Out with the old, in with the same old newer version.
Wednesday, the day that Jerry Tarkanian, synonymous with the stains and stenches of big-time college basketball, died, the 12- and 13-year-olds comprising America’s 2014 championship Little League team were sentenced to ignominy as per the fraudulent conduct of their adult leadership.
In other words, adults afflicted by the same condition: Win at any and all costs.
It may be called “sports,” but that’s for suckers. Integrity, too, is for saps — from Little League, through college student-athletics and deep into adulthood. “It ain’t cheatin’ ’til you get caught.” And even then, if you’re a proven successful cheater, you’re given additional opportunities to be caught again. Our sports are good that way. Anyone who can help win a game is given three, four and five second chances.
Tarkanian often — too often — was portrayed on TV as a lovable, “Guys ‘n’ Dolls” character. “Oh, that Tark! What a character!” and “He plays all the angles!”
And that was true; he was short on pretense. He was only doing what he was paid to do, allowed to do. And he knew that we knew that he knew that we knew.
After all, there was no hiding that many of his recruits, at UNLV then at Fresno State, had no business being in college other than to win him and his employers ball games. And so what if the NCAA was always in the habit of sanctioning his teams? And so what if his players were in the habit of being arrested, consorting with gamblers — including a convicted game-fixer — and his recruits, including “second chancers” and at least one assistant coach — were in the habit of beating women?
He knew you knew and he didn’t care, at least not that much. As long as everyone was on time for practice!
An athletic director told me of attending one of the NCAA’s feckless reform conventions at a time when Tarkanian’s teams were national symbols for high intrigue and well-earned doubt. Tarkanian was his school’s rep at the same conclave, and this AD was stunned to see Tarkanian vote in favor of all stricter rules designed to diminish fraud — recruiting, financial and academic.
Later, at the hotel bar, this AD was moved to ask Tarkanian why someone with his rep would favor firmer NCAA compliance legislation. Because, Tarkanian replied, some of the schools “actually might follow those rules.”
Perhaps it was kismet, then, that the LL team to replace the removed Chicago team as last year’s U.S. champ is from Las Vegas. Regardless, this sad ending provided Jesse Jackson the opportunity, and with it the stage, to again tell his admirers what they want to hear rather than need to hear. Yep, given the Chicago team was black, forget the rules and the paperwork rigging, it’s racism!
Given a chance to teach and preach integrity to kids, Jackson instead told them they’re victims of racism.
“Is this about [LL rules on regional residence] boundaries or about race?” he simultaneous asked and accused.
Instead of presuming adults can think clearly themselves — that they have the capacity to distinguish right from wrong — he again urged them into the darkness. Instead of telling a plain truth — the kids were victims of the dishonesty of the adults who rigged the team — he portrayed their victims — the kids — as victims of a rigged white-racist system.
Does anyone in his or her right, logical mind believe the LL bosses in Williamsport, Pa., who were so welcoming of these kids from Chicago, then conspired to reach a racist solution to humiliate them? The plan was to do racist dirt to these kids thus invite the predictable responses from the usual racial spray shooters, carpet bombers and crackpots?
Or did Jackson expect the LL folks to ignore or change the rules for black kids? Would Jackson prefer a rule, “Black teams can cheat — falsify documents — all others must play by the rules.” Is integrity for white kids, only? Is that his sense of equality?
How can a spiritual, political and social leader pass on an opportunity to preach such a valuable lesson to 12- and 13-year-olds on integrity? How can he pretend not to know that those who cheated and humiliated those kids were their adult leaders? Or is such a truth a disservice to his harmful-to-all self-interests?
Every time Jackson grabs the sports spotlight he plays African-Americans for morons. When the NBA suspended Dennis Rodman for the unprovoked attack of a courtside photographer, Jackson claimed the NBA was “stripping Rodman of his dignity.”
Was Jackson unaware Rodman’s entire public persona was predicated on having no dignity? Did he think America hadn’t seen the video, didn’t know the photographer he kicked was African-American? The man’s name was Eugene Amos. What about his dignity?
When Joe Frazier died, Jackson rushed to Philadelphia to grab the pulpit, eulogizing Frazier as a man of great character and dignity. But where was Jackson when it really counted, when Muhammad Ali was daily stripping Frazier of his dignity, trashing Frazier as ignorant and “a gorilla?” Or was Ali too popular among blacks for Jackson to censure him? Regardless, Frazier’s dignity was more valuable to Jackson when Frazier was dead than alive.
Jackson strongly suggested that the Las Vegas LL team should not accept the 2014 LL championship trophy because it “did not earn it.” Really? Then who does? The team that was rigged? Imagine, this from a man who lectures the world on justice.
From a Race Card Shark to Tark the Shark, integrity has become mothers’ milk for saps, for losers. Proof to the contrary has become rare, threatened by extinction. Just keep the ball rollin’.
Needless Francesa cons
Given his claim the Pentagon relied upon him for advice, and given the travails of Brian (Incoming!) Williams, Mike Francesa nonetheless chose this week to resurrect his claim that only a pay cut prevented him from accepting an important position with an NFL team.
Not that “Let’s Be Honest” has any reason to lie — he just does, anyway — but if that’s true, then it’s time to let his audience know who made the offer, when, and for what position. Or will he await the death of some NFL team owner then disclose their once-secret, one-on-one negotiation?
After all, now that former Mets GM Frank Cashen is dead, Francesa claims he offered him a significant position. Not likely. Cashen was a grizzled old newspaperman who could see through walls, let alone a Mike Francesa.