College Basketball Gets Started Today -- Stories on ‘Coach’ Wooden

Two days ago, John Wooden celebrated his 99th birthday. Today, college basketball teams officially begin practice. Three weeks from Monday--remarkably--the season begins. By then The World Series may--or may not--be over.

I'd like to talk about Coach Wooden first. There are very few people that I call "coach." To begin with, it is over-used in sports to the point of being obnoxious. Some people actually come to believe that "coach," is their first name. When I first began covering sports while in college I tended to call most coaches, "coach," because they were older than me and my parents had taught me long ago you didn't address adults by their first name unless they asked you to do so. The first truly famous coach I remember telling me to not to call him coach was Dean Smith. It was shortly after I graduated from college and had gone to work at The Washington Post.

"You're a college graduate now," he said. "You work for a great newspaper, not the Duke Chronicle. (little Dean zinger there). Call me Dean."

I was also instructed early on in my days at The Post by Len Shapiro, one of my early mentors and role models not to call coaches, 'coach.'

"Makes you sound like a kid," he said. "You're implying they have some kind of authority over you--which they don't."

When I met Bear Bryant I couldn't bring myself to call him "Bear," or "Paul." And I would never dare call John Wooden anything but 'coach." If anyone ever earned that title for life it was John Wooden.

He was retired by the time I got into the business but I learned early on that if you wanted a quote on anything relating to basketball, he was someone you could call. His home number was always available and he would pick up the phone himself and talk to you for as long as you needed. I can remember pinching myself a few times thinking, 'John Wooden is talking to ME?'

I'm like anyone else who has been around college hoops: I've heard the stories about Sam Gilbert, who supposedly made sure all the UCLA players were well taken care of during the dynasty days. You know what, I don't care. Elite athletes get taken care of at most schools and, unless it is absolutely blatant, people look the other way. All I know about Wooden is that he won 10 national titles in 12 years--to me the most astonishing run in sports history given that he was winning a single elimination tournament--and is one of a handful of coaches who I KNOW touched his players’ lives in ways that went well beyond basketball.

In my dealings with Coach Wooden he was always smart, honest, candid and clearly had great respect and love for the game and for those who played it and coached it. He certainly could have traded on his fame to make a LOT more money than he ever did and he opted not to do that. The respect people in the game had (and have) for him went well beyond wins and championships.

I've told this story a number of times in the past but I think it bears repeating. In 1984 I was hanging around late one night in the lobby of the coaches hotel at The Final Four in Seattle. I had seen Coach Wooden in the lobby a little earlier with his wife Nell. She was in a wheelchair, terminally ill and had come to the Final Four, essentially, to say goodbye to old friends. Everyone in basketball knew how sick she was.

Late in the evening, the Woodens said good night to the group they had been talking to and Coach Wooden starting pushing his wife's wheelchair across the lobby in the direction of the elevators. I have no idea who started it--but someone began to clap. People looked up from what they were doing and the applause began to build. By the time the Woodens had reached the elevator, everyone in the packed lobby was standing and clapping. It was one of the most moving things I've ever seen because it was so spontaneous and so genuine and so warm.

Six years ago, I ran into Coach Wooden again at The Final Four. I was having breakfast in the lobby at the coaches hotel in New Orleans when I saw him across the room. I went over to say hello. Coach Wooden was 93. In a situation like that I never assume that someone remembers me.

"John," Coach Wooden said shaking hands. "Tell me what book you're working on these days."

I was flattered he remembered. "Actually coach, I'm working on a book about a good friend of yours--Red Auerbach."

Coach Wooden smiled. "Oh Red," he said. "He's such a nice young man."

A young man--of course. Red was only 86 at the time.

Last year I did a column for The Post on Coach Wooden's great grandson, a walk-on at UCLA. He told me a story about shooting hoops in his driveway when he was little. "My great-grandfather came out and started telling me what he wanted me to do with my shot and with my dribble," he said. "I went into my mom and dad and said, 'what the heck does great-grandfather know about basketball? Why is he trying to coach me?'"

It wasn't until a few years later that he found out that his great-grandfather knew a little about basketball.

My guess is that if he was still in the business, Coach Wooden wouldn't be a big fan of all the hoopla that now surrounds the opening night of basketball practice. Lefty Driesell started the whole, "Midnight Madness," concept 35 years ago at Maryland and now almost every college team has some kind of 'celebration,' associated with the start of practice even though the players can now be coached throughout the fall in so-called, 'individual workouts,' and there's no 12:01 a.m. kickoff on October 15th anymore. It's just the third Friday in October. The notion of coaches allowing a PRACTICE to be televised would no doubt leave Coach Wooden shaking his head.

But it is 2009 and life is every different than it was in the 60s and 70s when UCLA was, well, the UCLA of college hoops. Back then, when I was first learning the game, no one played a game before December 1. Then it became Thanksgiving weekend. Now it is Nov. 9th and the national championship game won't be played until April 5th. Coach Wooden's teams played 30 games en route to national titles--26 in the regular season, four in the NCAA Tournament. Now teams routinely play 33 or 34 games BEFORE the NCAA Tournament begins.

It's still a great game--flawed as it may be. When Coach Wooden's teams were dominant a typical college basketball game took about 90 minutes. Now two hours and 15 minutes is routine. One other thing you may or may not remember: Until 1973, the national championship game was played on a Saturday afternoon. Talk about the good old days!

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Couple of quick notes on some recent posts: In response to the blog about 'no cheering in the press box,' someone asked about Sid Hartman the legendary columnist from Minneapolis who was known as a bit of a homer. Years ago Sid's Vikings were playing the Redskins in a playoff game and one of the Vikings was called for holding. Sid stood up and angrily screamed, "If that was holding I'll eat s----!"

My friend Ken Denlinger, one of the nicest men in the history of our business couldn't resist. He tossed a copy of that mornings Minneapolis Star-Tribune at Sid as the replay showed a clear hold and said, "Your column's on page two Sid."....

Ouch.

One of our regular posters, Vince, brought up Harry McGurk after reading my homage of Harry Hughes, reminding me that McGurk had run against Governor Hughes in the Democratic primary in 1982. McGurk's nickname was "soft shoes," because he moved quietly around the senate gathering votes when he needed them almost un-noticed. I had the chance to get to know Senator McGurk and wrote a long feature on him and on his candidacy that year. Not sure, Vince, if you can find it in The Post archives but it would be there sometime in the summer of '82. He was a very, very good man.... 

Stories of Press Box Decorum; Favorite Dinner Guests

The other day, after I joked about reminding Furman Bisher that there was, "no cheering in the press box," a number of people wrote asking how strictly that directive was adhered to and if I had stories about moments when it was not.

Overall, I would say there are few breaches of decorum--certainly not many at all like the one that made the rounds on YouTube a couple weeks ago showing former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert going nuts after his former team recovered a fumble in the end zone--are pretty rare. But they do happen.

My most embarrassing breach of course was in 2005 when Navy played at Duke and I reacted to a string of terrible calls against Navy by saying "f----- referees!" The weird thing about it was when I said it I actually looked around the radio booth to see who had said it. When I saw everyone staring at me I realized I was in trouble. There's no excuse for that kind of thing and I was lucky the Navy people stuck by me.

Of course an enclosed radio booth is different than the press box itself. No one at Duke that day was aware of what had happened until I came out of the booth to tell Eric Ruden, who is in charge of the radio network, what I'd done. I'll always be grateful to him and to Chet Gladchuk, the Navy AD for the way they dealt with the incident. When I asked Eric to let Chet know what had happened because I was willing to resign on-air if he wanted me to, Eric came back and said, "Chet said to tell you he said the same thing on the play."

To which I replied, "Yeah, but he didn't say it on the air." The next week when Chet and Eric got phone calls from the media wanting to know if I would be punished in some way their answer was the same: "John made a mistake, he apologized for it instantly and he feels bad about it. It's over as far as we're concerned."

To this day people still ask me, "did you get through the broadcast Saturday without an f-bomb?" Hey, I made the mistake, I have to live with it and the stale jokes that come with it. Eric once pointed out to me that about 10 times more people knew I'd been doing the games for nine seasons (now 13) after the incident than before the incident.

Inside the press box or on press row at basketball games you rarely see breaches to etiquette. We all have biases and some are more obvious about them than others. There are also times when guys just get caught up in the emotions of a game. Bob Ryan, the great Boston Globe columnist tells a story about the famous Duke-Kentucky game in 1992 when Christian Laettner made the shot at the buzzer in overtime and he was so stunned and amazed that he leaped to his feet. "I thought, "Oh My God, what am I doing I look like a fan," he said later. "Then I looked around and saw that everyone else was standing too. We were just overwhelmed by the whole game and what we'd seen."

I wasn't in Philadelphia that night. I was in Tampa, Florida watching the game in a hotel room with Tim Kurkijian, then of Sports Illustrated, now of ESPN. In spite of that fact, I got a call on Monday from a Charlotte radio station wanting to know if I would come on the air to discuss the fact that I had been seen leaping the press table to run on the court and hug Laettner. I suggested they call Tim to verify where I was at that moment and told them I did not have the ability to beam myself from Tampa to Philadelphia. I later found out that the rumor had been started by a guy I'd known early in my journalism career who blew up his own career and was very bitter about anyone who'd had more success than he had.

There are also times when people assume biases. When Mike Kryzewski was still trying to build his program at Duke, the one local journalist who stuck with him during the first three seasons was Keith Drum, who was sports editor of The Durham Morning Herald. Because Keith--who is now a scout for the Sacramento Kings---was supportive of Krzyzewski many North Carolina people, including Dean Smith, began to label him, "a Duke guy." As it happens, Keither went to North Carolina, but that didn't matter. In 1984, Duke beat Carolina in the ACC Tournament semifinals, one of Krzyzewski's first really important wins since that Carolina team included Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith--among others.

Keith and I have been friends since I was in college. We walked down the steps that led to the locker room area and there was Dean, smoking a postgame cigarette. (He gave up smoking a few years later). As soon as he saw us, he made a beeline for Keith, hand out and said, "congratulations, YOUR team played very well."

Keith and I thought that was pretty funny, congratulating the guy who went to Carolina on a Duke victory while the Duke graduate stood there watching (with a huge smile on his face because it WAS pretty funny). I still tease Keith about that to this day,

Actually I lied when I said my only breach of decorum was the Navy-Duke football game. In 1978, Duke played Kentucky in the national championship game. It was my first Final Four. I was a year out of college and knew the players and coaches well. Needless to say I was pulling for Duke. Early in the second half Jim Bain, one of the referees, missed a traveling call. Bill Foster, the Duke coach, got off the bench and, from across the court, made the traveling signal and then held his hands out, palm up, as if to say, "where was the call."

Bain gave him a technical foul on the spot. Al McGuire and Billy Packer, working their first Final Four together for NBC, were stunned by both calls. "That's taking one mistake and turning it into two," McGuire said at the time. I might be wrong, but I don't remember another coach getting teed up in a championship game since then. Good refs give coaches a lot of rope under that kind of pressure and--most of the time--the refs working the final are good ones.

Many Kentucky fans think I blame Bain for Duke losing the game. I don't. Kentucky was the better team and was almost certainly going to win that night whether Bain got the travel right or didn't lose his temper. But those two calls certainly didn't help Duke's cause.

Two years later, I was covering a Virginia-Ohio State game in Columbus. It was Ralph Sampson's freshman year. Jim Bain had the game. During a time out, I found him standing right in front of me. "Hey Jim" I called out. He turned around and said, "what?”

"Remember the Duke-Kentucky championship game two years ago?" He nodded. "That technical on Foster, WORST call I've ever seen."

Bain just stared at me for a second and then said something profane. I was about to respond when the late Barney Cooke, who was then Virginia's SID, grabbed my shoulder and said, "don't say another word." Barney was right of course. I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. But it DID make me feel better. And no one can say that I was cheering in the press box--or on press row--that day.

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Just for the record, last night was one of those that's special to me. Three or four times a year I have dinner with three men I got to know well covering Maryland politics: one is Harry Hughes, who as the governor when I covered the state house, one of the best men I've ever had the chance to know. (And it isn't just because he's a Democrat. He's simply a wonderful man, liked and respected by Democrats and Republicans alike). The others in the group are Steve Sachs, the former state attorney general and Tim Maloney, who served five terms in The House of Delegates (he was 22 when he was elected) who left to become a wealthy lawyer.

We usually go down to Easton, on the Maryland eastern shore, because that's where Governor Hughes lives and have a great time talking about today's politics and reliving old stories.

A couple of years ago, I walked into the restaurant where we were meeting to see if Governor Hughes had arrived yet. Traffic had been surprisingly light on The Bay Bridge so we were a few minutes early. I was looking around the bar area when I heard a voice say, "what the hell are you doing down here?"

I turned around and there was Bob Pascal, who had been Governor Hughes' Republican opponent in 1982. I covered that election, which Hughes won in a runaway. Throughout the summer, Pascal kept saying to me, "When I get on the tube (TV advertising) Harry's going to hear my footsteps. He got on the tube and ended up with 37 percent of the vote. I told Pascal why I was there--we were celebrating Gov. Hughes birthday that night--and he laughed and said, "I always knew you were a Democrat." (True, he did, because I told him up front but also told him that some of my best sources in the legislature were Republicans, which was also true).

"Tell you what," Pascal said. "Because I'm a good guy, I'm going to buy Harry a bottle of wine for his birthday."

Sure enough, the governor showed up a few minutes later and we all sat down. I was telling him the story when Pascal walked up behind him. Hearing the footsteps, he turned around.

I couldn't resist. "Bob," I said. "It finally happened! Harry heard your footsteps! It only took 25 years but he DID hear your footsteps!."

Some things, I swear, you just can't make up.

Update II - John's Radio Segments (The Sports Reporters, Tony Kornheiser Show AND The Gas Man Show):

Today, I made an afternoon appearance on 'The Sports Reporters' 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 on various topics including the Redskins QB situation, the Anthony Kim story, Rush Limbaugh and Maryland basketball, where practice starts this weekend.

Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's podcast: The Sports Reporters


Thursday morning I made my regular appearance on the newest Tony Kornheiser Show, and today we talked a great deal about Anthony Kim and late nights on the PGA Tour and the situation of the basketball team at Tony's alma mater, the Binghamton Bearcats.

Click here to listen to the radio segment (I'm the 1st guest of this segment): The Tony Kornheiser Show


I make regular appearances on Seattle's The Gas Man Show on Thursday evenings (5:35 PT), and this week we spent a lot of time on sportwriting greats Furman Bisher and the late Shirly Povich, followed by looking back on the week of Limbaugh.

Click here to listen to the radio segment: The Gas Man Show

Discussing Limbaugh Bid – Not What You’d Expect; Death Knell of New Year’s Day Bowl Tradition

Since starting this blog almost four months ago I have tried not to veer into the world of politics too often. It isn't because of the people who write the inevitable, "stick to sports," posts or notes or even because I know my politics are way left of a majority of those who follow sports. I have a friend, Slugger White, who is a rules official on The PGA Tour who is as far right as I am left who likes to say, "John, you're so far left you've almost come all the way around to the right."

That said, there is no way to NOT discuss Rush Limbaugh and his bid to become an owner of the St. Louis Rams. To be honest, my feelings on the subject may surprise people. I really don't care if Limbaugh becomes an NFL owner. It isn't as if we're talking about the United States Senate or The Supreme Court--both entities that have some pretty shaky people among their membership that conduct work and make decisions far more important than whether to go to an 18 game schedule.

The NFL may be the most image conscious entity in the U.S. It is at least as powerful as it is image-conscious. Remember, this is the league that bullied ESPN into dropping a fictional show depicting life in the NFL because it didn't like the way players and owners were being portrayed. The fact that the league cared says a lot about the league. The fact that the TV network, which considers itself all knowing and all powerful folded, also says a lot about the league. That's why I used to refer to Paul Tagliabue as "Don Tags," when he was commissioner.

We all know who Limbaugh is and what he stands for. His Donovan McNabb comment six years ago was simply stupid--although it is worth noting that ESPN didn't fire him for saying it, it fired him because of the reaction to him saying it. Little Mark Shapiro, who is now one of Danny Snyder's henchmen (he's the guy who got Six Flags underwater literally and figuratively) in Washington, initially defended Limbaugh.

Limbaugh has said a lot worse things than that, including recently saying he hoped The President of the United States fails at the job. Look, I don't care whether your politics are right or left or in-between, you don't openly root against the President. I certainly didn't root against George W. Bush. I simply disagreed--vehemently--with him. Limbaugh, as proven by the Michael J. Fox episode and others, is a mean, vicious little man.

That doesn't mean he can't own an NFL team. To begin with, even though most won't publicly admit it, a lot of the owners aren't very far from Limbaugh politically--which actually isn't a relevant part of the conversation anyway. If Keith Olbermann wanted to buy an NFL team he would be less than welcome in the owners club but would be no more or less qualified to own a team than Limbaugh.

Roger Goodell isn't the son of a politician (the late U.S. Senator Charles E. Goodell) for nothing. He knows his constituencies. One is the players union. Although the players have no say in who owns a team and most will play for anyone who waves the right amount of money at them (witness Snyder and the Redskins) he also knows he's got a tough contract negotiation on his hands right now and doesn't need another hot-button issue walking into the room. He is also being consistent: he's said from the start that he wants to hold players to a higher standard of behavior than in the past. He needs to do the same for owners, coaches and anyone who works for the league.

In the end though, it will be the owners who will decide whether Limbaugh's group gets the chance to buy the Rams. No doubt many of them are hoping that someone outbids his group so they don't even have to debate it. It takes 24 of 32 votes to approve the purchase of a team and, with Goodell probably quietly lobbying against Limbaugh (image again) it may be tough to get those votes unless the Limbaugh bid simply blows away the competition financially. Owners do have the right to turn down an ownership bid, that's been long established, and the Phoenix Coyotes court case re-established that point recently.

Here's the irony in all this: owning an NFL team would be a bad thing for Limbaugh. Once he's an owner he would have to muzzle himself on a lot of issues that have made him so popular with his base--the far right wing. You can be sure Goodell and the owners would make it clear to him in the vetting process that he would have to "live up to the NFL standards of behavior." That's not something tangible you can wrap your arms around but some of Limbaugh's past comments would certainly fall outside those parameters. One would guess that screaming into a radio microphone that someone who called the President of the United States a liar during a joint session of Congress should NOT apologize for that act would be an example of behavior not approved by the owners. (even though I guarantee some of them would agree with Limbaugh).

There's part of me that would like to see the Limbaugh bid go forward if only because it will be fascinating to see how the NFL handles it. In the end, the owners and Goodell will probably find some way to squirm out of a Limbaugh ownership and when they do you can bet the rants coming from ole Rush will be a hoot because the guy doesn't deal with any sort of rejection very well. In fact, he might be the one person on earth who can walk into an NFL owners meeting and have the biggest ego in the room. That's saying a lot.

The funniest thing in all this was Limbaugh's quote about how it will make people "nuts," to see him work himself into the mainstream and this is one way for him to do it. Actually Rush, none of us really care if you work your way into the mainstream. If you want to share a room with Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones and be told you have to keep your mouth shut be our guest. You deserve to be an NFL owner. And, in many ways, the NFL owners deserve you right back.

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There's an item in the paper today that I believe officially signals the death knell for college football as a serious New Year's Day tradition. Remember the old days when the four (then five with the Fiesta Bowl) New Year's bowls were the traditional finale of the college football season? Playing on New Year's Day meant something, you had to be GOOD to make a New Year's Day bowl. That's been watered down severely with the BCS moving it's so--called championship game back a week and taking at least one other bowl off the New Year's Day calendar. Now you have The Gator Bowl (which last year included a five loss Clemson team) and The Citrus Bowl and a bowl named for a steakhouse (albeit one that I like) played on New Year's Day.

And now we are going to have The Dallas Bowl played on New Year's Day. This is it, the end for New Year's Day to matter at all except when The Rose Bowl is being played. Follow me here for a minute: The Dallas Bowl is going to be played IN The Cotton Bowl. The reason for that is that, even though The Cotton Bowl was recently renovated those who run The Cotton Bowl game moved it to Jerry Jones's new palace. So, the people who run The Cotton Bowl stadium decided to create a new bowl. It will match mid-level teams from The Big Twelve and Conference-USA. So, you could have a New Year's Day matchup between, say, Colorado with a 6-6 record and Central Florida at 7-5. Oh joy, just we need to start the New Year.

It's bad enough that the NCAA hands out bowl bids to anyone who has a dozen ugly blazers lying around but can't it at least put some kind of limit on what gets on New Year's Day? Can't we have SOME tiny respect for tradition? Apparently not. I guess I'll watch the outdoor hockey game.

On the Retirement of Furman Bisher--A Role Model for All of Us; Comment Follow-Ups

Seven months ago I had the pleasure of sitting next to Furman Bisher at the ACC Tournament. It was Friday afternoon and North Carolina was engaged in a terrific game with Virginia Tech--which was fighting for its NCAA Tournament life. As the game swung back and forth so did Furman--a proud graduate of UNC. He held his head in his hands when the Tar Heels made a mistake, railed against officiating calls that he disagreed with and shook a fist when Carolina pulled the game out in the final seconds.

Then he got up, walked into the bowels of the Georgia Dome to talk to people about the game and then came back and wrote a live column for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. This was not long after his 90th birthday.

No one working at the ACC Tournament saw this as unusual in any way. A big time event was in Atlanta and Furman Bisher was there writing about it. That's the way it has--seemingly--always been and the fact that Furman had turned 90 and was still writing shocked no one. For one thing, Furman looked about 65. For another he still had more energy than most of us who are 30, 40 or 50 years younger than he is. Perhaps most important, he still WROTE better than most of us who are 30, 40 or 50 years younger than he is.

This past Sunday, Furman Bisher wrote his last regularly scheduled column for the Journal-Constitution. I find that shocking. One of the great things about being a writer is that as long as you have your health and your mind is intact, you can keep doing what you do for as long as you want. Furman is a force of nature, in better physical shape than most of the guys he hangs out with in press rooms. His mind? Are you kidding me? He can still craft a column that makes the rest of us say, "Why can't I do that?"

But somewhere along the line he decided that 70 years in the newspaper business was enough for one lifetime. He told his bosses he thought it was time for him to move on. His readers lose out more than anyone. The notion that he won't be showing up in press rooms on a regular basis anymore (I'm sure he'll still be at The Masters) is a loss for all of those who have been fortunate enough to know him.

I first met him when I was in college. Georgia Tech came to Duke for a football game and I sat right in front of Furman in the press box. I knew exactly who he was because I'd read his Sporting News columns as a kid. Duke was actually reasonably good in those days and won the game going away. At one point about midway through the fourth quarter a Duke kid made a tackle and as he came to the sideline someone grabbed him and screamed in his face and high-fived him as if he had just saved the game.

"My God," Furman said. "Look at that assistant coach. The guy's crazy."

"That's not an assistant coach," I said. "That's the team chaplain."

I wasn't kidding. Bob Young, the football team chaplain was, shall we say, intense.

"The chaplain?" Furman said. "By God no one wonder Duke is winning. They probably have God out there running windsprints after practice."

Furman was one of those iconic columnists who always had time to talk to kids coming up in the business. He defined what a southern gentleman was supposed to be and he always made what he did look easy. But there was no doubt he worked at his job. A lot of golf writers don't like to venture outside the press building at The Masters, in part because you can see things better watching on TV there, in part because the key players are always brought right to you.

I always prided myself on getting out and watching golf and working the locker room because that was how you got to know players and they got to know you. I found out early on that players notice the writers who do that. When I was researching "A Good Walk Spoiled," I showed up early one morning to walk with a group that included Jay Haas, Curtis Strange and Billy Andrade--a Wake Forest threesome if you will. I was standing on the first tee up against the ropes when Haas walked onto the tee and came straight over to me.

His normally friendly smile was nowhere in sight. "Hey," he said, pointing a finger at me. "YOU aren't supposed to be standing here."

I was stunned. I was less than an arm's length from the rope as the rules prescribed and what the heck was up with Haas? "Jay, I don't know what you mean," I stammered. "I'm an arm's length from the ropes. I don't think I'm in anyone's way..."

"No," Haas said. "You're supposed to be inside the press room right now eating free food like everyone else."

Behind me I could see Stange and Andrade cracking up.

At The Masters, or the U.S. Open or any tournament where I'd encounter Furman it seemed as if whenever I went out to walk he was the first person I'd encounter. Late in the day, he'd be standing under the tree outside the clubhouse talking to people. The next day, when you read his column, the subject was rarely the first guy brought to the interview room (like many columnists) or Tiger regardless of how he played. It was something a bit off the beaten path with some clear reporting involved. Every time I want to get a little bit lazy and hang around the press room I remind myself that Furman's probably out there walking so I can damn well drag myself out there too

A friend of mine sent me a note yesterday with a story about Furman's retirement. The subject line was, "another nail in sports journalism's coffin." Actually, I disagree with that assessment. For one thing I'm pretty convinced we'll still be reading Furman in various places for a good long time to come. For another, I think he's been a role model to so many of us for so many years that there are still quite a few guys at least TRYING to do the kind of work Furman did. We may not be Furman but if we try to be Furman we'll all be a little bit better.

That day at the ACC Tournament, as the game wound down, I could see that Furman was really sweating it out. At one point when he shook a fist after a Carolina basket I jokingly said to him, "Come on Furman, no cheering in the press box or on press row."

He laughed and said. "John, you get to be 90, you're allowed to cheer all you want."

I couldn't agree more. I'm not 90 but I'm going to stand up and cheer for Furman Bisher right now.

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Some comments/ responses to recent posts...

Someone asked about the "technology creep," that we see on-screen these days during games, specifically referring to the TBS pitch-trax that is on the right side of the screen so often during at-bats. Personally, I think the whole thing has gotten out of control. This all started back in the 90s when Fox first got football and started putting the score and the time at the top of the screen. Then ESPN began showing updates twice an hour with scores at the bottom of the screen. That was all fine.

Now it's completely out of control. ESPN has non-stop crawls now which are distracting and, most of the time, just an excuse to put some advertiser's name on screen or to let people know about ESPN programming or to brag that the network has (allegedly) broken a story. "Brett Favre's agent tells ESPN that Favre is still right-handed." Everyone now puts logos all over the screen which is distracting too. The pitch trax is okay if used on occasion but its constant presence is simply annoying. What's more, it is far from infallible--sort of like the umpires...

Someone else asked if I had a comment on Duke winning a road football game in the ACC for the first time in six years. Sure. Good for Duke. It only took two bad hirings by a bad athletic director and two incompetent presidents to getting around to hiring a real college football coach in David Cutcliffe. Maybe they can reach the ultimate dream of every college football team and play someday on the blue field in Boise. Meanwhile, N.C. State Coach Tom O'Brien has to be feeling a little bit like Jim Zorn this week. Wonder if he wishes he had never left Boston College...

A reader--who I'm guessing is either related or very close to an official of some kind--was very upset with my Washington Post column yesterday saying officials should be more accountable. She wondered if I could possibly know how hard it is to be an official. Actually, I think I do. As I've mentioned on the blog, I like most officials. I've traveled with them, written about them and always gone out of my way to try--when allowed--to tell their side when something controversial takes place. I think if you ask most officials who know me they would tell you that. My point was this: in ANY job, regardless of how hard you work, you should be accountable for mistakes. No one drafts officials or umpires, they choose their path--just as we all do. Sometimes the best answer is, "yes, I made a mistake. I will try to do better next time."

Tomorrow--I promise--I will try to do better.

John's Monday Washington Post column:

This is Monday' Washington Post column, bringing to light the call for officials to be as accountable as players.  The following is the article:

October may be a great month to be a sports fan, but it most definitely has not been good month to be a sports official.

Let's just do a quick review of the most blatant officiating screw-up that have occurred so far this month:

-- Umpire Randy Marsh fails to see the ball hit the uniform shirt of Detroit's Brandon Inge in the 12th inning of the Tigers-Minnesota Twins American League Central Division playoff game. Because the bases were loaded the Tigers would have, at worst, taken a one-run lead into the bottom of the inning.

-- Umpire Phil Cuzzi somehow calls Joe Mauer's slicing line drive foul in the top of the 11th inning of Game 2 of the Twins-Yankees series when the ball was clearly fair by a foot. The call costs the Twins at least one run, and the Yankees win in the bottom of the inning on Mark Texeira's home run.


-- Officials in the LSU-Georgia game call "excessive celebration" on Georgia receiver A.J. Green after his late touchdown catch put the Bulldogs up 13-12. That helped give LSU superb field position after the ensuing kickoff. In a clear make-up call, the officials then flagged LSU running back Charles Scott for excessive celebration after he scored the winning touchdown. The Southeastern Conference admitted two days later that both calls were wrong.

-- The referee in the Navy-Air Force game made a ridiculous roughing-the-passer call on Navy, wiping out a Navy interception and allowing Air Force to tie the score as time expired. Air Force quarterback Tim Jefferson was scrambling when he was hit an instant after releasing the ball. His coach, Troy Calhoun, described the call as " a gift." Fortunately for Navy and the referee, Navy won in overtime.

Click here to read the rest of the column: Everyone Answers for Mistakes -- Except Officials

Continued Redskins Mess, Early NFL Season and MLB Playoffs

I write today from a town in which all the sharp objects have been hidden. The Washington Redskins are now 2-3 and in the last four weeks they have played teams that--putting aside two wins over Washington--are a combined 0-17. That's not a typo. The only football team on earth that has played an easier schedule is Penn State. I'm a little surprised they aren't playing each other this coming week but the Redskins are playing a team that might not be as good as Penn State: the 0-5 Kansas City Chiefs.

That's really enough on the Redskins because outside of this area, very few people could care less about a franchise that has been uniformly mediocre since the Dan Snyder's Reign of Error began 10 years ago. One local columnist, my friend Tom Boswell, suggested today that Snyder sell part of the team to Joe Gibbs to get him to come back as team president but that misses the point. Gibbs was a great coach, a mediocre general manager. He was better than Snyder and henchman Vinny Cerrato but my cat would be an improvement on the two of them. There will probably be a lot of whining today about what appeared to be a bad call on a fumbled punt but two points need to be made: The Redskins still had 9:21 left to produce at least a tying field goal after Carolina went ahead 20-17 and you are talking about an offense that scored on drives of 13 yards and one yard and went into the season knowing it was one injury from complete disaster on the offensive line and now has two injuries, an aging running back (who ducked the media yesterday) and a bingo-caller (seriously) dragged out of retirement by Cerrato without consulting his head coach (!!) as a consultant. Honestly, if I was Jim Zorn I'd punch Cerrato right in the nose. He's getting fired anyway so why not?

One more thing on the NFL before moving on to the really good stuff--the baseball. This season is turning into a nightmare for Commissioner Roger Goodell. Rush Limbaugh wants to buy a team. (Guess who is one of the most influential people in the players union? That would be Donovan McNabb) He's got serious labor problems on the horizon. Beyond that, look at how many truly bad teams there are in the league. Now fewer than four teams--Kansas City, Tampa Bay, St. Louis and Tennessee--are winless. There are a bunch of truly bad one win teams: Oakland, Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland and Carolina not to mention the Redskins. That's nine really lousy teams with the season not close to halfway done.

There are, of course, some good stories, most notably Josh McDaniels who people wanted to run out of Denver before he coached a game, being 5-0 with the immortal Kyle Orton at quarterback. Right behind are the Bengals, who won three games a year ago, sitting at 4-1 the only loss on a fluke play against--you guessed it--the Broncos. The Saints, Giants and Colts haven't come close to losing and the Favre kid in Minnesota has looked pretty good. His Sears commercial is downright funny. Do NOT count out the Patriots. They've played the toughest schedule in football so far.

Okay, let's pause for a moment and give The Presidents Cup all the time it deserves...

That's enough, now the baseball.

Am I the only one shocked that it's already football season in Boston and, well, hockey season in St. Louis? It isn't just remarkable that the Red Sox and Cardinals were swept by the Angels and Dodgers but in each case there was a game with an ending that was hard to believe. I have never met Matt Holladay but I couldn't help but feel awful for him after he apparently lost the ball in the lights on what should have been a game-ending play in game 2 in Los Angeles Thursday. How different would that series have been if the teams had gone back to St. Louis tied 1-1? We'll never know of course and Holladay may not be in St. Louis next year since he's a free agent. If he stays, Cardinals fans, who are as good as it gets in baseball, will embrace him and forgive him. If not...well...can you say Bill Buckner? The difference--besides being in The Division Series not The World Series--is that the Mets had already tied the game when Buckner booted the ball in 1986. If Holladay makes the play Thursday, the game is over.

Just as stunning was the end of the Red Sox season on Sunday in Boston. Two outs, no one on, a two run lead and Jonathan Papelbon pitching. That's a lock. People go on and on (as they should about Mariano Rivera) but Papelbon (over a shorter period) has been just about as reliable as Rivera in postseason. And yet, he just couldn't get the third out and the Angels finally exorcised--at least to some degree--1986. I was about to write that they exorcised the ghost of Donnie Moore but then I remembered that Moore committed suicide a few years after the Dave Henderson home run apparently because he never could get over what happened on that Sunday afternoon in Anaheim.

Now the Angels get the Yankees. No one was surprised the Yankees swept the Twins but it was a lot harder than it looked. For all the talk about the vaunted lineup, the Yankees scored one run in the first eight innings of game two and two runs in the first eight innings of game three. The Twins were a base-running mistake and a horrible umpiring call away from winning on Friday in New York. They made another bad mistake on the bases Sunday--and you hated to see it happen to Nick Punto who was SO terrific down the stretch, especially in the play-in game against the Tigers--or they might have at least tied the game in the eighth. As Ron Gardenhire put it, "we stayed on the field with them."

They did--but the Yankees were better-albeit not by that much. What's more let's not get caught up in his, "A-Rod has put his October ghosts behind him," hype. Not yet he hasn't. Sure, he was great against the Twins but go back to 2004. He was great against the Twins then too before collapsing--along with his team--in the last four games against the Red Sox. Let's see if he can do it against the Angels who have given the Yankees fits for years and have had a similar hold on New York that the Red Sox had on them before the last few days. The Angels and Yankees have met three times in postseason since 2002 and The Angels won all three times. IF A-Rod comes through in this series and IF the Yankees win The World Series then the A-Rod apologists can stop apologizing for him.

The Phillies middle-of-the-night (in the east) win in frigid Colorado would appear to put them in control of that series, especially with Cliff Lee pitching game four. But you can be the folks in Philly will be a tad nervous if the Rockies force a game five with the wildly inconsistent Cole Hamels pitching for Philadelphia. A Dodgers-Phillies rematch would be fun and my guess is it will take more than five games this time. (Of course I'm the guy who liked the Cardinals to come out of The National League so what do I know).

Let us end today with a final tribute to The Metrodome--one of the weirdest, wackiest, loudest places where baseball has ever been played. No doubt it is great for the Twins to get a new ballpark--although my guess is Opening Day on April 10th may be a bit brisk--but for a place that had a relatively short history, the Metrodome certainly had a lot of remarkable moments. And, while the ending may have been sad for the Twins fans, they should revel in the way the last regular season ended--with that wonderful victory lap their team took after beating the Tigers last Tuesday.

And let's remember one last thing: the full name of the building was the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. At the very last that's a far more fitting name for a ballpark--especially in Minnesota--than the corporate name that will be on the new stadium. That, however, is the way of the world these days. "The Hump," as it was often called in its early days, will surely be missed.