Friday column: Great moments in fatherhood

So.

You’re a parent of a teenager trying out for a team in the Greater Toronto Hockey League.

Your son doesn’t make the roster — alas. Do you:

A) Tell your son to practice harder and try again next year?

B) Stoke his determination with stories about great stars who were cut early in their careers.

C) Sue the bastards.

If you’re like two fathers whose respective pride and joy didn’t measure up during tryouts for the Avalanche Minor Sports Club midget junior A team, the amazingly-silly-but-hardly-surprising-in-this-day-and-age answer is … C.

I’d name the patresfamilias, but if you’re a dad who is egocentric enough to sue over your son getting cut from a youth team, you’re egocentric enough to enjoy the notoriety.

Let’s just call them Lame Dad 1 and Lame Dad 2. Both lame dads cited damage to the fragile morale of their precious boys as the reason for burdening the Canadian court system with such piffle.

“Their direct actions have caused irreparable psychological damage to (the boy’s) self-esteem as an impressionable teenager and demoralized (him) as an athlete and team hockey player with his peers,” Lame Dad 1’s statement of claim reads: “The conduct by all defendants destroyed the dignity of my son, whom in good conscience gave his team nothing but his best efforts.”

The statement of claim from Lame Dad 2 states: “When (our son) was advised of his termination by my wife and I, he vowed never to play the game he loved since childhood. And, moreover, this misguided group of defendants demoralized my wife and I, whom had gone well beyond the call of duty as parents in support of the Toronto Avalanche hockey team for two seasons.”

Deep breath, everyone. All together now — and don’t forget the descending tone — one, two, three … awwwwwwww!

Yes, nothing like a dad preparing his progeny for the vicissitudes of life by encouraging the idea that when anything bad happens to you, it’s definitely someone else’s fault. So go in the corner and sulk.

Then sue.

Unfortunately, for Lame Dad 2, his son managed to get a gig with another team, which necessitated the following additional sentence in the statement of claim:

“Thank the good Lord that my son had the courage and strength to compose himself in his demoralized state.”

Yes, thank the good Lord, indeed, though the boy’s ability to summon such courage and strength does undercut Lame Dad 2’s claim of his son’s disheartenment. But then, maybe he should just come clean and sue in his own name, as he’s the one who seems demoralized.

My son can’t even make the team — what does that say about me?

Actually, that says nothing about you. Your going to court over this — I’m talking to both you lame dads — says a lot about you.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Cue Inspector Callahan

I have a favorite bullfighter.

As of Sunday.

The man’s name is Christian Hernandez, and you may have seen him in action on the news or on YouTube waving his cape in his bull’s general direction, then taking off like a rocket and vaulting over the wall for safety.

Hernandez, who several months ago had been seriously gored, didn’t mince words after the “fight.”

"There are some things you must be aware of about yourself," Hernandez, a 22-year-old Mexican, said. “I didn't have the ability, I didn't have the balls, this is not my thing.”

I’ve never had a favorite bullfighter before. What’s that? Hernandez said he’s quitting? OK, so I have a favorite former bullfighter.

As Dirty Harry so eloquently put it: "A man's got to know his limitations."

What? No O.J. Simpson?

Reggie Bush’s lawyer says the former USC star fully cooperated with the NCAA investigation into allegations he and his family accepted illicit benefits — such as living rent-free — while Bush was a star with the Trojans.

The NCAA says he didn’t cooperate fully.

Hmmmm. Who to believe? Who to believe?

Bush attorney Shawn Chapman Holley said his client sat down with the NCAA though he couldn’t be compelled to do so. The NCAA said that while that may be so, Bush failed to provide information that could have backed up his claim of innocence.

Holley insisted that Bush’s willing to meet with the NCAA investigators showed “he had nothing to hide.”

So, who to believe?

What's that, you say? Holley’s former clients include Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Mike Tyson?

That rather makes my decision a bit easier.

Bush, second take

So.

Reggie Bush regrets the effect on USC of the NCAA penalties imposed on the school in large part because the extra benefits he reportedly received.

Bush said that to him it’s the “closest thing to death without dying.”

Spare me the tears.

Bush was just another young athlete who just couldn’t wait for the gravy train. If what the NCAA alleges is true — and I believe their investigators — Bush and his family were greedy.

Period.

As for Pete Carroll and USC, here’s my strong guess: They couldn’t have and should have known something was up with Bush. Like many coaches and programs, they didn’t want to know.

It’s just a game — no, really

You’re Nicholis Williams, a 29-year-old man with a 10-year-old son. You’re watching your kid play baseball and don’t think he’s getting as many at-bats as other boys.

So … you … curse the coach?

OK, well that’s not the brightest or most gentlemanly thing to do, but at least he didn’t pull a gun, right?

Right?

After the game, Williams and coach Joe Powell walked to Williams’ car, and Williams did, indeed, pull a handgun and point it at Williams.

Williams actually had a gun permit, but that’s been suspended now that Williams has been arrested by police and charged with felony aggravated assault.

Ah, the lessons our youth can learn through sport …

Friday column: Maturity issues and other problems

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the graciousness of Armando Galarraga. Last week, I wrote about the remarkable life of John Wooden. Will we have three uplifting columns in a row?

No, thank goodness. OK, let’s not thank goodness; let’s thank Vince Young, the University of Southern California and Albert Haynesworth.

Young, the former University of Texas star, now the quarterback and wannabe leader of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, got involved Sunday in a way-past-bedtime scuffle at a … wait for it … strip club.

Video surveillance showed Young getting violent after a man made derogatory remarks about UT and flashed an upside-down “Hook ’em, Horns” sign.

Let me repeat that. Young, who has been attempting to show the Titans he’s no longer the pouting, immature jock who couldn’t stand to be booed and whose erratic behavior had his mother worried about his emotional stability, attacked a man because of an upside-down rah-rah sign.

What’s that sound, you ask? Yes, I heard it, too. I’m pretty sure that was Titans head coach Jeff Fisher, still sighing.

Of course, the team Young’s Longhorns beat in the 2006 BCS title game — Southern Cal — has its own problems, thanks in part to that game’s other marquee talent — Reggie Bush.

According to the NCAA, Bush and his family received extra benefits — hundreds of thousands of dollars have been alleged. As a result, the football program has been slammed with major sanctions, including forfeiture of victories, loss of scholarships and four years probation.

The severity of the punishments is linked to the finding of a lack of institutional control at the school, which also was hit for special benefits provided another “I want it now” jock, former basketball star O.J. Mayo.

Mayo’s coach, Tim Floyd, who was accused of being his own bagman in securing Mayo’s services for the Trojans, is long gone from the scene. Also gone is football coach Pete Carroll, who in the offseason suddenly developed an itch to jump to the NFL.

Of course, Carroll insists, the prospect of major NCAA penalties had nothing to do with his decision.

And I believe Carroll; sure, I do. But, then, I believe BP will get a handle on this oil thing any minute now.

Speaking of spurting crude, it’s hard to imagine an athlete leaking more credibility at the moment than Haynesworth.

The Washington defensive tackle was a no-show at practice this week. It seems Haynesworth, who already has collected $32 million on the $100 million contract he signed last year, is miffed at the team’s switch from a 3-4 defense to a 4-3 alignment, and wants to be traded.

Even his teammates are supporting the team’s attempt to reclaim some of the money they’ve paid to Haynesworth, who was a bust in his first year with the club.

Say this for Haynesworth: He might be a selfish, childish jerk, but at least the former Tennessee Volunteer waited until he turned pro to get paid.

Um … as far as we know.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Dumb and not-so-dumb

Mathias Kiwanuka is smarter than Ben Roethlisberger.

How do I know this?

In June 2006, Roethlisberger was injured in a motorcycle accident. He went over his handlebars and hit — head-first — into the windshield of a car. He was not wearing a helmet.

According to Wikipedia, police sources said “Roethlisberger suffered fractures to the jaw and right sinus cavity, as well as a nine-inch laceration to the back of the head, the loss of two teeth, and several chipped teeth. His facial injuries were severe enough that witnesses on the scene did not immediately recognize him, even after he identified himself as ‘Ben.’ ”

Yet after the accident, he continued to ride — sometimes, despite pledges to the contrary — sans helmet.

New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka wasn’t even in an accident and has decided to stop riding — period. Watching his brother get seriously injured was enough.

Benedict Kiwanuka reportedly broke several bones, suffered internal injuries and there were doubts for two days about his survival.

"You go through something like that and you realize how much of a gift life is and how short it can be," Kiwanuka said. "(You) just try to make better decisions and for me, in the position I was in watching that and knowing what I have left to do, not in just football but on this Earth, it's enough to wake you up and realize there are better ways to have fun."

Kiwanuka is smarter than Roethlisberger — which, admittedly, isn't saying much.

Dumb and incredibly dumb

So.

You’re quarterback Jeremiah Masoli.

Despite a troubled past, but you land a football scholarship to the University of Oregon. There, you succeed so well on the field that you’re talked of as a Heisman Trophy candidate.

Victories, honors and a fat NFL contract beckon.

So you get involved in the stealing of laptops from a university fraternity house and wind up suspended for the entire 2010 season?

But OK. OK. You’re a young man and young men make “mistakes.” Your coach is willing to put you back on the team in 2011 if you follow some Very Simple Rules, which include no more brushes with the law.

Victories, honors and possibly a fat NFL contract still beckon.

So you … get busted driving with marijuana in the car?

Now you’ve permanently been kicked off the team. You’ll eventually find some program to take you for your final year of eligibility — this is college football, after all.

But that fat NFL contract no longer beckons.

You’re not only dumb — you’re chump dumb.

Friday column: His was a life well-lived

John Wooden wasn’t a saint, and he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to think he was.

Wooden was a competitor. Nicknamed the “Indiana Rubber Man” in his playing days at Purdue for his willingness to throw his body on the floor in pursuit of a loose ball, Wooden lost none of his desire to win when he turned to coaching.

Bill Walton, who played for Wooden, acknowledged Wooden’s calm demeanor but said, “there is also the side of coach Wooden that he is this caged tiger.”

Wooden didn’t use profanity, but he could make his displeasure evident to his players with an emphatic “goodness gracious sakes alive.” He didn’t engage in sideline histrionics, but the zebras knew he was around.

“He never swore, but there was not a coach in the United States who could use the English language any better than he could,” one official said. “He was always technically and grammatically correct when he was chewing you out.”

It was probably the competitor that led Wooden to fail to run off booster and arch-fixer Sam Gilbert — the “sugar daddy” of UCLA basketball — who eventually landed the Bruins on NCAA probation. It is Wooden’s one significant failure, and it needs to be remembered.

But the competitor was only one part of Wooden. There was much more.

There was the teacher, beginning each season with the simple and surprisingly valuable lesson of how to properly put on sweat socks to avoid blisters.

There was the civil-rights advocate, early in his career keeping his Indiana State team from playing in an NAIA tournament because the tourney barred African-Americans.

There was the philosopher, constructing his Pyramid of Success, with its basic building blocks of industriousness, friendship, loyalty, cooperation and enthusiasm.

There was the husband, for a quarter century writing monthly love letters to his late wife — not only the only woman he had ever loved but the only woman he’d ever dated.

There was the moralist, stressing to his players that “a life not lived for others is not well-lived.”

There was the philanthropist. Wooden wasn’t wealthy; he never made more than $35,000 a year, but he generously gave of what he had — his time, even as his advancing age took its toll. A telling story about Wooden is that he remained listed in the Encino, Calif., phone book to the end of his days.

Wooden successfully coached young men from diverse cultures in a turbulent time — the 1960s and early ’70s. He managed this by not being brittle yet staying true to the values he learned growing up in Indiana.

One of the sayings he learned from his father, Joshua, was “Make each day your masterpiece,” which sounds trite — and is, I suppose, unless you actually try to live by it. Wooden did.

Wooden was authentic, and his players loved him for it. They believed knowing him made them better, not just on the court but in life.

John Wooden wasn’t a saint. He was, however, extraordinary, and to those who knew him, irreplaceable.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

The dirtiness of D-1

Need a reminder of how corrupted Division I college athletics can be?

Didn’t think so.

But you got a few the last few days, beginning in Lawrence, Kan., where the University of Kansas disclosed that five staffers — since fired — and a former “consultant” scalped football and basketball tickets to Memorial Stadium and Allen Fieldhouse to the tune of more than $1 million between 2005 and this year.

The staffers included Kansas’ former associate athletic director for development, a former assistant athletics director, and two former ticket directors.

The Kansas report, prepared by a Wichita law firm, apparently is only the top layer of dirt.

The same day the KU report was released, Yahoo! Sports claimed that former ticket manager Rodney Jones and Roger Morningstar — a former Kansas player and father of current Jayhawk Brady Morningstar — made more than $800,000 in a 2002-03 ticket-scalping scam involving NCAA Tournament and Big 12 Tournament tickets.

Neither these charges, being probed by the FBI and the IRS, nor the KU probe were triggered by any clever detective work or an alert eye at the university, but by whistleblower David Freeman, a real-estate developer who says he was a part of the scheme. As was, he said, a pair of brothers named David and Dana Pump, and here’s where the story gets even more troubling.

The Yahoo! story described the Pumps as “college basketball power brokers.” What does that mean? It means the Pumps live and feed on the underbelly of Division I basketball. They run AAU teams and summer camps, and have great influence over where a lot of the top high school talent winds up. That gives them leverage with top college coaches and athletic directors, connections that translate to a large number of Final Four tickets, which are then scalped, something they have never denied.

The Pump brothers are certainly connected with the KU program, nine players from their summer traveling teams having gone on to play for Kansas. There are other ties as well, including the fact that the sons of head coach Bill Self and assistant coach Danny Manning are on rosters of the Pump brothers’ teams.

What's the old dictum from Watergate? Follow the money. D-1's corollary: Follow the influence.

Oh, and speaking of corruption …

The basic nexus of talent, access and money that apparently is in play at Kansas would seem to be alive and well at the University of Kentucky where basketball coach John Calipari — no stranger to looking the other way — has recruited one Eric Bledsoe, whose horrible grades magically turned around in one year at a new school — enough, in fact, to meet the NCAA minimum standards.

It appears that the point guard not only suddenly turned into a scholar, someone — his prep coach is suspected — conjured up cash to pay rent for the house where Bledsoe and his mom moved for his senior year.

The NCAA is said to be very interested in Bledsoe’s turnaround.

Such killjoys.

If the Bledsoe story has truth to it, Calipari is fortunate that it was discovered now rather than two years down the road when perhaps he would have had to see a third Final Four appearance vacated.

Friday column:

In 1981 in a match at Wimbledon, a linesman missed a call — or not — and John McEnroe came unglued, famously screaming at the chair umpire, “You can’t be serious — you cannot be serious!” and calling him the “absolute pits of the world” when he refused to reverse the call.

Over one point.

Wednesday night, Detroit’s Armando Galarraga lost more than a point on a bad call — a demonstrably bad call. He lost a perfect game. Which means he lost recognition as only the 21st pitcher in the 134-year history of baseball to retire 27 consecutive men.

What did the 28-year-old Venezuela native do?

He smiled.

Oh, it was a pained smile, to be sure — a rueful smile. But it was a smile.

Yet more impressive than his composure on the field was his composure off it after he retired Mike Redmond for the 27th — actually, the 28th — out.

In the clubhouse, when Galarraga heard that Jim Joyce — the ump who blew the call — was berating himself over the mistake, Galarraga said, “Tell him no problem.” Then he said, “I can go tell him.”

And Galarraga did.

“I know nobody’s perfect,” Galarraga told ESPN, describing the meeting. “He feels real bad.” For his part, Joyce had asked for a chance to apologize, and he did.

“You don’t see an umpire after the game come out and say, ‘Hey, let me tell you I’m sorry,’ ” Galarraga said. “He felt really bad. He didn’t even shower.”

At the time of the mistake, some of the Tigers were less forgiving than Galarraga, and Joyce — to his credit — didn’t have a problem with any of the hot rhetoric.

“I don’t blame them a bit — or anything that was said,” Joyce said. “I would’ve said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would’ve been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me.”

The Tigers’ Jim Leyland is one of the most well-respected managers, and on Wednesday he demonstrated why. Described as “livid” at the time of the blown call, he vehemently protested to Joyce but afterward threw the 24-year veteran a lifeline.

“That’s the nature of the business, that’s just the way it is,” Leyland said. “The players are human, the umpires are human, the managers are human, the writers are human. We all make mistakes. It’s a crying shame. Jimmy’s a real good umpire, has been for a long time.”

Because of the egregious nature of the mistake, Major League Baseball briefly considered reversing the call and awarding Galarraga the perfect game. It would have corrected an injustice — and allowed Joyce to sleep at night — but also would have set a troublesome precedent.

Yet Galarraga’s loss is, in some ways, our gain. For on Wednesday he not only gave us a pitching lesson, he gave us one on graciousness. It’s the second lesson that’s the more important.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.