Pickin' Winners (with experts): Super Bowl 44

As the story goes, Pete Townshend, the guru/leader/guitarist for The Who, and Jimi Hendrix were backstage at the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967 arguing over who would go on first. You see, neither Jimi nor Pete wanted to follow each other as the last two acts at the seminal rock festival.

Who could blame them? To that point in the show, Otis Redding already incinerated half of the audience and Janis Joplin and Ravi Shankar didn’t mess around, either. So with the gig winding down and the stakes already high, both Pete and Jimi knew the other was going to bring it — they just didn’t want to get caught in each other’s wake.

See, what The Who and Jimi Hendrix already knew from playing in London (and what American audiences were about to learn) was that the guard was changing. Nobody was going to stand still and just strum the chords anymore. What good did that do? By that point, Townshend and The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, were known for their destruction of their instruments as well as their blistering sets, while Jimi was known simply as the baddest man on the planet.

Actually, that last sentence implies something that isn’t quite accurate. By all accounts Jimi Hendrix was a peach of a man. Sweet and soft-spoken, Jimi was said to be incredibly self-conscious and humble. He and his father, Al, were particularly close and each had a love for music that they shared. Nice and friendly doesn't go far enough -- Jimi was just beautiful. It emanated from his soul.

But put Jimi on a stage with a guitar in his hands and he turned into a monster. Not just an ordinary monster, either. He was once-in-an-epoch monster who wasn’t satisfied unless he obliterated everyone in the room. He didn’t just want to strike to the heart, soul and bone, but he wanted to blow your mind, too. With a guitar, Jimi came for blood and didn't stop until he had it all.

Pete Townshend knew this and it’s why he didn’t want The Who to go on second. Jimi had seen The Who in action, too, and felt he couldn’t compete with the group’s furor.

With negotiations mired in a stalemate and the decision regarding which group would go on first drawing ever closer, Jimi grabbed his guitar, stood on top of a chair located in front of Townshend and as they story goes, proceeded to play some of the sickest licks ever contemplated by a human. It went on for a few minutes with the notes feeling more like taunts or arrows slung from a six-string. Everyone in the room stopped, unsure of what was happening until Jimi got off the chair, put down his Fender and finally spoke in that beautifully soothing voice of his.

“You can go on first,” Jimi supposedly told Townshend. “But I’m pulling out all the stops.”

Townshend should have known that instant that his strategy had backfired. Something transcendent was about to occur and instead of just the group that followed Jimi being lost in the shuffle, Townshend goaded the master into turning the entire roster of acts into a footnote. More than 40 years later when people mention the Monterey Pop Fesitval, the only lasting image is of Jimi Hendrix kneeling over his guitar that had burst into flames.

Jimi burned that bitch down!

Jimi Hendrix was not of our world. He was too good for us and had to go somewhere else. That’s just the way it is sometimes for deities, both religious and otherwise. But on Sunday The Who is still putting it through the paces when they will perform a medley of their most notable tunes at the Super Bowl.

Yes, The Who, once the most power packed outfit of men to walk the earth—so powerful that they once forced Jimi Hendrix to set California on fire—is playing the halftime show at the Super Bowl.

Just let that stand there for a second.

Townshend once wrote that he hoped he died before he got old, which is actually kind of a cool sentiment. Better yet, you can dance to it, too. Apparently, age and the ages don’t bother much with sideshows and novelty acts.

Could you imagine Keith Moon at the Super Bowl? Moon, of course, checked out in 1978 after swallowing too many clomethiazole tablets only to be followed by the group’s innovative bassist, John Entwistle, after an accident with some cocaine in Las Vegas in 2002. In other words, The Who stopped being The Who a long time ago. The Who that played in Monterey in 1967 would never be asked to play at the Super Bowl and that’s a compliment.

Instead, Pete Townshend and his muse, Roger Daltry, will open up for Peyton Manning on Sunday. And no, that’s not as bad as it sounds. A son of New Orleans, Manning could be viewed as the Jimi Hendrix of quarterbacks. Like Jimi, Manning is a virtuoso with a rightful reverence for the classics (Jimi played in Little Richard’s band when he started out and Manning wore black high-top spikes to honor Johnny U.) only with Smarty Jones-like bloodlines.

The truth is Manning is playing a different game out there. He sees things no one else has ever contemplated and then goes out there and makes it happen. Sure, it’s a team game and all of that, but Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding never sounded better than when they played in The Experience and drop Jimi into The Band of Gypsys with Buddy Miles and no one else stands a chance.

It’s just too much firepower.

So yes, when looking at the outcome for Sunday’s Super Bowl, just look for the message the halftime show is sending. No, Peyton Manning is no Jimi Hendrix. Not even close. But Pete Townshend is no Pete Townshend, either.

Colts 45, Saints 21

Andy Schwartz
CSNPhilly.com/wonder boy

Forget Manning vs. Brees. It's Hank Baskett vs. Kyle Eckel. Colts win, 105-104.

Andy makes others look good when it should be the other way around. He went to Cheltenham High and Colgate University, too.

Mike Sielski
Calkins Newspapers/stately columnist

I believe in the Manning family. The Manning family has made a fortune producing quarterbacks, and Archie Manning raised his son in the Manning fashion. He gave him freedom, but he taught him never to throw a curl-in route against two-deep zone coverage. His son found a good group of wide receivers and a strong offensive line. His son never went to the movies. He stayed up late watching game film. Who would protest? Two months ago, his son was winning every game he played, with his coach. Then the coach made him lose two games. The son resisted. He kept his honor. He didn't weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? Peyton Manning is the light of my life, a beautiful man.

Colts 35, Saints 20.

Mike writes sentences the way you grow hair and rack up out of control credit debt. He is also the author of "Fading Echoes," which is sold at all self-respecting book stores.

Mike Wann
Neighborhood gadfly

Even as a self-diagnosed sports illiterate, I was surprised by my own ignorance of this year's Super Bowl. After a little research I understood why:  one team hails from Louisiana, the other Indiana.  No wonder I hadn’t heard anything about it. 

Nonetheless...

A prediction of a Saints victory would only stem from post-Katrina compassion.  Unfortunately that has completely disappeared in a tsunami of Haitian guilt. 

One could argue the Colts are due a victory since the only thing of worth to come out of Indiana in the recent past is John Cougar Mellencamp and the 27" all-wood-paneled RCA television set, neither of which have been relevant since 1981 (astute students of football may argue that the Colts won Super Bowl XLI, but they would be wrong.  Ever since Peyton Manning's developmentally challenged younger brother upstaged him the following year, only papa Archie remembers the "other" Super Bowl played in Miami).  

So with all that said, I have no choice but to predict a draw. 

Mike is out sitting in his sun room watching the snow cascade from the sky.

John Gonzalez
Philadelphia Inquirer/wacky guy

The Mannings are an international scourge. They own a Guatemalan sweat shop where children sew soccer balls with their teeth. Look it up on the internet. Saints 35, Colts 31.

Gonz is on the radio and in the paper... what can't he do?! WHAT CAN'T HE DO!?

Paul Flannery
WEEI/Celtics & NBA writer

I'm rooting for the Saints because Hokie Gajan was my favorite player growing up, and as an East Coast liberal I'm obligated to cheer for anything related to New Orleans and boo anything related to Archie and Olivia.

P.S. Oh fine. Add this: Saints 28, Colts 24.

Paul Flannery covers the Boston Celtics and the NBA for weei.com and used to write about Delco League baseball for the Daily Times down there in Delaware County. Follow him on Twitter @pflanns.

Dan Roche
CSN/song& dance man

Big C's Supe predictions/odds:
 
Over/Under on Archie/Eli Manning cutaway shots: 11.5 (Over)
Over/Under on Kim Kardashian cutaway shots: Nowhere near enough
 
Over/Under on Elapsed time for Carrie Underwood's National Anthem: 1:42 (Over)
Odds I think I could do a better job than Carrie Underwood: No Line
 
Odds Indy scores 1st:  -165
Odds NO scores 1st: +130
Odds Tiger Woods scores 1st: -1500
 
Over/Under - Total player arrests during Super Bowl week: 0.5
   Prediction: Under (Marvin Harrison isn't a Colt anymore)
 
Will CBS show Tim Tebow's commercial:
Yes  +200
No   -220
Who cares? -2250
 
What will Peyton Manning do first?
Throw a TD pass: -325
Throw an INT: +250
Step up to the line, then step back, pointing and screaming like an auction caller with Tourette's: -5000
 
Whom will Drew Brees thank first in the postgame interview if the Saints win?
God: 4/5
His teammates: 9/5
Brett Favre: 8/1
Whatever that is on Drew Brees' Face: 15/1
 
And oh yeah...

Final score: Colts, 31-20 (Colts -5.5, under, and so I win my block pool)

Dan sometimes goes by the handle, "Boonie." He lives in Delaware with his wife, son and mortgage and makes TV shows that you watch.

Jason Weitzel
Beerleaguer.com

I'm not a football guy, so I can only imitate what I've heard listening to two weeks of over-inflated blather from analysts on ESPN radio. It goes something like this ...

“To me, it boils down to the quarterback position. That means none other than Peyton Manning and Drew Brees. In order to have success in the Super Bowl, and achieve greatness in the National Football League, the quarterback must rise to the occasion in clutch situations, and in the National Football League, there's no greater game than the Super Bowl. This is a game that will be won in the trenches. It starts up front with the play of the offensive line. They must protect the quarterback and give Peyton Manning time. You can't expect to win consistently in the National Football League without a strong defense. They must apply pressure to the quarterback position. Sean Payton and Jim Caldwell must be prepared to make adjustments.”

Pitchers and catchers in 12 days.

Jason's site is Beerleaguer.com, but you already knew that.

Todd Zolecki
Phillies beat writer/MLB.com

Brett Favre throws another killer interception to help the Colts to a 31-28 victory. What? Favre isn't playing? Awwwww ...

A Wisconsin native, Todd finally asked his mom to take down the Brett Favre poster hanging on his bedroom wall. Read more from Todd on The Zo Zone!

Kevin Roberts
Good citizen

I can't believe you actually want me in here; I'm assuming this is a mistake with your old email chain. If you really want: “Kevin Roberts was a columnist at the Courier-Post before the Courier lost its mind and decided to stop being a real newspaper, and now works as an occasional freelancer and ghostwrites sports books in addition to his duties at Resources for Human Development, a national nonprofit human services corporation, where he works in communications,” well, then, OK:

I'm not sold on Peyton Manning as a clutch performer yet. He's been great this year, and in two playoff wins he's been excellent. But his career postseason record is just 9-8. His career QB rating is still just 87.1, which is just barely OK. In 2006, when he finally became, "A Guy Who Could Win The Big One," Manning threw touchdowns and seven interceptions in the postseason and won the Super Bowl MVP with a barely decent day (81.7 QB rating) simply because he was playing quarterback for the team that was playing Rex Grossman when Rex Grossman, predictably, threw up on himself. That might not be the best test. But New Orleans will be. Despite a nagging feeling that the Saints were the second-best team in the NFC championship game, the pick here is that Drew Brees and a complete Saints team armed with a big-play defense will carry the day.

Saints 33, Colts 2

Kevin is a terrific writer and used to ply his trade for the Camden Courier Post until it decided existence was no longer a compelling state in which to dwell. Kevin gets to New Orleans often for work and loves the notion that football will save that city.

Chris Wilson
Drums/Ted Leo & the Pharmacists

Choosing a Super Bowl winner between two dome teams playing a game in Miami in the middle of a snow storm in Philly is kind of a bummer. Anyways, I’m picking New Orleans for a few reasons, and here they are:

First, has anyone been to Indy? It’s a very wholesome landlocked city in the Midwest that's kinda dead boring to be honest. New Orleans, where to start? The food? The music? The history? The music?(!!!) the feeling that the best/worst thing ever could be waiting for you around each corner? Do I need to bring up Katrina? Sorry.

Second, the quarterbacks. Both seem like very likable guys and are beyond amazing at what they do. But Peyton did do that Oreo Racing League commercial and Drew Brees didn't. That’s worth at least a touchdown.

And lastly, I’m originally from Arkansas, and rooted for the Eagles even back then. They always played the Cowboys hard. Even though Dallas was only four hours away and it would make sense if I loved them, I hated them with a passion. America’s team? No thanks. I’ll root for the underdog. At any rate, in January of 1993, my great-grandfather was in the hospital and didn't have very much time left. I went on one of my weekly visits to see him so we could watch the NFC wild card game together. The Eagles beat the Saints 36-20 (going on to lose in the divisional round to those damned Cowboys, 34-10). I think my attitude may have been a little too boo-yeah that day and every time I’ve seen the Chappelle's Show skit where he goes to visit that sick kid Billy in the hospital and winds up slaying him at street hoops on PlayStation, I think about that and feel a little bad about it.

So for Elmer B. Hulsemann, I pick the Saints over the Colts 34-17. Boo-yeah!

Hear Chris’ work with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists on March 9 when their new record, “The Brutalist Bricks,” is released. Or hell, check out some of the new songs from last week's noontime gig at the World Cafe on XPN. If just owning a copy of the record isn’t good enough for you (and it shouldn’t be), catch the band on their spring tour that stops in Philadelphia (April 7), Washington (April 8), New York (April 9) and Boston (April 10).

Sarah Baicker
Sports kitten/CSNPhilly.com

I'm pretty sure the reason I find so much success in my March Madness pools (really, I've gotten first or second place each of the past five years) is that I try to pay as little attention as possible to the meaningful statistics. Instead, I pick something silly to consider about the two teams involved in each game. And so, for the Super Bowl, I've decided to think about which quarterback I would rather see guest star in an episode of Saturday Night Live. Because you know the winning QB will make an appearance, even though no one watches the show anymore.

Turns out, my SNL Bowl isn't even a contest. Drew Brees vs. Peyton Manning? The guy who's allergic to dairy and wheat vs. the guy who's voiced a character on The Simpsons? I mean, c'mon! Manning wins it, hands down.

Seriously, though: The Saints have the story but the Colts have the experience. So my money (not that there's a lot of it) is on another big win for Manning and company.

Colts 31, Saints 24

Sarah knows more about hockey than you. She also will cross-check you into the boards, pick you off the ice and bake you some brownies. Tread lightly around her, folks.

Ellen Finger
School marm

Since I haven't paid attention to the actual football season this year, making an educated guess is out of the question. Maybe I will base my selection on the answer to the country's most timely and riveting question: Team Kim or Team Kendra??

While I have shamefully watched “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” more times than I'd like to admit, I found I couldn't stomach bubble-boobed Kendra Wilkinson's reality show for more than two minutes. She had absolutely nothing to say and seemingly, nothing to do but look blissfully confused and order dinner from the Olive Garden.

Then again, Kendra is actually married to a dreamy Super Bowler, while Kim has been looking desperate, crossing her fingers that a win on Sunday means a big honkin' engagement for her. Even People Magazine's online poll asking readers whether they are supporting Team Kim or Team Kendra is all tied up.

Geez. Decisions, decisions... maybe I'll just ask my five-year-old, and I'll go with whatever he thinks.

OK, he says the Stevens College of Technology Bulldogs will defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, 100-5. Perfect.

Ellen is too busy and married beneath her standards to be bothered at this moment. This is all you get for now.

Dennis Deitch
Sixers beat writer/Delaware County Daily Times

Yeah, it's late getting here -- but so what? What are you doing? I'll tell you what you're doing, you're watching the snow pile up to your third chin. Meanwhile, I'm wearing shorts in Houston, so take that. Besides, the only people reading this are the other people invited to make their predictions. For good taste's sake I can't say what this is the Interblogs version of ... but there's a punk band named after it, and the first word in the name is a shape and the second word is a Steve Martin film.

Anyway, the game. First off, I just left New Orleans, and if one more person had said "Who dat?" before I got on that plane, I was taking a hostage (and considering the track record in airports, I probably would have been successful). That said, New Orleans deserves something good, and it is going to get it. I predicted that the NFC Championship game would be an epic. It was. I also predicted the winner would win the Super Bowl. It will. The Saints have a sick offense. Drew Brees is Joe Montana -- undersized, but a flat-out winner. He took not one, but two black-and-gold-garbed jokes (Purdue and the Saints) and turned them into quality teams. The Saints got past a team with a far better defense than the Colts two weeks ago; the Colts had to rally in the second half against a rookie QB and Buddy Ryan's son. C'mon.

We'll give the runner-up in the Sony Ping-Pong tournament a late TD to make it respectable, but it's Saints 35, Colts 31.

A child acting star, Dennis played Arnold's friend who was molested in an episode of "Diff'rent Strokes." His passions are cards and the atmosphere.

Enrico Campitelli Jr.
The 700 Level

I just don't think the Puppy Bowl will be the same without Harry the K calling the riveting action, although I did hear they have some arctic hares as cheerleaders (hairy cheerleaders!). I'm pulling for the Pomeranian.

As for The Big Game, I think I'm with the majority of the sports watching world when I say I'd like to see the underdog Saints pull it out but also think Peyton Manning and the Colts are just too much. Sean Payton has those Philly roots so I'll pull for him. Saints 35-31.

Also, Baba O'Riley opener.

Enrico started your favorite web site, The 700 Level. He's a force of nature.

Wing Bowl 18 definitely not for the weak

The first thing one notices when they walk into the Wachovia Center on a Wing Bowl Friday is the smell. Strong is putting it kindly. Actually, it’s more of a stench than a smell, kind of like the one that emanates from a baby’s diaper if it were placed out in the July sun all day and mixed with a curry.

Quite simply, it’s demoralizing. For mere mortals one whiff pretty much is a wrap on the day and that is saying something considering we arrived before the stroke of 6 a.m. Then again, that’s our fault for attempting to lead a life of dignity and self respect.

Such concepts as dignity and self-worth were not measured with the abundance as the tally for chicken wings ingested on Friday morning in front of a rather underwhelming crowd in the Wachovia Center. But, you know, what else is new. Using the Wing Bowl — the 18th annual version of it, no less — as a commentary on social values and mores is foolhardy at best. As they say, it is what it is.

Call it hubris masked as hedonism.

Is it out of line to wonder if Wing Bowl, put on by radio station WIP, is one of the biggest reasons why the rest of the world hates America and why the rest of America thinks Philadelphia and Philadelphians are ugly? At least that's what Americans told a slick travel magazine a few months ago.

After all, those jackals that turned out for the peep show masked as some sort of eating competition, and the blathering/analysis from WIP’s lead buffoon, Angelo Cataldi, booed Snooki. Can you believe that?

THEY BOOED SNOOKI!

Granted, though advertised as a sellout, the arena was hardly full so the star of the MTV hit reality show, “Jersey Shore,” didn’t have to worry about D-sized batteries aimed at her head from the upper deck. She wasn’t exactly treated like J.D. Drew by the WIP crowd. More like Donovan McNabb on draft day.

But Snooki is not like me or you. She’s low to the ground and built like an armadillo. If you have seen her work on her show you know that she can fight her own battles. So when the crowd in Philly gives her the type of cheer they are so famous for, she didn’t back down.

“Philly is crazy,” she said while advertising the fact that she is a Mets fan. “I wish I could stay all day. I’ll come back when the Mets are here.”

See what I mean? Did McNabb punch back when WIP arranged to have him booed lustily on draft day? No. Instead he sulked and guided the Eagles to the Super Bowl in 2004. Snooki came back like she was Chase Utley at Yankee Stadium before the Home Run Derby.

“Boo,” he said. …

You know the rest.

Snooki is just part of the crowd who took chicken bleep and turned it into chicken wings. There was no demoralizing her, which is more than one could say for a couple of the gents in the competition who just didn’t seem to have the intestinal fortitude to complete the course. In that sense just be glad that Wing Bowl is a radio event because having gotten an eye full of the contestants and the assigned/paid members of their entourage along with a few of the deejays all hired to flash the crowd and… how do we put this delicately... um... bowwow.

Look, I'm no George Hamilton, but geez. Apparently there’s a reason why they airbrush photographs.

Thankfully Snooki was ushered to the off-limits area so she didn’t have to see the handful of contestants that filled the tank well past the top and left the contents of their stomachs on the table in front of them. It was almost like going to Yellowstone and waiting for Old Faithful to blow. I kept thinking, “Should I go to the car and get the camera or can I wait?”

I waited and I watched the forlorn face of porn princess Katie Morgan as men literally spilled their guts in front of her. Normally Ms. Morgan looks like a ray of sunshine beaming across a tranquil lake on a cloudless spring morning, but in this case she looked as if her doctor just told her that she had VD.

No, Wing Bowl is not for the weak. In fact, you better drink up because it’s an event that requires courage. Extraordinary displays of courage is where a man using the handle, “Super Squibb,” distanced himself from the pretenders wallowing in pools of vomit and intestinal bile. Jonathan Squibb, as his loving parents named him, ingested 221 bits of roasted animal flesh, properly digested it and then washed it down with a properly mature Pinot Noir.

You might be asking yourself, “Pinot Noir? With chicken?” Yes. I told you he was brave.

Super Squibb not only lapped the competition, beating a man named Not Rich by a hefty 83 pieces of dead animal carcass, but the back-to-back champ withstood taunts and catcalls from three-time champ, Joey Chestnut who turned up not to compete, but instead to work on a potential public intoxication charge if you believe parts of the dialogue from the lead buffoon with the loudest microphone. In fact, so complete was Mr. Squibb’s prowess and skill in the competition that Mr. Chestnut was shamed into making a comeback for the 2011 event.

Be sure to arrive early in next February, too, because I hear they gluttonous hijinx might be ready to add both a cigarette smoking and baby seal clubbing competition.

The tailgate starts at 4.

Getting Iggy with it

If there was one sequence that personified the season for Andre Iguodala—and maybe the Sixers, too, for that matter—it came in the final seconds of regulation in Wednesday night’s game against the Chicago Bulls at the Wachovia Center. Trailing by one point, Iguodala got the ball at the third-point arc above the top of the key where he hesitated as if getting ready to shoot before streaking to the hoop.

More than just a good, basketball move, it also was the smart play because even if Iguodala could not convert the layup, the odds were strong that he would draw a foul.

And that’s exactly what he did.

But that’s also where the Sixers got that sinking feeling again. That’s because after making his first foul shot to tie the game, the second one clunked off the back of the rim to give Chicago a chance to win the game with a final shot.

Eventually, the Sixers didn’t suffer for Iguodala’s missed freebie. In overtime Iguodala was the catalyst in helping the team to their second victory in a row. It was his three-pointer with 1:19 to go in overtime that finally gave the Sixers a lead they would never relinquish, just as it was his steal in the third quarter that started the second half run that culminated with his two foul shots with five seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Better yet, Iguodala was everywhere on Wednesday night, turning in one of his better all-around performances of the season with 25 points, eight assists and eight boards. It was an effort that was especially eye-popping when considering how the last three games went for the Sixers’ forward. During that span he has scored just 31 points on 30 shots, including an especially anemic eight-point effort against the Lakers last Friday night.

Over the last six games heading into Wednesday’s tilt against Chicago, Iguodala failed to score in double digits in four games and struggled to average 13 points on 40 percent shooting during the month of January.

For a guy wearing the label as the team’s franchise player, those numbers aren’t good enough.

Of course there are a lot of other things swirling around Iguodala that have nothing to do with his play, yet very well could influence it. One of those, of course, is the return of Allen Iverson to the Sixers, which may (or may not) have some influence on Iguodala’s game. It’s worth noting that Iverson did not play on Wednesday night.

It goes without saying that the trade rumors could have an effect on Iguodala’s play over the past few weeks. With the Feb. 18 trade deadline quickly approaching, the hottest rumors have the Sixers making deals with Phoenix or Houston for Amare Stoudemire or Tracy McGrady and those coveted expiring contracts that NBA GMs love and covet. Then again, even the East’s top team Cleveland has been mentioned as one of those landing spots.

Iguodala, however, does not have one of those contracts. Instead he has three years plus a player option remaining on his current deal, which doesn’t give GM Ed Stefanski much wiggle room despite the fact that the Sixers rank 23rd out of 30 teams in player payroll. In some potential deals the Stefanski might go in already in a tough spot since Elton Brand still has three years remaining on his $80 million deal.

Nevertheless, Iguodala sounds as if he would welcome a trade anywhere Stefanski can put together a deal.

“I feel like I’m one of the top players in the league and I can give whatever team I’m on a whole different dimension,” Iguodala said after Wednesday’s game. “Thinking in that perspective alone gives me that added confidence. It shows a new team what I can bring to the table.”

Still, Iguodala’s play on Wednesday night was such that some folks watching wondered aloud, “Who’s that guy wearing Iguodala’s uniform?” Then again, maybe the Iguodala on display this season is the real act. After all, in six seasons he’s appeared in just 17 playoffs games and never made an All-Star team. Clearly he’s not a guy who can carry a team, but might be a nice complimentary piece in Phoenix, Houston or Cleveland.

Besides, durability is nothing to sneeze at in the NBA and in his six seasons Iguodala has missed a grand total of just six games—all during the 2006-07 season. No matter who Iguodala ends up playing for, he’s dependable. His coaches and teammates can always expect him to be on the court.

Whether or not it’s the guy who dropped 25 on the Bulls on Wednesday night is a different matter.

More media days, please

Word out of Miami was that Tuesday was the infamous “Media Day.” That’s where the contestants sit behind card tables with aprons wrapped around the fringe in order to make themselves properly available to the horde that shows up to cover the media day.

Yeah, that’s right… some folks cover the Super Bowl from the vantage point of media day and leave the actual football stuff to the sports writing crew. For instance, don’t expect to see Downtown Julie Brown going over Xs and Os on the day of the big game, but you can be sure as heck she (or modern equivalent of her) will be making the rounds at media day.

The best part about media day is how the media complains about media day. I love that. Usually it comes from the sports writers who, a.) aren’t the most welcoming sort to begin with, and, b.) don’t like it when their little piece of turf is invaded by non-sports types.

Wanna drive the sports complainers crazy? Tell them that the sports industry is entertainment. The MVP and the Hollywood star really aren’t all that different.

That might not be the reason why some folks get bent about media day, though. The truth is a lot of those guys are ticked off to begin with and they don’t like it when a flunky from a South American comedy show is singing karaoke with the starting tight end when they want to know about the intricacies of Dwight Freeney’s ankle injury.

Frankly, there’s room for both the geek and the flunky in media day. In fact, the goofballs are the best part about it and sometimes they are on the other side of those tables, too. Remember when the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl and Freddie Mitchell threw a tantrum because he wasn’t assigned a seat with the team’s stars? Apparently Mitchell thought he was the reason why the Eagles got to the Super Bowl.

Regardless, usually the athletes are at media day to endure the legit questions and enjoy the absurdity of it all. For some of that, check out the Huffington Post’s photo gallery of this year’s media day.

From my perspective, the only chance I’ve had to see anything remotely close to the media day of Auper Bowl was the one they held before the opening game of last October’s World Series. In the past media availability for the World Series was simply a matter of opening up the clubhouse and allowing the press to find whoever they wanted… that is if they were even there. Left to their own devices, some baseball players would prefer to hide out in the off-limits area until the coast is clear. But at media day before the World Series (only for the games at Yankee Stadium, it should be noted), every player was set out at their own spot—even the guys no one wanted to talk to.

Needless to say, the NFL and the Super Bowl carry a bit more cachet than baseball’s World Series. And since baseball players are known for being the surliest of the bunch, the only goofs that showed up were from the mainstream press and Arsenio Hall, who works for Jay Leno’s show.

Poor guy.

Either way, the message from the media day(s) is that the NFL wants to be a cross-cultural phenomenon. Sure, when it comes to the action on the field, yes, the NFL is the proverbial stuffed shirt. Any semblance of personality from a player or coach is beaten away in Soviet-like precision while the owners share the bounty of their provinces with the politburo in New York City.

And like any totalitarian regime, the NFL has a remarkable marketing initiative. The league protects its image, or “brand” as they say in the vernacular. Between the point spreads and the fantasy leagues, everyone seems to have an interest in the comings and goings on football Sundays. If people want to talk about football, buy into its programming and spend time with all of its products, by golly, the NFL is going to let them.

Even when the NFL does something stupid like sue over the phrase, “Who ‘Dat?” the NFL quickly figures out how silly it is. The league might even admit this and offer a mea culpa of sorts.

MLB, meanwhile, is too busy looking for new ways to upset the fans. First they tried to sue fantasy leagues over the use of baseball statistics as if they are intellectual property or some silliness, before they set up a deal so that only one company could use its logos on baseball cards.

Then, just in case you didn’t get the message, MLB will broadcast its biggest games too late in the night for kids to watch.

Nice.

So when you’re at your Super Bowl party this weekend with a bunch of interesting people from all over, don’t think about whether or not you would do the same thing for a big baseball game—Bud Selig is monitoring your thoughts and will issue an injunction if you do.

Using pretzel logic

When he was at Stanford, presumably on a baseball scholarship, Phillies’ general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. majored in human biology. Certainly a subject as complex as that meant hours of study and lab work that most college students never put themselves through.

And then to play baseball on top of that… hey, Ruben can retain some information. He may be a lot of things, but dumb ain’t one of them.

Hey, if you don’t believe me just ask Ruben.

“I was talking to some people the other day and I said, ‘I’m not a dummy,’” the GM said on Monday night at the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association banquet in Cherry Hill.

That wasn’t just some pre-emptive sweeping statement or a bit of braggadocio, either. It was some way for Amaro to flaunt that B.S. from Stanford that his baseball ability got him. Not in the least. It’s just that Amaro knows about all the folks forlornly kicking stones into the gutter because the Phillies traded Cliff Lee. He senses the touch of melancholy amongst the baseball die hards.To use a phrase, getting Roy Halladay, but dealing Lee is a major bummer.

But it wasn’t dumb trade because Amaro is no dummy. He wants you to know that because there was a method to his madness. He didn’t catch a case of the dumbs and trade away the pitcher with a Cy Young Award who just completed the greatest postseason ever by a Phillies pitcher.

“I know what Cliff Lee means to our rotation in addition to Halladay and [Cole] Hamels. It’s a no-brainer,” he said, talking about brains and relative dumbness again.

“Our goal is to be a contender every year,” he continued. “It’s not just to be a competitor, but to be a contender every year. That’s really my job. As an executive of the club, it’s my job to do what I can to try to maintain that level of talent on the club and that hope from the fans. So, yes, I’d like to have a championship, but not at the cost of having our organization not be good for 10 years. Absolutely not. That’s not the goal. The goal is to be a contender every year. And once you get to the World Series or get to the playoffs, it’s really a matter of who’s playing the best baseball, who’s hottest, who has the karma.”

Go ahead and pick that apart if you like. Certainly Amaro left himself open to more criticism there, but any sentence spoken by any pro sports exec is fair game for second-guessing. That’s what we do. But it’s only fair to acknowledge that Amaro has thoroughly and meticulously explained why he felt he had to trade Cliff Lee. Frankly, people with the ability to think and reason with logical and cogent points should understand that by now.

You don’t need a B.S. from Stanford or the School of Hard Knocks to figure that one out.

But that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

No, Amaro is not a dummy. We’ve established this already. But maybe he thinks you are a dummy. It kind of sounds like that when he says:

“We cannot be the New York Yankees,” he said before sitting down to dinner in Cherry Hill. “We have to have people that we can bring to the big leagues from our system. The guys who are our core players are guys from our system.”

Now some people might reason that the GM is rightly explaining how the Phillies cannot buy championships or have a payroll up to a third more than the record $140 million the team is spending on salaries in 2010. At some point, they’ll explain, low-priced rookies and up-and-comers will have to take over for potential high-priced All-Stars like Jayson Werth or Ryan Howard.

To those folks we ask, how’s that Kool-Aid taste? Is it fruity?
 

When a Phillies executive says his team cannot be like the New York Yankees and up the payroll in order to make sure guys like Werth and Howard and Utley and Rollins spend the rest of their careers in South Philly, it does not mean anything about giving the young and hungry kids a chance. Nope, all it means is that the Philadelphia Phillies L.P., are a corporation that plans to be run as a business with its eyes on the bottom line. Sure, they would all like to win championships and they have hired Amaro to be the guy to put together a championship-level team as long as he comes in under budget and maximizes profit.

It means they want to keep all that cash that hard-working people spent on tickets, shirts, concessions and parking from all those sellouts over the past three seasons is something the organization wants to keep for itself and not waste on some silly overhead like baseball players.

Surprised?

“I guess I’d characterize myself as someone who is aggressive and someone who understands what the fans want,” Amaro said. “But at the same time, I have to do right by this organization, and in turn, I think that’s doing right by the fans.”

In biology they study how form develops and grows. Mixed in there are theories of evolution, function and structure. Students of biology have a good idea of how an organism will travel from infancy to adulthood, which seems to be a perfect training ground for a future baseball general manager. Cliff Lee an organism in its complete and mature form. He was in his peak and was on target for another above-average season.

But Lee was traded for ballplayers still in development. Though baseball people have a pretty good idea of what they will be when they are ready for the big leagues, nothing is promised or guaranteed.

In other words, Amaro traded the known to Seattle for the unknown only he’s talking like it’s a given.

Does your head hurt, too?

“It’s going to be difficult to look fans in the face and say two years from now, ‘You know, why we don't have any players to supplant some of the guys we have now is because I went for it with Cliff Lee and now we have no players to fall back on,’” Amaro said. “That's not the goal.”

Sigh.

The logic makes sense. We get it. But just think about how fired up the fans in the city would be heading into spring training in two weeks with Halladay, Hamels and Lee. Go ahead and think about that for a second and then think about how uninspiring minding the bottom line really is.

One for the ages

There are human beings that travel around in order to cover the Philadelphia 76ers. Believe it or not, they are smart and caring people who live lives and have others who care about them. In fact, guys like Martin Frank and Dennis Deitch or two fellows that I consider friends and I wish them no ill will.

Apparently the team in which they cover is a little more sadistic, but we'll get to that in a moment. If these folks are going to survive the season and come out on the other side of it OK, we should know a little something about them just in case...

Martin and Dennis are as talented as they come in this business of ours. Martin always cuts to the heart of a story and he sees things that most people miss. He and I also spent a long May afternoon wiling away the time at Pimilco before Smarty Jones ran to a record-smashing victory in the 2004 Preakness. Since there were a slew of races on the undercard before the big race and they had a betting window in the press box, Martin and I decided the only logical thing to do was to study the race form and put a few dollars on a horse or two.

If I remember the day correctly, Martin did OK with the horses and the writing. I did better with the writing than I did with the horses. On the plus side, I came away with a better understanding of the phenomenon known as, "The betting window in the press box." I'm on the pro side of the argument (if there is even an argument).

Deitch is the most clever dude covering sports in Philadelphia. That’s not hyperbole or blowing smoke, either. Facts are facts and if there is anything remotely interesting going on with the 76ers, Deitch is the first place to check. That’s not a knock on anyone else, it’s just that Dennis sees through all the traps and talking points floated out there.

So when I finished watching the Lakers and Celtics play in one of the more entertaining NBA games this season, I flipped over to watch the Sixers face the Nets…

Yeah.

Let’s just say there was a bit of a difference in the quality of play in the two games. After watching the Lakers handle the Sixers last Friday night, my interest was piqued enough to want to watch how they measure up against a better opponent. Better yet, it was quite a treat to see a stellar performance from Celtics’ point guard Rajon Rondo. That dude can play.

Meanwhile, up at the Meadowlands it didn’t take very long for my heart to sink into the pit of my stomach and immediately feel a bit of empathy for Martin, Dennis and the rest of the gang. Did they get hazard pay for traveling to North Jersey to watch that game? Do their eyes still ache more than a day later?

I can only imagine that Deitch probably had to drop to one knee in order to catch his breath and re-organize his thoughts shortly after the final horn sounded. Poor guy.

The Sixers beat the Nets on Sunday evening, but not by much. Thanks to… well, thanks to no one in particular, the Sixers dealt the Nets their 42nd defeat (83-79) of the season in 46 games. For those scoring at home, the Nets are on pace to finish 7-75 this season, which is two wins shy of the all-time worst season in pro sports by the 1972-73 76ers. Frankly, it’s amazing that any team in this age of sports (with expansion and a salary cap) outside of the Los Angeles Clippers could flirt with a record that seemed like the NBA’s version of Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak.

Yet like the ’73 Sixers once were, the Nets are 4-42, but just missed pulling off their second win in three games. If the Nets could have won on Sunday night, it seemingly makes the record for the worst season safe for another year. But if there was ever a game the Nets should have won, it was the one against the Sixers. After all, the Nets’ defense held the Sixers to 36.5 percent shooting from the field and out-rebounded them, 50-47.

Looks like the Nets might have a date with destiny.

“I looked at the stat sheet and saw we shot, what, 36 percent? And still won the ball game? Man,” Allen Iverson said. “Obviously they didn’t play well at all for us to be able to win a game like that.”

What about the gang who had to sit there and then write about the game afterwards? How demoralized are those guys? Do you think it’s easy watching bad games night after night? Having seen the 2002 and 2004 Phillies up close the answer is an obvious, no. Losing is a communicable ailment that is airborne and contagious. It infects all that it comes in contact with and ruins the good will of kind-hearted people.

Worse, a game like Sunday’s in the Meadowlands can break a man’s spirit. When the game ended I was worried about the writing corps and feared that something bad was going to happen. Maybe after filing a story they would go to their car in the parking lot and find that the tires of the car had been slashed. Maybe after watching the game someone developed a rash and needed to rush down the Turnpike in order to get something lanced?

These are the times that try men’s souls.

Fortunately, morale appears to be high. In the Delaware County Daily Times, Mr. Deitch looked at the game from a historical perspective. Sure, the Sixers won the game, but in the process they nearly took the sport back to its peach basket days.

Deitch wrote:

If you said that this abomination set the game of basketball back 50 years, Wilt Chamberlain would crawl out of his grave and smack you for disrespecting his era.

Burn the tape. What, they don’t use tape any longer? Melt the memory card.

If you witnessed this game, seek therapy. And you might want to enter a decontamination shower, like Meryl Steep in “Silkwood.”

It really was that awful.

Here’s the ugliness Double D describes: The Nets scored just two fastbreak points in the game and were whistled for a shot-clock violation when trailing by two points with less than two minutes to go in the game. With feats like that one has to wonder about the Nets’ chances against the Washington Generals.

It wasn’t too much better on the winning side, either, with the Sixers missing 16 shots in the final quarter. More telling was the fact that the Sixers didn’t break into double-figures in scoring in the final quarter until the final minute. By that point the Sixers had to score because the Nets kept fouling them to stop the clock.

And to think, after the game some of the Sixers had the nerve to talk about how bad the Nets are.

“It is a frustrating thing. We just can’t play down to the level of our competition,” Iverson said.

“I’ve been on some pretty poor teams, but never that poor,” said Elton Brand, who went from going 66-7 in two seasons at Duke, to 15-67 in his first season in the NBA with the Bulls.

To be fair, maybe Sunday’s epic wasn’t the worst game ever or set the league back a half century, but it wasn’t one to be proud of, either.

Wrote Deitch:

So, maybe the fog of time just made it seem like Sunday night's game was the worst. But trust me -- this was a once-in-a-decade display. There were at least five shots that hit off the side or bottom of the backboard. (I'm still trying to figure out where the hell Willie Green was aiming that fourth-quarter shot.) The general sloppiness and disorder was brutal to watch, and the fact that both teams saved their worst play for the fourth quarter -- you know, when you're supposed to put your best foot forward -- made it a form of torture to watch.

Send the video to Abu Ghraib.

Living in Kobe's (and Phil's) world

Wild and unparalleled success in sports is an odd thing to witness up close. So too is TMZ-like celebrity complete with television crews and boom mics (literally) chronicling every single step a guy takes on his way home from work.

Actually, it’s probably true of watching elite-level success in any occupation though it seems doubtful that there is celebrity attached to a top surgeon not on Oprah or CNN. Chances are a big-time scientist does not ever have to worry about being mobbed by adoring fans at the mall.
 
But for guys like Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, success is usually a very strange thing. In fact, it seems as if there is something about both men that makes others do things they wouldn’t normally do in hope of being noticed. Oh yes, Kobe and Phil make regular folks act brave.

Think about it—if you saw Jackson or Kobe on the street chances are you might shout something to them, or even stop and ask a question. Better yet, you might even ask for an autograph or a handshake. And yes, this is odd. It is especially odd because no matter what Jackson or Bryant have accomplished, they must be accountable to complete strangers.
 
Who do you have to be accountable to?
 
Yes, with great power comes great responsibility… or whatever it is that Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben taught us. The rules are different successful sports stars whether they like it or not.
 
For instance, look at Jackson. At 5:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon he was obligated to answer some question from the Los Angeles and Philly media on topics that he probably never contemplated. Like had he ever thought about the significance of owning the all-time record for victories in Lakers’ history? After all, with the 98-91victory over the 76ers at the Wachovia Center on Friday night, Jackson needs one more win to tie Pat Riley with 533 regular-season victories.
 
Does Jackson think about that kind of stuff?
 
“No.”

Not in the least?

“It’s just a matter of hanging around and showing up to work. That’s 90 percent of it… who said that, Woody Allen?”

Indeed that was Woody Allen who astutely pointed out that 90 percent of life was just showing up. The other 10 percent, perhaps, is left for answering questions and filling out paperwork.
 
Jackson is the only person in North American professional sports to win 10 championships as a coach. Certainly it helps that all he had to do was “show up” and coach a pair of teams with players Michael Jordan, Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, but Jackson also won an 11th title as a coach of the CBA's Albany Patroons when his star was Frankie J. Sanders.

The J. stood for "Jumpshot."

Still, after six titles with Jordan and the Bulls and four in Los Angeles, Jackson is asked to ponder which team he should most be linked to.
 
Again, it’s doubtful Jackson has ever mulled an answer to anything remotely close to that question. After all, his legacy is pretty safe with both franchises.
 
“There's a generation of people that identify with the Showtime Lakers of the ‘80s and similarly with the '90s Chicago teams,” Jackson said. “I don't know if you can say we're the dominant team of this decade, but we're pretty close. So I'm sure there's a whole generation of kids who see me only as the Lakers coach. They're not familiar with the Bulls at all.”

Yeah, yeah… which is it, Bulls or Lakers?

“I'd have made the jacket with both sides—one side the Lakers, one side the Bulls,” Jackson smiled.
 
Jackson, though, comes from a time when the art of thoughtful give-and-take was part of being a living and breathing person. It actually mattered what people thought about certain topics whether they were an athlete or not. Sure, guys like Jackson were always asked for their opinions on a bunch of subjects simply because he’s famous and famous people, for some reason, have opinions that matter more than others. It’s the same deal with all the Lakers, because, as forward/reality-TV star Lamar Odom said, “Everyone on this team is Hollywood.”

Odom is right about that, but when it comes to the Lakers there’s one star shinier than the rest.

Now I heard stories about Michael Jordan’s days in Chicago where the reporters that covered the team rarely got a chance to stand next to the guy they were writing about. Sometimes, the stories go, they had a chance to shout questions at him as if he were a president walking across the South Lawn to Marine One. Most of the time Jordan planted himself in the middle of the practice gym or locker room and he was engulfed by cameras and recorders. He was in the middle of that pile up somewhere and the only hope for a lot of writers was to hear one little nugget or word from the man himself.

Toward the end when Jordan was playing for the Wizards, he moved his post-game tête-à-tête to a conference room where questions were shouted as if he were some Hollywood diva ensnared in some controversy. Cameras flashed and shouted voices collided in midair and made an awful mess of white noise. Sometimes Spike Lee was waiting in the wings.

That wasn’t quite the case with Kobe on Friday night at the Wachovia Center, though between the snap shots from camera phones and the boom-mic men blindly walking backwards, it would have been easy for someone to get run over.

All that just to hear what a kid from Lower Merion Township had to say about basketball.

Actually, the brunt of the questioning was focused on the back-and-forth scoring showdown between Bryant and Allen Iverson during the third quarter of Friday night’s action. Suddenly, for a handful of minutes, it was as if it was 2001 again for Iverson. For Bryant, however, it was just another Friday night. Nevertheless, the awful truth that no one really wanted to admit—especially Bryant—was that as soon as the Lakers’ star switched over to guard Iverson, the show stopped.

There is only so much room in the spotlight.

“He’s a scorer, he and I both,” Bryant said. “That’s what we do. We can score when we’re 70 years old.”

These days Bryant does a little more.

“It’s evident that he is one of the best ever to do it,” Iverson said. “He goes out there night in and night out and plays the same way every night.”

And every night he gets wrapped in a cocoon of otherworldliness. People steel up some nerve and get brave. They ask questions and snap pictures. They want to ask questions and hear answers no matter how mundane they are.

They want a moment where someone spectacular shows some humanness no matter how bizarre the setting really is.

Let the McNabb trade talk begin

It's pretty difficult to imagine a scenario where the newly retired Kurt Warner will not be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If they haven't begun casting the mold for his bust yet, maybe it's time to start pretty soon. Sure, the sculptor has some time but why procrastinate? Go ahead and knock it out already.

And perhaps while folks are mulling over Warner's body of work as a quarterback of the Cardinals, Rams, and in the Arena Football League, as well as a stock boy at some grocery in Iowa, maybe the speculation can begin in earnest regarding his replacement in Arizona.

Is it time to start the Donovan McNabb trade watch already? We don’t have to wait for Brett Favre to decide something, do we?

Long before the Eagles were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in Dallas way back at the beginning of the month, it appeared the best fit for McNabb just might be as a replacement for Warner or Favre rather than with the Eagles. With the Cardinals McNabb could step right in as the veteran leader with a high-powered offense that thrived with Warner. Better yet, after games and practices McNabb could turn his off-season home into his year-round pad. That certainly makes it a win-win.

With the Vikings McNabb could reunite with coach Brad Childress, who was the offensive coordinator with the Eagles during the quarterback’s best seasons. Where could he go wrong? The Cardinals are a season removed from nearly winning the Super Bowl followed by a solid playoff run, while the Vikings were a late-game meltdown away from winning the NFC Championship over the Saints.

It’s either go somewhere else with a talented team looking to take the proverbial next step or stay in Philadelphia where he can continue pounding his head against the wall like we all have for the past decade.

It’s an easy decision for everyone, right? The Vikings or Cardinals can plug in a seasoned All-Pro and the Eagles can focus on the future with Kevin Kolb, the quarterback they drafted in the second round in 2007. With McNabb in the last year of his current deal with the Eagles and asking for an extension, all that’s left is to figure on the partner, the price and then send out the press release.

Let’s get moving already…

As we know all too well it’s the easy decisions that are often the trickiest and most troublesome. Of course, as we also have seen over the past decade, any decision for the Eagles always dissolves into a circus wrapped manically inside of a soap opera. Can Joe Banner or Andy Reid ever come to a conclusion without everyone overreacting? Are we that sensitive or is it that we just can't help ourselves? Or maybe it's because we don't trust them. Sure, most of the decisions to let players go have been the right ones, but they still don't have much to show for it.

Besides, even when the Eagles make the most mundane decision it’s like watching the clown car crash into the bearded lady.

Of course the report that the Cardinals are going to turn over the quarterback gig over to Matt Leinart as well as McNabb’s consultation with his psychic only adds to the intrigue. After all, just because a pro sports general manager and Miss Cleo say something doesn’t make it completely true. We’re working from years of experience here and have learned that whatever becomes McNabb’s fate for the 2010 season, it will occur slowly and sloppily.

Yes, we read McNabb’s comments in the Inquirer claiming he would return to Philadelphia because coach Andy Reid told him so.

“That’s all that matters,” McNabb told The Inquirer. “I heard it when he said it to you guys, but I heard it before anyway. I think a lot of people look too far into things with all the assumptions and this could happen. He told everybody I'm going to be there, and I'm his guy. I don’t see anything that anybody should look into.”

Nobody believes McNabb is as naïve as that last sentence sounds. He knows all too well how people around these parts act when it comes to the football team. Considering it’s been a half-century since the Eagles have won a championship, what else is there to look into?

Arizona, Minnesota, Philadelphia? Yeah, this is just getting started.

Catching up with Mark Macon

BALTIMORE — The utilitarian RAC Arena on the campus of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County is not the last place on earth where one would expect to find a former MVP of the McDonald’s High School All-Star Game who also was one of the top handful of players ever to pass through the Big Five. Not to mention it’s not exactly the last place to look for an old NBA lottery pick and finalist for the Wooden Award.  

But it would probably rate in the top 10.

That’s nothing against UMBC or its bucolic campus located just a dozen or so miles south west of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It’s just that NBA veterans and all-time leader scorers for one of the most-storied college basketball program in the history of the sport tend not to get to too many America East Conference games. Nor do guys who were once said to be the second-coming of Oscar Robertson turn up in 3,000-seat basketball gyms dressed fashionably in a pastel shirt and a dark suit to work the sidelines as the head coach for the University of Binghamton.

Then again, Mark Macon has always been a little bit different.  

Mark Macon. Yes that Mark Macon, the first high school All-American to sign on at Temple University where he immediately helped push the team to a No. 1 ranking for nearly all of the 1987-88 season, is the head coach for the Binghamton Bearcats. It’s the same guy who twice led John Chaney’s Owls to the regional finals in the NCAA Tournament in two memorable performances. In one of those games Macon’s 25-foot three-pointer dropped a centimeter away from sending Temple into the Final Four in a classic against North Carolina, and the other time… well, let’s just say Duke’s Billy King had a pretty good day.

Strangely, despite all of the great games and acclaim Macon had during his basketball career, he seems to be most remembered for the 1988 game against Duke where he went 6-for-29 with more air balls than made shots. In the history of bad performances in a big games Macon’s showing in his freshman season is one that will be difficult to duplicate. After all, how many coaches are going to allow a freshman to miss 23 shots in a game, let alone fire up 29 of them?

Maybe it’s that game that helped strip the remaining bit of hubris away from the young player (that he hadn’t already removed himself) and placed him on his course to be a coach and a teacher. After all, they say the greatest lessons are learned from failure.  

Or not.

“When I was at Temple I never dreamed that one day I would be a coach,” Macon said. “It might have been in the back of my mind, maybe, but I never imagined anything like this.”

Life can be funny that way for ex-ballplayers. Regardless, as the acting head coach for the University of Binghamton, Macon’s players were not even alive when their coach was the most electrifying freshman ever to hit Philadelphia.  

“If they were, they had rattles,” Macon said.

Needless to say, the current bunch of Bearcats never heard Dick Vitale scream wild proclamations about how their coach was the best college player in the country, or saw his photo on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Chances are they never even heard of him until last year.

But then again Macon prefers it that way.

“They know what they Google,” Macon said. “That’s it. They don’t ask me about games or anything like that, but they know when I was drafted [by Denver with the No. 8 overall pick] and they make fun of me for the shorts that we wore.”

Chip off the old Owl
It takes about a minute from watching the action on the court to figure out who Macon’s coaching influence was. Then again, that’s way too obvious. Anyone who ever spent 30 seconds at Temple University in the late 1980s and early 1990s knew the connection Chaney and Macon had. As a player Macon often begged his coach to hold him more accountable than the rest of the players. In fact, there are stories about how the player even asked the coach to yell at him more. There’s another story about how the player told the coach he was disappointed that he wasn’t chastised more often.

Meanwhile, Chaney told anyone who would listen that he preferred Macon taking a bad shot over a teammate taking a good shot. That might explains those 23 misses in the ’88 regional finals, but it definitely sheds light on their relationship.

Even now Chaney’s voice is never far from the new coach’s own voice.

“I told him I wanted to be a sponge,” Macon said. “I wanted to learn everything he knew.”

Did he get it all?

“No, the master always keeps a few things for himself,” he said with a smile.

Still, it’s not the only voice he uses. Macon says he borrows bits and pieces from every coaches he ever had during his playing career and even a few he never got to work with, including Larry Brown, Hubie Brown and Bobby Knight. Those men were (and are) classic teachers, he says.

A chance meeting with Hubie Brown while in high school left a big impression, Macon says.

“When Hubie Brown was coaching the Knicks they used our school for practice. I got to watch him and Bernard King,” Macon said with a smile of the memory. “That was something I really learned a lot from.”

Not many high school kids would pick up more from a veteran basketball coach, especially when Bernard King was in the room, but that kind of explains how he has always looked at things.  

However, as a coach Macon isn’t quite to the extremes as his mentor was. Sure, it was Chaney who dragged Macon into the coaching business in 2001 when he invited his favorite player to be one of his assistants. He stayed with Chaney at Temple until 2006 before moving onto Georgia State for a year before a new administration took over the athletic department. In 2007, ex-Georgetown assistant Kevin Broadus hired Macon to join him at Binghamton as his right-hand man at Binghamton, and it seemed to be running smoothly. Last season Broadus was named the America East coach of the year after he led the team to a 23-9 record and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

Things were good. That is until all hell broke loose within the program last year.

According to reports, Serbian player Miladin Kovacevic is accused of beating another student into a coma in July of 2008. Published reports say he posted bail and left the country. Four months after that, another player, Malik Alvin, was accused of stealing a box of condoms from an area Wal-Mart and assaulting a woman as he tried to flee the scene.  

Last March, a woman working for the university alleged “egregious acts of sexual misconduct” against two athletic administration officials. That was followed by the Sept. 2009 charge against player Emanuel Mayben for distribution and possession of cocaine. That one was the proverbial last straw as six players were kicked off the team, athletic director Joel Thirer was forced to resign, and just before practice was to start for the year, Broadus was put on paid leave.

That’s how Macon got his first head coaching gig and was handed a team with none of its top scorers back from the 23-9 club and only seven scholarship players. He also has a Division III transfer, a couple of walk-ons, two kids from Canada, one from Paris, France, and another Ankara,Turkey.

Certainly Macon doesn’t have the same problems as someone like John Calipari has at Kentucky.

Needless to say that’s not the ideal situation to break into, but Macon’s team is 9-13 with a 4-3 record in the conference after the 80-63 victory over UMBC. All things considered, that’s not too bad.

Dropping knowledge
No, Macon doesn’t have that booming voice that Chaney used more as a weapon than a motivating tactic, but he doesn’t need it. Instead, he wears a perpetual scowl during the game and keeps the jacket to his suit buttoned up unlike his rumpled mentor.

Afterwards, with a victory wrapped up, Macon discusses personal philosophy — some wrapped in Chaney-isms — and teaching methods. He says he always thought he’d be a teacher, though not completely because of his degree from Temple in education. Chaney often did the same thing, too, only more colorfully.

However, during a radio interview with the crew from Binghamton, Macon was overheard using the axiom, “Speed kills…” When told that the source of that quote was pretty easy to figure out, all Macon could do was smile broadly.

“The master,” he said. “I got that one from the master.”

That was before he launched into an adage about crossing the street with cars whizzing by at 75-mph, complete with head-scratchers involving principles of time, space and distance.

Then there was the one that makes one’s head hurt.

“I tell them about making their present their future,” he said. “Before, we were in the locker room talking about the game and then we went out and won. By the time we got back to the locker room we had made out present our future.”

In other words, I tell him, it’s like the saying that there is no such thing as tomorrow because when it gets here, it’s today.

“Exactly,” he said. “But that’s only if you wake up.”

Too many distractions
He also carries a bit of an aloofness that Chaney never had. During timeouts Macon usually lets assistant Marc Hsu instruct the team on the bench while he huddles with top assistant Don Anderson on the floor. He also has repeatedly turned down numerous media requests from reporters from his hometown of Saginaw, Mich., Detroit (where he spent a few seasons with the Pistons), and Philadelphia.

That’s because Macon says he doesn’t want to be the only voice his kids hear.

“They hear things from a lot of voices, and mine is just that of another teacher,” he said, alluding that he doesn’t want to hammer his players with too much from just him.

Still, there are other reasons, perhaps, but some close observers of the Binghamton team have wondered if Macon was really interested in any of it at all.

Nope, they just don’t know Macon.  

Even as a teenager jumping into the world of big-time college basketball, Macon often distanced himself from what he felt were distractions. After all, it was because of Macon that Chaney instituted his policy of forbidding the press to talk to his underclassmen and at Binghamton, Macon took the policy a step further. For the press that covers the team, Macon allows only his two captains, Moussa Camara (from Paris), and Chretien Lukusa (from Toronto), to talk to the media.

It’s just too much of a distraction, the coach says.  

“When I took over [Broadus] told me to keep it simple,” he explained. “when we started the breaks were on, but out there now I want to go 120-mph. We’re getting there.”

That’s Macon in a nutshell — he works to avoid distractions. As a teenager during his first year at Temple, Macon decided that anything other than studying and basketball were a waste of time so he effectively eliminated normal collegiate pursuits from his life. Instead, he collected homilies and adages, wrote letters to his family and friends and maintained as much as an ascetic life as possible for a famous athlete in North Philadelphia.

As Chaney said in 1990 interview with Sports Illustrated, “Mark is common. He never leaves the earth.”

“I never heard that before. I like that,” Macon said when re-read the quote. “That means I’m rooted — I’m grounded. … I am no different than anyone else, but I am as great as I want to be.”

Two decades later and it’s still the same. 

Floyd and Lance... Together again?

When we last checked in with Floyd Landis, he was preparing for a three-point shootout with Utah Jazz guard, Deron Williams. Obviously, Williams won but that had less to do with the fact that he has shot better than 36 percent from long range during his NBA career and more to do with the fact that Floyd was a Mennonite from Lancaster County who wasn’t allowed to wear shorts when he was a kid.

Besides, everyone knows that Mennonite kids are like Hakeem Olajuwon in the low post. And this is just mean:

Of course Landis had to squeeze in the showdown against Williams between a full slate of races for the domestic bicycling racing squad, Team OUCH, in his first year back following serious hip surgery and his suspension during the 2006 Tour de France. Yet after just one season with OUCH (and a full year of serious training), Landis left OUCH for Rock Racing because he hoped to ride in more challenging races in Europe.

It was a bold move for a couple of reasons. One is that in eight races last year, Landis cracked the top 10 just twice and when racing against an international field in the Tour of California he finished a respectable 23rd.

Those results don’t exactly make the top teams clamor to sign him up, but it wasn’t horrible. Horrible, I imagine, is Floyd shooting three-pointers against an NBA All-Star.

Another reason the departure from OUCH was bold was because Rock Racing wasn’t exactly the most stable team around. Not only did it have a bit of an outlaw image with the black kits complete with the skull and bones insignia, but also because it ended up becoming a home for a few star-crossed riders like Tyler Hamilton and Oscar Sevilla.

In a sense Landis definitely fit in with Rock, but because the International Cycling Union denied the team’s request for a license to race in Europe in 2010 it appears as if he is in an all-too familiar position called limbo.

Still, even though he doesn’t seem to have many options for racing on the big races this summer, Landis put on a Rock Racing shirt and won the time trial at the Tour of the Bahamas in a record time. Better yet, he brought out the pre-suspension trash talk after the race that everyone always (not so) secretly loved.

According to the stellar site, Twisted Spoke, Floyd said: “I was on somebody else’s road bike with clinchers and no aero clothes. Take that [bleepers].”

So does the record ride and the salty talk mean he’s ready to take on Europe? Tough question. Cycling is not like American sports where athletes who serve drug-related suspensions are welcomed back after doing the time. The Europeans hold grudges not so much because of the actual deed, but mostly because someone had the audacity to be suspected of anything.

Due process? Nah, that’s for wimpy sports where there is an actual union protecting the athletes.

No, Landis doesn’t have too many options, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation from making the rounds. He’s been mentioned as a good fit for American team BMC Racing, which projects to be a solid outfit for the Tour de France. However, the brass for BMC are the same guys (owner Andy Rihs and director John Lelangue) that ran Team Phonak the year Floyd simultaneously won and was forced to give up the victory in the Tour de France.

From Day 1, of course, Floyd has been linked as a possible grinder for his old pal Lance Armstrong and his brand new Team RadioShack. That might be nothing more than wild dreams from the press and/or fans of personalities that blend like car crashes, but after all the speculation runs its course, it always comes back to the same place…

Lance and Floyd together again?

It is almost too good to be true. Imagine if Lennon and McCartney decided to go back into the studio together after The Beatles broke up. That may be pushing it a bit, but Landis was Lance’s head hatchet man for three Tour victories. Moreover, Lance hasn’t ruled it out.

“I wouldn’t rule anything out,” Armstrong said. “He’s a great rider, a tremendous story.”

That could be nothing more than a politically correct answer because there is no indication that the two camps have discussed anything. Still, for some reason it always comes back to those two riding together for one last go-around.

We’re getting the band back together!

Again, who knows if it’s possible? Who knows if it will happen? But just know that no one has ruled it out as ridiculous. After all, by all accounts Lance is a loyal guy who remembers every slight and good deed. When the doping agencies put the screws on Landis and asked him to give up Lance, Landis refused to be a rat or lie. Instead of selling out anyone Floyd took it and paid with much more than money.

Certainly acts like that are worth something… right?

Getting to know Pete Rose

There are not very many sports figures in which the public image perfectly matches who the person really is. Most of that is because most public figures — and especially athletes — protect that image as if it’s a newborn. Often press types are told by these people that they really don’t care what anyone thinks about them, but the opposite is the actual reality.

Pete Rose, however, is not one of those guys. Aside from hiding the truth about his gambling on baseball, what you see is what you get from Pete. He’s one of those guys where reading between the lines is totally unnecessary because he’ll tell you exactly what he means. Forget sports figures… that’s rare trait in any person in any walk of life.

Pedro Martinez, John Chaney, Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley are a few of the folks who passed through the city who just didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought about them. If you asked any of them a question, you got a real answer. In fact, once I asked John Chaney something (I forget what it was, but it might have been about Aaron McKie, Eddie Jones, Johnny Miller or Mik Kilgore) and not only did he tell me it was a stupid question, but he told me why it was a stupid question.

Who takes the time to do that? That John Chaney is a real sweetheart when it comes to things like that. No, that was not the sarcasm font.

Anyway, in December of 2008 I spent an afternoon chatting and hanging out with Pete Rose in Las Vegas as he signed autographs and posed for photos with some slack-jawed yokels. Needless to say, it was a blast and that was before Pete broke out the prison stories from when he did time for tax evasion.

A few times I had to pinch myself because the ex-con telling me the stories about his time in the slam was Pete Rose.

“When I was in there it was the only Level 6 [federal prison] in the entire system in the U.S.,” Rose said about his jail term. “I had to work in the main prison. I had to go every day and the people in Marion were in the cage 23 out of 24 hours a day. We were the only camp who didn’t have cable TV, because then every [bleeper] in there would have had to have it in every cell.

“I worked in the welding department. My job was to have the [bleeping] hot chocolate made by 8:15 a.m. every day. That was my [bleeping] job. And every time the warden was coming back [to the welding department] they had me back as far back as I could go because I was a high-profile guy. They’d also say, ‘The old man is on the way back,’ and every time he came back I was in my little kitchen sweeping the floor. He said, ‘Pete, you know something, this is the cleanest damn floor in this entire prison. Because every time I come back there you’re sweeping this damn kitchen.’ I said, ‘Hey, I gotta keep it clean!’

“A couple years ago we we’re selling Pete Rose cookies with a company out of St. Louis. The only place you could get these cookies is in prison. They can’t sell them in a supermarket. A couple years ago I went to North Carolina for a convention of all the commissaries and all the wardens came. That warden came and got my autograph.

“I should have signed the broom for him.”

Beat that one.

This is not a deleted scene from that day in Las Vegas:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZapdwATUqY&w=425&h=344]

We all have our favorite stories that regardless of how much information we’ve accumulated on the topic, we hunger for more. For me some of those subjects are Watergate, the invasion of Normandy, Len Bias, punk rock from Washington, D.C. in the 1980s, and Pete Rose. Sure, there a few others but that’s what comes to mind quickly.

Needless to say I will definitely watch the documentary by a bunch of guys from Cincinnati called, “4,192: The Making of the Hit King.” Interestingly, the film is taking the approach of concentrating solely on Rose’s playing career—a cute little tidbit that has gotten lost in that whole “banned for life” stuff. Other than some blind apologists, not many serious looks at Rose have taken this approach.

According to a story in the Cincinnati Enquirer on the documentary produced by Terry Lukemire and Barking Fish Entertainment, Rose participated with the filmmakers though they did not reveal what or if he was compensated.

“We want to give a new generation a chance to know about Rose,” Lukemire said.

How does one do that about a guy that everyone already knows everything? Easy… by concentrating on the part everyone has chosen to forget. Rose played baseball for 24 years in the Majors, and he is going on his 21st year of banishment. Chances are there is a lot we don’t remember.

Brett Favre is the greatest quarterback ever

Go ahead, admit it… you love Brett Favre. It’s OK to say it. It’s cathartic even. Seriously, do it:

I love you, Brett Favre!

See how easy that was?

The strange thing about this is that I even had to say it at all. Why wouldn’t everyone blather on about the gunslingin’ quarterback who just loves to play the game? Really, he just has fun out there. Besides, it’s impossible to write a sentence about Brett Favre without using the word, “just.”

Here’s the thing that’s just so lovable about Brett Favre (two names, please) — he always, always, always delivers. Every time. He’s like Michael Jordan that way. Tiger Woods, too. Whenever we need something in a football game, Brett Favre makes sure we get it.

Some say Brett Favre is overrated as a quarterback. OK, that might be true when talking about the actual quarterbacking skills. Throughout his career, Brett Favre has had 96 games in which he has thrown at least two interceptions, and seven games in which he has thrown at least four interceptions. Brett Favre has also been to the conference championship five times and has one more win than Donovan McNabb (one more Super Bowl victory, too).

So when it comes to the stats and his performance in big playoff games, yeah, Brett Favre might be a bit overrated. But then again, aren’t we all?

The truth is Brett Favre is completely underrated when it comes to the true essence of the NFL. In terms of the entertainment dollar, no one beats Brett Favre. Sure, Peyton Manning comes close, but that’s like comparing Superman to Batman. Superman can make the earth spin in reverse on its axis because he’s not even an earthling. He’s a mild-mannered freak from another planet and he flies. Superman is not perfect, but he rarely makes the same mistake twice.

Batman is human. He has hubris and vices. He falls down and gets concussions and still figures out how to go back to work only to repeat the entire process again.

Certainly the “humanness” of Brett Favre has been waxed upon for decades. There’s no new material there and in our selfish, mundanity of our everyday lives, we look at the rehashing of Brett Favre’s story as if it’s just another TV repeat. Worse, in this case the Brett Favre show isn’t even in syndication.

However, no one ever talks about how spectacularly Brett Favre fails. Sure, some quarterbacks throw bad passes in important parts of the game. Sometimes passes are dropped and tackles are missed. You know, the same ol’, same ol’.

But when Brett Favre goes down it’s like that old-timey newsreel of the Hindenburg exploding. Some guys watch their seasons go down the drain with a kneel or a simple expiration of time. Not Brett Favre. He grabs a flamethrower, amps it up as high as it will go and burns it all to the ground.

And we should love him for it.

When it comes to putting on a great show, yes, Brett Favre is ridiculously underrated. Better yet, there is no middle ground with him—people have extreme emotions to one side or the other. Yet the thing about the folks who loathe Brett Favre (just the football player, I hope) is their emotions are wrong. Certainly that’s a difficult judgment to make about another person, but it’s true. You are all wrong about this guy.

He’s great because he’s never lets you down.

How many guys have ended the past three seasons for three different teams with interceptions? I don’t have the figures or the charts, but I’m guessing this feat has never been done in the history of the NFL. In fact, the costly interception that kept the Vikings out of the Super Bowl (again) and ruined two weeks of unadulterated Brett Favre media coverage wasn’t even the worst (shouldn’t that be best?) one. Frankly, the interception he threw against the Eagles at the Linc in the 2003 Divisional Playoff game was totally awesome.

Remember that one? It was set up by the 4th-and-26 reception by Freddie Mitchell from Donovan McNabb to send the game into overtime. Then, after winning the coin toss, Brett Favre took the first snap, dropped back and threw the ball so high and far into the air that it was like a punt. Brian Dawkins was standing by himself so far back in the secondary that it seemed as if he should have called for a fair catch on Brett Favre’s punt/interception toss.

It was the most inexplicable throw by a quarterback in the history of the game. It was like a game of all-tackle-one broke out in the middle of a playoff game.

Sure, like any addicts we have are enablers like Chris Berman of ESPN who goes on and on about Brett Favre with a voice that makes one want to drive an ice pick into their middle ear. But the truth is we’re really going to miss him. Perfection, as we’ve learned, is sometimes a façade and always boring.

Brett Favre was never perfect and never boring.

Picking more playoff winners

Last week: 2-2
Playoffs: 5-3

Just imagine how crazy it will be for the promoters of the Super Bowl if Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings win in New Orleans tomorrow. Think of all the story lines that are just waiting to be pushed out there—Favre vs. the Jets or Favre vs. Peyton Manning.

It’s almost too easy. Never mind that Favre is a walking soap opera to begin with, but just imagine all the blathering and carrying on that will be belched out through Super Bowl Sunday if the Vikings get there.

Go ahead and think… I’ll wait.

The thing with Favre quarterbacking the Vikings is that no one will talk about the fact that the team is already 0-4 in the big game and no team has lost five Super Bowls.

That’s the hope for the right’s holders, of course. Favre, as we have learned, garners extreme feelings and Americans love to watch things specifically to root for the failure of others. How else could anyone explain the popularity of shows like “American Idol” or “How I Survived to Dance with the Stars?” You know… crap. Favre in the Super Bowl would pull in mega ratings of slack-jawed types rooting for the old man to get slapped around for 60-minutes.

What fun is that? Who wants to watch others fail? You know, besides jerks.

I guess it makes sense though. After all Favre said he was going to retire and he cried in front of writers and TV cameras because he was going to go back to Mississippi and enjoy life. A couple of months later he changed his mind about Mississippi, retirement and fun. In other words, the tears meant nothing. He was just faking it.

Nevertheless, the Packers traded him to the Jets where he played pretty good for awhile before struggling late in the season. When it was over there were the typical stories about how Favre was a divisive force in the locker room, didn’t really mingle with his teammates and just didn’t have it any more.

So what did Favre do? Yep, retirement, Mississippi, fun. At least for a little bit. When the Vikings came calling, Favre bolted out of Mississippi faster than General John C. Pemberton. Who could blame him? The guy loves to play the game. Better yet, the TV networks love to show him as he loves to play the game. How could they not? The guy is a gunslinger.

Still, Americans like retirees to remain retired. Most folks are counting down the days until they can quit their day job and go off to do what they really love, which is watch television and judge others. So by repeatedly retiring only to go back to work a few months later, Favre has proven himself to be more un-American than Alger Hiss.

Meanwhile, the city of New Orleans stands between Favre and a trip back to the Super Bowl. The Saints, representing the city on the gridiron, are in the NFC Championship for the second time in the last three seasons. Making matters tough for the Vikings is the fact that the Saints are playing in their home dome with the entire city galvanized behind them while loaded with an offense that scores more than … well, let’s just say the Saints score a lot.

Pick: Saints (minus-4) over the Vikings

We went through all the reasons why it name “Colts” and “Indianapolis” do not belong together last week. No sense rehashing it this week or proving that my ability to retain sports information stopped cold in 1983. Besides, if Baltimore has moved on past its depressions and given us state senator Clay Davis and detective Bunk Moreland, well, I guess it’s OK to cede the nickname Colts to Indiana.

That doesn’t mean I like it.

Besides, wouldn’t it be more fun if Peyton Manning played in Baltimore?

Anyway, in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated, there was a big story on Jim Irsay and his stewardship over the Colts. Jim Irsay, of course, is the son of Bob Irsay, the dude who crept out of Baltimore with a football team packed into a Mayflower truck under the cover of night. No, I haven’t read the story yet, but by all accounts the apple fell a long ways away from the tree—Jim is nothing like his old man.

For starters, the pictures in the magazine (yeah, I looked at the pictures not the words) reveal that Jim Irsay has a pretty bitchin’ vintage guitar collection. In fact, I saw a double Gibson-SG in one of the photographs, which is something I never knew existed. A double Gibson-SG? Can you imagine? Jim Irsay also owns the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac’s, “On the Road,” which was scribbled onto to a scroll that stretches 40 yards when unfurled. A few years ago Irsay lent out his scroll for a nationwide tour.

Hey, looking at a manuscript in a museum is no dumber than looking at King Tut.

For now, the media has focused on Jets’ coach Rex Reed, the son of legendary Eagles’ coach, Buddy Ryan. According to the stories, Rex likes to eat… a lot. Word is he needs 7,000 calories a day to keep going and likes to eat Mexican cuisine so much that it has been renamed, “Rexican food.”

Sounds gross.

Certainly Peyton Manning knows something or two about good food seeing as he comes from New Orleans. Archie Manning, Peyton’s dad, used to be the quarterback for the sad sack Saints back when folks turned out for their games wearing brown paper bags over their heads and calling their team, the Aints. Frankly, that’s your story line right there…

What kind of hype will we have force fed on us with the Mannings and New Orleans when they meet in the Super Bowl.

Pick: Colts (minus-8) over Jets

Herschel is ready to rumble

Surely most people have heard the stories by now. You know, like the one where he never worked out with weights because he sculpted his physique by doing thousands and thousands of sit-ups and pushups daily, usually during the commercials of TV shows.

He also only eats one meal a day and has no dietary restrictions aside from basic vegetarianism (no fish, no meat, etc.), which usually comes after a day of workouts.

He owns the record for most yards rushing in a season by a professional football player (2,411 in 1985 for the New Jersey Generals of the USFL). In the NFL, he is the only player with a 90-plus yard reception, 90-plus yard run, and a 90-plus yard kickoff return all in the same season (with the Eagles in 1994), and he is also the only player to record an 84-plus yard touchdown run and an 84-plus yard touchdown reception, in the same game.

He’s also the only football player to pull off those feats and dance with the Forth Worth Ballet.

He is a sixth-degree black belt in tae kwan do, made the 1992 U.S. Olympic team in the bobsled, and next Saturday night in Miami, he will make his professional debut in the MMA against a fighter that wasn’t even born when he won the Heisman Trophy in 1982.

In other words, Herschel Walker is still quite active.

To call Herschel Walker a freak of nature is unfair to both freaks and nature. After all, we make a big deal about Jamie Moyer pitching successfully for the Phillies into his late 40s, but no is expecting the lefty to leave the Phillies in order to take up mixed-martial arts. However, when the news came out that Walker, born in the same year as Moyer, was taking up a new sport no one batted an eye.

There is no way to classify Walker as an athlete. Personally, he’s accessible like Charles Barkley only without the bravado, vices or rap sheet. Where football players Bo Jackson, Brian Jordan and Deion Sanders dabbled with careers in Major League Baseball, Walker says he used to go from college football games with Georgia to martial arts competitions. That was when he didn’t have a track meet, of course.

“He’s a freak, but this is not a freak show,” Luke Rockhold, one of Walker’s main training partners, told The Associated Press. “He put in three months of training at one of the best gyms in the world. He’s legitimate.”

Still, amongst his competitors in the MMA there aren’t many who remember Walker as a star football player. Though he was a veteran player by the time he got to the Eagles in 1992, Walker was always the fastest runner on the team. Actually, he made those 90-yard runs look effortless where he rarely changed direction or broke his stride. Even though it looked like Walker was out on a Sunday morning job, defenders seemed to disappear off the screen while trying to run him down in the open field.

Who didn’t love the guy? Sure, he played for the Cowboys and the Giants during his NFL career, and always seemed to kill the Eagles when he played for the Vikings (remember that 93-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in ’89?). Still, those 3,732 yards-from scrimmage for the Eagles in three seasons helped alleviate some of the dread in watching the team get out to a 7-2 start in ’94 only to drop the final seven games of the season. Three years later Walker gave up football.

So yeah, Walker is excited to get back into mixing it up—he’s definitely taking next Saturday’s fight seriously.

“There have been some athletes that have been totally an embarrassment," Walker said during a press conference last week in New York City to promote the fight. “Jose Canseco, it's insulting, the guy never trained. I’m a guy that's serious about this. This is fighting, you get hurt. People that talk about (a publicity stunt) don't even know me. That's why I always tell people to come and join me or come and work out with me. Then you'll see who I really am.”

Walker says if there had been the MMA 20 years ago, he might have cut his football career short. He’s definitely into it.

“This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life,” Walker said, who will fight as a heavyweight in his debut and says his body fat index is up to 4 percent these days. “When a guy gets me in an arm bar within two minutes (during training), I'd better be learning something if I'm going to get in the cage.”

Yes, because all 47-year olds need to know how to get the hell out of an arm bar. And because of the demand of the new sport and his age, Walker has added a new wrinkle into his workouts he never considered before…

Naps.

“I never took a nap after football practice," he said at the press conference. “When I come home after MMA practice, I'm taking a nap.”

Even though it sounds kind of funny to hear a middle-aged man talking about fighting a 26-year old in a MMA cage, Walker has it all figured out. When asked why he’s doing it, the answer was perfectly succinct.

“Why not?” he said.

So long, Coco

We already addressed the Conan/Leno thing and our stance and how Jay Leno is the Michael Bolton of comics, so there's no sense getting back into it again.

Nevertheless, as far as farewells go, Conan's was probably the best one ever... or at least the most brilliant one I have ever seen.

Check it out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkn0WqtVZSo&w=425&h=344]

Indeed, Conan shreds on "Freebird" with Will Ferrell on lead vocals alongside his "lady," Dawn. Ben Harper, Beck, Billy Gibbons and, of course, Max Weinberg, are up there too. Tearing it down.

And as far as dignified exits go, Conan's (apparently) was a tear-jerker... at least as far as crying for a dude who was bought out for $45 million goes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWPsWNjrKmY&w=425&h=344]

Good stuff.

Lots of things are underrated

It’s been an interesting week for this li’l scribbler. Fairly entertaining, too. After all, it was quite a treat to take in not one, but two (two!) interesting college basketball games featuring three Top 16 teams along with a talented yet dysfunctional NHL club.

Of course there were a couple of things I didn’t quite get about a bunch of it—which is par for the course, I suppose. For instance, why is it that Villanova can pack the much-larger Wachovia Center, while Temple struggles to fill the second deck of the Liacouras Center? Both teams play exciting, up-tempo basketball and likely will be involved in some sort of madness come March.

Of course with money as tight as it is for a lot of folks, it’s understandable why some folks might not be able to get tickets for a basketball game. Still, compared to other ways to spend your entertainment dollar, the $15-to-$35 ticket prices for a game at the Liacouras Center aren’t too bad.

For Vllanova games at the Wachovia Center the prices start at $17 and go up to $65 for the lower bowl. Of course club box seats and other hoity-toity things like that go for a little more, but given the budgets most families must adhere to these days, it’s not awful. No, it’s not cheap when everything is factored in, and it’s not like the old days when families could regularly attend games, but those days, as they say, are gone.

Affording things ain’t so easy any more.

Nevertheless, the most interesting thing that occurred this week happened when I was up at the Temple game and I’m kind of bummed that I missed it. Fortunately, there is some compelling video out there of Sixers’ center Sam Dalembert sprinting from the airport to the Wachovia Center in order to get there in time for the opening tip. Even more compelling was the tearful recollection of Dalembert’s trip to his birth city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti where the devastation and grimness of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit last week undoubtedly will be something he will never forget.

Coincidentally, Matt Pesotski, of the always trenchant The 700 Level, was on the same flight from Florida as Dalembert and saw the Sixers’ center dash from the plane, through the concourse and on his way to the arena. Yet after spending the previous two days in Haiti and flying all day, Dalembert showed up in time to score 10 points and grab 15 rebounds against the Trailblazers…

… And the Sixers lost.

Check out the really good video produced by the gang at CSN of Sam hurrying to the game:

http://www.csnphilly.com/common/global_flash/player/spe16x9.swf?flv=vidcast_24854&sid=162&d=www.csnphilly.com

Speaking of the 76ers, there was an interesting little nugget in the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated concerning the NBA’s most underrated players. According to a poll of 190 NBA players, John Salmons of the Bulls finished second in the voting behind Joe Johnson of the Hawks.

Now Johnson isn’t exactly underrated considering he has averaged 21 points per game over the past five seasons and went to the last three All-Star Games. Calling Johnson underrated is like calling certain rock bands “alternative” when they move over a million units. What’s “alternative” about that?

So by default John Salmons is the most underrated player in the NBA. Remember him? You know, the kid from Plymouth-Whitemarsh who played collegiately at Miami and was drafted in the first round of the 2002 draft by the Spurs and immediately traded to the Sixers?

Yeah, that guy.

When Salmons was with the Sixers he never averaged more than 7.5 points per game and never more than 25 minutes per game. With Allen Iverson, Willie Green and Kyle Korver in the backcourt and Chris Webber splitting up the shots with Iverson, Salmons was a role player for the Sixers. However, after jumping to Sacramento after the 2006 season before moving on to Chicago in a trade midway through the 2009 season, Salmons didn’t have to wait for his turn anymore.

Sure, his scoring numbers are down from 18.3 in 2009 to 13.3 this season, but where Salmons stands out is on defense. Check out a Bulls game sometime and chances are Salmons will be checking the opposition’s best scorer.

Chalk Salmons up to one of those “What if?” situations, especially considering that only the lowly Nets allow the opposition to shoot at a higher percentage than the Sixers amongst Eastern Conference clubs. Worse, opponents shoot better than 41 percent from three-point range against the Sixers—that’s the worst (or the best) rate in the NBA.

Clearly Salmons was underrated by the Sixers, too.

Looking good on North Broad

Got up to ol’ Temple University on Wednesday night for the first time in forever, and boy has the place changed. Back in the old days I used to hang around the place quite a bit, but it just wore me out. That'll happen.

It's because they don’t suffer fools up at Temple. They can’t. Life is too short and there are things to do. If you can't hang it's probably best to move on.

There’s no time to mess around.

Nevertheless, when one gets to Temple these days it looks as if someone took a fancy snow globe and dropped it in the middle of North Broad Street. Yeah, those red flags with that big “T” are still there, but so too are a whole bunch of new buildings, new chain-type places and tidier surroundings.

You know… gentrification.

Yet for those who haven’t seen the basketball team play since John Chaney left after the 2006 season, the Temple Owls are a bit different now, too. Fran Dunphy is in charge now and that tangled web of a defense called the match-up zone has been packed away and put in a closet somewhere in McGonigle Hall. They have pushed all of the relics aside at Temple. Sure, they remember the good old days, but they pretty much just live in the now.

And why not? Dunphy’s team is off to a 16-3 start to the season, which is the best a Temple club has performed since Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie and Rick Brunson staked Chaney to a 16-3 start during the 1993-94 season. That was the year where the Owls climbed as high as No. 4 in the polls, but drew a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament only to get shot down by Indiana at the Cap Centre.

Those Owls from the ’94 tournament were better than just a second-round exit and it would take until the upset by Seton Hall in the second round in the 2000 big dance for them to have a more disappointing end to a season.

There won’t be that level of disappointment for Temple in the tournament in 2010. Oh sure, Dunphy’s team is all alone atop the standings in the Atlantic 10 with a perfect 4-0 record after holding off Xavier on Wednesday night, but after being pegged as the fifth-best team in the conference (behind La Salle) it seems as if most folks are jumping on the bandwagon and just going for a ride.

Who cares where it winds up?

These Owls are (wait for it…) a hoot. Remember the sluggish way in which Chaney’s teams played offense? Remember how dependent they were on a strong point guard to impose the coach’s iron grip to choke out any creativity? Yeah, well they packed all that away, too. These Owls were not afraid to mix it up with Xavier in a fullcourt slugfest. Why not? Entering the game with a defense that held opponents to the third-worst shooting percentage in the country, the Owls must figure that sooner or later the odds are going to fall in their favor. How else could one explain away the fact that Temple shot 58 percent against Xavier on Wednesday, yet needed six foul shots from senior Ryan Brooks in the final 22 seconds in order to salt it away.

It didn’t hurt that Juan Fernandez, an Argentinean like Pepe Sanchez only with a legit jumper, buried a rushed 15-footer with 43 seconds to go in the game to keep Xavier off by two possessions.

Remember how Chaney used to ride his five starters until he squeezed every ounce of effort out of them? Yeah, well try this out — seven Owls scored in the first half against Xavier even though four guys played at least 37 minutes.

“When you have a team as talented as them with guys who play a lot of minutes, it’s difficult,” Xavier’s coach Chris Mack said. “Because they play all those minutes together they have an incredible chemistry. It’s tough because they spread your defense out.”

Brooks and Fernandez are the focal points of the offense, but big man Lavoy Allen can take it outside and bury a three. In fact, five different players took a three-point shot for Temple, including a 2-for-3 effort from 6-foot-9 reserve, Craig Williams.

“If they shoot the ball like that, they’re going to be a tough out, no matter who they play,” Mack said.

That is something that has never changed with Temple — they are always a tough out. When they announce those pairings in the NCAA Tournament selection show, no one wants to see their team lined up against the Owls. It’s no fun playing those guys.

It’s a lot of fun watching them, however, but not that one would notice from the crowd at the Liacouras Center. Oh sure, the student section behind the far end hoop was as raucous and rowdy as ever while cheering on their Owls with an array of clever tunes and chants, but there was a lot of empty space on the second deck in the building.

Certainly those Temple students can find a couple of hours away from their studies to watch an exciting basketball team, can’t they? Then again, there were always a few empty seats over at 3,900-seat McGonigle Hall when Temple had Mark Macon, Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie.

“To be honest, I was hoping [the fans] would be there last Saturday against UMass, as well,” Dunphy said, almost forlornly. “Our students are coming back from break, but a lot of them are coming from 25 miles away. It’s not like they’re coming from great distances and they can’t get to a game. It’s really important for our students to be here. We need as much support as we can get. We need our students, our alums and great Temple fans — we need to get as many people in here that we can and hopefully really support this basketball team.”

Better yet, with Villanova and Temple back to carrying the mantle for the Big 5, it’s kind of hard to stay away. Go check it out for yourself… it ain’t the same Temple anymore.

Who? No really, who?

When I was a kid I figured I heard Ronald Reagan’s name spoken every single day. Whether I consciously paid attention to hearing it, or simply caught it in passing, I was certain that a day had not passed without at least one utterance of that name.

I felt the same way about George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and now with Barack Obama. George W. Bush? Well, yeah, but mostly as a punch line.

Cable TV was more accessible during the Reagan years, which was the impetus of our media saturation and 24-hour connectivity. Of course no one foresaw the coming of the Internet during the Reagan years other than Doc Brown and Marty McFly, though they had the luxury of a time machine. And as we have learned, the Internet is the greatest invention since Tommy John surgery.

So Ronald Reagan taught me that everyday folks like to talk about people they will never, ever meet and/or don’t care a whit about them like a president, congressman, or Lady Gaga. Ina sense, the common man and the cultural star use each other. One uses the other to sell something which in turn forces the regular people to use the seller in a manner that makes them feel better about themselves. In other words, everybody wins.

Or do they? Since the gulf between the two factions grow with each passing TMZ post, each side digs in deeper and deeper. Agendas are forced with no regard for the other side. That’s just the way it happens when a group feels slighted.

In our little universe here in Philadelphia, Donovan McNabb is our new Ronald Reagan. Not a day passes when something is not spoken or written about the man or his importance and future to the professional football team in the city. Go ahead and comb through the daily stories about the Eagles on CSNPhilly.com or Philly.com and I’m positive there will be one mention of McNabb in something produced today. Turn on 610 or 950 and set an egg timer and wait…

Someone will say the words, “Donovan,” or “McNabb.”

The difficulty in this phenomenon is when a guy thinks he is part of one group, though in reality he is not. That’s where Mike Richards of the Flyers enters.

I get the feeling that Mike Richards could walk down Walnut Street and grab a seat in Rittenhouse Square and no one would bat an eye. Probably a shade below 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, Richards looks just like any regular 24-year-old dude seen in the city. He probably blends in in Kenora, Ontario, too, which is probably why he thinks he can non-discretely go about his business in Philadelphia.

INSERT HEARTY LAUGH RIGHT HERE

What Richards might not get—or maybe he does, we don’t know—is that a $69 million contract and the captaincy of the beloved Flyers means he is not a regular dude. Yes, celebrity is both a blessing and a curse and it’s because of these reasons that he is clearly not amongst the regular-dude folk and because he is not “regular,” if he chooses not to talk to the media, for whatever reason, some folks are going to feel slighted or even angry. McNabb or Chase Utley might give obtuse, one-word answers to pointed questions from time to time, but after some prodding and long waits, at least he goes through the motions complete with a bemused grin and a placid stare on non-engagement.

It works for him.

Now I don’t know about the finer details of Richards’ tête-à-tête with the writers that cover the team on a daily basis. I also don’t know anything about Richards’ private life and what he does for fun.

I also don’t care.

Really…

I.

Don’t.

Care.

However, Richards can make his life a whole lot less complex if he figures out how to do things like Chase Utley or Donovan McNabb and mask his contempt for those commoners with a steady barrage of clichés and bleep-eating grins.

It's worth mentioning that the time McNabb told Terrell Owens to, "Keep my name out of your mouth..." That was awesome.

So now we’re talking about Mike Richards for a couple of days in a row. Better yet, some people may (or may not) have learned who he is because of the recent media storm. Probably not too many more, though. It’s not like he’s Donovan McNabb.

The return of Brandon Duckworth

In mid-July of the 2001 baseball season, the Phillies surprisingly found themselves in the midst of a battle for the NL East with the Atlanta Braves. At the time, no one thought the Phillies were ready to contend yet, but the Phillies surprised a lot of people by hanging around until the next-to-last series of the season.

For 159 games that year, the Phillies gave the Braves all they could handle.

Give some credit to first-year manager Larry Bowa for getting the most out of his kids by putting his foot on the gas and never letting up. Bowa made his players treat every game as if it was the seventh game of the World Series and for the most part they responded. Of course those tactics backfired often throughout Bowa’s tenure in Philadelphia, though in the manager’s defense the team’s talent wasn’t quite there yet.

In 2001 though, Bowa took on the Braves with a rotation that featured Robert Person, Randy Wolf, Omar Daal and rookies Nelson Figueroa and Brandon Duckworth. Person reached the apex of his career by winning 15 games that season before the injuries mounted, while Wolf entrenched himself as a bona fide big-league starter. Daal was the veteran lefty in the mix who got the ball on opening day simply because he was the only guy the team had ready to go.

Meanwhile, Figueroa and Duckworth held down spots in the rotation because of injuries and the fact that Bowa didn’t quite trust Amaury Telemaco and Dave Coggin too much. Maybe he didn’t trust those guys either, but for a little while he was pleasantly surprised.

Who would have guessed that all these years later Figueroa and Duckworth are still out there fighting for spots on big-league rosters? Last season Figueroa made 10 starts for the Mets and has appeared in 32 games for his hometown team over the past two seasons. In between his 2001 season for the Phillies and 2009 work for New York, Figueroa has pitched for Milwaukee and Pittsburgh in the Majors, as well as Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Nashville, Long Island, Buffalo, Chihuahua in the Mexican League as well as South Korea.

Yes, with his 36 birthday quickly approaching, Figueroa will pitch for whatever you want to pay him.

The same goes for Duckworth, too, only in locales that are not as exotica as his old buddy, Figgy. After landing in Bowa’s crowded doghouse, Duckworth was a piece in the trade that brought Billy Wagner from Houston to the Phillies. Following a couple of seasons where he shuttled up and down between the Astros and New Orleans/Round Rock, Duckworth moved to the Pittsburgh organization where he pitched for Indianapolis.

Duckworth appeared to be a cornerstone of the Phillies future during the 2001 season. However, the mild-mannered right-hander got around the league a couple times after the ’01 pennant chase, big-league hitters caught up with his repertoire. However, in Game 159 with the Phillies clinging to hope that they could catch the Braves, Bowa yanked veteran 13-game winner Omar Daal from a start in Atlanta in favor of Duckworth.

Since 2006, Duckworth has been pitching for Kansas City and their top farm club, Omaha, where he worked mostly in relief.

The relief role just might be where he fits in with the Phillies in 2010.

What goes around, comes around…

Of course Duckworth has to make the team, first. However, in making the official announcement that Duckworth had agreed to a minor-league deal with the team on Tuesday, the soon-to-be 34 year-old righty will likely spend the summer in Allentown with the Triple-A IronPigs.

In the meantime, Duckworth will get into a bunch of Grapefruit League games this spring and get a first-hand look at how much things have changed since he left before the 2004 season. Sure, some tired old faces are hanging around, but for the most part the Phillies are a different beast than they were in the early 2000s.

Regardless, it’s always neat to see guys like Duckworth and Figueroa hanging around the game and still battling for a spot on a roster. At its essence, those are the guys who make Major league Baseball interesting. They are just regular dudes who work as hard as they can in order to carve out a little spot in the game for as long as possible. They may never get to an All-Star Game or see their picture on too many baseball cards, but it’s difficult not to respect their perseverance and love for the game.

Gotta love the guys just hoping to get by.

Reynolds a blast from the past

Spend 10 years writing exclusively about baseball and it’s easy to get lost about the goings on in other sports. There is only so much one guy can do to keep up with the full range of games, but when it gets right down to it sometimes all a guy can do is focus on what is in front of him.

Over the past decade I’ll wager that I have been to approximately 1,000 baseball games, but maybe 30 to 40 college basketball games. A long time ago those numbers would have been reversed.

The bad par, of course, is missing out on the terrific ballplayers that came through the Big Five over the past decade. Oh sure, I caught Jameer Nelson just because St. Joe’s was one of the biggest stories of 2004 when they were No. 1 for most of the college season. However, names like Randy Foye, Allan Ray, Dionte Christmas, Pat Carroll, Mardy Collins, Dante Cunningham, David Hawkins , Kyle Lowry, Steven Smith and Curtis Sumpter (amongst other standouts over the last 10 years), get lost in the pile of early-season ballgames.

Fortunately, Scottie Reynolds of Villanova decided to return to Villanova for his last season because it would be a shame to miss out on watching him play.

Reynolds is an undersized guard in a city with a long tradition of great guards. Though he’s listed at 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds, I suspect he’s probably an even 6-foot and maybe a few pounds lighter. However, unlike the traditional Big 5 guard, Reynolds isn’t content to stay in the backcourt in half-court sets and spread the ball around like Howie Evans, Pepe Sanchez or even a shooter like Lynn Greer.

Reynolds will mix it up inside if need be. For instance, even though he scored 12 straight points from the outside in the first half of the 82-77 victory over No. 11 Georgetown at the Wachovia Center on Sunday afternoon, Reynolds’ biggest hoop of the game came with 3:14 left when he knifed to the hoop against three bigger players for a layup and a foul. For good measure he made four straight foul shots to held ice the game with less than 36 seconds remaining.

Reynolds scored 27 points on just 15 shots and 29 minutes in the victory over Georgetown.

“He can’t be contained,” Georgetown’s coach John Thompson III said after the game. “I don't say that in jest. He's too good of an offensive player and they do too good of a job of getting him where he needs to be. It's nothing new. He’s been doing it for four years. What's different is now as a senior, when they need a basket, he ends up with the ball in his hand and good things happen.”

Though he’s a small guard, Reynolds has a game similar to 6-foot-5 Big Five guard, Mark Macon of Temple. The difference, of course, was that Temple relied on Macon to score. In fact, John Chaney, Macon’s college coach, was known to say that he’d rather have Macon take a bad shot than another player to take a good one. That’s how much Macon meant to Temple and Chaney.

But aside from his freshman year in 1988 when Temple was the No. 1 team in the country, Macon didn’t have the supporting cast like Reynolds has had with Villanova. Still, even with teammates destined for the NBA like Foye, Cunningham, Ray and Kyle Lowry, Reynolds should hit the 2,000-point plateau by the end of the month.

Depending upon how far Villanova goes into the NCAA Tournament, Reynolds could flirt with Kerry Kittles’ all-time scoring record (2,243), which is saying something considering all the talent he had to share the ball with.

Still, the best part about Reynolds—and where he is most like Macon—is that he is accountable. Though Chaney would always forgive one of Macon’s hurried shots, the former Owl (now acting head coach at the University of Binghamton) famously pleaded with his coach to yell at him more. Because Chaney leaned on him so much more than the others, Macon thought he should also have to face the music more often, too.

As if anyone has to tell John Chaney to scream at them twice…

Villanova’s coach Jay Wright also forgives a lot of Reynolds’ mistakes for a lot of the same reasons. That attitude works out very well when Reynolds turns in some bad games like the one he had in the Big East Tournament semifinals against Louisville last year where he went 1-for-6 from the field, including 0-for-3 from beyond the three-point arc with six turnovers and just two measly points in 38 minutes.

Prior to that, Reynolds dropped 40 points on Seton Hall only to fall into a funk where it took him four games to match the scoring output of that one game.

“Some games we lose and he looks really bad, but that never affects him. He comes back the next game and makes the same plays,” Wright said last season, marveling at Reynolds’ fearlessness in the face of failure. “That's a great quality to have as an athlete.”

So if you get the chance to catch Reynolds in action (and you’re into that sort of thing), make sure you do it. After all, players like him are seen just a few times a decade.