A Touch of March

Just a quick post on college basketball.....

Teams that are somewhat under the radar which I really like: Tennessee and Ohio State. Both have proven that they can win on the road against high quality opponents. This bodes well for the tournament.

Oh, and I am so salivating for the Kansas-Texas game on Saturday night. This game should be a terrific barometere of the maturity and preparedness of Kansas' young team heading into March. Quite frankly, I think the result of this game could make the difference between 2 seed lines. If they win, the committee sees that they are for real and on a roll. If they lose, doubts start to creep in that they have just been feasting off the bottom two-thirds of the Big 12. Obviously, there will still be 2 more weeks left, but Kansas will not have any more opportunities (except possibly in the Big 12 Tourney) to make this kind of statement. Rock Chalk Jayhawk! KU!

Randle El

Will someone please explain to me why Antwaan Randle El is suddenly the best and brightest football player than money can buy?

Look, Randle El made a spectacular pass during the Super Bowl and he is great at gadget tricks since he is a multi-tool player, but he simply is not that great of a WR. To quote our friends at Random Thoughts:

Quick, somebody tell me what the following three players have in common...Brian Finneran, Kevin Curtis and Randle El's teammate Cedrick Wilson. And what do the following three players have in common...Shaun McDonald, Jabar Gaffney, and Scott Vines? Finally, how about the following three...D.J. Hackett, Devery Henderson and, yes, Justin Gage.The answers? The first group had more receiving yards last year than Antwaan's 558. The second had more catches than Antwaan's 35. And the third had more TDs than Randle El's one.

The spectacular receivers on the foregoing list do not even include Reggie Wayne, he of the Indianapolis Colts. Wayne is a terrific wide receiver who had over 80 catches last year and has emerged as a reliable and strong receiver upon whom Peyton Manning can rely. And you know what, Reggie Wayne is also a free agent this year!

Why have sportswriters in Chicago fallen in love with Randle El in favor of the more accomplished (individually) Wayne? Please tell me there is more to their infatuation than the fact that Randle El is a hometown product. We are creating a football team here, not a class reunion committee.

I know there is a chance that Reggie Wayne could become the next Peerless Price or Alvin Harper. But I think the odds of that happening with Wayne are significantly less than with Randle El. I would hate to spend a huge signing bonus and millions of dollars on a special teams standout who catches the occasional pass and is good a gadget tricks - the Bears are too vanilla to pull them off anyway.

Do the Bears need a kick returner? No. Bernard Berrian has proven that he has the focus and speed to be successful at this role. Do the Bears need a new legit wide receive? Probably. Mark Bradley was beginning to emerge as a consistent receiver before injuring his knee. The aforementioned Berrian can stretch the field as well as anyone. Muhammad is a pretty good possession receiver. Justin Gage is inconsistent.

Overall, I think the debate is silly since the Bears are in greater need of an impact tight end and depth in the secondary. Heck, I would rather spend money on more depth at offensive line than to sign Randle El for the amount he is expected to receive.

So Jerry Angelo, if you are listening out there, please show me that you have not lost your mind in a myopic dash to sign an average wide receiver. If you have to throw money at that position, Reggie Wayne would be a much better catch.

Whither the Medals?

Is it me, or does this crop of American Olympians simply stink?

Perhaps it is because most of the high profile American athletes have choked (or celebrated) their way out of a medal, but it seems like the US Team is getting pushed around right and left. Heck, even in the events which were invented for the Americans like freestyle mogul skiing we are not having success.

Apolo Anton Ohno - 1 bronze.
Bode Miller - ZIP! 0-4. He has been DQ'd on more runs than he has finished it seems.
Men's Hockey - 1-2-1 (We need help to guarantee that we make the medal round)
Jeremy Bloom - 6th place.
Women's Hockey - We give up the equivalent of the 1980 Miracle on Ice by losing to Sweden.

Then we come to the story of Lindsey Jacobellis, who was arguably 100 yards ahead during another one of the new events invented for the Americans - snowboard cross. Think of a combination between motocross and chinese downhill. Seriously, it is one of the events that I consider a real sport since it is measured solely by who crosses the finish line first. Unlike most of the other new "alpine" sports like halfpipe and freestyle, there are no style points. Unfortunately for Ms. Jacobellis, she forgot this important point during the gold medal race.

Partly as a result of her dominance and partly because 1/2 her competitors had suffered serious crashes, she was holding a seemingly insurmountable lead. Then, on the penultimate jump she decides to showboat (I cannot remember the name of the trick, but is is something like a rodeo or loopey or grabby) to celebrate her imminent victory. Funny thing happened on the way to the medal stand - Lindsey fell when she lost her footing while landing this trick. Miraculously, the only other snowboarder still upright passes her for the victory.

Well, I am sure that I do not have to tell you what the post-race situation looked like. The winner, from Switzerland, looked like a 9 year old on Christmas morning. On the other hand, Ms. Jacobellis looked like someone just told her that her grandmother passed away. To borrow from one of the other major sporting events this weekend, the best analogy I can draw to this fiasco is if Jimmie Johnson had run out of gas on the final lap of the Daytona 500. Perhaps the understatement of the year is that Ms. Jacobellis will not ever live this down. In my opinion, if she lives until 2106 she should not be permitted to forget this embarrassing display of bravado.

At least college basketball is providing quality counterprogramming!

Gate This

Okay, rant time!

Today Mike and Mike spent nearly half their show discussing what you hate about sports. Well, it got me thinking, and I have come up with one of my all-time favorite pet peeves:

Adding the syllable "gate" to the end of any word to represent a controversy.

By no means is this phenomenon limited in any way to sports, but sportswriters are particularly prone to fall prey to this problem due to the defective pun-gene each has indelibly written into their genetic code.

Look people, Watergate was a place. It is the location of a crime which eventually brought down a president (Richard Milhouse Nixon, for you younger readers). Besides for referring to this geographical and historical nugget, using "gate" is the most overdone, unoriginal and lazy way to describe any uproar. Besides, is every maesltrom that is kicked up by some unpolitically correct comment worthy of being compared to the impeachment of a president? Can we please use some restraint and an ounce of brain power to come up with an original metaphor?

So, let's make an agreement. Unless any other controversy occurs either on, near, around, over or through a gate, P-L-E-A-S-E stop using "gate" to represent turmoil. It is done!

There are the Olympics...and then there are Sports

(Yawn) Another Olympics has come this year. I used to get more excited about the Olympics when I was younger. It may be the result of my jaded perspective that has developed with age or the introduction of professionals that has dimished the innocence and purity of the competition. Upon reflection, however, I think it is because the Olympics have become so diluted with newfound events that are strictly designed to increase ratings and appeal to those who are younger and hipper than me. I think the word "event" is the proper moniker for many of these Olympic contests. Why? Because so much of the competition is over events that are not "Sports."

What is a Sport, you ask? I have developed a very short and direct test of what is a Sport and what is not. A Sport is any form of competition involving physical exertion which is governed by prescribed rules of conduct the results of which can be measured objectively.

I have considered this defintion long and heard and, believe me, I am aware of the consequences of applying it to some of the most popular Olympic events. Figure Skating - not a sport. Speed Skating - Sport. Freestyle snowboarding - not a sport. Downhill skiing - Sport.

You may ask, what about those sports that need referees to enforce the rules - such as football, hockey, baseball, etc. Officials mess up so much that it can hardly be called objective? I think you can live with human frailty in the enforcement of rules so long as the athletes end up having the ultimate say in the outcome of the contest. You certainly do not see the Miami Heat losing a game because a referee does not like Shaq's free throw shooting form, but the Heat may lose if Shaq clangs one of the back of the rim.

Please understand, I am not saying that any of the non-Sports are easy or necessarily uninteresting. This is not a value statement - just a categorization. I personally find less satisfaction from watching them since the results are ultimately not determined entirely by the athletes themselves.

So that is my theory and I'm sticking to it. Feel free to let me know your thoughts.


P.S. Michele Kwan deserves credit for giving Emily Hughes her spot back on the Olympic figure skating team - I just won't be watching her.

Role Models

For the last two weeks the columnists in the Chicago sports pages have been scraping the barrell to find fodder. The most recent victims of their scorn are Ozzie Guillen, Scott Podsednik and Tadahito Iguchi, three members of the 2005 World Champion White Sox. You see, the Sox are scheduled to visit the White House today to fulfill their part in the long tradition of giving the President a nice photo op, but Oz, Pods and Guch are missing the affair. Now, it is definitely an honor to be invited to the White House. And I have a tremendous amount of respect for the office of the President. However, I can also imagine there are as many reasons not to visit the White House as there are to go.

Some writers have speculated that Ozzie Guillen, originally from Venezuela but recently naturalized a U.S. citizen, is boycotting the visit to the White House at the behest of rogue Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Besides for the fact that many of these writers seem to be appealing to Hollywood to write a pilot for the sequal to X-Files, if this were the case, what is all the hullabaloo about? We constantly hear from sportswriters that they wish more of our athletes were role models for our youth. Heck, Michael Jordan heard for years that he was not political ENOUGH in the fight for equality for African-Americans. So now someone makes up a story that the outspoken manager of the White Sox MIGHT have a political motive for missing the teams trip to the White House (If that is the case, he is doing a very poor job making a political statement by remaining quiet about it).

Whether I agree or disagree with someone's political view is not important. What is important is that someone has a political view. Too many people in this country are apathetic about politics because they feel disconnected and powerless. If a high profile athlete wants to exploit his position to make a political statement (think Mexico City, 1968), terrific! That is really being a role model.

So the press wants a role model, but then wants to judge the manner in which a player or coach chooses to express his political beliefs. Your damned if you do and damned if you don't. But heck, this is not the first time the press could be accused of being duplicitous.

Professionals Gambling

From time to time the topic of professional athletes gambling on sports comes to the fore. This week, we have learned that the Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach, Rick Tocchet, has financed a multi-million dollar gambling ring. Intitial reports indicate that none of the betting was on hockey. (Of course, based on subsequent reports, he may have been running the ring almost solely for the benefit of his boss's wife, Janet Jones-Gretzky - but that is another story) The question which has been debated on sports talk radio as a result is, "Do you care?"

There are 2 generally accepted sides to this debate. First, if the athlete can afford it, who cares as long as he is not gambling on his own sport or team. The second argument is the slippery slope theory that gambling is insidious and there is no way to guarantee that any gambler will not succumb to outside forces which may potentially influence his performance - even if he is not directly gambling on his own team or sport.

As for me, I tend to subscribe more to the latter argument, but with some exceptions. I thought that the University of Washington overreacted when it discovered that their football coach ran a private, high stakes March Madness pool. That seems like more of an isolated incident that is only among friends. In contrast, if an athlete begins to gamble with a local "bookie", there are well documented risks that must be acknowledged and guarded against. I do not think we want our professional athletes shaving points. Further, providing inside information (what some poeple may consider a lesser crime) may create an unfair imbalance.

The problem I have is how to separate the harmless betting from the "risky" betting. Perhaps the professional leagues should just acknowledge that the athletes' competitive nature which led them to become professionals naturally leads to gambling. If that is the case, is there a maximum amount which an athlete should be allowed to gamble on other sports? Would you include non-sports gambling, such as poker? Obviously, gambling is pervasive in our culture and it has not caused a huge problem for the big sports leagues except for the infrequent, isolated event like the one reported this week. On the other hand, once you let gambling in is it really possible to regulate and limit the amounts spent?

All of these questions, and others, make this a very difficult topic to address. For this reason, I think the best policy is to be risk averse so that the public's confidence in professional sports is not broken by allegations tied to gambling and influence peddling related to it.

Parity

Parity defines college basketball right now. Why do I say that? Well, in the last week or two there have been a number of examples where teams holding double digit leads either lost or ended up falling behind before winning. Two examples include the Kansas comeback against a more experienced Oklahoma team and UNC's comeback against a similarly veteran Duke team. The bottom line is that no team is invinceable - far from it. There simply is not enough depth and experience on any one team to make them a prohibitive favorite.

This is not necessarily a condemnation of college basketball. Just the opposite, it holds the potential for a particularly nerve-wracking March. I sure would not want my team to be on the bubble the first week of March since who knows how many upsets there will be in conference tournaments. And, of course, this year's tournament holds especially high hopes for those low-seeded teams that get on a roll. (Is it low-seeded or high-seeded, I never could figure it out since the higher the number the lower the seed, I think.)

Anyway, I am looking forward to the remainder of the college hoops season to see what unexpected things are unveiled.

Of Comcast and the Bulls

I decided to watch the 4th quarter of the Bulls game last night instead of banging my head against the wall - I could not decide which would be more painful. Anyway, with approximately 1 minute to play and the Bulls fighting back from a 6 point deficit (to eventually tie the game), Comcast Sports Net went black for at least 2 minutes. (I changed the channel to make sure it was not DirecTV.) How in the world can a huge conglomerate like Comcast still manage to make such fundamental and blatant engineering mistakes after being on the air for over 1 year. Do I really need another reason to hate Comcast?

Anyway, back to the Bulls. Not only did they blow an 11 point lead in regulation (a 17 point turnaround by the time they were 6 down), but they also lost a 7 point lead in overtime! I have never seen a team switch from hot to cold so quickly. To borrow the assessment of our friends at Random Thoughts, this team is not going to make the playoffs. And if they actually do - so what? Who cares if they eeke into the playoffs only to get swept by the Pistons? This teams need to address some major issues - offensive post play, defense, a go-to player and - coaching. I am starting to come around to the idea that Scott Skiles is a great motivator but not such a great strategist. How else can this team be so inconsistent? They are not as young as they were last year - they have no rookies at all. Most of the core players have been in the system for over a year now. Perhaps next summer when they try to spend all of their free agency money they can lure a more seasoned coach as well.

Chief Illiniwek

My interest and participation in the Chief Illiniwek debate is in some respects peripheral, especially since no one in my family is an alumnus from the University of Illinois (thank goodness!). However, my interest was piqued several years ago by a series of Eric Zorn columns in the Chicago Tribune. It was formerly my understanding that the Chief was an accurate depiction of a locally significant native american tribe which gave due respect to the state's historic inhabitants. Thanks to Mr. Zorn and his extensive research staff, I have come to learn that the Illini were not one tribe, but a group of tribes, none of which were particularly aggressive and who definitely were not good at fighting (reportedly, they lost every battle they ever fought with their more aggressive neighbors on the Great Plains). Moreover, the gear worn by the Chief during his performance is contributed to the University by a tribe that is not even native to Illinois. Consequently, my opinion about the use of Chief Illiniwek has come around to be against its continuation. While Chief Illiniwek is arguably more accurate than Chief Wahoo (Indians) or the generic logo of the Washington Redskins, it still amounts to an idealized characterization based on a stereotype.

This issue has returned to the news this week as a result of the University filing a second appeal of the NCAA's decision to ban the University of Illinois from hosting any postseason events so long as the Chief is continued to be used. It is interesting to note that the arguments the University has presented in its second appeal appear to have abandoned any attempt to justify the use of the mascot or buffet the school's relationship with some native tribe. Rather, the appeal targets the underlying authority of the NCAA to regulate this matter. From a legal perspective, this would be considered a facial challenge, where the first appeal was a challenge to how the rule was applied. In essence, the University is now trying to have the entire rule thrown out so it cannot be applied to any school - no matter how reasonable it may be in certain cases.

Quite frankly, I think the best thing that can happen to the University's Board of Regents is for the NCAA to deny this appeal too. This allows the Board to save face by diligently pursuing appeal after appeal, and then complying with a reasonable fall back position that they have been "compelled" to do. No one likes the NCAA anyway, so it doesn't matter that the a good portion of the State of Illinois holds a grudge against it too.

It is time for the University to finally be intellectually honest and consistent with its educational mission. No more would the University continue to teach a class premised on half truths and rumor than it should continue to mislead the students, alumni and citizens of this State by propogating a false stereotype of the ancestral residents of this part of the world.