I spent a lot of time this weekend watching games. To me, that’s the best way to spend Thanksgiving weekend: Avoid the roads (and certainly the airports) and watch a lot of ball in-between spending time with your family. I also watched Christmas movies. I LOVE Christmas movies. ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’—the 1947 version—is about as good as it gets. I also really like ‘Elf,’—Ed Asner as Santa?; Bob Newhart as ‘Papa Elf?’ Brilliant stuff. I haven’t seen ‘White Christmas,’ yet this year but I will.
I won’t get too far into the BCS (you can read my Washington Post column on that if you want) but let me say this: Friday was a tough day. All credit to Auburn for coming back but it would have been great had Alabama won. First—and probably last—time I pulled for a Nick Saban-coached team and they blew it. They should have been up 35-0. Boise State’s loss was even more disappointing even if it did once again disprove Elwood (that’s his first name) Gee’s various ridiculous theories about schedule strength. Check out some of The Big Ten (and others) non-conference schedules. Oh, and the rumor that The Little Sisters of the Poor have been invited to join both The Big East and the ACC are true. I’m already picking them ahead of Duke if they’re in the ACC next year.
Note to my Duke friends who keep saying it’s ‘insane,’ to propose Duke leave the ACC in football. Really? How’s this for a stat: 1-20. That’s Duke’s record since Steve Spurrier left against alleged arch-rival North Carolina. When is a rivalry not a rivalry anymore? And it’s not like Carolina has been a superpower the last 21 years. Duke has also lost ELEVEN in a row to Wake Forest. That’s eleven—not a typo.
Let’s send out congratulations also to Notre Dame for finishing its season by winning three straight games. Beating Utah was semi-impressive even if the Utes failed to show up. It’s still a win over a good team. But all the screaming that, ‘Navy was an aberration,’ since the wins over Army and (very mediocre) USC smack of ‘I think they doth protest too much.’ The only real surprise for me is that the BCS apologists aren’t claiming Notre Dame should be ahead of TCU in the polls. Did anyone watch that ludicrous show Sunday night? If you believe the so-called ESPN experts, TCU is lucky to be in Division 1-A. One guy had them ranked SIXTH. Chris Fowler gets a nod as the only ESPN on-air guy with the guts to at least rank the Frogs third. You would think the panic button would be turned down over there with Boise State out of the picture but now they’re all freaking out that Oregon or Auburn might lose Saturday. Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen.
Oh, one other Notre Dame note: a couple of posters accused both me and The Chicago Tribune of being unfair to dear old Notre Dame on the subject of the awful suicide story broken by The Tribune two Sundays ago. The reason is that the St. Joseph’s County police changed their story after The Tribune story broke and said they HAD been informed by the Notre Dame police about the sexual assault charge. The detective in charge, ‘forgot,’ to tell his boss about it. Really? Seriously? Ever see ‘A Few Good Men?” Remember the transfer order? Notre Dame is so busy hiding behind The Buckley Amendment and trying to make everyone else out to be the bad guy it makes a lot of people queasy.
A few other notes about posts that I finally had a chance to catch up on over the weekend. I want to thank the guy who called me a ‘shameless self promoter,’ for—among other things—not mentioning when I compliment Mary Carillo that she’s my wife. There’s a reason for that: she’s NOT my wife. My wife Christine is in the other room right now with our one-month old daughter who has her blue eyes and is quite adorable, thank you very much. Mary Carillo has been a good friend for 25 years—which, I believe, is exactly how I identify her when I write about her.
On the subject of not paying attention: Hey Hokie fans, come on down! Some of you wrote angrily about how wonderfully supportive you are of your football team. Yes, you are. In fact, what my column said—go back and read it if you’d like—is that Virginia Tech is the ONLY ACC school that sold out all its home games this season (sorry N.C. State fans, that’s according to the ACC so take it up with them if you have a dispute). I DID say they haven’t won a game that truly mattered outside the ACC in recent years, which has nothing to do with their level of support.
Some of you wondered how I would feel about Mike Wilbon leaving The Washington Post for ESPN and if that somehow proved that the fact that I would prefer (by a lot) being at The Post over ESPN was wrong. All it proves is this: ESPN threw a LOT of money at Mike’s feet. I’m glad for him. I’m sad to see him leave The Post because it was his home for 32 years and the paper was, I think he would be the first to tell you, great to him. I have no issues with someone—anyone—being swayed by a huge pay raise (ESPN, in true ESPN fashion told Mike he could only have that kind of money if he left The Post. Personally, if I’d been Mike, I’d have called their bluff. You think they would dump him? He’s actually GOOD on TV, unlike, say my close friend Rick Reilly). And, for the record, I never criticized Reilly for leaving Sports Illustrated, I simply said that I didn’t think ESPN The Magazine was in the same league with SI. I’ll stand by that statement until the end of time.
As for the guy who noted that I’m not Woodward or Bernstein: no kidding. But I’m VERY proud to work at and to have been part of (in a small way) their newspaper and the newspaper of The Graham family; Ben Bradlee; Howard Simons; Leonard Downie; Dave Kindred; Ken Denlinger; David Maraniss; Tom Boswell; Tony Kornheiser; Mike Wilbon and Herblock—among many others. Yes, I’ll take that list over Chris Berman, Bob Knight and Andy Katz without apology.
Okay, I think I’m caught up now. If you live in the Washington area, let me make a shameless plea to you to consider buying tickets to the BB+T Classic on Sunday. The first game begins at 2:30. It is Florida vs. American. Then comes Navy vs. George Washington and at 8 o’clock in what should be really good game, Temple vs. Maryland. The Terrapins are considerably better than people around here think. The hoops should be good; the Redskins game, if you HAVE to watch, is over by 4 o’clock and God knows the cause is good. The Children’s Charities Foundation, which runs the event has turned nearly $10 million over to kids at risk in 15 years. Just for comparison purposes: with a one-day event and NO NCAA exemption (as in the games not counting against the maximum you can play and no national TV contract) that’s more than TWICE what the Coaches vs. Cancer event, which is now a 16 team-event has turned over to charity in 16 years even though it has all the above-mentioned advantages. Tickets are very inexpensive in today’s market: $45 top for a tripleheader. You can get more information from Ticketmaster or at Children's Charities Foundation. At least give it some thought.
Showing posts with label Michael Wilbon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Wilbon. Show all posts
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
No innocents in the story of the ex-agent paying college football players; Prediction on Goodell’s outcome of Favre investigation
There are two stories going on today in sports that can only be categorized as sad—though neither is all that surprising.
The first involves the former agent, Josh Luchs, who in a Sports Illustrated story this week put together by George Dohrmann, one of the magazine’s truly gifted reporters, goes into painful detail about his years paying college football players. What makes the story credible is that Luchs names names—lots of them. He doesn’t portray himself as some kind of victim of the rules or a do-gooder. He simply explains how he got into the business and how he started paying players. Then he explains how he STOPPED paying players when he went to work for Gary Wichard, whose name has become a part of the ongoing debacle at North Carolina.
Is it a shock to anyone that there are dozens of guys like Luchs out there, working either on their own or for agents, who are giving money to players? No. What makes the story important is the detail. Luchs not only names the players he paid, he describes how he did it and how much he paid them. He also names players who turned down money when he offered it to them. Some players have confirmed the story; most have either refused to comment or ducked calls from the magazine. Ryan Leaf, a centerpiece in the tale, admits knowing Luchs and hanging out with him but doesn’t remember taking any money for him. Read the story and decide who you believe on that one.
A lot of agents and the NFL and the NFLPA are going to claim that Luchs is tainted because he was suspended for turning a check from a player over to his lawyer rather than to Wichard, who he was in a dispute with at the time. The check was for a little more than $5,000 and Luchs quit being an agent after his suspension because he thought the incident tainted him in a way that would make it impossible for him to recruit players in the future. He makes the point that he was never investigated or suspended or disciplined in any way for paying college players but was suspended for putting a check into trust with his lawyer during a legal dispute.
At the end of the piece Luchs says he came clean because he has two daughters and when they go on line and read about him in the future he doesn’t want them to only find the stories about his suspension. That may sound like a stretch. I believe him. I believe every word of the story. It has an absolute ring of truth to it.
One small part of the piece is Luchs describing a pre-arranged phone call with Mel Kiper Jr. in which Kiper just happened to call while Wichard and Luchs were sitting in their office with a big-time college player.
“Hey Viper,” Wichard said, according to Luchs. “I’m sitting here with the best defensive end in the country.”
“Well,” Kiper said, “That must be (I forget the guy’s name).
The player signed with Wichard and Luchs.
Kiper’s defense is that being friends with agents helps him get to know players. Here’s my question, why does someone who is supposed to be analyzing players need to know them? And, if Kiper wants to taIk to a player for some reason, you’re telling me they won’t talk to him? They all think he’s a star, a very important guy. That’s a complete copout. He doesn’t NEED agents to do his job.
I’m a reporter, I NEED to know players. I do everything I can to avoid dealing with agents. In fact, sometimes when a player tells me I have to talk to his agent in order to talk to him, I say thanks, but no thanks.
In 1993, when Wayne Grady was still an important player—having won the 1990 PGA—I approached him about talking to him for ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ Grady was very pleasant and polite but said, “I’ll need you to talk to my manager.”
For Jack Nicklaus I might talk to an agent. Not for Wayne Grady. On the rare occasions when I have taken a deep breath and dealt with an agent, it has led me to—nowhere. I was interested a couple years ago in doing a hockey book involving Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. I made the mistake, on the advice of Gary Bettman, of talking to Crosby’s agent. (I should have just walked into a locker room and introduced myself to Crosby and taken my chances that way. In the past when I’ve done that I’ve succeeded even with guys I don’t know about 90 percent of the time). The agent and I talked back and forth several times about setting up a meeting for me with Crosby. It never happened. “Sidney doesn’t want another distraction this season,” he said.
The point of the meeting was to explain how I could do the book without being a distraction—which I could have. I’ve done it before. Agents are paid to say no 99 percent of the time unless someone is paying—then the answer might be yes.
Of course the apologists are already coming out of the woodwork to attack Luchs. The morning pitchmen on ESPN had Luchs on today. Throughout the morning they referred to him constantly as, “this guy,” or “this agent.” They wondered if he was a snitch. Then Chris Mortensen came on and said, “this guy was decertified by the NFLPA.” No he wasn’t. He chose to leave the profession after the suspension. You may say that’s a technical point but Mort throwing it out as absolute fact—almost casually—sums up what the establishment’s approach to Luchs is going to be.
During the interview Greenberg asked Luchs if he felt badly about, “throwing people under the bus.”
Huh?
These players knowingly took money, in many cases asked for money. They knew they were breaking the rules just like Luchs knew he was breaking the rules. There are no innocents in all this—including Luchs. The difference now is Luchs isn’t claiming to be innocent.
After Luchs, Kiper came on and blustered about how important it was to know players and how, “we all do it,” (become friends with agents). Actually Mel, we don’t. Do I know some agents? Of course. I get along with some better than others but I sure as hell don’t ever talk to them while they’re recruiting a player. Luchs makes the point that Kiper never said, “Hey, you should sign with Gary Wichard.” What he did was give Wichard an extra level of credibility because college football players DO know Mel Kiper and what he does.
The one guy who stood up for Luchs was Kirk Herbstreit. Good for him.
Some are comparing Luchs to Jose Canseco—whose charges in his book on steroids in baseball ended up being 99 percent verified when all was said and done. Here’s the difference: Luchs wasn’t paid for this story. He didn’t do it to make money. He says he did it for his daughters. I believe him.
On to Brett Favre. The NFL is ‘investigating,’ charges that Favre sent texts and phone messages and pictures of himself—not ones you would want your kids to see—to a former employee of the Jets while he was playing with them. Favre has refused to talk about the story, which makes him APPEAR guilty. It doesn’t make him guilty but even the apologists are having trouble wrestling that one to the ground.
Here’s one prediction: Roger Goodell is not going to be the one to end Favre’s consecutive games streak. If the charges prove true he may reprimand him, he may fine him. He isn’t going to suspend him. He will point out—correctly—that Favre has never been in trouble with the league before. If guilty, Favre will pay a heavy price. You can bet he won’t be seen in too many jeans commercials down the road and it might even affect Favre’s ability to get a network TV job—at least for a year or two—if he ever does retire. Oh wait, silly me, ESPN is still in business. Forget that last thought.
All of which is fine with me. If he did this, he’s a boor and he’s stupid. That said, I don’t think it quite makes him Tiger Woods. Or is that my anti-Tiger bias? Or is it racial? My friend Michael Wilbon apparently thinks it’s racial. Here’s what he wrote in today’s Washington Post:
“We’ll see if the hypercritical morality police officers who sentenced Woods to damnation for his philandering ways are as heavy-handed with a fair-haired quarterback and the face of America’s favorite sport…or if Tiger’s transgressions are deemed to be somehow, ‘different.’ We’ll see.”
Look, Wilbon and I have been down this road before. He likes Woods, I don’t. But seriously? What Favre is accused of doing somehow falls into the same category as what Woods has admitted to doing? “Hypercritical morality officers?” One had to be hypercritical to think Woods was, you know, not exactly the best guy in the world to do what he did?
Favre has been lampooned (correctly) time and again for his Hamlet act on retirement. Everyone—even ESPN—is reporting this story as it moves along. So how does race or people being ‘hypercritical,’ factor in here? Seriously Mike, I know you consider Tiger a friend, but the time to start claiming he’s been unfairly treated hasn’t arrived yet.
And probably never will.
(Note: Click here for George Dohrmann's article-- Confessions of an agent)
The first involves the former agent, Josh Luchs, who in a Sports Illustrated story this week put together by George Dohrmann, one of the magazine’s truly gifted reporters, goes into painful detail about his years paying college football players. What makes the story credible is that Luchs names names—lots of them. He doesn’t portray himself as some kind of victim of the rules or a do-gooder. He simply explains how he got into the business and how he started paying players. Then he explains how he STOPPED paying players when he went to work for Gary Wichard, whose name has become a part of the ongoing debacle at North Carolina.
Is it a shock to anyone that there are dozens of guys like Luchs out there, working either on their own or for agents, who are giving money to players? No. What makes the story important is the detail. Luchs not only names the players he paid, he describes how he did it and how much he paid them. He also names players who turned down money when he offered it to them. Some players have confirmed the story; most have either refused to comment or ducked calls from the magazine. Ryan Leaf, a centerpiece in the tale, admits knowing Luchs and hanging out with him but doesn’t remember taking any money for him. Read the story and decide who you believe on that one.
A lot of agents and the NFL and the NFLPA are going to claim that Luchs is tainted because he was suspended for turning a check from a player over to his lawyer rather than to Wichard, who he was in a dispute with at the time. The check was for a little more than $5,000 and Luchs quit being an agent after his suspension because he thought the incident tainted him in a way that would make it impossible for him to recruit players in the future. He makes the point that he was never investigated or suspended or disciplined in any way for paying college players but was suspended for putting a check into trust with his lawyer during a legal dispute.
At the end of the piece Luchs says he came clean because he has two daughters and when they go on line and read about him in the future he doesn’t want them to only find the stories about his suspension. That may sound like a stretch. I believe him. I believe every word of the story. It has an absolute ring of truth to it.
One small part of the piece is Luchs describing a pre-arranged phone call with Mel Kiper Jr. in which Kiper just happened to call while Wichard and Luchs were sitting in their office with a big-time college player.
“Hey Viper,” Wichard said, according to Luchs. “I’m sitting here with the best defensive end in the country.”
“Well,” Kiper said, “That must be (I forget the guy’s name).
The player signed with Wichard and Luchs.
Kiper’s defense is that being friends with agents helps him get to know players. Here’s my question, why does someone who is supposed to be analyzing players need to know them? And, if Kiper wants to taIk to a player for some reason, you’re telling me they won’t talk to him? They all think he’s a star, a very important guy. That’s a complete copout. He doesn’t NEED agents to do his job.
I’m a reporter, I NEED to know players. I do everything I can to avoid dealing with agents. In fact, sometimes when a player tells me I have to talk to his agent in order to talk to him, I say thanks, but no thanks.
In 1993, when Wayne Grady was still an important player—having won the 1990 PGA—I approached him about talking to him for ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ Grady was very pleasant and polite but said, “I’ll need you to talk to my manager.”
For Jack Nicklaus I might talk to an agent. Not for Wayne Grady. On the rare occasions when I have taken a deep breath and dealt with an agent, it has led me to—nowhere. I was interested a couple years ago in doing a hockey book involving Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. I made the mistake, on the advice of Gary Bettman, of talking to Crosby’s agent. (I should have just walked into a locker room and introduced myself to Crosby and taken my chances that way. In the past when I’ve done that I’ve succeeded even with guys I don’t know about 90 percent of the time). The agent and I talked back and forth several times about setting up a meeting for me with Crosby. It never happened. “Sidney doesn’t want another distraction this season,” he said.
The point of the meeting was to explain how I could do the book without being a distraction—which I could have. I’ve done it before. Agents are paid to say no 99 percent of the time unless someone is paying—then the answer might be yes.
Of course the apologists are already coming out of the woodwork to attack Luchs. The morning pitchmen on ESPN had Luchs on today. Throughout the morning they referred to him constantly as, “this guy,” or “this agent.” They wondered if he was a snitch. Then Chris Mortensen came on and said, “this guy was decertified by the NFLPA.” No he wasn’t. He chose to leave the profession after the suspension. You may say that’s a technical point but Mort throwing it out as absolute fact—almost casually—sums up what the establishment’s approach to Luchs is going to be.
During the interview Greenberg asked Luchs if he felt badly about, “throwing people under the bus.”
Huh?
These players knowingly took money, in many cases asked for money. They knew they were breaking the rules just like Luchs knew he was breaking the rules. There are no innocents in all this—including Luchs. The difference now is Luchs isn’t claiming to be innocent.
After Luchs, Kiper came on and blustered about how important it was to know players and how, “we all do it,” (become friends with agents). Actually Mel, we don’t. Do I know some agents? Of course. I get along with some better than others but I sure as hell don’t ever talk to them while they’re recruiting a player. Luchs makes the point that Kiper never said, “Hey, you should sign with Gary Wichard.” What he did was give Wichard an extra level of credibility because college football players DO know Mel Kiper and what he does.
The one guy who stood up for Luchs was Kirk Herbstreit. Good for him.
Some are comparing Luchs to Jose Canseco—whose charges in his book on steroids in baseball ended up being 99 percent verified when all was said and done. Here’s the difference: Luchs wasn’t paid for this story. He didn’t do it to make money. He says he did it for his daughters. I believe him.
On to Brett Favre. The NFL is ‘investigating,’ charges that Favre sent texts and phone messages and pictures of himself—not ones you would want your kids to see—to a former employee of the Jets while he was playing with them. Favre has refused to talk about the story, which makes him APPEAR guilty. It doesn’t make him guilty but even the apologists are having trouble wrestling that one to the ground.
Here’s one prediction: Roger Goodell is not going to be the one to end Favre’s consecutive games streak. If the charges prove true he may reprimand him, he may fine him. He isn’t going to suspend him. He will point out—correctly—that Favre has never been in trouble with the league before. If guilty, Favre will pay a heavy price. You can bet he won’t be seen in too many jeans commercials down the road and it might even affect Favre’s ability to get a network TV job—at least for a year or two—if he ever does retire. Oh wait, silly me, ESPN is still in business. Forget that last thought.
All of which is fine with me. If he did this, he’s a boor and he’s stupid. That said, I don’t think it quite makes him Tiger Woods. Or is that my anti-Tiger bias? Or is it racial? My friend Michael Wilbon apparently thinks it’s racial. Here’s what he wrote in today’s Washington Post:
“We’ll see if the hypercritical morality police officers who sentenced Woods to damnation for his philandering ways are as heavy-handed with a fair-haired quarterback and the face of America’s favorite sport…or if Tiger’s transgressions are deemed to be somehow, ‘different.’ We’ll see.”
Look, Wilbon and I have been down this road before. He likes Woods, I don’t. But seriously? What Favre is accused of doing somehow falls into the same category as what Woods has admitted to doing? “Hypercritical morality officers?” One had to be hypercritical to think Woods was, you know, not exactly the best guy in the world to do what he did?
Favre has been lampooned (correctly) time and again for his Hamlet act on retirement. Everyone—even ESPN—is reporting this story as it moves along. So how does race or people being ‘hypercritical,’ factor in here? Seriously Mike, I know you consider Tiger a friend, but the time to start claiming he’s been unfairly treated hasn’t arrived yet.
And probably never will.
(Note: Click here for George Dohrmann's article-- Confessions of an agent)
Friday, July 9, 2010
A day of the sublime and the ridiculous
Today is a day to write about both the sublime and the ridiculous.
The sublime came early yesterday when my good friend Paul Goydos shot 59—FIFTY-NINE!—in the first round of The John Deere Classic. For those of you who don’t follow golf, Paul was the fourth player in the history of The PGA Tour to shoot 59 in an official tour event. In all likelihood, he won’t even win this weekend—although he’s off to a pretty decent start—but he is now a part of golf history.
The ridiculous, of course, was ESPN’s LeBron James infomercial/love-athon. Let me just say two things quickly now: 1. ESPN flat out lied about when James would actually announce where he was playing. It insisted the public would know, “in the first ten minutes,” of the show. Jim Gray FINALLY stopped asking questions about the ‘process,’ at 9:27. I’m not good at math but 27 is considerably more than 10 last time I checked. 2. Some ESPN suit named Norby Williamson proudly declared yesterday that ESPN was in complete control of the show, “other than what comes out of his (James’s) mouth.” If so, everyone involved should submit their resignations this morning. ESPN at its best is very good; at its worst completely awful. This went beyond anything it has ever done for horrific.
Okay, let’s get back to Goydos because it is a far more pleasant topic. I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I’m in the tank for Paul and have been almost since the day I met him at The Buick Open in 1993 when I was researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”
On that day, his opening line at a press conference was, “Most of you have never heard of me. There’s a reason for that. I’ve never done anything.”
My kind of guy. He ended up being the cult hero of the book and we’ve been friends ever since through a lot of ups and downs in both our lives. If you follow golf, you know that Paul’s wife Wendy got hooked on methamphetamines years ago trying to find some relief from constant migraine headaches. She ended up in and out of rehab but never was able to get completely clean. Paul ended up a single dad, dropping off the tour for a year to be with his teen-age girls. Then, a year ago in January, Wendy died of an apparent overdose.
I still vividly remember Paul’s phone call that day. I was driving home from a basketball game at Bucknell. I knew he had missed the cut at Hawaii but as soon as I heard his voice I knew he wasn’t calling to complain about his golf. Wendy was 44.
What makes Goydos a unique character is his sense of humor, which is about as dry and self-deprecating as I’ve ever seen—his opening comment that first day I met him being a good example. Later he was explaining how he plays his best golf when he gets his slice going. “I know when you’re on The PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade,” he said. “But when you hit a seven iron and it goes 20 yards to the right that’s not a fade, that’s a slice.”
Paul has always described himself as “the worst player in the history of The PGA Tour.” Given that he’s been out there 18 years, has won twice and lost a memorable playoff to Sergio Garcia at the 2008 Players Championship even before yesterday, he’d have trouble making that case.
But he’s certainly not your typical golfer. He’s got a homemade swing and kind of slumps around the course, looking like a guy you might run into at the local muni on Saturday morning. He grew up on a muni in Long Beach and went to Long Beach State. When a problem with one of his hands—he couldn’t grip a club—seemed to end his golf career he did some teaching in the Long Beach school system, often working at inner city schools. That background has certainly given him a different view of life than most of his fellow pros.
Rarely does Paul get openly excited about a round of golf. I remember years ago when he played a U.S. Open qualifier at Woodmont and shot 63 the first 18 holes.
“Great playing,” I said.
“I didn’t make a single putt,” he answered.
“And shot 63?”
“Well, I guess I hit it pretty well.”
Yesterday was different. When I talked to him on the phone yesterday afternoon, he’d done hours of media because he’ll never say no when people want to talk to him. “Actually it caught me by surprise,” he said. “I mean, I know 59 is an iconic number, I was fully aware of what was going on the last few holes. I wasn’t going to sit there and pretend it wasn’t a big deal. I remember thinking on the 16th tee, ‘okay, lots of guys have the chance to shoot 59 but only THREE have actually done it. Let’s do everything possible to be number four.’”
He made three birdies to do it, holing a seven-footer on 18. “That’s the most nervous I think I’ve ever been over a putt in my life,” he said. “I KNOW winning is a bigger deal than shooting 59 but I also know people will remember me for this more than for the two wins or even The Players—which was a pretty big deal when it happened.”
Of course he had a memorable line which he had been repeating all day: “Most people dream of shooting their age. I shot my height.” He is 5-9 so shooting his height isn’t easy.
The irony is that a week ago when I’d seen him in Philadelphia he’d been legitimately down about his game—not just Goydos, worst-player-in-history down, truly down. He’d had a chance to win at Pebble Beach in February before making a nine at the 14th hole on Sunday. Since then, he hadn’t played well.
“I probably let that get to me more than I realized,” he said. “On the other hand, a four month slump for me isn’t exactly big news. I have one just about every year.”
I hope he’s out of it now. The day after a great round is the toughest one there is for a golfer. The good news is he starts out five shots clear of the field except for defending champion Steve Stricker, who went out in the afternoon and shot 60. “To start your round 12 shots behind the leader and finish it one shot back is pretty impressive,” Goydos said.
To shoot 59 is more impressive. And trust me, it couldn’t happen to a better guy. I hope he can keep it going through the weekend.
Okay, back to the ridiculous. We all knew the so-called, “Decision,” would be bad TV but did anyone imagine how bad? The painful stalling with more mindless chatter and a Stu Scott narrated paean to The King—in which he called him the greatest player in the game—was brutal. I can’t wait for Stu’s next conversation with Kobe Bryant. Even Chris Broussard, who had the story, hedged. “I hear Miami but it could be Cleveland, New York or Chicago,” he said.
I wonder: Was he ORDERED by ESPN to hedge to stretch out the “suspense.”
There were commercials galore; reminders who was sponsoring the show and then the five minutes of torturous questions from Gray—again, no doubt under orders from the suits. No one—NO ONE—cared about the damn process at that point.
Michael Wilbon, after the opening silly, “how tough was this,” question tried to get James to say something but he was strictly on message. Everyone in Cleveland was a great guy. He just wanted to win, blah-blah-blah. It was funny how he kept talking about, “everything I’ve done for the city.” Yeah, there are all those championship banners he helped hang. Oh wait, that’s not The King, he’s hung ZERO banners. Look, he has a perfect right to go wherever he wants but please don’t sit there and tell people in Cleveland how much you’ve done for them. The last thing they saw you do was wimp out against the Celtics.
Worst of all though was after the announcement finally was over and Wilbon’s attempts to get James to answer questions had failed, was Scott saying, “And the King has ANOTHER big announcement to make.” The big announcement was that someone ELSE was giving a bunch of money to The Boys and Girls Clubs. The only thing missing at that point was Jerry Lewis. Then again, Scott posing as any kind of journalist is funnier than Lewis and Martin at their peak.
I’m a little embarrassed that I watched but it was a little bit like trying to drive past an accident without rubber-necking. My new favorite owner is Dan Gilbert.
By the way, the NCAA announced—AGAIN—yesterday that it is ALMOST ready to announce what it is going to do with the 68-team NCAA Tournament format. (They called it the “enhanced,” 68 team field). I think they’re negotiating with ESPN for a special called, “The Decision."
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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
The sublime came early yesterday when my good friend Paul Goydos shot 59—FIFTY-NINE!—in the first round of The John Deere Classic. For those of you who don’t follow golf, Paul was the fourth player in the history of The PGA Tour to shoot 59 in an official tour event. In all likelihood, he won’t even win this weekend—although he’s off to a pretty decent start—but he is now a part of golf history.
The ridiculous, of course, was ESPN’s LeBron James infomercial/love-athon. Let me just say two things quickly now: 1. ESPN flat out lied about when James would actually announce where he was playing. It insisted the public would know, “in the first ten minutes,” of the show. Jim Gray FINALLY stopped asking questions about the ‘process,’ at 9:27. I’m not good at math but 27 is considerably more than 10 last time I checked. 2. Some ESPN suit named Norby Williamson proudly declared yesterday that ESPN was in complete control of the show, “other than what comes out of his (James’s) mouth.” If so, everyone involved should submit their resignations this morning. ESPN at its best is very good; at its worst completely awful. This went beyond anything it has ever done for horrific.
Okay, let’s get back to Goydos because it is a far more pleasant topic. I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I’m in the tank for Paul and have been almost since the day I met him at The Buick Open in 1993 when I was researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”
On that day, his opening line at a press conference was, “Most of you have never heard of me. There’s a reason for that. I’ve never done anything.”
My kind of guy. He ended up being the cult hero of the book and we’ve been friends ever since through a lot of ups and downs in both our lives. If you follow golf, you know that Paul’s wife Wendy got hooked on methamphetamines years ago trying to find some relief from constant migraine headaches. She ended up in and out of rehab but never was able to get completely clean. Paul ended up a single dad, dropping off the tour for a year to be with his teen-age girls. Then, a year ago in January, Wendy died of an apparent overdose.
I still vividly remember Paul’s phone call that day. I was driving home from a basketball game at Bucknell. I knew he had missed the cut at Hawaii but as soon as I heard his voice I knew he wasn’t calling to complain about his golf. Wendy was 44.
What makes Goydos a unique character is his sense of humor, which is about as dry and self-deprecating as I’ve ever seen—his opening comment that first day I met him being a good example. Later he was explaining how he plays his best golf when he gets his slice going. “I know when you’re on The PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade,” he said. “But when you hit a seven iron and it goes 20 yards to the right that’s not a fade, that’s a slice.”
Paul has always described himself as “the worst player in the history of The PGA Tour.” Given that he’s been out there 18 years, has won twice and lost a memorable playoff to Sergio Garcia at the 2008 Players Championship even before yesterday, he’d have trouble making that case.
But he’s certainly not your typical golfer. He’s got a homemade swing and kind of slumps around the course, looking like a guy you might run into at the local muni on Saturday morning. He grew up on a muni in Long Beach and went to Long Beach State. When a problem with one of his hands—he couldn’t grip a club—seemed to end his golf career he did some teaching in the Long Beach school system, often working at inner city schools. That background has certainly given him a different view of life than most of his fellow pros.
Rarely does Paul get openly excited about a round of golf. I remember years ago when he played a U.S. Open qualifier at Woodmont and shot 63 the first 18 holes.
“Great playing,” I said.
“I didn’t make a single putt,” he answered.
“And shot 63?”
“Well, I guess I hit it pretty well.”
Yesterday was different. When I talked to him on the phone yesterday afternoon, he’d done hours of media because he’ll never say no when people want to talk to him. “Actually it caught me by surprise,” he said. “I mean, I know 59 is an iconic number, I was fully aware of what was going on the last few holes. I wasn’t going to sit there and pretend it wasn’t a big deal. I remember thinking on the 16th tee, ‘okay, lots of guys have the chance to shoot 59 but only THREE have actually done it. Let’s do everything possible to be number four.’”
He made three birdies to do it, holing a seven-footer on 18. “That’s the most nervous I think I’ve ever been over a putt in my life,” he said. “I KNOW winning is a bigger deal than shooting 59 but I also know people will remember me for this more than for the two wins or even The Players—which was a pretty big deal when it happened.”
Of course he had a memorable line which he had been repeating all day: “Most people dream of shooting their age. I shot my height.” He is 5-9 so shooting his height isn’t easy.
The irony is that a week ago when I’d seen him in Philadelphia he’d been legitimately down about his game—not just Goydos, worst-player-in-history down, truly down. He’d had a chance to win at Pebble Beach in February before making a nine at the 14th hole on Sunday. Since then, he hadn’t played well.
“I probably let that get to me more than I realized,” he said. “On the other hand, a four month slump for me isn’t exactly big news. I have one just about every year.”
I hope he’s out of it now. The day after a great round is the toughest one there is for a golfer. The good news is he starts out five shots clear of the field except for defending champion Steve Stricker, who went out in the afternoon and shot 60. “To start your round 12 shots behind the leader and finish it one shot back is pretty impressive,” Goydos said.
To shoot 59 is more impressive. And trust me, it couldn’t happen to a better guy. I hope he can keep it going through the weekend.
Okay, back to the ridiculous. We all knew the so-called, “Decision,” would be bad TV but did anyone imagine how bad? The painful stalling with more mindless chatter and a Stu Scott narrated paean to The King—in which he called him the greatest player in the game—was brutal. I can’t wait for Stu’s next conversation with Kobe Bryant. Even Chris Broussard, who had the story, hedged. “I hear Miami but it could be Cleveland, New York or Chicago,” he said.
I wonder: Was he ORDERED by ESPN to hedge to stretch out the “suspense.”
There were commercials galore; reminders who was sponsoring the show and then the five minutes of torturous questions from Gray—again, no doubt under orders from the suits. No one—NO ONE—cared about the damn process at that point.
Michael Wilbon, after the opening silly, “how tough was this,” question tried to get James to say something but he was strictly on message. Everyone in Cleveland was a great guy. He just wanted to win, blah-blah-blah. It was funny how he kept talking about, “everything I’ve done for the city.” Yeah, there are all those championship banners he helped hang. Oh wait, that’s not The King, he’s hung ZERO banners. Look, he has a perfect right to go wherever he wants but please don’t sit there and tell people in Cleveland how much you’ve done for them. The last thing they saw you do was wimp out against the Celtics.
Worst of all though was after the announcement finally was over and Wilbon’s attempts to get James to answer questions had failed, was Scott saying, “And the King has ANOTHER big announcement to make.” The big announcement was that someone ELSE was giving a bunch of money to The Boys and Girls Clubs. The only thing missing at that point was Jerry Lewis. Then again, Scott posing as any kind of journalist is funnier than Lewis and Martin at their peak.
I’m a little embarrassed that I watched but it was a little bit like trying to drive past an accident without rubber-necking. My new favorite owner is Dan Gilbert.
By the way, the NCAA announced—AGAIN—yesterday that it is ALMOST ready to announce what it is going to do with the 68-team NCAA Tournament format. (They called it the “enhanced,” 68 team field). I think they’re negotiating with ESPN for a special called, “The Decision."
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Congrats to the Blackhawks, Philly is a true sports town and the melancholy feeling at the end of seasons
Last night was a bit melancholy for me. The hockey season ended. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for The Blackhawks and for long-suffering fans in Chicago who went almost 50 years between Stanley Cups. There are few things in sports more dramatic than any overtime playoff game in hockey but when the Cup is decided in overtime it is quite a sight and a scene. That said, you had to feel something for The Flyers and their fans, seeing an unbelievable run end on what has to be considered a soft goal.
If it sounds like I’m Billy Martin on this—feeling strongly both ways—I am. I don’t have any special feelings, either yay or nay for either franchise. I like both cities a lot. I love going to Chicago, especially in the spring or fall. One of my favorite days in recent memory was last November when I flew in (yes, I actually flew) there from a speaking gig in Phoenix the day before Navy played at Notre Dame. I spent the afternoon just walking around The Magnificent Mile and over to Lake Michigan before meeting friends for dinner. The next morning I drove over to South Bend—the weather both days was spectacular, it was 67 (!!) at kickoff inside Notre Dame Stadium—and saw Navy beat Notre Dame. It was a great two days.
I also have a warm spot in my heart for Philly. I laugh when people here in Washington put down Philadelphia. There is no comparison between the two as sports towns. For one thing, all of Philly’s major sports venues are right in the same place in South Philadelphia. The politicians there managed to get it right rather than fighting with one another so that the football stadium ended up in a cow pasture somewhere out in Maryland the way it did here.
Wachovia Center and Verizon Center are similar. Lincoln Financial Field is about 100 times nicer than the stadium formerly named for Jack Kent Cooke because almost any stadium is 100 times nicer than that place. Nationals Park is a fine facility but Citizens Bank Park is magnificent, built so that one can see the Philadelphia skyline from almost anyplace inside the park.
Washington is a transient town and a Redskins town. Philadelphia is a SPORTS town. Oh sure we hear the stories about the drunks who makes fools of themselves at ballgames but I’d rather deal with that than an owner who has signs confiscated from fans trying to send out a message to their husband who is serving overseas.
There’s also The Big Five. While most of Washington’s college basketball teams play silly games to avoid playing one another, Philly’s five major D-1 teams (and you can add Drexel too) play each other every year—many of those games in college basketball’s best arena, The Palestra.
But I digress. Hockey. I love hockey and always have. This winter I actually saw some hope for my long-beleaguered Islanders and my schedule fell in such a way that I got to watch the team play on the hockey package a lot. The Olympics were spectacular—and, in my mind part of the reason the ratings for the finals have been so high. The NHL did a brilliant thing starting the Winter Classic and these playoffs, with the No. 7 seed facing the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Finals and one of the sport’s truly classic franchises ending up with the Cup, have been fabulous.
So here’s to the Blackhawks—present and future. Given the youth of their best players, they should be contenders for a while. Just hearing The United Center rocking again after several miserable years did my heart good.
So why melancholy? It’s something that dates to boyhood. I always feel a little sad when a season ends. I have this distinct memory of watching game seven of The Blackhawks-Canadiens final in 1971. It was a tough series to watch because the Rangers were my team then (no Islanders until ’72-’73) and they had lost to the Blackhawks in seven games—even though they had won game six in triple overtime on a goal by Pete Stemkowski.
I remember that game vividly because it was a school night (Thursday) and a lot of fans came with signs to Madison Square Garden that said, “Let there be Sunday.” I brought my radio, as I always did, to listen to Marv Albert during the game and remember him saying at one point during the overtime something like, “I just want to let our babysitter (can’t remember her name) know we’ll be home as soon as possible.”
There was Sunday, but the Blackhawks and Bobby Hull were too good. In the meantime, Ken Dryden had announced his arrival as a hockey force by single-handedly beating the defending champion Bruins. When the Canadiens then forced a game seven on a Sunday afternoon in Montreal during the finals, I was bereft: I wouldn’t get to see game seven because CBS only did Sunday games. Except CBS made arrangements to televise game seven—first hockey game on network TV in primetime I believe. The Canadiens came from 2-0 down in Chicago to win.
What I remember most about that game—besides Jacques Lemaire’s goal from about 80 feet—is feeling sad that hockey season was over. When did training camp begin? When could I go and buy tickets in the blue seats for early season Rangers games?
As much as my life has changed through the years, I STILL feel that way. The Islanders start camp when?—heck it’s a little more than three months away. Who will they take with the fifth pick in the draft? How good will the Caps be coming back from their disappointment in the playoffs? I’m PSYCHED.
Of course I feel the same way at the end of The World Series and The Final Four. I saw a story in the paper yesterday about the fact that college hoops season will begin on November 8th (I will get into the bogus nature of The Coaches vs. Cancer season-opening event another day. Put simply: Even if Maryland, Illinois, Pittsburgh or Texas LOSE one of their first two games they will still ‘advance,’ to the semifinals in New York. What a joke). And did the math in my head: five months until college hoops starts.
I’ll admit I don’t get as sad about the end of the NFL season or the NBA season in part because the NBA season never ends. (Note to Michael Wilbon: those of us who don’t love all things NBA as you do are not ‘meatheads.’ Come on, quit selling the product so hard all the time). I fall in the middle on college football because it SHOULD end on New Year’s Day and night. In the old days, when the Orange Bowl ended, I would get up after 10 hours of football, sigh and wonder what the best games would be of the first weekend in September. I’m willing to give that up for a true PLAYOFF but not for the ridiculous BCS. By the way, this coming season’s so-called national championship game is on January 10th. January 10th! You could have a full-blown eight-team playoff and the season would last exactly ONE week longer than it does now. What a joke.
Anyway, I was happy for the Blackhawks when Patrick Kane’s shot went in the net last night but a bit sad there would be no game 7. A game 7 in The Stanley Cup finals is about as intense and cool an event as there is in sports. On the other hand, the draft is in two weeks and the Islanders report to camp in, by my calculations, 93 days.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
The Golf Channel will be airing a documentary based on the book "Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story," with the premiere showing Monday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
I can’t wait.
If it sounds like I’m Billy Martin on this—feeling strongly both ways—I am. I don’t have any special feelings, either yay or nay for either franchise. I like both cities a lot. I love going to Chicago, especially in the spring or fall. One of my favorite days in recent memory was last November when I flew in (yes, I actually flew) there from a speaking gig in Phoenix the day before Navy played at Notre Dame. I spent the afternoon just walking around The Magnificent Mile and over to Lake Michigan before meeting friends for dinner. The next morning I drove over to South Bend—the weather both days was spectacular, it was 67 (!!) at kickoff inside Notre Dame Stadium—and saw Navy beat Notre Dame. It was a great two days.
I also have a warm spot in my heart for Philly. I laugh when people here in Washington put down Philadelphia. There is no comparison between the two as sports towns. For one thing, all of Philly’s major sports venues are right in the same place in South Philadelphia. The politicians there managed to get it right rather than fighting with one another so that the football stadium ended up in a cow pasture somewhere out in Maryland the way it did here.
Wachovia Center and Verizon Center are similar. Lincoln Financial Field is about 100 times nicer than the stadium formerly named for Jack Kent Cooke because almost any stadium is 100 times nicer than that place. Nationals Park is a fine facility but Citizens Bank Park is magnificent, built so that one can see the Philadelphia skyline from almost anyplace inside the park.
Washington is a transient town and a Redskins town. Philadelphia is a SPORTS town. Oh sure we hear the stories about the drunks who makes fools of themselves at ballgames but I’d rather deal with that than an owner who has signs confiscated from fans trying to send out a message to their husband who is serving overseas.
There’s also The Big Five. While most of Washington’s college basketball teams play silly games to avoid playing one another, Philly’s five major D-1 teams (and you can add Drexel too) play each other every year—many of those games in college basketball’s best arena, The Palestra.
But I digress. Hockey. I love hockey and always have. This winter I actually saw some hope for my long-beleaguered Islanders and my schedule fell in such a way that I got to watch the team play on the hockey package a lot. The Olympics were spectacular—and, in my mind part of the reason the ratings for the finals have been so high. The NHL did a brilliant thing starting the Winter Classic and these playoffs, with the No. 7 seed facing the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Finals and one of the sport’s truly classic franchises ending up with the Cup, have been fabulous.
So here’s to the Blackhawks—present and future. Given the youth of their best players, they should be contenders for a while. Just hearing The United Center rocking again after several miserable years did my heart good.
So why melancholy? It’s something that dates to boyhood. I always feel a little sad when a season ends. I have this distinct memory of watching game seven of The Blackhawks-Canadiens final in 1971. It was a tough series to watch because the Rangers were my team then (no Islanders until ’72-’73) and they had lost to the Blackhawks in seven games—even though they had won game six in triple overtime on a goal by Pete Stemkowski.
I remember that game vividly because it was a school night (Thursday) and a lot of fans came with signs to Madison Square Garden that said, “Let there be Sunday.” I brought my radio, as I always did, to listen to Marv Albert during the game and remember him saying at one point during the overtime something like, “I just want to let our babysitter (can’t remember her name) know we’ll be home as soon as possible.”
There was Sunday, but the Blackhawks and Bobby Hull were too good. In the meantime, Ken Dryden had announced his arrival as a hockey force by single-handedly beating the defending champion Bruins. When the Canadiens then forced a game seven on a Sunday afternoon in Montreal during the finals, I was bereft: I wouldn’t get to see game seven because CBS only did Sunday games. Except CBS made arrangements to televise game seven—first hockey game on network TV in primetime I believe. The Canadiens came from 2-0 down in Chicago to win.
What I remember most about that game—besides Jacques Lemaire’s goal from about 80 feet—is feeling sad that hockey season was over. When did training camp begin? When could I go and buy tickets in the blue seats for early season Rangers games?
As much as my life has changed through the years, I STILL feel that way. The Islanders start camp when?—heck it’s a little more than three months away. Who will they take with the fifth pick in the draft? How good will the Caps be coming back from their disappointment in the playoffs? I’m PSYCHED.
Of course I feel the same way at the end of The World Series and The Final Four. I saw a story in the paper yesterday about the fact that college hoops season will begin on November 8th (I will get into the bogus nature of The Coaches vs. Cancer season-opening event another day. Put simply: Even if Maryland, Illinois, Pittsburgh or Texas LOSE one of their first two games they will still ‘advance,’ to the semifinals in New York. What a joke). And did the math in my head: five months until college hoops starts.
I’ll admit I don’t get as sad about the end of the NFL season or the NBA season in part because the NBA season never ends. (Note to Michael Wilbon: those of us who don’t love all things NBA as you do are not ‘meatheads.’ Come on, quit selling the product so hard all the time). I fall in the middle on college football because it SHOULD end on New Year’s Day and night. In the old days, when the Orange Bowl ended, I would get up after 10 hours of football, sigh and wonder what the best games would be of the first weekend in September. I’m willing to give that up for a true PLAYOFF but not for the ridiculous BCS. By the way, this coming season’s so-called national championship game is on January 10th. January 10th! You could have a full-blown eight-team playoff and the season would last exactly ONE week longer than it does now. What a joke.
Anyway, I was happy for the Blackhawks when Patrick Kane’s shot went in the net last night but a bit sad there would be no game 7. A game 7 in The Stanley Cup finals is about as intense and cool an event as there is in sports. On the other hand, the draft is in two weeks and the Islanders report to camp in, by my calculations, 93 days.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
The Golf Channel will be airing a documentary based on the book "Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story," with the premiere showing Monday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
I can’t wait.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Feinstein-Wilbon feud of 2010 is over, will meet with Kornheiser as referee; Maryland fan behavior
I’m not exactly sure where to begin today or where to go once I get started.
So, let’s start with something easy that—for some reason—people seem to be interested in. The Feinstein-Wilbon feud of 2010 is over. Mike called me on Wednesday and we talked and agreed to get together—with Kornheiser serving as the referee—next week. We still disagree on Tiger Woods and no doubt will continue to do so. But we agree that disagreeing on any subject isn’t a reason to start publicly calling each other names.
Mike said one thing that’s absolutely true: This isn’t a lot different than the arguments we used to get into—with Kornheiser and Sally Jenkins usually joining in—in The Washington Post newsroom 25 years ago. We’d often scream at one another and, frequently, the subject was a coach or an athlete we disagreed on. Tony used to joke that Mike only killed people he didn’t have to deal with regularly. We always gave Tony a hard time because he liked attention (all attention) but particularly that which he got from the very wealthy. That may explain why he’s the one person in Washington who doesn’t hammer Dan Snyder on a regular basis. Sally got teased because she liked tennis players and NO one liked tennis players. She once declared the young Andre Agassi to be, “charming.” We declared her to be insane.
I got nailed for not dressing well (that certainly hasn’t changed); for always getting into fights with security people and for liking basketball coaches too much. The one area I’ve actually improved in is security people. I’m not perfect but I’m a lot better.
One of Kornheiser’s favorite stories that is, unfortunately, absolutely true took place at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. I had been stricken with gout, a really terrible case that made walking just about impossible. Any of you who’ve had the misfortune to have gout know how painful it can be. Thank God for modern medicine.
Tony and I were in transit from, I think, the swimming venue to the boxing venue and the bus system had broken down so we jumped into a cab. The cab couldn’t get around to the front of the LA Sports Arena where the media entrance was so it dropped us off in the back. I was really hurting by then.
So, I convinced Tony that we should try to talk our way into the back door, especially since the media workroom was literally 10 yards from there. We walked up to the guard and explained the situation, showing our badges—which had photo ID on them—to the guard.
He kept shaking his head and saying no he couldn’t do it. This was way pre-9-11 but because of the boycott by Eastern Bloc countries, security was very tight. I kept saying, ‘come on, the media room is RIGHT there. Don’t make me walk all the way around this building.”
The guy finally relented. “Okay,” he said. “Just this one time.”
We walked into the media room at which point I turned to Tony and said, “guy’s not even doing his job.”
YES, I was a jerk—or worse. The only good thing about it was that it gave Tony a story he could tell about me—without exaggerating—for years.
What happened with Wilbon and I the last couple of weeks really wasn’t different than what used to happen except it took place in public. Twenty-five years ago Tony and Mike didn’t have a TV show and Tony didn’t have a radio show and I wasn’t on radio all the time and there was no internet. Now, all of that is in play and that’s how this became a “story,” if you want to call it that.
I’m not trying to say Mike and I weren’t pissed at each other; I’m not pulling some jock, “our comments were taken out of context,” move. We were both pissed. We’ve been mad at each other before, we’ll no doubt be mad at each other again. We’ll continue to disagree about Tiger. But that’s all there is to it.
*********
I’m almost hesitant to even bring this up because I know a lot of Maryland people will drag out the tired, “he’s a Duke grad,” argument but when is something going to be done about the behavior of the Maryland fans—particularly when Duke is in town?
Look, I was really happy for Gary Williams on Wednesday because he’s been a friend for more than 30 years and I think he’s done a remarkable coaching job this season. He’s going to be ACC Coach of the Year and Maryland will almost certainly do no worse than tie for the regular season title after being picked fifth in preseason. As he almost always does, Gary has squeezed every last drop out of his team.
Good for him and for his players.
But why do the Maryland fans HAVE to chant profanities constantly when their team is playing Duke. That was a great game Wednesday and it was sullied by the fans behavior—not to mention the 27 arrests after the game. To begin with, Maryland fans should have more respect for their team and their program. Maryland beating Duke isn’t exactly George Mason beating Connecticut.
Maryland won the national championship in 2002—that’s more recently than Duke. Maryland was ONE game behind Duke in the ACC standings going into Wednesday’s game. Maryland coach SHOULD be in the Hall of Fame someday soon, especially if the Hall of Fame nominating committee and voting panel stops being so NBA-centric.
So, Maryland beats Duke and the fans storm the court (I know part of that is caused everywhere by TV but it still makes no sense) after beating a team that is, for all intents and purposes, it’s peer? Then they take to the streets and the headline the next day becomes that, not Greivis Vasquez’s shot in the final minute but the arrests?
It’s ridiculous. I have a great deal of affection for Maryland and for a lot of people who have gone to the school and work at the school. In fact, having lived in the Washington area for more than 30 years and—given my relationship with Duke—I probably have closer ties to Maryland at this point in my life than Duke. That’s NOT to say that Mike Krzyzewski isn’t also a friend and he is obviously someone I have nothing but respect for.
All of that said, I wish the Maryland people would clean up their act. Oh, and by the way, don’t throw the, “Duke fans behave badly,” argument out there because it just doesn’t work—especially these days. In fact, I’ve said before that Krzyzewski has gone TOO far in reigning in behavior in Cameron. It’s good that there are no profane chants, but in toning the students down as he’s done, they’ve lost all their spontaneity and cleverness. I can’t remember the last time I heard a truly funny chant from the Duke students. Their whole ying and yang now is to paint their bodies and get on TV.
There’s a happy middle ground out there somewhere. Enjoy the game and be really loud. Be funny if you can be. My all-time favorite chant was years ago at Duke when the students, after being admonished by Duke President Terry Sanford for going too far during a game, decided to come up with a replacement for the tired, “b-----,” cheer. They replaced it with: “We beg to differ.” THAT was funny.
********
Last thing: For those of you who seem to think I confuse opinion with fact. Here’s a fact: Today is Friday, March 5th. Just about everything else you will ever read in this blog is going to be opinion. My suggestion to those of you who find my opinions somehow offensive or disconcerting is to read another blog. Seriously, why bother with someone who is always so wrong about everything? God knows I wouldn’t read Rush Limbaugh if he had a blog. Life’s too short. Read what you enjoy, not what makes your blood pressure go up.
So, let’s start with something easy that—for some reason—people seem to be interested in. The Feinstein-Wilbon feud of 2010 is over. Mike called me on Wednesday and we talked and agreed to get together—with Kornheiser serving as the referee—next week. We still disagree on Tiger Woods and no doubt will continue to do so. But we agree that disagreeing on any subject isn’t a reason to start publicly calling each other names.
Mike said one thing that’s absolutely true: This isn’t a lot different than the arguments we used to get into—with Kornheiser and Sally Jenkins usually joining in—in The Washington Post newsroom 25 years ago. We’d often scream at one another and, frequently, the subject was a coach or an athlete we disagreed on. Tony used to joke that Mike only killed people he didn’t have to deal with regularly. We always gave Tony a hard time because he liked attention (all attention) but particularly that which he got from the very wealthy. That may explain why he’s the one person in Washington who doesn’t hammer Dan Snyder on a regular basis. Sally got teased because she liked tennis players and NO one liked tennis players. She once declared the young Andre Agassi to be, “charming.” We declared her to be insane.
I got nailed for not dressing well (that certainly hasn’t changed); for always getting into fights with security people and for liking basketball coaches too much. The one area I’ve actually improved in is security people. I’m not perfect but I’m a lot better.
One of Kornheiser’s favorite stories that is, unfortunately, absolutely true took place at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. I had been stricken with gout, a really terrible case that made walking just about impossible. Any of you who’ve had the misfortune to have gout know how painful it can be. Thank God for modern medicine.
Tony and I were in transit from, I think, the swimming venue to the boxing venue and the bus system had broken down so we jumped into a cab. The cab couldn’t get around to the front of the LA Sports Arena where the media entrance was so it dropped us off in the back. I was really hurting by then.
So, I convinced Tony that we should try to talk our way into the back door, especially since the media workroom was literally 10 yards from there. We walked up to the guard and explained the situation, showing our badges—which had photo ID on them—to the guard.
He kept shaking his head and saying no he couldn’t do it. This was way pre-9-11 but because of the boycott by Eastern Bloc countries, security was very tight. I kept saying, ‘come on, the media room is RIGHT there. Don’t make me walk all the way around this building.”
The guy finally relented. “Okay,” he said. “Just this one time.”
We walked into the media room at which point I turned to Tony and said, “guy’s not even doing his job.”
YES, I was a jerk—or worse. The only good thing about it was that it gave Tony a story he could tell about me—without exaggerating—for years.
What happened with Wilbon and I the last couple of weeks really wasn’t different than what used to happen except it took place in public. Twenty-five years ago Tony and Mike didn’t have a TV show and Tony didn’t have a radio show and I wasn’t on radio all the time and there was no internet. Now, all of that is in play and that’s how this became a “story,” if you want to call it that.
I’m not trying to say Mike and I weren’t pissed at each other; I’m not pulling some jock, “our comments were taken out of context,” move. We were both pissed. We’ve been mad at each other before, we’ll no doubt be mad at each other again. We’ll continue to disagree about Tiger. But that’s all there is to it.
*********
I’m almost hesitant to even bring this up because I know a lot of Maryland people will drag out the tired, “he’s a Duke grad,” argument but when is something going to be done about the behavior of the Maryland fans—particularly when Duke is in town?
Look, I was really happy for Gary Williams on Wednesday because he’s been a friend for more than 30 years and I think he’s done a remarkable coaching job this season. He’s going to be ACC Coach of the Year and Maryland will almost certainly do no worse than tie for the regular season title after being picked fifth in preseason. As he almost always does, Gary has squeezed every last drop out of his team.
Good for him and for his players.
But why do the Maryland fans HAVE to chant profanities constantly when their team is playing Duke. That was a great game Wednesday and it was sullied by the fans behavior—not to mention the 27 arrests after the game. To begin with, Maryland fans should have more respect for their team and their program. Maryland beating Duke isn’t exactly George Mason beating Connecticut.
Maryland won the national championship in 2002—that’s more recently than Duke. Maryland was ONE game behind Duke in the ACC standings going into Wednesday’s game. Maryland coach SHOULD be in the Hall of Fame someday soon, especially if the Hall of Fame nominating committee and voting panel stops being so NBA-centric.
So, Maryland beats Duke and the fans storm the court (I know part of that is caused everywhere by TV but it still makes no sense) after beating a team that is, for all intents and purposes, it’s peer? Then they take to the streets and the headline the next day becomes that, not Greivis Vasquez’s shot in the final minute but the arrests?
It’s ridiculous. I have a great deal of affection for Maryland and for a lot of people who have gone to the school and work at the school. In fact, having lived in the Washington area for more than 30 years and—given my relationship with Duke—I probably have closer ties to Maryland at this point in my life than Duke. That’s NOT to say that Mike Krzyzewski isn’t also a friend and he is obviously someone I have nothing but respect for.
All of that said, I wish the Maryland people would clean up their act. Oh, and by the way, don’t throw the, “Duke fans behave badly,” argument out there because it just doesn’t work—especially these days. In fact, I’ve said before that Krzyzewski has gone TOO far in reigning in behavior in Cameron. It’s good that there are no profane chants, but in toning the students down as he’s done, they’ve lost all their spontaneity and cleverness. I can’t remember the last time I heard a truly funny chant from the Duke students. Their whole ying and yang now is to paint their bodies and get on TV.
There’s a happy middle ground out there somewhere. Enjoy the game and be really loud. Be funny if you can be. My all-time favorite chant was years ago at Duke when the students, after being admonished by Duke President Terry Sanford for going too far during a game, decided to come up with a replacement for the tired, “b-----,” cheer. They replaced it with: “We beg to differ.” THAT was funny.
********
Last thing: For those of you who seem to think I confuse opinion with fact. Here’s a fact: Today is Friday, March 5th. Just about everything else you will ever read in this blog is going to be opinion. My suggestion to those of you who find my opinions somehow offensive or disconcerting is to read another blog. Seriously, why bother with someone who is always so wrong about everything? God knows I wouldn’t read Rush Limbaugh if he had a blog. Life’s too short. Read what you enjoy, not what makes your blood pressure go up.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
John Daly situation brings back the PGA Tour discipline policy; Comments on comments
I have been saying and writing for years now that The PGA Tour’s policy on disciplining players is a joke. Unlike other sports which routinely announce player fines and suspensions, the tour keeps them a deep, dark secret. The theory, according to Commissioner Tim Finchem, is that the tour is built on the players being thought of as gentlemen and announcing fines for profanity or misbehavior of any kind undercuts that image.
My belief—as I’ve said to Finchem and others in authority at the tour—is that that’s a bunch of hooey. To begin with, by letting the public know that it doesn’t tolerate misbehavior, the tour actually strengthens the image that it wants. More important than that, by announcing fines or suspensions, the tour sends a message to the players that it isn’t messing around. The only way to make fines a deterrent is by making the players who misbehave deal with what they’ve done in public.
There’s no better example than Tiger Woods, who has often complained about the fact that he is the most fined player in the history of the tour. Woods has been fined innumerable times for on-course profanity; for throwing clubs and for the behavior of his vigilante caddie, Steve Williams.
But the tour has never once announced any of his fines. Woods, as we all know, isn’t just a golfer he’s a corporation. Until November 27th he was the most carefully marketed athlete in history, his image burnished at every turn by the corporations he was in business with.
It is impossible not to wonder how Woods, his corporate sponsors and his image-makers would have felt if every week a story had appeared on how much money he’d been fined for misbehavior. There’s no doubt such stories would have undercut his image long before his serial affairs destroyed that image.
Everyone knows when you punish a child you don’t just say, ‘don’t do it again.’ You attach a consequence in the hope that the child will think twice before repeating the offense. No one ever attached a consequence for misbehavior to Tiger—or to anyone else on the tour. The money doesn’t matter, certainly not to Tiger and not to 99 percent of the players out there.
Most players like to tell stories about how they got fined: Paul Goydos once got fined for yelling profanities at the tape in the PGA Tour travel office when it wasn’t open on a Saturday afternoon. He likes to tell people that several of his fellow pros took up a collection to pay the $500 when the travel office changed its hours after his call.
Jay Haas tells the story about his one and only fine on tour. On the 18th hole of a miserable third round in Milwaukee he skittered an awful chip all the way across the green. As he walked to his ball he heard someone yell, “Haas, you suck!”
Normally the most mild-mannered guy you’ll ever meet, Haas snapped for an instant and yelled, ‘f---- you.,’ back at the guy.
The next day when rules official Wade Cagle called him into ask about a report that had been filed on the incident, Cagle said, “I’m sure you were misheard Jay, you were probably saying, ‘thank-you.’”
“Nope,” Haas said. “I said ‘f----- you.’ How much do I owe you?”
Those stories are funny because they involved guys who generally behave well. For them, a fine is an aberration just like Brad Faxon’s fine years ago for criticizing Scott Hoch for not playing in The British Open (criticizing another player publicly—conduct unbecoming) was an aberration.
Woods’s lousy behavior was never an aberration. It was who he was and no one seriously called him on it until Tom Watson brought it up several weeks ago.
The same is true of John Daly. John’s problem hasn’t been cursing or club-throwing. In fact, John Daly is about as nice a guy as you’ll meet on the golf tour. But, as everyone knows, he’s had serious issues since he first burst onto the scene in 1991 that go way beyond the occasional profanity.
Two days ago, Garry Smits broke a story in the Florida Times-Union that shows definitely how the tour has enabled Daly for almost 20 years. Because Daly had filed a libel suit against The Times-Union that was thrown out of court, Smits was able to gain access to the tour’s 486-page file on Daly, which was part of the court record.
Daly, it turns out, has been suspended six times during his career, has been fined more than $100,000—a drop in the bucket for someone who has lost that in a couple hours playing blackjack during his life—and has been ordered to go to counseling or rehab by the tour on seven different occasions. He was fined 11 different times for ‘conduct unbecoming,’ and was reprimanded TWENTY-ONE times for failing to give full effort.
At least two of the suspensions have been in the public domain because Daly talked about them. That said, what the file makes clear is that Daly was a repeat offender in all these areas and the tour did very little to try to stop him—or help him. When Daly was last suspended (and didn’t keep it a secret) at the end of 2008 I wrote that Finchem should call his fellow commissioners around the world and ask them to extend the suspension so that Daly couldn’t play golf ANYWHERE until he got help. He didn’t and Daly kept on playing—usually for appearance fees, which are allowed overseas.
Now Daly is trying once again to rebuild his life. He’s had surgery on his stomach to keep his weight down—he’s lost about 100 pounds—and he says he wants to take one more serious shot at being competitive on the tour again. Of course a few weeks ago, after missing another cut, Daly announced his retirement. Then he played a week later.
We can all root for John Daly because there’s no malice in him. That said, the tour did him no favors by covering up all the discipline he has faced through the years. It doesn’t do ANY of the players a favor by covering up their misbehavior. Maybe Finchem needs to spend less time defending Woods and more time thinking about how poorly his tour’s policies on discipline have worked out for—arguably—its two best-known players.
*********
I really enjoyed a lot of the comments from yesterday on my dust-up with Michael Wilbon. If nothing else, they showed that people really do pay attention to what people in our business say and write.
Two quick things: For the record, so there is no confusion, my issues with Tiger Woods date to 1996—WAY before Rocco Mediate approached me about writing a book—when I compared his father to Stefano Capriati (which, in retrospect may have been unfair to Capriati) and criticized him for blowing off a dinner in his honor (college player of the year) because he was, ‘tired,’ and for turning down an invitation to join Rachel Robinson and President Clinton in New York after he won The Masters on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s Major League debut. (To Tiger’s credit, he wrote Mrs. Robinson a couple of years later to apologize for not being there).
Tiger and I had a lengthy dinner in 1998 during which we discussed a lot of this and agreed to disagree. If you were to check what I’ve written about him through the years, I’ve said a LOT of good things about him too—especially about his golf which is, clearly, unassailable. For Wilbon—or anyone—to imply that my criticism of him since November 27th has anything to do with the Rocco book is just silly and false. I TOLD Rocco when he approached me about the book that Tiger wasn’t going to talk, certainly not to me, probably not to anyone. It was ROCCO who was angry when he didn’t talk, not me.
I don’t have an axe to grind with Tiger. He’s been great for the game of golf. Watching him play is amazing. But I’m not going to find ways to defend him: “no one cares, it’s no one’s business…” just so he’ll call me by name when he returns to the tour.
Finally to Nathan: Thanks for the explanation of your question to Mike. For the record, my regular Sunday column has appeared in The Post the last two Sundays. As I’ve said, The Post isn’t ESPN. In fact, if you listen to Tony’s radio show he often says, “I love Sally (Jenkins) but her column today was ridiculous.” In fact, he often says it to Sally. Unlike some people, she LAUGHS about it…
Finally: One last time on the “Junior,” nickname. Tony put it on me 30 years ago after I first wrote a long piece on John McEnroe. Because we got along—and because I was the youngest guy on the sports staff at the time—he put “Junior,” on me because that was McEnroe’s nickname. I’ve pleaded with him since, I guess I turned 40, to drop it because at 23 it was fine, at my age now I find it silly. He can’t stop himself—so I deal with it. When strangers use it I find it not so much offensive as disrespectful. I don’t call anyone I don’t know by a nickname. To me, that’s between friends unless the person calls himself that as in Don Imus calling himself, “The I-Man.”
My belief—as I’ve said to Finchem and others in authority at the tour—is that that’s a bunch of hooey. To begin with, by letting the public know that it doesn’t tolerate misbehavior, the tour actually strengthens the image that it wants. More important than that, by announcing fines or suspensions, the tour sends a message to the players that it isn’t messing around. The only way to make fines a deterrent is by making the players who misbehave deal with what they’ve done in public.
There’s no better example than Tiger Woods, who has often complained about the fact that he is the most fined player in the history of the tour. Woods has been fined innumerable times for on-course profanity; for throwing clubs and for the behavior of his vigilante caddie, Steve Williams.
But the tour has never once announced any of his fines. Woods, as we all know, isn’t just a golfer he’s a corporation. Until November 27th he was the most carefully marketed athlete in history, his image burnished at every turn by the corporations he was in business with.
It is impossible not to wonder how Woods, his corporate sponsors and his image-makers would have felt if every week a story had appeared on how much money he’d been fined for misbehavior. There’s no doubt such stories would have undercut his image long before his serial affairs destroyed that image.
Everyone knows when you punish a child you don’t just say, ‘don’t do it again.’ You attach a consequence in the hope that the child will think twice before repeating the offense. No one ever attached a consequence for misbehavior to Tiger—or to anyone else on the tour. The money doesn’t matter, certainly not to Tiger and not to 99 percent of the players out there.
Most players like to tell stories about how they got fined: Paul Goydos once got fined for yelling profanities at the tape in the PGA Tour travel office when it wasn’t open on a Saturday afternoon. He likes to tell people that several of his fellow pros took up a collection to pay the $500 when the travel office changed its hours after his call.
Jay Haas tells the story about his one and only fine on tour. On the 18th hole of a miserable third round in Milwaukee he skittered an awful chip all the way across the green. As he walked to his ball he heard someone yell, “Haas, you suck!”
Normally the most mild-mannered guy you’ll ever meet, Haas snapped for an instant and yelled, ‘f---- you.,’ back at the guy.
The next day when rules official Wade Cagle called him into ask about a report that had been filed on the incident, Cagle said, “I’m sure you were misheard Jay, you were probably saying, ‘thank-you.’”
“Nope,” Haas said. “I said ‘f----- you.’ How much do I owe you?”
Those stories are funny because they involved guys who generally behave well. For them, a fine is an aberration just like Brad Faxon’s fine years ago for criticizing Scott Hoch for not playing in The British Open (criticizing another player publicly—conduct unbecoming) was an aberration.
Woods’s lousy behavior was never an aberration. It was who he was and no one seriously called him on it until Tom Watson brought it up several weeks ago.
The same is true of John Daly. John’s problem hasn’t been cursing or club-throwing. In fact, John Daly is about as nice a guy as you’ll meet on the golf tour. But, as everyone knows, he’s had serious issues since he first burst onto the scene in 1991 that go way beyond the occasional profanity.
Two days ago, Garry Smits broke a story in the Florida Times-Union that shows definitely how the tour has enabled Daly for almost 20 years. Because Daly had filed a libel suit against The Times-Union that was thrown out of court, Smits was able to gain access to the tour’s 486-page file on Daly, which was part of the court record.
Daly, it turns out, has been suspended six times during his career, has been fined more than $100,000—a drop in the bucket for someone who has lost that in a couple hours playing blackjack during his life—and has been ordered to go to counseling or rehab by the tour on seven different occasions. He was fined 11 different times for ‘conduct unbecoming,’ and was reprimanded TWENTY-ONE times for failing to give full effort.
At least two of the suspensions have been in the public domain because Daly talked about them. That said, what the file makes clear is that Daly was a repeat offender in all these areas and the tour did very little to try to stop him—or help him. When Daly was last suspended (and didn’t keep it a secret) at the end of 2008 I wrote that Finchem should call his fellow commissioners around the world and ask them to extend the suspension so that Daly couldn’t play golf ANYWHERE until he got help. He didn’t and Daly kept on playing—usually for appearance fees, which are allowed overseas.
Now Daly is trying once again to rebuild his life. He’s had surgery on his stomach to keep his weight down—he’s lost about 100 pounds—and he says he wants to take one more serious shot at being competitive on the tour again. Of course a few weeks ago, after missing another cut, Daly announced his retirement. Then he played a week later.
We can all root for John Daly because there’s no malice in him. That said, the tour did him no favors by covering up all the discipline he has faced through the years. It doesn’t do ANY of the players a favor by covering up their misbehavior. Maybe Finchem needs to spend less time defending Woods and more time thinking about how poorly his tour’s policies on discipline have worked out for—arguably—its two best-known players.
*********
I really enjoyed a lot of the comments from yesterday on my dust-up with Michael Wilbon. If nothing else, they showed that people really do pay attention to what people in our business say and write.
Two quick things: For the record, so there is no confusion, my issues with Tiger Woods date to 1996—WAY before Rocco Mediate approached me about writing a book—when I compared his father to Stefano Capriati (which, in retrospect may have been unfair to Capriati) and criticized him for blowing off a dinner in his honor (college player of the year) because he was, ‘tired,’ and for turning down an invitation to join Rachel Robinson and President Clinton in New York after he won The Masters on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s Major League debut. (To Tiger’s credit, he wrote Mrs. Robinson a couple of years later to apologize for not being there).
Tiger and I had a lengthy dinner in 1998 during which we discussed a lot of this and agreed to disagree. If you were to check what I’ve written about him through the years, I’ve said a LOT of good things about him too—especially about his golf which is, clearly, unassailable. For Wilbon—or anyone—to imply that my criticism of him since November 27th has anything to do with the Rocco book is just silly and false. I TOLD Rocco when he approached me about the book that Tiger wasn’t going to talk, certainly not to me, probably not to anyone. It was ROCCO who was angry when he didn’t talk, not me.
I don’t have an axe to grind with Tiger. He’s been great for the game of golf. Watching him play is amazing. But I’m not going to find ways to defend him: “no one cares, it’s no one’s business…” just so he’ll call me by name when he returns to the tour.
Finally to Nathan: Thanks for the explanation of your question to Mike. For the record, my regular Sunday column has appeared in The Post the last two Sundays. As I’ve said, The Post isn’t ESPN. In fact, if you listen to Tony’s radio show he often says, “I love Sally (Jenkins) but her column today was ridiculous.” In fact, he often says it to Sally. Unlike some people, she LAUGHS about it…
Finally: One last time on the “Junior,” nickname. Tony put it on me 30 years ago after I first wrote a long piece on John McEnroe. Because we got along—and because I was the youngest guy on the sports staff at the time—he put “Junior,” on me because that was McEnroe’s nickname. I’ve pleaded with him since, I guess I turned 40, to drop it because at 23 it was fine, at my age now I find it silly. He can’t stop himself—so I deal with it. When strangers use it I find it not so much offensive as disrespectful. I don’t call anyone I don’t know by a nickname. To me, that’s between friends unless the person calls himself that as in Don Imus calling himself, “The I-Man.”
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
'Championship Week’ was one brilliant idea from ESPN - March Madness starts tonight; Wilbon talk
While the big-name college basketball teams are sorting themselves out over the next 12 days—the top teams trying to pin down high seeds; the mid-level teams in the power conferences trying to play their way from the dreaded bubble into the NCAA basketball tournament—this is also the time when the little guys get their moment in the sun.
March Madness actually begins tonight. The Big South starts its postseason tournament. By the end of the weekend, if you count The Ivy League, five automatic bids will have been handed out.
For me, the one bid tournaments are about as much fun as anything that takes place during the basketball season. Very few of the kids playing are going to be one-and-done and you aren’t going to hear a lot of speculation about their pro futures. All they care about at that moment is the game they are playing because most are one loss away from the end of their season. A majority of the seniors are one loss away from the end of their careers.
That’s what makes these tournaments so much fun. When Mike Brey was coaching at Delaware he often said that winning The America East Tournament was the equivalent of getting to The Final Four for Duke—which was where he had coached prior to moving to Delaware. “And winning a game in the NCAA Tournament is like winning the national championship,” he added.
We all know that on rare occasions one of the little guys will slip through to the sweet sixteen. George Mason’s Final Four run in 2006 belongs in a different category but it is worth remembering that the Patriots didn’t come out of a pure one-bid league. In fact, they got into the tournament as an at-large team, much to the chagrin of Jim Nantz, Billy Packer and others.
The real one bid leagues are the one where no one even discusses an at-large bid, where the committee has already penciled the champion in as a No. 15 or No. 16 seed most years. Of course there can be exceptions going in either direction. In 2006, coming off a first round upset a year earlier over Kansas, Bucknell came out of The Patriot League as a No. 9 seed—and promptly lived up to it by beating Arkansas. This year, the opposite is true in the league. The only conference team likely to avoid being sent to the dreaded play-in game in Dayton is top-seeded Lehigh. Anyone else wins the PL Tournament—which begins tomorrow but doesn’t end until March 12th because of (you guessed it) television—and they’re probably headed for Dayton. At the moment that teams cuts the nets down though, it won’t be thinking about Dayton. It will be nothing but pure joy.
That’s why Brey’s description is so apt. When you watch these teams play for their championships you can see how much it means to them. None of them are thinking about the fact that they may face a first-round game against Syracuse, Kansas or Kentucky. Or that they might be going to Dayton. It doesn’t matter. They want to be champions and they want to see their name go up on the board on Selection Sunday and they want to be part of The Dance.
Sure, it is all cliché but it is real. I remember being in Lafayette’s locker room after the Leopards beat Navy 10 years ago to win The Patriot League title when I was researching, “The Last Amateurs,” and it was about as joyous a place as I’ve ever been. A week later, as a No. 15 seed, the Leopards were beaten badly by Temple but that didn’t change the memories or the feelings they had for one another after beating Navy.
The little guy that no one wants to play this year is Cornell. It will be interesting to see how the committee seeds The Big Red. They have one bad loss—at Penn—but their other three losses are to Seton Hall and at Kansas and Syracuse. They’ve won road games at Alabama, at Massachusetts and at St. John’s. They played a tougher non-conference schedule than most schools in the BCS conferences play.
Jim Boeheim has said Cornell should be a No. 4 to a No. 6 seed. That won’t happen. I think if they had run the table in the Ivy League they might have sneaked into a No. 9 seed ala Bucknell four years ago. Now, I think they’ll be more like a No. 11. One thing about the committee—they hold a bad loss against a little guy against it more than they do a big guy.
That’s all for a week from Sunday. For now, the next 10 days are about the little guys having that moment they will all remember forever. If you think the U.S. hockey team looked heartbroken, check the faces of some of the losers in these conference tournament finals—especially after a last-second game-decider. The Olympians all believe they’ll get another shot in Sochi in four years and many will. Most of the kids who lose one-big finals know they won’t get another shot. Most teams that rise in these conferences are led by seniors so this may be their last chance.
ESPN has done a lot of bad things through the years but ‘Championship Week,’—giving the one-bid kids their moment in the sun—was brilliant. It also wasn’t a coincidence. It was the brain-child of Tom Odjakian, who worked at ESPN then and works at The Big East now. Odjakian is a Lafayette graduate. He wanted his school and others like it to have a chance to play their championship game on national TV. This is what he came up with. Good for him. This will be fun.
The money teams will be everyone’s focus soon enough. For now, let’s get fired up for a potential Coastal Carolina-Radford final in The Big South. Or Stony Brook-Vermont in The America East.
Let the you-know-what begin.
*******
Okay, I had a number of people contact me yesterday about comments Michael Wilbon made about me during an online Washington Post chat yesterday. Wilbon’s angry with me because we have a fundamental disagreement about Tiger Woods—and, I guess it is fair to say star athletes in general.
This though is about Woods. He defends him. I don’t. There’s really no need to go through the details: What we’ve both written and said is out there if you want to find it.
Wilbon got mad two weeks ago because I joked on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show that he had put aside his professionalism when it came to Tiger. As he proudly told The Post in his chat he called my cell phone and left a profanity-filled message. I responded by leaving him a message that was, I think he’d agree, considerably calmer but sticking to the essential point: we disagree on Woods. He isn’t going to back away from his position; I’m not backing away from mine.
I don’t know if the question during his online chat yesterday was a setup. I do know the person I’m really mad at is some guy I’ve probably never even met calling me, ‘Junior.’ Anyway, Wilbon responded by saying on the one hand he didn’t ‘give a damn,’ what I thought but on the other hand said he’d called and screamed profanities at me. If nothing else, the profanities let me know he cared. I was touched. He also said something about not being ‘subservient,’ to me. I don’t think I’ve ever asked Wilbon or anyone I’ve worked with to be subservient to me. In fact, I’ve never written these words: “As I was being driven from Bristol to New York on Sunday.” (Nor will I).
The only thing Mike said that’s just untrue is that I confuse my opinions with facts and legitimacy. Having been a columnist for a long time now I not only know the difference between opinion and fact I’m accustomed to people disagreeing with my opinions—sometimes angrily. It’s part of the job. As for legitimacy, that’s clearly up to the readers too.
Wilbon also says he’d put his journalistic credentials up against mine any day. That’s fine. Mike’s been very good at what he does for a long time. I feel pretty comfortable with my journalistic credentials though and here is where we differ (in my opinion): Guys like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaq—the rich and famous guys Wilbon thinks of as friends—have public relations machines that tell the world how great they are. If they do something good, it should be reported. But when they screw up, they don’t need us taking a bullet for them. The people in sports who maybe need a boost every now and then (when they do something good) are the kids in The Patriot League; the football players at Army and Navy; the golfers who end up in Q-School.
Those are the stories I enjoy doing the most and the people I tend to gravitate towards. That doesn’t mean the big names don’t have stories to tell—I think I’ve told my share of those stories too. And gotten to know many of them along the way. WIlbon loves hanging with big names and telling people about it. I'm looking forward to dinner with Paul Goydos this week. Neither one of us is right or wrong. We're just different.
Let me close by saying this: When Abe Pollin fired Jordan several years ago Wilbon was one of many in Washington who ranted against him for doing it. Pollin’s decision was proven correct when Ernie Grunfeld came in, hired Eddie Jordan as coach and rebuilt the Wizards into a playoff team—four straight years—before Gilbert Arenas’s injuries and stupidity brought the team down again. When Pollin died, instead of simply writing the words, ‘I was wrong,’ about Pollin’s decision (hell, we all get it wrong sometimes; I thought Tiger would be playing golf this month) he went off on some tangent about how it was a shame Abe never forged a better relationship with Jordan.
Come on Mike, you’re better than that.
In conclusion? Wilbon and I have been friends for 30 years. We’re pissed at one another right now. I hope we’ll sit down and agree to disagree and move on at some point in the future. In the meantime though I guarantee this: I will NOT criticize his clothes. He dresses VERY well.
Final note of the morning to poster Case: Not sure if you were joking but I was never scheduled to work The Patriot League quarterfinals. I’m in Florida right now—it’s raining dammit—to do some golf this week and some baseball. The league’s known since August I was going to miss that game. I’ll be back for the semis on Sunday. But thanks for paying attention!
March Madness actually begins tonight. The Big South starts its postseason tournament. By the end of the weekend, if you count The Ivy League, five automatic bids will have been handed out.
For me, the one bid tournaments are about as much fun as anything that takes place during the basketball season. Very few of the kids playing are going to be one-and-done and you aren’t going to hear a lot of speculation about their pro futures. All they care about at that moment is the game they are playing because most are one loss away from the end of their season. A majority of the seniors are one loss away from the end of their careers.
That’s what makes these tournaments so much fun. When Mike Brey was coaching at Delaware he often said that winning The America East Tournament was the equivalent of getting to The Final Four for Duke—which was where he had coached prior to moving to Delaware. “And winning a game in the NCAA Tournament is like winning the national championship,” he added.
We all know that on rare occasions one of the little guys will slip through to the sweet sixteen. George Mason’s Final Four run in 2006 belongs in a different category but it is worth remembering that the Patriots didn’t come out of a pure one-bid league. In fact, they got into the tournament as an at-large team, much to the chagrin of Jim Nantz, Billy Packer and others.
The real one bid leagues are the one where no one even discusses an at-large bid, where the committee has already penciled the champion in as a No. 15 or No. 16 seed most years. Of course there can be exceptions going in either direction. In 2006, coming off a first round upset a year earlier over Kansas, Bucknell came out of The Patriot League as a No. 9 seed—and promptly lived up to it by beating Arkansas. This year, the opposite is true in the league. The only conference team likely to avoid being sent to the dreaded play-in game in Dayton is top-seeded Lehigh. Anyone else wins the PL Tournament—which begins tomorrow but doesn’t end until March 12th because of (you guessed it) television—and they’re probably headed for Dayton. At the moment that teams cuts the nets down though, it won’t be thinking about Dayton. It will be nothing but pure joy.
That’s why Brey’s description is so apt. When you watch these teams play for their championships you can see how much it means to them. None of them are thinking about the fact that they may face a first-round game against Syracuse, Kansas or Kentucky. Or that they might be going to Dayton. It doesn’t matter. They want to be champions and they want to see their name go up on the board on Selection Sunday and they want to be part of The Dance.
Sure, it is all cliché but it is real. I remember being in Lafayette’s locker room after the Leopards beat Navy 10 years ago to win The Patriot League title when I was researching, “The Last Amateurs,” and it was about as joyous a place as I’ve ever been. A week later, as a No. 15 seed, the Leopards were beaten badly by Temple but that didn’t change the memories or the feelings they had for one another after beating Navy.
The little guy that no one wants to play this year is Cornell. It will be interesting to see how the committee seeds The Big Red. They have one bad loss—at Penn—but their other three losses are to Seton Hall and at Kansas and Syracuse. They’ve won road games at Alabama, at Massachusetts and at St. John’s. They played a tougher non-conference schedule than most schools in the BCS conferences play.
Jim Boeheim has said Cornell should be a No. 4 to a No. 6 seed. That won’t happen. I think if they had run the table in the Ivy League they might have sneaked into a No. 9 seed ala Bucknell four years ago. Now, I think they’ll be more like a No. 11. One thing about the committee—they hold a bad loss against a little guy against it more than they do a big guy.
That’s all for a week from Sunday. For now, the next 10 days are about the little guys having that moment they will all remember forever. If you think the U.S. hockey team looked heartbroken, check the faces of some of the losers in these conference tournament finals—especially after a last-second game-decider. The Olympians all believe they’ll get another shot in Sochi in four years and many will. Most of the kids who lose one-big finals know they won’t get another shot. Most teams that rise in these conferences are led by seniors so this may be their last chance.
ESPN has done a lot of bad things through the years but ‘Championship Week,’—giving the one-bid kids their moment in the sun—was brilliant. It also wasn’t a coincidence. It was the brain-child of Tom Odjakian, who worked at ESPN then and works at The Big East now. Odjakian is a Lafayette graduate. He wanted his school and others like it to have a chance to play their championship game on national TV. This is what he came up with. Good for him. This will be fun.
The money teams will be everyone’s focus soon enough. For now, let’s get fired up for a potential Coastal Carolina-Radford final in The Big South. Or Stony Brook-Vermont in The America East.
Let the you-know-what begin.
*******
Okay, I had a number of people contact me yesterday about comments Michael Wilbon made about me during an online Washington Post chat yesterday. Wilbon’s angry with me because we have a fundamental disagreement about Tiger Woods—and, I guess it is fair to say star athletes in general.
This though is about Woods. He defends him. I don’t. There’s really no need to go through the details: What we’ve both written and said is out there if you want to find it.
Wilbon got mad two weeks ago because I joked on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show that he had put aside his professionalism when it came to Tiger. As he proudly told The Post in his chat he called my cell phone and left a profanity-filled message. I responded by leaving him a message that was, I think he’d agree, considerably calmer but sticking to the essential point: we disagree on Woods. He isn’t going to back away from his position; I’m not backing away from mine.
I don’t know if the question during his online chat yesterday was a setup. I do know the person I’m really mad at is some guy I’ve probably never even met calling me, ‘Junior.’ Anyway, Wilbon responded by saying on the one hand he didn’t ‘give a damn,’ what I thought but on the other hand said he’d called and screamed profanities at me. If nothing else, the profanities let me know he cared. I was touched. He also said something about not being ‘subservient,’ to me. I don’t think I’ve ever asked Wilbon or anyone I’ve worked with to be subservient to me. In fact, I’ve never written these words: “As I was being driven from Bristol to New York on Sunday.” (Nor will I).
The only thing Mike said that’s just untrue is that I confuse my opinions with facts and legitimacy. Having been a columnist for a long time now I not only know the difference between opinion and fact I’m accustomed to people disagreeing with my opinions—sometimes angrily. It’s part of the job. As for legitimacy, that’s clearly up to the readers too.
Wilbon also says he’d put his journalistic credentials up against mine any day. That’s fine. Mike’s been very good at what he does for a long time. I feel pretty comfortable with my journalistic credentials though and here is where we differ (in my opinion): Guys like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Shaq—the rich and famous guys Wilbon thinks of as friends—have public relations machines that tell the world how great they are. If they do something good, it should be reported. But when they screw up, they don’t need us taking a bullet for them. The people in sports who maybe need a boost every now and then (when they do something good) are the kids in The Patriot League; the football players at Army and Navy; the golfers who end up in Q-School.
Those are the stories I enjoy doing the most and the people I tend to gravitate towards. That doesn’t mean the big names don’t have stories to tell—I think I’ve told my share of those stories too. And gotten to know many of them along the way. WIlbon loves hanging with big names and telling people about it. I'm looking forward to dinner with Paul Goydos this week. Neither one of us is right or wrong. We're just different.
Let me close by saying this: When Abe Pollin fired Jordan several years ago Wilbon was one of many in Washington who ranted against him for doing it. Pollin’s decision was proven correct when Ernie Grunfeld came in, hired Eddie Jordan as coach and rebuilt the Wizards into a playoff team—four straight years—before Gilbert Arenas’s injuries and stupidity brought the team down again. When Pollin died, instead of simply writing the words, ‘I was wrong,’ about Pollin’s decision (hell, we all get it wrong sometimes; I thought Tiger would be playing golf this month) he went off on some tangent about how it was a shame Abe never forged a better relationship with Jordan.
Come on Mike, you’re better than that.
In conclusion? Wilbon and I have been friends for 30 years. We’re pissed at one another right now. I hope we’ll sit down and agree to disagree and move on at some point in the future. In the meantime though I guarantee this: I will NOT criticize his clothes. He dresses VERY well.
Final note of the morning to poster Case: Not sure if you were joking but I was never scheduled to work The Patriot League quarterfinals. I’m in Florida right now—it’s raining dammit—to do some golf this week and some baseball. The league’s known since August I was going to miss that game. I’ll be back for the semis on Sunday. But thanks for paying attention!
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