Let's start there. The 20-20 TD club? An interesting stat. Like knowing the ratio of pigeons to statues in New York City. But what does it tell you? Does it put Tebow up there with the best ever? While we're at it, is the Heisman trophy even relevant? Here's your four heroes, pick whichever one the hype machines paint the nicest golden shade. Don't worry if you guess wrong, there are better players not on the dance card.
The bowl games are coming up. Ohio State and LSU. Where's Georgia?
Where's USC? Where's the game that will settle it all. Not getting
one of those this year. And how about Les Miles? He seemed awful fond
of Michigan's maize and blue, but somehow managed to develop an
affinity to LSU's green along the way. What about a nice punch in the
mouth to any coach who uses the word "kids" in a sentence?
Sports is getting more and more like Christmas. There's just so much of it. Inescapable, commercialized beyond reason, and everyone says you're supposed to be excited. "Honey , does it blow your mind that the prophets would lie." Rodney Crowell got it right.
Another day another multi-million dollar football coach who may or may not ever win anything. A new $100 million stadium renovation plan at Rutgers, while they cut $114 million from the academic budget and eliminate six sports that real students take part in.
More athletes arrested, but that's a given. Would be a headline story if a day went by and none were downtown getting the free profile photo pack.
So you turn on the news and there is Barry Bonds. The best hitter since Ted Williams walking into court surrounded by the best defense team money can buy, sporting a reputation money can't fix.
Some 17 year old trigger man wants to make a deal after shooting down Sean Taylor in his home. Pathetic. Sad. Disgusting. Meanwhile, what to think? One day everybody talks about Taylor's murder as a byproduct of his lifestyle. The next day all and sundry moralize about a rush to judgement. Then the NFL does what it does, and turns death into a United Way commercial version of life, complete with missing man formation. Everything and nothing was true. None of it really much matters.
Someone is throwing down a dunk on TV. Down by 20, but keeping track of the style points. A muscle bound layup. And we clap because we're supposed to, and we watch because there is nothing else on, and then we hit the mall to buy $120 sneakers that cost $17 to produce. Could be worse, we could be scraping by in Southeast Asia making shoes. Or we could be the last American shoe maker, if one exits.
A little light reading is good this time of year. The Mitchell report will come out Thursday. Owners will try to act suprised and morally outraged when the players they managed not to see juicing are named in black and white. Maybe Bonds won't look so bad when so many other big names don't look so good.
Todd Bertuzzi is back skating after a concussion. Steve Moore, the guy who he attacked from behind and severely injured a few years back, is out of hockey. The lawyers have been playing tether ball with it for two years. Now there is testimony it all happened because Bertuzzi's coach wrote on a locker room black board that Moore should "pay a price". Hope Moore got a receipt with "paid in full" marked on it.
And so we stagger on. Through the winter meetings, through bowls, through the Super Bowl. Maybe we'll get what we want for Christmas. The Cowboys inflicting rough justice on the Patriots for various sins, real or imagined. Then again, the way this year is going it will probably be the Seahawks and Jaguars.
What we need is something new. Something or someone exciting. A new Joe Namath, a new Michael Jordan, a new Larry Bird, a new Bobby Orr, a new Willie Mays, a new Dale Earnhardt, a new Jack Nicklaus. A return to the Monsters of Midway, Notre Dame football, the Canadiens racing down the ice 3 on 2, a great baseball team not assembled, bought, and paid for by the highest bidder. A John Wooden, Jim Valvano, Tom Landry, Billy Martin, or Bo Schembechler.
The Times article was generally positive, with Greg Oden of Ohio State (an honor roll student in high school) talking about the benefits of being in the college environment for a year. Players like Oden, who already have NBA ability, are in college for their freshmen season mainly because an NBA rule keeps them there. Players must be 19 and one year removed from high school to apply.
There is a point missing in all this and that is the question of when a college student is really a college student. Are players who leave for the pros after a year really representing their college, or are they hired guns passing through town on the way to the big pay day? If that's the case, what do Greg Oden and Daequon Cook at OSU or Kevin Durant at Texas really have to do with the schools they play for?
Put another way. Suppose you're applying for college and you get to the essay section of the application. Try telling Home Town U. that your intention is to hang around campus for a year and leave to get a job. Better still, that you intend to blow off most your second semester courses to work on getting ready for what you'll be doing next year. The college admissions personnel might rightly ask why you deserve a place in their freshman class over students who might actually graduate? Or why faculty should waste their time on you, or your peers have their time wasted by your presence in class?
Take it from the player's point of view. How would you feel if you were the next Bill Gates and were forced to attend college for nine months before going off to invent the next big thing? It's an absurd proposition, but one the NBA and NCAA have devised for their own financial benefit. Players like Oden are on record as resenting the rule, but so far it hasn't been challenged in court.
The NBA's minimum age rule has no compelling reason behind it. It doesn't protect players from physical harm (after all they will play in the league in just one more year). The arguement that it protects players from foolishly declaring for the draft and then not being drafted is, at best, paternalistic and insulting. So, why does the rule exist?
The NCAA likes the rule because without it the truely great players will never spend so much as a day on campus. They would like a rule that puts LeBron James in their employ for four years, but if a year is all they can get they will take it. The NBA wants GMs to be protected from their own unwise decisions in drafting players they have seen compete only against high school players. They want the league's future players to spend a year in the minors so they can evaluate them against older competition. Nest season O.J. Mayo will be at USC. Mainly, according to his advisors, because he wants to associate himself with USC's athletic success for later endorsement reasons.
Recently, Congress looked at removing the NCAA's tax exempt status. It won't happen, but it is past time. When it comes to the revenue sports, the NCAA is running minor league sports teams and exploiting their employees. It's time for the NCAA to go out of business, and for college sports to go back to having some connection to the institutions it represents.
The Cowboys-Colts game was great. New respect for both teams. The first half had some of the hardest hitting I've seen in a couple of seasons. Terrance Newman is probably still answering phones that aren't ringing after getting snow plowed on a punt return at the sideline. If Payton Manning appeared less than the league's best quarterback, consider that he stayed under pressure all afternoon. Bill Parcels said it well when he commented that running out the clock at the end without giving the ball back to Manning was the key to the win. And Manning is still much funnier than Tony Romo.
What's the deal with Julius Jones of Dallas? He can break runs for 20 yards a pop between the 20 yard lines, but Dallas has to, or wants to, give the ball to Marion Barber when tough yards are needed near the goal line. Can't recall a similar case in recent years.
The free agent signing that helps the Cubs most is Mark DeRosa. He's like Mark Grudzieliniak with power. A good fielder, good hitter, and good person to have in the clubhouse. And DeRose is superior to Grudzieliniak in one key respect. His name is much easier to spell.
Did anyone notice that Gilbert Arenas had 45 points and 6 assists in a Wizards' win over LeBron James and the Cavaliers? James had 20 points and 4 assists Saturday night. Just saying.
Where have you gone J.J. Redick? And does this mean that drafting out of the Street and Smith's College Yearbook is a bad idea? Did you see where Coach K is fighting the school's safety office? He wants to continue to let the "crazies" stand along press row at Cameron, but the school wants them back in the first row of bleachers. Truth be told, alot of the older gyms Cameron included, can't be easily evacuated in an emergency and ought to be replaced. To anyone who disagrees, just remember the fires at various clubs around the country and how quickly things can go bad with too many people and too few exits.
Jaromir Jagr joins the 600 goal club. I was surprised to hear there were 16 members. Even granting that hockey players don't get the attention other pro athletes do, can anyone remember ever hearing or reading an interview with Jagr? Terrell Owens says more after a day on an excercise bike that Jagr does in a season. And Jagr is a far more important player in his sport.
When Butch Davis takes over at UNC will he recruit under the same character and academic constraints as John Bunting did? Not a frivolous question. Wealthy alumni say they love their schools, yet demand a winner even if it means selling the soul of the institution and putting students at risk.
I love Navy football, but I'd rather see fewer wins if it meant staying out of the paper for off the field problems. Two recent players have faced rape chargs and now there are reports the school waited two months to test players who admitted using steroids. This is NOT what Navy football is supposed to be about. Leave that stuff for the major college programs, it doesn't belong at Annapolis.
Finally, the Wolverines are a fine football team. But staying close to #1 in a game on the road does not make you #2. Michigan has had struggles this year and did well to stay as close to Ohio State as they did. A rematch would just be worse.
Remember all the good times you had in college. The keggers, the parties that went on until daybreak, the friends you made? The time you committed felony robbery. Oh wait, you didn't actually get indicted for any crimes when you were in college? Afraid they would have kicked you out? Well then, you must not have been an athlete.
Tyrone Nelson is the best player at New Mexico State and an NBA prospect. Back in August someone decided to interupt the food chain by attacking the most respected source of nutrition for college students. The Domino's delivery guy. Who identified Tyrone Nelson as the person who robbed him.
Here it gets hard to follow. Nelson was suspended from the team for disciplinary reasons which Coach Reggie Theus said had nothing to do with the pizza boy robbery, even though he announced them the next day. A university committee, in place specifically to deal with misconduct by athletes (not that they expect problems you understand, just in case something were to happen), cleared Nelson of any involvement in the incident.).
So Theus promptly reinstated Nelson to the team (although none of this had anything to do with the charges against him) and said that Nelson had a list of things he had to do to come back to practice and he met them all. "Tyrone actually doubled up on what he needed to do so he could return sooner and that was great to see." Gosh, it's like that movie "Rudy". I'm tearing up even as I think about it.
Now the local constabulary, for reasons unknown, don't recognize the findings of special athletic misconduct committees. So they passed on their report to the D.A. who got two felony indictments against Nelson, one for the robbery and one for conspiracy. So, you're thinking that maybe a felony indictment puts you off the team? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
A spokesman for the school said the indictment has no effect on Nelson's status with the team. Last year he lead the team in scoring and rebounds, and this year in felony indictments.
Nelson may well be innocent of all charges. There may have been some other 6'9" student out robbing pizza delivery guys on campus. But shouldn't the school give Nelson time off from his extra-ciricular activities so he can deal with the charges? If you were facing felony charges, wouldn't you be just a little too distracted to focus on school work and basketball? Isn't the school interested in Thomas, the student? Well, you figure that one out.
I've got better than even money that Nelson, an unemployed college student, has a pretty darn good attorney and that he himself didn't find that attorney in the yellow pages. Which raises the question, isn't this kind of legal aid a benefit that would not be provided to other students? Which would be a violation of NCAA rules? Maybe there is some legal aid exemption in the NCAA rulebooks. Surely there needs to be one, what with athletic programs providing such a large proportion of arrests for serious crimes on most campuses.
It's just another day in college sports. A little song, a little dance, a felony arrest. All we need now is Theus to tell us he's concerned for the 'kid' and the story is complete.
