Valentine's Day: Ten Loves of a Sports Fan (in no particular order)

 On Valentine's Day, 2011, I present my ten favorite sports, why I love them, and minor irritants associated therewith.
 1. I love college football for its excitement, intensity, and mirror of capitalism where almost every coach and school is a mercenary always looking for the better deal. That being said, I wish the inequitable BCS system would just go away and Boise State could be treated with real justice.
 2. I love Major League Baseball for its tradition, long season, player ethnic diversity, chess-like strategy, and slow pace in a game that doesn't rely on a clock. That being said, I wish the league would quit focusing on the steroids smokescreen when the real scandalous issues are a lack of true revenue sharing and payroll caps making many small-market teams nothing but farm teams for the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Angels of the world. The Giants victory was a beautiful thing, but when will the Yankees be raiding their pitching staff?
 3. I love NCAA basketball for its fast pace, drama, athleticism, colorful coaches, and March Madness. That being said, I wish student-athletes had to stay until age 21 just like in football, so top programs would have more continuity than a-year-of-Kevin-Love UCLA or a-year-of-John-Wall Kentucky.
 4. I love the NBA for its athleticism, endurance, 24-second clock, and great broadcasters from Chick Hearn to Bill King. That being said, I wish the league would enact contraction (fewer teams and fewer regular-season games) to make every game count, every team count, and every player's health count. I also wish the refs were straighter (see Kings-Lakers playoffs) and the league's edict that every player's ego counts would be dismissed so great coaches like Jerry Sloan wouldn't be sent out to pasture prematurely due to chronic run-ins with star players.
 5. I love NCAA women's volleyball for its athleticism, action, emotion, grace, and long rallies/volleys. That being said, I wish middle-school recruiting and easy transferring rules were abolished in order to enforce integrity and program continuity while discouraging unscrupulous, over-aggressive coaches from raiding/luring recruits too young or too uncommitted to their less prestigious collegiate programs. I also wish the game would go back to 30-point sets and a full 30-point fifth set if necessary. You don't see other sports cutting down the competition time to save a little electricity while using "Olympic match compliance" as an excuse.
 6. I love the NFL for its revenue sharing, skills, short season, DVR-compatible play spacing, all-weather-welcome conditions, and hits. That being said, I wish the owners and players would use foresight and a little humility to settle on a new CBA before a lockout becomes a 2011 non-season. Non-play didn't do Major League Baseball or the NHL any favors. Like wedging temporary bleachers into an already huge and sold-out stadium for a heavily watched Super Bowl, greed isn't always good. In that same Super Bowl, little-market but tradition-rich Green Bay walked off with the title, a claim no other city of comparable size could make in any other major team sport in America.
 7. I love rugby (particularly Australian National Rugby League and European Super League) for its intensity, strategy, kicks, laterals, scrums, idiosyncratic scoring, lack-of-padding hits, and international competition. That being said, I wish it had a higher profile in the U.S.A., at least a profile high enough to spare a great program like Cal-Berkeley's from the budget-cutter's knife. Fortunately, fundraising has saved the team for now, but where is the NCAA when a criminally ignored sport is on the chopping block? Why doesn't it award the sport more status and recognition with regard to its championship tournament? At least the IOC has decided to recognize rugby (the 7-per-side version) for the first time since 1924 in 2016.
 8. I love international soccer, including Champions League, Premier League, and World Cup events (proving a love of American football and a love of world football are compatible) for its non-stop action, fitness, scarcity of goals, huge pitch, and fan rabidity. The constantly tough defense makes a goal like Wayne Rooney's bicycle kick for Manchester United last weekend that much more dramatic. That being said, I wish the American version of pro soccer would just go away. Attending a Real Salt Lake game is like attending a single-A or double-A baseball game: it's fun but strictly minor league. Why watch that when the Soccer Channel is available bringing the American viewer the best from Europe and South America? I also wish World Cup referees would stop training by watching NBA games and instead opt for a more virtuous style of blowing or not blowing whistles.
 9. I love professional golf (PGA, LPGA, Champions, and European tours) for its traditions, nerves, skills, finesse, beautiful courses, and personalities (although some would say non-personalities). That being said, I wish both the European and PGA tours would cut enough minor tournaments so the two tours could merge effectively, putting the best players in one league (as with the Champions and LPGA). I also wish tournament names would go back to their non-corporate roots. Even when only 8 of the top 40 world golfers showed up for the Bing Crosby, I mean A T&T, at Carmel-Pebble Beach, it was a great event because of the celebrities, the beautiful setting, and the magical shots of D.A. Points, a previous unknown. Additionally, I wish there was more Johnny Miller-style ascerbic NBC broadcasting and less Jim Nance-style gush-to-the-max CBS broadcasting.
 10. I love grand slam tennis for its sudden-death tension, endurance, athleticism, magic shots, and diva-esque egos (male and female alike) of competitors, coaches, and parents. That being said, I wish the prevalence of limited-field events and ludicrous team tennis leagues would vanish from the Earth. I also wish tennis would add two more majors (one in Asia and one in Africa or South America, for example) so there would be fewer large gaps in the grand slam calendar.

The Super Bowl: Winners and Losers

 The Super Bowl is almost a week old, and the dust and snow have settled on Jerry's Palace. Fortunately for anybody who believes in justice, Green Bay held on to hand Pittsburgh the defeat that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger deserved. Does that make Roethlisberger a loser? No. He handled defeat like a man. From Coach Tomlin on down, the Steelers handled defeat like champions. They said what we all observed: the Packers were a better team on February 6, 2011. They made fewer mistakes and more big plays.  

 The noblest Steeler of them all was Troy Polamalu, who said, "I had some opportunities to make plays; I was just a step off here and there." He also said, "[The winning touchdown] was completely my fault. [On a previous play], they ran Jennings down the middle, and I was anticipating that same pass play; I guessed wrong."

 Most Packer fans, players, and staff were winners, but the biggest winners were quarterback Aaron Rodgers and linebacker Clay Matthews. Both men were NOT five-star blue chip recruits out of high school, even though Matthews had a father and uncle with illustrious college and NFL careers. Rodgers went to Cal from Butte College in Northern California. After a solid college career, he was taken after Alex Smith and 22 other men on NFL draft day in 2006. He sat behind Favre for two years, then was an unpopular replacement for him in 2008. 

 Other winners and losers? Volkswagen, Coke, and the NFL had quality ads, Budweiser's were disappointing, and Dorito's were downright gruesome. In the luxury boxes, former President George W. Bush looked like a genuine fan, former broadcaster John Madden looked distracted with his cell phone, and Alex Rodriguez looked like a pampered superstar being hand-fed popcorn from fading big-screen actress Cameron Diaz.

 More winners and losers? How about Christina Aguilera mucking up the National Anthem and the Black Eyed Peas making a travesty of the live music halftime show (where were the musicians exactly)? Just because last year's show featured the remnants of a great band 35 years past its prime (The Who) didn't mean the organizers had to over-react by hiring a vastly inferior, much younger band that nobody will know 35 years hence.

 The NFL was good, bad, and ugly on Super Bowl Sunday. The game itself proved why professional football is the number one spectator sport in America. The NFL's ad utilizing computer-generated imagery atop scenes from classic TV shows was clever and touching. Unfortunately, the pomposity and self-importance of the league shone through with the inflated introduction to the game by fine actor Michael Douglas, comparing the Packers and Steelers players with other heroes like JFK and MLK. Really? How many players have served in the public sector, the military, or in combat? You don't want to go there, NFL.

 The intro was just ugly. The seating debacle was just bad. Quoting one of Michael Douglas's most famous characters from a 1987 film, "Greed is good," the NFL and stadium host/Cowboys owner Jerry Jones oversold the stadium. They had sold about 1250 tickets for unusable seats in temporary bleachers that were not completed and up to safety code in time for the game. Can you spell shoehorn? The league said about 800 of those ticket holders were relocated (?) inside the stadium before game time (standing room?), while the other 400-450 were left standing outside with nothing except guaranteed free tickets, air fare, and hotel for a future Super Bowl . Did the league and Jones really need the additional revenue that those 1250 bleacher seats would provide them? 

Those displaced fans didn't think so, as they have just filed a $5 million class-action lawsuit in Dallas against the NFL, the Cowboys, and Jerry Jones for breach of contract, fraud, and deceptive sales practices.

 Now it's time for the lawyers to compete. Let the games begin!

National Signing Day: Winners, Losers, and Observations

 Is there a direct correlation between a university's recruiting success and the wealth, number, and enthusiasm of its alumni? Take USC, for example (Trojans, not Gamecocks). Not only does USC have a large alumni base, but it also has enthusiastic alumni. Oh, and it also has wealthy alums (see George Lucas doing the coin toss at the 2006 Rose Bowl if you don't believe me). Even in the 1920's, USC alums in the movie industry were hiring football players for summer work (see John Wayne and Ward Bond if you don't believe me). Anyway, USC just missed out on the Number One recruiting class for college football yesterday, but still wound up Number Four after DeAnthony Thomas (aka the Black Mamba) did a last-minute switch from the Trojans to the Ducks of Oregon. Speaking of wealthy alumni, see the Ducks' Phil Knight. Oregon stands at Number Nine right now after signing day.

 Does the ranking of schools based on the recruiting of five-star, four-star, and three-star athletes really matter? Yes and no. It's true that some schools do well with their blue-chip athletes (see Alabama and Ohio State): they get better. It's also true that some schools get the great recruits and don't follow through with their development (see recent Notre Dame teams). How does one keep the pampered blue chipper hungry? That's just one of the challenges facing top college football coaches. Unlike their basketball counterparts, at least they're able to keep their players from turning pro for three years.

 On the other hand, some football programs have great success without landing a host of prep superstars (see Boise State and Air Force). Still others have bad recruiting classes and bad teams (see Washington State and New Mexico).

 Recruiting is only one aspect of coaching. Important, but not the only key to winning. Some coaches are repulsed by the recruiting process. They sicken of the kissing-babies, kissing-mothers, gladhanding fathers, promising-the-moon-to-prospects process and bolt to broadcasting jobs or the NFL while claiming they are doing it for the money, the challenge, or the family.

 With that in mind, here are a few observations about yesterday's signings. While one can state the obvious, that Alabama is the biggest winner since it finished Number One on the list, I propose Florida State was the biggest winner, as Jimbo Fischer has the Seminoles back on track. FSU finished Number Two overall. The biggest loser? A formerly dominant team that lost some recruits to Florida State: Florida. The Gators finished Number Fourteen overall, but the fall-off is significant and the trend is alarming for Gators fans. At least Urban Meyer won't be kissing any babies soon.

 While Cal-Berkeley had an awful season in 2010, they did muster up another Top 20 recruiting class, finishing Number Seventeen after signing day. We know the Golden Bears have an excellent strength and conditioning program and they recruit well since Jeff Tedford took over. What does that leave as a shortcoming? Just strategy, schemes, halftime adjustments, and attitude.

 The good news for Utah fans is that the Utes are still trying to land a better quarterback than the over-rated Jordan Wynn. The Utes' biggest signing was the great Norm Chow as the new offensive coordinator. The bad news for BYU fans is that the Cougars had a lackluster signing day, especially painful since the team is going independent this fall. While they scored the same as Boise State for blue chip recruits, we already know which program does the most in developing its athletes.

 Other big winners include Michigan, Clemson, Tennessee, and Stanford. Other big losers include UCLA, Iowa, Penn State, and Wisconsin.

 To really find out which school had the best recruiting year, check the won-loss records in 2014 and 2015. That's when injuries, lazy work ethics, spoiled attitudes, and bad coaching  will all factor in. That's when we find out the difference between a Terry Bradshaw/Ben Rothlisberger and a Ryan Leaf/Todd Marinovich.

The NFL: For Once, Pro Football Is NOT Number One for the Weekend

 The just-wrapped weekend, ending January 30, was a great sports weekend. Tennis, golf, the NBA, and college basketball all had terrific events to satiate any balanced sports fan's needs for excitement and competition. The surprise loser of the weekend was the normally triumphant NFL, where once again the hulks impersonated football players and teams impersonated playing a significant game known as the Pro Bowl. Some observers noted that the game was exciting with so much scoring (the NFC won, 55-41). They didn't see the game. The NFC led 42-0 before the AFC got rolling. Taking its cue from the AFC defense, the NFC defense played dead in the second half to allow the AFC to almost catch up. 
 You can't blame the players for treating it more like a Hawaiian vacation than a serious game. You can't blame the league for encouraging patty-cake tackling to avoid serious injury in a meaningless game. Well, if everybody's blameless, why should the game be played at all? It isn't for home-field advantage in the Super Bowl. Everybody knows the teams can't learn new offensive and defensive schemes in one week and feign competence. It is an exhibition with far less meaning and cohesion than even the first preseason games. The Pro Bowl remains an annual affair where the league's best players not involved in late playoff runs show off individual talents with showboat plays featuring trademark moves. Gee, sounds like the NBA. 
 What about the good news? There was GREAT TENNIS, courtesy of the Australian Open. Federer and Nadal were upset, but finalists Djokovic and Murray played hard the entire tournament. True, the men's final was a rout, 3-0. On the women's side, Kim Clijsters knocked off the Chinese marvel Li Na after losing the first set. 
 Other good news over the weekend? There was GREAT GOLF, courtesy of the San Diego Open. With a backdrop of Torrey Pines' beautiful 36 holes and almost-perfect weather,  old school Phil Mickelson and newcomer Jhonathan Vegas battled young veteran Bubba Watson down to the last hole. With Tiger Woods fading fast over the last 36 holes and 14 months, the PGA can use a couple of new stars in Vegas and Watson. Phil showed he still has the magic with his late charge as well. Golf's image only took a hit when players huddled desperately under umbrellas when a brief rain shower passed through. True, it's not the NFL, but do we really need to see players running from the rain and hiding under umbrellas held by their caddies? The Senior/Champions Skins game from Maui was fun for watching big names still hacking away and showing more personality than the new breed of drone-golfer. At least thrre's now a Bubba to replace a Fuzzy. Nicklaus and TOM Watson won the Skins match (anybody surprised?)
 Basketball had a good weekend , too. In college basketball, New Mexico beat BYU in a classic contest at The Pit. The Lobos held Jimmer Fredette to less than 40 points, and that made the difference. In the most exciting game of the weekend, UC Davis beat UC Irvine in two overtimes in a fast-paced game, 108-107, with Mark Payne scoring the winning basket with less than three seconds left. The Anteaters of Irvine suffered a worse loss when leading scorer Eric Wise went out in the first overtime with a leg injury.
 In the NBA, the lowly Sacramento Kings upset the Lakers in L.A. on Friday night, and then won again against the Hornets on Saturday night at home. DeMarcus Cousins is shaping up with Blake Griffin and John Wall as the league's next superstars. Count me in when league contraction puts these players on more competitive franchises.
 What a great weekend for sports, no thanks to the NFL.


    

The Uniform Issue: NFL Has Another Winner

   The National Football League championship games yesterday generated two winners and two losers. In actuality, all four teams won. In turn, the NFL won. I'm not talking about the questionable reluctance of Jay Cutler to return to action after allegedly twisting his knee after verifiably having a sub-par first half. I'm not talking about the questionable eagerness of Ben Rothlisberger to allegedly manhandle every other co-ed he encounters at college bars or mountain resort towns. I'm talking about the uniforms. All four teams--Jets, Steelers, Packers, and Bears--were wearing their traditional colors and traditional designs. They don't need to radically change one or the other every other year to boost merchandise sales or look "cooler." 
  The Monsters of the Midway looked like the Monsters of the Midway. Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka, Mike Singletary, and Jim McMahon could have stepped out there and not felt out of place. The Pack was the Pack. Aaron Rogers looked like Bart Starr. Win or lose, the Packers never change their look. In the AFC championship, the Jets, still green and white, resembled the 1969 Miracle Jets of Joe Willie Namath, Don Maynard, and Matt Snell while the Steelers, still black and gold, resembled the 70's Steel Curtain brigade of Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, and Mean Joe Greene.
  The NBA is the opposite of the NFL. There, change is good. Winning and losing franchises both experiment and reboot. It's understandable why perennial losers change their colors and logos, but to watch the Lakers play in white jerseys is curious, at best. That's not adding black to the color scheme in order to appeal to gangs and boost sales. It's white. Mindboggling.
  Major League Baseball has its usual tweaks (add black, Cardinals?), but the Giants sure looked good in the World Series wearing their orange and black caps and trim. Not much has changed since Mel Ott, Willie Mays, and Juan Marichal. MLB loves tradition, we're told. So why did they allow that egomaniacal super-agent to change the colors and design of the Diamondbacks uniforms when he took control of the team? It's not like the Diamondbacks were a bad franchise. They had only been around about ten years, with one World Series championship behind them, when Mr. Superagent (who shall remain nameless here) bragged about resculpting the team in his image. Gone were the distinct pinstripes and purple trim. In was generic cream and red. The Diamondbacks haven't been winners since. The previous owner, Jerry Colangelo, was terrific for both the city of Phoenix and the team.
  I wonder if the Oregon Ducks ridiculous grey and green outfits for the championship game were a bad luck charm for them. Just because they can afford change, and change frequently due to the Nike connection, doesn't mean they should. Penn State, USC, and Alabama do it right. They believe in tradition.  So does the NFL. Winners all.

Review of College Football Bowl Season: Solid Analysis and Solid Waste

The college football bowl season was so long that even the BCS homer ESPN announcers were calling for a shorter season next year due to the sloppiness/rustiness of play in the "Championship" game between Oregon and Auburn. Apart from a bonehead decision to wear grey, white, and florescent green uniforms (what's wrong with the trad green and gold?) and a bonehead decision to go for it on fourth and goal (what's wrong with three points?), Oregon did many things right in going toe to toe with the SEC champ before falling in the last minute due to a fluke play/call. Of course, the Ducks were overmatched in sheer tonnage along the lines. But is the SEC really so dominant just because the past five NCAA champs hail from that conference? According to the ESPN broadcasters, it is. According to my analysis, it isn't.
  While 10 of the 12 SEC member schools qualified for bowl games, doesn't that bring up the old argument that there are just too many bowl games designed to showcase bowl sponsors, half-empty stadiums, and mediocre 6-6 teams? A few bowl teams wound up with 6-7 records, and the diluting down of American sports quality continues. In the SEC, besides Auburn's squeaker, LSU, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi State won convincingly. On the other hand, Georgia lost to Central Florida, Tennessee fell to North Carolina, Kentucky was smashed by Pittsburgh, Arkansas was crunched by Ohio State, and South Carolina was bushwhacked by Florida State.  The SEC finished with a .500 bowl average. Domination? I think not. When are they going to become a REAL conference like the Pac-10/12 by scheduling NINE conference games rather than all the cupcakes they intersperse between their sparse conference duels?
  Other conferences that finished with .500 bowling records include such powerhouses as the WAC and the Mid-American, as well as the Pac-10/12. Which conference fared best? The soon-to-reconfigure, non-BCS Mountain West, with a sterling four wins and one loss, or .800 record, finished numero uno. Utah's pounding at the hands of the great Boise State was no embarrassment, either, while TCU's pancaking of Wisconsin should have embarrassed at least one BCS college president (paging Gordon Gee).
  Other winning conferences from the bowl season include the non-BCS Sun Belt and BCS Big East, tied at a .667 percentage. Thanks to Notre Dame and Army, football independents finished with a .667 percentage as well.  From there, it's all downhill.  While the non-BCS Conference USA finished at a lowly .333,  the so-called BCS power conferences of the Big 12 and Big 10 finished at 3-5 each, while the ACC finished 4-5.  Many observers in the mountain and pacific time zones were elated on the first day of 2011, as the Big 10 went 0-4 on New Year's.
  A final note on the solid waste of the bowl season: is it possible to require teams to have WINNING final records BEFORE becoming bowl eligible? This serves a threefold purpose. First, it prevents a bowl-appearing team from winding up with a sub-.500 overall record due to a bowl loss. Second, it would eliminate some of the incredibly cheesy and superfluous bowl games with titles like the GoDaddy.com Bowl, the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl, the R & L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, the Beef o' Brady's Bowl, the New Era Pinstripe Bowl, the Little Caesars Bowl, and the AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl. Third, with the subtraction of several mundane  and mediocre match-ups, it would encourage ESPN and the BCS to condense the bowl season so that it ends no more than a couple days after New Year's.
    

Heisman Winners and Losers: Is Character a Factor?

  Why did Auburn's Cam Newton win the Heisman trophy as college football's best player? Was it because he owned most of the votes east of the Mississippi River as Heisman's only credible candidate from the Mideast,  East, and South while Kellen Moore of Boise State, Andrew Luck of Stanford, and LaMichael James of Oregon split the votes from the West? Was it because of his awe-inspiring statistics as both running quarterback and passing quarterback? Was it because of his team's unblemished record up to voting time? Or was it because of all three?
  One thing is certain: while voters are told character counts in considering the candidates, most voters overlooked character as a factor. Perhaps most voters find stolen laptops, test cheating, and play for pay ultimatums as minor mistakes, not true character flaws. Maybe most voters have stolen and cheated somebody or some institution themselves, and therefore they relate better to the seriously flawed Newton. On a lighter note, maybe most voters just like a good comeback story, and Cam Newton's story certainly fits that bill. 
  Was Jake Locker of Washington found with a stolen laptop? No, but he was found to have the character and integrity to return for his senior season while watching his draft status decline precipitously. Was Andrew Luck found cheating on an exam? No, but he recently shocked the sports world by indicating he would return for a redshirt junior season to help his recruiting class complete its four-year cycle at Stanford with another winning season. Was Kellen Moore's family found to have issued play for pay ultimatums to interested schools while he was being recruited? No, but he has indicated that he will return for his senior year, even though his Boise team will be weakened by the loss of several starters and the Broncos have to face a much-tougher schedule as a new member of the Mountain West conference. 
  Who with any moral perspective is happy about Cam Newton winning the Heisman trophy? I don't know. Ask the Westphobic voters who voted him in.