Three HUHS? and a HMM

                Lots of odd things happening in the sports world and vicinity of late. Time for another News/Views.

               NEWS: Dad of an NBA rookie-to-be announces a line of $495 sneakers.

                VIEW: Huh?

                LaVar Ball, father of Lonzo Ball, the one-and-done UCLA basketball flash who is expected to be a top NBA draft choice in June, has been getting lots of ink and TV time lately, talking up both his son’s and his own hoops prowess. Among other things, he said he could whip Michael Jordan in a one-on-one game, both now and when MJ was in his prime. This from a guy whose sole Division I basketball exposure came in 1986-87 when he averaged 2 (that’s two) points a game at Washington State U.

                Now comes LaVar with his Big Baller Brand shoe, which he says will sell for the above price. That’s about $300 more than the top-priced shoes endorsed by the likes of LeBron James and Steph Curry. If it actually comes out, that is—it’s not scheduled to hit the stores until November.

                It should be noted that whatever their retail prices athletic shoes cost no more than $30 to make in Asia, where just about all of them are manufactured. Any additional value is added by branding and marketing.  To those who scoffed at his, uh, cojones for asking such a markup, Ball scoffed back. “If you can’t afford them you’re not a BIG BALLER,” he tweeted.

                NEWS: Alabama gives head football coach Nick Saban a contract extension worth about $8.625 million a year over the next eight years.

                VIEW: Huh?

                It’s no news that big-time college football and basketball head coaches make big money, but the extent of their haul becomes more eye-popping annually. Their salaries had reached the seven-figure mark when I turned in my press card in 2003 but they’ve ballooned since, rivaling those of the heads of Fortune 500 companies. These days, none of those guys at the so-called “Power Five” conferences (the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC and PAC-10) makes less than a million annually, and the median seems to be around $3 million. Not bad for someone who, in the case of basketball, directs a 12-player “program,” as they call their teams these days.

                The package for Saban, whose ‘Bama teams have won four national championship in the past seven years, stands out even in that milieu. It’ll will pay him $8.125 million a year for the next eight straight up, plus a $4 million “signing bonus” this year. Prorating the bonus over eight years produces the $8.625 figure, although getting the full $4 mil up front makes the deal sweeter.  And remember that college coaches’ deals typically contain such additional lollipops as free country club memberships, private planes for personal use and free auto use, as if they can’t afford to buy their own.

                Writers wanting to make a point usually compare college coaches’ salaries with those of other public officials in their states, or profs on their campuses. The Alabama governor is paid $119,950 a year and a full prof at the U. of A. makes $186,636, each of which figure probably wouldn’t cover Saban’s car-park tips.  More telling is the fact that the two top-paid head coaches in the NFL—Pete Carroll and Sean Payton—make $8 million a year each, or less than Saban will pull down. If the pros call him again (he coached there before) he could turn them down on financial grounds.

                NEWS: Jay Paterno, Joe’s son, is elected to Penn State University’s board of trustees.

                VIEW: Huh?

                Paterno, 48, won election last week to the university’s governing body by vote of the school’s alumni, who pick nine of the unit’s 38 members. This is despite a work history consisting mainly of 17 years as an assistant on the school’s football staff (1995-2011) while his dad was head coach. He was fired in 2011 with other football staffers after the arrest of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky’s serial predations upon young boys, conducted under Joe Paterno’s regime and often in university facilities, led to a far-reaching scandal that resulted in a 60-year prison term for Sandusky and, recently,  lesser terms for three high Penn State officials, including the school’s president at the time. Joe Paterno, who died of cancer in 2012 at age 85, never was charged, but if he knew what his longtime top aide was up to he never called the cops.

                Since leaving coaching six years ago Jay Paterno has been concerned primarily with refurbishing his father image, with a book he wrote and lawsuits he’s joined against the university for its handling of the case. He’s also pushed something called Paterno Legacy beer, which has been sold around Pennsylvania at football season the last few years with “Joe Pa’s” picture on the can.  If nothing else, his election ensures that, welcome or not, the Sandusky episode’s aftermath will continue to burn brightly in State College, Pa., during his three-year term.

                NEWS: A proposal to wipe out all world track-and-field records set before 2005 is making the rounds.

                VIEW: Hmm.

                Pierce O’Callaghan, chairman of the European unit of the IAAF, track’s world governing body, says the move would mark the start of a “new, clean, credible era” for the sport, which has been beset with doping scandals. If adopted it would limit records to ones established at approved international events Involving only athletes who had been subjected to the drug testing and urine-or-blood sample-storing rules begun in 2005. Records predating such requirements would remain on a “historical list” but no longer would be considered official, O’Callaghan said. IAAF President Sebastian Coe said the rule would be “a step in the right direction,” indicating it might be adopted.

                The idea calls to mind baseball’s struggle with records set in what I call its HITS (for “Heads In The Sand”) Era, stretching from about 1990, when steroid use seriously invaded the game, to the institution of credible drug-testing standards in 2005. Power-hitting numbers swelled in that period, setting them apart from those that had been set before, or will be set after. These include the top six annual home run counts topped by Barry Bonds’s 73, all of which were posted by him, Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa between 1998 and 2001.

                Baseball lives off its records so a purging of HITS Era marks probably would go too far, but marking them with asterisks would be a good move. They were set under unusual conditions and should be recognized as such.

               

DERBY PICKS

Saturday is the Kentucky Derby, the one horserace non-fans of the sport notice, and as one of the shrinking  corps of racing aficionados I annually feel obligated to hype it. It’s a great event, a cultural phenomenon better experienced in person at rambling old Churchill Downs than on TV, and one that should be on everyone’s bucket list. I ticked it off mine in 1986 and went to the next 14, so that’s no longer a concern for me.

This year’s running shapes up as wide open, a change from the last two when strong favorites (American Pharoah in 2015 and Nyquist last year) prevailed. You can make a winning case for six or eight of Saturday’s 20 entrants without serious objections from me. The good news is that with the favorites expected to go off at odds of 4-or 5-to-1, and several juicy offerings at 15-to-1 or better, it should be a good betting race, with nice payouts for the astute (and lucky).

The Derby’s main handicapping challenges are its 1 ¼-mile length, 1/8-mile longer than most entrants have run, and large field of rambunctious colts that makes a lot of banging around inevitable. If your horse is among the badly banged, too bad and better luck next time.

Horses running at or near the lead (such as Pharoah and Nyquist) get bumped around less than others, so I’m picking one of them to anchor my two exacta boxes. He’s ALWAYS DREAMING, 5-to-1 in the morning line. I like him because he easily won the Florida Derby, the best Derby prep, has been training well in Louisville and will have Hall of Fame jockey John Velasquez on his back. My other anchor will be McCRAKEN, also 5-to-1. “Horses for courses” is a racetrack saw and his course is Churchill, where he’s won three of three. ‘Nuf said.

One of my four-horse exacta boxes also will contain THUNDER SNOW (20-to-1) and GUNNEVERA (15-to-1). Thunder Snow is from the Godolphin stable, based in Dubai. It has sent previous horses to the race to no avail, but Thunder Snow seems to be a cut above those. He’s run eight races in three different countries, has won at 1 3/16^th miles, 1/16^th longer than any other entry has run, and has handled fields of up to 16, so he’s not easily cowed. I think he’s worth a play even though he’ll start from the No. 2 gate position, a tough draw. GUNNEVERA is a late runner who promises to be charging down the Derby homestretch. His backers must hope he doesn’t run too late, as most  late runners do.

My other box will be filled out by late-running HENCE (15-to-1) and PRACTICAL JOKE (20-to-1), a solid performer who always tries and who Dave Toscano, my handicapper pal, likes particularly.

Those picks, of course, assume no late scratches, and I’ll probably throw in a few other bets as the race approaches. But what the heck, it’s the Derby. As Joe E. Lewis used to say, “I hope I break even, I need the money.”

IN THE SWIM

             When I meet someone for the first time, and he or she asks me what I do, I tell them simply that I’m retired. If they press for more information (“I mean what do you DO?”), as occasionally happens, I ponder a moment and say, “I swim.”

                

            Yes, I also do other things, such as produce this twice-monthly blog, but my week-in, week-out occupation, no matter the season, is swimming. If I’m ambulatory I show up at about 11 a.m. at the outdoor, year-around-heated Cactus Park municipal pool in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I live, four times a week, usually Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

  My routine is to swim 50 lengths of 25 meters each, doing three cycles of eight lengths by “crawl” stroke and eight by kicking and finishing with one length each way. That works out to about three quarters of a mile and takes me about 31 minutes, aided by training fins. The sessions are the anchors of my days and I schedule all other things around them.  Ain’t retirement grand?

I do it because I can, and because it’s good for me. I’m convinced that the two best things one can do for oneself is to exercise regularly and not smoke. I broke that last rule for about 25 years until 1979, not counting the occasional cigar I puffed until a few years ago. My chest x-rays are clean so, apparently, I got away with the misdeeds. Not everyone is so lucky.

Do I enjoy swimming? As Bill Clinton might say, it depends what you mean by “enjoy.” I’ve loved being in the water since childhood, but I must admit that the constant up and back can be boring, and when my mind drifts I sometimes lose count of the laps. But I’ve learned that the first rule of regular exercise is never to ask yourself if you feel like it, either before or during the activity. Gloria Steinem has been quoted as saying, “I don’t enjoy writing, I enjoy having written,” and although I think I heard that line before her heyday I often apply it to my swimming (and to my writing).

Swimming has not been my first exercise choice. As I kid I pretty much grew up in my school playground doing whatever was in season. In my teens and 20s I played golf and got pretty good at it, but by age 30 home and work duties precluded this expensive, frustrating and time-consuming sport and I gave it up with hardly a backward glance. I turned instead to tennis and softball when the weather was warm and racquetball when it wasn’t.

 I played organized softball in the Chicago-area parks into my mid-40s and would have played longer if my teams hadn’t disbanded. I dropped racquetball when wife Susie and I moved to Arizona in 1997 and I no longer had ready partners at my skill level. Racquetball is a great game but small skill differences translate into big scoring gaps. I loved the game and still play it in my dreams (really).

I took up hiking on a dare at age 45, climbing a 14,000-foot Colorado mountain wearing Hush Puppies. It took about two weeks for my blisters and muscles to heal, but I loved the experience and tried to repeat it when I could. Living in Arizona opened vast new hiking vistas. I signed up with a land conservatory and soon was leading hikes and running its hiking program, as well as that of the local community college. Those duties soon pushed aside tennis, although I must admit that at about the same time (I was 65) I’d stopped beating players with whom I’d been competitive. No more losing helped make up for no more tennis.   

You can’t hike every day so I took up occasional lap swimming to fill the gaps. I never was much for repetitive exercise but found that the water and sunshine made the pill tastier. When I turned 70 neurological problems began constricting my hiking range and after about three more years increasing foot numbness and back pain made the activity undoable. I still get around all right but about 10 minutes is my limit for standing or walking without a sit-down. That left swimming as my sole exercise option.

That’s not bad because, I think, lap swimming is the one exercise to have if you’re having only one. It affords a full-body workout with low impact in pleasant surroundings. You can find just about anything you want on the Internet and I’m happy to report that one website, healthfitnessrevolution.com, ranked swimming as the No. 1 fitness sport, one that’s “absolutely awesome for heart health, calorie burning and increasing lung capacity.” How about that?

There are other reasons to swim:

--It’s safe, with an annual injury rate of .l%, according to one on-line source. (Golf’s rate was 1%, 10 times higher.)

--It’s cheap. At the wonderful Cactus Pool I pay $72 for 30 swims, or close to two months’ worth. A couple of $25 Speedo suits every other year, and occasional new goggles and fins, and that’s it.

--You do it alone so there’s no need to accommodate other people’s schedules.

--It’s not competitive unless you make it so. A bad tennis game could ruin my day but I never swim bad.

--It provides a nice tan, which hides many of my dermatological imperfections.

I’ve tried hard to come up with swimming negatives but can think of only one—it doesn’t provide much to talk about. Sports like golf and tennis have thriving professional arms that allow participants to chatter away for hours about the attributes of their favorite players, but swimming pierces the national consciousness for only a couple of weeks every four years—during the Summer Olympics. And then there’s not much to say about the stars except that they swim really fast.

But enough about talk—we do that too much anyway. Gotta go swim!