Tom Watson raised some eyebrows last week while playing in Dubai—ironically he was invited because the tournament had a large chunk of extra cash to spend on appearance fees since it wasn’t paying Tiger Woods his annual fee of $3 million—when he talked about Woods’ behavior on the golf course.
Let’s put aside the off-course issues for today because there is going to be MORE than enough written and said about them as Woods moves closer to his return to the PGA Tour, which I still think will come next month either at Doral or Bay Hill.
Watson’s point was this: In golf, part of being a CHAMPION is the way you conduct yourself in public, especially on the golf course. It is worth remembering that Watson was one of the first players to say straight out that he had never seen a talent like Woods and that his presence in the game was nothing but a good thing.
I still remember back in 1998, I drove to the airport in Jacksonville during the week of The Players Championship to meet my family, which was coming to town since Danny was on spring break and Brigid wasn’t in school yet. Watson was there, waiting for the same flight from Atlanta because his son Michael was flying in to meet him for the week.
When the plane landed, Danny—who was four at the time—was the first person to come running into the terminal. He spotted me right away and raced over. When I introduced him to Watson I said, “Mr. Watson is a very famous golfer.”
Danny looked at Watson and said, “are you as good as Tiger Woods?”
“Not in my wildest dreams,” Watson answered.
It was also Watson who said during Woods’ 12-shot runaway at the 1997 Masters that, “he’s a boy among men and he’s showing the men how it’s done.”
But it has always bothered Watson—and many other players—that Woods has absolutely refused to clean up his act on the golf course. Most kids learn early that throwing clubs and using profanity on the golf course is unacceptable. Arnold Palmer often tells a story about playing in a tournament when he was about 13 and tossing a couple of clubs in frustration. His father was there and never said a word throughout the round.
“As soon as we got in the car he said to me very quietly, ‘if you ever throw a club again, that’s the last time you’ll play golf,” Palmer said. “You can believe I never threw a club again.”
Can you possibly imagine Palmer, Watson or Jack Nicklaus throwing a club? You might—MIGHT—hear a “dammit,” from them on occasion but that’s about it. Woods AND his thug caddy are famous on tour for their language. In fact, back in 2000, during his historic performance at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, Woods rinsed his ball in the water left off the 18th tee at the end of the second round and dropped a clearly heard on national TV f-bomb for which he was given a hefty fine since it was far from being his first offense.
His response was to have his agent call The PGA Tour and complain that there was a double-standard when it came to fines for Woods because he always had a microphone following him. All the double standards that BENEFIT Woods because of his stardom never get complained about.
Part of the problem, as I’ve written before, lies with the tour. Commissioner Tim Finchem still adheres to the ridiculous notion that covering up fines somehow helps the tour’s image as a genteel place filled only with fine gentlemen. (I think that image may have taken a hit these past 10 weeks). Finchem and his board believe that fines and even suspensions should be covered up to protect the tour’s image.
About the only reason to fine athletes who make the kind of money the stars on the tour make is deterrence. Does anyone think it hurts Woods to reach into his pocket for fine money—even if he is the most fined player in golf history? Of course not. But, prior to the morning of November 27th, the second-most important thing in Woods’ life (his golf swing being THE most important) was his public image. The more he came across as the boy next door, the more valuable he was to his various sponsors.
If the tour made public ALL its fines, you can bet all players, would behave better on the golf course. Instead, the tour is so secretive that several years ago one player who was suspended told his wife he had decided to, “take a break,” from playing and she believed him.
Woods has been un-apologetic about his behavior or his caddy’s behavior. On occasion when the issue has come up he has talked about people not understanding the pressure he and poor Stevie are under. What set Watson off was the sight of Woods bouncing his driver into the gallery during a tournament in Australia and recovering it without so much as a word of apology. His feeling, as with many others, is that if you come on tour at 21 with a temper, fine. By the time you’re 34 you should make some attempt to correct it.
Long time tour players Steve Pate and Dudley Hart were known on tour for years as, “volcano,” and “mini-volcano,” because of their on-course eruptions. Both laughed at the nicknames but didn’t like the reputations that came with it. Both worked—successfully—to clean up their act. The nicknames remain but they are no longer accurate.
Right now, while he’s allegedly taking a long hard look at his life and who he is, would be a good time for Woods to reconsider the way he behaves at the golf course and to think about Watson’s point about the difference between being a great player and being a great champion.
The club throwing needs to stop and the profanity needs to be controlled. (I am not going to be a hypocrite and suggest he STOP all profanity because I’ve never been able to do it although I do try to be conscious of it around my kids and radio microphones). He needs to MAKE his caddy behave and not always be screaming at photographers or anyone in the gallery who breathes incorrectly. He should sign more autographs, perhaps take a page out of new best friend Phil Mickelson’s (ha!) playbook and plan time into each day to just sign autographs. The weak excuse put out by his PR people, “if he signs 100, the 101st person will be upset,” should be put away since those first 100 would be thrilled and that’s at least 99 more than Woods signs most days.
He might even want to quit blaming the media every time it does something awful like report that he failed to win a major in 2009. When I think about Woods telling Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz this past fall (before November 27th) that he was tired of the way the media treated him, I want to burst out laughing. Woods gives the media less time than any great athlete in the history of sports. He almost never does a one-on-one with anyone except for paid deals (Diaz’s interview for example was part of Woods’ contract with Golf Digest and he refused this year to do it in person) and softball TV interviews that usually last three questions or occur when he’s pitching something. He’s treated with kid gloves because people in golf are afraid of him and because he sends his agent, Mark Steinberg, to bully almost anyone who steps out of line.
Example: Last August when Woods refused to speak to the media for two days during The Barclays event held at Liberty Island (he was pouting because he’d been accurately quoted by one of his pro-am partners making fun of the golf course) I said in my weekly Golf Channel essay that he’d acted like a petulant child. The next week in Boston, Steinberg told several people from Golf Channel that they might, “have trouble,” getting Woods to talk to them that week (these guys had NOTHING to do with what I’d said) because Woods was angry about my essay. The old guilt-by-association trick.
This would be a GREAT time for Woods to stop trying to pass blame for his behavior—on or off the golf course—onto others and look himself in the mirror. There’s a reason why Tom Watson is universally respected. Woods should think about what he’s saying and understand that he is NOT out to get him. (No one is if you think about it). If he cleans up his act on the golf course people will love him even more than in the past. He’s a smart guy. This should be easy for him.
I suspect it won’t happen.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Washington Post column - ' NCAA tournament expansion would make cents, but not sense'
Here is this week's column from The Washington Post --------
If there is one thing you can absolutely count on from the NCAA, it is an almost unique form of slippery deceit. No one involved in its decision-making ever tells an outright lie. They also never tell an outright truth.
Everything is always being studied. Ask the NCAA its position on March coming after February and you will be told the issue is being studied. This is an organization that spent hours and hours last summer debating the merits of allowing member schools to feed bagels to their athletes. (Not surprisingly, the proposal came from the ACC because, heck, things are going so well in football and basketball, why not spend time on the bagel issue?)
In its infinite wisdom the NCAA came down in favor of bagels -- but against cream cheese to go with the bagels.
Seriously.
Click here for the rest of the column: NCAA tournament expansion would make cents, but not sense
If there is one thing you can absolutely count on from the NCAA, it is an almost unique form of slippery deceit. No one involved in its decision-making ever tells an outright lie. They also never tell an outright truth.
Everything is always being studied. Ask the NCAA its position on March coming after February and you will be told the issue is being studied. This is an organization that spent hours and hours last summer debating the merits of allowing member schools to feed bagels to their athletes. (Not surprisingly, the proposal came from the ACC because, heck, things are going so well in football and basketball, why not spend time on the bagel issue?)
In its infinite wisdom the NCAA came down in favor of bagels -- but against cream cheese to go with the bagels.
Seriously.
Click here for the rest of the column: NCAA tournament expansion would make cents, but not sense
Drew Brees’s tears most memorable to me; On to next slate of sports events
There are a lot of bad things about living in America’s new snow belt. Losing power is no fun. Seeing people losing their minds in the grocery store is comedic but just a little bit scary. But not getting the newspapers in the morning makes me crazy. Sure, I can read online but it’s NOT THE SAME. I spend enough time sitting at the computer most days without having to sit here to read the papers.
Okay, that is today’s whine-du-jour. Suffice to say it hasn’t been a fun winter in these parts and apparently there’s more to come. The roads still aren’t clear (largely because there’s just no place to put the snow) and more snow is expected tomorrow and Wednesday. The only ones who are happy right now are the kids.
I did manage to make it home from West Point last night—although the last 35 miles was treacherous and frightening—in time to see most of The Super Bowl. My first comment on the game and the telecast is this: Have all the smart advertising execs retired? I did not see every commercial and I probably wasn’t completely focused on a lot of the ones I saw, but it certainly appeared that the days of the memorable Super Bowl commercial have gone the way of the low-key postgame celebration.
Enough already with the talking baby.
Onto the game. Most Super Bowls have three or four moments that stand out and are replayed forever and this game was no exception. The Saints recovery of the onside kick to start the second half will be shown a million times along with announcers crediting Sean Payton (correctly) for taking such a bold gamble. The Tracy Porter interception will always be the signature play of the game, not only because it broke the Colts back but because it rendered Peyton Manning human again. Now we’re going to hear over and over again that Manning has won the same number of Super Bowls as Mark Rypien and Brad Johnson, not to mention little brother Eli.
But for me, the most vivid memory will be Drew Brees’s tears, first when he was holding his one-year-old son Baylen during the (overblown) pre-trophy presentation celebration and then as he stood on the podium waiting for Tom Benson to stop blathering so Payton could finally hand him the trophy.
His voice never cracked on the podium or in his postgame press conference but his emotion was apparent and clearly quite genuine. He talked about feeling as if he was meant to land in New Orleans and to be a part of the rebuilding of the team and the city and the region, but there was no Joe Gibbs/Kurt Warner evangelism just a clear picture that this was a man of faith who felt that his presence in New Orleans was part of a plan he didn’t need to understand but had been able to help carry out.
Good for him. Good for the entire city which suffered the modest angst that comes with a consistently bad football team and then the tragedy of Katrina. It’s a little harder to feel good for Saints owner Tom Benson who was ready to yank the team from New Orleans and move it to San Antonio or Los Angeles after Katrina and is now taking bows for all that has gone right the last couple of years, culminating with Sunday’s victory.
You can’t help but wonder how hard Manning will get hit by his critics for this loss. He did not play poorly by any means—he never plays poorly. But the defining moment of the game was the Porter interception. I don’t think there’s anything that can happen that will remove Manning from the pantheon of great NFL quarterbacks. He’s certainly somewhere on the list although the talk that he is THE greatest will quiet now until he wins another Super Bowl.
I have one other question on the subject of great quarterbacks. Whenever people talk about Joe Montana as the best of all time, they talk about his four Super Bowl wins—as they should. Tom Brady’s three Super Bowl wins puts him in the conversation and then names like Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, John Elway and old-timers like Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham get mentioned. I never hear Terry Bradshaw’s name. Sure, the Steelers of his era were built around a great defense but Bradshaw was awfully good and his teams won four Super Bowls. Shouldn’t that merit at least a mention, regardless of how many bad commercials he’s made?
Just wondering.
For me, there’s always a sense of relief when The Super Bowl is over. The hype is behind us for a while and we don’t have to dodge every single ex-player on earth, “breaking down the game.” What the playing of the game almost always proves is that all the, “breaking down,” is meaningless. The consensus among the experts was that sooner or later Manning would be too good for the Saints defense. I was among those who thought that, the only difference between me and some of the others is that I don’t consider myself an expert. I’m just someone who has been around football a lot and I think I know SOMETHING about the game but I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to go out and bet his house on what I think about the outcome of a game. I thought Navy was too beat up physically to go into Notre Dame and win this past season. Shows you how much I know.
Now, unless you are an NFL Network geek who can’t wait for The Combine, football is behind us for a little while. The Winter Olympics begin Friday. I can live without the opening ceremonies and ALL the figure skating. But I enjoy things like speed skating, luge and bobsled and Alpine skiing, even if I don’t completely understand them or know any of the athletes. The hockey should be fun and the best thing about it is that the Islanders can’t lose any more games while the Olympics are going on. (The Caps, if you’re paying attention, may never lose another game. I didn’t get to see the comeback on Sunday but if they didn’t lose that game, that’s it, they’re never losing again).
It is also less than five weeks now to Selection Sunday. I went through the conference standings this morning and I have to tell you, coming up with a list of 34 teams that are absolutely, without question deserving of a bid wasn’t easy. Which raises this question: If coming up with 34 teams is tough, how the heck does the NCAA propose to come up with 65 at-large teams with a 96 team field?
This is the worst idea anyone has come up with since New Coke. Even Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and I agree on this and we agree on NOTHING. Of course that probably means that it is a lock to happen.
Okay, I have to go and find food for my family before it starts snowing again tomorrow. I wish I was joking.
Okay, that is today’s whine-du-jour. Suffice to say it hasn’t been a fun winter in these parts and apparently there’s more to come. The roads still aren’t clear (largely because there’s just no place to put the snow) and more snow is expected tomorrow and Wednesday. The only ones who are happy right now are the kids.
I did manage to make it home from West Point last night—although the last 35 miles was treacherous and frightening—in time to see most of The Super Bowl. My first comment on the game and the telecast is this: Have all the smart advertising execs retired? I did not see every commercial and I probably wasn’t completely focused on a lot of the ones I saw, but it certainly appeared that the days of the memorable Super Bowl commercial have gone the way of the low-key postgame celebration.
Enough already with the talking baby.
Onto the game. Most Super Bowls have three or four moments that stand out and are replayed forever and this game was no exception. The Saints recovery of the onside kick to start the second half will be shown a million times along with announcers crediting Sean Payton (correctly) for taking such a bold gamble. The Tracy Porter interception will always be the signature play of the game, not only because it broke the Colts back but because it rendered Peyton Manning human again. Now we’re going to hear over and over again that Manning has won the same number of Super Bowls as Mark Rypien and Brad Johnson, not to mention little brother Eli.
But for me, the most vivid memory will be Drew Brees’s tears, first when he was holding his one-year-old son Baylen during the (overblown) pre-trophy presentation celebration and then as he stood on the podium waiting for Tom Benson to stop blathering so Payton could finally hand him the trophy.
His voice never cracked on the podium or in his postgame press conference but his emotion was apparent and clearly quite genuine. He talked about feeling as if he was meant to land in New Orleans and to be a part of the rebuilding of the team and the city and the region, but there was no Joe Gibbs/Kurt Warner evangelism just a clear picture that this was a man of faith who felt that his presence in New Orleans was part of a plan he didn’t need to understand but had been able to help carry out.
Good for him. Good for the entire city which suffered the modest angst that comes with a consistently bad football team and then the tragedy of Katrina. It’s a little harder to feel good for Saints owner Tom Benson who was ready to yank the team from New Orleans and move it to San Antonio or Los Angeles after Katrina and is now taking bows for all that has gone right the last couple of years, culminating with Sunday’s victory.
You can’t help but wonder how hard Manning will get hit by his critics for this loss. He did not play poorly by any means—he never plays poorly. But the defining moment of the game was the Porter interception. I don’t think there’s anything that can happen that will remove Manning from the pantheon of great NFL quarterbacks. He’s certainly somewhere on the list although the talk that he is THE greatest will quiet now until he wins another Super Bowl.
I have one other question on the subject of great quarterbacks. Whenever people talk about Joe Montana as the best of all time, they talk about his four Super Bowl wins—as they should. Tom Brady’s three Super Bowl wins puts him in the conversation and then names like Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, John Elway and old-timers like Sammy Baugh and Otto Graham get mentioned. I never hear Terry Bradshaw’s name. Sure, the Steelers of his era were built around a great defense but Bradshaw was awfully good and his teams won four Super Bowls. Shouldn’t that merit at least a mention, regardless of how many bad commercials he’s made?
Just wondering.
For me, there’s always a sense of relief when The Super Bowl is over. The hype is behind us for a while and we don’t have to dodge every single ex-player on earth, “breaking down the game.” What the playing of the game almost always proves is that all the, “breaking down,” is meaningless. The consensus among the experts was that sooner or later Manning would be too good for the Saints defense. I was among those who thought that, the only difference between me and some of the others is that I don’t consider myself an expert. I’m just someone who has been around football a lot and I think I know SOMETHING about the game but I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone to go out and bet his house on what I think about the outcome of a game. I thought Navy was too beat up physically to go into Notre Dame and win this past season. Shows you how much I know.
Now, unless you are an NFL Network geek who can’t wait for The Combine, football is behind us for a little while. The Winter Olympics begin Friday. I can live without the opening ceremonies and ALL the figure skating. But I enjoy things like speed skating, luge and bobsled and Alpine skiing, even if I don’t completely understand them or know any of the athletes. The hockey should be fun and the best thing about it is that the Islanders can’t lose any more games while the Olympics are going on. (The Caps, if you’re paying attention, may never lose another game. I didn’t get to see the comeback on Sunday but if they didn’t lose that game, that’s it, they’re never losing again).
It is also less than five weeks now to Selection Sunday. I went through the conference standings this morning and I have to tell you, coming up with a list of 34 teams that are absolutely, without question deserving of a bid wasn’t easy. Which raises this question: If coming up with 34 teams is tough, how the heck does the NCAA propose to come up with 65 at-large teams with a 96 team field?
This is the worst idea anyone has come up with since New Coke. Even Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany and I agree on this and we agree on NOTHING. Of course that probably means that it is a lock to happen.
Okay, I have to go and find food for my family before it starts snowing again tomorrow. I wish I was joking.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Deviation from sports – stories of my dad, who passed away 4 years ago today
There are a number of things I could write about this morning: How completely sick I am of snow and predictions of snow could easily keep me going for 1,000 words. Tom Watson’s comments about Tiger Woods’ on-course behavior—which are correct and have been discussed among players for years. The only reason they haven’t been talked about in public is that everyone lived in fear of angering King Eldrick. There’s also the continuing mediocrity of ACC basketball. After last night I’m beginning to think Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg and long-time announcer Dan Bonner may have it right when they say Maryland might be the league’s best team. And then there are The Washington Capitals, who have now won 12 straight games and find a different way to win every night. (Please, no comments on the Islanders who lost their sixth straight last night and would struggle to score from the slot into an empty net these days—eight goals in those six games).
But I’m going to ask for everyone’s indulgence today and veer away from all those topics to talk about someone who had very little interest in sports: my dad, Martin Feinstein.
It was four years ago today that he died at the age of 85 after a mercifully brief but horrible-to-watch bout with pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed on January 8th and died exactly four weeks later, at home, after refusing chemotherapy that the doctors told him MIGHT give him another six-to-nine months.
My dad was, to put it mildly, a character. He lived a remarkable life: Born in Brooklyn to Ukranian immigrant parents whose education ended somewhere around the eighth grade, he loved music as a kid the way most of us love sports. His mother told stories about how he bent all her silverware keeping time to music on the radio. By the time he was 12 he was saving his money to ride the subway into Manhattan to go to The Metropolitan Opera. His grades were good enough to get into an Ivy League school but his parents didn’t have the money, so he went to City College—which, at the time, was one of the elite public colleges in the country.
He got his Masters in music history just in time to get drafted and served overseas in the Army during World War 2. When the war ended, he came home to demands from his family that he go work for his uncles in the garment district. He refused and finally landed a job working for Sol Hurok, the impresario who represented most of the great classical artists of the 20th century, including Isaac Stern, Artur Rubinstein, Marian Anderson, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolph Nureyev and just about anyone else who mattered.
Throughout my boyhood, a parade of important people in the arts came through our west side apartment. I’ve told the story before but one night Marian Anderson had given a concert and my parents threw a post-concert party for her—which they frequently did in those days. I was watching a Rangers-Black Hawks playoff game in my parents’ room (it was the only TV in the house) when Bobby Hull scored in overtime to doom the Rangers. I began screaming at the TV set in anger.
My dad burst into the room demanding to know what the hell was going on. “The Rangers just lost in overtime,” I said, figuring that was enough explanation.
“For God’s sake John, Miss Anderson is SINGING,” he said. “Keep it down.”
Dad eventually became Hurok’s No. 2 man before taking over the brand-new John F. Kennedy Center in Washington as its first executive director in 1972. That was a traumatic time in my life. I was a high school junior. My chances to get into college were tied pretty closely to swimming and my coach, Ed Brennan. Not to mention that I was finally starting to have a social life.
A friend of my mother’s had spotted me one day talking to a girl in the hallway at school.
“I think John’s discovered girls,” she reported to my mom.
“John discovered girls years ago,” my mom answered. “This year they’ve discovered him.”
Needless to say I didn’t want to move to Washington and leave my coach, my team and those girls that were discovering me. My parents worked it out so I could stay with Jerry and Sue Katz, whose two sons went to my school and who also had an extra bedroom in their apartment.
My dad never really understood my obsession with sports. People often asked how his son could be such a sports geek, given his background. I was once asked to write a magazine piece on him and the headline on the story was, “The Mets vs. The Met.” It was pretty accurate. When I was young and we’d be in the car going someplace on a Saturday, I’d say something like, “Dad, my transistor reception isn’t very good here, can you turn on the Mets?”
He’d say, “Oh, I’m glad you reminded me, it’s time for the broadcast from The Met.”
He couldn’t understand why I would choose Duke over Yale (girls in warm weather clothes most of the year and basketball plus a brand new pool) and pleaded with me to apply to law school so I could maybe get past this, “sportswriting thing.” In fact, when we had the Duke-Yale argument I finally said, “dad, I have to go to school where I want to go to school, not where YOU want me to go to school.”
“You didn’t even apply where I wanted you to go,” he said.
“WHAT? I applied to Yale. You teach at Yale (he taught a performing arts management graduate school course there) it was always Yale with you. Where did you really want me to go?”
“Harvard.”
“You never said a word about Harvard.”
“I knew you couldn’t get in THERE.”
He was a demanding father—and boss, friend, you name it. But in the end he always supported all three of his kids and, like my mother, he lived by the rule that HE could criticize his kids but YOU couldn’t. I still remember Tony Kornheiser trying to tell him that I was making a mistake leaving The Post because of a dispute with my boss and I should apologize. Dad simply turned around and walked away from him.
Dad went from The Kennedy Center to The Washington Opera, which was really the job he had always craved. He wanted to run an Opera company the way I would have loved to have run a baseball team. When he took over, the company was doing three productions a year and a total of 16 performances. By the time he retired in 1996, the numbers were 12 productions and 96 performances. He made it a world class company.
In the end, he was very proud of what I did even if he never completely understood the national fascination with sports. He enjoyed telling stories about how he was often introduced as “John Feinstein’s dad,” and he often knew more about what kind of reviews my books were getting than I did. He never lost his sense of humor even when he was dying.
In fact, a week before he died he was in Georgetown hospital. It was a Sunday and I was there with my sister and dad’s wife, Marcia. (My mom died in 1993). We were sitting around the bed and Margaret, who (sorry Margaret) did not inherit his talent as a storyteller, was going on at great length about her then six-year-old son Ethan’s basketball game that morning, which had been a 6-4 donnybrook. Margaret was doing play-by-play—not basket-by-basket, PLAY-BY-PLAY.
Finally, just as Ethan broke into the clear yet again only not to be thrown the ball, dad sat up in bed and grabbed my arm. “I’m begging you,” he said. “I’m dying—MAKE HER STOP.”
I made her stop.
Two days before he died, my pal Jackson Diehl, who is the No. 2 person on The Post’s editorial board, suggested I write an op-ed piece on dad’s amazing life to run as a eulogy. I wrote it and took it to the house to read to him because I thought he’d enjoy hearing it.
He was completely lucid. He also made corrections—perhaps the only person to ever get to edit his own eulogy.
At the funeral, I remembered many, many nights sitting with him in a darkened theater watching “his,” performers wow an audience. Whenever the curtain came down, his was also the first, “Bravo!” you would hear because he wanted to be sure everyone else knew how great the performance they had just seen had been. Then he would race backstage to congratulate the artists. (He could run faster than any 5-foot-9 person I ever met when he wanted to).
He would always wait though to make sure there was a standing ovation. That’s what he always wanted to see. And so, at the end of my eulogy I asked everyone to give dad a standing ovation.
I can honestly say he truly deserved it. He lived an extraordinary life. Everyday I think about how lucky I was to have him and my mom as my parents. Every single day.
But I’m going to ask for everyone’s indulgence today and veer away from all those topics to talk about someone who had very little interest in sports: my dad, Martin Feinstein.
It was four years ago today that he died at the age of 85 after a mercifully brief but horrible-to-watch bout with pancreatic cancer. He was diagnosed on January 8th and died exactly four weeks later, at home, after refusing chemotherapy that the doctors told him MIGHT give him another six-to-nine months.
My dad was, to put it mildly, a character. He lived a remarkable life: Born in Brooklyn to Ukranian immigrant parents whose education ended somewhere around the eighth grade, he loved music as a kid the way most of us love sports. His mother told stories about how he bent all her silverware keeping time to music on the radio. By the time he was 12 he was saving his money to ride the subway into Manhattan to go to The Metropolitan Opera. His grades were good enough to get into an Ivy League school but his parents didn’t have the money, so he went to City College—which, at the time, was one of the elite public colleges in the country.
He got his Masters in music history just in time to get drafted and served overseas in the Army during World War 2. When the war ended, he came home to demands from his family that he go work for his uncles in the garment district. He refused and finally landed a job working for Sol Hurok, the impresario who represented most of the great classical artists of the 20th century, including Isaac Stern, Artur Rubinstein, Marian Anderson, Margot Fonteyn, Rudolph Nureyev and just about anyone else who mattered.
Throughout my boyhood, a parade of important people in the arts came through our west side apartment. I’ve told the story before but one night Marian Anderson had given a concert and my parents threw a post-concert party for her—which they frequently did in those days. I was watching a Rangers-Black Hawks playoff game in my parents’ room (it was the only TV in the house) when Bobby Hull scored in overtime to doom the Rangers. I began screaming at the TV set in anger.
My dad burst into the room demanding to know what the hell was going on. “The Rangers just lost in overtime,” I said, figuring that was enough explanation.
“For God’s sake John, Miss Anderson is SINGING,” he said. “Keep it down.”
Dad eventually became Hurok’s No. 2 man before taking over the brand-new John F. Kennedy Center in Washington as its first executive director in 1972. That was a traumatic time in my life. I was a high school junior. My chances to get into college were tied pretty closely to swimming and my coach, Ed Brennan. Not to mention that I was finally starting to have a social life.
A friend of my mother’s had spotted me one day talking to a girl in the hallway at school.
“I think John’s discovered girls,” she reported to my mom.
“John discovered girls years ago,” my mom answered. “This year they’ve discovered him.”
Needless to say I didn’t want to move to Washington and leave my coach, my team and those girls that were discovering me. My parents worked it out so I could stay with Jerry and Sue Katz, whose two sons went to my school and who also had an extra bedroom in their apartment.
My dad never really understood my obsession with sports. People often asked how his son could be such a sports geek, given his background. I was once asked to write a magazine piece on him and the headline on the story was, “The Mets vs. The Met.” It was pretty accurate. When I was young and we’d be in the car going someplace on a Saturday, I’d say something like, “Dad, my transistor reception isn’t very good here, can you turn on the Mets?”
He’d say, “Oh, I’m glad you reminded me, it’s time for the broadcast from The Met.”
He couldn’t understand why I would choose Duke over Yale (girls in warm weather clothes most of the year and basketball plus a brand new pool) and pleaded with me to apply to law school so I could maybe get past this, “sportswriting thing.” In fact, when we had the Duke-Yale argument I finally said, “dad, I have to go to school where I want to go to school, not where YOU want me to go to school.”
“You didn’t even apply where I wanted you to go,” he said.
“WHAT? I applied to Yale. You teach at Yale (he taught a performing arts management graduate school course there) it was always Yale with you. Where did you really want me to go?”
“Harvard.”
“You never said a word about Harvard.”
“I knew you couldn’t get in THERE.”
He was a demanding father—and boss, friend, you name it. But in the end he always supported all three of his kids and, like my mother, he lived by the rule that HE could criticize his kids but YOU couldn’t. I still remember Tony Kornheiser trying to tell him that I was making a mistake leaving The Post because of a dispute with my boss and I should apologize. Dad simply turned around and walked away from him.
Dad went from The Kennedy Center to The Washington Opera, which was really the job he had always craved. He wanted to run an Opera company the way I would have loved to have run a baseball team. When he took over, the company was doing three productions a year and a total of 16 performances. By the time he retired in 1996, the numbers were 12 productions and 96 performances. He made it a world class company.
In the end, he was very proud of what I did even if he never completely understood the national fascination with sports. He enjoyed telling stories about how he was often introduced as “John Feinstein’s dad,” and he often knew more about what kind of reviews my books were getting than I did. He never lost his sense of humor even when he was dying.
In fact, a week before he died he was in Georgetown hospital. It was a Sunday and I was there with my sister and dad’s wife, Marcia. (My mom died in 1993). We were sitting around the bed and Margaret, who (sorry Margaret) did not inherit his talent as a storyteller, was going on at great length about her then six-year-old son Ethan’s basketball game that morning, which had been a 6-4 donnybrook. Margaret was doing play-by-play—not basket-by-basket, PLAY-BY-PLAY.
Finally, just as Ethan broke into the clear yet again only not to be thrown the ball, dad sat up in bed and grabbed my arm. “I’m begging you,” he said. “I’m dying—MAKE HER STOP.”
I made her stop.
Two days before he died, my pal Jackson Diehl, who is the No. 2 person on The Post’s editorial board, suggested I write an op-ed piece on dad’s amazing life to run as a eulogy. I wrote it and took it to the house to read to him because I thought he’d enjoy hearing it.
He was completely lucid. He also made corrections—perhaps the only person to ever get to edit his own eulogy.
At the funeral, I remembered many, many nights sitting with him in a darkened theater watching “his,” performers wow an audience. Whenever the curtain came down, his was also the first, “Bravo!” you would hear because he wanted to be sure everyone else knew how great the performance they had just seen had been. Then he would race backstage to congratulate the artists. (He could run faster than any 5-foot-9 person I ever met when he wanted to).
He would always wait though to make sure there was a standing ovation. That’s what he always wanted to see. And so, at the end of my eulogy I asked everyone to give dad a standing ovation.
I can honestly say he truly deserved it. He lived an extraordinary life. Everyday I think about how lucky I was to have him and my mom as my parents. Every single day.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Super Bowl week – call me when the game starts; More follow-up
If there is one thing I am thankful for as I head into my dotage it is that I am no longer under the control of an editor who can say something like, “I need you at The Super Bowl.”
That happened to me once, back in 1980, when I was happily covering college basketball for The Washington Post and George Solomon announced to me that, since I had done such a good job covering a number of Philadelphia Eagles games during the season, he was sending me to The Super Bowl.
This was the way George did things: he always wanted you to believe that he was doing YOU a favor when he gave you an assignment. All of us knew that and understood it so it wasn’t a big deal. Very early in my tenure at The Post, George walked up to me in the newsroom on a Friday afternoon and handed me a credential for that Sunday’s Redskins game.
“Listen,” he said. “You’re doing a hell of a job covering Maryland, you deserve a treat. Go to the game Sunday, sit with (Paul) Attner (the Redskins beat writer at the time) and (columnist Ken) Denlinger and have a good time.”
I was very happy that George had noticed how hard I was working. I was also exhausted. I had to cover a Maryland game at Pittsburgh the next afternoon and wouldn’t get home until late Saturday. On Sunday, I would have to write what was called, “the follow,” on the Maryland game but that meant a phone call to Coach Jerry Claiborne and maybe an hour writing. The rest of the day was mine.
So, I thanked George for the offer but said I was really looking forward to a quiet day (almost) off.
“You should go,” George said. “It’ll be fun.”
I’d gone to Redskins games before. They weren’t really my idea of fun. In the press box during Maryland games we joked and had fun throughout. The press box at a Redskins game was more like going to church or temple. The only one who ever seemed to crack a joke was Mo Siegel, the long-time Washington Star columnist.
“Maybe another time,” I said finally. “But thanks for thinking of me.”
George’s face went from friendly to all-business in about 2.4 seconds. “Look,” he said. “I need a sidebar.” He stuck the credential out. “You can park in lot 10. Easy walk from there.”
The Super Bowl assignment was pretty much the same deal. I tried—briefly—to tell George I’d really rather cover Ohio State at Virginia (Herb Williams vs. Ralph Sampson) on Super Bowl Sunday but I knew it was a done deal. So, off I went to New Orleans (which wasn’t a bad thing) to spend a week writing stories about how excited the two teams were to be there. In those days The Super Bowl was a smaller event, there was no “radio row,” as there is now and the coverage, while saturated, wasn’t around the clock.
Even so, I was glad to get home and return to college hoops. Nowadays, Super Bowl week has become little more than a corporate bazaar. The flaks walk up and down radio row pitching their products, which come in the form of athletes and coaches. Kurt Warner is pitching milk; Mark Sanchez and DeMarcus Ware are selling a soft drink and Sam Bradford, who isn’t even in the NFL yet, is pumping one of the phone companies. The list is endless. They’ll all go on anytime, anywhere as long as they get to make their corporate pitch.
On Wednesday, I happened to be in the car midday when one of the DC stations had Bradford on. It was clearly a hastily arranged interview because Bradford was somewhere on South Beach and on the phone, not on radio row. Still, the station took him because there’s been talk the Redskins might draft him.
So, one of the hosts asked him about The Big Game. “It’s going to be great,” he revealed exclusively. “It’s going to be exciting.”
Gee Sam, thanks for that.
“Who you picking?” the host asked, trying to keep some kind of conversation going.
“I think I’ll keep that to myself,” he said.
Huh? Did he think he was being asked his position on Health Care or Afghanistan? Does he honestly think anyone is going to remember or care on Monday if he said Saints or Colts? It is amazing how today’s jocks are trained in non-speak. Ask them what day it is and they’ll say, “Can’t really tell you but I’m sure it’s going to be great and you can bet my teammates and I will step up and give 110 percent.”
Bradford, who is part Native American, also refused to answer a question about whether he had any problem with the nickname of the Washington football team. The host, Kevin Sheehan, a really good guy who can go from zero to Redskins in a matter of seconds, took that as a good sign. “He has no problem with the nickname,” he concluded when the interview had mercifully ended.
Actually he had said he didn’t want to express his opinion. The only thing he had an opinion on was the great deal on the phone he was pitching.
You pick up the newspapers and while (thankfully) there’s no one pitching products, you are reading the same stories day after day. Who will make history, Manning or Brees? In Washington, which may be the most parochial alleged big city in America, today’s column was about Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Why? He was once the Redskins defensive coordinator. There will, of course, be a story on Mark Brunell, now a backup quarterback and holder for the Saints who Joe Gibbs brought to town as the savior a few years back. It didn’t exactly work out.
People ask me if I’m interested in The Super Bowl. “Sure,” I answer. “As soon as the game starts, I’ll be interested. Until then I don’t really need to hear another word or read another word because the chances are I’ve already heard or read all the words before.”
Of course this is exactly what the NFL wants. That’s why they stick the bye week in there even though no one involved in the game—players, coaches, media, fans---has any need for it. It gives the league a full week to be front and center with all of its various pitches and products. People talk about the game and all the hype surrounding it because they feel like they have to talk about it.
I understand that the guys sitting on radio row have a hard time turning down almost anyone with a name who wanders by trying to get his sales pitch on the air. After all, why be in the host city if not to get “names,” on the air. My God though it is numbing.
Someone please call me at 6:30 Sunday night and remind me the game’s starting. Once it is over (four hours later) we can all turn our attention to something important: Selection Sunday will only be five weeks away.
*****
Two comments today on posts from yesterday. First, to the indignant Ray F. defender of all women in athletics: You’re right I DID say that the silly comments made by two women’s basketball coaches were an example of why it is SOMETIMES tough to take women’s sports seriously. I make similar comments about coaches and athletes who talk in jock-speak, about lawyers and agents never caught in a truth and about people in my profession (no doubt including me at times) who take ourselves too seriously.
Your refusal to simply admit what the coaches said was ridiculous is exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of people in women’s athletics take themselves much too seriously. Most women’s sports—tennis, gymnastics and figure skating are notable exceptions—aren’t nearly as popular as the men’s version of those sports. And yet a lot of people act as if they are or should be simply because they say it should be.
A few years ago when I still worked for ESPN I was taping, “Under the Boards,” (my name for the segment by the way, ESPN stole it after I left) at Cole Field House one day shortly after the Maryland women finished practicing. I started my first item with a reference to Massachusetts, calling the Minutemen, “the top basketball team in the country,” (they were ranked number one).
As I finished I noticed Chris Weller, then the women’s basketball coach at Maryland, whispering in the producer’s ear. Then she left.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“She said you should say the top MEN’S team in the country,” the producer said.
I was seriously tempted to shout after Weller: “Really, are there women’s teams out there BETTER than U-Mass?”
Please people, get over yourselves.
I will admit to being a wise guy about it on occasion. Years ago I was walking with my then-wife through Cameron Indoor Stadium on a Sunday afternoon. We were standing at one end of the floor. The women were practicing. A manager raced up and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, this is a closed practice.”
To which I responded: “Oh My God, does that mean I can’t get OUT?”
Second topic: The vitriol back and forth between loyalists of different military branches yesterday. Hey folks, we’re all on the same side, remember? I know there are rivalries and jealousies between branches and academies, but my goodness, let’s not get nuts here.
There were also comments that were plain stupid—which is unusual for this site. Someone claimed Marcus Curry was being protected by the academy because he was a “black football player.” Please. Ask Lamar Owens, an African American quarterback and team captain who was thrown out of the Navy for drinking and having sex with a female midshipmen (rules violations at Navy, the norm at civilian schools) if black football players are protected. Ask Nate Frazier, who was separated for an honors violation last August—and would have been BY FAR Navy’s best defensive player this season—if black STAR football players are protected.
As I said, based on the information that we have, I think Admiral Jeffrey Fowler needs to separate Marcus Curry unless there is some mitigating circumstance (besides his football ability) we don’t know about. But the bleating directed at the academy and the Navy is ridiculous. And the guy who claimed the academies have lowered their academic standards in a “pathetic,” attempt to play Division 1-A football should ask Missouri and Houston just how pathetic Navy and Air Force were in their bowl games. They could also ask Notre Dame how pathetic Navy has been in recent years. They should also get to know some of the kids who play football at the academies.
Okay, time to go back to listening to Kurt Warner sell milk.
That happened to me once, back in 1980, when I was happily covering college basketball for The Washington Post and George Solomon announced to me that, since I had done such a good job covering a number of Philadelphia Eagles games during the season, he was sending me to The Super Bowl.
This was the way George did things: he always wanted you to believe that he was doing YOU a favor when he gave you an assignment. All of us knew that and understood it so it wasn’t a big deal. Very early in my tenure at The Post, George walked up to me in the newsroom on a Friday afternoon and handed me a credential for that Sunday’s Redskins game.
“Listen,” he said. “You’re doing a hell of a job covering Maryland, you deserve a treat. Go to the game Sunday, sit with (Paul) Attner (the Redskins beat writer at the time) and (columnist Ken) Denlinger and have a good time.”
I was very happy that George had noticed how hard I was working. I was also exhausted. I had to cover a Maryland game at Pittsburgh the next afternoon and wouldn’t get home until late Saturday. On Sunday, I would have to write what was called, “the follow,” on the Maryland game but that meant a phone call to Coach Jerry Claiborne and maybe an hour writing. The rest of the day was mine.
So, I thanked George for the offer but said I was really looking forward to a quiet day (almost) off.
“You should go,” George said. “It’ll be fun.”
I’d gone to Redskins games before. They weren’t really my idea of fun. In the press box during Maryland games we joked and had fun throughout. The press box at a Redskins game was more like going to church or temple. The only one who ever seemed to crack a joke was Mo Siegel, the long-time Washington Star columnist.
“Maybe another time,” I said finally. “But thanks for thinking of me.”
George’s face went from friendly to all-business in about 2.4 seconds. “Look,” he said. “I need a sidebar.” He stuck the credential out. “You can park in lot 10. Easy walk from there.”
The Super Bowl assignment was pretty much the same deal. I tried—briefly—to tell George I’d really rather cover Ohio State at Virginia (Herb Williams vs. Ralph Sampson) on Super Bowl Sunday but I knew it was a done deal. So, off I went to New Orleans (which wasn’t a bad thing) to spend a week writing stories about how excited the two teams were to be there. In those days The Super Bowl was a smaller event, there was no “radio row,” as there is now and the coverage, while saturated, wasn’t around the clock.
Even so, I was glad to get home and return to college hoops. Nowadays, Super Bowl week has become little more than a corporate bazaar. The flaks walk up and down radio row pitching their products, which come in the form of athletes and coaches. Kurt Warner is pitching milk; Mark Sanchez and DeMarcus Ware are selling a soft drink and Sam Bradford, who isn’t even in the NFL yet, is pumping one of the phone companies. The list is endless. They’ll all go on anytime, anywhere as long as they get to make their corporate pitch.
On Wednesday, I happened to be in the car midday when one of the DC stations had Bradford on. It was clearly a hastily arranged interview because Bradford was somewhere on South Beach and on the phone, not on radio row. Still, the station took him because there’s been talk the Redskins might draft him.
So, one of the hosts asked him about The Big Game. “It’s going to be great,” he revealed exclusively. “It’s going to be exciting.”
Gee Sam, thanks for that.
“Who you picking?” the host asked, trying to keep some kind of conversation going.
“I think I’ll keep that to myself,” he said.
Huh? Did he think he was being asked his position on Health Care or Afghanistan? Does he honestly think anyone is going to remember or care on Monday if he said Saints or Colts? It is amazing how today’s jocks are trained in non-speak. Ask them what day it is and they’ll say, “Can’t really tell you but I’m sure it’s going to be great and you can bet my teammates and I will step up and give 110 percent.”
Bradford, who is part Native American, also refused to answer a question about whether he had any problem with the nickname of the Washington football team. The host, Kevin Sheehan, a really good guy who can go from zero to Redskins in a matter of seconds, took that as a good sign. “He has no problem with the nickname,” he concluded when the interview had mercifully ended.
Actually he had said he didn’t want to express his opinion. The only thing he had an opinion on was the great deal on the phone he was pitching.
You pick up the newspapers and while (thankfully) there’s no one pitching products, you are reading the same stories day after day. Who will make history, Manning or Brees? In Washington, which may be the most parochial alleged big city in America, today’s column was about Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Why? He was once the Redskins defensive coordinator. There will, of course, be a story on Mark Brunell, now a backup quarterback and holder for the Saints who Joe Gibbs brought to town as the savior a few years back. It didn’t exactly work out.
People ask me if I’m interested in The Super Bowl. “Sure,” I answer. “As soon as the game starts, I’ll be interested. Until then I don’t really need to hear another word or read another word because the chances are I’ve already heard or read all the words before.”
Of course this is exactly what the NFL wants. That’s why they stick the bye week in there even though no one involved in the game—players, coaches, media, fans---has any need for it. It gives the league a full week to be front and center with all of its various pitches and products. People talk about the game and all the hype surrounding it because they feel like they have to talk about it.
I understand that the guys sitting on radio row have a hard time turning down almost anyone with a name who wanders by trying to get his sales pitch on the air. After all, why be in the host city if not to get “names,” on the air. My God though it is numbing.
Someone please call me at 6:30 Sunday night and remind me the game’s starting. Once it is over (four hours later) we can all turn our attention to something important: Selection Sunday will only be five weeks away.
*****
Two comments today on posts from yesterday. First, to the indignant Ray F. defender of all women in athletics: You’re right I DID say that the silly comments made by two women’s basketball coaches were an example of why it is SOMETIMES tough to take women’s sports seriously. I make similar comments about coaches and athletes who talk in jock-speak, about lawyers and agents never caught in a truth and about people in my profession (no doubt including me at times) who take ourselves too seriously.
Your refusal to simply admit what the coaches said was ridiculous is exactly what I’m talking about. A lot of people in women’s athletics take themselves much too seriously. Most women’s sports—tennis, gymnastics and figure skating are notable exceptions—aren’t nearly as popular as the men’s version of those sports. And yet a lot of people act as if they are or should be simply because they say it should be.
A few years ago when I still worked for ESPN I was taping, “Under the Boards,” (my name for the segment by the way, ESPN stole it after I left) at Cole Field House one day shortly after the Maryland women finished practicing. I started my first item with a reference to Massachusetts, calling the Minutemen, “the top basketball team in the country,” (they were ranked number one).
As I finished I noticed Chris Weller, then the women’s basketball coach at Maryland, whispering in the producer’s ear. Then she left.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“She said you should say the top MEN’S team in the country,” the producer said.
I was seriously tempted to shout after Weller: “Really, are there women’s teams out there BETTER than U-Mass?”
Please people, get over yourselves.
I will admit to being a wise guy about it on occasion. Years ago I was walking with my then-wife through Cameron Indoor Stadium on a Sunday afternoon. We were standing at one end of the floor. The women were practicing. A manager raced up and said, “Sir, I’m sorry, this is a closed practice.”
To which I responded: “Oh My God, does that mean I can’t get OUT?”
Second topic: The vitriol back and forth between loyalists of different military branches yesterday. Hey folks, we’re all on the same side, remember? I know there are rivalries and jealousies between branches and academies, but my goodness, let’s not get nuts here.
There were also comments that were plain stupid—which is unusual for this site. Someone claimed Marcus Curry was being protected by the academy because he was a “black football player.” Please. Ask Lamar Owens, an African American quarterback and team captain who was thrown out of the Navy for drinking and having sex with a female midshipmen (rules violations at Navy, the norm at civilian schools) if black football players are protected. Ask Nate Frazier, who was separated for an honors violation last August—and would have been BY FAR Navy’s best defensive player this season—if black STAR football players are protected.
As I said, based on the information that we have, I think Admiral Jeffrey Fowler needs to separate Marcus Curry unless there is some mitigating circumstance (besides his football ability) we don’t know about. But the bleating directed at the academy and the Navy is ridiculous. And the guy who claimed the academies have lowered their academic standards in a “pathetic,” attempt to play Division 1-A football should ask Missouri and Houston just how pathetic Navy and Air Force were in their bowl games. They could also ask Notre Dame how pathetic Navy has been in recent years. They should also get to know some of the kids who play football at the academies.
Okay, time to go back to listening to Kurt Warner sell milk.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Updated -- This week's radio segments (Sports Reporters, Gas Man, Tony Kornheiser Show):
Today I joined The Sports Reporters' Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment. This week we spent a great deal of time talking about the PGA Tour controversy around Mickelson and McCarron and touched on Tom Watson's recent comments on Tiger Woods and his on-course behavior.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
----------------------
I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke spent most of the time talking about college basketball and the NCAA's apparent move to expand the tournament.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
---------------------
On Thursday I joined the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show in my normal Thursday slot (11:05am). We had the usual banter with maybe just a little extra thrown in, and talked about the 'star-power' in the upcoming Olympics and goings on in the PGA Tour...with too many details on the square groove controversy.
Click here to listen to the segment (starts within 1st minute): The Tony Kornheiser Show
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
----------------------
I also made my regular appearance on The Gas Man at 5:25 PT on Wednesday. In this segment, we spoke spent most of the time talking about college basketball and the NCAA's apparent move to expand the tournament.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
---------------------
On Thursday I joined the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show in my normal Thursday slot (11:05am). We had the usual banter with maybe just a little extra thrown in, and talked about the 'star-power' in the upcoming Olympics and goings on in the PGA Tour...with too many details on the square groove controversy.
Click here to listen to the segment (starts within 1st minute): The Tony Kornheiser Show
Addressing a few comments and e-mails – PGA Tour, Navy, Arenas and women’s basketball topics
I know I’ve said this before but one of the things about the blog that I’ve truly enjoyed is reading the posts and the e-mails. With few exceptions they’re smart and they often raise good questions or make me think about an issue in a way I hadn’t previously thought about it.
An example: Someone reminded me yesterday that in writing about the Phil Mickelson-Scott McCarron square grooves controversy I had failed to point out occasions when golfers had bent the rules to their advantage.
Years ago in Phoenix, Tiger Woods claimed that a boulder blocking his path to the green was a moveable object—even though it took about a dozen people to actually move it. By rule, he was allowed to have a bunch of fans move the boulder for him even though that sort of thing clearly was not the intent of the rule.
In 2004 at The Masters, Ernie Els hit a ball dead left on the 11th hole and found himself under branches and rocks and pebbles to the point where he needed to take an unplayable lie. He called for a rules official believing he had the right to a free drop because that sort of debris is almost always removed before play begins at Augusta National. The rules official, Jon Brendle, who has been with the tour forever told him that there was nothing in the rules requiring the debris be removed and thus, he had to deal with it. Els then requested—as is allowed—a second opinion. This time the rules official was an Augusta member—not a professional but someone who had passed a rules test although he didn’t work on tour week in and week out the way Brendle did. He overruled Brendle, saying the INTENT was to remove the debris and therefore Els was entitled to a drop.
In essence, he made up a rule on the spot. Brendle was so angry about the incident he’s never gone back to work at Augusta.
There have been other moments: Greg Norman accusing Mark McCumber of using his club to improve his lie in the rough at The World Series of Golf in 1995. Norman was so angry he refused to sign McCumber’s scorecard. Mark O’Meara was once accused by a Swedish player (I forget his name) during a tournament in Europe of moving his coin up on the green, which infuriated him—and no doubt still does. And, of course, there are still tour players who will never forget that Vijay Singh was once banned from The Australasian Tour for signing for a wrong (lower) score. I once asked a long-time tour player if perhaps Singh’s three major titles and the fact that he was in the golf Hall of Fame might mitigate in Singh’s favor. The player looked at me, shrugged and said, “once a cheater always a cheater.”
People still talk—almost 30 years after it happened--about the Tom Watson-Gary Player incident at the first Skins game when Watson accused Player of removing an imbedded root in a bunker. Last year, Sandy Lyle caused a stir at The British Open by saying Colin Montgomerie had taken an illegal drop at a tournament in Indonesia in 2005.
That’s sort of the point about golf I was making: incidents like this are so rare that they are still remembered and talked about years later. Players were angry about Tiger and the boulder because clearly someone playing without a huge gallery—or playing in a Saturday morning foursome—wouldn’t be able to move the boulder. Many—MANY—players thought the Golf Gods got it right in ’04 when Phil Mickelson caught Els from behind at Augusta. That’s why McCarron raising the specter of “cheating,” got so much attention. I’m not saying the spirit of the rules is NEVER violated but it’s pretty rare.
Now onto some posts that I really disagree with or, in one case, I have no problem with the issue just the tone in which it was raised.
That would be the guy who referred to Navy slotback Marcus Curry as a “pothead,” and called Navy an “elite bastion of lower learning.” Here’s betting he couldn’t last a day at Navy. (On the other hand, neither could I). He also accused me of “situational outrage,” because I hadn’t commented yet on Curry. Two things: I’ve been a tad busy and, beyond that, I’m not going to get outraged about a college kid smoking pot. I do have an opinion on the case though and here it is:
Curry tested positive, according to numerous sources, for marijuana recently. Navy, as most people know, has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drug use. Curry claimed the marijuana got into his system because he had smoked a cigar at a party that was laced with the stuff. I’m guessing most of you are like me: everyone has a story when they test positive for anything.
Apparently the commandant of the brigade, Matthew Klunder, recommended separation (expulsion) for Curry. Admiral Jeffrey Fowler, the superintendent, has—at least thus far—not followed through on Klunder’s recommendation.
Curry’s a very important member of next year’s football team. He is by far Navy’s best slotback, dangerous as a runner and a receiver and he’ll only be a junior next season. I’d hate to see him gone. That said, I don’t think Fowler has a choice: zero tolerance doesn’t mean zero tolerance unless you’re a star football player with an excuse. The ONLY way Fowler can justify such a decision is if there is precedent; if there are other Mids—non-athletes—who have been given a second chance because Fowler or the disciplinary board has found some credibility in their explanation. Marijuana isn’t a steroid or cocaine or heroin but it is against the law and against academy rules. My guess is—and that’s all it is—that one way or the other, it will be difficult for Curry to return next fall. That, sadly, is as it should be based on what I know.
Post number two was from a guy upset because I wrote yesterday that Gilbert Arenas’s lawyer wrote his Washington Post op-ed. He somehow saw the comment as racial—referring to Tony Kornheiser and I as “old white guys,” who didn’t think Arenas’s remorse was completely genuine.
Good God, this has nothing to do with race. In fact, the example I used of famous people in jockworld not ever believing they were truly wrong was Bob Knight. I would expect anyone—including a politician—to have his lawyer or lawyers or lawyers and a speechwriter, put together something like this. My point was that even with a lawyer putting it together Arenas (and the lawyers) STILL tried to point the finger at the media. As for the guy writing in about the initial, overblown New York Post story—yup, that was inaccurate. Gilbert’s response though was to the whole notion of him bringing guns in the locker room: it was no big deal, something to be laughed at. Sadly, he got that wrong.
Finally, someone wrote in claiming I was being unfair to women’s athletics when I made fun of two women’s basketball coaches a week ago. The first was Terri Williams-Flournoy, who tried to defend The Big East’s ridiculous decision to not release the names of three players (two from Georgetown, one from Louisville) suspended for a pre-game fight. Putting aside the fact that anyone with eyes could see who was suspended, she claimed the players were, “children,” and thus entitled to privacy. College students aren’t children. They can vote, they can go into the armed forces and they better be able to act like adults or they won’t get through college. What’s more, the incident took place in a public forum—an arena where tickets had been sold and TV cameras were present.
The poster, in claiming the “double-standard,” pointed out that Georgetown had refused to let any players talk to the media after its men’s team lost at Syracuse. I don’t doubt that for a second. That said, I think if anyone checks my record on the subject of Georgetown basketball, they wouldn’t exactly accuse me of protecting the Hoyas on any level. Remember the phrase, “Hoya Paranoia,” back in the 80s? That was me. One reason I generally avoid Georgetown games is because access to the players is so ridiculously guarded.
John Thompson (the elder) and I had more than a couple of screaming matches about access to players years ago. I remember saying to him one night, “if I could, I’d look you right in the eye and tell you that you’re full of s----.” Thompson’s 6-10. Fortunately he thought the line was pretty funny.
The other comment that upset this poster was me making fun of Maryland Coach Brenda Frese for saying, “this proves we can play with anybody,” after her team had lost at home to a Duke team that had lost by THIRTY-THREE to Connecticut a few days earlier. More double standard said the poster, I’d never make fun of a men’s coach that way. Go back and read what I wrote. I said, “It seems to me that coaches in all sports do this, throwing things like this out on the assumption that no one will challenge them on it.”
Sorry pal, no double standard here, just two coaches—regardless of sport or sex—being called for saying dumb things.
Keep those posts and e-mails coming everybody!
An example: Someone reminded me yesterday that in writing about the Phil Mickelson-Scott McCarron square grooves controversy I had failed to point out occasions when golfers had bent the rules to their advantage.
Years ago in Phoenix, Tiger Woods claimed that a boulder blocking his path to the green was a moveable object—even though it took about a dozen people to actually move it. By rule, he was allowed to have a bunch of fans move the boulder for him even though that sort of thing clearly was not the intent of the rule.
In 2004 at The Masters, Ernie Els hit a ball dead left on the 11th hole and found himself under branches and rocks and pebbles to the point where he needed to take an unplayable lie. He called for a rules official believing he had the right to a free drop because that sort of debris is almost always removed before play begins at Augusta National. The rules official, Jon Brendle, who has been with the tour forever told him that there was nothing in the rules requiring the debris be removed and thus, he had to deal with it. Els then requested—as is allowed—a second opinion. This time the rules official was an Augusta member—not a professional but someone who had passed a rules test although he didn’t work on tour week in and week out the way Brendle did. He overruled Brendle, saying the INTENT was to remove the debris and therefore Els was entitled to a drop.
In essence, he made up a rule on the spot. Brendle was so angry about the incident he’s never gone back to work at Augusta.
There have been other moments: Greg Norman accusing Mark McCumber of using his club to improve his lie in the rough at The World Series of Golf in 1995. Norman was so angry he refused to sign McCumber’s scorecard. Mark O’Meara was once accused by a Swedish player (I forget his name) during a tournament in Europe of moving his coin up on the green, which infuriated him—and no doubt still does. And, of course, there are still tour players who will never forget that Vijay Singh was once banned from The Australasian Tour for signing for a wrong (lower) score. I once asked a long-time tour player if perhaps Singh’s three major titles and the fact that he was in the golf Hall of Fame might mitigate in Singh’s favor. The player looked at me, shrugged and said, “once a cheater always a cheater.”
People still talk—almost 30 years after it happened--about the Tom Watson-Gary Player incident at the first Skins game when Watson accused Player of removing an imbedded root in a bunker. Last year, Sandy Lyle caused a stir at The British Open by saying Colin Montgomerie had taken an illegal drop at a tournament in Indonesia in 2005.
That’s sort of the point about golf I was making: incidents like this are so rare that they are still remembered and talked about years later. Players were angry about Tiger and the boulder because clearly someone playing without a huge gallery—or playing in a Saturday morning foursome—wouldn’t be able to move the boulder. Many—MANY—players thought the Golf Gods got it right in ’04 when Phil Mickelson caught Els from behind at Augusta. That’s why McCarron raising the specter of “cheating,” got so much attention. I’m not saying the spirit of the rules is NEVER violated but it’s pretty rare.
Now onto some posts that I really disagree with or, in one case, I have no problem with the issue just the tone in which it was raised.
That would be the guy who referred to Navy slotback Marcus Curry as a “pothead,” and called Navy an “elite bastion of lower learning.” Here’s betting he couldn’t last a day at Navy. (On the other hand, neither could I). He also accused me of “situational outrage,” because I hadn’t commented yet on Curry. Two things: I’ve been a tad busy and, beyond that, I’m not going to get outraged about a college kid smoking pot. I do have an opinion on the case though and here it is:
Curry tested positive, according to numerous sources, for marijuana recently. Navy, as most people know, has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drug use. Curry claimed the marijuana got into his system because he had smoked a cigar at a party that was laced with the stuff. I’m guessing most of you are like me: everyone has a story when they test positive for anything.
Apparently the commandant of the brigade, Matthew Klunder, recommended separation (expulsion) for Curry. Admiral Jeffrey Fowler, the superintendent, has—at least thus far—not followed through on Klunder’s recommendation.
Curry’s a very important member of next year’s football team. He is by far Navy’s best slotback, dangerous as a runner and a receiver and he’ll only be a junior next season. I’d hate to see him gone. That said, I don’t think Fowler has a choice: zero tolerance doesn’t mean zero tolerance unless you’re a star football player with an excuse. The ONLY way Fowler can justify such a decision is if there is precedent; if there are other Mids—non-athletes—who have been given a second chance because Fowler or the disciplinary board has found some credibility in their explanation. Marijuana isn’t a steroid or cocaine or heroin but it is against the law and against academy rules. My guess is—and that’s all it is—that one way or the other, it will be difficult for Curry to return next fall. That, sadly, is as it should be based on what I know.
Post number two was from a guy upset because I wrote yesterday that Gilbert Arenas’s lawyer wrote his Washington Post op-ed. He somehow saw the comment as racial—referring to Tony Kornheiser and I as “old white guys,” who didn’t think Arenas’s remorse was completely genuine.
Good God, this has nothing to do with race. In fact, the example I used of famous people in jockworld not ever believing they were truly wrong was Bob Knight. I would expect anyone—including a politician—to have his lawyer or lawyers or lawyers and a speechwriter, put together something like this. My point was that even with a lawyer putting it together Arenas (and the lawyers) STILL tried to point the finger at the media. As for the guy writing in about the initial, overblown New York Post story—yup, that was inaccurate. Gilbert’s response though was to the whole notion of him bringing guns in the locker room: it was no big deal, something to be laughed at. Sadly, he got that wrong.
Finally, someone wrote in claiming I was being unfair to women’s athletics when I made fun of two women’s basketball coaches a week ago. The first was Terri Williams-Flournoy, who tried to defend The Big East’s ridiculous decision to not release the names of three players (two from Georgetown, one from Louisville) suspended for a pre-game fight. Putting aside the fact that anyone with eyes could see who was suspended, she claimed the players were, “children,” and thus entitled to privacy. College students aren’t children. They can vote, they can go into the armed forces and they better be able to act like adults or they won’t get through college. What’s more, the incident took place in a public forum—an arena where tickets had been sold and TV cameras were present.
The poster, in claiming the “double-standard,” pointed out that Georgetown had refused to let any players talk to the media after its men’s team lost at Syracuse. I don’t doubt that for a second. That said, I think if anyone checks my record on the subject of Georgetown basketball, they wouldn’t exactly accuse me of protecting the Hoyas on any level. Remember the phrase, “Hoya Paranoia,” back in the 80s? That was me. One reason I generally avoid Georgetown games is because access to the players is so ridiculously guarded.
John Thompson (the elder) and I had more than a couple of screaming matches about access to players years ago. I remember saying to him one night, “if I could, I’d look you right in the eye and tell you that you’re full of s----.” Thompson’s 6-10. Fortunately he thought the line was pretty funny.
The other comment that upset this poster was me making fun of Maryland Coach Brenda Frese for saying, “this proves we can play with anybody,” after her team had lost at home to a Duke team that had lost by THIRTY-THREE to Connecticut a few days earlier. More double standard said the poster, I’d never make fun of a men’s coach that way. Go back and read what I wrote. I said, “It seems to me that coaches in all sports do this, throwing things like this out on the assumption that no one will challenge them on it.”
Sorry pal, no double standard here, just two coaches—regardless of sport or sex—being called for saying dumb things.
Keep those posts and e-mails coming everybody!
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