Friday column: Such touching personal sacrifice

This story moved Monday:

“NEW YORK (AP) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein and six other top executives at the bank will not be receiving cash or stock bonuses for 2008, a spokesman said Sunday.

The decision was made by the seven executives themselves, said spokesman Lucas Van Praag …. The executives made the decision ‘because they think it's the right thing to do,’ Van Praag said.”

Now, the story didn’t mention that Goldman was under a bit of pressure, as it and eight other banks had recently accepted $125 billion from Uncle Sam, leading the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to wonder how — in light of that taxpayer bailout — the banks could possibly justify billions of dollars in pay and bonuses.

Still, I’m certain the Goldman honchos are just doing “the right thing.” And I, for one, am quite moved by their sacrifice. For now the execs will have to live on their paltry base salaries of $600,000.

With luck, they remembered to sock away some of their past bonus money for these hard times. Last year, for instance, Blankfein (that's him in the photo) received a $70 million bonus. I hope he didn’t blow it all on the purchase of, say, a small Third World country.

My heart goes out to the Goldman execs, not only because of their reduced circumstances but because they’re inspirations to us regular folk, as are all the recent sports figures who’ve made sacrifices for the greater good — for purely humanitarian reasons, you understand. Surely you remember these stories from recent years:

— Jan. 11, 2008
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Marion Jones will voluntarily give up competing in the 2008 Olympic Games, she said Thursday in a phone call from a federal courthouse. “I think it best to give some younger girls the opportunity to shine,” she said, adding, apparently to someone in the room with her, “Do I get time off for good behavior?”

— Sept. 14, 2007
Boston (AP) — New England coach Bill Belichick said he would voluntarily stop surreptitiously taping his opponents’ signals for the “good of the game.” Said Belichick: “It’s just not fair what I’ve been doing, it’s just not right,” adding, apparently to someone in the room with him, “What $500,000 fine?”

— Dec. 10, 2007
ATLANTA (AP) — Michael Vick said today he would voluntarily give up playing quarterback for the Falcons, allowing the team to “move on” and find another signal caller. “I’ve caused them some embarrassment, so this is just the right thing to do. They don’t even have to pay me my salary,” said Vick, adding, apparently to someone in the room with him: “Officers, are those leg irons really necessary?”

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Honest to goodness

I have a new favorite golfer.

OK — let me reword that: I have a favorite golfer.

That would be J.P. Hayes, who, during a PGA qualifying tournament last week, called a penalty on himself for playing the wrong ball. In a sport with a long and illustrious honor code, that’s not that surprising. What happened next is.

Two days later, after realizing the ball he accidentally played on two shots was a non-regulation prototype, he informed the PGA of that violation, whereupon the association disqualified him — meaning he won’t qualify for the 2009 PGA Tour.

Even better — almost — is what he said about it.

Anyone else on the PGA Tour in his situation "would have done the same thing," he claimed.

Quite a contrast with, say, NASCAR, whose code is said to be, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t competin’. ”

Now, this year the 43-year-old golfer made $312,000 despite having his worst season ever. So don’t cry for Hayes. He won’t.

"It's not the end of the world. It will be fine. It is fine."


http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=3712372

Exactly what you DON’T want, Coach

Rich Rodriguez, coach of the 3-8 Michigan football team, thinks something’s out of whack. Some fans of the maize and blue, it seems, are taking the game much too seriously.

Rodriguez is displeased with the vocalizing that’s been heading his way as the Wolverines have lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost, lost and lost this year.

"It's amazing some of the things that people would say [on a message board] or yell at you of a personal nature," Rodriguez. "You almost want to tell them, 'Get a life.'

No, no, Rich. You don’t want them to get a life. If they have a life, they might not buy tickets to watch your football team and subsidize your $15 million, six-year contract. They might even object when the university pays your former employer, West Virginia, $3 million as compensation for your having broken your contract to come to Ann Arbor in the first place.

Trust me, Rich: You want those fans to avoid a healthy perspective at all cost. Verbal abuse might be difficult, but at $2.5 mil a year, you can afford a real good pair of noise-blocking earphones.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3710474

Mercy, mercy

Some in Detroit are suggesting the NFL show some compassion for the city of Detroit — home of the ailing and perhaps terminal Big Three automakers and their unfortunate workers. How? By lifting the blackout for Lions home games.

But considering the sorry state of the Lions — 0-9 in 2008 — surely the more compassionate move would be to continue the blackout. Actually, true compassion demands the league not only continue the blackout, but expand it — black out even games that have sold out.

Oh — and hang curtains around the field to protect the eyes and fragile psyches of the remaining paying customers. Just listening to the ineptitude is be bad enough.

This is getting hard to keep up with

The latest incident of coach-bashing ... wait, let's encapsulize what's come before:

1) a coach bashed by the father of two players for telling the kids to get on the team bus;

2) a coach bashed by the father of a player for making the kid run laps;

3) a coach bashed by his own player for trying to break up a fight;

OK, for now the latest in coach bashing ... drum roll, please ...

4) A coach bashed by a former player.

This is out of Eagle Rock High near Los Angeles, where Johnny Lopez was bending down to pick up a ball during practice when a young man, a former footballer, hit him from behind.

Reportedly, the incident was related to the unpopular firing of the previous coach, a move that resulted in students circulating petitions and holding a protest. When I went to school — back in the day — I remember protests against Vietnam and racism.

Protesting over a coach's firing? I'm not sure that's progress.

Recommended reading: Billy Witz's New York Times story on the way Major League Soccer player Andy Williams and his wife, Marcia, both Jamaican-born, have been embraced by Salt Lake City, particularly since Marcia was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

Witz writes that when Williams was drafted by Real Salt Lake four years ago, his wife was fearful of moving to a largely white, Mormon community.

“I was terrified,” Marcia said. "My first thought was I was going to have to wear long dresses and I’d see men with many wives."

Now, the story says, she describes her neighbors as caring and color-blind.

“God must have put us here for a reason,” her husband said. “If we were in New York or Chicago, I don’t think the support would be the same.”

But whether the story ultimately has a happy ending depends on the finding of a match for Marcia for a bone-marrow transplant.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/sports/soccer/11soccer.html?ref=soccer

Can't trust that day

If you're a current NFL player, Monday was a bummer. If you're an NFL player who uses human-growth hormone, it was a double bummer.

First, a jury told the NFL Players Assn. to cough up $28.1 million in damages to retired players who were victimized when the players union blew off contracts that should have given the old guys money for the use of their images in video games, trading cards and the like.

Herb Adderley, shown above, was the name plaintiff in the class-action suit.

“(The union) betrayed us,” said Adderley, who played for the Green Bay Packers back in the Vince Lombardi days. “We put our trust and faith in them, and they betrayed us.”

The verdict may be just the beginning, as it, in one former player's words, "opens the door for Congress to revisit the many wrongful denials of disability benefits."

Second, an L.A. Times story reported that Don Catlin, called "the guru of sports doping," is getting close to a test for HGH. For all the cheaters in the NFL — and you know who you are — that can't be good news.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-nflretire11-2008nov11,0,62056.story


http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-hgh11-2008nov11,0,2162471.story