The face of ... well, you call it

At the very close of 2010, Tucker Carlson made a strong big for Cretin of the Year. Which isn't that surprising. Carlson's ability to continue to find employment on one cable news network or another speaks to the content of the 24-hour news cycle (not favorably).

Saying that Michael Vick should have been executed for the killing of dogs may not be the dumbest thing he’s ever said, but it’s certainly in the top 5.

I would explain why it’s dumb, but if you really need an explanation, you most likely wouldn’t understand it.

Friday column: What was 2010 about? Take a guess

So, Boss, you say you want a quick review of Toyland in 2010? Can do:

Sex.

Money.

Ego.

There you go, Boss; now I’ll start on next Friday’s col — … what’s that? You need more? You want it fleshed out, so to speak? Really?

OK.

Well, for sex we have Tiger Woods, whose addiction to the amorous cost him his reputation, his wife and his game — in that order.

We have Lawrence Taylor, whose attempted tryst with an underage paramour — the entrepreneurial kind — has cost him his reputation (what was left of it) and oodles of green. It also may cost him his freedom.

We have French soccer stars Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema, who’ve been charged with soliciting an underage prostitute (I’m sensing a theme here).

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, sex-wise. As for money, where do we start? Or end? Let me give you just one story — two, actually, that are linked by — what else? — dollars.

In June, the NCAA fell like a ton of bricks on Southern Cal because Reggie Bush’s family took hundreds of thousands of dollars in freebies in his Trojan days. In December, the NCAA admitted Cam Newton’s father did everything to shop his son except list him on eBay — but still it allowed the star quarterback to continue playing for Auburn, maintaining there was no reason to think the son was in on the deal.

The real difference between the two cases? Bush’s college career is over, while Newton still has money to make for his school, his conference and the BCS. The NCAA pulling the plug on the Heisman Trophy winner before Jan. 10’s national title game would cost the BCS and its sponsors a bundle.

Wasn’t. Going. To. Happen.

By the way, Boss, there were some nice stories this year.
We had Detroit’s Andres Galarraga showing amazing self-control and sportsmanship when an ump’s blown call cost him a perfect game and a ticket to Cooperstown. We had Santa Fe Little Leaguers accepting sure defeat rather than have their team broken up. We had Grant Desme, a young Oakland prospect, giving up a promising baseball career to pursue the priesthood.

What’s that? Forget the sweetness and light and give you the ego angle?

I can do that in two syllables: Brett Favre.

Favre began his last ride (please, Lord) on the Ego Train by making Vikings teammates trek to Mississippi to beg him to play. Then he squeezed the team for more millions. Finally, he embarrassed the NFL — if that’s possible — by stonewalling an investigation into charges he sexually harassed a twenty-something Jets employee.

What? That’s more than just ego? Right you are, Boss. With just one player in one sport, you have the essence of Toyland in 2010:

Sex.

Money.

Ego.

Like I said.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Credibility problem? What credibility problem?

So.

In Columbus, Ohio, football players — including Terrelle Pryor, the Buckeyes’ best and most marketable player — are found to have taken improper benefits that will cost them five-game suspensions.

But not until next season.

Too much money involved in the Buckeyes’ Sugar Bowl appearance to suspend them now.

Greed and hypocrisy, thy name is NCAA football.

Yes, Bret, we know you're special ...

In Minnesota, Vikings quarterback Brett Favre spent some time after possibly his last NFL appearance patting himself on the back: “It's been a 20-year career; not too many guys can say that. I took one day off and a half, but again not a lot of guys can say that.”

Oddly enough, he didn’t add, “And I sexually harassed a sideline reporter.” He probably didn’t add that because he couldn’t — not with a straight face — finish with, “not a lot of guys have done that.”

Friday column: In trial, no surprises — just pain

Christmas is a season for the unexpected; for some, the unbelievable.

Unfortunately, in sportsland the last few days, we’ve seen nothing but the expected and the believable. I discuss a couple of incidents today in my blog.

But of the expected, nothing was more tragic this week than the end of the trial of Andrew Thomas Gallo.
An athlete? No, a killer of one.

Last year, Gallo — driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.19 percent after a night of drinking with his stepbrother — blew through a red light in Fullerton, Calif., and hit a car carrying Nick Adenhart, a 22-year-old pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels.

Adenhart was killed, along with friends Courtney Stewart, 20, and Henry Pearson, 25. Jon Wilhite, 24, survived, but sustained major injuries.

The trial played out along predictable lines. The state charged Gallo with second-degree murder; the defendant pleaded not guilty.

Gallo, with a previous DUI conviction and at least two stints in rehab on his record, was defended by his family.
“It was an accident,” his mother, Sandra Sagahon, said.

The jury said it was murder, leading to the penalty phase of the trial, which also moved along predictable lines.

In emotional testimony, the families of Stewart, Pearson, Wilhite and Adenhart understandably pressed for the longest possible incarceration.

“Andrew Gallo, the night you killed my daughter you killed me,” Stewart’s mother said. “I will never be the same.”

Wilhite’s mother discussed the excruciating pain her son had been in and his difficult recovery. “Mr. Gallo, you put my son through hell,” she said. … I hope you enjoy your new address.”

The Adenhart family sent a letter that said, in part, “There is no justice as long as Mr. Gallo is drawing a breath.”

While families of the victim asked for the maximum, Gallo’s family asked for leniency.

Gallo didn’t get it, the judge sentencing him to 55 years to life. Gallo, 23, will be eligible for parole when he’s 72. As he handed down the sentence, the judge put it bluntly:

“Mr. Gallo, you have devastated four families — really five families, with your own.”

If there was any hint of grace, it came when Gallo’s father, after asking for leniency for his son, turned to the victims’ families and said, “My family prays for you all the time. We also pray that someday you’ll forgive us.”

Forgive us.

That’s the father including the family in the sins of the son.

Then, there’s someday.

In the courtroom Tuesday, just four days before Christmas, there was nothing unexpected, nothing unbelievable. Which doesn’t mean there won’t be — somewhere, someday.

Transcendence can take time.

An impressive lineup

Good thing Albert Haynesworth makes so much money. He just might need every dollar.

The big-earning-but-not-so-hard-working Washington linesman is facing a few legal challenges. According to a Thom Loverro story in The Washington Examiner:

* He’s being sued by a woman who claims Haynesworth’s reckless driving caused the accident that left her disabled.

* He’s being sued by a Tennessee bank for not paying back a $2.38 million loan.

* He’s being sued by an exotic dancer for $10 million for allegedly impregnating her.

* And his former wife has been in court charging him with not paying her health insurance or their children's bills.

On top of that, his current team reportedly is considering going after the $21 million bonus they paid him earlier this year.

Haynesworth has made his employers very unhappy; but it appears he’ll make his lawyers very happy — assuming, of course, he actually pays them …

Blame game

So.

Terrell Owens has unloaded not on his quarterback — his usual target — but on his coaches.

“I think there's underachieving from the top down,” Owens said of the 2-11 Bengals. “You start with the owner, you start with the coaches. And obviously we as players, we are a product of what the coaches are coaching us throughout the course of the week.”

Cincy is an undisciplined team, so the coaching probably isn’t first-rate. But perhaps the bulk of the blame should go to the Browns — President Mike and Vice Presidents Pete and Paul — the player personnel people who keep bringing in players such as … well, Terrell Owens.

Friday column: Long-term plans? Don't bother

Hamlet: What’s the news?
Rosencrantz: None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.
Hamlet: Then is doomsday near.
Hamlet — Act II, Scene 2

Last time I looked, the world hadn’t grown honest. But I have my own way of judging the nearness of the end times, and I’m getting a bit concerned. I wrote a positive column about three sports figures less than a month ago — and now I’ve done it again.

Starting with the Terrence Williams.

Williams, sent to New Jersey’s Development League team in Springfield, Mass., after consistently being late to Nets games and practices, was upbraided by the D-League club’s eighth-grade ball boy.

Carlos Gonzalez Jr. told Williams he was one of his favorite players, then asked, “Why would you blow it?”

Recalled Williams: “I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He said, ‘Why would you want to have an attitude, and be late — the simplest things you can control? And you get to be in the NBA? I would die to do that, so don’t blow it.’ ”

More amazing than a 13-year-old talking to a 23-year-old pro that way is the fact that the pro listened, changed his ways, and is now back in the NBA — albeit with Houston.
“There definitely was an awakening,” Williams said. “It woke me up a lot.”

* * *

Some would say that Keith Fitzhugh must have been asleep when the New York Jets asked the 24-year-old to join the team to shore up their secondary.

The gig probably wouldn’t have been for long, but hey, it still was the NFL, and a chance.

Fitzhugh said no thanks. Why?

He was afraid he would lose his regular job — as a trainee with the Norfolk Southern railroad.

Fitzhugh, it turns out, loves trains. He also loves his aging parents, with whom he lives in Hampton, Ga.

His decision has given Fitzhugh more notice than he ever garnered as a player.

But, Fitzhugh said, “I’m not doing this for fun or publicity or any other reason. I’m doing this because this is who I am.”

* * *

It remains unclear who Ron Artest is, exactly, but for the second time in a month he’s caught my attention. This time, it’s for refusing to allow a reporter to entice him into grousing because his minutes with the Lakers are down this year.

Said Artest: “I don’t be analyzing it, you know what I mean? I don’t be analyzing, analyzing, analyzing.”

I don’t be either.

But if I were, two columns praising Artest within a month of each other would make me think that while the world hadn’t grown honest, perhaps the sports world was beginning to grow wise.

In which case, doomsday definitely is near.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Just a thought ...

So.

Cam Newton's dad says he won't attend the Heisman Trophy award ceremony.

Why?

Because, he says, his presence might "rob Cam and the event of a sacred moment."

Well, that could be the reason.

Or maybe the Downtown Athletic Club couldn't come up with the requisite appearance fee ...

Getting it done, on and off the field

Recommended reading: Greg Bishops’s New York Times piece on former running back Curtis Martin.

Martin not only had the requisite talent and toughness to play the position, he also had — and has — perspective and smarts.

Writes Bishop: “Even when he played, Martin did not want to be a scout or a coach or a broadcaster afterward. He wanted to own part of a team.”

Martin on his Hall-of-Fame candidacy:

“When I think of the Hall, what’s most satisfying is this really wasn’t something that I wanted. But I’m proud of that fact. I made the most of that situation. I maximized my opportunity.”

That's not something every athlete — or non-athlete, for the matter — can say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/sports/football/03martin.html?adxnnl=1&ref=football&adxnnlx=1291964403-wBMltZdsV48nlbjwR4Weyw

As long as they had a good reason

Not that brawling over good football teams would be intelligent, but how dumb are the folks who fought in a Rose Bowl parking lot Saturday over the honor of the UCLA Bruins and USC Trojans?

Some 40 fans got into it, Pasadena, Calif., police said. One person was stabbed in the cheek and another was stabbed in the back. Two officers were slightly injured.

Arturo Cisneros, 44, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. Steven Radu, 27, and Joshua Elder, 23, were arrested for investigation of assault on a police officer.

Cisneros was later released, but his three adult sons were arrested for investigation of attempted murder.

Nothing brings a family together like a nice attempted slaying.

I know I’m taking a wild guess here, but I’m assuming alcohol was involved.

How much? Well, apparently more alcohol than brains.

Friday column: Competition's pluses, minuses

I’m fond of Eugene McCarthy’s line about politicians needing to be like football coaches: “You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.”

But having spent a lot of my life competing in athletics, including doing a little coaching, I do understand its lure — or at least one of the lures.

By and large, I think, people are less happy when they’re focused on themselves, more happy when they’re not — when they are able to “lose themselves” in something else.

There were times when I was young and miserable, when nothing could make me forget my unhappiness like a good, competitive game of basketball — in a gym or on a street.

Being “outside of myself” for that time was sheer relief.

Sports offers an arena in which you not only can focus on externals, but also you can easily chart your progress. Want to know how you are doing? Look at the scoreboard. Look at your batting average. Look at your winning percentage. Life — real life — doesn’t offer those clear measuring sticks.

Of course, a life of constant competition comes with a price, a price Florida football coach Urban Meyer says he’s decided he no longer wants to pay, at least for now. One year after resigning following a health scare — only to quickly un-resign — Meyer appears sincere in his decision to step down.

In today’s college game, coaches at Meyer’s level are compensated at absurd levels, but just as absurd are the expectations others place on them. Meyer won two national titles at Florida; yet last year he “disappointed” Gators fans by only going 13-1. The reaction to this year’s 7-5 season? Don’t ask.

Coaching legend John Wooden told the story of a booster who came up to him after his UCLA team had beaten Kentucky to win the 1975 NCAA basketball title.

“It was a great victory, John.” Then the booster added, “After you let us down last year.”

“Last year,” 1974, Wooden’s Bruins had lost to North Carolina State in the NCAA finals, in double overtime — only the second time in 12 years Wooden’s team hadn’t cut down the nets.

That was Wooden’s last season; he knew when it was time to get out. It appears Meyer does, too.

Even so, the break for Meyer, just 46, could be brief.

“I can’t ever see that son of a gun getting out of the game and going into broadcasting,” Notre Dame assistant Tim Hinton said last year. “He’s too much of a competitor.”

Hopefully not.

Meyer already has discovered the health consequences of being super competitive. Competition also can be an addiction. It’s the need to compete, I think, that led to Pete Rose’s career meltdown and to the gambling problems of Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

Competition is a way to “lose yourself.” The trouble is, sometimes it really happens.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Not too well, as I recall

The funniest line to come out recent stories about the Miami Heat’s alleged unhappiness with coach with Erik Spoelstra is this one: They're not winning as much as expected because he won’t let them be themselves.

It’s funny because when easy-going Wade Phillips replaced disciplinarian Bill Parcells as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, every player was allowed to be himself.

How did that work out?

Implausible denial

So.

Cam Newton’s father, the good Rev. Newton, was pimping his son around to college football programs for a couple of hundred thou, but the son knew nothing about it?

Two words: Un-likely.

Auburn may gets its national championship, but the NCAA investigation will continue, and the subsequent embarrassment may be a bitch.

Even if it comes years later.

Just as Southern Cal.

As for Newton attorney George Lawson's insistence that he is "a million percent confident that Cam Newton took no money from no one," I'm a million percent confident that Lawson, saying just what a flak is paid to say, has credibility in this matter of ... just ... about ... zero.

No offense, Derek, but …

Derek Jeter is easily my favorite player in Major League Baseball.

I love his work ethic, his demeanor, his hustle. I’ve never seen him not run out a ground ball — and I mean hard.

But the idea the Yankees owe him tons of money in his declining years simply because he is Derek Jeter, because of what he has done for them in the past, is absurd. He was well compensated for all those years.

The sense now is that after early rebuffs, Jeter and his agent are getting more realistic about his current monetary value. I hope so.

In an era when hardly anybody plays for one team his entire career, it would be nice for Jeter to finish as a Yankee.

Friday column: 'This how you do me?'

I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME?!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO …

Thus tweeted Buffalo wide receiver Steve Johnson’s after dropping a sure touchdown pass Sunday, a play that would have given the Bills an upset victory over Pittsburgh.

Johnson’s reaction brought to mind my struggles with a Ignatius Loyola prayer of dedication recommended to me years ago.

Recognizing God as the source of all things, the prayer offers back to that source all of one’s freedom, memory, intelligence and will for God to use as he sees fit. The prayer ends, “I ask only for your love and your grace, for they are enough for me.”

I have found praying that prayer problematic in this sense: While I understand and do believe that God’s love and grace should be enough for me, I find as say those words that, in truth, I want a little more.

A newer car would be nice. Maybe a house without so many problems. A bit of financial security would be appreciated. I wouldn’t mind a Pulitzer.

Johnson apparently would very much have liked a game-winning touchdown. When he didn’t get it, he tweeted, ostensibly to God. But as his faith tells Johnson that the Almighty already knows his thoughts, it’s safe to assume the tweet was really to Bills fans, to let them know the drop really wasn’t Johnson’s fault — blame the Man Upstairs.

In a world of suffering, it’s easy to make fun of Johnson’s angst over a dropped pass. But it’s worth remembering the wide receiver is only 24 and clearly felt he had let down an entire community. When he said after the game that he would “never get over it — ever,” I’m quite sure he meant it.

But, obviously a little perspective is called for.

There are countless millions of people waking up today who must struggle with their faith, whatever it may be, while confronting soul-shattering losses — of job, health, child, husband, wife. In this life, loss, pain and fear come at us, sometimes in waves. We do what we can to prevent them but sooner or later they come, just the same.

What we can control, one hopes, is our response, and here Johnson should have an edge. He’s an elite athlete, which means he’s already learned that pushing through the hard moments — wind sprints at the end of practice, extra reps when you’re tired, discouraged and want to quit — is where the most progress is made.

What’s true in the athletic realm I believe to be true also in the spiritual.

For people of faith, getting from “And this how you do me?” to “your love and your grace are enough for me,” is a long, arduous journey, and there are frequent drops — for all of us — along the way.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.