rich_brenner's Blog

Our heroes should never die, get old, or worse yet, be exposed as frauds and cheats.  In the case of Marion Jones, "fraud and cheat" are her own words describing her use of performance enhancing drugs.

When you cheat, you don't win, even when somebody hangs some medals around your neck and puts loads of cash into your bank account.  With Marion Jones, her greatness was a fabrication - a drug-fueled myth.  Today, she's financially broke living a shattered life.

The truth is, Marion Jones is not a bad person.  She made poor decisions, but at least has stood up and faced her wrongs head on.  That doesn't make her a champion, but it does make her a lot better person than the one who was cheating everybody - including herself.

Actions have consequences.  Right now, the NFL has itself a serious integrity problem. 

Here's the bond the Patriots broke and it directly involves you, the fans.  Starting last season, the NFL banned all but immediate home market local TV Stations from shooting legitimate up-close game footage which we used in our reports.  Yet here we have the Patriots using one of their video guys posing as a legitimate news photographer - decked out in an official NFL sideline vest - illegally shooting Jets coaches giving signals.  Talk about fraud!

So how does the NFL re-establish its integrity?

Here are my thoughts, and even NASCAR gets this part of the punishment equation right.  First, Commissioner Roger Goodell needs to suspend Bill Belichick 4 games - a quarter of the season - with no contact whatsoever with the team.  Secondly, the Patriots lose their top 2 draft choices in the '08 Draft.  Next, if the Patriots make the playoffs, they're relegated to the last wild card slot.  No off week.  No home field advanatge.  Finally, a million-dollar fine payable to charities to be determined.

Overly tough?  Maybe, but you don't marginalize integrity.  Even if just a portion of these punishments are enacted,  it will certainly get the message across.

 

Leaders Do the Right Thing.  Managers Do Things Right.  It's time for the PGA Tour Leadership to act like leaders.  The dropout rate at this week's Wyndham Championship is a disgrace which needs firm addressing from the top downward through the ranks.  The folks at The Wyndham and North Carolina golf fans deserve a heck of a lot better than what they're getting from the PGA, where the top player in the field from the World Rankings is Anders Hansen at #40. 

The problem is the PGA has no policies, or backbone, when it comes to guaranteeing tournaments having at least a few well-known marquee players in their field.  Instead, tournament organizers, sponsors, volunteers, and fans are left to the whims of these "independent contractors" who make a great deal of money from very rich purses.  Even mainstay tournaments such as The Wyndham, whose history goes back to 1938 as the Greater Greensboro Open, making it the 3rd-longest continuously operating pro tournament in the United States, and  with a purse of $5 million and $900,000 to the winner, are dependent upon who feels like playing, and who doesn't that particular week.  Imagine NASCAR operating like that?  Or the NFL?   Or any other pro sport or business where star and brand power draws fans and sponsors, better known as customers in the real world,  those folks who, in the long run, determine the success or failure of any venture.  PGA stars instead cherry pick their events, often times claiming fatigue after playing 2 or 3 straight weeks.  Try telling that to an NFL lineman, a Major League Baseball player where 162 games are crammed into six months, or to a regular working stiff.    And these folks don't have a caddy helping them with the heavy lifting.

 

    

NASCAR was caught in one of those "darned if you do and darned if you don't " situations with the finish of the Daytona 500.  Going strictly by the rule book (that is, assuming there is a rule book and the ink is dry), the yellow flag should have come out and arguably Mark Martin would have won with the positions locked in as soon as the caution flag flew.  But - and here's where the tough call had to be made - with about a quarter-mile to go to the finish line and Martin and Kevin Harvick well in front of the wild wreck behind them - the decision was quickly made to let them run for the stripe and determine the winner "by racing for it".  Settle all doubts by racing.  What we got was a photo-finish - 2-100ths of a second and a finish just like the one in the first Daytona 500 back in 1959 when Lee Petty edged Johnny Beauchamp.  Personally, I liked the fact Kevin Harvick won by racing, yet I can also see the other side of the equation where, for safety reasons, the yellow should have come out and frozen the field.   When you come down to it, all most people ask for is consistency from those who referee and umpire their sports.  It's hard enough to make a call on a sideline pass in football or the throw to second in baseball, so just imagine how tough that call is at 185 miles an hour and the finish line to your sport's biggest race is within eyesight.  A precendent has been set with this Daytona 500 finish. Was it right?  Or wrong?  While even those in the sport have trouble agreeing on that point, a firm decision needs to be made for future policy.  It needs to be in writing.  And the ink must be dry when the rule is next applied.

 

There's a lot of buzz about Duke approaching the NCAA Tournament bubble.  With less than 4 weeks to go to Selection Sunday, this certainly makes for good conversation.  The reality of it all:  unless Duke completely goes on a walk-about and ends up 6-10 in the ACC with a quick exit from the ACC Tournament in Tampa, Duke makes it into the NCAA's.  The Blue Devils' Power Ratings are strong - 14 in the Sagarin - 18 in the RPI.  The NCAA Selection Committee loves Power Ratings.  To date, the ACC has 8 teams in the Top 40 of the RPI, which means this will be a year the ACC gets at least 6 teams, probably more into the NCAA Tournament.  Keep in mind this is still a talented Duke team, which prior to the Maryland loss, had lost 3 games by a combined 9 points, and 6 of those 9 were to 5th-Ranked North Carolina, which is Power Rated #1 in Sagarin and #2 in the RPI.  The Wednesday Night game at ACC leader Boston College is important.  A win over the Eagles and all this "bubble talk" ceases.  The Blue Devils lose and then things get interesting.   Lastly, a point never to be overlooked:  Duke is Duke.  While fans either love or hate Duke with little inbetween, the NCAA loves Duke.  And that's a powerful tie-breaker when all else is equal because the Duke Program has earned that reputation.

To rework an old Bo Schembechler line, "I'm not a Michigan Man." Never was, but on this occasion, I've got to say the Wolverines got hosed when it came to being left out of the National Championship Game.

This is taking nothing away from a very good Florida ballclub. While the BCS crowd, many fans and the sports media, along with FOX Sports, may trumpet this as "The National Championship", in truth, once again, it's "The Mythical National Championship". It's mythical because worthy contenders were denied an opportunity to be the 2006 Champions because human emotions, fallacies, and prejudices got in the way. Interestingly, the computers voted "No Preference" when Michigan and Florida came out dead-even in a series of complex tabulations. That left it to the media and coaches to break the tie. Not good. See "emotions, fallacies, and prejudices" above.

The answer, of course, is a playoff. In the past, I've advocated a 16-team, 4-round format used by all other NCAA Divisions. I'm willing to change, to start off small and build carefully as we go.

My thought now is to start off with a 4-team format, which unfortunately would still place too much emphasis on computers and human prejudices, but it's still better than two teams. Each year, designate two of the major bowls as playoff bowls and then place four playoff teams in these bowls. The top-seed plays the 4th-seed; the two-seed plays three. The winners play the next week for The National Championship. The only thing which would change from this year is that the two additional teams in the Major Bowl picture because of the newly added National Championship Game would be forced to go elsewhere. This "new system" would keep the integrity of the bowl system intact, allowing each of the four major bowl cities to have their big week of festivities. The next week, one of those four sites as done now on a rotating sytem, will host the National Championship Game. The National Championship Game will be treated as strictly a business week - a normal game week - where there's little pagentry for the teams (they did that the week before) and the emphasis is totally on football. This is the way conference championship games are staged and they seem to work quite well.

Which gets us back to this year. Ohio State was an easy choice. But that doesn't mean the Buckeyes will win the National Championship. In a playoff system, they might even be less of a favorite. The one good thing - at least the champion is determined in competition, and not in a final poll of media types and coaches. But the system is still seriously flawed and can definitely be improved.

The great part about Wake Forest winning the 2006 Atlantic Coast Conference Football Championship isn't the fact that the Deacs won it, but rather, how they won it. The Deacs were in championship mode long before the season ever started. First, there was the hard, smart, and dedicated work done behind the scenes which the fans and media seldom see. It starts with solid work in both the classroom and the weightroom. Team unity and bonding really begin in the off-season in the weightroom because there, you can't hide. You've got to work hard and you've got to be a good teammate and help each other. The classroom is where discipline and time management move front and center, because if you don't cut it there, you won't be playing football and won't be of any value whatsoever to your teammates. Once the season began, the Deacs just went about their business, taking care of their own affairs, and not paying attention to the doubters who never really gave them their props until the Deacs walked off the field victorious, and in the end, ACC Champions. The bottom line here is that character really does count. Jim Grobe and his staff, despite working at the third smallest school in major college football, made every one of their personnel decisions count. If you recruit good character people, and then show your players you care and want to make them be the best they can be no matter how hard the work, then you will get positive results. Wake Forest is a talented, well-coached football team which has been built the right way over several years for the long haul. No short cuts. Just do the right thing the right way. And without getting too caught up in the moment, this just may only be the beginning.

North Carolina got it right. The ball's now in North Carolina State's court. Butch Davis is very much the right man at the right time in the right place for the Tar Heels. State's got the same opportunity, but it depends how much legwork Athletics Director Lee Fowler has done to this point. Hopefully he learned from the basketball situation back in the spring, because it was fairly obviouis, as it was to Dick Baddour at Carolina, that changes might be necessary after the upcoming football season. Contingency plans are always needed, and with search firms today the "in thing" when it comes to hiring new coaches, planning for potential change never was easier. Add into the fact virtually every high-profile coach has an agent, and you can go through a quiet "feeling out an interest" process well below the radar screen. So, the point being, how much prior-firing planning has Lee Fowler done? And how far along is he with his top "wish list" successors to Chuck Amato? State is far too good a school and far too good an opportunity to settle for a guy looking for a stepping stone. One thing Chuck Amato certainly got right was that his alma mater was indeed a career destination. Taking all that into consideration, it's safe to say, using the old line from pro draft day protocol, "Lee Fowler is now on the clock."

The first thing Terrell Owens needs to do is fire his publicist. Not because she called 911 - that was good - but because she's part of his problem.
No individual player involved in a team sport needs his or her own publicist. No individual player is above, or more important than the team itself. This is a point Terrell Owens seems to constantly miss. As a result, he,and not the team gets the attention he craves. That attention is not good, it's not healthy, and as we have just seen, it's potentially dangerous.
Whether Terrell Owens wanted to commit suicide is highly doubtful, if only becuase the odds say most suicide attempts are done by people who do not want to succeed. They want attention. They want help. In Terrell Owens' case, it's all about him, all about attention.
While Owens is a certifiable ego-maniac, he's also intelligent. Well, T.O., it's time to get rid of the "yes men" and "yes women", those enabling parasites who pretend to be guiding you, but instead are leading you down a very dangerous path.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is it's time to grow up. The media feeding frenzy is over.

Chuckles isn't chuckling. North Carolina State football fans are angry at Chuck Amato. They're entitled to that. But proceed with caution.
A Herb Sendek-like re-do would be disasterous. As the Pack's season heads south, fans need to excercise restraint. This big ticket program is getting virtually no bang for the buck, and hasn't for the past three years, so the problems haven't just popped up overnight.
Here's the danger. Harping on Amato only hurts the rest of this season, which still has three-quarters - nine games - to go. If a change is to made at season's end - something Athletics Director Lee Fowler has to seriously be prepared for - then you don't want to scare off any potential high-caliber successors and recruits.
That's the hard-learned lesson from basketball. It's like the old saying, "Get bitten by a dog, the first time it's the dog's fault. Second time, your fault."
Until this season is over, just let the kids play football, and give Chuck Amato every opportunity to coach his way into, or out of, being State's Head Football Coach for the future.
Besides, you don't change head coaches once a season has started. That's flat out stupid - and very dangerous.

DISCLAIMER: The following story may not be your typical sports story but it's one you need to know about. Proceed if you want to learn something. If not, don't be surprised when you turn on your TV one day and what you expect to be there isn't.
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Things have changed with the National Football League. TV coverage, the vehicle which provided the spark for the NFL to grow into the sports product it is today, will be different.

In a move which illustrates the fact pro sports are as much big business and entertainment as they are athletic competition, the NFL is getting into the business of controlling coverage content available to local TV newscasts. A fact which must not be overlooked is a majority of Americans receive their daily news and information from television.

The first step of control from the NFL is a policy which the owners quietly put into effect as their spring meetings were wrapping up: no local tv cameramen will be allowed to shoot in the stadium during games. Done with the purpose of controlling ownership of their intellectual property - the video images of the game and its participants - and embellished with the bogus excuse of "cleaning up the sidelines", this policy caught many in NFL front offices completely off-guard. In fact, an "official policy" is still being worked on. In some respects, at least that last part is good.

What this new policy means is that local and regional TV news outlets, such as FOX 8, can only get what the NFL is willing to give out, which is, for the most part, what the network coverage provides. That's the big picture, but leaves out the one area of game coverage many local TV sportscasts and newspapers do very well, which is the story behind the big story - The "how" and the "why" behind the "what". No other media, including newspapers and their sideline photographers, have been affected by this new policy. Yet. And let's hope they're not. Ever.

To the credit of the Panthers, from Owner Jerry Richardson and Team President Marc Richardson to the team's very-much-in-touch Media Relations Director Charlie Dayton and his team, they're taking proactive steps to work with area TV stations to provide images from the sideline perspective during games. While the tentative new plan, brokered together by Panthers officials working under NFL guidelines and area sports media representatives (myself included), is not as good as the old total access policy (reasonable restrictions such as only using game images during regularly-scheduled newscasts - a longstanding "given" with many events, not just the NFL), this will at least allow everybody, and most importantly our viewers (the people we really work for), to literally stay in the game.

The solution is a pool videographer and a pool editor for each Panther's home game. At the end of the game, a 15-minute feed of ground level action and isolated shots will be provided to any TV outlet interested in the feed. While not ideal and limited to one image perspective as opposed to many, it's far better than the alternative of being totally shutout.

Which gets us to a trade secret. Stations, such as FOX 8, work in groups from different TV markets around the state and region. Our North Carolina NewsLink partners are in Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham, and Asheville. During games in the past, our videographers worked together around the field to get different shots and angles so nothing was left un-covered. At the end of the game, notes were compared and many times shots of key plays exchanged. Our viewers were definitely the winners here. This option has now been removed from the table.

In fairness to the NFL, the owners and league officials do have legitimate concerns over the uncertainty of the very medium you're receiving this story through - the internet. It's a very gray area when it comes to legally and fairly handling the distribution of "intellectual property" and the proper ownership of that property.. This is something which has to be worked out by many parties. It will not be easy nor will it be solved overnight. In the meantime, level heads are needed along with flexibility and the welcome input of any potential solutions.

There's a danger if this issue is not kept on a front-burner as solutions are being sought. And here's why. The NFL is recognized as "the league" when it comes to a sports business plan. That means other sports leagues - and this includes collegiate sports as well - may, and some certainly will, get into the copycat business. The long-term result for sports fans - and then the general public as this "control concept" will almost surely expand - will be the danger of receiving sanitized and filtered information containing more drivel and fiction than substance and fact.

Many times little things which begin quietly turn into major problems. Let's make sure this isn't one of them.

So far, this has been a strong camp for the Panthers with four good on-the-field practice sessions. It's also showing signs of concern with three key players suffering minor injuries. Kris Jenkins was the first to go down, sustaining a bruised left side of the rib cage. Then Steve Smith suffered a slight hamstring strain in his left leg. John Kasay became the third key player with a problem, this with a sore left kicking leg. Just to play it safe, the Panthers have brought in a backup kicker, Mackenzie Hoambrecker out of Northern Iowa who spent time briefly with the Chargers. Hoambrecker's also a left-footed kicker which means the kicking game has very few changes when practicing. It also says Kasay will be back. Newly acquired center Justin Hartwig has also missed all four sessions as he recovers from double-hernia surgery he had since the end of Summer School in mid-June. All players are day-to-day, which considering the alternatives, is good. The problem is that it shows the fragile nature of football and how quickly a key player in a team-oriented game can be lost. If this situation involved an important game, it could be serious, and that takes into consideration that the Panthers are a deep football team on the depth chart.

On the plus side, the players on the field are looking good and sharp in their drills. There's something to be said for reporting in top physical condition so you can concentrate on executing your plays to perfection. The veterans are working extremely well with the young players, not just in getting them oriented to a pro training camp, which makes college camps look like a walk in the park, but with their play assignments as well. One good example is Keyshawn Johnson working with the young wide-receivers, passing on pointers and leading by example.

All this reflects the coaching philosophy of John Fox, who along with General Manager Marty Hurney, and the coaching and scouting staffs, find players who fit into, and more importantly, buy into their philosophy of building a championship football team. Watching Fox work the practice field, and then later checking up on players and chatting with them in the dining hall shows a leader who is very much in touch with his team.

Speaking of the dining hall, as I'm writing this blog in the lobby outside the dining hall at 9:30 PM Sunday Night, players are wandering in for late snacks. The good news, Steve Smith and John Kasay walked in and look fine, which says the coaches are taking no chances. Besides, everybody knows what these guys can do.

The two-a-days continue Monday with a 9:10AM session and then one under the lights at 7:00PM.

Just a sidepoint to you high school football players who open your camps on Monday. Be like the pros and remember to take in lots of fluids all day - not just before or during your practices, but all day long. Your body loses tremendous amounts of water on hot and humid days such as we have now. That can cause cramps, muscle pulls (even to well-conditioned and smart athletes such as Steve Smith), or far worse things such as heat stroke when you're undergoing intense physical activity.

I'm the eternal optomist when it comes to the Panthers opening a new season with training camp. The only way this season will be a letdown is if the Panthers get eliminated early in the playoffs. Going over the roster, this is, without question, the strongest team in the franchise's 12 year history. There may be question marks, such as the durability of the running backs and filling in two linebacker slots, along with blending in newly acquired free agents, but the positives far outweigh the negative worries. This is an improved football team from last season, and last season's ballclub, which made it to the NFC Championship game for the second time in three seasons, was pretty darn good.

Overall, there are 89 players here in camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. Safe to say it was an interesting reporting day. There really wasn't a central theme to the players checking in other than the fact each year they bring more and more creature comforts to their Greene Hall dorm. Julius Peppers had wall-to-wall carpeting installed in his room, then had a rental company deliver a full bedroom of furnture complete with a 52-inch TV. Jordan Gross had an RV delivered from Tom Johnson Campers in Charlotte so he and the guys from the offensive line have a place to play cards. Retired center Jeff Mitchell used to bring his personal RV and passed the responsibility on to Gross to come up with a replacement. The kid's a fast learner. The weird creature comfort goes to linebacker Dan Morgan, who picked this next item up from Terrell Owens of all people - a portable pressure chamber like the ones used for scuba divers who have made extended deep dives. The goal is for a better night's sleep and general overall health. This one might require some monitoring.

Wheels are a hot item for many of the players. Not cars, but rather, the custom wheels on those cars, some of which with tricked out chrome and low-profile tires have to run at least a grand per tire. Cornerback Ken Lucas's burnt orange Range Rover won the chrome honors, while second-year linebacker Thomas Davis took black-on-black kudos on his Mercedes. Doctor Z would be proud. Ditto for the guys on "Pimp Out My Ride".

On the serious football news front, top draft pick DeAngelo Williams out of Memphis is signed and on-board as promised for the opening of practice. Several key players, such as defensive end Mike Rucker and offensive guard Mike Wahle reported in possibly the best condition of their careers thanks to workout programs which placed heavy emphasis on lean muscles rather than bulk. The weight's still there, it's just been moved around the body, such as to the shoulders. The mid-section, or as pro athletes call the mid-section muscle group, the core area, has been strengthened and leaned-down on both players.

The real test starts Saturday Morning at 9 and again at 3 as the team hits the field for the first day of 25 days at Spartanburg. Sunday practice times are the same. All practice sessions at Wofford are free and open to the public.