I receive unsolicited football media guides — useless to me — from Texas A&M, Notre Dame and, don’t ask me why, the Air Force Academy. To get a much-needed media guide from the University of Texas, I must beg and grovel (see “Parting Shots”). So I can’t tell you exactly how many times Ricky Williams had carries for 20+ yards last year. Suffice it to say there were many. What the bizarre loss to NC State showed me was not the fixable blowups on special teams but the many, many ways we took Williams for granted. All those 7-yard runs that put the offense in strong 2nd and 3, or 3rd and 1 situations. All those 20-yard runs that gobbled up field position in one-play gulps. All those 40-yard runs cutting 80-yard fields in half. All those 60-yard runs — quick six-spots slapped on a stunned opponent. Not converting on 3rd and 1 was beyond comprehension. It just didn’t happen. Now, one game post-34, his value becomes ever so clear. Last season in 100 typical plays, Texas ran the ball 60 times. A coach’s dream. Mack Brown wants to run a balanced attack, but even with UT in total control of the game, in the lead until the end, the offense had to pass the ball 46 times, compared with only 36 ineffective running plays. If this trend continues — and it likely will, because NC State isn’t Nebraska — bad things will happen. Applewhite will be throwing when the defense wants him to, as opposed to last year when Williams was a life-and-death threat on every down. Ineffective running = forced passing on 3rd & 8 = more interceptions + more exposure to sacks and injury. If I had that media guide, I could tell you about that third-string QB. You might see him sooner than you think. …
“Chicks,” so goes the Nike commercial, “dig the long ball.” Cute spot. Since my feminine side is pretty well submerged these days, I suppose I wouldn’t know the truth of this. For me, the long ball has become a hackneyed image. Where only a few years ago the great sluggers in the game — Aaron, Banks, Mantle, Killebrew, Mays — would claw all season to reach 40, now a pure doubles hitter like Rafael Palmeiro blows by 40 — in August no less! — for the second straight year. This sucks. Something is very wrong. When the dollar’s worth a penny, who cares about being a millionaire? The game’s most special moment, like a 70-yard TD run, has been disgracefully devalued. The once majestic, relatively rare home run has been turned into a single through the infield. I couldn’t care less about the “home run race.” Last year was okay, I guess. Chasing of ghosts and whatnot. This year the McGwire/Sosa show is like a tired summer rerun. Both these guys, playing for awful, losing teams, are hitting shots that mean nothing. No pressure. No drama. No big deal. Do you chicks really dig the long ball? …
The most irrational, self-destructive, and unnecessary institution in professional sports is the NFL preseason. I count 40 players around the league who will miss at least a month of the regular season due to injury. Several of them won’t play at all in ’99. All injured practicing. And for what? Pro teams come to summer camp in mid-July and for a month and a half kick the shit out of each other. Many clubs are realistically destroyed before they play a single game that counts. Six-week camps are an anachronism, a throwback to the old days when players sold insurance and stocked beer trucks during the off season. Today, when all teams have mini-camps, seemingly all year long, when the players are in football training 365 days a year, why doesn’t some common sense prevail? That it would be considered revolutionary (probably insane) for a coach to spend the first two weeks of camp on nothing but padless conditioning work and then severely limit contact scrimmages speaks volumes for the myopic, static thinking of the NFL. I understand that preseason exhibitions help pay the big salaries, but still, there has to be a better way.
Parting Shots: The University of Texas, and specifically John Bianco, football sports information director, has decided to strip The Austin Chronicle of press credentials for the ’99 football season. Citing “space limitations” as a reason, Bianco has generously offered to allow the Chronicle, properly accredited since the day I took over this job eight years ago, to apply to other games with his administrative assistant on a “game-by-game basis.” He’s also richly allowed us the opportunity to apply with his office for a chance to cover football practice. The Chronicle has always been a barely tolerated presence at the University. They don’t like writing and commentary that deviates more than a degree or two from media guide pablum, from myself or from other writers at this paper. Now that the team has rebounded and the coffers are brimming with gold, Bianco feels safe pulling the plug on Chronicle access to the only major sport in town.
This article appears in September 3 • 1999.