Good TImes

So, a majorless Tiger gets to tee off at the Barclay's as the number one seed heading into the Fedex Cup dash for cash.

If he wins the cup, this will be one of the best worst seasons in the history of major American sports figures.  If he loses it, this will still be one of the best worst seasons in the history of major American sports figures.

Either way, I really hope that two things happen as the rest of the season plays out:

#1 - The PGA, R&A and every other governing body of golf outlaws the practice of shouting anything just after a player makes contact with the golf ball, and that every tournament follows suit with a strict zero tolerance policy.  Literally, throw the bums out.

#2 - Before this ban takes effect, please, for the love of all that is sacred, let a microphone out on the course catch somebody yelling DYNOMITE just after Jimmy Walker tees off.

Oh, and I really hope Tiger takes home the trophy. 

Unstoppable

I am a Carolina Panthers fan by birthright.  My Panthers got smoked in preseason game two last night by the Eagles.  Michael Vick looked unstoppable.

I live in Charlotte, NC.  I was born here, so technically I am a Charlottean, but not by much more than birthright.

Before the Queen City, I lived in Scotland for two years which for the purposes of this story shouldn’t count.  Before Scotland, I lived in Atlanta for 3 years.  Before Atlanta, I was attending college in Louisiana and couldn’t have cared less about professional football. 

OK, so where am I going with this?  Atlanta was my first exposure to a big NFL town, and it just so happens that I moved there in 1999.  That was an important year for my (then) NFL team and (then) city, although we didn’t know it at the time.  While Atlanta was busy hosting the Super Bowl as a city and sucking out loud as a team, our future was winning the Big East Rookie of the Year award and sending the college football world into a certifiable tizzy. That future had a name and number.  

Michael Dwayne Vick, 7.

I grew up an SEC football fan.  To me, that was what real football looked like.  Outside of Randall Cunningham and the 85 Bears, I was never really that into Sundays.  I watched.  My folks made the Super Bowl a big deal at our house.  But that all paled in comparison to a Saturday in Knoxville or Baton Rouge.  Mr. Vick and my new hometown team changed all of that. 

Unless you live under a rock, you know the story.  Number one overall pick in 2001. Electrifying speed and arm strength.  Houdiniesque plays where you would swear that he literally vanished in order to avoid contact. 

The Michael Vick Experience was one heck of a ride from opening day 2002 until April of 2007 when that experience came to a grinding and disturbing halt. 

You know that story too.

If you are paying attention to my timeline you’ll notice no mention of the 2001 season.  That’s because in the narrative that has become the real-time biography of Vick, no one talks about that year.  For me that was the year to remember.  Forget the pro bowls, playoffs and comebacks.  2001 was the most important year of Michael Vick’s career. 

In 2001 Michael Vick held a clipboard.

Technically, he saw action that season, but for the most part, 2001 was his year to grow.  He came into the league with perhaps as much hoopla as any QB in the history of the game.  But, under coach Dan Reeves’ regime, he was forced to take a step back.  And, most importantly, fall in line. Chris Chandler started in front of Vick.  I remember radio interviews where Vick spoke very humbly about his place on the team and in the world.  He drove a Ford.  He had not yet become that Michael Vick.

I find it fascinating that nobody in the national media talks about that year.  It was the end of an era where teams took some time to groom franchise quarterbacks.  And, I firmly believe that it gave Vick the chance to build a foundation that he would desperately need to lean into later.

That later happened in April of 2007.  A series of very bad decisions took him from The Michael Vick Experience to 21 months in a federal prison, Chapter 11, and a reputation that would crush a lesser mortal.

Again, you know that story.

Flash forward to last night.  There he was commanding a new offense in Philadelphia.  By all NFL measurements, he is a long-in-the-tooth player.  But, there he was…the master of the open field scramble…throwing elite caliber out-route laser beams…making my Panthers look silly.  He looked unstoppable.

Tony Dungy gets a lot of credit for mentoring Vick through his dark days.  He should. 

Vick’s year holding the clip board gets no mention as the place where Vick learned what it was to allow a mentor to shape his life.  It should.

Ironically, Vick is battling with a young gun for the starting QB position in Philly. At the moment Vick is the on-the-field front runner.

He is without a doubt the locker room leader for that team.  When controversy stirs (and man has it ever this preseason), he’s the one who unites the team.  If new coach Chip Kelly wants his shiny new up tempo offense to work in the NFL, he’ll need Vick’s talent on the field and his leadership off of it.

Coach Kelly would be wise to remember 2001, and hand the young gun a clipboard.

My new favorite QB, Cam Newton’s path to the NFL is strikingly similar to that of Vick’s.  He was the second African American QB to be selected overall number one in the NFL draft.

Three guesses as to who was the first.

Electrifying athletic ability; The Cam Newton experience is in full display. 

By statistical measures, he is the most successful QB in history through his first two seasons, but critics always point to a lack of…something.  They can’t articulate succinctly what that something is exactly, but a lot of them agree that it’s missing.

Cam never got to hold a clipboard.  If he did, he’d be unstoppable by now.

 

 

She's Got Legs

With all deference to Florence and her Machine, the dog days are most certainly not over. 

Indeed, we are in that sub-season where both the humidity and pigskin anticipation are dense and getting denser.  I’m a runner and a baseball nut, and even I can’t escape the palpability of that “just over the horizon” vista that is opening day of the college and professional football seasons.  My fantasy football war room research is nearly completed, my Carolina Panthers broke camp injury free, my Tennessee Volunteers are…well I know that they are still playing home games on Rocky Top…not really sure what else to expect this year.  My Braves are on a roll to end all rolls.  Hope is springing eternal as we round the bend and head into a very promising sports autumn.  With the exception of that magical few weeks in spring when baseball diamonds in Florida and Arizona come to life, the madness begins marching and traditions unlike any other stir the echoes, this is my favorite time of the year.

With all of that having been said, these are the days that try men’s sports entertainment souls.  Sport is supposed to be where men go to get our reality TV fix.  Personally, I prefer for that reality to unfold on the fields of play.  Alas, this is the time of year when we get the proverbial peek behind the curtain.  I grew up in a minor league baseball locker room.  I don’t want any more said peeks.  I know what I’ll see.  It’s dank and smelly and full of men who are as broken as I am.  I get to hide from the world while I work on fixing my broken pieces.  This time of year is when our sports heroes get to bring their broken pieces to the world’s largest show and tell.

I don’t have to name names (Johnny So-and-So) or venues (Hardly worth the Knock).  Everywhere you look these days, there is a sports figure feeding the frenzy of America’s two freshly minted pastimes: Falling from grace and trying to find redemption.  I prefer to focus on the latter over the former.  Call me a sucker for a happy ending.

This brings me to last night’s sports viewing options.  Yes, there was the Braves beating the Phillies (again).  And, yes I am baseball nut who should have been watching the Braves beat the Phillies (again).  Only I didn’t.  I got caught up in ESPN’s 30 for 30 (9 for 9) “The Runner”, and not’ for nothin’, but it was really good.  I was nine (ironically) when Mary Decker had what was quite possibly the year to beat all years in middle distance competitive running.  That was 1985.  In 1984 she had what was quite definitely the year every young competitor wants to forget.  The one where you lose when you weren’t supposed to and don’t handle it well, and everyone stops to watch the man (or in this case woman) dangle on the cliff’s edge, and then loves it when she falls. 

Man did she fall. 

Like I said, I am a runner.  I’m not good enough to win any race I enter, but I’m not a plodder.  I train to get faster and run longer, and I don’t jog in place at intersections.  I stand there with my hands on my hips, looking really pissed off.  Like I said, runner.  So, I have some vague fantastical idea of what it might be like to have the year that Decker had in 85, immediately following her immortal reaction to her fall from grace at the 84 LA Olympics.       

If you missed the 30 for 30 (9 for 9) then you are probably unaware of what I am talking about.  Here’s a recap of the races in which Decker competed in 1985.  She won.  All of them.  By a lot.

And unless you are one of THOSE Oregon running people…you did not know that.  You only remember the fall, you have no clue about the redemption.  I didn’t.  For shame?  Maybe.

The honest answer is that not many of us pay attention to the “Olympic Sports” in non-olympic years and so 1985, for better or worse, didn’t matter to most. Decker’s year to remember became the proverbial tree falling in the woods.  And, here is where the story goes from good to great for me.  Decker got one more crack at Olympic gold in Seoul, Korea in 1988. She took the block in the women’s 3000 meter and we all held our breath.  The starting gun went off, the race was run.  Decker finished 8^th.  Her best finish at any Olympic games. 

How’s that good?  Good question.  My answer: it gave her story legs. 

I don’t know what it’s like to shoot for the moon and get there.  I’ve never finished first at anything.  But, I’ve worked my brains out and tried to do what is right, any time I am given the chance.  I’ve failed in spectacular fashion. I've failed in ways that only I know about.  I know what it’ like to fall down in front of everyone when the wind was at my back and I knew I was the best on the field.  I know what it’s like to succeed and have no one notice.  I know what it’s like to look back and see that one thing that you tried your hardest to achieve and was always just out of reach.  My guess is that if you spent more than a few years on this bouncing ball…you know what it’s like to be Decker too.  If you’ve got it like Phelps, then good on ya.  Seriously, go get it and don’t let go.  But, if you know what it is to fall, and then choose not to let that fall be the end of your story, then you know why Mary Decker’s story’s legs could be so much more important to the world than her once storied legs.

But, I digress.  Football anyone?