I’ve covered every Summer Olympics since 1984, and only Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals in Beijing surpasses what Michael Johnson did in 1996 in Atlanta.
Wearing his trademark look-at-me golden spikes and a heavy gold chain around his neck, Johnson first won the 400 meters by a full second over his nearest rival. Then he came back to break the 17-year-old 200-meter record and win that gold, too.
No male had ever swept the 200- and 400-meters at a single Games. Few had ever attempted it until Johnson pulled it off. No one has done it since. And if someone eventually does equal the feat, I don’t expect it to be in my lifetime.
Johnson was the picture of quiet self-confidence, exuding an aura of power on the track that you could actually see. When he spoke, it was with restraint and a level of insight and perspective that’s probably never been equaled in his sport – at least not in the seven Olympics I’ve been to.
I was delighted to learn that the man who so impressed me 13 years ago is, if anything, even more impressive today. A broadcaster, documentarian, writer and operator of a training center, he refuses to bask in his own glory.
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There’s enough to quibble about in the all-star rosters announced Sunday to give the baseball wonks plenty to whine about on the blogs. This is no surprise. Anytime you choose anything by a subjective vote rather than objective accomplishments, you’re going to have arguments.
But on the whole, the fans did a darned good job of picking the starting lineups for both leagues. This, too, should not be a surprise. Despite the tendency to vote for home-town heroes and long-time stars no longer on top of the game, baseball fans are incredibly knowledgeable about their sport. And with rosters expanded to 33 players per team, most of the deserving players skipped over by the fans make the team anyway.
This is quite a change from the supposed good old days, when teams did everything they could to stuff the ballot boxes. The Cincinnati Reds in 1957 handed out pre-punched ballots to fans, who dutifully turned them in. The result was seven Reds starting in the Midsummer Classic.
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The Devils' success is part of the reason Lou Lamoriello is in the Hall of Fame. The other part of it is because of integrity and honor. He went from pariah to leader, a man who helped form policy, manage the NHL’s international team and negotiate a way out of the labor impasse that ate the 2004-05 season.
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I’m not going to fight cancer. I’m going to get it treated. It’s the same thing I’d do if the transmission dropped out of my beloved Alfa Romeo Spider: find the best mechanic and get it fixed.
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Jim Colbert was on the line the other day to talk about a subject most men have no interest in discussing – or even thinking about. It’s prostate cancer, and Colbert has been talking about it for 13 years, ever since his friend on the Senior PGA Tour, Arnold Palmer, was diagnosed with the disease and made Colbert promise to get checked himself.
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People who are arguing whether Dwight Howard was justified in calling out his coach, Stan Van Gundy, have picked the wrong fight. It doesn’t matter if the Magic star is right. If Orlando finishes the job of giving away this series to the Celtics, there is no way Van Gundy can keep his job.
There is no alternative. The Magic already choked away two big fourth-quarter leads and put the Celtics in position to win a series they should already have lost. It’s hard to envision the Magic winning a Game 7 in Boston, much less Game 6 in their own building. The team’s best player is calling his coach out in public. The coach is calling out his best player. The end isn’t really in question. The Titanic has already hit the iceberg. The lights may be on and the restaurant is still serving lobster and caviar, but the ship be sinking.
And when that happens, the captain goes down with it. It doesn’t matter if he was at the helm when the accident happened. It’s his ship and his responsibility.
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As dream matchups go, Alexander Ovechkin against Sidney Crosby in the Stanley Cup playoffs is as good as it gets. It’s every bit the equal of Kobe-LeBron, Peyton Manning-Tom Brady, Batman-Joker.
The NHL has been praying for this collision of its two incandescent young stars to get people to tune into a terrific sport that too often is written off as a bunch of back-tundra goons beating each other up on ice skates. The league has expended considerable time and effort into making Crosby the face of the league, and Ovechkin has spent equal time and effort proving he, not Crosby, is the game’s true king.
So now they have a chance to skate their cases beginning Saturday on NBC in their conference semifinal showdown. And just to make things interesting, Pittsburgh also has Evgeni Malkin, who some people think is actually better than Crosby.
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It’s likely that there aren’t many people left who give a rat’s tail about Jayson Williams, the former Nets forward who got drunk and shot his chauffeur. And I wouldn’t, either. Except I used to know him as a terrific guy who never left an autograph unsigned or a kid without a couple kind words.
New York City cops had to Taser him early this morning. He was in his hotel room, reportedly drunk, surrounded by empty pill bottles, and maybe suicidal. He was restrained and taken to a psychiatric unit for evaluation.
“Jayson is doing fine. He said he was fine,” his manager, Akhtar Farzaie reportedly told The Daily News. “All of us are here to be by his side as friends.”
That’s the sort of thing managers are paid to say. The truth is Jayson isn’t doing fine at all.
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We get a lot of pitches from P.R. agencies trying to get free publicity for a product or company by connecting it to an athlete or athletic event. Usually, we pass. That’s what paid ads are for. But every so often, the P.R. campaign is so inspired, we feel obliged to give hard-working creative people the credit they deserve.
So here’s to Ask.com, which last week arranged for a Texas schoolboy to have the thrill of a lifetime: NASCAR star Bobby Labonte drove him to school in a decaled car that looked very much like Labonte’s Ford Fusion race car. Afterwards, Labonte joined the boy, John Gregoriou, in an assembly where he and Ask.com presented the school with $10,000 worth of computers.
After Labonte did his bit to make one boy’s golden memory, he did a round of phone interviews. When my turn came, I asked him where this promotion ranked among the many things his contract calls on him to do for his sponsor.
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I have to admit, I didn’t think he’d make the putt. Yeah, yeah, I know. Stupid of me to doubt that Tiger Woods could hit a little 12-footer with the match on the line, especially at Bay Hill with Arnie himself watching from inside the ropes at greenside.
But admit it. A lot of you didn’t believe he’d do it either. You couldn’t have. The guy had his knee rebuilt last June. He’d played just twice coming into Bay Hill, and all he had to show for it was a ninth-place finish. His putting was off. He’s still shaking off the rust. Yes, he’s great, but he’s not Superman. Is he?
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