Here is this week's The Washington Post article ------
It is now Day 18 of the Tiger Woods Hostage Crisis.
Okay, maybe that sounds overblown, but in a very real sense it isn't. Woods is a hostage, even though he is his own captor.
What's more, there is no doubting that both Woods and the sport of golf are in crisis. The PGA Tour needs Woods almost as much as mammals need oxygen. Woods needs golf more now than ever because playing the game he has dominated for almost 13 years may be the only way for him to him to temporarily escape the humiliation that has rained down him since the morning of Nov. 27. That day now feels as if it were closer to 18 years ago than 18 days ago given all that has happened.
Click here for the rest of the column: Unclear exactly where Tiger, Tour are headed
Monday, December 14, 2009
One thing is true with Tiger, the future is an absolute guess; Bill Hancock continues to smile in response
I would really like to write this morning about Army-Navy weekend, just tell a few stories about the people I encountered and the game and how I got caught (again) tearing up during the playing of the alma maters.
But it’s simply impossible to just drive past the train wreck that is Tiger Woods. I’ve said and written a lot about Tiger the last 13 years but I honestly never thought the phrase, ‘train wreck,’ would appear in a sentence describing his life. That, however, is exactly where he is right now.
It’s interesting the sort of panic that his statement that he was taking an ‘indefinite,’ leave of absence from the tour set off on Friday night. I was about to leave my hotel to meet people for dinner when Golf Channel called. They were about to break into their programming to go live with the story. Could I come on by phone and ‘react?’ Sure. I work for Golf Channel so when they call I’m there to do what they ask even if I seriously doubt I can add that much to the equation. I did the interview with Rich Lerner while standing on Broad Street outside The Philadelphia Palm before I joined everyone for dinner.
By the time we walked out of the restaurant a couple of hours later I had 18 messages from various media outlets on my cell phone. CNN—which is always there when it needs you—had called no less than four times: ‘Larry King Live,’—whose producers consistently say ‘we don’t do sports,’ whenever I have a book out even though I knew the host well when he lived fulltime in Washington—suddenly was doing sports. Same with Anderson Cooper, not to mention their regular news shows. The other calls were predictable ranging from local radio to ABC News.
The only people I called back were those I work with on a regular basis. The larger point is this: NO ONE knows what the hell any of this means. One of the reasons I’m really not that eager to play Tiger pundit right now is that anything I say is an absolute guess.
The questions are predictable: When do you think Tiger will play golf again? Answer: I have no idea and my guess is neither does he right now.
What does this mean for his career?
Again, who among us knows? Maybe golf will become his salvation in light of all that’s gone on and he’ll play better than in the past. Maybe other players won’t be as intimidated by him. Maybe he won’t feel so all-powerful on the golf course because he’s been humiliated off the golf course.
What does this mean for The PGA Tour?
Nothing good, that’s for sure. Commissioner Tim Finchem has always used the following line to pump up his sport, especially when wooing sponsors: “The most famous athlete in the world plays on our tour.” Well, he still does but he is now as infamous as he is famous. Of course there’s no way to measure the impact Tiger’s ‘leave,’ will have until we know how long he’s going to be gone for.
Does Tiger have to actually talk to the media at some point and stop hiding behind his carefully crafted statement on his web site?
Actually no, he doesn’t. He can continue to play the, ‘this is my private life,’ card and a lot of people will buy it. He’s also going to have his apologists running around acting as if he’s a ‘victim,’ of some kind—which he is if you count the fact that he’s a victim of his own selfishness and stupidity. Charles Barkley did some kind of commentary on TBS the other night that was actually embarrassing, trying to claim the whole thing is the fault of all the ‘losers,’ in the media who continue to report the story. Hey Chuck, if the media are such losers why don’t you get OUT of the media. And of course there’s my friend Mike Wilbon (pal of Chuck) who keeps insisting that every famous person on the face of the planet has done this so it’s a non-story.
That’s the way it always is in these situations. There are people who still blame Woodward and Bernstein for Richard Nixon’s resignation and others who insist that what happened to Bill Clinton was a ‘right wing conspiracy.’ It’s worth remembering that Bernstein probably would have still been covering Virginia state politics and Woodward local cops and courts if the burglars hadn’t been caught and that there isn’t any evidence that Monica Lewinsky was working undercover for Rush Limbaugh.
It’s human nature when we screw up to initially try to blame someone or something for our troubles. There’s an old saying among golfers that you can tell the truly great players because they always tap down a spike mark in their line after missing a putt. You see it can’t be THEIR fault. Part of what makes them great is always believing that they made the putt; something simply conspired to keep the ball out of the hole.
There is no one more like that than Tiger. The looks to the heavens; the eye-rolling; the club tossing are all part of that mentality. Sometimes you feel as if Tiger has the hardest life every lived, that he is the first and only player to have a putt do a 360 around the hole and stay out. It is one reason why he always seems to make the next one, as if he’s saying, ‘no matter what you do you won’t get me!’
There’s no doubt that’s how he feels now. He’s certainly surrounded by people (with the likely exception of his wife) who are telling him that every day. They are all Barkley times ten in large part because they’re trying to save their jobs. Some people have called for Tiger to fire IMG; to fire Steve Williams; to fire everyone on his payroll. Look, I’m no fan of IMG and would love to see Steve Williams in a parking lot holding up a sign that says, ‘will caddy for food.’ But if Tiger wants to fire the person responsible for all this he’d have to fire himself.
Personally, I hope he comes back before The Masters. Golf is better with Tiger than without Tiger and anyone who believes different is a fool. But I also hope that sometime between now and his return he goes outside his circle of sycophants and asks for help whether it be from a crisis manager or someone else as long as it is someone who has NO financial involvement in Tiger Woods Inc. And I hope whomever that is tells him that stonewalling is never the answer; that blaming others is never the answer.
He’s admitted his “infidelities,”; he admitted “letting people down.” People need to HEAR him say it, need to get a sense if he means it or if he’s just saying it because that’s what his spinners have told him to say.
There’s another more selfish reason why I hope Tiger starts talking sometime soon: CNN will stop calling me. I swear to God they called again while I was writing this. Maybe I’ll give them Barkley’s number. I’m sure he’ll talk to them—he’s on their payroll.
---------------------------------
On a far lighter and more pleasant note: My pal Bill Hancock from the BCS dealt with being bombarded with his usual good humor during dinner Friday night. He answered NONE of the questions posed to him—most by former Army and Navy football players, I just sat and watched—to anyone’s satisfaction. I think my friend Jim Cantelupe, the co-captain of the Army team I wrote about in ‘A Civil War,’ summed it up well at the end of the night: “Everything he says is wrong but he’s so nice about it you can’t get pissed off at him.”
What was funny was Bill saying that a four team playoff would still have left out an undefeated team when everyone at the table was calling for at least eight teams. When someone asked him about the presidents adding a 12th game strictly to make more money, Bill shook his head sincerely and said, “you know a lot of presidents were against that.
I couldn’t resist jumping in at that point and saying, “not a majority though, huh Bill?”
He just smiled in response.
He also made the mistake of trying the “regular season has more meaning,” argument which was shouted down by people noting that TCU and Boise State could have had NFL teams on their schedule and still wouldn’t have gotten a shot at the championship game.
“I hope I’ll still have some friends left when this is all over,” Bill said after dinner.
I promised I’d always be his friend—which I will—no matter how wrong he might be.
But it’s simply impossible to just drive past the train wreck that is Tiger Woods. I’ve said and written a lot about Tiger the last 13 years but I honestly never thought the phrase, ‘train wreck,’ would appear in a sentence describing his life. That, however, is exactly where he is right now.
It’s interesting the sort of panic that his statement that he was taking an ‘indefinite,’ leave of absence from the tour set off on Friday night. I was about to leave my hotel to meet people for dinner when Golf Channel called. They were about to break into their programming to go live with the story. Could I come on by phone and ‘react?’ Sure. I work for Golf Channel so when they call I’m there to do what they ask even if I seriously doubt I can add that much to the equation. I did the interview with Rich Lerner while standing on Broad Street outside The Philadelphia Palm before I joined everyone for dinner.
By the time we walked out of the restaurant a couple of hours later I had 18 messages from various media outlets on my cell phone. CNN—which is always there when it needs you—had called no less than four times: ‘Larry King Live,’—whose producers consistently say ‘we don’t do sports,’ whenever I have a book out even though I knew the host well when he lived fulltime in Washington—suddenly was doing sports. Same with Anderson Cooper, not to mention their regular news shows. The other calls were predictable ranging from local radio to ABC News.
The only people I called back were those I work with on a regular basis. The larger point is this: NO ONE knows what the hell any of this means. One of the reasons I’m really not that eager to play Tiger pundit right now is that anything I say is an absolute guess.
The questions are predictable: When do you think Tiger will play golf again? Answer: I have no idea and my guess is neither does he right now.
What does this mean for his career?
Again, who among us knows? Maybe golf will become his salvation in light of all that’s gone on and he’ll play better than in the past. Maybe other players won’t be as intimidated by him. Maybe he won’t feel so all-powerful on the golf course because he’s been humiliated off the golf course.
What does this mean for The PGA Tour?
Nothing good, that’s for sure. Commissioner Tim Finchem has always used the following line to pump up his sport, especially when wooing sponsors: “The most famous athlete in the world plays on our tour.” Well, he still does but he is now as infamous as he is famous. Of course there’s no way to measure the impact Tiger’s ‘leave,’ will have until we know how long he’s going to be gone for.
Does Tiger have to actually talk to the media at some point and stop hiding behind his carefully crafted statement on his web site?
Actually no, he doesn’t. He can continue to play the, ‘this is my private life,’ card and a lot of people will buy it. He’s also going to have his apologists running around acting as if he’s a ‘victim,’ of some kind—which he is if you count the fact that he’s a victim of his own selfishness and stupidity. Charles Barkley did some kind of commentary on TBS the other night that was actually embarrassing, trying to claim the whole thing is the fault of all the ‘losers,’ in the media who continue to report the story. Hey Chuck, if the media are such losers why don’t you get OUT of the media. And of course there’s my friend Mike Wilbon (pal of Chuck) who keeps insisting that every famous person on the face of the planet has done this so it’s a non-story.
That’s the way it always is in these situations. There are people who still blame Woodward and Bernstein for Richard Nixon’s resignation and others who insist that what happened to Bill Clinton was a ‘right wing conspiracy.’ It’s worth remembering that Bernstein probably would have still been covering Virginia state politics and Woodward local cops and courts if the burglars hadn’t been caught and that there isn’t any evidence that Monica Lewinsky was working undercover for Rush Limbaugh.
It’s human nature when we screw up to initially try to blame someone or something for our troubles. There’s an old saying among golfers that you can tell the truly great players because they always tap down a spike mark in their line after missing a putt. You see it can’t be THEIR fault. Part of what makes them great is always believing that they made the putt; something simply conspired to keep the ball out of the hole.
There is no one more like that than Tiger. The looks to the heavens; the eye-rolling; the club tossing are all part of that mentality. Sometimes you feel as if Tiger has the hardest life every lived, that he is the first and only player to have a putt do a 360 around the hole and stay out. It is one reason why he always seems to make the next one, as if he’s saying, ‘no matter what you do you won’t get me!’
There’s no doubt that’s how he feels now. He’s certainly surrounded by people (with the likely exception of his wife) who are telling him that every day. They are all Barkley times ten in large part because they’re trying to save their jobs. Some people have called for Tiger to fire IMG; to fire Steve Williams; to fire everyone on his payroll. Look, I’m no fan of IMG and would love to see Steve Williams in a parking lot holding up a sign that says, ‘will caddy for food.’ But if Tiger wants to fire the person responsible for all this he’d have to fire himself.
Personally, I hope he comes back before The Masters. Golf is better with Tiger than without Tiger and anyone who believes different is a fool. But I also hope that sometime between now and his return he goes outside his circle of sycophants and asks for help whether it be from a crisis manager or someone else as long as it is someone who has NO financial involvement in Tiger Woods Inc. And I hope whomever that is tells him that stonewalling is never the answer; that blaming others is never the answer.
He’s admitted his “infidelities,”; he admitted “letting people down.” People need to HEAR him say it, need to get a sense if he means it or if he’s just saying it because that’s what his spinners have told him to say.
There’s another more selfish reason why I hope Tiger starts talking sometime soon: CNN will stop calling me. I swear to God they called again while I was writing this. Maybe I’ll give them Barkley’s number. I’m sure he’ll talk to them—he’s on their payroll.
---------------------------------
On a far lighter and more pleasant note: My pal Bill Hancock from the BCS dealt with being bombarded with his usual good humor during dinner Friday night. He answered NONE of the questions posed to him—most by former Army and Navy football players, I just sat and watched—to anyone’s satisfaction. I think my friend Jim Cantelupe, the co-captain of the Army team I wrote about in ‘A Civil War,’ summed it up well at the end of the night: “Everything he says is wrong but he’s so nice about it you can’t get pissed off at him.”
What was funny was Bill saying that a four team playoff would still have left out an undefeated team when everyone at the table was calling for at least eight teams. When someone asked him about the presidents adding a 12th game strictly to make more money, Bill shook his head sincerely and said, “you know a lot of presidents were against that.
I couldn’t resist jumping in at that point and saying, “not a majority though, huh Bill?”
He just smiled in response.
He also made the mistake of trying the “regular season has more meaning,” argument which was shouted down by people noting that TCU and Boise State could have had NFL teams on their schedule and still wouldn’t have gotten a shot at the championship game.
“I hope I’ll still have some friends left when this is all over,” Bill said after dinner.
I promised I’d always be his friend—which I will—no matter how wrong he might be.
Friday, December 11, 2009
There's nothing like Army-Navy --- it isn't a football game, it’s an experience
I’m off to Philadelphia today for Army-Navy.
If there is one day every year I truly look forward to it is Army-Navy. At this point I’ve said and written about a million times that there is nothing like Army-Navy. Every time I say it there are people who roll their eyes and say, ‘come on it can’t be like Ohio State-Michigan; Alabama-Auburn; USC-UCLA or any of the other traditional rivalries that involved teams that often play for the national championship or at least high national rankings.’
They’re right: Army-Navy isn’t like any of the others. That’s why I enjoy it so much. It’s unique. Almost none of the players in this game will ever even think about playing in the NFL or, for that matter, the UFL. They will be wearing uniforms next fall: Army uniforms; Navy uniforms; Marine uniforms. All of them committed to the academies in the middle of two wars and all of them re-committed again at the end of their sophomore years. Any cadet or midshipmen can leave after two years without any penalty. Once their junior year begins they are legally committed to the armed forced for five years after graduation.
I’ve had the good fortune to know a lot of football players from Army and Navy dating back to covering Navy in the 1980s and to a lengthy piece I wrote for The National Sports Daily in 1990 on the rivalry. Since I wrote “A Civil War,” in 1995 and then started broadcasting Navy games in 1997, I have gotten close to a lot of players and coaches at both schools and many others connected to the two schools.
Every year, this is a week during which everyone is looking for the story that explains why this rivalry is so special and it is often a story about a non-star whose attitude defines the kind of people who play in this game. My friend Camille Powell at The Washington Post is working on a story for Saturday’s paper about a senior at Navy who has NEVER played in a game but has stayed with the team because he would never quit on his teammates. There are stories like that every year on both sides. Often those are the guys who go on to be three-star generals or neuro-surgeons or just very important people in the world beyond football.
The players aren’t the only people in this rivalry who are special. When I first began researching “A Civil War,” two of the first people I met at Army were Tim Kelly—the head trainer—and Dick Hall—the equipment manager. While a number of the coaches (on both sides) weren’t initially thrilled with the presence of a reporter in the locker room, on the sidelines, on the team busses or in the team meetings, the players—and guys like Tim and Dick—went out of their way from the beginning to make me feel welcome.
Tim is a quiet Midwesterner, an Iowa graduate with a sharp, low-key sense of humor. He rarely shows emotion on the sidelines, which is hard to do when you are as closely connected to the players as he is. When an Army player gets hurt, the first person he looks to for help is Tim Kelly. The same is true at Navy with Jeff Fair, who has been there for almost as long as Tim has been at Army—though not quite.
Tim loves to tell the story about the night I lost it on the sideline at Rutgers. It was during the second year of the disastrous reign of Todd Berry. Navy had the week off so I drove up to see Army play and stood on the sideline as I had done throughout the book and whenever I had the chance to see an Army game with Tim and Dick Hall and Dean Taylor, who had replaced the great Bob Arciero as team doctor when Bob retired from the Army.
Midway through the second quarter, Rutgers was ahead something like 31-0. It was VERY evident to me that Berry was leading Army down a path to nowhere with the ridiculous spread offense he had put in. What was worse, my sense was the players had given up. You can’t fool smart kids: they knew they had no chance. I pretty much lost it, screaming at Tim, Dick and Dean, “What the hell is going on here? Who hired this guy? (Rick Greenspan, the worst Athletic Director hire in history) They’ve given up! How can Army players give up!”
Tim put his arm around me and kind of walked me down the sideline to calm me down. Later he told me, “I knew you were right, that just wasn’t the time to announce it to the world.”
Of course he was right.
On another occasion in Michie Stadium when the officials clearly missed a fumble that Army recovered, I stood about five feet from the side judge and said, “how can 40,000 people see something clearly and ALL SEVEN of you missed it?” This time it was Dick’s turn to walk me away. Bobby Ross was the coach at the time and I doubt he would have liked it if the side judge had thought I was a coach or something and threw a flag. (I did once have a basketball referee threaten to tee me up during a Bucknell-Penn State game when I was researching ‘The Last Amateurs.’ I was sitting on the Bucknell bench and during a time out I said, “You know there’s nothing in the rules that REQUIRES you guys to be sure The Big Ten team wins.” It was an official I know pretty well and I didn’t think he’d get that angry. He didn’t seem to see the humor in the comment and said, “There’s also nothing in the rules that REQUIRES me to NOT tee you up since you’re sitting on the damn bench.” I shut up).
Let me tell you some more about Dick Hall. He grew up near West Point and fought in Vietnam. He has been at Army since 1975 and has had a close relationship with just about every Army football player since then. Bob Sutton, who coached at Army as an assistant and as the head coach for 17 years used to say, “When our ex-players come back, some of them make it by the football office to say hello. They ALL make it by the equipment room to see Dick.”
Soon after Sutton was gracelessly fired on a Philadelphia street corner by the graceless Greensapan, Dick had a bout with depression brought on by 9-11. He kept having recurring dreams about firefights he’d taken part in during Vietnam and also worried constantly that his players who were overseas fighting were going to die. During the period that he was out of work players streamed by Dick’s house to see him. Most of West Point went to see him. Neither Todd Berry nor Rick Greenspan ever contacted him. In fact, their response was to bring in Berry’s equipment manager from Illinois State and push Dick out of his job.
Dick of course never batted an eye and never complained. He came back to his new role working with football and some of the other sports and acted as if nothing had ever happened. A lot of us were upset, including many ex-players, but there was nothing to be done while the Greenspan/Berry circus was still in town. Next year Dick will celebrate his 35th year working at Army. They should throw him a big party. I guarantee you a lot of people will be there if they do.
As for the game itself, it’s nice that both teams have a lot at stake. Navy’s trying to win a seventh straight Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy and Army is trying to get to a bowl game for the first time since 1996 and break a seven game losing streak to Navy. The Midshipmen have totally dominated for seven straight years, winning by an AVERAGE margin of 39-10. Last year it was 34-0 and really not that close.
I’m glad Army finally has the right coach in place. After the Berry disaster (5-35, topped by an 0-13 when he was finally fired midseason) Army hired Bobby Ross, a superb coach in his prime but a coach past his prime at 67. Then came Stan Brock who was an offensive line coach in a head coach’s headset. Rich Ellerson is none of the above. He gets Army—which is critical—because his father and two brothers are graduates. He gets option offense: first learned it from Paul Johnson while both were on the staff at Hawaii. He’s innovative—he moved Ali Villaneuva, a 6-10, 300 pound tackle to WIDE RECEIVER—and he’s smart. He will bring balance back to the rivalry, which is good.
I know the Navy people have loved the last seven years and why not? But for a rivalry to be a rivalry the games need to end with tears on both sides. That will start happening again with Ellerson at Army and Kenny Niumatalolo picking up where Johnson left off at Navy—which he’s done.
Some time shortly after dark on Saturday when the game’s over the players on both teams will stand at attention together for the playing of the alma maters. Regardless of who wins there will be 70,000 people standing with them, knowing what the seniors on the field—and in the stands—will face in a few months.
That’s just one more reason why there's nothing like Army-Navy. It isn't a football game, it's an experience. One I love being a tiny part of every year.
If there is one day every year I truly look forward to it is Army-Navy. At this point I’ve said and written about a million times that there is nothing like Army-Navy. Every time I say it there are people who roll their eyes and say, ‘come on it can’t be like Ohio State-Michigan; Alabama-Auburn; USC-UCLA or any of the other traditional rivalries that involved teams that often play for the national championship or at least high national rankings.’
They’re right: Army-Navy isn’t like any of the others. That’s why I enjoy it so much. It’s unique. Almost none of the players in this game will ever even think about playing in the NFL or, for that matter, the UFL. They will be wearing uniforms next fall: Army uniforms; Navy uniforms; Marine uniforms. All of them committed to the academies in the middle of two wars and all of them re-committed again at the end of their sophomore years. Any cadet or midshipmen can leave after two years without any penalty. Once their junior year begins they are legally committed to the armed forced for five years after graduation.
I’ve had the good fortune to know a lot of football players from Army and Navy dating back to covering Navy in the 1980s and to a lengthy piece I wrote for The National Sports Daily in 1990 on the rivalry. Since I wrote “A Civil War,” in 1995 and then started broadcasting Navy games in 1997, I have gotten close to a lot of players and coaches at both schools and many others connected to the two schools.
Every year, this is a week during which everyone is looking for the story that explains why this rivalry is so special and it is often a story about a non-star whose attitude defines the kind of people who play in this game. My friend Camille Powell at The Washington Post is working on a story for Saturday’s paper about a senior at Navy who has NEVER played in a game but has stayed with the team because he would never quit on his teammates. There are stories like that every year on both sides. Often those are the guys who go on to be three-star generals or neuro-surgeons or just very important people in the world beyond football.
The players aren’t the only people in this rivalry who are special. When I first began researching “A Civil War,” two of the first people I met at Army were Tim Kelly—the head trainer—and Dick Hall—the equipment manager. While a number of the coaches (on both sides) weren’t initially thrilled with the presence of a reporter in the locker room, on the sidelines, on the team busses or in the team meetings, the players—and guys like Tim and Dick—went out of their way from the beginning to make me feel welcome.
Tim is a quiet Midwesterner, an Iowa graduate with a sharp, low-key sense of humor. He rarely shows emotion on the sidelines, which is hard to do when you are as closely connected to the players as he is. When an Army player gets hurt, the first person he looks to for help is Tim Kelly. The same is true at Navy with Jeff Fair, who has been there for almost as long as Tim has been at Army—though not quite.
Tim loves to tell the story about the night I lost it on the sideline at Rutgers. It was during the second year of the disastrous reign of Todd Berry. Navy had the week off so I drove up to see Army play and stood on the sideline as I had done throughout the book and whenever I had the chance to see an Army game with Tim and Dick Hall and Dean Taylor, who had replaced the great Bob Arciero as team doctor when Bob retired from the Army.
Midway through the second quarter, Rutgers was ahead something like 31-0. It was VERY evident to me that Berry was leading Army down a path to nowhere with the ridiculous spread offense he had put in. What was worse, my sense was the players had given up. You can’t fool smart kids: they knew they had no chance. I pretty much lost it, screaming at Tim, Dick and Dean, “What the hell is going on here? Who hired this guy? (Rick Greenspan, the worst Athletic Director hire in history) They’ve given up! How can Army players give up!”
Tim put his arm around me and kind of walked me down the sideline to calm me down. Later he told me, “I knew you were right, that just wasn’t the time to announce it to the world.”
Of course he was right.
On another occasion in Michie Stadium when the officials clearly missed a fumble that Army recovered, I stood about five feet from the side judge and said, “how can 40,000 people see something clearly and ALL SEVEN of you missed it?” This time it was Dick’s turn to walk me away. Bobby Ross was the coach at the time and I doubt he would have liked it if the side judge had thought I was a coach or something and threw a flag. (I did once have a basketball referee threaten to tee me up during a Bucknell-Penn State game when I was researching ‘The Last Amateurs.’ I was sitting on the Bucknell bench and during a time out I said, “You know there’s nothing in the rules that REQUIRES you guys to be sure The Big Ten team wins.” It was an official I know pretty well and I didn’t think he’d get that angry. He didn’t seem to see the humor in the comment and said, “There’s also nothing in the rules that REQUIRES me to NOT tee you up since you’re sitting on the damn bench.” I shut up).
Let me tell you some more about Dick Hall. He grew up near West Point and fought in Vietnam. He has been at Army since 1975 and has had a close relationship with just about every Army football player since then. Bob Sutton, who coached at Army as an assistant and as the head coach for 17 years used to say, “When our ex-players come back, some of them make it by the football office to say hello. They ALL make it by the equipment room to see Dick.”
Soon after Sutton was gracelessly fired on a Philadelphia street corner by the graceless Greensapan, Dick had a bout with depression brought on by 9-11. He kept having recurring dreams about firefights he’d taken part in during Vietnam and also worried constantly that his players who were overseas fighting were going to die. During the period that he was out of work players streamed by Dick’s house to see him. Most of West Point went to see him. Neither Todd Berry nor Rick Greenspan ever contacted him. In fact, their response was to bring in Berry’s equipment manager from Illinois State and push Dick out of his job.
Dick of course never batted an eye and never complained. He came back to his new role working with football and some of the other sports and acted as if nothing had ever happened. A lot of us were upset, including many ex-players, but there was nothing to be done while the Greenspan/Berry circus was still in town. Next year Dick will celebrate his 35th year working at Army. They should throw him a big party. I guarantee you a lot of people will be there if they do.
As for the game itself, it’s nice that both teams have a lot at stake. Navy’s trying to win a seventh straight Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy and Army is trying to get to a bowl game for the first time since 1996 and break a seven game losing streak to Navy. The Midshipmen have totally dominated for seven straight years, winning by an AVERAGE margin of 39-10. Last year it was 34-0 and really not that close.
I’m glad Army finally has the right coach in place. After the Berry disaster (5-35, topped by an 0-13 when he was finally fired midseason) Army hired Bobby Ross, a superb coach in his prime but a coach past his prime at 67. Then came Stan Brock who was an offensive line coach in a head coach’s headset. Rich Ellerson is none of the above. He gets Army—which is critical—because his father and two brothers are graduates. He gets option offense: first learned it from Paul Johnson while both were on the staff at Hawaii. He’s innovative—he moved Ali Villaneuva, a 6-10, 300 pound tackle to WIDE RECEIVER—and he’s smart. He will bring balance back to the rivalry, which is good.
I know the Navy people have loved the last seven years and why not? But for a rivalry to be a rivalry the games need to end with tears on both sides. That will start happening again with Ellerson at Army and Kenny Niumatalolo picking up where Johnson left off at Navy—which he’s done.
Some time shortly after dark on Saturday when the game’s over the players on both teams will stand at attention together for the playing of the alma maters. Regardless of who wins there will be 70,000 people standing with them, knowing what the seniors on the field—and in the stands—will face in a few months.
That’s just one more reason why there's nothing like Army-Navy. It isn't a football game, it's an experience. One I love being a tiny part of every year.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Updated -- This week's radio segments (The Sports Reporters, The Gas Man, Kornheiser Show, Travis Rodgers Now)
I made my regular appearance on The Sports Reporters with Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin in the normal timeslot (5:25 ET on Wednesday's) this evening. Click the permalink, then the link below, to listen to the segment on a variety of topics
Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's segment: The Sports Reporters
-------------
I also made my regular spot with The Gasman that has moved to Wednesday's at 5:25 PT during the NFL late season. This week we talked about the recent BCS Bowl Selections, the upcoming Army/Navy football game and the possibility of an expanded NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
------------
Thursday morning at 11:05am on my regular spot, I joined the newest edition of The Tony Kornheiser Show. As always, we covered a number of topics, including the BB+T Classic, Maryland basketball, possible expansion of the NCAA Tournament and yes, I even got a complement from Tony.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Kornheiser Show
------------
I decided to add an additional link this week as I joined Travis Rodgers for an interview segment. Travis was the long-time producer of The Jim Rome Show, and we spent approximately 30 mins talking about many topics, including Tiger Woods, media, basketball and even a little time on blogging.
Click here to go to the page that houses the audio segment: Travis Rodgers Now
Click here to download the mp3 directly: Travis Rodgers Now
Click here to listen to Wednesday afternoon's segment: The Sports Reporters
-------------
I also made my regular spot with The Gasman that has moved to Wednesday's at 5:25 PT during the NFL late season. This week we talked about the recent BCS Bowl Selections, the upcoming Army/Navy football game and the possibility of an expanded NCAA Basketball Tournament.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Gas Man
------------
Thursday morning at 11:05am on my regular spot, I joined the newest edition of The Tony Kornheiser Show. As always, we covered a number of topics, including the BB+T Classic, Maryland basketball, possible expansion of the NCAA Tournament and yes, I even got a complement from Tony.
Click here to listen to the segment: The Kornheiser Show
------------
I decided to add an additional link this week as I joined Travis Rodgers for an interview segment. Travis was the long-time producer of The Jim Rome Show, and we spent approximately 30 mins talking about many topics, including Tiger Woods, media, basketball and even a little time on blogging.
Click here to go to the page that houses the audio segment: Travis Rodgers Now
Click here to download the mp3 directly: Travis Rodgers Now
Harvard beating BC -- one reason I love college basketball; Stories of Tommy Amaker
If you want to know why I love college basketball, consider the following: In the calendar year 2009, Harvard University has a record of 2-0 against crosstown rival Boston College. In that same calendar year, North Carolina coached by hard-working Hall of Famer Roy Williams was 0-1 against Boston College. Duke, coached by two-time Olympic coach and Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski was 1-1 against the Eagles.
Think about that: Harvard, which last played in the NCAA Tournament in 1946 (its only appearance) has beaten BC twice—once last January a few days after the Eagles had won AT North Carolina—and once last night, 73-67. Both Harvard victories took place (surprise) at BC.
Now you may say I have a bias here—and I do—because I’ve known Harvard Coach Tommy Amaker since he was a high school junior. In this case though my bias has very little to do with it, especially since Frank Sullivan, the man Amaker succeeded at Harvard, is a good friend whose firing three years ago was grossly unfair.
In fact, I would say this: if any Ivy League team beat an ACC team two seasons in a row I would get a big kick out of it. It just isn’t supposed to happen. And yet, in college basketball, results like that DO happen. Already this season Cornell has won at Alabama and in seasons past my friends in The Patriot League have pulled off some decent sized upsets as in Bucknell over Kansas and Arkansas in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments and Holy Cross going into Notre Dame and beating the Irish in the NIT.
Let’s go back to Amaker for a moment. I remember the first time I saw him play because it’s a funny story. I was doing a magazine piece on Mike Krzyzewski, who had just finished his first season at Duke and had more or less washed out in recruiting—finishing second for players like Chris Mullin, Bill Wennington, Uwe Blab and Jim Miller. In recruiting, finishing second and $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks.
Krzyzewski was in Washington to see Johnny Dawkins play in the old Jelleff League, which was up Wisconsin Avenue in northwest DC. The league was a Washington tradition, with games played indoors and outdoors and was most famous for a game in the early 1970s when DeMatha was supposed to play St. Anthony’s for the championship. Because DeMatha Coach Morgan Wootten had refused to schedule St. Anthony’s during the regular season, St. Anthony’s Coach John Thompson played his cheerleaders in the game.
“If he won’t play me in the winter, I’m not playing him in the summer,” Thompson said at the time.
When Thompson was the coach at Georgetown he refused to recruit any of Wootten’s great players. I asked him about that once and he said to me, “there are some people on this earth who you can live away from.” Of course now that Wootten and Thompson are both retired and in the Hall of Fame they joke when Wootten appears on Thompson’s radio show about how the media created their alleged feud.
Sure. And Thompson and Lefty Driesell were buddies back then too.
Anyway, on this particular night, Krzyzewski was sitting in the stands watching Dawkins play when Red Jenkins, then the coach at W.T. Woodson High School in northern Virginia stopped to say hello to him. “You need to stay for the next game,” Jenkins said. “You need to see my point guard. He’s only going to be a junior and he’s little but watch him play.”
Krzyzewski figured he didn’t have much else to do so he decided to stick around at least for a few minutes to see what Jenkins was talking about. “Red’s a good coach,” he said. “I don’t think he’d tell me to watch this kid unless he was pretty good.”
By halftime, Krzyzewski was like a teen-age kid in love for the first time. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Amaker, who probably weighed about 140 pounds at the time. Someone had pointed Amaker’s mother out to Krzyzewski and at halftime he walked over and said (probably breaking about 14 NCAA rules) to her: “Your son is going to look great in Duke blue.”
The funny thing is Amaker really wanted to go to Maryland because John Lucas had been his boyhood hero. But Lefty had recruited a kid named Keith Gatlin so he didn’t pursue Amaker, who was only 6-feet-tall, that hard. A few years later when Amaker was a junior at Duke and Gatlin was a sophomore at Maryland, Gatlin sat out a game at Duke with a bad back.
That was the year I was in Indiana doing ‘Season on the Brink.’ Two days after the game at Duke, Maryland played at Notre Dame. I drove up to South Bend to see the game and my friend Sally Jenkins, who was covering the Terrapins at the time. When I walked into the arena the first person I saw was Driesell.
“Hey Lefty, how’s Gatlin feeling?” I asked.
Lefty looked at me quizzically. “Gatlin?” he said. “He’s fine.”
“Really? I saw where he didn’t play at Duke because something was wrong with his back.”
“Oh that was nothing,” Lefty said waving his hand. “He just had a case of Amaker-back.”
Any guard knowing he was going to be guarded by Amaker for 40 minutes began to feel back pain. Gatlin was no exception.
Amaker seemed destined for stardom when he became a college coach. In his third year at Seton Hall he took the Pirates to the Sweet Sixteen and he had a big time recruiting class on the way including Eddie Griffin, who was supposed to be a superstar. But Griffin proved to be a troubled kid and at the end of the ’01 season he left for the NBA and Amaker left for Michigan. There, he constantly seemed on the verge of turning the program around after taking over in the wake of the revelations about The Fab Five, but never made the NCAA Tournament in six seasons. He was fired after the ’07 season—a stunning turnaround for someone who had appeared to be a lock for coaching stardom.
He landed at Harvard but not without controversy, although it wasn’t his doing. Frank Sullivan had done remarkable work keeping Harvard competitive for 16 years working with one hand tied behind his back in recruiting because Harvard’s admissions standards were far more difficult than any other school in the Ivy League—not to mention the entire country.
When Amaker got the job, Harvard agreed to loosen the admissions standards to bring them in line with the rest of The Ivy League. Naturally, other Ivy League coaches instantly noticed that Amaker was recruiting kids that Sullivan couldn’t have touched and they talked about it to Pete Thamel of The New York Times. Harvard’s response should have been simple: “Yes, we decided to give our new coach a level playing field to recruit just as we do in football and hockey.” Instead, some blowhard in admissions insisted the standards hadn’t changed and Bob Scalise, the athletic director, tried to claim Amaker was just a better recruiter than Sullivan.
Whether that’s true no one will ever know because the two men were working under completely different sets of rules. Regardless, Amaker’s done a good recruiting job with a more level playing field and his third Harvard team appears to be behind only Cornell right now in The Ivy League. The Crimson play at Cornell on January 30th and host the Big Red on February 20th. Both those games will probably be worth seeing.
Maybe next year there can be an ACC-Ivy League Challenge Series. As of right now, The Ivies appear to have the edge. Come on, even if that’s not close to true, you have to love it. I wonder when the BC folks will let Harvard know that they won’t be playing anymore. My over-under is sometime this morning.
Think about that: Harvard, which last played in the NCAA Tournament in 1946 (its only appearance) has beaten BC twice—once last January a few days after the Eagles had won AT North Carolina—and once last night, 73-67. Both Harvard victories took place (surprise) at BC.
Now you may say I have a bias here—and I do—because I’ve known Harvard Coach Tommy Amaker since he was a high school junior. In this case though my bias has very little to do with it, especially since Frank Sullivan, the man Amaker succeeded at Harvard, is a good friend whose firing three years ago was grossly unfair.
In fact, I would say this: if any Ivy League team beat an ACC team two seasons in a row I would get a big kick out of it. It just isn’t supposed to happen. And yet, in college basketball, results like that DO happen. Already this season Cornell has won at Alabama and in seasons past my friends in The Patriot League have pulled off some decent sized upsets as in Bucknell over Kansas and Arkansas in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments and Holy Cross going into Notre Dame and beating the Irish in the NIT.
Let’s go back to Amaker for a moment. I remember the first time I saw him play because it’s a funny story. I was doing a magazine piece on Mike Krzyzewski, who had just finished his first season at Duke and had more or less washed out in recruiting—finishing second for players like Chris Mullin, Bill Wennington, Uwe Blab and Jim Miller. In recruiting, finishing second and $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks.
Krzyzewski was in Washington to see Johnny Dawkins play in the old Jelleff League, which was up Wisconsin Avenue in northwest DC. The league was a Washington tradition, with games played indoors and outdoors and was most famous for a game in the early 1970s when DeMatha was supposed to play St. Anthony’s for the championship. Because DeMatha Coach Morgan Wootten had refused to schedule St. Anthony’s during the regular season, St. Anthony’s Coach John Thompson played his cheerleaders in the game.
“If he won’t play me in the winter, I’m not playing him in the summer,” Thompson said at the time.
When Thompson was the coach at Georgetown he refused to recruit any of Wootten’s great players. I asked him about that once and he said to me, “there are some people on this earth who you can live away from.” Of course now that Wootten and Thompson are both retired and in the Hall of Fame they joke when Wootten appears on Thompson’s radio show about how the media created their alleged feud.
Sure. And Thompson and Lefty Driesell were buddies back then too.
Anyway, on this particular night, Krzyzewski was sitting in the stands watching Dawkins play when Red Jenkins, then the coach at W.T. Woodson High School in northern Virginia stopped to say hello to him. “You need to stay for the next game,” Jenkins said. “You need to see my point guard. He’s only going to be a junior and he’s little but watch him play.”
Krzyzewski figured he didn’t have much else to do so he decided to stick around at least for a few minutes to see what Jenkins was talking about. “Red’s a good coach,” he said. “I don’t think he’d tell me to watch this kid unless he was pretty good.”
By halftime, Krzyzewski was like a teen-age kid in love for the first time. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Amaker, who probably weighed about 140 pounds at the time. Someone had pointed Amaker’s mother out to Krzyzewski and at halftime he walked over and said (probably breaking about 14 NCAA rules) to her: “Your son is going to look great in Duke blue.”
The funny thing is Amaker really wanted to go to Maryland because John Lucas had been his boyhood hero. But Lefty had recruited a kid named Keith Gatlin so he didn’t pursue Amaker, who was only 6-feet-tall, that hard. A few years later when Amaker was a junior at Duke and Gatlin was a sophomore at Maryland, Gatlin sat out a game at Duke with a bad back.
That was the year I was in Indiana doing ‘Season on the Brink.’ Two days after the game at Duke, Maryland played at Notre Dame. I drove up to South Bend to see the game and my friend Sally Jenkins, who was covering the Terrapins at the time. When I walked into the arena the first person I saw was Driesell.
“Hey Lefty, how’s Gatlin feeling?” I asked.
Lefty looked at me quizzically. “Gatlin?” he said. “He’s fine.”
“Really? I saw where he didn’t play at Duke because something was wrong with his back.”
“Oh that was nothing,” Lefty said waving his hand. “He just had a case of Amaker-back.”
Any guard knowing he was going to be guarded by Amaker for 40 minutes began to feel back pain. Gatlin was no exception.
Amaker seemed destined for stardom when he became a college coach. In his third year at Seton Hall he took the Pirates to the Sweet Sixteen and he had a big time recruiting class on the way including Eddie Griffin, who was supposed to be a superstar. But Griffin proved to be a troubled kid and at the end of the ’01 season he left for the NBA and Amaker left for Michigan. There, he constantly seemed on the verge of turning the program around after taking over in the wake of the revelations about The Fab Five, but never made the NCAA Tournament in six seasons. He was fired after the ’07 season—a stunning turnaround for someone who had appeared to be a lock for coaching stardom.
He landed at Harvard but not without controversy, although it wasn’t his doing. Frank Sullivan had done remarkable work keeping Harvard competitive for 16 years working with one hand tied behind his back in recruiting because Harvard’s admissions standards were far more difficult than any other school in the Ivy League—not to mention the entire country.
When Amaker got the job, Harvard agreed to loosen the admissions standards to bring them in line with the rest of The Ivy League. Naturally, other Ivy League coaches instantly noticed that Amaker was recruiting kids that Sullivan couldn’t have touched and they talked about it to Pete Thamel of The New York Times. Harvard’s response should have been simple: “Yes, we decided to give our new coach a level playing field to recruit just as we do in football and hockey.” Instead, some blowhard in admissions insisted the standards hadn’t changed and Bob Scalise, the athletic director, tried to claim Amaker was just a better recruiter than Sullivan.
Whether that’s true no one will ever know because the two men were working under completely different sets of rules. Regardless, Amaker’s done a good recruiting job with a more level playing field and his third Harvard team appears to be behind only Cornell right now in The Ivy League. The Crimson play at Cornell on January 30th and host the Big Red on February 20th. Both those games will probably be worth seeing.
Maybe next year there can be an ACC-Ivy League Challenge Series. As of right now, The Ivies appear to have the edge. Come on, even if that’s not close to true, you have to love it. I wonder when the BC folks will let Harvard know that they won’t be playing anymore. My over-under is sometime this morning.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
It’s December, and real baseball news reminds me spring is around the corner; Request - smart questions for Bill Hancock
It snowed here in Washington this past weekend. This morning it was cold and rainy when I woke up and, even yesterday when the temperature warmed into the 50s at midday the sun was long gone by 5 o’clock.
That’s why they call it December. Of course it won’t even officially be winter for 12 more days. After that, ever so slowly the days will start to get warmer.
No, I haven’t decided my future is as a weather blogger.
It’s funny what happens to me this time of year when I go out in the lousy weather, especially in the morning when I walk down the driveway to pick up the newspapers. I think about baseball a lot. I don’t really care about all the rumors that get thrown out that, if you believe them, Roy Halladay would have been traded 47 times since last July. When Halladay is actually traded, tell me and I’ll be interested. But the real news—trades, free agent signings, radio and TV guys changing jobs even—I love to soak up.
It isn’t that I don’t love college basketball season. I do and I really enjoy walking into a hot gym brimming with noise and anticipation prior to a game on a cold night. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I get a bigger kick out of games like George Mason-George Washington or Navy-Penn than the big time games. The other day Dick Vitale called me about something I’d written a while ago on the blog and he said to me, “I just don’t see you at games very much anymore.”
He’s right. It isn’t that I don’t go to ACC games or Big East games—I do. To be honest, part of it is that I’m just too damn spoiled after all these years to sit in the end zone at Maryland or Georgetown or someplace upstairs at Virginia. A lot of the big time schools—most in fact—have moved the media off press row in order to put in “Spike Lee,” seats and put some more cash into their pockets. I don’t question their right to do it, I simply don’t enjoy it. As I said, I’m spoiled. Plus, I just get a kick out of seeing teams battle who don’t think of the NBA or playing on national TV as a birthright. It’s just more fun—at least for me.
But even though I love college basketball season and tracking the teams in the non-major conferences closely to see who has a chance to play postseason, I still find myself regularly counting the days until spring training.
It isn’t as if I’m one of those baseball guys who heads to Florida or Arizona on February 15th and rents a condo for six weeks. I did do most of six weeks in Florida—with two trips to Arizona thrown in—back in 1992 when I wrote “Play Ball,” my first baseball book. It was fun, but I was also shuttling north for basketball and to get home a couple times. It was also before I had kids.
Nowadays, I usually spend one week in Florida and make it what I call a combo trip. Last year, for example, I stopped in Gainesville to see a Tennessee-Florida basketball game, spent three days at The Honda Classic in Palm Beach and threw in three baseball games before I had to go home to do a basketball tripleheader: Patriot League semifinal in Washington, then a fast trip to Richmond for The CAA semifinals that night.
You see, my life doesn’t suck.
This morning I picked up the paper and read with interest that the Yankees had given up three highly-rated prospects to get Curtis Granderson. Because I like Jim Leyland and Dave Dombrowski and—like a lot of people—have a warm spot in my heart for Detroit, I really hope some of the five prospects the Tigers got in the three team (Diamondbacks) deal pan out. The best baseball story of 2009, with due respect to the eight playoff teams, was the Tigers return to contention at a time when the city so desperately needed something to feel good about.
The best baseball line of the year as reported by (I think) Lee Jenkins in Sports Illustrated was what Leyland said to his players in spring training: “Fellas, this is not the year to not run out a ground ball.”
Here in Washington there was another big winter meetings story: The Nationals signing Pudge Rodriguez. A lot of baseball people questioned it because Rodriguez is 38 and has slowed down a LOT since the years when he earned his place in the Hall of Fame. The Nationals, not exactly big spenders on the free agent market most of the time, coughed up $6 million in a two-year contract for Rodriguez. The standard thinking in baseball is that he could have been had—should have been had—for one year.
One of the critics was radio analyst Jim Bowden who called it “another bad signing by the Nationals,” citing the bad signings of Dmitri Young and Paul LoDuca as examples. The irony of that comment being that Bowden was the one who made those two signings when he was the Nats GM.
I think signing Rodriguez was close to brilliant. His on-field numbers can’t begin to tell the full story of his potential value to the team. The Nationals have a 25-year-old catcher named Jesus Flores who, if he can ever stay healthy, has a world of potential. Flores is really smart and will no doubt learn every single day he’s around Rodriguez. Plus, the Nationals have nothing but young starting pitchers, including No. 1 draft pick Stephen Strasburg and who better to nurture them than a guy who has 13 Gold Gloves?
Great move as far as I’m concerned even if the Nats overspent. Did the Yankees overspend on Mark Texeira and CC Sabathia last winter? The Nats can afford to gamble $6 million, I think.
The other news that caught my eye was that Peter Gammons is leaving ESPN to join the MLB network. I think this is a big deal but it may just be because I’ve admired and liked Gammons for so long. He was one of the first true reporters to make the fulltime jump to TV and he brought real resonance to ESPN’s baseball coverage. Tim Kurkijian and Buster Olney are the real deal as reporters too but both would tell you they learned from Gammons—as did we all. Without Gammons, ESPN is a step closer to being just a bunch of ex-players reading off teleprompters and telling us the obvious. Obviously this is a coup for MLB TV.
Right now as I sit here looking outside at a slate gray sky, it is 68 days until pitchers and catchers report; 82 days until exhibition games begin and 84 days until my planned Florida trip. I’m actually fired up.
You see, as you get older it is funny the memories that stick with you. Three years ago, I had to drive to Bucknell on a Saturday for a first weekend in March basketball game. It was a noon game, so I was in the car heading home by about 2:30 and as I fiddled with the radio I picked up an Orioles-Mets exhibition game. I remember steaming down Rte. 15 in Pennsylvania as David Wright hit one out against an Orioles prospect named Hayden Penn.
I have no idea why I remember that moment but when I do, thinking about the snowy road, the stop for coffee in Harrisburg at Dunkin’ Donuts (okay, I may have had a donut too) and seeing in my mind’s eye Wright’s shot carrying out of the ballpark in Port St. Lucie, I smile.
Even now, with all that’s gone on in the game through the years, baseball makes me smile. Even in December.
------------------------------------
Several people asked yesterday about sending me questions to ask Bill Hancock from The BCS on Friday at dinner. I have warned Bill that I may be coming armed with questions from college football fans. So, ask away and I’ll see what Bill comes up with on Friday night. For the record, he doesn’t drink wine. He drinks beer—with ice. Which may explain a lot.
That’s why they call it December. Of course it won’t even officially be winter for 12 more days. After that, ever so slowly the days will start to get warmer.
No, I haven’t decided my future is as a weather blogger.
It’s funny what happens to me this time of year when I go out in the lousy weather, especially in the morning when I walk down the driveway to pick up the newspapers. I think about baseball a lot. I don’t really care about all the rumors that get thrown out that, if you believe them, Roy Halladay would have been traded 47 times since last July. When Halladay is actually traded, tell me and I’ll be interested. But the real news—trades, free agent signings, radio and TV guys changing jobs even—I love to soak up.
It isn’t that I don’t love college basketball season. I do and I really enjoy walking into a hot gym brimming with noise and anticipation prior to a game on a cold night. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that I get a bigger kick out of games like George Mason-George Washington or Navy-Penn than the big time games. The other day Dick Vitale called me about something I’d written a while ago on the blog and he said to me, “I just don’t see you at games very much anymore.”
He’s right. It isn’t that I don’t go to ACC games or Big East games—I do. To be honest, part of it is that I’m just too damn spoiled after all these years to sit in the end zone at Maryland or Georgetown or someplace upstairs at Virginia. A lot of the big time schools—most in fact—have moved the media off press row in order to put in “Spike Lee,” seats and put some more cash into their pockets. I don’t question their right to do it, I simply don’t enjoy it. As I said, I’m spoiled. Plus, I just get a kick out of seeing teams battle who don’t think of the NBA or playing on national TV as a birthright. It’s just more fun—at least for me.
But even though I love college basketball season and tracking the teams in the non-major conferences closely to see who has a chance to play postseason, I still find myself regularly counting the days until spring training.
It isn’t as if I’m one of those baseball guys who heads to Florida or Arizona on February 15th and rents a condo for six weeks. I did do most of six weeks in Florida—with two trips to Arizona thrown in—back in 1992 when I wrote “Play Ball,” my first baseball book. It was fun, but I was also shuttling north for basketball and to get home a couple times. It was also before I had kids.
Nowadays, I usually spend one week in Florida and make it what I call a combo trip. Last year, for example, I stopped in Gainesville to see a Tennessee-Florida basketball game, spent three days at The Honda Classic in Palm Beach and threw in three baseball games before I had to go home to do a basketball tripleheader: Patriot League semifinal in Washington, then a fast trip to Richmond for The CAA semifinals that night.
You see, my life doesn’t suck.
This morning I picked up the paper and read with interest that the Yankees had given up three highly-rated prospects to get Curtis Granderson. Because I like Jim Leyland and Dave Dombrowski and—like a lot of people—have a warm spot in my heart for Detroit, I really hope some of the five prospects the Tigers got in the three team (Diamondbacks) deal pan out. The best baseball story of 2009, with due respect to the eight playoff teams, was the Tigers return to contention at a time when the city so desperately needed something to feel good about.
The best baseball line of the year as reported by (I think) Lee Jenkins in Sports Illustrated was what Leyland said to his players in spring training: “Fellas, this is not the year to not run out a ground ball.”
Here in Washington there was another big winter meetings story: The Nationals signing Pudge Rodriguez. A lot of baseball people questioned it because Rodriguez is 38 and has slowed down a LOT since the years when he earned his place in the Hall of Fame. The Nationals, not exactly big spenders on the free agent market most of the time, coughed up $6 million in a two-year contract for Rodriguez. The standard thinking in baseball is that he could have been had—should have been had—for one year.
One of the critics was radio analyst Jim Bowden who called it “another bad signing by the Nationals,” citing the bad signings of Dmitri Young and Paul LoDuca as examples. The irony of that comment being that Bowden was the one who made those two signings when he was the Nats GM.
I think signing Rodriguez was close to brilliant. His on-field numbers can’t begin to tell the full story of his potential value to the team. The Nationals have a 25-year-old catcher named Jesus Flores who, if he can ever stay healthy, has a world of potential. Flores is really smart and will no doubt learn every single day he’s around Rodriguez. Plus, the Nationals have nothing but young starting pitchers, including No. 1 draft pick Stephen Strasburg and who better to nurture them than a guy who has 13 Gold Gloves?
Great move as far as I’m concerned even if the Nats overspent. Did the Yankees overspend on Mark Texeira and CC Sabathia last winter? The Nats can afford to gamble $6 million, I think.
The other news that caught my eye was that Peter Gammons is leaving ESPN to join the MLB network. I think this is a big deal but it may just be because I’ve admired and liked Gammons for so long. He was one of the first true reporters to make the fulltime jump to TV and he brought real resonance to ESPN’s baseball coverage. Tim Kurkijian and Buster Olney are the real deal as reporters too but both would tell you they learned from Gammons—as did we all. Without Gammons, ESPN is a step closer to being just a bunch of ex-players reading off teleprompters and telling us the obvious. Obviously this is a coup for MLB TV.
Right now as I sit here looking outside at a slate gray sky, it is 68 days until pitchers and catchers report; 82 days until exhibition games begin and 84 days until my planned Florida trip. I’m actually fired up.
You see, as you get older it is funny the memories that stick with you. Three years ago, I had to drive to Bucknell on a Saturday for a first weekend in March basketball game. It was a noon game, so I was in the car heading home by about 2:30 and as I fiddled with the radio I picked up an Orioles-Mets exhibition game. I remember steaming down Rte. 15 in Pennsylvania as David Wright hit one out against an Orioles prospect named Hayden Penn.
I have no idea why I remember that moment but when I do, thinking about the snowy road, the stop for coffee in Harrisburg at Dunkin’ Donuts (okay, I may have had a donut too) and seeing in my mind’s eye Wright’s shot carrying out of the ballpark in Port St. Lucie, I smile.
Even now, with all that’s gone on in the game through the years, baseball makes me smile. Even in December.
------------------------------------
Several people asked yesterday about sending me questions to ask Bill Hancock from The BCS on Friday at dinner. I have warned Bill that I may be coming armed with questions from college football fans. So, ask away and I’ll see what Bill comes up with on Friday night. For the record, he doesn’t drink wine. He drinks beer—with ice. Which may explain a lot.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The 2nd worst idea in college sports; Stories on Cremins, Billy Packer
There’s an item in The Sports Business Journal this morning reporting that the NCAA has opened preliminary talks about a new TV contract. This isn’t news. Everyone knows ESPN is dying to swoop in with its Disney money and steal the tournament away from CBS, which has televised it since 1982. Anyone who thinks loyalty will play a role in this negotiation—CBS has literally spent billions helping to build the tournament into the mega-event that it now is—also thinks that there’s no football playoff because of concern about the ‘student-athletes.’
The important part of the story concerned the make-up of the tournament. Apparently the NCAA is looking into expansion—going from the current 65 teams to 96 in order to add a week of TV that would add more money to the new contract.
I can’t call this the worst idea I’ve ever heard because the BCS still exists. But it is a solid No. 2.
The perfect number for the NCAA Tournament is 64. The only reason a 65th team was added was (surprise) a money grab by the BCS commissioners who didn’t want to give up an at-large spot when The Mountain West Conference became eligible for an automatic bid, upping the number of automatic bids from 30 to 31.
Unfair as the play-in game is, it is a minor kink in an otherwise smooth-running machine. With a 65-team field, making it into the bracket is an accomplishment. Sure, there are always a handful of coaches screaming that a horrible injustice was done when they get left out but that’s kind of the beauty of Selection Sunday: who will get in and who won’t. The committee doesn’t always get it right and occasionally a team is left out unfairly. But more often than not, the deserving teams get in and when they do they feel as if they’ve actually done something.
Compare that—for example—to the bowl system where 68 of the 120 teams playing Division 1-A football make postseason. All you have to do—literally—is be mediocre and you can play in a bowl someplace. In basketball, the only time a team that hasn’t played well all season gets in is when someone comes from the depths of a conference to win a conference tournament and get an automatic bid. Even when that happens, the team in question has to be playing well when it matters most to pull off that sort of an upset.
(The football-basketball talk reminds me of a story. If I’ve told it on the blog before, forgive me but I think it bears repeating. Years ago, during an ACC coaches meeting Georgia Tech Coach Bobby Cremins was complaining to Commissioner Gene Corrigan about the extra pressure on basketball coaches to make the tournament.
“But Bobby,” Corrigan argued. “There are 64 bids out there. That’s a lot.”
“Sixty-four bids out of how many teams?” Cremins asked.
Corrigan shrugged. “About 300,” he answered.
Cremins turned to Dean Smith and said, “Dean, you’re the math major, what’s 64 into 300?”
“A little more than 21 percent,” Smith answered.
“Okay,” Cremins said turning back to Corrigan, “how many football teams make bowls?”
“Well, there are 26 bowls right now,” Corrigan said. “So that’s 52 teams.”
“Out of how many?” Cremins said.
“About 100,” Corrigan said.
Cremins turned back to Smith. “Okay Dean, 52 into 100, what percentage is that?”)
Back to our story for today.
So now the NCAA, which went to the 64 team bracket in 1985 is talking about expanding to 96 teams. If it happens they will claim this is being done in the name of fairness which is, of course, a lot of hooey. It will be done to up the TV money and to appease all the whining coaches who think expanding the field will help them keep their jobs.
You see, Cremins wasn’t wrong. There IS tremendous pressure on coaches, especially those at the big-time schools, to make the tournament every year. Jim Boeheim went two straight years without a bid and heard sniping all around him. Gary Williams missed three years out of four and if his team hadn’t rallied last season to make the tournament you can bet his AD would have been trying really hard to find a way to force him out at Maryland.
But the theory that more bids means more job security doesn’t really work. You see right now an NCAA Tournament bid MEANS something. If you expand to 96 teams and the ACC gets nine bids every year instead of six or The Big East gets 12 instead of eight then you’ve got the bowl system—except that a real champion does eventually get crowned.
Making a bowl does not guarantee these days that a coach keeps his job because AD’s know that it is often meaningless. In the BCS leagues, you can schedule three home games against weak opposition and go 3-5 in league play and presto! You are on your way to the Insight Bowl or the Independence Bowl or the fabulous St. Petersburg Bowl where you get to go to Florida—to play indoors.
If there is one thing the NCAA gets right every year (except for the play-in game) it is the basketball tournament. It hit on 64 as the right number 25 years ago and—with good reason—has kept it (almost) right there.
That reminds me. Apparently my good friend Bill Hancock, who is now executive director of the BCS (it is sad when a good man goes to work for the forces of evil) is trying to defend the BCS by talking about ‘bracket-creep,’ in the basketball tournament. Bracket creep? The tournament has expanded by ONE team in 25 years and he calls it bracket creep? Bill also claimed that if there was an eight team playoff this year there would be terrible controversy because two of the four two-loss teams in the major conferences would have been left out of the field. Think about what he’s saying: It is okay to leave three UNBEATEN teams out of the national title picture but really awful to leave out a couple of two-loss teams.
For his next trick, Bill will tell us that if unemployment went down it would be unfair to those still unemployed so maybe it would be better for unemployment to go UP.
I love Bill, I really do. He’s coming to dinner with us Friday night in Philadelphia before Army-Navy. Maybe I can perform an exorcism and save him.
Meantime, the NCAA needs to NOT expand the basketball field. If money is the issue do this: Tell the BCS schools that beginning in 2010 there will be an NCAA Football Bowl Sub-Division Tournament. If an invited team declines to play, none of its other teams can participate in any other NCAA postseason tournament. The NCAA would make more than enough money by having a football tournament to make the dumb idea of expanding the basketball tournament go away. The BCS would go the way of The Edsel, New Coke and pet rocks. And Bill Hancock’s soul would be saved.
-----------------------
One clarification on yesterday’s blog: I was NOT implying that the replay official got it wrong when he put one second back on the clock in the Texas-Nebraska game. Some hysterical Texas fan claimed that by saying he put one second back on the clock I was implying he got it wrong. I was simply saying he put the second back and almost certainly got it right but wondered if he would have gotten it right if the second had belonged to Nebraska. I stand by that statement. The same fan also went into a long diatribe about why Texas deserves to play in the national title game. I’m not saying Texas does NOT deserve to play in the game. I’m saying under this ridiculous system NONE of us knows who deserves to play in the game. That’s why the question should be resolved through actual competition rather than hysterically bleating that MY TEAM is the best. If your team is the best, it should get the chance to prove it on the field. Period…
One more note: Several people asked last week how I feel about Billy Packer. I like him both personally and professionally. We agreed on almost nothing but arguing with him has always been great fun and I always believed he broke down a basketball game better than anyone. I missed him during last year’s tournament especially during the Friday practices at The Final Four. We had an unofficial tradition of sitting together and arguing about everything while the practices were going on. My favorite year doing that was 2006 when I waved Jim Larranaga over during George Mason’s practice and said, “Billy wanted to be sure he had a chance to congratulate you.” Billy never missed a beat. “Great playing,” he said. Then he turned to me as Larranaga walked away and said, “It still doesn’t mean I was wrong you know.”
Actually it did. But that’s okay.
The important part of the story concerned the make-up of the tournament. Apparently the NCAA is looking into expansion—going from the current 65 teams to 96 in order to add a week of TV that would add more money to the new contract.
I can’t call this the worst idea I’ve ever heard because the BCS still exists. But it is a solid No. 2.
The perfect number for the NCAA Tournament is 64. The only reason a 65th team was added was (surprise) a money grab by the BCS commissioners who didn’t want to give up an at-large spot when The Mountain West Conference became eligible for an automatic bid, upping the number of automatic bids from 30 to 31.
Unfair as the play-in game is, it is a minor kink in an otherwise smooth-running machine. With a 65-team field, making it into the bracket is an accomplishment. Sure, there are always a handful of coaches screaming that a horrible injustice was done when they get left out but that’s kind of the beauty of Selection Sunday: who will get in and who won’t. The committee doesn’t always get it right and occasionally a team is left out unfairly. But more often than not, the deserving teams get in and when they do they feel as if they’ve actually done something.
Compare that—for example—to the bowl system where 68 of the 120 teams playing Division 1-A football make postseason. All you have to do—literally—is be mediocre and you can play in a bowl someplace. In basketball, the only time a team that hasn’t played well all season gets in is when someone comes from the depths of a conference to win a conference tournament and get an automatic bid. Even when that happens, the team in question has to be playing well when it matters most to pull off that sort of an upset.
(The football-basketball talk reminds me of a story. If I’ve told it on the blog before, forgive me but I think it bears repeating. Years ago, during an ACC coaches meeting Georgia Tech Coach Bobby Cremins was complaining to Commissioner Gene Corrigan about the extra pressure on basketball coaches to make the tournament.
“But Bobby,” Corrigan argued. “There are 64 bids out there. That’s a lot.”
“Sixty-four bids out of how many teams?” Cremins asked.
Corrigan shrugged. “About 300,” he answered.
Cremins turned to Dean Smith and said, “Dean, you’re the math major, what’s 64 into 300?”
“A little more than 21 percent,” Smith answered.
“Okay,” Cremins said turning back to Corrigan, “how many football teams make bowls?”
“Well, there are 26 bowls right now,” Corrigan said. “So that’s 52 teams.”
“Out of how many?” Cremins said.
“About 100,” Corrigan said.
Cremins turned back to Smith. “Okay Dean, 52 into 100, what percentage is that?”)
Back to our story for today.
So now the NCAA, which went to the 64 team bracket in 1985 is talking about expanding to 96 teams. If it happens they will claim this is being done in the name of fairness which is, of course, a lot of hooey. It will be done to up the TV money and to appease all the whining coaches who think expanding the field will help them keep their jobs.
You see, Cremins wasn’t wrong. There IS tremendous pressure on coaches, especially those at the big-time schools, to make the tournament every year. Jim Boeheim went two straight years without a bid and heard sniping all around him. Gary Williams missed three years out of four and if his team hadn’t rallied last season to make the tournament you can bet his AD would have been trying really hard to find a way to force him out at Maryland.
But the theory that more bids means more job security doesn’t really work. You see right now an NCAA Tournament bid MEANS something. If you expand to 96 teams and the ACC gets nine bids every year instead of six or The Big East gets 12 instead of eight then you’ve got the bowl system—except that a real champion does eventually get crowned.
Making a bowl does not guarantee these days that a coach keeps his job because AD’s know that it is often meaningless. In the BCS leagues, you can schedule three home games against weak opposition and go 3-5 in league play and presto! You are on your way to the Insight Bowl or the Independence Bowl or the fabulous St. Petersburg Bowl where you get to go to Florida—to play indoors.
If there is one thing the NCAA gets right every year (except for the play-in game) it is the basketball tournament. It hit on 64 as the right number 25 years ago and—with good reason—has kept it (almost) right there.
That reminds me. Apparently my good friend Bill Hancock, who is now executive director of the BCS (it is sad when a good man goes to work for the forces of evil) is trying to defend the BCS by talking about ‘bracket-creep,’ in the basketball tournament. Bracket creep? The tournament has expanded by ONE team in 25 years and he calls it bracket creep? Bill also claimed that if there was an eight team playoff this year there would be terrible controversy because two of the four two-loss teams in the major conferences would have been left out of the field. Think about what he’s saying: It is okay to leave three UNBEATEN teams out of the national title picture but really awful to leave out a couple of two-loss teams.
For his next trick, Bill will tell us that if unemployment went down it would be unfair to those still unemployed so maybe it would be better for unemployment to go UP.
I love Bill, I really do. He’s coming to dinner with us Friday night in Philadelphia before Army-Navy. Maybe I can perform an exorcism and save him.
Meantime, the NCAA needs to NOT expand the basketball field. If money is the issue do this: Tell the BCS schools that beginning in 2010 there will be an NCAA Football Bowl Sub-Division Tournament. If an invited team declines to play, none of its other teams can participate in any other NCAA postseason tournament. The NCAA would make more than enough money by having a football tournament to make the dumb idea of expanding the basketball tournament go away. The BCS would go the way of The Edsel, New Coke and pet rocks. And Bill Hancock’s soul would be saved.
-----------------------
One clarification on yesterday’s blog: I was NOT implying that the replay official got it wrong when he put one second back on the clock in the Texas-Nebraska game. Some hysterical Texas fan claimed that by saying he put one second back on the clock I was implying he got it wrong. I was simply saying he put the second back and almost certainly got it right but wondered if he would have gotten it right if the second had belonged to Nebraska. I stand by that statement. The same fan also went into a long diatribe about why Texas deserves to play in the national title game. I’m not saying Texas does NOT deserve to play in the game. I’m saying under this ridiculous system NONE of us knows who deserves to play in the game. That’s why the question should be resolved through actual competition rather than hysterically bleating that MY TEAM is the best. If your team is the best, it should get the chance to prove it on the field. Period…
One more note: Several people asked last week how I feel about Billy Packer. I like him both personally and professionally. We agreed on almost nothing but arguing with him has always been great fun and I always believed he broke down a basketball game better than anyone. I missed him during last year’s tournament especially during the Friday practices at The Final Four. We had an unofficial tradition of sitting together and arguing about everything while the practices were going on. My favorite year doing that was 2006 when I waved Jim Larranaga over during George Mason’s practice and said, “Billy wanted to be sure he had a chance to congratulate you.” Billy never missed a beat. “Great playing,” he said. Then he turned to me as Larranaga walked away and said, “It still doesn’t mean I was wrong you know.”
Actually it did. But that’s okay.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)