Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren said, “I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.”
But this year, the sports page had plenty of both. Sad to say, bad news tends to travel faster.
So let’s start with some good news. In men’s tennis, the rivalry between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, already one of the best in tennis history, was joined by a man named Novak Djokovic, who won three major titles this year on a gluten free diet – no joke. We might be watching the sport’s greatest era. Even better, all three players are true sportsmen, resorting to none of the ranting and raving of past greats. I actually started playing tennis myself so watch out for me at the next Wimbledon! I got bored one day and decided to look up “tennis lessons DC” out of a whim to see if there were any local to me and started that Saturday!
Today, the spoiled brats are on the first tee, led by Tiger Woods, whose petulant tantrums on the course were eclipsed by his behavior off it. Now he’s trying to reassemble his knee, his swing and his life all at once. His opponents don’t like him, but they have to pull for him to return, along with their big paychecks.
The Detroit Red Wings made the playoffs for their 20th consecutive year – an incredible accomplishment of consistency in the modern era of parity and free agency. If you’re in college, you cannot recall when they were so bad we called them the “Dead Things.” General manager Ken Holland is the best in sports. Period.
The Tigers, meanwhile, stretched their playoff streak to one. Justin Verlander starts the game throwing 95-mile per hour, and ends it throwing over 100. He is the most dominant Detroit pitcher in four decades. Take your kids to see him now, so years later they can tell their grandkids.
The biggest surprise in the state has been the Lions – formerly known as the Lie Downs. They are still recovering from the reign of former president Matt Millen, who led the team to a historically awful run. Now he has a lucrative job judging the people still doing his old position better than he ever did. Which only proves my theory: the worse you were managing or coaching, the more likely you will get a job criticizing the very people who beat you every week.
The last time the Lions won a playoff game, the Red Wings were just starting their 20-year streak of playoff appearances. The Red Wings aim for Stanley Cups, every year. The Lions set their sights on mediocrity, and this year, standing at 8-5 with three games left, they just might reach it.
It looked like no one was going to make the NBA playoffs this season, because for three months there was no NBA season, thanks to the lock out. All work-stoppages in professional sports are indefensible, but the consolation in this case was that few seemed to care. The only thing more pointless than the first half of the NBA regular season is the first half of every game. We didn’t miss you.
The good news for Detroit basketball fans is that your team will soon be back on the court. The bad news is: Your team is the Detroit Pistons, whose odds of making the playoffs haven’t changed since the lock out started.
This year, the media spotlight shone brightest on college sports – and what it revealed wasn’t pretty. It started with a cynical game of musical chairs among college and their conferences. When the music ended, Boise State somehow was sitting in the Big East – making it the biggest East you’ve ever seen.
Then the scandals started. The NCAA gave Ohio State a clean bill of health after a rushed investigation so the Buckeyes could play in the Sugar Bowl. The Buckeyes won the game, but lost all respect when head coach Jim Tressel got caught lying through his sweater vest. Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio, who had worked for Tressel, described him as a “tragic hero.” This phrase originally meant a virtuous man who suffers misfortune, not some guy who got caught cheating. Perhaps Dantonio knows something Aeschylus didn’t.
But the biggest scandal in college sports – scratch that, the saddest in the history of all sports – is the travesty still unfolding at Penn State. A former assistant coach is accused – and pardon me, but euphemism will not do here — of raping young boys. It is already horrifying, and it will surely get worse before it’s over. For the victims, it never will be.
These cases reveal an underlying problem: Once a college coach becomes an icon, no one has the power – or the guts – to point out the emperor has no clothes. Until college presidents realize they have more power than college coaches – or reporters remember they answer to the readers, not the legends – we will remain at the coaches’ mercy. Heaven help us.
The long-term effects of football injuries are finally getting the attention they deserve, but it’s too late for too many. Of the first 25 notable sports deaths in 2011, seven were football players, and only one lived to be 70. Something is very wrong here.
In Michigan, at least, the year brought good news: Michigan State’s football team won the first Legends Division title, and in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines are winning again. Brady Hoke beat the Buckeyes in his first season, riding a resurgent defense. Sometimes, good things happen to good people, and this senior class has a bunch of them.
Sparky Anderson, the first manager to lead teams in both leagues to World Series titles, died this year at 76. Two years ago, I asked him what’s the best advice he could give a coach. He pointed two of his gnarled fingers at his leathery face, cracked his famous grin, and said, “Trust your eyes, son. Trust your eyes.”
Maybe he wasn’t talking about sports, after all.
* * * * *
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“Three and Out: Rich Rodriguez and the Michigan Wolverines in the Crucible of College Football” can be ordered now.
Need a book signed? Want to hear the speech? Here are your last chances in 2011.
Saturday, December 17, 2-4 p.m. Ann Arbor: Nicola’s Books
Appearing with BRIAN COOK OF MGOBLOG, to answer questions from 2-3 p.m.
Sunday, December 18, 1-3 p.m., Brighton: Barnes & Noble
Book talk and signing.
Tuesday, December 20, 6-8 p.m., Indianapolis
Book speech and signing
Columbia Club in downtown Indianapolis
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Thursday, December 22, 7-9, Ann Arbor Barnes & Noble
Book talk and signing – the LAST ONE FOR 2011!
NOTE: If you need a book signed but can’t make it, simply call Nicola’s at 734-662-0200, place your order, let them know how you want your book signed, and I’ll sign them all that day. You can pick up later.
THANKS TO ALL FOR A GREAT BOOK TOUR — 33 STOPS COAST TO COAST, NORTH TO SOUTH!
Great summary-thanks john!
Of the many sports items out there, the recent departure of the Pittsburgh head football coach to Arizona State also sticks out-both the hypocrisy of coaches willing to jump after a single year and also the contrast with players, who for some reason don’t have the simple right to change schools and maintain eligibility, regardless of reason.
Mark,
Thanks — and I couldn’t agree more. Of all the various hypocrisies the NCAA currently promotes, few are as galling as its insistence that scholarships are one-year contracts, that can be renewed only at the school’s pleasure, while coaches can bolt for a better deal whenever they like — and when they do, the players are not allowed to follow them without sitting out a season.
If that doesn’t defy all logic, any sense of fairness and ethics, I don’t know what does.
And hey, you lived it. I’ll defer to your expertise on this one!
-JUB
p.s. To all readers: If it’s not profane, and you sign your name, it’s all fair game! I’ve gotten a couple recently that didn’t sign their names, and when I tried to email them to ask if they’d be willing to (and I’d run their letters), of course, the email addresses don’t work. But if you sign it, I run it — that simple.
makes me wonder what Michigan tranferees Cullen Christian and Ray Vinopal must be thinking now that the head coach is gone along with all of RichRods assistants
JUB
Excellent article not only on sports but our whole dissolving culture.
You must have had a reason for not commenting on Penn State and Syracuse.
I am getting “three And Out for Christmas, can’t wait!
Look forward to seeing you again next fall at Tim M’s tailgate on Main Street.
Thank you, Mr. Moss.
I actually did address the Penn State scandal in the piece, but you’re right that I did not address Syracuse. Sad to say, I found them sufficiently similar to let my response to Penn State cover my disgust with Syracuse.
Thanks for reading, and writing!
-John
John, as an MSU fan I’m a little surprised you felt a need to take a swipe at Mark Dantonio… and more surprised that you got your Aeschylus so badly wrong. Even a high school kid could tell you that the basis of Greek tragedy is a virtuous man undone by his own personal flaws. Perhaps your animus toward Ohio State doesn’t permit you to see such complexity in Tressel’s case, but I doubt you’d fault a U-M coach for showing loyalty to an old mentor.
Dear Mr. Conley,
For what it’s worth, I don’t consider my comments a swipe at Dantonio, but rather a rejection of his claim that somehow Jim Tressel is a tragic hero. If anyone had said something similar about disgraced Michigan coaches Bill Frieder or Bud Middaugh, I would have the same response — and they weren’t caught lying repeatedly to the NCAA investigators, nor conducting fixed lotteries for their star recruits at their summer camps.
I have no animus toward Ohio State or Michigan State. You can see my writings on Woody Hayes and Tom Izzo extolling their exceptional work (and Izzo without Hayes’s irresponsible ending).
As for the definition of a tragic hero, even a high school kid with access to Wikipedia can tell you, “Aristotle also establishes that the hero has to be “virtuous,” that is to say he has to be ‘a morally blameless man.” (article 82). Which seems to jibe with your definition. Where we seem to part ways, however, is my belief that Tressel doesn’t meet that standard.
So, we might not agree, but thanks for writing.
-John
John
You mention the growth of the dead things into the Red Wings. I remember that the loudest cheeer in the Joe’s first years was Gordie Howe’s ovation at the All Star game in 1980. Just as amazing what the Illitch family and Ken Hollland have done, Red has done for Michigan hockey. Consitently he has a high graduation rate and 2011 saw yet another jaunt to the NCAA’s for a record
and still counting 21st year capped off with another Frozen Four. He has done it the right way.
Dear AJ,
You’re dead on, of course.
If you are a hockey fan in the state of Michigan, you are leaving in the Golden Era: since the mid-eighties, two NCAA titles for MSU, two for UM, and four Stanley Cups for the Red Wings. Enjoy it!
-JUB
Hi John,
Great article! However, correct me if I am wrong, but the credit for your opening quote belongs to one of your brethren, H.L. Mencken, not Chief Justice Warren. After auditing your “History of College Athletics” course, I have become a stickler on historical facts. Thanx, John.
Dear Dr. Kornblue,
Thanks for your typically kind words!
When I punch in the quote, however, it’s the Chief Justice who seems to pop up every time. Entirely possible he lifted the line from Mr. Mencken, one of my favorites, but that’s how it seems to be listed now.
And always good to be a stickler!
-John
JUB:
Just Curious …. is that you on the cover of the book?
To the right of Denard’s knee pad, in the distance along the sideline, there’s a Michigan player #20 (perhaps Roy Vinopol?) and kneeling in front of him, as if furiously scribbling down notes … could that be our intrepid author?
BG
Loved the book. Write
Dear Mr. Goulder,
In fact, it is — the very small and fuzzy person in the lower right corner.
Sad to say, we didn’t even know it until the cover had already been posted on line this spring, and a sharper reader than I asked another if it was me. I can assure you, however, that’s now why we picked that great photo!
You can thank former Michigan Daily photographer Sam Wolson for that wonderful shot.
-John
mark donohue nails it…todd graham actually assailed coaches who leave after one year, just before he did the same. players? SOL…
Dear Pat,
Could not agree more!
The hypocrisy is almost too obvious to point out.
Almost.
-John