Better save that suitcase for your lawyers ...

Ah, Plaxico, Plaxico …

It’s not surprising that someone who carried an unregistered gun into a New York nightclub might have another one or two weapons lying around his house.

In the case of Plaxico Burress, it was two — a 9-mm handgun and a rifle — along with ammunition for three other guns that were found when police recently raided his home.

As of Thursday, police had not determined whether these — unlike the Glock pistol with which he shot himself in the thigh at the Latin Quarter — were legally possessed or not.

Burress, it seems, has difficulties with rules; to him, they simply don’t apply. Witness the other little legal scrape Burress finds himself in — being the target of a civil suit for rear-ending a woman in Florida.

With a price tag of $140,000, Burress’ Mercedes-Benz most likely had every little accessory a modern-day jock-hero could possible need — except a piece of paper showing valid proof of insurance. It seems our star’s insurance had run out three days before the accident — he had neglected to pay the premiums.

Not that he didn’t have the money; in fact, in their raid of Burress’ home, police a suitcase full of cash — the perfect accessory for one’s next get-a-way weekend.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3791174

Perfect day-after-Christmas stories

Recommended reading:

Wayne Drehs’ ESPN piece on Kurt Warner and the price he pays in locker-room popularity for simply doing good — off the field. Warner's Goody Two-shoes’ reputation is well-deserved, but there’s more to the man than that.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?page=hotread17/kurtwarner&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab2pos1

Also worth noting is Dwayne Wade’s impulsive help for a South Florida family that lost a home due to fire.

"That's what I try to teach my kids," the Miami Heat star said. "It's not about what you're going to receive — it's what you can give to others from what you've received."

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3792612

Gee, this should help recruiting …

Mississippi basketball coach Andy Kennedy was arrested early Thursday in Cincinnati and accused of assaulting a cab driver. Kennedy, 40, allegedly punched 25-year-old cab driver Mohammed Ould Jiddou in the face while shouting racial slurs.

Nice.

Kennedy denies the charges, but according to the Cincinnati Police Department, “there was an unrelated witness that observed the whole incident."

Also charged was William Armstrong, the Rebels' coordinator of basketball operations.

Liquor apparently was involved.

Nice.

Liquor. Racism. Violence.

Nice.

More than a statistical anomaly

I don’t know that NBA Hall of Famer and one-time Auburn Tiger Charles Barkley is right that “race was the No. 1 factor” in the school’s hiring of Gene Chizik to be its next football coach. Hiring Chizik meant bypassing Turner Gill, who has a better record as a head coach than Chizik — and, yes, Chizik is white and Gill is black.

I don’t know that race was involved in any specific coach hirings of the past few years.

I do know, however, that race HAS to be involved in the fact that out of 119 programs in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision, only four — count ’em, four — are black.

There’s a phrase to describe this: institutional racism, and the NCAA doesn’t seem to give a damn.

There's more under the Sampson rock

Ah, Indiana.

The list of bad things that happened on Kelvin Sampson’s watch just got longer.

According to Los Angeles Clipper rookie Eric Gordon, drug use helped tear apart last year’s Hoosiers basketball team.

Gordon said that then-coach Sampson tried to stop the drug use, but "was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything."

Everything probably being charges that Sampson had repeatedly violated NCAA recruiting rules, charges that proved accurate, leading to Sampson being paid three-quarters of a million dollars to go away, Indiana being slapped with three years probation, and the program going into absolute free-fall.

The IU Athletics Code of Conduct allows university officials to drug-test at any time. But, remember, Sampson "was just so focused on basketball and winning and everything."

High school basketball coach Doug Mitchell, who had three former players at Indiana last season, including Gordon, told the Indianapolis Star that the situation was “a mess.”

"I'm extremely disappointed in what appears to have been the lack of monitoring and supervision of the players' behaviors," he said.

Sampson landed on his feet, getting an assistant’s gig with Milwaukee in the NBA. The Hoosiers, on the other hand, landed ... actually, as Gordon's comments demonstrate, they're still in free-fall.

In a bit of rough

There’s class — and then there’s … well, shave off a couple of letters.
Tiger Woods has class. His caddie, Steve Williams? Ehhh … not so much.

Williams, who has a reputation for thuggish behavior and stupid remarks, reverted to form recently by calling Woods rival Phil Mickelson a word that rhymes with stick (no, it wasn’t trick).

At an event in New Zealand, Williams also told the press that Mickelson, after being heckled by a fan, fell apart on the 17th and 18th holes at this year’s United States Open at Torrey Pines.

Mickelson said that Williams’ account was an “absolute fabrication” and that the story was “grossly inaccurate and irresponsible.” And the facts back him up. Mickelson played with Woods in the first two rounds, but did not struggle on the last two holes in either round.

“I don’t particularly like the guy,” Williams was quoted as saying. “He pays me no respect at all and hence I don’t pay him any respect. It’s no secret we don’t get along either.”

Williams also indicated Woods and Mickelson are less than friends. “I was simply honest and said they don’t get along,” he was quoted as saying. “You know what it’s like. You’re at a charity event and you have a bit of fun.”

But Mickelson didn’t see the humor, and neither did Williams’ boss.

“I was disappointed to read the comments attributed to Steve Williams about Phil Mickelson, a player that I respect,” Woods said in a statement. “It was inappropriate. The matter has been discussed and dealt with.”

Woods might not like Mickelson, but he was raised too well to take pot shots at him in public — or to let his caddie do it.

It’s not in his nature, but Williams might want to tread carefully for a while. The last time a Woods’ caddie disappointed his boss, he quickly found himself seeking new employment.

Kudos all 'round

Recommended reading: Dana O’Neil’s ESPN piece on UConn forward Stanley Robinson, who was bounced from the team by coach Jim Calhoun, told to get a job and get his head together — and who did just that.

Robinson, a starter for the Huskies, wasn’t in trouble with the law and wasn’t academically ineligible. He was just acting immature, which prompted Calhoun to suspend him for the first semester of this year.

"The only one being harmed was Stanley," Calhoun said. "I had a couple of players I asked to leave the program. I didn't want Stanley to leave. He's a really good kid with a heart of gold, but he had to get his life square. I saw signs, little things. He'd be late to study hall or late to practice. He wasn't always going to class. He just wasn't focused."

After five months of sorting scrap, Robinson is back with the Huskies, focused and more grown up.

"I'm much different," Robinson said. "I'm more mature now. I'm a man. This made me a man."

Kudos to Calhoun for caring enough to risk losing a talented player, kudos to Robinson for taking the hard but correct route, kudos to Robinson’s family for encouraging him to listen to Calhoun, rather than transfering to another school.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=oneil_dana&id=3769359

Someone worth remembering

Jan Kemp has died.

You ask, “Who's Jan Kemp?” Well, I’ll tell you.

Kemp, who died at just 59 from complications from Alzheimer's, was a woman who helped change the face of college athletics and make the moniker “student-athlete” not a complete farce.

Kemp, a University of Georgia professor, was fired in 1982 after blowing the whistle on the school for allowing athletes who failed remedial classes — yes, remedial classes — to continue to play sports.

She sued the school, and her lawsuit not only got her reinstated, it led to sweeping reforms at the school and helped lead to more stringent academic standards for students across the nation.

It did not, however, make her very popular in football-loving Georgia. An Associated Press story noted that “a newspaper columnist once wrote Kemp should be ‘the next teacher in space’ — not long after Christa McAuliffe, an elementary school teacher chosen by NASA's Teacher in Space Project, died in the shuttle Challenger explosion.”

For caring about doing the right thing — at the cost of incurring the wrath of an entire state — may God bless Jan Kemp.

For more on Kemp, see Pat Forde's column on her for ESPN:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3761411&sportCat=ncf&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab4pos1

Ah, those frisky freshmen …

A couple of freshmen are making Kansas University and the University of Iowa awfully proud.

Markief Morris, an 18-year-old Jawhawk basketball player (he's the one at right with the stubble), decided it would be fun a fire BBs into a university dorm courtyard. It seemed less amusing to the 47-year-old woman hit by the BBs.

To atone for his misdeed, Morris, who had been charged with battery, has agreed to perform 20 hours of community service.

Shooting BBs into a courtyard seems like a rather juvenile thing to do, juvenile and potentially dangerous, but it’s OK, folks, because …

"I've learned a lesson from this, and I apologize for any embarrassment this caused KU and the basketball program,” Morris said in a statement released (and probably written) by the school. “I'm going to do my community service so I can conclude this matter and concentrate on academics and the rest of the basketball season.”

“We’ve talked about this a lot,” said Kansas coach Bill Self. “And I’ve told Markieff and our guys that obviously they have to make better decisions and be much wiser in their judgment.”

Speaking of making better decisions, Iowa freshman Anthony Tucker (above right) also might want to consider taking that tack. Tucker recently was found out passed out in a freezing alley with a breath-alcohol level of .194. The blood-alcohol limit to be considered legally drunk in Iowa is .08.

Tucker was so wasted that police officers called to the scene were unable to wake him. He was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and released.

Another incident like this and Tucker might be looking at another release — from the basketball program. As it is, Tucker has been suspended indefinitely by Iowa coach Todd Lickliter.

The usual suspects

So.

The NFL Players Association is appealing the fine and suspension given Plaxico (Quick Draw McGraw) Burress after his little nightclub shooting incident.

What a surprise.

The NFLPA, after all, exists in part to contest the consequences of bad behavior, coming to the aid of such notables as Michael Vick and Pacman Jones.

That’s what the union does, I mean, when it’s not allegedly conspiring with EA Sports to cheat retired players out of the money due them for use of their likenesses in the popular Madden NFL game.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080930-lawsuit-nflpa-conspired-with-ea-to-cheat-retired-players.html

Also coming to the defense of Burress is Miami linebacker Joey Porter. (That's him above in one of his calmer moments.)

"For a person to carry a gun, I mean, you're not carrying a gun to show that ‘I'm tough.’ It's safety, it's nothing but safety," Porter said.

And exactly how did carrying a loaded pistol — which his firing into his thigh indicates he obviously didn’t know how to handle — make Burress safe?

It should be noted that Porter is sensitive to the issue of player fines, having been hit in the wallet several times himself, most notably for nearly $150,000 after attacking Cincinnati Bengals offensive lineman Levi Jones in a Vegas casino in 2007.

An Indian Obama?

I’m all for ethnic pride. And if Native Americans are proud to claim Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford as one of their own, they could do worse, inspiration-wise.

Bradford is accomplished on the field and off, sporting a 3.95 GPA to go along with 48 touchdown passes. He’s also a class act, as you might suspect from the following quote:

"God has blessed me with a great platform. If I can use that in a positive way and be a role model for younger kids, set a good example for them, I think it's a really good thing."

According to USA Today, Bradford is “four generations from the last full-blooded Native American in his family, and his suburban rearing came with little exposure to American Indian culture,” yet he is a registered Cherokee. As a result, he’s brought excitement and hope to Indian tribes of western Oklahoma specifically and to Native Americans generally.

"It opens everything up for us," said one Native American high-school football player. “Like Obama becoming President."

I don’t think I’d go that far — even understanding the importance of college football in America. Now, maybe if Bradford becomes an NFL star …

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/big12/2008-12-09-bradford-cover_N.htm

The best of the game

Recommended reading: Gene Wojciechowski's ESPN piece headlined "Everything Maddux Wasn't" — which actually tells you everything Greg Maddux was — smart, classy, dignified, talented, a credit to the game of baseball.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=3749958&sportCat=mlb

And at his farewell news conference, Maddux was, well, himself.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081208&content_id=3706977&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Collateral damage

Something Plaxico Burress might want to consider — but judging from his history, probably won’t — is the trouble his little gun incident has caused for others.

Let’s see, whom do we have?

There’s his teammate Antonio Pierce (seen above), who could be in legal jeopardy for allegedly taking Quick Draw McGraw’s .40-caliber Glock pistol home.

There’s the entire Giants team, which has to deal with yet another Burress-created distraction, and has to try to get back to the Super Bowl without the services of their most-talented wide receiver.

There’s NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital — which might be in trouble for not reporting a gunshot wound, as required by law — and specifically Dr. Josyann Abisaab, who has been suspended by the hospital. Whoever allowed Burress to register under an assumed name also has some explaining to do.

There’s the NFL, which has been accused by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for not promptly reporting the shooting to the authorities, as well as for failing to make players available for interviews.

All this because of a 31-year-old adolescent who has been coddled for years just because he can catch a freakin’ football.

Is this a great country or what?

Actually, I forgot to mention the NYPD, which has been accused by some of not taking the case as seriously as they might have if the alleged perp wasn’t a hero of Super Bowl XLII.

When Burress was booked Monday, one detective reportedly told him, "You better get back, bro. We need you for the play-offs."

Actually, what we need, detective — and this goes for all of Burress' helpers and enablers — is a little perspective and judgment.

Watch out for those “friends”

I was thinking Thursday afternoon about the Giants’ Antonio Pierce, and how his trying to help his foolish and selfish friend, Plaxico Burress, could land him in a lot of trouble (see above blog item), when news concerning Texas Tech’s Michael Crabtree moved on the wire.

Crabtree, a redshirt freshman, already might be the best college football player in the nation and is projected as a likely first-round draft pick on 2011.

That would mean millions of dollars and a dream realized.

Yet there was Crabtree being rousted in the early a.m. Thursday while DEA agents searched his Lubbock apartment for drugs.

Crabtree wasn’t the target — teammate/roommate De'Shon Sanders was — but if Crabtree had been dragged into the probe, he wouldn’t have been the first roommate accidentally netted in a drug bust.

Sanders was cuffed and taken to jail, booked on charges of dealing cocaine.

Crabtree, meanwhile, was left to ponder the importance of choosing one’s friends wisely.

There goes your credibility, counselor

"He is standing tall. He is a mature adult." — Attorney Benjamin Brafman on Plaxico Burress after the Giants' wide receiver was arraigned Monday on two separate counts of a weapons charge

o o o

Please.

I understand that lawyers are paid to lie — wait, did I say lie? I meant, put the best spin on a client and his situation. And as someone who has represented mobsters, Brafman has some practice with this. But calling Burress a mature adult?

By what standard, counselor?

There’s the 40-50 times Burress has been fined by the Giants for a variety of infractions. There’s his multiple suspensions. There’s his attitude about all of the above, which can be summed up in two words: Who cares?

Then there’s the maturity he demonstrated Friday night, not only in shooting himself in the thigh with a gun he had stuck in the waistband of his sweatpants, but afterward at a hospital, where he gave his name as “Harris Smith,” as though the 6-foot, 5-inch athlete with the scraggly beard — a hero of last year’s Super Bowl — could go unrecognized.

Then there was his reaction to his impending arrest — laughter, according to some of his New York teammates.

I think I’d drop the “mature adult” theme, counselor. If Burress is a “mature adult,” then Sammy "the Bull" Gravano — your former client — is Mother Theresa.

This is a first

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Stephon Marbury has a point.

Granted, Marbury is a me-first greedhead and a locker-room cancer. Granted, it was a joke when the Knicks brought him in years ago and gave him a fat contract. Granted, he’s been overrated on the court and embarrassing off.

But …

When new coach Mike D’Antoni told Marbury to show up in shape and have a good training camp and he’d get a chance to play, Marbury complied.

Only to have D’Antoni stick him on the bench and publicly embarrass him by refusing to play him — even for a minute — when the regular season started. D’Antoni even cursed when Knicks fans called for Marbury at the end of one blowout.

So when a rash of injuries left the Knicks short-handed and suddenly needing Marbury, I don’t blame the guard for saying, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Is Marbury a selfish creep ? Yes. But in their dealings with Marbury this season the Knicks have acted no better than their petulant former star.

I hope Obama's working on this

The state of the economy has gotten to the point that I’m worried — no, not about me, about Our Athletic Heroes.

First, Tiger Woods has his endorsement deal with GM canceled by the troubled car company. Then LeBron James has his deal with Microsoft nixed.

Without that extra walking-around money from mega-company endorsements, what’s a global icon to do?

In James’ case, he might spend some time at home and more fully consider the advice of Charles Barkley, who’s suggested the free-agent-to-be stop talking about where he might land in two years, when his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers expires.

“I'm getting so annoyed he's talking about what he's going to do in two years,” the NBA Hall-of-Famer said. “I think it's disrespectful to the game. I think it's disrespectful to the Cavaliers."

James took Barkley's constructive criticism like a man.

“He’s stupid,” he said.

Oh, well. A troubled economy can make anyone edgy.

You can't buy coverage like this ... oh, wait, you can

According to The New York Times, when Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt sold the rights to photos of their newborn twins, they got more than a mere $14 million in return.

Reportedly, they also got People to guarantee that its coverage of them would be positive — not just for one issue but in perpetuity.

People’s coverage of the pair, indeed, has been positive; it has focused on Jolie’s charity work and has managed to expound upon the couple without using the word “Brangelina,” which the Jolie-Pitts particularly loathe.

Brangelina, Brangelina, Brangelina.

Now, as the Jolie-Pitts are so concerned with their image that they feel the necessity to buy nice coverage from People, perhaps they should look to guarantee positive spin from other media outlets — a certain Santa Fe newspaper, for instance, and a certain sports columnist.

Brangelina, Brangelina, Brangelina.

Not that I’ve ever written about the pair — Brangelina, Brangelina, Brangelina — but I might just start. In fact, I just did. And if the couple wants to negotiate with me, I’m sure they’ll find me more than reasonable.

Perhaps some sports stars I’ve been rough on would like a similar deal — I’m looking at you, Adam Jones; I know you hate that nickname. What is it again? Oh, that’s right: PACMAN PACMAN PACMAN.

I’m certain, Pac- ... I mean Adam ... that something can be arranged.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21angelina.html?_r=1&scp=12&sq=people%20magazine&st=cse

Practice random acts of showing up

Allen Iverson is at it again.

In 2002, he blew off a Philadelphia 76ers practice before a first-round playoff game, then a month later went on a famous rant ("We talking about PRACTICE") when his coach had the nerve to criticize him for missing those little team get-togethers.

Nearly two years later — same team, different coach — he blew off another practice and was fined.

In 2006, Iverson stormed out of the practice gym after a set-to with yet another coach, leading to his being traded from the Sixers to Denver.

And now in November 2008, only a month after his trade from Denver to Detroit, he's already managed to miss a practice with his new team, leading to what's been described as a "hefty" fine.

"I'm surprised when guys are late; I'm surprised when they don't show," Pistons coach Michael Curry said. "It's a pretty hefty fine to be late, or to miss, and once again, it's accountability for yourself and your teammates."

Accountability? We talking about ALLEN IVERSON.

Friday column: Reinstate Vick? Why not? He'll fit right in

Michael Vick is eyeing an early release from stir and a return to the NFL.

As Vick’s recent bankruptcy filing indicates, he has several reasons — several million, in fact — to get back to the league that once enriched him to the tune of $62 million and promised him tens of millions more.

And he has several reasons to believe he will find a job in league that would find a place for Ghengis Kahn if the Mongol could get a key first down in a big game against a division rival.

Consider Jerramy Stevens.

Stevens’ record includes a string of arrests involving alcohol, drugs and violence, and he almost certainly sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman freshman during his days at the University of Washington. Stevens was booked in the incident — in which a date-rape drug may have been used — but for reasons of incompetence and football favoritism, he was never prosecuted. Reportedly, however, he did pay $300,000 to settle a civil suit in the matter.

None of that moral baggage has stopped Stevens from finding gainful employment in the National Felon League, most recently with Tampa Bay.

I would call him an animal, but it would offend the sensibilities of PETA — and rightly so.

But the word animal, of course, brings us back to Vick, convicted in 2007 of multiple dogfighting charges.

In recent days, three stories shedding light on Vick and his situation have hit the news:

One concerned Vick’s bankruptcy claims, a tale of bad judgment and excess illuminated in part by his writing “chump change” on a $1,000 check to his mother, and his sporting diamond-stud earrings and a charm with the inscription: “World Is Mine.”

Another concerned his pleading guilty to state charges in a plea deal that could spring him from prison by July 2009. Vick told the judge, “I want to apologize to the court, my family, and to all the kids who looked up to me as a role model.”

Of course, this is the same Vick who, when the feds first raided his canine gulag, told NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “I love dogs.” Which brings us to the third story.

According to a David Whitley column in the Orlando Sentinel, a confidential report on Vick’s criminal activities paints an even darker picture of the man than we had, including his putting family pets in the ring with fighting dogs and laughing as they were mauled.

Still, in a league that that gives Leonard Little — who has a manslaughter conviction on his rap sheet — Pacman Jones and, yes, Jerramy Stevens multiple chances, what’s to keep Vick from putting on a helmet again?

Nothing that the NFL believes in, that’s for certain.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Like father, like sons?

Patrick Roy was a great goalie.

And a great diva.

And someone with, well, shall we say, “anger-management” issues. That's him at right, during his fighting ... I mean, playing ... days.

The rage apparently has been passed to his sons.

Last year, Jonathan Roy was suspended for seven games by the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for attacking Bobby Nadeau, an opposing goalie, in the midst of a game. Jonathan’s coach — his dad — apparently cheered him on as he pummeled Nadeau, who didn’t try to fight.

Now Jonathan's brother Frederick has been suspended by the same league for high-sticking an opponent, Vincent Bourgeois, in the mouth during a timeout.

The transgressor’s father isn’t commenting, but the victim's dad is.

"If it was my child who had done something like that, he would never play hockey again," Andre Bourgeois said. "Vincent was lucky. If the hit had been a bit higher or lower, it could have been fatal. I don't even want to think about it."

Frederick, meanwhile, might want to think about this: While his father is a goalie — actually a former goalie — Vincent’s pop is a lawyer.

There IS an "I" in egomaniacal

Sometimes coaches teach; sometimes, players.

Tuesday, it was a player — Davidson’s Stephen Curry. And the coach who should have learned something is Loyola’s Jimmy Patsos, but it doesn’t sound as though he did.

Patsos decided that shutting down Curry by double-teaming him was more important than trying to win the game, or even respecting the game. So two Loyola players shadowed Curry everywhere, even into the corner of the court.

The result? Curry, who came into the game averaging 35 points a contest, was held scoreless. Oh, and Davidson — essentially playing offense four-on-three — killed Loyola 78-48.

Not that Patsos seemed to mind.

"We had to play against an NBA player tonight," Patsos said. "Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I'm a history major. They're going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?"

Actually, Jimmy, I’m going to remember you let your players get embarrassed in order to draw attention to yourself.

"It seemed to me they were willing to risk the game at the expense of locking Steph up," Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. "When you put two people on somebody and you do it for 30 minutes and at the end of the game, you have to wonder what the reasons for that are."

For his part, Curry handled the situation with class, not forcing shots — he took only three — and keeping his poise. It seems as though for Curry, what mattered was team, not individual.

Isn’t that a lesson that coaches are supposed to teach?

Romo's ruining everything

My dislike of the Dallas Cowboys goes back a long way — at least to the Hollywood Henderson era, and has been boosted in recent years by Jerry Jones and his acquisitions of Terrell Owens and Pacman (Call me Adam) Jones.

I enjoy disliking the Cowboys; it’s been very rewarding — and very easy.

Which is why I’m increasingly disturbed by the actions of Tony Romo.

First, the Cowboys quarterback stops on the freeway and helps a couple change a flat tire. Then — this reported Wednesday in the Dallas Morning News — he sees a homeless man outside a movie theater and treats him to a film. And no — he didn’t just buy him a ticket; he went in and watched the flick with him.

When the man told Romo he hadn’t showed in days, Romo replied, “Don't worry about that. I'm used to locker rooms."

"For me, it was a blessing," the man, whose name is Doc, said. "It came at just the right time. It gave me some encouragement and faith in mankind. I just wanted to say thank you."

And I want to say, “Tony, KNOCK IT OFF.”

Now, I’m confident that with Jerry Jones running the show, Pacman Jones running his posse and Terrell Owens running his mouth, I’ll continue to be able detest the team with the star. With a little effort.

But I’d rather not have to work at it at all.

Sis, boom, bah — wait, is that the law?

This just in: You might recall that the Morton Ranch High School varsity cheerleaders were in a little trouble, having caused the suspension of all cheerleading activities for the rest of the school year by binding and blindfolding their JV counterparts and throwing them into a swimming pool.

Now, they’re in a little more trouble.

Seven cheerleaders, aged 17 and 18, have been indicted by a Katy, Texas, grand jury and charged with hazing, a misdemeanor that could bring a maximum six-month jail sentence and a $2,000 fine.

Five more cheerleaders, minors, could be prosecuted in juvenile court.

Lawyers for the poor, misunderstood angels say the legal action is a gross overreaction.

Others, NOT paid to shill, had different thoughts, and were quoted in a Houston Chronicle story.

18-year-old Mosha Washington, for instance, said the varsity cheerleaders "went beyond too far — (their victims) could have died."

And on the question of hazing in general, well, let me quote the last four graphs of the Chronicle story:

"There has been a natural negative evolution," said lawyer Gary Powell of Cincinnati, Ohio, who for two decades edited a newsletter for schools and fraternities. "It's more creative, and, unfortunately, more violent."

Chicago psychologist Jean Alberti termed hazing "child abuse by children."

"If it happened to an adult," she said, "it would be called assault, battery, robbery — all life-threatening stuff. Until we call it 'child abuse,' we won't generate the outrage to change it.

"(Youths) think it's funny, parents think it's funny. They think it's normal adolescent development, but this is an aberration. It didn't happen 30 or 40 years ago. Now we have video on YouTube showing girls kicking other girls in the head."

Friday column: Such touching personal sacrifice

This story moved Monday:

“NEW YORK (AP) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein and six other top executives at the bank will not be receiving cash or stock bonuses for 2008, a spokesman said Sunday.

The decision was made by the seven executives themselves, said spokesman Lucas Van Praag …. The executives made the decision ‘because they think it's the right thing to do,’ Van Praag said.”

Now, the story didn’t mention that Goldman was under a bit of pressure, as it and eight other banks had recently accepted $125 billion from Uncle Sam, leading the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to wonder how — in light of that taxpayer bailout — the banks could possibly justify billions of dollars in pay and bonuses.

Still, I’m certain the Goldman honchos are just doing “the right thing.” And I, for one, am quite moved by their sacrifice. For now the execs will have to live on their paltry base salaries of $600,000.

With luck, they remembered to sock away some of their past bonus money for these hard times. Last year, for instance, Blankfein (that's him in the photo) received a $70 million bonus. I hope he didn’t blow it all on the purchase of, say, a small Third World country.

My heart goes out to the Goldman execs, not only because of their reduced circumstances but because they’re inspirations to us regular folk, as are all the recent sports figures who’ve made sacrifices for the greater good — for purely humanitarian reasons, you understand. Surely you remember these stories from recent years:

— Jan. 11, 2008
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Marion Jones will voluntarily give up competing in the 2008 Olympic Games, she said Thursday in a phone call from a federal courthouse. “I think it best to give some younger girls the opportunity to shine,” she said, adding, apparently to someone in the room with her, “Do I get time off for good behavior?”

— Sept. 14, 2007
Boston (AP) — New England coach Bill Belichick said he would voluntarily stop surreptitiously taping his opponents’ signals for the “good of the game.” Said Belichick: “It’s just not fair what I’ve been doing, it’s just not right,” adding, apparently to someone in the room with him, “What $500,000 fine?”

— Dec. 10, 2007
ATLANTA (AP) — Michael Vick said today he would voluntarily give up playing quarterback for the Falcons, allowing the team to “move on” and find another signal caller. “I’ve caused them some embarrassment, so this is just the right thing to do. They don’t even have to pay me my salary,” said Vick, adding, apparently to someone in the room with him: “Officers, are those leg irons really necessary?”

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Honest to goodness

I have a new favorite golfer.

OK — let me reword that: I have a favorite golfer.

That would be J.P. Hayes, who, during a PGA qualifying tournament last week, called a penalty on himself for playing the wrong ball. In a sport with a long and illustrious honor code, that’s not that surprising. What happened next is.

Two days later, after realizing the ball he accidentally played on two shots was a non-regulation prototype, he informed the PGA of that violation, whereupon the association disqualified him — meaning he won’t qualify for the 2009 PGA Tour.

Even better — almost — is what he said about it.

Anyone else on the PGA Tour in his situation "would have done the same thing," he claimed.

Quite a contrast with, say, NASCAR, whose code is said to be, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t competin’. ”

Now, this year the 43-year-old golfer made $312,000 despite having his worst season ever. So don’t cry for Hayes. He won’t.

"It's not the end of the world. It will be fine. It is fine."


http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=3712372

Exactly what you DON’T want, Coach

Rich Rodriguez, coach of the 3-8 Michigan football team, thinks something’s out of whack. Some fans of the maize and blue, it seems, are taking the game much too seriously.

Rodriguez is displeased with the vocalizing that’s been heading his way as the Wolverines have lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost and lost this year.

"It's amazing some of the things that people would say [on a message board] or yell at you of a personal nature," Rodriguez. "You almost want to tell them, 'Get a life.'

No, no, Rich. You don’t want them to get a life. If they have a life, they might not buy tickets to watch your football team and subsidize your $15 million, six-year contract. They might even object when the university pays your former employer, West Virginia, $3 million as compensation for your having broken your contract to come to Ann Arbor in the first place.

Trust me, Rich: You want those fans to avoid a healthy perspective at all cost. Verbal abuse might be difficult, but at $2.5 mil a year, you can afford a real good pair of noise-blocking earphones.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3710474

Mercy, mercy

Some in Detroit are suggesting the NFL show some compassion for the city of Detroit — home of the ailing and perhaps terminal Big Three automakers and their unfortunate workers. How? By lifting the blackout for Lions home games.

But considering the sorry state of the Lions — 0-9 in 2008 — surely the more compassionate move would be to continue the blackout. Actually, true compassion demands the league not only continue the blackout, but expand it — black out even games that have sold out.

Oh — and hang curtains around the field to protect the eyes and fragile psyches of the remaining paying customers. Just listening to the ineptitude is be bad enough.

This is getting hard to keep up with

The latest incident of coach-bashing ... wait, let's encapsulize what's come before:

1) a coach bashed by the father of two players for telling the kids to get on the team bus;

2) a coach bashed by the father of a player for making the kid run laps;

3) a coach bashed by his own player for trying to break up a fight;

OK, for now the latest in coach bashing ... drum roll, please ...

4) A coach bashed by a former player.

This is out of Eagle Rock High near Los Angeles, where Johnny Lopez was bending down to pick up a ball during practice when a young man, a former footballer, hit him from behind.

Reportedly, the incident was related to the unpopular firing of the previous coach, a move that resulted in students circulating petitions and holding a protest. When I went to school — back in the day — I remember protests against Vietnam and racism.

Protesting over a coach's firing? I'm not sure that's progress.

Recommended reading: Billy Witz's New York Times story on the way Major League Soccer player Andy Williams and his wife, Marcia, both Jamaican-born, have been embraced by Salt Lake City, particularly since Marcia was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

Witz writes that when Williams was drafted by Real Salt Lake four years ago, his wife was fearful of moving to a largely white, Mormon community.

“I was terrified,” Marcia said. "My first thought was I was going to have to wear long dresses and I’d see men with many wives."

Now, the story says, she describes her neighbors as caring and color-blind.

“God must have put us here for a reason,” her husband said. “If we were in New York or Chicago, I don’t think the support would be the same.”

But whether the story ultimately has a happy ending depends on the finding of a match for Marcia for a bone-marrow transplant.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/sports/soccer/11soccer.html?ref=soccer

Can't trust that day

If you're a current NFL player, Monday was a bummer. If you're an NFL player who uses human-growth hormone, it was a double bummer.

First, a jury told the NFL Players Assn. to cough up $28.1 million in damages to retired players who were victimized when the players union blew off contracts that should have given the old guys money for the use of their images in video games, trading cards and the like.

Herb Adderley, shown above, was the name plaintiff in the class-action suit.

“(The union) betrayed us,” said Adderley, who played for the Green Bay Packers back in the Vince Lombardi days. “We put our trust and faith in them, and they betrayed us.”

The verdict may be just the beginning, as it, in one former player's words, "opens the door for Congress to revisit the many wrongful denials of disability benefits."

Second, an L.A. Times story reported that Don Catlin, called "the guru of sports doping," is getting close to a test for HGH. For all the cheaters in the NFL — and you know who you are — that can't be good news.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nflretire11-2008nov11,0,62056.story


http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-hgh11-2008nov11,0,2162471.story

In did, indeed, SEEM like a big deal

Recommended reading: Bob Kravitz's Indy Star piece on Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy's reaction to the election of the first African American president.

Kravitz points out that a hubub was made two years ago when two black football coaches — Dungy and Chicago's Lovey Smith — competed in the Super Bowl.

"Not even in the same universe, was it?" Dungy told Kravitz. "Not even close."

Writes Kravitz: "Just two years ago, it was a big thing when Dungy and Smith made sports history. Two years later, it feels like ancient history."

http://www.indystar.com/article/20081107/SPORTS15/811070421/1034/SPORTS15

This week's Head in the Sand award goes to ...

Formula 1 honcho Bernie Ecclestone has a funny idea of what constitutes a sense of humor.

Lewis Hamilton, F1’s first black champion, has been the target of racial abuse on a Spanish Web site and of other insults on the run-up to Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix, but Ecclestone thinks it’s a laughing matter.

"[It was] probably beginning as a joke rather than anything abusive," Ecclestone told an interviewer. "I don't see why people should have been [insulted by it]. These things are people expressing themselves."

Not surprisingly, the target of the abuse disagrees. As does his father, Anthony, who said he had often considered withdrawing his son from the sport because of racism.

Back in February after similar incidents in Barcelona, Spain, Ecclestone sang the same song:

"I don't think we should even be talking about racism," Ecclestone said. "I really think that they are against Hamilton for his ability, not because he is black. I always thought it was a bit of a prank — they're probably not racist at all."

The color of money

That an African American has been elected president of the United States has thrilled many in the world of athletics, but there’s a couple of groups out for whom the event is not an unalloyed joy.

That would be baseball players and their agents.

Barack Obama has proposed upping the top federal tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, which could cost ballplayers a nice chunk of change.

Obama’s proposal would affect those making more than $250,000 a year and, yes, ballplayers qualify — the league minimum is $400,000.

So look for agents to push to complete any new deals before the end of the year. If signing bonuses are paid before Jan. 1, they likely would be taxed at the current rate and would not be subject to any increase.

"It's something we'll consider," agent Craig Landis said.

See, it's one thing to vote for Obama; it's another to pay more taxes in order to help fund his planned decrease for workers and families earning less than $200,000.

It’s cool, of course, that 61 years after Jackie Robinson integrated baseball, a black man is president-elect of the U.S. — but for many players, the color they’re most interested in remains green.

Friday column: Coaches, pride and payback

In America, successful football coaches are praised, well-compensated and in some places, darn-near worshipped.

For what? For winning games — and thereby bringing apparently badly needed self-esteem to the community (We’re No. 1 … We’re No. 1!)

Yet San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Singletary managed to get lionized without winning so much as a single contest. How? By having the pride to be embarrassed by his team’s dismal first performance, by sending a malcontent to the dressing room, and by going in a mini-tirade in his first post-game press conference.

“Cannot play with them, cannot win with them, cannot coach them,” Singletary fumed about players like Vernon Davis, whom he sent to the locker room after the tight end committed a mindless personal foul, them mouthed back to Singletary when he was chastised for it. “Can’t do it,” Singletary went on. “I want winners. I want people that want to win.”

The praise rolled in as Singletary became, in one columnist’s words, “the king of coaching law and order.”

Which was all fine and good — until it was leaked that in order to make his point about being embarrassed, Singletary at half-time had dropped his drawers for three minutes during his locker room oratory (he was wearing boxers, but still …).

Now some are wondering if Singletary is too tightly wound for the job. Because of his emphasis on effort and discipline, I hope the answer is no. But the jury’s out on old crazy eyes.

* * *

The jury’s long been in on Florida coach Urban Meyer — as far as wins and losses go. He wins.

But coaches, whether they want to be or not, serve as role models. On Saturday, Meyer modeled the joy of the put-down and the payback.

A year ago, Georgia coach Mark Richt ordered his team to go nuts on their first score, and it did — every Bulldog rushing to the end zone, jumping up and down and taunting Meyer’s team. It was a bush-league tactic, but it ignited a Georgia victory in Gainesville.

The Bulldogs’ karma caught up with them this year in Athens, Ga., when the Gators beat them 49-10. The payback and putdown came when Meyer called two late timeouts which served no purpose other than to extend the humiliation.

Then, after the game, Meyer insulted everyone’s intelligence by saying he stopped the clock in order to get a couple of more carries for his third-string tailback.

Using last year’s game to motivate his team is one thing — accepted and smart coaching tactic. But then rubbing it in — and lying about it — is quite another. I’m not saying it isn’t common; I’m saying it’s common in more than one meaning of the word.

It’s also a bad example for every player on his team and every young Florida fan who watched the game.

Oh. And from the tactical side of things, it gives Richt that much more motivational fodder for the Bulldogs to get their revenge next year.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Yet ANOTHER reason not to coach

OK. In recent weeks, we've written about two high school football coaches clobbered by parents in separate incidents. Now comes a new twist in the genre: a coach beaten up by one of his own players.

In Nampa, La., Nampa High School coach Scott Woolridge tried to break up a fight between an opposing player and one of his running backs, Kipton Ramos.

For his trouble (no good deed goes unpunished), Woolridge was attacked by Kipton, hit not once but several times, and sent to the hospital with a broken nose and eye socket.

Ramos has been booted from the team and suspended from school, but he’s got bigger problems — such as being charged with felony aggravated battery.

What was that old line in "Hill Street Blues?" It was said by the sergeant to the officers right before they hit the pavement, but it looks as though it should be said to high school football coaches right before they hit the field.

"Hey, let's be careful out there."


http://www.wwltv.com/national/stories/wwl110208tpbattery.174577b00.html

Now this is a tough call

So.

A judge in Houston is deciding whether to throw out Roger Clemens’ defamation suit against Brian McNamee.

If the judge does toss it out, McNamee, whom I believe is telling the truth about his former boss’ use of illegal, performance-enhancing drugs, is spared further legal expense — which he certainly can’t afford — and justice prevails.

On the other hand, if the case goes forward, we move to the discovery phase, which almost certainly means more embarrassing revelations about Clemens, including his alleged fling with a teenage Country-Western singer.

So.

What should we root for here? Justice or dirt? Justice or dirt? Justice or …?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/sports/baseball/04clemens.html?scp=2&sq=roger%20clemens&st=cse

The best of sport

Recommended reading: Charles Wilson’s New York Times piece on two competitors in last week’s New York Marathon: Nadine McNeil and her son, Tyler.

McNeil, who doesn’t have use of her right arm or right leg, raced in a handcycle. Her son, who is autistic, ran.

The closeness of their relationship and their interdependence is moving. Athletics has been a sort of savior to both of them but as Wilson writes, “Neither would have ever made it to this year’s starting line without the other.”

The article was written before the race. To see it, click on the first link below. Then to see how they fared, click on the second link, and go to the second item (the first deals with the two deaths that marred this year’s marathon).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/01/sports/othersports/01marathon.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/sports/othersports/04marathon.html?scp=1&sq=Nadine%20McNeil%20&st=cse

Who ya gonna believe? Me or you lyin' eyes?

Remember a while back when swing coach Butch Harmon threw up his hands about coaching John Daly?

Harmon publicly dropped Daly as a client, saying the “most important thing in his life is getting drunk." The final straw apparently was Daly spending a tournament weather delay in a Hooters corporate tent.

Whereupon Daly blistered Harmon, saying, “His lies kind of destroyed my life for a little bit. The lies he said about being at the Hooters tent and all this stuff,” Daly said.

“I think he should become a man and talk about some of the stuff he lied about. I just wish he wouldn’t have said the things he did that made you guys (the press) write some pretty bad things about me when nobody really had the facts.”

Here’s some facts for you, John:

Sunday, you were held overnight in a North Carolina jail after passing out at a Hooters restaurant. Police said you "appeared extremely intoxicated and uncooperative," and refused to go to a hospital to be checked out, as police requested.

So police took you to jail until you sobered up.

It’s a different sport and all that, but as it seems apt, in the matter of your word vs. Harmon’s, we call it for Harmon — game, set and match.

Exactly WHAT was he thinking?

The Rev. Al Sharpton can be a blowhard and a race-baiter. You doubt it? Think Tawana Brawley. Think the Duke lacrosse team “rape” case.

But he’s right to be upset about a Steve Serby column in the New York Post that began “Good for Tom Coughlin. Good for Coughlin for tightening the noose around Plaxico Burress.”

Raising the image of a rope around the neck of a black man? No can do. No should do. Lynching of African Americans took place in my lifetime. Lynching of African Americans took place in Serby’s lifetime.

What’s the statute of limitations on such a reference? I don’t know, but I do know we haven’t reached it. Any more than we’ve reached a place where blithe references can be made about Jews and the Holocaust.

(By the way, according to USA Today, at least four students from a suburban St. Louis middle school were facing possible suspensions for allegedly hitting Jewish classmates during what they called "Hit a Jew Day.")

Not only should Serby have known better, his editors should have known better.

“To make such a blatant racist statement about an African-American football player with a neck injury is completely unacceptable,” Sharpton said. “Clearly, the racial connotation is very disturbing …”

Yes, Sharpton can be a blowhard. In this case, however, he’s right.

Friday column: These responses are sorry, indeed

You can’t spend much time observing professional athletes without developing an appreciation for the nuances of their apologies and explanations.

Three related but different varieties were on display in recent days, including Pittsburgh receiver Santonio Holmes’ classic ’Nuff Said.

In this version, an athlete does apologize — here, for a marijuana arrest that cost his team his services in a big game — but tries to slam the door on further inquiry.

“I would like to apologize to my teammates, the Steelers organization, my family and the fans for my actions that caused me to miss Sunday’s game,” Holmes said in a statement issued by the team. “I recognize that I made a mistake and understand the significance of my actions, and will not make any excuse for my behavior.”

Then Holmes said he wouldn’t answer questions on the matter for the rest of the season.
Holmes didn’t say whether he’d entertain queries about his previous two arrests, one for alleged domestic violence and the other for alleged disorderly conduct. I’m guessing the answer is no.

Another classic seen this week is Isiah Thomas’ Hey, It Wasn’t Me.

Thomas, a former star player for the Detroit Pistons but most recently a horrendous bust as a New York Knicks coach and general manager, was taken to a hospital in the early hours of Oct. 24 after overdosing on sleeping pills.

Instead of either admitting he was distraught or explaining the overdose was accidental, the 47-year-old Thomas called a newspaper to claim it was his 17-year-old daughter who was hauled to the hospital, and he even got his son to peddle the same story to another paper.

Unfortunately, Thomas hadn’t run the tactic past Harrison, N.Y., Police Chief David Hall, whose men responded to the 911 call. “As parents, you try to protect your kids; you don’t say they did something when it was you who did it,” Hall said. “We know the difference between a 47-year-old man and a teenager.”

And we know the difference between a true apology and one that ends with a note of self-congratulation, which brings us to Donta Ellis’ version of Call Me, uh, Responsible?

Ellis, a budding NBA star for Golden State, violated his new $66 million contract — and seriously messed up his ankle — by riding and crashing a moped. He then made things worse by telling the Warriors he was injured in a pickup basketball game.

When the truth came out, the team suspended him for 30 games — the injury will keep him out of action that long anyway — costing Ellis $3 million in salary.

On Tuesday, Ellis finally got around to apologizing — through his agent, of course — saying, “I want to be clear that my injury is based on my mistake in judgment. And I always accept responsibility for my actions.”

Sure you do — right after you’re caught in a lie.

Still running from reality

Well, it appears Marion Jones learned nothing from her six months in jail.

"Never knowingly did I take performance-enhancing drugs," the disgraced sprinter told Oprah Winfrey on a show taped last week and broadcast Wednesday. Jones, in other words, admits to talking the drugs, just not to knowing they were illegal.

BALCO founder Victor Conte’s reaction?

"I cannot believe Marion Jones continues to lie,” he said. “Enough is enough. She knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs and has already been to prison for lying about it in the first place," Conte said.

Jones told Winfrey she remembered the moment she decided to lie about her drug use — when prosecutors showed her a sample of tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), which Conte named "the clear."

"I knew that I had taken that substance, I made the decision that I was gonna lie and I was gonna, you know, try and cover it up," she said.

Two particularly pathetic moments follow:

"I truly believe that the reason I made the awful mistake and a few thereafter,” she said, “was because I didn't love myself enough to tell the truth." Permit me to suggest it was because she loved herself a little too much.

Then Jones cried while reading from a letter she wrote to her children while in jail, telling them "this place where your mommy has to live for six months is called prison."

And the place she’s living now is called denial.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/trackandfield/news/story?id=3670847

Another reason not to coach

A while back, we passed on an item about a high school football coach getting clobbered in the face with a helmet by a parent after simply asking the man’s two sons to get on the team bus. Now another coach has been assaulted, this time for the egregious mistake of making a player run laps.

The player’s father, Ronald Lee II, allegedly sucker-punched (what else?) Preston Theodore Moses, an assistant coach for the Pebblebrook High Falcons in Mableton, Ga., sending Moses to the hospital.

Lee eventually was arrested and has been charged with felony battery of a school official.

If sucker-punching another person doesn’t show enough gutlessness, here’s two other details from the incident. According to witnesses, Lee reportedly put something in his hand before hitting the coach (brass knucks? roll of quarters?) and brought three other men with him to the team’s practice to back up his thuggery.

What a man.

'Kind of' disgusted?

Chiefs star running back Larry Johnson said he was "kind of disgusted with myself” — after he was accused to spitting in the face of a woman at a Kansas City nightclub.

“Kind of disgusted”? Why the qualifier, Larry?

Actually, Johnson sounded contrite, and God knows he has reason. This is the fourth time in five years Johnson has been accused of assaulting a woman.

"This is the first time in my life I actually had to stand up, I mean actually woke up and kind of be disgusted with myself and disgusted as far as the way my life and my career is heading right now,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday.

Johnson apologized and made the usual promises: to get help, to work hard "to get my life back on track …”

But he added this, which is hopeful, “… and know that I and I alone put myself in these critical situations and environments to where things don't come out favorably to me.”

“"In times of darkness, you've got to look for the light and that's what I plan on doing, regardless of what suspensions and fines are being handed down. I will take them as sincerely as they give them out."

Well, we’ll see.

The jury's out on this one

Kellen Winslow Jr. can be a jerk. He proved it at the University of Miami when he defended his standing over and taunting an injured opponent by saying, “I'm a ****ing soldier.” He’s also proved it in the pros — more than once, actually. So I was ready to jump on him when, following a recent hospital stay, he whined that the Cleveland Browns’ general manager, Phil Savage, hadn’t called him while he was laid up.

But there seems to be more to the story.

Winslow alleges what really upset him was that he was hospitalized for a staph infection — for the second time — and notes that it’s the sixth time in recent years a Browns player has had such an infection.

Furthermore, while the Browns said their silence over Winslow’s condition while he was hospitalized was at his request, Winslow said it was Cleveland management that asked him to keep it quiet.

Staph infections are serious. Just last week, UNC Asheville basketball player Kenny George reportedly had part of his right foot amputated because of an infection. They can be even more serious than that — deadly, in fact. So news that Cleveland has a continuing problem with staph isn’t likely to help the Browns in the free-agent market.

The Browns were so upset at Winslow’s spilling the beans they suspended him a game, a suspension the tight end is appealing. The suspension would cost him $235,294.

Now, maybe Kellen’s being a jerk again. On the other hand, the silence on Winslow’s illness seemed hinky from the get-go, and it’s not unusual for a big business — and that’s what the Cleveland Browns are — to do what it can to prevent negative information from getting to the public.

Whom to believe, the jerk or the suits? I’m going to wait and see (but I’m leaning toward the jerk).

Friday column: ‘Parentis terribilis’ and their offspring

A long time ago — a previous life, it seems — I coached youth baseball and basketball. I was never the head guy, just the assistant, and that was more than all right with me.
The head guy, you see, has to deal with parents.

Now, parents are a necessary component to youth sports — biologically speaking — and while some are great to be around, others can be a damnable nuisance.

Football coach Pete Carroll knows about such nuisances, though he’s too savvy to use that term. A Wednesday Los Angeles Times story detailed Carroll’s care and feeding of the parents of his USC Trojans. Carroll takes that as part of his job and is attentive to it.

Still, you can’t please everyone, as Carroll found out when a parent’s grousing made its way to the Internet.

“He has to do what he has to do for USC’s program,” the parent told the Times while denying he knew how the knock on Carroll got worldwide distribution. “ … But I have to do what I have to do as a father, which is looking out for my son’s interest.”

Ah, yes, must look out for Junior’s interests. We wouldn’t want the son to look after his own interests, now would we? Might help with his maturation process, and of what value would that be? Always better to have Dad step in.

Still, comparatively, Carroll has it easy. He could, for instance, be Matt Iorlano, soccer coach at the Newburgh Free Academy in Newburgh, N.Y.

Iorlano was preparing his team for a key game on a recent Friday when senior sweeper Sam Giron, one of Newburgh’s best players, delivered an ultimatum from Dad: “I have to play center midfielder or else my father doesn’t want me to play.”

Iorlano’s response? “I guess you’re not playing.”

“Coach (Paul Matthews) and I are the coaches,” Iorlano later told a reporter. “We’re going to make the decisions. I’m not going to have a parent tell me where their kid is going to play and threaten me that they aren’t going to play.”

Seems reasonable to me; it didn’t to the center midfielder-wannabe, who left his uniform on the bench and departed — along with his kid brother Jorge, also a key player for Nerburgh.

Did the decision cost Iorlano? It did not. The team clinched a division championship with a 4-2 win. Did the Girons quickly reconsider? They did not. The coach approached Sam Giron in class to talk Monday and was “blown off.”

But there is a nice ending, after all.

Later in the week, the player approached the coach and asked back on the team and said (gulp) he’ll actually play where the coach wants him to.

How the father feels I about all this, I don’t know. But it appears the coach is happy, the player and his brother are ... well, happier, anyway — and I’m ecstatic. Why?

I’m still not coaching and having to deal with the species Parentis terribilis.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

How to screw up your legacy — the Brett Favre way

First, play the diva for several off-seasons and hold your team — and their fans — hostage to your whims.

Second, after you’ve finally retired, tell bald-faced lies when the itch to play again proves too much for you.

Third, give no verbal support at all to the young man tapped to replace you, even though for three years he’s been nothing but a loyal to you.

Fourth, after you’re traded elsewhere, try to hurt your old team — and their fans — by calling up one of your old team’s opponents and spilling club secrets.

The first three items are documented facts; the fourth is alleged in a report by FoxSports.Com’s Jay Glazer, who says the former Green Bay quarterback, now with the Jets, called the Detroit staff to dish all he knew about the Packers offense before that team played the Lions.

A Lions executive denied the report but Lions coaches would only issue “no comment,” which is suspicious, at least. Favre denied it, but a few months back he also denied he was looking for a team to make a comeback with when, in fact, he was.

After being traded to the Jets, Favre admitted a desire to hurt the Packers, and this certainly would fit with that mind-set.

In any case, this is more reason to think that if Favre is expecting a statue outside Lambeau Field one day, he might have to wait a bit longer than he thought.

Ain’t it a shame?

You know tough times are here when athletic supporters — I mean big college boosters, not jock straps — are hurting for cash.

The New York Times reports that the $165 million T. Boone Pickens donated to the Oklahoma State athletic department “so it could remake its facilities into a Shangri-La for Cowboys sports” isn’t worth what it used to be.

Pickens has lost money, and so has the fund the funds were invested in. As a result, work on the Cowboys’ earthly paradise has been held up.

(That’s Pickens grinning in the photo above between grinning OSU athletic director Mike Holder, left, and school president David J. Schmidly, who’s working on a grin, in better days.)

Other jock plants have been affected, including Rutgers and its $102 million in football stadium renovation, and Kansas, where major donor Tom Kivisto had pledged $12 million for a recently opened football complex.

But Kivisto in July was booted from his CEO post at SemGroup, which has gone belly up, and there are investigations into exactly what happened and what Kvisto had to do with it.

The Kansas athletic director wouldn’t discuss whether Kivisto had fulfilled his pledge, but did say, “Tom has been a friend to this university for a long time.”

Too bad he wasn't a better friend to his shareholders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/sports/21boosters.html?_r=2&ref=sports&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

A little sensitive, are we?

Jay Paterno has a job, quarterback coach for his father, Joe’s, Penn State football team. But Jay volunteers for other duties — searching the electronic universe looking for people saying unkind things about the Nittany Lions.

"Jay tells us all the time," quarterback Daryll Clark said. "He goes on the Internet and prints out an article about something about somebody saying something about us. Then he comes back and tells us."

According to ESPN.com’s Adam Rittenberg, common are: can’t win on the road; inflated national ranking; weak nonconference schedule.

"This week, we were listed under the most overrated teams," center A.Q. Shipley, pictured at right, said. "Our goal was to prove that we're one of the best teams out there. We feel like we haven't gotten the respect that we deserve."

All together now: Awwwwwwwwwww …

Poor, poor Lions.

After Penn State beat up on Wisconsin 48-7, Shipley said, “We came out to prove something to the world.”

Hate to break it to you, Ship, but the world really doesn’t care. It’s got its own problems, and the delicate collective ego of the Penn State football team isn’t among them.

Now that's a role model

Recommended reading: Anna Katherine Clemmons's ESPN.com piece on the Oakland Raiders' Nnamdi Asomugha.

Asomugha is the best NFL cornerback you've never heard of, but where he really shines is off the field.

Two years ago, he financed a trip for four inner-city high school students so they could check out colleges back East. Last year, he paid for a trip for six.

Said one of the six: "Nnamdi opened my eyes. If he wasn't here, I never would've gone to Boston, never would've been to the East Coast."

Asomugha spends time helping kids at the East Oakland Youth Development Center, shooting hoops, talking, preaching work ethic. "He's like a friend we've known for a long time, so it's not like we're out here with a Raiders player," said 16-year-old Jasmine Williams. "He keeps in touch with everyone and doesn't forget them ..."

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=clemmons/081014&sportCat=nfl&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab7pos2

Friday column: What’s in a name? A lot — or a little

A name is sometimes more than a moniker, a handle, a tag. It can be synonymous with character and, in the Bible, it often is. When in the 14th verse of Psalm 91, God says, “I will protect him, because he knows my name,” he’s saying he’ll take care of the person who understands his attributes, who knows what he, the Almighty, is all about.

Associated with the concept of name equaling character is the idea of name equaling reputation, as in “he had a good name in town.” This is a step down in relation, though, for reputations can be accurate or inaccurate. Furthermore, reputations can change, as can names.

Name changes are significant in Scripture. For example, in Genesis when though God’s agency Abram becomes Abraham, the new name represents more than a new sound — it represents transformation. The patriarch changes from “exalted father” to “father of many (nations).”

When “Pacman” Jones decided at the beginning of this NFL season that he wanted to be called by his birth name, Adam, he, too, meant it to indicate transformation. “Pacman” had too many unsavory connotations — arrests, violence, drinking — to be much use to a man trying to get reinstated to the league after a year’s suspension for gross misbehavior.

Jones said was no longer Pacman; he was Adam. And we were supposed to believe that, as his name was different, so, too, would be his behavior and, ultimately, his reputation.

* * *

David Tyree’s reputation wasn’t good when he got to the New York Giants, and in the near term it didn’t get any better. There was drinking. There was drug possession. There was jail.

Then there was awakening.

The wide receiver who made what some have called a “miracle” catch in this year’s Super Bowl said the turning point for him was to accept “a certain level of surrender” to forces stronger than football or its players.

That surrender resulted in Tyree becoming a different person, one who makes different choices and is therefore perceived differently. Tyree hasn’t changed his name, but it has changed — in the reputation sense. In New York, the name used to mean “self-destructive.” Now, one thinks of different appellations: Husband. Father. Role model.

Abram’s new name was divinely bestowed; I think Tyree would say his new name — his reputation — was as well.

As for Jones — whose new name came from his own lips — Wednesday he was suspended by the league again for an alcohol-fueled brawl.

I am Adam, he insisted — yet in behavior, reputation and character, “Pacman” he remains.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Enjoy that title while you can, Kansas

Bad news in Jawhawkland.

Two months ago, the Dallas Independent School District appeared to have cleared former prep basketball star Darrell Arthur of benefiting from improper grade changes at South Oak Cliff High School.

Now after a report by a pesky TV station, the investigation has been reopened. "There are too many questions at this time for us to just leave it alone," Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said. Even worse, Hinojosa said he would ask for outside independent review of the academic records of Arthur and his former teammates.

In an investigation shows Arthur’s grades were changed to keep him eligible, and that he did not, in fact, have the necessary credits to graduate, the University of Kansas could be force to forfeit any or all games involving him — the 2008 NCAA title game won by the Jawhawks, as an example.

Arthur was last in the news, of course, for being booted out of the NBA rookie orientation camp for an incident involving marijuana. Also kicked our was his fellow rookie and fellow Jawhawk Mario Chalmers.

Back in Lawrence, they must be bustin' their buttons.

What's in a name? Well, flattery

Give Eric Mangini the Suck-up of the Year Award.

The Jets coach named his newborn Zack Brett Mangini after his new quarterback, Brett Favre.

The child was born Friday on Favre’s 39th birthday, but Mangini promised to use “Brett” as his middle name in the summer when he was trying to convince Favre to come to New York.

"That was locked and loaded in the negotiations," Mangini told The Associated Press, "but we couldn't have planned that if we wanted to. Pretty exciting."

Yeah. Pretty exciting. Wow.

The purpose of the name obviously was to flatter Favre, and obviously it worked.

"It is a pretty cool thing," the quarterback said.

Yeah. Cool.

Mangini’s first son’s middle name is Harrison, after New England safety Rodney Harrison. Another son has a middle name of William after Patriots coach Bill Belichick, for whom Mangini once worked.

"Well, the history behind that," Mangini said, "is all my kids have middle names that are related to people that have been important to me in my football career."

Wow. Neat.

I remember a time when kids were named for apostles or presidents or members of one's own family. But then I’m old. Very, very old.

Faces of ignorance

Dear KTLK-FM management:

Don’t fire them as punishment.

Don’t fire them because they’re horrible representatives of your radio station.

DO fire them because, really, they’re too dumb to consistently remember to breathe, and sooner or later they'll just fall over and … What? Breathing is involuntary?

(Sigh)

What can one say about Minneapolis talk-show hosts Chris Baker and Langdon Perry? The talk jocks said — on air — that Magic Johnson faked having AIDS. Actually, children, Magic never said he had AIDS; he said he had the virus that causes AIDS. No matter.

Baker's and Perry's comments about Johnson took place after a caller complained about "demands on workers." Here's an account of the not-quite Algonquin Round Table-level discussion as reported by The Associated Press:

"Perry responded by asking about treatable diseases that a person can live with for a long time ‘if you just get some basic drugs.’

Baker responded, ‘Like Magic Johnson?’

Perry replied, ‘Like Magic with his faked AIDS. Magic faked AIDS.’

Baker said, ‘You think Magic faked AIDS for sympathy?’

Perry replied, ‘I'm convinced that Magic faked AIDS.’

‘Me, too,’ Baker said.”

Conviction, of course, can be a positive thing, but so can doubt. And after reading the above exchange, I still doubt Baker and Perry can inhale without cue cards.

Boys Will Be Morons Dept.

Pacman Jones is not the only athlete mixing it up. Sprint Cup drivers Carl Edwards (pictured) and Kevin Harvick reportedly got into it in a garage at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

The problem between the two apparently stems from a note Edwards left in a seat on Harvick's airplane after last weekend’s race at the Talladega Superspeedway. The note referred to critical comments Harvick made about Edwards following a multi-car wreck toward the end of the race, a wreck triggered when Edwards tapped teammate Greg Biffle.

The accident took out several contenders, including Harvick. Afterward, Harvick said, "I know that his fans won't be very proud of him sitting back there riding around like a pansy. If he had been racing all day, maybe he would have known how long the front of his car was."

Whoa. Fighting words? Apparently.

Not that Edwards denied responsibility for the wreck, at the time saying, "I always worry about the idiots when I come here and today it was me."

So what set him off? Must have been the "P" word.

The further adventures of Pacman, Cowboys knight-errant

Recommended reading: Randy Galloway's column on Pacm... — sorry, I mean, Adam; his name is Adam — Jones' latest little imbroglio, and owner Jerry Jones' predictable response ("Keep the player on the field at all times ... Keep the player on the field at all times ... Say it with me now: Keep the player on the field at all times ...")

From Galloway and other accounts we learn — not surprisingly — that the incident involved a party, a woman and alcohol. BUT NO STRIP CLUB!!!! Perhaps in Pacman's own, small way, that counts as progress.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/view/2008_10_10_Pacman_Jones_gets_a_free_pass_with_Jerry_Jones/srvc=sports&position=0

http://www.star-telegram.com/332/story/964787.html