BrokenCowboy: Sports Views with a West Coast Bias

Huggins and the Mouse that Roared

Finally, someone at the University of Cincinnati has gotten it right. Having long since grown weary of head basketball coach Bob Huggins' tired act, university president Nancy Zimpher presented the Huggy Bear with an ultimatum: cigarette or blindfold? According to a letter sent to his attorney, Huggins has until 2:00 PM on Wednesday afternoon to decide between a resignation or a firing. Either way, Huggins is out after sixteen years on the bench at Cincinnati. My response? Good riddance. (Dick Vitale, by the way, disagrees with me.)

I wrote about Huggins a few times last year, first when he was suspended following a DUI, again when the university shortened the suspension, and once more when he officially returned. Each time I expressed exasperation with the university's consistent pattern of ignoring the many shameful aspects of Huggins' tenure. In addition to his DUI, the legal problems of his players and their zero percent graduation rate, while debatable in its accuracy, all must have been an embarrassment to the institution. But university officials stuck their heads in the sand and ignored it all -- or so it seemed.

Apparently President Zimpher has been frustrated with Bob Huggins since she arrived on campus two years ago, and this recent development is merely the culmination of a long struggle between the two. At first glance, it seemed like maybe this was only a reaction to all that had come before, but according to the text of the letter sent from the university, there's a bit more going on.

Basically, the university was unhappy with Huggins as an employee. The letter briefly summarizes the history of their disappointment. Here are the highlights:

In June of 2004 the university decided to cancel the automatic roll-over clause in Huggins' contract. Almost all big-time coaches have these clauses so that they always have at least four or five years remaining on their deals. The reasoning behind this is that it might be difficult for a coach to convince a recruit to commit for four years if he only has two or three years left on his contract. In reality, it's nothing more than built in job security.

In May of 2005 the university decided that Huggins' contract would not be extended beyond 2007. In a nutshell, they wouldn't mind if Huggins stayed for two more years, since they were contractually bound to pay him, but they weren't interested in anything beyond that. They told him that he could continue coaching, or they could negotiate some type of buy-out for the final two years.

Huggins did not respond. Instead of picking up the phone or having his attorney send a fax regarding his decision, Huggins had the bright idea of calling a press conference and announcing that he would honor the final two years of his contract. Based on the tone of the letter and a little bit of common sense, I'd say this is where the wheels fell off for Huggins.

At this point Huggins still probably felt that he was in control of the situation. He was the basketball coach, right? He was untouchable. There were even rumors that he was trying to gain leverage by contacting some boosters who would threaten to end their donations to the university if Huggins were dismissed. I don't think any of this won him any favor with Zimpher.

From this point on, discussions began in earnest to negotiate a settlement between Huggins and the university. Huggins expressed that coaching the final two years of his deal wouldn't be a good idea, "as it was not good for anyone," and the university seemed to agree. What they could not agree upon, however, was how to sever their relationship. When Huggins neither responsed to their suggestions nor offered any of his own, Zimpher and the university played their final hand. And so Tuesday's ultimatum, which seemed sudden, was actually a long time coming. Better late than never.

Huggins will either be fired (and paid approximately $1 million for his trouble) or he can resign and accept another position within the university for the remaining two years of his contract for which he would be paid close to $3 million. If he chooses this expected option, however, the university hopes to make him behave. Here's an interesting clause included in the closing of the letter:

Mr. Huggins also must agree to represent the University of Cincinnati positively in public and private forums and not engage in conduct that reflects adversely on the University. Finally, he must agree to perform his duties and personally comport himself at all times in a manner consistent with appropriate ethical standards set by the University.

Again, better late than never.

All of this reminded me of a conversation I had with a college friend of mine several years ago. In an idealistic mood, this friend argued that universities should not have sports teams because an athletic program compromises a university's primary objective, which must always be academics. This point of view was far beyond my comprehension at the time, and I'm not sure I'm ready to accept it even now, fifteen years later, but my buddy the Mouse was certainly looking in the right direction all those years ago. No institution of higher learning can in good conscience place an academic program above its academic reputation, and that's just what was happening at the University of Cincinnati until this week.

Kobe

The Kobe Bryant saga came to an end, or at least the part of the saga that threatened to send #8 to prison for the rest of his life. My guess is that this win for Kobe is more important to him than any of the three rings he's won, but it was pretty much a loss for everyone else.

Today was my first day of school, and I did something that I always do. During the first few moments of class, I gave my students three-by-five note cards and asked them to write down any questions they might want to ask me. I would answer them at the end of the period.

The questions are usually the same from year to year. Are you strict? Is this class boring? Will we have a lot of homework? Do you still coach the basketball team? Some are more personal, which is fine. How old are you? Are you married? Do you have any children? Why did you decide to become a teacher? What is your ethnicity? Stuff like that. Good fun for all.

So during third period today I was running through a stack of cards, answering the questions one at a time, when I came across this one: Who is your favorite basketball player?

Here was my answer. Fourteen months ago, the answer would've been a slam dunk. Kobe Bryant, without question. But not anymore. I didn't mention words like rape or adultery, but everyone in the room knew exactly what I was talking about. And in that moment, I realized that I don't have a favorite basketball player.

Throughout these fourteen months, I've been incredibly conflicted. I've never been so naive as to believe that the athletes I root for are paragons of virtue, but there must be a line drawn somewhere. I don't expect them to be role models, but neither do I expect to wake up one morning to find that they've become criminals. And so when the news first streamed out of Eagle, Colorado, attached to a mugshot of my favorite player, a player I had aggressively defended in banged-out e-mails and heated conversations, I had no response.

His case has been dismissed, and it's certainly possible that everything happened exactly the way Bryant said that it did. It wouldn't be the first time that a woman tried to take advantage of millionaire athlete. Even so, this was Bryant's doing. He had gotten himself into this situation, and even if everything had gone smoothly that evening, he had still betrayed his wife and daughter.

Because of this, I became furious with him as he presented himself as the victim, paraded on awards shows, compared himself to Martin Luther King, suddenly found God, and proclaimed his love for his wife with an eye-ball-sized diamond and ink splashed on his biceps. Not only was he trying to convince his fans and his family of his martyrdom, he seemed to be trying to convince himself. But through it all, he never accepted any responsibility.

And what of the accuser in this case? Her role in this travesty cannot be ignored. My guess is that her version of the events is closer to the truth than Bryant's, but she clearly lacks some credibility. When Bryant asked her to his room that night in Colorado, she should have known what was coming. I'm not saying that her presence in that room implied an acceptance of a sexual advance, but she should have known that it could be perceived as such. Just as Bryant shouldn't have asked her to his room, she shouldn't have come.

But if we are to believe the accuser's story, how are we to respond to her withdrawal from the case this week? We can neither doubt nor comprehend the magnitude of the stress she's been dealing with for the past fourteen months, but this dismissal is incredibly curious. Did she really wake up on Wednesday morning and decide she had had enough, or had she been struggling with this decision the entire time? (If this is the case, the district attorney must shoulder some of the blame for pushing forward with the case without a solid complainant.)

But here's where it all comes back to the money. The accuser has apparently decided that she can't take the scrutiny that would come along with a trial. This is understandable, except for the fact that she intends to go on with the civil trial, even though she won't be afforded the same protections given in a criminal case. The difference between the two? She stands to gain several million dollars from a verdict or settlement in the civil case.

So has this been only about the money the entire time? If that's so, doesn't that bring us back to square one? Was she after Bryant and his money from the moment she laid eyes on him, or did she settle on this idea after the fact? What's sad is that even if she was raped in that hotel room, and she's pursuing the civil case in order to extract some form of financial punishment from Bryant, most will now think otherwise.

All of this brings me back to the index card I held in my hand this morning. I stood before that group of eighth graders, boys and girls who are just learning the ways of men and women as they wink and tease, flirt and laugh with each other, and my feelings on the issue fell into place. A difficult question was suddenly simple.

As I said earlier, Kobe Bryant is no longer my favorite player. I will still marvel at his brilliance on the basketball court, and I'll likely use this space in the future to reassert my opinion that he is the best player in the NBA, but I will not be able to hold him up as a hero. He may regain his endorsement contracts, score thousands more points, and fill the rest of his fingers with championship rings, but he'll never be able to replace what we all lost in Colorado.

Huggins Returns

In case you've had a candle burning in the window or a yellow ribbon tied round the oak tree in your front yard awaiting Bob Huggins's return to his head coaching position at the University of Cincinnati, your vigil has come to an end. His seventy-six day suspension for driving under the influence now over, Coach Huggins is back doing what he does best -- molding and shaping the lives of young men.

I've posted twice before on this issue, once at the time of the incident and then later when the university modified its "punishment." There are a lot of other things I could be writing about right now, and normally I would have chosen something more positive, but then I read Andy Katz's column on Bobbo's return, and I really had no choice.

In case you don't have the time to check it out, here are two choice quotes:

"I would think that the past 15 years here and us playing on TV should tell kids what we're all about. I saw a lot of guys in the spring."

This is Bobbo's response to the potential damage his suspension could cause the program. Basically, he's admitting that it shouldn't be that big a deal.

If this is the case, what was so bad about the suspension? Here's a response from assistant coach Andy Kennedy: "It's still an unanswered question."

Hmm. Let's get this straight. The coach who was suspended doesn't feel the suspension was that big of a deal. The assistant coach who was left in charge (Oscar Robertson was officially pointed interim head coach, but that was mainly a P.R. move) doesn't see what was so bad about the suspension. Here's the obvious question, one I asked two and a half months ago: was this a punishment or a paid vacation?

Huggins was initially worried about being bored, but thankfully things weren't as bad as he had feared. He spent much of his suspension hanging around town, but he did manage to squeeze in some fishing in Florida. His coaches and friends couldn't call him from university phones, so they just waited until they got home. So basically, his punishment is the same as mine was the time when I got caught forging my mom's name in high school, except that I didn't get to go fishing.

I don't really have anything more to say about Mr. Huggins. I just hope that somewhere out there someone is paying attention. I hope that there's a living room someplace where two parents are waiting to tell him that they could not possibly send their son to play at the University of Cincinnati. Doubtful, certainly, but worth hoping for.

Tech Suspends Vick

Marcus Vick, Virginia Tech quarterback and younger brother of Atlanta Falcon quarterback Michael Vick, was handed a one-year suspension by the university this morning in response to his recent troubles. I commented on his two different scrapes with the law a few weeks ago, and at the time I predicted that the younger Vick would see no more than a three-game suspension for his two transgressions, an alcohol-related rendezvous with two girls barely in their teens and a traffic stop precipitated by speeding and highlighted by the discovery of some marijuana. As it stands, Vick has lost an entire year of college, as he was suspended from the university, not just the team. There's a window for him to return in the fall of 2005, but he'll have to keep his nose clean until then in order to qualify for readmission. I'd really like to stay positive here, and say that I expect to see him under center for the Hokies thirteen months from now, but I'm doubtful. Instead, I think we might next see the younger Vick, erstwhile Heisman hopeful and future phenom, making money this spring in the Arena Football League. We'll see.

Huggins is Back?

It seems like just the other day that University of Cincinnati head basketball coach Bob Huggins was stumbling out of his car and into our living rooms, teetering precariously back and forth after being stopped on suspicion of drunk driving. A few days after the traffic stop he pled no contest to the charges, and the university immediately stepped in with a suspension. At the press conference last month, Huggins was contrite. He appeared to brush away a few tears, even though no tears were visible. It was a nice touch.

The university officials also looked like they were doing the right thing. They spoke sternly. They talked about the need for healing and treatment and rest. They reminded us all that Huggins had suffered a heart attack only a year ago. And then they suspended him indefinitely, making it seem like they didn't know if he'd ever be ready to return to his post. It was widely reported in the press that he would likely be out until at least January.

But whenever you hear that a college coach or athlete has been suspended "indefinitely," it really means that the university will reinstate the offending individual just as soon as the public has moved on to the next scandal. On Thursday the University of Cincinnati decided that Huggins had suffered enough. Huggins will be back in his office on August 27, about five months earlier than expected. According to a statement, the university is "satisfied that coach Huggins has taken appropriate steps while under suspension and will, with continued effort, be ready to resume his position at the end of August." That's nice for Bob.

When he returns to his post on August 27, he will have spent seventy-six days on suspension. Two things to note about this. One, during those seventy-six days he would not have been allowed to coach anyway, since it isn't basketball season; and two, he was paid during the suspension. So what exactly was Huggins's punishment? A vacation. A paid vacation.

On the surface it appears that the university has damaged its reputation. But since the University of Cincinnati has a history of overlooking the transgressions and abyssmal graduation rates of its basketball players, perhaps they only solidified their already negative reputation. So I guess everyone wins.

Younger Vick Suspended

There are so many great things in the sports world to write about that I try to stay away from the negative stories, but sometimes I just can't help it. Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick, younger brother of Atlanta Falcon quarterback Mike Vick, has found his way into the news again, and things could be getting serious for the aspiring phenom.

The younger Vick followed his brother to Blackburg, Va., a few years ago, and most viewed it as just a stop on his way to the NFL. Marcus appeared to be at least as talented as Michael, so success seemed guaranteed. But then last May he became the latest athlete to fall victim to oldest bear-trap in the woods -- drinking alcohol with underage girls. This act is getting so old, it's become like the long-running Broadway play that just brings in new actors to pump up the box office. ("For two weeks only see Betty White, Christina Aguilera, and Kim Wayans in the Vagina Monologues!") We've seen the play so many times that we've memorized the dialogue, but when they change the faces on stage, we can't make ourselves look away.

And so it is with Marcus Vick. Last May he and a couple teammates invited some girls (and I say girls because they were fourteen and fifteen years old) up to their apartment for a few drinks. They were caught. Vick was sentenced to 30 days in prison with a $2,250 fine, as well as an undisclosed university punishment. Since it was undisclosed, we can assume that it was also unimpressive. Had Vick kept out of trouble, we probably never would have heard about any of it again. But he didn't keep out of trouble.

Early last Saturday morning Vick was pulled over while doing 86 in a 65, possibly 86'ing his sophomore season. During the traffic stop, Vick was found to be in possession of marijuana. Both infractions are only misdemeanors, and there were no young girls found at the scene, so Vick might still be okay in the long run.

His university, however, may be running out of patience. Since it isn't good for your team's marquee player to making headlines like this every two months, they've suspended Vick indefinitely while guaranteeing that he'll miss at least the first three games this season. Three games seems about right, because any more than that and they might jeopardize his Heisman campaign.

Bush League

This all happened about a week ago, but I simply can't let it pass. Matt Bush, selected first overall by the San Diego Padres in the recent amateur draft, got into a little trouble. Just weeks after signing a generous contract with the Padres and only hours before he was set to report to his first practice as a professional, Bush may have thrown it all down the drain.

After being denied entry into a local bar, Bush (who is only 18) and his twenty-three year old brother climbed a fence to get in, bought a couple beers, and got into a scrape with the bar's security force. While being ushered out of the bar, Bush bit a bouncer's arm, an action for which he was charged with felony assualt. That charge has since been dropped, but Bush isn't out of the woods just yet. The Padres are considering their options, and it's possible they could void his contract. He's currently on an indefinite suspension.

What's surprizing about all this isn't Bush's actions; eighteen-year-old kids try to get into bars all the time. But can the Padres really be as shocked as they're claiming to be? Did they really spend the top pick in the draft and make a $3 million commitment in a boy they hadn't investigated? In this day and age when nothing is left to chance, so we're left with one of two conclusions. First, maybe Bush really is a good kid who made a terrible mistake. Or second, maybe the Padres were so focused on Jered Weaver, the guy long assumed to be their top choice, that they did a sloppy job of scouting Bush. Either way, the Padres have to take some of the blame here.

Huggins on the Hot Seat

No one has ever mistaken the University of Cincinnati for a bastion of morality, but head basketball coach Bob Huggins has had a bad week, even by Bearcat standards. Last Tuesday night Huggins was pulled over after police officers spotted his car slipping in and out of its lane; he explained to the officers that he had spent the evening talking to recruits and had had a couple of beers. Had it been me, I don't think I would've mentioned the recruits. In the early reports of the incident, it almost sounded as if Huggins were drinking beer with the recruits, but reports late Friday night included a statement from the player's family indicating that there had been no alcohol consumed in their presence.

Anyway, back to the arrest. The best part of the whole thing was that the Fairfax Police released the cruiser video of the arrest, so anyone who's watched ESPN in the past twenty-four hours has seen Huggins staggering around in the dark like a typical Friday night drunk; but it was only Tuesday. Here's my favorite part of the arrest report:

Asked to recite the alphabet from the letter "E" through "P," Huggins said, "E, F, G, H, I, K, L, N, Z," according to the police report. Asked to count backward from 67 to 54, he counted from 62 to 52, the report said.

Poor Bob. I know he's had a rough time of it lately, having suffered a heart attack two years ago (he says his heart medication contributed to his inebriated state), but if you fail the alphabet and counting, I think you've got a problem.

Huggins appeared at a press conference on Friday afternoon to apologize for his actions, and the University will respond to the situation on Saturday morning. It's expected that Huggins will be suspended for at least six months, meaning that he will miss the first two months of basketball season.

I actually had the pleasure of having a short conversation with Coach Huggins at the 1998 Final Four. We happened to be in line next to each other waiting to get in to the Alamodome, and I asked him what his team's future prospects were, but he didn't really want to talk about that. Instead, he decided to explain why his current team hadn't advanced further in the tournament. He said something like, "You can't expect to win too many games when your point guard shoots 30% from the field."

For Huggins, it must have been comforting to know that it wasn't his fault his team had underachieved; it was his point guard's fault. For this week's DUI, however, he has no one to blame but himself. Here's the word you're trying to think of right now: karma.

The Hick From French Lick

Boxing fans have spent the last few decades searching in vain for the Great White Hope, the white boxer who would someday rise up and reclaim the heavyweight championship, but it hasn't happened. (If memory serves, Gerry Cooney was the last legitimate white contender, but Larry Holmes disposed of him easily in 1981.) On the one hand, you can call this racism -- why should the color of the heavyweight champion of the world be important? But on the other hand, it's perfectly natural. We identify with our heroes because we see something of ourselves in them: you might admire a particular player's work ethic because it reminds you of your father, or you might follow another player because you went to the same high school. Or you might be drawn to someone whose skin is the same color as yours.

Which brings us to the case of Larry Bird, NBA Hall of Famer and self-proclaimed hick from South Lick (the town in Indiana where he grew up). In an interview to be aired Thursday evening on ESPN, reporter Jim Gray sat down with Bird, along with Magic Johnson, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony. ESPN's idea was to have these four players, two legends and two legends in the making, sit down with each other and casually discuss basketball and some of the issues confronting the NBA. A nice puff-piece for basketball fans to watch before flipping over to ABC for Game 3 of the NBA Finals.

As it turned out, ESPN got more than it bargained for. Apparently without being aware that he might be jumping headfirst into a controversy, Bird made several interesting comments. First he said that the league needed more white stars, a statement which surely raised a few eyebrows. His reasoning, however, seemed sound. "I think it's good for a fan base because, as we all know, the majority of fans are white America. And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited."

I can let that slide, but he continued down the slippery slope, saying "...it is a black man's game, and it will be forever. I mean, the greatest athletes in the world are African-American." Hmm. Are the best mathematicians all Asian? The best cooks women? Are the best leaders white? Has Larry been hanging out with Paul Hornung and Reggie White recently? Imagine Spike Lee saying that all the best film-makers are white. Picture Condoleezza Rice admitting that global diplomacy is a man's domain. But wait, things get stranger.

Bird went on to drop this bombshell: "The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was... when they put a white (defender) on me." He would go on to say that it made him feel disrespected.

So one thing seems clear. Larry Bird, who happens to be white, doesn't think that white people are good at basketball, so white guys didn't have any business trying to guard him. Or at least I think that's what he said; I'm having trouble following Larry's logic.

This isn't racism, but it's still problematic. Bird thinks what he thinks, and the NBA is certainly predominantly made up of black players, but the perpetuation of stereotypes is dangerous nonetheless. A casual comment claiming that the best athletes are all black diminishes the effort and accomplishments of non-white athletes and contributes to a racist perception that blacks are more athletic than academic. Half way into the first decade of the twenty-first century, it's time we all realized that.

Buffs Bring Back Barnett

This is an era of accountability. When something goes wrong, whether it's on a grand scale, such as we've seen recently with the misguided search for weapons of mass destruction or the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal, or much smaller, like a coach presenting a Crybaby Award to a middle school basketball player, we demand accountability. Someone must take the blame, someone must be fired.

In the wake of the recent recruiting and sexual assault scandal which rocked their Boulder campus, the University of Colorado decided otherwise. They chose to reinstate embattled football coach Gary Barnett, sending an interesting message in the process. Their investigation was thorough, and although nine women have accused Colorado football players of sexual assault in the past seven years and three separate law suits are still pending against the university, the administration has chosen to stay the course with Barnett. A few months ago, as the pot was starting to boil over in Colorado, Barnett seemed to living in a twenty-four hour press conference. One day he was pledging his support to a player accused of assaulting a fellow female student. This could possibly be excused since the bond between player and coach is strong. Sometimes. Another day, during another press conference, Barnett lashed out at former player Katie Hnida, calling her a "terrible" kicker after hearing her allege that she had been raped by a teammate in 2000. If there was a connection between her ability on the football field and the alleged rape, Barnett never made it clear.

In addition to these accusations of sexual assualt, there is also the recruiting scandal, tales of unsupervised high school football players being plied with alcohol and sex during recruiting visits. To be fair, it's doubtful that Colorado was the only school where such things occurred. In fact, when I was in college, ProFro (prospective frosh) Weekend was a highlight of the spring, as students (none of us football players) hosted high school seniors, many of whom were away from home for the first time. Our ostensible purpose was to show them the many academic and social benefits of the university, but really, we just wanted to get them drunk. This is how people think when they are nineteen years old. Within the high-stakes game of college recruiting, this mentality naturally leads to many abuses, as the Buffs have demonstrated. Barnett couldn't have been aware of what each of his players was doing with each recruit, but he should have known that something was going on. It's my guess that he did.

And so now it appears that everything is back to normal at the University of Colorado. The administration promises sweeping changes, but it's hard to imagine that the captain of the ship has avoided the broom. Certainly his firing at this late date would have been devasting to the football program, but isn't there a bigger picture that's being missed? The honor of the university was at stake, and they chose the path of least resistance. Go Buffs.