Opinions to go Online

           When Plant High School recently won its second state 4-A championship in three years, it was a victory for more than football excellence. It was a triumph for everyone who still believes that nice guys can finish first. That “winning” moves on multiple levels.

            Before the 2008 season I sat down with Plant head coach Robert Weiner and talked football – and English literature. He teaches both at Plant. In fact, he’d sooner quote Rudyard Kipling than Knute Rockne. And if Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” comes up, he’ll likely break it down like an Armwood game film.   

            Players who have taken his classes have spread the word that he means business outside as well as inside the white lines. Plant football players have to check in with Weiner (who arrives at 5:30 a.m.) each morning before school starts. Result: the team’s grade point average was a county-best 3.28 last year. It was 2.48 when he arrived in 2004.)

            In 2003 the Panthers won all of one game. This year they were ranked 8^th in the NATION by USA Today.

            Weiner, 44, will be the first to tell you he has talent and the luxury of working with a staff of 21 on-field coaches – including volunteers, some with professional experience – and two academic coaches. He also enjoys a rabid, small-townesque following that is the closely-knit South Tampa community.

            What others will tell you is that he had to build the sort of program that would be in position to be a catalyst for such scenarios. He turned the Weinermobile into a band wagon. He did it initially by roaming the corridors to find “meaningful” players – those with character as well as ability. And he did it by establishing a mantra that never deviated from organization, preparation, discipline and camaraderie.

And since the Panthers have gone from Friday Night Lightweights to state and national powerhouse, they now get their share of quality transfers. It’s not “recruiting,” Weiner underscores. It’s more like magnetism. As a result, good begets better.

But for all the winning and all the blue-chip players that are coming through his program, Weiner is even prouder of other accomplishments. He teaches that helping the less fortunate is more than a nice gesture. It’s a social imperative.

            Each summer he works as a counselor at a Muscular Dystrophy camp. And he brings several dozen Plant players with him.

            Each Saturday morning during football season, his players report to Dad’s Stadium for “Panther Pride Challenger Football.” Those who may have shone brightest the night before now help disabled kids – some in wheel chairs – to feel special in their own “adaptive” games. There’s an announcer; the kids wear sponsor jerseys; and the fog machine is cranked.

            “I want our players to know what a privilege it is to run through those goal posts in front of thousands of people,” says Weiner. “There are less fortunate kids who would give anything to be able to do that – or, in some cases, to do just one push-up.”

            Keeping everything in perspective yields a definition of “success” that, to Weiner, transcends any game – no matter the stakes, no matter how well played.

            “The years will tell more than the short term, because football is a vehicle to teach kids how to be real men in the real world,” says Weiner. “To be outstanding fathers and contributing members of the community.”

Inevitably the term “father figure” is affixed to coaches such as Weiner. The bond with impressionable youth is unique and often life-lasting. He prefers “brother figure.”

            “I’m not there to replace a father,” explains Weiner. “But a coach has a unique perspective. We see them at their best and their worst. I’ve been to funerals and weddings; to jail houses and hospitals. Whichever it is, we’re there.”

            And it was reciprocated last January. While Weiner was in California for a coaches’ convention, a number of players and parents gave his South Tampa house a customized Extreme Home Makeover: paint, sod, a power-washed driveway and some designer touches for favorite photos. 

            “It was an outpouring of love,” recalls Weiner. “It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

            It was well-earned Panther payback, says Gayle Sierens, the parent of two sons who have played for Weiner – one of whom was in on the Makeover.

             “The boys always know where they stand,” points out the Channel 8 co-anchor and former sportscaster. “They may be the star, or they may be low man on the depth chart, but they know Coach is there for them no matter their stature on the team. When you get that many kids buying into a program…knowing that they matter no matter what, it breeds success. The boys love and respect him.

            “Now that my boys are away at college, they realize they will never pass this way again,” reflects Sierens. “The closeness and unity that was created at Plant will never be recreated in their life again. They realize they were part of something very, very special.”

Indeed, “Teams are more than the sum of their parts,” says Weiner, who preaches the importance of players caring about each other as a byproduct of team play.

            Or as Kipling once noted: “For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

            And, yes, Plant expects to be very good again next year.

 It’s always fashionable – and understandably so – to criticize the leviathan salaries being handed out in professional sports. Especially baseball. Especially by the New York Yankees. Especially this off-season.

            And not just because we’re fans of the budget-challenged Rays.

            Item: the most recent Yankee signees include pitcher C.C. Sabathia, who will average $23 million a year over seven years, and first baseman Mark Teixeira, who will average $22.5 million over eight years.

            But for the first time in memory, such obscene amounts and the distorted market and societal priorities they represent – especially amid a recession – don’t seem as blatantly skewed as they once did.

            Item: John Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, made $83 million last year. Lloyd Blankfein, president and CEO of Goldman Sachs, took home $54 million last year.

            That actually puts the marketplace — and even a generic sense of fairness — into appropriate context. Both Sabathia and Teixeira had great years.

             As improbable as last season’s World Series run was for the Tampa Bay Rays, a repeat is starting to look even more so.

            The Rays were very good in 2008. They were not flukes and deserved to finish in front of the Red Sox and Yankees. But in a league without a salary cap, it remains daunting for less-than-flush franchises such as the Rays to consistently prevail against those with more financial wherewithal. Much more.

            The Rays’ payroll is less than $50 million. Within the last month, the Yankees spent $423 million on three players, first baseman Mark Teixeira and pitchers C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. Lest we forget, they already have the two highest-paid players in the game, Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. And they reportedly are not yet finished gearing up for 2009.  Even the deep-pocketed Red Sox are worried.

            Ironically, the Rays may be even better in ‘09. And it may not be enough.

            That’s why it was so important that the Rays maxed out with last year’s historic, worst-to-first run to the Series. The window of opportunity can close faster in the American League East than any other division in Major League Baseball.                    

Tampa’s Super Bowl XLIII will draw a domestic television viewership of nearly 150 million. Worldwide, it’s about a billion.

            All eyes, including those of 4,000 media, will focus on the glitz, the glamour and the gladiators of America’s secular holiday. And yet, so much of the success of any Super Bowl — and its orbit of chichi events — depends on the unsung labors of anonymous volunteers.

            Tampa has 6,000 of them – officially garbed in red windbreakers, khaki pants and baseball caps – whose job is to aid the logistically challenged and alleviate visitor anxieties. They will be concentrated at Tampa International Airport, hotel lobbies and the Convention Center media hub. The largest contingent, nearly 1,000, will work the interactive NFL Experience outside Raymond James Stadium. (But, no, none will be INSIDE the stadium.)

            And they’re all the responsibility of community-service avatar Dottie Berger MacKinnon, a former Hillsborough County commissioner, founder of Joshua House and chairwoman of Kids Charity of Tampa Bay. The tireless, 66-year-old cancer survivor chairs volunteer services for the 2009 Tampa Bay Super Bowl Host Committee. Her job ranges from recruiting and training to coordinating with Pinellas County and Orlando. She has two paid staffers.

            “Anything goes wrong,” underscores Berger, “the buck stops here. If a reporter has a bad experience and writes about it, that’s on me. I take that personally.”

            So does Jennifer St. John, 35, one of those staffers.

            “Dottie is an inspiration,” she says. “She’s also the most efficient person I’ve ever worked with. And she’s incredibly well connected. She’s opened a lot of doors.”

            It’s all for a cause Berger believes passionately in.

            “This is a chance for Tampa to shine and the Tampa Bay region to be showcased,” she explains. “The economic impact is huge. Our visitors will be well educated about who and what we are. Our volunteers are the face of Tampa, and they will make a lasting impression.”