Clarett About-Face

If you follow the NFL, you've heard the latest on snake-bitten former THE Ohio State University RB Maurice Clarett. A year ago, I couldn't stand the guy. To me, he was a picture-perfect reason why the NFL's '3 years after high school graduation' age limite made sense. He was immature, defiant, and arguably not that good. He challenged the NFL's age limit in court, won initially, and then lost on appeal. Consequently he was banished to a purgatory between college and the NFL. I believe in a person's right to seek work, and I also believe in a company's discretion to require certain criteria for their employees. In my world, you don't get hired if you don't have a college degree. Nobody ever questions this. Yet for some reason, in the world of sports, people think that if a youth has the physical ability to compete, then the league has an obligation to let them in. Fortunately the NFL, the players' union, and labor law got it right in saying that their limitation was legal. After that, I forgot about him.

Until last week. Apparently he came back to the NFL combine sans the attitude and extra pounds and was genuinely contrite and humble. It looked like his banishment could have been the best thing for him. Now he was a curiosity.

And then he ran his 40 with slower times than some 300 lb. linemen. You know what? I felt truly bad for him. He had been humbled, taken to the shed, and crucified in the sports media. Instead of becoming bitter, he used it to shape himself into a better athlete and a better person. He worked harder than he ever had in college and apparently was so anxious about his combine testing that he overtrained and subsequently blew it and was so distraught that he left the combine. ESPN has a great read on what happened here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft05/columns/story?id=2001738

It seems like all the scouts gloated about him, now vindicated that they were right all along. So I find myself doing a 180- I'm now rooting for the guy. He'll get drafted in a late round and probably make a practice squad. I hope a team (Philly?) gives him a shot to let him vindicate for himself that he is more than his reputation and mistakes suggest. He may not have earned peoples respect, but at least he's earned the right to get a chance. I hope he makes the most of it.

God breathed

A friend once said to me, "a man's wife is the mouth of God, and a man's children are the hands of God."

The longer I am married and the more I become a dad, the more I realize the reality of this statement. They are God's primary tools and they can sanctify or condemn.

Mossy in Oak-Town

It has been unofficially announced that petulent wide receiver Randy Moss and his gigantic, er, afro, are going to be dealt to the Oakland Raiders for an average linebacker and draft picks. The writing was on the wall when Moss' most ardent supporter Daunte Culpepper all but said that Moss needed a new home to roost and preen. How will things fare in Oakland? All you need to know is that the Raiders' head coach is Norv Turner, and this little anecdote from ESPN's Bill Simmons:

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Setting: Las Vegas

We're eating breakfast (Bish, Hopper, Mike and myself) as Hopper recounts his blackjack experience with Norv Turner -- or as he likes to call it, "My Brush With Non-Greatness":

"Norv was up about two grand," Hopper explains. "Suddenly he scaled down his bets from $100 to $25 and started playing conservatively, like he had taken a pill that turned him into a giant wuss. I couldn't believe it. He stayed on '16' against a (dealer's) face card three times in a 10-minute span. All three times, he screwed me, and I ended up with his crappy card. All three times, the dealer ended up crushing us. And Norv's just sitting there with this dumb smile on his face, counting his hundred-dollar chips. Meanwhile, I'm losing a hundred a hand.

"So after the third time it happened, I leaned back, looked at the ceiling and muttered, 'The coach ... is ... KILLING me ...' Just like that. The coach ... is ... KILLING me. Up until that point, he didn't know that I knew who he was. He stayed for two more hands and bolted. I drove him away."

The mental image of a failed football coach mangling a blackjack table and driving Hopper insane was just too good ... for the next 15 minutes, we couldn't stop talking about it. How could a man get hired to coach an NFL team when he can't even play blackjack? We were flabbergasted by this. For instance, would someone like Mike Shanahan ever stay on "16" when the dealer had a "10" showing? I mean, EVER? Of course not.

"Norv seemed like a nice enough guy," Hopper said, "but there wasn't anything 'coach-like' about him. Can you imagine someone like Parcells just sitting there and taking it while I bitched about him at a blackjack table, right in his face?"

"How many teams has Norv coached?" Mike asked.

"He was an assistant in Dallas and the head coach in Washington," I answered. "In both places, he lost respect of the players pretty quickly."

"I can see why," Hopper sneered.

We started talking about something else. About 10 minutes later, Hopper started shaking his head again. He couldn't stop thinking about Norv.

"If I owned an NFL team," Hopper said, "before I hired a coach, I'd take him to Vegas for a weekend and play blackjack with him. That would tell me everything I needed to know about the guy. Everything."
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Reggie Roby

I just heard that Reggie Roby, a 16 year veteran punter in the NFL, died on Tuesday at the age of 43.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1997214

In 50 years, if you were to ask me if I could name one punter from the 80's and 90's, it would be him. Why? Two reasons- he was the only black punter in the NFL, and he wore a wristwatch when he played.

She-Rock

Went for a workout the other day and forgot to change the music on my mp3 player from my wife's running music to my normal hard rock fare. So instead of pumping iron to the primal sounds of AC/DC, Guns 'n' Roses, and Metallica, I was treated to a foray into the world of Superchick, Vanessa Carlton, and Samantha Mumba.

Upon being subjected to such tunes, I can conclude thus- either I just had my period, or there are two things about which women sing - how much they love their man, or how much they hate their man.

Following the Curses

I was reading through Genesis & I came across the following passages. It is fascinating how they intertwine.

9:20-24 - Noah is offended by his son Ham, and as a result curses Ham's son, Canaan. Canaan & his offspring would be cursed as a slave to his brothers. His offspring would become the people who reside in the land of Canaan and are long at odds with the nation Israel.

16 - Out of lack of faith & disobedience, Sarai gives Hagar to Abram and Hagar gives birth to Ishmael. Hagar mistreats Sarai, so Abram gives Sarai permission to abuse Hagar. Out of all this faithlessness and strife, Hagar flees. God gives her the blessing that her son Ishmael would have many offspring, but curses him, saying that he would always live in hostility toward others. Later, Abraham begs that God would bless Ishmael, and God promises that Ishmael would become a great nation, but never revokes the curse. Net result- both Isaac (born of Sarah) & Ishmael will bear forth great nations, but Ishmael's will forever be cursed. He goes to reside in Beersheba, in the land of Canaan. As Galatians 4 says, Hagar & Ishmael represent a nation in slavery, which is similar to the curse on Canaan.

25:21-23 - Two nations are in Rebekah's womb (Jacob & Esau), and the peoples will be seperated. The older will serve the younger.

27:39 - Isaac curses Esau after being deceived by Jacob.

28:6-9 - Jacob is told to not take a wife from Canaan. Esau has already married Hittite women, and it has caused strife in the family. Esau is still angry at Jacob and despises his father Isaac, so he goes to Canaan and marries Mahalath, who is the daughter of Ishmael.

The nation that would always be opposed to Israel has been formed- the promise of a hostile nation bourne out of Ishmael, a profane & subservient nation that would come from Esau, coming out of the people of Canaan. When Esau marries back into the line of Ishmael, the link is complete. In a great sense, Esau becoming son to Ishmael is the fulfillment of God's curse on both Canaan & Ishmael. This line subsequently becomes the nation of Edom, which is forever at war with Israel/Judah and is cursed b/c of it. Edom joins with Babylon (later to be overcome by Babylon) to conquer first the 10 tribes of Israel and later the two tribes of Judah, destroying Jerusalem & the temple in the process. The land where Babylon resided (though later conquered by Persia) becomes modern-day Iraq.

In the past year we have seen for the first time a minority owner in basketball (Charlotte Bobcats owner Robert Johnson) and now the first minority owner in football in Reggie Fowler. Fowler will buy the team from incumbent Red McCombs for approximately $625mm.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1991455

Hopefully Fowler's presence will help to continue to promote the hiring of minorities on NFL staffs. Hopefully Fowler will find success, though it shouldn't be hard, considering McComb's shoddy attempt at team management. A word of advice regarding Randy Moss- dump the chump!

D'oh, Canada!

Excerpt from 2/4 edition of Wall St. Journal, proving once again that Canadians make for funny stories...
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Reports that the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis underestimated fourth-quarter economic growth because of a trade-data error by its Canadian counterpart prompted fresh finger-pointing at the U.S.'s northern neighbor, which previously caught flak for such trangressions as allowing mad-cow disease to come south.

The news prompted Argus Research economist Richard Yamarone to e-mail Merrill Lynch's David Rosenberg, the firm's Canadian-born chief North American economist: "First you guys send us bad beef, now bad stats. C'mon. To poison our food supply is one thing. But our economic stats, now that's going a bit too far."

Mr. Rosenberg had a ready response: He blamed the stats screw-up on the National Hockey League lockout: "Everyone north of the border is still seeing purple spots from the withdrawal symptoms."
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