- The Illinois High School Athletic Association has had all it can stand, too. Its directors have voted 7-2 to abandon the state’s two-class high school sports system (in place since 1972) to go to four classes starting in 2007. Only 57% of the state’s schools responded to a poll on the matter and from that group 64% of the principals voted for the New Deal. The usual modern-day suspects drove the change: the unfairness of everything; a desire to “level the playing field;” resentment of achievement; the need to have more young athletes and community members feel better (or, ideally, “good”) about themselves; the cultural imperative for equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity; and so on and so forth. (January 12, 2006)
- A group of Indiana public high school coaches has launched another initiative in the Resentment Against Achievement War, which will surely succeed as others have before it. This time it’s a move to punish private schools (code for: parochial schools) who’ve been winning too many state athletic championships. The scheme works this way, according to a massive article in the January 29 Indianapolis Star: when state authorities tally enrollments, which are used to assign all schools to classes for athletic competition, one student will count as one student in public schools, but one will count as 1.5 in parochial schools. The “1.5 multiplier” will thus force parochial schools into higher athletic classifications, where their secular opponents will have larger (actual, not phantom) enrollments. This, the schemers pray, will reduce the chances for the parochial schools to achieve athletic success and—most horrifying of all for the aggrieved publics—win state championships. There are certain obvious dilemmas—for example, what if the 1.5 multiplier doesn’t produce enough phantom enrollment to force the target’s class upward? (Answer: keep raising the multiplier until it does)--but these will surely be resolved. The coaches’ proposal will go before athletic conference principals--where it will pass, since public schools far outnumber parochial--for a vote February 14. Then on May 1 the IHSAA, the rubber-stamping athletics-governing body, will make it law. Indiana actually lags behind sister states in legislating ways to prevent disproportionalism. Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky have already enacted affirmative action plans for public schools which, there too, couldn’t win their fair share of championship trophies. If the “1.5” plan doesn’t work, rest assured the rules will be tweaked and the playing fields tilted until everyone has a trophy and the needed level of self-esteem. So much time and agony could be spared if we’d just mail all students and all schools a championship trophy at the end of each sport’s season, and be done with it. Every principal and coach should get one, too. (January 31, 2006)
- GIve the Indianapolis Star credit: its big story on the “1.5 Multiplier Movement” in Indiana high school sports laid out the truly horrifying facts for all to see. It provided a table showing just how awful it is for public schools in the state title derby. The Star measured 10 classifications of five sports played by two sexes. Therein it found parochial schools comprising only 8.65% (75) of the total number of schools (867) competing, but winning 56 (46.28%) of 121 state championships. Unfairism? Unjustism? Disproportionalism? Disparatism? Racism? Fatism? Lookism? Capitalism? Or Just Good, Old-Fashioned Ass-Kickings By The Mighty and Invincible Armies of God? Whatever ism, demon, or hobgoblin it is, something must be done. (January 31, 2006)
- An American couple won an ice-dancing medal at the Winter Olympics for the first time in 30 years but the free-skate finals audience on Sunday got to see something even more amazing. The Italian team—Maurizio Margaglio and Barbara Fusar-Poli (that hyphenated last name is the first clue to where this is headed)—had a protracted, world-class hissy fit. Following a disastrous fall at the conclusion of their original dance routine the night before, the two ignored each other, refused even to speak. She glared at him. He glared at her. The next night, they warmed up separately, refused to even look at each other. The cameras followed their every move and angry, sullen look. The broadcasters agreed they had never, never, never seen anything like this. The pair completed a successful program Sunday but were out of the running for a medal. I thought it would have been most appropriate if, during a rotational lift at the end of their Sunday skate, he would have spun faster and faster, like a discus thrower, and frisbee’d her deep into the arena’s cheap seats. But there is no such justice in this world. (February 20, 2006)
- “That’s sport. We got beat. Some days you’re the bug and some days you’re the windshield.”—Robert Cuneo, bobsled and race car designer, business executive, and head of a “materials committee” for the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation which sets rules and specifications for sled racing, commenting (in a 2006 Winter Olympics article in the Wall Street Journal) on a controversial German bobsled which beat a sled he designed. (February 23, 2006)
- Seeing the insipid Bode Miller get his comeuppance was my favorite moment from the Winter Olympics. He disgraced himself, his family, the U.S. team, and his country with his behavior and comments. It was simply wonderful to see him humiliated. (February 27, 2006)
- Something called the Ultimate Sports Road Trip—a couple of guys who travel the nation visiting and evaluating sports facilities—has for the second time in four years rated Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis the best facility in the United States out of all basketball, football, baseball and hockey venues. (March 4, 2006)
- Three more danged bunches of Christians have committed unforgivable sins in Indiana girls high school basketball—they’ve won state championships. Heritage Christian won Class 2A, Fort Wayne BishopLuers won its fifth straight Class 3A title, and Lafayette Central Catholic took the Class A trophy. (The only public school to win a title was Castle, in Class 4A.) But help is on the way for the Equality of Outcome Brigades. The IHSAA is expected to approve on May 1 a plan to punish private schools for winning too many championships by instituting an enrollment multiplier. (March 5, 2006)
- Not far behind Associated Press on the March Troublemakers List was that citadel of unbridled capitalist greed, The Wall Street Journal. It published a massive story on the money river flowing through college basketball, complete with a list of coaching salaries at 50 schools. It isn’t clear why some schools don’t appear on the list—such as the University of Louisville where Rick Pitino’s salary is rumored to be higher than anyone the Journal did list, and others such as Purdue and Texas Tech (home of the legendary Coach). The highest salary listed is Tubby Smith’s $1.9 million at Kentucky. Close behind are Florida’s Billy Donovan at $1.7 million, Tom Izzo at Michigan State ($1.6 million), Jim Calhoun of Connecticut at $1.5 million, Roy Williams of North Carolina and Mike Kryzewski of Duke, both at $1.4 million, Rick Barnes of Texas ($1.3 million), Tom Crean of Marquette (1.1 million), and John Calipari (Memphis) at $1.2 million. Three coaches--Bill Self (Kansas), Kelvin Sampson (Oklahoma), and Mark Gottfried (Alabama)—are at $1.0 million The Journal’s data came from 2003 forms the schools are required by federal law to issue. In some cases, the paper noted, coaches have signed later deals at higher pay, such as Ohio State’s Thad Matta who just got an $11 million deal for eight years at Ohio State, an annual rate of $1.375 million. Mike Davis ($780,000) of Indiana and Steve Alford ($800,000) of Iowa, Bruce Weber of Illinois ($700,000), and Bo Ryan of Wisconsin ($700,000) were the other Big Ten coaches included. (March 10, 2006)
- How many times have sports fans wondered over power breakfasts how many points Purdue’s great shooter, Rick Mount, would have scored had there been a three-point shot in his day? Mount sent a Big Ten record of 61 points on 27 of 47 field goal shooting against Iowa on February 28,1970. The Indianapolis Star, in a delightful story on Indiana basketball legends, lists and lore in its March 31 edition, noted that someone later researched game films and determined the answer was: 74 points. The same article noted that over 750 million pairs of Chuck Taylor All-Star basketball shoes (designed by Chuck Taylor of tiny Azalia, Indiana) have been sold since 1932. I’m happy to report I’ve owned a few pairs myself.
- “I’m on a mission. Somebody has to pay. Somebody is going to pay until I end my career. I’m the terminator. I’m in terminator mode and I’m trying not to get out of it.”—Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards, who was very angry about being left off the NBA all-star team until a replacement was needed for an injured player. Arenas played 9:51 in the game, took four shots and missed them all, had one assist, one foul, and scored one point.
- “. . .he’s never hurt anybody. He’s not a bad person. He’s a great person. It was just that certain things he said caused the media to go crazy.”—Jermaine O’Neal of the Indiana Pacers, referring to his recently-traded teammate, Ron Artest. (Quoted in the February 20, 2006 issue of the Indianapolis Star).
- Jeff Meadows “wants to be known as the guy who changed the game, who put another twist on the game. I want to be known as a guy who changed the game for the good.” He’s talkin’ about basketball, which seems pretty good already. The “change” he wants is to start a national all-star basketball game for 8th grade boys. Meadows lives in Phoenix and he somehow got the attention of Chicago Tribune high school sports editor Barry Temkin, who broke the news to the Midwestern version of the world in an April 28 column. Next year is the target, and he wants it held in Chicago. He plans to mimic the McDonald’s All-American Game format: invite 24 of the best players in the country, pay all their expenses, provide a few hours of “life skills training” and stress good behavior and sportsmanship. Funding, Meadows believes, will come from gate receipts and corporate sponsors—and guess what!?—an athletic shoe company is already said to be panting at the prospect. Temkin noted that already there are AAU national basketball tournaments at the second grade level, an Adidas Junior Phenom Camp targets 6th-graders, and recruiting Web sites rank athletes starting at that level. Meadows’ idea “may seem crazy,” Temkin wrote, “but basketball lost its mind years ago.” Yup. (May 1, 2006)
- The Mickey Mantle card in the 1952 Topps baseball card set drew bids over $14,000 during the last week of April in an auction conducted by Leland’s, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. (April 23, 2006)
- Social engineering in Indiana suffered a major, but temporary, setback May 1 when a panel of school principals voted 15-0 against a proposal designed to prevent private high schools from winning so many athletic championships. The plan would have used a “multiplier” to artificially increase enrollments at private schools when assigning them to size-based athletic competition. A private school with, say, 100 students would be multiplied by 1.5 and then treated as though it had 150 students. This would force them to play against larger high schools where, it was prayed, they would not be able to win as much. Several committee members were quoted in the Indianapolis Star. All were polite and careful in their comments, saying in essence that they recognized that private school dominance was a problem, but even they couldn’t quite stomach the use of phony, jacked-up enrollment figures to allow the whiners to win more trophies. So, this insidious idea has been beaten back for the moment. It will be resurrected, of course, because people who think like this never give up the struggle. Eternal vigilance is the price the rest of us should eagerly pay to keep them at bay. (May 5, 2006)
- Remember George O’Leary, the football coach Notre Dame hired and then fired a week or two later when it discovered his resume contained mistakes and errors in judgment (code for: lies)? Well, he was hired by the University of Central Florida, which just gave him a 10-year extension at $1 million a year. O’Leary is credited with taking “one of the worst football programs in America” to an 8-5 record in two seasons. And to think, IU, which certainly is one of the very worst, was never interested in George. (May 24, 2006)
- “We’re dirtbags, like 99 percent of the world. Maybe worse, because we are baseball players.”—Todd Helton, first baseman for the Colorado Rockies, quoted in the June 12 issue of Newsweek magazine.
- Not much in the news these days to cheer about, but here’s a little something: the State of North Dakota says it’s going to sue the NCAA for penalizing the University of North Dakota for its Fighting Sioux nickname and Indian head logo. The NCAA announced its policy of prohibiting “hostile” or “abusive” nicknames last year and so far has found 18 schools guilty. More schools need to stand up and fight back. (June 10, 2006)
- Easing through Denver the other day, I picked up a copy of the Rocky Mountain News in fond hope that the Tasmanian Devil of Sports Columnists, Bernie Lincicome, would be there still slashing away. And, lo, he was—in high dudgeon, handing out his Half Gassed Awards at baseball’s all-star game break. These were, in Bernie’s own words, his way of “catching up on all the baseball news that hasn’t involved Barry Bonds, grand juries, or redacted affidavits.” This is one beautiful guy. (July 12, 2006)
- Meantime, former major league baseball player Wayne Terwilliger, a 1950s infielder with the Cubs, Giants, and Dodgers, was profiled in the July 12 New York Times, which pictured him wearing an earring as an 81-year-old first base coach with the Fort Worth (Texas) Cats. He said he paid $29 for it. (July 13, 2006)
- “I’ve seen more passes made at a eunuchs convention.”—Bob Kravitz, sports columnist, writing in the Indianapolis Star about how dull Formula One auto racing is. (July 17, 2006)
- An addition—by acclamation!—to the list of most wonderful athlete names of all time: Fido Willyboro, who played forward for the Lehigh University basketball team in the mid-1990s. He is mentioned numerous times in author John Feinstein’s book about the Patriot League’s 1995-96 season, The Last Amateurs. (August 4, 2006)
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The Star brought us a big front-page story this morning about the latest plague threatening the nation: the rise of text messaging by college coaches and athletic recruiters. The NCAA is said to be deeply concerned. Youngsters themselves were interviewed and a few found the practice bothersome. Eric Gordon, the Indianapolis prep basketball player ranked No. 1 in the country, told eager reporters he was getting as many as 60 text messages a day on his cell phone. Of course there is an easy solution to this, which doesn’t require NCAA snoops or federal legislation. The besieged athlete can toss his cell phone in the river and let the recruiters text message a carp. In some cases, nobody will know the difference. (September 13, 2006)
Lloyd, Lloyd, Lloyd. . .
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“If you coach enough of these games, you’re going to win some and lose some.”—Lloyd Carr, head football coach at the University of Michigan, quoted after Michigan humiliated Notre Dame, 47-21, while apparently unaware that a third possibility, tying, existed. (September 17, 2006)
A Root Cause Of Crime?
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Sports scribes at the Green Bay Press-Gazette examined police arrest records covering 94 of the 107 home games played by the Packers at Lambeau Field in the last 10 years and found an average of 5.8 arrests per game are made when the team wins, and 9.08 when they lose. When the arch-rival Chicago Bears visit, arrests average 9.1 per game, win or lose. Speculation is that booze has something to do with this—from the Chicago Tribune sports pages. (September 18, 2006)
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Time to brace ourselves. Major League Soccer has announced that next year it will begin selling advertising on the fronts of player jerseys. Reporter Jon Weinbach in the September 28 Wall Street Journal notes this could encourage other pro sports leagues which have been hanging back. The NFL and major league baseball allow apparel firms to display their logos on team uniforms, and last year baseball commissioner David Stern hinted it may soon loosen its policies. I expect to live to see the day—if it’s not already here-- when the next frontier will be broken: advertising on the human body, either in permanent or temporary format. An individual could sell a color tattoo across his forehead for Verizon or Honda or Prozac for either immediate cash, beer, or a retirement annuity. And after that it will only be a matter of time till needy adults begin selling advertising rights on newborns—we already abort ‘em, what’s the problem with slapping ads on ‘em? Eventually, federal legislation will make it mandatory, and they’ll come to your house to tattoo ads on you—right after they’ve forced you, at gunpoint, to shop--if you don’t voluntarily submit. (September 28, 2006)
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We’ve long huffed and snorted about the increasing corruption of college sports by money, primarily from television. Seldom does a year go by without some new frontier being breached. And now, a correspondent from the remote northern Indiana hamlet of Deerfly calls to report this latest blasphemy: Miami University of Ohio got its homecoming football game on television--by playing it on a Sunday night! No word on how delightful and convenient this was for alumni and fans--but who cares? A boatload of cash was made and the deal went down in a flash. (October 8, 2006).
No Slack For A-Rod
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This year’s Yankees were a pretty good team at the plate but quite ordinary in other departments, and mostly mediocre in the crucial one—pitching. The network broadcasters couldn’t stop talking about all the former All Stars in the Yankees lineup as the AL playoffs began. Nobody seemed to take the feisty Tigers seriously. But their guys pitched well and neutered Yankee hitters. Detroit took three of four to send the Yankees home for the winter. Poor A-rod. Another miserable playoffs performance. Someone will throw up his season statistics—38 homers, 100+ RBIs, a .290s batting average, and say it’s not right to criticize him for being a playoffs fraud (zero RBIs in the last two years). The point, to bitchers like me, is not the stats, but the money. For $250+ million, Rodriguez does not get any days or weeks or series of playoffs “off.” Of course the money is not A-rod’s fault. But when you take it, unreasonable expectations are inevitable. Cheers for the teams who do it with a modest payroll and smart baseball decisions! (October 10, 2006)
Hey! That’s Not Beethoven’s Fifth! That’s The Crackle of Small Arms Fire!
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Our beloved Indiana Pacers are taking a terrific pounding from an angry public after the team’s Most Recent Unpleasantness. This one is said to have involved errors in judgment, mistakes, by four players—Stephen Jackson, Jamaal Tinsley, Marquis Daniels, and Jimmie “Snap” Hunter, who found themselves—almost as if the victims of an alien abduction—surrounded by unsavories in a Westside strip joint parking lot at three o’clock one morning last week. After some pushing and shoving, threats, scuffling and fighting, Jackson’s pistol was fired—dang thing musta gone off by itself!—after a total stranger tried to run over a Pacer in a car. Then thugs and cars roared off into the night. Police found a teeny bag of marijuana—dang!--how’d that ever get in there?—in the Tinsley car, and a few days later felony charges were filed against the completely misunderstood Jackson, who is still on court probation in Michigan for his role in the famous Detroit brawl of November 19, 2004, involving Pacers and Pistons players and fans. It was quickly pointed out that all the Pacers who were carrying their concealed weapons had the proper legal permits to do so. Once the non-Pacer fugitives were rounded up it was learned that—big stunner here--a couple of them had prior criminal records. Pacers executives Donny Walsh and Larry Bird initially ducked public comment with the excuse that all the facts weren’t in. They eventually issued weak, silly statements about how disappointed they were and called for still more tolerance and understanding from fans and the public. All this from a franchise battered by several years of fan disenchantment over player thuggery, whining, and bad behavior, and a recent big PR campaign to convince the fan base that all these disgraces were behind us and the Pacers were now a changed bunch once again worthy of our adoration. Well, they’re not. The average fan “gets it” without any difficulty—behavior like this just doesn’t cut it here in the Midwest, and Pacers management ought to be ashamed of itself for its continued tolerance of it. Bird’s feeble response is especially disappointing. (October 15, 2006)
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An Indianapolis Star article—“Fill Seats or Else”-- on attendance problems in the Mid-American Conference offered a fascinating college football tidbit: “On a recent Sunday, five NFL starting quarterbacks were from the MAC, more than from any other conference.” Their names were not revealed. (October 20, 2006)
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The NCAA, which swears all those billions of tax-free sports income it receives are purely for educational purposes, has a rule mandating that a Division I-A school must average a minimum of 15,000 paid or actual attendance per game at football or face expulsion from the brotherhood. Fifteen schools were below that threshold last year, according to the Star’s article, and six of those (Ball State, Bowling Green, Akron, Buffalo, Kent State, and Eastern Michigan) were from the Mid-American Conference. If this was really all about education, why would attendance at football games matter? (October 20, 2006)
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The announcement that major league baseball players and owners have reached a new bargaining agreement came in the same week as reviews of a new book about the largely-forgotten man—Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals---who made possible the present crop of multimillionaire players. A Well-Paid Slave, by Brad Snyder (reviewed in the Wall Street Journal), is a reverent account of Flood’s career and life, both of which ended badly. Flood sued major league baseball in 1969 over the “reserve clause” which for decades had allowed owners to dictate salaries and prevented players from offering their services in an open market. Even fans who remember Flood may have forgotten that he actually lost his case when the Supreme Court ruled against him in 1972. Flood’s fellow players offered him almost no support (Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski said Flood’s suit “would ruin the game”) and the national press corps, except for Howard Cosell, Red Smith of the New York Times, and Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times, stoutly backed ownership. But three years later, emboldened by Flood’s action, two more players, Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith, took up the same cause. This time, though, they sidestepped the court system. Instead, they went before an independent arbitrator, a right their newly-formed players union had negotiated. The arbitrator tossed out the reserve clause and baseball free agency began. His baseball career over, Flood, the Journal’s review noted, suffered from alcoholism, financial disasters, even fled the country to avoid creditors. Flood died in 1997 of throat cancer at age 59 and not a single active baseball player attended his funeral. Warts and all, he deserved better. (October 23, 2006)
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NBA star Stephon Marbury of the New York Knicks is marketing a basketball shoe he hopes will challenge the big guy brands. Marbury’s “Starbury One” model will sell for $14.98 a pair in Steve and Barry’s, a national deep discount store chain. A full-page story in USA Today compared the features of Marbury’s shoe with vastly more expensive brands and claimed Marbury’s are right up there in quality. Marbury himself says, “This ain’t no hoax.” Many other models sell for over $100. Nike’s Air Jordans XXI retail at $175. This is an interesting business venture, one that may hit a home run in the hearts of many cash-starved families trying to shoe their kids. (November 1, 2006)
Keep Your Head Ducked Low—It’s A Jungle Out There
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Arizona State fired its football coach (Dirk Koetter) after a 7-5 season (and a 40-33 record over the last six years) and owes $2.85 million on the contract. . .Alabama fired its coach (Mike Shula) after a 10-2 season in 2005 and a 6-6 record this year, the school’s fourth coach to be fired since 2000. . .and a man fatally shot a friend with a high-powered rifle in a dispute over a $20 bet on the South Carolina-Clemson football game—Late November sports news from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Greg Oden, Ohio State’s 7-foot monster man, made his much-heralded debut Dec. 2, with 14 points, 10 rebounds, and five blocked shots, all while shooting with his left hand (he is coming off surgery on his right wrist and played with it wrapped in a brace). The IndianapolisStar thoughtfully provided notes on the college debuts of other notable large creatures. Wilt Chamberlain of Kansas, still in my opinion the best big man of all time, debuted on December 3, 1956—he had 52 points on 20-for-29 field goal shooting and added 31 rebounds; Lew Alcindor’s UCLA debut, also on December 3 (1966), included 56 points; Ralph Sampson (1979) scored 17 points on 8-for-12 shooting, added eight rebounds, four steals, two assists, and one block for Virginia; Patrick Ewing (Georgetown) had only seven points and two blocks in his 1981 debut. (December 3, 2006)
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Add to the magnificent list of all-time great sports team nicknames: the Tennessee Mud Frogs (now in the American Basketball Association). (December 29, 2006)