113 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(09/15/06 4:06pm)
Dear Coach Lynch,\nI come to you as an IU student and a self-proclaimed voice of the fans. \nThe last few days have been tough on us, Coach. Our hearts and prayers are with coach Terry Hoeppner and his family, but our minds are fixed on this Saturday. Anyone basking under the Bloomington sun knows the Hoosiers need to win all four of their nonconference games this season. Behind four straight wins, this team could drive its Believe Train head-on into the Big Ten schedule -- making stops only to mark victories. \nThe worst-kept secret in Quarry Land is that there are more students tailgating outside the stadium at 8 a.m. than there are inside the stadium at kickoff. Most of this student body may not be able to embrace this football team, but damn it, these players can embrace you -- their coach. \nThey should, and they must.\nYou have been handed the reigns, Coach. The General is gone, and it's time to circle the wagons.\nCircle the wagons. Grab the ammunition. Band together. Fight. \nThe fire fueling this team has been at a slow simmer, and it's time for you to spark the kerosene and ignite a fight. \nWe need you to do it, Coach. \nDo it for the people of Bloomington, who, like linemen impeding a running back, have wrapped their arms around this football team and still hold on tight to hope despite these tumultuous times. \nDo it for the fans who stay in the stadium long after the final whistle blows -- who won't leave until every IU player has trotted into the locker room. \nDo it for the players who have offered this program their blood, sweat and tears from the first stretching exercise of practice to the last wind sprint of conditioning. \nDo it for the student body that has never believed in this team. These students, year after year, have buried the Hoosiers' chances as they bury their heads underneath several pillows, only surfacing to hit the snooze on their alarm clocks.\nIn fact, Coach, forget it. Don't do it for the town of Bloomington. Don't do it for the fans. Don't do it for the players. Certainly don't do it for this student body.\nDo it for Coach Hep, whose divine character and devout faith in this team knows no bounds -- not even those between the chalked white lines. \nThis is your job, Coach.\nCircle the wagons. Grab the ammunition. Band together. Fight. Win. \nSo I guess one, simple question remains: Who will start at quarterback? Blake Powers or Kellen Lewis?\nGood luck, Coach. Now that you're the conductor of this train, it's time for you to make us believe.\nSincerely,\nYour local football columnist
(09/11/06 3:26am)
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day: the Hoosiers were down 23-7 with their second nonconference win miles away.\nThen, from nearly 24,000 throats there rose a lusty yell.\nIt rumbled through the valley. It rattled in the dell.\nIt pounded on the stadium walls and reverberated a loud tap.\nFor Kellen, mighty Kellen, was about to take the snap. \nIs IU the Mac Daddy? Perhaps not.\nBut the Hoosiers have established a 2-0 record against the Mid-American Conference despite having their backs to the wall early in Saturday's contest against Ball State. \nThe story from this contest is the crafty play of redshirt freshman Kellen Lewis. The quarterback entered the game after two unsuccessful drives by starter Graeme McFarland and accounted for 228 passing yards on 28 attempts and 88 rushing yards on 12 plays. \nNot surprisingly, Lewis looked a lot like former Hoosier scrambler Antwaan Randle El. Lewis' 316 total yards were the most combined yards by an IU player since Randle El totaled 467 yards against Western Michigan Sept. 12, 1998. Then again, that was Randle El, who in the same game ran in and threw three touchdowns. His level of play survived the curse of the Cream and Crimson as he played a part in the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl success. \nAfter Mighty Kellen's play in Muncie, the situation might no longer be mundane in Mudville. \nAt halftime the Hoosiers trailed Ball State 23-7 before tallying 17 unanswered points in the second half. Austin Starr's 35-yard field goal (how I love those field goal kickers) capped the comeback, bringing the Cream and Crimson back into command of the game. \nBut there were questions that lay further unanswered. \nThere might not be a dilemma in the defensive schemes. Down by 16 points, IU's adjustments in the second half shut down Cardinal quarterback Joey Lynch. The situation might be less severe with special teams. The Hoosiers held both returns from B.J. Hill to less than 25 yards and blocked their own way down the field in front of IU sophomore running back Marcus Thigpen as he completed a 100-yard touchdown return for the first half's only points. Questions, however, remain open on the offensive line. Its job was alleviated with the allure of Kellen Lewis' mobility. The defense needed to find Lewis before it could tackle him. \nNow, there are quips and queries about a possible quarterback controversy in Quarry Land. Powers has surely established himself as the offensive leader with tons of talent, but possibility of success behind Lewis' legs -- and more importantly his arm -- could even lead the proponents for Powers to salivate. \nFor right now the player at the Hoosiers' helm is Powers. Coach Hep will need to choose one man for the job because two quarterbacks lead to one major problem and zero success for IU.\nVictory gave way to celebration in Mudville Saturday night. It was Mr. Lewis' coming-out party. His contributions gave IU its second win of the season. And for himself, a possible seat on the bench next weekend.\nYes, there is some joy in Mudville, for Mighty Kellen has come out.
(09/08/06 2:55am)
U coach Terry Hoeppner needs a Snickers bar. \nAfter the Hoosiers' game against Western Michigan, the second-year coach is unsatisfied with his team's performance.\nPlus, he's still hungry. \nThough a candy bar of chocolate, nougat, caramel and peanuts might not alleviate the football team's woes -- or Hep's hunger -- this week's game in Muncie against the Ball State Cardinals could satisfy both. \n"We have so much we can build on, both positive and negative," coach Hep said in a Sept. 4 article in the Indiana Daily Student. "You improve the most between game one and two. Well, we need to, that's very apparent, but I'm confident we can."\nOK, coach. I'm not so confident. \nI believe this team could, should and will win in Muncie -- but there are several flaws that line the underbelly of this team so far. Here are three things you should look for when you're not in Muncie watching the team ... or even watching the game on television ... or even acknowledging the score when you overhear it waiting in line at Jimmy John's. \nLet's start with the least important -- and I'll tease you till the end with the Snickers song from the commercial: \n"Happy peanuts soar\nOver chocolate covered mountain tops ..."\n-- Defending the Punt Return\nSpecial teams are the chores in the house of any football program. They're bland, cut and dry, and they're annoying -- but if you don't do them (and do them right), your house is a mess, and no one will come to see you. Last year, IU's house was a pigsty (see lowest attendance in the Big Ten). In games against Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan State, teams exposed special team gaps wider than a Mike Vanderjagt field goal. Special teams could blow the doors wide open to an opponent's lead as quickly as it shuts closed on a possible IU double-U (think about it). \n"And waterfalls of caramel\nPrancing nougat in the meadow ..."\n-- Offensive Line\nA stingy IU defense this season would be a pleasant surprise, but an overpowering offense is expected to propel the Hoosiers beyond the Big Ten basement. There's a reason why the Kansas City Chiefs, bare-shelved in the defensive closet, are AFC West contenders every NFL season. They are a product of the best O-line in the league, and their protection gives quarterback and former IU grad Trent Green the time he needs in the pocket. If the OL can be KC, then IU might not be KO'd. \n"Sings a song of satisfaction\nTo the world."\n-- Defensive Schemes\nLast year the defense allowed 33 points per game. Now, with graduation removing veterans from key spots at the line and linebacker positions -- a multitude of confusing defensive schemes might be just the answer, so long as those answers don't leave more questions and confuse our own defense. If IU can't contain the Broncos, Salukis and Huskies, how can they expect to stop offensive-savvy studs like the Buckeyes, Spartans or Hawkeyes? \nWill Meyers has been there.\nA junior linebacker last season, Will is one of the few and proud who remain the veteran anchors for this cream and crimson defense. \n"Being a football player, it's tough not always seeing what you work for," Meyers said. "But now it's here, and we're pretty hungry."\nHungry, Will?\nWhy wait?\nGrab a Snickers ... then beat the snot out of State.
(09/04/06 4:20am)
As the Hoosier players linked arm-in-arm march alongside and behind IU coach Terry Hoeppner, a football not made of pigskin appeared in the end zone. Within seconds, the football -- inflated with hot air -- ballooned its way into the sky. This "football-up-high" signaled the game's opening kickoff -- not to the fans filling the stadium but perhaps to the fields filled with tailgaters too tanked to know the reason they were drunk in the first place. \nThe reason was a football game. And from the opening kickoff the Hoosiers held intact their usual domination over non-conference opponents. \nThe cream and crimson were led by their difference-maker, quarterback Blake Powers. Powers fueled the offense early on, converting a 3rd-and-4 to sophomore receiver James Hardy in single coverage and capping it off with a 10-yard tag to freshman Andrew Means in the end zone. \nIt was promising but predictable, and the rest of the half was highlighted by these moments, some of which were painful.\nThe final drive of the first half gave fans a chance to peer into the Hoosiers' potential problems. That drive should have concluded in a touchdown. It should have capped a 19-point Hoosier lead. It should have been a showcase of Powers' brilliance. Instead it turned into a tease, tethered by three penalty flags and a ton of bad tendencies.\nIt might have been thematic. If the IU offensive line had this many problems containing Western Michigan's blitzes, what will become of it when it faces the Big Ten teams? The most important piece of the puzzle for IU this season is its passing game, as if they are taking a page from the Indianapolis Colts' playbook. We can't lose if we score more points than our opponent. Instead, the offense's efforts may leave the field littered with contumacy, not completions. A penalty is a penalty no matter how far and frequent Powers may throw the ball this season. \nBut, in the end, the Hoosiers took care of business. Their home debut went smoother than last season when IU squeaked out a victory against Nicholls State. Western Michigan, however, did not have the same resolve to its running game as Nicholls State did. Instead, the Broncos relied on quarterback Ryan Cubit, who held the door open for IU's defensive opportunities. \nCubit crumbled, and the Broncos most lethal weapon of the game -- punter Jim Laney -- did what he could with his one leg.\nAs for the Hoosiers, their lethal weapon has yet to be found. They are a team that must live and learn. Live through the beating, only to learn to avoid it the next time. Some people call these baby steps, but for coach Hep and the Hoosiers they are sophomore steps -- steps which are taken a week at a time. \nAs for this season's expectations, the Hoosiers can rest assured another week, having passed their first test in Hoeppner's second season. The result will be ballooned expectations when they march into Muncie next week. And like the football-up-high, the Hoosiers will float the friendly skies of the rest of their non-conference schedule. \nBut maybe, just maybe, those expectations -- like the football-up-high -- are filled, unfortunately, with hot air.
(09/01/06 3:04am)
Forget about last season? \nI already forgot my class schedule, but I still can't get the Hoosiers' 2005 season out of my mind. \nTo the new freshmen who found out IU had a football team when they looked across the street from Briscoe, I impart two widgets of wisdom: First, go to Nick's English Hut. They really don't care if you have a fake I.D. \nSecond, 12 seasons have passed since the Hoosiers last played in a bowl game. You were probably born in 1987. So do the math. (Without a calculator.)\nThus, 2006 begins bowl-bare season No. 13. A season that IU coach Terry Hoeppner inaugurates with one word: dispatch. \nDispatch: to hasten, be quick. It is an expeditious performance of promptness or speed. That is the message Hoeppner sends to his players. \nDispatch is also what Hoeppner has embraced as his team's strength to its many shortcomings. This season the Hoosiers have speed. Football, in many cases, is a game of size instead of speed. IU, in many cases, watches both size and speed run it over year after year. \nThis is where irony rears its head. If the Hoosiers have success this season, it will be on the speed of its players. And yet, Western Michigan, the Hoosiers' opponent for Saturday's game, might be equipped with a quicker and lighter team. \nThe biggest battle Saturday will be IU's wide receivers entrenched against the Broncos' defensive backfield. IU junior quarterback Blake Powers' precision and poise throwing balls into No Man's Land will either secure or scare the Hoosiers early on. Meanwhile, the Broncos' defensive backfield is unified with underclassmen. The lynch pin that holds them together is fifth-year senior free safety Jimmie Vincent. Vincent will have his hands full not with the ball, but directing traffic against the Hoosiers' receiving corps. He will be trying to keep the young defensive backfield intact as the cream and crimson merge in and out of his lanes. \nWhat is most important, my fellow Hoosiers, is that you come to the game. No wait. What is most important is that you enter the stadium. Believe me: There is a difference. \nSaturday's game begins at 6 p.m., which is literally a night and day change compared to the early-bird specials entertained weekly at Memorial Stadium during Big Ten conference play. Six freakin' p.m.! Imagine the possibilities! You can wake up at your usual time (everyone knows Friday is the weakest night of the collegiate three-day weekend), roll out of bed and into the stadium. Furthermore, you can tailgate to your heart's desire, and when your analog watch looks like a straight line (and nothing else around you does) you know it's game time. \nBut your journey is not over. Like Indiana Jones and his quest for the Holy Grail, you must undertake an adventure few have finished successfully. You must leave the familiar shelter of your friends, walk down a small hill, over 17th Street, through a parking lot patrolled by parents and police until finally you have reached your destination: the Rock. Be true and be careful because with one of the lowest home attendances at football games in all of the Big Ten, many Hoosiers have tried and failed to frequent Memorial Stadium. \nYou, the student, have only two responsibilities for Saturday: Finish your beer. Defend the Rock. \nThink you can handle that?
(08/30/06 5:24am)
IU football coach Terry Hoeppner has never had it so bad.\nAn optimist to top optimists, Hoeppner's tenure at IU has gone from sauntering down Main Street to quickly morphing into a climbing wall without handholds. \nWithin days of complaining of headaches on Dec. 24, 2005, Hoeppner found out he would need surgery to remove a tumor on his right temple. \nSix months later, Hoeppner sped back to the emergency room, only this time to see his longtime collegiate confidant Ben Roethlisberger. The Pittsburgh Steeler and newly minted Super Bowl champion quarterback had multiple facial fractures, a broken nose and an upper and lower jaw screwed in place alongside 2-inch titanium plates from a June 12 motorcycle accident.\nMay 22 provided Hoeppner with further frustrating headlines, only this time they were local. Sophomore wide receiver James Hardy, who led the Hoosiers with 61 catches for 893 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, was apprehended that Friday night and charged with two class A misdemeanors and domestic battery. He has since pleaded not guilty.\nThe sudden death of Northwestern football coach Randy Walker hit Hoeppner on June 30. Hoeppner enjoyed a 19-year tenure at Miami University of Ohio, where in 1990 Walker began as the head coach. Nine years later, after Walker spearheaded the program to a 10-1 record the season before, Hoeppner moved in and Walker moved out to Evanston, Ill. Then, on Aug. 7, Hoeppner's cat scratch up the wall of success came to a nail-screeching halt when he realized something was missing on the first day of football camp -- the Hoosiers' offensive line. Outside of left tackle Justin Frye and center Chris Mangiero, Hoeppner found himself on the lookout for new bodies to throw at the onslaught of lunging linemen and their blitzing backfield.\nThe Hoosiers' own offensive backfield dodged the proverbial bullet when redshirt freshman running back Demetrius McCray was nearly forced to sit out the season for not staying in his classes this summer. McCray's "school issue" has since been taken care of, he says. \nBut the football issues that face Hoeppner and the Hoosiers have been far from resolved. If the questions facing this team were put on paper, they would rival the LSATs. The only gimmies on this year's test are junior quarterback Blake Powers and his roundup of receivers, led by Hardy. \nIt's been 12 seasons since this football program fit into a pair of bowling shoes -- which makes this 2006 season No. 13 for IU. But even Hoeppner, the cockeyed optimist, finds luck and light in the black and bleak.\nHoeppner announced that there are 12 regular games on the Hoosiers' schedule this season. But Hoeppner doesn't want to win 12 games. He wants to win 13. And he wants that final game to be a bowl game.\nIt's a bold plan for a man who has never had it so bad. But even with the odds against him stacked as high as the expectations that fuel him, Hoeppner doesn't bat an eye.\n"The best players play. The future is now," Hoeppner said in a statement Aug. 2. "The potential for running backs, quarterbacks and receivers is there. But the offensive line is the final ingredient to make the cake taste good. The other ingredients won't work if the offensive line isn't working."\nThe last nine months have not tasted so good for Hoeppner. And yet now, according to him, Terry Hoeppner has never had it so good.
(04/27/06 11:53pm)
It's tough to imagine yourself in a time period as you are living through it. I'm sure Americans in the 1850s were saying to themselves, "Wow, can you believe we're living in the Industrial Revolution?" And while I am sure the devastation was all around them, Americans in the 1920s and '30s were not saying to each other, "So how about this Great Depression? At least we'll be in the history books, huh?" \nBelieve it or not, we live in the Age of Technology. Just open your eyes. Laptops, cell phones, iPods and the Internet have launched our entire being into another stratosphere. \nCan you imagine yourself without a cell phone? Without the Internet? Absolutely not. As soon as something becomes common with people, we learn to work it, live with it and eventually factor it into our daily routine. \nSure, the use of technology has been around since the beginning of time or, as I'd like to refer to it, B.S. -- Before Sports, but the magnitude in which we are building and using technology these days is astonishing. In ten years the iPod will seem archaic.\nAs technology has grown, so have television and the cameras that cover every inch of this Earth. Television cameras just mean more eyes are watching. \nWhile I have yet to don a rocking chair and a walking cane, everything we witness now with sports -- whether it is the claustrophobic coverage with cameras or the millions of dollars one man can make just by putting a ball through a circle hoop -- it'll all get worse. Like technology, one day sports will be larger and louder, while our grasp on its simple pleasures will grow limper. Already it is too expensive for a family of four to go to the ballpark. Athletes receive endless amounts of cash in paychecks as their poor performances are punctuated into punchlines. \nIt is difficult for me to say, at the age of 21 and with a future in the industry ahead of me, that I have become disenchanted with sports. My problem is that as time, like technology, inevitably progresses, it will be the fan that becomes disoriented by the depth of coverage and disenfranchised with the dollar signs. \nThere was a time when a group of college students, bored with their studies and craving competition, came together to play a game. That game would become sport. Today, sport is not without sponsors, while both are nothing without the fans. \nWhy is it that we love sports? What makes us return every season for every second? What motivates us to jump for joy or furiously flip furniture? It is that every fan, unlike every athlete, cares. There is no money in it for the fans; in fact, it takes money out of their pockets. \nWe do it every year for that one moment -- the moment. The jump shot with less than a second left. The home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Hail Mary that soars through the sky as the clock clicks down. The penalty shot that rises just above the goaltender's glove. \nIn that moment -- the moment -- technology, sport and the fan co-exist. And my faith in the future is once more renewed.
(04/27/06 3:48am)
It's tough to imagine yourself in a time period as you are living through it. I'm sure Americans in the 1850s were saying to themselves, "Wow, can you believe we're living in the Industrial Revolution?" And while I am sure the devastation was all around them, Americans in the 1920s and '30s were not saying to each other, "So how about this Great Depression? At least we'll be in the history books, huh?" \nBelieve it or not, we live in the Age of Technology. Just open your eyes. Laptops, cell phones, iPods and the Internet have launched our entire being into another stratosphere. \nCan you imagine yourself without a cell phone? Without the Internet? Absolutely not. As soon as something becomes common with people, we learn to work it, live with it and eventually factor it into our daily routine. \nSure, the use of technology has been around since the beginning of time or, as I'd like to refer to it, B.S. -- Before Sports, but the magnitude in which we are building and using technology these days is astonishing. In ten years the iPod will seem archaic.\nAs technology has grown, so have television and the cameras that cover every inch of this Earth. Television cameras just mean more eyes are watching. \nWhile I have yet to don a rocking chair and a walking cane, everything we witness now with sports -- whether it is the claustrophobic coverage with cameras or the millions of dollars one man can make just by putting a ball through a circle hoop -- it'll all get worse. Like technology, one day sports will be larger and louder, while our grasp on its simple pleasures will grow limper. Already it is too expensive for a family of four to go to the ballpark. Athletes receive endless amounts of cash in paychecks as their poor performances are punctuated into punchlines. \nIt is difficult for me to say, at the age of 21 and with a future in the industry ahead of me, that I have become disenchanted with sports. My problem is that as time, like technology, inevitably progresses, it will be the fan that becomes disoriented by the depth of coverage and disenfranchised with the dollar signs. \nThere was a time when a group of college students, bored with their studies and craving competition, came together to play a game. That game would become sport. Today, sport is not without sponsors, while both are nothing without the fans. \nWhy is it that we love sports? What makes us return every season for every second? What motivates us to jump for joy or furiously flip furniture? It is that every fan, unlike every athlete, cares. There is no money in it for the fans; in fact, it takes money out of their pockets. \nWe do it every year for that one moment -- the moment. The jump shot with less than a second left. The home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Hail Mary that soars through the sky as the clock clicks down. The penalty shot that rises just above the goaltender's glove. \nIn that moment -- the moment -- technology, sport and the fan co-exist. And my faith in the future is once more renewed.
(04/26/06 4:01am)
Choose wisely. Sure, NFL general managers, coaches and owners are not in search of the Holy Grail -- but Draft Day may have more similarities to April's holy holidays than you'd think. It is a day full of hidden surprises, when NFL players fall from the sky, seemingly coming from nowhere. It is a day when teams can rise from dead-last place in their divisions. It is a day when the word "fast" is also a guideline to live by. It is a day when students become athletes after years of dedicated training.\nOh what, Little 500 isn't a holy day in April?\nThe No. 1 overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft will be USC running back Reggie Bush to the Houston Texans. Yet most of the focus on this year's draft has been on Vince Young's Wonderlic test and whether or not the New Orleans Saints will trade their No. 2 pick after acquiring quarterback Drew Brees. I say there should be more focus on the No. 1 pick.\nSo, why hasn't there been?\nReggie Bush is simply too good. His potential is too good. His stock could not be higher, and his 40-yard dash time could not be lower. The story that no one wants to talk about is that Bush is one NFL hit away from injury and athletic -- as well as financial -- ruin. Who will protect Bush from linebackers such as the Dolphins' Zach Thomas, the Giants' LaVarr Arrington or the Bills' Takeo Spikes? Certainly not the Houston offensive line. Last year the line surrendered a league-high 68 sacks for 424 yards while "protecting" their quarterback David Carr -- imagine the protection Bush will get. It's a good thing our own president, George W. Bush, has better protection than this. Then again ... \nWhoops. Anyway, no quarterback in the NFL has been sacked more often in the last four seasons than Carr. Since 2002 he has been sacked 208 times for a total loss of 1226 yards. Bush's only chance for a gain is to be so fast that he leaps over the defensive line milliseconds after the snap. What's frightening is that Bush is capable of doing this. \nThe New Orleans Saints will either trade their pick or hold on and choose defensive end Mario Williams from North Carolina State or offensive tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson from Virginia Tech. The Texans would benefit the most from Ferguson's services, but as I mentioned before, you just can't turn your back on Bush.\nAs long as the Saints maintain the No. 2 spot, USC quarterback Matt Leinart should land with the Tennessee Titans. Last season, the Titans wooed Trojan offensive coordinator Norm Chow to the NFL, a move that may pay off if Leinart and Chow can duplicate their championship success from college. If Leinart has star power in the NFL, watch out for Nick Lachey to be "the guy" on Leinart's couch in five years. \nThere is the possibility that the Saints could trade their pick to the New York Jets, who will grab Leinart, leaving the Titans to choose Texas quarterback Vince Young. Otherwise, if every team stays in place, the Jets, Oakland Raiders or Arizona Cardinals will choose either Young or Vanderbilt quarterback Jay Cutler.\nOther notables: Ohio State linebacker A.J. Hawk is expected to be chosen by the Green Bay Packers with the No. 5 pick overall. Memphis running back DeAngelo Williams could become a quiet but commanding commodity for teams such as the Cleveland Browns (No. 12), Denver Broncos (No. 15) or Minnesota Vikings (No. 17). Ohio State wide receiver Santonio Holmes could be chosen as early as No. 11 with the St. Louis Rams or fall to either the Baltimore Ravens (No. 13) or Miami Dolphins (No. 16).\nWhich brings us back to choosing wisely. The Colts had the first two picks in the 1992 Draft -- and as it turned out, Steve Emtman and Quentin Coryatt were not franchise players. That same year the Cincinnati Bengals chose Dave Klingler, who did anything but cling to NFL success despite being the No. 6 pick overall. Neither the Bengals nor the Chicago Bears have had much success at choosing a franchise running back in the past. One year after the Colts foolishly selected Trev Alberts, the 1995 NFL Draft served both the Bengals and Bears with Ki-Jana Carter and Rashaan Salaam, respectively. The Bears were so embarrassed with Salaam that by the 1998 NFL Draft they selected Curtis Enis who, oddly enough, pulled a Salaam. The Bengals and Bears wanted to fill their quarterback quarrels in 1999 when they chose Akili Smith and Cade McNown. Go ahead and fill in your own punch line with those picks. Try: "Smith, you're Akilling me!" or "Dude, your name is Cade."\nSaturday and Sunday, the NFL's finest will gather together to pick apart and praise after months of preparation. This, of course, is their holy day. Their destinies are guided by their choices. They are in search to fill that void physically, if not spiritually. They must choose wisely.\nSo will it be Reggie Bush or Reggie bust?
(04/20/06 3:49am)
With the NBA season ending last night, it is time to decide the recipient of the Most Valuable Player award. While I would like to give it to myself (you should see the game I kick at Kilroy's), I have been informed that this is the National Basketball Association MVP, so reluctantly I made another valuable choice. \nValuable? Nope. Try dominant. Who was the most dominant player on the floor this season? Who can play offense as well as they play defense? In my eyes, the MVP in a season IS the best player in that season.\nThe MVP award has nothing to do with team performance, but in considering the winner there should be some measure of success. When looking at qualities such as value and dominance there are some questions that need to be answered: Who has done the most with the least? Who has been the best with the worst? \nThis season there is one resounding answer to those questions. His name is Kobe Bryant.\nThere is a reason Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won the award six different seasons and that Bill Russell and Michael Jordan have both been MVPs five times each. They were the best players on the court in that year and, unlike this year's MVP, they were surrounded by some of the league's best talent on those teams. \nAbdul-Jabbar won an NBA Championship in two of the six years he was voted MVP. He never won both a MVP award and a championship after 1980. Jordan only had one season in which he won the MVP -- the 1987-88 season -- but failed to win an NBA Championship.. Russell is another example altogether. Those Boston Celtics teams reigned over the rest of the league like a monarchy. In Russell's 13 seasons with the Celtics he won 11 championships. \nOK, snap back to reality.\nThe 2005-06 Lakers are not your father's Celtics. Los Angeles stumbled into the seventh seed of the Western Conference for the playoffs. While the haters will say that this boxes out Bryant from the MVP race, I say that is what makes him the MVP. If not this year for Kobe, then when?\nDuring his career, he's been an athletic ringer and an accused rapist. He was a winner and a whiner. He was a dynasty disabler and a terrible teammate. But every single night, hands down, Bryant is the best player on any court in the country. \n"I'm not saying that he's the most valuable player, but he's certainly the best player," Phoenix Suns coach Mike D'Antoni told Sports Illustrated. "And it's not even close. He is utterly dominant." \nD'Antoni would hand the award to Bryant himself, if his bias didn't lie elsewhere. Suns guard Steve Nash, who won the MVP last season, has a decent shot at being chosen again this season. Nash leads the league in assists per game and total assists. Yet, while Nash has passed his way to the second best record in the Western Conference without center Amare Stoudemire, he has nonetheless done it with players like Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Tim Thomas and Boris Diaw. \nOn offense, Cleveland Cavaliers guard LeBron James is unguardable. His play is so indescribable that I had to make up a word -- unguardable. But Bron-Bron needs to play both sides of the ball with equal effectiveness. He leads the NBA only in minutes played, but in the next few years, James will win a handful of MVP awards -- most of them unanimously. \nBryant, on the other hand, leads the league in points per game, total points, field goal attempts, field goals made and free throws made. He scored the second-most points in NBA history this year when he shot for 81 points against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22. He is the fifth player in NBA history to average 35 points per game.\nIt has been three decades since a player from a .500-level team was the league's MVP. The last to do that was Abdul-Jabbar, who won in the 1975-76 season even though his Los Angeles Lakers ended the season with a 40-42 record. As the Lakers sew up the seventh spot in the Western Conference -- a playoff appearance that would never have happened without Kobe -- they will be playing basketball in May squarely on the shoulders of their savior. \nSure, Kobe has been impressive this season. But, then again, I once brought home five girls from five different bars in the same night. So you tell me, who's the Most Valuable Player?
(04/13/06 6:22am)
First, the facts. In Durham, N.C. on March 13, the Duke men's lacrosse team hired an exotic dancer to perform at an off-campus party. The woman admitted herself to the hospital later that night, saying three students had raped her in the bathroom of the house where the party was held. She said she had broken off five artificial fingernails while scraping the arm of one of the men who was holding her down.\nBut this is the match that lit the fuse. The woman is black and the three men she is accusing are white. Today is exactly one month since the party and the situation has ignited tempers on both sides, setting off dynamite in Durham.\nForget political correctness. It is time to be as real as these charges are. Exotic dancer? She's a stripper. Men's lacrosse team? They are jocks. And Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong? He's a moron, or worse, a moron running for re-election.\nWhile Nifong is far from smart, the lacrosse players he is up against are far from innocent. \nAfter the incident and before the DNA evidence was announced, Nifong made his opinions well known to anyone who would listen. He believed that a rape had taken place, and that DNA evidence would support his convictions. Shortly thereafter, the men's head coach Mike Pressler resigned, the season was suspended and everyone outside of the lacrosse family believed these players were guilty. \nThen came Monday -- the DNA evidence came out, stating that none of the players' DNA was found in or on the accuser's body -- and Nifong ordered orange juice to go along with the egg that was all over his face. In his efforts to make a name for himself and to put aside rumors that Durham was taut with racial tensions, Nifong had managed to do just the opposite.\nFor the moment, the team has been exonerated, and a town whose makeup is 51 percent white and 40 percent black, has exploded.\nWe live in a society that knows how to do one thing when we are confused and conflicted by catastrophe. We blame someone else.\nSo go ahead, let's point fingers. Blame Pressler for failing to lasso a team that reeked of irresponsibility. Blame the lacrosse players for their skewed attitude of entitlement and a lack of accountability. Blame the media for portraying the players as privileged and perverse. Blame the woman for telling authorities that she received a beating and bruises when photos surfaced proving that she had the body marks before she entered the party. Blame Nifong for claiming DNA evidence so prematurely that he made Jason Biggs seem like the 60-minute man.\nBlame whomever you want, but here we are, with a rape case on the table surrounded by questions of privilege, gender and above all -- race. Each of the 46 white lacrosse players has shown a quality usually revered by most sports fans -- loyalty. They have wrapped themselves in a code of silence, staying close, and have not done what our society usually does in times of chaos. They have refused to point fingers.\nTheir refusal has been their defense, which has appeared as a guilty defense, and in my opinion is a guilty defense. I grew up 10 miles away from where five of the Duke lacrosse players went to high school. I know the type. Playing their sport at a school like Duke gives them entitlement, and their money gives them privilege. But there will always be some players who are simply guilty by association.\nNot everyone at that party committed a crime that night. But, something happened at 610 North Buchanan Boulevard. Something caused a mother of two to scream rape. Something happened that the players will not talk about. Something happened that hasn't shown its face. \nFor the next days, weeks and months, the town of Durham will face queries of color, character and culpability -- with only one thing for certain: Something is rotten in the state of Durham.
(04/06/06 4:45am)
To be, or not to be; that is the question.\nShakespeare never had to deal with a question this tough.\nBut now Florida big man Joakim Noah, like thousands of athletes before him, plays the role of Hamlet -- or perhaps the hook of a Clash song. \nShould he stay, or should he go? \nAfter scoring 16 points and posting six blocks in the NCAA championship game against UCLA Monday night, Noah has been hounded for an answer regarding his future. Currently the most touted NBA prospect (what a short attention span we have -- when Morrison referred to Jim, and Redick described a man who sat naked in the sun for two minutes too long) Noah now has a decision to make. \nWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. \nAll athletes go pro for different reasons. For some, it is a matter of financial reimbursement -- unable to refuse money they might never make in a 9-to-5 job. For others, it is a matter of timing -- their stock in the ever-changing money market of sports has peaked and their value is, well, invaluable. \nWhen Texas junior quarterback Vince Young lifted the Crystal Ball after he single-handedly led the Longhorns to a National Championship, no one even bothered to ask whether he would remain in Austin an extra year to receive his diploma. Try paying off that mansion in Austin with a diploma -- it just won't happen.\nBut Young will not be chosen in the first few spots when the NFL Draft commences at the end of April. After getting licked by the Wonderlic, a 50-question IQ test given to every prospect at the NFL combine, Young's stock -- the same one that was so high it could have broken through Heaven's cellar door -- has plummeted, and his draft experience since has been hellish. \nFor in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause: there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.\nRight above Young sits USC quarterback and projected No. 2 pick Matt Leinart. After winning his own national championship the year before, he did what Young couldn't. Rather than take the money and run, Leinart stayed in school and won.\nThe oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and the spurns -- That patient merit of the unworthy takes.\nTo stay or to go, to be or not to be -- athletes such as Noah will be making these decisions as long as the next level exists. Though he and others like him might not be the king of Denmark and their questions don't deal with death, it is nonetheless their own form of death -- a death of their dreams. For those who fall from atop the world's pedestal are surely fortune's fools. \nAthletes come in many forms to the fan. They are admired and they are admonished. Their allegiance is betrothed and booed. They are kings and they are criminals. But above all, athletes like Noah, Young and Leinart are kids with a conscience. They are exposed in the spotlight and scrutinized in sports circles for the decisions they make, in and out of the locker room. They try to do what is right for their family, their fortunes and their future. Their decision is a dilemma with the conscience.\nIf athletes fail -- we laugh. If they succeed -- we legitimize.\nThus conscience does make cowards of us all.
(04/04/06 6:05am)
Welcome to Opening Day 2006. The sun is out and baseball is on television at 1 p.m. -- giving me yet another excuse to miss class. Forget 2001. This is the year of Barry Bonds. And whether you hate him or really hate him, what Bonds does during every at-bat will shape what kind of a season this will be remembered for. \nSo without further ado ... I present Opening Day 2006. \n-- How do you know it's Opening Day in Chicago? Cubs' pitchers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood are on the disabled list. Has anyone had more of a 180-degree turn in luck in the past few years than the Cubs? In 2003 they were five outs from the World Series and the bandwagon was full of fans and filled with fuel when the 2004 cover of Sports Illustrated wrote that the Cubbies would return to the Championship stage. One year later Sammy Sosa is gone, Nomar Garciaparra is playing shortstop and the White Sox win the World Series. In the words of Austin Powers, "Ouch, baby -- very ouch."\n-- Former Mets pitcher Kris Benson and his sex-savvy star wife Anna Benson were traded to the Baltimore Orioles in the off-season. Anna is famous for her claim that if Kris cheated on her while traveling, she would sleep with the entire Mets team including the bat boys. Last week she filed for divorce from Kris -- enshrining, forever, one joke: What do Anna Benson and Javy Lopez have in common? Come Opening Day in Baltimore ... they'll both be catchers. \n-- Florida Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria admitted Sunday that talks to move the team to San Antonio had become serious. Personally, I like where Loria is going with this. Now that current immigration laws are in serious jeopardy, Loria can try and sneak as many baseball-playing Mexicans over the border (or under the fence) as possible. Amnesty definitely covers a starter equipped with a strong slider. \n-- Boston's newest reliever Julian Tavarez was suspended for the first 10 games of the season for punching Tampa Bay's first baseman Joey Gathright in the face when Gathright's back was turned. Hey Julian, if you really want to get pleasure out of punching someone when their back is turned, you should call Anna Benson. \n-- The Washington Nationals' biggest acquisition in the off-season was Texas' second baseman Alfonso Soriano. When Soriano found out that the Nationals -- based in Washington D.C. -- were moving him to left field, he protested but eventually gave in. What Soriano should have done instead was stand at second base hours before game time and refuse to move. Foolish? Nope. It's filibustering. \n-- I've got to admit when I heard ESPN was doing a reality series called "Bonds on Bonds" I thought it was a series in which Barry explains the importance of bailing your friends out of jail. Frankly, I don't care what Barry has to say about himself now -- he was a liar and he's an even bigger liar now. The only reason Bonds is doing this show is because he has an approval rating worse than President Bush. My problem is not with Barry Bonds 2006; my problem is with Barry Bonds 1999-2004. My problem is with a guy who tries to play the "Race Card" for his lack of popularity when a black man, Hank Aaron, wrote the home run record he is trying to eclipse. Ask me who the most dominant player in Major League Baseball has been over the past decade, and you'll get a two word answer, neither of which start with the letter "B": Mariano Rivera.\nWelcome to Opening Day 2006: the year of Bonds. He will be swatting fastballs and steroid allegations at the same time. He will be breaking records and hearts at the same time. And no matter what the outcome in October, he will be a hero and a villain at the same time. \nIf there is any justice in baseball, Bonds will soon be gone from the game. He will plummet down a deep and dark abyss, falling as fast as he had risen, like one of his home run balls. \nAnd if he's lucky enough, maybe Anna Benson will be there to catch him.
(03/31/06 4:59am)
I've never liked brackets. Not in second grade when they split a problem of addition and subtraction. Not in seventh grade when I had to distribute multiple multiplication problems. I didn't like brackets when I was a junior in high school and I slam-dunked a 400 on the math portion of the SAT. \nAnd now, shoulder deep into my junior year at IU, I really hate brackets. Who needs them? \nFor reasons of embarrassment -- as if the 400 wasn't embarrassing enough -- I refuse to reveal who I had in my Final Four and who I had winning the championship. Let's just say I picked a Big Ten team to cut down the nets in Indy, and they Buckin' choked. (I think something is the Matta with me). \nSo we have the unlikeliest of suitors to fit into Cinderella's slippers this weekend in the RCA Dome: No. 2 UCLA, No. 3 Florida, No. 4 LSU and No. 11 George Mason. And although George Mason is the only pick whose plane will turn into a pumpkin if it fails to cut the nets, each Final Four team has its own reasons for recognition and redemption. \nUCLA clawed its way back into the national spotlight with the possibility of its first National Championship since John Wooden was last seen standing up (1995). Coach Ben Howland and company come in popping their historical collars, sporting the NCAA's longest winning streak of 11 games to match their 11 National Championships. \nFlorida is, well, young. It has one senior on its roster, but it seemingly has the easiest road to the championship -- hosting George Mason early Saturday afternoon. (Though I'm sure the Connecticut Huskies thought the same thing.) Sophomore Joakim Noah, a copy editor's dream, leads the Gators. Just imagine the "Noah's Ark" headlines if the Gators are triumphant in Indianapolis. At least -- at that time -- Noah will be able to rise above the flood of reporters washing over him. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) \nLSU, Florida's Southern counterpart, has claimed the country's hearts since Hurricane Katrina. A national Championship would bring a permanent ray of sunlight to a region ravished by rains and rejected by our own president -- whoops, I meant Homeland Security -- whoops again, I meant Michael Brown. Glen "Big Baby" Davis' shoulders are broad enough to carry an entire region and let Louisiana lavish in the positive limelight, for a change. \nThen there is George Mason, a team no Big Ten student picked past the first round -- and still it managed to manhandle Michigan State. Don't believe the hype; its story isn't the stuff movies are made of. The only adversity its players and coaches overcame was anonymity. Obscured, now observed, the Patriots have appropriately become America's underdog. \nAnd so March Madness lived up to its name. The NCAA Tournament awarded eight bids to Big East teams, including two No. 1 seeds. None are in the Final Four. The Big Ten was touted only to pout without one team advancing to the Sweet 16. The Southeastern Conference's 2005 talent was leveled by the NBA Draft -- only to re-emerge a year later with two teams in Indy. \nSo, for the first time since 1980, not a single No. 1 seed made it to the Final Four, and we are left watching UCLA and the Traditionless Trio. \nStill, out of a field of 65 NCAA teams, George Mason, the "mid-major", has played out of its element and has commandeered its way through the field. It was a mathematical improbability coming into the tournament and blossomed into a bracket-busting probability in the process. \nCome Saturday, the Patriots won't be watching TV. Having destroyed everyone's brackets, they will be TV.\nAh, brackets. Who needs them?
(03/23/06 6:05am)
Without kicker Adam Vinatieri the New England Patriots would just be another one-team, one-year Super Bowl champion. Without Vinatieri, the Patriots would not have beaten the Oakland Raiders in the snow in the AFC Championship game, and the Tuck Rule would still apply to guys who sit in class day-dreaming. Without Vinatieri, the Patriots would have given Kurt Warner his second Super Bowl ring. \nAnd now the Patriots are without Vinatieri. \nHe has leapt head-first into the fountains of free agency, and is currently swimming sweetly in a multi-year deal that includes a $3.5 million signing bonus and $2.5 million for each of his first three years. Meanwhile, the cherry on top of the NFL Sundae is that he is going to the Indianapolis Colts.\n"Mike Vanderjadt out, Adam Vinatieri in" is certainly one of those Who'd-A-Thunk-It moments in recent sports history.\nYet, amidst the golden age of free agency, this is not the first time this year that a player has switched allegiances and signed with the enemy.\nNo, I am not talking about newly-minted Dallas Cowboy, Terrell Owens. \nIf there is one thing I have learned from Owens it is to never, ever let Drew Rosenhaus speak without a choke collar at your disposal -- and that money melts memories ... Okay, so two things. Owens and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones are trying hard to ignore the pink elephant in the middle of the room. While playing for San Francisco, Owens basked in the light of the 50-yardline Dallas Star after scoring a touchdown. So like I said, repeat after me: money melts memories. \nJohnny Damon melted everything but the memories of Red Sox fans when he signed his name (and his soul) to the New York Yankees -- commonly referred to as Major League Baseball's Evil Empire. Damon signed a four-year, $52 million contract with the Dark Side, and now dons the pinstripes.\nSeeing Damon in a Yankees jersey this season will be like seeing Vinatieri in a Colts jersey next season. Damon was the icon of "The Idiots." He was immortalized as the actual Jesus Christ when he won Boston's first World Series in 86 years. He even did so by slaying the Dragon of the Dark Side -- turning on a fastball from Kevin Brown in Game 7 of the American League Championship and belting a grand slam into the stands of Yankee Stadium. He was Boston's leadoff man, in spirit and in the batting order. \nSo what is it about free agency that turns our heroes from hailed to hated? We find that they are human and that they also have a price. Is it a lack of loyalty or is it an assertion of independence? Loyalty? Please. Every athlete in sports has a price. What free agency has done is expose the dark side of the sport industry's moon -- that sports are, in fact, a business and the players who perform are merely employees of entertainment. And so, Vinatieri will be a Colt. Owens will be a Cowboy. And Damon will still be an idiot -- oops, sorry -- a Yankee. \nThis is the new face of sports, a footnote on the lifetime contracts that fans and fanatics sign. This is the golden age of free agency. And it is no secret that sports, for the first time in decades, has a color problem. \nThe color is green. Money, you see, melts memories.
(03/22/06 5:12am)
The National Basketball Association, under Commissioner David Stern, has an image problem. Major League Baseball, under Bud Selig, has a steroid problem. The National Hockey League, under Gary Bettman, has more problems than it does fans. Meanwhile, the National Football League, under Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, has the problem of prosperity, which frankly, is no problem at all. \nTagliabue announced Monday that he will be stepping down as commissioner of the NFL starting in July. In his 16-year reign as head honcho, Tagliabue has served the NFL as Augustus Caesar served ancient Rome. He has commissioned contracts and compromised deals resulting in riches that would make Scrooge McDuck and his vault full of golden coins green with envy. Under Tagliabue, the NFL has seen the value of franchises increase tenfold -- from $70 million in 1989 to $700 million today.\nThe only league in American sports close to enjoying the revenues the NFL racks up is Major League Baseball, and still America's pastime hardly comes close America's game. In 2005, NFL league revenue was $5.7 billion, while baseball gained a little more than $4 billion. Today an NFL team is valued at more than $820 million per team. An MLB team is worth more than $330 million. \nLook at those figures again, and you'll see why life is good for Paul Tagliabue and why the timing of his retirement is like Derek Jeter on top of an 8-year-old kid's fastball. While Tagliabue's tale might not have begun "a long, long time ago," its fairy-tale ending is no myth. \nBut when he entered the league as commissioner, Tagliabue's time was not all fair catches. He replaced Pete Rozelle, a man who catered to the media and cared for his owners, but whose role slowly extinguished like the lit cigarettes he trademarked at his press conferences. \nIn the eyes of the NFL media and its millionaires, Rozelle was radiant while Tagliabue was timid and at times hot- tempered. He was taunted and his friends tagged him as "the smartest person in the room" -- a mark which had marred him as a mystery, but certainly made him a surefire success. \nThe only brain fart in a resume of revenue for the 65-year-old commissioner was the Los Angeles market. In 1995, Tagliabue allowed both the Rams and Raiders to leave L.A. for St. Louis and Oakland, Calif., respectively. Since then the NFL has been looking to expand its interests toward a location that currently is home to two MLB teams: the Angels and Dodgers. The New Orleans Saints, finally dry and disaster-free, have been targeted to leave for L.A. \nYet, Tagliabue's genius -- and Rozelle's downfall -- is his ability to get the necessary three-fourths of the votes from NFL owners to agree with any new policies or plans. As Tagliabue has coined it, he is "herding cats" -- gathering owners who are both independent-minded and investment-driven. \nUnder Rozelle, the NFL had strikes in 1982 and 1987. Under Tagliabue, the league has seen profit, prosperity and even historic parallel. It was a transfer of power akin to ancient Rome's ousting of Julius Caesar and appointment of Augustus. Augustus led Rome through Pax Romana, or "Roman Peace," a period of stability. Tagliabue has ushered in Pax NFL. \nTagliabue is doing what every athlete in his profession can only dream to achieve: He is leaving on top of his game. He is fresh off an agreement that will keep the NFL labor-lock free for the next seven years. Tagliabue has overseen more than two-thirds of NFL teams currently playing in or building new stadiums, he has secured an $8 billion television deal through 2011 and has expanded new markets in cities like Charlotte, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., and Jacksonville, Fla. \nToday, the NFL is the most lucrative league in American sports, an elite business that is undisputed and unrivaled. \nThe NFL's major problem? Prosperity. And to Tagliabue, that's no problem at all.
(03/07/06 6:09am)
All around the world of baseball, Commissioner Bud Selig is being praised for announcing the World Baseball Classic -- a tournament which will highlight the worldwide talents of baseball's best in March. \nBut this "Classic" showcases the world's elite in baseball like the United Nations showcases the world's elite in intelligence.\nRight now, the WBC does not work, but it can. According to the rules, players are invited to play for their respective home countries. Yet, a player who worries about breaking a leg while playing in the WBC can reject the invitation. Scratch that -- a Major League Baseball player who worries about breaking a leg while playing in the WBC can reject the invitation.\nLet's look at one notoriously selfish player -- a guy who would walk with mirrors facing him at all times if it didn't impede other people's ability to admire his face. \nJohnny Damon? No, but close. \nBoston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez rejected an invitation from the Dominican Republic with no reason. He is selfish Manny being selfish Manny. Ramirez came a day later to mandatory spring training, and in exchange the Red Sox made him reject the Dominican's invitation. Now that's commitment.\nThe WBC is marketed to us as the world's best in baseball on the same stage but instead, what we've received is a March Madness with the men who felt like showing up. There is a large percentage of great players in the WBC, but its worth whirls away in the wind with each rejection letter. \nThis is how the WBC should run: \nEvery country should host tryouts and afterward announce a 30-player roster, members of which will, short of injury, have to participate in the World Baseball Classic. Doctors certified by the WBC will examine all players. They can still renege commitments to their country on account of their injury. But the examination creates accountability and a reason, which if false, will shine a bright camera bulb from the media. \nThe "Classic" we've been sold allows players to drop out at will, has a limit of 65 pitches per pitcher in the first round, an 80-pitch limit in the second round and is played weeks before the Major League Baseball regular season.\nThe best players should play through injury. The best pitchers should pitch until fatigued and the Series itself should be played in December, not March. \nIf this is truly the World Baseball Classic, where the world's best play each other, then it is only fair that the largest portion of players possible play. If Major League Baseball is going to commit itself fully to this tournament, it must do so not only in ink but also in all of its players, using all of its resources.\nSo while his teammate David Ortiz is playing for the Dominican Republic, Ramirez will be relishing in trade rumors and relaxing in the rays of the Florida sun.\nSo go on, Manny. Good luck this season. And break a leg -- literally.
(02/28/06 5:48am)
The Olympics should be a big deal -- kind of like Ron Burgundy. Imagine an NFL season that only came around every four years or the NASCAR season appearing as often as a presidential election. Well, OK -- I wouldn't mind NASCAR coming around every decade if possible, but hey -- another time, another column. \nIn fact, the Olympics were as interesting as men in cars driving in circles, and well, nothing innovative here. \nSo here are some fast facts:\n-- Snowboarding, an Olympic event introduced in the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, accounted for seven of America's 25 total medals, including three gold and three silver medals. \n-- Shani Davis became the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympics history, winning it in men's 5,000-meter speed skating.\n-- Shaun White, a gold medalist in men's half pipe, will join the ranks of Supremely Ugly Dudes who will eventually marry a supermodel along with David Copperfield and Seal. I guess ladies love guys who can turn tricks.\nMeanwhile, men's figure skater Johnny Weir, without a medal, is awaiting a Channel Bravo opening for a cameo in "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." \n-- Ted Ligety, a 21-year-old from Salt Lake City, truly earned his nickname "Ligety Split" in Turin. In his first-ever event (men's alpine skiing combined), in his first ever Olympics, Ligety pulled off the improbable, winning his first-ever gold medal. \n-- After winning the gold medal in men's 500-meter speedskating event and silver in the 1,000-meter event, Joey Cheek decided to donate the winnings from his medals to "Right to Play," a charity that helps children in Sudan. Cheek even challenged corporations to follow his example, leading to nine corporations donating more than a quarter of a million dollars to the charity. Even Chinese short track Olympic medalist Yang Yang (any relation to Yin Yang?) said she would donate her $10,000 bronze medal bonus.\nIn truth though, the Games were about who wanted to be Andrew Shaffer's Sugar Momma. Two front runners were snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis and figure skater Sasha Cohen. Both women auditioned for "Who Wants To Be My Boo?" but each reached media-induced mediocrity. Cohen was the clear-cut front-runner in women's figure skating but fell -- literally -- short. She dropped, not only to a silver medal, but from the ranks of Shaffe's Sugar Momma. Jacobellis looked to take the reigns (she had me at "Visa"), but she chose style over substance -- landing flat on her face in the final stretch, watching as Switzerland's Tanja Friedan took the lead and the gold. \nBut while Jacobellis fell on her face -- literally -- men's downhill skier and patriotic poster boy for Americans in Turin, Bode Miller, fell on his face metaphorically. Miller was this year's winter Michael Phelps -- only without the talent and the medals. After appearing everywhere from ESPN to Rolling Stone magazine, Miller did a stage dive down the ranks of Olympic omnipotence and face-first into failure. \nThankfully, my Sugar Momma did emerge. Along with partner Ben Agosto, Tanith Belbin (go ahead, Google her picture) became the first U.S. ice dancing medalist at the Olympics in 30 years. What about Agosto, you ask? Please ... Agosto looks like a cross between Aladdin and Ali-G, minus the magic carpet and the masculinity. Besides -- I can turn tricks with the best of them. For my next act I will finish this really, really long column.\nJust like that, the Winter Games in Turin came to a finale. The story of the media and men's skiing at Turin can be told through two athletes: Ligety and Miller. Ligety came into the Winter Games without hype, only hope. Meanwhile, Miller left without medals and without merit. Just like that, Bode Miller's Olympic Games were over. Just like that, what seemed like a common collision for the most highly touted Americans in these Winter Games, Miller comes home medal-less. Just like that, he fell flat on his face. Just like that, Ligety split.
(02/24/06 5:23am)
Your Honor, I unknowingly urinated outside of Ballantine Hall. Your Honor, I unknowingly ran naked through the Arboretum. Your Honor, I unknowingly hit on that girl in the bar, and her boyfriend unknowingly beat the hell out of me. \nThat sounds like a ludicrous defense, right? Not to Barry Bonds. \nBonds will begin the MLB season on April 3, needing just six home runs to eclipse Babe Ruth's 714, and only 48 home runs to top Hank Aaron. \nBonds testified to a grand jury in 2004, saying that he unknowingly took the "clear" and the "cream." The government identified the clear as the designer steroid THG, and the cream as a testosterone-based ointment. Since then, Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson served a three-month prison sentence for money laundering and steroid distribution, while Bonds' chemist and Balco founder Victor Conte served four months of home confinement for various drug offences.\nIf he never knowingly took a substance in his life, I can only hope that the baseball gods will forgive me for my false accusations. But from the months of April to October, baseball is my lifeblood; it is my basis for breathing. And there is nothing that should be taken more seriously, in baseball, than the records. \nNew York Times columnist Murray Chass wrote last Tuesday, "If baseball's integrity hangs on Bonds' next 48 home runs, the only way to find out if he has had help is to conduct an investigation." The historic prestige of the record coupled with Commissioner Bud Selig's pledge to keep the integrity of baseball intact is more than enough reason to investigate Bonds. While I would like to see an investigation begin before opening day, the truth is, it would not be necessary until Bonds breaks Aaron's record of 755 home runs. \nSo let's look at the evidence in Bonds' home run-hitting career. Before the year 2000, at age 36, Bonds never hit more than 46 home runs in a season. The season he hit 46, 1993, Bonds was 29 years old. In 2001 -- eight years later -- Bonds broke the single-season home run record with 73. Since then, he has averaged more than 51 home runs in the five years he aged from 36 to 40 years old. (Gee ... I forgot the law of nature that states the older you are, the stronger you get. I was never into the sciences.)\nBut Bonds remains untouched and remarkably unaffiliated with any direct substance abuse charges. As such, he swats his critics away like they were fastballs careening the coast of McCovey Cove. \nHis absence from the 2005 season, though, remains a looming shadow of his guilt. That season was the first year Major League Baseball implemented its new steroid policy, publicly naming and suspending the players who tested positive. Fifteen players were caught and humiliated by the media throughout the season. Bonds played 14 games that year, only to leave when knowingly needing surgery on his knee. That sounds like impeccable timing to me, Mr. Bonds. \nWhether you like it or not, Barry, these are the times that you have been born into. It is unclear whether you are the victim or the leader of the "Steroid Era," but what is crystal clear is that you will forever be a focal point. \nYet, allow me to clarify something. If an investigator does find out that Bonds knowingly used anabolic steroids in the past, Selig could not punish him. But, as emphasized by Chass and Selig, that is not the point of the investigation. Integrity is. \nChass sums up his argument with the following: "If the commissioner is genuinely concerned about the integrity of the game, he has to determine if the 214 home runs Bonds has hit in the past five years have been genuine."\nSo you want peace, Barry? You want to prove to the population your innocence? \nPut down the bat and pick up a Bible. Now knowingly raise your right hand.
(02/21/06 5:51am)
Hank Aaron reached a total of 755 career home runs in 1974. When he passed The Babe he was welcomed by some and wearied by others. What hastened those to hate Hammerin' Hank was the color of his skin, not the content of his character. Aaron handled hate with the handle of his bat. He crystallized the emergence of the black athlete in baseball by breaking its most historic record. \nToday, a different black athlete has steered himself into the limelight -- the single home run record holder who is currently third overall in career home runs, Barry Bonds.\nBonds has been a controversial figure ever since his record-breaking 2001 season in which he hit 73 home runs. However, Bonds' discrimination is not based on the color of his skin, but by the content in his blood stream. \nOn Sunday, the Giants slugger told USA Today he plans to retire after this season -- with or without the home run record. Bonds contradicted himself hours later when he rephrased his remarks, declaring that he would play in 2007 if his surgically repaired knee is OK (the knee, which conveniently needed surgery in 2005, also marked the first season that players would be tested for anabolic steroids. Not that I'm trying to imply anything, though that last sentence may be seeped in sarcasm). \nHere is how I see the next two years of Bonds' career -- in 2006, if he hits between one and 27 home runs, he will leave the game with his reputation and Aaron's record intact. If Bonds hits more than 27 home runs he will not disappear from the diamond and will be back in 2007.\nFrankly, Bonds' decision is devious, but bright. With fewer than 20 home runs needed to erase Aaron's mark (which is what he would be doing), the entire baseball world will be ensconced in whether or not Barry will break the record. He will be like a musician in 2007 -- returning to the stage for one last encore. Here in lies Barry's brilliance. Anyone with a living, beating heart will want to see Bonds break the record in, seemingly, fewer than 20 at-bats. His critics will be hushed and his fans will be hallucinating -- tripping on the triumph without recognizing his natural achievement, in fact, as an achievement of science. They will never question its legitimacy. \nBut regardless of the 2006 outcome, if Bonds leaves without the record, if he really walks away from the game of baseball forever -- it will be the triumph of his guilty conscience. No baseball player would throw away the heroic legacy that Aaron has enjoyed for years. No baseball player in his right mind would walk away if he had knowingly built his career on hard, honest work, achieving his goals legitimately. Hmm ... knowingly? We'll get back to that word later. \nAaron played for 23 seasons, never hitting more than 45 home runs in a single season, chugging his way past the 715 home runs by Babe Ruth. His calling card was consistency. He is the only player in Major League history to hit at least 30 homers in 15 seasons and at least 20 homers in 20 seasons. \nAs it stands right now, Bonds remains 48 home runs from hallowing himself in the Halls of Baseball Fame. \nBut the baseball player with the magic swing has in fact memorialized his memories in misery, mere moments from reaching immortality.\nAnd immortality doesn't require a drug test.