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Monday, February 20, 2006
Career ends but contributions continue
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Turin, Italy — As a player, Uwe Krupp was too broken down to contribute to Atlanta’s hockey team. The back, the shoulder, the knee — the trick was finding a body part that didn’t ache and could function for a day.
“It’s like an old car,” he said. “You replace the break pads but the clutch goes out.”
An athlete’s world often crumbles when the body goes. If anybody was set up for a fall, it was Krupp. He went from an All-Star defenseman with Colorado to an HMO’s worst nightmare to four games with the Thrashers in 2002-03. “I never considered myself a hockey player in Atlanta, but I got to know their medical people real well,” he said.
Krupp is at the Olympics as Germany’s hockey coach. When this ends, he will return to Atlanta and contribute in ways far more important than he did as a player.
Since August, Krupp and his wife Valerie have housed, fed and help provide schooling for two 14-year-old boys whose families lost their homes and livelihoods in New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina. The Krupps also brought Ryan Wainwright and Joel Kern, along with their own teenaged son, Bjorn, to the Olympics for a week. (Their parents provided airfare.) They attended several events, including the Opening Ceremony.
They were easy to spot. They were the only Americans waving German flags.
Krupp’s world didn’t crumble. It grew.
In August, he was in Nashville coaching his travel youth hockey team, which draws teenagers from around the south, including two from New Orleans, Ryan and Scott. That’s when Katrina hit. Krupp suggested the “no-boys,” as they’re called, return to Atlanta with Scott Wainwright, Ryan’s father. From there, they could monitor the storm and fly home. It figured to be a few days. But on Tuesday, the levees broke. On Wednesday, they learned the schools would be closed until March.
The boys’ families evacuated to Baton Rouge. The Krupps offered to keep Ryan and Joel for a while, and enrolled them in the same private school as their son, the Atlanta International School. The arrangement had expected to last until December. They’re still there. The Krupps even recently moved into a larger home to accommodate four teenaged boys (including another youth player from North Carolina they have been housing).
Krupp: “That house is like a locker room.”
It’s also like a dream. This past weekend, the two boys’ families and Valerie reunited in Miami for a hockey tournament.
“I was on the beach with Joel,” Tim Kern said, “and I told him, ‘Look, we wouldn’t be disappointed if you want to come home. Whatever you want to do, it’s OK.’ He said, ‘Are you out of your mind? I’ve got it made.’ The storm has devastated so many people, but some of us have come out of this OK.”
The families are now giving the Krupp’s a stipend to help support the boys, similar to the “billet” system in Canadian junior hockey. Because of Krupp’s hockey program, Joel has decided to stay in Atlanta. Ryan is “leaning in that direction,” said Scott Wainwright.
But they have not forgotten those first few months. Homes and businesses were lost. The Krupps were there. The two teenagers wore Bjorn’s clothes.
“It’s a tough situation when the families are [next to] you and you’re seeing the pictures of New Orleans,” Krupp said. “You’re hearing them say, ‘That’s my school.’”
Krupp made millions as a player. He “wanted to give something back. I needed a positive thing in my life. Seeing those kids, coaching youth hockey, it’s been great. I’m in a very fortunate situation that I can do this. I don’t have to run and do something that pays my bills. Hockey has allowed me to do this.”
Germany will not reach the next round. The team is 0-2-2 and closes play today against unbeaten Finland. But it hasn’t dulled the experience for Krupp. He was supposed to be an assistant coach, but the would-be head coach quit six weeks before the Olympics. He loves the teaching, but he has been away from Atlanta too much for too long.
“My wife is by herself in Atlanta,” he said. “She’s the one who deserves the medal here. She’s in the mom hall of fame.”
Parents miss their sons and sons miss their parents. They see each other monthly at tournaments. But out of tragedy came this intersection of lives. Joel Kern called Krupp a “great mentor,” adding, “You get to play hockey, you live with your coach, whose an ex-NHL player. It’s so cool.”
In fitness tests in training camp, Krupp exceeded every other Thrasher. “But I didn’t make it out of camp,” before the injuries hit. A career ended, but not the world. That got better.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
Old guard polarizing Tech on AD
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Unlike Michael F. Adams, who never met a photo opportunity he didn’t squeeze to death, G. Wayne Clough tries to live off-camera. During the run to the 2004 Final Four, Georgia Tech’s greatest sports achievement of his tenure, Clough walked the back hallways of the NCAA tournament venues, no entourage in tow, no profile to enhance. For a time, the favorite parlor game on The Hill — the seat of Tech academic oversight — was to try to distinguish the bearded president from the bearded band director Bucky Johnson.
But now the low-key Clough faces a high-profile hire. He has to replace an athletics director who was both successful and disliked. The Tech old guard sees this vacancy as an opportunity to undo the damage it believes Dave Braine wrought. The old guard has sent word to The Hill that it demands a Tech man, preferably Bill Curry, who technically isn’t an old guard but an old center.
True to his nature, Clough has been secretive about the hiring process, though it’s believed an announcement could come this week. By being so adamant about its preference, the Tech old guard has put Clough in a polarized position — however he moves, he’ll be seen as having kowtowed to Big Money or having thumbed his nose at a powerful and vocal alumni base.
How vocal? Well, to hear his detractors, Dave Braine was an unmitigated disaster. Yeah, he hired Paul Hewitt, but he also hired Chan Gailey, whom the old guard views as an only slightly lesser disaster than Braine — never mind that Gailey hasn’t yet had a losing season — and he allowed himself to be snookered into handing baseball coach Danny Hall a new contract, and isn’t $400,000 a lot to be paying a guy who keeps losing the super regional on his home field?
The old guard made Braine’s life so miserable that, in announcing an extension of Gailey’s contract, the athletics director essentially offered a refutation of old-guard beliefs. “Some people who graduated from Tech in the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s [read: the old guard] have no idea what it’s like today … Georgia Tech can win nine or 10 games, but they will never do it consistently.”
Naturally, the old guard took that as a concession speech. Said Taz Anderson, the Atlanta entrepreneur who played under Bobby Dodd and who has emerged as the de facto spokesman of the old guard: “Will people continue to pay for mediocrity?”
It’s no secret that Anderson wants Curry, the handsome white knight. Curry played at Tech and coached Tech — though some of his backers concede he wasn’t the greatest tactician — and is a public speaker of rare eloquence. Contrast Curry’s famous we-will-bring-the-cheaters-to-their-knees stem-winder of 1984 (which was universally taken as an indictment of Georgia, further endearing the speaker to his constituency) with Braine’s tepid endorsement of Gailey.
Hiring Curry would score maximum points for Clough with the old guard, but here’s the thing: Curry might not be the best hire. He has never run an athletics department, and the days are long past when a school can simply install a former football coach as a figurehead. Like him or not, Braine is a professional AD — he’d done good work in that position at Virginia Tech before coming here — who knew how to oversee a big-budget operation. Where’s the assurance that Curry does?
And it’s unclear if the lobbying on Curry’s behalf will leave a positive or a negative imprint on Clough, who, it must be noted, is an old Tech man himself. (B.S. in ‘64, Masters in ‘65.) Nobody likes being told what to do, and college presidents like it less than most. Surely Clough is clever enough to realize that winning the introductory news conference will count for nothing if his new athletics director isn’t up to the task. If Clough hires Curry, it won’t be because of alumni pressure. It will be because the bearded president sees managerial material in the old center.
Permalink | Comments (36) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Cox springs eternal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Lake Buena Vista, Fla. — Every February in this land of pixie dust, a miracle happens for the Braves, and those of us among the witnesses have a tendency to take it for granted. With eyes dancing, Bobby Cox keeps showing up to camp. That’s amazing enough in this era of revolving coaches and managers. Not only that, he keeps coming with more perkiness than those 18 rookies that he used to win a 14th consecutive division title last season.
Let’s start with The Speech, a Cox tradition that will occur before the first gathering of the full squad on Wednesday in the home clubhouse of The Ballpark at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. Every face will be riveted to the nearly 65-years-young icon, who always stresses with high emotion during these things that winning the World Series should be their obsession. “I try to vary the speech a little bit,” said Cox, eyes still dancing before chuckling. “Hard to do after 40 something years.”
Nineteen-Sixty. It was the year when Ricky and everybody else still loved Lucy, JFK was only a president elect, and Cox was beginning the first of his 47 consecutive seasons of visiting spring training as either a player, coach or manager.
This is the same Cox who likes to pinch himself each year for having another chance to enjoy this lovely mix of sunshine, baseball and spring. “It’s always fresh, you know?” Cox said. “Spring training handles itself. Everybody’s upbeat, because it’s always something that you want to do. Plus, you always want to see the old faces that you’ve missed, but you especially want to see the new faces. We’ve got a lot of those in camp again. A lot.”
Moments later, Cox did what he often does, whether it is the Braves of spring, summer or autumn. He became a bubbly soul around the clubhouse to make the team’s youth glow instead of shiver in the midst of a legend. The Baby Braves cherish Cox, and so do the few senior citizens on the roster. Eddie Perez is among the latter, especially since he has spent much of his decade in the major leagues watching this miracle up close and personal.
“I can’t wait to see this team trying to operate without Bobby one day,” said Perez, the old catcher, frowning, before easing into a smile. “It’s going to be hard, and I really don’t want to see it. But I do want to see it happen, because I just want to see the reaction from the players to the whole organization when it happens. Bobby is the one who makes this all work. He makes everybody feel really good.”
Just so you know, when Perez says “everybody,” he means the slew of different players and personalities that Cox has encountered during his 24 years of managing the Braves (twice) and the Toronto Blue Jays. In contrast, of the six managers with more victories than Cox, only Tony LaRussa has spent the bulk of his managerial career during Cox’s era in which teams are constantly changing due to free agency. In other words, Cox has perfected that miracle every season by doing the impossible: While not compromising his old-school principles that require his players to dress and act professionally, he still relates to “everybody” on his constantly changing roster. Players love his honesty and that enthusiasm.
Thus another reason why I’ll continue to tell the truth that Cox is the greatest manager ever. Here’s another: The ghosts are everywhere for the Braves, and Cox sees them. He just doesn’t dwell on them.
“When Tom Glavine wasn’t here that first spring, and then Greg Maddux, you know, you’d look at their lockers and walk in that first day and their names weren’t there, it felt funny,” said Cox, blinking to fight moisture in his eyes. “We talked about Otis Nixon for an hour this morning. Lonnie Smith. You miss them. Their names always pop up. It’s strange not having Leo (Mazzone, the Braves’ departed pitching coach for all of their current run).”
The Braves have Cox, though, and to the delight of “everybody,” he shows no signs of going anywhere soon. Perez shook his head, adding, “But it’s going to happen that he’ll leave someday. That’ll be something coming in here without him.”
Then again, Cox is a miracle, and the Magic Kingdom is only a couple of fungoes away, so who knows?
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Earnhardt’s chances go poof with late goof
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Daytona Beach, Fla. — The thrills were plentiful on Sunday inside Daytona International Speedway, and so were the spills. Thus the constant roaring throughout Volusia County. Actually, that noise had a tendency to increase to slightly louder than the racket produced by one of those Navy fighters that flew over the place before the start of the 500, but only whenever Dale Earnhardt Jr. did anything.
He did a lot. It’s just that he didn’t do enough at the end. His No. 8 Chevrolet went from threatening to earn a place today in the nearby museum to driving toward the NASCAR equivalent of a mausoleum with a dreary eighth-place finish. When he couldn’t find enough juice to catch eventual winner Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt told his crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., that his engine lacked the fountain of youth.
Or something like that. “It’s like an old man,� said Earnhardt, of his engine over his two-way radio. “It will wake up for a while, and then fall back asleep.�
Good thing Earnhardt could joke at a time like that. He did more to lose this one than whatever wasn’t happening underneath his hood. With 18 laps to go in what was developing into a classic shootout, Earnhardt goofed. That’s when he dropped out of the top 10 to 20th within a couple of seconds after getting shuffled out of the draft. He never recovered. It all contributed to the circuit’s first and biggest race of the year going to one of its least popular drivers instead of to the guy who ranks as the people’s choice.
About Johnson: Suddenly, he is drifting toward the edge of Jeff Gordon territory when it comes to likeability among NASCAR fans, and that isn’t good. Johnson spent his post-race news conference on the defensive, especially since his crew chief, Chad Knaus, was suspended before the race for continuing his habit of treating the rule book as reverently as a blown tire.
As for Earnhardt, there were about 198,000 of the 200,000 folks at the speedway who wanted him to win or who wouldn’t have cared if he did. Among other things, it was written on the legendary walls.
Literally. You even could see as much through the grayness created by an afternoon of heavy clouds that eventually began leaking into a mist.
“Go No. 8.�
“We love you, Jr.�
“Please don’t leave your mark here, Dale Jr., No. 8.�
Fortunately, Earnhardt’s ride didn’t smack one of those walls, but he knows about such things. In fact, Daytona International was the site of his greatest moment in racing and his worst moment in life. There was two years ago, for instance, when he held off a charging Tony Stewart near the end for a signature victory in the race that his father helped make famous. You probably heard of daddy Earnhardt, the sainted Dale Sr., who pushed his No. 3 car into the wall of the fourth turn and perished.
That was five years ago. Since then, the younger Earnhardt has recovered from the trauma of it all to admit that he wishes to become as prolific as his father. Along the way to the 500 last week, he spent a press gathering becoming a low-key combination of Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath.
Not only did Earnhardt predict that he’d win this race, but he said that he’ll qualify for the same Chase for the Nextel Cup at the end of the season that he missed last year. He had reason to boast.
For the first time since 2004, when Earnhardt finished the best of his seven years on the tour with six wins, he has first cousin Tony Eury Jr. returning for a full season as his crew chief. They always were a wonderful team, but the geniuses at Dale Earnhardt Inc. lost their minds last season by having Dale Jr. switch crew chiefs with Michael Waltrip, then one of Earnhardt’s teammates.
Although Earnhardt and Eury were reunited near the end of last season, it was too late then, but all things are possible now — even after Sunday’s finish.
“I’m so proud of my team. They gave me a good car, and we ran great, and that’s all I wanted to do,� Earnhardt said. “It’s been a long week. We’re real happy to be able to come out of here, because a lot of guys weren’t so fortunate. We’re happy with a top 10.�
Yeah, but the Top One is where an Earnhardt is supposed to be.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Auto Racing, Terence Moore
