The following is this week's column from The Washington Post on the Jets saving the playoff weekend followed by an article on UVA basketball and its coach, Tony Bennett ---------------
If these past two weekends were the best the NFL has to offer, maybe there's a chance for the USFL to make a comeback.
Six of the eight games were enough to make one think about switching to Dick Vitale calling a women's basketball game. Or Dick Vitale talking about calling a women's basketball game.
Wild-card weekend gave us Packers-Cardinals and three games that even fans of the winners would be hard-pressed to watch to the end. The Ravens-Patriots game was over before Bill Belichick had a chance to get his hoodie into position.
Surely the divisional playoff weekend would be better. Except it wasn't: It was worse. The winning teams were ahead by a combined 35 points at halftime Saturday and never looked back, and the only real suspense in the over-hyped Cowboys-Vikings matchup was when the "Can Wade Phillips survive?" talk would begin.
Click here for the rest of the column: Rex Ryan's Jets save NFL playoffs from tedium
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This really wasn't the way Tony Bennett had it planned. It isn't that he didn't love basketball. The game has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, which tends to happen when you're a coach's son. The gym is as much a part of your boyhood as your mom's kitchen table. Growing up while his dad, Dick, was coaching high school ball, then National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ball and then Division I ball, he was the classic gym rat, the kid who makes himself a great shooter by spending hours and hours alone with a ball and a backboard.
Bennett would have been something straight out of "Hoosiers," if he had been in Indiana instead of Wisconsin. But coaching wasn't in his blood. Playing was what he was about.
"When I was a kid, the last thing in the world I thought I'd ever do was coach," he said, relaxing in the Virginia coaches' lounge at John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday after the Cavaliers had upset 20th-ranked Georgia Tech. "I loved being a player. I guess in my mind I was going to play forever -- go from college to the NBA and just stay. I saw close-up what a roller-coaster ride coaching was for my dad and for my sister Kathi [who won a Division III national title at Wisconsin-Oshkosh and later coached at Indiana] and I said, 'That's not for me.' Then I got hurt and things changed."
Click here for the rest of the column: Finding direction on an unexpected path
Showing posts with label Jets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jets. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Jets move on, stories of this fan as a kid
As luck would have it, the first year my parents let me ride The New York subways on my own (I sneaked onto them to go to games on occasion before that) was 1968. I knew the system cold—at least the part of it that mattered to me. To get to Yankee Stadium I took the IRT number 1 train downtown from 79th street to 59th street and then went downstairs (free transfer) and took the IND D train to 161st and The Grand Concourse. The D was an express so it didn’t take very long.
Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.
You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,
The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.
The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.
I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.
Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.
The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.
Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.
“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.
“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”
“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”
“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”
Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.
“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”
“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”
“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”
I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.
My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.
I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.
Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.
But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.
But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.
What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.
“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”
Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.
When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.
“Embarrassing,” he admitted.
“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.
And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.
My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”
That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.
Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.
But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?
Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.
You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,
The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.
The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.
I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.
Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.
The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.
Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.
“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.
“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”
“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”
“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”
Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.
“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”
“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”
“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”
I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.
My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.
I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.
Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.
But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.
But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.
What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.
“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”
Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.
When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.
“Embarrassing,” he admitted.
“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.
And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.
My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”
That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.
Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.
But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Panic Setting in for Some NFL Cities, Jets Not Among Them; Long Trip to Pittsburgh for Navy
The second weekend of the National Football League season is one of my favorites for one reason: it is when panic officially begins to set in for certain teams and cities. To a large degree, this is understandable. When I did my book on The Baltimore Ravens (Next Man Up) five years ago, I remember the mood at the team's training facility the day after a loss in the season opener at Cleveland.
Kevin Byrne, who I think was the franchise's public relations director under Paul Brown (a slight exaggeration I suppose) made an interesting point: "In this league one loss is the equivalent of a ten game losing streak in baseball."
He's right of course: a baseball season is 162 games, an NFL season is 16 games. Even I can do that math. Which means that 0-2 is the equivalent of starting a baseball season 0-20. There are numbers somewhere on the odds of an 0-2 team making the playoffs since the 16 game season began in 1978. It happens, but not very often.
So, here we sit two weeks in and the Tennessee Titans, who were 13-3 last season and the top seed in the AFC are 0-2. They lost in overtime on the road to The Super Bowl champion Steelers and then lost 34-31 Sunday to the Houston Texans, who were looking at some serious panic in their town if they started 0-2 after all the so-called experts were picking them as the "surprise," team during the offseason. How can you be a surprise team if everyone is saying you're going to be a surprise team?
(Let me pause here a minute to ask another question: how can USC repeatedly get trapped by trap games when everyone is saying, 'this is a trap game?' Oregon State last year was a little bit understandable but Washington? Sure, Steve Sarkisian is an ex-USC assistant and he's clearly brought a new attitude to Seattle but they were 0-12 last year. That's not a typo. All credit to the Huskies and it is pretty clear now why Pete Carroll freaked out when Mark Sanchez decided to turn pro but still, how does that keep happening?).
As they say on ESPN, "more on college football later with an exclusive interview in which Charlie Weis reveals why he's such a genius."
Speaking of Mark Sanchez, I'm not sure which statue is being built first in front of the new Meadowlands Stadium, Rex Ryan's or Sanchez's. The Jets are 2-0 and beat the hated Patriots Sunday at home for the first time since Weeb Eubank was coach and Joe Namath was quarterback. (Okay I'm in an exaggerating mood today). Having grown up a Jets fan I know how crazy they go up there when the Jets have any success at all. When the Jets won in Foxboro last year and then against Tennessee to be 8-3 there were actually stories in The New York Times--not the tabloids, The Times--about a Jets-Giants Super Bowl. Didn't quite work out.
Ryan though is the real deal. I got to know him well while doing the Ravens book. He has all of his father (Buddy's) football knowledge and understanding but he also has a terrific, self-deprecating sense of humor and connects with people--especially his players--as well as anyone I've met. Just to keep things interesting, Rex used to weigh in with his lineman every week--he'd usually show up at training camp weighing about 350 and try to work his way down--and there was always some kind of running bet on how much weight he could take off during the season. To say he kept things loose is an understatement.
Back to panic-towns. It seems pretty likely that fans in Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Kansas City, St Louis and Charlotte are in for long seasons. In Detroit it can't possibly be as long a season as it was a year ago. At least there's a sliver of hope with a new coach and a rookie quarterback. The Lions WILL win this season--how's that for going out on a limb?
The Browns no doubt hired Eric Mangini on the theory that his ex-mentor, Bill Belichick ultimately failed in his first job (with the old Browns) before becoming a Hall of Fame coach in New England. Mangini, like Belichick, had an early playoff team with the Jets, then floundered. He's going to flounder this year but Belichick was, I believe, 5-11 his first year with the Patriots.
In every one of the above-mentioned cities there are quarterback issues. The most baffling one is in Charlotte where Jake Delhomme has all of a sudden become the Steve Blass of quarterbacks, seemingly losing his touch overnight. He was brutal in the playoff loss to the Cardinals, horrific in the opening loss to the Eagles. He was much better Sunday in Atlanta but threw a game-clinching interception late in the fourth quarter. That made 12 in three games.
Maybe he'll bounce back. Maybe Matt Cassel will eventually be the answer in Kansas City. Then again, maybe not.
Here in Washington where I live the Redskins are 1-1 but the town is very much in a state of panic. The Redskins were fortunate to beat the god-awful Rams on Sunday and, even though they marched up and down the field never scored a touchdown. Their offense has one in two games--and that was against the Giants two minute defense when they were down 23-10 in the opener. Naturally the fingers are being pointed at Coach Jim Zorn and at quarterback Jason Campbell. Here's my question: who hired Zorn? Who drafted Campbell and all those wide receivers who haven't done a thing while the offensive line struggles, a year ago? It was, for those of you scoring at home, owner Daniel M. (call me Mr.) Snyder and his trusty henchman Vinny Cerrato. How they continue to duck criticism is mind-boggling.
Best story so far: the revived 49ers under Mike Singletary. I also got to know Singletary doing the Ravens book and I will freely admit I never envisioned him as a head coach. As great a linebacker as he was, he came across almost gentle as an assistant coach. He's was (and is) very devout, often read the bible in his office during down time and came across very quiet. I simply missed the boat. I remember Mike Nolan, who was the defensive coordinator, telling me he thought Singeltary WOULD make a great head coach. "When he talks to the players, you can hear a pin drop in the room," he said. "He doesn't have to raise his voice to get his message across."
Nolan took Singletary with him to San Francisco and Singletary got the job when Nolan got fired. That's the way sports works. Your friend gets fired, you get a chance. Nolan was right about Singletary. I was wrong.
Back to the colleges for a moment. The most stunning score to me on Saturday was Florida State-54, Brigham Young-28. The BYU defense which looked so good against Oklahoma (even before Sam Bradford was hurt) looked helpless. Maybe the ACC DOES have a few good teams: Miami and Virginia Tech (which play Saturday) also appear to be solid. We'll see. The bottom of the league still looks awful: Maryland lost for a second straight year to Middle Tennessee (talk about panic); Virginia is 0-3 and those revived Duke Blue Devils managed to stay within 28 of Kansas on Saturday.
One final note: Two weeks ago I wrote about what a great day I had when Navy went to Ohio State and almost beat the Buckeyes. This past Saturday was completely the opposite. The traffic getting to Pittsburgh (I drove up on Saturday for a 6 o'clock game) was horrible thanks to construction coming off The Pennsylvania Turnpike. That cost me close to an hour. Then there was construction at Heinz Field and, even though I knew exactly how to make a quick turn to get me to the parking lot I needed to get to, the not-so-helpful Pittsburgh police (where are the guys from Ohio when you need them?) not only wouldn't let me make the turn, one guy shouted at me, "get moving now or I'll arrest you."
Thanks for the courtesy. I barely made it inside to go on the air on time. Then the game began with Pitt fumbling the opening kickoff and Navy’s Ram Vela having a clear shot at scooping the ball at 20 yard line and running in four a touchdown. Vela, who may be the country's smallest linebacker at 5-9 and 193 pounds (seriously) couldn't quite pick the ball up. Pitt recovered, drove 89 yards for a touchdown and dominated most of the game. The Mids offense looked as bad as I've seen it since Paul Johnson put in the triple option in 2002. A long night.
On the way back, I was about 30 miles from home at 1 a.m. driving about 70 in a 65. I'm always careful late at night because I know there are cops with nothing better to do waiting to nail people who sneak up to 10 or more miles over the speed limit. Suddenly, a cop came up behind me, lights flashing, siren going. I thought he was going to swing past me but he came right up on my tail. He wanted me.
Surprised--and a little bit angry--I pulled over. He came up and, as I handed him my license and began searching for my registration he asked the usual opening question: "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
If I've learned nothing else in my old age it is that courtesy to a cop is usually key in how he (or she) deals with you. "Officer, I'll be honest, I really don't know," I said.
"You were going 71 in a 55 mile per hour zone," he said.
Oh God, I thought. I had missed the sign where the limit had gone from 65 to 55 going into Frederick and he'd been waiting. I apologized profusely, said I had missed the sign. In the meantime I was still trying to find my registration. My glove compartment is filled with media credentials, parking passes--you name it--because I know if I keep the stuff there I'm far less likely to lose it. (I am famous for losing credentials. Once I walked into a golf tournament wearing a three year old credential because I hadn't noticed that I pulled the wrong one out of the door. Fortunately, the security guard knew me--yes Tony Kornheiser, he knew who I was!--and it was okay).
The cop finally told me to keep looking while he went back to check my license. No doubt he looked at my plate and called that into the computer. I finally found it and--as instructed--held it out the window for the cop to see. He came back and handed me a warning.
"This is a warning for the speed and for failing to produce your registration in a timely manner," he said.
"For what?" I said, genuinely surprised.
"The law says if you fail to produce your registration in a timely manner you can be ticketed even if you have it," he said. "We're targets out here on the road you know."
I was tempted to say if you didn't pull people over at 1 o'clock in the morning on an empty road for not slowing down in an artificially marked down speed zone, you wouldn't be a target. But he WAS, in fact, cutting me a break so I just said, "I understand."
I must have been smiling because he said, "did I say something funny?"
I shook my head and told him what I was thinking at that moment. "The thought just occurred to me that I was convinced you were going to give me a ticket and that would have been the perfect end to a perfect day," I said. "You messed it up by giving me a break."
This time, he smiled. "I get it," he said. "Have a safe trip home."
I did. But before I did, I put my registration in a spot where I can find it easily in the future.
Kevin Byrne, who I think was the franchise's public relations director under Paul Brown (a slight exaggeration I suppose) made an interesting point: "In this league one loss is the equivalent of a ten game losing streak in baseball."
He's right of course: a baseball season is 162 games, an NFL season is 16 games. Even I can do that math. Which means that 0-2 is the equivalent of starting a baseball season 0-20. There are numbers somewhere on the odds of an 0-2 team making the playoffs since the 16 game season began in 1978. It happens, but not very often.
So, here we sit two weeks in and the Tennessee Titans, who were 13-3 last season and the top seed in the AFC are 0-2. They lost in overtime on the road to The Super Bowl champion Steelers and then lost 34-31 Sunday to the Houston Texans, who were looking at some serious panic in their town if they started 0-2 after all the so-called experts were picking them as the "surprise," team during the offseason. How can you be a surprise team if everyone is saying you're going to be a surprise team?
(Let me pause here a minute to ask another question: how can USC repeatedly get trapped by trap games when everyone is saying, 'this is a trap game?' Oregon State last year was a little bit understandable but Washington? Sure, Steve Sarkisian is an ex-USC assistant and he's clearly brought a new attitude to Seattle but they were 0-12 last year. That's not a typo. All credit to the Huskies and it is pretty clear now why Pete Carroll freaked out when Mark Sanchez decided to turn pro but still, how does that keep happening?).
As they say on ESPN, "more on college football later with an exclusive interview in which Charlie Weis reveals why he's such a genius."
Speaking of Mark Sanchez, I'm not sure which statue is being built first in front of the new Meadowlands Stadium, Rex Ryan's or Sanchez's. The Jets are 2-0 and beat the hated Patriots Sunday at home for the first time since Weeb Eubank was coach and Joe Namath was quarterback. (Okay I'm in an exaggerating mood today). Having grown up a Jets fan I know how crazy they go up there when the Jets have any success at all. When the Jets won in Foxboro last year and then against Tennessee to be 8-3 there were actually stories in The New York Times--not the tabloids, The Times--about a Jets-Giants Super Bowl. Didn't quite work out.
Ryan though is the real deal. I got to know him well while doing the Ravens book. He has all of his father (Buddy's) football knowledge and understanding but he also has a terrific, self-deprecating sense of humor and connects with people--especially his players--as well as anyone I've met. Just to keep things interesting, Rex used to weigh in with his lineman every week--he'd usually show up at training camp weighing about 350 and try to work his way down--and there was always some kind of running bet on how much weight he could take off during the season. To say he kept things loose is an understatement.
Back to panic-towns. It seems pretty likely that fans in Cleveland, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Kansas City, St Louis and Charlotte are in for long seasons. In Detroit it can't possibly be as long a season as it was a year ago. At least there's a sliver of hope with a new coach and a rookie quarterback. The Lions WILL win this season--how's that for going out on a limb?
The Browns no doubt hired Eric Mangini on the theory that his ex-mentor, Bill Belichick ultimately failed in his first job (with the old Browns) before becoming a Hall of Fame coach in New England. Mangini, like Belichick, had an early playoff team with the Jets, then floundered. He's going to flounder this year but Belichick was, I believe, 5-11 his first year with the Patriots.
In every one of the above-mentioned cities there are quarterback issues. The most baffling one is in Charlotte where Jake Delhomme has all of a sudden become the Steve Blass of quarterbacks, seemingly losing his touch overnight. He was brutal in the playoff loss to the Cardinals, horrific in the opening loss to the Eagles. He was much better Sunday in Atlanta but threw a game-clinching interception late in the fourth quarter. That made 12 in three games.
Maybe he'll bounce back. Maybe Matt Cassel will eventually be the answer in Kansas City. Then again, maybe not.
Here in Washington where I live the Redskins are 1-1 but the town is very much in a state of panic. The Redskins were fortunate to beat the god-awful Rams on Sunday and, even though they marched up and down the field never scored a touchdown. Their offense has one in two games--and that was against the Giants two minute defense when they were down 23-10 in the opener. Naturally the fingers are being pointed at Coach Jim Zorn and at quarterback Jason Campbell. Here's my question: who hired Zorn? Who drafted Campbell and all those wide receivers who haven't done a thing while the offensive line struggles, a year ago? It was, for those of you scoring at home, owner Daniel M. (call me Mr.) Snyder and his trusty henchman Vinny Cerrato. How they continue to duck criticism is mind-boggling.
Best story so far: the revived 49ers under Mike Singletary. I also got to know Singletary doing the Ravens book and I will freely admit I never envisioned him as a head coach. As great a linebacker as he was, he came across almost gentle as an assistant coach. He's was (and is) very devout, often read the bible in his office during down time and came across very quiet. I simply missed the boat. I remember Mike Nolan, who was the defensive coordinator, telling me he thought Singeltary WOULD make a great head coach. "When he talks to the players, you can hear a pin drop in the room," he said. "He doesn't have to raise his voice to get his message across."
Nolan took Singletary with him to San Francisco and Singletary got the job when Nolan got fired. That's the way sports works. Your friend gets fired, you get a chance. Nolan was right about Singletary. I was wrong.
Back to the colleges for a moment. The most stunning score to me on Saturday was Florida State-54, Brigham Young-28. The BYU defense which looked so good against Oklahoma (even before Sam Bradford was hurt) looked helpless. Maybe the ACC DOES have a few good teams: Miami and Virginia Tech (which play Saturday) also appear to be solid. We'll see. The bottom of the league still looks awful: Maryland lost for a second straight year to Middle Tennessee (talk about panic); Virginia is 0-3 and those revived Duke Blue Devils managed to stay within 28 of Kansas on Saturday.
One final note: Two weeks ago I wrote about what a great day I had when Navy went to Ohio State and almost beat the Buckeyes. This past Saturday was completely the opposite. The traffic getting to Pittsburgh (I drove up on Saturday for a 6 o'clock game) was horrible thanks to construction coming off The Pennsylvania Turnpike. That cost me close to an hour. Then there was construction at Heinz Field and, even though I knew exactly how to make a quick turn to get me to the parking lot I needed to get to, the not-so-helpful Pittsburgh police (where are the guys from Ohio when you need them?) not only wouldn't let me make the turn, one guy shouted at me, "get moving now or I'll arrest you."
Thanks for the courtesy. I barely made it inside to go on the air on time. Then the game began with Pitt fumbling the opening kickoff and Navy’s Ram Vela having a clear shot at scooping the ball at 20 yard line and running in four a touchdown. Vela, who may be the country's smallest linebacker at 5-9 and 193 pounds (seriously) couldn't quite pick the ball up. Pitt recovered, drove 89 yards for a touchdown and dominated most of the game. The Mids offense looked as bad as I've seen it since Paul Johnson put in the triple option in 2002. A long night.
On the way back, I was about 30 miles from home at 1 a.m. driving about 70 in a 65. I'm always careful late at night because I know there are cops with nothing better to do waiting to nail people who sneak up to 10 or more miles over the speed limit. Suddenly, a cop came up behind me, lights flashing, siren going. I thought he was going to swing past me but he came right up on my tail. He wanted me.
Surprised--and a little bit angry--I pulled over. He came up and, as I handed him my license and began searching for my registration he asked the usual opening question: "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
If I've learned nothing else in my old age it is that courtesy to a cop is usually key in how he (or she) deals with you. "Officer, I'll be honest, I really don't know," I said.
"You were going 71 in a 55 mile per hour zone," he said.
Oh God, I thought. I had missed the sign where the limit had gone from 65 to 55 going into Frederick and he'd been waiting. I apologized profusely, said I had missed the sign. In the meantime I was still trying to find my registration. My glove compartment is filled with media credentials, parking passes--you name it--because I know if I keep the stuff there I'm far less likely to lose it. (I am famous for losing credentials. Once I walked into a golf tournament wearing a three year old credential because I hadn't noticed that I pulled the wrong one out of the door. Fortunately, the security guard knew me--yes Tony Kornheiser, he knew who I was!--and it was okay).
The cop finally told me to keep looking while he went back to check my license. No doubt he looked at my plate and called that into the computer. I finally found it and--as instructed--held it out the window for the cop to see. He came back and handed me a warning.
"This is a warning for the speed and for failing to produce your registration in a timely manner," he said.
"For what?" I said, genuinely surprised.
"The law says if you fail to produce your registration in a timely manner you can be ticketed even if you have it," he said. "We're targets out here on the road you know."
I was tempted to say if you didn't pull people over at 1 o'clock in the morning on an empty road for not slowing down in an artificially marked down speed zone, you wouldn't be a target. But he WAS, in fact, cutting me a break so I just said, "I understand."
I must have been smiling because he said, "did I say something funny?"
I shook my head and told him what I was thinking at that moment. "The thought just occurred to me that I was convinced you were going to give me a ticket and that would have been the perfect end to a perfect day," I said. "You messed it up by giving me a break."
This time, he smiled. "I get it," he said. "Have a safe trip home."
I did. But before I did, I put my registration in a spot where I can find it easily in the future.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Emotional Weekend - Celebration of '69 Mets Brings Back Memories of Being a Young Fan
It was an emotional weekend for me. No, not because Ryan Moore won his first event on The PGA Tour or because the tour's 'playoffs' are about to begin. It wasn't Brett Favre appearing in a Minnesota Vikings uniform or even another weekend of Yankees-Red Sox.
I went back to my boyhood this weekend.
There is no sports memory I have that is more vivid than the 1969 New York Mets--aka The Miracle Mets. They were part of an extraordinary 16 month run in the history of New York sports--the Jets shocking upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in January of 1969, followed by the Mets World Series win in October of that year and, finally, the Knicks world title in May of 1970. All were remarkably dramatic. In fact, I can still remember the exact date each time won its title: January 12; October 16th; May 8th. Seriously, I did not look that up.
I remember Namath and the Jets because no one gave them a chance. I was a Jets fan as a kid because there was no way to get Giants tickets in Yankee Stadium and you could actually walk into the Jets offices at 57th and Madison on Monday and buy a standing room ticket for $3. Then you'd find an empty seat somewhere. I'd gotten into the habit of pacing in front of the TV whenever the Jets played for good luck. On the day of The Super Bowl I paced and paced as the Jets built a 16-0 lead. My dad came home from a concert early in the fourth quarter and actually sat down to watch.
"Stop pacing," he said. "You're making me dizzy."
It was 16-0. Okay, I sat down. Johnny Unitas came in for Earl Morrall and took the Colts straight down the field to make it 16-7.
"Okay, pace," my dad said.
I will skip the Mets for a moment. I was a huge Knicks fan. My friends and I used to go to Madison Square Garden in the middle of the night to line up to be sure to get playoff tickets. We always tried for either section 406 or 430--they were at halfcourt in the blue seats, the only tickets we could afford. I was there on May 8th, wondering like everyone else if Willis Reed could play game seven against the Lakers with the championship on the line. Wilt Chamberlain had gone off in game 6 in LA with Reed sidelined.
During warmups, I heard a huge cheer go up and looked down to see Cazzie Russell walking out. Russell always came out late for warmups and, from a distance, some people had mistaken him for Reed. Finally, Reed did come out. The place went nuts. He hit his first two shots of the game and then Walt Frazier took over. The Knicks won 113-99 and it wasn't that close. I still remember hearing the tape of Marv Albert counting down the final seconds while Dave DeBusschere simply stood holding the ball. "Pandemonium in the Garden!" he screamed when the buzzer sounded. He was right.
But there was nothing quite like the Mets. They were my first love in sports--a truly awful expansion team my friends laughed at me for adopting as my team at the age of six. I'm old enough to have seen them play in The Polo Grounds and I suffered through those first six truly awful seasons. I started riding the subway to Shea Stadium--I knew every stop on the No. 7 train by heart--when I was 11--and paid $1.30 to sit in the upper deck. I loved the Sunday doubleheaders best if only because the Mets often won the second game against the other team's backup players.
In that sixth season--1967--hope began to arrive. Tom Seaver was clearly a rising star. The next year Gil Hodges became the manager and Jerry Koosman and Nolan Ryan showed up. I remember Ryan pitching a one-hitter against the Phillies on a day he didn't have blisters and doing Kiner's Korner with his wife Ruth, who wore a mini-skirt on the show. Talk about first love.
And then came '69. I remember being discouraged on Opening Day when the Mets lost for the eighth straight year even though Seaver was pitching and the opponent was the expansion Montreal Expos. The final was 11-10. But sometime in late May they went on an 11 game winning streak. I remember Jack DiLauro coming up from the minor leagues and beating the Dodgers 1-0. Of course there were the two July series with the Cubs--including Seaver's imperfect game (I still hate Jimmy Qualls). I remember reading a story in which Buddy Harrelson, who was on reserve duty that week, was watching in a bar trying to convince people that he KNEW Seaver. Then the incredible rally from mid-August on. I was there for the black cat and the (Randy Hundley) rain dance and then on September 10th for a twi-night doubleheader with the Expos when the Mets went into first place for the first time.
It was a joyride from there. The clincher on September 24th--Joe Torre hit into a double-play to end the game at 9:07 p.m.--as Lindsey Nelson kept shouting--and then the sweep of the Braves and the amazing five game win over the unbeatable Orioles.
In all I saw 66 games in person. A few times we splurged for big games and bought seats in the mezzanine for $2.50 and my dad loaned me money for the postseason tickets. I remember everyone hugging one another when Cleon Jones made the last catch (on a ball hit by Davey Johnson who later managed the Mets only other World Series win) and it was one of those perfect moments in time.
Forty years later, the Mets celebrated that team again. Some of them are gone--McGraw, Agee, Clendenon and, of course, Hodges who had a heart attack less than three years later. Some others didn't make it back. But there was Seaver and Ryan and Koosman and Gentry and Harrelson and Ron Swoboda and Dr. Ron Taylor and Jerry Grote and Wayne Garrett and, of course Cleon, who may still be the best hitter the Mets ever had with apologies to Mike Piazza. Not to mention Ed Kranepool, who I remember seeing at the tail end of 1962 when he came up straight out of high school. In a God-awful season for the team, there was real joy in the new stadium. All of us old enough to remember had to get choked up as the players were introduced and the highlights montage was shown.
It would be very easy to feel old looking at all the over-60 Mets but I didn't feel that way. I felt warm and happy that it had all happened the way it did and that I had the chance to see as much of it as I did. When I got older and became a reporter, I more or less stopped rooting for teams and started rooting for good guys--regardless of who they played for. I couldn't stand the '92 Mets and I'm not so crazy about the current group, not because they've been injured or mediocre but because I'm not sure how much they care.
But the '69 team happened when I was still innocent--a year before I read 'Ball Four’ and my view of athletes changed forever. To me, they're all still great guys and always will be. Steroids can't change that; Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens can't change that--nothing can change that.
They gave me joy then and they still give me joy now. There aren't a whole lot of things in life about which your feelings do not change even a little bit in 40 years. The '69 Mets are an exception--and, for me, they always will be.
I went back to my boyhood this weekend.
There is no sports memory I have that is more vivid than the 1969 New York Mets--aka The Miracle Mets. They were part of an extraordinary 16 month run in the history of New York sports--the Jets shocking upset of the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III in January of 1969, followed by the Mets World Series win in October of that year and, finally, the Knicks world title in May of 1970. All were remarkably dramatic. In fact, I can still remember the exact date each time won its title: January 12; October 16th; May 8th. Seriously, I did not look that up.
I remember Namath and the Jets because no one gave them a chance. I was a Jets fan as a kid because there was no way to get Giants tickets in Yankee Stadium and you could actually walk into the Jets offices at 57th and Madison on Monday and buy a standing room ticket for $3. Then you'd find an empty seat somewhere. I'd gotten into the habit of pacing in front of the TV whenever the Jets played for good luck. On the day of The Super Bowl I paced and paced as the Jets built a 16-0 lead. My dad came home from a concert early in the fourth quarter and actually sat down to watch.
"Stop pacing," he said. "You're making me dizzy."
It was 16-0. Okay, I sat down. Johnny Unitas came in for Earl Morrall and took the Colts straight down the field to make it 16-7.
"Okay, pace," my dad said.
I will skip the Mets for a moment. I was a huge Knicks fan. My friends and I used to go to Madison Square Garden in the middle of the night to line up to be sure to get playoff tickets. We always tried for either section 406 or 430--they were at halfcourt in the blue seats, the only tickets we could afford. I was there on May 8th, wondering like everyone else if Willis Reed could play game seven against the Lakers with the championship on the line. Wilt Chamberlain had gone off in game 6 in LA with Reed sidelined.
During warmups, I heard a huge cheer go up and looked down to see Cazzie Russell walking out. Russell always came out late for warmups and, from a distance, some people had mistaken him for Reed. Finally, Reed did come out. The place went nuts. He hit his first two shots of the game and then Walt Frazier took over. The Knicks won 113-99 and it wasn't that close. I still remember hearing the tape of Marv Albert counting down the final seconds while Dave DeBusschere simply stood holding the ball. "Pandemonium in the Garden!" he screamed when the buzzer sounded. He was right.
But there was nothing quite like the Mets. They were my first love in sports--a truly awful expansion team my friends laughed at me for adopting as my team at the age of six. I'm old enough to have seen them play in The Polo Grounds and I suffered through those first six truly awful seasons. I started riding the subway to Shea Stadium--I knew every stop on the No. 7 train by heart--when I was 11--and paid $1.30 to sit in the upper deck. I loved the Sunday doubleheaders best if only because the Mets often won the second game against the other team's backup players.
In that sixth season--1967--hope began to arrive. Tom Seaver was clearly a rising star. The next year Gil Hodges became the manager and Jerry Koosman and Nolan Ryan showed up. I remember Ryan pitching a one-hitter against the Phillies on a day he didn't have blisters and doing Kiner's Korner with his wife Ruth, who wore a mini-skirt on the show. Talk about first love.
And then came '69. I remember being discouraged on Opening Day when the Mets lost for the eighth straight year even though Seaver was pitching and the opponent was the expansion Montreal Expos. The final was 11-10. But sometime in late May they went on an 11 game winning streak. I remember Jack DiLauro coming up from the minor leagues and beating the Dodgers 1-0. Of course there were the two July series with the Cubs--including Seaver's imperfect game (I still hate Jimmy Qualls). I remember reading a story in which Buddy Harrelson, who was on reserve duty that week, was watching in a bar trying to convince people that he KNEW Seaver. Then the incredible rally from mid-August on. I was there for the black cat and the (Randy Hundley) rain dance and then on September 10th for a twi-night doubleheader with the Expos when the Mets went into first place for the first time.
It was a joyride from there. The clincher on September 24th--Joe Torre hit into a double-play to end the game at 9:07 p.m.--as Lindsey Nelson kept shouting--and then the sweep of the Braves and the amazing five game win over the unbeatable Orioles.
In all I saw 66 games in person. A few times we splurged for big games and bought seats in the mezzanine for $2.50 and my dad loaned me money for the postseason tickets. I remember everyone hugging one another when Cleon Jones made the last catch (on a ball hit by Davey Johnson who later managed the Mets only other World Series win) and it was one of those perfect moments in time.
Forty years later, the Mets celebrated that team again. Some of them are gone--McGraw, Agee, Clendenon and, of course, Hodges who had a heart attack less than three years later. Some others didn't make it back. But there was Seaver and Ryan and Koosman and Gentry and Harrelson and Ron Swoboda and Dr. Ron Taylor and Jerry Grote and Wayne Garrett and, of course Cleon, who may still be the best hitter the Mets ever had with apologies to Mike Piazza. Not to mention Ed Kranepool, who I remember seeing at the tail end of 1962 when he came up straight out of high school. In a God-awful season for the team, there was real joy in the new stadium. All of us old enough to remember had to get choked up as the players were introduced and the highlights montage was shown.
It would be very easy to feel old looking at all the over-60 Mets but I didn't feel that way. I felt warm and happy that it had all happened the way it did and that I had the chance to see as much of it as I did. When I got older and became a reporter, I more or less stopped rooting for teams and started rooting for good guys--regardless of who they played for. I couldn't stand the '92 Mets and I'm not so crazy about the current group, not because they've been injured or mediocre but because I'm not sure how much they care.
But the '69 team happened when I was still innocent--a year before I read 'Ball Four’ and my view of athletes changed forever. To me, they're all still great guys and always will be. Steroids can't change that; Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens can't change that--nothing can change that.
They gave me joy then and they still give me joy now. There aren't a whole lot of things in life about which your feelings do not change even a little bit in 40 years. The '69 Mets are an exception--and, for me, they always will be.
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