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Friday, February 10, 2006
Perceived bias for Duke still haunts ACC
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Through the magic of satellite radio, it was possible to hear the Boston College broadcast team’s take on the Eagles’ game with Duke 10 days ago. After a night spent lavishing praise on the Blue Devils, the crew wound up wailing about the refs. To the stricken ACC newbies, there seemed only one thing to say:
Welcome to the club.
Against Boston College, Shelden Williams clocked a driving Tyrese Rice in the waning seconds of a three-point game. No foul was called. Naturally, BC’s best big man, Craig Smith, had already fouled out on a night when the Devils took 24 more free throws than their hosts. Naturally, Duke won.
Three days later, Florida State went to Durham, was awarded 11 free throws to Duke’s 43 and lost by a point in overtime. Worse, center Alexander Johnson was handed a disqualifying technical foul for the sin of backing away after being bumped by the aforementioned Williams. Two suspicious Duke wins in a single week — business as usual, right?
Apparently not. On Monday, the ACC suspended officials Mike Eades, Ray Natili and Ed Corbett for their next game, admitting they’d missed the call on Johnson’s technical. Refs are usually docked for misinterpreting a rule, as opposed to a simple misjudgment, but the air around Duke has become so charged that John Clougherty, in his first year as the league’s director of officiating, felt moved to act.
See, the nation’s flagship basketball conference has a problem. The feeling exists that Duke gets every call. Coaches grouse and writers joke about the perceived imbalance, but when the public starts to believe there’s something rotten along Tobacco Road, somebody has to act. And Clougherty — who succeeded Fred Barakat, viewed as a friend of the Devils — acted in a disproportionate but pointed way.
To mollify the growing legion of Duke-haters, three refs took the fall. And perhaps it was only coincidence that the crew for Tuesday’s Duke-North Carolina game included Jim Burr and Tim Higgins, two of the best, and that the Heels took more free throws than the Dookies. Not that it made a difference. The deserving Devils won a tight game in Chapel Hill, which is precisely the point.
Duke is good enough to win any game without being aided and abetted. The Duke-gets-all-the-calls talk doesn’t just hurt the ACC; in a weird way, it hurts the Devils themselves. They’re seen as connivers and wheedlers, and when they hit the NCAA tournament and are subject to the whistles of non-ACC refs, they seem suddenly vulnerable.
Twenty-two years ago, Mike Krzyzewski griped — the “K” in Coach K stands for “king of all gripers” — that “a double standard” existed in the ACC, his assertion being that Dean Smith got the benefit of every doubt. Last March, the shift in perceived power was made official. With Duke playing in the arena named for the sainted Smith, the son of Carolina coach Roy Williams was ejected by Larry Rose for suggesting the ref was in Krzyzewski’s pocket. (Along with, one assumes, an American Express card.) When even the blue-blooded Heels see themselves as the wronged party, that’s a sign Duke’s sway has grown too vast.
Saturday the Devils play at Maryland, and the madman Gary Williams is credited, if that’s the word, with birthing this whole conspiracy theory. As Maryland was losing to Duke in the 2001 Final Four, Williams was heard asking NCAA observers how much CBS had paid them to put the Devils in the title game. (A horrendous fifth foul had been called against the Terps’ Lonny Baxter.) Two nights later, the mood in the Minneapolis Metrodome was significantly anti-Duke, and the watching world has since been alert to any hint of Dookie bias. Sure enough, the hints keep on coming.
When John Clougherty was reffing, people used to wonder how he could handle the strain of working four or five TV games a week. Now he has an even tougher task: He has to convince a doubting public that Duke gets treated no differently than any other school. Good luck with that.
Permalink | Comments (35) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Turin shrouded by indifference to Games
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Turin, Italy — Given its unmatched trail of graft, corrupt judges and drug scandals, it’s only logical that the IOC doesn’t sway as much influence as it used to. But how bad is it when you give a city the Winter Olympics and you can’t even get somebody to open its biggest tourist attraction?
“The shroud is shown only for very important people,” Jovanna Florio said Friday, as she stood inside the Museo Della Sindone. But, it’s the Olympics. It’s Jacques Rogge. It used to be some guy from Korea until he got caught taking a bribe (which actually turned out to be illegal). It’s Atlanta!
“The next time the shroud will be on exhibition is in 2025,� Florio said. “I do not decide. Only the pope has the authority to make an exception. In 2002, the son of the last King of Italy was allowed to see it. He comes to Turin and they make an exception for him.�
The Winter Olympics opened Friday night. The Pope must not be big on the figure skating, curling or, like, the half-pipe.
The “Sacra Sindone,� or the “sacred� Shroud of Turin, is housed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. It is believed by some to be the sheet that was wrapped around Jesus following the crucifixion, although various skeptics, curators at Ripley’s and I’m assuming my rabbi are readily available for debate.
Problem is, visitors can only view images of the shroud because it goes on tour only every 25 years, or far less often than the Rolling Stones. Which brings me back to Jovanna. She, like many in Turin, seem oblivious to the notion that the Olympics might be a big deal. This is the largest city to ever host the Winter Games, with an area population of 2.2 million. But as of a week ago, there were over 300,000 tickets still available for various events and Friday’s Opening Ceremonies.
There might be many people in Turin excited that the Olympics are here. But they haven’t really shown it yet. Neither streets nor residents appear decorated.
“We are very calm people,� explained Giuseppe Cavallo, a Turin volunteer. “We are not like your typical Mediterraneans. We are so close to France and Switzerland, so we are more like them. We take our time. We breathe some Swiss air. We have kind of an interior joy, but we do not show it.�
NBC, of course, is hoping for more than scenes of people breathing. Jovanna Florio is excited, but only because she is talking about the shroud. My personal tour guide takes me through the museum, which sits about a five-minute walk from the Cathedral.
“This building originally was hospital for crazy, mad people,� she said. And then she gave me a strange look.
“What state you from?� she asked.
“Georgia.�
“I know Georgia,â€? she said. “I read book. Scarlett. Um. I read the Gone … Gone…â€?
Gone with the Wind?
“Yes! I like book. I read one time every year. It’s good book for history of United States. I like to read. But now I can’t because my eyes not good. I see movie. But I like book.â€?
Turin lit the torch Friday night. Now we’ll find out if it lights a fire under the city. It’s appropriate that the first medal today will be awarded in biathlon, which includes shooting. Turin originally was created by the Romans as a military camp. It grew into an industrial city but was destroyed in World War II. It’s the original capital of Italy but has sort of been knocked off the map by Rome, Florence and Venice.
Today, Turin is known for three things: The birthplace of chocolate, the home of Fiat and the shroud. Two you can have. The other only comes out for really special occasions.
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This Bowl officially tainted
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It’s better late than never, I guess. I’m referring here to the work of the crew that officiated the Super Bowl, a subject still very much alive in the minds of many. Biggest game of the year, biggest audience of the year, yet it shall be forever tainted by plays that cost touchdowns, and in the long run, cost the Seattle Seahawks their chance at winning No. XL.
That having been said, let me make it clear that this comes from a guy whose prediction was that Pittsburgh would win the game by a margin of 13 points. No bias here, just disappointment that it wasn’t clean-cut, no knockout but like a prize fight awarded on points.
Here’s the Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger, telling a national television audience that, no, he did not get the ball across the goal line until he nudged it forward after he was obviously downed. The play was called for review by the Challenge Crew in the upstairs booth — which, by the way, was in command of Bob Boylston of Atlanta, a longtime NFL official who had worked three Super Bowls. Bill Leavy, the referee, upheld the touchdown, though he couldn’t have been watching the play I saw on the screen.
That crew had already taken a touchdown away from the Seahawks on a flimsy interference call. Darrell Jackson, the receiver, and Chris Hope, the defender, had exchanged pushes along the goal line, both of light force. But Jackson pushed last, and last culprit always gets punished.
One rule applies here as to no other game: You don’t take a touchdown away from a team in a game of such magnitude on a borderline call (and one that can’t be reviewed). Then award one to the other team even when the quarterback so awarded confessed that the ball never crossed the line. You could say what you wish about the holding call on Sean Locklear that nullified the Seahawks pass to the 1-yard line, for holding is a disease that breaks out on about every play, but was this one so flagrant? Many a football critic has said that one was too tame to be called, and I join the throng.
That preceded the interception that Matt Hasselbeck threw, then tackled the interceptor himself — and was penalized for tackling him below the knees. What ho here? A quarterback is not allowed to tackle below the knees? (I know, they called it a “block.”)
You expected the NFL to defend its blundering bunch, but a big disappointment to me was that Jim Tunney did as well. Tunney is a man I deeply respect. He refereed over 30 years in the league, including three Super Bowls, and I expected him to give this bunch a blast. There were two calls he didn’t understand, but when he gave Leavy and associates a “grade of A, or B,” I nearly choked. Which was it, A or B, or how about C, Jim?
Well, nothing will change. I do staunchly defend the right of Mike Holmgren saying, “I knew we were playing the Steelers, but I didn’t know we were playing the men in stripes, too.”
One belated note that reflects to the glory of Georgia was overlooked, not that it was important only to our precinct. When Hines Ward was awarded the prize for Most Valuable Player, it was the second year in a row that the MVP has been a pass catcher from a small town in Georgia. Ward comes from Forest Park. Last year in Jacksonville, it was Deion Branch of the Patriots. He comes from Albany.
Ward even had a beef of his own: “the touchdown pass that I dropped.” It might have been a TD, but I thought it was a little high. So be it.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Other
