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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Baseball can do without World event
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Whew!
That was close.
For the sake of those of us who are John Smoltz fans, I’m glad he announced this week that the World Baseball Classic will come and go this spring without the use of his right arm. It’s the same right arm that is attached to the elbow that had four surgeries. It’s also the same right arm that is attached to the shoulder that was so sore during the Braves’ first-round loss last season in Houston that Smoltz said he couldn’t have pitched anyway during the next round.
Those aches and pains aside for Smoltz, it’s like this when it comes to the World Baseball Classic: Why?
It wouldn’t be politically correct to say so publicly, but if I’m running a team in the major leagues, I’m hoping that all of my players pull a Smoltz when it comes to this inaugural round-robin thing. It’s a tournament that has players competing on teams representing their home countries, which sounds good. The problem is, the tournament takes place during spring training when players should be getting ready for what really counts — the regular season along the way to the postseason.
Thanks, John.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Tech should give Curry the job he wants
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Whenever I talk to Bill Curry, I find myself nodding and thinking, “Wow,� along the way. Just on Wednesday, he delivered riveting words about what he would do if he were, oh, say, the athletics director at Georgia Tech, his alma mater and an institution whose thought still causes his 63-year-old heart to flutter.
For instance: Listen to Curry’s view on the supposedly restrictive ways of Tech academics as it relates to the Yellow Jackets in athletics. “When you aspire to greatness, which I do, it comes down to something that goes for the classroom, and the practice field, and the game, and the court, and the track, and the pool, and for all of our athletes. It means that we have to do everything just a little bit better than the other people. That doesn’t mean that we are better than others. That doesn’t mean that we’re snooty. It just means that we have to work a little harder.�
Then Curry added, “That’s the attitude I learned when I went to Tech, and it is what has sustained me in life — whether it’s been blocking Dick Butkus or taking a calculus final. The emphasis is the same. You lay it on the line every time. You shoot for the top all the time. If you do that, sooner or later you’re going to succeed.â€?
I mean, how could those who bleed old gold and white get this lucky? They have an opportunity to have the leadership of Tech’s athletics department over the past quarter of a century go from the highly underrated Homer Rice to the visionary that was Dave Braine to a renaissance man who is the logical choice for what became a vacancy on Wednesday at the Edge Center.
I’m guessing that Curry already has hand-delivered his resume to the doorstep of Tech president Dr. G. Wayne Clough. The search for Braine’s successor is over.
Or it should be.
“I will call. I will send a resume, and then I will abide by the process that Dr. Clough certainly will instigate,� said Curry, over his cell phone from Dallas, where he is attending a coaches’ convention. He just finished his ninth year as an ESPN college football analyst. Prior to that, he had successful head coaching stints in football at Alabama and Kentucky, especially when you consider the impossible situations he inherited at both places. He also spent enough prolific years as an NFL offensive lineman to collect three Super Bowl rings.
All of that said, what sits deepest inside of Curry’s soul is his life at the Flats. After leaving his native College Park, he was a Tech student before becoming a player, an assistant coach and the head guy for a football program that rose so quickly from the dead under his leadership that he was named the ACC Coach of the Year.
More importantly, nobody associated with intercollegiate athletics holds a more honorable reputation than Curry, who once was a student at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. He is a highly sought-after motivational speaker. Not only that, for the past 43 years, he’s been married to the same woman, Carolyn, who he first proposed to in the sixth grade. And, chances are, he breaks for squirrels and flosses after every meal.
But here’s what you really want to know about a possible Curry regime at Tech: What does he think about a football program that has been nothing more than OK during this century? Curry answered quickly, with his usual decisiveness. “I believe this: I believe that we can compete at the highest level. I do not think we will ever settle for mediocrity in anything,� he said. “If we have a program, we want it to be the best that it can be. We don’t make any excuses. We want to win every time we take the field. Does that mean we’re always going to be champions? Of course not.�
Before I go further, the Curry Doctrine isn’t meant as a stiff-arm to the legacy of Braine. Curry knows that, after Braine inherited a department that Rice converted from the worst among those in big-time college athletics into a jewel, Braine made it sparkle more. Braine’s strength was in doing enough through financing and hiring to help the Jackets’ other sports beyond football and basketball prosper in the ACC.
Curry also knows that the furor over Braine’s analysis last season in the midst of Tech’s fourth consecutive finish with seven victories was unjust. Yes, Braine said that Tech likely isn’t going to win nine or 10 games a year, but Curry added, “He could have said that you’re not going to do that anywhere. It was taken out of context as if to say, ‘We’re just happy to rock along and be mediocre.’ Wrong. I believe we have to strive to be at the very top in everything that we do, and the football program is the most visible part of what Georgia Tech is.â€?
No, the most visible part is Tech’s athletics director. Thus the need for Dr. Clough to hire Mr. Curry, and right now.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
