Year-end observations and musings

1.  Oh to be Jaromir Jagr and still playing the game you love at the age of 44.

2.  Saw parts of the Kentucky-North Carolina game.  There was a player out there who had some Michael Jordan-esque moves.  Problem for the Tar Heels was that he played for Kentucky.  Name:  Malik Monk.

3.  Bucks have a 6'11 point guard whose last name you cannot pronounce or spell, but he's one of the top players in the NBA.  His name:  Giannis Antetokounmpo. 

4.  If the FCS has an eight-team playoff, why shouldn't the FBS have one? 

5.  Joel Embiid has been worth the wait.  Plays like a combination of Olajuwon and Chamberlain.  Problem is that the 76ers' guards play like another Chamberlain -- Neville.

6.  Dak Prescott is having an amazing year.  No one can take that away from him.  I wonder whether Carson Wentz would have had a similar year if he played behind that line with that running back and those receivers. 

7.  Will someone call the Federal Trade Commission and try to prod the NCAA and SEC to break up the Alabama Crimson Tide?

8.  Gender bias is apparent in sports, period.  Otherwise, how can you explain the relative lack of coverage of the UConn women's basketball team (or, for that matter, my listing this eighth).

9.  Does the English Premier Soccer League give us the rock star athletes like the NBA?  Just asking.  Games are fun to watch, and the crowds are excellent.

10.  If Theo Epstein were to pull off a third miracle after Boston and Chicago, what would the world do for him, give him?  Pretty amazing feats, what with all the attention in both cities.

11.  Will the Warriors smoke everyone in the post-season or will the playoffs expose their lack of depth?  Team isn't as deep as last season, and while that does not matter in the regular season, it might in the playoffs.  I would do everything to pry Nerlens Noel from the 76ers as a back-line stopper on defense.  The kid has game.

12.  Westown School in Pennsylvania has two or three future NBA players on its front line, one of whom has the second largest wingspan in all of organized basketball.  Question is how those players make their way to a league that isn't usually known for its sports.  Schools are good, and perhaps for some boys' hoops is an exception.

13.  Thankfully the Carr football family has found some good fortune.  Older brother David had a great college career and tons of talent, only to have the Texans' o-line perform so badly that he turned himself into a tackling dummy and didn't have the career forecast for him.  Younger brother Derek has found a great situation in Oakland and, as Jon Gruden predicted, is off to a great start in his career.

14.  Will this be Andy Reid's year to win a Super Bowl?  The guy is an excellent coach, yet his team's have been marred by the occasional Achilles' heel over the years.  Last week's failure to beat the Titans at home in the frigid weather revealed that Big Red's team cannot always get it done in the clutch.  It's a long season, and New England and Oakland look formidable.

15.  Saw that Jimmy Rollins signed a minor-league deal with the SF Giants.  Methinks that he and his former teammate, Carlos Ruiz, will manage in the Majors some day.  J-Roll could add a veteran presence and clutch bat to Bruce Bochy's bench.  Speaking of former Phillies, someone should sign Chase Utley.  Guy is a flat-out gamer.

16.  What goes around comes around.  During their great years from say 2007-2011, the Phillies were so popular that they sold out several hundred consecutive games at Citizens Bank Park and that the Nationals and Pirates both advertised in Philadelphia for fans to visit their stadiums during that era.  Phillies' fans got so confident that they waved a banner in D.C. that exclaimed "Citizens Bank Park South."  How the mighty have fallen.

17.  Ivy League men's hoops just aren't the same as they were when Penn and Princeton ruled and that rivalry was riveting and everything.  Sorry, Harvard, but you have taken the fun out of things.

Happy Holidays!

The Wake Forest Football Scandal

Alum becomes assistant coach.  Head coach gets fired.  New head coach doesn't want assistant coach on his staff.  Assistant coach becomes a member of the school's broadcast team.  A good job if one wants to a) stay in Winston-Salem, b) work for his alma mater and c) stay in football so that perhaps he can get another coaching job somewhere some day.

All that makes sense.  Alums don't have some divine right to have a permanent job in some capacity at their alma mater, no matter how much they loved their experience as students.  Football coaching is a meritocracy, to wit:  if you coach for a winner therefore you are a winner and therefore you will continue to be a desired member of a staff.  Conversely, if you coach for a losing team, no matter how good of a coach you might be, well, your job security isn't the same and your desirability on the assistant coaching job market will not be what you want it to be.  It's pretty much that simple.  Sure, you might have been in the wrong job in the wrong place at the wrong time and get resurrected quickly at an equivalent position, especially if you have a mentor who has a need, but that doesn't always happen.  Sometimes, you have to take a step sideways or backward to map out a new path forward.

The Tommy Elrod story started that way.  He was a co-offensive coordinator under the prior head coach and the new guy didn't want him on his staff.  There could have been a lot of reasons, but all that matters is that the new coach should be entitled to hire whomever he wants.  And the new coach, Dave Clawson, did just that.  And Elrod ended up in the broadcast booth. 

And that's when a screw seemingly went loose in Elrod.  I don't need to link to the many stories, but the gist is this -- for some reason, Elrod, who had significant access to the Wake program, took it upon himself on multiple occasions, apparently, to pass along plays to Wake's opponents.  Former players speculated on ESPN that he did this for money; Mike Greenberg wondered aloud whether payments were involved.  What's clear is that if this happened, it's a Benedict Arnold-level treasonous offense in the world of football.  You just do not do that.  That clearly crosses the ethical line if not the legal one. 

The scrutiny right now is on Elrod, but what about the teams that might have taken the Wake plays and done something with them?  What is the accountability for that?  The culpability.  What Elrod did clearly was wrong, but I'd submit that if investigations uncover that other programs willingly took and used the plays that Elrod shared with them to their advantage, then everyone involved in the taking of the secrets should be held accountable.  What should they have done?  Simply said, "not interested" and walked away.  Better yet, they might have called Coach Clawson and told him that this was going on.

What should the consequences be for those programs and people involved?  That's not for me to decide.  My guess is that facts and circumstances will decide the punishment, which could involve termination or suspensions and fines.  This seems to be an unusual and rare situation, but it also must be one that must not be tolerated.

The story is sad, pathetic and hard to believe.  I can understand that Elrod might have felt disappointment and frustration.  And it could have been the case that he didn't like the way he was spoken to.  Perhaps he felt ignored, dismissed, condescended to, or avoided or something else.  Even if he wasn't treated the way he wanted to be, his remedy for the situation was extreme. 

And for that he will need to find work far away from his alma mater and outside the game of football.

Aaargh, Arsenal!

A colleague once advised not to take victory laps.  His reasoning:  because every time you take one, there is someone standing in the shadows near the last quarter turn, waiting to take your knees out with a baseball bat. 

The commenters on NBC Sports Channel the other day made a great point about Chelsea in its lackluster 1-0 win on Sunday against West Brom.  The men in blue could not get much started and only had two shots on goal in the entire match, yet came away with the victory because Diego Costa took advantage of a lone West Brom defensive lapse with about ten minutes left in regulation to win the game.  Afterwards, Robbie Mustoe noted that this is the type of win that leads to championships, because Chelsea were/was not at their/its (note the allocation for English versus American usages) best during the match. 

And that's what good teams do -- they win when not playing their best.  And this is a far different team from the one that Arsenal embarrassed 3-0 at the Emirates several months ago.  Better organized and in a formation that works for them.  And that gets us to. . .  Arsenal.

The Gunners smashed West Ham almost all the way to the English Championship League three matches ago, and followed that pounding with a blasting of Basel in their final match in the Group States in the Champions League and then followed that match with a convincing 3-1 win over Stoke just on Sunday. 

And then they traveled to Everton, a team by all accounts (including that of their manager) in poor form.  The good news was that they took a 1-0 league through a fortuitous result on a free kick by Alexis Sanchez.  But then their lack of defensive depth hurt them.  They have been missing captain Per Mertesacker all year and recently lost Shkrodan Mustafi to a pulled hamstring about a week ago.  And that meant they moved Gabriel Paulista back to his natural center back position (he had been filling in at right back after Hector Bellerin was injured, back-up Matthieu Debuchy got injured and further back-up Carl Jenkinson proved ineffective).  Somehow, the chemistry with acting captain Laurent Koscielny was not there, and Everton scored once right before the end of the first half and four minutes before stoppage time began to seal a much-needed victory at Goodison Park. 

To paraphrase Robbie Mustoe's astute comment after the Chelsea-West Brom match, if Arsenal fails to win the league this season, they'll look to the 0-0 match against Middlesbrough at Emirates and this match as evidence that they were not a championship team.  Because a championship team would have found a way to score against recently promoted Middlesbrough and a championship team would have found a way to beat a downtrodden Everton yesterday.

Don't get me wrong -- this looks to be the best Gunners' team in years.  Arsene Wenger has a find in Alexis Sanchez at striker, Mesut Ozil is picking up where he left off from last year and both Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Theo Walcott are vastly improved from the year before.  The offense is high-powered and in gear.  As for the defense, well, they are not as good as Tottenham, and they miss holding mid Santi Cazorla.  Granit Xhaka has played well in spurts, but he is simple one ill-timed challenge away from a red card.  And the back line, which looked to be settled, has gone through some rough times because of injury and a rough time on Tuesday.

Are the Gunners' chances gone?  Slim?  Fading?

Hardly, as it is just too early. 

But they will need to win the games that they are supposed to -- in addition to the ones they are not -- in order to win the title.  One data point does not make a trend, as the Everton game was just a bad game for them. 

The 76ers' Problem with Its Ticket Holders

Ben Simmons broke his foot before the season and is out until at least January.

Nerlens Noel had knee surgery and is out indefinitely, has not played all year.

Jahlil Okafor and Joel Embiid are on a diet of restricted minutes owing to Okafor's pre-season knee surgery and Embiid's well-chronicled foot malady. 

The team worked hard to sell season ticket plans in the off-season.  Really hard.

It's bad enough to have four high first-round picks out.  What's worse, though, is that Embiid is getting needed rest, sometimes at home.  The tickets aren't cheap, especially not for a product as inept as the 76ers' product has been over the past several years.  It has been inept even to those who trust the process.  If it has not been, then they are lying to themselves.  There is some good basketball on certain nights and at certain times, but on other night it is plum awful.  It's a given that Noel (who doesn't excite the fans) and Simmons (who will) are out for a while.  Okafor seems like a dinosaur out there, a throwback to the days where teams pounded the ball into the post.  The fans are indifferent about him.  Embiid, though, is a different story.

He is everything the fans hoped for.  He is THAT tall, at 7'2".  He can put the ball on the floor.  He can shoot the three, and he is a presence in the paint at both ends of the ball.  Atop that, he plays with a zing, an oomph, a zest, a zeal, well, a personality.  Simmons might have one; Okafor does not, and neither does Noel.  Then again, the latter two might re-develop them after being cogs in Duke Hoops, Inc. and Kentucky Basketball Corporation, where the coaches and the brand take precedence over any individual, even if the individuals have transcending talent. 

Yet, the fans who have ponied up some very good money are looking at a D-League to D-League Plus team on any given night.  True, Okafor is hard to guard in the paint and foreign imports Ilyasova and Saric are good; the former can score and the latter can do a lot of things.  Nick Stauskas might have jump-started his career again, but Robert Covington is a shooter who right now cannot shoot and Gerald Henderson is a well-intentioned journeyman at the two guard position.  Point guards Sergio Rodriguez and T.J. McConnell are back-ups, and Jerryd Bayless is a journeyman too.  Put differently, they scare no one.  Healthy, the team is lopsided and has too many promising, potentially very good bigs.  Injured?  It is more balanced but without consistent appearances from good bigs it is not a good basketball team.

As for the fans, yes, they did pay their money, probably because they trust the process and the potential of Simmons and Embiid particularly is tough to argue with.  That said, they deserve far better than not knowing when Embiid will and will not play and in all likelihood some nice gifts from the 76ers because the fans this year did not sign up for a season without Ben Simmons and for a partial season of Joel Embiid. 

These fans might trust the process, but they are running out of trust for management. 

Nick Saban is Just Wrong about Blake Barnett

Fact:  Top program in country recruits elite players. 

Speculation:  To program in country perhaps recruits too many of them.

Fact:  Only one quarterback can play that position at a time.

Speculation:  Top programs recruit many elite quarterbacks, realizing that not all can handle college, the pressure, their system and that not all improve after high school.

Fact:  Quarterbacks transfer.  Blake Barnett, a five-star recruit out of California, just pulled the plug on his stay at Alabama, will transfer to a junior college and then be eligible to play for an FBS program this time next year should he have the grades and credits.  Read more about his story and Saban's reaction here.

Analysis:  Barnett did not quit in the sense that Saban says he did.  Saban gets the analysis partially right -- the kids do get all sorts of ideas in their heads about how good they are and how much they should be playing.  Heck, the top programs help foster a system that creates a star system among recruits and pumps them up with all sorts of ideas as to what they can achieve at a big-name program.  It's a circular system, in that that's how the big-time programs get these kids -- by pumping them up or underscoring the hype.  Atop that, it used to be the case that the programs had all of the power and that a commitment meant an unbreakable bond between school and kid, even if it turned out that the kid will sit for most of his career because, well, he isn't all that good.  But it also was the case that programs tried to and succeeded to run kids off the team, precisely because they weren't all that good.  Today it's the case that programs cannot offer an unlimited amount of scholarships (they are limited to 85) and that scholarships are one-year renewable, which means that if a kid has a bad year, the team can "non-renew" him and cut him loose without any commitment to his education.  So if a program can do that, what's wrong with Blake Barnett's departure?  Perhaps the timing -- he isn't sticking out the year and he has no promise of a smooth path to a starting job elsewhere -- but that's about it. 

So why is Nick Saban wrong?  Because everyone simply doesn't have to do as he says.  Is it frustrating that a coach "never knows" who will stay and go and therefore a coach is frequently on edge about what his depth chart at QB can be?  Maybe.  But the coach can alleviate that pressure through building solid relationships with his QBs and engaging in meaningful conversations.  That's not to say that Saban didn't try that or do that in his mind, but that's not always the case.  It's hard to think of the term "poor Alabama" in this situation.  The Crimson Tide will get over this setback.  I do feel for the QB, because, well, he's a kid, and kids go through a wide range of thoughts and emotions about major decisions.  It may be that he's not as good as advertised, and it may be that Alabama just isn't a great fit or that he fears he'll sit behind the current starter for way too long.  That's his right, and it's his right to leave.  Besides, why would Saban want him in the locker room if he is this unhappy?  Isn't the goal to provide for the kid's happiness first?

Sorry, Nick, but the kids have very little power as it is.  College football and coaches like you have made it so.  Just remember that in the absence of a greater balance of power, you create a situation where kids can feel too pressured and sometimes squeezed.  Change the system and you might not get a precipitous departure.  Maybe.  At the end of the day, you might have gotten it right -- these are elite prospects who have a lot of people whispering into their ears and who have come to a program like Alabama on a wave of hype, whether it's justified or not.  That's the world you chose, so occasionally you have to realize and come to grips with the fact that it will disappoint you.

On Sam Bradford

Great game last night.

Showed that he can begin to quarterback a good team.

Makes Vikings' management look good so far for making the trade.

Key things:

1.  Can he continue to play at this level?
2.  Can he stay healthy?

The further the Vikings go, the better the trade will look for them.

The better Carson Wentz does, the better the trade will look for the Eagles.

Neither QB, of course, should be judged on a single data point. 

But the Vikings must have liked what they saw last night.

As for the Eagles' brass, well, every time Bradford goes out and has a good game, a piece of them dies.

On Carson Wentz

I had planned a longer post, but figured I'd write just a few basic points on the topic:

• Wonderful first game.
• It was an NFL game.
• It was against the Browns, one of the worst teams in the NFL.
• He played in a pro system at North Dakota State and it shows why.
• Funny how more low star recruits do better in college and have pro potential than higher star recruits.
• He made some nice throws for touchdowns.
• It was his first game, a very good start.
• He is a rookie.
• There will be film on him going forward.
• He will get to watch film and study defenses too.
• He will make mistakes.  There will be times where he gets sacked when he should have gotten rid of the ball or when he throws an interception when he should have thrown it into the ground or out of bounds.
• His line is okay for now but will not be as good if Lane Johnson gets suspended.
• The Eagles will need to sustain a running game to help enable the passing game and vice versa.
• He is a rookie.
• He will make mistakes.
• Patience should be the operative word for all in the Philadelphia region.

Last Chance U

Netflix just dropped this documentary series about the 2015 season of the East Mississippi Lions, a juco football team that is ranked in the top ten and has been for a long while.  EM is located in Scooba, Mississippi, a town of about 760 people.  The roster is populated with kids who dropped out, flunked out or were kicked out of DI programs or kids whose academics were poor enough that they couldn't qualify for admission in the first place.  Those featured on the documentary are there to do one thing -- play football.  And then draw notice from recruiters for Division I schools and hopefully get into "the league."

Before anyone scoffs, the show points out that EM has 12 alums in the NFL, and the average DI school has about 7.  The combination of the circumstances of the players, the backwater nature of Scooba and the huge personality of the head coach, Buddy Stephens, creates a good show.  While the primary subject of the show is football, the show also is about life.  And, in many cases, how out of balance the lives of many of these kids are.  As one assistant coach pointed out, the kids should focus on their education because the average career in the NFL is about 1.5 years (I think that is probably a fraction over three). 

But they don't.  The featured kids prefer to do a lot of what teenagers do -- sleep, party, hang out, look for girls, talk on the phone or preferably text and incessantly listen to music.  Schoolwork?  It's a means to an end, and they'll do the minimum so that they can get the grades to move on to their next stop.  Many dream of getting to the SEC.  Some will, others won't.  But the featured kids seem totally unmotivated academically.  To them, a scholarship means a berth on a team where they can make a difference and hopefully go pro.  It does not mean an opportunity to get a good education and a decent job should the football thing not work out.  Which means that if it doesn't work out, some of these kids will end up back on the street corners of where they came from, and that's risky.  Why?  Because the high school teammate of one of the Lions' stars couldn't figure out a way to stay at his DI school, ended up back on the streets of some small Florida city, and was gunned down within 18 months.  No education and no skills equals a recipe for problems.

Some kids seem nice and likeable, others naïve, and even others selfish, entitled and not likeable.  Let's remember, though, that they are just kids.  But they suffer from a delusion that football can be everything and take care of their problems.  Or, if they're not delusional, they might contend that it's the only thing that they can do well.  It could be that they are right, but it could be that they haven't been challenged, have been passed through the system because they can play football well, and it could be that they just haven't put in nearly the effort that they do on the football field.  The academic advisor has to chase after the star running back to try to keep him eligible.  It's pretty frustrating, and in certain places the player would be suspended for his lack of attendance and effort.  Instead, this advisor, who should be nominated for sainthood, points out that the one essay where he gave a good effort was pretty good, so why not try?  The star running back mumbled an answer and gave an "aw shucks" type of look.  He just doesn't like school. 

The head coach, a volatile man a few cheesburgers short of a heart attack, wonders aloud whether he and his staff should be doing more to hold the kids accountable academically.  But that's it -- he just wonders, all the while building up the type of record that gets a statue built for you or a stadium named after you at EM.  He should remember that the one guy after whom the stadium was named in memory of whom the statue was built seemed to be remembered for being a bit nuts and for having pushed the envelope too hard.  I won't spoil it, but the team can reflect the coach's moods and temper.  Seeing is believing. 

So what to think of the documentary series and EM?  It underscores how important football is to certain cultures and how kids get put into the system, chewed up and spat out with nothing to show for it after all the years that they committed to it.  The kids appear to be solely focused on football or relaxation, entitled to skate through the way they want to off the field, and yet, that's not always fair.  Sure, they are in sweats a lot and have headphones on, but so do a lot of kids.  What's sad is that they don't seem to have a care in the world for their futures beyond football.  And if they don't care, there's only so much caring an academic advisor can do for them.  I wonder what the coach thinks or will think ten years out when he sees the predicaments of some of his former players.  Those predicaments will not be pretty.  But will they have been worth it for a league championship or a national championship?  Or if some kids make it to the league?

The documentary series is worth watching.  Like a fictional counterpart, Friday Night Lights, football isn't the entire story.  This series is about life.  While not all of the back stories are compelling, some are riveting. 

Which is as it should be.

After all, this is Last Chance U. 

At least for the football players. 

Olympic Dedication

I read an article the other day about one particular U.S. Olympic team.  This is not a team that was featured in prime time.  It is not a team that won a medal.  Its sport is not one where people can play professionally anywhere in the world and make a living, let alone a lot of money.  The players do play for the love of the game.  And that's great.

But I am not sure that they are amateurs.  It doesn't seem that they have day jobs and then drop what they're doing to join the team when an Olympic cycle begins, say a year before the games.  No, it seems that they get a stipend to be on the national team, live at the national training center, and then, well, play for a long time.  One of the starters was quoted as saying, "I'm 27, and I have never had a job."

Is that a good thing?  If you remember the Olympics when amateurism meant something, you also recall the hypocrisy of the Iron Curtain countries, for many of their stars were in the military and their sole responsibility was playing for, in the Soviets' case, the Red Army team.  So much for amateurism.  In today's world, the Olympics only care about getting the very best, so no longer do you have the Belgian librarian who is the weight lifter or a school teacher who ran the 1,500.  Those days are long gone; they will not return.

I don't want to sit in judgment of the 27 year-old who never has had a job and who thus far has played a kids' game for a living.  My guess is that this person will go on and have a career in the sport, getting paid as a coach or as someone who can administer the national team.  If that's the case, then as this person ages this person will graduate to a role where she can get reasonable compensation, benefits and the ability to contribute to her retirement.  And, hell, it could be fun to play a kids' game for as long as you can without having to have a care in the world outside, well, playing the kids' game well.  Sounds like good work if you can get it.

The flip side to the argument is that "are you kidding me, why postpone real life by playing a kids' game that few understand or watch for as long as you can as opposed to doing something else with your life?"  And by something else, the person asking the question means, "something that is meaningful" because playing a kids' game forever doesn't seem to be meaningful.  Those making this argument will say why did the person get a college degree and then dedicate her young life to this pastime, especially when the U.S. doesn't have a history of earning medals in this sport? 

On the one hand, the pursuit is pure and for the love of the game and for a bond with teammates that is deep, meaningful and could last a lifetime.  It's not necessarily being a cloistered monk with few possessions who achieves various levels of consciousness that the rest of us cannot begin too, but it is dedication in a very pure sense.  You can make the argument that this is what certain academics do; they study a rare subject that gets little attention for the sake of doing it and for coming up with the type of discovery that might be able to shed light on civilization in a meaningful way.  Failing that, they would argue that the mere doing the work is pure and sets an example for all that purity in study has meaning, sometimes deeply so.

I don't know how I feel about this.  I don't walk in this person's shoes.  To a degree, I'm envious -- not having worked, wow!  To a degree, I'm aghast -- not having worked, what, do you live in a bubble? 

The past 17 days left this relatively anonymous athlete on a relatively anonymous team with a chance to gain some temporary notoriety -- as a team -- had they won a medal.  They fell short, and now they'll retreat to their national team headquarters, happy that they fared better than they did in London, but wondering about the next four years.  Not having worked until your mid-20's is one thing, but when you're in your early 30's and don't have a working track record, it makes it all the more difficult to get that first job.  We're not talking about an athlete with any endorsement money; she is not a swimmer.  We're talking about someone much further down on the sports food chain. 

The rest of us will say we enjoyed the Olympics, even with the air brushing over Rio's substantial problems, enjoyed how well the U.S. did (overlooking that the games increasingly seem to be a contest for the industrialized, nationalistic countries) and how well certain individuals fared -- Biles, Ledecky, Phelps among them.

And we will forget the rest.

That those who toil in relative anonymity continue on is testimony to their determination and perseverance.  There is something to the purity of it all. 

At least up until the point where it seems to be a bit extreme and pushes one's life out of balance.

Ironic Passive Aggressivenes by NFL Players

The NFL players have a union.  The NFL players have a collective bargaining agreement.  The NFL players are angry with Commissioner Roger Goodell for acting under that collective bargaining agreement.  Those players implicated in the Al-Jazeera PED scandal are angry that they have to comply with the league's investigation or else face suspension. 

The question to all of these issues is the following:  why?

The reason I ask is because the players have a collective bargaining agreement.  Their protests, frustrations and anger result from actions that the league has carried out or may carry out under that agreement.  For example, certain players who have not spoken to the league as a result of the Al-Jazeera allegations are annoyed that they have to cooperate with the league.  Put very simply, their anger and frustrations are wrong and misplaced.

Employers in this day and age are obligated -- perhaps by law if not policy of an at-times very unforgiving Department of Justice -- to investigate compliance complaints.  The Al-Jazeera allegations are serious enough that the league needs to investigate them.  And forget about the law, even.  PEDs can give a player and his team an unfair advantage.  By the league's own rules, such alleged misconduct must be investigated.  A corollary to that is a fundamental tenet of employment law -- if you don't cooperate with an investigation, you get fired.  By the way, refusing to cooperate because you might want to take the Fifth Amendment in a corresponding criminal investigation won't help an employee.  In many cases, employers fire those employees too. 

The players to a degree are lucky that they have a union and a collective bargaining agreement and should work with NFLPA leadership to maximize their benefits and protections under it.  But to the extent that the league is doing what it is doing and the CBA permits it (such as letting Commissioner Goodell -- without third-party review -- mete out discipline), they players should grin and bear it.  That's what they signed up for.

So what's their remedy?  The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in what explicably was not a unanimous decision) upheld the CBA with respect to Tom Brady, despite all of the Patriots' public relations and the NFLPA's public relations arguing that this was an injustice.  Whether or not people liked the decision, again, it fell squarely under the CBA.  The players made a huge deal out of the Brady matter, but their frustration was misplaced. 

Instead of focusing their anger on the league and the commissioner, they should direct their comments to their union head, DeMaurice Smith, and urge him to develop a dialogue with the Commissioner to improve upon some of the things in the CBA.  Look, even if the league has a right to do certain things under the CBA, it also worries about its brand.  Translated, the Commissioner won't always win if he enforce or takes advantage of the CBA to the specific letter of it.  Doing so would convey a lack of wisdom on his part.  Atop that, Smith should try to make his points now to prepare the Commissioner and the owners for what the players might ask for in the CBA negotiations the next time around.  That would be a start.

But for the players to get the changes that they seek, they might need to strike and strike for a good period of time.  Historically, the owners have won to a much greater degree than in baseball (which has the most successful union in the history of unions) and basketball.  The reasons seem to be two-fold.  First, the average football player's career is a fraction over three years, which means that the average player really cannot afford to strike, especially for an issue that will be unlikely to affect him.  Second, football is a sport populated with players who have been told what to do since age 6 or 8 or whenever Pee Wee football starts.  The football player population seems less likely to talk back to its ownership than other populations do in other sports.

DeMaurice Smith and his executive committee would be well-served to get the messaging right.  They need to keep their membership focused on playing well and growing the revenue in the NFL.  They need to let them know that they are pushing on the key issues that they want to improve upon.  And they need to show progress on those key issues.  What they also should do is try to focus the players on anything but letting issues that they bargained for in the current CBA eat at them to the point of distraction.  That distraction will not improve the situation or make any individual player play better. 

Whether they like the ownership groups, the Commissioner or the league, well, that's up to them.  But they'd be better suited being aggressive in their discussions and negotiations than in public displays of anger and frustration that usually only get the better of those who are angry and frustrated. 

Ugly Americans

I enjoyed the U.S. Swim Team's performance at the Rio Games very much.  The team exceeded expectations and looked like they had a good time doing it.  Young swimmers excelled, as did the tattooed grizzled veteran, Anthony Ervin, who had the swim of his life in the 50-meter race.  It was great to watch.

And that should have been it, at least until a couple of nights ago when a male quartet that star swimmer Ryan Lochte led did something stupid that caused them to have a run in with a private security guard who seemingly was right to inquire as to what Lochte and his three teammates were doing at the gas station in the wee hours.  Turns out, they needed to use the rest room, and, finding it locked, they kicked the door in.  The guard or owner, I don't recall, asked for some compensation to fix the door.  The swimmers offered $20, and that should have been it.  Basically, a bunch of young men (although Lochte, at 32, shouldn't come close to getting the "college boys will be boys" leniency) were out too late and did something stupid.  That probably should have been it.

Except that Lochte fabricated a story, the motivation for which was unclear, that Rio cops pulled over their tax, held them up at gunpoint and took their wallets.  That story baffled the local authorities, who were reeling enough because of some of the crime that transpired during the games, some of it very violent.  Lochte's and his teammates stories changed, didn't square up, and it didn't seem plausible to those investigating Lochte's story that the robbers would have left the swimmers with their cell phones.  That's not the modus operandi of robbers in Rio, apparently.  In addition, Lochte seemed way too nonchalant about having a gun put up to his forehead (something that did not happen), and video at the gas station and then from the Olympic Village seemed to indicate that the returning swimmers were in pretty good moods despite what allegedly happened.

What's puzzling is why Lochte felt a need to concoct his story unless as a means to mollify whoever was monitoring the whereabouts of the swimmers.  But why he felt a need to do so after the swim races were over is baffling because it is not as though USA Swimming or the USOC would suspend him for missing curfew.  Instead, as can happen with webs of lies, the story took on a life of its own, and what it now appears to be is that unaccountable and entitled, privileged young Americans tried to impugn the integrity of the local safety situation to cover their rear ends because they made a mistake.  What Lochte and his buddies failed to assess was the degree with which the Rio authorities would fight back to challenge the story.  After all, the story drew international headlines, the types that might continue to scare away tourists because, well, if robberies could happen to these big, strong guys they could happen to anyone.

At one level, the whole thing is stupid, young people when they get together and party together can do stupid stuff, and the whole thing shall pass.  At another level, and at a time where Brazil is having too many down moments and the U.S. can suffer from looking privileged and entitled, the whole story looks bad.  It piles on another bad episode on Rio, and, at the same time, tarnishes to some degree the accomplishments of the entire U.S. swim team.  After all, if those four are representative of the others, then what type of entitled prima donnas do we have on our swim team?  (Note:  similar accusations could fly toward the U.S. women's soccer team, if only because of the post-loss comments of Hope Solo, who called the Swedish team cowards.  That doesn't make the U.S. women's team a collection of sore losers, but it does call into question why it has tolerated Solo's lack of good judgment and temperament over the years -- it can set a pall over the entire team).

Lochte left Brazil, two others swimmers were pulled off their plane home and another never got the chance to go to the airport.  For this thing to end peacefully and in the spirit of accountability, Lochte and his teammates should issue and apology.  And Lochte also should write a check -- he has a lot of endorsement money -- for say $25,000 to $50,000 to a local Rio youth sports program as a good will gesture to help patch things up.  But if he remains silent and stays in the U.S. without making this right, then you have to wonder about him.  And if he were to remain on the U.S. swim team should he not apologize and make things right, well, then that would say something about USA Swimming too. 

Lochte picked his sin; he cannot choose his consequences.  He and his teammates would be well-suited to make this a non-story going forward as quickly as they can.

Can the Summer Games Still be a Failure for the United States? Yes, They Can Be. . .

What, am I Oscar the Grouch?  The Grinch?  Scrooge?

Hardly.  And it's hard to argue with the numbers.  The U.S. has a huge lead in medals and the success of the swim and gymnastics teams has been terrific.  The track team remains a work in progress.

That said, I will posit that the games still could be a failure for the Americans for one reason and one reason alone -- the U.S. Men's Basketball Team.  Now, that's not to take anything away from swimming, gymnastics and women's basketball, and heck the women's soccer team bowed out and no one in Washington D.C. declared a state of national mourning.  But, basketball is our game, and men's basketball is particularly our game.  And I do remember when the U.S. went into mourning in 1972 for, among other reasons, the ripoff that the men's team suffered in the final against the Soviet Union.  People were glum about that loss for years, and to this day no one on that team will accept a silver medal for the crime that the team suffered at the hands of utterly incompetent if not corrupt officials.  (And there have been other disappointments since then as well).

Still. . . the U.S. men's basketball team is supposed to represent that the best America has to offer in terms of superlative skills.  We invented this game, and we're supposed to own it.  If we lose, we lose another sense of our invincibility.  Sure, it's nice to win all of those other medals, and we take great pride not only in the accomplishments but in the stories of the people behind those great works.  That said, if we lose in men's basketball, well, the Olympics will not have been a success for the U.S. 

No pressure, of course, but it is time for the leaders on the team to emerge and to encourage more concentration, more sharing of the ball, more help defense and more movement without the ball. 

This is our game.  We have some of the best players in the world on our team.  We should do better.

We should win the gold. 

U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball Team

The non-Americans seem to work the ball inside out and outside in and play help defense.

The Americans try to will their talent to win, and their talent is considerable enough that they should win the gold medal. 

That said, I agree with the pundits, most prominently Charles Barkley, who offered that whoever constructed this team failed to do a good job, because with the exception of DeAndre Jordan the team is populated with players who need the ball to be effective.  And because of that, you do not see a lot more than isolations and one-on-one play.  You certainly do not see the off-the-ball movement that the other international teams show or that, among others, the Warriors and Spurs have shown over the years.

The team also lacks leadership.  LeBron can coax, cajole and even coerce his teammates to greater heights, if for no other reason than he takes care of the little things and nothing seems to be too little not to warrant his attention.  The team seems to defer to Carmelo Anthony as its leader.  I'm sure Carmelo has his bright points, but he also has a reputation for being a shoot-first player whose defense is not his strong point.  I thought that Paul George might have played more of a leadership role, but clearly there is something missing.  Call it team defense, call it movement without the ball, call it sharing the ball, call it focus, call it something.  These players come from the best league in the world, and yet they are eking out victories against teams with much less talent. 

Will they win the gold?  Probably?  Is this a huge deal?  Probably not.  But it does go to show you that when you craft a team, it's a good idea to get some players better suited to international play and to the basic concepts of ball movement and team defense. 

Chase Utley's Return to Philadelphia

A standing ovation that lasted almost two minutes.

A tip of the cap from longtime teammate Ryan Howard.

A solo home run that warranted a curtain call.

A grand slam that also warranted a curtain call.

A home run by Howard, too.

Two home runs and 5 RBIs in Philadelphia on his first trip there as a visiting player; he had never done this while playing in Philadelphia.

Amidst the Olympics, still the lead story on Sports Center.

Sometimes things converge and you get a beautiful moment or a series of moments that become a beautiful chapter.

Last night at the Bank was one of those times.

As Harry Kalas once famously said, "Chase Utley, you are the man."

Great night.

A-Rod's Retirement Has Gotten Me Thinking

Alex Rodriguez retired with a yawn last week.  Sure, some Yankees' fans will pay way too much to say that they saw the great A-Rod in his very last game.  Somehow, those fans' contentions will pale in comparison to the fans who say they paid a lot to say farewell to a true Yankee all-time great, Derek Jeter.

A-Rod's problems are well-chronicled, as are those of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, none of whom are getting into the Hall of Fame any time soon.  A-Rod surely will join them on the bench, forever perhaps awaiting his turn for induction.  And the conventional wisdom is that these fellows cheated, that they don't deserve to be in the Hall.

I get all that and have written about the same.  Their shortcomings, no, transgressions, helped give me excitement that I didn't deserve.  Was my life so out of whack that I needed to see steroid-pumped up men whack the ball more often and farther than at any time in Major League history save a live-ball era in the 1920's?  No, not really, because I do recall having a conversation with my late father-in-law about McGwire's and Sosa's chase of Roger Maris's record and offering that when all was said and done, it would come out that they were using steroids and there would be a scandal.  He somewhat scolded me for being cynical, but later did admit that I was right.

And that's part of the problem.  I didn't want to be right.  But what's worse than that is that if I saw it and spoke about it, others who were closer to the scene should have too.  But they didn't, and they didn't apologize for their transgressions, either.  They defend themselves by saying that they didn't have any proof, that they heard things, but that they didn't have enough to go on to write the story because people's reputations were at stake, or something to that effect.  Perhaps, but they also fail to admit that they could have gotten their paper's investigative reporters on the trail in real time or that they feared becoming pariahs within their own profession and losing access to some great theater had they protested at all.  What's even worse is that many of these same people cast votes for the Hall of Fame.

That's right, we're talking about the sportswriters.  None of them lost their jobs over the steroids era or had their credibility and reputation publicly ridiculed.  In fact, some of them are more prominent now than ever before, and all vote for the Hall of Fame.  So it stands to reason, by my logic, that if those guys fanned on reporting the scandal and didn't suffer any consequences on the job and somehow still can vote for the Hall of Fame, that it's a bit self-righteous for them to shun the people who helped them earn their (somewhat undeserved) reputations and gave them a lot of exciting things to cover.  So, how can they in good conscious pass judgment on the steroids users when they themselves benefited from it.  Put differently, how hypocritical can they be?

On the one hand, if they deny access to the steroids users, then shouldn't they simply resign from their positions as Hall of Fame voters because they whiffed too?  On the other hand, if they vote for the steroids users, while they might be condoning steroids use, aren't they basically putting a blanket and punctuation mark on an era where everyone failed the game -- owners (who loved the money rolling in), players, writers -- all of whom had one of their worst eras in the history of the sport?

It's an awful situation, for sure, a low moment for baseball.  The writers let the game down too.  That's not nearly as bad as what the players did, but a blind man could have seen that baseball players were a lot larger then and that the numbers some people were putting up were statistically significantly above and beyond what others in prior eras had put up. 

I don't know if this new revelation warrants a "yes" vote for the steroids users.  I just would feel much more comfortable about the whole situation if those who blew the coverage still didn't figure so prominently into who gets into the Hall of Fame. 

Let's Find a Few Permanent Venues for the Olympics

The Olympic Stadium in Barcelona lies dormant.  Montreal went into so much debt to host the 1976 Olympics that it took 30 years to pay it off.  The Sochi Olympics were iffy in their execution, and Rio looks to be a nightmare. You only have to be as dedicated and single-minded (or as crazy) to put up with the pollution that the waterborne athletes must.  What's worse, the IOC tries to extract a lot of high-minded commitments when soliciting bids, doubling down on the irony of the whole thing given that the IOC usually starts operating from somewhere just barely north of the gutter. 

So what's the answer?  In order not to bankrupt the entire world for games  when so many live beneath the poverty level, and in order to have good, modern facilities, good accommodations for visitors  and a safe environment for all, the IOC simply should focus on six venues that would rotate every twelve years -- three for winter games and three for summer games.  Perhaps they could host various competitions during intervals  to raise some funds.  I  don't know  where those should be  or what the process should be for hosting them, but they will get built -- with support from the IOC and its member federations -- and stay current.  Period.

The Rio debacle commands no less.   Brazil has a whole roster of problems that go beyond whether there are good shower curtains for the Australian Olympic team.  Their economy is a mess, their government is a mess, crime in urban areas is awful and  the country should strive to have many fewer people living in favelas.  So what do they do?  They go out and first host the World Cup, which went off surprisingly well, and now the Olympics, where pollution, crime and the Zika virus compete for front-page coverage around the world. 

My guess is that critics of this proposal would say it comes from an entitled first world and that everyone should get a chance to host the games, and sorry, Yankee, if you'd be more uncomfortable in Rio than say Los Angeles (which is home to air pollution, thousands of homeless people kept out of sight and a significant gang problem), where they speak English and you might get around more easily.  Perhaps I am blind to that.   But what is hard to dispute are the staggering requirements for people, organization, processes and funds to pay for these games.  And, if that's not in dispute, then let's work together to craft "permanent" locations that can  save governments around the world money and time. 

Everyone would still enjoy the Olympics.  The venues could be spectacular and accessible.  And safe.  And have uses for well after the games conclude, including as international conclaves for all sorts of sporting competitions. 

But with the IOC, who knows?   They could do just the opposite -- if the price is right.

The Absurd Debate Over College Athletics

I listened to part of the discussion Mike and Mike this morning about college athletics and, particularly, whether college athletes should be paid.  The reason that I call this discussion absurd is that there are so many more important things going on in the world than college athletics.  It's also absurd because the focus on college athletics is so out of proportion to what it should be.

First, it strikes me that most college athletic programs at best break even or lose money.  Some do make money, such as schools with elite football programs that are name brands around the country.  But more than 80% of Division I (FBS) teams lose money.  Which means that, correspondingly, their school's athletic programs lose money because football by far is the largest sport. 

Second, it is a bromide that alumni donations go up when a school wins a championship, but I am not sure that it is true.  It could be that applications go up, but I'm not sure that alumni donations do. 

Third, a scholarship should be enough compensation for student-athletes, with some caveats, such as -- a) they can get scholarship monies for two additional years beyond when they played owing to the large time commitments that they had to make, b) the scholarships are good regardless of whether a player gets cut from a team (that is, they should be renewable, period), c) the scholarships should be released if a coach leaves a school because the playing field should be even (that is, if the coach can leave without penalty, why shouldn't the kids be able to leave) and d) the schools should public iron-clad metrics regarding the percentage of athletes that get degrees, what they've majored in and what their jobs are after football.  And one other thing -- give them some more walking around money so that they don't have to yield to temptation, say $250 a month. 

But don't start arguing that they should be paid.  Yes, there has been a lot of attention paid to the argument that there is no such thing as an unpaid internship any more under Federal law, that either the intern gets college credit or gets paid.  There is a lot of case law on that.  But college activities should be in a different category, even if you allow for an exception for "significant revenue sports" -- football, men's basketball at many places, ice hockey at some schools and women's basketball at some schools.  Otherwise, schools would jettison their extracurricular activities because they won't have the money to pay players, they don't want to create a Hessian class of paid athletes versus unpaid band members, they cannot afford to pay the band members or they don't think they should give college credits to band members.  The costs could be astounding and bankrupting, lest anyone forget that the primary reason these institutions exist is to educate people and not to beat the arch-rival.  Failing that, eliminate intercollegiate sports altogether and run the best intramural programs in history.  And those would involve more students and keep more in better shape physically and correspondingly medically.

At some point we have to ask the fundamental question as to why these programs exist and what is the justification for them?  There really isn't any justification for them.  If the pro leagues want minor leagues, let them pay for them.  Don't require kids to go to college; the feeder system in European soccer works just fine.  The best players go into the best clubs' academies; they don't go offer to play for Oxford or Heidelberg or any such place.  And yes, look, some of these college programs are run like professional programs, I get that.  But perhaps it's time to end the pretense, let colleges educate, and let the pros run their teams.  And then the colleges don't have to go through the gymnastics that the huge NCAA rule book requires and the schools can dedicate precious funds to benefit a broader group of students.

I don't want to be a killjoy; there are parts of this country that revere their fan experience with college athletics.  I get that.  But there have to be limits as to the extent a school may go to land key players.  Paying them should just not be one of them.

Before Penn State Puts Up That Statue of Joe Paterno Again. . .

If you live in or near Pennsylvania or visit there, you'll see reminders of Joe Paterno and a lot of Penn State decals and license plates.  It stands to reason, as Penn State not only is one of the main state universities for Pennsylvanians, but also because it is a very good one.  Most Penn States will tell you how much they enjoyed it in State College, a/k/a Happy Valley.  They'll talk to you about the football team and about the Creamery, the ice cream venue in State College that offers the best ice cream on the planet (except for all the other stores that can make the same claim). 

Recently, about 200 former football players sent a letter to the university's president asking that they reinstate the Paterno statue that was taken down several years ago after the Jerry Sandusky affair came to light.  There was a media frenzy, the media version of a natural disaster, that befell the Penn State community and the NCAA.  Much action was taken -- by the Penn State board, by the NCAA -- and several years later all is not back to normal.

Penn State continues to mete through the claims of many men who claim that Jerry Sandusky abused them years ago and that Joe Paterno knew of Sandusky's problem and turned the other way.  There are allegations that other coaches, some prominent names now, knew of things, too.  Now, the Paterno family disputes these claims and has hired a high-powered lawyer to defend it.  No doubt, crisis communications firms are involved, too, trying to protect the images of Penn State and of the Paterno family. 

Many tied part of their Penn State existence and good feelings about the school to Joe Paterno, turning him into a walking, living God.  The gospel was how omniscient Paterno was, hard-working, smart, humble, and how he ran a clean program where most of his players graduated.  Penn State was in the conversation for the top ten teams in the country and occasionally contended for and won a national championship.  Atop that, a kid could get a very good education at a school that graduate and professional schools liked as well as employers.  That's pretty good. 

I get all that.

My sense is that among these 200 former players are those who credit Paterno for having changed their lives, who credit Paterno for helping them win a championship, who are angry that someone that good could be questioned and who may be in denial that Paterno did anything at all wrong.  You find a group of 200, and my guess is that you have a cocktail of motivations -- it's not all the same thing. 

There can be no doubting as to the good that Paterno did.  You can read about how he urged the university to upgrade the academic programs, helped raise funds and ran a great football program.  It's hard to counter that or take it away.  It happened.  And a lot of it was good.

But then there's this other stuff, and it's not over.  There haven't been final decisions or adjudications as to what Coach Paterno knew and when he knew it and whether he could have or should have done anything about it.  The Paterno family is arguing vigorously that the claimants are wrong.  Penn State is defending itself against liability.  The plaintiffs are asserting what they have held back for years -- that Jerry Sandusky abused them.  And Sandusky is serving a long prison sentence, one that is likely to see him die in jail.  He does not deserve to get out.

The issue of the statue is more complicated.  (I have to say that I am not unbiased -- I thought it was in poor taste that a statue was put up of someone who was still alive, and it lacked the humility that Coach Paterno was heralded as possessing).  The former football players stand firmly behind the Paterno family.  My guess is that they are not related to or did not know any of the victims.  The Paterno supporters would say that is irrelevant, because there is no evidence that Coach Paterno knew about what Sandusky was doing.  If they are right, then, assuming that you like statues, well, then perhaps Penn State should restore it.  But if they are wrong, then what?

Right now, it is unclear whether they are right or wrong.  But until Penn State goes through its process and the claims are settled or adjudicated, Penn State should wait to make its decision about that statue.  Happy Valley has not healed and is clearly not happy right now.  But those who run Penn State should not yield to the loudest or most forceful of voices.  They also should consider those of now grown men who had no voice and could not speak or get a hearing for years.

Until that happens, there can be no peace in Happy Valley.  And, right now, there is not justice, at least not complete justice, and at least not yet.

There are more important things than the statue.  Let the process go on and conclude.

And then decide.

The Perils of the Modern Day Baseball Club

We heard it all last season.  Boy, are the New York Mets the team of the future.  Look at all that pitching. . . Harvey, de Grom, Syndergaard, Matz, Colon, with the first four being young, hard-throwing and very good.  Look out, NL East.  Washington, they said, had a tougher lineup, but the Mets' pitching, well, that was the difference.  It was fun to be a Mets' fan last season.

Going into this season, there remained reason to be very optimistic.  The starting pitching staff was intact, even with Jon Niese going to Pittsburgh and Zack Wheeler not ready.  But I cautioned a friend that any time you predict a dynasty, funny things can happen.  I offered that if the Mets were to have a starter or two go down -- and they inevitably do -- there could be trouble.  Well, Harvey has been erratic, Matz looks to be done for the year, and Syndergaard has a supposedly non-threatening bone spur.  Meanwhile, the ageless wonder, Bartolo Colon, at 43 is perhaps the squad's best starting pitcher.  Right now, Mets are in third, slightly behind the usually confounding Marlins.  It is not the season that Mets' fans had hoped for.  Atop that, they lost Daniel Murphy, the clutch-hitting second baseman, to rival Washington, and replaced him with the good but not-as-good Neil Walker.  The biggest blow was losing David Wright to season- and perhaps career-ending surgery.

Ouch.

Roll back the clock about eight years ago and Phillies' fans had every reason to be optimistic.  They won it in '08, and they had everyone back, most of whom were at or slightly before their primes.  In '09, they should have won it again, but somehow Brad Lidge, who was all-world in 2008, blew up to an ERA of about 7.50, the worst ever for a full-time closer, and the Phillies lost the Series to the Yankees.  Had Lidge just had half as bad a season, the Phillies would have won it all.  In '10, the team suffered injuries, still had a good year until they ran into the red-hot Giants' pitching in the NLCS.  In '11, with players more healthy than in '10, they won over 100 games, beat the Cards in Game 1 of the NLDS, only to have ace Cliff Lee blow a 4-0 lead after 1 inning in Game 2, and lose that series in 5 games, with Cards' ace Cris Carpenter outdueling Roy Halladay and Ryan Howard blowing out his Achilles' tendon on the last at-bat of the series.  Arguably, that team should have won two World Series in those four years.  And while few will complain about winning "just" one, I'm sure many Phillies' fans will express disappointment that they didn't win another.  They were built to, and they probably should have.

The moral of the story is enjoy it when your team wins, hope that they win again soon, because the game changes, players change and adjust, players age and get hurt.  The Mets were awesome last year, but they also were two iffy wings away from a mid-division finish.  The Nats by no means are invincible, but it will be hard for the Mets to win their division without a healthy rotation.  That can be said for almost any team, of course, but it goes to show you the fine line between having a team that goes to the World Series and having a team that doesn't make the playoffs. 

All that said, you would figure in this day and age and with the rise of elite sports performance institutes that there would be better theories about developing and maintaining good pitchers and avoiding the gruesome types of injuries that seem to befall them.  It is 2016 already, and pitchers and the art of pitching isn't much more evolved than fifty years ago.  Yes, there is more specialization, but the pitchers continue to get injured.  That is what makes the game so unpredictable, as it is hard to figure out what a pitching staff will look like year after year.  In contrast, you will know what your basketball team will look like next year, even if players might slip a little, because you have very little risk of a basketball player blowing out his shooting hand and being out for a year.  Baseball generates a lot of money, so you would figure that they should be working on some programs to help add more certainty to a pitcher's career and a team's future.

Best Sports Month in Cleveland?

The Cavs win the NBA title.

The Indians have won twelve straight and lead the AL Central. 

Clevelanders -- enjoy it!

The Stanford Rape Case

Much has been written and said.  It's hard to imagine how Judge Aaron Persky gave former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner the light sentence that he did.  We expect more out of the judicial system and the hypothetical average kid that goes to an elite institution such as Stanford. 

As for Persky, he goofed, plain and simple.  There are calls for his resignation, his recall and his defeat at the polls in the fall.  My guess is that many will remain hot on this topic to mount a serious challenge to Persky.  That said, the prosecutor in this case has not called for his resignation.  In fact, if you read far and wide enough, the comments that you read about Persky are that he is a good and fair judge.  That said. . .  it's hard to find many quotes from attorneys that would criticize sitting judges.  The reason -- they have to appear before them and so do their firms.  As a result, there is no upside to criticizing a judge publicly after any case.  And that leads to the ultimate question -- is there a meaningful way to hold the judiciary accountable?  We have learned as a society that we have failed to find good ways to hold police accountable, and I think that the same holds true for prosecutors.  And now this, this, well, issue, fiasco, travesty of justice, what have you.

Turner made a terrible decision and committed a terrible act.  What the heck was he thinking?  He picked his sin, and for some reason he was fortunate enough to hire good counsel and then draw a judge like Persky, who was in a lenient sentencing mood.  And while he will have to live with those consequences forever -- being registered as a sex offender, having that on his record -- he is far from a victim here.  True, there is a lot of pressure on Stanford kids, on recruited athletes, on kids with Olympic ambitions, but almost all of them do not sexually assault unconscious women.  Yes, there is a lot of alcohol on campus and promiscuity, but, again, that Turner was drunk should by no means excuse what he did.  Most if not all sexual assaults on campus involve alcohol.  By imbibing and then overimbibing, Turner adopted some very risky behavior that does not usually lead to happy consequences and in this case led to bad ones.  He does not deserve understanding and leniency because he was caught up in a culture of alcohol and sex.  Would Judge Persky have been tougher on him had he been sober?  If so, why?  This was not a case of "he said, she said" or "when does no mean no," and I am sure there are cases that are ambiguous and can be most difficult for triers of fact because, well, the facts are not clear.  We all have to allow for the fact that everyone is entitled to a defense and that sometimes the accused did not do it.  But here, two witnesses caught up to Turner after they caught him in the act.  This wasn't a case of ambiguity -- this was an out and out rape.

Much has been made of the letter that Turner's father wrote.  Turner's father might not have written the most eloquent or sensitive letter, but we all would go pretty far to get our child a good defense lawyer and then write to the judge.  Anyone who has kids can tell you that.  Privately, parents might lecture their children and hold them accountable, but everyone is entitled to a defense and family support.  That doesn't mean that a horrible crime did not take place; of course it did.  I know that there are some people who would argue that Turner did the crime and should do the time and that his parents only are further coddling him by trying to help him and protect him.  Well, parents love their kids regardless of whether they swim in the Olympics or commit a crime.  Those who are aggrieved will pick apart the case and focus on this, but I think that their time would be better spent looking at the California judicial system, sentencing guidelines, how the judge came to this decision and what can be done to make everyone more aware of problems like this on campus and how to prevent them.  And it seems that they are doing just that.

This one left me speechless.  I fully empathize with the victim and her family.  Her note -- read aloud on television -- gives us tremendous insight into what a victim goes through and how horrible her experience was.  First years in college -- and especially men -- should read it and synthesize it and try as much as possible to avoid situations that could lead to the type of behavior that Brock Turner displayed -- and should remember that any woman is someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's good friend -- and how would you like that to happen to your sister, your daughter or your good friend?  I hope that the victim is getting the help that she needs to recover as best she can; sadly, Judge Persky's abdication of his role exacerbates her pain instead of lessening it.  And I hope that society can take a deep look into problems like the one that befell her and take steps so that no one has to endure what she did.  We will express our outrage at the system for the lenient sentence, and we will respond to that as best we can.  But the victim -- and others like her -- too quickly get forgotten.  And the only way we can solve for the broader problems is by never forgetting them, and continuing to reach out to them and embrace them. 

Atop that, we are a society that reacts after the fact and attacks symptoms rather than causes.  We might be seventy-five pounds overweight and suffer from pre-diabetes and hypertension, but we expect inexpensive pills to help us as opposed to attacking the cause by eating less and more sensibly and by exercising.  We abhor the behavior that Brock Turner displayed but yet it still goes on, much of it in all likelihood unreported.  Society needs to attack the cause of these attacks -- whether it's putting kids in college who do not belong there, treating recruited athletes like they are entitled, something special and unaccountable, creating way too much pressure on them, making alcohol too available, not offering means of dealing with mental health issues, including stress, teaching them values and ethics and good manners -- the list is perhaps endless.  That would help a great deal.  And it's very important.

Because the sister of an undergrad who goes to a party and makes the mistake of drinking too much should end up walked home to sleep it off and not sexually assaulted on asphalt behind a dumpster. 

I hope that some good can come out of the victim's eloquence and her plight, the bad environment at Stanford and on other campuses and the shocking decision from the court in California.  This type of stuff has gone on for way too long.  It's time for society to hit the reset button and do something about it.

Another Side to Former Flyers' Owner Ed Snider

Joseph Heller once wrote that "all that glitters isn't gold."  Snider, who passed away recently, was eulogized as the best sports owner in Philadelphia history and a true visionary in the world of sports.  This article here refutes that and reveals some facts about Snider that got whitewashed over the years.  When you read it, you can draw conclusions at various ends of a spectrum, either that these are lies, or that they're true but that Snider changed over the years, or that Snider's reputation was based on a foundation constructed of silly putty and wet tissues but burnished by a fawning media and his loyalty to sometimes competent and sometimes not ex-Flyers.  Read the article here.

My opinion is that Ted Beitchman's article is true.  I had heard some of the stories from family members and what Beitchman writes confirms what I had heard.  Look, Snider did develop the loyalty of his ex-players and I'm sure did a lot of good things for them and others.  But it doesn't appear that the Flyers were his idea and it seems to appear that he took advantage of Jerry Wolman's difficulties for his own personal gain.  What gets lost in the translation is that he was a horrible leader of the 76ers for 15 years and that his refusal to move away from Flyers' alumni and the 1970's style of play has kept the Flyers without a Stanley Cup since the mid-1970's (and some of that style -- the endless fighting, third men in and bench-clearing brawls -- has basically been heavily regulated and penalized). 

I'm not a hockey fan per se (I like playoff hockey), don't like the fighting aspects of the game and wonder whether any team has a multiple of fans beyond those who regularly attend the games.  The game is hard to follow on television and it's hard to identify with players who wear headgear. 

At the end of the day, I thought that the press missed out on the real Snider the way they missed out on baseball's steroids scandal.  They referred to him as "Mr." long past when they referred to any other figure as Mr.  I just couldn't figure out why.  He owned a sports team, cut an unbelievable and virtually unaccountable deal with the Roberts' family and Comcast to maintain control of a team he ceased owning (and running the 76ers horribly and the Flyers in an up-and-down fashion) and would have been fired after a few years of mismanaging the 76ers had there been any modicum of accountability and would have been fired after say five years given his history after the Flyers lack of progress.  Instead, he was put on this pedestal and given an entitlement to preside over not one but two sports teams because of what he did in the early-to-mid 1970's.  It was hard to believe and hard to take.

That doesn't make him an evil or horrible person, of course, just a person who had his successes (many, some big and all well publicized) and his failures (basically glossed over by a media who either was in awe of him or afraid of losing access or some form of retribution).  What Ted Beitchman does is to try to round out the picture of someone who was about as human in character as many others, if at times more so. 

Sometimes you just have to let it go, as Jerry Wolman did.  But other times to clarify the record the entire story should be told.  And Ted Beitchman did a good job telling it.

Cleveland Rocks or Cleveland Bricks?

A few thoughts:

1.  Because neither Steph Curry nor Klay Thompson hammer at people physically the way LeBron James or Russell Westbrook do, I suspect that many fans believe that the Warriors are a soft, finesse team.  As Kobe Bryant said the other day in an interview on ESPN Radio, both Curry and Thompson are "stone-cold killers."  For what it's worth, the NBA is becoming an outside game, which values finesse over the ability to toss the ball into the low blocks to a big man with a big rear end who can back in and put the ball off the backboard into the basket.  That big man is healthy, but having guys who can hit the three consistently is now the recipe to winning titles.

2. The Cavs are healthier and deeper than last year.  They need to show that depth more in Game Two than they did in Game 1.  Some believe that the Cavs will change their game plan and will win Game Two.  Somehow I don't think that the lapses that the Warriors demonstrated in the OKC series will recur in this one.  Last night, the Warriors had six players score in double figures.  They also have two guys who can harass LeBron James enough to make him work for everything.  LBJ had a pretty good night last night, but the Cavs bench was AWOL and for large parts so was Kyrie Irving.

3.  While I didn't post it here, I told others that I thought the Warriors would win the series in five games.  That's not because I think Cleveland is bad or worse than the Spurs or Thunder.  The Cavs are a very good basketball team.  That also takes into account the strong will and wish of LeBron to bring a title to Cleveland.  It's just that I think that the Warriors woke up and hit their stride both in the last five minutes of Game 6 against the Thunder and in Game 7 of that series.  They realized that they had to dig a little deeper.  Thompson led that effort in the fourth quarter of Game 6, and the team did a much better job as a whole in Game 7.  The Warriors are primed.  Instead of having a grueling series against the Thunder exhaust them, it sharpened their skills.  In contrast, the Cavs hardly had the challenges in the East that the teams in the West faced.  That showed in Game 1 last night.

4.  The James-Love-Irving troika is an impressive three.  While different, I'm not sure that it's as impressive as the Curry-Thompson-Green three.  It's hard to argue against the comment that James is the best player in the game.  But Love disappeared in the Eastern finals in the games in Toronto and Irving, while very good, also can be inconsistent enough that a very good team can exploit his inconsistencies.  Curry, when healthy, is at the pinnacle of the game, and Thompson almost singlehandedly in the fourth quarter of Game 6 against the Thunder saved the Warriors' playoff season.  Green is volative and voluble, a lightning rod for attention and stress, a player you want on your team but hate playing against, the type of catalyst who can combust your engine or, when he misfires, combust your team's chances with bad moments.  Based on last year in the playoffs and this year's regular season, I'll take the Warriors' troika.

5.  Of course, it's not just about three players.  The Warriors' bench outscored the Cavs' bench 42-10 last night.   That cannot continue if the Cavs are to win the championship.

6.  The series is far from over.  They say in soccer that the second goal in a game is the most important one.  Well, the second game in a series might be the most important one.  Sunday night's result will go a long way in telling us the type of series we are going to witness.

The Rio Olympics Make Sense Because. . .

It's good to have the Olympics somewhere other than the First World -- Western Europe, the U.S. or Japan.  It's good to have the Olympics in one of the top ten most populated countries in the world.  The climate could be much better than Qatar's for the World Cup in six years.  Brazil's economy was once a raging tiger not so many years ago; now it is a pussycat in need of a rescue.

Its economy is a mess.  At the Confederations Cup two years ago there were massive protests complaining that a country in need of some basics was building so many stadiums for that tournament and the World Cup.  Yes, the World Cup was a success, at least through the roving eyes back in the U.S.  The stadiums looked great, the weather was tolerable, the broadcast crew the best thing since the days of ABC's Wide World of Sports, and the mural that was being painted was sublime. 

What we saw was the veneer, though.  Two years ago there were protests.  Last year there was a façade.  This year the country is like the guy in the cartoon who fell into the shopping cart, got pushed, and now the shopping cart is running at Indy 500 speeds on a downhill slope toward a cliff.  The president of the country will be fired.  And then what?

Atop that, well-identified pollution problems plague the waters were rowing and sailing will be held.  Now there's the presence of the Zika virus.  Brazil's problems kind of remind me of the story behind Rasputin's death.  He was poisoned, clubbed, stabbed, shot and then thrown into the river.  When found, the cause of death was drowning.  The good news in that parable is that Rasputin was stubborn enough to hang in there.  The bad news was that he was so vilified and of such character that many wanted him dead.  Brazil, no doubt, will reveal national pride, but it has so many maladies it will be a wonder if they pull off the Olympics without a hitch, with no athletes getting sick, and without further hurting their economy. 

If you read this you like sports, but we have to ask ourselves periodically how much we emphasize sports over solving much more important problems, like hunger, human trafficking, global warming and pollution.  Building stadiums where people need basic structure or building a $62.5 million high school football stadium in a state with a lot of poor people just doesn't make a lot of sense.  There are times -- and places -- for competitions and for celebrations. 

It just doesn't seem that Rio in 2016 should be one of them or will be one of them.

The Baylor Fiasco

If you wrote this as a novel, unless it were a Carl Hiassen farce, people wouldn't believe it because of the two major elements to the story:

1.  Christian school.
2.  School president is former White House Special Prosecutor.

Then again, people might believe it because

1.  It is college football.
2.  It is college football in Texas.
3.  College football is a big business.

Add to that the confusion between the good book and idolatry.  Baylor fans worship God and Art Briles, the now-deposed football coach, and it made you wonder at times in what order. 

Football came first, as did the attention and money that went with it.  Protecting, among others, everyone's daughters, having a process for letting victims speak up safely and treating them with fairness, have a process to investigate allegations quickly, fairly and effectively, not so much.  And now Baylor has a huge mess that snowballed out of proportion because there were institutional failures too numerous to count.  Before anyone goes on a feeding frenzy, not all Baylor employees are awful people and not all Baylor football players are criminals.  All have to be careful to stick to the facts and not paint any situation with a broad brush.  Yes, it is a mess. 

How does it get this far?  I do not want in any way to diminish the importance of the victims here -- the women who were assaulted.  They have suffered immeasurably and no one not a victim can say "I know how you feel," because they do not.  But there are symptoms that are deeply rooted in our culture that give rise both to the offending behaviors and the lack of accountability that need to be addressed.  Among those are:

1.  Let's stop anointing football players as untouchable demi-gods from the time they are 10.
2.  Let's stop overlooking their transgressions because those transgressions might mess up their transgressions and ruin their chances at a "full ride."
3.  Let's figure out alternative ways for them to deal with their frustrations, aggressions and stress constructively and when they are not being watched.  In other words, let's work on their coping and social skills -- in a big way.   Society puts a lot of pressure on these kids to train and perform, perhaps too much so for young men this young.  That statement is not meant to excuse the bad behavior, but perhaps to identify a cause for it. 
4.  Let's examine how football coaches talk about women and tolerate what else is said about women.  Women are very important people, period, who command respect and treatment with decency.  They are not objects for football players' amusement.  And they have every right to say no all the time.
5.  Let's de-couple the good feelings a school might have or earn for itself from the success of any athletic team.  Football, after all, should be an extracurricular activity.  Sadly, in many places, it is a business, and at most FBS schools a poorly run one, as a huge majority of DI football programs lose money.  But if we could de-couple the two, somehow administrators would be able to treat every department and program equally and not have to look the other way because influential alums might deny donations or get them fired if they don't enable the football program to overlook bad behavior if otherwise three key players might get dismissed from the team.  The better argument is that every school that gives a kid a pass on bad behavior is doing him a disservice.  Everyone needs feedback and accountability, especially in these very formative years.  Show me a kid who doesn't get held accountable for more basic, non-criminal transgressions, and I'll show you a kid who will have trouble in the work force and perhaps in life.  Not holding players accountable for sexual assaults -- when then anyone who knew about the attack should be working elsewhere, not at a university and not with college kids.
6.  Let's stop putting college football coaches on pedestals.  They are not leaders who could run corporations (which require a lot more dexterity, inclusion, process and sensitivity) or who could lead governments -- at least as a general proposition.  Most are dictators who get things their way almost all the time.  Some are snake-oil salesmen, using kids for their own gain without caring about their progressing toward a meaningful degree.  Many live lives that are way out of balance.  They are human beings, flawed human beings, just like the rest of us. 

What happened to the Christian aspects of Baylor?  What happened to the moral high ground that Ken Starr used to define and insist that he operated on?  What happened to dignity and decency for all students?  And, Art Briles, what would have happened if your daughter was a victim?  Let's remember, if an assault happens to anyone's daughter, it could have happened to our own daughters.  And that's a scary thought.  Who was protecting those young women?  Shouldn't the adults in the room report matters up the chain, be prepared to demonstrate integrity even if it were to mean losing football games because of suspended or dismissed players, and be expected to care about and take care of all kids at the university? 

It's a sad day all around.  I just fear that there are other situations out there, perhaps many others, because universities get so focused on winning football games that they forget their overall missions and doing the right thing as much as possible.  There is much more to life than football games.

Why are There So Many Transfers in College Basketball?

Occam's Razor suggest that the simplest solution is usually the best one.  This ESPN.com article gives some flavor to how big this issues is.  Ergo. . .

1.  You are dealing with kids who have had a lot of success in basketball and are running into failure for the first time.  Head coach and assistant coach woo the kid, project the kid to get all sorts of playing time, possibly to be a star.  Head coach and assistant coach are embellishing if not lying.  Not everyone can be a star, not everyone can get a lot of playing time.  Something has to give.  Kid might be lying to himself -- he might believe what his friends and coaches are telling him -- that he is the man.  Deep down, though, the kid might know that he has to develop his other hand, needs to get more stamina and has to work on his jumper.  But he chooses the easier path -- which is to believe -- totally -- what he is told in the wooing process.  So, after a season or two, when the coach who was sweet talking him turns out to be a meanie, a liar, favoring others and this kid sits at the end of the bench, he gets irritated.  Perhaps he got sold a bill of goods.  Perhaps the coach isn't being fair.  Perhaps he his mad at himself because he wasn't totally sure of the situation.  Most definitely, he isn't ready to give up the dream of finding a better spot.  Transferring, like second marriages, represents the triumph of hope over experience.  It's a leap of faith, especially if you thought you were burned.  And if you didn't think you were burned, you at least are more relaxed and say, "well, it wasn't a good fit for me, and I have to find a better place."  Remember, we're dealing with teenagers mostly, and they are not fully formed.  They are dealing with frustration, disappointment and failure -- many for the first time in their young lives.  They are feeling all sorts of emotions and have started to doubt themselves.  And it hurts.  A change of scenery could help.

2.  Social media doesn't help things.  It's much easier to figure out what is going on at other schools, who will have a need for your position in the following season or two, who might be leaving, who might be unhappy, what have you.  And the kids can read about themselves much more, too.  Imagine if you're eighteen and you read that you didn't show up the way people thought, that you're a stiff, that you aren't a good fit.  And then you match that up with the feedback you get from the coaches and your playing time.  And then you have your friends giving you all sorts of advice.  You're nineteen, your head is spinning.  It gets filled up with all sorts of clutter about your skills, your future, who is being honest with you about your potential and who has lied, what have you.  So, you tap into your network -- your parents, your AAU coach -- and you put out feelers to the schools that recruited you before and, if you're really savvy, schools that might have a real need for your position.  Now, those schools might have warts, too, and they might have openings precisely because kids they recruited didn't think that they got a fair deal.  No matter, because you are desperate to find a better fit and the coach at that school shouldn't make the same mistake twice.  You also might have grown and become more mature in dealing with your first disappointment.  In any event, the omnipresence of the media just heightens the players sensitivities.

3.  Coaches Never Stop Recruiting and Players Never Stop Being Recruited.  When there is an epidemic, there is a persistent, spreading problem.  So, most coaches must think that they are going to lose some of every freshman class.  Their assistants probably keep tabs with a select number of AAU coaches of players that they missed out on, ostensibly to find out about new prospects but clandestinely to see how those kids like their new schools.  Correspondingly, if a kid doesn't like his situation, he taps into his network, which includes his AAU coach, and asks that coach to put out feelers to some of the schools he rejected.  It can become a vicious cycle.  If you're a head coach fighting hard to compete every year, you do the "keep tabs, continuous recruiting of current college players" thing to make sure that you will have a robust roster every year.  If you're a player, well, you didn't become an elite player and draw Division I interest because you were clueless.  After some trending trouble, you'll put out some feelers to ascertain who might be interested in you.  And then the cycle gets worse.

4.  One-year renewable scholarships also are a problem, especially when paired with lucrative long-term deals for head coaches.  If you're a bit at the margins at your DI program, you probably should keep in touch with your high school and AAU coaches just in case you feel that the winds are blowing the wrong way and you might not get renewed.  And you might then want to jump before you're pushed, so to speak, so that the quest to transfer looks like it was your decision.  Invariably, if you were good enough in high school, some other DI coach will view you as a bargain and try to sign you up quickly.  I don't know whether granting kids a four-year scholarship that is automatically renewable would make a difference.  You would think that for some kids who ultimately might be happy sitting on the end of the bench that it might.

5.  The pressure on coaches to win and their lucrative compensation puts enormous pressure on them to win and might encourage unethical tactics.  I don't think I need to write anything more here.  The headline says it all.

I don't blame the kids for wanting to transfer.  Sure, in a perfect world they should pick a school because it's the right fit for them and because they can get a good education.  And most DI basketball players would subscribe to that, especially because most will not play for money after college.  But they have to spend so much time to get good enough to get noticed, it's hard to blame them for not wanting to play in DI after putting all that time in.  Travel basketball is a year-round phenomenon, and the kids want to get the playing time and accolades that they thing that they have earned.  Besides, who wants to have his signing of a letter of intent be the crowning achievement of his career?  College should be the next chapter in a fun journey, not the end of the road for the player. 

The kids are standing up to an authoritarian system and authoritarian coaches.  It's hard to argue with.

A Sign of the Times on ESPN.com

If you like sports, you read that website.  In the middle right, there is a list of headlines with hyperlinks to the text.  One of those headlines is that Everton sacked Roberto Martinez. 

Say what?

Everton is not a team in any of the major US sports leagues.  It isn't a university, either.  And yet, on the American website, the firing of the manager (read:  head coach) of an also-ran top-division English soccer club gets a headline of this prominence -- even at a time when ESPN has a website dedicated totally to soccer. 

What should we read into this?

1.  It's a slow news day, and, sorry, but outside Max Scherzer's striking out 20 of his former Tiger teammates there is no sports news this morning.

2.  Soccer has become a much bigger deal in the U.S.

3.  More global readers read ESPN.com than in years past.

4.  Many Americans got to know Roberto Martinez during ESPN's telecasts of the World Cup in 2014 and came to like him, so he's somewhat better known in the U.S. than, say, Guus Hiddink.

5.  Perhaps those who read ESPN.com right now do not find baseball as compelling as fans thirty years ago did.

6.  All of the above.

And why?  Well, for one thing, the average age of an MLB fan is about 56 years old, and hockey seems to have a limited audience beyond those who attend games.  It's the off-season for college football and basketball, and while the NBA playoffs can be fascinating, they don't hold the broad sports audience night after night.  Whether they should at this stage is a totally different issue.  But with soccer -- and the nascency of its being broadcast from England into the U.S. on NBC Sports Channel -- there is much more interested, especially because a) mostly all games but Cup games have concluded and b) we could be upon one of the most volatile transfer seasons in recent memory.

While this is great for soccer, it is not as good for those who got displaced.  My read is that the elders of baseball should be very worried about the demographics of their fans base.

As for Martinez, he seems to be a good guy who lost his team.  He's a natural in the broadcast booth, and here's to wishing him well and finding the next good job.