And so, the Self-Righteous Ten have spoken for another year.
As anyone who has ever read anything I’ve written knows, there are few days I enjoy more than Selection Sunday and I dread what it will be like next year. But one part of Selection Sunday I can’t stand is hearing the chairman—Dan Guerrero of UCLA this year—droning on about the purity of the selection process.
Oh please. These guys are human like the rest of us. They have biases and agendas. I’m not here to tell you they don’t try to do a good job but they need to quit claiming their purity while at the same time insisting on conducting their decision-making process in absolute secret. Guerrero won’t even answer the simple question: who was the last team in and the last team out. What is this, the CIA?
If it is all so above-board and pure and wonderful why not let at least one pool reporter—my suggestion has always been the U.S. Basketball Writers President, a job that changes yearly, or Bill Brill, who knows more about the selection process than all 10 committee members combined—sit in the room to explain exactly how the field was picked and seeded.
I’ve been suggesting this for most of 20 years now. The answer I get back, regardless of who is on the committee, is usually pretty direct: No. The reason given is also the same: Because we said so. The only committee member who was willing to even consider it was George Washington Athletic Director Jack Kvancz who actually brought it up in a meeting one year. He was shouted down quickly. He also got passed over the next year when he should have been chairman. I wonder if that was a coincidence.
The last few years the committee and Greg Shaheen, the NCAA staff member who runs the tournament from the NCAA side (and is very much behind the move to 96), have come up with one of the great bogus creations of our time: the mock bracket. The NCAA invites media members to Indianapolis—or in some cases to other cities for the media’s ‘convenience,’--and sets them up for a couple of days to pretend they are the committee. Ostensibly this is done so we in the media can, ‘better understand the process.’
What a bunch of garbage. It is done so that guys in my business will feel more important and think they really do know how hard it is to put the field together. Let me say this one more time: IT IS NOT THAT HARD. Eric Prisbell of The Washington Post had exactly one team different than the committee in his bracket in Sunday’s paper and missed on a few seeds by one spot. He did this ALONE without all sorts of staff members scurrying in and out, without free satellite TV all season, without first class airfare and without a five-star hotel. He’s also a lot less pretentious about it than The Self-Righteous Ten.
Driving in the car this morning hearing the two ESPN morning commercial- readers repeatedly saying, “the committee did a very good job,” I can’t help but giggle. What good job? I’ll give them credit for giving a couple of mid-major conference champions who lost in conference tournaments at-large bids. Fine. For once they did the right thing. Should Mississippi State have gotten in over Minnesota? Yes. The Gophers beat a hobbled Purdue team on Saturday and got killed by Ohio State on Sunday. Mississippi State gave Kentucky everything it could have wanted and beat two tournament teams over the weekend prior to that.
Should Virginia Tech have gotten in over Wake Forest in my opinion? Yes. But I can see the argument going the other way too based on top-50 wins and strength-of-schedule. Seth Greenberg, who is a friend, knew he had a weak schedule in the fall. Penn State turned out to be lousy when people thought they would be decent, but every other team on his schedule turned out about the way people knew they would. All of that said, Virginia Tech finished ahead of Wake Forest in the conference; beat the Deacons head-to-head and did NOT get embarrassed in the ACC Tournament. Wake’s performance against Miami was just completely god-awful.
What’s more, Wake’s AD Ron Wellman was on the committee. PLEASE do not give me the speech about committee members recusing themselves and leaving the room when their team is being discussed. Do you think the other nine guys don’t know how the guy outside the room feels? Committee members talk all the time about how close they become working under such great pressure. Well? Put it this way: every single time a bubble team has had its AD on the committee in my memory, the team has gotten in. That doesn’t mean the committee didn’t get it right—they certainly did with George Mason and Tom O’Connor in 2006—but it happens WITHOUT FAIL.
Having said all that, Guerrero’s not-so-subtle little pitch about how there was SO MANY teams they had to consider for the last few spots, rings pretty hollow. The only reason for that is that none of those last few teams could create any solid reason to get picked. Minnesota, a loser by 29 on Sunday? Florida, which lost to Mississippi State on Friday? Wake Forest? (see above). Texas—which hasn’t won a game since the end of football season? (Oh wait, it didn’t win that game either). California, which couldn’t even win the tournament in the miserable Pac-10?
Did these teams deserve to be in the tournament? Probably—because Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Illinois and Rhode Island, were just about as mediocre overall. You could put those four in and take four of the above-mentioned out and you’d have essentially the same tournament. (For the record, NONE of these teams deserved to be seeded ahead of Cornell—check out Cornell’s schedule.)
Guerrero is clearly trying to set up the move to 96 by saying SO many teams were deserving. Hogwash. Worst-case scenario you expand to 68 teams, send the last eight at-larges to Dayton to play for the last four spots and there is just about no one who has ANY complaint at all.
Gary Williams claimed to me the other night that there are more good teams today than in 1985 when the tournament expanded to 64 teams. With all due respect, he’s flat out wrong. In 1985, Villanova, a No. 8 seed WON the tournament. In 1988, Kansas a No. 6 seed WON the tournament. IN 1986, a Maryland team led by Len Bias finished SIXTH in the ACC. There were more teams in big conferences with juniors and seniors back then, there was more depth because of that and the quality of basketball was better at all levels than it is today.
Back to the committee. The matchup that screams to be screamed at—among all of them—is Temple-Cornell. Both teams are under-seeded. And, when the committee tries to tell you this game is a coincidence, make sure you have a firm grip on your wallet. Temple is coached by Fran Dunphy; Cornell by Steve Donahue. Guess who was Dunphy’s No. 1 assistant at Penn for 10 years? If you guessed Steve Donahue you win my place at next year’s mock bracket. You win two spots at the mock bracket if you guess the committee guys will claim, ‘gee we never thought of that.’
Uh-huh. These guys are supposed to be hoops experts, right? They watch all these games, study all these computer printouts, read up on the conferences they’re assigned to study. Nah, how would they know about the Dunphy-Donahue connection or think it would make a great first round story for their ‘partners,’ from CBS. Just like Duke and Louisville—and thus Mike Krzyzewski and Rick Pitino—is a likely second round matchup. Absolute coincidence. Heck, they might not even know where Krzyzewski and Pitino are coaching these days.
Someone get me a shovel.
I don’t mind that the committee does this stuff every year, I mind that they claim it is all by accident and they are all Caesar’s wife. If so, then why not let Dick Jerardi (this year’s USBWA president) or Brill, who has been putting brackets together since about 1952, observe this brilliant and totally above-board process. (For those of you who want to write, ‘oh Feinstein you just want to get in the room,” I seriously don’t want to get in the room. I’d rather watch basketball than sit in a room with those guys for four days. But someone should be doing it).
Anyway, that’s my rant for today. Tomorrow we’ll start to deal with who is playing whom and which games should be the most fun this weekend. I’ll leave you with this for today: I’m glad Wake Forest is playing Texas because I like Dino Gaudio and Rick Barnes and this is probably the only way that one of them will have a chance to win at least one game.
Good job, Self-Righteous Ten.
Showing posts with label CBS Sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBS Sports. Show all posts
Monday, March 15, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The story of ‘The Road to The Final Four’ and ‘Selection Sunday’; Tying up loose ends
For the past few weeks I’ve been saying and writing that those of us who love college basketball had better savor this coming Selection Sunday because it is likely to be the last one with the kind of suspense we have become accustomed to on the second weekend in March. When the NCAA expands the tournament—which I think is almost inevitable—teams like Illinois, Seton Hall, South Florida, Georgia Tech, Arizona State, Florida, Wichita State and Northeastern—all of whom are on the bubble this year, will already have locked up bids.
It’s worth nothing that none of those teams has done anything particularly special this season. They’re all just solid teams that may (or may not) get squeezed out by the numbers game. That’s part of what the process so much fun: who gets in and who gets left out and the fact that each of those teams has SOME claim to a spot in the field. That will be gone with a 96 team field we all know that. The NCAA knows that and doesn’t care as long as the money offered by ESPN or (less likely) CBS-Turner is so out-of-whack that they can roll around in it for years to come.
In writing about how much I have come to enjoy Selection Sunday I would be remiss if I didn’t remind people who don’t know how it came about. Most basketball fans—especially younger ones—just take the day for granted, sort of like Christmas. There’s always been Selection Sunday, right grandpa? Well no, there hasn’t been.
It started in 1982, the year that CBS took over the rights to the NCAA Tournament from NBC.
The role that NBC and the syndicate TVS (run by Eddie Einhorn) played in building the NCAA Tournament into a national event can’t be underplayed. Remember, as recently as the historic 1966 Texas Western-Kentucky championship game, The Final Four wasn’t on network TV. It was syndicated—and not picked up in many cities—by TVS. It wasn’t until 1969 when TVS entered into a deal with NBC that The Final Four—in Lew Alcindor’s senior season at UCLA—was televised nationally. Even then the semifinals were regionalized: The East-Mideast regional was shown in the eastern half of the country, the Midwest-West regional in the west. That was the first year the semifinals were moved from Friday to Thursday because the championship game was moved to Saturday afternoon since it clearly wasn’t worthy of prime time.
The progression from that point forward was rapid: NBC took the championship game to prime time in 1973, making The Final Four a Saturday-Monday night affair and Bill Walton made it work by shooting 21-of-22 for UCLA against Memphis State in the championship game. Two years later the tournament expanded from 25 teams to 32 and conference runners-up were allowed to participate. A year later Indiana and Michigan played in an all-Big Ten final as the post-John Wooden era began.
Then came Magic and Bird in 1979 and more expansion: first to 40 teams, then 48 and 53 and finally 64 in 1985. Note that the number moved up slowly, the committee wanting to be sure it wasn’t going too fast. The move to 64, pushed hard by Wayne Duke and Vic Bubas had as much to do with wanting to eliminate byes and have everyone play the same number of games as anything else. Obviously with a 96 team field that will go out the window.
Al McGuire won the national championship with Marquette in his final game as a coach in 1977. The next year, he joined Billy Packer and Dick Enberg to form basketball’s first three man booth and they became cult figures in college basketball. When CBS wrested the rights from NBC by offering $48 million for three years—triple what NBC had paid—there was a good deal of talk that an era had ended (which it had) and that college hoops would never be the same.
CBS needed to do something to establish itself as THE network of college basketball, especially since NBC still did regular season games with Enberg and McGuire and there were those who still thought IT was the network of college basketball.
After failing in an attempt to hire Bob Knight (yes, Bob Knight) as its No. 1 color commentator, CBS hired Packer, both for that job as a consultant on scheduling (it had no college hoops contacts at the time) and on the package in general. Packer and Len DeLuca, then a CBS producer who now works at ESPN, sat down to think of ways to connect CBS to college basketball.
They came up with two ideas: Tie together the entire season with some kind of theme: The Road to The Final Four. Every game would be part of that road and every week would lead to—in the case of 1982—New Orleans. Then, one of them said something like this: “Why don’t we announce the brackets on TV?”
There is still some dispute between the two of them as to who actually thought of the idea first but together they came up with it. Until then, coaches would sit in their offices on Selection Sunday—there were no games played that day, the ACC didn’t move its championship game to Sunday until 1982—and wait for a phone call from the NCAA office in Kansas City, which is where the selection committee would meet.
Packer and DeLuca changed that. No one got a phone call anymore. Instead, they were told to watch their TV on Sunday afternoon to find out if they were in and if so where they were going. From there, the whole thing just grew and grew until it reached the point where it has become a national holiday for college hoops fans.
So, as we get ready for what might be the last truly meaningful Selection Sunday of our lives, let’s pause for a moment and pay tribute to Packer and DeLuca. It probably seemed like a minor thing to them all those years ago but it turned out to be a truly big deal.
*********
I had a nice talk with Scott Van Pelt yesterday. He called after reading yesterday’s blog, understandably a little upset, but very willing to discuss both his point of view and mine on the subject. He admitted that he had “wrestled,” with the issue for years. “I grew up a Maryland fan, I went to Maryland and I’m very passionate about my school,” he said.
All of which is absolutely fine as far as I’m concerned. In fact, I can honestly say I wish I felt a little more passion for my school. He also asked if I was wrong when I directed a profanity at the officials five years ago during a Navy-Duke football game. Of course I was wrong. That’s why I apologized on the air right away, offered to resign and, as I’ve said before, kind of grin and bear it when people bring it up now. I screwed up; I pay the price.
That said, he and I agreed that there’s a difference between one brief outburst and repeatedly getting up and screaming in public even if you aren’t on duty at the time. I would add in response to some of yesterday’s posts that I readily admit I have a bias towards Navy (and Army) but during broadcasts I probably defend the officials on calls that go against Navy about as often as I criticize them. Ask the Navy fans who listen regularly. That said, I withdraw nothing I’ve ever said about Perry Hudspeth.
One more point on bias: OF COURSE I’m biased. Everyone is for one reason or another. Do I like Mike Krzyzewski (or Gary Williams or Roy Williams or Paul Goydos or Ernie Els to name a few) more than Tiger Woods? Yes. I think they’re nicer people, having nothing to do with what they do away from their professions. That doesn’t mean I have an axe to grind with Woods, I just disagree with his behavior often—and did so long before November 27th—while always admiring his brilliance on the golf course.
Scott said he had talked to Jay Bilas, who I mentioned because I believed then (and believe now) that if he or I were to sit behind a Duke bench and yell at officials we’d be crucified. He said Bilas told him he thought what Scott did was okay—something about believing in the “duality of man,”—spoken like a true lawyer, which is fine. As I said, TV guys do commercials and the standards ARE different than for print guys.
In the end, I think we agreed to (sort of) disagree. I think Scott understands WHY I’d criticize him and I understand WHY he feels the way he feels. And we’re both proud members of FOG—Friends of Gary (me, unofficially of course). I give him credit for making the call and handling the situation, in my opinion, very maturely.
********
Finally to my friends from Hoya Paranoia Inc: Yes, you are RIGHT I was WRONG. Georgetown made The Big East Tournament in 2004. My memory is good but it isn’t perfect. I looked it up last night after I hosted the radio show on WFAN. Georgetown was 4-12 in the league and tied for 12th with Miami in a 14-team league and made the tournament (losing first round) on a tiebreaker. Craig Esherick was fired soon thereafter and replaced by John Thompson III.
Here’s the irony of the whole thing: I made the comment about the 2004 team on the air last night in the context of complimenting Thompson for coming in and rebuilding the program and going to The Final Four three years later. I wasn’t ripping Georgetown or, as one poster put it, “lying,” about the Hoyas. I was complimenting them and had a memory block. Like I said, my memory is good, but it isn’t perfect—especially these days.
So, I apologize for my mistake. I would also urge all of you to calm down for crying out loud. Will I continue to criticize Georgetown for not playing in the BB+T Classic? You bet. You want to say I’m wrong to do that, have at it. We’ll agree to disagree. I also will continue to say that John Thompson the elder killed local rivalries in DC in part because HE says he did it and in part because the evidence is right there for anyone to see.
For the record: I get along fine with JT the elder these days even if we disagree on the issue of local rivalries and the BB+T. Neither of us screams or yells or calls the other a “liar,” when we talk about those subjects. I’ve known JT III since he played at Princeton and think he is a terrific coach even though I wish he would just tell his dad, “I know you didn’t play in the BB+T but I think it is the right thing to do so I’m doing it.”
My guess is his dad would get over it. You Hoya fans need to do the same.
It’s worth nothing that none of those teams has done anything particularly special this season. They’re all just solid teams that may (or may not) get squeezed out by the numbers game. That’s part of what the process so much fun: who gets in and who gets left out and the fact that each of those teams has SOME claim to a spot in the field. That will be gone with a 96 team field we all know that. The NCAA knows that and doesn’t care as long as the money offered by ESPN or (less likely) CBS-Turner is so out-of-whack that they can roll around in it for years to come.
In writing about how much I have come to enjoy Selection Sunday I would be remiss if I didn’t remind people who don’t know how it came about. Most basketball fans—especially younger ones—just take the day for granted, sort of like Christmas. There’s always been Selection Sunday, right grandpa? Well no, there hasn’t been.
It started in 1982, the year that CBS took over the rights to the NCAA Tournament from NBC.
The role that NBC and the syndicate TVS (run by Eddie Einhorn) played in building the NCAA Tournament into a national event can’t be underplayed. Remember, as recently as the historic 1966 Texas Western-Kentucky championship game, The Final Four wasn’t on network TV. It was syndicated—and not picked up in many cities—by TVS. It wasn’t until 1969 when TVS entered into a deal with NBC that The Final Four—in Lew Alcindor’s senior season at UCLA—was televised nationally. Even then the semifinals were regionalized: The East-Mideast regional was shown in the eastern half of the country, the Midwest-West regional in the west. That was the first year the semifinals were moved from Friday to Thursday because the championship game was moved to Saturday afternoon since it clearly wasn’t worthy of prime time.
The progression from that point forward was rapid: NBC took the championship game to prime time in 1973, making The Final Four a Saturday-Monday night affair and Bill Walton made it work by shooting 21-of-22 for UCLA against Memphis State in the championship game. Two years later the tournament expanded from 25 teams to 32 and conference runners-up were allowed to participate. A year later Indiana and Michigan played in an all-Big Ten final as the post-John Wooden era began.
Then came Magic and Bird in 1979 and more expansion: first to 40 teams, then 48 and 53 and finally 64 in 1985. Note that the number moved up slowly, the committee wanting to be sure it wasn’t going too fast. The move to 64, pushed hard by Wayne Duke and Vic Bubas had as much to do with wanting to eliminate byes and have everyone play the same number of games as anything else. Obviously with a 96 team field that will go out the window.
Al McGuire won the national championship with Marquette in his final game as a coach in 1977. The next year, he joined Billy Packer and Dick Enberg to form basketball’s first three man booth and they became cult figures in college basketball. When CBS wrested the rights from NBC by offering $48 million for three years—triple what NBC had paid—there was a good deal of talk that an era had ended (which it had) and that college hoops would never be the same.
CBS needed to do something to establish itself as THE network of college basketball, especially since NBC still did regular season games with Enberg and McGuire and there were those who still thought IT was the network of college basketball.
After failing in an attempt to hire Bob Knight (yes, Bob Knight) as its No. 1 color commentator, CBS hired Packer, both for that job as a consultant on scheduling (it had no college hoops contacts at the time) and on the package in general. Packer and Len DeLuca, then a CBS producer who now works at ESPN, sat down to think of ways to connect CBS to college basketball.
They came up with two ideas: Tie together the entire season with some kind of theme: The Road to The Final Four. Every game would be part of that road and every week would lead to—in the case of 1982—New Orleans. Then, one of them said something like this: “Why don’t we announce the brackets on TV?”
There is still some dispute between the two of them as to who actually thought of the idea first but together they came up with it. Until then, coaches would sit in their offices on Selection Sunday—there were no games played that day, the ACC didn’t move its championship game to Sunday until 1982—and wait for a phone call from the NCAA office in Kansas City, which is where the selection committee would meet.
Packer and DeLuca changed that. No one got a phone call anymore. Instead, they were told to watch their TV on Sunday afternoon to find out if they were in and if so where they were going. From there, the whole thing just grew and grew until it reached the point where it has become a national holiday for college hoops fans.
So, as we get ready for what might be the last truly meaningful Selection Sunday of our lives, let’s pause for a moment and pay tribute to Packer and DeLuca. It probably seemed like a minor thing to them all those years ago but it turned out to be a truly big deal.
*********
I had a nice talk with Scott Van Pelt yesterday. He called after reading yesterday’s blog, understandably a little upset, but very willing to discuss both his point of view and mine on the subject. He admitted that he had “wrestled,” with the issue for years. “I grew up a Maryland fan, I went to Maryland and I’m very passionate about my school,” he said.
All of which is absolutely fine as far as I’m concerned. In fact, I can honestly say I wish I felt a little more passion for my school. He also asked if I was wrong when I directed a profanity at the officials five years ago during a Navy-Duke football game. Of course I was wrong. That’s why I apologized on the air right away, offered to resign and, as I’ve said before, kind of grin and bear it when people bring it up now. I screwed up; I pay the price.
That said, he and I agreed that there’s a difference between one brief outburst and repeatedly getting up and screaming in public even if you aren’t on duty at the time. I would add in response to some of yesterday’s posts that I readily admit I have a bias towards Navy (and Army) but during broadcasts I probably defend the officials on calls that go against Navy about as often as I criticize them. Ask the Navy fans who listen regularly. That said, I withdraw nothing I’ve ever said about Perry Hudspeth.
One more point on bias: OF COURSE I’m biased. Everyone is for one reason or another. Do I like Mike Krzyzewski (or Gary Williams or Roy Williams or Paul Goydos or Ernie Els to name a few) more than Tiger Woods? Yes. I think they’re nicer people, having nothing to do with what they do away from their professions. That doesn’t mean I have an axe to grind with Woods, I just disagree with his behavior often—and did so long before November 27th—while always admiring his brilliance on the golf course.
Scott said he had talked to Jay Bilas, who I mentioned because I believed then (and believe now) that if he or I were to sit behind a Duke bench and yell at officials we’d be crucified. He said Bilas told him he thought what Scott did was okay—something about believing in the “duality of man,”—spoken like a true lawyer, which is fine. As I said, TV guys do commercials and the standards ARE different than for print guys.
In the end, I think we agreed to (sort of) disagree. I think Scott understands WHY I’d criticize him and I understand WHY he feels the way he feels. And we’re both proud members of FOG—Friends of Gary (me, unofficially of course). I give him credit for making the call and handling the situation, in my opinion, very maturely.
********
Finally to my friends from Hoya Paranoia Inc: Yes, you are RIGHT I was WRONG. Georgetown made The Big East Tournament in 2004. My memory is good but it isn’t perfect. I looked it up last night after I hosted the radio show on WFAN. Georgetown was 4-12 in the league and tied for 12th with Miami in a 14-team league and made the tournament (losing first round) on a tiebreaker. Craig Esherick was fired soon thereafter and replaced by John Thompson III.
Here’s the irony of the whole thing: I made the comment about the 2004 team on the air last night in the context of complimenting Thompson for coming in and rebuilding the program and going to The Final Four three years later. I wasn’t ripping Georgetown or, as one poster put it, “lying,” about the Hoyas. I was complimenting them and had a memory block. Like I said, my memory is good, but it isn’t perfect—especially these days.
So, I apologize for my mistake. I would also urge all of you to calm down for crying out loud. Will I continue to criticize Georgetown for not playing in the BB+T Classic? You bet. You want to say I’m wrong to do that, have at it. We’ll agree to disagree. I also will continue to say that John Thompson the elder killed local rivalries in DC in part because HE says he did it and in part because the evidence is right there for anyone to see.
For the record: I get along fine with JT the elder these days even if we disagree on the issue of local rivalries and the BB+T. Neither of us screams or yells or calls the other a “liar,” when we talk about those subjects. I’ve known JT III since he played at Princeton and think he is a terrific coach even though I wish he would just tell his dad, “I know you didn’t play in the BB+T but I think it is the right thing to do so I’m doing it.”
My guess is his dad would get over it. You Hoya fans need to do the same.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
This week's radio segments
Yesterday I joined The Sports Reporters' Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment. With the Tiger Woods announcement of the orchestrated event that is happening Friday morning, that was the topic of the day.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
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I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spent the majority of the time discussing the Tiger event coming up on Friday.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
---------------------
This week on the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show I was on during the ten o'clock hour, and as expected we spent the majority of the time discussing our opinions on the upcoming televised Tiger press statement. This week, we had differing opinions on much of the matter.
Click here to listen to the segment (starts at approximately the 28:50 mark): The Tony Kornheiser Show
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
---------------------
I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spent the majority of the time discussing the Tiger event coming up on Friday.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
---------------------
This week on the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show I was on during the ten o'clock hour, and as expected we spent the majority of the time discussing our opinions on the upcoming televised Tiger press statement. This week, we had differing opinions on much of the matter.
Click here to listen to the segment (starts at approximately the 28:50 mark): The Tony Kornheiser Show
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Controversy growing for Super Bowl commercial
There was a discussion on the radio today while I was in the car about an ad that a pro-life group wants to run during The Super Bowl. The ad involves Tim Tebow and his mom, who was apparently encouraged to get an abortion when she was pregnant with him while doing missionary work in, I think, the Philippines. If my facts aren’t 100 percent correct here, forgive me, I’m going off what I heard on the radio.
Obviously Tim’s mom didn’t get an abortion and the baby turned out to be Tim Tebow and the world is a better place as a result. Not surprisingly, several pro-choice groups are upset about the ad and are urging CBS to refuse to run it. This is going to be a hotly debated issue regardless of what CBS decides.
To me, there’s no issue here: The first amendment guarantees a pro-life group can run an ad like this as long as it doesn’t libel anyone in the ad or perpetrate some kind of fraud. If the ad says that Tim Tebow’s mom chose not to have an abortion and in the opinion of those paying the $2.5 million for the 30 seconds, this is proof that pro-life is the right way to go, there’s not a single reason not to run it.
There would also be no reason not to run an ad paid for by pro-choice advocates that brought forward the mother of a convicted murderer to say that she wanted an abortion when she was pregnant but couldn’t get one or couldn’t afford one and this is proof that Roe v. Wade needs to be broadened or there needs to be more funding for unwanted pregnancies.
Where do you draw the line? Well, if the Klu Klux Klan wanted to take an ad saying that the white race was superior to all others, that ad should be rejected not so much because it is offensive but because there isn’t a shred of evidence to support what the Klan would be claiming is fact.
All of this gets into the two areas where you can’t win an argument: politics and religion. Every time I catch myself getting into a political argument—which I do every single Tuesday at the Red Auerbach lunch with Chris Wallace who might be less conservative than Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh but not by much—I say to myself, ‘why are you wasting your breath?’
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve argued with people on the issue of gun control and the one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is this: I have never changed one person’s mind nor has anyone ever changed my mind. On certain issues, probably most issues, we are all so ingrained in the way we think it is almost impossible to make any of us change. Why do you think the smallest percentage of voters in any election are those who are undecided? Most of the time about 90 percent of the electorate has made up its mind—at least in general elections—before a single dollar is spent on a campaign.
Think about it: How many of you switched from Obama to McCain or vice-versa after the conventions last year? Of course the reason so much money is spent on campaigns is that in a close election the 10 or 12 percent that are undecided will decide the election. That’s why The Supreme Court’s decision last week to do away with any limits on campaign financing for corporations is so dangerous. It may mean that corporate America’s dollars will make the difference in many close elections in the future. And don’t—as Wallace tried to claim today—tell me that union money will balance corporate money. That ship sailed years ago (Wallace even semi-conceded the point before the egg rolls had been served while still insisting I was an idiot).
Abortion is not an issue where anyone changes their mind. That’s why, even though I will defend the right of the pro-life group to buy the ad during The Super Bowl, I honestly believe they are wasting their money. Maybe—MAYBE—the ad might convince a few pregnant teen-agers to think twice about an abortion and maybe that is its purpose. But it certainly won’t change the politics of the abortion issue one tiny bit.
That being said, the pro-choice groups are playing right into the pro-life’s group’s hands by demanding that CBS reject the ad. Would anyone have been talking about the ad today if not for the demand that it be turned down? No. Everyone would have been trying to decide when Brett Favre was going to announce his next retirement or un-retirement. Instead, this is now a story and it will continue to be a story and, as a result, the ad will get about 50 times more attention than it would have if the pro-choice groups had kept their mouths shut. Sometimes the best way to win an argument is just to be quiet. (Okay, you can make the case that’s a lesson I’ve never learned)
I feel sorry for CBS on this one. If the network turns down the ad it will catch hell from the right. If it runs the ad it will catch hell from the left.
I have always taken the position that I wish athletes would leave religion out of sports. I don’t like it when athletes claim that God somehow played a role in a victory and I would rather not see them putting biblical passages on their eye black. That said, I think they have an absolute right to do it until and unless someone passes a rule that says NOTHING can be written on your eye black. Of course a very strong case can be made that if you can’t write on your eye black why should players be allowed to display tattoos that have writing on them? Good question.
There’s always been a part of me that wishes athletes would be more politically active. The problem with that is simple: About 95 percent of them care about one issue: money. Their only question is, “which candidate is going to lower my taxes the most?”
When I was writing “Living on the Black,” (which has nothing to do with eye black) a couple of years ago both main subjects, Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina, had been very active baseball union members. In fact, Glavine had been one of THE union leaders during the 1994-1995 strike.
He and Stan Kasten, then the president of the Braves, spent hours screaming at one another about baseball politics even though the two of them are now friends. When I was working on the book, Kasten said to me one day, “Why don’t you ask Tommy how he can be so pro-union, so pro-workers rights and so Republican all at the same time?”
I repeated the question to Glavine who smiled and said, “He makes a good point.”
Perhaps that’s true but the question didn’t change Glavine’s view of the world one bit. In fact, when he and his wife Chris adopted a baby last summer I got a note from Glavine: “The world’s newest Republican has arrived.”
Fortunately for me this was shortly after Arlen Specter had changed parties so I wrote back: “I guess that evens things up for Arlen Specter.”
And the debates—without resolution—roll on and on.
Note from FOTB Staff: We apologize for the downtime this morning....there was an issue with server bandwidth usage, something we obviously didn't pay close enough attention to (yes, we are taking the blame and not passing it off -- cough, cough). From what we understand, it is a good problem having to do with more readers coming to the site. So, we'll pay more attention and thank you for continuing to visit John's blog!
Obviously Tim’s mom didn’t get an abortion and the baby turned out to be Tim Tebow and the world is a better place as a result. Not surprisingly, several pro-choice groups are upset about the ad and are urging CBS to refuse to run it. This is going to be a hotly debated issue regardless of what CBS decides.
To me, there’s no issue here: The first amendment guarantees a pro-life group can run an ad like this as long as it doesn’t libel anyone in the ad or perpetrate some kind of fraud. If the ad says that Tim Tebow’s mom chose not to have an abortion and in the opinion of those paying the $2.5 million for the 30 seconds, this is proof that pro-life is the right way to go, there’s not a single reason not to run it.
There would also be no reason not to run an ad paid for by pro-choice advocates that brought forward the mother of a convicted murderer to say that she wanted an abortion when she was pregnant but couldn’t get one or couldn’t afford one and this is proof that Roe v. Wade needs to be broadened or there needs to be more funding for unwanted pregnancies.
Where do you draw the line? Well, if the Klu Klux Klan wanted to take an ad saying that the white race was superior to all others, that ad should be rejected not so much because it is offensive but because there isn’t a shred of evidence to support what the Klan would be claiming is fact.
All of this gets into the two areas where you can’t win an argument: politics and religion. Every time I catch myself getting into a political argument—which I do every single Tuesday at the Red Auerbach lunch with Chris Wallace who might be less conservative than Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh but not by much—I say to myself, ‘why are you wasting your breath?’
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve argued with people on the issue of gun control and the one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty is this: I have never changed one person’s mind nor has anyone ever changed my mind. On certain issues, probably most issues, we are all so ingrained in the way we think it is almost impossible to make any of us change. Why do you think the smallest percentage of voters in any election are those who are undecided? Most of the time about 90 percent of the electorate has made up its mind—at least in general elections—before a single dollar is spent on a campaign.
Think about it: How many of you switched from Obama to McCain or vice-versa after the conventions last year? Of course the reason so much money is spent on campaigns is that in a close election the 10 or 12 percent that are undecided will decide the election. That’s why The Supreme Court’s decision last week to do away with any limits on campaign financing for corporations is so dangerous. It may mean that corporate America’s dollars will make the difference in many close elections in the future. And don’t—as Wallace tried to claim today—tell me that union money will balance corporate money. That ship sailed years ago (Wallace even semi-conceded the point before the egg rolls had been served while still insisting I was an idiot).
Abortion is not an issue where anyone changes their mind. That’s why, even though I will defend the right of the pro-life group to buy the ad during The Super Bowl, I honestly believe they are wasting their money. Maybe—MAYBE—the ad might convince a few pregnant teen-agers to think twice about an abortion and maybe that is its purpose. But it certainly won’t change the politics of the abortion issue one tiny bit.
That being said, the pro-choice groups are playing right into the pro-life’s group’s hands by demanding that CBS reject the ad. Would anyone have been talking about the ad today if not for the demand that it be turned down? No. Everyone would have been trying to decide when Brett Favre was going to announce his next retirement or un-retirement. Instead, this is now a story and it will continue to be a story and, as a result, the ad will get about 50 times more attention than it would have if the pro-choice groups had kept their mouths shut. Sometimes the best way to win an argument is just to be quiet. (Okay, you can make the case that’s a lesson I’ve never learned)
I feel sorry for CBS on this one. If the network turns down the ad it will catch hell from the right. If it runs the ad it will catch hell from the left.
I have always taken the position that I wish athletes would leave religion out of sports. I don’t like it when athletes claim that God somehow played a role in a victory and I would rather not see them putting biblical passages on their eye black. That said, I think they have an absolute right to do it until and unless someone passes a rule that says NOTHING can be written on your eye black. Of course a very strong case can be made that if you can’t write on your eye black why should players be allowed to display tattoos that have writing on them? Good question.
There’s always been a part of me that wishes athletes would be more politically active. The problem with that is simple: About 95 percent of them care about one issue: money. Their only question is, “which candidate is going to lower my taxes the most?”
When I was writing “Living on the Black,” (which has nothing to do with eye black) a couple of years ago both main subjects, Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina, had been very active baseball union members. In fact, Glavine had been one of THE union leaders during the 1994-1995 strike.
He and Stan Kasten, then the president of the Braves, spent hours screaming at one another about baseball politics even though the two of them are now friends. When I was working on the book, Kasten said to me one day, “Why don’t you ask Tommy how he can be so pro-union, so pro-workers rights and so Republican all at the same time?”
I repeated the question to Glavine who smiled and said, “He makes a good point.”
Perhaps that’s true but the question didn’t change Glavine’s view of the world one bit. In fact, when he and his wife Chris adopted a baby last summer I got a note from Glavine: “The world’s newest Republican has arrived.”
Fortunately for me this was shortly after Arlen Specter had changed parties so I wrote back: “I guess that evens things up for Arlen Specter.”
And the debates—without resolution—roll on and on.
Note from FOTB Staff: We apologize for the downtime this morning....there was an issue with server bandwidth usage, something we obviously didn't pay close enough attention to (yes, we are taking the blame and not passing it off -- cough, cough). From what we understand, it is a good problem having to do with more readers coming to the site. So, we'll pay more attention and thank you for continuing to visit John's blog!
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