Weekly Sporties

-Last week I told you about the war of words between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia regarding whether or not Woods intentionally tried to break Garcia's concentration by pulling a club during his swing. Up until a few days ago everyone was enjoying the verbal spat and had no inclination to put a stop to it. However, early this week the amusing back-and-forth took an unfunny turn when Garcia invoked the memory of Fuzzy Zoeller by replying to a question of whether or not he and Tiger would sit down and hash this out by responding that he would have Woods over for dinner and the two would have fried chicken every night. Suddenly the tension between the two felt as if it switched from playful to kind of racist. To his credit Garcia appeared to realize the error of his words immediately and apologized the next day (the head of the European Tour did Garcia no favors by saying Sergio couldn't be racist because he had several "colored" friends). And for a guy who clearly has no love for Garcia, Woods actually helped him out by immediately releasing a statement saying that while he was offended by the comments he doesn't think Garcia meant to be racist and he hopes this would be the end of it. Considering he could have allowed Garcia to twist in the wind for a few days it was a classy gesture by Woods, who find himself on the high road without doing a thing. And that is the thing about tussling with a guy such as Tiger Woods because people seem to forget that there is no way to win. Yes, for everyone who loves Woods there are just as many who wish to see him fail and when you have that many people behind you it is very easy to get wrapped up in the moment and think you can get away with saying whatever you wish. But eventually you're going to cross that line and public opinion is going to turn on you. It is the same thing that happened to Steve Williams after Tiger fired him, when everyone was on Williams' side until he started talking about an Adam Scott win like he was the one swinging the clubs. Seeing it happen again, but this time to Sergio I can only assume the phrase "quit while you're ahead" doesn't translate to Spanish.

-This was actually not a great week for race relations over in Europe. After a season filled with several incidents of racism by spectators and players alike, the other day UEFA soccer passed several new rules regarding racial sensitivity. For example, any player or coach who engages in racial taunting will now be banned a minimum of 10 games. Additionally, referees have been given the power to stop any match if they feel the crowd is getting out of hand and the league will punish the fans by closing part of the stadium for the next game following a first offense with the right to force the teams to play in a totally empty stadium if there is a second incident. All of these are fine measures, but they raise a very simple question: it's 2013, so why are they are just getting to this now? You have been hearing stories of soccer hooligans in Europe throwing bananas at black players or showing up in black face for years, so you would have thought this would have been address long before now. Obviously, I don't want to paint every soccer fan as a racist because I am sure that the reality is this is just a few assholes who have found a way to get the most attention (I come from a city which does not have the best reputation for race relations and can't seem to shake it, which is why I know how frustrating getting grouped in with people like that can be). So I am not blaming the 98% of respectful fans for these rules being necessary, but I do think the fact that UEFA didn't have these items on books after the first incidents were reported shows a real lack of awareness. The majority of these rules are only going to apply to the most extreme of hooligans but they should have already been in place for the worst-case scenario. Not to mention had they been in place before now they may have prevented a few of the drunks from going along with the crowd and making things worse. But thanks to letting this behavior go on for so long I'm left wondering if UEFA is too late to be effective. I would love it if these stiffer penalties never have to be implemented, but it would be worse if they had to be used and didn't work.

-As much as I love the sport of football, the NFL is starting to get on my nerves more and more. One of the things the league does which annoys me the most is when they turn things which used to be a simple press release into a full-blown event. For example, they used to just released the schedule whenever it was done. Now they monopolize ESPN for 3 hours with a "Schedule Release Special." Another made-up event is naming the sites for future Super Bowls. It used to be a conference call with the winning city and now they feel the need to show the whole decision process on television, as if we care. Being from New England I know the Super Bowl will never be played here (barring a team getting a new stadium the game tends to float between 6 locations - Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Miami, Arizona and New Orleans), so I only ever think about where that year's Super Bowl is going to played and even then I don't start worrying about it until I know the Patriots are in the playoffs. So, when the NFL wanted to announce the site of Super Bowl L and LI (that would be 50 and 51) this week I wasn't very interested because I figured it would be one of the usual suspects. And I was right because Super Bowl 50 is going to be the 49ers new stadium in Santa Clara and then #51 will be in Houston. What I found kind of disturbing were the rumblings that the reason Miami didn't get either game was basically to flip off the lawmakers of Miami because they recently rejected a bill in which the city would pay hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the Dolphins' stadium. First off all, I am opposed to any city paying for a privately-owned team to get a new stadium, especially since all the figures seem to indicate the taxpayers never make their money back. Secondly, the citizens of Miami just got screwed by the Marlins so their reluctance to finance another round of stadium upgrades is totally understandable. But mostly I see the fact that the NFL is using the Super Bowl as a weapon to extort these cities to be an enormously dickish move. I hate the idea that they are becoming like FIFA, which sells the World Cup to the highest bidder and denies countries the right to hold qualifying matches unless they bribe the right people. The only good news is that a lot of soccer matches are held in half-empty football stadiums, so the NFL has an opportunity to see just what they run the risk of becoming. Hopefully it will scare them straight.

-As soon as the New Orleans Hornets announced that they wanted to change their name to something which better represented the area, people in Charlotte started making noise about getting their old mascot back. You see, the Hornets used to play in Charlotte before moving to New Orleans and even though the team left them years ago and were replaced with an expansion team, the NBA fans in the area still have an affection for the nickname. Since the new Bobcats moniker has never quite taken off in the community, it was no surprise this week when it was announced that the Charlotte franchise had listened to fans request and begun taking the necessary steps to claim the nickname of the Hornets. It probably won't happen this season but by the start of the 2014 season, everyone expects to see the Hornets back in Charlotte. Now, I am happy that the city of Charlotte is getting its nickname back because I always thought they were supportive of the team, just not the ownership. Plus, the Bobcats were an incredible self-serving name approved by former owner Bob Johnson, so a new nickname would be an appropriate way to totally scrub him from their past (no word on a color change, but getting rid of the bright orange would be a good idea while they are at it). However, call them whatever you wish, it doesn't change the fact that the team is really bad. If management thinks changing the name will magically cure all their attendance issues they are in for a rude awakening. They have only made the playoffs once in their existence and owner Michael Jordan isn't coming down to put on a uniform any time soon. While I have no doubt Charlotte will see an initial boom in merchandise sales, winning is the ultimate cure all. I don't care how ugly a team's uniform is or how bad the nickname may be, people will proudly associate with any team that wins. If you don't believe me just look at a few of the throwbacks the NFL rolls out every year - most of those should have stayed in the vault, but if the team wins a couple games while wearing them it quickly becomes the best-selling jersey in the league. Winning makes everyone pretty.

-Whenever the job of easiest job in sports comes up I can never understand why head coach of USA men's basketball is never on the list. Yes, I concede that it is an all-or-nothing proposition and if you lose a single game it is seen as an abomination so it can be a bit of a high-risk scenario, but whether or not the team succeeds has nothing to do with actual coaching and everything to do with how the team is constructed. As long as you have the right personalities and don't bring any players who are going to complain about minutes it feels like I could get this team to at least the medal round. That is why I was hardly surprised to hear that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski is planning to return and coach in the Olympics for a third time after initially resigning from the job in February. It really is a win for everyone involved. First off, the players seem to love him, which is the only thing which matters. LeBron James has already said he will return for the 2016 games and if Kobe Bryant is still playing you could probably pencil him in as well. But it is also a great deal for Duke because it allows Coach K to scratch his itch of coaching in the pros without actually leaving. College coaches always want to know what it would be like to coach at the highest level and they walk away from good jobs to find out, often with disastrous results. The Olympic team gives Krzyzewski the chance to see what it is like, convince himself that it would be this easy even if he wasn't coaching what is essentially an all-star team and then return to campus. Duke keeps it's Hall of Fame coach and all the pro players raving about the great time they had working with him over the summer is probably the greatest recruiting tool Coach K has at his disposal. I'm sure it takes a lot of his free time, but Krzyzewski doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who has a lot of hobbies anyway. There is literally no downside for him, as long as he doesn't do anything as silly as lose a game so, just like his job at Duke, I don't see Coach K leaving until they force him out.

-Speaking of coaching, I always wonder how much actual moment-to-moment management a hockey coach does during a game. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying I could do their job and I want to make it clear I am sure they do something, but I am just not sure how much control they have during game action. I mean, every goal scored looks as though it happened completely by accident, so while I assume they are the ones controlling things such as who plays on which line and I am simply curious as to how much influence hockey coaches have once the game starts regarding things such as calling plays. I know they aren't football coaches who decide what happens at every snap, but do their job requirements swing the other way, making them more like a baseball manager who sets the lineup and then act as a spectator unless a specific situation comes up later in the game? All I know is that if hockey coaches want us to think their job is very hard they need to talk to their owners and stop them from hiring guys without much head coaching experience to take over at the highest level, as happened this week when the Colorado Avalanche hired former goalie Patrick Roy to be their new head coach. Admittedly Roy has been coaching for a while, but he has never made it above the Canadian Junior Leagues. Since it is Canada I assume those leagues are competitive and taken quite seriously, but I think even Roy would tell you that he is making quite a leap from there to the NHL. On top of that the track record for great players becoming great coaches is not particularly strong as they can never seem to understand why every player can't make the same miraculous plays they did every single time. When NHL coaches routinely get fired even though they make the playoffs every year, I just wonder how long this experiment is going to last. The only good news for a guy like Patrick Roy is that if he is getting criticized too much he can always stick his championship rings in his ears to drown out the noise.

-Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III is getting married later this summer. Like any couple about to tie the knot Griffin and his fiancee registered for their wedding gifts at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Everything was totally normal until the Washington Post wrote a story about it the other day because shortly after the story ran some intrepid Redskin fans found the registry online and started buying Griffin items from the list. Before too long they had bought the happy couple every item they had asked for. Now some people around the sports world are calling on Griffin to return the items, saying he makes enough money that he should be able to buy his own damn toaster. While I can see their point and don't think Griffin's stance of "rich people can't get gifts?" was the correct response, I actually don't have a problem with Griffin accepting this generous act. First off, he is a football player which means his first contract isn't actually for that much money. Even his endorsement deal with Adidas probably isn't worth as much as you think it would be (the people who think Griffin shouldn't be asking for gifts would probably be the first people to wonder where all his money went if Griffin declared bankruptcy later in life). But, the main reason I think it is fine is that it is not as though Griffin went out and asked people to send him these gifts. The Washington Post is the one who brought the registry to people's attention and the fans took it from there. As long as Griffin takes the time to send them thank you notes I think everyone comes out a winner. Let's be honest with each other - the chance to get something personally signed by RGIII is why these fans bought him a gift in the first place, so they are getting just as much out of this as Robert and his fiancee are. Ironically, the only real losers in this situation are the people who are actually going to attend the wedding, because now what are they supposed to get the Griffins for a gift? I hear candlesticks always make a lovely gift.