National Collegiate Athletic Association |
CommentMarch 9, 1998
Guest editorial -- How can a nice act create so much fury?
BY GENO AURIEMMA I just want to know how something like this can bring forth hatred, how such a simple gesture for such a great kid can bring about such a response that can make someone cry and say I wish I could take the record back.
God forbid we do something good for a kid. How can people who have never taken an interest in women's basketball have an opinion? How can people who are not emotionally involved feel they have to comment so strongly and personally against the people involved in the decision? For some, it's an opportunity to attack something they don't believe in in the first place: women's basketball. I am still waiting for the people inside the basketball community to come out and criticize this en masse. The coaches who are my peers have stepped up and said this is a good thing, but I guess we answer to a higher authority, not to the people we live with six months a year, but (to) people who write in newspapers, run talk shows. You want to criticize me, say it was a bad decision, fine, but don't think less of Nykesha Sales. I especially love people who have never played a sport, never sacrificed like she has, to be in a position to decide if we were right or wrong. Disagreeing is part of the process, but this has gone far beyond that. Thirteen years we have worked to build this program to where it is and the most unselfish kid who ever played here, who took a back seat to all the great stars here, who never asked for anything, who could have scored 3,000 points if I let her, now all of a sudden is being ... I just can't believe the way she is being represented. Everyone has a right to voice their opinion, but the way it's being done, the furor in which it's being done, is too much. Some of these guys calling these talk shows are probably the same guys who cheat at golf. They call up and complain we cheat the game. They guys who were really busy living their life didn't call. They don't have time for this nonsense. We had a chance to celebrate a tremendous accomplishment, and it was sucked away from us February 21 when Nykesha was injured. I wanted to give her something to celebrate -- because she never asked for it. No matter what message I try to send, I can't win. (The media) get the last word and I'm not going back and forth and trying to defend this again and again. I don't understand how a simple, symbolic gesture toward a human being evolves into this. And don't give me the nonsense the game is bigger than the individual because without the individuals and what they bring, there is no game. On the night of February 22, I started to seriously question this. Some of the coaches and I were talking about it. We went back and forth with the pros and cons. Should we or shouldn't we? What's everyone going to say? Never did I envision it taking on this tone and some of it directed at Nykesha. Look, I went back and forth a couple of times. I said this to one of the coaches at some point: If I let it go like this and everyone knows who the real leader is, that adds to the aura of Nykesha. Another coach, another kid, a different time, maybe I don't do it, but I did it because she never asked for anything. The sports world is littered with things done in a selfish way. You hear of athletes going out of their way to do things before time runs out, a shot or a pass or a team trying to score 100 points. You see this selfishness all the time. She never wanted it, never asked for it, rejected it when I first proposed it. The only thing I would have done differently ... I wish there was a way I would have spared Nykesha having to go through this ... I feel bad for the coaches, for Sales, people at Connecticut having to answer the phones ... amazing. In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people for their outpouring of support from Connecticut and around the country, which has far outweighed any of the negative. Geno Auriemma is women's basketball coach at the University of Connecticut. Comment -- Goodbye to a mentor -- and a pioneer
BY BOB HENTZEN This is something I've reflected back on often during my adult life -- how I happened to become a sportswriter. Darn sure I was thinking about it February 27 when I was in the throng at the funeral of Harold Keith in Norman, Oklahoma. The man who gave me my start in the business, and always was an influence on my career, died February 24 at age 94. It was back in 1951 when I was a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma that Mr. Keith hired me as a student assistant in the Sooners' sports publicity office. Golly, he must have been hard up for help. I had no credentials, other than being a sports fan. I never had been on a high-school newspaper or yearbook. I didn't even know how to type. I started out by clipping newspapers and soon Mr. Keith and his secretary, Addie Lee Barker, my immediate supervisor, had me writing short feature stories to submit to the hometown papers of OU athletes. Hey, I found I could put words on paper. I took to this introduction to journalism like a duck to water. The perks of the job were great, too. I got acquainted with the players and coaches. I got to attend the Friday night press parties before home football games and meet the writers I'd read and heard about. I got to sit in the press box on game day. One time, I served as a spotter for Harry Wismer on a national radio broadcast. I remain embarrassed for giving him a wrong name. Another time, I drove New York scribe Jimmy Cannon to the airport. I thought it odd when he told me he'd never had a driver's license. By the second semester of my senior year, I had landed a full-time job on the sports staff of the Oklahoma City paper. It was possible only because Harold Keith hired me, showed me how to do things right and recommended me. I am far from the only of his student assistants to turn out OK. There's another in Topeka, Lew Ferguson, longtime head of The Associated Press bureau here. The list, to name a few others, includes Jimmy Jones, who wound up in the U.S. Congress; Ross Porter, longtime Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster; sportswriters Volney Meece and Max Nichols; and sportscaster John Brooks. Mr. Keith -- he was Mr. to most of us -- took interest and pride in our careers. And we -- I'm sure to a man -- always have appreciated how positively he touched our lives. Mr. Keith was a remarkable person. I don't recall him ever raising his voice, even when he had good reason to be mad. He was nice to everybody, fair to all. From Day 1 in his employ, I was treated as an appreciated coworker, not the barely-got-a-clue kid that I was. Mr. Keith may have worked seven days a week promoting OU sports from 1930 to 1969, but he had other interests. He sang in a barbershop quartet. He was a jogger long before that became popular with the masses. The 1928 Penn Relays steeplechase winner, he continued running into his 90s. He was an author. I can't think of anybody ever in sports who was a better writer. Mr. Keith wrote two books on Sooner football, but most of his 16 books were not sports-oriented. He specialized in fiction for young readers, winning six national awards. He may be the reason, by the way, why I've never aspired to write a book. He would do months, even years, of research and interviews before putting anything on paper. Seemed like too much work to me. For certain, Mr. Keith was a pioneer in bringing professionalism and class to sports publicity. He was among the first, if not the first, to encourage writers to visit the locker rooms for interviews. He set new standards for service in so many ways -- such as providing postgame quotes, pregame chow and promoting players for postseason awards. Media members, large and small, always could be assured of first-class treatment during Mr. Keith's tenure at Oklahoma. He was founder and served as president of the College Sports Information Directors of America. He was inducted into the Helms Foundation Hall of Fame in 1969 and the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in 1987. Mr. Keith has been in my personal hall of fame much longer. A wonderful gentleman and mentor. Opinions -- More recruiting restrictions may mean less control
P. J. Carlesimo, head coach "I would never be critical of kids playing too much basketball, but the structure has changed. Kids aren't playing in their neighborhoods or even in their cities.... There needs to be a process where the high-school coaches get more involved. Sometimes the more we make rules to restrict recruiting, the less control there is. Coaches need time to evaluate and to establish relationships with families, high-school and amateur coaches."
Coaching
Dom Capers, Carolina Panthers head coach "I see my job as a head coach as attempting to get everyone on the same page, heading in the same direction. "To me, it's the only way you can accomplish anything. You can't have hidden agendas. You have to have an unselfish attitude to have a good football team. It's a constant challenge because it takes a lot to establish the attitude where you can focus and block out all of the distractions that come during the course of a season and have commitment, which to me means belief and trust in each other. "Those terms, belief and trust, are powerful on a team. To be a good team, you not only have to be accountable to yourself, but you've got to be accountable to everybody else on that team -- players and coaches. Once you believe in the people around you, you have the element of trust and trust is the cornerstone for any good team."
Wheaties controversy
Ken Rosenthal, columnist Reacting to five members of the gold-medal U.S. women's ice hockey team not being pictured on a Wheaties box because to do so would violate NCAA eligibility rules: "It would be one thing if Wheaties was using one individual to sell its cereal -- the promotional link would be too obvious to ignore. But this is a team accomplishment, a team honor. "No one will buy the cereal solely because of Tara Mounsey or A. J. Mleczko. Indeed, sales will be exactly the same whether all 20 players are pictured or just 15.... "The players, of course, have the right to renounce their eligibility, just as Kerri Strug did after the U.S. women's gymnastics team won the 1996 gold medal in Atlanta. "Once Strug decided not to compete at UCLA, she could appear on the Wheaties box without consequence and pursue other commercial opportunities. "Asked if she considered a similar move, Mounsey said: 'It crossed my mind earlier, but I have a lot left to do at Brown. I'm young. I've got plenty of time to make money and all that stuff.' "And so the boxes will be shipped, with only 75 percent of the players depicted. Nothing could divide the U.S. women's hockey team. But the NCAA found a way."
Mike Vaccaro, columnist "This isn't the NCAA's rule. It's Harvard's. And Brown's. And Providence's. And Minnesota's. Which are the schools (that the involved athletes) still attend. "Where each still has eligibility. "Is this a silly rule? "Of course it is. "Does college sports, a billion-dollar business, absorb a black eye by depriving five of its own a once-in-a-lifetime chance at immortality? "Absolutely. "If you feel that way, call your alma mater. "Write the chancellors at Missouri and Kansas and tell them the way you feel. Those are the people with the power to change dumb rules. "Colleges have an obligation to prevent their athletes from getting exploited. But they also must be smart enough to avoid such petty nonsense. "They allow their athletes to wear swooshes and stripes on their uniforms, essentially to serve as walking billboards for their corporate partners. "The schools must see the inconsistency at work here. "And when they do, they'll let the NCAA know. "Until then, the folks in Overland Park will field all the calls, read all the clippings, absorb all the criticism. "It's not as if they haven't had a lot of practice at it."
Making weight
Wade Schalles, head of wrestling "Losing weight isn't nearly as dangerous as losing too much weight too quickly. Trying to knock off 12 pounds in two hours is deadly."
Don Hermann, associate director Describing the extent to which some wrestlers will go to make weight: "Well, blood weighs something. And this kid was so dehydrated he couldn't spit. So dehydrated he couldn't urinate, couldn't vomit. There was literally no other way he could lose weight, so he bopped himself in the nose."
|
Oh, yes, I forgot. The goal is to become hardened like men's basketball. The women's fans should demand more, be more cynical, just like the people who comment on sports.