Chris Henry's Legacy

Sport is full of mercurial characters that both amaze and disgust us. So many of the athletes that we revere as something more than human on the field continually disappoint us with their behavior off of it. Michael Vick’s dog fighting ring, Tiger Woods’ remarkably thorough job of cheating on his wife, and the adventures of Adam “Pacman” Jones are all recent examples of the kind of foolish and destructive behavior that these modern day gladiators are capable of. We all have different responses to their actions, and each reaction has its reason for existing. Some of us laugh off the behavior and make jokes at the expense of our troubled athletes in an effort to distance ourselves from the reality that we’re seeing. Just like we learn to laugh at ourselves during our embarrassing moments, we learn to laugh at those we revere most in order to minimize the effect the situation has on us personally. Some of us admonish these “men of men” for their problems as if we were the morality police. This reaction grows out of natural human vanity that almost forces us to use the downfall of others to artificially inflate our own self worth. We all have insecurities about who we are, but when the rich and famous among us go out and do something stupid or even criminal, it allows us to put ourselves on a pedestal above the American Royalty that celebrities and athletes represent. Others completely ignore the transgressions, claiming that they are only interested in what the athletes do on the field, and that any personal issues they may have are irrelevant. I fall into the last category. I refuse to discuss the Tiger Woods situation with anyone because I believe that it’s no one’s business outside of Woods’ family. The current TMZ generation (of which I suppose I am a dissenting member of) that laps up every bit of celebrity gossip like a cat at a milk saucer and revels in every instance of strange, inexplicable behavior that our celebrities are guilty of sickens me with their blatant disregard for anyone’s personal privacy. I think the best possible explanation for why I react to sports scandals the way I do is that if I were to validate them, it would make it harder for me to continue to cheer for these guys on the field and still retain any amount of self-respect. Sports is a huge part of my life, and by admitting that athletes’ off the field problems color their on-field performance I would be admitting that all the countless hours of athletic performances that have entertained me over my 26 years on this earth were wasted cheering for derelicts. I’m not ready to admit that this is the case, so instead of validating the ridiculous off-field behavior of these guys, I just choose to ignore it. Maybe this isn’t the healthiest thing in the world, but it seems to work for me.

Ultimately, the ugly behavior of our favorite athletes is something of a byproduct of being human. People in all walks of life make mistakes, so why would these guys be any different? We all hold them to a higher moral and ethical standard than “regular” people because of their public visibility. Whether this is fair or not is irrelevant, because it is what it is. When athletes make mistakes, the whole world sees them and silently (and sometimes not so silently) judges them for those mistakes. However, after all is said and done, the mistakes made by our heroes typically prove to be but small speed bumps on their freeway of a career. We take special pleasure in watching these fallen angels rebound and rebuild their public image to the point that their issues are almost forgotten. Ray Lewis was involved in a murder investigation just 9 years ago. Despite having murder charges dropped against him as he plead guilty to a misdemeanor in exchange for testimony against the two (now acquitted) suspects, Lewis still settled out of court with the family of the deceased for an undisclosed amount of money in order to eschew upcoming civil proceedings against him. These are not the actions of someone who is completely innocent. I’m not saying that Lewis killed anyone, but clearly he knew what happened and was familiar with the situation. In other words, I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Either way, within 12 months, Lewis was being named MVP of the Super Bowl (although Disney, the corporation founded by an allegedly raging anti-Semite who may or may not have worked for the House Un-American Activities Committee in the ‘50’s, decided that Lewis reputation should preclude him from getting to say the “I’m going to Disney World!” line that is traditionally granted to Super Bowl MVP’s. The immortal Trent Dilfer was given the honor, instead). In 2005, Ray was granted the prestigious honor of gracing the cover of Madden ’05. All of this happened for Lewis after nearly being tried for murdering another human being. If Lewis can make it back to prominence, then so can everyone else, right? Michael Vick is finding it a little more difficult to overcome has past this season as he attempts a comeback with the Eagles. He is roundly booed both at home and on the road, and until recently, his play was seemingly suffering (this, of course, could have had nothing to do with his cold reception, instead owing itself to the fact that he spent two years eating prison food and protecting his backside). Still, Vick is back and now thriving on a team that seems playoff bound, leaving the possibility that Vick will play in his first Super Bowl in his first year back from jail. My point is that regardless of what someone has done in the past, in the world of sports, second chances are plentiful.

Unfortunately, athletes are not like cats. Eventually, their chances run out. Chris Henry demonstrated this to the world yesterday when he was involved in what is now known to be a fatal accident, ending his once promising life at the tender age of 26. Henry was a third round draft pick for the Cincinnati Bengals out of West Virginia, and despite his slight frame that earned him the nickname “Slim,” Henry became an effective deep threat in the NFL before his off-the-field issues started to take their toll. A quick check of his Wikipedia page indicates just how significant Henry’s arrest record is. In 2006, Henry was suspended by the NFL for 2 games for violating the personal conduct and substance abuse policies. In 2007, Henry was suspended for 8 games for the same violations. Immediately upon his return, Henry caught 4 passes for 99 yards against the Ravens, further illustrating how his tantalizingly unique talents had the potential to shine if he would ever get his life outside football on track. In 2008, Henry was arrested yet again, prompting the Bengals to cut Henry loose. After suffering a few injuries during preseason in ’08, Bengal’s owner Mike Brown convinced coach Marvin Lewis to bring Henry back for one last chance. This time, it really would be his last one.

Henry has been out the past few weeks and was already on IR with a broken arm. We kept hearing about how Henry had recommitted himself to living a clean life and taking full advantage of the opportunity the Bengals had given him, and of course, we all wanted to believe it. Everyone who follows the NFL was hoping this kid would figure it all out so we could be entertained by his electric skills. Unfortunately for all of us, Henry’s dysfunction caught up with him before he learned how to control himself.

This NFL season has been particularly entertaining. The Saints and Colts remain undefeated after 13 weeks. Old Man Favre has put on quite a show as he continues to surpass everything he’s accomplished in his already phenomenal career. Chris Johnson has put himself in position to take a run at the single-season rushing record with a record number of ridiculously long TD runs. Despite all of these things that should be dominating our NFL-related conversations, Chris Henry’s terrible accident is going to take precedent for the next couple of weeks. The saddest part of all of this is that for the next few months, this season will be remembered for Henry’s death. Players will say that they’ve learned a lesson in Henry’s catastrophe and that his misfortune has given them a new perspective on their lives. There will be stories about the impact that Henry’s death will have on the league moving forward. Then, something will change. People will start to forget. This season will eventually be remembered for all of the things that I mentioned before, because ultimately, the NFL is about on-the-field stuff. Players will go back to doing things the way they used to, and Henry’s death will have been in vain. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you heard about the 1963 NFL season being marred by the gambling scandal involving two players? Do you even know who those players were? Would you be surprised if I said they were Hall of Famer Paul Hornung and former star of the TV show Webster Alex Karras? Both players were suspended for one season, and both guys went on to be relatively unharmed by the incident. In fact, Kentucky’s high school football player of the year award is still called the Paul Hornung Award. This entire incident has been completely forgotten by the vast majority of the population. Henry’s incident will end up dispersing into thin air the way other mistakes of the past have. That’s just the way these things play out over time.

There is one person who I pray learns a lifelong lesson from Henry’s tragedy. Pacman Jones was a teammate of Henry’s at West Virginia. Jones is a young man whose life has taken a path similar to that of Henry’s. Pacman’s issues have become so cumbersome that he is not playing in the NFL this season despite having no pending suspensions or no existing injuries to preclude his participation. The 32 NFL teams have simply decided that his antics and troublesome tendencies are too much to tolerate. When the NFL decides you’re too much trouble to employ, regardless of your world class skills, it should be a wake-up call of epic proportions. If, somehow, Jones has found a way to ignore such a slap in the face, Henry’s death should act as the ultimate display of how his life could wind up if he doesn’t change his ways. Henry’s death doesn’t have to become a largely insignificant footnote during an historic NFL season. It can have a lasting impression on the life of another trouble young man who was given too much, too soon and has proven incapable of handling it. “Pacman” can become ‘Adam’ again and be a fully functioning member of the NFL community if he commits himself to rebuilding his life. Let’s all hope he takes this tragedy and uses it to reevaluate his situation so none of us have to go through losing another athlete in this most horrific of ways.

Personally, I’d like to extend my deepest sympathies to those who were close to Chris Henry. Let's hope Chris' legacy is that of inspiring change in the life of others and not for squandering the potential of his.

Coaching Genius and Other Oxymorons

Just the other day, I was reading an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about Timberwolves forward Kevin Love's recent three-point shooting binge. As a rookie last year, Love made just 2 of his 19 three point attempts. This year, while playing just seven games after recently returning from a broken hand suffered just before the start of the season, Love has made 7 of his 11 three-point shots. In just seven games! The writer (Strib Wolves beat writer Jerry Zgoda) asked if there was a reason for the recent barrage of long range shots. Shockingly, Love said that early in the season last year, a "forgotten" coach had instructed him to stay under the basket and shoot only inside of 10 feet. When pressed further, Love stated that he couldn't remember that long ago as to remember the coach's name. When asked if it was former Wolves coach Randy Wittman, Love replied with "Yeah, no comment." Now, it is not unusual for coaches to give these kinds of instructions to players. At the end of the day, it's the coach's reputation on the line pending the outcome of the game. But in this case, if this story is indeed true, it would seem to indicate yet another instance in a disturbing pattern of coaches arbitrarily imposing their will over their players. Anyone who saw Kevin Love play for one year at UCLA knows that he is a player who is more than capable of hitting outside shots. In fact, when Love was traded for shortly after the 2008 NBA Draft, then Wolves GM Kevin McHale specifically cited Love's outside game and ability to play the high post as what attracted the organization to him, considering the team already had a supreme low post talent in Jefferson. Apparently, however, Coach Wittman did not share the same regard for Love's talents.

This all seemed strange to me; drafting a player with the intent of pairing him with a low post scorer, and then subsequently instructing him not to shoot the ball. Very odd. The only thing that makes this declaration by Wittman even remotely defensible is that offensive rebounding is a huge element of Kevin Love's game, and it is hard to get offensive rebounds when you're shooting 20 footers all the time. Love was 2nd in offensive rebounds per game last season with 3.4 in just over 25 minutes per game. The only player ahead of him in this category, Dwight Howard, played almost 36 minutes per game. Regardless, Love's penchant for offensive rebounding should not have been a reason for him to be completely barred from taking outside shots.

Wittman's mandate of Love seems eerily similar to an issue that came up a number of years back, when the Detroit Pistons had the second overall pick in the 2003 Draft and chose Darko "The Beast" Milicic over Carmelo Anthony. Their main argument at the time was that coach Larry Brown wasn't going to play a rookie the kind of minutes Anthony would have deserved, so they were better off taking a project type player like Milicic for the betterment of the team. We later learned this to be at least partially true when Brown took the opportunity to bury Carmelo on Team USA's bench during the 2004 Olympics, ruining his confidence for the next 10 months in the process. (I just realized that Mandate of Love would make an awesome title for a VH1 reality show. Here's the premise: A female Supreme Court Justice, lets say Justice Sotomayor, looking for a hot young fling, would choose between 20 recently paroled men in an attempt to find real lust. There would be tattoos, knife fights, keggars, and a strong possibility that all of Justice Sotomayor's belongings would be pawned off by the end of the series. This couldn't miss.) The decision to take Darko instead of Carmelo had nothing to do with basketball at the end of the day. It was a move to placate an insecure coach who would rather do things his way than do them the right way.

This has become too frequent an issue in professional sports. Bill Belichick is certainly a guilty party. In the Patriots' November 15th game against the Colts, Belichick infamously sent his offense back on the field to go for it on 4th down from their own 28 with just over 2 minutes left in the game while leading by 6. Why would a coach do this? Certainly the conventional, time tested decision here is to punt the football away and let your defense try to stop the Colts from going 80 for a game winning TD. Even though the Pats had been having trouble slowing the Colts offense in that game, it's still pretty unlikely that Peyton and his boys would have been able to roll down the field and score the case TD. I truly believe Belichick made the decision to go for it in such a strange situation so he would be the reason they won the game. If they get that first down, then Belichick's genius would have become even more undeniable that it already was. We're talking about an NFL coach who won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, not including 2007, when the Patriots only became the first NFL team in 35 years to go undefeated throughout the regular season and the first team to do it since the schedule expanded to 16 games. What more did this guy have to prove to anyone? How insecure of a guy must Belichick be to still have to display his genius in such ways? It's really a perplexing issue.

Two great examples of this in baseball are Tony LaRussa and Joe Girardi; two managers who haven't met a pitching change or defensive replacement that they haven't liked . LaRussa is tougher to criticize for his actions as his history lacks a defining "backfire moment" along the lines of Girardi and Belichick. My critique of LaRussa will therefore revolve around the way he changed baseball for the worse over the past 30 years. LaRussa is more or less singularly responsible for baseball games that take 3 and a half hours and useless middle relief pitchers making $5 million a year. Before he took over the White Sox in 1979, baseball consisted mainly of two types of pitchers: Starters and closers. Starters would take the ball as far as they could with the hope that they could take it the whole way. If they were only able to get through 7 or 8 innings, then the closer would come in and take it the rest of the way. Guys like Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage had terrific careers out of this closer role in the 70's and early 80's. LaRussa turned the game on its ear with his almost schizophrenic way of changing pitchers. He created the idea of the lefty/lefty and righty/righty match-ups that seem to backfire as often as they are successful. He invented the "8 pitchers in one game and we win by 4 runs" strategy that would have been unheard of if not for him. Now, if LaRussa had never existed, would somebody else have come up with this strategy? Probably, but LaRussa is an easy guy to dislike, with his unchanging hair color and tendency to get behind the wheel after a few too many. This is really just one more thing. Girardi's pitcher-happy style almost cost his team a World Series title and got him fired in the process. His quick trigger in the ALCS potentially cost his team a clinching game and extended the series, and as we all know, any team with a lock-down guy like Brian Fuentes closing games for it is not a team you want to play in tight spots (well...maybe not).

The overarching theme here is that these "managerial" decisions are intended to cover the manager/coach regardless of the outcome. If the decision is successful, then the team won thanks to the foresight and instincts of their fearless leader. This, of course, is the desired outcome, because it leads to big money extensions and awards that look great above the fireplace. If the tactics fail, then the manager/coach can point to the numbers and say, "Hey, I did my job. I put my guys/girls in the best possible situation, and they failed to come through. I wish I could just shoot them all and do this all myself, seeing as I'm so great." Well, no one has probably ever said the last part, but almost every professional coach in the age of statistics has said the first part. The problem with the above theory is that it doesn't work. How many coaches do we see get fired each year in every sport? At the beginning of the 2007 season, every coaching post in the NBA's Eastern Conference had changed hands in the previous 16 months. Clearly whatever these coaches are trying to do in order to insulate themselves from the results their team produces isn't working.

The bottom line that coaches don't seem to understand is that they are always going to be held responsible for their team's failings whether or not they play things by the numbers. When was the last time after a losing season that an owner looked at his franchise and said "You know what? We've got terrible players, but that coach is a genius! Dump all the high priced talent and get me new players. We're building around Byron Scott's game day coaching!" George W. Bush will be asked to join MENSA before that scenario ever plays out. The only recourse coaches have in today's "what have you done for me lately" world is to, as Herm Edwards put it, PLAY TO WIN THE GAME!!! A novel idea, I know. Playing to win leaves you open to criticism if you lose and makes everything your fault, but as I've already detailed, it's always the coaches fault regardless of whether or not it's actually his fault.

Coaches will never find security in their jobs until they start trusting their players to do what they do best and stop handcuffing them with inane, self-serving decision making. We're talking about teams full of professional athletes. 99% of these guys care more about their job than anything else in their lives. They want to win. They want to be successful. Most of the time, the best move a professional coach can make is to take a seat, cross his legs and hope that the work put in between games is enough to carry the team during the game. The fans aren't there to see their team's coach jump up and down on the sideline while screaming instructions at guys who have been playing the game their entire lives. We fans go to games to watch the players play and to cheer our team on to victory. Coaches really just get in the way. Basically, unless the coach is going to throw a hissy fit and get thrown out of the game, no one really cares what they do. No one is going to drive home and talk with their buddies about the great substitution Kurt Rambis made with 8:39 left to play in the third quarter. Gomes in for Wilkins? What a freaking genius!

My theory as to what coaches should do is going to cost some of them genius points. If Belichick does the conventional thing and punts against the Colts, odds are that the Patriots would have won the game and the Colts would not be undefeated right now, but Belichick would have been just another coach with a supremely talented team who beat another coach with a supremely talented team. There's nothing special there. But if coaches would more often than not play to the conventions and stop over-thinking (certain tactics are convention for a reason...they work!), the wins that would result from letting their team play their game would be more than enough to get them the big money extensions that we all long for. Let the good looking trophies sit on the fireplace of the unemployed coaches. I'd take the wins.

Beginnings Are Like Buttholes...

Hello, all. This is a new endeavor for me, so let me explain a little about what I hope to do here and why this will hopefully become a place you frequent regularly during your internet travels. I'm a recent law school graduate from Minnesota and have been patiently waiting to take the bar exam in February. The biggest problem I currently have is that my time is more plentiful than the available activities to fill it. As I have found over the past few months, one can only play so much XBox and online poker. I think the sound of Madden 10 starting up has caused me to black out a couple of times recently. I can't be sure of this, but all I know is that I have been waking up disoriented on the floor with my dog staring quizzically at me more than usual lately. Either way, I need something to do.

My favorite thing in the whole world is sports. Being a self-proclaimed pensive man, I often have many sports-related ideas and theories dancing around in my underworked mind and no one to listen to them. Try as I might, I simply can't get my fiance to care about what a travesty these Thursday night NFL games have become as much as I do. That's where you folks come in. The main reason I decided to use a blog to express my ideas was so readers could easily comment on the posts and create a certain community. Being from Minnesota, many of my thoughts and theories revolve around my native Twins, Vikings, Gophers, and when things get dull, the Timberwolves, but also include more universal subjects like national sports topics, fantasy sports, gambling, and other such time drains. Sports history is an area of great interest to me, and tied in with this is a love of sports names and numbers. My friend Peterson once said that my knowledge of random sports facts was so ridiculous that I must use flash cards to study stats and names (hence the name of this site). I've never tried writing about sports in this type of venue, so I'll be doing this 'learn-as-I-go' style, so bare with me. Hopefully I figure out the nuances of writing for an audience before too long.

Since this doesn't count as an actual post, look for a real deal article tomorrow. I will try to write something 3 or 4 times per week...possibly more if the mood strikes me.