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on January 13, 2010 at 11:46 am
I opened up the sports section this morning to see a small front-page item on Jameel Owens.
You remember him — hot-shot high school football recruit out of Muskogee a couple years back who signed with Oklahoma, then disappeared. Well, he didn’t disappear. He caught four passes as a freshman, but this past season, even with an often hobbled and sometimes horrible receiving corps, he didn’t even get on the field. Owens decided last month that he would leave OU and now he has enrolled at Tulsa.
The thing that caught my eye this morning was that Owens has applied for an NCAA waiver that would allow him to play for the Golden Hurricane next season.
My first thought: no way that’ll be granted. You can’t transfer and say, “Hey, I sat out last year, so I deserve to play right away.” Why even try to sway the NCAA?
Then, I noticed the image splashed across the top of the sports section — a picture of Lane Kiffin, who has decided to leave Tennessee after only one season and become the new coach at Southern Cal.
The juxtaposition was striking.
Here’s Owens, a twentysomething player, just trying to get his career back on track. Maybe he’s got a chance to get that waiver granted, but like most things with the NCAA, that seems unlikely.
And here’s Kiffin, a thirtysomething coach, bouncing around like a pogo stick. A year ago, he was the coach of the Oakland Raiders. A day ago, he was the coach of the Tennessee Volunteers. Now, he’s the coach of the USC Trojans. Who knows where he’ll be next year? Heck, at this rate, who knows where he’ll be next week?
But all of it happens without any penalty to Kiffin. He can go wherever he wants to go whenever he wants. Contracts be damned. Commitments to recruits and players be damned. Kiffin can do whatever he wants.
I’m not saying the NCAA should start restricting coaches’ movements — that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen — but it should take a serious look at the way it restricts player movement. If the coaches can do it, why not the players?
Or at least, why not allow players at least one transfer without penalty during their college eligibility? That way, they could make amends for a bad decision but not be allowed to bounce around all willy nilly from one school to another. If they want to make a second or (gads!) third transfer, they’d have to sit out a year upon transfer.
There’s no way coaches like Lane Kiffin should be allowed to come and go as they please while players like Jameel Owens are restricted at every turn.
on January 12, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Mark McGwire said Monday was the hardest day of his life, said admitting that he used steroids throughout his baseball career was emotional, said he was sorry for what he’d done.
And you can believe the former slugger. After all, you saw the tears in his eyes and heard the wavering in his voice during interviews Monday.
So, yes, you can believe McGwire is contrite.
But you can’t believe everything Big Mac said.
Much more shocking than McGwire’s admission that he used steroids — who didn’t see that coming? — were his statements about how he doesn’t believe steroids helped him hit home runs. He said he had a gift to hit homers. He said studying pitchers and shortening his swing helped him hit home runs. He said he could’ve hit all of those home runs without performance enhancing drugs.
Next up: McGwire will contend that he didn’t need airplanes to fly to all those games during his career, but he took one anyway.
McGwire saying that steroids didn’t help him hit a bunch of his 583 career home runs is kooky talk. It shows that he is still in denial, that he is still immune to the true facts of what he did.
Maybe it’s easier for that way for Big Mac. It’s easier to tell yourself that you could’ve been one of the best players in baseball history without chemical help. It’s easier to make yourself believe that you aren’t the cheater that so many people believe you are.
Hey, Big Mac, whatever you need to do to help yourself sleep at night.
But the rest of us aren’t buying it.
Truth be told, McGwire’s statements about how steroids didn’t help him hit home runs cheapens his admission. Why not say you’re sorry and be done with it? Why not stick to the facts instead of muddying the waters with crazy statements?
Listen, McGwire’s admission was a well-timed event in the first place. By doing it now, he has a chance to control the story, to see the fervor die down by the time spring training begins and he starts work as the St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach. He would never have admitted he used steroids had Tony La Russa not called and offered him a job.
No matter the reason, coming clean can be good for the soul. It can be good for McGwire’s soul. But telling the truth about using steroids won’t help McGwire as long as he continues lying to himself about why he used them.
on January 6, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Big 12 basketball is upon us, and with conference games starting this weekend, that means the college basketball season is near the halfway mark.
So, where do the in-state teams stand?
In deep do-do, that’s where. At least, that’s the case for three of the four men’s and women’s teams at Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
The team with the best chance of making the NCAA Tournament is the OSU women’s squad. The Cowgirls are 12-2 heading into conference play, and their only losses came to highly ranked opponents Ohio State and Michigan State. They also have quality wins against Georgia Tech, New Mexico and Marist.
The Cowgirls have a young squad led by Andrea Riley, and while they will have their struggles in the rugged Big 12, they are athletic enough and talented enough to win at least half their conference games. That would get them to 20 wins and to the NCAA Tournament.
The formula is similar for the OSU men’s team, and while the Cowboys seem a likely NCAA Tournament team, news out of Stillwater earlier this week makes you wonder.
Big man Marshall Moses was suspended after being arrested over the weekend. The team’s leading rebounder and third-leading scorer faces complaints of driving under suspension and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
Also, little-used big man Teeng Akol has left the team. While he hasn’t played this season, he drew rave reviews from Cowboy coach Travis Ford during the preseason. Now, a potential back-up is gone.
The Cowboys find themselves in turmoil just when they need to be getting their act together.
In Norman, the OU men’s team has already lost five games, so it needs to make up significant ground during conference play. That won’t be easy, especially considering how erratic the Sooners been during non-conference play.
How they fair the rest of the season depends largely on Willie Warren. The sophomore is a super talent, but his performance has been wildly inconsistent. If he plays well, the Sooners have a chance to make the tournament. If not, that will be tough.
It will be tough regardless for the OU women’s team. The Sooners were going to have a rough season with a small roster and the departure of the Paris twins. But after they lost their best player, Whitney Hand, to a knee injury, the level of difficulty skyrocketed.
Winning games in the Big 12 will be difficult, especially in the super-competitive South Division. The margin for error is razor thin.
The truth is, all four of the in-state teams have a small margin for error. The teams at OSU have slightly bigger ones than their OU counterparts, but really, all four teams can’t squander victories. They have to beat the opponents that they’re supposed to beat, and they have to steal an upset victory when they can.
Time for these squads to start conference play.
Time for them to get to work.
