The Old Perfessor

I'm a professor of journalism at Wingate University near Charlotte, N.C. I've also written about sports for newspapers and other publications for more than 30 years. This blog's about journalism, sports and whatever else I find interesting on any given Sunday or other day, for that matter.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Americans vs. soccer

It happens every four years.

No, not the World Cup. I’m talking about all those snarky columns that inevitably follow the U.S. team’s exit from the World Cup. You know, the ones that gleefully celebrate the proposition that soccer will never catch on in the United States and we can now just go back to ignoring this strange game.

Click here and here for some examples.

I’m a soccer fan, but I’m beginning to think that I should just concede that point and move on. It just bothers me that “the beautiful game, ” a sport celebrated by millions around the world is not just greeted with apathy by most Americans, but with downright hostility in some quarters. We’re probably the only nation of the 32 who started the World Cup whose team didn’t have the support of the great majority of its sports fans.

The typical American attitude about soccer seems to be, “I don’t know anything about soccer, but I don’t like it and you can’t make me.”

I’ve seen some of the arguments for years:

– it’s played by all those foreigners, and even the Americans who play it have names like Carlos Bocanegra and Oguchi Onyewu (who by the way is as much a Clemson Tiger as any former student from Summerville, York or Orangeburg).

--Every soccer score seems to be 1-0. Well, part of the beauty of soccer is watching how hard teams have to work to get a chance to score. It wasn’t meant to be easy. If you really want to criticize a sport for scoring futility, look at the NBA teams who can’t break 80 points in 48 minutes of basketball with a 24-second clock – see the Boston Celtics in the last two games of the championship series.

But I’ve become convinced now that most of Americans’ reluctance to embrace soccer has nothing to do with how boring the game seems. It’s cultural.

Our team’s losing to a small African nation in the round of 16 last weekend didn’t help. “We’re the richest, most powerful nation in the world and we lost to – Ghana? Where’s that?” Americans shouldn’t lose to countries people have never heard of.

And in Internet discussions of this topic, I’ve even seen the doctrine of American exceptionalism invoked against our full participation in the world’s soccer community.

There are too many people out there that want to make America more like Europe, goes that argument – which we also heard in the health care debate, as I recall. And that goes for sports, too. It’s actually a good thing that we’re one of the few major nations where soccer isn’t followed by nearly all of its sports fans. Who needs the rest of the world?

But mostly I think it’s because soccer has never become part of the fabric of sports culture in this country. For years, soccer boosters said that when all these kids who play soccer on the weekends grow up, it was going to make soccer a huge spectator sport in the U.S. Then, the 1994 World Cup which we hosted, followed by the launch of Major League Soccer, was going to be the breakthrough.

But something else has always been lacking and I think that a high school soccer coach whose team I covered as a sports writer in Pensacola, Fla., in the early Nineties put his foot squarely on it. His contention was that soccer was missing what’s been called the water cooler effect.

In other words, people talk about the key plays in yesterday’s big NFL or college football game on the morning after -- and now even before. Same with college or even NBA basketball. Even baseball has generated that kind of post-game buzz this season with the Stephen Strasburg debut, the two perfect games and Armando Gallaraga’s near miss that should have been.

“Those kinds of conversations don’t take place about soccer. Like did you see that great goal, or what about that controversial call,” he said. “In this country there’s not much attention paid to soccer unless there’s a riot at a match in Belgium or something. And it’s not going to be big unless it does start generating the conversations about what happened.”

Twenty years later, soccer is still struggling to have Americans talk about it for the right reasons. Unfortunately, what’s gotten a lot of attention in this World Cup are things like the egregiously bad officiating in some of the matches and the spectacle of players who fall as if they’ve been pole-axed if an opponent gives them a slight nudge.

Too bad, because many Americans look for the slightest excuse not to care about the game. And this sport. which can be very engaging in its complexity if you know what to look for, doesn’t need to go out of its way to help that along.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Farewell to two legends

When former UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden died last week I read a tribute which contrasted him to some of today's coaching icons.

The writer contrasted Wooden's integrity and dedication to the teaching aspect of coaching to the type of headlines that are made these days by the likes of John Calipari (academic and recruiting scandals), Rick Pitino (allegations of an extramarital affair) and Lane Kiffin (self-aggrandizing statements unsupported by any record of accomplishment).

I couldn't help but think about this as, along with hundreds of others, I paid my respects to two Wingate University coaching legends who -- despite living long, full lives -- still left us way too soon.

Ron Christopher
, 74, and Johnny Jacumin, 71, died within five days of each other last week, and I think the two men would have been pleased that their funerals and surrounding events gave members of the Wingate community -- both town and university -- and alumni of the school an opportunity to get together and share happy memories.

Both were remembered as men who practiced the coaching art the right way and for whom the term "student-athlete" wasn't just something the NCAA makes you say.

Christopher, who passed away on June 13, was the baseball coach at Wingate for 22 seasons (1963-1972 and 1980-1993). The coach held a doctorate and his two coaching tenures were separated by a "retirement" in which he focused on his classroom work teaching history. His career spanned Wingate's transition from a junior college to a four-year school.

As Dr. Derrill Smith, pastor of Wingate Baptist Church, noted in his remarks at Ron's service, the coach was a winner with an enviable record (543-343-3). "He won more baseball games than most people see in a lifetime," Smith said.

Under the Lincolnton native's direction, the Bulldogs played in the national junior college tournament three times, spending much of the 1965 season as the nation's No. 1 ranked team. His teams in the four-year college years won four conference championships.

Twenty-five of his players signed professional contracts and one, pitcher Alvin Morman, reached the major leagues for a few seasons in the Nineties. Another of his former players, Mike Martin, has become well-known in college baseball as the long-time coach at Florida State. He called both before and after his team's NCAA super-regional game on the Sunday that Ron died.

And for those of you who aren't familiar with Wingate. the baseball stadium is named for Ron, which should give you some idea of his stature in Bulldog athletic history.

But his former players -- and there were many, some with gray hair and a few with none -- at the funeral last Wednesday remembered him more for being a man who treated them well, helped them survive college and showed them how to live.

One recounted a conversation in which Ron told him that his priorities needed to be "God, family and Wingate baseball in that order" -- with the player quickly adding that academics were grouped in there with baseball, no doubt. Others talked of the coach's open door policy at his home, where you could often find players just hanging out and watching TV -- and eating the spaghetti that his wife Beverly, an English professor at Wingate, was famous for.

Following the service I enjoyed looking through some albums of photos and news clippings in the church fellowship hall -- a cool-looking guy in a snazzy Fifties-vintage sports car, two beaming newlyweds, other pictures of a growing family and a coaching career. A life well-lived.

And just a few days later, many of the same people were at another area funeral home, remembering Coach Jacumin, whose teams won almost 600 games in his 27 seasons leading the Wingate women's basketball program. He passed away on Thursday, a few days after suffering a stroke.

Like Christopher, he was pretty much synonymous with his sport at Wingate, winning more games and coaching more seasons than any other women's basketball coach in South Atlantic Conference history. His teams advanced to the NAIA Final Four in 1988 and made back-to-back trips to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight in 1995 and 1996.

But as in Ron's case, it was the man that people remembered last Sunday night at the funeral home. I met a couple of my former students, who knew Johnny from his other role in public life -- as a member of the Wingate Town Commissioners for 12 years.

They both covered the commissioners meetings as student journalists and stringers for the Union bureau of The Charlotte Observer. I also had limited interaction with him as a reporter and I agreed with their assessment -- he never ducked a question and always had something quotable to say, although he might take you to task later for actually putting it in the paper.

A slide show playing in the funeral home's chapel during the visitation showed a colorful life in pictures. A crew-cut young schoolboy -- the hair didn't show up much in pictures taken after he reached young adulthood, a husband and father, and lots of basketball shots. Most Bulldog fans will remember him in his trademark blue sweater vest, sometimes holding a rolled-up stat sheet or program. And another familiar pose that struck fear into the hearts of referees, players or whoever the target was -- leaning back in his chair and looking stern, arms folded.

For anyone who knew Johnny in any of those roles, it brought back memories.

He retired at the end of the 2006-07 season, but it was a retirement in name only. At the beginning of the next basketball season he was coaching again -- back in high school at nearby Marshville Forest Hills, filling in for a season after the school had an unexpected opening for girls' basketball coach. And he continued his public service as a sometimes irascible voice of reason and fiscal responsiblilty on the Wingate Town Commissioners.

And he remained interested in Wingate athletics, attending many Bulldog athletic events along with his wife, Cookie.

I didn't get to attend his funeral service due to a conflict with my summer school class. But I joined a former student of mine who was also a former player of his, and some of her teammates for lunch afterwards. I probably seemed like an odd addition to that bunch, but it was fun listening to these young women -- mostly in their late 20s -- swap stories, many of which included their former coach,

And as I looked around that table I saw an assistant women's basketball coach at a Division I school (my former student), two high school girls' head coaches, and -- in support of that NCAA commercial that insists that "most of us will go pro in something other than sports" -- a mining technician for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The words "living legacy" just seemed to fit.

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Saturday, June 12, 2010

The Strasburg effect

If only he hadn’t been quite so good, I might be watching Stephen Strasburg pitch in person tomorrow.

Strasburg, of course, is the hard-throwing rookie pitcher for the Washington Nationals, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 Major League Baseball amateur draft. I’ve been tracking his progress through Washington’s minor league system this season, in the hope that he would still be on the roster of the Nationals’ Triple A affiliate in Syracuse, N.Y., when they came to play the Charlotte Knights.

The Chiefs start a four-game series at Knights Stadium tonight, and if he were still with the team, Strasburg would have been scheduled to start Sunday afternoon, according to the Knights PR staff’s monitoring of the Syracuse rotation. (And it would have guaranteed the Knights their largest non-July 4 Sunday crowd in history, unless I miss my guess.)

Instead, the 21-year-old right-hander out of San Diego State will be making his second major-league start for the Nationals against the Cleveland Indians. His first, on Tuesday against the Pittsburgh Pirates, was called the most hyped pitching debut in the history of the game – you know it’s big when ESPN has a countdown clock to the first pitch.

And the kid lived up to the buildup.

Strasburg struck out 14 batters – one short of the major league record for a pitcher in his major league debut -- and gave up only two runs in seven innings as the Nationals beat Pittsburgh, 4-3. He didn’t walk anybody and at one point, news reports said, his fastball was clocked at 100 mph. But in addition to the “heat,” he also threw deceptively effective off-speed pitches.

In short – the whole package, as they say. (It’s also worth noting that the rookie strikeout record of 15 took nine innings for each of the two pitchers that hold it – Karl Spooner in 1954 and J.R. Richard in 1971 -- to accomplish. If he had pitched a complete game , Strasburg would almost certainly have broken that record.)

So is he the real deal and can he keep pitching at that level in the big leagues? After all, skeptics say, his debut was against the hapless -- and, oh, how it pains me to say that! -- Pirates and fueled by the adrenaline of the big event. Strasburg is easing into his big league career – his first four scheduled turns are all against teams that have sub-.500 records right now.

But the career of young pitchers can be fragile. As proof, I couldn’t help notice the names of the two pitchers whose first-game strikeout record Strasburg threatened.

Spooner, who was 23 when he made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the eventual World Series champion New York Giants on Sept. 22, 1954, followed that with a shutout of the Pirates. He struck out 12 in that one. “Spooner should have come up sooner,” was a popular saying of the time among Brooklyn fans.

He came back from knee surgery that fall to have a pretty decent 1955 season (8-6, 3.65 ERA) as a starter and a reliever for the National League champion Dodgers. But he developed a sore arm and never pitched again in the major leagues after losing his only start against the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Richard is an even sadder story, even though he had a 10-year major league career and won more than 100 games with the Houston Astros. He was having his best big league season in 1980 – he was the starting pitcher for the National League in the 1980 All-Star Game and had a 10-4 record – when he started to complain of numbness in his arm in July.

Medical tests revealed some arterial blockage in his right shoulder but doctors decided it wasn’t serious enough to warrant treatment. But on July 30, 1980, he suffered a stroke during a pre-game throwing drill and had surgery to remove a blood clot. It was effectively the end of his baseball career. Minor league comeback attempts with the Astros in 1982 and 1983 were unsuccessful and the team released him.

Strasburg, by all accounts, is a level-headed sort, the anti-Ben Roethlisberger. (He married his college sweetheart back in January.) He seems to be poised to have a long and successful career and I hope his story has a happier ending.

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Sunday, June 06, 2010

On doing the right thing

It's been a weekend for thinking about the meaning of "the right thing."

In the summer school session that starts tomorrow, I'm teaching what's probably my favorite course, Media Law and Ethics. The "ethics" part of that title always presents some good opportunities for talking about what's the right thing to do in the context of reporting and presenting the news. We get into issues like fairness, conflict of interest, matters of sensitivity and taste, and most important, telling the truth.

I've also been reminded of the value of "doing the right thing" in SportsWorld on several occasions this week. "SportsWorld" is a term borroved from the great sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, who wrote a book by the same title in 1975. The major premise in this book about the role of sports in American culture is that SportsWorld honors the winner more than the race, the result more than the process. Concepts like integrity and sportsmanship take a back seat to finishing first in SportsWorld.

I've been thinking about three exceptions this weekend that give some hope that it doesn't always work out that way.

(1) Covering the Charlotte Eagles minor league soccer team, as I did last night in their game with the Harrisburg (Pa.) City Islanders -- is a consistently positive experience, win or lose. I've written about this organization previously, a team which combines on-field competition with a Christian ministry accomplished through camps and international touring.

I try not to be a blathering fan of the teams I cover, but it's hard not to like the Eagles, who play hard but clean -- a yellow card is rare and a red card is a calamity that occurs as often as a total solar eclipse. They stay out of trouble and keep winning in perspective. (In addition to everything else, they're good -- perennial contenders in their United Soccer Leagues division and twice league champions.) Longtime coach Mark Steffens has told me that he's declined to sign talented players who aren't a good fit for the team's mission.

And -- most telling to me -- after each home game they can be seen lingering on the field to talk to fans, particularly the young ones -- and sign autographs. Nobody's ignored, and they seem genuinely glad that people have come out to see them. It's just the right way to do things.

(2) That sort of consistency and integrity seems to be what people are remembering about legendary former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who died yesterday at the age of 99. Of course, he'll be best known for winning all those national championships -- 10 from 1964 to 1975 and for the Bruins’ record 88-game win streak in the early Seventies. It was the greatest dynasty college sports has ever known.

But most of what’s been written this weekend has been about the man himself –not his strategies or his recruiting, but his values and philosophy and the way in which he never deviated from them in 30 years of college coaching.

It was simple, really, almost platitudinous, but he was able to communicate it effectively to his teams during a time in the Sixties and Seventies when players no longer did things just because they were told to. “To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail” is one I particularly remember.

Much of it, he said, he got from his father: "Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendship a fine art, drink deeply from good books -- especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings and pray for guidance every day."

Again, just doing the right thing.

(3) I've written before about the decline in civility in our society, not just in sports, but in politics and other areas of public life -- you don't like something, whether it's an official's call or the result of an election or somebody else's views on something, just go off on a profanity-laced rant. It's OK. It's the 21st Century way.

That's why I was heartened by the aftermath of a blown umpire's call which cost Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Gallaraga a perfect game (pitcher retires every batter he faces) with two out in the ninth inning of a game with the Cleveland Indians on Wednesday.

Umpire Jim Joyce was clearly wrong when he called Indians' batter Jason Donald safe on a ground ball to Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera. Gallaraga touched the base a step before Donald arrived there, but Joyce called the runner safe, turning celebration into disbelief.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland argued the call and several Tigers players confronted Joyce after the game. Gallaraga's response was restrained, but real -- he said the obvious, that he was disappointed in being denied the historic feat. (There have been only 20 perfect games in big leasgue history, although in 2010 they've been as commonplace as, well, complete games -- two so far this season.) But he also said that he realized that people make mistakes.

I've read some calls for an NFL-like system of appeals and video review in major league baseball in the aftermath of all this, or folks urging MLB commissioner Bud Selig to reverse the call. I suppose we could eventualy see a replay, but Selig wisely has declined to use his office to reverse the outcome. Human error is as much a part of sports as human achievement. Players aren't going to hit every shot, catch every fly ball, etc., and even the best officials are going to miss one every once in a while. It's life.

For his part, umpire Joyce didn't run and hide and was man enough to admit that he had made a mistake. He expressed his apologies to the pitcher.

Both guys did the right thing. Wish it would happen more often.

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