Showing posts with label Serena Williams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Serena Williams. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
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.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
US Open reveals the best, and worst, of tennis
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One thing about the U.S. Open is that it reveals the best and the worst of tennis just about every year.
The best is always the actual tennis: Novak Djokovic-Roger Federer was a classic and the Djokovic-Rafael Nadal final was also played at a very high level. Sam Stosur’s upset of Serena Williams in the women’s final was a stunner because Williams had looked unbeatable throughout the tournament. There were also a handful of early round upsets involving young American players that gave some hope to those starving for the next American star.
All that was good. But, as usual, the USTA managed to muck things up with its usual incompetence.
The schedule is—and has been for years—a joke. The night matches go on MUCH too long even without rain delays. The USTA doesn’t care at all about the players—sending Federer out to begin a match at 11:50 at night?—or the fans in attendance. It cares ONLY about keeping the TV people who give them their lunch money (you should see those lunches) happy.
That’s why “Super Saturday,” the most overrated notion in sports, exists. Every other major championship puts together a schedule that gives the two finalists in both singles events a rest day before the final. The thought is that semifinals are often grueling and you want players rested before one of the most important matches of their lives.
The USTA says the heck with that. It stretches the first round across three days—robbing those who pay to see matches those days of a good deal of quality tennis—and then makes the men and the women go back-to-back from semis to final. In the old days, when the Saturday order of play was men’s semi; women’s final; men’s semi, the second men’s semi often ended late at night and the winner then had to come back about 18-20 hours later to play the final.
It also meant that the women’s final was the only major championship final in tennis where the two finalists had no idea what time their match would begin. Since they were second match on, the length of the first men’s match determined when they would begin. Which is ridiculous.
The USTA—god bless ‘em—fixed that about 10 years back when it moved the women’s final to Saturday night. This move was made NOT for the benefit of the players but—surprise—for the benefit of CBS which wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the Williams sisters by moving the final to prime time. Now, instead of getting all three matches for the price of one ticket on Saturday, fans have to buy tickets for the afternoon—men’s semis—and then a separate ticket for the women’s final at night.
Honestly, I think if you put the USTA executive committee in a room and threw a dollar on the floor you would see a repeat of the climactic scene in “Invictus,” in which all the players on the rugby pitch are scrumming desperately to get the ball.
Remember this: When Arthur Ashe Stadium was built it didn’t have to have 23,000 seats. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 would have been far more sensible; would have created a much better atmosphere and far fewer really bad seats and would have made it much easier then—or now—to put a retractable roof on the building. This year that would have meant NOT losing two straight days to bad weather, creating a FOURTH straight Monday men’s final—which, of course bled over into Dolphins-Patriots (thus losing viewers along the way)—and also created the specter of the world’s top players being sent out to play in dangerous conditions on the second rain day because the USTA was getting desperate to get some live play on for ESPN to show—even if it meant a player might do a pratfall trying to skid to a halt on a wet court.
And then there was Serena Williams.
This is, without question, one of the great players in the game’s history. To come back from almost a year away from the game and play the way she did this summer and right through to the final at the Open is extraordinary. Most of the time she makes it look easy.
But anytime things don’t go exactly as she wants them to, she loses her mind and behaves FAR worse than John McEnroe ever did. Jimmy Connors is another story; he’s still the all-timer when it comes to awful on-court behavior.
Two years ago, Williams threatened a line judge for calling a foot-fault on her during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters. Even though she kept issuing completely insincere non-apologies, The Grand Slam Committee of the International Tennis Federation (one thing you can be sure of in sports: the longer the title the less effective the organization) decided to fine her the grand total of $85,000 and put her on ‘probation.’ One might have thought the Grand Slam Committee had hired the NCAA to advise it on how to penalize people. The penalty was, to quote Mary Carillo, “a joke.”
That Carillo was 100 percent correct was proven again yesterday.
Williams did not play well in the final against Stosur, who has been a talented under-achiever in the game for a long while. After Stosur won the first set Williams immediately faced a break point to start the second set. She hit a forehand winner but as the ball was rocketing away from Stosur she screamed, “come on!”
Under the rules, that is considered a “hindrance,” the theory being her scream could have distracted Stosur as she chased the ball down. What the umpire probably should have done was either warn Williams not to do it again since it was pretty apparent Stosur wasn’t going to get to the ball or play a let—which the rules allow if the umpire thinks the “hindrance,” was accidental—as in someone’s cap flying off or their racquet slipping from their hands and going across the net.
Clearly Williams’ scream was intentional but it wasn’t meant as a hindrance. The umpire, Eva Asderaki, chose to enforce the letter of the law. Williams HAD screamed during the point. She awarded the point—and, thus the game—to Stosur.
Williams went nuts. Among other things she accused Asderaki of being the chair umpire in the Clijsters match—which she wasn’t.
“Are you the one who screwed me over the last time?” she said. “Yeah, you are. Seriously, you have it out for me. That’s not cool. That’s totally not cool.”
The fact that Williams still believes she was “screwed over,” in the Clijsters match tells you all you need to know about her mindset and about how much her ‘apologies,’ meant.
Williams wasn’t finished: “If you ever see me walking down the hall, look the other way. You’re out of control. You’re a hater and you’re unattractive inside…” And: “Code violation for this? I expressed who I am. We’re in America last time I checked.”
For this behavior The USTA and The Grand Slam Committee decided to really punish Williams. On Monday it announced it had fined her—wait for it--$2,000! Then the USTA wrote her a check for $1.4 million--$900,000 for finishing second in the Open; $500,000 for winning the summer U.S. Open series. Boy, they really showed her, huh? Just like they did last time with their ‘probation.’
The weasely excuse was that, because she didn’t use profanity, she hadn’t committed a “major violation.” It is okay to accuse someone (who didn’t) of “screwing you,”; threaten them; call them a hater and claim they “have it out for you.” That’s no big deal. Translation: They didn’t want to fine her for a major violation while she was still on ‘probation,’ because that might have forced them to actually penalize her in a meaningful way.
Can’t have that.
Even Chris Evert, who never has a bad thing to say about anyone publicly, couldn’t believe the fine was so minimal. Now working (sigh) for ESPN, Evert pointed out that Williams had yet to apologize and had refused to shake Asderaki’s hand at the end of the match. “It’s like dinner for Serena Williams,” Evert said of the fine. “When I saw the comments she made my first impression was just stunned. I was so surprised how disrespectful and rude she was.”
Naturally there were other ESPN analyst/enablers there to run to Williams’ side. Pam Shriver, who has become the classic see-no-evil jock apologist told The New York Times not only that she didn’t think what Williams did was a big deal but that—seriously, she said this—Williams might have felt pressure playing in New York on 9-11!
People ask me all the time why I don’t cover tennis so much anymore. This kind of stuff is why. The matches can still be brilliant. But the people around the matches consistently leave me with an awful taste in my mouth. I guess the good news is the next time anyone will pay serious attention to the sport won’t be until next June.
One thing about the U.S. Open is that it reveals the best and the worst of tennis just about every year.
The best is always the actual tennis: Novak Djokovic-Roger Federer was a classic and the Djokovic-Rafael Nadal final was also played at a very high level. Sam Stosur’s upset of Serena Williams in the women’s final was a stunner because Williams had looked unbeatable throughout the tournament. There were also a handful of early round upsets involving young American players that gave some hope to those starving for the next American star.
All that was good. But, as usual, the USTA managed to muck things up with its usual incompetence.
The schedule is—and has been for years—a joke. The night matches go on MUCH too long even without rain delays. The USTA doesn’t care at all about the players—sending Federer out to begin a match at 11:50 at night?—or the fans in attendance. It cares ONLY about keeping the TV people who give them their lunch money (you should see those lunches) happy.
That’s why “Super Saturday,” the most overrated notion in sports, exists. Every other major championship puts together a schedule that gives the two finalists in both singles events a rest day before the final. The thought is that semifinals are often grueling and you want players rested before one of the most important matches of their lives.
The USTA says the heck with that. It stretches the first round across three days—robbing those who pay to see matches those days of a good deal of quality tennis—and then makes the men and the women go back-to-back from semis to final. In the old days, when the Saturday order of play was men’s semi; women’s final; men’s semi, the second men’s semi often ended late at night and the winner then had to come back about 18-20 hours later to play the final.
It also meant that the women’s final was the only major championship final in tennis where the two finalists had no idea what time their match would begin. Since they were second match on, the length of the first men’s match determined when they would begin. Which is ridiculous.
The USTA—god bless ‘em—fixed that about 10 years back when it moved the women’s final to Saturday night. This move was made NOT for the benefit of the players but—surprise—for the benefit of CBS which wanted to take advantage of the popularity of the Williams sisters by moving the final to prime time. Now, instead of getting all three matches for the price of one ticket on Saturday, fans have to buy tickets for the afternoon—men’s semis—and then a separate ticket for the women’s final at night.
Honestly, I think if you put the USTA executive committee in a room and threw a dollar on the floor you would see a repeat of the climactic scene in “Invictus,” in which all the players on the rugby pitch are scrumming desperately to get the ball.
Remember this: When Arthur Ashe Stadium was built it didn’t have to have 23,000 seats. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000 would have been far more sensible; would have created a much better atmosphere and far fewer really bad seats and would have made it much easier then—or now—to put a retractable roof on the building. This year that would have meant NOT losing two straight days to bad weather, creating a FOURTH straight Monday men’s final—which, of course bled over into Dolphins-Patriots (thus losing viewers along the way)—and also created the specter of the world’s top players being sent out to play in dangerous conditions on the second rain day because the USTA was getting desperate to get some live play on for ESPN to show—even if it meant a player might do a pratfall trying to skid to a halt on a wet court.
And then there was Serena Williams.
This is, without question, one of the great players in the game’s history. To come back from almost a year away from the game and play the way she did this summer and right through to the final at the Open is extraordinary. Most of the time she makes it look easy.
But anytime things don’t go exactly as she wants them to, she loses her mind and behaves FAR worse than John McEnroe ever did. Jimmy Connors is another story; he’s still the all-timer when it comes to awful on-court behavior.
Two years ago, Williams threatened a line judge for calling a foot-fault on her during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters. Even though she kept issuing completely insincere non-apologies, The Grand Slam Committee of the International Tennis Federation (one thing you can be sure of in sports: the longer the title the less effective the organization) decided to fine her the grand total of $85,000 and put her on ‘probation.’ One might have thought the Grand Slam Committee had hired the NCAA to advise it on how to penalize people. The penalty was, to quote Mary Carillo, “a joke.”
That Carillo was 100 percent correct was proven again yesterday.
Williams did not play well in the final against Stosur, who has been a talented under-achiever in the game for a long while. After Stosur won the first set Williams immediately faced a break point to start the second set. She hit a forehand winner but as the ball was rocketing away from Stosur she screamed, “come on!”
Under the rules, that is considered a “hindrance,” the theory being her scream could have distracted Stosur as she chased the ball down. What the umpire probably should have done was either warn Williams not to do it again since it was pretty apparent Stosur wasn’t going to get to the ball or play a let—which the rules allow if the umpire thinks the “hindrance,” was accidental—as in someone’s cap flying off or their racquet slipping from their hands and going across the net.
Clearly Williams’ scream was intentional but it wasn’t meant as a hindrance. The umpire, Eva Asderaki, chose to enforce the letter of the law. Williams HAD screamed during the point. She awarded the point—and, thus the game—to Stosur.
Williams went nuts. Among other things she accused Asderaki of being the chair umpire in the Clijsters match—which she wasn’t.
“Are you the one who screwed me over the last time?” she said. “Yeah, you are. Seriously, you have it out for me. That’s not cool. That’s totally not cool.”
The fact that Williams still believes she was “screwed over,” in the Clijsters match tells you all you need to know about her mindset and about how much her ‘apologies,’ meant.
Williams wasn’t finished: “If you ever see me walking down the hall, look the other way. You’re out of control. You’re a hater and you’re unattractive inside…” And: “Code violation for this? I expressed who I am. We’re in America last time I checked.”
For this behavior The USTA and The Grand Slam Committee decided to really punish Williams. On Monday it announced it had fined her—wait for it--$2,000! Then the USTA wrote her a check for $1.4 million--$900,000 for finishing second in the Open; $500,000 for winning the summer U.S. Open series. Boy, they really showed her, huh? Just like they did last time with their ‘probation.’
The weasely excuse was that, because she didn’t use profanity, she hadn’t committed a “major violation.” It is okay to accuse someone (who didn’t) of “screwing you,”; threaten them; call them a hater and claim they “have it out for you.” That’s no big deal. Translation: They didn’t want to fine her for a major violation while she was still on ‘probation,’ because that might have forced them to actually penalize her in a meaningful way.
Can’t have that.
Even Chris Evert, who never has a bad thing to say about anyone publicly, couldn’t believe the fine was so minimal. Now working (sigh) for ESPN, Evert pointed out that Williams had yet to apologize and had refused to shake Asderaki’s hand at the end of the match. “It’s like dinner for Serena Williams,” Evert said of the fine. “When I saw the comments she made my first impression was just stunned. I was so surprised how disrespectful and rude she was.”
Naturally there were other ESPN analyst/enablers there to run to Williams’ side. Pam Shriver, who has become the classic see-no-evil jock apologist told The New York Times not only that she didn’t think what Williams did was a big deal but that—seriously, she said this—Williams might have felt pressure playing in New York on 9-11!
People ask me all the time why I don’t cover tennis so much anymore. This kind of stuff is why. The matches can still be brilliant. But the people around the matches consistently leave me with an awful taste in my mouth. I guess the good news is the next time anyone will pay serious attention to the sport won’t be until next June.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
US Open trip, seeing Bud Collins and should-be commissioner Mary Carillo; Strasburg returns; Upcoming weekly football column
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I know, it’s been a while. Things have been a little hectic plus, to be honest, there hasn’t been any one thing happening in sports the last 10 days or so that has made me want to jump to the keyboard and write.
The New York Times does a great job of covering the U.S. Open tennis tournament. There was a really good piece Tuesday morning written by Greg Bishop on exactly where American tennis is right now. Four American men reached the round of 16 for the first time since 2003—which is the last time an American man won a major title. (Andy Roddick).
Fine.
And Serena Williams is almost certain to win the women’s title, an amazing comeback after being out for almost a year following her foot surgery and the serious scare she got last spring when she ended up in the hospital because of blood clots.
I wish I could get more excited.
I think Serena is an amazing player. God knows how many majors she might have won if she had decided to stay focused on tennis. I don’t fault her for not doing that—she’s got a zillion dollars, she can do whatever she wants—but I have always been bothered by the way she and her sister never give their opponents credit on the rare occasions when they lose a match. And the entire foot-fault incident two years ago was disgusting on every level from Serena’s non-apologies to half-apologies; to her agent literally putting a hand on a TV camera after the match; to the Grand Slam Committee letting her off the hook; to ESPN basically covering up for her at every turn since the incident.
So, if Serena goes on to win as I suspect she will, I will take note of her greatness. But I really won’t care.
Once upon a time I liked Roddick. I especially admired his grace in defeat after his epic loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009. Lately though, as his tennis has slipped, he’s become a pill. The way he behaved during HIS foot-fault incident last year wasn’t as bad as Serena’s but it wasn’t pretty. And he’s now taken to lecturing the media on what it should and should not think and say and write about the state of American tennis.
You want to shut the media up Andy? Win something.
I did make my annual trip to the Open last Wednesday. I got lucky—especially given the weather now—by being there on an absolutely perfect day. I wandered the backcourts for a while and only got into one brief tussle with security people. I was walking into what I thought was an entrance to the new court 17 to take a look at it when a guard—after I was several yards past him—said, ‘hey, this is an exit.’
I turned around and said, “there’s no ‘exit-only,’ sign.”
“Yeah well, I’m telling you it’s an exit.”
I walked out but couldn’t resist another comment. (Hey, it’s who I am). “Tell the USTA to spend 10 bucks on a sign. It will make everyone’s life a little easier.”
All of a sudden a guy in a jacket with a walkie-talkie came hustling over.
“Is there a problem sir?” he said.
“No problem,” I said. “You guys just need to spring for 10 bucks for an exit sign.”
“We don’t need one.”
“Apparently you do.”
I was tempted to stay and jaw with the guy for a while but decided it was too nice a day and I’d made my point. Sort of.
I made my way over to court seven and almost burst out laughing when I saw who was playing.
Ryan Sweeting.
For at least the last three years, maybe four, whenever I have been at the Open, regardless of the day, Ryan Sweeting has been playing on an outside court. I know his game almost as well as I once knew John McEnroe’s game although I’ve never seen him win a match. At least this year he got into the draw on his own and not through a wildcard.
Since it’s become a tradition I sat and watched Sweeting play for a while. He was playing someone named Daniel Istomin, who is from Uzbekistan and looked a lot like a young Miloslav Mecir—minus the beard and the almost mystical softball ground game that players found so baffling. Sweeting actually won the first set but then lost his serve at 4-all in the second and went down quickly after that. I look forward to seeing him again next year.
The highlight of the day—as always—was the chance to see my two favorite tennis people, Bud Collins and Mary Carillo. Bud is 82 now but the pants are loud as ever and he is still cranking out columns for The Boston Globe. He still gets fired up when he sees a young American player flash potential. His only concession to age is sitting in an aisle seat in the press room so he doesn’t have to climb over people getting to and from his seat.
Carillo is, well, Carillo. All kidding aside she should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than everyone running the game and cares about it more than any of them too. There was a story in The Times today about the fact that there are fewer top umpires at the U.S. Open than at any of the other majors because the USTA pay less than the other majors do.
The USTA’s response was to hide: The only person allowed to speak on the subject was the PR guy who basically said, “we’ve got enough good umpires here.”
Sure, because it’s okay to have second-rate umpires working the matches that aren’t at night or on TV right? It’s okay for Ryan Sweeting and Daniel Istomin to have second-rate umpires because they’re on court seven where I’m the only one guaranteed to show up and watch.
If Carillo had been in charge I promise you she would have answered the questions herself and probably would have said, “If that’s the case we need to fix it. We make millions on this tournament every year, we can re-invest a few extra bucks to make the umpiring as high class as possible for EVERY player—not just the glamour guys.
And I guarantee you she’d invest in an exit sign.
Oh, one more thing: For all the talk among the tennis apologists about how wonderful the game is, the only sessions of the Open that sold out were the weekends. The USTA was all but giving away tickets for the weekday and weeknight sessions. This is NOT The Legg Mason Classic, this is a MAJOR championship and they can’t sell it out most days. Not good.
******
Stephen Strasburg came back to pitch for The Washington Nationals on Tuesday a little more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery. Clearly, he hasn’t missed a beat. He was consistently throwing in the high 90s with control—40 strikes in 56 pitches. The kid is a freak. I just wish the Nats weren’t babying him so much on the mound (hell, they babied him last year and he got hurt anyway) and in the clubhouse where one pretty much needs a court order to say ‘hello,’ to Strasburg in anything but a formal press conference setting. He’s 23-years-old and he’s making millions of dollars. Time to start acting like an adult…
I’m going to be writing a weekly football column for The Washington Post this fall on Mondays. Looking forward to seeing all sorts of different games—NOT just the big name teams although I’ll obviously do some of that. This Saturday night I’m going to see Georgetown-Lafayette. (Hey, Patriot League stuff!). Georgetown’s an interesting story: It was forced to upgrade to Division 1-AA a few years back because you can’t have a D-1 basketball team and a D-3 football team. That’s made it tough. Two years ago the Hoyas were winless. Last year they were 4-7. I’m interested to see how much progress they’ve made since a year ago…
You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve tried to resist the urge to take shots at ESPN lately, only because I think people roll their eyes when I do it all the time—not because they don’t deserve it. But I have to ask this question: If Sunday Night Baseball is, as ESPN claims, “baseball’s biggest stage,” just what exactly is The World Series?
I know, it’s been a while. Things have been a little hectic plus, to be honest, there hasn’t been any one thing happening in sports the last 10 days or so that has made me want to jump to the keyboard and write.
The New York Times does a great job of covering the U.S. Open tennis tournament. There was a really good piece Tuesday morning written by Greg Bishop on exactly where American tennis is right now. Four American men reached the round of 16 for the first time since 2003—which is the last time an American man won a major title. (Andy Roddick).
Fine.
And Serena Williams is almost certain to win the women’s title, an amazing comeback after being out for almost a year following her foot surgery and the serious scare she got last spring when she ended up in the hospital because of blood clots.
I wish I could get more excited.
I think Serena is an amazing player. God knows how many majors she might have won if she had decided to stay focused on tennis. I don’t fault her for not doing that—she’s got a zillion dollars, she can do whatever she wants—but I have always been bothered by the way she and her sister never give their opponents credit on the rare occasions when they lose a match. And the entire foot-fault incident two years ago was disgusting on every level from Serena’s non-apologies to half-apologies; to her agent literally putting a hand on a TV camera after the match; to the Grand Slam Committee letting her off the hook; to ESPN basically covering up for her at every turn since the incident.
So, if Serena goes on to win as I suspect she will, I will take note of her greatness. But I really won’t care.
Once upon a time I liked Roddick. I especially admired his grace in defeat after his epic loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009. Lately though, as his tennis has slipped, he’s become a pill. The way he behaved during HIS foot-fault incident last year wasn’t as bad as Serena’s but it wasn’t pretty. And he’s now taken to lecturing the media on what it should and should not think and say and write about the state of American tennis.
You want to shut the media up Andy? Win something.
I did make my annual trip to the Open last Wednesday. I got lucky—especially given the weather now—by being there on an absolutely perfect day. I wandered the backcourts for a while and only got into one brief tussle with security people. I was walking into what I thought was an entrance to the new court 17 to take a look at it when a guard—after I was several yards past him—said, ‘hey, this is an exit.’
I turned around and said, “there’s no ‘exit-only,’ sign.”
“Yeah well, I’m telling you it’s an exit.”
I walked out but couldn’t resist another comment. (Hey, it’s who I am). “Tell the USTA to spend 10 bucks on a sign. It will make everyone’s life a little easier.”
All of a sudden a guy in a jacket with a walkie-talkie came hustling over.
“Is there a problem sir?” he said.
“No problem,” I said. “You guys just need to spring for 10 bucks for an exit sign.”
“We don’t need one.”
“Apparently you do.”
I was tempted to stay and jaw with the guy for a while but decided it was too nice a day and I’d made my point. Sort of.
I made my way over to court seven and almost burst out laughing when I saw who was playing.
Ryan Sweeting.
For at least the last three years, maybe four, whenever I have been at the Open, regardless of the day, Ryan Sweeting has been playing on an outside court. I know his game almost as well as I once knew John McEnroe’s game although I’ve never seen him win a match. At least this year he got into the draw on his own and not through a wildcard.
Since it’s become a tradition I sat and watched Sweeting play for a while. He was playing someone named Daniel Istomin, who is from Uzbekistan and looked a lot like a young Miloslav Mecir—minus the beard and the almost mystical softball ground game that players found so baffling. Sweeting actually won the first set but then lost his serve at 4-all in the second and went down quickly after that. I look forward to seeing him again next year.
The highlight of the day—as always—was the chance to see my two favorite tennis people, Bud Collins and Mary Carillo. Bud is 82 now but the pants are loud as ever and he is still cranking out columns for The Boston Globe. He still gets fired up when he sees a young American player flash potential. His only concession to age is sitting in an aisle seat in the press room so he doesn’t have to climb over people getting to and from his seat.
Carillo is, well, Carillo. All kidding aside she should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than everyone running the game and cares about it more than any of them too. There was a story in The Times today about the fact that there are fewer top umpires at the U.S. Open than at any of the other majors because the USTA pay less than the other majors do.
The USTA’s response was to hide: The only person allowed to speak on the subject was the PR guy who basically said, “we’ve got enough good umpires here.”
Sure, because it’s okay to have second-rate umpires working the matches that aren’t at night or on TV right? It’s okay for Ryan Sweeting and Daniel Istomin to have second-rate umpires because they’re on court seven where I’m the only one guaranteed to show up and watch.
If Carillo had been in charge I promise you she would have answered the questions herself and probably would have said, “If that’s the case we need to fix it. We make millions on this tournament every year, we can re-invest a few extra bucks to make the umpiring as high class as possible for EVERY player—not just the glamour guys.
And I guarantee you she’d invest in an exit sign.
Oh, one more thing: For all the talk among the tennis apologists about how wonderful the game is, the only sessions of the Open that sold out were the weekends. The USTA was all but giving away tickets for the weekday and weeknight sessions. This is NOT The Legg Mason Classic, this is a MAJOR championship and they can’t sell it out most days. Not good.
******
Stephen Strasburg came back to pitch for The Washington Nationals on Tuesday a little more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery. Clearly, he hasn’t missed a beat. He was consistently throwing in the high 90s with control—40 strikes in 56 pitches. The kid is a freak. I just wish the Nats weren’t babying him so much on the mound (hell, they babied him last year and he got hurt anyway) and in the clubhouse where one pretty much needs a court order to say ‘hello,’ to Strasburg in anything but a formal press conference setting. He’s 23-years-old and he’s making millions of dollars. Time to start acting like an adult…
I’m going to be writing a weekly football column for The Washington Post this fall on Mondays. Looking forward to seeing all sorts of different games—NOT just the big name teams although I’ll obviously do some of that. This Saturday night I’m going to see Georgetown-Lafayette. (Hey, Patriot League stuff!). Georgetown’s an interesting story: It was forced to upgrade to Division 1-AA a few years back because you can’t have a D-1 basketball team and a D-3 football team. That’s made it tough. Two years ago the Hoyas were winless. Last year they were 4-7. I’m interested to see how much progress they’ve made since a year ago…
You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve tried to resist the urge to take shots at ESPN lately, only because I think people roll their eyes when I do it all the time—not because they don’t deserve it. But I have to ask this question: If Sunday Night Baseball is, as ESPN claims, “baseball’s biggest stage,” just what exactly is The World Series?
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Tennis’s downfall amid the current dearth of American stars; Shame on me for tuning to ESPN Radio this morning
Two days ago I was getting ready to make my weekly appearance on “Washington Post Live,” which airs locally on Comcast SportsNet.
I enjoy doing the show and like the people I work with on it—both in front of and behind the camera. My only complaint—as with just about all media outlets in Washington—is the Redskins obsession. Every day of the year—not the season, the YEAR, there is a required, sponsored (of course) Redskins segment.
On Tuesday, Ivan Carter who hosts the show was going through the show rundown with me and with Charlie Casserly, who was the other guest that day. Since it was the day after Maryland-Navy and Boise State-Virginia Tech, there was a segment on those games. There was, of course, the Redskins segment and another on the NFL and a separate segment (God help us all) on Albert Haynseworth. Finally, Ivan brought up the last segment, which is called, ‘leftovers,’ quick items, quick comments on each.
One was that day’s Ryder Cup selections. There were two other football issues that were relevant. Finally, he said, “And Randy Moss is unhappy because he doesn’t think the Patriots are going to offer him a new deal at the end of the year.”
Really? Randy Moss is unhappy? Randy Moss wants a new contract? Has he left camp? No. Is he threatening to leave camp? No. He just says he doesn’t think the Patriots want him back. Well, that’s film at-11-stuff isn’t it? Moss is 33 and wants one last big contract AT THE END OF THE YEAR and this is news?
Of course it isn’t. So, I suggested instead we talk briefly about Patrick McEnroe stepping down as Davis Cup captain after 10 years and the fact that—in my opinion—Jim Courier should succeed him.
Ivan looked at me blankly. “You’re kidding? You think anyone cares about that?”
Casserly shook his head and said, “John, I work for CBS and they televise the (U.S.) Open but seriously, it’s TENNIS.”
I knew they weren’t wrong. I argued briefly that the show was already full of football and what was wrong with talking about tennis for THIRTY SECONDS?
I lost the argument.
Which, of course, gets back to what I keep saying over and over again: tennis has become nothing more than a niche sport. Even with the hours and hours of airtime ESPN is giving the Open, I’m not sure anyone other than Bud Collins and my friend Tom Ross is paying any attention. As I said last week, I’m SURE the USTA will announce record attendance and there will be all sorts of happy talk about how great the sport is doing but if anyone inside the sport every poked their head into Comcast Sports Net—or almost anywhere else—for a minute, they might be in for a rude awakening.
I am now firmly convinced that while some of this has to do with the sport’s complete mismanagement at the top—the people who run tennis remind me of something Lefty Driesell once said about one of this athletic directors: ‘the man could screw up a one-car funeral,’—it also has a LOT to do with the current dearth of American stars.
Oh sure, there are the Williams sisters on the women’s side but they simply don’t move the meter outside the tennis bubble. I once thought some of this might be racial but Tiger Woods has proven me wrong on that. We are (Thank God) finally at the point where most people don’t care what color you are as long as you can play and you can entertain them.
What’s more, the Williams’s have been around a long time now. People are always looking for the next thing, which is why there was so much swooning last year when Melanie Oudin made the quarterfinals. There’s also the grunting factor—especially with Venus. This may reflect a personal bias but the grunting/screaming makes me crazy. It is why, even though she can play and she’s gorgeous, I can’t watch Maria Sharapova play unless it is on TV and I can hit the mute button.
It may also have something to do with the fact that neither Williams sister has ever given an opponent credit after a loss.
Who knows? On the men’s side, there’s no one close to being as good as Venus or Serena. The current crop of American men have won ONE major—Andy Roddick’s 2003 U.S. Open. Roddick is now 28 and looks like he’s beginning to fade. James Blake, who never made it out of a quarterfinal at a major, has been beaten up by injuries. Mardy Fish has bloomed late into a top 20 player but no one thinks he’s going to win anything big and Sam Querrey has shown some promise but blew a serious chance to make the Open quarters. The new hot kid is Ryan Harrison, who won his first round match at the Open before blowing three match points and losing a fifth set tiebreak in the second round.
Then he walked off without signing any autographs for any kids or acknowledging the crowd which had cheered him on every point. Sounds like he’ll fit right in as a tennis player.
The point is this: The sport needs American stars. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are great champions and, apparently, pretty good guys. (I always believe Mary Carillo on these matters). But they don’t push the non-tennis-geek meter at all the way Tiger pushes the non-golf-geek meter off the charts or even a little bit. There have to be U.S. stars—real STARS—in both tennis and golf. Golf has plenty of them, tennis, right now, has none.
I’m not saying an American star would fix the ills of the game and the way it’s run but it would be a big step in the right direction. It might even get the sport 30 seconds of time on ‘Washington Post Live.’
*****
I know I am a broken record not just sometimes but often on certain subjects—one being just how bad ESPN can be. It can also be good—like whenever anyone named McEnroe is talking about tennis or when Mike Tirico or Mike Patrick are doing play-by-play. And I like PTI whether I’m fighting with the hosts or not fighting with the hosts.
But the radio stuff is brutal—so shame on me for ever listening. That said, this morning I was en route to the pool when The Junkies went to a fantasy segment (I’d drive into a tree before I’d listen to that) and my two music stations were doing traffic and weather. I took a deep breath and turned to ESPN’s morning pitchmen (seriously, is there ANYTHING they don’t sell?).
They were trying to be funny. I should have gotten out while I still could. After they had made their NFL picks—or some of them, I really don’t know—they announced that next they were going to share with us the picks of their producer’s mother. This has become fairly common shtick on sports talk radio, having mothers or grandmothers or nuns make picks. It peaked four years ago when Tony Kornheiser’s producer’s mother picked George Mason to make The Final Four—and the Patriots made it.
What allegedly made THIS funny is that the producer is British—as is his mother. So, they played back tape of her picking The Browns in the AFC North—“I’ve never heard of them so why not?” (wow is THAT funny or what?) and asking her son if picking a 15-9 score in the Super Bowl was okay.
It was cringe-worthy and un-funny. That’s fine—that’s pretty much what that show is. I would love to hear though how smart the two pitchmen would sound if, say, someone called and asked them to analyze the cases The Supreme Court is going to take on when it goes into session this fall or make state-by-state predictions on the upcoming midterm elections.
That aside though, THIS is what killed me. “She’s WAY into the Jack Daniels at this time of the morning,” one said. “Oh yeah, the other said, probably on her second fifth.”
Really? First, she didn’t sound drunk at all to me. She just sounded like someone who didn’t know football and played along with a joke for her son’s sake. Second, if she WAS drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning or ANY morning (as they implied she was) that’s funny? Seriously? Making fun of someone’s clothes merits a two-week suspension but calling someone a drunk on the air, that’s funny.
Boy do I not get ESPN. Thank God for that.
I enjoy doing the show and like the people I work with on it—both in front of and behind the camera. My only complaint—as with just about all media outlets in Washington—is the Redskins obsession. Every day of the year—not the season, the YEAR, there is a required, sponsored (of course) Redskins segment.
On Tuesday, Ivan Carter who hosts the show was going through the show rundown with me and with Charlie Casserly, who was the other guest that day. Since it was the day after Maryland-Navy and Boise State-Virginia Tech, there was a segment on those games. There was, of course, the Redskins segment and another on the NFL and a separate segment (God help us all) on Albert Haynseworth. Finally, Ivan brought up the last segment, which is called, ‘leftovers,’ quick items, quick comments on each.
One was that day’s Ryder Cup selections. There were two other football issues that were relevant. Finally, he said, “And Randy Moss is unhappy because he doesn’t think the Patriots are going to offer him a new deal at the end of the year.”
Really? Randy Moss is unhappy? Randy Moss wants a new contract? Has he left camp? No. Is he threatening to leave camp? No. He just says he doesn’t think the Patriots want him back. Well, that’s film at-11-stuff isn’t it? Moss is 33 and wants one last big contract AT THE END OF THE YEAR and this is news?
Of course it isn’t. So, I suggested instead we talk briefly about Patrick McEnroe stepping down as Davis Cup captain after 10 years and the fact that—in my opinion—Jim Courier should succeed him.
Ivan looked at me blankly. “You’re kidding? You think anyone cares about that?”
Casserly shook his head and said, “John, I work for CBS and they televise the (U.S.) Open but seriously, it’s TENNIS.”
I knew they weren’t wrong. I argued briefly that the show was already full of football and what was wrong with talking about tennis for THIRTY SECONDS?
I lost the argument.
Which, of course, gets back to what I keep saying over and over again: tennis has become nothing more than a niche sport. Even with the hours and hours of airtime ESPN is giving the Open, I’m not sure anyone other than Bud Collins and my friend Tom Ross is paying any attention. As I said last week, I’m SURE the USTA will announce record attendance and there will be all sorts of happy talk about how great the sport is doing but if anyone inside the sport every poked their head into Comcast Sports Net—or almost anywhere else—for a minute, they might be in for a rude awakening.
I am now firmly convinced that while some of this has to do with the sport’s complete mismanagement at the top—the people who run tennis remind me of something Lefty Driesell once said about one of this athletic directors: ‘the man could screw up a one-car funeral,’—it also has a LOT to do with the current dearth of American stars.
Oh sure, there are the Williams sisters on the women’s side but they simply don’t move the meter outside the tennis bubble. I once thought some of this might be racial but Tiger Woods has proven me wrong on that. We are (Thank God) finally at the point where most people don’t care what color you are as long as you can play and you can entertain them.
What’s more, the Williams’s have been around a long time now. People are always looking for the next thing, which is why there was so much swooning last year when Melanie Oudin made the quarterfinals. There’s also the grunting factor—especially with Venus. This may reflect a personal bias but the grunting/screaming makes me crazy. It is why, even though she can play and she’s gorgeous, I can’t watch Maria Sharapova play unless it is on TV and I can hit the mute button.
It may also have something to do with the fact that neither Williams sister has ever given an opponent credit after a loss.
Who knows? On the men’s side, there’s no one close to being as good as Venus or Serena. The current crop of American men have won ONE major—Andy Roddick’s 2003 U.S. Open. Roddick is now 28 and looks like he’s beginning to fade. James Blake, who never made it out of a quarterfinal at a major, has been beaten up by injuries. Mardy Fish has bloomed late into a top 20 player but no one thinks he’s going to win anything big and Sam Querrey has shown some promise but blew a serious chance to make the Open quarters. The new hot kid is Ryan Harrison, who won his first round match at the Open before blowing three match points and losing a fifth set tiebreak in the second round.
Then he walked off without signing any autographs for any kids or acknowledging the crowd which had cheered him on every point. Sounds like he’ll fit right in as a tennis player.
The point is this: The sport needs American stars. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are great champions and, apparently, pretty good guys. (I always believe Mary Carillo on these matters). But they don’t push the non-tennis-geek meter at all the way Tiger pushes the non-golf-geek meter off the charts or even a little bit. There have to be U.S. stars—real STARS—in both tennis and golf. Golf has plenty of them, tennis, right now, has none.
I’m not saying an American star would fix the ills of the game and the way it’s run but it would be a big step in the right direction. It might even get the sport 30 seconds of time on ‘Washington Post Live.’
*****
I know I am a broken record not just sometimes but often on certain subjects—one being just how bad ESPN can be. It can also be good—like whenever anyone named McEnroe is talking about tennis or when Mike Tirico or Mike Patrick are doing play-by-play. And I like PTI whether I’m fighting with the hosts or not fighting with the hosts.
But the radio stuff is brutal—so shame on me for ever listening. That said, this morning I was en route to the pool when The Junkies went to a fantasy segment (I’d drive into a tree before I’d listen to that) and my two music stations were doing traffic and weather. I took a deep breath and turned to ESPN’s morning pitchmen (seriously, is there ANYTHING they don’t sell?).
They were trying to be funny. I should have gotten out while I still could. After they had made their NFL picks—or some of them, I really don’t know—they announced that next they were going to share with us the picks of their producer’s mother. This has become fairly common shtick on sports talk radio, having mothers or grandmothers or nuns make picks. It peaked four years ago when Tony Kornheiser’s producer’s mother picked George Mason to make The Final Four—and the Patriots made it.
What allegedly made THIS funny is that the producer is British—as is his mother. So, they played back tape of her picking The Browns in the AFC North—“I’ve never heard of them so why not?” (wow is THAT funny or what?) and asking her son if picking a 15-9 score in the Super Bowl was okay.
It was cringe-worthy and un-funny. That’s fine—that’s pretty much what that show is. I would love to hear though how smart the two pitchmen would sound if, say, someone called and asked them to analyze the cases The Supreme Court is going to take on when it goes into session this fall or make state-by-state predictions on the upcoming midterm elections.
That aside though, THIS is what killed me. “She’s WAY into the Jack Daniels at this time of the morning,” one said. “Oh yeah, the other said, probably on her second fifth.”
Really? First, she didn’t sound drunk at all to me. She just sounded like someone who didn’t know football and played along with a joke for her son’s sake. Second, if she WAS drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning or ANY morning (as they implied she was) that’s funny? Seriously? Making fun of someone’s clothes merits a two-week suspension but calling someone a drunk on the air, that’s funny.
Boy do I not get ESPN. Thank God for that.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tennis - a niche sport with the inmates (players) running the asylum; ESPN is at it again
There was a brief story in this morning’s New York Times about Serena Williams complaining following her first round match at The Australian Open about the $92,000 fine she received after last year’s U.S. Open for screaming at and physically threatening a lineswoman during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters.
If you want to know why so few people in this country care about tennis anymore this is EXACTLY the reason why.
Think about it: In any other sport if an athlete threatened an umpire, a referee or any official the only question would be how long they would be suspended for not IF they would be suspended. The Grand Slam Committee, which administers tennis’s four major championships took months to even make a decision about how to punish Williams and when it finally did she was, for all intents and purposes, let off the hook.
The ONLY way to get the attention of a multi-millionaire athlete is to take away the one thing that matters from them: the ability to compete. Tiger Woods had been fined more than any golfer in PGA Tour history for his profanity, for his club-throwing, for the behavior of his caddy. Not only have the fines not been a deterrent on any level Woods has actually defended his caddy for throwing people’s cameras and screaming his own profanities at people he thinks aren’t behaving properly in the presence of King Eldrick 1.
To fine Serena Williams $92,000 wasn’t just a wrist slap it was a light wrist slap.
Just to review what occurred: A lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams when she was serving to stay in the match in the second set. It was, without question, a critical call and the kind of call rarely made at such a moment. I have yet to see a replay that shows one way or the other whether the foot fault was so blatant that it shouldn’t have been called.
Regardless, Williams went completely ballistic, screaming at the lineswoman while walking towards her menacingly holding a ball in her hand and threatening to shove it down her throat. For this she received (properly) a warning that involved a point penalty. Since the foot fault put her at match point that was it—match over.
It was a terrible way for a great match to end. No one seems to know if it was a good call, a bad call a borderline call. Doesn’t matter. There was no excuse for Williams doing what she did. To make it worse she was, for all intents and purposes, un-apologetic for two days. She issued a non-apology/apology on Sunday that was so un-gracious and insincere (nice work by her agents there, huh?) that she had to issue another apology on Monday for the apology.
The ONLY way to punish her was a suspension. But it wasn’t going to happen. She’s the best female tennis player in the world and she and her sister Venus are still the two top draws in the women’s game—especially on television. Williams and her arrogant agents knew this, they knew she wasn’t getting suspended under any circumstances because the people who run the four Slams would go crazy if she was suspended for any one of them and the TV people would go crazier.
So she was fined what amounts to a token amount of money for someone in her tax bracket and given one of those stern, “don’t do it again,” warnings. As in, “if you do this again we’re REALLY going to get mad.”
Then, having been let off the hook, Williams turns around and whines she was fined too much money. She even said she thought the fine might have been as high as it was because she’s a woman. PLEASE, I’m begging you, SHUT UP. If The Grand Slam Committee had any backbone at all, the would say, ‘okay, that’s it, we let you off without a suspension contingent on good behavior—this isn’t good behavior, you’re out of The French Open.’
That, of course, will happen the same day that I’m inducted into The Duke Sports Hall of Fame. (For those of you who don’t know my relationship with Duke that would be on the Twelfth of Never).
This is why tennis has become a niche sport with TV ratings slightly higher than hockey—or maybe not quite as high during non-Grand Slam events. There are no rules for the stars. For years appearance fees were supposed to be against the rules and the rules were never enforced. When Marshall Happer was chairman of the now defunct Men’s Tennis Council he tried ONCE to enforce the rule on Guillermo Vilas and basically got himself fired for his trouble. Now, the rules are such that most tournaments are allowed to pay appearance fees that basically make tennis into a never-ending exhibition season except during the four majors.
The players are so spoiled by promoters and so coddled by their agents that it is almost impossible to like them. Roger Federer is a good guy but when his business buddy Woods showed up at the U.S. Open final a couple years ago for what was, in truth, a Nike photo-op, he disappeared into a private room with Woods for 45 minutes after the final and no one had the nerve to go in and say, “Roger, you just won the U.S. Open how about coming in and spending 10 minutes with the media.” (which by RULE every player is supposed to do when requested).
Nope, can’t do that, can’t ask one of the stars to simply follow the rules.
Every time I bring this up the tennis people go crazy. The people running the game, including my friend Bill Babcock who runs the Grand Slam Committee, start telling me how popular the game is in Europe or in Australia. Guess what Bill that makes tennis into soccer—a niche sport in the country that matters most in sports. That may sound chauvinistic but it’s true. And please don’t cite U.S. Open attendance figures to me either. The USTA is practically flagging people down on The Grand Central Parkway (okay, I’ve use that line before) to get them to buy tickets prior to the final weekend. Once upon a time you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal an Open ticket.
Heck, The Davis Cup, which is often the most dramatic event in tennis, isn’t even on live TV (The Tennis Channel doesn’t count folks, it is watched by the same 14 people every day) anymore.
Tennis at its best is still great to watch. Federer-Roddick at Wimbledon was absolutely one of the sports highlights of the year. But the people running the game—or, more accurately not running it—have turned it into a niche sport where the inmates (the players) have been running the asylum for years.
Which is truly a shame.
--------------------------------
I know I take shots at ESPN a lot (usually with good reason) but seriously how much hubris does it take to do something like this hokey, ‘announcer swap,’ they’re doing tonight? I mean seriously WHO CARES?
ESPN honestly believes who their announcers are a bigger deal than the games being played. What difference does it make if Dick Vitale is screaming about the NBA or the NCAA—or for that matter women’s basketball which he was doing the other night. So Mike Breen is calling a college game and Dan Shulman—who calls NBA games a lot anyway, right?—is calling an NBA game.
Please. Next thing you know they’ll have college coaches begging their fans to show up for their let’s-hype-ourselves every Saturday show. Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
If you want to know why so few people in this country care about tennis anymore this is EXACTLY the reason why.
Think about it: In any other sport if an athlete threatened an umpire, a referee or any official the only question would be how long they would be suspended for not IF they would be suspended. The Grand Slam Committee, which administers tennis’s four major championships took months to even make a decision about how to punish Williams and when it finally did she was, for all intents and purposes, let off the hook.
The ONLY way to get the attention of a multi-millionaire athlete is to take away the one thing that matters from them: the ability to compete. Tiger Woods had been fined more than any golfer in PGA Tour history for his profanity, for his club-throwing, for the behavior of his caddy. Not only have the fines not been a deterrent on any level Woods has actually defended his caddy for throwing people’s cameras and screaming his own profanities at people he thinks aren’t behaving properly in the presence of King Eldrick 1.
To fine Serena Williams $92,000 wasn’t just a wrist slap it was a light wrist slap.
Just to review what occurred: A lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams when she was serving to stay in the match in the second set. It was, without question, a critical call and the kind of call rarely made at such a moment. I have yet to see a replay that shows one way or the other whether the foot fault was so blatant that it shouldn’t have been called.
Regardless, Williams went completely ballistic, screaming at the lineswoman while walking towards her menacingly holding a ball in her hand and threatening to shove it down her throat. For this she received (properly) a warning that involved a point penalty. Since the foot fault put her at match point that was it—match over.
It was a terrible way for a great match to end. No one seems to know if it was a good call, a bad call a borderline call. Doesn’t matter. There was no excuse for Williams doing what she did. To make it worse she was, for all intents and purposes, un-apologetic for two days. She issued a non-apology/apology on Sunday that was so un-gracious and insincere (nice work by her agents there, huh?) that she had to issue another apology on Monday for the apology.
The ONLY way to punish her was a suspension. But it wasn’t going to happen. She’s the best female tennis player in the world and she and her sister Venus are still the two top draws in the women’s game—especially on television. Williams and her arrogant agents knew this, they knew she wasn’t getting suspended under any circumstances because the people who run the four Slams would go crazy if she was suspended for any one of them and the TV people would go crazier.
So she was fined what amounts to a token amount of money for someone in her tax bracket and given one of those stern, “don’t do it again,” warnings. As in, “if you do this again we’re REALLY going to get mad.”
Then, having been let off the hook, Williams turns around and whines she was fined too much money. She even said she thought the fine might have been as high as it was because she’s a woman. PLEASE, I’m begging you, SHUT UP. If The Grand Slam Committee had any backbone at all, the would say, ‘okay, that’s it, we let you off without a suspension contingent on good behavior—this isn’t good behavior, you’re out of The French Open.’
That, of course, will happen the same day that I’m inducted into The Duke Sports Hall of Fame. (For those of you who don’t know my relationship with Duke that would be on the Twelfth of Never).
This is why tennis has become a niche sport with TV ratings slightly higher than hockey—or maybe not quite as high during non-Grand Slam events. There are no rules for the stars. For years appearance fees were supposed to be against the rules and the rules were never enforced. When Marshall Happer was chairman of the now defunct Men’s Tennis Council he tried ONCE to enforce the rule on Guillermo Vilas and basically got himself fired for his trouble. Now, the rules are such that most tournaments are allowed to pay appearance fees that basically make tennis into a never-ending exhibition season except during the four majors.
The players are so spoiled by promoters and so coddled by their agents that it is almost impossible to like them. Roger Federer is a good guy but when his business buddy Woods showed up at the U.S. Open final a couple years ago for what was, in truth, a Nike photo-op, he disappeared into a private room with Woods for 45 minutes after the final and no one had the nerve to go in and say, “Roger, you just won the U.S. Open how about coming in and spending 10 minutes with the media.” (which by RULE every player is supposed to do when requested).
Nope, can’t do that, can’t ask one of the stars to simply follow the rules.
Every time I bring this up the tennis people go crazy. The people running the game, including my friend Bill Babcock who runs the Grand Slam Committee, start telling me how popular the game is in Europe or in Australia. Guess what Bill that makes tennis into soccer—a niche sport in the country that matters most in sports. That may sound chauvinistic but it’s true. And please don’t cite U.S. Open attendance figures to me either. The USTA is practically flagging people down on The Grand Central Parkway (okay, I’ve use that line before) to get them to buy tickets prior to the final weekend. Once upon a time you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal an Open ticket.
Heck, The Davis Cup, which is often the most dramatic event in tennis, isn’t even on live TV (The Tennis Channel doesn’t count folks, it is watched by the same 14 people every day) anymore.
Tennis at its best is still great to watch. Federer-Roddick at Wimbledon was absolutely one of the sports highlights of the year. But the people running the game—or, more accurately not running it—have turned it into a niche sport where the inmates (the players) have been running the asylum for years.
Which is truly a shame.
--------------------------------
I know I take shots at ESPN a lot (usually with good reason) but seriously how much hubris does it take to do something like this hokey, ‘announcer swap,’ they’re doing tonight? I mean seriously WHO CARES?
ESPN honestly believes who their announcers are a bigger deal than the games being played. What difference does it make if Dick Vitale is screaming about the NBA or the NCAA—or for that matter women’s basketball which he was doing the other night. So Mike Breen is calling a college game and Dan Shulman—who calls NBA games a lot anyway, right?—is calling an NBA game.
Please. Next thing you know they’ll have college coaches begging their fans to show up for their let’s-hype-ourselves every Saturday show. Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Moving on to Notre Dame and Serena Williams, Following a Short Rehash of Yesterday
As I’ve said before, some mornings it is hard to know where to begin.
The biggest story in sports continues to be ‘Tiger-gate.’ Yesterday, to no one’s surprise, he announced he was pulling out of his own tournament—it is really an exhibition since every player collects a big check—because of the injuries he suffered last Friday morning. What’s interesting about that is that his spin-doctors rushed out with a statement on Friday claiming his injuries were, “minor.” Now, four days later he’s too badly hurt to get on a private plane to, at the very least put in an appearance on behalf of the tournament sponsor who is putting up $5.5 million in prize money alone.
Methinks he’s not ready to let anyone see him public.
Let me pause a moment here to go back to yesterday and some of the comments that were posted here. I’m always very curious to see what readers write, especially because they frequently raise questions or issues I hadn’t thought about. Since I started the blog five months ago very few of those who have posted or sent e-mails have been especially negative or angry. In fact, one of the things that has made me happy is the thoughtfulness and, well, smartness of so many of the posts. It isn’t like reading some other blog posting areas where people scream cyber-profanities at one another and toss anonymous cheap shots around.
Yesterday, a lot of the posts were pretty much the norm: smart people agreeing to perhaps disagree on a complicated topic which very much involves how much privacy a public figure is entitled to have. But there were also some that were angry—angry with me for suggesting that Woods owes the public some kind of an explanation because there are so many un-answered questions about what happened last Friday. I also wrote that it would be best for HIM to give some kind of explanation and I think the fact that he had to pull out of his own tournament is more evidence of that. At the moment he is, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in his own home.
What I realized reading the posts is something I hadn’t thought about in the past. I’ve always known that fans of a TEAM don’t care at all about the off-field behavior of their stars as long as they perform. Right now fans of the Yankees could care less about Alex Rodriguez’s steroids admissions last spring. All they know is he (finally) performed in postseason and the Yankees won The World Series. Fans of college football and basketball teams could care less about whether their players graduate: they want them to perform, win games, make them feel good. If you graduate, that’s fine, but it doesn’t matter. No coach—repeat NO coach—has ever been fired because he had a low graduation rate.
Woods is such a transcendent figure that many fans look at him as THEIR golfer. As a number of posts said, “as long as he entertains me with spectacular golf, I don’t care what he does off the course.” (At least one poster spelled it coarse, but that’s okay). A couple of others went the kind of tired route that those of us who report on athletes transgressions are essentially ambulance chasers and we should leave the guy alone, mind our own business, yata-yata-yata. My suggestion to them is that they not waste their time with this blog because what I write here for the most part is about people I know and have known in sports, the good and the bad. If you are looking for happy talk, go to TigerWoods.com.
Here’s the larger point: In the end most fans just want athletes to perform, to make them feel happy by winning and, in Tiger’s case, often winning spectacularly. I get all that, I have a better understanding of that today than I did yesterday because I hadn’t thought of it in those terms for an athlete in an individual sport.
I will say this: Golf Channel had a crisis-management expert on the air yesterday, a guy who clearly has no vested interest in this at all. He basically said what I had said: the longer Tiger stonewalls, the worse it gets for him—because there are LOTS of people who see a carefully cultivated image and wonder now if it’s real. That’s not going away regardless of what I say, write or think. I would add one more thing for those of you who care only about what Tiger does on the golf course: He’s not ON the golf course entertaining you this week. It may be because he’s more beat up than his people let on last Friday or it may be because he’s hiding out. Either way, it’s really too damn bad for everyone—including Tiger.
-----------------------
On to happier topics: Charlie Weis got fired yesterday. That wasn’t even a little bit of a surprise to anyone but it always amuses me how guys in suits think they can spin things just by claiming they’re true. Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, who does look good in a suit, talked about how difficult the decision was because Weis is really such a good guy. “I have never met anyone for whom there was a larger gulf between perception and reality than Charlie Weis,” he claimed and then went into all the hoo-ha about how much Weis loves Notre Dame—as if that qualifies ANYONE to coach. I love the New York Islanders. That doesn’t mean I should coach them.
Here’s some Weis reality: he swaggered into Notre Dame telling people he was going to out-scheme other coaches and bullying the media, using his opening press conference to “lay down the law,” on what would and wouldn’t be allowed and threatening reporters with banishment if they failed to follow all his rules.
More reality: he never once took responsibility for his failures. It was always the players who failed to run a route right, didn’t make a block or a tackle. The old, “I coached good, they played bad,” routine. When Notre Dame won it was because of some brilliant offensive scheme he came up with. (See last year’s Hawaii Bowl).
A bit more reality: Weis ducked the media after the Stanford game last Saturday, wasn’t man enough to stand there and accept that he had failed. Actually, it may be a good thing: no doubt he would have blamed the players for his failures. Then he went out and started leaking about all the NFL teams that were interested in him.
THAT’s the reality of Charlie Weis.
What was almost as amusing was to hear the two morning guys on ESPN apologizing for him today. Of course one has two sons recruited by Weis and is an apologist for all things Notre Dame. The other is simply an apologist for anyone who has ever appeared on-air so it really isn’t surprising.
Weis got what he deserved—except for the fact that Notre Dame still has to pay him $18 million. That part is just sad.
------------------
One last note for the day: In a major non-surprise the folks who run the tennis Grand Slams yesterday fined Serena Williams $82,500 for her outburst at a lineswoman during the U.S. Open and gave her a stern talking to: as in, ‘do this again and you could be suspended.’
Yeah, right.
Let me allow my pal Mary Carillo, who is more worthy to comment on this than I am (or anyone else) explain exactly what happened. This is what she wrote in an e-mail yesterday to The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke:
“Serena Williams physically threatened and verbally assaulted an official during one of the most watched tennis matches of 2009 and after three months of considered cogitation the Grand Slam Committee came up with ‘Grand Slam Probation and a ‘suspended ban?’ And half of what was deemed to be her fine? Boy, that ought to show everyone.”
Carillo’s summation: “It was a cockamamie decision.”
Mary grew up in Queens with John McEnroe. She knows a “you can NOT be serious,” situation when she sees one. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Mary should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than every person with authority in the game—smarter than all of them combined.
The biggest story in sports continues to be ‘Tiger-gate.’ Yesterday, to no one’s surprise, he announced he was pulling out of his own tournament—it is really an exhibition since every player collects a big check—because of the injuries he suffered last Friday morning. What’s interesting about that is that his spin-doctors rushed out with a statement on Friday claiming his injuries were, “minor.” Now, four days later he’s too badly hurt to get on a private plane to, at the very least put in an appearance on behalf of the tournament sponsor who is putting up $5.5 million in prize money alone.
Methinks he’s not ready to let anyone see him public.
Let me pause a moment here to go back to yesterday and some of the comments that were posted here. I’m always very curious to see what readers write, especially because they frequently raise questions or issues I hadn’t thought about. Since I started the blog five months ago very few of those who have posted or sent e-mails have been especially negative or angry. In fact, one of the things that has made me happy is the thoughtfulness and, well, smartness of so many of the posts. It isn’t like reading some other blog posting areas where people scream cyber-profanities at one another and toss anonymous cheap shots around.
Yesterday, a lot of the posts were pretty much the norm: smart people agreeing to perhaps disagree on a complicated topic which very much involves how much privacy a public figure is entitled to have. But there were also some that were angry—angry with me for suggesting that Woods owes the public some kind of an explanation because there are so many un-answered questions about what happened last Friday. I also wrote that it would be best for HIM to give some kind of explanation and I think the fact that he had to pull out of his own tournament is more evidence of that. At the moment he is, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner in his own home.
What I realized reading the posts is something I hadn’t thought about in the past. I’ve always known that fans of a TEAM don’t care at all about the off-field behavior of their stars as long as they perform. Right now fans of the Yankees could care less about Alex Rodriguez’s steroids admissions last spring. All they know is he (finally) performed in postseason and the Yankees won The World Series. Fans of college football and basketball teams could care less about whether their players graduate: they want them to perform, win games, make them feel good. If you graduate, that’s fine, but it doesn’t matter. No coach—repeat NO coach—has ever been fired because he had a low graduation rate.
Woods is such a transcendent figure that many fans look at him as THEIR golfer. As a number of posts said, “as long as he entertains me with spectacular golf, I don’t care what he does off the course.” (At least one poster spelled it coarse, but that’s okay). A couple of others went the kind of tired route that those of us who report on athletes transgressions are essentially ambulance chasers and we should leave the guy alone, mind our own business, yata-yata-yata. My suggestion to them is that they not waste their time with this blog because what I write here for the most part is about people I know and have known in sports, the good and the bad. If you are looking for happy talk, go to TigerWoods.com.
Here’s the larger point: In the end most fans just want athletes to perform, to make them feel happy by winning and, in Tiger’s case, often winning spectacularly. I get all that, I have a better understanding of that today than I did yesterday because I hadn’t thought of it in those terms for an athlete in an individual sport.
I will say this: Golf Channel had a crisis-management expert on the air yesterday, a guy who clearly has no vested interest in this at all. He basically said what I had said: the longer Tiger stonewalls, the worse it gets for him—because there are LOTS of people who see a carefully cultivated image and wonder now if it’s real. That’s not going away regardless of what I say, write or think. I would add one more thing for those of you who care only about what Tiger does on the golf course: He’s not ON the golf course entertaining you this week. It may be because he’s more beat up than his people let on last Friday or it may be because he’s hiding out. Either way, it’s really too damn bad for everyone—including Tiger.
-----------------------
On to happier topics: Charlie Weis got fired yesterday. That wasn’t even a little bit of a surprise to anyone but it always amuses me how guys in suits think they can spin things just by claiming they’re true. Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick, who does look good in a suit, talked about how difficult the decision was because Weis is really such a good guy. “I have never met anyone for whom there was a larger gulf between perception and reality than Charlie Weis,” he claimed and then went into all the hoo-ha about how much Weis loves Notre Dame—as if that qualifies ANYONE to coach. I love the New York Islanders. That doesn’t mean I should coach them.
Here’s some Weis reality: he swaggered into Notre Dame telling people he was going to out-scheme other coaches and bullying the media, using his opening press conference to “lay down the law,” on what would and wouldn’t be allowed and threatening reporters with banishment if they failed to follow all his rules.
More reality: he never once took responsibility for his failures. It was always the players who failed to run a route right, didn’t make a block or a tackle. The old, “I coached good, they played bad,” routine. When Notre Dame won it was because of some brilliant offensive scheme he came up with. (See last year’s Hawaii Bowl).
A bit more reality: Weis ducked the media after the Stanford game last Saturday, wasn’t man enough to stand there and accept that he had failed. Actually, it may be a good thing: no doubt he would have blamed the players for his failures. Then he went out and started leaking about all the NFL teams that were interested in him.
THAT’s the reality of Charlie Weis.
What was almost as amusing was to hear the two morning guys on ESPN apologizing for him today. Of course one has two sons recruited by Weis and is an apologist for all things Notre Dame. The other is simply an apologist for anyone who has ever appeared on-air so it really isn’t surprising.
Weis got what he deserved—except for the fact that Notre Dame still has to pay him $18 million. That part is just sad.
------------------
One last note for the day: In a major non-surprise the folks who run the tennis Grand Slams yesterday fined Serena Williams $82,500 for her outburst at a lineswoman during the U.S. Open and gave her a stern talking to: as in, ‘do this again and you could be suspended.’
Yeah, right.
Let me allow my pal Mary Carillo, who is more worthy to comment on this than I am (or anyone else) explain exactly what happened. This is what she wrote in an e-mail yesterday to The Washington Post’s Liz Clarke:
“Serena Williams physically threatened and verbally assaulted an official during one of the most watched tennis matches of 2009 and after three months of considered cogitation the Grand Slam Committee came up with ‘Grand Slam Probation and a ‘suspended ban?’ And half of what was deemed to be her fine? Boy, that ought to show everyone.”
Carillo’s summation: “It was a cockamamie decision.”
Mary grew up in Queens with John McEnroe. She knows a “you can NOT be serious,” situation when she sees one. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Mary should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than every person with authority in the game—smarter than all of them combined.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
John's Appearance on 'The Sports Reporters' Today
I made an appearance on 'The Sports Reporters' today with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in my regular spot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment today which included pointed discussions on Serena Williams and Michael Jordan.
Click here for the radio segment: The Sports Reporters podcast
Click here for the radio segment: The Sports Reporters podcast
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Living in the Land of Never Wrong
I just don't understand why it is so difficult for people--especially famous ones--to say two little words: "I'm sorry."
Every single one of us makes mistakes in life. No one knows that better than I do. When you write as often as I do, you're going to make mistakes--sometimes from a faulty memory; sometimes from a pure mind block; sometimes from not doing enough research. The other day in this blog I somehow wrote that the Yankees last won a World Series in 2001. How that happened I don't know but it did. I'm sorry.
Four years ago, doing a Navy radio broadcast of a game at Duke I became so frustrated with the incompetence of the officials that, after a clear push-off by a Duke player on a two-point conversion try that tied the game I heard someone say, "------ referees!: There was no seven second delay and when I looked around the booth to see who had lost their composure and realized everyone was staring at me. What a sick feeling that was. I took myself off the air, told the Navy people what had happened and offered to resign on the spot. Both Chet Gladchuk and Eric Ruden--the athletic director and senior associate AD--said absolutely not. We agreed I would go back on and apologize. I remember Eric saying, "you're right to apologize. Do it and that will be the end of it."
"I'll apologize Eric," I said. "But I guarantee you that won't be the end of it."
I apologized--no, "if I offended anybody," clauses; nothing about how lousy the officiating had been (Paul Johnson, the WINNING coach in the game was so angry when it was over he chased the officials off the field) or anything like that. Just, "I'm sorry," which I was. There was no excuse for what had happened.
The Navy people were amazing about the whole thing. I was right that my apology wasn't the end of it. There were calls from the media all week. Would I be suspended? No, said Ruden to all callers. "John made a mistake. He took himself off the air and apologized instantly. That's enough."
I have now done Navy football games for 13 years. To this day I get cracks about, "did you get through the broadcast without using profanity this week?" I've written 25 books and there is more in my Wikipedia bio on the incident at Duke than on the books. The other day when Serena Williams lost her mind at the U.S. Open some clever guy e-mailed my friend Tony Kornheiser's radio show asking if I had given Serena lessons in how to use profanity. To be honest, the fact that Tony read it on the air annoys me. But you know what? It's my fault because I did it. No one else is responsible.
Which leads me back to Serena Williams. I have no idea what the lineswoman was thinking at such a crucial juncture when she called a foot-fault (and thus, a double-fault) on Williams when she was down a set and 5-6, 15-30 against Kim Clijsters in the U.S. Open semifinals Saturday night. The fact that the USTA is refusing to release her name is ridiculous. She's out there on court, she's being paid (not quite as much as the players) she should take responsibility for all her calls and explain what she was thinking--or not thinking--at that moment.
But that's not what's important. Williams' reaction to the call is what's important. She lost her mind. Look, bad calls happen in sports. You can argue, you can ask the umpire to overrule (in tennis) or to ask the lineswoman if she's absolutely sure or ask to play a let. But once you lose the argument you can NOT threaten the umpire while screaming profanities at her. You can't say ------ referees and you can't threaten to shove a tennis ball down someone's throat.
In fact, if the incident had happened earlier in the match the officials would have been justified in calling "gross misconduct," on Williams and defaulting her on the spot. As it was, they gave her a point penalty since it was her second violation of the match (smashed racquet earlier) and that meant game, set, match to Clijsters who was probably the most stunned person in the stadium.
Okay, Williams made a mistake. I can certainly relate. She's going to be subjected to replays of that moment forever. There's nothing she can do about it. But she could have made life a lot better for herself by coming in to the interview room and saying, "I don't know what happened out there. I just completely lost it for a moment and I'm truly sorry."
That would NOT have been the end of it--as I can attest--but it would have toned down the criticism quite a bit. Things do happen in the heat of the moment and we all blow it on occasion. But Williams pulled a LeBron James. On Saturday night she talked about how her "passion," for what she did had caused her to get so angry. No apology. The next day she issued a statement. Still no apology--much like James saying the day after his team's loss to the Orlando Magic that "winners," don't shake hands after losing. Dig the hole a little deeper.
Maybe if Williams' agent, Jill Smoller, hadn't been so busy trying to stick her hand in front of cameras on Saturday night, she would have had time to do her job and sit her client down and tell her, "you made a mistake--a bad one. Apologize, REALLY apologize right now."
It took until Monday for people to get to Williams and convince her to "amend," her apology. (Her word) It was an apology for the apology. Carefully written and worded, with all sorts of references to how great SHE is, Williams did finally apologize to everyone involved. When poor Patrick McEnroe asked her during the doubles award ceremony why she had amended her apology, HE was booed. What are people thinking? He was doing his job asking the exact right question. Venus Williams grabbed the mike and said, "let's just move on."
That's fine. But moving on--especially after botching the first two attempts to admit a mistake--isn't always that easy. There won't be any suspension for Serena--you think the USTA, CBS or ESPN want an Open next year without her?--and, fans being fans, it won't be her fault before all is said and done. Sort of like that chair back in 1985 that got what it deserved when Bob Knight tossed it across a court.
We seem to live in an era where no one is every responsible for their actions. Joe Wilson said he was sorry--sort of--for yelling 'you lied,' at The President of the United States during a joint session of Congress. In the same breath he claimed (incorrectly) that he was right about what was in the Health Care bill. No doubt Kanye West will be sorry for his reprehensible behavior at the country music awards but will note that Beyonce still should have won.
I call it living in the Land of Never Wrong. Famous people are constantly surrounded by enablers who tell them that they're never wrong regardless of what they do. The year I was working on "A Season on the Brink," I sat and listened to people rationalize Knight's behavior--including the chair throw--until it became laughable. One night, after a dramatic overtime win over Purdue, Knight walked into his postgame press conference and went on and on about how beautiful the day had been and how he had paused to try to put basketball into perspective that afternoon. Then he said he didn't have time for any questions and that the Indiana locker room was closed.
When I asked him a few minutes later why he had done that he said, "just my little victory." His friends thought that was really great--really nailed the media. Maybe it did. It also nailed all the Indiana fans who would have liked to have heard what Knight thought about the comeback and it nailed his players--especially Steve Alford, whose heroics pulled the game out and went largely ignored because Knight made himself the story (again) with his behavior. When I tried to point that out to Knight (pretty brave I thought) I was shouted down even before Knight could look at me and say, "aah, you're just one of them when it's all said and done."
Guilty.
And for that I do NOT apologize.
Every single one of us makes mistakes in life. No one knows that better than I do. When you write as often as I do, you're going to make mistakes--sometimes from a faulty memory; sometimes from a pure mind block; sometimes from not doing enough research. The other day in this blog I somehow wrote that the Yankees last won a World Series in 2001. How that happened I don't know but it did. I'm sorry.
Four years ago, doing a Navy radio broadcast of a game at Duke I became so frustrated with the incompetence of the officials that, after a clear push-off by a Duke player on a two-point conversion try that tied the game I heard someone say, "------ referees!: There was no seven second delay and when I looked around the booth to see who had lost their composure and realized everyone was staring at me. What a sick feeling that was. I took myself off the air, told the Navy people what had happened and offered to resign on the spot. Both Chet Gladchuk and Eric Ruden--the athletic director and senior associate AD--said absolutely not. We agreed I would go back on and apologize. I remember Eric saying, "you're right to apologize. Do it and that will be the end of it."
"I'll apologize Eric," I said. "But I guarantee you that won't be the end of it."
I apologized--no, "if I offended anybody," clauses; nothing about how lousy the officiating had been (Paul Johnson, the WINNING coach in the game was so angry when it was over he chased the officials off the field) or anything like that. Just, "I'm sorry," which I was. There was no excuse for what had happened.
The Navy people were amazing about the whole thing. I was right that my apology wasn't the end of it. There were calls from the media all week. Would I be suspended? No, said Ruden to all callers. "John made a mistake. He took himself off the air and apologized instantly. That's enough."
I have now done Navy football games for 13 years. To this day I get cracks about, "did you get through the broadcast without using profanity this week?" I've written 25 books and there is more in my Wikipedia bio on the incident at Duke than on the books. The other day when Serena Williams lost her mind at the U.S. Open some clever guy e-mailed my friend Tony Kornheiser's radio show asking if I had given Serena lessons in how to use profanity. To be honest, the fact that Tony read it on the air annoys me. But you know what? It's my fault because I did it. No one else is responsible.
Which leads me back to Serena Williams. I have no idea what the lineswoman was thinking at such a crucial juncture when she called a foot-fault (and thus, a double-fault) on Williams when she was down a set and 5-6, 15-30 against Kim Clijsters in the U.S. Open semifinals Saturday night. The fact that the USTA is refusing to release her name is ridiculous. She's out there on court, she's being paid (not quite as much as the players) she should take responsibility for all her calls and explain what she was thinking--or not thinking--at that moment.
But that's not what's important. Williams' reaction to the call is what's important. She lost her mind. Look, bad calls happen in sports. You can argue, you can ask the umpire to overrule (in tennis) or to ask the lineswoman if she's absolutely sure or ask to play a let. But once you lose the argument you can NOT threaten the umpire while screaming profanities at her. You can't say ------ referees and you can't threaten to shove a tennis ball down someone's throat.
In fact, if the incident had happened earlier in the match the officials would have been justified in calling "gross misconduct," on Williams and defaulting her on the spot. As it was, they gave her a point penalty since it was her second violation of the match (smashed racquet earlier) and that meant game, set, match to Clijsters who was probably the most stunned person in the stadium.
Okay, Williams made a mistake. I can certainly relate. She's going to be subjected to replays of that moment forever. There's nothing she can do about it. But she could have made life a lot better for herself by coming in to the interview room and saying, "I don't know what happened out there. I just completely lost it for a moment and I'm truly sorry."
That would NOT have been the end of it--as I can attest--but it would have toned down the criticism quite a bit. Things do happen in the heat of the moment and we all blow it on occasion. But Williams pulled a LeBron James. On Saturday night she talked about how her "passion," for what she did had caused her to get so angry. No apology. The next day she issued a statement. Still no apology--much like James saying the day after his team's loss to the Orlando Magic that "winners," don't shake hands after losing. Dig the hole a little deeper.
Maybe if Williams' agent, Jill Smoller, hadn't been so busy trying to stick her hand in front of cameras on Saturday night, she would have had time to do her job and sit her client down and tell her, "you made a mistake--a bad one. Apologize, REALLY apologize right now."
It took until Monday for people to get to Williams and convince her to "amend," her apology. (Her word) It was an apology for the apology. Carefully written and worded, with all sorts of references to how great SHE is, Williams did finally apologize to everyone involved. When poor Patrick McEnroe asked her during the doubles award ceremony why she had amended her apology, HE was booed. What are people thinking? He was doing his job asking the exact right question. Venus Williams grabbed the mike and said, "let's just move on."
That's fine. But moving on--especially after botching the first two attempts to admit a mistake--isn't always that easy. There won't be any suspension for Serena--you think the USTA, CBS or ESPN want an Open next year without her?--and, fans being fans, it won't be her fault before all is said and done. Sort of like that chair back in 1985 that got what it deserved when Bob Knight tossed it across a court.
We seem to live in an era where no one is every responsible for their actions. Joe Wilson said he was sorry--sort of--for yelling 'you lied,' at The President of the United States during a joint session of Congress. In the same breath he claimed (incorrectly) that he was right about what was in the Health Care bill. No doubt Kanye West will be sorry for his reprehensible behavior at the country music awards but will note that Beyonce still should have won.
I call it living in the Land of Never Wrong. Famous people are constantly surrounded by enablers who tell them that they're never wrong regardless of what they do. The year I was working on "A Season on the Brink," I sat and listened to people rationalize Knight's behavior--including the chair throw--until it became laughable. One night, after a dramatic overtime win over Purdue, Knight walked into his postgame press conference and went on and on about how beautiful the day had been and how he had paused to try to put basketball into perspective that afternoon. Then he said he didn't have time for any questions and that the Indiana locker room was closed.
When I asked him a few minutes later why he had done that he said, "just my little victory." His friends thought that was really great--really nailed the media. Maybe it did. It also nailed all the Indiana fans who would have liked to have heard what Knight thought about the comeback and it nailed his players--especially Steve Alford, whose heroics pulled the game out and went largely ignored because Knight made himself the story (again) with his behavior. When I tried to point that out to Knight (pretty brave I thought) I was shouted down even before Knight could look at me and say, "aah, you're just one of them when it's all said and done."
Guilty.
And for that I do NOT apologize.
Monday, September 14, 2009
John's Monday Washington Post Article...
Here is my column today for The Washington Post ------
It is tempting to begin any review of this past weekend's sports events with the Washington Redskins' loss to the New York Giants on Sunday. After all, the coverage of the Redskins in The Post and the local media is so understated. Just in case you missed it: Giants 23, Redskins 17.
Okay, enough about that.
Let's move on to the Serena Williams debacle. Rarely is there a perfect storm quite like this in sports: Everyone involved managed to get this wrong (with the exception of Kim Clijsters, Williams's opponents and an innocent bystander).
Click here for the rest of the story: Williams Tirade Indefensible; Weis's Team Has No Defense
It is tempting to begin any review of this past weekend's sports events with the Washington Redskins' loss to the New York Giants on Sunday. After all, the coverage of the Redskins in The Post and the local media is so understated. Just in case you missed it: Giants 23, Redskins 17.
Okay, enough about that.
Let's move on to the Serena Williams debacle. Rarely is there a perfect storm quite like this in sports: Everyone involved managed to get this wrong (with the exception of Kim Clijsters, Williams's opponents and an innocent bystander).
Click here for the rest of the story: Williams Tirade Indefensible; Weis's Team Has No Defense
Shining a Spotlight on HOF Inductee David Robinson; Quick Note on Serena Williams
It isn't at all surprising that most of the attention following Friday's Hall of Fame Induction ceremony in Springfield would be on Michael Jordan. Most people agree he was the greatest basketball player of all time--and if you want to argue about Wilt Chamberlain or Bill Russell or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Oscar Robertson, that's fine. If you put it to a vote, Jordan is almost certainly going to win.
Sadly though, the reason most of the attention was focused on Jordan was the tone of his speech. Most of it--and it went on for quite a while--was angry. Instead of being grateful to all those who helped him become MICHAEL JORDAN, he kept coming back to how he was motivated by slights and putdowns. He even moaned about Dean Smith not allowing him to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a freshman.
Jordan could be the subject of a psychological study that might take years to put together. What was too bad about the way he 'stole,' the show on Friday was that the other inductees were more or less lumped together. As in, "also inducted were David Robinson, John Stockton, Jerry Sloan and C. Vivian Stringer." All four were extremely deserving, but the one who truly deserved a special spotlight is Robinson.
I have to admit to a bias here. I first met Robinson when he was 6-foot-7 inch freshman at Navy who wasn't starting. His coach, Paul Evans, introduced me to him after Navy had lost a game at George Mason and said, "you need to watch this kid, he's gong to be a player for us."
Evans had no idea at the time that Robinson was going to grow six inches to 7-1 before the start of his sophomore season and lead Navy to three straight NCAA Tournaments--including a final eight appearance in 1986. He had no idea Robinson would become the national player of the year as a senior or the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft or that he would go on to a remarkable career in San Antonio that would include three NBA titles and a lock on the Hall of Fame induction that took place on Friday.
What always struck me about Robinson when I began to cover him and talk to him on a regular basis during his sophomore year was his sense of humor, his thoughtfulness and the fact that he was just as interested in engineering (his dad had been a Naval engineer) as basketball. He and his classmate, Doug Wojcik (now the coach at Tulsa) were as good off the court as they were on the court.
“Hey Doug," Robinson yelled at Wojcik in the locker room one day. "There's a reason you're the point guard, you know, and it isn't because of your shooting."
Wojcik never blinked, pointing a finger at Robinson and saying, "David, never bite the hand that feeds you."
During their four years at Navy, Robinson and Wojcik never lost to Army. But four of the five games were decided by four points or less largely because Army had a 5-11 guard named Kevin Houston who could hit shots from just about anywhere. Houston only got to play one season with the three point line. If he had played with it for four years he might have doubled his points since he almost never shot from inside 20 feet. The last time Army played Navy when Robinson, Wojcik and Houston were seniors, Houston scored 38 and Navy needed overtime--at home--to win the game. Wojcik still remembers the day vividly.
"He was just lighting me up," he said. "Every time down court, he'd take on dribble and release--from like 25 feet--swish. I was pleading with him, 'my whole family is here, (it was senior day) my friends, everyone in my company--please stop, you're humiliating me."
The three men remained in touch after graduation. All went into the service, although as everyone knows, Robinson got out after two years and went on to stardom. Wojcik got into coaching after getting out of the Navy, Houston into business, marrying his childhood sweetheart, Liz, having three children and settling down not far from West Point.
The year after they all graduated, I was working on my second book, "A Season Inside." I spent some time with Robinson and Houston, contrasting their lives--Robinson was in the Navy, Houston in the Army. Robinson was a lock to be on the '88 Olympic team; Houston was just hoping to get invited to try out. I went to visit Robinson at a submarine base in south Georgia where he was stationed. We went out to lunch and all we could find was a McDonald's. When we walked up to the counter, the manager recognized Robinson immediately--he probably didn't get too many 7-foot-1 inch African Americans in a Navy uniform coming through the place.
"I know who you are," he said. "You just signed a contract for $26 million to play in the NBA when you get out of the Navy."
Robinson kind of nodded, pretending to be confused about whether he wanted a Big Mac or a double hamburger.
"Tell you what," the manager said. "When you're rich and famous, you come back in here and I'll give you your food for free."
That got Robinson's attention. "Sir, when I'm rich and famous I won't need my food for free. Right now, I'm making $590 a month and I could really USE getting my food for free."
The guy, of course, missed the point.
Robinson not only became rich and famous but has used his money and his fame to build a school in San Antonio and has done as much important charity work as any ex-athlete alive. He is as comfortable in retirement as Jordan is clearly uncomfortable in retirement. He has also remained one of the warmest and most likeable people you are ever likely to meet.
Houston's life has not been as easy. Six years ago, his wife Liz was diagnosed with scleroderma, an extremely rare auto-immune disease mostly found in women between the ages of 30 and 50. In January, Liz Houston passed away at the age of 44. When Robinson heard that he was going into the Hall of Fame, he called his old rival and asked him to come to the induction ceremony as his guest. That says a lot about David Robinson and about the unique nature of the Army-Navy rivalry. Then again, David Robinson doesn't need to justify to anyone who he is or what he has accomplished in his life.
And he doesn't need any free food from McDonald's.
--------------------------------
A quick note on the Serena Williams episode on Saturday night at the U.S. Open. The line judge was probably wrong to call the foot-fault: the only time you make a call like that, especially at a crucial moment is if it is absolutely blatant and it wasn't. Questionable perhaps, but not blatant. That being said, the officials had no choice but to call the point penalty that ended the match after the way Williams responded. You simply can't threaten officials and saying, "You're lucky if I don't shove this ----- ball down your throat," is threatening. Williams may have known she didn't mean it, but the line judge did not. The fact that Williams was un remorseful afterwards--talking about her passion for the game leading to her tantrum--and STILL didn't not apologize on Sunday in a prepared statement, makes it even worse. One more thing: for all the posturing by the International Tennis Federation about perhaps suspending her from next year's Open, you can forget about that happening. The USTA isn't going to let the biggest draw in the women's game sit out the Open. Here's what will happen: Williams will, at some point, perhaps as early as today after the women's doubles final, agree to apologize and the ITF will say, 'apology accepted,' but she better not do that again. Will Williams learn a lesson from the incident? Sure. Check the score before you lose your temper.
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