I have written this column for a year and a half now, and after awhile, I realized that as a sports columnist I almost had to be oppressive with my opinions. Well, I would like to report that I have no opinion on certain things sports-related. \nAnybody who has listened to the new Jewel album as much as I have must know that extended exposure will lead to zapped brain cells anyway. So while you may care about the following issues, I don't:
Rick Neuheisel\nThe University of Washington football coach wagered $5,000 on a 2002 NCAA Basketball Tournament pool and won $20,000. The school has fired him pending his decision to file a formal appeal, which is due next Thursday.\nThe school claims his gambling is part of a pattern of dishonesty. Most recently, Neuheisel lied in February about interviewing for the San Francisco 49ers coaching position. He told officials he had not interviewed when he in fact had. \nI can see both sides on this issue. On one hand, coaches ought to be held to higher moral standards as the developers of young men. On the other, Neuheisel isn't a basketball expert, and his wagering didn't affect the integrity of the 2002 NCAA Tournament.\nI don't gamble at all, not even on the NCAA Tournament. That doesn't make me better or worse than anybody who does. That's just my choice. Many of you do, though, so a lot of people are going to have opinions on Neuheisel.\nBut not me.\nNASCAR Sponsorship Changes\nNASCAR announced at a press conference yesterday that its 31-year-old affiliation with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. regarding its premier competition, the Winston Cup, is over. NASCAR has replaced RJR with Nextel, a wireless company, as its main title sponsor. \nThe advertising and social ramifications won't go unnoticed. RJR couldn't advertise its cigarettes, primarily its top-selling Winston brand, on television or radio or to anybody under 18. So now that Nextel is in and RJR out, expect to see even more advertisements in stock car racing, as if there weren't enough already.\nMeanwhile, RJR, which tried to advertise to the younger (potential) smoker through its Joe Camel animated character, will suffer since the only things that captivate kids more than great athletes are great ads. Parents might be more willing to expose their impressionable children to NASCAR now that RJR is no longer involved. \nMaybe an even larger social issue is that smoking will lose some of its cool cache. Cigarettes now sit on the counter waiting for the discerning buyer wanting to shorten his or her life.\nI neither smoke nor like NASCAR, but I guess it was amusing that tobacco, the tar of the gods, was affiliated with athletic competition.
Roger Clemens' Hall of Fame controversy\nThe N.Y. Yankees pitcher isn't even retired yet, but he is already talking about the Hall of Fame just days after recording his 300th career win and 4,000th career strikeout. Clemens wants to wear a Yankees cap on his Hall of Fame plaque even though he pitched more years and won more games for the Boston Red Sox.\nClemens, however, won his only two World Series rings with the Yankees, not to mention both his 300th win and 4,000th strikeout. Whenever he has pitched in Boston since leaving the Red Sox following the 1996 season, Red Sox fans have booed him unmercifully. He also didn't get along with then-Red Sox GM Dan Duquette, the man who didn't try to resign him because he thought his best days were over. \n"I became a Hall of Famer here," Clemens said, referring to New York in an interview with espn.com. "If I'd have listened to people there [in Boston], then I'd have been done. Not people. One person that evaluated my skills and he didn't take the time to get to know me."\nI don't know what the statement "I became a Hall of Famer here" means. A player becomes a Hall of Famer with the entirety of his work. He could have retired after winning his fifth Cy Young in 1998 with the Blue Jays and gotten in the Hall of Fame without ever pitching for the Yankees.\nPeople remember players in their own ways. Carlton Fisk played more games for the White Sox than the Red Sox, but most remember him for the game-winning home run he hit off the left-field pole in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series for the Red Sox.\nClemens can wear whatever cap he wants. I'll remember him not for any one team but for following the sniff of the largest paycheck. How's that for an opinion?
