Making a Point...

            The best part of traveling for a living is all the stories you get to hear from others who travel as well.

            Oh sure, you see a lot of neat places. You meet people, work in interesting situations and build up those frequent flier miles and hotel points. If you fly, you need to drive rental cars and sometimes you get to wheel around in something nice.

            If you really know what you’re doing, you can plan side trips and do something really fun to break up the tedium of working away from home.

            So, yeah, that’s all great. But it’s the stories you hear or events you experience that make the whole thing worthwhile. You’ll be telling and re-telling some of these stories for years, even if they aren’t yours.

            Food fights in airports are memorable, if you happen to see one. Seems like everyone has slept in an airport (some of us more than once). Bar stories come up a lot, as do barstool stories. Bad radio stations, bad food, bad roads and bad manners all get their due. You hear a lot of stories about bad service.

            A minor offering is displayed here. It is named, justly, Making a Point at San Francisco International Airport.

            In the mid 1990s I was working for NASCAR and traveling a fair amount, though mostly by car. We had a race at Redwood Acres Raceway in Eureka, California. Eureka is very close to the California-Oregon border and I was supposed to fly to that event. The plan was to fly through San Francisco changing to a small plane for the hop to an airport near Eureka.

            The plan was wrecked when I arrived in San Francisco and was told the pilots were on strike and there would be no flight to Eureka. The only option was to drive, so I rented a car and made a quick six-hour drive to Eureka.

            The next morning was race day and I overheard the news on the radio that the strike was over. I contacted the airline to be sure my flight was a go only to learn that, as I had left San Francisco voluntarily and not flown on to Eureka, I could not fly back to San Francisco. I’d have to drive the six hours back to the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area.

            And be there in time for my 8 a.m. flight.

            The race ended around 11 p.m. and I had my NASCAR work done around 1 a.m. I returned to the hotel, showered, packed and paid for the room. Then I began driving.

            Had to stop in a tree-line area of the highway to avoid a doe and three little fawns that were standing on the road, you know, with nothing better to do. I finally had to get out of the car and yell, “Bambi, get the kids out of here!” in order to get them to make room on the highway for me and my rental car.

            It was a struggle to stay awake, but I did make it to the exciting confusion that is the SF International Airport in time for my flight. Of course, getting on the plane was another matter entirely.

            Does anybody remember the Unabomber? He blew some stuff up in those years. Had folks on edge, especially here in California and, yep, especially in the luxurious San Francisco International Airport.

            Enter Mr. Lucky.

            Keep in mind I was then working on my 27^th hour without sleep. My state of mind was a little irritated to begin with because of the pilots strike. And top it off with the fact that I was a Southern Californian dealing with Northern Californians who had done me wrong.

            So when an overly obnoxious airport guy told me I would not be allowed to take two bags on the plane, due to the Unabomber scare, I got a little heated. The conversation was not going well, from my side. I argued that other airports were not making that rule and he said, I’ll never forget it because he opened up the most favorite line I’ve ever come up with, he said, “This is San Francisco, We do not operate like other airports.”

            To which I replied, “I see you allow women to carry a purse along with their carry-on baggage. Well, certainly in this town, a man is entitled to carry a purse. This,” I said gesturing to my briefcase, “is my purse.”

            And he let me on the plane with both my computer bag and my purse.

            In closing, let me say that I actually get along well with airport and airline folks. They have a hard job and they mostly do it well. But I was right, he was wrong, and he knew it.

            For once.

            Thanks for reading.

Drastic problems call for simple solutions

                During the run-up to the National Football League’s labor impasse last spring the owners put out for public consumption the idea that the league might increase the regular season schedule from 16 games to 18 games. There would be a corresponding decrease of pre-season games from four to two.

            The idea of extending the season probably came from one or more of the television networks that carry NFL games. Greed feeds itself.

            Nobody loves football more than I do, as my wife will tell you, but even I know extending the season is a bad idea. In fact, the season really should be trimmed back to 14 games.

            The NFL has finally agreed publically that injuries occur in professional football. Head injuries. I’m talking about concussions. They happen and the league admits it now.

I believe the league would like to find a way to cut down on the frequency of concussions. I believe the owners are concerned enough about the investment each team makes in its players that the teams are willing to spend the money to investigate ways to cut down on concussions. I believe that, in the interest of good public relations, the NFL will eventually find ways to improve helmets and other equipment to help the players.

I believe the players union shares responsibility in this situation as well. The union should spend the money to investigate ways to cut down on the number of concussions we see each week and it should recommend a treatment protocol on the sideline to improve recognition processes. It is time that the union looked into ways to protect its members.

The most obvious way to slow the seasonal concussion rate is to trim the number of games. Obviously this idea would never get past the first sentence in an NFL board room, but there is a way to mollify the TV networks. This is another of my ideas that are too simple to ever see the light of day. It needs more complications in order to earn consideration from the powers that be.

My idea is to have a 14-game regular season schedule with two off weeks per season for each team. Each team would have an off week in the first and second halves of the season. Eliminate Thursday games, except on Thanksgiving. That makes for a 16-week regular season (14 games, plus two off weeks equals 16 weeks). Disallow practice sessions during the off weeks and force mandatory brain scans for each player during the off weeks.

I’d also recommend mandatory brain scans for all bloggers, but for a different reason.

The teams would want to trim their rosters because there would be less income with fewer games (due to less attendance), but I think the roster size should remain as is for a 14-game schedule. There might be slightly less need to return a player from a concussion if the teams have large rosters from which to find replacements.

I know, I know. Too simple. It would never work.

But I remember the story about the 18-wheel truck that was stuck in the opening of a tunnel because the truck was too tall. There was a traffic snarl as the engineers, mechanics and lawyers stood around looking at the problem, looking for someone to blame, looking for someone to file suit against and looking for the lunch wagon that was due.

Finally a five-year-old girl stuck her head out of the window of a car that slowly rolled by. The girl shouted, “Hey, just let the air out of the tires and put that thing in reverse!!”

It was a simple solution. It worked. And the girl got in trouble with her parents for sticking her head out of the car window.

You can’t win ‘em all.

Thanks for reading.

The Kurt Busch I know

It seems like a very long time ago now, but when Kurt Busch was making his way through the formative NASCAR ranks, I worked with him a little.

The same Kurt Busch who has made headlines recently after he was released by Penske Racing drove for two seasons in the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour. I was the Media Coordinator for the Tour in those days and I had plenty of opportunities to interview him. He won races and was the Rookie of the Year in 1998 and our champion in 1999.

Kurt was great to work with, from my perspective. He was a good and willing interview. He has a good sense of humor. I enjoyed talking to him. I still see him infrequently because our paths sometimes cross in the course of a racing season and he always makes it a point to say hello. In my experience, Kurt Busch is a great guy.

I’ve seen the clips of Kurt’s recent flare-ups on You Tube, like many other people have, and I do not write this to make excuses. There have been other incidents through the years, too. But until you’ve been in the pressure cooker that is NASCAR Cup racing, you can’t begin to understand the stress those drivers are under. It is an intense world.

In eras gone by, promising race drivers had to work their way through the stock car step ladder. They’d progress from one lower-rung series to another, from local racing to regional competition and then on to national competition. Finally, if everything worked out, a talented driver might get a chance to race in the Cup series.

The really talented, connected and sponsored drivers made it to Cup by the time they were 25 or 26. Thus, they got to stock car racing’s highest levels with a bit of maturity simply due to their age.

Nowadays Cup teams pluck drivers out of the local ranks while the drivers are still in their teens, still learning to shave. A year in the NASCAR Trucks or maybe the Nationwide Series and these youngsters are thrown into the Cup arena. Swim or become chum.

Kurt Busch started his Cup career at a young age and now, a Cup champion, he is a proven commodity behind the wheel. Nobody doubts his talent or his drive to be a winner. Let’s not forget that when he won his Cup title, he had a wheel break off early in the final race. With his championship hopes hanging by a thread, he was able to jerk his three-wheeled car onto pit road to have the thing re-fitted. He resumed the race and won the title.

That talent was evident when he was racing on the Southwest Tour. I enjoyed watching him drive. And I’ll enjoy watching him drive again next year.

Thanks for reading.

You keep a picture of WHAT above your desk?

I keep a large, framed photograph of the RMS Titanic above my desk.

There are a lot of reasons for that. I’ve always been interested in the Titanic story. It’s a great people story. There are lessons to be learned from the history. There was really no reason for the accident to happen, so there is the angst about what could have been.

The biggest reason for keeping the photo where I can see it is that the story is proof of the fact that none of us is too big, too smart or too rich to fail. And that includes me.

Every once in a while I announce to the family that I have just hatched my latest brilliant plan. I never add the bit about it being a plan which cannot fail. I know better. In fact, since very few of my brilliant plans ever work, my wife and kids have learned to seek cover anytime I announce my latest red hot idea.

The Titanic started out as someone’s latest brilliant design. It was a heckuva ship, well equipped. But it was operated by over-confident humans who turned someone’s brilliant idea into a really big anchor. The ship’s captain, James Smith, was quoted as saying that modern shipbuilding had advanced beyond the point where ships sank. I’m sure he believed what he said.

History tells us that Smith was wrong and that’s my point here: There is no such thing as a plan which cannot fail. Ask the talent-laden Miami Heat or Philadelphia Eagles about fail-proof ideas. Ask the unbeatable Baltimore Colts about their game plan against the New York Jets before the third Super Bowl. Ask Hall of Fame relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley about over confidence against gimpy-legged home run hitters.

Ask real estate speculators about all the land they bought eight years ago. Ouch.

The human ego frequently leads us to ignore human history. Eventually, it leads us to supremely human failures. If you glance at history, you’ll find we really don’t stop making the same mistakes. The biggest mistake we keep making is the one Captain Smith made all those years ago and that is believing that we have advanced too far as humans to fail on a large scale.

We can fail. We do fail. And we will fail. But, if we study history with an eye toward learning from it, we can learn to contain the scope of our failures.

So I keep looking at my photograph of the Titanic and, sooner or later, I hope to learn something from it.

Thanks for reading.

LSU and Alabama have a date

            This is not the news the people in charge of the Bowl Championship Series wanted to hear, but the two best teams in college football have already played once, went into overtime and are currently ranked first and second.

            In the Western Division of the Southeastern Conference.

            They are Louisiana State University and the University of Alabama. LSU beat Alabama in overtime a few weeks ago in a game played on Alabama’s home field.

            The BCS title game is designed to generate massive television ratings. It is the ultimate college football game, created for television. Don’t allow the nonsense that the game was created to determine the champion of college football confuse you. It was created to use college football to create a revenue stream.

When Alabama plays LSU for the title, which is what should happen, there is a concern among the BCS bosses that the ratings will slip because the teams have already played once.

Alabama and LSU are the best teams in the country. There just isn’t any doubt. They should play again. But the BCS championship game is not about what’s right. It is about the money the game will generate for a television network and all the others with a hand in the cookie jar.

LSU will play Georgia for the SEC championship in December. LSU could lose the SEC title game and still be ranked high enough to get a berth in the national championship game. Thus, two teams who did not win their conference championship could play for the national championship. Crazy? Sure.

But LSU and Alabama are the best teams in the country and nothing is going to change that.

If all of the above sounds like a plea for a playoff among college football’s best teams and conferences, it should not. A playoff system is wrong for the NCAA’s Division I. That subject is best for another blog at another time.

If the BCS does nothing else, it gets all of us talking about college football. We rant, we rave, we get confused. And we talk about college football.

            Some of us write about it.

            Thanks for reading.

Stewart's winning pass...one week early

            Tony Stewart’s championship-winning drive at Homestead-Miami over the weekend was one for the ages. One of the best one-race performances I’ve seen.

            Stewart’s talent and experience were on display for the world to see Sunday. He had to cut through the field twice to get to the front and he did that. He had to out-run championship leader Carl Edwards over the final 37 laps and he did that.

            But, as every racing reporter writes this week about the stunning performance Smoke turned in to win the title in the last race of the season, there is one pass Stewart made that nobody will write about that was actually the key to the championship.

            And it didn’t happen in Florida. Heck, the move wasn’t even Stewart’s.

            Stewart was running fourth with a few laps remaining in the season’s penultimate race two weeks ago in Phoenix, Arizona. He was not in contention to win that late in the going, but he had a solid finish going.

            Driving a Chevrolet, Stewart drew close to another Chevy driver, Jeff Burton. Now, Stewart and Burton do not drive for the same team. Their respective teams do not have a technical alliance. Stewart’s team buys chassis and engines from the Rick Hendricks team and Burton drives for Richard Childress.

            But Stewart and Burton both drive Chevrolets. Edwards drives a Ford.

            Burton, who is among the most respected drivers of the era, did not have a chance to win the Sprint Cup championship this season. But in the closing laps at Phoenix, Burton gave Stewart plenty of room to pass Burton and gain one final position before the end of the race.

            That one position was the difference between Stewart winning the title and Edwards winning the title. The championship ended in a tie and Stewart won it because he won more races during NASCAR’s season-ending Chase than Edwards did.

            Had Burton stubbornly kept Stewart behind him at Phoenix and had the race at Homestead-Miami gone exactly as it did Sunday, Carl Edwards would be celebrating his first championship and Stewart’s drive of a lifetime would have been noted as a great effort, albeit a losing one, by pundits.

            Thanks for reading.

What will the next great one-liner be?

Writers are always on the listen for the next great one-liner. You never know when it might come or who might roll it out. Circumstances sometimes play a part, but frequently they come from out of nowhere.

Babe Ruth, the legendary baseball player, was asked if he felt it was appropriate for him to make more money than the President of the United States. Babe answered in the affirmative and said, “I had a better year.”

But that was Babe Ruth, one of the great quote machines of his age. You would expect Ruth to get off a good one now and again.

Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, another media-friendly baseball Hall of Famer, had some tirades during his years as the Dodgers skipper that have reached legendary status. He was once asked his opinion of Dave Kingman’s performance when the Cubs outfielder beat the Dodgers with three home runs in one game. The answer is long and unprintable, but you can find it on You Tube. Search for Lasorda Audio Stew.

“You ask me my opinion?” the stunned Lasorda replies. “What (in the world) do you think my opinion of it was? I think it was (absolutely very terrible).”

Sometimes, great lines come from unexpected sources. I was working with a student at California Lutheran University two basketball seasons ago, calling a basketball game on the school’s live streaming site. The subject matter was the athletic teams at the California Institute of Technology. My color commentator, a CLU senior named Greg Gelber, said Cal Tech was not a school noted for its athletic prowess.

“It’s more of a mental institution,” Gelber said.

Obviously, great lines are sometimes found in movie scripts. Lauren Bacall’s line from To Have and Have Not, “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? Just put your lips together and blow,” is a classic. So are two Clint Eastwood lines from his Dirty Harry films: “Do you feel lucky, punk?” and “Go ahead. Make my day.”

And I’ll never forget John Wayne’s “Fill yer hands you sonuva (gun),” from the original True Grit.

Bum Phillips, the former football coach, had a terrific line about the greatest football coach, Paul Bryant. Phillips was an assistant to Bryant when the two coached at Texas A&M.

Phillips said, “Bear Bryant could take his’n and beat your’n or he could take your’n and beat his’n.”

I invite you to improve upon that.

Another football coach, John Heisman, after whom the trophy was named, is credited with a great piece of advice: “When in doubt, punt.” Heisman, who was a little stern, is also widely quoted as telling his team, “Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”

Then there is drag racing champion Jason Line, who was asked this week if his team would be racing Pontiacs next season. Line’s line was, “We need to race a brand that’s a little more relevant, or at least one that exists.”

Few people ever communicated better than Ronald Reagan. His invitation to the leader of the USSR (I can’t spell his name) to, “Tear down this wall,” is a classic. So was his response during a Republican presidential candidate debate, when someone threatened to turn off Reagan’s microphone: “I paid for this microphone.”

But my favorite Reagan line came during a debate with then-President Jimmy Carter. Carter said something candidate Reagan disagreed with, allowing Reagan to reply, “Well, there you go again.”

You never know when the next great line is going to pop up. That’s why they are so fun.

Thanks for reading.

The blogging photographer

The referee held the ball while waiting
for the chain gang to bring the markers
to measure to see if the offense
had earned a first down.

I photographed the recent California Lutheran University football game against the University of La Verne. The game was played at La Verne or I would have been calling the game on CLU’s CLUtube internet live streaming site.

            The images here are from that game. CLU and La Verne are NCAA Division III schools and they play in the SCIAC conference here in Southern California. The games are typically a lot of fun to watch and this one was really fun for CLU fans. The Kingsmen clobbered the Leopards.

The playing surface at La Verne is natural grass. At the end
of a long game on a hot day, things get a little dusty. I
like the look when mixed in with the intensity of the
game action.

            The shoot provided some challenges. The day was very sunny and the sun was directly in my lens for half the game. By that I mean the sun was behind the same end zone all game long. The sun moved from one sideline to the other, but it remained behind the same end zone and I had to overcome that issue for four quarters. There were times during the game when the field position of the line of scrimmage made shooting pointless.

            I could have been more productive working the La Verne sideline, especially during the second half, but I’m not comfortable doing that. I was wearing a CLU baseball cap and I did not feel it was appropriate for me to stand on the La Verne sideline when I was obviously associated somehow with the visitors. Had I been on assignment for a newspaper, I would have been wearing a different cap and might have changed sidelines.

The body language during a football game tells a
story all its own.

            I recommend you catch a small college or Division III game at your first opportunity. The games are a lot of fun and the ticket prices, where they charge anything at all, are family friendly. I have found the people to be very welcoming, especially among the SCIAC members.

            Day time football is a blast for a photographer. I used a fast shutter speed, mostly about 1/1,600^th of a second. Next time I’ll drop the shutter speed and play with the f-stops a little in order to blur the background a bit. The La Verne stadium is so open that you can end up with a parking lot in the background unless you are careful. Mark that as another lesson learned by your blogging photographer.

A runner following his blockers.

            I’ve posted a few images here from the game and I hope you enjoy them. You can read more about CLU’s football team (ranked 12^th in the country this week) at CLUsports.com. I’ll have more images from the game up on http://www.speedylee.com/ in a few days. I hope you enjoy the images I have displayed here.

            Thanks for reading.

RIP Dan Wheldon

Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Dan Wheldon, the IndyCar driver who died in Las Vegas over weekend.

Wheldon won the Indianapolis 500 earlier this year but died Sunday after crashing during a race.

Wheldon leaves a wife and two young children. He was 33.

Update!!!

If you look back a few blogs, you’ll see one I wrote about Anthony Calvillo, the quarterback for the Montreal Allouettes of the Canadian Football League. Calvillo broke pro football’s all time record for passing yards over the weekend.

Calvillo, who grew up in California and played junior college ball before moving on to Utah State and then the CFL, surpassed the mark held by Damon Allen over the weekend. Allen is another American who spent his professional football career in Canada and thrived.

Calvillo’s career record is now 72,381 yards, but don’t bother to memorize that figure. He’ll add to it with his next completion. The record-breaker was a 50-yard bomb to Jamel Richardson, Calvillo’s favorite target in recent seasons.

And Calvillo is not slowing down at age 39. His touchdown-to-interception ratio at this point in the season is 28-4. Remarkable.

Thanks for reading.

Taking it one blog at a time

I don’t know exactly what California Lutheran University football coach Ben McEnroe told his team during the halftime of the Kingsmen game against the University of Redlands Saturday. Don’t know, for sure, the precise wording he used to address his players in the locker room.

But whatever McEnroe said, I wish he could bottle it, seal it and send it to corporate America. The man knows something about comebacks.

The Kingsmen went into the game ranked 20^th among NCAA Division III schools. They played host to the 13^th-ranked Bulldogs, CLU’s arch rivals. The game was the first ever held at the new William Rolland Stadium on campus at CLU. Fans jammed the place (including a good number of spirited Redlands fans who made the trip to see the game).

Big crowd for a big game in a new stadium between two ranked teams that are rivals to begin with: Wow, what atmosphere.

And it opened with a thud. Redlands raced to a 17-0 lead and then, in the final minute of the second quarter, scored a touchdown to make the score 24-0.

I had the play-by-play on CLU’s online coverage (www.clutube.com), working with CLU students David Brown (color) and Nikki Fay (sideline). Other CLU students worked the cameras.

Fay interviewed McEnroe as he came on the field to start the second half. The coach talked about winning one play at a time, a standard thing to say.

Are you reading, corporate America? One play at a time. Work out how this applies to you.

And, building on the theme of one play at a time, the Kingsmen came back and won, 28-24. They scored the winning touchdown with 16 seconds remaining and had to intercept a Hail Mary pass in the end zone on the last play to wrap the win up.

One play at a time. CLU finished the first half with 87 total yards of offense and finished the game with 434. Redlands had 307 yards in their explosive first half, but CLU’s defense allowed just 63 total yards in the second half.

One play at a time. CLU managed just three first downs in the first half and finished with 23. Redlands’ offense, led by an outstanding quarterback named Chad Hurst, compiled 13 first downs in the first half but finished the game with 17.

Win this thing one play at a time: CLU quarterback Jake Laudenslayer is not known as a running quarterback, but he had a big run for a first down on the final drive and scored the go-ahead touchdown on a quarterback sneak.

The final CLU drive started at the Kingsmen 3-yard line. I remember calling it “First and 97,” which was not in keeping with the one-play-at-a-time mantra, but it summed up the situation pretty well.

After the final play, the CLU students rushed onto the field (possibly thinking they’d take it one celebration at a time, I’m not sure) as I stood at my announcing position. I tried to make sense of it all for the viewers but I’m not sure I did so.

Guess I should have taken it one sentence at a time. I’ll work on that.

CLU hosts Whittier next Saturday at 1 p.m. You can catch the game on CLUtube.com. Until then, I hope you have a good week, taking it one day at a time.

Thanks for reading.

Of course it's relevant!

I have been asked several times why I believe the study of the American Civil War is really relevant to Americans today. The questioners usually emphasize that the war happened 150 years ago and like to challenge my idea that history can teach us if we listen.

It would be easy to lean on the old (and accurate) lecture about the importance of learning from the past. That’s what I was told when I was a kid and it is as true now as it was when my parents recited that same lecture to me. There are lessons to be learned from the study of history.

Every grade school student has to study history sooner or later, but nobody ever seems to learn from it.

But, and here I return to the original premise of the blog, I have a very personal reason for studying the Civil War. The reasoning is so flawless that I am amazed that nobody else has thought of this before.

The reasoning here is a wad of stunning simplicity: Had the Civil War concluded differently in any way than the way it did, I would not have been born.

We will not debate here whether a SpeedyLee-less world would be a bad thing or not, although I am sure you can understand that my point of view is clear on the matter.

All of us have 16 great, great grandparents. Of the 16, eight must be great, great grandfathers. Check your biology books. You’ll see it’s true. You’ll also see that, without any one of your eight great, great grandfathers, you wouldn’t be here. That’s bad news because I’d hate to lose your readership.

Statistics in hand, we now turn to genealogy. Of my eight great, great grandfathers, three served in the military during the Civil War. All three survived the war, though two suffered severe wounds.

Further, one of my parents was born in the Deep South, a former Confederate state. For a variety of reasons that are unimportant here, it is reasonable to assume that my parents would not have met if the Confederate states had won independence from the Union.

I would challenge anyone that doubts the value of the continued study of the Civil War to do a simple self test: Check into your own family history. Discover whether you have an ancestor that fought in the Civil War. How might your family tree have changed with a different ending to the war?

And when you finish with all that, ask yourself if the study of the American Civil War is relevant today.

Thanks for reading.

The quickest way I know to start an argument is...

Kobe Bryant wouldn’t even make the starting lineup of my all-time Los Angeles Lakers team. He’s a great player, sure, and I suspect he’ll be elected into the pro basketball hall of fame as soon as he’s eligible. But my all-time Lakers team has two guys ahead of Bryant who made every player around them better.

The Lakers franchise has had a lot of championship teams and great players make champions. But the greatest Laker of them all never took the court for the club, yet went decades without missing a game. Chick Hearn, the play-by-play man, was the best there ever was at what he did. Hearn introduced the game to Los Angeles and explained it to generations of listeners. Simply a great communicator.

There is a statue of Hearn at the Staples Center. How many announcers get statues? That’s what he meant to the franchise. He’s gone now but I still miss the sound of his voice during basketball season. The Lakers will never sound the same to me. Heck, the game will never sound the same.

My point guard? No question about it, Magic Johnson. Best basketball player I ever saw, regardless of position. He lifted the players around him, made them better. They had to be alert when Magic had the ball because you never knew when the next sensational pass might be coming your way. The first time I saw him in person was during his rookie year. The Lakers were playing the Clippers when the Clippers still played in San Diego. I remember a fast breaking, one-handed push pass from half court. Johnson hit a streaking teammate for a layup and I had to admit the hype surrounding Magic might have been accurate.

The off guard on this mythical team is Jerry West. No room for argument here. Great defensive player, great clutch performer. Great scorer. West was so good, the NBA emblem is designed after him.

Elgin Baylor makes this team as the three spot, the small forward. I had a hard time with this spot because I wanted to put James Worthy here. But Baylor gets the nod.

The big forward is a tough spot to choose. I thought about cheating and dropping George Mikan’s name in this spot. Mikan is a Hall of Famer, a center when the Lakers won championships as the Minneapolis Lakers. He was such a tremendous player that I suspect he’d have been an outstanding power forward had he played in the current era. But I couldn’t cheat, so I had to go with a very different kind of player.

My power forward is Kurt Rambis. For hustle, selflessness and grit you can’t beat Rambis. Fans loved him. On this team, scoring is not an issue. Rambis would help with rebounding and attitude.

The post spot was the toughest call on the team. Most of the best postmen of all time have played for the Lakers and my favorite is Wilt Chamberlain. But, much as I liked watching Wilt play, I can’t choose him over Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Jabbar is the greatest scorer in the history of the game, played well on defense and rebounded efficiently. On top of that, when he played with Magic, Jabbar was simply brilliant at firing up the fast break with outlet passes.

So I’d start Johnson, West, Baylor, Rambis and Jabbar. The bench players are below:

Guards: Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher, Gail Goodrich

Forwards: James Worthy, Jamal Wilks, Michael Cooper

Center: Chamberlain, Mikan

I’d want Pat Riley to be the coach, with all due respect to Phil Jackson. Riley’s offense would work best with the team I have listed here.

West would be the general manager. Jerry Buss would be the owner. And Chick Hearn would call the play-by-play.

It starts with a 'T', and it rhymes with bubble

            I have a special talent for getting myself in trouble.

No applause, please.

Take, for example, the small matter of family birthdays. I have been out of town on my wife’s birthday for the last 11 years. The kids are grown and gone so, except for our dog and our cat (the terrorist), my wife has been home, alone on her last 11 birthdays. There were six years, run consecutively, when I wasn’t home for either kid’s birthday.

My own birthday? Not lately.

My mother recently celebrated her 80^th birthday. I called from half a continent away to wish her well. I live an hour’s drive from Mom, but I wasn’t even in the same time zone on her birthday this year.

So you can readily ascertain that, when it comes to getting in trouble, I have a head start on all of you. At dawn on any given day, I’m pretty much already in trouble.

I have learned to live with guilt. I’m in trouble, it’s my fault, I know it, and I know I need to do something in order to get out of the dog house. Even when I am not in any specific trouble, I work under the assumption that I am or soon will be on my way to the principal’s office.

Again.

Guilt is a powerful motivator. Let us examine, as evidence, my annual absence at the time of my wife’s birthday. My absence is work-related because I work for Goodyear Racing and I have to work at an NHRA drag race over the same weekend every year. Amy’s birthday is right around that time and I am simply never home that weekend. Can’t be.

Now, my wife Amy is one of the great people on this planet. She deserves better than to be alone on her birthday. I know it and I try to be proactive. We celebrate her birthday before I leave town. I always try to find a nice gift, something she wants, and take her out for a nice dinner.

The last two years, I have sent emails with photos (2010) and videos (2011) of people at the races wishing her a happy birthday. I’m in deep, deep trouble next year because I’m out of new ideas.

            Amy and I have been married for 25 years and I have to say that I’m the happiest guy you’ll meet. I’m a lucky man. I constantly pay attention to how lucky I am. Otherwise, I’d be in more trouble than usual.

            Thanks for reading. I’ll try to stay out of trouble for a while.

The Big Three and Me

There are three men whom I look up to, not counting my Dad. Dad is in his own league in that regard.

But the others are not men I know, just men I look up to. I guess they’re my heroes. I’ve read about them, watched them in person when I’ve been able to and generally tried to appreciate what has made them stand out in their field. What has made them succeed in situations where others failed.

The three legends of whom I write are John Wayne, Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant and A.J. Foyt Jr. Wayne, aka The Duke, is Hollywood’s greatest actor. Bryant is the greatest football coach of all time. And A.J. is the greatest race driver the world has yet produced.

Not too long ago I was wrestling with an important matter, something of serious concern to me. This deal was of such monstrous import that I still get mad when I think about it. And, as hard as I tried, I failed to find a solution to my problem.

Well, I have a copy of a drawing of The Duke in costume as Rooster Cogburn hanging above my desk and, glancing at it, I asked out loud, “What would The Duke do?” The answer came quickly: The Duke would fire a straight right, drop the guy who was causing me such mental anguish, and continue about his business.

Okay, can’t do that.

The Bear was next, but he was no help either. Coach Bryant simply wasn’t fool enough to get himself into such a box.

That left A.J. Well, A.J. wouldn’t be against dropping the guy with a straight right (see The Duke above), but he’d more likely blow the guy’s doors off going into Turn 1 and flip the guy off while he was doing so. Then Foyt would go on to win the race and cuss the guy out during the winner’s interview.

But the question here is what The Big Three have in common and it’s probably more than you realize.

Two of the three played college football (Bear and The Duke) and I believe A.J. played high school ball. All three had strong family backgrounds and they were born in approximately the same central region of the country (Duke in Iowa, Bear in Arkansas and A.J. in Texas). All three are self-made. All lived with their successes on the national stage (except Duke, who lived with his on the national sound set) and did the same with their failures.

And all three had strong personalities that seemed to say that they knew where they were headed and, “You can walk with me, you can follow behind me or you can get the heck out of my way.”

Now go back to the problem I was wrestling with before I glanced at the framed sketch of The Duke on the wall. With all this iconic imagery for guidance, I made my decision and did what all rugged individualists do in times of stress: I called my sister. She’s a lawyer.

Thanks for reading!!

The Hall of Fame gets a classy guy

Marshall Faulk will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, a richly deserved honor for one of the chief architects of the legendary Rams offense called The Greatest Show on Turf. It was a great day for all Rams fans when Faulk and his teammates beat the Titans and won the Super Bowl all those years ago.

But there is something else about Faulk that not everyone knows. More important, even, than all his yards, touchdowns and honors: He’s a classy guy.

Faulk is involved in charity work where he grew up in New Orleans, in San Diego where he starred at San Diego State University and in St. Louis, where he played for the Rams. You can read about that in many of the media reports that appear this weekend surrounding the Hall of Fame ceremonies in Canton, Ohio.

You’ll probably read or hear that Faulk was a great teammate. Here’s a story about that.

Faulk was a human highlight reel for San Diego State. A magical player in a program that needed one, Faulk was generating a lot of attention. Rightfully so, he was tremendous. He led the nation in rushing twice.

But Faulk and the other Aztecs were in deep trouble in their September 18, 1993 game against Air Force in Colorado. With 12 minutes, 40 seconds remaining, the Aztecs trailed 31-14 when their starting quarterback went down with a broken leg. The game was broadcast regionally by ABC TV and everyone watching figured the game was over.

Aztecs coach Al Luginbill had no choice but to turn to backup passer Tim Gutierrez. It turned out to be a good choice because the Aztecs won.

Gutierrez connected on 13 of 21 passes, good for 217 yards and two touchdowns. Not bad stats for less than one quarter of play. Gutierrez also led the team to a field goal and handed off to Faulk for another score as the Aztecs stunned Air Force 38-31.

Gutierrez started the next week and threw for 375 yards and four touchdowns as San Diego State hammered Minnesota. The Aztecs finished the season with a 6-6 record, which sounds weird, given all the firepower they had. Gutierrez figured to be the starting quarterback the following season, which he was.

But this is about Marshall Faulk. Faulk was given most of the offensive awards at the Aztecs’ team banquet after the 1993 season, including the Best Offensive Back Trophy. But at the banquet, in front of the coaches and his teammates, Marshall Faulk handed his Best Offensive Back Trophy to Tim Gutierrez and told the quarterback that he, not Faulk, had earned the award.

A classy move by a classy guy.

And now I’ll try to show some class by thanking you for reading.

The best quarterback you never heard of

If you are a football fan, sit back and read this little story. It’s about the way life works and, maybe, the way life doesn’t work sometimes. It’s about making lemonade out of lemons and it’s about the vague paths of chance.

Be careful. It’s also about banging your head against a wall as you ask yourself, “Why? Why? Why?”

The year was 1994. The National Football League held its annual draft of college football players, looking for the next great crop of NFL stars. The draft was limited to seven rounds and there were 222 selections made. Among those drafted very early was future Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk of (ahem) San Diego State University. Faulk was selected by the Indianapolis Colts and finished his career with the St. Louis Rams, where he was on a Super Bowl championship team.

Each year, NFL teams spend a bundle on analyzing college players. They send out scouts to watch players and the scouts look at endless hours of video. Finally, the league holds a dog and pony show named the NFL Combine each year as the top draft candidates are brought to one location (lately it’s been in Indianapolis) for scouts and coaches from every team to observe. The draft is not an exact science and sometimes players with tremendous potential slip through the cracks.

In 1994, quarterbacks slipped through some darn wide cracks. If you figure the Grand Canyon is kinda wide.

To be sure, a few quarterbacks drafted that year had very fine NFL careers. Heath Shuler, Trent Dilfer and Gus Frerotte were drafted in ’94. So were Perry Klein, Doug Nussmeier, Jim Miller, Jay Walker, Steve Mathews and Glenn Foley.

Know who wasn’t drafted that year? Kurt Warner, a future NFL MVP and Super Bowl champ with Faulk and the Rams. Another really outstanding future NFL quarterback who got less credit than he deserved, Jeff Garcia, was not drafted. Also among the quarterbacks not drafted by an NFL team in 1994 was one Anthony Calvillo of Utah State.

So who is Anthony Calvillo? Well, let me tell you, they know the guy up in Canada. As of this writing, Calvillo has become the all-time leader in touchdown passes in the Canadian Football League with 396. Now in his 18^th season, Calvillo has thrown 10 scoring passes and completed passes for 1,129 yards in the first four games of this season. He does not appear to be slowing down much. He is on pace to become the CFL’s all time leader in passing yards this year. He has played on Grey Cup winners (the CFL title game is the Grey Cup) and, generally, has had a heckuva career. Make that a great career.

There is a Canadian football hall of fame and he’ll be in it someday. He should be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, but the HoF voters there sometimes skip over a guy like Calvillo.

That is what the scouts did in 1994. They missed Calvillo. How did the scouts miss Calvillo all those years ago? Who knows? He stands an inch over six feet in height, so the scouts might have judged him to be too short. He played junior college ball here in California before playing at Utah State, but his numbers as a college junior and senior should have gotten him some notice. He played in a minor bowl game as a senior, so the scouts had a chance to see him. Utah State did not get much attention back in the 90s, but neither did Idaho and that’s where Nussmeier played.

The scouts worked overtime that year, as they always do. They didn’t miss Howard’s Walker or C.W. Post’s Klein, that’s for sure. Foley, of Boston College, was the 208^th player selected by NFL teams in 1994. All told, nine quarterbacks were drafted by NFL clubs in 1994, all judged to be better prospects than Anthony Calvillo, Kurt Warner or Jeff Garcia.

Garcia made the move to the CFL where he played well enough to earn a chance with the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. He eventually played for several NFL teams. Warner was in some NFL pre-season camps, played in the Arena league and then in NFL Europe before he finally got a chance with the Rams.

Calvillo has outlasted every quarterback drafted by NFL teams in ’94, not to mention Garcia and Warner. Calvillo will pretty much own the passing pages of the CFL record book when he finally quits playing. He’s probably the best quarterback you’ve never heard of. But don’t feel bad. After all, he wasn’t even drafted.

Thanks for reading.

Puffball The Terrible

We have a cat, a savage attack cat, named Puffball. Darn cat should be working for the Red Cross because he generates plenty of blood, most of it from my legs or arms. He doesn’t drink the blood he spills, so he’s no vampire. This cat just loves to puncture skin.

I’ve saved this cat’s life four times in the 16 years we’ve had him. I’ll get into that in a moment but it is important to note that the individuals who initially begged us to keep this cat, our kids, no longer live here. Thus my wife and I are stuck with a feline terrorist, while the cat’s sponsors are free to gallivant around the country without concerns.

Funny how things turn out.

Look into the eyes of a skin-shredder.

I was working away from home for a few months back in 1993 when I was notified that my wife and kids had found a kitten in or near our backyard. They took it in, cleaned it with anti-flea soap and began nursing it toward good health. I got hit with the traditional, “Can we keep it,” barrage and, feeling guilty about being so far from home for extended periods, I weakened and said, “Okay.” We already had pets, but somehow we ended up keeping another one. We registered the cat with the city, took him to the vet and generally treated him very well. This was his life-saving experience #1.

My long-distance working situation ended about five months later and I came home to discover the new cat had a game it liked to play. He’d sit on the hidden side of a doorway at the end of a hall and suddenly attack the lower extremity of any human passing through the portal into the middle room of the house. He'd bite and scratch until said human found a way to detach himself or herself from the attacking beast. This frequently resulted in spilled blood, torn stockings, ruined socks and ripped pants. A few times I attempted to clear my path by throwing a cat toy through the door, hoping for a distraction that would clear the way for a safe passage. No chance. This cat was after human flesh.

I wanted to get rid of the cat. My scars never had time to heal before the next attack by our so-called domesticated pet. I was concerned about extended loss of blood. I was afraid to go to the beach for fear of attracting every shark within thousands of miles, whether I went in the water or not. Every moment spent ambulating from one spot to another in the house was an invitation to a new vicious attack and another bloodletting.

I confronted my wife with the need to rid ourselves of this criminally insane cat. “My socks and pants have blood stains,” I gripped. My wife is a loving wife. She cares for me when I am sick. Heck, I was on crutches when we started dating. When our children were growing up, she mothered with extraordinary love and wisdom. So, when I firmly explained that Puffball The Terrible had to go, my wife sweetly said, “Go ahead if you want to. But you have to tell the kids.”

This was life-saving experience #2 for the cat.

Time passed and blood flowed. Our son graduated from high school in 2000 and bolted for the comparative safety of life in the United States Air Force. A little more than a year later, our nation was at war. Sean spent five years on active duty and three more in the Air Force National Guard. He spent time in Korea and Iraq and never got a scratch. I wish I could say the same.

Finally, the bleeding reached the point where my wife and daughter agreed something had to be done and the cat became an outside cat. We put him in the garage at night to protect the general public. Our wounds began to heal and this decision was life-saving experience #3 for Puffball.

We rented the same house for a dozen years before the homeowner decided to sell the place. That meant we had to move. The new landlord would not allow cats in the house, which I took to be my salvation from the reign of terror I’d lived with all those years. Even as an outdoor cat, Puffball could inflict damage. Walking to the car had become a challenge.

Unfortunately, Puffball still had Amy and Regan in his corner. He lives in the garage today, usually sleeping on top of my beloved Mustang convertible. This was life-saving experience #4 for Puffball.

We discovered the house we moved to had rats in the walls and we hoped Puffball might catch a few in the garage, given his tendency toward ambush. No such luck. Puffball will happily attack any passing human, but has no hard feeling toward rats. Or gophers.

So there it is. I’ve saved that cat’s life four times now and here’s what really bothers me: In all that time, Puffball has never once thanked me.

But I’ll thank you: Thanks for reading.