The AP’s Marc Duncan is thanking the photo gods for his seat at last night’s Cavs-Celtics playoff game. That’s how he got the greatest shot of LeBron James telling his mother to, um, cool it.
Gloria James nearly came out of the crowd after Paul Pierce wrapped up LeBron and they went out of bounds. Kevin Garnett tried to restrain her as well as she tried to get into the fray.
“I told her to sit down, in some language I shouldn’t have used,” James said. “Thank God today wasn’t Mother’s Day. All I could think about is her. … I know my mother. It’s fine, we’re good.”
Good column today from George Vecsey from the New York Times on former Bengal Reggie Williams, who is dealing with recent problems with one of his two artificial knees. The column’s first lines are attention-getting:
Lying in his hospital bed, Reggie Williams watched a flow of blood, four or five inches high, coming from his postsurgical knee.
“A fountain!” Williams called it.
That was May 2. Today, Williams, the one-time 14-year Bengal and a popular man throughout the league, is waiting for another procedure on the knee. He’s not sure what’s going to happen, but he insists that nothing will keep him from his College Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony this summer and that he doesn’t regret playing football for a living.
Williams knows that an alarming number of his peers are dying young, but he says he has no regrets about his violent occupation. He tells how his father fled Birmingham, Ala., for Michigan after fighting back against racial slurs. He notes that he was born in September 1954, only months after the Brown v. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court, outlawing school segregation, a timing Williams sees as mystical.
“There was a dearth of opportunity for my father and his father,” Williams said. “I had the chance to do a little good. There is no way I would have been a member of the city council. A few months after our vote, I was at a private house party and Bishop Desmond Tutu was there, saying that ‘the city of Zinzinnati’ helped free Nelson Mandela. If this was the only cost I had to pay, I can swallow the pain today.”
There are plenty who want to see Williams as healthy as possible. He was a humanitarian both during and after his playing days, and he was even a dark horse candidate to become the NFL’s next commissioner after Paul Tagliabue.
Bottom line, one of the NFL’s good guys is dealing with some hard times because of the toll his body took on the field. But, he’s not blaming the game he played.
“That’s the first time I’ve had it and this is my 23d year,” home plate ump and crew chief Dale Scott said of the Reds batting out of order today in the ninth inning against the Mets New York Mets , a little snafu that was resolved in what seemed like a matter of hours. “It’s one of the more confusing rules. That was why it seemed to take an eternity because we wanted to make sure we got it correct.”
That’s right, the Reds somehow managed to go to the plate in the wrong order while trying desperately to get to baseball’s bottom. Although not the worst major-league team record-wise, the Reds will still face plenty of laughter on this one, kind of like the kid who gets a wedgie in the middle of the lunch room.
The confusion began when David Ross, who had been inserted in the sixth inning as the replacement catcher batting ninth, led off the inning in the spot that should have been the eighth batter, Corey Patterson, who had been inserted as the center fielder in bottom of the previous inning.
Randolph appealed after Ross had flown out to right field, but before the first pitch was thrown to Patterson.
“Obviously there was a little confusion there,” Randolph said. “I was right on it, we were right on it, but we could have gotten two outs if Patterson had actually seen a pitch.”
Now, with the Marlins coming into Cincinnati, you wonder what the Reds will do for an encore. Misplace their gloves? Send two third basemen out for the first inning? Forget there’s a game at all?
At least the Reds aren’t the only ones scared to death of playing games in Cincinnati.
“We tell our guys to stay with their approaches because it can go out anywhere,” (Marlins) manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Anybody who comes to the plate can hit it out there. I get ulcers managing there. No lead is safe.”
While it might go against our national spirit, many around sports continue to search for ways to keep high-profiles athletes from turning professional, especially in basketball.
In today’s Chicago Tribune, two professors from George Mason University, Thomas W. Hazlett and Joshua D. Wright, have a theory: Make the colleges pay to insure those star players for future wages potentially lost by staying in school.
So the answer, given that universities cannot pay athletes market wages, is to at least insure them. Were underclassmen to be appraised, via draft rankings, and then offered compensation in the event—post-graduation—they slipped by some increment, they could hedge this very considerable exposure.
This publicly became known as a practice in a famous instance with Willis McGahee, the University of Miami running back who suffered a significant knee injury in the 2002 national championship game against Ohio State. Had he not been able to go pro, he had money coming because he secured insurance.
The two George Mason professors feel that athletes wouldn’t be so anxious to leave school if they knew the money was waiting for them one way or another. Get hurt? No problem, the check’s coming. Not drafted as high as you thought? We can pay the difference.
The NCAA allows players to insure, but the player pays even though it is largely the university (and its fans) that benefits. Moreover, policies can only insure against career-ending injuries, leaving the more common outcomes—less serious injuries and performance-related changes in draft status—terrifying prospects.
It’s an interesting thought, asking the school to pay for this coverage, although it’s just one instance of the ongoing argument about what colleges owe the athletes who help make millions upon millions of dollars for the athletic departments (and the NCAA).
This could be both an olive branch to help share some of the wealth and, perhaps, make a player or two think twice. If you know the money’s going to be there regardless, you might not be so quick to sign the agent papers.
The above basketball prodigy is Zach Feinstein, and here’s a little bit about him:
I am a Junior at Washington University in St. Louis double majoring in Systems Engineering and Applied Mathematics. I work with Intramural Sports at Wash U as their webmaster, I have also run the annual Intramural Sports Trivia Bowl for the past 2 years. I currently work in 2 different research labs on campus and will be spending the summer doing research in China, so sadly I will not be present at the draft at Madison Square Garden on June 26.
Furthermore, I do not play basketball.
He might not exactly fit the mold, but our friend Zach has declared himself eligible for the NBA draft. After studying the procedures and sending in the proper paperwork, he is now a 5-foot-8, 130-pound entry for professional basketball.
So, Zach Feinstein is eligible. It’s a funny story about studying rules and making it into an entertaining story.
Since I had waited and heard nothing back from the NBA in terms of confirmation, on the morning of April 14th I decided to call up the NBA. This conversation went quite well as Erika Ruiz quickly confirmed that all my papers were in order and no further steps needed to be made by me. And behold as of May 1 I am able to find myself on the Early Entry List at draftexpress.com and nbadraft.net under “unknown players”.
A few weeks ago, I attended a meeting for area coaches and administrators held by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. It was called to discuss rule changes and clarifications for next year.
Most of it, to a layman, dealt with paperwork. But there was one rule that really seemed to make waves.
Beginning next year, coaches who are ejected from games will face a $100 fine. Seems like a worthy advance to keep coaches from acting out of line during games.
A few in the group, though, didn’t seem as happy about it. Their concern was about officials’ power. What if, they said, an official causes an ejection based on something that could be corrected by replay? What if you have officials that don’t like coaches and now know they can hit them in the pocket book?
The $100 won’t exactly keep a coach from feeding his family, but it’s not an insignificant amount, either. Still, will a coach think about money when an official makes a call that he doesn’t like? Sometimes it’s hard enough for the assistant coaches to intervene.
The OHSAA is worried about sportsmanship and giving the right impression to players. More and more, we hear stories about coaches and parents out of control, and OHSAA officials hear those same things. They want to make sure Ohio doesn’t get bad publicity for coaching incidents.
For tomorrow’s paper, I put together a story on Henderson Mosley and his college degree. Mosley is the former Central State star quarterback who returned as an assistant coach when the school returned its football program.
He had left without his degree and toiled in unhappy jobs until Theresa Check, the CSU athletic director and former longtime women’s basketball coach, called. She said the Marauders football program was coming back and wanted him to become a coach. She also encouraged Mosley to get back into classes to get his degree, which he did on Saturday when he received his Bachelor of Education.
The story on Mosley alone is worth telling as an athlete who came through with his promise, albeit at 38 years old, to complete his education. But Check’s role cannot be ignored, particularly for what it shows about her character and love of the school that no longer wants her.
Months ago, our columnist Tom Archdeacon wrote a piece that said the school would not be renewing Check’s contract, but that was far from the resolution. Until CSU finds a replacement, Check has been working as the athletic director, knowing it’s a lame duck position.
Why would she do this? Because Central State is a place she loves. It’s the same reason she stayed with the department and the school in the 1990s when it came close to closing because of mismanagement. In 2001, she took over as athletic director with a bad CSU reputation to repair.
Not only that, Check led the charge to return the football program, something that was a huge part of the student culture when the Marauders won two national championships in the early 1990s. The team is now back, playing a full schedule and is earning its place among the CSU community.
Check also cares enough about Central State people to think of Mosley first to be an assistant coach and also push him toward his degree. How many people, after a player leaves a school, really stays after that player? Especially when it’s nearly a decade later.
She did. Mosley is better off for it, as he is a natural at coaching. So is Central State, because his energy and enthusiasm is almost unmatched (except, maybe, for Check).
I don’t know the behind-the-scenes issues with Check and Central State, but the school will lose a major part of its community when the day comes that she leaves her office for good.
Upon Further Review | Sports in the Dayton, Ohio, area - youth, recreational, high school, prep and professional - Reds, Bengals, Buckeyes, Flyers, Raiders
Upon Further Review provides discussion, analysis and observations of the local sports world, from pee wees to professionals.
Kyle Nagel is the enterprise reporter for the Dayton Daily News sports department. He was raised in Centerville, received a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri in May 2003 and joined the Dayton Daily News in December 2003.
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I think thats what she gets for getting in 6’9” 7’0” grown men business of