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January 2008
‘Sharpe’ criticism for Blank
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Phoenix — Courtesy of a blunt tongue that rarely stops flapping, Shannon Sharpe doesn’t have trouble speaking for himself. This time, the future Hall of Fame tight end and NFL commentator for CBS was the strongest voice of many whispering behind the Arizona cacti when the subject was the Falcons and their goofiness of late.
That’s right. Even with the New England Patriots and the New York Giants slated to meet in the Super Bowl on Sunday, the Falcons were discussed often this week among former and present league officials, team executives and players.
They did get a little push from an Atlanta columnist. For instance: What does Sharpe believe omnipresent Falcons owner Arthur Blank must do to keep his team from imploding further?
“Mr. Blank needs to understand that you hired [general manager] Tom Dimitroff and [head coach] Mike Smith to do a job. Let them do their job,” said Sharpe, who grew up in Glennville and resides in Buckhead. “Mr. Blank, you don’t need to be the face of the Falcons, because everybody knows you own the Falcons. We don’t need to see your face to confirm that.
“I know who owns the Steelers. I don’t see Dan Rooney. I know who owns the Giants. I don’t need to see his face. I know who owns the Patriots. We don’t need to see you to confirm how much money and how much authority you have.”
Others concurred in what has been the center of the NFL’s universe with the Super Bowl around. This also has become the definitive place to get a sense of what the Falcons’ peers think of a franchise that has witnessed everything during the past few months from its franchise quarterback sitting in prison to its owner hiring a general manager after a Webcam interview.
Those peers generally responded to it all with a head shake, a chuckle of disbelief and something unprintable for a family newspaper.
That was off the record.
As for on the record, you had Richard Seymour, a former UGA star defensive lineman who plays for the Patriots. “It’s just at this point where the Falcons are looking for some leadership to head in the right direction,” Seymour said. “We, as players in the league, feel like it’s a team that a lot of guys would love to play for. It’s a city that a lot of guys would love to be in, so the Falcons have a lot in their favor.”
Well, not a lot. Did we tell you coach Bobby Petrino bolted for Arkansas before the end of his first Falcons season and left $2.4 million per year on the table?
Sharpe remembered. Not only that, he remembered something else. “Jim Mora [who preceded Petrino] has a job with the Falcons, and then all of a sudden, he’s auditioning for another job [the University of Washington through a radio interview] while on the job,” Sharpe said. “Something is going on. If it doesn’t make dollars, then it doesn’t make sense. Then for a guy like Bobby Petrino to follow Jim Mora and to sacrifice all that money for a college job in a middle of a season, you know something seriously is going on.
“Then you look at Bill Parcells. A couple of weeks earlier, he told Miami he wasn’t interested. Then he goes to Arthur Blank, and Parcells gets [ESPN] to leak the story that he was about to take the job in Atlanta, and then all of a sudden, he’s getting more money to take the Miami job he didn’t want two weeks earlier. Yeah, something is going on with the [running] of the Falcons.”
The question is, can that “something” get fixed before the Falcons drop off the face of the earth? Yes, said an accomplished NFL executive from the past and another from the present.
The past guy was Gil Brandt, the personnel director who contributed to transforming the Dallas Cowboys into America’s team from the 1960s through much of the 1980s. Unlike Blank, Clint Murchison, the owner of those Cowboys, was invisible, while Brandt joined Tex Schramm and Tom Landry in the spotlight. Said Brandt, “It’s like 20 years ago, you had a general practitioner. He took your tonsils out and did all of these things. Today, you open up a telephone directory, and there’s a hand surgeon. So what [Blank] has to do is draw on these people that he has there. If he does that, I think they’ll present him with some very good ideas, because he desperately wants to win.”
The present guy was Scott Pioli, the player-personnel director of a Patriots team that has appeared in four Super Bowls in seven years. He was Dimitroff’s boss before the former Patriots director of college scouting left for the Falcons.
Said Pioli, “Sometimes as an outsider, when it comes to perception and reality, you don’t know. But here’s what I do know: If Thomas wasn’t comfortable with the way he thought the situation was going to be [with the Falcons], he wouldn’t have accepted the position. Thomas was in a situation where he didn’t have to run to whatever job was offered. What he told me is that he had great confidence that he and Mr. Blank would have a good working relationship, and that he also was comfortable with how it was going to be.”
Sounds like Mora.
And Petrino.
Permalink | Comments (110) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Nothing ever comes easy for Thrashers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
In hopes of reassuring employees that the company is stable, life is grand, success is inevitable and, I believe, global warming is somewhat of a media creation, two Atlanta Spirit owners met with their front office staff Wednesday.
What happened later in the evening either continued to ease concerns or led to massive meltdowns — depending on your perspective.
The Thrashers opened the post-All-Star, it’s-now-or-never part of their schedule with a 4-1 win over Pittsburgh. It ended a five-game winless streak (0-3-2), which was their longest skid since a coach got fired. But we’ve seen this team morph from one form to another game-to-game, so excitement tends to be muted.
Or, to quote Bobby Holik: “I’m absolutely not pleased by anything because we’ve done this many times before, and we failed immediately after. Complacency is our worst enemy.” Imagine his comments if they had lost.
Then there is Ilya Kovalchuk, or at least the remains of him. He suffered a right knee injury early in the second period after being checked knee-on-knee by the Penguins’ Jarkko Ruutu.
There was some debate in the two locker rooms whether the hit was dirty, but Ruutu’s comment, “I barely hit him,” would be amusing, if Kovalchuk weren’t in so much agony. He returned late in the period for one shift, could barely move, then left for good.
The Thrashers actually showed some resolve after the hit. Steve McCarthy immediately went after Ruutu (who drew a major penalty and a game misconduct). The other players pulled together, as if, like, they really cared. Who knew?
But if Kovalchuk is gone for any extended period, so are this team’s playoff hopes.
Holik, again, with the dissenting view: “It’s a loss. He’s our best player. But time doesn’t stop.”
Right now, they’re just trying to become a normal, functioning franchise. But notwithstanding attempts by owners Michael Gearon and Bruce Levenson to calm the masses in the front office Wednesday, these are unsettled times for the Thrashers. The coach (Bob Hartley) was fired in October. The president and CEO (Bernie Mullin) resigned last week. There is a chance the general manager and temp-coach (Don Waddell) may be next. But we likely won’t know that until after the season.
Regardless, this is not quite a well-oiled machine right now. The Thrashers currently rank among the non-playoff teams in the standings. With the trade deadline less than four weeks away, there is a chance they may soon shift into fire-sale mode. All rumors start with Marian Hossa, who will be an unrestricted free agent after the season and wants to play for a Stanley Cup contender, which likely translates to somewhere else.
If Hossa doesn’t re-sign imminently, Waddell is likely to trade him to a contender before the Feb. 26 deadline rather than let him walk this summer. And if the general manager deduces the season is shot, he won’t hesitate to move Holik, Mark Recchi or any other veteran not deemed part of the future (which includes almost any veteran other than Kovalchuk).
The only thing that could quiet all the rumors would be an unlikely hot streak that would: 1) propel Atlanta past Carolina in the Southeast Division (plausible); 2) convince Hossa to sign a long-term deal, thereby smothering trade rumors (far less likely).
If the Thrashers are to make any kind of move, it has to start now. They play six of their next seven at home (game two in this stretch coming Friday against Buffalo, which annihilated the Thrashers 10-1 before the All-Star break).
“This was the kind of game we needed, but we can’t stop,” Recchi said. “We had a meeting [Tuesday]. We felt with six of the next seven coming at home, it would really help us, and we had to take advantage of it. This is when you need to come together as a team.”
We’ve seen too much to draw conclusions from this win. Yes, the Thrashers were in control for most of this game. But they beat a Penguins team that played the night before and was missing Sidney Crosby.
Now they may have to play without Kovalchuk.
It’s definitely not the time to feel at ease.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
Staying home for the Super Bowl … thankfully
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Things I Won’t Miss Not Being at Super Bowl 42 (they’ve played so many of these things I’ve lost track of the Roman numerals):
• Standing for press ID photos. (You feel like convict No. 8473658698 checking into state prison. And your picture comes out looking like one.)
• Catching buses to wherever, standing in line again. (You think you’re going to visit one of the teams for interviews. Careful, you may wind up in Surprise — that’s a suburb of Phoenix.)
• The interview, such as it is. Players are seated at tables with name cards. Forget Brady or Moss or Welker. There’s a table named Hochstein, but who is he and what do you ask him? I think I’ll wait till we get to the Giants.
• Media Lounge: Somehow it seems the same guys are always there, and the fat guys spend more time around the food tables. If their editors could see them now. When do they work?
• Finding a place to have dinner. Just try making a reservation, if you enjoy taking a shot in the dark. And remember, this is a cockeyed time zone out in Phoenix. Careful, you may wind up in Queen Creek.
• Careful wearing your press badge outside the hotel. Guys like characters out of “Guys and Dolls” will buttonhole you. “Got any tickets, buddy?” (Want to know the truth? I quit buying when the price reached 500 bucks. My wife said, “If I don’t go, do I get the money?” Sounded like a good deal to me.)
• Finding a place to play golf. A guy named Nick used to run a tournament for star players, and it was fun if you got a nice linebacker or defensive back. But get a 315-pound lineman who couldn’t hit the ball out of his awesome shadow, and who tried to show you how to putt, you were in for a wearisome day. I know. I did.
• Oh, those Tuesdays. Teams take turns being interviewed on the field. All sorts of creatures crowded into the stadium trying to ask questions about favorite hip-hop and sex preferences, and it’s like being part of a herd. It’s a lousy carnival, guys crowding and shoving, and dudes with no credentials and no manners. One year, a 12-year-old carrying a mike and some kind of TV accreditation showed up and got more attention than the playing stars. Mainly, it’s interviewers interviewing interviewers.
• The Friday night blowout, sometimes called the Media Party, but that’s mainly so it can be written off as “entertainment.” More noise than the ears can stand, longer food lines than we used to have in the Navy, team owners and hangers-on roped off from the great unwashed. The best of these was my last, the Henry Ford Museum at Detroit, and the worst, right here in Atlanta. It was awful.
• The annual head coaches’ press conferences, held each Friday. Bound to be a thigh-slapper this year with these stand-up jokesters, Bill Belichick and Tom Coughlin. Not a grin in a carload.
• The game. First, you try to get there, played at the University of Phoenix Stadium, west of downtown. I could find the stadium on the map, but I couldn’t find the University of Phoenix. They are everywhere. There’s one, or more, in Atlanta, but they don’t have stadiums. In fact, I don’t know what the University of Phoenix does.
• The after-game. This is hellish. Try elbowing into one of the interview sessions, herd-time again. It’s right on deadline. What you get is a constant stream of interview printouts, for one and all. Enterprising journalism? That went out the door after Max McGee caught those two passes and Green Bay suffocated Kansas City.
• OK, you’ve had your fun. Get to Sky Harbor, check your bags, stand in line one more time; your flight is 45 minutes late, and it’s snowing back home. Where else are you going to have such fun!
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Furman Bisher
Truth’s stranger than fiction in sports
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN…
10: The “Oxygen” channel, which says it is “rewriting the rulebook for women’s television,” is debuting a new reality series with Deion Sanders and his second wife, called, “Deion and Pilar: Prime Time Love.” Just one question: Do the execs at Oxygen realize this is the same guy who, while dating his first wife, Carolyn, once said of his tastes in female company: “I can’t be seen with no seahag”?
9: According to scientists, an asteroid at least 500 feet long is approaching earth and will make a close pass next week. But, alas, it will miss Fayetteville, Ark.
8: Go ahead. Take the Giants and 12. I’ll take Bill Belichick and two weeks to prepare.
7: It’s comical watching Roger Clemens and his mouthpieces scramble to sway public opinion in drug allegations. Now comes a 49-page, 18,000-word statistical breakdown of his career, titled, “Analysis by Hendricks Sports Management.” The Hendricks, as it so happens, would be his agents.
6: I just skimmed the document (which you can find at http://www.rogerclemensreport.com). In short, it attempts to convince the reader that it’s not at all unusual that Clemens, after a slide with Boston, had a career rejuvenation in the late 1990s and has pitched with success well into his 40s. But if you’re looking for the nugget that dismisses the notion he took HGH and/or steroids to help get him through those workouts, it’s not there.
5: Forget the reports that Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson have broken up. E-Gossip (“Celebrity Dish, Served Daily.”) has photographic evidence that they’re still together! http://www.egossip.com/celebrity/jessica-simpson-and-tony-romo-booze-it-hollywood-7580. I provide this information only if Giants’ fans will need something to look forward to after Sunday.
4: Did you know that Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson have won the same number of playoff games?
3: Comrade Mark Bradley made a good case why the Hawks are in worse shape than the Thrashers in the Atlanta Spirit House of Horrors. But I’ve got to go with the pucksters. Both teams need coaches and general managers. But give the Hawks a point guard and they’ll be fine. Personnel-wise, the Thrashers need more than one fix.
2: Another reason why I would love to own a minor-league sports team one day: The Wheeling (West Va.) Nailers, an East Coast Hockey League team, are holding a “Shred Rich Rodriguez Night” Saturday. Any fan bringing an article or picture of Rodriguez to be shredded can buy a ticket at discount. It plays off reports of him shredding team related documents before he left West Virginia for Michigan. It follows that any fan wearing an Ohio State jersey also gets a discount.
1: One week to national letter of intent day. Any word yet on where Brian VanGorder is going?
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Quick Hit
Who’s worse: Hawks or Thrashers?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The Hawks. The Thrashers. We could argue for days over which of our winter sports franchises is better, but that would miss the depressing point. Since neither is any good, isn’t it more appropriate to ponder, category by category, which is worse?
TEAM The Hawks have a better squad than their record indicates. (They’re 18-22, having lost five of six.) Even after losing five in a row, the Thrashers have a better record than statistics would warrant. (The team that has yielded more goals than any other is 23-25-4, due mostly to its success in overtime and shootouts.)
You watch the Hawks and come away believing they should be better. You watch the Thrashers and wonder how they’re as competitive as they are.
WHO’S WORSE?: The Thrashers, because they wouldn’t be in the playoffs if the postseason started today, while the Hawks, not exactly on merit, would.
COACH
Almost a trick question, given that the Thrashers don’t actually have a coach. They fired theirs in October. Then again, the Hawks don’t really have one, either, given that Mike Woodson’s career record is an astonishing 87-199. (It was Woodson who once said, “You can’t control your record,” and the feeling persists that this coach has no control over anything — not his players, not the final seconds of a close game, nothing.)
Having done this fill-in business twice now, Don Waddell has gotten pretty good at it. His career record after he has fired somebody is 27-24-1-4, which doesn’t make him Toe Blake but beats the heck out of 87-199.
WHO’S WORSE?: The Hawks, because Woodson might be the worst coach in Atlanta history, Marion Campbell not excluded.
GENERAL MANAGER
Another stumper: Is it possible to be a worse GM than Billy Knight, who took the wrong guy with his first pick in each of his first four drafts here?
Yes, believe it or not. Because Knight, for all his documented whiffs, has still constructed the spine of a roster. (Having a point guard would have rendered it an entire skeleton, but that would have made things too easy, don’t you think?) Waddell has been in place twice as long and hasn’t fleshed out the Thrashers beyond Ilya Kovalchuk and Marian Hossa. And Hossa could be gone soon. Yikes.
WHO’S WORSE?: The Thrashers, based mostly on Waddell’s time served.
OWNERSHIP
Another trick-type question, given that each club is owned by the same people. But there’s a subtle difference. Of the many Atlanta Spirit partners, only Bruce Levenson cares much about hockey, and he doesn’t live in Atlanta.
The most visible owner-enablers, Michael Gearon Jr. and Sr., are Atlantans who believe they know a lot about basketball and seem, for reasons unclear, utterly sold on Knight and Woodson. Say what you will about Steve Belkin, but at least he had the wisdom to wonder if the Hawks know what they’re doing.
WHO’S WORSE?: The Hawks, because ownership actually takes an interest in their success. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof.
OVERALL
The easiest choice on the board. The Thrashers have been a disappointment. The Hawks have been an embarrassment. Big difference.
It was a Hawks transaction — the Joe Johnson trade — that first dragged these owners into court. It was the Hawks who were ordered to replay the final 51.9 seconds of a game because the stat crew couldn’t count to six. It was the Hawks who designated Speedy Claxton and not Deron Williams or Chris Paul as their point guard of choice. And it’s the Hawks who have a GM who rarely deigns to speak with the media.
WHO’S WORSE?: The Hawks, because they still haven’t made the playoffs this century. The Thrashers haven’t ever won a playoff game, but at least they got there once. That modest accomplishment wouldn’t carry many debates, but it positively reverberates in this otherwise empty barrel.
Permalink | Comments (173) | Categories: Mark Bradley
Kovalchuk, Nabokov team up for chuckles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
He took nine shots but pulled an 0-fer. Goalies stopped six. Two others bounced off legs. Another flew wide of downtown.
He was stopped on a breakaway, performed a snow angel while flat on the ice after being robbed of another chance in front and — emotional sort that he is — ended the second period by throwing his stick.
On most nights, this would set up a postgame meltdown for Ilya Kovalchuk. On this night, he was Henny Youngman.
“I threw my stick, [then] I gave it to the fan,” Kovalchuk said Sunday night. “But I don’t think he was excited.”
Thank you, he’s here all week. Tip your Zamboni driver.
The NHL All-Stars came to town. One (Rick Nash) scored three goals. One (Eric Staal) scored two goals. Another (Evgeni Nabokov) would’ve kicked out a
Winnebago Sunday if given a chance.
But the best performance — or at least, the best show — was put on by Kovalchuk, who had to settle for an assist in the Eastern Conference’s 8-7 win over the West at Philips Arena.
Despite being blanked, it speaks to Kovalchuk’s performance Sunday and his popularity in this town — as well as his security — that he was brought to the large interview room after the game but teammate Marian Hossa (who had a goal and an assist) stayed in the locker
room.
As a general rule, defense isn’t high on the priority list in NHL All-Star Games. Actually, it’s not anywhere on the list. There were 21 goals scored in last year’s game. There have been fewer than 10 scored only once in the last 17. And in 40 years of picking All-Star MVPs, defensemen have been picked only twice and goalies only five times (largely because they escaped with all of their vital organs, and no significant twitch).
But Nabokov, San Jose’s goalie, seemed determined to rob the attention Sunday, as well as knock a fellow Russian off the stage. He was the only one of six goalies to pitch a shutout in his one period, stopping eight shots in the second period.
“Obviously he was really trying to score, and he wanted it for his own fans,” Nabokov said, smiling.
And you had no desire to make him a hero?
“No.”
With 1:03 left in the second period, Kovalchuk was set up perfectly in the slot from less than 10 feet out, a relative gimme for him. He shot quickly, the puck air-mailed to the upper right hand corner of the net. But Nabokov gloved it. Kovalchuk, exasperated, fell back on the ice and stared to the ceiling.
This won’t make him feel any better: “You can call it a lucky save,” Nabokov said. “The whole top shelf was open and I just tried to swing my glove, and it ended up in the glove.”
In the final seconds of the period, ex-Thrasher Marc Savard sent Kovalchuk in on a breakaway, but Nabokov stopped him again, this time with his pads. Then came the stick chuck.
Kovalchuk and Nabokov were Olympic teammates two years ago in Turin, Italy.
“We’re good buddies,” Nabokov said.
“He’s really good for a small guy,” Kovalchuk said.
He meant that as a compliment.
More from the funny Russian: “I’m going to work on my shot in practice.”
Kovalchuk has scored 37 goals this year. It seemed like he could’ve scored 37 Sunday night. In his last All-Star appearance in 2004, he scored once. Surprisingly, he worked a give-and-go with Carolina’s Staal late in the third period — surprising in that Kovalchuk closed the deal by feeding Staal for a game-tying goal with 7:25 left.
“I think everybody in the building thought I was going to shoot it,” Kovalchuk said.
He had one final chance in the final minute. But a pass intended for him down low on the left side was knocked away by Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf. The East continued to press the attack but Kovalchuk headed for the
bench.
“I broke my stick and so I [went] to the bench,” he said. “I wanted to get another one, but [Alex] Ovechkin jumped [on] and changed [for] me. So I’m like, ‘OK, I need to change.’ “
Soon after he sat down, Savard buried the game-winning goal. It was that kind of night for Kovalchuk. But he didn’t seem to care.
Permalink | Comments (17) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
‘Climbing’ Dogs not getting far
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Knoxville — Georgia got an RPI bump just by showing up, not that the Bulldogs showed up in any competitive sense. Indeed, what they showed Saturday was that a program that hasn’t graced the NCAA tournament since 2002 isn’t as close to getting back to the Big Dance as it should be.
The Bulldogs entered as one of those odd-duck teams peculiar to college basketball: They had a decent record (11-5) but an awful RPI (117). Rule of thumb: Unless your RPI is under 50, you can forget being an at-large invitee. Conveniently enough, the schedule brought Georgia to the home of the current ratings colossus.
Tennessee is No. 1 in the RPI but entered having appeared pedestrian in losing at Kentucky on Tuesday. The Vols can look great when allowed to rip and run, markedly less great when forced to slug it out in the halfcourt. Against such an opponent, the idea is to slow it down and give yourself a chance at the end.
Georgia didn’t give itself a chance in the beginning. It made 15 turnovers before it sank its fifth basket. It defended so abominably that the Vols appeared to playing with an extra man. (Big Orange on the power play!) It trailed by 10 points after six minutes, by 21 at halftime, by 26 before Tennessee lost interest.
“Far too many times we weren’t strong and decisive,” said Dennis Felton, Georgia’s coach. “We were soft to start the game.”
Put bluntly, Georgia played a game that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 8-20 season of 2004-2005. That was Felton’s second season after inheriting Jim Harrick’s mess, and Felton could hardly be faulted then. But now it’s 2008, and there can be no more excuse-making for the Bulldogs.
Yes, Felton was dealt a lousy hand and has had some rotten luck since. The best recruit he has signed, Louis Williams of South Gwinnett, never enrolled. Last season’s team might well have made the NCAA had Mike Mercer not hurt his knee in February, and this bunch would be much more imposing if Mercer and Takais Brown hadn’t run aground academically. That said …
Felton has been coaching Georgia longer than the combined tenures of Tubby Smith and Ron Jirsa, nearly a full season longer than the disgraced Harrick. A U.S. president doesn’t get as long to fix the country as Felton has had to right a basketball program. Felton has been in place since April 2003, and still every discussion of Bulldog basketball — and there aren’t many — begins not with the incumbent but with the man he succeeded.
This is Bruce Pearl’s third season at Tennessee. While he didn’t follow anyone as egregious as Harrick, he did inherit a program that had run through four different coaches in 15 years. Pearl has Tennessee near the top of the national rankings — the Vols are No. 3 in the AP poll — and has brought a basketball buzz not felt since the days of Ray Mears and Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld.
Asked to assess the state of Big Orange hoops, Felton said, “That’s a question for Tennessee.”
Fair enough. Asked then to characterize Georgia basketball, Felton said this: “Steady climbing. Steady climbing — that’s how I’d assess it.”
Earlier he’d said, “It’s really disappointing. There’s no shame in losing. Vanderbilt, one of the best teams in the country, came here and lost by 20. [Georgia lost by a fairly flattering 16.] You know that possibility exists against such a tremendous team. But we were soft to start the game.”
And that’s the alarming part. Even Felton’s 8-20 team could be counted on to play hard. Never well, but always hard. If ferocity has been lost and not much gained in the talent department, does that amount to steady climbing? Or is it instead an unsteady retreat?
Permalink | Comments (39) | Categories: Mark Bradley, UGA / SEC
After all this time, just Kovy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Ten-plus years, seven-plus seasons, few plus-players, the remains of 15 goaltenders and zero playoff wins later, Atlanta sits in unfamiliar territory today: center ice.
Still seeking a presence in their city and direction in their existence, the Thrashers play host to the NHL All-Star Game Sunday night. These exhibitions, complete with skills contests and Alyssa Milano clothing lines, are designed to celebrate the sport and its stars. But more than a decade after the city was awarded a second-chance franchise, there is little to cling to, save Ilya Kovalchuk.
“I know they used to have a real nice team here, the Flames,” Kovalchuk said Saturday. “I think we’ve got a little history. But we never win anything. When you win the Stanley Cup, that’s when [fans] really realize that hockey is interesting. But when you’re not winning in Atlanta, it’s like they really don’t [care] because there’s a lot to do here. Shows, sports, football — that’s their favorite. You need to win here to get their attention.”
Atlanta has its core of hockey fans. It has its singular star. Ultimately for survival, it needs more. Certainly, Kovalchuk deserves more.
He is in his sixth season. He already has scored 239 goals. He ranks second in the NHL in goals with 37, fourth in points with 63. He’s a lock to surpass 40 for the fourth straight season and is on pace for another possible Maurice Richard Trophy as goal champion. (He’s four behind Alexander Ovechkin’s season pace of 64.)
Beyond that, Kovalchuk and his game have matured. Few could have envisioned that a talented but short-fused 18-year-old would ever develop into captain material. But Kovalchuk was one of the few Thrashers who didn’t look catatonic in the playoffs last year. He was the only one who played hard through this season’s 0-6 start, when his teammates seemed determined only to bury a coach. When general manager Don Waddell, survivalist that he is, sought career salvation by firing coach Bob Hartley, Kovalchuk was the only Thrasher who said Hartley made him a better player.
Suddenly, he isn’t merely Atlanta’s best hockey player. He is a centerpiece without a table. Or a room. Or a foundation.
Year 11. Season eight.
The hope was that the NHL All-Star Game would represent more for this city’s hockey fans than a welcome distraction. But now there is all this baggage.
Last season’s quick playoff exit smothered whatever hockey buzz might’ve existed after the division title. Waddell’s low-profile offseason moves did nothing to fuel interest. The slow start, the unofficial player revolt, the firing. The Thrashers got hot, then turned almost bipolar.
It all must wear on Kovalchuk. His early career reputation as being selfish has always been overstated, his desire to win understated.
“He cares a lot more about the team and winning and everything else than people give him credit for,” said former Thrashers captain Scott Mellanby, who is in town for the weekend. “He’s passionate. Last year in the playoffs, I thought he was our best forward. He got a taste of what it’s like to be there, and he doesn’t want to go through his whole career and not have team success. He knows people can be critical of athletes who don’t win, especially as superstars.”
The Thrashers have two players in tonight’s game. Only one seemingly has a future here. While Kovalchuk spent Saturday talking about his season and the All-Star Game, Marian Hossa again fielded questions about his contract and the likelihood of being traded in the next few weeks.
What then? With a weak farm system, Waddell’s uncertain status, a coaching vacancy, unstable ownership, how far off-stage will hockey be in Atlanta next year, with only Kovalchuk pulling the wagon?
Mellanby: “He’s only 24. I don’t think he would even want to try to think of the magnitude of what he means to the team’s future. I just know players want to be successful and know what it feels like to win.”
Asked if he is aware of his responsibility in keeping hockey on the map here, Kovalchuk said, “For sure. But I like that kind of pressure.”
Soon, he morphed into a chamber of commerce member.
“I think everybody will really enjoy it here,” he said. “Hopefully, everybody is in nice hotels and got a nice meal. Afterwards, they won’t say, ‘We’re not going to go back to Atlanta.’ “
Tonight is the diversion. People will need another reason to come back.
Permalink | Comments (20) | Categories: Jeff Schultz, Thrashers / NHL
NFL greats blindsided by final blow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Nobody tells a story better than Bill Curry, the former Georgia Tech player and coach, who starred in the NFL. So this one was riveting for several reasons.
Let’s start with the thought of Hall of Fame tight end John Mackey wandering aimlessly around a packed Catholic church during the funeral mass for Johnny Unitas. Not only were Mackey, Curry and Unitas members of the old Baltimore Colts, but Mackey and Curry were roommates near the end of their tenure with the franchise.
“So there was John, unable to find his seat after he apparently got up to go to the restroom, and everybody just froze, but the priest just kept right on going with [his eulogy],” said Curry, sighing. Then he continued to paint an even more chilling picture of Mackey moving about the aisles in search of nothing in particular, before Curry added with another sigh, “It was like a nightmare.”
It was that, but it also was dementia, a condition that zaps an individual’s judgment and memory in dramatic ways. It’s a condition that the 66-year-old Mackey battles in Baltimore after years of getting clobbered in the head by opponents. He joins other former NFL players such as Larry Morris, a Tech Hall of Famer who suffers from dementia in Flowery Branch. They all prove each time they deliver blank stares at loved ones that there is a correlation between football-related blows and various types of dementia.
You know, no matter what the NFL, the players union and their carefully selected group of doctors like to say.
Even so, courtesy of Mackey’s wife, Sylvia, sending a letter two years ago to former commissioner Paul Tagliabue about John’s woes (“Paul said he was so touched that he even showed the letter to his wife,” she said), the league and the union agreed to form something called The 88 Plan. That’s “88,” as in Mackey’s former number.
Through the plan, families of former players suffering from dementia can receive as much as $88,000 per year.
The money is fine, but that isn’t the whole story on dementia that will come to Atlanta on March 29 at Agnes Scott College. There, Curry’s wife, Carolyn, will meet with her six-year-old group called Women Alone Together. It’s an organization for women of all ages who are “widows, divorcees, single by choice or married but feel alone because of a chronically ill spouse or because [they are] physically, mentally or spiritually separated from their mates,” its Web site says.
Sylvia Mackey will be the organization’s guest speaker that day on dementia and its effects.
“Sylvia is just an incredible lady, and the Mackeys have been friends of ours since [the late 1960s],” said Carolyn Curry, owner of a Ph.D in history. “But also this issue comes home to us because of Larry Morris. I mean, he was this great, great player for Georgia Tech, and he’s still strong and handsome, just like John. But when you see both of them now, they’re like a 2-year-old. Sylvia says that just to get John to do normal things that a human being has to do, she’s had to find a different way.”
That way is called using anything involving the NFL. It began when Mackey returned one day from a long walk and refused to shower. Sylvia thought and thought before announcing to John that the NFL mandated that all former players must shower after any activity.
John showered. Just like he began taking his medicine for dementia after Sylvia called them “vitamins” and wrapped them inside a box that she told him came from the NFL. “Sometimes I’ll use my cellphone to call our house phone, and I’ll tell John that it’s Paul Tagliabue calling, and it always works,” said Sylvia, chuckling.
Kay Morris, Larry’s wife, said chuckling is good to relieve the stress involving taking care of her husband, 74, a Decatur High graduate who played professionally for the Los Angeles Rams, Chicago Bears and the Falcons. “We’ve been dealing with this now for almost 20 years, and he’s a little worse than [Mackey],” said Kay Morris, mentioning how Larry’s dementia ruined most of his business ventures and placed the family close to financial ruin. “I don’t even think he recalls that he played.”
She didn’t chuckle.
Permalink | Comments (61) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Tech / ACC, Terence Moore
Old-time All-Stars return, score again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
TJ’s Sports Bar in Alpharetta was a-bustle. Hockey was the theme. The NHL All-Star Game was in town, and its effect was being felt deep into the suburbs. Old hockey fans and young mixed and mingled, many who dated back to days of the Flames, and some not quite sure who was whom, as in the case of a young woman who boldly announced, “I want Gordie Hull’s autograph.”
Someone corrected her. “You mean Gordie Howe or Bobby Hull? They’re both here.”
“Oh, I’ll take either one of them,” she said, tossing her head, and in time, she did get both Thursday night.
This was not a mix of the old and the young. The stars of today were all downtown, doing what All-Stars do before they take the stage Sunday at Philips Arena. These were guys your dad and mom grew up with, Flames of the ’70s (before they took flight to Calgary) and Hall of Fame guys who had engraved their signatures on the game. Tough and unyielding on ice, warm and gentle as a parson nowadays. They spoke of collisions they had, of sticks across the face (skaters wore no masks then) and time spent in the penalty box. And they laughed and slapped one another on the back.
But now? “I went into the locker room at a game last year,” Gordie Howe said, “and I found out I couldn’t talk with the players. They all came from Europe, names I couldn’t spell and languages I didn’t speak.”
The league’s player supply once mainly came from Canada, and they spoke English, with a Canadian brogue. Rarely was a resident of the 50 states found in an NHL lineup. For that matter, at one time there were only four U.S. teams in the league, the Red Wings, the Bruins, the Rangers and the Blackhawks. Then expansion, and it did seem strange to see ice games being played in Tampa and Miami, and even stranger a couple of years ago when a team named Carolina won the Stanley Cup.
But I dawdle. This was more than a reunion, it was an occasion special to the old warriors. You see, players of the last century are strangers to most present-day headliners. Howe and Hull and the Espositos and Schultz and Clarke are not recognized as the stars they were. Present-day players were kids in some European country, not only didn’t read of the golden oldies, they didn’t know our language, and still have trouble with it. Even today names are botched. One sports club advertised a personal appearance by Dan “Rocket” Bouchard. Oops, the nickname was misapplied to Bouchard, the Flames goalie, who stopped “rockets,” confused with the great Maurice “Rocket” Richard.
This was something for the pensioneers, the introduction of the NHL Alumni Signature Wine line, all profits going to retired veterans and and charities of their choice. The NHL has a pension fund, but it is meager. Howe, as great a star as there is, gets $17,000 a year. And you may be aware of the drive to increase alumni benefits in other professional sports.
Jason Zentz was never a star. He played in the NHL, three years with the Bruins, “a cup of coffee,” as he described his career. He became a successful businessman in Boston, appeared at TJ’s in executive suit and tie, and spoke humbly of his dedication to the guys who went before him. This was the time and the place to announce it, and the wines got a popular introduction as the evening wore on.
It was like being in a living, breathing hall of fame. All 12 veterans were there to introduce their signature wines, and share with all the people TJ’s would hold into the night. Tim Ecclestone, the host and former Flame, was joined by two other Flame alumni, Willie Plett and Eric Vail, and there may have been others swallowed up in the crowd that grew into a milling throng. Many of the Atlanta Flames traveled on to Calgary for NHL seasons but never gave up their homes in the Atlanta area.
The league has lost much of its Canadian flavor. It has developed a pipeline to European sources, and as Gordie Howe said, you need an interpreter in most of the NHL locker rooms. But winning and losing is still the same in any language.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Thrashers / NHL
Smith looks, sounds good but …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — In addition to snapping the ball dandy enough for 18 seasons to become one of the all-time great Falcons, Jeff Van Note met each of the franchise’s first 13 head coaches. He eased into a smile before offering his assessment of No. 14 across the way. “He sounds good, and he looks good, too,” said Van Note, nodding, while studying the white-haired Mike Smith on the podium.
Added Van Note, “With his glasses on, and when you see his profile, he looks a little like Vince Lombardi.”
Smith does, by the way. This isn’t to say that his Falcons will rush to Super Bowls across the Artificial Tundra of the Georgia Dome field. This is to say that Smith sounds good and looks good.
Whatever that means. I don’t know what any of this means for the Falcons, and nobody does. That said, since the Falcons aren’t close to reaching even mediocrity, why not hire somebody who at least sounds good and looks good?
Just like most head football coaches delivering their state-of-their-new-team address, Smith said all of the predictable things. He said he wants to run the ball and stop the run. He said he has an open-door policy. He said he wants “character” on the roster. Mostly, he said everything in soft tones from his 48-year-old tongue. Said Van Note, “You can tell that he is very analytical, and I like that type of approach to football. That has a lot to do with breaking down film and how you view other people. We’ll see what happens.”
Yeah, we’ll see. Ever hear of Mike Smith before he was introduced this week as the Falcons’ new guy? Join the rest of the universe. With the rumbling, bumbling, stumbling decision-makers of the Falcons searching for somebody to replace Bobby Petrino, who bolted before the end of his first season to do that “woo pig sooey” thing in Arkansas, the Falcons had to hire somebody like Mike Smith. Somebody obscure. Somebody just elated to get his chance as an NFL head coach.
In essence, the Falcons were desperate, because there wasn’t a definitive hire to fix this wretched situation.
The franchise quarterback is sitting in a federal penitentiary. The ever-present owner likes to roam the sidelines and dine with his skipper on Mondays. The roster is flawed and aging. The fan base is dwindling by the moment. Nobody with an accomplished résumé and the slightest name recognition was coming here.
Consider, too, that during Arthur Blank’s six-year ownership of the Falcons, he has preferred to hire coaches (Jim Mora, Petrino) and a general manager (Thomas Dimitroff) out of nowhere. While Mora and Petrino were disasters, Dimitroff is a potential one. He could prosper, too. It’s just that Dimitroff had zero experience as a GM before he was hired by Blank through a webcam interview. Reggie McKenzie also was available after 14 years in the front office of the Green Bay Packers, and he was groomed to run an NFL franchise by legendary GM Ron Wolf. In other words, the Falcons had other legitimate options for their general manager job.
The Falcons had few to zero legitimate options for their head coaching job. So they had to gamble, which is why they snagged Smith, a coordinator for an efficient defense in Jacksonville and somebody with the reputation as a nice guy. That’s opposed to whatever you would call Petrino, who partly opted to flee the Falcons after players hinted that they wished to stuff dirty sweat socks down his throat.
It isn’t likely that Falcons players will have similar thoughts with the personable Smith, and let’s face it: Who would do such a thing to a Lombardi lookalike?
“Nobody’s ever told me I look like Vince Lombardi. I’ve been told I look like Steve Martin,” said Smith, laughing, without sounding wild and crazy. “In fact, I’ve had people chasing me around the airport and saying, ‘There’s Steve.’ “
Smith laughed some more. Now we’ll see if he can keep folks from laughing at his Falcons.
Permalink | Comments (71) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
Falcons go back to football fundamentals
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Flowery Branch — Fundamentals aren’t fun. Truth to tell, they’re boring. But they exist for a reason: They work. And when you’ve bottomed out, the only proven way to pull yourself up is to embrace the basic.
The Falcons just hired a coach whose stated philosophy of football is to run the ball and stop the run. That sounds dull as all get-out, but right about now, this organization could use all the dullness it can find. It has tried the glib (Jim Mora) and the guileful (Bobby what’s-his-name), and here it sits, introducing its third new coach in 48 months.
The new man is Mike Smith. He answers to Smitty. (Sometimes, his wife conceded, she even calls him Smitty.) He’s a 26-year career assistant who once, to make ends meet between stops, grew Christmas trees in Irwin, Tenn. Can’t get any less artificial than that.
The new man describes himself as “a systems guy,” and that’s precisely what this careening organization requires. The Falcons have invested heavily in personalities, only to be betrayed at every turn. They need a baseline set of tenets. They need a guy whose burning ambition isn’t to coach the Washington Huskies or to run after every open job. They need a man who sees, to quote Mike Smith, the imperative “to focus on the task at hand.”
His task: To coach up a team that has been beaten down and, in so doing, bring order to chaos. And having a system, having core beliefs, is always the way to begin.
Mike Smith isn’t a big name or an outsized personality. He’s a football coach. He doesn’t bring the sizzle that would have accompanied the offensive man from Dallas — “Obviously we made the offer to Jason [Garrett],” said Thomas Dimitroff, the new general manager — but how excited were Packers fans in 2006 on the day Mike McCarthy was named head coach? How pleased are they today? Winning can come in different forms, but at bottom winning is always based on the fundamental.
There is about Smith a refreshing lack of pretense. When you’ve gone from living in San Diego to residing in Morehead, Ky. — “culture shock,” Smith said — due to the inherent vagaries of coaching football, you’ve looked at life from both sides now. He doesn’t come across as entitled (unlike, say, Mora) or egomaniacal (unlike, say, what’s-his-name). He comes across as a guy who has a job to do and has done it long enough to know what works.
And here’s the nicest part: What has worked for Smith is what the GM, newly imported from New England, believes will work anywhere. “Control both lines of scrimmage,” Dimitroff said. “That’s Bill’s philosophy [meaning Belichick] about the defensive line: Keep the stall full.”
Dimitroff is a personnel man. The chief reason he warmed to Smith is because this coach shares an affinity for personnel matters. “You can’t force-feed a coach,” Dimitroff said. “If he’s not fully invested in choosing personnel, you wind up being at loggerheads.”
Make no mistake: Smith is Dimitroff’s man. He recommended that Smith be offered the job, and Arthur Blank approved. (And Dimitroff saw no need to wait for an audience with Steve Spagnuolo.) The freshly minted GM introduced Smith to the media Thursday, a telling bit of symbolism. For his part, Blank seemed content to say relatively little.
Smith is a solid hire, a welcome addition to an organization that has been treading in shifting sand. Said Dimitroff: “What Mike brings to the table is stability and consistency to a team that needs those things.”
The belief here, though, is that the key to this offseason, the key to the Falcons’ whole future, wasn’t so much the coach as the GM. The way Dimitroff handled this first mission — calmly, methodically, fundamentally — suggests that an organization gone wrong is again, at long and blessed last, going right.
Permalink | Comments (130) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Falcons shouldn’t feel embarrassed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The word “embarrassing” has been tossed around rather loosely regarding the Falcons’ search for new leadership. So here’s what I want to know:
Was it embarrassing to approach Bill Cowher, who won a Super Bowl with Pittsburgh?
Was it embarrassing to approach Bill Parcells, who won two Super Bowls with New York?
Was it embarrassing to approach Jason Garrett, the assistant everybody wants?
Was it embarrassing to sound out Pete Carroll, who might not have been a fit here but who clearly knows something about football?
Was it embarrassing to wind up with a general manager who apprenticed in the league’s finest organization and a head coach who coordinated a terrific defense in Jacksonville?
The Falcons, it says here, spoke with most of the right people. (I don’t understand why Marty Schottenheimer and Floyd Reese weren’t interviewed, but I can appreciate the desire to import newer blood.) They got used by Parcells, which has happened to teams - this one included - before and will doubtless happen again, but had he said yes this organization would have received an instant infusion of credibility. And he did, it must be noted, say yes to Miami.
The only truly embarrassing part was the way it was revealed, at the end of a post-Parcells press release, that Rich McKay had been kicked upstairs. There mightn’t have been a good way of breaking the news, but there had to be a better way than that.
Once McKay had been defrocked as general manager, there was no way this two-pronged process was even going to be without palpitations. But here, after all’s done and too much has been said, is the bottom line:
The Falcons today have a more astute personnel man as GM and a more stable individual (surely!) as coach than they’ve had since 2003. If that’s an embarrassing outcome, we should all be so abashed.
Permalink | Comments (94) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
Smith fits bill for Falcons
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
If there is any absolute about the Falcons’ hiring of Mike Smith as their new coach, it is this: If you phone the ticket office today, you’ll have no problem getting through.
They did not go for buzz. They did not go for somebody to schmooze old corporate sponsors or wow the young and hip. They did not hire a guy simply because of the way he will sound on radio or the way he will look at a news conference. Smith is 48 but he has white hair. In that sense, he’s already ahead of the Falcons’ coaching curve.
But regardless of whether Mike Smith turns out to be a great find or a huge mistake, the Falcons and general manager Thomas Dimitroff made this decision for the right reason: He is a football coach, not a carnival act. He is straightforward, X’s and O’s, respected by players, admired by peers.
At least in prototype, he is what the Falcons need.
“Look at what he’s done in Jacksonville, having one of the highest-ranked defenses with really not the greatest talent in the world,” said Jeff Lageman, the former NFL lineman and linebacker and a friend of Smith’s. “He’s taken rookie free agents and draft picks and turned them into players.
“The thing I like most about him is he’s organized. He’s detailed. He understands football and he knows opposing coaches and what they’re trying to accomplish. He understands playing to strengths and eliminating weaknesses. Most coaches would love to have him as a consultant just because he understands the game so well.”
The Falcons have taken a risk here. But anybody short of Bill Cowher would be a risk. Nobody among the final four of candidates — Smith, Steve Spagnuolo, Leslie Frazier, Rex Ryan — had a rich head coaching background.
The worst thing the Falcons did was leave themselves open for second-guessing should Smith not work out, given they didn’t want to wait until after the Super Bowl to talk to the Giants’ Spagnuolo. But there were obvious concerns: He could say no and leave the Falcons humiliated (again). Or he could say yes, but the timing might not leave any quality assistants still on the market.
There’s also this: Spagnuolo has been a coordinator for only one season (like Jason Garrett in Dallas). In that sense, Smith’s actually less of a risk.
Does owner Arthur Blank get his pyrotechnics? No. But there were bottle rockets with Bobby Petrino. How did that work out?
“Wow” picks only get you to the first kickoff. Dimitroff understands that. He presumably had to convince Blank of the same. In 2005, Green Bay was ripped for hiring general manager Ted Thompson, who then was ripped for hiring coach Mike McCarthy. But Thompson and McCarthy turned out to be a perfect match. The Packers made it to last weekend’s NFC title game before losing in overtime.
Jacksonville has had the fourth-ranked NFL defense over Smith’s five seasons as coordinator (only Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Tampa Bay allowed fewer yards in that span). The fact the Jaguars are not loaded with stars — no Pro Bowl players on defense this season, when they ranked 12th — makes them a nice blueprint for the Falcons, given the likelihood of Dimitroff blowing up the depth chart.
Some might downplay Smith’s influence. After all, Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio is a defensive coach. But I seem to remember San Francisco coach Bill Walsh not having an offensive coordinator. Mike Holmgren was the quarterbacks coach. Dennis Green was the wide receivers coach. Imagine if nobody thought much of their contributions.
Lageman believes “Players will respect Mike because he’s a stand-up, honest guy. There’s no ulterior motive.”
Already, he’s one up on Petrino.
Now it can be told: A couple of weeks ago, Smith phoned former Falcons executive Ron Hill, who now works for the league. Smith asked Hill about the city, the team, the owner.
“He knew I had been there,” Hill said. “I told him Atlanta was a great place to live and the Falcons had a tremendous facility. I told him Arthur would do whatever it takes to win there. You just have to make the right decisions, and he’ll give you the money to make you a winner on the field.”
Now it’s about decisions, not marketing. If the team wins, it will sell itself.
Permalink | Comments (104) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Atlanta Spirit needed thinning
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
So Bernie Mullin just resigned as president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Spirit, LLC, which owns the Hawks and the Thrashers.
Good.
Now if the Spirit can get rid of a few owners, the Hawks and the Thrashers would fly a little higher.
Make that a lot higher.
This ridiculously top-heavy operation didn’t need Mullin, not with nine folks listed in the front of the Hawks’ media guys as owners of the Spirit.
One of those owners, Steve Belkin, is suing the others in a nasty and lengthy battle for control of the team. Until that legal mess is over, the Hawks and the Thrashers have to deal with their current ownership setup, which isn’t great, but at least it just became slightly more efficient.
Out goes Mullin, and in comes a system that requires the likes of Thrashers general manager Don Waddell and Hawks general manager Billy Knight to do more of what they’ve already done: Report directly to the slew of owners. That’s opposed to going through Mullin, who then went to the slew of owners.
Next step: Have the general managers of the Hawks and the Thrashers report directly to one owner someday.
We can dream, can’t we?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Quick Hit, Terence Moore