“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst into that silent sea.”
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
After a four-month sail through a hot, windless, and featureless summer, still as any doldrums experienced by the old mariner, a somnambulant sports world woke with a jolt as three major stories burst upon the scene — two of them uncharacteristically bold proclamations from league offices. First, to the corporate offices on Park Avenue.
Professional and college sports have been so tarnished in recent decades — from the petty (UCLA jocks stealing handicapped parking permits) to the most vile (Rae Carruth arranging for the murder of his pregnant wife), from Husker Land (Lawrence Phillips hair-dragging girlfriends about like Samsonite luggage) to Barry Switzer’s outlaw football dorm at OU, that the average sports fan didn’t bat an eyelash when Bam Morris was again found with enough pot in his car to toast Hawaii and most of Thailand. We’re jaded by the certain knowledge that the harshest penalty a player might incur for virtually anything short of a public murder might be a one-game suspension, preferably for an exhibition game.
Finally, a league stood up and said, this isn’t right, your actions are no “little blemish.” They don’t “mirror society at large.” In society at large, the stomping of a police officer will be punished. The perpetrator probably won’t be at work on Monday. But when this happens to Rashard Casey, and Mr. Casey just happens to be the senior QB at Penn State University, then pious Joe Paterno announces that the case is “still being investigated.” Meanwhile, Casey will be the Nittany Lions’ starting quarterback in the fall.
NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue — heretofore a weak owners’ flack — did the unexpected when he fined Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis $250,000 for his involvement in a grisly multiple homicide on an Atlanta street corner last January.
Tagliabue’s action is significant. First, he didn’t have to do it. Lewis, after all, pleaded out of a murder rap — down to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice — in exchange for his testimony. This was more than ample excuse for the league to claim justice had been done and let the matter drop right there. And anyway, leagues pay lip service to their public image, but in reality who cares? Are the NFL’s ratings down because of all the negative publicity their employees generate? Do fewer fans go out to the ballpark to watch steroid-jacked shortstops pound 500-foot homers? Nah. Who gives a shit?
And $250 Gs is a lot of cash — even to a millionaire athlete. In fact, it’s the biggest fine ever meted out from a league office to one of its own. The fine is being appealed, of course. Lewis’ agent, one Roosevelt Barnes, indignantly compared his client’s little problem of obstructing a murder investigation to running a red light, claiming to be flabbergasted at all the fuss — thus demonstrating that agents do indeed possess razor-sharp minds capable of the most abstract reasoning (in addition to a sense of humor).
On a wildly different tangent, the NBA made big — if underreported news — with at long last promulgating some sensible rule changes to help the sludge-like flow of the games’ final minutes. What makes this so fantastically remarkable is it’s the first time any idea of mine has been embraced, no matter how indirectly, by anybody! I’ve been bitching for a decade about the mind-numbing suffocation in what should be the best part of a basketball game — the last few minutes. The NBA Competition Committee, in its infinite wisdom, has reduced the limit on timeouts per team per game by one. Better, the number of flow-breaking fourth-quarter TO’s has been cut to three. Better still, one less timeout during the last two minutes. And the coup de grace: Many timeouts will be reduced from 100 seconds to 60. “We’ve been concerned about the length of time it can take to play the last few minutes of a close game…” So spoke Stu Jackson, in a classic understatement. The NBA senior VP declined to note The Austin Chronicle‘s longtime correspondent’s incessant carping as a motivating factor in this wise decision.
And last: Tiger Woods — an athlete so good he’s killed long-running betting pools. Tiger can’t help it if he’s the world’s most feared athlete. At a pup’s age of 24, he can only find more ways to further define his sublime skill. In spite of CBS’s best efforts at ruining a rare golf drama — running four commercials for every three golf shots — an obscure professional journeyman, known only to his mom, played the best golf in his life at the PGA Championships, yet proved to be only another foil, a footnote to Tiger’s greatness. Tiger confronting a loss — so stoked to see someone stand up to him his eyes were bulging out of his head from the thrill of the hunt — only proved how superhuman he is. On the back nine both guys fired lightning bolts: each making five birdies with an otherworldly assortment of pressure-packed putts, sand saves, and assorted other golf wizardry.
But no matter how well Bob Who played, Woods played a little better.
This article appears in August 25 • 2000.