Competition Not Conflict (CNC)

Small Talk: Super Bowled-Over

2012-02-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

Another year, another February, another Super Bowl. While (unfortunately) none of my team(s) were playing in this year's annual installment of the country's biggest sports spectacle, I still feigned interest by tuning into the game. But because I didn't necessarily have any interest in the game, I paid particular attention to the commercials, which for some are the high point of the entire multi-hour affair. I giggled at some spots, but found myself frowning at the vast majority. Perhaps my pursuit of an MBA as left me with higher, more exacting standards when it comes to America's commercialism. Perhaps I wasn't giving anything the game had to offer a chance. But when I woke up on Monday morning after the Super Bowl, I saw that I wasn't alone in my sentiments. Women were mad because Budweiser created ads didn't feature women (but women weren't around during the end of Prohibition!). Men were mad because there weren't enough naked, beautiful girls featured (Godaddy just didn't get it done this year) and Ford was livid that Chevrolet proclaimed them dead (whoops!). I think the people happiest with the Super Bowl commercials weren't people at all. They were dogs, cats and horses.

So what does this mean for our beloved Super Bowl? Is this year's commercials bust a reflection of companies' hesitation to waste precious dollars in the wake of tough economic times? Could it possibly be that we are trying to focus more on the actual football game? Should we be focusing more on the game?

Let's be honest with ourselves- playing in the Super Bowl is as challenging as it gets in the world of sports. Not only are you playing against the potential best team in the league, but you're playing with the added pressure of 111.3 million people watching and dissecting your every move. And every other move you make comes after a commercial break. How can any football team expect to get into a rhythm with that kind of distraction? Playing in the Super Bowl, it seems, could be the stuff of Chip Kelly's worst nightmares and in that regard, it's no surprise he elected to stay at the University of Oregon.

And so for another year, the conflict coming from America's biggest game isn't related to the outcome of the game. While we've managed to avoid another wardrobe malfunction, and Gisele Bundchen can slam the New England receiver corps all she wants, many of today's headlines swirled around the shortcomings of the nation's advertising agencies.

Dare I say, there just might a better use for the $3.5 million companies pay to be thrown into the Super Bowl mix. But I suppose we will have to wait another 364 days to see if that is a statement that could become true.

BCS: Justice for None

2012-01-09T16:07:00.000-08:00

Alabama deserves to be ranked the second best team in college football. They squandered chance after chance and still did not succumb until overtime when they played mighty LSU in November. They would probably be favored by two touchdowns if they played Oklahoma State. After all, OSU lost to Iowa State (the Cyclones! Are you kidding me?) and was a competent field goal kicker away from losing to Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl (apologies to whatever corporation sponsored this non-profit, amateur gala; I just can’t lower myself to look up your name) But it simply does not follow that they have earned a rematch.

History serves as our best precedent.

On Thanksgiving Day 1971, Nebraska beat Oklahoma 35-31 in what is generally considered college football’s Game of the Century. Like the Crimson Tide, the Sooners enjoyed home field advantage and, frankly, they played a hell of a lot better than Nick Saban’s bunch did two months ago. Most importantly, after the game pretty much everyone agreed that OU was the second best team in the country. The 1971 Alabama team was undefeated, but few doubted who would win if they played.

Yet there was no talk of a rematch. Nebraska accepted a bid to the Orange Bowl and the OB committee members, the guys wearing those loud jackets, chose to pair them against Alabama rather than Oklahoma. The Huskers dismantled the Tide, 38-6. OU would surely have been worthier opponents, but the point is that the Sooners had already had their chance. Another team deserved theirs.

Oklahoma State probably would suffer a lopsided loss to LSU, but they deserve the chance more than Bama, for the simple reason that the Tide have already had one.

Sometimes rematches in title games are merited, but only when the loser has earned their way by progressing through a tourney bracket, like Michigan did in men’s college basketball in 1976. The Wolverines had already lost to undefeated Indiana twice during the regular season, but no one questioned their right to play in the final because they had to win four games to get there.

Alabama, by contrast, ‘earned’ their way to this rematch by beating Mississippi State, Georgia Southern, and a middling Auburn team. And they didn’t even have to play in a conference title game because of the LSU loss.

Where is the justice and where is the sense?

Unlike everyone else outside the SEC, I am looking forward to this rematch because it should be one hell of a football game, but we would all feel a lot better about this—and a lot more people would tune in—if Alabama had made their way through a playoff.

Please! We, and by we I mean virtually every fan, just want an eight-team playoff, with the five conference winners (Sorry, Big East) and three at large selections.

For years, defenders of the status quo have been telling us that a playoff would ruin the regular season—that the regular season is effectively a playoff; one loss and your out—but it turned out that the LSU-Alabama game, the most hyped regular season game since 1996, meant virtually nada.

An eight-team playoff would actually greatly increase the tension in the regular season because teams in five conferences would be competing for automatic births and there would usually be a dog fight for the three at large bids. What’s more, there would be more major intersectionals like this season’s season opening Oregon-LSU match-up because coaches would want tough games to prepare their teams for the all-important conference schedule.

I know, the system is not likely to change anytime soon. The bowls and their high paid execs have a powerful lobby; most coaches don’t want the pressure of being judged by whether their team makes a playoff; and they and the ADs surely don’t want to give up the bonuses they get for guiding their teams to a 7-5 record and a bid to a usually unprofitable, corporate-sponsored Podunk Bowl. Did anyone notice that the first bowl game played that sold out was the 13th one contested, between Notre Dame and Florida State?

And I know, I am cynical. The ADs and coaches are really just protecting the student-athletes from the wear of playing too many games and being academically handicapped. Sure. That’s why teams now play as many as 13 regular season games, compared to 10 through the late 60s, and many bowl games are played after New Years Day, when winter term has already started.

OK, I am cynical. Alabama doesn’t deserve a second chance, but I don’t blame them: it’s the whole system that is out of order.

Merry Xmas from Barcelona

2011-12-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

Barcelona’s play over the course of the past three seasons has served as nothing less than a refutation of nihilism.

Nihilism, in case you wondered, is the belief that there is no meaning whatsoever without God. Think the Kardashians, who imply that life never rises above amusement or titillation. Or highly educated lobbyists who proffer the view that there is no such thing as global warming. Or people who settle in life, marrying someone out of convenience.

The sporting equivalent to nihilism is the delusion that winning and losing ipso facto amounts to success. This view—which remains unquestioned by most players, coaches and fans—is perhaps best embodied by Barcelona’s mortal enemy Real Madrid and their manager Jose Mourinho.

Mourinho, who anointed himself the Special One, is an unapologetic pragmatist. If the other team has more speed, he will water the grass excessively or neglect to mow it. If he is suspended, he will hide in the laundry basket so that he can talk to his troops at halftime. He is not above making knowingly false accusations, even it means impugning someone’s good name. And he uses the media to wind up opponents, put pressure on referees, or make excuses when his teams lose.

There is no denying his shrewdness. His teams have won the Champions League twice and captured domestic honors in Portugal, England, and Italy. But he has not done similarly well in Spain because Real have run up against Barcelona, whose mesmeric passing style has proven virtually irresistible.

Matters appeared to be changing a week ago when the two teams met in Madrid. Barcelona conceded a goal after just 23 seconds, when their goalkeeper gifted the ball to Real. Barça, who were behind Madrid in the standings, didn’t flinch. They continued to play their game, insisting on passing the ball, even right in front of their own goal, until Mourinho’s side bent and then broke. Real didn’t just lose 3-1; they were played off their own field, outclassed, humbled, beaten—edified.

Not surprisingly, Mourinho served up excuses rather than salutations. He lamented two missed chances and the undoubted luck that accompanied Barcelona’s second goal. And he’s right, to a cynical extent: the result could have gone the other way. In soccer, more than any sport, the best team does not always win. Such injustice is integral to its charm.

But he appears to have never glimpsed the larger point: Achieving a result, by itself, just mirrors reality. “Prudence,” as William Blake, put it so well, “is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.” Engaging in gamesmanship or playing cautiously—waiting for the other team to die of boredom, as one former player put it—is not only hard on the eyes; it presupposes a lack of faith in one’s talent and serves as recourse to sad, prosaic parsimony—a life of least resistance.

The point, which Barcelona’s manager Josep Gardiola seems to fully grasp, is to err on the side of risk—what Blake called ‘the road of excess’—because the greatest rewards come from invention and adventure. Passing the ball around your own penalty area may not be prudent, but the thrill that comes with such endeavor, leading your opponents through a merry if perilous dance, affords an aesthetic satisfaction sensual enough to justify all the rotten stuff in sports.

To quote Blake one last time, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans (sic); I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.” Mourinho may win a lot more trophies and Real might even pip Barcelona this season, but they remain enslaved to an orthodox belief system. Gardiola, by contrast, has proven that it is still possible to win while playing soccer worthy of poetry.

We need to get past looking at the world in terms of good versus evil, or right and wrong, and opt for a more aesthetic question: Does the way one plays add to, or subtract from, the sum total of beauty, meaning, and intelligence on offer in the world? Real Madrid are the richest club in the world, but, like the Kardashians, their style has no surpassing dignity. It merely mirrors the human condition rather than inspire like Barcelona’s play has.

Small Talk: From the Beer Leagues to the NHL

2011-11-26T00:04:00.000-08:00

Two nights ago, on the eve of Thanksgiving, I sat huddled around a television with my family in our hotel room in Seattle. Naturally, we had on SportsCenter and the discussion bounced around from whether or not Arkansas could beat LSU (the majority of us believed, at the time, that they could have), David Shaw's critique of the BCS system and Virginia Tech's higher ranking (which we all agreed with) and to where high schooler seniors in our hometown in Wilmington, Delaware have committed to play collegiate sports next year (nothing exciting enough to report).

But then something caught my eye. On the left bar of the SportsCenter scroll, the title "51-Year Old Goalie?" appeared. Well that doesn't seem to be a big deal. A 51 year old goalie playing in a rec league? MAYBE in the AHL?

However, as it turned out, the Minnesota Wild had signed a 51-year old embroidery shop owner.

It was quite a twist of events that lead to Paul Deutsch's signing to the team. Niklas Backstrom was out for personal reasons. The team pulled up a back up goalie from their AHL team, but that team is located in Houston so the goalkeeper wasn't guaranteed to make the game given holiday traffic and his flight time. The Wild weren't willing to take any chances with having only one goalie on the bench, so they signed Paul Deutsch to what is called an Amateur Tryout Contract (ATO).

If that turn of events wasn't strange enough, I learned that there is a rule in the National Hockey League for goaltenders for situations just like this one. It's called the Emergency Recall Rule which allows teams to call up a goalkeeper (who must arrive within a reasonable amount of time) to sit on the bench (or play) in the event that their #1 and #2 goalkeepers cannot play. The catch? The player cannot be a professional hockey player. But what's crazy about the situation is that this isn't the first time it's happened. The Washington Capitals once exercised this rule and signed their website editor to an ATO and the Vancouver Canucks gave a third-string college goalie a chance at the limelight in the emergency goalie position. I'm sure the list goes on.

So this is where Deutsch steps in. He had zero professional experience, hadn't played real competitive hockey since he was on the junior varsity team in high school in the late 70s, and only began playing goalkeeper at the age of 37 when he got sick and tired of his "beer league" hockey games getting cancelled because there weren't enough goalies.

It almost seems like the most outrageous "realizing the American Sports Dream" story. Up there perhaps with Rudy. But sadly, Deutsch's amateur contract reached a premature end when the Wild's back up goalie miraculously arrived from Houston in time for the game.

I think this story is a bit ironic in terms of what's going on in the sports world at the moment. Here we have a 51-year old man, willing to suit up in our nation's highest hockey league (arguably as a favor to a friend, former Minnesota Wild assistant coach Mike Ramsey) and the NBA can't reach a CBA deal? This guy wasn't even paid and he was able to reach an agreement with this team.

So maybe Deutsch didn't save the day (pun intended). Maybe he only took a few shots during warm up when the starting goaltender needed a break. I suppose it was lucky for the Wild that Deutsch was already planning on attending that night's game (albeit with a youth team he was chaperoning). But it just goes to show you that no matter where you are, no matter who you think is watching you, you might just want to consider giving it your all on the ice. Who knows, maybe tomorrow you'll be playing in the National Hockey League.

Recognizing Necessity

2011-11-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

The events unfolding at Penn State have effectively served as a tragic punctuation to all the scandals that have recently called into question the credibility of college football. While the misdeeds at USC, Ohio State, numerous others, and even Miami, fall far short of letting an alleged pedophile remain on the streets, they all call into question whether the demands of big-time sports can be reconciled with the educational mission of universities.

And they all speak to the necessity for drastic reform of NCAA governance.

Put simply, the tension between big-time sports and the educational mission of universities arises because there is too much pressure to win and generate revenue. All too often the tail wags the dog.

Why did USC fail to monitor compliance adequately? Why did Ohio State coach Jim Tressel cover-up information that some of his players were receiving illegal benefits? Why did the U’s Athletic Department ignore their own coach’s warnings about donor Nevin Shapiro?

And why didn’t the coach, athletic director, or even the president at Penn State call the police when they had credible evidence that one of their own was molesting boys?

Because they were all afraid of what it would mean for their football programs. They would rather risk NCAA sanctions, or in one case the safety of children, rather than lose star players, turn away wealthy donors, or reveal information that would nauseate potential recruits.

All of these schools deserve to be condemned, but the underlying problem will not go away because the NCAA levies some severe sanctions or some high-ranking officials are criminally prosecuted. So long as the tail continues to wag the dog, the temptation to cut corners, cheat, or worse will remain too great.

The presidents should mandate that every Division 1 school hire an ombudsperson who reports and is answerable to the NCAA. This person (or small staff) would make sure every athlete was educated about NCAA rules, help design and implement compliance requirements, and every supervisory official in the AD would be contractually obligated to report any concerns about potential NCAA rules or criminal violations to this office.

This is not a perfect solution. Very little can be done about a rogue supervisor, like Tressel, who failed to turnover relevant information to other supervsiory officials. But it might have made the crucial difference at USC, Miami, and Penn State.

USC claims that they did an adequate job with compliance and that it was unreasonable to expect them to know that Reggie Bush was receiving extra benefits. The NCAA ruled otherwise, but there would have been no need for the NCAA to make that judgment if an ombudsperson had told SC what they needed to do by way of education and compliance. Maybe Bush would still have found a way to get extra benefits, but everyone would know that USC took every reasonable step to stop him.

In the case of Miami, coach Randy Shannon and any of the other officials in the AD who had concerns about Mr. Shapiro would have been required to share whatever information they had with the ombudsperson and defer to whatever actions were mandated. Maybe Shapiro would have found a way to beat the system, but at least we would know that UM officials had taken every step they could to exercise proper oversight.

Finally, I find it hard to believe that Joe Paterno, athletic director Tim Curley, and president Graham Spanier would have kept the information they had about Sandusky private if they knew they were legally obligated to inform an empowered third party. And I think it is fair to say the ombudsperson would have called the police immediately.

German philosopher G.W. Hegel wrote, “Freedom is the recognition of necessity.” ATMs don’t open a drawer and ask us to take $40, which might tempt some of us to take more; they dispense $40, which leaves us free to think about how to spend whatever cash we have in our hot little hands.

Similarly, having an ombudsperson answerable to the NCAA would point to the necessity of reporting relevant information and compel AD officials to be more ethical and keep their priorities in order.

Having such a person in place at every school would have spared the NCAA a lot of embarrassment the last couple of years and it probably would have saved numerous children from being sexually abused.

BCS--Bogus Championship Series

2011-11-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

The real loser Saturday was not Alabama, who lost at home to LSU, but rather the undefeated and one-loss teams that still rank behind them in the BCS standings.

The fact that Alabama still seems likely to get a chance to play for the national title shows why the BCS selection system will never work. Simply put, it erroneously presupposes that two teams will clearly separate themselves from all other contenders come the end of the season.

To be fair, this system worked well in’99 when Florida State played Virginia Tech, in 2002 with The U and The Ohio State University, and in '05 when USC and Texas played what so far is passing for the Game of the Century.

That means, since its adoption in 1998, the BCS has managed to arrange an undisputed national title game three times. Three times out of 13. That's barely above the Mendoza Line. Surely, the teams that have been shunted to consolation bowls during one of the other ten seasons deserve better.

Take 2000. Oklahoma was the only undefeated team from a major conference, which meant they deserved a birth in the title game, but who should have been their opponent? FSU got the nod, despite the fact that they lost at Miami. Miami had lost at Washington, Washington had lost at Oregon, Oregon had lost at Oregon State, and Oregon State had lost at Washington. I was overjoyed as an obsessive FSU fan, but to this day I can’t see why they deserved to go anymore than the other four contenders.

Or take Boise State, who finished the regular season undefeated in 2006 and ’09, and likely will do so again this season. Will they get to play for the title this time? Probably not, just like they didn’t the previous two times. Is that fair? Under the current system, it’s hard to say. In '06, for example, did Boise deserve to play Ohio State more than a one-loss Florida team that had played a far more difficult schedule?

No one making an honest argument can answer that question, but the point is that no one would have to if there was a playoff.

Let’s imagine an eight-team playoff. Five bids would go the major conference winners and three to the highest ranked remainders. This would open the door for Boise and the other teams from minor conferences. It would also make the major conference races more interesting because all the contending teams would still have a chance to win the national title.

Furthermore, it would improve the quality of regular season scheduling. At present, as Oregon discovered, it does not make sense to play a high profile intersectional like LSU if your goal is to win it all. However, that would not be the case if teams knew that they could qualify for a playoff by winning their conferences.

Finally, defenders of the status quo like to point out that in college football every game matters and that this would be lost with a playoff. They're right, to an extent. The magic of the regular season would be destroyed if a playoff involved 16 teams. But an eight-team playoff would still be small enough to leave little margin for error. And it would allow more teams with one loss to remain in the hunt—which actually would add to the tension on offer during the season.

Alabama should not be eliminated because they shot themselves in the foot Saturday, but neither should Boise, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Stanford or Oregon.

These teams should be eliminated on the field, during the remainder of the regular season or in a playoff game, rather than by the BCS formula.

Small Talk: Tackle the Turkey

2011-11-06T07:11:00.000-08:00

When I was in elementary and middle school, fall Saturday afternoons were my favorite time of the week. During those days, I was a student at a K-12 school and every week, I looked forward to attending my school's football games. My school wasn't particularly good at football. We were a small private school (think 60 people per grade in the high school), though we had A-List coaching (former Philadelphia Eagle Bill Bergey was the school coach- his sons also attended the school). Nevertheless I wasn't necessarily excited to see the Tatnall Hornets storm Weymouth Field. I was more interested in getting the opportunity to run around unsupervised and play tackle football with all the guys. Granted, I was not the typical grade school girl. Most girls my age didn't have hair shorter than their brothers and they had zero interest in grass stains or playing "King of the Hill."

I, on the other hand, look back fondly on these memories. I learned how to settle issues without getting a grand arbiter involved. I grew thick skin and learned that when boys teased me for being a girl, a consequent 40 yard touchdown run would shut them up. It was also during these weekly football games that I stayed out of trouble. I was too busy proving myself on the sports field to be bothered with mischief. Sure, we ran around like hooligans. And I'm sure I've blocked out all memories of errant passes that decked people. But I learned to solve these problems by myself, or at least with the help of my friends.

This past week, I heard about a high school in nearby Elmira, Oregon that this year adopted a policy that forces elementary and middle aged kids to sit with their parents at football games. And if they aren't sitting with their parents, then they have to be seated in the supervised "youth seating" area. The "youth seating" area is in an uncovered part of the stadium (remember it rains a bit here in Oregon) and the kids in this area have access only to vending machine foods. Those who don't obey the rules will be kicked out of the stadium until two minutes before the end of the game so they can be reunited with their parents.

And the justification?

“They’re running around playing tag and playing unsupervised tag football behind the bleachers.”

Now I'm not exactly sure when unsupervised tag became such a liability to the public good, but Elmira may as well just outfit one of their classrooms with a couple of Xboxes or Playstations and confine the kids there for the duration of the game. At least the crowd wouldn't be subject to being caught in the middle of a game of freeze tag.

Perhaps my sarcasm is a bit biting, but it seems to me that kids can't catch a break these days. Kids now already have so much structured time and now we're even confining kids in their free time. Let's face it- organized sports are starting earlier and earlier and as a result, kids are burning out or getting seriously injured at younger ages than ever before. While lots of development can occur in these organized settings, I'm confident that some of my biggest sports strides came in these relaxed environments where the only thing worse than bloody knees was running and crying to your mom about it.

The mental element of sports is probably the biggest hurdle that athletes face these days. Can you jump over that bar? Is 26.2 miles too far? Can you push yourself farther through the pain? If we take away the opportunity for kids to teach themselves just how to build up that mental strength, how can we ever expect to push athletic endeavors forward?

It's these episodes of sports conflict that really blow my mind. By creating unnecessary conflict off the field, we are setting ourselves up for high tensions on the field. I'm not just talking about high school football games in Oregon either. You better believe that when the NBA comes back to playing (if it ever happens) that emotions will be running high. And because of what? For once, it won't be for something someone did or said on the court. I think that every once in a while, it's quite healthy to just stop and take a deep breath. Lord knows, my 9-year-old self appreciated those who shrugged off my wild practice punts much more than those who took my football away.

Promotion and Relegation: The Greed of American Exceptionalism

2011-10-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

Today, stories surfaced that foreign owners, including many American ones, are keen to abolish relegation and promotion from the English Premier League. This silly idea has to be taken somewhat seriously since half of the EPL owners are foreigners who appear to be more concerned with profits than tradition.

Put differently, they want the right to run their teams like the Los Angeles Clippers, secure in the knowledge that they can rake in TV revenue regardless of how much they tank on the field.

In case you don’t know, in most of the world’s soccer leagues, every season the worst teams in the top division get relegated to the next lowest league and the best teams from the lower division get promoted to the top flight. This means that Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling would have had to open his wallet or face the prospect of struggling in some minor league.

In the late 60s, it would have meant that the New York Yankees would have been relegated. Believe it or not, this actually happened to Manchester United—the Yankees of English soccer—who suffered what is called the Drop after finishing near the bottom of the 1st Division (since renamed the EPL just to upset purists like me) in ’74.

We need to ask a basic question: should the primary purpose of sports be to make money, by treating the sport like a product and the fans like consumers; or should it be run like a non-profit organization that first and foremost respects the integrity of sport, its traditions, and the fans who turn up year after year?

This may be hard for most Americans to get their heads around, but for most of its history soccer has largely been committed to the latter. The goal has been to win trophies, not make money, and the owners were usually local businessman who felt some responsibility to their community. In fact, the English Football Association, put limits on how much owners could profit and relocating a franchise was unthinkable.

In the US, we got it wrong, right from the beginning in 1876, when the National League was formed. Owners declared that they were free to do more or less what they wanted, including move their teams to different cities. And was it good for baseball when the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn? Did the Mexican-American residents of Chavez Ravine benefit from being displaced to make way for Dodger Stadium?

The answers are obvious, but it sure is a great deal if you are lucky enough to be an owner (The .1%). You get to have a team in a league that enjoys a monopoly, your territorial rights are mostly insured, and you are free to bring in the moving vans if city leaders are foolish enough to divert tax money from stadium construction to education or law enforcement.

Why do city leaders cave? Because there is a big difference between having a major league team and a minor league one. But that difference would be greatly minimized if American leagues would adopt promotion and relegation.

That’s not about to happen, but I sure hope that soccer fans around the world organize to resist what amounts to American Exceptionalism.

Small Talk: Drop and Give Me 48

2011-10-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

It could have been just another day at practice. The U.S. field hockey team ran,
grunted, and sweated until they were told they could stop. They did push-ups and sit-ups and their coach yelled at them. But this time their coach wasn't head coach Lee Bodimeade. As they ran, they ran together as a team holding a log at chest height. And just when they figured their workout was finished, they were ordered to run into the cold Pacific Ocean fully clothed. If you hadn't caught on already, this wasn't an ordinary training session. This training session was led by a group of U.S. Navy SEALs.

Think about that for a second. The people who took out one of the most elusive terrorists on the planet, Osama bin Laden, trained a group of 20-something female athletes with Olympic aspirations. That's pretty cool.

As the stage for sports competition grows increasingly competitive with athletes constantly breaking records and pushing limits, teams are always looking for ways to create chemistry and take their game to the next level. It seems that these drill sergeants have filled the void…for the time being.

Of course we've all heard of these "boot camp" sessions anyone could participate in at their local gym. But these training sessions with members of the armed forces are different and they're not open to the public. Their purpose is literally to push elite athletes just beyond what they think their limit is. To mentally break them down, only to build them back stronger. And perhaps offer a small glimpse to the civilian world of what it takes to be a Navy SEAL. And let's not lose sight of just how selective the Navy SEALs are. The 18-month program typically starts with a class of about 1,000 candidates and seventy-five percent of those starting candidates drop out. They simply don't finish not because they aren't physically strong enough to finish. They lack the mental toughness to last throughout the whole program.

The U.S. National field hockey team is not the first or only club that has elected to undergo this type of rigorous physical and mental training. The U.S. bobsled team, many skiers and now even college and high school athletes have gone through the training. Recently the University of Hawaii football team has posted footage of their workouts with Marine sergeants. The video shows several members of the football team somewhat haphazardly performing jumping jacks and pushups.

One elite athlete, Larsen Jensen, who took home the bronze in the 400 freestyle at the 2008 Olympics, enlisted in the Navy a few months after winning the medal. He then proceeded to successfully complete the program, and became a Navy SEAL last March.

Going through military training isn't the only way coaches and athletes are looking to push their limits and change the monotony of practice. Just a few weeks ago, Temple men's basketball head coach Fran Dunphy moved his team's practice out of the gym and onto the Schuylkill River with the men's crew team. Because rowing requires teamwork and synchronization, Dunphy figured it was the perfect way to break up their preseason workouts.

The results were positive.

Despite some weak swimmers on the basketball team, the guys got a lot out of the experience. Dunphy even mentioned that he might be interested in doing both fall and spring preseason crew workouts.

While of course the crew workouts aren't exactly comparable to training with Navy SEALs, the fundamental idea behind the un-traditional workouts is the same. To push yourself beyond your mental limits by doing something physical that you are not comfortable with.

We all know that the Navy SEALs are perhaps the most revered, well-respected team of fighters in the world. And though the battle that they're doing is vastly different from the battle done on courts, fields and in pools. But it makes perfect sense to have the best trained by the best. And while we may not be asking our military for water polo pointers, I think we all can feel pretty good about the positive impact they hope to have on our future Olympic medal counts.

Pro Say: Greed in Pro Sports: A Fan’s Dilemma

2011-10-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

When I started writing for Competition Not Conflict, I was excited because it gave me a platform to put forth my two cents on professional sports. If you have read even a scintilla of my work here, you know that I butter my bread with NBA and NFL columns, sprinkling in a soccer column here and there (when Ken Pendleton hasn’t written one in a while). I even wrote about baseball once, but the thrust of that article was so ancillary to the sport that it doesn’t even really count.

However, I must confess: I am growing weary of pro sports. Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the NFL on Sundays (and Mondays, Thursdays, and late season Saturdays). I could watch the Cavaliers play the Clippers (and not just for fantasy purposes) on a Wednesday in November. It’s not the product on the various playing surfaces that has exhausted my love of pro sports. Even baseball is fun to watch in October and November.

No, I am sick of the off-the-field issues.

I’m not even speaking of the legal issues a myriad of athletes face every day. While I don’t wish to dismiss law breaking, growing up with the Jail Blazers hardened me to pro athletes as part-time felons. I am numb to the Ben Roethlesbergers, the Darius Mileses, and the Sean Averys. Those knuckleheads just don’t matter.

The work stoppages have worn me down. I can’t watch SportsCenter without Chris Brussard reporting on how far apart the players and the owners are at dividing the billions of dollars the NBA generates every year. Before the Brussard updates, it was the Adam Schefter reports on how far apart the NFL players and owners were on splitting the “growing pie” of revenue. Three years ago it was hockey. Before then, the NBA (again).

I think it’s the NBA lockout (this year’s model) that has really driven me to the brink. Essentially, NBA owners want (in part) built-in oopsie clauses, so that they can release a player from a bad contract that the very same owner agreed to offer the very same player. NBA players, who now make fifty seven per cent of all league revenue, don’t want to give up their uneven share, despite the fact that the league is losing tons of money and only a few teams are routinely “in the black” at the end of the year.

At the center of all this madness is commissioner David Stern. Complaining that the players account for too much of the revenue, this commissioner has allowed expansion of the league into cities without the ability to draw fans, lure star players, or maintain consistent ownership. He has allowed the NBA to outgrow its means, keeping around franchises like New Orleans (bankrupt), Sacramento (apathetic market), and Charlotte (who cares?). He has allowed the worst owner in pro sports, Donald Sterling, to consistently undercut the financial viability of the Los Angeles Clippers. I could go on and on.

So why should I care about the NBA? Why should I care about the NFL, which just resolved its own offseason madness. I love professional sports. But that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I have become cynical of the unabashed greed. I can no longer separate the on-field games with the off-field crying contest between millionaires. I just don’t think it’s possible to put the blinders on and enjoy the games anymore. How can I enjoy the games, when the games seem to be last on the minds of the players and owners?

Small Talk: Do Tell

2011-09-30T16:51:00.000-07:00

Just 10 days ago, the historic "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy of the United States military was repealed by the government. Finally, it seemed, sexual preferences weren't going to be viewed as a road block preventing you from serving your
country. Even today, our country's tolerance seemingly leapt over another hurdle as military chaplains got the OK to conduct same-sex marriages in states that allow the practice.

But the world of athletics still remains somewhat homogenous when it comes to sexual preferences. Many athletes, both male and female, feel pressured to hide their identities. Maybe they're afraid of a major media firestorm (unlikely), their teammates turning against them (more unlikely), or even being benched (most unlikely). But very few athletes have come out, and even fewer professional athletes fit into this category. Sure we remember Martina Navratilova's famous breakups with her girlfriends, and former Phoenix Suns owner Rick Welts rocking the sports world by announcing he was gay just a few months ago. But famous athletes such as Esera Tuolo and John Amaechi coming out after their professional careers ended didn't help the cause much.

Look at college sports. There are practically no openly gay Division 1 coaches (there are definitely fewer than 5, and 2 of them just so happen to be here in the great state of Oregon) and even fewer openly gay athletes. It seems to me that in order for gay athletes to have fewer trepidations about coming out, it needs to come from the top down. More gay coaches need to come out. Or maybe quite simply we just need more gay coaches. They need to show their athletes, and then ultimately high school athletes, that you can be successful in the sports world and be gay.

The topic just seems to be salient this week in the wake of the DADT repeal. But also because the sports world is taking great steps to combat bullying in the LGBT world. The Philadelphia Phillies, Tampa Bay Rays, Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners have all lent their support to the It Gets Better Project over the past few months by making videos. But just this week a new frontier was eclipsed.

The Northwestern University Wildcats became the first college athletic department to join the It Gets Better Project. And what a great idea that is! It's a unique and fun way for student-athletes to truly make a positive benefit on their university communities. There is absolutely no reason why every single NCAA athletic department shouldn't pledge to do the same.

I think big changes are in store for the LGBT community. If the U.S. military has no problem with gay service people, then it's only a matter of time before the trickle down effect happens. Until that time, we can all aspire to do a better job of ignoring "coming out" announcements and focusing more on the on-the-field brilliance we care more about anyway.

Small Talk: Conference Mutiny

2011-09-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Everyone's talking about them.

The new "super conferences" that are sure to change the face of college football as we know it. For whatever reason, many major universities are jumping ship from conferences they have been in since their inception they are throwing everyone for a loop. As if the changes aren't confusing enough, the talk of the "possibilities" really has heads spinning. Nevertheless, all of the talk we are seeing is about two things: football and men's basketball.

Now I will freely admit that I am not surprised. And I shouldn't be. Football and basketball are obviously the most highly watched sports and certainly the most revenue-generating for all of these schools. But they also aren't the only revenue generators. And they certainly aren't the only revenue spenders. What I think people are greatly overlooking during this tumultuous time is that for all the other teams at these universities, everything is changed. The way you prepare for a season, the travel arrangements that are made, or the impact on families and fans. Conferences, whether we like it or not, have become an important part of how we identify with our athletic departments and our universities as a whole and I don't think that these changes should be taken lightly.

For some sports, such as lacrosse and baseball, conferences aren't even fully developed, meaning some schools don't have teams. In other cases, conferences are already drawing on teams that are typically viewed as outside the conference. So when schools who are considered vital in the conference leave, it devalues the soul-searching conference. Not to mention the hilarity that ensues when conferences have names that attempt to reflect the conference, but they are so far off that you have to question the sanity of the conference's marketing departments for not renaming the conference. (I'm talking to you Big 10 and Big 12.)

And what about the schools who join conferences filled with larger, more robust athletics departments? Does it mean that schools are quietly pledging to add additional sports? Does this pressure exist? Should it exist? (read: I still have no idea why Colorado or Utah are in the PAC-12.)

And who could forget within-conference rivalry games? If you remove some of these rivalry games and matches, you essentially suck the lifeblood out of many fans who spend 364 days a year looking forward to next year's big game. Rivalries can't be contrived or bought. They are established by history and repeated combat on the field. Does this mean that every team in the country turns into Notre Dame football, who seemingly has rivalries with everyone?

I think it's pretty clear how I feel about conference switching. It seems super hypocritical that collegiate athletics are changing their conferences simply because of financial reasons. While it may positively impact the budgets, I'm not convinced it's the best thing for the student-athlete at the end of the day. And we can't forget that the student-athlete, who is the "money maker" in this case, is the one who we is supposed to be the ultimate benefit recipient. So I leave you with this one question. Based on all of this conference swapping that's going on, why shouldn't
Hawaii join the Big East?

Pro Say: Introducing Oregon to the NFL

2011-09-19T19:09:00.000-07:00

The state of Oregon is not known as a football factory. While the Ducks and Beavers have seen recent success, and there are a handful of high schools that occasionally get national exposure, there is nobody who would put our state on par with Texas, Florida, and California as a “football” state.

There are names: Joey Harrington, Terry Baker, Dan Fouts, Norm Van Brocklin, Ahmad Rashad, Neil Lomax, and a few others. Very few great football players attached to the state of Oregon were actually born here. Very few others actually make a splash in the NFL. Even in the last two decades, as the Ducks and Beavers flirt with national relevance, scouting services dive deeply into homegrown talent, and Internet clips lead the least likely athletes to viral stardom, it’s still surprising when a player from Oregon gets drafted, starts for a contender, or makes the Pro Bowl.

But maybe things are changing, if ever so slightly. In case you haven’t noticed, the two best defensive tackles in the NFL are Oregon-bred.

Ndamukong Suh of the Detroit Lions was born in Portland and played at Grant High School before heading off to the University of Nebraska. At Nebraska, Suh won every award that matters, including the 2009 AP Player of the Year award. He was the third runner up in Heisman Trophy voting, finishing behind three players whose careers don’t matter, including Colt McCoy:

Detroit drafted Suh second overall in 2010, where he was voted the Associated Press the Defensive Rookie of the Year, and where he now does this to quarterbacks:

He is also the Lions’ emergency kicker:

Haloti Ngata is not a native Oregonian, but transferred to the University of Oregon in 2005. In just one season with the Ducks, Ngata recorded 61 tackles, including nine for a loss, on a Ducks team known more for offense than defense. Even still, in 2005, Ngata was a consensus All-American and the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the year.

Because 2005 was like 100 years ago in terms of Internet highlights and four years before ~~Phil Knight~~ Chip Kelly turned the Ducks into a national program, I have no highlights of Ngata in college to offer. Trust me, he was really good.

Baltimore picked Ngata 12th overall in 2006. He has developed into a two-time Pro Bowler and a 2010 First-Team All Pro defensive tackle. He’s also probably Rashard Mendenhall’s least favorite opponent:

As an Oregonian, I can’t help but feel a little homegrown pride watching Suh and Ngata dominate the league. It helps that they stamp a little Oregon into the players and teams they pancake every Sunday.

Small Talk: Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It

2011-09-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

I was so excited to watch college football this past weekend. Sure, there were eagerly awaited new uniforms making debuts and both of my teams were ranked in the top 10, but I was excited for the excitement of the college game where risks are taken and everything is laid on the line. Like many other Americans, I was most excited to see the Cowboy Classic between the LSU Tigers and the Oregon Ducks. And then, as I sat on the edge of my couch watching the game, ESPN reminded me of an ugly truth. Both the Tigers and Ducks had key players who were sidelined for the game because they had gotten into trouble with the law. One player drove 118 miles per hour on a freeway, another attempted to burglarize a house, another was involved in a bar fight just one week before the game and the last discussed ongoing NCAA investigations with teammates.

Now I know no one is perfect, but clearly these four guys individually had serious lapses of good judgment (and I'm being kind when I say that). Let's remember that these four gentlemen are currently working towards "higher education" degrees (what happened to that term?) and have the privilege (not the right) of representing their institutions on the athletic field.

I have a feeling that overall, NCAA schools have lost sight of the Collegiate Model of Athletics. The late Myles Brand, former president of the NCAA laid out the model five years ago in his State of the Association address. It's simple:

1.) Those who participate in intercollegiate athletics are to be students attending a university or college.

2.) Intercollegiate athletics contests are to be fair, conducted with integrity, and the safety and well-being of those who participate are paramount.

3.) Intercollegiate athletics is to be wholly embedded in universities and colleges.

The first tenet is easily enough understood. To play football for LSU, you have to be a student at LSU. To be a student at LSU, you can't be in jail.

The second tenet has become a bit more hazy. What is integrity when it comes to Division I football? Is integrity showing recruits a good time by taking them out to a nice steak dinner on their official visit? Or is integrity making payments for illegal scouting services on time? And who decides the well-being of student athletes? It seems to me that a volleyball player's well-being is satisfactory after she receives a full kit of Nike gear when she returns to campus for preseason in August. But maybe it's more. Maybe her well-being is in question until she receives financial compensation for every single minute she has invested in the program- from riding her bike to the training room two hours before practice to the hours after dinner spent watching video of her last match.

The third tenet is perhaps hazier still. What does it mean to be wholly embedded in a university? A full student section at basketball games? Athletic facilities smack dab in the middle of campus? Must athletics simply be a perpetual piece of the university budget pie?

To be honest, I don't think that the third tenet is hazy at all. I know exactly what Miles Brand meant, and I think that this third tenet should be what is ringing truer today than anything else. Miles Brand intended for each and every team of each and every university to be wholly representative of its university. To embody the values set forth in the university's mission statement. So If BYU suspends a player for pre-marital sexual relations, then that is exactly what they should do. Their university was founded on Mormon principles and continues to exist on Mormon principles. The American public has no standing to criticize the punishment as harsh or unfounded, because each and every student at that university must buy into the Honor Code to earn a degree from that institution.

I think at the end of the day, it all comes back to the fact that playing for these universities is a privilege, not a right. Athletic departments exist within universities for the sole purpose of enriching students' lives, whether that be on the playing field or in the bleachers. It seems to me that many universities and/or athletic departments have lost sight of what really matters. For administrators and coaches,the focus is entirely on the student-athlete, which is why everyone is there in the first place. And for the student-athlete, the focus should be on achieving a "higher education."

So coming back full circle now, the reason I write about this is that we should absolutely be celebrating the student-athlete, not highlighting their weakest moments. Admittedly, this country loves drama and will leap on it whenever anything turns for the worse. But why aren't we highlighting APRs (academic progress rates, a system that Brand instituted to make sure student-athletes were moving towards graduation) or even quirky hobbies?

I know for one I'm more interested in knowing that the star of the team is only a semester away from graduating…and he's a junior.

Pro Say: Check In Next Season

2011-09-06T18:48:00.000-07:00

It has become a common theme of mine in these Pro Say columns to criticize small market teams. Undeniably, my fruitless lifelong dedication to the Portland Trail Blazers, about whom I have not held back, leads me to take out my aggression on other franchises as well (sorry Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies, Washington Nationals, Tennessee Titans, and Minnesota Vikings). Perhaps some more positive columns are in order. Maybe today will be different. Except…

The Jacksonville Jaguars happened to release their starting quarterback less than one week before the start of the regular season today. I guess those positive vibes will have to wait until next week.

I have been more than clear that I believe successful franchises are built organically, both by drafting talented players and developing them, and by hiring competent coaches and giving them ample time to implement their systems. (It also helps to have a patient owner with deep pockets, decades of tradition, and/or a fan base that will never abandon the team.)

So, why should I be irritated that the Jags are putting their faith in a quarterback they drafted and looking toward the future? After all, their coach, Jack Del Rio, is entering his eighth season in charge. Seems like Jacksonville is doing exactly what I would prescribe many struggling franchises.

Except that they’re not. See, Jacksonville was on track for a decent season. Between Peyton Manning’s neck injury, Tennessee’s transition to the – cough – Jake Locker era, and Houston’s perennial failures, the Jags had a puncher’s chance to make the playoffs. Every year, a sleeper team rises from obscurity to make some noise. Jacksonville could have been this year’s Kansas City Chiefs.

Not now.

Why would a team with a chance to make some noise mortgage a rare opportunity for an above-mediocre season? It’s not as if David Garrard was a terrible option under center. Fans of a handful of NFL teams would gladly welcome his arrival. (Looking at you, Buffalo, Miami, Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington.) Furthermore, it’s not like fans in Jacksonville will just come out and watch the team no matter the players on the field. Nope. In 2007, the last time the team made the playoffs, it was still nineteenth in overall attendance. In years of futility, it is regularly in the bottom third of all NFL teams.

I’m sure the Jacksonville ownership and coaching staff has its reasons behind the move. I’m sure it has everything to do with planning to put and awesome product on the field for many years to come. You know, foresight. Something pro sports teams are so good at. I’m super sure releasing its quarterback has nothing to do with chopping a huge chunk of salary, saving ownership money. I’m positive it has nothing to do with ownership’s apathy towards fans (the few the team actually has left).

After all, what does a struggling small market team have to gain from a few successive years of bad records and lousy attendance? I’ve seen this movie before.

Small Talk: I'll Huff, and I'll Puff, and I'll Blow Your Stadium Down

2011-09-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's all part of the game right? The sun, the rain, the snow, the fog. Weather can be an equalizer in sports matches of all kinds. It can also ruin the flow of a game because of delays and postponements. But it's extreme weather that throws an interesting curveball in the world of sports. Not only can a game be delayed, but the game can be completely altered altogether.

Take, for example, last year's football game between the Minnesota Vikings and and the New York Giants. The game was postponed after the inflated roof of the Metrodome collapsed due to a 17-inch snowstorm in Minneapolis. Not only was the game pushed back a day because of the storm, but the game moved from Minneapolis to Detroit because the Metrodome obviously was unusable.

Or this past winter, during the NHL's annual Winter Classic slated to be played at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh. The outdoor rink was diligently constructed, HBO followed the Capitals and Penguins for weeks documenting each teams' preparation for the big day and then came Saturday's forecast: rain. There was almost a professional hockey game played in the rain. But the game was postponed to later that night so that concerns about melting ice and higher day time temperatures could be quelled.

But it's not just cold weather that messes with the minds of athletes everywhere. Hurricanes leave some of the most devastating effects on sports schedules. This past weekend was no different as Hurricane Irene threatened to shut the lights out in stadiums all over the Eastern Seaboard. UConn's home opener scheduled for last night was postponed because their stadium is being used as a commodities distribution center for neighboring towns. The Red Sox and the Phillies postponed their games last Saturday to Sunday. Major League Soccer, the PGA tour, the NFL, the New Haven Tennis Open….all of these organizations were forced to make "rainy day" plans in anticipation of the impending storm.

But one game was played.

Division II teams Virginia Union and St. Augustine's College opened their season in Richmond, VA this past Saturday while Irene whirled around them. Eighty fans braved the warnings and watched the two teams "play" in a game they both had to petition the NCAA to happen. I say "play" because the game did nothing to pad any statistics. Both of the teams quarterbacks combined to complete 4 of an attempted 15 passes. Virginia Union scored after recovering a fumble because the ball was blown away from St. Augustine's punter when he dropped it to kick it. Not only that, but there were TWO punts for negative yardage.

All in all, it probably wasn't a good idea to play that game, but I suppose I can understand why the teams insisted on playing it.

In times of hardship, when humans face natural disaster or other forces beyond their control, they find ways to bond. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The Superdome served as a (rather unfortunate) shelter for refugees. Though conditions were a far cry from ideal, it was still a place where people sought respite from the storm that raged around them. After the storm, the Superdome was unusable for the Saints. They played their "home" games elsewhere and failed to really hit their stride that year finishing 3-13.

But then the city began to rally.

In 2006 they reached the NFC Championship Game and then in 2009, the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl signifying a victory for the entire city of New Orleans. Finally, it appeared, the city was bouncing back. But it was an opportunity for everyone, not just citizens of the Big Easy, to celebrate the triumph that sports can have on a hurting community.

Now, I'm not saying that the refugee situation in the Superdome was worth getting excited about (because conditions were offensive). I'm not saying that the Superdome should even stand as the sole symbol of New Orleans during or post-Katrina. And I'm certainly not imposing that New Orleans is fully recovered.

But I am saying that when the winds blow, when the snow falls, and when we step outside after the tornado has passed, we need to grab the football. We should go to the local high school and watch the teams play. As we struggle to understand how these storms work, it goes without saying that everyone knows how to clap their hands when an outstanding sports play occurs. If nothing else, it's an opportunity to be grateful that you're not 10 feet underground hiding from a tornado.

Pro Say: Can Vick Do It Again?

2011-08-30T18:35:00.000-07:00

Let me address a couple of items before I proceed with my post. First, I believe that Michael Vick was the most entertaining player in the NFL (or, as every ESPN analyst insists on calling it upon every single mention, the “National Football League”) last season. Second, as we San Francisco 49ers fans enter what is looking like another decade of Bengal-like futility, I find myself interested in what other teams are up to more than ever before. Last year, I became an Eagles supporter because of the resurgence of Michael Vick (and also because the team is on its way to becoming the first pro franchise to maintain a completely sustainable, “off the grid” stadium). Lastly, about nine months ago, I wrote a column attempting to persuade even the most stringent Vick hater to forgive and move on.

And then there’s today. Where, instead of writing about something fresh, instead of trying to address a topic that is not leading SportsCenter, I find myself drawn back into the Vick saga.

Because today, Michael Vick is once again a rich man.

Unlike last time, I am not interested in Vick the person. He has maintained a nearly flawless image since his return to the National Football League (wow, that’s contagious). Even former Eagles kicker – the kicker! – David Akers has found more controversy than Vick the past couple of years. (Just realized Akers is the new 49ers kicker after 3-time team MVP ~~Ray Finkle~~ Joe Nedney retired. Wow.)

This time, I am interested in Vick the player. You know, this player:

This one too:

To hit you with some stats, last year with the Eagles, Vick went 8-3 as a starter, had a 63 per cent completion rate, threw 21 touchdowns to only 6 interceptions, passed for 251 yards per game, and maintained a ridiculously high 100 passer rating. Oh, and he rushed for 56 yards per game and scored nine times running the ball. Philly won its division and was eliminated in the first round by Green Bay, which won the Super Bowl.

As my new favorite wrestling announcer, Booker T, would say, “Oh my goodness!”

Vick’s 2010 stats warranted nothing less than the serious MVP consideration he received. And yet…it would have been nice if he could have done it again in 2011 before Philly cut him a check for $40 million. Here’s why:

In six years with Atlanta, Vick’s stats were as follows: 38-28-1 as a starter, 54 per cent completion rate, 71 touchdowns to 52 interceptions, 156 passing yards per game, with a fair-to-midland 76 passer rating. He rushed for 52 yards per game and scored 21 rushing touchdowns. He went 2-2 in the playoffs, with the team winning one division title.

While I don’t doubt that he possesses the unique skill set to have a repeat of 2010, six out of his seven years as a starter in the league indicate that Vick is not a $40 million quarterback. Beyond his inconsistent play prior to last season, his style of play, demonstrated in the clips above, leaves him susceptible to injury. He missed several games last year due to injuries sustained while playing like that.

Still, watch the highlights of that game against the Giants last year, where the Eagles rallied to win from about 50 points down in the fourth quarter. Or what about the game against Washington, where Vick scored about 100 fantasy points in the single most dominant performance by a single player last season?

So, the question is, will he do it again? Either way, we’ll have an answer. Either we’ll see a reprisal of the spectacular 2010 season, where nobody can argue that Vick earned every penny of that $40 million; or Vick will return to his meddling, mediocre Atlanta days and leave everyone wondering yet again, “what happened?”

We should all hope that Vick earns his $40 million. For me, so I have a distraction from another season of Alex Smith. For fans of the NFL, so we can all sit back, entertained by and in awe of (potentially) the most exciting player the league will have in 2011.

Small Talk: The Biggest Little Baseball Tournament

2011-08-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

The end of August is the most exciting time of the year…in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Fans pour in from near and far to take part in the excitement that builds as hundreds of 11, 12 and 13 year-olds come from near and far doing battle on pint-sized baseball diamonds in an event that is known as the Little League World Series.

And what an incredible phenomenon it is.

Kids travel from thousands of miles to compete in what may become the most important stage of their young lives. Lamade Stadium, one of two stadiums built for this event that returns to the remote Pennsylvania city every year, is constantly packed with more than 33,000 fans all there cheering on the epic triumphs and failures of the world's youth. That's right- 33,000. But come the finals, the stadium accommodates up to 45,000. There are professional sports teams that can't even find 33,000 people to put in their stands, let alone 45,000. In addition to the thousands of fans watching right there, ESPN broadcasts all of the games bringing elation (or in some cases complete detachment) to home viewers all over the globe.

So why on earth does Williamsport erupt into life once a year? Why would the nation's largest sports channel sign long-term contracts promising to display the athletic talents of pre-teens? And do we even care?

I think that in it's simplest form, the Little League World Series is a display of raw emotion in its purest form. Let's face it; adults find ways to mask their feelings. They put on their tough guy faces when they lose and play it cool when things go their way. However, unlike major leaguers, when these one of these kids hits a home run, you'd think it was the happiest moment of his life (which it may be). Similarly it's obvious that a loss spells the deepest of lows from which recovery is unclear. It's a return for many to the days when we played games for fun and bragging rights. During these few weeks in August, life IS baseball and baseball IS life.

But let's not forget that even the Little Leagues are plagued with drama. Just this year, a team from Uganda, the first African team to ever qualify for the LLWS, was denied visas to the United States by the State Department after several discrepancies were found between the players' documents and interviews conducted with parents and guardians. While this may seem like a routine occurrence for many, without a doubt it was the most exciting possibility of those kids' lives and it was dashed even before they left their borders.

Though episodes of great size and infamy are few and far between, I suppose they aren't inescapable at any level. In 2001, Danny Almonte, 12-year old from the Bronx became a sensation showcasing his 75 mph fastball (the equivalent for that distance of a 98 mph Major League fastball). Though his team didn't win the Series that year, they were the feel-good team and he made headiness everywhere.

And then disaster struck. This kid was too good to be true- and he was. It was shortly thereafter discovered that Almonte was actually 14 years old making him ineligible for play in the Series and forcing his team to vacate their victories. Now, as a result, prior to the Little League World Series every single player must provide several forms of documentation proving their birth date as well as residence.

All in all, I do believe that the attention the Little League World Series is not a bad thing. We could all use a break from NASCAR or Major League Baseball and watch people who are playing exclusively for the love of the game. For once, winning isn't everything and there aren't millions of dollars on the line. The Little League World Series paints an optimistic picture of sports for both kids and adults alike and furthermore, it's indisputably nice to see small communities rally around the a group of kids who are proud to represent them. Sure, you're not going to be watching Albert Pujols hit the longest home run in Busch Stadium history, but you also aren't going to be questioning whether the batter is taking steroids or not.

Author's Note: Many apologies to those to expectantly and diligently tuned in to read another edition of Small Talk over the summer and were let down by its absence. We're back now...and ready to deliver.

Educating The U About Institutional Control

2011-08-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

The University of Miami will try to make a case that it exercised institutional control. Top administrators will try to convince the NCAA that they had no clue that Nevin Shapiro was engaged in illegal activities or providing extra benefits to several dozen players and recruits. They will point out that former coach Randy Shannon constantly warned his players and coaches about agents and boosters. And other boosters will testify that the athletic department took extraordinary steps to assure compliance.

There is only one problem with this argument: The U clearly did have a clue that Shapiro was bad news, long before he was implicated in a $930m Ponzi scheme—but it appears that they did little or nothing to curtail his involvement with their football program.

According to CaneSport, it was “shortly after he was named to replace Larry Coker in 2007 that Shannon threatened his coaching staff with firings if they ever dealt with Shapiro and warned his players about him multiple times in team meetings during his four-year coaching tenure.”

What’s more, “Shannon had ‘spies’ around town who warned him that Shapiro was getting into problems throughout South Florida and was a booster that he needed to keep away from his players’."

The head coach even refused to meet with Shapiro, despite the fact that he contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Miami’s AD.

This clearly bothered Shapiro. According to CaneSport, he “would constantly call anybody in the athletic department that would listen and launch into blistering, profanity-laced and racially-charged tirades at the perceived lack of respect he was being shown by the head coach.”

Finally, multiple sources confirm that during a humiliating 48-0 home loss to Virginia at the Orange Bowl in 2007, Shapiro confronted David Reed, the school’s associate athletic director for compliance, about ‘implementing rules that were too stringent, trying to keep boosters and players apart’.

“I tried to kick his ass,” the 5-foot-5 Shapiro told Yahoo! Sports. “I was screaming at him, calling him a sissy over and over, at least five times. I shouted, “these guys are a bunch of [expletives] playing for a real [expletive] [head coach Randy Shannon] and, by the way, you’re a (expletive) too.”

“I had to be held back from hitting him. I wanted to punch him in the face.”

Shapiro claims that this incident prompted Reed to investigate him. What did Reed discover? According to Shapiro, Reed ‘discovered his troubling ties to athletes, coaches and his part ownership in a professional sports agency’.

Despite all these signs, Shapiro claims he was never questioned by Miami and that his activities were not limited until April 2010, when he was criminally charged.

So was there a Lack of Institutional Control? Miami appears to have had adequate policies and procedures in place to comply with NCAA rules, but the way officials handled what they learned about Shapiro appears to have been quite lax.

Did Shannon share his skepticism about Shapiro, and the evidence it was based on, with the rest of the AD or members of the university’s administration? Did he turn over the information his ‘spies’ discovered? Did any university officials ask him why he refused to meet with such a prominent donor?

Did the athletic officials he allegedly called report the contents of those calls to superiors or university administrators? If the argument with Reed occurred as reported, why didn’t the AD and the university cut their ties with him? Did Reed investigate him, as Shapiro claims? Were there ever any meeting held to discuss all the signs and evidence that he was, to put it mildly, problematic?

No one should accept what Shapiro claims at face value, but a lot of what is being claimed, by people trying to defend integrity of Miami’s football program, suggests that there was a in fact lack of institutional control.

The Devil Lies In The Big Picture

2011-08-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

Metamorphic realignment of the major athletic conferences is just a matter of time. It began but did not snowball last year when Nebraska and Colorado abandoned the Big 12. It may not occur this year, despite the fact that that the eyes of Texas A&M are clearly focused on the SEC. But the floodgates are going to open, within a matter of days or at most a year.

Every major athletic program, eventually even the University of Texas, that is not in the Big 10, the SEC or Pac 12 will see the benefits joining one of the Big Three. And the Big Three know they can renegotiate their TV contracts if they expand, e.g., The SEC would be adding a market with 24 million viewers if Texas A&M joins.

Predicting who will end up where is fun but foolhardy; there are just too many possible scenarios. Will the SEC add Florida State, which makes sense from a football standpoint, or would they solicit Duke and North Carolina to upgrade their basketball? Will Notre Dame remain independent or concede that it belongs in the Big Ten? Where will Texas and Oklahoma go, the SEC or the Pac-14?

Details aside, the overall structure figures to look like this. The Big Three will all expand because the temptation to get more TV revenue is too great. The Big 12 will become a minor conference. The ACC and the Big East will have to merge. And, most importantly, the gap between the BCS and the other schools will grow even greater.

The Big 12 survived Nebraska and Colorado’s departures and Texas A&M can be replaced, but two structural problems will compel Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and eventually Texas to leave. The first is the fact that the amount of TV revenue each school, absent Texas, can generate is going to fall farther behind what schools in the Big Three can earn. And second, the competitive advantage Texas has, because of the way income is distributed among members and because of its pending TV network, has generated major resentment. It was the final straw for A&M and it will be the Impetus for Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

The Big East has already fallen far behind the other BCS conferences and the ACC continues to lose ground to the SEC. Now imagine how wide that gap would grow if the SEC added FSU and Clemson (North Carolina would make more sense, but would they abandon Duke?) and the Big Ten added Pitt and Rutgers. The biggest remaining schools would see consolidation as a matter of BCS survival.

And you can be sure that survival will be the first priority. Boise State and TCU have proven that non-BCS schools can compete at the highest level, but the competitive obstacles are about to become a lot bigger.

Will it be good for college football to have 60 or so teams consolidated into just four super conferences? Will the NCAA have any real power or will it effectively reside with the BCS? Will there still be one set of rules for all the Division 1-A schools or will the BCS schools insist on implementing, for example, ‘full cost of attendance’ legislation, which would further seal the non-BCS school’s competitive fate? Will the bowl system survive or be replaced by a playoff system?

Those debates will come, but right now schools in the Big Three are going to focus on how to get even richer and the others are going to do everything they can to avoid ending up in the poorhouse.

Note that none of this scheming figures to advance the educational mission of any of these schools, but watching this process unfold is sure going to be educational.

Still Not Ready For Prime Time?

2011-08-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

It’s somehow fitting, but sad, that even Deion Sanders' Hall of Fame speech could not pass without criticism.

Tackling was not Sanders strength, but no one alive, dead, or yet born could cover a receiver as well. Unfortunately, his astonishing play often took a back seat to controversy.

A lot of it was deserved. He has been arrested a few times. He did not attend class during his last semester at FSU because he knew that his eligibility was assured. Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk publicly called him out for not hustling during a baseball game ("Run the f*cking ball out you piece of sh*t."). And he kept dumping buckets of cold water on announcer Tim McCarver while his Atlanta Braves were celebrating their dramatic 1992 NLCS victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But most of all, gosh darn it, Prime Time was just too colorful, brash, and self-promoting for Apollonian America.

Hall of Fame speeches are usually free of controversy. Humility reigns, as the stamp of greatness is conferred, and broken fences are mended.

Deion appeared to do just that. He thanked more than 100 people (teammates, coaches, trainers, pastors, school teaches, you name it), acknowledging that it is the village that raises the football player. He claimed that all of his dedication, and PR, were aimed at paying his hardworking mother’s bills. And he brought hundreds of kids to Canton for the ceremony, outfitted them in shirts that said ‘Truth’, and called on fellow luminaries like Ice Cube and Snoop Dog to step up and make a difference.

Or at least that was the message he intended to convey.

Not everyone took it that way. One writer, Larry Brown, thought it was disgraceful that he would ‘sully his esteemed gold jacket with a corporate logo’. I’ll let you be the judge of whether he was ‘Disgraceful. Disgusting. Shameful. Reprehensible. Sell out’, for wearing a corporate logo and thanking them for outfitting those kids with the Truth T-shirts. Maybe it is just me, but he did not appear quite as sullied as NASCAR drivers do at Victory Lane and signage does less harm to sports than commercial interruptions.

Another writer, Fox’s Jason Whitlock, went so far as to harsh on the way Sanders described the shame he felt about his mother’s work, a cleaning position at a hospital, as his primary motivation to become so successful that he could pay her bills. “Since 1989, I tackled every bill my mama has ever given me,” Sanders said. “Haven’t missed one.”

Whitlock did not question his intentions but rather the implicit message. Deion should not have felt ashamed of his mother’s job; youths should not be encouraged to try to make a better life for their parents, as attempting to do so leads many, especially those without extravagant athletic gifts, to make bad choices; and for setting the aspirational bar too high.

“They will never earn legally in their 20s or even 30s nearly enough money to make it so their parents will never have to work again. And that should not be their goal. Well-intentioned parents just want to go to sleep at night or pass from this earth knowing their children can take care of themselves.”

A lot of what Whitlock said was right. I trust Deion no longer feels embarrassed by his mom’s former occupation and young adults should not be expected to support their parents. Nor should one's worth be judged by whether celebrity is achieved.

But why blame Sanders for promoting these values. He didn’t invent the idea that ordinary jobs should be devalued while entertainers are treated like super heroes. That can be blamed on companies like Fox and the entertainment industry more generally. Prime Time did not invent self-promotion; he just took advantage of the fact that we have devolved into a society where image is nearly everything. Is he flashy? Sure, but why blame him when we live in a world that values owning bling more than reading Blink? That’s regrettable, but it is not Deion’s fault.

Sanders correctly surmised that everyone is trying to get their hands in football's cookie jar: "I hear so many people say I would do this for free. I would too as long as you're doing it for free."

Sanders was nobody's fool. He was wise to use his athletic gifts and his gift of gab to make as much money as possible playing a game that has become a hugely profitable religion in a superficial, inequitable, dog-eat-dog culture.

In the end, Sanders’ speech tried to connect his success and penchant for self-promotion to a larger social agenda. We should commend him for that effort rather than picking apart his point because he fell a little short as a social theorist.

The Klinsmann Experiment

2011-08-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, the United States Soccer Federation announced that Jürgen Klinsmann would succeed Bob Bradley as coach of the US men’s National Team. The USSF has not entrusted this position to a foreigner since 1994--the theory being that American coaches are best suited to understand the unique challenges our players face--but Klinsmann has lived in California since 1998.

The future will tell the tale, but the German appears to be the right man, though success should not ultimately be measured by how well the US does between now and the 2014 World Cup.

Pelé put soccer on the American map. Successfully hosting the 1994 World Cup proved that we would attend matches in large numbers, provided the quality of play was high. And the subsequent formation of Major League Soccer brought much needed structural stability. The problem is that our players have stopped improving. We produce a lot of B- players, more than ever, but we still have not produced a single world-class player, let alone a team of world-beaters.

American players have gained the world’s respect, which is no small accomplishment, but admiration is proving much harder to come by.

So why should we expect Klinsmann to help us make this crucial leap, from the good to the favored?

Part of the answer is that he recognizes something very important about soccer: namely that the way a team plays must deeply reflect the subtleties of its culture.

“I’ve played in different countries (Germany, Italy, France, and England), and they all have their own identities and style. I believe that soccer has to reflect the culture of the country. I’ve studied the U.S. the last 13 years, and it’s going to be quite a challenge. There are a lot of opinions, a lot of ideas from youth soccer to college, which is a model different from anywhere in the world.

“What will be the U.S. style of play? . . . Right now, you don’t like to react to what other people do, it’s never wait and see. You like to act on your own and see what’s next. Proactive style, trying to impose your will on the opposition instead of sitting back and depend on reacting to the opponent.”

The other part of the cultural equation is that the US must find a way to incorporate Latin players and their cultural differences, both on and off the field, into what has been an overwhelmingly Northern European system. "There's so much influence coming from the Latin environment over the last 15, 20 years that also has to be reflected in the U.S. national team.”

Finally, he is also willing to ask the hard questions: “We need to question every single ritual and habit,” Klinsmann explained to German media when he took over their national team in 2004. And we need to do it continuously.”

And he proceeded to do just that. He didn't hesitate to challenge deeply entrenched orthodoxies, despite the fact that Germany had been the best team in Europe for the past 50 years. He hired a new technical director, a hockey coach no less, and also changed the tactical formation, the practice schedule, the fitness regimen, the psychological approach, and the organizational chart.

The results and the reviews were quite good. Germany advanced to the semifinals of the 2006 World Cup, losing to Italy after extra time in the semifinals. Fans embraced his attacking, pressing philosophy (they also embraced each other, as evidenced by the dramatic spike in births nine months after the tournament). And, most importantly his successor, Jogi Löw, has successfully built on the structure he erected, guiding Germany to the finals of the 2008 European Championships and the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup.

The major problem, of course, is that the United States is nowhere close to being on the same level as Germany. We don’t have a soccer culture or their tradition ("Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins," explained England’s Gary Lineker). And, most importantly, we lack quality players.

Klinsmann seems to realize that this is both a limitation and a challenge. He acknowledged that the US was outplayed in its recent 4-2 shellacking at the hands of Mexico and stressed the importance of transforming our youth development system

“The foundation is youth. A kid in Mexico might do 20 hours of soccer a week, four training and 14 playing around with his buddies in the street (well, he wasn’t hired to teach math). That skill development will show later with ability and instincts. We want to improve and do better. I can’t promise anything. There are a lot of difficult challenges ahead.”

Klinsmann’s success, in other words, should not be measured by whether the US is ready to beat all comers by the 2014 World Cup, but by whether he is able to help transform our soccer culture and revolutionize our player development system.

A Few Questions About The Tressel Ruling?

2011-07-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Buck apparently stops with Jim Tressel. Or, more to the point, according to the Columbus Dispatch, the NCAA has told Ohio State that the dreaded ‘failure to monitor’ tag will not be applied to them despite their former coach’s repeated failure to turn over evidence that two of his current players were receiving extra-benefits. Translation: The Buckeyes might forfeit a few scholarships, but they probably will not be banned from bowls or TV.

So why wasn’t Oho State found guilty of failure to monitor? The answer is that the Athletic Department did all it reasonably could have done to prevent and address the problem that occurred. The compliance system did not fail; Tressel, and Tressel alone, failed to carry out his duties and responsibilities.

The NCAA effectively ruled that Tressel was the proverbial bad apple that should not be allowed to spoil The Ohio State’s reputation.

It is interesting to note that the NCAA report never explicitly claimed that, or, as I read it, even asked whether, Ohio State was guilty of a lack of institutional control. Being cleared of allegations of failing to monitor implies that they exercised institutional control, but the NCAA’s own document, Principles of Institutional Control, makes it clear that there are other factors.

Consider comment number eight in the section entitled, ‘Acts that are likely to demonstrate a lack of institutional control’:

“A head coach fails to create and maintain an atmosphere for compliance within
the program the coach supervises or fails to monitor the activities of assistant
coaches regarding compliance.

“A head coach has special obligation to establish a spirit of compliance among the entire team, including assistant coaches, other staff and student-athletes. The head coach must generally observe the activities of assistant coaches and staff to determine if they are acting in compliance with NCAA rules. Too often, when assistant coaches areinvolved in a web of serious violations, head coaches profess ignorance, saying that they were too busy to know what was occurring and that they trusted their assistants. Such a failure by head coaches to control their teams, alone or with the assistance of a staff member with compliance responsibilities, is a lack of institutional control.

“This is not to imply that every violation by an assistant coach involves a lack of institutional control. If the head coach sets a proper tone of compliance and monitors the activities of all assistant coaches in the sport, the head coach cannot be charged with the secretive activities of an assistant bent on violating NCAA rules.”

Several comments spring to mind.

One, Tressel had a ‘special obligation to establish a spirit of compliance’, meaning that he is in a fundamentally different position than other key supervisors. Unlike the university president or the athletic director, he has direct contact with the players that are being monitored.

Two, it is obvious that Tressel did not set a ‘proper tone of compliance’.

Three, this section mostly focuses on the responsibility that the head coach has to properly monitor his assistants—the presumption being that there is no excuse for the head coach failing to comply—but it does state that ‘failure to control their teams, alone or with the assistance of a staff member with compliance responsibilities, is a lack of institutional control.” The phrase ‘is a lack of institutional control’ implies that Tressel’s transgressions, ‘alone’, are sufficient to conclude that Ohio State’s football program lacked institutional control.

It would be very helpful if he NCAA would address a few questions in its final ruling next month.

Does a head coach’s ‘special obligation’ mean that serious failures on his part ipso facto amount to a lack of institutional control? If they don’t, then what does the phrase special obligation entail?

Can an allegation of ‘failure to monitor’ ever be based on the failure of one individual or does it require that multiple parties have failed to carry out their responsibilities?

And three, what is the difference, if any, between a failure to monitor and a lack of institutional control?

In sum, the failure to monitor appears to be entirely Tressel’s fault, but the NCAA's comments about the special obligation he had as head coach suggests that his repeated failures amounted to a lack of institutional control.

Why Hasn't Soccer Arrived?

2011-07-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Soccer has arrived. Soccer is one the verge of arriving. Or soccer will never arrive. That’s the debate that resurfaces every time the sport captures headlines in the US. The subject first surfaced when NBC’s broadcast of the ’66 World Cup final drew high TV ratings. It occurred when Pele joined the Cosmos, when the US hosted the ’94 World Cup, when the women won the World Cup in ’99, when David Beckham joined the Galaxy, and this past week after the US’s stirring comeback against Brazil.

The debate is as silly as it is inevitable. There are no magic bullets. There is never going to be one moment that catapults soccer on to center stage, alongside baseball, basketball, and football.

None of the Big Three (note that hockey is not a major sport here) have ever had a magic bullet either. The NFL loves to tout the impact of the ’58 title game between the Colts and the Giants, the so-called Greatest Game Ever, but pro football had been growing steadily since the end of World War II. College Basketball supposedly came of age in 1979 when Magic Johnson’s Michigan State played Larry Bird’s Indiana State in the NCAA final. The game, which was a bit anticlimactic, did draw the highest ratings in college basketball history, but NBC had been televising the final live in primetime for six years.

There are no magic bullets, just quantum leaps. The NBA grew in fits & starts because of the Celtics dynasty and Wilt Chamberlain, the Knicks’ teams in the early 70s, the arrival of Magic and Bird, and Michael Jordan a short time later. Baseball may have been saved by Babe Ruth after the Black Sox Scandal, but Ruth just had to restore faith in what was already our National Pastime.

By contrast, Pele was asked to do more than a Ruthian job when he signed with the Cosmos in ’75; he was asked to pull soccer up by its own bootstraps. The professional league, the NASL was floundering; kids were just beginning to take up the sport in large numbers; old folks, especially journalists, were taught to despise what they did not understand; and soccer-mad immigrant communities constituted a small minority.

Despite these obstacles, he put soccer on the map. The networks started showing matches, the Cosmos drew more than 47,000 fans a game, the year after he retired, and several other NASL franchises flourished for half a decade. Make no mistake, the credibility he brought made it possible for the US to successfully bid to host the ’94 World Cup.

So where does the sport stand now?

Despite the fact that Major League Soccer has never had a Pele (sorry Becks, I saw Pele and you’re no Pele) or nearly as many stars as the NASL, it is a lot more stable. The kids who played the sport have grown into adults and more kids than ever play. Most of the old, hostile journalists have died. Marketers cater to the large immigrant communities. And, bonus, women seem to like the sport better than any of the Big Three.

Yet soccer is not close to joining the holy sporting trinity. Why? Because the US has not produced a single superstar, or even a star (with the possible exception of a goalkeeper or two). We produce B- players, more than ever, mind you, but not enough to form the backbone of a domestic league, and most of those players move abroad to line their wallets and further their education.

The fact that they have to play elsewhere to acquire soccer nous is a huge problem. The younger journalists may not hate soccer, but they are not exactly well versed either. Generations of kids may have been taught to kick a ball, but they were often coached by know-little-or-nothing adults. Virtually every major match is on TV, at least on niche channels, but the quality of the commentary—note how the announcers’ thoughts wander unless a scoring chance is imminent—is really quite awful. The bottom line is that that the US has a very low soccer IQ.

So when will soccer fully arrive? When we produce enough stars and B- players to man a first-tier league. When we will start producing enough of those players? When the quality of the coaching, commentary, and TV coverage is high enough to morph into a culture, like football, basketball, and baseball already enjoy.

MLS has made great strides in this regard. A thriving fan culture is developing and Beckham’s arrival, despite all the problems that have occurred, still may end up representing a quantum leap in credibility. But the problem, with all due respect to Spice Boy’s underwear billboards, is that there is still not nearly enough beef. 37,000 fans may turn out to watch each Seattle Sounders’ match, but they are not going to tune in to watch Houston play San Jose unless the quality of the soccer improves a hell of a lot. The thrust of the solution does not lie with packaging players like Beckham, it requires transforming our youth system and educating the public to appreciate the subtleties of the game.

The Berra Awards

2011-07-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

So what are the greatest quotes in sports history? Let’s be clear about my criteria: first of all, they have to be funny; bonus points for profundity, but the bottom line is laughter. That’s pretty much it.

Let’s just concede that Yogi Berra deserves a lifetime achievement award for decades of quality tautologies:

• When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.
• It's like deja-vu, all over again.
• It ain't over till it's over.

That’s why I decided to name this award after the Yankee great, who also said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

So here we go . . .

Number five: "The only thing more boring than track is field." I happen to like track (and to some extent field), but I think it is fair to say that the man who uttered this, the late University of Texas sports publicist Ramsey Jones, captured the sentiment that largely explains why Americans ignore the sport during non-Olympic years.

Number four: George Best, almost certainly the most talented soccer player Great Britain has produced since the War, was once asked how he budgeted his earnings: “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds (women) and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.” Best, who was also known as the Fifth Beatle, knew that his bad off the field habits—he once penned a book titled Scoring at Halftime—undermined his career. “If I'd been born ugly, you'd never have heard of Pele.”

Number three: The Dallas Cowboys’ Duane Thomas did his level best to put the Super Bowl in perspective. Having grown weary of a seemingly endless stream on inane questions, he finally posed one of his own: "If it's the ultimate game, how come they're playing it again next year?" I love this quote because of its existential implications but also because it serves as a rebuke to some over the top comments about the importance of sports, for example, Vince Lombardi’s quip that, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and Liverpool manager Bill Shankly’s, “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.”

Number two: In response to a question about his team's execution, former USC and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach John McKay once quipped, "I'm all in favor of it." Leaving aside the points McKay deserves for thinking so quickly on his feet, this is a fantastic example of what logicians call a fallacy of equivocation, that is, deliberately changing the meaning of the word to make or evade a point.

IMO, the best quote ever was uttered by American Basketball Association great Marvin Barnes. OK, he was a great character more than a great basketball player. Barnes, as his nickname Bad News suggests, did not exactly have his act together. In fact, he once robbed a liquor store in broad daylight. If being a 6’9″ male didn’t make Barnes stick out enough – the fact that he was wearing a basketball jersey with his name on the back certainly sealed his fate.

Barnes did not exactly try to play down the his bad rep. Teammates recall trying to wake him to board a team flight, but Barnes snapped, “News will catch a later flight!” And once, five minutes before tip-off the locker room door swung open and there was Marvin in a full length mink coat with just his uniform underneath, Big Mac in hand: “Have no fear… Bad News is here!” He scored 44 that night.

Anyway, he was reluctant to board another team flight, scheduled to leave Louisville at 8 a.m. and land in St. Louis at 7:59 a.m. because, he explained, "I ain't goin' on no time machine."

The Meltdown at the Gold Cup

2011-07-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

This blog should have been about Mexico’s pulsating 4-2 victory over the United States in the finals of the Gold Cup, which is a soccer tournament held to decide who is the best team in the North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. It should have been about how the Mexicans recovered from a 2-0 deficit and clinched the match with a wonder goal by Giovani dos Santos (see below). Finally, it should have been about the peaceful way 93,000 fans from both countries mixed at the Rose Bowl.

Initially, the press did its best to promote the latter story, despite the fact that the overwhelming percentage of fans were rooting for Mexico, and booing the US at every opportunity. Speaking to the LA Times, Mexican supporter Victor Sanchez explained, “’I love this country, it has given me everything that I have, and I'm proud to be part of it’. The 37-year-old Monrovia resident reflected the sentiment of most of the 93,000 strong crowd when he added: 'But yet, I didn't have a choice to come here, I was born in Mexico, and that is where my heart will always be’.”

An article in England’s Daily Mail attempted to strike a similarly positive note by way of explaining the hostility directed towards American players before, during, and even after the match: "Speaking after the game, another fan summed up the mood for many American-Mexican fans. He said: 'We're not booing the country, we're booing the team. There is a big difference'.”

The feel-good storyline began to unravel when US goalkeeper Tim Howard ripped the event organizers for conducting the entire trophy presentation in Spanish: "(The tournament organizers) CONCACAF should be ashamed of themselves. I think it was a (expletive) disgrace that the entire post match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your (expletive) that if we were in Mexico City, it wouldn't be all in English.”

Howard apologized for his choice of words but not for the substance of his comments: “In any important international match with postgame ceremonies, you would hope the tournament organizers would make sure that the primary language of each participating team is used so that the participants can understand what is being said. To fail to do this is, in my opinion, disrespectful to the players.

“When this occurs on your home soil, it is particularly insulting. We, as American players, were asked to participate in a postgame ceremony at a match in Los Angeles and we are standing there trying to show good sportsmanship and yet the ceremony is going on and we are just looking at one another struggling to understand a word.

“It was, to be honest, humiliating, and I firmly believe the tournament organizers should not have put us in that position.”

The controversy might have died with Howard’s more diplomatically phrased criticisms, but disturbing stories about some of the Mexican fans’ treatment of their American counterparts began to surface.

U.S. fans reported being harassed in a variety of ways: major verbal abuse, challenges to fistfight, being spit upon and hit by flying beer and whiskey bottles. Worse, some females were allegedly sexually harassed and groped, with security personnel few and far between, or even hostile to requests for help.

The sheer number of such reports prompted United States Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati to pen an open letter to US fans. He effectively blamed the organizers, pointing out that the USSF ‘did not control the logistics of the match’, but added that, “we have been in contact with the tournament organizers to discuss the necessary steps that should be taken to improve the experience at future events.”

There are some obvious steps that should be taken: segregate the fans inside the stadium, bolster security outside of it, and conduct the awards ceremony in two languages.

But the underlying tension reflects larger divisions in our society. The problem at its core is that the United Sates is far from being a melting pot. There has been a long history of discrimination against people with darker skin and there is a deep distrust of any culture that does not assimilate on Anglo-Saxon terms. We are literally willing to build fences to keep Mexicans out and power still largely resides with people of Northern European ancestry.

American soccer fans tend to be very liberal in their outlooks and I would be willing to bet that the vast majority at the Rose Bowl actually support serious immigration reform. But such goodwill cannot adequately compensate for the larger frustrations that many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans feel about their adopted homeland. They often come here because they need work, usually the kind of hard work that most Americans would not even consider doing, and they have not exactly been welcomed with open arms.

Given the above, should it really come as a surprise that some fans use the occasion of watching their national team play their national pastime against the country they both need and resent as a vehicle for expressing larger frustrations? None of this is meant to excuse thuggish behavior, but I do think we need to ask whether sports, especially soccer, can be expected to do more than mirror society?

I can guarantee that none of these problems would occur if Mexican-Americans were welcomed with open arms, treated with hospitality rather than being, at best, merely tolerated.

Pro Say: Jim Who? From What Sport?

2011-06-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

In ten years, the following conversation will take place between two sports fans:

Fan A: Hey, remember that hockey coach who quit at the beginning of the season because his team wouldn’t give him a contract extension.

Fan B: No… (Ten second pause)…wait…wasn’t it a soccer coach?

Fan A: Pretty sure it was hockey… (Ten second pause)…or baseball.

(Obligatory iPhone Internet checking time)

Fan B: Says here that Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman…

Fan A: Who? Never heard of that guy.

Fan B:…Riggleman resigned half way through the 2011 season because the team wouldn’t negotiate a contract extension until the end of that season.

Fan A: Was the team any good?

Fan B: No. Well…they were doing okay at nine games out of first place in their division.

Fan A: Okay, did he at least have a good record?

Fan B: Nope. Managed four teams in twelve years. Never won a playoff game. Career .445 winning percentage. Nationals finished in last place the previous season, his first full season as team manager.

Fan A: Is he doing anything now?

Fan B: He bounced around Triple-A for a while, but out of work now.

Fan A: Are the Nationals even still a team?

If you’re unfamiliar with the story by now, Jim Riggleman quit as the manager of the Washington Nationals last week. (Here’s the story.) This seems to be one of those instances where neither the person (Riggleman) nor the team (Washington) came out for the better. As explained by our two fans above, Riggleman was never anything but a mediocre manager. The Nationals (formerly the Montreal Expos) are historically bottom feeders, eating up the television revenue generated by the Yankees and Red Sox without contributing anything in return.

Nevertheless, this story of a mediocre manager quitting on a bottom-feeding team got me thinking about team sports and what it means to be an individual on a professional team. I came to the conclusion that profession team sports can be summed up as follows:

A professional team is nothing more than a collection of individuals making independent decisions not about how to help the team, but, rather, whether to help the team, during any particular contest.

I say this because there isn’t a single professional athlete on the planet (except for maybe Steve Blake or Alex Smith) who isn’t talented enough to go out and help his or her team if she or he wanted to. Roles are clearly defined. Everyone fills them and we get the Dallas Mavericks. Some on the team choose not to fill their roles and help the team, and the Miami Heat.

Coaches and managers are not immune from this expectation. They have roles too. Riggleman failed to fill his. Instead, he chose to not help his team.

(A quick side note about baseball as a team game: Sure, I suppose baseball is a team game. But, unlike basketball, football, soccer, and hockey, where every play involves every player in some way, 92 per cent of baseball plays out like this:

Pitch, catch, pitch, catch, pitch, catch, pitch, blooper to first, out. Quick! Someone wake up the right fielder!

Just kind of ironic that Riggleman chose to selfishly resign from a team game that involves only three players nine out of ten times. That doesn’t change my point though.)

Riggleman committed the ultimate no-no. He quit on his team. Not middle of June “take an extended rest so I can get my 3,000th hit at Yankee Stadium” quit. No, plain old-fashioned “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” quit. Riggleman demonstrated that, deep down, he didn’t want to help his team.

But there’s a catch: Nobody will remember Riggleman. Nobody will remember the Nationals 2011 season. The resignation won’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things because of who resigned and because of the team from which he did so. All we’re left with is a quitter, a bad team, and, for a moment, a clearer image of what professional team sports is really all about:

Do you want to help your team today?

The Key to Ethical Reform

2011-06-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Sport has never really recovered from the bad name the Romans gave it.

The Greeks held athletic competition in very high esteem, putting it on the same pedestal as music, theater, and sculpture. The pursuit of excellence was fundamental and the men who attended the Olympics tended to also play themselves. No one banged on about the moral lessons games should impart, winning the wreath was everything, and successful performers expected to be compensated handsomely.

Then came the Romans, bread and circuses or, more to the point, spectacle and barbarism. The decrepit were pitted against imbeciles, women against dwarves, and Christians were fed to lions, whatever it took keep the spectators entertained. The performers were often slaves or the indebted, and the spectators were strictly segregated. Finally, the Romans replaced symbolic death, that is, athletic defeat with gladiatorial, funeral games in which to quote historian Allen Guttmann, ‘the dead were honored by additional deaths’.

Not surprisingly, Christians took a pretty dim view of the way the Romans played. For example, a fifth-century bishop named Salvian, claimed that, “In these games, the greatest pleasure is to have men die, or, what is worse and more cruel than death, to have them torn to pieces, . . . so that the victims seem devoured as much by the eyes of the audience as by the teeth of the beasts.”

Christian reformers, however, went too far, throwing the baby out with the bath water, condemning sports as a species rather than the twisted form it took in Rome. Puritans viewed it as the Devils workshop, outlawing watching and even unnecessary walking on Sabbath; more moderate figures tolerated it as a harmless diversion, so long as it was kept in perspective; and educators have tried to save it from its excesses by turning it into a vehicle for moral reform.

The latter project is misguided, and doomed to come up short. The problem is that no child ever started playing sports because it was going to help build character or teach morality. Kids want to play because playing is fun: kinesthetically, socially, and aesthetically; the ethical life-lessons they may learn are thus extraneous to their reasons for participating.

Given this, we should question the ubiquitous role that coaching has come to occupy. The natural evolution from play to work is stunted as soon as supervision and discipline come into the frame. At that point playing often becomes a chore, in the sense that the intrinsic love of a sport is compromised by extrinsic concerns such as approval and/or securing playing time.

My view is that there should not be any kind of organized athletic competitions until children reach adolescence. In other words, there should only be pick-up games, and supervision, when required, should be passive. This would allow kids to develop passion for the activity naturally—far fewer kids would burn out—and they would also learn more life lessons. I can honestly say I learned more about life playing pick-up games, having to choose sides and settle disputes about rules, than I did from playing on organized teams.

I would also suggest trying to find ways to minimize the roles that coaches play during high-level athletic competitions. Players naturally want to play. They want to defeat their opponents by demonstrating their superiority; they want to play them off the pitch, the rink, the field, or the court—not just win. Coaches are the figures who settle for ties, circle the wagons to protect leads, and generally inhibit self-expression.

Bobby Knight once suggested that coaches should not be allowed on the sidelines during games; the idea being that players would learn a lot more if they had to sort out the difficulties they are facing. I agree. Not only would this be more educational—players would learn a lot more about leadership, teamwork and problem-solving. But, more importantly, the games themselves would be far more unpredictable and adventurous.

I also believe there would be more sportsmanship because players would be more committed to aesthetic excellence. At present, asking players to focus on playing fairly is roughly akin to asking beauty contestants to focus on being Miss Congeniality. That is just not why they entered the pageant. On the other hand, if a players love of a particular sport was allowed to evolve on its own terms, meaning without supervision at a young age, then he or she would be much more likely to prioritize achieving aesthetic excellence. Then cheating would be akin to painting the Mona Lisa with a black eye: it would be more than a blemish; it would undermine the integrity of the entire performance.

In sum, the best way to reinvigorate sports ethically would be to reinvigorate them aesthetically, restoring the Greek ideals excellence and physical perfection.

Why Soccer Seems (And Sometimes Is) Boring

2011-06-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

American soccer has come a long way: millions of kids and adults play regularly; the World Cup draws huge TV ratings; our women kick butt internationally; and Major League Soccer may finally be poised to realize its bright future.

I know, we have been hearing that soccer is America's sport of the future for decades, but it is easier to make that leap of faith after attending last Saturday's Portland Timbers' game. The stadium was packed; section 107 kept singing, even after the Colorado Rapids stole the match in the 90th minute; and the quality of play was tolerable. Most of the passing and movement was competent and both teams carved out several scoring chances.

Yet something was missing, and what that something was became clear to me after reading John Canzano's column, "At Jeld-Wen Field, a 'Stinker' Only the Refs Can Explain", in the Oregonian the next day. Canzano focused on a controversial call in the last minute of the match, which led to Timbers' coach John Spencer's ejection and the Rapids' winning goal.

His emphasis was not misplaced, but two comments caught my attention. One, "I currently find (manager John) Spencer the most consistent and entertaining part of the soccer operation, and if he goes, they might as well hand out pillows at Jeld-Wen." He added that, without the controversy, his column "would have been filled with flavor and descriptions from every corner of the stadium. From the little girl on the concourse who came into the stadium holding her father's fingers in one hand, and a copy of those wonderful Timbers Army chants in her other. From the crowded lines at the merchandise store to the lonely owner's office on the third floor where (owner Merritt) Paulson retreated before the game to solve a stadium audio problem."

Let me translate: the atmosphere is awesome, but soccer still puts him to sleep.

I don't doubt that Canzano was bored, but that is probably because he understands very little about the sport.

In fact, the only comment he made about the match, controversial ending aside, was that the Timbers 'were the better team and blew too many chances'. That's it, the apparent limit of Canzano's soccer nous. Imagine if the only observation he made about a Ducks' football game was that superficial. If the Ducks lost because they blew several scoring chances, he would almost certainly go into detail about the breakdowns. Why? Because he would have some inkling why they occurred and he would rightly assume that his readers would not be satisfied with just a surface gloss.

The problem does not lie solely with Canzano, it lies with the functional literacy that characterizes the vast majority of soccer writing in American newspapers.

A soccer match normally has somewhere between 10 and 15 scoring chances, which means the average interval between threatening attacks ranges from six to nine minutes. This is very different from basketball, where someone usually hoists a shot within 24 seconds. What's more, there is no quantitative way of measuring whether a team is on the verge of launching a promising attack. There will never be an MLS Red Zone channel; there is no such thing as being on the 20-yard-line and attacks spring to life suddenly. Baseball is sometimes as low scoring as soccer, but fans know how many outs there are and whether a runner is in scoring position.

Soccer is a lot more subtle. Football, basketball, and hockey also involve proper positioning, winning possession, movement off the ball (or puck), defenders maintaining proper spacing, etc. But the relative frequency of scoring and the incremental way of measuring the likelihood of doing so makes them easier to understand.

Soccer, for better or for worse, is like boxing. Every time a side takes a risk to score they leave themselves vulnerable to a counter-attack, just like a boxer risks being counter-punched every time he takes the fight to his opponent. The best matches occur when both teams throw caution to the wind and the worst occur when neither side is prepared to take any risks.

Thus, appreciating a soccer match largely hinges on one's ability to perceive what types of risks a team is willing to take while attacking, the vulnerability that is engendered, and the willingness and ability of the other team to take advantage of what has been exposed. Some soccer matches cry out for pillows because neither team is willing to open up, but that was not the case last Saturday. Portland took the fight to Colorado and the Rapids were more than willing to aggressively counter-punch.

Mr. Canzano, you don't need to fill your columns with flavor and descriptions from every corner of the Jeld-Wen; you need to take the time to understand the sport well enough to appreciate the subtleties that determine the outcome.

Among the Stars: Lebron Feeling the Heat

2011-06-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

It has been amazing how much the media has been talking about Lebron James since the Dallas Mavericks were crowned NBA champions. All the focus has been on Lebron James and the Miami Heat, with a lot of people discussing James' press conference after the Heat were eliminated.

James was asked if it bothered him that so many people were happy to see him fail, and he took the forum to display his immaturity once again, "Absolutely not, because at the end of the day, all the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today," James said. "They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that.

"They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they have to get back to the real world at some point."

A lot of people took offense to his statements because they interpreted James' quote to mean that his life is so much better than everyone else's and that no matter what, those fans that like to see him fail, are bums.

I have to imagine that there were a lot of rich and succesful people that were happy to see James and the Heat lose too, but that is not really the point. James has proven once again, that he may have some of the worst media skills in the NBA. I think he must have some psychological issues if he is so sensitive to what people think. He has to understand that the decision to leave Cleveland didn't put off most people, it was the "Decision", the nationally television one hour special devoted to him. That was probably the biggest "Look at me" moment in sports.

I understand that other people advised him to do that and ESPN was on board, but it still amazes me that Lebron seems to have no serious remorse for doing that, and no realizations of how that made him look.

Personally, I love watching Lebron James play (how could you not). He is a rare talent and his all around game is incredible. You can't ignore, however, the lack of confidence he has in clutch situations, and how sensitive he is to criticism when he mostly brings it on himself. When you say we're not gonna win just one, not two, not three, not four, not five, etc. championships, that is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way. The immaturity he and Dwayne Wade exhibited when they mocked Dirk Nowitzski by pretending to be sick, didn't help.

If Lebron James wants to improve his life on and off the court, I would suggest he hire a sports psychologist to study and work on his emotional and in-game confidence issues. He also needs a better PR/ Media trainer to help him with his press conferences.

Follow me on Twitter: @stevenczyrny

The Sanity Code

2011-06-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

It is easy to understand why NCAA president Mark Emmert has steadfastly maintained that student-athletes are not employees. After all, the ideal of amateurism is built on the principle that athletes should play for the love of sport rather than pay.

The problem, of course, is that athletes--just like coaches, trainers, athletic directors, and NCAA presidents--feel entitled to compensation. When was the last time you heard an athlete defend the amateur ideal? They generally observe NCAA rules because it is prudent, not because they buy into all the play-for-love-of-school-and-sports rhetoric.

It more or less follows that many players will break the rules if they don't think they will get caught. This is the problem that college football has faced since the 1870s.

Take Yale, the team that dominated play during its formative years. They were guided by Walter Camp, who more than anyone else shaped the sport's evolution. Camp sincerely believed that the purpose of football was moral training and advocated amateur ideals, for example, he served as a volunteer head coach for decades while running a clock factory. Nonetheless, he had to come to terms with the fact that some of his best players required additional motivation. In fact, his 27-year-old captain James Hogan (pictured above) enjoyed free tuition and a swanky suite, a handsome stipend, a ten-day paid vacation in Cuba, and, best of all, a monopoly on the sale of American Tobacco Company products on campus (referred to affectionately as Hogan's Cigarettes by fellow students).

I suspect that Ohio State's quarterback Terrelle Pryor would not have been trading equipment for tattoos if he could have secured market exclusivity for beer sales on the Columbus campus (Pryor's Pilsners?)

During Hogan's time, the fact that he received what was in effect an athletic scholarship was every bit as problematic as having a right to profit from tobacco sales. Coaches were supposed to recruit the players who happened to be on campus. not recruit them to come to campus. Thus, Harvard's coach Bill Reid, who unlike Camp did accept a professional salary, kept card files on all 4,000 students.

The NCAA did not formally address the issue until after World War II. In 1948, they passed the Sanity Code, permitting the awarding of scholarships and jobs, but with the important caveat that the recipients had to demonstrate financial neediness. Finally, in 1956, they sanctioned the awarding of scholarships without regard to an athlete's academic promise or economic hardships.

This was probably the sane thing to do given the rife corruption, but, make no mistake, this policy amounts to paying athletes. President Emmert can claim athletes are students not employees, but the fact of the matter is that a scholarship is a form of compensation for services rendered--which is fundamentally at odds with the ideal of amateurism. The International Olympic Committee was forced to address this problem by the early 90s, and sooner or later the NCAA will be forced to do the same.

In my view, the NCAA should allow athletes to be compensated by agents rather than by the schools.

The problem with the latter is that athletic departments, which are already usually operating in the red, would likely reallocate funds that support non-revenue generating sports. This would be a shame since the students who play these sports come closest to embodying the scholar-athlete ideal.

Allowing agents to represent athletes would have several benefits.

Agents could be regulated and monitored far more effectively. The NCAA and players' unions in the major professional leagues could collaborate and establish standards of conduct. This would all but eliminate illegal payments and actually help players receive quality representation.

Coaches could consult with agents about their athlete's best professional interests rather than worrying about them signing their stars. As it stands, agents have a huge incentive to encourage players to turn pro early because they are worried that players will choose to be represented to someone else a year or two later. Coaches may loathe the prospect of working with agents, but it would probably be easier than working with relatives or other hangers-on, and struggling to get a message to an agent lurking in the background.

Allowing agents a seat at the table would go a long way towards minimizing the sway of boosters, which would make coaches, athletic directors, and university presidents' jobs a lot easier

Finally, some might fear that a university's athletic community would be divided between the haves and have-nots, but this already occurs now because of illegal payments and the fact that some athletes are paid professionally to play one sport while maintaining college eligibility in another. Furthermore, the NCAA could also stipulate that any funds received that exceed a certain stipend would be put into a trust for the athlete. This might provide some of them a nest-egg in case their professional careers are derailed.

We can quibble over the details, but let's be clear about the big picture. The present system is not working. There is too much money on the table and athletes are going to try to get their fair share. The NCAA can try to prevent them from taking funds under the table or it can compel everyone to put their cards on it.

The latter would be the right thing to do and in everyone's best interest. However sad, the fact of the matter is that the spirit of amateurism is fundamentally at odds with an industry that generates oodles of money. That was true in 1905, and in 1956; it is true today; and it will remain a problem so long as the NCAA does not allow market forces to take their natural course.

Small Talk: 'Round and 'Round We Go

2011-06-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

On June 5, 12,188 people packed into a stadium in Eugene, Oregon. It wasn't for a soccer game, or a baseball game, or even a football game. The 12,188 people I am talking about were packed into Hayward Field. And they were there to watch a track meet.

What a novel thought given the circumstances of the past week's events. Top sports news for the past week included Tiger Woods pulling out of the U.S. Open, Terrelle Pryor foregoing his final year at THE Ohio State University, Gene Chizik getting a $1.3 million raise, and the Dallas Mavericks and Vancouver Canucks closing in on Championships and Stanley Cups, respectively. All of these, obviously, major sports enterprises that collectively draw in billions of dollars in revenue every year. But no where on the front page of espn.com or The New York Times sports page during this past week did you find any reference to the record-setting performances that happened at Hayward Field at the 2011 Prefontaine Classic held last weekend. That is, unless you were here in Tracktown USA where results in the men's AND women's 100m consistently appear above the fold in the newspaper.

What a curious place to be! Track athletes on billboards. Members of the cross-country team of similar status (in ways) as the quarterback of the #2 football team in the country. People coming out in droves from near and far to watch athletes pour into this tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, just to watch people run around a circle. And in some races, run around that circle many times.

Now don't get me wrong, this community goes nuts for the football team too. But it's really refreshing to see people get so excited about a sport that is a true gut test. For once, athletes are paid (or not!) for being the fastest person in the world instead of standing out in left field and swinging a bat 3 or 4 times a game. Prior to living in Eugene, I had no idea about the opportunity that abounds as a professional runner. (Yes, people run for a living!) But these opportunities hinge entirely on your performance. You win, you get paid. Then when you get good enough, you just show up and get paid. And some people are getting paid six-figure salaries.

But back to the Prefontaine Classic for a second…and more specifically to the men's two-mile race. Bernard Lagat, a 36 year-old professional runner became a five-time "Pre" champion in the race when he crossed the finish line first with a time of 8 minutes, 13.62 seconds. (I'm quite content when I run ONE mile in that time, but I digress) After he crossed the finish line, he didn't immediately take off on a victory lap or launch into an array of cartwheels. He waited until the last runner crossed the finish line, who was 18 year-old Lukas Verzbicas, a recently-graduated high school senior set to become an Oregon Duck next year. Lagat wanted to do one thing; congratulate the youngster.

It's impressive for an 18 year-old to be entered in a race with Olympic medalists (which Lagat is), it's even more impressive for an 18 year-old runner to run a solid race despite the nerves that must ensue when running in front of more than 12,000 people. Verzbicas did all of that, and he set a new prep record in the race.

After hearing that story, how can you not be a fan of track and field? People pushing themselves to the outer limits their bodies will allow, both physically and mentally, and still having the wherewithal to end the race and give your competitors a hug.

And that's exactly what Lagat did. He hugged Verzbicas after he crossed the finish line.

Maybe ESPN and Sports Illustrated should take note of these kinds of sporting events. No one questioned Lagat's intent or hurled homophobic slurs his way. The crowd cheered louder for the guy in last place than the guy in first place. And not a single person booed.

America: it seems to me we need more track meets. We need more places where being last is just as good as being first. After all, in Verzbicas' case, he ended up being first. Track meets are moving works of art; it's graceful and beautiful to watch these people soar over hurdles, flexing every single muscle in their bodies. In short, we need to see more silver lining. And I'm not talking about in dollars, I'm talking about in meters.

Pro Say: Monday Night Idols

2011-06-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Author’s note: Pro Say is back after a month-long hiatus caused by law finals, then a week of traveling, then the beginning of summer term. Thank you for being patient with me as I indulge myself with a rather serious column about “old” news. I would also like to congratulate the editor of this blog, Scott, for getting married. Congrats buddy!

Professional wresting has a bad reputation and deservedly so. Too many greats of “sports entertainment” have died well before their time, largely due to the strain on one’s body caused by drugs, alcohol, PEDs, and, in most cases, the lethal mixture of all of those substances.

The drug use in professional wrestling during the 1980s and 1990s would make the NFL and baseball look like the Brigham Young University locker room during that stretch. It was bad folks. Bad enough to where I, as a lifelong wrestling fan, am now surprised when I see a former great make it into his 60s.

I wonder if it's changed at all.

Nevertheless, none of this rather “adult” information mattered when I was nine. All I cared about was tuning in on Monday nights to see my favorite superstars in action. This was 1997, so on one channel, we had the Hart Foundation, DX, and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. On the other, the NWO, Sting, and the cruiserweights. This was bliss for a young fan. I had all the posters, all the action figures, and watched nearly every minute of each show each week.

I wanted to be one of these television superheroes. I would script tournaments with my action figures. My buddies and I created our own league, our own belts, and would have “matches” on the weekends. My aunt Jill’s living room was our Madison Square Garden. We even used the WWF soundtrack – yes, this really existed – for our characters’ entrances. I wanted to be the WWF Champion like some kids wanted to be astronauts, veterinarians, and NBA players.

But, as I grew up, they started dying off. Some by accident – Owen Hart was the worst – and some by their own hands. The first I remember, but certainly not the first, was Brian Pillman in October, 1997. It was a Sunday Pay Per View and the first segment was Vince McMahon coming on the air and announcing that Pillman had died. Again, nine years old, and this TV character I watched every week had died.

For real.

Cause of death: an undiagnosed heart condition, the effects of which were sped up by the use of drugs and alcohol.

And then the announcements just kept coming. Seemingly every week. For the past fourteen years. Lucky if they made it to 50. Unsurprising if they were in their 30s. Huge names, former champions, Monday night idols. Owen Hart, Yokozuna, Eddie Guerrero, Davey Boy Smith, Chris Benoit, Big Boss Man, Mr. Perfect, Bam Bam Bigelow.

“Macho Man” Randy Savage.

That one hurt. Even at 23, even with my interest in sports entertainment at an all-time low. Cause of death: automobile accident likely caused when Savage had a heart attack at the wheel. I’m not naïve. Savage embodied the culture of 1980s and 1990s wrestling as much as any other.

Tack him up. It was only a matter of time.

It is very hard for me to enjoy wrestling these days. While I won’t comment on the quality of the entertainment, that has little to do with it. Much of my childhood was wrapped up in these television superheroes who are now gone.

Why should I care as an adult, when the odds are I will be able to write the same column fifteen years from now, with the old names crossed off and a whole new list in their place?

I wonder if it's changed at all.

The Scarlet Coach

2011-06-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

Ohio State's former football coach Jim Tressel appears to have heeded Machiavelli's advice that, “It's good to appear to be pious, faithful, humane, honest, and religious, and it's good to be all those things; but as long as one keeps in mind that when the need arises you can and will change into the opposite.”

The Italian political theorist might have added that great risk comes with touting one’s own virtues. Better to be as brazen as Donald Trump than as sanctimonious as John Edwards. Better to admit that you are flawed, like former coach’s Barry Switzer and Jerry Tarkanian did, than fall from grace like Tressel has.

The devoutly Christian Tressel, in case you did not know, resigned as Ohio State’s football coach earlier this week. He violated the NCAA’s Unethical Conduct statute on three occasions by concealing information about six players receiving illegal compensation. Believe it or not, he might have survived that scandal, but a cover story in this week’s Sports Illustrated alleges that during his tenure at least 28 players ‘are known or alleged to have traded or sold memorabilia in violate of NCAA rules’.

Ohio State may argue that the man who founded a chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes was actually a rogue coach and that there is no longer a lack of institutional control. But the NCAA will probably slap the program with severe sanctions. The Buckeyes figure to forfeit several scholarships and be declared ineligible for bowls as well as the Big Ten and national championships.

The implications of such sanctions would go far beyond Ohio State. Fox network, which recently acquired the rights to the Big 10 and Pac 12’s inaugural title games, cannot be thrilled about the absence of USC, which is currently on probation, and Ohio State. And ABC/ESPN, which recently reacquired rights to the BCS games, would also not be happy with the absence of two of the traditional powers (not to mention all the negative publicity that the Fiesta Bowl has generated).

The importance of the BCS and the networks was highlighted by the fact that the six Ohio State players, including star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, were allowed to take the field in this year’s Sugar Bowl. They were suspended for the first five games of the coming season, but it is hard to fathom why their suspensions did not commence immediately.

Could it be that all the money the BCS generates might have factored into the NCAA’s decision to delay the suspensions?

Maybe there is a credible explanation, but the NCAA seems increasingly scandal-ridden and compromised. The larger problem is simple: College football and men’s college basketball are awash with money, but the players—the one’s who ultimately generate all the bank—see very little of it.

The NCAA can claim that players are students not employees, that scholarships have life-long value, or that any additional money paid to them would come out of the pockets of the non-revenue generating sports. Some of these arguments are silly and some deserve to be taken seriously, but that’s beside the point. The fact of the matter is that most players in big-time programs think the NCAA restrictions are bogus. They may be worried about getting caught, but they don’t feel guilty about taking the money; they feel entitled.

As one Ohio State player explained, “I knew how much money the school was making. I always heard about how Ohio State had the biggest Nike budget. I was struggling, and my mom was struggling . . . It was just something I had to do . . . (Other) guys were doing it for the same reason.”

USC and Ohio State got taught, but do you really believe they are the exceptions, the few bad apples tainting the whole barrel? Do you really believe that Josh Luchs, the former agent who admits he paid more than 30 college players from 1990 to '96, including many who didn't sign with him, is the exception?

It’s Earth to NCAA time.

The problem is only going to get worse, no matter how many programs, players, boosters, and agents are punished. You need to allow players to be lawfully compensated.

To quote the ultimate realist, Machiavelli: “The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.”

Next week I will discuss the NCAA’s policy options.

Small Talk: Shaq vs. Retirement

2011-06-03T21:23:00.000-07:00

High profile athletes in the U.S. have a pretty poor record at retiring. Michael Jordan "retired" from professional basketball in October of 1993. Citing a loss of desire for the game of basketball and later the stress and devastation of his father's murder, Jordan did something that few could predict: he signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox. As if that wasn't surprising enough, on March 18, 1995, Jordan issued a statement saying two words: "I'm back."

Brett Favre is another famously guilty fake-retiree. He retired in March of 2008, came back in July of that year (in a different uniform) and just retired again. We think.

The MLS (Major League Soccer) seems to be a graveyard for international soccer stars. When international superstars are no longer able to contribute in the capacity they once enjoyed at the club or national team level, they sign contracts with teams in the MLS as designated players (so their salaries only partially count towards the salary cap). They figure that the caliber of soccer is lower (though Americans will proudly proclaim that the talent level is going up!) and their bodies can handle the reduced stress of playing at this level. Why not sign a multi-million dollar contract when you're 30+ years old, which is way past the age of success at the international level?

Just this week, Shaquille O'Neal has announced that he's retiring. The Diesel, the Big Shaqtus, Wilt Chamberneezy, Shaq Fu, the Big Leprechaun or just plain Shaq is bowing out after 19 years of service in the NBA. Shaq, though larger than life due to his physical stature, has certainly maintained a larger than life personality throughout his career. Shaq is everywhere- in the music waves, on TV, on the silver screen. It is a gross understatement to say that it's impossible to miss his imposing personality. I for one had my own (somewhat indirect) Shaq interaction as I lay poolside at the Planet Hollywood hotel in Las Vegas in August of 2009. Here I was, attempting to soak up some sun rays and the already raucous scene was being interrupted by the construction of a boxing ring. "What's going on here?" I asked one of the workers. "Shaq is fighting Oscar De La Hoya tonight here" was the response I received. I was not surprised.

Do I think Shaq has really retired? Well, no. Not really. He's already known as a prankster and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if next week he makes his comeback saying he's trying out for the U.S. Synchronized Swimming team. Whether or not Shaq's career ends now or even five years from now really doesn't affect my point: there is something excruciatingly difficult about saying "no more" when it comes to playing sports.

For professional athletes, it could be a money thing. Many professional athletes mismanage their money (Scottie Pippen and Mike Tyson to name a few big name examples) and are forced to declare bankruptcy within five years of retirement. Within 5 years of retirement, a whopping 60% of NBA players are broke.

More probable than not it's a psychological thing. Athletes are trained to believe that their bodies are temples incapable of destruction. Even when injuries do occur, the best doctors using the most cutting edge technology are called in to fix the problem. And then you have athletes like Lance Armstrong who (perhaps with illegal assistance or not) seem to transcend the limits of the human body. We are indestructible and always want to play forever- to see that our records stand and to continue setting new ones.

Whichever way it shakes out, retirement is necessary for the evolution of the game. A football team is only as good as its quarterback, a soccer team only as fast as its center midfielder, and a basketball team only as dynamic its center. While I am sad to see Shaq leaving the floor (at least for a time), I look forward to the next person to fill his shoes. Which, mind you, is no small feat considering he wears a size 23.

Being a Sports Fan B.C.--Before Cable

2011-05-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

The operation of my ‘51 inch plasma TV requires the use of six remote controls. They operate two DVD players (one for recording and one that plays discs from any region in the world), a Blu-ray disc player, the stereo, the digital cable box, and the TV itself. Cable and the internet have become indispensable. Without them, I would not have access to ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN3, ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic, the 20-plus stations that comprise the Fox Sports Network, the East and West Coast feeds of the major networks, the various Superstations, and oodles of channels dedicated, believe it or not, to soccer. My childhood dream has come good: I have access to virtually every game I want to see.

Such choices simply didn’t exist before cable came along in the late seventies. I had access to the following while growing up in South Florida: every Miami Dolphin’s road game (the home games were always blacked out until 1973), a few Miami Hurricanes road games, whatever the three major networks offered on weekends, and the occasional Atlanta Braves’ game broadcast on UHF. That’s it. Aside from Monday Night Football and special events like the Olympics, sports was not a viewing option at night or during the week.

Obviously cable TV has had a metamorphic effect on what it means to be a fan. I wonder what it would be like to grow up now, free to select from among all these alternatives. An hour of SportsCenter instead of four minutes of sports on the local affiliate; Major League Baseball's Extra Innings package instead of Curt Gowdy doing the Game of the Week; the availability of 50 college football games on Saturday instead of one or two; and ESPN3, which gives us access to even the most obscure sports and leagues.

This is not meant to suggest that I didn’t pay attention to sports at night or during the week. I did, but my outlets were a lot more limited. I listened to Baltimore Orioles (who held spring training in South Florida) and Miami Floridians’ broadcasts, coveted the brief highlights on the local news, and tried to learn more about sports from radio call-in shows. The majority of time on these shows was spent conjecturing about the Dolphins, the other local teams, and the NFL. The latter was a fit subject for discussion because there were four games on TV every weekend. You were lucky to see more than one game a week in the other major sports. My point is this: we didn’t talk about anything besides our hometown teams and pro football, because we were not well-informed enough to carry on a decent discussion. Our interest in sports had no choice but to revolve around the fates of our local teams.

I rooted for the Dolphins, the Hurricanes, the Floridians, and the Orioles, period. If I had grown up with cable, I may not have fallen in love with these teams.

I listened to almost every one of the Floridians games despite the fact that they were one of the worst teams in the American Basketball Association. They were so bad that they once got away with claiming that thousands of fans had attended a game because there were only a few dozen people (and no members of the press) who could have disputed the figure. If I could have watched, say, the Knicks regularly, with Walt Frazier, Earl Monroe, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, and Willis Reed, I would have dumped thr Floridians in a heartbeat. Luckily, I had no such choice. They did not have to compete for my loyalty with any other teams. It was either them or no basketball at all.

That would not be the case if I grew up today. The local team would have to be really good every year to keep me from watching Kevin Durant. I grew up with a lot of kids who rooted for Notre Dame even though they were not Irish or Catholic. Why? Because Channel Seven showed an hour-long replay of every game on Sunday morning. Notre Dame was on TV far more often than the Hurricanes, or the Pope. Familiarity did breed a lot of contempt for them, but it also bred a lot of loyalty. Nowadays such sentiments are much harder to cultivate and tend to be far more fickle.

This is a sad, unintended side-effect of having access to everything all the time.

The Results of Bad Math

2011-05-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

I once saw a philosopher give a paper on how a couple could use a mathematical formula to figure out what to do with their Friday nights. Once they plugged in the variables—what options would maximize both their interests, who hasn’t got their way in the longest time, how rare are the possibilities on offer, etc—they could achieve, and I quote, “metamental assent for vector activation.”

According to the formula used by FIFA, France is only the19th best team in the world, which ranks them behind Slovenia, Japan, and Norway, who has not qualified for the final stages of a major tournament since 2000. Similarly, the Actim Index, which the English Premiership uses to collect and evaluate stats, claims that “Individual player/team performances can be scientifically analyzed over a season or period of time” and that this “provides fans with the knowledge of who is the best.”

The best thing about these kinds of formulas, however inaccurate and silly they may be, is that they are never going to cause any real harm. No couple is going to use a differential equation to decide whether they should attend a concert or go bowling and France and Norway will both have the chance to prove their worth on the field.

What worries me, however, is the possibility that statistics and formulas might be used to shape tactics and form strategies in soccer. The former head of the English FA Charles Hughes claimed in 1989 that it had been scientifically proven that “either you opt to form a game based on possession of the ball, or based on direct play. It can’t be both, and direct play wins hands down all the time.” Thus, of the top six countries, “Brazil has the least likely chance of winning the World Cup in the future “ and they “have to eradicate and change their views.”

Brazil, by the way, have won two more World Cups since Hughes wrote off their future.

Leaving aside the aesthetics of the sport—why would anyone want to see balls lumped from one end of the field to other all afternoon?—the larger problem is that statistics do not tell us much meaningful about soccer. You can trot out all the numbers you like, but these stats, despite what Actim maintains, do not actually tell us which teams and players are best and any manager who makes more than cursory use of them is wasting valuable time.

Numbers are great for lots of things. Without them, we would not be able to build structurally sound bridges, bake lasagna (at least I wouldn’t be able to) or make forecasts about the second coming

What’s more, numbers can tell us lots of meaningful stuff about sports like football and especially baseball. As Bill James demonstrated year after year in his groundbreaking Baseball Abstract, the reason is that some sports have more or less defined roles that allow us to isolate the variables when we start crunching the numbers. This allows analysts to conduct a wide range of probability studies.

What the hell does this mean? Not only do we know that Alex Rodriguez is at bat and Derek Jeter is on second with two outs, we know what the count is and how well the pitcher fares against right handed batters, whether Rodriguez is more likely to pull the ball or go with the pitch, whether Jeter is an aggressive or conservative baserunner and what kind of arm each outfielder has, and we know who is on deck, which might mean that the “percentage play” is for the pitcher to walk A-Rod and takes his presumably improved chances with the next batter.

In soccer, the kind of decision, say, Xavi has to make when he is in possession of the ball is a good deal more complicated. First of all, unlike a batter, he doesn’t always start out in the same spot, the opponents don’t play static defensive positions, and his teammates don’t fill bases. It means something to say that a batter hits .300 against left handed pitchers when the bases are full and there are less than two outs, but would telling us that Xavi completes 53% of his passes when he is joined by four or more teammates in the attacking third indicate anything meaningful about the quality of his play. We can quantitatively measure the value of a single, a walk, or a sacrifice fly but not a simple square pass, a through ball, taking on a fullback, or having a bang at goal

With all due respect to the math wonks, this is all for the best. Thank God there will never be any point in soccer players memorizing 300-page playbooks like National Football League players must. NFL coaches can justify drawing up such elaborate plans because defense is completely separated from offense and the game is divided into a series of separate plays. Tony Romo can change the call if he recognizes that the cornerback is blitzing and be reasonably certain that his teammates are on the same completely choreographed page. In soccer, by contrast, since the number of players who attack and defend constantly varies and the game is more or less continuous, players are given instructions with the full understanding that circumstances might dictate that one’s role could change radically. A running back might be asked to carry the ball, catch the ball, or block, but he will never be asked to do anything like switch from holding mid, to attacker, to de facto right back like Liverpool’s Stevey Gerrard was during the 2005 Champions League final.

In the end, being a soccer player is somewhat similar to choosing what to do on a Friday night. You generally have a good idea about what plans will work for the two of you, you need to be open to last second changes, and it is the attention to details—which, if memory serves, has nothing to do with mathematics—that determines whether you get a result come the end of the evening.

Among the Stars: Shane Mosley's PR Disaster

2011-05-11T11:37:00.001-07:00

This past Saturday one of the most anticipated fights in recent memory occurred. When Shane Mosley went up against pound for pound number one in the world Manny Pacquiao, most boxing fans expected Pacquiao to win. What they didn't expect was someone as tough and decorated as Shane Mosley to not win a single round, and to not even try. Mosley said moments after the fight was over, "I wasn't going to take risks." Any boxing fan who paid the $60 to watch it on television, or worse, if you paid the hundreds of dollars to see it in person, had to have been infuriated.

So in the end it appears Mosley just wanted to take the guaranteed $5 million pay day, and he did not want to get knocked out in what could very well have been his last fight. Shane Mosley clearly wasn't thinking when he made that comment and didn't care who he upset. For someone who may make it in the Boxing hall of fame, fans expected more effort and toughness against the world's number one fighter.

I think this fight proved a couple things:

- Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather need to fight. In a sport that is dying, this is the one fight that would shatter Pay per view records, earnings, and media coverage and satisfy all the boxing enthusiaists.

- Boxing needs to seriously consider eliminating pay-per-view. I never understood why boxing and MMA make fans pay to watch their events live. It would serve the sport of boxing in particular if they eliminated the pay-per-view, and allowed fans to see the fights for free. While this will probably never happen, it would certainly broaden the fan base and leave less upset people when the fighters don't show up and they wasted $60.

I think Sugar Shane Mosley's career is done. He had a couple great moments and had some horrible experiences. I feel sorry that this may be his lasting legacy because he seems like a great guy. Athletes should never say remarks like that because it goes against the main reason athletes do what they do, compete. It forms a disconnect amongst the fan base and scars your image amongst your peers.

What do you think about Shane Mosley and the future of boxing? Feel free to comment.

Follow me on Twitter: @stevenczyrny

18 Days to Ponder

2011-05-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

The greatest rivalry in sports right now is Real Madrid versus Barcelona, and, as fate would have it, these sides came together four times in a recent 18-day span. The matches were explosive, but most of the soccer was disappointing.

Controversy was inevitable. Real Madrid are the richest club in the world, with a galaxy of stars, including Christiano Ronaldo and Kaka, two of the game's five best attacking players. But they were still smarting from a humiliating 5-0 loss to Barcelona in November. And their manager, Jose Mourinho, was bound to do all in his power to undermine a Barcelona team that is drawing comparisons to the greatest sides in the history of the sport.

Mourinho, who once described himself as the Special One, has been a hugely successful gun for hire, employing a pragmatic, hardworking (read, aesthetically impoverished) style of play that wins trophies and burns bridges. To be fair, he has never made any bones about his approach. In fact, he once asked his players whether they wanted to enjoy themselves during the match or after. Even the current general manager of Real, Jorge Valdano, once described his team’s approach as ‘s##t on a stick’. Mourinho’s pragmatism also entails more than a small dose of gamesmanship. He questions the integrity refs and opponents—this time going so far as to imply that Barca gets special treatment because they are sponsored by UNICEF—and neglects to maintain his team’s field if it serves some wily purpose.

His opposite number, Josep Gardiola, is Morinho’s antithesis. He grew in Barcelona’s youth system, played with the distinction for the senior club, and started his coaching career by managing its most advanced youth team, before taking the manager’s job in 2008. Not only has he been hugely successful, guiding Barca to the greatest period in its history, he has done so by employing a breathtaking style of play. The dance-like rhythm, the patient but unpredictable movement, and the always-assured touches makes one feel sad for the rest.

The series more or less unfolded like the above would suggest. Although Real were at home for the first match, they were lucky to secure a one-all draw. As the greatest star in the club’s history, Alfredo di Stefano, put it, they played like a mouse against a lion. Barcelona ‘treat the ball with adoration and respect’, while Madrid ‘just run back and forth constantly, tiring themselves out’.

Mourinho had his moment of glory in the second match, the Spanish Cup final. Barcelona could and should have won the match in the second half, but Real’s keeper Iker Casillas pulled off a series of astonishing saves and Ronaldo decided the match with a header of the highest quality in extra time. The trophy shattered when it was dropped in front a bus during the celebration, but Mourinho proved that his side’s best hope lied with circling the wagons. Apparently, if I may mix metaphors, the mouse could roar if it could hide from the lion until he wearied of the chase.

Next came the third match, the first leg of the Champions League semifinal, back in Madrid. The game assumed the usual pattern, with Barca attacking and Real using more or less every fair or foul means at their disposal to defend, until one of their defenders received a red card midway through the second half. Barcelona ran out 2-0 winners—the second by Lionel Messi (see below) was extraordinary—but Mourinho rightly complained that the expulsion was a product of a Barcelona player’s acting and proceeded to outline the aforementioned UNICEF-inspired conspiracy theory, earning himself a five-game suspension.

The Special One also claimed that even he could not find a way to salvage the second leg in Catalonia. And so it proved. The game ended up 1-1. Once again Barca played much better and Real resorted to constant fouling and bitter complaining, this time about a disallowed goal that would have given them a fighting chance.

So what did we learn from these tumultuous 18 days?

Barcelona still represents the best hopes for the sport—there can be no question of that—but the play-acting is unsavory, and unnecessary. Retroactive rules that severely punish divers and meal-makers should be enacted. Simulation is very hard to detect live, but players would refrain if they could be suspended without pay if a video review proved conclusive.

The second lesson is that Real’s approach under Mourinho represents a sad commentary about the state of soccer. Defending, as a Russian expression has it, is the right of the poor, but watching the richest club in the world play like a frightened mouse for the better part of 390 minutes is pathetic. The red card that marred game three was unjust, but it was virtually inevitable given the physical, defensive approach Mourinho employed.

I don’t actually blame Mourinho—most coaches are incapable of conceiving of glory beyond getting a result—but the rules against physical play and deliberate fouling should be tightened significantly so that being so consumed with defending becomes imprudent.

Then we might see a spectacular sporting event rather watch someone make a spectacle of himself.

Small Talk: Grantland

2011-05-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

As my colleague Steven Czerny alluded to in his most recent article, the formerly divorced worlds of politics and sports seem to increasingly collide with the advent of social media. Another instance of constantly colliding worlds is between the worlds of pop culture and sports. Of course, one could argue that sports in America have grown to be a part of pop culture. But for the sake of this update, let's pretend that they're not.

We've seen these two worlds collide, it seems, since the beginning of time (American pop culture time, that is). Perhaps marriages are the best way to illustrate this continuing collision. Beginning of the failed marriage of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe continuing through to the most recent failed marriage between Tony Parker and Eva Longoria, athletes and pop icons have always seemed to drift towards one another. On a physical level, very frequently male athletes have the picture-perfect male body and models and actresses have the picture-perfect female body. Maybe it's not physical at all…maybe it's because of their "personalities." Any way you split it, there is some unbreakable connection between the two worlds and that connection is about to grow stronger.

Just recently, ESPN announced that it would be adding to its already monstrous catalog of websites with Grantland. Grantland is a highly anticipated sports and pop culture website to be launched in June. Named for Grantland Rice, a sportswriter of the early 20th century who helped elevate sports into the pop culture status here in America, the site is purported to detail how both of these worlds continue to interact.

The format for this website will be different from the bombardment one gets upon bringing up ESPN's website. Not slated to be a news site, the webpage will be designed to highlight its features and columns rather than providing the most up to date scores or gossip. And the stories and features should definitely be worth reading. ESPN has announced that Bill Simmons, ESPN.com's most popular writer and award-winning author, will serve as the editor-in-chief. In addition, other consulting editors include Malcolm Gladwell, Dave Eggers and Chuck Klosterman. With such a prolific team assembled already, I am eager to see the content that will pop up beginning shortly.

Some, however, have expressed doubt about the website's success. Is ESPN really starting another website? The joke from the movie "Dodgeball" about ESPN: The Ocho isn't too far off at this point...

In short, I don't think so. Whether we like it or not, sports and pop culture define America. The Super Bowl is the most watched television program in the nation (depending on the year). We start our kids playing sports earlier and earlier in hopes of earning them a free education. Some of our famous athletes go on to be leaders in our government after becoming elected.

And there's certainly no denying the influences of general pop culture on our nation. For heaven's sake, on the 2006 season of American Idol in which Taylor Hicks earned the title, 63 million people voted. By contrast, the most votes a president has ever earned was in 1984 with Ronald Reagan's 54.5 million.

No matter what you say, I think the website's greatest purpose will be as a historical tool. The way we place these celebrities on pedestals is almost comical. It's also somewhat reflective of how we deal with strife across the globe. Grantland, it seems to be, is the perfect way to capture a huge cross-section of what makes this country tick. I think that combining sports and pop culture on the same platform will prove to be a real eye-opener for America. We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll celebrate and we'll commiserate. If nothing else, it will be a collaboration of some of America's best contemporary writers offering a review of the world around them.

Among the Stars: Another Athlete Sparks Controversy With Twitter

2011-05-04T07:59:00.000-07:00

This week the United States and much of the world celebrated the death of Osama Bin Laden. If you were to ask people how they learned about this momentous event, many would reply "twitter." Twitter is an unbelievable tool that allows instant distribution of news, opinions, and more. It also can get you into a lot of trouble. Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall became the latest star athlete to become the target of criticism when he posted his opinions on the celebratory reaction after people learned of Bin Laden's death.

He tweeted "What kind of person celebrates death? It's amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We've only heard one side..."

He also brought more attention to himself when he posted this:"We'll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style."

Steelers President Art Rooney II issued the following statement: “I have not spoken with Rashard so it is hard to explain or even comprehend what he meant with his recent Twitter comments. The entire Steelers’ organization is very proud of the job our military personnel have done and we can only hope this leads to our troops coming home soon.”

This is not the first time Mendenhall has gotten into trouble with twitter. In March, when star Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson compared playing in the NFL to "modern day slavery", Mendenhall tweeted "Anyone with knowledge of the slave trade and the NFL could say that these two parallel each other."

Mendenhall should have known that these tweets would upset many Americans. I also should mention the fact that he plays in a city less than two hours from where flight United 93 was crashed.

This issue brings up a number of discussions. One is the relationship between athletes and social media. There are plenty of instances where athletes have tweeted without thinking and have ruined their reputations and/or gotten in trouble with their league officials. Should the Steelers make Mendenhall deactivate his account? Should there be a limit on the amounts of divisive postings you can make while using social media before it is taken away from you, or should freedom of speech reign supreme no matter the black eye it may cause the league or your team?

Personally, I think Mendenhall has proven that he cannot be trusted using Twitter. When you compare athletes who go to college for free, often times receiving improper benefits, and those who go on to the NFL, and make millions of dollars, to the "slave trade," that shows a severe lack of judgment and perspective.

And now, for him to make these latest comments about Bin Laden, less than two months after his "slave trade" tweet, shows he lacks a certain level of restraint, and dare I say intelligence. Even though I was outraged reading his tweets (especially when he questioned whether or not the planes could have destroyed the World Trade Center), I believe freedom of speech is the most basic human right we should have, and would be even more outraged if the Steelers, or the NFL tried to take that away from him. A fine would be fine though.

Let me know what you think.

Follow me on Twitter: @stevenczyrny

Pro Say: Watching Rome Burn

2011-05-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

The fall of a dynasty is a jarring and earth-changing event. Rome fell in the 5th century CE, marking both the end of the Classical era and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Anatolia. In China, the Qing dynasty was toppled in the Xinhai Revolution, a bridge between dynastic China and the contemporary People’s Republic. The United States rose to global prominence in the wake of declining British Imperialism. And today, China is poised to overtake the US as the number-one global superpower within the next ten years, effectively ending the US’s own 100 year run.

In popular culture, dynastic shifts occur even more frequently. After the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Ernest Hemingway declined both in health and in creativity until his suicide in 1961. Shakespeare’s late romances are widely considered his weakest efforts (even though I believe The Tempest to be his crowning achievement). Anyone who listens to the classic rock and new wave bands of the 1970s and 1980s knows that the recent efforts of the Rolling Stones, REM, Deep Purple, AC/DC, and most others are supremely sub-par efforts by formerly great bands.

And in sports, the list is long – really long – of the end of team and individual dynasties. Just in the modern era, there are: the 1980s New York Yankees; the post-Gretzky Oilers; the post-Bird Celtics; the post-Magic Lakers; 1980s Miami Hurricanes football; 1990s Florida State football; the last 15 years of the San Francisco 49ers; the post-Aikman concussions Cowboys; Shaquille O’Neal; Derek Jeter; Brett Favre; Pete Sampras; Roger Federer.

And in 2011, its time to tack on one more: Duncan’s Spurs.

Last week, as the eight-seeded Memphis Grizzlies (the very team whose uniforms I have mocked and whose fan-base I have criticized) were on the brink of eliminating the top-seeded San Antonio Spurs in the first round of the NBA playoffs, I was chatting with Scott (the editor of this very blog). He said something like, “What’s up with Memphis about to eliminate the Spurs?” All I could respond with was, “Its like watching Rome burn.”

Memphis – a questionable band of NBA vagabonds, castaways, and cutouts – with officially zero playoff success in its franchise history, should not have ~~defeated~~ embarrassed San Antonio, winners of four NBA titles in twelve years. Fringe superstar Zach Randolph should not have outplayed the greatest forward in NBA history, Tim Duncan. Greg Oden’s bag boy Mike Conely should not have outrun France’s national basketball hero Tony Parker. And perennial “please remove my interim tag” coach Lionel Hollins should not have bested a top-two modern-era coach in Gregg Popovich.

But decline is a fickle opponent whose win-loss record makes even Jordan’s Bulls envious. Teams can mask it in the regular season through know-how, favorable scheduling, and reputation. In the playoffs, though, the cream rises, and the methods by which a team wins in the regular season mean little. Reputation means something; talent and ability mean a lot more.

Two seasons ago, Spurs sweep. And they sweep convincingly. But, nobody in Classical Rome expected a bunch of face painting, blood ax-swinging Germanics to overtake their great dynasty. Yet that’s all it took to make Europe realize that the power of Rome in 450 CE was just an illusion. And Memphis running circles around the 60-win Spurs is all it took to expose the Spurs as an illusion – a burning dynasty – too.

And the Spurs may not be alone. With Kobe’s knees, Bynum’s knees, Gasol’s laizze faire attitude, Odom’s reality show, Artest’s slowing, Fisher’s age, Phil’s apathy, and the acquisition of Steve Blake, the walls of that other NBA dynasty may be cracking as well.

Eight Is More Than Enough

2011-05-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Last week, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig acknowledged that the owners are 'moving inexorably' towards expanding the playoffs, probably from eight to ten teams. They will then have succeeded in severely compromising the meaning of the regular season, just like the NFL, NBA, and college basketball already have.

I think I understand their reasoning. They want to make the end of the regular season meaningful to more teams, and an expanded post season means higher TV ratings and more stadium revenue for the teams that qualify. Critics like to argue that the heart of the season is a good old fashioned pennant race--The Shot Heard Around the World and Bucky Bleeping Dent--but owners would no doubt argue that there have been a lot of pennant races short on drama. The point is that a playoff guarantees a climactic series every season.

All of the above is true, but this means that regular season is going to be filled with a lot more half-committed performances. We already saw this happen last season, when the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays cared less about winning the AL East than they did about resting their players for the playoffs. Think of the Indianapolis Colts passing on the possibility of a perfect season in 2009 by pulling Peyton Manning at the half. Or think of the Boston Celtics sacrificing home court advantage by cutting the minutes their AARP-eligible stars played. These moves paid off for the Celtics--though not for the Yanks, Rays, or Colts--but the problem is that it is hard to see how giving far less than 100% is good for the long-term interests of these sports and leagues.

I certainly would not be happy if I were a paying customer. I can turn off my TV, but I would feel entitled to a refund if I was forking out hundreds of dollars to watch two teams going through the motions.

The other problem is that expanding the regular season beyond a certain point renders it largely useless.

Exhibit A is college basketball. The regular season used to be filled with drama, until 1980, when the NCAA started allowing more than two teams per conference to qualify for the post season. The tourney improved. There were more quality teams and some, like Villanova in '85, became part of the lore of March Madness, but the meaning of the regular season was eviscerated. No one cares who wins conference crowns any more; the only thing that matters is how far a team progresses come the end of March.

My point is that there needs to be a balance between the importance of the regular season and the playoffs. College football goes too far in the other direction. Defenders of the BCS love to point out that every regular season game matters, but that is not true if your team loses the first two games of the season. Take Michigan in '88. They lost their first two games in September, to Notre Dame (on a last-second field goal) and Miami (they blew a 16-point fourth-quarter lead, at home, ouch!) but did not lose any of their remaining games. If there had been an eight-team playoff, they would have qualified as Big Ten champion, but they were effectively out of National Title contention by September 17th.

A sixteen-game college football playoff would undermine the regular season, but an eight-team one would actually improve it.

In a similar vein, MLB should either stand pat with eight teams or reduce the number to six (then there would be three pennant races in each league). but they will do irreparable harm to the regular season if they expand.

Among the Stars: Should Jim Tressel Be Fired?

2011-04-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

This week, Ohio State Buckeye fans collectively went “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” when head football coach Jim Tressel received word from the NCAA that they believe he could have committed “potential major violations.”

In this article by Pat Forde of ESPN, he writes “In a 13-page indictment of Tressel's behavior, the NCAA alleged that Tressel had "permitted football student-athletes to participate in intercollegiate athletics while ineligible." It also said he "failed to deport himself ... [with] honesty and integrity" and said he was lying when he filled out a compliance form in September which said he had no knowledge of any NCAA violations by any of his players.” Jim Tressel has had a lot of success at Ohio State, ranking second in wins by active coaches in division 1 football, and winning the 2002 National Championship.

Given all of that, I believe he should be fired. He is the head coach of a major college football program and if he knowingly played ineligible players, that is wrong. The 2010 season should be vacated and they would then lose the big 10 and Sugar Bowl championships earned that year.

They also could lose scholarships like the University of Southern California did when they got in trouble for Reggie Bush receiving improper benefits.

Jim Tressel knew what happened because of the email he received in April from Columbus lawyer Christopher Cicero describing in vivid detail the incident regarding the Ohio State players and the selling of their jerseys, championship rings, etc. in exchange for tattoos. Tressel replied "I will get on it ASAP." He obviously didn't do anything about it and now it could cost him almost $4 million/year if fired, according to this article.

Tressel could have told the President, the Athletic Director, school lawyers, or the compliance department. If Tressel was upfront and honest about the situation, he probably would have found the NCAA to be far more forgiving, as has been shown in the past. If Dez Bryant, former wide receiver star for Oklahoma State can get suspended and miss the rest of a season because he did not disclose the full information about his meetings with former NFLer Deion Sanders, than no less than a firing should happen to Tressel.

Ohio State is one of the premier programs in the country. They should send a message that no one is above the program or the university. If they keep Tressel in spite of what he has done, they are pretty much saying he can do practically whatever he wants and lie to whomever he wants, and get away with it.

What do you think?

http://twitter.com/stevenczyrny

Small Talk: A.I.- Artificial Improvements

2011-04-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

There is no denying that humans can run faster, jump higher and hit a ball further than ever before. With drugs like steroids and human growth hormone to thank for these feats of "human" strength, when someone breaks a new record it's a sad fact that the first question that is asked is "is he/she on 'roids?"

We are quick to test for these drugs to see whether humans essentially turn themselves into superhumans by changing their chemical composition through increased the amounts of testosterone. In our modern sports era, the biggest scandals have come about from alleged steroid use with famed athletes such as Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones and most notably, Barry Bonds as they all have come under serious public scrutiny. The federal government has even gotten involved in regulating steroid use (this story is for another time, however). But have you ever stopped to think about what mechanical enhancement would do and already does to sports?

That's right. I'm talking about robots and cyborgs. We all laugh even thinking about the idea of selling out a stadium of 45,000 to watch a bunch of robots do battle on a football field. But in some ways, mechanical enhancements already exist within the world of sports.

Look at Tommy John surgery. Or even an ACL reconstruction for that matter. In the case of Tommy John surgery, which is named after baseball pitcher Tommy John, the ulnar collateral ligament is replaced with tendons or ligaments from the opposite elbow, below the knee or from a cadaver. The tendons are woven into a figure eight pattern through tunnels that have been drilled within the arm bones. A previously frayed or torn tendon is now brand new. In some cases, athletes return from the surgery and throw the ball harder than they ever have before. In other cases, parents even insist that their uninjured sons and daughters undergo the surgery to increase their chances of playing in college or professionally. Do we ever do so much as to bat an eyelash at Tommy John surgery?

The answer is no.

But we certainly have no problem sounding alarms on athletes like Mokgadi Caster Semenya. Semenya gained international fame in 2009 when she won the women's 800m track event in Berlin at the World Championships by setting a personal record time and beating her closest finisher by two seconds. The then 18 year-old's performance had people asking one question even before she crossed the finish line at the finals: "Is she a woman?"

The IAAF immediately ordered the poor girl from a small South African village to undergo gender testing and told her that she couldn't compete until she completed one. They said they were "trying to determine whether she had a rare medical condition giving her an unfair competitive advantage." That's like subjecting someone like 6'8" Brittney Griner of Baylor University or 7'6" Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets to undergo testing because they have an unfair competitive advantage: they're both REALLY tall.

It goes without saying that we view competitive advantages somewhat non-uniformly. But maybe even mechanical improvements aren't what we should be concerned about.

Fast forward to this week. On Wednesday, the ceremonial first pitch thrown at the Phillies/ Brewers game was not thrown by a person. It was thrown by a robot: PhillieBot. PhillieBot is the creation of two University of Pennsylvania students who have designed the robot over the past month and a half. This robot isn't some ordinary pitching machine, however. Situated on a Segway base, the robot can move and it's mechanical arm can adjust the velocity of the pitches. Moreover, the robot has an "eye" (a camera) and could be programmed to adjust its pitches accordingly (think changeups or high & low fastballs). Per a request from the Phillies, the robot was limited to throw the ball only 30-40 miles per hour for safety reasons. However, like many umpires and opposing teams, the PhillieBot was booed at Citizens Bank Park as it bounced its major league pitching debut to home plate from the pitcher's mound.

I don't think that the Phillies will be looking to sign PhillieBot in the near future. He's still not quite consistent enough and his curveball needs work. But someday in the near future perhaps we will be seeing cyborgs on the playing field. Will we raise a stink when that day comes? It remains to be said. But I am confident that if we EVER found a trace of anabolic steroids in the motherboard of a robot, it would be the stuff of Barry Bonds' worst nightmare.

Adult Education & Sports

2011-04-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

Most critics and defenders of sports share the assumption that the worth of sports should be measured by the extent to which it has a civilizing effect on the performers and spectators. George Orwell, to cite just one example, excoriates what he terms “serious sports” because it “has nothing to do with fair play,” while Kenny Moore, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, maintains that sports uplifts us gently and “nudges a great part of our society from the savage to the humane.” Even though they disagree about whether athletic competition fosters goodwill and sportsmanship, they do agree that it should not be bound up with such qualities as “hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules, and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.”

In an important sense, this view is completely mistaken. If the players and fans lived up to these ideals, sports would not only be much more boring, it would be far less educational.

Imagine if we judged movies by the extent to which they promote fairness and other commendable kinds of behavior. None of the characters would be allowed to exhibit the kinds of qualities that Orwell criticizes: no hatred, no jealousy, no disregard of all rules, no sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. No behavior that doesn’t rise to the level of fair play. I can’t think of a single movie that has ever lived up to these lofty standards, and it would be a sad day if one did. Since a film like The Godfather would never pass muster, we would all be deprived of a moving portrait of immigration, family, and the American Dream. And not only would films be less engrossing, they would have little or no educational value. Without problematic behavior, they couldn’t express anything very meaningful about the human condition. The same goes for sports. I am not suggesting that athletes and fans should be encouraged to behave badly — quite the opposite — but the fact that they inevitably do so has taught me an awful lot.

On April 8th, 1974, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record by hitting his 715th home run. This event meant a great deal to me. Aaron was my favorite player. I didn’t care much for his team, the Atlanta Braves, but I listened to a lot of their games solely because of him. I coveted his baseball cards and would have gladly traded all of my other Baseball Trading Cups, which came with the purchase of a Slurpee at a 7/11, for his. My sister and I celebrated his record-breaking homer with balloons and other party favors. Although she didn’t care about sports, his achievement captured her attention because it was of transcendent importance. All of America was rooting for Hammerin’ Hank, or at least that’s what I naively believed.

It turned out that his life during the chase was a living hell. He received bundles of racist letters, had his life threatened on numerous occasions, and the FBI uncovered an attempt to kidnap his daughter. He was forced into seclusion and still lives a very guarded, many would say paranoid, life. As he put it, “It should have been the happiest time of my life, . . . but it was the worst year. . . So many bad things happened. . . Things I’m still trying to get over, and maybe never will.” He still worries that people will drug his drinks, never sits with his back to the door at a restaurant, watches approaching drivers suspiciously, never lets down his guard with strangers, and, above all, avoids ballparks.

As a child, his achievement taught me about racism. The lesson then was relatively simple: blacks were more than capable of competing with whites. All that stuff about blacks being inferior, which I had heard over and over growing up in the South (well, Miami), was nonsense. I don’t want to make too much of this, but Mr. Aaron helped teach me that everyone should be judged by what they do and not by their skin color or any other irrelevant factors. As an adult, what he has gone through has helped me understand racism on a more subtle level. As he admits, a lot of the public treated him very positively. Nonetheless, he still feels bitter. He rarely discusses the record-breaking homer, because “It brings back too many unpleasant memories.” The racism he was subjected to eventually reached a critical mass, to the point where he could no longer enjoy what might very well be the most important record in American sports, and to the point where it’s understandable that he distrusts even the most innocent, well-meaning people.

The lesson he taught me as a child had to do with the best ideals associated with sports. He changed my attitudes towards race and really did help civilize me. The lessons he taught me as an adult, through his bitter account of the events that unfolded during his chase of Ruth’s record, are based on the sad fact that sports often has little to do with fair play. Like films, sports often expresses the most about the human condition precisely because people sometimes manifestly fail to live up to our society’s ideals.

Among the Stars: Is the Sock on the Other Foot?

2011-04-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

The Boston Red Sox have one of the top five most talented rosters in Major League Baseball. They were picked by many respected “baseball experts” to win the AL East and by some to even win the World Series. Now they are 2-9, including 0-6 on the road and people all over New England are nervous.

There have only been six teams in history to even make the postseason after starting with that dismal of a record. Combine that with the fact they play in arguably the most passionate baseball city in the world and you can imagine that there is conflict brewing inside the Fenway Park clubhouse.

Even though everything above is true, I think a little perspective might be needed here. There have only been eleven games played. Eleven. That is less than 7% of the season. That would be like an NBA or NHL fan base panicking after five or six games. The MLB season is so long a high school couple could break up twenty times between now and when the playoffs start. The AL East is still very winnable, the Yankees are not overpowering, and they could sill get the wildcard.

There is no reason to panic yet. The Red Sox still have a solid core of starting pitchers. While they have struggled so far, the talent is still there. The Sox have a good core of veteran players such as Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz, and JD Drew. Carl Crawford was added to the club in the offseason and has also struggled, but should be worth the big payday he earned when he signed with Boston.

The team could do a number of things that would help with this tense situation. While baseball is a team sport, teamwork is not as evident as it is in other sports such as basketball, football, or hockey. This leaves teammates and coaches in prime positions to see what the players are doing right and wrong and to try and communicate this in a calm and encouraging manner.

Team chemistry is huge in sports, and some bonding activities could reduce the stress of a struggling start. These players are under intense scrutiny in Boston, if they had some time to relax a bit they could bring that on the field and play better.

Baseball epitomizes the phrase “it’s a marathon, not a sprint.” The Red Sox have just began the run, and with the talent they have, they can still run away from the field.

Do you guys think the Red Sox can still make the playoffs?
When is it appropriate to panic during an MLB season?
Feel free to comment below.

Pro Say: The Return of the I-5 Rivalry

2011-04-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

In the four decades during which the Seattle Supersonics and Portland Trail Blazers competed against one another in the NBA’s Western Conference, the NBA and the Pacific Northwest had one of the most spirited and competitive rivalries in basketball. Both teams won a single championship, both teams were steamrolled by Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the Finals, and both teams featured mercurial under-performing stars in Shawn Kemp and Rasheed Wallace.

At the turn of the century, both teams headed into the tank, with the exception of one surprising Sonics run in 2005. Nate McMillan, the mastermind of that last great Sonics team, quickly defected south to become the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers. The terrible play of both teams even led to the rare situation where the teams had the first and second picks in the 2007 NBA draft. In that draft, the Sonics drafted the underachieving Kevin Durant, and the Blazers wisely chose the future superstar Greg Oden (I think I have that right…). Sadly, in 2008 NBA Commissioner David Stern and James Bond nemesis Clay Bennett took advantage of a growing apathy among the Seattle fans and moved the Sonics to Oklahoma City, where they now play in a hollowed-out volcano.

(Some NBA purists will insist that I include the short-lived Vancouver (B.C.) Grizzlies in the rivalry. I admit the geographic logic behind that inclusion. However, I can't seriously include a team with such terrible jerseys in the great I-5 rivalry.)

But now, after only three short years, the Seattle-Portland rivalry is renewed. This time, on the pitch. The Portland Timbers have moved up to Major League Soccer, where they will compete with Seattle Sounders FC (a rivalry that itself spans back four decades). For those not familiar with North American soccer (and, frankly, who is?), Timbers-Sounders is considered the most spirited soccer rivalry in North America. It’s Bears-Packers, Yankees-Red Sox, Lakers-Celtics.

The Timbers and Sounders have been competing against one another for the better part of the last ten years in the United Soccer League, a sort of minor league. Sounders FC moved to MLS in 2007, but still visited Portland for a US Open Cup match, where they defeated the Timbers on penalty kicks after the Timbers drew even late in the match.

I would like to introduce everyone to this rivalry as it stands today, from a fan’s perspective. Here is the Timbers Army, the independent cheering section of the Timbers, after that US Open goal against Seattle:

The Timbers Army is led by Timber Joey, who actually carries a chain saw with him at the game!

Rivaling the Timbers Army, the Emerald City Supporters (ECS) are now grizzled MLS veterans that beat the Timbers Army in volume and match them in spirit:

However, the ECS really fall short in leadership, where they are led by this nice looking fellow, who is certainly not a lumberjack and carries a jacket rather than a chain saw.

So, I challenge everyone, those inside and outside the Pacific Northwest, to check out this rivalry. As I admitted a few weeks ago, I never understood soccer until I saw a match, saw the craziness of the fans, and was able to appreciate the athleticism of the players. Soccer gets a bad rap in North America. However, if you doubt me, watch a Timbers match. Watch a Sounders match. Better even, watch the Timbers and Sounders compete against one another. Recognize that this is one of the top 5 professional sports rivalries in all of North America. If you appreciate sports, dedicated fans, and awesome spectacles, you will commit yourself to check these teams out. Folks, the I-5 rivalry is reborn, and it just may elevate North American soccer into the mainstream.

Small Talk: Master of the Links

2011-04-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

Medals. Trophies. Rings. Even cups. These are all signs of a champion, earned after proving oneself to be the best in his or her given sport. While some are more larger than others (I'd like to see you carry around the 35-lb Stanley Cup or the 30-lb Commissioner's Trophy) they all signify an exclusive membership in an elite group: the Winner's Circle. And let's face it, at this time of year we are all going crazy for trophies as NCAA winter sports wrap up, NBA and NHL playoffs begin, (depending on the year) people are finally beginning to descend from Cloud 9 after their Winter Olympic victories, and crazed baseball fans are already buying their cold weather gear in anticipation of playing next October.

But one trophy is unlike all the others. It has no metal (save for some brass), it is tailored exclusively to the athlete who earns it, you have to return it after a year even if you don't cheat, and is "Augusta Green." Oh yeah, and you can wear it too.

Of course, I am talking about the anomalous green jacket that is awarded to the winner of The Masters golf tournament held every year at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Perhaps the most anticipated and well-known of the major professional golf tournaments, the Masters is rich with traditions reaching back to its inception in 1934. Then known as the Augusta National Invitation, the tournament didn't become known as the Masters until 1939. And the green jacket prize to the tournament winner didn't appear until 1949.

So why on earth would anyone get excited to win a shamrock green sport coat that any person with at least average fashion sense would steer clear from? The answer is simple. To own a green jacket is to be a part of a select group of gentlemen of which all have one thing in common: they all have green jackets.

The green jacket tradition at Augusta National actually dates back to 1937. That year during the major golf tournament they held, members of the club wore green jackets to signify to visitors that they could ask them questions. Those original green jackets came from the Brooks Uniform Company in New York City and were originally heavy and made from wool. Though the material has undergone some changes throughout the years, the meaning of the jacket has not wavered. The Augusta National Golf Club is an ultra-exclusive club and to wear the jacket symbolizes membership in the equally ultra-exclusive club of Masters champions.

The jacket doesn't come without it's own rules, however. The jacket must be worn only at Augusta National and cannot be removed from the club other than by its current rightful owner. Similarly, it should not be worn but on club grounds and must be "returned" to the club every year. For the entire year after someone wins a Masters championship, he may hold onto the jacket. However at the following year's tournament, the jacket must be returned to Augusta National where it will stay and may be worn when its owner is on the premises.

Sounds like a lot of baggage for a peculiarly colored jacket that one would probably not choose to wear in public anyway. But without a doubt there is a mystique about the Green Jacket and the Masters in general. The consistency of returning to Augusta year after year and attempting to conquer the course is something that few can understand and even fewer can actually describe (I certainly am not one of them). It's a crowning moment for all golfers to step on the course and essentially reaching golf deity to slip into the sleeves of the jacket.

While I don't really foresee many other sports opting for a wearable prize over trophies or medals, perhaps it should just be a practice reserved for golf. Let's face it; iconic figures such as Payne Stewart and even Tiger Woods are known for their golf attire as much as their skill. But even if I will never know what it feels like to wear THE Green Jacket, I can still find some solace knowing that no one will confuse me for a leprechaun.

What Is the Bonds' Trial Ultimately About?

2011-04-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

According to a poll conducted by Seton Hall, 62% of respondents believe that the Federal government should drop its case against Barry Bonds despite the fact that 74% believe he knowingly used steroids.

What should we make of this paradoxical poll? Have fans embraced taking steroids? Or just become resigned to their ubiquitous use? If nothing else, these results seem to suggest that people think prosecuting offenders is waste of taxpayers' money; 65% claimed to have little or no interest in the trial.

Please excuse the philosopher in me, but I think it would help to take a step back and ask a couple of larger questions: When, if ever, should it be wrong to use performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)? And why is this question almost always restricted to athletes?

Let's start with the latter. Is it unethical for a surgeon to use performance enhancing drugs? I don't know about you, but if I was about to go under the knife, I would insist that my doctor take just about anything that was going to increase her focus or coordination. What about other professions? Professional negotiators use botox, which supposedly helps one keep a poker face, despite the fact that it sometimes brings unwelcome side effects, such as nausea, indigestion, and muscle weakness. Is that unethical? Scientists have expressed concern about the fact that an increasing number of students are using Adderall and Ritalin to help them cram before exams, but I would be shocked if this practice does not become commonplace in other fields such as law, and science. Finally, would we condemn a musician or actor if that person took a drug that calmed one's nerves before going on stage? Probably not.

So why do we single out sports? The answer might be because we feel that using PEDs gives some athletes an unfair advantage over competitors. But then why don't we condemn its use in other fields? Also, leaving PEDs aside, don't high-level athletes already do a lot of other things that are unhealthy to gain a competitive advantage? One younger teammate of Bonds confessed that he has a weak bladder because he takes 35 legal pills a day. That may be legal, but it does not sound healthy. Neither does playing through injuries, let alone consuming pain killers to do so, rather than letting one's body heal. What's more, lifting weights and exercising obsessively is not good for your body in the long run. In fact, some sports, such as ultra-marathons, boxing, and football are probably not healthy, period. If we are really concerned that using some PEDs will lead to long-term health problems or shorten lifespans, then shouldn't we be outlawing some of the aforementioned sports?

Finally, I submit that the demands that come with becoming an elite performer in most fields--athletic or otherwise--make it much harder to be a well-balanced person. Such success invariably requires deep sacrifices--physically, socially, and emotionally--and entails devotion that verges on obsession.

So why do we single out sports for its excesses and largely give a pass to all the other professions? I don't have a fully developed answer yet, but I suspect it has something to do with the fact that sports has not been considered a worthy use of one's time since ancient Greece. We can understand why people make inordinate sacrifices to succeed professionally or in the name of art, but not for the sake of something that was supposedly meant to be nothing more than a pastime.

What do you think?

Among the Stars: Aqib Talib

2011-04-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

Star athletes, no matter the sport or location are under a microscope in society. The reason for this is because people love sports so much, they crave all the information they can get. Top level athletes seem to get into more trouble than other demographics and the reasons as to why can be debated in many conversational circles and there are a ton of different answers.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Aqib Talib became one of the latest athletes to get into serious trouble when he was arrested for allegedly firing a gun at his sister’s boyfriend. Police said Talib and his mother fired shots at the man on March 21. While the man was not injured, Talib is facing a second degree felony charges, and if convicted, could serve five to 20 years in prison.

The public is not in the 2008 20th overall pick’s corner. He had previous trouble with the law when in 2009, he was suspended one game by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, for allegedly assaulting a cab driver.

The latest screw up Talib committed was blaming his mother for the crime. He needs to understand the legal system and how the law works. If that is true that he did not fire any shots and it was all his mother’s doing, then fine. Keep your mouth shut. It hurts your image and lessens what very little credibility he has if he is seen blaming his mother for firing a gun at someone.

There is a reason attorneys say very little to the media regarding criminal cases. They know that the smart thing to do is let the legal system run its course. While this was a private conversation with his old college football coach Clint Bowen, he should realize the risk of being a star player in the NFL and the high possibility that it could leak, which it obviously did. Talib should keep his head down, if he wants to say anything, say its an unfortunate matter that he cannot discuss. There is no need to be telling your old college coach no worries bro, it was moms who shot him. Also, while there may be no NFL season next year, the more bad press this story gets, the more reasons Goodell has to suspend him even longer when he has the chance.

Feel free to comment below.

twitter.com/stevenczyrny

Pro Say: Sabonis Gets His Due

2011-04-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is the most self-indulgent column I will ever write for this blog. But I have been justified and I have to brag. Growing up, my beloved Portland Trail Blazers were hard to love. After the oh-so-close teams of the early 1990s got old, got traded, and the players went on to win championships with other teams, the Trail Blazers entered into a half- decade-long affair with losing in the first round of the NBA playoffs. These teams, comprised of such stellar NBA legends as Cliff Robinson, Kenny Anderson, Rod Strickland, Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, and Isaiah Rider, left much to be desired for a young fan looking for a basketball idol.

Yet through all the Trail Blazers muck, one player consistently rose above the me-first attitude that was so toxic in those late-90s Blazers locker rooms and actually made those teams fun to watch: Arvydas Sabonis.

My favorite basketball player ever, Arvydas Sabonis, was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this week. I couldn’t be happier.

Growing up, I was thrown a lot of smack for liking the largest, least athletic, least flashy (sort-of), slow, non-American player on an otherwise mediocre team. That never mattered. I strutted around Oak Grove Elementary rocking the black #11 Sabonis jersey like a true believer. I even tried to model by game like his. Little did I know that being so slow, so methodical, and so TALL, all while being exceptionally fundamentally sound, such a pure shooter, and having such great touch around the rim was an impossible combination to master.

Sabonis, a Lithuanian, was drafted by the Trail Blazers in 1986, but due to Cold War tensions and the fact that he was more dominant in Europe than Jordan ever was in the NBA, Sabonis stayed out of the NBA until 1995. He finally arrived in Portland after winning countless honors, medals, awards, and accolades (my love for Sabonis justifies redundancy when gushing about his pre-NBA career) at the peak of the last great big-man era in the NBA. Sabonis competed nightly against Shaquille O’Neal, David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Patrick Ewing. Despite being well past his prime, playing on a team that never featured him as an offensive or defensive focal point, and slowed by myriad foot, ankle, and knee problems that plagued him for the last fifteen years of his pro career, Sabonis was fifth only to those prime-time NBA legends at his position during his time in the NBA. If you don’t believe me, here’s a video of Sabonis dominating Robinson in 1986. Here’s one of Sabonis getting the best of Shaq.

Sabonis was the ultimate team player. The single greatest passing big man in basketball history. If you don’t believe me, look here, here, here, and here. I cannot explain how many times I tried to get my friends in rec ball to post me up and cut through the lane like Stoudamire just so I could attempt that pass. Just for fun, here’s Sabonis making Mark West look foolish in 1993 and here’s Sabonis being awesome (and knowing exactly where he is on the basketball court with exactly how much time is left).

If you hadn’t figured out by now, there’s not much arc to this week’s column. However, if it’s not apparent by now, I will state the obvious: if you want to see what being the ultimate team guy looks like, look no further than Arvydas Sabonis. He took whole countries on his back in Europe and led them to gold because that was his role on those teams. On the Trail Blazers, Sabonis was the ultimate glue-guy. He never averaged a ton of points, a ton of anything really, because he was not physically capable at that point in his illustrious career. However, without Sabonis, I posit (and few would argue), that those late-90s Trail Blazers teams would have literally been the least cohesive, least team-oriented squad in the NBA. With the clowns that shared the Trail Blazers name with Sabonis at that time, one can only wonder how those teams even managed to stay on the court (and out of jail) long enough to win enough games to make the playoffs those years. One reason: Sabonis.

If you’re wondering, the answer is “no.” I never mastered the Sabonis skill set. Nobody has. Look around the NBA right now. Heck, look around the NBA when Sabonis was in the league. He is the only player in basketball history to play like that. He was bigger than Shaq and as dominant in the post. Yet at 7’3” and 300 lbs., he shot from 15-20 feet (or deeper) with such touch and accuracy. And he had the court vision of a great point guard. Nobody has ever played like Sabonis played (and dominated). Which is why he is my favorite athlete of all time. Which is why he is now in the Hall of Fame.

Lastly, here is probably funniest Sabonis-era Blazers ad:

Life, Liberty, and Being a Student Athlete

2011-04-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

NCAA president Mark Emmert may not admit it, but he will probably be rooting for Butler Monday night. Not because he is a big fan of Cinderella stories, but because he needs some unadulterated good news after what has been a very trying week. The last thing he needs is a photo-op with Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, who will serve a three-game suspension next season for failing to create an atmosphere of compliance within his program.

Calhoun's sins (coaches, by the way, much prefer the word 'mistakes') pale in comparison to the other stories that broke last week.

Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who has long maintained that he operates 'by the book', continued to apologize for covering up the fact that two players received improper benefits--'The mistakes I've made are very disappointing. I'm sorry for that, as I've mentioned many times'--as some university presidents openly questioned whether he should be fired.

The Fiesta Bowl did fire its CEO John Junker and will be asked to justify its inclusion in the Bowl Championship Series over 'an apparent scheme' to reimburse employees for political contributions and 'an apparent conspiracy' to cover it up. The board of directors voted unanimously to fire Junker, who was making a cool 600k per year, 'for his improper and inappropriate activities' and 'excessive compensation, nonbusiness and inappropriate expenditures and inappropriate gifts'.

And four former Auburn players told HBO that they were paid while playing or being recruited at the school. The silver lining, one supposes, is that none of them were named Cam Newton.

There were so many headlines that Emmert's less than impressive appearance on PBS's Frontline went largely unnoticed. But what Emmert maintained--or, more to the point, what he refused to concede--goes a long way towards explaining why the words NCAA and hypocrisy are becoming increasingly synonymous.

The piece, which was narrated by Lowell Bergman, who is famous for shedding light on some of the tobacco industry's deplorable practices, focused on the issue of whether some college athletes should be compensated because they generate revenue for the NCAA, its member institutions, sponsors, coaches, the TV netwworks, etc. Everybody, it would seem, except the players gets to benefit from the windfall.

So how did Emmert defend the NCAA's strict policies? He never out and out denied that players actually generate revenue. He just carefully avoided conceding the point and argued that they are not entitled to any loot, beyond what they already receive from their scholarships, because they are 'students' or 'student-athletes', not employees.

In other words, he tried to define the problem out of existence by drawing a semantic distinction: Since they are first and foremost students, it does not matter whether they generate oodles of revenue. Since they are first and foremost students, they are simply not entitled to additional compensation. Apparently, since they are first and foremost students, they do not have the same rights as every other person to sell their skills in an avowedly, ideologically Capitalist society. In sum, as long as they are in college, they cannot exercise their liberty or pursue happiness quite as vigorously as the rest of us.

A talented violinist can join a band and make bank while she is studying music. A budding Picasso can sell his paintings while he is studying art history. A business student can consult with any firm willing to pay him or her. An architecture student can sell a drawing to the highest bidder. But, apparently, it would, to quote Emmert, ''be utterly unacceptable ... to convert students into employees'.

Why? Why does being a student preclude athletes--and apparently only athletes--from selling their services at full market value?

Mr. Emmert, there may be a good answer to this question, but making a facile semantic distinction cannot justify your policies. What's more, you should realize that many of the scandals that have marred your last week would be avoided if athletes could be compensated legally; most would not seek money under table and you could better regulate the activities of agents and boosters.

Mr. Emmert, in sum, allowing athletes to be paid is not only the right thing to do, it would be the prudent thing to do.

Your choice is simple: Do you want to manage and regulate the payment of student-athletes or do you want to spend the rest of your tenure putting out fires that will eventually incinerate the integrity of your organization?

Small Talk: Living in the Wild, Wild West

2011-04-01T09:44:00.001-07:00

I almost laughed out loud when I saw the headline in Tuesday's Register-Guard newspaper here in Eugene, Oregon. "Shoot straight, everyone. The Oregon House adopts cowboy-style 'Code of the West' as a guide for ethical conduct." Here I am, a fiercely proud Delawarean living in the state of Oregon and the state House of Representatives is affirming that I am indeed way out of my league pretending I'm some kind of conestoga wagon-riding pioneer.

But as I half-interestingly read the article and the core concepts of the code, they resonated with me. This code of concepts that was created almost 200 years ago by a bunch of horse-riding, lasso-toting cowboys is not only completely relevant to modern politics, but even more so, to modern sports. All athletes should adhere to this code, and you don't even need to invest in a sturdy pair of spurs and boots to follow it. Here is my take on how it can be applied to sports.

Live each day with courage- As we stride onto the court every time for practice, know that as hard as you may work, as much pain you will endure, as much sweat and as many tears as you shed, you will be that much better. Live each day with courage knowing you will be better, stronger, and more prepared to take on that next opponent.

Take pride in your work- Work hard, and recognize that you are working hard. Give yourself a pat on the back every once and a while and walk just a little bit taller knowing that you did put forth your best effort. Never leave a match or practice feeling dismayed with your conduct or effort. Be proud of what you have accomplished.

Always finish what you start- The finish line is never too far away.

Do what has to be done- Know your role as a team member and fulfill it. Take pride in knowing that your part is just as important as the girl next to you. Stop at nothing to get it done.

Be tough, but fair- Play with intensity and push yourself and your opponent, but follow the rules. Cheaters never prosper.

When you make a promise, keep it- Commitment is perhaps the greatest sign of respect for a team or even a sport.

Ride for the brand- Even if you're not on a horse, wear your jersey with pride. Be loyal to yourself and your team and think about the implications of your actions.

Talk less and say more- Actions speak louder than words. Arguing with officials will not win the game; playing better will.

Remember that some things aren't for sale- No matter how many titles the Yankees have won, no matter how large their payroll is, no matter how massive their franchise is, they still couldn't persuade Cliff Lee away from re-joining the Phillies ball club. Money can't buy everything.

Know where to draw the line- Invest yourself in your sport, but leave it on the field. When you are playing your sport, nothing else matters. Alternatively, your "off-the-field" life should not impact your playing performance. Make that distinction and you can avoid conflict. This is also true for being intense, but not to the point of injuring yourself or others. Know when you are pushing yourself too far to the point of being detrimental.

Oregon is the second state to officially pursue adopting the Code of the West as an official state ethics code and I think we're on to something. The cowboy way of life, as glamorous and exciting as it was, can be applied to more than just partisan politics. The loyalty and commitment it preaches certainly offer prime lessons for many of our country's professional athletes as well as the organizations that they play for. Maybe the first step in solving the NFL lockout isn't a law suit. Maybe everyone just needs to go out and buy a decent cowboy hat.

Among the Stars: Steven Czyrny Bio

2011-03-31T17:10:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Steven Czyrny. I am happy to be joining the CNC team. I am a current graduate student studying integrated marketing communications at Saint Bonaventure University near Buffalo, NY. I graduated in 2010 from West Virginia University with a B.S. degree in Sport Management.

I have previous experience in sports media, writing articles for the Buffalo Bills and the University at Buffalo's athletic department's website. I also have done internships with the Bills and UB, working with marketing, facility management, and event planning. I have also volunteered with the Empire State Games, the oldest and largest amateur style athletic competition in the United States. At this time, I work for a marketing firm outside of Buffalo and will be doing some internet marketing for Pro Edge Sports, a sports agency and consulting firm in Alabama. Pro Edge Sports Academy offers online classes for aspiring sports professionals.

My love of sports was inspired by my time growing up watching Bills and Sabres games with my family as a child. I will be writing about star athletes in all major sports and how they deal with conflict, on and off the field of play.

Twitter: @stevenczyrny

Pro Say: What To Do, What To Do?

2011-03-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

The NFL lockout is officially upon us. I wrote a bit about this a while back, but now the depression has fully set in. We should face the harsh reality that there most likely will not be professional football in 2011. This is especially sad for someone like myself, whose NFL season begins with the Draft in April and ends after I watch the very last Sportscenter that shows highlights of the Super Bowl somewhere around March 1st. At least I will be able to say that my favorite team had the best record in the league for the first time since this guy was its quarterback. However, in my post-lockout malaise, I have decided that it is time for all of us to rise above an NFL-less world and fill the gap with some underappreciated sports. Here are four sports I plan to check out to fill the football gap:

Bowling:
The Professional Bowlers Association season lines up perfectly with the NFL season. All my life, bowling has followed NFL Sunday Countdown on ESPN – it was the network’s friendly reminder to turn the channel to the games that were starting. But now, I can check out the young upstarts Scott Norton, Yong-Jin Gu (the first Korean to win a PBA event), and Osku Palermaa. Palermaa has bowled 41 perfect games in his career. How many perfect games have you bowled? I have only bowled seven.

Fishing:
I have only fished a handful of times in my life. I never catch fish. It is surprisingly difficult, especially for someone who literally grew up on a riverbank. Current Bassmaster superstar Kevin Van Dam has won four championships since 2001. His career earnings are over $5 million! How can I not enjoy a sport where someone gets paid so much for doing so little?

Pro wrestling:
Okay, perhaps I am skewed because it is Wrestlemania season (the only time where professional wrestling is relevant in the past 10 years). Perhaps I am skewed because I used to watch this stuff religiously. I can still remember each sequence of the championship match at Wrestlemania XI in 1995. However, since I started college, I have grown apart from the world’s oldest sport. Now with football gone, I should get back into the game. It’s not like the same guys will be around anyhow…

Major League Soccer:
Another sport that overlaps with the NFL. Unfortunatly, I rejected soccer for so long. I didn’t get it. I thought it was slow. Nothing but a bunch of joggers scampering around a well-manicured lawn. Then this happened, and suddenly, I understood. I think that MLS will most effectively fill the gap left by the NFL.

Honestly, when the NBA season ends with certain disappointment, and my least favorite sport hijacks the summer (and local programming), and I have no NFL to look forward to, I will be in an unfortunate position as a sports fan. I will miss the NFL and I will cherish the day when reasonable minds can come together and fix the mess. However, in the interim, I plan to become a well-rounded sports fan. One who appreciates more than just highlights on ESPN. The only thing I need to figure out from here is where to find a Kevin Van Dam jersey?

A Good Teacher Is a Good Coach

2011-03-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

It has often been said that good coaches are good teachers. Indeed, good coaches teach their players how to practice, manage their time, work with their teammates, handle adversity, etc. But, after more than ten years of teaching, I have come to the conclusion that one of the major problems with our educational system is that teachers do far too little coaching.

What do I mean by coaching?

First of all, I am not suggesting that teachers should go all Bobby Knight on their students, though I sometimes see the allure. OK, to be honest, I have dreamed of cutting lose with a profanity-laced tirade while I am handing back a batch of mediocre papers. "You will not put me through another round of papers like the last ones. You will think the grades I gave last time were (expletive) generous if you continue to hand in this (expletive). . . ." I did once tell my students that, "I don't see any blood, I don't see any sweat, I don't see any tears in these (existentialism) papers," and proceeded to throw them all over the front desk. The subsequent papers were better, but I don't think my theatrics rose above the level of entertainment.

Good coaches are able to motivate their pupils because they form deep relationships with them. Sometimes that does mean getting in someone's grill, though I don't think there is ever a need for Knight's pedagogical techniques. Other times it means encouraging or putting your arms around a player. A good coach knows when to step in and when to step back. Knight, for example, often refused to call a timeout because he wanted to let his players to solve the problems they had created.

The point is that a good coach knows what buttons to push because she or he has an intimate relationship with his players. That is when the most effective classroom teaching occurs, too.

I was taking German in the ninth grade and the teacher (believe it or not his name was Herr Algae) and I talked about sports after almost every class. He warned all of us that we needed to spend at least an hour a night doing homework, but I wasn't even coming close. In fact, I didn't even study for the first exam because I was watching Monday Night Football (the Raiders beat the Chiefs, if memory serves). I got the C- I deserved, but what stunned me--and changed my life--was the way Herr Algae laid into me, in front of the whole class.

"Kenny got a C- because he was watching Monday Night Football," he announced, and then warned, "I am going to continue to announce his grades out loud until he gets his priorities in order." He never had to make good on that threat because I started doing by damn homework. I knew he was right and that I would never allow myself to be embarrassed like that again.

I took German with Herr Algae for four years. Lots of other students did poorly on exams, but I was the only one he ever publicly called out. Why? Why did he single out me and ignore all the others? My best educated guess is that he took that chance because he had taken the time to get to know me. He knew that I was underachieving and he believed I would respond to, rather than run from, his blunt criticism. The relationship we formed outside of the classroom allowed him to coach me.

I am not blaming teachers for this failure.

I teach ethics and focus on the big questions: What is happiness? How should one attempt to come to terms with tragic suffering? How does the Holocaust differ from other genocides? What can we do to stave off the possibility of ecological catastrophe? I would like to think I compel students to think about their place in the world, but what I do rarely rises to the level of coaching. I may reach the few students a quarter who come to office hours (the ones who are doing more than angling for a better grade), but the other 55 in each class seem all too happy to settle for a lecture. They don't want to be pushed, let alone risk embarrassment.

Our classrooms are too bloated and many of the students simply don't care enough about what they are being taught. We live in a society where more than 100 million people tune in for the Super Bowl while most don't ever watch C-Span. They volunteer to play sports but only take courses like mine because they are required. I am happy that a lot of coaches get a chance to mold so many young women and men, but it would be nice if coaching also played a pivotal role in the classroom.

Small Talk: Frozen Four Fever

2011-03-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

Where I come from, people live by the old adage "March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb."

Clearly the people who came up with this phrase didn't live in an age of buzzer beaters and charity lines. But during a time of year when American work productivity slips into the trenches because cubicles are full of cries of "Jimmer!" instead of "It was my pleasure doing business with you" as NCAA basketball tournament games wage on on computer screens, I can't help but be a little disinterested this year in March Madness. Especially now that Pittsburgh has busted both of my brackets.

But the lion of March is not just a basketball fan; he loves all sports. And what better time to be a lover of all sports as just today, the teams for the NCAA Division I men's hockey tournament were announced.

The NCAA men's hockey tournament is a completely different animal than the basketball tournament. Out of all of the 58 schools with men's hockey programs, only one school, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, comes from the South. The tournament is composed of sixteen teams (as opposed to 68), and all of the teams (this year) come from above the Mason-Dixon line. After a month-long battle, the tournament culminates in what I think is by far the coolest title for a national semifinal and final game: The Frozen Four. (I swear, no pun intended.) The other fantastic part about the NCAA DI hockey tournament is the geography lesson you receive as you search out where the heck these schools that you have NEVER heard of come from. I'd say the more well-known teams in this year's bracket are Yale, Boston College, Notre Dame and Michigan. And the teams you've never heard of? RPI (what does THAT stand for??), Merrimack, Union College and Minnesota-Duluth. (My disclaimer is that my fiance played hockey at Union College. To say that I've never heard of these schools or that I didn't know that RPI stood for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute would be a lie.)

Ok. Maybe you do know about these schools because you are from Minnesota or your favorite hobby is researching small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast. But let's be honest, most of us don't hear about the University of North Dakota or Colorado College raking in NCAA sports titles. The other reason you probably haven't heard of many of these schools is that they only compete at the Division I level in ice hockey. RPI, Union, Merrimack, Colorado College* (the women's soccer team plays DI too, but all the other teams are DIII), and Minnesota-Duluth all fall into this category.

But just because many of these schools have undergraduate populations of under 3,000 people doesn't mean they don't pack their arenas. In fact, these schools fill their arenas with more consistency than many NHL teams. At these games, pep bands blare school fight songs, student sections heckle goaltenders after they let up goals by calling them sieves, and fraternities toss dead fish that have been sitting out all day onto the ice. And why not watch this year, as the oldest collegiate ice hockey team, the #1 ranked Yale Bulldogs, attempt to win their first ever NCAA title? The team hasn't won an NCAA title in its history, which extends back to its first game in 1896 against Johns Hopkins.

Frozen Four tickets are already sold out, and have been for a year. Each year fans must submit their applications for the FOLLOWING year's Frozen Four by the end of April. The lottery is a priority-based system so those who have been buying tickets for these games for the longest are those who get them each and every year. Like the Super Bowl, people buy tickets just to go to the games. They don't care if their team is playing- they just want to be there.

If your basketball bracket isn't already busted, I applaud you. I must admit I'm a bit jealous. But if it is busted or if you are simply looking for a different kind of excitement this March, then I highly recommend catching some NCAA hockey action. It's fast paced, hard-hitting and fun to watch. Even though in reality March comes in like a lion and leaves like an angry one, I think it's safe to say that April showers do bring May flowers: flowers in NCAA hockey championship celebration parades.

Small Talk: Mazel Football!

2011-03-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

Another week has come and gone and the NFL Labor talks are still making the front page of newspapers across the globe daily. Reporters have even asked President Obama about his opinion regarding the Collective Bargaining Agreement dispute to which he has responded that they should be able to work out the dispute without the President of the United States intervening because "it turns out [he's] got a lot of other stuff to do." Agreed, Mr. President.

But within these countless stories that have appeared on websites and print publications alike, something caught my eye. Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots wasn't present at the mediation and negotiation sessions. Instead, he has been in Israel traveling with Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick. After first reading that fact, I couldn't help but scratch my head. Why on earth would the owner of the New England Patriots, one of the NFL's most successful teams, be traveling through the Middle East during the biggest crisis his club has faced in twenty years?

The answer is simple. Kraft and his wife Myra are philanthropists and while the rich argue about becoming richer here in the United States, his family is busy promoting the value of the sport of American football to a different country.

In 2005, a group of Israeli citizens wanted to play tackle American football. They started a league that year playing without pads or a governing body. Nearly four years ago, the Kraft family provided a generous donation to fund the league and get it off the ground. In that first 2007-08 season, there were only four teams competing for the title of Israel Bowl champions.

Fast forward four years. The league is now called the Kraft Family Israel Football League, it has eight teams and each team plays nine games per season. Though each team has a home field, the Israel Bowl is played in Jerusalem every year at Kraft Stadium which Kraft funded and built in 2000. After only four years of existence, the league has doubled in size and continues to gain support throughout the country largely because of Kraft's draw. Israel even now has a women's national flag football team, of which Myra Kraft is a huge supporter and has been fondly labeled by the team a "football mom."

This year, football was introduced to the high school level for the first time in Israel's history. There are five teams in IFLHigh's first year and Kraft will get the chance to see his impact this week first-hand as he watches a game between the Kfar Saba Hawks and Boyer Predators. Immediately following that game, the IFL's third-place game will take place between the Big Blue Jerusalem Lions and the Dancing Camel Tel Aviv Pioneers. (OK, I admit it; it seems that the league could use some help developing team names.)

When Kraft is in town, everyone knows about it. On past visits, he has brought the Vince Lombardi trophy (after his Patriots won it), former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, and NFL star Tom Brady. This particular visit will be no different as a special halftime celebration has been planned in his honor.

What strikes me about the entire situation is that it is unfolding in Israel; a country that has been steeped in conflict not only from its inception as a nation in 1948, but for thousands of years. In Israel, conflict has a completely different meaning than in the United States. Between the Israelis and the Palestinians, conflict doesn't even strike a chord because the two groups often don't even acknowledge the other's existence. But in this region which is incredibly frail in some ways, the physically brutal sport of American football is blossoming. Even more ironically, football is blossoming in Israel at a time when it's shriveling in its homeland of America.

So even if the football situation in this country sours (as sad and unfortunate as that would be) it seems that we always have Israeli football to rely on. At least there players play for the love of the game without worrying about whether next year they will make $12 million or $13 million. It seems to me that both Robert Kraft and President Obama do have something in common: they both have a lot of other stuff to do.

Reality Is Everything: The Success and Failure of Major League Soccer (Part 2)

2011-03-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about one half of a paradox that Major League Soccer (MLS), which begins its 16th season tomorrow, faces: I argued that attendance is rising because the league has learned how to create a fan experience unique to American sports. This experience is characterized by commercial-free, continuous play and fans that peacefully mimick the enthusiasm exhibited at European or South American matches. Why, however, have TV ratings stagnated? That's what i hope to explain now.

The long-term pattern has been very simple. Big events, such as World Cups and Pele or David Beckham's debut, draw high ratings, but both regular season and playoff matches in the North American Soccer League (NASL) and MLS have fared poorly. This has led many to conclude that Americans will never watch soccer on a weekly basis.

There is, however, another way to interpret the same data: Americans are only interested in watching soccer that is of the highest quality. The problem is that even Pele, let alone David Beckham, was not an alchemist. The brilliance he and some other players brought to the NASL was not sufficient to transform what was a mediocre league. The problem is even worse for MLS. There are now far more good American players, but the best ones soon depart for Europe and the imports aren't fit to lick Pele's boots (Beckham would not even be famous if he did not have movie-star good looks).

The latter thesis is supported by the ratings that English Premier League (EPL) matches generate in the US. MLS matches aired at nights and during midday on weekends on ESPN2 in 2010 averaged 249,000 viewers, while EPL matches, which are broadcast on the same network either frightfully early on Saturday mornings or during midweek working hours are averaging 324,000 viewers this season. Not one MLS game drew 400,000 viewers last season, but a weekday afternoon broadcast of a match between Manchester United and Arsenal drew 570,000.

Seattle fans may turn out in droves to watch their team play, but they are more likely to tune in to watch Chelsea play Liverpool than Beckham's LA Galaxy take on the Red Bulls of New York. The reason is simple: Experiencing a wild and woolly atmosphere in person can largely compensate for mediocre soccer, but the quality of the match will ultimately determine whether a match on TV is worth watching. No amount of well-miked singing coming through your surround sound system is going to make up for clumsy first touches and predicable patterns of play.

I am not trying to blast MLS. They have learned a lot in the last 16 years. They have built soccer-purposed stadia and generally improved the fan experience; the quality of the TV commentators has vastly improved and most of the mainstream media has stopped dogging soccer; and they have grown at a responsible rate, avoiding the suicidal spending that doomed the NASL. But they must understand that they will only get so far without consistently high quality play.

MLS doesn't need David Beckham. It needs a core percentage of players who are as good, or better, than he. In soccer image will only ever count for so much. American soccer needs to focus on the cold hard reality that many more quality players are needed.

Small Talk: One Small Step for Nerds...One Giant Leap for Nerdkind

2011-03-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

By now you've heard of Caltech's famous victory on February 22 over conference rival Occidental College. A game that ordinarily would have questionably made a small sports page blurb in the Pasadena Star-News became an overnight sensation making national news on ESPN and finding it's way into the LA Times, USA Today and even the U.K Daily Mail. As part of the Division III Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, Caltech's games aren't exactly fodder for Top 10 highlights reels.

But why was the victory so "impressive"?

Because Caltech snapped its 310-game conference losing streak, which had lasted since 1985. And what a celebration scene it was as star Ryan Elmquist sunk a free throw with 3.3 seconds left in regulation to clinch the 46-45 victory. Caltech fans sort of rushed the court and somewhat awkwardly patted each other on the shoulders celebrating a rather statistically boring game. Caltech made a season low 12 field goals, but only turned the ball over five times holding Occidental to 45 points. But still, for the 387 fans in the gym that day, it was a uniquely momentous occasion.

Unfortunately, Caltech sports are all too familiar with incredible losing streaks. On January 7, 2007, the men's basketball team snapped a 207-game losing streak. A documentary film called Quantum Hoops was even made about the 2005-06 season as the Beavers attempted to break their losing streak. The women's basketball team garnered their first conference victory on January 13, 2007, five years after they joined the SCIAC. In 2009, the men's soccer team beat Pomona-Pitzer breaking a 201-game losing streak.

Over the several weeks after Caltech's victory, players would be interviewed and written about countless times, both domestically and internationally. For perhaps the first time in their lives, these players were leading the glamorous life of the star athlete. However, as exciting as breaking that incredible losing streak was, I think that America in particular has been more captivated with the personalities and the "Nerd Nation" that the team represents.

The head coach, Oliver Eslinger, has a PhD, goes by "Doc" and recruits high school basketball players who have "a love for math, science and engineering." Elmquist, the team's star, is a computer science major and has spent his summers building robots. The rest of the roster is a mix of mechanical engineers, computer programmers, and aspiring astronauts. While many other collegiate athletes dream about keeping sports in their lives forever, the closest evidence of this kind of desire you'll find on Caltech's roster is sophomore Collin Murphy's career aspiration of becoming a professional fantasy football player.

Still there is something admirable about Caltech's unwillingness to compromise it's lofty academic goals for sports. The school only sets aside $1.1 million for its athletic department and draws from an undergraduate student body of fewer than 900. Unable to offer athletic scholarships as a Division III school, Caltech still boasts 17 different teams for its students to compete as a part of. Clearly, for a guard on Caltech's basketball team, the word "success" has a much different meaning than a guard on Ohio State's team.

So how do you define success for an athlete? Is it as simple as not turning over the ball? Or as complex as winning a conference game for the first time in 26 years? Is it related to statistics? Is success just a feeling? Maybe success for an athlete has nothing to do with sports. Maybe success just means shaking hands with your opponent after a game. Either way, the successes coming with Caltech's basketball victory on February 22 have reached beyond the Braun Athletic Center. Call it a victory for the nerds. Or, just plain call it a victory.

Pro Say: Let Me Show You the Door

2011-03-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

The owners of the Sacramento Kings announced last week that they are looking to move the team to Anaheim. If the Kings move, they will be playing in their sixth home city in just over 60 years as an NBA franchise. Struggling to get a new arena built (the holy grail of professional sports teams) in an apathetic sports market, the Kings will likely relocate before the beginning of next season. In Anaheim, or even Las Vegas, their other most likely destination, the Kings will be competing for fans and dollars with two other NBA teams (the Lakers and the Clippers), and six other major professional sports franchises between baseball, hockey, and soccer.

However, uncertain new-city prospects have not prevented other NBA franchises from uprooting for fresh climate. In the contemporary era, the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis, the Charlotte Hornets moved to New Orleans, and Oklahoma City stole the Seattle Supersonics. All of these franchises were welcomed with open arms by their new cities. Now Memphis and New Orleans cannot support their teams, while the new car smell of the Oklahoma City Thunder has yet to wear off. Relocation has done no good for the Grizzlies and the Hornets. What good will it do for the Kings?

Therefore, instead of moving losing franchises from unsustainable cities to other unsustainable cities, maybe the NBA should think about contraction. Commissioner David Stern has considered it, while league ombudsman LeBron James is all for it.

With due respect to the hundreds of fans who still support the following teams, I propose that the NBA contract the Kings, the Grizzlies, the Hornets, and the Charlotte Bobcats (which replaced the failing Hornets shortly after they left town). By in large, these four franchises have contributed relatively little to the NBA over the course of their histories. They are all in the bottom ten in attendance. If not for the Kings’ decent run in the early 2000s, these teams would have almost zero playoff success between them. Finally, these are all teams that have either bounced from failing market to failing market or simply have not existed long enough to relocate.

After contraction, I suggest that the NBA push hard to re-brand certain small market teams as representatives of whole regions as opposed to single cities. Renaming teams is unnecessary, but expanding their regional broadcasting, merchandising, and advertising reaches could bring in new, untapped fans. For example, the Portland Trail Blazers would have exclusive rights to Washington, western Idaho, and western Montana. Much like the NFL uses a regional model to broadcast its games (explaining why I have seen approximately 38,000 Seattle Seahawks games in my lifetime), the NBA could essentially impose “regional” teams on certain unrepresented areas. This would lead to all regions of the country – even those in the contracted markets – with options to form true rooting interests.

There is a lot of concern in the league now about superstars migrating away from smaller markets like Salt Lake City, Denver, and Cleveland to huge media centers like Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, and Chicago. A remedy for this “media market migration” trend could be the regional representation I outline above. While Portland will never be New York, there is something to be said for a player to represent the rooting interest of nearly one-tenth of the geographic makeup of the country. Certainly even this would not persuade the super-narcissistic stars (nor their families), but it may give second-tier stars like Amare Stoudemire pause before rushing off to a hugely populated (yet geographically minute) market to be a blip on the sports radar as opposed to a revered sports icon in a huge region of the nation.

The competitive benefits of contraction are endless. There would be 60 fewer roster spots in the NBA, so talent would be spread far less thin, especially at the end of the bench. This would force apathetic players, like the Baron Davises and the Gilbert Arenases, to compete instead of coasting along on pure talent or reputation. The same would be true for coaches when there are four less head jobs and 20 fewer assistant jobs to be had. Superstar migration would have less of an effect on the competitive balance of the league. And we would see more competitive games throughout the season.

Contraction would also allow for a more competitive developmental league. Better talent in the D-league will foster more intense competition and better games, leading to more NBA-ready players down the road. The NBA could then more successfully market its minor league as something people actually want to watch, giving the Association another revenue stream. Contraction would also discourage college players from entering the draft after only one year at the amateur level. There would be less room for “huge upside” rookies. Thus, teams would be drafting players who have cut their teeth against high-level competition, developed their fundamentals, and matured into NBA-ready personalities.

Obviously contraction won’t save teams from bad ownership and bad management, which will negate any benefits a particular team might reap in a smaller, more competitive league. Teams still need to want to win. Contraction won’t save the NBA from narcissistic superstars, who will continuously find new ways to be unlikeable. But contraction could afford the NBA a method to restructure in a time in which it cannot move forward in its current shape. And the Kings wouldn’t have to worry about packing their bags again in ten years when the Anaheim thing doesn’t work out.

The Success and Failure of Major League Soccer (Part 1)

2011-02-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

Major League Soccer finds itself faced with a paradox. Live attendance for 2010 rose 4%, to nearly 16,700 fans per match, while TV ratings on ESPN2 declined by a whopping 12%. Soccer-mad Seattle averaged 36,000 fans a match, but not one MLS game drew 400,000 viewers (four reached that figure in 2009). Why is MLS drawing more fans but losing viewers?

The answer to the first part is that MLS provides a fan experience completely unique to American sports. There are no commercial interruption, which means that there is no need for cheerleaders or silly contests to fill those interminable two-minute breaks in the action. I sometimes wonder whether the NFL or NBA realizes just how much long-term damage they are doing to their product (not to mention the integrity of their sports) by stopping to air so many ads. With rare exception, I watch most sporting events on my DVR. I urge you to try it. Skipping commercials not only saves time (it takes just over two hours to watch an NFL or college football game), it also makes the game flow much better.

MLS has also changed its fan culture. When the league opened in 1996, the emphasis was on a family-friendly experience modeled on youth soccer. They hoped that fans would be more respectful than partisan and more appreciative than vociferous. Sort of like a folk festival that the whole family can attend. Teams also ran loud ads during matches and the league largely turned its back on its predecessor, the North American Soccer League, which went out of business in the mid-eighties. Part of Seattle's success is attributable to the fact the club chose the Sounders as its nickname, which was also the name of the club when it played in the NASL and the United Soccer League. By contrast, franchises in Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, San Jose, and most importantly New York (the words Cosmos and Pele might ring a bell) turned their backs on their NASL brethren. Here was MLS, presumably trying to build a brand, encouraging fans to be sedate, distracting them with loud ads, and turning its back on a whole generation of fans who loved the NASL.

Well, thank God, a lot has changed. Several franchises, like Seattle, have embraced their NASL heritage, the PA system largely goes unused, and--most importantly--a real fan culture, that simulates what would occur at a European game, has taken hold. Each club has a vocal supporters' section, replete with chanting and arresting visual displays. The fans are not waiting to be entertained, encouraged and told when to cheer; they are leading the way, an integral part of the festivities. I am not sure whether it was by accident of design, but MLS has managed to create the passion associated with world soccer without violence and hooliganism.

That's the good news. Next week we will try to figure out why TV rating have remained stagnant.

Small Talk: O'er the land of the WHAT?

2011-02-14T09:51:00.000-08:00

The past two Sunday nights are two of my favorite Sunday nights of the year. The Super Bowl and the Grammy Awards. Purely for entertainment value, there are few nights in which there are more pyrotechnics and high- powered performers under the same roof. But this year in particular I watched the Grammys with peaked interest. Why? Because Christina Aguilera was slated to perform. And just one week before the Grammy Awards (at the Super Bowl) Christina infamously botched the National Anthem.

Less than a minute into the song, Aguilera belted out "What so proudly we watched at the twilight's last reaming" instead of the actual lyrics, which are "O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming."

Naturally, the incident blew up. Players had puzzled looks on their faces when it happened, Twitter and Facebook were abuzz, and by the third quarter, her Wikipedia page had been updated to reflect the incident.

Now I will be the first to admit that The Star-Spangled Banner is NOT an easy song to sing. The song (as we all know) has a difficult broad range of an octave and a half, and high notes at the most climatic moments. In addition, the tune was originally a drinking song, so it was intended to be sung by drunks. I'll even give Aggie the benefit of the doubt with the lyrics, which are, at this point, in virtually a different language from current American English (LOL, NBD, BRB). But as someone who is a 5-time Grammy award-winning artist earning millions of dollars to perform the dozens of songs in your repertoire, surely a two-minute song you have been singing for 20+ years wouldn't trip you up?

Or maybe it would.

But this of course is not the first time our National Anthem has been swirled in controversy. From the day it was written by Francis Scott Key when he was held captive in the Baltimore Harbor as the War of 1812 raged on around him, conflict was at the very heart of the song's birth.

At the 1968 World Series, Jose Feliciano delivered the first controversial "pop" version of the song. His slow, bluesy rendition was the first time the American public heard anything but the song codified by Herbert Hoover and Congress 37 years earlier. In 1969, Jimi Hendrix delivered one of the most famous renditions of the song at Woodstock with his electric guitar and his fingers flying across the fretboard. In 1983, Marvin Gaye delivered a soulful performance at the NBA All-Star game to widespread support from the crowd. And in 1999, John Amirante, the National Anthem singer for the New York Rangers changed the lyrics from "O'er the land of the free" to "O'er the land of Wayne Gretzky" at the Hall of Famer's last game before retirement.

In fact, the government sponsored a program in March of 2005 called the National Anthem Project after a Harris Interactive poll indicated that many adults didn't know the lyrics or the history of this storied song.

However, I would argue that the biggest National Anthem controversy happened in 1996 when Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the National Anthem before Denver Nuggets games. Claiming the song and flag stood for oppression and tyranny, Abdul-Rauf stated that standing for the Anthem would conflict with his Islamic beliefs. The NBA suspended him for one game for his refusal, but the league and Abdul-Rauf were able to work out a compromise allowing him to stand and close his eyes or look downward.

As you can see, this most recent debacle was not the first nor will it be the last time the National Anthem is in the middle of controversy before a sporting event. But at the end of the day, we need not focus on these slip-ups. In my humble opinion, they are worthy of a good chuckle and then swiftly moving on to focus on what really matters; the game that follows. In most cases, these slip-ups are no indication of the performer's love of or allegiance to this country. Simple lapses can happen in high pressure situations. How many times have we seen basketball players miss crucial free-throws with seconds left on the clock, or kickers missing last-minute field goals that would win the game for their team? Every single season.

To come back to where I started, did Aguilera do herself justice last night at the Grammy Awards? Does she have a future in continued invitations to sing the National Anthem before sports events? Well, yes and no. There is no doubt in my mind that this girl can SING. She can hit any octave jumps the National Anthem throws at her without a doubt. She also can't catch a break, as she stumbled and nearly fell on stage after her mind-blowing tribute to Aretha Franklin last night. But, Aguilera does have outstanding invitations to sing at minor league baseball and hockey games from the Lancaster Barnstormers, Brooklyn Cyclones and the Syracuse Crunch. It remains to be seen whether she will accept or not.

Let's just keep our eye on the prize, folks. Most people don't even see the National Anthem at sports events. By focusing on the game, we will save ourselves a lot of unnecessary headaches.

Pro Say: Fixing the NBA All Star Game

2011-02-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

The NBA announced its All Star teams this week. As usual, the teams are a sparse representation of the NBA’s best players throughout the first half of the 2010-2011 season. However, as the fans and only the fans vote in the starters, I cannot complain too much. Except for the fact that Yao Ming was voted a starter again, and he has played in only five out of about 130 possible games over the past two seasons, and in those five games, Yao is averaging 10.2 points and 5.4 rebounds. Yes, to the global fans of the NBA, Yao is the best Center in the West this season. I can get over that, considering the fact that he is the national sports icon for the largest country in the world.

However, the rest of the rosters are just baffling. You can view them here. Spurs Forward Tim Duncan, for example, was elected as a West reserve, while averaging 13.5 points and 9.3 rebounds. Meanwhile, Trail Blazers Forward LaMarcus Aldridge was left off the team while averaging 21.6 points and 9.1 rebounds. See what I mean?

Enough about the rosters. What about the game itself? Much like the NFL Pro Bowl, the NBA All Star Game is stale, non-competitive, and, often, unwatchable. I have officiated 7th grade games at the Y which were more entertaining, fundamentally sound, and representative of the game of basketball than most NBA All Star Games. Usually the game involves defenders clearing out so their opponents can throw it down, almost no whistles from the referees (because there is literally no contact amongst the players), and a final score in the neighborhood of 156-151. And yet, the NBA devotes an entire three-night block of programming to its All Star Weekend.

But enough complaining. What are my solutions? Incentives. Incentives in the form of personal pride, reputation, and respect, which are three things no professional athlete can go without.

Therefore, I propose a series of one-on-one playground-style games (you know, first to 21, win by two, call your own fouls) between evenly matched NBA superstars. When a player is on the court with nine other players, he can fall into the background, play along with the shenanigans, and all in all contribute to the extremely lackluster All Star exhibition. But I guarantee you, put two players out there with a ball, a bucket, and pride on the line, you will see some of the most intense basketball ever.

By the way, this idea stems from a childhood curiosity I had: Who would win one-on-one between a prime Kevin Garnett and a prime Rasheed Wallace? Sadly, I have been mulling this idea for years and I know I’m not the only one.

Anyway, don’t we want intense, healthy, and genuine competition between world-class athletes? I sure do.

Here are my proposed match-ups for 2011, with the likely tag lines for each contest:

LeBron James v. Kevin Durant
The two best players in the game. Do LeBron’s strength and determination defeat Durant’s length and quickness?

Dwayne Wade v. Kobe Bryant
Two similar players. Who wins between the player in his prime and the cold-blooded veteran?

Chris Paul v. Deron Williams
Let’s settle this once and for all.

Dwight Howard v. Amare Stoudemire.
Strength versus strength. Can Howard defend Amare’s quickness? Can Amare stop Dwight in the post?

Pau Gasol v. Kevin Garnett
Power against finesse. Lakers against Celtics. Youth against experience. This one has it all.

Monta Ellis v. Russel Westbrook
A track meet on hardwood between two speedy guards.

Kevin Love v. Tim Duncan
(Actually, this might resemble the 50 and over league that used to play in the gym before my spring league basketball practices.)

Chris Bosh v. LaMarcus Aldridge
Two high scoring big men. Can Bosh defend Aldridge, or will he out shoot the Blazers’ star in this battle of Texas natives?

Derek Rose v. Rajon Rondo
Offense clashes with defense in this contest between up-and-coming superstars.

Isn’t the prospect of one-on-one games between NBA superstars so much more appealing than another All Star snooze-fest? Now, I know the players would never agree to this formula for myriad reasons too extensive to list. Just think, though, how much fun this would be.

So, in a couple of weeks, when Dwight Howard is pulling up for a three-pointer at the end of a 168-152 blowout loss to the West, remember, as Howard's shot careens off the top of the backboard, that this is the NBA’s finest at work.

Wow, a whole column about fixing NBA All Star Weekend, and I didn’t even mention the…shriek…Slam Dunk Contest.

If This Is Such A Big Game?

2011-02-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

The Dallas Cowboys’ Duane Thomas did his level best to put the Super Bowl in perspective. Having grown weary of a seemingly endless stream on inane questions, he finally posed one of his own: "If it's the ultimate game, how come they're playing it again next year?"

Thomas rushed for 95 yards on 19 carries in Super Bowl VI and was, as Hunter S. Thompson commented, ‘the whole show’ in the Cowboys’ 24-3 demolition of the Miami Dolphins. Sport Magazine did not award him the MVP Award because he was boycotting the media. He did, however, consent to one brief post-game interview. After CBS’s Tom Brookshire asked, “Are you really as fast and as elusive as you seem?” Thomas simply said, “Evidently.”

Thomas’s comments suggest that actions speak louder than words and that there is no such thing as a final climax. Perhaps Thomas read the existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who argued that life is absurd and that there are no final victories.

The Frenchman argued that there are three forms of bad faith, all of which athletes would do well to avoid.

The first is what he called bad faith in-itself, which is the attempt to define one’s self by past achievements or failures. Sartre turned down the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964 because he believed a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution. Sportsman like to wax on about how playing well is more important than winning or losing, but I will not hold my breath waiting for someone to refuse one of those gaudy Super Bowl rings. Defining one’s self by an achievement may sound appealing, but Sartre warns that doing so may well undermine one’s efforts in coming seasons.

Wait till Next Year: Letting past failures define you is also an example of bad faith in-itself. The Brooklyn Dodgers lost the World Series to the New York Yankees in ’41, ’47, ’49, ’52 and ’53, but they never conceded that the fates favored the Yankees, and they finally won their first Series ever in ’55. Of course, they lost to the Bronx Bombers in ’56, prompting one of the great headlines ever: “Wait Till Last Year.”

More importantly, bad faith in-itself suggests that the future is always open. Bad habits can be transformed into dedication or dedication can degenerate into contented laziness. Who knows, maybe Randy Moss will have a third incarnation as a highly motivated wide receiver next season, but this season he served as a poster boy for what should be a Sartrean motto: What have you done lately? Moss seems to have forgotten that you have to prove your worth every game.

The second existential sin is what Sartre calls bad faith for-itself, which is the mistake of presuming that you have already changed before actually having done so, for example, you have no right to call yourself a recovering alcoholic until you have abstained from drinking for a long spell. In sports, you see this every offseason when some fading player signs a free agent contract and explains that he has rediscovered his passion. That may turn out to be true, but Sartre’s point is that you have no business proclaiming profound change until you actually go out prove it on the field. Allen Iverson may suddenly have developed a profound interest in practicing, but we—and more importantly, he—should be skeptical until he regularly stays after practice to improve his game.

The final form of bad faith is what Sartre calls being for for-itself in-itself. This is the mistake of thinking that the final chapter has been written while the game of life is still in progress. This may sound paradoxical, but Sartre claims, “We are condemned to be free.” We have no choice but to think about what we are going to do next. This is why one of the first questions Phil Jackson is asked after the Lakers win a title is, “Will you return as coach next season?" The present, Sartre rightly points out, instantly becomes the past. And you have no choice but to ruminate on your future plans.

Thomas was right: There is no such thing as the ultimate game, either on or off the field, Life may indeed be absurd, but we play season after season—with all the hype we can summon—because there is still the possibility of being thrilled by victory or agonized by defeat.

Pro Say: Breaking News - A Blockbuster Trade in Basketball

2011-02-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

Did you hear? Perhaps because it's Super Bowl week, you didn’t.

There was a blockbuster trade in basketball. Every team in the league will be affected. And there are certainly two teams that will never be the same.

In the dog days of the NBA season, my team needed a boost. We had been slacking in the key “big man” areas around which I like to build my franchise: blocks, rebounds, and efficient shooting. Therefore, I contacted other league General Managers, gauged their interests in the players I deemed expendable, and, once I found a taker, together we pulled off a blockbuster.

My club, “Sean Misses The Marks,” traded forward Zach Randolph and guard Monta Ellis to “I Bring The Ruckus” for center Dwight Howard and guard Joe Johnson. It was a blockbuster deal that I project will vault me into a top playoff seed in the Busch League Basketball Association.

Okay, by this point, you’re onto me. I, unfortunately, am not an NBA General Manager. I’m not paid to evaluate talent. In fact, I’m almost certain I will never work in the NBA. And, unfortunately, I presume that only nine other people in the world knew about my blockbuster trade before I told you about it.

Isn’t fantasy basketball amazing?

Okay, here’s the deal. I resisted this hobby for a very long time. I was asked to play for years and always declined. And then, before the start of last season, I was invited to join a very casual league composed of my closest friends. Finally, I agreed. I ended up finishing second. I dominated the regular season with my key draft picks, LeBron James, Zach Randolph, and Rajon Rondo. Alas, James sat the last two weeks of the real NBA season, dooming my fantasy team to a lackluster performance in the finals.

But, I was hooked. So this season, I am managing teams in two leagues. In one hyper-competitive league of my undergraduate fraternity brothers, I stand in 9th place out of ten teams. I am not cut out for that level of fantasy (or as comedian Adam Carolla calls it, “fairy tale”) sports. Here’s an example of the level of competition in that league: some team managers have made over 50 roster modifications since late October! I have made only nine.

In Busch League, I am right in line for a playoff spot. That is a much friendlier league, made up of casual and novice fantasy players. I think that’s what fantasy sports should be about. Friendly enhanced sports appreciation. It should consume no more than 30 minutes per day during the season, and it should not affect your real-life relationships with others. Trust me, in some leagues, that stuff happens.

However, one important thing has changed since I started playing fantasy basketball. I no longer peruse the box scores for interesting stat lines. I no longer watch games with complete apathy about who wins or who fills the stat sheet. No, that's now impossible for me.

Because, in every game, there is a player for my team, or a player for my opponent’s team, who I cannot stop watching. I want all of my players to score 50 points, pull down 20 rebounds, and make 5 steals, all without missing a shot. My opponent’s players? Let’s just say foul trouble is not an unfavorable outcome.

Even when players on my fantasy teams compete against my beloved Portland Trail Blazers, I hope “my” players do well and, in spite of such transcendent individual performances, the Blazers can pull out the win.

In the days before fantasy basketball, I hoped the Blazers would win every game 135-0.

So, on one hand, fantasy basketball has improved my viewing experiences in that I can watch every game with particular details in mind. How many blocks does Dwight have? How many 3-balls has Ginobli made? Will D-Rose get his 15th assist?

I am a much better evaluator of statistics since I took the dark plunge into fantasy basketball.

On the other hand, I don’t really enjoy the essence of the games anymore. Because, if my players aren’t doing well, I can’t get that “what if” out of my mind. If only Joe Johnson hadn’t sat on Wednesday, I would've won this week.

Not, wow, the Hawks sure rose to the occasion to win that important game without their key player.

I am a much worse fan of basketball since I took the dark plunge into fantasy basketball.

Do I regret starting to play fantasy basketball? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days of watching games with an objective perspective. Sometimes I wish I still wanted the Blazers to win every game 135-0.

And yet, did you hear about that blockbuster trade I pulled off? Pretty cool, huh?

Yep, pretty cool if you ask me.

What Americans Should Learn From Barcelona

2011-01-30T19:19:00.000-08:00

Statistics only begin to do justice to do justice to how well FC Barcelona is playing soccer, though the numbers I am about to reel off should make your draw drop.

Barca have won 19 of 21 matches in Spain La Primera Liga, generally regarded as the second toughest domestic league in the world, losing only once, outscoring opponents 67 to 11. That's right, they have outscored opponents by a whopping 56 goals, which means that their average margin of victory has been nearly three goals per match. Second-place Real Madrid, which has assembled the most expensive side in soccer history and hired a manager who described himself as the Special One, have only scored 48. During one eight-game stretch, which included a 5-0 humbling of Real, Barcelona scored 32 goals without reply.

The only thing more stunning than these stats is Barcelona's style of play. The easiest way to score in soccer is to counter-attack, but Barcelona constantly keeps possession, even when they are ahead, patiently probing, changing positions, advancing defenders forward, playing their way out of the back and out of tight spots--asking opponents such a bewildering variety of questions that they inevitably crack. During the aforementioned thrashing of Real Madrid, they completed an astonishing 838 passes. That means that they completed well over nine passes per minute, the highest number ever recorded.

OK, one last stat: Barcelona have the shortest side in Europe. In fact, the heart of the team are two diminutive midfielders, Xavi and Andres Iniesta (both 5' 7"), and the Argentinean attacker Lionel Messi (5' 6"). Xavi pulls the strings, organizing the midfield, always making himself available. Iniesta makes incisive passes that, as one of his former managers put it, "are like boxes of chocolate: thoughtful and sweet." And Messi, who received growth hormones injections just to become pint-sized, is beginning to merit comparison with his incomparable countryman Diego Maradona.

A couple of point are worth making, both of which relate to the ambivalent relationship Americans have towards soccer.

The first is that part of the sport's worldwide appeal rests on the fact that it is dominated by ordinary sized players. Being big beyond a certain point is actually a handicap. Thus, French attacker Theirry Henry, who now plays for the the red Bulls of New York in Major League Soccer, actually implied that Messi had an unfair advantage.

"I would love to have his first step, and his double dribbles, but it's him being small [and] quick," complained the 6' 2" Henry. "He touches the ball every step of his run. It's impossible to do what he does. I go one-two-three, push the ball, one-two-three, push the ball. If I want to touch it every time, I [have to] slow down. But he can go full speed: Tack-tack-tack-tack, tack-tack-tack-tack. I wish I was small."

And the second is that our youth development system largely marginalizes small players. Perhaps because of the big-must-be-better bias fostered by the other sports, most coaches put a premium on size, physicality, and fitness--rather than on ball skills and creativity. Unless this changes, the US will never progress beyond a certain level in the world's game. Training and organization can only get a player so far. Coaches need to encourage players to live with the ball--dribbling all the time, in the house and to and from school--and allow them to fully express themselves while playing. It would also help if the referees called games far more strictly rather than allowing big, unskilled oafs to simply overpower players they cannot otherwise mark.

Maybe the first step would be for American coaches and aspiring players to simply watch Barcelona, every week. I know, initially it will seem irrelevant, like watching thoroughbreds race when you have a pasture filled with delusional mules. But watching Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, et al may eventually rub off on us. We may finally realize that we have to think completely outisde of our deeply ingrained American box if we are ever going to amount to anything in this sport.

Small Talk: Mascot Mania

2011-01-27T23:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight was a fun night for me. I went to the brand spanking new Matthew Knight Arena to watch my beloved Stanford Lady Cardinal take on the Lady Ducks of Oregon in a basketball match. Though the crowd and electricity were far less than the first ever game played in "The Matt" I had attended a few weeks before, I was still in awe of the arena. As my eyes wandered around the building taking in the "oh-so-cool" pine tree design on the floor, the massive "O" on the bottom of the scoreboard, and all the cutting-edge screens throughout the building, I found myself completely enthralled with something that was quite familiar to me: Puddles the Duck. And despite the head-to-toe Cardinal gear I was wearing, I COULD NOT stop myself from watching and laughing uncontrollably at his antics. In my somewhat unbiased opinion, Puddles is the best mascot in the country. And as blasphemous as it may be for me to say that, I'm sticking firmly to it. He quite simply, is awesome.

Mascots of all kinds have thrilled audiences across the world since the middle of the 20th Century. Often said to bring luck to the team they represent, they provide a special element of entertainment to sporting events of all kinds. The English word originally stems from the French word "mascotte" which was used to mean anything bringing luck to the household. But mascots have come a long way from their humble beginnings. These days, mascots have their own "bowl games" and Hall of Fame. While modern mascots may not actually bring luck, they sure do bring dollars.

And headaches.

In the United States specifically, mascots are often a source of controversy. Originally hatched as cheerleaders, mascot choices are more and more heavily scrutinized for their political correctness. Most often, those mascots bearing strong resemblance to humans find themselves swirling in controversy. But mascot problems are for another day. Today, I am lauding them.

It's very impressive to me for someone to stand walking around in a hot costume for hours on end jumping around and embarrassing strangers. During the football season Puddles even blows the male cheerleaders out of the water when he does a push-up for every point the Ducks score. And let me tell you, this season, Puddles probably could have tried out for American Gladiator based on the guns he had after all the push-ups. The multi-talented duck tonight joined the University of Oregon dance team in a completely choreographed number. Without Puddles, it was just a solid routine. With him, it was outstanding.

I think part of the reason I enjoy mascots so much is that they (most frequently) tone down the intensity and seriousness in a stadium or arena. Now don't get me wrong, rowdy fans are incredibly motivational and can absolutely alter the course of a game. But, like anything else, there is a line to be crossed between cheering on your team, and actually hindering or negatively affecting your opponent. Mascots tend to make situations a little lighter.

Let's (again) take Puddles for instance because he is the man of the hour. There is something pretty hilarious about a 6+ foot tall fuzzy duck wearing a sailor cap and a sailor scarf running around trying to pump up the crowd. The image becomes infinitely more laughable when you dress said duck in a futuristic Nike-made Lycra suit and set him loose on a football field.

I am quick to admit that during Oregon's first basketball game at The Matt, Puddles had me in tears. This dang duck managed to stick each of his legs in separate garbage cans. (I am literally laughing out loud as I recall this stunt). If that wasn't funny enough, he then proceeded to walk along the ENTIRE sideline in front of the student section dragging his trashcan legs along with him. What made the situation tear-inspiring was the look on Phil Knight's face as Puddles trudged behind him waving stupidly and giving him two "thumbs" up. At that point, I couldn't have cared less about what was going on during the game. Puddles, for that night, was the center of my attention.

And that is the value of mascots. For just a moment, you can forget about who is winning or losing. It doesn't matter what color you are wearing. Heck, it wouldn't matter if the scoreboard was falling from the ceiling. Mascots make any bad situation a comical one. Now I'm not telling you to nominate your neighborhood mascot for a Nobel Peace Prize, but I certainly think they deserve some credit for all the screaming kids, spilled food & soda and seemingly endless push-ups they have to endure. They are bringing some fun to your day, so we may as well bring some fun to theirs.