Category: Sports

* Wasn’t there a time when college football uniforms didn’t look like NASCAR meets over-the-top toreadors?

Every now and then I abuse a press credential and show up at something I don’t actually “cover.”

The best example: sports. To wit: events surrounding a Super Bowl or the Outback Bowl, when my alma mater, Penn State, was playing. Back when Joe Paterno was still an iconic curmudgeon. Or maybe a FIFA facility tour to see if Tampa would be a World Cup venue in 1994 (it wasn’t) or an Ed Turanchik press briefing on Tampa Bay’s long-shot, 2012 Olympic bid. And there were introductory press conferences for Guy Boucher of the Lightning and Lovie Smith of the Buccaneers as well as a Bucs training camp during the Jon Gruden era.

They were all variations on a busman’s holiday for a scribe who actually had a sports beat in Philadelphia back in the day. Only this was more interesting and more fun than making a deadline after covering an Eagles or Temple University Owls game.

But one such local sports sortie still notably resonates–even more than the FIFA tour that featured a haughty Brit saying the U.S. getting the World Cup was like “Brazil getting the World Series.” It was the Rays coming-out press conference for Joe Maddon in the fall of 2005 at the Trop.

Larry Rothschild, Hal McRae and Tampa’s own Lou Piniella had preceded Maddon and all had failed and consequently been fired or quit in frustration. It was that kind of job. A payroll-challenged franchise that played in a poorly located, obsolete facility in a weird, hybrid market with no mass transit and few corporate headquarters.

The team, which perennially ranked near the bottom of MLB in attendance, had never had a winning season. It was a manager’s graveyard. Not even Piniella, a viable Hall of Fame prospect until he left Seattle to manage Tampa Bay, could change the against-the-odds, losing culture.

Now here was 29-year-old whiz kid Andrew Friedman about to introduce the next circus ringmaster.

At first you wondered if the new skipper were late. Surely, it wasn’t the white-haired guy in the thick, black glasses. Maybe he was Friedman’s father. Maybe he was there to fix the sound system that initially malfunctioned.

But that unique-to-baseball look was to become iconic around here.

The media, professional skeptics by vocation and DNA, were impressed. The new manager, this son of plumber Joe Maddonini and waitress Albina Klocek, was downright engaging. Witty. Self-deprecating. Enthusiastic. Optimistic. And sported a vocabulary sans clichés. Sort of hipster professor meets baseball lifer. No way could you envision this guy with a wad of chewing tobacco or the need for a spittoon.

After losing a Major League-most 197 games the next two seasons, the Rays under Maddon would be net winners over the next seven. That would include four playoff appearances, two division championships and one World Series appearance. Maddon was named American League Manager of the Year twice.

But it was much more than a 9-year winning percentage of .517. It was Maddon’s mastery of Sabremetrics, his use of radical defensive shifts, his obvious respect for those in his professional circle and his knack for keeping the game in perspective with out-of-the-box, sometimes goofy, gambits and road-trip themes that helped keep the players loose and built camaraderie. Players liked playing for him, the ultimate clubhouse accolade.

I remember visiting that clubhouse in 2013–and sitting with Maddon in his adjacent office. The Rays were in the playoff hunt, the game with Toronto was barely three hours away and we were talking about something that had nothing to do with baseball: the Hazelton Integration Project (HIP).

Hardscrabble Hazelton, Pa., is Maddon’s hometown, and it had undergone a demographic sea change in the last dozen years. Its 25,000 residents were mainly descendents of European immigrants. Now the population was 40 percent Hispanic–and the animus of stereotypes and distrust had replaced the metaphors of melting pots.

“Our town’s gonna die,” he remembered thinking when he had seen the cultural chasm first-hand a few years back. “We were pushing people apart–and away.”

He proceeded to create HIP to foster dialogue between the Hispanic and Anglo communities and to facilitate a forum for breaking down barriers and unifying the cultures.

“People can teach their kids to hate,” said Maddon. “This is what we have to eliminate. Eliminate the small-minded thinking. … You get the kids together, and it will be overcome. I believe that.”

Maddon believes in helping out–even as he orbits the whirlwind parallel universe of MLB. Win or lose, there has been a “Thanksmas”–a blend of THANKSgiving and ChristMAS–that helps the Tampa Bay homeless with holiday meals the last eight years. That’s Maddon’s idea, and he was hands-on with the cooking and serving.

He’s also the same guy who Skyped into the Gibbs High media center last April–from a spring training break at Port Charlotte–to answer questions of journalism students.

And he’s the same guy you would see riding his bike on Bayshore and around Davis Islands or sipping a favorite cabernet at 717 or quaffing a brew at the Tiny Tap or reading the morning newspaper at Starbucks on S. Howard. He resides in accessible Hyde Park, not a gated community or a high rise, where most celebrities live. “I’m comfortable here,” he would explain.

He is, to be incongruously sure, the only manager in MLB with his own gnome likeness and an honorary doctorate of letters. He can talk societal priorities as well as home-cooked pierogies. He’s a Renaissance guy who can also rattle off OBP (On Base Percentage) and WAR (Wins Above Replacement) numbers in his sleep.

In nine years he became an institution around here. His glasses morphed from nerdy to cool. His unorthodox strategies were increasingly emulated throughout baseball.

He loved managing the Rays in his inimitable way, and it showed. He loved living here–and it showed.

But the bottom line for the 60-year-old Maddon was probably this: After nine years, he likely loved living here more than working here. Leaving is about more than maxing out on his marketability. With only a few more shots at the brass ring, he couldn’t wait any longer for what might not happen in this market with all its stadium scenarios always hovering. And he was too classy to note that on the way out.

It won’t be the same without Joe Maddon, even if he does pop back in to check on Ava and take a nostalgic spin on Bayshore.

The headlines, “Say It Ain’t So, Joe” and “Out At Home,” were as predictable as the news was blindsiding. Joe Maddon, the only manager of the Tampa Bay Rays who mattered, was leaving. Just like that. He and his wife are already heading across the country in his mobile home.

While the recent departure of Andrew Friedman, the super-savvy executive vice president of baseball operations, was a key factor and opt-out clause initiator, in the end it was Maddon’s call that the timing was right for his purposes.

His official explanation sounded generic.

“We went back and forth a couple of times; it didn’t want to work out,” said Maddon of negotiations. “I just thought this was a great opportunity for me and my family to explore right now, and so we did.”

But if there’s anything Joe Maddon is not, it is generic. No other managerial model could have had the budget-defying success he did in this market.

Maddon, an uncommon winner with a payroll-challenged franchise, is now in an MLB catbird seat. A better contract elsewhere–a certain Windy City, perhaps–assuredly beckons.

But there is more to ponder than life without the Joe Gnome inspiration.

There is also the sobering possibility that Maddon, 60, just didn’t see a bright enough light at the end of the small-market, stadium-quandary tunnel. That what he saw were his remaining prime years spent largely in a market that was, for him, better to live in than work in. That it was now or never to make the move to a franchise that could concentrate solely on winning–without attendance issues, stadium scenarios or relocation possibilities constantly hovering like a Damoclean fungo bat. In short, he couldn’t wait for what might not happen.

If that were the case, it would be like Maddon to be too classy to mention it on the way out. Why fan the image-issue flames?

And so, Matt Silverman, who was promoted into Friedman’s position, is 0-for-1 on Rays’ re-signings. Just so happens it was the signature re-signing for this franchise.

* You never want to see anyone get hurt. Having said that, it was hard to feel sympathy for Chicago Bears defensive end Lamarr Houston, who injured his leg on Sunday against the New England Patriots and had to be carted off the field. His injury was not fallout from a physically demanding game. It was because he was celebrating. More than a pratfall resulted: a torn ACL.

With less than four minutes remaining and his team being embarrassed 48-23, Houston sacked the Patriots’ back-up quarterback Jimmy Garopollo–not Tom Brady. But because look-at-me antics and boorish “swagger” are so embedded into the NFL culture and because network cameras follow it after every play, he couldn’t help but show off.

Not that it will impact others. It’s the way the NFL–National Football Lounge act–rolls these days.

* For all the (sexual assault, et al allegations) Jameis Winston (Florida State) and (autograph-selling allegations) Todd Gurley (Georgia) headlines, the recent academic scandal out of the University of North Carolina is the one that cuts to the quick on what’s wrong with big-time college sports.

It begs the quintessential question: Who the hell represents these schools on the fields and courts of revenue sports? And how did they get in? And how do they stay in? In too many cases it’s sham-students who require sham courses to maintain eligibility. Under-qualified, athletic Hessians representing the likes of UNC in Chapel Hill is the fundamental issue. Everything else ripples out from there.

* FSU dodged a bullet last Saturday when it hung on to win in Tallahassee although outplayed by Notre Dame. This is obviously not the same caliber team as last year’s national champions–and it’s especially evident on defense.

Look for FSU’s 23-game winning streak–and national championship-repeat hopes to end next Thursday at Louisville. The Cardinals have a good enough team, especially on defense, the game is nationally televised by ESPN, it’s mischief night, and the crowd will be loud and possibly not sober.

By the way, the last time FSU visited Louisville the Seminoles lost in overtime, 26-20, in 2002.

* Speaking of FSU, head coach Jimbo Fisher has a lot on the (bottom) line every time the Seminoles line up to defend the nation’s longest winning streak. His contract is loaded with bonuses, including $200,000 for an undefeated season, $200,000 for finishing with a top-five national ranking, $400,000 for winning the national championship and $125,000 for coach-of-the-year awards.

* University of Florida AD Jeremy Foley still says he won’t make a decision on head coach Will Muschamp until the end of the season. Increasingly, that’s looking like a moot point. This is reminiscent of Skip Holtz’s last two years at USF. Holtz was fired and the remaining years on his contract were bought out.

In Muschamp’s case, that would be a three-year buyout at $2 million per. Like Holtz, he will wind up being obscenely overpaid. But unlike Holtz, Muschamp, the master of the dismissive interview, doesn’t even come across as a nice guy.

* As the Kansas City Royals battle the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, local attention is understandably focused on the upstart Royals, who depend heavily on the pitching of James Shields and Wade Davis, who were traded from the Rays two years ago. Without them, the Royals would be waiting yet another year since their last WS appearance in 1985.

But largely overlooked is Brian Sabean. The Giants’ general manager played at Eckerd College and coached the University of Tampa from 1980-84, the last two as head coach. Sabean, 58, has been with SF since 1996–and the Giants are now in their third World Series in five years. They won it in both 2010 and 2012.

*Seminole golfer Brittany Lincicome, one of the nicest sports ambassadors we’ve ever had around here, came ever so close to winning the recent KEB-HanaBank Championship in Incheon, South Korea. She lost in a playoff, but came away with a sizable consolation prize: a check for $157,838.

* For those wondering if there is any doubt that FSU quarterback Jameis Winston will not be back next year, consider this. While Winston, a Heisman Trophy-winning, red-shirt sophomore, has avoided criminal charges over sexual assault allegations, he is still under scrutiny for a possible student code of conduct violation. He could yet face a range of penalties ranging from a reprimand to expulsion.

Here’s how Robert Jarvis, a Nova Southeastern University law professor, explains it: “While Winston is in school, the hearing board has real teeth. Once Winston leaves school, the hearing board loses much of its teeth.”

Put it this way. Johnny Manziel, also a red-shirt Heisman Trophy winner, headed for the NFL draft as soon as he could–after his third year. And he was only hounded by charges of excessive celebrity–not sexual assault and blatant stupidity.

* It’s hardly a shock. Merely a disgrace. Jerry Angelo, former Bucs director of player personnel and Chicago Bears general manager, has admitted that teams looked the other way on “hundreds and hundreds” of domestic violence incidents during his 30-year career.

As noted, no surprise. We know the NFL’s labor pool. We know the money at stake. And we know that players wearing pink gloves and pink shoes during Breast Cancer Awareness Month changes nothing.

* Former USF basketball coach Stan Heath has landed an ESPN gig. He’ll be an analyst for ESPNU men’s games. And former Tampa Bay Ray first baseman Carlos Peñais now doing analysis for the MLB network.

The National Football League has been looking for a diversion from its labor pool’s predilection for carrying out sanctioned violence off the field and into the real world.

Since Commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference hardly helped and Michael Sam is old news, this will have to do. It’s the controversy that recently ensued over a player’s penalty for “excessive celebration” that was really a form of prayer. That the player, Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah, is a practicing Muslim only added to the diversion’s media appeal.

Some background.

First, there’s a reason for the NFL’s “excessive celebration” penalty, a form of “unsportsmanlike conduct” in the sometimes ironically quaint vernacular of a collision sport.

Player antics, you may have noticed, had been getting increasingly out of hand unless you were among those who liked cheap, lounge-act theatrics with your football. In another era the admonition would have been to “show some class.” Or “Act as if you expected to score a touchdown.” But the NFL is ratings-driven show business with network cameras poised to follow the swagger after every play.

Eventually a breaking point was reached on players’ look-at-me antics and celebratory routines. Not that boorish players have gone the way of leather helmets and not that the genie of juvenile behavior will ever be rebottled. Far from it. But there are official limits–and consequences. It now costs a team 15 yards.

The other issue is prayer.

The NFL has now acknowledged that the official should not have called that penalty on Abdullah, who had just scored a touchdown on an interception against the New England Patriots. Following his “pick six,” he went sliding on his knees before bowing down and giving praise. According to NFL rules, there is an exception if an act is deemed a demonstration of a player’s faith.

Sliding to prostration should have been a no-call. Just like “Tebowing” was–unless, of course, this is some kind of Muslim-Christian subplot. But that’s beyond domestic-violence diversion.

For some reason, football has always lent itself to the invoking of a higher power. Maybe it’s because of all those “trenches” and “battlefield” metaphors. Whatever the rationale, it’s a tradition, one that begins in high school, where invocations to “the Man Upstairs” are as prevalent as they are hackneyed.

So I say–even at the risk of offending fundamentalist football fans–let’s get real. Would prayer advocates actually vouch for the Deity’s priorities including high-school football? Friday Night Lights are that luminous?

There’s a difference between religious expression and the trivialization of religion. I say a mid-game shout-out to Jesus or Mohammed bespeaks of skewed priorities–and the presumption that agnostics need not bother to game-plan for victory.

Frankly, wouldn’t it make more sense if we all just went secular from high school onward–and simply invoked the inspiring sentiments of Grantland Rice. “For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,” said Rice, “he writes–not that you won or lost–but how you played the Game.”

How’s that for a diversion? From Ray Rice to Grantland Rice.

* Tampa resident Tony Dungy, the esteemed former-NFL-coach-turned-NBC analyst, is back in the news. Earlier this summer he voiced reservations about drafting Michael Sam, the NFL’s first openly gay player. It was because of Sam’s potential to be a distraction, Dungy explained. He was roundly criticized.

Now Dungy says he would not draft FSU’s controversial quarterback Jameis Winston, still the focus of an investigation into FSU’s handling of sexual-assault charges, and make him the “face of a franchise.” He’s not being criticized this time.

* USF’s best effort to date was last Saturday’s competitive loss on the road to nationally ranked Wisconsin. The Bulls weren’t intimidated by playing in front of 78,811 loud UW fans, which was more than the combined attendance of USF’s four home games at Raymond James Stadium.

* The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics wants school leaders to request an override vote on recent NCAA legislation giving the five power football conferences more autonomy–including paying athletes stipends in addition to scholarships. COIA, which is chaired by USF’s Michael Bowen, contends that the cost of stipends will likely result in cuts to nonrevenue sports. Bowen is an instructor in the Department of Management & Organization in the College of Business.

* It was a disappointing season for the Rays–at the turnstiles as well as in the win-loss column. But while the team finished last (30th) in average attendance (17,858), it did finish first in Major League Baseball affordability–of tickets, parking and concessions–according to the rankings of ESPN The Magazine.

It was the fourth time in eight years, that the Rays have finished first in affordability–an ironic distinction when that’s not nearly enough to gin up attendance.

* Jim Leavitt, please call home–specifically, USF Athletic Director Mark Harlan.

We apologize for criticizing USF football for being good enough to frustrate fans who wanted more–who wanted the program to reach the “next level.” We apologize for piling on after too many composure-collapsing losses to Connecticut and Rutgers.

We remember road upsets of Auburn, Florida State, Pittsburgh and Miami. We recall being among the 67,000 fans at Raymond James Stadium for that huge win over 5th-ranked West Virginia in 2007. We’re now nostalgic for the Meineke Car Care and PoppaJohns.com bowl games that USF used to “settle” for. Those were the days.

And as for that speculation about a new, on-campus football stadium as an alternative to Raymond James Stadium: The bottom line is still winning. Right now, the 4,000-capacity, on-campus soccer stadium would suffice.

* If there’s one guy weighing in–empathetically–on the Ray Rice scandal who ought to be ignored, it’s ESPN’s Ray Lewis. Recall that it was Lewis who took a plea deal on that 2000 Atlanta murder charge and later pled guilty to obstruction of justice in a botched case that was never solved.

I remember it as if it were yesterday–not 2007.

Along with two other couples, we were pumped and proud and reveling with a cause. We were among the 67,000 fans who had just witnessed USF’s 21-13 win over 5th ranked West Virginia at Raymond James Stadium.

We remained in our seats that fall evening to savor and watch celebrating students vault onto the field in defiance of the public address announcer’s admonitions. It was a scene for the USF football ages.

Two points.

First, we’ve been reading about renewed speculation concerning an on-campus football facility for the Bulls that would expedite student enthusiasm and attendance. In the best of all possible worlds, it would be preferable. But there are better uses for limited capital, especially when you are privy to the nearby RJ, one of the country’s primo stadiums.

Second, there are also better ways to gin up attendance–notably winning. USF was undefeated going into that West Virginia game, with a lot of buzz having been built from a road win earlier at Auburn. Last year the Bulls were 2-10. The years before: 3-9 and 5-7.

The bottom line: recruiting, winning, turnstile counting.