Artists & the world of sports
I had a grand time Friday night. The Dish and I attended the only concert we annually hit. 1964: The Tribute, a wonderful group of Beatles impersonators. I’ve been going for probably 10 years and look forward to it every time.
But Friday night was a special treat. For the first time that I’ve seen, the Fab Four had a little help. A brass section and a strings section accompanied them on on a couple of songs. And the violinist was a new friend, John Arnold.
I met John only a week ago, on my trip to the Super Bowl. He was seated on the front row of the Southwest flight to Phoenix on Sunday morning; he had the window seat and I took the aisle, and he introduced himself immediately. Turns out we have a mutual friend, Rusty Olson, who was my radio sidekick on KREF for several months before I switched stations.
John was on his way to the Super Bowl, too. His family was meeting in Phoenix and he was excited to see his nephews and enjoy the game with his brother-in-law, a big Patriots fan. We rode back on the same flight Monday morning and talked about our Super Bowl night. It was fun meeting John.
He told me he taught violin at OCU, but I never knew he could make the fancy fiddle dance like that. He was big-time good. MY brother-in-law, before he knew my connection to John, remarked what a superb musician he was.
And it all made me marvel again at what a diverse group of people make up sports fans. The stereotypical sports fan is that Saturday Night Live spoof of “Da Bears” fans. But sports fans are made up of all kinds of people, including artists.
The best teacher I ever had was Dennis Miller, who taught me 11th-grade philosophy at Norman High School and 12th-grade poetry. I took poetry only because he taught it. Dennis was tall, bearded, scholarly looking. He spoke very intelligently, but with a lyrical style that sort of mesmerized students. You learned something every day from Dennis. I went to college and graduated with a double major, history and English, and I never had a better professor than Dennis Miller.
Later, Dennis Miller became a very good friend. We didn’t sit around discussing Plato. We played hoops together. Dennis was a basketball player growing up in Kansas, and into his 50s he still could play. Better yet, he was a die-hard Dodger fan and baseball nut. Plus an OU sports follower and general all-around sports fan. He was a man of letters who also could talk Carl Furillo and Davey Lopes.
A violinist who loves the NFL. A philosopher who goes back 50 years with the Dodgers. Sports fans make the world go round.
NCAAs iffy for Sooners
Here’s what OU’s home loss Monday night to Texas meant. The Sooners can afford no more home defeats while they try to scratch out two more road victories.
OU needs to get to 9-7, at least, to warrant inclusion into the NCAA Tournament. The Sooners’ non-conference schedule is good enough to cut them some slack with the NCAA committee. OU beat Arkansas at Lloyd Noble Center, Gonzaga at the Ford Center and West Virginia in Charleston. That’s a solid resume’.
But not solid enough to get in with an 8-8 Big 12 record. The Big 12 isn’t that good of a league this year. And right now, OU is minus-one, in terms of home defeats and road wins. Right now, OU is on pace for a 7-9 Big 12 record.
The Sooners still have some winnable road games. Colorado, Oklahoma State, Nebraska. They also have Texas A&M coming to the LNC, a game late in the year that could end up being the decider. What it all means is this. OU better start piling up the road victories, beginning Saturday at Colorado, while protecting the homecourt, or it’s NIT for the Sooners.
An idea for coaches
There’s an old saying about college football coaches. Recruits who are wined and dined and courted, made to feel like the Queen of Sheba, made to feel like their homestead is the epicenter of the universe, get a rude awakening when they hit campus as members of the team.
“Whatever happened to the nice man who was recruiting me?” The athletes suddenly are in boot camp, with a conditioning coach who gets in their grill and lets them know they’ve entered a new world. They are run, they are drilled and they are yelled at. It gets marginally better when practice starts, particularly off the field, but on the gridiron, they are run, they are drilled and they are yelled at.
So here’s what I want to see. I would like coaches to baptize these guys even earlier. Tell the truth on signing day. “Joey Allstate from Southside High School? He’s too fat. He’ll help us if he drops about 20 pounds and learns to skip the cheeseburgers.” Or “Speedy Simpson from Meadow Tech can run like the wind, but he better learn to take a hit. He’s softer than a feather bed.” Or “Bubba Ratcliffe is a risk. He can block and he can tackle and he could jump to the NFL right now, but if he doesn’t learn to read, no way he’s going to make it at our school. He’s dumb as a stump.”
Today, from Mike Gundy and Bob Stoops and every other coach in America, we are going to hear about what an excellent class was signed. The speech is the same every year. We all know it’s not necessarily true, and the coaches know we know it’s not true, and we know the coaches know it’s not true. But they keep saying it and we keep reporting it and the fans keep celebrating it.
This recruiting game is the REAL fantasy football. A little honesty would change that.
Belichick blows it
Bill Belichick is a fabulous football coach, but he didn’t give his team its best chance to win Super Bowl 42. Recall the 4th-and-13 decision in the third quarter? Belichick got a little arrogant. We’ll never know if it cost him.
New England led 7-3 midway through the third quarter and faced 3rd-and-7 from the Giant 25-yard line. Tom Brady dropped back to pass, tried to run away from the New York rush, but old pro Michael Strahan ran down Brady and tripped him up for a six-yard loss, back to the 31.
First of all, huge play by Strahan. Big, big, big. If Brady throws incomplete there, Stephen Gostkowski comes on for a 43-yard field goal, and the Patriots probably take a 10-3 lead and have 17 at game’s end. Instead, it was a sack, bringing up 4th-and-13, and that’s where Belichick blew it.
He had three options. And Belichick chose the one that made no sense. He went for the first down. Brady threw into the end zone, overthrowing Jabar Gaffney. The Giants didn’t do anything with the field position, punting after a couple of first downs, but still, no sense. Either of the other two Belichick options would have been better:
1. Try the field goal. Gostkowski is no Adam Vinatieri, a two-time Super Bowl hero, but he’s a solid kicker. Yes, it would have been a 49-yard field goal, but we were indoors Sunday night. Belichick horribly miscaculated this game. He must have believed the Patriots were going to come out of their scoring shell and would win this game, unless they did something stupid. He obviously had little confidence in Gostkowski and didn’t want to give the Giants the ball in good field position.
“It was a 50-yard field goal,” Belichick said. But if that was such a big deal, why not punt, which was option No. 2.:
2. Punt: If field position was such a big deal, if eight yards is so huge that it’s worth not trying for three precious points, then 11 yards must be mighty big, too. Punt that ball out of there and give New York the ball at its 20, instead of the 31. Belichick must have liked his fourth-down play, and in fairness, Gaffney might have found a seam, had the ball been delivered properly by Tom Brady.
But counting on a 13-yard gain was silly. New England was not a big-play offense against the Giants (or the Chargers, for that matter). New England’s longest play of the night: 19 yards. That’s right. The most productive offense in NFL history had its second straight game without a gain of at least 20 yards.
The Giant pass rush didn’t give Brady time enough to deliver a long pass. The Patriots weren’t likely to make the 4th-and-13. Gostkowski had a much better chance of success with his 49-yard field goal. Gostkowski had a better chance at a 59-yard field goal than did the Patriots of converning 4th-and-13.
Belichick is king of the three-point Super Bowl wins: 20-17 over the Rams, 32-29 over the Panthers and 24-21 over the Eagles. But he lost a three-point verdict, 17-14, Sunday night. When passing out blame, Belichick can start with himself.
Eli grows up even more
FOX cameras caught Peyton Manning clapping in triumph after his little brother hit Giants tight end Kevin Boss over the middle for what became a 45-yard gain. Five plays later, Eli Manning completed an 80-yard drive with a dart-a-keyhole pass to David Tyree for a 5-yard touchdown pass that gave the Giants a 10-7 lead.
I’ve been saying it for a month. We are seeing the newest quarterback star in the NFL. Eli Manning has grown up. He’s been solid, solid, solid in these playoffs, and now he’s got a chance to win the Super Bowl. Eli is outplaying Tom Brady, who has some decent numbers tonight but most of them on swing passes that leave the dirty work up to the pass catchers.
Win or lose tonight, the Giants are going to be a load for years to come. They can rush the passer, and they’ve got themselves a quarterback, and that’s where you start when you build a football team.
Welker best offensive player
We’ve played three quarters of Super Bowl 42, and the best offensive player on the field is the guy who wasn’t good enough to get a scholarship at OU or OSU, which is not the highest of crimes, considering a Miami Dolphins team that just went 1-15 decided Wes Welker couldn’t help, either.
Welker has seven catches for 72 yards, and he just made a huge play in this field-position game: a 16-yard catch on 2nd-and-15 from the New England 5-yard line. Tom Brady threw behind Welker, who turned his body and speared the ball, then held on as the Giants’ Gibril Wilson smacked him and tried to pull the ball away.
New England eventually punted, but not in the shadow of its end zone. The Patriots advanced into Giant territory, then punted, pinning New York at its 20.
Welker’s numbers aren’t huge, until you consider New England has only 211 total yards.
Welker is not the best player on the field. That distinction belongs to the Giants’ Jason Tuck, I suppose, or one of those other New York pass rushers who are making life miserable for Tom Brady.
But offensively, it’s Welker.
Appreciate this game
Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we’re seeing until we see it no more. So don’t let that happen to you in this Super Bowl. This is one of the great defensive battles we’ve seen in years.
7-3 with three minutes left in the third quarter, in a game involving the 2007 Patriots? That’s a game for the ages.
The Giants don’t have a fireworks offense, but New York certainly has been good offensively in these playoffs, and New England’s defense, while good isn’t great, so the Patriots deserve a pat on the back.
But this New York defensive effort is historic. Sort of a pro version of Oklahoma’s defense against Florida State in the Orange Bowl. No way did anyone think the Giants could hold down Tom Brady and the Patriots like this. But they are, with the thing that always works against a big-time passer. A ferocious pass rush.
Field position game
Bill Belichick just told us something with his throw-it-long decision on 4th-and-13 from the Giants 31-yard line: He doesn’t have great confidence in kicker Stephen Gostkowski, who could have tried a 49-yard field goal.
Why else would Belichick not kick? The loss of field position is not great. If Gostkowski had missed, the Giants would have taken over at the 39-yard line. Throwing incomplete gave New York the ball at the 31. What’s the difference in that?
Keep an eye on this. If New England needs a field goal, don’t get too confident in the replacement for ultimate Super Bowl hero Adam Vinatieri. Belichick certainly isn’t.
Welker leads receivers
After four minutes of the third quarter, the game’s leading receiver in yards and catches is Wes Welker, four for 39. Good for Welker, but that’s not a lot of yardage this deep into the game. Amani Toomer had a salty 38-yard catch, but the other marquee guys have been relatively quiet. Randy Moss has one catch for 18 yards, and the Giants’ Plaxico Burress has one for 14.
The rushers aren’t much better, although the Giants have had some success. Brandon Jacobs, a battering ram at 264 pounds, has 35 yards on 11 carries. His slight backup, Ahmad Bradshaw, has 26 yards on four carries. That’s 61 yards on 15 carries for the New York tailbacks.
So look for the Giants to keep trying to run the ball, particularly if they stay within a possession of the lead. And look for the Patriots to keep throwing to Welker, who had two catches for 22 yards on New England’s first possession of the half.
Heartbreak hotel?
It’s halftime of Super Bowl 42, and still we don’t know if Tom Petty’s band will be the only Heartbreakers in University of Phoenix Stadium. The New York football Giants still could claim that title.
Through a half, the Giant defense is playing a game for the ages. New England has had the ball four times, with only a 56-yard touchdown drive — saved by a third-down pass interference penalty — to show for it. Giant lineman Jason Tuck is playing the game of his life, and the rest of the New York defenders aren’t half bad, either.
The Patriots have eight first downs, and four of those came on that opening drive. New England has just 81 total yards, 58 fewer than the Giants. Yes, the Patriots lead 7-3, but New York has turned this into just the kind of game it can win.
I’ve been saying it all night, but I think Tom Brady is going to have to go to Wes Welker more. Randy Moss got open for an 18-yard gain late in the first half, but a couple of other times, Brady tried to go deep to Moss, and it’s just not there. New England will have to try to chop up the Giants with quick passes. New York’s pass rush is too good for Brady to get much time to throw.
