Posted on February 1st, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
As a player who starred on his own VH1 reality show, founded his own news network, performed on Dancing With the Stars and became one of the NFL’s most flamboyant personalities, Chad Ochocinco always seemed tailor-made for Super Bowl Media Day.
Except this year, the first season he reached the big game and his first season with the New England Patriots.
During his first 10 NFL seasons — all with the Cincinnati Bengals and most before changing his last name from Johnson to his uniform number (85) in Spanish — Ochocinco was among the game’s top receivers. He was third in receiving yards and seventh in receptions, touchdown receptions and yards per game. And Ochocinco was notorious for his end zone celebrations, among them a Riverdance rendition, a marriage proposal and a request that the league stay out of his wallet.
But he’s been virtually invisible with the Patriots. He was inactive in the AFC Championship game against Baltimore and has only 15 catches for 276 yards and one touchdown all season. He didn’t have a seat at a podium Tuesday during Media Day, relegated to standing on the field with the other bit players.
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Posted on February 1st, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The NFL has been derided as the “No Fun League” since at least 1985, when Billy “White Shoes” Johnson was penalized twice for his signature touchdown dance. But in another sense, 1985 is when NFL fun reached a new level that’s still growing, sparked by the Chicago Bears, William “Refrigerator” Perry and the Super Bowl Shuffle.
Whether you credit them or blame them, “Da Bears” helped make Super Bowl Media Day the spectacle it has become.
They were crossover stars in sports’ biggest crossover event, making Mike Ditka, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and Perry icons in pop culture as well as NFL circles. Ditka starred on “Saturday Night Live,”Payton appeared on the cover of Time and Perry graced the cover of Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, McMahon was showing his behind — mooning a media helicopter at practice — and defying the rules on headbands.
It was only a matter of time before ESPN decided Media Day would make for great programming (or least kill some time). MTV, Entertainment Tonight, Nickelodeon and a bunch of other networks followed suit, all trying to get their own piece of America’s undeclared national holiday.
The NFL, always willing to tighten its stranglehold as the country’s No. 1 passion, has welcomed all comers. Two thousand credentials were issued for Tuesday’s Media Day at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium. The bigger surprise — since the league never saw a dollar it didn’t crave — is that tickets were sold for the first time. More than 7,000 fans thought it was a worthwhile expenditure of time and money (one hour each for the New England Patriots and New York Giants, separated by a one-hour intermission, for $25).
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Posted on January 30th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Through the first three rounds of the Abu Dhabi Championship in the United Arab Emirates, Tiger Woods was in flashback mode, playing as if he were still the world’s No. 1 golfer by a large margin. He was atop the leaderboard entering Sunday’s final round, a position he hadn’t enjoyed in an official tournament in more than two years.
The ending was disappointing, with Woods finishing third to unheralded Englishman Robert Rock. But it also marked Woods’ third consecutive top-three finish, including a win at the Chevron World Challenge, a charitable event that marked his first victory since November 2009 … the month his world came to a crash.
Despite falling short Sunday, Woods was upbeat about his performance. “I’m pleased at the progress,” he told reporters after shooting par in the final round to finish two strokes back. “Basically, since playing in Australia [at the end of 2011], my stroke-play events have been pretty good. I just need to keep building, keep getting more consistent.”
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Posted on January 28th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Greg Schiano isn’t the first college coach to leave his school in the midst of asking high school recruits to enroll. The cycle repeats itself every year. But for sheer dramatic value, nothing beats the scene Thursday at Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J. (coincidentally, the school that expelled a top football player for offensive tweets).
Five assistant football coaches from Rutgers University were in the gym, prepared to seal the deal with two of the state’s top recruits. They were just waiting for Schiano, who was late. A couple of hours later, ESPN reported that Schiano agreed to coach the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The next time they saw him, he was being introduced at Friday’s news conference in Tampa, talking about trust, belief and accountability.
As for the recruits at Don Bosco, and elsewhere, who trusted and believed that he’d be there if they committed to Rutgers? They should have known better. Coaches are always susceptible to leaving at a moment’s notice, regardless of what they say in luring players.
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Posted on January 27th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Prince Fielder was 12 years old when he first made a name for himself in Detroit. The stocky teenager and son of slugger Cecil Fielder put on an unbelievable power display at Tiger Stadium, blasting a series of prodigious home runs during batting practice.
Fifteen years later, Fielder is returning to Motown to do it again, this time in actual major-league games. The Tigers just shocked the baseball world by signing the most coveted player left on the market and giving him a nine-year, $214 million contract, the fourth-richest ever.
Fielder will earn $23 million in each of his first two years and then make $24 million annually in the final seven seasons, according to terms obtained by the Associated Press. If he wins the American League Most Valuable Player award, he earns an additional $500,000. If he’s second through fifth in the MVP voting, it’s worth an extra $200,000, while sixth through 10th nets a $100,000 bonus. Each MVP award he wins after the first one gives him $1 million.
He also gets bonuses of between $50,000 and $100,000 for various and assorted awards and honors … plus a hotel suite on the road.
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Posted on January 26th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Now that Navy has signed on to join the Big East as a football-only member beginning in 2015, conference commissioner John Marinatto needs just one more school to fulfill his desire of 12 teams broken into East and West divisions.
But before he continues that quest, he should reopen negotiations for incoming members Houston, Southern Methodist and Central Florida; the deal is off unless they pry away their current league’s name and bring it with them.
Because Conference USA is a much more appropriate moniker for the amalgamation that Marinatto is constructing.
Navy has cast its lot with a conference that, if nothing else, refuses to go down without a fight. If adding schools in Texas, California (San Diego State) and Idaho (Boise State) smacks of desperation, it’s in response to college football’s shifting landscape and growing crevices that might reduce the Big East to rubble and irrelevance.
Those rumbling forces convinced Navy to relinquish the football independence it relished for 133 years, though coach Ken Niumatalolo’s metaphor isn’t based on tectonic plates and fault lines.
“There’s a storm getting ready to come, a hurricane,” he told reporters after Tuesday’s announcement. “Those that are in homes don’t worry about it. It’s the people outside looking in that need a place for refuge. … We had to find a home, and we feel like we found a great home in the Big East.”
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Posted on January 26th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Gary Williams has made himself scarce around the Maryland Terrapins men’s basketball program, which he ran for the prior 22 seasons. He’s been busy completing various tasks for the athletic department (for which he’s paid a tidy $400,000), working as an analyst for the Big Ten network and, just recently, making weekly local radio appearances on ESPN 980.
But there was no way Williams could avoid making his presence felt Wednesday at Comcast Center. It’s considered “The House That Gary Built,” but on this night the court officially was his.
“It was great,” he said, several minutes after entering to wild applause from a standing-room-only crowd, on hand to witness the public unveiling of “Gary Williams Court” before the Terps played Duke. “It’s just something I hope everybody feels a part of that’s ever been connected with basketball at the University of Maryland. I think that’s important.”
Duke pulled away in the final seven minutes for a 74-61 victory, but that didn’t spoil the evening. Neither did word a day earlier that former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell wasn’t a fan of the court’s new name. Driesell reportedly sent an e-mail of protest to Chancellor William “Brit” Kirwan, stating that he didn’t want his own name or any other coach’s name emblazoned on the hardwood.
“It’s not fair to my players that they would put Gary Williams‘ name on the court,” Driesell told the Baltimore Sun. “It’s a disservice to players such as Tom McMillen, John Lucas, Len Elmore, Brad Davis, Greg Manning, Adrian Branch and Steve Sheppard.”
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Posted on January 24th, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
The Washington Wizards put Flip Saunders out his misery Tuesday. Too bad the fans left behind aren’t that lucky.
Being fired by Washington probably is the best thing that has happened to Saunders in his 15, mostly-distinguished seasons as an NBA head coach. No more nights of watching their ugly, uninspired basketball. No more weeks of trying to get a group of hardheaded players to work together. No more months of lopsided losses followed by blowout losses, with a few close losses and narrow wins sprinkled in as teases.
Saunders gets relief from all of that anguish but still collects next season’s salary from his four-year, $18 million contract.
He said had been staying up late and eating nothing but Subway; on Tuesday night he should’ve slept like a baby after dinner at the Hay Adams.
John Wall’s demeanor and body language came under fire during his rookie season, with Saunders stressing that improvement was necessary entering this campaign. But Saunders couldn’t hide his own distress through a 2-15 start. His expressions on the sideline varied only slightly, from helpless to hapless to hopeless, and it was easy to see why.
He was coaching the worst team in the league and it wasn’t getting any better.
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Posted on January 23rd, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
“What would my grandmother think?”
If Yuri Wright had asked himself that simple question before sending out a series of offensive tweets, he probably wouldn’t have hit the button. And the University of Michigan wouldn’t have rescinded its scholarship offer. And Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J., wouldn’t have expelled him.
Twitter might be the equivalent of high school doodling 30 years ago, but those scribbled messages on notebook covers weren’t transmitted through cyberspace for the entire world to see. Even the average high school and college student can lose out on opportunities because of inappropriate social media postings. But top-ranked athletes with interest from schools such as Notre Dame, Colorado and Rutgers are watched as closely as anyone and should know better than to unleash tweets that are sexually graphic or racial.
“This could be the first … example of Twitter really hurting a [top-flight] kid,” national recruiting analyst Mike Farrell told the Star-Ledger. “The shame of it is that I know every kid was warned. I know conversations occur — especially at Don Bosco.”
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Posted on January 23rd, 2012
By DERON SNYDER
Your life is judged by the contents within the dash, that punctuation mark between the dates of your birth and death, respectively. But some observers will focus on Joe Paterno’s final months of life, a dizzying and tumultuous 78-day descent from revered legend to fired, deceased legend.
Ignoring the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal that ended Paterno’s 46-season tenure as Penn State’s head football coach is out of the question. The sordid details warrant prominent mention — high in any story or early in any broadcast — whenever we look back at Paterno’s reign. There’s no escaping the fact that a longtime assistant allegedly conducted heinous acts for years, right under JoePa’s nose in the football team’s facility.
The revelations contained in a shocking 23-page indictment are a threat to overwhelm Paterno’s legacy. That would be a mistake. Sandusky gave Paterno’s image a black eye, not multiple cuts and lumps with busted lips and a bloody nose.
Reasonable people can disagree on Paterno’s culpability and whether he deserved to be fired Nov. 9, roughly 12 hours after he announced he would retire at season’s end. Paterno’s supporters argued that he fulfilled his legal requirements when a graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, informed him of a sexual assault in the showers. If higher-ups didn’t do the right thing with the information Paterno provided, that was their fault, not his.
Unlike former officials Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, Paterno wasn’t charged with a crime. But he was guilty of a lesser offense that led me to support his immediate firing, though it wasn’t grave enough to overshadow everything.
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