On the New Tiger

You may not even remember this, but a year ago, as Tiger Woods was on his way to winning the U.S. Open on a bum knee, a small segment of crazies came to believe that Tiger Woods may have, in fact, been faking his knee injury in the name of gamesmanship. It was a pretty daffy conspiracy theory, even as conspiracy theories go, and it was quickly debunked, but in the wake of that came this column for ESPN.com, in which the author marveled at Tiger's ability to camouflage whoever and whatever he was as some sort of protective mechanism. That column--not my best work, I admit--was something of a provocation, and the array of troglodytic comments underneath the story reveal that it succeeded on some level: People were both defensive of Tiger's right to privacy and reactionary toward any sort of scrutiny that delved beyond surface-level. They seemed to like Tiger Woods more because they knew nothing about him, because his entire life (outside of the practice of the most staid sport imaginable) seemed undramatic, because he was a cyborg with a 3-wood. They didn't want to know more than that. They (and I) didn't think they would ever have to.

Well, now they have no choice. Now, everything Tiger Woods carefully constructed in the past decade--and I would argue, a media strategy that has been built up in the past two decades, ever since Michael Jordan settled into a Nike-constructed cocoon*--has been torn down in a single morning. Now, we are likely to learn far more about Tiger Woods than we would ever care to know. This is the way of the modern scandal, and it always seemed as if Tiger were above such things, as if he simply existed in his own private space, free to chase Nicklaus's record of 18 major championships while every detail of his public life would forever be programmed by a roomful of MBAs. But now, suddenly, his private life is fodder for TMZ--and you can argue that Tiger doesn't owe us anything, and you can argue that this is an unwarranted intrusion into his private life, and you can argue that you preferred Tiger as a blank canvas--as a robotic manifestation of perfection***--and you may be right about all of it. But you also cannot deny that there is something undeniably fascinating--not to mention undeniably human--about watching an athlete who seemed determined to script his entire existence suddenly have to deal with an ad-lib.

*I write a little bit about the construction of athletes' public personas in Bigger Than the Game (AFPO!),** and spoke to Bo Jackson about it when I interviewed him. It's kind of amazing how the forces of sports marketing evolved from a non-entity into the Construction of Tiger. 

**Available for Pre-Order!

***In a word replete with needlessly dull information, Tiger's website is kind of a brilliant manifestation of nothingness. Did you know that Tiger's favorite movie is Caddyshack?  His blog is like one of those mass Christmas letters from the most boring uncle you could imagine--in "Tiger's" hands, a meeting with the president is boiled down to two non-committal paragraphs that appear to have been written by a public relations intern and sanitized by a Congressional committee ("I also enjoyed talking with the secret-service agents"). In "Tiger's world," choosing sides in the NBA Championship is an agonizing task. The whole site is structured like a Zen koan.

On College Football and the Bottom Line

At the risk of contradicting myself, allow me to state a simple truth: Everyone with a semblance of a cerebral cortex knows that the college football bowl system is an inept and inadequate example of American capitalism at work. Recently, some well-meaning and obviously delusional fellow from the BCS started a Twitter feed, and said feed was promptly bombarded with bon mots and screeds (well, as much as one can screed in 140 characters) about the very idiocy of the BCS system the Twitter feed had been created to defend--and this is Twitter, where idiocy is often a default position. Nobody who considers themself an actual "fan" of college football would somehow feel the game had been cheapened by the introduction of a four-team playoff, or a plus-one game at the end of the season. Nobody. The bowl system is a business, and this is the only argument in its defense, and I don't think that point has ever been made clearer to me than right now.

Here's the situation: My alma mater, Penn State, has completed an utterly lackluster and strangely hollow season with 10 wins and two losses. Said losses were to Ohio State and Iowa, both at home. Neither game was particularly close. Now, Ohio State has locked up a Rose Bowl bid, and now there seems to be a legitimate question as to whether Penn State or Iowa deserves what might be the final BCS bowl slot. That is, Penn State--which lost to Iowa, 21-10, at home--may be chosen over Iowa, for reasons that relate entirely to commerce. Now, at some level, I understand this--it's a tough time in America, even for overpaid bowl executives in garish sportjackets, and since it is their game, they have some right to consider the bottom line. But as much as that may be true, this allegiance to economics over fairness is the prototypical example of why the bowl system, no matter how we contort it or rearrange it, sans playoff, will never be able to rightfully determine a national champion. I mean, this is utterly obvious, even to a Penn State sympathizer like me: There is no possible way Penn State could make the case that it deserves to be chosen for the Orange Bowl over Iowa. But this is college football, and deserve has nothing to do with it.

On College Football and Ponzi Schemes

There are certain sportswriters I grew up reading, those I would observe from afar and think, "That's the job I want when/if I grow into a fully functioning adult male." Ivan Maisel is one of those people. He's been covering college football for two decades, and he's extremely good at it. That said, I was perplexed by his column the other day; it was, essentially, a mainstream confirmation of a low-level theory that's been building these past few weeks, one that declares this entire college football season a bust, based on the scattered Heisman race and the lack of marquee matchups these last few weeks of the season. In the column, Maisel likened this whole year to a Ponzi scheme, which seems like an inartful metaphor, but perhaps it is apt--Maisel, for instance, decries the fact that Penn State, ranked No. 9 in preseason, lost its only two quality games at home. Fair enough, but who actually ranked Penn State No. 6 in the preseason? Maisel did. So essentially, he's decrying the fact that this season did not live up to his own perception of reality. In other words, Maisel conducted a Ponzi scheme on himself. 

Well, at the risk of sounding sycophantic, I happen to be enjoying this season, as I have enjoyed every single college football season since 1978. I will admit that Maisel's basic point is correct--it has been an unpredictable campaign. And maybe there is a reason for this. The Oklahoman newspaper ran a story today about Big 12 defenses catching up with the complex offensive schemes of the modern game. "Defenses are working on something," declared pirate enthusiast and spread-offense fanatic Mike Leach, and within a conference like the Big 12 or the SEC, certain teams (Texas, Florida) have been able to remain one step ahead of this "something"* defenses are working on, through a combination of luck and skill and Jesus. Outside of those conferences, however, there are still teams who can dominate simply by stepping hard on the throttle. This explains the superiority of Cincinnati and Boise State and TCU. And this means, as we enter the bowl season, that there is a pretty fascinating question yet to be answered, about whether these small conference powerhouses can catch up to the big boys by utilizing complex schemes, and whether this is all a fleeting and illusory moment in college football history, and whether defense is on the verge of reintroducing itself into the discussion. There could be at least four/five different bowl games with hyper-meaningful results. And if that's what a Ponzi scheme looks like, well, I'll buy in.

*If this "something" involves pirates, that would be awesome.

On 24 Hours of Basketball

There's something about ESPN's 24-hour college basketball marathon that kind of freaks me out. As a promotional gimmick, of course, it's brilliant, an astute way to draw attention to the opening week of a sport that essentially made cable sports what it is back in the early 1980's.* But I also wonder if perhaps this is a glimpse of some bizarre and fulsome future, if teams will now regularly arise for 4 a.m. shootarounds in order to accomodate 6 a.m. start times so as to fill in a national time slot on an ESPN network devoted to 24 hours of live college basketball, seven days a week, four/five months per year. That may seem like an absurdist notion, but think about where we were twenty years ago, about how sports networks essentially defied the conventional wisdom by televising every game they could get their hands on, about the explosion of channels and time slots, about the willingness of third-tier Division I schools like St. Peter's and Monmouth to essentially contort their lives for television.

Look at the ticker sometime: There are hundreds of schools you've never heard of who have chosen to field basketball teams in the hope of gaining publicity for an otherwise anonymous institution. Until last week, I had no idea there was a university known as Northern Michigan, which completes the directional monopolization of Wolverine State colleges; until last week, I had no idea a school in Indiana had chosen to name itself after an extinct tusked mammal. Until I looked it up, I presumed USC-Upstate was actually the University of Southern California-Upstate, which sounded more like the punchline to a Steven Wright joke than an institute of higher learning. All these schools, desperate for exposure, and a sports network willing to accommodate them: This is why I imagine that, in the next decade, the 24-hour hoops marathon will no longer be an anomaly. I imagine that this will be a basic-cable offering.

*Another element of culture covered here, in this book. Conveniently available for pre-order. (That is actually an initial version of the cover; final draft subject to change).

(Photo: Reena Rose Sibayan/The Jersey Journal)

On Belichick

What follows is utter speculation, as is every bit of angst and schadenfreude spilling from the sporting corners of these here Internets today. Nobody really knows what Bill Belichick was thinking when he made the decision to go for broke against the Colts last night, and we probably never will know. The Patriots are as sealed and secretive a franchise as we've ever seen in the modern age, having adapted the pathologically competitive nature of their coach; therefore, it is up to us to guess, and to argue, and in this way, Belichick has done us a favor: He has given us perhaps the single-most interesting regular-season NFL game of the decade, another watershed moment in what has now become the aughts equivalent of Lakers-Celtics.

For that alone, it is hard not to offer Belichick a little bit of credit, even if you hate his guts. We spend our lives calling on coaches to take chances, to defy conventional wisdom, to do something interesting, for once, rather than falling back on the somnolent principles of Tresselball. Well, Belichick did something so interesting that I still kind of can't believe it actually happened in the NFL. It essentially reinforced his own stereotype (as an arrogant jerk) while simultaneously questioning everything we think we know about football. The backlash, of course, will be unrelenting, because people outside of New England have developed an irrational hate of Belichick (for reasons both justified and idiotic), and because it's always difficult to grasp something that seemingly defies logic, but is, in fact, utterly rational. And yes, this was a rational decision, according the simple calculations made by a dude named Brian over at a blog called Advanced NFL Stats. Read it; the numbers make sense. There is a better chance of the Patriots converting on a 4th-and-2 then there is of the Patriots stopping Peyton Manning on a protracted drive with two minutes to play.

So yes, I think Belichick made the right call. In fact, if he made any mistake at all, it was A.) Stupidly (and uncharacteristically) wasting his time-outs, and B.) Not taking his counterintuitive logic far enough. For by making this decision, he was essentially admitting that his defense could not stop Peyton Manning on a 70-yard drive. How, then, could he imagine his offense might stop Manning on a 30-yard drive? At that point, once the Patriots failed to convert on that fourth down, New England had no time outs left. They had no choice. They should have let the Colts score. By that, I mean bring the house on a blitz. If you get to Manning, then fine; if you don't get to him, then Indianapolis scores quick, goes up by a point, and you still have a minute left with an offense that had already driven the length of several Northeastern states. There is no question in my mind, if the Patriots had gotten the ball back with one minute to play and one time-out remaining, they could have set up for a field goal to win the game. Hell, the way this one was going, Moss might have even scored six.

Still, it's almost better that the Patriots failed. It adds another layer to depth of this rivalry, it adds another layer of drama when these teams inevitably meet again in the playoffs,* and it means that the oft-stodgy pastime of professional football has proven that it can be even more intriguing than the college game, if only for a single play.

*And clearly, the Patriots could afford to take a chance, because they are going to win their division, they could still get a first-round bye, and they have obviously proven that they can beat Indy on the road.

On Several Decisions That Seem To Defy Logic

Because it's Friday the 13th. Because the sky is angry. Just because.


1. So just last night, LeBron James made a command decision to shed his signature number, 23, out of respect for ruthless egotist, tongue-contortionist and expert shoe salesman Michael Jordan. That's all very nice, as is LeBron's overarching desire to retire Jordan's No. 23 altogether, thereby elevating an undeniably transcendent basketball player whose greatest political stand came when he used an American flag as a sponsorial shield to the level of, say, Jackie Robinson. "There would be no LeBron James, no Kobe Bryant, no Dwyane Wade if there wasn't Michael Jordan first," LeBron said, and then he declared he would change his number to 6, which is Julius Erving's number. Of course, it is not difficult to argue that without Julius Erving, there would be no Michael Jordan. Therefore, I propose that the No. 6 be retired, as well, along with every number worn by any Hall of Fame player in the history of basketball, and that LeBron, in an overarching tribute to capitalism itself, replace his jersey number with an oversized American flag.

2. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, America's Failed Presidential Candidate, has named his top candidates for Time magazine's Person of the Year, since either A.) His opinion still matters to some indiscernible demographic of xenophobic hotheaded Yankee-lovers, or B.) He will do your panel discussion the cheap. Giuliani's choices were The Economy and Derek Jeter. Now, one of these things is not even a person, and the other is simply based upon the ways people use their environment to meet their material needs. Then again, this is a man who once spent several minutes on the radio berating a ferret. How he still has any career at all is one of the great mysteries of the post-9/11 world.

3. And then there is Bud Selig, who seems wholly determined to tether his legacy to a nostalgic sense of intransigence. As baseball failed to consider expanding its instant-replay policy, Selig said this: "Life is changing and I understand that. I do like the human element and I think the human element for the last 130 years has worked pretty well. There have been controversies, but there are controversies in every sport." It's a good thing you enjoy controversies, Mr. Commissioner, because that's pretty much been the default position of the game itself since you took it over and began running it slowly into the dirt. Since the 1990's baseball has become defined by series of tangential controversies and concerns--over drugs, over economics, over statistics, over umpiring, over labor disputes, over Giuliani's seat placement. On most of these, Selig is at least partly to blame; in fact, can I blame him entirely for No. 2 (above)? After all, he is the human element in baseball. He's right, though--life is changing, and this is why baseball no longer matters the way it once did.

(Photo: AP/Cleveland.com)

On Heisman Confusion

Years ago, back when I actually believed in things, I embarked on a pseudo-investigative story for my college newspaper that attempted to divine the definition of the Heisman Trophy. I'm not going to link it here, because that would be embarrassing--in fact, I'm afraid to even go back and find it, because I'm sure it's far worse than I even remember, and I believe the lead was built on the kind of ridiculously breathless descriptive prose that gives prose a bad name--but what I do recall is a somewhat contentious conversation I engaged in with the Heisman's public-relations man, who kept insisting that the trophy went to "the best college football player in America." So what does that mean, I asked him. Is it about numbers? About leadership? About winning? About alliterative surnames? About the number of circumcisions each candidate had performed on African children? And this PR dude, being a PR dude, gave me nothing. This PR dude just kept repeating the same phrase, that the Heisman is awarded to "the best college football player in America."

Back then, of course, I was too young and stupid to realize that the PR dude wasn't hiding anything; I was too naive to realize that the definition of the Heisman is deliberately oblique so as to render it more interesting. It's why people care about the Heisman more than they care about any other individual postseason award. The Heisman is not necessarily a Most Valuable Player award; the Heisman is not necessarily anything at all. The Heisman is a ghost. Its very definition is fluid, and is determined entirely by the popular consensus of that particular fall. In 1989, Andre Ware won the Heisman strictly because of elephantine numbers, even though none of his games were televised. in 1992, Gino Toretta won the Heisman as a sort of Lifetime Achievement Award, despite the fact that his numbers were nearly identical to what they were the year before (when he finished out of the Top Five, behind a defensive tackle from Washington named Steve Emtman). This is the inherent contradiction of a deliberately nebulous honor: Just when Carson Palmer wins and we think we've figured it out, along comes Jason White to confuse us once more.

Anyway, there are two things that make this perhaps the most unusual Heisman race in recent memory. One is that all the candidates who seemed like "sure things" have f---ed the chicken at some point; the other is that, because of those well-timed chokes, we now have a field in which virtually every historical Heisman archetype is represented. We have the fun-and-gun quarterback (Case Keenum, Houston); we have the oft-spectacular tailback on an elite team (Mark Ingram); we have the long-shot defender (Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska); and we have the Lifetime Achievement contenders (Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy). That they are all essentially neck-and-neck at this point in the season, along with another running back from Clemson and a thick-necked smart guy from Stanford and several others I'll never see play a single game. And so it should play out like a Rohrshach test. It is perhaps our best opportunity to define an award that refuses to accept definition.

My guess is that it will be McCoy or Tebow. My guess is that more people vote with sentiment than vote with numbers, and that even comparisons like this won't convince them:
=
Keenum vs. Miss State: 435 Yards, 4 TDs, 2 Ints
Tebow vs. Miss State: 127 Yards, 0 TD, 2 Ints (1 run for a TD)
=
Keenum vs. Texas Tech: 435 Yards, 1 TD, 1 Int, 1 Rush TD
McCoy vs. Texas Tech: 205 Yards, 1 TD, 1 Int
=
Keenum vs. Oklahoma State: 366 Yards, 3 TDs, 1 Int, 1 Rush TD
McCoy vs. Oklahoma State: 171 Yards, 1 TD, 0 Int
=
Keenum vs. UTEP: 536 Yards, 5 TDs, 0 Int
McCoy vs. UTEP: 286 Yards, 3 TDs, 1 Int

It seems that the Heisman's inherent subjectivity would reward sentiment. It seems that Tebow will win because he is chaste and pure and sacrificed himself for our sins, or that McCoy will win because he is the only one of the three elite quarterbacks in college football to yet win this award, and someone named Colt should win a Heisman Trophy sometime. It seems that Lifetime Achievement is the default Heisman pose. But I kind of hope I'm wrong. Because the more I think about it, the more I realize that the best thing about the Heisman Trophy is that it makes no sense at all.