One of you knows that this is one of my favorite sayings, reflective of the fact that societal tides can depend, to a certain degree, on the amount of population and the age of that population at a given time. For example, those of you born at the tail end of the Baby Boom know that early in your careers advancement wasn't all that easy, because you were caught behind relatively young front-end Boomers (i.e., those born after World War II in the late 1940's). Put differently, when you were in your mid-20's, they were about 40, with many years to go in their careers. While some have argued that Baby Boomers have enjoyed quite the gravy train career-wise, I would make an exception for back-end Boomers (i.e., those born between 1960-1964), many of whom had to more than wait their turn. Being a back-end Boomer, then, was like being the guy in the parade who carried the shovel behind the horse. Or, at least at times, so it seemed. The front-end Boomers, of course, encouraged your patience by emphasizing that at least you were in the parade.
Which got me to thinking the other day about the fact that many front-end Boomers will be retiring soon, either because they've decided too or they've been pushed into it (perhaps because they've grown too expensive for the jobs they currently hold and either have been asked to take a pay cut and refused or were lopped off in less ceremonious fashion (with the use of the word "lop" intended to connote horrible enemy practices in the Far Eastern Theatre of war during World War II). At any rate, some of these folks will have plenty of time on their hands and some money to spend. The question, then, is what will they do with it.
My prediction is that you'll see the fiercest competition ever for volunteer positions. I know of some senior citizens in their 70's who are docents at various museums. A docent, to the best of my knowledge, is a tour guide/teacher required to undergo somewhat vigorous training to tell groups about the art and artifacts that the museums where they volunteer hold. They take courses and get tested and then get anoninted if they qualify. The only problem, as I see it, is that the number of museums and docent positions cannot possibly grow by the same factor that these front-end Boomers will be joining the ranks of retirees. Since there will be much more supply than demand, the competition will intensify.
So, imagine the entrepeneurial activities that could emerge from this imbalance. In the same way that enterprising personal trainers formed an athlete performance center in Arizona to train would-be high-round NFL draft picks in ways to make them perform better at the NFL's Scouting Combine and thereby make themselves more attractive to teams, you could start a Volunteer Enhancement Performance Center. You'd attract some big-bucks front-end Boomers and whip them into shape, literally and figuratively. I think that people would pay big bucks for that.
Suppose you're about 20 pounds overweight, not tuned into docent fashion, do Sudoku books on the beach and only read novels that they sell at BJ's Wholesale Club. Perhaps you've worked hard enough to have missed the last 10+ years of popular television, and you're not strong on the arts and music. You want to make yourself presentable for a variety of volunteer opportunities, and the competition is tough. Go to our location in Arizona, and, as is popular in America, re-make yourself.
Shed those intimidating wide pinstripe suits and $100 ties for a tweedy look. Get rid of the funky haircut, shed the jewelry and make your appearance look humble. The center's wardrobe and personal appearance specialists will help you do just that -- and at any budget. The center's cultural consultants will prep you on hot conversational topics that those who interview candidates for the docent program should be able to speak about. The center's nutritionists will put you on a diet that will elevate your energy and help reduce your body fat (and even dare you to wear sleeveless Under Armour shirts durign your workouts!). Next, the center's fitness trainers will help you start an exercise program designed to lengthen your life and deny your heirs their rightful share of your amassed wealth -- the portion that they have earned by putting up with you. Finally, we'll give you training on how to write your application and how to cultivate the top civic leaders for recommendations (because, believe it or not, getting these posts will be tougher than getting your kid into the right pre-school in New York City). When you emerge, you'll look like the volunteer world's equivalent of JaMarcus Russell after he shed 10+ pounds for his personal workout at LSU -- a veritable #1 pick overall.
The competition is fierce, after all, and you don't want to be left doing the "B" list volunteer stuff, do you, because that's not what high-end white-collar front-end Baby Boomer retirees will settle for. After all, you'd rather not go to the beach at the New Jersey shore at all, for example, than go to a shore town where your former assistants hang out, would you, the types with the bars with the neon martini glasses and high school kids whose underwear shows cruising the streets at 2 a.m.? So why settle for anything but the best and then be in volunteer hell?
Where nobody notices you. Where your neighbors won't nod with approval that your working at an art museum or university museum, because you're only visiting with sick ninety year-olds at a state-run nursing home, giving them comfort because they've outlived their relatives or their closest family can't afford to visit that frequently from their homes in Dubuque and Peoria. You wouldn't want that, would you? Where's the cache, man?
Then again, what ways could front-end Boomers try to make more room for themselves. Perhaps when they populate some of these positions they'll start requiring annual fitness tests for the septagenarians and octagenarians on the roster and even require them to partake in a "Senior Docents Track Meet." That's surely one way to trim the docent population of the fat, isn't it? The philosophers among them will relish the fact that they've thought of a Malthusian solution, a convenient way short of Shirley Jackson's "Lottery" to make room for potentially more robust docents.
So, as the world braces for the retirement of front-end Boomers, watch the volunteer world closely. It could be a better sport than watching Pro Wrestling in the Hulk Hogan era or an NHL game featuring Ottawa and Buffalo (where the goalies actually took off the gloves!). After all, just because you're retiring from your job doesn't mean that you're retiring from life. There's more status to be gained, but you must think carefully and plan ahead. As has been said many times, you do need something to retire to.
So look for my performance center for potential prestigious volunteers some day soon.
You'll be glad you did.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sport or Entertainment?
Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required; click here for a link to a preview of the article) has an interesting article about how major sports teams are hiring concierges and hospitality sales people to build relationships with season-ticket holders (even in non-luxury box settings) to keep them in tow. The premise: that there are many alternatives for a fan to spend his entertainment dollars, and the home teams want to have their fans renew their season ticket subscriptions.
I think that the premise is particularly true for the NBA, NHL and even for some Major League baseball teams. The article cites extensive efforts that the Philadelphia Eagles have made for what appear to be premium customers, but the bet here is that if those customers elected not to renew, there are many standing in line to take their place (I just joined the Eagles' waiting list and hope that I won't be eligible for Social Security by the time I get offered to purchase tickets). Yes, the NFL is that different.
I wish that I could link to the entire article, but it's clear that fans want additional amenities (for me, more nutritious food choices and cheaper beer would be atop the list, plus the availability of a few players to sign autographs for the kids before a game) and, yes, better play. I think the latter, of course, is the tricky part. Years ago, when there were 3 UHF channels, 3 VHF channels, 1 channel for public television and fewer games on TV, the record of the team didn't matter as much because the alternatives were fewer and farther between, although fans still didn't go to watch abysmal teams (read: the St. Louis Browns, bad Phillies teams in the late 1960's, etc.). Today, the abundance of options (indoor soccer, Arena Football, indoor lacrosse, to name a few) and the high price of tickets in the four "major" sports probably makes many a fan think twice about upping for a season ticket to a team that will play at .500 or below (especially the NBA and NHL).
Would a concierge make your decision easier? Would a personal salesperson who shmoozes you and builds a relationship make it harder to say no?
In the late 1980's the Phillies weren't very good, and they had a shortstop name Steve Jeltz, a light-hitting switch hitter whose main distinction was that he was born in France. At any rate, Jeltz wasn't a championship shortstop, and he started for a few seasons in a row (his career batting average was .210, although he once hit a home run from each side of the plate in a game). He was one of the main symbols of a bad team, and it was frustrating that the Phillies were trotting him out as their starting shortstop.
I had delayed renewing my partial season ticket plan after the 1988 season, because a) the team was bad, b) I thought that the Bill Giles-led ownership team was lame (it was Giles, after all, who labeled Philadelphia a "small market" town), and c) because, well, among other things Jeltz was the returning shortstop. In the winter time, a representative from the ticket office called me to see if I was interested in renewing my tickets. I told him that I wasn't sure, but that it would be a big help if the Phillies could do something to replace Steve Jeltz at shortstop. The ticket representative was good-natured about it, and I told him that I loved baseball and the Phillies but wasn't sure about renewing. The call then ended.
A few days later, the Phillies announced that they acquired Dickie Thon, also a shortstop (and definitely an upgrade) from the Houston Astros. That deal was good news for Phillies' fans.
The next day the same ticket representative called me back.
"Hey," he said, "I listened to you and we got Dickie Thon. What do you say now?"
Of course I renewed. I mean, how could you say no to a telephone call like that?
People like to feel wanted and needed, and, in the case of the NBA and NHL, they want to have a feeling that their dollars make a difference. What the teams are doing makes good business sense, but to me it will work in the short term only. While the NBA teams may be borrowing from the Four Seasons and Disney, there is a fundamental difference between the hotel chain and entertainment empire on the one hand and pro hoops and hockey on the other that keeps people coming back. Go to a Four Seasons, and you're always treated like royalty. Go to Disney, your family almost always will have a good time. Go to the Philadelphia 76ers last night and see your team get blasted by 50 (that's not a typo), and, well, the product is inconsistent at best and bad at worst. There's no getting around that no matter how much you dress up a mediocre product, the fans ultimate will peel away the veneer and go elsewhere.
The resort to personal sales people and concierges is good business to a degree, but it won't change a fan's experience the way a 20% increase in a team's amount of wins would. And, with bad teams, it might be a signal as to how desperate some of their situations have become.
I think that the premise is particularly true for the NBA, NHL and even for some Major League baseball teams. The article cites extensive efforts that the Philadelphia Eagles have made for what appear to be premium customers, but the bet here is that if those customers elected not to renew, there are many standing in line to take their place (I just joined the Eagles' waiting list and hope that I won't be eligible for Social Security by the time I get offered to purchase tickets). Yes, the NFL is that different.
I wish that I could link to the entire article, but it's clear that fans want additional amenities (for me, more nutritious food choices and cheaper beer would be atop the list, plus the availability of a few players to sign autographs for the kids before a game) and, yes, better play. I think the latter, of course, is the tricky part. Years ago, when there were 3 UHF channels, 3 VHF channels, 1 channel for public television and fewer games on TV, the record of the team didn't matter as much because the alternatives were fewer and farther between, although fans still didn't go to watch abysmal teams (read: the St. Louis Browns, bad Phillies teams in the late 1960's, etc.). Today, the abundance of options (indoor soccer, Arena Football, indoor lacrosse, to name a few) and the high price of tickets in the four "major" sports probably makes many a fan think twice about upping for a season ticket to a team that will play at .500 or below (especially the NBA and NHL).
Would a concierge make your decision easier? Would a personal salesperson who shmoozes you and builds a relationship make it harder to say no?
In the late 1980's the Phillies weren't very good, and they had a shortstop name Steve Jeltz, a light-hitting switch hitter whose main distinction was that he was born in France. At any rate, Jeltz wasn't a championship shortstop, and he started for a few seasons in a row (his career batting average was .210, although he once hit a home run from each side of the plate in a game). He was one of the main symbols of a bad team, and it was frustrating that the Phillies were trotting him out as their starting shortstop.
I had delayed renewing my partial season ticket plan after the 1988 season, because a) the team was bad, b) I thought that the Bill Giles-led ownership team was lame (it was Giles, after all, who labeled Philadelphia a "small market" town), and c) because, well, among other things Jeltz was the returning shortstop. In the winter time, a representative from the ticket office called me to see if I was interested in renewing my tickets. I told him that I wasn't sure, but that it would be a big help if the Phillies could do something to replace Steve Jeltz at shortstop. The ticket representative was good-natured about it, and I told him that I loved baseball and the Phillies but wasn't sure about renewing. The call then ended.
A few days later, the Phillies announced that they acquired Dickie Thon, also a shortstop (and definitely an upgrade) from the Houston Astros. That deal was good news for Phillies' fans.
The next day the same ticket representative called me back.
"Hey," he said, "I listened to you and we got Dickie Thon. What do you say now?"
Of course I renewed. I mean, how could you say no to a telephone call like that?
People like to feel wanted and needed, and, in the case of the NBA and NHL, they want to have a feeling that their dollars make a difference. What the teams are doing makes good business sense, but to me it will work in the short term only. While the NBA teams may be borrowing from the Four Seasons and Disney, there is a fundamental difference between the hotel chain and entertainment empire on the one hand and pro hoops and hockey on the other that keeps people coming back. Go to a Four Seasons, and you're always treated like royalty. Go to Disney, your family almost always will have a good time. Go to the Philadelphia 76ers last night and see your team get blasted by 50 (that's not a typo), and, well, the product is inconsistent at best and bad at worst. There's no getting around that no matter how much you dress up a mediocre product, the fans ultimate will peel away the veneer and go elsewhere.
The resort to personal sales people and concierges is good business to a degree, but it won't change a fan's experience the way a 20% increase in a team's amount of wins would. And, with bad teams, it might be a signal as to how desperate some of their situations have become.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Thoughts on Princeton Basketball
Forgive me, hoops gods, as I hope that I am not violating the Eleventh Amendment that though shall not speak badly of fellow Princetonians. . . and I hope that I'll be speaking constructively in the process.
Here are a few points by way of background:
1. The Princeton men finished last in the Ivies, which, to my knowledge, is the first time that they finished last since the Ivies began play formally as a conference in the mid-1950's (You can look it up here).
2. The Princeton men lost to Dartmouth twice in one season for the first time in about 60 years. Dartmouth is the hockey and skiing school located somewhere just south of Canada.
3. Joe Scott, the Princeton coach, takes some solace in the fact that the Tigers finished 19-8 during 2006, which consists of the 2006 Ivy season and the fall of this past season (but not the spring of 2007). Scott also cited injuries to some key players as a cause for the team's problems in the Ivies.
4. The Princeton program is optimistic about the potential of three freshmen, center Zach Finley and guards Marcus Schroeder and Lincoln Gunn.
5. Big-time recruit Jeff Peterson of DeMatha Catholic re-opened his recruiting after being admitted early to Princeton this past fall. Normally, that early admission constitutes a requirement that the player attend Princeton. The other Ivies, I believe, would honor this and stay away from Peterson, but the scholarship schools will not (by the same token, the Ivies don't recognize letters of intent and would happily take a player who had signed one to a superior program if the opportunity arose). That Peterson is a PG (as is Schroeder) might have something to do with it, but the Tigers' overall record also might have something to do with it (I saw on ESPN the Insider's recruiting web page that Peterson is considering, among others, American, with Penn fifth on his list, but I can't see how Peterson could enroll at Penn next fall given that he was admitted early to Princeton this year).
6. Princeton was not in need of rebuilding when Joe Scott arrived three years ago. He inherited a Tiger team that had won an Ivy title and had two returning first-team all-Ivy players in Judson Wallace and Will Venable. He proceeded to coach the Tigers to their first-ever losing season in league play. While John Thompson III loosened up the dictates of the classic "Princeton system" in coaching his teams, Scott returned to the orthodox version -- with bad results. To say that the program was in need of rebuilding at that time dishonors Thompson, who has demonstrated at Georgetown what an excellent coach he is. In one of the linked articles, Scott is quoted as saying that it took him four years to build what he did at Air Force, and it will take some time at Princeton (in three seasons, he's 18-20 in Ivy play and 38-45 overall). You'll recall that I was one of those who had urged patience with Joe Scott, as "conversions to orthodoxy take time."
7. The rest of the Ivies, excluding Penn, have not gotten better and "caught up with Princeton." Yes, the RPI this season was 18, but Penn was a #14 seed and unlike in prior seasons (when Princeton had Steve Goodrich et al. and Penn had Ugonna Onyekwe et al.) fans held out little hope that the most recent vintage of Quaker squads had a shot to be a dragon-slayer. I'd submit that while various opponents have had their fits and starts (Yale in the early years under James Jones and Brown under Glen Miller), overall it's the Tigers who have changed more than the opposition.
8. Princeton AD Gary Walters, busy in the past months as a member of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, to the best of my knowledge, citing university policy, has been publicly demure on Scott, other than saying he's a coach in good standing (which, depending on how you read it, could be akin to a star athlete's getting a grade of "present" in a core course at his university). Walters has a classic, almost biblical, dilemma. On the one hand, Walters and his contemporaries in the mid-1960's helped make the Princeton hoops brand what it is. Walters is in his early 60's, and he won't be AD forever. When he retires, what shape will he leave the men's hoops program, arguably the signature program in Princeton's athletic department? What will his contemporaries say? How will history judge him?
9. Penn is having another good recruiting year, with four recruits signed (none of whom is bigger than 6'7" and none of whom appears to be a center, although two are power forwards, this again, according to ESPN the Insider). I invite the Baskeball U cognoscenti to weigh in about Princeton, because the ESPN site indicates that the Tigers have a commitment from a two guard from Long Island and are in the hunt for a 6'9" center from Texas. Advantage, seemingly, to Penn in this important area.
10. Some Princeton students have started a "Fire Joe Scott" website. Somewhat predictably, Scott's players have jumped in to defend him. At a place where hardcourt excellence is as expected as the free space on the bingo card, coaching a team to a 2-12 record in league play unfortunately will draw this type of rival choruses.
Now, as to what could be going on. . .
To consider how solid the ground Coach Scott is on, you have to consider the "Cappy Cappon" line of coaches. You all know the story by now -- Cappon coached Butch van Breda Kolff, who coached Pete Carril when Coach Carril played at Lafayette. When van Breda Kolff bolted Princeton in the mid-to-late 1960's for the Lakers, he recommend his former player to coach the Tigers. Carril coached Walters in high school. After Princeton, Walters coached at Union College, where he coached a point guard named Bill Carmody. When Carril retired, his long-time assistant, Carmody, became the coach, and two of his assistants were former Carril players, Joe Scott and John Thompson III. When Carmody left several seasons later for Northwestern and Scott for Air Force in the same year, Thompson was elevated to head coach. Several years ago, when Thompson left for Georgetown, Scott returned to Princeton. It's the Princeton version of the North Carolina family, and both families are very supportive and very loyal to each other. To use an Arbor Day analogy, the family tree of Tiger hoops coaches has some deep roots.
But while there are similarities, there also are differences.
You'll recall that after Dean Smith retired at North Carolina he paved the way for his long-time assistant, Bill Guthridge, to coach the Tar Heels. Guthridge coached for four seasons and took the team to 2 Final Fours, and the assumption was that former Smith top assistant and then-Kansas head coach Roy Williams (a Carolina alum) would return home, as it were, upon Guthridge's retirement (Guthridge took over the Carolina helm when he was in his early 60's). Except for one thing -- Williams thought that he had unfinished business at Kansas. So the Heels turned to one-time Williams assistant Matt Doherty, a Carolina alum and teammate of Michael Jordan who at the time had one year under his belt at Notre Dame. Doherty inherited a solid program, but he ticked off the powers that be with a few moves -- a) he fired all of the historic Smith/Guthridge assistants, preferring to keep his ND staff intact (in fairness to his side of the story, he didn't want to see them unemployed after only one year in South Bend), b) he seemingly ticked off Smith with that move and with becoming a control freak, and c) he lost command of his team (sounded like he, too, was intense and a shouter). He recruited well, but in his last season the team underachieved and Carolina had to make a move.
This time (four years ago) Williams was ready to return, and last season he took players that Doherty recruited (Sean May, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants) to a national championship. All's well that ends well, and the Tar Heels had a good year last season after losing their top 7 players (who accounted for over 80 ppg).
In contrast, Scott did nothing to anger anyone at Princeton. He didn't jettison long-time assistants, and he didn't try to de-Carrilize the place. He honors tradition, perhaps to a fault, by running the orthodox Princeton system. He does seem to be intense, and questions have arisen whether this approach works with the contemporary Ivy athlete (who, while very competitive, will not play hoops after graduation -- or, at least a majority won't do so for money). That said, he hasn't been successful thus far, and it's not clear how well he has recruited. Usually poor records connote poor talent, and it's not right to chalk up the Tigers' failures this year solely to the injuries to upperclassmen, including junior forward Kyle Koncz (as one of the linked articles suggests). Still, it doesn't appear that the Tigers have, as Penn did in Ibby Jaaber and Mark Zoller a few star players who are able, night in and night out, to put up 15 points a game (and the jury's still out whether they have those young men in the pipeline, although they might). You need those guys to win an Ivy title. That's not to say the Tigers don't have guys who are capable of scoring in double figures every now and then. They do, but it's not clear who is able to do so every night. In contrast, the 1997-1998 team that was ranked as highly as eighth in the country had 5 guys who could do so if need be -- Steve Goodrich, Gabe Lewullis, James Mastaglio, Brian Earl and Mitch Henderson.
The other differences between the Tigers and Carolina (okay, other than the patently obvious, which is that the Tigers don't get McDonald's All-Americans and aren't a perennial Sweet 16 team) is that the Ivies (unlike the high majors) traditionally don't fire coaches -- they might let contracts expire, but it seems that firings mid-contract are rare (or, if they are more frequent, they get little publicity). Another difference is that the Tigers don't have a logical "savior" waiting in the wings the way Carolina did. Finally, even if the Tigers did, they don't have the Ivy equivalent of Messrs. May, Felton and McCants (among others) waiting for that coach to lead them to an NCAA tournament appearance.
So, there are many factors working at Princeton. In no particular order, there's the loyalty to the Carril line, the length of Scott's contract, the different views of his performance (whether or not he's really on a rebuilding mission), and the fact that there's no logical successor waiting in the wings.
Let's examine the latter point. Bill Carmody probably isn't leaving Northwestern, but in his tenure there he's basically had a .500 team that hasn't gotten an NIT berth, let alone an NCAA berth. He excelled at Princeton, but his possible return would be a long shot unless Northwestern were to give him the boot. Chris Mooney, a former all-Ivy Princeton player, was Scott's top assistant at Air Force, was head coach there for one year, and has been at Richmond for the past 2. He's not a logical successor, really, because he's struggled at Richmond and because if you're going to make a change away from Joe Scott, would your first choice be someone so closely identified with him? Rob Burke was John Thompson III's top assistant when JTIII coached in Tigertown. He's not a Princeton alum (and therefore not solidly in the "Cappon Line"), and my guess is that he'll be able to get a higher profile head coaching job than Princeton were he to seek one out (given how successful Georgetown has been). I'd look for Burke in the CAA or A-10 before the Ivies, but the Harvard job could be tempting. Craig Robinson would be an attractive pick, but he's only been at Brown for a year. Still, he beat the Tigers twice this season, and one of my loyal readers who's a Penn season-ticket holder applauded Robinson's coaching effort against the Quakers as the best opposing coaching job by an Ivy coach against Penn this season. And then there's Carmody assistant, Mitch Henderson, a former Princeton PG who's assisted Carmody for the past 6 seasons. He could well coach the Tigers some day, and my guess is that he'll be a head coach somewhere in the not-too-distant future. Typically, you don't want to make a move unless you're sure you'll hire someone better.
So what's the verdict on Joe Scott? It's clear that he's not as great a coach as all thought when he worked the Air Force miracle and it's also the case that he's not as bad a coach as some frustrated Princeton fans are saying now. That said, the Princeton insiders had better be careful that they're looking at Scott's coaching through an objective prism and not through the lens that he once was a beloved player of Pete Carril. They should be careful to dismiss the criticism of the fans as uninformed ventilating, and, to quote one of Carril's favorite poems, the insiders should "allow for the doubting." True that poem, Scott needs to hold his head high and keep his cool, but those who are grading him are in a tough spot.
I had written previously that conversions to orthodoxy take time. I still believe in that, but I am a little concerned that the Princeton system doesn't transcend talent and aggressive coaching, both of which Penn has (and Penn is having an excellent recruiting year). I don't think that the Tigers should fire Joe Scott, because to do so would be premature. At the same time, they should shed the notion that he's "coach for life" and untouchable precisely because he's an alumnus and a beloved disciple of Coach Carril. Perhaps Walters et al. should adopt the same method of thinking that Carril did when he decided to retire -- Carril knew when to get out and the Tigers should figure out at what point they'll have to decide to let Joe Scott go if the squad doesn't show improvement next season.
My sense is that Walters has talked with the coach about expectations in the near term. The AD at each school meets with his/her coaches every year to review the year (and if he/she doesn't, he should). You wouldn't expect a leader to throw his coach under the proverbial bus publicly, but I can't believe that anyone in the Princeton administration is happy with the state of affairs. And, given how frank he can be, I'm sure that Joe Scott is the first among the unhappy.
I don't know what happened after I blogged here and here about the Marshall and Rice games. In both of those games, the Tigers played great defense. But, as many have pointed out (and I'm sure that those who follow it more closely than I will, as you usually do, point out the holes in this post), they relied as much if not more on the 3-point goal than any other DI team in the country and didn't rebound well. Translated into plain English, that means that they were pretty easy to defend. And when you're easy to defend, it's hard to win.
So Joe Scott will get at least one more year, and my guess is that he'll probably get two (on the presumption that he has a five-year contract and that it hasn't been extended since he came back to Old Nassau). That means two more recruiting classes and a chance to see the promising frosh become juniors. If he got a five-year contract when he started, then it's doubtful that Walters will abandon the family loyalty until Scott's five-year plan has run its course. That's good news for Joe Scott.
Whether it's good news for the Princeton Tigers remains to be seen.
And the stakes are big. If Scott turns it around and makes Princeton as formidable as he did Air Force, the Tigers could run off a string of consecutive titles. If he fails, what's the long-term damage to the brand name? Is there a chance that the Tigers will lose the recruiting edge they once had were recruits to examine the school's collective record over the past five years? Is that type of data relevant to recruits?
And Penn fans, take note. Do not rejoice in this. You need a strong Princeton team to help make the rivalary better and to make your team better. Sure, you want to win, but the Ivies' RPI and avoidance of the play-in game in some part depends on the rekindled excellence of the Tigers' program. Plus, it would be fun to go to a game at the Palestra or at Jadwin that had some meaning, wouldn't it (okay, so maybe you wouldn't agree with me here)?
Princeton fans, be patient and be supportive. Joe Scott is your coach, and you all need him to succeed. Let's hope that he'll draw on his successes at Air Force (and as a Carmody assistant), learn from his past three years, have one of his own light bulbs go off and burn brightly, and inspire the team to the success that the Princeton program and its supports have grown to expect.
Let's remember what it was like to walk into Jadwin knowing that the team would paste Dartmouth by 20, what it was like to watch Earl and Lewullis, Goodrich and Henderson. Let's hope that Coach Scott can wake up those echoes and renew the Tiger hoops brand with vigor.
Because the alternative -- failure -- is more than we can bear.
Gary Walters knows this, and so do Pete Carril and the other insiders.
And one thing is guaranteed -- no one will work harder than Joe Scott to bring the program back.
Let's hope that the Tigers administration, and Coach Scott, is working smart, too. The past three seasons collectively have been a drought. Princeton needs the Air Force Joe Scott.
And needs him now.
Here are a few points by way of background:
1. The Princeton men finished last in the Ivies, which, to my knowledge, is the first time that they finished last since the Ivies began play formally as a conference in the mid-1950's (You can look it up here).
2. The Princeton men lost to Dartmouth twice in one season for the first time in about 60 years. Dartmouth is the hockey and skiing school located somewhere just south of Canada.
3. Joe Scott, the Princeton coach, takes some solace in the fact that the Tigers finished 19-8 during 2006, which consists of the 2006 Ivy season and the fall of this past season (but not the spring of 2007). Scott also cited injuries to some key players as a cause for the team's problems in the Ivies.
4. The Princeton program is optimistic about the potential of three freshmen, center Zach Finley and guards Marcus Schroeder and Lincoln Gunn.
5. Big-time recruit Jeff Peterson of DeMatha Catholic re-opened his recruiting after being admitted early to Princeton this past fall. Normally, that early admission constitutes a requirement that the player attend Princeton. The other Ivies, I believe, would honor this and stay away from Peterson, but the scholarship schools will not (by the same token, the Ivies don't recognize letters of intent and would happily take a player who had signed one to a superior program if the opportunity arose). That Peterson is a PG (as is Schroeder) might have something to do with it, but the Tigers' overall record also might have something to do with it (I saw on ESPN the Insider's recruiting web page that Peterson is considering, among others, American, with Penn fifth on his list, but I can't see how Peterson could enroll at Penn next fall given that he was admitted early to Princeton this year).
6. Princeton was not in need of rebuilding when Joe Scott arrived three years ago. He inherited a Tiger team that had won an Ivy title and had two returning first-team all-Ivy players in Judson Wallace and Will Venable. He proceeded to coach the Tigers to their first-ever losing season in league play. While John Thompson III loosened up the dictates of the classic "Princeton system" in coaching his teams, Scott returned to the orthodox version -- with bad results. To say that the program was in need of rebuilding at that time dishonors Thompson, who has demonstrated at Georgetown what an excellent coach he is. In one of the linked articles, Scott is quoted as saying that it took him four years to build what he did at Air Force, and it will take some time at Princeton (in three seasons, he's 18-20 in Ivy play and 38-45 overall). You'll recall that I was one of those who had urged patience with Joe Scott, as "conversions to orthodoxy take time."
7. The rest of the Ivies, excluding Penn, have not gotten better and "caught up with Princeton." Yes, the RPI this season was 18, but Penn was a #14 seed and unlike in prior seasons (when Princeton had Steve Goodrich et al. and Penn had Ugonna Onyekwe et al.) fans held out little hope that the most recent vintage of Quaker squads had a shot to be a dragon-slayer. I'd submit that while various opponents have had their fits and starts (Yale in the early years under James Jones and Brown under Glen Miller), overall it's the Tigers who have changed more than the opposition.
8. Princeton AD Gary Walters, busy in the past months as a member of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, to the best of my knowledge, citing university policy, has been publicly demure on Scott, other than saying he's a coach in good standing (which, depending on how you read it, could be akin to a star athlete's getting a grade of "present" in a core course at his university). Walters has a classic, almost biblical, dilemma. On the one hand, Walters and his contemporaries in the mid-1960's helped make the Princeton hoops brand what it is. Walters is in his early 60's, and he won't be AD forever. When he retires, what shape will he leave the men's hoops program, arguably the signature program in Princeton's athletic department? What will his contemporaries say? How will history judge him?
9. Penn is having another good recruiting year, with four recruits signed (none of whom is bigger than 6'7" and none of whom appears to be a center, although two are power forwards, this again, according to ESPN the Insider). I invite the Baskeball U cognoscenti to weigh in about Princeton, because the ESPN site indicates that the Tigers have a commitment from a two guard from Long Island and are in the hunt for a 6'9" center from Texas. Advantage, seemingly, to Penn in this important area.
10. Some Princeton students have started a "Fire Joe Scott" website. Somewhat predictably, Scott's players have jumped in to defend him. At a place where hardcourt excellence is as expected as the free space on the bingo card, coaching a team to a 2-12 record in league play unfortunately will draw this type of rival choruses.
Now, as to what could be going on. . .
To consider how solid the ground Coach Scott is on, you have to consider the "Cappy Cappon" line of coaches. You all know the story by now -- Cappon coached Butch van Breda Kolff, who coached Pete Carril when Coach Carril played at Lafayette. When van Breda Kolff bolted Princeton in the mid-to-late 1960's for the Lakers, he recommend his former player to coach the Tigers. Carril coached Walters in high school. After Princeton, Walters coached at Union College, where he coached a point guard named Bill Carmody. When Carril retired, his long-time assistant, Carmody, became the coach, and two of his assistants were former Carril players, Joe Scott and John Thompson III. When Carmody left several seasons later for Northwestern and Scott for Air Force in the same year, Thompson was elevated to head coach. Several years ago, when Thompson left for Georgetown, Scott returned to Princeton. It's the Princeton version of the North Carolina family, and both families are very supportive and very loyal to each other. To use an Arbor Day analogy, the family tree of Tiger hoops coaches has some deep roots.
But while there are similarities, there also are differences.
You'll recall that after Dean Smith retired at North Carolina he paved the way for his long-time assistant, Bill Guthridge, to coach the Tar Heels. Guthridge coached for four seasons and took the team to 2 Final Fours, and the assumption was that former Smith top assistant and then-Kansas head coach Roy Williams (a Carolina alum) would return home, as it were, upon Guthridge's retirement (Guthridge took over the Carolina helm when he was in his early 60's). Except for one thing -- Williams thought that he had unfinished business at Kansas. So the Heels turned to one-time Williams assistant Matt Doherty, a Carolina alum and teammate of Michael Jordan who at the time had one year under his belt at Notre Dame. Doherty inherited a solid program, but he ticked off the powers that be with a few moves -- a) he fired all of the historic Smith/Guthridge assistants, preferring to keep his ND staff intact (in fairness to his side of the story, he didn't want to see them unemployed after only one year in South Bend), b) he seemingly ticked off Smith with that move and with becoming a control freak, and c) he lost command of his team (sounded like he, too, was intense and a shouter). He recruited well, but in his last season the team underachieved and Carolina had to make a move.
This time (four years ago) Williams was ready to return, and last season he took players that Doherty recruited (Sean May, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants) to a national championship. All's well that ends well, and the Tar Heels had a good year last season after losing their top 7 players (who accounted for over 80 ppg).
In contrast, Scott did nothing to anger anyone at Princeton. He didn't jettison long-time assistants, and he didn't try to de-Carrilize the place. He honors tradition, perhaps to a fault, by running the orthodox Princeton system. He does seem to be intense, and questions have arisen whether this approach works with the contemporary Ivy athlete (who, while very competitive, will not play hoops after graduation -- or, at least a majority won't do so for money). That said, he hasn't been successful thus far, and it's not clear how well he has recruited. Usually poor records connote poor talent, and it's not right to chalk up the Tigers' failures this year solely to the injuries to upperclassmen, including junior forward Kyle Koncz (as one of the linked articles suggests). Still, it doesn't appear that the Tigers have, as Penn did in Ibby Jaaber and Mark Zoller a few star players who are able, night in and night out, to put up 15 points a game (and the jury's still out whether they have those young men in the pipeline, although they might). You need those guys to win an Ivy title. That's not to say the Tigers don't have guys who are capable of scoring in double figures every now and then. They do, but it's not clear who is able to do so every night. In contrast, the 1997-1998 team that was ranked as highly as eighth in the country had 5 guys who could do so if need be -- Steve Goodrich, Gabe Lewullis, James Mastaglio, Brian Earl and Mitch Henderson.
The other differences between the Tigers and Carolina (okay, other than the patently obvious, which is that the Tigers don't get McDonald's All-Americans and aren't a perennial Sweet 16 team) is that the Ivies (unlike the high majors) traditionally don't fire coaches -- they might let contracts expire, but it seems that firings mid-contract are rare (or, if they are more frequent, they get little publicity). Another difference is that the Tigers don't have a logical "savior" waiting in the wings the way Carolina did. Finally, even if the Tigers did, they don't have the Ivy equivalent of Messrs. May, Felton and McCants (among others) waiting for that coach to lead them to an NCAA tournament appearance.
So, there are many factors working at Princeton. In no particular order, there's the loyalty to the Carril line, the length of Scott's contract, the different views of his performance (whether or not he's really on a rebuilding mission), and the fact that there's no logical successor waiting in the wings.
Let's examine the latter point. Bill Carmody probably isn't leaving Northwestern, but in his tenure there he's basically had a .500 team that hasn't gotten an NIT berth, let alone an NCAA berth. He excelled at Princeton, but his possible return would be a long shot unless Northwestern were to give him the boot. Chris Mooney, a former all-Ivy Princeton player, was Scott's top assistant at Air Force, was head coach there for one year, and has been at Richmond for the past 2. He's not a logical successor, really, because he's struggled at Richmond and because if you're going to make a change away from Joe Scott, would your first choice be someone so closely identified with him? Rob Burke was John Thompson III's top assistant when JTIII coached in Tigertown. He's not a Princeton alum (and therefore not solidly in the "Cappon Line"), and my guess is that he'll be able to get a higher profile head coaching job than Princeton were he to seek one out (given how successful Georgetown has been). I'd look for Burke in the CAA or A-10 before the Ivies, but the Harvard job could be tempting. Craig Robinson would be an attractive pick, but he's only been at Brown for a year. Still, he beat the Tigers twice this season, and one of my loyal readers who's a Penn season-ticket holder applauded Robinson's coaching effort against the Quakers as the best opposing coaching job by an Ivy coach against Penn this season. And then there's Carmody assistant, Mitch Henderson, a former Princeton PG who's assisted Carmody for the past 6 seasons. He could well coach the Tigers some day, and my guess is that he'll be a head coach somewhere in the not-too-distant future. Typically, you don't want to make a move unless you're sure you'll hire someone better.
So what's the verdict on Joe Scott? It's clear that he's not as great a coach as all thought when he worked the Air Force miracle and it's also the case that he's not as bad a coach as some frustrated Princeton fans are saying now. That said, the Princeton insiders had better be careful that they're looking at Scott's coaching through an objective prism and not through the lens that he once was a beloved player of Pete Carril. They should be careful to dismiss the criticism of the fans as uninformed ventilating, and, to quote one of Carril's favorite poems, the insiders should "allow for the doubting." True that poem, Scott needs to hold his head high and keep his cool, but those who are grading him are in a tough spot.
I had written previously that conversions to orthodoxy take time. I still believe in that, but I am a little concerned that the Princeton system doesn't transcend talent and aggressive coaching, both of which Penn has (and Penn is having an excellent recruiting year). I don't think that the Tigers should fire Joe Scott, because to do so would be premature. At the same time, they should shed the notion that he's "coach for life" and untouchable precisely because he's an alumnus and a beloved disciple of Coach Carril. Perhaps Walters et al. should adopt the same method of thinking that Carril did when he decided to retire -- Carril knew when to get out and the Tigers should figure out at what point they'll have to decide to let Joe Scott go if the squad doesn't show improvement next season.
My sense is that Walters has talked with the coach about expectations in the near term. The AD at each school meets with his/her coaches every year to review the year (and if he/she doesn't, he should). You wouldn't expect a leader to throw his coach under the proverbial bus publicly, but I can't believe that anyone in the Princeton administration is happy with the state of affairs. And, given how frank he can be, I'm sure that Joe Scott is the first among the unhappy.
I don't know what happened after I blogged here and here about the Marshall and Rice games. In both of those games, the Tigers played great defense. But, as many have pointed out (and I'm sure that those who follow it more closely than I will, as you usually do, point out the holes in this post), they relied as much if not more on the 3-point goal than any other DI team in the country and didn't rebound well. Translated into plain English, that means that they were pretty easy to defend. And when you're easy to defend, it's hard to win.
So Joe Scott will get at least one more year, and my guess is that he'll probably get two (on the presumption that he has a five-year contract and that it hasn't been extended since he came back to Old Nassau). That means two more recruiting classes and a chance to see the promising frosh become juniors. If he got a five-year contract when he started, then it's doubtful that Walters will abandon the family loyalty until Scott's five-year plan has run its course. That's good news for Joe Scott.
Whether it's good news for the Princeton Tigers remains to be seen.
And the stakes are big. If Scott turns it around and makes Princeton as formidable as he did Air Force, the Tigers could run off a string of consecutive titles. If he fails, what's the long-term damage to the brand name? Is there a chance that the Tigers will lose the recruiting edge they once had were recruits to examine the school's collective record over the past five years? Is that type of data relevant to recruits?
And Penn fans, take note. Do not rejoice in this. You need a strong Princeton team to help make the rivalary better and to make your team better. Sure, you want to win, but the Ivies' RPI and avoidance of the play-in game in some part depends on the rekindled excellence of the Tigers' program. Plus, it would be fun to go to a game at the Palestra or at Jadwin that had some meaning, wouldn't it (okay, so maybe you wouldn't agree with me here)?
Princeton fans, be patient and be supportive. Joe Scott is your coach, and you all need him to succeed. Let's hope that he'll draw on his successes at Air Force (and as a Carmody assistant), learn from his past three years, have one of his own light bulbs go off and burn brightly, and inspire the team to the success that the Princeton program and its supports have grown to expect.
Let's remember what it was like to walk into Jadwin knowing that the team would paste Dartmouth by 20, what it was like to watch Earl and Lewullis, Goodrich and Henderson. Let's hope that Coach Scott can wake up those echoes and renew the Tiger hoops brand with vigor.
Because the alternative -- failure -- is more than we can bear.
Gary Walters knows this, and so do Pete Carril and the other insiders.
And one thing is guaranteed -- no one will work harder than Joe Scott to bring the program back.
Let's hope that the Tigers administration, and Coach Scott, is working smart, too. The past three seasons collectively have been a drought. Princeton needs the Air Force Joe Scott.
And needs him now.
The Flip Side to the Glory of the Quarterback
Buddy Miley was a star quarterback in high school.
Until he took a hit that broke his neck and left him paralyzed.
Here is his story, its sad ending, and his enduring legacy.
We read about the heroes, the kids who win the games, in the papers every day. Families keep scrapbooks of their kids' exploits, and those are typically what you hear about. You don't always here about those who weren't so fortunate, who suffered awful injuries.
We like reading the "where are they now" stories about former heroes, and usually we read stories about those whose lives after their sports have been successful, or, who have agreed to be written about. We don't hear about the difficulties people have or the sad cases, because, to paraphrase a book on a famous football coach, "pride still matters." Or gets in the way.
We're now starting to hear about the post-career problems many NFL players have suffered -- bad orthopedic conditions, bad neurological conditions, etc., and how the players' union is struggling to cope with these issues (the answer is, because of the staggering cost, not well). It will be interesting, indeed, to see how the country's reaction to collision sports evolves over the next several decades, where our citizens will have to weigh the weekend rituals they enjoy versus the human cost.
Buddy Miley's situation, of course, was different. He never got to play in college, suffering his awful injury in high school. The article teaches us many things -- about the spirit of a boy whose world changed forever with one hit, about a family that rallied around him, and about the last important decision Buddy Miley made.
It's a chilling reminder that everyone who plays the game isn't as fortunate as the players who get all of the headlines for their on-field exploits.
Until he took a hit that broke his neck and left him paralyzed.
Here is his story, its sad ending, and his enduring legacy.
We read about the heroes, the kids who win the games, in the papers every day. Families keep scrapbooks of their kids' exploits, and those are typically what you hear about. You don't always here about those who weren't so fortunate, who suffered awful injuries.
We like reading the "where are they now" stories about former heroes, and usually we read stories about those whose lives after their sports have been successful, or, who have agreed to be written about. We don't hear about the difficulties people have or the sad cases, because, to paraphrase a book on a famous football coach, "pride still matters." Or gets in the way.
We're now starting to hear about the post-career problems many NFL players have suffered -- bad orthopedic conditions, bad neurological conditions, etc., and how the players' union is struggling to cope with these issues (the answer is, because of the staggering cost, not well). It will be interesting, indeed, to see how the country's reaction to collision sports evolves over the next several decades, where our citizens will have to weigh the weekend rituals they enjoy versus the human cost.
Buddy Miley's situation, of course, was different. He never got to play in college, suffering his awful injury in high school. The article teaches us many things -- about the spirit of a boy whose world changed forever with one hit, about a family that rallied around him, and about the last important decision Buddy Miley made.
It's a chilling reminder that everyone who plays the game isn't as fortunate as the players who get all of the headlines for their on-field exploits.
Where Sports Really Make a Difference
Read this and you'll understand.
There are many Tricia O'Connors out there, coaches who labor in relative anonymity who touch kids lives in a positive way every day.
Stories like these are refreshing to see, especially at the time of the over-hyped, over-monied, over-programmed (in terms of robotics) NCAA Men's Hoops Tournament, with coaches who get paid ridiculous salaries and a premier color commentator who could use a lesson or two in humility (and I'm glad that Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, agrees with me).
Yes, I like March Madness as much as many of you, but as I get older I look for more and more stories like these. Sure, there's a lot of pressure on Karl Hobbs, the men's hoops coach at George Washington University, but the resources that he has at his disposal dwarf those given to Tricia O'Connor, the boys' swimming coach at George Washington High School.
Read this article and tell me who has the tougher job.
And, perhaps, the more rewarding.
There are many Tricia O'Connors out there, coaches who labor in relative anonymity who touch kids lives in a positive way every day.
Stories like these are refreshing to see, especially at the time of the over-hyped, over-monied, over-programmed (in terms of robotics) NCAA Men's Hoops Tournament, with coaches who get paid ridiculous salaries and a premier color commentator who could use a lesson or two in humility (and I'm glad that Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, agrees with me).
Yes, I like March Madness as much as many of you, but as I get older I look for more and more stories like these. Sure, there's a lot of pressure on Karl Hobbs, the men's hoops coach at George Washington University, but the resources that he has at his disposal dwarf those given to Tricia O'Connor, the boys' swimming coach at George Washington High School.
Read this article and tell me who has the tougher job.
And, perhaps, the more rewarding.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Farm Country
I'm involved in an extracurricular activity that's consumed a good deal of my spare time in the past 3 months, so much so that it's cut into my blogging (and, yes, I will post on Princeton's men's hoops season within the next week so that I can offer my thoughts, albeit late).
By way of background to this small story, I think you'd agree that I've kept my politics to myself and that while I live in a state that is schizophrenically red and blue, you can't tell from my politics whether my politics are red-state oriented, blue-state oriented or somewhere in between, and I'd like to keep it that way. This is a sports blog, and while I offer some social commentary it's social commentary, not political commentary.
As you also know from reading this blog, I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which is the county that is northeast of Philadelphia and in between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey (not to mention Princeton). Thirty years ago, farms predominated. Now, tract housing does. Historically it's been a suburb of Philadelphia, but in the past 15 years both New Yorkers and New Jerseyites have moved here, if for no other reasons than to get more house for the money, good schools and the ability to pay lower taxes, both on earned income and on real property. Translated, this means that there are more Mets and Yankees hats in the area than there were, say, even fifteen years ago. The indigenous populations and the invaders from the north get along peaceably, even when the Mets play the Phillies or the Eagles play the Giants.
At least so far. :)
(As many know, about 200 years ago a hideous political deal between northerners and southerners moved the nation's capital to swamp land that became Washington, D.C., with the result that Philadelphia lost its stature as the money center to New York and the political center to Washington. Later, it became known as the "Workshop to the World," making everything from steamships to locomotives to men's suits. Most recently, it's still known for many things, but it's not a global center the way New York and Washington are).
So. . .
I'm talking with an acquaintance (from the NYC metropolitan area) about people whom we know who are writers. She asked me about a particular acquaintance, who I said thought writes for the Washington Post. Then I said that I wasn't certain whether he wrote for the Washington Post or the New York Times. I conceded that perhaps the reason for this was that I did not read either newspaper.
"What are you, a Republican?" was the question on the other end of the phone.
"No," I replied, "I'm a Philadelphian."
I then explained -- and I'm now disappointed with myself for feeling a need to explain -- that I read three daily newspapers, none of which emanate from Washington or New York. I shouldn't have had to explain that. Put differently, it was none of her business (because the activity in which we're involved isn't political and, as I said, she's an acquaintance, which means I don't know her well). Moreover, I inferred from the tone that either the person on the other end was a) either a New Yorker incredulous that someone didn't read either the Times or the Post or that b) it's bad to be a Republican and that not reading either of those papers is an indicia of intolerance for, or disappointment in, those two papers and, also, a failure to embrace the political tides of last fall.
Needless to say, I was amused. My telephone correspondent seems very well-intentioned on the subject we're working on, and the topic of newspaper subscriptions was only an aside to a more important conversation.
Still, just because Philadelphia and its suburbs do not form the political or financial capital of the free world doesn't mean that we don't get newspapers. As for the Post, I don't know who might sell it locally on Sunday. As for the Times, I had a historical problem with its ink running off on my hands, and it's sports page is usually a day late and a dollar short. As for drawing inferences, draw them at your own risk. (Although hoops and the alma mater are thicker than mostly anything, with the result that I have supported Bill Bradley when he ran for President).
And, the last time I checked, our area has enjoyed the benefits of indoor plumbing for at least several generations, too.
By way of background to this small story, I think you'd agree that I've kept my politics to myself and that while I live in a state that is schizophrenically red and blue, you can't tell from my politics whether my politics are red-state oriented, blue-state oriented or somewhere in between, and I'd like to keep it that way. This is a sports blog, and while I offer some social commentary it's social commentary, not political commentary.
As you also know from reading this blog, I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, which is the county that is northeast of Philadelphia and in between Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey (not to mention Princeton). Thirty years ago, farms predominated. Now, tract housing does. Historically it's been a suburb of Philadelphia, but in the past 15 years both New Yorkers and New Jerseyites have moved here, if for no other reasons than to get more house for the money, good schools and the ability to pay lower taxes, both on earned income and on real property. Translated, this means that there are more Mets and Yankees hats in the area than there were, say, even fifteen years ago. The indigenous populations and the invaders from the north get along peaceably, even when the Mets play the Phillies or the Eagles play the Giants.
At least so far. :)
(As many know, about 200 years ago a hideous political deal between northerners and southerners moved the nation's capital to swamp land that became Washington, D.C., with the result that Philadelphia lost its stature as the money center to New York and the political center to Washington. Later, it became known as the "Workshop to the World," making everything from steamships to locomotives to men's suits. Most recently, it's still known for many things, but it's not a global center the way New York and Washington are).
So. . .
I'm talking with an acquaintance (from the NYC metropolitan area) about people whom we know who are writers. She asked me about a particular acquaintance, who I said thought writes for the Washington Post. Then I said that I wasn't certain whether he wrote for the Washington Post or the New York Times. I conceded that perhaps the reason for this was that I did not read either newspaper.
"What are you, a Republican?" was the question on the other end of the phone.
"No," I replied, "I'm a Philadelphian."
I then explained -- and I'm now disappointed with myself for feeling a need to explain -- that I read three daily newspapers, none of which emanate from Washington or New York. I shouldn't have had to explain that. Put differently, it was none of her business (because the activity in which we're involved isn't political and, as I said, she's an acquaintance, which means I don't know her well). Moreover, I inferred from the tone that either the person on the other end was a) either a New Yorker incredulous that someone didn't read either the Times or the Post or that b) it's bad to be a Republican and that not reading either of those papers is an indicia of intolerance for, or disappointment in, those two papers and, also, a failure to embrace the political tides of last fall.
Needless to say, I was amused. My telephone correspondent seems very well-intentioned on the subject we're working on, and the topic of newspaper subscriptions was only an aside to a more important conversation.
Still, just because Philadelphia and its suburbs do not form the political or financial capital of the free world doesn't mean that we don't get newspapers. As for the Post, I don't know who might sell it locally on Sunday. As for the Times, I had a historical problem with its ink running off on my hands, and it's sports page is usually a day late and a dollar short. As for drawing inferences, draw them at your own risk. (Although hoops and the alma mater are thicker than mostly anything, with the result that I have supported Bill Bradley when he ran for President).
And, the last time I checked, our area has enjoyed the benefits of indoor plumbing for at least several generations, too.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Is the NIT Still Relevant?
Read here for the latest on the NIT.
Years ago, the NCAA eliminated consolation games, both at the regional level (where the two teams that didn't advance to the regional final would play) and at the national level (where the two losers of the national semifinals would play for third place). The coaches and teams hated playing those games, and they were eliminated.
So why play the NIT? It's an also-rans tournament, a tournament for teams that didn't qualify for the tournament that we care about, the NCAA tournament. Who watches it except for alums of the schools involved and the family members of the players? The ratings just can't be that good, because the championship means little to anyone except those who win it. Quick, name who won the NCAA tournament last year?
Florida?
Who won the NIT?
Get my point.
Now, onto a bigger issue, one that also is a subject of controversy. No less an authority than John Wooden has suggested in the past that the NCAA expand the field of the tournament. He harkened back to the excitement that the Indiana HS hoops tournament generated by being all-inclusive, and he has expressed the opinion that the DI men's tournament include all teams. That would be very interesting and create even more excitement than the tournament generates now. That concept also would eliminate the NIT.
Picture a shorter in-season schedule and a 330-team tournament. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone should have a first-round game. It could be that the top 64 get a first-round bye and that there's re-seeding in each round. A certain number would get first-round byes (conference champions and the appropriate number of the best remaining teams to make the field work mathematically). Is that fair?
Expanding the field certainly would add excitement, even if there's a risk that you'd be making the regular season less meaningful. That's the one argument that resonates with me -- if you're going to include everyone, why play a grueling regular season? The flip side is that the grueling regular season will help with seeding and toughen up teams for an exciting post-season tournament. No, I don't think that a 2-26 team will win a game, but the buzz that the possibility of a George Mason-like run or of a SWAC team beating a top ACC team in the first round will be tremendous. Put differently, I think that the country would grind to some sort of halt a la the World Cup in many nations when the national team is playing. Why? Because with every team making the field, many Americans are bound to have a team to watch. And, in a nation that's worried about Social Security's bankruptcy in thirty years, the role of radical Islam, the economic emergence of China, the increasing incidence of obesity and a whole host of things, would it be so bad for people to duck out of work for a while, head into a local sports bar, have a libation and root hard for a team with which they have a connection?
Then again, there's the "Wall of Gaylord" syndrome from "Meet the Fockers." You might remember the scene from the movie, where Ben Stiller's folks (earthies who hug perhaps too much) had a wall with their son's so-called accomplishments (none of which amounted to more than a ninth-place finish in a JV wrestling tournament). Or, you could call it the current "little league sports" syndrome, where up to a certain age everyone gets a trophy, whether they show up to every game, play hard or even have a clue that they're playing the sport they're playing. Why should the 2-26 team that perhaps might not beat Oak Hill Academy get rewarded by entry into a tournament? What's the sense in that?
Perhaps it's cents. If everyone makes the tournament, everyone could get a share of the tournament's money to help fund their athletic departments. That means, perhaps, one less game where you have Morgan State traveling to Ohio State to get their clocks cleaned early in the year for an appearance fee. That means that the wealth gets shared beyond the "oligarchy" conferences, who want to dominate the conversation each year because they think that anything below a high-major is a debilitating nuisance at worse and a romantic one at best. The ADs of those schools (some of whom were not portrayed in a flattering light in John Feinstein's book on the Final Four) want as much money as possible for their schools. They tolerate all non-majors because popular opinion would vilify them if they didn't at least give lip service to the notion that schools outside the Big East, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-10 should play a meaningful role in the tournament. Would that be so bad?
To them, it would be, because to quote Billy Joel in "Piano Man," "Because it's me they've been comin' to see to forget about life for a while." Translated, most people watch the tournament from the get-go to watch the big-name schools, and, if not from the get-go, they end up there because it's more often than not that the George Masons don't make it to the Sweet 16. So, then, perhaps there's a compromise that puts a premium on winning if the NCAA were to have an all-inclusive tournament. Share the money with first-round winners and beyond. Don't share the money with the "Wall of Gaylord" participants (to ACC fans, think of teams that qualified for what once was called the "Les Robinson Game"). Would that work for you?
There's so much money to go around, it should. But be careful that you just don't throw a tip to first round winners (shades of the sign at the pool on Caddie Day in the movie "Caddyshack," where caddies were welcome to use the pool from 1:00 to 1:15). Make the first-round bounty meaningful, and end it there.
So, back to the main points. One, should the NIT continue to exist? I think that deep down the NCAA believes it shouldn't. However, to avoid arguments from the Justice Department that the NCAA is really monopolizing college hoops, they'll probably let it die a slow death over the course of a few years and then bury it quietly. And that elimination might coincide with an expansion of the NCAA tournament. I don't expect expansion to every team, but expansion to 96 or 128 could be a possibility.
Because it's hard to argue why 65 makes sense, and it's really not all that sportsmanlike to make a team that wins its conference tournament play on a Tuesday night in a play-in game where the winner doesn't get any of the huge pool of bucks for its victory. John Feinstein made this point in his book, and he's absolutely right.
Contrary to the argument of Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" that "Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good," the greed of the big schools is dangerous. The magic of NCAA hoops is that a 6'7" forward can turn into a dominating 7'1" center a la David Robinson, a Valparaiso and a Copping State can wreak havoc, and a Gonzaga can reach the Final 8. Let's do nothing to take away that possibility, and let's enrich all of DI college hoops in the process.
Years ago, the NCAA eliminated consolation games, both at the regional level (where the two teams that didn't advance to the regional final would play) and at the national level (where the two losers of the national semifinals would play for third place). The coaches and teams hated playing those games, and they were eliminated.
So why play the NIT? It's an also-rans tournament, a tournament for teams that didn't qualify for the tournament that we care about, the NCAA tournament. Who watches it except for alums of the schools involved and the family members of the players? The ratings just can't be that good, because the championship means little to anyone except those who win it. Quick, name who won the NCAA tournament last year?
Florida?
Who won the NIT?
Get my point.
Now, onto a bigger issue, one that also is a subject of controversy. No less an authority than John Wooden has suggested in the past that the NCAA expand the field of the tournament. He harkened back to the excitement that the Indiana HS hoops tournament generated by being all-inclusive, and he has expressed the opinion that the DI men's tournament include all teams. That would be very interesting and create even more excitement than the tournament generates now. That concept also would eliminate the NIT.
Picture a shorter in-season schedule and a 330-team tournament. Now, that doesn't mean that everyone should have a first-round game. It could be that the top 64 get a first-round bye and that there's re-seeding in each round. A certain number would get first-round byes (conference champions and the appropriate number of the best remaining teams to make the field work mathematically). Is that fair?
Expanding the field certainly would add excitement, even if there's a risk that you'd be making the regular season less meaningful. That's the one argument that resonates with me -- if you're going to include everyone, why play a grueling regular season? The flip side is that the grueling regular season will help with seeding and toughen up teams for an exciting post-season tournament. No, I don't think that a 2-26 team will win a game, but the buzz that the possibility of a George Mason-like run or of a SWAC team beating a top ACC team in the first round will be tremendous. Put differently, I think that the country would grind to some sort of halt a la the World Cup in many nations when the national team is playing. Why? Because with every team making the field, many Americans are bound to have a team to watch. And, in a nation that's worried about Social Security's bankruptcy in thirty years, the role of radical Islam, the economic emergence of China, the increasing incidence of obesity and a whole host of things, would it be so bad for people to duck out of work for a while, head into a local sports bar, have a libation and root hard for a team with which they have a connection?
Then again, there's the "Wall of Gaylord" syndrome from "Meet the Fockers." You might remember the scene from the movie, where Ben Stiller's folks (earthies who hug perhaps too much) had a wall with their son's so-called accomplishments (none of which amounted to more than a ninth-place finish in a JV wrestling tournament). Or, you could call it the current "little league sports" syndrome, where up to a certain age everyone gets a trophy, whether they show up to every game, play hard or even have a clue that they're playing the sport they're playing. Why should the 2-26 team that perhaps might not beat Oak Hill Academy get rewarded by entry into a tournament? What's the sense in that?
Perhaps it's cents. If everyone makes the tournament, everyone could get a share of the tournament's money to help fund their athletic departments. That means, perhaps, one less game where you have Morgan State traveling to Ohio State to get their clocks cleaned early in the year for an appearance fee. That means that the wealth gets shared beyond the "oligarchy" conferences, who want to dominate the conversation each year because they think that anything below a high-major is a debilitating nuisance at worse and a romantic one at best. The ADs of those schools (some of whom were not portrayed in a flattering light in John Feinstein's book on the Final Four) want as much money as possible for their schools. They tolerate all non-majors because popular opinion would vilify them if they didn't at least give lip service to the notion that schools outside the Big East, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-10 should play a meaningful role in the tournament. Would that be so bad?
To them, it would be, because to quote Billy Joel in "Piano Man," "Because it's me they've been comin' to see to forget about life for a while." Translated, most people watch the tournament from the get-go to watch the big-name schools, and, if not from the get-go, they end up there because it's more often than not that the George Masons don't make it to the Sweet 16. So, then, perhaps there's a compromise that puts a premium on winning if the NCAA were to have an all-inclusive tournament. Share the money with first-round winners and beyond. Don't share the money with the "Wall of Gaylord" participants (to ACC fans, think of teams that qualified for what once was called the "Les Robinson Game"). Would that work for you?
There's so much money to go around, it should. But be careful that you just don't throw a tip to first round winners (shades of the sign at the pool on Caddie Day in the movie "Caddyshack," where caddies were welcome to use the pool from 1:00 to 1:15). Make the first-round bounty meaningful, and end it there.
So, back to the main points. One, should the NIT continue to exist? I think that deep down the NCAA believes it shouldn't. However, to avoid arguments from the Justice Department that the NCAA is really monopolizing college hoops, they'll probably let it die a slow death over the course of a few years and then bury it quietly. And that elimination might coincide with an expansion of the NCAA tournament. I don't expect expansion to every team, but expansion to 96 or 128 could be a possibility.
Because it's hard to argue why 65 makes sense, and it's really not all that sportsmanlike to make a team that wins its conference tournament play on a Tuesday night in a play-in game where the winner doesn't get any of the huge pool of bucks for its victory. John Feinstein made this point in his book, and he's absolutely right.
Contrary to the argument of Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street" that "Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good," the greed of the big schools is dangerous. The magic of NCAA hoops is that a 6'7" forward can turn into a dominating 7'1" center a la David Robinson, a Valparaiso and a Copping State can wreak havoc, and a Gonzaga can reach the Final 8. Let's do nothing to take away that possibility, and let's enrich all of DI college hoops in the process.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Echoes of the Beverly Hillbillies
Journeyman pitcher Matt White made a startling discovery on a piece of property he purchased from a relative with financial difficulties in Western Massachusetts. The property has rare, expensive stone on it that probably has a retail value of $2.4 billion dollars.
Now, the kinfolk didn't say that 'ol Matt ought move away from Western Mass., and they didn't say he ought to move to Beverly Hills, even though he's in the Dodgers' camp. The experts in this field say that the land is worth far less than the $2.4 billion retail value cited, because it costs big bucks to get the stone out of the quarry. Even so, Matt White is probably set for life because of this good deed.
Question is, how much of it would he trade for a successful Major League career? A World Series ring?
Some things are priceless.
And if you can't have them, a quarry worth $2.4 billion (which you couldn't possible pay for with a Visa or MasterCard) is a nice prize.
Now, the kinfolk didn't say that 'ol Matt ought move away from Western Mass., and they didn't say he ought to move to Beverly Hills, even though he's in the Dodgers' camp. The experts in this field say that the land is worth far less than the $2.4 billion retail value cited, because it costs big bucks to get the stone out of the quarry. Even so, Matt White is probably set for life because of this good deed.
Question is, how much of it would he trade for a successful Major League career? A World Series ring?
Some things are priceless.
And if you can't have them, a quarry worth $2.4 billion (which you couldn't possible pay for with a Visa or MasterCard) is a nice prize.
Former Cowboy a Hero Again
Great story on espn.com about former Cowboy star defensive back Everson Walls, who donated a kidney to his former teammate, Ron Springs.
They truly are teammates for life.
They truly are teammates for life.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
The Legend of Calvin Johnson
Dave Sez posted on the star Ga Tech wide receiver, who showed up at The Combine looking a little big and didn't intend to run the 40. Well, Johnson borrowed a pair of sneakers from another participant, and the rest is the legend. Click here and read all about it.
Now you know why draft gurus like Mel Kiper, Jr. have Johnson at or near the top of their draft boards.
Now you know why draft gurus like Mel Kiper, Jr. have Johnson at or near the top of their draft boards.
The NFL Scouting Combine
The NFL Scouting Combine (or, "The Combine" to the cognoscenti) has always fascinated me. Basically, it's a meat market for an educated consumer. According to SI's Peter King, who appeared today on WFAN, it's no longer the case, as it once was, say, 10 years ago, that a player could make or break his future at The Combine. That's because, in 1995, a defensive end from BC named Mike Mamula put on such a dazzling show at The Combine that he caused then-Eagles head coach Ray Rhodes to trade two first round picks in order to grab Mamula at #7 overall.
Why have you never heard of Mamula? Because he wasn't a playmaker, and because he was a tweener -- too big for DE and too slow for LB. Put differently, he wasn't very good. (It might have helped had Rhodes looked at more game film of Mamula in college where, in stark contrast to undersized LB Zach Thomas, he wasn't that much of a playmaker). Because of Mamula, teams don't put too much stock in the combine, other than to confirm their thoughts. Translated, according to King, players might move up or down a round or even a round and a half, but there won't be wholesale changes.
Click here for John Clayton's story on The Combine at espn.com. I think Clayton's great at what he does, but one comment in his article doesn't make any sense. That comment -- that Penn State OT Levi Brown failed to hurdle Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas to become the #1 prospect at OT because Brown ran "only" a 5.2 in the 40-yard dash while Thomas ran a blistering 4.92. Since when have we determined who the Hall-of-Fame tackles are by how fast they run in the 40? My guess is that there are many other criteria that put Thomas in the first spot, but let's not rely too heavily on a 40-yard dash for a guy who plays a position where you're wrestling with a human tank for 5-10 seconds every 45 seconds or so. And the 40 tells us what?
Enjoy the linked article. The hot stove season for football has begun in earnest.
Why have you never heard of Mamula? Because he wasn't a playmaker, and because he was a tweener -- too big for DE and too slow for LB. Put differently, he wasn't very good. (It might have helped had Rhodes looked at more game film of Mamula in college where, in stark contrast to undersized LB Zach Thomas, he wasn't that much of a playmaker). Because of Mamula, teams don't put too much stock in the combine, other than to confirm their thoughts. Translated, according to King, players might move up or down a round or even a round and a half, but there won't be wholesale changes.
Click here for John Clayton's story on The Combine at espn.com. I think Clayton's great at what he does, but one comment in his article doesn't make any sense. That comment -- that Penn State OT Levi Brown failed to hurdle Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas to become the #1 prospect at OT because Brown ran "only" a 5.2 in the 40-yard dash while Thomas ran a blistering 4.92. Since when have we determined who the Hall-of-Fame tackles are by how fast they run in the 40? My guess is that there are many other criteria that put Thomas in the first spot, but let's not rely too heavily on a 40-yard dash for a guy who plays a position where you're wrestling with a human tank for 5-10 seconds every 45 seconds or so. And the 40 tells us what?
Enjoy the linked article. The hot stove season for football has begun in earnest.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Bob Knight Speaks/Should Freshmen Be Eligible?
The saying that usually makes the rounds in successful athletic programs with tough coaches is attributed to the upperclassmen, who frequently tell the frosh and sophs, "Remember, listen to what he says, not how he says it." I'm sure that this has been said about many a coach, including the head hoops coach at Texas Tech, Bob Knight.
Bob Knight is right about a lot of things, and I think he's right on this topic too. In making his comments about the NBA's rule that compels high school players to do something else for a year (read: play in college) before entering the league, Knight calls out the NBA. Basically, what he's saying is that the NBA is compromising the integrity of college hoops and making its problems the problems of college programs.
And he's dead right.
If the NBA doesn't want "diaper dandies" playing in its league straight out of high school (and Kevin Garnett and Dwight Howard have really stunk up NBA joints, haven't they?), they shouldn't make the problems the NCAA's. The NBA has decried the lack of preparedness of high schoolers, the fact that they'll bring undesirable friends with them, the fact that they aren't ready for all of the excitement, living alone, etc. as reasons for its rule. I blogged before that I thought the NBA was making a bad decision by excluding HS seniors, because baseball and hockey bring in youngsters and so does tennis (and golf does too). I really didn't see the difference then, and I don't see it now. Why keep budding stars from competing at the highest level?
Here's the kicker: the colleges can fight back and beat the NBA.
Big time.
And, in the process, they'll totally undo the harm that guys like Bob Knight think the NBA has caused.
All the colleges need to do is to make freshmen ineligible to play.
They did it before, and they can do it again.
How many college coaches have been quoted as saying that freshmen shouldn't be eligible in the revenue sports because it's so hard for freshmen to adjust to college, period, let alone if they're playing football or basketball? Many (including men like Bob Knight and Dean Smith). (Now, football self-regulates a bit, because many freshmen get red-shirted and don't play, and the elite players try to (and do) graduate early and matriculate in the spring semester at the college of their choice to adjust to college and participate in spring drills -- there's no such equivalent in college hoops).
So what's the best remedy?
Have them sit for a year. Get them to play a good freshman schedule (with not too much travel -- and there would be no March Madness equivalent for freshman teams), get the players adjusted to college life, and, in so doing, you'll separate the guys who are there to play from the guys who don't belong in college. Because the latter group won't go if they can't play against the elite competition (read: upperclassmen) for fear of seeing their skills atrophy, and, if they're excellent players whose NBA futures are all but assured, they'll want better competition than playing a frosh schedule. Which means that the NBA would have to make a move, or else risk reducing a further diluted American talent pool, because kid who comes out after playing a year on a freshman team (which he'd have to do under the NBA's current rules) won't be nearly as ready to play in the big leagues as the kid who was eligible for the varsity as a freshman. Which means that the NBA will have to create a meaningful farm system where they can place kids whom they draft out of high school and develop them properly.
That would make the final result NCAA by technical knockout.
My guess is that if the NCAA schools were to prohibit frosh from playing on the varsity, the NBA would change its rule and get the very best of the HS kids into its orbit the most quickly (another reason -- other than potential skill set atrophy, is that the NBA would lose the free publicity that all NCAA men's hoops TV contracts provide it by showing the best college stars, many of whom will become NBA stars, frequently. The best here is that the stars of frosh teams won't get nearly the type of publicity they would generate were they eligible for the varsity). At the same time, instead of foisting its problems onto the colleges, the NBA actually would be doing them a favor. After all, college should be for student-athletes who want to be there for the overall experience, and not just to play ball.
Ah, but then there's the money, you argue. Would the networks still be willing to pay the huge bucks for March Madness if there is freshman ineligiblity and guys like Kevin Durrant don't go to college? Sure, they would. The tournament transcends any one individual and comes up with great reality TV every single year, mega-HS wonders or not. Finances shouldn't be a huge driver here (because I'd argue, in econ parlance, that they're inelastic), but I'm sure that some network types would love to get the mega-stars, even if for only a year. My view: if great HS player #1A doesn't go to college, there are many others to take his place and provide great stories.
So let's see if the NCAA takes Bob Knight's contention and goes one step further. Make freshmen ineligible, and then tell the NBA that the ball is in their court.
And then see if the NBA can make a fundamentally sound decision.
But then again, it's not like the NBA has been great at fundamentals in recent years, has it?
Bob Knight is right about a lot of things, and I think he's right on this topic too. In making his comments about the NBA's rule that compels high school players to do something else for a year (read: play in college) before entering the league, Knight calls out the NBA. Basically, what he's saying is that the NBA is compromising the integrity of college hoops and making its problems the problems of college programs.
And he's dead right.
If the NBA doesn't want "diaper dandies" playing in its league straight out of high school (and Kevin Garnett and Dwight Howard have really stunk up NBA joints, haven't they?), they shouldn't make the problems the NCAA's. The NBA has decried the lack of preparedness of high schoolers, the fact that they'll bring undesirable friends with them, the fact that they aren't ready for all of the excitement, living alone, etc. as reasons for its rule. I blogged before that I thought the NBA was making a bad decision by excluding HS seniors, because baseball and hockey bring in youngsters and so does tennis (and golf does too). I really didn't see the difference then, and I don't see it now. Why keep budding stars from competing at the highest level?
Here's the kicker: the colleges can fight back and beat the NBA.
Big time.
And, in the process, they'll totally undo the harm that guys like Bob Knight think the NBA has caused.
All the colleges need to do is to make freshmen ineligible to play.
They did it before, and they can do it again.
How many college coaches have been quoted as saying that freshmen shouldn't be eligible in the revenue sports because it's so hard for freshmen to adjust to college, period, let alone if they're playing football or basketball? Many (including men like Bob Knight and Dean Smith). (Now, football self-regulates a bit, because many freshmen get red-shirted and don't play, and the elite players try to (and do) graduate early and matriculate in the spring semester at the college of their choice to adjust to college and participate in spring drills -- there's no such equivalent in college hoops).
So what's the best remedy?
Have them sit for a year. Get them to play a good freshman schedule (with not too much travel -- and there would be no March Madness equivalent for freshman teams), get the players adjusted to college life, and, in so doing, you'll separate the guys who are there to play from the guys who don't belong in college. Because the latter group won't go if they can't play against the elite competition (read: upperclassmen) for fear of seeing their skills atrophy, and, if they're excellent players whose NBA futures are all but assured, they'll want better competition than playing a frosh schedule. Which means that the NBA would have to make a move, or else risk reducing a further diluted American talent pool, because kid who comes out after playing a year on a freshman team (which he'd have to do under the NBA's current rules) won't be nearly as ready to play in the big leagues as the kid who was eligible for the varsity as a freshman. Which means that the NBA will have to create a meaningful farm system where they can place kids whom they draft out of high school and develop them properly.
That would make the final result NCAA by technical knockout.
My guess is that if the NCAA schools were to prohibit frosh from playing on the varsity, the NBA would change its rule and get the very best of the HS kids into its orbit the most quickly (another reason -- other than potential skill set atrophy, is that the NBA would lose the free publicity that all NCAA men's hoops TV contracts provide it by showing the best college stars, many of whom will become NBA stars, frequently. The best here is that the stars of frosh teams won't get nearly the type of publicity they would generate were they eligible for the varsity). At the same time, instead of foisting its problems onto the colleges, the NBA actually would be doing them a favor. After all, college should be for student-athletes who want to be there for the overall experience, and not just to play ball.
Ah, but then there's the money, you argue. Would the networks still be willing to pay the huge bucks for March Madness if there is freshman ineligiblity and guys like Kevin Durrant don't go to college? Sure, they would. The tournament transcends any one individual and comes up with great reality TV every single year, mega-HS wonders or not. Finances shouldn't be a huge driver here (because I'd argue, in econ parlance, that they're inelastic), but I'm sure that some network types would love to get the mega-stars, even if for only a year. My view: if great HS player #1A doesn't go to college, there are many others to take his place and provide great stories.
So let's see if the NCAA takes Bob Knight's contention and goes one step further. Make freshmen ineligible, and then tell the NBA that the ball is in their court.
And then see if the NBA can make a fundamentally sound decision.
But then again, it's not like the NBA has been great at fundamentals in recent years, has it?
And They Can't Blame Bob Huggins for This One
Smoke from the football program at the University of Cincinnati.
As with all cases, we shouldn't draw conclusions until the matter is fully investigated and the facts come to light.
That said, who would have thought that if you mentioned the words "recruits," "scandal," and "University of Cincinnati" you wouldn't see the basketball program discussed in the story?
Not many.
As with all cases, we shouldn't draw conclusions until the matter is fully investigated and the facts come to light.
That said, who would have thought that if you mentioned the words "recruits," "scandal," and "University of Cincinnati" you wouldn't see the basketball program discussed in the story?
Not many.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Free Agents Considering the NY Giants, Take Note
Tiki Barber reflects upon playing for Tom Coughlin.
So, if you're considering the NFC East, think about the following:
1. In Washington, you have an owner who seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. He has a highly paid head coach, the highest paid coordinators, and he's dipped into his big wallet time and time again and hasn't done anything. I've also read where he insists upon being called "Mister." Go there and you could get the big bucks, but you're playing for a team that seems doomed from the start. All the king's horses and men couldn't fix Humpty Dumpty, and it doesn't appear that all the money in the world can bring a winner to D.C.
2. In Dallas, a Hall-of-Fame head coach resigned because of the owner's meddling and because of the uncoachability of the latest in clubhouse disease strains, Terrell Owens. (If you watched clips of Owens spouting off on the sidelines last year and the (bad) body language of his teammates in response, you know what I mean). So here you have a head coach who was probably hired to be a lame duck, an offensive coordinator who is the anointed one (and whom the head coach did not hire), a family that is riding on laurels that have certainly wilted after a decade of being out of Super Bowl contention, and an owner who clearly doesn't know his limits. You also have a quarterback who might not be nearly as good as his first six games indicated. They'll probably pay you the big bucks too, but hey, the perpetually dissing T.O. puts the "dys" in dysfunction.
3. And then there's Philadelphia, the shining example of the NFC East. The one concern is that head coach Andy Reid, whom the players like because he's a straight shooter, is on a leave of absence, but the bet here and in many circles is that he'll be back and he'll be fine. It's hard to fathom why the Vegas oddsmakers favor Dallas and New York over the Eagles, but the best here is that the most functional team (and they're pretty functional, but they'd win this contest by default) will win the division. Why? See #s 1 and 2 above, and the Tiki Barber quotes to boot.
Happy shopping, those of you who are in demand.
Just be careful what you wish for in the NFC East.
So, if you're considering the NFC East, think about the following:
1. In Washington, you have an owner who seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing. He has a highly paid head coach, the highest paid coordinators, and he's dipped into his big wallet time and time again and hasn't done anything. I've also read where he insists upon being called "Mister." Go there and you could get the big bucks, but you're playing for a team that seems doomed from the start. All the king's horses and men couldn't fix Humpty Dumpty, and it doesn't appear that all the money in the world can bring a winner to D.C.
2. In Dallas, a Hall-of-Fame head coach resigned because of the owner's meddling and because of the uncoachability of the latest in clubhouse disease strains, Terrell Owens. (If you watched clips of Owens spouting off on the sidelines last year and the (bad) body language of his teammates in response, you know what I mean). So here you have a head coach who was probably hired to be a lame duck, an offensive coordinator who is the anointed one (and whom the head coach did not hire), a family that is riding on laurels that have certainly wilted after a decade of being out of Super Bowl contention, and an owner who clearly doesn't know his limits. You also have a quarterback who might not be nearly as good as his first six games indicated. They'll probably pay you the big bucks too, but hey, the perpetually dissing T.O. puts the "dys" in dysfunction.
3. And then there's Philadelphia, the shining example of the NFC East. The one concern is that head coach Andy Reid, whom the players like because he's a straight shooter, is on a leave of absence, but the bet here and in many circles is that he'll be back and he'll be fine. It's hard to fathom why the Vegas oddsmakers favor Dallas and New York over the Eagles, but the best here is that the most functional team (and they're pretty functional, but they'd win this contest by default) will win the division. Why? See #s 1 and 2 above, and the Tiki Barber quotes to boot.
Happy shopping, those of you who are in demand.
Just be careful what you wish for in the NFC East.
Who Should His Sponsor Be?
USA Today reports that there's a 72 year-old NASCAR driver at Daytona. James Hylton, who was a perennial also ran on the circuit during his prime, is back and racing again. Click here to get a sense of Hylton's new mission and what others think about it.
The article points out that Retirement Home Living is sponsoring Hylton, and former NASCAR driver Mark Martin, for one, thinks that what Hylton's doing is great. Martin, you'll recall, had Viagra as a sponsor before he put away his helmet for good.
Who else should sponsor Hylton? The possibilities are endless, and they would include, I think, the big orthopedic companies (the ones who make artificial hips and knees, for example) and the over-the-counter dental market.
Personally, I'm not sure that Hylton's return is such a good idea. 72 seems to be an age where you should retire to Daytona, buy a jacket with your favorite driver's numbers and colors on it, take the old RV, and sip some cold ones on the infield.
As opposed to racing stock cars at the most prestigious race in the stock car world.
After all, there's a reason why golf has a seniors tour (okay, so it's now called the Champions Tour) and NASCAR does not.
The article points out that Retirement Home Living is sponsoring Hylton, and former NASCAR driver Mark Martin, for one, thinks that what Hylton's doing is great. Martin, you'll recall, had Viagra as a sponsor before he put away his helmet for good.
Who else should sponsor Hylton? The possibilities are endless, and they would include, I think, the big orthopedic companies (the ones who make artificial hips and knees, for example) and the over-the-counter dental market.
Personally, I'm not sure that Hylton's return is such a good idea. 72 seems to be an age where you should retire to Daytona, buy a jacket with your favorite driver's numbers and colors on it, take the old RV, and sip some cold ones on the infield.
As opposed to racing stock cars at the most prestigious race in the stock car world.
After all, there's a reason why golf has a seniors tour (okay, so it's now called the Champions Tour) and NASCAR does not.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Best Player Never to Win a Major
We've heard this before. It's a term used in the world of professional golf, and it's used to describe the best player out there not to have won a major championship, i.e., any of the U.S. or British Opens, the Masters or the PGA. For years Phil Mickelson had the moniker.
I'm sure he hated it.
It's a cruel monitor, really, one that implies that the player has great talent and lofty expectations and cannot win the big one. Yes, there's some underlying truth, because before Phil developed his killer instict and won a few majors he was more known for being overweight, out of shape and too prone to hitting trick shots as opposed to seizing titles that were there for the taking. Now that Phil Mickelson has shed that moniker, it's either that I haven't followed golf that much since, that the title really isn't in use much any more, or that there is little consensus in the professional golfing world as to who should hold it.
In all of pro sports, Peyton Manning just shed that moniker too. He was the anointed one. Coming out of high school in Louisiana, great things and national championship were predicted for him while he was at Tennessee. The great stats did happen, but the Vols didn't win a national title during the Peyton years (they did with Tee Martin a year after Manning left Knoxville). When Manning joined the Colts, more great things were predicted. Yes, he did amass great stats, but he didn't play great in the big games and was viewed a flop when compared to the Pats' Tom Brady, a sixth-round pick.
Until this season.
Now Peyton Manning no longer is the best player not to win a major.
So who is?
Think about golf, tennis, hockey, basketball, baseball and football. And think about the moniker too. Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and John Stockton were great NBA players who never won the title. Does that mean they were failures, or that there were guys like Shaq and Kobe and Michael and Scottie who stood in their way? Donovan McNabb has had some great seasons, so should that moniker apply to him? Or, has he been so injury-prone the past three seasons that to cast him with that designation would be unfair because he isn't likely to finish a season?
I don't particularly like the moniker, and I don't really have an answer. I don't follow hockey closely enough, and it's hard to put a baseball player in the limelight because he's just one guy in a lineup of nine. Quarterbacks and star hoopsters are fairer game, if only because they have more control over the outcome of a season than even a cleanup hitter (and while #1 starters can control a game's outcome, they only get the ball once every five games).
I'd like your thoughts on this, especially within football, basketball and baseball. I suppose that as recently as last night on SportsCenter LeBron James painted a target between his broad shoulders by both stating that he expects to win an NBA title and that he wants to be an internationally recognized figure like Muhammad Ali. Best player not to win a title? LeBron is up there -- and he's solicited the heat, to boot.
Still, it's not really fair. For example, in professional football, much has to go right beyond the play of a great player to win a title. You could have a great team, but if too many starters get banged up and you limp into the post-season with a waiver-wire quality defensive backfield, you probably won't win the title, no matter how good your skill position players are on offense. In baseball, Curt Schilling is amazing because he's won World Series with two teams and was heroic in so doing, but is Barry Bonds (sans the steroid scandal, for purposes of argument) a candidate because he couldn't win a seemingly perenially undermanned Giants team to a World Series? And, in basketball, is Allen Iverson an all-time great player or is he one of those worthy of the moniker because he couldn't win his 76ers to a title over the Shaq-Kobe-Phil Lakers six years ago and because, well, the teams on which he played were average?
It's stuff like this that gets us talking during the cold-weather months and the time in between the Super Bowl and March Madness (which I relish the concept of "pitchers and catchers reporting", baseball is a far way off from the focus of most sports fans). Whether it's right that we focus so much on this is another story, but it was the story leading up to the Super Bowl.
And that made me wonder whether that story was simply a fixation on the Manning family as opposed to comparing great NFL quarterbacks. After all, Dan Marino, Dan Fouts and Fran Tarkenton never won Super Bowls. Does that mean that they're not up there with the Bradshaws, Montanas, Elways and Bradys of the world? Probably. But does it mean in the case of the first two that those two weren't among the top five passers in the game, ever (I personally like Fouts better than Marino, but Marino arguably is the best pure passer the game has seen)? No. Somehow, the fact that, among others, Marino, Fouts and Tarkenton never won Super Bowls (same for Jim Kelly, who played on the losing team four years in a row, and note that I didn't write that Kelly lost four in a row because that wouldn't be fair) hasn't been held against them the way Manning's failure to win a Super Bowl was held against him.
Score it, 1 for the Manning family and it's legend and 0 for the concept of a great quarterback not getting to win the big one, except, I'm sure that the Manning family would have preferred to be on the losing end of this particular score. I suppose it's the case of the person of whom we expected so much (and who had a hype machine to match, whether he sought it out or not) not delivering that made people publicly question whether Peyton Manning was a champion. Manning, to his great credit, answered those critics in the post-season.
So who's next?
Or does it really matter?
Do we really care?
You have to wonder whether this focus on the individual is antithetical to the concept of team.
I think it is.
I'm sure he hated it.
It's a cruel monitor, really, one that implies that the player has great talent and lofty expectations and cannot win the big one. Yes, there's some underlying truth, because before Phil developed his killer instict and won a few majors he was more known for being overweight, out of shape and too prone to hitting trick shots as opposed to seizing titles that were there for the taking. Now that Phil Mickelson has shed that moniker, it's either that I haven't followed golf that much since, that the title really isn't in use much any more, or that there is little consensus in the professional golfing world as to who should hold it.
In all of pro sports, Peyton Manning just shed that moniker too. He was the anointed one. Coming out of high school in Louisiana, great things and national championship were predicted for him while he was at Tennessee. The great stats did happen, but the Vols didn't win a national title during the Peyton years (they did with Tee Martin a year after Manning left Knoxville). When Manning joined the Colts, more great things were predicted. Yes, he did amass great stats, but he didn't play great in the big games and was viewed a flop when compared to the Pats' Tom Brady, a sixth-round pick.
Until this season.
Now Peyton Manning no longer is the best player not to win a major.
So who is?
Think about golf, tennis, hockey, basketball, baseball and football. And think about the moniker too. Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and John Stockton were great NBA players who never won the title. Does that mean they were failures, or that there were guys like Shaq and Kobe and Michael and Scottie who stood in their way? Donovan McNabb has had some great seasons, so should that moniker apply to him? Or, has he been so injury-prone the past three seasons that to cast him with that designation would be unfair because he isn't likely to finish a season?
I don't particularly like the moniker, and I don't really have an answer. I don't follow hockey closely enough, and it's hard to put a baseball player in the limelight because he's just one guy in a lineup of nine. Quarterbacks and star hoopsters are fairer game, if only because they have more control over the outcome of a season than even a cleanup hitter (and while #1 starters can control a game's outcome, they only get the ball once every five games).
I'd like your thoughts on this, especially within football, basketball and baseball. I suppose that as recently as last night on SportsCenter LeBron James painted a target between his broad shoulders by both stating that he expects to win an NBA title and that he wants to be an internationally recognized figure like Muhammad Ali. Best player not to win a title? LeBron is up there -- and he's solicited the heat, to boot.
Still, it's not really fair. For example, in professional football, much has to go right beyond the play of a great player to win a title. You could have a great team, but if too many starters get banged up and you limp into the post-season with a waiver-wire quality defensive backfield, you probably won't win the title, no matter how good your skill position players are on offense. In baseball, Curt Schilling is amazing because he's won World Series with two teams and was heroic in so doing, but is Barry Bonds (sans the steroid scandal, for purposes of argument) a candidate because he couldn't win a seemingly perenially undermanned Giants team to a World Series? And, in basketball, is Allen Iverson an all-time great player or is he one of those worthy of the moniker because he couldn't win his 76ers to a title over the Shaq-Kobe-Phil Lakers six years ago and because, well, the teams on which he played were average?
It's stuff like this that gets us talking during the cold-weather months and the time in between the Super Bowl and March Madness (which I relish the concept of "pitchers and catchers reporting", baseball is a far way off from the focus of most sports fans). Whether it's right that we focus so much on this is another story, but it was the story leading up to the Super Bowl.
And that made me wonder whether that story was simply a fixation on the Manning family as opposed to comparing great NFL quarterbacks. After all, Dan Marino, Dan Fouts and Fran Tarkenton never won Super Bowls. Does that mean that they're not up there with the Bradshaws, Montanas, Elways and Bradys of the world? Probably. But does it mean in the case of the first two that those two weren't among the top five passers in the game, ever (I personally like Fouts better than Marino, but Marino arguably is the best pure passer the game has seen)? No. Somehow, the fact that, among others, Marino, Fouts and Tarkenton never won Super Bowls (same for Jim Kelly, who played on the losing team four years in a row, and note that I didn't write that Kelly lost four in a row because that wouldn't be fair) hasn't been held against them the way Manning's failure to win a Super Bowl was held against him.
Score it, 1 for the Manning family and it's legend and 0 for the concept of a great quarterback not getting to win the big one, except, I'm sure that the Manning family would have preferred to be on the losing end of this particular score. I suppose it's the case of the person of whom we expected so much (and who had a hype machine to match, whether he sought it out or not) not delivering that made people publicly question whether Peyton Manning was a champion. Manning, to his great credit, answered those critics in the post-season.
So who's next?
Or does it really matter?
Do we really care?
You have to wonder whether this focus on the individual is antithetical to the concept of team.
I think it is.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Pro Football's Dirty Laundry
Read this article and wonder whether the price of your favorite sport is worth it.
The NFL is the favorite sport in the U.S. The revenues are astounding. It makes a ton of money, sells lots of merchandise, and has many Americans build their weekend schedules around the games of their favorite teams.
But it also has a dark side -- the toll it takes on the health of the men who play it. (I just finished reading John Feinstein's excellent book on a season he spent with the Baltimore Ravens, called "Next Man Up", and among other things this book illustrates the toll that weekly collisions take on the bodies of NFL players. Most teams are pretty banged up by week 10, with many players playing the last third or so of the season with injuries. One of the reasons, especially for those who aren't superstars, is that there's always someone ready to take your place and to be the "next man up").
The linked article tells of the maladies that many older alumni of the NFL are suffering from and the fact that they don't have the funds to pay for their care. Hall of Famer Willie Wood, for example, is in an assisted living facility thanks to the fact that some of his fellow former players, among them Mike Ditka, are paying for his care. Many have trouble walking, have neurological problems, suffer from dementia, etc. That's a high price to pay for being a football hero.
This problem is a submarine, and from all reports, a nuclear one at that. Which means that when it fully surfaces and the studies are published, the numbers, in my estimation, won't look pretty and the problem will be radioactive. (For those with little knowledge of the history of football, President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in a few times during his administration to examine the game, given the number of deaths that were occuring on the field during the turn of the 20th century. ). Hopefully, the NFL will do the right thing, look into this (as opposed to bury it, because what industry really wants Congress to make rules for them if they can avoid it?) and come up with a comprehensive post-retirement (whether voluntary or involuntary) program for players that helps ensure good medical care and the ability to get that care with dignity.
That's what the NFL should do. What it will do is another story. The players' union is getting heat for this problem too, but its resources seem rather strapped as it is, and it hasn't enjoyed the success that the baseball players' union has (read: not as much money). I'm no expert in pension or fiduciary laws, but it could well be that absent a vote of its leadership and a significant alteration of its policies, the union is hard-strapped to provide the financial aid that some of these former players need. Alternatively, it doesn't have the resources to pay for all of these players' problems. That shouldn't be a surprise, because my guess is that there are hundreds of former NFL players with lingering serious health problems that derived from on-field or in-practice injuries.
And that could mean eight figures' worth of money in annual care for that group of people.
I'm not sure how much the fans care. First, they view the league and players as wealthy, so they don't want this to become their problem. They want the sausage, they don't want to see how it's made or what gets thrown out after it's made. Second, we live in a disposable society. True, we'll miss the Pro Bowler when he blows out all knee ligaments, but we'll look for opportunities, because the coming of age of the undrafted free agent from Occidental or Mount Union might be the story of the year. Even former players will tell you that they ignored teammates who were injured. Said Mark Schlereth, former Pro Bowl guard with the Redskins and Broncos, "when a guy got hurt, he was dead to us." Americans like the new thing, the hot team, the top-notch players. True, we like to see the heroes of yesteryear, but not the broken down players with their problems. That's now how we want or choose to remember them, and, hey, we've all got problems. Why, the reasoning goes, should we really care about their maladies? They made great money for what they did, they knew the risks going into it, and the NFL has tons of the money to solve the problem. Or so the thinking goes.
Of course I do think fans care. They just don't think about this type of thing all that much unless the papers pay a good deal of attention to it. And they're starting to. My guess is that they'll want the NFL to do what's right financially and take care of these men, without whom the game they love wouldn't exist. But is that enough?
Here are a few suggestions for the NFL:
1. Expand rosters to 61 players per team and let them all dress and play. Yes, that will cost you more money in salaries, staff, equipment, etc., but that will ensure that you'll have enough healthy players that guys won't have to play hurt or at least very hurt. You can eliminate the developmental squads here (8 players who can work out with you, but who aren't solely property of your team in that another team can spirit them away if they sign them to their active rosters -- this system doesn't reward a team for excellent scouting). Right now, teams have 53 players total on their active rosters, but only 45 can dress for a game, and then they have their 8-man developmental squads).
2. Eliminate the bad option of requiring an NFL team to put a player on season-ending injured reserve when hurt or keep him on the active roster, hoping for a return in 8 weeks, without having the ability to put a healthy player on the roster. Create 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-week disabled lists, akin to the way baseball does it. This should enable teams to sign free agents to fill open slots, let's players mend the way they need to and lets fresher players into the mix (this will help save wear and tear on everyone).
3. Spend meaningful money on studies regarding head, spinal and orthopedic injuries. Share the studies willingly and talk about them candidly. Put money into training and product development. For example, if players can recover much more quickly by sleeping in oxygen tents, perhaps each player should be issued one. Whether he uses it or not during the season is up to him. Also, require teams to submit, confidentially within the league, medical files on all players to those who are studying these injuries. I am sure that some great researchers could mine all sorts of gems from this data.
4. Monitor the health of former players. This is a hard one because this would have to be voluntary, but I'd urge the players' union to do the best it can here, and former players should realize that they're helping future ones by what could be learned from their data. Naturally, former players can't be forced into this, but they should want to do this so long as confidentiality of their particular conditions could be assured. Again, the information that could be mined from this data could lead to tremendous innovations in care while a player is playing and after retirement.
5. Insist upon uniformity of turf at each NFL stadium. The turf at Vet Stadium in Philadelphia several years ago, for example, was a bad joke and thought by many to be dangerous. There's so much money in this league, all teams should use the same turf, the spongy, artificial type that seems to have more give than even natural grass. Anyone who watched late-season games at some of the natural grass stadiums around the league saw how torn up the natural turf could get.
6. Put away significant funds to pay for the health care of former players. Whether that's a league item or a union function is open to debate, but the present state is not acceptable.
The NFL and the players' union have a problem and need to take action. There are many great people on both sides who can solve this problem before it gets worse.
And it's already pretty bad.
If you're a fan, remember this, that the cost of the collisions, of people getting "all jacked up", of quarterback sacks and defensive backs running into kickoff wedges are the litany of former players with disabling injuries. Yes, relatively speaking, all players are well paid, while only a small percentage of them make enough money to be set for life. Which means, when they're done, they're faced with a life trying to make a living at something where they can't use their best talents -- playing football -- because at a very early age they've exhausted their earning power from those talents. And the average former player will do so knowing to some degree that he'll face big medical bills in the future.
Think it's great to be a football hero?
Maybe it is.
But not forever.
The NFL is the favorite sport in the U.S. The revenues are astounding. It makes a ton of money, sells lots of merchandise, and has many Americans build their weekend schedules around the games of their favorite teams.
But it also has a dark side -- the toll it takes on the health of the men who play it. (I just finished reading John Feinstein's excellent book on a season he spent with the Baltimore Ravens, called "Next Man Up", and among other things this book illustrates the toll that weekly collisions take on the bodies of NFL players. Most teams are pretty banged up by week 10, with many players playing the last third or so of the season with injuries. One of the reasons, especially for those who aren't superstars, is that there's always someone ready to take your place and to be the "next man up").
The linked article tells of the maladies that many older alumni of the NFL are suffering from and the fact that they don't have the funds to pay for their care. Hall of Famer Willie Wood, for example, is in an assisted living facility thanks to the fact that some of his fellow former players, among them Mike Ditka, are paying for his care. Many have trouble walking, have neurological problems, suffer from dementia, etc. That's a high price to pay for being a football hero.
This problem is a submarine, and from all reports, a nuclear one at that. Which means that when it fully surfaces and the studies are published, the numbers, in my estimation, won't look pretty and the problem will be radioactive. (For those with little knowledge of the history of football, President Teddy Roosevelt stepped in a few times during his administration to examine the game, given the number of deaths that were occuring on the field during the turn of the 20th century. ). Hopefully, the NFL will do the right thing, look into this (as opposed to bury it, because what industry really wants Congress to make rules for them if they can avoid it?) and come up with a comprehensive post-retirement (whether voluntary or involuntary) program for players that helps ensure good medical care and the ability to get that care with dignity.
That's what the NFL should do. What it will do is another story. The players' union is getting heat for this problem too, but its resources seem rather strapped as it is, and it hasn't enjoyed the success that the baseball players' union has (read: not as much money). I'm no expert in pension or fiduciary laws, but it could well be that absent a vote of its leadership and a significant alteration of its policies, the union is hard-strapped to provide the financial aid that some of these former players need. Alternatively, it doesn't have the resources to pay for all of these players' problems. That shouldn't be a surprise, because my guess is that there are hundreds of former NFL players with lingering serious health problems that derived from on-field or in-practice injuries.
And that could mean eight figures' worth of money in annual care for that group of people.
I'm not sure how much the fans care. First, they view the league and players as wealthy, so they don't want this to become their problem. They want the sausage, they don't want to see how it's made or what gets thrown out after it's made. Second, we live in a disposable society. True, we'll miss the Pro Bowler when he blows out all knee ligaments, but we'll look for opportunities, because the coming of age of the undrafted free agent from Occidental or Mount Union might be the story of the year. Even former players will tell you that they ignored teammates who were injured. Said Mark Schlereth, former Pro Bowl guard with the Redskins and Broncos, "when a guy got hurt, he was dead to us." Americans like the new thing, the hot team, the top-notch players. True, we like to see the heroes of yesteryear, but not the broken down players with their problems. That's now how we want or choose to remember them, and, hey, we've all got problems. Why, the reasoning goes, should we really care about their maladies? They made great money for what they did, they knew the risks going into it, and the NFL has tons of the money to solve the problem. Or so the thinking goes.
Of course I do think fans care. They just don't think about this type of thing all that much unless the papers pay a good deal of attention to it. And they're starting to. My guess is that they'll want the NFL to do what's right financially and take care of these men, without whom the game they love wouldn't exist. But is that enough?
Here are a few suggestions for the NFL:
1. Expand rosters to 61 players per team and let them all dress and play. Yes, that will cost you more money in salaries, staff, equipment, etc., but that will ensure that you'll have enough healthy players that guys won't have to play hurt or at least very hurt. You can eliminate the developmental squads here (8 players who can work out with you, but who aren't solely property of your team in that another team can spirit them away if they sign them to their active rosters -- this system doesn't reward a team for excellent scouting). Right now, teams have 53 players total on their active rosters, but only 45 can dress for a game, and then they have their 8-man developmental squads).
2. Eliminate the bad option of requiring an NFL team to put a player on season-ending injured reserve when hurt or keep him on the active roster, hoping for a return in 8 weeks, without having the ability to put a healthy player on the roster. Create 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-week disabled lists, akin to the way baseball does it. This should enable teams to sign free agents to fill open slots, let's players mend the way they need to and lets fresher players into the mix (this will help save wear and tear on everyone).
3. Spend meaningful money on studies regarding head, spinal and orthopedic injuries. Share the studies willingly and talk about them candidly. Put money into training and product development. For example, if players can recover much more quickly by sleeping in oxygen tents, perhaps each player should be issued one. Whether he uses it or not during the season is up to him. Also, require teams to submit, confidentially within the league, medical files on all players to those who are studying these injuries. I am sure that some great researchers could mine all sorts of gems from this data.
4. Monitor the health of former players. This is a hard one because this would have to be voluntary, but I'd urge the players' union to do the best it can here, and former players should realize that they're helping future ones by what could be learned from their data. Naturally, former players can't be forced into this, but they should want to do this so long as confidentiality of their particular conditions could be assured. Again, the information that could be mined from this data could lead to tremendous innovations in care while a player is playing and after retirement.
5. Insist upon uniformity of turf at each NFL stadium. The turf at Vet Stadium in Philadelphia several years ago, for example, was a bad joke and thought by many to be dangerous. There's so much money in this league, all teams should use the same turf, the spongy, artificial type that seems to have more give than even natural grass. Anyone who watched late-season games at some of the natural grass stadiums around the league saw how torn up the natural turf could get.
6. Put away significant funds to pay for the health care of former players. Whether that's a league item or a union function is open to debate, but the present state is not acceptable.
The NFL and the players' union have a problem and need to take action. There are many great people on both sides who can solve this problem before it gets worse.
And it's already pretty bad.
If you're a fan, remember this, that the cost of the collisions, of people getting "all jacked up", of quarterback sacks and defensive backs running into kickoff wedges are the litany of former players with disabling injuries. Yes, relatively speaking, all players are well paid, while only a small percentage of them make enough money to be set for life. Which means, when they're done, they're faced with a life trying to make a living at something where they can't use their best talents -- playing football -- because at a very early age they've exhausted their earning power from those talents. And the average former player will do so knowing to some degree that he'll face big medical bills in the future.
Think it's great to be a football hero?
Maybe it is.
But not forever.
The Princeton Tigers Are 0-4 In Ivy Play . . .
their worst start ever since the league began 50+ years ago.
After having seen them play well against Marshall and Rice in the non-league schedule, I am somewhat speechless about what's going on. There are three factors that contribute to this lack of comments.
First, there's the Princeton's eleventh commandment -- thou shall not speak ill of a member of the Princeton (basketball) family. Yes, we'll knock the Crimson and the Old Blues, but not fellow Tigers. Obviously, things aren't going well.
Second, there are those out there who follow the team more closely than I who can articulate better what's going on with the program. You know where to find them, and I suggest that you check in there. If you prefer, please post here. I very much welcome your comments.
Third, I am rather speechless on this turn of events. What explains it? This losing streak (and the awful loss to Seton Hall last Monday night) have to have a better explanation than the foot injury to Kyle Koncz. Are the other Ivies that much better, or has Princeton dropped down to their level (with Penn remaining far ahead despite a loss last night at Yale, where the Elis have given the Quakers fits during James Jones' coaching tenure)? Have the Ivies as a whole caught up to the Tigers and figured out their schemes? Do the Tigers have the talent that they did 7 years ago, when they rose to as high as #8 in the nation? Are the players good enough to be title-worthy? Is Joe Scott the right fit at Princeton?
These questions, of course, are not easy ones and brush up against my first point, with the result that there will be those Tiger diehards who will wonder aloud at what's happened to the program without looking critically at it and who will continue to look for positives (the advent of a walk-on 6'4" center, the team's record in calendar year 2006, the play of the freshman guards, etc. without critically looking at the whole product). On the other hand, there will be those fans who will be very quick to throw A.D. Gary Walters and head coach Scott under the bus, because, at the end of the day, they're responsible for what's going on (and an 0-4 record to start league play isn't acceptable to anyone in the Princeton hoops family). But they are not inappropriate questions, not at this stage in Coach Scott's tenure.
The Carril family line of coaching (and, most outstanding coaches, for that matter) are blunt and honest and always endeavor to have players be honest with themselves about their level of effort and concentration. The theory, of course, is that honesty about one's self leads to accountability and responsibility, and that leads to improvement and that, of course, can lead to great seasons. Which means, of course, that the Princeton athletic leadership and the Princeton men's hoops coaching staff have to be honest with themselves about what's going on with the program. Is it headed in the right direction and only a matter of time before the right nucleus emerges? And, if so, how much more time is required? If not, what needs to be changed?
Now, this commentary could be premature, the Tigers could win out, go 10-0 in the remainder of the Ivy season, have the other teams lose a few games and tie for the title. That outcome, though, doesn't seem likely, not at this juncture.
The Tigers need to get the feeling back. What's the feeling? The feeling that it will be they and Penn as the two tops teams in the Ivies year-in and year-out. The feeling that the game at the Palestra and the game at Jadwin will have some meaning, and they haven't for a while. The feeling that they'll be able to beat almost every Ivy opponent on a given night by at least 10 points, sometimes winning by as many as 25. Those of us who have been following the program for three and four decades remember walking in to Jadwin and witnessing a 30+ point margin of victory over Yale or a 25-point demolishing of Ivy champ Cornell in the season finale in 1988, double-digit victories here and there. Now we walk into the gym not knowing what to expect.
That feeling hasn't been present in Tigertown since the departure of John Thompson III, and, even during Thompson's tenure, it wasn't as strong as it was during Bill Carmody's tenure. The Tiger men's hoops program has to get that swagger back, that sense of preeminence. How they do so will be a test for the leadership.
It starts this coming weekend, with home games against Dartmouth and Harvard.
After having seen them play well against Marshall and Rice in the non-league schedule, I am somewhat speechless about what's going on. There are three factors that contribute to this lack of comments.
First, there's the Princeton's eleventh commandment -- thou shall not speak ill of a member of the Princeton (basketball) family. Yes, we'll knock the Crimson and the Old Blues, but not fellow Tigers. Obviously, things aren't going well.
Second, there are those out there who follow the team more closely than I who can articulate better what's going on with the program. You know where to find them, and I suggest that you check in there. If you prefer, please post here. I very much welcome your comments.
Third, I am rather speechless on this turn of events. What explains it? This losing streak (and the awful loss to Seton Hall last Monday night) have to have a better explanation than the foot injury to Kyle Koncz. Are the other Ivies that much better, or has Princeton dropped down to their level (with Penn remaining far ahead despite a loss last night at Yale, where the Elis have given the Quakers fits during James Jones' coaching tenure)? Have the Ivies as a whole caught up to the Tigers and figured out their schemes? Do the Tigers have the talent that they did 7 years ago, when they rose to as high as #8 in the nation? Are the players good enough to be title-worthy? Is Joe Scott the right fit at Princeton?
These questions, of course, are not easy ones and brush up against my first point, with the result that there will be those Tiger diehards who will wonder aloud at what's happened to the program without looking critically at it and who will continue to look for positives (the advent of a walk-on 6'4" center, the team's record in calendar year 2006, the play of the freshman guards, etc. without critically looking at the whole product). On the other hand, there will be those fans who will be very quick to throw A.D. Gary Walters and head coach Scott under the bus, because, at the end of the day, they're responsible for what's going on (and an 0-4 record to start league play isn't acceptable to anyone in the Princeton hoops family). But they are not inappropriate questions, not at this stage in Coach Scott's tenure.
The Carril family line of coaching (and, most outstanding coaches, for that matter) are blunt and honest and always endeavor to have players be honest with themselves about their level of effort and concentration. The theory, of course, is that honesty about one's self leads to accountability and responsibility, and that leads to improvement and that, of course, can lead to great seasons. Which means, of course, that the Princeton athletic leadership and the Princeton men's hoops coaching staff have to be honest with themselves about what's going on with the program. Is it headed in the right direction and only a matter of time before the right nucleus emerges? And, if so, how much more time is required? If not, what needs to be changed?
Now, this commentary could be premature, the Tigers could win out, go 10-0 in the remainder of the Ivy season, have the other teams lose a few games and tie for the title. That outcome, though, doesn't seem likely, not at this juncture.
The Tigers need to get the feeling back. What's the feeling? The feeling that it will be they and Penn as the two tops teams in the Ivies year-in and year-out. The feeling that the game at the Palestra and the game at Jadwin will have some meaning, and they haven't for a while. The feeling that they'll be able to beat almost every Ivy opponent on a given night by at least 10 points, sometimes winning by as many as 25. Those of us who have been following the program for three and four decades remember walking in to Jadwin and witnessing a 30+ point margin of victory over Yale or a 25-point demolishing of Ivy champ Cornell in the season finale in 1988, double-digit victories here and there. Now we walk into the gym not knowing what to expect.
That feeling hasn't been present in Tigertown since the departure of John Thompson III, and, even during Thompson's tenure, it wasn't as strong as it was during Bill Carmody's tenure. The Tiger men's hoops program has to get that swagger back, that sense of preeminence. How they do so will be a test for the leadership.
It starts this coming weekend, with home games against Dartmouth and Harvard.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Springtime for Hitler
Sort of.
Most of you know the premise for the movie and Broadway show "The Producers." Basically, the producers of the show wanted to put on a flop and take their investors money for themselves. They vetted all sorts of plays, and then settled on one written by a certifiable former member of the German Army called "Springtime for Hitler."
It was supposed to be a bomb. Instead, the show became a hit. And, of course, you know the rest of the story.
Fast forward to today's NBA in Philadelphia, where over a month ago the 76ers traded future Hall of Famer Allen Iverson to the Nuggets for Andre Miller, Joe Smith and two first-round picks and, more recently, gave Chris Webber a lucrative buyout and set him free. All of this was designed, of course, to send the 76ers on a free fall and give them the worst record in the NBA.
Bar none.
And most of us figured that this would happen, that while Miller is a good PG and that SF Andre Iguodala has some skills, the 76ers hardly had enough talent to rise above the Clippers' Line (I've named it in honor of all of the Clippers' teams in history that have finished the season with the worst record).
But here's the funny thing, it hasn't happened. Reverting to old-time hoops (and here's a tip of the hat (trick) to the Hanson Brothers of "Slapshot" fame), the 76ers have actually put together some good games since the exile of Allen the Great (read: point guard finds the open man, open man has confidence to drain shot and does just that). Which means, of course, that the kids on the team obviously didn't get the memo, and, believe it or not, the 76ers now have only the third-worst record in the league.
And that means fewer ping pong balls in the draft lottery machine, a lesser chance to get the first pick and have your choice from among Greg Oden, Kevin Durrant and Joakim Noah. Not that, of course, getting any one of those guys would be a bad thing, but clearly having the shot to get Greg Oden was why the 76ers decided to throw their big guns off the side of their battle cruiser.
Now, from an attendance standpoint, the team isn't doing well at all. Sure, they're announcing paid attendance, but the actual attendance according to the cognoscenti is less than that, and sometimes much so. But adding insult to injury, the team isn't doing what everyone expected them to.
And that has some people worried.
Why?
Because Billy King is the GM and the 76ers haven't had the best record of drafting or of finding skilled players from overseas during his tenure. Harken back to the 1983 draft, when Hakeem Olajuwon went first, Sam Bowie went second (to Portland, on a day which shall live in infamy) and Michael Jordan went third (think about how much more money he could have made for and from Nike had he actually played in Portland, a relatively stone's throw from Nike's headquarters). Why this is relevant is because somehow, some way, the team could end up taking the next Sam Bowie and pass on, well, a top 50 player (I'm speaking, of course, of the Top 50 of All-Time in the NBA).
That could happen. It really could.
Olajuwon is a Hall of Famer, as is Jordan. Who remembers Sam Bowie (except for hoops fans in Oregon, those who saw him play at Kentucky (he was excellent when health) and those from his hometown).
And then the 76ers would be facing a point of no return. They're hemmorhaging attendance already, and they cannot afford to populate the team with someone who isn't a Sure Thing. They need someone who can help lead a big turnaround, who can step in and be a star.
In the meantime, fans are witnessing, to a degree, the emergence of Andre Iguodala as a prime-time threat. That's great, but the team had hovered in NBA purgatory for most of the Iverson years. Good enough to flirt with the playoffs and/or make the first round, but not good enough to make it very exciting for the fans (save the one year that lightning struck in 2000-2001) by making a deep playoff run and not bad enough to draft an Oden. If Iguodala plays well over the next several months, they might not be able to get that key top player who can help lift them out of that no man's land. They could get a very good player (Noah) but not a transcendant one (Oden or Durrant; and I admit I could be wrong about Noah -- he could be transcendant too).
And that, clearly, is not the objective.
Of course, you can't ask the kids to lose, and you do want them to improve. Which is what they're aiming to do under Mo Cheeks. And, of course, there's no other way to improve than to play hard and win games.
So that's why this spring could well be the 76ers' version of "Springtime for Hitler."
It just goes to show you, though, that the 76ers need a management overhaul, because they can't even tank the season if they tried.
And that's pretty hard to do.
Because we already know that this regime can't field a winner.
Most of you know the premise for the movie and Broadway show "The Producers." Basically, the producers of the show wanted to put on a flop and take their investors money for themselves. They vetted all sorts of plays, and then settled on one written by a certifiable former member of the German Army called "Springtime for Hitler."
It was supposed to be a bomb. Instead, the show became a hit. And, of course, you know the rest of the story.
Fast forward to today's NBA in Philadelphia, where over a month ago the 76ers traded future Hall of Famer Allen Iverson to the Nuggets for Andre Miller, Joe Smith and two first-round picks and, more recently, gave Chris Webber a lucrative buyout and set him free. All of this was designed, of course, to send the 76ers on a free fall and give them the worst record in the NBA.
Bar none.
And most of us figured that this would happen, that while Miller is a good PG and that SF Andre Iguodala has some skills, the 76ers hardly had enough talent to rise above the Clippers' Line (I've named it in honor of all of the Clippers' teams in history that have finished the season with the worst record).
But here's the funny thing, it hasn't happened. Reverting to old-time hoops (and here's a tip of the hat (trick) to the Hanson Brothers of "Slapshot" fame), the 76ers have actually put together some good games since the exile of Allen the Great (read: point guard finds the open man, open man has confidence to drain shot and does just that). Which means, of course, that the kids on the team obviously didn't get the memo, and, believe it or not, the 76ers now have only the third-worst record in the league.
And that means fewer ping pong balls in the draft lottery machine, a lesser chance to get the first pick and have your choice from among Greg Oden, Kevin Durrant and Joakim Noah. Not that, of course, getting any one of those guys would be a bad thing, but clearly having the shot to get Greg Oden was why the 76ers decided to throw their big guns off the side of their battle cruiser.
Now, from an attendance standpoint, the team isn't doing well at all. Sure, they're announcing paid attendance, but the actual attendance according to the cognoscenti is less than that, and sometimes much so. But adding insult to injury, the team isn't doing what everyone expected them to.
And that has some people worried.
Why?
Because Billy King is the GM and the 76ers haven't had the best record of drafting or of finding skilled players from overseas during his tenure. Harken back to the 1983 draft, when Hakeem Olajuwon went first, Sam Bowie went second (to Portland, on a day which shall live in infamy) and Michael Jordan went third (think about how much more money he could have made for and from Nike had he actually played in Portland, a relatively stone's throw from Nike's headquarters). Why this is relevant is because somehow, some way, the team could end up taking the next Sam Bowie and pass on, well, a top 50 player (I'm speaking, of course, of the Top 50 of All-Time in the NBA).
That could happen. It really could.
Olajuwon is a Hall of Famer, as is Jordan. Who remembers Sam Bowie (except for hoops fans in Oregon, those who saw him play at Kentucky (he was excellent when health) and those from his hometown).
And then the 76ers would be facing a point of no return. They're hemmorhaging attendance already, and they cannot afford to populate the team with someone who isn't a Sure Thing. They need someone who can help lead a big turnaround, who can step in and be a star.
In the meantime, fans are witnessing, to a degree, the emergence of Andre Iguodala as a prime-time threat. That's great, but the team had hovered in NBA purgatory for most of the Iverson years. Good enough to flirt with the playoffs and/or make the first round, but not good enough to make it very exciting for the fans (save the one year that lightning struck in 2000-2001) by making a deep playoff run and not bad enough to draft an Oden. If Iguodala plays well over the next several months, they might not be able to get that key top player who can help lift them out of that no man's land. They could get a very good player (Noah) but not a transcendant one (Oden or Durrant; and I admit I could be wrong about Noah -- he could be transcendant too).
And that, clearly, is not the objective.
Of course, you can't ask the kids to lose, and you do want them to improve. Which is what they're aiming to do under Mo Cheeks. And, of course, there's no other way to improve than to play hard and win games.
So that's why this spring could well be the 76ers' version of "Springtime for Hitler."
It just goes to show you, though, that the 76ers need a management overhaul, because they can't even tank the season if they tried.
And that's pretty hard to do.
Because we already know that this regime can't field a winner.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Wing Bowl XV
You have to read this to believe it. (And Forbes covered this event too. Click here for the link to their coverage.)
They held the 15th Wing Bowl today at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. That's the same arena where the 76ers and Flyers struggle daily to rise to the top of the second division in their respective leagues. Still, it's a first-class arena.
20,000 people rose before dawn to get there. I don't know when the doors opened, but coverage started at 6 a.m.
Live, on WIP, the leading sports-talk radio station in town. (Click the link for all sorts of information, on Wing-Bowl, on Wingettes, on, well, almost anything). You can even buy Wing Bowl gear here. (Also be sure to read about the entrants, from Wing Dong to Curly von Burly the Viking Pig).
People play hooky from work to attend. Pat Croce is now the Commissioner, having replaced the late Eric Gregg. Yes, the Pat Croce, the self-made multi-millionaire who has written upbeat self-help books and who was once a very visible minority owner of the 76ers when they last went to the NBA Finals (six years ago, but then publicly suggested that he wanted to take over for Ed Snider, the de facto head of the 76ers and Flyers, and ended up out of a job, proving that you don't tug on Superman's Cape or spit into the wind and get away with it). Yes, the Eric Gregg, the affable one-time National League umpire with weight problems who lost his job when the umpires' union overplayed their hand and who died suddenly last year in his mid-50's.
Big stuff, huh?
No, not at all.
The Wing Bowl, you see, is a wing-eating contest.
Chicken wings, to be exact.
And Philadelphians wonder why their city has an image problem.
But they don't care, because, clearly, it's not a self-image problem. They like who they are, even if they support an event like this and even if that self-image is a rather large one. You see, Philadelphia rates as the second-fattest city in the U.S.
Must be all those wings, cheese steaks and ice cream (okay Bostonians, you think your town is the ice cream capital of the world, but we had, among others, at one time, Breyer's and Dolly Madison, to name a few, and that's when no one knew to count cholesterol or measure transfats).
So is this a good thing, or not? The humor most certainly is there, as the host of the event is WIP's lead morning guy, Angelo Cataldi, who once was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when he was a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Among others doing "sideline" reporting was Al Morganti, one of the most knowledgeable hockey writers and commentators in the country (and a frequent sidekick of Cataldi's in the morning). Their shtick is, well, very funny at times.
They also paid a nice tribute to the late Eric Gregg, whom we'll all remember for his smile and for the positive image he brought to whatever he did. That said, we all worried about Eric Gregg's health even as a young umpire, because his weight problems at times were rather pronounced. And while he served this Wing Bowl well, the sad irony isn't lost on those who don't see the Wing Bowl as a total satire or totally sophomoric. Had Eric Gregg been able to take better care of himself and, yes, eat less, he might still be here with us today.
But is it fair to say that the Wing Bowl encourages overeating? Not entirely. Gluttony at a moment in time? Absolutely.
What puzzles me is not so much why a couple of dozen or so competitors might want to enter this event. Some want the attention. Others have found one of their true talents in life -- professional eating. It's easy to explain them away.
What's much less easy to explain is why 20,000 people would show up before 6 a.m. to watch this spectacle?
I harken back to the famous line that Judge Smails in Caddyshack made to a group of men who were happy playing cards in the men's grille after playing a round of golf: "Don't you people have homes?"
Or lives?
Okay, so it costs airfare, hotel fare and meal costs to attend the Super Bowl, along with forking over anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 for a ticket.
The Wing Bowl is a local trip, a drive down I-95 or the Schuylkill (pronounced Skoo-kill) Expressway, a ride down Broad Street, or a trip across the Walt Whitman Bridge from New Jersey.
And it's a lot cheaper. I had a sense that tickets were free, but obviously not. If you Google "Wing Bowl tickets", you'll get all sorts of links to places where you could have purchased Wing Bowl tickets, and I saw one offer for two prime seats at $40 a pair!
For an eating contest.
Where people can and actually do, well, throw up.
Where, at the time of a possible wing, well, toss, the Commissioner is supposed to yell, "If you heave, you leave." Sounds like the cage-fighting scene with Master Blaster from Mad Max, where the crowd was chanting ominously, "Two go in, one comes out," over and over again.
Kind of like watching NASCAR for the crashes.
A relative bargain, though, given that it could cost a family of 4 about $400 bucks, fully loaded, to go to a 76ers or Flyers game.
And there's really no chance anyone will vomit in public.
I remember reading a quote from one-time NFL receiver Steve Kreider, a Lehigh alum and now a successful fund manager. Kreider was a wide receiver for the Bengals in the 1980's, and on January 10, 1982 the Bengals beat the visiting Chargers 27-7 in the AFC Championship game where the wind-chill factor at times as -56 degrees (the press dubbed in the "Freeze Bowl"). Said Kreider, "I don't know what was a worse statement -- that we played the game in this weather or that 60,000 people sat outside for three hours and watched it."
Touche.
Okay, so if you're an eater, you're in the arena, literally (and figuratively, although I don't think that this type of competition was what Teddy Roosevelt had in mind when he gave his famous speech). But if you're a spectator of a wings eating contest (okay, even with all of the hoopla, entourages, cheesy entrances and, yes, dancing girls), what the heck are you doing?
And what are you doing, Pat Croce?
Now you're asking why am I writing so much about this if I think this is so silly, and, well, because it is so silly.
And, yes, I'll say it.
Undignified.
Especially for a city with an image problem.
Call me a kill joy, fine, but I just don't see what this particular competition brings to the table.
Except to send a message, perhaps, to the management of the pathetic pro hoops and hockey franchises in the city.
After all, 20,000 people took off work and played hooky to get up early and watch a wing-eating contest.
Do you get 20,000 people to come to your games?
Not a chance.
After all, people like to go to championship games and events.
Even if they involve the simple act of eating a chicken wing.
Or about 187 of them in a very short period of time.
They held the 15th Wing Bowl today at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia. That's the same arena where the 76ers and Flyers struggle daily to rise to the top of the second division in their respective leagues. Still, it's a first-class arena.
20,000 people rose before dawn to get there. I don't know when the doors opened, but coverage started at 6 a.m.
Live, on WIP, the leading sports-talk radio station in town. (Click the link for all sorts of information, on Wing-Bowl, on Wingettes, on, well, almost anything). You can even buy Wing Bowl gear here. (Also be sure to read about the entrants, from Wing Dong to Curly von Burly the Viking Pig).
People play hooky from work to attend. Pat Croce is now the Commissioner, having replaced the late Eric Gregg. Yes, the Pat Croce, the self-made multi-millionaire who has written upbeat self-help books and who was once a very visible minority owner of the 76ers when they last went to the NBA Finals (six years ago, but then publicly suggested that he wanted to take over for Ed Snider, the de facto head of the 76ers and Flyers, and ended up out of a job, proving that you don't tug on Superman's Cape or spit into the wind and get away with it). Yes, the Eric Gregg, the affable one-time National League umpire with weight problems who lost his job when the umpires' union overplayed their hand and who died suddenly last year in his mid-50's.
Big stuff, huh?
No, not at all.
The Wing Bowl, you see, is a wing-eating contest.
Chicken wings, to be exact.
And Philadelphians wonder why their city has an image problem.
But they don't care, because, clearly, it's not a self-image problem. They like who they are, even if they support an event like this and even if that self-image is a rather large one. You see, Philadelphia rates as the second-fattest city in the U.S.
Must be all those wings, cheese steaks and ice cream (okay Bostonians, you think your town is the ice cream capital of the world, but we had, among others, at one time, Breyer's and Dolly Madison, to name a few, and that's when no one knew to count cholesterol or measure transfats).
So is this a good thing, or not? The humor most certainly is there, as the host of the event is WIP's lead morning guy, Angelo Cataldi, who once was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when he was a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Among others doing "sideline" reporting was Al Morganti, one of the most knowledgeable hockey writers and commentators in the country (and a frequent sidekick of Cataldi's in the morning). Their shtick is, well, very funny at times.
They also paid a nice tribute to the late Eric Gregg, whom we'll all remember for his smile and for the positive image he brought to whatever he did. That said, we all worried about Eric Gregg's health even as a young umpire, because his weight problems at times were rather pronounced. And while he served this Wing Bowl well, the sad irony isn't lost on those who don't see the Wing Bowl as a total satire or totally sophomoric. Had Eric Gregg been able to take better care of himself and, yes, eat less, he might still be here with us today.
But is it fair to say that the Wing Bowl encourages overeating? Not entirely. Gluttony at a moment in time? Absolutely.
What puzzles me is not so much why a couple of dozen or so competitors might want to enter this event. Some want the attention. Others have found one of their true talents in life -- professional eating. It's easy to explain them away.
What's much less easy to explain is why 20,000 people would show up before 6 a.m. to watch this spectacle?
I harken back to the famous line that Judge Smails in Caddyshack made to a group of men who were happy playing cards in the men's grille after playing a round of golf: "Don't you people have homes?"
Or lives?
Okay, so it costs airfare, hotel fare and meal costs to attend the Super Bowl, along with forking over anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 for a ticket.
The Wing Bowl is a local trip, a drive down I-95 or the Schuylkill (pronounced Skoo-kill) Expressway, a ride down Broad Street, or a trip across the Walt Whitman Bridge from New Jersey.
And it's a lot cheaper. I had a sense that tickets were free, but obviously not. If you Google "Wing Bowl tickets", you'll get all sorts of links to places where you could have purchased Wing Bowl tickets, and I saw one offer for two prime seats at $40 a pair!
For an eating contest.
Where people can and actually do, well, throw up.
Where, at the time of a possible wing, well, toss, the Commissioner is supposed to yell, "If you heave, you leave." Sounds like the cage-fighting scene with Master Blaster from Mad Max, where the crowd was chanting ominously, "Two go in, one comes out," over and over again.
Kind of like watching NASCAR for the crashes.
A relative bargain, though, given that it could cost a family of 4 about $400 bucks, fully loaded, to go to a 76ers or Flyers game.
And there's really no chance anyone will vomit in public.
I remember reading a quote from one-time NFL receiver Steve Kreider, a Lehigh alum and now a successful fund manager. Kreider was a wide receiver for the Bengals in the 1980's, and on January 10, 1982 the Bengals beat the visiting Chargers 27-7 in the AFC Championship game where the wind-chill factor at times as -56 degrees (the press dubbed in the "Freeze Bowl"). Said Kreider, "I don't know what was a worse statement -- that we played the game in this weather or that 60,000 people sat outside for three hours and watched it."
Touche.
Okay, so if you're an eater, you're in the arena, literally (and figuratively, although I don't think that this type of competition was what Teddy Roosevelt had in mind when he gave his famous speech). But if you're a spectator of a wings eating contest (okay, even with all of the hoopla, entourages, cheesy entrances and, yes, dancing girls), what the heck are you doing?
And what are you doing, Pat Croce?
Now you're asking why am I writing so much about this if I think this is so silly, and, well, because it is so silly.
And, yes, I'll say it.
Undignified.
Especially for a city with an image problem.
Call me a kill joy, fine, but I just don't see what this particular competition brings to the table.
Except to send a message, perhaps, to the management of the pathetic pro hoops and hockey franchises in the city.
After all, 20,000 people took off work and played hooky to get up early and watch a wing-eating contest.
Do you get 20,000 people to come to your games?
Not a chance.
After all, people like to go to championship games and events.
Even if they involve the simple act of eating a chicken wing.
Or about 187 of them in a very short period of time.
Would People Watch Football As Much If. . .
it weren't so easy to bet on?
You can bet once a week, and the point spreads are easy enough for a third-grader to understand. That's a whole lot different from betting on baseball, basketball or hockey.
There are all sorts of ways to bet, at a sports book, on-line, and with someone who is Tony Soprano's third cousin twice removed.
My view is that a significant (and by significant, I mean at least 10%) portion of the football fan population wouldn't watch the game if it weren't so easy to bet on. Now that doesn't mean I want to outlaw sports betting. All I'm doing is calling into question the depth of knowledge and sincerity of the average football fan.
About 40 years ago, horse racing was one of the most popular sports in the country and people bought tickets to the Irish Sweepstakes because lotteries weren't present for the most part in the U.S. and the track was the one plac where you could make a legal bet. Today, almost every state has some form of legalized gambling, you can bet off-shore, you can bet on-line, and there are lotteries everywhere. Horse racing is all but dead (yes, the big events are draws, but the attendance is very small otherwise), and who buys Irish lottery tickets in the U.S. anymore. The reasons are simple -- the evolution of gambling has been such that you don't need to play the ponies or pony up for Irish Sweepstakes tickets any more. It's that simple.
My father before he died cautioned that among the things Gibbon wrote about in "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" as a cause of the downfall of Rome were that lotteries had sprung up. My guess is that the Romans had not figured out how to create a one-armed bandit and there was no such game as Seven Hills Hold 'Em, but I could be wrong. My other surmise is that there are so many temptations in our country that it would be hard to argue that any single one could cause the downfall of America, and I'm not suggesting that sports betting is.
Sorry for the digression. I now return to my initial premise -- how many people watch football (solely or primarily) because they can bet on it and because they can easily understand the betting?
Probably more than you think. (I believe I read somewhere recently -- perhaps ESPN the Magazine -- that football represents a large majority of sports betting in Las Vegas, and I'm going to do more research here).
And, remember, up until Jose Canseco spoke out, there were only a handful of baseball players who took steroids.
Just remember this, how many people talked about spreads or odds when the Cardinals were beating the Tigers in the World Series last fall, or when the Heat beat the Mavericks in the NBA Finals?
But everyone knows what the spread currently is for the Super Bowl, don't they?
Except me.
You can bet once a week, and the point spreads are easy enough for a third-grader to understand. That's a whole lot different from betting on baseball, basketball or hockey.
There are all sorts of ways to bet, at a sports book, on-line, and with someone who is Tony Soprano's third cousin twice removed.
My view is that a significant (and by significant, I mean at least 10%) portion of the football fan population wouldn't watch the game if it weren't so easy to bet on. Now that doesn't mean I want to outlaw sports betting. All I'm doing is calling into question the depth of knowledge and sincerity of the average football fan.
About 40 years ago, horse racing was one of the most popular sports in the country and people bought tickets to the Irish Sweepstakes because lotteries weren't present for the most part in the U.S. and the track was the one plac where you could make a legal bet. Today, almost every state has some form of legalized gambling, you can bet off-shore, you can bet on-line, and there are lotteries everywhere. Horse racing is all but dead (yes, the big events are draws, but the attendance is very small otherwise), and who buys Irish lottery tickets in the U.S. anymore. The reasons are simple -- the evolution of gambling has been such that you don't need to play the ponies or pony up for Irish Sweepstakes tickets any more. It's that simple.
My father before he died cautioned that among the things Gibbon wrote about in "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" as a cause of the downfall of Rome were that lotteries had sprung up. My guess is that the Romans had not figured out how to create a one-armed bandit and there was no such game as Seven Hills Hold 'Em, but I could be wrong. My other surmise is that there are so many temptations in our country that it would be hard to argue that any single one could cause the downfall of America, and I'm not suggesting that sports betting is.
Sorry for the digression. I now return to my initial premise -- how many people watch football (solely or primarily) because they can bet on it and because they can easily understand the betting?
Probably more than you think. (I believe I read somewhere recently -- perhaps ESPN the Magazine -- that football represents a large majority of sports betting in Las Vegas, and I'm going to do more research here).
And, remember, up until Jose Canseco spoke out, there were only a handful of baseball players who took steroids.
Just remember this, how many people talked about spreads or odds when the Cardinals were beating the Tigers in the World Series last fall, or when the Heat beat the Mavericks in the NBA Finals?
But everyone knows what the spread currently is for the Super Bowl, don't they?
Except me.
The Surfacing Problem in Football
This story is one example of it.
Collisions are a serious matter. Pro football players get paid to collide. The rest of the world who plays football collides -- for fun, for glory, for scholarships, for a chance to play for money.
And those collisions take their toll.
Some pro football players started playing tackle football at the ages of 6 and 7. That's a lot of pounding by the time they hit 30.
Ever meet guys who used to play football and played a lot of it? How well do they move? How well do they speak? Do they seem okay to you?
Many do, but a disproportionate number of them do not. After all, the average school teacher, bus driver, civil servant, policeman, carpenter and plumber don't suffer the number of concussions that pro football players do. And, in this regard, the recent suicide of former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters is very disturbing.
Why?
Because Andre Waters, at age 44, had brain damage. Read the prior link and read all about it. Our national pastime (sorry, baseball fans) did it to him. Oh, sure, he volunteered to play the game, but he paid an awful price.
We glorify football players, we watch this game more than any other, tickets are impossible to get, and all of that. So lots of athletic young men play this game, some because they love (and believe they need) the contact. Others play because they're good athletes and are expected to. Yet others play because they want the glory, and some play because they believe that they have to prove something to someone -- themselves, a parent or fellow student -- that they're tougher or simply that they're not wimps. Whatever the reason, lots of kids play this game.
But is it wise to do so?
Collisions are a serious matter. Pro football players get paid to collide. The rest of the world who plays football collides -- for fun, for glory, for scholarships, for a chance to play for money.
And those collisions take their toll.
Some pro football players started playing tackle football at the ages of 6 and 7. That's a lot of pounding by the time they hit 30.
Ever meet guys who used to play football and played a lot of it? How well do they move? How well do they speak? Do they seem okay to you?
Many do, but a disproportionate number of them do not. After all, the average school teacher, bus driver, civil servant, policeman, carpenter and plumber don't suffer the number of concussions that pro football players do. And, in this regard, the recent suicide of former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters is very disturbing.
Why?
Because Andre Waters, at age 44, had brain damage. Read the prior link and read all about it. Our national pastime (sorry, baseball fans) did it to him. Oh, sure, he volunteered to play the game, but he paid an awful price.
We glorify football players, we watch this game more than any other, tickets are impossible to get, and all of that. So lots of athletic young men play this game, some because they love (and believe they need) the contact. Others play because they're good athletes and are expected to. Yet others play because they want the glory, and some play because they believe that they have to prove something to someone -- themselves, a parent or fellow student -- that they're tougher or simply that they're not wimps. Whatever the reason, lots of kids play this game.
But is it wise to do so?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Ryan Leaf is a Golf Coach
Yes, that's the same Ryan Leaf who was a top pick in the NFL draft the same year as Peyton Manning and who, in some circles, has become synonymous with words like "Edsel" and "Titanic."
Apparently, the erstwhile NFL QB has had success as a DII quarterbacks coach at West Texas A&M, and, as a result, is the golf coach there.
Get this, it's not because Leaf knows anything about golf. The A.D. wanted him in the job because of his leadership and motivational skills.
Seriously.
Read the whole thing here.
Mr. Leaf's NFL career was an unmitigated disaster, but it's good to see that he's figured out something to do that's fulfilling for him. He had a good season with the football team (it went 11-2, and the QB fared well), so perhaps he can transfer his magic to the golf team as well.
My guess is that as a DII school West Texas A&M will play most of its matches in-state. I would advise that they don't take road trips to southern California, particularly the San Diego area.
Or else risk Chargers' fans throwing their homemade versions of lightning bolts at him.
Apparently, the erstwhile NFL QB has had success as a DII quarterbacks coach at West Texas A&M, and, as a result, is the golf coach there.
Get this, it's not because Leaf knows anything about golf. The A.D. wanted him in the job because of his leadership and motivational skills.
Seriously.
Read the whole thing here.
Mr. Leaf's NFL career was an unmitigated disaster, but it's good to see that he's figured out something to do that's fulfilling for him. He had a good season with the football team (it went 11-2, and the QB fared well), so perhaps he can transfer his magic to the golf team as well.
My guess is that as a DII school West Texas A&M will play most of its matches in-state. I would advise that they don't take road trips to southern California, particularly the San Diego area.
Or else risk Chargers' fans throwing their homemade versions of lightning bolts at him.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Exercises in Assininity in the ACC
The ACC admits that the official timekeeper at last week's Duke-Clemson game erred, resulting in enabling Duke to have time to go the length of the floor in the waning seconds to score a basket as time expired to give the home team the victory.
So what?
So what, as in, that's all they're going to do? This is an outrage, and the right thing to do would be to a) wipe out the final result, b) replay the final seconds and c) do so at Clemson before Duke's game against the Tigers in their gym and play an ensuing OT there if need be. And d), think hard about having all DI teams standardize their clocks (if they haven't done so already) and have a crew of however many people it takes, say 3-5 people, who travel like the officials to and run the game from the scorer's table. This way, they're not Duke people, they're not Clemson people, they're officials like the guys who wear the striped shirts on the floor. To fail to do otherwise is to continue to enable this type of amateurish result and to cast some lingering doubt on the integrity of the foundation of the game.
Yes, that's harsh, but it's hard enough to win in Coach K-ville. Duke is a great team, the gym is a bandbox, the local partisans are intimidating (and very loyal fans), and, yes, I think that the refs get intimidated too. So, against those odds and against a formidable team that usually wins at home, Clemson found themselves tied with a few seconds to go. Except the official timekeeper goofed, didn't start the clock at an important interval, and, well, Duke ended up having enough time to win the game.
I give Clemson coach Oliver Purnell credit, because he's put it past him like a good coach should and is getting his players focused on the rest of their season. But if I were the Clemson A.D., I'd be screaming bloody murder at the meetings of the ACC Athletic Directors and work with the NCAA to effect this change.
Look, I understand that mistakes get made, and my guess is that the local timekeeper regrets the error. But underlying that is the fact that local people -- be they University administrators, townies, whomever -- like to get close to the program and work the games because they get a good seat to great hoops. Deep down, you have to believe that they hope their hometown squad fares well and goes deep into the NCAA tournament. Which means, of course, that they have a built-in conflict of interest -- they work for the university or in the community -- they are not as impartial, as, perhaps, they should be. And maybe they're not impartial at all.
That doesn't mean that these folks don't try to do their best, and many do a great job. But what it means is that in key games every now and then gaffes could be made that undermine the system. And when that happens, reforms should be considered.
Because Clemson got jobbed.
They might not have won the game in overtime, but they deserved to play an overtime to determine the winner.
Because it's tough enough to play Paulus, McRoberts, Nelson and company and against Coach K. It's tougher to do it in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
And it's even worse when they can't get fair treatment on the clock in the waning moments. The clock, for Pete's sake!
That's embarrassing, and the ACC should have had a better remedy than simply acknowledging that a mistake was made.
Because, until reforms are implemented, mistakes like these could recur.
At worse times than this one, too.
So what?
So what, as in, that's all they're going to do? This is an outrage, and the right thing to do would be to a) wipe out the final result, b) replay the final seconds and c) do so at Clemson before Duke's game against the Tigers in their gym and play an ensuing OT there if need be. And d), think hard about having all DI teams standardize their clocks (if they haven't done so already) and have a crew of however many people it takes, say 3-5 people, who travel like the officials to and run the game from the scorer's table. This way, they're not Duke people, they're not Clemson people, they're officials like the guys who wear the striped shirts on the floor. To fail to do otherwise is to continue to enable this type of amateurish result and to cast some lingering doubt on the integrity of the foundation of the game.
Yes, that's harsh, but it's hard enough to win in Coach K-ville. Duke is a great team, the gym is a bandbox, the local partisans are intimidating (and very loyal fans), and, yes, I think that the refs get intimidated too. So, against those odds and against a formidable team that usually wins at home, Clemson found themselves tied with a few seconds to go. Except the official timekeeper goofed, didn't start the clock at an important interval, and, well, Duke ended up having enough time to win the game.
I give Clemson coach Oliver Purnell credit, because he's put it past him like a good coach should and is getting his players focused on the rest of their season. But if I were the Clemson A.D., I'd be screaming bloody murder at the meetings of the ACC Athletic Directors and work with the NCAA to effect this change.
Look, I understand that mistakes get made, and my guess is that the local timekeeper regrets the error. But underlying that is the fact that local people -- be they University administrators, townies, whomever -- like to get close to the program and work the games because they get a good seat to great hoops. Deep down, you have to believe that they hope their hometown squad fares well and goes deep into the NCAA tournament. Which means, of course, that they have a built-in conflict of interest -- they work for the university or in the community -- they are not as impartial, as, perhaps, they should be. And maybe they're not impartial at all.
That doesn't mean that these folks don't try to do their best, and many do a great job. But what it means is that in key games every now and then gaffes could be made that undermine the system. And when that happens, reforms should be considered.
Because Clemson got jobbed.
They might not have won the game in overtime, but they deserved to play an overtime to determine the winner.
Because it's tough enough to play Paulus, McRoberts, Nelson and company and against Coach K. It's tougher to do it in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
And it's even worse when they can't get fair treatment on the clock in the waning moments. The clock, for Pete's sake!
That's embarrassing, and the ACC should have had a better remedy than simply acknowledging that a mistake was made.
Because, until reforms are implemented, mistakes like these could recur.
At worse times than this one, too.
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