This blog has moved! Yes, already!
As of Thursday, Feb. 12, this little blog has relocated to a new home on AJC.com. It’s the same newspaper, the same Web site and the same writer (feel free to groan) — there’s just a new URL.
New features: Bigger type, more graphics, comments that load 10 times faster and a larger and more recent photo that makes me look pretty doggone old. I think you’ll like it (the blog, not the photo). But I am, as we know too well, often wrong.
Home > Mark Bradley > Archives > 2009 > January > 29
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Felton: The right hire, but the wrong results
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dennis Felton was the right man to follow the disgraced Jim Harrick. He was tough and uncompromising, and having a coach who was willing to cut corners was what led the Bulldogs to jerk maybe the best team in school history clean out of the 2003 postseason. Under Felton, the same school wouldn’t fall into the same swamp.
Instead it fell into a different one. Harrick compromised, but he also won. Felton didn’t bend but didn’t win, There is, as we know, a happier medium. Perhaps the next man will strike that balance.
In the cold light of hindsight, winning the 2008 SEC tournament was an unfortunate event. It kept the Bulldogs from moving on when they seemed primed to move on, and it changed nothing for Felton and his program. This season Georgia has been almost as bad as it was in 2004-2005, the 8-20 season that was a direct consequence of the Harrick mess. The difference is, it’s 2009.
Felton is a good basketball man — he proved as much at Western Kentucky, winning with teams both big and small, and he proved it again over that dizzying weekend last March — but he had been given ample time to make the Georgia program his. Until Thursday, Felton was fourth among league coaches in seniority, and all he had to show for it was one four-game flurry.
It had become clear by New Year’s that those four games had only delayed the inevitable. Georgia couldn’t compete in the SEC, and the SEC in 2009 is no great shakes. Had Felton, over time, simply signed the senior classes of Norcross and Wheeler high schools, he’d have had a better team than the one he kept putting on the floor. Alas, he could never land that difference-making recruit — he came close with Louis Williams of South Gwinnett, who chose the NBA instead — and Derrick Favors’ selection of Tech over Georgia was the final blow.
And now the Bulldogs are seeking their sixth head coach in 15 years. Were I Damon Evans, I’d look first toward Virginia Commonwealth’s Anthony Grant, who was once a Florida assistant and who is believed to look favorably on the Georgia job, and then toward Brian Gregory of Dayton and Mike Davis of UAB. (As for the rampant speculation that Tubby Smith might deign to return to Athens … I’m sorry, but I don’t see that happening. It’s my belief he’s having too much fun at Minnesota.)
The next coach won’t have it easy. Except for that March blip, Georgia has been off the national radar since Harrick walked away. But the SEC is such flux that the right man in the right spot could have an outsize impact. (Look at Bruce Pearl in Knoxville.) There are too many gifted players growing up in this state for the flagship university to be a basketball embarrassment.
If nothing else, the embarrassments suffered under Felton should prove far less lasting those left by his predecessor. There are no NCAA sanctions looming. The new coach can make a clean start. Even as he departs, Felton is worthy of Georgia’s deepest thanks. He tried to do things the right way, and the only thing he got wrong was the part about winning.
Permalink | Comments (232) | Post your comment | Categories: UGA/SEC
As an analyst, Sutton is a real Dandy Don
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s a Braves fan of my acquaintance who can’t bear the sound of Don Sutton’s voice. He talks too much, she believes, and as a measure of her displeasure she’d mute the sound when he was on TV. And to a degree I’d agree.
Yes, Sutton does rattle on. Yes, he can come across as smug. Yes, the pairing of Sutton and the late Skip Caray bore the worst attributes of two frat boys on an extended road trip. I’ll concede all of the above, and then I’ll sweep every quibble aside.
Because I consider Don Sutton the best baseball analyst I’ve ever heard.
Yes, I said “ever.” Yes, I meant it.
The man knows pitching like few know pitching, and pitching is 90 percent of baseball. The best description of Sutton I’ve ever heard came from the late Jeff Denberg, who covered the Hawks with great distinction for the AJC and was a TV writer — and therefore a fairly severe critic — in an earlier vocational manifestation. And here’s what Jeff said of Sutton: “I learn something new every time I listen to him.”
And so do I. Being the ancient age of 53, I grew up listening to ballgames on the trusty transistor, and through the magic of XM Radio I’ve tapped into most every broadcast crew there is. I’ve never heard anyone to match Sutton — not on radio, not on TV, nowhere no time.
As much as I like and admire Tom Glavine, I don’t much care if he throws another pitch for the Braves. But I’m pumped to the gills that Sutton is coming back to call Braves games and that, better still, he’s doing radio only. Because on radio it’s tough to talk too much. And even if Sutton tries — being a contrary cuss, he just might — I’ll forgive him. Because he’s the best there is.
The best, I said. And I mean it.
Permalink | Comments (44) | Post your comment | Categories: Braves/MLB
