One of the most difficult situations in sports regards relations between athletes and spouses or girlfriends. On the one hand, the athlete almost literally has a target on his back as eligible ladies hope to get his attention/get into a relationship/or have a child. In any of these cases, the woman gets attention, perhaps a relationship, or at least certainly, expected money.
Then of course, there is the “protect the athlete at all costs” mentality that tells young, hyper-testosterone-filled men that they can get away with much more than the normal, non-athletic male.
The latest example regards Florida State University Seminoles quarterback Jameis Winston. Winston has faced a rape accusation for the past few weeks that has cast a pall over the team’s march to number one in the polls/BCS. Apparently, a young woman had been drinking with friends at a Tallahassee bar in December, 2012, when she met Winston. According to her, Winston raped her, but Winston has continued to claim that the sex was consensual, especially after his DNA turned up on the young lady’s clothes.
The football fans in Tallahassee held their collective breaths, knowing that a formal charge would sideline Winston through the bowl season at least. Well, part of the wind blanketing the nation was the collective sigh of relief coming from the FSU fans, alumni and boosters as it was announced by local authorities that Winston will not be charged in a rape investigation.
According to Willie Meggs, the state attorney for the 2nd Judicial Circuit, which includes Leon County and Tallahassee, the problem was the accuser’s recollection of the events that occurred. “We have a duty as prosecutors to only file … charges if we have a reasonable likelihood of a conviction,” Meggs said (quoted on SI.com). “We did not feel we could meet that burden.”
He further said investigators did not have even probable cause to arrest Winston, which requires a much lower standard of proof.
Of course, the accuser’s family claim that the authorities allowed football interests to dictate the pace and depth of the investigation. Winston is a Heisman Trophy hopeful set to play for a conference championship this weekend and possibly a national championship thereafter. (although Winston could still face sexual battery charges, but more likely, the young woman could still sue him in a personal injury lawsuit and seek monetary damages).
The problem is that the only people who know EXACTLY what happened are the young woman and Winston. We tend to automatically side with the woman, but then we have the Desiree Washington/Mike Tyson case which, as Tyson reminds us in his book and one-man show/television special, has a lot of doubt still all these years later. (Ms. Washington came to Tyson’s room at 3:00 AM and even then, Tyson had a reputation for being a ladies man; the Indiana judge who sentenced him could have literally thrown the book at Tyson, but she didn’t; the judge let him out for good behavior a long time before she had to; plus Ms. Washington never did come after Tyson’s millions. Not that this fact made her less credible, but there is still some question about the whole incident.)
As a father of two girls, of course, I look at the woman’s side of things, and I have to wonder whether Meggs, who is an elected official, prosecuted this case knowing that if he went forward, his chances of reelection became more longer. I hope that isn’t the case, but it is possible, And, as I’ve said a million times before, I feel for the modern athlete – so many people with their hands out looking to use sex as a means to an end.
The whole situation stinks.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend.
Most important, stay away from the stores that are open on Thanksgiving. The sales will still be there Friday – that’s the only way the greedy CEOs will stop this nonsense – make them lose money!

Philadelphia has the reputation of being the toughest fans in sports and deservedly so: they are notoriously tough on the opponent, but perhaps even tougher on their home players. This week however, some Chicago Bulls fans have thrown their names in the hat for consideration.
Their anger and rage is directed toward the hard luck case of guard Derrick Rose. This week, he suffered his second serious knee injury in 20 months, a torn meniscus in his right knee to go with the torn ACL in his left knee suffered in the 2012 playoffs. Rose was already the object of scorn when he didn’t rush back from injury late last season or in the playoffs. The more deluded of the team’s fan base thought that last year’s team with Rose could have won the NBA Championship. I saw deluded, because even though the Bulls gave the eventual champion Heat all they could want in their playoff series, a 50% or 75% Derrick Rose probably wouldn’t have made the difference. Rose was very elusive as to why he didn’t return, but his psyche was as bruised as his knee and he obviously didn’t want to return until he was physically and mentally ready.
Expectations were high for this season – the same nucleus from last year with the former MVP made winning now an expectation, not a wish or pipe dream. The team staggered sluggishly out of the gate to start the season, but thet should have been expected as Rose got used to playing and the rest of the team, that learned to play without him all last season, tried to get used to playing with him.
In light of the current injury which will cost the All Star point guard the rest of this season after another knee surgery has brought out the fury. “Waive him,” I’ve heard. “The Bulls never should have committed $96 million to a fragile player,” some of the laments go. The injury does put the Bulls in a big bind – Lual Deng is a free agent after this season. Do you trade the current team for prospects and/draft picks? Does the team play out the string, and lose lots of games in an attempt to get a high draft pick in the next draft.
Rose’s injury is certainly unfortunate. I feel for him – you can sense his desire to play and at a high level. Before he was hurt the first time, no one blinked at the big contract that he had earned. Bulls management and fans wanted to lock up the local boy does good for a long time, like the team did Michael Jordan. But the fans ire at him is unfair. It’s not like he WANTS to hurt himself. It’s not like he’s happy just taking the money and rehabbing his knees.
Chicago fans are tough. It is still at its heart, a blue collar, hard working city. We have little patience for the lazy, the petulant, the underachiever. Derrick Rose is still very young, and he has a number of good years left, perhaps even MVP-type years left.
It’s a little early to label him a bust and move on.

It is hard to take Major League Baseball’s management, owners and the team’s front office personnel seriously. On the one hand, they crow about the current testing policy for PEDs and the stiff fines and suspensions. But after a player finishes servicing a suspension, the teams roll the wheelbarrows of money in, despite the possibility that the player is still on/will start taking performance enhancing drugs again.
The latest member of the “who cares as long as he can help the team” club are the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals have the pixie dust/smart decisions/good management that allows them to compete for the playoffs every year despite losing players. They can’t resign Albert Pujols, go with someone else and still win. You have to tip your cap at them.
But in this year’s playoffs, it was determined by baseball minds that the Cardinals’ weakness is their infield. Last year, the team bet that Rafael Furcal had sufficiently recovered from a strained ulnar collateral ligament to return to the lineup, but he suffered a setback early in spring training and underwent Tommy John surgery in early March, costing him the entire season. The team was forced to use a platoon of light-hitting Pete Kozma and Daniel Descalso, but they wanted more pop in the lineup.
So they traded third baseman David Freese to the Angels to clear a spot for prospect Kolten Wong; and the Cards, who haven’t made a significant free agent signing in some time, signed former Tiger shortstop Jhonny Peralta to a four-year, $53 million deal, pending a physical.
Now Peralta, who turns 32 on May 28, will be a significant improvement at the plate. He earned a second All Star appearance last season hitting .303 with 11 home runs for Detroit. However, his season was shortened by a 50-game suspension from baseball for involvement in the Biogenesys scandal that also got Ryan Braun suspended and is currently the bone of contention between baseball and Alex Rodriguez.
The only positve to this story is that, according to reports, the $53 million contract is significantly less than Peralta was looking for in free agency, but still, that’s a lot of money for a guy who basically cheated. Yes, I believe in second chances and the ability of a person to reform, but we have to ask, would you risk getting caught in return for $53 million?
It’s simple – the answer is a resounding “YES!”

The arbitration hearing of Alex Rodriguez has gone on for weeks but today, there was some drama. The Yankee third baseman stormed out of the meeting when the arbitrator refused to compel Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to testify. Rodriguez wants to confront Selig as he tries to get his 211 game suspension overturned.
Later, Rodriguez was on a New York radio show denying he had any contact with the Biogenesys lab; he only understands that Selig wants to throw him out of baseball and tarnish his legacy.
Rodriguez in once again proving the denial is not just a river in Egypt. He has admitted to cheating; and while he could be innocent, the messages and contact he had with Biogenesis makes it very questionable that he is as clean as he says he is.
I realize that the Players’ Union has to challenge Selig’s ruling, but A-Rod has been dirty; he admitted to using PEDs; I believe the narcissistic athlete will do anything to be on top; do anything to cover it up; use his millions to never got caught.
Was Selig out to get A-Rod? Perhaps. Was his punishment too harsh? I don’t think so.
In the end, the man who is trying to run Alex Rodriguez out of baseball; the man who is ruining Alex Rodriguez’s legacy is Alex Rodriguez and he should be a man and take his punishment.

Sounds sexist, right? Being glad that I have two girls instead of boys? What a horrible person I am, correct?
Well, the reason is that I would probably want boys of mine to play football, and in light of the stories about head trauma that is coming out now (this week NFL Hall of Famers Tony Dorsett and Joe DeLamielleure were revealed to be suffering effects of CTE, the brain injury that has caused dementia, memory loss, and many times, suicide to former players.
As bad as it is for pros, the problem of head trauma is not limited to the pro and college levels. This week, Arizona high school football player Charles Youvella died. According to Chris Williams and Richard Obert of azcentral.com, Youvella suffered a critical head injury during Keams Canyon Hopi High School’s Division V playoff game against Arizona Lutheran Academy last Saturday night.
Youvella was a 5’5″ senior running back and defensive back for Hopi. With his team trailing 60-6 in the fourth quarter, the young man made a tackle and his head hit the ground hard. Apparently, the tackle seemed harmless and Youvella stayed in the game for two more plays before collapsing. Although Youvella was conscious, alert and talking when he was taken to the hospital, his condition quickly worsened. He was in critical condition when he arrived at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix and ultimately passed away on Monday.
I can’t imagine losing a child so young and full of promise. My heart goes out to this young man’s family, teammates, friends, schoolmates, and the other teams schools and parents in Arizona. Football is going to have to change – even one death is too many.

You never know a celebrity. We fans never truly get to know our sports heroes. We may get a momentary interaction with a sports star, but we never hang out with them. We hardly ever have a long conversation with them. Our opinions are based on their teams and on the media coverage of their lives.
Why am I writing this philosophical stuff? Going soft emotionally or mentally? Both?
Well, I am writing this because for decades, I have hated former Iowa Head Football Coach Hayden Fry. The reason was simple – his Iowa teams took seeming unending joy in stomping my alma mater Northwestern when they played when I was in school. Fry understood that to get the attention of the voters for the Top 25 polls, you needed to beat bad teams badly. No team was as bad as the late 1970s NU teams, and Fry’s teams rolled all over us.
Contrast that with Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler: Bo’s teams were more talented than Fry’s, but Schembechler’s teams would win 35-7 compared with the 63-0 stompings Iowa would inflict. If he tried, Schembechler’s teams could have won by triple digits, but Bo looked like he was pulling fans from the stands rather then run up the score any more.
So, for years, I hated Fry, hated Iowa and wanted to beat them more than just about any team in the Big Ten. Until this week, that is. I was watching another of HBO’s great sports specials and this one was about the integration of college football. We all know the story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball and Willie O’Ree integrating the NHL. But while we imagine that the race issues that faced the other sports were the same in college football too, the story isn’t as well known.
But this special talked about the problems on integrating college football, especially in the South. One of the men profiled in the special was Jerry LeVias, the first black player in the SEC at SMU. Who was his coach? Who pushed for integration at SMU? You guessed it – Hayden Fry. When hired by SMU, Fry pushed the administration to allow him to recruit African-American players. Like Branch Rickey, Fry had to find a talented player who was also an upstanding man, and, most important, could withstand the taunts, frustration, of being the focus of racial animus.
And who supported LeVias/. His coach, Hayden Fry.
Was it all altruism? Of course not. The young black guys were tremendous athletes who could change a teams fortunes, indeed, change the balance of power in conferences.
Thousands of young black men have been able to play football and succeed in part due to what Hayden Fry and Jerry LeVias did in the mid 1960s. They were groundbreakers.
So, do I hate Hayden Fry anymore? No, I guess not. Do I root against Iowa? That, ladies and gentlemen, will never change.