Friday column: This silence is not golden, but all too common

Accountability is big in sports — in concept, anyway — and is preached constantly, sometimes with the help of visual aids.

I remember former NFL coach Bum Phillips famously brandishing a short piece of white cord — the idea being, as I recall, that players were accountable to each other like mountain climbers. If you were headed over a cliff, you really needed the person on the other end to “hold the rope.”

But while accountability is preached in Toyland, it often is not practiced.
Take Tim Floyd at USC.

The Los Angeles Times said that at his team’s March 31 banquet, the men’s basketball coach pleaded with his most talented players to not turn pro but stay and help the Trojans win an NCAA title.

The next day — April fools! — Floyd flew to Tucson to interview for the University of Arizona job.

In May, Floyd — whose program already was the target of an NCAA probe into alleged goodies provided to former “one-and-done” star O.J. Mayo — was accused of acting as his own bagman in handing $1,000 in cash to a Mayo associate during the “recruitment” process.

More Trojan players and recruits jumped ship.

Tuesday, Floyd did, too, but how he did it is revealing. He gave a newspaper in his home state of Mississippi his resignation letter — before faxing it to USC. He told the newspaper he “intended” to contact his players and assistants — then turned off his cell phone. And presumably hid in the cellar.

To be fair to Floyd, who in his last weeks never so much as issued a simple denial of the charges facing him, he’s pretty much following USC’s modus operandi.

The Trojans’ football program is also under investigation for alleged NCAA infractions — serious infractions — yet neither coach Pete Carroll, athletic director Mike Garrett nor school President Steven Sample will say “boo” about the matter.

Things aren’t much better a few miles away at Dodger Stadium, where Manny Ramirez did talk to the press — but refused to answer questions about his 50-game drug suspension.
Ramirez said he had apologized to his teammates, fans and ownership but felt no need for further discourse. I guess being a star doesn’t mean never having to say you’re sorry but does mean never having to explain exactly what you’re sorry for.

“I didn’t kill nobody, I didn’t rape nobody, so that’s it,” Ramirez said.

Rape and homicide — so that’s where the accountability bar is set.

By that standard, Ramirez, Floyd, Carroll, Garrett and Sample don’t owe us a thing.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t want any of them at the other end of my rope.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.