Jack’s Blog

This weekend is a test for many fans.  No football!  (Please don’t even begin to say the Pro Bowl counts).  If people want to know why there’s a two-week period between the AFC and NFC championship games and the Super Bowl, it’s not about giving the media more time to think up and ask asinine questions to satiate the fanatics’ appetite regarding the intimate details of competitors’ lives.

It’s really to begin the weaning process for the average couch potato (as opposed to the superior couch spud) when it comes to planting oneself horizontally and enjoying modern day gladiators administer concussive hits on their foes - made infinitely more difficult because they have to do so while attempting to avoid costly fines that now attach themselves to the sport.  Progress is taking away what football “used to be all about.”

Enduring a week with no football, yet impatiently awaiting its biggest contest, serves to prepare sports buffs for months of less violent forms of competition (not staged in an octagon).  Several years ago the NFL powers-that-be, meaning mostly television executives, came to the conclusion that those devoted to football weren’t mentally tough enough to handle going cold turkey.

Frederick Buechner must have been part of that group because it was he who said:

“Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin.  It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is joy finally for you too.”  

What’s in vogue in today’s world is finding a topic that’s of interest to a large contingent of people and complaining about it.  Professional all-star games fit nicely into this category.  An earlier blog dealt with the cynics’ observations regarding the NFL Pro Bowl.

That event was played the week prior to the Super Bowl and before a sold-out stadium, unlike past Pro Bowls held in Hawaii.  Now the criticism shifts to the NBA.  The dunk contest is stale and needs to be shelved for a few years is one of the complaints.  The three point shooting contest doesn’t really give us the league’s best shooter, just a guy who happens to be hot on that particular day is another comment making the talk radio rounds.  And as for the games themselves (rookies vs. sophs, as well as the actual All-Star game), the defense played is of the brother-in-law variety, not the gritty, in your face D that the pros are capable of.

As far as the dunk contest, to be honest, I didn’t watch it - making it the umpteenth consecutive year I’ve passed on it.  I think the last one I watched was when Harold Miner, who played for us at USC, was entered and won it.  Something of that familiarity is what it would take to get me to sit and witness something that doesn’t particularly appeal to me.  However, I did see the highlights and if anyone dares say that the dunks performed by the finalists (DeMar DeRozan, also from SC) and the winner (for the third consecutive year, Nate Robinson) were anything but stale.  If anything, the contest was awash in controversy as DeRozan completed some acrobatic, incredible athletic throw-downs.

Many said Robinson was awarded the championship only because he’s so little.  Hey, the basket’s 10 feet in the air.  That means he has to jump higher.  Doesn’t matter, counter the “dunk purists,” the winner should be the contestant who performs the best dunks.  The contest was entertaining and stimulated controversy - in a good way - so, mission accomplished.

Watching the three-point shooting event (once again only the highlights version for me) go down to the last shot - which Stephen Curry missed, making Paul Pierce the winner, was good theatre.  For the record, the last one of these I cared about was the famous Larry Bird #1 sign, given even before the ball went through the hoop.  The runner-up was Dale Ellis, who starred for Tennessee when I was an assistant at UT.  The point is, while it might not have been “must-see TV,” it was good competition.  And as for the remark that the winner is the guy who happens to be hot on that day, I can only respond with, “Duh.  That’s what three point shooting is.”

The other events, e.g. the skills and H.O.R.S.E. competitions, the celebrity game and even the rookies-sophs and the All-Star game itself isn’t supposed to be “down and dirty.”  It would probably be better to view All-Star game weekend as Carl Sagan defined basketball:

“It’s a game of finesse, a coordination of intellect and athleticism, of harmony of mind and body.  It’s the synthesis in sport of intelligence, precision, courage, audacity, anticipation, teamwork, elegance and grace.”  (Throw in trash talking and Sagan’s quote is up-to-date).

After all the complaining about the Pro Bowl - mainly by the group (talk radio show hosts) that has more complaints per sentence than any other (with the possible exception of the ACLU), the game was played and, as improbable as it sounds, the world (at least the NFL part of it) didn’t crumble.  Somehow, a catastrophe of epic proportions was avoided.  Listening to their faithful “I don’t have much of a life, so I think I’ll phone in, bitch about the topic of the day (or in this case, week), then brag to my fellow (non-)workers about being a radio personality” callers, only an idiot would have changed the Pro Bowl and moved it to the site of the Super Bowl.

When I was working at Fresno State as Director of Basketball Operations, there were two years in a row that our schedule had us in Hawaii during the week of the Pro Bowl.  It wasn’t like the island was abuzz over the impending game.  Seems like the people on Oahu, residents and tourists alike, have other events planned to occupy their time.

One of those weeks, I bumped into Tony Gonzalez on Kalakaua Ave.  I had recruited (unsuccessfully) Tony to USC while I was an assistant there and I reintroduced myself to him.  We reminisced about his college days at Cal (especially the one great game he had against us at Cal’s old Harmon Gym) and his dream to play basketball in the NBA - which, at that time, he had yet to give up on.  When I brought up the Pro Bowl, he had a few comments regarding the game and the site.

One was that the two main things were it was an honor to be chosen - since it meant you had a fantastic year - and the game was for the fans - to get the best of the league together and put on a performance (and, yes, even back then, there were some no-shows, due to injury - real or imagined - and various other conflicts).  Sure, everybody’s goal was not to get hurt, but once the ball was kicked off, guys still compete.  They are professionals.  Nobody wants to be a quarterback who throws a pick, a receiver who drops passes, a running back who fumbles or a lineman who gets beat and gets his QB killed - even if he’s not on his regular season team.  On the other side, you think a DB wants to get burned?

When I said, “It’s sure nice to play it here,” Tony responded with something to the effect, “No doubt this is beautiful, but we all make enough money that if we wanted to come to Hawaii, we could.”  Different - and honest - perspective.  Especially to me, who was in Hawaii (albeit for two days before we had to go back to the mainland and play at San Jose State) without my family and didn’t make enough money that, had I wanted, I could have taken them to the island.  For the record, he never mentioned the bonus most (if not all)guys have in their contract if they get selected.

So the NFL tried something new?  It’s not like it was going to affect the outcome of the Super Bowl.  It wasn’t as good a game as a regular season contest, but the no Pro Bowl would be - no matter where it was played.  Places that were mentioned on talk radio were Europe, Mexico or other locations in the U.S. where they didn’t get a chance to see pro football (wonder if they meant LA)?  Why was it such an outrage to move the game to Miami?

Maybe Peyton Manning has it wrong.  Maybe there’s too much time between the division championships and the Super Bowl.  Certainly seems that way for talk radio.  To all the worriers, I give them a quote from Socrates - as avid a football fan as many of those callers:

“Enjoy yourself; it’s later than you think.”   Â