Getting it done, on and off the field

Recommended reading: Greg Bishops’s New York Times piece on former running back Curtis Martin.

Martin not only had the requisite talent and toughness to play the position, he also had — and has — perspective and smarts.

Writes Bishop: “Even when he played, Martin did not want to be a scout or a coach or a broadcaster afterward. He wanted to own part of a team.”

Martin on his Hall-of-Fame candidacy:

“When I think of the Hall, what’s most satisfying is this really wasn’t something that I wanted. But I’m proud of that fact. I made the most of that situation. I maximized my opportunity.”

That's not something every athlete — or non-athlete, for the matter — can say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/sports/football/03martin.html?adxnnl=1&ref=football&adxnnlx=1291964403-wBMltZdsV48nlbjwR4Weyw

As long as they had a good reason

Not that brawling over good football teams would be intelligent, but how dumb are the folks who fought in a Rose Bowl parking lot Saturday over the honor of the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans?

Some 40 fans got into it, Pasadena, Calif., police said. One person was stabbed in the cheek and another was stabbed in the back. Two officers were slightly injured.

Arturo Cisneros, 44, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. Steven Radu, 27, and Joshua Elder, 23, were arrested for investigation of assault on a police officer.

Cisneros was later released, but his three adult sons were arrested for investigation of attempted murder.

Nothing brings a family together like a nice attempted slaying.

I know I’m taking a wild guess here, but I’m assuming alcohol was involved.

How much? Well, apparently more alcohol than brains.

Friday column: Competition's pluses, minuses

I’m fond of Eugene McCarthy’s line about politicians needing to be like football coaches: “You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.”

But having spent a lot of my life competing in athletics, including doing a little coaching, I do understand its lure — or at least one of the lures.

By and large, I think, people are less happy when they’re focused on themselves, more happy when they’re not — when they are able to “lose themselves” in something else.

There were times when I was young and miserable, when nothing could make me forget my unhappiness like a good, competitive game of basketball — in a gym or on a street.

Being “outside of myself” for that time was sheer relief.

Sports offers an arena in which you not only can focus on externals, but also you can easily chart your progress. Want to know how you are doing? Look at the scoreboard. Look at your batting average. Look at your winning percentage. Life — real life — doesn’t offer those clear measuring sticks.

Of course, a life of constant competition comes with a price, a price Florida football coach Urban Meyer says he’s decided he no longer wants to pay, at least for now. One year after resigning following a health scare — only to quickly un-resign — Meyer appears sincere in his decision to step down.

In today’s college game, coaches at Meyer’s level are compensated at absurd levels, but just as absurd are the expectations others place on them. Meyer won two national titles at Florida; yet last year he “disappointed” Gators fans by only going 13-1. The reaction to this year’s 7-5 season? Don’t ask.

Coaching legend John Wooden told the story of a booster who came up to him after his UCLA team had beaten Kentucky to win the 1975 NCAA basketball title.

“It was a great victory, John.” Then the booster added, “After you let us down last year.”

“Last year,” 1974, Wooden’s Bruins had lost to North Carolina State in the NCAA finals, in double overtime — only the second time in 12 years Wooden’s team hadn’t cut down the nets.

That was Wooden’s last season; he knew when it was time to get out. It appears Meyer does, too.

Even so, the break for Meyer, just 46, could be brief.

“I can’t ever see that son of a gun getting out of the game and going into broadcasting,” Notre Dame assistant Tim Hinton said last year. “He’s too much of a competitor.”

Hopefully not.

Meyer already has discovered the health consequences of being super competitive. Competition also can be an addiction. It’s the need to compete, I think, that led to Pete Rose’s career meltdown and to the gambling problems of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

Competition is a way to “lose yourself.” The trouble is, sometimes it really happens.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Not too well, as I recall

The funniest line to come out recent stories about the Miami Heat’s alleged unhappiness with coach with Erik Spoelstra is this one: They're not winning as much as expected because he won’t let them be themselves.

It’s funny because when easy-going Wade Phillips replaced disciplinarian Bill Parcells as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, every player was allowed to be himself.

How did that work out?

Implausible denial

So.

Cam Newton’s father, the good Rev. Newton, was pimping his son around to college football programs for a couple of hundred thou, but the son knew nothing about it?

Two words: Un-likely.

Auburn may gets its national championship, but the NCAA investigation will continue, and the subsequent embarrassment may be a bitch.

Even if it comes years later.

Just as Southern Cal.

As for Newton attorney George Lawson's insistence that he is "a million percent confident that Cam Newton took no money from no one," I'm a million percent confident that Lawson, saying just what a flak is paid to say, has credibility in this matter of ... just ... about ... zero.

No offense, Derek, but …

Derek Jeter is easily my favorite player in Major League Baseball.

I love his work ethic, his demeanor, his hustle. I’ve never seen him not run out a ground ball — and I mean hard.

But the idea the Yankees owe him tons of money in his declining years simply because he is Derek Jeter, because of what he has done for them in the past, is absurd. He was well compensated for all those years.

The sense now is that after early rebuffs, Jeter and his agent are getting more realistic about his current monetary value. I hope so.

In an era when hardly anybody plays for one team his entire career, it would be nice for Jeter to finish as a Yankee.

Friday column: 'This how you do me?'

I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME?!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO …

Thus tweeted Buffalo wide receiver Steve Johnson’s after dropping a sure touchdown pass Sunday, a play that would have given the Bills an upset victory over Pittsburgh.

Johnson’s reaction brought to mind my struggles with a Ignatius Loyola prayer of dedication recommended to me years ago.

Recognizing God as the source of all things, the prayer offers back to that source all of one’s freedom, memory, intelligence and will for God to use as he sees fit. The prayer ends, “I ask only for your love and your grace, for they are enough for me.”

I have found praying that prayer problematic in this sense: While I understand and do believe that God’s love and grace should be enough for me, I find as say those words that, in truth, I want a little more.

A newer car would be nice. Maybe a house without so many problems. A bit of financial security would be appreciated. I wouldn’t mind a Pulitzer.

Johnson apparently would very much have liked a game-winning touchdown. When he didn’t get it, he tweeted, ostensibly to God. But as his faith tells Johnson that the Almighty already knows his thoughts, it’s safe to assume the tweet was really to Bills fans, to let them know the drop really wasn’t Johnson’s fault — blame the Man Upstairs.

In a world of suffering, it’s easy to make fun of Johnson’s angst over a dropped pass. But it’s worth remembering the wide receiver is only 24 and clearly felt he had let down an entire community. When he said after the game that he would “never get over it — ever,” I’m quite sure he meant it.

But, obviously a little perspective is called for.

There are countless millions of people waking up today who must struggle with their faith, whatever it may be, while confronting soul-shattering losses — of job, health, child, husband, wife. In this life, loss, pain and fear come at us, sometimes in waves. We do what we can to prevent them but sooner or later they come, just the same.

What we can control, one hopes, is our response, and here Johnson should have an edge. He’s an elite athlete, which means he’s already learned that pushing through the hard moments — wind sprints at the end of practice, extra reps when you’re tired, discouraged and want to quit — is where the most progress is made.

What’s true in the athletic realm I believe to be true also in the spiritual.

For people of faith, getting from “And this how you do me?” to “your love and your grace are enough for me,” is a long, arduous journey, and there are frequent drops — for all of us — along the way.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.