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December 2008
Whisenhunt made name for himself at Tech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s a story I have told before, and don’t mind telling and re-telling again, and it couldn’t be more timely than right now. It dates back to a day when football at Georgia Tech was in a sad funk. One coach followed another until Homer Rice, the athletics director, reached into the NFL and brought Bill Curry back to campus from Green Bay. And Curry sashayed to Augusta to look at a high school senior named Ken Whisenhunt.
Curry found he had little competition. Whisenhunt had wrecked a knee early in the season and other recruiters had lost interest. In fact, Curry didn’t even have to invest a scholarship in him. Whisenhunt was looking for an education, a degree in engineering, and walked on.
“When he came in for a visit in the spring I took him out to watch practice,” Curry recalls. “After it was over, I asked him what he thought.
He said, ‘I can help you,’ and not in any kind of cocky way.”
Whisenhunt got into two games as a freshman, both at quarterback, and it was on a Saturday in November that he delivered on his promise. It was the same day of that historic game between Georgia and Florida and all eyes were on Jacksonville, the day of the Buck Belue-to-Lindsay Scott pass. Notre Dame was playing Tech at Grant Field, a serious mismatch, and I had stayed home to cover it. Tech had won only one game. Notre Dame was No. 1 in the nation.
By the second quarter, Tech was out of experienced quarterbacks, and on came Whisenhunt. The freshman. The kid. He completed three passes for 29 yards, one for 23 yards that set up a field goal and a 3-0 lead that lasted until the last four minutes. In desperation, the Irish kicked a field goal that tied the score, and thus the game ended, 3-3, one of the astounding upsets in Tech history.
Whisenhunt was never a quarterback again. He was hastily given a scholarship, became a tight end, played well enough to be drafted by the Falcons (12th and last round) and finished his playing career in Washington, with 56 catches and five touchdowns.
He had, as it turned out, pretty well achieved his ambition, and then some. As a freshman he had been asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer: A doctor or a pro football player. I don’t know what happened to engineering, unless you might say that’s what he is involved in now in Arizona.
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Humble Smith a perfect fit with Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To this day, I have not yet met Mike Smith. Not that I’m fearful of him, or that I haven’t had the urge. Surely, he has been one of the most fascinating topics to hit this town in a long time. I don’t mean “fascinating” like Bill Parcells or Pacman Jones. He came with no glitter or fuss. It was like opening a package under the Christmas tree — and surprise!
First, there was the name. How many Mike Smiths do you suppose there are in the United States? More than John Joneses, I’ll bet. Then there was his white thatch, like a snow-capped peak that made him look 10 years older than his 48 years. That is, until he gets agitated by some referee’s flawed decision.
For all the seasons he has operated in the NFL, he has moved about under the radar, as they say. He has been a coach since he was 18 and a senior at Father Lopez High School in Daytona Beach. When he broke a leg and was through for the season, he talked his way onto the staff, working with linebackers.
A natural turn for the son of a coach and a high school teacher. Somehow, he wound up at East Tennessee State as a linebacker, where he still holds the record for tackles in a season. It isn’t likely to be broken: East Tennessee since has dropped football.
His route to pro football was not down the interstate. Instead, his career led him through San Diego State, Morehead State and Tennessee Tech, where his career appeared hung up on a 12-year snag. An assistant he had met at San Diego later became head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, and when Brian Billick hired him in 1999, his ticket to the NFL was punched. That’s the way things work out in this game, though not always does that talent remain hidden under a bushel.
Another Ravens assistant was Jack Del Rio, and now the pieces began to fall into place. When Del Rio left for Carolina, Smith moved up, and when Del Rio got the head job at Jacksonville, he put in a call for Mike. All the while, Thomas Dimitroff had kept his eye on Mike, and by now, you know the rest of the story. However, you can hardly imagine the shock when Dimitroff announced that Smith would be the Falcons’ next head coach.
Mike who? As in “Vince who?” (at Georgia) 40 years ago. Then we all folded our hands across our tummies, sat back and waited. See what this Mike Smith had that Mora and Petrino, two guys with names, hadn’t had.
Well, for one thing, we found out that he wasn’t too impressed with himself. His press conferences aren’t Mike Smith shows. They’re exchanges. He has leaned rather heavily on one phrase: “It’s part of the process,” he’ll say. Sort of a trademark. There’s something to be said about his sideline demeanor. It’s his game. That’s easy to see. And when one of the “zebras” crosses his line, look out.
There was the game in which he was out of timeouts and had a legitimate challenge in mind, red kerchief in hand, San Diego on the Falcons’ goal line. He was between a rock and a hard place. The Chargers were going to score anyway, so he pocketed the kerchief, and in the end, the Falcons were the victors.
Without glitz and glitter, Mike Smith has won over our town. He didn’t come here to do commercials, peddle automobiles or men’s apparel. He came here to win football games, and in the process, has won our hearts.
And, were I to be allowed the privilege of casting a vote in the contest for Atlanta Sportsman of the Year, let me say here and now that Mike Smith would be my choice. Hands down. Both he and Paul Johnson (at Georgia Tech) came to town to restore marred images, but the Falcons were in far more serious need of surgery.
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Love working to get back in the swing of things
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
St. Simons Island — They played the Masters without him, “A tough pill to swallow.”
He missed all the major championships. At the end of the year his name was on a list of candidates for a title he hopes never to be a contender for again — “Comeback of the Year.”
The regular season ended with the Tour Championship and while the other winners and champions packed up for home and an off-season of leisure, Davis Love III packed his clubs and hit the PGA Tour trail known as the Fall Series, tournaments with such oddball names as Fry’s and Ginn sur Mer.
Even that didn’t get off too well. He missed the cut in the Texas Open, but he never missed another. He stayed with it, and when asked why he was playing this “bush league” tour, he answered cheerfully, “The money is out here, and I’m going to get all I can. I need to move up in the rankings.” And he did.
And in the process, he vaulted from l33 to 48 on the earning list and improved his stroke average to 70.30. And not only that, he kept moving up week after week until the Children’s Miracle Classic at Disneyworld. There he won, for the 20th time on his PGA Tour career, in position for a place in the sun again.
The 2007 season had been a virtual wipeout. He stepped in a hole playing on an island course back home and had to have surgery to repair torn tendons. So playing the Fall Series made sense.
“The only way to see how you’re playing is to get out there and play,” he said. So he played, sometimes when the golfers outnumbered the gallery.
“I needed to get back on my game,” he said. “Getting back to the Masters is important to me.”
In the meantime, the PGA Tour has come to grips with problems that have beset the economic world, and that’s high on the list of its concerns. Auto-makers, financial firms and resorts have been vital to the health and prosperity of tournament golf. Check those names: Buick, Mercedes-Benz, FBR, Northern Trust, Wachovia, not to mention those constant sponsors of telecasts, the Masters especially. Love has served on the Players Policy Board over the years and keeps the line open to Commissioner Tim Finchem.
“Tim has positioned us very well,” he said. “We have a big reserve, for he has always been strong on that. It’s there. We’re not going to go dark for weeks, but we’re going to have to tighten our belt,” Love said. “The Atlanta situation was a sign of what’s ahead. It’s going to be hard to find new sponsors, so we have to keep the old ones happy.”
In case you weren’t keeping track, the Sugarloaf Club lost its AT&T connection to Tiger Woods’ Washington tournament, and no new sponsor stepped forward. Nor did either the Champions or Nationwide event find the route to Gwinnett County.
Then there’s the FedEx, a constantly vexing creation modeled after NASCAR’s original FedEx Series. After two seasons, this thing has become an intrusion on the happiness of the Tour. Worst of all, if a player doesn’t hold his place on the eligible list, he has nowhere to play for nearly a month and a half.
“And if somebody wins two of the playoffs, it’s out of control. I’m upset at the term ‘playoff.’ It’s not playoff, it’s golf,” Love said.
Then there’s the design business, which he and his brother Mark have been into for some time, and quite successfully until lately.
“It’s not just slowing down,” Love said, “it has hit bottom. Can’t get any worse, and we’ve got all this machinery sitting idle.”
So the grand old game of “goff” is looking into a grim season ahead. The Tour apparently is locked in for the year ahead, but there are no guarantees, with auto-makers sitting before Congress begging for a handout, and Buick bailing out on Tiger Woods. Wonder if they’ve thought of knocking on Finchem’s door and making a hit for some of that reserve. Just kiddin’, Tim.
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Flaws and honor in Hall of Fame voting
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Las Vegas — It must have been easier to escape old Alcatraz than it is to get into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Its gates are zealously — and jealously guarded.
This is the fellowship that Joe DiMaggio couldn’t make in the first round. Or the second. Or the third. Nine members of the Baseball Writers of America, the voting constituency, passed over Henry Aaron.
Look, it’s not the Supreme Court. It’s about baseball, the national pastime. A sport.
Guys who hit supremely well, and pitch, and field baseballs hit at them. It has nothing to do with saving lives, or winning wars. Though I must say that team budgets are beginning to near the size of a third-world economy.
But in Las Vegas this week, we were not there to find fault and correct flaws. It was a sort of extra-inning electorate, to open the sacred hall of Cooperstown to some worthies who otherwise had not been admitted. There were two clusters of players to be considered, Post-WWII and Pre-WWII, 1943 being the line of division.
All 64 living members of the Hall had dealt with the post-war candidates. Our group, seven members of the Hall and five labeled as historians, some members of the press and keepers of records, had two lively sessions before voting on the players who broke into the major leagues before WWII.
The Hall of Fame voters were Phil Niekro, Bobby Doerr, Duke Snider, Robin Roberts, Dick Williams, Don Sutton and Ralph Kiner. The 10 candidates we considered were Wes Ferrell, Mickey Vernon, Allie Reynolds, Joe Gordon. Carl Mays, Sherry Magee, Vern Stephens, Bucky Walters, and two from the dark ages of the l800s, Bill Dahlen, an infielder and later manager, and Deacon White, a catcher.
Vernon passed away just this year, otherwise all other candidates have been long gone. So the scene was set and the floor was open for opinion, of which there no shortage.
The main purpose of this belated vote has never been stated, but it would appear that the Hall of Fame organizers felt there were so many candidates who had come close, and “fallen through the cracks,” as it was put, that it was time to give them one more chance. This had never been done before, and it was apparent there was hope that a whole new class might be inducted.
Ron Santo, Jim Kaat, Gil Hodges and Maury Wills had come close over the years, but in the end, not one member of the group considered by the 64 living members made it, and that included Joe Torre, who was considered as a player.
This had to be disappointing to Jane Forbes Clark, chairman of the Hall, and Jeff Idelson, the president. It was interesting to be among, and to hear player-members of the Hall of Fame talk about the candidates, most of whom few had known.
Say this, there was little said that was not upgrading, though some of our group had never seen some of the candidates play.
Only one candidate made it, Joe Gordon, second baseman for the Yankees and Indians, a stellar fielder who hit with power, played on six World Series teams, most valuable player one season and a nine-time All-Star. He also figured in the only kind trade known to man, manager for manager in 1960, swapped to Detroit for Jimmy Dykes.
We delegates were allowed to vote for four, and mine went to Ferrell, Vernon, Walters and in the end, Gordon. Something Bobby Doerr had said, a Hall of Fame second baseman himself, swayed me. “There were times I used to wish I was as good as he was,” he said, an honorable admission that I took seriously, and admired him for it.
In retrospect, inspiring experience that it was, I regret that the Hall of Fame wasn’t further endowed with more than one new member able to share this “greatest honor in the game.”
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Braves failing to keep farm stocked
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There comes a time in the life of any guy who owns a word processor that he is seized by this urge to take over the management of somebody’s baseball team. In this case: The Braves. While most everybody else is looking in the direction of some football conflict, perhaps I can reply to the seizure without hurting somebody’s feelings. In this case: Frank Wren’s.
Once upon a time the Braves usually dealt from within when talent was in need. To begin with, they didn’t have a lot of loose cash rolling around, so they had to deal parsimoniously. That meant having a lot of “bird dogs”- free agent scouts who got paid only when they produced.
Today, the Braves have 31 fulltime scouts, not counting all those “special assistants to” somebody, and 17 part-timers around the world. No rock shall go unturned, which accounts for all these guys from Australia to the Caribbean in the system.
When the Braves set off on their seasons of exceptional prosperity in the early 90’s, they did it, mainly, with farm-grown produce. The prospects their scouts turned up were planted on the farm, carefully cultivated and eventually the hotshots turned up in Atlanta.
And the Braves turned up in the playoffs, even won a World Series once. Along they came, Steve Avery, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Mark Lemke, Jeff Blauser, Ron Gant, Mark Wohlers, Chipper Jones, Kent Mercker, Mike Stanton, Javier Lopez, Kevin Millwood, and on and on.
Three seasons have passed now and the Braves haven’t had a whiff of playoff aroma. Most of those homebred stars have moved on, some to other teams, some into retirement, and some even trying to re-connect with their youth.
I cite, in particular, here, Smoltz and Glavine, neither of whom is registered on the 40-man off-season roster.
Last season was the Braves’ worst since 1990. just before John Schuerholz’s reign of prosperity began. The prospect of facing the next season with Jair Jurrjens as ace of the staff seems to have present management so perturbed that they went out and signed another pitcher with a losing record and an inflated ERA, Javier Vazquez.
Not to malign Senor Vazquez, but such signings as these have not worked out to the glory of the cause, and I cite here Russ Ortiz, Albie Lopez and the most costly of all, Mike Hampton, who took off for other parts after three seasons as a Braves’ dependent.
As if they didn’t learn a costly lesson from that, they are now leaving their calling card with A.J. Burnett’s agent, 31 years old and twice under the knife. (Burnett, not his agent.) Oh, but for the likes of the young and handsome Adam Wainwright, now the Cardinals’ ace, who was traded away for one season with the nomadic J.D. Drew.
In the past season the Braves have traded away a busload of prospects for, in one case, a mere flirtation with Mark Teixiera, who was merely passing through town. They did happen to pick up an inexpensive Casey Kotchman in the deal, but back to Vazquez again, they traded a hot number with power, Tyler Flowers, for him. And Tyler can play first base, and has power.
What should bother Frank Wren is what’s going on with all those 47 scouts and those special assistants who are supposed to be covering the world and feeding that fallow farm system. That’s all.
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