Sports Bright From a Dim Bulb

DIS usually leaves the brighter, inspiring, uplifting, heartfelt, stories to our erstwhile editor-in-chief, Nate Barlow, and his “Sports Bright” posts.

Your humble columnist prefers to ply his craft in the muck, the darkly humorous, and the gray clouds of pain and controversy–besides, I’m not a very bright guy.

I’ve always seen myself as a very tough guy.

Give me an issue involving men vs. women–false rape accusations, Title IX abuse–PEDs and the players who cheat the fans, or some sports figure I can mock to death and I am a happy scribe.

I spent much of my adult life trying to find a voice as a writer that didn’t bore people and always endeavored to be accurate without letting the numbers crunch my readers’ craniums. I try to be probing and blunt without being too offensive–even if some targets need to be offended–and NEVER want to be accused of sentimentality.

I like to write on an edge and am willing to sustain the necessary cuts to sharpen the readers’ and my own perceptions.

Of course, I’ve convinced myself my approach was due to my innate toughness nurtured by a lovingly psychotic mother who held me to account for every little transgression…

I needed the resilience that upbringing engendered when I faced the challenge of two near lethal strokes–the first, four months before, the second five weeks after my 21st birthday. In between those two events, I found myself stuck in a “Transition Ward” with fifteen Vietnam vets, and several older guys from other wars. All had various rare diseases featuring defective blood, cancerous growths, and mental illness.

Only a few days had passed before I was told they call it the Transition Ward because most of its denizens were going to die. Naturally, the question begging my mind was, “What the hell am I doing here?” My query was answered in the next week, when, during a procedure to track the blood flow to my brain–(insert joke here)–the young resident stared at the monitor and uttered: “Oh, my God.”

He wasn’t having an orgasm, rather it sounded as if he were watching an asteroid hurtling toward Earth.

His next sentence was spoken with what seemed like an incongruous intent to comfort me: “Everything I’ve learned in med school… you should be dead.”

After mentally trashing a wise-ass comment about his obviously poor grade in Bedside Manner 101, I responded with, “Sorry to disappoint you, doc.”

For the record, Doc immediately apologized for losing his aura of omniscience, assured me “they” would do everything possible to find out what was wrong, and an orderly wheeled me back to the ward.

When I told my buddies what happened, a couple of them seemed pissed I didn’t have a more definite expiration date. Most of the other guys decided we should celebrate until somebody ran out of calendar.

Boy, did we have a blast.

Poker, sunbathing, chasing women, (mostly nubile nurses), fighting, drinking; it was like Animal House meets The English Patient.

We conducted a Dime-A-Day-Death-Pool. Everyone who participated, mostly the younger guys like me that were too tough to believe they might die–or too afraid to confront the possibility–put in ten cents every morning and bet on who would be the next sucker to croak.

After four months, things ended up with me and three other guys putting in a dollar a day. I walked away with the pool because they got transferred to other hospitals. I think one of them died two weeks later. I never heard from the other two again. Days after they left I had my second “event”.

All of this personal history is written as a lame attempt to explain why I don’t often tout uplifting, inspiring stories like this one about Olympic bronze medalist Davis Phinney: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37199534/ns/health/

I walked out of that Army hospital decades ago a tough guy who survived freaky medical occurrences. Since then, I’ve had the privilege to marry two beautiful women, raise three sons, receive a first class education, and have enjoyed mostly robust heath. The future looks brighter every day–and I hope to never forget many people suffer in this world.

Ask the Challis family in Freedom, Pennsylvania, about suffering:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08125/878966-85.stm

Their son, John, had more character in his pinky toenail than any of the “heroes” we worship in the athletic arena–even the few worthy of such admiration. Read John Challis’ story and you’ll know why I get angry with people who put privileged, elitist athletes on pedestals–the same athletes dying kids make wishes to be near before they die.

You’ll know why I have such little respect for athletes blessed with bodies capable of fantastic feats, who destroy their health to be first in a record book.

Truth is, Davis Phinney and John Challis have more courage than me and most everyone I know; more heart than any fighter in any cage. The reason I pretend to shrug off the emotions their stories evoke is because I don’t want to admit to sometimes crying like a baby.

Yeah, I’m a real tough guy.

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Hard Work and Football Paying Off

I really enjoy posting my Sports Bright articles. With so much negative news in the world of sports (Tiger Woods, Ben Roethlisberger)–not to mention in the world at large–it’s a joy to write about positive stories.

I enjoy my Sports Bright articles so much that I usually post them immediately, jumping them to the front of the line. To put that in perspective, I have one story idea about the difference between American and European attitudes toward and participation in female team sports that I’ve been pondering since the Vancouver Olympic Games, and I have yet to delve into the 2010 baseball season–and hardball is my absolute favorite of sports.

I first read Bill Noethlich’s story on Yahoo! Sports, but the source story for that article was written by Judd Zulgad for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

You have to like it anytime a player signs an NFL contract who did not come out of the pseudo-professional system that is NCAA Division I college football. But when that player is a young man such as Bill Noethlich, who has undergone so much personal tragedy at the age of 23, you have to root even harder. Noethlich only started playing football at the age of 15, at the suggestion of his grandfather as a way of coping with the death of his mother. He ended up playing college ball at tiny Southwest Minnesota State, and in the intervening years saw his grandfather and sister both die and the family house burn down. Yet football remained his rock, and his hard work has now paid off in the form of an undrafted rookie camp standout offered a contract by the Minnesota Vikings.

I hope that Noethlich’s dream continues and he makes the final Minnesota Vikings roster.

• February 6, 2010 -- Super Bowl XLIV Saints vs Colts – NFL Football (1)
• January 31, 2010 -- Pro Bowl Before the Super Bowl – NFL Football (2)
• January 16, 2010 -- NFL Divisional Round Playoff Games (3)
• January 8, 2010 -- Wild Card Playoff Games – NFL Football (7)
• January 1, 2010 -- Week 17 Picks and Analysis – NFL Football (4)

A True Role Model

I saw this story on the news a couple days ago and thought it was the most touching piece I had seen in quite some time. It’s not a sports story, persay, but since the young man in question, Tyki Nelworth, is the captain of his high school football team and also plays baseball, I thought it was worthy of inclusion in Sports Bright:

LA Times
ABC 7 Los Angeles

Nelworth is a true role model Here is a young man who truly had nothing and who didn’t let it stop him, rising above his circumstances to build a real future. And kudos to his community for recognizing what an amazing person Nelworth is and for helping him complete his dream.

Tyki has my highest admiration and I truly wish him the best at West Point and in his life to come. I hope his example inspires other young people in South L.A. and elsewhere to chose the right course for their lives.

• November 26, 2009 -- Sports Bright: Kaleb Eulls (3)

NFL Player Goes Back to School

Defensive lineman Ty Warren is foregoing the first round of the New England Patriots’ voluntary offseason workouts to complete his degree at Texas A&M, according to this Yahoo! Sports story. In doing so, he’s also passing up $250,000 bonus. His reason (to quote the quote in the article:

I try to put the kids in the best educational system possible and I think there is something to be said for their father, who has been blessed to play in the NFL and do something he’s loved to do, going back and finishing what he started. In the big picture, I think it’s important for me to do what I’m doing. I can sacrifice that bonus for that.

Kudos to Warren for setting a great example. Who knows why he initially left school without finishing his degree, but good for him for going back. To be fair, I don’t blame any athlete with the possibility of being a high draft choice for coming out early and not risking a college injury that could cost him a professional career. One would hope that with the financial freedom afforded these athletes, more would want to finish what they once started, but the unfortunate truth is that for most, college was meaningless in the first place, only an annoying pit stop on their way to the NFL. They might not need the degree, but education has value regardless of your need for it to earn a living.

With all of the negative off field stories surrounding NFL players, it’s great to see a player for whom it’s not all about the money and who wants to set a positive example for the youth of America.

• September 1, 2009 -- Tedy Bruschi – Old School Player, Modern Game (2)
• May 8, 2010 -- Sports Bright: Bill Noethlich Minnesota Vikings – NFL (0)
• March 25, 2010 -- Sports and Political Debates (1)
• February 6, 2010 -- Super Bowl XLIV Saints vs Colts – NFL Football (1)
• January 31, 2010 -- Pro Bowl Before the Super Bowl – NFL Football (2)

US and Haiti Leave It All on the Field

Read this great story a couple days ago on Yahoo! Sports about sportsmanship in the first qualifying match for the CONCACAF U-17 Women’s Championships in Costa Rica between the United States and Haiti:

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/blog/sow_experts/post/U-S-U-17-women-beat-Haiti-9-0-then-offer-hugs?urn=sow,227662

First, kudos to the Haitian team even for being there competing. It took great courage and had to be incredibly difficult for the Haitian girls to leave their country and play a sport in the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake.

But the heartfelt emotion displayed by everyone on both sides of the pitch after the game was truly wonderful, an example of the pure beauty of sports.

(For the record, I agree with the article’s author, Brooks Peck, that the US team did the right thing in playing hard throughout, even when the outcome was easily in hand. Anything else would have been disrespectful and insulting.)

• June 21, 2010 -- World Cup 2010 South Africa – Soccer (1)

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/03/mississippi.bus.hero/index.html

In case you’re not familiar, Eulls saved twenty-two children (age 5 to 18) by ushering them out the back of a school bus when a female student drew a hand gun and started waving it wildly. He then proceeded to tackle the girl and disarm her when her attention waned for a split second.

It’s been awhile since I had a Sports Bright article to post–always good to have something positive to write about in the world of athletics.

• April 10, 2010 -- Sports Bright: Tyki Nelworth West Point (0)
• December 18, 2008 -- P.K.’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (1)

At forty-two, Wakefield is the second oldest first-time All-Star, behind only the legendary Satchel Paige (46). Often such a late career selection is made in acknowledgment of a player’s lifetime of work, but at 11 wins (10 at the time of selection), Wake is tied for the American League lead with teammate Josh Beckett. At times this season Wakefield has been all but unhittable, a rock in the Red Sox rotation even when more high-profile pitchers have struggled.

But Wakefield’s career has always been one of interesting twists and turns. As a minor league first baseman in Class A ball, Wake turned to baseball’s most beguiling and frustrating pitch, the knuckledball, to save his flailing career. In 1992 he burst on the scene with the Pittsburgh Pirates, capping off a great rookie season with two victories of the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series. I attended Game 3 of that series at Three Rivers Stadium, which the Bucs won 3-2. Wake’s knuckler was brilliant that night, thrilling to watch. I looked forward to his career to come.

Yet less than 2 1/2 years later, on April 20, 1995, the Pirates released Wakefield after two seasons filled with control problems. Six days later, Boston swept in and signed Wake. He quickly returned to form, and the rest is history. Wakefield has played for the Sox ever since, longer than any other current member of the team. He has a unique $4 million contract with a team option that automatically rolls over to the following year every time the Red Sox pick it up.

Beyond the years and beyond the longevity, what we as fans should appreciate most about Wake is his attitude. Tim Wakefield is truly as egoless a player as there is in the game today. Whatever the Sox ask him to do, Wake does willing: start, close, mop-up, you name it, even jumping between these roles in relatively short time frames (these days he’s a starter, but he’s held various relief positions in the past). His rolling contract means no tough negotiations, no greed or holding out for more money.

In 2003, after giving up the home run to Aaron Boone in Game 7 of the ALCS, he apologized to the Red Sox fans. A year later, in Game 3 of the ‘04 ALCS, Tim Wakefield volunteered to forego his scheduled Game 4 start and pitch in relief to rest Boston’s beleaguered bullpen. Manager Terry Francona accepted Wakefield’s offer, and the knuckleballer endured 3.1 brutal innings being hammered by the Yankees. It couldn’t have been easy on Wake, but the gambit paid off, and as everyone knows, the Sox, bolstered by a then rested relief corp, came back from three games down to do the seemingly impossible. Considering the tragic ending to the 2003 ALCS, many of the other Red Sox players said that they were very happy they could win the 2004 series for Wake.

So at forty-two and counting, Tim Wakefield keeps on pitching, and he could do so for many years to come, if he so desires. The softness with which the knuckler is thrown has always equaled longevity; knuckleballers simply don’t throw out the arms. But even if he decides to retire after this season, it’s great to see Wakefield finally receive a well-deserved All-Star bid.

• December 24, 2009 -- Matt Holliday & Jason Bay to the Yankees & Red Sox? – MLB Baseball (0)
• November 18, 2008 -- MVPedroia (0)
• May 24, 2010 -- Daisuke Matsuzaka Boston Red Sox – MLB Baseball (4)
• January 20, 2010 -- Mark McGwire’s Steroid Admission – MLB Baseball (0)
• January 7, 2010 -- Andre Dawson Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame – MLB (2)

It may not have quite the personal connotations for me, but Yahoo! has done it again with Todd Pitman’s piece on the difference former NBA-player Ndongo Ndiaye is making in his home country of Senegal. It’s a wonderful story about one basketball player realizing just how blessed he is and using those gifts off the court to better the world around him.

The similarity between the two tales is striking.

Reflecting on it afterwards, something else struck me that isn’t so beautiful, and that’s the contrast between these two African-born players who grew up in abject poverty and so many of their American urban poor counterparts. Both groups use basketball as the escape from their bleak circumstances. But while American players see the sport as their end-all and be-all (hardly news), the Africans view it as their gateway to education and any number of other opportunities that can give them better lives. If they make it as professional athletes, great, but if they don’t, they still take away something positive from their experience playing. The African players never receive the special treatment Americans do growing up and hence have no unrealistic expectations about their careers. Far too many Americans leave school with nothing if they aren’t good enough to make it as pros.

And that’s very sad. Thankfully there are players like Ndiaye to show the beauty of sports.

• February 3, 2010 -- NBA Basketball Mid-Season Report (0)
• October 29, 2009 -- Tim Donaghy Strikes Back (14)
• June 17, 2009 -- Rain on the Parade (1)
• May 25, 2009 -- NBA Conference Finals Dogfights (0)
• February 12, 2009 -- Who’s Next (0)

I wasn’t the only person who never forgot Abbott’s inspirational story. In this story on Yahoo! Sports’ Rivals.com by Jason King, Manhattan College head coach Barry Rohrssen relates how he remembered Jim Abbott when he first heard about Kevin Laue, a 6′11″ basketball player at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia. Rohrssen wanted to be that person who gave Laue a chance, just like someone at one time had to take a chance on the former pitcher. And that he was–Laue has signed a letter of intent for Manhattan.

Truly inspiring.

• December 15, 2009 -- Crap 10 (2)
• April 15, 2009 -- Average Frank Views: Magic and Bird vs. Spike TV (1)
• April 10, 2009 -- Fierce And Nerdy: Connecticut vs. Tennessee (0)
• March 3, 2009 -- Sports Bright: Ray of Light (3)
• December 23, 2009 -- TCU’s Gary Patterson AP Coach of the Year – NCAA College Football (0)

This story brought a tear to my eye as it extends to a world far more important than my love of athletics: the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the veterans of said.

(Editor’s Note: These stories will be filed under the ongoing column Sports Bright.)

• March 27, 2009 -- Fierce And Nerdy: The World Baseball Classic – Hey, At Least We Improved (0)
• March 11, 2009 -- VideoDeep: World Baseball Classic – Watch It! (2)
• February 13, 2009 -- Fierce And Nerdy: The WBC Shows Up The IOC – Yeah, You Know Me (2)