Posted on March 21st, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
We can’t have it both ways in sports (or life), yet we insist on trying. We bounce between hard, cold truth and warm-and-fuzzy fiction, choosing whichever flag suits our purpose at a given moment.
For instance, consider the controversy over NBA teams resting superstar players.
Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue sparked outrage by keeping LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on the bench Saturday during a nationally televised blowout loss against the L.A. Clippers. A week earlier, Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr committed the same offense, declining to play Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala in a primetime matchup against the San Antonio Spurs.
The coaches ruined the experience that ticketholders and TV viewers expected! What a slap in the face to broadcast partner ABC and corporate sponsors! Lue and Kerr should be ashamed of themselves for disrespecting the game like that!
Announcers Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson seemed to take Cavs’ absences as a personal affront. “This is an absolute joke,” Jackson complained. “Who is protecting the fans? Who is protecting the game of basketball? Something’s gotta be done.”
Van Gundy went further. “If this was any other business, it would be a prosecutable offense – this type of bait-and-switch maneuver that the NBA allows its team to pull,” he said.
Yet, in a survey of Cavs’ and Warriors’ fans, 100 percent would agree that long-term health and rest for the postseason is more important than any single, regular-season game. Every NBA general manager would sign up to lose a game in March if it meant winning four in May. NBA coaches would unanimously choose to be short-handed for meaningless contests down the stretch opposed to win-or-go-home games in the postseason.
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Posted on March 16th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Maybe they’re just selfish and interested only in their team’s success. Maybe they’re just gullible and conditioned to side with management. Maybe they’re just envious and wish they were enjoying fortune and fame instead.
Whatever the reason, fans too often let emotions get in the way and don’t see the NFL as the cold-blooded business it is.
Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins offered a reminder this week on Adam Schefter’s ESPN podcast.
“They’ll cut you on your birthday, they’ll cut you on the day your child is born, they’ll cut you on Christmas Eve,” Cousins said in his first public remarks since Washington fired Scot McCloughan as general manager. “So you just never know what’s going to happen. I guess I’m always going to keep an open mind, so I try not to get blindsided.”
Cousins denied a report that he contacted owner Dan Snyder and demanded a trade. However, he acknowledged reaching out to Snyder and team president Bruce Allen to inquire “if there was any interest in trading me, just to try to get an understanding of their perspective,” he said. “But from what I heard in conversations, I felt very much supported and felt the owner and the president of the team want me to be the quarterback there for a long time.”
Sure they do. Unless a team blows them away with a trade offer.
Then it’s, you know, just business.
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Posted on March 14th, 2017
BY DERON SNYDER
Question: How can a No. 1 seed be an underdog in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament?
Answer: When it’s Gonzaga.
In the game “One of these doesn’t belong,” Gonzaga stands out compared to fellow top seeds Villanova, Kansas and North Carolina. Each of those schools has won at least two national titles. The Bulldogs – making their 19th consecutive appearance in the tournament – are looking to reach their first Final Four.
This could be their best shot, entering with a 32-1 record and a No. 2 ranking.
Then again, the same was said in 2013. The Bulldogs were ranked No. 1 and earned their first top seed but they didn’t survive the opening weekend, knocked out by Final Four-bound Wichita State.
The Shockers became just the latest mid-major bracket-buster to snatch Gonzaga’s place as America’s Cinderella. Butler reached the title game (the title game!) in 2010 and 2011. Another interloper, Virginia Commonwealth, also made it to the 2011 Final Four, five years after George Mason’s improbable run.
Gonzaga has burned so many folks in office pools, the Zags should come with a warning label.
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Posted on March 9th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Two out of three ain’t bad.
The World Baseball Classic is correct about its international nature and the sport involved. But the tournament is a long way from being a sterling standard on these shores, where our sporting attention each spring is drawn to college basketball and NFL free agency.
We’re not wired for high-stakes, competitive baseball in March, when we’re accustomed to players jogging in the outfield during exhibition games.
The WBC, held every four years by Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association, is a great idea in theory but hindered by obstacles in practice. Namely, the timing is bad and options aren’t better. Organizing a global competition with baseball’s best is problematic when six months of the year – seven if you count the postseason – are off-limits.
Team USA begins play Friday night against Colombia at Marlins Park. Saturday’s game against the Dominican Republic is sold out. The atmosphere in Miami’s Little Havana will be as raucous and festive as international athletics get.
But the passion doesn’t carry over to the event as a whole, not with so many big-name stars sitting out and so many fans supporting those decisions. Few players turn down invites and explain their reasoning as bluntly as the New York Mets’ Noah Syndergaard.
“Because I am a Met,” he told reporters last week. “Nobody made it to the Hall of Fame or won a World Series playing in the WBC.”
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Posted on March 7th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Fear of failure and fear of success are close cousins, equally devastating in their ability to paralyze individuals and institutions. Potential can’t be maximized when you’re afraid to try, afraid to extend your zone of comfort.
We can’t say for certain that Washington’s NFL team enjoys life in the rut it has occupied for two decades. However, the environment has become quite familiar and cozy, making it seem like the natural order of things.
For this franchise, it’s never “What would the Patriots do?” Or “How would the Steelers operate?” Instead, paths are picked according to “Which would the Browns take?”
Whenever a lucid, intelligent and well thought-out route is available, the Skins inevitably head in the opposite direction.
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Posted on March 1st, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Some parents live through their kids and never stop bragging about them. Their son isn’t just good, he’s great. Their daughter isn’t merely smart, she’s a genius. Their children are not only talented, they’re unprecedented.
Parents like that are mostly annoying.
But they’re relatively harmless, too.
We imagine that their youngster might be a little embarrassed and resentful, might feel pressure to keep pace with the praise. Maybe it’s a turnoff that leads to burnout. That happens.
However, there also are cases where kids seem fueled by the proclamations, if not unaffected. They reach admirable heights and display impressive dedication. They clearly possess inner drive and there’s no telling how much came from their parents. Anywhere from none to all of it.
Freshman Lonzo Ball, point guard for No. 3 UCLA and a projected top-three draft pick, has a dad like that. Not just a little, either. Some of LaVar Ball’s declarations give Earl Woods and Richard Williams a run for predictions they made about Tiger, Venus and Serena.
“You can’t compare my boy to anyone,” Ball told TMZ Sports recently. “He’s gonna be better than Steph Curry in the NBA.”
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Posted on February 27th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Organizations as big and powerful as the NFL should be much slicker in handling spin and shaping perception. But the NFL routinely falls to a level you’d expect from mom-and-pop outfits unexpectedly thrust into the national spotlight.
We see right through the league’s actions, which lack consistency and appear to be made on the fly. The latest example involves the Scouting Combine, which begins Tuesday in Indianapolis.
Unlike its track record in handling public relations crises, the NFL excels at creating ways to engage fans, entice sponsors and extract dollars from both. Nothing in the history of sports and marketing compares to the combine. It began 30 years ago at the Hoosier Dome, where the windows were covered and the prospects’ results were privileged information.
Now the week-long event receives nearly non-stop TV coverage.
The NFL this year is launching the Combine Experience, allowing fans to play interactive games, compete in skills drills and participate in virtual-reality activities. Approximately 200,000 square feet of the Indiana Convention Center is dedicated to the cause, including a massive retail store and other attractions. Fans can watch prospects’ bench-press drills and observe press conferences.
All 32 NFL teams will be on hand to poke, prod and probe the 330 invited players.
But neither Oklahoma halfback Joe Mixon, Ole Miss quarterback Chad Kelly nor Baylor receiver Ishmael Zamora will be in attendance,
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Posted on February 22nd, 2017
By DERON SNYDER
Once again, it’s time to check off some items on my “TIDU List” – Things I Don’t Understand:
*HOW THE WIZARDS SNUCK UP ON EVERYBODY.
Hard as it is to believe, Washington is a bonafide contender in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. The metamorphosis happened right before our eyes and we never saw it coming during a wretched 2-8 start under new coach Scott Brooks. But the Wizards are 32-13 since, among the league’s hottest teams and a popular pick to make a deep run.
Regardless, GM Ernie Grunfeld still deserved a pink slip before now.
*WHY MAGIC JOHNSON SEEMS PERFECT FOR HIS NEW JOB.
Running the Los Angeles Lakers’ front office must have been Johnson’s birthright. He was the face of “Showtime” and helped the NBA to new heights in the ‘80s. Then he became a successful businessman while dabbling in sports. He has a daunting task with the dreadful Lakers, who haven’t more than 27 games since the 2012-13 season.
At least he can’t do worse than when he coached the team (5-11) in 1994.
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Posted on February 20th, 2017
Dr. Larry Nassar
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
How do agencies charged with caring for children and youth become so callous?
In England last year, an “Operation Hydrant” hotline was flooded with calls about coaches’ sex abuse not just in soccer, but in rugby, gymnastics, tennis, swimming and golf as well. In Pennsylvania last week, the arrest of Jeffrey Sandusky re-opened scars caused by his father, Jerry, the convicted pedophile and former Nittany Lions football coach.
In Connecticut two years ago, the Boys Scouts were slapped with an $11.8 million verdict for sexual abuse and cover-up, with a reference to the organization’s “ineligible volunteer files” (aka, “Perversion Files”), which tracked and concealed allegations of sexual misconduct. In Massachusetts, The Boston Globe won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for revealing a widespread pattern of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that the city’s Archdiocese hid.
The United States Olympic Committee appears to be the latest culprit in a troubling pattern of betrayal: another organization that should protect kids but instead has allowed them to be prey. Various examples exist among the national governing bodies, i.e., USA Swimming, USA Taekwondo, etc. One of the latest — USA Gymnastics — was featured Sunday on “60 Minutes.”
The broadcast follows last summer’s damning report by The Indianapolis Star, which found that USA Gymnastics (USAG) failed to report multiple allegations of sexual abuse by coaches. Such lapses included a Georgia case in which a coach abused young female athletes for seven years after USAG dismissed the first of four warning about him.
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Posted on February 16th, 2017
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
Traditions can be tricky as time passes and norms change. Customs that once occurred without a second thought can become questionable and antiquated. Beliefs that once were widely held can be broadly rejected a few generations later.
These shifts take place within families and society in general, most notably in attitudes toward race and gender.
Few individuals, at least publicly, argue in favor of old practices such as segregated restrooms and male-only workplaces. Likewise, the idea of reserving certain positions for white players, or limiting athletic opportunities for women, is no longer standard operating procedure.
Breaking traditions in politics has been all the rage lately and has seeped into sports. Some athletes are more willing to express their views, either by speaking out or kneeling down. Others have made their thoughts known by being elsewhere during team trips to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Not every player who declines an invitation to the White House after a championship does so for political reasons. Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison skipped visits under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. “I don’t feel the need to go, actually,” Harrison said in 2009. “I don’t feel like it’s that big a deal to me.”
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said that’s how he feels about several players who announced they won’t accompany the team whenever it visits President Donald Trump. It’s not scheduled yet, but the trip will be New England’s fifth in the last 16 years.
“Every time we’ve had the privilege of going to the White House, a dozen players don’t go,” Kraft said Monday on the Today Show. “This is the first time it’s gotten any media attention.”
That’s not exactly true.
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