Covering sports and the perception of stories, angles and who’s ‘rooting’ for what

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Thanks to the magic—or the curse—of the internet, those of us who write for a living have a chance to get some idea what readers think of what we write soon after it goes into cyberspace or into a newspaper or even a magazine. Books take a little longer.

This can be a mixed blessing. One has to learn to take everything that’s posted with a large grain of salt—both the good and the bad. If you take a strong position on an issue there are always going to be people who will absolutely agree and people who will absolutely disagree. Certain people are guaranteed to get readers fired up: Mention Pete Rose and the Hall of Fame and you’ll start a firestorm of some kind. The same is frequently true of Tiger Woods or Mike Krzyzewski or Tom Brady. About the only person who almost everyone—at least in Washington—agrees on is Dan Snyder and if the Redskins every make a Super Bowl while he’s the owner most of those who can’t stand him now will say, “he’s changed, matured, learned from his mistakes.”

That’s why I try to read what people have to say but rarely respond because life is too short to get into constant exchanges with people, especially since 99 percent of the time you aren’t going to change their mind anymore than they’re going to change yours.

I bring this all up not because of anything that’s been written recently about anything of mine. On Tuesday I was reading Rex Hoggard’s story (linked here) on The Golf Channel website about Tiger Woods’ hiring of Joe LaCava as his caddy. Rex is about as balanced and reasonable as anyone I know and his account of the events leading to LaCava leaving Dustin Johnson after working for him for less than six months to go work for Woods was pretty straightforward.

No one begrudges LaCava his decision to go work for Woods. Even if Woods never comes close to being the player he once was, the tournaments he plays overseas for huge appearance fees—like the event in November in Australia where he’s reportedly getting $3 million—alone will make LaCava very well paid. And, at 35, the potential for Woods to make a comeback that could make LaCava very wealthy is still there.

What bothered some people, according to Hoggard, was that no one from Team Tiger bothered to make a courtesy call to Johnson to let him know he might want to hire his caddy. Most, though not all, players will let another player know if they are going to talk to their caddy. Woods isn’t the first—and won’t be the last—player to not make the courtesy call by any stretch but this isn’t the first time he’s been down this road.

Fifteen years ago when Woods first came on tour, Peter Jacobsen was injured. He asked Woods if he would like to use his longtime caddy (they’d been together 17 years) Fluff Cowen for his first few tournaments. Woods said yes. When he had almost instant success he asked Cowen to come work for him fulltime. To this day he hasn’t called Jacobsen.

Jacobsen completely understood Cowen’s decision—working for Woods made him both rich and famous even though he got fired less than three years later for becoming a little too famous for Tiger’s taste. But he wasn’t happy that, after going out of his way to try to help Woods at the start of his career, he didn’t get the courtesy call.

Hoggard didn’t even bring up Jacobsen-Cowen. He just pointed out that this is the way life on tour is sometimes and also mentioned that, after hearing Woods was interested in him, LaCava had contacted Team Tiger to say that, if asked, he probably would accept.

This was hardly one of my virulently anti-Tiger pieces that make some people froth at the mouth.

And yet, when I read the posts because I was curious to see where the golf geeks (if you’re reading GolfChannel.com you’re a golf geek, right?) came down on this issue, I found them fascinating.

Some people thought that, especially given all the bad publicity he’s gotten since November 27, 2009, that someone on Team Tiger should have told Woods to pick up a phone and call Johnson to let him know what was going on. Some thought it was a non-story— as in who cares?

But MANY thought Rex was Tiger-bashing, that this was another example of the media being out to ‘get,’ Tiger. A number of people wanted to know why the hell Tiger had to ask Dustin Johnson’s permission to do anything since LaCava wasn’t under contract to Johnson in any way. Good point. Except no one—including Rex—ever said Woods needed to ask permission to do anything. Read the story.

I would, at this point be remiss if I didn’t digress for a moment to point out to those who commented on my Maryland/ACC column in The Post the other day that I never said Virginia Tech hadn’t scheduled good teams in the past (although the Hokies didn’t beat any of them) just that they didn’t schedule any of them this season. I also loved Randy Edsall saying this morning that he never claimed he was rebuilding and, “didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus.” Then he proceeded to throw Ralph Friedgen so far under the bus that it may be tough to find even a guy the Fridge’s size underneath those wheels.

My favorites though are the people who insist that all of us who cover sports are ambulance-chasers who would be collecting unemployment if not for Tiger Woods. (Or Michael Jordan, Tom Brady and Serena Williams—among others). We are, according to these people, complete lowlifes who undoubtedly starve our pets and beat up little old ladies every chance we get.

As Rhett Butler once said to Scarlett O’Hara while she screamed, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,”: “My dear you’ve made your point fairly clear.”

Even people like me who find a lot of what Woods does away from the golf course reprehensible understand that he is one of the two greatest players of all time—I’d say the greatest regardless of how many majors he finally ends up winning because of his total dominance of the game while at his peak—and has brought attention to the sport that no one since Arnold Palmer came close to achieving.

Those in and on television root unabashedly for Woods to do well because it drives ratings. Many—if not most—in the print media want to see Woods succeed because it means they get more space and better play and, in all likelihood, get to travel to more tournaments. The better Woods is doing the more interest there is in golf.

Thus, the notion that any of us, simply can’t wait for Woods to fail or can’t wait to pounce on anything he does, is simply wrong. Do I root for him? Absolutely not. But do I sit around sticking pins in a Tiger doll? No. He’s a story—for good and for bad. I’ve always taken the approach that he’s got enough people who are paid to burnish his image and gloss over his failings that he doesn’t need me to do it. And anyone who thinks Rex Hoggard or 99 percent of the golf media have any kind of axe to grind with Woods simply don’t know the people involved or understand the business they are in.

So, if you want to disagree with what Rex writes or what I write or what anyone else writes, that’s perfectly fine. And, of course, you have an absolute right to call us lowlifes if that makes you feel good. Come to think of it, in a few cases, you’re right. But I’ll save that for another day and time.

Oh, one other note: For those of you who get SO upset when I make a political comment: Look, I don’t claim to be fair and balanced. Or that I’m reporting and letting you decide. I’m biased. I’m a Democrat. If you’re reading the blog you have to know an occasional shot at the right wing is coming somewhere, sometime. God knows there are lots of places you can find shots being taken at liberals like me so have at it.

The NFL is back from nowhere

Hey, did you hear, the NFL lockout is over. Hallelujah, football is back! Now, instead of meaningless updates every 10 minutes on the lockout we can get almost as many meaningless updates on player signings. Someone at ESPN must be en route to Brett Favre’s farm as we speak.

My question is this: Where has it been? Were any games missed? Did anyone lose any money—or, in fact did the teams save money by not holding those fabulous OTA’s we’ve all come to know and love?

Here’s the real question: Did any of you out there REALLY think a deal wouldn’t get done before people starting to actually lose money?

Of course not. The NFL isn’t like The National Hockey League where losing an entire season probably saved the owners money or even like the basketball where losing half-a-season would be, at worst, a break-even proposition for many NBA owners. The NFL is unique in American sports because EVERYONE is getting rich.

Understand this: The lockout occurred not because the owners were losing money or even because they weren’t making money. It occurred because they decided they weren’t making ENOUGH money. They wanted to make MORE money. So, they opted out of their contract and, as soon as The Super Bowl was over and all the checks for last season from the TV networks had cleared, they locked the players out.

There is a tendency when these so-called ‘work-stoppages,’—or in this case a non-work-stoppage—occur for a lot of fans to moan about greedy, millionaire players. For some reason, at least in the past, no one every blames the greedy, billionaire owners. Many people don’t even understand the difference between a lockout and a strike.

Some of the time the blame should be split 50-50. Other times it might be 75-25. In the case of this lockout it was 100-0, the owners having the 100. The good news is, for perhaps the first time in history, a lot of people understood that was the case. Here’s the simplest way to explain this lockout: If the owners had walked into a meeting room at any point and said, ‘look, we’ll just keep the financial terms that were in the last deal in place,’ there never would have been a problem. The players would have said, ‘done,’ and then they would have figured out all the details. It might have taken a little while to work out the rookie salary cap and things like paying retired players and drug-testing rules and new guidelines on practice time and time in pads—but that’s all stuff that you just go into a room and hammer out.

The holdup issue—as it always is—was the money. The owners wanted more and they wanted to give the players less. In a major upset, the players weren’t thrilled with that idea.

Here’s another thing you should understand: If Judge David Doty hadn’t ruled early on that the owners could NOT collect their TV money (through insurance) if there was no season, this might have dragged on for a lot longer. Only when it occurred to the owners that they were going to start losing real money did a deal get done—just in time to open training camps and play those god-awful exhibition games.

The players wanted a deal too. In fact, you can make the case that they NEEDED a deal more than the owners. More athletes than you can imagine live from check-to-check and there is only a small window during which football players can make big money. Like the owners though, they make their money during the season—not during the offseason. Missing a bunch of OTA’s was hardly a big deal.

Which is why it was entirely predictable from day one of this whole thing that it was going to end the way it did and, more important, end WHEN it did.

What’s funny now is to hear all the speculation about how the missed offseason will affect the season. The so-called experts on TV and sportstalk radio are going on about how teams with new coaches have no chance this season because they couldn’t put in their offensive and defensive schemes and because of the loss of ‘reps.’

Oh please. Do you know why the teams with new coaches will be bad this season? Because they were bad last season. That’s why they have new coaches. Bill Belichick had all the offseason OTA’s you could possibly want prior to his first season in New England. The Patriots went 5-11. Then, after two drafts, after finding Tom Brady in the sixth round, after making a few smart free agent signings, the Patriots became world-beaters. Trust me it wasn’t the OTA’s that made the difference.

You know how long it takes for players to learn schemes? (Another of my favorite football terms). About two days. Why do you think rookies who hold out show up in camp on Wednesday and play that weekend? Reps? Sure, they help but what helps more is, you know, talent. I heard one guy going on about how the Carolina Panthers were now going to have to play Jimmy Clausen at quarterback all season because Cam Newton didn’t have a chance to learn the offense during the lockout. Write this down: Unless Clausen has improved about 1,000 percent since last season Newton will start as soon as game three, no later than game five.

And if the Panthers go 1-15 so what? Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman were1-15 as rookie starters (with OTA’s or, as they were called back then, ‘mini-camps,’) and their careers turned out okay. Kyle Boller was 5-4 as a rookie starter when he got hurt in 2003. He was 9-7 a year later. Last I looked he isn’t going to the Hall of Fame anytime soon.

The point is this: Football coaches—and everyone else around them—really want you to believe this is rocket science. Do you know why OTA’s exist? For the reps? No. They exist to market teams during the offseason. “Hey, we were awful last season but you should see how we’re looking in OTA’s! Our quarterback is really establishing a rapport with his receivers! Renew your season tickets RIGHT NOW!”

The media falls for this the same way almost everyone fell for Tiger Woods, wife, kids and a dog act for years (there’s a nice Tiger shot for you Tiger lovers out there). I remember when Joe Gibbs came back to the Redskins in 2004 and one local columnist on the first day of mini-camp wrote about the fact that the first PLAY in mini-camp scrimmage was absolute proof of why Gibbs would take the Redskins back to the Super Bowl.

Seriously.

You know who got hurt by the lack of an off-season? The undrafted free agents who didn’t get a chance to show teams they could play in OTA’s or rookie mini-camps. Now they’ll only have a few days in training camp to make an impression.

The fans didn’t get hurt because they didn’t miss anything that mattered. In fact, they would have been better off if this had gone on another couple weeks so that season ticket holders wouldn’t have been forced to pay extra for exhibition football.

Now that training camps are opening and free agents are being signed there will be complete football-mania again. I just heard a local radio announcer here breathlessly report that the Redskins have signed the immortal Kellen Clemens.

Spare me. I’m going to watch baseball tonight. I’ll check back in on September 8th.

*Updated w/information on locker room access* Media in the locker rooms -- we should be in there

The issue of the media and locker rooms has come up again this week because of the behavior of some New York Jets last week when a female reporter from a Mexican TV network showed up for an interview with Mark Sanchez dressed, according to many who were there, ‘provocatively.’

I put that word in quotes because it is subjective. Her explanation—and I really don’t remember her name and it isn’t especially germane to what I’m writing here so I’m not going to stop and look it up—was that she wanted to look nice for her viewers. Look, let’s be honest here: most (not all) TV reporters—male and female—are hired at least to some degree based on their looks. You can get away with NOT looking like a model if you are an ex-athlete, an ex-politician or an expert.

It is a fact of life in sports that this is more true for women than for men. Again, there are exceptions here and there, but most female sideline reporters and sports anchors could turn to swimsuit modeling if the sports thing didn’t work out. They know it, the people who hire them know it and the viewers know it. The woman in question in the Jets incident bills herself as, “the hottest sports TV anchor in Mexico,” or words to that affect and apparently shows up at The Super Bowl each year doing things like measuring the biceps of players at media day. Not exactly out of the Mike Wallace school of broadcasting.

When I was a young reporter at The Washington Post, Howard Simons, then the managing editor, asked me once why I wore blue jeans a lot of the time. I told him—and I wasn’t joking—that when dealing with young athletes, especially being young at the time myself, I thought I came across as less threatening if I dressed casually. I never wore torn jeans and I never wore a T-shirt. Simons found that answer acceptable.

Once, when I was still working as a police reporter, I had to find a guy who had been involved in a string of murders that involved The Prince George’s County police. He lived in Baltimore and I knocked on his door and told him why I needed to talk to him. I got him to agree to go out for something to eat so we could talk. He ended up agreeing to the interview and became a key source on the story. Much later he said to me, “that first day, when you showed up, you were wearing jeans and sneakers. I figured you couldn’t be too much of a scammer if you dressed like that.”

Casual is one thing, provocative is another. During that same period, The Post hired a summer intern who, again, could have become a model if she’d wanted to. For all I know she DID become a model. She was also assigned to the police reporting and, within days of her arrival, there was, shall we say, ‘buzz,’ about the new reporter on the beat.

One afternoon she walked into the newsroom wearing a sundress that just about brought the newsroom to a halt. Milton Coleman, who was the city editor at the time, walked over to her desk.

“What are you up to today?” he asked.

“Going to police headquarters,” she answered.

“Not dressed like that you’re not,” he said. “You represent The Washington Post. Go home and change.”

Look, it’s a FACT that in jock world being an attractive woman can be an advantage. Actually it’s a fact that in the world being attractive is an advantage—period. But it is even more true in a male-dominated world where it is almost impossible for a good-looking woman to not be noticed—especially when they dress to make sure they ARE noticed.

As recently as this past June, on the night Stephen Strasburg made his Major League debut, my colleague Barry Svrluga was trying to grab a few minutes with Nationals catcher Ivan Rodriguez before the game because he had an early deadline. Rodriguez is, by nature, very accommodating. That day was hectic though: he was coming off the Disabled List, he needed some treatment AND he was catching baseball’s newest phenom.

“I just don’t think I have any time,” he told Svrluga, who understood.

A few minutes later, Svrluga was standing outside the dugout when he saw Rodriguez doing an on-camera interview with a very attractive TV reporter. We looked at one another and laughed.

“You had no chance,” I said. “Complete mismatch.”

“Tell me about it,” he answered.

Of course the Jets incident has again raised the entire issue of media access to the locker room. I am, of course, an extremely biased source here because I KNOW from years of experience that I do my job a lot better when I can stand at a guy’s locker and talk to him than when I have to sit in an interview room and listen to him talk about giving 110 percent and stepping up in answer to some inane question asked by someone looking for a soundbite.

Here’s what you do in a locker room: You wait for the TV guys to ask their inane questions and hope you don’t get hit in the head by a camera. Then, when some space clears, you walk up and, if it is someone you know, you quietly ask the questions you’d like answered. Or, if it is someone you don’t know, you shake hands with them, look them in the eye to establish some kind of contact with them and ask your questions. (By the way, you ALMOST never do this before they’ve had a chance to put on some kind of clothing; trust me, the only ones who have less interest in that happening than the players are the reporters).

Are you guaranteed to get good answers in that situation? No. Some guys are better than others—which is why some are called, ‘go to,’ guys in a locker room because you know to go to them for good answers. But your chances of getting a good answer there are about 100 times better than in the antiseptic, stilted atmosphere of an interview room.

Of course the public doesn’t really get that anymore than it gets the fact that it isn’t always ‘greedy players,’ who are responsible for work stoppages. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone screaming about greedy players going on strike when in fact it was greedy owners locking them out, I could be a rich, greedy owner myself.

That said, I understand why many fans would see the media going into the locker room as some kind of invasion of the players privacy. It’s really not. Part of the job of being a professional athlete is talking to the public—the public that makes them rich, that buys the products they endorse—and the way they do that is through the media.

Most athletes accept dealing with the media in the locker room as part of the job—especially when they are accustomed to it. What’s more if they don’t want to talk to the media for some reason, there are off-limits places where they can hide out; something they often do. There’s also this: Although it may not appear that way, establishing relationships with the media—which often happen through locker room contact—is good for the athlete. As they grow more comfortable with the media, they come across better to the public. That can only help them in a dozen different ways.

That said, all of us who do go into locker room have a responsibility to act professionally. About 99 percent of the time that happens and postgame locker room interviews are a routine part of the job for both athletes and reporters. Unfortunately, especially in today’s world, the one percent of the time that isn’t the case, it becomes news and, inevitably, some people say, ‘what are they doing in there in the first place.’

We should be in there. But when we are, we should be like good officials: not noticed by the public, except if by some chance while reading a good story, they stop to think, ‘gee that guy really did a good job getting those quotes.’ There’s no need for the reader to do that but being in the locker room makes it possible for all of us to try to get those quotes. Unless you’d prefer hearing again how your team ‘stepped up,’ or ‘gave 110 percent.’


******

I normally only respond to posters every few days and usually try to answer a few at once. That said, I feel the need to respond right away to today's post from JJ because he is quite misinformed on locker room access, so I'm guessing many others are too.

As a matter of fact, many locker rooms are open before games. Baseball clubhouses are always open from three-and-one-half hours prior to the game until an hour prior to the game and most baseball writers do, I'd say 80 percent of their reporting work--both there and in the dugout--during that time. (Note my anecdote about Barry Svrluga, Pudge Rodriguez and the female TV reporter--who was NOT Lindsay Czarniak BTW). NBA locker rooms are open too and, only recently did the NHL take away total pre-game access; now if you want a player, you request him--the coach is almost always available. The exception in team sports is the NFL. My guess is the reason for that is that the fear level prior to a game in there is so high--and I've witnessed it so I know this is true--that guys wouldn't be able to get much done even if they did have access. As for golf, the locker room is ALWAYS open to the media as is the practice tee and the putting green. Most writers are savvy enough to know you don't try to talk to anyone at length just before they tee it up, but the locker room before they go out to warm-up? Routine--I do it all the time because JJ is right, that's a great time to get a feel for a player's emotions. For the record, Dustin Johnson DID stand in front of his locker and talk after the PGA--you can probably go to YouTube and see the video. At Winged Foot in 2006 after his 18th hole meltdown, Phil Mickelson spoke to the media in the 'flash area,' right behind the 18th green and then AGAIN in the locker room. In fact, this past year when he withdrew from The Players Championship during his Sunday round, Tiger Woods spoke to several reporters in the locker room before going to The Tour's fitness trailer for treatment on his neck.

While I'm at it, in response to Ed O's question: You're right, standards are totally different in Europe. Not only do journalists routinely bet on the events they cover, they tell their readers who they've bet on and--frequently--will start screaming at the TV if the guy they've bet on lets them down. They also routinely drink on the job--I'm not saying this as a putdown, it's just true. When I covered tennis, most of the media would drink a bottle of wine with lunch in Paris (can't really blame them can you?) and would be at the bar during the first break of any kind in the afternoon at Wimbledon. Here, that sort of thing could be a firing offense. There, it's routine. One last thing: the Mexican TV reporter was apparently harassed on the field but also in the locker room when she went in there to do her interview with Mark Sanchez...

If I was ever to write another tennis book, it’d be based on this time of year; Next up - Queens, Eastbourne, Roehampton, the great Ted Tinling

Perusing the morning paper today, I caught myself doing something I rarely do at this point in my life: reading the tennis results—known in newspaper terms as, ‘the agate,’ because that’s the type-face used for results. Years ago, when I covered tennis on a regular basis, I read the agate daily. Not only did I know just about every name I came across, I had a pretty good sense of what a win or a loss meant to that player.

These days I read the golf agate carefully—not just the results from The PGA Tour but also The Champions Tour and The Nationwide Tour. I may not know all the names, but I know a lot of them on all three of those tours. I can tell you most of the time where the guys I know stand on The PGA Tour money list and I usually have a pretty good idea about The Nationwide list too, especially as it relates to the top 25—the magic number of make the big tour—but also the top 60 because that gives you a spot in The Nationwide Tour Championship and also exempt status on The Nationwide next year if you don’t make it through Q-School.

Most of the tennis names fly by me un-recognized now. Oh sure, I know the big names, even the semi-big names, but in the old days I could give you name, rank and serial number on anyone in the top 100 and a lot of players not in the top 100. I used to take great pleasure in wandering the back courts at tournaments in the early rounds to watch a match between two qualifiers, knowing that a first round win was huge for the winner.

Those days are gone. I still get nostalgic watching The French Open or when I notice that The Italian Open is going on and I have fond memories of traveling to Australia, especially the month I spent down there researching ‘Hard Courts.’ That said, if I ever did go back to do a tennis book it would be during this month—the next four weeks. The time of year is the reason I found myself checking out the agate this morning.

The French Open is over. The grass court season has begun. It lasts exactly five weeks (including Newport, the week after Wimbledon) and is played almost exclusively in Great Britain. The men are at Queen’s this week—note it is The Queen’s Club NOT Queens Club—and the women are in Birmingham. The men also have an event in Germany that will draw some good players but it almost doesn’t count. Queen’s has almost as much tradition as Wimbledon and is one of the best tennis venues I’ve ever been to in my life.

Next week the men and women BOTH go to Eastbourne. This is a radical change in tradition. Until last year, Eastbourne had always been strictly a women’s site, a wonderful event in an old English seaside town at another tennis ground—as they are called in Britain—that just reeks of tradition. Last year the men’s event that had been played in Nottingham was moved to Eastbourne to coincide with the women’s tournament. I can’t imagine that made the women happy but if I was still covering tennis it would be a dream come true to have the men and the women in the same place the week before Wimbledon.

Of course a lot of players don’t play the week before Wimbledon although Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert almost always played Eastbourne. It was a great place to go the week before Wimbledon to get time with top players in a relatively relaxed atmosphere.

One year at Eastbourne I was sitting with the great Ted Tinling watching a match in the front row, so close to the players you could just about touch them. Ted was one of the most remarkable, can’t-make-him-up figures I’ve ever met in sports. He had become famous for designing Gussie Moran’s famous lace panties at Wimbledon in the 40s and had been very close to the great Suzanne Lenglen. He was also a spy for The British during World War II and one of the great storytellers ever born. There was NOTHING Ted wouldn’t say to anyone or about anyone.

Ted was about 6-foot-4, completely bald, wore a diamond stud in his ear long before men did that and was always open about the fact that he was gay. He was as good a source I ever had because he knew everything and everyone and never considered anything a secret. It was Ted, as an advisor to The Wimbledon media committee, who convinced the gentleman of the club that they needed to allow a member of the American media into their daily planning meetings—not just a member of The British media.

One morning when I was the American rep, the committee chairman, a very nice guy named Barry Wetherill, made the mistake of asking the innocent question, “everything alright with your group John?”

Well, he asked. I told Barry—and the others—that I thought the lack of access we had to the players was ridiculous. We couldn’t even get into the tea room (Wimbledon for player lounge) without someone sneaking us through the entrance and the fact that we couldn’t even walk over to the practice courts to find a player was a joke. Barry turned to my English counterpart to ask if he saw any of this as a problem: “No not at all,” he said. “We’re very happy to have players brought to the interview room.”

Thanks for your support. I explained that the reporting we (Americans) did was a bit different than the Brits since it involved, well, reporting. Wetherill looked at Ted. “What do you think about all this Ted?” he asked.

Ted had been lying in wait. “Well OF COURSE John’s right,” he said. “It’s OUTRAGEOUS. Who do these players and their bloody agents think they are prancing around like royalty. The Royals sit in the Royal Box. The rest of the people in this place should TALK to people for more than the nine minutes when they come into the interview room. It’s HORRIBLE.”

I drank the sherry in front of me in one swallow at that point to keep from falling down laughing. The committee members were not nearly as amused.

So, on this day at Eastbourne, I’m sitting with Ted watching what was a pretty bad match when suddenly a fan a few yards away from us stands up during a changeover and points a shaky, drunken finger at Ted. “That’s it, that’s it!” he says. “I’m not watching another minute of this. Nothing but lesbians playing here. (The two women playing were, in fact, gay). And you Tinling, you f----- homosexual, you shouldn’t be watching this either!”

With that he sat down, apparently having forgotten that he was leaving.

Ted was very calm. “You know,” he said. “If I was a PRACTICING f---- homosexual I wouldn’t mind. But, given that I’m not, I think I’ll have him removed.”

Which he did.

The other cool place to go that week was Roehampton, in suburban London, which is where the Wimbledon qualifying tournament has always been held. Very intense, competitive tennis on dicey grass courts with very few fans around. There are always a couple of up-and-coming names or down-and-fading names at the qualifier. Most of the time if you wanted to talk to a player after he or she had played, you’d just plop down on a grassy bank near one of the courts and talk.

Queen’s has the same type of atmosphere. It is right in downtown London, best reached by subway and the stands, put up each year just for the tournament week, sit right on top of the court. Unlike at Wimbledon, there is (or at least used to be) ample access to the players since their dining area is (was?) open to the media. It was a perfect place to get time with players and watch very good tennis from very close up.

For me, the two weeks between the end of The French and the start of Wimbledon were always the best two weeks of the tennis season. Then came Wimbledon, which was always difficult to cover because of the lack of access (believe it or not the committee did NOT rewrite the rules based on my semi-tirade, although they did make a few changes eventually) but always great fun with great drama.

Someday I’d like to go back. Especially to Queen’s and Eastbourne—even though Eastbourne would never be the same without Ted.



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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases

To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:

NCAA issues – Michigan concludes its investigation; Why Washington won’t get Super Bowl

One of the more recent trends in college athletics is the quaint notion of schools accused of rules violations, “self-reporting,” their indiscretions and then doling out punishment to themselves. This is a little bit like someone caught robbing a bank coming into court to describe to a judge or jury what he did and then saying, “Yup, I did it, but I don’t think it was THAT big a deal so I’m giving myself two years probation and banning myself from that bank for five years.”

The judge and jury nod accordingly and the guy who robbed the bank goes back to planning his next robbery.

The NCAA copout usually goes something like this: “The school cooperated in every way and thoroughly investigated these violations.” Often they will even add that the notion to levy harsher penalties has been bypassed BECAUSE the school undertook its own investigation.

In short, once caught red-handed, the school said it was really, really sorry…for getting caught.

That brings us to today’s revelation that the University of Michigan has concluded its investigation into its football program and Coach Rich Rodriguez. Last fall when the Detroit Free Press quoted former players as saying that Rodriguez and his staff routinely violated NCAA rules on the amount of time players could spend on football related activities, everyone at the school rushed in to issue denials and defend Rodriguez. Now the school is saying that, yes, there were violations both in terms of hours players spent on football and the number of coaches on staff. It is proposing to slap itself on the hand by cutting back on its auxiliary staff and (gasp) not letting some of them attend meetings. It is also proposing a two-year probation—with no sanctions attached to that probation.

The first thing you might say—especially if you’re a Michigan fan—is what is the big deal in any of these violations? No one bought players; no one cheated on a test. That’s true. And no one is saying here that Michigan should receive the death penalty or anything like that in this case.

That said, the rules limiting practice and workout time exist to protect players from over-zealous coaches. We all know they’re out there in every sport but especially in football where a lot of coaches think the road to success leads through hundreds of hours in the weight room. A number of rules changes have been made through the years to limit coach’s ability to punish players for poor performance.

One favorite, especially of basketball coaches, was to make players practice immediately after a poor performance in a game. Nowadays, a team can’t stage a practice the same day as a game. There are still coaches who will make their players come back after midnight to practice but it’s rare if only because the extra few hours often gives the coach a chance to cool down a little.

What’s a little bit chilling in the Michigan case is the attitude of the school and the athletic director. The report itself denies the charge of coaches ‘abusing’ players by making them work extra hours—clearly that’s a subjective term—but goes on to say “in start contrast to media reports.” Those reports came from ex-players. My suggestion to Michigan would be to shut up on this issue.

Then there are the quotes from Athletic Director David Brandon, who, according to the AP, ‘bristled,’ when it was suggested that Michigan cheated in breaking the rules it is admitting to breaking. “Bad word, inaccurate word,” he said. “We made mistakes and where I come from, a mistake is different from cheating.”

Wow. Talk about splitting hairs. Where I come from you break a rule that everyone knows is a rule, you knowingly do it and then you initially deny it, it is called cheating. Let’s be clear, this isn’t going 65 in a 55, this is—at the very least—reckless driving. If Rodriguez told his coaches to break the rules or knew they were breaking them he screwed up. If he didn’t know the rules or didn’t know they were being broken, he screwed up. Last I looked the Michigan job isn’t Rodriguez’s first rodeo. He knows the rules and so does his staff. If they don’t, they should probably be fired for incompetence.

So let’s not jump on a high horse here Mr. Brandon, and get bent out of shape if someone says breaking the rules is cheating. Michigan also denied an NCAA allegation that Rodriguez failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance within his program. “We think that is overly harsh,” Brandon said. “We do believe that there were things that could’ve been done better and Rich would be the first to agree that details he delegated shouldn’t have been in retrospect.”

Aah those pesky delegation details. This is the part where assistants get thrown under the bus. One staffer was fired according to Michigan’s report. Question: If Rodriguez did a bad job of delegating in the compliance area doesn’t that mean he did a pretty lousy job of promoting an atmosphere of compliance? Just asking.

Rodriguez is 8-16 in two years as Michigan’s coach. If the Wolverines don’t show marked improvement this year, he’s going to be fired. Of course it won’t be because he and his staff broke rules it will be because he and his staff didn’t win enough games. Judging by Michigan’s response to the NCAA’s accusations—which were brought on by statements made by former players—losing is the only crime anyone in charge at Michigan is really concerned about.

Which probably doesn’t make Michigan different than anyone else playing big time college football. One other thing that’s a good bet: The NCAA will go along with at least 90 percent of the Michigan report. Do you think it is going to make Michigan ineligible for postseason or take it off TV? Central Michigan maybe. Eastern Michigan perhaps. But Michigan? Not going to happen.

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In the wake of the announcement yesterday that New York-New Jersey has been awarded the 2014 Super Bowl, there’s a big headline in today’s Washington Post that says, “Why not Washington?”

Here’s why not: The stadium is one of the worst in the NFL, complete with obstructed seats, terrible roads in and out and an owner who literally gags his fans if they want to express opinions about the team inside the stadium or, in some cases, if they want to send a shout-out to a relative serving overseas.

The NFL should reward any of THAT with a Super Bowl? Please.


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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases


To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:

Media access in the NFL and other sports continues to shrink

This past Monday I was making my weekly appearance on Washington Post Live, which airs here in town on Comcast Cable. Because of some kind of sponsorship deal the show has a segment EVERY day on the Redskins (and then later airs a show called, ‘Redskins Nation,’ which is so god-awful you would fall down laughing while watching it if its presence on the air—ANY air—wasn’t so downright sad).

Anyway, with the draft coming up and the Redskins having just completed their first mini-camp under new Coach Mike Shanahan, we actually did two Redskin segments. One of the other guests was Jason Reid, who does an excellent job covering the team for The Washington Post. Covering the Redskins for The Post is such an awful job I once left sports for two years rather than accept the assignment. (More on that in a moment).

During the mini-camp ‘discussion,’ (what the hell is there to discuss about mini-camp?) Jason casually mentioned that the media was not ALLOWED to be at the Redskins facility on Friday and Saturday. Only on Sunday did Shanahan grant them a few moments with the God-like figures who inhabit Redskins Park.

At first, I was literally stunned. No media at a mini-camp? What are they doing, plotting an invasion into Afghanistan? It then occurred to me that this lack of access, although it varies from team-to-team, is the way the NFL does business. Why does it do business this way? Because it CAN.

Even with a potential strike or lockout looming in 2011, there is nothing bigger in American sports (I throw in American only because of the soccer World Cup which occurs every four years and just about brings the rest of the world to a complete halt) than the NFL. I mean look at all the hype going into the draft, which is now a ‘prime-time,’ event. I mean, has there been enough speculation yet? What amuses me most is that with all the speculation—much of it usually flat out wrong—even after the draft takes place no one really knows what they have, who will be a true impact player and who won’t.

A draft usually becomes a good draft in the third round and beyond. If you blow your first pick—see the Oakland Raiders—then you’re going to be awful because even those guys who never stop talking on ESPN aren’t likely to screw up the first round. Heck, even the Redskins picked a good player in the first round last year. The best teams and general managers do their most important work in the late rounds and in signing college free agents. The teams with the most depth win in the NFL and depth is built in the late rounds of the draft and through free agent signings that usually rate one paragraph. You don’t get good by signing Albert Haynesworth—or for that matter Terrell Owens—you get good by signing Torry Holt and having him catch 70 balls for you on a one-year contract. Things like that.

Okay, back to the NFL and the lack of access the media has. I know most people reading this will say, ‘who cares about your access.’ Well, if you are a football fan YOU should. Look, watching practice or mini-camp doesn’t really matter a lick. I watched most Ravens practices (and mini-camps, which WERE open to everyone in the media) during 2004 and was mostly bored doing so.

Years ago, shortly after I had stopped working at The Post fulltime, I was doing some work for The New York Times. I had a contract with Sports Illustrated but liked keeping my hand in at daily journalism and Neil Amdur, then the Times sports editor, allowed me to do it.

The Redskins were playing the Giants and Neil asked me to go out to Redskins Park to write a couple of features during the week. I was standing on the practice field while the Redskins warmed up talking to Richard Justice, who was then The Post’s Redskins beat writer. Joe Gibbs walked over.

“John, I’m really sorry but we only let our local writers watch practice,” he said. “You’re going to have to leave.”

“Gee Joe, thanks,” I said.

“Thanks?”

“Yeah, thanks. Thanks for thinking for one second that, even if I cared, I’d have any clue what you guys were doing. And thanks for giving me an excuse to go write while you’re practicing.”

Gibbs actually laughed. I happily went off to write.

Nowadays, most NFL practices are shut tight—mini-camps apparently included. When Brian Billick coached the Ravens, he was about as open with the media as any coach that ever lived. All his pre-season practices were open. Once the season started he’d let people watch the beginning but once the team actually started scrimmaging or putting in a game-plan, everyone was shooed inside. Nowadays, ANY access to players on or off the field is extremely limited.

Access in almost all sports—golf is the notable exception—has been cut back greatly in recent years. Hockey locker rooms used to be open pre-game. No more. Baseball clubhouses are still open but for less time and players spend far more time in the off-limits areas, which have been greatly expanded in new ballparks. College basketball is the worst offender: Once, almost every college hoops locker room—even Georgetown under John Thompson the elder—was open postgame. Now, except during the NCAA Tournament (all credit to the NCAA on that one) most are closed and a few ‘selected,’ players come to an interview area. One notable exception? Duke. Maybe some of the coaches who complain so bitterly about Duke getting good publicity all the time should think about that for a moment.

The shame of it from the public’s point of view is that it is so much harder to get to know players when you have almost no access to them. I’ve always found that the best stories usually occur when you’re standing around casually talking to someone. It certainly benefits me in golf where I spend a lot of time hanging out on the range and the putting green just talking to players.

There is no casual time with NFL players for most guys in the media. I had the chance to spend casual time with the Ravens in ’04 and the best stories I found were about guys most people in the public never hear much about: the long-snapper; the punter brought in for a couple of weeks because of an injury; a backup offensive lineman who had played his college football at Williams.

But NFL coaches don’t care if the public hears those stories. They care about controlling everything in their little world on a day-to-day basis and they are allowed to do so by the league, by the media (which has little wherewithal to change anything) and by the public whose only real concern isn’t a good story about a backup lineman but whether last year’s 4-12 team can make itself over into a playoff team.

I get all that. Which is why, back in 1982 when George Solomon, then The Post’s sports editor called me into his office and announced, “congratulations, I’m making you The Redskins beat writer,” I said no. I was very much enjoying myself covering national college football and basketball and I knew that, even then, covering the Redskins beat was basically being a hard-working stenographer: who was injured, who didn’t practice, what did Coach Gibbs think of next week’s opponent? (Greatest team in history every single week).

That’s not to say I wasn’t flattered being offered the most read beat in the newspaper. I just thought life was too short to waste even one season doing that. I told George, with all due respect, I didn’t want the beat. He told me he was the boss—he was right—and I’d do what he said. I walked straight to David Maraniss’s office. He had just been promoted to Metro editor, replacing Bob Woodward. Both had told me I had a standing offer to come back and cover Maryland politics for them anytime I wanted.

“Does the offer still stand?” I asked.

“Absolutely.”

A week later I was in Annapolis. I never covered the Redskins. When I went back to sports two years later it was to cover national college basketball and tennis. I was reminded again on Monday just how lucky I was to never spend one day as an NFL beat writer. Back then, it was lousy. Now, it’s a lot worse.

One thing is true with Tiger, the future is an absolute guess; Bill Hancock continues to smile in response

I would really like to write this morning about Army-Navy weekend, just tell a few stories about the people I encountered and the game and how I got caught (again) tearing up during the playing of the alma maters.

But it’s simply impossible to just drive past the train wreck that is Tiger Woods. I’ve said and written a lot about Tiger the last 13 years but I honestly never thought the phrase, ‘train wreck,’ would appear in a sentence describing his life. That, however, is exactly where he is right now.

It’s interesting the sort of panic that his statement that he was taking an ‘indefinite,’ leave of absence from the tour set off on Friday night. I was about to leave my hotel to meet people for dinner when Golf Channel called. They were about to break into their programming to go live with the story. Could I come on by phone and ‘react?’ Sure. I work for Golf Channel so when they call I’m there to do what they ask even if I seriously doubt I can add that much to the equation. I did the interview with Rich Lerner while standing on Broad Street outside The Philadelphia Palm before I joined everyone for dinner.

By the time we walked out of the restaurant a couple of hours later I had 18 messages from various media outlets on my cell phone. CNN—which is always there when it needs you—had called no less than four times: ‘Larry King Live,’—whose producers consistently say ‘we don’t do sports,’ whenever I have a book out even though I knew the host well when he lived fulltime in Washington—suddenly was doing sports. Same with Anderson Cooper, not to mention their regular news shows. The other calls were predictable ranging from local radio to ABC News.

The only people I called back were those I work with on a regular basis. The larger point is this: NO ONE knows what the hell any of this means. One of the reasons I’m really not that eager to play Tiger pundit right now is that anything I say is an absolute guess.

The questions are predictable: When do you think Tiger will play golf again? Answer: I have no idea and my guess is neither does he right now.

What does this mean for his career?

Again, who among us knows? Maybe golf will become his salvation in light of all that’s gone on and he’ll play better than in the past. Maybe other players won’t be as intimidated by him. Maybe he won’t feel so all-powerful on the golf course because he’s been humiliated off the golf course.

What does this mean for The PGA Tour?

Nothing good, that’s for sure. Commissioner Tim Finchem has always used the following line to pump up his sport, especially when wooing sponsors: “The most famous athlete in the world plays on our tour.” Well, he still does but he is now as infamous as he is famous. Of course there’s no way to measure the impact Tiger’s ‘leave,’ will have until we know how long he’s going to be gone for.

Does Tiger have to actually talk to the media at some point and stop hiding behind his carefully crafted statement on his web site?

Actually no, he doesn’t. He can continue to play the, ‘this is my private life,’ card and a lot of people will buy it. He’s also going to have his apologists running around acting as if he’s a ‘victim,’ of some kind—which he is if you count the fact that he’s a victim of his own selfishness and stupidity. Charles Barkley did some kind of commentary on TBS the other night that was actually embarrassing, trying to claim the whole thing is the fault of all the ‘losers,’ in the media who continue to report the story. Hey Chuck, if the media are such losers why don’t you get OUT of the media. And of course there’s my friend Mike Wilbon (pal of Chuck) who keeps insisting that every famous person on the face of the planet has done this so it’s a non-story.

That’s the way it always is in these situations. There are people who still blame Woodward and Bernstein for Richard Nixon’s resignation and others who insist that what happened to Bill Clinton was a ‘right wing conspiracy.’ It’s worth remembering that Bernstein probably would have still been covering Virginia state politics and Woodward local cops and courts if the burglars hadn’t been caught and that there isn’t any evidence that Monica Lewinsky was working undercover for Rush Limbaugh.

It’s human nature when we screw up to initially try to blame someone or something for our troubles. There’s an old saying among golfers that you can tell the truly great players because they always tap down a spike mark in their line after missing a putt. You see it can’t be THEIR fault. Part of what makes them great is always believing that they made the putt; something simply conspired to keep the ball out of the hole.

There is no one more like that than Tiger. The looks to the heavens; the eye-rolling; the club tossing are all part of that mentality. Sometimes you feel as if Tiger has the hardest life every lived, that he is the first and only player to have a putt do a 360 around the hole and stay out. It is one reason why he always seems to make the next one, as if he’s saying, ‘no matter what you do you won’t get me!’

There’s no doubt that’s how he feels now. He’s certainly surrounded by people (with the likely exception of his wife) who are telling him that every day. They are all Barkley times ten in large part because they’re trying to save their jobs. Some people have called for Tiger to fire IMG; to fire Steve Williams; to fire everyone on his payroll. Look, I’m no fan of IMG and would love to see Steve Williams in a parking lot holding up a sign that says, ‘will caddy for food.’ But if Tiger wants to fire the person responsible for all this he’d have to fire himself.

Personally, I hope he comes back before The Masters. Golf is better with Tiger than without Tiger and anyone who believes different is a fool. But I also hope that sometime between now and his return he goes outside his circle of sycophants and asks for help whether it be from a crisis manager or someone else as long as it is someone who has NO financial involvement in Tiger Woods Inc. And I hope whomever that is tells him that stonewalling is never the answer; that blaming others is never the answer.

He’s admitted his “infidelities,”; he admitted “letting people down.” People need to HEAR him say it, need to get a sense if he means it or if he’s just saying it because that’s what his spinners have told him to say.

There’s another more selfish reason why I hope Tiger starts talking sometime soon: CNN will stop calling me. I swear to God they called again while I was writing this. Maybe I’ll give them Barkley’s number. I’m sure he’ll talk to them—he’s on their payroll.

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On a far lighter and more pleasant note: My pal Bill Hancock from the BCS dealt with being bombarded with his usual good humor during dinner Friday night. He answered NONE of the questions posed to him—most by former Army and Navy football players, I just sat and watched—to anyone’s satisfaction. I think my friend Jim Cantelupe, the co-captain of the Army team I wrote about in ‘A Civil War,’ summed it up well at the end of the night: “Everything he says is wrong but he’s so nice about it you can’t get pissed off at him.”

What was funny was Bill saying that a four team playoff would still have left out an undefeated team when everyone at the table was calling for at least eight teams. When someone asked him about the presidents adding a 12th game strictly to make more money, Bill shook his head sincerely and said, “you know a lot of presidents were against that.

I couldn’t resist jumping in at that point and saying, “not a majority though, huh Bill?”

He just smiled in response.

He also made the mistake of trying the “regular season has more meaning,” argument which was shouted down by people noting that TCU and Boise State could have had NFL teams on their schedule and still wouldn’t have gotten a shot at the championship game.

“I hope I’ll still have some friends left when this is all over,” Bill said after dinner.

I promised I’d always be his friend—which I will—no matter how wrong he might be.