greatest win of his career and the greatest week of his career. The 13 majors with Woods never happened. Then he went into a long diatribe about what a great front-runner HE was. My God, how many shots exactly did he hit on Sunday? Was Scott even there?

As Jim Nantz said when it was over, “wow.” Exactly—wow. In a moment of triumph, Steve Williams left no doubt about just who he is for millions to witness.

Oh, one more note on Stevie’s week. On Wednesday he was told by a PGA Tour official that he would need to abandon his habit of yanking off his caddie bib on the 18th green. He’d been doing it for years to show off the corporate logo he’s paid to wear by an oil company. Because The Tour didn’t want to mess with Tiger, he was allowed to do it in spite of complaints from sponsors—who want THEIR logo on TV in return for the $8 million they pony up annually—and from other caddies who had to follow the rule that says the bibs stay on until you are in the scoring area.

Gracious as ever, Stevie growled something about the fact that, “the sponsors have never done anything for ME.” Really? Does he think the huge purses that he got a cut of from all of Tiger’s winnings the last 12 years came from the heavens or from those sponsors? When that was pointed out to him, he whined about how uncomfortable the bibs were. Only then did he agree to keep his on—because if he didn’t, his new boss would get fined and that probably wasn’t the best way to start a new job.

I reported this on Golf Channel on both Thursday and Friday. Apparently Nick Faldo, who WORKS for Golf Channel some of the time doesn’t watch the network very much and neither do his researchers at CBS because when Faldo saw Stevie still wearing the bib on Sunday afternoon he said, “Well, it used to be Steve’s tradition to take off his bib on the 18th green. Maybe he’s starting a new tradition.”

Yeah, that’s it, he’s starting a new tradition.

******

Some odds and ends on different subjects:

Jose Reyes must really be hurt this time. Usually the Mets announce that he is ‘day-to-day,’ when he gets hurt and then put him on the DL two weeks later. This time he went straight to the DL. All kidding aside: Terry Collins deserves some manager-of-the-year consideration given the way he has held this team together with David Wright and Reyes and now Daniel Murphy (who was having an excellent year) hurt for long stretches; the trades of Francisco Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran and Johan Santana not throwing a single pitch…

Gordon Gee of Ohio State is one of the 50 NCAA Presidents invited to the ‘summit,’ on big-time college athletics called by the NCAA. Isn’t that a little bit like asking Gee’s former coach Jim Tressel to chair a committee on transparency when dealing with a difficult situation?...

Someone asked recently why more of my books aren’t on tape. Good question: All my kids books are available on tape in their entirety. I am blessed to work with great people at Knopf. The non-fiction books, especially the more recent ones, are hit and miss largely because the people I’ve dealt with at Hachette Audio seem to be more interested in saving a few dollars on production costs than in putting out a quality product. To be honest, I stopped dealing with them about six books ago because it wasn’t worth the effort…

Finally: A belated Happy Birthday to my pal Jackson Diehl, who is the Deputy Editor of The Washington Post’s editorial page. Even though we last agreed political in, I think, 1979, we’ve been friends forever, dating to our days working in The Post’s Prince George’s County bureau in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Most important, Jackson is aging up and I fully expect to see him swim the 200 fly at next spring’s short course nationals…

News from Akron: Tiger (gasp) and McIlroy make news; Last nail in the coffin for the Islanders?

2011-08-04T11:24:00.000-04:00

Where to begin this morning. Actually the answer is easy: in Akron where Tiger Woods’ return to the PGA Tour is being treated (naturally) as slightly more important than the government not shutting down earlier this week.

Which is fine. While 99 percent of my colleagues will be chronicling Tiger’s every practice swing, deep breath and glance at his new caddie this afternoon, I’m going to walk for a while with Rickie Fowler and Matteo Manassero. I haven’t seen much of Fowler this year and I have never seen Manassero in person—something I’d really like to do. Plus, there should be plenty of room to walk around the golf course since they tee off 30 minutes prior to Tiger and Darren Clarke.

The big news yesterday—when Woods hit balls and practiced but didn’t speak to the media since he had done so on Tuesday—was that he was spotted with a Scotty Cameron putter in his bag. There was a great deal of analysis in the media center about what that meant or might mean when he gets out on the golf course.

As I listened to the discourse I was reminded of something Nick Faldo said years ago after he’d struggled on the greens during a PGA Championship:

“Nick, was the putter your biggest problem?” someone asked.

“The problem,” Faldo answered, “was the puttee.”

Exactly. If Tiger Woods is putting like Tiger Woods he could be using my old bent-shaft two-way (I putt lefty) putter and he’d make everything. If he’s not confident on the greens it doesn’t matter if he’s got a Scotty Cameron putter or a Scottie Pippen putter. It isn’t going to matter.

I actually wrote a column on Golfchannel.com yesterday (click here for the article) kind of mocking the media for their Tiger-obsession. I understand how important he is and, as I’ve said before, I’ve never seen anyone play golf the way he has played golf for very long stretches in the past. That’s said with all due respect to Jack Nicklaus.

But on a day when Woods hit balls for an hour and played nine practice holes, the announcement that Rory McIlroy has decided to come back to The PGA Tour next year was far more important than standing on the range trying to guess Tiger’s weight—which some guys were, quite literally, doing.

McIlroy’s decision to pass up a few appearance fees in Europe—he’s going to make so much as a U.S. Open champion when he does play there it really doesn’t matter—to come and play in the U.S. is a big deal. He likes the golf courses here and he likes the weather here. And, as his dad Gerry, who is traveling with him this week pointed out, there’s a tendency for people to assume a kid from Northern Ireland grew up playing links golf. Rory didn’t. Holywood Golf Club isn’t a links and McIlroy has always been a high-ball hitter. (That said I still think he’ll win a British Open and next year’s site, Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s might be his favorite British Open venue).

It’s simply impossible not to like McIlroy. On Tuesday night when I got here, I walked across the street from my hotel to grab a quick dinner at the fabulous TGI-Friday’s. Who was sitting two seats down from me at the bar? The McIlroy’s. Rory posed for photos with anyone who asked, chatted with people who came up to tell him exactly where they were when he holed out during the second round at Congressional and got out of his chair so he could lean down and chat with the little kids who wanted his autograph.

If anyone can be a 22-year-old multi-millionaire and come close to being normal, McIlroy is the guy. I know he’s been criticized for his comments about the weather at The British Open. The British media acted as if he had suggested the monarchy be abandoned.

He doesn’t like cold and rainy weather. Seriously, tell me golfers who do like cold and rainy weather? Tom Watson. That’s about the list. The notion that because he grew up in Northern Ireland so he should like bad weather is silly. I grew up in New York City. That doesn’t mean I like traffic.

Then last week he got into a twitter-exchange with Jay Townsend, who does European Tour golf for Golf Channel. Townsend was critical of McIlroy’s course-management and took some shots at his caddie along the way. McIlroy ripped him on twitter—probably going too far by calling Townsend a “failed golfer.” That’s not germane to the argument. You don’t have to be a U.S. Open champion to recognize poor course management. On the other hand, Townsend also went too far when he said he expected that sort of course management from a 10-year-old.

Okay fellas, break it up. McIlroy got a little nuts because he thought Townsend was ripping his caddie. If that’s his worst sin this year then he’s had a really good year.

What was interesting about yesterday’s column were some of the responses from Golfchannel.com readers. A couple of people wondered if I was trying to make nice with Tiger because I’m hoping he’ll start talking to me. Seriously? Others said I was still angry because he doesn’t talk to me. Again: Seriously? Folks, honestly, I don’t expect Tiger Woods to talk to me and, even if he did (ha!) what would he tell me? That he and Steiny had a really good dinner last night?

So we’ll see how Woods plays today. If he’s in the hunt the networks might break in with live coverage tomorrow. Forget the stock market being down a million points.

******

The most important news of the week as far as I’m concerned took place on Monday when voters in Nassau County voted overwhelmingly against funding a new arena for my beloved New York Islanders. The vote may have been the last nail in the coffin for the Islanders because I know NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will shed few tears if the team moves to Quebec or Kansas City or even Las Vegas (!!) when the current lease in The Nassau Coliseum is up in 2015.

This is a classic chicken-and-egg deal: Owner Charles Wang says he doesn’t want to sink big money into his payroll until and unless he has the guarantee of a new arena. The fans, who have watched bad hockey for close to 20 years now—the Islanders last won a playoff series in 1993—just don’t find the Islanders compelling enough to commit public funds to them at a time when the economy is what it is.

There’s no question the team needs a new building. I’ve got lots of fond memories of The Coliseum but it is ridiculously outdated and trying to convince any top-line free agent to come and play there is just about impossible even if Wang was willing to open his wallet.

Garth Snow has actually done a nice job as general manager making deals—like the signing of Michael Grabner last fall—without a lot of flexibility. But no one is going to get all that excited if the Islanders are in contention for the 8th playoff spot next spring. Last year they were eliminated from playoff contention by Thanksgiving.

I’m biased. I don’t want to see the Islanders leave. But unless some private investor comes along and makes a deal with Wang to help him come up with the funds to get a new building built the Islanders are likely to go the way of the Atlanta Flames (who they came into the league with 39 years ago) and the Atlanta Thrashers.

Where in the world are Billy Smith, Brian Trottier, Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin and my favorite Islander, Bob Bourne when you really need them? Sigh.

Newest radio segments (The Gas Man, The Sports Junkies)

2011-08-02T14:27:00.005-04:00

Here is the link to last week's radio segments, including the new continuing appearance on The Sports Junkies. Click the permalink below, then the link to the audio links, for the newest available interviews.

I joined The Gas Man, out of Seattle, for my weekly spot at 5:35 PT. Click below for the audio of this week's segment. We spend the majority of our time this week discussing the NFL and the end of the lockout, including its comparison to other strikes/lockouts in sports, before finishing off discussing Tiger Woods and Steve Williams. Also, I was able to sprinkle in some favorite jokes by my mother.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

---------

I also joined The Sports Junkies in my new normal timeslot, Friday's at 7:25am. This week we spent much of the time discussing Tiger Woods and the outlook for him with his comeback at the Bridgestone Invitational. We followed the Tiger talk with looking at the NFL and whether missed OTA's are going to make a difference, and finished off talking about whether Bill Bilichick is the new version of the Oakland Raiders.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Junkies

The NFL is back from nowhere

2011-07-27T15:12:00.000-04:00

Hey, did you hear, the NFL lockout is over. Hallelujah, football is back! Now, instead of meaningless updates every 10 minutes on the lockout we can get almost as many meaningless updates on player signings. Someone at ESPN must be en route to Brett Favre’s farm as we speak.

My question is this: Where has it been? Were any games missed? Did anyone lose any money—or, in fact did the teams save money by not holding those fabulous OTA’s we’ve all come to know and love?

Here’s the real question: Did any of you out there REALLY think a deal wouldn’t get done before people starting to actually lose money?

Of course not. The NFL isn’t like The National Hockey League where losing an entire season probably saved the owners money or even like the basketball where losing half-a-season would be, at worst, a break-even proposition for many NBA owners. The NFL is unique in American sports because EVERYONE is getting rich.

Understand this: The lockout occurred not because the owners were losing money or even because they weren’t making money. It occurred because they decided they weren’t making ENOUGH money. They wanted to make MORE money. So, they opted out of their contract and, as soon as The Super Bowl was over and all the checks for last season from the TV networks had cleared, they locked the players out.

There is a tendency when these so-called ‘work-stoppages,’—or in this case a non-work-stoppage—occur for a lot of fans to moan about greedy, millionaire players. For some reason, at least in the past, no one every blames the greedy, billionaire owners. Many people don’t even understand the difference between a lockout and a strike.

Some of the time the blame should be split 50-50. Other times it might be 75-25. In the case of this lockout it was 100-0, the owners having the 100. The good news is, for perhaps the first time in history, a lot of people understood that was the case. Here’s the simplest way to explain this lockout: If the owners had walked into a meeting room at any point and said, ‘look, we’ll just keep the financial terms that were in the last deal in place,’ there never would have been a problem. The players would have said, ‘done,’ and then they would have figured out all the details. It might have taken a little while to work out the rookie salary cap and things like paying retired players and drug-testing rules and new guidelines on practice time and time in pads—but that’s all stuff that you just go into a room and hammer out.

The holdup issue—as it always is—was the money. The owners wanted more and they wanted to give the players less. In a major upset, the players weren’t thrilled with that idea.

Here’s another thing you should understand: If Judge David Doty hadn’t ruled early on that the owners could NOT collect their TV money (through insurance) if there was no season, this might have dragged on for a lot longer. Only when it occurred to the owners that they were going to start losing real money did a deal get done—just in time to open training camps and play those god-awful exhibition games.

The players wanted a deal too. In fact, you can make the case that they NEEDED a deal more than the owners. More athletes than you can imagine live from check-to-check and there is only a small window during which football players can make big money. Like the owners though, they make their money during the season—not during the offseason. Missing a bunch of OTA’s was hardly a big deal.

Which is why it was entirely predictable from day one of this whole thing that it was going to end the way it did and, more important, end WHEN it did.

What’s funny now is to hear all the speculation about how the missed offseason will affect the season. The so-called experts on TV and sportstalk radio are going on about how teams with new coaches have no chance this season because they couldn’t put in their offensive and defensive schemes and because of the loss of ‘reps.’

Oh please. Do you know why the teams with new coaches will be bad this season? Because they were bad last season. That’s why they have new coaches. Bill Belichick had all the offseason OTA’s you could possibly want prior to his first season in New England. The Patriots went 5-11. Then, after two drafts, after finding Tom Brady in the sixth round, after making a few smart free agent signings, the Patriots became world-beaters. Trust me it wasn’t the OTA’s that made the difference.

You know how long it takes for players to learn schemes? (Another of my favorite football terms). About two days. Why do you think rookies who hold out show up in camp on Wednesday and play that weekend? Reps? Sure, they help but what helps more is, you know, talent. I heard one guy going on about how the Carolina Panthers were now going to have to play Jimmy Clausen at quarterback all season because Cam Newton didn’t have a chance to learn the offense during the lockout. Write this down: Unless Clausen has improved about 1,000 percent since last season Newton will start as soon as game three, no later than game five.

And if the Panthers go 1-15 so what? Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman were1-15 as rookie starters (with OTA’s or, as they were called back then, ‘mini-camps,’) and their careers turned out okay. Kyle Boller was 5-4 as a rookie starter when he got hurt in 2003. He was 9-7 a year later. Last I looked he isn’t going to the Hall of Fame anytime soon.

The point is this: Football coaches—and everyone else around them—really want you to believe this is rocket science. Do you know why OTA’s exist? For the reps? No. They exist to market teams during the offseason. “Hey, we were awful last season but you should see how we’re looking in OTA’s! Our quarterback is really establishing a rapport with his receivers! Renew your season tickets RIGHT NOW!”

The media falls for this the same way almost everyone fell for Tiger Woods, wife, kids and a dog act for years (there’s a nice Tiger shot for you Tiger lovers out there). I remember when Joe Gibbs came back to the Redskins in 2004 and one local columnist on the first day of mini-camp wrote about the fact that the first PLAY in mini-camp scrimmage was absolute proof of why Gibbs would take the Redskins back to the Super Bowl.

Seriously.

You know who got hurt by the lack of an off-season? The undrafted free agents who didn’t get a chance to show teams they could play in OTA’s or rookie mini-camps. Now they’ll only have a few days in training camp to make an impression.

The fans didn’t get hurt because they didn’t miss anything that mattered. In fact, they would have been better off if this had gone on another couple weeks so that season ticket holders wouldn’t have been forced to pay extra for exhibition football.

Now that training camps are opening and free agents are being signed there will be complete football-mania again. I just heard a local radio announcer here breathlessly report that the Redskins have signed the immortal Kellen Clemens.

Spare me. I’m going to watch baseball tonight. I’ll check back in on September 8th.

Tiger Woods and the leveraging of ‘access’; Blog comment helps change upcoming book title

2011-07-20T12:11:00.001-04:00

It was 42 years ago today that man landed on the moon. I am—for both better and worse—old enough to remember the day vividly. I remember Walter Cronkite wiping his brow and saying, ‘man on the moon,’ in disbelief and I remember my father saying we would tell our children and grandchildren about this someday. I’ve told my kids about it on a number of occasions. They look at me and say something like, ‘okay fine, can you leave us alone now so we can go back online.’

C’est la vie.

Of course three months after Neill Armstrong took those historic first steps, the Mets won the World Series. Now THAT was impressive. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee—they are all historic figures to me.

Where have you gone Rod Gasper, I turn my lonely eyes to you.

Okay, so that was a bunch of meaningless drivel to start the day but the moon landing and the Mets first World Series title (of two as all Mets fans know) remain seminal events in my life.

So was covering my first British Open—which was at Royal St. George’s in 1985. Look, no one is ever going to mistake the place for St. Andrews or Muirfield but if you didn’t enjoy Darren Clarke’s victory on Sunday then you probably shouldn’t be wasting your time watching golf.

If you’re reading this you no doubt know Clarke’s backstory and the genuine tragedy he’s dealt with. Plus, he’s just a decent guy, someone who is about as close to normal as the multi-millionaires who play the game at its highest levels can be. I know all the Tiger lovers don’t want to hear this but I think golf is heading into an era that will truly be fun.

You can love Tiger Woods as much as you want or you can be like me and not like him but recognize his brilliance. Either way, it is impossible to attach the word fun to his 15 years of dominance. Yes, you can say it was FUN to watch him pull off impossible shots but there certainly wasn’t any fun in the man. He loved to win, he loved to make money but the only thing that was fun to him was winning trophies and cashing checks. It was part of his greatness.

The newer stars aren’t going to be as good as Woods was at his best. Not even close. There’s only one player in history who belongs in the same sentence with Woods and that’s Jack Nicklaus.

That said, Woods held his sport hostage—and to some degree still does—for 15 years. It wasn’t that he won so much it was that everything had to be HIS way. Remember those bogus night matches he played in as part of his Disney contract a few years ago? Technically, those events were run by The PGA Tour. When Steve Williams showed up wearing shorts one year—this was before caddies were allowed to wear shorts on tour—a tour official told Woods that Williams had to put on long pants.

Woods told him in no uncertain terms that not only would Williams wear shorts but if Tim Finchem didn’t like it he might just go play in Europe the following year.

Forget the fact that the Tour should have allowed caddies to wear shorts years ago—heck, they should let players wear shorts if they want to—or that Woods was right to stand up for his caddie in that situation. The point is this: The instant Woods threatened to go to Europe, even in a brief moment of anger, the Tour backed down faster than I can eat an order of McDonald’s french fries.

Woods bullied the media constantly. Some TV announcers were allowed to interview him, others were not. At different times he boycotted Peter Kostis and Jimmy Roberts. Their networks dutifully sent someone else to talk to Woods. People were constantly telling me that they let Woods dictate terms of interviews or backed off when his people got angry about something because, ‘we don’t want to lose our access to him.’

WHAT ACCESS? To get him to stop long enough to say nothing? Seriously, think about this for a second: When was the last time Tiger Woods said something that was really interesting. I’m not talking about announcing he’s playing or not playing a tournament or admitting he cheated on his wife—which everyone knew by the time he talked about it anyway. I’m talking about saying something that gave you some insight into him, into his game, into his view of the world.

Never happened. Not because he wasn’t capable, he’s more than capable but because Tiger Woods never gives away anything. That’s the way his father taught him and he learned his lessons well.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be another anti-Tiger diatribe. I’m really criticizing all the people who simply took it from him—including Finchem—all those years. That said, in a sense they had no choice. He was that good and that powerful.

And, for the record, for those of you who think I criticize Woods because he wouldn’t talk to me for a book or one-on-one at some point, I swear to God that has nothing to do with it. I just don’t like the way he treats people. And, for the record, the ONE time I asked him to sit down and talk one-on-one he said yes. If you want details, well, read my next book. (Hey, I feel like an ESPN guy now: “After the break, we’ll tell you the real reason Tiger Woods and John Feinstein don’t get along.” Only problem is there is no real reason but the story about the one-on-one is kind of interesting).

A few other notes today on random topics. First—foremost—THANK YOU to the poster who sarcastically pointed out that the title of my new book was the same as titles used in the past by (among others) Spike Lee and Christine Brennan. Bad title searching on my part because I never knew. I could live with sharing a title with Spike Lee. At least he’s brilliant. Christine Brennan, not so much. So, since there was still time to change the title, it’s been changed. The new title is: “One on One: Behind The Scenes With The Greats of The Game.” There are also a number of non-greats in the book but what the heck. So, thanks for the tip. I was clueless.

To the Golf Channel poster who responded to my tongue-in-cheek column saying that the key to Tiger’s comeback would be hiring Chubby Chandler (some apparently missed the humor) by pointing out that I’m not exactly thin: Ya think? Thanks for pointing it out. As if I don’t look in the mirror every morning and moan out loud. But I HAVE lost six pounds this summer. Only about 25 more to go. Finally swimming regularly again. Not fast, but regularly.

Washington Post Column: Darren Clarke, Japan women illustrate sports’ redemptive powers

2011-07-18T13:50:00.000-04:00

Here is my latest for The Washington Post ------------

At a time when just about every sports event is inflated into the single most important event of our time, the rare moments that truly do matter can easily slip past us.

Sunday was one of those days. Two remarkable events took place within hours of one another, the kind that remind us there is more to sports than selling ad space on caps and shirts and scoreboards.
Darren Clarke is a man who has endured genuine personal tragedy. Japan is a country that has been through one horror after another in recent months and is still reeling from the natural disasters that have rocked it to the core.

There is nothing that can happen to bring back Clarke’s wife Heather, who died from breast cancer five years ago, leaving him to raise their two sons who were seven and five at the time. There is certainly nothing that can wipe away the death and the suffering caused in Japan by the earthquake and the tsunami that ripped through the country earlier this year.

But Sunday gave those touched by those tragedies a moment to smile and to believe that life can be redemptive.

Clarke’s victory in British Open, 10 years after he last seriously contended in a major championship, was uplifting not only to him and his family and Northern Ireland, but to everyone in the game of golf.
Few players in golf are better-liked than Clarke. He has always been outgoing and funny and self-deprecating. He was always considered a major talent. He led the British Open for three rounds in 1997, and three years later, he easily beat Tiger Woods in the World Match Play final. While he won often around the world, he could never quite get to the finish line in a major.

He was, however, a Ryder Cup stalwart for Europe. Six weeks after Heather’s death in 2006, encouraged by friends and family to play, he won all three matches he played for Ian Woosnam’s team. The memory of the entire European team crowding around Clarke while he wept on Woosnam’s shoulder after his singles victory still lingers.

Click here for the rest of the column: Darren Clarke, Japan women illustrate sports’ redemptive powers

Hitting a lot of topics: Jeter, Clarification for the Socceristas, My upcoming book ‘Best Seat in the House’, Navy and other radio changes

2011-07-13T10:14:00.002-04:00

There are a number of topics to cover today so, as my good friends in television would say, let’s get right to it.

Derek Jeter I: Of course he should have gone to the All-Star game. Look, it isn’t worth killing him for making a mistake in judgment. On the other hand, it isn’t worth Commissioner Bud Selig falling on his sword for him either saying, “I would have done the exact same thing.” (If that’s true Commish aren’t you admitting this is just an exhibition game, not a game worthy of deciding World Series home field?)

To review: Jeter gets his 3,000th hit on Saturday in Yankee Stadium in remarkable fashion, going five-for-five in the game and hitting a home run for No. 3,000. Throw in the fact that he also got the game-winning hit and The Legend of Derek became even bigger than it had been in the past. All of a sudden, the .260 batting average seemed not to matter.

On Sunday he announces he isn’t making the trip to Phoenix because he’s emotionally and physically exhausted.

Look, no one doubts the last month hasn’t been difficult. The strain of his struggles at the plate; the injury that delayed getting to 3,000; the pressure of knowing he needed to get it last weekend or he would almost certainly get the magic hit on the road—everyone gets that.

But it would not have been THAT exhausting to get on a private jet on Tuesday morning, take a bow in Phoenix and perhaps play long enough to get one at-bat. Since the game started at 5:30 local time, he could have flown home that night and probably been in bed by 2 a.m. which isn’t a lot later than he probably goes to bed after a night game. Or, he could have flown Wednesday morning and had plenty of rest before the Yankees resume play Thursday.

Again, this is not that big a deal. Jeter hasn’t committed a crime against humanity. But he should have gone. He was voted in by the fans even though, based strictly on this season, he didn’t deserve to start the game. Take a deep breath and make the effort so the fans can cheer you and you can, in affect, say thank-you.

Jeter doesn’t make a lot of PR mistakes but when he does it is usually around The All-Star break. Missing Bob Shepherd’s funeral two years ago was also a mistake. That said, if that’s the worst we can say about him after 15 years in the searing New York spotlight, the guy has done pretty well.

Jeter II: The home run ball. There is no way I’m going to criticize Christian Lopez, the young man who caught the ball Jeter hit into the leftfield stands for hit No. 3,000 for wanting to ‘do the right thing,’ and hand the ball over to Jeter. If he’s a Yankee fan it is a way of saying thank-you to Jeter for all the pleasure he’s given him through the years. Heck, if he’s a baseball fan, same thing applies.

That said, I understand the people who are saying he should have been given 48 hours to decide what to ask for rather than being whisked into Yankee-land where just being in a normally restricted area AND getting to meet Jeter probably overwhelmed him. He may look back sometime next season when he’s no longer sitting in that luxury box and say, ‘what the hell was I thinking?’ My guess is he won’t be hanging with Derek at that point either.

So, what’s the best solution? Easy. Jeter should say, ‘listen Christian I REALLY appreciate the gesture. You are a mensch. (I’ll teach him the meaning of the word). But I want to do something for you and your family so I’m going to take $100,000 of the $17 million I’m being paid this year and establish a college fund for your future kids. If you have no kids, convert it to a retirement fund when the time comes. (That 100K should be worth a lot more in 20 years. At least we hope it will). This way everyone has done the right thing: Jeter’s got the ball, Lopez walks away knowing he did the right thing and so does Jeter. Maybe the Yankees can match Jeter’s 100K and start the fund at 200K.

Make sense?

Onto other things:

Socceristas: I know some of you are upset because I said on Washington Post Live on Monday that I have trouble taking a sport seriously when it decides a championship on penalty kicks.

Sorry, that’s the way I feel.

For the record though let me clear one thing up since my friend Mike Wise in his never-ending quest to create ‘good television,’ (people shouting) kept insisting I was being sexist since the question came up after the U.S. beat Brazil on penalty kicks in the women’s World Cup.

This has nothing to do with whether men or women are playing. I feel the same way, regardless.

You don’t decide Stanley Cup hockey games in shootouts. Regular season, fine, but when the championship is at stake you keep PLAYING HOCKEY. You don’t stop a postseason baseball game—or any baseball game for that matter—after 12 innings and have a Home Run Derby. You don’t have a free throw shooting contest at the end of the second overtime in a basketball game.

The only sport that changes the rules at all is college football when it places the ball on the 25-yard line to begin overtime. I’m not crazy about that either but at least they’re still playing football.

Anyone who has read this blog at all knows I LIKE soccer. I loved my time covering the Diplomats in the old North American Soccer League but I still support Johan Cruyff’s approach to hokey non-soccer endings. When the Diplomats opening game in 1980 ended in a 2-2 draw with The Tampa Bay Rowdies, Cruyff was asked by Diplomats Coach Gordon Bradley to take one of the ‘shootout,’ kicks—the shootout was the NASL’s version of penalty kicks.

“I don’t do shootouts,” Cruyff said walking away.

I’m no Johan Cruyff but I don’t do world championships that can be decided by penalty kicks. I didn’t like it as far back as The World Cup final in Pasadena in 1994 or in the women’s World Cup in 1999—still one of the most bogus endings ever to a major sports even. For Sports Illustrated to name that team the ‘sportswomen of the year,’ when they won the championship game without scoring a GOAL was a joke—and I don’t like it now.

Socceristas like my friend Steve Goff insist this is the only way to do it. Bologne—or some word like it. You do what they do in hockey: You play sudden death overtime after 90 minutes. More often than not someone will score within the 30 minutes allotted for extra time now. If not, play on. If it takes 100 more minutes for someone to score—fine, that’s the nature of the sport. Please don’t tell me it is unfair because the winning team will be tired for the next game. In knockout rounds in a world championship you always have at least two days off and if you can’t recover, well tough, win sooner the next time. That’s part of competition. You can’t on the one hand tell me soccer players are the best-conditioned players on the planet and then on the other say overtime has to be limited lest they get tired. Use your bench. Allow more subbing in overtime. But play SOCCER.

Briefly on the Navy radio flap: I was amazed at all the various emotions my decision seemed to stir up both in posts and e-mails and in long-time friends contacting me. To those who understand why this would bother me so much, thank-you. To the ex-Army and Navy players who are friends from ‘A Civil War,’ I can’t tell you how much your rallying around me right now means to me. To those who say they understand why I’d be upset but I should suck it up and go do the games I think you’re missing a point: I’ve done the games for years because I ENJOY doing them. I haven’t done them because Navy needs me—it certainly doesn’t—or because I owe Navy anything. If I’m going to dread going to the games—whether you think I should dread it or not—I shouldn’t be going. For those who think I’m setting a bad example for the kids at Army and Navy by walking away because of some adversity, perhaps that’s true. To quote Charles Barkley: I’m not a role model—particularly for those young men. And to the one guy who posted that he is glad to be rid of me: good for you. Enjoy the broadcasts. Why you wasted your time reading the blog or posting any thoughts at all is a mystery to me.

Finally some news on a couple of fronts: Several people have asked about my new book. It will be out around Thanksgiving and the title is ‘Best Seat in The House.’ It begins the night I asked Bob Knight about doing what became, ‘A Season on the Brink,’ and proceeds through my experiences in dealing with a lot of the people I’ve worked with since that first book 25 years ago. There is a lot on Knight. I had forgotten until I checked old notes and tapes how many stories about my experiences with him have gone untold. I don’t think he’s going to like this book either. (On another front: Simon and Schuster is bringing out a 25th anniversary edition of ‘Season on the Brink,’ at about the same time.)

Another radio note: As of next week I’m no longer doing my weekly appearances on WTEM—Sportstalk 980 in Washington. The other sports station—or should I say the newer one—106.7 The Fan made me the proverbial offer I couldn’t refuse to move over there. I’ll be on once a week with Mike Wise---looks like Wednesdays at 11:05--and once a week with The Sports Junkies—time and day TBA. I’ll miss Andy and yes, even Steve, but since the new gig may also include doing some hosting down the road, I couldn’t say no. And, after what happened with Tony Kornheiser’s show, it wasn’t that tough a decision.

And finally: My wife and son finally couldn’t take it anymore and they set up a Facebook page for me. We should have a link to it on the blog shortly. Please ‘like,’ me. I think right now I have about 14 ‘likes,’ and my wife says Mike Lupica has something like 12,000. I’d be more embarrassed if I actually knew what a ‘like,’ was.

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

2011-07-10T15:18:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in the normal 5:30 ET time slot. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. This week virtually the entire time was spent on a back and forth discussing Tiger Woods, including his injury status and thoughts on his future.

Click here to listen to the segment (due to a technical glitch, you need to scroll down until July 6, John Feinstein): The Sports Reporters

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I also joined The Gas Man, out of Seattle, for my weekly spot at 5:35 PT. Click below for the audio of this week's segment.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Resigning after 14 years on The Navy radio network

2011-07-06T11:46:00.000-04:00

This is a sad day for me. Yesterday, I resigned after 14 years as color commentator on The Navy radio network. I did it with a lot of regret and with no malice towards anyone at Navy. The people I have worked with there have been terrific to me from the first game I worked until the last.

But I felt I had no choice.

For years now—at least 10, maybe more—I have wanted to do a documentary on the Army-Navy game. Of all the non-fiction books I have written I always believed that two would make great theatrical movies: “A Civil War,” and “Caddy For Life.”

“Caddy,” came very close. It was optioned by Matt Damon’s production company; a very good screenwriter named David Himmelstein was hired and he wrote a terrific script which ABC Entertainment was ready to buy and put into production. Then, in one of the all-time ironic twists, ABC backed out at the last second because it had been counting on getting some funding from ESPN Original Entertainment—since the movie would have been re-aired about 1,000 times on ESPN after debuting on ABC—but ESPN’s movie budget was slashed that year by Disney.

Why? Because the movies they’d been making were so awful. The first movie they made? You got it, ‘A Season on the Brink,’ which may still be listed in Guinness under ‘worst movies ever made.’

‘Caddy For Life,’ did become a documentary, a very good one I think, that aired on Golf Channel last year. I still believe it would make a great theatrical movie—Rob Lowe as Bruce; Gary Sinise as Watson—but chances are it won’t happen.

‘Civil War,’ was a different deal. From the beginning, smart people told me the logistics and the cost would make it very difficult to get done. I was baffled. If people bought into ‘Rudy,’—which was far more fiction than fact—why wouldn’t they buy into a story like this one about real football players who went on, in many cases, to fight in real wars.

“To get it sold to Hollywood, you need a real star,” Ron Shelton told me years ago. “If Leonardo DiCaprio can pull off playing a football player, you’ve got a shot. Otherwise, it isn’t going to get bought by any studio.”

I’d gotten to know Shelton when he was on the golf tour doing research for ‘Tin Cup.’ I respect his work greatly and his knowledge of Hollywood equally. Bill Goldman—who wrote, among other things, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’; ‘All The President’s Men,’; and ‘The Princess Bride,’;--said essentially the same thing to me. “Hell, get DiCaprio to play the water boy and they’ll make the movie,” he said. “But this would be an ensemble cast and you’d need a lot of unknown young actors. That’s a problem.”

Okay, if Ron Shelton and Bill Goldman tell me something is a no-go then the chances are it’s a no-go. To quote Lefty Driesell, I may be dumb but I ain’t stupid.

So, I turned my thoughts to doing a documentary. On this I got a lot more encouragement. I was told again and again that the idea of using my relationships with the two schools to get the kind of access I had while doing, ‘A Civil War,’ would make a terrific documentary. I agreed. It doesn’t matter what year you are talking about—1995 or 2011—there are always great stories among the mids and the cadets. Plus, they are the kind of kids who can tell those stories on and off-camera in rich detail. That was why ‘A Civil War,’ worked as well as it did.

The problem, of course, was finding someone who would put up the money to do it. I had more meetings with more different people and producers than I can begin to count. I thought I was close enough a couple of years ago that I had meetings with both coaches to ensure that I would get the access I was promising people I could get. Both said the same thing: come on ahead.

At one point I sent an e-mail to Sean McManus, the president of CBS Sports, someone I’ve known since college. I worked for Sean and CBS for a couple of years doing essays on three topics: college basketball, golf and Army-Navy. The best ones, without doubt, were the ones I did on Army-Navy. I really enjoyed doing those essays and they were well-received. Then Sean hired a new executive producer and he sent an edict to me through the guy who had been producing my pieces: no more essays: we only want regular features.

That was the end for me with CBS. As I said to Sean, they had plenty of people who could do regular features. The point of hiring me—or so I’d thought—was that I brought something unique to the table. Sean agreed. But he wasn’t going to tell a brand new important hire what to do and not do with someone who wasn’t even on staff. We parted amicably.

Which is why I wrote to him with my idea about Army-Navy. My thought was simple: Since CBS televised the game, the documentary could promote the game and/or vice-versa. I suggested the documentary could run on Showtime, which was always looking for original programming. Sean wrote back a very nice note saying it sounded like a good idea but that Showtime really didn’t do sports—except for some boxing.

I kept looking. I tried HBO—thinking it would be a great 24/7. They liked the idea too but didn’t have money in the budget for 2011 to take on another big project. Maybe next year they said.

Well, it won’t be next year.

Last week I learned that CBS is going to produce a two-hour documentary on the Army-Navy game that will air on Showtime soon after this year’s game is played. They will air a 30-minute special a week before the game on CBS. Gee, that’s a great idea isn’t it? Use the documentary to promote the game and the game to promote the documentary.

There’s no sense going into any more detail but a guy at CBS named Pete Radovich apparently pitched the idea to McManus who gave him the green light. Then he went to Army and Navy (CBS College televises all their home games in addition to Army-Navy on the network, so CBS is important to both schools) and pitched it. My name did apparently come up once as in, “you know John has been trying to do this for years,” and Radovich (surprise) pretty much ignored it.

I have no doubt CBS will do just fine with this. They’ll have the access and they’ll spend the money. They won’t have my anecdotal memory or know some of the stories about past players that I know and I’m SURE they won’t try to claim any of the stories I’ve written or told in the past as their own.

I’m not angry with the people at Army or Navy. This was a business decision. Could they have pushed CBS a little harder to involve me, pointing out that it would benefit the project? Yes. Would that have done any good? I doubt it.

The reason I’m stepping down then isn’t because I’m throwing a hissy fit at being left out. But, as I said in my note to the Navy people, Army-Navy and doing Navy football has never been a job to me, it has been a passion. Doing this documentary would have been a labor of both love and passion and, yes, I believe I would have done it better than anyone else.

So, to be at the games this fall and see CBS there with their cameras following players around; knowing they’re in the locker room with their cameras; encountering people from CBS all the time, is something I simply can’t face. It’s a little bit like dating a girl for 10 years, getting dumped and then being invited to her wedding. I just don’t want to watch it.

I know I’ll miss doing the games a lot. I know my partners Bob Socci and Omar Nelson will do just fine without me and I’ll miss the broadcasts more than the broadcasts will miss me. The carnival moves on—I get that. But I also know myself well enough to know out-of-sight, out-of-mind will be better for me than in-sight and in-mind. The only consolation for me is that I don’t have to go an Army-Navy game in that god-awful stadium owned by that god-awful NFL owner.

Chet Gladchuk, the Navy athletic director and Eric Ruden, who runs the radio network, have been both gracious and understanding and have left the door open should I feel differently at some point.

I don’t think I will. But I’m grateful to them for saying that and for the last 14 years. I truly did love being a very small part of a place I respect so much.

Images and thoughts of Lorenzo Charles

2011-06-30T09:26:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while something happens that shakes you more than you thought it would. I remember when Tom Seaver retired in 1986 feeling old because Seaver had been my boyhood hero and I remembered so vividly his early years with the Mets when I hung on every pitch he threw as if it was the most important moment of my life.

Seaver taught me a lesson early in my career about athletes and how they view what they do and how different it is from how we (fans) view what they do. He was pitching in Cincinnati—that alone was a jolt to my system that I’m not sure I ever completely got over—and the Reds were in Houston. I was also in Houston covering an NBA playoff series between the Rockets and the Kansas City (yes it was a long time ago) Kings.

On an off-night between games 3 and 4 I went to The Astrodome and asked Seaver if he could give me some time to talk. I had successfully pitched the idea of a Seaver feature to my boss who felt the same way about down time on the road as I did: If you’re somewhere and there’s a story to write, go write it.

Seaver agreed on one condition: That I would tell him everything I knew about Janet Cooke, The Washington Post reporter who had made up a story about a 6-year-old heroin addict. The story had won The Pulitzer Prize but the award had been returned by The Post when a series of events led to Cooke admitting she had made up the whole thing.

As it happened, I had been on The Metro staff with Cooke and knew her fairly well so I was happy to tell Seaver what I knew. I was also intrigued that he knew about Cooke. The story had been front-page news but I didn’t know a lot of athletes who actually read the front page.

What he said that I’ve always remembered came during a discussion of the 1969 Miracle Mets. I had gone to 66 Mets games at Shea Stadium that season, paying $1.30 to sit in upper general admission most days and nights. I had sat in front of the TV and watched—always keeping score—most of the other games the Mets had played.

As Seaver and I talked, I kept asking very detailed questions because my memories were so vivid and the whole thing had been SO important to me. Finally, Seaver smiled indulgently at me.

“You need to understand something,” he said. “You remember this the way a fan does and I get that. But as a ballplayer it isn’t the same. Sure, there are some moments that stick out but not all that many. We played, what 170 games that year including postseason. I just don’t remember as much as you do.”

I was stunned. And yet, now, looking back, I realize that a lot of those moments when I was yelling from the upper deck or my parents living room weren’t that big a deal in the grand scheme of 170 games. I remembered September 10th as a seminal day in my life because it was the first time The Mets ever went into first place. Seaver remembered that at some point in September they went into first place. I remember that it was at 9:07 on September 24th that the Mets clinched The National League East (I can still hear Lindsey Nelson yelling the time right after Joe Torre hit in to a double play to end the game). Seaver remembered that a lot of champagne got poured on people’s heads that night.

Because of that conversation and because he had been so important to me as a kid, Seaver’s retirement, which came ironically after he was inactive for the Red Sox during the 1986 World Series, made me feel very old.

Lorenzo Charles’ death on Monday was stunning in a different, yet similar way. Seaver’s retirement reminded me that my boyhood was long gone, especially since it came at almost the exact moment that my first book was published. Charles’s death brings back what are now bittersweet memories of a time when The Final Four was still the best event there was on the sports calendar, especially for a then-young sportswriter.

I probably saw that 1983 North Carolina State team play at least a dozen times. I watched the Wolfpack grind through February without Dereck Whittenburg (who had a broken foot) and listened to Jim Valvano talk about what might-have-been if Whittenburg hadn’t been hurt.

Everyone knows the rest: Whittenburg hobbled back just before the ACC Tournament and State pulled off one miracle after another. They should have lost to Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC Tournament but somehow won in overtime. Seven wins later—even after winning the ACC Tournament they didn’t receive a first round bye and were very fortunate to beat Pepperdine in the first round of the NCAA’s—they found themselves playing Houston for the national championship.

My friend Dave Kindred wrote a column on the morning of that game declaring, “Trees will tap dance and elephants will drive in the Indy 500 before N.C. State beats Houston.”

We all know what happened that night. The trees tap-danced and the elephants grew racing stripes. State hung in the game somehow; Guy Lewis made the critical mistake of deciding to try to run out the clock and Whittenburg fired a last second prayer towards the basket from 35-feet. To this day I remember thinking while the ball was in the air, “no way can they win this in overtime.”

At the very instant that I got to the end of that thought Charles rose, seemingly from out of the floor, caught the ball and dunked it in one motion. Twenty-eight years later the next few minutes remain a blur: Valvano running in circles looking for someone to hug; Cozell McQueen sitting on the rim; the Houston players on their knees in complete shock, most of them crying. Having watched the tape about a million times I can still hear Billy Packer saying, “They did it!” in total disbelief when he realized that Charles had dunked the ball just before the buzzer and State had won the championship.

Of course nowadays if the same play occurred we would have to wait five minutes for the officials to determine that the shot beat the buzzer. Talk about sucking drama from a moment.

What’s interesting, thinking back to that night, is that I can’t remember a single thing Charles said about his dunk. Valvano developed an entire 15-minute bit about the last play that he used when he spoke; Whittenburg insisted for years that his shot was a pass and he and Sidney Lowe and Thurl Bailey are remembered together as the three seniors who were the glue on that team.

Which they were. But it was Charles, just a sophomore at the time, who made them champions.

I only interviewed him one-on-one once. It was during his senior year in 1985 when he was the respected veteran on a very talented team of knuckleheads that included Chris Washburn and Charles Shackleford. All I can remember about our talk is that Charles was quiet but clearly very in tune with his team and his coach. He was like the wise elder who had seen it all.

Which, in a sense, he had.

He played just one year in the NBA and was apparently a co-owner of a bus and limo company when his bus went off the road on I-40 nearly Raleigh on Monday. The first thing that struck me when I saw the news that he had died was his age: 47. Valvano was 47 when he died of cancer in 1993. It was just a bit eerie.

For me, thinking about Lorenzo Charles at 47, driving a bus down a familiar highway and having his life suddenly end is both sad and depressing. My image of him will always be the same: rising above a scramble under a basket one night in Albuquerque and making a play that will always be a part of the basketball pantheon.

He was just a kid back then. In a very real sense so was I. Time passes in this life much too fast.

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

2011-06-23T13:52:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in the Wednesday 5:30 time slot. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. Coming off last week's US Open, we discussed the tournament and playing conditions, the chances the US Open returns to Congressional in the future, and what will become of Tiger during the second half of the season.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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I also joined The Gas Man, out of Seattle, for my weekly spot. We spent much of the time focusing on what Rory McIlroy has done in winning the US Open, and not looking on what he might do in the future.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

McIlroy near perfect, has all the intangibles to be The Next One

2011-06-20T09:54:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning shortly after 6 o’clock, blinked at the clock and thought to myself: ‘What time do I need to be at the golf course?’ Then I realized I didn’t have to be at the golf course at all. The U.S. Open is over. For me, having the event a few miles from my house at Congressional was great, but it also made for a hectic week.

In all though, it was fantastic. If there was one player in the field I wanted to see win it was Rory McIlroy. Here’s a simple fact: he’s a wonderful golfer who has the potential to be a truly elite player—as in winning a half-dozen major championships or perhaps even more—before he’s done. But I honestly think he may be a better person than he is a golfer.

Seriously.

I think everyone who follows golf marveled at the way he handled himself after his Sunday meltdown at The Masters. He answered every question; never snapped at anyone; kept his sense of humor intact and made no attempt to rush off at any point. His behavior was in direct contrast to You-Know-Who.

Look, I don’t want to turn this into a “Rory-is-good-Tiger-is-bad,” deal. But it is impossible not to see the differences between the two. Tiger plays clenched-teeth golf and has played it at a level never seen before in the game. If he doesn’t break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major titles it won’t be because he didn’t have the ability, it will be because he self-destructed.

I think McIlroy is sneaky competitive. He doesn’t clench his teeth and he doesn’t bark at people but the fact that he came back from The Masters disaster to not only win the next major but to absolutely dominate it from start-to-finish says a lot about him as a competitor. A lot of players would have subconsciously held back, not wanting the spotlight again so soon, not wanting to face all the questions about, ‘well what if you blow THIS lead.’ McIlroy embraced it.

If you watch the kid play golf, you have to love his game. He’s got a swing that makes other pros sigh. He’s got a smile that makes young girls sigh. He has about him a star quality that you just don’t see very often. It is no knock on guys like Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen, Martin Kaymer and Charl Schwartzel—all major champions—to say that they are champions and McIlroy is a star—who is now also a champion. It’s just a fact, one that they would probably all agree with.

That’s NOT to say—as some inevitably will because of all the record-breaking numbers he produced—that he is the “next Tiger.” There is no next Tiger. There are only four players in the history of the game who have won double-digit major titles: Nicklaus, Woods, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen.

The likelihood that anyone will join that list anytime soon is slim. Padraig Harrington was way over the top on Saturday when he said that McIlroy could break Nicklaus’s record. The kid, who sounds more like 42 when he talks than 22, just shook his head when he heard that and said, “Oh Paddy, Paddy Paddy….I’d just like to win my first one.”

Exactly right. Now that he’s done that we can all revel in that victory and hope there will be more to come. But let’s not say the Jack or Tiger words yet. As of this moment he’s got ONE major title.

But there’s no doubt he is going to be looked at as The Next One in golf and that’s good because of all the non-golf qualities he brings along with him. He’s smart and he’s funny. The other players don’t just respect him, they like him—really like him.

Last Tuesday, I bumped into him in The Congressional locker room. I hadn’t seen him in Charlotte and I told him right away that I wanted to be the millionth person to tell him how remarkable his post-Augusta behavior had been.

He smiled. “Well, I certainly had plenty of time to think about what I was going to say didn’t I?” he said, laughing since his collapse had been pretty much complete by the 13th hole.

Then he shrugged. “Honestly, I meant it when I said I was disappointed but in the end it was a golf tournament. I would think I’ll get to play in plenty more.”

That’s just a little different from, “second place sucks.”

He had just finished playing so I asked him what he thought of the golf course. “I think,” he said, “that it’s very score-able.”

I guess he had that right. He didn’t so much score as he overwhelmed. Sure, the golf course was soft and there will be some questions if—amazingly—the USGA went TOO far in trying to give the players birdie chances since 20 players finished under par. None were within shouting distance of McIlroy although I will say this: If you don’t take note of Jason Day, who now has two second place finishes in majors this year, you’re missing something.

Day is also very likeable but he plays at a snail’s pace. That’s another thing about McIlroy: he plays FAST. Woods always copied Nicklaus and plays as if he is being paid by the hour. McIlroy is more like Tom Watson: pick a club, check your target, stand up and swing. My dream final twosome in a major would be McIlroy and Rickie Fowler, not just because having the two most like-able kids in golf going head-to-head would be great, but because they might play through the entire field.

Put those two on a golf course with no one in front of them and they’ll play 18 holes in under three hours with time to spare. And both will probably shoot in the 60s.

For now though, Fowler is still about potential. McIlroy is here and we can only hope he is here to stay for a long, long time. My wife, who knows me very well, said to me on Sunday night, “I just know you cried when he hugged his father and said, “Happy Father’s Day.”

Damn right I did. It was one of those sweet, genuine moments—the word genuine is important here—that make sports and the people in them worth caring about. (By the way, am I the only one who thinks Mr. McIlroy looks like a Bill Parcells double?).

Honestly, I’m not sure how the week could have turned out much better than it did. Okay, I do have one complaint: Why couldn’t McIlroy’s six-iron at No. 10 on Sunday have gone in? That would have been one of the most amazing moments ever in major championship golf. He missed by about 10 inches.

So, as it turns out, he's not perfect. But boy does he come close.

The US Open at Congressional; Notes from last week, including The National and the 'cat' incident

2011-06-14T17:14:00.000-04:00

AT THE U.S. OPEN…

A week ago it was so hot in Washington I was dreading the thought of spending a week at Congressional because just walking out the door when it is 100 degrees out is miserable. The thought of walking a hilly golf course in that kind of weather makes me want to become an editor.

Okay, that may be a bit radical but you get the point.

So, the weather thus far has been spectacular---cool, low humidity—everything you could possibly want. Of course by the weekend it will probably be awful again.

Right now though walking around here is a delight and, for once, I actually know my way around, which is a bonus.

Since I’m the local guy for this event, I’ve had more requests for radio and local TV interviews than normal. I bring that up only because it is so easy to tell the difference between those who follow golf regularly and those who don’t: The golf types want to know about the tournament. The non-golf types want to know about Tiger.

C’est la vie.

When I did my regular bit on Washington Post Live on Monday (from the golf course as opposed to the studio) Ivan Carter told me before we went on that his first question was going to be, “Why should I come out there if Tiger’s not there?”

Ivan and I joke about this all the time. I say he isn’t a golf fan because he only cares about Tiger. He insists that he is a golf fan because he likes Tiger.

So, I said, “My answer’s going to be that no one really cares if you come out here or not—they can hold the tournament without Tiger, they can certainly hold it without you.”

Ivan never asked the question.

Here’s my latest theory on Tiger: If he doesn’t play in his tournament in two weeks he won’t play the rest of the year. (It is worth remembering that I’m oh-for-Tiger this year predicting what he’s going to do: I thought for sure he would skip The Players Championship because the event means nothing to him and he’s never liked the golf course. So, he tries to play, shoots 42 for nine holes and withdraws. I thought for sure he would be healthy for the Open and he’s not here. So, take anything I say here with a grain of salt and, no, he hasn’t consulted with me on what to do next.)

The reason I believe Philadelphia will be the tipoff is this: Because of various injuries and off-course issues, Woods has missed events that he’s the ‘host,’ of on a couple of occasions since 2008. He missed that 18-man exhibition in California after his knee surgery in 2008 and missed it again after hydrant-gate in 2009.

Earlier in 2008 he couldn’t play in his tournament when it was played here at Congressional after his knee surgery. The sponsors—notably AT+T—understood that Woods couldn’t play but they very much hoped he would get on a private plane and fly in for a day to glad-hand with all their clients. Woods couldn’t make it.

Now, three years later, with the future venue of the tournament in question—it is supposed to come back to Congressional next year for the next three years but neither the club nor the Woods Foundation is thrilled with the idea—Woods’ absence this year would be a very big deal and not a good thing at all.

So, my theory is this: if there’s any way he can play he will. If he really can’t play, I think he’ll take the break a lot of people believe he should take and MAYBE play the PGA if he can get himself healthy to play at least once, maybe twice, before then.

Okay, enough Tiger. There is, after all, a major championship starting here on Thursday.

Congressional—my biases aside—is a very good venue for The Open. It isn’t Pebble Beach or Shinnecock but it is long and hard but not unfair. Rory McIlroy—who I would LOVE seeing with the trophy on Sunday—described it this morning as, ‘scoreable.’

I think that’s accurate and it is what the USGA, under Mike Davis, has wanted the last few years: play well, you score; play anything less than well and you have serious issues. A lot of players think the 16th hole might be pivotal. The area around the green—especially right and back—has been shaved to the point where if you miss the green at all you’re in big trouble. McIlroy told me his instinct after playing it a couple of times might be to lay-up rather than risk bringing six into play by hitting a long iron in. Keep an eye on how guys play the hole beginning on Thursday.

Oh, one other reason Congressional probably isn’t in the long term future for Woods’ event: The USGA has made it clear to the club that if it wants The Open back in the future, it can’t host a PGA Tour event. The USGA will look the other way on that issue for Pebble Beach but that’s because it’s Pebble Beach AND because the golf course in February is a lot different (especially with a USGA set-up) than in June.

Of course the question I’m asked most often is who I’m picking to win. That’s understandable since I’m the only media member who was smart enough to walk the first round last year with Graeme McDowell.

He was playing with Rocco Mediate and Shaun Micheel who were key figures in my last two books. I was out there to watch them. The thought that I might be walking with the winner of the championship never crossed my mind once all day.

Any of you who picked McDowell—or Louis Oosthuizen at St. Andrews or Charl Schwartzel at Augusta in April—please let me know. I’d love to get some stock tips from you.

Which of course is the beauty of golf.

******

Couple notes from last week: Final word on my friend Scott Van Pelt: First, thanks to Scott for naming me the ‘arbiter of all things.’ That’s just about as good as being the ‘czar of sports,’ as Tony Kornheiser used to call me. I’m flattered. Second, to the couple of posters who said I mis-quoted Scott by saying he met Jordan Williams when he spoke to the Maryland team before a Duke game two years ago (not that he had ‘crossed paths with him at a couple games,’ as Scott said. How did that happen since Scott doesn’t actually DO basketball games?) I was quoting JORDAN WILLIAMS who said he met Scott when he spoke to the team. Bad writing on my part if anyone misunderstood….

Oh, and then there was the question about the alleged, ‘cat,’ incident that supposedly sunk The National in 1991. If you read the story Frank Deford pretty much has it right. There were a number of reasons I wanted to come home and the cost of my coming home between The French open and Wimbledon was LESS than if I stayed. I did NOT fly home on The Concorde. The only time I flew on the Concorde was when I used USAIR points to fly on it to and from the British Open in 1994. The return flight left London at 3:30 and arrived in Washington at a little before 2 p.m.

That was cool.

Washington Post Column: Former USGA executive director plans to keep his distance

2011-06-14T15:09:00.000-04:00

Here is the latest article for The Washington Post ----------------

As the golf world gathers at Congressional Country Club this week for the 111th playing of the U.S. Open, a lot of talk will center on the man who isn’t there, Tiger Woods. Anyone who knows a birdie from a bogey will have an opinion on what the future holds for the 14-time major champion who has so stunningly fallen to earth during the past two years.

Another man will also be absent, someone who won’t be the subject of very much discussion and won’t care even a little bit if his name isn’t mentioned all week: David B. Fay. For 21 years, Fay didn’t just attend the U.S. Open; he ran the U.S. Open as executive director of the United States Golf Association. Last December, having just turned 60, he retired. So, instead of running the Open this week he will — more or less — be running from the Open.

“I might sneak in wearing a cap and sunglasses for one of the practice rounds,” he said last week. “But I’m not even sure I’ll do that. I mean, seriously, why would I go? At this point in my life, I’m a lot more interested in my own golf game than in the guys who will be playing in the Open.”

This will be the second Open Fay has missed since 1978. In 1979, he spent his honeymoon in Toledo, putting up the ropes at Inverness for that year’s Open. From 1979 through 2010, Fay missed one Open: Shinnecock Hills in 1986, after he had spent almost six months in the hospital receiving radical treatment for Burkitt’s lymphoma, a rare form of cancer.

“They let me out [of the hospital] on Thursday,” he said. “My plan was to drive to Shinnecock and work on Friday. The minute I got home, my fever spiked, and I ended up back in the hospital for another month.”

Three years after surviving cancer, Fay succeeded Frank Hannigan as the USGA’s executive director.

Even though one of Fay’s jobs in later years was to appear occasionally on television to explain rules issues, he preferred to operate under the radar. A liberal Democrat living in a decidedly Republican world, he had a unique approach to the job.

Click here for the rest of the story: Former USGA executive director plans to keep his distance

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters)

2011-06-09T15:47:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in the Wednesday 5:30 time slot. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. Virtually the entire segment this week was spent discussing Tiger Woods (injury, pursuit of records, what he may do the rest of the year, etc) and next week's US Open, including the set-up of the course at Congressional and whether or not Tiger's tournament returns in future years after this two year hiatus.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

Maybe it’s time for Tiger to take extended break; ESPN book; Thoughts on the Jordan Williams and Scott Van Pelt story; Notre Dame follow-up

2011-06-08T09:45:00.000-04:00

I’m not really sure where to begin today but let’s start with Tiger Woods because, well, he’s Tiger Woods and my phone began going crazy the minute he announced on Tuesday that he wouldn’t be playing in The U.S. Open here at Congressional next week.

I was so hoping he’d come by the house for a cookout one night.

It is hard for me—or anyone—to judge the soundness of this decision because, as is always the case with Woods, we’re reading tealeaves. His doctors have told him playing next week would be a bad idea. Makes sense. But he hopes to play in the event he ‘hosts,’ in two weeks. Does that make sense? If his knee and Achilles injuries are bad enough to keep him from playing a tournament he once won on a broken leg, they’re going to heal enough in two weeks for him to tee it up at Aronomink? Makes very little sense.

Here’s Tiger’s problem right now—in my opinion: He knows that all the various sponsors for his event, notably AT+T which is putting up about $8 million, aren’t going to be happy if he no-shows no matter how legitimate his injuries may be. There was a good deal of whining in 2008 when he couldn’t play after his knee surgery although Woods didn’t help things by not making the effort to get on a private plane and even make an appearance just to shake a few sponsor hands.

In truth, that was unlike him because the one and only group of people he’s ever been loyal to at all are those who pay him. Of course AT+T and the other sponsors weren’t technically paying him, they were paying to put on a tournament that benefits his foundation. Maybe that was the difference. Who knows?

Now Woods has those same sponsors wanting to know if he’s going to play or not. To them, showing up in Philly is a lot more important than showing up at Congressional or for The British Open or The PGA Championship this summer. Woods shouldn’t think twice about that. His skipping the Open is the first time I’ve had any sense that he’s looking at the big picture—which isn’t the next three months but the next three years, five years, ten years.

Early this year I thought he needed to play more golf. He kept talking about the ‘process,’ of working on the new swing Sean Foley has been teaching him. Fine. You can’t find true swing keys on the range. You have to take them to the golf course and see how they hold up under pressure. My friend John Cook was quoted back in March as saying Tiger was hitting it as pure as he’d ever seen on the range.

The range is irrelevant. Even hackers can hit good shots on the range. My thought was that Woods should go play four weeks in a row, even if that meant changing the schedule he has been so wedded to for years. Of course he didn’t do that and then he got hurt at The Masters.

Why he tried to play at The Players I have no idea. He doesn’t care about the event—nor should he—doesn’t like the golf course and clearly wasn’t close to 100 percent. For all of Tim Finchem’s claims that Woods looked completely healthy during the practice rounds, the fact is he was carted almost everyplace he went—which he doesn’t normally do—and other players saw him limping during the 18 practice holes (total) that he played. Does that sound healthy to you?

He obviously hurt the knee and the Achilles again trying to play there. So now I’ve come 180 degrees the other way: I think Tiger should just pack it in the rest of the year. Stay home and rest his mind and his body. Hang out with his kids, get some real rehab to be SURE he’s 100 percent before he tries to play again and just RELAX. I mean seriously, when was the last time in his life he did that for more than a week or two?

It wasn’t right after the infamous accident when he was in hiding and then in some kind of rehab and then making speeches to try to convince sponsors who were running for cover that he was a new man. A real break—not one forced on him by injury or public humiliation—might do him a lot of good. He might come back fresh and eager to play, rather than feeling he HAS to play. It might recharge him. Staying home for awhile might (though I doubt it) give him a chance to do some real reflecting on his life and his future. He should bring in a crisis manager—because the guy is still in all sorts of crisis—to tell him how he should deal with the media, with fans, with sponsors and with his travel schedule (Dubai et al should go away; play to be a champion, not to get richer). It should be someone who will tell him what to do not what he wants to hear the way his current ‘team,’ does.

Woods can still break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major titles. He’s that talented and, when he isn’t in crisis, that mentally tough. But he needs to take a deep breath before he starts back up that mountain.

*****

I try very hard to steer away from ESPN-related subjects. My opinions on the people who run the network are pretty well known even if Tom Shales and Jim Miller didn’t call me for their book.

A note on the book: I don’t intend to read it if only because I haven’t found any of the excerpts particularly compelling. I mean, seriously people don’t like Chris Berman? That’s news? Keith Olbermann was crazy? Film at 11 stuff there, right? There were sex and drugs at parties in the 80s? No kidding, really? I’ve certainly never been to a party like that in my life.

The fact that the book is getting the attention it is getting is a tribute—unfortunately—to how important a part of our culture ESPN has become. There’s just no getting around that fact.

In the meantime, Scott Van Pelt has been in the news because of his Maryland connections—again. Van Pelt and I had a disagreement last year because I commented on his behavior while sitting in the stands at a Duke-Maryland game in College Park. He took offense to my saying that, as a public figure, who at times talked about college basketball on TV and radio, he needed to show some decorum, even while sitting in the stands. I wondered how people would react if say, Jay Bilas or I sat in the stands at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Duke gear and yelled at officials during a game.

Scott took offense and called me and we had a good talk and ended up, I think, agreeing to disagree. (He also took a shot a my brother during a speech at Burning Tree last summer since my brother had been the one who told me how Van Pelt behaved. For the record, my brother is close to Gary Williams and was sitting in front of Van Pelt because—like Scott—he’d been given tickets by Gary. Anyway, Scott, did you think someone wouldn’t report your crack back to me? I do have other sources).

No big deal actually. The other day Jordan Williams, the now ex-Maryland center who put his name into the draft after his sophomore year, told reporters Van Pelt had played a major advisory role in his decision. Then, after he and Van Pelt talked, Williams sort of withdrew that statement, said only that he had asked Van Pelt to get him some feedback from NBA people before making his decision and that the media—it’s always the media isn’t it?—had blown the thing out of proportion.

I don’t doubt it was blown out of proportion—what isn’t? And I’ve had coaches and athletes ask me for advice. I remember Eric Montross’s dad asking me years ago if I thought Eric should go to Indiana and play for Bob Knight. I was careful to limit my answer to what I had written in ‘A Season on the Brink.’ I did almost the same thing a few years later when Alan Henderson asked me the same question after I had spoken at Five Star. Knowing Henderson was being recruited by Duke, I was even more careful in how I answered the question.

So, I understand Scott’s dilemma. That said, I think he should have told Williams that the person he should be talking to is his college coach and to the NBA advisory board that gives a player an objective opinion on where he might go in the draft. It wasn’t Scott’s job to be Williams’ go-fer. I’m a little amused by Scott’s claim that he had, ‘crossed paths with Jordan while doing games.’ The truth is, they first met when Gary Williams asked Scott to speak to the team before a game at Duke two years ago. He was there as a Maryland grad who is a celebrity and a friend of Gary’s. Actually he was a Friend of Gary (FOG), an official support group of Gary’s.

It’s never easy to decide where you draw the line between being friendly with someone you are covering and becoming their friend. After all these years I’ve learned it is impossible NOT to be friends with some of the people you cover, especially if you know them for a long time.

I think Van Pelt made an innocent mistake not telling Williams he wasn’t the one he should be coming to for information or feedback. If I were him, rather than try to downplay the role he played, I’d just say, ‘yeah, I should have told him to talk to Gary or the advisory board and wished him luck and left it at that.’

One last thought for the day to those who (surprise) thought I was too tough on Notre Dame last week: I have read the report on Declan Sullivan and I am familiar with Father Jenkins’ pre-Notre Dame biography. Neither changes my opinion on him or on how Notre Dame has handled the situation. Oh, and I see where Michael Floyd has been cleared to get ready to play this season. Gee, what a surprise.

This weeks radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

2011-06-02T12:43:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. We started the segment discussing Gary Williams and whether he will ever coach again then moved on to the topic of the week, Jim Tressel's resignation and if Gordon Gee and Gene Smith are next. Based off that topic, maybe its time for the major college programs to break off from the NCAA. We ended this week's talk discussing Jack Nicklaus's comments on Tiger Woods.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. The Gas Man's broadcast was live from Vancouver, prior to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, so we jumped off talking about Seattle's love for the Canucks. After that we moved on to the power NCAA programs and as more problems creep up, will the schools look to break off from the NCAA?

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

In light of Ohio State, where is the outrage for Notre Dame's far more serious issues?; The passing of Maryland political power broker Peter O’Malley

2011-05-31T15:06:00.000-04:00

I know I do this on occasion but the subject of today’s blog is not going to be The NBA Finals (yawn); The Stanley Cup Finals (I plan to watch it all) or even Jim Tressel (I wrote a column you can read on WashingtonPost.com or on this blog).

I will add one thing to the Tressel column that there wasn’t space for (it will also run in tomorrow’s newspaper) because even though it isn’t directly connected to Tressel, it has some relevance in any discussion of big time college athletics.

I have no sympathy at all for Tressel or for Gordon Gee or Gene Smith—who, as I wrote in the column—should both be fired too at the very least for complete incompetence. But I also think we should keep things in perspective a little bit.

Ohio State is getting fried—justifiably—for allowing its program to run amok and then for trying to cover up clear violations. But why is it that almost NO ONE around the country is nailing Notre Dame for the cavalier manner in which it handled the death of Declan Sullivan?

Please don’t tell me you buy into Father John Jenkins blanket, “we’re all guilty,” press release. Really? If everyone is guilty where is the list of those fired or at least disciplined—starting with Jenkins and then going on down to the athletic director (who claimed there was ‘nothing unusual,’ in the weather conditions minutes before Sullivan’s tower came crashing down) to the head football coach who insisted on practicing outdoors on a day when there were wind warnings all over the Midwest; to whoever was responsible for not ordering Sullivan to stay off the tower—even if he was willing, though apparently terrified, to go up there?

No one was fired. Jenkins should have added a sentence at the end of his statement if he was being intellectually honest about how he felt that said: “Now let’s get back to the important work of figuring out how to beat Navy!”

Jenkins strikes me as a complete fraud. Can you imagine him refusing to meet with the family of the girl who committed suicide shortly after filing a report alleging sexual assault against a Notre Dame football player? He was acting on the advice of his lawyers. Where in the vows Jenkins took, I wonder, does it say: “your lawyer’s advice comes before comforting those involved in a tragedy?” Meeting with the family would not have been an admission of guilt; only an admission that he cared about people who were suffering.

Can’t have that. The lawyers told him so.

I can’t wait for the fall when all the TV apologists will tell us what a wonderful, caring place and nurturing place Notre Dame is. I will keep an air sickness bag handy should I happen to encounter a Notre Dame game while flipping channels. You can bet I won’t actually WATCH one. (Go ahead you Irish fans, pile on and tell me how awful I am for criticizing such a wonderful place. Can’t wait.)

Let me move on to a different sort of Irishman. His name was Peter Francis O’Malley. He died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 72 of a heart attack. Peter O’Malley wasn’t a friend of mine but I considered him a worthy adversary.

He was a political power broker in Maryland, a lot of his base being in Prince George’s County, the place that was once home to The Washington Bullets and Washington Capitals and is now home to The Washington Redskins. O’Malley was close friends with Abe Pollin and was an ‘advisor,’ to most of the important Democratic politicians in Prince George’s and to many others throughout the state. One of his many protégés was Steny Hoyer, now the minority whip in The House of Representatives. It was also O’Malley who played a key role in helping push through the legislation that got The Capital Centre built in about 15 minutes back in the mid-1970s.

I first encountered him when I began covering Prince George’s County. One of the first things everyone involved in politics out there told me was, “you have to get to know Pete O’Malley.”

I took their advice. I got to know him. It wasn’t as if he became one of my most valued sources—Laney Hester, the head of the police union was BY FAR my most important source—but he educated me on the county’s political history; told me who was important to know and who wasn’t and always took my calls or returned them quickly.

When I moved up to cover the state legislature he remained someone important for me to know. During the 1983 legislative session, a couple of Prince George’s County legislators decided to introduce a bill that would force Abe Pollin to pay the county’s amusement tax (nine-and-a-half percent if I remember right) from which he had been exempt. The county had waved the tax after Pollin had threatened to fold the Capitals because of red ink a couple of years earlier.

Since the bill directly affected only Prince George’s, it had to be voted on by the county’s delegation before being sent to the floor of The House of Delegates. Early on a Tuesday morning, prior to the weekly meeting of the local delegation, one of O’Malley’s ‘people,’ could be seen going from office to office. He had a message from Pete: kill the bill. They did—that morning. When I began asking questions, several legislators readily said that O’Malley had made it clear he wanted the bill dead so the bill was dead. It would not be introduced again.

I called O’Malley that morning and left a message telling him what I was writing for the next day. It was the first time he ever failed to call me back. The story ran on A1 of the paper, more as an object lesson in how to exert political power than anything else.

That morning, O’Malley did call me. “We’re supposed to have lunch next Monday,” he said. “I’m canceling.”

“Oh did something come up?”

“No. I just don’t have time to have lunch with the likes of you.”

I had heard in the past about O’Malley’s volcanic temper. This was the first time I had been exposed to it first hand. “Pete, was there anything in the story that wasn’t true? Did I call you to comment?”

“That’s not the point. The point is you didn’t HAVE to write the story that way but you CHOSE to write it that way.”

“Yes I did. And I think I wrote the right story.”

“Good. Tell that to the person you have lunch with next Monday.”

O’Malley forgave me, but not until I was out of politics and back covering sports. And he forgave me in his uniquely O’Malley way. After I’d written a story on Jim Phalen, the legendary basketball coach at Mt. St. Mary’s—his alma mater—he wrote me a note about how much he had enjoyed the piece. And then he added: “I think you belong in sports. The better side of you comes out when you are working there as opposed to politics.”

I passed that along to some of his political friends who agreed it was pure O’Malley: I’m going to give you a compliment, but remind you that I’m still smarter than you.

I’ve had the chance to know a lot of people in a lot of different walks of life. As anyone who reads this blog, I tend to be very black-and-white in my feelings about people even though I try very hard to stand back from my biases—or at least recognize them—when I write. At the very least I KNOW the biases exist.

Peter O’Malley was different. He wasn’t a friend and he wasn’t an enemy. I certainly respected him but probably not as much as he thought I should have respected him. He could be difficult and he could be helpful. But he was never, ever un-interesting. I’m truly sorry for his family that he is gone so quickly and so prematurely. He deserved a long retirement. He worked very hard for a long time to get there.

Washington Post column: Ohio State’s Jim Tressel gets axed, but rotting wood remains in college athletics

2011-05-31T12:28:00.000-04:00

Here is today's article for The Washington Post ----------

There are so many issues connected to Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel’s “resignation” Monday that it is difficult to know where to begin.

Let’s start with this: Tressel resigned the way Richard Nixon resigned. Even with his hapless bosses, Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee and Athletic Director Gene Smith, trying to push back the growing wave of accusations, Tressel finally ran out of the nine lives given to a coach with a record of 106-22.

What happened Monday is pretty easy to figure out: Ohio State goes before the NCAA infractions committee Aug. 12. To enter that hearing with Tressel still in place as football coach would have sent the following message to the committee: “We’re Ohio State. This coach wins most of the time and beats Michigan all the time. We don’t care that his program was apparently out of control or that he engaged in a cover-up of clear NCAA rules violations. We have some tickets here for our opener next month. Would one of you like to dot the ‘i’?”

That probably wouldn’t play well in that room. That’s why Tressel had to go.

Even so, there are still myriad questions surrounding the Ohio State football program.

Exactly how widespread were the violations that ex-players are saying were commonplace?

Exactly how long can Smith keep his job after declaring on Dec. 23 that the memorabilia-for- tattoos episode “an isolated incident”? Or, more specifically, why should he keep his job? survive?

As recently as two weeks ago, Smith insisted he supported Tressel. In March, when reports first surfaced that Tressel had covered up for players who should have been ineligible at the start of last season, Smith did a fly-by for a quickie news conference in Columbus, then raced back to serve his role as NCAA men’s basketball committee chairman. With his house was burning down, Smith came home just long enough to make sure the doors were locked.

As for Gee, how can anyone connected to Ohio State want the bow-tied president around for even five more minutes? He already made a fool of himself with his whiny comments about non-BCS teams last fall (which, to his credit, he admitted were ridiculous after being blasted nationally ) and then, just to prove that bit of stupidity wasn’t a fluke, he made his incredible, “I’m just hopeful the coach doesn’t fire me,” wisecrack during that March news conference.

Click here for the rest of the column: Ohio State’s Jim Tressel gets axed, but rotting wood remains in college athletics

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

2011-05-26T10:38:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. We spent a great deal of the time this week discussing Tiger Woods and the possible disintegration of his lower body, including whether his workout regimen and subsequent weight gain may have been a hindrance instead of help over the years. After Tiger we moved on to the hiring of Ed DeChellis at Navy, and where Penn State basketball may be headed. Paterno and Bob Knight on the same campus?

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. This week we discussed the Seattle Sounders and the MLS, including a story of mine while covering the earlier rendition of the Sounders, followed by a look at the success of the MLS including the smart choice of stadium size the league has gone with. After the soccer talk we moved on to the franchises in New York, including the amazing events that the Mets and Wilpon find themselves in, including a quick a look at the Yankees, Rangers and Islanders.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Questions on this month in sports: NBA, horse racing, UCONN, tennis and the Mets

2011-05-24T11:45:00.000-04:00

Most days when I write I present answers—which readers are free to agree or disagree with. Today, I present questions, which readers are free to answer or not answer.

Question 1: Do you care about The NBA playoffs? The ratings would seem to indicate that a lot of you do. Certainly having The Miami Heat playing the role of villains is helping a good deal along with the emergence of genuine young superstars like Derrick Rose and Kevin Durant. The saga of Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd and The Mavericks is also worthy of attention. And, when I have watched on occasion, the quality of the games has been better than in recent memory.

That said, I still have trouble really caring. I certainly don’t care about The Heat—although like a lot of people LeBron James can’t lose enough to make me happy. I recognize his brilliance, he’s an absolute physical freak, but I simply can’t put The Decision behind me even though I don’t live in Cleveland. I think he took the easy way out and I have trouble respecting that.

There’s also the issue of when the games are played. Afternoon games have basically ceased to exist and the way these series are being dragged out makes me crazy. The way the first three games of Bulls-Heat was scheduled I was beginning to wonder if David Stern had a secret plan to replace the NFL by playing once a week. Three games in eight days? Someone said that James might be a free agent again before this spring’s playoffs are over.

The late night thing, I realize, is just my problem. On school mornings I have to be up at 6 to get my son out of bed and on the road. There’s just no way I can stay up until the end of a 9 o’clock game. Plus, they’re often not 9 o’clock games. The other night I checked in on Bulls-Heat before I went to bed and the first QUARTER was just ending at 10 o’clock. Who is in charge here, Bud Selig?

Question 2: Are you like me in that you don’t care that much about horse racing but you’d love to see a Triple Crown winner?

My knowledge of horse-racing is slightly better than my knowledge of fashion. I can name most Kentucky Derby winners of the last 40 years and a lot of Preakness and Belmont winners too. I almost always watch The Triple Crown races although I skip the two hours of pre-race features. Put ‘em in the gate and run.

I know there have been star horses in recent years and that a lot of people take The Breeders Stakes very seriously. But like the golf fan who only watches Tiger Woods—and thus isn’t really a golf fan—I am more a Triple Crown fan and I’d like to see a horse accomplish it again sometime soon. I DO remember The Affirmed-Alydar classics of 33 years ago. Who thought then that no one would win another Triple Crown for 33 years? Heck, weren’t there three in six years (Secretariat ’73; Seattle Slew ’77) at that point? Yes. But if you go back and check—which I did—it had been 25 years since Citation accomplished the feat when Secretariat did it in 1973.

Think how iconic those horses all became. Horse-racing needs an icon.

Question 3: Did anyone notice that Connecticut was just stripped of two basketball scholarships for failing to meet NCAA minimum academic standards?

Who would have thought that U-Conn would end up as the symbol of all that is wrong with the NCAA? As I’ve said before I like Jim Calhoun a lot personally. I think he’s a great coach and the rebuilding job he did when he took over U-Conn in the 1980s is one of the greatest of all time. But where is the line drawn? U-Conn admitted to major recruiting violations and the NCAA slapped their wrist so damn hard that they were still wincing collectively while collecting the national championship trophy. Now the school has failed to meet academic minimums set so low by the NCAA it is almost impossible not to meet them. Any Connecticut fans out there wondering what is going on? Of course not—they just had a parade.

That’s the rule in college athletics: win a national title and you can do anything you want to. Go 5-22 the way Brad Greenberg did at Radford this past season and get nailed by the NCAA for about as minor a violation as you can imagine (taking an ineligible player on the road to WATCH games during Thanksgiving and Christmas rather than leave him home alone on campus) and you get fired.

Question 4: If The French Open is being played in Paris and no one outside the Bois de Bologne really cares, is it really being played?

Seriously folks, I know tennis junkies are agog about Novak Djokovic’s winning streak and certainly if he ends up playing Rafael Nadal there will be interest but beyond that does anyone care? There’s not a single woman in the draw anyone outside of family, agent and friends really wants to watch play and no American man has been a contender in Paris since Andre Agassi and Jim Courier moved on to the hit-and-giggle world. Does anyone remember the days of Evert-Navratilova; Graf-Seles; McEnroe-Lendl or Agassi-Courier? For that matter where have you gone Michael Chang, our nation turns its lonely clay-filled eyes to you.

The only reason to watch The French Open this week and next is if you have Tennis Channel and you can watch Mary Carillo—who told ESPN to take a hike last fall—explain the game as only she can.

Question 5: Why oh why do I torture myself, even for 10 minutes, listening to the morning pitchmen? One reason is that The Sports Junkies seem to always be in commercial when I’m in the car, and I mean for the entire 10 minutes.

This morning my friend Jayson Stark was on. His is usually one of the few listenable bits on the show if the two pitchmen will SHUT UP with their fake bickering long enough to let him talk. This morning though, Jayson was talking about Mets owner Fred Wilpon’s comments about some of his players in this week’s New Yorker.

Wilpon was—at most—mildly critical of some of his stars. He said he made a mistake signing Carlos Beltran (for the record, Beltran, when healthy has been one of the Mets BETTER signings: Can you say Oliver Perez? Jason Bay? Pedro—one good year on a five-year deal—Martinez?) and that he wasn’t going to give Jose Reyes a “Carl Crawford contract.” David Wright—according to WIlpon—is a very good player but not a franchise player.

First of all, everything Wilpon said is true. The mistakes he’s made go well beyond those three players and are too numerous to list here. (Yes, I’m a frustrated Mets fan). But Jayson, who is one of the few real reporters ESPN has, felt the need to imply that Jeffrey Toobin, who wrote The New Yorker piece, got these comments from Wilpon because WIlpon didn’t realize he was being quoted when he said what he said. One of the pitchmen chimed in to say Wilpon just thought he was, ‘schmoozing,’ when he made the comments.

Oh come on fellas. This reminds me of the time when I was sent to John Riggins’ house in Lawrence, Kansas in 1980 to ask him why he wasn’t at Redskins training camp. He had refused to talk to anyone so my boss sent me out there to try to talk to him. After saying repeatedly he had nothing to say, Riggins finally started talking and answered several questions. Later, when several regular Redskins reporters asked him why he had talked to me—a complete stranger—he said he thought we were talking off the record.

Really? Did he think I flew to Lawrence, Kansas because I was personally curious about his holdout? Did Wilpon think that Toobin came out and spent hours and hours with him because he really wanted to know what he thought about Carlos Beltran. It is worth noting that WILPON has not used this excuse.

So, I ask one more time: Why or why do I do this to myself?

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

2011-05-20T10:10:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. This week we discussed new Maryland coach Mark Turgeon's hiring of assistant Delonte Hill, the AAU-ization of the college basketball game then moved on to golf by talking about Tiger Woods and his short week at THE PLAYERS and finishing with a quick Paul Goydos story.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. This week we spent the time speaking about my reporting of Tiger Woods at Ponte Vedra before discussing the trials and tribulations of the tournament. After moving on from golf, we finished off talking about Gary Williams and Maryland.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Long and interesting week at Ponte Vedra, including thoughts on the tournament and Tiger Woods

2011-05-16T18:43:00.001-04:00

Wow, was that a long week in Ponte Vedra. Each day I woke up thinking I would write a blog and the next thing I knew it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon and I was too sapped by the heat to do anything except fantasize about going back to the hotel to take a shower.

The Players is the classic wannabe sports event. In recent years, The PGA Tour—they prefer to actually be called THE TOUR and that their tournament be called a championship and that The Players be called THE PLAYERS, not that they are a bit pretentious—has taken to insisting that it is NOT trying to convince people that their event is the fifth major.

If that is the case, riddle me this: Why does THE TOUR give the same five year exemption to winners of THE PLAYERS (Championship, I don’t think they insist on all caps for that) that it gives to major champions? Why does it give the same number of FedEx points to THE PLAYERS winner as it gives to those who win a major? This is where you could also wonder how it is that the winner of a playoff event gets more points than someone would get for winning all FOUR majors, but that’s another question for another day. And finally, how in the world does THE TOUR claim it isn’t trying to foist off its faux major as a major when it includes victories at THE PLAYERS on the Hall of Fame ballot as if they somehow carry as much weight on a player’s resume as a major does?

Of course we all know THE TOUR is never wrong about anything because they tell us this over and over again. When I jokingly made the point in January that the slide of the once prestigious Tournament of Champions could be pretty well summed up by the fact that it had gone from having Mercedes as a title-sponsor to Hyundai, The Tour (sorry THE TOUR) went nuts. There was all sorts of screaming and yelling about Hyundai’s new luxury car and yata-yata-yata. So I posed this question: If someone told you that you had just won a Mercedes and you showed up to collect it and they handed you the keys to a Hyundai, how would you feel?

There was also the issue of symbolism but THE TOUR doesn’t do symbolism, it does self-righteousness.

And then there was last Thursday when Tiger Woods walked off the golf course after shooting 42 on the front nine at The TPC Sawgrass. Those of you who read this blog strictly to monitor any shots at Tiger, better sit down because I actually defended Tiger.

You see, not only do I believe he was genuinely hurt—although there are conspiracy theorists who think his knee started to hurt again after his triple-bogey 7 at the fourth hole—I don’t think he should have played. I had surgery on my shoulder ONCE and I freak out whenever I feel a twinge now in either shoulder. Tiger’s had surgery on his left knee FOUR times. If he says it hurts and he needs to rest, I’m not going to question him. Throw in any achilles issues—I also tore my achilles years ago and believe me it is not a good injury—and he NEEDS to be careful, especially with a body that has proven brittle in the past.

So, when he pulls out of Quail Hollow, the one tournament he has played in past years simply because he likes the golf course, I believe him when he says he’s hurt. And when he shoots 42—42!—I don’t doubt that he’s hurt.

Commissioner Tim Finchem insisted that he saw no sign that Tiger was injured in the run-up to the tournament. He never saw him limp. I would think it would be tough to see him limp since he was carted to and from the back of the range whenever he practiced and I don’t think the commish was out there walking with him when he played nine holes on Tuesday and nine holes on Wednesday. (He also wasn’t in attendance at his ‘crown-jewel,’ for a good portion of the day Friday because he was playing golf with ex-President George W. Bush. No doubt W. will be inducted into The World Golf Hall of Fame just like his dad while the Hall continues to ignore Dan Jenkins and Jim Murray. Good job Hall voters).

Anyway, when I said on Golf Channel that I thought Tiger was hurt; that I didn’t think he should have tried to play AND I thought he felt some pressure from The Tour to play—The Tour went ballistic. I did not say that FInchem or anyone ‘forced,’ Tiger to play, a charge Finchem denied even though it hadn’t been made. I just said that Finchem had done a lot for Tiger last year—giving up his clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass for Tiger’s now infamous Tiger and Pony show and then sitting in the room with all of Tiger’s employees and minions and that perhaps—for once—Tiger felt he owed someone something and this was when The Tour had called in its chit.

I didn’t say it to be critical, hell The Tour needs to get Tiger to play more often and with Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy snubbing their event, it REALLY needed Tiger there. (I’m betting NBC is not going to be doing handstands when the weekend ratings come out with Tiger gone and Phil Mickelson nowhere near the lead. I was glued to the finish on Sunday because my guy Paul Goydos was in contention and I like David Toms a lot but I’m not exactly your typical golf viewer). I didn’t imply even that The Tour wanted Tiger to play hurt. What I was saying was that I believed the message was conveyed to Tiger—if he didn’t already know—that his presence in Ponte Vedra would be greatly appreciated.

Almost as soon as I said it, Ty Votaw, Finchem’s attack-dog when it comes to any media ‘slight,’ was on the warpath, screaming I’d made the whole thing up. For the record, I don’t make things up except in my kids mysteries. (Note to poster a couple weeks ago who said I should keep on writing kids books that, ‘no one wants to read,’ do you think my publisher would still be publishing them if no one was reading them?). I had talked to players before Tiger committed and to quite a few people after he committed. The general sentiment was that The Tour needed Tiger at The Players and his committing to a tournament he’s never liked much on a golf course he’s never liked much was his payback for Finchem’s ‘support,’ last year and that there was no doubt The Tour had let Tiger’s camp know that.

Votaw has apparently never heard of Shakespeare (he doth protest too much) and doesn’t know much about public relations. He turned a complete non-story—seriously, does anyone really care what I think about the issue all that much?—into a national story with his and Finchem’s ‘categorical,’ denials. Years ago, when Deane Beman was commissioner he hired a very smart public relations man named John Morris, who completely made over his image and relationship with the media. Sadly—on many levels—John Morris passed away nine years ago.

Finchem needs a John Morris. I have always liked him and respected him and I think he’s a good guy—rounds of golf with W. aside. I wish if he was truly upset on Thursday he had picked up a phone and called ME because I would have instantly said on the air that he had called to deny what I was saying. Instead, Votaw ran amok.

My feelings about Finchem haven’t changed at all. I still like him and respect him and am always willing to agree to disagree with him or to agree to agree with him. But I think he needs to find a John Morris.

By the way, just in case you were one of the millions not watching on Sunday, K.J Choi won The Players.

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man)

2011-05-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. This week we discussed Gary Williams departure, Mark Turgeon's arrival, a look at other legendary coaches and what happens to their programs when they retire before moving on to golf and the Tiger Woods-Bubba Watson news.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. This week we spent the time speaking about the most important news, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, my connection to Army and Navy and their campus reactions to the event, then moved on to more trivial topics such as NFL lockout, athletes and boredom, a story of me and John Thompson and the phenomena of Gus Johnson, Dick Vitale and other announcers.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Washington Post column:Mark Turgeon wasn’t the obvious choice, but he might be the right one for Maryland

2011-05-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

Here is today's article from The Washington Post on Maryland's coaching search and hire----------

Sometimes, the best hire is the one you don’t make.

Almost 50 years ago, when Frank McGuire left North Carolina for the NBA, very few Tar Heel supporters wanted to see his quiet, unassuming, 30-year-old assistant take his place. The exception was the school’s chancellor, who decided to give Dean Smith first crack at the job.

In 1980, Duke Athletic Director Tom Butters was being pushed by Bob Knight to hire one of Knight’s former assistants: Texas coach Bob Weltlich. Butters’ gut told him the unknown coach at Army with the impossible to pronounce name was the right guy, but he didn’t think he could hire a coach from that level who had just gone 9-17. So he thanked Mike Krzyzewski for coming down for a second interview and sent him back to the airport, intending to call Weltlich.

When Steve Vacendak, Butters’ top lieutenant, asked him why he had sent Krzyzewski home, Butters said: “I think I’d get crushed for hiring him with his record and lack of experience.”

“Do you think he’s the best coach for the job?”

“Absolutely.”

The way Butters told the story, that’s when he made his decision. He sent Vacendak to the airport to bring Krzyzewski back and offered him the job. He never called Weltlich.

Mark Turgeon is not a good hire for Maryland; he’s a great hire. There are plenty of numbers to prove it, but the most impressive one is this: He went to four straight NCAA tournaments at a school that couldn’t care less about basketball in a league that has been at least as competitive as the ACC — maybe more so — during that period.

Click here for the rest of the column: Mark Turgeon wasn’t the obvious choice, but he might be the right one for Maryland

Washington Post column: Maryland's Gary Williams was in perpetual motion

2011-05-06T07:43:00.000-04:00

For today's The Washington Post ---------------

On the night in 2002 that Maryland won the national championship, I was standing on the Georgia Dome floor with Gary Williams’s daughter, Kristin. As she watched her father cut down the last strand of net, she said, “Maybe now he can relax a little.”

I laughed and said something like, “Have you met your father?”

Relaxing was never something Gary Williams was any good at during his remarkable career as a basketball coach. On that same night, when I congratulated him on reaching the top of the mountain he had spent his entire adult life trying to scale, he shook his head almost as if he was bewildered. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself tomorrow.”

Now that he has decided to retire after 22 years at Maryland, who knows what Gary will do with himself.
“I didn’t want to be one of those coaches who is still hanging around at 70 and can’t stand up to get off the bench during a game,” he said in a phone conversation Thursday. “I’m 66. There are a lot of things I want to do.”

I know he believes that right now. I know he was worn out by a lot of things: 15 years of battling an athletic director who couldn’t stand Williams being the face of Maryland sports; the skepticism of his own fans even after he revived a beleaguered program and delivered its only national championship; the complete cesspool high school recruiting has become; and, finally, his most talented player’s misguided decision to turn pro rather than return for his junior season.

Gary would never put it on any kid, but I suspect Jordan Williams’s departure was the last straw.

“I told Joe Smith to go; I told Chris Wilcox to go; I told Steve Francis to go,” he said a couple of weeks ago. “They were lock lottery picks. Jordan’s not. It’s better for him to come back. Sure, we’re better with him than without him, but I’ve been at this long enough that I think I can look a player in the eye and tell them the truth.”

Click here for the rest of the column: Maryland's Gary Williams retires

Reflecting on the week, and the sports element in healing

2011-05-05T12:15:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since I checked in for a number of reasons. A lot on my plate would be one, Osama bin Laden would be the other. I simply didn’t want to write a jock blog so soon after his death on Sunday. Only one thing matters: he’s dead and, for once, there isn’t a single American who doesn’t feel exactly the same way about a political/military event. I know what my response was: Thank God we finally got him.

Thinking more about Bin Laden and 9-11 though I realized there is a sports element to his death. For many, many Americans, sports played a major role in our healing after that horrific day. When the games began again, they gave us a place to go—not just physically but mentally and emotionally—an escape from the reality that was still there on our TV screens every day as the grim search for bodies continued and ground zero continued to smolder.

I still remember the chills I got when the New York Yankees were cheered in Chicago; when fans everywhere the Navy football team traveled that fall cheered the Midshipmen from the minute they got off the bus until the bus pulled away at the end of a game. I remember President Bush tossing the coin at Army-Navy that year on a cold, bright December day and a future marine named Ed Malinowski calling out for everyone to hear: “Head’s SIR!” while the coin was in the air and a chill ran through the entire stadium.

It was a tragic but remarkable fall. A friend of mine who worked for The Secret Service and worked on a task force with the FBI and the local police in Washington in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 told me that incidents of road rage dropped almost to zero. Democrats and Republicans stopped attacking one another. There seemed to be a recognition in all worlds that the ‘enemy,’ didn’t wear an opponent’s uniform or vote differently than you. We had seen the real enemy all too clearly.

Of course it didn’t last—that’s human nature. A new normal settled in to our lives, complete with long airport lines (and me all but giving up flying) and lengthy security checks at most sporting events. Metal detectors became a familiar part of our lives in jock world. No one complained because, as much as we hated the fact that there was no choice, there was no choice.

Fast-forward 10 years and there’s no doubt all of us will remember where we were when we heard the news that bin Laden was dead. I was getting ready to go to bed when my son called me from his room down the hall. Usually at that hour it’s to ask me to close his door because he doesn’t want the cats to wake him by jumping on his bed after he’s gone to sleep. This time was different.

“They got bin Laden,” he said. “They killed him.”

I was stunned. Like a lot of people I think I had gotten to the point where I just figured he had too many people—and governments—protecting him for us to ever get him. Happily, I was wrong.

The fact that it was Navy Seals who got him wasn’t surprising. There is no group more elite in the world. I’ve had the chance to know a number of football players who have gone on to become Seals and, to say you have to be special is a vast understatement. The best description I ever heard of Seals came from Doug Pavek, an Army football player who went on to become an Army Ranger—another elite group.

“They do everything that we do,” Pavek said. “Except they do most of it underwater.”

Or in helicopters or on the ground or wherever they are most needed. The shots of the celebrating at the Naval Academy that night were chill-worthy and brought me back again to 2001 when I stood on an almost silent practice field and watched the players try to prepare to play Boston College 10 days after the towers came down. There was no chatter that day; no fake cheerleading. It was still too soon for any of that.

Now when the 10th anniversary of 9-11 is commemorated—I’m amazed at how often I read each year that people are, ‘celebrating the anniversary,’—we can mix our silence and our grief with cheers for those who hunted the man behind the murders down.

I do wonder this: the first Sunday of the upcoming NFL season falls on 9-11. Would it not behoove Roger Goodell and the owners, who are the ones who started this labor battle and appear ready to go to the mat in search of a legal victory, to find a way to make sure stadiums are full on that day and that football is played?

Is it entirely out of line to suggest that the NFL—which does more flag-waving and playing on patriotic themes than almost anyone in sports or outside of sports—should declare a moratorium on the lockout and work under the old CBA for this season while still trying to negotiate a new deal going forward?

I’m sure Goodell and his lawyers will give all sorts of legal reasons why that can’t be done but there are certainly instances of employees continuing to work with a collective bargaining agreement in place. Surely, legal language could be worked out to allow the games and the negotiations to go on at the same time. Aren’t there moments in life when—especially when you are rich beyond all reasonable expectations—that you STOP playing hardball for a little while and simply do the right thing?

That may be an extraordinarily naïve notion but it was once naïve to think the Yankees could get cheered on the road or that getting players and coaches to come out of their locker rooms for the national anthem would ever be possible again. Sometimes what seems naïve is just the right thing to do. I think this is one of those times.

*****

On far more mundane topics: I cannot believe that the Washington Capitals completely flamed out in the playoffs AGAIN. The 4-0 sweep at the hands of Tampa Bay was embarrassing. I can’t help but note that the goalie who beat the Caps, Dwayne Roloson, is someone I suggested they trade for back in December. I was pilloried by many fans and my colleague at The Washington Post, Tracee Hamilton, for even suggesting a veteran goalie on hand might be a good idea.

Roloson was traded by the Islanders soon after that to the Lightning for a middling prospect. I’m not saying goaltending was the reason for the Caps demise—Michal Neuvirth played well though not brilliantly—but having Roloson in the room as a calming influence, whether he was playing or not, would have helped. And, he would NOT have been playing for the Lightning…

You have to feel a little bit sorry for The PGA Tour. It tries SO hard to convince people that The Players Championship is a really big deal; spends huge money to promote it and on prize money and what does it get? No Lee Westwood; no Rory McIlroy and, in all likelihood, no Tiger Woods who I suspect is still going to be taking care of his injured knee next week. For the record, if I’d had four knee surgeries I would be ultra-cautious too. But let me also say this for those of you who monitor this blog strictly for Tiger-shots: If he was supposed to play for a $3 million appearance fee this week, I suspect he’d find a way to play. (insert, ‘Feinstein, you suck,’ posts here).

And finally on the subject of those of you who hate me so much you can’t stop reading this blog: A friend pointed out during the NFL draft a couple of posts from last fall demanding I ‘apologize,’ to Mike Shanahan for ripping him for the handling of the Donovan McNabb benching (NOT, you Rick Reilly fans, for the benching but for the way he handled the benching) because McNabb’s ‘new contract’ proved that Shanahan had nothing personal against McNabb. How’s that turning out? You expecting to see McNabb under center if/when the NFL season begins? Or do you think the ‘contract’ with almost zero in guaranteed money, but a signing bonus, wasn’t hush money?

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man

2011-05-05T12:14:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. This week we started out talking about the Washington Capitals outlook at 0-3 (pre-last nights game), then moved on to Jordan Williams leaving Maryland, looking ahead to the program next year and beyond, then finished up talking about the George Washington basketball opening and ending with talk about the PGA Tour.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters

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Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. This week we spent the time speaking about the outlook for The Heritage golf tournament in Hilton Head, which is having sponsorship issues before moving on to this week's tournament in Charlotte, which was kicked off by Arnold Palmer, who is still a treasure to be around and watch, playing in the Wednesday pro-am.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Washington Post column: Jim Larranaga’s legacy is Paul Hewitt’s burden

2011-05-02T00:50:00.000-04:00

Here is Sunday's column for the Washington Post -----------

After George Mason Athletic Director Tom O’Connor made the decision Friday to hire Paul Hewitt as his new basketball coach, he told his wife Barbara that the response he wanted when he told people was one word: “Wow.”
He got it. That said, once you get past the initial “wow,” there are some concerns. But many of them would come attached to anyone following Jim Larranaga at the school where he had become an icon.

On the one hand, Hewitt has a remarkable resume. He will be 48 on Wednesday (one year older than Larranaga when he arrived in 1997) and has won 255 games as a Division I head coach. He was only 40 when he took Georgia Tech to the national championship game seven years ago. What may have caught O’Connor’s eye at least as much, though, was his three-year record at Siena: 66-27.

Siena is not all that different from George Mason as a basketball school. It plays in a mid-major conference (the Metro Atlantic) that isn’t nearly as deep as the Colonial Athletic Association. Like the CAA, however, it has produced teams — Siena among them — that have gone to the NCAA tournament and produced early upsets.
O’Connor firmly believes that Mason is capable of continuing to play at the remarkable level Larranaga achieved. Clearly he believed Hewitt’s background at both the mid-major level and the ACC level, combined with his relative youth, was exactly what he was looking for.

Click here for the rest of the article: Jim Larranaga’s legacy is Paul Hewitt’s burden

Unfortunately Dan Snyder can not be ignored

2011-04-26T19:20:00.001-04:00

When I opened up The Washington Post this morning and saw that Dan Snyder had ‘written,’ an op-ed defending his ridiculous lawsuit against The Washington City Paper I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I also didn’t know whether to write about it or just ignore it. Perhaps no one on earth has ever deserved to be ignored more than Dan Snyder.

The problem is he can’t be ignored. He is relentlessly annoying and he has access to the media—any and all media in Washington—whenever he wants it. That doesn’t mean that access helps him. In fact, quite the opposite because every time he or one of his flunkies—today his latest overpaid lawyers were writing and talking on his behalf—opens up his or her mouth they just re-prove the point Dave McKenna was making in his now famous City Paper piece of last November.

It is almost pointless to revisit the claims Snyder is making in his bully lawsuit. Here’s what it boils down to: McKenna wrote a lengthy piece making fun of Snyder for being a bad owner and Snyder decided THIS was the guy to pick on. He wasn’t going to pick on The Washington Post because The Post still has plenty of money and lawyers on staff who deal with nuisance libel suits all the time so he decided—as bullies do—to pick on the little guy.

If you go back to the first letter Snyder’s lawyers sent to The City Paper it SAID we have money and you don’t so you better apologize before we spend you into bankruptcy defending yourself against this law suit. That’s the legal version of ‘give me your lunch money or I’ll beat you up.’

After the threats came Snyder’s media tour of radio row at The Super Bowl, complete with claims that he HAD to file the lawsuit because McKenna had attacked his wife, a cancer survivor and he simply couldn’t tolerate that. Of course the story in no way attacks Tanya Snyder, it simply says that she was part of the ‘new Dan Snyder,’ campaign, going on various shows to say he’d learned his lessons and was surrounded now by better people.

Snyder, who is accusing McKenna of making things up, simply made that up. About the only person who interviewed him that day who hadn’t done enough homework to know he had made that up was WFAN’s Mike Francesa, who thought attacking a cancer survivor was simply a terrible thing. He’s right—it is terrible. Except McKenna didn’t come close to doing it.

Then Snyder played the anti-semitic card, claiming the drawing that accompanied the piece depicting him as the devil was anti-semitic. He also said the lawsuit was the idea of his hapless new PR director (of about a year now) Tony Wyllie who took over for the equally hapless Karl Swanson.

Wyllie was responsible for much of the ‘new,’ Dan Snyder campaign: encouraging Snyder to talk to reporters more; doing silly, self-serving TV interviews with clueless interviewers; inviting the media to charity ribbon cuttings to remind people of all the wonderful things Snyder does for charity. He also called reporters who haven’t been nice to Snyder in the past to take them to lunch to convince them of the error of their ways.

My pal Sally Jenkins got a call and lunch. I got a call but no lunch. Damn.

Wyllie’s strategy wasn’t bad—especially after all the years of Swanson and the beyond-hapless Vinny Cerrato playing bad cop to Snyder’s worse cop. Somewhere along the line you need a good cop, especially when your team has been consistently mediocre, except when it has been awful.

A pause here for a quick word on Cerrato, who crawled out from under his rock a few weeks ago to appear on Mike Wise’s radio show. I like Wise, I really do, but why ANYONE would give Cerrato five minutes of airtime (or any space in the newspaper) is seriously beyond me. At one point when Wise, his co-host Holden Kushner and their producer Chris Johnson (a SERIOUSLY aggrieved Redskins fan) were trying to pin Cerrato down on something—anything—one of them asked Cerrato whose decision it was to sign Jeff George.

“I can’t recall,” Cerrato answered.

Jeez, all he had to do was add, “Senator,” to that line.

At one point during his Super Bowl tour Snyder said on one radio station something almost exactly like this: “Tony, who is, as you know, African-American, just felt we couldn’t let the anti-semitism involved here continue without defending ourselves.”

Oh, okay so because Tony is African-American he qualifies as an expert on anti-semitism? Does that mean that I can understand what it is like to be African-American because I’m Jewish? Maybe—MAYBE—one percent because Jews and African-Americans do still face prejudice, even in today’s society. That’s about it.

It is worth noting that the newly re-filed lawsuit makes no references to anti-semitism or McKenna picking on a cancer survivor—the two major reasons Snyder cited in February for filing the lawsuit. It picks on three facts, claiming that what McKenna wrote isn’t true. From what I’m told if McKenna got anything wrong he was technically wrong. For example: Snyder’s company paying a fine for forging documents may not make SNYDER the actual forger.

Here’s LD’s problem: in libel suits technicalities don’t matter. The plaintiff has to prove that the defendant was not only completely wrong but was wrong because of malice. One lawyer I heard on the 106.7 The Fan on Tuesday predicted that Snyder had ‘zero,’ percent chance of winning the suit and, pointing to the original letter, said this is clearly a bully lawsuit.

Then he said something that I thought was very smart: “The right way to do this is to use your access to the media FIRST. Dan Snyder has complete access to anyone and everyone in the Washington media including The Washington Post just by picking up a phone. If all he wants is to make the point that McKenna had it wrong, he can make that point through the media. A lawsuit should be his last resort. In Snyder’s case it was his first resort.”

The lawyer—whose name I can’t remember and can’t find on The 106.7 The Fan website because it is full of headlines about Snyder’s lawyer coming on to try to clear things up (oh please)—is very smart. He knows and everyone knows this has to do with Snyder proving that he’s richer and more powerful than The City Paper and can bully the paper and McKenna into an apology or a retraction and that will somehow prove that he’s RIGHT that the media is out to get him.

Perhaps Snyder should call up his op-ed (written for him apparently by Lanny Davis, who once represented Bill Clinton and has now officially reached the nadir of his career by going to work for Snyder) and read the comments about a piece that carries HIS byline. I only read about the first 100 posts but public opinion, after Davis stated his case for Snyder as eloquently as he could, was running about 100-to-1 against Snyder. My guess is the next 900 didn’t get much better.

So, apparently everyone is out to get Snyder. There’s an old saying: If you think everyone in the world is crazy, maybe you should look in the mirror. Of course there’s another old saying: If no one likes you then at least you know you’re not paranoid.

Congratulations, Dan. You’re not paranoid.