Jeremy Lin comparisons; Notes on the Islanders, swimming, Tiger and NCAA Tournament

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Anyone who has ever read this blog knows I rarely write about the NBA. The last time I really cared about the league was about the same time that the Knicks won their second and last title in 1973.

I watched Magic and Bird and Jordan but not with any great passion. Appreciation yes, passion not so much. I think about the only time I’ve ever gotten really excited about a game in the last 20 years was when Steve Kerr made the clinching three pointer for the Bulls in 1997.

I do, occasionally, tune in when I’m home to see just how poorly The Washington Wizards can play on a given night. Most of their games should be on Comedy Central. That said, Jordan’s Charlotte Bobcats are worse.

Right now though it is impossible to be a sports fan of any kind and not be aware of Jeremy Lin—I won’t use the phrase Lin-sanity because it is the kind of silly cliché that trivializes something that is truly remarkable. Let’s just say that what the kid is doing is amazing and leave it at that.

Let’s NOT compare him to Tim Tebow because, other than the fact that he is also a devout Christian, the two of them have nothing in common. Tebow was a star in high school who was recruited by just about everyone. He won a Heisman Trophy, was part of two national championship teams at Florida and—whether the so-called experts agreed or not—he WAS a first round draft choice. He’s been a star all his life. The only thing that accorded him any sort of underdog status was the constant braying about his throwing motion. Ever see Jim Furyk swing a golf club? Does he look like a U.S. Open champion?

Tebow has always been a good to great football player. Do I think he’s the next Tom Brady or Drew Brees or Eli Manning? No. But he’s proven he can play quarterback in the NFL just as he proved he could play in high school and then in college and everything about his resume says, ‘star.’

Jeremy Lin? He was right in Stanford’s backyard and the basketball coaches averted their eyes. He sent tapes to all The Ivy League schools and most of them said, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ Boston College Coach Steve Donahue, who was then the coach at Cornell, readily admits he and his coaches didn’t think he was good enough to play for them coming out of high school.

Lin was offered a guaranteed spot on the basketball team by two schools: Harvard and Brown. He went to Harvard to play for Coach Frank Sullivan and then played for Tommy Amaker after Sullivan was (unfairly) fired by Harvard after Lynn’s freshman season. He was an All-Ivy Player for Amaker—not player-of-the-year—All-Ivy. He was undrafted, cut by two teams and a month ago was playing in the NBA Development League. Only injuries to several Knicks guards gave him the chance he has now converted into stardom.

No one knows if this will be Lin’s 15 days of fame or if he will turn out to be Kurt Warner, who went from bagging groceries to a Super Bowl winning quarterback. Will the league adjust to him? Will the magic wear off when Carmelo Anthony returns and the ball stops moving whenever it touches his hands?

Who knows?

What we do know is this: Lin has come from nowhere to somewhere his entire career. We know that he has made Asian-American proud with his play. The best sign I’ve seen in a long time was being held by an Asian-American the other night: It said, “Who says Asians can’t drive?”

Is Lin being hyped to the max everywhere he goes because he’s Asian-American? Because no one recruited him? Because he went to Harvard? Because he’s a devout Christian? Because he was cut twice?

Yes to all of the above.

Not because he’s with the Knicks—I’m not going to jump back on that bandwagon after all these years; I’ll keep hoping the Islanders can keep improving enough to sneak into the playoffs somehow—but because he’s a great story, I hope he keeps it going. God knows after the lockout and given the general quality of basketball in this play-every-night season, the NBA could use a legitimate feel-good story.

Anything that keeps people from talking about LeBron James for a few days can’t be a bad thing.

*****

Catching up on a few notes:

--Someone asked the other day if I thought the Islanders could make the playoffs. They’re certainly playing better but losing at home to Florida doesn’t help things at all. They’re going to have to win about two-of-every-three from here on in and that’s tough. Last night was a very good win in Winnipeg but tonight in St. Louis will be one of those games where stealing one point would be a huge victory.

--Master nationals in Indy next spring? Now THAT should give me incentive to get into decent shape. Swim all day, gorge myself at St. Elmo’s at night. Perfect.

--To my friend Bill and the other Tiger-does-no-wrong defenders. 1. He said he was playing for the money in Abu Dhabi only when asked and knowing that everyone knew it anyway. On his web site his initial explanation was, ‘wanting to see new places.’ BTW, how’d you like him marking and refusing to get off the stage for Phil Mickelson on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach on Sunday the way every other golfer on tour would have done for another player who is clearly going to win a tournament? Forget me, every single player on tour noticed that one.

--What does it say about the NCAA that it allowed Jeff Hathaway to remain as chairman of the basketball committee even after he ‘resigned,’ as athletic director at Connecticut. I like Jeff personally, I’ve known him since he was one of Lefty Driesell’s managers 30 years ago, but he was in charge of a program that was allowed to play in last year’s NCAA Tournament while on probation and, as of right now, is not eligible for next year’s NCAA Tournament because of glaring academic deficiencies. The Big East created some bogus ‘consulting,’ job for Hathaway this year so he’d still be eligible to be on the committee and retain the chairmanship. If Hathaway had gone off the committee and his spot had been taken by a new Big East rep, the new person would not have been chairman. So, even though there are no politics on the committee—we know this because this is what we are told, right?—The Big East made sure it would not lose it’s chairmanship. Beyond that, after Gene Smith was allowed to remain as chairman last year even while his house at Ohio State was burning to the ground (see Tressel, Jim) it is remarkable that the NCAA would allow Hathaway to retain his chairmanship given Connecticut’s recent track record.

Then again, it isn’t remarkable. It’s the NCAA.

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 

ND sits on the Big East television committee; Swofford pillaging; Why Serena’s fine was so low; PGA Tour playoffs and much more

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I suppose I could write today about the latest maneuverings among the money-grubbing college presidents but, to be honest, I find it hard to care that much. Any notion that tradition or rivalries or geography or doing what’s right has flown so far out the window it isn’t even worth railing about it.

All I know is this: If you put the BCS presidents in a room and someone threw a dollar on the floor it would look like the last scene of “Invictus,” with all of them diving on the floor to try to scoop up the bill. I do have one question though for those who run The Big East: What in the world was the president of Notre Dame doing on your television committee? That’s like giving President Obama final say on who his opponent is next November.

“So, Mr. President, who’s it going to be—Mitt Romney?”

“Don’t think so. Think I’d prefer Rick Perry or, wait, even better Sarah Palin with Glenn Rice as her running mate.”

(Calm down my right wing friends it’s just a joke).

This is the same sort of thing. “So, Father Jenkins, while you sit back there with your $10 million per year NBC contract that you share not a dollar of with us, what do you think we should do with this latest offer from ESPN?”

“Turn it down fellas. You can get more later.”

Unless, of course, your league gets raided by John Swofford, who in his biography lists, “pillaging the Big East,” as one of his favorite pastimes.

Oh, one other thing on my friend Father Jenkins: If you hear him say that Notre Dame might end up in the ACC rather than The Big Ten because the ACC’s ‘academic profile,’ fits Notre Dame better, here’s the English translation of that statement: “We’d rather play Duke, Wake Forest and Virginia a whole lot of the time instead of Ohio State, Nebraska, Penn State and Wisconsin.” (Yes Irish fans I know they already play Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue).

Anyway, I really and truly don’t care about all the maneuverings. These are bad people doing bad things. Life is too short to pay them much attention. Call me when the 16-team conferences are in place and someone is ready to announce a football playoff. Until then, hey, hockey season starts in less than two weeks.

On the subject of bad people, let’s turn for a moment to the good folks at the U.S. Tennis Association. You might remember that a number of people were stunned when they only fined Serena Williams $2,000 for her outburst directed at the chair umpire during the U.S. Open final a couple weeks ago. How, many of us wondered, could they let her get off so easy for yammering on and on and, (among other things) accusing the chair of being, “the one who screwed me over two years ago,” when (A) NO ONE screwed her over two years ago and (B) it was a different woman.

Turns out there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. You see, if Serena had been fined $10,000 (or more, the max fine would have been $20,000 which is way too low) it would have been considered a “major offense.” Under the terms of the probation she was still on because of her profanity/threat-filled outburst in the 2009 semifinals, if she had committed a “major offense,” she could have been suspended for next year’s Open by The Grand Slam Committee.

Apparently Bill Babcock, The Grand Slam Committee’s administrator was ready to suspend Williams after looking at—and listening to—the tape. When the USTA realized that it could lose Williams for next year’s Open it made certain to keep the fine well below the “major offense,” level. Obviously, losing Williams would have hurt corporate sales and, perhaps most important, wouldn’t have made the all-important TV partners happy either. So, as usual when a name tennis player is involved, Serena skated.

That will certainly deter her from similar behavior in the future won’t it?

One other note on the geniuses who run the sport: Once upon a time Davis Cup was one of the great events in ANY sport. As tennis has lost luster, so has Davis Cup, to the point where I have suggested it be conducted over two years—meaning top players only have to potentially commit twice a year as opposed to four times a year—to make it special again.

Naturally, that suggestion has been ignored. And so, in order to squeeze it into the schedule, The Davis Cup semifinals were held the week after the U.S. Open. Are you kidding? Novak Djokovic finished off two grueling weeks of best-of-five tennis on Monday, thanks in large part to the USTA’s ludicrous scheduling, and then had to show up to be ready to play in Argentina three days later. What a shock that he couldn’t finish either of his singles matches.

Of course the tennis people will tell you all is well with their sport, which is why nothing ever gets fixed. When three of the top players in the world felt they were put at risk being asked to play on slippery, wet courts, the USTA’s reaction was, basically, ‘get over it fellas.’ Would they consider modifying their schedule so as not to stretch the first round over three days and then ask the players to play semifinals and finals on back-to-back days? (that’s with NO bad weather). Nope. CBS likes it the way it is and CBS pays the freight. Shut up and play.

Question for golf fans: Are any of you into The Tour Championship? I just can’t get excited about it and it isn’t because of the tour’s constant overhyping of the so-called playoffs. It isn’t because Tiger Woods isn’t there either because, as most people know, I enjoy watching and writing about and talking about other players. I do wish Rory McIlroy was there because he’s so much fun to watch play and to talk to when he’s finished playing. But it isn’t that either. I just feel as if nothing is really at stake except money. Player-of-the-year? Yeah, I suppose. If Keegan Bradley wins he deserves the award. If he doesn’t it should be him or McIlroy but I promise you there will be people campaigning for Luke Donald if he wins or Webb Simpson if he wins.

They’ve had wonderful years but my rule of thumb is simple: You can’t be player-of-the-year unless you win at least one major. Jim Furyk won it on The PGA Tour last year in large part because Graeme McDowell wasn’t eligible. McDowell was CLEARLY the worldwide player-of-the-year. If I’d been voting last year, with all due respect to Furyk who I’ve always like a lot, I would have voted for Phil Mickelson because his performance at The Masters was far more significant than Furyk’s three victories in non-majors.

But hey, that’s just me.

Oh wait, there’s a news flash coming in here: The AFC West is joining the ACC. Perfect: more mediocre football teams. Just what the ACC needs.

Earthquakes and the "PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup"

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I have always thought that New Jersey got a bad rap. Anytime someone says they are from New Jersey the first question they get asked is, “what exit?”

Everyone in New Jersey lives near an exit of The New Jersey Turnpike. Or so legend has it.

I am not a big fan of The Turnpike having driven it hundreds of times and the Garden State Parkway is often worse. But there are plenty of pretty places in New Jersey, especially in the western part of the state and if you pull off The Palisades Parkway just north of The George Washington Bridge you can find some spectacular views.

That said, the state is, well, quirky.

In many places, if you want to make a left turn, you have to turn right—and go around a jughandle to cross the road which always involves an extra light. You can’t put gas in your car. Full serve only. The prices are good—very good in fact—but when you are a control freak like me you don’t like waiting for someone to show up and ask you what you need. Often, if you’re traveling The Turnpike and don’t want to get off at an exit the lines at the rest stops bring back memories of the gas crisis 30-plus years ago. I always try to make sure I have enough gas to get through New Jersey, going north or south, even though if I was willing to wait on line the Jersey gas would be cheaper.

There’s another thing about New Jersey: You MUST get lost. There is no way to find anything without getting lost either because of roads criss-crossing one another; jug-handle turns or roads changing names when you aren’t looking. (To be fair, this can happen in downtown Washington too).

The first golf tournament I covered while researching ‘A Good Walk Spoiled,’ was the 1993 U.S. Open at Baltusrol. I don’t want to say I drove around in circles trying to find the golf course but I think two presidential elections were held while I was searching for the place.

When I finally found the media parking lot it was smack in the middle—I’m not exaggerating— of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s mounds of ashes in ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Another 45 minutes later, after riding on a school bus that I was convinced was going down at any minute, I arrived at the front gate of the golf club. (And friends of mine wonder why I obsess about parking).

I wasn’t the only person to have this sort of experience. Several bus drivers en route from the media hotel (which was at Newark Airport) got completely lost too. One was halfway to Pennsylvania before someone started screaming at him. The great Bob Verdi arrived one day and promptly told then-USGA Executive Director David B. Fay, “I don’t want to say we were lost for a long time but I need to shave again.”

So here we are in New Jersey 18 years later for the first round of the “PGA Tour Playoffs for the FedEx Cup.” If you have nothing better to do the next few days, count the number of times my Golf Channel colleagues and my CBS non-colleagues use this phrase. I’d say the over-under for the four days might approach 100.

Plainfield Country Club is the site this year and I was able to find the place with relatively few glitches by paying close attention to road changes and by staying very patient with the cop who was trying to tell me the road leading to the clubhouse entrance was closed even though I had a parking pass for the clubhouse. (No ashes for me again, thank-you very much).

The players seem to like the golf course although it has a lot of blind shots and a lot of side hill lies. I’m sure Ian Baker-Finch will think it is magnificent.

I spent some time with my buddy Paul Goydos while he was on the range this afternoon. He asked me if I’d heard his line about Atlanta Athletic Club—I didn’t make it to The PGA so I hadn’t.

“Only golf course I’ve ever played with a three-shot par four and a drivable par-three.”

If you play golf you know how funny that line is. Goydos is always funny.

Joe Ogilvie is also funny. After the earthquake yesterday he tweeted that if an earthquake would push those on the left in Washington and those on the right in Washington closer to the center then he was in favor of earthquakes.

I was in my car when the earthquake hit. The car started to shudder and I thought something was wrong with one of my tires. It stopped and I drove on. A little while later I got in the car to drive up here and started to go through my call list, which I routinely do when I have a long trip. Except I couldn’t make any calls.

I finally got a call through to Matt Rennie, the deputy sports editor at The Washington Post.

“Jesus,” I said. “Something’s wrong with my phone, you’re the first person I’ve been able to get through to in half an hour.”

“Well an earthquake will do that,” he said.

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“We just had an earthquake you idiot! You didn’t notice?”

That was when I remembered the car shuddering.

I was instantly reminded of the other time I was in an earthquake. It was not San Francisco 1989 but San Diego—also during The World Series—in 1984. I was in my hotel room getting ready to take a shower when the room began to shake. Unlike yesterday there was absolutely no doubt about what was happening.

It stopped and the phone rang. It was Tony Kornheiser, who was also in the hotel.

“Did you feel that?” he said.

“Yeah I did,” I answered. “I’m guessing it was an earthquake.”

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“You’re going to take a shower in the middle of an EARTHQUAKE?”

“Look, either there will be an aftershock and the building will come down or there won’t be and I need to shower before the game.”

“But there was an earthquake! I’m going down to the front desk.”

“Fine. I’m sure the building won’t collapse down there.”

For years Tony told the story about me getting in the shower in the middle of an earthquake.

Yesterday, shortly after I arrived here and checked into my hotel, Tony called.

“Did you feel the earthquake?” he said.

“Yeah, I did. I was in my car but I didn’t know what it was at the time.”

I told him the story about Rennie.

“So what are you doing right now?” he asked.

I told him the truth. “I’m about to take a shower.”

“I should have known.”

Time now to venture out again on the roads of New Jersey. I should be safe—at least until the hurricane hits. I hope we'll have hot water.

Steve Williams taking the low road; Odds and ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

******

Some odds and ends on different subjects:

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

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

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

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

News from Akron: Tiger (gasp) and McIlroy make news; Last nail in the coffin for the Islanders?

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Where to begin this morning. Actually the answer is easy: in Akron where Tiger Woods’ return to the PGA Tour is being treated (naturally) as slightly more important than the government not shutting down earlier this week.

Which is fine. While 99 percent of my colleagues will be chronicling Tiger’s every practice swing, deep breath and glance at his new caddie this afternoon, I’m going to walk for a while with Rickie Fowler and Matteo Manassero. I haven’t seen much of Fowler this year and I have never seen Manassero in person—something I’d really like to do. Plus, there should be plenty of room to walk around the golf course since they tee off 30 minutes prior to Tiger and Darren Clarke.

The big news yesterday—when Woods hit balls and practiced but didn’t speak to the media since he had done so on Tuesday—was that he was spotted with a Scotty Cameron putter in his bag. There was a great deal of analysis in the media center about what that meant or might mean when he gets out on the golf course.

As I listened to the discourse I was reminded of something Nick Faldo said years ago after he’d struggled on the greens during a PGA Championship:

“Nick, was the putter your biggest problem?” someone asked.

“The problem,” Faldo answered, “was the puttee.”

Exactly. If Tiger Woods is putting like Tiger Woods he could be using my old bent-shaft two-way (I putt lefty) putter and he’d make everything. If he’s not confident on the greens it doesn’t matter if he’s got a Scotty Cameron putter or a Scottie Pippen putter. It isn’t going to matter.

I actually wrote a column on Golfchannel.com yesterday (click here for the article) kind of mocking the media for their Tiger-obsession. I understand how important he is and, as I’ve said before, I’ve never seen anyone play golf the way he has played golf for very long stretches in the past. That’s said with all due respect to Jack Nicklaus.

But on a day when Woods hit balls for an hour and played nine practice holes, the announcement that Rory McIlroy has decided to come back to The PGA Tour next year was far more important than standing on the range trying to guess Tiger’s weight—which some guys were, quite literally, doing.

McIlroy’s decision to pass up a few appearance fees in Europe—he’s going to make so much as a U.S. Open champion when he does play there it really doesn’t matter—to come and play in the U.S. is a big deal. He likes the golf courses here and he likes the weather here. And, as his dad Gerry, who is traveling with him this week pointed out, there’s a tendency for people to assume a kid from Northern Ireland grew up playing links golf. Rory didn’t. Holywood Golf Club isn’t a links and McIlroy has always been a high-ball hitter. (That said I still think he’ll win a British Open and next year’s site, Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s might be his favorite British Open venue).

It’s simply impossible not to like McIlroy. On Tuesday night when I got here, I walked across the street from my hotel to grab a quick dinner at the fabulous TGI-Friday’s. Who was sitting two seats down from me at the bar? The McIlroy’s. Rory posed for photos with anyone who asked, chatted with people who came up to tell him exactly where they were when he holed out during the second round at Congressional and got out of his chair so he could lean down and chat with the little kids who wanted his autograph.

If anyone can be a 22-year-old multi-millionaire and come close to being normal, McIlroy is the guy. I know he’s been criticized for his comments about the weather at The British Open. The British media acted as if he had suggested the monarchy be abandoned.

He doesn’t like cold and rainy weather. Seriously, tell me golfers who do like cold and rainy weather? Tom Watson. That’s about the list. The notion that because he grew up in Northern Ireland so he should like bad weather is silly. I grew up in New York City. That doesn’t mean I like traffic.

Then last week he got into a twitter-exchange with Jay Townsend, who does European Tour golf for Golf Channel. Townsend was critical of McIlroy’s course-management and took some shots at his caddie along the way. McIlroy ripped him on twitter—probably going too far by calling Townsend a “failed golfer.” That’s not germane to the argument. You don’t have to be a U.S. Open champion to recognize poor course management. On the other hand, Townsend also went too far when he said he expected that sort of course management from a 10-year-old.

Okay fellas, break it up. McIlroy got a little nuts because he thought Townsend was ripping his caddie. If that’s his worst sin this year then he’s had a really good year.

What was interesting about yesterday’s column were some of the responses from Golfchannel.com readers. A couple of people wondered if I was trying to make nice with Tiger because I’m hoping he’ll start talking to me. Seriously? Others said I was still angry because he doesn’t talk to me. Again: Seriously? Folks, honestly, I don’t expect Tiger Woods to talk to me and, even if he did (ha!) what would he tell me? That he and Steiny had a really good dinner last night?

So we’ll see how Woods plays today. If he’s in the hunt the networks might break in with live coverage tomorrow. Forget the stock market being down a million points.

******

The most important news of the week as far as I’m concerned took place on Monday when voters in Nassau County voted overwhelmingly against funding a new arena for my beloved New York Islanders. The vote may have been the last nail in the coffin for the Islanders because I know NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will shed few tears if the team moves to Quebec or Kansas City or even Las Vegas (!!) when the current lease in The Nassau Coliseum is up in 2015.

This is a classic chicken-and-egg deal: Owner Charles Wang says he doesn’t want to sink big money into his payroll until and unless he has the guarantee of a new arena. The fans, who have watched bad hockey for close to 20 years now—the Islanders last won a playoff series in 1993—just don’t find the Islanders compelling enough to commit public funds to them at a time when the economy is what it is.

There’s no question the team needs a new building. I’ve got lots of fond memories of The Coliseum but it is ridiculously outdated and trying to convince any top-line free agent to come and play there is just about impossible even if Wang was willing to open his wallet.

Garth Snow has actually done a nice job as general manager making deals—like the signing of Michael Grabner last fall—without a lot of flexibility. But no one is going to get all that excited if the Islanders are in contention for the 8th playoff spot next spring. Last year they were eliminated from playoff contention by Thanksgiving.

I’m biased. I don’t want to see the Islanders leave. But unless some private investor comes along and makes a deal with Wang to help him come up with the funds to get a new building built the Islanders are likely to go the way of the Atlanta Flames (who they came into the league with 39 years ago) and the Atlanta Thrashers.

Where in the world are Billy Smith, Brian Trottier, Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin and my favorite Islander, Bob Bourne when you really need them? Sigh.

Tiger Woods and the leveraging of ‘access’; Blog comment helps change upcoming book title

It was 42 years ago today that man landed on the moon. I am—for both better and worse—old enough to remember the day vividly. I remember Walter Cronkite wiping his brow and saying, ‘man on the moon,’ in disbelief and I remember my father saying we would tell our children and grandchildren about this someday. I’ve told my kids about it on a number of occasions. They look at me and say something like, ‘okay fine, can you leave us alone now so we can go back online.’

C’est la vie.

Of course three months after Neill Armstrong took those historic first steps, the Mets won the World Series. Now THAT was impressive. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee—they are all historic figures to me.

Where have you gone Rod Gasper, I turn my lonely eyes to you.

Okay, so that was a bunch of meaningless drivel to start the day but the moon landing and the Mets first World Series title (of two as all Mets fans know) remain seminal events in my life.

So was covering my first British Open—which was at Royal St. George’s in 1985. Look, no one is ever going to mistake the place for St. Andrews or Muirfield but if you didn’t enjoy Darren Clarke’s victory on Sunday then you probably shouldn’t be wasting your time watching golf.

If you’re reading this you no doubt know Clarke’s backstory and the genuine tragedy he’s dealt with. Plus, he’s just a decent guy, someone who is about as close to normal as the multi-millionaires who play the game at its highest levels can be. I know all the Tiger lovers don’t want to hear this but I think golf is heading into an era that will truly be fun.

You can love Tiger Woods as much as you want or you can be like me and not like him but recognize his brilliance. Either way, it is impossible to attach the word fun to his 15 years of dominance. Yes, you can say it was FUN to watch him pull off impossible shots but there certainly wasn’t any fun in the man. He loved to win, he loved to make money but the only thing that was fun to him was winning trophies and cashing checks. It was part of his greatness.

The newer stars aren’t going to be as good as Woods was at his best. Not even close. There’s only one player in history who belongs in the same sentence with Woods and that’s Jack Nicklaus.

That said, Woods held his sport hostage—and to some degree still does—for 15 years. It wasn’t that he won so much it was that everything had to be HIS way. Remember those bogus night matches he played in as part of his Disney contract a few years ago? Technically, those events were run by The PGA Tour. When Steve Williams showed up wearing shorts one year—this was before caddies were allowed to wear shorts on tour—a tour official told Woods that Williams had to put on long pants.

Woods told him in no uncertain terms that not only would Williams wear shorts but if Tim Finchem didn’t like it he might just go play in Europe the following year.

Forget the fact that the Tour should have allowed caddies to wear shorts years ago—heck, they should let players wear shorts if they want to—or that Woods was right to stand up for his caddie in that situation. The point is this: The instant Woods threatened to go to Europe, even in a brief moment of anger, the Tour backed down faster than I can eat an order of McDonald’s french fries.

Woods bullied the media constantly. Some TV announcers were allowed to interview him, others were not. At different times he boycotted Peter Kostis and Jimmy Roberts. Their networks dutifully sent someone else to talk to Woods. People were constantly telling me that they let Woods dictate terms of interviews or backed off when his people got angry about something because, ‘we don’t want to lose our access to him.’

WHAT ACCESS? To get him to stop long enough to say nothing? Seriously, think about this for a second: When was the last time Tiger Woods said something that was really interesting. I’m not talking about announcing he’s playing or not playing a tournament or admitting he cheated on his wife—which everyone knew by the time he talked about it anyway. I’m talking about saying something that gave you some insight into him, into his game, into his view of the world.

Never happened. Not because he wasn’t capable, he’s more than capable but because Tiger Woods never gives away anything. That’s the way his father taught him and he learned his lessons well.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be another anti-Tiger diatribe. I’m really criticizing all the people who simply took it from him—including Finchem—all those years. That said, in a sense they had no choice. He was that good and that powerful.

And, for the record, for those of you who think I criticize Woods because he wouldn’t talk to me for a book or one-on-one at some point, I swear to God that has nothing to do with it. I just don’t like the way he treats people. And, for the record, the ONE time I asked him to sit down and talk one-on-one he said yes. If you want details, well, read my next book. (Hey, I feel like an ESPN guy now: “After the break, we’ll tell you the real reason Tiger Woods and John Feinstein don’t get along.” Only problem is there is no real reason but the story about the one-on-one is kind of interesting).

A few other notes today on random topics. First—foremost—THANK YOU to the poster who sarcastically pointed out that the title of my new book was the same as titles used in the past by (among others) Spike Lee and Christine Brennan. Bad title searching on my part because I never knew. I could live with sharing a title with Spike Lee. At least he’s brilliant. Christine Brennan, not so much. So, since there was still time to change the title, it’s been changed. The new title is: “One on One: Behind The Scenes With The Greats of The Game.” There are also a number of non-greats in the book but what the heck. So, thanks for the tip. I was clueless.

To the Golf Channel poster who responded to my tongue-in-cheek column saying that the key to Tiger’s comeback would be hiring Chubby Chandler (some apparently missed the humor) by pointing out that I’m not exactly thin: Ya think? Thanks for pointing it out. As if I don’t look in the mirror every morning and moan out loud. But I HAVE lost six pounds this summer. Only about 25 more to go. Finally swimming regularly again. Not fast, but regularly.

Washington Post Column: Former USGA executive director plans to keep his distance

Here is the latest article for The Washington Post ----------------

As the golf world gathers at Congressional Country Club this week for the 111th playing of the U.S. Open, a lot of talk will center on the man who isn’t there, Tiger Woods. Anyone who knows a birdie from a bogey will have an opinion on what the future holds for the 14-time major champion who has so stunningly fallen to earth during the past two years.

Another man will also be absent, someone who won’t be the subject of very much discussion and won’t care even a little bit if his name isn’t mentioned all week: David B. Fay. For 21 years, Fay didn’t just attend the U.S. Open; he ran the U.S. Open as executive director of the United States Golf Association. Last December, having just turned 60, he retired. So, instead of running the Open this week he will — more or less — be running from the Open.

“I might sneak in wearing a cap and sunglasses for one of the practice rounds,” he said last week. “But I’m not even sure I’ll do that. I mean, seriously, why would I go? At this point in my life, I’m a lot more interested in my own golf game than in the guys who will be playing in the Open.”

This will be the second Open Fay has missed since 1978. In 1979, he spent his honeymoon in Toledo, putting up the ropes at Inverness for that year’s Open. From 1979 through 2010, Fay missed one Open: Shinnecock Hills in 1986, after he had spent almost six months in the hospital receiving radical treatment for Burkitt’s lymphoma, a rare form of cancer.

“They let me out [of the hospital] on Thursday,” he said. “My plan was to drive to Shinnecock and work on Friday. The minute I got home, my fever spiked, and I ended up back in the hospital for another month.”

Three years after surviving cancer, Fay succeeded Frank Hannigan as the USGA’s executive director.

Even though one of Fay’s jobs in later years was to appear occasionally on television to explain rules issues, he preferred to operate under the radar. A liberal Democrat living in a decidedly Republican world, he had a unique approach to the job.

Click here for the rest of the story: Former USGA executive director plans to keep his distance

Maybe it’s time for Tiger to take extended break; ESPN book; Thoughts on the Jordan Williams and Scott Van Pelt story; Notre Dame follow-up

I’m not really sure where to begin today but let’s start with Tiger Woods because, well, he’s Tiger Woods and my phone began going crazy the minute he announced on Tuesday that he wouldn’t be playing in The U.S. Open here at Congressional next week.

I was so hoping he’d come by the house for a cookout one night.

It is hard for me—or anyone—to judge the soundness of this decision because, as is always the case with Woods, we’re reading tealeaves. His doctors have told him playing next week would be a bad idea. Makes sense. But he hopes to play in the event he ‘hosts,’ in two weeks. Does that make sense? If his knee and Achilles injuries are bad enough to keep him from playing a tournament he once won on a broken leg, they’re going to heal enough in two weeks for him to tee it up at Aronomink? Makes very little sense.

Here’s Tiger’s problem right now—in my opinion: He knows that all the various sponsors for his event, notably AT+T which is putting up about $8 million, aren’t going to be happy if he no-shows no matter how legitimate his injuries may be. There was a good deal of whining in 2008 when he couldn’t play after his knee surgery although Woods didn’t help things by not making the effort to get on a private plane and even make an appearance just to shake a few sponsor hands.

In truth, that was unlike him because the one and only group of people he’s ever been loyal to at all are those who pay him. Of course AT+T and the other sponsors weren’t technically paying him, they were paying to put on a tournament that benefits his foundation. Maybe that was the difference. Who knows?

Now Woods has those same sponsors wanting to know if he’s going to play or not. To them, showing up in Philly is a lot more important than showing up at Congressional or for The British Open or The PGA Championship this summer. Woods shouldn’t think twice about that. His skipping the Open is the first time I’ve had any sense that he’s looking at the big picture—which isn’t the next three months but the next three years, five years, ten years.

Early this year I thought he needed to play more golf. He kept talking about the ‘process,’ of working on the new swing Sean Foley has been teaching him. Fine. You can’t find true swing keys on the range. You have to take them to the golf course and see how they hold up under pressure. My friend John Cook was quoted back in March as saying Tiger was hitting it as pure as he’d ever seen on the range.

The range is irrelevant. Even hackers can hit good shots on the range. My thought was that Woods should go play four weeks in a row, even if that meant changing the schedule he has been so wedded to for years. Of course he didn’t do that and then he got hurt at The Masters.

Why he tried to play at The Players I have no idea. He doesn’t care about the event—nor should he—doesn’t like the golf course and clearly wasn’t close to 100 percent. For all of Tim Finchem’s claims that Woods looked completely healthy during the practice rounds, the fact is he was carted almost everyplace he went—which he doesn’t normally do—and other players saw him limping during the 18 practice holes (total) that he played. Does that sound healthy to you?

He obviously hurt the knee and the Achilles again trying to play there. So now I’ve come 180 degrees the other way: I think Tiger should just pack it in the rest of the year. Stay home and rest his mind and his body. Hang out with his kids, get some real rehab to be SURE he’s 100 percent before he tries to play again and just RELAX. I mean seriously, when was the last time in his life he did that for more than a week or two?

It wasn’t right after the infamous accident when he was in hiding and then in some kind of rehab and then making speeches to try to convince sponsors who were running for cover that he was a new man. A real break—not one forced on him by injury or public humiliation—might do him a lot of good. He might come back fresh and eager to play, rather than feeling he HAS to play. It might recharge him. Staying home for awhile might (though I doubt it) give him a chance to do some real reflecting on his life and his future. He should bring in a crisis manager—because the guy is still in all sorts of crisis—to tell him how he should deal with the media, with fans, with sponsors and with his travel schedule (Dubai et al should go away; play to be a champion, not to get richer). It should be someone who will tell him what to do not what he wants to hear the way his current ‘team,’ does.

Woods can still break Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major titles. He’s that talented and, when he isn’t in crisis, that mentally tough. But he needs to take a deep breath before he starts back up that mountain.

*****

I try very hard to steer away from ESPN-related subjects. My opinions on the people who run the network are pretty well known even if Tom Shales and Jim Miller didn’t call me for their book.

A note on the book: I don’t intend to read it if only because I haven’t found any of the excerpts particularly compelling. I mean, seriously people don’t like Chris Berman? That’s news? Keith Olbermann was crazy? Film at 11 stuff there, right? There were sex and drugs at parties in the 80s? No kidding, really? I’ve certainly never been to a party like that in my life.

The fact that the book is getting the attention it is getting is a tribute—unfortunately—to how important a part of our culture ESPN has become. There’s just no getting around that fact.

In the meantime, Scott Van Pelt has been in the news because of his Maryland connections—again. Van Pelt and I had a disagreement last year because I commented on his behavior while sitting in the stands at a Duke-Maryland game in College Park. He took offense to my saying that, as a public figure, who at times talked about college basketball on TV and radio, he needed to show some decorum, even while sitting in the stands. I wondered how people would react if say, Jay Bilas or I sat in the stands at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Duke gear and yelled at officials during a game.

Scott took offense and called me and we had a good talk and ended up, I think, agreeing to disagree. (He also took a shot a my brother during a speech at Burning Tree last summer since my brother had been the one who told me how Van Pelt behaved. For the record, my brother is close to Gary Williams and was sitting in front of Van Pelt because—like Scott—he’d been given tickets by Gary. Anyway, Scott, did you think someone wouldn’t report your crack back to me? I do have other sources).

No big deal actually. The other day Jordan Williams, the now ex-Maryland center who put his name into the draft after his sophomore year, told reporters Van Pelt had played a major advisory role in his decision. Then, after he and Van Pelt talked, Williams sort of withdrew that statement, said only that he had asked Van Pelt to get him some feedback from NBA people before making his decision and that the media—it’s always the media isn’t it?—had blown the thing out of proportion.

I don’t doubt it was blown out of proportion—what isn’t? And I’ve had coaches and athletes ask me for advice. I remember Eric Montross’s dad asking me years ago if I thought Eric should go to Indiana and play for Bob Knight. I was careful to limit my answer to what I had written in ‘A Season on the Brink.’ I did almost the same thing a few years later when Alan Henderson asked me the same question after I had spoken at Five Star. Knowing Henderson was being recruited by Duke, I was even more careful in how I answered the question.

So, I understand Scott’s dilemma. That said, I think he should have told Williams that the person he should be talking to is his college coach and to the NBA advisory board that gives a player an objective opinion on where he might go in the draft. It wasn’t Scott’s job to be Williams’ go-fer. I’m a little amused by Scott’s claim that he had, ‘crossed paths with Jordan while doing games.’ The truth is, they first met when Gary Williams asked Scott to speak to the team before a game at Duke two years ago. He was there as a Maryland grad who is a celebrity and a friend of Gary’s. Actually he was a Friend of Gary (FOG), an official support group of Gary’s.

It’s never easy to decide where you draw the line between being friendly with someone you are covering and becoming their friend. After all these years I’ve learned it is impossible NOT to be friends with some of the people you cover, especially if you know them for a long time.

I think Van Pelt made an innocent mistake not telling Williams he wasn’t the one he should be coming to for information or feedback. If I were him, rather than try to downplay the role he played, I’d just say, ‘yeah, I should have told him to talk to Gary or the advisory board and wished him luck and left it at that.’

One last thought for the day to those who (surprise) thought I was too tough on Notre Dame last week: I have read the report on Declan Sullivan and I am familiar with Father Jenkins’ pre-Notre Dame biography. Neither changes my opinion on him or on how Notre Dame has handled the situation. Oh, and I see where Michael Floyd has been cleared to get ready to play this season. Gee, what a surprise.

Long and interesting week at Ponte Vedra, including thoughts on the tournament and Tiger Woods

Wow, was that a long week in Ponte Vedra. Each day I woke up thinking I would write a blog and the next thing I knew it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon and I was too sapped by the heat to do anything except fantasize about going back to the hotel to take a shower.

The Players is the classic wannabe sports event. In recent years, The PGA Tour—they prefer to actually be called THE TOUR and that their tournament be called a championship and that The Players be called THE PLAYERS, not that they are a bit pretentious—has taken to insisting that it is NOT trying to convince people that their event is the fifth major.

If that is the case, riddle me this: Why does THE TOUR give the same five year exemption to winners of THE PLAYERS (Championship, I don’t think they insist on all caps for that) that it gives to major champions? Why does it give the same number of FedEx points to THE PLAYERS winner as it gives to those who win a major? This is where you could also wonder how it is that the winner of a playoff event gets more points than someone would get for winning all FOUR majors, but that’s another question for another day. And finally, how in the world does THE TOUR claim it isn’t trying to foist off its faux major as a major when it includes victories at THE PLAYERS on the Hall of Fame ballot as if they somehow carry as much weight on a player’s resume as a major does?

Of course we all know THE TOUR is never wrong about anything because they tell us this over and over again. When I jokingly made the point in January that the slide of the once prestigious Tournament of Champions could be pretty well summed up by the fact that it had gone from having Mercedes as a title-sponsor to Hyundai, The Tour (sorry THE TOUR) went nuts. There was all sorts of screaming and yelling about Hyundai’s new luxury car and yata-yata-yata. So I posed this question: If someone told you that you had just won a Mercedes and you showed up to collect it and they handed you the keys to a Hyundai, how would you feel?

There was also the issue of symbolism but THE TOUR doesn’t do symbolism, it does self-righteousness.

And then there was last Thursday when Tiger Woods walked off the golf course after shooting 42 on the front nine at The TPC Sawgrass. Those of you who read this blog strictly to monitor any shots at Tiger, better sit down because I actually defended Tiger.

You see, not only do I believe he was genuinely hurt—although there are conspiracy theorists who think his knee started to hurt again after his triple-bogey 7 at the fourth hole—I don’t think he should have played. I had surgery on my shoulder ONCE and I freak out whenever I feel a twinge now in either shoulder. Tiger’s had surgery on his left knee FOUR times. If he says it hurts and he needs to rest, I’m not going to question him. Throw in any achilles issues—I also tore my achilles years ago and believe me it is not a good injury—and he NEEDS to be careful, especially with a body that has proven brittle in the past.

So, when he pulls out of Quail Hollow, the one tournament he has played in past years simply because he likes the golf course, I believe him when he says he’s hurt. And when he shoots 42—42!—I don’t doubt that he’s hurt.

Commissioner Tim Finchem insisted that he saw no sign that Tiger was injured in the run-up to the tournament. He never saw him limp. I would think it would be tough to see him limp since he was carted to and from the back of the range whenever he practiced and I don’t think the commish was out there walking with him when he played nine holes on Tuesday and nine holes on Wednesday. (He also wasn’t in attendance at his ‘crown-jewel,’ for a good portion of the day Friday because he was playing golf with ex-President George W. Bush. No doubt W. will be inducted into The World Golf Hall of Fame just like his dad while the Hall continues to ignore Dan Jenkins and Jim Murray. Good job Hall voters).

Anyway, when I said on Golf Channel that I thought Tiger was hurt; that I didn’t think he should have tried to play AND I thought he felt some pressure from The Tour to play—The Tour went ballistic. I did not say that FInchem or anyone ‘forced,’ Tiger to play, a charge Finchem denied even though it hadn’t been made. I just said that Finchem had done a lot for Tiger last year—giving up his clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass for Tiger’s now infamous Tiger and Pony show and then sitting in the room with all of Tiger’s employees and minions and that perhaps—for once—Tiger felt he owed someone something and this was when The Tour had called in its chit.

I didn’t say it to be critical, hell The Tour needs to get Tiger to play more often and with Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy snubbing their event, it REALLY needed Tiger there. (I’m betting NBC is not going to be doing handstands when the weekend ratings come out with Tiger gone and Phil Mickelson nowhere near the lead. I was glued to the finish on Sunday because my guy Paul Goydos was in contention and I like David Toms a lot but I’m not exactly your typical golf viewer). I didn’t imply even that The Tour wanted Tiger to play hurt. What I was saying was that I believed the message was conveyed to Tiger—if he didn’t already know—that his presence in Ponte Vedra would be greatly appreciated.

Almost as soon as I said it, Ty Votaw, Finchem’s attack-dog when it comes to any media ‘slight,’ was on the warpath, screaming I’d made the whole thing up. For the record, I don’t make things up except in my kids mysteries. (Note to poster a couple weeks ago who said I should keep on writing kids books that, ‘no one wants to read,’ do you think my publisher would still be publishing them if no one was reading them?). I had talked to players before Tiger committed and to quite a few people after he committed. The general sentiment was that The Tour needed Tiger at The Players and his committing to a tournament he’s never liked much on a golf course he’s never liked much was his payback for Finchem’s ‘support,’ last year and that there was no doubt The Tour had let Tiger’s camp know that.

Votaw has apparently never heard of Shakespeare (he doth protest too much) and doesn’t know much about public relations. He turned a complete non-story—seriously, does anyone really care what I think about the issue all that much?—into a national story with his and Finchem’s ‘categorical,’ denials. Years ago, when Deane Beman was commissioner he hired a very smart public relations man named John Morris, who completely made over his image and relationship with the media. Sadly—on many levels—John Morris passed away nine years ago.

Finchem needs a John Morris. I have always liked him and respected him and I think he’s a good guy—rounds of golf with W. aside. I wish if he was truly upset on Thursday he had picked up a phone and called ME because I would have instantly said on the air that he had called to deny what I was saying. Instead, Votaw ran amok.

My feelings about Finchem haven’t changed at all. I still like him and respect him and am always willing to agree to disagree with him or to agree to agree with him. But I think he needs to find a John Morris.

By the way, just in case you were one of the millions not watching on Sunday, K.J Choi won The Players.

Barry Bonds and Eldrick T. Woods

There is a scene in the classic 1967 movie, “A Guide For The Married Man,” in which Bobby Morse is explaining to Walter Matthau what one is to do when caught by your wife in bed with another woman.

As Morse describes the scene we see Terry Thomas in bed with Jayne Mansfield. In walks his wife who instantly starts screaming. Without missing a beat, Terry Thomas gets out of bed, gets Ms. Mansfield to help him make it; helps her into her clothes and then puts his own on; walks her to the door, kisses her goodbye, then walks back into the house and sits down in his living room chair and begins reading the newspaper.

His wife, who has been screaming the whole time, finally says, “Well, how do you explain this?”

“Explain what?” he answers very calmly.

She looks around. There’s no sign of another woman. The bed is made. There is absolutely no evidence that he has anything to explain. She finally looks at him and says, “What do you want for dinner?”

Which brings us to Barry Bonds and Eldrick T. Woods.

Apparently they saw the movie. Either that or they (and you can throw Roger Clemens and others in here too) have figured out that if you simply deny everything, SOMEONE will ask you what you want for dinner.

Raise your hand if you are among those who believe for one second that Bonds didn’t know what he was doing when he took steroids. While you are laughing, consider this: a jury of 12 of Bonds’ peers (a misuse of terminology on every level since Bonds would be the first to tell you he has no peers) could not conclude that Bonds perjured himself when he told a grand jury he ‘accidentally,’ took steroids that just about doubled his head-size and turned him from a Hall of Fame player destined to hit about 500 home runs into baseball’s tainted all-time home run king. (lower-case letters intentional).

And yet, after hearing weeks of evidence from, in some cases, first hand witnesses, the jury only convicted Bonds on an obstruction of justice charge for being ‘evasive,’ while answering questions. The vote on one of the perjury counts was 11-1 for conviction. My guess is that the woman who voted not to convict would have voted against conviction if Bonds had walked into the jury room and said, “are you kidding, of course I lied, I was counting on SOMEONE being stupid enough to buy my story.”

She probably wouldn’t have found him to be a credible witness.

Bonds should write her a check for at least $1 million because she single-handedly kept him out of jail. He won’t do jail time on the obstruction charge but if he had been convicted of perjury, there would have been no choice but to give him SOME jail time. That perp walk would have been recorded forever and would have been seen for generations far more often than Bonds’ 756th home run.

But he got off. No, he won’t go to The Hall of Fame but not going to the Hall of Fame as a punishment is a lot better than going to jail and THEN not going to the Hall of Fame. So, Bonds got off the way so many famous people get off. Heck, there were people then and there are people now who think Richard Nixon was railroaded out of office by the media in 1974. I know this for a fact because on the day Nixon resigned there was a New York Times headline that said, “Nixon’s Last Bastion of Support.” The dateline was Shelter Island, New York—where I spent summers as a kid. Many of the people quoted in that story were members of Gardiner’s Bay Country Club, where I worked in the pro shop. Several had complained to my boss about my “Impeach the Cox-Sacker,” bumper sticker.

No doubt there are people who think the media has railroaded Bonds because he’s been a pain-in-the-neck to deal with through the years. Or that the federal government was making some kind of example of him. I would suggest reviewing the testimony. I would also ask how then you explain what is happening to Clemens, who was actually very good with the media—especially later in his career. My sense of the federal government is this: If they think you’re lying, they come after you. Period.

As for my friend Mr. Woods, here is my second question of the day: Those of you who still think he’s ‘changed,’ since November 27, 2009 please raise your hands too. Maybe his golf has changed, but Tiger is still Tiger: dismissive (see Macatee, Bill—attempted post-round interview on Sunday at Augusta) arrogant, unwilling to do even the smallest things to make himself a little more fan friendly (please, go ahead and tell me it would kill him to play the par-three at The Masters. And don’t give me the, ‘he doesn’t want to change his pre-tournament routine,’ line. He changes it every year and, fact is, he hasn’t won there since 2005 so why NOT change?).

And yet, like with Nixon and Bonds and Clemens, there are still people buying Tiger’s lines. His new thing is to say he can’t change his schedule and can’t play more golf because he needs time with his children. It’s a good line—one that’s tough to argue with. Of course it doesn’t explain why he was seen in The Bahamas gambling a few days before going to Augusta; then, after nine days in Augusta, jumped on a plane to go to China to sell Nike product a few minutes after his last blow-off line to Macatee.

Look, you want to go to the Bahamas and have fun—go for it. You want to be a Nike salesman and go halfway around the world—heck, maybe it’s in your contract. But DON’T do those things and then try to tell us how much you miss your kids. In fact, during an infomercial last Thursday on Golf Channel (which posed as an ‘interview,’) during which viewers had to sit and listen to the president of Nike golf pitch the new spring products right there on-camera with Tiger, co-host Erik Kuselias, trying to make the interview at least semi-legitimate, asked Woods about being away from his kids so much.

“That’s why Skype is so great,” Tiger said with a straight face. “It’s almost like being there.”

I am not a crook.

I didn’t know what I was putting in my body.

Skype is just like being there.

What do you want for dinner Mr. President? Barry? Tiger?

Getting re-acquainted with the familiar, and meeting the new, on the PGA Tour

So I’m back in golf world this week—the world of golf, not the magazine.

I have to say, it’s always fun. I’ve made a habit the last five years of coming to The Honda Classic, which is the first east coast event of the year. I miss going to the west coast but the combination of basketball responsibilities, family responsibilities and my aversion to flying has kept me from places like Pebble Beach and San Diego tournaments I liked going to in the past.

The Honda, to be honest, is one of my favorite events. The logistics are about as easy as you could possibly hope for. The putting green, the driving range and both the front and back nine are all a few steps from the media room. Walking the golf course is usually enjoyable—it’s not hilly and there’s always a breeze, or this year, a high wind. It isn’t fun to play in but walking and watching is a lot of fun.

The nicest part for me though is being able to walk back in after months away and feel comfortable and, even better, be able to start getting work done right away. There are new faces every year and I always try to introduce myself to people so I can start to develop relationships with them. There is no doubt that being on Golf Channel the last three years helps me with the new guys. I’d prefer that they tell me they’ve read my books or my columns but if seeing me on Golf Channel is an icebreaker, well, that’s fine too.

And then there are the guys who have been around the tour as long (1993) as I have—or longer. On Wednesday I walked into the locker room and within two minutes ran into Davis Love, Justin Leonard, David Duval, Steve Flesch and—of course—Paul Goydos. Actually it was no coincidence I ran into Goydos: he owed me dinner since he had called me ‘an idiot,’ when I told him that Florida State would beat Duke back in January and then had bet me dinner when I suggested he might put his money where his know-it-all mouth was.

Paul knows a lot about basketball, especially Long Beach State basketball. He pays for Spike Lee seats at Long Beach home games and once got tossed from the arena years ago for arguing vehemently with a referee. Paul’s version of that story is wildly funny—as are most versions of any story he tells.

Davis’s son Dru (as in Davis Love IV—quadruple) and my son Danny were born six weeks apart and that’s usually our first topic of conversation. Danny’s now taller than I am and Dru is taller than Davis (who is 6-3) so we both roll our eyes and wonder how that has come to pass since the boys were only born about 15 minutes ago.

I’m really happy that Davis is going to be the Ryder Cup captain. I know how much it means to him, especially since his father was a member of the PGA of America for years until his death in a plane crash in 1988. In fact, the day that Davis was born in 1964 his dad was playing in The Masters. When Davis won The PGA in 1997, one of the most emotional finishes I’ve ever seen to a golf tournament, one of the first things he said to his younger brother Mark (who was caddying for him) was, “now I can be a Ryder Cup captain.”

Winning The PGA isn’t an absolute must for a Ryder Cup captain—neither Arnold Palmer nor Tom Watson (among others) ever won it, but it certainly helps. As it turned out, that PGA was Davis’s only win in a major. He came achingly close on several other occasions but never did win a second major.

Now though, he’s The Ryder Cup captain and I think he’ll do very well because the job will mean so much to him on an emotional level, not just a professional one and because the players like him so much. Davis is one of those guys who is constantly described as, “my best friend,” by other guys in the locker room. There aren’t that many guys you can say that about but Davis is one of them.

He was one of the first players I got to know well when I was working on, ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ In fact, it was while talking to Davis that it first occurred to me that covering golf was going to be a lot more fun than covering, say, tennis. We were in Williamsburg at the old Anheuser-Busch Tournament. Davis was staying in a condo right on the grounds and we went there to talk after he played his first round on Thursday.

About two hours into the conversation I began to wonder how much longer I could go. So I said to Davis, ‘how are you set on time?’

He shrugged and said, “you said you were writing a book so I figured you needed a lot of time. I just blocked off the whole afternoon.”

Hallelujah. This came after spending time with tennis players who thought 20 minutes was the absolute limit that anyone should ever spend talking to a reporter. Davis became one of the more compelling stories in ‘A Good Walk Spoiled,’ and has been a go-to guy for me ever since.

The most pleasant surprise was seeing Nick Price. When people ask me who are the nicest people I’ve ever met in sports, Nick is right at the top of the list. He’s just a genuinely warm, kind human being. He was also the No. 1 player in the world in 1993 and 1994. He won three major championships. A few weeks ago he called Ken Kennerly, the Honda’s Tournament director, wondering if he could get a sponsor’s exemption to play. The Champions Tour is off this week and Nick lives practically next door to PGA National. He’s been feeling good about his game and wanted to see how he could do against the kids since he hasn’t played the regular tour since turning 50.

Kennerly, who is a good guy, told him he really didn’t have any spots, that he had commitments to a number of younger players and international players. Remember we’re talking about someone who is already in The World Golf Hall of Fame. We’re not talking about some guy who won a couple times on tour, we’re talking about a three-time major champion. Nick just said, “I understand Ken, no worries.”

Then he decided to use his one-time exemption for being in the top 50 (29th entering this year) on the all-time money list and not only play Honda, but a few other events this year. As he walked up and down the range on Thursday morning, he introduced himself to younger players; said hello to old friends—players, caddies, media—just the most regular guy you’ve ever seen. That’s Nick.

The first time I met him was late in 1993 when he was No. 1 in the world. He had no idea who I was but told me he’d be glad to talk to me for the book. He said he really didn’t know his schedule for 1994 yet so could I call him in about two weeks because he’d know by then. He gave me a phone number.

A couple weeks later, I called, expecting to get his agent’s office or an assistant or some kind of tape. Nick answered. “Hang on one second John, I’ve got a guy at the front door.”

He’d given me his home number. The No. 1 player in the world—to a guy he had just met. That’s Nick Price.

That’s why it is always nice to come back to the tour.

Look at Tiger’s on-course behavior, results; How radio interview topics are broached, or avoided

So here we go with Tiger Woods again. Most of us have seen the tape by now of him spitting while crouched over a putt on the 12th hole at Dubai on Sunday during the course of a miserable final round at whatever they call that event over there.

Personally, I don’t think what he did is that big a deal even though it certainly wasn’t pretty to see, especially in slo-mo replay. One the one hand, you can say what he did is roughly the same as what most baseball players do about four times per at bat. On the other hand, this isn’t baseball. There are very specific rules on every tour about how players are supposed to conduct themselves while on the golf course and in the public eye. Years ago, if you shook hands with Nick Price you could feel the burn marks on his hand from cupping cigarettes so as not to be caught on camera smoking during a round.

Profanity is the coin of the realm in most sports. The other day during the Syracuse-Louisville game cameras clearly caught Jim Boeheim yelling ‘b-----,’ at the officials after a bad call at a critical juncture and there was no attempt to switch away from him as he continued his rant. In golf, someone hears you use profanity—whether it is picked up by the cameras or not—you can get fined.

Jay Haas may be as nice a man as has ever played the game of golf. He’s fan-friendly to a fault. Years ago though he was having a very bad Saturday in Milwaukee. He’d been in the hunt after two rounds and shot 77 on Saturday which, as Haas said, ‘is about like shooting 90 on that golf course.’ He came to 18 hot, frustrated and worn out. His second shot stuck in the rough behind the green and when he tried to gouge it out, the ball ran through the green and into the rough again. As Haas stalked the ball, someone in the gallery yelled, “Haas, you suck!”

“Yeah well, ‘f---- you,’” Haas responded, just done with being patient for once in his life.

The next morning rules official Wade Cagle called Haas into his office. “Jay we got a report from one of the marshals yesterday,” he said. “He claims you said, ‘f--- you,’ to a fan. I’m sure it was a mistake. You must have been saying, ‘thank-you,’ right?”

Haas laughed. “No, the guy has it right,” he said. “I said ‘f---- you,’ and I stand by it. How much do I owe you?”

The cost was $500—first offense for conduct unbecoming a professional. Haas wrote the check and told the story because the tour certainly wouldn’t announce the fine. The PGA Tour doesn’t announce fines but that’s another story for another day—or later today if you go to GolfChannel.com where I’ve written a column on that issue.

This is about Tiger. You can talk if you want about how the scrutiny placed upon him is unfair. There’s something to that. As he has pointed out through the years in complaining to the tour about all his fines, he’s always got a camera or a microphone pointed at him. Other plays can curse, throw a club or spit a lot of the time and get away with it unless some marshal is standing nearby taking notes.

Well, to quote Arnold Palmer in 1997, “you’re right Tiger, you aren’t a normal 21-year-old, normal 21-year-olds don’t have $50 million in the bank.”

Tiger’s 35 now and, even after his divorce, he’s got considerably more than $50 million in the bank. Last year when he came back from his self-imposed post-accident exile to the tour he talked about ‘showing more respect for the game,’ something Tom Watson and others had criticized him for both pre and post-accident. For all the talk—which has quieted in the last 15 months to some degree hasn’t it?—about everything Earl taught Tiger, he clearly never got around to the simple lesson about golf course etiquette most of us learn when we’re kids.

Palmer has often told the story about his father warning him he’d never play again when he saw him throw a club during a junior tournament. Most of us who have played at ANY level have had that moment.

Tiger’s never had anything close. No one has ever told him NO on any level, which is why he’s still throwing clubs, cursing, spitting and generally behaving like a spoiled brat when things don’t go right for him on the golf course. Everyone knows he’s frustrated and no one blames him for feeling that way. He’s used to dominating on Sundays, not going from 4th to 20th or having some rookie commenting that he didn’t look like he was giving it all during a final round. If there’s one thing I’ve always admired about Tiger is that he NEVER mailed it in no matter where he was playing or where he stood on the leaderboard. Now he’s got kids in his group saying he doesn’t look like he cares when he’s not in contention. THAT I find stunning.

The reason this incident became news is three-fold: It was caught clearly on television; it was part of another bad Sunday for Tiger and because The European Tour—unlike The PGA Tour—does announce that it has fined a player even though it won’t tell you how much. (Think in the $25,000 range). I heard one guy on a DC radio show Monday—the alleged golf reporter at Newschannel 8—claiming that the reason the fine was announced was because people are piling on Tiger now because he isn’t playing well.

Um, wrong. The fine was announced because that’s The Euro Tour’s policy whether it’s Tiger or Rory McIlroy or any of those Flying Molinari’s who commits the infraction.

Of course what’s truly baffling isn’t Tiger’s behavior. In fact, it’s old news by now. What’s baffling is his sudden inability to play well on the weekends. He’s got three tournaments left before The Masters—unless he shocks all of us by actually adjusting his schedule. Until then, this is all a warm-up act. Tiger has some work to do between now and then.

*****

Someone asked an interesting question last week: Do I know the questions I’m going to be asked when I go on the radio. The answer is: not usually. I can guess based on what’s going on what I might be asked about but I don’t usually specifically talk to the host or the producer beforehand.

The only exception to that in the past was when I was still on NPR where I actually wrote my own questions because none of the producers there knew the difference between a hockey puck and a basketball. (On the day Bob Knight was fired I called in to explain that I needed to be on the next morning and the producer who answered the phone said, “so why was he important? Did he coach Michael Jordan or something?”)

“Yeah, or something,” I answered.

The other exception goes in the other direction: Tony Kornheiser has specifically asked me not to bring up Dan Snyder on his show. I feel queasy about this but Tony’s my friend and it is his show. It isn’t as if there aren’t plenty of other forums for me to talk about Snyder and Snyder is one of those guys Tony simply isn’t going to go after—not because he’s paid by him but because he likes him.

Look, we all have blind spots. If you tell me something bad about Paul Goydos or Tom Watson or Gary Williams or Mike Krzyzewski or Mary Carillo or Joe Torre or Bobby Cox I’m not going to listen. Snyder is one of those guys for Tony. So is Mitch Albom, who we also disagree on. If I had a show and he wanted to come on and rip Watson’s politics, I’d probably say, ‘look, I’m sure I agree with you but the guy is my friend so let’s not go there.’ And he wouldn’t go there. So, Tony and I don’t talk about Snyder. We agree to disagree--vehemently.

Roundup of the week -- Steve Kerr, one of my favorites; Worcester; an almost trip to Bristol (yes, Bristol); all topped off by an amazing shot by Manhattan Sunday

I was driving to New York on Wednesday afternoon—dodging the snow along the way—when I heard the immortal Mike Francesa (just ask him) explain that the reason Brian Cashman’s speculation that Derek Jeter might someday play centerfield for the Yankees had become a big story was, “because it’s a slow news week. The Super Bowl (or in Francesa-speak, ‘Da Soopa Bowl’) isn’t until next week.”

I guess for a lot of people it was a slow news week. But in my world, the week was full of stories and, no tennis fans I’m sorry to say that Kim Clijsters and Novak Djokovic winning in Australia weren’t that high on the list. Good for them and all but even my three-month old daughter is asleep at 3 o’clock in the morning.

Actually the highlight of my week came out of nowhere. After watching the first half of Duke-St. John’s with my mouth open—God, college basketball is weird this year; almost NO ONE plays well with any consistency on the road—I switched over to watch Manhattan and Marist. Yes, seriously. I know they’ve won eight games combined all year but I’m the same guy who drove to Worcester on Thursday to see Holy Cross play Colgate (combined wins going in to the game seven). Yes, I got paid to do it but, as I’ve said before, I don’t do The Patriot League games for the money.

So, I switched to the Jaspers and Red Foxes.

Manhattan is one of those schools about which I have fond boyhood memories because of the doubleheaders they played in Madison Square Garden: Manhattan would play the first game most of the time; NYU the second. The goal for the Jaspers every year was the same: Make the NIT. Nowadays a 10-win season would be nice.

When I flipped over, Marist appeared to be on its way to a rare win. I was surprised—and impressed—at the size and enthusiasm of the crowd at Marist. Last season they won one game; this season they’ve won four. And yet, the gym was far from empty. Not full, but not empty.

Marist led 59-57 in the final seconds after Manhattan had launched an awful shot with the clock running down. There were 3.6 seconds left when Marist’s point guard (can’t remember his name, sorry) went to the line for a one-and-one that could clinch the game. He missed. Manhattan rebounded and called time out right away. Give the Marist clock operator credit: The time out was called with AT LEAST two seconds left. He got the clock down to 0.9 before he stopped it. Nice try. Feets Brody, the timekeeper in The Garden when I was a kid—dubbed, ‘the Knicks sixth man,’ by Red Auerbach—would have been proud.

The officials went to replay and wound it back to 2.0.

So, Manhattan inbounded. Marist had the long pass—or, as the play-by-play guy called it, “The Christian Laettner pass,” even though Grant Hill threw the pass he was referring to—covered. So the ball came in to Manhattan guard Michael Alvarado a good 75-feet from the basket. Alvarado, who was one-of-six in the game to that point, was in full flight as he caught the ball. He took three dribbles, got to about 60-feet and fired. The ball hit the backboard and dropped cleanly through the net. It had clearly come before the buzzer.

Sitting in my chair, reading some notes as I was about to work from for my book project, I literally jumped to my feet: “WOW, how about that?” I yelled. Even at my advanced age I can still be startled by a spectacular play even in a Manhattan-Marist game. It was cool.

Going back to earlier in the week: As I said, I drove to New York on Wednesday—an intermediate stop en route to Worcester—and had dinner that night with Steve Kerr. Steve is, quite simply, one of my favorite guys, someone I enjoyed getting to know when I wrote about him in ‘A Season Inside,’ 23 years ago. We’ve always stayed in touch but it had been a long time since we had sat down and talked at length. Not surprisingly, Kerr was as smart and funny as ever.

He was excited about the fact that he’ll be calling The NCAA Tournament this year as part of the new CBS-Turner deal. I knew he was going to be doing color the first two weeks but hadn’t realized that he is going to be part of The Final Four announce-team, a Turner add-on to Jim Nantz and Clark Kellogg. I’m not planning to watch those games on TV but I think Steve’s presence will be a bonus. Knowing him, he won’t hesitate to disagree with Kellogg when he thinks that’s the right way to go.

When Steve and I walked into Smith and Wollensky at a little bit after 7 it wasn’t snowing yet. When we walked out almost four hours later, it was snowing in buckets. Traffic was at a standstill and the snow was already ankle deep on the sidewalks. I only had a five-block walk but by the time I got inside I looked and felt like Frosty The Snowman. I was completely soaked. Amazingly, by the time I got up, had breakfast and hit the road the next morning, the New York streets had been cleared and the FDR Drive was completely clear. That was NOT the case once I hit the Connecticut line and it was a long trip from there to Worcester.

The only disappointment on the trip was not getting to see Dan Dakich as I had been planning to do. Dan was a graduate assistant at Indiana the year I was there to research ‘A Season on the Brink,’ and we became good friends. In fact, I was en route to meet Dan for lunch at a Chinese restaurant on the morning of January 28, 1986 when The Challenger blew up on take-off. I thought about that on Friday when I realized it was the 25th anniversary of that tragedy.

Dakich is becoming a star at ESPN these days—he also hosts a local radio show in Indianapolis—and the plan had been for us to meet in Bristol since he works in-studio on Thursday nights. Yes, ME in Bristol, do you think the ESPN police might have stopped me at the city line? We were going to have a late breakfast to talk about the old days and more recent days but Dan’s flight got cancelled on Wednesday night and by the time he got in on Thursday, he had to go straight to a radio studio to do his show, arriving a few minutes late.

So, I drove straight thru Bristol. Given the condition of the roads, if I had stopped to see Dan, I might have been late getting to Worcester. And if you’re wondering, yes, I do have regular stopping points en route to Worcester. The main one is a Dunkin Donuts (yes, I DO like the place) off Exit 71 on I-84 a few miles shy of the Massachusetts line. On Thursday, some truck had gotten stuck on the off-ramp though so I didn’t get my coffee or my donut. It made me VERY cranky.

I couldn’t be happier for the success Kerr and Dakich are having. Dakich had some success as the head coach at Bowling Green but really seems to have found his niche in broadcasting. Steve ran the Phoenix Suns for three years and helped them get back to the conference finals last year but was completely worn out trying to commute between Phoenix and San Diego where his family stayed after he got the job with the Suns. Now he’s back at Turner, traveling once a week during the regular season; more during the NCAA Tournament and playoffs and then taking the summer off.

“Haven’t lost a game all year,” he said. “I’m sleeping a LOT better.”

Steve’s oldest son Nick is a high school senior who will play next year at The University of San Diego. I asked him if the son had the father’s shooting touch.

“He does,” Steve said. “Which is good. Unfortunately he also has my quickness, which is not as good.”

When Kerr was at Arizona he described his quickness to me this way: “I have deceptive speed. People think I’m a step slow. I’m actually two steps slow.”

He used that deceptive speed to play on FIVE NBA championship teams—three in Chicago and two in San Antonio. He concedes that Michael Jordan and David Robinson might have helped a bit along the way.

And if you’re wondering, yes, I did watch the golf on Sunday and was glad to see Phil Mickelson play well for the first time, really, since he won The Masters last year. Bubba Watson made two fabulous putts to win. Tiger Woods finishing tied for 44th? Proves very little except that he has work to do between now and April 7th. I would have said the same thing if he had won.

Give me points for consistency.