Wilted Rose

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

When I close my eyes, the visual is of him dribbling nonchalantly at the top of the key, the ball transitioning between his hands with each slow, rhythmic bounce.  As the shot clock reaches 10 seconds, the crowd begins an alarmed countdown, but he doesn’t seem to notice.  Slightly bent at the waist, his eyes are calm, his body is relaxed and his expression is neither fearful nor threatening.

As the crescendo-ing verbal chant reaches “six”, his dribble gets more deliberate and his chiseled body launches into motion.  A quick crossover and he is by the overmatched on-ball defender.  Entering the lane, a pack of large defenders collapses on him.  No matter.  He slashes by the first and seven feet from the basket he takes off with rare explosion.  Rising into the air he contorts his body in inhuman ways, splits the final two defenders in mid-flight and violently dunks the basketball.

The crowd leaps to its feet in adulation while a deflated opponent fetches the ball from under the basket.  Derrick Rose, having put an exclamation point on another routine act of jaw-dropping athleticism, cracks a wry smile and meanders back up court.

That daydream was once everyday life with Rose.  In 2008, Rose led a Memphis Tigers team, coached by John Calipari, within a single point of a national championship and nearly busted my golden March Madness bracket in the process.  Memphis eventually lost to Kansas in overtime, but not before Rose, clearly the best player on the floor, scared the bejesus out of me, Dorothy, Toto and anyone else with a real or financial connection with Jayhawk-nation.

Later that summer, Rose, a Chicago native, was the first pick in the NBA Draft…by the Chicago Bulls.  By 2010 he was an All-Star.  In 2011, at the ripe old age of 22, he unseated former Washington Bullets center Wes Unseld at the youngest MVP in league history. 

The fairytale overloaded in the opening game of the 2012 NBA Playoffs.  Penetrating the paint with reckless abandon (much like the story that lurks in my memory), Rose jump-stopped short of the rim.  Instead of finishing with trademark explosion, he grasped at his left knee in mid-air and collapsed near the baseline.  The verdict: torn ACL.

Rose missed the entire 2012-13 season and a meniscus injury to his right knee cost him all but 10 games of the 2013-14 season.  This year was his latest attempt to regain the ferocious, carefree form that once had him among the NBA’s elite.  It was going okay…but after another injury and surgery last week to his right knee, that fabulous version of Rose, the supreme athlete that’s stuck in my head, will likely never be reality again.

Rose’s terrible and unfair demise will change the way I follow sports, the final stage of an on-going process.  I like heroes and villains – we all do.  I like to love and hate and to cheer “my guys” and boo “their guys.”  The love and adulation for members of the home team will remain; it’s the utter disdain - for such things as the Pittsburgh Penguins, Duke Blue Devils and everything Dallas Cowboys – that’s waning.

As a Wizards fan, I shouldn’t like Derrick Rose - but I do.  I should find some sick pleasure in his myriad of career-sapping leg injuries - but I don’t.  Rose made the NBA better and basketball more fun to watch.  He never wore a Wizards jersey, but my goodness his skills were breathtaking (past tense, I’m afraid)…and I took them for granted.  I figured Derrick Rose would be Derrick Rose for years, just like I thought Bo Jackson would dominate the NFL and Tiger Woods would lay waste to Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships.

I’m a fool.  Athleticism isn’t just finite; it is terribly fragile.  One wrong step, one awkward fall and a career can be altered or ended.  Assume nothing; maximize every opportunity; appreciate every moment - even if it means admiring a so-called enemy.  I supposed that’s the lesson in the scars all over Derrick Rose’s knees, a place where sports- and life-wisdom apparently intersect.  

An Enemy Impossible To Hate

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

The plan was to be on the University of Maryland campus at least two hours before tip-off.  After that, our fate would be in the hands of the basketball gods. 

We executed to precision.  My buddy, a devout North Carolina fan, was decked out in Carolina blue; I rocked the best threads from my extensive Terrapins wardrobe.  We were quite the visual contrast, but we shared a common dream: to find our way into Cole Field House to watch the Tar Heels play the always courageous, if not equally talented, Terps. 

There was a fly in our basketball dream’s ointment: we lacked tickets.  That would be a minor issue in today’s age of StubHub, but this game was played on February 22, 1997.  Game day scalpers controlled our fate. 

There was another problem: we were young lads of limited means.  We had eighty bucks.  We were all-in.   

After trolling around Cole for a while, we learned that many (affordable) scalped tickets were specially marked for students.  To use them, you needed a Maryland ID.  The regular tickets?  They far exceeded our meager budget.  It looked bleak for the little fans that could.  

Dejected, we sat slumped on a curb holding out two fingers (a non-verbal demand signal for two tickets).  Five minutes before tip, a voice from the heavens asked, “you guys need two?”  Uh, yessir.  We confirmed they weren’t student tickets and then asked the fateful question: “How much?”

“Gimme forty…for both.”

The seats were in the third row, a few feet from the baseline.  Thieves were we.  Unfortunately, the game lacked the drama of our pre-game adventure.  North Carolina, behind Vince Carter and Antwawn Jamison, cruised to a 93-81 victory.  The 1996-97 season would prove to be long-time Carolina head coach Dean Smith’s last and this game his finale at legendary Cole Field House.

Nearly 18 years later – February 8, 2015 to be exact – I was back on the Maryland campus to watch the women’s basketball team play Nebraska.  At halftime I grabbed my wife’s phone and checked the sports headlines.  Bad news.  Dean Smith had died. 

Smith, after 36 years on the bench, retired with then-record 879 Division 1 wins (many at Maryland’s expense).  Before Duke became Duke, Maryland’s archrival, the thorn in the Terrapins’ shell, was Smith’s Tar Heels.  North Carolina almost always had better talent, seemed to get all the calls and had a knack for break-your-heart late-game heroics. 

I remember one game fondly, though.  On February 20, 1986 – maybe to the day you’re reading this – Len Bias scored 35 points to lead Maryland to a 77-72 overtime win over North Carolina, in Chapel Hill.  It was the Tar Heels’ first loss at the glossy new Dean Smith Center.

But such victories were rare.  Carolina was the big brother Maryland could rarely whip, the standard Maryland never reached. 

This jaded, frustrating history should, by definition, mean that Smith is the enemy.  He should be hated.  Loathed.  His image should incite rage. 

Truth is, I love and respect Dean Smith.  He was just so darn classy.  He wasn’t flamboyant.  He never sought attention or craved credit.  Smith never tried to be bigger than his players, his opponent or the game – he sought only to blend in, despite his gigantic status.  Character was something Smith possessed, not something he was.  And this being Black History Month, it is important to remember his under-publicized (just as Smith would want it) contributions to desegregation.  His progressive acts included being the first UNC coach to grant an athletic scholarship to an African American and crashing a previously all-white restaurant with an African American player shortly after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Former All-American Maryland center and sworn on-court Smith adversary Len Elmore sent out the following tweet after Smith’s death:

“A life well lived, a job well done. The game, society has lost an icon. God bless #The Dean.”

Elmore’s statement captures Smith’s legacy.  A man whose profession demanded a winner and a loser died without a scant hint of an enemy.  Dean Smith: a life well lived, a life to be emulated.  

Moving On

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com) in February 2015

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

The other woman, our faithful fall mistress, has disappeared into another cold February night.  Did she even say goodbye?  Leave her number?  Scribble a farewell on a perfume note?

The abrupt exit, after the best of many sultry nights, was typical.  While her reappearance is inevitable, it won’t occur until the coming summer begins to fade and a hint of fall tickles the evening air. 

Locked in the dead of winter, the prospect is a cruelly far-off dream.  The NFL – that “other woman” – won’t return to invigorate its massive and obsessed fan base for months.  For the time being, memories of the season that was will have to do.

Baltimore’s recollections include Ray Rice and a (ahem) deflating defeat to New England.  Washington’s are of a recurring nightmare: an ineffective turnstile at quarterback, an overwhelmed rookie coach and relentless losing. Depressing.

The story is quite different in the Northeast. With the Patriots’ defeat of the Seahawks, QB Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick – with four Super Bowl titles - have earned a place among the NFL’s immortals.  Good for them, ethical excursions aside.  I would have offered Seattle the same had they won.  With their Adderal flirtations and head coach Pete Carroll’s disintegration of USC football, they aren’t choirboys either.  Few are.

My point - transgressions, aside – is that I’ve come to appreciate both Super Bowl teams. Their journeys were different, but they contained a common element: a willingness to move on.

The Rolling Stone’s song Honky Tonk Woman begins with an inconspicuous cowbell, then a drum beat and finally a distinctive guitar riff.  The sinewy Mick Jagger, a man of unique gyrations, slathers the following lines over the funky rhythm:

“I met a gin soaked barroom queen in Memphis,

She tried to take me upstairs for a ride

She had to heave me right across her shoulder

Cause I just can’t seem to drink you off my mind.”

Jagger sings of a man psychologically consumed by a relationship gone awry and requiring physical force to carry on.  The character is at a crossroads between commitment and determination – commendable traits - and stubbornness and blind faith – the folly of those in denial of the truth.  When to remain persistent and when to abort?  It is a thin line - one Seattle and New England have precisely navigated.  

During the 2012 offseason, Seattle inked former Green Bay quarterback Matt Flynn to a lucrative contract but had the nerve to start an unproven third round pick after he out-performed Flynn in the preseason.  Russell Wilson’s pretty good, eh?  In October, the ‘Hawks traded WR Percy Harvin, roughly 18 months after acquiring him for a steep price, to the Jets for pennies on the dollar.  At the time Seattle was 3-3 and Harvin was the most talented receiver on the team.  It seemed to make little sense.

Seattle didn’t lose between mid-November and the Super Bowl.

The Patriots have a long history of divorcing productive veterans; this year Logan Mankins was jettisoned.  Exiting training camp, the Pats dealt the six-time Pro Bowl guard to Tampa Bay for TE Tim Wright.  The early returns were poor.  After four games, New England was 2-2, QB Tom Brady was under constant pressure and the team looked lost. 

New England re-grouped and won 13 of its last 15 games.

There is a tendency in life – one intensified by age - to cling to the familiar.  Change – personal or professional - engenders anxiety.  The unknown incites fear.  The bird in the hand actually becomes more valuable than two in the bush. 

Had Seattle or New England adopted that philosophy, it’s likely neither would have played in last Sunday’s Super Bowl.  Both had the courage to make difficult decisions, to upset the safer status quo and to deal with dubious short-term returns.  They had guts to move on - and are better for it.  

When confronted with an alternative to the functioning norm, consider these Super Bowl combatants.  Are existing circumstances best?  Perhaps.  Or are we mired in the routine, stubbornly affixed to the known…and secretly hoping a gin-soaked barroom dweller will demand a different course?

Opportunity’s Unexpected Knock

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

“One of the jobs of a coach is ‘Let’s worry about today’…down the road, I think we’re going to be a very good team.”

Ohio State University head football coach Urban Meyer spoke those words during an interview on ESPN Radio’s “Mike and Mike In The Morning” show…on August 20, 2014.  It sounded like a bunch of coach speak, obligatory and desperate dribble offered to placate restless fans and to reassure a roster of young men facing a season in peril.  The thing is, only blind homers or those too young to know any better believe it.  Whether Meyer did or not matters little now; he’s officially a prophet, a football psychic. 

A season-ending shoulder injury to Braxton Miller, Ohio State’s all-everything starting quarterback prompted that August interview with Meyer.  Miller had led the Buckeyes to an Orange Bowl victory the prior season and was considered a serious candidate for the Heisman Trophy in what would be his senior year.  That was until an innocuous pass during non-contact drills shredded his surgically repaired right shoulder.  With four new starters on the offensive line and lacking the prior season’s leading rushing and wide receiver – consequences of graduations – Ohio State seemed particularly ill prepared to absorb the loss of its best player.  But the cosmic allocation of poor fortune never considers its victim’s circumstances.  Ohio State would just have to deal with the unfortunate and likely fatal extraction of Miller from its lineup. 

True to his word (as if he had a choice), Meyer penciled in backup QB J.T. Barrett, a redshirt freshman.  True to the reality of the situation, the Buckeyes struggled early, losing their second game by two touchdowns to a mediocre Virginia Tech team.  Surely that was it.  Season over.  Ah, but back to Meyer’s words: “…down the road I think we’re going to be a good team.”  The loss to Virginia Tech proved to be their last; Miller’s injury, however, wasn’t their last brush with adversity.   

As is well known now, Barrett broke his ankle in the season finale against Michigan, necessitating the introduction of Cardale Jones, the third string quarterback, to the nation in the middle of a potential championship run.  Jones led the Buckeyes to a 59-0 drubbing of Wisconsin the conference championship game, a 42-35 victory over top-ranked Alabama in the national semifinal and a 42-20 defeat of Oregon in the national championship game.

Of course he did.  Of course some unknown kid, buried deep on the depth chart in August and thrust into a stressful, seemingly no-win situation, stepped onto the sport’s biggest stage, played out of his mind and rescued Ohio State’s fairytale ending from misfortune’s zealous clutches.

I’m trying to think of a comp (real estate term) – a comparable player.  I got nothing…all blanks.  In all my years of watching sports I cannot recall anyone being given such an improbable opportunity and seizing it so completely.  Jones started the season with little expectation of seeing a snap.  Instead he took the most important snaps of the season with no advanced warning and after being on ice (i.e. holding a clipboard) for months.  He had no learning curve, no chance to fail or to grow into the role.  It was “here, Cardale, it’s yours.  Good luck.  Everyone’s counting on you…the entire season is on the line.”

Jones stepped in, played with a veteran’s poise and delivered the national championship.  You can’t do that without consistent focus and preparation – and uncommon amounts of both for a 20-something college student who had thrown all of two passes prior to this season.  Talent isn’t enough, not on that stage and not against the teams Jones and the Buckeyes faced. 

The thin line between success and failure – in life and in sports – is often as simple as being prepared to capitalize on opportunities…and Jones is the latest supporting evidence.  In a sports world that’s quick to move on – to the next event, player or season – that is what I’ll remember most about Cardale Jones, the third quarterback who remained ready and able to be his team’s savior and make a prophet out of his coach.

The Consequence Of Ego

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Where were you on March 28, 1994?  I was enjoying spring break – a now long-gone concept in my much too adult life – with the spirit of Jimmy Buffett at the Southernmost Point of these great (continental) United States.  I was nibbling on sponge cake and watching the sun bake.  The effervescence of boiling shrimp was all around.  While sitting on the porch swing an acoustic guitar strummed in my head and I debated getting a brand new tattoo.  I lamented my busted flip-flop and dressed the cut on my heel delivered courtesy of a stray pop-top.  For the life of me, I couldn’t find that lost shaker of salt.  I was in such a good mood that even though my buddy swore a woman was to blame, I freely admitted it was my own damn fault.  The polygraph test has nothing on a few margaritas, I suppose.

I was in Key West on that long ago March day.  My precise memory isn’t because my trip to the little latitudes was unforgettable or the result of my behavior prompting an encounter with local law enforcement; I know of my whereabouts because, while cruising down Route 1 with warm, rejuvenating south Florida air blowing through my window, the radio man announced that Jimmy Johnson, coach of the Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys, had stepped down.

It was a good day to be a Cowboys hater.  In late March 1994, Dallas was just two months removed from a second consecutive Super Bowl title and was poised to become the greatest dynasty in the history of pro football.  Nothing could stop them – except themselves. 

Despite the team’s success and opportunity to rewrite history, owner Jerry Jones and Johnson couldn’t find a way to co-exist.  Not even Big D was large enough to house their massive egos.  The struggle for power and acclaim forced a divorce that weakened the Cowboys and nudged Johnson from a coaching perch he would never recapture.  It is one of the great “what if’s” in sports history.

George Santayana once wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  The recent split between the San Francisco 49ers and head coach Jim Harbaugh indicates both parties have poor memories.  While not the equivalent of Johnson’s seismic departure from Dallas, the Harbaugh-San Francisco divorce is similar in this telling respect: it had nothing to do with football. 

Entering this past season, Harbaugh had led the 49ers to three straight NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl.  Despite that envious record, the 49ers nearly traded Harbaugh in the offseason, a botched move that ultimately undermined the coach and contributed to a substandard 2014 season (San Francisco finished 8-8).  Harbaugh wasn’t unemployed long; the one-time University of Michigan quarterback signed a lucrative deal to coach the Wolverines.  San Francisco’s search for his replacement is ongoing. 

Elite coaches are rare; NFL teams scramble to find them.  Strong organizations and talented rosters are few; coaches long to work in such environments.  Sustained success in the NFL is maddeningly elusive; it is professional nirvana for those in the football business.  Jimmy Johnson and Dallas had found it; so too had Jim Harbaugh and San Francisco.  All of the above had exactly what they wanted and it wasn’t enough - fascinating commentary on all involved. 

An endeavor comprised of competitive, successful, strong and opinionated human beings is going to be combustible.  Discomfort will be frequent.  It will have untenable moments.  But if the desired outcome is achieved, it is incumbent upon the individuals to accept the personally frustrating aspects – organizational authority, credit for the success or the allocation of pay – for prosperity’s sake.  If self-importance rules, if there is no ability for the human components to yield, to listen and to compromise, you get the Cowboys of March 1994 and, it seems, the 49ers of December 2014. 

Jim Harbaugh may find his utopia at Michigan.  The next 49ers coach might do the only thing Harbaugh didn’t - win a Super Bowl.  History, however, indicates that neither party will be as successful apart as they were together.  The consequence of ego is realized…again. 

Washington’s All-Star Giver

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Years ago a colleague convinced me that sports curses were real.  His trek to Southern Maryland began on a different continent – Africa, his place of birth – and included a long stay in New York City where he became an avid Yankees fan (unfortunate but understandable).  His story was fascinating, particularly as compared to my journey to the land of blue crabs and stuffed ham – a tale that starts and ends with a hearty “born here.”

The improbable intersection of our lives occurred in 2003, a time when the Yankees were perennial contenders and the Boston Red Sox, their sworn enemy, hadn’t won a World Series since 1918, the year they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees and spawned the “Curse of the Bambino.” 

As fate and a good story would have it, the Yanks and Sox played for the American League pennant in 2003.  The teams split the first six games, but my buddy’s confidence never wavered.  “Ronnie, listen, the Red Sox can’t win…they are cursed”, he would say.  Sure enough, in the bottom of the 11^th inning of Game 7, an unlikely hero – Aaron Boone – hit a series-clinching home run for the Yanks.  

It was the final chapter of Ruth’s alleged curse – the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 - but it opened my mind to the possibility of dark forces enveloping a team or, in the case of D.C. sports, an entire region.  D.C. is cursed.  The evidence - the Nationals’ recent playoff failures, the spring collapses of the Capitals and the ‘Skins’ two-decade-long organizational death spiral - is overwhelming.  I’m spooked.  When optimistic forces – think Robert Griffin III, Stephen Strasburg and Alex Ovechkin – attempt to clear the gloom, I avoid acknowledgement for fear of provoking the gods and accelerating the return of hopeless suffering.  It sounds nuts - unless you’re a fan too.

But I’m going to risk it to talk about John Wall. 

Wall, 24, was drafted first overall by the Wizards – another lovable D.C. loser - in 2010.  He was athletically gifted but lacked a consistent jump shot and often played out-of-control.  Four years later, there isn’t another point guard in the NBA I’d rather have. 

During a period (their early 20s) when Ovechkin was in playboy mode and toured D.C. in exotic sports cars and Griffin was selling athletic shoes and sandwiches and pushing his brand, Wall has, to his immense credit, quietly worked on his game far removed from the headlines and intoxicating distractions.  He’s the rare elite talent with a blue-collar work ethic.  He is a no frills gym rat and the consummate teammate.  For a town mired in Griffin-drama, Wall is the antidote. 

Wall’s dedication and throwback approach is paying dividends.  Through last Saturday, the Wizards are 19-6, second in the Eastern Conference, and Wall is fueling their ascension.  The kid has grown into a bona fide star with an all-around game.  Wall can score the basketball and play lock-down defense.  But what I love most is his unselfishness on the offensive end.  He currently ranks second in the league with 10.8 assists per game.  With Wall, every possession is the season of giving.

But Wall’s play didn’t convince me to acknowledge his greatness; Miyah Telemaque-Nelson did.  Wall - again with no fanfare or grandstanding - befriended Miyah, a pediatric cancer patient last year and facilitated a meeting between her and Nicki Minaj.  He wrote her name on his shoes before every game.  It’s the sort of story that slips through the newsreel these days and, frankly, one I had missed until the heart-wrenching end. 

Miyah died on 8 December.  She was six.  Six.  Later that night, an emotionally drained Wall wept during a post-game interview.  The All-Star athlete exposed an All-Star heart.  It was a side and a depth of Wall I had never seen.  Yet despite Wall’s overwhelming loss, I couldn’t help but think of the joy he had given to a little girl whose time on Earth was far too short.  It was an off-the-court assist of sorts…and his greatest to date.  Giving > Receiving: John Wall the point guard…and the person…gets it.

Before 2012, There Was 1998

As published in The County Times (http://countytimes.somd.com)

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

Not so long ago – April 2012, to be exact - quarterbacks Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III lit up the NFL Draft as the first and second overall picks of Indianapolis and Washington, respectively.  Luck’s star had been on the NFL’s radar for some time and his all football, low profile demeanor seemed a perfect backfill for Peyton Manning.  Griffin, meanwhile, took college football by storm in 2011.  He won the Heisman Trophy and through the draft process displayed an electric confluence of athletic skills that was part Michael Vick, part Aaron Rodgers.  Luck and Griffin were different players and personalities, but their collective talents earmarked them as destiny’s darlings.  Pro Bowls were a lock.  Super Bowls were a distinct possibility.  And a decade-plus of jaw-dropping moments was a virtual certainty.

The brochure was half right.  Luck is a star and, barring injury, is on an arc to the Hall of Fame.  Griffin…yeah.  The gory details are well known and the dumpster fire continues to burn.  Griffin’s precipitous fall from grace would have been implausible two years ago when he won the 2012 NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year award – but it shouldn’t have been.  Highly touted college quarterbacks flop in the NFL all the time and their collapse is often swift and complete.  So while the details are unique to this situation, the fact that Luck has boomed and Griffin has busted is routine.  In fact, the widening divergence between their careers isn’t even close to the greatest chasm of the last twenty years, much less league history.  

Before Luck and Griffin in 2012, there were the top two selections in the 1998 NFL Draft: quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf.  Manning, the NFL’s all-time leader in touchdown passes and one of the league’s classiest players, is concluding his seventeenth season and is poised for another Super Bowl run.  Leaf, his one-time peer and talent equivalent, was just released…from prison. 

Emotional immaturity, injuries and poor play ended Leaf’s career in 2002 at the age of 26.  After the NFL, he earned his degree from Washington State and eventually returned to football as a college coach.  It appeared to be a commendable soft landing from a disastrous NFL tour.  However, prescription drug addiction soon shattered his post-NFL life.  Since 2009, he has been indicted multiple times on various burglary and drug possession charges in the states of Montana and Texas.  He is now out on parole and the next negative headline seems an unfortunate certainty. 

Excuses shouldn’t be made for Leaf.  His story is a human infomercial for the consequences of poor decisions.  He was a complete boob during his NFL tenure - spoiled, arrogant and disrespectful.  If Manning is the poster boy for the link between hard work and dedication to craft and success, then Leaf is the counterpoint, the warning label and the disclaimer. 

The bright lights and visceral criticism of the NFL’s fishbowl revealed fissures in Leaf’s psychological makeup but his biography is now less about a failed quarterback and more about a life in the balance.  He isn’t just a football punch line anymore.  He’s nothing to laugh at or dismiss.  His problems are undoubtedly real, beyond his control and, in a society struggling with the proliferation of prescription drugs and the addictive properties of painkillers, not uncommon. 

The band Hole’s song “Celebrity Skin”, a raw account of fame’s perils, contains the following lyrics: “Oh look at my face; my name is might have been; my name is never was; my name’s forgotten.”  Ryan Leaf is an NFL “might have been” and “never was” but he isn’t forgotten.  He is a famous and sadly recurring example of the destructive powers of addiction and the fragility of success.  He is also a challenge, in this holiday season, to be more sensitive to human struggles and appreciative of our personal successes.  While navigating life, every person strives to emulate Peyton Manning and seeks to avoid troubles like Ryan Leaf’s.  The truth is, a little bit of both quarterbacks – the excellence of Manning and the flaws of Leaf – resides within each of us.  Be well.