Bellbrook graduation 2012
Fairfield Senior 2012 graduation
Kroger Aquatic Center opens
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 > 2009 > September
September 2009
OSU’s Coleman —“Kurt doesn’t play with malice at heart”
Here are four thoughts on Kurt Coleman, the Ohio State safety and senior co-captain, who has been suspended by the Big Ten for the Buckeyes’ game at Indiana Saturday night because of a late hit in the final seconds of Saturday’s game with Illinois:
1 — To paint him as a cheap-shot thug looking to hurt other people — as a few always-anonymous posters have done on these blogs — is not a fair or accurate picture of the Northmont High product.
If you know him or if you’re cognizant of his myriad off-the-field works — he’s a regular going to grade schools and reading to kids, visiting hospitals, speaking at churches and on the OSU campus and he’s president of the OSU chapter of Uplifting Athletes, a group that uses college football players to raise funds and awareness for rare diseases — you know there’s not a guy on the team who cares more for his fellow man.
That said, him diving on the pile and crashing helmet-to-helmet into Illinois backup quarterback Eddie McGee on the final drive of the game was poor judgement that happened in a split second. He drew a 15-yard penalty. Coleman is an aggressive player — he leads the team with three forced fumbles and is second in tackles — but I don’t think the hit was premeditated and I don’t think it deserves an after-the-fact suspension.
2 — Although he chose his words carefully — and his son is being told by OSU officials not to comment at all — Ron Coleman, Kurt’s dad, and the assistant principal at Stebbins High, had a few thoughts on the matter during Tuesday’s lunch break:
“Kurt doesn’t play with malice at heart or with ill intentions to anyone. And I love him for that as much as anything. I like the support Coach Tressel and (OSU athletics director) Gene Smith showed in respects to him. This is a learning experience for all of us — for Kurt, for us, for his coaches and teammates And I think we’ll all make the most of it. I know this weekend Kurt will be coaching up his teammates as best he can to make them better.”
3 — This point is really more about the OSU coaches: What was Coleman still doing in the game with 37 seconds left and the Bucks ahead 30-0?
4 — Another hit from Coleman in the Illinois game — also inadvertent — may affect the Bucks more than the one on McGee that drew his suspension. On the Illini’s second play of the game, he and OSU teammate Ross Homan, the linebacker from Coldwater High, hit helmets as they were making a tackle. Homan left the game, returned for a short while and then didn’t play at all after about the first quarter.
TweetFlyers No. 23 in preseason rankings
The Dayton Flyers are ranked No. 23 in the just-released Sporting News’ preseason Top 50 college basketball poll.
The Flyers were the top-rated team from the Atlantic 10 Conference. Xavier, at No. 30, was the league’s only other team listed in the preseason Top 50.
Among Ohio schools, only Ohio State, at No. 19, is ranked ahead of UD. Along with Xavier, No. 26 Cincinnati and No. 50 Akron made the list.
Michigan, Florida State, UCLA, Louisville , Syracuse and Pitt were among the schools ranked behind the Flyers.
The Sporting News’ Preseason Top 10 are:
1 — Kansas
2 — Kentucky
3 — Michigan State
4 — North Carolina
5 — West Virginia
6 — Texas
7 — Purdue
8 — Duke
9 — Villanova
10 — Mississippi State
TweetCOLUMN: Bengals over Steelers — the hungry dog fights better
CINCINNATI — As blue collar philosophers go, it’s hard to beat Andrew Whitworth, who mixes his down-home Louisiana roots with some succinct locker room reflection.
“It’s an old cliche, but the hungry dog fights better, the hungry dog hunts better… and, the person who has more to prove is gonna come out and perform better,” said the Cincinnati Bengals massive left tackle, who, with his shaved dome and those 338 pounds lumped beneath it, looks a little like a big boiled potato.
But as he stressed, looks are deceiving with this team.
“We might not have the prettiest 53 guys in a football locker room and they aren’t going to make a lot of Pro Bowls or be the highest paid guys in the league, but they are going to come out every week and for 60 minutes they’re going to fight. And if you play that way, you’re gonna win some football games.”
And that’s just what happened Sunday, Sept. 27 as the Bengals rewrote their well-worn script with the Pittsburgh Steelers at Paul Brown Stadium and — in what may well prove to be the watershed moment of this team — rallied from behind with an against-the-odds scoring drive at game’s end to topple the defending Super Bowl champs, 23-20.
Whitworth was right, the Bengals had something to prove. Going back to 2001, they had lost eight straight to the Steelers at PBS.
“Last year — no matter who or where it came from — we were front runners, Whitworth said. “When things went well, we played well, but when they went bad (people) laid down. It’s different this year.”
Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said this team — which but for a freak play in the final seconds of the opener would be 3-0 now instead of 2-1 — has gotten a blue collar make-over.
“They’re a bunch of cast-offs,” he said with chuckle. “They’re grinders. When you bring together a group of guys collectively that understands what being a team is all about — that’s the fun of it.”
In the Bengals final 16-play 71-yard drive — which culminated with a four-yard touchdown pass from Carson Palmer to Andre Caldwell with 14 seconds left— several of Cincinnati players who kept hope alive were true grinders.
A year ago this time, tailback Cedric Benson — dumped by Chicago — was out of football. Sunday, had a 23 yard TD run earlier in the fourth quarter and added another 16 yards in the final drive.
Laveranues Coles — let go by the Jets after last season —caught two passes on the final drive including one on fourth-and-2 with 60 seconds left.
And the biggest grinder of all was third string tailback Brian Leonard, who St. Louis gave up on after injuries limited him to two games last season.
With the Bengals again down to one play — facing a fourth and 10 at the Pittsburgh 15 yard line with 36 seconds left — he was Palmer’s last option on a desperation play and aught a short pass. With the Steelers linebacker James Farrior hanging on to him, he dove to the four yard line for a first down to set up the Caldwell pass.
“I got hit at the eight or nine yard line and I knew I had to make it to the five,” he said. “That’s where you need extra effort. It’s the grinder mentality and we’ve all got it.”
Tweet“A true turning point” for the Bengals?
CINCINNATI — Bobby Williams — singing away to Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” which came wafting, honey-like and oh-so-timely from the locker room PA system right after the game — put it like this after his Cincinnati Bengals came from behind with a long, gritty drive in the final minutes Sunday to topple the Pittsburgh Steelers, 23-20:
“This is a true turning point.”
You want to believe that the affable 345-pound guard — a veteran of 10 years in the NFL — knows how to read a game and a team.
I think he does.
But for a freakish tipped pass that turned into a fairy tale, game- winning touchdown for Denver in the final seconds of the season opener, the Cincinnati Bengals could be 3-0.
Even so they’re 2-1 and along with Sunday’s victory over the defending Super Bowl champs — who had won eight straight here at Paul Brown Stadium before this — the Bengals have beaten a good Green Bay Packers team on the road.
And next week, forlorn Cleveland is sitting up there on the lake looking like everybody’s patsy this season.
Suddenly last year’s 0-8 start — and the 4-11-1 finish — seems to be the resume of this team’s evil twin.
Bengals left tackle Andrew Whitworth thinks so:
“This game today is almost the exact same game as last year here — but with one difference. Last year we struggled in the first half, they barely had a lead, but then in the fourth quarter they blew us out and we laid down. This year we kept fighting, we stayed in the football game and that attitude got us a victory.”
“Last year — no matter who or where it came from — we were front runners. When things went well, we played well, but when they went bad (people) laid down. That was the football team. It’s different this year.”
The Bengals winning, 16-play, 71-yard drive — that culminated with a four-yard touchdown pass from Carson Palmer to Andre Caldwell with 14 seconds left — was fueled by various Bengals players showing that fight Whitworth talked about.
Three key players on the drive were tailback Cedric Benson, wide receiver Laveranues Coles and third-string tailback Brian Leonard. All three — whether by trade, refusal to resign or simply being cut — were let go by their previous NFL teams.
After the game Coach Marvin Lewis talked not only about Palmer’s “invincible” attitude at game’s end, but the new persona of this team. He said his locker room is full of “grinders” and “cast-offs” who have come together for a common cause:
“When you bring together a group of guys collectively that understands what being a team is all about— that’s the fun of it.”
Sunday’s victory over the Steelers could turn out to be a watershed moment for this team.
So often in the past, the Steelers have flat -out bullied the Bengals:
You can go back to Keith Gary nearly tearing Ken Anderson’s head off in 1983. Or Kimo von Oelhoffen destroying Carson Palmer’s knee in the 2006 Wildcard Game. There was former Steeler Joey Porter punching Levi Jones at a Las Vegas blackjack table and then last year Hines Ward breaks Keith Rivers jaw with a block.
Sunday the Bengals fought back and won.
I’m not sure if Bobby Williams has it nailed — that this truly is the turning point — but he sure hit the right notes when he sang along with the late Sam Cooke:
“It’s been a long, a long time coming.”
TweetCOLUMN: For Victorious Bucks — A primal celebration from deep within
COLUMBUS — The hardest Kurt Coleman got hit all day was when he tried to embrace Ohio State teammate Lawrence Wilson, who had just capped off his acrobatic deflection and interception of an Illinois pass with a spastic, arms-flying, leg’s-kicking, stomp and tromp celebration as he made his way off the field.
“He was like a freight train,” laughed Coleman, the Buckeye safety from Northmont High, who caught a few inadvertent Wilson forearms and elbows as he tried hugging the 274-pound back-up defensive end. “None of us could stop him, he was just going crazy.
“And I think every guy on this team was happy for him. That (celebration) was for everything he’s gone through for two years.”
The OSU defense made a lot of big plays in its 30-0 victory over Illinois, Saturday, Sept. 26, at Ohio Stadium. Coupled with last week’s 38-0 blanking of Toledo, it marks the first time in 13 years the Bucks’ defense has registered back-to-back shut-outs.
But no defensive play the past two weeks warmed the hearts of Buckeye players the way Wilson’s pick did.
Two years ago — in the season opener against Youngstown State — Wilson suffered a broken right leg, an injury that left the stadium hushed as he was taken off the field in a cart.
He came back last year and then — against Purdue in game seven — suffered a torn ACL that required surgery and cost him another season.
“I saw him in the hospital after his last two injuries — both times his season was over — and it just broke my heart,” said OSU defensive coordinator Jim Heacock.
Wilson admitted “this has been the hardest experience of my life, but I kept listening to my parents and coaches. They’d always be in my ear saying, ‘Keep trying. Don’t give up.’”
He said if he focused on his terrible luck and the long recovery ahead, “it would drag my emotions, my attitude down. It would have turned me negative. I just had to take it day to day and remember — we’re just blessed to be playing football in the first place.”
He did admit he had dreamed of “one day doing something special again.”
Saturday he did just that when he intercepted Illinois quarterback Juice Williams at the Bucks 36 yard line.
“I saw him rolling, so I retraced my steps…got my hands up and tipped (the ball),” he said. “I heard the crowd yelling, so I looked up and saw the ball and went ‘Wow, another interception.’
After taking a couple of steps and then getting bowled over by Illini tacklers, he got up and, still holding the ball, let loose with that primal celebration that came from the deepest recesses of his being.
“I don’t really know what I did, but I think I kinda went crazy,” he said sheepishly. “I noticed I still had the football when I got to the sidelines, so I just dropped it. Coach Tressel always says ‘Just give the ball to the referee,’ but I didn’t really see a referee.
“All I remember is sitting down on the bench and thinking, ‘What have you just done?’ I was definitely tired and a little sore, but I’ll have to see the film to know just what went on.”
Or, he could talk to the equally-sore Coleman.
TweetBuckeyes about to surge back up into the Top 10 rankings
COLUMBUS — With its 30-0 shutout of Illinois, Saturday — and the losses by four different Top 10 teams in a 48-hour period — No. 13 Ohio State is poised to surge back up in the national rankings this week
Fourth-ranked Ole Miss lost to South Carolina, 16-10, Thursday night. On Saturday, No. 5 Penn State fell 21-10 to Iowa,; No. 6 Cal was embarassed by Oregon 42-3 and the ninth-ranked Miami Hurricanes were thumped by Virginia Tech, 31-7.
That means OSU could be back in the Top 10, as could be the unbeaten Cincinnati Bearcats, who were ranked 14th last week and remained unbeaten with a 28-20 victory over Fresno State, Saturday,
For the second week in a row, the Buckeyes defense — which is embracing the Silver Bullet nickname the 1996 OSU defenders first hung on themselves — registered a shut-out. Last week the Bucks blanked Toledo, 38-0.
The last time OSU had back-to-back shutouts was in that same ‘96 season when it stymied Minnesota, 45-0 and Illinois, 48-0
Saturday, the Buckeyes forced three turn-overs and — with defenders like tackle Todd Denlinger from Troy High leading the charge — continually pressured Illini quarterback Juice Williams.
“Each year our seniors come up with an outline of what we want to do,” said strong safety Kurt Coleman from Northmont. “For us, it starts with the Silver Bullet name and the tradition and the mentality that comes with it. That’s what the defense started calling itself here in 1996 and that’s the way we want to play now.
“We fly around and are reckless and that’s what bullets are. We know, as long as we’re all aggressive, if one guy misses the play, the next one will come flying right behind you and make it.
Senior linebacker Austin Spitler from Bellbrook High agreed: “We talk about it over and over and over — how we want to live up to the Silver Bullet name and the legacy that comes with it…Today I think we did.”
The Bucks held Illinois — which amassed 548 yards of offense last weekend — to 170 yards.
The only downer on the day was an unknown injury to linebacker Ross Holman of Coldwater, who manned the Buckeye sidelines, sans helmet, for the final three quarters. Afterward both head coach Jim Tressel and defensive coordinator Jim Heacock claimed not to know the exact nature of the injury. It was thought Homan may have been jarred by a helmet-to-helmet collision. He was not made available to the press afterward.
On offense, Brandon Saine, the junior tailback from Piqua, rushed for 81 yards and caught a 12-yard pass. He was especially effective in a Buckeye drive during the downpour that ended the first quarter and began the second. Saine carried seven straight times in that drive and gained 64 yards. That set up a 46-yard field goal by Aaron Pettrey.
“I think I contributed as much as I could today,” Saine said. “I’m proud of the way I played.”
A lot of the Buckeyes should feel the same way after this one.
TweetPlayers separated before the OSU-Illinois game
COLUMBUS — A pre-game confrontation between the Illinois and Ohio State players — two teams that still appear not to care for each other — was averted Saturday afternoon when the zebra-striped game officials and assistant coaches from both teams stepped between their jawing, shoving players at midfield.
A few Illinois players— led by safety Donsay Hardeman — appeared to be the instigators in this one.
When Ohio State players ran en masse from their tunnel to midfield — where head coach Jim Tressel awaited them — Hardeman and at least two other Illini players left the ranks of their teammates, who were about to start calisthenics and marched some 10 yards up to the Buckeyes, clapping their hands and yapping all the way.
That drew a swarm of Bucks and the rest of the Illini players, too, and after about 15 seconds of jockeying, the two teams were separated and there were no more incidents.
The Illini have won seven of their last 10 games at Ohio Stadium and two years ago there was a post-game confrontation after the Illini upset the Bucks.
I doubt if there’ll be any upset today. I think the Bucks will more than cover the 14 point spread.
TweetCOLUMN — Forget the scoreboard, Belbrook has some winners
BELLBROOK — Tough times aren’t always measured by a scoreboard.
Sure Bellbrook High’s football team lost to Monroe in double overtime last weekend, fell by three the game before that to Xenia and is off to an 0-4 start for the first time in decades.
But if you want to see a much bigger picture, you need to follow two of the Golden Eagles players — senior team captain and stand-out middle linebacker Zac Rogal and junior wide receiver and safety Trey Schwieterman — every week as they leave behind Friday night’s lights and spend Sunday afternoon at The Gospel Mission on Burns Avenue near downtown Dayton.
That’s where a bunch of young kids are waiting for them. And if you’re looking for some tough times, you can find them there.
“If you heard some of the kids talk, you’d hear stuff you wish you didn’t have to….about drugs, condoms, abuse, rape, suicide, murder prison, you name it,” said Andy Leakas, the youth director at The Gospel Mission. “I could tell you stories that would make you start crying.”
The Gospel Mission — with its daily chapel services, adult classes and activities, regular meals and various youth programs — is an oasis and Zac and Trey are two star attractions.
Yet, for the two football players — and Harry Kennedy, a sophomore JV player from Northmont, who also helps out there — personal resumes and team records hold little swayat The Gospel Mission.
The only thing that matters there is how they give of themselves each Sunday afternoon, whether it’s in sharing a meal, a conversation and a few minutes of Bible study with the kids or in going all out in a game of touch football or dodgeball in the gym.
“When Zac and Trey walk in, the kids run and hug them,” Leakas said. “A lot of them don’t have any structure in their lives. They don’t get any real affection or attention and here’s someone willing to give it to them. The kids love it.”
But rather than take his word, listen to Justin Wolfe, a fifth grader at nearby Emerson Academy, who said his dad was scheduled to be released from prison today:
“Zac and Trey….they’re just awesome.”
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“SINGLE MOST INFLUENTIAL MOMENT OF MY LIFE”
Two summers ago, Zac was coaxed into taking a mission trip to central Mexico.
His mom, Tina, and his older sister, Kristen — through connections with their Southbrook Church in Centerville — had gone the year before and this time they’d talked him into coming, too.
“Even when I got off the plane I was draggin’ and really didn’t want to be there,” Zac admitted. “But it ended up being the single most influential moment in my life.
“It was wild, crazy. Suddenly, I was out of Bellbrook — and the little bubble where everything is perfect — and I was going to three different orphanages and seeing poverty and need and feeling I just wanted to help.”
That feeling stayed with him when he returned home and that led him to Leakas, who had travelled with Tina to Mexico that first year and whose work at The Gospel Mission was an inspiration to the entire Rogal family.
Leakas — whose grandfather ran Leakas Furriers on Ludlow Street — once had had a title insurance company.
“But I came downtown here and met this boy who had no mom or dad — both had passed away, one was shot I think — and he was caring for his four siblings by himself,” Leakas said. “They had nothing and here I was living in the suburbs with everything I dreamed of. It kept haunting me and I knew I had to do something.”
What he did was mind boggling, said Tina’s husband Mark, the defensive coordinator of the Bellbrook High football team and now a volunteer himself at The Gospel Mission:
“Andy gave up everything to work here. The guy is a saint.”
Leakas sold his stocks, convinced some 20 friends to chip in from $25 to $300 a month and set up an account from which he draws a meager weekly salary — less than $400 — to work 60-plus hours a week with the children.
He was in dire need of help on Sunday afternoons and for more than a year now, the Rogal family has been showing up. Soon Trey — who had done some inner-city mission work in Memphis through his church — was joining them.
The pair — still huffing from the grueling goal line-to-goal line wind sprints that had ended Bellbrook’s drills — plopped down on two old tractor tires near the practice field the other day and talked about Sunday’s in the inner city.
“The thing that really surprises me is how I look forward to it,” said Zac, whose football exploits — he’s the area’s third-leading tackler — have him being recruited by the likes of Harvard, Dartmouth, Holy Cross and the University of Dayton.
Trey feels the same: “Every Sunday I keep waiting for the text message from Zac telling me they’re on the way to pick me up. I love it and I think we get as much out of it as the kids do.”
Mark agreed: “For us, struggling through an 0-4 season is tough and you might be hating life, but the second you walk in there on a Sunday afternoon and one of the kids comes up and hugs you, you forget all about the season you’re having.
“It gives you some real perspective., some real appreciation. That’s the wonderful thing here.”
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“IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT YOURSELF”
No sooner had Zac and Trey walked into The Gospel Mission last Sunday than they were all but engulfed by George Martin, a seventh grader at Rosa Parks Elementary.
He was wearing the No. 54 jersey he wears for his youth league football team. Sometime’s he also sports the wrist band that holds his game day plays and, once in while, he shows up with his helmet, too. Like Zac, he plays offensive line as well as linebacker for his team.
The other day after school Tina even went to see one of George’s games. She videotaped it for the rest to see, but Mark and Zac got the first-person report from George, who called them afterward with the details.
George’s dad, George Sr., a Dunbar High basketball player in the 1970s, said he was homeless just before his son was born and remembers the help he got at The Gospel Mission. That’s why he brings his son there now.
Alfonso Torres’ mom wants her 10-year-old son there because he was hanging around the streets with a kid who was bad news and was getting into trouble, Andy said:
“Now he’s back here around some good influences and he has a great attitude again.”
Trey understands the role he and Zac can play: “Maybe at their school or on the street some of the kids feel they have to act wrong to get respect. But I think we can show them another way.”
After Zac and Trey took part in a 10-minute discussion with the kids on Proverbs 6:16-19 — The Seven Things God Hates — they joined Mark for a spirited game of three-on-four touch football with the kids. As he watched, Andy explained what you were seeing:
“I think you have a case of a mom and dad (Tina and Mark) who just love their children and want to show them that it’s not all about yourself all the time. It’s about other people and investing in their lives, too. It’s about caring about more than just your own small world.”
It’s about more than just a Friday night scoreboard.
TweetCOLUMN — The kid called Tank just rolls over his troubles
BEAVERCREEK — As life’s memorable moments go, Donita Stevenson said nothing beats that March day four years ago.
Her son, Austin, then five years old, had just stepped out the front door of Children’s Medical Center when he suddenly stopped and asked incredulously, “What’s that?”
Donita smiled as she remembered the scene: “It was a bird chirping….He had never heard a bird before.”
Austin stood there 10 minutes listening to everything from a truck rumbling by on Valley Street to his mom’s joy-filled voice.
When he got to their Sharp Road home, he sat on the porch for an hour and “just listened to all the stuff outside,” said Chaz Stevenson, Austin’s dad.
Donita nodded: “He heard a Harley for the first time and the airplane was the best. We live by Wright Patt and one of their big planes went over real slow and he goes ‘What is that?’ He watched it ‘til it disappeared.
“Him sitting there taking it all in — It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Fitted with hearing aids for the first time ever — after his auditory problem had gone undiagnosed for years — Austin finally was experiencing the everyday symphony of the world around him.
And suddenly everything made sense to Donita and Chaz.
“I remember one day I was by my bedroom and he was in the living room staring at TV,” Donita said. “I was yelling for him at the top of my lungs and he didn’t budge. He didn’t hear me.”
Chaz recalled “turning the radio up real loud and he finally walked over and stood directly in front of a speaker. He could feel the vibration.”
Donita said the family “went through three or four doctors” until the problem was pinpointed.
And though that wouldn’t be the end of Austin’s challenges — especially on the football field, where as a 130-pound, nine-year-old third grader playing with fourth graders he’s known as Tank — his life was about to change for the better. And so were the lives of others.
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THE PROBLEM WITH HEARING AIDS
Donita said doctors now surmise Austin’s deafness came from “a severe inner ear infection that no one knew he had…They can’t say when it happened, but for having never heard a bird before, I’ve got to think it was pretty early.
“I knew there was something going on. He was very loud and his speech was terrible. I thought maybe he was a little bit of a (developmental) delay.”
Chaz said he initially was “upset” about his son’s situation, but quickly realized “I had to change my thinking. He was going to need a father figure, someone to look up to.”
Donita said her first reaction was different: “I did a lot of crying and just wanted to protect him from the world.”
While there are times he could use a bit of a shield — because he’s big and wears hearing aids that he simply calls his “ears,” he’s gotten his share of teasing in school, Donita said — he just lives up to his nickname and rolls tank-like over his troubles.
His two cousins — who live across the street and attend Parkwood Elementary with him — help him, as does the school itself, Donita said: “They have an FM system where the teacher wears a microphone that goes directly to his hearing aid.
“He really could use one of those (FM) deals in football, too. Until he’s 12 and mostly done growing, he has to wear a behind-the-ear hearing aid and not one of those ear inserts.
“But now, as soon as he starts sweating, his hearing aids shut off. He’s lucky to get through half of a game before they go out. We try to dry them off, but that doesn’t work too well and a lot of the game he just relies on hand signals and extra effort by his teammates and coaches, who talk face-to-face with him while he reads their lips.”
Not one to belabor his predicament, Austin simply shakes his head about the challenges he faces playing both ways for the Eager Beaver black team:
“I just follow the ball.”
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“HE MAKES THE REST OF US A LITTLE STRONGER”
Halfway through his team’s 90 minute work-out the other evening at Ankeney Middle School, Austin trotted over to his parents, who were sitting in lawn chairs near the practice field.
“My ears are whistling,” he said matter-of-factly about the daily occurrence.
He handed the hearing aids to his mom, who tried drying them off — an effort that would allow Austin to hear for another 10 minutes before they conked out again.
“We end up having to rebuild them completely a couple of times a year,” Chaz said. “The problem is, insurance doesn’t pay for the actual hearing aids.”
After Austin rejoined his teammates, Donita admitted: “We’re not quite sure we’re going about all this the right way. We’d like to find somebody who’s gone through it to steer us in the right direction. We have so many questions. We’d love to meet a college or pro player who deals with it — but I’m not sure who or where they are.”
The NCAA Division III football team for Gallaudet University — a Washington, D. C. school for the deaf and hard-of-hearing — came to northeast Ohio this month and trounced Hiram College, 34-7.
According to Deaf Digest Magazine, 76 deaf and hard-of-hearing college students participated in NCAA and NAIA college sports last year, including 39 at the Division I level.
Ryan Bonbeyo is a linebacker for D-1 Towson State and Felicia Schroeder from Cincinnati helped lead Purdue’s women’s soccer team to the Big Ten title last season. Just last week she scored two goals to lead the United States to a 4-0 victory over Germany in the gold medal game of the DeafOlympics in Taiwan.
As for Austin, he’s making a mark of his own and, because of it, his teammates aren’t just learning how to tackle and block this season, they’re getting some very human lessons, as well.
“He makes all the rest of us a little stronger, a little more understanding,” Donita said. “And if there’s some other kids out there who are afraid to play sports because of a hearing impairment, they should come watch Austin and see how he loves it.”
His hearing may be problematic, but, as Brad Myers, his head coach put it, “he’s got the biggest heart out here. He’s just a wonderful kid.”
And he’s teaching some wonderful lessons.
TweetOSU makes “Most Obnoxious” list, Woody fares worse
Ohio State in general — and Woody Hayes in particular — fared pretty poorly in the last two issues of Gentleman’s Quarterly.
The September issue of the monthly magazine ranked The 25 Most Obnoxious Colleges in America or, as GQ called them, “the douchiest” in the land:
Ohio State was No. 19 on a list that included: Texas (24), USC (16), Notre Dame (15), Georgia (13), Harvard (4), Princeton (3), Duke (2) and Brown University (1).
Here’s how GQ saw OSU:
“HOME OF: The Excessive School Pride Douche
“AFFECTATIONS: Dressing for class each morning as if you were the offensive line coach, writing prison letters to Maurice Clarett
“OVERHEARD at BUCKEYE CAREER BUILDING WORKSHOP: ‘You can put ‘won a national championship on a resume, right?’
“MOST LIKELY TO: Suffocate a hapless Boilermaker fan with a giant foam Number One at an off-handed comment about how the marching band’s Script Ohio wasn’t ‘all that impressive.’ “
Before Bucks fans blow a gasket, know that the comments for many of the other schools were far more withering.
In the October issue , GQ came up with a list entitled The 20 Most Despicable Coaches and described them as “the most heinous tyrants in recent sports history.”
Woody Hayes was No. 10.
Bobby Knight was No. 6, Bela Karolyi and his wife Marta were 12 and 13, Bill Belichick was 14, Billy Martin, 17, and Isiah Thomas, 20.
Although the list included pro and college coaches, it’s biggest ogres came from the high school and peewee sports ranks.
Several categories were considered: megalomania, physical assault, criminal activity, cruel and unusual practice methods, racism, tormenting the young, moral cowardice and profound unsportsmanlike conduct.
The way GQ saw the former Buckeyes coach:
“In his thirty-three year head coaching career, twenty eight of those at Ohio State, Woody Hayes frequently beat the snot out of his players during practice. He pummeled TV cameramen and photographers. He was so pathologically violent, he once slashed his own face with a ring after a loss.
“During the 1978 Gator Bowl, with the clock winding down in what would be his final game as a coach, the 65-year-old Hayes clotheslined Clemson’s Charlie Bauman following his game-clinching interception. When one of his own players tried to restrain Hayes, he got socked, too.
“At Hayes’s funeral, close friend and fellow national disgrace Richard Nixon delivered the eulogy: “The incident in 1978 would have destroyed an ordinary man. But Woody was not an ordinary man,”
And yet Woody’s transgressions are tame in comparison and would make him nothing but a second stringer on this list of coaches.
Consider:
No. 16 — Matthew Peterson — The Tecumseh, Michigan high school track coach threw hot tub parties for his athletes, served mixed drinks, showed porn and encouraged at least one player to have sex with another who was passed out from booze. Peterson’s serving a seven-year prison term.
No. 7 — Marinko Lucic — The Croatian dad began routinely beat his tennis star daughter, Mirjana, starting when she was just five years old. Once he hit her over the head for 40 minutes straight with his shoe. During her pro career, she said her dad stole all but $23,000 of her prize money.
No. 1 — Mark Downs Jr. — A T-ball coach from Dunbar, Pa., he offered to pay one of his eight-year-old players $25 to bean another of his players — a 9-year-old autistic boy who was visually impaired — so the boy would be hurt enough that he couldn’t play that day.
When the first throw hit the targeted boy in the groin, Downs commanded the eight year old to try again and “hit him harder.” The next toss hit the autistic kid in the ear, drew blood and sent him to the hospital. Downs was convicted of both corruption of minors and criminal solicitation to commit simple assault.
Now that, as GQ puts it, is a real douche.
TweetAbsolutely NO LOVE for Bengals, just a little for Browns
The Cincinnati Bengals got absolutely NO LOVE and the Cleveland Browns got just a little.
That’s according to a recent Sporting News poll of 100 pro football notables, a group that included 27 Hall of Famers, guys like Gale Sayers, Sam Huff, Paul Hornung, Lynn Swann and Mike Ditka — as well as former Bengals greats Cris Collinsworth, Bill Bergey, Anthony Munoz, Max Montoya and their Browns counterparts Leroy Kelley and Michael Dean Perry.
The experts were asked to pick the top 100 players in today’s game.
Interestingly, no current Bengals player made the list. No Carson Palmer, not even Chad Ochocinco, although 10 wide receivers from around the league did make the Top 100. Among the receivers who were ranked: Atlanta’s Roddy White and Indianapolis’ Reggie Wayne and Detroit’s Calvin Johnson.
Two Browns players made the list: Left tackle Joe Thomas was No. 41 and nose tackle Shaun Rogers was No. 74.
As for the rest of the AFC North, seven Pittsburgh Steelers and five Baltimore Ravens were included in the top 100.
Three players with local roots made the rankings.
— No. 62 — Matt Light, the New England Patriots left tackle from Greenville High. The nine-year pro has won three Super Bowl rings and is a three-time Pro Bowl selection.
— No 74 — Trent Cole, the Philadelphia Eagles defensive end from Xenia High. The five-year pro has been to one Pro Bowl and since 2006 ranks fifth in the NFC in sacks with 31 1/2.
— No. 83 — Kris Dielman, the San Diego Chargers left guard from Troy High. The seven-year pro is a two time Pro Bowl selection.
The top 12 on the list were:
1 — Peyton Manning —Colts quarterback
2 — Tom Brady — Patriots quarterback
3 — Adrian Peterson — Vikings running back
4 — Larry Fitzgerald — Cardinals wide receiver
5 — Ladainian Tomlinson — Chargers running back
6 — Albert Haynesworth — Redskins tackle
7 — Ed Reed — Ravens free safety
8 — Randy Moss — Patriots wide receiver
9 — Troy Polamalu — Steelers strong safety
10 — Tony Gonzalez — Falcons tight end
11— Ray Lewis — Ravens linebacker
12 — Ben Roethlisberger — Steelers quarterback
TweetCOLUMN : Brian and Michelle Hale — Lost love at the Air Force Marathon
WRIGHT PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — It was early one morning nearly four weeks ago — a half an hour before sunrise — and CMSgt. Brian Hale was getting concerned.
He hadn’t yet spotted his wife, Michelle.
Both runners, they were training for the U.S. Air Force Marathon which was held Saturday, Sept. 19, at WPAFB. Because they were on different work schedules and would compete at different distances — Brian planned to run the full 26.2 miles, Michelle would do the half marathon — they would start their daily workouts at different times.
She’d begin first and they’d usually pass each other headed in opposite directions about a half-mile from their new Beavercreek home.
But on this morning, Brian had passed that spot and still not seen her. Not realizing she was running extra distance that day, he worried until he finally seen her figure — and the five, blinking LED lights on her reflective wrist band — up ahead as she was about to cross Dayton-Xenia Road from the bike trail at Steadman Lane.
“I was relieved,” Brian said in a quiet voice that quickly disappeared in a wave of welling tears and troubling thoughts.
With a blur of motion and an impact sound that still haunts him, his relief was instantly shattered that August 24 morning when Michelle was hit by an SUV driven by a Beavercreek man.
“I ran to her and was there in the road with her,” he said. “I squeezed her hand and told her we love her, that her kids loved her, that we all loved her and then …”
He shook his head and finally whispered: “It’s painful to have that moment stamped in your mind forever.”
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A FAMILY QUICKLY ROOTED IN THE COMMUNITY
Brian and Michelle, both then in Air Force, met two decades ago while stationed at Taegu Air Base in Korea.
“She was in personnel and in-processed me,” he said. “She did the main briefing and when I first saw her, I think I knew.
“After we dated a while, she used to laugh and say I was staring at her that first day. But I teased that I was just paying attention attention to her briefing. Really, though, it was love at first sight.”
She had been married before and had two small children, Jessica and Michael. Once stateside again, Michelle left the active Air Force, she and Brian married and a couple of years later they had Breanna.
In the following years, Brian was stationed at several bases before coming a year ago to WPAFB, where the family quickly rooted itself in the community:
Michelle got a job on base as a secretary with Air Force Material Command. Brian began pursuing his masters degree at the Air Force Institute of Technology. And Breanna is now a 16-year-old junior at Beavercreek High, where she’s an honors student and a cheerleader.
The family moved into a new home in Beavercreek in January and five months ago Michelle became a grandmother when Jessica, who lives in Missouri, gave birth to Logan.
“She drove down the day I was released from the hospital and I don’t think she put Logan down once that week she was there,” Jessica laughed. “She liked being called his Bella, not Grandma, but she was just over the moon to have a grandson.
“I’d send her 10 pictures a day so she could watch him grow and she’d send me three or four surprise packages a month with Onesies and toys and shoes for him.”
Although she planned to give this year’s medal to Breanna — just as she’d given the medals from the past two half marathons to Jessica and Michael — Michelle had mentioned to Lieutenant General Thomas Owen, Commander of the Aeronautical Systems Center at WPAFB — that she’d like to buy a replica medal for Logan, too.
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“WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GROW OLD TOGETHER”
“My wife and I had five children in the military — Michelle and her four brothers — and they were all over the world in the past 20 or 25 years,” said John Palmer. “In the back of my mind I always feared I might one day get that (numbing) phone call…But I never thought it would come like this.”
Michelle died that August day from her injuries. Although the driver has not yet been charged, the investigation continues.
Meanwhile the family tries to cope any way it can.
“We really loved each other and we were supposed to grow old together,” Brian said. “At times this is really unbearable, but I make myself get up every morning for our daughter and now our grandbaby, too. You have to go on with life and try living as best you can.
“It was hard at times to even put on my gym clothes and go outside — I’d pretty much cry the whole time I ran — I wanted to run Saturday.”
He decided he’d do the half marathon instead, seeing it as a way of commemorating his wife and completing her dream of winning a medal for each of the children. He even got permission to wear her No. 4193 race bib.
Jessica, Baby Logan and Michelle’s dad all came into town for the weekend and Friday night the whole family — all wearing pink bracelets in Michelle’s honor — walked the 5K race.
Saturday, they encamped along the marathon course’s final turn where Breanna held a homemade poster that — along with photos of her parents and the message “Run Daddy Run…I Love You,” — had a heart-breaking reminder.
She had drawn a tombstone in which she written: “Mommy — August 24, 2009.”
Brian’s goal was to run under 90 minutes for the half marathon and though that would require him to push himself more than ever, he finished in 89 minutes, 45 seconds.
As the tearful Brian sprinted between the historic collection of planes that flanked the final stretch of the marathon, many in the crowd cheered and several people — including some of the Air Force brass — found themselves overcome with emotion.
Remembering his conversation with Michelle, Lt. Gen. Owen found Logan — who wore a blue sun cap and Bella’s Running Buddy T-shirt as he contently sucked on his binkie pacifier — and draped a half marathon medal over his head.
Although Brian admitted his wife’s memory had kept him going the entire race, he again wrestled with silent thoughts when asked what comes next.
“I don’t think about the future so much now,” he finally said. “Right now it’s more about surviving each day.”
And on this day, he had survived a half marathon with a heart still full of love.
TweetEven the Air Force brass cried
WRIGHT PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — All along it was supposed to be a family affair — but not like this.
Over the summer, they had made their plans for the U.S. Air Force Marathon, which was run Saturday, Sept. 19, at WPAFB:
CMSgt. Brian Hale would run the full 26.2 miles. His wife Michelle would do the half-marathon and their 16 year old daughter Breanna, a cheerleader and honors student at Beavercreek High— would provide the sidelines support.
Instead, Saturday, there was Brian running the half-marathon with No. 4193 — his wife’s race bib — on his chest and tears filling his eyes.
Breanna — huddled with her grandpa, step sister and five-month-old nephew at the last-turn on the course — held up a poster that, along with photos of her parents and the message “Run Daddy Run…I Love You,” had a heart-breaking reminder.
She had drawn a tombstone in which she written: “Mommy…August 24, 2009.”
Training for the marathon, Michelle — a 44-year-old Air Force vet and a popular secretary with the Air Force Material command at WPAFB — was hit and killed by an SUV as she crossed Dayton-Xenia Road during an early morning run, August 24.
Her death sent shock waves through the base and the local running community and Saturday her story — and her husband’s courageous display of love and perseverance — became a focal point of the marathon.
It had the crowd cheering, Air Force brass and family members in tears and John Palmer, quietly asking an unanswerable question as he watched his drained son-in-law push himself to the finish wearing Michelle’s number:
“When you’re happy and yet so sad, how do you mix those two together?”
The answer to that became the subject of my column that is in today’s newspaper and can be found on this web page, too.
Commentary: For Hale, ‘It was love at first sight’ Photos: U.S. Air Force Marathon
TweetCOLUMN — For Beloved TVS Player Joe Kasserman: Tomorrow Never Came
WEST ALEXANDRIA — If you didn’t know what happened on this rolling ribbon of rural highway just south of West Alexandria, you likely wouldn’t notice the weathered cross standing some 10 feet off the road near the field of autumn-dried corn.
But if you’re connected to Twin Valley South High — especially the Panthers football team — you know all about it. That’s why there’s a homemade vase with shriveled flowers at the base, deflated birthday balloons melted onto the cross bar and the fading names of some players still legible above and below the pertinent information on Joe Kasserman, who’s remembered there as:
“No. 70…..’Kassa-role’…6/9/92 — 11/2/08.”
Every time Laura Kasserman passes the spot on Ohio 503, she blows her car horn in a salute to her son. Stephanie Baker, Joe’s 19-year-old cousin, kisses a picture of Joe as she drives by.
“Ross Lunsford, he’s one the (TVS) team captains this year, he rolls down his car window, turns down the radio and doesn’t allow anyone to talk when he passes,” said Joe’s older brother, Jesse. “He wants it silent and kinda somber — like a remembrance.”
Yet, anybody who knew Joe, remembers nothing of hushed tones.
“If you see (late comedian) Chris Farley, you see Joe Kasserman,” said TVS head coach Jason Schondelmyer. “Same build, same mannerisms.”
Running back Steve Balthis agreed: “I’ll never forget when he came out of the shower after a game wearing just his tighty-whities (briefs) and doing his Tommy Boy dance as he sang ‘I’m a Maniac.’”
And rather than somber, Joe evoked feelings of warmth and lovingness.
“He was always the champion of the underdog,” Laura said. “The night before everything happened, he went Trick-or-treating with one of his friend’s brothers, a little boy maybe three years old who’s mentally challenged and doesn’t communicate well,” Laura said.
“He was wearing a blow-up chicken suit and nobody would take him around, so Joe did. He took him all over town and then they came back here and sat in the front room knee deep in candy. They had the time of their lives and when the little boy’s mom came for him, he didn’t want to leave Joe.”
Nobody did.
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A STUPID RACE THING
Freshman year, when Joe joined his sophomore brother on the football team, a senior player had trouble with their last names so he started calling Joe, “Kassa-role” and Jesse “Kassa-mole.”
Laura soon became “Kassa-mom.”
“Casseroles were one of his favorites,” Laura laughed.
So, too, was everything on the buffet line at the China Wok restaurant in Eaton said team captain and Joe’s longtime buddy A.J. Bantz.
Balthis agreed: “We’d go there every week and he’d go. ‘Okay, the world championships are on the line between me and you.’ I never stood a chance. That boy could eat.”
A buffet champ, Joe was a 5-10 , 300 pound back-up lineman on the football team, who loved the camaraderie of his teammates and playing alongside Jesse.
“Last season I was a senior and he was a junior and after my last game, I rode home with mom and he walked and got back to the house first,” Jesse said. “When we came in, he was sitting in the dark, crying, because it was the last time we’d play together.”
It was right about then that Joe decided, he was going to give it his all in his final year. “The coaches told him they wanted him to lose 50 pounds before this season and that was his plan,” Laura said. “But the night everything happened, he was at a going-away party for one his teammates and the lady who hosted it told me she had a whole crock pot of hotdogs.
“She said he told her wasn’t gonna eat, but then he’d say, ‘Oh maybe just one more.’ She said she bets she fed him eight hotdogs. but that he had shrugged and said he’d start (his diet) tomorrow.”
But tomorrow never came.
Laura, who raised her two sons by herself since they were young, called Jesse just after midnight last Nov. 2 to make sure they were on their way home.
The Kasserman brothers accepted a ride from one of Joe’s best friends, a sophomore teammate who had just gotten his driver’s license a few weeks earlier. Another vehicle filled with four other players left with them.
“It was sort of a stupid race thing and when we pulled onto 503 the other car passed us,” Jesse said.
He said the boy driving them caught up to the other car and began to pass on the two-lane highway: “He didn’t check first and a car was coming the other way. He tried to get over, but he over-corrected and almost went into the field. That’s when he swerved it back the other way and that’s when, you know…so on and so forth.”
Jesse’s voice trailed off.
“The car flipped seven times,” Laura said quietly.
Balthis was on his way back from Kings Island and came upon the accident right after it happened: “The ambulance and police weren’t there yet. The were trying to help Jesse regain consciousness. I saw (the other boy) lying in the car …it was rough.”
Laura got to Miami Valley Hospital just as they were wheeling Jesse in: “The ambulance driver told me to take it easy because one of the other boys hadn’t made it. I said ‘My other son was one of those boys.’
“The next hour was the longest hour of my life. I sat there not knowing until the chaplain walked up.”
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EVERYONE LEARNED A LESSON
Strapped in the back seat, Joe died instantly Laura was told. He was buried in his white No. 70 Panthers jersey as his uniformed teammates served as honorary pallbearers.
Throw out of the window in the crash, Jesse suffered a concussion and minor injuries. The boy driving ended up in a coma for several months and, though he’s slowly coming out of that fog, he’s now paralyzed from the chest down and will face more devastating news in the future.
Although he’s come to the two TVS home games in a wheelchair and has visited practice, he still does not know Joe was killed.
His parents — fearing he’s not strong enough for the numbing news — have not told him. At the home opener against neighboring Dixie — when the school honored Joe with a moment of silence and a commemorative stone — the boy’s family brought him into the game after the ceremony.
Lately, he’s asked to see Joe and Jesse, but has been given excuses why they can’t visiit.
While she’s gone through a variety of emotions since Joe’s death — sadness, anger, a profound sense of loss — Laura said: “I feel no animosity (toward the other boy). He was one of Joe’s best friends and he was at our house all the time. I worry about him and how he’s ever going to make it through all this when he finds out.”
After the accident, several TVS players got tattoos of Joe. Students throughout the school wear red bracelets honoring him and Balthis carries Joe’s obit in his wallet.
As for that engraved stone — which reads “When someone you love becomes a memory…that memory becomes a treasure,” — it was placed in a landscaped area near the entrance to the stadium.
At each home game — on the way to and from the field — every Panther player reaches down and touches it.
“Everybody at our school learned a lesson from this,” said Schondelmyer. “When you get your driver’s license, be safe and make wiser decisions. When you’re young, you feel invincible. But this shows you when a kid is gone…he’s gone. There’s nothing you can do.”
Nothing but drive by a wooden cross on a rural highway and blow the horn, kiss a picture or turn down the radio and become silent and somber as you remember a lovable kid called Kassa-role who was neither.
TweetThe most emotionally-wrenching story in area football
WEST ALEXANDRIA — One of the most emotionally wrenching stories in high school football this season is playing out at Twin Valley High School.
That’s where — on their way to and from the field at every home game — each of the remaining 27 players on the Panthers team stops at a landscaped area just inside the stadium and reaches down to touch the engraved stone that’s been placed there.
It reads “Joe W. Kassserman…’Kassa-role’…TVS Football” and is followed by a saying: “When someone you love becomes a memory…that memory becomes a treasure.”
Yet that claim, while soothing, is not always true.
Matters are a little more unsettling at TVS following a horrific auto accident south of town last November that involved two cars carrying football players, the death of a popular player, the paralyzation of another, injuries to a third and a dilemma that grows more heart-sinkingly complicated as each day goes by.
That’s the subject of my column in today’s newspaper and it can be found on our sports web page, too.
It tells the story of Joe Kasserman, the 16-year-old who was killed. At 5-foot-10 and a 295 pounds, he was the biggest Panther, not just in size, but in personality.
“He was larger than life,” said his mom, Laura Kasserman. “He did everything full volume, full tilt and everybody loved him….For us, a big piece of our life is gone now.”
Joe’s older brother Jesse, a senior on last year’s team, was thrown clear of the accident and suffered minor injuries. The driver of the car — Joe’s friend and a boy who had just gotten his license a few weeks earlier — was in a coma for a few months, is still paralyzed from the chest down and faces more debilitating news.
Though he’s come out of his fog enough to be at parts of two Panther games in a wheelchair, he still does not know Joe was killed. Fearing he can’t yet handle the shock, his parents haven’t told him.
I didn’t use his name in my column, though his parents were told ahead of time about the story so they can take the precautions they need to.
When it comes time to tell their boy, they’ve told Laura they’re not sure how they’ll do it.
Sometimes memories aren’t treasures.
TweetCOULUMN: One Writer to Another — “Good Job, Hal”
I’ve been in this business 36 years, covered all kinds of events, several different beats and plenty of challenging assignments and I can tell you this — there is no tougher day-to-day job in sportswriting than covering baseball.
That’s why I appreciate Hal McCoy. He’s handled his job — covering the Cincinnati Reds — like a pro for 37 years.
The readers see his stories in the newspaper and on the web site — often three and four a day — and yet that’s just the finished product and they don’t really tell you what all went into each piece.
If you could pull back the curtain, you’d see a guy making 5 a.m. trips to the airport after just a few hours sleep following the game the night before in Cincinnati, cancelled flights, lost luggage and middle seats between two beefy row mates who are the size of the Bengals’ Andre Smith.
Then there are the clubhouses he’s worked his way through every day of every season. Baseball players — more so than pro football and basketball players — are an insular lot. And when a team is losing — which the Reds have done more than not for quite a while now — that old saying “familiarity breeds contempt” can become oh so true. Or, at the very least, it can make for some lousy quotes.
Finally, there’s the constant pressure of deadline. A night baseball game can meander on until you are five minutes away from having to send in your story if you have any hope of it getting into the next day’s paper. You think you have a handle on the piece that you’ve been patch-working together all game and then a pitcher suddenly finds himself in trouble, runners get on base and a guy hits a walk-off home run.
Instantly, everything changes — the outcome, the tenor of your story and especially your blood pressure.
Hal handled all this game after game after game. Year after year. For an entire career. And the reader never saw the behind-the-scenes fingerprints on the story.
That’s a Hall of Fame job.
Retiring at the end of the season, he’s being honored at Great American Ball Park tonight, Sept. 16, before the Reds game with the Houston Astros.
He deserves a tip of the cap today from every sportswriter in the business, every ball player whose story he’s ever told and especially all of the readers he took along for the ride each and every day.
TweetRanking the Classless Cads — Joe Wilson, Serena, Kanye and MJ
If the weekly Sagarin ratings — the much-used measuring stick for the strength and weightiness of college teams — were used to designate classless cads instead of football, I think the rankings from the past week would go like this:
1 — Joe Wilson
2 — Serena Williams
3 — Kanye West
4 — Michael Jordan.
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EVEN REPUBLICANS CRINGED
No. 1 — The South Carolina Republic Representative who interrupted President Barack Obama’s nationally-televised address to Congress last Wednesday night by shouting “You lie!” — tops the rankings, both for the uncivil nature of his act and his behavior since.
Although he offered a brief apology to Obama afterward, Wilson — who by the way didn’t have his facts straight before his shout-down — seems to relish in his boorish behavior. You can see him on YouTube autographing pictures of his “You lie” moment and accepting congratulations for his act.
Today, Wilson, who has refused to address his legislative colleagues and apologize —is scheduled to face a House vote on a “resolution of disapproval” for his actions.
He deserves the censure.
Lest this turn into one of those free-for-all beat-downs you see in some governmental chambers around the world, House lawmakers here are both required to address each other in the third person and are admonished from discussing the president’s personal character.
Wilson’s outburst offended not just Democrats, but many Republicans. “I cringed,” Rep. David Dreier of California, the top ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, told USA Today.
And, by the way, Wilson was wrong in his reasoning. He claimed he yelled out because he felt Obama was lying about whether illegal immigrants would be covered under proposed changes in health care policies. Truth is, illegal immigrants — as Obama said — are not included in any of the plans now in Congress.
For that wrong-headedness, the disrespectful weight of his act and his mostly unrepentant nature since, Wilson gets the No. 1 ranking.
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STICK THE BALL — WHERE?
No. 2 — Williams is ranked No. 2 both for her menacing verbal attack on the line judge who called a foot fault on her during the U.S. Open semi-finals, Sunday, and for her lukewarm apology afterward. Although she’s stepped up her mea culpas since, I suspect that’s her public relations machine taking hold of the wheel.
It’s too bad this happened because Williams is both a role model and arguably the greatest women’s tennis player ever. The latter is though excuse. (See Jordan below)
Her attack on an official of the game — she held her tennis racquet like some kind of club while she threatened to stick the (expletive) tennis ball down the cowering woman’s (expletive) throat — was more than just some baseball player grousing at an ump after a called third strike.
It was menacing and, while it deserved all the boos of the fans at Flushing Meadows, it also warranted more than the $10,500 fine — a drop in the bucket to someone like her — she received.
She should have drawn an immediate suspension. Instead, Monday, she teamed with her sister Venus to win the doubles title, where she again was booed by fans.
It took her a day to offer her first apology and then Tuesday morning she appeared on “Good Morning America” and admitted: “At that point I had lost control.”
She didn’t seem especially remorseful, saying simply: “As a competitor and as someone who’s really passionate about their work, I got a little over-excited.”
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BULLYING A TEEN
No. 3 — West looked looked like the biggest bully of the bunch Sunday night when he bum-rushed the stage at the Video Music Awards as Taylor Swift was making her acceptance speech for winning the best female video award.
Grabbing the microphone from the teenage country singer, the popular rapper blathered on about how he thought Beyonce deserved the award, instead. He came off as a deranged thug. Then came his first apology by blog — that was weak.
But I have to give him some credit, though, for stepping up Tuesday night on Jay Leno’s new show and — in fashion far better than Wilson and Williams — mincing no words in his apology.
Although he was scheduled to perform on the show, he instead asked Leno for time in the (shrink-like) talk chair. He admitted his rudeness and said:
“I need to, after this, take some time off and just analyze how I’m going to make it through the rest of my life and how I’m going to improve.”
He can start by following Beyonce’s on-stage lead — in the classiest move of the week — and embracing Swift face to face.
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HIS AIRNESS — DEFLATED
No. 4 — Finally comes Michael Jordan, whose acceptance speech into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Sunday night, was more like a mean-spirited rant as he singled out all the people he felt had slighted him in his career.
He started with the coach who cut him in high school — belittling the now old man for a laugh as he sat there — and went right on targeting those he felt didn’t give him his proper due in college and in the pros.
It may have surprised people, but the real Jordan isn’t the warm, smiling, lovable, “I’m-everybody’s-buddy” he’s portrayed as in those Nike commercials and movies.
He was one of the game’s all-time trash talkers and — as many athletes do — he found a way to fuel himself on the smallest — even sometimes imagined — slights.
That was fine for the court, but not on the Hall of Fame stage. Belittling others, diminishes you, too. And on this night, he should have stood taller than ever.
TweetBengals’ ending: “It shouldn’t be real.”
CINCINNATI — He and fellow Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers — both former Southern Cal players — had been roommates in the downtown Cincinnati hotel where their team stayed on the eve of its season opener with Denver, Sunday, Sept. 13.
“We were watching the (USC) game with Ohio State (Saturday night) and I was going crazy,” said Bengals rookie Rey Maualuga. “I know most of the guys and I was screaming at the TV, telling them what to do. Keith and I didn’t go to sleep until the game was over.”
And so he cheered USC’s freshman quarterback Matt Barkley, who quieted a loud Horseshoe crowd of over 106,000 as he led the Trojans on an 86-yard drive that produced the winning touchdown with 65 seconds left.
Sunday — in the final minutes of the game at Paul Brown Stadium — Maualuga said he felt some deja vu as he stood on the Bengals sideline and watched Carson Palmer, himself a former USC quarterback, try to repeat that same come-from-behind magic.
“I went over and told Keith, ‘This could be another situation just like last night,’ and he told me, ‘Yeah, and (Palmer’s) not a freshman, he’s an All Pro and he’s been doing this for years.’”
Sure enough, Palmer— reawakening an offense that had struggled mightily all day — led the Bengals on 91-yard drive that ended with Cedric Benson’s go-ahead TD with 38 seconds left.
“I thought this is JUST like last night,” Maualuga said.
Call it a rookie mistake.
USC is all about the Tinsel Town marriage of top calibre football and Hollywood magic.
And the Bengals? They’re all Hard Knocks — not simply the HBO mini series, but nearly two decades of self-inflicted knock-out blows:
They’re Stanley Wilson huddling in his Miami hotel bathroom choosing crack cocaine over the next day’s Super Bowl XXIII. They’re Corey Dillon tripping over his own guard and falling inches short of the goal line and the winning TD against Tennessee seven years ago. They’re No. 1 draft pick Andre Smith waddling into camp after a long preseason holdout this year and promptly breaking his foot. They’re one winning season in the past 18 years.
And so with Denver trailing 7-6 and hobbled Bronco quarterback Kyle Orton on his own 17-yard line and needing a last- seconds heave, the Bengals took their cue.
Orton’s desperation toss to Brandon Marshall was tipped away by Cincinnati cornerback Leon Hall. But rather than safely deflecting the ball downward, he was like a setter in volleyball. With some Bengals players watching open-mouthed instead of making the play, the ball popped up and then fell into the hands of another Bronco receiver, Brandon Stokley, who ran untouched to the end zone for the 87-yard TD that gave Denver its winning 12-7 margin with with 11 seconds left.
“You might see something like that on TV when they show luckiest plays ever or buzzer beaters,” Maualuga said. “It’s like something from a video game or Madden…. It shouldn’t be real.”
Maybe not at USC, but this is the Cincinnati Bengals, the Hard Knocks team, where the KO blows too often are self inflicted.
TweetOSU’s loss: “This is a heartbreak… you’ll never forget”
COLUMBUS — As losses on the big-time national stage go, Saturday night’s 18-15 setback to Southern Cal is a lot tougher for Ohio State to swallow than the 35-3 pasting the Buckeyes got from USC last September in the Los Angeles Coliseum.
At least that’s the way linebacker Austin Spitler, the fifth-year senior from Bellbrook High, saw it during his post-game reflections just past midnight:
“This is tougher to take because of the way we played. This time the game was in our hands and we lost it.”
Ohio State led the Trojans for most of the second half before succumbing to a 14-play, 86-yard drive that culminated with USC’s go-ahead score — a two-yard burst by Stafon Johnson — with just 65 seconds left.
“When we lost to USC last year, that was embarrassing, but this, this is a heartbreak,” said Jake Ballard, the Buckeye tight end from Springboro High. “This a lot like our loss in the BCS (bowl) Game to Texas last year. We were winning a lot of that game, too, and it came down to the last couple of minutes and we lost. Games like this are something you’ll never forget.”
A couple of other Dayton area players though — tailback Brandon Saine and safety Kurt Coleman — found it tough to make a distinction between the losses to USC last year and Saturday night.
“Anytime you lose, it’s tough,” said Coleman, the team captain from Northmont High.
“Throughout the game there definitely were different feelings than a year ago, especially with us being up for so long,” said Saine, the junior out of Piqua High. “But right now after the game, it doesn’t feel any different than last year’s loss.”
Last year’s thumping at USC pretty much knocked OSU from the national title picture. And while the Bucks made a far more formidable showing Saturday night, they will find themselves facing long odds to get back in contention for this year’s BCS title game.
The fact that they had their hands full in a 31-27 victory over Navy in the season opener and now have lost at home to USC — coupled with the flops they’ve had in the national spotlight the past few years — all will work against them in the polls.
“It puts our back to the wall a little bit, especially because of our past and how we’ve been losing the big games,” said Ballard. “I think we could still have a shot at a national championship because it’s an early season loss, but we’ll have to have a lot of things happen for that.”
Coleman agreed: “If we want to try to make it to the national championship, we’re gonna have to try to run the table and we’re going to need some luck.”
Playing in front of the largest home crowd in Ohio State football history — 106,033 — the Bucks took the lead, 12-10, with a safety with 9:03 left in the third quarter. Then they padded the advantage to 15-10 with a 22-yard Aaron Pettrey field goal with 4:43 left in the quarter.
That margin held until USC’s freshman quarterback Matt Barkley led his team on that final drive. The Trojan workhorse at the end was junior tailback Joe McKnight, who accounted for 32 yards on five carries and caught a 21-yard pass. He also caught Barkley’s pass on the two-point conversion to make the score 18-15.
To a man, the Buckeyes praised McKnight’s grit and Barkley’s composure.
The kid quarterback is the real deal. Early last week, he said he wouldn’t wilt in front of the huge and partisan Buckeye crowd: “I don’t care if they have 500,000, I’ve got my guys. We could be playing in Alaska in the snow and I’d have faith we’d be able to win it.”
That’s just what happened and now it’s the Buckeyes who are left feeling the Alaskan chill on their national titles hopes.
“There’s only one thing to do now,” said Ross Homan, the linebacker out of Coldwater High. “We’ve got to swallow our pride and get ready for next week.”
TweetUnlikely journey from Urbana University to Southern Cal
COLUMBUS — How about this for unlikely journeys?
Two years ago — almost to the day — Jacob Harfman and the rest of his Urbana University football team were getting drubbed by the University of Dayton, 45-7 at Welcome Stadium.
Saturday night, Harfman was kicking off for Southern Cal against Ohio State in front of 105,000-plus people in the nationally- televised showdown of college heavyweights at Ohio Stadium.
Harfman — from Chino, Calif. — played his freshman season for the Blue Knights and set school records with 30 of 34 PATs and 5 of 11 field goals.
He transferred from the Champaign County school to Mt. San Antonio Junior College in Walnut, California last season, had a great year and ended up with the Trojans.
Although he was beaten out for the punting job by Billy O’Malley, Harfman was made the kick-off man by USC coach Pete Carroll.
Carroll was going to use him for field goals too, but Jordan Congdon — who had kicked two years at Nebraska before transferring to USC — got the nod against the Bucks.
With 1:49 left in the first half, Congdon missed a 44-yard field goal that hit the cross bar. But then he tied the game 10-10 just before the first half clock expired with a 22 yard field goal.
Halftime score: Ohio State 10, USC 10.
TweetUSC Takes Matters Into Its Own Hands At The Horseshoe
COLUMBUS — It was two hours before the big game and the USC Trojans already were taking matters into their own hands.
Out of nowhere, a Columbus motorcycle cop — his blue light flashing — came flying into the Ohio Stadium parking lot near the Visitors Dressing Room and yelled at waiting security guards:
“They’re coming ….They’re coming…Move everybody back.”
Because of the location, many in the crowd of fans were dressed in Southern Cal colors, though their numbers still were dwarfed by the Ohio State faithful, some who began the call-and-answer chant: “OH…IO.”
Soon four white Lakefront Lines busses — one directly behind the other — came lumbering into the parking lot and what happened next made even the chanting Bucks fans stop and watch in a bit of awe.
The busses — carrying the USC team, its band and travelling party — slowly started to sway back and forth. The closer they got to the dressing room door, the more they began to rock and finally when they pulled to a stop, they were lurching violently from one side to the other.
As a USC fan explained it to me, a few years ago, the Trojans team busses pulled into an opponent’s stadium and rival fans began to rock the busses and shout insults.
That’s when the USC guys decided to take matters into their own hands. Now, whenever they pull into an opposing stadium, they rock the busses themselves.
It’s become a USC tradition. And once the Trojans leave their ride behind and take the field — where Saturday night they were cheered by actors Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn, who were on their sideline — they do the same thing to the opposition.
USC has won 29 of its last 30 games under coach Pete Carroll. It’s riding a 13-year winning streak over Big Ten teams, going all the way back to 1996 and a 24-7 victory by Penn State in the Kick-Off Classic.
The Trojans have beaten OSU six straight, including last year’s 35-3 thumping at the Coliseum.
Yet, all that said, USC athletics director Mike Garrett was pretty tight lipped as we rode up the elevator together to the press box.
Here’s a guy who won the Heisman Trophy as a USC tailback, was a two-way starter, a two-time All American and in his eight-year NFL career was an All Pro and played in two Super Bowls.
Yet for all that big game experience, when he was asked how he was feeling, he sounded more like a rookie than USC’s kid quarterback, freshman Matt Barkley, who claimed earlier this week he won’t be rattled by the Horseshoe crowd.
Of course it could be the old “ignorance is bliss” deal with Barkley. I suspect so.
Garrett, on the other hand ,knows exactly what’s at stake here. And maybe that why, when asked how he felt, he said in a half-whisper:
“I’m nervous…real nervous.”
TweetCOLUMN — “Boy, you better NOT let that girl catch a ball on you!”
TROTWOOD — When it comes to real conversation-piece players, the Cincinnati Bengals Chad Johnson gets bumped to second string behind Trotwood-Madison High’s Ocho Cinco.
This season the Rams’ No. 85 — called either Ocho or Ocho Cinco — has waist-length black hair that is streaked with red and French manicured finger and toenails, wears Baby Phat Goddess Perfume and now has a football resume that includes a play that left much of the Welcome Stadium crowd on its feet and cheering wildly last Friday night, Sept. 4.
“An inspirational little football player,” said Ram’s lineman-sized assistant coach Kerry Ivy. “And she’s all girl.”
Kryshana Pierce is so much a girl that her teammates — who operate under the Coach Maurice Douglass maxim to “think about her like you would your mama or your sister,” — ask her dating advice. And though she has a boyfriend who’s not on the team and she declines all offers, she still has rival players who sometimes “flirt” and ask her out.
Yet, it’s safe to say that did not happen last Friday with the Dunbar defender who, just a few plays earlier, had been needled by a vocal Wolverine backer on the sidelines:
“Boy, you better NOT let that girl catch a ball on you!”
The Rams regular holder — she’s teamed perfectly this season with long snapper Mike Jordan and Rams’ kicker Mouhamadon Seck, who is 8-for-8 on PATs and 2-for-3 on field goal attempts — Pierce is also a back-up wide receiver.
And in the fourth quarter against Dunbar — in a game Trotwood would win, 45-0 — the 5-foot-2, 114-pound senior lined up on the left side of the field in the spread offense, went in motion and was targeted by Rams quarterback Marcus Graham.
“I couldn’t hear a thing — I was like in a zone — and even though the pass was short (8 yards), it seemed to come in slow motion,” she said. “I caught it and I got hit right away.”
It was just the second reception of her four-year high school career. While her other catch was against a Canadian team two seasons ago, this was against a popular City League team and carried more impact…Literally.
“The Dunbar guy really pounded her,” Douglass said. “But she jumped right back up. She’s used to it. Our guys go after her like she’s one of the fellas.”
Ivy said he was close to tears watching her make the catch.
“Everybody was excited for me,” Pierce said. “My teammates were jumping up and down, cheering, hugging me, slapping me on the helmet.”
She said she heard from just one detractor afterward: “A boy from Dunbar messaged me on MySpace and he was mad. He told me I shouldn’t be playing, that I should quit because I was weak.”
Douglass scoffed at that: “For a girl just to be out here — to stick it out for four years of summer conditioning, two-a-days and all the hits she takes during a season — she has to have something real special inside.”
xxxxx
“SHE HAD A LITTLE SHAKE TO HER.”
Over the years a few college and prep teams have had female players on their rosters and that has brought mixed results.
Almost a decade ago, kicker Katie Hnida left the Colorado team claiming she was sexually abused. She walked on at New Mexico State, became the first woman to score in major college football and has now written a book. Meanwhile, Heather Sue Mercer sued Duke a dozen years ago because she made the team but the coach refused to let her wear a uniform.
On the flip side, Brittany Ryan is now the successful place kicker for Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. And on the local prep scene, the best known girl to play football was Alter offensive lineman Holley Mangold, now at Ursuline College and a weightlifter.
Douglass had had one previous girl on his team — Jerae Byrd, now a college hurdler Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. So when Pierce showed up — at the urging of some of the boys who had played pee wee football with her — he was open to the idea:
“The first time we ran some routes with her, she showed she had a little shake to her — she had a little speed — and when she finally got hit and popped right back up, I said, ‘She’s gonna be just fine.’”
Pierce admits some of the older players on the team used to mock her back then — “they kept calling me ‘Little Boy,’” she scoffed — and in her own family she said there were people who told her “to forget football and act like a girl.”
Having also competed in basketball, softball and track for the Rams — while managing a 3.5 g.p.a. — she discounts such talk: “I figure anybody can do anything if they put their mind to it.”
As for the little boy talk, she laughed: “I know I’m no boy and I don’t want to be one….The guys out here can be pretty smelly and nasty…but they’re all my brothers.”
As the season neared, Pierce said she wanted to do more than just hold and was afraid she wouldn’t get the opportunity. Last week she even toyed with the idea of dropping football and joining the band again because she thought she might be able to get a college music scholarship.
Before the Dunbar game, the coaches convinced her to hang in there. But what really sealed the deal she said was the way her teammates rallied around her:
“Some of the guys told me how much they respected me and some told me how they enjoyed being my teammate.”
And she said it was that embrace — more than the catch — that renewed her spirits.
“We’re gonna get Ocho in the end zone this year and I can’t wait,” Ivy said. “I think if she ever scored a touchdown, you’d see her teammates carry her off the field.”
And for all his touchdown celebrations, that’s something the other Ochocinco — “Ocho Cinco No. 2,” Pierce teasingly called him — has never been able to manage.
TweetCarson Palmer on USC-OSU and “somebody’s going to die”
CINCINNATI — What a difference a year makes.
Four days before his Cincinnati Bengals season was to begin — and just three before his beloved USC Trojans meet Ohio State at Ohio Stadium — quarterback Carson Palmer held court during his team’s lunch break Wednesday, Sept. 9.
In the process, he spoke quite differently than he did a year ago about everything from Chad Ochocinco and his own running backs to OSU, of whom he so famously told an L.A. radio station in 2008: “I cannot stand the Buckeyes and having to live in Ohio and hear those people talk about their team, it drives me absolutely nuts.”
One topic Palmer didn’t try to retouch Wednesday was his assertion in last week’s Sports Illustrated that — because of the game’s violent collisions — “somebody is going to die in the NFL.”
This time he brought up the elimination of the protective wedge for kick returners:
“That’s gonna create some dangerous hits. Guys are going to be coming full speed from 80 yards….and it’s hard for for a kick returner to see a guy…running with 4.4 speed right up the middle of the field. I’ve been on a team where a guy broke his neck. I’m not saying it’s gonna happen, but it’s a possibility.”
As for his own health — and the ankle injury that hampered his preseason — he said he’s back “100 percent.”
And he wasn’t about to turn himself into a pinata again for OSU fans. Although his Trojans did rout the Bucks, 35-3 last year and are a 6-point favorite again, he was diplomatic:
“This one’s a little tough to judge — especially the way Navy played (OSU) last week and with a rookie at quarterback (for USC). But when you’ve got Terrelle Pryor, you’re always in the game. He showed that last year in the bowl game…where he just took over.”
He thinks the Bengals running backs — Cedric Benson, Bernard Scott, Brian Leonard, DeDe Dorsey — will make a statement this season, as well.
“They’re four very unique guys with four different skill sets. I don’t know if we’ve had that since I’ve been here…. It was one spot on the roster where everyone was holding their breath to see what would happen. It’s tough to keep four guys, but it’d be even tougher to cut one.”
When it came to Ochocinco, he believes the veteran receiver is headed for a huge year after last season’s funk derailed him:
“One reason is just his attitude He’s come in so focused …and then there’s his work ethic. In my seven years, I’ve never seen a receiver be able to take ever rep. (But) he just never gets tired. He’s like Bruce Bowen of the Spurs.
“And Chad doesn’t age. He may be 31, but he acts like he’s 19 and he plays like his body is 20. …He’s got a good shot to take over the No. 1 slot (among NFL receivers) again.”
While he was in the prediction mode, Palmer was asked again about Saturday’s USC-OSU game. This time there was no hesitation, just a smile:
“I still think my boys are gonna take care of business.”
TweetTressel on Pryor and his “Everyone kills people, murders people”
Claiming Terrelle Pryor is one of the most compassionate people in the world and would never intentionally “be insensitive to something someone feels strongly about,” Jim Tressel said he isn’t going to dog his sophomore quarterback for those ill-conceived comments about Michael Vick following Ohio State’s 31-27 over Navy, Saturday.
At his weekly press conference Tuesday, the Ohio State football coach defended Pryor whose embrace of all things Vick after Saturday’s game has drawn criticism on several fronts across the nation.
Tressel said Pryor “meant no harm” when he wrote the last name of Michael Vick — the NFL quarterback who spent 21 months in federal prison for his part in a dog fighting ring that tortured, maimed and killed many animals over a several-year period — on his black eye patch for the Navy game.
After Saturday’s victory, Pryor explained his actions. He said he grew up idolizing Vick and that would have been fine. But then he went on and his pitch was more errant than that ill-timed, fourth-quarter interception he had just thrown against the Midshipmen.
“Not everybody’s the perfect person in the world,” he said. “I mean everyone kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me, whatever. I think that people need a second chance, and I’ve always looked up to Mike Vick, and I always will.”
After the game, when someone mention the Vick endorsement, Tressel tried defusing the situation with a little humor. He said he hadn’t seen what Pryor had written: “I’m not tall enough to see his eye black.”
Tuesday, Tressel told reporters he doesn’t censor what his players write beneath their eyes and claimed he does not plan to institute a new policy now.
“If some came in and wrote ‘MOM’ on their eye patch and wrist band, I’d have a tough time questioning that,” he said.
Of course, unless your mother was the infamous Ma Barker — whose 1970 movie was called “Bloody Mama” — there’s a big distinction between MOM and Michael Vick.
Truthfully, I think Tressel’s unflagging public support of Pryor and his freedom of speech is probably coach-speak for the clamoring press hordes and I bet behind closed doors it’s a little different.
Tressel did say “we all sometimes miss that mark” and conceded that the whole flap was “unfortunate” as the Bucks prep for No. 4 Southern Cal, which visits the Horseshoe Saturday night.
TweetCOLUMN: Central State’s Winslow — Reality vs. Dreams
A year into his job at Central State, Kellen Winslow is learning the difference between glorious dreams and painful reality.
Not long after the NFL legend took over as the school’s athletics director, he talked about everything from a scholarship-stocked CSU football team one day playing for the NCAA Division II title to having an indoor practice facility and moving the stadium across Highway 42 in Wilberforce so crowds would have easier access.
As noble as all that may be, current reality is far different:
— You saw it at Welcome Stadium Sunday night, Sept. 6, where Virginia Union hammered the undersized, non-scholarship Marauders, 45-0 in the fifth annual Dayton Classic.
— You saw it in the run up to this season when, rather than expansion plans, Winslow had to deal with more pressing realty like redoing the “potholed and uneven” field at CSU’s McPherson Stadium which he felt was “unsafe for football.”
He gave the dressing room a face lift, adding new carpet and a paint job and fixing showers that “either scalded or froze you.”
— But the biggest reality wake up comes today when he plans to join sports information director Ken Marshall in the dressing room to scrub the old, rusted and stained trough urinals.
“I’ve got a pair of rubber gloves and I’m going to help him” Winslow said. “They didn’t play football at CSU for eight years and when they opened the program back up five seasons ago, they did it without a lot of attention sometimes. The dressing room has to be a place the players feel pride in.
“When I took the job I had high expectations, but when I got into it, I realized, ‘Wow. I’ve got to get down there in the weeds and deal with things. Regardless I promised the guys a great sports experience and I’m going to try to provide that in ways big and small.
One of the most ambitious ventures — after hiring new coach E.J. Junior, the former Alabama All American and NFL veteran — was an upgrade in the schedule that right now looks quite daunting.
Next Saturday the Marauders go to Baton Rouge to play Southern University, then they fly to California to play Stillman College in the San Diego Classic.
At the end of the season, Winslow will make another evaluation of dreams and realty. He is putting together a feasibility plan for the board of trustees and CSU president John Garland.
“One thing I do know,” he said. “The team is in good hands with Coach Junior — though I would imagine some of the challenges probably seem a little greater to him right now, too.”
And that made for a memorable scene some 20 minutes after the game had ended. The field was already deserted., except for Junior who stood alone near the 50 yard line, glaring off in the distance, his back to the scoreboard which still burned with the 45-0 rout.
That’s when Winslow approached, put an arm around him and quietly said something.
Maybe he was talking football dreams. Maybe he was mentioning he had an extra pair of rubber gloves.
TweetCOLUMN: Brandon Saine gives first hint of big year?
COLUMBUS — After the game, Brandon Saine looked better individually than his team did as a whole.
Although Ohio State’s No. 6 national ranking doesn’t look quite so shiny after its dodge-the-bullet 31-27 victory over Navy — a three-touchdown underdog coming into Saturday’s Sept. 5 game — the only chink in Saine’s armor was actually a small slip-of-the-razor gash near the back of his head.
Two days before the game, the junior tailback from Piqua High said he and fellow backfield mate Dan “Boom” Herron decided to get a tonsorial make-over. They ended up looking like Amish Indians.
“We decided to go with beards and mohawks,” Saine said with grin. “I cut my own hair, except my girlfriend helped on the back. I can’t see that part, but I hope its okay. The main thing is we wanted a new look.”
He had one Saturday and you saw it most if you looked at his stat sheet not his head.
Saine led the Buckeyes with 139 all-purpose yards, including 65 on two kick-off returns, 53 rushing yards on nine carries and 21 receiving yards on two catches.
Last season — hobbled by injury, waylaid ,at times, by self doubt and sometimes over-looked by the Buckeye coaches — he ran for 65 yards on 26 carries … all year.
Former astronaut John Glenn and his wife Annie may have dotted the I during Script Ohio, Saturday, but Saine wrote a whole new story line for himself right from the opening kick-off.
Teaming up with Herron, he ran a reverse return 47 yards and had many in the record crowd of 105,082 — the most ever to see an OSU opener — on their feet and cheering.
Saine — who holds the Ohio Division I record in the 100-meter dash (10.38 seconds) — seemed headed for the end zone until he was pushed out of bounds by the kicker, who had an angle on him.
“I didn’t see him coming,” Saine shrugged. “Right then, I was thinking end zone.”
Saine said the play had been planned “since the beginning of camp: “On their kick-off team, we saw we only had to block one guy and the field would be wide open for me.
“Boom and I were both a little nervous before hand and we didn’t talk about (the reverse). We didn’t want to jinx it. My heart was pounding before I got the ball, but as soon as I made that run all the jitters went away. I felt I could do anything then. “
Saturday, could be the sign of a big season ahead for him, something Coach Jim Tressel touched on afterward when he said “Brandon Saine is just going to get better and better and better.”
Three other Miami Valley players made an impact Saturday. Senior safety Kurt Coleman (Northmont High) had an interception and forced a fumble, Linebacker Ross Homan (Coldwater) recovered that fumble and tight end Jake Ballard (Springboro) led the Bucks with 53 receiving yards.
But there also were some noticeable glitches — the defense gave up 342 yards to Navy’s triple-option offense — that need to addressed before No. 4 Southern Cal comes to town next Saturday.
“We’ve got to get a lot better by next week,” Coleman admitted. “We can’t look like we did today.”
But for that to happen, the Bucks are going to need more than a razor.
TweetOSU’s Coleman: “We ‘ve got to get a lot better by next week.”
COLUMBUS — Ohio State began Saturday’s season opener and ended it with perfectly diagrammed plays:
— Brandon Saine said his 47-yard reverse on the opening kick-off return had been planned since the beginning of preseason camp.
— Defensive back Kurt Coleman said the Bucks knew exactly what Navy was going to try on the Midshipmens two-point conversion attempt that was intercepted and returned for an OSU score.
But in between those blueprint bonanzas were some real problems.
The OSU defense gave up 342 yards to Navy. Safety Anderson Russell was burned on two touchdown catches. Even coach Jim Tressel was beating himself up afterward for going for it — rather than kicking a short field goal — on a 4th-and 2 situation at the Navy 15 with 6:32 left at a 29-14 lead.
Dan Herron was stuffed on the play. Navy got the ball and Midshipmen quarterback Ricky Dobbs immediately threw an 85 yard touchdown pass. On the next possession Navy scored again.
“It was a poor decision on my part,” said Tressel. “I probably let the emotion of wanting to score and wanting our guys to knock a hole in it get the best of me.
“What went through my mind (afterward)?. I was hoping the next voice on the phone wasn’t (OSU athletics director) Gene Smith because, you know, it was a poor decision.”
The day was saved when linebacker Brian Rolle intercepted Navy’s two point conversion pass and ran it back 99 yards for two points to give the Bucks the final, 31-27 margin..
Next week comes USC, which embarrassed Ohio State, 35-3, last year. The Trojans are a big step up from Navy, but the Midshipmen can’t be discounted. Their triple option is like facing a knuckle ball pitcher in baseball. You never look good against them, but then again, how many times do you face something like that in a season?
OSU safety Kurt Coleman — the senior from Northmont — admitted “We ‘ve got to get a lot better by next week.”
And yet following Saturday’s game, here are three things that are promising:
1 — Brandon Saine — He had as productive of a day as he has ever had in his OSU career and may be in for a lot of work this season. The junior tailback and kick returner from Piqua High accounted for 139 yards. He carried the ball nine times for 53 yards, had two catches for 21 yards and he returned two kick-offs for 65 yards
2 — Coleman — He’s the ballhawk leader of the defense He accounted for two Navy turnovers, once stripping receiver Mario Washington of the ball, a fumble that Ross Homan, the Bucks’ linebacker from Coldwater, recovered at the Midshipmens’ 30 yard line . Three plays later OSU scored.. On Navy’s next possession, Coleman intercepted quarterback Ricky Dobbs.
3 — Jake Ballard — This is not a misprint. The 6-foot-7 junior tight end from Springboro had three receptions. Receiving tight ends often grow cobwebs at OSU, but he is quickly becoming Terrelle Pryor’s sure-handed safety valve. Ballard led the Bucks with 51 receiving yards.
TweetOSU vs. Navy: Glenn, Spielman…and Saine are early stars
A couple of famous Ohioans were honored at halftime of Ohio State’s season opener with Navy, which the Bucks led 20-7 at the intermission.
Former astronaut and U.S. senator John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth, dotted the I with wife Annie during Script Ohio. Both wore gray gray blazers. Glenn accentuated his with a red striped tie and his wife wore a big red corsage.
Mrs.. Glenn especially got into the spirit of the day waving both hands above her head to the sold-out crowd — a season opening record 105,092 — which stood and cheered.
As soon as the band left the field, former Ohio State All American linebacker Chris Spielman, who is about to be enshrined in the college football hall of fame, was honored on the field with his wife, Stefanie — a breast cancer survivor who he pushed out there in a wheelchair. They were accompanied by their children.
Before the second half kick-off, Bucks coach Jim Tressel went our to shake hands and speak with both Stefanie and Chris.
As for the first half, several Buckeyes from the Miami Valley made significant contributions.
Tailback and kick returner Brandon Saine — from Piqua High — accounted for 113 yards — including a 47-yard return, via a reverse, on the opening kick-off. He had five rushes for 27 yards, two catches for 21 yards and another 18-yard return
Tight end Jake Ballard from Springboro — a 6-foot-7 escape valve for quarterback Terrelle Pryor — had two catches for 35 yards and linebacker Ross Holman from Coldwater recovered a Navy fumble.
Team captain Austin Spitler, the fifth-year senior linebacker out of Bellbrook, had won the starting job at middle linebacker, but spent much of the first half on the sidelines as the Bucks went with a 5-2 defense and he was deemed expendable. In the early minutes of the third quarter, he saw more playing time.
TweetSpitler on Sidelines ???
COLUMBUS — No one up in the press box is quite sure what the deal is with Austin Spitler, Ohio State’s fifth-year senior linebacker from Bellbrook. One of the team’s three permanent captains this season and pencilled in as the starting middle linebacker for Saturday’s opener with Navy he’s was relegated to the sidelines for the Midshipmen’s entire opening drive — a 15-play, 80-yard grind that resulted in a 16-yard touchdown run by Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs to tie the game, 7-7.
Ohio State played with just two linebacker must of the time and he was not one of them. He spent the whole drive pressed right up against the sideline, helmet on.
Although Spitler — who has waited four years for this opportunity — had had a calf problem, he wasn’t one of the half dozen players coach Jim Tressel mentioned, who were battling injuries that could effect their playing time Saturday.
TweetWaiting for OSU-Navy: pimp talk
COLUMBUS — Waiting for the kick-off to Ohio State’s season opener with Navy, I’ve been sitting next to John Feinstein at the pregame brunch in the press box and we found out we have something in common.
I envy him though because he came up with a far better line than I ever did in the same situation.
Feinstein — author, Washington Post columnist, NPR contributor — does color commentary for Navy football games this season, but he was recalling a 1988 basketball game he covered in Bloomington, Indiana after he’d written the book on Bob Knight and Indiana basketball: “A Season on the Brink.”
When he showed up to cover the Hoosiers, he — and Columbus Dispatch columnist Bob Hunter — were both banished from press row and sent to metal chair seats in the very top of Assembly Hall.
The same the happened to me a year or two later when I showed up to cover an OSU-Indiana game. A critical column I’d written on Knight — about the run he had had in Puerto Rico with a local cop and a fan — still stuck in his craw and I figured he orchestrated my exile.
I was sure of it in the post-game press conference when Knight walked in, slapped me on the back as he ambled past and cracked: “Like your seat?”
I mumbled something, but my retort wasn’t in the same class as was Feinstein’s.
Interviewed on national TV, Feinstein was told Bobby Knight — who hadn’t liked how he was portrayed in the book — “callls you a pimp and a whore.”
Without missing a beat, Feinstein cracked: “I wish he’d make up his mind so I knew how to dress in the morning.”
TweetCOLUMN — Brookville’s Dunn Hogs the County Fair Spotlight
The rambunctious 280-pound Yorkshire came into the Montgomery County Fair as a novelty act and, in just one day’s time, showed himself to be something quite different.
He and another barrow hog — a 275-pound Blue Butt crossbreed — were the prime-time porkers of Cameron Dunn, who, as the center of the Brookville High School football team, wishes he could do to opposing defenders what he can with that big, pink Yorkshire.
“Watch,” Dunn said with a smile as he leaned into the swine barn pen and gently rubbed his whip on the York’s head, then its belly. Soon the hog began to list and finally — with eyes now closed — it flopped over on its side in a dead faint. It was out cold.
Yet, Dunn wasn’t here to perform barnyard tricks. Along with football — he was the 10-1 Blue Devils only sophomore starter last season — and wrestling, he’s in 4-H and he had his pair of well-defined hogs entered in the Open Swine Show on Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 2.
As show time neared, he got rid of his beat-up ballcap and blue T-shirt and added the long-sleeved dress shirt his mom had pressed the night before to his jeans and ostrich skin boots.
When he had trouble wrestling the York toward the washing station for a quick touchup, he shook his head: “Defensive linemen are easier to handle.”
He first led the Blue Butt into the show barn, where a crowd filled the wooden bleachers; red, white and blue banners hung from the rafters; and the Montgomery County Pork Queen, Chelsea O’Diam, sat, ribbons in hand, at the edge of the sawdust-covered show ring.
Although the Blue Butt was figured to be the best of the two entries, he seemed to have stage fright, said Mike Dunn, Cameron’s dad. The hog’s choppy strides were one reason judge Matt Lawson ranked him sixth of 16 entries in the 275-pound class.
Next came the Yorkshire, and when he began to hug the fence rail rather than stride toward the judge, Mike called out: “Cam, don’t be afraid to put a hand on him and move him around.” With a smile, he quickly added: “Not the judge … the hog.”
Soon Cameron was driving his hog around the ring and from 16 entries, his York was one of the final three.
“This is like 4th-and-1 in football,” Mike said quietly. “You’ve got to go for it.”
That’s what happened, and a few minutes later — when his hog was named the 280-pound winner — Cameron whispered: “What an adrenaline rush.”
And it was about to get better. When all of the day’[s weight-class winners were brought back into the ring, Lawson said, “There is one entry that stands out, one that has the meat in all the right places and no flaws,” singling out Dunn’s Yorkshire as the Grand Champion.
“I’m speechless,” Mike gushed as his son was handed his first championship plaque ever.
As Cameron led the hog to the swine pen, Linda Dunn, his grandmother called out: “Good job, buddy.”
A few minutes later, Cameron’s pal Nick Wright — the reigning Junior County Fair King — walked up and teased:
“There he is — the man, the myth, the legend.”
There was laughter everywhere, except in the pen where the big York was again asleep. No fainting trick this time, he was tired from his victory trot as the Grand Champion.
TweetSI off base — NFL quarterbacking not riskiest job in sports
I have to disagree with Sports Illustrated.
The latest issue contains an insightful Peter King roundtable discussion with Carson Palmer, Ben Roethlisberger and three other young NFL quarterbacks, but I think the headline on the story is wrong:
“Hardest, Riskiest, Toughest, Greatest job in sports.”
I’ll go for three of them, but not riskiest.
No way.
In my book, an NFL quarterback isn’t in the top five among risky jobs in sports.
Jockeys, boxers, race car drivers, rodeo bull riders and rugby players all have more dangerous professions
In 36 years as a sportswriter, I’ve seen race car drivers die on the track, a boxer killed in the ring, a jock forever paralyzed in as spill, and a bull rider badly gored at a Florida rodeo. I once spent a day at a world-acclaimed rehab center for spinal cord injuries in Miami and was stunned to find there were more rugby players there than any other athletes.
I’ve probably covered more football games than anything in my career and while I’ve seen quarterbacks badly injured, I’ve never seen anything quite as catastrophic as in most of those other sports.
I know this is all anecdotal, but I can also point to studies that have been done, not to mention some cold, hard facts.
JOCKEYS:
According to Robert Cantu’s book “Boxing and Medicine’, the most dangerous sport in America is horse racing, where he found there were 128 deaths per 100,000 participants. Sky diving was next with 123.
A Medical Journal of Australia study found that being a jockey was the riskiest job in sports and second overall to an offshore fisherman.
Dr. Leigh Blizzard, of the Menzies Research Institute — using US research — was quoted: “Jockeys had a higher risk of fatality than pilots and flight engineers, logging workers, structural metal workers, farm workers, roofers and truck drivers or participants in sports such as skydiving, motorcycling and boxing. “
AUTO RACING:
From Marshall Teague and Friday Hassler to Neil Bonnett and Dale Earnhardt, Daytona Speedway has had 27 deaths alone. Indianapolis has had more than that. Sure a blitzing linebacker hits a quarterback hard, but it’s not like crashing an open-wheeled car into concrete barrier at 220 m.p.h.
BOXING:
The list of boxing fatalities is long and we have reminders right around here.
Springfield’s Davey Moore, the world featherweight champ, died from injuries suffered in a Dodger Stadium title bout in 1963. Up in Piqua, you’ll find the grave of Luther McCarty, considered by most to be the greatest of the “white hope” fighters who fought during the time of black heavyweight champ Jack Johnson. McCarty was killed in a Calgary ring in 1913.
Regardless of death, continually being punched to the head — boxers can land more than 300 blows in a fight, many to the head — can lead to severe brain damage such as Parkinson’s disease or dementia later in life.
BULL RIDERS:
Bull riding bills itself as “the most dangerous eight seconds in sports” and I think that’s valid. Cowboys are on animals 15 times their weight and although jockeys suffer more fatal injuries, there have been notable deaths of bull riders — everybody from the great champion Lane Frost to the 12-year-old Colorado boy, who was thrown off a bull and trampled in a competition hosted by the Little Britches Rodeo in Boulder in late June.
The Denver Post reported the boy — Richard Wayde Hamar of Yuma — was at least the fourth child in the last four years to be killed while bull riding.
RUGBY:
According to Men’s Heath, the injury rate of rugby participants is nearly twice that of football players. The magazine reported that rugby is “officially the world’s most dangerous team sport, with an average of 1.4 serious injuries per match (a quarter of them being to the head).”
TweetCOLUMN— The Bond Between Miami’s Mike Haywood and Gerry Faust
OXFORD — Mike Haywood wouldn’t be making history this weekend were it not for a man from Dayton:
Gerry Faust.
The former Chaminade High and University of Dayton quarterback — whose trumpeted prep and college coaching career included five years at the Notre Dame helm — didn’t just offer Haywood an Irish scholarship in 1982, he then gave him a second chance…and lots of Sunday dinners.
Because of it, Haywood will make his head coaching debut, Saturday, Sept. 5, when he leads the Miami RedHawks against Kentucky at Paul Brown Stadium. In the process, he’ll become the first black head coach in Miami’s long and storied football history.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Gerry Faust — he’s the best man I ‘ve ever known in college athletics,” said Haywood, who also played for Lou Holtz and worked for high-profile head coaches like Nick Saban, Mack Brown and Charlie Weis.
“Coach Faust is truly concerned with you as person. He and his family really look out for you.”
And back when he was a teenager coming out of Houston, Haywood said he needed someone like that:
“During summer camp — just after I moved into starting at wide receiver — I was homesick and went home for two weeks.”
Faust — who travels the nation from his Akron home giving some 100 speeches each year, helps out at the University of Akron and watches his grandkids’ sports events — remembered a few more details when he spoke by phone:
“At the time he had a girlfriend back in Houston and he was homesick. He left summer practice right after picture day.
“His parents — Delmore and his mom, Johnnie, they’re quality people and so’s their son — called me after that and asked if I’d take him back. I said I would because kids go through things like this.
“Well, a few days later, they called again and said (Mike) was on his way and they gave me his flight number. I sent someone to meet the plane, but then his folks called back and said he had beaten them back home. He hadn’t gotten on the plane.
“I called every night after that to see how things were going and he finally came back.”
Haywood nodded at the memory: “When I got back to school, he put me on the scout team and made me earn my stripes again. But every Sunday I went to his home for dinner. His daughter would come pick me up and I’d spend the day with his family.
“Coach Faust helped me through the most difficult time of my life and I’ll never forget it.”
After he got his degree and began his career, Haywood said one thing never changed: “To this day, Coach Faust calls my parents at least once a year just to check in. The first month I got my job here, we must have spoken three or four times.”
Faust said Haywood is “one of my all-time favorites. I’m so proud of him and the way he’s handled himself. He’s a great role model for the young men at Miami.”
Although Faust was invited to Miami’s opener, he’ll be in South Bend, Saturday, where the Irish meet Nevada.
“I understand it’s a Notre Dame home game so Coach Faust will be set up at the bookstore signing and selling books — he’s making a living,” Haywood chuckled. “He said he’ll be here sometime, but I know it has to be during (Irish) away games. That’s fine. I can wait.”
After all, that’s what Gerry Faust once did for him.
TweetMiami’s Mike Haywood, Possum and a National Title “Guarantee”
OXFORD — New Miami RedHawks coach Mike Haywood said he understands Lou Holtz’ line of thinking — which, in itself, is sort of like being able to wade your way through a whole can of Silly String sprayed in your direction.
A week ago, Holtz made quite a stir when he told an ESPN audience that he thinks Notre Dame will be playing in college football’s national title game this January:
“I personally believe, if you ask me, ‘Who’s going to play in the national championship game?’ I’d say it’s going to be Florida and the University of Notre Dame.”
Notre Dame?
Winners of just 9 games the past two seasons? The team coached by quickly-deflated windmeister Charlie Weis? The team that plays USC six games into the season?
A lot of folks simply dismissed Holtz’s bold prediction as just “Lou being Lou.”
He’s a diehard Gold Domer and rightfully so. He coached the Irish from 1986 to 1996, had a 100-30-2 record, won a national title in 1988, finished second in the nation two more times and fourth another year.
But just as Holtz stirred the ghosts of Rockne, Leahy and Parseghian, he also sometimes reminds you of that old Beverly Hillbillies coot, Jed Clampett, whose homespun observations included:
“That’s the thing about salted down possum, it’s just as good the second day.”
“If brains was lard, that boy wouldn’t have enough to grease a skillet.”
Anyway, Holtz said he picked Notre Dame for the title game because of its weak schedule this season:
“They play only one team in the top 37 preseason. Not that they’ll be the No. 2 team in the country, but I do believe they’ll be the best team in the stadium, and that’s all they have to do.”
Holtz has a point. The Irish start with Nevada at home and then comes three middle-of-the-road Big Ten teams. They play at Michigan, host Michigan State and visit Purdue. There’s also a home game against Washington, which was 0-12 last year.
But Haywood — who played for the Irish in the 1980s and was Notre Dame’s offensive coordinator and running backs coach before coming to Miami this season for his first head coaching job — thinks Holtz proclamation has nothing to do with his affinity for the school or the 2009 schedule.
“This is why Holtz says that,” Haywood explained during a break from preparing for his Saturday opener with Kentucky. “When I left LSU (where he was an assistant), LSU won the title. When I left Texas (where he also was an assistant,) Texas won the the title.:
This summer Haywood said he and Mack Brown were out playing golf and midway through the round the Texas coach called up Weis on the phone:
“(Mack) was waving the white towel and he threw it,” Haywood said with a laugh. “He told Charlie. ‘I just want to congratulate you on winning the national title. Texas is throwing in the towel. I told you first thing when you hired Haywood, if you got him a head coaching job, you’ll win the title (when he leaves.)
“‘Everybody does.’”
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