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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

I plead guilty—with an explanation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill Hancock.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Steve Williams taking the low road; Odds and ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

******

Some odds and ends on different subjects:

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

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

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

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

Washington Post column: Ohio State’s Jim Tressel gets axed, but rotting wood remains in college athletics

Here is today's article for The Washington Post ----------

There are so many issues connected to Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel’s “resignation” Monday that it is difficult to know where to begin.

Let’s start with this: Tressel resigned the way Richard Nixon resigned. Even with his hapless bosses, Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee and Athletic Director Gene Smith, trying to push back the growing wave of accusations, Tressel finally ran out of the nine lives given to a coach with a record of 106-22.

What happened Monday is pretty easy to figure out: Ohio State goes before the NCAA infractions committee Aug. 12. To enter that hearing with Tressel still in place as football coach would have sent the following message to the committee: “We’re Ohio State. This coach wins most of the time and beats Michigan all the time. We don’t care that his program was apparently out of control or that he engaged in a cover-up of clear NCAA rules violations. We have some tickets here for our opener next month. Would one of you like to dot the ‘i’?”

That probably wouldn’t play well in that room. That’s why Tressel had to go.

Even so, there are still myriad questions surrounding the Ohio State football program.

Exactly how widespread were the violations that ex-players are saying were commonplace?

Exactly how long can Smith keep his job after declaring on Dec. 23 that the memorabilia-for- tattoos episode “an isolated incident”? Or, more specifically, why should he keep his job? survive?

As recently as two weeks ago, Smith insisted he supported Tressel. In March, when reports first surfaced that Tressel had covered up for players who should have been ineligible at the start of last season, Smith did a fly-by for a quickie news conference in Columbus, then raced back to serve his role as NCAA men’s basketball committee chairman. With his house was burning down, Smith came home just long enough to make sure the doors were locked.

As for Gee, how can anyone connected to Ohio State want the bow-tied president around for even five more minutes? He already made a fool of himself with his whiny comments about non-BCS teams last fall (which, to his credit, he admitted were ridiculous after being blasted nationally ) and then, just to prove that bit of stupidity wasn’t a fluke, he made his incredible, “I’m just hopeful the coach doesn’t fire me,” wisecrack during that March news conference.

Click here for the rest of the column: Ohio State’s Jim Tressel gets axed, but rotting wood remains in college athletics

The new poster boy for college athletics: John Junker; All bowls should be investigated; Answering a few questions

Through the years I have written often about those who SHOULD define what college sports is all about: the kids who play at Army and Navy; stories like those of Butler and VCU; coaches like Dean Smith, Joe Paterno and Mike Krzyzewski.

Of course we all know that, in the end, college athletics isn’t about people like that. It’s really about guys like Jim Tressel and Cecil Newton and the fabulous E. Gordon—“Jim please don’t fire me,”—Gee. It is about new NCAA President Mark Emmert who expresses concern for the ‘student-athletes,’ but won’t talk about how much he’s being paid.

I could go on and on.

But now we have a new poster boy for college athletics, a man who absolutely defines what college athletics is truly all about. His name is John Junker and, for most of 30 years, he ran The Fiesta Bowl. He was the absolute model of a modern bowl-game blowhard, only no one knew that he was also a crook. Now, a detailed report on The Fiesta Bowl’s finances has revealed that Junker used money from the bowl’s budget—much of it ill-gotten to begin with it should be remembered—to make contributions that were almost certainly illegal to politicians who had done him favors; to finance his 50th birthday party (for more than$33,000); to travel far and wide on boondoggles and to pay for his membership in at least four expensive golf clubs.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. After Junker denied all the charges when they were initially made by The Arizona Republic in 2009, he had a buddy of his conduct a fraudulent investigation that apparently lasted about 15 minutes in which the few witnesses spoken to were apparently coached on their answers. Junker’s pal concluded there was no credibility to the charges, accepted a check for about $20,000 and rode off into the sunset. The guy clearly has a future working for the NCAA down the road.

Wait, we’re still not at the punch line. One of the many items Junker charged to the bowl was for a trip to a strip club. Apparently he and his PR guy and his security honcho made a trip to a Phoenix strip club one night, ran up a tab of more than $1,200 and charged it to the bowl. If nothing else this is absolute proof that Junker thought he was completely untouchable, that he could get away with ANYTHING.

Wait, it gets better.

When the real investigation into the bowl’s finances took place, Junker was asked about the strip club tab. This is what he said, according to the report: “We are in the business where big, strong athletes are known to attend these types of establishments. It was important for us to visit, and we certainly conducted business.”

Go back and read that again. Not since former DC-Mayor Marion Barry famously said, “The bitch set me up,” when he got caught in a police cocaine sting operation, have more extraordinary words been uttered.

Junker actually told investigators that as part of his job as a glad-handing phony, he needed to ‘conduct business,’ in a strip club. Jeez, why didn’t I think of that? “You know, as a reporter I have to deal with big strong athletes…”

The old definition of the Hebrew word ‘chutzpah,’ was the guy who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. John Junker may have just topped that.

Of course at this point Junker is just the sideshow. He’s been fired—ya think?—and will spend the rest of his life being a punch line. Now the question is this: will ANYONE do anything about this?

Oh, the hand-wringing is already well underway. My friend Bill Hancock, the BCS administrator, is doing his Inspector Renaud imitation: he’s shocked, SHOCKED to learn there were strip clubs in Phoenix. Emmert, who has yet to be caught in an actual truth since becoming NCAA President, thinks it really is bad that all this has gone on.

Okay boys, what next?

It could be that Hancock and The BCS might feel the need to remove The Fiesta Bowl from the BCS rotation for a little while if only to prove that they aren’t actually collecting on their winnings as they leave Rick’s Café. Jerry Jones is standing by ready to provide his palace and the Cotton Bowl as a BCS venue so there’s an easy fallback. Then, in a couple of years, if The Fiesta Bowl people make nice, they’re put back in the rotation and the BCS generously announces it is adding a bowl so that the third place teams in the Big Ten and The SEC can be added to the gravy train. TCU and Boise State need not apply for either of the extra two bids.

Of course if Emmert actually wanted to something he could: take away The Fiesta Bowl’s sanction for at least two years. Please spare me the speeches about the charities that benefit from the bowl game. It is pretty clear that the only ones really benefiting from this bowl were guys like Junker and his political cronies and guys like the associate commissioner of the SEC who got to play a round of golf with Jack Nicklaus. Spare me the tears about all the volunteers. They’ll find another way—perhaps even a meaningful way—to volunteer their time for a couple of years.

How much you want to bet Emmert uses the, ‘all these other wonderful people shouldn’t suffer because of the mistakes of a handful of people,’ dodge?

Here’s what should really happen: The IRS should immediately begin an investigation of every single bowl game. They’re all 501C3, tax-exempt entities, most with executive directors who make in the same ballpark as the 600K Junker was drawing—that’s not counting the money he was using for strip club expenses et al. I wonder how all those bowls with their various junkets for TV partners and conference commissioners and athletic directors would hold up under such scrutiny. Maybe the IRS will conclude that these bowls should be stripped (no pun intended) of their 501C3 status. Now THAT would change college football and college athletics and bring about a playoff lickety-split because then the self-righteous, pandering presidents would HAVE to find a way to make up for not being able to grab what they’re grabbing from the BCS right now.

I’ve always said that a playoff didn’t have to mean any change at all in the current bowl system. You could play four quarterfinals at bowl sites; two semifinals at bowl sites and the championship game at a bowl site. The remaining 27 bowls would continue as is, inviting all of America’s deserving 6-6 teams.

Now perhaps that position should be reconsidered. We all know the bowls rip off the schools anyway by forcing them to buy thousands of tickets they can’t sell so they (the bowls) can stay healthy and—more important—wealthy. Maybe now is the time to blow the whole thing up and start from scratch.

John Junker’s firing should be the equivalent of The Watergate break-in. It should only be the beginning. Somewhere there is a Deep Throat out there who is going to tell Bob Woodward, “everyone is involved.”

Because everyone is involved.

Oh, and one last word for John Junker: You should have used Marion Barry’s line. It was far more believable.

*****

Some notes to posters: Memphis fan: Your question IS legitimate. To this day I have no idea why Duke wasn’t penalized for the Corey Maggette incident…To the questioner on why TruTV got games but not CBS College, I think it is two reasons: TruTV is available on most basic systems and, yes, Turner wanted them involved as part of the deal—remember, they are paying MORE to the NCAA than CBS.

To you Kentucky fans: First, thank-you for writing. If you didn’t I’d be worried I was losing my touch. Second, to the guy who went on about my ‘not being objective.’ Congratulations—you got one thing right. But please show me where and when I have ever claimed to be objective on any subject. And to the guy who thinks me self-righteous and not funny (come on, not funny?) why the hell are you reading? I’m sure you can find a copy of Cats Pause somewhere that you can curl up with.

More thoughts on the politics of, and lack of transparency in, the NCAA selection process

It is no secret that I am not a big fan of the NCAA basketball committee—and that’s putting it mildly.

There was a time, however, where there were always a couple of guys on the committee who understood that the whole veil of secrecy that exists around the selection process was ludicrous. Jack Kvancz, the Athletic Director at George Washington, used to joke about it all the time. He even went so far as to formally propose that the committee allow a member of the media to sit in on the proceedings.

“No chance,” he told me later. “They laughed me out of the room.”

Jack should have been the committee chairman in 2003. He was passed over for Bob Bowlsby, the classic pretentious, phony administrative type the NCAA so loves to promote. Jack was simply too much of a straight shooter to be chairman. He might have actually been caught in a truth.

So, it is hardly a shock Jack got shouted down quickly when he even suggested opening up the process to the public—which is what putting a media rep in the room would do. You see, when you are on the basketball committee, you are doing work that MUST be secret. Murder trials are on television; every vote in Congress is recorded so the public can pass judgment on it but the NCAA basketball committee does everything in secret.

Oh please.

The worst part of it though is they keep trying to tell the public that they aren’t being secretive. Nowadays, the committee chairman does conference calls with the media leading up to Selection Sunday and that night after the brackets are announced. Of course he NEVER says anything. Sunday night, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith, who is the current chairman, simply wouldn’t answer any questions. At one point he told the CBS guys during their softball-fest that one of the criteria for getting in to the tournament was ‘style of play.’

Tracee Hamilton, one of The Washington Post’s columnists walked into the office where I was working and said to me, “did he really say style of play?”

Yup, he did. Next thing you know we’re going to have judges at courtside. The East German judge’s vote will no doubt be thrown out.

For years, I have pounded on the committee to let a member of the media sit in on their meetings. Not me—honestly, I’d rather watch a 0-0 soccer game for 120 minutes on a continuous loop than spend four days with those guys—but someone; perhaps the president of the U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association or someone designated by the USBWA if the president has another assignment that weekend.

There are two reasons I think this should happen: 1. The public has a right to know how the teams are selected and seeded and who votes for and against certain teams and 2. It would be better for the committee to PROVE to the public that all their claims that there aren’t any politics in the process are true. NO ONE believes it. My guess is the reason they won’t let a reporter in is because there are politics involved.

Several years ago, in response to the constant questioning of the system by me and by others, the NCAA—always willing to stonewall at any turn—came up with what it calls the ‘mock selection,’ process. Reporters were invited to participate in a mock selection of a field in February so we could ‘truly understand,’ how the teams are selected.

I’m pretty sure this was the brainstorm of Greg Shaheen, who was brought in to the NCAA by then-president Myles Brand to, among other things, improve the NCAA’s image. Shaheen’s a smart guy and, until last April, we communicated regularly—sometimes in a friendly way; sometimes exchanging arguments on issues. That changed when I called him out during The NCAA’s pat-itself-on-the-back Final Four press conference when he tried to claim that a 96-team tournament would somehow involved LESS missed class time for ‘student-athletes.’

Now, Shaheen doesn’t respond when I send him e-mails. I even sent him an e-mail asking when he was going to get over what had happened in Indianapolis last spring and he didn’t respond to THAT. Which is fine; he’s not the first and won’t be the last.

That said, the ‘mock bracket,’ was and is Shaheen’s baby. He did everything but beg me to participate, figuring if he could get me to but what he was selling he could probably get almost anyone to buy in. He and the committee have done a great job selling it to a lot my colleagues who love to go around telling people how they now ‘understand,’ the process. Oh please. You think because you sit in a room and look at RPI’s and take mock votes that you understand the process? Do you understand that Ron Wellman, the Wake Forest Athletic Director who is on the committee now, completely blew it by allowing only four ACC teams to be selected—one of them sent to Dayton? Do you understand that Steve Orsini, the SMU Athletic Director should be Conference-USA’s man-of-the-year for somehow convincing the committee to give UAB an at-large bid?

No, you don’t, because you buy into the notion that Wellman left the room when ACC teams were being voted on and Orsini did the same when Conference-USA teams were being voted on. Maybe so but how many hours during the day were they in the same room with the other members discussing teams? What did Wellman say when whomever had responsibility for scouting the ACC this year, said Virginia Tech wasn’t good enough? Or when someone suggested that Penn State—which lost to Virginia Tech—was a better pick than the Hokies because they beat Michigan State on Saturday while Virginia Tech was losing to Duke?

On Monday I sent a note to David Worlock, who is the NCAA’s basketball PR person. Worlock is a really good guy. He works very hard, is incredibly responsive to requests and questions and extremely patient—especially with people like me who he knows are not going to be receiving any good guy awards from the NCAA any day soon.

I asked Dave to ask Gene Smith two questions: Who voted for and against Virginia Tech and which committee member was assigned to the ACC this season? I knew the answer to both questions—none of your business—but I wanted that answer on the record. Dave patiently wrote back to say that and then added a lengthy—and I mean LENGTHY explanation of various criteria—which told me absolutely nothing. He then suggested—again, as Shaheen has done repeatedly the last few years—that I would understand the process better if I attended a mock bracket session.

I give Worlock credit for trying but it’s not going to happen. I told him if he and the committee really wanted me to understand the process, invite me to the real thing. (Again, I’d prefer someone else go, but at this point I’d have to go if invited since I’ve been running my mouth for so long about it. That said, I think I’m pretty safe making plans for selection weekend next year that do not include a trip to Indy.)

Here’s one other problem: the committee doesn’t have enough basketball people on it. With the exception of Stan Morrison—who goes off the committee after this season—there are no ex-coaches on the committee. Nothing but administrators, each a bit more sanctimonious than the rest. My favorite is Lynn Hickey, the AD at Texas-San Antonio. Last year during the USBWA’s annual Final Four meeting with the committee, when we had made a couple of requests to try to speed the postgame process after late night games, Hickey told us, “you know, everything we do is for the student-athletes.”

It took all my self control at that moment not to say, “PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU; SHUT-UP.” Student-athletes? Right. Meanwhile, they’re flying all over the country this week and next week and the week after that and the games are played later and later at night and, by the way, how much class do you think those kids from The Big East schools went to last week?

Any time you hear someone from the NCAA use the phrase, ‘student-athletes,’ check your wallet.

My friend and former student Seth Davis once referred to the great high school scout Tom Konchalski as, “the only honest man in the gym,” while walking into a summer basketball camp. The basketball committee could use Konchalski in the room. That way, there would be one honest man in there too.

Washington Post column: 'John Feinstein: The NCAA's version of justice is puzzling'

The following is this weekend's column for The Washington Post taking a look at the NCAA's  self-righteousness and secrecy in both their enforcement staff decisions and the tournament selection process.

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To paraphrase Jerry Tarkanian's oft-repeated quote involving Kentucky and Cleveland State, the NCAA must be so mad at Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun that Radford's Brad Greenberg is going to get suspended for four games.

In truth, the NCAA didn't punish Radford's coach (the brother of Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg) because the school did it first, suspending Greenberg for the final four games of the season. According to the school's news release, Greenberg was suspended for breaking NCAA rules involving, "team travel and associated extra benefits."

Here is what Greenberg did: He took Masse Doumbe with him to road games Radford played during Thanksgiving break and Christmas break even though he was ineligible. The NCAA had barred Doumbe from playing in the first 21 games of the season because he had played on a French team the NCAA deemed professional because one player on the team (not Doumbe) was being paid. Greenberg didn't want to leave him alone on campus during the holidays, so he brought him with the team.
That was the impermissible travel.

The extra benefits? Meals, and a bed to sleep in.

Imagine what might have happened if he had bought the kid an ice cream cone after a team meal.

But this is justice in college sports, whether it is meted out by a school trying to show it can really crack down on itself or the NCAA suspending Calhoun for three games next season for violations involving illegal contact with recruits and, specifically, the actions of a former team manager who was involved in the recruitment of a player.

Calhoun, who was never one to duck a tough question, has been reduced to putting out garbled statements from some lawyer about how Calhoun takes full responsibility but really this is no big deal and let's move on because there's a tournament to be played.

There is no one better than the NCAA when it comes to self-righteousness and secrecy. The simplest question is often met with absolute astonishment that it would even be asked. Last month, during one of the NCAA basketball committee chairman's conference calls leading up to Selection Sunday, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith was asked by the Kansas City Star's Blair Kerkhoff, "Gene, can you tell us how many teams would be on your 'absolutely in' list right now?"


Click here for the rest of the article: John Feinstein: The NCAA's version of justice is puzzling

Tip of the hat to E. Gordon Gee; NCAA ruling on Cam Newton puts me on the same side with Delany and Vaccaro, opens Pandora’s Box

I’m a big believer in giving credit where it is due. So today, I tip my hat—if not my bowtie—to E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State. I was one of many people who ripped Gee in the last week after he ridiculously claimed that neither TCU nor Boise State was worthy of playing for a national title even if they finished undefeated. In what struck me—and others—as a blatant attempt to make sure the 66 BCS schools kept as much of the power, money and control as possible in college football, Gee came out with some blather about how teams in the BCS Conferences play a murderer’s row schedule and don’t play The Little Sisters of the Poor.

Actually, many of them do. And they all play them at home.

I wrote a column ripping Gee and making fun of him for being pretentious. Others did the same thing. Here’s how Gee responded: He told the Columbus Dispatch he never should have opened his mouth on the subject, that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that he was going to have his foot surgically removed from his mouth. He also said he had sent a contribution to The Little Sisters of the Poor.

Good for him. How often have you heard a college president not only admit he was wrong about something but say it in such a self-deprecating way. If this was a PR move it was a good one. If it is genuine, all the better.

Gee went at least one step further. Yesterday afternoon I received an e-mail from him in which he basically repeated what he had told The Dispatch. It included the words, “Lesson learned.” He then went on to say he was an admirer of my work and would love to sit down and talk to me at some point in the future. First of all the guy clearly has good taste in writing. More important though, the fact that he would write to me at all is remarkable: I hammered him, made fun of his first name and wrote that he needed to shut up. He writes back that I’m right and wants to get together.

This is not exactly the way Tiger Woods or Bob Knight react to criticism. (Tiger fans: there’s your Tiger shot for the day; enjoy).

I wrote back to Gee and thanked him for the note and told him I’d be happy to get together with him. Then I said this: “I would love to be able to convince you to open your mouth again—but this time in favor of a playoff which would be good for the young men who play college football; good for everyone financially and, yes, good for the players in their roles as students.”

No, I’m not holding my breath on getting that done but if Gee is willing to listen I’m (surprise) willing to talk.

Now, on to another college football topic: The Cam Newton ruling is scary on a lot of levels. Let me say this first: I recognize, as most of us do, how colleges exploit players and make millions off of stars like Newton. I’ve said for years there should be some kind of trust fund set up for players on ANY team that makes a school money and players should be able to withdraw their share—which over four or five years could be fairly substantial—the day they graduate. Yes, graduate. Those who leave school early to make NFL or NBA millions don’t need the money; those who aren’t going to be football or basketball superstars do need it and this would be a decent incentive to graduate.

That’s another issue for another day. Today’s issue is the Newton ruling. Here’s what scares me most about it: I find myself reading quotes from Big Ten commission Jim (Voldemort) Delany and long-time shoe salesman/player broker Sonny Vaccaro and nodding my head and saying, ‘uh-huh, they’re right.”

The day I agree with Jim Delany and Sonny Vaccaro the apocalypse truly is upon us. Delany, who used to work in the NCAA enforcement office, points out that rules on eligibility make it clear that if someone acting on behalf of an athlete breaks rules, the athlete can—and probably should—be held accountable. The NCAA reinstatement committee chose to take the narrowest view possible on this: the sins of the father should not be visited upon the son.

In principle that sounds nice but as Vaccaro points out, this opens an unbelievably deep Pandora’s Box. From this day forward, all anyone—father, mother, coach, street-agent, sister, cousin, aunt—need do is say to a star athlete, “you decide where you want to go and we’ll take care of the rest.” As long as the athlete can claim he didn’t know what’s going on, he’s free and clear. The minute the NCAA rules in the future that someone is ineligible because someone asked for money on their behalf, there’s going to be a lawsuit based on, ‘The Cam Newton Rule.’

If the NCAA is going to take this view, it might just as well throw the towel in and say, ‘pay ‘em all.’ Now some of you out there will say that’s great, that’s the way to go anyway. Only it’s not that simple. If you think college athletics is an arms race now, imagine what will happen if the doors are opened to having players go to the highest bidder.

You think Butler will play in the national championship game anytime soon? You think Boise State will ever have a top ten team again? No. College athletics will simply be about who can get the most money out of wealthy boosters to pay players. Heck, it is already that way to some extent but you let all those folks out of the closet with no deterrent at all for paying players and you can kiss that lovely first weekend of the NCAA Tournament when Winthrop beats Notre Dame and VCU beats Duke goodbye.

The NCAA didn’t want Newton to sit out the SEC Championship game because, in spite of its claims to the contrary, it IS in cahoots with the BCS and it doesn’t want TCU in the championship game. USC Athletic Director Pat Haden (correctly) asks why Reggie Bush got nailed and Newton did not. The answer is simple: Bush is no longer of any value to the NCAA. Newton is. Don’t be stunned if sometime in the next year or two the NCAA comes back and says, ‘wait, we now believe Cam Newton knew what his dad was up to—return all the trophies.’

That’s NCAA justice: it twists and bends the way it needs to twist and bend. Newton and Auburn are fortunate the NCAA needs Newton playing—at least for the moment.

I’m also baffled by my friend Bill Rhoden’s column in today’s New York Times. Bill argues that even though Cecil Newton put his son up for sale, he’s still a good man, just one who used poor judgment. To me, trying to turn your kid into a human ATM machine—whether he knows you’re doing it or not—goes way beyond poor judgment.

In this case, it has done the impossible: put Jim Delany, Sonny Vaccaro and me on the same side of an issue. I’m not sure which of the three of us finds that most frightening.

Washington Post Column-- Tale of two Auburns isn't the only story out there

Here is today's column for the Washington Post --------

The drama that has played out on and off the college football field in Auburn, Ala., this season is worthy of Charles Dickens.

Auburn, picked to be a reasonably good team but nothing more prior to the season, is 11-0, ranked No. 2 in the country and on the doorstep of playing for the national championship. The Tigers have been led by quarterback Cam Newton, who left Florida two years ago, played a year of junior college ball, and has emerged to become the overwhelming favorite to win the Heisman Trophy.

But in the past two weeks, there have been accusations that Newton and his father sought payoffs during his recruitment a year ago and reports that Newton was found guilty of cheating academically while at Florida. Every day, it seems, brings a new revelation of some kind.

The best of times and the worst of times indeed.

Auburn Coach Gene Chizik reacted with outrage initially but has gone the "I only want to talk about football" route since. Newton has said nothing and wasn't even allowed to speak to the media after Auburn's win over Georgia on Saturday. That's right: After leading his team to 49 points to clinch a spot in the SEC title game, the best player in the country was kept from speaking publicly.

Click here for the rest of the column: Tale of two Auburns isn't the only story out there

This week's radio segments (Tony Kornheiser Show, The Gas Man)

This morning I joined Tony Kornheiser's newest The Tony Kornheiser Show morning at 11:05am. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. Today, we discussed a couple of interesting topics, including David Duvall and things I learned during my interview of him - his insights on what happened in his career, Tiger's place in terms of talent, etc. - before moving on to the agent paying players article written about on Wednesday. This led to great talk on what to do to help stop the problem, and in what manner to possibly compensate college players.

Click here for the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show
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Wednesday evening I joined The Gas Man in the normal timeslot (8:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click here for the segment: The Gas Man 

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(Note on The Sports Reporters appearance -- as a commenter mentioned, I was in studio for 2 hrs Wednesday, but we don't have a link for that time period. If we get it, we'll post it)

Washington Post column - Greed is the new tradition in college football

Once again, it is college football season. Let us all say together, "Hallelujah," because there are few things better than Saturdays in the fall, and the atmosphere in and around the sport's great rivalry games, ranging from Williams-Amherst to Army-Navy to Michigan-Ohio State.

While we do that, let us also pause to give thanks for the fact that even as the Big Ten pursues even more power and dollars by expanding to 12 teams, it has decided not to carry through with the folly of moving Michigan-Ohio State from the season's final weekend. If you have any doubt at all about how foolish such a move would be, simply grab your college history books and turn to the page marked, 'Nebraska-Oklahoma,' in the chapter entitled, 'Great Rivalries Flushed by Greed.'

Greed is the word that powers college football. Those who control the sport - the commissioners of the Bowl Championship Series conferences and the presidents of those conferences' schools - would have you believe that tradition is the word that matters most. Sadly, many of college football's most cherished traditions are going the way of the wing-T.

You can start with football Saturdays. Check this week's schedule: Among those opening their season on Thursday was Ohio State. When you think of tradition, you certainly think of Thursday nights inside the Horseshoe, don't you?

College football is now played every night of the week at some point during every season. Two of the best games - Navy-Maryland and Boise State-Virginia Tech - will be played Monday in NFL stadiums.

Tradition indeed.


Click here for the rest of the article: Greed is the new tradition in college football

Isiah Thomas – setting the Knicks idiocy aside, how can the NBA and NCAA allow this?; Quick notes on Woods, MLB umpire situation

The New York Knicks have hired Isiah Thomas as a consultant.

Sure, and Barack Obama has hired Bernie Madoff as Secretary of The Treasury.

I mean seriously, the Knicks have hired Isiah Thomas? What are they going to do next bring back Stephon Marbury as their point guard?

This just in: Dan Snyder has signed Jeff George to play quarterback.

You see, even SNYDER isn’t stupid enough to repeat absolute folly. That’s what James Dolan apparently wants to do. He is bringing back a man who brought complete shame to his franchise on and off the court; a man who has about as many friends in the world as, well, Bernie Madoff.

Isiah Thomas?

Already there’s a story in The New York Daily News that Donnie Walsh thought about quitting as team president and general manager and may yet do it. Maybe then Dolan can bring Isiah back as general manager. While he’s at it maybe he can hire Kiki Vandeweghe, who had so much success with the Nets this past season, as his coach. Or Bernie Madoff. I mean, why not?

There are so many questions that are un-answered about all this. The most obvious one is why? But there are others. For example, how in the world can either the NBA or the NCAA be okay with Thomas continuing as coach at Florida International University while being on the Knicks payroll?

Let’s look at it from the NBA side first. The league has very strict rules about contact with players who aren’t draft eligible—either by being college seniors or having declared for the draft. That means, every time Thomas talks to his team, he’s breaking NBA rules. It means every time he talks to a recruit, he’s breaking NBA rules. It means any time he talks to an opposing player—even to put his arm around him and say, ‘nice game,’—he’s breaking NBA rules.

More important though is how it can be possible that the NCAA can allow this. Remember, this is an organization that has about 426 rules that relate to ‘unfair advantages,’ in recruiting. In 1988 when I wrote, ‘A Season Inside,’ and related stories about going on recruiting visits with a number of coaches to player’s homes, the NCAA passed a rule banning any member of the media from making a home visit with a coach. Why? Because (I was told) it was considered an unfair advantage for a coach to be able to imply that he had more access to media coverage than another coach might by bringing a reporter along with him.

The NCAA also passed a rule several years ago which banned any member of the media—even one WRITING A BOOK--from being in a team’s locker room before, during or right after an NCAA Tournament game—UNLESS the locker room was opened to all members of the media. The reason: If a coach can tell a recruit that there is enough interest in his program to merit being part of a book, it is an unfair advantage.

I swear I’m not making this stuff up.

Given all that, how can the NCAA think for one second that this is NOT an advantage for a college coach to be able to say to a recruit, “you know I’m a paid consultant for an NBA team.” That implies a connection to the NBA that other coaches don’t have.

Now, you might laugh and say, ‘who the heck is Isiah Thomas going to recruit at Florida International who is even a long-shot NBA prospect?’ Are you kidding? Ninety percent of the reason he was hired by the school is because it thinks his name will attract higher-level recruits, kids who might have pro ambitions. (By the way, in high school, they ALL have pro ambitions).

Beyond that, you can’t say it’s okay for the coach at Florida International to be on an NBA payroll but not okay for the coach at Duke or North Carolina or Kansas or UCLA or Maryland—or ANYONE—to be on an NBA payroll. Coaches complain all the time that Mike Krzyzewski has an unfair advantage in recruiting because he coaches NBA players as the Olympic Coach. Imagine if The Washington Wizards hired Krzyzewski as a consultant. Do you think Gary Williams (or Roy Williams or anyone else) might have a problem with that?

Imagine if a college coach on a recruiting visit can say to a kid, “you know, the other day Pat Riley (or you pick a general manager) called me to talk about what free agents we should go after next summer.” Or if he said, “Phil Jackson was asking me who the top five college freshmen are going to be next year and I mentioned you right away.”

Okay, which is a bigger recruiting advantage: being able to drop a line like that or having some reporter sitting in the corner taking notes?


If I were an NBA owner, I’d be on the phone with every top college coach right now asking if he wanted to be my consultant. If I were a top college coach, I’d take the extra money and any recruiting advantage it might bring in a heartbeat. And just think, very few of these guys have been sued for $11.6 million for sexual harassment—and lost.


Jim Dolan is the absolute prototype of a trust fund kid who has never gotten anything right in his life and, sadly, never really needed to get anything right in his life. He’s made more stupid, arrogant moves than any owner this side of my guy Snyder. In fact, he makes Snyder look like Steve Bisciotti by comparison.

But he’s not the only one who is screwing the pooch on this one. David Stern must be on vacation. The NCAA is ALWAYS on vacation when it comes to common sense. Thomas must be somewhere laughing uncontrollably thinking, ‘you know what, you might not be able to fool ALL the people all the time, but as long as Jim Dolan is still around, I don’t need to fool anyone else.’

Amazing. Just amazing.

*****

Two notes from the weekend: Yes, I’m as stunned as anyone by Tiger Woods’ performance at Firestone. Sometimes though you have to hit rock bottom (this is a golf reference, not a life reference) before you head in the right direction. Woods may have hit it on Sunday. He was almost CHEERFUL talking to the media—after blowing them off two straight days—following his final round 77. Don’t write him off at Whistling Straits. You never write the great ones off and, whatever else he may be, Woods is still the most gifted golfer of my lifetime. And, thanks to Phil Mickelson completely gagging on the weekend (he shot one stroke HIGHER than Woods on Sunday) he’s still number one in the world.

And finally…Just happened to be watching The Athletics and Rangers on Sunday when Mike Maddux came to the mound to make a pitching change. He was stalling to give his reliever some extra time so—naturally—the home plate umpire came out to break up the mound conference. Only he never got the chance to do it really because Joe West charged over from FIRST BASE screaming at Maddux to make his move—waving his arms, yelling, the whole deal.

Question: Has anyone ever seen the first base umpire do that—WITH the home plate ump already on the mound? Second question: When will MLB crack down on umpires who think they’re God—West being the No. 1 offender? I mean please, who died and made Joe West into Doug Harvey? (whose nickname was God). Enough already.

Colleges have long had problems with agent-player contact -- time for NCAA, NFL and NBA enforcement to change

Back in 1981, I was the Maryland beat writer for The Washington Post. Lefty Driesell had two clear-cut first round draft picks on that team: Albert King and Buck Williams. King was a senior; Williams a junior.

After games, when I was in the locker room talking to players, I frequently saw two men who very clearly weren’t members of the media circling the room, glad-handing the players. Often, they would wait until those of us on deadline finished and then swoop in to tell King and Williams how wonderfully they had played.

The two men were David Falk and Donald Dell. In those days, they were still partners, Falk working for Dell at ProServ, which was then one of the mega-agencies in sports, trailing only IMG for prestige, power and name clients. I remember saying to Driesell back then, “why do you let agents in your locker room?”

Lefty shook his head and said. “If I don’t let ‘em in, the players will be upset. They’ll think I’m trying to keep them away.”

“You SHOULD keep them away,” I said. “Agents shouldn’t be talking to players during the season under any circumstances and you shouldn’t be sanctioning it by letting them in the locker room.”

Lefty didn’t listen to me just as 99 percent of the coaches alive would not have listened to me. Like most coaches, he was afraid that if banned the agents, they would tell the players (which they would) ‘your coach isn’t looking out for your best interests. He’s only worried about what you can do for HIM.’

At the end of that season, Buck Williams left Maryland a year early and turned pro. The agent who guided him through the process of making that decision was—you guessed it—David Falk. (Dean Smith once told me that the first time Dell introduced him to Falk he said to his assistants, “I don’t trust that young one.” Boy did he have the one right).

Years later, agenting had become more sophisticated. The big-shots like Dell and Falk only made their presence felt when they truly needed to do so. Falk spent a lot of time in the 90s traveling to Duke to woo Mike Krzyzewski. He didn’t spend much time with the players. Instead, he would go in to see Krzyzewski after games to tell him what a great job he had done that night. Eventually, Krzyzewski hired him as his agent and a lot of Duke players landed with Falk—just as virtually every Georgetown player has landed with Falk since John Thompson became a client of his thirty years ago.

In 1994 I was on a trip to Hawaii with Maryland. Joe Smith was a sophomore and a lot of people thought he had a chance to be the first pick in the NBA draft if he turned pro that spring. Throughout the trip there was a guy hanging around the team who was clearly bird-dogging for an agent. He was outside the locker room waiting whenever the bus pulled up and would hug most of the players as they walked inside. One afternoon I saw him walking on the beach with Smith.

Later that day, just prior to a game he walked up to Chuck Walsh, who was Maryland’s sports information director and said, “Hey Chuck, my man, you got a media guide for me?”

Gary Williams was standing no more than 10 feet away and his face was chalk white as Walsh went to get the media guide. He said nothing. As soon as the bird-dog walked away, Gary went off on Chuck. “What are you doing?!” he screamed. “Why are you helping him? Don’t you understand—he’s the ENEMY! You don’t help him in any way.”

Gary was exactly right. He WAS the enemy. Smith turned pro at the end of that season and there was nothing he could do about it. If he had told Smith to stay away from the bird-dog or any other agenting types, just as Lefty had said, Smith would have seen the order as selfish and self-serving and the agents would have reinforced that every chance they got.

That’s what makes this latest spate of NCAA investigations into player-agent relationship so difficult to deal with as an outsider. It’s very easy to say, “police the agents,” but how? To begin with, the NBA and NFL would have to work with the NCAA and that almost never happens. Beyond that, most agents are smart enough to not leave a trail behind. As Digger Phelps once said about coaches paying recruits: “it’s tough to prove cash.”

It’s tough to prove anything—especially given that the NCAA has always been monumentally understaffed in enforcement and seems more concerned with not talking to the media than with actually getting anything done.

Look, I’m not making excuses for anybody. The agents and the people who work for them shouldn’t be anywhere near college athletes and if they go anywhere near one, coaches should have the guts to tell them to get the hell away. If a player gets upset about it, you explain to him why he cannot be associated with an agent or anyone who has even been breathed on by an agent. If they don’t understand that, chances are they already have their hand out and you (the coach) have a serious problem.

Any agent caught dealing with a college athlete should be banned. And if it someone who works for him in any way, same thing. By banned I mean he can’t be registered with the NFL or the NBA or negotiate a contract with a team on behalf of an athlete for at least two years. I don’t mean if he’s caught giving a kid money, I mean if he shakes hands with a kid.

Years ago, when Eddie Fogler was still an assistant at North Carolina, I was standing with him on the court at University Hall at Virginia about 45 minutes before a game. All of a sudden, Eddie said, “oh dammit, now I’ve got trouble.”

I looked up and saw a man walking in his direction, hand out, smile on his face. I honestly don’t remember the man’s name but Eddie began waving his arms and saying, “Mr. Jones (made-up-name) nothing personal, but I can’t even shake your hand, I’ll be breaking the rules.”

The man was a potential recruit’s father. The last thing Fogler wanted to do was be rude. But the no-bump rules back then meant even accidental contact could be a violation.

Did Fogler act that way because I happened to be standing there? I don’t think so, but even if he did—fine—those are the kind of rules agents needs to be forced to live under. We all know all these excuses are, to put it in polite terms, hooey. The agents are friends of the family; they’re trying to help a kid out (that’s the biggest lie of them all); they just happened to have a house they could rent to a kid’s parents for $25 a month—and on and on. Just say none of those excuses wash. If it WAS an innocent mistake, well, too bad, you lose.

And the notion that the players don’t know they’re doing something wrong? Oh please. They’re all told the rules and they’re all told to stay away from three groups of people: agents, gamblers and the media. (We’re bad guys too because we ask questions). Here’s what I’ve heard coaches say to players: “If ANYONE wants to give you something for free, come tell me. Do NOT accept it, not even a movie ticket.”

The players know the rules but they’re also taught that they’re above the rules. And most of the time, even when they get caught—see Bush, Reggie; Mayo, O.J. et al—they don’t pay the price, the next generation of players and coaches pay the price. That’s another problem with NCAA enforcement: it moves so slowly that the guilty parties are usually out of dodge by the time the posse gets to town. (See Carroll, Pete and Floyd, Tim—who is somehow coaching at UTEP this coming season with no penalty while USC is still under NCAA sanctions).

The bottom line is this: It’s a hard problem for everyone. But the solution is NOT to do nothing. The solution is to understand that no answer is perfect but try to find one that sends a clear message to players, coaches and agents that this behavior won’t be tolerated. And if that behavior upsets a player—tough. Gary Williams was right—agents (and their surrogates) ARE the enemy. In college athletics it isn’t some of the time that they’re the enemy it is ALL the time.

Sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for NCAA wisdom; Discouraged by Islanders, encouraged by Mets

Some time later this week the suspense will finally be over.

No, believe it or not, I’m not talking about LeBron James or any of the other NBA free agents. I’m talking about the new NCAA basketball tournament format.

I know this because last week I received an e-mail from the NCAA announcing that the basketball committee had, in fact, reached a decision on how to deal with the new 68 team format. The press release basically said this: the committee has reached a decision but we’re NOT telling you what that decision is until next week. It went on to add that none of the committee members would DISCUSS the decision or what went into it until next week.

Full radio silence.

Imagine if the committee had been making a decision on something that was actually important. They might have been locked in hotel rooms with no access to TV, cell phones or the internet until the announcement was made.

What’s strange about the remarkable self-importance of the committee through the years is that I’ve had the chance to know most of those who have served on it dating back thirty years. I LIKE most of them individually—there have been notable exceptions, led by Jim Delany, college athletics’ answer to Darth Vader—but when they gather as a group it gets almost scary.

Years ago, after the committee had done an especially horrific job seeding the tournament I said to Tony Kornheiser on his radio show: “They should all be lined up and shot.” (Okay, I get a bit carried away sometimes).

Noting this Tony said, “But Jack Kvancz (the AD at George Washington and then a committee member) is a good friend of yours.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Just shoot him in the leg.”

Jack, who was listening, told me later he was grateful.

Now, I’m all for giving credit where it is due. The committee did NOT decide to expand the tournament to 96 teams beginning next year as most of us believed they would this past spring. I think when they realized they could still get huge money from CBS/Turner for a new long term contract without getting pilloried—as they knew they would—for rewarding mediocrity by going to 96 teams—they backed off. How long that back off will last none of us knows but at least they held off for now.

But seriously folks, a press release announcing that you’ve made a decision on a minor issue but you aren’t announcing it for a week? Is there some curiosity among those of us who love college hoops about the new format? Sure. But there really aren’t that many options out there.

The committee will either make the last eight automatic bid qualifiers play-in against one another to reach the round of 64 as No. 16 seeds or it will make the last eight at-large teams play-in to the round of 64 as No. 12 or No. 13 seeds—which is the right thing to do. You might wonder why not compromise and have four at-large teams play four automatic bid teams. That really can’t work because you can’t say if the at-large teams win they’re No. 12 seeds but if the automatic bid teams win they’re No. 16 seeds. It just makes no sense.

The committee then has to decide where to play the four games. It can send all eight teams to Dayton, which has been an excellent host for the dreaded play-in game for nine years or send the eight teams to first and second round sites. My guess is eight automatic bid teams to Dayton, but we’ll see.

My other guess is, if I’m right, the committee will try to make the announcement the same day James makes his, in the hope that it will be completely buried in the James hype. No doubt it will be. Then again, if it had made the announcement last week, it probably would have been a five-paragraph story most places rather than a four-paragraph story. I’m surprised the committee didn’t also announce that it had decided to designate the coming weekend as The Fourth of July.

As I said, I like most of these people individually although I did almost gag out loud last April when Texas San-Antonio Athletic Director Lynn Hickey tried to explain during the annual Final Four meeting between selected committee members/NCAA staff and the U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association that we writers needed to understand that everything the committee did was, “for the good of the student-athlete.”

And it don’t rain in Indiana in the summer time. I realize that a lot of people don’t have much respect for the media but did she really think we were THAT stupid. Apparently so.

Anyway, I’ll wait to see what the committee announces this week. Maybe it will announce that it has decided to make a final announcement next month.

*****

I know most people were focused this weekend on Wimbledon (exciting finals, huh?); World Cup soccer, the announcement of the baseball All-Star teams (Omar Infante?) and the pennant races but I was on the edge of my seat waiting for Ilya Kovulchuk to make a decision.

For those of you who aren’t hockey fans, Kovulchuk is a perennial 40-goal scorer still in his 20s traded by Atlanta to New Jersey last winter. On Saturday, Newday reported that The New York Islanders might have a shot at Kovulchuk. On Monday, the Los Angeles Kings dropped out of the bidding. By late morning, I was hearing Kovulchuk might actually be headed to Long Island, giving them the kind of scorer they haven’t had for years, the star they desperately needed to take some pressure off John Tavares.

I almost got excited. Then a few hours later The New York Post reported Kovulchuk was going back to New Jersey. The Post doesn’t get hockey stories wrong. It didn’t when I was a kid, it doesn’t now. Of course Kovulchuk’s agent would only say he had “narrowed,” his choices. Maybe he’s angling for a spot on the NCAA basketball committee.

Having read that several other free agents backed away from the Islanders because The Nassau Coliseum is so outdated and there is no sign that a new building is coming along anytime soon—it is completely mired in political muck in Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead—I am completely and utterly discouraged.

I’m amazed at my age and having seen what I’ve seen through the years that I still care about a hockey team, but I do.

I also still care about the Mets and I’m encouraged by what they’ve done the first half, especially without Carlos Beltran, but I’m still skeptical. If they actually pull off a deal for Cliff Lee, then we can talk.

Maybe they’ll announce that they’re going to make an announcement about a deal. If it is next week, that’ll be fine. In the meantime, I’ll sit here on the edge of my seat waiting for the basketball committee to share its wisdom with the rest of us.


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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:



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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

Special to The Washington Post - 'John Wooden: Untouchable record, incomparable man'

Through the years, there have always been milestones in sports thought to be untouchable. Once, Lou Gehrig's string of playing in 2,130 consecutive baseball games was on that list. Then Cal Ripken Jr. came along. Jack Nicklaus's record of 18 professional major golf championships was thought to be completely out of reach since no one else had won more than 11. The record still stands, but Tiger Woods now lurks just four behind. Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak is considered sacred, but Pete Rose did get within 12 of the magic number.

There's one men's college basketball record, though, that not only will never be broken, the likelihood is it will never even be threatened: 10 national titles. That's how many NCAA championships John Wooden won at UCLA. No other coach -- not Mike Krzyzewski, not Adolph Rupp, not Bob Knight, not Dean Smith -- has even gotten halfway to that mark. In fact, those four, generally considered the four greatest college basketball coaches in the game's history not named Wooden, have won 13 titles combined. Perhaps even more remarkable: Wooden won those 10 championships during a 12-season span, beginning in 1964 and ending in 1975, when he retired after UCLA beat Kentucky in that year's national championship game.
He was 64 when he walked away -- younger than Rupp, Knight or Smith were when they retired and the same age Krzyzewski will be next February. He was 99 when he died on Friday, the unquestioned best in the history of his sport. Some may talk about how Wooden won his titles in such a different era. Others will bring up the whispers about UCLA players being taken care of by the famous booster Sam Gilbert in ways that ran outside of NCAA regulations.

Either argument misses the forest for the trees. Wooden won in 1964 and 1965 with a small team that pressed all over the court. He won from 1967 through 1969 with center Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), the greatest player in college basketball history. He won the two years after that with Steve Patterson, very decidedly not the greatest player in college basketball history, replacing Alcindor. Then he won twice more with Bill Walton in the middle, and he won his last title with a team that probably should have lost to Louisville in the national semifinals and easily could have lost to Kentucky in the championship game.

He also saw to it that almost all of his players graduated, and if freshmen had been eligible when Alcindor was a UCLA freshman in 1966, he might easily have won 10 straight national titles instead of nine in 10 years, from 1964 through 1973.

Click here for the rest of the story: John Wooden column