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BLOG: Athletes and the Stars & Stripes

By Tom Archdeacon | Friday, July 4, 2008, 02:01 PM

At baseball parks across the country today, at the U.S. Olympic Trials — both track and field in Eugene, Oregon and swimming in Omaha, Neb. — at race tracks, soccer fields and maybe a golf tournament or two, American flags will be unfurled on the fields of play, waved by spectators on the sidelines and in the grandstands and carried by some of the competitors.

And that’s gotten me to thinking about some of the more memorable displays of athletes and the Stars and Stripes — from U.S. goalie Jim Craig wrapped in the flag and looking in the stands for his dad after the American’s Miracle on Ice hockey victory over the Soviets at the 1980 Olympics, George Foreman carrying a tiny flag in his right fist as he ambled around the ring after winning gold at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City to my all time favorite, Bellbrook High’s Charlie O’Dell carrying Old Glory after 9/11 — I’ve either witnessed, written about or both over the years.

The displays are great when heartfelt, but distasteful and often outright wrong when used merely as a prop or, worst of al,l when used to disparage a beaten competitor by waving the flag in his or her face.

I was there that day at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney Australia, when the U.S. men’s 4-by-100 meter relay team — Maurice Greene, Jon Drummond, Brian Lewis and Bernard Williams — acted like real jerks after winning gold.

I remember how the Olympic Stadium crowd of 110,000 was mostly turned off by them. The Australians have little use for what they call “tall poppies” — people who work especially hard to stand out — and these guys were taking that concept to the extreme.

Other American athletes were embarrassed, some were enraged.

Here’s a paragraph from what I wrote about the display:

“The U.S. sprinters turned into WWF wrestlers with American flags as props. Two guys shed their shirts. All began to preen and parade around. Lewis used the flag as his own personal do-rag, tying it to is head while he did muscleman type poses. Williams began to mimic the evil-eye poses of the wrestler The Rock, then wrapped the flag around his face like Count Dracula. The sprinters used the flags as bat wings, tourniquets and, when they couldn’t think of anything else, simply dragged them along behind them.”

The flip side of the relay team’s disrespect came from O’Dell, then a burr-headed senior lineman for the Bellbrook High football team. It occurred just three days after the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001 and minutes before the kick-off of Bellbrook’s game with Northridge.

The pros and most college teams had called off their weekend football games. Miami Valley high schools had decided to go on with their schedules, but no one in the stands or on the sidelines that night was absolutely sure the game should go on.

Back in the shadows of the Bellbrook stadium, Eagles head coach Kevin Basinger had spoken to his edgy team. Hestressed country and community and freedoms, including the opportunity to play football on Friday night.

When someone asked if one of the players wanted to carry out the American flag an assistant coach had brought to the game, O’Dell stepped forward.

And as the purple gates in front of the goal post opened and the team charged onto the field through a haze of smoke — thanks to parents with fire extinguishers — and ripped through the big banner the cheerleaders held, O’Dell said he was thinking one thing:

“I’m not the fastest guy in the world and I worried about everybody running right past me. I worried about the flag. I didn’t want it to fall or bow or do anything but stand tall.”

And did it ever

As Charlie charged through the smoke — flag held high, his team coming on behind him — folks in the grandstands were reduced to tears and Nick Falzarano, a local photographer of note, was on the field, snapping off four quick frames.

He sent one of the shots to Sports Illustrated. The magazine loved the picture and printed it across two pages in the front of its Sept. 24 issue.

As SI picture editor Jim Colton put it:

“Nick’s photograph captured the essence of what we were looking for. It was very poignant and colorful and the kid carrying the flag had a great expression on his face. It showed these kids weren’t ruffled. And the background the scoreboard reading first-and-10 - very subtly expressed the challenge ahead.”

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BLOG: “Perfect Fit” for Paul Biancardi

By Tom Archdeacon | Wednesday, July 2, 2008, 07:56 AM

Paul Biancardi was reflecting on the past 28 months and the self-defining journey he’s been on.

It was March of 2006 when he left his head coaching position at Wright State — a basketball job he had waited much of his life for, a job and a bunch of kids he loved — bumped out in large part because of the NCAA sins of his former Ohio State boss, Jim O’Brien, and his loyalty to him.

“You get knocked down in life, but the key of who you are is how you get up,” Biancardi said Tuesday night.

Who Biancardi is — besides a good coach, an even better family man and somebody I and a lot of other people in the Dayton area really like — is a guy who over the past two years has been embraced by both one of the best college coaches in the business and now the nation’s top sports network.

This past season he was the top assistant on the staff of Rick Majerus at Saint Louis University. The under-manned Billikens finished 16-15 and nearly knocked the Dayton Flyers out of the Atlantic 10 tournament and all of the rest of the postseason. St. Louis extended UD to overtime in the A-10 opener and lost by one point, 63-62.

“I can’t tell you how good Coach Majerus has been to me and my family,” Biancardi said. “He allowed me to come back to the game I love and show what I can do.”

The folks at ESPN — where Biancardi worked for a year in a lesser capacity right after leaving WSU — saw plenty.

That’s why he’s been hired to be the network’s National Director of Recruiting for High School and College Basketball. In short ,the ESPN folks want him to be one of their gurus when it comes to hoops, especially high school hoops:

“ESPN wants to be an expert in in-depth analysis of high school basketball recruiting — who are the top players, what are their skills, where are they going to college and how will they fit into that school’s program.

“I’ll need to know the best players in the country from freshmen, sophomores and juniors on up. I’ll cover all the top 25 to 30 high school teams in the country — and quite a few more — an analyze them on the internet, radio and television.”

Biancardi will run a department that includes five former college or pro coaches. He’ll do a lot of work on the internet and as a color commentator on high school and college games on ESPNU.

One of his first assignments will be the upcoming National AAU Tournament in Orlando.

He got the job because of all his years as a coach. He started out an assistant at Salem State, Suffolk State and Boston University. He then spent seven years as an O’Brien’s assistant at Boston College and six more at Ohio State. He coached Wright State for three seasons and was the 2004 Horizon League Coach of the Year.

He loves being a coach and leaving the profession to be a member of the media was a tough decision.

“There was a lot of soul searching,” he said. “I love coaching.”

That made it difficult Tuesday night when he told the Saint Louis players he was leaving: “You recruit kids as basketball players and then you get to know them as people and you love them … When I finished talking to them they looked at me and said something that warmed my heart. They said ‘Thanks Coach.’ “

Biancardi had to do what’s best for his wife and two children and he said the ESPN job offered that. It’s thought he signed a three-year contract and will move to Charlotte.

As he puts it: “It’s a great challenge, an exciting opportunity … and a perfect fit.”

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BLOG: I’m not so sure O.J. Mayo will be a great pro

By Tom Archdeacon | Friday, June 27, 2008, 04:02 PM

Will O.J. Mayo be a great NBA player?

I’m not so sure he will, but almost everybody else seems to think so. Especially the pundits and talk-show callers in the Twin Cities, today, who are lamenting the Minnesota Timberwolves’ late draft-night trade of Mayo — who the team had just made the No. 3 overall pick in the NBA draft — to Memphis for No. 5 pick Kevin Love in what ended up an eight-player deal.

And consequently, the folks in Memphis are giddy about landing the 20-year-old who Sports Illustrated — some 5 years ago — trumpeted as “The Next Big Thing.”

But I’m not sold that Memphis got the best part of this deal. And that’s not because I’m in love with Love. It’s because I have questions about Mayo.

Trouble and a lack of truthfulness seem to follow the guy wherever he goes. And though he’s one of the most talented young players I’ve ever see — and can be quite polite, accommodating, insightful and down-right charming — he’s got a “Me First” side of him that rears its head on and off the court and I think that could end up being his Achilles’ heel.

Already back when he was playing for North College Hill in Cincinnati — part of his six years playing high school ball in three different states — people were saying he was ready for the NBA.

Before Thursday night’s draft one league GM called Mayo “one of the four hardest workers” in the upcoming talent pool. And several people are saying he’s one of three or four draftees who will make an immediate impact in the league.

All that’s probably correct.

But when it comes to Mayo, all that seems true doesn’t always turn out that way. His blogosphere detractors call him everything from a “punk” to a “fraud.” I think that’s over-stated, but I have seen that side of him, too.

The first time I met him was soon after he transferred into North College Hill from Rose Hill Academy in Kentucky, where he’d played high school basketball while being a 14-year-old seventh grader and an eighth grader.

After an early-season game, he introduced me to his “grandfather” Dwaine Barnes. I then visited Barnes, who was working at Milt Kantor’s Victory Wholesale Grocers complex in Springboro.

Barnes claimed he was Mayo’s paternal grandfather and told stories of not knowing the boy was his grandson until O.J. was six or seven years old.

The only problem was that Barnes wasn’t his grandfather, but instead his AAU coach and had orchestrated the move to Ohio from their Huntington, W.Va., hometown.

They lived together — and at times Bill Walker, another NCH transfer who landed in the NBA Thursday night — in an apartment right next to North College Hill High. Barnes bragged of being given keys to the school and that O.J. would often come over late at night and shoot around in the deserted gym.

I wonder how many other NCH students — especially ones who had just moved into the district a couple of months earlier — were given the keys to the school?

Then again, NCH officials seem to have given away a lot more than that — let’s start with integrity — to keep Mayo, Ohio’s two-time Mr. Basketball, around for three years and two state titles before he jumped ship and finished his career at Huntington High, which he also led to the state crown.

It appears that already when he was at NCH — and almost certainly when he was at Huntington High — he was beginning to get thousands of dollars in gifts from Rodney Guillory, a runner for the big time sports agency, Bill Duffy Associates. At least that’s what Larry Johnson, a former sportswriter and another runner and Mayo insider — until he had a falling out — claimed in a big expose by ESPN’s Outside the Lines.

In all — in Mayo’s high school years and last season at Southern Cal — Johnson claimed Mayo accepted over $30,000 in gifts. That included regular ($2,500) shopping sprees, a 42-inch flat screen TV, airline tickets, payment of his cell phone bills ($170 a month) and other items.

His “Me First” style showed on the court, too. His last play in high school epitomizes that.

With his team leading by 40 points in the waning moments of the game, he threw himself an alley-oop pass off the bank board, dunked, then threw the ball into the stands.

He got a technical and was ejected from the game. He celebrated his exile, waving to the crowd, posing for cell-phone pictures, hugging and high-fiving teammates and, most sickeningly, getting a big embrace from his coach.

His apologists — and there are many in the stands and the media — say all that was no big deal. The crowd of 10,000 mostly had come to see him play and he gave them a treat at the end of the game.

They say his associations with Barnes and then Guillory were because he was desperately looking for a real father figure.

Mayo had told me his mother was 14 when she gave birth to him and that she had raised him and his seven siblings on her own. His dad, Kenny Ziegler, a Huntington High hoops star, was in and out of jail. In fact, this past January he was convicted again with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

That night at NCH, Mayo told me he wasn’t going to go down that path. He was going to play in the NBA. He said that’s all he ever wanted.

And now it’s come true.

He certainly has the game. I just hope it isn’t double-teamed by the trouble that always seems to find him and the “Me First” attitude that never quite seems to leave him.

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Blog: A Redd, right and gold Olympic basketball team?

By Tom Archdeacon | Monday, June 23, 2008, 02:32 PM

Just a couple of hours ago, USA Basketball announced its team for the Beijing Olympic Games, the stage where anything less than a gold medal for the U.S. hoopsters will be perceived — and rightly so — as a failure.

The 12 man roster — selected on the final approval of new basketball czar and former Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo and coached by Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski — includes Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Michael Redd, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd, Chris Bosh, Dwight Howard, Deron Williams, Tayshaun Prince and Carlos Boozer.

Great lengths have been taken to right the U.S. ship after the embarrassment at the Athens Games in 2004. That group — filled with NBA All-Stars, but not resembling a team — went 5-3 in Greece, losing to Puerto Rico, Lithuania and then Argentina in the medal round. They picked up a bronze medal and a lot of criticism when they got home.

There was plenty blame to go around. It was USA Basketball’s fault for the process it used to put a team together on the fly that couldn’t shoot, was undersized and — because it didn’t require a major pre-Games time commitment from the players — had had little time practicing with each other before Athens.

Coach Larry Brown seemed to lose his team half-way through the Games and there were the players, some of whom played the role of spoiled millionaires, pouting, bickering and openly challenging their coach.

And so Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury are not on this team. But Carmelo Anthony — grown up from those disgruntled days in Greece — is because, as Krzyzewski told some us a while back when we met in Chicago, “our players get it now.”

Colangelo was dismayed by what he saw transpire in Athens:

“Body language has always been a key ingredient in basketball. You learn so much how people communicate — or don’t. What I saw there was very bad. And when I heard and saw how people in our country felt and spoke and wrote about that team it was evident a change needed to take place.”

Part of the problem, too, is that the gap between the US and the rest of the basketball world has shrunk. The dominating days of that 1992 Dream Team — the first group of NBA Olympians that included Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson with bench players like David Robinson, Karl Malone, and John Stockton — are gone.

“In some respects, we’ve been a little bit arrogant about the game,” Krzyzewski said. “It is not our game. It is the world’s game now. It just originated here.”

These days there are something like 75 international players in the NBA, representing 30 countries and many of those guys are the cornerstones of their own national teams..

To combat all this, USA Basketball put Colangelo in charge. He picked Krzyzewski and then met with a group of former Olympic coaches and star Olympians, everyone from Jordan to Jerry West.

With their suggestions, Colangelo invited 33 players to the Senior National team. He informed them he needed a three-year commitment — the team had 42 practices in 2006, 24 last year and is in the midst of a lot more this season — and he was looking for guys to embrace the team concept.

The best story he told from those meetings involves Michael Redd, the Ohio State product from Columbus who is now a star shooting guard for the Milwaukee Bucks.

“Michael Redd stands out,” Colangelo said. “I set up here in Chicago and met with various players. LeBron James was coming in with Cleveland and I talked to (Kirk) Heinrich with the Bulls and some other guys.

“Michael said he’s drive down from Milwaukee. He showed up at my hotel, called my room and then knocked at the door. He was in his sweats and had a hanging bag over his shoulder.

“He asked to be excused and went into the john. He put on a suit and tie and came out to have the interview with me. That was pretty damn impressive.”

He and Krzyzewski both raved about Redd — not only for his professionalism and that explosive offense he can provide on the court — but for the ego-less attitude he has shown. They talked about how he’s been willing to come off the bench and play a role.

Consequently, they said, all of the other players have embraced him as something special.

That’s a sign that this team may be special, as well.

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BLOG: Ohio’s Top Ten Sports Towns

By Tom Archdeacon | Wednesday, June 18, 2008, 04:18 PM

Here’s my list of Ohio’s Top Ten Sports Towns.

I tried to consider the number of marque teams and events the place has, the success both the teams and the hometown athletes have enjoyed, the attendance and community support for the teams and events and the way sports is woven into the fabric of the community.

It’s a subjective ranking that certainly is up for debate. When I ran it past three veteran sportswriters and a sportscaster I know, they all agreed Cleveland was No. 1 because of the Browns, Indians and Cavaliers, Cleveland State, some great high school teams, boxing, horse racing, until recently an open wheel auto race, several other minor league pro teams and that often-rabid and always-loyal fan base for many teams, especially the beloved Browns.

One writer thought Columbus — with all things Ohio State, the Blue Jackets, Crew, Destroyers and the Memorial, among other things — belonged ahead of Cincinnati.

I disagreed because along with the Reds and their storied history and those soap opera Bengals, Cincinnati has two big-time Division I basketball schools in UC and Xavier, some nationally-acclaimed high school programs and a rich boxing history that includes yet another Olympian — Rau’Shee Warren — for the upcoming Beijing Games.

The sportscaster thought Coldwater possibly could supplant St. Henry, but I countered not only with all those state titles that are listed on big road signs signs when you enter St. Henry, but the foursome of favorite sons, Wally Post, Jim Lachey, Bobby Hoying and Jeff Hartings. And, of course, there’s that shrine of suds and sports celebration, Fish-Mo’s.

Another writer thought Dayton was rated too high. But the Dragons have been sold out for nine years straight years, have several thousand folks on a waiting list for season tickets and were rated by Sports Illustrated last year to have one of the top ten toughest tickets to obtain in all of U.S. sports.

And Dayton Flyers basketball has been among the Top 30 in college hoops attendance for most of its seasons since iUD began playing at the Arena in 1969. Add in Wright State, the Bombers, the storied history of Dayton pro athletes (including Mike Schmidt, Keith Byars and Ron Harper) and its Olympians (start with Edwin Moses) and the stand-out prep teams, especially in track, and I think Dayton has a strong argument for the No. 4 spot.

As for a few other towns I thought might belong on the list: Athens, Oxford, Ironton and especially Youngstown with everything from Youngstown State to middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik.

Any way, here’s my Top Ten list:

1. — Cleveland

2. — Cincinnati

3. — Columbus

4. — Dayton

5. — St. Henry

6. — Akron

7. — Toledo

8. — Massillon

9. — Canton

10. — Steubenville

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BLOG: A Florida Gator even Buckeye fans can admire

By Tom Archdeacon | Monday, June 16, 2008, 02:17 PM

Here’s a guy who has turned his Heisman Trophy award into a real vehicle — and by that I’d don’t mean a stretch limo filled with girls for a club-to-club cruise of The Flats and downtown Cleveland.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it seems like kind of a pedestrian ride when compared to the journey University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow has been on since he won the Heisman six months ago.

Even though the Gators turned out to be a thorn in the side of a splendid Ohio State football team and its Heisman quarterback, Troy Smith, two seasons ago, Buckeye fans who are open-minded have to give some props to Tebow, who’s spent his off-season touring the globe as though he’s a cross between Mother Theresa, the Rev. Billy Graham and one of those dreamy/steamy docs from ER.

A devout Christian who’s the son of missionary parents — and a college student with a 3.68 g.p.a. — Tebow has visited the Philippines and Croatia and spoke at prisons, schools and community gatherings in Florida. He exchanged hand-written notes with President Bush, who commended him as a role model. He rallied sororities in Gainesville to raise over $10,000 for orphans, has visited sick kids in a Jacksonville Hospital and next month heads to Thailand to do good deeds and speak about his faith.

All this has been documented in media reports, especially by Matt Hayes’ of The Sporting News earlier this month. Hayes caught up to the rarely-idle Tebow and over lunch — “I haven’t had a meatball sub in a long time and it tastes good,” the quarterback said — got some of the details of the iconic 20-year-old’s travels.

Tebow told of his week-long trip to the Philippines, the place where he was born and where his parents, Pam and Bob, run an evangelistic association.

During his stay in March, Tebow visited a poor village outside General Santos City, where, he said, swamped doctors got him to help them with various procedures, including a circumcision.

“You don’t have time to get nervous,” Tebow said, “those kids need you.”

According to Florida officials, Tebow is getting thousands of requests to help the needy, come speak or lend his name and presence to worthy causes.

“God gave me this gift for a reason,” Tebow told Hayes. “There’s a sense of purpose in everything I do. It’s not me in control; He is. There’s a great amount of comfort knowing that.”

Whether you are religious or not, whether you are a Buckeye or a Gator, whether you follow sports or not — you’ve got to admire a guy like Tebow, who appears as good off the field as he is on it.

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BLOG: Creek’s Masterson — King of the Red Sox Clubhouse

By Tom Archdeacon | Friday, June 13, 2008, 07:49 AM

Mark and Judy Masterson are glad their son is making his own history rather than having it written for him.

Their 23-year-old boy, Justin — a Beavercreek High grad and the Boston Red Sox rookie pitcher who’ll start tonight against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park — comes into the game with a 3-0 record and a 2.59 earned run average in his four major-league appearances.

“I just hope he pitches well,” said Mark, the pastor of the Creekside Community Church in Beavercreek.

Anything else he’d like to see?

“Well, it’d be fun if he struck out Ken Griffey Jr.,” Mark said with smile.

This wasn’t meant as a jab at Griffey. The Mastersons, humble and low key, just aren’t like that. In fact, this wish was quite the opposite of a Griffey put-down. Mark knows what a great hitter Griffey is, and striking him out would show some of his son’s potential as well.

“At least Ken Griffey Jr., won’t be making his history against Justin,” Judy said.

Mark nodded: “I was so happy that Griffey got his 600th before (today). And besides, Justin’s in the record books for other things. He’s the first pitcher in the history of Fenway Park to be undefeated in his first four appearances.

“Since 1912,” Judy added.

And yet for the other Red Sox players, it’s the way Masterson has made his history — as much as the history itself — that impresses them.

Everybody seems to like the 6-foot-6, 250-pound right-hander who was called up from Double-A Portland on April 23 for a spot start in the Red Sox injury-depleted rotation. Since then he has bounced back down to Portland, come back up, gone down to Triple-A Pawtucket and then come up again.

When he made his big-league debut April 24, catcher Jason Varitek gave his behind-the-plate seats at Fenway — four rows up — to Mark and Judy and their two other children, Mandy and Jonathan, so they could watch the glorious moment.

And not surprising to anybody, Sean Casey has taken Justin under his wing.

“Sean’s a great guy,” Judy said. “He text messages Justin a lot. They talk back and forth all the time. They’ve got similar dispositions. People like them and some of the other guys joke that it’s a competition between the two on who’s going to be the king of the clubhouse for niceness.”

The Red Sox are just now learning what most people who have crossed Justin’s path in previous years already have. That’s why tonight some 34 family members will be on hand at GABP, as well as over 100 people who are coming down from Bethel College, the northern Indiana NAIA school Justin attended for a year after high school. And there will be scores of people there from Beavercreek, as well.

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