Norman Einstein’s 14
Norman Einstein’s 14 is now online:
A new design but the same topnotch effort. In this issue:
Brian Blickenstaff of Touch & Tactics uncovers US soccer’s path to progress. I chronicle bike polo, an urban sport on the rise, as it approaches a crossroads. Stephanie Lim of Love Of Lens essays a Uruguayan World Cup celebration in photos. Graydon Gordian of 48 Minutes Of Hell considers how far Kobe Bryant’s image has come. Also, a review of June’s biggest sporting stories & a preview of July’s biggest sporting events.
As always, if you like the magazine, please subscribe for free.
Norman Einstein’s 13
ISSUE 13 of Norman Einstein’s is now online:
It’s our first anniversary! And it’s our World Cup spectacular issue! In this issue:
Fredorrarci of Sport Is a TV Show considers soccer’s penalty shootout, a controversy or two waiting to happen in South Africa. Stephanie Lim of Love Of Lens teases soccer out of woodwork in South America, even on its holiday. Graydon Gordian of 48 Minutes Of Hell chats with writer Brian Phillips about soccer, fiction, & why no one wants to see George Clooney drafted into the armed services. Also I deliver a monologue on Rafael Nadal; Zachariah Kahn reviews Invictus just out on DVD; & a review of May’s biggest sporting stories & preview of June’s biggest sporting events.
As always, if you like the magazine, please subscribe for free.
Apology Of a Dispensable Mascot
The college basketball season expired over a month ago, an eternity in the sporting year. The sport has busied itself with the offseason’s subdued arrangements: recruiting, transfers, the occasional drunken transgression. That which defines college hoops – dynamic characters, athletic grace, limitless passion, hopes dashed, dreams dared – are ghosts in empty gymnasiums.
We have moved on but we have not moved forward.
Perhaps the relative quiet allows me to do now what I’ve long delayed, write the eulogy for Marquette’s season. There will be no Mass in Latin. The pallbearers are nowhere to found. The casket is closed. Let us begin.
The story of the 2009-10 Marquette Golden Eagles begins when the story ends, in loss, for 2008-09’s team. Second round of the tournament and all I remember is a blur. The Missouri Tigers’ full-court press, as it so often does, transformed a basketball contest into a series of hand-to-hand, sometimes elbow-to-elbow, fights. Jerel McNeal drained three after three. Lazar Hayward banged for boards. Wesley Matthews flew around the court. The Tigers’ J.T. Tiller and Kim English played with an interchangeable feriocity until they were literally exchanged for each other on a late freethrow, a legal if dubious move. The Golden Eagles had a chance still. Then Lazar looking to inbound stepped over the endline. Tigers’ possession and game. All that remained was little Maurice Acker thrown to the ground by two Mizzou players while hucking up a desperation three, the referees and players so exhausted, the non-call a fitting encapsulation of a brutal contest.
Others, however, took away a different enduring image. “It’s difficult to come up with a worse way to be a goat in an NCAA Tournament game that [sic] stepping on the end line when you’re just trying to throw the ball inbounds to tie the game,” wrote Will Leitch at Deadspin. “It’s one thing to miss a free throw to lose a game, or to dribble off your foot out of bounds. To be so overwhelmed by the moment than [sic] you forget you have to stay out of bounds, that’s something that’ll stick in your brain for a while.”
Stinging words. Deadspin traffics more in spite than sports, no doubt. And I’ve learned to expect less and less from Leitch starting with his pointless, and occasionally offensive, book to his artless punditry during post-Deadspin stints at Sporting News and New York Magazine. Still, Leitch’s words stung, with an itch more persistent than I wish I could credit to them.
Exeunt seniors Jerel McNeal, Wesley Matthews, and Dominic James, casualities in the triumph of Literature over Sport, three interwoven talents whose story decided to take for itself a human narrative not an epic one. Only Lazar and Maurice left, the proven characters amidst an anonymous cast.
Could Lazar step out of the shadow of one looming mistake made? That’s what I wanted for Marquette’s leader more than anything. An honorable metion on the AP’s All-American team and a spot on the All Big East’s second team might suggest he did just that. But the tournament provides the pages on which legacies are written. And, through no mistake of Lazar’s, the redemption narrative I wanted – selfishly wanted – written for him was cut short.
…
“I think that our team played, in my opinion, the way you’re supposed to play. They made the extra pass, they were the first to the floor on loose balls, they were great teammates.”
Buzz Williams opened up to the local media a few days after the first-round loss to Washington. His words sounded like a man struggling somewhere in-between pride and disappointment. The Golden Eagles outperformed and outclassed every preseason expectation, except, that is, their own. Marquette did not, in fact, make the extra pass, as Buzz claimed. They sometimes had a frustrating tendency to do the opposite. Buzz’s statements were evocative, metaphorical. He was merely demonstrating that he grasped the idea of the team, his team, and the team grasped the idea of what they had to do.
“I don’t know how to frame this. The results make it sweeter, and that’s what makes everybody say, ‘Wow, you defied odds,’ and ‘Buzz, you can coach.’ It has nothing to do with that. I think players and coaches have to validate their careers on their own, in their own soul, not in accordance to what a media contingent would say.”
Reading Buzz’s honest and conflicted statements I suddenly regretted what I had felt and what I had written about Buzz this time last year. The words were harsh, my feelings raw.
As coach Buzz Williams spat and hollered, sweat flying from his bowling ball head, his team fought back to a lead than squandered it to the Mizzou chaos. There would be no play for McNeal to tie or seal the game. My bittersweet midseason impression of coach Williams would seem confirmed, Milwaukee would be Buzz’s cresting tide, the highest high of his career but perhaps, sadly, not of Marquette’s.
I regret writing that now. The sets Buzz devised for the Golden Eagles weren’t beautiful but they were effective. With two undersized forwards his team banged with the best of Big East. The surprising transfer of top prospect Jeronne Maymon, who bristled at the dirty work the team delighted in, did not topple the program. Jimmy Butler simply took over defensive duties in the paint without complaint and Darius Johnson-Odom developed a nice range of shots to complement Lazar’s inside-outside game. Maurice ran an efficient offense, rarely turning over the ball. The bench was shallow but Dwight Buyucks and David Cubillan capably provided what spark they could.
And for the sum of these surprising developments, I credit Buzz. I really regret rushing to hot judgment.
…
Let me repeat what I often say, I’m not some sort of Marquette superfan. I have one or two direct ties to the University and little else. I read AP stringer articles about their games more than I watch them play. The reason I return to following them every season these past few is simple. I find something to like about Marquette year in and year out.
When I was young Marquette were the Warriors, a relatively indistinct American Indian as mascot. At some point, the University changed it to the Golden Eagles to avoid any implied offense. Some have never given up the old ways, refusing to call the team anything other than the Warriors. For me, however, the team is forever new. I don’t care what they’re called; I care about the story they write. I watched Dwyane Wade in navy blue and gold so I care some for his career trajectory and the health of his knees. I did not Doc Rivers, so his championship fortunes in Boston mean little to me. My connection to Marquette’s basketball team is personal and, therefore, subject to the same intentions and hestitations that mark all personal relationships, at least, that mark all of mine.
This year, I liked what everyone else liked, I guess, a team hobbled and halved fighting desperately night in and night out. Sometimes they won. Sometimes they lost. More often than not, it was exciting.
“We got in because of one-possession wins, and we went out the same way. Maybe that’s fitting,” said Buzz.
Last year, Marquette’s season, the sudden end, was a triumph of Literature over Sport. This year’s story was merely joyous disregard for narrative, a middle finger to how last season went down. Sixteen games decided by four or fewer points. Overtime after overtime. A lead never safe, their lead or that of their opponent. The team literally had no center as first Chris Otule then Youssoupha Mbao went down with injuries. But, metaphorically too, the team had no center, a whirling of short forwards and shorter guards cranking the ball around the perimeter, desperately working for an open look, desperately trying to draw the other team into their chaos.
Compulsion. It wasn’t seductive, as when someone describes something or someone as “compelling.” The season was merely hurtling forward. Upsetting Xavier. Dropping to Wisconsin. Roughing up Georgetown. Taking West Virginia, Villanova, and Syracuse to the wire. Exacting revenge on Villanova in the Big East tournament. And, finally, falling in the best-played game of the tournament’s first round to Washington. It had to end suddenly… or you might forget that it had to end at all.
When asked about Jimmy Butler’s remarkable improvement during the season, Buzz said, “He didn’t really have a choice; that’s part of it.”
That’s all of it really.
…
At the end of the Washington game I was hovering dangerously over my barstool at an anonymous midtown Manhattan Irish pub, unable to sit still. Quincy Pondexter’s crossover dribble drive on Jimmy Butler to take the lead with under two seconds to play forced my ass suddenly down and still but not tranquil. For the first time all season, it seemed like we all knew what was coming.
Lazar shook free after taking the inbounds pass and launched a prayer from halfcourt. The arch of the ball traced an inspiring trajectory. For a moment, hope flickered that in this moment we would witness Lazar’s atonement. The ball, however, bounced off the backboard then swiftly down to Earth.
“I think the force of our character was cumulative. That’s Ralph Waldo Emerson,” said Buzz a few days after the loss.
You can replay the last possession of a game over and over in your head. You can hope for redemption in a losing cause. You can replace a mascot if it offends.
But you can’t replace people. There will never be another Al, he is now only a name stitched just below the jersey’s neck. Lazar will likely follow Jerel to Belgium or some other basketball backwater across an ocean. Lazar will certainly never slip Al’s name over his head again.
Buzz assembled a highly ranked recruiting class, but I find that achievement does little to assuage the implacable memory. The class is merely an idea not yet worth thinking. What I do find comfort in is Buzz’s not-so-calm presence and Darius Johnson-Odom’s calm leadership and Jimmy Butler’s calm tenacity. And knowing that they know and they remember. It doesn’t change anything, but it helps at least.
I should take Buzz’s advice, to square with this season’s passing in my own heart and not dwell on the hackneyed words or the jaundiced eyes of others. But I, like Buzz, remain conflicted.
“I don’t handle it very well. I know that I should and I hope that as I get older I will. It’s another one-possession game.”
Indeed, as it always seems to be.
Norman Einstein’s 12
Norman Einstein’s ISSUE 12 is now online:
In this issue:
Graydon Gordian of 48 Minutes Of Hell delivers a monologue on the hard foul’s beauty in basketball; Marshall Rake, Corban Goble, & I essay in photographs a Nike-sponsored stickball exhibition; Patrick Truby of There’s No “I” In Blog investigates why fans on the move take their teams to new cities; Jason Clinkscales of a Sports Scribe charts the rise of Tiger Woods as an icon through his Nike commercials; I dramatize the NFL Draft for primetime television; and a look back at the biggest sporting stories in April and a look ahead to the biggest sporting events in May.
As always, if you like the magazine, please subscribe for free.
Call To the Post
The National Football League’s Annual Selection Meeting has come and gone. As I do every time this time of year, I pause to wonder what the Draft – the spectacle, the substance, the storylines – means. And, as I do every time this time of year, I struggle for an answer.
I am a football fan. Perhaps not the most fervent, definitely not the most casual. The last three years I have written extensively on the NFL. But I have done so without any inside knowledge or astounding technique expertise. The sum of my insight derives from an interest in narrative, an understanding of social systems, a deference to history, a talent for social psychology, and a slightly above average understanding of the game from my experience as a very good high-school varsity player with marginally recruitable skills (demand is forever lacking for a 5-foot-10 middle linebacker).
Thus I will not proclaim “winners” and “losers” for the 2010 Draft as so many reputable (and many more not-so-reputable) publications do once Mr. Irrelevant’s name is announced to a nearly empty Radio City Music Hall. I have no idea if the St Louis Rams’ selection of Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford first overall is inspired or insipid. Or if the San Francisco 49ers’ selection of Southern California safety Taylor Mays in the second round is a blessing or a blunder. Or if the Jacksonville Jaguars’ selection of California defensive tackle Tyson Alualu an unanticipated tenth overall is knuckleheaded or a no-brainer. Or if… well, you get the idea.
The problem inherit in handing out grades right after the Draft is that none of the analysis is based on, you know, any actual production. The critic is only noting where the various NFL war rooms’ projections depart from her projections. There’s nothing to say whether the critic’s take on things is right or wrong.
It’s easy to write off this whole post-Draft grading as ridiculous with the shake of a head. Yet the hack analysis persists and even increases in volume every year. There’s something else going on here.
I disagree with Joe Posnanski when he writes:
The thing that amazes me about the draft is not the hype — at some point, yeah, you get it, this thing is hyped — but how quickly the whole NFL Draft thing dies after, you know, players are actually taken by their teams. There’s this huge build-up, and then when the draft’s over it’s like every football fan in America, all at exactly the same time, go: “OK, that’s done. Let’s go to the mall.” I mean, if you think about it, the draft is supposed to be the BEGINNING of something not the end. You are taking a bunch of players who have never played a single down in the NFL, and you are hoping that they can help turn around your team’s fortunes. But, it seems to me, people treat the draft like it’s a one-time event, the fun is in the picking. How the player turns out seems almost beside the point.
The Draft is a beginning. Not of intelligent discussion or savvy analysis. Rather it’s a reinvestment of the fan within the fortunes of their teams. The Super Bowl, the last major NFL event preceding the Draft, moves the fan to the universal. If our team isn’t in it, a fact true for all save fans of a lucky two, we get caught up in the epic spectacle. We pull for one team or another for whatever reason, because we deeply respect one quarterback, because one team embodies the ideals we wish our team did, because we passionately hate one team’s coach. Whatever the reasons, they draw us away from our teams to our ideas of the game.
The Draft, on the other hand, brings us back to our teams. The cycle of hope started anew.
I have no idea whether Bryan Bulaga, the Green Bay Packers first round pick, will transform into a dominant starting tackle. But I certainly hope he will. To wit, I spent the majority of Saturday and part of Sunday scouring the local Wisconsin media’s websites for any articles about Bulaga and the six other players drafted by the Packers. I am now passionately concerned with Mike Neal’s conversion to a five-technique defensive end and Morgan Burnett’s prospects to crack the starting line-up at strong safety. Before Friday, Neal and Burnett were two football players I could tell you next to nothing of. Now I know that Neal holds Purdue’s bench-press record and Burnett recorded 14 career interceptions at Georgia Tech. (No word yet on whether Neal has any quirky hobbies or what Burnett’s favorite cuisine is…)
And in this partisan research project I am not alone. This is really when the NFL season begins… we now know what horse we have in the race.