The Rick Reilly Column

I wrote the blog on Thursday in the hope that a more detailed explanation of what I was trying to say about the Mike Shanahan-Donovan McNabb issue would put an end to it—or at least my involvement in it.

To a large degree it did. The posts and e-mails that came in were close to what I expected: Some people didn’t really read what I said; they just had a knee-jerk reaction to even raising the specter of race. (BTW, James Brown, Tom Jackson and Michael Wilbon have all raised it too but because they are African American people tend to not pay attention or say, ‘so what?’ They’re ignored when they bring it up because they’re black; I’m pilloried—by some— for bringing it up because I’m white). What was gratifying though was the fact that quite a few people completely understood the point I was making: that Shanahan raising issues about McNabb’s intelligence brings back some bad memories for a lot of people about the racial stereotyping that went on for years when it came to African Americans playing the quarterback position. That was why I found it unforgivable. A lot of people got that.

Of course some people—many in the media—didn’t or chose not to. Rick Reilly absolutely torched me in his ESPN column. What was upsetting about the column wasn’t that Reilly disagreed with me. I’m perfectly comfortable being on the opposite side from Reilly on almost any issue. What did bother me—as I said in a note I sent him on Friday—was that he accused me of committing a crime I didn’t commit and then ripped me for it. If you read Reilly, he goes on about how ridiculous it is to think Shanahan’s benching of McNabb was racially motivated.

He’s right. Of course I never said it was. Like most people I saw it as a coaching temper tantrum after McNabb made a bad play. The issue came up after the game, first with the ‘he didn’t know the terminology,’ comments; then with the ‘cardiovascular,’ comments—that was about his conditioning not his intelligence—and finally with the Chris Mortensen, ‘sources,’ story that the poor Shanahans had to cut their playbook in half to accommodate their dumb African-American quarterback.

One argument being made is that the Shanahans might not have been Mortensens’s source. I don’t buy that for a second but let’s play along here for a moment and pretend they weren’t. If Mortensen is half the reporter I think he is and someone whispers that to him what’s his next move? I would think it is to call Mike Shanahan, who you can bet is on his speed dial and say, “someone just said this.” And Shanahan, UNLESS he wants his quarterback lying in the road with tire tracks on his back, says something like: “Come on Mort, the guy is a six-time Pro Bowler, of course he knows the playbook.” If Shanahan doesn’t say that then he’s guilty of not protecting his quarterback—even if there’s truth in the leak, which I’m not buying either. If Shanahan did say that I don’t believe Mortensen would still go with the story.

Anyway, Reilly pilloried me for saying McNabb was benched because Shanahan’s a racist. One example he cited as proof that Shanahan’s not a racist is that Shanahan cried on the phone when he learned one of his African American players had died. Wow, what a humanitarian! Even so, the argument’s moot because I don’t think Shanahan’s a racist. I do think he’s absolutely capable of throwing out racial stereotypes to defend an indefensible decision he made. Which is what I said and what I wrote. Reilly, in his return note to me, asked me if I really thought Shanahan could be that Machiavellian. Are you kidding? I think Machiavelli studied Shanahan somewhere along the way.

Two points here: Reilly and I aren’t friends but I’ve never considered him an enemy. We’ve known each other a long time and I thought he should have picked up a phone and called me before he hammered me—especially since he might have gotten his facts straight had he done so. Then again, that might not have suited his purposes. Rick defended not calling me by pointing out that I publicly nailed him twice in the past. Once was seven years ago when we appeared on Bob Costas’s old HBO show together and, in discussing the Riggs-King match, he said that Riggs had only had one serve and King had been allowed to play the doubles alleys. He was wrong. I said he was wrong and he insisted he was right. I offered to bet him $100 and he took the bet. To his credit he sent me a check when he found that he—or his researcher—had it wrong. According to Rick I went, ‘three stops past the exit,’ that night. Really?

My second crime was different. When Rick left Sports Illustrated for ESPN, someone asked me if I was surprised. I said I wasn’t; that I knew ESPN had thrown a lot of money on the table but to me leaving SI for ESPN was a little bit like, “checking out of a Ritz-Carlton to move over to a Hampton Inn.”

Yup, it was a shot—at ESPN. Rick apparently took it as a shot at him even though I said I understood he’d been offered a lot of money. As I said in my return of his return note: “I’m guessing now you might think what I said was probably right—but I certainly don’t expect you to confide in me about THAT.” And I don’t. All I know is the guy was a GREAT take out writer at Sports Illustrated and now he’s hosting 2 a.m. sportscenters with some fourth string talking head at ESPN. Yes, that was a shot.

In all though, I’ve been gratified by the number of people whose opinions I respect who have understood what I said and why I said it. I also have a little clearer understanding of why REAL public figures (I consider myself a semi-public figure) get frustrated when they say something and it morphs into something completely different. But hey, that’s life.

There was one thing though that really did upset me. On Thursday night Rich Eisen described me on the NFL Network as the, “venerable Washington Post columnist.”

Venerable? Now THAT hurts.

Weekend reaction - talking about the commentary on, and my experience of, Tiger Woods

I feel torn this morning because there is a lot of cool stuff to write about: Bode Miller’s redemption and his remarkable slalom run yesterday—which I still haven’t seen because every single time I try to turn on NBC they are showing figure skating. I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME. There’s also the U.S.’s stunning hockey win over Canada—which you COULD watch on MSNBC while the dopey ice dancing was going on. Two months ago, George McPhee, the general manager of The Washington Capitals told me he thought the U.S. had a chance in Vancouver for one reason: Ryan Miller. So far he looks pretty smart.

(Note to anyone who is going to get offended because I think figure skating is ridiculous: I’m NOT saying the skaters aren’t remarkable athletes. But so are ballet dancers and I don’t think ballet dancing should be an Olympic sport either. Enough about that.)

There is also plenty of college hoops to talk about right now with Selection Sunday—perhaps the last one that will really matter if the NCAA goes Dialing for Dollars this summer as I suspect it will—less than three weeks away.

But I can’t seem to escape Tiger Woods. The more times I see a replay of the farce he staged on Friday and then hear people self-righteously defending him, I get a little bit angrier although perhaps not as angry as the poster who ripped me on Friday for being willing to write all about John Daly’s genitals in a book and then for criticizing Tiger. Thanks to whomever posted right below her and pointed out that RICK REILLY wrote that book. How do you confuse me with Rick Reilly? What are the chances I’d ever be caught dead wearing a white suit? Or any suit for that matter.

Here’s what I find most interesting about the various commentaries I’ve seen, heard and read since Friday. Most of those who have actually spent time around Tiger—notice I didn’t say KNOW Tiger because I agree with my friend Sally Jenkins who wrote that Tiger won’t let anyone really know him—saw what took place on Friday as a performance. I’m not just talking about the fact that the whole thing had clearly been rehearsed and the fact that he literally READ the words, “Good morning.”

I’m not even talking about the ridiculous scene we saw with Tiger’s “friends and colleagues,” (many of whom are his employees) sitting up straight in their chairs at rapt attention as if the President was addressing the nation in the midst of some kind of crisis. I’m surprised they didn’t all stand when Tiger entered and exited the room.

I’m not even talking about his refusal to answer questions and the comic attempt by his agent Mark Steinberg to handpick a group of reporters to be “allowed,” to sit in the room at the feet of The Great Man.

What made this so clearly a performance is something raised by the Tiger-defenders: “He doesn’t have to apologize to anyone except his family,” is a bleat I’ve heard repeated often—especially on ESPN where I wonder if the Bristol Boys are writing the same script for everyone in the desperate hope that Tiger will grant them (pant-pant) a sit-down with one of their softball questioners in the future. (Stephen A. Smith was the notable exception but he’s no longer a rising star at the network and they can just tell Team Tiger, ‘we didn’t know he was going to, you know, tell the truth. We apologize’).

Okay then folks, if he didn’t need to apologize to anyone but his family what was he doing out there apologizing to anyone and everyone including all the children in the world? Here’s the answer: This was step one, not of the 12 steps to recovery for addicts, but in the however-many-steps-it-takes to recovery for fallen icons. Tiger wants his sponsors back—or new sponsors to take their place. He wants to be beloved again. He wants people to think he’s “changed.” What he was doing Friday is no different than a beer company ad that urges you to “drink responsibly,” after pitching its product. Tiger wants people to think he CARES about them now.

Look, I know a lot of you will say I just don’t like Tiger. In truth, I don’t know him well enough to like or dislike him. I’m awed by his talent as a golfer and I’m always disappointed when I watch him blow off kids asking for autographs and I think he’s disdainful of most people. I think he’s smart as hell and I see his arrogance as one of the reasons he’s the golfer that he is. I agree with people who say that if he’d ever let his guard down he’d probably be a good guy to have a beer with. I also think—as I have always thought—that he’s been a victim of his father, not a product of his father, for a long, long time. The fact that I’ve written that and said that since he first came on tour is a major reason why Tiger doesn’t like ME. Which is fine. Lots of people don’t like me. It comes with the job.

But the notion that I sit back and lob bombs at Tiger or anyone based on personal biases is silly. We all have biases and the key as reporters is being aware of them. I don’t know, for example, Nick Saban but everything I’ve ever seen of him or read about him or been told about him by those who do know him, indicates to me I wouldn’t like him at all. But the guy is a GREAT college football coach. Period. I don’t really know Joe Paterno very well but everything I’ve seen of him, read about him and been told about him indicates to me that I WOULD like him. He is also a GREAT college football coach.

So my reaction to Tiger on Friday isn’t personal. It’s based on what I know from watching him in action on and off golf courses for 14 years. If he comes back to the game and learns to behave on the golf course—and makes his vigilante caddy behave—terrific. I will applaud him for that. If he repairs his marriage, that’s his business just as if he doesn’t, that’s his business too. I’d like to see him sign more autographs; play in some of the tournaments that gave him sponsor exemptions when he first turned pro (and in the Bob Hope Classic which could use the boost) and just be a little nicer to people who aren’t paying him to be nice. I hold out little if no hope that he’ll be kinder and gentler with the media and, honestly, I don’t care.

That said, I found his lecturing of the media Friday amazing. He screams and yells about his wife and kids being followed to school. He knows full well that none of the media who have covered him regularly (and most treated him as a God-life figure) followed anyone to school. He also knows that it was HIS behavior that brought the tabloids into the life of his family.

As for his rant about how unfair it was for people to say Elin attacked him on Thanksgiving night, fine, I’ll take him at his word. Except for one thing: If Elin didn’t attack or threaten you in some way, how the hell did you end up in your car at 2:30 in the morning in a T-shirt, shorts and bare feet, clearly in no condition to drive but driving anyway—right into a fire hydrant outside your house? None of us needs to hear about conversations inside the house—Tiger is very good at saying he won’t answer questions few of us want to ask—but as a public figure who set in motion a series of extraordinarily public events by getting into the car, he DOES need to explain how he got there. Don’t call people liars if you aren’t prepared to provide them with the truth.

Here’s the worst part of the whole thing: Tiger Woods has now become one of the most polarizing public figures on the planet. Other than what HE did—not the tabloid media—to his family, that’s the saddest part of this whole thing.