I never got the opportunity to speak on the story about ex-Chicago Bear General Manager Jerry Angelo, who at first claimed that he had seen “hundreds” of abuse cases against NFL players covered up. He said that questions would be asked as to whether “everyone was OK” and the subject would be dropped.
In these days of social and other instantaneous media coverage, Angelo’s comments made their way all over the place, and Angelo walked back his comments the next day, but I have always believed the first thing from a person’s mouth as being more truthful, especially if admitting something, so I believe Angelo’s initial statement.
And that’s another sad indictment of the NFL. Does the culture of organized violence make men unable to stop using violence as a primary tool away from the field? And that’s not to mention the potential effects of brain damage and steroids.

I know that the NHL season just started, and before I became a rabid hockey fan, I never paid much attention to the games until January when the NFL season was over (now February). While I’m not in midseason form, I have watched a little hockey so far and the amount will only increase in the future if this season is anything like last year. However, it appears that some “fans” feel like I used to, or, worse, they really don’t care which could lead to the relocation of a franchise
Monday, the Florida Panthers hosted the Ottawa Senators, and maybe it was warm weather or the holiday, but the official attendance was only 7,311, the lowest in franchise history. And, as an ex-Andy Frain usher can tell you, those are the number of tickets sold for the game; the actual number of people at the game was even smaller. The Panthers have struggled throughout the history of the franchise, and it’s has always been a question as to whether a cold-weather sport could thrive in a warm climate.
Atlanta has had two NHL franchises, both of which moved to Canada (the Flames who have been in Calgary for a long time, and the Thrashers who became the latest Winnipeg Jets). Arizona/Phoenix has been on the brink of bankruptcy but may be more stable with a solid ownership group. Tampa Bay has had ups and downs in attendance, but a Stanley Cup title and a good team bolstered by superstar Steven Stamkos make them more financially viable.
Before the season, there was talk of NHL expansion, to Quebec and/or perhaps a second team in the Toronto area. NHL Commissioner Gary “Sesame Street’s The Count” Bettman downplayed any imminent plans for expansion, but now one has to ask, are the Panthers “in play?” Could they be the next U.S. team to move to hockey crazy Canada?
I have always been against franchises moving. I feel for the fans who have supported teams that left town, beginning with the Brooklyn Dodgers. However, an exception has to be given if fans do not support the team. As I’ve written many times, the owner of a sports franchise has an implicit contract with the city and its fans. The owner must put the best possible team it con on the field/ice/court; in return, the fans should support the team by buying tickets and all of the other stuff. If the owner doesn’t put a good team on the field, then the fans should stay away. If however, the fans don’t attend and the ownership is trying, the team should then be free to go elsewhere. (At this point, let me tip my hat to the Kansas City Royals. A team that I suggested should be phased out since baseball has too many teams, they are currently one game from the World Series for the first time in 29 years. Even though they are in the White Sox division, which would mean that I would root against them, I have to say that I’m pulling for the underdog Royals.)
Should the Panthers leave Florida? Could be?

My feelings on the St. Louis Cardinals are very obvious – all you have to do is look at the banner on the top of this site. My initial reason for this was because as an Andy Frain usher, the rubes and country bumpkins who descended on Wrigley Field every year were a pain in the @$$ to deal with from a crowd control perspective. They banked on beating the Cubs, drank heavily, then started fights in the ballpark (which was my territory), and did the same thing at the bars in the neighborhood (which wasn’t my problem unless I went out drinking after the game).
However, St. Louis has always been one of the most outwardly racist cities in the country. St. Louis and the surrounding area considered themselves part of the old Confederacy and acted accordingly. I’ve never felt completely safe when I’ve been there. It can’t be considered a surprise that the hotbed of unrest known as Ferguson, Missouri is in the area, nor was it a surprise of some Cardinal fans who met with some protesters of the conduct of the Ferguson police.
Several protestors demonstrated outside of the Cardinals/Dodgers game last Monday night, calling for justice for 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, Aug. 9. The confrontation was captured on video, showing Cardinals fans countered chants of “Justice for Mike Brown” with “Let’s go Darren.” When protesters began chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” someone yelled “Africa! Africa!” One fan called a protestor a “crackhead” and told him to visit a dentist, while another later said “remove your hat” and “pull up your pants.” “If they’d be working, we wouldn’t have this problem,” an older, white man says at the opening of the video. “We’re the ones who f***in’ gave all y’all the freedom that you got,” a young, white woman yells later.
“Gave y’all the freedom that you got,” eh? Another group of geniuses of American history in this bunch; I guess these are the same people that believe that the U.S. ended slavery voluntarily, it wasn’t about that bloody Civil War that was fought.. The “freedoms” were hard fought, not given, and now being challenged on many fronts including voting rights, women’s rights, health care, and others. I know that the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team has nothing to do with the racism so often demonstrated by their fans, but I also know that if the Cardinals lose, a lot of these cretins will be disappointed and upset.
So go Giants – I hope you sweep them in four games. And, of course, justice needs to be done in Ferguson immediately– Wilson needs to be arrested and tried; the police need to be cleaned up, the chief of police fired and the prosecutor who has dragged his feet on doing his job in the case fired.

Often, we see professional athletes start their own charities to support various causes. However, it appears more and more that the charity is a tax dodge, or a public relations vehicle. Sometimes we hear that the money that is supposed to go to the charity never does any good, except to the athlete.
We have had players like former Bear Chris Zorich, renowned for being a community activist and philanthropist, pleading guilty of financial improprieties involving his charity. A 2013 investigation by ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” of 115 charities founded by high-profile, top-earning male and female athletes has found that most of their charities don’t meat the standards of effective charitable organizations.
Using guidelines set by nonprofit watchdogs Charity Navigator, the Better Business Bureau and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, “Outside the Lines” found that 74 percent of the nonprofits failed one or more acceptable nonprofit operating standards. The standards cover all sorts of aspects, such as how much money a nonprofit actually spends on charitable work as opposed to administrative expenses and whether there are enough board members overseeing the organization.
Some major discrepancies would be considered deceptive and unethical, if not illegal, while others were just neglectful and ignorant. Some athletes set up foundations as tax-planning vehicles. Others dispute the nonprofit standards overall, saying as long as they spend at least some money on actual charity they should not be criticized.
In many cases, a charity’s actual effectiveness couldn’t be effectively measured because it was behind on filing tax returns or the returns that did get filed were filled with errors and omissions. These issues can go undiscovered for years since the Internal Revenue Service and states’ attorney general offices can’t audit every tax return.
Outside The Lines found that while charities are named in honor of wealthy sports figures, only about a third of them had total assets of $500,000 or more. Multimillion-dollar programs, such as those founded by charities Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Andre Agassi and Richard and Kyle Petty, are rare.
Why do I bring this up now? Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, already suspended indefinitely for the beating of his 4-year-old son, has been investigated by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and it looks as though Peterson’s legal problems may be just the start. For one thing, Peterson has a number of children across several states, which is not illegal, but does cast aspersions on his character.
The article targeted Peterson’s All Day Foundation. According to the report, in 2011 a relative of Peterson was allowed to use a foundation credit card to book a hotel room in Eden Prairie, Minn. that was used for a “night of drinking, arguing and sex that involved the running back.”
One would think that Peterson would stay away from Eden Prairie since he was under investigation after an allegation of rape that occurred in an Eden Prairie hotel room. (there is no evidence that the 2011 credit card incident and the alleged rape were the same trip.)
Following Peterson’s indictment in September, it seems that the whole world is collapsing on the running back. Sponsors have distanced themselves from Peterson and the Vikings; and of course, the NFL placed him on the exempt/commissioner’s permission list until his child-abuse case is resolved, which bars him from all team activities. Suddenly, the All Day Foundation shut down and now the organization’s finances have come under scrutiny.
Despite a 2011 financial report showing $247,064 in revenue, the contributions remain questionable. A $70,000 gift said to have been presented by the charity to Straight From the Heart Ministries, was never received. President of Straight From the Heart Donna Farley said, “There have been no outside [contributions] other than people in my own circle. Adrian Peterson — definitely not.” A food bank in Texas claimed it also received a donation from Peterson’s charity, despite financial records indicating no such transaction ever took place.
Prior to this, I didn’t have much of an opinion of Adrian Peterson other than a terrific runner; perhaps the best in the league and a potential Hall of Famer. I knew that one of his children had died in a tragic accident, but I admit a bit of surprise that he had more young kids running around and he isn’t married. In today’s society, that’s not a rarity, there are lots of athletes with lots of “baby mamas” and children all over. I done condone that type of behavior, but it’s none of my business. Long time readers know that even my first reaction to his hitting his son with a switch was a “so what” reaction since most black kids of my generation were hit with a switch at some point in our lives. However, the severity of the beating was worse that any I ever had, or remember my friends having, and I admit that my opinion of Peterson was changing.
Now, one has to wonder if the public’s perception of the talented running back is harmed beyond repair. As the ESPN story shows, Adrian Peterson’s charity is far from the only one that is a ruse to appear involved and active in the community while the athlete uses it for PR and tax relief.
One has to wonder what kind of person Adrian Peterson really is? It doesn’t appear to be the quiet superior athlete we see on the field. That is, if we ever see him on a field again.

For decades, the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) has made out like bandits. They auction off the rights to host Games for billions of dollars from the countries and the municipalities (both over the table and under the table in the forms of money, but also “favors” including sex and other perks); share none of the television or even ticket revenue; hold the Games then leave, often leaving behind expensive stadiums that have no use and deteriorate.
In this scenario, the IOC makes billions, and no Olympiad with the exception of Los Angeles in 1980 has turned a profit. Some of you will remember that I was extremely happy when former Mayor Richard J. Daley’s bid failed to host the 2016 Summer Games. Rio de Janeiro won and still has practically nothing built, and IOC executives are complaining that nothing will be ready on time.
For the longest time, I have wondered when people would see through this scam and not let their elected officials, who get hung up in the hoopla and “local pride” (kickbacks?) spend billions of dollars on a three week party that takes years to prepare for? We have another bid in process and two cities are in the running for the 2022 Winter Games with the final vote expected next summer. Beijing, China is one city, but the problem there is that there isn’t a usable ski mountain within 120 miles, and Almaty, Kazakhstan, which in its bid touted itself as “the world’s largest landlocked nation.”
There were two more likely candidates, but they have now dropped out of the running. Oslo, Norway, known for their picturesque mountains and skill at winter events, plus a very friendly people. Their bid was considered the best, and they were odds-on favorites to host the Games. However, at the bargain rate of an estimated $5.4 billion (compared to the $51 billion Russia spent on the Sochi Games), the country of five million people decided that they didn’t want the government to spend $10,200 for every man, woman and child in Norway to host the Games. Some 55.9 percent of Norwegians opposed, and last week, the Norwegian government pulled their bid.
Now, this might be just shrugged off by the IOC as a one-off event, but Norway wasn’t alone. According to Yahoo Sports, Krakow, Poland, which had lost out on earlier bids, saw 70 percent voter opposition and pulled its application. Popular votes failed for Munich, Germany and St. Moritz, Switzerland. Sweden’s the majority party rejected funding the proposed games in Stockholm. There were no bids from the United States
So, what’s happening? Are the Olympics losing their esteem and glamour? Has the end of the Cold War, which allows the best athletes in many of these sports to compete regularly against the best from other countries dimmed the wattage of the Olympic Games? Or, have the people of countries said that we would rather use our money on things like housing and education, things that have a much longer shelf life than an Olympiad? Maybe they saw the protests of the common people in Brazil as the country hosted this year’s World Cup and an upcoming Olympics as a great majority of the people live in abject poverty?
I, for one, still think there’s a place for the Olympics. Any event which brings people together to peacefully compete is a good thing. The thing is that the Olympics as the bloated spectacle, the money printing engine is done. People don’t want to travel that far anymore as fewer people have the money to get them there. And people expect a certain level of comfort for that much money, but often, they find out that their accommodations make Holiday Inn look like the Waldorf Astoria. Plus, television ratings and revenues are down. Part of it is the time lag between wherever the Games are held and the rest of the world. Even the most passionate fan isn’t going to wake up at 4:00 AM to watch their favorite team.
Maybe this whole thing needs to be scaled back; pared down to a smaller level. Do we need 100,000 seat stadiums for every event? Do the opening and closing ceremonies have to resemble Roman bread and circuses or old Busby Berkley musicals? Perhaps if the Olympics returned to being a sporting event, with focus on the athletes, held in current stadiums, or non-permanent structures that cost less and aren’t going to turn into dilapidated ruins, cities and countries wouldn’t lose billions and more of them would be willing to host them?
I guess the bigger question is, will the IOC adapt? Are they so used to the billions of dollars, drugs, hookers, undercover payments, and greedy/corrupt politicians that they will never change? If they don’t, the Olympics are doomed.

The latest blow against the Washington NFL team’s nickname is that the Federal Communication Commission may fine announcers and networks using the nickname “Redskins.” Already refusing to acknowledge the copyright for the name, the government has been aggressive in trying to convince Daniel “Cry Baby” Snyder to change the name. Of course he still refuses because as a billionaire, he feels that other people’s opinions don’t count against him.
I know that Phil Simms and other announcers have said that they don’t use the name on air, but as someone who did some radio announcing while at Northwestern, I wonder how they can do it? The team has had the nickname for 81 years, and even though I understand the controversy and agree that the name should be changed, I still have a tendency to call them Redskins in conversation. (Avoiding it in writing is much easier.) Do the announcers put up Post-it notes all over the booth with “Washington” on them? Often we tend to downplay the professionalism of the ex-jocks who work on the NFL broadcasts, but it is harder than it looks, and maybe we should give them more credit for what they do, especially if they are successful at not using the name?
Will this be yet another nail in the coffin of the hateful nickname? Maybe Snyder is holding out until the next president comes along who won’t make him change the name? In the interim, he is the poster boy for spoiled rich, out-of-touch sports owners.

I did not see the end of the Kansas City Royals incredible comeback in the Wild Card game against the Oakland A’s the other night, mostly because I though the Royals were done when the A’s were leading 7-3 late in the game. However, I was also channel surfing when I found Frontline’s story on head injuries in the NFL.
It was, as are so many stories on the PBS series, riveting and I ended up watching nearly all of it. The bit that made the media was the finding of Dr. Ann McKee, the leading researcher on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, that she had reviewed the brains of 79 former NFL players and of those 76 had CTE (the only way to confirm CTE at this point it post mortem). But I was, like Bill Simmons who gave the profanity filled rant last week calling Goodell a “liar,” insensed by Goodell’s role in the Frontline article. It showed a man who will do anything to protect the league, and, of most importance, the billions of dollars pouring into the teams’ pockets.
The report showed how the league hired doctors who did not specialize in head trauma to conduct “research” which was basically a smokescreen to do nothing. To be fair, the committee was originated under Goodell’s predecessor Paul Tagliabue, but the report showed Goodell’s testimony before Congress on head injury and his self serving, passing the buck story that the doctors need to make the determination of any causal relationship between football and brain damage. This is the same position, almost word for word, that Goodell espoused in a later interview shown on Frontline.
In previous posts, I have said that after being terminated and out of work for 13 months several years ago, I don’t like to write that someone should get fired. I do, however, don’t have as much empathy for players, coaches, or officials being fired since they make massive sums of money. It is in this sprit that, on account of his handling of the Ray Rice incident and lies regarding the videotape of Rice assaulting his then-fiancée/ now wife inside the elevator, and the lies that he has spouted regarding the league’s delaying tactics and faulty research on brain injury, means that it is time Roger Goodell resigns or is fired.
His tenure as the $40 million per year earning Commissioner’s job has been plagued by player indiscretions and Goodell acting like the big sheriff/Great White Father to all of the players, especially the black players, One the one hand taking a hard line against things like marijuana, which is being legalized or decriminalized in many cities and states around the country, but a softer line on domestic abusers and a head-in-the-sand attitude toward the long term health of its players, Goodell has presided over it all alternatively like Stalin with an iron fist or Nero, fiddling while Rome burns.
Maybe Roger Goodell is just the poster boy for CEOs everywhere: white, male, oblivious to the concerns of others, willing to do anything including lies, cheat or steal to protect the corporation. There are exceptions of course, but when one looks any of these other bland, white, men doing all they can to maintain the status quo; make billions at the cost of harming humans, animals or the environment.
Maybe Roger Goodell is just a symbol of corporate greed. Sure, there are lots of men, like the Koch brothers who do much more heinous, insidious, evil things to people and the world than Roger Goodell. And, it is almost a certainty that the NFL will hire another spineless toady if Goodell leaves. But he needs to leave now. We need a new commissioner of the NFL; Goodell’s lies have undermined the game, the league and the office. He should slink into obscurity now before he screws up the next controversy.