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Saturday, January 14, 2006
Kovalchuk invisible in his city
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Ever hear of Ilya Kovalchuk? If so, then describe the guy, or admit that you wouldn’t know him from a potted plant or a picture of Nikita Khrushchev.
This is a shame. When it comes to professional athletes who work and live in Atlanta, we’re talking about a Thrashers star who shines as brightly at his craft as the Jones boys (Andruw and Chipper), the best of Joe Johnson and Al Harrington with the Hawks or No. 7 for the Falcons.
Not only that, Kovalchuk is becoming such a 22-year-old wonder around the NHL that opponents are doing what opponents always do in sports when they can’t beat somebody physically. They try to do so mentally, which is why they are whining everywhere that Kovalchuk likes to use an illegal hockey stick. To which Kovalchuk told me from his locker at Philips Arena with a dose of wonderful arrogance: “My stick is good, so I don’t know what they’re talking about. I play my game, and I never pay attention to those little things.”
Spoken like an old veteran disguised as a youngster with strikingly fresh eyes, and all of this is another reason why Kovalchuk deserves a group hug from the masses around town. Instead, outside of the loyal and loud following that heats up the chilly seats at Thrashers home games, few folks on either side of Peachtree Road has a clue about who Kovalchuk is. That’s especially true when he is walking, standing or sitting instead of skating.
Take, for instance, that Hawks game two years ago when Kovalchuk sat next to that No. 7 for the Falcons. They never talked, but others talked with regularity to No. 7 as Kovalchuk watched in silence as a parade of Michael Vick worshippers came and went through the night. Then again, there were extenuating circumstances.
“At that time, I didn’t speak English too well, so I don’t think Michael Vick is going to understand me,” said Kovalchuk, easing into a smile. Although his English is pretty good nowadays (“Don’t lie to me,” Kovalchuk said playfully), he still could saunter from his home in Buckhead to The Cheesecake Factory and go unmolested while chewing on a Danish. Why? Because it has happened often during his three seasons in Atlanta, and I stress in Atlanta.
There are 32,431,644 folks and counting living in Canada. If you subtract the toddlers or those younger, along with the few north of the border who believe “a hat trick” is something done by aspiring Houdinis, nearly 32,345,383 of those folks know something about Kovalchuk. The same goes for the puck savvy population of the old Soviet Union, particularly around Russia and Kovalchuk’s native Tver.
“They very much focus on him over there, because he’s a key guy in the Russian newspapers and on all of the television shows,” said Slava Kozlov, also a Russian, who is Kovalchuk’s neighbor in the Thrashers locker room and his best friend on the team. “He goes into a grocery store in Russia, and he’s recognized, and then he’s surrounded after that.”
And why not? Kovalchuk is evolving into the NHL’s fifth Beatle. He’ll grace the cover of Hockey News next week. He was a live guest on ESPN News last week. Whenever the Thrashers travel to New York, St. Louis, Edmonton — anywhere in the northern hemisphere away from a 404, 770 or 678 area code — team officials are pounded with requests for that highly active fellow on offense and defense at left wing who already was named NHL offensive player of the week twice this season and owns more points than anybody.
In contrast, Atlanta still yawns at the sight of Kovalchuk the civilian, and Kovalchuk the player finally has the Thrashers streaking instead of teasing. After responding to their preseason hype by flopping with a 3-8 October, they’ve roared toward February with more wins than losses overall during the latest date of their five-year history. Nobody has spurred that surge more than Kovalchuk, just shy of becoming a two-time participant in the Olympics and the All-Star Game.
Still, Kovalchuk is just another face in the growing crowd around Atlanta, and he knows why. “Georgia, well, it’s not like it’s a hockey state or anything,” he said, pausing, with eyebrows raised. “Football is the No. 1 sport here. The Braves, they always play real well by winning their division. But if our team continues to play well, then people in Atlanta will recognize everybody.”
Uh, no. Let’s just hope that they start by recognizing the one Thrasher who deserves it the most.
Permalink | Comments (46) | Categories: Terence Moore, Thrashers / NHL
Budget, boosters create mine field for Jackets AD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
There was a time when the athletics directorship on a college campus was a place to put the old coach out to pasture, a haven for semi-retirement. Travel with the teams, do a lot of glad-handing, entertain and sign the tabs. It was the alternative to the embarrassment of firing a faithful old hand, whether he could balance his own checking account or not. It was a time when the budget of athletics departments could have been kept on tablet paper with a carpenter’s pencil, just to exaggerate a point.
Time marches on. Gone is such an uncomplicated era. College sports have vaulted to the corporate level. Running an athletics department calls for more than a popular figurehead, an old hero beloved by all. It’s more than making schedules — your conference and television does that, anyway — glad-handing, back-slapping, singing out the alma mater with vigor and looking corporate. It’s a job that can bring a man to his knees. (Look at Dave Braine.) No more lateraling it off to the old coach, who never handled the dollars and cents of it all, but had an accomplished administrator at his side doing that.
A college athletics department is a corporation — small, no Fortune 500 stuff here — but one requiring a business mind. Homer Rice turned it into an art form at Georgia Tech. It alone never brought Dave Braine down, but you had to know the pressure and the hazards and the backlash surely had him in a bind. He has spent the better part of his tenure under fire, target of influential alumni, but not alone. There are just as many out there who would like to see the president, Wayne Clough, go along him.
I don’t know that in all my time I have ever seen the Georgia Tech athletics family in such a disheveled state. A football coach with an extended contract yet unsigned, a basketball coach whose loyalty is attached to the departing AD, and the so-called success of the football program dwelling on “a bowl game every season.”
When bowl games were real bowl games, that would have been a badge of honor. Bowl games of this era are merely required appearances tagged onto the end of the season, and a number of Georgia Tech’s bowl trips have been disastrous adventures, both at the box office and in the till. A minor bump in the road when the record against Georgia, considerably more vital to “success,” is highlighted.
Down to cases here: The athletics department budget is larger than that of a number of third-world countries, approximately $40 million a year. The debt load is around $110 million, centering mostly on the stadium expansion that any number of critics considered out of line. You are talking big bucks here, not a task to be tackled by a corporate amateur but a serious budget manager.
You will find no candidate supported or undercut here. I’m not in the business of hiring and firing. I do understand that Bill Curry has the inside track, and that one night recently, he answered a leading question with, “It hasn’t been finalized yet.”
If so, fine, understanding that he rides a wave of popularity, though inexperienced in such a field. That can be offset if accompanied by the hiring of a career manager of finances, such as Todd Stansbury, another Tech alumnus, one richly experienced in the field.
There is a battle to be fought out there, and the outcome is vital to the course of the athletics department at Georgia Tech. Much damage control must be put into place, and no matter how this turns out, there is still going to be an element of sullen rebellion to deal with.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
