Back from among the missing, all for the wonderful Super Bowl week

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I figure I should write something before I start showing up on the side of milk cartons. No, I haven’t been missing, just buried under all sorts of personal matters that make me wish I could move to Cabot Cove, Maine (even if it is fictional) and be Jessica Fletcher’s neighbor. (Remember, the regulars never got killed on ‘Murder She Wrote,’ just the guest stars.)

So, it is Super Bowl week.

Oh joy.

Did you hear that Rob Gronkowski, like the rest of us, is day-to-day? Did you hear the Giants say the 2008 Super Bowl doesn’t matter regardless of how often the question is asked? Oh, and Peyton Manning is just fine. Or not fine. Without doubt, it’s one or the other. If only I had Rob Lowe’s cell phone number I could find out.

I almost went to this Super Bowl. If Lee Evans had held onto the ball in the end zone in Foxboro 10 days ago I would have gone. If Billy Cundiff had known what down it was and hadn’t rushed onto the field and hooked a 32-yard field goal attempt wide left, I might be there right now. (Question for those who pay more attention than I do: Did ANYONE from CBS notice or mention how late Cundiff came on the field or that the Ravens didn’t use the timeout they had either at that moment or in the endless postgame festivities? If they did, I missed it, but it was certainly clear that Cundiff arrived late and was rushed from where I was sitting).

I would have gone to The Super Bowl if the Ravens had been there and because I love Indianapolis. I obviously have great affection for the place because of the time I spent in Indiana 25 years ago (sales of the 25th anniversary edition of ‘Season on the Brink,’ have been remarkably brisk I’m happy to report) and because it is a very underrated city. Very good restaurants—including St. Elmo’s, the best steakhouse in the country as far as I’m concerned. It is also the perfect place for any major event because everything you want or need is walking distance.

Understand, I have nothing against either the Giants or the Patriots. As I’ve said before, I like Bill Belichick (hey, he even said something funny when his team got to town, saying he became a lot more popular in Indy after he went for it one 4th-and-two a few years back) and, even though I grew up a Jets fan and will continue to suffer with them (and the Mets and Islanders; hey, has anyone noticed that John Tavares has become an out-and-out STUD?) forever, I don’t hate the Giants. In fact, I pull for them at least twice a year. This season, they lost both those games.

But the Ravens presence would have made all the hype and bluster and logistical difficulties of Super Bowl week worth the effort. It also would have been a nice escape from all the fun of the last month. (Note: everyone in my family is healthy. This is about stuff less important but amazingly annoying and exhausting).

I’ve never been big on going to The Super Bowl. As a reporter, it is a waste of time. You’re basically a professional stenographer for a week. I’d rather watch the game at home on TV and go to bed as soon as it’s over. No doubt this is a sign of age. I’m actually starting to feel that way about the Final Four and years ago I would have told you if there was one event I’d go to forever that would be it. Now, not so much, especially since it has been so corrupted by the basketball committee and TV.

So, I’ll go to a college basketball game tonight; go to another one on Saturday; spend time with my family; keep plugging away at this other stuff and be grateful that the winter has been so mild so far. It’s warm enough to play golf. I wish I had the time.

Speaking of golf, I heard a rumor that Tiger Woods played last week. He went to Abu Dhabi, apparently because he likes to see new places. That’s what his website said anyway and Tiger would NEVER say something that was insincere in any way, shape or form. The $2-$3 million appearance fee he got had nothing to do with it. The fact that he has a new contract with Rolex and the tournament in Dubai, where he USED to get a $2-$3 million appearance fee is sponsored by Omega, had nothing to do with it.

(Tiger lovers, I write this just so you can yammer on about how unfair I am to your hero. God forbid anyone should, you know point out who the guy really is.)

Switching to a more pleasant topic: one of my former employers is making a mistake and I’m truly sorry to see it happen. Navy is joining the Big East in 2015, meaning it will be locked into eight conference games a season instead of having the flexibility that has allowed it to schedule itself (along with very good coaching) into eight bowls in nine years.

That means, in theory, Navy will have ONE game to play with on its schedule since it initially said it would keep playing Army, Air Force and Notre Dame. So, those of you who enjoyed those games against Ohio State, South Carolina and Stanford—along with next fall’s game at Penn State—you can forget about that. Navy will HAVE to schedule an automatic win in that slot. What’s more, I saw today where Coach Ken Niumatalolo is already hedging about continuing to play Air Force. He said Army and Notre Dame are absolute musts but Air Force, not so much.

Seriously, Kenny? The best game in college football every year if you care at all about tradition and the quality of the people on the field is Army-Navy. The second and third best games, in no special order, are Navy-Air Force and Army-Air Force. The fact that Navy would even CONSIDER not playing Air Force (and please Navy fans don’t say they didn’t always play pre-1972, that’s ancient and irrelevant history) is proof that this Big East move is a bad idea.

But then, no one asked me what I thought. At least the Army people DID ask me what I thought before their disastrous move to Conference-USA in 1998. They ignored me of course but at least they asked.

I wish Navy nothing but good things but I think, no matter how their various apologists/paid bloggers might rationalize it, this is a mistake. I hope I’m wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flattered, I said, sure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

******

A few quick comments on other topics:

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

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

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

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

Gee, I’m stunned.

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

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

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

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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 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Really?” he said.

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

“Oh my,” he said, clearly confused.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make sense?

Onto other things:

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

Sorry, that’s the way I feel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resigning after 14 years on The Navy radio network

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

But I felt I had no choice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, it won’t be next year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in my normal time slot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week.  We spent a great deal of the time this week discussing Tiger Woods and the possible disintegration of his lower body, including whether his workout regimen and subsequent weight gain may have been a hindrance instead of help over the years. After Tiger we moved on to the hiring of Ed DeChellis at Navy, and where Penn State basketball may be headed. Paterno and Bob Knight on the same campus?

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
 
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Also Wednesday I joined The Gas Man in my normal weekly spot. This week we discussed the Seattle Sounders and the MLS, including a story of mine while covering the earlier rendition of the Sounders,  followed by a look at the success of the MLS including the smart choice of stadium size the league has gone with. After the soccer talk we moved on to the franchises in New York, including the amazing events that the Mets and Wilpon find themselves in, including a quick a look at the Yankees, Rangers and Islanders.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man

Reflecting on the week, and the sports element in healing

It has been a while since I checked in for a number of reasons. A lot on my plate would be one, Osama bin Laden would be the other. I simply didn’t want to write a jock blog so soon after his death on Sunday. Only one thing matters: he’s dead and, for once, there isn’t a single American who doesn’t feel exactly the same way about a political/military event. I know what my response was: Thank God we finally got him.

Thinking more about Bin Laden and 9-11 though I realized there is a sports element to his death. For many, many Americans, sports played a major role in our healing after that horrific day. When the games began again, they gave us a place to go—not just physically but mentally and emotionally—an escape from the reality that was still there on our TV screens every day as the grim search for bodies continued and ground zero continued to smolder.

I still remember the chills I got when the New York Yankees were cheered in Chicago; when fans everywhere the Navy football team traveled that fall cheered the Midshipmen from the minute they got off the bus until the bus pulled away at the end of a game. I remember President Bush tossing the coin at Army-Navy that year on a cold, bright December day and a future marine named Ed Malinowski calling out for everyone to hear: “Head’s SIR!” while the coin was in the air and a chill ran through the entire stadium.

It was a tragic but remarkable fall. A friend of mine who worked for The Secret Service and worked on a task force with the FBI and the local police in Washington in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 told me that incidents of road rage dropped almost to zero. Democrats and Republicans stopped attacking one another. There seemed to be a recognition in all worlds that the ‘enemy,’ didn’t wear an opponent’s uniform or vote differently than you. We had seen the real enemy all too clearly.

Of course it didn’t last—that’s human nature. A new normal settled in to our lives, complete with long airport lines (and me all but giving up flying) and lengthy security checks at most sporting events. Metal detectors became a familiar part of our lives in jock world. No one complained because, as much as we hated the fact that there was no choice, there was no choice.

Fast-forward 10 years and there’s no doubt all of us will remember where we were when we heard the news that bin Laden was dead. I was getting ready to go to bed when my son called me from his room down the hall. Usually at that hour it’s to ask me to close his door because he doesn’t want the cats to wake him by jumping on his bed after he’s gone to sleep. This time was different.

“They got bin Laden,” he said. “They killed him.”

I was stunned. Like a lot of people I think I had gotten to the point where I just figured he had too many people—and governments—protecting him for us to ever get him. Happily, I was wrong.

The fact that it was Navy Seals who got him wasn’t surprising. There is no group more elite in the world. I’ve had the chance to know a number of football players who have gone on to become Seals and, to say you have to be special is a vast understatement. The best description I ever heard of Seals came from Doug Pavek, an Army football player who went on to become an Army Ranger—another elite group.

“They do everything that we do,” Pavek said. “Except they do most of it underwater.”

Or in helicopters or on the ground or wherever they are most needed. The shots of the celebrating at the Naval Academy that night were chill-worthy and brought me back again to 2001 when I stood on an almost silent practice field and watched the players try to prepare to play Boston College 10 days after the towers came down. There was no chatter that day; no fake cheerleading. It was still too soon for any of that.

Now when the 10th anniversary of 9-11 is commemorated—I’m amazed at how often I read each year that people are, ‘celebrating the anniversary,’—we can mix our silence and our grief with cheers for those who hunted the man behind the murders down.

I do wonder this: the first Sunday of the upcoming NFL season falls on 9-11. Would it not behoove Roger Goodell and the owners, who are the ones who started this labor battle and appear ready to go to the mat in search of a legal victory, to find a way to make sure stadiums are full on that day and that football is played?

Is it entirely out of line to suggest that the NFL—which does more flag-waving and playing on patriotic themes than almost anyone in sports or outside of sports—should declare a moratorium on the lockout and work under the old CBA for this season while still trying to negotiate a new deal going forward?

I’m sure Goodell and his lawyers will give all sorts of legal reasons why that can’t be done but there are certainly instances of employees continuing to work with a collective bargaining agreement in place. Surely, legal language could be worked out to allow the games and the negotiations to go on at the same time. Aren’t there moments in life when—especially when you are rich beyond all reasonable expectations—that you STOP playing hardball for a little while and simply do the right thing?

That may be an extraordinarily naïve notion but it was once naïve to think the Yankees could get cheered on the road or that getting players and coaches to come out of their locker rooms for the national anthem would ever be possible again. Sometimes what seems naïve is just the right thing to do. I think this is one of those times.

*****

On far more mundane topics: I cannot believe that the Washington Capitals completely flamed out in the playoffs AGAIN. The 4-0 sweep at the hands of Tampa Bay was embarrassing. I can’t help but note that the goalie who beat the Caps, Dwayne Roloson, is someone I suggested they trade for back in December. I was pilloried by many fans and my colleague at The Washington Post, Tracee Hamilton, for even suggesting a veteran goalie on hand might be a good idea.

Roloson was traded by the Islanders soon after that to the Lightning for a middling prospect. I’m not saying goaltending was the reason for the Caps demise—Michal Neuvirth played well though not brilliantly—but having Roloson in the room as a calming influence, whether he was playing or not, would have helped. And, he would NOT have been playing for the Lightning…

You have to feel a little bit sorry for The PGA Tour. It tries SO hard to convince people that The Players Championship is a really big deal; spends huge money to promote it and on prize money and what does it get? No Lee Westwood; no Rory McIlroy and, in all likelihood, no Tiger Woods who I suspect is still going to be taking care of his injured knee next week. For the record, if I’d had four knee surgeries I would be ultra-cautious too. But let me also say this for those of you who monitor this blog strictly for Tiger-shots: If he was supposed to play for a $3 million appearance fee this week, I suspect he’d find a way to play. (insert, ‘Feinstein, you suck,’ posts here).

And finally on the subject of those of you who hate me so much you can’t stop reading this blog: A friend pointed out during the NFL draft a couple of posts from last fall demanding I ‘apologize,’ to Mike Shanahan for ripping him for the handling of the Donovan McNabb benching (NOT, you Rick Reilly fans, for the benching but for the way he handled the benching) because McNabb’s ‘new contract’ proved that Shanahan had nothing personal against McNabb. How’s that turning out? You expecting to see McNabb under center if/when the NFL season begins? Or do you think the ‘contract’ with almost zero in guaranteed money, but a signing bonus, wasn’t hush money?

One of the most enjoyable things I do—Patriot League basketball games, a Sunday trip to Bucknell

I know most of the sports world is talking football today and I get that. I’m still recovering from The Baltimore Ravens collapse in Pittsburgh on Saturday and from the shock of seeing the New York Jets put their money and their talent where their mouths were on Sunday. (No foot jokes here).

Let me say one thing as a fan NOT as a neutral observer: the holding call on the Ravens fourth quarter punt return for a touchdown was a joke. The call was, at best, borderline, but in fact it was worse than that because a good official looks at a borderline block and says to himself, ‘did it affect the play?’ If so, MAYBE you throw the flag. If not, you don’t throw it and there’s no way that block affected the play.

Okay, enough whining. The Ravens blew the game with the three turnovers in the third quarter and giving up the 58-yard-pass late in the fourth. I thought the officiating was lousy. It is not the reason the Ravens lost.

Now, onto what I really want to talk about today: my trip Sunday to Bucknell.

I know there are dozens of you—maybe—who want to hear all about it.

Here’s what you need to understand: there’s really nothing I enjoy doing more at this point in my professional life than Navy football games on the radio and Patriot League basketball games on TV. I mean that in this sense: I still LOVE to write much more than I like doing radio or TV even though I think I’ve become reasonably good at the radio and TV stuff through the years. Writing is what I do and I love writing for The Washington Post and The Sporting News and, for that matter, this blog. I make most of my living from writing books but I also LIKE writing books, which makes me very lucky.

All that said, I really enjoy the niche that I have at Navy and in the Patriot League. I’ve done Navy football for 14 seasons now and this is my ninth season doing Patriot League games on TV. What makes it so much fun, quite simply, are the people. I’ve written before about my respect for the people at Navy—and at Army, I just don’t spend as much time up there—and how I’ve enjoyed watching the football team play so well the past eight seasons under head coaches I like for entirely different reasons: Paul Johnson won games and made you laugh; Kenny Niumatalolo wins games and makes you cry because he’s so sincere and dedicated to the kids he’s coaching.

The Patriot League is different. I’ve had an association with the schools in the league for 12 years now, dating to ‘The Last Amateurs.’ The TV package actually came about in 2002 when a (then) independent producer named Billy Stone approached me and asked if I’d be willing to do color on a package of Patriot League games he was thinking of trying to sell to DirecTV. Billy had already sold an Ivy League package and, after reading ‘Last Amateurs,’ thought a similar package might work for The Patriot League. His one caveat was that he wanted me involved.

Which was, to say the least, flattering. So we launched the package in January of 2003. I did the first two games with Jack Corrigan who then left to become the voice of The Colorado Rockies. He was replaced by Bob Socci, who has been my partner on Navy football for 14 years now. Working with Bob is a delight because he’s always prepared, he’s good at what he does and because he puts up with my humor and wisecracks with good humor of his own about 99 percent of the time.

The one-time we had a true on-air dispute—we argue often but almost always in good humor—was when I angrily said that I didn’t think President Bush should be at the Army-Navy game in 2004 when he was un-necessarily putting the young men he was glad-handing in harm’s way in Iraq. Bob didn’t see the issue as political: The President was the commander-in-chief and he had a perfect right to be there. I understand his point-of-view (I even understood it then) but the war made me SO angry at that point I just couldn’t see it that way. When The President returned to the game a couple of years later Bob and I made a deal: he wouldn’t bring up the president if I didn’t and vice-versa. So, we left it to our sideline reporter Pete Medhurst to talk about The President tossing the coin and I kept my big mouth shut.

I digress. Working with Bob is just one of the things I enjoy about The Patriot League package. Believe it or not, I look forward to the drives to the games—okay maybe not to Colgate when it is snowing but if it isn’t Hamilton is a pretty little town and I like the old-style warmth of The Colgate Inn. When I drive to Bucknell on a clear Sunday morning like yesterday, it’s a pleasure. I am an absolute creature of habit: I make two-stops each way: on the way up for gas in Thurmont (not far from Camp David) on Rte. 15 and at the Dunkin’ Donuts just outside Harrisburg for coffee and (now) one donut (powdered). On the way back I stop at the McDonald’s that’s right next to Dunkin’ Donuts (no French fries anymore, sigh) and then at a Rutter’s gas station just below Harrisburg—the door tweets like a bird when you walk inside.

It is almost exactly three hours to the minute each way. It’s actually a very pretty drive—first through the mountains going from Maryland to Pennsylvania. Then, say what you want about Harrisburg, but when you get to the T where you turn left to follow Rte. 15 and look across the Susquehanna River at the capitol building and downtown Harrisburg it’s quite pretty. The drive the rest of the way with the river on your right almost the entire way is about as scenic as any this side of The Pacific Highway.

I roll in the front gate at Bucknell, drive to the stop sign and circle to the back entrance, parking my car right next to the TV truck. These days the package is on CBS College Sports. There have been times when the 15 steps to the back door can be treacherous.

After all these years I feel as if I know about half the people who come to The Sojka Pavilion by name. Pat Flannery’s not the coach anymore, but he’s still around and I get to spend time with him while I’m up there. Most of the people who worked at Bucknell when I did the book still work at Bucknell. The same is true at all of the league’s schools. Whenever I go to do a game it feels a little bit like homecoming for me.

We had a terrific game on Sunday. Bucknell was up 14 in the second half but Holy Cross rallied to tie before Mike Muscala (who is a big-time player) hit a shot with 1.4 seconds to play to win the game for Bucknell. The funny thing about that play was that the shot was clearly a three and the officials, who had a very good game, called it a two. If Holy Cross’s last shot—a squared-up 30-footer had gone in there would have been quite a brou-ha-ha. The officials might still be looking at a replay.

They weren’t though and we got off the air exactly on time at 4 o’clock. I said my goodbyes—we may very well be back at Sojka for a flex game late in the season or for a conference tournament game—changed into sweats to drive home (another habit) and wheeled out of the parking lot at exactly 4:30—a little more than five hours after I pulled in.

I had three hours to drive and a smile on my face.

This weekend I’ll make the equally-familiar drive to Army. I could tell you where I’ll stop on that trip too but enough is enough. I’ll stay in one of my favorite hotels, The Thayer, and eat dinner with some of my Army pals on Friday night at Loughran’s in Newberg which has sawdust on the floor and prime rib that’s so good I don’t eat red meat all week so I can eat it without guilt. On Saturday Christl Arena will be packed for Army-Navy.

The atmosphere will be great. The game will be fun. And then I’ll be back in the car going back down The Palisades Parkway. Honestly, I can’t stand cold weather anymore. But going to Patriot League basketball games, seeing all the people I see and making those familiar trips to places filled with warmth makes it a little more bearable. Actually a LOT more bearable.

Army-Navy – the joy, the heartache and the reality

It never fails. Every year when I go to Army-Navy I wonder if THIS is going to be the year when the alma maters don’t get to me, when I don’t turn into a whimpering puddle when they play those two songs. After all, I’ve witnessed the scene 21 times now. The last really close game was in 2000—when Bill Clinton for crying out loud was still the President.

And yet, it doesn’t matter. Saturday’s game WAS more competitive. It could have been a classic if things hadn’t turned upside down on one play at the end of the first half. Trailing 17-7 (after being down 17-0 early) Army drove to the Navy three-yard line after a Ricky Dobbs fumble and had a first and goal with the clock ticking towards a minute to go. An Army touchdown just before halftime would have given the Cadets all the momentum starting the third quarter—especially since they were receiving the second half kickoff.

Quarterback Trent Steelman, who I think is going to be a star the next two years, ran right and tried to push his way forward to reach the end zone. He was stopped at the one and as he struggled for extra yardage—which is an instinct but often a mistake on the goal line if you don’t have the ball covered up—Navy linebackers Jerry Hauberger and Tyler Simmons punched at it. It popped loose into the arms of Wyatt Middleton. Middleton was in full stride when he found himself with the ball and no one was going to catch him. He went 98 yards. Suddenly, shockingly it was 24-7 when Army had been a yard from cutting the margin to 17-14.

In my mind, it was appropriate that Middleton made the biggest play of the game—with help from his linebackers—because he has been Navy’s most consistent player all season. Dobbs is the most spectacular and he has gotten BY FAR the most publicity—as happens with quarterbacks, especially when they say they want to run for President someday—but Dobbs has also been mistake-prone at times. Saturday he turned the ball over four times—twice when he fumbled; once when he and Alex Teich (again) couldn’t get their timing down on the quarterback/fullback mesh and once on an interception on a ball he never should have thrown.

Middleton just makes plays. He’s the best pure tackler I’ve seen in a long time. His touchdown put Navy in control and, even though Army hung in and battled to the end the outcome was never in serious doubt. That made nine in a row for Navy—the previous record streak before this one on either side was FIVE—which is simply remarkable.

You just don’t expect either of these schools to dominate the other. They’re too much alike. But Navy has put together a wonderful program since Paul Johnson took over in 2002 and then handed the reins to Kenny Niumatalolo three years ago. During that same period Army made more mistakes than The Washington Redskins—if that’s possible. They finally have hired the right coach in Rich Ellerson but it looks like they’re going to botch their search for a new athletic director by letting a search firm control who gets final interviews. That will be a huge mistake.

Saturday night, after I got home from the game, a note was waiting for me from Andrew Thompson, who was the defensive captain at Navy in 1995, the year I wrote, ‘A Civil War.’ That team actually began a turnaround at Navy, going 5-5-1 and losing the Army-Navy game, 14-13 when Army drove 99 yards late in the game—converting a fourth-and-24 along the way—to pull the game out. A year later the Mids were 9-3 and went to their first bowl game in 15 years.

The last line of Drew’s note—after talking about how happy he was for Navy, said this: “I feel, I really do feel, for those Army seniors.”

Thompson, who is now a marine and has been deployed to Iraq, KNOWS what it feels like to stand there for the playing of the alma maters after losing Army-Navy as a senior. The only difference is he and his teammates lost in absolutely heartbreaking fashion. In the case of these Army seniors it was simply heartbreaking for them to lose and know they will never have a chance to beat Navy. They knew they had improved the last two years, that they had been part of turning the Army program back in the right direction but that they still weren’t as good as Navy.

That hurts.

That’s what got to me during the alma maters. I love seeing the joy on the faces of the winners after this game, but it always breaks my heart to see the faces of the losers. I’ve had the chance to be on the field when they play the alma maters and when you see those tears close up, it gets to you—it has to.

It gets to me in the radio booth too. I don’t just look at the players, I look at the cadets and the midshipmen in the stands—all at attention while they play those songs. There’s a photo in ‘A Civil War,’ of the two team doctors, Bob Arciero and Eddie McDevitt, standing next to one another. Both men have their hands on their hearts while the Army alma mater is being played. That’s why I always tell Bob Socci, who has been my partner in the Navy radio booth for 14 years now (Omar Nelson joined us eight years ago) not to ask me a question when the alma maters are over because I’m not going to be able to answer at that moment.

Saturday was a long hectic day. Having been a bit sleep-deprived the last few weeks, I felt a little worn out during the game after arriving at the stadium four hours before kickoff because I had made quite a few pre-game commitments. I literally had to sprint through the crowds to get from the CBS College Tailgate set at one end of the stadium to the press box elevator at the other end of the stadium so I could arrive in the radio booth with a good 30 seconds to spare before we went on the air.

So maybe, I thought, it won’t get to me this time, I’ll just be too tired; I made it about halfway through ‘Alma Mater,’—the Army song. For some reason I spotted the Navy cheerleaders, lined up, standing at rigid attention for the Army song. That’s when my eyes starting getting wet. I remember thinking I liked the old noon kickoffs because the game would end with the sun still up at about 3 o’clock and I had an excuse to keep my eyes covered with sunglasses.

Then the players and coaches crossed the field. They started, ‘Blue-and-Gold.’ Understand this: ‘Blue-and-Gold,’ can make me cry standing in the shower. It is a hauntingly beautiful song. (I always say that Navy has the better alma mater; Army the better fight song. ‘Alma Mater,’ is wonderful, especially those last few notes and ‘Anchors Aweigh,’ is terrific but you just don’t top ‘Blue-and-Gold,’ or ‘On Brave Old Army Team.’) So there I am—again—the tears running down my face, again remembering who all these kids are—not just the players, all 8,000 of them—and where they may be going. I’m thinking, as I always do, of Kevin Norman, who was Jim Cantelupe’s roommate the year I did ‘Civil War.’ Cantelupe was Army’s defensive captain that year. He was in the stadium Saturday and I know he was thinking about Kevin too. Kevin died overseas when he crashed his helicopter into a bridge after maneuvering it in his final seconds so it wouldn’t crash into a heavily-populated civilian area.

Kevin Norman is who all those kids are, the ones wearing the football uniforms on Saturday, the ones wearing the cadet and midshipmen uniforms. Damn right I cried. And no doubt, a year from now, when many of those kids will be in harm’s way, I will cry again.

Good for McNabb; Athletic Director hire is critical at Army – Bob Beretta is the right person for the job

I am only going to waste a little bit more time on The Redskins and L’Affaire Shanahan-McNabb and some of your responses to the whole thing today for the simple reason that I have something far more important that I need to get on the record.

I want to say one more time that I REALLY appreciate the number of people who have taken the time to read and listen to exactly what I actually wrote and actually said and comment on it. Some of you agreed; some didn’t but that’s fine—we’re talking opinions here. Yes, I still think Shanahan should be fired and that what he did was despicable. And, now that the real figures on the new McNabb contract have come out, here’s what I think: Dan Snyder basically gave him $3.5 million in hush money to not go public with how he honestly about the whole thing the rest of the season. While I think signing McNabb for two more years is the right way to go—if not McNabb at quarterback then who? I think leaving the whole question of whether the Redskins will actually commit $13 million to McNabb next year up in the air leaves all the same doubts lingering as were lingering a week ago. Getting his name on that contract was nothing more than a PR move by a PR obsessed owner and coach.

McNabb is in a win-win: he gets $3.5 million for doing nothing except not talking and if he and Shanahan continue to feud, he’ll probably be a free agent next year. If not, he’s got big bucks guaranteed. Good for him.

And last on my pal Rick Reilly: If you are a fan of his, that’s just fine. But seriously to the couple of you who think I’d like his job—are you serious? I had more chances to go to work for ESPN than I’ve had chances to over-eat. The Washington Post vs. ESPN? Are you kidding me? As for my books, well, I’m okay with how they’ve done and been received through the years. I’m currently working on my 28th book so I guess a few people have bought them. As one person wrote: ‘Let’s see, ‘Caddy For Life,’ vs. ‘Who’s Your Caddy?’—which would you rather have on your resume?’

I’ll leave it at that.

Now for something that really matters to me. Army is looking for a new athletic director right now. As anyone who has ever read this blog knows I care deeply about both Army and Navy and the people—especially the athletes—who are part of the two schools.

I have watched in horror for most of 15 years now as Army has made one horrific mistake after another. The 0-13 football season a few years back wasn’t an accident. Nor are the eight straight losses—all of them one-sided---to Navy. Army FINALLY got something right two years ago when then-Athletic Director Kevin Anderson hired Rich Ellerson as football coach. Here’s what Anderson did: he put together a search committee that consisted almost wholly of ex-Army football players and coaches. People who knew Army and understood Army. Almost everyone given serious consideration for the job had an Army background—including Ellerson, whose father and uncle went to Army; the latter being captain of the 1962 football team.

Back in 1995, when I was researching ‘A Civil War,’ I was asked my opinion on Army possibly joining Conference-USA. I remember my first reaction when asked because it was while standing on the practice field on a cold November afternoon with then-Athletic Director Al Vanderbush (one of the best men I’ve ever known). When Al brought it up I looked at him and said, “You’re joking right?”

No one at Army was joking. They joined the conference and it was a disaster. Then, when Vanderbush retired, I pleaded with then superintendent Dan Christman (also a wonderful guy) to hire my friend Tom Mickle. Tom was a close friend but I brought him up only because he was one of the brightest people I’ve ever known in college athletics. At my request, Mike Krzyzewski, who knew Mickle well, called on Tom’s behalf. He never got interviewed.

Instead, on the recommendation of a headhunter, Rick Greenspan was hired. That hiring worked out about as well as Custer’s decision to take on the Indians at Little Big Horn. Greenspan—who also destroyed Indiana basketball with his foolish, arrogant hiring of Kelvin Sampson—came in having already decided to fire Bob Sutton, who was struggling because Army simply couldn’t compete in Conference-USA. (To be fair, Sutton had also favored that move but learned quickly it was a mistake) Greenspan had also already decided to hire Todd Berry, who had been his football coach at Illinois State to replace Sutton—which he did one year after getting the job. Two people who were interested in the job back then who Greenspan had no interest in were Jim Tressel and Paul Johnson.

How did THAT move work out? Berry went 5-45, including the fabulous 0-13 (he was fired in midseason but he did the work that led to it) in 2003. After Army had lost to Navy 58-10 to end 2002 and Berry had thrown his players completely under the bus after the game, I pleaded with anyone who would listen—actually I pleaded mostly with people who wouldn’t listen—to get him out of there; that the senior class of 2003 deserved someone who would actually support them, regardless of record. Of course no one listened and Greenspan and I had a shouting match about it.

“Did you really say I should fire Todd after the Navy game?” he asked me.

“Actually no Rick, I said he should resign to show some dignity and YOU should be fired for hiring him.”

Greenspan was glad I cleared THAT up. He had to fire Berry the next season because the losses were SO lopsided. Then he hired Bobby Ross—a great coach who wasn’t the right fit for Army at that point in his career. Ross quit three years later in February leaving Anderson (by then the AD) with no choice but to hire offensive line coach Stan Brock, who was, well, a good offensive line coach. FINALLY after two more awful years, Anderson got it right when he fired Brock at the end of the ’08 season and hired Ellerson.

Here’s my point in all this: Anderson left early in the fall to take the Maryland job. Army MUST get the AD hiring right to continue in the right direction. As usual, the school has gone out and hired a headhunter. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. Here’s how headhunters work: If you already work at the school, you have no chance to get hired because then they can’t claim, “We FOUND Joe Blow for Army.”

That’s how Greenspan got hired and Army is still climbing out of that hole. This time the choice is easy if the people at Army want to get it right: Senior Associate Athletic Director Bob Beretta. I know I mentioned this briefly a couple months ago but now the interview process is about to begin. Beretta has been at Army for 20 years. As with Ellerson, as with the search committee that hired Ellerson, he GETS Army and loves Army. Anderson is a bright guy; I guarantee you he will tell you it took him at least two years to begin to understand what he was dealing with at West Point. Beretta won’t need a learning curve. He’s already been given great responsibility by Anderson the last couple of years.

Army needs the right AD, one who understands Army RIGHT NOW. It doesn’t need another Rick Greenspan (God Forbid) or even someone who has to come in and figure the place out—even if he’s a good guy. It doesn’t need a headhunter who knows ZIP about the academy telling it who is right for the academy. So this is a public plea to anyone who cares about Army: Write to Superintendent David Huntoon and tell him to go through whatever hoops he has to in order to make the search look ‘national,’ but hire Beretta. This is important.

Army-Navy is like no other rivalry in sports. The two schools should matter to all of us because of their missions. Army has gotten so much wrong in recent years. It needs to get this hire right. And it isn’t even HARD. Make sure the superintendent understands that.

Notre Dame’s real ‘headaches' vs. Navy: outplayed, outcoached, outworked and outfought

Oh My God, the whining coming from Notre Dame people has become completely deafening. If it wasn’t so sad, it would be hysterically funny.

Let me say this to start: I honestly didn’t think I would live to see the day Navy beat Notre Dame. Most years, the Midshipmen had no chance to win the game because the Irish were just too big, too strong and too fast for them to compete. On those rare occasions when Navy did keep the game close something always happened: a great play by a future NFL player from Notre Dame; a missed play at a critical moment by a Navy player; a strange call from an official. It was always something.

Then in 2007, in SPITE of a strange call (to put it politely; let me quote NBC’s Pat Haden at that moment: “You can’t make that call.” Except they did) from an official in the third overtime, Navy finally ended its epic 43 game losing streak to Notre Dame. If the Mids had never beaten Notre Dame again I could at least say I saw it happen once. Then it happened again last year and Saturday, it not only happened a third time but it wasn’t even close. Navy beat Notre Dame 35-17 in the new Meadowlands Stadium and the game really wasn’t even THAT close.

This is where the whining comes in.

For years, while Notre Dame was routinely beating the Mids, all you heard from Notre Dame people was how great it was that the two schools played every year and how much they LOVED Navy. After all, Navy had come to Notre Dame’s rescue during World War 2 when the school was in financial crisis. That was why Notre Dame was happy to ‘repay,’ Navy every year by guaranteeing them a big payday. The Irish had so much respect for Navy; for the quality of the players; for the coaches; for the mission they were on; for their work ethic and their sportsmanship. It was just one big love fest.

Now, Navy plays dirty football. The coaches coach dirty football. Navy is dangerous to play against because it ‘chop,’ blocks all the time.

Hmmm. What has happened in the last three years to cause such a change? Let me think about that one for a second. It couldn’t possibly be three losses in four games could it? Notre Dame—Mensch University if you ever watch a game on NBC (or just about anywhere else come to think of it)—couldn’t possibly be, you know, bad losers?

Let’s deal with the ‘chop,’ block issue first. A chop block is, in fact, an illegal block. It is a 15-yard penalty and it is called when an official believes that a second blocker makes contact with a defender below the waist when he is ALREADY ENGAGED with another blocker. This makes sense because if a defender is already being blocked, he has no chance to avoid the second block or to use his hands to prevent the second blocker from getting his legs. It is a dangerous play that should be—and is—illegal.

During Saturday’s game Navy was called for—wait for it—ZERO chop blocks. In fact, it was called for ZERO penalties. Here was one headline in Sunday’s South Bend Tribune: “Chop Blocks a Headache for Irish.” Really?

Here’s what was a headache for the Irish: Being outplayed, outcoached, outworked and outfought by a group of kids who have absolutely no right to not only beat Notre Dame, but hammer Notre Dame.

The block that the Notre Dame people are referring to is a ‘cut,’ block. Cut blocks are legal. They are often difficult to defend against—just like the option offense—because defenses don’t see them that often. Teams that run normal pro-style offenses or spread offenses don’t cut block that often. Teams that run the option—Army, Navy Air Force—all cut block at least in part because their blockers are generally smaller than those of other teams and this is one way to take advantage of quickness, speed and, well, skill.

Navy has run an option offense for 14 of the last 16 seasons, dating back to 1995. Until recently, Notre Dame and its apologists in the media didn’t seem to be bothered by the option or by cut blocking. Now, cut blocks are suddenly dangerous AND dirty. Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly said this last week: “I’m not sure if they’re legal but we have to be ready for them.”

I’m sorry, you’re not sure if they’re legal? Read the rulebook coach. And, while you’re at it, check out the game tape and show me (or anyone else) exactly where and when Navy started running the veer, as you claimed during your halftime interview on CBS. The veer? What were you watching? Navy ran the exact same offense it has run all year, except for going to a heavy alignment on the goal line, adding an extra tackle. Really tough stuff to figure out.

There was nothing—as Kelly claimed—that they’d been ‘holding back.’ As for the adjustments Kelly said he and his coaches had made, um, they didn’t really work that well did they? Navy went 77 yards for a touchdown on its first drive of the second half and 73 for a touchdown on the second drive.

I’m also wondering if these dirty cut blocks had anything to do with the Notre Dame offense scoring 10 points the first 54 minutes of the game before getting a consolation score when the game was over and Navy had gone to a prevent defense. Did Notre Dame move the ball? Sure did. And just like last year—just like Buddy Green’s defense does to teams all the time—they rolled up yards but not points. Navy got a critical stop on the goal line on the game’s first series and Dayne Crist threw two key interceptions. Was that those dirty cut blocks too?

It was completely ludicrous a year ago when Charlie Weis’s defensive coordinator—I forget his name and he’s not worth looking up—whined about dirty play after Navy’s victory. He cited one play in which a Navy player, Nick Henderson, made a STUPID play, going after a Notre Dame defender after the whistle. Then he claimed Kenny Niumatalolo coached his players to try to hurt opponents.

I’m sorry have you ever MET Kenny Niumatalolo? Forget about how good a coach he is (23-12 since taking over for Paul Johnson when a lot of people thought the program would tank without Johnson) you just won’t meet a better man in any walk of life than Niumatalolo. Am I biased? Sure. But the reason I’m biased is I know the guy and I can tell you without any hesitation he would no more coach one of his players to play dirty than he would try to coach someone to hurt his own players. It’s just not who he is.

Here’s the bottom line: Navy should NEVER beat Notre Dame. The advantages Notre Dame has over Navy or any of the academies are uncountable. You can start with the fact that Navy NEVER gets to play Notre Dame at home. They go to South Bend one year; to a ‘neutral,’ site the next year where the majority of the crowd is almost always pro-Notre Dame. (Oh, and please don’t talk to me about how much money Navy makes. The PLAYERS make none of that money and they have to actually PLAY the games).

Notre Dame has been poorly coached most of the time since Lou Holtz left. Holtz is a bad guy—Saturday night on ESPN he literally refused to even discuss Navy’s win when Mark May brought it up; how about giving SOME credit there coach—but he was a superb coach.

That hasn’t been true of Bob Davie, Ty Willingham or Charlie Weis. The jury is still out on Kelly who has a great resume and is clearly a bright guy but was completely overmatched on Saturday. If Kelly does what he should be able to do: go out and get great players (note to Irish fans: Navy’s academic standards are probably tougher than Notre Dame’s and there is also that little matter of military duty after graduating so don’t buy into that excuse from your school) Notre Dame should be able to start beating Navy regularly again.

Whining isn’t going to get it done. All it does is make you look like what you are: bad losers. It’s one thing to complain about Miami when you can’t compete with them but Navy? Seriously, Navy? Give those kids some credit for being tougher, smarter and better prepared. And THEN thank them for what they’re going to do after they graduate.

NFL cracking down on the ‘kill shot’ - fines mean nothing, suspensions mean everything; Quick correction from Monday

So now the National Football League has sent a message to its players: If you don’t stop trying to hurt one another, we’re going to get really angry. After three hits in games this past weekend that could have resulted in serious injury—to EITHER player—the NFL announced major fines for the three players and wagged its finger and said, ‘do this again and you will be severely punished.’

Has Roger Goodell hired the NCAA Enforcement Committee as consultants? Fines, even one as high as $75,000, mean little to the players these days. The glory they get from being thought of as tough guys by fans and the fawning media more than makes up for any financial loss they might suffer. As Rodney Harrison, the ex-Patriot now working for NBC said last week, “fines mean nothing.”

Suspensions mean something. They can cost a team games and that upsets the owner, the general manager, the coach and the other players. If you do something that might jeopardize your team’s ability to make the playoffs or get home field advantage in the playoffs, that gets everyone’s attention.

So let’s see what the NFL does with the next ‘kill shot,’ as Tony Kornheiser eloquently called them on his radio show today. (I wonder if he’ll be allowed to use that phrase on ‘PTI.’).

There’s a much more urgent issue though than whether the next guy who launches himself at someone like a human missile gets suspended. It is this ridiculous macho notion that if the league puts a stop to this sort of thing it will take the violence and anger and emotion out of football that players and fans love—and that the league and TV networks have spent years promoting.

Already players and a lot of the ex-jock talking heads are screaming that you might as well rename the league the NFFL (National Flag Football League) if they crack down on this sort of violence.

What garbage.

The fact is that, more often than not, the sort of tackle that we’re talking about here—one where a player launches himself at another player—is BAD FOOTBALL. A good tackle is usually made by not leaving your feet; by wrapping a player up and by gaining control of his legs. Sometimes you aren’t in position to do that, so you dive or lunge at a player. But when you’re close enough to someone that by launching yourself at him you’re going to hit him in the head or up high, that’s just lousy tackling. More often than not, when a player does that he either misses the tackle completely or the ball carrier bounces off him because he sees him coming and moves in such a way that the tackler doesn’t get a clean shot at him.

No one is saying you can’t go after the guy with the ball. You do it the way Ray Lewis does it, driving your body—arms first—into the player while running at him at full speed. On the college level, Navy has a safety named Wyatt Middleton. He’s been a four year starter. I promise you I can count on my hands the number of times he has left his feet to make a tackle. I have never seen him make a tackle where he drives his head into someone and jumps up celebrating because his victim is lying on the ground in pain.

I’ve also almost never seen him miss a tackle. He is as good a one-on-one tackler as I’ve seen in college football in years. He doesn’t have great speed or size, he just knows how to play the game and that’s what’s made him a great player.

The flip side to that is a game Navy played against Maryland five years ago. Late in the game, Maryland had a fourth-and-ten on a last-chance drive. The Terrapins were forced into a swing pass and Navy had TWO tacklers waiting for the runner. All they had to do was stay on their feet, line up the runner and bring him down and the game was over. Both wanted to be heroes—I’m not protecting them by not naming them I just don’t remember who they were—so they dove at the runner. He side-stepped them both, went down the sideline and picked up the first down. Maryland won the game.

Have you ever been to an NFL practice? I have. And I promise you I have never heard or seen a coach teaching players how to tackle that way. Just the opposite in fact. Now, I know there are bad coaches on the lower levels of the game who might encourage that sort of play but they do it because they think it is somehow cool or because they think the kids will like it.

They are idiots. Not only are they teaching their players how to play the game dangerously, they are NOT teaching them how to play the game well. I have never heard a coach I respect say anything like, “let’s go out there and knock someone’s head off; let’s hurt someone.” What I have heard is, “be sure on your tackles, get low whenever you can and WRAP UP.” The other thing they repeat over and over is, “do not put your head down making a tackle.”

Not only is that a good way to miss a tackle, it can lead to tragedy. On Saturday, Eric LeGrand, a good and experienced Rutgers football player, for some reason put his head down trying to make a tackle on a kickoff. He ended up on his back not moving and has not moved since. In an instant, his entire life changed. We should all be focusing a lot more attention on what he is going through than screeching about how unfair it might be to try to put a stop to helmet-first tackling.

So let’s stop all the hand-wringing and whining about how the game won’t be the same if these sorts of hits are treated more harshly in the future. We aren’t talking about rules changes—the rules governing these hits already exist. Let’s not talk about the good old days because in the good old days we didn’t know what we know today about head injuries.

Might there be times when officials go too far and call what could be a clean hit a penalty? Sure. No rule is going to be perfect or enforced perfectly. But I’d rather see them err on the side of caution and good health than go the other way. And if the league looks at the hit on tape on Monday and decides it was clean, then the only bad thing that has happened is a 15-yard penalty that shouldn’t have been called. Those happen all the time. If an official is CERTAIN a player was trying to hurt another one he should have the ability to go to replay (heck, they do it on half the plays nowadays anyway) and make a decision on ejection. That’s what they do now with fights in basketball.

The NFL is very publicity conscious. That’s why it is clucking this week about how concerned it is about what happened on Sunday even though—Thank God—no one was seriously hurt. But it needs to take this issue very seriously. And it needs to NOT listen to players; NOT listen to fans and NOT listen to the macho ex-jock media brigade. It SHOULD listen to one ex-player—Steve Young who said, “I don’t want to see someone die during a game.”

None of us do. So let’s teach everyone at every level how to play hard, tough and GOOD football and leave the ‘kill shots,’ where they belong: in the past.

*****

My pal Tom O’Toole, who is the colleges editor at USA Today, called yesterday to make a correction to something I wrote Monday: Apparently after announcing that the final coaches balloting would be secret this year, the coaches—under some pressure from USA Today and others—reversed themselves. Their ballots will be available for public scrutiny—which might make it tougher to keep Boise State or TCU out of the national title game. Which is good. Good for them and USA Today for un-doing a poorly thought out decision.



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