Cornerstones, Breaks And Chemistry

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

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

My wife wears me out for my alleged man crushes. She latches on to many suspects - Hunter S. Thompson, Keith Richards, Art Monk, Martin Luther King Jr., Batman, Abe Lincoln, Sam Calagione (Mr. Dogfish Head Brewery) and The Dude from The Big Lebowski – and produces an avalanche of comic relief…at my expense. Admittedly, it’s quite a list, an (apparently) irresistible cornucopia of material for her needler gene. 

Of course she often (and intentionally for the sake of laughter) mischaracterizes affinity for awkward infatuation. But I am guilty. I have man crushes, like my little thing for Gary Williams, former Maryland men’s basketball head coach and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

Williams’s rebuild of the Maryland basketball program after Len Bias’s death and the NCAA sanctions in the late 1980s is legendary. Williams inherited a program in 1989 that was in the midst of a near death experience. Thirteen years later, Williams’s Terps won the 2002 National Championship. His signature now appropriately adorns the court at Xfinity Center on the Maryland campus. 

Man crush? Oh yeah, I love me some Gary Williams. But it was another Williams – Walt Williams – that Gary often credits with much of his success. Walt arrived at Maryland a year before Gary and by all accounts should have transferred. He was too talented to languish on a bad team and with a program banned from postseason play. But Walt stayed and became the cornerstone player for Gary’s great reclamation.

Current Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon found himself desperately seeking a program cornerstone last year. In three seasons at Maryland, Turgeon hadn’t produced a NCAA tournament team and several talented players had transferred. The program was flailing – again – and Turgeon was on the hot seat.

Then Melo Trimble arrived and changed everything. Trimble, a McDonald’s All-American point guard from Upper Marlboro, was sensational last season. He distributed the ball. He scored. He calmed. He inspired. After ripping off 28 wins, Melo and the Turtles gave a school and its coach their swag back. 

Turgeon was fortunate to get Trimble. Gary was lucky to keep Walt. Such is life. Getting a break is one thing; doing something extraordinary with it is special. Gary did (hence my crush). Turgeon might too.

Since Maryland’s season ended with a third-round NCAA Tournament loss to West Virginia, no school has improved more than the Terps. Turgeon, already with highly touted Georgia Tech transfer Robert Carter inbound for 2015-16, used Trimble’s decision to return for his sophomore season to score Diamond Stone, a five-star recruit, and Duke transfer Rasheed Sulaimon. The additions have Maryland, a program that just made its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2010, tucked well within the preseason top five.

What a difference a year makes. Turgeon was Robert Zimmerman last summer; he’s Bob Dylan (yes, another man crush) now. Turgeon’s no longer fighting for his job, but the recruiting success has created new concerns. The Terps will sneak up on no one next year and will face expectations Maryland hasn’t seen since Juan Dixon was playing at Cole Field House. But those are uncontrollable, external forces. Turgeon’s biggest challenge is internal: molding this massive collection of randomly assembled talent into a cohesive unit.

Maryland's pending chemistry experience will likely include three new starters (Stone, Sulaimon and Carter), a handful of players with designs on the 2016 NBA Draft and talented incumbents vying for playing time. Turgeon will have to compel this fabulous collection of 18 to 21-year-olds, many stars in their own right, to sacrifice and accept roles for the betterment of the whole. It’s a better problem to have – any manager in any facet of life would choose excessive talent over a talent deficiency - but Turgeon will be tested, as a master of basketball X’s and O’s and human behavior. I wish him luck. I can’t get my kids to collaborate on modest household chores.

With Maryland’s recent success and bright future, am I crushing on Turgeon? Not yet…but if the Turtles cut down the nets next April, suffice to say my wife will have some new material.

Risky Business

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

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

In 2008/09, a flushing toilet would have been the perfect sound to describe the U.S. economy.  “Bailouts” and “toxic assets” were common terms.  The unemployment rate was spiking toward 10%.  The financial sector, after years of reckless lending, was about to collapse.  The Dow Jones Industrial Average, hovering around 7,000, had lost nearly half its value in less than two years.  The Great Recession, a dark, menacing entity, had arrived baring fangs and wielding a razor-sharp scythe.  The Grim Reaper likely feared for his financial future.  Can you imagine planning for a retirement that lasts an eternity?

As my buddies and I watched our 401(k)’s get halved and our children’s 529 plans dwindle, we debated our “now what?” strategies.  Everything we had learned in business school indicated that opportunities existed.  As an Economics professor once told me, when a market correction occurs, “stocks go on sale.”  Right.  So weren’t equities discounted when the Dow was at 11,000?  And 10,000?  And 8,000?  Where was the bottom, Doc?  Wall Street was a dumpster fire.

Ultimately we lacked the courage necessary for an aggressive stock purchase, instead opting for modest individual investments.  It worked, but with the Dow now near a record high, history has proven that stocks weren’t just on sale in 2009, they were trading at clearance prices.  In hindsight, it was largely a missed opportunity.  Although given the little mouths to feed and futures to secure, we’re all happy to be employed and to have benefited from the economic recovery.   

Credit this revisited experience with The Great Recession to the Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones.  Despite our area’s widespread disdain for that godforsaken blue star, this much can be said for “Jerry’s ‘Boys”: they are consistently entertaining.  During Jones’s 26-year tenure, Dallas hasn’t always been good, but they don’t do boring.  High profile coaches, extravagant free agents and big trades have been the norm.  Jones even built a massive new stadium, pole dancers and all, to house the circus. 

But Jones may have lost his outlaw spirit. 

Since gambling on troubled WR Dez Bryant in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft, Dallas’s personnel moves have been, by Cowboys’ standards, benign.  Jones has had only one head coach – Jason Garrett – since 2010 and he resisted the temptation to draft Johnny Manziel last year.  Rational.  Measured.  Patient.  Conservative.  Jerry? 

Apparently Jones’s gambling spirit was tempered only by Dallas’s recent run of mediocrity.  Invigorated by last year’s NFC East championship, Jones is back at the table doubling-down.  During free agency, he signed talented DE Greg Hardy who is currently serving a suspension for domestic violence.  In the second round of the NFL Draft, the Cowboys selected DE/LB Randy Gregory, a top-10 talent with a well-documented affinity for marijuana.  Last week, Jones added to his all-in offseason by inking offensive lineman La’El Collins, a first round talent who went undrafted after being named a “person of interest” regarding the murder of his former girlfriend.      

Since Roger Goodell was named NFL Commissioner in 2008, he has made “protecting the shield” and policing the conduct of players, coaches and executives a priority.  “Bountygate” cost Saints head coach Sean Payton a one-year suspension.  Colts owner Jim Irsay was bounced for six games after a DUI conviction.  The ‘Skins received a $36M cap penalty for creative accounting.  Players are routinely suspended for conduct detrimental to the league, as Tom “Deflategate” Brady will soon discover.   

Goodell’s actions have left most organizations less nervy about taking risks.  Jones smartly and cautiously capitalized on the pervasive forbearance.  Hardy’s on a one-year “prove it” contract.  With Gregory, Jones will leverage the structure and support that turned Bryant into an All-Pro.  And Collins, questioned by authorities after the Draft, is not considered a suspect.

Time will tell if Jones’s moves come up aces.  If nothing else he took a calculated risk in an environment excessively risk-averse - not a bad plan in sports, business or life.  Jones probably bought a ton of stocks in 2009 too, another reason to hate…and respect…the guy.  Of course with stocks, he had more margin for error than the average Joe…or Ronnie. 

Tom Brady’s Not A Patriot

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

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

There is a long history between sports and the nation’s presidents.  In 1910, William Howard Taft threw out the first presidential “first pitch” on opening day of the baseball season.  Every U.S. president since, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, has followed in Taft’s enormous shadow.  And while it wasn’t opening day, the most consequential presidential fastball occurred when George W. Bush, just weeks after 9/11, threw a strike from the Yankee Stadium mound before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series.

Other sports share a White House connection too.  President Obama, who is a huge basketball fan, annually completes a March Madness bracket.  Football owes its very existence, in part, to Teddy Roosevelt.  As a proponent of physical athletic confrontation, Roosevelt advanced game-saving rule changes to curb an alarming number of on-field fatalities.  Gerald Ford was an All-American offensive lineman for Michigan in the 1930s.  And it was a common love of football that prompted an unimaginable private chat between Richard Nixon and raging liberal journalist (and Nixon hater) Hunter S. Thompson during the 1968 presidential campaign.     

Ronald Reagan gets the primary credit for the presidential tradition of hosting sports champions.  I have fond memories of The Gipper hitting Ricky Sanders on a crossing route on the White House lawn – literally - after the ‘Skins won Super Bowl XXII.  Four successors and three decades later, champions still visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue regularly.

But all is not well.  Athletes have occasionally left the president hanging.  Michael Jordan cited a schedule conflict in 1991 when he no-showed on George H. W. Bush.  In 1997, Packers TE Mark Chmura, a guy once charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl at a high school party (when he was in his 30s), passed on Green Bay’s visit with Bill Clinton because of his moral disgust with the president in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 

No matter.  These were one-offs.  Anomalies.  There was no trend of athletes stiffing the highest office in our land – until recently. The White House snub is now commonplace.  Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison blew off Bush in 2006 and Obama in 2009.  Boston Bruins Goalie Tim Thomas bailed on Obama in 2012.  St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa and star Albert Pujols declined Obama’s invitation in 2012.  Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk and three members of the undefeated 1972 Dolphins team – Jim Langer, Manny Fernandez and Bob Kuechenberg – cited political reasons for their White House absences last year.  At least they were honest, I suppose. 

Add New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to the growing list of presidential rejecters.  Brady used the tired and lame “schedule conflicts” line to excuse himself from the Patriots’ recent visit with President Obama.  Sure Tom.  Non-specific scheduling conflicts and family obligations.  Got it.  Sounds similar to Brady’s insulting “the public is so dumb they’ll buy anything” bull he offered in response to “deflategate.”

The evidence is clear: it is now routine for self-absorbed athletes who get a White House invitation for playing a game – a game – to disrespect our nation’s highest office.  It is beyond their meager ability to bite their political tongues and participate in an apolitical, celebratory event.  Tom Brady might be a Patriot, but don’t mistake him or any of his fellow White House boycotters for patriots – my opinion. 

This overtly rude political behavior has coincided with debilitating partisanship – a sad situation created by both parties - in Washington.  What’s the cart and what’s the horse?  No matter.  It seems a Democratic or Republican label now trumps our common identity as Americans.  Discord is fundamental to a representative government, but for that discord to yield national benefit, active listening, mutual respect and an understanding that political gains are realized through commensurate political gives is required.  Otherwise, it’s just arguing for arguing’s sake.  In that case, why even bother to show up and attempt to govern?  In other words, why act differently from Tom Brady, et al.

Brady and his boycotters stiffed the White House to express some sort of political disgust and to promote change.  Ironically, they have the exact government they created…and deserve.     

The Yips

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

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

I’ll start where the last column ended - with Tiger Woods.  Show of hands.  Who read it?  To those reaching for the heavens - assuming you aren’t shameless liars - thanks.  Hopefully you were entertained.  For those fiddling with phones and refusing to make eye contact, you have some explaining to do.  To assist, “I was north of Antarctica on a Greenpeace vessel battling illegal whaling”, is a good excuse, but I’ll need proof.  “Trust but verify”, a wise man once advised.

Why Tiger?  The alternative was a loathsome diatribe on the punchless Washington Nationals, a team currently scoring as often as a World Cup soccer team. Such depressing things could threaten a community’s spring groove and he who dares interrupt the spring groove after a heinous winter invites the people’s wrath.   

Of course Woods’s story is hardly uplifting.  The once incomparable Woods entered The Masters last week ranked a 111^th in the world, sandwiched between Tomohiro Kondo and Hennie Otto.  Who coulda thought such things?  Tiger Woods?  Fourteen majors?  Greatest golfer of his generation?  111^th in the world?  That’s two more “1’s” in his ranking than we are used to. 

The long descent from numero uno to 111^th took a while and was filled with enough drama to fuel a reality show.  Woods lost his father Earl, a significant influence on his life and career, in 2006.  He had reconstructive knee surgery in 2008 and detonated his marriage a year later. Woods dumped his long-time caddie, Steve Williams, in 2011, has rifled through swing coaches like mistresses and had his schedule disrupted by nagging injuries and last year’s back surgery.

While Woods hasn’t won a major championship since 2008, he has remained competitive and shown flashes of dominance despite that burdensome personal and professional chronology.  This year, however, Woods has been inconsequential.  He finished seventeenth at the Hero World Challenge in December, missed the cut at the Waste Management Open in January and withdrew from the Farmers Insurance Open in February due to non-competitive play.  “Non-competitive” is being nice.  Woods lost the ability to strike a golf ball flush with a wedge.  He sent balls ripping past the hole or launched chips over the green altogether.  He looked…like me!  Tiger Woods had the yips.  His days as one of golf’s best appeared over.

My wife asked me once when I learned the rules of football.  I’m sure I did – no one is born being able to identify illegal procedure – but for the life of me I can’t remember not knowing the game.  I doubt Tiger Woods, once featured on That’s Incredible! as a five-year-old golf prodigy, ever remembers not being the alpha dog on a golf course.  Yet there he was in February, completely lost on the links, his lifetime haven.  He was a suit-less Iron Man, Sampson without his hair, Superman adorned in kryptonite.  It was equally fascinating and disturbing.

Work, save for the few who pursue their passion professionally, is not typically the desired human condition.  Recreation, hobby-indulgence or sleep are preferred.  But work we do, to meet obligations, pay the bills or to just pacify our consciences.  We teach, build, supply, farm and engineer and procure defense systems.  In time, we get quite good at it – what we do – and assume that our skills and the opportunity to continue our craft will persist.  The professional yips?  An afterthought. 

Fortunately, golf - as any golfer will attest - is far more mercurial than the average job.  Woods, with a solid performance at The Masters last week, appears to have rebounded.  Still, the site of Tiger lost with a golf club in his hand was jarring.  Oh, look at the time.  I need to end there.  It’s past my bedtime and work beckons tomorrow.  My commitment is renewed.  Bills are inbound and retirement is a distant dream.  I have to drill it down the middle when I “tee off” tomorrow…and the next day, and the day after that.  Hope you do the same.  I suspect a case of the professional yips for either of us would be far more consequential than a double-bogey or a missed cut.

The Perfect Day

Rough night of sleep.

Shitty day at work.

Heinous traffic on the way home.

Take out dinner order was screwed up.

Driving range was closed.  

At home, greeted by smiling kids and hugs.

See the title.

Sports & Parenthood In The Aggregate

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

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

You’ve been barking the entire game.  Clueless officiating and sketchy coaching by the home team have your blood boiling.  The press is giving the team fits. They need another ball handler on the floor.  The rebounding is awful.  Their archaic zone defense is gift-wrapping offensive put-backs.  And is the team going to run organized offense?  It’s all freelancing.  No one is moving without the ball and everyone has a hero complex.  Is this “he who takes the most bad shots wins”?

It’s so obvious from the bleachers.  In fact, your verbal lashings were so wise, an assistant coach requested your presence in the locker room at halftime.  Entering the team’s inner sanctum, 12 sets of eager eyes stare at you.  The coach admits he’s lost and hands the team over to you.  This is a Hoosiers adaptation and you’re cast as head coach Norman Dale.

Just before the second half begins, a voice from beyond asks, “Coach, do you want a tie game or a two point lead.”  What?  You realize you’re dreaming, but this is too good to quibble.  The choice seems obvious: take the lead.  Or is it?  Context is required.  Is the team clinging to a two-point lead after being up 15 or did the boys draw even after trailing most of the half? Given those scenarios, you take the tie…and the momentum.  

The alarm wails.  Another day begins; another dream ends prematurely.  You’ll never get to coach your Jimmy Chitwood.  Now conscious, the tie/two-point lead debate lingers.  There’s something to that, beyond an imaginary basketball game.  Moments and circumstances can complicate fact.  Take Tiger Woods.  What if someone had said in 1997, shortly after he won The Masters, that Woods would have 14 major championships at age 39?  Would you have bet on him to break Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18?  Probably.  But you wouldn’t now, having witnessed his mental and physical meltdown…even though he’s 39 with 14 majors.

What about the Bryce Harper?  Rewind to 2010, the year he was drafted.  Would you have considered a Rookie of the Year award, two All Star appearances and 55 home runs before age 23 successful?  Absolutely – and he’s done it all.  So why does Harper feel like a disappointment so far?

For reasons I cannot explain, this dichotomy between facts and perceptions had me thinking about parenthood, a trade where the truly accomplished often feel far from successful.  For the best - and there are many – a parental audit revels many accolades, from the basic to the complex.  Fact: kids sleep in warm beds and with full tummies.  Fact: they are doing fine in school; perhaps they’re even on the honor roll (I see your bumper stickers on the Southern Maryland roadways).  Fact: many are involved in extracurricular activities – band, swimming, baseball, cheerleading, etc – and, judging from their smiles, they’re having a blast.  Fact: kids are loved more than they can possibly know.  Fact: they think mom and dad are super heroes, even though they don’t know Taylor Swift’s latest song.    

(Written with the Cowardly Lion’s “Courage” speech in mind…)

Who provides the roof and the rations (veggies included)?  Parents.  Who runs a non-stop taxi service?  Parents.  Who’s the teacher’s evening assistant and a child’s emotional foundation?  Parents.  Who dries the tears, cleans the cuts and breaks up the fights?  Parents.  Who does it all from the morning’s misty mist to the evening’s dusty dusk?  Parents.

Yet parents frequently feel inadequate.  Why?  We rock!  I suppose because when we aren’t our best, it weighs heavy on our hearts.  Dog tired and stressed, we can be impatient.  Work sometimes causes us to miss activities.  We occasionally yell when we should have hugged or order when we should have listened.  The moment can produce our worst, a pesky blemish on an otherwise stellar body of work.  In the aggregate, we are overwhelmingly loving and hard-working.  In the aggregate, we have momentum.  In the aggregate, (say it with me) we’re doing just fine.  Just like Bryce Harper will be just fine.  Woods?  Okay, you got me.  I still wouldn’t bet on him winning 18 majors. 

Regrets

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

By Ronald N. Guy Jr.

April 1 – no fooling – will be the 30^th anniversary.  Unbelievable.  John Thompson has long since left the Georgetown bench.  Well…sort of.  His son – John Thompson III - is coaching the Hoyas now.  Then Villanova coach Rollie Massimino, now 80, is still tormenting referees and probably pulling upsets as head coach of Northwood University in Florida – a long way from Villanova, Philadelphia and the Big East.  Patrick Ewing, the most athletic seven-footer my eyes have ever seen, is coaching too.  He’s an assistant for the Charlotte Hornets.  Much has changed, but some things remain the same.

April Fools’ Day 1985 is significant because the underdog Villanova Wildcats, an eight-seed in the NCAA tournament, defeated Georgetown, the heavy favorite to win it all, 66-64.  It was the second biggest upset of my lifetime, supplanted only by the greatest upset of all time: the U.S. Hockey Team’s defeat of the Soviets in the 1980 Olympics. 

Entering the game, Georgetown had dropped only two games all year: a one-point loss to St. John’s (another Final Four team in 1985) and a two-point defeat on the road to nationally ranked Syracuse.  Straight from the “it was just their day” file, Villanova shot 78.6% from the field, missing just six shots.  Six!  You don’t do that in the backyard with phantom defenders and loose accounting, much less in the national championship game. But Villanova did…and that’s what it took to beat Georgetown.

I found myself reflecting on those ’85 Hoyas, rivalries and bitter losses while sitting in the stands at St. Mary’s College a few weeks ago.  The College was hosting an event for area parochial school basketball teams and cheerleading squads.  What triggered my 30-year-old memory was the sight of kids wearing jerseys from Archbishop Neale School.  A…N…S…three letters that will incite angst and furrow my brow apparently until I am no more.  Why?  Glad you asked.

It was 1986.  I played guard for a Father Andrew White basketball team staffed heavily with eighth graders determined to win a championship.  After taking our lumps the year before, this was our season, our moment.  ANS was our primary obstacle.

We lost a close game to them in the regular season.  The defeat didn’t demoralize, it confirmed that we were close and could beat them.  Entering the single-elimination playoffs late that winter, a FAW-ANS championship game, a final epic battle for basketball supremacy, was assumed. 

Ah, but assumptions and reality don’t always agree.  We lost to Holy Angels in the semifinal.  We played sloppy, shot poorly and never found our rhythm.  We were spectators, not opponents, as ANS won the championship.  It still gnaws at me 29 years later.  And it’s not the loss to Holy Angels that bothers me; it’s not getting another shot at ANS.  I’ll never know if we could have beaten them.  It is my one great athletic regret.

I wonder if John Thompson, Patrick Ewing and that ’85 Georgetown team feel similarly.  While they at least made the championship game, by losing to Villanova, the Hoyas squandered an opportunity to be remembered as one of the greatest teams in NCAA history.  They were about to chisel their legacy into college basketball’s stone tablet and they dropped the hammer.   

I suppose I’m curious if that Georgetown team, despite winning the 1984 title and all their accomplishments, regrets the loss to Villanova.  They could have been iconic; instead the Hoyas became the slain giant in someone else’s David versus Goliath story. 

Regrets: therapists will tell you they are unhealthy, remorseful thoughts to be avoided.  You can’t control the past, only the future.  Yeah, yeah.  Here’s my counterpoint.  Frank Sinatra sang, “Regrets, I’ve had a few”, in his song “My Way.”  Bryan Adams’ reflective song “Summer of ‘69” screams of youthful good times and abandoned opportunities.  Bruce Springsteen strikes a similar nostalgic, regretful chord in his song “Glory Days.”  So Bryan, The Boss and Old Blue Eyes had regrets.  I think we all do.  Regrets are an inevitable part of living, a running tally of mistakes or opportunities missed.  Unhealthy?  Maybe.  But can they be character building teaching points?  I hope so.  Thanks ANS?