We’ve come a long way from the
days when being “a real man” meant any signs of weakness were forbidden.
Lessons were learned early. Skinned
knees are painful for all children, yet little boys were told to suck it up
while little girls got kisses on the boo-boo. Boys who were teased for crying became
men incapable of expressing their feelings (besides anger). Being tough on the
outside and hollow on the inside created chronic cases of toxic masculinity, a threat
to women, children, and sensible men everywhere.
Thankfully, we’ve moved toward
embracing and affirming men’s need for self-care and emotional support without
calling them soft.
But we might be overcompensating
in Ben Simmons’ case.
The Brooklyn Nets guard is trying
our patience, tempting us to lose compassion for whatever’s going on in his
head. ESPN
reported that Simmons, a day ahead of his planned season debut, said his
back was sore and he can’t play in Monday’s must-win playoff game against the
Boston Celtics.
Who said his back only hurts because he lacks a spine?! That’s just wrong!
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day,
some folks only concentrate on MLK’s dreams while ignoring his denouncements.
King wasn’t just about fighting systemic racism. He also spoke forcefully
against poverty and the Vietnam War, topics that endangered his life more than
singing kumbaya with Klansmen.
But whitewashing King’s legacy
makes the status quo easier to maintain.
April 15 marks the 75th
anniversary of Robinson smashing Major League Baseball’s color line when he
debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field. His entry in 1947 started a
ripple of integration across sports and portions of society (e.g., the military
and public schools). After six All-Star seasons in an 11-year career, he
retired and eventually was enshrined in the
Hall of Fame.
And that’s where his story ends … unless you pay attention and reject any sanitized version of history.
To everyone who wondered how Tiger
Woods can remain sports’ most unimaginable champion, 25 years after bursting
onto the scene, he just dropped bars like Roy Jones Jr.: “Y’all must’ve forgot.”
As for those too young to fully appreciate
the phenomenon that still overshadows golf’s grandest tournament and top players,
Woods went full-on Biggie Smalls: “If you don’t know, now you know.”
He won by teeing off on Thursday,
a simple feat that seemed impossible after the events of Feb. 23, 2021, when
a near-fatal wreck of his Genesis GV80 caused injuries that had doctors
contemplating amputation for his right leg. “I wish I could tell you when I’m
playing again,” he
said two months ago. “… I’m still working on the walking part.”
He won by limping around Augusta National and shooting 1-under par in his first competitive round since the horrific accident. The performance left him tied for 10th place, four shots off the lead. Woods never would’ve bragged about that 20 years ago, but he knows what his leg looked like. “To see where I’ve been … to get from there to here, it was no easy task,” he said afterward.
I don’t know what’s happening within
the Grambling State University athletics department, but someone needs to
request a wellness check on them.
Did they fall and bump their
heads? Is something in the water? Have they gotten ahold of bad edibles?
Whatever the case, those folks are
straight-up tripping.
First, they hired Art Briles as an
assistant football coach in February. None of the NCAA’s other top 260 colleges
has touched the former Baylor coach for six years, since a blistering,
51-page report said his “incurious attitude toward potential criminal
conduct by his student-athletes was deeply troubling.” The ensuing howls of
protest surprised exactly no one except the administration, and Briles resigned
four days after being announced.
Evidence beforehand suggested that
new athletic director Trayvean Scott might’ve brought a clown show to town. (The
day before announcing Briles was hired, they claimed any such talk was just
a rumor.) But the latest goings-on have convinced undecided jurors and the
verdict is in:
Grambling’s athletics department
is crazy AF.
New women’s volleyball coach Chelsey
Lucas has
cut the entire team. All 19 players, just like that. No more practice, no
more competition, and no more scholarship. We can’t determine the worst part of
this situation because everything about it is foul.
The clowns have morphed into the
Three Stooges – Scott, Lucas and GSU athletics communications director Brian
Howard. “I hate to say out with the old, but in with the new a little bit,” Howard
told KSLA-TV. “… At the end of the day, Coach Lucas has a goal, has a
vision.
“We have a goal as an institution
and a vision as well to win, and that’s first and foremost,” he said.
Either he can’t hear himself or he’s tone-deaf. Surely, he’s literate, but he can’t read the times.
The 24-hour news cycle is an
unrelenting beast that never gets its full. Constantly on the hunt to feed an insatiable
appetite, it regurgitates the smallest morsels and makes them resemble sumptuous
meals for our consumption.
We’re then left with a daily choice:
Dive in and gorge on every offering of junk food? Or turn down our plate and
wait for more substantive fare?
Among the items on Sunday’s menu were
headlines out of Los Angeles. One had “Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar criticizes
some of LeBron James’ actions.” Another entrée included a quote atop the dish,
noting Abdul-Jabbar’s contention that James “should
be embarrassed” about some things.
I don’t know about you, but those sound
like fried Oreos to me.
The NFL has tinkered with its policies
and tweaked its practices on minority hiring for over 20 years now. Yet the
league finds itself in the same position today – a couple of Black head coaches
– as in 2003 when the
Rooney Rule was implemented to increase diversity.
Sure, all 32 teams are now
required to have an offensive assistant coach who’s a minority, meaning “a
female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority.” But some teams already
have one or more coaches who fit that description, and we see where that’s
gotten us. Black candidates went 1-for-9 in landing head coaching jobs this year.
Instituting a mandate for assistant coaches won’t change owners’ hearts and
minds when it’s time fill the top spot.
Adding so-called “quota hires” to
the pool isn’t the answer.
The notion of hiring coaches based on race, ethnicity or gender is troubling, which isn’t to say the individuals are unqualified. Two things can be true. One can have impeccable credentials and receive preferential treatment.
A 21-second clip can teach you a
lot about the NFL, even if it’s only a player working out in shorts.
Prior to Friday, University of
Michigan linebacker David Ojabo was considered a possible top-10 pick in next
month’s draft. Then he suffered
a devastating Achilles injury while performing exercises in front of NFL scouts
at his school. Suffice it to say he’s no longer viewed as a top-10 pick, thanks
to a chilling moment captured on video.
Ojabo goes down about eight
seconds into the clip and grabs his lower left leg. As he rolls on the ground, wincing
and writhing in pain, only one onlooker makes a move. That dude walks ever so slowly
toward Ojabo … before veering to pass him and retrieve the football. He slowly walks
past Ojabo again, barely looking at the 6-foot-5, 225-pound young man who’s in
obvious distress.
If you didn’t know, now you know. That
short video sums up the NFL’s sensibilities and reminds anyone who forgot.
“I know the NFL is a cold business
but watching the lack of concern or empathy from the scouts, coaches and
observers following David Ojabo’s injury bugs me,” tweeted Bucky
Brooks, an NFL broadcaster and former player. “Perhaps someone should’ve
checked on him instead of grabbing the ball and moving to the next drill. Just
a thought.”
Not surprisingly, a former team
doctor totally
missed the point, believing that only trained professionals can be of
assistance. “I get this is a bad look,” tweeted David J. Chao, who once worked for
the San Diego Chargers. “But the NFL is so specialized, it is the job of the [Certified
Athletic Trainer] to run check on him. That is what happens to star players on
game day too.”
Doc should keep a low profile based
on his raggedy past. The Ojabo lesson isn’t about whose “job” includes checking
on an injured player. That’s not listed among teammates’ responsibilities, yet
they’ll comfort a fallen colleague on the game days that Chao mentions.
Like the coaches and scouts who
didn’t make a move, most of us aren’t doctors or trainers, either. But we would’ve
responded to Ojabo’s pain for a simple reason.
The only team
that’s given Colin Kaepernick a workout since 2016 has an opening at quarterback,
his position.
Kaepernick, who
has trained nonstop and received a rave this week from a player on the team,
still wants to play.
Seems simple
enough. But the head coach – Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks – sounds awfully
confused.
“Does that guy
deserve a second shot? I think he does. Somewhere.” Carroll
told reporters Wednesday after saying Kaepernick asked for a tryout. “I
don’t know if it’s here. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know if it’s even in
football. I don’t know.”
But we know. Actions
talk and BS walks, and the NFL is full of it. The league has wanted no parts of
Kaepernick since he protested social injustice by kneeling during the national
anthem in 2016, his last NFL season.
Funny how
Carroll was crystal clear in 2017 after bringing him in for a workout. “He’s a
starter in this league, and we have a starter,” the
coach told reporters. “But he’s a starter in this league, and I can’t
imagine that somebody won’t give him a chance to play.” Carroll wasn’t perplexed
in June 2020 either, expressing
regret that Seattle didn’t sign him three years earlier. “The reason it
wasn’t the right fit is because I held him in such a high regard,” he said. “I didn’t
see him as a backup quarterback and I didn’t want to put him in that situation
with [Russell Wilson].”
Now that Wilson
is gone and there’s a gaping hole at QB, Carroll isn’t certain about the fit. If
that’s the attitude from a one-time supporter, we can’t imagine anyone else giving
Kaepernick a chance, though they should.
There’s nothing
to lose by seeing if he can still play like Seattle wideout Tyler Lockett suggested Monday
in a tweet: “Yessir!! That man Kap is ready!!” There’s no guarantee that
any player would regain top form at Kaepernick’s age (34) after a five-year
layoff. But that’s the purpose of physical exams, workouts, and training camp.
Teams will give your grandfather a shot if they think Pop-Pop might help.
March Madness is back, signaling a
return of office pools, watch parties, and – if we’re lucky – a bunch of buzzer-beating
baskets throughout the tournaments.
It’s also fine time to recall a dirty
detail about this vast enterprise, a little fact that big-time college hoops
shares with big-time college football. Recent relaxations of NCAA rules might’ve
have obscured the truth and pushed it out of mind, but the reality remains
unchanged, so don’t get it twisted.
Consider this a friendly reminder:
Players aren’t compensated for the labor that produces ginormous bags for everyone
else, from coaches making eight figures, athletic directors making seven
figures, and down the line.
Former Ole Miss basketball player
Kylia Carter – mother of Orlando Magic forward and former Duke star Wendell
Carter Jr. – nailed it during
remarks to the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics in 2018. She
said the NCAA is a system “where the laborers are the only people that are not
being compensated for the work they do while those in charge receive mighty
compensation. The only two systems where I’ve known that to be in place are slavery
and the prison system.”
I know you’re thinking, “That’s changed. What about players’ deals for their name, image, and likeness? The NCAA allowed them to start making loot on NIL last summer. Doesn’t that count?”
The first takeaway regarding last
week’s controversy over chartered flights for the WNBA’s New York Liberty is
simple:
Team owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai
are straight gangsta.
They knew the league’s collective
bargaining agreement expressly forbids teams from using chartered flights. They
knew not every franchise has the stacks to provide such arrangements. They knew
there
could be serious repercussions if someone snitched and word got back to league
headquarters.
And the Tsais STILL said eff it.
They didn’t put the Liberty on a private
flight just one time, but for all five road games following last season’s All-Star
break. Oh yeah, a real boss move: They flew the team to Napa Valley for a
getaway over Labor Day weekend during the final road trip. Sabrina
Ionescu, who co-stars with Chris Paul in one of those State Farm
commercials, commemorated the excursion with a festive Tik Tok from
sun-drenched California: “Can your owners do this???? Wassup??!”
A few have the means to. But their “want to” has been diminished like the Tsais’ bank account, now 500 grand lighter after a league-record fine.
Follow
