A Sporting View

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Thoughts on Brett Favre

I think the world of Brett Favre. He's the football player's football player. He loves the game. He's incredibly talented. He's unafraid. Players love to play for him. Players love to play against him.

But what he did on the Fox show "On the Record" was totally out of line. He told the world that he had three beefs with his General Manager, Ted Thompson. He spelled out each of these beefs. It all sounded believable. You could even understand his concerns.

Except for one really big problem. He should've taken these up directly with the GM. The way Brett communicated this, it definitely did NOT sound like he took these up with Ted Thompson directly.

First things first: Ted Thompson is the GM of the Packers. That makes him Brett's boss. In the world outside of football (or professional sports in general), one does NOT go on national television and communicate problems they are having with their boss. You sit down with your boss and you say, "hey, I'm not happy with a few things here and I'd like to get these aired." Ideally, you don't let perceived mistakes accumulate. You make it a point to sit down with the boss and sort it out. You don't do this on national television.

So, in my humble opinion, Brett traded on his iconic status to broadcast to the world his beefs with his boss. For me, that tarnishes Brett's iconic status.

Secondly, I saw an interview yesterday with Peter King, from Sports Illustrated. Peter was asked about this point that Brett felt pressured by the Packers to retire back in March. Peter said he had very specific communication from Brett back in March telling Peter he was NOT pressured by the Packers, that Peter shouldn't buy into those rumors at all, that Brett simply felt he couldn't do it anymore and it was solely his decision to retire.

So, something doesn't quite add up there.

Ted Thompson did NOT go on Fox national televsion to tell the world problems HE was having with Brett's situation. Brett did. Does Ted respond in kind? Maybe he doesn't prefer to handle employee relations in this way. Yes, I said "employee relations." Brett's an employee of the Packers and he chose to make his boss look pretty bad on national TV when he could've handled it VERY differently. He chose not to.

Does Brett get a pass because he's a superstar, a future hall-of-famer? Well, many will give him a pass. Many will just consider Ted Thompson an insensitive, unethical person because, well, because Brett said so. Will Ted Thompson ever really be able to clear up what Brett accused him of? Most likely not for those who see Brett as the victim here.

Well, somehow Brett's decision to retire or not retire for the past 2-3 years has been a media circus. How much of that comes from a media that thrives on this kind of thing and how much of that is Brett being a willing participant in that circus? Each of us will have to decide.

For now, I'd prefer not to see superstars telling the world how their bosses are not decent people. Sometimes the accuser has his own kettle of fish that we never find out about. And frankly, I don't care to find out. Just handle your business professionally and do so without trading on your stardom.

The Elation of Secretariat!

This is one of the most, if not the most, thrilling sports videos I've ever watched.

Roger Clemens Revisited

Roger's Congressional hearing has come and gone. He wanted his "day in court," so to speak. To say it didn't go well is an understatement.

I am saddened by one powerful fact:

Roger Clemens spent virtually an entire lifetime building and shaping a Hall of Fame career and in a incredibly short period of time, much of that is now in question. I think he'll still make his way into The Hall, but it won't be a cakewalk and his image has of course been tarnished to millions.

What were his choices?

Well, there were two sets of choices. The first set deals with the scenario that he was being absolutely truthful and he never took performance enhancing drugs. In this scenario, he got really bad advice from his attorney. The forum of being in front of a Congressional committee on national TV didn't serve him well...even if he was being totally candid. You just never know what other "evidence" is out there that can make your testimony look weak. He was only partially prepared for the cross-examination he underwent. An attorney failing for sure.

The next scenario of course is that he did take performance enhancing drugs of some kind at some time. If he did but was freaked out about revealing this and the consequences this would bring, he grossly underestimated the capacity to forgive (that most of us possess). Maybe he just wanted the world to believe he had a lilly-white record and he'd do whatever he could do to preserve that illusion. Don't know. But if he had opted to give us the straight scoop and do so without claiming he had JUST found religion AND do so without trivializing what he did by saying he only did it "to help his teammates," then he'd be in REALLY great shape right now.

But he's not in great shape now.

What can he do to repair the scene? Setting the record straight after misleading (also known as lying to) millions of people is NOT an easy path, but it can be done. Don't make it super-eloquent. Don't read from a tele-prompter. Just tell us what you did, why, why you didn't tell us the truth when you were in front of the cameras the last time. We be human beings out here, Roger. We've all done things we wished we hadn't. It's how we deal with that type of thing that matters.

You can come through this, Roger. I'm behind you. So are millions of others.

But then again, if you never took a single performance enhancing drug and you absolutely stand by that, then I'm going to respect that too. It's just hard, Roger, for many of us to sign off on that.

Good luck.

Who Are the Patriots Now?

Raise your hand if you had the Giants winning the Super Bowl.

Well, the Giants believed in themselves and they did what no other team has done this year: put the quarterback on the ground time after time after time. And then they came through in the clutch when the other teams who "almost" beat them did not.

Growing up in Philadelphia and now living in Tampa (the Giants beat the Bucs in their first playoff game this year), I am most certainly not a Giants fan. But I was absolutely rooting for them to win.

I used to be a Patriots fan of sorts. Thought they went about business the right way. I have changed my views on this.

In the beginning of this year, "Spygate" came out. The coach was fined a half a million and he didn't want ANYONE to know what he did, how he benefitted, how often he did it, etc. etc. In an earlier post, I go into this a bit more.

Then I find out the commissioner destroyed the tapes. And his reason was he didn't want another team to get a hold of them and benefit. Hmm. I guess that means he didn't trust the NFL vault to secure these tapes.

I think there's another reason he destroyed the tapes. I think he didn't want football to become another baseball. Baseball's problems with steroids, Mitchell's report notwithstanding, are NOT going away anytime soon. There will be more and more questions; more and more media scrutiny; more and more players being outed. My suspicion is that NFL Commissioner Goodell figures he'll answer questions for a couple of weeks about why he had the tapes destroyed, but guess what? The tapes are destroyed, so the ENORMOUS OTHER QUESTIONS that would be asked IF and WHEN the press and the fans were given access to these tapes...well, these questions don't have any shelf life now, do they?

So, if Roger Goodell wanted to prevent the NFL from being tarnished in the way baseball is with steroids and the way the NBA has been with the ref scandal and going into the stands and beating up on fans, well, one very simple way was to destroy the evidence.

Now we hear that a Patriot's employee was instructed to videotape the Rams walk-through prior to their Super Bowl Game with the Pats.

Hmm.

Something tells me this is not going to go away anytime soon and the fallout to the Pats could be very rough. Live by the sword...

Roger Clemens

I'm watching ESPN a few days ago and there's a discussion about Roger Clemens and steroids. It's kind of a three-person panel and the topic is "do we believe Roger?"

Of course, one person reminds us that the Mitchell Report mentioned Roger Clemens 82 different times in relation to performance enhancing drugs. And we're told that Brian McNamee's "testimony" is now somewhat "validated" because Andy Petit came forward and admits to some wrongdoing, which was alleged by McNamee AND McNamee is the chap who says he personally injected Clemens twice.

Now, I agree with most reasonable people that this is a lot of damning information: 82 mentions in a 400 page report and testimony by someone who has now had a piece of his overall testimony corroborated, if only slightly.

And then the woman on the ESPN panel sits back in her chair and gives her final bit of journalism: "Well, the burden of proof is definitely on Clemens."

Something tells me there are a few others who feel the same way: "the burden of proof is now on Roger."

Can I ask one very simple question here? How do you prove you didn't do something?

We all know the classic conversation:

"When are you going to stop beating your wife?"

"Well, I never beat my wife!"

"Is that so? Prove it!"

How does the chap prove he never beat his wife?

Let's suppose the testimony from McNamee stated that at 4:15PM on June 3rd, 2003 he injected Roger Clemens with a banned or illegal substance. What does Roger need to do to "prove" his innocence to that allegation? I guess he could go back into time and find someone who he was with at 4:15 on June 3rd, 2003 who would be able to give Roger an alibi for that incident.

And of course we all remember what we were doing four years ago at a specific time in the afternoon on a very specific day. Right?

I'm not here to tell you that Roger's guilty or Roger's innocent. But the burden of proof is NOT on Roger, no matter how many mentions there are in the Mitchell Report or the testimony of a club trainer.

I had a feeling this Mitchell Report would fall short in certain ways. It has produced a few admissions, albeit what appear to be scripted admissions of having taken such-and-such only once (or twice) and "I did so to help with the recovery form an injury" and "I only did so to help my team," etc.

I wrote a letter to Commissioner Selig—a copy of the letter can be viewed here—that presented an alternative solution. Bud wrote back and in several paragraphs thought my suggestion had merit but he wanted the Mitchell Report to run its course. Hard to argue with that then, but not so hard now.

The one thing many fans don't want is to have this whole thing linger on for months and years. To have unanswered questions about records and World Series, etc., etc.

Anyway, I'm glad the Mitchell Report came out. It was forward motion on a very important issue. But it fell short of giving the players, the owners, the fans what we really need and want: full disclosure.

Bobby Petrino, Nick Sabin, Steve Spurrier...

The names of three coaches who coached college football and then took a stab at coaching a team in the NFL. All three failed at the position of NFL Head Coach and headed back to college. I won't go into "how" they left their coaching positions, as enough ink has been spread on that subject, especially regarding Sabin and Petrino.

Why was it so hard for these exceptionally talented coaches to make the grade in the NFL?

Well, let's examine one very critical aspect of being a coach: leverage.

What is probably THE key point of leverage a coach has with his players? The ability to sit the player down.

The way it works in college, players choose the school. They know ahead of time what kind of "system" the football team uses and they know something about the coach. So they go into this with some element of self-determinism. And when it comes to playing time, I would imagine every college football player WANTS to be on the field. With the very talented players, they HAVE to be on the field. Why? Well, if they're not playing, then the NFL scouts are not seeing them. A college player that has his sights set on playing in the NFL is absolutely determined to showcase his talents. And you can NOT showcase your talents on the bench.

So, from a leverage point of view, the college football coach has LOTS of it. This is not to say every college player wants to be on that field solely because of the need to prove their worth to pro football scouts. But I think it's safe to say that those college players who do have a pro football career in mind -- these players are not super eager to rock the boat.

How much of this very same leverage does an NFL coach have? Certainly some, but I submit NOWHERE NEAR the amount a college coach has. A pro football player can be benched and he is still going to make an enormous amount of money. Whether he plays or not. If a pro football player wants to mouth off to his coach, he can pretty much do so without anywhere near the downside if the college player attempts the same. The pro player has made it. He's there. He's got the big money coming in. And most people know that it's an awful lot easier to fire the coach than it is to "fire" the player.

So leverage is a factor.

Yes, a pro player can be fined and he can even be suspended. But when you are working your butt off to put all the pieces together so that you can HAVE a pro career, your willingness to be a team player and stay on the same page as the head coach is very high. That same willingness has dropped to some degree when the player turns pro.

I am not saying that every pro player has this reduced willingness. There are a tremendous number of professional football players who take their job seriously and work extremely hard to play their very best and be a real team player. But there are some who do not have this "professional" viewpoint. And these guys grate on the coach and they grate on their fellow players.

It's just a bit tougher for some professional athletes to put in the same intensity when they've "arrived."

The Role of the Manager

You know what I hear over and over again?

"The manager doesn't strike out in the bottom of the ninth."

"The manager doesn't drop the pass that would've been the winning touchdown."

"The coach doesn't miss the last second free throw."

And what goes along with that is:

"The manager (or coach) does NOT play a major part in winning or losing games and most definitely isn't responsible for winning or losing championships."

Throw in:

"The manager is only as good as the talent on the field."

Okay, I hear you guys loud and clear. And now I'm here to straighten out this incredible misconception.

The manager can (and does) have a HUGE effect on the success of his (her) team. There are of course the decisions that are made during the course of a game: who to play, who to substitute for, when to substitute, what plays to call. And if you don't think that each one of those decisions can affect the outcome of a game, certainly the combination of them can.

But let's go a bit further on this.

Super Player A is in a slump. And we're told you can't blame that on the manager. Well, I wouldn't use the word "blame" particularly, but a skilled manager could sit down Player A and find out exactly when the slump started and locate what changed. Did something change in the player's mechanics? Did something occur in his personal life that is now having an impact on his performance? Or this manager could have made sure he had on his staff an assistant (coach) who expertly does this kind of thing.

So the highly skilled manager surrounds himself with other highly skilled personnel. Even so, the top guy isn't afraid to take the player aside and dig in to find out what's not working right. He doesn't sit around and "hope" the player will play his way through it.

The skilled manager studies his competition. Finds ways to defeat them. And once again has on his staff others who can do the same, possibly much better than him.

I have only touched the surface of what the manager can (and does) do on a regular basis to improve his team's ability to succeed. I think this is a very important topic, so I'll post some more on this later on.

For now, if you think the manager is only as good as the talent of those he manages, then every team with the best talent should always win.

Right?

Exactly.

A-Rod

Scott Boras submitted A-Rod's opt-out paper work sometime Sunday nite (28 Oct). He says he didn't expect it to become known until the next day. He said he didn't realize a reporter would pick up on it. He's sorry about upstaging baseball's premier event (the World Series) so that some portion of the spotlight would make it's way to A-Rod and Scott Boras.

What Scott Boras did was offensive. And he offends us even more by saying he "didn't know" this or he didn't know that. Scott Boras makes his mega-millions by KNOWING quite a LOT about this and that. And even if "the reporter" didn't pick up on it Sunday nite, if Scott planned on it being known Monday, why in the hell would he even do that? The World Series could've still been playing on Monday, so the upstage would've still occurred. And if by some small possibility, Scott submitted the papers AFTER the World Series was concluded Sunday nite, then why make your story ANY part of the post World Series celebration? Jeez, Boras, who do you think we are? No, don't answer that. You seem to have a pretty good idea of who we are. We're here for YOUR playing field and the pageantry and excitement of the World Series shouldn't belong to the teams on the field and their fans and fans everywhere, some of that needs to belong to you and your client, A-Rod.

I don't know A-Rod personally. I know his stats. Both regular season and post-season. I know that the last two teams he played for GOT BETTER when he was no longer on their team. I know that A-Rod came on board with the Yankees and they won not a single World Series from that point forward.

Why did his previous teams improve with his departure? I have two theories:

1) The other players could no longer "rely" on the big man. Instead of knowing or hoping or believing A-Rod would get the big hit(s) to pull a game out, they now knew it was ENTIRELY UP TO THEM. That kind of "necessity level" is a compelling motivation.

2) The enormous salary that A-Rod was getting paid actually alienated other players. Yes, I know publicly the players would never say they're bothered by someone who gets 20 times the money that most of the other players were making. But I don't believe it. The "team" was not really a team. It was a group of players and A-Rod. Look at the last bunch of World Series winners (and losers) and almost one-for-one, you'll see teams with superb chemistry. Teams comprised of players that really care for each other, want to live and die for each other, and really enjoy playing with each other.

Okay, maybe I went a bit too far with "live and die for each other," but it's a basic fact that gets overlooked so many times in professional sports: A group of supremely talented players do NOT always finish first. A group of players who really WANT to work together as a TEAM can finish ahead of the supremely talented bunch.

If someone were to tie me down to a chair, slap me in the face a few times and then demand I tell them what was wrong with professional sports, I'd say:

Scott Boras and A-Rod.

When Scott Boras negotiated A-Rod's contract with the Texas Rangers, he wanted the figure to end up at $252,000,000. Not 250 million. 252. Why? Because he wanted the world to know that his client was getting DOUBLE the next most lucrative sports contract: Kevin Garnett's 126 million.

Yes, yes, yes it's a free marketplace. And yes, people should make as much as they can and certainly as much as someone is willing to pay them. But we're also talking about preserving some of the core values of team sports and anything (and everything) that detracts from a team concept is capable of reducing that team's ability to perform. Removal of those negative factors often results in an immediate upsurge in the performance of the team.

Do I think Scott Boras has no appreciation of the team concept? No, I think Scott Boras has an excellent idea of the team concept, but it extends only to HIS team. "Oh, but that's my job," the agent says. "To get my client the most I can." Your job, Mr. Agent, doesn't occur in a vacuum. You work in a community with others: other players, management, fans. Are you so arrogant that you don't see the overall team?

Sorry if I sound too pissed off with this one. It wasn't just poor timing on Scott Boras' part. It was one of too many moments where greed was once again more compelling than compassion and respect for the sport itself.

Football in London

Today the first National Football League game outside of North America took place. Well, the first one that was part of the regular season. There have been a few others but they were pre-season games and therefore not very meaningful.

There are no doubt a number of things that could be learned and projected from this "milestone event" but there was one peculiar item that really appealed to me.

In the first quarter, I noticed on 2 different plays something that is not witnessed here in the States. On each of these plays, someone made a good tackle or caught a pass and the person making the play then ran a few steps out from the crowd and strutted forward making some kind of gesture clearly stating: "Yo! Look at me! I am the reason this great play occurred. Can you dig how cool and great I am?"

And you know what I distinctly heard from the London crowd? Boos. Yes, boos! How refreshing. Maybe I was imagining it, but I believe there was a healthy group of London fans who just don't go in for the "look how great I am" athlete and they made themselves known to the two players who felt compelled to strut their personal stuff.

This phenomenon of individual players showing the world how great they are individually seems to happen most often in football. You do see it sometimes in basketball, very rarely in baseball (the player who hits a home run and then stops to admire it) and almost never in ice hockey.

When an athlete does something absolutely incredible and wants to celebrate it because it made a impact on their team's success, that's very cool. But it's easy to see the difference between that kind of celebration and the one where the individual is making a statement mainly about himself.

The less we see of the latter the better.

Joe Torre and the Yankees Part Ways

I see both sides of this issue.

Joe Torre says it was an insult to reduce his pay to 5 million and to add incentives to the contract offer.

The Yankees say, "hey, Joe, we hired you to win World Series, not just get us to the playoffs."

If Joe took the offer, his salarly would be reduced to $5,000,000. The next highest paid manager is Tony LaRussa at $3.5 million per year. So even with a reduced salarly, Joe would've made one and half million dollars more than the next highest paid manager.

The contract offer that Joe rejected also provided for an additional $1,000,000 for reaching the playoffs; an additional $1,000,000 for reaching the League Championship Series; an additional $1,000,000 for reaching the World Series.

So, he would've made $8 million if he made it to the World Series in 2008, without even having to win the World Series.

Without question, Joe Torre was a key ingredient to turning the Yankees around and bringing them to the playoffs 12 straight years. But I think he and most of the rest of the baseball world knew that the expectations for his performance were World Series wins.

IF that's the expectation and you don't reach that plateau five years in a row, why wouldn't management have the right to scale down your salary as a result?

When a player gets 100 million dollars based on 3 or 4 great years, he feels he deserves the big bucks, right? Understood. So what do we do when that same player fails to perform anywhere close to that previous level and is now earning mega money? Can we come back to him and ask him to give some of the money back?

I think expectations can be fairly factored into this contract offer that Joe rejected. Joe felt it also should be a longer contract. Understood. But once again, expectations for a team that is commanding $200 plus million dollars in player salaries are going to be enormously higher than a team with a fraction of that payroll.

But there is the other side of the ledger:

Did the Yankees handle this contract offer in a way befitting of Joe's 12 years of service? Definitely not. I agree with Joe that if the Yankees wanted him back, they could've offered something different and with some rational negotiations back and forth, we'd have Joe in the Yankee dugout next year.

But it seems the Yankees did use a bit of business "low-balling" and it didn't work. Or maybe they just offered something they knew would blow Joe off but also give Joe a chance to leave without "being fired."

So, there are certainly some parts to this story we may never know.

But I am here to tell you that Joe knew what the expectations were and being given a salary offer that is one and a half million dollars MORE than any other manager with the opportunity to earn another 3 MIL in the same year — well to many fans, that seems a no-brainer.

But pride did enter into this equation and expectations and pride don't always see eye-to-eye.

A Lesson from the World of Sports

I love sports. I loved playing baseball, football, basketball, even soccer. When I was a bit younger, I was pretty good. But I still immensely enjoy watching a Stanley Cup playoff, some March Madness, a really tight World Series.

I enjoy many of the things most spectators enjoy: the competition, the intensity, the passion to win, and of course watching extremely talented people do incredibly talented things.

But I also enjoy other key aspects of the game. I like to pay attention to the fine points of winning, the small details. What is very intriguing is watching how two or more players will work together to make something happen (score a basket, a goal, etc.). For example, in sports like hockey, basketball and soccer, a great deal of importance is placed on the ability to PASS the ball (or puck). There are players who derive greater satisfaction from a precisely-delivered pass than from actually scoring. Seasoned basketball fans are awed by the combination of a fantastic pass culminating in a score. I certainly am.

A game is played to win. In order to win, individual players blend their skills and their actions with other players. Teams made up of JUST individuals, even those highly talented, often fail against teams composed of people who work hard on working together.

The next time you watch a well-played game, observe the degree of teamwork on both teams. Look for the subtle details and you'll see some really exciting give-and-take that you might not ordinarily see.

The more a group of people works together as a team, the more that group gets done and the easier it is to get things done. This is true in sports and of course is true in every other area of life.

Creating a Winner Versus Supporting a Winner

The following is an article I wrote a few years ago that was published in the sports section of The Tampa Tribune.

Fans express themselves in two very basic ways. One is to support a winner and the other is to CREATE a winner.

Many fans will come out and support a winner. They’ll cheer madly, they’ll proudly wear the team merchandise, and they’ll boast to out-of-town friends about how great their team is.

But what happens if the team performs poorly? What if the team performs poorly over a long stretch of time? Some of these supportive fans now become not so supportive. You start to hear boos. They call in to talk shows complaining about the players, the coaches, the strategies, the playing styles. Some complain with incredible vehemence.

Now let’s turn to the fan who is intent on CREATING a winner. This fan does not boo the home team. Interview any professional player and they will tell you there is nothing gained when their own fans boo them. Many will tell you that it actually undermines them, as they often count on the "home team fan" to be the extra player. Home team advantage is not a mere theory … it is a statistical fact. But the home team advantage erodes when more and more “fans” boo their own players.

Each and every fan has a part in creating a winning team. That may sound farfetched, but just as each member of a family or each member of a group contributes to the survival of that family or group, so it is with fans and their local team.

Creating a winner. What does that mean? Let’s take an example from everyday life. Let’s say you’re a salesperson and you’ve just put a tremendous amount of effort into closing an important deal for the company. Closing it means that you’ll get a excellent commission and your company will have a ton of business to deliver over the next 6 months. But something goes wrong and the sale doesn’t close. You come back to the office and your boss meets you at the door and says: “You crummy piece of dirt! I can’t believe you didn’t close that sale!” You walk down the corridor and an associate sees you and yells: “Thanks for nothing!” The rest of the day goes pretty much like that.

Now, I’m sure there are a handful of people on this planet who just love to be criticized and they do their best work when people spit on them, but my observation is that people perform best in a different type of environment. The more positive and the more encouraging people are around you, the better you do. People just accomplish more when that’s what others around them are intending them to do!

That last line is very important. When people around you are intending for you to succeed, your likelihood of success increases. When people shift from supporting you to criticizing you, you are less likely to succeed.

Does a fan have the right to boo? Of course. And I guess your associates have a right to make your life miserable if you don’t get something done well at the office. But you certainly appreciate it an awful lot more if your associates show you some understanding and then keep right on intending that you’re going to get the job done right.

Should a fan keep completely silent and never voice his displeasure with a team that is under-performing? No and yes. There are different ways and different forums for that. But when your team is in the heat of battle and they don’t complete a first down or get a key basket or goal, that is the last place to voice it.

When the players sense, really sense, that the fans are really, really behind them, the majority of players will up their intensity level and play like crazy to win.

Yes, we have other factors permeating professional sports these days: money, free agency, unions, strikes—all of these contribute to a scene that can make the “old days” seem a long, long time ago.

And if the home team has very little talent or if the team owner doesn’t really care if his team wins or loses as long as he makes a profit, then the prospects for success are dramatically affected.

But this article is simply about how you can play a part in creating a winner. You can support the home team when it wins or you can help create the home team into a winner. As a fan, you make a big difference.

Marion Jones, It's Possible It Hurts Us Even More

Marion Jones announced to the world that she had indeed been using performance-enhancing drugs and that doing so made it possible for her to have a significant advantage over other athletes.

Yes, she'll most likely lose her three gold medals and her two bronze medals from the 2000 Sydney Olympics. And yes, she'll most likely be stripped of other medals (World Championships 2001). And she's probably going to spend some time in jail. From what we're told, she's broke and will be facing fines in addition to prison time.

So, Marion, this is definitely a major, major fall from grace. You were once the world's most admired female athlete. And now, you face a very uncertain and rough future.

But with all of that's ahead for you, Marion, it is possible it hurts us even more. Why? Because we BELIEVE in the integrity of sports. At least we try very hard to. There are millions of people who deeply respect the spirit of competition that is the Olympics. When we find out that someone of your calibre competed with an unfair advantage and that you asserted for years that you were an honest and ethical competitor, and then you admit to us that you had been lying all along...well, the impact this has is enormous. It affects millions of people.

You must fully consider the impact you have had on the world of sports. And you must realize that a tear-filled apoloy, no matter how sincere, will not make up the damage you've caused. Factually, you CAN make up the damage, Marion, but it will start with an unselfish recognition of the impact you've had on others and then devising realistic things you can DO that will, in some way, improve the integrity of sports. You can do this. You can figure this out.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here. You, me and the rest of the sporting world are not in the same boat as Marion Jones. And truth be known, we do NOT have to lower our viewpoint of sports simply because a famous athlete or two (or more) have gone awry. We can conclude that people on this planet are flawed and this shows up in every area of life, sports included. Okay, I'm not so bummed out by what you did, Marion, and I hope you make a complete recovery for yourself and for your fans.

A Legitimate Solution to the Steroids Problem

Recently I wrote a letter to the Commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig. I sent a copy of the letter to Don Fehr, the Executive Director of the Baseball Players Union. I also sent a copy to various media points.

In this letter, I give a real and legitimate solution to baseball's steroid problem, a problem that is also prevalent in other sports and apparently at all levels (college, high school, even earlier). If you would like to see this letter, click the link to continue reading this post...

Bill Belichick's Press Conference

Commissioner Goodell fined Bill Belechick a half a million dollars. He fined the Patriots a quarter mill and the loss of one or two future draft picks. After this came down, Bill Belechick held a "press conference."

He must've said 20 or more times, "it's in the past." He batted back every question on the subject with the response: "it's in the past. We've been fined. It's over with." All he would talk about is the next game, the next team.

Well, Bill, there are thousands of Patriot fans and hundreds of thousands of fans around the country who respect what you've accomplished FOR WHOM IT IS NOT IN THE PAST. For this sizeable group of people, it is very much still in the present.

Some of us would like to know:

1) What exactly did you do?

2) How long have you've been doing it?

3) How has it benefited your team?

One of the biggest problems with the steroid situation is the MYSTERY it creates for millions of sports fans. I, for one, would like to know:

Who took what?

How did it benefit them?

How many revered baseball records have been tarnished?

Did the use of performance enhancing drugs affect who made (or didn't make) the playoffs?

Did it affect the World Series?

If you're writing a suspense novel, then I'm all for a good mystery. But not knowing how your sport has been negatively impacted by unethical conduct, well, that's not a mystery any of us enjoy.

In my next post, I'll provide a copy of a letter I sent to Commission Bud Selig that offered a way out of the whole steroid scene. And a way to end the mystery in a way that would benefit everyone.

For now and for this post, I simply want to tell Bill Belechick this: I guess you have the right to withhold from the public what you did, but many of us out here do not appreciate that stance. Watching your players circle the wagons or knowing some of your closest fans have a deaf ear to what you did — well, that doesn't cut it for the vast majority of us out here.

We care about sports well beyond the mega amounts of money involved. And we'd like to have a bit of truth now and then to dispel the clouds of suspicion and mystery that can degrade the respect and enjoyment of the game.

The First Post

Hello and welcome to this blog. I played several sports when I was younger and I've been a big sports fan ever since.

As is the case with many of you, I'm concerned with the direction the sports world has been heading the past couple of decades. I'm concerned about the effects professional athletes are having on those growing up. I'm concerned about the enormous amount of money involved in pro sports that can cloud the decisions people make.

But after all is said and done, I'm also a fan and I want to continue to be a fan. Often what's wrong with our society is greatly exaggerated by a media that thrives on giving us the downside. And the very same is true of the sports world.

So this blog will try to bring you different perspectives with the purpose of making you a more knowledgeable fan, but just as importantly, I want to help you increase your enjoyment of the world of sports!

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