Coach's Corner

The plan was this. With UT playing at Old Mizzou, I'd write a column on some of the lesser sports on campus, hoping to discover an un-commercialized, unsullied area of amateur sport. On a lovely fall Saturday afternoon, as the Big Dogs were getting stomped by my alma mater in Columbia, I dragged Kelly over to the Penick Allison Tennis courts to watch the Reebok All-American Tournament. It was three o'clock. The stands held a smattering of maybe 75 tennis fans, mostly parents, relatives, girlfriends, and assorted volunteers. I like tennis but, I must report, it was boring. Un-commercial to be sure, but deadly dull. We lasted one hour, which was exactly 37 minutes more than Kelly wanted to stay.

Next was volleyball. I'd made up my mind in July to become a volleyball fan. Nice tall babes, no bands or music, fast game. What's not to like? I got season tickets. To my chagrin, I soon discovered volleyball's gone big time. A game played in the Erwin Center comes with all the loud bells and whistles of a basketball game, except it's even more contrived, complete with the stupid light show and deafening player introductions. The annoying PA announcer, with his far past cliché-ridden lingering on every syllable, "Sooooooonia Barrrrnes," is like the buzzing of 10,000 mosquitoes in a small tent. To my complete astonishment, a volleyball match often runs more than three hours. Longer than basketball, football, or even an average baseball game. So much for fast-paced.

Sandwiched in between was Midnight Madness. How this has come to become an "event" in basketball arenas around the country is way beyond me. Yes, it's free. But so is the late-night movie. So much for the column on the "lesser" sports. On to Plan B.

The Austin print media, when it comes to football, suffers from an acute schizophrenic disorder. When the heroes win, it's either a pivotal victory or a turning point. The media doesn't care how bad the opponent was or how bad the good guys looked or what happened the week before. A win, any kind of win, brings on giddy talk of bowl games and stretch runs. After a lucky win over Rice -- Rice, for godssake! -- the media forgets about the debacle the week before. Bowl games. Stretch runs. On the other hand, when the heroes lose, it's off with the king's head and let's kill his horse, too. All those happy words of last week are forgotten. Let's report games within the context of the season. An ugly win over the Owls is nothing to crow about. Call it a win, forget all the six-o'clock-happy-talk news and move on to next week.

The baseball playoffs have finally provided the nest for all the pigeons to come home to roost. Since the advent of free-agency, the overriding fear has been so-called big market teams burying so-called small market teams beneath an avalanche of cash and more cash. That day is now. In the playoffs this year are the monster payrolls of Seattle, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, Miami, and Atlanta. Each "team" nothing is more than a band of paid Hessians, here this year, gone the next. The Indians have only four players remaining from its World Series roster of just two years ago. There's nothing good about this. Teams aren't really teams anymore, at best, interesting collections of players. Baseball's form of modern-day carpetbagging, combined with its deadly directionless management, will relegate the game to a permanent third-place status in American sports.

Okay, so baseball, like John Mackovic, is an easy target, but explain this to me: Don Ohlmeyer, NBC West Coast chief, is quoted as saying he hoped the World Series was a "Four and out," so it wouldn't mess up the network's Thursday ratings? Veteran National League umpire Eric Gregg says Blow Me, after ending a playoff game by calling a strike on a ball about three feet outside. "Showcase" games drone on towards midnight. This kind of arrogant incompetence and general weirdness can only occur in the world's most poorly managed sport.

I met Mackovic once. He seemed, contrary to everything we read about him, to be a nice guy, with a surprising sense of humor. But, so what? Sometimes, I'm a nice guy. I can be funny, too. This may be good for dating, but not that helpful for winning football games. It's clear to anyone with eyes that the coach has lost control of his team and the season. Say whatever you will about priorities, football is important in Texas. The team needs a new coach.

Let's talk about Emmitt Smith. I've bought into Emmitt being a great back. The game a few years ago when he played the second half of a must-win game against the Giants with a freshly separated shoulder was remarkable. No question, that's one tough man. But how good a running back is he? Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, and Eric Dickerson ran for most of their careers behind mediocre -- or worse -- offensive lines and still put up monster rushing numbers. Smith ran behind the most dominant offensive line of the decade. Now, the blocking's broken down, and Smith looks very ordinary. Emmitt's a class guy, but I'm no longer so sure he's one of the best who ever played the game.