The BCS is Dead!

Or at least on its last legs, hooked up to a heart-lung machine, just waiting to fade away into oblivion. In a truly important and long overview decision, a select committee of university presidents on Tuesday approved the BCS commissioners' plan for a four-team playoff to start in the 2014 season. This means that the very unfair and very much despised Bowl Championship Series will disappear at the end of next year. This will please just about everyone that doesn't have a vested interest in the status quo. It will also tap into the huge amount of genuine goodwill generated by basketball's March Madness, which is partially replicated.

The move completes a six-month process in which the commissioners have been working on a new way to determine a college football champion. Instead of simply matching the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in a championship game after the regular season, the way the Bowl Championship Series has done since 1998, the new format will create a pair of national semifinals. No. 1 will play No. 4, No. 2 will play No. 3. The teams will be selected by a committee, similar to the way the NCAA basketball tournament field is set, with the winners advancing to the national championship game. Much better than the biased and exclusionary mess we have now.

Armstrong gone from America's best rider to hider

So, now what are we supposed to do with this latest bit of news about Lance Armstrong? That the United States Anti-Doping Agency thinks he’s a drug cheat and that it could strip him of his seven Tour de France titles? And that he’s been barred from competing in triathlons, a pursuit he took up after retiring from cycling last year?

It’s one thing when some French newspaper or some foreign event officials or some disgraced racer claims over the past few years that Armstrong used performance-enhancers and that he should be viewed in a whole different light on account of that, but it’s all together another when the organization charged with the responsibility of heading the anti-doping effort for Olympic sports in the United States, a powerful agency that almost never loses cases, jumps aboard that claim.

Armstrong, who was on a mountain in France when he found out about the charges and declined to meet with USADA inside the required week’s time, thought he’d already beaten the rap against him when the feds dropped a two-year investigation into doping-related crimes four months ago.

This time, he was the only one of a number of U.S. cyclists who refused to meet with the agency upon notification. On Twitter, he referred to the inquiry as a "witch hunt," and added in a statement that the charges were "baseless" and "motivated by spite."

"I have never doped," he said. He has never doped. Man, oh man. Lance, we want to believe you, brother.

It occurs that Armstrong is either the most falsely accused, picked on great athlete ever or he’s harboring a huge secret that, bit by bit, is having its cover blown. He’s gone from the greatest American rider of all time to the greatest American hider.

He has meant so much to so many people in this country for so many reasons far beyond his athletic prowess. After these latest charges broke, I talked with a friend, a cancer survivor, who was inspired to fight his own fight, in part, by Armstrong’s story. If the great racer could battle through and come back from testicular cancer, my friend said, then maybe he also could somehow do likewise against the monster that had settled in the form of a grapefruit-sized tumor on his brain. My friend is nine years clean now.

What, then, does he — or any of us who have been moved by Armstrong — do with this kind of information about the great inspirer?

The read the full article by Gordon Monson in the Salt Lake Tribune, please click here.

The Wonder That Tennis Forgot

He is the unfrozen phenom. Brian Baker was going to be a tennis star. That's where this was headed. A decade ago, Baker was one of the best junior tennis players in the world, the wiry kid from Nashville, Tenn., with the punishing game, so good he would later reach the boys' final of the French Open in 2003. His early résumé contained wins over characters you may know. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Tomas Berdych. Novak Djokovic. That's right. The Djoker, the relentless No. 1 in the world, winner of four of the last five Grand Slams. That guy. Baker passed on college scholarships and pushed right into the pros. He had a clothing deal and a racket deal and a future. Life was good.

Ten years ago, Brian Baker was one of the best junior tennis players in the world. But then Baker's body disobeyed him. Maybe "abandoned" is a better word. First Baker hurt his wrist, and missed 10 weeks. Then, in a qualifying match at Wimbledon versus Djokovic, Baker tore his MCL. This actually wasn't so bad. Baker rehabbed his knee and resumed playing, but began feeling pain in his left hip. Hip surgery followed. Then, surgery for a sports hernia. All the while Baker's elbow was nagging at him, especially on his serve. That led to Tommy John surgery on his elbow. Then more hip surgery—another procedure for the left hip, and the right hip as well. It was a spectacular run of medical intervention. Baker won a Grand Slam in the OR.

At this point Baker was 23. Recovery from these latest surgeries was going to take a while. He enrolled in college, back home in Nashville, at Belmont University, the geezer freshman in class. He worked as an assistant coach with the school's tennis team, keeping a foot dangled in the game. He wasn't totally out of tennis, but he wasn't totally in it, either. Meanwhile, players he once handled were ascending to the top of the sport. Baker said he doesn't "like to play the guessing game too much," but he couldn't help but notice.
"You do think about it, especially for the first couple of years," Baker said. He is 27 years old now. He was sitting at a table not far from the tennis courts at Saddlebrook Resort outside Tampa. He looked tan and fit. "You see all these guys having success. Could that have been me?"

For the complete article by Jason Gay in the Wall Street Journal, please click here.

Why Wrigley Field Must Be Destroyed

Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.

Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.

I'm a Roman, and to me, the expanse between Waveland and Addison on Chicago's North Side is Carthage. The struts and concessions, the catwalk where the late broadcaster Harry Caray once greeted me with all the fluid liquidity of an animatronic Disneyland pirate—Hello, Cubs fan!—the ramps that ascend like a ziggurat to heaven—it's a false heaven—the bases, trestles, ivy, wooden seats and bleachers, the towering center-field scoreboard—all of it must be ripped out and carried away like the holy artifacts were carried out of the temple in Jerusalem, heaped in a pile and burned. Then the ground itself must be salted, made barren, covered with a housing project, say, a Stalinist monolith, so never again will a shrine arise on that haunted block. As it was with Moses, the followers and fans, though they search, shall never find its bones.

The Cubs moved into Wrigley in 1916, when it was known as Weegham Park. Before that, it was the home of the Whales of the Federal League. The Cubs, founded in 1876, had been wanderers, playing on fields scattered across the breadth of booming iron-plated Chicago. The grandest was West Side Park, an opera house for the proletariat, with its velvet curtained boxes, at the intersection of Taylor and Wood on the West Side.

Most importantly, the Cubs won there. The glory years before Wrigley are like the age before the flood, when exotic species thrived on the earth, among them the feared Chicago Cub.

The team was a powerhouse. Performing as the White Stockings (1876-1889), the Colts (1890-1897), the Orphans (1898–1902) and finally the Cubs, they won with regularity. In 1906 they went 116-36, a .763 winning percentage that remains the greatest season in major-league history. In 1907 they won their first World Series; in 1908, with the unhittable Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown and the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combo that was death to nascent rallies, they won it again.

The Cubs then made the fatal mistake of taking up in Wrigley, where the evening sun streams through the cross-hatching above home plate and the creeping shadows form a web that has ensnared the club for a century, where sometimes the wind blows in and sometimes it blows out, and the only constant is disappointment.

To read this wonderful article by Rich Cohen in the Wall Street Journal, please click here.

Why College Football Should Be Banned

In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.
That's because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today's times.

Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.

Who truly benefits from college football? Alumni who absurdly judge the quality of their alma mater based on the quality of the football team. Coaches such as Nick Saban of the University of Alabama and Bob Stoops of Oklahoma University who make obscene millions. The players themselves don't benefit, exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation. The average student doesn't benefit, particularly when football programs remain sacrosanct while tuition costs show no signs of abating as many governors are slashing budgets to the bone.

If the vast majority of major college football programs made money, the argument to ban football might be a more precarious one. But too many of them don't—to the detriment of academic budgets at all too many schools. According to the NCAA, 43% of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision lost money on their programs. This is the tier of schools that includes such examples as that great titan of football excellence, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Blazers, who went 3-and-9 last season. The athletic department in 2008-2009 took in over $13 million in university funds and student fees, largely because the football program cost so much, The Wall Street Journal reported. New Mexico State University's athletic department needed a 70% subsidy in 2009-2010, largely because Aggie football hasn't gotten to a bowl game in 51 years. Outside of Las Cruces, where New Mexico State is located, how many people even know that the school has a football program? None, except maybe for some savvy contestants on "Jeopardy." What purpose does it serve on a university campus? None.

To read the complete article by Buzz Bissinger in the Wall Street Journal, click here.

Soccer ball swept to sea during 2011 Japanese tsunami washes up on Alaskan island 5000 kilometres away

A battered soccer ball that was swept up on the shores of an Alaskan island may be the first piece of debris from the Japanese tsunami last March. The soccer ball, which is covered in Japanese writing, was spotted on the coast of Middleton Island by radar technician David Baxter, the Anchorage Daily News reported. He realized the significance of his find after his wife, who is originally from Hachioji, in western Tokyo, translated the writing and traced it to the name of a school.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration confirmed that the school named on the ball was in a tsunami-hit area. "There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it," the NOAA's Doug Helton said.

According to The Japan Times, the ball belongs to Misaki Murakami, a 16-year-old high school student in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, who lost his home in the disaster. Murakami said the ball, which is covered in messages of encouragement, was given to him by his third-grade classmates before he moved to a new school in March 2005.

"I have no doubt that it is mine," Murakami said. "To be honest, I'm surprised. I want to thank the person who found it, as none of my sentimental items have been found."

The Baxters hope to return the ball personally to Murakami this summer when they take a vacation in Japan, The Japan Times reported. "We're very happy that the owner of the ball is safe. We want to return the ball as soon as possible," Baxter said. "When I first saw the ball, I knew that it had a special meaning to its owner."

The Duke of Hazards

I have to admit that I was completely engrossed in the final round of the 84th U.S. Masters golf tournament yesterday. Everything I did, and I admit it was not a tiring day, centered around that finish. Yes... golf! The sport often compared to watching concrete set or grass grow was mesmerizing!The day started with Swede Peter Hanson with a one-shot lead who then faltered from the git-go while Phil Mickelson made a charge.But Phil threw it all away with a nightmare on the 67th hole when he hit into the trees on a par 3 and then tried to get a reverse swat going to get him out of trouble. Mickelson took a triple-bogey and could never catch up, but at least was in contention, unlike Tiger Woods who never showed up.

Behind this carnage stalked two calm and collected young men, Gerry (Bubba) Watson and Lodewicus Theodorus (Louis) Oosthuisen. Slowly but surely these two drew away from the rest of the field and soon it was a two-horse race. The first hole of the playoff was a normal and almost subdued affair, both obtaining par and setting up for the next hole. The second, played on the 10th hole, was anything but ordinary. Both players hit tee shots into the trees with Oosthuizen blowing a chance to march up the fairway while his partner was looking for his wayward ball in the pine needles. Watson then uncorked an absolute gem of a shot, bending his ball around trees and onto the green, about 15 yards from the cup. Oosthuizen then two-putted while Watson needed only one to win his first major and the coveted Maters green jacket.

Bubba Watson apparently has the longest consistent drive on the PGA Tour, no doubt helped by a whiplash 6' 3" frame. He lost his father to cancer two years ago and the emotion of that lost coupled with the win his father could not be there to see was etched in his face and tears. Watson also drives his "dream car" the general Lee from the Dukes of Hazard fame, but this just seems to fit his personality. However, Bubba my final comment is, after winning the Masters you can now afford to get a decent haircut. May your luck and your obvious nerve hold.

Justice is Done

I have talked enough about this topic, but I am truly relieved that the NFL has stuck to its guns over the bounty scheme issue. National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the one-year suspension he gave New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton for trying to cover up a bounty program that paid players bonuses for injuring their opponents. Payton, 48, appealed the suspension, set to begin on April 16, last week. Goodell handed down the decision -- the stiffest punishment ever imposed on an NFL team and its leadership -- on March 21 after he said Payton lied to the NFL about the program. The commissioner also upheld a $500,000 fine on the Saints, the loss of two draft picks, a half-season suspension for General Manager Mickey Loomis and a six-game ban for assistant Joe Vitt. To do less than this would have been capitulation and cowardly. All credit to you Roger.

Kain-Tuck-Ee!!!

Last night I split my evening between watching River Monsters with my daughter Keziah, and sneaking glimpses of the NCAA Championship game between the two K's, Kansas and Kentucky. My interest was twofold. One, I picked Kentucky to win (with a little help from my friend Jamison who knows more about college basketball than one individual should); and two, March Madness is absolutely brilliant, the perfect end to the basketball season. Despite 1 from 10 in the field shooting on the night freshman MVP Anthony Davis, the Wildcats defeated Kansas 67-59 to win their eighth national title, their first since 1998. Coach John Calipari finally got to add that coveted yet elusive championship to his trophy case.

Snitchgate

I meant to write about this BS when I first heard about it but unfortunately time did not permit. Apparently current Carolina Panthers tight end Jeremy Shockey was outed by former Buccaneers and Raiders defensive end as the "snitch" in the sordid "Bounty Affair" currently embroiling the New Orleans Saints. I say apparently because I didn't see the original tweet where Shockey was blamed. I don't know if Shockey did tell the NFL or not, and frankly it doesn't matter who did. The whole point of the matter is that whoever did so, did exactly the right thing, and deserves a medal for courage and conviction.

Bounties offered by the New Orleans Saints, and if I hear correctly, by other teams as well, are simply despicable. Completely against the mores and norms of society and what should be totally illegal in the microcosm that is professional sport. So to brand someone a snitch Mr Sapp, and I use the term loosely, is just asinine. Warren you should be ashamed of yourself. You obviously think that the bounty program is a legitimate part of the NFL. WRONG. You should be admitting that a bounty on an opponent is sadly pathetic and out of step with what you supposedly stand for, sportsmanship. Time to change your tune.

Following on from this story the Commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell, stated in rebuttal that, he didn't just classify Sapp's naming of Shockey as "inaccurate," he also said it was inaccurate to name a single "snitch" and that it was several sources who provided the information to the league office. Goodell didn't fire Sapp from the NFL Network, which would have been just, so maybe Warren will have more time to think before opening his mouth again without engaging his brain. Not that Warren is the only human ever to do that.

Goodell also handed out some very appropriate punishment for some of the officials at the center of "Bountygate", Gregg Williams has been suspended indefinitely and I admit I would not be unhappy if he never coached in the NFL again. Sean Payton, the heretofore well-respected coach of the Saints, has been suspended for a year. How the Saints are going to cope with that is beyond me right now. For me personally, my respect for Payton and soft-spot for the Saints has well and truly disappeared.