Posted on July 17th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
We barely recognized Verizon Center on Monday night. The arena was sold out with a loud, energetic crowd. Unlike similar occasions when the basketball court is in place, the throng was virtually unanimous in its allegiance. Nearly every fan rooted earnestly for the home team, which was stocked with All-Stars.
It figures that Washington’s lone representative, Nene, played for the visitors. Wizards fans might have never believed the scene otherwise.
The U.S. men’s Olympic team overcame a sluggish start and held off feisty Brazil for an 80-69 victory in the final domestic exhibition. The crowd undoubtedly was happy with the win but likely still harbored concerns about Team USA’s outlook in London.
“There’s no reason we shouldn’t bring home the gold,” President Obama said during a courtside interview on ESPN. “We just have to stay focused.”
That’s one of the main threats facing Team USA each Olympiad, especially against lesser competition. It’s hard to concentrate and pay attention to details when you’re 30 points better than the opponent. If the Americans get too comfortable operating in flip-the-switch mode against the likes of Nigeria and Tunisia, they could struggle against legitimate contenders such as Spain and Argentina.
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Posted on July 17th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
President Obama has some explaining to do. He was expected to be courtside Monday night at Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., to catch part of the first game, which featured the U.S. women’s Olympic basketball team versus Brazil. But he didn’t appear in the arena until just before tip-off of the men’s game.
With two daughters and an athletic wife, Obama surely knows he can’t dis the women’s team. He made it to Verizon in time to greet and congratulate the players on a practice court after their 99-67 victory. The team gave him a jersey and an autographed basketball and posed for photos.
“We talked a little health care, tax breaks,” guard Diane Taurasi said. Guard Lindsay Whalen, who led all scorers with 21 points, added: “He just said represent your country well, and that he’s proud.”
Showing its own pride, the crowd chanted “U-S-A!” as Obama and Vice President Joe Biden entered and took their seats. First lady Michelle Obama and the couple’s oldest daughter, Malia, were also among the president’s party. Obama was interviewed at halftime and weighed in on a debate sparked by Kobe Bryant’s assertion that the current Olympic team is superior to the 1992 “Dream Team,” which featured Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and other superstars.
“This is a generational thing,” Obama said on ESPN. “I was around in ’92. I was a Bulls fan. So I have to go with the original Dream Team.”
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Posted on July 16th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
An item’s value and its worth aren’t necessarily the same thing. A person’s wedding ring might be valued at X amount of dollars, but it can be worth many times that amount to the owner. Intrinsics and intangibles often are beyond the grasp of a price tag.
The same is true in sports. Derek Jeter’s worth to the Yankees certainly exceeded his value a couple of seasons ago when the team signed him to a three-year, $51 million contract with a player option for 2014, when he’ll be 40. What he means to the Bronx Bombers can’t be measured in dollars and cents alone.
The overwhelming majority of player signings are fueled by performance on the field/court, not results at the box office/retail outlet. But certain stars force management to tinker with the equation, or at least reconsider it, based on their broad appeal and financial impact.
Tim Tebow earned that type of consideration before the Denver Broncos opted to pursue Peyton Manning. Although his style of play doesn’t inspire much success, management could have ridden his tidal wave of popularity while giving him time. Arguably, only a bona fide star like Manning could have displaced Tebow in Denver.
In 25 starts with the New York Knicks last season, Jeremy Lin became an international sensation like none ever seen, including Tebow.
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Posted on July 15th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
A horde of media members swarmed his USA Basketball teammates as Anthony Davis sauntered onto the court Sunday at George Washington University. Kobe Bryant was surrounded on one end of the bench, with Kevin Durant and LeBron James fielding questions a few seats away. On the floor, there were clusters of reporters around Tyson Chandler and Chris Paul.
Davis walked past the scorer’s table and sat at the far bench, by himself. The baby of the bunch at 19, he could be USA Basketball’s face of the future in two ways — as a player on multiple Olympic teams or the prototype for subsequent teams.
Once the London Games end, presumably with another gold medal from the U.S. men’s basketball team, a new era might begin. Commissioner David Stern has hinted at implementing a 23-and-under age-limit for NBA players in future Olympics. That wouldn’t necessarily eliminate Davis from consideration in 2016, but it would reduce the number of players who ever compete in the Games and create more one-and-done Olympians.
James and Carmelo Anthony are participating in their third Olympics, the same number Dwyane Wade would have if he weren’t injured. This will be Durant’s first and last Olympics if the rules are changed, a prospect he opposes adamantly.
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Posted on July 14th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
As it turns out, former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno wasn’t a saint after all, which shouldn’t come as a surprise because no one is. Yet we repeatedly make the same mistake, elevating coaches, civil rights leaders and clergy to God-like status, though they’re as flawed as anyone else. Sometimes more so.
The great and mighty “Joe-Pa,” who became the Nittany Lions coach when Lyndon B. Johnson occupied the White House, acquired so much sovereignty as he built a pristine image, his so-called superiors were more like peers, if not underlings. Thursday, in a 267-page report on Penn State’s sex-abuse scandal, former FBI director Louis Freeh outlined how the school’s former president and two other former senior officials were followers more than leaders when it came to the head coach.
Paterno was more concerned about his legacy than about the victims of former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, who last month was convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse. If Paterno was so inclined, former President Graham Spanier, Athletic Director Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz would have ensured that the proper authorities investigated claims that Sandusky had raped a child in the football team’s locker room in 2001.
But Paterno, who died in January not long after the scandal broke, wasn’t interested in finding out the truth and possibly putting his program in a negative light. Penn State had a reputation as one of the nation’s cleanest football powerhouses under Paterno’s 46-year tenure. If he didn’t want anything to interfere with that record, neither did the other officials.
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Posted on July 14th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The season’s first half was a blast from the beginning, when the Washington Nationals peeled off to a 14-4 start. They have been playing with house money ever since — no pressure to win, nothing to lose — enjoying their emergence as one of baseball’s best and most popular teams.
Most everyone expected Washington’s upward mobility in the NL East … next year. Yes, the Nats were a cute pick to contend for a wild card this season, but 2013 was supposed to be their year for real, with an unrestricted Stephen Strasburg and a 20-year-old Bryce Harper.
Whatever happened this season would be gravy, the season-long appetizer before years’ worth of entrees.
Much to the delight of Nats fans everywhere, manager Davey Johnson convinced his team otherwise. His bold proclamations in spring training, stating that he should be fired if Washington misses the playoffs, set the tone and changed the culture. Even through the spotty offense and a slew of injuries, the Nats have grown in confidence with each series win.
The season’s second half will be more like work as they fight to maintain what they’ve established, namely the National League’s best record. But his team being a year early to the party gives someone the perfect opportunity to make his grand entrance a year late: Jayson Werth.
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Posted on July 11th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum didn’t exist in 1973 when Major League Baseball held the All-Star Game in Kansas City, Mo. Founded in 1990, the shrine to pre-integration baseball narrowly survived long enough to be resuscitated this week when the All-Star Game returned to town.
But thanks to smarter management and better leadership over the last 15 months — after four years of strife and financial woes that almost shuttered the institution — the NLBM was ready for its close-up when the baseball world descended on Kansas City.
As museum President Bob Kendrick said heading into the four-day slate of All-Star activities: “We’ve got one shot. It ain’t like we get a dress rehearsal. We just need to get this thing right.”
By most accounts, the NLBM hit a home run, possibly exposing more people to the facility this week than in its 22 years combined. It hosted everyone from frequent guests such as Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard to first-time visitors such as MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.
“A wonderful day, for me to walk around here and see what the Negro Leagues did and what they meant to baseball,” Selig said Monday after his grand tour. “I love the presentation of history. This has been terrific — very educational, really. Some of baseball’s greatest players started in the Negro Leagues. Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson … those players paved the way for players today, like Matt Kemp, Curtis Granderson, Adam Jones and Prince Fielder.”
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Posted on July 10th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Dead men tell no tales, offer no rebuttals and provide no corroboration. So aside from potential damage to his legacy, former football coach Joe Paterno escaped further punishment for his role in the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse case. But Paterno also lost the ability to fight for his name when he died in January.
The same can’t be said for three ex-officials sweating the findings of Penn State’s internal investigation into the matter. The report, headed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, is expected to be released Thursday morning, adding another sickening layer to Penn State’s sordid scandal.
If reported email exchanges among former president Graham Spanier, former athletic director Tom Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz are accurate, those men were accomplices as Sandusky abused numerous boys on campus and elsewhere. Curley and Schultz already face perjury charges (they pleaded not guilty) for allegedly lying to a grand jury and failing to report suspected child abuse, and they should receive the maximum penalty under law.
The Freeh report should lead to additional charges, if possible, as well as Spanier’s arrest for his role in the cover-up.
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Posted on July 10th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Rushed judgments have become a national pastime, fueled in part by the 24-hour news cycle’s incessant and insatiable appetite. It demands instant decisions, analysis and commentary, lest you be left behind or deemed wishy-washy.
An incident occurs — say, an African-American athlete is charged with resisting arrest — and many folks immediately go to their respective corners. Either he was a target of profiling and a victim of racism or he was guilty of provoking the police and big-timing them with a “Do-you-know-who-I-am?” attitude.
That’s where we stand with the case of Minnesota Vikings halfback Adrian Peterson, who was arrested Saturday night at a Houston nightclub at closing time. Just like that, a player with a previously pristine reputation is in trouble with the law and the fault-finding has begun.
The police said Peterson pushed an officer in the shoulder, “causing him to stumble,” and began yelling and “assumed an aggressive stance.” Peterson’s father said the officer used “vulgar language” and was “disrespectful,” and it’s his understanding that his son didn’t push the officer.
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Posted on July 9th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Brooklynites faced a major dilemma this year when the Nets crossed the Hudson River and relocated downtown in New York City’s most populous borough, near the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic. Playing their home games in the brand-new, splendiferous Barclays Center, the Nets are minutes from the team that has owned Big Apple hearts since 1946.
The New York Knicks, one of the NBA’s marquee franchises, have the history, memories, championships and Madison Square Garden, aka the “World’s Most Famous Arena.” But they don’t wear “Brooklyn” on their chests. That gives the Nets a prime opportunity to siphon allegiance among the proud residents and natives who have lacked such specificity in a rooting interest since the Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles in 1958.
While Brooklyn’s NBA fans ponder their longstanding relationship with the Knicks and newfound affection for the Nets going forward, other fans have their own questions to answer:
Will they make a distinction between two teams that, ultimately, represent New York City? Which team should they root for in border skirmishes, a la the Lakers-Clippers annual grudge matches?
And, finally, would the presence of All-Star center Dwight Howard make the Nets even more loathsome than the Miami Heat?
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