How’s that stress-reduction plan working out, Urban?

When last we noticed Florida football coach Urban Meyer, he was lying about how to got to a hospital and about what he was treated for, deciding to quit the game for health reasons, then deciding he didn’t need to quit, after all — just take it a little easier, reduce stress on the ol' ticker.

This week Meyer went on a rampage that couldn’t have made his doctors happy, lighting into Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeremy Fowler for having the temerity to write something one of Meyer’s players said — namely, that new quarterback John Brantley might be a better fit for the Gators receivers than the departed Tim Tebow. The idea is that Brantley is a traditional pocket passer and relies on timing whereas Tebow’s penchant to scramble made it difficult for wideouts to know whether they should continue their routes or peel back to block.

"You'll be out of practice — you understand that? — if you do that again," Meyer yelled at Fowler. “I told you five years ago: Don't mess with our players. Don't do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel’s not welcome here ever again. Is that clear? It's yes or no.”

Meyer also told Fowler, “You're a bad guy, man. You're a bad guy,” Meyer said. If that was my son, we'd be going at it right now.”

From where I’m sitting, Urban, you’re the bad guy. You’re a liar and a control freak and a bully.

But, then, you are a D-1 football coach ...

This belongs in a leadership manual somewhere …

Granted, I know nearly nothing about soccer. But I still recommend Rob Hughes’ New York Times piece on Guus Hiddink, a Dutchman who has coached the game just about everywhere, successfully. His new gig is in Turkey.

I particularly liked Hiddink’s simple approach, which Hughes said is based on three tenets: “Keep the game simple; communicate through actions, not words; and demand that others work as hard as you are prepared to do.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/sports/soccer/24iht-soccer.html?ref=soccer

Heading into Bobby Fischer territory?

OK, math isn’t sport, but you’ve got to love the response of Russian Grigory Perelman to a reporter got through to his cell phone to inquire why Perelman was turning down the $1 million he earned by solving a previously untouchable problem.

“You are disturbing me,” Perelman said. “I am picking mushrooms.”

A Michael Wolff post on Newser went on to say that Perelman also snubbed the math community in 2006, refusing to collect the Fields Medal, described as “math’s equivalent of the Oscars.”

The director of a math institute that formerly employed Perelman described him as a loner and said, “He has rather strange moral principles. He feels improper things very strongly. The directly said Perelman might feel his fellow mathematicians aren’t worthy to award him anything.

All this reminds me of a certain eccentric American chess player of a few years ago ...

Friday column: Chances eventually do come to an end

Redemption stories are the lifeblood of drama, certainly of sports drama. Think Rocky, The Natural, Field of Dreams. And redemption stories happen in real life. Think John Lucas, who overcame his drug problems and then went on to help other athletes battle theirs.

But for every John Lucas, there is at least one Dwight Gooden.

Gooden, who sabotaged his pitching career with drug use, has appeared more than once to have “turned his life around,” including recently to the point where the Mets invited him to spring training as a guest instructor. Citing the advanced pregnancy of his wife, Gooden declined.

Then Tuesday, Gooden was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of a dangerous controlled substance following a two-car collision in New Jersey. Worst of all, he was driving his son, Dylan, to school at the time. Gooden hadn’t bothered to strap in the 5-year-old.

The major charges he faces? Being under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance; driving under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance; endangering the welfare of a child; driving while intoxicated, with a child passenger; leaving the scene of an accident; and reckless driving.

Gooden’s last jail time was in 2006 when he served six months for a parole violation. In the months leading up to Tuesday’s arrest he had spent time as a vice president for the Newark Bears, doing community work, and apparently doing it well.

“He was moving on to bigger and better things,” a Bears executive said.

Now Gooden’s back to square zero — and fortunate to be even there. His son was not injured in the accident — physically, at least — and Gooden, at 45, still has time to turn his story into one like that of Lucas.

He doesn’t, however, have forever.

Earlier this month, former Dodgers center fielder Willie Davis died at 69. I remember Davis from the team’s glory years of the early ’60s. I remember, also, his subsequent troubles with drugs and his brushes with the law. Over the years, the Dodgers reached out to Davis, but ultimately they could no more help him control his life than they could help him control his talent.

A friend of mine who had run into Davis at some function a few years ago said he was selling autographs for a pittance and looked, well, a mess. He died March 9, apparently alone.

In 1968, Davis gave a quote to the Los Angeles Times that concerned his failure to completely harness his considerable abilities, but might as well have been about the rest of his life.

“I can’t really explain it,” Davis said. “Over the years … I would say to myself, ‘This is the year,’ then every time I would go back to my old way of doing things.”

Gooden’s old way of doing things likely will return him to jail; eventually, it will kill him.

He doesn’t have forever.

To be fair, he did run for 2,000 yards …

Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers decided to give their students pictures of African American heroes to carry in a Black History Month parade.

Good idea.

Among the pictures given out was that of O.J. Simpson.

Not such a good idea.

The three — all of whom are white — have been suspended pending an investigation. Turns out they not only gave out photos of Simpson, but also shots of Dennis Rodman and RuPaul.

Students from other classes carried photos of Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Barack Obama.

A school district spokeswoman says the teachers could have chosen more appropriate choices such as Oprah Winfrey or Kobe Bryant.

Kobe Bryant … Kobe Bryant … seems there was something about him … a few years back … in Colorado … hmmm … can’t quite bring it up.

And in any case, to be fair, he has won four NBA titles …

We’re not buying it

Wow. For the first time in his career — perhaps in his life — Milton Bradley is not blaming others but accepting personal responsibility for something that went wrong.

… OK, just kidding.

Yes, once again, Milton is pointing the finger for failure away from the man in the mirror. Turns out that last season’s disastrous Bradley performance was the fault of the Cubs.

"Two years ago, I played, and I was good," Bradley told The New York Times. "I go to Chicago, not good. I've been good my whole career. So, obviously, it was something with Chicago, not me."

Obviously.

Bradley’s now with the Mariners, and for their sake I just hope they don’t let him down like those darn Northsiders did.

We’re really not buying it

Tiger Woods' caddie, Steve Williams, who has a well-deserved reputation as a blowhard, is at it again, telling New Zealand’s 60 Minutes that had he only known about his boss’ sexual dalliances, he would have made them known.

Right.

Not, mind you, talk to him personally and ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing — but publicly expose the man making him wealthy for carrying sticks across nicely mowed grass.

Right.

"I'm a straight-up sort of person," Williams said. "If I'd have known something was going on, the whistle would have been blown. He knows that, that's just the way I operate."

How you operate, Steve, is to open your mouth without engaging your brain.

I wonder who Tiger's next caddie will be?

Friday column: Privacy trumps a porn mag’s ‘right’

Great moments in protecting the freedom of the press:

* 1734 — Alexander Hamilton defends John Peter Zenger’s right to publish attacks on the governor of New York.

* 1971 — Floyd Abrams and others defend The New York Times’ publication of The Pentagon Papers.

* 2010 — The Society of Professional Journalists defends Hustler’s right to publish naked photos of Nancy Benoit, printed after her murder by her husband, wrestler Chris Benoit.

What?

Yes, the SPJ, along with other journalism groups, filed amicus briefs in support of Hustler on First Amendment grounds. In 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Thrash dismissed a lawsuit filed against Hustler by Nancy Benoit’s mother, concluding that the magazine had the right to publish the photos in part because her death was a “legitimate matter of public interest and concern.”

Her death — and that of her son at the hand of her husband, who then killed himself — a “legitimate matter of public interest and concern?” Yes. Two-decades-old nude photos? No.

I can see the dollar value of the photos’ publication. What precisely is the news value?

Thrash’s decision was reversed last year by the Atlanta based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The photographs published by (Flynt) neither relate to the incident of public concern conceptually (the murders) nor correspond with the time period during which Benoit was rendered, against her will, the subject of public scrutiny,” the appeals court wrote. “Were we to hold otherwise, (Flynt) would be free to publish any nude photograph of almost anyone without their permission, simply because the fact they were caught nude on camera strikes someone as ‘newsworthy.’ Surely that debases the very concept of a right to privacy.”

That reasoning was upheld this week by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So the lawsuit proceeds, which is good. Thrash’s decision was more obscene than anything Hustler publishes, which is saying something.

* * *

Speaking of treating women as a commodity …

In testimony last week, Denver’s Brandon Marshall admitted he may have “escalated” a New Year’s Day 2007 dispute with a gang member, a dispute that police say led to the shooting death of Marshall’s Broncos teammate Darrent Williams.

At the party, a conflict began between Marshall’s group and the group of Willie Clark, now on trial for Williams’ death. Marshall at first tried to smooth things over. “I told them, ‘We got all these bottles of champagne up here, all these women, it’s New Year’s — just party with us.’ ”

Clark’s group wouldn’t accept Marshall’s hospitality, and when the conflict started up outside the party, Marshall “got angry a little bit” and started swearing. Things went downhill from there.

But heck, if your generous offer to share your Cristal and your women was snubbed, wouldn’t you feel dissed?

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.