Interview with Kathryn Bertine, Olympic Hopeful
August 27, 2008
I think most of us who played sports before have wondered if we’d have a chance at qualifying for the Olympics in the less well-known sports. Of course, you and I followed that thought by reaching for some more Pringles and changing the channel! However, Kathryn Bertine instead went all-out in attempting to qualify for the Olympics. She tried multiple sports, multiple strategies, and even multiple citizenships to be part of Beijing 2008. Unfortunately, her cycling times weren’t quite good enough for Beijing, but she’s already thinking about London 2012! My interview with her is below. (Photo by Andrew Kozak).
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2008 Olympics: Racism 101 in Black and White
August 25, 2008
If this article is posted Monday morning, we can safely say the sporting press is generally racist. We can also say that certain black sportswriters and columnists are little more than shuffling, scuffling, buffoons; house slaves who love “Massa” more than they love themselves. You see Thursday evening just after 10:30 p.m. EST defending 400-meter gold medalist Jeremy Wariner finished a disappointing second in his event to fellow American LaShawn Merritt. Wariner, in fact, trailed Merritt, who posted a personal best time of 43.75 seconds, by nearly a full second (44.74) at the finish line.
But that was not the entire story of the Men’s 400-meter event in Beijing.
Not even close.
The real story was Wariner’s pitiful finish. With only 20 meters remaining in the race Wariner looked to his left and saw Merritt ahead of him. Instead of pushing himself to the end, Wariner, realizing there was not enough track left in the race to come back against his countryman, gave up.
Jeremy Wariner, the gold medal favorite in the 400-meter dash, gave up on his primary Olympic event before the finish line. He jogged to the tape and nearly cost himself a silver medal.
But as despicable as Wariner’s lack of effort was, that is only part of the story.
2008 Olympics: Redeem What Exactly?
August 24, 2008
(I couldn’t help myself … I had to write this)
It appears a battle is raging … and it is a battle for your mind. Early last week Jemele Hill appeared on ESPN’s 1st and 10 portion of its morning show, First Take. On 1st and 10 Hill talked about the “Redeem Team’s efforts and her belief that a gold medal would be some sort of pride-boost for that great monolith, “The African-American Community.” Dana Jacobson, the segment host indicated that Hill had written a piece about that very topic to be posted on ESPN.com later that day.Well, the shoe did not drop until Saturday (when it is all but assured that the US Men’s Team will win the gold) … and drop it did:
But considering how, until recently, Team USA has been vilified for being selfish, noncompetitive and fundamentally inept, it doesn’t surprise me that African-Americans view the gold medal as a special vindication.
The previous failures of the national team brought a strong sense of embarrassment to both African-American fans and players.
Wrong. Vindication for what, exactly? Vindication for malfeasant acts by the press and shock jocks, including those of ESPN Radio, who used the losses of the 2004 US Men’s National Team in Athens as their personal race-bait pulpit?
The Sports Writing Blues: Confessions of an Angry White Fan
August 20, 2008
Time For a Little NCAA Football Talk
August 20, 2008
Ten days. Ten days until the NCAA football season begins. Ten days until the play on the field starts and the talk ends.
It’s also time to briefly discuss how the preseason rankings will change by the beginning of November …
The SI preseason top 10 looks like this:
Georgia
USC
Ohio State
Oklahoma
Florida
Missouri
LSU
West Virginia
Clemson
Auburn
-The Georgia Bulldogs’ Third game of the season will be at Columbia where they play South Carolina. Steve Spurrier still does not have the recruits he needs to make an SEC championship run but his teams are always dangerous. This matchup is great preparation for a three-game stretch at Arizona St. (#15), 24th-ranked Alabama (home game), and No. 18 Tennessee, which is also a home game. The ‘Dogs get a one game rest at home against Vanderbilt before they travel to Baton Rouge to play #7 LSU and then return home to meet #5 Florida.
2008 Olympics: Update - Bolt Shatters 100-meter Dash Record and the Accusations Begin (What You Haven’t Heard So Far During the Games)
August 15, 2008
Update:
Maybe Time Layden of Sports Illustrated didn’t mean what he wrote. Maybe he couldn’t help himself. But unlike other writings about Michael Phelps or any other athlete so far in the Beijing Olympics, Layden let loose with his concerns as he watched Usain Bolt shatter the 100-meter dash record:
In the belly of the Bird’s Nest past midnight, Usain Bolt emerged from a room where drug testing is done, having delivered the samples that might someday say as much about his performance as his winning time. He stepped into a wide hallway where giddy Olympic volunteers beseeched his autograph and his picture. He scribbled again and again, attaching his name to scraps of paper and to shirts, to programs and to credentials hanging from lanyards and surely they would have stayed all night with him.
Here then was a change in the course of sprinting history. Records fall, and then they fall again. But never in recent history has a 100-meter record record fallen like it fell on Saturday night in China.
Layden didn’t stop there; it turns out he did mean what he wrote to begin his article:
Yet it was not just the time. And it was not just the margin. It was the manner in which Bolt did it, shutting down with at least 15 meters left in the race and celebrating in a sort of arrogant exuberance as he crossed the line (and then running another 100 meters around the turn, much like he did in New York on May 31, when he first broke the record). He did something that seems nearly impossible: Shattering the world record while leaving the impression that he could have done much more.
“That’s not important,” Bolt said outside the stadium, long after the race. “I came here to win a gold medal.”
Soon will come the inevitable innuendo about whether Bolt is free of banned performance-enhancing substances. Surely they have started somewhere already. Such is the nature of track and field and sprinting in particular. “I pray that everybody is above board [clean],” said four-time Olympic medalist and current NBC sprint analyst Ato Boldon. “Because this kid is like something we’ve never seen before. We’re seeing the future right here.”
It appears that it will be a cold day in hell before people awaken from their slumbers and recognized how racially biased they are. A cold day in hell before they stop saying, “You’re blowing everything out of proportion. It’s not about race.”
A cold day indeed.
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I‘m officially done with the Olympics. Well, not done, just jaundiced by what I have not heard so far.
After years of decimating a who’s who of black U.S. track and field stars by using the Department of Justice (now, that’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever head one) hounding them as they competed around the globe, busting a laboratory Branch Davidian style, disseminating lists of the athletes to a salivating press, making them do the public perp walk at every turn, pursuing further evidence of their guilt with a vigor that would normally be used for, say, prosecuting a national leader who knowingly used false information to declare war on a country that has never attacked us (”he-he-he tried to kill my daddy!), then using taxpayer money to the tune of the high eight figures to prosecute them the the fullest extent, you would think the public would be attuned to Olympic figures who perform extra-extraordinary feats during the Games.
But no.
As it would be said by some wiggers, “Niggaz be breakin’ swimmin’ records like brothas in the hood breakin’ Vanilla Ice CDs.”
From Marion Jones to -oh, how could I forget?! - Barry Bonds, the eye test, the speed test, the head size test, the ‘my gut feeling’ test, and every other test except the urinalysis and blood test have been used to, to use a “W” twist on proper wording, “guiltify” black athletes who obliterate all-time records and perform feats of glory for which there is no Great White Hope equivalent.
Now, Jones and most of her track compatriots eventually caved to federal prosecutor pressure and admitted guilt in using what are termed “performance-enhancing drugs” (Bonds has not and probably never will). The prosecutions and all the itinerant perceptions surrounding the athletes’ performances were sifted through with the intensity of Africans searching for diamonds for De Beers were disseminated allegedly so the public had ample ammunition to understand just how difficult it is to perform at a world-class level and then, within a time frame where that does not allow for improvement through conventional training, suddenly top that previous performance level by a wide margin.
All of this leads us to the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing, China….
And new world swimming records are being set nearly every race…. and there is not diddly-pooh being said about this fact. Sure there’s some whispering about Speedo’s LZR Racer suits (and others) that’s so nice even Phil Knight Nike reps are allowing swimmers to use them because they can boost swimmers’ best times in their chosen events.
But relay records obliterated by five seconds? 200 meter swim times shattered by over one second? Swimmers who, a little over one month ago struggled mightily to make their country’s Olympic squads winning gold and setting new world marks?
The eye, speed, and my gut feeling tests all point to something being drastically wrong, or right depending on your perspective, with what’s happening with swimmers at the “Cube,” as the facility where the swim events are taking place is called.
We all know - should know - by now that the PED makers are always ahead of the testers. And yes, athletes’ test samples for PEDs are now put into storage for the next eight years in case new tests arise that can suss out new PEDs.
But there is no urine or blood test for Insulin-like Growth Factor, commonly known as IGH-3. Only a muscle biopsy can demonstrate it in the human body. There are whispers of new procedures to mask EPO - red blood cell- boosting in the body.
The cold fact is the PED makers are probably 15 to 20 years ahead of the testers. Always have been, a;ways will be. And the not-so-funny thing is that the members of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and members of all its offshoots in nations around the world, know this.
When you watch Michael Phelps of the U.S. or Stephanie Rice of Australia crushing records, you might become absorbed in and enamored with their efforts.
But think about all the questions you asked of this baseball player, black or white, think about the new disregard for the Tour de France due to it’s proclivity for fielding a PED-laced roster of cyclists, and think about how you applauded the Feds and jeered all those the U.S. track stars when their PED use was divulged.
And think about why you are not doing the same now.
Notes: The Greening of Chad Johnson Thanks to ESPN
August 14, 2008
Thursday morning on ESPN’s Mike and Mike in the Morning Show, hosts Mike Greenberg and Erik Kuselias ripped Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver, Chad Johnson. Was it because he looks like a hypocrite reporting to training camp and acting as if all is well after all but blowing up his relationship with his Cincinnati Bengals teammates and Bengals management?
No.
In short, Johnson, on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption Wednesday afternoon, said Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is facing no viable competition. He continued saying that if Phelps had grown up in his South Florida neighborhood he might not be the swimming champion he is today because some of the best athletes are never seen and further, Johnson boasted - “I’m serious” - that today, as three-time child champion swimmer at his local pool in Liberty City, Florida, he could defeat Phelps in a swim race.
“Some of the best people in the world are people who can’t make it to that level. I know a couple of people who can beat Michael right now and I’m one of them.”
Greenberg, the ringmaster in the Mike and Mike airing, took the bait hook, line, and sinker and appeared incredulous after reading Johnson’s remarks. The once print journalist turned radio jock just could not wrap his head around Johnson’s words. So rather than admit his inability to contextualize the words he heard and seek to interview Johnson, Greenberg took the low road and questioned the wideout’s sanity and said he felt Johnson was demeaning the work it takes to become an Olympic champion. Kuselias largely deferred to Greenberg, but agreed with the main host’s assessment of Johnson.
“GOOK!”: Pau Gasol Has Nothing on John McCain
August 14, 2008
“I hate the gooks, I will hate them as long as I live.”
– John McCain, February 17, 2000
As I heard the words, I just couldn’t believe it. No, not that John McCain said them. Only that I never learned about it – until just one month ago at the Netroots Nation Conference in Austin, Texas. That was when by pure chance, I struck up a conversation with Irwin A. Tang — one of many people I had the pleasure to meet at the convention. I soon learned that he was the author of “Gook: John McCain’s Racism and Why It Matters“. Read more
“I’m not Dead Yet”: Why are Stars Past their Prime Treated so Badly?
August 13, 2008
Recently we saw both Manny Ramirez and Brett Favre being escorted off the premises in Boston and Green Bay. Both had delivered a title to each city after decades of losing. Both were slightly past their prime, but still at least among the top 25% in the league at their position. Yet they were widely vilified for their attitudes, and management tried hard to get rid of them. Why did this happen? Are you going to tell me that Manny and Brett’s attitudes have spontaneously changed from team player to spoiled divo as they aged? Or that their attitudes were so bad that they could only be tolerated when playing at an MVP level? Both theories are highly suspect.
The Whiteballing of Daunte Culpepper and Byron Leftwich
August 13, 2008
In three years and six games of a fourth year Byron Leftwich amassed a 24-20 record with the Jacksonville Jaguars. In 2007 he was suddenly released by Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio. Leftwich was replaced by David Garrard. Leftwich remained unemployed for most of the season. He was picked up by the Atlanta Falcons as an afterthought. Leftwich was 0-2 as a starter with Atlanta and was released by a team in disarray.Sunday, Leftwich was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers to temporarily replace injured backup Charlie Batch. Leftwich is using the three remaining preseason games the Steelers play as a series of auditions in the hopes of latching onto a team for the upcoming NFL season.
At age 23 Daunte Culpepper was the toast of Minnesota. The huge quarterback led the Vikings to an 11-5 record and was voted to his first Pro Bowl appearance. Though he would never lead Minnesota to another winning record, Culpepper played in two more Pro Bowls (2003-2004; Minnesota was 7-7 in 2003 and 6-6 in 2004) and had a 32-38 record and threw for 135 touchdowns while throwing 86 interceptions in 2607 passing attempts as a starter with the Vikes.
Today Daunte Culpepper is unemployed.
While both Leftwich and Culpepper were thrust into the starter role for their teams very early in their careers, Chad Pennington sat for his first two years before taking the helm of the New York Jets. In five and-a-half seasons as a starter with the Jets Pennington compiled a 32-39 record.
After Brett Favre was traded from Green Bay to the Jets Pennington was released by the Jets and picked up by the Miami Dolphins head player personnel honcho Bill Parcells. Pennington immediately began taking snaps as the starter for the Miami Dolphins.
Leftwich is known as the prototype big (6′5″, 250 pounds), strong pocket passer who will stand tall in the face of unending defensive pressure until he spots an open receiver. He has absorbed many hits - illegal and borderline illegal - below his knees for his efforts.
