I’ve been away on my annual Toronto Film Festival trip, but I couldn’t help noticing the story of two Texas high school football players tackling a referee from behind and jumping on top of him. At first, it appeared to be an unwarranted, unheard of attack on an official. No matter what, there should be no reason ever for a player to attack a referee, but as the story unfolded, as always, there is much more story than what was obvious at the time.
First, there were stories that the referee was making ethnic slurs at the players, which, to me, would be tough to resist retaliating against the official. My all time example of this was the infamous Robbie Alomar incident. Alomar, a Hall of Fame player, was never considered a troublemaker until September 27, 1996. Alomar got into a heated argument with umpire John Hirschbeck over a called third strike. At the end, Alomar spit in Hirschbeck’s face, eliciting a five game suspension at the beginning of the next season. Even though the two never fully discussed it and are reportedly now very good friends, at the time, Alomar said that Hirschbeck made racial comments. I have always believed that something was said to set the usually professional Alomar off. Considering that we are talking about high school students, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
The story appears to be even worse. The two players were finally interviewed on ABC’s Good Morning America program this morning and the players said that a coach told them to strike a referee during a game because of missed calls. Michael Moreno said “while on the sideline he pulled me and another player, and he told us, and I quote, ‘You need to hit him. He needs to pay the price for everything that’s going on in the game.’ There was racial slurs being thrown at players from this referee, unjustified calls and a lot was going on. His [the coach’s] emotions got mixed into and he told us to do what he did.”
Moreno said he heard from the coach directly, while Victor Rojas said another player reiterated the coach’s order. The suspended John Jay High players didn’t name the coach, but assistant coach Mack Breed has been suspended by the Northside school district pending an investigation into the game against Marble Falls earlier this month.
Referee Robert Watts has denied using any racial slurs, but the players from the San Antonio school both said they heard the slurs directly. “He told one of my Hispanic friends, ‘Speak English — this is America,’” Rojas said. “I heard that and he called an African-American the n-word.”
The two players have been kicked off the football team for the rest of the season and were suspended for three days. ESPN reported that the players could face criminal charges if Watts decides to press charges.
Of course, the young men are sorry and wish it hadn’t happened. One would think that this is just two kids trying to save their own behinds, but there are much bigger issues than these. First, players are told to do what the coach says, no matter what. Hazing on the team, dirty play on the field is acceptable if the coach tolerates it or even encourages it. Young men, especially those of high school age, are in that difficult position of not being adults, but not fully kids either.
Of course, there is plenty of blame for the coaches. Being adults, they should have taken it up with the official (and yes, the coaches on both teams) and the crew and said that such behavior would not be tolerated. Then they should have taken the issue to the school district and/or conference.
Finally, while the coaches are being investigated, the referee needs to be investigated also. I cannot believe that this is the only game that this guy has let his biases be known (if he indeed said them here). In our sports culture, referees, officials, umpires, etc., are expected to be respected at all times. However, to gain respect, one must earn it. Always one of my recurring themes is when the officials become bigger then the game; no one has ever paid money to watch an official. They are to adjudicate the game, keep it fair, keep it honest, then stay out of the way! If Watts made those comments, he should be fired and never referee another sports contest again.
Finally, I cannot fail to mention that we are talking about Texas, when football is right up there with God, beer and guns as the most important things in life. Football is everything: to the players, it’s a potential way out of their current circumstances, plus riches, fame, even if its just local notoriety for the rest of their lives. For the coaches, it’s guaranteed income and that same notoriety. In Texas, where the illegal immigrant issue is most heated, based on the invective of the people running for president from the GOP, Hispanics are being demonized like never before. It doesn’t surprise me that such hate speech gets thrown at kids, then people least able to defend themselves.
All in all, an ugly scene all the way around.

Readers of this column can probably ascertain (being smart people) that I am a long time tennis fan. I have followed the sport for a very long time and I realize that, like much of the sport’s fans and certainly its sponsors and pundits, we have not given nearly enough credit to Serena Williams. I am to rectify that now, for the record.
Whether or not she is able to finish out her “Serena Slam” this weekend in the U.S. Open to become the first person to win all of the Grand Slam events in the same year since Steffi Graf in 1988, we have to consider Ms. Williams as perhaps the greatest women’s tennis player of all time. If she does win, it will be her 22nd major championship, tying her with Ms. Graf for second all time behind Margaret Court’s 24. She has 69 WTA championships amassing over $73 million in title winnings, the most for any woman in tennis and fourth largest for the sport overall.
At 33, Serena is at the age when most players are winding down in her career, but she remains the number 1 player in the world and appears to have a few more years of top flight tennis left. It should also be mentioned that if she does pull of the Calendar Grand Slam (she long ago succeeded in attaining a career Grand Slam) this week, she would be the oldest person to win the Grand Slam (Steffi was only 19 when she accomplished the feat).
We can talk about her accomplishments for pages and pages, but I want to discuss why she has not been appreciated as much as other tennis players. Of course, she and her sister Venus were underdogs from the start, coming from inner city courts instead of the expensive tennis training camps where most top players spend their high school and some even grammar school years. It didn’t help that her first coach was their brash and outspoken father Richard. I admit that whenever I would see an interview with Richard or see him in the family box on television at a tournament, I was uneasy with what he would say next.
At first, the older Venus took the tennis world by storm, but lots of people kept saying that younger sister Serena had the potential to be better than her sibling. That has been the case – the taller, lankier Venus has had a Hall of Fame career, but injuries and talent won out – Serena is the more historic of the pair.
But why doesn’t she get more credit, even from African-Americans like me? I understand why the world doesn’t embrace her like it should – she’s black and not “traditionally beautiful.” Unlike tall, lithe, blond beauties like Maria Sharapova, Ms. Williams in powerfully built with muscles. She isn’t thin – she has a bigger frame. That doesn’t mean that she isn’t beautiful – she is, but she hasn’t been and will never be a size 0. On top of that, she and Venus have kept their personal relationships private. It’s really none of our business who they’re dating.
Perhaps it is the inherent mental inferiority complex toward other black people that has kept me from giving her the proper due? I grew up in a family that openly rooted for black athletes to be the best (although my folks and I differed when they stopped rooting for Muhammad Ali when he became to “outspoken” for them). The Williams sisters were fighting upstream against the players on the court and the tennis establishment off of it. Perhaps that made them more prickly publicly? Perhaps that made me less of a Williams sisters fan? (And I admit, like I have here in the past that I had a huge crush of Ms. Graf before she married that twerp Andre Agassi.)
Now, finally, people have to seriously consider this still young woman’s place in history. She has been a pro for 20 years now, and perhaps we have taken her for granted. Through on-the-court injuries and a serious illness several years ago, she has continued to win and remain at the top of her sport.
Is she the best of all time? I think the answer is yes.

I admit that even though I live in the Chicago area and am pretty well known in my suburb and by my neighbors, I do worry sometimes if I run the risk of being injured or killed by overzealous police officers for “walking while black,” or “driving while black.” One would think that an older man with little in the way of “hood” look about him would have any problem, but it is in the back of my head.
Foolish you say? I would have said maybe, but then former tennis star James Blake was tackled this week and detained by five NYPD officers who mistook him for a suspect in an identity theft ring.
Blake reportedly suffered cuts and bruises when he was forcefully slammed to the ground and handcuffed outside his Manhattan hotel, just as he was leaving for the U.S. Open. “It was definitely scary and definitely crazy,” Blake told the New York Daily News.
An NYPD spokesman said that detectives were investigating fraudulent purchases of cell phones at the Grand Hyatt in midtown. They set up a sting operation to see who the phones, that had been purchased on a stolen credit card, were being delivered to. The NYPD says the delivery man fingered Blake as one of the suspects he’d previously delivered phones to, and that’s when the officers charged. After detaining Blake for about 15 minutes at around noon, officers checked his ID, realized their mistake and let him go.
“Today James Blake was detained by police in midtown Manhattan in regards to an ongoing investigation into fraudulently purchased cell phones, after being misidentified by a cooperating witness,” the spokesman said. “Once Blake was properly identified and found to have no connection to the investigation, he was released from police custody immediately.”
We can debate whether racial profiling was occurring, but the bigger point is that police charged Blake, grabbed his and slammed him to the ground. According to Blake he said that he was happy to cooperate but what was it all about? I could see if it were a violent criminal they were after, but rather than ask Blake to answer some questions, they attacked him.
Regarding the improper use of force, the Police spokesman said that “the Police Commissioner directed the internal affairs bureau to investigate.”
Blake said in the interview, “I don’t know if it’s as simple as that (racial profiling). To me it’s as simple as unnecessary police force, no matter what my race is. In my mind there’s probably a race factor involved, but no matter what there’s no reason for anybody to do that to anybody.” He said he wants the officers to face some sort of punishment “so they know it’s not okay to go out there and do this again tomorrow.”
As I wrote here over the past couple of weeks, I remember when I was growing up that police wouldn’t bother you unless you were doing something. Then, you answered their questions, showed that you weren’t doing anything harmful or criminal and they left you alone. Now, black men are suspects, feared and to be handled with extreme force at all times.
In the immortal words of Marvin Gaye “Makes Me Wanna Holler”

As big as cheating and the failure of Roger Goodell to punish Tom Brady, there is a much bigger issue that should worry the league more – players quitting rather than suffer serious head injury. First it was 24-year-old second year San Francisco linebacker Chris Borland who retired due to concerns of the long term effects of head injuries. Now, former Green Bay wide receiver Adrian Coxson has made the same decision, but his have come in great part due to the difficulties in dealing with the symptoms of a severe Grade 3 concussion.
Adrian Coxson announced his retirement from football today and Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post quoted the young man:
“I’m retiring because I’m still having symptoms and my health is more important to me than the game of football. … It’s been recommended to me by two neurologists and two doctors to retire from football. The next hit to my head could possibly kill me or be life damaging. This last one could be life damaging. It has taken a great toll on me. This concussion was a bad one. A Grade 3 concussion is real serious. It’s definitely tough. … I worked hard all my life and I felt I was achieving my life-long goal. Unfortunately, I got hit in the head in practice and it was really bad for me. I couldn’t describe how bad it is.”
I love football. I played football. But I admit that I’m a little glad that I didn’t have sons because I would be very torn if they wanted to play football. Is the long term risk worth it? Are the life lessons that we gain in team work, sacrifice, sportsmanship, fair play (unless you play for Bill Belichick of course), not to mention the wealth and fame and glory, worth the risk?
I don’t know the answer to that question. Considering that a majority of NFL players file bankruptcy in the first 7 years after leaving the game, I’m not so sure. All I do know is this – the game has to change: equipment needs to get better; tackling needs to change; blocking needs to change; more research needs to be done on detecting CTE while a player is still alive.
Otherwise, the game will have to perish.

It must be very blatant if “The Worldwide Leader,” ESPN, headquartered in Bristol, CT., is digging dirt on the New England Patriots who play not far away.
ESPN: The Magazine and “Outside The Lines” have reported that the Patriots have engaged in cheating since 2000 and the issues between the Patriots and the League began in 2007, with Spygate. In other words, Deflategate was a “make up call.” In short, the widespread perception that Goodell gave the Patriots a break on Spygate, followed by the NFL’s stonewalling of a potential congressional investigation into the matter, shaped owners’ expectations of what needed to be done by 345 Park Ave. on Deflategate, which may have been why Goodell came down so hard on Patriots’ QB Tom Brady.
According to interviews with ESPN, the Patriots have had a long history of spying including videotaping coaches signals. Stealing signals is nothing new, it has been happening in baseball for decades, but the high tech spying which allows Patriot coaches to learn what the opposition is going to do and in fact, keep files and dossiers on opponents (like 007 in the Fleming novels) is likely unprecedented.
According to the interviews, many former New England coaches and employees insist that the taping of signals wasn’t even the most effective cheating method the Patriots. It was acknowledged that low-level Patriots employees would sneak into the opponent’s dressing room during pregame warm-ups and steal the play sheet that lists the first 20 or so scripted calls for the opposing team’s offense. (The practice became so notorious that some coaches put out fake play sheets for the Patriots to swipe.)
Numerous former employees say the Patriots would have someone rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports. One Patriots employee was instructed to remove the labels and erase tapes of a Patriots practice because the team had illegally used a player on injured reserve. At Gillette Stadium, the scrambling and jamming of the opponents’ coach-to-quarterback radio line occurred so often that one team asked a league official to sit in the coaches’ box during the game and wait for it to happen. Sure enough, on a key third down, the headset went out.
It is obvious that Bill Belichick takes the old Vince Lombardi adage “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” to the extreme. As much bluster as Robert Kraft wants to spew, the Patriots are a dishonest franchise. They do a very good job with talent, have very talented players. I’d even say that they do a good job coaching within the rules. But they think that the ends justify the means. Even a true fan should be embarrassed by the possibility that the Patriots are all cheaters.
But they’re not. They’re thumping their chests about the fourth championship. No matter what they say – all of them are tainted.

When NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell came to the office, he gave a lot of tough talk about cleaning up the league and coming down on players who did not abide by the conduct becoming clause in the collective bargaining agreement against the NFL. Well, Goodell now is the laguhing stock of the sports world now that a federal judge has ruled against the league in the “Deflategate” controversy.
Goodell had suspended New England quarterback Tom Brady for four games as a result of footballs being underinflated in last season’s AFC Championship game. The NFLPA and Brady sued the league and the court agreed with Brady. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said that Goodell went too far in doling out punishment. Brady has insisted he played no role in a conspiracy to deflate footballs below the allowable limit.
The league argued that Brady arranged the destruction of his cellphone and nearly 10,000 messages just before he was interviewed for the NFL probe. While the league investigation found it was “more probable than not” that two Patriots ball-handling employees deliberately released air from Patriots’ game balls at January’s 45-7 New England victory over the Indianapolis Colts, it cited no direct evidence that Brady knew about or authorized it. Goodell, though, went beyond the initial investigation report, finding in late July as a result of testimony from Brady and others that the quarterback conspired with the ball handlers and tried to obstruct the league’s probe, including by destroying his cell phone. The commissioner said he concluded that Brady “knew about, approved of, consented to, and provided inducements and rewards” to ensure that balls were deflated. Berman attacked the league while questioning its lawyers, citing a lack of proof against Brady and asking how Goodell settled on a four-game suspension instead of other discipline.
While the Goodell announced in a statement that league would appeal the decision, it is now just hubris on the Commissioner’s part. He lost; it’s over. Brady will begin the season on the field and the New England area rejoices. However, I still believe that the Patriots are as dirty as they come. The one good thing that will come out of this is that Coach Bill Belichick, Brady and the rest of the team will be under greater scrutiny. I also think that while Brady has been officially cleared, outside of New England, Brady will be considered one of the all time greats with an asterisk and the cloud of cheating.
The biggest loser of course is Goodell. Already other players under suspension are considering appealing their suspensions as a result of the fact that Goodell has no standards in place for suspensions. Depending on the crime and the circumstances, legal judges have maximum and sometimes minimum sentences for convicted criminals; Goodell has none.
Some months ago, I called for Goodell’s firing as a result of his blundering of the Ray Rice case. My opinion hasn’t changed now.

Athletes are human beings; ones with greater abilities than the rest of us; perhaps greater work ethic and devotion to being the best they can possibly be. With that, athletes are proud people, with egos to match their skills. Some of them can manage their egos when with us mere mortals; others are, forgive my blunt language, assholes.
The ego that makes the professional athlete also means that they believe that they can make a difference on the field, ice, pitch, whatever. This drive makes players want to play; it’s natural. From Little League to high school, college and beyond, everyone wants a chance to play, and if they don’t get it, the player is upset.
So, it is not surprising that former Blackhawks goalie Annti Raanta was quoted in a Finnish newspaper that he was rooting against the Blackhawks in the playoffs since he was demoted to the number 3 goalie (only the first two generally suit up) and he didn’t feel that Coach Joel Quenneville liked him.
According to Finnish newspaper Satakunnan Kansa, Raanta said “I was really hoping Nashville would beat us in four games and I could get back to Finland. I was (so angry) about how Chicago was treating me,” Raanta said, according to Yahoo Sports. “… I noticed that coach didn’t like me, in that position it is pretty difficult to fight the windmills.”
Scott Darling supplanted Raanta as the Blackhawks’ No. 2 goaltender last season and the team traded Raanta to the Rangers this offseason after Raanta did not play in the postseason. Raanta, 26, played in 14 games last season, posting a .936 save percentage.
As I wrote earlier, athlete’s egos are tough but tender things. Goalies, like football kickers and baseball relief pitchers, have a very unique mental makeup. They fail frequently, but put it behind them as easily as one discards clipped fingernails. Raanta is a very good goaltender and in a way, the Blackhawks did him a favor trading him rather than letting him stew behind two goaltenders (although Raanta will be behind one of the best goalies in the league, Patrick Lundquivst). Again, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting today that Raanta says he didn’t make the comment, but he probably did.
And it’s completely understandable.