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Fun & Games for Wednesday, June 11, 2008 |
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June 10, 2008 |
≡ Fun & Games ≡
 Viagra to be banned? This has gone too far! |
= To Our Readers =
You can now find us in two different places on the Web: in addition to The Sports Examiner, we now write three times a week on Olympic sports for the World Championship Sports Network site, WCSN.com in a column called “Inside the Rings.”
Here at The Sports Examiner, we have changed our format to include a weekly intelligence briefing, with commentary, for the astute sports fan called “7 Days” on Mondays and a bonus posting called “Fun & Games” during the week. Thanks again for your continued support; please ask your friends to sign up for the Tip Sheet and the free newsletter.
= The Top Story =
>> Los Angeles, Ca.: A great piece of writing by Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, with the details of how Kobe Bryant went from high school flash to being a member of the Lakers. In a lengthy column yesterday, Ostler got the story from then-Lakers general manager Jerry West.
After seeing Bryant in an individual work-out offered by Bryant’s agent Arn Tellem at the Inglewood YMCA, West had Bryant work out again, but this time with recently-retired Lakers defensive great Michael Cooper guarding him.
Cooper, possessor of immense pride and every trick in the book, went one-on-one with Bryant, who demolished Cooper.
“Oh, my gosh,” West recalls thinking. “This kid’s got to be the best player in the draft. How can we get this guy?”
After watching Bryant and Cooper go at it for about 10 minutes, West stood up, nodded at two team public-relations men he’s brought with him, and snapped, “That’s it. Let’s get out of here, I’ve seen enough. He’s better than anyone on our team.”
West, on his way out the door, said to Cooper, “I thought you were supposed to guard him.”
The Lakers quickly made a deal to send their center, Vlade Divac, to Charlotte in return for the rights to the 13th pick in the 1996 draft. The top 10 picks included Allen Iverson, Marcus Camby, Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen and Antoine Walker, among others, but Bryant was there at no. 13, picked just behind Todd Fuller (by Golden State) and Vitaly Potapenko (Cavaliers).
The Lakers weren’t the only ones to get a steal in that draft. Phoenix had the no. 15 selection and picked a guard from Santa Clara named Steve Nash.
= The National Pastime =
>> New York, N.Y.: Say it ain’t so. The newest allegation against Roger Clemens and other athletes is using Viagra to build endurance!
The New York Daily News reported that “The drug is so widely used for off-label purposes that it has drawn the attention of anti-doping officials and law-enforcement agencies in the United Staes and beyond.”
The story said that off-label uses for Viagra include building endurance, especially for high-altitude training; delivery of oxygen, nutrients and performance-enhancing drugs to muscles more efficiently and to counteract impotence which can be a side-effect of taking anabolic steroids.
It was also noted that professional cyclists Andrea Moletta was suspended during the Giro d’Italia stage race after “police searched his father’s car and found 82 Viagra pills and a syringe.”
= The NBA =
>> Boston, Ma.: What to know what’s really happening in the Lakers-Celtics series? Here are highlights from the absolute best low-down you will find, Curt Schilling’s must-read blog, 38 pitches.com:
“One thing I did learn was that in addition to not having one ounce of athletic ability, being white, and having no vertical, and only being able to dribble right handed, I couldn’t play in the NBA because about 43 times last night I heard things being said that would have made me swing at someone. These guys talk MAJOR trash on the floor, and the great part is that most of the times I’ve seen it the guy on the receiving end usually doesn’t respond much, if at all, and just plays the game, schooling the guy who feels like he needs to talk to make his game better.”
“Every SINGLE play up and down the floor has MULTIPLE fouls being committed by multiple players. These guys are in close, every play. They are beating the crap out of each other, and the refs see it. That makes me think that the game is called and paced exactly how the refs want it to be. I wondered aloud, a few times, how in the hell calls weren’t being made against the Celts on a ton of plays in the paint where there was some serious pugilism being committed. There were a ton of ‘non-calls’ in my incredibly amateur opinion.”
“Phil Jackson knew it. Early in the game, [Jordan] Farmar comes to the bench during Celts free throws and asks about the next series, Jackson says ‘One thing I do know is we’ve got to stop !@#$&@#%$#&*()@ fouling these guys.’ Farmar asks what he says and he repeats the line.”
“I don’t know much about the NBA beyond some of the star players and the famous teams. I heard that the Lakers got [Pau] Gasol in a horrible steal of a deal and that the league should have investigated the trade for some sort of punishable crime. I saw a 7 footer last night who grabbed like 4 rebounds and spent the entire game whining about getting fouled.”
“Kobe. This one stunned me a little bit. Who doesn’t know Kobe Bryant right? I only know what I have heard, starting awhile back with the entire Shaq debacle. I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other on or about him other than to know that people feel he might be one of the 4-5 greatest players to ever lace it up. What I do know is what I got to see up close and hear, was unexpected. From the first tip until about 4 minutes left in the game I saw and heard this guy bitch at his teammates. Every [time out] he came to the bench pissed, and a few of them he went to other guys and yelled about something they weren’t doing, or something they did wrong. No dialog about ‘hey let’s go, let’s get after it’ or whatever. He spent the better part of 3.5 quarters pissed off and ranting at the non-execution or lack of, of his team. Then when they made what almost was a historic run in the 4th, during a [time out], he got down on the floor and basically said ‘Let’s f’ing go, right now, right here” or something to that affect. I am not making this observation in a good or bad way, I have no idea how the guys in the NBA play or do things like this, but I thought it was a fascinating bit of insight for me to watch someone in another sport who is in the position of a team leader and how he interacted with his team and teammates. Watching the other 11 guys, every time out it was high fives and “Hey nice work, let’s get after it” or something to that affect. He walked off the floor, obligatory skin contact on the high five, and sat on the bench stone faced or pissed off, the whole game. Just weird to see another sport and how it all works. I would assume that’s his style and how he plays and what works for him because when I saw the leader board for scoring in the post season his name sat up top at 31+ a game, can’t argue with that. But as a fan I was watching the whole thing, Kobe, his teammates and then the after effects of conversations. He’d yell at someone, make a point, or send a message, turn and walk away, and more than once the person on the other end would roll eyes or give a ‘whatever dude’ look.”
More than pretty good for a fan. Now if he can pitch as well this season as he can write . . .
= College Football =
>> Walnut Creek, Ca.: The Pac-10 announced that Commissioner Tom Hansen will retire on June 30, 2009 after 26 years as the conference chief and 33 years with the league in total. That is by far the longest tenure of any conference commissioner among NCAA Division I-A – now called the Football Bowl Subdivision – leagues.
It gives the conference a year to find the right replacement. While Hansen has been in charge, Pac-10 schools have won as astonishing 204 national team titles, far more than any other league. But he has had his critics.
Arizona basketball coach Lute Olson screamed that the conference didn’t get enough publicity among national basketball officials, writers and fans because conference game times were too late for those in the Eastern and Central time zones. Others pointed out that the conference was “buried” by being shown on Fox’s regional sports networks, but not on ESPN. But Hansen patiently completed a high-profile challenge series with the Big12 that is shown on ESPN and has raised respect for the Pac-10.
The toughest criticism of the conference office has been the league’s lamentable football bowl tie-ins. Although the Pac-10 has seven affiliations, only one is for a New Year’s Day game, at the Rose Bowl. The conference’s second-place team plays in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego and the third-place finisher get to go to El Paso and the Sun Bowl. In contract, the Big Ten – the Pac-10's partner in the Rose Bowl – has a second New Year’s Day slot in the Capital One Bowl and a third slot in the Outback Bowl. The SEC is in the Sugar Bowl, Capital One Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Outback Bowl. The Big 12 is in the Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl and potentially the Gator Bowl.
That’s going to have to be fixed and will be perhaps the top item on the agenda of the next Pac-10 Commissioner. If it’s not solved, he or she will not last for 26 years.
>> Los Angeles, Ca.: UCLA holds an annual fund-raiser called the True Blue Celebration. This year’s event was on June 7 and one of the auction items was a trip on the team plane and a stay at the team hotel for the game at Washington on November 15. According to a post from a guest at the event on Bruinzone.com, the bidding was slow until new football coach Rick Neuheisel said the winner would be able to be on the Bruin sidelines during the game, noting “If you know my history at UW, I need somebody next to me in case they want to throw debris.” The bidding shot up right away and ended at $10,000 . . . helmet not included.
Rick Kimbrel, the West Coast recruiting editor for Rivals.com told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Neuheisel is making an impact. “He’s made (USC) flinch in my opinion. Rick is what Rick is – a charismatic guy, disarms you with his self-deprecating sense of humor and he’s sharp. You’ve got to be aware of him. He’s like Wile E. Coyote. UCLA is the flavor of the month right now because of him.”
Bruin fans, always looking to the dark side, however, remember that Wile E. Coyote is 0-for-life against his arch-rival Roadrunner. After winning eight in a row from 1991-1998, UCLA is 1-8 against USC in its last nine.
= The Five-Ring Circus =
>> Beijing, China: Now things are getting serious.
A reportedly acrimonious meeting between the Beijing organizing committee and the rights-holding television broadcasters was held in Beijing on May 29. The Associated Press obtained minutes of the meeting, in which a series of broadcaster requests was met with a request from BOCOG media operations chief Sun Weijia for a written list of concerns.
According to the AP, Olympic Host Broadcasting head Manolo Romero, asked “How many times do we have to do that?” In addition, Olympic Games coordinator Gilbert Felli was reported to say to the organizing committee that it was imposing “a number of conditions or requirements that are just not workable.”
It’s unusual for someone of Felli’s level to attend such meetings this far out from the Games, signaling that the IOC has a lot of interest in these issues. Its largest source of revenue by far is television broadcast rights and disagreeable broadcasters during a Games will lead to less money in future negotiations.
Stephen Wade’s story noted that “With time running out before the games open on Aug. 8, the minutes hint that procedures broadcasters have used in other Olympics are conflicting with China’s authoritarian government. Some plans are months behind schedule, which could force broadcasters to compromise coverage plans.” Wade noted that the issues included not just limits on televising scene of Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City, but also potentially serious problems of delays in clearing shipments of television equipment, not to mention accreditation issues and visas.
An ominous tone came from an interview with John Barton of the Asian-Pacific Broadcasting Union, a consortium of 57 mostly small countries:
“The Chinese are very concerned about something going wrong, and so they are in Olympic gridlock.
“This is the greatest moment in their sporting history. They’ve built a stage on which they want to perform, but they are rather queasy about how it should be shown.
They are suffocating the television coverage in the crazy pursuit of security, They can’t secure the event. Nothing can be totally secure, yet they are trying to do that.”
Wade wrote that “China’s communist government seems to be backtracking on some promises to let reporters work as they have in previous Olympics” and added that despite laws enacted to provide freer access for journalists throughout China, “Reporters still complain of harassment, particularly away from Beijing where provincial authorities seem unaware of the new rules.”
Comment: The real question here is not whether the import issues or visas will get worked out; for the most part, they will. The issue at hand – now – is how China’s monumental effort to stage the 2008 Games will be seen in the West. Here’s how Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC Sports feels:
For us to potentially not be able to do live reports from Tiananmen – the most iconic place in China – is a disgrace.
“I’ve been told that to do business in China, you have to have patience. We don’t have time to have patience. The games have begun for us already.”
The Chinese government now faces a dilemma of its own making: it is losing not just control, but the goodwill of the people who will broadcast the Games to billions around the world and, in large part, shape the opinion of viewers and readers as to how well the Chinese did. It has some time to recover, but not much. The Olympic Village opens for occupancy in 6 1/2 weeks on July 27: that’s when the Games really start for China and its organizers and that’s how long they have to solve their problems.
~ Rich Perelman
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