Hurricane warning in South Florida
More from The Q&A: Courtney Paris
Courtney Paris just finished her rookie season in the WNBA.
Even though she’s finished her season, she’s staying busy. The former Oklahoma Sooner superstar has made several appearances in Tulsa as the city works to land a WNBA team. She is also preparing to head overseas to play this fall and winter with a professional team in Israel.
All the while, though, she’s motivated by a rookie season that was a struggle. Sacramento finished 12-22, the worst record in the WNBA, and went through a coaching change mid-way through the year. Paris had her own struggles early, though she grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds in the Monarchs’ season finale.
Jenni Carlson: Let’s talk about your rookie season. I wrote about you right before Sacramento played Seattle on national TV. You were struggling to get off the bench, but that game seemed like a turning point.
Courtney Paris: For me, it was all about just being patient. That was the hardest thing, especially when you want to be out on the court. Your team’s not doing well. You’re struggling. It’s hard to wait for things to change. That was just a personal growth point for me. I went up to another level. The crazy thing is, a couple games after that, we changed coaches and now I had to learn a new system. That brought on its own stresses.
JC: With the coaching change being in your rookie year, did you almost get to the end and feel like, “Man, I’m just getting the hang of this”?
CP: I think everybody feels that way. We won our last game, and the second half of the season, we almost played well enough to make the playoffs. If we would’ve done that in the first half, we’d still be playing. But I’m just going to use the second half of the season into this overseas season. I’m just really excited about the opportunity to play basketball, see the world and make money doing it.
JC: Oh, yeah, the paychecks.
CP: It’s not a bad job.
JC: Did you make any fun purchases with that WNBA money?
CP: I have not. In college, (twin sister, Ashley, and I) scrapped together and were able to buy a home and a car. Now, you’re paying those mortgage payments and car notes, and it’s not as hard as it was in college. I’ve just been able to save, so that’s the cool part.
JC: Most people your age aren’t able to save much, so well done.
CP: You know, I’m not much of a shopper. The only time I ever buy anything is when I absolutely need it or I feel like I will never be able to get this again. Otherwise, I don’t buy it. Ashley’s kind of the exact opposite.
JC: I know you won one of the WNBA’s Community Assist Awards. What did that mean to you?
CP: A lot. I’m one of those people that even when everything isn’t going as well as it could be … there’s something you can do. Like in college, if you’re having a bad shooting night, at least you can rebound. This season was a struggle as far as the way our team finished. But I feel like you can always impact something or somebody. For me, being able to do work through my foundation … it was like, basketball’s not going the way I want, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a responsibility to the community.
JC: You mention your foundation. How did the Courtney Paris Pay It Forward Foundation come to be?
CP: It might even tie in a little with the whole guarantee thing back in college. (Laughs.) I just feel like I’ve had so many opportunities in my life, and I’ve been able to do so many great things, but I wouldn’t have been able to do them without help from other people. I just want to pay that back to the community. I want to help the community, help people the way I was helped. You can’t always go back and help the same people that helped you, but you can help the next little kid.
Can good come from hazing incident?
Heisman Trophy talk
How can the Heisman Trophy race be so clear, yet so muddled at the same time?
Yours truly is a voter in the HeismanPundit.com/Orlando Sentinel straw poll. Every week, myself and about a dozen other voters submit our top five picks for the Heisman Trophy, and over the past few weeks, a pattern has emerged. The players among the top three are clear cut, but everything else is anyone’s guess.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and Cal running back Jahvid Best are the top guys at this point in the season.
After that, who knows?
Even the order of the top three guys has shuffled around a bit. I’ve kept Tebow, McCoy and Best in the same order on my ballot since we voted after the opening week of the season. (Sam Bradford dropped off after his shoulder injury.) But the poll changed this week when Best traded places with McCoy, moving into second place behind Tebow.
As for other contenders, I think I’ve changed my No. 4 and No. 5 vote-getters every week. I haven’t had the same two in consecutive weeks yet. I’ve had everyone from Mississippi quarterback Jevon Snead to Oklahoma State receiver Dez Bryant to Houston quarterback Case Keenum to Miami quarterback Jacory Harris.
It’s been a rotating door.
But then, that’s probably how it should be this time of year. Thing is, with the top three finalists returning this year, everyone thought this would be a pretty stable Heisman race. It would be Bradford, McCoy and Tebow, and that would be the end of the story.
Bradford’s injury has changed that. Ditto for Best’s performances, which have been stellar thus far.
So, here’s my ballot, and be sure to check out the entire poll at www.HeismanPundit.com.
1. Tebow
2. McCoy
3. Best
4. Snead
5. Harris
No need to rush Bradford back
More from The Q&A: Damaris Johnson
Tulsa speedster Damaris Johnson is making a name for himself in college football as a return man.
Back home in Louisiana, though, he’s already a standout. As a senior in high school, he led his team to its first state championship in more than three decades, adding another chapter to an already proud history. That title also gave Johnson a leg up on a guy who has become a standout in the NFL.
Jenni Carlson: I’ve seen your hometown listed as New Orleans, Norco and Destrehan. Set the record straight.
Damaris Johnson: I consider Destrehan home.
JC: What was life like growing up in the Bayou?
DJ: I grew up with the same guys that I ended up playing high school ball with. We were probably on different teams when we were younger, but we had an AAU basketball team that most of the guys were on, so I got to play with those guys. We got it together going into senior year, and we ended up winning the state championship in football.
JC: Football at Destrehan High School is a big deal, right?
DJ: Our program, it was real good. There were a lot of good athletes that you have to follow behind. For you to make a name for yourself, you really have to do something special because we had such great players in the past. Like Ed Reed, he’s a guy that set the bar for everybody.
JC: A lot of those good players didn’t have state titles, though. Your team was the first in more than 30 years to win a championship. Proud of that?
DJ: Yes, ma’am. Definitely.
JC: I’m sure you showed that ring off a bit.
DJ: Yeah. (Laughs.)
Tulsa will test OU coverage teams
Parting shots from Fight Night
My ears have finally stopped ringing.
If you were at the Cox Convention Center for UFC Fight Night, you know what I’m talking about. For those of you who weren’t, let’s put it this way — the bass in the sound system got a workout.
The sights and the sounds were front and center in my column, but here are a few final thoughts on UFC’s triumphant return to Oklahoma:
* Dana White was easily the biggest star in the building. The UFC president was cheered wildly when he entered the arena, then on a couple of occasions where he went near the seats, he was almost mobbed for autographs.
As I said in my column, I don’t agree with everything he’s done. Why he needs to curse all the time is beyond me, too. But he is super fan friendly. Well after the last bout was over and the arena crew was breaking everything down, the houselights came up. White was still signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. There aren’t many folks in the sports world with his cache who would take time to do that.
* The show was good even from the nose-bleed section. I guess, the nose-bleed area was really in the octagon, but in the upper reaches of the arena, the scene was still good.
I ventured into Section 412 and hiked up to Row R to visit some friends. They were about three or four rows from the top. Even there, the view of the fights was good. Sure, I found myself watching the jumbotrons on occasion, but I did that from my octagon-side seat on press row, too.
Truth is, the seats there in Section 412 were about $60. If you bought one of those tickets and were there start to finish, it would’ve averaged out to about $12 an hour. That’s not bad for five hours of entertainment.
* There were a good number of men and women in the stands dressed to the nines. Lots of tight, muscle-hugging shirts on the guys. Even more tight, cleavage-revealing tops on the gals.
Didn’t look that much different than a Thunder game, really.
I know some folks want to believe that the mixed martial arts crowd is a redneck, backwoods bunch. No doubt there are some fans that fit that mold, but there are plenty who aren’t that way. I even saw a guy in a suit and tie.
Mixed martial arts seems to have a diverse following — men and women, young and old, high-brow and low-dollar — and that’s probably one of the reasons it continues to grow.
What is ailing the Cowboy offense?
Rennels’ actions stir angry emotions
Watching the Danny Rennels situation unfold over these past few months has been difficult.
You know the story: the executive director of the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association was fired earlier this year when an investigation determined that he’d been embezzling funds. The man who’d been put in charge of overseeing high school sports in our state was taking money from the very kids, coaches, teams and schools that he was supposed to be helping and representing.
It was a sad deal. Every time I heard the sum that Rennels was reported to have taken — more than $100,000 — I just shook my head.
But now, my sadness has turned to madness.
Monday, Rennels was charged with embezzling $457,000 from the OSSAA.
To put it in starker terms, he stole almost half a million dollars.
It’s an unbelievable amount. How could this man who championed high school sports, who liked to talk about what was right and good have been skimming thousands upon thousands of dollars at the same time? How could he have been taking checks from sponsors and payments from contractors and using them to pay for what appears to be an expensive internet gambling habit?
How could he?
It is the ultimate betrayal of trust.
I remember talking to Rennels in late 2005. That was when the Tucker Brown case had everyone talking. The Shawnee quarterback had been ejected late in a playoff game for fighting, which carries a two-game suspension. That meant he wasn’t going to be able to play Shawnee’s next game, and after much haranguing and many delays, the case ended up in court.
I went to Rennels’ office at the OSSAA to talk about the brouhaha. His association, in many ways, had become the evil empire in the disagreement.
Rennels told me a little about his small-town, hard-scrabble upbringing, which had instilled his sense of right and wrong.
“It’s not, I don’t think, that I’m hard headed,” he told me that day. “It’s that I think there are some lines, and those lines, when defined and when you understand them, have to be followed.”
That, Rennels said, is why he decided the OSSAA needed to take the case to court.
“The rules are what they are,” he said. “This rule’s not mine. Our schools wanted it. We very simply attempt to enforce the rules that our schools have placed upon themselves.
“I guess I am … a rule-follower.”
According to court documents, Rennels had started embezzling money from the OSSAA about three months earlier.
I know that I should probably focus on what good can come out of this situation, that the OSSAA will likely do a better job of keeping track of its funds, that the organization’s oversight is sure to improve, that it will also get back all of the money that Rennels took. But those positive emotions will have to wait.
Right now, I’m angry, and I suspect plenty of other folks are, too.
