Money Players

Dirty Love talk

I went up to Oregon this past weekend to see the Oregon/UCLA and Oregon/USC hoops games. I am an admitted UCLA fan, but I also wanted to see my guy Bryce Taylor.

I am generally tolerant when it comes to students cheering and even jeering, but the Oregon fans crossed the line with their taunting of Oregon-native Kevin Love.

I can deal with "bullshit" chants, even if I think it's classless. But...

"Kevin Love is a pussy" crosses the line, right?

One extended round of chants, okay. But the second time someone from Oregon should have stopped the game and made it clear that this was unacceptable. The handmade signs were even more over-the-top and obscene. The "Pit Crew" also put up Love's cell number, which basically rendered his phone useless after he got got hundreds of text messages and voicemails.

Kevin Love handled the whole thing with class, hardly acknowledging the fans and leading his Bruins to victory.

Before the USC game, Ernie Kent did make a pregame announcement, asking fans to behave. In that game, Oregon came back from 9 down with less than a minute to send the game into overtime. The environment was electric. The Pit Crew are the loudest fans in college basketball -- or a close second to the Cameron Crazies.

So what should be done? Oregon AD Pat Kilkenny called UCLA to apologize.

Henry Abbott from True Hoop e-mailed me this idea:
"Man oh man. What do with the reality that a lot of people are tasteless idiots. Here's one idea: videotape the worst offenders with those signs. Slow-motion it. And then add their names, majors, GPAs etc. and send it to their parents, professors, advisers etc."

I like it.

--Marc Isenberg

Super Bowl Media Daze

Today is Super Bowl media day, which is mostly an opportunity for a few fringe members of the media to ask stupid questions or propose marriage. Tough call for Tom Brady: A wedding-dress wearing stalker or Giselle? CNNSI.com features the all-time dumbest Super Bowl questions.

Appearing on ESPN's Outside the Lines, six-time Super Bowl participant Don Beebe offered some great insights.

On Green Bay coach Mike Holmgren preparing team for the off-the-field distractions:

"Coach Holmgren said, 'I have two players who want to address to the football team. The first is Don Beebe and he will tell you what to do during Super Bowl Week. And the next is Jim McMahon. He's going to tell you want not to do.'"

On the high cost of taking care of friends and family:

"Me and my wife sat down and figured out how much we invested on the six Super Bowls and it was over $300,000 in tickets, meals, hotel rooms and all that stuff. Tickets aren't cheap. The most I ever got was 48 tickets for Super Bowl XXVIII."

OJ Mayo accepts free ticket from Melo Anthony

The LA Times is reporting that OJ Mayo may be in hot with with the NCAA because he accepted NBA tickets from Carmelo Anthony.

NCAA bylaw 16.11.2.2.3 states that student-athletes may not receive "free or reduced-cost admission to professional athletics contests from professional sports organizations, unless such services also are available to the student body in general."

So why is it okay for high school athletes to receive free tickets from schools? Certainly, these tickets (usually very good ones, I might add) are not available to the "student body in general." No, college coaches give them out precisely because they have a special ability to help that school. There's no competitive advantage, either. Melo went to Syracuse so it's not like he's acting as a booster for USC.

And how about Mayo lecturing Melo about being out late the night before a big NBA game? Said Mayo, "I was talking to him like, `Man, you're out pretty late. You've got a game tomorrow night against Kobe [Bryant],"' Mayo said. "He said, `Nah, it will be all right.' And then he asked, `You want to come to the game?' And I was like, 'Sure.' "

I'd prefer student-athletes spend their time studying and focusing on basketball, rather than meeting up with NBA players late-night and going to NBA games the next, but OJ knows how to squeeze the most out of his limited time at USC.

Another interesting sidenote from the LA Times article: Clipper coach Mike Dunleavy's son, James, is a member of the Trojan basketball team. And he's apparently allowed to take hoopster friends to games:

"James Dunleavy said USC assistant Bob Cantu told him he could take any of his teammates to a Clippers game once a semester."

Wow, are these NCAA rules confusing! In the end, I hope the NCAA clarifies what the rules regarding NBA tickets and, if this is a rules violation, issues a warning that says, "OJ, we don't want you to go to another NBA game...for the next 3 years."

2/26 UDPATE As I suspected, OJ was not suspended. He has to donate the value of the tickets to charity.

The NCAA is fair game for much criticism, but in their defense (which I can do every now and then), the media needs to, get this, be more patient before attacking the organization and its rules (approved by  membership). As my friend Mike Decourcy e-mailed: "My favorite part of this episode: Mike Wilbon on PTI yelling at the NCAA for coming after OJ ... when this whole thing was started by a newspaper guy who didn't even wait to see if the NCAA had a problem with it before writing his story."

Remembering Dr. King

I thought MLK Day would be a good day to retell an incredible story that you might not know .

Reverend Martin Luther King gives a speech in Washington, DC.  The date was August 28, 1963, 200,000 show up, and King's "I have a dream"  goes down in history as one of the most important, famous speeches in American history. After King spoke, a young man asks Dr. King if he can have his speech notes. Dr. King obliges. What 24-year old had the foresight and the gumption to ask? Former college basketball coach and current Nike exec George Raveling. For nearly 45 years George Raveling has been the proud guardian of the original typewritten "I have a dream" speech.

Read Time magazine article, "Guardian of The Dream" (Aug. 28, 2003)

Kevin Love's recruitment to UCLA

The NCAA sent a letter of inquiry to UCLA in connection with Coach Wooden's involvement in the recruitment of freshman sensation Kevin Love. Apparently Love met with Coach on his recruiting trip. Spending time with Coach is an amazing experience, something I've been fortunate to do on several occasions. I would liken an audience with Coach Wooden to the Pope (but in English and far more entertaining). If invited, you don't consult with the NCAA rule-book, you go -- and if you have to beg forgiveness later, so be it. If this sounds "Onion-esque" read on.

Bill Dwyre, another LA institution, who writes about the episode in the Los Angeles Times, wonders why NCAA protocol was so closely followed. Coach Wooden has been involved in college athletics since 1928, making the NCAA barely old enough to be his father. If you had to name an "All-NCAA" team of those who most embody the values of the NCAA, certainly Coach would be a first teamer, if not Player of the Century. I would like to think the NCAA is becoming more student-athlete friendly as they like to say they are, but there are still some ole Javert-types who view a rule as a rule. Certainly a phone call to UCLA's compliance guy Rich Herczog would have provided a satisfactory response: "Wooden, as a paid consultant to the school, is permitted to meet with recruits."

Dwrye wonders: "Even though we know better every time we read about big bowl money and the latest zillion-dollar TV network basketball tournament contract, does not the NCAA purport to exist for the betterment of the educational experience? What better educational opportunity anywhere than to meet and talk to John Wooden?"

--Marc Isenberg

Tarnished book?

Tarnished Heisman, a new book published by Simon & Schuster, examines Reggie Bush and hid family's relationship with Michael Michaels and Lloyd Lake and their short-lived sports agency, New Era Sports. I haven't read the entire book yet, so I reserve final judgment until I have had a chance to do so. I also have tremendous respect for the book's author, Don Yaeger who has written several eye-opening books on college and professional sports. (Yaeger explains his investigative reporting methodology in an online interview with All Things Trojan blog.)

That said...I have two problems with Tarnished Heisman. One, Lloyd Lake, a convicted criminal, was paid by Simon & Schuster for his "story." Lake clearly had an axe to grind against Reggie Bush for allegedly taking the money and running to a different sports agency. This book falls somewhere in the middle between investigative journalism (Yaeger and his writing partner have solid reputations) and tabloid journalism (paying for sources to cooperate). Two, the book relies heavily on secretly taped conversations that took place between Lake and Bush and Lake and Bush's stepfather, LaMar Griffin. Yaeger on the tapes: "Frankly, without the tapes, I don't think you do this book." Under California Penal Code 632 it is a crime to record a conversation without all other party's consent consent. I brought this point up last January. The bottom line is that much of the most salacious information used to bolster claims made in Tarnished Heisman were obtained in violation of the law.

Judging Reggie Bush in the court of public opinion is absolutely fair game. The question is whether illegally obtained evidence is credible -- and admissible -- in other venues, including the Heisman committee and the NCAA.

In my book, Money Players, I wrote this about the Reggie Bush situation:

Reason #968 to follow NCAA extra benefits rules

Extra-benefit cases involving NCAA athletes often come to light when individuals (typically wannabe agents) claim they are owed money by college athletes...[Lake and Michaels] claimed they provided $100,000 cash and other benefits to the Bush family and invested another $200,000 to start a sports agency that would represent Bush when he turned pro. Bush signed with another agent and another marketing firm. Michaels and Lake demanded Bush pay them $3.2 million to settle their "economic loss." Their demand letter included a not-so-subtle hint that the NCAA and the media would have an interest in this matter. It read in part, "Please advise if it is your intention to involve the University [of Southern California] in these settlement negotiations. We would not object to their participation as...any lawsuit filed might have an adverse effect on them." Can you say extortion?

Despite my criticism, I look forward to reading Yaeger's book. I've already read much of the documents posted on the book's website, tarnishedheisman.com (I particularly enjoyed looking at New Era's biz plan).

--Marc Isenberg

Money Players book available now

A-Game, LLC is pleased to announce the publishing of "Money Players:  A Guide to Success in Sports, Business & Life for Current and Future Pro Athletes."

Written by Marc Isenberg
"Pregame" by Ryan Nece, NFL player
195 pages, 6” x 9”, perfect bound
ISBN # 978-0-9666764-1-9
List Price: $29.95

Praise for Money Players

“With great clarity and inescapable logic, Marc Isenberg has produced the definitive ‘game plan’ for pro athletes wishing for financial success and security. If you want to avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that have plagued so many young professionals, by all means take a good, hard look at Money Players.”
--Dan Guerrero, Director of Athletics, UCLA

“While this book can prepare a select few for a professional sports career, Money Players provides excellent counsel to all student-athletes pursuing a productive, successful and meaningful life. I encourage every college football coach and anyone else who works with athletes to read—and share—this book.” --Grant Teaff, Executive Director, American Football Coaches Assn. (AFCA)

“Marc Isenberg offers practical advice to young athletes that is badly needed but hard to find. Information is the best friend of any individual considering a career in professional athletics. Money Players is a very valuable source of helpful, unbiased information.”
--Tom Hansen, Commissioner, Pacific-10 Conference

"Money Players is the best book I have read for college and pro athletes in my 30 years in this business. The book is that good. It should be on every athlete's reading list and every parent/advisor should read it, too. I intend to give it out to recruits and their families."
--Tony Agnone, football agent

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Stupid comment by Golf Channel anchor

Last Friday, Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman suggested that today's young players should "lynch Tiger Woods in a back alley." Wow. I consider myself pretty tolerant when it comes to humor (or even attempts to be funny). But, IMO, this is pretty bad. Tilghman has issued an apology.

Country clubs have a long, unfortunate association with narrow-minded thinking, mostly by wealthy, white men. Tilghman is female, which makes this is even more troubling, since blacks, Jews, and women have historically been denied memberships at euphemistically named "elite" country clubs.(My grandparents where charter members of Hillcrest Country Club, in Long Grove, IL, which was founded in the 1960s because Jews had a hard time joining other local Chicagoland clubs.)

Lynching brings back bad memories, not just for blacks, but pretty much all humans horrified by what took place in our country. Lynch black people. Exterminate Jews. Even today it's not easy to bring up such sensitive subjects, even in jest...and especially not for a white person who grew up in the South. When Tilghman "narrowcast" comments like this among her own kind, she might get a laugh. Sad, but even in "Obama for President" times, this is true. But when she BROADCASTS racially-charged comments, she offends a lot of people.

I think people can still poke fun at Tiger's dominance and how one might (figuratively) go about taming him. For example, PGA Tour pro Stuart Appleby was once asked what he needs to shoot to beat Tiger. His response: Tiger. I think that's funny. You may disagree.

Nobody can stop KU football

Photo by Nick Krug

College football is big time, no doubt. Throughout the country people stop what they're doing to watch football. And on Florida's AIA, motorists are involuntarily stopped by police escorts to watch buses carrying Kansas football players.

Lawrenceville Journal World's Ryan Wood describes the action:

The police sirens howled through the neighborhood streets, and the Kansas University football team’s buses were flanked by flashing red-and-blue lights on the way to practice Friday. Such an entrance is expected when President Bush is arriving somewhere. But this was just the Jayhawks, heading to Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla., for their first team practice in Florida before next week’s Orange Bowl against Virginia Tech.

I am all for student-athletes getting some perks (they make incredible sacrifices, after all), but is this necessary? Traffic signals don't matter when you have police leading the way. And doesn't it contradict the very basic message we're trying to send athletes to FOLLOW THE FRICKN' LAW.

A few years back, star linebacker Willie Williams documented his wild recruiting ride, including a dinner hosted by FSU which included $50 lobster tails (he ordered four), steaks (he ordered two) and shrimp scampi. At Miami, Williams and other recruits "blazed through traffic lights with a police escort." Williams signed with Miami, was dismissed from the team and then ended up at Louisville, which also didn't end well.

I don't excuse Williams's actions, but it would have be nice if the most responsible adults in his life set better examples.

--Marc Isenberg