Washington Post column -- Slumping Washington Caps need to trade for a goalie for Stanley Cup run

The following is this week's article for The Washington Post ---

Woe are the Washington Capitals.

Things are so bad in Caps-land these days that there's more talk about the next time the Caps play the hapless New York Islanders (Jan. 20) than there is about the Winter Classic against the Pittsburgh Penguins on New Year's Day.

Okay, just kidding.

The state of the Capitals really isn't that bad. You want bad, go back to Washington's inaugural season 36 years ago when the team won eight games. That was bad. What's going on right now is frustrating - illustrated perfectly by Alex Ovechkin's second-period fight with Brandon Dubinsky in New York on Sunday night - and it is concerning for a team whose season can't be a success unless it ends with a parade.

That's a new kind of pressure for this team, this organization and, in fact, this town. The last D.C. area team that entered a season expecting to win a championship was Maryland's men's basketball team nine years ago. The last professional team that had those sort of expectations was the last team of Joe Gibbs I, which entered 1992 as the defending Super Bowl champions and barely made the playoffs.

The last time the Caps were in this position was . . . never.


Click here for the rest of the column: Time for Caps to trade for a goalie

This week's AP ballot

The following is my ballot for this week's (week 6) AP college basketball poll, out today (click here for the published poll).  All feedback is welcomed and considered:

1) Duke
2) Ohio St.
3) Kansas
4) Connecticut
5) Syracuse
6) Tennessee
7) Baylor
8) Kansas St.
9) BYU
10) Pittsburgh
11) Villanova
12) Illinois
13) Missouri
14) San Diego St.
15) Louisville
16) Michigan St.
17) Purdue
18) Kentucky
19) Texas A&M
20) Georgetown
21) Notre Dame
22) Memphis
23) Minnesota
24) Temple
25) Cleveland St.

Army-Navy – the joy, the heartache and the reality

It never fails. Every year when I go to Army-Navy I wonder if THIS is going to be the year when the alma maters don’t get to me, when I don’t turn into a whimpering puddle when they play those two songs. After all, I’ve witnessed the scene 21 times now. The last really close game was in 2000—when Bill Clinton for crying out loud was still the President.

And yet, it doesn’t matter. Saturday’s game WAS more competitive. It could have been a classic if things hadn’t turned upside down on one play at the end of the first half. Trailing 17-7 (after being down 17-0 early) Army drove to the Navy three-yard line after a Ricky Dobbs fumble and had a first and goal with the clock ticking towards a minute to go. An Army touchdown just before halftime would have given the Cadets all the momentum starting the third quarter—especially since they were receiving the second half kickoff.

Quarterback Trent Steelman, who I think is going to be a star the next two years, ran right and tried to push his way forward to reach the end zone. He was stopped at the one and as he struggled for extra yardage—which is an instinct but often a mistake on the goal line if you don’t have the ball covered up—Navy linebackers Jerry Hauberger and Tyler Simmons punched at it. It popped loose into the arms of Wyatt Middleton. Middleton was in full stride when he found himself with the ball and no one was going to catch him. He went 98 yards. Suddenly, shockingly it was 24-7 when Army had been a yard from cutting the margin to 17-14.

In my mind, it was appropriate that Middleton made the biggest play of the game—with help from his linebackers—because he has been Navy’s most consistent player all season. Dobbs is the most spectacular and he has gotten BY FAR the most publicity—as happens with quarterbacks, especially when they say they want to run for President someday—but Dobbs has also been mistake-prone at times. Saturday he turned the ball over four times—twice when he fumbled; once when he and Alex Teich (again) couldn’t get their timing down on the quarterback/fullback mesh and once on an interception on a ball he never should have thrown.

Middleton just makes plays. He’s the best pure tackler I’ve seen in a long time. His touchdown put Navy in control and, even though Army hung in and battled to the end the outcome was never in serious doubt. That made nine in a row for Navy—the previous record streak before this one on either side was FIVE—which is simply remarkable.

You just don’t expect either of these schools to dominate the other. They’re too much alike. But Navy has put together a wonderful program since Paul Johnson took over in 2002 and then handed the reins to Kenny Niumatalolo three years ago. During that same period Army made more mistakes than The Washington Redskins—if that’s possible. They finally have hired the right coach in Rich Ellerson but it looks like they’re going to botch their search for a new athletic director by letting a search firm control who gets final interviews. That will be a huge mistake.

Saturday night, after I got home from the game, a note was waiting for me from Andrew Thompson, who was the defensive captain at Navy in 1995, the year I wrote, ‘A Civil War.’ That team actually began a turnaround at Navy, going 5-5-1 and losing the Army-Navy game, 14-13 when Army drove 99 yards late in the game—converting a fourth-and-24 along the way—to pull the game out. A year later the Mids were 9-3 and went to their first bowl game in 15 years.

The last line of Drew’s note—after talking about how happy he was for Navy, said this: “I feel, I really do feel, for those Army seniors.”

Thompson, who is now a marine and has been deployed to Iraq, KNOWS what it feels like to stand there for the playing of the alma maters after losing Army-Navy as a senior. The only difference is he and his teammates lost in absolutely heartbreaking fashion. In the case of these Army seniors it was simply heartbreaking for them to lose and know they will never have a chance to beat Navy. They knew they had improved the last two years, that they had been part of turning the Army program back in the right direction but that they still weren’t as good as Navy.

That hurts.

That’s what got to me during the alma maters. I love seeing the joy on the faces of the winners after this game, but it always breaks my heart to see the faces of the losers. I’ve had the chance to be on the field when they play the alma maters and when you see those tears close up, it gets to you—it has to.

It gets to me in the radio booth too. I don’t just look at the players, I look at the cadets and the midshipmen in the stands—all at attention while they play those songs. There’s a photo in ‘A Civil War,’ of the two team doctors, Bob Arciero and Eddie McDevitt, standing next to one another. Both men have their hands on their hearts while the Army alma mater is being played. That’s why I always tell Bob Socci, who has been my partner in the Navy radio booth for 14 years now (Omar Nelson joined us eight years ago) not to ask me a question when the alma maters are over because I’m not going to be able to answer at that moment.

Saturday was a long hectic day. Having been a bit sleep-deprived the last few weeks, I felt a little worn out during the game after arriving at the stadium four hours before kickoff because I had made quite a few pre-game commitments. I literally had to sprint through the crowds to get from the CBS College Tailgate set at one end of the stadium to the press box elevator at the other end of the stadium so I could arrive in the radio booth with a good 30 seconds to spare before we went on the air.

So maybe, I thought, it won’t get to me this time, I’ll just be too tired; I made it about halfway through ‘Alma Mater,’—the Army song. For some reason I spotted the Navy cheerleaders, lined up, standing at rigid attention for the Army song. That’s when my eyes starting getting wet. I remember thinking I liked the old noon kickoffs because the game would end with the sun still up at about 3 o’clock and I had an excuse to keep my eyes covered with sunglasses.

Then the players and coaches crossed the field. They started, ‘Blue-and-Gold.’ Understand this: ‘Blue-and-Gold,’ can make me cry standing in the shower. It is a hauntingly beautiful song. (I always say that Navy has the better alma mater; Army the better fight song. ‘Alma Mater,’ is wonderful, especially those last few notes and ‘Anchors Aweigh,’ is terrific but you just don’t top ‘Blue-and-Gold,’ or ‘On Brave Old Army Team.’) So there I am—again—the tears running down my face, again remembering who all these kids are—not just the players, all 8,000 of them—and where they may be going. I’m thinking, as I always do, of Kevin Norman, who was Jim Cantelupe’s roommate the year I did ‘Civil War.’ Cantelupe was Army’s defensive captain that year. He was in the stadium Saturday and I know he was thinking about Kevin too. Kevin died overseas when he crashed his helicopter into a bridge after maneuvering it in his final seconds so it wouldn’t crash into a heavily-populated civilian area.

Kevin Norman is who all those kids are, the ones wearing the football uniforms on Saturday, the ones wearing the cadet and midshipmen uniforms. Damn right I cried. And no doubt, a year from now, when many of those kids will be in harm’s way, I will cry again.

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, Tony Kornheiser Show)

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. .

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
 
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Thursday morning at 11:05 ET, I joined Tony Kornheiser in his newest version of The Tony Kornheiser Show.  This week was our normal wide-ranging conversation.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show

This week’s AP Basketball Poll ballot:

Here is this week's submission for the AP poll...as always, feedback and comments are welcome:

1) Duke
2) Ohio St.
3) Pittsburgh
4) Kansas
5) Connecticut
6) Kansas St.
7) Syracuse
8) Michigan St.
9) Georgetown
10) Tennessee
11) Baylor
12) Villanova
13) Memphis
14) Illinois
15) San Diego St.
16) Purdue
17) BYU
18) Missouri
19) Notre Dame
20) Louisville
21) Washington
22) UNLV
23) Temple
24) Kentucky
25) Cleveland St. 25

Tip of the hat to E. Gordon Gee; NCAA ruling on Cam Newton puts me on the same side with Delany and Vaccaro, opens Pandora’s Box

I’m a big believer in giving credit where it is due. So today, I tip my hat—if not my bowtie—to E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State. I was one of many people who ripped Gee in the last week after he ridiculously claimed that neither TCU nor Boise State was worthy of playing for a national title even if they finished undefeated. In what struck me—and others—as a blatant attempt to make sure the 66 BCS schools kept as much of the power, money and control as possible in college football, Gee came out with some blather about how teams in the BCS Conferences play a murderer’s row schedule and don’t play The Little Sisters of the Poor.

Actually, many of them do. And they all play them at home.

I wrote a column ripping Gee and making fun of him for being pretentious. Others did the same thing. Here’s how Gee responded: He told the Columbus Dispatch he never should have opened his mouth on the subject, that he didn’t know what he was talking about and that he was going to have his foot surgically removed from his mouth. He also said he had sent a contribution to The Little Sisters of the Poor.

Good for him. How often have you heard a college president not only admit he was wrong about something but say it in such a self-deprecating way. If this was a PR move it was a good one. If it is genuine, all the better.

Gee went at least one step further. Yesterday afternoon I received an e-mail from him in which he basically repeated what he had told The Dispatch. It included the words, “Lesson learned.” He then went on to say he was an admirer of my work and would love to sit down and talk to me at some point in the future. First of all the guy clearly has good taste in writing. More important though, the fact that he would write to me at all is remarkable: I hammered him, made fun of his first name and wrote that he needed to shut up. He writes back that I’m right and wants to get together.

This is not exactly the way Tiger Woods or Bob Knight react to criticism. (Tiger fans: there’s your Tiger shot for the day; enjoy).

I wrote back to Gee and thanked him for the note and told him I’d be happy to get together with him. Then I said this: “I would love to be able to convince you to open your mouth again—but this time in favor of a playoff which would be good for the young men who play college football; good for everyone financially and, yes, good for the players in their roles as students.”

No, I’m not holding my breath on getting that done but if Gee is willing to listen I’m (surprise) willing to talk.

Now, on to another college football topic: The Cam Newton ruling is scary on a lot of levels. Let me say this first: I recognize, as most of us do, how colleges exploit players and make millions off of stars like Newton. I’ve said for years there should be some kind of trust fund set up for players on ANY team that makes a school money and players should be able to withdraw their share—which over four or five years could be fairly substantial—the day they graduate. Yes, graduate. Those who leave school early to make NFL or NBA millions don’t need the money; those who aren’t going to be football or basketball superstars do need it and this would be a decent incentive to graduate.

That’s another issue for another day. Today’s issue is the Newton ruling. Here’s what scares me most about it: I find myself reading quotes from Big Ten commission Jim (Voldemort) Delany and long-time shoe salesman/player broker Sonny Vaccaro and nodding my head and saying, ‘uh-huh, they’re right.”

The day I agree with Jim Delany and Sonny Vaccaro the apocalypse truly is upon us. Delany, who used to work in the NCAA enforcement office, points out that rules on eligibility make it clear that if someone acting on behalf of an athlete breaks rules, the athlete can—and probably should—be held accountable. The NCAA reinstatement committee chose to take the narrowest view possible on this: the sins of the father should not be visited upon the son.

In principle that sounds nice but as Vaccaro points out, this opens an unbelievably deep Pandora’s Box. From this day forward, all anyone—father, mother, coach, street-agent, sister, cousin, aunt—need do is say to a star athlete, “you decide where you want to go and we’ll take care of the rest.” As long as the athlete can claim he didn’t know what’s going on, he’s free and clear. The minute the NCAA rules in the future that someone is ineligible because someone asked for money on their behalf, there’s going to be a lawsuit based on, ‘The Cam Newton Rule.’

If the NCAA is going to take this view, it might just as well throw the towel in and say, ‘pay ‘em all.’ Now some of you out there will say that’s great, that’s the way to go anyway. Only it’s not that simple. If you think college athletics is an arms race now, imagine what will happen if the doors are opened to having players go to the highest bidder.

You think Butler will play in the national championship game anytime soon? You think Boise State will ever have a top ten team again? No. College athletics will simply be about who can get the most money out of wealthy boosters to pay players. Heck, it is already that way to some extent but you let all those folks out of the closet with no deterrent at all for paying players and you can kiss that lovely first weekend of the NCAA Tournament when Winthrop beats Notre Dame and VCU beats Duke goodbye.

The NCAA didn’t want Newton to sit out the SEC Championship game because, in spite of its claims to the contrary, it IS in cahoots with the BCS and it doesn’t want TCU in the championship game. USC Athletic Director Pat Haden (correctly) asks why Reggie Bush got nailed and Newton did not. The answer is simple: Bush is no longer of any value to the NCAA. Newton is. Don’t be stunned if sometime in the next year or two the NCAA comes back and says, ‘wait, we now believe Cam Newton knew what his dad was up to—return all the trophies.’

That’s NCAA justice: it twists and bends the way it needs to twist and bend. Newton and Auburn are fortunate the NCAA needs Newton playing—at least for the moment.

I’m also baffled by my friend Bill Rhoden’s column in today’s New York Times. Bill argues that even though Cecil Newton put his son up for sale, he’s still a good man, just one who used poor judgment. To me, trying to turn your kid into a human ATM machine—whether he knows you’re doing it or not—goes way beyond poor judgment.

In this case, it has done the impossible: put Jim Delany, Sonny Vaccaro and me on the same side of an issue. I’m not sure which of the three of us finds that most frightening.

This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, Tony Kornheiser Show)

Wednesday I joined The Sports Reporters in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's). Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment from this week. We briefly discussed the BB&T Classic that is upcoming this weekend before moving on to Ralph Friedgen's situation at Maryland and how it influences the future of the program, conference realignment for TCU  and various other topics.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Sports Reporters
 
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This morning at 11:05 ET, I joined Tony Kornheiser in his newest version of The Tony Kornheiser Show.  This week we talked about the teams that are playing in the BB&T tournament this weekend, Bob Huggins, the Duke basketball team, the BCS and various other topics including the NCAA ruling on Cam Newton.

Click here to listen to the segment: The Tony Kornheiser Show