Big day in Louisville.
CBS’s Dodd opts out of Heisman voting: Objects to attempt to keep votes secret
Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com just told the Heisman Trophy folks to stuff it. My words, not him.
In an open letter to William Dockery, president of the Heisman Trust, Dodds writes:
I respectfully resign my Heisman vote effective immediately.
This is my way of getting out on my own terms before the Heisman Trustees can throw me out. Monday is the deadline in your organization’s ham-handed attempt (in my opinion) to make secret a process that has been a joyful, celebrated American sports tradition for decades.
As you know, in August voters were notified if they didn’t agree to hide their Heisman ballots, voting privileges would be up for review. A heretofore unenforced “non-disclosure requirement” was mentioned.
Last month about 50 of the 928 voters from 2012 were admonished for revealing their ballots. I was one of them. Your letter arrived with the names “Johnny Manziel,” “Manti Teo” and “Collin Klein” highlighted from my column with a yellow marker like I had cheated in class.
By today, voters had to promise “in writing” that they won’t reveal their selections prior to the Heisman announcement. Much like the Oscars, the Heisman folks wants to keep viewers in suspense.
However, there’s a difference. These aren’t actors voting here. There are journalists, some of whom actually watch college football during the season (more than you’d think don’t).
Dodds writes:
It’s called transparency, Bill, and there is precious little of it these days in college athletics. I am resigning my vote because I cannot in good conscience participate in a process where there is more secrecy, not less. You may have noticed, there’s a huge need to keep things on the up and up in college athletics these days. The world has become a very skeptical place because of the implied words from the NCAA: “Trust us.”
There’s something wrong with O.J. Simpson still having a vote (as a former winner) and a bunch of slappy sportswriters in danger of losing theirs. A Heisman vote is not a right. I get that. But someone must still explain to me why, after 70-plus years of not invoking the non-disclosure clause, the Heisman Trust is using it as some sort of threat against loyal voters.
And then:
Hiding things will never change the fact that voters can still anonymously divulge their ballots. I suggest you check out stiffarmtrophy.com which has predicted the Heisman winner for 11 consecutive years. There was even a way for me to keep my vote. I simply could have agreed to hide it, and write after the deadline, “I have filed my ballot and agreed to keep it secret. But if I were to divulge it, I’d be strongly leaning toward …”
Not worth it for me. Either everything is out in the open or nothing is. Lack of transparency is what has NCAA critics howling. But forget about me. Any Heisman process that doesn’t have CBSSports.com’s Tony Barnhart as a part of it, isn’t worth participating in. Mr. CFB has given up his vote too.
Basketball writers president: Many wondering whether they will return to Final Four
Last Friday, I did a post on the NCAA trimming floor seats for the media from 200 to 72.
As you’d expect, the move didn’t go over well. I received an update from John Akers of Basketball Times and president of the United States Basketball Writers Association.
From Akers:
“Well, yeah, there were definitely complaints. There were four seats in each of the corners near courtside, just above the handicapped areas, where many reporters could not see because fans were standing. So that’s 16 of the courtside seats, and most of them turn out to be bad ones. And there were many longtime writers who wound up in the auxiliary box and felt disrespected. Combine that with a $295 hotel rate, and there are many writers who are wondering whether they will come back.”
I followed up with Akers, asking if in reality there were only 54 floor seats?
Akers replied, “Apparently not all of those 16 seats were bad, but there were fewer than 72 good seats.”
The hotel issue hardly is trivial. Shelling more than $300 per night (including taxes) for four-five nights hardly is feasible for many media outlets in this economic climate. It is incumbent on the NCAA to negotiate a better rate.
And for the people who say the media should stop whining…: “At least, they are in the stadium.”
Well, there are a couple of things at play here. It is about respect. Many of these media members have been covering the Final Four for decades, long before it became a huge event. Their coverage did play a role in what the tournament is today. To be shuttled to the “Uecker Seats” is a major slap in the face.
And it is difficult to cover a game when the players look like dots running around on the floor. Many reporters feel as if they would be better off watching on TV in the press room. And if you’re going to do that, you might as well tune in from the comforts of your couch.
Does the NCAA care? Probably not. Judging by this administration, caring about the media isn’t high on the priority list.
Q/A with Jim Nantz: His big week; On calling Final Four despite doing limited regular season games
First of three parts:
This is the week Jim Nantz always has circled on his calendar. It is perhaps the best Daily Double in sports broadcasting: The Final Four with the championship game on Monday followed by the Masters.
Throw in the fact that Nantz did the Super Bowl in February, and it becomes a Trifecta.
Yes, it is good to be Jim Nantz.
Yet there are some who wonder if Nantz should have a monopoly on the big events, especially in college basketball. After calling CBS’ opening telecast in December, Nantz didn’t do another game until March. Should he call an entire season if he’s going to do the Final Four?
The guys at Awful Announcing recently addressed the issue.
Said Ken Fang:
How does Nantz get the Final Four when he only calls one regular season game a year? What’s up with that?
Said Matt Yoder:
It’s like Joe Buck just dropping in for a game or two in late September and then calling the World Series or Mike Breen showing up in April just before the NBA Playoffs. Jim Nantz isn’t someone you associate with college basketball… until the Final Four when he says “Hello, Friends” and then “Goodbye, Friends” just as quickly. Jim Nantz isn’t bad at all, in fact I think he’s stepped up his game a bit the last couple years, but does he need to announce every single major sporting event CBS televises till the end of time?
CBS apparently thinks so, as they want their signature voice on the tournament.
I addressed that issue and more in a two-part interview with Nantz:
This is the third time you’ve done the Super Bowl, Final Four, and Masters in the same year. What is that like for you?
It’s the ultimate sports ticket. I don’t take it for granted. I’m very fortunate. I’ve done this before so I know how to pace myself. I get the proper rest, eat right and exercise. I find the nooks and crannies of time management where you can squeeze everything in you can.
I embrace it. I feel a certain freedom with this. I’m having more fun with this.
You don’t do a full college basketball schedule. What do you say to people who contend someone else should be calling the biggest college games of the year?
People say all these guys have been doing college games all season. That’s not true. Maybe they’ve been doing NBA games, but that’s not the same.
I always do our season opener. I did Baylor at Kentucky on Dec. 1. Then I immediately flew out to do Pittsburgh-Baltimore the next day. When I show up at an NFL game less than 24 hours prior to kickoff, I’m twitching. But I want to do our first college game.
If you look at it in full context, I’m doing a ton of games in March: 15 in 24 days. Would doing four or five weeks more of college basketball make a difference? I don’t think so. Suffice to say, I’ll be prepared.
How difficult is it to be prepared when you see limited regular season games in college basketball?
First of all, I’m never far away from any of my sports (NFL, college basketball, golf). I follow college basketball all year round. I am always up with what’s going on. Golf, you know how much I follow that. And I’m constantly studying the NFL.
I don’t spend much time watching the other sports. I don’t concern myself with the NBA. I watch baseball as a fan, but I don’t pour over box scores.
(Regardless of the event), preparation is my biggest concern. I’m fanatical about it. I’m always looking to round up fresh stories. It’s more than calling a game. The voices of my youth were great storytellers. They told me things I didn’t know. For me, it’s not stat driven. It’s more about telling people about the people they’re watching.
This is the 30th anniversary of North Carolina State stunning your school, Houston, in the title game. What are your memories?
I sat at the other basket as I watched Lorenzo Charles dunk our national championship hopes away. I was trying to forget about it. Now that you brought it back up again I’m sure I’ll be feeling the weight of that anniversary.
Tuesday: Nantz talks his signature event: The Masters.
Saturday Night Live weighs on Rutgers: Rice has nothing Coach Kelly
Well, on the positive side for Rutgers, this is a unique way to get some publicity.
Very funny stuff from SNL and Melissa McCarthy.
Sunday books: Author Q/A on remarkable relationship: Ben Crenshaw and caddie Carl Jackson
Can you hear the music?
It’s Masters week, which means that numbing theme will be rattling in your head. So be it.
The great thing about the Masters is that it always produces great stories. One of the best is chronicled in an excellent new book: Two Roads to Augusta.
Written by Ben Crenshaw and Carl Jackson, with assistance from Melanie Hauser, it details perhaps the most unique relationship in golf.
In 1976, players had to use Augusta National caddies during the Masters. A young Crenshaw hooked up with Jackson, who started looping at the club in 1958.
They formed a tight bond. Even when the Masters allowed players to use their own caddies, Crenshaw stuck with Jackson. Jackson was on the bag when Crenshaw won in 1984 and then again in 1995. His second Green Jacket was straight out of Hollywood, occurring the week his coach and mentor, Harvey Penick, died.
In a Q/A, Hauser reflects on that unique relationship and recalls that memorable Masters:
How did this book come about?
It was always intriguing how two men from such different backgrounds had such a feel and a passion — and incredible knowledge — for Augusta National. They learned it apart and together when, on a hunch, Augusta National members Jack Stephens and John Griffith decided they would make a good team. Now, 42 years, 2 Masters wins and a half dozen close calls later, it was time to tell their stories. Ben and I both went to UT and have known each other our entire professional careers and I have known Carl since 1984 and covered all their Masters. In addition, I had collaborated with Ben on his autobiography — A Feel For The Game: To Brookline and Back — in 2000 and it was a natural.
For those with short memories, why was that tournament so memorable?
Oh my. It was an amazing magical week that was book-ended by two emotional tear-jerking moments. Frail as he was, Harvey Penick had given Ben a putting lesson the week before New Orleans. Harvey was failing and everyone always left wondering if it would be the last time they saw him. A week later, Ben and Julie were having dinner at Augusta National when Christy Kite, Tom’s wife, got a message to them the Harvey had died. Ben and Tom both flew to Austin and back the Wednesday of Masters week to attend the funeral and everyone wondered how Harvey’s death would affect them. Ben had come to Augusta, as he had so often, struggling with his game, but Carl saw something Monday afternoon and told him Tuesday on the range. That changed everything.
Ben had a different look in his eye after that, one his father and brother saw at Harvey’s funeral. The rest of the week? It was filled with Harvey bounces, incredible putts and an incredible focus. It was the best Ben ever struck the ball and he didn’t three-putt once on his way to a second green jacket. He collapsed, sobbing when the final putt fell and Carl steadied him. It’s become one of iconic photos from the majors. Ben felt Harvey guiding him all week and . . . well, you’ve have to read the book to find out everything else.
What struck you about the relationship between Crenshaw and Jackson? What makes Jackson so unique?
The best way to put it is they are soul mates at Augusta. They both know that course better than just about anyone this side of Bobby Jones and it’s almost like it’s a part of them. It sounds strange, but when there is such passion when they talk about the course. There’s an amazing love there too. One day when we were working, I talked to each one separately and they both cried when they talked about what they meant to each other and what they had accomplished together. That says it all.
And Carl? He grew up in abject poverty, dropped out of school and always said he was going to get his diploma at Augusta National. When he started caddying full time there at 13, he already knew and sensed more than a lot of the older caddies. So many caddies just did the job to earn money they frittered away. Carl listened and learned from the legendary Pappy Stokes and really does know that course — every inch of it. He made it a career and put five children through college. He really does have a PhD in Augusta National.
During the process of doing the book, did Crenshaw and Jackson discover/learn things they didn’t know before?
They did. Both of them surprised each other. Heck, Ben surprised his manager Scotty Sayers and I on a couple of things. But if I told you . . . .
Will we ever see this kind of player/caddie dynamic play out again at Augusta?
I can’t imagine we ever will. Carl grew up on that course and you can’t compare that the knowledge of to a caddie who spends one week a year at Augusta. That’s not to say there aren’t some incredibly great caddies and partnerships out there — Tiger and Joe LaCava come to mind. What’s amazing is Tiger is still learning the course. Joey won with Freddie Couples, but I think even he would say Carl knows that course better than anyone else in the caddie house. There just aren’t players and caddies who stay together for thirtysomething years anymore. And, honestly, I think Ben and Carl stayed a team because they were only together one week a year. But they were incredible weeks.
Anything else?
I just hope everyone enjoys reading behind the scenes of an incredible relationship and two special people. My first Masters was Ben’s first win and having seen them all . . . well, I feel blessed. I just hope I did their stories justice.
Harrison Ford on playing Branch Rickey: No value to have Harrison Ford in a recognizable way
It is the most anticipated sports movie in a long, long time. Next Friday, 42, the modern version of the Jackie Robinson story hits the theaters.
Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News writes about a Q/A session Harrison Ford recently had with writers Dodger Stadium. Ford plays Branch Rickey in the film.
Ford looks nothing like himself in the film, which he says is essential.
Q: When you’re getting into character to play the role, you probably studied Branch Rickey’s voice and mannerisms. Was that important for you to imitate and reproduce on the screen?
A: When we talked about his faith, the style of his speech wasn’t based on just where he came from – rural Ohio – but his manner and his bit of dramatic ways come from his experience of listening to country preachers. The quality of his language and the his voice were one of the things I felt were important. I walk down the street and people as often as not recognize my voice as compared to my face. I thought it would not be of any value to the audience, or to the film, to have Harrison Ford in it in a recognizable way. I wanted to characterize his voice. There was more audio tape available of him and it was revealing to me his sense of drama and his courtliness.
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Ford also talked about the potential impact of the movie.
Q: Robinson, as one of the great social figures of the 20th century, is still honored every April 15, and it may be surprising that there are a lot of kids who are not that aware of this man. How important is it to get this story out again reaching another generation?
A: There’s the textbook version, which is useful and I’m sure every representation of black history mentions Jackie Robinson and breaking the color barrier in baseball. But there’s nothing like the visceral experience that an audience can have. When they can see, when they can feel, participate in the experience that Jackie Robinson had, that’s what’s most important about this version of it. There’s a thing in film that I’m always railing against, and that’s when the characters ‘talk’ about the story. I call it ‘talk speak.’ What I want in the writing and the film – if I have an influence over it – is to allow behavior to express the character’s feelings, rather than the character talking about how they feel about something. I want the audience to not be told what’s coming, but to have the opportunity through emotional continuity with the people on the screen to what it felt like to be there. And this film does that in a really important way.
Suburban Chicago reporter’s unexpected one-on-one with Tiger: ‘Engaging, funny, and more than willing to talk’
On Thursday, I did a post on how Tiger Woods declined to do an interview with Sports Illustrated for a cover story. Nothing new there, given how Woods rarely grants 1-on-1 interviews.
However, there are exceptions. My post prompted to Jim Owczarski to drop an email. Now with OnMilwaukee.com, Jim wrote about an unexpected encounter he once had with Woods while working as a reporter in suburban Chicago.
It’s too bad Woods doesn’t do this more often.
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(The SI story) got me thinking about the one-on-one I had with Tiger following his win at the 2003 Western Open.
It was the weirdest thing, and I (nor my editors at the Naperville Sun) knew how “big” that get was at the time.
Early in tournament week, I told a PGA Tour media rep that I wanted Tiger for a few questions about his interview style. I was intrigued at how he made eye contact with each questioner, and I felt he offered up more in his answers than he was given credit for. I was curious as to how and why he developed that interview style.
Thankfully, the Tour media rep felt the topic was interesting enough to bring it Tiger, and to my surprise, I was quietly called back to the interview room there at Cog Hill to meet with Tiger. I initially pitched a walk-and-talk, but Tiger remained seated and offered me a chair next to him.
He was engaging, funny, and seemed more than willing to talk longer about the topic than what I was “allowed” – though his security team made their presence known that it would be kept to 10 minutes.
The first time I realized this was a relatively big coup for a 22-year-old reporter from (at the time) a small daily paper was when one of my heroes, Bob Verdi, raised an eyebrow with a “really?” when I told him about it.
Tribute: Recalling Roger Ebert’s reviews of sports movies
As a student attending the University of Illinois in the 1970s, it was natural that Roger Ebert was one of my first journalism heroes. Ebert roamed the Daily Illini offices in the early 60s. He gave us the feeling that if he could make it big, perhaps there was a chance for the rest of us.
In tribute to one of the all-time great film critics, I pulled excerpts from reviews on notable sports films from his site at RogerEbert.com.
In a review of Hoosiers, Ebert reminds us that he actually once was a sportswriter.
Hoosiers: I was a sportswriter once for a couple of years in Downstate Illinois. I covered mostly high school sports, and if I were a sportswriter again, I’d want to cover them again. There is a passion to high school sports that transcends anything that comes afterward; nothing in pro sports equals the intensity of a really important high school basketball game.
“Hoosiers” knows that. This is a movie about a tiny Indiana high school that sends a team all the way to the state basketball finals in the days when schools of all sizes played in the same tournaments and a David could slay a Goliath. That’s still the case in Indiana but not, alas, in Illinois. 4 stars
Bull Durham: “Bull Durham” is a treasure of a movie because it knows so much about baseball and so little about love. The movie is a completely unrealistic romantic fantasy, and in the real world the delicate little balancing act of these three people would crash into pieces. But this is a movie, and so we want to believe in love, and we want to believe that once in a while lovers can get a break from fate. That’s why the movie’s ending is so perfect. Not because it seems just right, but because it seems wildly impossible, and we want to believe it anyway. 3 1/2 stars
The Natural: Why didn’t they make a baseball picture? Why did THE NATURAL have to be turned into idolatry on behalf of Robert Redford? Why did a perfectly good story, filled with interesting people, have to be made into one man’s ascension to the godlike, especially when no effort is made to give that ascension meaning? And were the most important people in the god-man’s life kept mostly offscreen so they wouldn’t upstage him? 2 stars
Hoop Dreams: A film like “Hoop Dreams” is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself. 4 stars
A League of Their Own: The movie has a real bittersweet charm. The baseball sequences, we’ve seen before. What’s fresh are the personalities of the players, the gradual unfolding of their coach and the way this early chapter of women’s liberation fit into the hidebound traditions of professional baseball. By the end, when the women get together again for their reunion, it’s touching, the way they have to admit that, whaddaya know, they really were pioneers. 3 stars
Rocky: His name is Sylvester Stallone, and, yes, in 1976 he did remind me of the young Marlon Brando. How many actors have come and gone and been forgotten who were supposed to be the “new Brando,” while Brando endured? And yet in “Rocky” he provides shivers of recognition reaching back to “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He’s tough, he’s tender, he talks in a growl, and hides behind cruelty and is a champion at heart. “I coulda been a contender,” Brando says in “On the Waterfront.” This movie takes up from there. 4 stars
Caddyshack: Maybe one of the movie’s problems is that the central characters are never really involved in the same action. Murray’s off on his own, fighting gophers. Dangerfield arrives, devastates, exits. Knight is busy impressing the caddies, making vague promises about scholarships, and launching boats. If they were somehow all drawn together into the same story, maybe we’d be carried along more confidently. But Caddyshack feels more like a movie that was written rather loosely, so that when shooting began there was freedom_too much freedom_for it to wander off in all directions in search of comic inspiration. 2 1/2 stars
Raging Bull: Martin Scorsese‘s “Raging Bull” is a movie about brute force, anger, and grief. It is also, like several of Scorsese’s other movies, about a man’s inability to understand a woman except in terms of the only two roles he knows how to assign her: virgin or whore. There is no room inside the mind of the prizefighter in this movie for the notion that a woman might be a friend, a lover, or a partner. She is only, to begin with, an inaccessible sexual fantasy. And then, after he has possessed her, she becomes tarnished by sex. Insecure in his own manhood, the man becomes obsessed by jealousy — and releases his jealousy in violence. 4 stars
Losing turf: Media moved out of floor seats for Final Four; Down from 200 to 70
It won’t be business as usual for many writers at the Final Four. Grumbling is sure to be at an all-time high.
The media loses again in the futile battle to maintain its turf. The NCAA has decided to reduce floor seating for reporters from in the neighborhood of 200 to around 70. The ousted members will be shipped to various spots of the Georgia Dome. More than likely, many of them, ticked off, will decide to watch on television from the press room.
Actually, this has been the routine for writers at venues for the entire tournament. NCAA officials told the United States Basketball Writers Association that it had other uses for those prime floor locations.
According to USBWA president John Akers of Basketball Times, the situation could have been worse. The media could have been booted off the floor completely.
“Last May, we got an inkling they were interested in moving us,” Akers said. “If we hadn’t gotten involved, there wouldn’t be anything at courtside. That’s not to say we did anything special because we still lost 2/3s of our seats. But we saved what we could.”
According to Akers, the NCAA plans to use those former media seats for family and friends of the teams; for use to raise money for charities; and for sponsors. “We all suspect the seats will go to CBS more than the others,” Akers said.
The likely reason is more about aesthetics than making money. The NCAA tournament generates billions of dollars; a few more bucks for floor seats isn’t going to make a difference.
Akers said the NCAA wants to have more fans closer to the floor. Cheering fans look better on TV than rumpled reporters pounding a computer. In some cases, those seats are empty, especially for the second game on Saturday, when media members are working on their accounts of the first game.
“They kept asking questions, ‘Why aren’t those seats filled?'” Akers said. “We explained, ‘People have to work on their game stories.'”
There’s the obvious question: Why is it important the media to be sitting on the floor in the first place?
“In basketball, you need to be down there to hear what’s going on,” Akers said. “It’s different than covering football and baseball. You wouldn’t want to be on the floor for those sports. Unless you cover basketball, you can’t really understand why it is important to be on the floor. If somebody doesn’t want to believe it, they aren’t going to believe it.”
Akers knows many media members won’t be happy with their new seat locations for this year’s Final Four. However, he doesn’t intend to be in charge of the complaint department.
The NCAA asked Akers and the USBWA to create a priority list for the floor seats. They declined.
“We didn’t want to get involved and have it be on us,” Akers said. “It’s on them. They wanted to do this. If people are upset, they should be upset at the NCAA.”
Akers joked that he “picked the short straw” in being on call as USBWA president this year. Normally, he said the job is mostly ceremonial. It wasn’t this year, and he expects it won’t be the case for future presidents. He anticipates the NCAA likely isn’t done when it comes to reducing media seats on the floor.
The situation could be worse next year when the Final Four is in vast Cowboys Stadium. Preliminary reports say some media seating will feel closer to Oklahoma than Dallas.
“People are going to have to put in more work than ever before,” Akers said. “And probably the best we can do is salvage what we have.”