Posted on August 27th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
We thought the NBA offseason couldn’t get any juicer after the blockbuster trade between Cleveland and Boston, which followed a sea change of summer movement involving Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Chris Paul and others.
The Kyrie Irving-Isaiah Thomas deal was unlike any in NBA history, with a potential league-wide ripple effect. The top two contenders in a conference don’t exchange All-Star players at the same position, especially the season after meeting in the conference finals. Players taken at opposite ends of a draft (Irving, first in 2011, and Thomas, dead-last the same year) aren’t traded for one another.
That’s crazy, right?
Maybe too crazy to materialize.
Cleveland received an impressive haul for its disgruntled point guard, netting Thomas, starter Jae Crowder, prospect Ante Zizcic and Brooklyn’s unprotected 2018 first-round pick. In theory, that package is enough to make LeBron James reconsider leaving Ohio, a relocation that’s widely presumed to occur after next season.
But now, everything is in limbo, reportedly because the Cavaliers don’t like the looks of Thomas’ hip. They might ask Boston to sweeten the deal, which could lead to a voided trade with everyone remaining in place.
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Posted on August 25th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Trades like this week’s stunner, Cleveland and Boston swapping All-Star point guards rarely happen.
In one sense, it’s unprecedented: We’ve never seen the first player selected in a draft (Kyrie Irving, 2011) traded for the last player selected in the same draft (Isaiah Thomas). We also seldom see the top two contenders in a conference strike a deal that arguably makes their rival stronger.
It must be nice to live in an NBA market where GMs can pull off a swing-for-the-fences move that includes pair of stars, another starter, a prospect and a first-round pick. Yes, it’s OK to be jealous when your team’s biggest waves come from re-signing players and adding injury-prone questions marks from the discount bin.
Anyway, the big question isn’t whether Boston can repeat as the East’s No. 1 seed or Cleveland can repeat as conference champ. The more pressing concern is: “What’s all this mean for the Wizards.”
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Posted on August 24th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
We might be ready to watch some football, but fewer and fewer prep students are gearing up to play.
According to a recent report by the National Federation of State High School Associations, the number of high school participants fell by 25,901 in 2016-17. Enrollment is down 4.5 percent over the past decade and schools in the Midwest and Northeast are dropping the sport at a startling rate.
However, the NFL doesn’t have anything to worry about as a new season approaches. Despite all the concerns about safety, concussions and long-term effects, and despite the high-profile instances of early retirements, we’re generations away from the point where a player shortage is remotely possible.
Our Fridays are suffering a bit. But our Sundays (and Saturdays) should be fine.
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Posted on August 22nd, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Let the hand-wringing begin. Furrowed brows are welcome, too. So is head shaking, tsk-tsking and muttering under your breath.
The $24 million quarterback and the coach with a two-year extension have failed miserably in leading Washington’s offense – the team’s clear strength – thus far through the preseason. Instead of resembling one of the league’s most high-powered units, the Skins’ starters have struggled to manage a measly first down. They move the chains as if moving mountains.
Their ineptitude has created mass consternation in some corners and outright panic in others. Doomsdayers see a worst-case scenario materializing with every errant pass and fruitless run. Critics who worried about the loss of offensive coordinator Sean McVay, along with 1,000-yard wideouts Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson, are doubling down on fearful forecasts.
Where’s Aaron Rodgers when you need him?
The Green Bay quarterback didn’t stick around long Saturday night – going 6 of 8 for 37 yards and a touchdown on his only drive – but the prescription he wrote for the Packers faithful three years ago could be beneficial around these parts today.
He gave them five letters: R-E-L-A-X. Relax, he said. Everything is going to be OK. The assurance was issued to calm a fidgety fan base after Green Bay’s 1-2 start in 2014. The Packers finished at 12-4 and advanced to the NFC championship game.
At this point, it’s fair to ask if I’ve fallen and bumped my head.
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Posted on August 17th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
The story is told of a man whose wife would cut off both ends of a ham before cooking it.
One day he asked why, and the wife said she got the habit from her mother. The husband questioned his mother-in-law, who said she got it from her mother. When the man finally queried his wife’s grandmother, the old lady reached into the cupboard and pulled out a timeworn pan.
“This was all I had to cook with,” she said. “The ham was always too large, so I’d cut off both ends.”
In some instances, we’re like the wife, performing rote tasks with no idea why. I’ve often thought the national anthem at sporting events falls in that category. I’ve asked the same question Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel posed this week in a thought-provoking column:
Why do we even play “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games?
If you thought the NFL killed this story by blackballing Colin Kaepernick, you since have learned otherwise. Oakland’s Marshawn Lynch and Seattle’s Michael Bennett sat out the anthem during preseason games last weekend, around the same time Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists held demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va. The ensuing hatred and violence harkened back to clashes from the civil rights era a half-century ago.
“I’ve been thinking about sitting during the national anthem for a minute, especially after everything that’s been happening the last couple weeks,” Bennett said Tuesday in an as-told-to Yahoo article. “It’s just been so crazy right now, and I felt like the conversation wasn’t over. I felt like this needed to be a continuous thing that’s going on. I know it offends a lot of people, that’s why I kept it straightforward. I love America, I love hot dogs, I love everything about it.”
Some folks can’t grasp the concept of Bennett – or anyone – claiming to love America, yet choosing to sit during Francis Scott Key’s most-famous work. Critics see a disconnect.
But Bennett, Lynch, Kaepernick, Philadelphia’s Malcolm Jenkins (raised fist) and others, see the perfunctory performance as the perfect opportunity to move conversations from pride to introspection. That’s more than a lot of us can claim when “Oh say can you see …” gets started.
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Posted on August 15th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Baseball’s rain policy is all wet and no team this season has taken on more water than the Nationals.
I don’t know what it is about Washington and precipitation, but more than literal clouds hang over the franchise when showers loom. A reputation for postseason flame-outs apparently isn’t enough. The Nats are adding a measure of infamy for regular-season wash outs.
The team handles inclement weather the way Washingtonians drive in the snow – dreadfully.
The latest example occurred last weekend. To be fair, the Nationals weren’t liable for Saturday’s fiasco, when Bryce Harper narrowly escaped serious injury after torrential downpours and a three-hour rain delay. While running out a grounder in the first inning against San Francisco, Harper’s left foot slid off the base. He flew, twisting awkwardly and crashing to the ground. He grimaced and writhed, clutched his left knee and needed assistance to the dugout.
Undesirable combinations of letters flashed through our minds. ACL. MCL. DL.
The injury bug hasn’t merely bitten the Nats this season, it has tried swallowing them whole. But Harper received a fortunate diagnosis. “The good news is there’s no ligament or tendon damage, which is pretty remarkable in my mind just seeing the type of injury that he had,” general manager Mike Rizzo told reporters.
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Posted on August 10th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
In major college sports, the participants range from athletes who are students to students who are athletes. The ideal balance is found smack-dab in the middle, as rare and elusive as coaches who reject better jobs to keep their word to incoming recruits.
Nevermind that only a handful of college players advance to the pro ranks. NCAA Division I football is professional enough in its own right.
Ask UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen if you’re in doubt. In an interview Tuesday with Bleacher Report, he equated being a student and being a player to “trying to do two fulltime jobs.”
Rosen isn’t a stereotypical jock. He grew up rich with Ivy-League parents, a renowned surgeon and a journalist, the latter being a great-great-granddaughter of the founder of the Wharton School at Penn. He has spoken publicly of the advantages he enjoys by coming from an affluent, educated family.
So, Rosen’s take on the subject of major college football – “Human beings don’t belong in school with our schedules. No one in their right mind should have a football player’s schedule and go to school” – deserves our attention.
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Posted on August 8th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
Shut up and stick to fill-in-the-blank.
For former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was acting. For former Congressman Sonny Bono, it was singing. For former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, it was basketball.
Why do some folks insist on placing others in a box that limits their expression? We turn to movies, music and sports as a form of escape, but asking performers to otherwise be silent is selfish. An inability to separate great scenes, riffs or plays from entertainers’ thoughts is a “you” problem.
Granted, enjoying the work of someone who committed heinous acts like sexual assault or domestic violence can be a struggle. That’s more understandable than rejecting the artistry of someone whose opinion on, say, police brutality or racial injustice, differs from yours. Some consumers might have a problem with any expression of thought (Blue Lives Matter?), but too often the resentment is caused by disagreement with expressed thoughts.
In that case, some football fans surely were unhappy with portions of the speeches Saturday during the Pro Football NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Former San Diego Chargers halfback LaDainian Tomlinson had the nerve to talk about his great-great-great grandfather being a slave and how America should fulfill the promise of liberty and justice all.
Former Seattle Seahawks safety Kenny Easley went a step further. He devoted one minute of his 22-minute speech to a social stance that can get a player blackballed.
“Black lives do matter, and all lives matter, too,” Easley said. “… We’ve got to stand up as a country, as black Americans and fight the good fight to protect our youth and our American constitutional right not to die while driving or walking the streets black in America. It has to stop, and we can do it, and the lessons we learn in sports can help.”
Yes, sports can teach lessons. But that doesn’t guarantee we’ll pass the exams.
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Posted on August 3rd, 2017
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
Contrary to popular belief, NCAA doesn’t stand for National Collegiate Athletic Association.
It stands for No Compassion At All.
The body that rules intercollegiate sports and bleeds the revenue-producing laborers has struck again. Give the overlords credit for one thing: They’re remarkably consistent in their heartless handling of college athletes.
Donald De La Haye is just the latest example in a long line of young adults who ran afoul of the organization’s archaic rules. A kicker for Central Florida, De La Haye was ruled ineligible Monday because he refused to accept NCAA restrictions on his popular YouTube channel.
He created videos that depicted his life as student-athlete and brought him a small profit thanks to more than 95,000 subscribers. But the NCAA’s shorts bunch up when anyone else makes a dollar. De La Haye was told he couldn’t monetize videos that referenced his status as a player or showed his skills. Those videos would have to be moved to a non-monetized YouTube account if he wanted to maintain his eligibility.
“De La Haye chose not to accept the conditions of the waiver and has therefore been ruled ineligible to compete in NCAA-sanctioned competition,” the school said in a statement. “UCF Athletics wishes him the best in future endeavors.”
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Posted on July 31st, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Once upon a time, many little boys wanted to be police officers or fire fighters when they grew up. Perhaps that’s the still the case today. But it seems like more young tykes dream of being point guards, sluggers and quarterbacks.
Baseball’s trade deadline Monday put contenders and pretenders under the microscope. NFL interest is heating up with training camps underway from coast to coast. The NBA is cooling down – minus the bubbling Kyrie Irving rumors – after a torrid summer of intrigue.
And still they come. Wave after wave of high schoolers and preschoolers, eyes set on the college and pro ranks like the parents who drive them (figuratively and literally). With seemingly every game on TV, separated only by talk shows about the games and business, it’s no surprise that hands shoot up when kids are asked: “Who wants to be athlete?”
Our exposure to major sports and their media coverage make it clear we’re talking about a multibillion-dollar industry. And with that much money at the top, you know there’s plenty along the supply line. Especially in the travel.
The Associated Press reports that communities across the country are reinventing themselves to serve as youth sports meccas. A 2009 study by the National Association of Sports Commissions and Ohio University found that participation in youth sports travel increased from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. According to AP, spending has increased by 10 percent in each of the past two years, and $10.4 billion in spending was generated last year.
From the article: “More teams are going each and every year, because the one thing we found is families will always invest in their kids no matter what,” said Jim Arnold, director of business development for The Sports Force & Fields, a planning and management company.
Westfield, Indiana (population: 30,000) opened a 400-acre, $49 million complex built with public funds in 2014. Local officials in Florida’s Seminole County signed off on a $27 million facility completed in 2016. The Blue Grass Sports Commission in Lexington, Kentucky, has plans for a $30 million complex with multiple multiuse fields. This year, the city of Sandusky, Ohio, opened a $23.5 million facility on 57 acres.
Developers and elected officials argue that youth sports travel, with its associated regional and national tournaments, is recession-proof. Check back the next time one rolls around.
Either way, there’s a crisis back home.
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