Weekly Sporties

-America is a very forgiving country, so whenever a school gets wrapped up in a scandal people are very willing to let them off the hook provided they shape up in the aftermath and at least look like they have learned from their mistakes. If Rutgers University wants to pull itself out of the current problems it is having in the wake of the revelations that former basketball coach Mike Rice was verbally and physically abusive to his players they need to step up and do it quickly. I have to say they are not off to a great start as this week it was uncovered that the new Rutgers Athletic Director Julie Hermann has a very checkered past which includes allegations of verbally abusing players when she was the volleyball coach at Tennessee, firing an assistant coach when that assistant got pregnant, then sweeping allegations of sexual discrimination under the rug when she was the assistant AD at Louisville, all while denying she remember any of this. I can't help but wonder who the hell was on the search committee for Rutgers. I know that things such as lawsuits are going to happen at any university of that size and the cash awarded to the plaintiff in the discrimination lawsuit was returned on appeal, so I don't really hold that against them and under normal circumstances I wouldn't say these issues are enough to get her fired. However, these aren't normal circumstances. Rutgers is in this position because the basketball coach was verbally abusive to his players and the last Athletic Director knew about a tape of it and did nothing. So, shouldn't the first question to any potential applicant have been, "Hey, have you ever been accused of calling your players names, such as 'whore' or 'alcoholic', to the point the entire team went to the school and said it was you or them?" But, more than that it just makes them look like the don't have control over anything, which is worse. I just don't see how Hermann's tenure can be allowed to start and University President Robert Barchi, who really shouldn't have made it through the last scandal, needs to go now. I'm sure Rutgers just wants to go back being another school and that isn't going to happen as long as this sort of thing keeps happening and I get the funny feeling that as long as Barchi is around that is very real possibility.

-When it comes to television production there is no such thing as honor among thieves. There is no point in being polite about borrowing another network's idea because they won't hesitate to steal from you if they see it working well. The good news is that the people who really win with this arraignment are the fans because it is like we get everyone's brightest ideas. One of the best concepts ever stolen was the pulley cam. Originating in the XFL, the idea is to suspend a camera over the action with three cables and then have it guided by a man with a joystick. Rolling back and forth high above everything the camera can cover almost the entire field and give us never-before-seen angles, all while staying out of the players' way. At least, that is the idea. During last Sunday's NASCAR race that plan failed as the Fox TV cable holding the camera over the track snapped and the wire came crashing down on the stands and the track, injuring a few spectators and damaging several cars including then-leader Kyle Busch's. Frankly, everyone was lucky the injuries were minor and the cars were the only things badly damaged because the amateur cellphone footage filmed in the stands shows it could have been a lot worse. [Sidebar: It was no one's fault because accidents happen, but there was one thing about this which bothered me greatly - Fox never showed any footage of the camera as it fell. I don't even think they allowed it to be shown on other networks, because I never saw it anywhere. You know they have to have it somewhere, so what are they afraid of? I'm pretty sure the tiny writing on the back of the ticket absolves them from any kind of lawsuit, so why not just show us the footage? I bet it would be pretty dramatic.] I can only hope whatever the problem was gets repaired because that camera usually has the best angle for action and it would be a shame if they had to stop using it out of safety concerns. It really is too bad we'll probably never know who actually came up with it first because they should get credit for it.

-The great thing about sports is that usually everything happens for a reason. Yes, there is the occasional player who falls through the cracks to defy the odds, but for the most part if you went undrafted or got cut, you will be able to point to a reason why (as long as you are honest with yourself). To go a step further, if your team is awful for an extended period of time you can trace the fault back to a specific source. In the case of the Los Angeles Clippers, the source of their decades of futility is their owner Donald Sterling, universally known as one of the worst owners in sports history. Yet, somehow for the last couple of years the team has prospered in spite of his presence and a big part of that resurgence was point guard Chris Paul. The issue now is that Paul is a free agent and while re-signing with the Clippers should be a formality since they can offer him the most money, a good team and a big city to play in, Paul has yet to sign on the dotted line. First thing which had to be addressed is that the Clipper coach Vinny Del Negro's contract had also expired and Paul, reportedly not a fan of Vinny, wanted to see if he was going to be brought back. Last week the Clippers decided not to renew Del Negro's contract, a decision which was entirely understandable given his record. However, a couple days later Sterling gave an interview in which he basically said he wanted to keep Del Negro and laid the blame for his dismissal at Chris Paul's feet. Now Paul is reportedly furious with the organization for making this public and exploring other options while the team scrambles to say firing Del Negro had nothing to do with Paul. Now, Sterling isn't wrong to say Chris was the reason Del Negro was fired because most basketball fans assumed that was the case. The issue is that he didn't need to say it out loud. You could also say that Paul wants to have his cake and eat it to, but if you have a problem with that kind of thing I think it is clear you haven't been an NBA fan for a few years. But despite these hurt feelings, the Clippers can offer him the most money so I still say Paul ends up back with the team but it just became a lot harder than it needed to be, which has been the Clippers' motto for about as long as Sterling has owned the team.

-I have found one of the most ridiculous notions in sports is the myth of the "Coaching Tree". The idea behind it is that if you are unable to hire a highly-respected coach for whatever reason you simply hire one of his longtime assistants and hope the assistant is a mini-me version of that coach with equal know-how, presumably acquired through osmosis. And while I can admit that there are numerous example of this working out quite well for a few franchises, there are far more examples of when it failed miserably. (Just ask Denver, Cleveland (twice), Notre Dame, St. Louis and Kansas City how well hiring coaches from the Bill Belichick coaching tree worked out for them.) That is why I am not full of hope for the Atlanta Hawks just because they hired longtime Spurs assistant Mike Budenholzer to be their new head coach. Sure, he is coming from an organization which has been competitive year-in and year-out for the last 15 years and Gregg Popovich is one of the best coaches in basketball, but basketball is all about the players, so it probably helps when you have guys like Tim Duncan and Tony Parker on your roster, neither of whom are coming to Atlanta with Coach Budenholzer. (Not that bringing along players familiar with the system is any great equalizer, because there have been plenty of opportunities where players have followed assistant coaches and after they have arrived their new team sees why their last team was willing to let them leave.) Even worse, when you make a big deal about the new coach coming from a specific coaching family very often they then try and act like the coach they just left rather than be do things their own way, failing to recognize that stubbornly sticking to their guns is most likely how their former boss got to be so successful and respected. That is why if it were me I would be much more interested in hiring a person who had some head coaching experience, even if it was the college level, because being the general is a lot different from being the loyal lieutenant. I know someone has to give these assistants their first head coaching job somewhere for them to gain that experience, I'm just not sure the NBA is the place you want someone getting their on-the-job training.

-A couple months ago I mentioned how the International Olympic Committee had decided they needed to trim the number of event for the Summer Games and came up with a list of seven sports on the chopping block, but added they would allow each sport to make a case for while they should be saved. While no one was crying over the potential loss of roller sports, it did seem silly that they were thinking about cutting wrestling. I'm not going to pretend that I was up in arms because I haven't watched wrestling of any kind in years, but you don't need to be directly involved with a sport like wrestling to be able to recognize that it has been part of the modern Olympics since the very beginning. It just seemed like there were other sports which could have been dropped first. Well, after agreeing to a major overhaul of their sport's scoring system as well as its governing body, it appears wrestling will be included in the 2020 games (along with the return of baseball and softball, which I do not get). For the most part I am pleased with the decision because it rights something which was clearly a wrong. However, I can't help but shake this sinking suspicion that wrestling was saved not because its supporters came out and got themselves organized, showing just how much the sport is loved, but because the people in charge of the sport finally figured out which IOC officials they needed to bribe. Little by little the illusion of the Olympics as this bastion amateur athletics has been stripped away to the point where saying that now is almost a joke. (Just this week a report said that as much as $30 billion intended for the Sochi games next winter has been funneled into the pockets of corrupt politicians and businessmen.) You really get a sense for just how bad the Olympics' reputation has fallen when people can't even trust the decisions that they agree with. And the worst part is that I have no idea how you would even begin to fix it because I feel like the corruption runs so deep. With that in mind I feel the only thing left to do is stop lamenting the system and start using it for our advantage. So, armed with the knowledge that anything is possible when you pay enough money, how much will it cost us to make sure that next Olympics NBC doesn't preempt the Opening Ceremonies to show us a horrible show which will get cancelled in three weeks?

-If you want to know which area of the country is going to have a series of storms in the near future I suggest checking the PGA Tour schedule. Nearly every tournament this season has been hit with some kind of intense weather leading to a delay. Last week's Crown Plaza Invitational near Fort Worth Texas was no different as rain showers meant the tournament had to finish Friday's round Saturday morning and then rush to get Saturday's round finished on time. To try and catch up and finish on schedule the Tour had the players put into groups of three and sent them off the first and tenth tees. The combination of a lot of players and the fact that golfers on the pro Tour are some of the slowest in the world meant long delays for most groups. Standing on the tenth tee golfer Jeff Overton was looking at a wait of nearly 30 minutes. Since that particular teebox is near the clubhouse and the delay was going to be so long his group was told by a tournament official they could go to the putting area to practice chipping and putting. Overton took that to mean he could practice as he normally would, which meant breaking out a putting aid to work on his alignment. However, using practice aids during a round is against the rules and Overton was disqualified halfway through the 11th hole. Overton contends that he should have been reminded what 'practicing' really meant and I have to agree that he may have a point. It is one thing to catch a guy inadvertently breaking a rule, but this almost feels like entrapment. The only good part about this story is that at least this feels like a rule which makes sense. For all the crazy and stupid rules golf has, I can absolutely see you wouldn't want players to be able to hook themselves up to all sorts of practice aids in the middle of the fairway and suddenly shoot the course record. Being able to take your game from the range to the actual course is what makes golf so hard, because everyone is good when there are no consequences to hitting it long or short. I guess Overton should take solace in the fact that if you are going to get disqualified from a tournament and lose a paycheck you may as well get your money's worth and at least he didn't do something minor to get sent home.

-Of course, it could be worse for Overton because he could still be in college, where the real nit-picking about rules occurs. This week a story came out involving a female college golfer at a west-coast school (both the golfer and the school have yet to be named, probably to save both parties the embarrassment), in which the golfer noticed her car was a little dirty and washed it at the team's practice facility. Apparently the school's practice facility is not available to every student on campus and technically student-athletes are not supposed to have access to any benefits beyond what are available to the general student population. Worried that the use of the school's hose and water could be interpreted as just such a benefit the school called the NCAA and wanted to know if this was a violation. Just to be safe, the school made the student pay them back for use of the hose and water, eventually charging her $20. This is just another example of how absurd the NCAA can really be. True, they didn't seek out this violation and it was the school which brought it to their attention. However, the very fact that the school thought it could be a violation shows just how messed up this system really is. The premise that student-athletes shouldn't have access to better benefits than regular students is sound, but when you are getting down to whether or not using the school's water should be considered a benefit based on where the spigot is, I think it is time to step back and reevaluate. The argument is that letting small things slide now allows them to turn into very big things later, but that is taking a black-and-white view on a very gray issue. Not everything can or should be judged on equal footing, especially when the individual programs at one school may be on different levels. Maybe it is time for the NCAA to take another look at its rules and devise a better system for what constitutes a violation so things can be taken on a case-by-case basis with tiered penalties. And if they aren't going to do that they at least need to hire someone to judge the value of things, because $20 is way more than you should ever pay for a carwash.