Money Players

Shawne Merriman's positive drug test

San Diego Charger Shawne Merriman has been suspended by the NFL for testing positive for a banned substance. He is appealing this suspension.

I am definitely against players using steroids. While many are ready to attack Merriman, he does deserve some benefit of the doubt. At least until we have all the facts.

There are rules and procedures which must be followed in order to protect the integrity of the drug testing program. Unfortunately, someone from the team and league leaked information to the ESPN's Chris Mortensen.

On ESPN.com, Mortensen reported team and league sources told him that Merriman's suspension was "definitely for steroids … not one of those supplement deals."

Merriman's attorney David Cornwell correctly pointed out, "Someone breached the confidentiality provision of the NFL's drug policy, which is subject to a $500,000 fine."

Cornwell claims that any steroids that may have been present in Merriman's body was the result of tainted supplements.

Said Cornwell, “(Merriman) has been playing, unwittingly, Russian Roulette with his career, because he has been taking the same supplements and has been subjected to testing and hasn't yielded a positive test. So he thought the supplements he was taking were safe.”

Unfortunately, this is more of a commentary than a defense. Tainted supplements is certainly plausible, but this claim likely won't help Merriman.

The bottom line is the NFLPA agreed that players are responsible for whatever goes into or onto their bodies, knowingly or unknowingly. Even if they're getting a massage, they need to know what is being rubbed onto their skin. Ignorance is not an excuse.

Here's to you Mr. Favre

Last week the NFL suspended Green Bay Packer wideout Koren Robinson for one calendar year for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy. For the next year, Robinson won't play in the NFL. He won't get paid. Also by NFL rule Robinson is banned from any involvement with the Packers, including use of facilities.

Teammate Brett Favre pointed out a major flaw in the NFL drug policy.

Said Favre:

I don't like the way the league has, in my mind, turned their back on [Robinson]. I'm not against banning him for the year...I'm no expert, but I would think you would want for people to reach out to him and be within an organization that can help him as opposed to saying, "You're banned from the building. To make matters worse, we don't even want you over here, so go think about it and deal with it on your own."

Professional sports is a cold, harsh world. The NFL shouldn't be expected to be overly compassionate to players who have made bad decisions. Repeatedly. In this situation, suspension and loss of wages seem like sufficient punishment.

Westcoast Sports Associates honors Hank Aaron

The 11th Annual Westcoast Sports Associates Roy Firestone Award Gala was held Monday. This year's honoree was Hank Aaron. WSA raises money for inner-city youth sports programs.

We couldn't have asked for a better honoree than Hank Aaron, MLB's all-time home run king. As President Bill Clinton wrote in a letter, "This tribute is a fitting recognition not only of your extraordinary career achievements, but also your strong and generous spirit...From your championing of civil rights to your championing of underprivileged children...you have provided us all with a shining example of triumphing over adversity; of both doing well and doing good."

Debbie Spander, my fiance, is a WSA board member and also serves as Gala chair. It was a phenomenal effort by everyone involved, but Debbie, as always, did an amazing job. I could mention 20 others who also make this event what it is. We are very fortunate to have Roy Firestone's involvement. He doesn't just show up to MC the dinner. although we'd be grateful if he did just that. He comes to every board meeting. He helps direct the funds WSA distributes. He gets the honorees. And he gets the majority of the memorabilia we auction donated.

Past honorees include John Wooden, Wayne Gretzky, Cal Ripken, Arnold Palmer, and Steve Young. This year, we took the event to new heights, netting over $200,000.

The event's hallmark is Roy Firestone's "upclose" interview with the honoree. Hank Aaron has great insights into baseball, race, and society. However, Barry Bonds is closing in on Hank's record and so steroids is on everyone's mind. But Hank, showing great class, simply won't comment directly. In front of 450 people at the dinner, Aaron said, "Everybody is innocent until they are proven guilty. We can all talk, but until something is proven, hard evidence, I don't want to weigh in on the matter. I just want to leave it at that."

This response didn't satisfy one person in the audience, who stood up, was handed a microphone, and picked up where Hank left off. Reggie Jackson (a classic "pardon the interruption") did a masterful job not only honoring Hank Aaron, but also making the case that Hank's record should not be broken by anyone who cheated.

Earlier in the day, Hank said a bit more on the subject:

But here's the problem we now have: You got a player dressing beside me, hitting 55-60 home runs, and you think you've got almost the same ability as he has other than what he's taken, but you don't take anything. And you say, 'Man, I wonder if I take the same thing, would I hit 60-70 home runs?'

While the steroid issue gets the most media coverage, the night was really about honoring Hank Aaron and Westcoast Sports Associates raising money for an incredibly worthwhile cause: youth sports in Southern California.

Remembering Buck O'Neil

Negro League great Buck O'Neil died last week at age 94.

In Ken Burns's documentary "Baseball,"  Buck O'Neil vividly tells the history of the Negro Leagues. In the process he introduces a new generation to Buck O'Neil and the many forgotten -- and never known -- Negro League heroes.

Ken Burns, in an appreciation of O'Neil's life in the Chicago Tribune, writes:

We are grateful for Buck's patience and forbearance and Christian example in the face of that dehumanizing racism. He never let it get to him and never stopped fighting it, fighting it not with the weapons of the enemy--the assassins' guns, cowardly bombs, fiery crosses and withering rhetoric--but with the gentle language of your savior, with grace and stoicism...Buck liberated himself, not an easy thing to do, and then turned around and for the rest of his life helped to liberate the rest of us: white and black, female and male, young and old, red state and blue. And Buck, we are so grateful.

Here's a link to Buck O'Neil's memorable interview in "Baseball."

Seattle Times writer Jerry Brewer writes about O'Neil's impact on sports and society in, "Every star should tip his hat to Buck O'Neil."

Quoting Seattle Sonic star Ray Allen:

Buck O'Neil was that ambassador to people in his generation...He grew up in an America that didn't treat black people equally. The Negro Leagues are a reminder of that and also the fight to find a level playing field. Now athletes are representing different things.

Despite Buck O'Neil's contributions to the game of baseball, both on and off the field, he has never been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He once said:

Shed no tears for Buck. I couldn't attend Sarasota High School. That hurt. I couldn't attend the University of Florida. That hurt. But not going into the Hall of Fame, that ain't going to hurt me that much. Before, I wouldn't even have a chance. But this time I had that chance.

Lenny Dykstra, car wash king

Lenny Dykstra is all business these days.  Definitely not the "Nails" most remember from his playing days with the Mets and Phillies. He lives in Southern California and owns Lenny Dykstra Car Wash. He's a hands-on owner, which is important for someone literally in the detail business. Good for him.

Holland offers strategy to plug the dyke

Terry Holland, former University of Virginia basketball coach and current athletic director at East Carolina University, is one of my favorite people working in college athletics. Not only does he have a deep, thoughtful understanding of the issues, but he's not afraid to speak his mind.

I applaud the NCAA's efforts to reform the landscape of college athletics. But as Terry points out in an article in The Daily Reflect there is an important overlooked element:

Setting a goal of 80 percent graduation rates without addressing the missed class time created by regular season, conference and NCAA events does not make sense to me. How can our athletes believe that the NCAA (or any of us who are the NCAA) truly cares about academics when NCAA Championships and many other events are scheduled during the students' classes, their exam periods and even during their graduation ceremonies?

Of course, the kind of reform Terry is talking about involves leaving money offered by television on the table.

Why the rich go broke

Tim O'Brien wrote a great article in The NY Times a few weeks ago, "Why the rich go broke."

The article focuses on former boxing champ George Foreman who nearly went bankrupt in the 80's. He turned his financial career around, earning millions from boxing and then hitting it big as a product pitchman (including the mega-selling George Foreman Grill).

The entire article is worth reading, but if nothing else listen to what George Foreman has to say:

"A lot of people just don't grow up. I mean, 65-year-old men. They just don't grow up. They don't understand that money does not grow on a tree and that you've got to respect every dollar. Like Rip Van Winkle - the guy who slept - they party, party, party, then they wake up. 'Oh my God!' And they do something desperate trying to recapture what they had. And it doesn't work like that. You must stay awake."

"I've never borrowed a significant amount of money in my life. Never. Never will. I've got no interest in it. The other reason is I never thought I would be way happier when I had 2X instead of X."

"You can become complacent. You can say, 'I'm successful,' which is the kiss of death. In America it's hard to wake up hungry. It's frightening. You can become complacent and wake up tomorrow totally homeless."

Sportswriters for Freedom of the Press

My (soon-to-be) father-in-law is Art Spander, a long-time Bay Area sportswriter. Last week he wrote about the trial of San Franscisco Chronicle's Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the guys who broke the BALCO scandal, who now face 18 months in jail for "refusing to testify who leaked them the grand jury testimony on Bonds, Jason Giambi and the other jocks."

A group of well-respected sports writers, including Art, protested in support of Fainaru-Wada and Williams, wearing tshirts outside the court house that read, "Sportswriters for Freedom of the Press."

The protest was organized by Rick Telander. When I lived in Chicago I used to play basketball with Rick. He had a great influence on me, particularly when I first started writing about issues related to sports. He currently writes for the Chicago Sun Times and is author of several sports books, including The Hundred Yard Lie, an amazing book that challenges many of the myths of intercollegiate athletics.

For more information on Art's writing career and freedom of the press, read a feature on him in Sportsmediaguide.com, a website that explores the "art and craft of sports coverage."

Institutional (un)control

Last Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal* did an investigative piece on Vanderbilt chancellor Gordon Gee.

Among the Journal's allegations:
1) The school paid $6 million to renovate its chancellor’s house, a 20,000-square-foot mansion. (Not including Graceland, is there a house in Tennessee worth $6 million?)
2) The Gee’s annual entertainment budget eclipsed $700,000.
3) Gee sits on five corporate boards. According to the Journal he earned $400,000 in cash and stock last year for his corporate board "hobby." That's in addition to his $1.4 million salary as Vanderbilt chancellor.
4) Gee's wife Constance reportedly smoked marijuana (for medical reasons) at the chancellor's residence. However, Tennessee does not exempt medical marijuana; any type of use or possession is illegal. Can't wait for the defense of the next Vanderbilt student caught with drugs.

To be fair the WSJ article also pointed out some of the great things Gee has accomplished at Vanderbilt, including raising over $1 billion. The article also cites three other universities where poor governance and executive hubris resulted in improper spending.

A couple years ago Gee made national headlines by putting his school's intercollegiate athletic programs under the control of intramural athletics, essentially eliminating the athletic department as we know it. Vanderbilt did not abandon Division 1 athletics nor did they become less competitive as many thought would happen. Many people, including me, publicly lauded Gee for this bold move to fundamentally change how Vanderbilt's athletic department operated. Not only did Gee cut costs (the athletic director position was eliminated) but it also was a clear message to student athletes that they would be treated just like regular students.

So my hero who took on the athletic establishment, the guy who brought what I thought was some sanity back to college athletics does not appear to be as noble as we once thought. Say it ain't so, Gordo?

Who watches Gee? Apparently not the 44-member Board of Trustees. Trustee Edward Malloy, a former president of the University of Notre Dame and an influential figure in college athletics, admits that oversight of Gee has "probably been a little loosey-goosey." 

Makes you wonder whether presidential control over intercollegiate athletics, a strategy favored for many years by the NCAA, is such a good idea after all. At least with improper oversight an AD only has the luxury of padding a $30, 40, maybe $90 million budget. A college president can mismanage billion-dollar-plus budgets. Apparently with the same lax oversight.

* This link is good at the moment, but sites like wsj.com often post articles for free for a short time.

 

Welcome to $$ Players

Welcome.

In sports, politics, religion, relationships, you name it, money is the driving force. You want answers? Then "follow the money," as the saying goes.

In the past when something irritated me related to the world we live in, I would email a few people -- my soon-to-be-wife Debbie, Mom, Dad, my brother Alan, Rick, Jeffrey, Joel, Ellen, Deanna, Reggie, Ryan, etc.

In expanding my readership beyond the 8, 9 regulars, I want this blog to be a resource for athletes and their families. My next book, "Go Pro Like a Pro: A pro athlete's guide to success in sports, business, and life" will be published in November. I will draw on a lot of the issues I have been researching and writing on, including NCAA rules, agents, gambling, performance enhancing drugs, money management (or mismanagement), dealing with the media.

Better than try to explain exactly what this blog will be, let's enter the blogosphere and let gravitational forces take over. Enjoy.

Marc Isenberg
marc.isenberg@gmail.com