Jack’s Blog

The NFL didn’t need another controversy but that’s exactly what it got when Miami Dolphins’ General manager Jeff Ireland conducted what was thought to be a personnel interview with wideout Dez Bryant.

Granted, Bryant’s had a checkered past and due diligence needed to be done, especially if the club’s going to shell out major cash.  Possibly because Ireland wanted to find out the root cause of Bryant’s behavioral issues, possibly because he was trying to elicit a reaction from the receiver to a highly personal question, or possibly because he’s simply an insensitive pig, he decided to ask Bryant if his mother was a prostitute.

A little background: Bryant’s mother was 15 when she had him.  His father was in his 40s at the time of his birth.  Bryant’s mother, who had three kids by the time she was 18, was a cocaine, marijuana and PCP user, as well as someone who served a year-and-a-half for distributing crack.  And Bryant himself has never been accused of being a choir boy.

But, hey, if you don’t want to sign the guy, don’t sign him.  No matter what his upbringing or past has been, she’s still his mother - and anyone with an ounce of common sense or an iota of sensitivity would understand that’s an inappropriate question!  Besides, would it have mattered what his answer was?  What, exactly, was Ireland, or the Dolphins’ brass expecting, or better yet, hoping to discover?  Whether he would lash out or if he’d show extreme poise in responding in a calm, yet firm tone.

When Bill Parcells interviewed with the Dolphins, did they ask him, “When you were a young boy, was your mother an obese blimp?”  Same type of probing, reaction-seeking and completely senseless query. 

Provocative or introspective questions aimed to gauge a potential employee’s reaction - as long as they are tasteful - are fair game and serve a purpose.  What Ireland asked (or was directed to ask) was totally out of line and deserves more than just an apology.  “Genius” is a word that’s long been used in football.  As the old saying goes:

“The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”�

The first day of high school is confusing for many kids, especially freshmen and transfers.  The greatest problem, at this time of the year, is kids coming into class late, due to not knowing how to get to the class on their schedule, going to the wrong class or, the situation that comes up long after the previous two have been corrected, socializing too much between classes. Then, once they realize the time, they make a (sometimes not so) mad dash to the next class (which on our campus can be upwards of a half mile - which is why the minimum amount of time between classes is six minutes).

Oftentimes, the young tikes are late.  According to our creative writing teachers, the reasons they give ought to be incorporated in the papers they write.  Once these kids matriculate at the college level, some of these gems become legendary (one of them you can find , on page 99 of my book, Life’s A Joke).  Although one of the more boneheaded attempts at explaining tardiness, that story will not be retold here.

When I was working at USC, our head coach, George Raveling was a firm believer in teaching the guys more than just basketball.  Each year, we’d have speakers come to campus and they’d address the team on a variety of issues, basketball being just one on a laundry list of topics.

One year, Eugene “Mercury” Morris, the starting tailback on the only NFL team to go undefeated from the beginning of the season through the Super Bowl, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, flew to LA to address our squad.  “Merc” had been caught in a sting operation after his playing career and, as he tells it, he started making every excuse he could think of, so as to avoid drug charges and prison time.  None of them worked. 

He finally saw the light while serving time, he told the team, when he realized that, whatever the circumstances, he was someplace he shouldn’t have been.  After his release, he got a talk radio show and, as a great many athletes do, went on the speaking circuit.  One big difference between Mercury Morris and others like him is that he really tells a great story and the anecdotes he tells have lasting messages.

One example, in particular, had him asking those present, i.e. players, coaches and managers, how many of us had ever been late.  Everyone, to a man (and the one female manager on the staff), put a hand in the air.  Then he asked us why.  “Why were you late?” he asked.  The answers were nothing that sent shock waves through Heritage Hall.  “My car broke down.”  “My girl was supposed to pick me up and she was late.”  And, of course, the most popular (and certainly the most credible) SoCal answer, “Traffic was brutal!”

He then said to the group, “How would you like to have an answer to the question, ‘Why are you late?’ that is perfect and fits every occasion?”  The entire group did a group forward lean as he raised his right index finger and said,

“You’re late because you’re late.  The rest is just a story.”

From that moment on, any time one of us showed up past the designated starting time (especially for practice, which for us was 5:45 am), the first thing out of his mouth was, “OK, I apologize.  I’m late because I’m late.  Do you want to hear the story?” Â

The number one sports question of all time, in any sport, that is argued the most (by far) is the universal, “Who is the greatest ever?”  Team, player, player at a certain position, coach, sportscaster/writer, play-by-play man, color guy, what or whoever? 

Invariably, someone tries to enter statistics into the discussion.  This is always touchy because statistics in different eras tell different stories.  Whether it’s field, court or track surfaces, equipment, training and coaching methods, diet, outside influences, the list seems to be endless and it’s mainly due to something Tony Sparano, coach of the Miami Dolphins, said in an article in Sports Illustrated (9/15/08).

“It’s the competition,” Sparano said, but his response was toward the question regarding “the motivation that drives NFL players to squeeze every snap out of their bodies, and why teams are eager to open their doors to anyone who can help them win.”  He was referring to Brett Favre and why he was having such a hard time retiring, to guys getting multiple chances after various social blunders (many of them resulting in arrests, e.g. Adam “Don’t Call Me PacMan Anymore” Jones).

That same quote, though, could also apply to 1 - steroid use (talk about squeezing every last …) 2 - one of the ultimate second chance stories (should it ever materialize) in Michael Vick and 3 - more benign, yet still considered radical (at least by the “old timers”) moves made by teams (in all sports) such as bringing in the latest gadgets (underwater treadmills and the University of Oregon’s Bod Pod, which measures fat-to-muscle ratio), improving facilites and equipment (include golf, tennis and swimming into this discussion), hiring nuitritionists, chefs, flexibility and player development coaches, and “feel good” guys (motivational, inspirational, team builders, psychologists, yoga instructors, even hypnotists). 

Some will argue technology has inflated statistics, while the N-Geners claim specializtion and strategies have improved to a level that they have had an adverse effect on today’s stats.  Changes such as the relief pitcher (back in the day, players were batting against the tired arm of a starter who had nothing left late in the game, thereby padding their stats) or, the short reliever (even moreso,  teams carrying a lefty, whose sole job is to get out - possibly - one left-handed batter per game).  Or, the defensive specialist in basketball or the nickel defense in football (not to mention that going both ways has gone the way of the buffalo).

Rule changes have rendered comparison of statistics virtually useless.  How many more points would great shooters, e.g. Pete Maravich, have scored if the three-point line had been in place when he played at LSU?  How about the goal posts being ten yards closer!  Changing yards to meters in races?  The new configuration of baseball stadiums - or, simply playing in Denver?

In an unrelated article in the 8/4/08 edition of SI, Phil Taylor wrote a column about Tim Forneris, the Busch Stadium groundskeeper who retrieved Mark McGwuire’s 70th home run ball and, rather than trying to sell it for the fortune it would have commanded back then, he gave it to McGwire.  Fast forward to the present day and, as Taylor wrote, “who would have thought that 10 years (later), the hero of the story would be Tim Forneris?”

When it comes to arguing the “who’s the greatest” question, let’s hope that, at the very least, for the integrity of each sport and athlete, each individual involved would, as Phil Taylor describes the action of Forneris:

“Do right when so much around them is wrong.”

Pressure has different effects on different people.  Some thrive on it, while others shrink from it.  Sometimes, it unfairly makes or breaks guys’ legacies.  You’d swear the results were much more due to timing and (good or bad) luck than any other factor.  I mean, if you were picking a clutch performer you’d stake your job on, would you pick Bucky Dent over Ted Williams, who, while he only played in one World Series, managed to hit .200 (his career average was .344)?  Would you rather have Robert Horry and PJ Brown over Karl Malone and Charles Barkley?  How about it - Trent Dilfer (as gracious and classy an individual as the NFL has ever seen) or Dan Marino with his Hall-of-Fame career, missing that one important piece? 

Sure, there are “one hit wonders” who made significant contributions to championship teams - although it would be difficult to call Big Shot Bob (Horry) a one hit wonder - while major superstars like Teddy Ballgame (the greatest hitter of all-time) and Malone and Barkley (voted as two of the Top 50 players in NBA history), were never able to lead their teams to world championship status.

In the situations where a role player with average stats happened to shine in a game or even, an entire series, did they do it consistently over the length of their career (which is why Horry might just be in a category all his own)?  On the flip side, there might have been a reason the big-time player never accomplished his goal.  In the case of many players from the same NBA time frame, the two words that denied these mega-stars were identical: Michael Jordan.

Today, there are two Game 7’s - defending champion Boston (without Kevin Garnett, the main reason they are defending champions) vs. Orlando (a team with an all-star of their own, who could do a great deal to shake that “he has too good a time when he’s playing - and that’s why he’ll never win a championship”) on one side of the country and Houston (the pick of no one because they all said the Rockets had no chance after Yao went down) vs. Los Angeles (do I really have to distinguish which LA team is involved?) on the opposite coast.  They have a team member who has three championships but most feel he needs to win another because there was a bigger reason his team won those three.

The pressure will be knife-cutting intense and there will be someone who will come out on top due to the feeling Ray Lewis, arguably the NFL’s best linebacker, had when watching Michael Phelps during the Olympics.  As Lewis was quoted in the 12/8/08 Sports Illustrated:

“It was amazing to watch someone who has made their mind up to be that great.  It was an electric moment.” Â

To go from 1-15 to Division Champs is a remarkable accomplishment, mainly because each end of that is a remarkable feat in and of itself.  It’s difficult to win only one game in an NFL season (ask the Detroit Lions).  Seriously, the way the league is set up, with the teams drafting in reverse order of their records and the schedule set up to help out the clubs which had the poorest records in the prior season, you’d think that some type of competitive balance (and pride) would give a team at least a few shots at winning.

Yet, last year, the Miami Dolphins lost 15 of 16 contests.  In came the demanding and knowledgeable (probably in equal amounts) Bill Parcells, along with one of those long-time assistants, Tony Sporano, a guy waiting (quite a while) to get his shot as a head coach.  With the addition of, among others, Chad Pennington, a talented player, but one who became expendable when the New York Jets had the opportunity to sign the immensely popular Brett Favre, the Miami Dolphins did what coaches and the TV and radio talking heads mention all the time as the main intangible to winning: they bought in to the philosophy of the organization.

There was disagreement regarding the Favre decision between two very astute television personalities.  First, Cris Collinsworth (a fine NFL player in his own right and someone who’s made a seemless transition to the TV side) said the Favre move looked good at the time, but people would have to admit Pennington got his revenge and in hindsight, it was a move that probably should not have been made.  Costas disagreed, saying that even with the benefit of looking back, it was something that needed to be done because the Jets didn’t have an identity.  But I digress from the true point of this blog.

One of the other talking heads, former Super Bowl winning NFL quarterback (and Fresno State’s own) Trent Dilfer drew the comparison between what went on with the 2008 Dolphins and what occurred with our Olympic men’s basketball squad.  Embarrassed in the previous Olympics, Coach Mike Krzyzewski, someone who feels, first and foremost, that buying in is mandatory for a team to reach its maximum potential, had several exercises in place to find out which guys he could count on to “buy in” and went with those players.  Fortunately for him, the ones who did were exactly the ones he needed (mainly Kobe Bryant - to name the one vital cog in the Olympian’s success).

On a similar note, the Dolphins followed suit and fell in line with what the coaching staff (and anyone would be naive if Bill Parcells weren’t counted among that group) demanded.  And now they’re Division Champs.  Dilfer passed on a major compliment when he, off the cuff, blurted out to the youth of America, “Hey, kids, try to be like the Dolphins, not the Cowboys.”  Dallas’ fall from grace is probably fodder for another blog at another time. 

For now, Carolina Panthers’ coach John Fox has the last say (quoting his line from a few years ago):

“You can force players to do what you want, but it won’t work in the long haul if they don’t believe in it.” Â