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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > January
January 2008
“Grass definitely is greener” away from Cincinnati
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — He’s heard from a lot of his former teammates.
“Rudi Johnson, Reggie Kelly, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson, Levi Jones — they all said how great it was and how they wish they were here playing,” Kelley Washington said Wednesday as he sat at the Scottsdale resort where he and his New England Patriots teammates are preparing for Sunday’s Super Bowl XLII challenge from the New York Giants.
Before this season, Washington was with the Cincinnati Bengals. In four years there, he caught 72 passes for nearly 900 yards and nine touchdowns. Then the Bengals let him go and New England signed him as an unrestricted free agent in March.
With the Patriots, he’s not caught a pass this season, but he’s become a special teams stand-out who coach Bill Belichick praised again Wednesday at his press conference.
“The grass definitely is greener on the other side,” said Washington, who admitted becoming ego-less here was both a necessity and worth it. The Patriots are 18-0 and favored to beat the Giants.
“People talk about history and being the best team ever and that could be special,” he said. “But we don’t want the label of a team that went all through the season and came up one game short.”
That, he said, is some of the difference between New England and Cincinnati:
“Playing in Cincinnati, we were just happy to win games and happy to maybe make the playoffs. Here the thinking is totally different. Here they think Super Bowls — that’s where they expect to be every year.”
Although he has some good friends in Cincinnati — especially Houshmandzadeh, who he called “a class act” — he said the whole atmosphere is different in New England:
“It’s so much different here. It’s all about team chemistry. There’s no me and I. It’s all about winning. It’s not about players who are out there who are selfish. The mentality is totally different.”
He said he wasn’t surprised by Cincinnati’s downward spiral this season:
“It’s bound to happen when there’s so much going on off the field. When you don’t have total control of the organization and players, it’s bound to happen. That totally takes away the focus for football and doing your job.
“The Bengals have some great players. Some of the best skill players in the league, but all the off-the-field issues overpower all that.
“I’m glad I’m part of something else now, but I still miss quite a few of those guys.”
And with that he mentioned the best thing he’d heard from his old teammates as he headed to the Super Bowl.
“T.J. and I talked last week and he told me he hoped we won. He said it would be something special that I could always say I was a part of. He wanted to see me get that.
“That really touched me.”
TweetA Wedding Babe for Tom Brady
I had former NBA player, 6-foot-11 John Salley, ask a question right over the top of my head and I had “Prime Time” Deion Sanders suddenly seem very pedestrian when he slipped trying to straddle a row of stadium chairs on his way to interview New York Giants’ kicker Lawrence Tynes and accidentally kick me in the back.
I had pixie-sized country singer Kellie Pickler, working for Jay Leno, worm under my elbow and up to New England lineman Matt Light to talk, and I watched from afar as everybody from a guy in a swami hat and cape to Miss Nevada Veronica Grabowski, a fellow with hand puppets and Maria Menounos, a correspondent for “Access Hollywood” and the “Today” show, all worked their shtick on both Giants and Patriots players during the Super Bowl XLII Media Day at the University of Phoenix Stadium, Tuesday.
But nobody stole the show in both team’s one-hour sessions like Ines Gomez Mont, an TV Azteca entertainment reporter from Mexico City.
She wore a white bridal outfit that may have come from Victoria’s Secret. And in this get-up there were few secrets, which is why she had one NFL player after another swooning.
Pats center Lonie Paxton cradled her in his arms. Giants players muscled each other out of the way to shoot their own videos of her.
But she was at her best when she called out to Pats quarterback and everybody’s cover boy, Tom Brady:
“I’m in love with you. … Marry me, please.”
“Wow, I’ve never had a proposal,” he grinned.
“I’m the real Mrs. Brady,” she yelled, holding up a T-shirt that said just that.
“I got a few Mrs. Brady’s in my life,” the quarterback offered.
“Could I be one of them?” she persisted.
“I’m a one-woman man,” said Brady, who in real life is paired with supermodel Gisele Bundchen. “But you are beautiful and anyone who would have the opportunity to marry you would be a lucky man.”
She smiled and batted her eyelashes and John Salley, who had been waiting nearby to ask a question, suddenly went silent and seemed about 5-feet tall.
TweetBrian Roberts belonged in bed
CINCINNATI — After the game — after the Dayton Flyers were all but run out of the Cintas Center, 69-43, Thursday night by Xavier — the UD sports information staff said Brian Roberts was off limits.
They said he wouldn’t be making an appearance at the post-game press conference and — unlike every other game — the dressing room would not be opened for anyone to come in and talk to him.
“He’s not in very good shape,’ the publicity folks said. “He’s pretty sick. He’s just not up for all that.”
For some 30 minutes after the game, Roberts wasn’t seen.
And when he finally did appear and quietly made his way down a side hallway, you could barely see his face beneath the big hoodie he wore.
When he peeked out, it wasn’t the smiling Brian Roberts so many people have come to know during a career that will end up one of the greatest UD basketball has ever seen.
His face was drained. His eyes were rheumy with sickness.
He’s been fighting a respiratory ailment that is almost flu-like in the way it has drained him.
“I only practiced a little bit Monday and a little bit the day before,” he admitted.
And the rest of the time?
“Mostly, I was in my bed.”
There was a Sports Illustrated reporter on campus to interview him a couple of days ago and reporters from around the region had shown up at UD to talk to him, as well.
What we already know — that Roberts can and has carried his team so many times — the rest of the world wanted to see. And with Chris Wright and Charles Little both lost for at least a month with foot injuries, he was going to be asked to do that Thursday night against a deep and talented Xavier team and in front of a frenzied Musketeers’ crowd that helped give this a big-game atmosphere.
For only the second time in the 145-game history of this rivalry, both teams were nationally ranked.
But the showdown quickly turned into a beat-down.
Dayton never stood a chance with Roberts barely able to breath and then so dehydrated that he began cramping and had to pulled from the game with almost 15 minutes left.
He finished with five points, 15 below his average. It was his lowest output in 71 games for the Flyers.
Early in the second half, a Xavier fan sitting two rows from court-side yelled out at Roberts: “You’re no All American.”
That was an unfair slam, but one some uninitiated national media types might believe if they just look at the box score.
But the truth is, Brian Roberts didn’t belong on a basketball court in Cincinnati Thursday night. He belonged back in Dayton in his Garden Apartments bed.
“I thought I’d be okay tonight, but you never know until you walk out here,” he said afterward, the weariness evident in his voice. “It was a big shock when I did get out here, especially in a game like this with so much emotion. I couldn’t breath after the first couple minutes and then in the second half I started to cramp. That’s when I came out.”
I don’t know how much rest he’ll get in the 40-plus hours between Xavier and tip-off in Richmond Saturday night. If he can’t play, the Flyers are in major trouble again.
Even if he can play and people double and triple team him the way Xavier did — and, before that, Rhode Island, too — it doesn’t look good.
Someone else need to step up. The Flyers need someone to score from the perimeter. But Jimmy Binnie — 0-for-10 the past two games — needs time to get his shot off. London Warren doesn’t shoot from the outside. Mickey Perry is still learning the system and Andres Sandoval and Marcus Johnson are hit or miss from afar.
Add in a sudden lack of muscle inside and a great season now is showing some cracks.
“It will only fall apart if we let it,” Roberts said. “We’ve just got to have the mentality we’re gonna get better and keep fighting. We’ve just got some things we have to so.”
First and foremost for him, get in bed and start to get well.
Because when Brian Roberts is sick, so, too, is the whole Flyers’ team.
TweetArchdeacon to Archbishop: Zip It !!!
This week Saint Louis University basketball coach Rick Majerus finds himself in a bigger holy war than he ever imagined.
When the season began, the well-rounded man of the sidelines — an I mean that in every sense of the word — figured his biggest religious battles would be against a couple of saints, Atlantic-10 foes St. Bonaventure and Saint Joseph’s.
But now he’s finding himself facing a full court press from St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, the outspoken and often polarizing head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis.
The flap started Saturday when Majerus — who’s always had a strong interest in politics, the root of it likely going back to his dad who was secretary-treasurer of the United Auto Workers — attended a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
A local TV reporter interviewed Majerus, who said he supported Clinton and — with some prompting — said he agreed with stem cell research and abortion rights.
Soon after, the reporter contacted Burke, who in the past has publicly blasted current Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and Grammy Award winning singer Sheryl Crow — all for being Pro Choice.
When he heard Majerus’ comment, Burke said the coach — who is paid $650,000 a year to guide his Catholic school’s hoops team — should not only be disciplined by the university, but have a gag order placed on him when he’s in public and such matters arise.
“I would have to insist that it is not possible for a representative of the university to espouse these views,” Burke told the TV reporter. “They’re in open violation of moral law, let alone Catholic teaching.”
The way I see it, Burke needs to zip it himself.
This is still a country of free speech and just as Kurt Warner, once the St. Louis Rams Super Bowl quarterback, was free to appear on TV commercials speaking out against stem cell research a while back, Majerus should be permitted to say what he believes.
He was speaking as a private citizen, not on behalf of his university.
But Burke is having none of that. He was in Washington Tuesday for the annual March for Life and, addressing the Majerus comments again, he said it was “not possible to be a Catholic and hold those positions.”
St. Louis University‚ including its president, Rev. Lawrence Biondi, publicly supported the coach, saying he was entitled to vocalize his views because he was not representing SLU.
I would like to think that’s their heartfelt view and they’re not speaking just because of a court ruling for which they recently lobbied.
Last year the Missouri Supreme Court said in a 6-1 decision that SLU — while run by the Jesuits — is not “controlled by a religious creed” and that paved the way for the school to get $80 million in public funding for a new arena.
The flap has got much of St. Louis talking and Tuesday, Laura Willingham, a research assistant in Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine, told the St. Louis Post Dispatch:
“If SLU wants to have a policy of, ‘you have to be Catholic and believe the Catholic way,’ SLU wouldn’t exist. Should (Majerus) have said it publicly? There’s freedom of speech.”
As for Burke, he’s having none of that.
He said he would deny giving Majerus communion as long as he knew the coach held those views. He said the same thing about Giuliani recently.
My advice to Burke, clean your own house first.
Four years ago, it was reported his archdiocese paid out $2 million to settle 18 claims of sexual abuse involving five priests. At the time 16 more suits were pending. There may be more now.
A few of those priests’ transgressions happened as far back as the 1970s and yet some of them still were handing out communion long after that.
TweetA Barefoot Coach pays tribute to Martin Luther King
Five years ago, Ron Hunter — the Chaminade Julienne High and Miami University grad who is the colorful head basketball coach at IUPUI — made national headlines for his over-the-top exuberance when he was fitted with Cinderella’s glass slipper and invited into the NCAA Tournament.
Thursday night, he’ll draw even more national attention when he coaches his college team minus his shoes and socks.
That’s right, the Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI) coach will be in his fancy suit, but barefoot, when he leads his Jaguars against visiting Oakland University.
He’s doing it to pay tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King and, at the same time, raise an awareness about people around the globe who have no shoes to wear. He’s hoping to raise pledges to buy 40,000 pairs of shoes that he’ll deliver personally to Africa in the summer.
Hunter is working with a group called Samaritan’s Feet that is trying to provide 10 million pairs of shoes for people in dire need over the next 10 years. In its first four years of existence, Samaritan’s Feet has handed out 500,000 pairs of shoes..
The group was founded by Emmanuel “Manny” Ohonme, who grew up so poor in Nigeria that he didn’t get his first pair of shoes until he was nine years old. Those came from a missionary who also taught him the game of basketball.
Manny ended up playing college basketball at the University of North Dakota-Lake Region. He turned down overseas offers to play the game and — armed with a masters degree — spent 10 lucrative years in the logistics business before deciding to pay back on some of his good fortune.
The result is Samaritan’s Feet.
Hunter recently met Ohonme and became taken by his cause.
“There shouldn’t be anyone forced to walk around barefoot. I just can’t imagine if my own children had to that that,” he said on Monday — Martin Luther King Day — as he did a series of interviews and appeared on the Jim Rome TV show, each time explaining both his barefoot venture and his profound debt to Dr. King:
“This is a way to pay tribute to Martin Luther King. If it weren’t for him, I might not be a college coach. I have a big picture of him up in my office. He did so much for everyone else and now — 40 years after his death — this is a way to honor him and do something for others, too.”
I’ve known Ron Hunter for more than a decade and a half, from the time he returned to his alma mater — where he and Ron Harper where teammates on three NCAA Tournament teams — to be an assistant coach on Herb Sendek’s Miami staff.
He’s always been passionate, outspoken, charming and bold. He’s a great salesman, too. Add a sense of humor and that trademark gap-toothed grin into the mix and you get a college coach who stands out from the rest. I like him.
And did I mention, he’s also a hell of a coach?
His Jaguars — who now play in the Summit League — are 13-5 this year. In 14 seasons, he’s guided a young program that began as an NAIA school into Division I status. Twice he was the Mid-Continent Conference Coach of the Year. He’s won 220 games.
Over the years he’s shown interest in both the Wright State and University of Dayton coaching positions when they were open, but has ended up staying at IUPUI, a school with some 30,000 students.
In 2003, his team upset Valparaiso in the Mid-Con tournament’s title game and won its first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament. At the final gun, an over-joyed Hunter ran to center court and dropped to his knees, then onto his belly and — in his nice suit and all — pounded the floor in utter delight.
The scene was captured by TV and still cameras and became one of the most memorable images of the tournament that year.
Thursday night should be quite a sight as well. And certainly as rewarding, said Hunter.
He said college coaches are given incredible high-profile platforms from which they can make a difference and that’s what he hopes happens Thursday night.
If people go to the website — www.samaritansfeet.org — they can purchase a pair of shoes for $19.99 that will be donated. If someone has a question, they can reach Samaritan’s Feet marketing director Todd Melloh by telephone at 317-417-3525. Or Hunter himself can be reached at: rehunter@iupui.edu.
“If we can raise 40,000 pairs of shoes from this, then when I wake up Friday morning, I’ll be the happiest coach in America,” he said.
Asked if he had any worries about Thursday night, he brought up just one:
“I did break my foot once when I stomped on the court. And that was with my shoes on.”
TweetHawk helps Laurinaitis decide
Thanks in a big way to A.J. Hawk, James Laurinaitis will remain an Ohio State Buckeye next season.
As Laurinaitis — the two-time All America linebacker and winner of both the Nagurski and Butkus awards — wrestled back and forth the past week on whether to jump to the NFL or return to the OSU for his senior season, he had a heart-to-heart talk with Hawk, the Green Bay Packers linebacker from Ohio State and, before that, Centerville High.
Hawk had faced a similar dilemma three years ago. He was going to be a certain first-round NFL pick after his junior season with the Bucks, but he shocked a lot of folks when he chose to stay in Columbus for his last year of college.
It’s all worked out for him.
He had a good, injury-free, senior season, was the fifth overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft and now he’s one game away from the Super Bowl. Sunday, he’ll help lead the defense of the Packers — who are favored by seven points —against the New York Giants in the NFC Championship game at Lambeau Field.
At the time he made his decision to stay in school that final season, Hawk said he wanted to enjoy college life and his friends one more year. He said he wasn’t ready to totally change his mental outlook and view football as, first and foremost, a business. He wasn’t ready to turn himself into a solitary figure and train solely for the upcoming NFL combine. He wasn’t ready to walk away from something his truly loved and believed in.
As for Laurinaitis, he was getting advice from all corners.
His father, Joe Laurinaitis Sr. — a guy who knows plenty about the business end of sports after so many years in pro wrestling — thought his son should turn pro said one person close to the family. But he did not pressure James to do so.
And NFL draft annalists all were saying that Laurinaitis likely would have been the first linebacker chosen in the draft and probably a top 10 pick overall. From the salaries doled out to those choices last year, it’s safe to say Laurinaitis walked away from a $15 million contract — much of it guaranteed.
Even though when I talked to Laurinaitis 10 days ago in New Orleans he intimated he was leaning toward staying at OSU, I didn’t think he would.
I know Buckeyes’ big man Greg Oden loved his time at OSU, too, and didn’t wan to immerse himself so quickly in the world of pro basketball, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity last year. The reward was too great not to go, the risk — as this season’s injury shows — too high to stay.
While several of Laurinaitis’ teammates faced similar decisions this week, only Vernon Gholston — who I think was the best defender on the team — chose to leave OSU early.
Linebacker Marcus Freeman, receiver Brian Robiske, defensive back Malcolm Jenkins and offensive lineman Alex Boone all decided to return. Of course none of them faced the financial decision that Laurinaitis did. I’m not sure any of them would have been a first-round draft pick, though our Bengals beat writer, Chick Ludwig, thinks Freeman had a good shot at first-round status.
As Laurinaitis made his decision — with his mom in Columbus over the weekend to help him — two sources tell me he talked candidly with Hawk and came to the same conclusion the Packers linebacker did before his senior season.
As for the possibility of a senior-season injury ruining this whole plan, Laurinaitis talked briefly about that in New Orleans, as well.
He really embraces his Christianity and he puts his plight in the hands of the Lord. He figures that’s who got him this far and that’s who’ll take him farther and, if injury should occur, well, that’s part of God’s plan, too.
That’s all fine, though I think he probably could have gone with the Lord and the loot all at the same time — there are plenty of praying pros — but a guy has to do what he believes is right.
That’s what Laurinaitis did.
And that’s why it’s the right choice for him.
TweetLeaving New Orleans with Jim Tressel and Rageev
HOUSTON — As we waited to board our Continental flight from New Orleans to Houston Tuesday afternoon, 18-year-old Rageev Sabhwani — wearing a purple LSU tee-shirt and baggy gold pants — approached Jim Tressel, who was in a scarlet polo shirt and charcoal gray slacks.
A day after his Ohio State team had lost the BCS national championship game to Louisiana State, 38-24, Tressel was headed to the national football coaches convention in San Diego.
I was headed back to Dayton and Rageev was on his way to the University of Oregon‚ where he’s a freshman. He’d just spent a few days back home in New Orleans helping his parents run the string of gift shops they have in the French Quarter and enjoying the title game’s party scene. In the process, he spent a little time with a girl who’d come down from Dayton, the town he was transplanted to after Hurricane Katrina.
One New Orleans devastation victim to another, Rageev approached Tressel in the boarding area and made a request.
“I’m an LSU fan, but I still respect what you did this year,” he told the Buckeyes coach. “Would you sign my boarding pass?”
Just prior to this, a gracious-even-though-he-was-tired Tressel had accepted handshakes and given autographs to several OSU fans after passing through security, where, incidently, he was singled out — not as a risk, but for recognition.
“OK, I want to see two things, a boarding pass and a smile,” a security official told people in the line. “That goes for the fans and for you too coach.”
After signing for Rageev, Tressel — carrying a bottle of Diet Coke, his favorite — boarded the flight and took a coach seat among other passengers in the rear of the plane.
Rageev sat down next to me and began talking about Ohio.
“I keep track of the Dayton Flyers now, they’re really doing well,” he said. ” I went to a couple of UD games when I was there in Dayton. Boy, people sure are passionate about sports up there.”
He knew about the Flyers victories over Louisville and Pitt and then he talked about some of the players:
“Is (Desmond) Adedeji still there? I liked watching him when he got in. That was five fouls just ready to happen. I remember Jimmie Binnie, too, and, of course, Brian Roberts. And that guy (Willie Morris) who runs around at halftime, too.”
It’s always interesting to hear people from the outside talk about your town and their experiences there. And Rageev was a delight.
He’d ended up in Dayton — Centerville actually — after his family had fled New Orleans two days before Katrina hit.
“We have 50, maybe 60 family members there and we left in a 10-car caravan for Houston,” he said. Eventually, though, the family ended up living in a dozen apartments on Greenville, Mississippi.
Back in New Orleans, Rageev, a high school junior, had been going to the prestigious Isadore Newman School, where, he said with some pride, Peyton Manning and his brother Eli both had gone.
“I contacted my old school and got a list of schools that were taking in people from Katrina, no questions asked,” he said. “I saw the Miami Valley School on the list and I came to visit.”
His aunt — Kajal Kishansand — lives in Centerville so the transfer was easier. He spent four months in Ohio until his school reopened in New Orleans.
“I think I got the whole Ohio experience,” he said with a laugh..
He went to an Ohio State game in the Horseshoe, got acquainted with Skyline Chili and visited Yellow Springs, where he said his friends showed him where Dave Chappelle lives.
He also had his first ever encounter with snow:
“We had a snow day from school and I was like a kid in a candy store. We went to a golf course and tubed down the hills and I built my first snowman.”
He went to a Bengals game — “the year they were pretty good” — and said he thinks he became their good luck charm:
“They had been winning right along and then I went home to visit and that weekend they lost to Jacksonville. I come back and they win again, then I go home again and they lose to Indianapolis. And when I went home for holidays, Carson Palmer gets injured in the play-off game.”
Living in Centerville, he also became an A.J. Hawk fan and added “And (Kirk) Herbstreit’s from there, too. Like I said, I got the Ohio experience. I like it up there.”
And that’s why he sought out Tressel.
Once we landed in Houston, Tressel headed to his San Diego flight and Rageev veered off to his Oregon gate, his autographed boarding pass in his hand.
TweetOSU’s Meltdown:: “Guys were fighting with other guys”
NEW ORLEANS — It was nearly an hour after the national championship game — a game in which Louisiana State embarrassed Ohio State, 38-24 — and as Alex Boone tromped across the Superdome field from the OSU dressing room to the team bus, he still wasn’t over the meltdown he had witnessed among some of his teammates.
A meltdown he — and some other Buckeyes — said happened on the field, on the sidelines and even in the dressing room.
“I couldn’t believe that guys were fighting with other guys, this isn’t a barroom.” the massive junior tackle said. “You don’t need to be fighting with your own teammates. We were here to play football, Some guys didn’t get that though. But that’s not Ohio State football.
“Everyone was fighting with each other and I’m like, ‘Calm down. It’s okay. It’s half time.’ But everyone’s like, ‘This is your fault,’ and then ‘No, this is your fault.’ I was like ‘Calm down, we got a half to go.’ But some guys panicked like the game was over.”
In truth, it was.
The Bucks trailed by 14 at the half and lost by the same margin, though they were down by more than that through much of the second half and only a late score made things look far more respectable than they were.
Ohio State lost its second national title game in a row — and its ninth straight bowl game to an SEC team — for a lot of reasons:
Stupid penalties — including a numbing five personal fouls — costly turnovers and certainly, LSU’s superior play. The Tigers were a better team.
The most surprising thing, though, was the Bucks’ mental collapse that everybody from Boone to linebackers Larry Grant and James Laurinaitis talked about afterward.
“You’ve got to be able to control your emotions in a big game like this,” said Laurinaitis, who, along with a BCS-record 18 tackles against the Tigers, had a costly face mask penalty. “We didn’t do that at all tonight. We did a lot of things we shouldn’t have.”
Grant agreed: “Our mind got where it shouldn’t have been and It cost us the game.”
TweetBare Breasts and Big Ass Beers get upstaged
NEW ORLEANS — As I toured Bourbon Street into the wee hours of Sunday morning, I was shocked to find out who got the biggest response from the beered-up, beaded-out crowd, the majority of whom seemed to have an allegiance to Ohio State.
It was not the girl with the buckeye necklace and Block O painted on her cheek who kept pulling up her red sweater and showing off her bare breasts to the clamoring guys on the wrought iron balconies up above, many of whom showered her with bleary-eyed praise and brightly-colored strands of beads they tossed in her direction.
On this night, she came in at No. 2 in the polls.
And the guy standing in the middle of the street carrying a big placard that read “Big Ass Beers Half Price,” he was an also-ran, as well. Same as the rhythm and blues singer who danced off the stage and into the street in front of the 544 Club, still screeching James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.”
So who came in No. 1?
This poll may be unscientific, but I know what I saw. Matt Wollett, a 20-something grad from Ohio State, had lots of people stepping off the sidewalk to give him a high five as he passed. Guys from the balconies called down to him, people in the street gave him thumbs-up salutes, a pat on the back, a loud shout of approval.
Why?
He simply wore a gold shirt that said APPALACHIAN STATE across the front.
Louisiana State might be the Buckeyes’ opponent in Monday night’s BCS national championship game at the Superdome, but Michigan is still OSU’s ultimate rival. And any team that humbles the Wolverines gets some top billing, even against bosoms and brew.
As for why OSU fans seemed to outnumber their just-as-fervent LSU brethren on Bourbon Street, it could have been that some Tigers fans were still back home waiting to make the short drive in or, just as likely, they know this town better and know other spots than tourist trap that is Bourbon. They’re familiar with and frequent places like Frenchman Street —with all its music clubs, the locals’ Bourbon Street — in the Faubourg Marigny section just across Esplanade Avenue from the French Quarter.
But some of those who LSU fans who did flock to Bourbon Street have come up with a pretty good cheer of their own to diffuse that constant OH….IO” call that Bucks fans chant back and forth
Tiger wags — in reference to the Buckeyes’ bowl game futility against the SEC — begin their chant “0-8” and then answer “IO.”
LSU coach Les Miles, his wife and daughter did tromp down Bourbon Street the other night, but Bucks’ players — with the exception of a couple who are injured for the game — have avoided the strip as if it were the plague.
OSU defensive back Malcolm Jenkins swore he’s not ventured from the team hotel except to go to Walgreens.
Linebacker James Laurinaitis was just as adamant:
“Last year we were lackadaisical on our bowl trip. Players tried to go every place they could. Now they’re more focused on handling their free time.
“We’re not going down to Bourbon Street. There are a lot of ways to get in trouble down there, a lot of ways to get distracted. Down there all kinds of crazy stuff is happening.”
You’re telling me!
I just saw a guy in an Appalachian State shirt eclipse the popularity of bare breasts and big-ass beer.
TweetOSU: Trying to avoid being drugged and packed in ice
NEW ORLEANS — Kirk Barton was talking corn, kidneys and being packed in ice.
Before his Ohio State team headed off for practice Thursday — one of its last days of preparation for Monday’s BCS national championship game with Louisiana State — the Buckeyes starting tackle was quizzed by an incredulous West Coast writer:
“It’s not just you guys, but it’s the whole state of Ohio — you’re everywhere,” the media man said.
“It’s cool to be from Florida or California, but look there’s all you (OSU) guys from Ohio and (LSU Coach) Les Miles and (Florida coach) Urban Meyer and all the rest. What is it about Ohio?”
Barton, hunched down on a one-man mini-stage — well, at least as much as you can hunch 310 pounds — he was unshaven, razor sharp and he nodded and began a dead-pan riff:
“Oh, man, it’s cool to be from Ohio. We got LeBron James, he’s cool. We got Lil Bow Wow, he’s from Ohio…And, other than that, well, it’s not all cornfields. There’s more than corn.
“We have steel mills, sometimes though they’re all rusted out, but the potential is there. And we’ve got some teams that are up and coming. The Browns are not bad. It’s not California. Not the O.C. There’s not gonna be a reality show from Ohio — well, maybe one day — but there is more than corn.
“We got others things.”
Other things, like the kidneys they came to town…at least — in Barton’s logic — if the Bucks are not rule breakers.
Because he’s a senior captain, Barton was one of the players Coach Jim Tressel entrusted to set the curfews for the rest of the team here in New Orleans. And he and the other deciders set them early.
“We don’t need to be out around here late all night ‘cause all you’ll find is trouble,” he said. “We heard a couple of horror stories from the some of the deputies. They came to talk to us, that’s what they do at every bowl site.
“The one (story) that got me was they said they found a guy who’d gotten drugged. He woke up in a warehouse in a thing of ice and his kidney was gone.”
That was met by some raised eyebrows, a few titters of disbelief and some one said, “What’s that, urban myth?” Me, I remember that as a plot in some movie or TV show I saw, but Barton — though chuckling a little — stuck to his story.
“No I know it’s urban legend…just like the Pop Rocks and Coca Cola…but I mean, they said it actually happened. They said it was a couple years ago.”
And then with tongue jammed far into that chiselled cheek, he grinned: “I went straight to my room and locked myself and shut the windows.”
So then what time is the curfew?
“Eleven each night,” he said. “That’s bed check at 11.”
In a town like New Orleans that does sound pretty cornfield.
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