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February 2009
Moving to a new location
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC blogs are moving to a new technical platform. So check out Terence Moore’s new blog home and bookmark it.
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Jackets still have hope with Hewitt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s bad, and it’s getting worse for Georgia Tech basketball coach Paul Hewitt. Still, there is light in this darkness, and that light isn’t just named Derrick Favors. Much of that light involves the consistency of Hewitt, which is to say he hasn’t gone from skillful to numbskull when it comes to X’s and O’s and everything else.
We’ll start by getting the bleak stuff out of the way, but cover your eyes if you’re allergic to sloppiness.
With Hewitt’s Yellow Jackets dropping to 10-16 overall and 1-12 in the ACC on Sunday at home, you’d have thought there were orange paws along 10th Street leading to Alexander Memorial Coliseum. Nearly a third of the 8,339 in attendance were Clemson fans. They even did the unthinkable by infiltrating the Tech student sections with loud voices.
In the end, when Clemson surged to an 81-73 victory, the only thing missing was the Tech pep band playing “Tiger Rag.”
“You had to notice [all the Clemson fans], but it’s nobody’s fault but our own,” Hewitt said, with his ninth season at Tech resembling his sixth one — brutal. Back then, the Jackets dropped to 11-17 overall and 4-12 in the conference. That was two years after Tech played UConn for the national championship.
Even so, you shouldn’t compare the collapse of Hewitt’s post-Jarrett Jack team to the sloppy ways of this one. “This team is more talented, and we should be better,” said Hewitt, always straightforward, which brings to that light for Tech hoops. In addition to the coming of Favors, the all-everything player from South Atlanta who committed to joining the Jackets next season, Hewitt’s mindset hasn’t changed, and neither have his emotions. They are the same now as they were for that universally hugged coach who spent five seasons ago taking Tech to the Final Two.
Whether Hewitt is in the aftermath of a victory or a defeat, he’s still focused on trying to win the next game. He’s still seeking to help his athletes become better as players as well as students. He’s still avoiding the pity parties, because he’s still focused on “we” instead of “me.”
Said Hewitt, “Unfortunately, we’re experiencing a very bad season, but we can’t compound it by not doing what we need to do academically. So we’re going to get ready to play again on Saturday [at North Carolina]. We’re going to take some time off. Starting tomorrow, we’ve got nine weeks left in the semester. We’re always conscious about that as coaches — to remind them to be mindful of the academic clock and not just the basketball clock as the season winds down.”
As for Hewitt’s emotions, he isn’t exactly a Ramblin’ Wreck over the current plight of his bunch. Despite watching mostly turnovers blow at least five games for the Jackets in the fleeting minutes, he still gets a wonderful night’s sleep. “Well, I didn’t say that,” Hewitt said, laughing, referring to his heavy travel schedule.
Which brings us to the final reason for that light. Added Hewitt, “I’ve recruited more now this year than I ever have during the season. You’re trying to offset the possibility of this ever happening again.”
It won’t.
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Something’s wrong with Braves’ business approach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, I’ll give you one. Maybe two or perhaps three. But when the list of those opting not to join your baseball franchise during a given winter flirts with reaching double digits - ranging from the significant likes of A.J. Burnett to Ken Griffey Jr. - it’s not them.
It’s you.
Something is obviously wrong with the way the Braves are doing business. Just ask John Smoltz, among those significant likes who will play somewhere other than Atlanta next season.
“Well, I think it’s a philosophy,” said Smoltz, speaking over the phone from Ft. Myers, Fla., the spring home of the Boston Red Sox, his new team. “It’s a philosophy for the Braves that worked for 14 seasons in the middle of a run to division titles. I just think that, now that it isn’t their automatic right to go to the playoffs anymore, it’s not as attractive to people to always take less. Ask yourself: Why is it that (players) always leave for more money?”
Good question. Added Smoltz, “I didn’t leave the Braves, by the way. You leave when you’re given a choice.”
Although the Braves say otherwise, Smoltz contends that his old team just didn’t want his Hall of Fame arm after more than two decades of excellence. As a result, Smoltz used his free-agent right to ignore what he said was a lesser deal with the Braves to join the Red Sox.
Whatever the case, Smoltz isn’t here anymore. Neither is Mike Hampton, who bolted for the Houston Astros once he got healthier. You also had that endless Jake Peavy tease. Then Burnett jumped to the New York Yankees at the last minute for their free-agent offer. And what was that Furcal thing about? He was returning to the Braves, and then he wasn’t.
The same goes for Andruw Jones. He even wore a Braves cap at a Georgia Tech home basketball game last month. Instead, he signed a minor-league deal with the Texas Rangers. That was before the Griffey soap opera this week.
So we’re back to Smoltz, a master at putting things into perspective.
“All I can say is that I made a conscious decision to stay with the Braves through the years, despite becoming a free agent four times, and that’s when nobody else who had become a free agent (with the Braves) had gotten re-signed,” said Smoltz, referring to Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Javy Lopez, Gary Sheffield, J.D. Drew, Jones and Furcal, among others.
Added Smoltz, “The same kind of statements were being made by those players as to why they left. By the numbers alone, when you’re talking about that many people leaving, you’d have to think that somebody has to be really far off for it not to work out.”
The problem isn’t Bobby Cox, especially since Smoltz joins a slew of others in praising the Braves manager. The problem also isn’t the city of Atlanta or its fans, which Smoltz hugged, too.
That leaves Braves ownership and management. “If I was a different person, and we had a different manager, I would have left the first time I became a free agent,” said Smoltz, referring to the winter of 1996, when the Yankees offered Smoltz “23 million” more than the Braves. “I’ve had so little communication with [Braves officials] over the years, I have no idea what it is [they’re doing].”
Here’s what they’re doing: Little, when it comes to closing a deal. They’re anti-Smoltzes out of the bullpen.
*COMMENTING HAS BEEN CLOSED ON THIS BLOG
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Selig not to blame for steroids mess
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bud Selig is right. Alex Rodriguez is wrong. So are the slew of folks who don’t agree with what I just wrote.
Here’s how Selig is right: He shouldn’t get hit with a Louisville Slugger for serving as commissioner during the rise of baseball’s steroid era.
For one, Selig just told Newsweek what he has told me before. That is, baseball’s notoriously strong players’ union wouldn’t allow him to enact testing for performance-enhancing drugs during the 1990s. More specifically, Selig pushed for testing in 1995. That was three years before the sham that was artificially enhanced players Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased Roger Maris’ season-season home run record of 61.
So blame the union, blame the players and blame the culture. But when it comes to why baseball’s steroid era lasted so long, don’t blame Selig, who only could do what he could do, which wasn’t much. He had that union, those players and that culture emphatically and consistently saying, “No,” to his requests for testing.
The union didn’t agree to testing until 2004, when Rodriguez claimed on Tuesday during his insufferable news conference that he stopped a three-year cycle of taking steroids injected by his cousin.
His cousin made him do it? At least Rodriguez could have gotten the devil involved. I guess he isn’t old enough to remember the late Flip Wilson. Then again, the New York Yankees slugger often claimed that, when it came to steroid use, he was young, ignorant and naÔve.
You have to be young, ignorant and naÔve to believe anything Rodriguez says.
As for Selig, you can believe it, because he’s telling the truth.
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Wilkins finds similarities between today’s Hawks and his Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He was the leader and the star of the Atlanta Hawks’ greatest teams during the mid-to-late 1980s. So, as an executive and a broadcaster for the current Hawks with their youthful surge into prominence, he is the definitive person for this question:
How far are these Hawks from resembling those other Hawks?
Dominique Wilkins thought, and then he thought some more. Instead of answering, he preferred to dribble out the clock, but just before the buzzer, he took a shot.
“From a maturity standpoint, they’ve matured a lot,” said Wilkins, referring to the current Hawks, who entered Tuesday night’s game at Staples Center against the Los Angeles Lakers with 31 victories. The Hawks had only 37 victories last season. In contrast, those Hawks of the mid-to-late 1980s used their youthful surge into prominence to win 50 or more games for four consecutive seasons.
Added Wilkins, speaking over the phone from Southern California, where he joined the Hawks for the start of their five-game, post All-Star game trip, “The whole thing is the confidence that these young guys have shown. Even so, it’s hard to compare the two groups of teams, because I don’t really believe in comparing teams and that kind of thing. But I think this team has definitely grown up.”
Wilkins’ Hawks of yore had to do the same. And just like these Hawks, those other Hawks were formed after a mighty purge.
It was a three-year purge during the early 1980s. It led to the acquisition of Cliff Levingston and Antoine Carr through a trade, the drafting of Kevin Willis and the signing of free-agent Spud Webb. They complemented talented holdovers such as Doc Rivers and Tree Rollins.
Sound familiar? In February 2004, former general manager Billy Knight began his necessary but ugly implosion of the Hawks, and then he acquired a Josh Smith here and a Joe Johnson there.
Before long, the Hawks had what they have now. That is, a chance to rival those Hawks with the additions of Marvin Williams, Al Horford — and then point guard Mike Bibby to lead them.
“I think this Hawks team is steadily growing, and the more they grow, the better they’re going to get as a team,” Wilkins said. “So, eventually, they will get back to what we had in the 1980s, but it’s going to take time. It’s going to take believing in yourself and working hard.”
In one way, the current Hawks have surpassed those other Hawks. It’s called videos. When Horford isn’t up close and personal in a slow-dance with Ciara, Williams is sitting and styling in a cameo with Bobby Valentino.
To be fair, those old Hawks were from an NBA generation that was yet to merge with hip-hop. Too bad, because those old Hawks were charismatic, ranging from Wilkins as the Human Highlight Film to the big ways of little Webb. They also had something else. They had bulk. That’s what the current Hawks lack.
Horford is a power forward playing center, and the current Hawks see only occasional bursts of goodness from Zaza Pachulia, Solomon Jones and Randolph Morris in their frontcourt.
“We had a lot of big guys,” Wilkins said. “We had Rickey Brown. We had Jon Koncak. We had Antoine Carr. We had Cliff Levingston. So we had some solid big guys to go in there and do some dirty work in every game. Unfortunately, most of the other teams in the East back then had big guys to do some dirty work as well.”
Not that Wilkins is comparing that era to this one.
Well, guess he is.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Hawks/NBA
Aaron: Bonds can keep the record
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hank Aaron doesn’t want his old home run record back.
He really doesn’t.
“In all fairness to everybody, I just don’t see how you really can do a thing like that and just say somebody isn’t the record holder anymore, and let’s go back to the way that it was,” Aaron said Friday, referring to the controversy involving the legitimacy of sluggers Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez and their artificially enhanced peers.
So, at the very least, Bud Selig should use his power as commissioner to make “755” baseball’s official number again when it comes to all-time home runs. Selig wasn’t available for comment on Friday. Even so, he told USA Today earlier this week that he is considering such a thing, and that’s a wonderful thing.
But Aaron disagrees. This is the owner of the most homers during a career before the feds said Bonds used more than just a Louisville Slugger to slam his way past Aaron to 762.
“If you did that, you’d have to go back and change all kinds of records, and the [home run] record was very important to me,” Aaron said. “It’s probably the most hallowed record out there, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s now in the hands of somebody else. It belongs to Barry. No matter how we look at it, it’s his record, and I held it for a long time. But my take on all of this has always been the same. I’m not going to say that Barry’s got it because of this or because of that, because I don’t know.”
With apologies to Aaron, you have Bonds facing perjury charges for his role involving performance-enhancing drugs. You have Rodriguez as Bonds’ heir apparent to the home-run throne admitting this week that he was a steroid user. You also have USA Today estimating that 18 of the 52 MVP and Cy Young awards since 1996 went to those linked to performance-enhancing drugs.
In contrast, Aaron was addicted only to adrenaline during a 23-year career that produced enough other records to confirm that he remains the game’s most complete player. That’s why if Bonds is convicted next month, Selig should give Aaron his crown back.
Actually, courtesy of what we already know (Bonds doesn’t deny using performance-enhancing drugs but says he didn’t knowingly use them), Selig should restore Aaron’s record right now and be done with it.
“Really, it’s sort of a tricky call when you start going down that road of who is legitimate,” Aaron said. “I don’t know if Barry would have hit as many home runs or hit them as far — if that’s the case that he did use steroids — but I still don’t think it has anything to do with him having the kind of baseball career that he had.
“He could have had an excellent career, regardless of what he did. So it would be something that I don’t think the commissioner would like to get involved in, really. There are things out there besides worrying about a home run record that somebody now holds. Barry has the record, and I don’t think anybody can change that.”
Well, Selig can, and he has been Aaron’s pal for more than 50 years. According to Aaron, they’ve never discussed the possibility of this record-changing thing, not even last week when Selig was in town for Aaron’s 75th birthday bash.
As for this week, the talk around baseball and beyond has involved Rodriguez’s confessions. To which Aaron sighed, before saying, “It’s just a sad chapter in the game to have one of your star players come forward and say he’s been guilty of this, but Alex did admit guilt.
“To me, I don’t think there is anything else he could do. I don’t think any of us ever has walked on hallowed ground, that we never committed anything. Alex admitted he made a mistake, you know. That’s about all that anybody can do, I guess.”
That and try to remain as eternally humble as Aaron.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Post your comment | Categories: Braves/MLB
Athletes, who are afraid to admit their mistakes, are headed for much worse fates
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No question, Alex Rodriguez did the right thing by admitting he used steroids. Still, he really is A-Fraud. That’s because, when it comes to the particulars of his swinging and juicing his way to baseball stardom, he isn’t telling the whole truth.
Neither is Michael Phelps, the celebrated Olympic swimmer who was fingered for the second time in five years for resembling something less than his previous designation as the All-American boy.
They confessed, though.
Sort of. Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks has it about right about Rodriguez. Said Hicks, “I certainly don’t believe that if he’s now admitting that he started using when he came to the Texas Rangers, why should I believe that it didn’t start before he came to the Texas Rangers?”
Makes sense to me. The same goes for the thought that if Phelps was busted for that DUI at 19 before this marijuana thing, he isn’t what he suggests that he is: Your average guy with a bunch of gold medals who just happened to make a couple of huge mistakes in his life.
Whatever the case, they are taking their lumps, and will continue to do so over the next few weeks and months and become less vilified than if they had mimicked those other guys. You know, those typical guys who are blatantly guilty but who try to convince you that a bowling ball is really a tennis racket.
So, why don’t those “typical guys” become as atypical as Rodriguez and Phelps and just say they blew it and then move on with the rest of their lives before what traditionally has been a forgiving public?
“We also see this of people in other areas of society, such as a man who cheats on his wife and denies, it,” said Dr. Patrick J. Devine, a professor of psychology at Kennesaw State University and a former Braves team psychologist. “You’re really embarrassed by what you did. You knew when you did it that it was wrong.
“Now you’re in the process of getting caught, and you’re like, ‘Oh, gosh. I knew I shouldn’t have done this. I knew there were risks. I knew this day could come. But I don’t want to admit to myself that I was sort of the village idiot in this. I’m going to deny it. As long as I deny it, I don’t have to deal with it. I don’t have to face it.’ “
Exhibit No. 7: If Michael Vick confesses at the start of his canine mess, he likely gets a break and spends much of the last two seasons running and passing for somebody in the NFL instead of working for Uncle Sam at Leavenworth.
The other thing is, during Vick’s sentencing before a federal judge, he was chastised for lying. If you’re convicted of such a thing, it’s called perjury, which is why Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are just trials away from following Vick’s path to the slammer. In other words, Clemens and Bonds are in self-inflicted trouble for lying, not steroids.
See a pattern here? Don’t lie.
Mark McGwire got a break, but only regarding that prison thing. He barely kept from perjuring himself in his testimony before Congress with his “I’m not here to talk about the past” mantra when asked about his possible steroid use. Even so, he zapped his name from consideration for the Hall of Fame by hiding then what he continues to hide now: That he cheated his way to many of those home runs.
If McGwire confesses back then before Congress, he’s in Cooperstown now. Folks have short memories, especially if you come clean — or at least less dirty.
Yes, Phelps lost endorsements for admitting the obvious: He was at that party in South Carolina, and he was in that Internet picture with his mouth on a bong allegedly smoking pot. And, yes, Rodriguez will have those — including me — who won’t dare place a check by his name on their Hall of Fame ballot.
That said, if Rodriguez and Phelps were into stonewalling to the bitter end, their plights would be considerably worse, and they know it.
Too bad others don’t.
Actually, they don’t care.
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To Obama and the rest: Just say no to sports, OK?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
According to Edolphus Towns, the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congress will not request that Alex Rodriguez come to Capitol Hill to discuss his steroid issues.
Good.
Towns added this: “The American people need leaders who will focus on stemming job losses and getting credit to flow in the marketplace before hearing from yet another person who cheated both himself and the game of baseball.”
Uh, yeah.
Hopefully, this is a sign that politicians finally get it, but probably not. Here’s what they should get: Except in rare cases (and I can’t think of any right now), politicians should rank pontificating on sports no higher than about 111th on their list of 100 priorities for this country.
In other words, when it comes to speaking loudly and boldly about such things as punting, passing, kicking, dribbling, putting, pitching, skating, rowing and driving in public settings, they should do the Nancy Reagan: Just say no.
Are you listening, Mr. Obama? Then again, I’ll give the president a pass for his remarks about baseball’s steroid epidemic during his first prime-time news conference on Monday night. He was asked the question. It also was fresh in the news. So the president had to respond, and his answer was fine. He talked of how the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes sends a wrong message to kids.
That said, the Commander-in-chief keeps yakking too much about his desire for a playoff system throughout all of college football. First, there shouldn’t be such a playoff system. Second, well, see everything I just wrote.
The president isn’t the only politician going down this silly road. Members of the Utah state legislature just voted to force college football to approve a playoff system for the big boys — not that the Utah state legislature has a say in the matter, or absolutely nothing else to do.
Elsewhere, a Texas state senator and a member of the state’s House pushed for a ban that would keep all of the state’s football teams from participating in any postseason championship game that didn’t involve playoffs. And remember this? Georgia’s House embarrassed itself last year by voting 151-9 in favor of a resolution to support the NCAA creating a playoff system in college football.
So what is Georgia’s unemployment rate again?
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Classy Aaron is baseball’s legitimate home run king
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thirty-three years after they retire from baseball, neither Barry Bonds nor Alex Rodriguez will inspire a plethora of who’s who to gather to worship their past, present and future. For one, both players have been nailed by some as legitimate juicers but illegitimate sluggers.
For another, even before such reports, neither Bonds nor Rodriguez was within a steroid-induced blast of the classy Hank Aaron on or off the field.
So, with much help from baseball’s era of bloated knuckleheads, Aaron has become even more of a classic. That’s why, 33 years after his retirement, just about the only person of significance who wasn’t inside a ballroom last week at the Marriott Marquis for his 75th birthday celebration was his new hero. Ever hear of Barack Obama? He made Aaron cry that November night when he was elected President of the United States.
Have you guys talked?
“No, we haven’t,” said Aaron, easing into one of his contagious laughs. He added after a pause, “I probably could talk to the president, but I think he’s got enough people talking to him right now.”
There goes Aaron’s splendid dance with modesty again. In some ways, he is bigger than any president, because presidents are elected. Kings aren’t. Kings have more longevity, and Aaron is a king. More specifically, he is baseball’s legitimate home run king, and everybody knows it, including the commissioner of baseball.
Said Bud Selig, Aaron’s friend of more than 50 years: “I think that, as a result of everything that has happened, Hank Aaron is more of an icon today than ever before.”
It was about “755” before. Now, courtesy of “everything that has happened,” as in those bloated knuckleheads, “755” has combined with the extraordinary man who made it famous for a second life.
This actually is an eternal life when it comes to sports. In other words, that number and Aaron will prosper forever inside the hearts of many. You have the greatness of Aaron that keeps strengthening by the decades. You also have those hits that keep coming by the moment for the supposedly elite of the current elite.
We’re not talking about hits from the batter’s box, by the way. The feds say they have proof that Bonds didn’t slam many of his 762 home runs through a combination of quick wrists and pushups. Plus, according to Sports Illustrated, Rodriguez really is A-Fraud, but for a reason other than what Joe Torre said in his recently published book called “The Yankee Years.”
We’re back to the “s” word.
Simply put, the man who officially has more homers than anybody (Bonds) is tainted by an upcoming perjury trial involving his possible steroid use. Then the man (Rodriguez) who has the best chance of catching that other man (Bonds) is tainted by an SI report that claims he tested positive for steroids while capturing the 2003 MVP award in the American League.
Through it all, Aaron has remained Aaron to inspire the masses. He has received physical or verbal hugs during the last few days from Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, nationally and locally acclaimed politicians, former and current players, business leaders everywhere, casual fans and diehard ones, and folks in between.
There also was something I was told by Ted Turner, Aaron’s former boss, who made Aaron the Braves executive that he has been since the late 1970s. Said Turner, “He’s like Obama. He’s just got magic. There’s a song in ‘South Pacific,’ that says, ‘Fools give you reasons. Wise men never even try.’ He’s just got magic. He really does.”
He really, really does.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment | Categories: Braves/MLB
McDowell creating own name with Braves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They refuse to call it Camp Roger. You know, as in the spinoff to the famous Camp Leo. Instead, Braves officials refer to the week-long session that just ended on Friday at Turner Field as this: “The Atlanta Braves early pitching program.”
That’s all.
So if you didn’t know better, you’d think Roger McDowell is trying to spend his fourth season as Braves pitching coach separating himself from his legendary predecessor.
You should know better. McDowell couldn’t care less.
Despite operating with a lesser resume and fewer Hall of Famers than his legendary predecessor, McDowell hasn’t complained nor flinched since entering the considerable shadow of Leo Mazzone.
“Obviously, I have all the respect in the world for Leo,” said McDowell, a pitching coach for two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Class AAA team before joining the Braves. “When we played the Braves during spring training, I always made it a point to go over and say, ‘Hi,’ to both Bobby (Braves manager Bobby Cox) and Leo and the rest of the staff.”
OK. But what about this confusion over Camp Roger, the Camp Formerly Known As Leo or whatever? It must be needless confusion. After all, McDowell shrugged, saying, “It’s neither here nor there. It is what it is. Guys come in and throw, and whatever everybody wants to call it, they can call it whatever they want. It’s just good that we have it, and we have it available for guys who want to come in.”
This also is good: The Braves have McDowell, the impressive reliever for 12 major league seasons through 1996 before he started to prepare for a career as a pitching coach. Now he is reshaping the staff of the Braves’ post-Cy Young-heavy era, and he is doing so with much help from his mellow personality.
Said veteran third baseman Chipper Jones, glancing around the home clubhouse at Turner Field this week toward the lockers of pitchers, “We’ve got a lot of young guys in here, and there’s some need for some constant baby sitting. Some of these guys will be taking their diapers off pretty soon as Dick Vermeil would say, and we’ll see how they blossom.”
Thus the presence of McDowell, who prefers softer tones than his louder but legendary predecessor.
“Yeah, Leo got a little frustrated,” said Jones, referring to Mazzone, who recently confessed to making a mistake by shoving away 26 years in the Braves organization four seasons ago to join his best friend and big bucks with the Baltimore Orioles. Added Jones, “You know, to Leo’s defense, it’s hard not to get a little spoiled when you’re running out Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Avery, Neagle.”
Instead, McDowell has good pitchers instead of great ones. They’ll range from the durable Derek Lowe and Javier Vazquez to the promising Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson to the iffy Tom Glavine.
That’s better than last year, when the Braves’ ERA went from one of the National League’s best through the early season to one of its worst at the end after injuries and age took its toll.
Anyway, if this pitching coach thing does the unlikely someday for McDowell and doesn’t work out, it’s like this: He appeared in an episode of Seinfeld. “It was a spoof off the movie ‘JFK’ about the second shooter,” said McDowell, smiling. “I was the second shooter, and I still get a check every time the episode runs.”
Thirteen dollars and 50 cents.
Guess McDowell is hoping this pitching coach thing keeps working out.
Permalink | Comments (32) | Post your comment | Categories: Braves/MLB
Tech’s Johnson makes all the right moves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Once again, Paul Johnson is doing his Frank Sinatra thing, as in “My Way,” and this is good. This actually is better than that for the rising Georgia Tech football program, especially since its principled head coach solidified the Jackets’ future on Wednesday with those he purposely signed and those he purposely shunned.
The latter was more telling than the former, and consider this: By lunchtime, the former was impressive.
In addition to grabbing the four-star likes of J.C. Lanier and his 330-something pounds among those previously committed to the Jackets, Johnson kept swift wide receiver Stephen Hill of Miller Grove from sprinting at the end to Tech’s Great Satan in Athens. As a result, the Jackets have Hill and a bunch of other three-star entries to complete a 21-signee class.
None was named Dontae Aycock, a possible Joe Hamilton clone. Tech coaches spent a year recruiting the offensive star of Tampa’s Chamberlain High School, and then he committed to the Jackets in the shadows of late January. Soon afterward, he felt the considerable Wrath of Johnson when he spoke of taking an official visit to Auburn despite Johnson’s objection.
“I reiterated that to him, ‘Don’t get on that plane, Dontae,’” said a calmer Johnson, recalling the moment on Wednesday from an Atlantic Station hotel. “His high school coach went and told him, ‘Don’t get on that plane, Dontae,’ and he did. So when he chose to do that, he was telling me he didn’t want to come to Georgia Tech anymore. So we moved on.”
Too bad … for Aycock.
Then again, Aycock was perfect for Johnson’s unique offense. It features the triple option, which means Johnson needs a certain type of player. You also have Johnson’s unique personality, which means he needs a certain type of player, too. It’s the type of player who understands what Aycock didn’t. Which is, you better listen to what Johnson says, because he will be true to his word.
Which means you should to.
No wonder Aycock’s high school coach, Brian Turner, keeps shaking his head. Not over Johnson, but Aycock. “[The Tech coaches] were pretty upfront the whole time,” said Turner, in his seventh season at the same Tampa high school that his father coached long enough to become the winningest football coach in Hillsborough County history. In addition, Chamberlain High has “about 100” coaches recruiting its players each year with many reaching BCS schools and NFL teams.
So this was telling: “Some schools don’t have that many scholarships, but they offer kids left and right, and then they have to end up telling kids they don’t have a scholarship,” Turner said. “But [Tech coaches] were always up front. They were honest the whole time. They always told Dontae where he would fit in and what his role would be. They were down here quite a bit, and every time they were allowed to call, they called.”
Johnson and his coaches had their priorities. They operated with class. They said what they meant, and they meant what they said. They want athletes who do the same. Added Turner, “They can’t have kids thinking it’s OK to make a commitment to them and then go to other places. Because then what does a commitment mean? That’s why I think they have to set a precedent for the program. That if you make us a promise, we expect you to keep it.”
Yep. Just ask Johnson. Better yet, listen to his closing thoughts on Aycock: “If I had to do it all over, I’d do it again. That’s just the way I’m going to do business.”
Good.
Permalink | Comments (64) | Post your comment | Categories: Tech/ACC
UGA should try Tubby, then Bobby
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bob Knight to Georgia as Bulldogs basketball coach? I wouldn’t mind it. In fact, I’d love it, especially since I’ve experienced the real Bob Knight up close and personal through the years.
He never hit me, by the way, either with his fists or his tongue.
I covered many of Knight’s Indiana teams during the late 1970s when I worked for the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the undisputed leader of those teams was Hawks coach Mike Woodson. We’ve talked often about the Knight that most folks don’t see.
It’s the Knight that consistently does and says things in private on a positive level. It’s also the Knight that would bring out the “student” in every student-athlete he coaches at Georgia. Plus, as the owner of 902 victories and three national championships for starters, he would make each of those players significantly better as a basketball player, too.
That said, Knight to the Bulldogs? It won’t happen. It shouldn’t happen, but not for the reasons you think — as in any of those things involving The General and his famously excitable ways.
It shouldn’t happen, because Georgia basketball needs somebody to help it grow into prominence over a course of years, and Knight doesn’t have “years” left as a coach. He is 68. It mostly shouldn’t happen, because, as I typed last week, the Bulldogs need to go back to the future with Tubby Smith, now coaching Minnesota.
For one, Smith is younger than Knight (by 11 years). For another, Smith is pretty great after prolific stops at Tulsa, Georgia and Kentucky. And, despite sitting in his second season of turning what was a pitiful Gophers program into its current Top 25 status, I’m guessing that Smith could be persuaded to come back to Georgia.
Smith’s wife, Donna, loves Athens/Atlanta, and as I previously wrote, Smith told me as recently as last season with the Gophers that he dreamed of becoming the Vince Dooley of Georgia basketball.
If Smith says no, then Georgia should go to Plan B.
As in Bobby.
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You can believe David Justice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No athlete I’ve ever met has a more honest tongue than David Justice. So, when the former Braves slugger suggests he doesn’t know Kirk Radomski from Captain Kirk, you should believe him.
When Justice mentions his fear of needles proves he never injected steroids, you should believe him.
Mostly, when Justice says he couldn’t care less if you believe any of this, you should believe him.
“You’re talking to your boy who had a whole stadium wanting to see me fail in 1995,” said Justice, over the phone from his home in San Diego. His reference was to Game 6 of the World Series at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The day before, he shouted what was whispered by everybody else about how lousy the Braves crowds were compared to their spirited counterparts in Cleveland.
That’s why Justice was smothered with boos — well, until he ripped the homer that won a Braves world championship in the sixth inning of a 1-0 victory. He eventually was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame, and despite spending the last six of his 14 seasons in the majors with other teams, he has a tomahawk across his heart.
He even has formed a traveling baseball team in Southern California involving his two sons (David Jr., 9, and Dionisio, 6). The name of that team? The Braves, complete with uniforms to match. So the choppers and the chanters always should hug Justice for all of that alone.
Said Justice, “I am not a weak-minded person, and I’m not a person who really needs you to like me or love me. I just think that I’m a cool dude. So if you don’t like me, you just don’t like me.”
Radomski doesn’t like Justice. Either that, or the former clubhouse attendant has a vivid imagination. He told George Mitchell that he sold human growth hormone to Justice. That was significant, because Mitchell was in charge of baseball’s investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Then Radomski told ESPN that he gave Justice a box of HGH and steroids during a ride to the airport after Justice finished playing for the New York Yankees in the 2000 World Series.
Now consider this: Radomski has a recently published book on steroids and baseball. It’s a book with large passages disputed by Mitchell. Which means it’s wise to question anything leaving Radomski’s lips.
“When he said he took me to the airport after we won the World Series, hey, I got my cousins, I got friends who were up there with me, and they all said, ‘That dude didn’t take you to no airport,’ ” said Justice, who did recall Brian McNamee, the former trainer, now famous for saying Roger Clemens was juiced.
Soon after Justice joined the Yankees in 2000, McNamee approached him with HGH. He told the outfielder it would help his various aches and pains.
“I’m having good days and bad days with my sports hernia and groin, and I’ve got the New York Yankees strength coach, who is Dr. McNamee and somebody I thought was a really cool guy, coming to me,” Justice said. “He tells me, ‘This is not steroids. It will not hurt your body. Doctors prescribe this every day. It will help you with the healing of your groin.’
“Why would I not take it? That’s my point. I would have taken it had it not been dealing with needles. In my limited knowledge of it, and now you put it in my locker, and I see it ain’t no pill. I can’t get with you, bro.
“I don’t know where [McNamee] got [the HGH] from. He could have gotten it from Radomski. It wasn’t even that deep. All this happened quickly.”
Quickly enough for everybody to forget it and move on.
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