For some reason Wednesday was one of those days when I couldn’t seem to escape my alma mater.
My relationship with Duke is, to put it in polite terms, an interesting one.
Let’s start with the good: I’ve known Mike Krzyzewski since 1976. I met him when I was a Duke senior and the basketball team played in New York against Connecticut in Madison Square Garden. The day before the game I flew in with then-Duke Coach Bill Foster and then-Duke star guard Tate Armstrong to attend the weekly basketball writer’s lunch at Mamma Leone’s Restaurant. I’d always read about the lunch as a kid so actually getting to go was a thrill.
Foster was kind of a returning hero at the lunch since he had coached at Rutgers. Afterwards, he introduced me to three young New York area coaches I was familiar with: Tom Penders of Columbia; Jim Valvano of Iona and Mike Krzyzewski of Army. He made me do my Dean Smith imitation for them and I told Penders and Krzyzewski how much I’d enjoyed going to games at their schools as a kid and Valvano how vividly I remembered Rutgers’ run (with Foster as the coach) in the 1967 NIT.
Obviously I got to know all three much better as they moved up in the business after I graduated from college. Often, when I talk about what a good guy Krzyzewski is or even what a good coach he is (gee, he’s only won 848 games) people start claiming I’m a “Duke apologist.”
That’s where the story gets funny. You see, even as an undergraduate, I was extremely critical at times of the school and the athletic department. My senior year Athletic Director Carl James only scheduled four home games in order to make the football team into a cash cow—the first three non-conference games were at Tennessee, at South Carolina and at Miami. The next year it was at Tennessee, at Michigan. I wrote a column prior to the first home game in the fall of 1976 (game 4 of the season) in which James flew to Pittsburgh—that was the first home opponent led by Tony Dorsett—to protest the actual playing of a home game. I also had Coach Mike McGee going to the campus police department asking for directions to Wallace Wade Stadium.
The administration loved me for that.
But I was also a big fan of Foster’s and was delighted when he turned the program around and took the team to the national championship game in 1978 after four straight last place finishes in the ACC during my undergraduate years. And I’ve always admired Krzyzewski as a man and a coach. I make no apologies for that.
That said, he and I had a minor falling out and Duke and I had a major falling out when Duke President Nan Keohane named Joe Alleva to succeed Tom Butters as athletic director. I’m not going to go through the details AGAIN but this was one of the all-time stupid decisions made by any college president—which takes in a lot of ground. Anyone and I mean ANYONE who has been around college athletics for more than 15 minutes knew that Tom Mickle should have gotten the job. Keohane didn’t hire Tom for one reason: he had IDEAS, real ideas, about how to fix football and how to fund under-funded non-revenue sports better.
Let me quote Gene Corrigan, the former commissioner of the ACC, also a Duke grad who hired Mickle as his No. 2 man in the conference office: “I was the beneficiary of Tom Mickle’s brilliance. I never met anyone smarter in collegiate athletics.”
Keohane didn’t want Mickle because Mickle was too smart. She wanted Alleva because she knew he’d just ride Krzyzewski’s coattails and never bother her with an idea. She thought sports were too important at Duke and Krzyzewski too powerful. She didn’t want sports to get better, she’d have been happy if they got worse. (Which, amazingly, football did under Alleva’s watch).
I was angry at Krzyzewski in the aftermath of the Alleva hiring because he kept quiet during the hiring process. He played racquetball with Alleva and felt he owed it to Alleva to not line up against him. I’ve always admired Mike’s loyalty but I told him back then: “your loyalty is misplaced here. It should be to DUKE. You owe it to Duke to make Keohane pick the right guy and you know it’s Mickle.”
Years later he finally admitted that of course it should have been Mickle. But by then it was too late. Tom died in 2005 of a heart attack at the age of 55.
To say I was critical of Keohane—who told me in a phone conversation that if she hired a “Duke person,” (the school had hired one of those dopey headhunters that had no interest at all in recommending the best person, just someone it could take a bow for ‘finding.’) it would, “of course be Tom Mickle,” is an understatement. When I publicly called her a liar my relationship with the school sort of went downhill.
As in, I ceased to exist. The alumni office ordered local alumni groups to NOT ask me to speak—in fact it forced the local chapter here in Washington to cancel an appearance I’d been asked to make by (of all people) Tate Armstrong. The President of the club at the time called me to say, “well, um, we can’t get a room the right size.” I told the guy not to worry, I understood, but next time he should come up with a better story.
Keohane mercifully left and was replaced by Richard Brodhead, who appears to be a perfectly nice guy. Unfortunately, Brodhead has the leadership skills of an amoeba. He completely blew the entire lacrosse situation and in spite of one embarrassment after another actually gave Alleva a new contract a couple of years ago. When I sent him an e-mail saying, “WHAT were you thinking?” he wrote back and said, “Joe has some weaknesses, yes, but he also has strengths.”
I replied: “Can you please name ONE for me?”
I’m still waiting on an answer.
The Alleva era finally came to an end when a different dopey headhunter actually recommended him to LSU. Kevin White, a nice guy who seems perfectly competent (but is no Tom Mickle) was hired in his place. I’m still pretty much persona non grata at Duke outside the basketball office perhaps because I keep calling Brodhead, “Mr. Chips,” perhaps because I ripped the football team for failing the basic courtesy test of shutting up while the Navy band played its alma mater after the game in Durham two years ago.
If you think I’m exaggerating pick up a Duke media guide and look under “distinguished journalism alumni.” My classmate, Sean McManus, President of CBS Sports, is listed—as he should be. So is one of my mentors Bill Brill and several other distinguished journalists—Judy Woodruff being another. There’s also a woman who was a finalist on ‘Survivor.’ Seriously. Me? Nowhere to be found. Does that make me laugh? Yes. Does it piss me off? Being honest, of course it does.
All of which brings me (finally) to yesterday. I got a call from a woman on behalf of my friends at the alumni office. Apparently I was invited to some cocktail party in town next week—gee, think they’re asking for money?—and hadn’t RSVP’d. She was hoping I could come. Actually I COULD come but, no thanks, I’ll take a pass. Maybe they could invite the woman from ‘Survivor.’ Did I get a kick out of that?
Yes, guilty.
Then, during my regular radio appearance on WTEM here in town one of the hosts, Andy Pollin, accused Jim Calhoun of “abandoning his team,” because he’s taking a medical leave of absence. I told Pollin that was patently ridiculous and he shouldn’t make a comment like that without knowing any of the facts.
At which point his co-host, Steve Czaban—who comes from the view of a Maryland fan, Krzyzewski is the root of all evil club—asked about the ‘rumors,’ that Krzyzewski had left his team in 1995 because it wasn’t any good and he didn’t want to be saddled with a bunch of losses.
As it happens, I know how sick Krzyzewski was that year and I know his doctors practically had to strap him to a bed to keep him out of the gym and told him if he tried to coach again that season he might not ever coach again. I also know where the ‘rumor,’ started—two North Carolina grads who more or less posed as journalists for a long time who hated Krzyzewski for making Duke good again. So, I did my, “Duke apologist,” thing and defended Krzyzewski.
Then I watched N.C. State blow Duke out later that night and couldn’t help but think—again—what I’ve thought since this summer: Mike shouldn’t be coaching the Olympic team again. He’s won his gold medal, he’s done his bit for the country, he’s proven he can coach NBA players. He needs to hunker down and make his last run at Duke and not have his apologists—not me in this case—running around saying, “30 and 7 and the sweet sixteen is a very good year.”
For a lot of teams, most teams, it is a very good year. It just isn’t up to the standards Mike Krzyzewski set. I remember in 1997 when he was still rebuilding after the ’95 disaster when his team lost a close game at Maryland. A couple days later with Carolina in town, Dick Vitale came into the locker room prior to the game and was giving a Vitale pep talk: “You guys’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ll win your 20, you’ll be in the tournament.”
When Vitale left, Krzyzewski turned to me. (I was there working on my book on the ACC that season). “I don’t care about winning my 20 or being in the tournament. We’ve let the standards slip around here. I want this team and this program to play to MY standards, not anyone else’s.”
During the next seven years, Duke went to three Final Fours and won a national title. Since then: no trips beyond the sweet sixteen. The standards have slipped. Mike needs to re-think HIS standards again.
Of course he doesn’t need me to tell him how to coach that’s for sure. He can always consult with the woman from, ‘Survivor.’
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
This week's radio segments (The Kornheiser Show, The Sports Reporters):
Today I joined the newest The Tony Kornheiser Show on Wednesday instead of my normal Thursday spot. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment on a variety of topics, including Jim Calhoun's situation and Tiger Woods along with others on the PGA Tour, all after starting off talking about concert halls.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show
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I also made my regular appearance with The Sports Reporters' Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's) this evening. Today we talked on great topics, including Kurt Warner and his retirement talk, Tiger Woods, the early season on the PGA Tour, and Jim Calhoun's leave of absence.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show
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I also made my regular appearance with The Sports Reporters' Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's) this evening. Today we talked on great topics, including Kurt Warner and his retirement talk, Tiger Woods, the early season on the PGA Tour, and Jim Calhoun's leave of absence.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
Tennis - a niche sport with the inmates (players) running the asylum; ESPN is at it again
There was a brief story in this morning’s New York Times about Serena Williams complaining following her first round match at The Australian Open about the $92,000 fine she received after last year’s U.S. Open for screaming at and physically threatening a lineswoman during her semifinal loss to Kim Clijsters.
If you want to know why so few people in this country care about tennis anymore this is EXACTLY the reason why.
Think about it: In any other sport if an athlete threatened an umpire, a referee or any official the only question would be how long they would be suspended for not IF they would be suspended. The Grand Slam Committee, which administers tennis’s four major championships took months to even make a decision about how to punish Williams and when it finally did she was, for all intents and purposes, let off the hook.
The ONLY way to get the attention of a multi-millionaire athlete is to take away the one thing that matters from them: the ability to compete. Tiger Woods had been fined more than any golfer in PGA Tour history for his profanity, for his club-throwing, for the behavior of his caddy. Not only have the fines not been a deterrent on any level Woods has actually defended his caddy for throwing people’s cameras and screaming his own profanities at people he thinks aren’t behaving properly in the presence of King Eldrick 1.
To fine Serena Williams $92,000 wasn’t just a wrist slap it was a light wrist slap.
Just to review what occurred: A lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams when she was serving to stay in the match in the second set. It was, without question, a critical call and the kind of call rarely made at such a moment. I have yet to see a replay that shows one way or the other whether the foot fault was so blatant that it shouldn’t have been called.
Regardless, Williams went completely ballistic, screaming at the lineswoman while walking towards her menacingly holding a ball in her hand and threatening to shove it down her throat. For this she received (properly) a warning that involved a point penalty. Since the foot fault put her at match point that was it—match over.
It was a terrible way for a great match to end. No one seems to know if it was a good call, a bad call a borderline call. Doesn’t matter. There was no excuse for Williams doing what she did. To make it worse she was, for all intents and purposes, un-apologetic for two days. She issued a non-apology/apology on Sunday that was so un-gracious and insincere (nice work by her agents there, huh?) that she had to issue another apology on Monday for the apology.
The ONLY way to punish her was a suspension. But it wasn’t going to happen. She’s the best female tennis player in the world and she and her sister Venus are still the two top draws in the women’s game—especially on television. Williams and her arrogant agents knew this, they knew she wasn’t getting suspended under any circumstances because the people who run the four Slams would go crazy if she was suspended for any one of them and the TV people would go crazier.
So she was fined what amounts to a token amount of money for someone in her tax bracket and given one of those stern, “don’t do it again,” warnings. As in, “if you do this again we’re REALLY going to get mad.”
Then, having been let off the hook, Williams turns around and whines she was fined too much money. She even said she thought the fine might have been as high as it was because she’s a woman. PLEASE, I’m begging you, SHUT UP. If The Grand Slam Committee had any backbone at all, the would say, ‘okay, that’s it, we let you off without a suspension contingent on good behavior—this isn’t good behavior, you’re out of The French Open.’
That, of course, will happen the same day that I’m inducted into The Duke Sports Hall of Fame. (For those of you who don’t know my relationship with Duke that would be on the Twelfth of Never).
This is why tennis has become a niche sport with TV ratings slightly higher than hockey—or maybe not quite as high during non-Grand Slam events. There are no rules for the stars. For years appearance fees were supposed to be against the rules and the rules were never enforced. When Marshall Happer was chairman of the now defunct Men’s Tennis Council he tried ONCE to enforce the rule on Guillermo Vilas and basically got himself fired for his trouble. Now, the rules are such that most tournaments are allowed to pay appearance fees that basically make tennis into a never-ending exhibition season except during the four majors.
The players are so spoiled by promoters and so coddled by their agents that it is almost impossible to like them. Roger Federer is a good guy but when his business buddy Woods showed up at the U.S. Open final a couple years ago for what was, in truth, a Nike photo-op, he disappeared into a private room with Woods for 45 minutes after the final and no one had the nerve to go in and say, “Roger, you just won the U.S. Open how about coming in and spending 10 minutes with the media.” (which by RULE every player is supposed to do when requested).
Nope, can’t do that, can’t ask one of the stars to simply follow the rules.
Every time I bring this up the tennis people go crazy. The people running the game, including my friend Bill Babcock who runs the Grand Slam Committee, start telling me how popular the game is in Europe or in Australia. Guess what Bill that makes tennis into soccer—a niche sport in the country that matters most in sports. That may sound chauvinistic but it’s true. And please don’t cite U.S. Open attendance figures to me either. The USTA is practically flagging people down on The Grand Central Parkway (okay, I’ve use that line before) to get them to buy tickets prior to the final weekend. Once upon a time you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal an Open ticket.
Heck, The Davis Cup, which is often the most dramatic event in tennis, isn’t even on live TV (The Tennis Channel doesn’t count folks, it is watched by the same 14 people every day) anymore.
Tennis at its best is still great to watch. Federer-Roddick at Wimbledon was absolutely one of the sports highlights of the year. But the people running the game—or, more accurately not running it—have turned it into a niche sport where the inmates (the players) have been running the asylum for years.
Which is truly a shame.
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I know I take shots at ESPN a lot (usually with good reason) but seriously how much hubris does it take to do something like this hokey, ‘announcer swap,’ they’re doing tonight? I mean seriously WHO CARES?
ESPN honestly believes who their announcers are a bigger deal than the games being played. What difference does it make if Dick Vitale is screaming about the NBA or the NCAA—or for that matter women’s basketball which he was doing the other night. So Mike Breen is calling a college game and Dan Shulman—who calls NBA games a lot anyway, right?—is calling an NBA game.
Please. Next thing you know they’ll have college coaches begging their fans to show up for their let’s-hype-ourselves every Saturday show. Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
If you want to know why so few people in this country care about tennis anymore this is EXACTLY the reason why.
Think about it: In any other sport if an athlete threatened an umpire, a referee or any official the only question would be how long they would be suspended for not IF they would be suspended. The Grand Slam Committee, which administers tennis’s four major championships took months to even make a decision about how to punish Williams and when it finally did she was, for all intents and purposes, let off the hook.
The ONLY way to get the attention of a multi-millionaire athlete is to take away the one thing that matters from them: the ability to compete. Tiger Woods had been fined more than any golfer in PGA Tour history for his profanity, for his club-throwing, for the behavior of his caddy. Not only have the fines not been a deterrent on any level Woods has actually defended his caddy for throwing people’s cameras and screaming his own profanities at people he thinks aren’t behaving properly in the presence of King Eldrick 1.
To fine Serena Williams $92,000 wasn’t just a wrist slap it was a light wrist slap.
Just to review what occurred: A lineswoman called a foot fault on Williams when she was serving to stay in the match in the second set. It was, without question, a critical call and the kind of call rarely made at such a moment. I have yet to see a replay that shows one way or the other whether the foot fault was so blatant that it shouldn’t have been called.
Regardless, Williams went completely ballistic, screaming at the lineswoman while walking towards her menacingly holding a ball in her hand and threatening to shove it down her throat. For this she received (properly) a warning that involved a point penalty. Since the foot fault put her at match point that was it—match over.
It was a terrible way for a great match to end. No one seems to know if it was a good call, a bad call a borderline call. Doesn’t matter. There was no excuse for Williams doing what she did. To make it worse she was, for all intents and purposes, un-apologetic for two days. She issued a non-apology/apology on Sunday that was so un-gracious and insincere (nice work by her agents there, huh?) that she had to issue another apology on Monday for the apology.
The ONLY way to punish her was a suspension. But it wasn’t going to happen. She’s the best female tennis player in the world and she and her sister Venus are still the two top draws in the women’s game—especially on television. Williams and her arrogant agents knew this, they knew she wasn’t getting suspended under any circumstances because the people who run the four Slams would go crazy if she was suspended for any one of them and the TV people would go crazier.
So she was fined what amounts to a token amount of money for someone in her tax bracket and given one of those stern, “don’t do it again,” warnings. As in, “if you do this again we’re REALLY going to get mad.”
Then, having been let off the hook, Williams turns around and whines she was fined too much money. She even said she thought the fine might have been as high as it was because she’s a woman. PLEASE, I’m begging you, SHUT UP. If The Grand Slam Committee had any backbone at all, the would say, ‘okay, that’s it, we let you off without a suspension contingent on good behavior—this isn’t good behavior, you’re out of The French Open.’
That, of course, will happen the same day that I’m inducted into The Duke Sports Hall of Fame. (For those of you who don’t know my relationship with Duke that would be on the Twelfth of Never).
This is why tennis has become a niche sport with TV ratings slightly higher than hockey—or maybe not quite as high during non-Grand Slam events. There are no rules for the stars. For years appearance fees were supposed to be against the rules and the rules were never enforced. When Marshall Happer was chairman of the now defunct Men’s Tennis Council he tried ONCE to enforce the rule on Guillermo Vilas and basically got himself fired for his trouble. Now, the rules are such that most tournaments are allowed to pay appearance fees that basically make tennis into a never-ending exhibition season except during the four majors.
The players are so spoiled by promoters and so coddled by their agents that it is almost impossible to like them. Roger Federer is a good guy but when his business buddy Woods showed up at the U.S. Open final a couple years ago for what was, in truth, a Nike photo-op, he disappeared into a private room with Woods for 45 minutes after the final and no one had the nerve to go in and say, “Roger, you just won the U.S. Open how about coming in and spending 10 minutes with the media.” (which by RULE every player is supposed to do when requested).
Nope, can’t do that, can’t ask one of the stars to simply follow the rules.
Every time I bring this up the tennis people go crazy. The people running the game, including my friend Bill Babcock who runs the Grand Slam Committee, start telling me how popular the game is in Europe or in Australia. Guess what Bill that makes tennis into soccer—a niche sport in the country that matters most in sports. That may sound chauvinistic but it’s true. And please don’t cite U.S. Open attendance figures to me either. The USTA is practically flagging people down on The Grand Central Parkway (okay, I’ve use that line before) to get them to buy tickets prior to the final weekend. Once upon a time you couldn’t beg, borrow or steal an Open ticket.
Heck, The Davis Cup, which is often the most dramatic event in tennis, isn’t even on live TV (The Tennis Channel doesn’t count folks, it is watched by the same 14 people every day) anymore.
Tennis at its best is still great to watch. Federer-Roddick at Wimbledon was absolutely one of the sports highlights of the year. But the people running the game—or, more accurately not running it—have turned it into a niche sport where the inmates (the players) have been running the asylum for years.
Which is truly a shame.
--------------------------------
I know I take shots at ESPN a lot (usually with good reason) but seriously how much hubris does it take to do something like this hokey, ‘announcer swap,’ they’re doing tonight? I mean seriously WHO CARES?
ESPN honestly believes who their announcers are a bigger deal than the games being played. What difference does it make if Dick Vitale is screaming about the NBA or the NCAA—or for that matter women’s basketball which he was doing the other night. So Mike Breen is calling a college game and Dan Shulman—who calls NBA games a lot anyway, right?—is calling an NBA game.
Please. Next thing you know they’ll have college coaches begging their fans to show up for their let’s-hype-ourselves every Saturday show. Oh wait, they’re already doing that.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Rules need to be enforced, and changed, to shorten length of games
Can we talk this morning about how long it takes to play games these days?
As someone who has spent most of his adult life dealing with deadlines while covering games I’m always aware of how long a game is taking even when I’m sitting at home half-watching while I’m reading something.
It’s truly gotten ridiculous.
I kind of went around the bend on this eight days ago when Louisville and Villanova played a game in which something like 90 free throws were shot and a 7 o’clock tipoff ended (in regulation) at 9:45. Even Brent Musburger, who was doing the next game in the doubleheader couldn’t resist commenting when he was doing an update that, “I hope your game ends before ours does fellas.”
There were about two minutes left in the first half of Oklahoma State-Oklahoma by the time Louisville-Villanova finally ended.
Last Saturday I spent the day at home with games going on from 11 a.m. on. Not one game I watched all or part of ended inside the two -hour window that TV plans for a college basketball game. Most didn’t come close. There are now NINE TV timeouts in every game—and by the way is there some way to stop calling them, ‘media timeouts'? I have never asked for nor been given a time out in my life. They exist for TV and, occasionally, for radio. One of those timeouts is the first called time out of the second half, which is “technically,” a 30 second time out but “becomes,” a full timeout.
Utterly ridiculous. Here are some other things that delay games: the mindless halftime interviews with the coaches. Understand that when the breathless sideline reporter is asking the coach what went wrong/right in the first half and usually getting gems like, “we have to rebound better,” or “I thought we shot the ball very well,” the halftime clock isn’t moving. It’s frozen until the coach pulls free—which Wake Forest’s Dino Gaudio almost literally had to do on Sunday night because the reporter insisted on asking him what he planned to do to rebound better (gee, I don’t know go out and recruit taller players the next 15 minutes?)—and gets to the locker room.
There are also times—especially on ESPN—where coming out of commercial the producer will insist on getting the ‘talent,’ on camera for 30 seconds to say something brilliant like, “What a great atmosphere here tonight,” while play is held until they’re finished.
Wait, I’ve got more: There are two rules changes that need to be made: 1. Once a player is handed the ball to shoot his first free throw he can’t have contact with his teammates until the second shot is out of his hands. All of this slapping hands after the first free throw— they do it make or miss nowadays—is silly and if you add it up over a course of a game adds five to ten minutes. 2. When a player fouls out this bit with both teams running to the bench for an impromptu time out needs to stop. Coaches do not need 30 seconds at that point to decide who to sub. They know who they’re subbing and if they don’t—tough. Give them 10 seconds and tell the players to get lined up at the free throw line in the meantime.
Another thing: Officials need to be far more vigilante about getting teams out of their huddles. This deal with coaches having to stand on the court and talk to one another before they talk to the players is ridiculous. To quote Red Auerbach: “You’re getting paid millions to be the head coach you damn well ought to know what to say to your players during a time out.”
The other night I was at a game (honestly I don’t remember which one) and one team was lagging coming out of the huddle. When the official went in to get the players, the coach actually held up his hand to say, “give me a minute here, I’m not quite done.” The response to that should be simple: Signal the official who has the ball to start the 10 second clock and then put the ball on the floor and start counting to five. Remember when officials did that? People got out of the huddle then.
I know these are all little things but they add up. College basketball games shouldn’t be taking two-and-a-half hours. When we get to postseason they get longer: halftime on CBS goes to 20 minutes instead of 15 (plus the time for the silly coaches interviews); 30 second time outs become 45 seconds to get in extra commercials. At this rate it won’t be long before the national championship game ends at midnight on the east coast.
It’s also worth noting that the 20-minute halftime came about in 2003 when the war in Iraq started on the first day of the tournament. CBS asked for the extra five minutes to do war updates. Fine. But the next year the time outs were still 20 minutes and they’ve remained that way ever since, which certainly isn’t good for the players. I’ve been in locker rooms. By about the eight minute mark, everyone is getting antsy to get back on the court. When I brought this up with the NCAA basketball committee a few years ago someone said, “Well, you know when you’re in a dome it takes longer to get to and from the locker room.”
Five minutes longer? How about 10 seconds longer—if that.
This problem isn’t unique to basketball. College football is a joke. I’ve said for years the first down rule should be changed to stop the clock ONLY in the last two minutes of each half. The notion that you need to stop the clock on a first down with 13:47 left in the first quarter is ludicrous. Four hour games are just too long even if they have dramatic finishes. They may not seem so bad watching at home where you can keep clicking around to other games during the endless commercials but if you’re in the stadium those commercials are torture. Nothing is worse than a Notre Dame on NBC where some commercials last longer than the careers of a lot of college basketball players.
Baseball, especially in the American League or if Tony LaRussa is managing, can take days to play. There are two rules changes that need to be made: Trips to the mound should be limited not to one per inning per pitcher but to one TOTAL for the starting pitcher and one more TOTAL after he leaves the game. A catcher shouldn’t be allowed to go out to the mound more than once per batter. Learn how to change signals with a runner on second base in spring training.
Far more important is keeping batters in the box. We now have a generation of hitters who routinely step out after EVERY pitch. They re-adjust their gloves, tug on their helmet, kick at the dirt, take a deep breath and step back in. PLEASE. Simple rules-change: You can step out one time during an at-bat. The only way you can step out more than once is if you’re hurt or knocked down. While we’re at it, make umpires ENFORCE the 20-second rule on pitchers with the bases empty.
The NFL has gotten better although it is maddening when TV takes back-to-back time outs after a touchdown or field goal: team scores, extra point is kicked—commercial. Kickoff—commercial again. As I said, at home it isn’t so bad. In the stadium, especially when it’s cold—brutal. The NBA needs to make two rules-changes: teams get one time out in the last two minutes and no more and get rid of the move-the-ball-to-midcourt after a time out rule. In what other sport are you allowed to advance the ball half the playing field as a reward for calling time out?
Hockey’s pretty good overall although having the hockey package this year I’ve noticed there are a number of linesmen who think fans come to the arena to watch them drop the puck. I know they want it to be fair and get it right but for God’s sake drop the thing and let’s move on.
The biggest change though is still college basketball. I know I sound like I’m 100 when I harken back to my days as a kid when games were played in 90 minutes. Those days are gone and aren’t coming back but it is completely out-of-hand. I know TV needs its time outs but NINE—seriously NINE? Throw in a couple more commercials at halftime. We can live without the yammering studio shows anyway. Throw in a couple of simple, sensible rules changes and for the love of God get rid of the halftime interviews. The coaches hate them, the fans hate them, please tell me who likes them?
I’m guessing it must be some of the same people who, at the “urging,” of John Calipari are planning to fill Rupp Arena one Saturday to jump up and down in front of the cameras for ‘GameDay.’ My God, The Apocalypse really is upon us.
As someone who has spent most of his adult life dealing with deadlines while covering games I’m always aware of how long a game is taking even when I’m sitting at home half-watching while I’m reading something.
It’s truly gotten ridiculous.
I kind of went around the bend on this eight days ago when Louisville and Villanova played a game in which something like 90 free throws were shot and a 7 o’clock tipoff ended (in regulation) at 9:45. Even Brent Musburger, who was doing the next game in the doubleheader couldn’t resist commenting when he was doing an update that, “I hope your game ends before ours does fellas.”
There were about two minutes left in the first half of Oklahoma State-Oklahoma by the time Louisville-Villanova finally ended.
Last Saturday I spent the day at home with games going on from 11 a.m. on. Not one game I watched all or part of ended inside the two -hour window that TV plans for a college basketball game. Most didn’t come close. There are now NINE TV timeouts in every game—and by the way is there some way to stop calling them, ‘media timeouts'? I have never asked for nor been given a time out in my life. They exist for TV and, occasionally, for radio. One of those timeouts is the first called time out of the second half, which is “technically,” a 30 second time out but “becomes,” a full timeout.
Utterly ridiculous. Here are some other things that delay games: the mindless halftime interviews with the coaches. Understand that when the breathless sideline reporter is asking the coach what went wrong/right in the first half and usually getting gems like, “we have to rebound better,” or “I thought we shot the ball very well,” the halftime clock isn’t moving. It’s frozen until the coach pulls free—which Wake Forest’s Dino Gaudio almost literally had to do on Sunday night because the reporter insisted on asking him what he planned to do to rebound better (gee, I don’t know go out and recruit taller players the next 15 minutes?)—and gets to the locker room.
There are also times—especially on ESPN—where coming out of commercial the producer will insist on getting the ‘talent,’ on camera for 30 seconds to say something brilliant like, “What a great atmosphere here tonight,” while play is held until they’re finished.
Wait, I’ve got more: There are two rules changes that need to be made: 1. Once a player is handed the ball to shoot his first free throw he can’t have contact with his teammates until the second shot is out of his hands. All of this slapping hands after the first free throw— they do it make or miss nowadays—is silly and if you add it up over a course of a game adds five to ten minutes. 2. When a player fouls out this bit with both teams running to the bench for an impromptu time out needs to stop. Coaches do not need 30 seconds at that point to decide who to sub. They know who they’re subbing and if they don’t—tough. Give them 10 seconds and tell the players to get lined up at the free throw line in the meantime.
Another thing: Officials need to be far more vigilante about getting teams out of their huddles. This deal with coaches having to stand on the court and talk to one another before they talk to the players is ridiculous. To quote Red Auerbach: “You’re getting paid millions to be the head coach you damn well ought to know what to say to your players during a time out.”
The other night I was at a game (honestly I don’t remember which one) and one team was lagging coming out of the huddle. When the official went in to get the players, the coach actually held up his hand to say, “give me a minute here, I’m not quite done.” The response to that should be simple: Signal the official who has the ball to start the 10 second clock and then put the ball on the floor and start counting to five. Remember when officials did that? People got out of the huddle then.
I know these are all little things but they add up. College basketball games shouldn’t be taking two-and-a-half hours. When we get to postseason they get longer: halftime on CBS goes to 20 minutes instead of 15 (plus the time for the silly coaches interviews); 30 second time outs become 45 seconds to get in extra commercials. At this rate it won’t be long before the national championship game ends at midnight on the east coast.
It’s also worth noting that the 20-minute halftime came about in 2003 when the war in Iraq started on the first day of the tournament. CBS asked for the extra five minutes to do war updates. Fine. But the next year the time outs were still 20 minutes and they’ve remained that way ever since, which certainly isn’t good for the players. I’ve been in locker rooms. By about the eight minute mark, everyone is getting antsy to get back on the court. When I brought this up with the NCAA basketball committee a few years ago someone said, “Well, you know when you’re in a dome it takes longer to get to and from the locker room.”
Five minutes longer? How about 10 seconds longer—if that.
This problem isn’t unique to basketball. College football is a joke. I’ve said for years the first down rule should be changed to stop the clock ONLY in the last two minutes of each half. The notion that you need to stop the clock on a first down with 13:47 left in the first quarter is ludicrous. Four hour games are just too long even if they have dramatic finishes. They may not seem so bad watching at home where you can keep clicking around to other games during the endless commercials but if you’re in the stadium those commercials are torture. Nothing is worse than a Notre Dame on NBC where some commercials last longer than the careers of a lot of college basketball players.
Baseball, especially in the American League or if Tony LaRussa is managing, can take days to play. There are two rules changes that need to be made: Trips to the mound should be limited not to one per inning per pitcher but to one TOTAL for the starting pitcher and one more TOTAL after he leaves the game. A catcher shouldn’t be allowed to go out to the mound more than once per batter. Learn how to change signals with a runner on second base in spring training.
Far more important is keeping batters in the box. We now have a generation of hitters who routinely step out after EVERY pitch. They re-adjust their gloves, tug on their helmet, kick at the dirt, take a deep breath and step back in. PLEASE. Simple rules-change: You can step out one time during an at-bat. The only way you can step out more than once is if you’re hurt or knocked down. While we’re at it, make umpires ENFORCE the 20-second rule on pitchers with the bases empty.
The NFL has gotten better although it is maddening when TV takes back-to-back time outs after a touchdown or field goal: team scores, extra point is kicked—commercial. Kickoff—commercial again. As I said, at home it isn’t so bad. In the stadium, especially when it’s cold—brutal. The NBA needs to make two rules-changes: teams get one time out in the last two minutes and no more and get rid of the move-the-ball-to-midcourt after a time out rule. In what other sport are you allowed to advance the ball half the playing field as a reward for calling time out?
Hockey’s pretty good overall although having the hockey package this year I’ve noticed there are a number of linesmen who think fans come to the arena to watch them drop the puck. I know they want it to be fair and get it right but for God’s sake drop the thing and let’s move on.
The biggest change though is still college basketball. I know I sound like I’m 100 when I harken back to my days as a kid when games were played in 90 minutes. Those days are gone and aren’t coming back but it is completely out-of-hand. I know TV needs its time outs but NINE—seriously NINE? Throw in a couple more commercials at halftime. We can live without the yammering studio shows anyway. Throw in a couple of simple, sensible rules changes and for the love of God get rid of the halftime interviews. The coaches hate them, the fans hate them, please tell me who likes them?
I’m guessing it must be some of the same people who, at the “urging,” of John Calipari are planning to fill Rupp Arena one Saturday to jump up and down in front of the cameras for ‘GameDay.’ My God, The Apocalypse really is upon us.
Monday, January 18, 2010
This week's Washington Post column (and bonus piece from the weekend)
The following is this week's column from The Washington Post on the Jets saving the playoff weekend followed by an article on UVA basketball and its coach, Tony Bennett ---------------
If these past two weekends were the best the NFL has to offer, maybe there's a chance for the USFL to make a comeback.
Six of the eight games were enough to make one think about switching to Dick Vitale calling a women's basketball game. Or Dick Vitale talking about calling a women's basketball game.
Wild-card weekend gave us Packers-Cardinals and three games that even fans of the winners would be hard-pressed to watch to the end. The Ravens-Patriots game was over before Bill Belichick had a chance to get his hoodie into position.
Surely the divisional playoff weekend would be better. Except it wasn't: It was worse. The winning teams were ahead by a combined 35 points at halftime Saturday and never looked back, and the only real suspense in the over-hyped Cowboys-Vikings matchup was when the "Can Wade Phillips survive?" talk would begin.
Click here for the rest of the column: Rex Ryan's Jets save NFL playoffs from tedium
--------------------------------
This really wasn't the way Tony Bennett had it planned. It isn't that he didn't love basketball. The game has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, which tends to happen when you're a coach's son. The gym is as much a part of your boyhood as your mom's kitchen table. Growing up while his dad, Dick, was coaching high school ball, then National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ball and then Division I ball, he was the classic gym rat, the kid who makes himself a great shooter by spending hours and hours alone with a ball and a backboard.
Bennett would have been something straight out of "Hoosiers," if he had been in Indiana instead of Wisconsin. But coaching wasn't in his blood. Playing was what he was about.
"When I was a kid, the last thing in the world I thought I'd ever do was coach," he said, relaxing in the Virginia coaches' lounge at John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday after the Cavaliers had upset 20th-ranked Georgia Tech. "I loved being a player. I guess in my mind I was going to play forever -- go from college to the NBA and just stay. I saw close-up what a roller-coaster ride coaching was for my dad and for my sister Kathi [who won a Division III national title at Wisconsin-Oshkosh and later coached at Indiana] and I said, 'That's not for me.' Then I got hurt and things changed."
Click here for the rest of the column: Finding direction on an unexpected path
If these past two weekends were the best the NFL has to offer, maybe there's a chance for the USFL to make a comeback.
Six of the eight games were enough to make one think about switching to Dick Vitale calling a women's basketball game. Or Dick Vitale talking about calling a women's basketball game.
Wild-card weekend gave us Packers-Cardinals and three games that even fans of the winners would be hard-pressed to watch to the end. The Ravens-Patriots game was over before Bill Belichick had a chance to get his hoodie into position.
Surely the divisional playoff weekend would be better. Except it wasn't: It was worse. The winning teams were ahead by a combined 35 points at halftime Saturday and never looked back, and the only real suspense in the over-hyped Cowboys-Vikings matchup was when the "Can Wade Phillips survive?" talk would begin.
Click here for the rest of the column: Rex Ryan's Jets save NFL playoffs from tedium
--------------------------------
This really wasn't the way Tony Bennett had it planned. It isn't that he didn't love basketball. The game has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember, which tends to happen when you're a coach's son. The gym is as much a part of your boyhood as your mom's kitchen table. Growing up while his dad, Dick, was coaching high school ball, then National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics ball and then Division I ball, he was the classic gym rat, the kid who makes himself a great shooter by spending hours and hours alone with a ball and a backboard.
Bennett would have been something straight out of "Hoosiers," if he had been in Indiana instead of Wisconsin. But coaching wasn't in his blood. Playing was what he was about.
"When I was a kid, the last thing in the world I thought I'd ever do was coach," he said, relaxing in the Virginia coaches' lounge at John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday after the Cavaliers had upset 20th-ranked Georgia Tech. "I loved being a player. I guess in my mind I was going to play forever -- go from college to the NBA and just stay. I saw close-up what a roller-coaster ride coaching was for my dad and for my sister Kathi [who won a Division III national title at Wisconsin-Oshkosh and later coached at Indiana] and I said, 'That's not for me.' Then I got hurt and things changed."
Click here for the rest of the column: Finding direction on an unexpected path
The Jets move on, stories of this fan as a kid
As luck would have it, the first year my parents let me ride The New York subways on my own (I sneaked onto them to go to games on occasion before that) was 1968. I knew the system cold—at least the part of it that mattered to me. To get to Yankee Stadium I took the IRT number 1 train downtown from 79th street to 59th street and then went downstairs (free transfer) and took the IND D train to 161st and The Grand Concourse. The D was an express so it didn’t take very long.
Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.
You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,
The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.
The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.
I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.
Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.
The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.
Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.
“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.
“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”
“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”
“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”
Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.
“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”
“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”
“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”
I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.
My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.
I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.
Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.
But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.
But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.
What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.
“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”
Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.
When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.
“Embarrassing,” he admitted.
“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.
And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.
My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”
That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.
Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.
But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?
Getting to Shea Stadium took a little longer. I still started on the number 1 out of 79th street and then made the transfer at Times Square to the number 7, which was a brand new route that had come on line when Shea’s opening in 1964 coincided with The World’s Fair. I knew every stop by heart and loved riding in the front car and watching the train wind its way from stop-to-stop especially after it became elevated in Queens.
You could always get a ticket to the Mets and Yankees—it cost $1.30 to sit upstairs in general admission for a Mets game and $1.50 for a Yankees game—a much better seat since Shea Stadium had an extra deck. You couldn’t buy Giants tickets. Every once in a while a friend of my dad’s who had season tickets would take me but most of my early pro football experiences were at Shea, watching the Jets and Joe Namath,
The Jets should have made the playoffs in 1967 but choked down the stretch and lost the AFL East to the Houston Oilers. I was furious. A year later, even though Namath threw five interceptions in two losses early in the season (I remember smashing a radio when he did it against the Bills) they finally made the playoffs. I saw six of the seven home games (it was a 14 game schedule then) buying $3 standing room tickets and then sneaking into a good seat downstairs. There were always some empty seats, especially once the weather turned cold.
The $3 ticket became a $6 ticket for the AFL Championship game against the Oakland Raiders. In those days the Jets offices were at 57th street and Madison Avenue and two of my buddies and I were there on Monday at lunchtime (we ducked out of school) to get our tickets. Then we watched Namath outduel Daryl Lamonica to get the Jets to the Super Bowl.
I had watched the first two Super Bowls and, being an AFL fan, winced when Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers crushed the Kansas City Chiefs and then the Raiders. I still remember the scores: 35-10 and 33-14. Most people expected a similar result with the Jets taking on the Baltimore Colts, who were anywhere from 17 to 19 points favorites, depending on who you listened to that week.
Here’s what I remember about that Sunday afternoon (in those days The Super Bowl was an afternoon game believe it or not). Earl Morrall threw an interception (on a deflection) on the goal line early in the game to stop a Colts drive. Then the Jets quietly dominated for most of three quarters. Namath was superb, the offensive line kept opening holes for Matt Snell and Emerson Boozer and the defense completely clamped down on Morrall and the Baltimore offense.
The entire time I paced up and down in front of the TV. It had become my habit. Pacing was good for the Jets, sitting was bad. Often I would stop and talk to the TV as if I was Weeb Ewbank coaching the team.
Snell scored on a sweep. Jim Turner kicked three field goals. It was 16-0 in the fourth quarter when two things happened: my dad came back from a concert and Johnny Unitas, who had been hurt most of the season, came into the game for Morrall.
“What’s the score?” said my dad, whose interest in sports never really went past asking for an occasional score.
“We’re up 16-0 I answered.”
“That’s a surprise isn’t it?”
“Um yeah dad, you could say that.”
Curious, he sat down to watch. I paced.
“John will you sit down, you’re making me dizzy with the pacing.”
“Need to pace dad, it’s good luck.”
“They’re winning 16-0, you can sit.”
I sat. About five plays later, Unitas had the Colts in the end zone. It was 16-7.
My dad and I looked at each other. “Go ahead and pace,” he said.
I did. The Jets finished off their historic victory which started a euphoric 16 months for all New York sports fans: The Jets over the Colts; the Miracle Mets over the Orioles and the Knicks over the Lakers in the ‘Willis Reed game,’ in which Walt Frazier had 36 points and a triple-double.
Of course the Jets deal with the devil has been paid off in spades the last 40 years. They lost to the Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs a year later and Namath was never the same again. They have been in a couple of AFC Championship games but never another Super Bowl. They have been through coaches and quarterbacks and owners and have played in a stadium with another team’s name on it in New Jersey. Shea Stadium is gone. Namath failed miserably as a TV announcer after he retired.
But now, here they are again, as unlikely a team to reach a conference championship game as anyone has seen in a long, long time. And there I was on Sunday night pacing again, nervous as a cat after Shonn Greene’s touchdown run made it 17-7. (Actually my cat sat on a chair watching calmly while I paced). You see when you’re a Jets fan a 10 point fourth quarter lead doesn’t mean you have a good chance to win it means you have a good chance of finding a truly miserable way to lose.
But Rex Ryan isn’t a find-a-way-to-lose coach. There was no doubt in mind he’d go for the 4th and 1 on the last series and I was pretty convinced the Jets would pick it up.
What’s really fun about this is I LIKE this team, not just the uniforms. I got to know Rex when I did my book on the Ravens five years ago. Truly a good man with a terrific sense of humor. I still remember sitting in the Ravens draft room on draft day. The assistant coaches were across the hall. When the Ravens turn to draft came up I heard a loud “whooeee,” come from the room where the coaches were.
“Rex,” Brian Billick said. “He’s getting his man.”
Rex knew, looking at the 150 players the Ravens had ranked based on their scouting reports, that the next player on the list when the Ravens turn came up was defensive lineman Dwan Edwards and that Ozzie Newsome never veered away from the list.
When Rex took the Jets job he took Mike Pettine with him as defensive coordinator. Pettine was sort of a coach-in-training, an assistant to all the defensive assistants when I was in Baltimore. He’s certainly come a long way even if he took it kind of hard last year when I asked him how in the world Virginia (his alma mater) could lose to Duke.
“Embarrassing,” he admitted.
“Humiliating is more like it,” I said.
And then there’s Bob Sutton, who was the coach at Army when I wrote, “A Civil War.” There are few better men in sports than Sutton, whose firing by the worst athletic director in history (Rick Greenspan) was the start of Army’s 11 year tailspin, lowlighted by an 0-13 record a few years ago.
My favorite player during my Ravens year? Bart Scott. Back then he was mostly a special teams player, a kid who had come out of nowhere to become an NFL player. I still remember him arguing vehemently with virtually the entire offensive line in the days leading up to the 2004 election about why George W. Bush should NOT be re-elected. At one point he looked at Jonathan Ogden who kept saying, ‘the man (John Kerry) is going to raise my taxes,’ and said, “JO, can you for once stop thinking about your damn money!”
That cracked the room up. Ogden was famously cheap.
Now Bart’s a star. Now Rex is a media rock star in New York. I DID feel bad for Norv Turner because his team making The Super Bowl would have really been a nice payback for him to Danny Snyder, who still hasn’t found the right coach (unless Mike Shanahan is it) to deal with his Napoleonic personality since he fired Norv when he was 7-6 and in playoff contention nine years ago.
But seeing the Jets in the conference championship game with a lot of people I truly like involved is great. I know the Colts will be heavy favorites on Sunday and they should be. But I’ve got a warning for Peyton Manning: I’ll be pacing. That should make him a little bit nervous shouldn’t it?
Friday, January 15, 2010
Potential ramifications for decisions by Mets, Wizards on Beltran, Arenas
Carlos Beltran and Gilbert Arenas are both in the news today.
Arenas will be in court later today to accept a plea bargain that in all likelihood will keep him out of jail. I’m going to refrain from saying too much about this until it actually happens because there’s no point in ripping the prosecutors for copping out until I actually know they’ve copped out.
Beltran isn’t going to court or to jail but he won’t be playing baseball for a while. He had surgery on his arthritic knee on Wednesday and is likely not to be able to resume baseball activities for at least 12 weeks. My guess is he won’t be penciled into a Major League lineup card before May. All of which means the Mets have pretty much picked up at the start of 2010 where they left off in 2009.
But I’m not writing about Beltran to rip the Mets—although they are eminently rippable. They are so incompetent that they can’t even get a player they owe $37 million to over the next two years to go and see one of their doctors before having surgery. Then they whine about it and don’t even send their general manager to talk to the media about it. Apparently after some of his bang-up performances last summer (notably in the Tony Bernazard debacle) the Mets don’t trust Omar Minaya to speak in public. Which begs the question: If you don’t trust him to run a simple press conference how can you trust him to rebuild your broken ballclub?
As I said though, that’s another issue for another day. Today is about what Beltran and Arenas have in common. Which is this: The Mets are reportedly considering the possibility of refusing to pay Beltran while he is out of the lineup because he had the surgery without their formal permission OR even going so far as to try to void his contract. The Washington Wizards are reportedly thinking about trying to void Arenas’s contract—worth another $80 million after this season is over—on the grounds that he will have pleaded guilty to a felony even if he avoids jail time.
Chances are very good the Mets will back down. Chances are decent the Wizards will back down too and see if there’s any way to trade Arenas.
The reason neither team is likely to take any seriously punitive action has little to do with the players involved. It has to do with potential future players.
It really doesn’t matter that Arenas acted like a complete bonehead in this whole thing from the moment he put the guns in his car and drove them from his home in Virginia to The Verizon Center in Washington, committing a crime the minute he crossed the bridge into D.C.
It doesn’t matter that Arenas acted as if the whole thing was a joke until he was suspended by NBA Commissioner David Stern. It doesn’t even matter that he has said when this is over everyone will owe him an apology.
The Wizards are probably going to have to rebuild their entire team—again. Arenas has to be gone one way or the other and they will try to trade Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler because both players have considerable value, especially to teams in contention. The draft only has two rounds and if you get one truly outstanding player in a draft that’s a good year. That means you have to sign free agents.
Are there some players (and coaches) who will sign with the highest bidder, regardless of who it is? Absolutely. How else can Dan Snyder, whose reputation as the worst owner in sports always precedes him, continue to sign free agent players and big name coaches? If you believe Mike Shanahan when he says he took over the Redskins because of how much he likes Snyder, I have oceanfront land in Kansas I’d like to sell you. Shanahan’s friends are the checks for $7 million a year Snyder will be writing.
But if someone else had matched that $7 million, Shanahan probably would have been very good friends with THAT owner. And the Wizards will worry that if a free agent has a choice between their organization and another that’s offering comparable money, Arenas’s name will come up. As in, “you guys are the ones that voided Gil’s contract.”
Don’t think for a second that won’t happen. Before this is over—especially if the Wizards do void the contract—Arenas is going to be the victim here. There will be apologists pointing out athletes who have done worse things (there are) and pointing out that Delonte West was acting far more reckless than Arenas last fall when he was arrested on a motorcycle on the Washington Beltway carrying guns. That’s also true. It’s also true that West has kept his mouth shut and not tried to act as if the whole thing was a joke.
Reality doesn’t matter here. Athletes live in their own reality, one in which Tiger Woods’s agent can actually send an e-mail to a New York Times reporter saying, “Give the kid a break.” The kid being a 34-year-old, billionaire father of two who has been in the public eye for 20 years and crafted an image that has been proven to be totally false.
No doubt a lot of basketball players will think the Wizards failed to give Arenas a break. The Wizards know that. They know that voiding the contract (IF their action is upheld when the players’ union contests it) will save a lot of money short term and will give them a partial escape from this disaster. But they also know that anytime a free agent doesn’t sign with them, people will wonder if Arenas was part of the reason. And if by some chance a player comes out and says, “I wouldn’t sign with Washington because of what they did to Gil,” whether what they did to Gil was fair or unfair will be a moot point.
The Mets and Beltran are different. Beltran’s never been in any trouble at all and for a lot of the last five years has been the Mets best player. And yet—he’s been hurt a lot. He also has become for many fans the symbol of their frustrations in recent years. If you are a Mets fan (which as I always confess I am…sigh) it is pretty much impossible to forget the sight of Beltran with his bat on his shoulder while strike three went past him with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of game seven of The 2006 National League Championship Series.
Beltran’s had good moments since then but the Mets collapsed in September of 2007 and 2008 and in early June in 2009. Beltran, like a lot of his teammates (Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, J.J. Puetz; even David Wright) missed large chunks of the season. Now, after saying his knee felt fine all fall, he has surgery five weeks before spring training begins.
Beltran’s agent, the lovely and talented Scott Boras, insists that the doctor who did the surgery in Denver consulted with the Mets team doctor, David Altchek and got the go-ahead to do the surgery. Then—according to Boras—after Beltran was IN surgery on Wednesday, the Mets called again to say they wanted Beltran to see their doctors. If that version proves true not only do the Mets have no case against Beltran but they have pulled yet another public relations blunder by ripping a key player who did nothing wrong.
If that’s NOT the case and Beltran did the surgery without letting the Mets know he was doing it, then the Mets do have a case—certainly in terms of not paying him until he can play again.
But don’t bet on the Mets to do any of that. More likely they will come back and say it was all a big misunderstanding and everyone loves everyone. Minaya tried to blame the Bernazard debacle on Adam Rubin of The New York Daily News. Maybe the Mets will blame Adam for this too.
But you can bet they won’t take drastic action against Beltran. They’re going to need to sign free agents to rebuild again. And, while money talks, it someone else has money that’s also talking, a “reputation,” for not taking care of your players can quickly shut your money down.
What a world. And people wonder why I hang out at Patriot League basketball games.
Arenas will be in court later today to accept a plea bargain that in all likelihood will keep him out of jail. I’m going to refrain from saying too much about this until it actually happens because there’s no point in ripping the prosecutors for copping out until I actually know they’ve copped out.
Beltran isn’t going to court or to jail but he won’t be playing baseball for a while. He had surgery on his arthritic knee on Wednesday and is likely not to be able to resume baseball activities for at least 12 weeks. My guess is he won’t be penciled into a Major League lineup card before May. All of which means the Mets have pretty much picked up at the start of 2010 where they left off in 2009.
But I’m not writing about Beltran to rip the Mets—although they are eminently rippable. They are so incompetent that they can’t even get a player they owe $37 million to over the next two years to go and see one of their doctors before having surgery. Then they whine about it and don’t even send their general manager to talk to the media about it. Apparently after some of his bang-up performances last summer (notably in the Tony Bernazard debacle) the Mets don’t trust Omar Minaya to speak in public. Which begs the question: If you don’t trust him to run a simple press conference how can you trust him to rebuild your broken ballclub?
As I said though, that’s another issue for another day. Today is about what Beltran and Arenas have in common. Which is this: The Mets are reportedly considering the possibility of refusing to pay Beltran while he is out of the lineup because he had the surgery without their formal permission OR even going so far as to try to void his contract. The Washington Wizards are reportedly thinking about trying to void Arenas’s contract—worth another $80 million after this season is over—on the grounds that he will have pleaded guilty to a felony even if he avoids jail time.
Chances are very good the Mets will back down. Chances are decent the Wizards will back down too and see if there’s any way to trade Arenas.
The reason neither team is likely to take any seriously punitive action has little to do with the players involved. It has to do with potential future players.
It really doesn’t matter that Arenas acted like a complete bonehead in this whole thing from the moment he put the guns in his car and drove them from his home in Virginia to The Verizon Center in Washington, committing a crime the minute he crossed the bridge into D.C.
It doesn’t matter that Arenas acted as if the whole thing was a joke until he was suspended by NBA Commissioner David Stern. It doesn’t even matter that he has said when this is over everyone will owe him an apology.
The Wizards are probably going to have to rebuild their entire team—again. Arenas has to be gone one way or the other and they will try to trade Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler because both players have considerable value, especially to teams in contention. The draft only has two rounds and if you get one truly outstanding player in a draft that’s a good year. That means you have to sign free agents.
Are there some players (and coaches) who will sign with the highest bidder, regardless of who it is? Absolutely. How else can Dan Snyder, whose reputation as the worst owner in sports always precedes him, continue to sign free agent players and big name coaches? If you believe Mike Shanahan when he says he took over the Redskins because of how much he likes Snyder, I have oceanfront land in Kansas I’d like to sell you. Shanahan’s friends are the checks for $7 million a year Snyder will be writing.
But if someone else had matched that $7 million, Shanahan probably would have been very good friends with THAT owner. And the Wizards will worry that if a free agent has a choice between their organization and another that’s offering comparable money, Arenas’s name will come up. As in, “you guys are the ones that voided Gil’s contract.”
Don’t think for a second that won’t happen. Before this is over—especially if the Wizards do void the contract—Arenas is going to be the victim here. There will be apologists pointing out athletes who have done worse things (there are) and pointing out that Delonte West was acting far more reckless than Arenas last fall when he was arrested on a motorcycle on the Washington Beltway carrying guns. That’s also true. It’s also true that West has kept his mouth shut and not tried to act as if the whole thing was a joke.
Reality doesn’t matter here. Athletes live in their own reality, one in which Tiger Woods’s agent can actually send an e-mail to a New York Times reporter saying, “Give the kid a break.” The kid being a 34-year-old, billionaire father of two who has been in the public eye for 20 years and crafted an image that has been proven to be totally false.
No doubt a lot of basketball players will think the Wizards failed to give Arenas a break. The Wizards know that. They know that voiding the contract (IF their action is upheld when the players’ union contests it) will save a lot of money short term and will give them a partial escape from this disaster. But they also know that anytime a free agent doesn’t sign with them, people will wonder if Arenas was part of the reason. And if by some chance a player comes out and says, “I wouldn’t sign with Washington because of what they did to Gil,” whether what they did to Gil was fair or unfair will be a moot point.
The Mets and Beltran are different. Beltran’s never been in any trouble at all and for a lot of the last five years has been the Mets best player. And yet—he’s been hurt a lot. He also has become for many fans the symbol of their frustrations in recent years. If you are a Mets fan (which as I always confess I am…sigh) it is pretty much impossible to forget the sight of Beltran with his bat on his shoulder while strike three went past him with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of game seven of The 2006 National League Championship Series.
Beltran’s had good moments since then but the Mets collapsed in September of 2007 and 2008 and in early June in 2009. Beltran, like a lot of his teammates (Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, J.J. Puetz; even David Wright) missed large chunks of the season. Now, after saying his knee felt fine all fall, he has surgery five weeks before spring training begins.
Beltran’s agent, the lovely and talented Scott Boras, insists that the doctor who did the surgery in Denver consulted with the Mets team doctor, David Altchek and got the go-ahead to do the surgery. Then—according to Boras—after Beltran was IN surgery on Wednesday, the Mets called again to say they wanted Beltran to see their doctors. If that version proves true not only do the Mets have no case against Beltran but they have pulled yet another public relations blunder by ripping a key player who did nothing wrong.
If that’s NOT the case and Beltran did the surgery without letting the Mets know he was doing it, then the Mets do have a case—certainly in terms of not paying him until he can play again.
But don’t bet on the Mets to do any of that. More likely they will come back and say it was all a big misunderstanding and everyone loves everyone. Minaya tried to blame the Bernazard debacle on Adam Rubin of The New York Daily News. Maybe the Mets will blame Adam for this too.
But you can bet they won’t take drastic action against Beltran. They’re going to need to sign free agents to rebuild again. And, while money talks, it someone else has money that’s also talking, a “reputation,” for not taking care of your players can quickly shut your money down.
What a world. And people wonder why I hang out at Patriot League basketball games.
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