Tony, don't look now but ...

Uh-oh.

Terrell Owens is unhappy.

The Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Me doesn’t think he got the ball enough in Sunday’s Dallas loss to Washington, despite being thrown to 18 times. He not only vented to the press — he reportedly made his unhappiness known to quarterback Tony Romo, heretofore known as T.O.’s best friend.

Have I said “uh-oh” yet?

Owens has a history of throwing quarterbacks under the bus (see Garcia, Jeff and McNabb, Donovan and — wait? Do I hear an engine being started?)

Dallas coach Wade Phillips naturally downplayed any T.O. tension, much the same way Philadelphia coach Andy Reid did back when Owens was an Eagle.

Then Owens imploded. And the Eagles with him.

Uh-oh.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/football/cowboys/stories/093008dnspocowsider.14c1b5c.html

His Chief complaint

Poor Tony Gonzales.

As the game wound down Sunday in Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs star was only three yards short of setting the all-time receiving mark for a tight end, and his mean coaches wouldn’t call for a pass.

Why? Something about trying to win the game.

Seems as though the Chiefs had the lead and the ball and didn’t want to take a chance on an interception. How selfish can coaches get?

"I had my family out there. I wanted to do it in front of the fans, in a home game," Gonzalez said. "It would have been a great way to do it. I'm disappointed …”

Now, poor Tony will have to break the record on the road — not in front of his family and his adoring fans. Does his life suck or what?

Gonzales was so upset after the Chiefs beat the Broncos, he didn’t talk to the press, which must have been terribly disappointing to the ink-stained wretches. Monday he left a meeting with coach Herman Edwards still in a fit of pique.

Cheer up, Tony. There is still a way for you to hear the fans’ roar when you break the big record: Drop everything thrown your way this Sunday at Carolina, and wait for the Chiefs’ next game, which is at home. Of course, dropping passes would probably ensure a KC defeat against the Panthers, but what’s a loss for the team compared to your personal glory, anyway?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3617044

This week's Howard Cosell Award goes to ...

Give Torii Hunter credit for telling it like it is.

Major League home runs this season were at their lowest level since 1993. Why?

"I think the steroid testing has something to do with it," Hunter said. "If there were any guys who were taking it, they're not taking it anymore."

Not everyone is as upfront as the Angels centerfielder.

Miguel Cabrera, who led the American League in dingers with 37 (37!) said, "I think it's the bigger stadiums.”

Right.

Hunter teammate Mark Teixeira is blaming something else.

"I can feel the ball being a little softer,” he said. “I can feel the seams being a little raised and the leather not being as tight."

Right.

In the midst of the home-run binge, players who didn’t want to talk about steroids talked about how the ball was tighter and traveled farther. Now, a player who doesn’t want to talk about the absence of steroids talks about the ball being softer.

As I said, give Hunter credit.

Friday column: Bad cornerback — bad, bad, bad ...

It happens all the time.

An athlete at a big-time collegiate jock factory does something stupid. The coach is pressed by reporters to reveal if there will be consequences. The coach says “certainly,” then wriggles out of saying what those consequences are.

Southern California football coach Pete Carroll is the latest to take the Weasel Way.
Carroll said that yes, cornerback Shareece Wright would be disciplined for an incident that led to his being charged with felony resisting a police officer. And, Pete, that discipline is ...?

“When we have situations and issues to deal with, we always do so internally,” Carroll said.

Oh.

We know the discipline won’t involve any loss of playing time, because Carroll said early in the week that if the injured Wright was medically cleared to play (turns out he wasn’t) he’d be on the field Thursday night.

Since Pete won’t tell us what the discipline is, we’re free to speculate. My guess is that Wright will be hit sharply on the helmet with a rolled-up newspaper.

***
On the other hand, in the Wright incident no one at USC has lied — as far as we know — which distinguishes the Trojans from many athletes who ply their trade in the National Basketball Association.
In just the last few weeks we’ve had:
* Rookies Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers deny smoking marijuana despite enough apparent reefer madness to set off a hotel-room smoke alarm.

* Another first-year player, Michael Beasley, originally deny involvement in the same pot incident before copping to the truth.

* Golden State guard Monta Ellis lying to his team about how he suffered a serious ankle injury months after signing a six-year, $66 million contract extension.

* And no list of NBA prevaricators should exclude O.J. Mayo, who in May denied receiving improper benefits from an agent in high school and college.

Last month, the agent, Calvin Andrews, was suspended for a year by the NBA Players Association for unspecified recruiting improprieties regarding guess who? — Mayo — which means somebody doesn’t believe him.

Since that action, Mayo, smartly, has made himself unavailable to reporters.

***
Ah, if only Josh Howard could learn to make himself unavailable for comment.
Howard, who in April felt the need to profess his love for cannabis, in July at a charity flag-football game looked into a cell-phone camera and said, “ ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is going on. I don’t even celebrate that shit. I’m black.” Howard then disparaged America’s first serious African American presidential candidate.

I don’t think even Pete Carroll would think a sharp rap with a rolled-up newspaper is sufficient for Howard; I suggest a muzzle.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Here's a move Astaire never made

A Google search of the words “dancing” and “romantic” will bring up a Web site with this sentence: “With the dance craze sweeping the nation, learn how dancing can improve your romantic relationships.”

Perhaps that’s what DeAngelo Wilkinson was trying to do last month at an Old Town bar in Fort Collins, Colo.

Wilkinson, 20, a cornerback for Colorado State, was dancing with a woman, when, according to milady, Wilkinson reached down and grabbed her crotch.

The romance of that particular move eluded the woman, who yelled at Wilkinson, leading a bystander to grab him and hold him for the bar’s bouncers. When they arrived and the bystander released Wilkinson, the player reportedly took the opportunity to hit the man in the face, breaking his nose in seven places, police said.

Wilkinson has been charged with assault and the Rams have suspended him indefinitely.

If you’re wondering (and you’re probably not — at least not very hard), police say yes, Wilkinson was drunk.

Think about it, Hank

So.

Baby Boss, aka Hank Steinbrenner, who essentially canned Joe Torre as Yankees manager, claims he’s happy his former skipper is on the verge of winning the NL West with the L.A. Dodgers. But he’s not so happy he can’t take a shot at Torre’s new team.

Said Steinbrenner, whose team is not playoff bound — for the first time in 14 years: “… you have to compare the divisions and the competition. What if the Yankees finish the season with more wins than the Dodgers, but the Dodgers make the playoffs? Does that make the Dodgers a better team? No."

Good, Hank. Now we have a question: Thanks to you, Torre left one team — the Yankees — after last season and joined another: the Dodgers. Which team got better this year — and which team got worse?

How to screw up your life, Part I

A while back, Maurice Simmons would have seemed to have had the world by the tail. A highly recruited linebacker at Compton Dominguez High near L.A., he was given a scholarship to football power USC, following the path of his brother, who played for the Trojans in 2002-03.

So why did Simmons help Lamont Lee Hall rob a man at gunpoint on a Compton street? Considering the widespread gang influence in Compton, perhaps before heading off to school he was trying to “keep it real.”

Wednesday, a Compton judge demonstrated another way to “keep it real,” sentencing Simmons — convicted of felony robbery, assault with a firearm and the misdemeanor of allowing someone to bring a gun into his car — to four years in prison. His buddy, the one who pointed the gun, got 12.

Simmons’ attorney described the young man as “stunned.” After all, a probation officer had recommended probation Simmons, citing his football potential. Note that — not citing his work in or his value to the community, not citing his remorse or desire to try to make it right with the victim. Citing his football potential.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-simmons25-2008sep25,0,3673415.story

How to screw up your life, Part II

Thunder Collins had football potential — loads of it — when he came out of Los Angeles. He was to be the next great Cornhusker running back.

That never quite happened. Other things did:

In 2002, Collins pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace to avoid being tried for allegedly assaulting an ex-girlfriend.

In 2003, Collins was charged with assault and burglary in an incident involving an Oregon State football player and the same ex-girlfriend. Collins beat those charges in court.

In 2006, Collins pleaded no contest to obstructing an Omaha police officer in an incident in which, according to witnesses, Collins had been involved in a shooting.

Now Collins appears to have finally hit the jackpot, arrested Wednesday on a murder charge in a drug deal gone bad.

Thus, Collins — who never made it into the pantheon of Cornhusker football greats — has made it into the pantheon of Cornhusker football thugs, a grouping that includes rapist Christian Peter and serial criminal Lawrence Phillips.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3607349

Obnoxious — and odoriferous

One of the things you have to do when you make nearly half-a-mil for playing football is hang around after the game and answer questions.

Placekicker Martín Gramatica, a nine-year veteran, certainly knows this — or should.

But on Sunday, Gramatica ducked out of the New Orleans locker room to avoid discussing his two missed field goals that cost the Saints a win in Denver.

Gramatica was in such a hurry to avoid reporters he left without taking a shower — which means that Sunday it wasn’t just his kicking that stunk.

Forgiveness — and then some

The New York Times about Jerome McDougle, the Giants’ defensive end who works with troubled youth.

McDougle’s efforts to help youngsters would be admirable but not remarkable if McDougle hadn’t been shot by in 2005 by the same type of kids he’s trying to help.

“I want to make a difference,” McDougle told LaPointe. “I had some problems when I was young. I really know how it feels to be going down that path. It’s just like a spiral, but you can break it.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/sports/football/21giants.html?scp=1&sq=Jerome%20McDougle%20&st=cse

Already showing his smarts

Recommended reading: Mike Ogle’s piece in The New York Times about Jonathan Meyers, a highly rated prep football star who turned down a scholarship offer from BCS power Florida, among others, to enroll at (gasp!) Princeton.

In part, Meyers decided on Princeton to be able to play big-time lacrosse, but a little thing called … wait … it’s on the tip of my tongue … on yeah — education — also played a role.

“It’s not what everyone else thinks you should do; it’s what you want out of your school,” Meyers told Ogle. “Obviously the benefits you get from having a Princeton degree, I think that’s one of the most priceless things in the world as far as after sports and athletics are done.”

A top athlete actually thinking of life after athletics.

Amazing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/sports/ncaafootball/20princeton.html?ref=ncaafootball

This is ‘cleared’?

Following an investigation of The Association of Tennis Professionals, Russian star Nikolay Davydenko has officially been cleared of fixing a match last summer in Poland.

But the word cleared should be in quotes. Something odd certainly happened in that match against Vassallo Arguello. Davydenko, then the world’s fourth-ranked player, should have been expected to beat Arguello like a drum, yet went from being a heavy favorite to being a big underdog. More money came in for Arguello, ranked 87th in the world, even after Davydenko had won the first set. Trailing Arguello 2-6, 6-3, 2-1, Davydenko retired, claiming injury.

Somebody stood to make a killing on the result, but an online betting exchange notified the ATP that its security team had recognized irregular betting patterns and voided $7 million in bets.

What about the investigation? Well, it took place without cooperation of Davydenko’s wife and brother, who refused to turn over cell phone records. The records eventually were destroyed by the phone company in Germany, in accordance with local data protection laws.

So Davydenko is “cleared.” Yet, considering the lack of cooperation by his family, I can't help wondering if “safely obscured” might not be more accurate.

The definition of stand-up

Give Ed Hochuli credit.

Yes, he absolutely blew a call at the end of the recent Broncos-Chargers game, and that call cost San Diego a victory — no small thing in NFL land.

Yet the longtime official is not only owning up to the mistake, he’s answering the e-mails coming from angry Chargers fans.

"I'm getting hundreds of e-mails — hate mail — but I'm responding to it all," Hochuli said. "People deserve a response. You can rest assured that nothing anyone can say can make me feel worse than I already feel about my mistake on the fumble play. You have no idea ... Affecting the outcome of a game is a devastating feeling. Officials strive for perfection — I failed miserably. Although it does no good to say it, I am very, very sorry."

And I’m very, very impressed.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3594778

Oh, well — that’s all right then

In the long and sordid history of athletes' use of performance-enhancing drugs, a lot of stupid excuses and comments have been offered. We now have a new contender for the all-time dumbest.

After being forced to acknowledge he’d received testosterone cream and human-growth hormone from the now-infamous Palm Beach (Fla.) Rejuvenation Center, Ron Hornaday, the defending champion of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, admitted using the cream, but said, “I never knew that was a steroid.”

No, that’s not the contender for all-time-dumbest.

For that, we turn to Hornaday’s wife, Lindy, who, after her husband fessed up to using the cream every day for 13 months, piped up with, "He never took it at the track. Only at home."

Insert cleat, shoe, high heel ...

Why, oh why, do they do this? Open their mouths, I mean?

Take Ohio State receiver Roy Small.

Days before his Buckeyes go on the road to take on the University of Southern California — the top-ranked football team in the country — Small rips the Trojans program, describing disdainfully his recruiting visit to Los Angeles, during his senior year of high school.

He ends his rant with, “(It's) a class thing. Here at Ohio State, they teach you to be a better man. There, it's just all about football."

Well, it certainly WILL be all about football Saturday. Most analysts already think USC has the advantage, without the added edge in motivation.

Of course, Small, though he should have known better, is just a player. How does one explain Charlie Weis?

Why did the coach of Notre Dame, which hosts Michigan on Saturday, feel the need to pop off about the Wolverines, a team that embarrassed the not-so-Fighting Irish 38-0 last year?

"I've always been one never to make excuses and blow hot air," Weis claimed before the season started, adding, “… We'll listen to Michigan have all their excuses as they come running in, saying how they have a new coaching staff and there's changes.

"The hell with Michigan."

Weis later tried to backpedal, claiming the “the hell with Michigan” was a kind of tribute to former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, who once said, “To hell with Notre Dame.” He didn’t explain what the talk about Michigan making excuses was a tribute to.

Last and certainly least, we have Jessica Simpson, paramour of Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo, who told Philadelphia Eagles fans, “We’re going to kick your butt — whoo-hoo!”

It’s bad enough when players mouth off and give an opponent bulletin-board material. It’s worse when coaches mouth off. But when girlfriends get into the act ...

Who knows? Maybe Romo likes that. But if I were he, I’d be telling Jessica not to write any checks that someone else — namely, me — has to cash.

With more experience, they'll tell better lies

Let me get this straight.

Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers apologize for getting kicked out of the NBA's rookie transition program — but deny using marijuana.

Hmmmm …

How do they explain the fact hotel security was first alerted to a problem by their room smoke detector going off?

How do they explain why they wouldn’t let security into their room, forcing hotel personnel to fetch a key?

How do they explain what was described as a strong stench of pot in the room?

How do they explain the person locked in the bathroom repeatedly flushing the toilet?

Darrell, Mario: If you’re going to feed us lies, at least give us plausible ones — please.

Remembering "The Bear"

Mention should be made of Don Haskins’ passing.

When the Texas Western coach sent an all-black starting lineup against Kentucky’s all-white team in the 1966 NCAA basketball final, even a 15-year-old watching on a fuzzy Zenith could tell the game’s stakes had just been raised.

The Miners’ 72-65 victory spurred the desegregation of sports in the South and the end to unofficial “quotas” in other parts of the country.

Still, Haskins apparently thought of himself not as any kind of a civil-rights pioneer but as a basketball coach, period.

Bob Knight said his friend “got more out of his teams and players than any coach who has ever coached college basketball.” High praise, indeed.

And Haskins, known as “The Bear,” remained sharp in retirement.

Doc Sadler, a former Miners coach who moved to Nebraska, said he spoke with Haskins after Cornhusker games last season, particularly those that were on TV.

"He would see things in a game that I had just coached that I never realized," Sadler said.

Yet, for all of his basketball acumen — and he won 719 games — Haskins will be remembered most for the simple act of putting his best five players on the floor, regardless of their color.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=katz_andy&id=3574928&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab6pos1

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-haskins8-2008sep08,0,2284797.story

Dept. of Self-denial

So.

During the first night of the NBA rookie-transition program, reportedly there was enough marijuana smoke in former Kansas star Darrell Arthur's room — where Arthur and another former Jayhawk, Mario Chalmers, were entertaining young ladies — that the room's smoke detector went off.

Leading to NBA Commissioner David Stern going off, and booting the two out of the four-day seminar, which, yes, they'll have to come back and complete next year.

But Kansas coach Bill Self is not about to question the behavior of two players who helped him win his first national championship.

"We really don't know all the facts yet, and I certainly would never comment publicly on any personal matter concerning any player I have ever coached," Self said. "Beyond that, I can say that both Mario and Darrell were great to coach. They played a huge role in our success the past few years, in large part due to their unselfishness and the sacrifices they made for our program."

Which means what, exactly? They never smoked on game days?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3569725

And Nixon wasn't a crook

In Detroit, the Lions cut Tatum Bell and signed Rudi Johnson, and the incoming running back and the outgoing running back passed each other in the locker room Monday. No big deal; happens all the time.

What isn’t so frequent is the outgoing player stealing the bags of the incoming player.
That’s what Johnson alleges happened while he was meeting with the Lions brass, and a surveillance tape backs him up.

Taken were two Gucci bags, Johnson’s identification, credit cards, about $200 in cash and some undergarments.

Bell admits taking the bags but says it’s all a misunderstanding, that he was asked to pick up a backpack by a former teammate, Victor DeGrate, and took Johnson’s property by mistake.

Eventually the bags were returned by an unnamed woman, without the ID, credit cards, cash — and underwear.

Bell insists he's not a thief. Johnson isn't buying it.

Said Johnson: "If anybody's got some Perry Ellis boxers for sale, you know where they came from."

Of clubs, athletes and early mornings

You have wonder sometimes about the mind-set of coaches and administrators.
Take football coach Bob Stoops, basketball coach Jeff Capel and a couple of suits at Oklahoma University, for example.

Word got out Monday that at least two OU athletes were hurt in a brawl at a Norman nightclub that police said involved guns, knives and tire irons. Naturally, reporters were a mite curious.

Cue Stoops: “I’m not commenting. There was an incident where a couple of our athletes overall were assaulted. Outside of that, there’s an ongoing investigation, so until we know more, I’m not going to confirm or not confirm anything.”

Ah, the old “ongoing investigation” dodge. Beautiful.

Cue Capel, athletic director Joe Castiglione and university President David Boren — actually, why bother, none of them said anything worthwhile, not even providing the names of the athletes involved.

That left it to the police to identify football defensive end Frank Alexander and freshman basketball guard Ray Willis as the OU players, saying the two sustained knife wounds in the brawl.

Did the OU folks really think they could keep the names a secret — in this day and age? Amazing.

Police said the altercation started about 2:30 a.m. when a group unsuccessfully tried to crash a private party at the club, then began attacking invited guests.

No word on whether Alexander and Willis were in the invited group or the crashers, but watch Stoops, Capel and company spin hard the idea the two are simple victims. Perhaps that’s the case, but whatever the facts are, don’t expect them to come from OU.

* * *

Athletes, nightclubs and early mornings continue to prove a bad combination. Witness not only the incident in Norman but Tuesday’s shooting of Jaguar offensive lineman Richard Collier.

Collier was critically wounded about 2:45 a.m. as he and former teammate Kenneth Pettway waited in a car for two women they had met — yes, at a Jacksonville nightclub.
The Jags have passed the Cincinnati Bengals as the NFL’s most troubled team — off the field, at least. Jacksonville has had 11 players arrested in the last two years, including star running back Fred Taylor, charged with disorderly conduct just last weekend.

Head coach Jack Del Rio took issue with any attempt to lump the Collier shooting with the other incidents.

“He was out last night, enjoying himself, having a good time, being responsible,” Del Rio said. “… Listen, a person got shot. The guy who shot the gun is the problem, not the guy who got shot. He’s the victim. He was victimized. You ought to be able to go out and have a good time and go back home and not be worried about being killed or being put in the hospital with bullet holes.”

Maybe you ought to be able to. But when it comes to athletes, more and more it appears as though you can’t.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Dept. of Not Getting It

The NBA has a rookie-transition program — mandatory for all first-year players — in which the young men are schooled for four days in what to do and not to do as proud professionals.

On the what-not-to-do list is getting caught with drugs.

Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur of Kansas had begun the seminar, but before they could digest that particular what-not, they were caught with weed — and women — in their hotel rooms and tossed out of the program.

Unlike the weed, the women were legal, though having them in their rooms violated program rules.

Besides being bounced from the program, Chalmers and Arthur allegedly were fined $20,000 each and might start the NBA season on the suspended list.

Here’s the kicker: since they were booted out of this year’s program, Chalmers and Arthur will have to attend the seminar again — next year.