Is the NHL Dead?

Someone has to ask the question.

The labor difficulties underscore a business model that just isn't working.  There are too many teams and waning interest in the U.S.  Before hockey fans argue that this is just a (new) phase, remember, there was a lockout for an entire season within the past decade.  Also remember that as culture evolves, so do the games we play, watch and pay for.  Professional tennis doesn't have the following it did in the days of McEnroe, Connors and Borg, and horse racing, one a top-five sport, is but a distant memory, the sport of the very rich, but not of kings.  And boxing has become all but irrelevant.

Is hockey next on the scrap heap, ready for the sports archaeologists?  I don't mean to be harsh, but perhaps the NHL needs to revisit the business model, have many fewer teams, have many fewer teams make the playoffs, and play fewer games.  In other words, make the game more scarce, have the people who are interested hunger more for it, and create a buzz precisely because the product hasn't over saturated the sports world.  That's not to say a reversion to six teams is necessary, just many fewer than the current number.  That's not to say a 20-game season is necessary, but a season that doesn't involve say 80 regular-season games to eliminate only half the teams and then have the Stanley Cup winner perhaps play over 20 playoff games.  Sure, the league can make money through this type of structure, but the emphasis is on the word "can."  Why?  Because the model hasn't worked.

Even if the NHL were to end the lockout and solve its labor problems, it still has underlying problems that are sending it on the road to oblivion.  The talk of the past month has been the NFL, college football and college basketball, as well as the NBA.  The NHL?  Other sports have filled the void, including an increased attention on international soccer (which I find quite compelling), especially the English Premier League.

Both sides -- the owners and the players -- are losing here, not to mention the fans and the people whose livelihood depends on the NHL's playing its season.  Whoever would have thought that the U.S. Congress and the President would be more likely to agree on the fiscal cliff than the owners and players would agree on a contract?  But those are the times in which we live, where people tend to relish their polarization, even if it is destructive.

If the NHL doesn't play this year, what's the point?

On Andy Reid, Part II -- and On Who Will Replace Him

So Jeffrey Lurie pulled the plug on Andy Reid's outstanding 14-year career.  It was a sad day in Philadelphia to hear the news, even if we all knew that it was coming.  The consensus among fans was that Reid had a great run, but one that lasted far too wrong.  There were too many drafting mistakes, too much tolerance for holes in the roster, too many inconsistencies in time management and play calling.  Most of that would have gotten overlooked had Reid won a Super Bowl, but sadly for him and the city he never did.  He got close and had a great career, but it was time for him and Jeffrey Lurie to end a great relationship.  Both sides need to start anew.

My son pointed out that with the exception of Bill Cowher, no coach has won a Super Bowl with a franchise if he didn't win it in his first five years with the team.  Reid got to Philadelphia in 1999 and to the Super Bowl in 2004, but the team fell short.  He had some great moments, that's for sure, and he's to be congratulated for an excellent career.  With the exception of Connie Mack, who also owned the team he managed, Reid had the longest tenure of any head coach/manager in Philadelphia sports history.  That's how important a presence he's been on the Philadelphia sports scene.

So let's be clear.  He had a great career.  It just didn't culminate in what Lurie brought him hear to do -- win a title.

Lurie is now in the third chapter of his life transition, divorcing his wife and parting company with long-time friend and team president Joe Banner before the season began.  Now he parts company with the coach he just knew he would hire in 1999 when he decided to part company with Ray Rhodes.  The erudite, relatively soft-spoken owner is about to complete a major makeover in his life.

Rumors abound as to who the primary candidates are.  I don't think that Lurie will pick an obvious candidate.  In a way, he's too smart for that.  He will not recycle a former head coach or take a lifetime ladder climber, even if there will be pressure on him to do so.  I also don't think that he will hire Bill O'Brien (who would be the most tempting choice from among college coaches), Chip Kelly, Brian Kelly or Nick Saban.  All of those choices will be too expensive, and two do not have professional experience.

Coordinators will be tempting.  He has asked permission to interview coordinators from very successful team, such as Mike Nolan of the Falcons, who had an unsuccessful stint as head coach in San Francisco and has been the defensive coordinator for six different NFL teams.  Still, I don't think that he'll got that route.  Bruce Arians, who did tremendous work as acting head coach in Indianapolis this year, will get a well-deserved shot as a head coach.  But probably not in Philadelphia.

No, Jeff Lurie will not hire an obvious choice.  While many thought that Andy Reid was ticketed to be a head coach, he wasn't a coordinator at the time he was hired.  I think that Lurie will emulate the cross-state Steelers, who like to hold onto heir head coaches for more than a decade.  When Mike Tomlin was a position coach in Tampa, he had "head coach" written all over him.  After a year as defensive coordinator in Minnesota, Tomlin ended up as the head coach in Pittsburgh, and yes, he's won a Super Bowl.  I would think that Lurie will think extensively about his next head coach and look for the next Mike Tomlin, the next Jim Harbaugh.  That will take some doing and thinking.  I also don't think he'll get caught up in a feeding frenzy and have to hire the "hot" coach.  I also don't think that he'll want to overpay for a big name.

Don't expect the Eagles to rush to hire the next coach.  Expect Lurie, who has a PhD, to study the situation, come up with a detailed list of questions and think deeply about who he wants coaching the team.  Also expect him to consult with highly respected executives in the league about who they think would be an ideal candidate.  Expect him to develop a list of finalists based upon those recommendations.

The Eagles will hire a good coach.  Lurie has a good track record there.  The question is how the front office will work with a relatively inexperienced GM and Lurie guiding the ship.  The chemistry among the owner, GM and coach must be outstanding, especially if they are to straighten out a team that lacked chemistry and leadership this past season.

Let the speculation begin.

A Good Story about Non-Violent Video Games

            The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School compel answers to many questions, including whether the prevalence of video games that involve killing has ingrained violence into our culture and whether it’s a good thing that so many kids play these games.   In thinking about that question, I thought about my family’s own experience with these games, sometimes referred to as “first-person shooter” games (among the most popular are Call of Duty and Halo).

About a year and a half ago, my son felt isolated because many kids were playing games that involved shooting people and he wasn’t.  My wife and I discouraged him from doing so to the point that we refused to purchase the games for him.  We preferred that he play games related to professional sports leagues, where the goals of the game don’t involve killing.

            My wife’s and my simple motivation is that we worry about the long-lasting effect these games will have on this generation of kids, how they’ll view violence and what that will mean for our society in the future.   How will what seems to be a routine task of killing someone in a video game translate into how our citizens value human life?  And how will those attitudes affect a nation’s views on diplomacy and foreign policy, if as a society we broadly trivialize killing in our kids’ hobbies?  

            That said, we gave in and purchased a few of these games, much more so because we did not want our son to be socially isolated than because we believed that he should be playing them.   Rather than continue our censorship, we figured that we’d let him decide whether these games are fun and worth playing.  Since he’ll have to make many difficult decisions for himself in life, we determined that we’d let him make this one under our roof (while continuing to discuss guiding principles with him).   It was a tough call, but we concluded that we needed to loosen the reigns a bit and see what happened. 

            He then played Halo and Call of Duty for a few months, but one day he came home from a friend’s house complaining that he didn’t like the games.  They just didn’t interest him the way sports-related games did.   A friend of our daughter’s suggested Manager Mode in FIFA 2012, and it opened up a new world for him.  The ability to learn international soccer, build teams, buy and sell contracts and compete was much more fun.

            He then started to talk about the game with his friends at school, none of whom were playing FIFA 12 at the time and many of  whom were playing the shooting games.  His enthusiasm must have been infectious, because eighteen months later, many of his friends are playing FIFA (and their interest in the shooting games has diminished).  The kids gather on-line, talk about their favorite teams, and whether they’d purchase the contract of a megastar for $50 million, ask their parents for soccer jerseys of players in the English Premier League as presents and even talk about the real teams at the lunch table.  

Our son is not a loud or pushy kid, just a sensible, sensitive one who is as enthusiastic as any thirteen year-old is about the things that he likes.  Long gone is the talk of isolation about not being the only one not to do something.  Instead, he’s started a trend that is inclusive and shows that there are other ways for kids to have fun.   Soccer and managing and building teams – and not shooting – is becoming more popular by the day.   What a difference a few years makes. 

            Abraham Lincoln once said that it takes courage to be kind.  It also takes courage – ultimately -- not to do what everyone else does.   Of course, playing even this video game is no substitute for reading, writing, doing math homework, getting involved in activities that require in-person interactions with others and physical exercise, but let’s face it, kids have plenty of free time and many boys will play video games to fill some of their spare time.  And isn’t it better to fill the free time with positive things than with destructive ones?

            I am proud of my son.   Instead of letting a temporary sense of isolation get him down, he figured out a different path.  His road less traveled is now seeing more traffic by the day. 

            Let’s not have our society be the result of games like Call of Duty.  Instead, let our society after the Sandy Hook tragedy call us to duty – to address how much we want violence ingrained into our culture.   One thoughtful seventh grader has started a trend in his middle school.  Imagine if one kid in each middle school across the country did the same and moved kids away from shooting games.  And then imagine what the focus of the discussions at the lunch table, on texts and in hanging out would be like two years from now and how our society’s view of, and tendency toward, violence might change.   And then imagine the types of leaders that these kids can be and the world that they’ll help improve.

             

On Andy Reid

When I read this morning about the behavior of assistant coaches Jim Washburn (defensive line) and Howard Mudd (offensive line) on Andy Reid's coaching staff, I was aghast.  The former, fired today, was openly disrespectful of then-defensive coordinator Juan Castillo, apparently calling him Juanita in front of his player.  The latter, apparently, hung out only with the former.

What kind of nuthouse was Andy Reid running?   Washburn should have been held accountable the first time.  And then terminated.  And Mudd should have been talked to about meshing with the coaching staff.  I don't care if he came out of a retirement and was a legendary assistant in Indianapolis. If you decided to un-retire, you come back and help form part of a team.  If not, don't come back.

As for Washburn, and Reid's tolerance of him, well, the wheels started to fall off the defensive bus when coordinator Jim Johnson passed away.  Then coordinator Sean McDermott struggled, and then Reid waffled on who would succeed him, apparently striking out on his former linebackers coach, Steve Spagnuolo, who helped the Giants win a Super Bowl while serving as defensive coordinator before struggling as the head coach in St. Louis.  But Spagnuolo went to New Orleands, and Reid was without moves.  So, fearing, apparently, risking Castillo to Tennessee (to whom he was speaking about their offensive coordinator position, has he had been the Eagles' offensive line coach for about 15 years), he promoted him to defensive coordinator, prompting a memorable headline from the Philadelphia Daily News ("WFT?" exclaimed the headline).  And that prompted bringing in Washburn, providing veteran ballast for Castillo's defensive ship, and Mudd to replace Castillo.

Now, coaching positions turn over, but why did Reid tolerate Washburn for so long?  Was it because he was out of moves?  Because either Joe Banner or Jeffrey Lurie compelled him to do so?  Or because he thought that the dissension helped make the team better?  And how could a disrespectful coach make the team better?

If the Eagles only had completed as many passes as Jeffrey Lurie has given Andy Reid, they'd be playoff bound.

But the players shouldn't rest easy, either.  For while the Birds need a new head coach, they also need some players who are leaders.  That seems to have been a problem for the past couple of years, too.

And the Phillies' Possible Signing of B.J. Upton Makes Sense Because?

Probably because he's the best the they can do.

Personally, a guy who struck out 169 times last season with an on-base percentage of .298 is not someone I'd look forward to signing, because I think the numbers would suggest that he'll play to this pattern for the rest of his career.  And while wags might offer the Upton would be a great fit for the Phillies because of those numbers, he's precisely not what they need.

What they seem to need are more on-base percentage guys, guys with OBPs more like Chase Utley and Carlos Ruiz.  Their Achilles' heel, at times, has been guys who strike out too much, who don't walk enough, and who fill up the base paths too infrequently, thereby creating additional pressure for the three-run homer.  Look, a lot has gone right for the Phillies since 2007, but given the lightning they caught in a bottle in 2008, we all would have thought that it would have been they or the Yankees with two world championships since then, and not the San Francisco Giants.

There has been a lot to cheer for in Philadelphia over the past five years, but the knowledge of the strike zone has decreased over that time period, or at least so it seems.  B.J. Upton has a lot of good aspects, too, and he'd help the team get somewhat younger, but there has been something missing from the team's offense, and his skill set wouldn't seem to be the one to fill it.

How Much Studying Goes On?

I wonder about this topic frequently, so I figured that I'd get it out there.  Forgive me because I'm writing this early in the morning before what promises to be a hectic work day, so i haven't had the energy to create links to other text.

The premise for today is that there is a lot of potential data out there, yet no one seems to study it in the detail necessary to help an organization or sport evolve.  You'd think that with the advent of a once-in-a-generation talent like Nate Silver, more organizations would use mathematical and economics models to predict overall outcomes, the way Silver did for Baseball Prospectus and now does for The New York Times (as his predictions for elections are very accurate).  Of course, I just sounded like a heretic or someone who has pulled a Rip Van Winkle, because there is a lot of data out there.  And people are using it.  All you need to do is read Moneyball regarding baseball, read stories of the long hours football coaches put in, and read the article that appeared a few years ago in The New York Times Magazine (written by Michael Lewis) about how statistics are transforming basketball.  No, I get all that.

And yet, we still see a lack of evolution.  Why are baseball players getting hurt more than ever?  Why are pitchers breaking down perhaps with a greater frequency than they did 100 years ago?  Why are there no longer four-man rotations in baseball?  Whatever happened to 30-game winners, "Iron Man" Joe McGinnity, who pitched both ends of a doubleheader?  And why haven't we done something about the life-threatening injuries that football players suffer as young men?  (As to the latter, we still send our young men out there for gridiron glory repeatedly).

Baseball is such a big business that you'd think there would be a think tank that would gather video images of pitchers, their physical measurements, the ages when they started pitching, the frequency at which they pitched before professional baseball (through interviews, high school and college data), etc.,  the types of weightlifting they did (as well as other conditioning drills) if not to predict outcomes, then at least to prescribe behaviors that could lead to longer, less injury-prone careers.  After all, we read many retrospective studies about Danes who drank two glasses of aquavit a day from the time they were 21 and how it projected living into one's 80's, the effects of secondary smoke on felines and the like, so it would appear that right now Major League Baseball prefers a "churn 'em" mentality to one that can help build a better and healthier product.   That's the science talking, perhaps.  The economists, or perhaps the finance people, would stress "return on investment" and wonder whether the funds required for that study would be better spent on providing a stadium hot dog that, when eaten with the right mustard, will eliminate the effects of drinking eight $9 beers so that the average fan can consume  more Budweiser or Miller Lite and then drive home safely.  The mathematicians, of course, can help us choose between these goals.  Or so I think.

Football presents a more compelling case.  What's happened and is happening out there is so frustrating and worrying that it's amazing that more isn't being done.  Americans love this game, spending billions on it, and yet there doesn't seem to be anyone studying in great detail better techniques and better equipment.  Yes, there are those studying concussions and the effects of head trauma, and state laws have been passed to protect high school athletes in all sports, not just football.  Compounding the concussion problem is the mojo of the average competitive athlete, who will do everything in her or his power not to come out of a game.  But, in football, the constant pounding seems to take its toll, not just on brain functionality, but also on joints.  And it's also unnatural for lineman to put on so much weight that they look obese.  Finally, why hasn't someone taken the technology that's given us parachutes, that's given us bullet-proof vests, that's given us airbags in cars, and that's given us UnderArmour, and tried to combine it into a full-length body suit, with special protection around the lower spine, neck and head, that can deflect the most serious of blows and significantly reduce the impact of hitting?

The scientists would be most interested.  The finance people would look to the return on investment and wonder whether opening up new markets with the same dollars would make more sense.  The economists and mathematicians would do all sorts of calculations to predict outcomes.  The players?  They might be intrigued, but the gosh-darn thing had better feel comfortable, not weigh them down, not make them lose too many fluids, etc., or else they won't like it and it won't be, well, football.  But it might prevent them from forgetting their wife's name when their 47, from not being able to get out of bed without help when they're fifty-two and suffering from dementia when they're fifty-seven.  Again, the careers of pro football players are so short that perhaps the NFL has a "churn 'em" philosophy too.

What we fail to realize in all of this is how profound a sense of loss can be.  We're dealing with people here, not with assets that have depreciable lives and can be replaced.  We cannot and must not treat our young athletes as though they are disposable, the way we do our office computers once they slow down after four straight years of running constantly, picking up viruses and having too much stuff on them.  Yes, players are replaceable, but I'll repeat it, they are not disposable.  They are someone's children.  They are you and me.  And when they can no longer continue -- and when a piece of them is lost that they cannot regenerate because human biology does not permit them to -- they are a different person.  Diminished, wounded, more isolated, all because they are not who they used to be.

Now, there is a certain amount of assumption of the risk here, and there are certain pressures that some of these young men assume when they take on certain jobs.  I am not looking to add regulation or mandate to those who run organized sports what to do, except so far as we're protecting our children from overzealous associations and coaches that put the egos of the people who run them above the welfare of the kids.  What I am saying is that perhaps we're not approaching repetitive problems with brains and creative thinking commensurate with the level of attention our society otherwise pays to them.

That's odd.  That's unfortunate.  That doesn't make sense.

Take a Bow, San Francisco Giants!

I tweeted the following last night:  After the 2008 season, if you would have predicted that any Major League team would win two World Series by 2012, who would you have predicted?  The Phillies?  The Yankees?  The Giants?

The Giants' rise is amazing for several reasons.  First, they survived some disastrous signings.  They inked CF Aaron Rowand to a long-term deal after some heroics in Philadelphia, only to have him prove that without Philadelphia's then-young studs in the lineup to protect him, he was just a journeyman (even at $12 million per year over 5 years).  Then, they won the Barry Zito sweepstakes, spending a Croesus-like fortune and outbidding, among others, the Mets.  And you have to remember that many fans lamented that their team couldn't land such  prize as Zito.  That said, had then-Mets GM Omar Minaya inked Zito, he would have lost his job a few years into the deal.  Brian Sabean, the Giants' GM, didn't meet such a fate (and long-term deals are more and more proving to be bad for the teams who agree to them).  This year, they lost their closer for the season, the NL's #2 hitter to a steroids suspension (and went further by telling him to hit the road, period) and saw the continued decline of a young pitcher inked to another long-term deal (only to see him resurrect himself marvelously in the post-season).

The Giants are a great combination of factors.  Patient ownership, a persistent General Manager who keeps on finding gems among players who are much less than big names, pitching, pitching and more pitching, a few key hitters, good leadership and a great, yes, Hall of Fame, manager.  While the cognoscenti offer the view that managers don't make that much of a difference, they very much do so when asked to cobble together a contending team with the likes of Gregor Blanco, Brendon Belt and your cousin Joey from Valdosta.  It's relatively easy to win when you can sign the big-name free agents year after year with the money that your TV network generates.  It's another when you're based in a Bohemian town more prone to attract 60,000 to a concert in Golden Gate Park than to your refrigerator of a ballpark (where people where scarves and drape fleeces over themselves in August) and tend to go to baseball's flea markets to find key cogs of the turbocharged pod racer of a team that would make Anakin Skywalker proud.

That's not to say though, that the Giants don't have stars.  Matt Cain is one of the best pitchers in baseball.  His catcher, Buster Posey, is one of the best position players.  And the third baseman, Pablo Sandoval, demonstrated his vast ability by hitting three homer runs in Game 1 of the World Series and sending a message to Detroit that while it may be the Motor City, San Francisco is the Mojo City.  I've sometimes thought that at the kids' league and high school levels, teams can win games in warm-ups by showing the opposition how disciplined they are.  Well, the Giants might have won the Series in Game 1 through their great display, too.  They just didn't care that the Tigers' have baseball's best starting pitcher, Justin Verlander, or the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, Miguel Cabrera.  In the post-season, the slates get wiped clean.  A Verlander can turn into a Steve Blass, a Gregor Blanco into Frank Robinson.  They also figured out that as MLB cracked down both on amphetamines and steroids, that pitching would matter more than it had in decades.  And they've proved it.

As for the Phillies and the Yankees, both teams got old fast.  The long-term deals that excited fans as recently as a year or two ago now seem like one hundred-pound Kettle bells duct-taped to the necks of their General Managers, who perennially are compelled to do a high-wire act.  They have a lot of money at their disposal, they're expected to fill the seats, and they're expected to contend for a title, all the while not depleting the farm system.  Yet, they do the latter, and they aren't winning titles.  The Yankees have 6 years left on A-Rod's contract, at least four on Mark Teixera's, and the Phillies saw Roy Halladay get old and injured this season and Cliff Lee flounder at times.  They are not young teams, they look weary in their dugouts, they look burdened by expectations, and, well, they don't look like they are having fun.  The Phillies' crew in '08 looked like it was having the time of its life; ditto the Yankees' in '09.

Two titles in three years?  From a San Francisco team that hadn't won a World Series from 1954 to 2010?  From a San Francisco team without a Mays, McCovey, Marichal?  From a San Francisco team after Barry Bonds retired?  

Let's give credit where credit is due.  Bruce Bochy might be the best manager baseball has seen in decades.  He's won without the talent of an Earl Weaver, Dick Williams, Sparky Anderson, Tommy Lasorda, Joe Torre and Terry Francona (and, yes, also Tony LaRussa).   Brian Sabean might not get the publicity of Theo Epstein, any disciple of Billy Beane or Brian Cashman, but he's fared better.  

They play Moneyball in Oakland, right across the bay.  Last time I checked, Moneyball hasn't gotten the A's to the World Series, let alone won them one.

They play a rich stew of Microball (finding pieces at MLB's version of yard sales, turning another's junk into their joy) and Mojoball (where chemistry really matters).  And it works.

Moneyball is a great book and was a good movie.

But the money team is 11 miles to the west, on the water.  

And for two of the past three seasons, they've walked on it.

Dollar-Cost Averaging, A Theory of Baseball Rosters and Cranky Cousin Jim

My cousin Jim and I have had a great back-and-forth over e-mail over the past five years, enjoying each other's company and focusing solely on the fate of our hometown Philadelphia Phillies.  We got drunk (figuratively) on their success in 2008, frustrated with the supernova-like rise and fall of Raul Ibanez in 2009 (that Brad Lidge perhaps eclipsed with a flameout that outdid his superlative performance in '08), the addition of Cliff Lee, the trade of Cliff Lee, the signing of Placido Polanco, the long-term deal for Ryan Howard, the trade for Roy Halladay, the depletion of the farm system, letting Jayson Werth go in free agency and the overall decline of the team from its peak in '08 until now.

Among the topics we discussed have been the decline of the bats since the Mets discovered that bullpen coach Mick Billmyer was spying on hitters, whether certain players were on steroids, whether the prospects who were traded were any good, why they traded Lee in the first place, why they signed Ibanez and Polanco, why they signed Howard to the long-term deal when they did and a whole host of other issues.  When you review the performance of the team, you realize that they have declined each year since 2008.

2008:  World Champions.
2009:  Lose in the World Series to the Yankees.
2010:  Survive major injuries, lose in NLCS to Giants (and Pat Burrell, who won a second WS ring before either Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay won their first).
2011:  Lose in NLDS to Cardinals.
2012:  Barring a major miracle, will not make the playoffs.

In short, their performance has diminished with each succeeding year.  Now, had a) Brad Lidge had a halfway decent year in 2009, had each member of the Giants' pitching staff not turned into Sandy Koufax in the post-season and had the team not stopped hitting in '10, had Cliff Lee and his megamillions been able to hold a 4-0 lead after one inning in game 2 of the NLDS, well. . . perhaps the hometown nine might have managed one additional World Series victory (as asking them to have won four in a  row is just way too much).

That said, though, over a lengthy back-and-forth, cranky Cousin Jim has focused on what he perceives to be bad individual decisions by GM Ruben Amaro, while I have focused on the overall theory behind the decisions.  We both agree that Amaro is bold, but we summon a comment my father once made (as told to him by a friend who was a retired Air Force general):  "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there is no such thing as an old, bold pilot."  Neither of us quarrel with Amaro's decisiveness in going to get what he wants.  It's just that crusty Cousin Jim doesn't like some of the wants (for example, when they inked Cliff Lee, he wondered why they would go long term on a pitcher without a real "out" pitch whom the Indians had left off their post-season roster in 2007).  We also both wondered why the Phillies would invest so much in pitching in the post-steroids era, where bats seemingly are increasingly hard to find (witness that home run numbers are way down).

My big issue centers upon my focus on two theories -- demographics and what happens to players when they age (they are more injury prone, they can get heavier, and family matters can distract them) and a concept that you cannot have $10 million players who are the same age at each position and expect that model to be sustainable without hitting a plateau and fizzling.  Both Cousin Jim and I agree that long-term deals are toxic, as outside Derek Jeter, most players will outlive their usefulness after the first couple of years (and it's hard for any person to stay hungry when the money is guaranteed and they get to buy the Maybach for their summer and winter homes regardless of whether their OBP is .297 or .374).  The Mets learned this lesson with, among others, Tom Glavine and Billy Wagner, the Yankees are learning it with A-Rod (who at 36 has six years to go on his deal), and the Angels and Tigers will learn this painful lesson with Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder respectfully.  Yet, many a GM thinks that he'll withstand the gravity pull towards long-term declines and opts to gamble on the "missing piece" that can help the team transcend.  Put simply, the Nats' honchos must rue the day they signed Jayson Werth to his seven-year, $126 million deal.

The demographics piece is easy.  The Phillies were healthy and motivated in 2008, on the way up, and they were relatively injury free (and fielded a pitching staff that was much less formidable then -- with Brett Myers as the #2 starter) than in subsequent years.  The core of the team -- Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino, Werth -- all were in their late twenties, they were hungry, they were eager, and a few were without long-term deals (Howard, Victorino, Werth, and Utley and Rollins were, relatively speaking, bargains).  The problem that some of us foresaw was that they needed to establish some of the younger players in order to sustain their excellence, and we thought that in catcher Lou Marson, infielder Jason Donald and a few others (OF Michael Taylor, OF Domonic Brown) they would have some room to bring up younger players once either Howard or Werth left in free agency and the team figured out that Pat Burrell was almost done.

So, in 2009, instead of promoting a younger player or combing the free-agent market for a younger missing piece who could at least play some of the time in left, they opted for thirty-six year old Raul Ibanez at $11 million a year.  At the time, both Cousin Jim and I thought this was a bad decision.  The team got older, not younger, and, of course, all Ibanez did was go out and have a monster first half of the 2009 season that made him a fan favorite at the Bank.  But then a funny thing happened -- his performance fell through the floor, and in the last two and a half years of his deal he played a shaky left field and had an OBP below .300.  That's an OBP, not a batting average.  And he was expensive.

In 2010, the Phillies finally decided that after years of enduring David Bell, Abraham Nunez, Wes Helms, Greg Dobbs and Pedro Feliz at third base, they needed a bona fide third baseman.  So they inked free-agent infielder (as he had played a Gold Glove 2B in Detroit) Placido Polanco, then 34 and with a history of injuries, to a three-year, $24 million deal.  There was an irony and a problems with this.  The irony was that a few years early, in a quest to build their bullpen, they traded the same Polanco to Detroit for Ugueth Urbina, who right now languishes in a Venezuelan prison after being convicted of attempted murder.  The Polanco trade did make room for Chase Utley to play every day, though.  That said, once again the Phillies got older.  In fairness, Polanco's OBP was in stark contrast with that of Feliz (who had the worst OBP when the Phillies signed him as a free-agent, thereby exacerbating a team problem, which was at that time they had too many players who struck out too often and did not walk enough) and Ibanez.  The problem was that he couldn't stay healthy.

And neither could Rollins, Victorino, Howard and Utley in '09 through '12, particularly the latter three in '10 (where at one point the Phillies' lineup had Dane Sardinha, Wilson Valdez and Juan Castro hitting 6, 7 and 8).  Utley's injuries are well-chronicled, but Rollins and Victorino had leg problems during those periods too.  A testament to the team's grit and leadership, in fairness, was how well the team fared amidst all the injuries.  There is some merit into having a veteran team -- they know what it takes to win and they did what it took to keep the team together when injuries beset it.

But the injuries did come, the team showed its age, and gradually went on its slide.  In fairness, most fans still would settle for the 2008-2011 years of the Phillies, even if at times the team under-delivered given its talent and potential -- the park was packed, the team exciting, and the performances very good.  Who could forget Roy Halladay's perfect game in Miami or his no-hitter in the NLDS against the Reds, among many other memorable moments?  Let's be clear -- it was a great run and it was fun to watch.

It's probably too much to ask for your team to sustain excellence year after year.  The Yankees can do it because they have so much money and can eat mistakes the way no other team can.  But problems exist when the team ages, when the team has a lot of long-term contracts (see Phillies, Red Sox and perhaps now the Dodgers, who didn't learn much from the first two) and farm systems aren't chock full of up-and-comers.  Atop that, scouting is still a woefully inexact science (witness that twenty or so teams passed on the Angels' Mike Trout in the draft a few years ago, presumably because he is from New Jersey), among other blunders.  Now, some genius will figure out some way to select and develop players in a matter that much more accurately predicts success, but even if the process remains disappointingly inexact, there is still a way to avoid the "everyone got old at once" problem (Branch Rickey figured it out decades ago, and somehow the theory fell by the wayside).  Long-term deals will remain an issue under the current structure, and there is no way to protect teams against themselves, but at some point if teams have a decent enough pipeline and remember not to get too old at once, they'll have a chance to sustain excellence over longer periods of time.

Okay, so I just introduced a bunch of variables -- the need for more accurate recruitment and development and a need to avoid long-term deals (goodbye, Barry Zito and Vernon Wells, who somehow should go down in baseball history the way the Edsel has in the manufacture of automobiles), and we can put them in the parking lot for now.  The key theory that I would like to describe is to apply the investment theory of dollar-cost averaging to how to run a team's roster.

Dollar-cost averaging is something that Vanguard advocates as does Burton Malkiel, professor emeritus of economics at Princeton.  Basically, you are instructed never to time the stock market, but to a) invest in low-cost index funds by putting the same amount each month into them and b) to reinvest the dividends.  Malkiel proved that over time this was the best way to get the best performance out of one's portfolio (as opposed to timing the market).  (I recall a conversation with a relative about Berkshire Hathaway in 1986; she had $5,000 to invest in an IRA, and I suggest buying 5 shares at $1,000 apiece.  The response was "Well, it's expensive, I'll wait until it does down."  I haven't checked the share price recently, but at one point a single share went for over $120,000 in the past three years).  Look, we all can miss out on things like that, but the point is that if you invest constantly and similarly, you will do reasonably well.  Most recently, in a way, the Phillies timed the market by having a portfolio of investments that all came due at the same time.  Put different, they bet long on the entire core when they should have hedged, shorted or sold some of it and rebalanced the portfolio.  Again, I'm not an investment expert, so perhaps I'm mixing concepts, but at the end of the day, you want to keep rebalancing your portfolio.

It's easy to say that when you're not in the GM's shoes and you have the benefit of hindsight.  But it's clear to most fans that at a time when they needed to get younger and healthier, the Phillies inexplicably got older.  They went for the labels of performers whose best days were behind them, instead of facing the reality of aging players with declining skills.  They should have worked hard a) to lower their average age and b) to sign some starters whose salaries were closer to the Major League minimum and who weren't eligible for arbitration for a while (or who were simply lower-cost players) than to sign more expensive ones.  Yes, they inked Lidge to a three-year, $36 million deal in the middle of '08, when he was very hot, and that deal turned out disastrously, too.  That type of mistake each team can tolerate occasionally, but the signings of Ibanez and Polanco represented an errant philosophy.  And while we can debate whether signing both Lee and Halladay to long-term deals was wise, we cannot debate that both guys were well past 30 when they signed them.  That the Phillies had the oldest starting lineup in the Majors going into this year (according to Baseball Prospectus) was no accident.  That they are performing accordingly likewise is no surprise.

Cousin Jim and I are frustrated.  Very grateful for what we watched, but frustrated with what could have been, frustrated with the decline in the bats post-binoculars, and frustrated overall with occasional positive tests for steroids that continue to stain the game.  We're frustrated with poor performances under long-term contracts, and we're frustrated with decisions that we thought were bad at the time, that we were powerless to change, and that are showing the poor results we predicted.  That's not to say that ownership shouldn't be applauded for spending more than they ever have or that they are not well-intentioned.  It's just to say that they need to spend more time on planning and a theory for long-term sustainability that transcends throwing money at problems and long-term deals.  They need to examine baseball history, they need to plan, and they need to develop players (they haven't developed a star position player in about 10 years, since Chase Utley joined the team -- that's a long time).

So, as the Phillies' brass re-groups after a disastrous season -- poor performances from starting pitchers, an awful bullpen, a poor attitude at times from Jimmy Rollins and apparent dishonesty from Chase Utley as to his physical condition -- they need to did a little more deeply, come up with a longer-term game plan and stick to it.  In a way, it's a high-class problem, but it's a critical time to do something differently.  The temptation will be there to spend greatly on aging stars to try to eke out another Series victory, but the price could be very great -- a failure to spend on the farm system, poor drafting decisions, and a continued aging of the roster that will cause more future lean years than fewer.

It's time to dollar-cost average, balance the portfolio, and develop younger players.

Before we return to the days of having right fielder Glenn Wilson imitate Rambo in the team's ads and having the team's president lament the team's fate because it's a small-market team.

Been there.  Done that.

It isn't pretty.

Thoughts on Summer Events: Olympics, Baseball, Football

Hi everyone:  I've been tweeting quite a bit, so if you open a twitter account, you can get various thoughts from me during the day.  I have found Twitter to be an interesting way to get thoughts and news.  I try to limit myself to following not more than 300 people or news organizations, and, so far, so good.  It takes some work to limit thoughts to 140 characters, but I'm managing.  After all, there are more than 140 characters out there in the world of sports, from amusing people like John Kruk to vain people like Usain Bolt, to impossible people like Sean Payton, to bold people like Melky Cabrera to hypocritical people like Mark Emmert to blunt and good-for-sports people like Jay Bilas (whose tweets are among the best out there, even though I am a Carolina fan and he played for Duke).

I have a bunch of thoughts on various topics, so I'll take them in order that they come to my mind.

1.  Why didn't the IOC honor the Israelis who were butchered at the '72 Olympic Games with a moment of silence?   

I could offer up many answers, so here's a multiple choice quiz:

a) because the IOC remains corrupt and gutless, even if Juan Antonio Samaranch is long gone;
b) because the IOC is afraid of world demography, and fearful that all Arab countries would boycott if such a moment of silence were given, and there are many more Arabs in the world than Israelis, so life is demographics after all;
c) because the IOC is hypocritical, getting on the same Arab countries' backs to pressure them to permit women to compete, even if somehow 11 murdered athletes don't really register on their radar screen;
d) because the IOC wants as many nations as possible to come to the games, even if it permits some of those same nations to offer lame excuses for their athletes to withdraw lest they are asked to compete against Israelis;
e) the IOC and/or a majority of its members are anti-Semites; or
f) the issue of murdered Olympic athletes who weren't properly memorialized just isn't a big deal.

And a shout out, while I'm at it, to NBC's Bob Costas, who recognized the injustice and provided his own moment of silence.

2.  Will USA Basketball Make an "Out of the Box" call and let Doug Collins coach the 2016 Olympic basketball team?

Yes, Gregg Popovich and Doc Rivers are next in line, and, yes, both are outstanding coaches.  You will get no argument from me if either is selected.  Both would excel.  But there is something dramatic and romantic in permitting Collins to man the conn of USA Basketball and get redemption, of sorts, from the all-time screwing the '72 Olympic team got in the final against the former Soviet Union.  That was one of the worst things I ever witnessed, and, as a young boy, gave me an inkling as to how people can cheat and how politics can permeate games (we used to joke in gym when someone slipped and fell "And the East German judge gave it a 5.2, and all other judges gave it a 6").  I know, history experts, the refs were from other countries, but they failed miserably.

Pick Doug Collins, let him fire the team up, and we'll all have a great story featuring a wonderful guy.  Poetic justice would be if they could kick the crap out of Mother Russia, especially if strongman/bully/gangster Vladimir Putin is still in office.  Which leads me to the next question?

3.  Given what's going on in Russia, will David Blatt elect to remain as coach of its national team or find another squad to coach?  

I love Dave Blatt, knew him back in the day, and he's an awesome coach.  Look, most governments aren't so pretty if you get too close, but will he remain with Russia or find a different challenge.  In Twitter parlance, #manyothercountriesareavailableandmoreworthy.

4.  Given the world's problems, which nation has its priorities straight -- 310 million plus U.S., which led the medal count, or 1.2 billion India, which won 6 medals, none of them gold, and doesn't seem to care.

I'm not saying that I am going to move to India, but with the exception of men's field hockey, I don't think that India cares about Olympic sports.  That's not to say that they care about all of their people, either, as India has major issues with its caste system, poverty and corruption.  So, you don't see an exodus of Americans moving to Mumbai or Calcutta.  That said, with about 16% of the world's population, India just doesn't give a rat's rear end about the Olympics.

And, while many of us like the spectacle and respect the job that NBC did given that we all can get current results on-line right when they happen, the games are different from what they once were.  In our youth, the competitors from the U.S. and the democracies were amateurs.  The Soviet bloc athletes were full-time athletes, using army service as an almost unveiled veneer to cover their professionalism, and the East Germans doped it up big-time in order to create a master Communist race.  Sure, there was more tension because there was an evil empire, but the days of Gerd Bonk, the Belgian librarian who was a heavyweight weightlifter and whose story was one of many that legendary broadcaster Jim McKay told so well, are for the ages.  And that's a shame.

These are professional games.  And, no, the current hoops team couldn't have beat the '92 dream team, which would have been up 25 on Spain after 3 instead of giving us too much to worry about.  Also, do you really care that the U.S. men's team can beat Nigeria by the GDP of North Africa in a seeding round, or that the U.S. women won by 36 in the gold-medal game?

5.  What happened to boxing?

About 1/3 of a century ago, we focused on men's basketball, track and field, swimming, gymnastics and boxing and little else.

Boxing is gone.

6.  Is major college football a big joke on all of us, or what?  

NCAA President Mark Emmert and investigator Louis Freeh condemned Penn State's "football-first culture."  I've frequently been critical of the "beer and circus" (thanks, Murray Sperber) culture at many major universities, and have offered that I don't want my kids to go to any school where a coach makes more than the university president.  That said, for many, it's the best option and the most affordable one, but I think that we owe our kids more.  To be frank, most BCS schools have "football first" cultures.  Just read this week's Sports Illustrated, which has an article about how all BCS programs are tying to emulate what Nick Saban has accomplished at Alabama.  Just follow the money and look at the priorities -- you have more football coaches, trainers, tutors and the like for the football team than you probably have for the rest of the student body, combined, and at some of these schools you have 120 young men in a football program and 40,000 students in every other.  Sorry, but football-first cultures exist everywhere.

7.  There will be 5-10-15 scandals that will emerge at BCS schools where coaches pressured administrators and professors to cover things up to help enable the football program.  What will Mark Emmert do then?  

Probably good not to be the first one to suffer the NCAA's wrath, because all subsequently discovered transgressors will have figured out a way to defend themselves.  Jay Bilas is very eloquent on this topic, and I'd encourage him to write lengthy pieces on the subject.  The NCAA put itself in a box here, and I think that the BCS schools ultimately might withdraw in order to create a bigger paper-tiger regulator who will respond as follows when the big-money schools say "Jump!"  "How high, out which window and how would you like me to splatter?"

Watch the stories, watch the headlines -- what a mess.

8.  ESPN's Elite 11 quarterback program coverage was good, but why did those who run Elite 11 trot out Pete Carroll as the featured speaker?  

Sure, he has a full head of hair and sounds good, but was he just a bystander while at USC?  Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't, but to trot out a coach whose program vacated a lot of victories because of Reggie Bush doesn't seem to send the right message.  And, besides, his QBs haven't exactly torn it up in the NFL, either.  Speaking of which. . .

9.  SI's article on USC quarterback Matt Barkley is good, but he provokes an eerie parallel to thus-far NFL flop Matt Leinert, another USC alum.

In his final season, Leinert took only one course in the fall semester.  Barkley is taking only one course now.  So why is he in college, exactly?  And that's not evidence of a football-first culture.  Really?  The NFL hasn't been kind to USC quarterbacks.  See, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinert and Mark Sanchez.

10.  The Astros fired manager Brad Mills, who has managed a team playing .320 baseball.  

Why  Joe Torre, Joe McCarthy, Earl Weaver, Whitey Herzog, Tony LaRussa -- none of those guys could have done any better.  They should look into their front office, their talent evaluators and their talent.  As Herzog once said, "If you have great talent and a horse bleep manager and bad talent and a Hall of Fame manager, I'll bet on the horse bleep manager every time."  So why did they fire Brad Mills, exactly?  And before the end of the season, too?

11.  How cool is it that Uganda is at the Little League World Series?

Very.  My guess is that the concept of helicopter parents and overwhelming travel parents is lost near Lake Victoria.  Among others, Jimmy Rollins' Foundation helped fund baseball in Uganda.  And a shout out to the parents of the Indiana team, who raised a lot -- in money and clothing -- for the Ugandan kids.  That's what the games should be all about.

12.  Will the Melky Cabrera scandal stain baseball further?

Doug Glanville has written a lot about this.  I think that MLB has lost a ton of credibility.  He was the 2nd leading hitter in the NL at the time he was suspended and was the MVP of the All-Star game (which the NL won and now the NL team gets home-field advantage).  What this means is that the testing program permits cheaters, because a) not everyone gets tested during the regular season and b) the rules allow for a multiple of "normal" testosterone levels in a player before they hit various thresholds of scrutiny.  What this seems to suggest is that a) people having career years might be getting some help from bottles and needles and b) players are still cheating and will continue to do so until everyone is tested routinely.  Sure, the MLBPA is the most successful union in the history of the entire world labor movement, but the owners have to fight harder before the game goes the way of boxing.

Look for most flunked tests and more vents and disgust.

Thanks for listening.

Penn State: Tragedies Have No Winners, and the Games Should Not Go On (Not Now)

Much has been said and written since the Freeh report issued and the NCAA punished Penn State.  I have a friends who are Penn State alums, am a native Pennsylvanian and live here now.  Those facts, perhaps, give me a different perspective from someone who works in Indianapolis, lives in Centre County, Pennsylvania, went to Penn State, writes for a national media organization or plays or coaches major college football, among other things.  So, here goes:

1.  There are no winners here.    We all ache for the victims of Jerry Sandusky and at the fact that many more victims could have avoided their fate if senior, responsible adults who should have known better did the right thing.  We ache for the victims and their families, first and foremost.  As a Pennsylvanian, I also am sad for my state, and for friends and neighbors with strong ties to Penn State (I have none other than being a lifelong resident of the state).  I am sad for the kids who are there now, whose institution now suffers from a long-term, indelible stain, the roots of which began perhaps as long ago as before they were born and took root when some of them were in pre-school.  I am sad for those community members, faculty, students and alums who had nothing to do with the culture, and I am sad for those who did -- they fell into the gravity pull of golden-calf worship, poor priorities and forgetting what the purpose of a university education is -- to educate every student and impart a solid set of values that they will carry back to their communities and jobs and help make the world a better place.  Many of them do just that in their daily lives, but they enabled a culture of hero worship that ultimately led to a lack of accountability and awful harm to innocent young boys.

2.  Penn State should not be playing football this year.  I have vacillated on this point because of my proximity and because of compelling (at times) arguments that current players (who, likewise, had nothing to do to cause this tragedy) should not be punished, but at the end of the day, I keep on coming back to what I believe was a bad culture in State College.  Judge Freeh (and NCAA President Mel Emmert) got it right when he discussed a "football first" culture (although Penn State is far from the only place to suffer from this problem).  This culture had permeated Pennsylvania and elsewhere since I can remember.  There were too many who elevated Penn State football (because it played high-level football and was a "clean" program) and its coach, Joe Paterno, to a perch that neither deserved, not even before the Sandusky affair and the tragedy of the young victims surfaced.

I am also not sure if they should be playing football for a while.

Sure, there's the argument that the current kids had nothing to do with this, and that's absolutely true, they did not.  But, by the same token, we must not let that argument eclipse the tragedy and the larger issue -- which was that Coach Paterno and the football program had way too much influence at Penn State and that the overall culture was terrible at its worst and out of balance at its best.  I know from experience how far that culture permeated, through talking with alum after alum who, rightly or wrongly got off on the fact that they had some identification with Coach Paterno and football games.  That's probably not unique at BCS schools, but Paterno had way too much influence (so much so that he refused to retire and made a mockery of the succession planning process).  The bottom line is that a tragedy occurred because of football, and Beaver Stadium should lie fallow this year as a result (even if the entire team were to transfer).  The emptiness -- and silence -- should stand as a reminder for everyone of when a culture ran amok and young, innocent kids got hurt.   That's the least the NCAA and Penn State could have done -- to set an example that nothing is more important than the safety of our children.

There are things, after all, that are more important than football.

3.  The NCAA might think it took a strong action, but it set a lot of expectations for itself in meting out punishment to Penn State so quickly.  A columnist in the Philadelphia Inquirer got it right (I think it was Bob Ford) when he wrote that the NCAA, which has been under withering criticism for providing toothless remedies) got a free swing at Penn State and took it.  That's true, and while I believe that Penn State deserved to be whacked -- and hard -- I think that the NCAA might have misstepped in acting so quickly.   Here's the thinking -- suppose the next scandal involves an SEC school (and all of them have football-first cultures except Kentucky, which has a basketball-first culture, and Vanderbilt, which has an academics-first culture).  Suppose it's bad (if not as egregious and shielding a child abuser), but that it involves gang bangers or drug dealers or sexual harassers (and depending on the degree, egregious to just as egregious), some or all of which get protected because heaven forbid that a national championship be put in jeopardy.  Will the NCAA mete out analogous punishment?  And, if it doesn't, what will happen to the authority of the NCAA, moral or otherwise?  Look, the NCAA wasn't in an easy spot, but I think that President Emmert, through his words and actions, wrote some checks that this oversight body will not be able to cash.  And if it can't mete out similar punishment in the future, what authority will it really have over its members (and what could prompt the big-revenue schools -- as previously predicted -- to bolt the NCAA anyway, seeking to answer to a lesser, less powerful authority?).

4.  How many other scandals will surface at BCS schools now that the NCAA meted out such strong punishment for Penn State?   As a native Pennsylvanian, I am saddened, shocked and horrified by what happened.  To be blunt, I never really cared for Paterno because of his deification (and the fact that he not only let it happen but seemed to enjoy it) and got skeptical about all BCS-type schools (because I truly believe that academics should come first and that students should really focus on building their skill sets as opposed to identifying -- too much -- with their schools' teams).  That said, I've always thought of Penn State as a good school that offers excellent opportunities and that turns out very fine graduates.  I don't share that view about other BCS schools, many of which do not hold themselves (otherwise) to the standards that Penn State does.  And no, not everything at Penn State was or is awful because of the Sandusky scandal -- it's not fair to paint the entire school, its academics and its graduates with the unfortunate actions of a few (even if people in the community participated in a culture that had skewed priorities).  But do you mean to tell me that coaches never pressured professors at other schools, covered for habitual gamblers, sexual harassers or even drug dealers?  Or kids who en masse violated rules?  I predict that 5-10 scandals will surface in the next 18 months that represent cover-ups at other schools.  If that's the case, what will the NCAA do?  Cancel football at those schools?  Provide Penn State-like punishments?  It should, and if it doesn't, then why should it exist?

5.  Joseph Paterno is not Josef Stalin.  The former suffered from a lack of humility, skewed priorities and too much false pride.  But he also made sure his kids went to class, got (meaningful) degrees and graduated.  He and his wife donated millions to his university.  Most coaches cannot claim that.  Yes, he was tragically flawed, and there's no doubt about that.  He wasn't the guy that his enablers and elegizers wanted us to believe he was.  But he wasn't Jerry Sandusky, either.  Penn State students, fans, alumni and community members never should have put him on the pedestal that they did.  And he shouldn't have let them.  But he did a bunch of good things, even if he's getting excoriated now.  As for the latter, how many millions died because of his policies?  50 million?  Joe Paterno was human, and, yes, more so than most of the rest of us.  But that doesn't make him one of history's major villains.  What he did -- or did not do -- was terrible, yes, but as with many things, it will take a while for the furor to die down and for the professional observers to reflect on his strengths and weaknesses.  By the same token, those who played for him, many of whom had deep, personal connections, shouldn't blindly defend his image, either.  That's not right, and it certainly won't help the healing, either.

6.  Hopefully some good can come out of this across the board.  First, all universities should have clear rule as to how to report the types of activities that Mike McQueary and others witnessed.  Second, all universities should make it clear that it wants/needs that type of conduct to be reported quickly and that if there were any retribution, those who retaliate will be gone, even if they won 409 games in their careers.  Third, the BCS schools need to change their cultures -- no one there should eclipse the institution, period.  No coach or team, and that goes for Coach K at Duke and John Calipari at Kentucky and anyone else you can name.  The welfare of all community members -- neighbors, employees, students, alumni -- should come before the compensation and ego of any coach and the record and opportunities of any team.  As importantly, the education of all students must be paramount, period.  All students deserve more.

7.  Should they have stripped Joe Paterno of victories dating back to 1998?  Whew.  Outside a request from an attorney in Grambling, Louisiana (home of Grambling University and its legendary coach, Eddie Robinson), I didn't hear much about this until the NCAA did this.  I wasn't expecting it, and I think that what motivated the NCAA was to make the punishment personal to Paterno, whom it believed could have and should have done more to report Sandusky and make him persona non grata at Penn State.  Then again, the players on those teams most likely witnessed nothing, had nothing to do with Paterno's decisions and did nothing to cause the scandal.  The need to punish Paterno personally created collateral damage -- to hard-working kids, class-attending kids -- who, at least in their minds if not more -- now are victims too.  I'm not sure whether this is the right result -- or not.  It certainly knocks Paterno off any pedestals that might remain after his death.  That it does do.  No one wins in a tragedy.

8.  Should Penn State have taken the statue of Joe Paterno down?  Absolutely.  Heck, it never should have gone up in the first place, and while I do not like to use the words "always" and "never," "never" applies here.  Who on this earth lets a statue of them be constructed while she/he is still alive?  Who lets that happen?  First, it's not humble.  Second, it's hubris (and rubs the person's fame into the faces of others and also sets a standard of behavior -- tantamount to the qualifications for sainthood -- that the person will be held to).  Third, it's just ridiculous (and just as ridiculous as letting your likeness be painted on a mural -- with a halo over your head).   With that as background, the answer is easy -- of course it should have come down, and there shouldn't have been any debate over that.  The whole root of the problem was the glorification of football and the coach of the team -- straight out of the Freeh report and the NCAA's response.   I know that this hurts some people who really looked up to Joe Paterno -- but those people should re-examine why they did and why that statue is so important to them (and that's not to say that Joe Paterno didn't do great things for some people -- I am sure that he did -- but that doesn't mean he warranted a statue while he was alive).   As Diane Henriques wrote in her book about Bernie Madoff, commenting on why Madoff's scam lasted for so long, "the biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves."  Among them are a) that Penn State football is more important than anything else in my life and b) Joe Paterno was a saint.  Admitting that those aren't true flat out hurts.

9.  The future for Penn State will be difficult, across the board.    The fine will hurt the school, and not just the football program.  Yes, fans will rally behind the current seniors and perhaps fill Beaver Stadium this year, but in year three when the team is depleted and not landing top recruits and ends up 3-9 and losing to the likes of Temple, who knows  Some will argue that this is a small price to pay when an over-emphasis on football led to what it did.  And if football were the only thing that were hurt, that wouldn't be so bad, at least for a while.  But revenues from football help fund other sports at BCS sports, and Penn State is no exception.  So, other athletes might get hurt.  Then again, many BCS schools over-emphasize all sports, so if all sports were to get hurt, I am not as concerned, either.  The reason I say this is that we need a greater emphasis on the education of all kids, and their positive experiences should extend far beyond the classroom and six fall football weekends.

But that's the easy part.  Penn State might not have insurance for the types of lawsuits that it will get hit with from victims, and if it has insurance the carriers might try to deny coverage.  The university might not have the funds to pay all the victims, especially if there are jury trials and if the plaintiffs ask for punitive damages (which may not be covered by insurance anyway).  The financial ramifications could be pretty awful.

10.  Conclusion.  Penn State is a wonderful institution with terrific programs and outstanding students and alumni.  It really is.  That said, it had a tragic flaw, one that it will have to take great measures to repair, and one that will take time to repair.  What the institution must do, however, is to move forward with its football program without further lament from current players or former players, most of whom are dismayed to disillusioned to devastated, but none of whom will help the process by arguing about the penalties the school incurred or Coach Paterno's legacy.  The jury has spoken in the Sandusky case, and the Freeh report speaks for itself.  Unless there are tremendous flaws which strike at the root of the findings, the school -- and its alumni -- need to move on.  The school also needs to adopt many of the suggestions of the Freeh report, change its culture and honor the best the the school and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -- have to offer.  Ultimately, some good can come out of this tragedy -- about preventing child abuse, about cultures of accountability, about making sure that academics always come first, even at BCS schools.  But it will take some time.

Tragedies have no winners.

And no, the games shouldn't go on, not now, not for a while.

Penn State: Say It Ain't So, Joe.

I wrote this piece in November.  I suppose that I did not doubt what Judge Freeh's investigation would conclude.  I also think that it still holds today.  You can read this piece, called "The End of the Innocence" here.

Once in a while I have spoken with my wife about not wanting to send our kids to any institution of higher learning where any program or department or person seemed to be greater in importance than the institution or where any coach made more money than the university president.  The root of that comment is found, in part, in the whole Penn State tragedy.  The football program and its coach became larger than the university.  And therein began the problem.

Identity with the football program and, by extension, its coach, the Ivy-educated Joe Paterno (who eschewed law school to coach at Penn State) became more important than the university itself.  And, so did Coach Paterno.

And a funny thing can happen to great men.   On the way to their transcending excellence, they develop a vision and a philosophy that drives them.  What can distinguish them from the rest of us is their drive and their self-confidence.  Many of us don't push ourselves as hard, have difficulty filtering all of the advice we get, perhaps listen to more of it than the great men, and then bog down in that advice and settle for lesser roles (correspondingly, we also might not share that ambition, might want a more balanced life, and might not want to "do what it takes" to get to that high a perch -- so this is by no means a condemnation of most people, who don't become household names but who do contribute to forming the core of their communities).  We also might be kinder, because to achieve that kind of excellence involves making the kinds of decisions that can hurt people -- telling a kid who's played football his whole life that he's not good enough, pushing the athletic director hard for more resources, getting an academic dean to back off the star position player so he can remain eligible, firing an assistant coach because he cannot recruit.  In essence, being very tough -- and sometimes mean -- to other people's children.  Greatness, then, has its costs.

In addition, the more successful these great men become, the more they risk surrounding themselves with people who not only are not candid with them, but who also tell them what they want to hear and validate their every move, no matter how unthinking, how insensitive, or how unkind.   Why does that happen?  Well, for one, the great man starts to believe in his own publicity, and starts to believe that everything he touches must be golden.  Those who surround him bask in the aura of being affiliated with him and don't want to risk being frozen out or excluded if they were to take a stand.  So, sometimes, they compromise their judgments and stifle their views in order to keep an important part of their identity intact.   This phenomenon is the flip side to the talent of the great man and his professional accomplishments, which are not to be denied and are vast.  But it also seems to be the case that as the accomplishments peak, the flip side becomes more pronounced -- and sometimes can lead to the downfall of the great man.

The downfall comes because reason gets comprised and reality gets distorted.  In Penn State's case, you know the story.  Joe Paterno had become larger than life, and no one had the courage to say, "this is lunacy, Joe, we have to go as high as the President if we have to, but we have to report this and, also, take care of these kids.  Jerry has got to go, period, no compromises."  And if the response was, "how can you say that after all he has done for the university, the football program and me?' then the advisor -- anyone -- should have said, "the serious possibility of vicious felonies against children throws all of that out the window."  And, yes, everyone is entitled to a defense, and, yes, eyewitness accounts aren't always accurate.  I get all of that.  But when the smoke persisted, they had to do a lot more than they did.  And given Joe Paterno's clear position of authority and influence -- far greater than anyone else's in Happy Valley -- he should have set the example that no one is bigger than the university and that everyone had a duty to do the right thing.  He didn't.

And while to be great means that you might have to be tough on, even nasty or mean to somebody's child to get to your perch, you don't have to create a culture where another can do unspeakable things to somebody else's children and get away with it.  Therein lies the big difference between the regrettable narcissism that can accompany legends and the lack of accountability that pulls those legends back to earth and crumbles them on impact.

It was easy to oust those who were ousted, and they should have been ousted, Coach Paterno included.   But the entire Board should be replaced, too.  There are very good people on that Board -- excellent people -- but they also presided over a culture that put football and Coach Paterno on a pedestal and I am sure got enjoyment out of the fact that they were affiliated with such a larger-than-life legend as Joe Paterno.  Each of the Board members should ask themselves the question:  "Honestly, did I get off on the fact that Penn State had a great football program and that we were blessed to have such a great man as Joe Paterno leading it -- and every now and then more so than anything else about the university?"  And if the answer is yes, then he or she should resign, because then he or she enabled a culture that prioritized the wrong things and rendered Joe Paterno and the football program unaccountable and provided it with a disproportionate amount of influence.  The Board. lamentably, was a party to the enabling of the culture that led to the failure to report Jerry Sandusky's alleged actions.  As a result, it should be replaced.

That's a sad conclusion to draw, but a necessary one to honor the victims, change the culture and enable the healing.  The administration has turned over, the football coaching staff has turned over, and now this must happen too.  There doesn't seem to be any other way.

The detritus, the destruction, the barren landscape that can resulted from a catastrophe should help Penn State start anew and serve as a reminder for generations that the core values of human life far outweigh whether you go to a BCS Bowl and can contend for a national title.  And, perhaps, if Penn State were to suspend football for a season (or more), the quiet Saturdays at Beaver Stadium could serve as a compelling monument to a new culture that puts every member of the Nittany Lion community on the same footing, with clear mechanisms as to what to do if the predicate acts of the Sandusky affair were to come into their community again.  The lives of boys -- and in this case disadvantaged ones -- should take precedence over a boys' game.

These are sad times in Happy Valley, as they should be.  Times for reflection, times for soul-searching, times for transformation, times for cleansing and times for healing.   And, yes, the circumstances dictate that the landscape of those who were in power be reduced, relatively speaking, to the foundation and to the core.

And I, for one, don't care if they tear down the Lash building while they're at it, tear down the statue of Joe Paterno, or if they play another football game there for a long time.

Because college should be a lot more than identifying with a coach and a football program (and a coach, by the way, who was permitted to stay well beyond his prime because the authorities at the university let the coach become bigger than the institution).  After all, there are tens of thousands of kids at Penn State, 99+ percent of whom have NOTHING to do with the football program.  And they should ask themselves the following question:  what does the football program do for me?  Because, if they are honest with themselves, the answer really is a resounding "nothing" or at least a "not all that much."

And, in the process, they should demand more of the university and, correspondingly, of themselves -- in terms of programs, training, the building of skills -- yes, education and refortify the school's image as a place that not only prepares its students well for the job market (as PSU fared well in a survey among employers in a national magazine within the past year), but also for leadership within communities.

After all, universities should be about building better people. . . and not statutes of football coaches (and while they are still alive, at that) and football programs.

A lot more.