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| Milwaukee |
Rich Beem? Kenny Brack? Barbara Schwartz?
They each won something big in national sports during
the holiday weekend, and I have no recollection of having heard of them before.
I feel as if I just woke up after my face was called for an offensive foul on the
elbow of Karl Malone.
So rather than go long today . . .
-- The difficulty of winning a national college sports
championship was again underscored yesterday when the Washington women's
softball team lost the title game to UCLA in Oklahoma City. Aside from rowing,
which doesn't have a wealth of participant schools, the high-powered UW
athletic program remains skunked in NCAA sports championships.
Nevertheless, coach Teresa Wilson has taken the
Huskies to the title game twice in four years. For a program only seven years
old, this represents the best coaching work done on campus. And so far, her
teams have yet to tear up a sorority just because they can.
-- Speaking of Husky football, coach Rick Neuheisel's
plan to have the Husky players pay for their knotheaded frat-house romp is
lame. Of course, the guilty parties should pay the damages - duh. But to have
any non-participants pay sets up potential resentments and divisions and does
not address the fact that Neuheisel should have enough knowledge by now of the
episodes to impose suspensions well before the cops finish the investigation.
-- For those who think the baseball stories and
experiences Stan Williams accumulated in his 14 seasons as a big-time, major
league pitcher are worth something in his tenure as Mariner pitching coach,
well, let the Steamer describe it:
"(The young pitchers) don't give a (deleted) about
the past. So we don't talk about it much. All they ask me is how I pitched to
Babe Ruth.''
-- Race-car driver Tony Stewart drove in the Indy 500,
then flew to North Carolina to drive in the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race in the
same day. To me, 1,100 miles of left turns fits one definition of insanity:
Repeating the same action over and over, to no particular point.
-- Best news of an otherwise mostly lamentable NBA
postseason: Shaquille O'Neal now has been to the postseason six times, and his
team has been swept out five times.
-- Robby Gordon is hardly the first race-car driver to
lose a big race because he ran out of gas, but it remains the silliest reason
for defeat in sports.
-- Which is not the same as the silliest defeat in
sports: That belongs to the Kingdome-despoiling Baltimore Orioles, the club of
the $84 million annual payroll that could not beat the Cuban national team
whose net worth is less than a disorderly conduct fine on Albert Belle.
-- I'm getting over being older than most athletes I
write about, and I'm dealing OK with coaches as age-group peers. But when the
guy who paid $800 million to buy the Washington Redskins is 34 years old, it's
obvious that the train left my station a long time ago, and it's not coming
back.
-- Distasteful as it is to pull for the New York
Knicks, it is hard to root against coach Jeff Van Gundy, who looks like the guy
at the end of the bar whose wife just left him, only it's already 2 a.m. and
you can't even buy him a drink.
-- When did the statute of limitations run out on
Latrell Sprewell's case as Public Sports Enemy No. 1? Soon as he makes three
20-footers in a row, I presume. Remember that next time you're plotting a crime
spree, as it were. As long as you can drain the jay, hit with power or make the
catch over the middle, the silverware drawer is yours.
-- For a guy who had as many postseason wins as his
successor in the Sonic coaching job, Milwaukee's George Karl has to be happy
with playoff developments on two counts. He now has company on the list of NBA
coaches who've blown the No. 1 seed in the first round, and it's none other
than the self-venerating Pat Riley; and his ridiculous rivalry with Wally
Walker during and after his Sonic coaching career pales compared to what's
going down in New York between Van Gundy and his boss, Dave Checketts. The
episodes reinforce Karl's notion that as screwball as he is, the world will
rally to catch up.
-- Why would local hero Mike Pegram, heretofore the
honorable defender of his delicate but dynamic horseflesh, Silverbulletday,
suddenly decide to enter her in the Belmont's 1 1/2-mile grind Saturday?
When in doubt, go with ego. Despite maintaining
through the Kentucky Derby and Preakness that the filly wasn't strong enough to
bang with the big boys, Pegram and trainer Bob Baffert can't resist spoiling a
bid for the Triple Crown by D. Wayne Lukas, trainer of Charismatic. That, and
the fact that no filly has won since the first Belmont 132 years ago, is the
sort of temptation that is irresistible for a man who has no track record for
resisting temptation of far lesser persuasion.
-- Yet another reason to hope Charles Barkley doesn't
retire. Talking about having little desire to get the maximum $14 million
free-agent contract to re-sign with the Houston Rockets, he said, "I got $30
million in the bank. If I spend all that, I deserve to be broke. I'd just be
leaving more to my freeloading relatives to fight over when I die.''
How can he be the only pro athlete to understand and
speak the truth?
Art
Thiel is a P-I columnist.
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