Posted on April 21st, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Once again, it’s time to check off some items on my “TIDU List” – Things I don’t Understand:
*WHY COACH RANDY WITTMAN WAITED SO LONG.
Paul Pierce played just 4 percent of his regular-season minutes at power forward, even though he was outstanding there with the Brooklyn Nets. But in Game 1 of the Wizards’ series against Toronto, Pierce spent extended portions of his 36 minutes at the four, a key to Washington’s win. He had a game-high 20 points was 4 for 7 on threes.
Maybe Wittman’s coaching chops become sharper in the postseason.
*HOW THE CAPITALS HAVE FAILED TO CAPITALIZE.
The franchise has gone from Young Guns to Semi-Old Hammers with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom on the marquee. But the era has little to show besides a bevy of awards for goals and points. Down two games to one against the Islanders, the Caps could face their fourth first-round exit in seven postseason trips with the dynamic duo.
Overall, this thrilling experience has been a dud.
*WHY APRIL IS SO BRUTAL FOR IAN DESMOND.
With eight errors in 13 games, the Nats’ shortstop is on pace for 100, which would be the most since Joe Sullivan (102) with the White Sox in 1893. Desmond won’t come close (his career high is 34), but he’ll be glad when May arrives. He had a stretch of eight errors in 12 games last April, a notoriously rough month for him.
At least it’s not affecting him at the bank … er, the plate.
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Posted on April 14th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
One year removed from an exciting, unexpected playoff run, the Washington Wizards are back in the same position – fifth seed in the Eastern Conference with a first-round match-up against the Chicago Bulls.
That doesn’t sound like progress. You might argue that it isn’t progress at all.
It certainly doesn’t feel like a significant stride.
The Wizards have won 46 games – two more than last year – with a shot at another pair as they close the regular season at Indianapolis on Tuesday and Cleveland on Wednesday. If they succeed in reaching 48 wins, they’ll tie the 1975-76 and 1976-77 teams for sixth-most victories in franchise history.
Big whoop.
The 46 wins represent the most victories in a season since 1978-79. One more will give Washington its winningest regular season since 1973-74.
But the success is oddly unfulfilling because more was expected. And the Wizards’ postseason prospects aren’t particularly promising.
A year ago, they advanced by roughing up the Bulls in five games, winning three times in Chicago. Then they stole the opener at top-seeded Indy in the conference semifinals, but blew the series with three losses at Verizon Center.
That experience plus the addition of wizened veteran Paul Pierce was supposed to result in noticeable improvement this season. It worked for a while. The Wizards were 28-13 at the halfway mark, boasting the East’s second-best record.
Skeptics warned that the team had gotten fat on a preponderance of home games against soft opponents. Sure enough, a swoon soon followed.
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Posted on April 8th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
You don’t have to be a women’s basketball fan to appreciate UConn and coach Geno Auriemma.
You just have to appreciate impressive accomplishments, sustained excellence and remarkable success.
The sport or level of competition doesn’t matter … unless a team’s opponents are playing a different game at a lower classification. If one squad is dominant under the same rules against peers in the same division, league or association, that team is worthy of praise. Period.
We readily acknowledge greatness on the most well-lit stages. Mike Krzyzewski is lauded at Duke like John Wooden was extolled at UCLA. Bill Belichick is celebrated in the NFL like Phil Jackson was revered in the NBA. Nick Saban has been immortalized at Alabama.
Lance Leipold doesn’t enjoy nearly the same acclaim because he coached football at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater until leaving for Buffalo in December. But few runs are as stunning as the one he left behind: six national titles in eight seasons, a 32-game winning streak and an overall record of 109-6.
Or consider Anson Dorrance, the North Carolina women’s soccer coach who built an incomprehensible dynasty when the program was founded in 1979. All he’s done is win 21 of the 33 national titles since the NCAA began bestowing them. His career record is 625-28-20, a brisk .943 winning percentage.
Only the incredibly dim-witted and thickheaded wouldn’t consider Dorrance and Leipold – and Auriemma – among the coaching profession’s best and brightest, regardless of sport, gender or level.
Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of the incredibly dim-witted and thickheaded.
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Posted on April 6th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Michael Taylor led off and played center field for the Nationals on Opening Day.
That’s a year ahead of schedule but he’s not complaining.
Taylor stepped in against New York Mets starter Bartolo Colon and produced a two-strike single up the middle for the Nats’ first hit. Unfortunately, only Bryce Harper joined in that column as the Washington lost the opener, 3-1, in front of a sellout crowd at Nationals Park.
The Mets were the opponent when Taylor made his major-league debut, too, but everything was different last year. On Aug. 12, Taylor played right field and batted eighth while Denard Span led off and played center as usual.
You would never know Taylor felt any nerves last summer as he singled and homered, but he said they were less noticeable Monday.
“I definitely was more comfortable out there,” Taylor said Monday after going 1-for-4 and just missing a spectacular grab at the wall on an RBI triple. “The game seemed a little faster last year. Looking in the stands was a different atmosphere, which can kind of change things a little bit.
“But I felt pretty comfortable out there today.”
He should get used it. Playing center and leading off is his probable job description next season. Span’s abdominal injury just forced the Nats ’ hand, giving Taylor a jumpstart on. Span is among several key Nats expected to be elsewhere next season, which works out fine.
The 24-year-old Taylor should be ready to assume the fulltime job by then.
Even if it turns out he isn’t ready just yet.
Ideally, Turner would’ve begun the 2015 season in Triple-A, where he has only 12 games to his credit. He could play every day at Syracuse without the pressure of performing for a team widely predicted to win the World Series. Another year of seasoning and a few hundred more at-bats away from the bright lights definitely wouldn’t hurt.
But reality held the trump card in this case and Nats manager Matt Williams wasn’t hesitant to play Taylor in the opener.
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Posted on April 2nd, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
My head and my heart engaged in a spirited debate after Tiger Woods played 18 holes Tuesday at Augusta National.
My glutes tried to make a point but they didn’t activate.
OK, that was a cheap shot. I really hope Woods’ inoperative rump doesn’t clench up and keep him from the Masters next week like it prompted his first-round withdrawal from the Farmers Insurance Open in February.
He took a leave of absence to repair his dreadful game and we haven’t seen him since. But his private jet was spotted in Augusta and his agent, Mark Steinberg, confirmed to USA Today that Woods flew up for a practice round. “He continues to work on the game and will advise in coming days what plan is,” Steinberg wrote in an email.
With that, my heart and head went at it.
HEART: You know what this means! Tiger is back, baby! Golf isn’t the same without him but we won’t have to worry about that next week. Count on it and don’t be surprised if there’s more. He wouldn’t bother going to Augusta nine days before the Masters unless he plans to play. And he wouldn’t play unless he intends to win.
HEAD: He should intend to contend and be happy with that. He hasn’t been a factor for a long time and there’s no good reason to believe the Masters will be different. He just fell out of the top 100 in the world rankings for the first time since 1996. Cal Ripken was still shy of Lou Gehrig’s “Iron Man” record in 1996.
HEART: Forget about whatever the numbers suggest. He’s still Tiger Woods and this is still the Masters. He owns Augusta National like no one else. He has 13 top-10 finishes – including four victories – in 17 appearances as a pro. His career scoring average is 70.86, the best among players with at least 50 starts in the Masters.
HEAD: That’s all ancient history. He hasn’t won at Augusta since 2005 and hasn’t won a major since the 2008 U.S. Open. Between injuries, a reconstructed swing and more injuries, the man has played just 47 holes this year – at 15-over par! He knows he stinks. Deep down, he probably wonders if he can regain his old form For now, he just looks old.
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Posted on March 31st, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
We use sports as a respite, a means of escape from real-life issues that can keep us awake at night.
However, although there are plenty of other forums to tackle potential third-rail topics such as politics, religion, socioeconomics, race and pop culture, our fun-and-games become a platform time and again. With good reason.
Athletes, coaches, team owners and league officials don’t live in a vacuum. Regardless of their occupations, they’re no different than cabbies and construction workers or accountants and architects. Everyone has a position when controversies swirl.
Being affiliated with sports doesn’t mean you disconnect from everything else around you.
Which brings us to Indianapolis, site of the men’s Final Four this year (and in 2021), not to mention the women’s Final Four in 2016, the annual Big Ten championship football game, the annual NFL scouting combine and a number of big-ticket affairs.
It’s a given that Kentucky, Duke, Wisconsin and Michigan State will play at Lucas Oil Stadium this weekend. But other high-profile events might consider relocating from Indiana due to the state’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which apparently gives businesses the right to deny service if someone’s sexual orientation is contrary to the business owners’ religious belief.
If you think sports and politics and sports and religion shouldn’t mix, get over it. We have witnessed such correlations at least since Olympian Jesse Owens taught Adolf Hitler a lesson on false ideology 1936.
Eighty years later, the world is 80,000 times more connected. Church and state are about the only things that remain separated and even that’s a stretch.
So forget about detaching the world of sports from its social and political environs. Especially for colleges, which are charged with educating young minds and keeping them open.
“The NCAA national office and our members are deeply committee to providing an inclusive environment for all our events,” president Mark Emmert said in a statement last week. “We are especially concerned about how this legislation could affect our student-athletes and employees.
“We will work diligently to assure student-athletes competing in, and visitors attending (the Final Four) are not impacted negatively by this bill. Moving forward, we intend to closely examine the implications of this bill and how it might affect future events as well as our workforce.”
Read more…
Posted on March 26th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Nearly 20 years ago, a young athlete was predicted to have quite the impact on mankind.
“Tiger will do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity,” Earl Woods told Sports Illustrated in 1996, after the magazine named his son Sportsman of the Year. The proud papa declared that Tiger Woods would out-do Buddha, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela because “he has a larger forum than any of them.”
Tiger hasn’t come close to reaching that far-out forecast.
Right now, you could argue that he trails a 13-year-old girl.
Mo’ne Davis is no more likely than Woods to found a major religion, lead a political revolution or win a Nobel Peace Prize. But the Little League star just taught a powerful lesson on compassion and forgiveness, done so well that grown-ups are struggling to comprehend it.
An ignoramus named Joey Casselberry, who played for Bloomsburg University’s baseball team, defamed Davis last week with a vile reference in a since-deleted tweet – “Disney is making a movie about Mo’ne Davis? WHAT A JOKE. That slut got rocked by Nevada.” That sparked a flurry of shocked and angry responses on social media, roasting him for degrading someone who has done nothing wrong since pitching a shutout in the Little League World Series and becoming a celebrity last summer.
The outrage led Casselberry to quickly apologize, tweeting “I couldn’t be more sorry about my actions … I please ask you to [f]orgive me and truly understand that I am in no way shape or form a sexist and I am a huge fan of Mo’ne. She was quite an inspiration.”
Bloomsburg University wasn’t impressed and dismissed Casselberry from the team.
Remarkably, Davis asked for forgiveness on the dolt’s behalf, emailing the school to petition for his reinstatement.
“Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserves a second chance,” she told ESPN. “I know he didn’t mean it in that type of way, and I know a lot of people get tired of seeing me on TV, but sometimes you’ve just gotta think about what you’re doing before you actually do it.
“It hurt on my part, but he hurt even more. If it was me, I would want to take that back. I know how hard he’s worked. Why not give him a second chance?”
Read more…
Posted on March 24th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER (as published in The Washington Times)
Amateur competition is a bedrock principle of college athletics and the NCAA. Maintaining amateurism is crucial to preserving an academic environment in which acquiring a quality education is the first priority. In the collegiate model of sports, the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second.
I left off the quotation marks in an attempt to keep a straight face while telling a whopper. Consider it deadpan in print. But the above comes word-for-word from the NCAA website.
That must be the idyllic concept that President Barack Obama referenced during a weekend interview with The Huffington Post. Like many opponents, he argues that players can’t receive anything in addition to scholarships because they’re amateurs.
“In terms of compensation, I think the challenge would just then start being, do we really want to just create a situation where there are bidding wars? Obama asked. “How much does a Anthony Davis get paid as opposed to somebody else? And that I do think would ruin the sense of college sports.”
I’m not sure if his bracket is busted but his reasoning is cracked. Such illogic is the most annoying aspect of March Madness.
The quaint notions of amateur athletes who are students first MIGHT apply at the 450 schools in Division III or the 300 schools in Division II. But those schools have no role in the NCAA’s $11 billion contract with CBS and Turner Sports.
“This is an important day for intercollegiate athletics and the 400,000 student athletes who compete in NCAA sports,” then-interim NCAA president Jim Isch said in April 2010 when the deal was announced. “This agreement will provide on average more than $740 million annually to our conference and member schools to help student-athletes in 23 sports learn and compete.”
Put another way, about 399,200 student-athletes are benefiting from the 800 men’s basketball players who participate in the NCAA tournament each year. Based on Isch’s statement, those players generate on average about $925,000 to the cause each year.
Yet, the NCAA would have us believe that – aside from talent level – these players are no different than their intramural counterparts on campus.
Read more…
Posted on March 19th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
I really hope Jameis Winston goes through with reported plans to not attend the NFL draft April 30.
Not that there’s anything wrong with players wanting to celebrate that once-in-a-lifetime occasion, a moment they worked toward for the better part of their lives. I understand why young men in that position are anxious to make the trip and see the sights, eager for a taste of red-carpet festivities that dwarf their college experience.
There’s nothing wrong if Winston wants to be there. He has every right – regardless of the rape accusations that never led to criminal charges – and he should enjoy his walk across the stage if desired.
But the drumbeat of critics who suggest he’s obligated to show up is getting on my nerves. I’ve heard that he’s making a huge mistake, it’s important for him to be there and he owes it to the league. One commentator said skipping the draft wouldn’t reflect well on Winston’s image.
Plenty of things would hurt Winston in the public eye. His absence from the NFL’s contrived TV show isn’t one of them.
In fact, it would be refreshing if a player of such status – he’s projected to be the No. 1 pick – decided he’d rather skip the hoopla and celebrate in comfortable surroundings with family and friends instead.
The spotlight would be just as bright. TV cameras can capture the player’s immediate reaction and he can conduct interviews while reclining on the couch. The next day, he can fly to his new city for official introductions, a news conference and sessions with local media. Rookie mini-camp would begin the following week and draft night would fade into a distant memory.
The potential decision can’t be separated from the player in question. But if imagine if No. 1 pick Andrew Luck opted to sit out the faux drama in 2012.
We wouldn’t have a picture of him and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell holding a No. 12 Colts jersey. Nor would we have a shot of Luck holding the jersey while surrounded by his mother, father, sisters and brother.
Luck and the league might not have survived without those moments.
When the Browns selected Wisconsin’s Joe Thomas with the third pick of the 2007 draft, the offensive lineman was fishing with his father on Lake Michigan. How’d that work out?
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Posted on March 17th, 2015
By DERON SNYDER
Ladies and gentlemen, start your pool party.
Nothing brings co-workers together like a good ol’ NCAA tournament bracket. In fact, aside from the Super Bowl’s magnetic pull on non-fans and folks with casual NFL interest, March Madness is the most-unifying force in American sports (sorry, World Cup).
The four-month regular season is like an exceedingly long drive to a resort banquet, where conference tournaments serve as the appetizer. Most of us haven’t watched one second of America East hoops, but we savored Albany punching its third consecutive ticket while denying Stony Brook its first ever trip to the NCAA tournament. An offensive rebound was tipped to the top of the key, where a 3-point heave secured the 51-50 win with 1.6 seconds remaining.
Those do-or-die games from one-bid conferences can be scrumptous. Though it doesn’t hold a tournament, the Ivy League got a taste this year via Harvard’s 53-51 victory in a one-game playoff against Yale.
But now our attention turns to the main course, a delectable buffet that annually ranges from chef’s surprise (upsets preceding the Sweet 16) to prime rib (high seeds reaching the Final Four).
As usual, the spread contains odd and exotic dishes such as Lafayette Leopards, North Florida Ospreys, Coastal Carolina Chanticleers and UC-Irvine Anteaters. Picking one of those to last past the first round might be fun, but it’s likely to leave you empty-handed.
(And don’t me started on the NCAA’s insistence that the “first round” begins Tuesday and the “second round” begins Thursday. You mean 64 teams have first-round byes? Please. It’s a bad joke. The only thing these unconvincing labels do is change historical references: Instead of saying Georgetown has suffered first-round losses in three of its four tourneys, we have to say the Hoyas lost in the Round of 64 – as if that obscures the reality.)
The most popular choices on the menu are written in chalk, never a bad choice. Of the last 30 champions, 22 were seeded No. 1 or No.2. Of the last eight champions, six were No.1 seeds.
This year’s tournament comes down to Kentucky vs. The Field. If you’re a Vegas wise guy, take the other 67 teams. But if you’re a regular Joe or Jane, you should be wild about the Wildcats.
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