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August 2006
A game not as good as advertised
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It’s among the most delicate issues an NFL franchise faces: What responsibility does it have to put on a good show in a game that doesn’t count? The Falcons offered this de facto answer Thursday night:
Some, but not much.
The Falcons chose not to deploy their starters in the much-unloved final exhibition, depriving the paying customers at the Georgia Dome the opportunity to see Michael Vick and John Abraham and Warrick Dunn. And the easy reaction from a disinterested observer — i.e., me — would be to don the populist cloak and cry fraud.
Sorry to say, I’ve never been much of a populist.
The Falcons didn’t advertise their intention to sit most everybody of consequence. When asked his plans for the starters, Jim Mora had said Tuesday: “Right now I’m playing them all, at least through the half.”
Mora’s actual intent, according to general manager Rich McKay, was to play his starters for one series. Then Mora changed his mind during pre-game warmups: Instead of one series, the starters would work zero. (Jacksonville, Thursday’s opponent, had already declared its intent to sit most of its starters.) Did this constitute breach of organizational credibility?
Said McKay: “I don’t think so. I read the quote, and I didn’t walk away thinking they were going to play a half. I even asked Jim about it the next day, and he said, ‘I want them in the mindset where they could play a half.’ You remember the Washington game [the last exhibition of 2004] where he’d told the starters they were going to play one series, and the game was a total disaster. Jimmy didn’t want them coming out of the tunnel tonight thinking like that.”
But shouldn’t the Falcons, just from a public-relations standpoint, have informed their customers that no starter would play? Said McKay: “If Jimmy had made that decision earlier in the week, we would have.” A tiny and utterly unscientific survey showed a mixed reaction. Asked if he would have come to the game had he known he wouldn’t be seeing Vick and crew, Mike McInnis — who lives in Duluth and who got tickets through a season-ticket-holding friend — said: “Probably not. We want to see some quality football. We’ll be leaving early.”
But Drew Aiken, a season-ticket holder from Atlanta, said: “Me, I’m fine with it. I’m a fan of D.J. Shockley’s.”
“Fans want to see a good game,” McKay said. “But it’s a balancing act, and not just to get your team ready for Week 1 [of the regular season] but for Weeks 1-17. Like with [rookie cornerback] Jimmy Williams — he’s probably going to wind up playing three quarters tonight because he needs to play.”
This was, it should be noted, the exhibition that matters least and is dreaded most. In 1978 the Cincinnati Bengals harbored Super Bowl dreams but lost quarterback Ken Anderson to a broken hand in the last preseason game and wound up 4-12. Not that anyone connected to the Falcons needs reminding of the perils inherent in exhibitions. Not after what happened to Vick in 2003.
Not playing the starters, owner Arthur Blank said, “was the right thing to do. And doing the right thing for the public is getting the team ready. … [Mora] made the right decision.”
In a perfect world, Mora would have made his choice two days earlier and given his constituency fair warning. (Mora does, as we know, have a love for semantics.) But the Falcons sold no single tickets for this particular game — all seats were gone in season-ticket packages, which include exhibitions. And truth to tell, the Dome gathering didn’t seem to mind not seeing Vick, mostly because Shockley played three quarters. “A nice show,” Mora called it.
The greater error by far would have been for the coach to play Vick and see the franchise focal point mangled by some desperate Jacksonville rookie. Such a coach, it was suggested to McKay, would deserve to be fired on the spot.
“We’d have to have a long discussion after the MRI came back,” the GM said. “The MRI of the coach’s brain.”
Permalink | Comments (99) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Jackets can’t grasp how big this will be
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
No question, Georgia Tech has the talent and the coaching to knock the shine off the Golden Dome by the end of Saturday night. Whether the Yellow Jackets do so will depend on a couple of things, starting with the lesser of those things: Can they finally get it right involving Calvin Johnson, their magic wide receiver?
From the opening kickoff through the final gun, Tech’s offensive brain trust must keep sprinkling Johnson’s considerable pixie dust for a change. He’ll match his quickness against a Notre Dame secondary with starters who are all returning and who are all seniors, but who are all slow.
As for that bigger thing: Will the Jackets avoid becoming an emotional rambling wreck for the evening? Only the ghosts of Heisman, Alexander and Dodd know for sure. Such a response also applies to that Calvin Johnson thing, especially since new play-caller Patrick Nix is an unknown entity, but let’s return to that emotional thing. Said Tech running back Tashard Choice, “It’s big when you play Notre Dame, a very prestigious college, and we understand that. We understand the hype around the game, but you also have to tell yourself to calm down. Get your emotions under control and understand that it’s a football game. You’ll tire yourself in warm-ups just thinking about the hype.”
Added Tech defensive tackle Joe Anoai, reflecting on the mood of his teammates during practices with The Notre Dame Game approaching, “We term it as a ‘controlled frenzy.’ You want to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm, but you have to be controlled in the mental sense, because if you get too excited, you can do some stupid things out there. We’re definitely excited, but not overly excited. We’ve been in situations like this before.”
Uh, no, the Jackets haven’t, and it’s not even close. Although Tech shocked Auburn during two of the past three years, there was little hype for those games compared to the Game of the Century feel that those in the Jacket Nation have attached to The Notre Dame Game. In addition, Auburn wasn’t ranked higher than 15th either of those times compared to the Fighting Irish coming to town at No. 2. Tech did ambush No. 3-ranked Miami last season, but the Jackets traveled to the Orange Bowl without pressure after collapsing the week before against mediocre Virginia.
Then there is Tech’s yearly grudge match against Georgia. It’s a rivalry, but it’s a highly overrated one, especially since the Jackets have won just thrice in the series since the first George Bush was president. More significantly, nobody cares about Jackets versus Bulldogs east, west, north or south of Georgia’s state line.
Everybody cares about Notre Dame versus anybody, and rarely has a Tech football team encountered all of the following at once: A packed house at Bobby Dodd Stadium. An opponent ranked this high in the country. Not only a nationally televised audience preparing to watch the Jackets play somebody at home, but in prime time on a network. Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Notre Dame. Only the Yankees and Duke basketball rival the Irish when it comes to spurring a slew of negative and positive thoughts among others.
So, after days, weeks and months of hearing about, preparing for and dreaming about The Notre Dame Game, the Jackets will rush through their tunnel to the sound of nearly unprecedented screaming in search of their biggest home victory over somebody this lofty since Tech shocked No. 1-ranked Alabama.
That was 44 years ago, when Tech coach Chan Gailey was in elementary school around Americus. Since then, he has participated in enough big games, ranging from those involving Gators, Broncos, Dolphins and Steelers, to learn what players should do. “We’ve got enough guys that have played in big games that understand what’s going on,” Gailey said. “I’m going to make sure I address it with some of the younger guys. All of the lead-up is nothing. The game is what’s important, so you want to make sure you control the emotions at game time.”
Unfortunately for Tech, the team that understands Gailey’s big-game approach more than anybody is Notre Dame. While Tech plays in this type of ga-ga environment about once every couple of decades, Notre Dame does so about once every week. It’s just that Tech has Calvin Johnson, and Notre Dame doesn’t. Still, if the Jackets do use Johnson like they should, it won’t matter — if they go from ga-ga to gagging after the national anthem.
Permalink | Comments (57) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Don’t believe it’s ‘hype’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
A word or two about an issue that seems to arise (in some sectors) whenever I make a prediction (which I do, as you know, rather often). I do not — repeat, do not — predict anything simply to elicit a response from the readership. Never. Ever.
Any prediction I make is something that, sometimes for better but often for worse, I really and truly believe. I really and truly believe Georgia Tech will, as noted in this space Wednesday, beat Notre Dame.
I might well be wrong, but if I am it won’t be because I have any agenda — common complaints: that I’m trying to “set up” the team I pick to win or “fire up” the team I pick not to win — other than the longstanding belief that predictions are the fun part of sports.
When I was growing up and reading every paper I could get my hands on, the thing I always wanted to know was: Which team did the writer like to win the big game? I liked reading the ones who’d make a pick and tell you why. I liked somewhat less reading those who hemmed and hawed for 700 words and wound up saying, “Time will tell.”
Time always does tell, but much of the charm of sports lies not in the event itself but in the anticipation. We all wonder who’s going to win. We all have an opinion in that regard. I tell you what I think. If I’m wrong (and I often am), I’ll say so in the convenient year-end Accountability Scoreboard. If I’m right, I’ll give myself a little psychic pat on the back and move on to the next big game. Which would be Georgia at South Carolina.
I like the Gamecocks in that one.
Permalink | Comments (56) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Every snap a test for Tereshinski
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Athens — Mark Richt calls Joe Tereshinski “a good preparation guy.” I suppose there are worst things you can call your starting quarterback. Imagine where Emeril would be without a good preparation guy. Who would chop the carrots?
Joe Tereshinski is a good kid. A smart kid. The kind of kid you can foresee doing something really significant with his life, thereby reducing having played football at Georgia to an afterthought (shocking, I know).
He has sat in meetings with David Greene and D.J. Shockley. But by all appearances, that’s as close as he gets to either. He hasn’t projected Greene’s cool or consistency. He doesn’t have Shockley’s talent and play-making ability.
Good kid. Smart kid. Starting quarterback?
“I tend not to think about [the doubts],” Tereshinski said. “But there’s something to prove, something to go out there and show people that you can play, and you can play mistake-free football.”
Georgia opens the season Saturday against Western Kentucky, another of college football’s I-AA sacrifices willing to take a payoff for a beating. As tests go, Western Kentucky won’t equal Florida or Auburn or even South Carolina next week.
But every snap will be a test for Tereshinski because he won’t start any series with the depth chart security of his predecessors. The question is whether he can avoid becoming more than the answer to a trivia question, “Who played after Greene and Shockley and before Matthew Stafford?”
The question is whether he is a starting quarterback for any reason other than longevity.
It’s only Western Kentucky. There are a lot of “onlys” on Georgia’s schedule. The first eight games should break down as seven “onlys” and one Spurrier. That road of marshmallows should play in Tereshinski’s favor. (Then again, a case could be made that the schedule could’ve played in Stafford’s favor, regarding his development.)
Richt denies he’ll be on guard with his play-calling with Tereshinski. “We’ll have a normal Georgia quarterback gameplan,” he said.
Whatever that is. Even if Tereshinski is voted the least likely to ignite an offense, he’s also the least likely to spontaneously combust. That might be the biggest reason he’s in there: Richt doesn’t feel like it’ll be a struggle to control him.
“I always have an expression for the quarterbacks: ‘Don’t turn a bad play into a catastrophe,’ ” he said. “If you do things the way we ask you, you’ll probably throw to the right guy about 90 percent of the time. But there are times when things break down. It should be protected beautifully, but the guy misses a block. Or it should be open but the guy runs the wrong route. Or you think it’s a good play but they happen to have a good defense called.
“What are you going to do now? Are you going to throw it up for grabs? Are you going to try to run around and be a hero? Are you going to get a 15-yard sack? Are you going to manage that situation and throw the ball out of bounds, or step up in the pocket and maybe take a 3-yard sack? [Tereshinski has] just done a really good job of not turning any bad situations into a catastrophe.”
But at some point, won’t the quarterback have to make a play?
“I feel like I can make any throw they ask me to,” Tereshinski said. “I don’t think I limit this team by any means. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a playmaker, compared to Thomas Brown and Mohamed Massaquoi and Martrez Milner. They’ve proven themselves. As long as you get the ball to those, then you’re giving yourself a chance to win.”
Good kid. Smart kid. But his resume has one start, a loss at Florida. He went 8 for 21 for the injured Shockley. There’s little else to go on. He’s not viewed as a cornerstone of the program, but a temp.
“You’re playing for a series. You’re playing for more playing time,” he said. “Like Coach Richt said, he’s going to play more than one quarterback, most likely.”
If nothing else, he seems prepared.
Permalink | Comments (86) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
By George, they did it!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
For a split-second, I had a silly thought after the Oakland Raiders decided to resurrect Jeff George from the NFL dead.
That silly thought? Why?
Here’s why: Terrell Owens, J.R. Rider, Albert Belle, Maurice Clarett, Dave Kingman, Randy Moss, Latrell Sprewell, Lawrence Phillips, Dennis Rodman, John Rocker, etc.
They rank among the most flawed athletes in history. Then again, they also rank among the most physically talented athletes in history. It’s a combination that has caused more than a few executives in sports to have amnesia before doing something such as signing a Jeff George anyway.
Although George always had that wonderful arm, he couldn’t keep from poisoning locker rooms across the league through his feuds with coaches and others on teams. So, despite George not throwing an NFL pass in five years, the Raiders still gave him a contract.
These things never make sense, but they makes total sense - until the executives involved with these things get burned like their predecessors.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Tech-Irish always classic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It might seem that, for all the furor about us, Georgia Tech and Notre Dame are breaking new ground this weekend, but the truth is, these two have been at it on the football field since the “Four Horsemen” were sophomores. You remember, I’m sure, Grantland Rice’s immortal lyric in 1924, composed in the icy press box of the Polo Grounds, “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.”
Not famine, pestilence, destruction and death as in lore, but Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden, the Irish backfield that beat mighty Army. Two weeks later, Notre Dame would win its 200th football game, and the victim was Georgia Tech. In 1928, on its way to the Rose Bowl, Georgia Tech would get its first taste of victory over the Irish, 13-0, in Atlanta. It would be 14 years before it happened again, this time in South Bend, and it was one of those games that still lingers lovingly in the minds of Tech historians. The star of the 13-6 game was a freshman, Clint Castleberry, though he never scored one of Tech’s two touchdowns, a freshman All-American who lost his life flying a bomber during World War II.
When the two teams played 11 years later, Georgia Tech was unbeaten and riding high after a national championship season. South Bend rocked. The day was dour and chilled, and the game was close until a high snap and a blocked punt turned matters the Irish way. However, something happened at halftime that is best recalled. When the Notre Dame team came back to the sideline, their coach, Frank Leahy, never came with them. When it was called to the attention of Charlie Callahan in the press box, Notre Dame’s information director, Charlie said, “Oh, no, can’t be.”
But it was, and checking with the sideline, he found out that Leahy had suffered some kind of seizure in the locker room. The game went on without him, but it would turn out to be Leahy’s last season, though unbeaten.
On a snowy day in 1959, Georgia Tech upset the Irish in South Bend when Bobby Dodd had to dig into his reservoir of quarterbacks and came up with Marvin Tibbets, who’d been raised less than 10 miles from the campus. Tibbets came off the bench, scored both touchdowns in a 14-10 game. It was the last time Tech has won in Notre Dame Stadium.
Then there was the “Rudy” game of 1975, when Notre Dame’s celebrated benchwarmer, Rudy Reuttiger tackled Georgia Tech’s Rudy Allen for a sack on the last play of another defeat for the Jackets. After which the Irish Rudy parlayed his nondescript career into a movie. Then came an improbable game the next season in which Georgia Tech beat the Irish at Grant Field without throwing a pass. It was Gary Lanier’s day, a 5-foot-8, 170-pound quarterback from Savannah, who executed Pepper Rodgers’ wishbone offense to perfection, and you can still find Gary around, raising money for the Alexander-Tharpe Fund.
Now comes the most unlikely game of them all. 1980. Notre Dame came to Grant Field ranked No. l. Georgia Tech had beaten only Memphis State, and would not win another game. Meanwhile, all eyes were centered on Jacksonville, where the Georgia-Florida game was on. That was the Buck Belue-Lindsay Scott game. Every guy wanted to cover that one. Nobody wanted to cover Tech-Notre Dame, but 41,266 paid to watch an astonishing event. Johnnie Smith kicked a field goal in the second quarter and Tech led, 3-0, until the last four minutes, when Harry Oliver kicked a wobbler that cleared the crossbar and the Irish were lucky to get away with a 3-3 tie. All the while, Georgia Tech quarterbacks had fallen like flies, until Bill Curry was down to his fourth, or maybe fifth number, a freshman named Ken Whisenhunt, later a Falcons tight end, and now offensive coordinator of the world champion Pittsburgh Steelers.
“All I told him to do was keep order, don’t try anything foolish and remember you’re not Johnny Unitas,” Curry said.
The two teams have met in one bowl game, the Gator Bowl of 1999, nothing of any great distinction about that one, except that Tech did win, 35-28, with 70,790 paying witnesses.
There has been a somewhat now-and-then flow of personnel traffic between the two states. One of the “Four Horsemen,” Don Miller, was an assistant to Bill Alexander at Georgia Tech in the 1920s, but retired after four years to go into law practice. Harry Mehre, the “Four Horsemen’s” first center before they became “Four Horsemen,” came to Georgia as coach from 1928 to 1937, whereupon, he later said, “They tore up my lifetime contract and declared me legally dead.” And Bill Lewis, who has coached at both Georgia and Georgia Tech, is now an assistant at Notre Dame.
It was early in 2002 that Notre Dame reached down to Georgia Tech for a new coach to follow Bob Davie, and thus developed an embarrassment to both the new employee and school. For less than a week George O’Leary was football coach at Notre Dame, a likely fit of Irish coach for the Irish. Then when it became public that his record as player and career were not what they seemed, he resigned, Notre Dame blushed and moved on, and both O’Leary, at Central Florida, and the Irish, with Charlie Weis, have done quite well since. Strange thing, that a fellow could go to Notre Dame, not play the game that nearly defines the school, and wind up as coach.
Permalink | Comments (35) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Jackets primed for upset
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
One team that will play at Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday has demonstrated the capacity to beat strong opposition, and it isn’t Notre Dame. One team has proved it can stop a good offense, and it isn’t Notre Dame. One team seems equipped to win this hugely ballyhooed game, and it isn’t Notre Dame.
Notre Dame is No. 2 in the Associated Press poll and No. 1 according to The Sporting News, but at some point a disinterested observer must ask: Exactly what did the Irish do to merit such effusion? Notre Dame didn’t beat a single team ranked in the final AP poll last season. When last seen, it yielded 617 yards to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, it has the newest anointed genius in the coaching fraternity and a quarterback of the first rank, but isn’t it true that the biggest noise the Irish have made under Charlie Weis came in a loss?
Georgia Tech, by way of contrast, beat three of last season’s top 21 teams. Georgia Tech, by way of contrast, can play some D. Georgia Tech, by way of contrast, makes the most noise when confronted by an opponent that has been heralded to the heavens.
Asked if he had wearied of hearing how mighty the Irish are supposed to be, Tech linebacker KaMichael Hall said: “Any team would be tired of it. Not taking anything away from [Notre Dame], but the hype is something serious. If I was the Fighting Irish, I might be a little worried.”
Sometimes the tub-thumping is justified. In Notre Dame’s case, it sounds a bit tinny. Can you be a great team with a lousy defense? (The Irish yielded 397 yards a game last season, and that number wasn’t utterly skewed by the production of big boys Southern Cal and Ohio State. Washington, which finished 2-9, gained 442 yards.) Can you be a great team without actually beating anybody? (Technically, the epic near-miss against the Trojans doesn’t qualify.) Can you be a great team just because you’re Notre Dame and the masses want you to be great?
“America loves Notre Dame right now,” said Joe Anoai, the defensive tackle. And then: “I’m not sick of [the hype]. It’s just more fuel to my fire.”
As bad as Chan Gailey can be in games he’s expected to win, he’s that good in games in which his team is afforded no chance. (Think N.C. State in 2002, Auburn in 2003, Auburn and Miami last season.) Gailey and his men revel in feeling slighted, and here they are again. Asked if this correspondent is the only person who thinks Tech can win, Hall said: “You and the rest of our team.”
Said Anoai: “We don’t think we can win. We know.”
Notre Dame may be the one team in the land with its own TV network, but the cold truth is that Notre Dame hasn’t mattered much since Lou Holtz left. (Of the two schools who will play here Saturday, Tech has been crowned national champion more recently.) Much of the embrace of Weis and Brady Quinn has to do with the legions of subway alums who yearn for the Irish to be restored to their place in the football firmament. But does Notre Dame possess more aggregate talent than Auburn or Miami? And if Tech was stout enough to topple both of those on the road, why should it wilt at home?
Jeff Samardzija is a splendid receiver, but is he better than Calvin Johnson? Darius Walker is a nice back, but Tashard Choice seems poised for a breakout. And while Quinn against Reggie Ball is regarded as an abject mismatch, it should be noted that the much-lampooned Ball has become rather adept at the major upset.
At issue is whether Patrick Nix, the newly minted play-caller, can engineer an offense that will keep the ball from Quinn. Early returns on Nix, whose previous responsibility was the two-minute drill, have been mixed, but a bad Irish secondary figures to fare even worse against the elongated Johnson. Tech should be able to move and to score, and in the end Jon Tenuta’s defense will make the stop it has to make.
Come midnight Saturday, one team will have seized a famous victory, and it won’t be Notre Dame.
Permalink | Comments (278) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC
Jeff Schultz: Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: Atlanta’s LPGA tournament has been cancelled. Wait. Atlanta has an LPGA tournament?
9: John Smoltz is my homey.
8: I think they should trash every reality show on TV but add a 24-hour Bill Parcells’ network, with nothing but press conferences about Terrell Owens.
7: Seriously, I don’t know whom to root for in this one. T.O. is T.O. But Parcells is the same slimeball who coached the Patriots in the Super Bowl while negotiating with the Jets - the epitome of a non-team guy - and never seems like he really wants to coach as much as he wants to be ASKED to coach. Owens can’t cause him enough grief, as far as I’m concerned.
6: I’ll make every Braves fan a deal: I won’t say, “You’re out of it,” if you don’t say, “We’re in it,” until the team has at least as many wins as losses (which hasn’t been the case since June 3).
5: I’m pretty sure John Schuerholz would say I’m not his homey.
4: Some in boxing are concerned because Evander Holyfield reportedly plans to partner with another crooked promoter, Murad Muhammad. But after you’ve worked with Don King, isn’t everybody else in the minor leagues of corruption?
3: I watched some of the Emmys. Even watched some of the red carpet arrivals. I have no idea who Vanessa Minnillo is. But after seeing her in that low-cut blue dress, I’m pretty sure I want to date the dress. (Note to Wife: Fear not. There is no shot of Vanessa being my homey.)
2: Barry Bonds is in town and I sense a distinct lack of buzz. Can there be a greater indictment on how he’s perceived as both an athlete and a person?
1: Richard Williams wonders about his daughter Serena’s commitment to tennis. I wonder if this means he’ll have to go out and get a job.
Permalink | Comments (25) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Falcons’ GM loves to hate Irish
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Something just occurred to me. Even though Falcons guru Rich McKay is an otherwise perceptive soul, he and I sit on opposite planets of the college football universe. While I was born and raised in South Bend, Ind., where your blood automatically bleeds blue and gold for the Touchdown Jesus folks, he grew up in Los Angeles as a disciple of that arrogant bunch that worships a Trojan horse.
I understand. McKay couldn’t help himself, because his father, John, spent 15 years coaching Southern Cal to four national championships, with more than a few of them depending on whether the Men of Troy could slay the Fighting Irish.
So this isn’t surprising: When Notre Dame comes to town in four days to face Georgia Tech in the opener for both teams, McKay will cheer himself old gold and white at Bobby Dodd Stadium with his wife, Terrin, and their two sons, Hunter and John. Said McKay, emphatically, “I will definitely not be rooting for the Irish.”
See what I mean by arrogance? Not only did McKay travel to South Bend for last year’s classic between the Trojans and Notre Dame, but he took Falcons owner Arthur Blank with him. I’m guessing that McKay wasn’t exactly displeased when Southern Cal kicked the ghosts of the Four Horsemen off their saddles in the waning seconds with the type of miracle normally reserved for the home team.
If you can relate to McKay’s feelings (or lack thereof) for the Irish, then get in the back of the line that stretches from here to the millions or billions who wish to shake the green out of a leprechaun. Such is the primary reason this Tech-Notre Dame game sold out in a flash, and consider: Tech honchos charged a program record-tying $50 per ticket and made non-season ticket holders pay for the Notre Dame game and purchase tickets for two other games.
Nebraska. Florida State. Tennessee. Texas A&M. Those are just some of the places that Notre Dame has visited to see generations of Irish haters pack their stadiums in record numbers. This was all foreign to me for the longest time. As a youth in South Bend during the 1960s, with Notre Dame perfecting victory, I thought everybody wished to hug Ara Parseghian and choke that Trojan horse. Then I discovered the truth in 1968 after my father’s job at AT&T forced the family to move to Cincinnati (Ohio State territory under King Woody Hayes), and the truth is that most fans have their teams and whoever is playing against Notre Dame.
“With my dad, and from the USC days, I always ranked [the rivalries] differently,” said McKay, whose late father coached the Trojans from 1960 through 1975. “UCLA, there was a mutual dislike. Stanford, there was even a higher level of dislike, and then I thought Notre Dame was probably the most respectful rivalry out of all of them. I think my dad always thought it was a treat to compete against them.”
Not always. We’re back to my yin to the younger McKay’s yang regarding Notre Dame, and nothing exemplifies that more than the joy that was the Irish’s 51-0 smashing of 10th ranked Southern Cal in 1966 along the way to a national title. Well, that’s me speaking. To those partial to people who still dress like Julius Caesar, it remains the most lopsided loss in the Trojans’ 113 seasons of football.
Said McKay, “I don’t think my dad took a game harder than that one. It stuck in his craw for a long time.”
Rumor had it that John McKay stood before his team after the blowout to say through clenched teeth before bolting from the room, “Notre Dame will never beat us again.”
He nearly was right. During John McKay’s final eight seasons at Southern Cal, Notre Dame won once. In fact, years later, when he was finishing his NFL stint as the Buccaneers’ first head coach, I asked him in his Tampa office if he really gave that ultimatum after the 1966 Notre Dame game. He puffed on his cigar before saying, “Yeah.” After he puffed again, he added, “Then I went out and recruited a guy named O.J. Simpson.”
Rich McKay chuckled over my story about his father, the king of the one-liners. Then he thought about Yellow Jackets-Irish again before delivering an unofficial impression of his father, sans the cigar, “Any time a program gets to measure up against Notre Dame it’s great. Any time a program can beat Notre Dame, it’s even better.”
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Smoltz waiting for word on future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Two years after he was generally mocked and lampooned for claiming his arm would be better off throwing 100 pitches every five days than a dozen every couple, John Smoltz is the only starting pitcher the Braves can depend on. That his arm hasn’t fallen off, therefore, is a given. And, so, I must admit here: I was wrong.
“I appreciate that — you’re the first one to admit that,” Smoltz said Sunday, certainly aware that I could lose my license as a columnist and character assassin with this declaration.
There’s a month left in the season. Only AP mathematics keeps the Braves in the playoff race. Only Smoltz is keeping them north of the Nationals. And Richmond.
All of which begs the question: Isn’t it about time the Braves make some sort of declaration?
Smoltz’s contract is up after this season. The Braves hold an $8 million option for next season — a relative swap meet price for a starting pitcher who leads the National League in innings (190) and ranks second in strikeouts (176). The thought of not exercising the option — which needs to be done by shortly after the World Series — seems implausible.
But general manager John Schuerholz has yet to make even a verbal affirmation on Smoltz’s future — and the pitcher isn’t happy about it. Smoltz also did little to hide what most already knew — that he and Schuerholz hardly are chummy.
“I wonder why it hasn’t [been picked up yet],” Smoltz said of his option. “I know what the pat answer is: That’s how we do business around here. But even if it’s going to ruffle some feathers me saying something — you know what? I just don’t understand it. You’ve never heard me be bitter about something, other than bitter that we lose another chance at a World Series. But when people ask me questions, I have to be honest and say I can’t talk about next year because I don’t know what next year is going to [bring].
“I’ve come back from so much, I’ve worked so hard that I’m not going to concern myself with being the prisoner of an environment. I’ve been here 19 years, so the overwhelming feeling is, ‘They’ll never get rid of you.’ But after every single year, I’ve had to work 10 times harder just to work this out.
“All I know is, after these last two years and with my desire to work out, I’ve got two or three more years, easy. I used to always be of the mind-set that, ‘If it’s not here, it won’t be anywhere else.’ But that’s not the case any more. I’ll pitch somewhere else.”
The Braves need significant fixes if they’re going to become a playoff team again. But when Smoltz was asked what areas he would try to improve if he was general manager, he smiled.
“Every time I answer that, homeboy upstairs criticizes me,” he said, a reference to Schuerholz.
One illustration: When the Braves followed a 6-21 June by winning nine of their first 12 in July, Smoltz said the team needed to make a move to keep the run going and Schuerholz didn’t take it well.
Smoltz: “All I said was, now that we’re playing good, I hope management will do whatever it takes. And he went off. Why? What did I say that a normal competitive player wouldn’t say?”
Schuerholz responded to Smoltz’s comments in July this way: “There’s a lot of people volunteering to be assistant general managers. He’s just the latest.”
This much is certain: Smoltz has had a better year than Schuerholz.
Schuerholz put together a team with, among other flaws, a bad bullpen. Smoltz is 12-6 — and only 12-6 because the bullpen has blown six save opportunities. It’s a replay of last season, when Smoltz was 14-7, and eight other wins were lost to blown saves.
Smoltz lost his first three starts last season in his return from the closer’s role. Since then, however, he is 26-10 with a 3.10 ERA.
This season, he is 8-1 at Turner Field, where the Braves are six games under .500 (28-34).
Logic screams he’ll be back. But Smoltz said, “I don’t know what the future holds for me.”
And this from someone who two years ago foresaw something few others did.
Permalink | Comments (304) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Falcons excel in half that counts
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Nashville — There ought to be a law: In any exhibition involving Michael Vick and Vince Young, the two quarterbacks must be required to play in the same half. That Vick was done long before Young got his chance in Saturday night’s exhibition means that Jeff Fisher, the coach who chose to let the legendary Billy Volek work the entire first half, should be fired.
Soon enough, Fisher might well be. His Tennessee Titans might not win five games. The Atlanta Falcons, who won 20-6, should win twice that many.
Yes, the Falcons. Yes, the same guys who stunk up Lambeau Field last weekend to the extent that their coach was left frothing. (Then again, it doesn’t take much to make Jim Mora throw a fit.) They answered that listless performance with a rather rousing one, making a bad team look really bad and making T.J. Duckett seem a distant memory.
Two runs by Jerious Norwood were the talking points of the Falcons’ most comprehensive half of the preseason, and given that the first half of the third exhibition tends to be the one most teams take most seriously, the rookie picked his spot nicely. He scored the game’s first touchdown on a 62-yard cutback, a play on which Duckett — dispatched to D.C. during the week — might have gotten one-tenth as much yardage.
About third exhibitions in general, Mora said: “It’s the first one where you do any game-planning, where you simulate your [regular-season] work week. It’s the one where you play your starters the most.” And then, about this game specifically: “You’d like to put on a good show, and, for the most part, I think we did.”
Back to Norwood. He galvanized the Falcons’ second touchdown drive with a breathtaking — the adjective is apt — fourth-down burst to the Tennessee 1. Hit in the backfield, he put his hand on the turf and kept his knees above it and flung himself forward for 5 of the most heartening yards this franchise has ever known. Then Vick stood in against a big rush and found Michael Jenkins for the touchdown that made it 17-3 and ended Vick’s participation.
Rule of thumb: The only score that matters in the exhibition season is the score when the first starting quarterback gets pulled, and a two-touchdown spread on the road is good enough to satisfy most every criterion. The defense, pliant against New England and Green Bay, held Tennessee to 83 yards on its first six possessions. Alge Crumpler saw his first (and probably last) action of the preseason and looked like his old self. Vick didn’t shoot out the lights with his passing but didn’t get hurt, either, and in the grand scheme that’s all that matters.
The point being: You can’t win the Super Bowl in August, but you can lose it. The Falcons have made it through three exhibitions without a significant injury, save Brian Finneran, whose knee injury in two-a-days seems to have been offset by the addition of Ashley Lelie, who arrived in the Duckett deal but didn’t play here. If you liked this team going into camp, you have to like it now.
I did, and I do. I have by now resigned myself to believing that no combination of Vick and offensive coordinator Greg Knapp will ever produce a seamless and sustained offense, but I continue to believe Vick will make enough plays to keep his team moving. And the defense, whose subs were overrun by Green Bay, will be fine. Those subs won’t be playing all at once come September. And John Abraham, who is absolutely big-time, will be playing every snap.
If anything, the Falcons have actually gotten better this past fortnight. They’ve identified deficiencies and moved to rectify them. (Hello, Lelie. Hello, Grady Jackson.) If you liked this team in July, you should like it even more now.
I did, and I do. But you know someone I don’t like? Fisher. Holding Young until the second half when everybody in the world wants a little head-to-head between the two most dynamic quarterbacks of their generation? Give me a break.
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Richt wins with faith, character
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Athens — To be a football coach, you don’t have to have a chaw in your jaw, a whistle around your neck and the salty vocabulary of a mule driver. Or wear a pair of canvas knickers and a sweatshirt and walk around in cleated shoes. Nor do you have to be as ethically inclined as Mark Richt. But it appears to have worked pretty well for him. Even so, when a lady named Sharon K. Stoll came around offering a program called “Winning With Character,” he agreed to have it installed for his Georgia football players.
Not that he felt Georgia needed it, but it sounded as if anybody could use it, including the whole student body. It had a theme, about helping players “reflect on who they are and to provide a forum to discuss how they should make decisions.” A member of the athletics staff, Bobby Langford, recommended it to Richt, and now Georgia is one of six major college programs where the course is ongoing. In fact, in its fifth year here, though just to be rather calloused about the thing, I doubt Richt needs any outside influence other than the One he deals with on a daily basis, his Lord and Savior, in his words.
Richt’s ascension to the faith he now represents was a long haul, from the time he found out he was not going to be the University of Miami’s starting quarterback. Jim Kelly was. “I was crushed,” he said. “Then I began to realize what a shallow human I was, and what was left of me wasn’t very appealing.”
Down through the years he wrestled with his conscience, trying to get a grip on just what Christianity is, worried about what his friends might think if he went public, so to speak. “I still wanted to do what I wanted to do, not what God wanted me to do.”
You’ve read of the penalties imposed on some of the Georgia players: suspensions and, in some cases, dismissal. Not always were the penalized players from underprivileged homes, but from both sides of the track. One was a minister’s son, and another continued his wayward life into the NFL.
“Things are going to happen, and it hurts to impose some of the disciplinary things, but it’s like correcting your children,” Richt said. “You discipline them because you love them.” And the truth is, he didn’t necessarily feel that Georgia football needed Ms. Stoll’s program, but if it might help, give it a try. It was his view that Georgia was already trying to “win with character.”
“Can morals be taught?” he was asked.
His reply was swift. “Of course morals can be taught. It’s something we work at daily. That’s what we try to do at Georgia, to help develop the mind, body and spirit. You do all that, you build a better team.”
Back to Richt and his own personal wrestle with himself. “I was not without my own personal experiences. I’d been a hell-raiser. Then I began to think about giving my life some purpose. I really wasn’t sure just what Christianity was. I thought you had to be perfect, and I wasn’t ready for that. I thought maybe if I followed the Ten Commandments I’d go straight to heaven.”
When he was an assistant at Florida State, the message came through in violent form. One of the football players was shot dead, a tackle named Pablo Lopez. It was a grim Bobby Bowden who called a staff meeting the next morning and looked his coaches in the eyes, then delivered the shivering challenge:
“If that had been you last night, where would you be spending eternity?” he said.
That was it. “I’d been wavering, wondering all that time, but that was the culmination,” Richt said. “It was time to give my life to Christ.”
You wonder if such a commitment has its disadvantages in his line of work. Handicapped in recruiting? Do you do anything it takes to get ahead? How does it affect what a college football coach has to do to land the hot prospect, to win the big game? Where do sin and honor above all collide?
He doesn’t need Sharon K. Stoll to be his guide. It’s Mark Richt’s design to “win with character” every day of his life.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Furman Bisher, UGA / SEC
Chipper gets first taste of losing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This is Chipper Jones’ most impressive season, but not because of the obvious. It was one thing for, say, Ernie Banks to discover ways to glow during any given year despite gloom nearly everywhere else amongst the Wrigley ivy. He was used to the mess. After all, more often than not, his Chicago Cubs wallowed inside the dark clouds of the standings.
Jones has known only sunshine in baseball, and that ranks as one of history’s greatest understatements. Now, with the Braves often playing like those old Cubs, or even worse, like those old Braves, Jones is continuing his silent but steady Cooperstown march. Entering Friday night’s game at Turner Field against the Washington Nationals, he was in the National League’s top 10 in batting average, slugging percentage and on-base percentage. Earlier this summer, he went nuts and tied a 79-year-old mark for most consecutive games with an extra-base hit. He also slammed three homers in a game and kept passing franchise gods Hank Aaron and Dale Murphy in the team record book.
Even more striking, with the Braves having a better chance of reaching the playoffs in 2007 than 2006, Jones has kept the slew of youth in the Braves’ clubhouse from losing their intensity. That’s because he hasn’t lost his.
“Veterans know how to get themselves prepared. They know how to protect the integrity of baseball. They know that, no matter how badly you struggle, things are going to turn around for you,” said Jones, hoping to speak his words into truth. It didn’t happen this time, with the Braves losing for the fourth time in five games after the Nationals held on for a 7-6 victory, with Jones striking out with two on and one out in the ninth.
Added Jones, “Young guys, on the other hand, if they get down on their confidence, they’re going into a prolonged slump. It’s up to us to coach them on how to get out of that as quickly as possible, because a lot of young guys watch us, and it’s important for us to be good role models.”
No problem there for Jones, evolving into an unofficial Braves coach. He has much knowledge. The thing is, none of it involves losing like this.
Make that losing, period. In fact, somebody should call the Ripley’s people about Jones and cue the music from “The Twilight Zone” and “The X-Files.”While growing up in Jacksonville, the Braves third baseman never played on a Little League team that didn’t finish first. In high school, he never played on a team that didn’t finish first. During his four years in the minor leagues, he never played on a team that didn’t finish first.
See a pattern here? Simply put, Jones is the ultimate winner. And this just in after a phone call to the folks at the Elias Sports Bureau: In the 137 years of major league baseball, nobody ever has played for a team that finished first during more consecutive seasons from the start of his career than Jones. We’re talking 11 straight. We’re also talking the end of the streak after this season for the ultimate winner who spent his rookie year helping the Braves win a world championship.
Courtesy of inconsistency and injuries throughout their roster, the Braves are sputtering in August after mostly imploding from April though July. They still have a mathematical chance of reaching the playoffs with September on the horizon, but they haven’t a realistic one.
So you wonder how the ultimate winner is handling life sitting deep into double digits out of first place and needing a telescope to see the distance between where his team is now and .500. “A lot of disappointing drives home,” said Jones, easing into a chuckle, with the Braves just another one of their ugly streaks away from replacing the Nationals in the division cellar. “This obviously is not something that we’re used to, but no matter how bad things have gotten, everybody has come into the clubhouse each and every day with the optimism that today is going to be the day that turns everything around.”
Sounds like the mind set of an ultimate winner. The Braves have two of them, with pitcher John Smoltz ranking as the other one. Jones and Smoltz have been around the longest during the team’s record streak of 14 straight playoff appearances. It’s just that Smoltz spent his opening three seasons in the majors with Braves teams that averaged 100 losses a year. During Jones’ opening three seasons, the Braves reached the World Series twice and won a baseball-high 101 games that other year. The Chipper of then is the Chipper of now. Too bad those Braves aren’t these Braves.
Permalink | Comments (51) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Tech’s changes point to 7-5 again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Who says engineering schools are dull? Georgia Tech saw its football coach (Chan Gailey) finally sign a five-year extension, only to turn around and hand play-calling duties to Patrick Nix (which infuriated nobody). The school hired a new athletics director (Dan Radakovich) to replace his beaten-down predecessor (Dave Braine). Also, the Yellow Jackets took yoga classes.
To what extent this opens Tech’s chakras or elevates the team to an enlightened state remains to be seen. But I’m thinking it’s going to take more than a candle and incense to beat Notre Dame.
Sept. 2: Notre Dame
There’s a book out, “The New Gold Standard: Charlie Weis and Notre Dame’s Rise to Glory.” First time I’ve ever seen a 9-3 season associated with “gold standard” or “glory.” Of course, the Irish hadn’t won nine games since Ty Willingham won 10 in his first season. That certainly turned out well. Did Willingham get a book in South Bend, too, or is that just reserved for dumpy white guys with crew cuts? The Irish have talent. Tech has a habit of jolting ranked opponents. Count on a scare, but that’s all:
• Prediction: Loss.
Sept. 9: Samford
Hey, beatable Bulldogs! Tech beat Samford only 28-7 two years ago after winning the first five meetings in the series by a combined 170-0. But you can’t be picky. Besides, Samford might be feeling cocky after that opener against Miles College (huh?).
• Prediction: Win.
Sept. 16: Troy
Ah, the extent a schedule-maker will go to get a team back above .500 after Notre Dame week. Why not just add Montevallo in Week 4 and crown this the “Punks of Alabama Month”? Troy, at least, could make things interesting with a spread offense. Did I just say that?
• Prediction: Win.
Sept. 21: Virginia
It’s a short week with an ESPN game. Fortunately, Virginia isn’t a step up from Troy. When the Cadavers hired Al Groh, they expected a Bill Parcells clone, not a coach who would go 2-11 against Miami, Florida State, Virginia Tech and Boston College. Virginia even lost to North Carolina last year, 7-5. The fact Groh has had several NFL graduates leads to only one conclusion: He’s coaching them down.
• Prediction: 3-1.
Sept. 30: at Virginia Tech
Imagine going 11-2 and being in a bad mood. (Jackets can only imagine.) Hokies started 8-0, then were drilled by Miami, lost to FSU in the ACC title game and had a Gator Bowl win soiled by Marcus Vick’s tap dance on an opponent. But Va-Tech is what Miami used to be — a program on constant reload. Upset? Don’t even think about it.
• Prediction: Smackdown.
Oct. 7: Maryland
I like Ralph Friedgen. Everybody likes Ralph Friedgen. But when 10-12 in two seasons follows 31-8 in the first three, you don’t want to be anywhere near Ralph Friedgen. The man’s so dejected, I guess he can’t eat. He’s lost 30 pounds, give or take a Ho Ho. He also lost his coordinators — and nobody’s sure where they’re buried. Friedgen will go back to calling plays, which is what he’s good at.
• So eat this up: Loss.
Oct. 21: at Clemson
Team Esso has become the fashionable upset pick in the ACC Atlantic, which begs the question, “Since when do teams that lose to Wake Forest become fashionable upset picks?” If the Tigers’ annual preseason projections were any more inflated, they’d be Georgia. Yeah, they have 17 starters back. But they’re CLEMSON starters. I think I just talked myself into an upset.
• Prediction: Win.
Oct. 28: Miami
It’s been a great offseason for Miami. Larry Coker blew out his coaching staff, four players (including running back Tyrone Moss) were suspended and another was shot in his hiney. The alumni liked it better when the players just won national titles between arrests. But motivation won’t be a problem against Tech, which somehow won in the Orange Bowl last year. Payback time.
• Prediction: Loss.
Nov. 4: at N.C. State
Chuck Amato said he would build a great program. Then again, he never said when. Or where. For that matter, he never said football. Maybe he was talking about a cooking show? The Wolfpack is only 23-25 in the ACC under Chuckles. Hope he enjoys that rugged non-conference schedule (Appalachian State, Akron, Southern Miss, East Carolina).
• Prediction: Win.
Nov. 11: at North Carolina
Buzz gets the Tar Heels the week after they’re pummeled at Notre Dame and the week before they meet their rivals from Raleigh. And there’s this: Carolina QB Joe Dailey is a transfer from Nebraska, where he threw 19 interceptions in 2004 and was on the hook for the Cornboys’ first losing season since 1961. Oops.
• Prediction: Win.
Nov. 18: Duke
Zack Asack, who would have started at quarterback for the Blue Devils, was suspended for the season for cheating on a test. OK, I’m trying to figure out what the problem is. Duke was 1-10 last season and is 9-59 in the past six. Is losing the quarterback going to make that big of a difference?
• Prediction: Three straight!
Nov. 25: at Georgia
The Jackets allowed 85 points in Gailey’s first two games against Dog U but only 33 in the past two. So somebody’s figured something out. But moral victories don’t pay the donors who pay the bills. Same game, same story. Another Tech senior class gets blanked.
• Prediction: Loss (record: 7-5).
Permalink | Comments (42) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
Bulldogs schedule is meat and tomatoes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Assuming Mel Gibson didn’t serve in the past as a Georgia tight end or head of the Athens Christian Coalition, it has been a relatively quiet offseason for the Bulldogs. Either Mark Richt’s threats to his blue-chip convicts finally sunk in or players just couldn’t work their way into another beer-induced frenzy after falling behind to West Virginia, 28-0.
The Dogs might as well keep resting. The first eight weeks is less a schedule than a walk through a mattress warehouse. It’s probably why Richt thinks he can get by with Joe Tereshinski at quarterback until Matthew Stafford looks functional. Besides, Stafford should be ready for the Florida game. And he’s never lost to the Gators. (That’s one.)
Sept. 2: Western Kentucky
As long as the NCAA’s Dept. of Hypocrisy is going to find some way to justify 12-game schedules — while maintaining they’re all about academics — I’ve got no problem with SEC schools opening the season against Division 1-AA meat by-products. That said, I hope the Hilltoppers have a good HMO plan.
• Prediction: Duh.
Sept. 9: South Carolina
Steve Spurrier could take the Prairie View job, and sphincters would still tighten in Athens. When Spurrier came to Georgia last year, Richt mudwrestled his playbook and nearly lost. Spurrier won seven games last season, the Gamecocks’ best year since Lou Holtz’s last rulebook burning four years earlier. On a related note, be sure to stop by Holtz’s Used Soul kiosk before the game.
• Prediction: Narrow escape.
Sept. 16: UAB
UAB coach Watson Brown stepped down as athletics director after last season’s 5-6 splat. The school has yet to name a replacement, leading to speculation he may reclaim the job. Given his team plays Oklahoma and Georgia in the first three weeks, I’m thinking he might just want to lay low for awhile. Waiter, hemlock!
• Prediction: Not so close.
Sept. 23: Colorado
This football program is one cheap mood candle short of a Tombstone brothel. Of course, if coach Gary Barnett hadn’t lost to Texas 70-3, the debauchery in Boulder could’ve been overlooked. The Buffs say they’re trying to disinfect things. They hired coach Dan Hawkins (Boise State), who reacted by jumping out of an airplane this spring. The parachute opened. We’re not certain if that was by design.
• Prediction: Win.
Sept. 30: at Ole Miss
It doesn’t take much to get people excited in Oxford (not that one, the icky one). The new Old Ms. quarterback is Brent Schaeffer, who scrambled to qualify at a junior college after getting run out of Tennessee (which isn’t easy to do). While in Knoxville, Schaeffer got into a dorm brawl and was charged with assault. He pled guilty to “offensive touching.” Personally, as a guy, I think I’d rather have “assault” on my record.
• Prediction: 5-0.
Oct. 7: Tennessee
David Cutcliffe is back as offensive coordinator, which means fewer decisions for Phil Fulmer. Now I know how standup comics felt when Nixon left office. The Vowels went 5-6 last season, including losses to Spurrier and Vanderbilt. The last time a UT coach felt this much heat, Fulmer was clogging on Johnny Majors’ casket.
• Prediction: Win.
Oct. 14: Vanderbilt
It’s homecoming. Ever notice nobody ever schedules, like, Oklahoma, for homecoming? It’s always the football equivalent of Liechtenstein. Since 1968, Vandy has been Georgia’s homecoming opponent 15 times. That’s even more than Kentucky (11), which I assume is Vandy’s homecoming meat. Where was I?
• Prediction: Win.
Oct. 21: Mississippi State
I realize Sylvester Croom hasn’t won a lot of games yet, but you’ve got to love a coach who said after this year’s first practice: “We had a couple of fat guys who played like fat guys. And we’re not mentally tough enough. We haven’t been the first two years we’ve been here, and we weren’t today.” Alrighty, then.
• Prediction: Another W.
Oct. 28: Florida
So if I’ve got this right, and I can’t recall ever being wrong, the Doggies will be 8-0 going to Jacksonville. And there’s nothing like that annual seamless transition from rapture to misery every fall when the Gators come-a-slappin’. Urban Meyer’s offense will be better than a year ago — and Florida will be coming off a bye week after consecutive games against Alabama, LSU and Auburn. Ugas go bye-bye.
• Prediction: Loss.
Nov. 4: at Kentucky
Rich Brooks is 9-25 (4-20 in the SEC) in three seasons, which makes you wonder what hallucinogen AD Mitch Barnhart was on when he announced Brooks would be back for another season. To his credit, Brooks never loses sight of things down the stretch — Kentucky lost its last two games by 51 points. Hello, Kittys.
• Prediction: Win.
Nov. 11: at Auburn
There’s a chance this game might be rescheduled, pending ceremonies to honor the Tigers’ front seven by Bob’s House of Catfish and Sociology Degrees. If this turns out to be only a minor annoyance on the wide scale of SEC academic fraud scandals, Auburn should win the SEC. With honors.
• Prediction: Loss.
Nov. 25: Georgia Tech
The last five meetings have gone to the Doggies, and they’ll be coming off a bye. Tech will be playing for the sixth straight week. I know. Rivalry game. But the money is on logic.
• Prediction: 10-2.
Permalink | Comments (16) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, UGA / SEC
Defense counted on to carry Dogs
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Willie Martinez had, in the main, a nice first season as Georgia’s defensive coordinator. Thing is, we on the outside tend not to remember the main. We tend to recall the blots on an otherwise sunny campaign, which is why the first topics broached by a visitor to Martinez’s office don’t involve all the stops his men made but the two games in which such stops weren’t forthcoming.
Auburn’s last gasp.
West Virginia’s first quarter.
The first eight games Georgia lost under Mark Richt hewed to a theme: The Bulldogs didn’t score more than 17 points in any of them, meaning that the offense sagged while the defense generally held up its end. The last two losses of last season broke the pattern. Georgia scored 30 points against Auburn and 35 against West Virginia and lost both times, the opponents mustering an aggregate 1,008 yards.
Obvious question when something works for so long and then stops working: What went wrong? To his credit, Martinez looks his interrogator in the eye and gives a clinical appraisal.
On the Auburn fourth-and-10 that became the careening Devin Aromashodu catch-and-run-and-fumble: “We blew a coverage. It was one of our safeties — I don’t like to say who. We just flinched. But [cornerback] Paul Oliver made a heck of a play, punching the ball out. [Courtney Taylor recovered in the end zone, enabling the Tigers to kick the winning field goal.] But that was the tempo of the whole game — we couldn’t shut them down.”
On West Virginia’s first quarter (plus the first 50 seconds of the second), a dizzying span that saw the Mountaineers steal a 28-0 lead in the Sugar Bowl: “They didn’t do anything differently than they’d done all year. We gave them respect. We knew they had a three-headed horse [quarterback, tailback and fullback]. … But we weren’t ready. … We couldn’t get them focused. We missed a tackle on their first touchdown.”
And now a word in defense of the defensive coordinator: The Auburn game boiled down to one unbelievably weird play, which can happen, and the Sugar Bowl was a difficult sell to a team that had already won an improbable SEC title and found itself matched against the least-known team to grace any BCS game. Besides, the overachieving Bulldogs were due a bad night.
Bottom line: Those folks who fretted over the departure of gruff coordinator Brian VanGorder should, in the main, be pleased with the basso-voiced Martinez. He took a unit that was missing three stalwarts and marshaled it into the top 10 nationally in scoring defense and the top 20 in total defense. “We’re all competitors,” Martinez says. “We all wanted to do well. We knew we didn’t have [David] Pollack and Thomas [Davis] and Odell [Thurman], and we had a chip on our shoulder.”
It didn’t hurt that Georgia returned enough gifted players in 2005 to back its attitude with muscle and speed. Nor was it a minus that Martinez had coached alongside VanGorder both at Central Florida and here. The new man wasn’t really a new man, and he wasn’t so much concerned with drawing new schemes as with ensuring the old ones kept working. Continuity can be powerful thing.
With another season almost at hand, Martinez sees the need to better the last one. “We’ve got to improve the run defense,” he says. (Auburn rushed for 227 yards, West Virginia for 382.) “We gave up too many big plays in the running game.”
That shouldn’t happen again. Georgia has superb linebackers and two outstanding linemen in Quentin Moses and Ray Gant. The area of greatest concern is the secondary, where three longtime starters were lost but where Tra Battle and the aforementioned Oliver should serve as dual anchors. Says Martinez: “There’s concern about how we’re going to mesh, but if we have no injuries it’ll be fun to watch.”
For all the fuss made over the offense and its quadripartite quarterback competition, defense has been the rock on which Richt has built his program. VanGorder got it started, and Martinez carries on. The 2005 Bulldogs flinched twice at the end of an otherwise unyielding season, but those were the exceptions. Look for Georgia’s D to be exceptional again.
Permalink | Comments (39) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Just give Calvin the darn ball!!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Maybe if we all get together, aim our mouths toward Bobby Dodd Stadium and shout loud enough, those involved the most with Georgia Tech’s offense (head coach Chan Gailey, coordinator Patrick Nix and quarterback Reggie Ball) will hear us and actually do this:
Get the ball to Calvin Johnson.
You know, they should just get the ball to Calvin Johnson.
No excuses this time. Not with Gailey out of the picture as play-caller and the hopefully more imaginative Nix taking his place. Not since Ball really should know what he’s doing by now as a fourth-year starter, including his third with Johnson in the same huddle. Not when you clearly have the best wide receiver in the country who isn’t wearing an NFL uniform.
Ever since Johnson joined the Yellow Jackets after his prolific high school days in Tyrone, he has caught everything and anything within reach of his agile frame of 6 feet 5 and 235 pounds. He has turned the spectacular into the routine. So they should just get him the ball.
“Yeah, if he’s one-on-one out there, yeah, we ought to be throwing the ball to him, because that means they’re stacking against the run,” said Nix, in his fifth season as a Jackets assistant, whose response should make the Tech nation a little nervous. I mean, the Jackets “ought to be throwing the ball to him” no matter what — within reason, of course. Such always is the case when you have a great one. Terrell Owens. Randy Moss. Chad Johnson. Tech’s Johnson is destined to be their equal. You even could see as much last season, when the Jackets finished a ridiculous 103rd out of the NCAA’s 119 Division I-A teams in points scored. No way an offense should be that dreadful with a Calvin Johnson.
Mostly, no way Tech’s offense should be less than wonderful this season with an experienced offensive line, with a talented running back such as Tashard Choice and with Nix doing everything he can to get Calvin Johnson the ball.
Nix will be obsessed with getting Johnson the ball, won’t he?
Oh, well. “If they’re out there doubling him and totally trying to keep him out of the ballgame, then we’ve got other receivers and backs and a quarterback and everybody else who can make plays and get the job done,” Nix said. “Overall, we’ll use [Johnson] generally the same way [as we did in previous years]. Once again, he’s one member of an 11-member unit, so you’ve got 10 other people who have to fit in, too. He might be able to handle a little bit more, but what can those other guys handle? You have to put them in the best position, too. You’ve got to think of the whole thing, including what they might be doing defensively.”
With apologies to Nix, forget what opponents might be doing defensively. Those among Tech’s offensive brain trust should be doing everything they can to make opponents fret over what the Jackets might be doing offensively. It’s a philosophy that should begin and end with Johnson. It’s a philosophy that made Southern Cal dominate in recent years. The Trojans’ Calvin Johnson was Reggie Bush, and given the aggressive offensive approach by those on the Southern Cal coaching staff regarding Bush, they had others more worried about what the Trojans might do than the other way around.
Which brings us back to Johnson, the ultimate weapon that Tech should unleash with regularity.
“He’s a phenom, and everybody wants to put the ball in his hands,” said Ball, who rarely did last season. Well, considering everything. Courtesy of Ball’s erratic play and Gailey’s conservative play-calling, Johnson caught just six more passes and one fewer touchdown as a sophomore than he did as a freshman. Through it all, Johnson remained the humble youngster that he is, with Gailey saying, “He understands that he’s good. Who are we fooling? But at the same time, he understands that he has a responsibility to be the best that he can be, and that means continuing to work.”
No problem there for Johnson, whose work ethic always has been praised by his coaches and peers. All he needs now is for Nix to keep calling his number and to have Ball keep delivering passes somewhere within his area code. “Basically, I know when [Ball] is going to come my way, and we give each other a little look in the huddle sometime,” Johnson said. “Since we’ve played together for so long, it’s just natural for us. We’ve learned each other’s mentality so to speak. I definitely expect [our] chemistry to be even better this year.”
So get him the ball.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Cursing the baseball ‘closer’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Bear with me. This subject has come before our august group in the past, and will not go away. Because there are some of us out here who still don’t care to see baseball, as we’ve known it and grown up with it, bastardized.
I snarl. I rage. I curse the day that the word “closer” came into the vernacular with a meaning other than “nearer.” “Closer,” not as in closing a door, or closing a purse, but “closer” as in pitching one inning of baseball when two or three other guys have presented another teammate a lead, his mission for the day: Get three outs, he gets a “save.” Bully for him.
(Not only that, but it has also created two other repugnant statistics that just don’t seem to have taken hold. And speaking of “hold,” that’s one. “Blown save” is the other.)
Let’s stick to the National League, whose leader in “saves” last season was Chad Cordero of Washington. He pitched in 74 games and pitched 74 1/3 innings. He had a losing record, two games won, four lost. But that means nothing. Bruce Sutter had a losing career record and the door to the Hall of Fame was just opened to him, to join such as Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell and Sandy Koufax, who played in a day when games were viewed as nine-inning affairs, not one.
Here’s another statistical blurb out of the 2005 record book you may find spicy: A Dodgers pitcher named Yhency Brazoban had the season’s longest losing streak, eight games. He took over when the celebrated Eric Gagne blew his arm out pitching 13 1/3 innings in 14 calls to the mound.
“Brazo” — I have trouble addressing any guy by the name of Yhency — eventually got into 74 games, pitched 72 innings and was awarded 21 saves, so there must have been several “blown saves” somewhere in there, but that’s one of those stats that never quite caught on. Not in the book.
The Braves were having no kind of luck with “savers” last season, beginning with the ill-fated trade for Dan Kolb, the “closers” version of what Albie Lopez is to starters in Atlanta lore. So they’ll be excused from this excoriation, especially since the curse has carried over into this season. That is, until they hauled in that moose of a man from Cleveland, Bob Wickman, for which they have congratulated themselves not a few times. Good for ol’ Bob, who I’m certain is just as kind and gentle as he is huge.
It just so happens that Wickman is a factor in this outrage. It goes back to Monday night, when John Smoltz had Pittsburgh shut out on three hits going into the ninth inning. A three-hit shutout, mind you. Not many pitchers get a chance to pitch a nine-inning, three-hit shutout game this day and time. But Bobby Cox couldn’t stand it. He was forced to go “by the book.” Go to the ‘pen. Bring in this highly valued commodity from Cleveland and say, “See how valuable he is? He ‘saved’ another game for us.”
Ugh! And double ugh! There are a few old knuckleballers out there like me who felt robbed. Here we had a chance at seeing the ace pitch a complete game three-hitter, and the stage is turned over to the “closer.” You think Smoltzie’s arm hurt? Do you think he wanted to come out? Don’t ask. You know him, the consummate team player.
“Just give me six, seven, eight good innings and we’ll leave it up to old Joe Closer” is the managerial theme song. So you have your seventh-inning man, your setup man, then the hallowed closer, who, as I see it, has become an abomination to the game I have so loved for so long.
Permalink | Comments (49) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Tackle Jackson has mass appeal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — There’s a large man in black warm-up pants and a white T-shirt sitting across from me. Either that, or it was a mattress with legs.
“I’m somewhere in the ’50s,” Grady Jackson said after hearing the question that tends to open any interview or NFL camp visit. “I can probably take off about 10 more pounds.”
Grady Jackson is a large man. He was 270 pounds as a center and power forward for his high school basketball team. That would be dangerously close to 100 pounds ago.
Grady Jackson is a large man. He’s large on the scale of, “Dude, you really don’t need to get on the scale. We know you’re big. Just promise us you won’t collapse because, like, kids come to the games.”
The ’50s — that would be the 350s. There are only eight players on current NFL rosters north of 350, and only two play defense: Cleveland nose tackle Ted Washington, and the newest member of the Falcons.
Jackson’s arrival became official when he did not pass go, or probably Golden Corral, but he did pass his physical, then checked into Flowery Branch in the late afternoon.
We don’t know yet what the Falcons will list as the official weight of their new 6-2 nose tackle. But it doesn’t really matter. He is the final piece of the Falcons’ offseason defensive makeover. He is a significant enhancement, on the level of the first time a cosmetic surgeon told Pamela Anderson, “Yes, I think we can accommodate you.”
The pre-draft acquisition of John Abraham gave the Falcons another top sacker to join Patrick Kerney. Jackson and his former Oakland teammate, Rod Coleman, are now sandwiched in between. The four now comprise quite possibly the best defensive line in the NFL.
Jackson, though he is now mostly a run defender at the age of 33, has 32.5 career sacks. The Falcon Foursome: 190 career regular-season sacks. No other NFL projected defensive line will approach that.
And about that 10 pounds Jackson said he could lose — take your time, bud.
The Falcons’ defense has had this problem. They turn trivia questions into 100-yard rushers. They needed a wide load. Wide loads plug up Death Valley. Wide loads occupy two blockers. Wide loads free up space for ends and linebackers. Did I say linebackers?
“All of his meals are on me,” Keith Brooking said Thursday.
“Yeah, we’ll take him out to lunch,” Ed Hartwell said. “We’ll make sure he keeps his weight right. As long as he’s filling those gaps, we’ll be fine.”
Hook that sucker up to a gravy-IV. Everybody, climb aboard the Grady train.
Rumors had his weight this offseason at 370 to 400, give or take a Brusters. Jackson denies that. But he is used to his weight being an issue.
“It’s always followed me, but look at the stats,” he said. “They always told what I could do on the field. As long as I make plays and get to the ball and help my team win, that’s the key.”
He has played nine seasons for three teams (Oakland, New Orleans, Green Bay). Several teams worked him out this off-season, and others called. So we can assume there’s a crying need for non-chiseled bodies.
“It’s not the weight,” he said. “You’ve got people with big mass. It’s not fat. It’s body mass.”
Body mass. How come I never thought of that excuse?
But there is no doubting Jackson’s athleticism. He was a two-time MVP of his high school basketball teams. Hoops have always been his first passion. Of course, he claims he can still dunk.
“Do you want to see?” he said.
I thought about saying yes. Then I had a vision of Rich McKay picking me off with a sniper from his office.
He also played baseball in high school. He only started playing football his junior year, “because people made me. My father said I had quick feet.”
From that point on, football coaches wouldn’t let him go. He played at a Mississippi junior college for two years, then Knoxville (Tenn.) College for two more. Along the way, everybody asked how much he weighed.
But Jackson says he’s just like everybody else.
“I eat three meals a day,” he said. “Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
Welcome to the NFL’s body beautiful.
Permalink | Comments (80) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Stating the obvious: It’s over.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
For the last three weeks I’ve had a magic number in mind. If the Braves ever fell seven games back in the wild-card race, that would be tantamount to elimination. (In my mind, and perhaps in theirs.) Well, they still haven’t dropped quite so far as to meet my benchmark — they’re 6 1/2 behind Cincinnati — but I’m calling this one. It’s over.
I know, I know. It’s been over for months, really, but the Braves kept making noises about the number of games they had remaining against sub-.500 teams and the potential of getting back in the race with one massive homestand. But when you lose a series at home against the league’s worst team at a time when nothing less than a sweep would suffice, you’re finished.
Seventeen days ago Jeff Francoeur said, “We’ll know something in a couple of weeks.” The Braves were then 5 1/2 games behind. They’ve since gone 8-8 and, rather than gain ground, have lost it. After 126 games they’re still eight games below .500.
Forget the Reds for the moment. The Braves are now five games behind the Phillies, who essentially gave up on their season when they traded Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle. If you can’t overtake a team that’s essentially playing for next year, there’s no hope for this year.
Ergo, it’s over. We’ve all known as much all along, but after losing two straight to the Pirates we really know it now. And so, I feel certain, do the Braves.
Permalink | Comments (227) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Falcons’ moves desperate, late
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Can you say “Peerless Price?” The Falcons’ latest move to go back to the future for a wide receiver has that same kind of desperate feel. Chuck Noll, the former coaching great of the Pittsburgh Steelers, used to say in training camp, “Help isn’t on the way.” He wished to stress that he had made his decisions through the spring and that the Steel Curtain would succeed or fail with those in the locker room.
Let’s just say that Noll knew that football isn’t baseball. In the NFL, you rarely trade for your version of Fred McGriff after discovering a major need on you roster at the last minute and watch that guy do all sorts of crazy things to lead you into the postseason or something.
The Falcons are searching for several versions of their Fred McGriff, and this isn’t good. After they looked shaky in several areas for a second consecutive exhibition game last weekend, coach Jim Mora pleaded with the personnel department to get help. Like now. For the secondary, for both sides of the line and for the receiving department. Which makes you wonder about the foresight (or lack thereof) of the Falcons decision makers, especially with all of this chaos around Flowery Branch just three weeks away from the start of the regular season.
For instance: Those Falcons decision makers just signed veteran Grady Jackson and his 355 pounds to stifle opposing running backs. That’s fine, but this isn’t: It has taken those Falcons decision makers until nearly the end of training camp to determine the obvious, and that is, their run defense still hasn’t improved from its sorry state of last year. They’ve also discovered — apparently in a flash — that they lack depths at those other spots, from the secondary to the offensive line, and thus their questionable T.J. Duckett trade.
No doubt, Duckett has more than a few issues as a Barry Sanders wannabe trapped in a power back’s body. He spent too much time dancing toward defenders instead of plowing over them. Still, despite his flaws, Duckett occasionally was the power back during the past four years that the Falcons don’t have anymore. Without Duckett, the Falcons rushing hopes inside the red zone belong to Jerious Norwood, a rookie who has fluctuated between highs and lows, and Justin Griffith, mostly a blocking fullback. The wiser move would have been to keep Duckett through this season. Instead, those Falcons decision makers figured they needed a No. 3 receiver to replace the injured Brian Finneran more than they did a power back.
They need both. Whatever the case, the Falcons have changed coaches, general managers and even owners, but some things never change, such as this tendency to reach to the past for future help. (How many times did this organization hire and fire Marion Campbell?) So after failing to draft a potentially explosive Price from the University of Tennessee when the Falcons should have gotten him the first time, they got him a few years later from the Buffalo Bills when he was a mental mess and desperate to leave his subordinate role through desperate means.
Sound familiar? If not, here’s the rest of the story. To quote myself in this space from April 2002 about how the Falcons blew it after drafting somebody named Duckett in the first round instead of what they really needed at the time: “(Dan) Reeves even admitted that the Falcons’ politburo viewed Duckett as 1a or 1b on its draft board with an unnamed wide receiver. Whether that receiver was Hawaii’s Ashley Lelie or Florida State’s Javon Walker is irrelevant to the overall point. Both are the burners that the Falcons need, both were available, and both promptly went to the Denver Broncos and the Green Bay Packers, respectively, after the Falcons caused eyes to roll by selecting Duckett.”
Now Lelie and Walker are the reasons Duckett is working for the Washington Redskins. It goes like this: When the Broncos acquired Walker from Green Bay after last season, Lelie refused to attend the Broncos’ training camp in protest of losing his starting job. That prompted the Falcons to participate in this week’s three-way trade that sent Duckett to the Redskins and Lelie to a Falcons team that already has wide receivers Roddy White and Michael Jenkins, and according to Mora, neither will be replaced as a starter.
Wasn’t Lelie upset with the Broncos because he wasn’t starting, and the Falcons got him anyway?
Don’t ask.
Permalink | Comments (107) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Duckett’s no Riggins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Just a guess: The Falcons won’t miss T.J. Duckett as much as the Washington Redskins will regret getting him.
We’re talking about one of the few big backs in the NFL who preferred to dance instead of bash his way toward the line of scrimmage.
Whether Ashley Lelie can become the accomplished wide receiver that he never was in Denver is debatable.
It’s less debatable on whether Duckett will become more than what he was with the Falcons; and that was somebody who sought to resemble Fred Astaire instead of John Riggins.
Didn’t Riggins star for the Redskins? Yep, and Duckett is no Riggins.
Permalink | Comments (50) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Hawks make another serious mistake
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Hawks just traded two players and received nothing but a draft pick. This sounds like a joke. A team that loses 125 games over two seasons can’t find something of value on a playoff team’s roster?
Sad to say, that’s the Hawks for you.
An unfunny joke.
Sometimes their many owners are trying to buy out Steve Belkin. Other times Belkin is trying to buy out those many owners. Sometimes these owners act as if they’re strapped for cash. (Why else ask Indiana for $3 million in this sign-and-trade?) Other times they’re throwing money at guys who might not be worth all that much. (Joe Johnson got $70 million, Speedy Claxton $25 million.)
Sometimes they’re hell-bent on drafting the best player available. (Especially if he’s a wing!) Other times they’re drafting for need. (Shelden Williams was chosen largely because he blocks shots and the Hawks lacked a shot-blocker.) Sometimes they talk as if they’re serious about winning. Then the playing starts and it becomes obvious this franchise isn’t serious about anything.
To recap the offseason: The Hawks took Williams with No. 5 pick when almost nobody else in the world regarded him so highly. They drafted Solomon Jones, another shot-blocker, in Round 2. (What, one wasn’t enough?) They spent big on Claxton, who backed up Chris Paul, whom the Hawks should have taken instead of Marvin Williams in 2005. Then, after weeks of confusion, they finally jettisoned Al Harrington, whom they should have traded at the February deadline.
An object lesson in the sign-and-trade: When the Hawks worked one with Phoenix for Johnson, the Suns held out for Boris Diaw, who would become the NBA’s most improved player overnight. When the Pacers worked one with the Hawks for Harrington and John Edwards, Indiana didn’t have to part with a warm body. Amazing.
Why would a team that isn’t exactly overrun with first-rank players not take a flyer on some Pacer lesser light who might prove useful? (The backup center David Harrison, say, or the shooter Sarunas Jasikevicius?) The only answer that computes is that the Hawks’ many owners — who also own the Thrashers, at least until Belkin seizes both — don’t care to absorb any more contracts. And if that’s the case, why should they continue to own these teams? Why not take a buyout and let the financial burden fall to the man they’ve come to despise?
I had hope for these owners, who are — or, more precisely, were — full of optimism and good cheer. I had hope for Billy Knight, the GM who moved boldly to disassemble the horrid roster he inherited from Pete Babcock. I had hope until the cheerful guys began to get out-litigated by Belkin at every turn, hope until Knight started to assemble a roster with little thought to actual positions. (Not for nothing has Knight become known around the NBA as the King of Wings.) I had hope until the Hawks got nothing from Diaw, of whom they didn’t know what to make. I had hope until every single decision made by this franchise left me wondering, “What are these guys doing?”
Moving Harrington in February made sense. No, demand wasn’t as great as the Hawks had hoped, but surely some contender would have come across with someone of value. Instead the Hawks chose to keep — and keep playing — Harrington, thereby depriving Marvin Williams of an increased workload. The belief was that they could get far more over the summer in a sign-and-trade. The reality is that almost no sign-and-trade could have yielded much less.
The Hawks didn’t have a No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft, Phoenix having absconded with that along with Diaw. This sign-and-trade brings the Pacers’ No. 1 pick. In June the Pacers picked 17th overall. According to NBAdraft.net, the 17th-best player apt to be available next summer is UCLA’s Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, whom the site identifies as an “extremely athletic and versatile wing.”
Great. Just great.
Permalink | Comments (183) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
Dump Duckett, start Stafford
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: If the Falcons can get a No. 3 receiver for T.J. Duckett, they should trade him. If they can get a backup safety for T.J. Duckett, they should trade him. If they can get a bag of chips for T.J. Duckett, they should trade him.
9: Nice guy. Has talent. Doesn’t get it. Not sure if he ever will.
8: And if Duckett ever does wake up and realize what he can be, it probably won’t be in the Falcons’ offense, which operates better with a slashing running back, and a fullback who can block and catch. Duckett is neither.
7: Meanwhile, the Hawks may finally be close to completing the Al Harrington trade. Billy Knight has narrowed his choices to the eraser and the decoder ring.
6: This newspaper stripped the announcement that Joe Tereshinski will start against Western Kentucky across the top of the newspaper. If you were looking for stories about world war and overthrown governments, I think they were on page 17.
5: Hey, I only work here.
4: Marion Jones’ statement on testing positive for EPO at the recent U.S. track and field championships: “I was shocked when I was informed about the positive A sample. I have requested that the testing of my B sample be expedited.” OK, maybe I missed it. Bit did she deny anything?
3: The Little League World Series continues today. Nice to see an event where the only juicing involves actual juice boxes.
2: My two bits occasionally parallels Mark Richt’s two bits. But not in this case. If Stafford is the future, doesn’t it make sense to start him vs. Western Kentucky and other early season opponents, reasoning that by late in the season he’ll be a better quarterback?
1: I’m assuming things must have been pretty one-sided in Richt’s double-secret closed practices. Because as far as I can tell, Tereshinski’s one career highlight is ALMOST beating Florida.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Falcons need a decent exhibition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Flowery Branch — These are exhibitions. The safety who is supposed to be over here, but for some reason is floating over there, playing cover-2 near his next job in the Wendy’s drive-thru, he’ll be gone soon. I know. I get that.
But when a football team is coming off a season in which it looked embarrassingly shreddable against the run, when it wasn’t looking exceedingly credible against the pass, don’t you want to see more?
Exhibition-game statistics can be as accurate a gauge as campaign promises. I know. I get that. There’s no game-planning. Starters don’t play much. When they play at all. When they care at all. It’s not about wins and losses. It’s about player evaluation and coercing season-ticket holders into buying pressboard furniture at the cost of mahogany.
But 61 points in two games? Last in scoring defense? Next to last in total defense? Twenty-eighth in opponents’ yards-per-carry? Shouldn’t we expect something just a little bit better?
“I see good things — I guess you don’t,” Jim Mora said Monday. “I don’t want to say I’m happy, we’re there, we’re the best in the world. But we have a very good scheme, and our players are growing in it. We have a lot of work to do, but we’re getting the work done. We’ll be fine.”
Not-so-meaningless game No. 3 is coming up. If the Falcons are going to be “fine,” it’s time to at least buy an “f,” not grade out like one.
This has been an interesting summer for Mora. A 2-6 finish last season put him back in the prove-yourself category. There has been a noticeable difference in this training camp from the last. Things are a little tougher, a little louder.
And Mora — he has been more pointed in his criticism. Just off this past week’s shellacking in Green Bay, the Falcons coach made a passing reference to rookie cornerback Jimmy Williams’ “god-awful performance” (though he said it in the nicest possible way); said of rookie running back Jerious Norwood, “Frankly, he didn’t show up;” echoed that “nobody has stepped up” at nose tackle; and reaffirmed, “We don’t have a No. 3 receiver” (which must be wonderful news to No. 3 receiver Jerome Pathon).
The frankness has been refreshing, if not unnerving.
“I’ve probably been a little bit more [open about things],” Mora said. “I haven’t been told to be. It’s just part of my learning curve. I’ve learned what I can say and what I can’t say. I don’t really like to call guys out, and it’s really nothing I haven’t told the guys directly. But, like the nose tackle position — it’s an issue. Maybe I’m just being more realistic and not as protective. But I’m just telling the truth.”
So when Mora says, “I think we’ll be fine on defense,” I’m assuming he really believes that. But if Tennessee drills several holes in the Falcons Saturday in Nashville, the last thing anybody should say is: It doesn’t matter.
Third exhibitions may not count for much when we get to Week 1, but it’s as close as we get to a season preview. The starters will play at least a half — and just because coaches don’t scheme doesn’t mean players can’t function.
The Falcons defense is spotted with newbies: John Abraham, Lawyer Milloy, Chris Crocker, Williams. Ed Hartwell is relatively new, having missed most of last season. Any time there are that many new faces, you can’t just assume timing and chemistry are around the corner.
Mora doesn’t believe the defense is as far off as others do. He points to some big plays — including Abraham’s sack/forced fumble against New England and Crocker’s early-game leveling of a Packer — and the generally solid play of the starters. But he acknowledges the expectations go up this week.
“I want to see more consistent play,” he said. “We had a good first series against Green Bay. I want to see another series like that, except I want to see three or four in a row. But the one way we’re going to find out where we are is to have the right guys in there.”
Which tells you if things don’t go well, the right guys may be the wrong guys.
Permalink | Comments (38) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Richt makes the smart, safe choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Yeah, the quarterback is positioned to win a game quicker than anybody, but he’s capable of losing one with similar rapidity. And there you have the reason Mark Richt did what he did: If Joe Tereshinski III isn’t apt to throw for 200 yards in a quarter, neither is he likely to turn the ball over three times in five minutes.
Ten days ago, Tereshinski spoke of the quarterback’s job not in terms of throwing 70-yard rainbows but of simply “managing a team.” On Sunday night Richt named Joe T III his starter for Georgia’s opening game, saying, “Joe really understands what we’re doing.”
Thus did the quadripartite quarterback challenge end with what some will wrongly deem a whimper. Going with experience over talent — where’s the sizzle in that? Why not let the vastly touted Matthew Stafford throw it 40 times a game and accept the consequences?
Because letting a true freshman start at quarterback for a big-time program would only invite such consequences. Because Stafford isn’t as ready to help Georgia win at this moment as Joe T III, who’s a fifth-year senior. Because having a big arm is only part of what makes a quarterback. David Greene isn’t to be confused with John Elway when it comes to authoring tight spirals, but Greene won more games than any collegiate quarterback ever.
The surprise Sunday night wasn’t that Joe T III was No. 1: In a competition this close, what coach wouldn’t err on the side of familiarity with the offense and the program? The surprise was that Stafford wasn’t even No. 2, the backup position falling to the redshirt freshman Joe Cox. Stafford and Blake Barnes, Richt announced, were “co-No. 3,” which means we shouldn’t plan on seeing the kid from Dallas anytime soon. It takes a lot to get one quarterback ready to play, even more to prepare two. Deploying a third quarterback in anything more than a medical emergency or an abject rout simply isn’t done.
The order could still be subject to change, Richt allowed, saying the rankings would hold “for the moment, anyway.” The cold reality of football suggests that change will be slower to arrive than some Georgia fans — an opinionated Web-based contingent has made no secret of its desire to see Stafford as No. 1 — would prefer. Speculation has long held that Stafford would displace Tereshinski at the first sign of trouble, but doesn’t the No. 2 quarterback get the next shot if the starter struggles?
Such is the swath already cut by the heralded freshman that the first two questions asked on Sunday’s teleconference concerned not Tereshinski but Stafford. “He’s done a lot of good things,” Richt said, “but he’s a true freshman. He’s made up a lot of ground. We’re not disappointed in any way, shape or form with Matthew.”
And that could well be true. Fans have little concept of what playing quarterback in an offense as complex as Richt’s fully entails. One of the highest compliments the coach ever paid Greene was in saying the quarterback didn’t just make good plays — he prevented bad ones via his sagacious check-downs at the line. No true freshman was going to be able to run a team the way Richt wants his run. Even if Tereshinski has made only one start as a Bulldog, that one was more than the other three quarterbacks combined.
There will be those who continue to see Joe T III as no more than a place-holder, but that underrates a 23-year-old who has paid his dues to the extent that he has served as personal protector (i.e., the last blocker) for Georgia’s punter. Tereshinski has, Richt said, “held off the young bucks,” and the third-generation Bulldog is, not to put too fine a point on it, a bulldog at the business of competing. Tereshinski has waited four years for this chance. Don’t be shocked if he makes the other three — Cox, Barnes and even the gifted Stafford — wait until 2007.
Permalink | Comments (72) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
Woods bludgeons all comers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Medinah, Ill. — Tiger Woods took on the world again this weekend, and once again the world lost. It was on a familiar battleground, the Medinah No. 3 Course where he had won a PGA Championship in 1999, and where, as he said as he became guardian of the Wanamaker Trophy a third time, he likes these grounds so much he looks forward to coming back again. And why not.
Once his name rose to the top of the leaderboard Saturday, it never came. It was a leaderboard dotted with names from a variety of nations over which he prevailed, Australia, England, Spain, Canada, Korea and Sweden, represented by Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy, Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, Mike Weir, K.J. Choi and Henrik Stenson, not to mention the herd of usual victims from the United States.
It was headline stuff that this was the 12th time Woods had carried the lead in one of the four major tournaments into the fourth round and that he had won all the previous 11. It was this matter that Ogilvy, then resting three strokes off Woods’ lead at the end of 54 holes, had addressed at the close of play Saturday.
“At some point he’s not going win one of these when he’s leading [after 54 holes],” Ogilvy said. “You know he’s not going to go his whole career leading after three rounds and winning. Someone is going to beat him one day.”
Well, this would not be the day, as the following 18 holes bore out. However, one must concede Mr. Ogilvy the privilege of his opinion, since he is the current national champion of American golf, duly earned in the Open at Winged Foot in June. His challenge here ended early in the round Sunday, when he bogeyed the second hole and double-bogeyed the third. He was as close at the start as he would be the rest of the day.
Woods set out at a birdie pace, on the first, the fifth, sixth and eighth holes, and never looked back, nor was he ever pressured. He played like a man with a world to conquer, which is no variation from his usually cold-steel style. For the most part, it appeared he used an approach similar to the game he put on display winning the British Open at Hoylake, mainly fairway woods and an occasional iron off the tee, playing position golf, then putting like a demon. It was confirmed that Luke Donald, the English student who studied at Northwestern University in nearby Evanston, was overwhelmed. He never had a birdie, and after starting the round even with Woods, he finished six strokes back in a tie for third place with Scott and Garcia at 276. Donald, now 28, had been paired with Woods three times before, including one round in the British Open at Royal St. George’s.
“It gets easier every time,” he said Saturday. Sorry, but that streak came to an end at Medinah.
There were times when one or another challenger would pick up the cudgel and make a move on the World’s No. 1 player. First, it was Weir, who was having a repeat experience. When Woods won his first PGA Championship over the Medinah course in 1999, Weir was tied with him going into the fourth round but swiftly disintegrated. Woods himself played only at par level and had to fend off the then 19-year-old Garcia at the end. Meantime, the ill-fated Weir checked in with a round of 80.
He drew within three strokes of Woods on the 10th hole Sunday, but there his challenge was over. Garcia, too, made a move, and Choi, but in the end only Shaun Micheel, who won the PGA at Rochester three years ago, was in Woods’ rear-view mirror, and that threat ended when Micheel bogeyed the home hole.
Even when Woods found trouble, he was able to chop and slash his way out of it. When he reached the back nine, tougher of the two nines, he surged into what would have been a record winning margin, had he been able to sustain it. When he and Bob May tied at Valhalla in 2000, they were both at 18-under par. That’s still the record, though Woods reached 19 under on the 11th hole, then gave it back with his only bogey on the par-3 17th, a severely challenging hole all week. It was there that Billy Andrade’s championship came to grief Saturday with a devastating 7.
Say this, Woods may have broken a record previously held by Ben Crane, notably the slowest player on the PGA Tour. Woods spent much of his time surveying, pacing and plotting his putt, though let it be said, he gave his gallery more excitement than Crane, once he did move into action. I suppose that one of these days Woods is going to lose again, and then my word processor will choke down.
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Jackets good enough to outrun past
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
There’s no reason for this season to end in a podunk bowl in the Pacific Time Zone. There’s no reason Georgia Tech shouldn’t be playing on — or even after — New Year’s Day. A team can’t have much more going for it than this one appears to have.
A three-year starter at quarterback. An All-American at wide receiver. A big-time talent at tailback. Four returning starters along the offensive line, five if you count the tight end. Six returning starters on defense. A head coach whose job status seems to have been clarified via a contract extension. What’s not to like?
History.
It isn’t as if Tech hasn’t won big games under head coach Chan Gailey. On the contrary, the Jackets have beaten six ranked opponents in his four seasons. Trouble is, each of those seasons has ended the same way — with seven wins and an appearance in a who-cares bowl. Says Mansfield Wrotto, a senior: “We’ve been a consistent 7-5.”
Alas, there’s never anything consistent about the way Tech gets to 7-5, which is why both the AP and the ESPN/USA Today preseason polls omitted this conspicuously gifted team from the Top 25. If that’s ever going to change, this is the year. Tech has enough glamour games — and, just as important, enough apparent gimme wins — to break upwards.
Wrotto again: “The only thing keeping us from our goal is ourselves. … We’ve got a lot of talent and a lot of depth on this team.”
A case in point: Wrotto. A three-year starter at defensive tackle, he’s now the right tackle on offense. (He missed time with a tender ankle last week but has returned to practice.) Such a positional shift seems a sign not of weakness but strength. There were times under Gailey when Tech had too many holes to play at a high level every week, but those days have passed. If Tech winds up 7-5 and back in Boise, it won’t be for lack of manpower.
Wrotto yet again: “We’re looking for 10 wins, or nine wins or more, and to play for the ACC championship.”
Can that happen? Heck, it wasn’t far from happening last season. Had Tech not lost winnable games against N.C. State and Virginia, it would have tied Virginia Tech atop the Coastal Division. The Hokies would have played in the ACC championship game by virtue of beating the Jackets head-to-head, but still: A 9-2 regular season would have sent Tech to a much better bowl and would have helped reconfigure public perception. Instead the Jackets managed road victories over Auburn and Miami and still came across as the same ol’ flaky Tech.
“The consistency factor is very important to us,” Wrotto says. “One of our goals is to be more consistent.”
Such words could come from almost any other player at any other school, but only at Tech do they carry such resonance. A case can be made that this is, on both sides of the ball, the best-looking bunch of Jackets since the 11-0-1 UPI national champions of 1990. (The highly regarded teams in the latter days of George O’Leary were repeatedly undone by their inability to stop people, a failing Jon Tenuta has rendered moot.) Tech historians will recall that the 1990 team was similarly unranked in preseason, but that comparison is actually a contrast.
The 1989 Jackets had closed fast, winning seven of their last eight games, but hadn’t graced a bowl and were only two seasons removed from a 3-8 finish. These Jackets haven’t had a losing season under Gailey and have had ample opportunity to hammer out a profile for themselves. To their chagrin, they have. They’re regarded as the flightiest team in the land.
That can change. That should change. There can be no excuses if December arrives and the Jackets aren’t ranked. A program gets only so many chances to prove its worth before it proves instead that serious consideration is unwarranted. For Tech under Gailey, this is almost a last chance.
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Falcons have big issues on defense
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Green Bay, Wis. — Goodness knows, the Falcons showed long before the ninth game of last season that they couldn’t stop anything rushing their way in cleats and a helmet. It’s just that their run defense reached the epitome of silliness in November at the Georgia Dome, where they spurred the transition of Samkon Gado from fifth-string running back for the Green Bay Packers into Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor and John Brockington.
That’s why, with big and bad Gado across the way Saturday night at Lambeau Field, the Falcons’ starting defenders were even more obsessed with trying to use an otherwise meaningless exhibition game to take mighty steps toward solving their most glaring weakness.
Oh well. Big, bad Gado didn’t play against the Falcons’ starters this time, but it didn’t matter. With Brett Favre spending the first half on a cool Wisconsin evening slinging and connecting at will to Donald Driver on mostly slants patterns across the middle in a 38-10 victory, it was clear that the Falcons had another problem: They couldn’t stop the run or the pass. Worse, despite the addition of John Abraham to complement the splendid pass rushing skills of Patrick Kerney, the Falcons’ starting front seven couldn’t make Favre scramble for his life on his nearly 37-year-old legs.
Whether these are temporary problems or extended ones for the Falcons is debatable, but this is for sure: They still have issues on defense. Big ones. As a result, with the absolutely loaded Carolina Panthers three Sundays away, the Falcons are more of a championship tease than a championship threat at the moment.
Just last week in the Falcons’ exhibition opener, New England Patriots rookie Laurence Maroney became the Falcons’ latest Gado by torching what supposedly is an enhanced defense. So this was a huge moment in Lombardi’s house for Falcons defenders, both physically and mentally. In addition to Gado, the Packers have Najeh Davenport, a wonderful backup to Pro Bowl runner Ahman Green. Still, given its deficiencies at guard and center, the Green Bay offensive line doesn’t resemble Washington’s Hogs of lore. Try something like the Five Little Pigs, which is why the San Diego Chargers terrorized Favre last week for two sacks and five other clubbings before he mercifully was lifted.
Favre wasn’t sacked against the Falcons. Favre barely was touched.
Worse for the Falcons, somebody named Noah Herron also became Samkon Gado on at least one play. Not only did Herron plow through the middle of the Falcons’ defense with the greatest of ease (do you sense a theme here?) for a 10-yard gain, but Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall sprained his ankle along the way.
Not good. None of this is good for the Falcons. Given the Gado gashing of last season, and the Maroney mess of last week, the Falcons’ defense had even more of an incentive to get it right this time.
“The way you play preseason games, when you only have your first team out there for so long, it is paramount that you have a fast start, because you don’t have a third and fourth quarter to heal the wounds,” Kerney said, before reflecting on Gado, a guy so obscure that he carried the Bible more than the ball during his four years at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.
Even so, against the Falcons last year, Gado averaged more than four yards per carry along the way to 103 yards and two touchdowns. He also caught four passes for five yards and another touchdown. In the end, the Falcons suffered one of their most embarrassing losses ever (and that’s saying something for this franchise) with three turnovers that turned into 14 points for the Packers.
“The biggest problem was that we had an awful slow start, and we pretty much expended everything we had just to get back even with them,” Kerney said. “I’m not sure that was the tipping point of the season for us last year, but the Packers were sort of a [reeling] team at the time, and it never does help your confidence to lose to a team in that situation.”
Afterward, the Falcons dropped six of their last eight games, with opponents running at will. Opponents still are doing so, and every team that the Falcons play this season will have no less than a good running back. In order, we’re talking about DeShaun Foster, Cadillac Williams, Reggie Bush and Deuce McAllister, Edgerrin James, Tiki Barber, Willie Parker, Rudy Johnson, Kevin Jones, Reuben Droughns, Jamal Lewis, Bush and McAllister (again), Clinton Portis (if healthy), Williams (again), Julius Jones, Foster (again) and Brian Westbrook.
We’re also talking about the Falcons defense needing to get a clue.
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Medinah shown scant reverence
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Medinah, Ill. — The third round began as a stampede. At one time there was a 10-way tie for the lead at 8 under par at the PGA Championship. The teeing-off continued, but when Luke Donald of Hempstead, England, educated at Northwestern University a few miles away in Evanston, took to the course the logjam began to break up. Donald is an artist, both on the course and at the easel, and almost as if ordained, back in the Great Midwest where he established himself as the best golfer on American campuses, he made his stand, but in the end, there was no doubt who was the lead hoss.
Tiger Woods had already re-established his game in the United Kingdom, and before this day at Medinah was over, he had taken charge of America again. The old No. 3 course became his puppy. He tried to take it apart and leave nothing but a skeleton. The Other Left-hander, Mike Weir, had tied the course record of 65 before Woods tied Weir. That is remindful of the last PGA Championship played here in 1999, when Woods and Weir went out tied for the lead after three rounds. On Sunday it was a rout. Woods only had to shoot even-par 72 to win. Weir, yet to reach his Masters championship form, disintegrated. He shot 80.
They won’t be paired Sunday, for Donald intervened. The 28-year-old Britisher held his ground and finished in a tie with Woods at 14 under par. That doesn’t ease Weir’s mission any at all, for he will be paired with a rising star who first established himself at the U.S. Open, Goeff Ogilvy, another one of that influx of Australians. Ogilvy, in fact, may be the most imposing new figure in tour golf, any continent.
There was a new issue that arose overnight that brought Medinah’s worthiness as a major’s course into debate. Arron Oberholser, 31, whom some expect to become a front-page player in time, made it ahead of date with his criticism of Medinah as a major championship course.
“It’s not playing like a championship course, in my opinion. It’s playing more like Wachovia,” he said. “It’s playing too easy, turning into a putting competition.”
Not easy enough for Oberholser, however. He missed the cut by a stroke. Nevertheless, his opinion found support among several players who did make it into the third round, Stewart Cink, for one. “The holes aren’t that long” — though the PGA of America trumpeted the fact that this is the longest course in majors history — “and the greens are soft and slow,” the Duluth resident said. “The soft greens are pretty much defenseless. It just doesn’t have that edgy feel that a major usually has.”
Jim Furyk said, “It’s a nice golf course, and it’s set up fair,” but then reverted to the U.S. Open. “I thought that Winged Foot was awesome, probably the best job I’ve ever seen of setting up an Open.”
Rarely ever is the cut in a major as low as even par, as at Medinah this week. The Medinah course is in a recovery state from reconditioning, and players complained about the lack of root structure on the greens. Some like it, as do Chris DiMarco and Phil Mickelson, who was asked if low scoring took away from the stature of the championship.
“I would disagree with that,” he said.
On the other hand, there was Sergio Garcia, who finished runner-up to Woods in the championship here in 1999. “Would you like to see low scores like this in a major?” he was asked.
“No,” he said. “Even par. I definitely don’t enjoy these events.”
So a PGA Championship that got off hoisted on the prospect of some kind of confrontation between Woods and Mickelson, mainly the fabrication of an over-exercised press, veered off into another distraction. As for Tiger and Lefty, their two-day pairing couldn’t have come off with any less rancor. They shook hands, they smiled, they went about their game in businesslike style, and the third party to their pairing merely smiled and said, “If anything happens, I’ve got the best seat in the house.”
And just to keep him in focus, Ogilvy is a man to keep in mind with 18 holes to play.
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Holyfield’s victory not much of a test
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Dallas — Exactly what Evander Holyfield has left in his worn 43-year-old body couldn’t be certain Friday night. But as long as he continues to make comeback fights against obscurities, a lot of magic isn’t necessary.
Holyfield fought for the first time in nearly two years and won for the first time in four. It didn’t take long. Never known for being a knockout puncher, the former champion nonetheless had an easy night against Jeremy Bates, who took two months off from his insurance job to train for what amounted to less than six minutes of work.
Holyfield pounded Bates against the ropes, throwing close to two dozen straight unanswered punches before referee Rafael Ramos stepped in to stop the bout at 2:56 of the second round.
It was the quickest win for Holyfield since a second-round knockout of Adilson Rodrigues in 1989. The win follows a late-career slide for Holyfield, who had lost three straight fights and was 2-5-2 in the previous nine.
“Forty-three ain’t all that bad,” said Holyfield after the fight. “I’m happy to win the fight.”
Chants of “Holyfield, Holyfield” went up early in the first round, but Holyfield did not respond until connecting with a short right hand with less than a minute remaining. The shot seemed to stagger Bates, who soon found himself against the ropes. Holyfield moved in and cleaned up, but the round ended.
Holyfield went back on the attack in the second round and, though he never knocked down Bates, connected with shots to the head and body. Eventually, it was target practice.
What all of this proves isn’t certain. Bates doesn’t qualify as much of a test, especially for a fighter who used to pride himself on fighting only the best. But Holyfield is a four-time champion who insists he is destined to be a five-time champion.
“We’re looking to fight a top 10 contender now,” he said. “Eventually, I’ll be heavyweight champion of the world again. “Forty-four or 45 [years old], it doesn’t matter.”
It wasn’t a typical fight atmosphere Friday. American Airlines Center seemed more like a TV studio. The bout was part of a Fox Sports show, and the ringside announcer told the crowd to cheer when the broadcast started.
Pleas to retire from others in his sport, fans and media echoed for months. Or years, depending on your tolerance level.
This comeback, Holyfield says, will be different. But then, boxers seldom have excuses for bad performances. They just have massive rationalizations.
Holyfield’s reasoning: He’s finally healthy. Never mind that there was a similar claim before the Larry Donald fight. Never mind that he pronounced himself fit before entering the ring against James Toney. The lightly regarded Donald won such a lopsided decision that the New York Athletic Commission banned Holyfield from fighting in the state. Toney, a bloated former middleweight, pummeled Holyfield to the point that trainer Don Turner stopped the fight in the ninth round.
For his protective services, Turner was fired.
Now he is healthy again, he claims.
“I’m happy to be over the injuries. I want everybody to know the past 4-5 years I was injured. A lot of people don’t understand that the last three fights I was hurting, but I didn’t want to quit.”
Holyfield is 43, and a hard 43. His career was not built on one-punch knockouts. He has endured long battles. At his peak, he was a premier counter-puncher and could impose his will on opponents. But now against quality opponents he struggles to dodge punches or fire back on cue. The eyes see an opening, but the hands are slow to follow commands.
Holyfield is the last man wobbling from his era. The contenders he beat to get to the top, the champions he dumped once he got there — they’re all gone: Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Michael Moorer, Riddick Bowe (though Bowe has toyed with an ill-advised comeback).
He wasn’t expected to make more than $500,000 for the Bates fight, and there’s little reason to believe he would make much more for the next one. Depending on how he looked against Bates, adviser Lester Bedford said Holyfield could fight again as soon as six weeks, probably in San Antonio. Then, maybe again in December. The idea is to stay busy and try to build some semblance of momentum. Good luck with that.
Everybody with a conscience on Holyfield’s team has been replaced. Bedford stepped in as promoter for this latest comeback attempt. He uttered the standard promoter’s response when asked about backing a seemingly worn-down boxer: “I don’t tell them to fight or not fight. If I started telling fighters I didn’t think they should fight, I’d be out of my business.”
I’m not sure, but I think promoters and defense attorneys eat at the same delis.
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Big days for blue-collar guy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Medinah, Ill. — We’ll move on now to the further adventures of Billy Andrade, actually William Thomas Andrade, age 42.
It hadn’t been one of his better years on the tour, and he was the seventh alternate on the list for the PGA Championship. Then he came out of a movie Tuesday afternoon and learned that he’d run the table: from seventh to a place in the tournament. He played a quick practice round on the Capital City Club course, caught a flight to Chicago the next morning and teed off at 7:30 Thursday, filling a spot vacated by Steve Elkington. Now, the PGA has never been one of his strong events. Best finish was 6th at Oak Hill in 2003, accompanied by a $135,500 check.
On top of that, this hadn’t been one of his better years, four cuts and a disqualification in his first seven tournaments.
“I was playing well. I just wasn’t scoring.”
Then he found his groove, or whatever he’d been missing. Tie for third at Westchester, tie for second in the Booz Allen, and in two weeks had a $663,000 bundle of cash, and Billy was back, or nearer to his comfort level.
Nothing pretentious about Billy Andrade. He doesn’t have his own jet, nor want one. His wife, Jody, is his agent. They do have two homes, a modest place in Rhode Island, where he was born, and their home in the Brookhaven area. Loves to cook, linguine and white clam sauce his self-acclaimed specialty.
“To be honest, you know I’m not a top-10 player in the world. Those guys, they have all the expectations on them. The rest of us are just, you know, maybe this will be my week.”
He was in the early lead after his 67 Thursday, but settled into third place behind Lucas Glover and Chris Riley. There was no second-round cooling off Friday, a birdie on the first hole, then his only bogey so far, birdie again on the third hole, birdie on the fifth, the five pars in a row on the way to the out-reaches of Medinah’s championship course, birdie on the 10th, a par-5, then another streak of pars, the feature a 15-foot saver on the 14th green, where he tipped his cap and bowed to the rousing crowd’s roar.
He was in the stretch now, the 16th, a fearsome dogleg left, 453 yards long; the treacherous 17th, a par-3 over the lake – where Davis Love III had triple-bogeyed Thursday – site of some famous disasters; then home, the 443-yard 18th. Billy had parred them all the first round.
Well, it was not to be. The evil 17th tricked him into a bogey, coming off a steep downhiller from the fringe. Back to 7-under par, and home.
Meantime, he and Henrik Stenson had been joined on the lead by Luke Donald, the Northwestern alumnus, to whom Medinah is a virtual home course.
Medinah No. 3 now plays to the longest yardage in the history of major championships, and while such figures are oft times deceptive, it remains that Andrade ranks 151st in driving yardage on the PGA Tour. At 443 yards, the 18th hole plays to par-4 and Billy’s last birdie had fallen on the par-5 10th.
His second shot to the elevated green left him about 20 feet for possible birdie, and back into a tie for the lead at 8-under par, and a 36-hole score of 136. Billy took his time, backed off, got set over the ball again with that oddly shaped putter and his claw (ugh!) grip, then the stroke. The ball fell in from the side with its one last roll. Birdie! Another fist thrust. Joy to behold. Tied for the lead again. He had gone out in the final pairing on Saturday at Oak Hill three years ago with Shaun Micheel, who would win it on Sunday, shot 72 and finished 6th. Time for redemption.
“I’ve been doing this for 19 years, why not a PGA Championship now? I want to go to Kapalua [for the Grand Slam playoff] and I don’t want to go on vacation. I want to play there,” Billy said, summing up his situation.
On his way to the tee he got a good look at Stenson for the first time, Billy said. “He looked young enough to be my son. Then as I walked up to the tee later, some guy said, ‘Hey, Billy, why don’t you take it to the old guys?’ So there you are.
“I’m having a blast. If you play well you have a good time. But you have to remember, there are two days left.”
In his life, the two biggest days of them all, as it stands at Medinah.
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Andrade third after quick turnaround
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Medinah, Ill. — Once in awhile, an alternate will win a tournament on the golf tour. But rarely. An alternate is a player who makes the field only when one of the other players develops a crick in his back or there’s a baby on the way. And when one does, all thoughts flash back to John Daly, who arose from the ashes of ninth alternate and won the PGA Championship at Crooked Stick in 1991.
(Get this, though. Since then, Daly has made only three cuts in the PGA Championship and never come close again.)
So Billy Andrade’s week started like this: Monday, the kids started school. (He was seventh alternate for the PGA Championship at Medinah.) Tuesday, he and his wife Jody went to a matinee. (When they went in to watch “You, Me and Dupree” he was third alternate.)
“When I came out, I had a call. I was in the tournament. Go see [‘You, Me and Dupree’], something good may happen to you.”
He drove over to Capital City Club, played 18 holes by himself and shot a 61, best round of his life at the Brookhaven course.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Caught a plane to Chicago at 8 o’clock Wednesday, got here at 11, went out to Medinah, had lunch and played a leisurely nine holes, by himself. “Then I went to dinner at Maggiano’s, by myself. Got up at 4:30 a.m., came out to the course, warmed up and took the shuttle out to the 10th hole and teed off at 7:30.”
He was paired with two former PGA champions, Rich Beem and David Toms, filling the hole left by another, Steve Elkington, who has a habit of making sudden withdrawals. This is not a forgiving golf course, Medinah No. 3, where Cary Middlecoff won the U.S. Open in 1949, Lou Graham won it in 1975 and Hale Irwin in 1990, and Tiger Woods won the PGA in 1999, but this a different golf course now. It was originally laid out, which is basically what they did in those days, by Tom Bendelow, who did the same at East Lake. But four years ago, Rees Jones, sometimes known as the “Great Course Rejuvenator,” was commissioned to apply his magic to No. 3.
“I played here in 1999, but it was a quick two [rounds] and out,” Andrade said. “I played horrible, so I don’t remember much about the course. So I kept asking marshals and officials, ‘Gee, isn’t this different?’ I’d say, ‘I don’t remember this,’ ” and came to find out it was all different, but they did a wonderful job. Hey, if they called me in the morning and say you want to play, I’d be there in the afternoon. It’s very exciting when you get in. It’s a bonus. But if it doesn’t happen, I’m going to have a wonderful week at home with my family.”
Billy birdied the second and third holes, the fifth, the 13th and 14th and parred in for a soothing 67, leader at the time, later surpassed by another onslaught of the South by Lucas Glover. All of this taking some of the electrical charge out of the pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who, in case you weren’t caught up by it all, slipped home with equalling 69s.
There’s hardly anything in life to which the Andrades can’t find a way to contribute, Jody as a community participant, and Billy, with his friend Brad Faxon, in the Rhode Island CVS Charity Classic, for which they have been cited by the Golf Writers Association. Friends of the tour come to play, and over the years this event has raised over $5 million for their children’s fund.
I can hardly let this day go by without referring to something has hung heavily over the heads of us in this huge communications center and in the players’ headquarters. This morning, Heather Clarke, wife of Darren Clarke, was laid to rest at Portrush in Northern Ireland. She died of cancer, leaving Darren with two sons, 8 and 5. It was the crushing conclusion to a long period of anguish, one that left a pall of gloom over not just our European friends, but all of us here.
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Holyfield, legacy take a step down
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Dallas — Having been there for the upset of Mike Tyson, the “Real Meal” rematch, a “Fan Man’s” descent into an outdoor ring, a title loss that led to emergency room chaos and a misdiagnosed heart ailment and endless themes of “It’s over,” exceeded only by “It’s not over,” I figured I had seen it all in Evander Holyfield’s career.
Then on Thursday, Jeremy Bates handed me his business card: “J.W. Potts Insurance. Jeremy Bates, Agent.”
“I saw Evander’s house on ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’ or something like that,” said Bates, Exhibit A of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes theory. “Maybe I can land that one. That premium would be pretty good.”
The way Bates figures it, he’s taking a financial loss to become “a footnote” in Holyfield’s career. He’ll make $20,000 Friday night — far less after training and incidental expenses — as Holyfield’s hand-picked comeback meat when the two meet at American Airlines Center. Bates figures he could’ve made more selling insurance if he hadn’t taken two months off to train.
“But I told the guy I’d fight for half that,” he said. “I want to go to war one more time with my childhood idol.”
Figures Bates would take a discount. Everything else is marked down. Holyfield, who is promoting the fight, will be fortunate to make $500,000, his lowest take since fighting Michael Dokes 18 years ago. Tickets are modestly priced. The fight is mostly viewed as an unfortunate extension of Holyfield’s career.
He is fighting for the first time in 21 months. He has lost three straight bouts. The last win: four years ago, following two accidental head-butts that inflated Hasim Rahman’s forehead. It has been six years since he won a title bout (John Ruiz I), and nine since he looked impressive doing so (Michael Moorer II).
But this “final chapter” (his words) of Holyfield’s career is important enough to the 43-year-old that his entire family will be in attendance. That means 11 children and his wife, Candi.
They’ll watch. Others will cover their eyes.
“This is something nobody wants to see,” said Emanuel Steward, one of Holyfield’s former trainers. “What does it lead to?”
Steward trained Holyfield for his 1993 title rematch upset of Riddick Bowe. “Then he had the two wins over Tyson, and he was on top of the world,” Steward said. “I said at the time, ‘He can’t go any higher than this. He can only go down.’ That’s what’s happened. I really hate to see this.”
Steward believes Holyfield’s ability to operate with blinders on, a strength in the past, is now his weakness. “He never accepted anything people said after he took a terrible beating the first time against Bowe. He put it out of his mind. That’s what made him great. But if you can’t control that, it will destroy you. Great athletes sometimes are in denial. That can be good. But there are times when the body doesn’t agree with anything.”
Holyfield’s body looks fits as always, even at a relatively heavy 220. He says shoulder problems that have plagued him for six years are gone. Not that it should make a difference against Bates.
This isn’t supposed to be a fight. It’s supposed to be a setup. Bates has never been closer to the spotlight than Wheeling. He’s 21-11-1. That’s a suspicious record even before you break down the résumé.
Consider Bates’ 21 victories: Only six came over opponents with winning records (even at that, only 69-50-1 combined). Eight came over creatures who hadn’t won a fight (and for all we know, still haven’t). The composite record of his 21 victims: 135-200-1. Bates said he retired at the end of 2005 to start selling insurance. But fought in April (a loss) only because, “I really needed the money.”
Holyfield knows dropping Bates won’t prove a lot, even in the lightly regarded heavyweight division. But he needed a beatable opponent who would come at him — and possibly walk into what remains of his left hook.
“I had to put all my pride aside and say to myself, ‘I need to fight somebody different,’?” he said. “This isn’t like when I was heavyweight champion, and they put me in against the toughest guy they could find. If this is the last chapter of my book, I’m going to have to go down and build this back up.”
The question is how far he can separate himself from the bottom.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
African-Americans haven’t abandoned baseball
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
For the next three days, the biggest lie in the history of sports will be exposed with a bunch of swinging, throwing, fielding, sliding and running at Georgia Perimeter College in Clarkston. More than 100 high school baseball prospects, mostly from the South, will flash their considerable skills on campus, and here’s the thing: The prospects will be darker than the ball.
So much for the first part of the Big Lie, and that is, African-Americans are so enthralled with the likes of LeBron James and Michael Vick that they’ve forgotten the legacy of Jackie Robinson. Contrary to the belief of many and to the wishes of some, the reason the number of African-Americans on rosters in the majors has dwindled to less than 10 percent isn’t because they’ve stopped playing.
They’re still playing. They were playing 24 years ago when I wrote a weeklong series for the San Francisco Examiner on the drop of African-Americans in the game back then from 24 percent during the early 1970s to 18 percent. Those from Marvin Miller, the former head of the Players Association, to Bill White, the future president of the National League, said there was talk of a quota system in the game to limit the number of African-Americans on the field. I also discovered that the computerized free-agent reports used by the Major League Scouting Bureau at the time had a slot for race. Neither the NFL, NBA nor NHL had anything similar.
When I contacted former commissioner Bowie Kuhn about the practice that Miller, White and others said could be construed as a way to run a quota system, Kuhn said he was stunned. He issued a memo ordering team officials to keep slots for race off scouting forms.
“They [baseball officials] knew what they were doing at the time by putting race on those forms, and that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing now to highlight that there are a lot of good kids playing who are African-American, and they just need a chance,” said Roger Cador on Thursday. He’s the splendid baseball coach at Southern University, and he is part of an Atlanta group called Mentoring Viable Prospects. It’s a group that spent last autumn brainstorming this weekend’s MVP Showcase into existence.
In addition to Cador, the group includes Milt Sanders, a local businessman who first proposed the tournament, and Greg Goodwin, the assistant principal at Redan High School. “We’ve never been under the impression that baseball is dying out in the African-American community, because we’ve seen the Little Leagues at Gresham Park and at Wade Walker Park and at Brownsmill Park and at Old National just filled with kids playing,” said Goodwin, who also coached Redan’s baseball team that had 16 players sign pro contracts, including Brandon Phillips, the second baseman for the Cincinnati Reds.
Then there is Cador, in his 28th year coaching at Southern University, where one of his proteges was Rickie Weeks, the Milwaukee Brewers second baseman who was voted the top amateur athlete in the country during his Jaguar days. “I’m telling you that, right now at Southern, we have a minimum of 10 players who really can play,” said Cador, bringing us to the second part of the Big Lie. That is, officials in the majors just don’t know where to look for African-American players.
See Phillips. See Weeks. Mostly see this weekend’s collection of African-American talent, with a heavy emphasis on those from Georgia and Florida. According to Goodwin, college coaches will attend the tournament for recruiting purposes, and he said that, after he contacted all 30 teams in the majors, 14 said they were sending scouts, including the Braves.
Not only that, Danny Montgomery, the assistant scouting director of the Colorado Rockies, spoke with passion this week during a scouting directors convention in Las Vegas about the importance of attending the MVP Showcase. “There will be some first-round draft picks there, and [my peers] could hear the passion in my voice,” said Montgomery, an African-American, in his 18th year in scouting. “I told them, ‘If you think black kids aren’t playing, then you’re going to come and see six teams [featuring those prospects] absolutely full of them.’ They were very receptive to what I had to say.”
Montgomery added that there was even discussion at the convention about whether to resume the practice of putting a slot for race on scouting forms. This time, he said they want to make sure the number of African-American players in the game is going up instead of down.
Said Montgomery, “No question that from what I saw this week, [baseball officials] don’t want to put a Band-Aid on the problem anymore. They truly want to heal the wound.”
Yeah, well.
We’ll see.
Permalink | Comments (70) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Fail-safe predictions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Time to put some numbers on the ol’ season. I see the Falcons going 11-5. (Yes, the Falcons.) I’m not entirely sold on Carolina, and I’m really not sold on Tampa Bay. I think the local team can win the NFC South or, failing that, grab a wild card with room to spare. I don’t think this is quite a Super Bowl team, but I think it can win a playoff game or two.
I think the defense will be really good again. I think Michael Vick will never quite re-invent the sport but will continue to do as he has done fairly consistently — keep putting his team in position to win. I think Greg Knapp will call better plays. (If not, I think Greg Knapp will be calling plays elsewhere next season.) I think the bounces that went against the Falcons last year will go their way this fall.
And, just to cram all the numerical prognostications into one convenient cubbyhole, I think — and have written already — that both Georgia and Tech will go 9-3. Georgia will lose to South Carolina, Florida and Tech. Tech will beat both Notre Dame and Georgia but, being Tech, will still contrive to find three losses along the way.
I can’t imagine anyone out there will disagree with any part of this cutting insight.
Permalink | Comments (65) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Duckett could be star elsewhere
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch— Six weeks after they signed Warrick Dunn as a free agent, the Falcons made T.J. Duckett the first draftee of the Arthur Blank Era. At first it didn’t make sense — two running backs in one offseason? — but then it made perfect sense. Two years on, Duckett would supplant Dunn as the every-down back, or so went the thinking in 2002.
Here it is 2006, and Dunn, coming off the best season of his distinguished career, remains the featured runner. Duckett is in the final year of his contract, and there seems every chance he’ll play elsewhere — and maybe gain 1,500 yards — next fall.
T.J. Duckett is gifted enough to be a franchise back — just not for this franchise. He knows his scripted role here — “Short-yardage and goal-line, the guy who changes up the pace, who finishes games out,” he said Wednesday — but he dreams of the day when he’s an every-down back. “I would love to have something like that. You always want to have the ball.”
Understand: Duckett knows how the Falcons operate, and he knows he’s apt to be no better than the No. 3 running option so long as Dunn and Michael Vick are in place. “There’s only one football,” Duckett said, “and we have so many talented players. I want to be that [featured] guy; it just so happens I play behind a great running back.”
Were Duckett stationed in some other city, we might think of him as a great back. Said Gerald Riggs, who’s the leading rusher in Falcons history and who’s now a cable TV analyst: “In a different system, he’d be a guy you could hang your hat on.”
A big back himself, Riggs has developed a fondness for Duckett. “I feel his pain,” Riggs said. “I know he’s chomping at the bit. … [But] Dunn is more tailored to this offense.”
The Falcons will dispute this characterization, but under Jim Mora and Greg Knapp they’ve become a finesse offense. Yes, they’ve led the league in rushing two years running, but their yardage is more a function of speed and zone blocking than of leather-helmet football. Riggs played in Dan Henning’s power scheme and averaged 1,500 yards from 1984 through 1986. Put Duckett in a similar downhill-running system and give him an H-back to clear the way, and what would happen?
Riggs: “He’d terrorize people.”
Duckett in conversation isn’t anything approaching a terror. He’s upbeat and circumspect. He knows this is a big season for him, and toward that end he approached the offseason with even greater zeal. “I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I definitely looked at it differently. It’s a contract year, and I was disappointed in myself last year, and we went 8-8. It’s crazy all that stuff happened at the same time.”
He doesn’t, he said, sit around wondering where he’ll be next season: “I’m not walking on eggshells.” Even with the continuing excellence of Dunn and the addition of rookie Jerious Norwood, Duckett still sees opportunity here. Not that exhibition stats mean much, but he was the Falcons’ leading rusher — 59 yards on 10 carries — against New England last week.
His goal for the season? “There’s not any back who won’t say 1,000 yards.” The difference is, some backs operate in a setting where they’ll get the chance. Duckett has averaged 10.2 rushes a game as a Falcon, and at that rate he’d have to average 6.1 yards per attempt to break 1,000.
But forget sobering numbers. Let’s hear Duckett on 2006: “I’m looking for a big year with some breakout runs. I want to get it out there that I can be a feature back. … This is my fifth year. I don’t want to be thought of as a short-yardage guy who can’t catch and who can only play inside the 5.”
He wants to be more than that, and soon he probably will be. And whatever team pays Duckett’s salary in 2007 could well be getting a bonus. The shelf life on big backs tends to be brief because of the pounding they take. Having never been an every-down back, he hasn’t yet absorbed those blows. Said Riggs: “He doesn’t have that wear and tear. … If you’re a team looking for a featured back, he’s the hot commodity.”
Permalink | Comments (87) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
T.O., Moss: Moore trouble than they’re worth
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This is scary: If many folks around the Falcons Nation had their way, Terrell Owens, Randy Moss or both would be at training camp in Flowery Branch right now.
They both spoke publicly about the Falcons’ needs at wide receiver. They both said they wanted to play in Atlanta. They both weren’t given the opportunity.
Good. No, great.
Moss is being Moss again. I mean, is he really pouting over not getting enough playing time in an exhibition game?
Not only that, T.O. hasn’t stopped being T.O. by spending most of his training camp riding a stationary bike instead of catching passes. Something about a supposedly aching hamstring that has Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells rolling his eyes.
They both are fabulous players, and they both aren’t worth it.
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
McCann has long career ahead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
It wasn’t easy to look past Jeff Francoeur after he was whisked up from the bush leagues last season. Local kid. Natural athlete with a rifle for an arm. Rarely ever saw a pitch he didn’t like. Bubbly personality, even when he struck out, which came with unnerving frequency, triggering hope that he wouldn’t become the next Rob Deer, whose trademark had been frequent home runs, more frequent strikeouts and a depressed batting average.
Surely a candidate for Rookie of the Year, though I felt it my duty to move in another direction as the season aged. What about Brian McCann? McCann had moved into the mind of Atlanta baseball without flourish. He, too, had been called up from the Mississippi farm club, but in an emergency. Johnny Estrada had been bulldozed in a play at the plate by Darin Erstad, an Angel only by affiliation.
“I thought I’d be here maybe two or three days, until Johnny was OK again,” Brian said, “so I didn’t pack heavy.”
Well, about 14 months later, Brian McCann is not only still here, he is an All-Star catcher leading the league in hitting, which will become official once he has had a few more at-bats. By mid-September, McCann was my Rookie of the Year, with all due respect to Francoeur. While Estrada’s body was in recovery, here was McCann, a 21-year-old kid handling a bunch of pitchers, mostly veterans, day in and day out. His second game as a starter he was paired with John Smoltz, 38 years old, crusty and tough. An April-September battery.
“Did he shake you off a lot?”
“Oh, no. Before the game we had sat and talked over what pitches he’d be throwing to the hitters he’d be facing. I called the pitches because we’d talked it over, uh, for about 15 minutes, I guess,” he said.
For most of the rest of the season, McCann was the catcher. Estrada was traded for two low-rent pitchers, the widely-traveled Todd Pratt was brought in as a backup, and until further notice, catching for the Braves will be Brian McCann, still only 22, with a long career in the offing.
There is a certain solidness in his bearded face and makeup, with a 210-pound body constructed for the daily wear and tear that comes with catching in the big leagues. While last season it was a more orderly group, this year it has been a collection of guys routinely migrating between the farm and the big club. Some just reaching for a star, some who’ll never be back again. Pitching to a 22-year-old who’s aging before his time. If he has one flaw in his game, it’s handling the pitches low and wide, of which there have been many.
He started off in the game playing second base. “But I realized I’d never be a second baseman in high school or college, so I just put on the gear and started catching, and here I am.” And it must be said that he runs with catcher speed. Hitting runs in the family. His father, Howard, once coached baseball at Marshall University, now he’s a hitting coach. So Brian gets plenty of home-grown instruction. “He keeps on me, showing me what I do wrong and stuff like that.”
While he might have thought he was preparing his game for college, that never came to pass. “The Braves made certain I got college out of my thinking,” referring to his rather generous signing bonus. “I have no idea what I’d have majored in. Maybe some time later I’ll think about it, but right now I’m concentrating of being a major league catcher.”
Two years ago, playing on the Myrtle Beach farm club in the Carolina League, he was listed as the Braves’ eighth best prospect. Whatever became of the seven in front of him, I can’t say, but I suspect that one of them is his housemate. That would be Francoeur. Brian bought a house in Duluth and he and Jeff share it. Brian’s the landlord. The way it should be. Catcher runs the game, catcher runs the house.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Falcons less fearsome than T-Rac
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: News: Fights break out in Falcons training camp. Views: Glad to see somebody on the Falcons’ defense was hitting somebody Monday. Then again, I’m not sure a Falcons defender mixing it up with a Falcons offensive lineman counts for much.
9: Seriously, and coach Jim Mora will not view this as some great revelation: This team needs to be more physical. It needs to be nastier. The acquisitions of Ed Hartwell last year and Lawyer Milloy this year were as much about changing the attitude as upgrading the talent. The offensive line is still lagging behind in that area.
8: I’m not sure how many NFL teams actually fear playing the Falcons. Actually, I am sure. None. They fear Michael Vick breaking free for a big play. But they don’t fear getting their heads knocked off. That has to change.
7: The Saints’ Adrian McPherson will have a second MRI on his knee after being run over by a golf cart - driven by the Tennessee Titans’ moronic looking mascot. See, now THAT’S what I’m talking about. Teams fear T-Rac.
6: Chipper Jones says he’s fed up with 4-3 road trips one day, then hits three home runs the next. Where was this attitude-production double-header in June?
5: Joe Tereshinski will start the opener. Matthew Stafford will take over by week three or four. Is there any reason Mark Richt is delaying the obvious?
4: Funny how nobody started paying attention to USA Basketball exhibitions until we stunk.
3: From the Raiders’ Randy Moss, on his feelings about being pulled from a pre-season game in Minnesota: “Really, I’m going to keep that in-house because it kind of [ticked] me off for me to be taken out during a series.” Nobody can keep it in-house quite like Randy.
2: Lance Armstrong retired. A blur of competitors were thrown out of the Tour de France before it even started. Winner Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone. And now Landis’ team, Phonak, announced it is folding. Well. I guess this means we can all stop paying attention to cycling again.
1: While we’re at it, any chance of a breaking drug scandal and the end of televised poker?
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Tech must get rid of its ‘quit’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
For Georgia Tech football to stop continuing as only a tease during Chan Gailey’s regime, it must correct something more egregious than Reggie Ball’s fluctuations between wonderful and wretched. The worst thing you can do in sports is quit, and a whole slew of Yellow Jackets did just that last season.
Twice. Once in Blacksburg, Va., where they rolled over and played dead, even before Virginia Tech fired its considerable cannons their way. Then there was the Jackets’ whipping at the hands of a strikingly average Utah team during the Emerald Bowl. After the Utes finished with 38 of the easiest points you’ll ever see to Tech’s 10, the winners from something called the Mountain West Conference stomped on what remained of the Jackets’ pride even more by boasting that Tech quit.
Which Tech did. Which makes you wonder if a team that has 69 players returning from its disaster against Utah in December in San Francisco has the guts to handle the likes of Notre Dame to begin the season, the Hokies during another trip to Blacksburg, Clemson in Death Valley, Miami on homecoming and folks barking Between The Hedges.
My guess? If you’re among the Tech Nation, you shouldn’t make your reservations for a BCS game just yet. After all, with the Fighting Irish within three weeks away, Gailey said that the Yellow Jackets still are leaderless. That could push Tech in the direction of more listlessness this season at the worst of times.
“Of the seniors, we’re still looking to see which ones exactly are going to be involved there [as leaders],” said Gailey, before mentioning a group of juniors, ranging from running back Tashard Choice to defensive end Adamm Oliver, with the potential to become Tech leaders. Even so, the plain-speaking coach added, “I think the jury is still out on that. I really do.”
The verdict is in regarding this: To paraphrase an old hip-hop guy, when you quit, you’re not legit. Added Gailey, “During the offseason, you evaluate as a coach, who did it upset? Who didn’t it upset? You look at it and say to yourself, ‘OK, this is where we are as far as leadership goes.’ You have to lead on the field and off the field. You just can’t lead out here on game day.”
Linebacker KaMichael Hall sighed after a recent practice, saying, “Against Virginia Tech last year, when they were beating us down about midway through the third quarter, it was like, ‘Coach, just think of something. Let’s go. Let’s stop getting embarrassed.’ After a while, it was like, ‘What’s the point?’ Since I’ve been here, that probably was the only game that we, as a team, quit.”
Well, that game and the Utah game. Even before the opening kickoff, Tech players looked more interested in hopping a cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf than trying to knock the gums out of a toothless Utah bunch in its post-Urban Meyer era. “I really think that’s an unfair statement” said Hall, recalling the gooey conditions of the Giants’ home ballpark. “At the same time, I think it’s a fairly legitimate statement. The field was messy. We’re out there flying around on offense and defense. We have a lot of speed, and when you can’t get your feet, it neutralizes the game. We were slipping and falling everywhere. After a while you’re playing cautious instead of going 100 percent. I mean, you can’t play football if you can’t be on your feet.”
You also can’t play football if you haven’t a heart, and Tech players lacked one last year. Twice. I was there to witness the Virginia Tech and Utah fiascos to see the Jackets give the least amount of effort during any set of games since Tech players had their private mutiny against coach Bill Lewis in the midst of a one-victory season in 1994.
There were no signs of anarchy within the locker room during Gailey’s four previous seasons at Tech. Instead, there were signs of confusion over how a team with enough talent to shock Auburn (twice), Clemson and Miami could lose to Duke, Wake Forest and Fresno State on the way to the mediocrity of four seven-victory seasons.
Just so you know, talent has nothing to do with effort. That’s because the effort that a team displays is directly related to the combination of what lies in the souls of its players and how well that team is motivated by its coaches. If the effort isn’t there for that team each game, then that team needs new players, new coaches or both.
If the Jackets have another Virginia Tech or Utah this season, somebody needs to go.
Permalink | Comments (73) | Categories: Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Holyfield is his same “old” self
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Fighters don’t change. The tipoff that it’s time to go is everything changes around them.
Opponents no longer are champions, contenders or even mild threats. They’re dead-end club fighters with names like Jeremy Bates, who once lost to somebody with a record of 15-39.
Paydays aren’t counted in several millions. They’re way south of seven figures and based on the gate, not pay-per-view, because there is no pay-per-view (Fox Sports will televise). There’s no real promoter. Or a guarantee. The ring isn’t in Las Vegas or New York. It’s in Dallas, following a training stopover in Shreveport.
Evander Holyfield hasn’t changed. He’s the same guy who beat Mike Tyson. He’s the same guy who lost 11 of 12 rounds to Larry Donald in his last bout, the same guy who has had over seven years of mostly forgettable and regrettable fights. What changes? His camp. Managers and trainers leave. Even a massage therapist leaves.
In Holyfield’s eyes, they can always be replaced. As long as he has a checkbook, there is somebody out there to say, “Yes, sir. No, sir. You can whip anybody out there, sir.”
Holyfield may be finished. The finish line, that’s another story. He fights next Friday night at American Airlines Center in Dallas against Bates, who is 21-11-1, coming off two straight defeats to guys you’ve never heard of and was handpicked for obvious reasons.
Holyfield still believes there is a road back to the heavyweight title. He turns 44 in two months and certainly is aware what most people think of all this. His following has diminished. His legacy is taking hits. (If you wish to remember the better stuff, ESPN Classic is showing, “SportsCentury: Evander Holyfield” Monday night, following a replay of Holyfield-George Foreman, which was 15 years ago.)
Does he care? No. I asked him to try to be objective for a moment, to pretend he was a fan looking at recent results. The three straight losses. The 2-5-2 record in the last nine fights. The inability to throw the counterpunch immediately after the brain tells you, “Throw the counterpunch.”
His response: “I would realistically hear what [the fighter] had to say. I would ask myself, ‘Do I agree with that?’ I would ask, ‘Is he making excuses?’ When a person makes excuses, he won’t get better. I don’t give anybody excuses. What happened is what happened.”
But he talks about coming back too soon from rotator cuff surgery in 2002. Both shoulders never properly healed, he says. He was forced to fight an alternate style because of the pain, he says. He’s as strong and healthy now as he has been since the Tyson fights, he says.
You may believe all that’s an excuse, that it doesn’t excuse the obvious: His reactions are slow. He’s getting hurt by body shots like never before. He can’t put punches together. But you’re the blind one, Holyfield says.
“I know what I can do and can’t do,” he said. “People say, ‘Evander got old,’ but you don’t get old overnight. They told me to take two years off after the surgery and I didn’t do it. I know that. I know how this is supposed to end.”
Most feel otherwise, even in the soft landscape that is boxing’s heavyweight division. Neither attorney/adviser Jim Thomas nor trainer Don Turner felt Holyfield should continue fighting. They were replaced before the Donald fight, which was so lopsided that the New York Athletic Commission put Holyfield on a medical suspension (which has since been lifted). The only two holdovers are strength and fitness trainer Tim Hallmark and camp aide Mike Weaver, Holyfield’s nephew. Promoter Don King’s contract has expired. Holyfield is his own promoter and manager. Ronnie Shields, an assistant early in his career, is his trainer.
He admits he’s starting near the bottom, with an opponent like Bates. But the idea is to take a pulse of his body and his timing, without exposing himself to much risk. This isn’t like the old days, when he ordered promoters to arrange bouts with top contenders so he could immediately get back to a title shot.
I asked Holyfield if he had a timetable for this latest comeback. I’m not sure why. I already knew the answer.
“My whole thing is, I’m not going to quit,” he said. “I’d like to be a champion within 13 or 14 months. But if it doesn’t come, I’m still going to fight.”
One thing doesn’t change. Everything else does.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Jeff Schultz
Storybook start for Shockley
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Say it’s baseball. The Falcons go to their “closer,” and he not only saves the game, he’s the winning pitcher. Such was opening night as a professional quarterback for D.J. Shockley, accompanied by a din of “woofing” that raised the woof of the Georgia Dome.
Preseason games are just that. Baseball calls it spring training. Nothing counts, but a fellow from the lower level of the roster can build up points. Others will be playing the last game of football they’ll ever play. It’s just that, preseason and back to the car wash or gas station. Some guys have their pictures in Reggie Roberts’ press guide, but they never make it to the game. Gone before they played a game. Cut, the most depressing word in sport.
Some may or may not have played against New England, but their picture is in the back of the book. They can always be listed back home as a “former professional football player.” There’s one guy from Finland, Klaus Alinen, force-fed through through the farm league in Europe. There’s Chris Reis, a defensive back from Georgia Tech. Strange, not a lot of local players get a call from the local pros. There’s the son of the coach at Iowa, Brian Ferentz, a center with academic credentials. No car wash for him.
You know this, you can’t prejudge these fellows. Whoever would have thought that Patrick Pass would find work in the NFL? The former Bulldog is now in his seventh season with the Patriots, though he was out of action Friday night. On the other hand, last time I saw Heath Evans, he was a fullback at Auburn and having a blowout night in the same Dome. A can’t-miss future, I thought. Well, he got lost in Seattle, then Miami, now making his third stop with New England.
But, back to what it’s all about. All four quarterbacks performed nicely, though Michael Vick made no more than the required cameo appearance, as did Tom Brady. Each threw three passes, then retired. Matt Schaub, Bryan Randall and Shockley followed in that order for the Falcons. The Patriots turned to Matt Cassel, and the rest of the evening was his.
This fellow Cassel has had a peculiar career living in the shadows. He was backup to two Heisman Trophy winners at Southern Cal, Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart, and now to a Super Bowl champion at New England. You think D.J. Shockley had it bad at Georgia? He only had to back up David Greene. Now he’s applying to become the backup to a backup with the Falcons.
Some Falcons had good evenings, some fair, some ordinary, but a caveat goes with all this: While some were matched against grade-A personnel, others were on the field against some of those who’ll be back at the car wash. As for those “woofers” in Red and Black, makes no difference who Shockley was matched against. They liked his cool, they liked his game management, they liked the results he put on the board. It was really storybook stuff for a hometown kid.
He came on the field for the crucial series just before the two-minute break and quickly made himself at home, starting at the Falcons’ 22-yard line. The key play was a third-down pass to Kevin Youngblood, a second-year aspirant from Clemson, his second catch of the game. When they reached Michael Koenen’s 40-yard range, this utile guy came out and kicked the field goal that broke the tie and won the game, 26-23, as time ran out. Winning pitcher: Shockley.
You look back on such games and feel you’ve watched some emerging futures. The Patriots broke out an impressing running back from Minnesota, Laurence Maroney, and a solid tight end from Texas, David Thomas. For the Falcons, Jerious Norwood from Mississippi State showed bursts of speed that left you agape; Youngblood, big and rangy, might be the wide receiver they’re missing with Brian Finneran gone; and they probably found the field goal kicker they’ve searched for right under their noses. Koenen, who punted as a rookie, last year kicked a 58-yard field goal, kicked off, punted and took orders for dinner. And then there’s Shockley.
In all cases, remember, it’s still August.
Permalink | Comments (93) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Furman Bisher, UGA / SEC
QB race suited to a T
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Athens — Joe Tereshinski III has been around Georgia football since birth. His grandfather played here and made second-team All-SEC. His dad played here and won an SEC title and has worked in the program since before Joe T. III was born. Now Joe T. III, who rejected offers to sign with other colleges because, his father says, “They just weren’t Georgia,” is listed as the Bulldogs’ No. 1 quarterback.
Nice homegrown story, right? Well, maybe.
Many on the dispassionate periphery consider his status temporary, the belief being that Joe T. III is merely warming a seat for one (or more) of the three younger quarterbacks. Tereshinski rejects the notion. “I have to consider myself on top,” he says. “It helps with the leadership role, and it helps with my confidence.”
Via his longtime access to the program, Tereshinski has seen quarterback competitions already. He remembers coming to practice with his dad in 1991 — Joe T. III was in grade school — and watching Greg Talley duel Preston Jones and a hot freshman named Eric Zeier, whom Tereshinski would come to regard as “the quote-unquote hero of my generation.”
That said, neither he nor anyone else can cite a precedent to this four-way struggle. Says Mark Richt, who’ll be the ultimate arbiter: “This is the tightest race I’ve been involved with. I’ve seen two guys competing for a job, but not more than two.”
Because Tereshinski is a fifth-year senior and the most seasoned among the other three is a redshirt sophomore, conventional wisdom holds that the current depth chart is more a reflection of seniority than ability. But Joe T. III, having long dreamed of doing as Zeier, with whom Tereshinski played catch after practices, did, isn’t inclined to yield to anyone. Here’s his stance: “I’ve been here four years, and this is my job.”
Says Joe Tereshinski Jr., Georgia’s assistant strength coach and its video coordinator: “I’ve never met a kid who’s happier when he’s competing than Joe T.”
Come Sept. 2, the day Georgia opens against Western Kentucky, Tereshinski figures to be the first quarterback deployed. When in doubt — and clearly Richt is — coaches tend to err on the side of seasoning. But a Bulldogs historian might recall that, even though Zeier didn’t start the first five games of his freshman season, he played so much he was essentially the No. 1 quarterback. And after Zeier engineered a famous victory over sixth-ranked Clemson, he displaced Talley, who was a team captain, as the starter and went on to become the hero of Joe T. III’s generation.
Might such a thing happen again? Would a bad series against South Carolina — or a big relief performance from a younger guy — in Week 2 render Joe T. III a latter-day Talley? “I don’t think it’d be a bad series and out,” he says, “but if you’re making the same mistakes, you could definitely find another guy in for a while.”
Two other bits of history are more in his favor. First, Georgia hasn’t entered a season with a non-Georgian — the three others are from out of state — as its quarterback since James Ray in 1970. And the last fifth-year Bulldogs quarterback to wait his turn wound up being the MVP in the SEC championship game. Is D.J. Shockley’s example a source of inspiration?
“Oh, definitely,” Tereshinski says. “He pushed himself hard and competed every day, and he rallied his team.”
Tereshinski started the Florida game when Shockley was injured last season and didn’t do so badly. (He didn’t throw a touchdown pass, but he caught one.) He did mop-up duty in five other games, and that measure of familiarity with big-time college football could well be the first determinant in this hairbreadth race.
“You’ve got to be able to manage the job,” Tereshinski says, “to set up the team and keep it running.”
A fifth-year senior should be more suited to managerial duty than a freshman or a sophomore, but this is one of those cases where nobody really knows anything. The four quarterbacks have been given no timetable as to when a decision might be made. (Indeed, Richt has joked that Georgia could settle things by letting each play a quarter.) Says Tereshinski: “They’re judging everything, every throw. That’s the reason you have to compete every day. You can’t take an hour off.”
An affable sort, Tereshinski doesn’t flinch when asked to rate the other quarterbacks’ assets. He says Joe Cox has “a very strong arm” and that Matthew Stafford “loves the game. … He can tell you what any player throughout history has done” and that Blake Barnes “gives everything he has.” And the Tereshinski guy?
He smiles. “I’m more of a pocket passer,” he says. “I’ve got some experience under my belt. I’m the most physical of the guys. I might be able to stand in a little longer and make a throw.”
Joe T. III has waited all his life for this moment to arrive, and he doesn’t foresee himself wilting under the heat, figurative or literal. Being the first name on the depth chart, he says, means “I have to be on point every day. If I’m No. 1, I have to maintain the lead. … I have to keep a lot of pressure on myself just because I’m up there.” Then again, being No. 1 “might add a little pressure.”
And that makes sense. The other three will have other years. For Joe Tereshinski III, a Bulldog born and bred, there’s only this one.
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A win and no injuries
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It’s the first series of the first exhibition, and there’s somebody hanging onto Michael Vick’s ankle. Oh joy. My kingdom for the bubblewrap.
“My first year I was here was the year after Mike got hurt [and missed most of the season], and I’d say that was the hardest preseason I’ve ever been through,” Falcons general manager Rich McKay said Friday night. “I knew how much it affected everybody in Atlanta. But I’m really not thinking about that now. At least I wasn’t. You may have just put them back in my head, actually.”
Vick and less significant Falcons made their exhibition debut Friday against New England. The game may forever be remembered for the loudest cheers ever heard for a fourth-string quarterback.
“I stopped during the break and thought, ‘Is that barking I hear?’ ” D.J. Shockley said later, and of course he knew the answer. Shockley, playing his third straight game in the Georgia Dome (SEC title game, Sugar Bowl, pro debut), led a late drive to a field goal in his practice pro unveiling in the Falcons’ 26-23 win over the Patriots.
Also, the Falcons stayed upright. Isn’t that always the primary objective in these things?
Run a few plays, don’t break a leg.
Try a few blitzes, don’t wreck a knee.
Return some punts, don’t crack a rib.
Win. Lose. Whatever.
McKay insists it’s slightly more significant than that in the eyes of an NFL general manager. But then, the man has to say something. His league still charges full retail for games that don’t count.
“The regular season is all about team and result and who wins the game,” he said. “The preseason is 50 percent that and 50 percent how individuals do, particularly the young guys. How do they react to the pressure? How do they react to being in the Dome and playing games? How do they play within our scheme? Do they play as well as they look in practice? And how do they match up against the opponent, because some of the young guys in practice are only going against our twos or our threes?”
Too many questions.
Try this one: Are they breathing?
The last time the Falcons were in the Dome, they looked like extras from “Dawn of the Dead.” Carolina plowed through them with a Winnebago, winning 44-11. The Falcons’ season ended with three straight losses and a 2-6 second half. Some were left questioning the fragility of the roster and the direction of the franchise.
So the initial objective against New England, other than maintaining clean X-rays, should have been to rebuild bridges with their fan base. In some areas, they succeeded. Others, not so good.
Rookie running back Jerious Norwood, who has been impressive in camp, was even better in a game. His 37-yard gain on a screen pass from Matt Schaub and 34-yard touchdown off a short toss from Bryan Randall gave more reason to believe T.J. Duckett should start packing his dishes.
Coach Jim Mora’s impression of Norwood: “He runs fast.”
Sometimes, deep analysis isn’t necessary.
Vick played only one series. He survived Mike Vrabel’s ankle-grab sack, completing three of four passes (26 yards), and added a 16-yard run on third down. But the Falcons were forced to settle for a field goal after having a first down at the Patriots 20.
The bad moments in NFL exhibitions often are more significant than the good ones. For example, it’s more significant that Duckett had a weak 1-yard carry against the Patriots’ No. 1 defense than the fact he had a 20-yarder against the No. 2 defense. While No. 2 receiver Michael Jenkins had a nice grab for a 21-yard touchdown in the first quarter, No. 1 receiver Roddy White had a drop on the first series and allowed cornerback Asante Samuel to knock the ball out of his hands on the second series.
Also not good: The supposedly upgraded run defense was dented for 82 yards in the first quarter. Pats rookie Laurence Maroney (55 yards on six attempts in the first quarter) was left with the impression that the NFL isn’t nearly as tough as the Big Ten.
“It’s not what you want, because [improving] the run defense is a priority of ours,” McKay said. “But when you’re not scheming against them in practice all week, it’s hard to judge a team’s success.”
Otherwise, Friday was a success. Everybody walked away.
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Don’t cry for Clarett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tony Barnhart
I really don’t feel sorry for Maurice Clarett. But there is a lesson to be learned from his sad saga. If you’re the parent of a budding college athlete, it should scare the hell out of you.
As a freshman, Clarett scored the winning touchdown in the Fiesta Bowl that gave Ohio State the 2002 national championship. Today, less than four years later, he is being held on $5 million bond for a variety charges.
His self-absorption was evident from the day he walked onto the Ohio State campus. His year at Ohio State was marked with one incident after another which came from the same root: Clarett’s belief that his immense talent (and it was immense) put him above and beyond accountability to any societal structure. Not team, not university, not community.
As late as several days before the national championship game, Clarett was making headlines in Phoenix because the university wouldn’t fly him home to attend the funeral of a friend. His entire team was trying to get ready to play for a championship and the focus, once again, was on Clarett and HIS needs.
And when Ohio State finally gave up on Clarett, he demanded that the NFL change its entire structure on underclassmen to allow HIM access to the league. When the league refused, he lashed out as though a grave injustice had been done to HIM.
And today, Maurice Clarett gets far more media attention than he deserves for a promising life that was trashed at the twin altars of Ego and Arrogance.
Here’s the lesson if you’re the parent or a guardian of a potentially great athlete. Help them develop their immense talent but not to the exclusion of all else. Do not allow them to fall victim to the pathology born of the excesses of the celebrity/recruiting process. Remind him that while he may be a star on the athletic field, everywhere else he is still a kid and he had better act like it.
The sense of entitlement that this culture creates in young athletes can, in some cases, have some dire consequences down the road.
The chilling vision of Maurice Clarett in a bullet proof vest and handcuffs is living proof of that.
Gus Zernial lives
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
How long it may have been stretched across the door of my office, I can’t say. Just another one of those stickers meant for the bumper of an automobile. I do know that Dick Williams gave it to me, and having nothing else to do with it, I stuck it on the door and it has been there ever since.
“GUS ZERNIAL LIVES,” it reads.
Rarely some person curious enough will look in and ask, “Who is Gus Zernial? And why?” There just aren’t that many passing by who have lived long enough to know who Gus Zernial was, or is. For he does indeed still live. It was confirmed the other day when a copy of John Kuenster’s Baseball Digest reached my desk.
Gus Zernial, the story said, lives in Fresno, and that he has lived in California most of the years since his playing career ended. He is 83 years old now, but I see him only as the perfectly sculptured athlete playing the outfield in the American League. He was good, probably the best of all the big league players whose name start with Z. Maybe the next best was Todd Zeile, who in 16 seasons hit 244 home runs, seven more than Zernial did in 11 seasons.
Zernial was an outfielder, and when the all-time all-star team of Athletics was selected a few years ago, he was one of the chosen outfielders, with Al Simmons and Sam Chapman. In 1951, he led the American League in home runs and runs batted in. By that time he was famously known as “Ozark Ike,” so called because he reminded a broadcaster in Hollywood, where he was having the season that launched him to the White Sox, of a bucolic comic strip athlete named “Ozark Ike.”
Curiously, in the midst of his third season with the White Sox, that 1951 season, he was traded to the Athletics, still in Philadelphia at the time, he hit his power stride. He hit 42 home runs in 1953 and finished of a string of over 100 RBI seasons in a row (1951-53), when those seasons played out to only 154 games. And for a power hitter, he struck out remarkably few times.
Now, there is a connection between Zernial and Atlanta. He was signed by the old Atlanta Crackers of the Southern Association, out of Beaumont, Texas, by a scout named Claude Dietrich. He spent his first season, 1942, on their farm club at Waycross, the next three in the military, and his first season back in uniform in the Carolina League, at Burlington, and there hit 41 home runs and drove in 111. The Crackers recalled him, but before they could ever get their hands on him, Cleveland drafted him, and after five seasons of owning him, the Crackers never had him in their uniform.
Oh, another thing relating to Atlanta. Luke Appling was with the White Sox when Gus checked in, 42 years old and playing out his Hall of Fame career, and it was Luke, Gus has said, who “took me under his wing,” and smoothed his swing, converted his power into finesse.
Nevertheless, Gus was on his way and it didn’t hurt his popularity that he bore the muscular nickname of that comic strip character. He finished off his 11-year career with the Tigers in Detroit, followed by a curtain call in the Pacific Coast League, where he settled down.
For years he was an official of the Fresno Class AAA farm club of the Giants, instrumental in getting a new stadium built, also broadcasting Fresno games and Fresno State sports. He may relate to another age, but he is not one of the fogies who bellow against the designated hitter rule. “I like it,” he tells the magazine writer, I think it’s good for baseball. I also believe in having a designated runner.”
Well, ol’ Gus may have flown a little off my radar screen, but that diminishes him none in the eyes of this old dude. “Gus Zernial Lives” and he has his place on my door, and ever shall until life dictates otherwise. Oh, and what’s he doing now? Writing a book. Doesn’t everybody?
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Abraham planning to make a difference
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — John Abraham plays right end. On defense, that’s the glamour position. A quarterback has the best chance to make a big offensive play because he touches the ball every down. A right end has the best chance to make a big defensive play because he can touch the quarterback — assuming he’s right-handed, which most are — from his blind side.
Most defenders will pay lip service to the importance of stopping the run. Abraham skips over that part, saying, “If you can’t stop the run, there’s no reason for anyone ever to pass on you.” But let’s assume this season’s Falcons will stop the run better than last season’s. That done, what commodity propels a defense to the summit?
Big plays.
John Abraham makes big plays.
In six pro seasons, he has 53-1/2 sacks and has induced 19 fumbles. (See what happens when you hit a quarterback when he’s not looking?) Abraham’s arrival in Flowery Branch has passed largely without notice, but when the Falcons start playing — that comes tonight against New England — he’ll become rather more apparent.
About those fumbles: “I learned as I got older. When you’re young, you care more about getting sacks. But I have more opportunity [to force fumbles] than anyone because I’m the right end. Getting the sack is fine, but forcing a fumble is bigger.”
In a difference-making position, Abraham plans to make a difference. Three times a Pro Bowler, Abraham arrives at something approaching a career apex. He’s 28. He wanted to play here partly because it’s close to home — he’s from Timmonsville, S.C. — but mostly because the Pro Bowler wants to sniff a championship.
In Abraham’s six seasons in New York, the Jets won one AFC East title and a total of two playoff games. (They were 4-12 last year, a time in which Abraham said he “learned to focus on my football, not wins and losses.”) In his last season at South Carolina, the Gamecocks were 0-11. When you’re as good a player as he is, you don’t want to be known as the All-Pro who never found the right team.
His new employer, Abraham said, “has everything it needs already. This defense can be the top defense in the NFL — top five, easy.”
Certainly this defense has the makings of a front four. Rod Coleman just played in the Pro Bowl. Patrick Kerney, the left end, has 48-1/2 sacks over the last five seasons, and already Abraham senses a wager a-brewing. “[Kerney is] such a competitor. He’s going to be mad if I have more sacks than he does, and I’m going to be mad if he has seven and I have five and I have to get my grind on. I had something like that [a side bet] with Shaun [Ellis, the Jets’ other defensive end] last year.”
For the record, Abraham won by eight sacks. That was about the only positive memory he takes from his final year in New York, although playing for the Jets scarcely qualifies. Abraham lived on Long Island to be close to the Jets’ practice facility, and when it came time to play a “home” date in New Jersey, logistics made it seem “like a road game. You had to get on the bus and get through the traffic. It’d take three hours to get back. It’ll be a lot easier here — there’s less traffic.”
That’s correct. Abraham stands as the first transplanted Atlantan not to feel nonplussed by the local road conditions. Indeed, nothing about his relocation has given him cause to reconsider. When he talks to his friends around the league, “Nobody’s said I made a bad choice [coming here]. I’m going to be close to home. Every game’s going to be a home game.”
And the team? The difference-maker has this immediate goal: “Nothing less than the Super Bowl. It may be a little too early to say that, but that’s how my heart feels, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it. We’ve got the potential — which is the worst word in the book, by the way — and if we go 12-4, 13-3, against our schedule, there’s no way we can’t win the championship.”
A Falcons player for not quite five months, John Abraham believes he has found the right team. The Falcons seem certain they’ve found a right end.
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Practice is overrated
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I went to Georgia’s football practice Wednesday; maybe 10 minutes of it. At Georgia, writers are only allowed to watch the first 20 minutes, most of which consists of stretching. And you know what I say to coaches who close practice to writers?
Thank you.
That’s not what I’m supposed to say, I know. We’re supposed to clamor for access, access, access. (Speaking of which, sort of, the writer Larry Sloman — who was covering the Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975 — complained to Bob Dylan, whose idea the Rolling Thunder Revue was, that he needed access. Deadpan, Bobby D. said, “You need Ex-Lax? What have you been eating?”)
But here’s a confession from this particular writer: I HATE watching practice. I hate batting practice. I hate basketball practice. I hate football practice most of all.
I hate it because you stand there and watch and you learn almost nothing — at least I learn almost nothing — from watching. You see guys run around and think, “Boy, they look pretty good.” But until you see them running against somebody who plays for a different team, you don’t actually know if they’re any good or not.
My first season as the beat writer for The Lexington Leader — it was 1980 — I went to the first couple weeks of Kentucky’s football practice and became convinced that the Wildcats, who’d been picked to finish ninth or so in the SEC, were so talented that they were going to win a slew of games and show those know-nothing prognosticators the error of their ways. Kentucky finished, you should know, 3-8 and beat only Vanderbilt in SEC play.
Practice is a bigger deal if you’re a beat writer and need to know who’s hurt or who’s been demoted, but that’s not my job anymore. My job is to give pithy little opinions, and it’s my pithy little opinion that watching practice is the most overrated thing in sportswriting. I do it as little as possible, and then only grudgingly.
I know what you’re thinking: That the average fan would love to trade places and stand on the sidelines in the hot sun at Flowery Branch or in Athens or wherever it is that football is being practiced. And the average fan probably would — for three, four, maybe five sessions. But after that the novelty would wear off and you know what the average fan would be?
Exactly the same as jaded ol’ me — hot and bored.
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Braves left to look to next season
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The Falcons are in training camp. College football teams are in camp. Even Maurice Clarett will soon be in camp, just as soon as Marion, Sing Sing and Attica complete their draft.
Maybe it’s time for the Braves to join the crowd. (Not Clarett’s crowd. He had something in his car the Braves’ bullpen has lacked all season: weapons.) Let’s just consider the rest of the season extended spring training. Hopeless, useless, fruitless thoughts that this team might be headed for a postseason should have ended Wednesday.
Assuming they didn’t end the week before.
Or in June.
Or back when John Schuerholz woke up in the middle of the night and thought, “Eureka! Oscar Villarreal!”
It’s practice time, folks. Extended spring training. Tryouts for next year. Same full ticket price.
On Wednesday, you could have gone to a day game, stretched out in one of several predominantly vacant sections, bought a $7 hotdog, sweated in a breeze-less, 127 degrees at Turner Field for six innings, then watched the bullpen turn a 3-1 lead into a 9-3 loss. Philadelphia scored eight runs in the seventh on six hits, four walks and an error off three relievers and two cyanide tablets.
Three times, manager Bobby Cox made the Verizon call to the bullpen.
Next season, in the interest of saving time, Cox will send the Verizon text message to the bullpen.
Eight runs in an inning?
“Who gives up eight runs in an inning?” Cox said. “Nobody.”
I’m not sure. But I think he just called the Braves nobodies.
The season’s not over. Yeah. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
Reality: It’s tryout time. Chuck James did his part to earn a look for next season. He threw 46 pitches in the first two innings and somehow didn’t collapse. He shut out the Phillies for five innings, and left after allowing only a solo homer through six with a 3-1 lead.
“I missed a lot of it,” James said later of the bullpen’s meltdown. “I was in the training room getting my arm iced.”
Lucky him.
The Braves finally get consecutive solid starts (after Tim Hudson’s rise from the rotation’s pallet of death the night before) and blow it. James struck out six. He didn’t walk anybody. Afterward, he uttered the obligatory playoff comments, but he acknowledged the rest of the season is about something else.
“Obviously I would love to win the wild card and all that,” he said. “But I’m just trying to make a good impression now so I have a job next year.
“A lot of the guys look at it that way. We’re battling for jobs, especially the young guys. We don’t have a guaranteed spot. I don’t know if just about anybody does.”
The Braves are now 23-30 at home (10-22 since June). The only guarantee that should come with is: price reduction.
Hello, I’m Tyler Yates — welcome to Shoney’s. Yates faced five batters. One got a hit. Three didn’t have to — they walked. That led to one run and Yates’ exit.
Out walked Cox, who unfortunately again was mandated by baseball rules that he pick somebody from his own bullpen.
Hello, I’m Macay McBride — paper or plastic? McBride quickly took the mystery out of things. He allowed a bases-clearing double to Chase Utley, making it 5-3. A fielder’s choice, a single and another run later, Cox summoned Chad Paronto, I think after Bobby Dews said he just didn’t feel up to it.
Hello, I’m Chad Paronto — are you gonna finish those fries? Paronto faced five batters. Three singled (one by a guy, Chris Roberson, who was pinch-hitting for the pitcher’s spot for the second time in the inning. That’s never a good sign.) Another walk, then an error when third baseman Willy Aybar failed to glove a routine grounder. (First thought: Betemit would’ve had it). Three more runs led to another change.
Wayne Franklin replaced Paronto. He struck out Shane Victorino with the bases loaded. He will be with the Yankees next season.
Sunday is another “Faith Day” at the stadium. OK. The Braves might just want to play out the schedule at the Western Wall.
When asked what he thought of the bullpen’s meltdown, James said: “Everybody’s had their bad days. I’ve definitely had a few.” Everybody has had a few this season. It’s time to start trying out for the next one.
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Andruw story was much ado about nothing
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: I’m blushing at all the fuss made over Andruw Jones’ name popping up on the waiver list, which is nothing more than going fishing. Drop a hook in the water, see who bites. It’s done every year this time, and names bigger than Andruw’s have been dangled on the line, but never got a nibble because every other team knew it was a ruse… . And whatever became of John Schuerholz’s magic wand?
• “Who dominates the game today? It’s 100 percent bombers. It doesn’t make any difference where you hit it anymore. They can’t put enough rough out there to make any difference.” — Jack Nicklaus. Then Corey Pavin goes out and wins the Milwaukee Open finishing last in driving yardage.
• With all this emphasis on how many miles per hour a pitcher throws a baseball, where does a knuckleballer go to get a shot these days?
• Well, the official word is in from the source that matters: The Royal & Ancient has said that The British Open won’t have to wait another 39 years to go back to Royal Liverpool. It doesn’t say how long, however.
• Would you consider that the PGA Tour might be stretching it a bit when it wants the Tour Championship to become known as “The Super Bowl of Golf?” That refers to 2007, when the East Lake event is backed up to September, at the end of that FedEx Cup run. Or might it have be said to be the “Daytona 500 of Golf?” No, that’s not right either, for NASCAR is the only show that stages its “Super Bowl” right out of the box.
• When you think of the Oakland Raiders, you think of Al Davis, right? Actually, a lady named Amy Trask is officially listed as chief executive, and recognized as one of Advertising Age’s “26 Women to Watch.” Don’t worry, you can bet Al’s got his eye on her, too.
• The point should have made, in our discussion of sometime relief pitchers in the Baseball Hall of Fame, that Dennis Eckersley had pitched a no-hit game, too, as well as Hoyt Wilhelm. Wilhelm went in as a trailblazer as well, first pitcher who got into over 1,000 games.
• Jeff Francoeur is a fellow who fares well at both kinds of plates. He was the speaker at Furman University’s Ninth Annual Diamond Classic Dinner.
• Remember the time when most college baseball coaches were staff members doing double duty for a little extra cash? If you don’t, so it was, quite often. LSU’s new coach, Paul Mainieri, was lured from Notre Dame, and quite a lure it was — $400,000 a year for five years. OK, so there are utility infielders making that much in the big leagues.
• No football coach ever tried to fill such a pair of shoes as these: Hunk Anderson succeeded Knute Rockne at Notre Dame and later, George Halas of the Chicago Bears. Of course he didn’t have a chance even though he had a winning record in both cases.
• The grim reaper has been taking his toll of the football voices of the South, Jim Fyffe of Auburn last year, Paul Eells of Arkansas just recently and Stan Torgeson, Ole Miss broadcaster for years, a few weeks back. But ol’ gravel-voiced Larry Munson goes on and on, and Georgia salutes his 40 years of Bulldogology on Saturday. Few, if any, have ever had that staying power, and I hereby salute him. Growl on, old boy.
Selah.
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The Tuesday Countdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: They had a showdown with the division-leading Mets and got swept. They had a showdown with the wildcard-leading Reds and lost two out of three. They started another homestand with a loss, and entering Tuesday had the second-worst home record in the majors (behind only Kansas City). So when does the last Braves’ fan yell, “Uncle!”?
9: Seriously, we’ve seen flawed Braves teams in these past 14 seasons. What we haven’t seen is a team fail miserably so often when its proverbial backs were against the wall. So if you still expect this team to make the playoffs, I’d like to know why. Please blog below, although I’m not sure how strong the wireless signal is on Neptune.
8: Barry Bonds: A despised liar. Mark McGwire: A dumb liar. Floyd Landis: A liar who really, really, wants you to like him. But, still a liar.
7: My daughter: Not a liar (usually) but capable of wonderful rationalizations. She sent out 222 text messages in the first seven days she had her cellphone. Her explanation: “I had to get the word out I had a phone.”
6: Maybe a liar, maybe not, but either way really, really dumb: Paul Lo Duca, whose wife - a former Playboy model! - has filed for divorce. Lo Duca’s infidelity and gambling issues have been cited. Dolt.
5: Viagra is sponsoring the Major League Baseball’s comeback player award. When you think about it, could any product be more associated with great comebacks?
4: I know. Another performance-enhancing drug in baseball. I get it.
3: The Falcons play their first exhibition game Friday: Three lucky fans will be chosen to attempt a field goal.
2: I’ll be shocked if the Falcons don’t eventually pick up Paul Edinger or another free agent kicker. But two questions: 1) Why would a team with playoff aspirations even wait this long? 2) Whose bright idea was it to dump the consistent Todd Peterson without a backup plan?
1: Went to a garage sale last week and saw Billy Knight sitting with Al Harrington.
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Time and another game slip away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Braves insist they can reach the postseason, and technically and mathematically they still can. But here’s a sobering snippet of math: The team that has made two trades to bolster its avowed playoff run just lost the opener of a series against a team that dumped an All-Star outfielder and a starting pitcher and is clearly in rebuilding mode. And Philadelphia stands three games ahead of the Braves.
“We’re definitely in it,” said Jeff Francoeur, speaking before Monday’s game. But if they’re alive, where’s Philadelphia?
“If they’re in it, we’re in it,” said Charlie Manuel, the Phillies’ manager. “Anything can happen — the Dodgers have proven that. They lost 13 [of 14], and now they’ve won nine in a row.”
Yeah, it’s a funny game. But surely Philadelphia can’t see itself as a playoff team — not with its handful of developing young pitchers and its four-man bench — and at this late date, it’s hard to imagine the Braves as one, either.
“We’re good enough to pull it off,” manager Bobby Cox, among the more optimistic men who have ever lived, said Monday afternoon. “We’ve got some pieces in the bullpen, and we’ll get Chipper back in a week, and Giles is really starting to hit.”
Francoeur: “If you look at our August schedule, it’s very favorable. We don’t play a team that’s above .500 [the rest of the month], and you have to like that.”
You would. But those other middling teams can look at the Braves and see not the colossus that won those 14 consecutive division titles but a flawed aggregation that has itself been above .500 only 13 days this season. “They’ve had trouble with their starting pitching and trouble at the back end of their bullpen,” Manuel said. “And they have a lot of young players playing at the major-league level.”
When the story of this season is finally written, the fortnight just completed could well stand as the determinant. The Braves had gone 14-5 to bracket the All-Star break and had climbed into a fourth-place tie in the wild-card standings. Two weeks later, they’re tied for ninth. It isn’t the deficit — 5 1/2 games behind Cincinnati — that’s so daunting; it’s the number of teams the Braves would have to catch and pass, and roughly half of them are going to win every single night.
“There’s a sense of urgency now,” Francoeur said. “We can’t have any more 2-3 or 3-4 homestands. … We have to put ourselves in position for September. These next two weeks will be big.”
And this Big Homestand began with a 9-6 loss. So much for seizing the day.
The Braves of recent vintage might have extricated themselves from this. (Then again, those Braves were never so flimsy as to be 51-60 with 51 games to play.) What stands to be this team’s ultimate undoing is what touched off and fueled the great run of division titles — starting pitching. You can’t fashion a 10-game streak if you have to win every game 10-9. The Braves have only three wins by a starter in their past 17 games, two of those from John Smoltz.
Said Manuel: “If they had two or three Smoltzes over there, things would be a lot different.”
They used to have three or four such pitchers. Now they’re down to one, and he can start only 10 or so games the rest of the way. And Horacio Ramirez, who has become a source of much exasperation, hurt himself again Monday, suffering “a soft-tissue injury” to the middle finger of his throwing hand. (Just how much “soft tissue” is there in a middle finger?)
One of those teams that just hopped above the Braves is Houston. The Astros can throw Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt and Andy Pettitte in succession. Forced to choose between that august rotation and the Braves’, who would you pick to make an eight-week run to October?
Even Cox, the raging optimistic, conceded, “We don’t have that many [games left]. We’ve got to run the table.”
One more game ticked off Monday night, the Braves losing for the fourth time in five days. Time isn’t on their side. Truth to tell, nothing is on their side.
Permalink | Comments (108) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Spin this: Andruw must stay
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Andruw Jones made it through the weekend without being traded. I never figured that would qualify as news.
John Schuerholz, the Braves’ general manager in charged of dropped balls and disingenuous spin, suggests that this whole Jones’ episode was a media creation (“It was all artificial, not true, manufactured.”). I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time the media has been blamed for something. But I’ll need to check the monthly log, right after I locate my “agenda,” which I’ve also never found.
Just to clarify — yes, it is normal for baseball teams to put high-profile players on waivers as a way to test the trade market, because they can be pulled back. When players get waived in other sports, it’s to clear locker space. And, true, none of this would have happened if word of Jones’ being dangled hadn’t leaked out.
But this story would not have spun out of control if Schuerholz had merely said, “I’m not trading my best player.” He didn’t. He won’t. Go spin that, John.
This is a man who likes to operate under cover. But there’s something to be said for putting out fires before the bridges burn down. While the game’s best centerfielder and a franchise centerpiece was left dazed by the waiver news and besieged by the media and friends, Schuerholz said only this: “I’ve never commented on waivers in my 25 years and I never will.”
So tell me. How many times in 25 years has the Braves’ star player been so publicly exposed like that? Because I’m thinking it’s, like, zero.
Schuerholz did listen to the Boston Red Sox before the trading deadline (non-waivers) when they asked about Jones. He did listen to whoever else called after the waiver period. His actions and his words scream that he doesn’t view Jones as indispensable, or anything close.
The only other possibility is that the general manager does want to keep Jones but he’s too fearful of what might happen in free agency after next season. Never mind that he could be exploring other ways to make the budget work. Never mind that nobody really knows what the budget will be because of new ownership coming in.
Never mind that for all of the Braves’ concerns of Jones being brainwashed by agent Scott Boras — who would have Mother Teresa withhold services from an orphanage until somebody came up with more jack — Jones is a different bird. The last time around, he ignored Boras’ advice. Nobody knows what Andruw is going to do this time, least of all Andruw.
There’s also this: In sports today, why would any team discard a sure thing?
Nobody plays the field better than Jones (eight straight Gold Gloves). He drives in over 100 runs a year (904 in the last nine seasons, and this one’s not done yet). He plays through injuries (since 1997, he leads the majors in games played).
Jones is not a problem in the clubhouse. He’s not a walking police blotter away from the stadium. His name hasn’t popped up in any drug or steroid investigation in San Francisco. Or Washington. Or Bolivia.
When the Braves needed him most to become a leader during last season’s inordinate run of injuries, he responded with the best season of his career. He had 51 homers and 128 RBIs. He could’ve won the league’s MVP award. He did win the Hank Aaron award. He will be in the Hall of Fame.
It’s hard for celebrities to get away with much these days. Everybody has a camera phone and a Web site. But I think the last time Jones’ name came up in a scandal was the Gold Club trial (and I’m pretty sure admitting that he was 19 when he accepted a come-on from two strippers in a hotel room doesn’t qualify as a scandal. The scandal would have been if he had said no.)
The Braves want to rebuild. That’s fine. But there are guys to cut loose and guys to keep. Jones is the latter. He is 29 years old and in his prime, not 34 and on the downslide. The Braves’ future has a hole without him. That’s real, not artificial.
Permalink | Comments (97) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Jeff Schultz
Richt best at creating best QB
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Athens — Forget about Blake Barnes, Joe Cox and Matthew Stafford. The toughest opponent for Joe Tereshinski regarding the starting quarterback job at the University of Georgia involves those shadows larger than Sanford Stadium.
Those shadows belong to David Greene and D.J. Shockley, the dynamic duo along the way to becoming solo sensations during the Bulldogs’ past. Those shadows only will lengthen during the Bulldogs’ future for Tereshinski or whoever becomes their successor. That’s because, in case you haven’t been paying attention during the Mark Richt era, those shadows have Georgia going from Tailback U. to the College of Runners and Passers.
We’re talking about great passers with brilliant leadership skills, exemplified by Greene, who became the winningest quarterback in NCAA Division I-A history, and by Shockley, who was an SEC legend after his only season as a starter.
“Of course, so much of it depends on Mark Richt, which is why you’re getting such excellent quarterback play, and why they want to come here,” said Vince Dooley, the Georgia icon, who knows a little something about gifted players and coaches. Five years ago, before Dooley became the Bulldogs’ athletics director emeritus, he hired Richt from Florida State, where six of his quarterbacks as the Seminoles’ offensive coordinator reached the NFL.
Added Dooley, speaking on Saturday before Georgia’s first practice of the summer, “Regarding the desire of quarterbacks to play here, we just saw an example of it with the player coming from Dallas [Stafford, considered by some recruiting gurus as the nation’s top high school quarterback]. And then you had Shockley, who could have left — and maybe should have under all rights — but didn’t. And he didn’t, I think, because of Mark Richt.”
It’s all about Mark Richt, entering his sixth year of easing Georgia away from becoming only significant regionally. The Bulldogs are starting to bark nationally, partly because of Richt’s wisdom regarding quarterbacks. Upon arriving at Georgia, he had to choose between the capable Cory Phillips, who started five games the season before, or the promising Greene, and you know the rest of that story. Then Richt did the correct thing for Georgia by selecting Greene over Shockley, but it was the wrong thing for Shockley, who blew years of his football life by not transferring.
The point is, you just know Richt will get it right again, despite an inexperienced senior (Tereshinski), despite a sophomore who has thrown just three passes (Barnes), despite a redshirt freshman (Cox), despite a true freshman (Stafford) and despite those shadows of Greene and Shockley.
Said Richt on Saturday during his news conference, “I talked to the QBs just a little bit today and said basically the same thing that I’ve been saying to the media and our fan base. That is, we do not practice in front of 93,000. We don’t practice on national television. We don’t let our guys get hit in scrimmages right now. So a lot of things that decide whether a guy can handle the job or not won’t be seen until you play a game or two. So even though two guys are battling out, and if that guy at No. 3 might think he’s out of the picture, he might not be, depending on how the other guys react in those games to starting.”
Most likely, Tereshinski will be one of Georgia’s primary guys. Not only has he played in more SEC competition than the others, but Richt says he is the leading candidate to start.
For now. As for later, Tereshinski’s longevity will depend on his ability to conquer opponents along with those shadows. He has a plan for the latter, and that involves embracing those shadows instead of shunning them.
“Well, D.J. was a very vocal leader, and he found a way to rally the team around him and get them geared toward a common goal,” Tereshinski said. “If I can find the common themes with this team and gear them toward that goal, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. And David Greene, he was in competition his whole career, and throughout that time he remained cool. He remained confident and calm and was able to take the team to the SEC championship a couple of times. If I can be as poised as him, then I feel like, personally, I have an advantage.”
Here’s the biggest advantage for Tereshinski, Stafford, Barnes, Cox or even Uga VI, if he becomes the Bulldogs’ quarterback: Mark Richt.
Permalink | Comments (41) | Categories: Terence Moore, UGA / SEC
Tech AD Radakovich anxious for opener
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
This was the first day on Dan Radakovich’s new job, which began a little over five months ago, when it really begins to count. Football was cranking up. The players were reporting to the Georgia Tech campus. News ferrets were infiltrating the premises. You could feel the electricity in the air. No one was feeling it more than Dan Radakovich himself.
“I wish September the second was tomorrow,” he said, in a voice drenched with enthusiasm.
While Chan Gailey wouldn’t share that ebullience, Sept. 2 will be the most monumental date in his checkered life of college coaching. Notre Dame comes to town. Georgia Tech-Notre Dame will be the main course on the nation’s evening menu, kickoff at 8 o’clock — Notre Dame, projected to be No. l in the nation by a lot of soothsayers. Brady Quinn vs. Reggie Ball. Offhand, it may read like a mismatch, but Reggie looks at it as the launching of his campaign to let America realize who he is.
But, this is Dan Radakovich’s story, and he feels the itch to get on with it. What a break-in day for a fellow on his first job as a Division I-A athletics director. (He’s not allowed to escape it. Each day he enters his office, there’s a reminder on his secretary’s desk: “Teresa Irish.” It is true, that is her name.)
Radakovich (you say it “Rad-uh-KO-vich”) arrived at Georgia Tech in late February, somewhat of a surprise to old-line alumni who greeted the announcement with a clenched-fist mindset. Radakovich never flinched, though he did make his appearance on crutches, result of a recent surgery. He didn’t come without credentials. He has served in college athletics from coast to coast, from Miami to Long Beach, with stops at South Carolina and LSU en route, and along the way been the custodian of staggering budgets.
It was his chance to have his own department, but there was more. “It’s because of where it is, Atlanta, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the glorious history of Georgia Tech,” he said. “This is an oasis. The old is held in high respect, but the institute is on the cutting edge.
“You need to understand you don’t change things in the blink of an eye. Deliberate is the key word. Be cautious. Don’t rush. That’s the reason I’m so looking forward to breaking in with such a big game. I want to see how this works. You don’t have to create passion. The passion is already here. That’s part of what college athletics is, the passion to educate and entertain.”
Radakovich grew up in western Pennsylvania, spawning ground for many a great athlete, quarterback heaven for college recruiters. When he made his choice he never left the territory, it was Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 90 miles from his Aliquippa home. Indiana, Pa., is known mainly as the hometown of the actor James Stewart, “And, the Christmas tree capital of the world,” Radakovich said, and he chuckled.
At Georgia Tech, Radakovich follows in a short line of historic athletics directors, beginning with John Heisman, immortalized by the trophy bearing his name. Next came Bill Alexander, then Bobby Dodd, and in time, Homer Rice. Radakovich follows the embattled Dave Braine, forced out by illness, among other factors.
The new man presents an impressive figure, tall, trim, handsome, amiable, having established all those qualities and residency in the area of east Cobb. He has spent time doing the meeting circuit, “About 50 of them, I’d guess,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of people, and there’s more to do. It takes time, and as I said, I’m a deliberate person. I enjoy getting up every morning and going to work.”
Chan Gailey is accustomed to tough openers, Auburn twice and Brigham Young another year. “It’s nothing new to him,” said the boss.
But this is Notre Dame, 33rd time these two have played, first since ‘99, and the eyes of America will be on Bobby Dodd Stadium. But consider this: wherever Radakovich has gone, prosperity ha s followed, or continued. “You’ll never find a man better prepared to become an athtletics director.”
Mike McGee, who employed him at South Carolina, said it.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Tech / ACC
Trade of Andruw likely eventually
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Braves have a decision to make. Chances are, they’ve already made it. Chances are, they won’t trade Andruw Jones — this month. But they might in November, or next July.
Assuming Jones goes nowhere this weekend after being claimed on waivers, the Braves will only have tabled the greater issue. His contract expires after next season. He’s going to cost a fortune to keep — he’s scheduled to make $13.5 million in 2007, and he’s represented by the dreaded Scott Boras — and the Braves are looking like a franchise approaching a crossroads.
It’s one thing to invest so heavily in a player when you’re making the playoffs every blessed year, but the Braves have become a sub-.500 team in a not-very-strong league. They have holes in their rotation and bullpen — both Bob Wickman and Danys Baez are free-agents-to-be — and issues aplenty with their everyday eight.
Is Ryan Langerhans anything more than a fourth outfielder? Is Jeff Francoeur going to learn the strike zone anytime soon? Is Adam LaRoche’s hot streak a sign of real maturity or simply a false spring? Is there a place for Marcus Giles in this infield? Is Willy Aybar the eternal prospect the Dodgers believed him to be or the leadoff-man-of-the-future the Braves insist he is? Is Chipper Jones ever apt to play seven consecutive games without hurting himself?
With so much in flux, could the Braves realistically consider trading their one constant? The answer is yes. If it weren’t, would John Schuerholz even have listened to Boston’s pre-deadline proposal? Wouldn’t he have just said, “Sorry, not for sale”?
Andruw Jones is a proven All-Star. He should have won the MVP last year. He hits for power and patrols center field like nobody since Willie Mays. But Jones, for all his strengths, is not quite Willie Mays. He doesn’t hit .300 (or even .280). He doesn’t steal bases. He’ll turn 30 next spring, and 30, as baseball historians can attest, is a tricky age.
Prevailing wisdom holds that it’s better to trade a player a year too soon than a year too late, but in an age where guys play longer than ever it’s conceivable Jones could have five big years remaining.
Then again, Dale Murphy’s last banner season came when he was 31. Then again, Cincinnati traded Frank Robinson to Baltimore in 1965, Reds’ GM Bill DeWitt claiming Robinson was “an old 30.” The codger won the Triple Crown the next year and remained a pillar of splendid Orioles teams into the 1970s.
The guess here is that Jones will emulate F-Robby more than Murph, but that isn’t to say he’s immovable. The Braves keep letting big names walk away — Glavine, Maddux, Sheffield, Lopez, Drew, Furcal — for nothing. If the Braves come to believe they won’t be able to re-sign Jones, they’ll owe it to their future to try and get something in return.
Say the Braves, the heralded Aybar and their revamped bullpen notwithstanding, miss the playoffs. Wouldn’t November be the time to begin serious talks with some deep-pocketed suitor like the Red Sox, or the Angels, or the White Sox, who have starting pitching galore? (A miffed Jones said Friday he’d veto any trade once he becomes a 10-and-5 man, but he might feel differently when he calms down.) Why wait until next July and put yourself in the position of the Nationals, who wound with nada for Alfonso Soriano?
Assuming Liberty Media indeed buys the team, the Braves will surely have less to spend, not more. Of their six biggest-money guys, five would be difficult to deal: Mike Hampton because he’s hurt; Tim Hudson because nobody is crying for a No. 1 starter with a 5.22 ERA; Edgar Renteria because he makes $10 million but isn’t a real run-producer; Chipper because nobody wants his fat contract; and John Smoltz because you can’t rebuild a rotation by trading your only real starter.
That leaves only Andruw Jones as a legitimate lever for rapid retooling. The time to trade him hasn’t yet arrived, but it might not be far off.
Permalink | Comments (75) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Mark Bradley
Tech QB, play-caller have a lot to prove
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Georgia Tech began practice Thursday with questions about the quarterback and the guy calling plays. They have several games on the schedule that lead you to conclude: “Could go this way. Could go that way. They’ll win seven.”
Yes. This is where we came in.
“Going 7-5, 7-6 for three straight years is not a good feeling,” Reggie Ball, the quarterback, said. “It’s like being right on the edge of being good, but being right on the edge of being real bad. Being in the city of Atlanta, that’s not too good to be right on that edge. A lot of guys are just fed up.”
Most football teams go into a season with questions. Then they play games and answer them.
One problem during the Chan Gailey regime is the questions never quite get answered. Tech wins a game it’s not supposed to win. Then it loses a game it’s not supposed to lose.
Ball looks great. Then he implodes.
Wow. Whoa.
Some of this must have hit home with Gailey. So he did the right thing, took a step back and handed play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Patrick Nix. Gailey considered making the move last year but talked himself out of it.
“I thought I was still at the top of it fairly well,” he said.
The season taught him otherwise. “I was becoming close-minded about things in meetings. I didn’t like it.”
Tech has questions. But if we finally get answers this season, they likely will come from two sources: Ball and Nix.
Three years ago, Ball surprisingly was handed the starting quarterback job as a true freshman. From the outset, it was clear that desire and passion wouldn’t be a problem. Control — that’s another issue.
He has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns each season. He threw for a personal high of 2,165 yards last year, but his completion percentage continued to drop: from 51.7 percent as a freshman to 49.7, to 48.
Statistics can be misleading. Receivers drop passes, protection breaks down, coaches suddenly call plays with blinders on. But it all has left Ball on that perceived “edge” that he so disdains. Criticism also has left him with a bit of a chip on his shoulder, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. His pairing with Nix seems appropriate.
“I played quarterback at Auburn — I’ve been booed off the field,” Nix said.
“It’s vital to have a quarterback coach who played and had both success and a couple of downfalls,” Ball said. “Because he knows exactly what to expect and what you’re going through. I mean, he played at Auburn, and Auburn ain’t too bad.”
Ball says he has matured and learned a lot, mostly how to take a verbal shot. He didn’t hesitate when asked what advice he would give a freshman.
“I would tell them that there’s a lot that comes along with [college football],” he said. “An 18-year-old doesn’t know how to be criticized day in and day out. You’ve got to have thick skin at this position. If you don’t, you’ll crumble.”
Ball doesn’t crumble. Self-immolate, maybe. What Nix does with his quarterback’s fire, he’s not saying. Nor have he or Ball revealed much in the way of what changes will be made.
“At the end of the year, I think we’ll be able to look back and see there were changes,” said Nix, who called plays in the two-minute offense the past two seasons. “But that’s not necessarily a change in philosophy. Maybe I’ll feel a little more comfortable with a player or a situation than what [Gailey] was at the time. That’s a lot different from just saying, ‘He’s going to throw it more’ or ‘We’re going to use the shotgun more.’ “
Things have calmed down somewhat. There’s no more uncertainty about NCAA sanctions. It’s been weeks since anybody has used a flame-thrower over Gailey’s contract extension. Dan Radakovich, the new athletics director, hasn’t had to put out as many brush fires as Dave Braine did in his final days.
Whether answers come out of that calm is another matter.
“A lot of people are fed up with seven wins every year, and we’re ticked off, too,” Ball said.
Yes. This is where we came in.
Permalink | Comments (34) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Tech / ACC
AL, NL wild-card races don’t compare
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
At least one and probably two National League teams will carry mediocre records into postseason play. The American League is rather different. Were the Toronto Blue Jays in the NL, they’d have the league’s third-best record. The Jays, alas, have almost no chance to qualify for anything in the AL East.
At least two AL teams that would stand a realistic chance to win the World Series won’t make the playoffs. The White Sox won it all last season but wouldn’t, at the moment of this writing, qualify for the postseason. The Twins, who rode the arms of Francisco Liriano and Johan Santana to get back in the wild-card chase, might have topped out. (Especially now that Liriano has a sore shoulder.) But if Liriano returns to health and if Minnesota could somehow gain entrance to the division series, which team — and which pitchers — would you less like to face in a best-of-five?
Even the Red Sox, who have for most of the season been one of the three best teams in baseball, aren’t guaranteed an October invite. Jason Varitek has been lost for a month, and Boston didn’t help itself before the trading deadline. The imperial Yankees did, landing Bobby Abreu and Cory Lidle and Craig Wilson, and now the prospect of a postseason without pinstripes — a distinct possibility even a fortnight ago — seems less likely.
As for Philadelphia, the team that dumped Abreu and Lidle … well, the not-really-Phightin’ Phils awoke Thursday only 3-1/2 games behind Cincinnati for the wild-card lead in the National League. That’s the NL, sad to say: You can essentially give up on the season and still not be out of anything.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Quick Hit
Cheap approach to kickers will be costly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — Surely this is a joke. No way the Falcons are preparing to do the ridiculous in the modern NFL (as in parity, as in a slew of close games) by going into this season depending on some wide-eyed dude’s unproven foot.
Guess pigs do fly, and chickens actually have lips, because the No. 1 kicker listed on the depth chart on the Falcons’ Web site is undrafted rookie Tony Yelk, and get this: He mostly punted at Iowa State between attempting a rare kick or three. The others challenging Yelk in training camp are Carlos Martinez from the forgettable Arena Football League and Michael Koenen, the Falcons’ punter who was used last year for an occasional field-goal try from long range when the game wasn’t on the line.
Yeah, this makes sense, but only if you don’t believe the Falcons have lost their minds for the sake of saving a few nickels under the salary cap. Let’s just say that none of these kickers is likely to become the next Mick Luckhurst, Greg Davis, Morten Andersen, Norm Johnson, Jay Feely or even Lou Kirouac in Falcons lore.
Rich McKay disagrees, of course. According to the Falcons general manager, who discussed this silliness on Wednesday while watching practice under the relentless sun, “We’ve never wavered from our plan since probably February or March, and I realize that makes it hard for the fan, because he’s sitting there saying, ‘I want a name [kicker], and I want to know that he’s going to make [the game-winner] against Carolina [in the first game of the season].’ Well, so do we. We just think that we’ve got plenty of time for that to be determined. So we’re not as nervous about it.”
They should be, even though they claim they’ll still have time to snatch a veteran from somewhere near the end of camp if one of their projects doesn’t work out.
Last season, 46 percent of the NFL’s 256 games were decided by a touchdown or less, and 23 percent were decided by a field goal or less. Among them were the four games the Falcons lost by a field goal along the way to missing the playoffs at 8-8. They eventually fired kicker Todd Peterson for botching a game-winning try at Tampa down the stretch of the season and for blowing an attempt earlier at New Orleans, although he converted after getting another chance seconds later in that game.
The Peterson move was justified, but here’s the thing: If you wish to play deep into January, and if you decide to increase your chances by getting rid of a kicker that you know isn’t clutch, then you better replace that kicker with somebody who showed that he is clutch at least somewhere during his NFL career.
Gone are those old days in the league when coaches took such a cavalier approach to kicking that they would have a Lou Groza swinging his legs for points one moment and blocking for a teammate the next. With games becoming tighter, Vince Lombardi even shelved Paul Hornung from double duty in the mid-1960s and acquired Don Chandler to help kick the Green Bay Packers further into their dynasty.
Then came the generation of Garo Yepremian, Jan Stenerud and Roy Gerela that gave an extra kick to NFL powerhouses from Miami to Kansas City to Pittsburgh. More recently, the New England Patriots won their three Super Bowls in four years courtesy of Adam Vinatieri providing the winning kick each time.
Still, despite those examples, the Dallas Cowboys decided in recent years to take the Falcons’ gambling approach by grabbing anybody off the street who could breathe and kick a little. In fact, Steve Hoffman spent 16 years with the Cowboys coaching seven rookies or first-year free-agent kickers to help the franchise operate on the cheap to spend money elsewhere. I mention this, because the Falcons hired Hoffman this year to implement the Cowboys’ philosophy regarding kickers.
It was the Cowboys’ old philosophy regarding kickers. That philosophy cost the Cowboys three games last season after miscues in the kicking game. So, with the already fragile combination of Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells entering its fourth season without a playoff victory, they got the veteran Mike Vanderjagt.
Just thought the Falcons might want to know.
Permalink | Comments (31) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Richt’s new contract a puzzle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
What’s up with these new-fangled (translated: needlessly convoluted) contracts for college football coaches? I still have a headache from reading the particulars of Mark Richt’s new deal with the University of Georgia.
Let’s see. In addition to Richt’s base salary of $270,000, he gets another $800,000 from television and radio, $530,000 through his shoe deal, $25,000 for winning the SEC East, $75,000 for winning the SEC championship, $25,000 for making a non-BCS bowl, $75,0000 for making a BCS bowl, $50,000 for finishing in the nation’s top five and $150,000 for winning a national title.
Oh, and Richt gets $50,000 for each year his team is ranked in the top 33 percent of the conference in graduation success rate and academic progress rate.
What. No bonus to Richt for each time Uga VI barks at midnight on Vince Dooley’s birthday?
Permalink | Comments (35) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore
Braves boot ball trading Betemit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Whew! Just take a few days away from this little word machine and by the time you get back, the major leagues have been scrambled like truck-stop eggs. The Dodgers come to mind in a flash. They trade for Greg Maddux, 40 years old, with a losing record, due 13 million bucks next season, and the Dodgers are in last place, five games below .500. Are they serious?
(You know, I get a kick out of these stories that say “he can be nearer his home,” in this case Las Vegas. He’s on the road half the season no matter where he plays, and he’s at home in the off-season, no matter where home is.)
The Dodgers give up a shortstop to get him, then turn around and trade for another shortstop, which they don’t need because Rafael Furcal gets $13 million to play shortstop for them, and besides, Cesar Izturis was playing third base. Now the Dodgers have Wilson Betemit, and that’s a story that tugs at my heart. No, it infuriates me.
I’m sorry, I don’t usually get in a snit about Braves business off the field, but this was an act that confounded me. After all those seasons in the farm system as “the highest-rated prospect,” Betemit had finally lived up to it. A productive team player, write his name in anywhere, good person. Some of the infield members have been so fragile that he had become a regular just filling in. And wouldn’t you know it, the day he gets traded, Chipper Jones goes down again. Serves them right.
If you’ve been paying close attention, you’ve realized that this hasn’t been one of John Schuerholz’s banner seasons of bartering. Last season, every move he made turned to gold. This season they have produced more pewter. A revolving door has been installed on the bullpen, and their latest “closer” acquisition, Bob Wickman, is still on trial. They even have a backup “closer.” The Betemit trade produced him, Danys Baez.
And it’s not just the bullpen. John Smoltz is the only starter who can be counted on to give them seven or eight innings. Tim Hudson has fallen on his face, there was nothing about the 2006 Jorge Sosa that resembled the Sosa of ‘05, and frankly, any other guy starts, you hold your breath.
They have, for the most part, been trying to get by on Dollar General starters in a Neiman Marcus league. They’re using pitchers you can’t even find in the press guide, not to diminish the value of Tyler Yates, who has been giving them more for their money in relief.
One of the saddest stories of them all is that of Joey Devine, thrown into critical situations just out of college last season, now trying to relocate himself in a Class A league. For the life of me, I’ll never understand the rush they put on the kid, whisked from campus to the big leagues, then to be the pitcher who threw the final home run pitch of the season at Houston. It takes a tough kid to come back from that, and he still hasn’t.
You know who’ll be suffering the finger-pointing for the pitching crash of ‘06. Roger McDowell is new, he’s a background guy, speaks quietly and suffers on with what has been dealt him. No pitching coach ever won or lost a pennant.
Now, for today’s “closer,” the skewed Baseball Hall of Fame. It was a day for Cooperstown to forget. A pitcher who never started or pitched a complete game, who lost more games than he won, and who was a $10 million bust for Ted Turner was inducted.
Bruce Sutter was cast in the same category as Hoyt Wilhelm, Dennis Eckersley and Rollie Fingers, and while those three did distinguish themselves as relievers, they also had several turns as starters. Wilhelm even pitched a no-hit game.
Sutter’s leading credential, it seems, was that he “popularized” the splitter, though in reality, it was a pitch that Roger Craig introduced. If that be the case, consider George Blaeholder. Never heard of him? Probably not. He pitched for the lowly St. Louis Browns in the 1930s. He also lost more than he won. But the great Bob Feller, not one to cloak his opinions in shyness, once wrote, “If any pitcher belongs in the Hall of Fame, it should be George Blaeholder. Why, because he introduced the slider, and that has been the most effective new pitch in baseball.”
Of course, Blaeholder never made it, but 17 players of the old Negro Leagues, all deceased, all went in lock-step with Sutter, but that’s another story.
Permalink | Comments (57) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Andruw should be untouchable
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
10: I know Andruw Jones is one year away from free agency. I know any general manager will tell you there’s no such thing as an untradable player, and that the Braves need pitching help. That said, I can’t understand why a team ever would entertain trading the best center fielder in the game.
9: The Red Sox initiated the trade conversation with the Braves. According to our Dave O’Brien, Boston’s Theo Epstein asked John Schuerholz what it would take to pry away Jones. Schuerholz answered: Coco Crisp, Jon Lester (top pitching prospect), Craig Hansen (rookie reliever). Now, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to listen. But Schuerholz’ answer should have been: “He’s not available.”
8: Jones still plays his position as well or better than anybody in the game. He’ll drive in over 100 runs again this season. Through last year’s run of injuries, he carried a team largely comprised of kids. The only way he should be traded is if he asked out or there was no possible way he will be re-signed after next season, and I haven’t heard of either scenario being the case.
7: I’m guessing Mel Gibson’s next “Lethal Weapon” movie is about a bottle of tequila. Oy.
6: Got a slick color brochure in the mail from Atlanta Spirit on its community involvement. But the first sentence read: “The Atlanta Spirit family celebrated many successes this year in all facets of our business.” Sorry. You lost me at hello.
5: Got a “Certificate of Participation” in the mail from the IOC for the Olympics in Turin. I wonder if Bode Miller got one of these?
4: The Falcons already are ahead of last season. Questions about their receivers don’t usually start until after a few pre-season games.
3: The Braves start the post trade-deadline stretch standing 10th in the wild-card race and without having made a major trade before the deadline. Well. That should sell some tickets.
2: So how come nobody is screaming for congressional hearings on drugs in cycling?
1: Mark Richt’s new contract includes incentive clauses for almost every achievement, except for the one everybody talks about: beating Florida.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Quick Hit
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