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

Compare and contrast

Jerry Jones and Mike D’Antoni both have narcissists on their teams.

Here’s how Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, handles his:

In Sunday’s game against Cincinnati, with his team winning but Terrell Owens on his way to a paltry two-catch performance, Jones felt the need to walk over to Owens and buck him up.

“I was just reminding him how important a player and an important part he is to this team winning,” said Jones, undoubtedly mindful of some of Owens’ sideline explosions when a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Jones’ pep talk didn’t keep T.O. from blowing off reporters after the game — a 31-22 Dallas win — after issuing the following bizarre comment:

“It was frustrating out there, but I kept with it. My teammates stuck with it. … God used me today for his glory. Reality is where glory resides. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

I wish.

Now to New York Knicks coach D’Antoni, whose narcissist is guard Stephon Marbury, fond of calling himself “Starbury.”

Marbury, ticketed for backup duty under the new Knicks coach despite his outrageous salary, amazed the New York press by saying that, yes, he would accept coming off the bench in order to collect his $22 million this season.

In the Big Apple, that was considered a STORY — but not to D’Antoni.

“For you all, that’s big news,” D’Antoni told reporters. “For me, that’s how everybody should act.”

“I’m really proud that he did that,” he added, referring to Marbury. “But it shouldn’t be newsworthy. To do the right thing should never make the news.”

What part of 'No!' didn't you understand?

Nothing might be written in stone — this side of the Ten Commandments — but the following could be written in, say, plexiglass?

“Thou shalt not recruit to your college a player who attended five high schools.”

Despite his checkered prep academic career, UConn recruited Nate Miles to play basketball.

But it turns out he won’t be doing that.

On Sept. 22, the 20-year-old was served with a restraining order after a woman claimed Miles had attempted to force her to have sex with him.

Twenty minutes later, Miles reportedly violated that order by calling the woman — possibly a record for quickest disregard of a restraining order.

UConn has now expelled the 6-foot-7 player.

Of course, if he's talented enough for UConn to recruit him in the first place, chances are Miles will soon have second college to add to his academic résumé.

Friday column: Nothing says 'spirit' like execution

It was, explained Nathan Chaddick, principal of Nacogdoches (Texas) High School, all about spirit.

The football pep-rally skit opens with some NHS cheerleaders dressed as that week’s opponents, the Central High School Roughriders, wearing cowboy hats and carrying toy pistols.

The “Roughriders” kidnap the Golden Dragons’ mascot, which is then rescued by the Nacogdoches cheerleaders. So far, standard high-school rally fare. What follows isn’t, and here I quote from an Oct. 4 article in The Daily Sentinel.

“The music shifts to a popular song which includes the sound of gunfire. As the NHS cheerleaders hold the guns to the back of the kneeling ‘prisoners’ ’ heads, gunfire is heard. The ‘prisoners’ fall over, dead.

“The victorious NHS cheerleaders then toss what appears to be fake money into the air in celebration, then drag the bodies representing Center into a pile, whereupon the NHS mascot holds up a tombstone over the executed ‘prisoners,’ to the sound of clapping and cheering from the spectators.”

Not everyone cheered.

In the days following the rally, some students circulated a petition against the promotion of gun violence, and two editorials were written for the school newspaper. One — written by a cheerleader in defense of the skit — ran in full. The other — attacking the skit’s appropriateness — had paragraphs removed by the principal, including one that questioned the administration’s support for the skit.

Asked by The Sentinel what was objectionable about the excised material, Chaddick said it was obvious that a personal grudge was involved — something student journalists Katie Rushing and Mollie Garrigan denied.

“They were calling the cheerleaders ‘fearleaders,’ ” Chaddick said. “That’s inappropriate.”

That’s inappropriate?

Chaddick also moved a news story about the skit from the front page of the paper to inside, saying, “ … There’s more important things going on than a personal agenda of three little girls.”

It’s unclear who the third girl is Chaddick is referring to, but note the demeaning language: “three … little … girls.” If anyone comes up little in this incident, it’s Chaddick.

Among the material he censored was the following:

“ … it is inappropriate to allow such a display of excessive violence in a high school. This is not only unacceptable in a school environment, but also from a moral standpoint. This skit did not portray the other team as our opponent in a sports game, but as an enemy.”

Chaddick said the skit was a “simple, innocent satire” and was done “to promote some school spirit.”

A skit showing a mock execution, especially in an era when gun violence and death on school grounds is all too common, surely involves spirit — but not the type of spirit I would think a principal would want anywhere near his campus.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Oh, my aching ...

OK. I know I get on NFL players now and again for behavioral issues. OK — I get on them a lot. But there is no gainsaying the brutality of their sport or their toughness.

Take Brian Westbrook, for example.

A Tuesday morning main headline reads, “Eagles' Brian Westbrook has two broken ribs”

And the subhead: “It's too early to know if his latest injury will keep him out of Sunday's game at San Francisco”

Say what?

It those were my ribs, it would definitely not be too early to say I wouldn’t be playing this Sunday — or for many Sundays after that.

Dancing with the feds

Helio Castroneves is a two-time Indy 500 winner and a “Dancing With The Stars" champ.

But the federal government believes Castroneves is something else: a tax cheat who has evaded U.S. taxes on more than $5 million in income.

Castroneves, who has been charged with conspiracy and six counts of tax evasion from 1999 through 2004, appeared in court last week in handcuffs and leg chains. Apparently Uncle Sam is serious about getting his money.

Interestingly, his lawyer didn’t deny wrongdoing had been done — just that his client wasn’t responsible.

"Helio has always done the appropriate thing and hired accountants and attorneys he relied upon," the mouthpiece said.

But the feds have also charged his sister. Hmmm. If it comes down to a plea deal, as he’s the big fish in this case, she’s the one who would have some leverage, I would think.

"We are of the strong belief that he did not do anything wrong," his attorney said. "We're looking forward to going to court."

I bet.

Or to put it another way, the lawyer stands to have a great number of billable hours, so I can believe he’s looking forward to going to court.

Helio? I'm guessing not so much.

Who do you trust? How about ... neither?

A favorite sound byte on the radio show of late, great Jim Healy was a quote of Ed Garvey, the onetime head of the NFL players union, on the troubled then-owner of the Philadelphia Eagles.

“Leonard Tose,” Garvey said, “has lost it.”

I thought of Healy and Garvey and Tose while watching a tape of Al Davis railing this week against the alleged sins of Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin, whose firing Davis announced at a news conference that was bizarre even by Raider standards.

After eviscerating Kiffin for alleged coaching and character flaws, a rambling Davis went on to claim that New England coach Bill Belichick tampered with Raiders receiver Randy Moss before trading for him before the 2007 season. Belichick denied the claim.

A quandary — who is one to believe here? Belichick is a proven cheat. And Davis? Well, he’s gone the Leonard Tose route.

Great Moments in Parenting

In Ohio during a pee-wee football game between Amherst and Midview, a parent — one Eric Frambach — decided the Midview coach needed help calling plays.

"Apparently, the parent was yelling to the coach to run a particular play. They ran the play, the coach turns around as says, 'There is your sweep,' and bam, the rest is history," said youth football board member Dennis Szalai.

The “history” Szalai refers to is Frambach’s alleged attack on the coach, which resulted in Frambach’s arrest.

What made the incident more inane, Szalai said, was that there was an injured played on the field when the sideline fight began.

"I looked at the player, here is this third- or fourth-grader. This fight occurred within 2 feet of the player. There was no regard for this kid, no clue what happened to him. The boy could have had a serious injury to him. It wasn't, thank God," said Szalai.

As for the rest of the players, "They were all crying, and the Amherst players and they had a blank look on their faces, like they didn't know what was going on," Szalai said.

Frambach is no longer welcome at the league football games; his presence in court, however, will be not only permitted but required.

Great Moments in Parenting II

Darius McCormick volunteers his time as an assistant football coach at Granger High School in Utah, but right now he might be looking for another way to give to the community.

After a recent 34-6 loss, McCormick tried to get two players to get on the team bus, saying, “Come on, boys, let’s go.”

Whereupon the father of the boys, Tamua Siaumau, told the coach to leave his sons alone, then allegedly grabbed one of their helmets and hit McCormick in the face.

McCormick was taken to the hospital in critical condition; Siaumau was taken to jail. He faces a charge of aggravated assault.

The coach since has been released but faces months of recovery following reconstructive surgery.

Friday column: An utter absence of ‘poshlost’

Paul Newman always made me feel better about the world by the simple fact that he was in it.

Not that the actor and athlete, who died Saturday at 83, was a saint.

As a young man, Newman was arrested for running a red light, driving into a bush and leaving the scene of an accident. As a second-string football player at a tiny Ohio college, his drinking, a barroom brawl and a stint in jail got him kicked off the team. He began his relationship with Joanne Woodward while he was still married to his first wife, who was caring for their three children.

Yet there was something about Newman that always made me think of the best of us.

Part of it was the hard work he put in at the craft of acting — it was a joy watching him perform — and he put in the same hard work when he learned to be a fine race-car driver.

Part of it was courage — and not just in his willingness to take on challenging roles and play against type. It says something about the man that in his 80s he was still racing, and that after escaping from a car fire in 2005 he quickly entered another race.

Part of it was his humanitarian instinct. When he started his food company, Newman’s Own, on a lark, he decided on impulse to give the profits away, and in 25 years the firm has donated $250 million to charity.

Part of it was a refusal to take his fame seriously. His motto for Newman’s Own, for instance, was “Shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good.”

Part of it was his humor. Lynn Smith in the Los Angeles Times wrote that in 1963 when Newman’s first film — a dreadful biblical flick titled The Silver Chalice — aired on TV for a week, Newman took out a black-bordered ad in the Times that said, “Paul Newman apologizes every night this week.”

Part of it was his clear devotion to Woodward, to whom he was married for 50 years.

Part of it you could call his utter absence of poshlost.

Poshlost is a Russian word that’s been translated as “self-aggrandizing banality” and would seem to describe a lot of what we see today from actor-celebrities as well as athlete-celebrities.

I never saw it in Newman, who, Smith wrote, disliked what he called “noisy philanthropy” and once refused a national medal offered by President Clinton, “calling such recognition ‘honorrhea.’ ”

Like many in the film industry, Newman was political — he found his inclusion on Nixon’s enemies list particularly gratifying — but his friends, Smith reported, said he argued politics genially.

In 1971, Newman told a writer, “I’d like to be remembered as a guy who tried — tried to be part of his times, tried to help people communicate with one another, tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being. Someone who isn’t complacent, who doesn’t cop out.”

I’d say he got his wish.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Yeah — that's clearing your name

OK. So you’re running back Travis Henry.

Last year, released by the Tennessee Titans, you were signed by the Denver Broncos, who stick with you despite a positive test for marijuana.

Claiming to be a victim of secondhand smoke, you appeal your NFL suspension and actually win it (though you remain in the league substance-abuse program) and are allowed to play.

In February this year you tell Bronco fans, "I want to be a Bronco and make it all right. I don't want to be anywhere else. I owe those people something for all that happened last year. I want to clear my name there.”

Then you do something to anger coach Mike Shanahan enough that he flat-out cuts you in June, saying, "We did not feel his commitment to the Broncos was enough to warrant a spot on this football team. He’s just too inconsistent as a person.”

Inconsistent? Au contraire.

For in July it’s revealed you again tested positive for pot, which means a year’s suspension. Now on the last day of September you’re arrested by the feds for your alleged role in a cocaine deal?

Smooth move, Travis.

Actually, it has one advantage. Henry reportedly has fathered nine kids by nine different women, and therefore has serious child-support payment problems. I mean, you don’t have to pay child support if you’re in prison, do you? And even if you do, if you can’t pay it, where are they doing to do? Put you in prison?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/football/bal-henry1001,0,6985906.story