Category: Sports

* Just when so much was going so right for the Tampa Bay Lightning–despite injuries to Stephen Stamkos and numerous others–there is the Canadian Olympic team flap. Not only did Lightning star Marty St. Louis not make the team, he was snubbed by a process overseen by Bolts’ general manager Steve Yzerman, who’s also the executive director of Team Canada.

Nobody is more popular nor more respected–among his Lightning peers and coaches–than St. Louis, who is having another outstanding season at age 38. Yzerman may be a NHL Hall of Famer, but his very presence right now is a mood changer.

St. Louis is too proud and too professional to let the snub directly impact his play. That said, everybody in the organization, including Yzerman, knows he’s crushed by the slight. That can’t help morale.

Injuries, such as Stamkos’ broken leg, heal in a couple of months. Gut-level snubs of this magnitude–to one of your own–don’t.

* Speaking of Olympic disappointments, Bolts’ goalie Ben Bishop, who’s having an outstanding season for the all-too-often, goalie-challenged franchise, didn’t make the U.S. team. But look who made the Canadian team: former Lightning goalie Mike Smith.

* The final AP college football poll reflected post-bowl game reality with Florida State No. 1 for the 2013 season. Then there were Auburn, Michigan St. and the usual suspects. Until No. 10. UCF still looks strange in the top 10, but the Knights earned that national ranking with an unforgettable season topped by that big, prime-time win over Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl.

As for USF, it was a downer season for the Bulls–but they did take UCF to the limit–losing 23-20 in the last five minutes in Orlando. There’s always “next year.”

* Nothing wrong with FSU junior James Wilder, formerly of Plant High, leaving early for the NFL draft. It’s just that most–if not all–such early entrants at least start for their college team, no matter how deep the talent. Wilder was a back-up running back for the Seminoles.

* Sign of the times. Over the holidays Orlando hosted the Under Armour All-America Game festivities, a showcase event for highly-recruited, high school football players. One of the instructors was Pro Football Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders. Among his mini-tutorials: teaching defensive backs how to do his Prime Time end zone celebration dance as well as how to properly high-step into the end zone. You read that right.

Arguably, these sorts of play-to-the-camera, “look at me” antics are what’s wrong with the game these days. Sobering to be reminded that it only gets worse as boorish behavior and swaggering attitudes are increasingly prevalent at the high school level.

* Nick Saban just hired Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Alabama. So much for running a class program.

* Can you say media circus maximus?

The suspension this year of Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees covers the regular season as well as the postseason. What it doesn’t cover: spring training. But because the suspension takes A-Roid off their official 40-man roster, the Yankees can force him to work out with minor leaguers. But he can train in Tampa this spring. And it won’t be a minor event.

In a previous incarnation I was a sports writer in the Philadelphia market. At some point I heard someone refer to sports as journalism’s “toy department.” Ouch. Worse yet, I couldn’t disagree. Epiphanies happen.

But I’ve always remained a fan. I care whether the Rays, Lightning, Bucs and USF Bulls win or lose. I rooted for UCF to win its debut on the big bowl stage. I stayed up late to savor the strategies and drama in the Florida State-Auburn national championship game. I’ll be watching Winter Olympic events–well, maybe not curling–that I know very little about, because it’s practically patriotic.

And sometimes I like to go behind the scenes and see another side of a sports figure or witness the inner workings of an organization with societal impact. I’ve talked immigration and ethnic assimilation with Joe Maddon during the Rays’ play-off run. I’ve chatted with Lou and Skip Holtz about the proper place of big-time college athletics in the context of higher-education priorities. I’ve discussed defensive driving on Bay Area roads with the late Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon.

And so I dropped by One Buccaneer Place the other day to witness the formal introduction–or re-introduction–of  Lovie Smith as head coach of the Bucs. He had previously been an assistant under Tony Dungy from 1996-2000. An NFL franchise matters, especially to still-emerging markets such as Tampa Bay. Its head coach is a de facto major community player. This is corporate culture like no other.

And frankly it was a good opportunity to check out the Bucs sporty digs–on land once occupied by the once-cool Tampa Bay Center. OBP opened in 2006 and is regarded as the best team facility in the National Football League. It’s 145,000 square feet of clean, bright, contemporary, state-of-the-art ambiance over 33 acres.

The lobby, which has a pirate-ship motif, sports serious marble floors and Buccaneer memorabilia. OBP has multiple fields as well as weight, locker, steam and hydrotherapy rooms. The country-club atmosphere includes a sauna and players’ lounge. It also comes with a fully-equipped kitchen, dining room, press conference studio and theater-style auditorium.

It’s home to more than 250 employees. It also houses the renewed hopes of a franchise that hasn’t won a post- season game since the Super Bowl win over Oakland after the 2002 season.

Outside, a large, steel-sculptured–almost Dali-like–football dominates the entrance. The enormous Bucs’ banner is probably the biggest non-Confederate flag in the South. Size matters in this high visibility, look-at-us business.

And OBP has a great view of neighboring Raymond James Stadium, where on a clear day you can easily read signage–“It’s a Bucs Life”–that has been taking on ironic connotations these past few years. That’s because, increasingly, that “Bucs life” has been one seen as bordering on irrelevance.

It’s what happens when a franchise loses too often in the win-at-all-cost NFL. It’s why you now bring in a proven winner–moreover one with Tampa Bay roots–such as Lovie Smith. Prior to his nine-year run as head coach of the Chicago Bears, he had been part of building the foundation for a Super Bowl winner right here. It’s why the well-spoken, message-savvy Smith made “relevance” an obvious theme of his media remarks. He remembers when the Bucs were ascendant–and were winning games while winning over a fan base. That kind of relevance.

Time was when the Bucs would proudly–almost haughtily–remind everyone how long the line was for season tickets. Now home-game “blackouts” are as likely as sell-outs. Smith is here to right the Glazers’ foundering, pewter-pirate ship.

“It is time, as we go to the future, for us to become a relevant team again,” said Smith to the standing room only crowd of media, employees and former players, including Mike Alstott  and Shelton Quarles. Smith’s cut-to-the-chase assessment and aspiration had to be made–even if the blunt reminder made a Glazer or two wince behind a smiley family facade.

In his introduction, co-chairman Bryan Glazer referenced Smith’s “high character and integrity” as well as his reputation as a leader and winner. But he also pointedly said: “Welcome home.” Indeed, this is much more than a career move for Smith.

The 55-year-old underscored that he was “back home”–to an area that still has “a special place in my heart.” And these were no mere rhetorical niceties. He considers the iconic Derrick Brooks a “son.” He’s forever grateful to Tony Dungy for providing the pro coaching opportunity–and for proving that nice Christian guys can finish first.

And Smith and his wife MaryAnne have kept their condo on the gulf beaches over the years. They liked it here. They like being back full time.

Smith seems to have hit the ground running in making key personnel moves and reaching out to current and former players. Introductory media events are always feel-good affairs, but this was a literal Lovie-in.

Something else spoke volumes about the Smith hire. It comes before a general manager is brought in.

Smith will do a lot more than talk single-gap football and dictate Tampa 2 coverage. Word is he will have final say on all personnel decisions with the 53-man roster. That’s more power than  Tony Dungy had.

* The Tampa Bay Rays’ executive vice president Andrew Friedman has made it well known that this year’s payroll might very well top the Rays’ all-time high of $72 million. The re-signing of first baseman James Loney and the non-trade–so far–of high-priced pitcher David Price underscore that reality.

But here’s another reality: Even such an all-time-high payroll number would still be about half of what the Boston Red Sox will be paying out this year–and close to a third of what the New York Yankees have typically been shelling out.

* Not that it would surprise Alabama or Auburn fans, but the state of Alabama had the country’s highest percentage of male high school athletes playing, of all things, football last year. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, it was 37 percent.

* For National Hockey League players who were disappointed at being left off of the U.S. Olympic Hockey team–and that includes Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Ben Bishop–there’s a major consolation. They won’t have to go to Sochi, Russia, where Vladimir Putin just might by manning a security gate himself. He has reason for Munich-sequel paranoia. Regional bombings, which have killed more than 30 people recently, were attributed to Chechen separatists who have pledged to disrupt–as only they can–the Olympics.

* No, the Outback Bowl will never host a national championship game, but it is among the top tier of bowls–of which there are, at 34, entirely too many. Moreover, no bowl game has a longer-tenured corporate sponsorship (1996) than the Outback, nor a longer-tenured president and CEO than the well-regarded Jim McVay. He’s been running the show here in Tampa since 1988.

But there’s something else about the Outback Bowl. It always matches teams with winning records, and it’s held in a venue that is a winter reward for teams and their fans.

Actually, there is something else too.

The Outback Bowl really sounds like a bowl game. As opposed to, say: The GoDaddy.com Bowl or the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl or the AdvoCare V100 Bowl, the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, the Chick-fil-A Bowl, the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl or–sorry, St. Pete–the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl.

The Outback Bowl doesn’t sound like a domain registrar, a marketing slogan, a distributor of skin care products or a bar and grill.  If you can’t be the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar or Rose Bowls, Outback is the one to be.

* For those still shaking their heads over that whole Jameis Winston affair at FSU, here’s a book you may want to pick up. It’s “The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football” by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. It covers the waterfront of issues from recruiting to tutoring to creatively providing “special benefits.” There are coeds, boosters, agents and variations on a “third party” theme–and victims.

Speaking of Tallahassee, here are a couple of national statistics that are as disturbing as they are unsurprising. They involve criminal complaints of felony assault attributed to college and pro athletes between 1986 and 1995. Two key findings:

1–A criminal complaint against a college or pro athlete for sexual assault is far more likely to result in arrest and in an indictment.

2–Athletes are significantly less likely to be convicted.

* After having lived for three years in Marietta (Cobb County), Ga., right outside of Atlanta, I totally get what’s behind the Atlanta Braves’ announced deal to relocate about 12 miles northwest of Turner Field (“The Ted”) in downtown to southern Cobb County.

Sure, the Braves, whose current lease runs out in 2016, found a suburban government willing to partially fund a proposed ($672 million) stadium. But it’s a lot more than that.

The Braves will also own property around the new stadium, which is ripe for commercial development. The area is affluent and mostly white. “The Ted,” the erstwhile Centennial Olympic Stadium that opened in 1997, is surrounded by parking lots and relatively poor people, who happen to be mostly black. “The Ted” might have been state of the art, but it never warranted a stop on Atlanta’s light rail (MARTA) system. That always spoke volumes. There’s not so much as a bank or a grocery store nearby.

This is an economic class issue with ironic racial overtones.

Atlanta, by marketing mantra, is “the city that’s too busy to hate.” It’s also fiercely proud of being home to the most prominent black middle class in America. Anything–from underachieving city schools to public housing issues to urban crime rates–that is at variance with that image is marginalized and papered over.

For baseball, the market is the suburbs. It’s where the money is. It’s where the fan base is. And it’s where economic opportunity–and the color green–beckons.

* Once again the National Hockey League, which is the least flush of the big four professional sports leagues, shows that its priorities are properly placed when it comes to the holidays. Christmas, says the NHL, is about families. Players as well as fans. Therefore, teams do not play or practice on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or the day after Christmas.

In stark contrast is the National Basketball Association. It marketed no less than five nationally televised games–from noon through midnight–on Christmas Day. Indeed, it just wouldn’t have seemed like Christmas without Chicago at Brooklyn, Oklahoma City at New York, Miami at Los Angeles (Lakers), Houston at San Antonio and Los Angeles (Clippers) at San Francisco.

* No, we’ll never rebottle the network TV genie, especially when it comes to football. But wouldn’t it be nice if cameras didn’t linger on all the trash-talking, gesticulating boors who play to the cheap seats through juvenile, look-at-me antics.

* The Penn State volleyball team recently won its 6th national championship. Among those Nittany Lion players: Senior outside hitter Maddie Martin from Plant High, the daughter of Mike Martin and Gayle Sierens, the WFLA-Channel 8 news co-anchor. Martin, an Academic All-Big Ten selection, now has two national championship rings. She also chronicled an insider’s look online after being asked by ESPN to blog for them.

* Has one market ever had two pro coaches/managers any classier than Tony Dungy and Joe Maddon?

* A sign of the times. Congrats to Rays 3B Evan Longoria and longtime girlfriend Jaime Edmondson who recently announced their wedding plans: January 2016. Edmondson actually broke the news on her Twitter account that included a photo of their 1-year-old daughter Elle holding a sign. “My Mom & Dad Are Getting Married.”

* Speaking of Longoria, he’s the high-profile partner in the new Ducky’s Sports Lounge on Kennedy Boulevard, where the chef is Frankie Midulla. Yes, that’s the same Frankie Midulla who used to be the Valencia Gardens’ chef. Alas, there is no more VG, but a key part is still a presence on Kennedy.

* When a head coaching job–such as the one at deep-pocketed University of Texas–becomes vacant, rampant speculation and rife rumors are a given. Among those caught up: Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, whose Seminoles will play for the national championship on Jan. 6. He says it would be “unfair” to all parties–most notably his own team–to be commenting on the Texas opening. Therefore, he won’t be addressing any of those UT coaching rumors.

Actually, if Fisher were not at all interested in leaving FSU and those players he wants to be fair to, wouldn’t it be best to, in effect, say this? “I am definitely not leaving FSU for any other coaching job. It’s my call to make, and I’ve made it. I’m staying right here where I’m extremely well paid and successful. I trust that’s not too nuanced for you all. Now I have a team, the one I want to be fair to, to prepare for the biggest game of their lives.”

* Let’s hear it for standards. Notre Dame just re-admitted quarterback Everett Golson, who led the Irish football team to an undefeated regular season in 2012. Golson is being readmitted because he showed “poor judgment on a test” and was, consequently, suspended for the 2013 fall semester–the one that, of course, included this football season. Golson does get a second chance–but he didn’t get a football player’s bye for a first offense.

And this just in from Duke. Its leading rusher, Jela Duncan, was just suspended–for an undisclosed violation of academic policy–and will miss the upcoming Chick-fil-A Bowl against Texas A&M. Moreover, he won’t be eligible to return until the spring 2015 semester.

We all know universities with big time athletic programs where anything shy of a felony–if that–would never have resulted in disciplinary actions such as these. Win or lose, it’s one reason they are still Notre Dame and Duke, respectively.

Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston, as we know, won’t be charged in that high-profile, sexual-assault case in Tallahassee. Too much is unknown and uncertain. The camera-mugging state attorney, Willie Meggs, made it abundantly clear that the case was closed. No charges filed. End of story.

Not.

Because here’s what we do know. Winston, of course, is not guilty. But he is not “innocent,” the term typically bandied about by the media as the legal antonym of guilty. Innocent has moral connotations–not judicial ones. Whatever actually happened that night involving a young woman, three football players, a cell phone camera and DNA subplots didn’t involve innocence. But revulsion isn’t a felony.

A couple of other points.

What are the odds that behind closed doors and unplugged microphones, the FSU banter has been about much more than “harmful speculation and inappropriate conjecture”–to quote FSU President Eric Barron. I’d guess that a long sigh of relief was followed by a strong scent of outrage, disgust and embarrassment. And maybe even  a misgiving or two about the purported Faustian deals some schools have been known to make for prized recruits.

This wasn’t a “boys will be boys” scenario. This wasn’t “youthful indiscretion,” a “one-night stand”–or even a classic “she said, he said” situation. This was shameful behavior that focused on a Heisman Trophy frontrunner and reflected notoriously on all FSU students involved.

And doesn’t this put Johnny Manziel in context?

The Texas A&M quarterback won the Heisman last year and then was all over the news in the off-season for unbecoming behavior. And what was that? He was accused of being immature, acting like a celebrity and possibly trafficking in his own autograph.

FSU would take that in a heartbeat.

*It’s that time of year again for college football fans. What bowl is your team going to? There are so many now that it’s no longer an acknowledged barometer of a successful season. Teams with non-winning seasons go every year. But what does it mean if your team is not going bowling? Ouch.

Well, remember when we regularly criticized USF’s Jim Leavitt for not being able to get his team to “the next level”? As in, do something other than lead the Bulls to another 8-4, Big East also-ran season culminating in one of the myriad of nondescript, non-BCS bowls.

Imagine, the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte against East Carolina as the good old days. Ouch.

* Can’t say the Tampa Bay Rays, who are last in Major League Baseball attendance, aren’t still trying. The team is anteing up some $700,000 for renovations to the Trop. The major project will create a 360-degree walkway around the lower bowl–adding new vantage points for those who do show up.

Plans call for the removal of about 3,000 seats to effect the change, dropping capacity from 34,000 to 31,000. Smaller stadiums are also part of a baseball trend–although 31,000 is more than 4,000 fewer seats than the next smallest–Oakland’s O.co Coliseum.

The bottom line? While some may see any investment in such an obsolete, poorly-located facility as throwing good money after bad, the Rays see value in making the best of it. They know that–given market conditions and best-case construction schedules–they can count on playing at the Trop for a few more years.

* How ironic that Charley Ward was among the honored guests at last week’s FSU home finale against Idaho. It was 20 years ago that FSU won its first national championship and quarterback Charley Ward won the Seminoles’ first-ever Heisman Trophy.

Now there is the disturbing diversion that is the Jameis Winston rape allegation. Quarterback Winston is a Heisman front runner, and his Seminoles are two wins away from playing for the national championship. He had another big day last Saturday in the 80-14 win over outmanned Idaho. Now an ugly cloud–and the likelihood of backlash–hangs over the football program.

On so many levels, FSU fans have never missed Charley Ward, a gifted athlete and a classy person, more than right now.

* At this point, the USF football team, 2-8, is playing purely for pride–and the avoidance of the worst record in the school’s history. One other motivator: the Bulls can play in-state spoiler this Friday by defeating UCF in Orlando. UCF, 9-1, is two wins away from its best season ever and a designated spot in a prime time, showplace BCS bowl game.

And imagine, it wasn’t that long ago that USF unilaterally declined to play upstart UCF anymore (USF won all four–2005-08–meetings) because the Knights of Conference USA were a status step down from the Bulls of the BCS-aligned Big East Conference. Now, after a couple of tumultuous conference-realigning years, they’re both in the new American Athletic Conference. UCF is now a major national player–and USF is struggling mightily. And there is no more Big East football conference. Such irony–or maybe gridiron karma.

And, by the way, the last time USF played UCF at RayJay–in 2007–the Bulls won 64-12 in front of nearly 66,000 fans. Seems like more than six years ago–in so many ways.

* There are a lot of reasons why Lightning goalie Ben Bishop needs to be on top of his game right now. The Bolts need him at his best after that tough West Coast road trip. There’s another reason: Bishop is one of six NHL goalies vying for one of three spots on the U.S. team at the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics. The decision will be made by Jan. 1.

Aaron Murray won’t win the Heisman Trophy this year. The University of Georgia quarterback from Tampa’s Plant High was in the hunt before the season, but the season has fallen shy for both Murray and Georgia. That said, Murray will still wind up as the SEC’s all-time leader in touchdown passes.

But there’s another award that Murray is still very much in the running for. The UG senior is a finalist for the William Campbell Trophy, which honors college football’s top scholar-athlete. Whether he wins it or not, it’s a reminder that at a time when “student-athlete” is too often an oxymoron, Aaron Murray–with more than 100 career TD passes–is the ideal. As difficult as it is to account for all those TDs and devote so much time to SEC football, it’s even more challenging to do it while honoring your academic commitments to the point of scholar-athlete status.

Well done, Aaron Murray: Georgia Bulldog and Plant Panther.

* Major League Baseball, of course, is the only professional sports league that doesn’t have a salary cap to help drive competitiveness and instill a sense of parity among the franchises. Bloomberg.com  just quantified the disparities. The New York Yankees, to no one’s surprise, topped the 30-team MLB with a $3.3 billion valuation. The Los Angeles Dodgers were second at $2.1 billion, and the Boston Red Sox third at $2.06 billion. The Rays were listed 30th–at $530 million.

* By the way, Tampa Bay fared very well in the recent Players Choice Awards for Outstanding Rookie. Rays outfielder Wil Myers won in the American League and Miami Marlins’ pitcher Jose Fernandez, an Alonso High grad, won in the National League.

* I watched two football games last weekend: Florida-Georgia and Florida State-Miami. A few quick observations:

First, FSU’s back, UF’s back to the Zook years, and the Nov. 30 Florida-Florida State game in Gainesville won’t be pretty. Hearing a home-team head coach get booed is always uncomfortable.

Second, I’m tired of the euphemisms for boorish player behavior. Both the UF-Georgia and the FSU-Miami games had more than their share of posturing players pushing, shoving and mouthing off. The cameras focus on it, partisan fans seem to revel in it and the commentators and print reporters dismiss it with terms such as “animated,” “chippy” and “smack talk.” Referees calling multiple, off-setting “unsportmanlike conduct” penalties on both sides amounts to enabling.

It’s clearly a matter for coaches and what they demand in on-field discipline. It’s also a matter of who they bring in and how high they want to set the behavior bar and still be able to recruit enough blue-chip players to win–and justify those outlandish coaching salaries.

Third, it’s revealing what alums and boosters are permitted on the sidelines. Among those gracing the Miami sideline: Alex Rodriguez.