Losing a true legend
Jim Shoulders and Walt Garrison came by The Oklahoman offices last February. I chatted with Shoulders, then interviewed Garrison. Call it a solid day.
Do they make cowboys like they used to? Do they still make cowboys who talk straight and ride hard and have real dirt on their boots? Cowboys who retire from the sport but not the way of life?
I don’t know, but they once did. I had Garrison on my show, and it’s a shame I didn’t have Shoulders on, too. They sound good in print. They sound even better on radio.
Shoulders was a cowboy for the ages, a five-time all-around world champion on the rodeo circuit, and almost 50 years later remained a legend.
An unequalled story-teller. A man of natural charm, as the makers of the famous Miller beer commercials discovered. A true Oklahoma legend.
Shoulders died Wednesday at the age of 79 on his ranch in Henryetta.
Famed bull rider Ty Murray said Shoulders lived a good long life the way he wanted to live it. Murray said he saw Shoulders not long ago and “he was as funny, irascible and tough as always.”
I saw him not long ago myself, and consider myself the better for it.
Hicks indicts Gonzalez
Rangers owner Tom Hicks has fingered former slugger Juan Gonzalez for using steroids, and the only thing I can say is, us fans should have done the same.
Never has anyone been a bigger suspect than Gonzalez, who always was one of my favorite Rangers.
Hicks said Gonzalez’s injuries and early retirement makes him suspicious. “We paid him $24 million for very few games … probably we just gave that money away.”
Gonzalez was the grandest Ranger hitter ever, with 340 homers from 1989 through 1999. Then Juan Gone went into free agency, steroids became an issue, and Gonzalez’s career dried up like Blackwater Gulch.
Gonzalez hit just 94 homers over his last six seasons; he played just 186 games his final four seasons. He went back to Texas and was a shell of his former self.
The evidence seems so clear now. We didn’t think about it in those salad days of the late ‘90s, when biceps bulged and balls flew over the fence like never before.
Juan Gonzalez seems nothing more than a footnote in the steroid scandals, but to those of us who follow Texas baseball, we now know what we were seeing.
USC recruiting eighth-graders
Just when you thought college sports couldn’t get any seedier, along comes Southern Cal basketball coach Tim Floyd, who for the second straight year has offered a scholarship to an EIGHTH-grader.
Ryan Boatwright, described as a speedy, 5-10 point guard from Illinois, hasn’t even decided where he’s going to high school this fall. Aurora West or Aurora East. Let’s hope he’s taken official visits.
But Boatwright attended Floyd’s camp this summer and now says he’ll become a Trojan in 2011.
“They were the first one to show interest in Ryan,” said Boatwright’s father.
Well, I should hope so.
The father wasn’t through. “A lot of people have said Ryan isn’t that good, but he went to USC’s camp and played well.”
Huh? Who is saying an eighth-grader isn’t that good? A middle-school coach? The kid across the street? A cousin visiting from Joliet?
There’s no way this can end good. Bobby Knight offered eighth-grader Damon Bailey a scholarship years ago, but give Knight credit: he can keep a kid’s head on straight. No way Tim Floyd is Bobby Knight. No way can this help Ryan Boatwright.
“I’m tremendously concerned,” said the kid’s father. “It could get ugly as far as kids getting jealous. I also don’t want it to get to his head. I want him to stay humble.”
Sorry, pops. That ship has sailed.
Stoops’ pyramid adventure
I caught a “King of Queens” episode on late-night television Monday. Doug got hooked up in some goofy pyramid scheme that left him feeling embarrassed.
Welcome to the club, Bob Stoops.
Stoops admitted Monday that he was involved, apparently to a tiny degree, in a pyramid scheme that now is under investigation by federal regulators.
BurnLounge Inc., some kind of online digital music business, touted the participation of Justin Timberlake and Shaquille O’Neal in its operation. Guess that answers the question of who’s bigger in America, Stoops or Justin Timberlake.
The end result of all this is nothing more than embarrassment. Stoops said he invested less than $500, and how he uses or loses his money is none of our business, unless it involves illegal or immoral activities. But still, you’d hope Stoops’ business advisers would be astute enough to keep him away from pyramid schemes.
Steve Spurrier Jr. certainly wishes so. Spurrier said Stoops convinced him to go in on the deal. Hopefully, no one in Oklahoma fell for it, too.
Stoops always has said he has no Internet acumen, doesn’t even read email, which is a good thing. All those goofy financial offers we all get, which are nothing more than trying to get in our pocketbook, are just forms of pyramid schemes, which have been around forever. Heck, a pyramid scheme was the subject of a “Dragnet” episode 40 years ago.
Where’s Joe Friday when you need him?
JamesOn can play in the NBA
JamesOn Curry apparently is going to stay in the NBA draft, and while I think it’s the wrong decision, that doesn’t mean Curry can’t make it in the pros.
Think Jannero Pargo.
The backup guard for the Hornets a year ago is opting out of the back end of a two-year contract, thinking his marketability is decent after a solid year in Oklahoma City. Pargo averaged 9.2 points and 2.5 assists a game for the Hornets as a backup to Chris Paul and Devin Brown.
Curry easily could be as good as Pargo. Heck, what am I talking about? Just think about Brown. Is Devin Brown that much better a player than JamesOn Curry? I don’t see it.
Curry might be an inch or so shorter, but he’s just as athletic and seems to be just as good a shooter, plus he spent two years playing for Eddie Sutton, so you figure he knows a little about defense. If Devin Brown can start for a decent NBA team, why wouldn’t Curry make it in the league?
Pargo was a solid player for the Hornets, able to play the point and shooting guard. Curry could, too. His point-guard skills were apparent a year ago, when he had to relieve Byron Eaton on a regular basis.
JamesOn Curry can play in the NBA. And he knows it. Which is why he wants to get started as soon as possible.
Big 12 needs a strong leader
Kevin Weiberg was a weak commissioner for the Big 12 Conference, as any OU fan can tell you.
The Lubbock fiasco, the Longar Longar suspension. The Sooners certainly had no great reason to consider Weiberg a comrade. But Weiberg’s shortcomings were much deeper than that.
His style of leadership — low key, behind the scenes — did not best serve a league that sometimes is the same. The Big 12 is a big boy on the collegiate sports scene, but is usually trailing the SEC and the Big Ten in terms of power and status, and with the expanded ACC, the Rose Bowl clout of the Pac-10 and the East Coast-press advantage of the Big East, the Big 12 was at times marginalized in terms of bowls and television and even powerful NCAA committees.
That’s partly Weiberg’s fault. But it’s partly the Big 12’s fault.
The Big 12 has not given its commissioners autonomy to guide the league. It has not given its leader the power to direct the conference through the rough waters of collegiate sports.
The league has not wanted a visionary, it has wanted a caretaker. It has not wanted a commissioner who grabs people, internally and externally, by the collar and gets things done. The league has wanted a commissioner who follows orders.
That has been a mistake. The Big 12 has been a follower, not a leader.
That must change with Weiberg’s departure. The league presidents must recognize that the Big 12 needs a commissioner who wields a big stick.
NBA ratings decline bad for OKC
The NBA Finals’ television ratings continue to plunge. A 6.4 rating for Game 3, which is down 30 percent from 2006’s Game 3. That number basically translate into this: 6.4 percent of American homes watched the Spurs-Cavaliers.
And that’s bad news for Oklahoma City.
Here’s why. When the NBA comes to town, OKC will be a marginal market. To flourish, several factors must develop. Some of which are up to us: great fan support, great corporate support. On top of that, a little luck, which already is starting to happen with the draft lottery and the Sonics.
And still, Oklahoma City would be behind the curve, just like San Antonio, Salt Lake City and other smaller markets. OKC’s local television revenue will not be strong. Some franchises, like the Knickerbockers, make as much from local broadcasting rights as they do from the network share.
Others do not. Franchises like the Hornets, Spurs and Grizzlies make only marginal money from local broadcasting. They need all they can get from the network pot.
The current ABC contract is worth about $400 million a year; spread over 30 teams, that’s $13.3 million a year. A franchise in Oklahoma City could use more. A more lucrative contract means more for each franchise, which is not that big a deal in New York City but means everything in Oklahoma City.
And why would ABC, or any other network, keeping paying more if the viewership keeps going down. Of course, the demographics of sport are key, and not as many people are TiVO’ing ballgames, since you don’t want to watch at your leisure.
But still, the declining viewership is bad news for the NBA, but particularly to the small markets.
Supplements are bad news
First off, I’m not scientist. I’m no expert on substances. Don’t claim to be.
But the news that OU supplied banned substances to football players last autumn, then stopped after discovering the NCAA infraction, raises several questions about the entire practice. Not just at OU, but at colleges and even high schools everywhere.
Should schools be in the business of supplying supplements? Isn’t that a dangerous practice?
Strength and conditioning coaches, who generally oversee such dispersals, are virtual summer head coaches. What Jerry Schmidt says about a kid in the summer weighs mightily with Bob Stoops. What Rob Glass says about a player at OSU weighs mightily with Mike Gundy.
Players are beholding to these summer drill sergeants. Which can lead to trouble on two fronts. Players could take stuff they shouldn’t be taking, trying to impress these conditioning leaders. Players also could take stuff they don’t want to take, because the summer bosses gave it to them.
I suppose some supplements are OK, though I will need a panel of unbiased medical experts to say so before I sign off on it. Why eating healthy and working out isn’t enough, well, that’s left up to the NFL scouts to explain.
The summer conditioning programs are an absolute byproduct of college football being a talent mill for the NFL. I believe summer-conditioning programs should be banned.
College football players should be given the summers off. I know, I know. They WANT to work out, they WANT to become the best football players they can be, not because it could good old Alma Mater U. win games, but because it could help them go high in the draft.
But summer workouts are not in their best interests. Not by a longshot.
Better for players to take a summer off. Work. Go to school. Go to the beach. Live like normal students. That’s always a good idea.
Big 12 baseball down
Here’s what we discovered about Big 12 baseball during the NCAA Tournament. 2007 was not a strong year.
Oklahoma State was the final team standing, if you can call it that. O-State took Louisville to a climax game in the Super Regional but was outscored 31-5 for the weekend.
At least the Cowboys won a game. Texas A&M was swept by Rice in the Super Regional. But at least the Aggies made it. Texas, Missouri, Nebraska and Baylor all were ushered out in the regionals.
A sorry showing for Big 12 baseball, and one more reason why the Sooners have no beef for being bypassed by the NCAA Tournament. Finish seventh in this league, as OU did, and you have no argument.
Truth is, we should no longer listen to also-rans in major conferences who cry out for respectability. Check out the teams in the College World Series. Cal State-Fullerton. Louisville. Cal-Irvine. Rice.
Teams with limited baseball tradition or small athletic budgets or both are making noise on the diamond. The message is clear to Big 12 teams. Take care of business, because no one is going to give you a pass.
Put no limits on Clemens
Roger Clemens bashing is all the rage, and maybe for good reason. Despise his parachuting into a major-league roster in June. Write him off for his burnt orange blood. Indict him in your mind because he’s probably skating free on some foreign substance while the Barry Bonds crowd gets all the slings and arrows.
But you’ve got to give Clemens credit. He’s walking in awfully tall cotton.
The Rocket is back, getting major-league victory Number 349 Saturday night. Clemens is cruising into serious history. He’s only 12 wins behind Kid Nichols, 14 behind Warren Spahn, 15 behind Pud Galvin.
After that comes only the holy names of pitching. Grover Cleveland Alexander and Christy Mathewson at 373 wins, Walter Johnson at 417 and Cy Young at 511.
Who would have thought a modern pitcher could catch Pud Galvin, who was born in 1856 and pitched in the century when guys would throw every other day? Who would have thought a modern pitcher could catch Spahn, who is the one modern-era player whose stats are most out of date from his contemporaries?
All those other guys on the list, sans Spahn, are from the dead-ball era or the 19th century. But Clemens is set to join them in the 350-win club, and who knows how high he could go. Clemens will win 15-20 more games if he comes back again next season. Put no limits on what Clemens might achieve.
