Everyone, all 7 billion people on this Earth, and entitled to their own opinion, no matter how stupid, backwards, racist or just plain ludicrous they are. (However, people are not entitled to their own facts as the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Monaghan correctly stated.) However, when you’re a celebrity, your comments carry much further than the normal Joe, even with social media. There’s nothing wrong with expressing your opinion as long as you understand that there will be repercussions.
Since 2010, former pitcher and New England World Series legend Curt Schilling was an announcer for ESPN’s baseball games – pro, college and even Little League. I heard him a few times – I didn’t think he was bad, but I didn’t think he was great either; kind of “meh.” For years, Schilling was known as a very conservative person off the field, but it didn’t matter as a ball players or even as a retired ballplayer, but when you are employed by a major corporation to whom PR is VERY important, you do have to watch what you say/express on social media.
I guess however as he became more tenured, Schilling got bolder about expressing his opinions. The first time he got into trouble was last August, when Schilling posted a meme comparing Muslims to Nazis. Schilling was covering the Little League World Series when the meme was posted and ESPN suspended him at first for the LLWS, but extended the suspension for the entirety of the 2015 MLB season. At that time, I was among the people who called for Schilling to be fired. Unlike the Tea Partiers and Donald Trump supporters, most people do not look upon all the followers of a religion to be shamed by the actions of a few.
ESPN did stand behind Schilling, bringing him back as an analyst this season, but on Tuesday Schilling put his mouth (or typing fingers) to work to disparage another group of people – transgender people. He shared an image (eventually removed) which had a man in ripped women’s clothes under a caption that read: “Let him in to the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!” That was bad enough, but like most of these people, they can’t leave well enough alone – Schilling doubled down on the image later blogging, “(T)his latest brew ha ha is beyond hilarious,” Schilling wrote. “I didn’t post that ugly looking picture. I made a comment about the basic functionality of mens and womens restrooms, period.”
This was finally the last straw and ESPN fired Schilling. The company issued a statement that said “ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.” Of course state legislatures around the U.S. have in recent months debated proposals that would force individuals to use the bathroom that corresponds with the sex listed on their birth certificate, with measures enacted in North Carolina, Mississippi and Tennessee. The backlash has been loud with musicians, and companies refusing to do business in these states.
The bigots say that it is political correctness, but no, it’s a refusal of many people to allow racist, hurtful, demeaning speech to go unchallenged. ESPN is doing the right thing to protect its bottom line, but it is doing the right thing – just 9 months late.

I have long thought that former sports superstars would not make good coaches. In almost every major sport, superstars have thought that their knowledge of the game and the players’ perspective would make them great coaches and front office members.
In football, former Super Bowl Champions Bart Starr, Forrest Gregg, among many others have tried their hand at being head coaches with little success. In baseball, tons of ex-superstars like Frank Robinson, Don Mattingly, Kirk Gibson and many others have tried to win championships with no avail. (Mattingly, it should be pointed out, did come close with the Dodgers and is now head man in Florida with the Marlins.) “The Greatest” Wayne Gretzky was head coach in Arizona and it didn’t work out; after a great rookie coaching season, Colorado’s Patrick Roy has been unable to get his team to return to the playoffs.
For some reason, basketball seems to have the most former superstars trying to coach. Magic Johnson tried; so did Isiah Thomas; about he closest to winning it all as a coach was Larry Bird although his front office skills has been called into question. Michael Jordan never tried to be a coach, but as a GM in Washington and an owner in Charlotte, he has not generated any champions or even playoff appearances.
For whatever reason, it seems it is the marginal players, the career backups and minor league players who end up making better coaches. Since they know that they need to maximize their more limited physical skills, the non-superstar is able to excel where the superstar player cannot. Also, I think that the inner drive that stoked Jordan, Bird and Magic to higher levels of greatness than even their innate abilities would have taken them to, is not common to most people. The will to go the extra mile, “put the team on their shoulder,” is not something that can be taught. The physical things that superstars do easily are much harder for common players, impossible for journeymen. This is what makes them superstars in the first place.
While it is nice to see equal rights in all aspects of life, this is not a club that any woman would want to be in. This is what I was thinking when I read about the allegations against Loyola Women’s Basketball Coach Sheryl Swoopes. Of course, Ms. Swoops is one of the greatest women’s basketball players of all time is about to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. However, she is being investigated by Loyola’s academic administration after 10 of 12 eligible players declared their intentions to transfer rather than return next year. Last year, five players transferred; they’ve been told by their new coaches not to comment on the situation, sources said.
The reason for the mass defection: reportedly, Ms. Swoopes created a hostile environment filled with threats of scholarship revocation and “moles within the organization” that funneled information back to the coach. She was hired three years ago with little coaching experience beyond a 2010 stint as an assistant at Mercer Island (Wash.) High School, and so far, Loyola’s women have not been winners, and perhaps winning changes everything. The Lady Ramblers went 14-16 this year, 10-9 in the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Chicago Sun-Times printed a story about former player Cate Soane, a Glenbard West graduate said that she was the victim of “emotional abuse” while playing for the Loyola coach.
“I was humiliated, belittled,” she told the Sun-Times. “I was subject to a lot of inappropriate conduct.”
“She had created an environment for the team that was very hostile and negative,” Ms. Soane said. “It was created out of fear. So there was a lot of mistrust.” Ms. Soane said Swoopes mocked her during a team meeting and encouraged her teammates to do the same when she questioned why a player was cut. She was accused of being disloyal.
Soane said she was “too afraid” to take her concerns to Loyola administrators. Former teammates did about other incidences, “Loyola knew about this for years,” she said.
The school says that an investigation has begun, even though they have not as yet talked with Ms. Soane. Something has to be up is almost every player on a team is transferring to other schools. The old thinking used to be that it was the players who couldn’t take it, were too soft, couldn’t handle a tough coach. That was ok in the 1950s, but that no longer works in today’s sports world and should not be tolerated, although it is all too often allowed, protected by the backwards attitudes of college coaches and administrators.
There’s no place for a young man or woman to be degraded and belittled, even by a superstar Hall of Famer; male or female.

I’m no wrestling fan – I haven’t been since I was around 13 and found out that the whole thing was fake. (I remember working the old International Amphitheatre and “opponents” Dick the Bruiser and Ernie Ladd sitting in a private room in the back deciding “how much we gonna give ‘em (the crowd) tonight?”)
Anyway, WWE wrestling became a MAJOR deal in the 1980s and 1990s. Despite rumors about steroid, HGH, and other performance enhancing substances, the “sport” was big news. One of the biggest female stars of that period, Chyna died yesterday according to, authorities. Police in Southern California said they found Chyna dead in her Redondo Beach apartment while responding to a 911 call from a friend of the wrestler. The friend had gone Wednesday to check on Chyna, whose real name is Joan Marie Laurer, after she had failed to answer her phone for a few days, Redondo Beach police said in a statement. The friend told the 911 operator that Laurer wasn’t breathing. The 46-year-old Laurer was dead when officers arrived, police said.
The tall, muscle-bound, brunette Chyna billed herself as the “9th Wonder of the World” because her wrestling predecessor Andre the Giant had already called himself the eighth. She was a member of the wrestling squad that dubbed itself “D-Generation X,” often wrestled against men and at one point was the WWE women’s champion. After leaving the WWE in 2001, Laurer posed for Playboy and appeared in adult films and on reality TV, including the shows “The Surreal Life” and “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.”
Chyna joins a long list of WWE professional wrestlers who have died relatively young, including Rick Rude, Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig, the Ultimate Warrior and Owen Hart. The number of wrestlers who have died young forces one to ask whether the rigors of wrestling are in some ways to blame? I don’t think we can really say that because it is a show – the major wrestling bodies fought and got removed rules in many states that require a doctor at ringside for boxing matches and mixed-martial arts, because wrestling is, in their words, an “exhibition.”
So, now we have to look to the rumored drugs. This deserves study. However, it cannot be discounted the “fall from popular culture” that every athlete and many entertainers face. What happens after the fame is gone? If you didn’t keep your money, you’re a has-been, forgotten like yesterday’s newspaper. For some, they can ease into “regular life;” some can remain famous as actors or broadcasters; but for some, that is their life, not devalued (in their eyes) to nothingness.
We will find out what killed Chyna, a 46-year-old woman in the prime of life who should have had many years ahead of her. Even though I only knew of her vaguely, it’s sad.

Records are made to be broken – no question about it, but I must admit that I never thought I would see any team surpass the 72-10 regular season record amassed by the 1996 Michael Jordan led, Chicago Bulls. It was ridiculous – the Bulls winning became so common place that you almost didn’t watch the games – you just knew that whoever they played, no matter what happened or how hot the other team was, the Bulls would win. Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Steve Kerr, all of the rest of the team were just unstoppable.
So I admit rooting just a little against the Golden State Warriors surpassing the Bulls’ single season win record. But, like the 1996 Bulls, it seemed inevitable. The Steph Curry led Warriors just kept winning against all comers. (And they weren’t the only ones – San Antonio lost only 1 game at home this season, also an NBA record.) Is the rest of the league bad? Maybe, but maybe it’s the style of play? It appears to me that the Warriors and Spurs play true team basketball – getting the entire team involved, moving the ball around to get the best shot. A far cry from the two man – pass in, pass out, pass in pass out until someone lifts a shot and the other three guys stand around watching like spectators.
Of course, having a superstar like Curry does make it easier; he may be the best outside shot of all time, but when he doesn’t have a good shot, he passes the ball. Still, the playoffs await; the Warriors are trying to repeat as champions. If the Warriors were to lose any of the series, the regular season record would be tarnished (and something that the Bulls obviously avoided). However, this was an amazing accomplishment.

In the next step toward making their league completely irrelevant, NBA owners are reportedly about to vote to put ads on jerseys for the 2017-18 season. The reportedly lucrative deal would place a 2.5-by-2.5-inch patch on the left shoulder. The initial proposal to owners that was floated at a meeting held at the time of the Toronto All Star Game last February was for teams to keep 50 percent of the sponsorship money from the jersey ads and for 50 percent to be added to the revenue-sharing pool for all teams.
Reportedly, the league has been moving in this direction for at least five years, a project that Commissioner Adam Silver has spearheaded. This goes in line with the fact that the NBA recently signed new national television and apparel deals where the ads were part of the negotiations. In 2017, Nike will take over from Adidas as the league’s uniform provider when the ads are expected to debut.
Of course, this just shows the utter greed of all involved. I’m sure the revenue will be included in the formula for the player’s percentage of basketball revenues. My question of course is, where will it stop? At first, it’s a little patch on the shoulder; then it’s a patch across the back bottom. finally, NBA players will truly look like NASCAR drivers or soccer players – every possible space other then room for the team logo and the players’ number is covered by advertisements. I have always wondered if it was really effective anyway? The small patches are so small they can’t be picked up on television broadcasts except on the largest bar televisions. The large patches are easily seen, but usually, that sponsor’s name is already indistinguishable from the team name anyway.
The other side of it is – if there are ads on the jerseys, will fans still buy them and want to wear them. NHL fans have dreaded the potential of having ads on their favorite team sweaters for years, but only bad publicity has stopped the league so far. I am a big fan of NHL jerseys as lay around wear – put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and cover it with a hockey jersey. They are blousy and comfortable and usually a conversation piece. Would I want to look like a walking billboard if the league in its latest money grab, started sticking ads on the jerseys? And jerseys, certainly in hockey, football and baseball are big sellers. I do see the occasional NBA jersey on someone, but mostly it is kids who can look good in them, not the heavier, older, out of weight fan.
The league’s argument is that with the patches, the sponsors will use their advertising to help promote the NBA, but the manufacturer’s logo is already on the jerseys. Isn’t that enough? Apparently not – there’s more revenue that needs to be squeezed out of companies and ultimately the fans. Personally, I hope this turns out to be a colossal flop and the NBA goes back to the old style in a few years. It would be a nice slap on the hubris of the league, but it would also be a warning to the other major sports, because if it does work, there will be ads on the jerseys, caps, underwear of every major sports team, and do we really need that?

One of the truisms in the sports world is – you don’t need to be beloved to be a Hall of Fame player in any sport. Baseball’s Ty Cobb beat a fan with the fan’s prosthetic leg. It is said that Johnny Bench is a world class @$$hole. There is a school of thought that you need to be a bit of
a prick to really be great: selfish, ornery. The will to win should trump all else.
I personally don’t believe this; I have met many athletes and celebrities over the years and most of them have been really nice. I have seldom seen so many people jumping on Kobe Bryant as he played in his farewell season that ended this week.
Bryant is younger than many retirees despite having played 20 seasons, because he was able to jump to the pros from high school (something that is not allowed anymore by NBA rules). Ever since he entered the league however, Bryant, whose father also played in the NBA, was selfish and spoiled from the time he entered the league. He was never a good teammate; despite winning three NBA Championship with Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe helped push the center out of town in order to claim that he was the only leader on the team. Of course, the biggest story was his 2003 arrest on sexual assault charges in Colorado. While he was not convicted, the perception of good husband and family man went out the window.
Over the last several years, Bryant, who always compared himself to Michael Jordan, and as such, wanted a sixth and seventh NBA Championship to prove he was better, led the demise of the Lakers. With his huge contract taking up salary cap room, Bryant demanding to be the center of attention, and suffering numerous injuries that kept Bryant out of the lineup for nearly two full seasons, the Lakers went from a championship in 2010, to 57 wins the next season, 41 and 45 in 2011-12 and 2012-13 respectively. The team lost in the conference semifinals in 2011 and 2012 then bowed out in the first round in 2013.
Then the team bottomed out – 27 wins last season and only 21 this year, Kobe’s farewell tour. It should be said that Bryant went out in a microcosm of his whole career. In his final game, Bryant scored 60 points, which would be amazing, right? However, Bryant hogged the basketball, throwing up 50 shots, which makes the 60 points a lot less amazing. Hell, if any professional basketball player takes 50 shots, he or she should be able to come close to or surpass the 60 points Kobe put up.
Even though I am no longer an avid basketball fan, it is hard not to follow Bryant’s career, and while not one of the chief “haters,” I’ve never been too fold of Bryant. Great player? Absolutely. Selfish, spoiled player? Definitely. With the injuries and the losing and my own indifference to the sport, I no longer paid attention to Kobe Bryant. I knew he was retiring and I knew that the Lakers were very bad. It seems however, the most of the league, the players and the fans not located in the Los Angeles area, won’t really miss Kobe. I don’t think many will.

Spring is in the air (sort of) and while warmth brings positive thoughts and longings for warm weather, this really is the best time of the sports year. Baseball is starting and here in Chicago both the Cubs and White Sox have gotten off to very strong starts; the only negative being the season ending injury to the Cubs Kyle Schwarber).
However, that is going to play out for several months; tomorrow is the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs – the most exciting, tension filled time of the year. No more dumb penalties can be allowed; no more 3-on-3 overtime, no more shootouts. Every game is played until someone wins. Double and triple overtime games happen frequently.
Usually, I make picks for the playoffs and as before, I’m going to choose round by round, so here are my picks for Round 1:

Western Conference

Central Division
#1 Dallas Stars vs. #4 Minnesota Wild – The Stars can flat out score, but their defense remains their Achilles Heel. Former Blackhawks Patrick Sharp and Johnny Oduya bring playoff experience to a young group. The Wild staggered down the stretch, losing their final five games. I don’t foresee an upset here: Stars in five games

#2 St. Louis Blues vs. #3 Chicago Blackhawks – This will be one helluva series. The teams know each other, don’t like one another. The Blues have lost in the first round two straight years and made it only to the second round the year before that. Between injuries and potential free agency that may break up some of the team along with urgency that will come with trying not to suffer another first round exit this season, means that the battle tested Blackhawks have an advantage. The Hawks should be healthy and they know how to win. That will be the difference: Blackhawks in six.

Pacific Division
#1 Anaheim Ducks vs. #4 Nashville Predators – The Ducks shook off a tough start to the season but were the number 1 team on the power play and penalty killing. The Preds had a good finish to the season, but I can’t project them knocking off the Ducks: Anaheim in six

#2 Los Angeles Kings vs. #3 San Jose Sharks – I’ll make this quick (no pun intended): the Kings have two Stanley Cup titles; the Sharks always have a collective heart attack in the playoffs. There is no team stronger in the regular season who never show any grit in the layoffs than San Jose. They will choke again – Kings in seven.

Eastern Conference
Atlantic Division
#1 Florida Panthers vs. #4 New York Islanders – The Blackhawks south (GM Dale Tallon, D Brian Campbell, F Dave Bolland) with the ageless wonder – Jaromir Jagr had 103 points in the regular season. The Islanders had a tough year at time and while they have four good lines, the goaltending is the weakness for the New Yorkers in my opinion. Tough series, but I’ll take the Panthers in seven.

#2 Tampa Bay Lightning vs. #3 Detroit Red Wings – These two teams played an epic seven game series last spring and this looks to be a similar set-up. Of course, Tampa will miss Steven Stamkos, but they still have plenty of scorers. The Red Wings have difficulty putting the biscuit in the basket, but they may have emotion on their side if the try to “win one for Pavel” Datsyuk, who says he is leaving Detroit after this season to return to Russia. I’ll take talent over emotion – Lightning in seven

Metropolitan Division
#1 Washington Capitals vs. #4 Philadelphia Flyers – the President’s Trophy winner vs. the gritty group who made it into the playoffs on the final weekend. The Capitals haven’t had anything to play for in weeks, but the Flyers have been playing do-or-die hockey for the last couple of months. Still, the Capitals best in the sport point total is no fluke. The Flyers will try to rough the Capitals up, butt hey just don’t have enough to stop the Caps – Capitals in five.

#2 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. #3 New York Rangers – Usually, I would bemoan about the mediocre blue line and choke goaltending of the Penguins, but they have played well down the stretch. If Evgeni Malkin returns, that is yet another superstar for Pittsburgh. Meanwhile a hand injury to Captain Ryan McDonagh could be trouble. The Rangers still have the second best netminder in the world Henrik Lundqvist (behind Montreal’s injured Carey Price), but any team that need Rick Nash to make the difference is in real trouble. Penguins in six.

Tonight they drop the puck – I’m ready!