Posts Tagged ‘War Room Sports’

The Myth of Drama-Free Steelers Nation

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Former Pittsburgh Steelers WR Antonio Brown purchases billboards thanking Steelers fans.

Former Pittsburgh Steelers WR Antonio Brown purchases billboards thanking Steelers fans.

If you ask most football fans to give you one word to describe my Pittsburgh Steelers over the past 50 years, the most appropriate and likely would be STABILITY!

Over the course of this time, the team has had a grand total of three coaches and the same family ownership since its founding inception. By contrast, the Cleveland Brown have had 19 coaches over the same period. The Steelers are among the tops in Super Bowl and playoff wins, as well as Hall of Fame players. The team just completed its 15th consecutive season with at least eight wins…the 5th longest streak in NFL history.

The history and facts are without dispute.

So, why are so many implying that the drama that has surrounded running back Le’Veon Bell and now former Steelers receiver Antonio Brown is at odds with this stability? The implication is that the presence of stability equals the absence of drama.

Nonsense!

There is not a workplace in America that does not have drama, in varying degrees, regardless of how stable its management is. The authoritative management makes it a point to suppress the drama from external examination, much in the same way that some countries suppress descent. Surely, you would never consider this to be the absence of descent?

There are four factors at play here:

  1. The Steelers have been able to draft and develop players remarkably well and as a result, allow free agents to leave before the disgruntlement boils over, without skipping a competitive beat;
  2. Pittsburgh is a mid-sized market. Can you imagine the attention a franchise this successful would have gotten if it were in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles?;
  3. Social Media makes it near impossible to suppress unrest. One might call it the commodification of drama. Surely, no one believes the messy dynamics of marriage started with the real housewives? Furthermore, this speaks to a larger media literacy deficit that afflicts the society well beyond sports. That deficit is reflected in the notion that if you did not see it in corporate media, it must not have happened. I can assure you that corporate media has been missing in action on a number of issues. The fact that they pay little to no attention to the remarkable academic achievements of African/Black women in America or the oppressive treatment of Palestinians largely underwritten by US taxpayers in the Occupied Territories, does not mean that neither is happening;
  4. And most importantly, the Steelers have not won to the level one would expect for their talent. There is a phrase in sports that says “winning is the great deodorizer”. My Steelers went 9-6-1 this past year, to include five one-possession losses. Turn one of those games and they are in the playoffs, and if they win one game, Antonio Brown is still in the fold.
Former Steelers RB, Le'Veon Bell is now a New York Jet.

Former Steelers RB, Le’Veon Bell is now a New York Jet.

To be clear, drama in Steeler Nation did not start with Le’Veon Bell or Antonio Brown.

In the middle of the 1974 season, Hall of Fame defensive tackle “Mean” Joe Green came very close to quitting the team. He would go on to win his second Defensive Player of the Year award in 3 years and the Steelers won the Super Bowl that year. Few outside of the inner Steelers circle knew about this until his feature on “A Football Life”. QB Terry Bradshaw and the late great Coach Chuck Noll never got along. Noll’s response when asked about his relationship with Bradshaw was as follows, “Terry and I had a business relationship. I’d say it was pretty successful!”

Bam! Drop the mic.

Winning hides drama. Joe Montana and Steve Young were hardly friends in San Francisco. Belichick and Brady have their degree of drama. It is the nature of the beast.

None of this is to say that losing Brown and Bell will not hurt. Brown has put together, statistically, the best 6 years of any receiver in NFL history. He and Bell were as productive of a WR/RB tandem as the league has seen since, perhaps Falk/Holt or Bruce in St Louis, or Rice/Craig in San Francisco.

As a card-carrying member of #SteelerNation since 1972, I am pissed!

As a fan of labor sticking it to management, I absolutely love what Brown did.

Regardless of his tactics, the bottom line is that the man had the leverage to leave where he no longer wanted to be and secured an additional $30 Million guaranteed in the process. For those who call him spoiled and selfish for doing so, I ask: what do you think America is all about? It is very rare when an individual has the capacity to determine his/her own destiny. Why on Earth would the rest of labor vilify him/her and side with management?

His power play is not new. Both John Elway and Eli Manning pulled similar power plays before either had done anything in the league.

Therefore, at the end of the day, I am at peace with the current state of my Steelers. I do not like it but I am at peace. After all, if any franchise can survive such upheaval and remain competitive, it is Pittsburgh. Of that, I am STEEL CERTAIN!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

 

Why Don’t Free Agents Choose Washington?

Wednesday, March 6th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Image courtesy of RMNB

Image courtesy of RMNB

When Washington Nationals All-Star and former NL MVP Bryce Harper departed last week via free agency for Philadelphia, it further validated a baffling phenomenon in sports for me; How come top-tier free agents neither stay in nor find Washington, DC to be an attractive destination?

 

Ok, for $330 million dollars, many of us who love DC would gladly leave for Mars. BH

 

But the evidence of this reality long preceded Harper. Kevin Durant would not even give his hometown team, the Wizards, an interview. The last big-name free agent to sign with a Washington team was Albert Haynesworth.

 

That did not work out quite so well.

 

Normally, I pose a question and answer according to the world of Gus…supported by as much history and current day facts as I can find. Not this time. I have no idea why free agent marquee athletes don’t consider Washington as a viable option.

 

There are the usual suspects as explanations go such as the “lukewarm” enthusiasm of the Washington fan base about its teams.

 

I must come to the defense of DC fans on this one. Other than the magical title run of the Caps last year, what have the collective of Washington Sports teams produced on a consistent basis that would excite any fanbase over the past 25 years? Besides, does anyone think that San Diego fans are any more hyped about the Padres? Yet, Manny Machado signed there for the same $300 million that the Nats offered Harper, and I am sure would have given Machado.

 

Then there is organizational mediocrity to outright dysfunction.

 

To that I say that the high functioning organizations are rarely big players in the free agent market because, by definition, they need the least help. How often over the past 20 years have the Spurs or Patriots been big players? Baseball is a different animal because it does not have a salary cap, and the luxury tax is hardly a disincentive for the likes of the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Yankees. Simply put, in most cases the team that the upper echelon free agent bypassed Washington for, is likely to be as dysfunctional as the DC team. Why is their dysfunction more attractive than ours?

 

So what the hell is wrong with DC? We have a bustling metropolis with diversity to spare. We are relatively progressive in a political sense. If the city is not one’s preference, there are the beautiful Maryland suburbs or the rural Virginia suburbs.

 

For young Black athletes, which make up the majority of the NFL and NBA free agents, I am even more mystified. Why on Earth wouldn’t a young Black man with a pocket full of cash and at the height of his physical prime not be attracted to Washington DC?

This brings me to a possible solution for the football and basketball teams: Howard University!

HU

 

Both teams need to partner with the venerable HBCU. No, not to hire young women in the classless, exploitative way some colleges do to lure recruits. They would simply arrange visits to campus during the fall and spring semesters. One stroll across “the yard”, and the free agent success rate will immediately improve.

 

I know! I AM A HOWARD MAN!

 

Otherwise, I am open for other ideas about why Washington cannot attract high-caliber free agents. I am all ears.

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Zion Williamson and Where Collective Thinking Ends

Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

ZWI

When the likely number 1 draft pick for the NBA, Duke’s Zion Williamson, hurt a knee against arch rival North Carolina about a week ago, we got the foreseeable debate: Should he stay or should he sit for the remainder of the season?

The cases for both perspectives are pretty clear. He should sit for the year because to keep playing would be to risk his stock and millions of dollars in NBA earnings and endorsements. He should feel no more guilt about abandoning his commitment to the program than coaches feel when they leave for more money at another college or the NBA.

ZWHe should stay and play out the season, if healthy, because athletics are about more than money, but teamwork and a commitment to something larger than any one individual. His teammates are counting on him for Duke, as is often the case, to win a national title. That is not something Zion will have the opportunity to do ever again, should this be his only year in college.

I get both arguments and would not invest a lot of energy in debating against either side.

What does interest me are the mindsets of those who say he should not only stay, but feel an obligation to stay.

This is clearly collective thinking or a “put the group over yourself” plea.

In general, I am not opposed to that concept at all. In fact, I believe American society would be greatly improved if it were adopted on a more widespread level, both systemically and culturally. The conflict, of course, is that the American ethos is one of “rugged individualism” and that such rights trump the collective interests.

And that leads to some questions I have for those who are emphatic that he should stay:

Question 1: Do you equally believe that you should give up some of your weapons, or at the very least, tolerate more comprehensive background checks in the effort to mitigate the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence?

Question 2: Would you be ok with a slight raise of your taxes to insure that we have universal health care?

Question 3: How about that same raise in taxes to insure proper funding for the schools in the same impoverished neighborhoods which produce more than a few of the college basketball talent that entertain us?

Surely you will agree that public safety, health care, and better education are far more important than whether Zion Williamson plays again this year at Duke, or if they win a 6th national title.  Endorsing any one or all would at least reflect a consistency in the “put the group over yourself” mindset.

But we all know that very few will.

The fact is that it is easy to advocate putting the collective over the individual when you are not the individual that would have to make the sacrifice. The disconnect is compounded when a significant number of those who insist Zion should continue to play believe the Black athletes’ primary role in society is to be their entertainment. Simply put, all too many sports fans believe that athletes should put the team over their own interests. But when it comes to the well-being of humanity on a far more important level than sports, the collective thinking ends.

It is for these reasons that I lean toward hoping that Zion does not return. I get a certain satisfaction in observing the disappointment of hypocrites.

Besides, it’s already too much that the Patriots and Red Sox have won titles over the past year. We don’t need Duke to follow suit. So, I say, SHUT IT DOWN ZION, SHUT IT DOWN!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

What to Take from the Kaepernick/Reid Settlement

Friday, February 22nd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

CK

There are some important things to take away from the collusion settlement between the NFL, Colin Kaepernick, and Eric Reid. I believe it is instructive for other professional athletes, as well as larger movements for justice to outline them in detail.

The first is that you can take a stand on principal and still come out ahead in the long run.

Some estimate the settlement to be in the range of $60-$80 million. It is unclear if that is for both or if that is just Kaepernick’s share. Regardless, in Reid’s case, he just signed a 3-year extension with the Panthers worth $22 million. Surely his share is at least $7 million, which more than recoups what he would have made before signing with the Panthers this year. In Kaepernick’s case, Forbes magazine does a really good job of using multiple models to assess what his value would have been over the 2017-2018 seasons. Even if he were signed as a backup, he would have made $4-$10 million. As a starter; $21-$35 million. The wild card, even if he signed as a backup, is the Case Keenum factor. Keenum signed as a backup with the Vikings and parlayed a great season into a $36 million deal, $25 million of which was guaranteed. Given that Kaepernick is better than Keenum and that 32 NFL starting QBs will not all play 16 games, it is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that Kaepernick could have done the same. According to the Forbes models, add about another $21 million for damages and projected lost wages and you could get to about $56 million. This does not count the Nike income estimated to be in the millions, as well as the book and movie deals, and the speaking circuit fees, which he has yet to tap. Most of what I just cited would not have been available had he not protested. So regardless of your assumptions and math, Colin Kaepernick is way ahead!

The second takeaway is that the conventional thinking of athletes, their agents and PR professionals about avoiding hot button political issues to protect one’s “brand” is often wrong!

To understand this, one must come to realize that corporate America is amoral. It could not care less about the right or wrong of the issue. It only cares about profits. If it could make a commercial about Trump, the Alt-Right and Klan, and make money, it would do it tomorrow. The other factor is that a lot of people are sheep. How many people wearing those Che Guevara t-shirts do you believe actually know anything about the man or his cause? Nike understood this well and cashed in on the Kaepernick’s “martyrdom”.

ERKaepernick and Reid are not the only examples. Marshawn Lynch, who was never the poster child for corporate America in its search for pitchmen, made up to $5 million a year from Skittles. Allen Iverson made $40-$50 million in endorsements as the Prince Athlete of the Urban Hip-Hop Counterculture. Even today, he has a lifelong contract with Reebok.

Yet, another lesson is that one may have to take a step back before moving forward. But that is not at all a foreign concept in sports. Mediocre teams are always pondering if they want to stay average or tear the whole thing down and start over, with the goal of creating something better in the long run. If we transfer that line of thinking to our politics, maybe we can get off the “lesser of the two evil”, Democrat/Republican merry-go-round and build a better alternative.

Finally, the last thing to take away is that labor has more leverage than fans. This is to say that one would be hard pressed to make the case that the various protesting of the NFL, though I applaud for intent, played much of a role in this outcome. After all, NFL ratings were up last year for the first time in 3 years.

Now, none of this guarantees that Kaepernick will ever again play in the NFL. In fact, part of the settlement may have been that he never plays again. No one knows.  What it does show is that athletes can indeed take a stand for issues larger than themselves and come out on the other end more than validating their role model status. Let’s hope more take note and follow suit.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Frank Robinson: An Overdue Appreciation

Monday, February 11th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

FR1

There are many apt descriptions of the late Frank Robinson, who passed away last week. The one that comes to mind most for me is the single most underappreciated member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

 

The reasons for this are complex. They begin with when he played. Robinson came up in 1956 with the Cincinnati Reds and had an immediate impact, winning the National League (NL) Rookie of the Year award. It was also the first of two consecutive years starting for the NL in the All-Star game.

 

He would never start another All-Star game for the NL.

 

For the better part of his remaining years in the NL, the honor was reserved for the Giants’ Willie Mays, the Braves’ Hank Aaron, and/or the Pirates’ Roberto Clemente. Robinson, though a perennial All-Star, was the odd man out along with the Cubs’ Billy Williams. Add the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle to the fray, and Robinson always found his greatness in the shadow of others.

 

And even before breaking into professional baseball, Robinson was in the shadow of others. His high school basketball teammate was one William Felton “Bill” Russell, who only would become the single greatest winner in team sports history. Several scouts actually thought that Robinson was better than Russell.

 

I suspect another aspect to Robinson’s under-appreciation was the simple fact that he did not believe in taking any sh*&&^% from anybody. In 1961, Robinson was constantly receiving racist threats. So, he decided to buy a gun. When a man made such a threat toward him in a restaurant, Robinson showed the gun and was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. Insult to injury was that no one from the Reds management bothered to come to his aid. So, he spent the night in jail.

 

Be it Frank Robinson in 1961 or Marissa Alexander in 2010, when we, as Black folks attempt to stand our ground, we go to jail!

 

FR2But such injustices never seemed to dissuade Robinson. In fact, they seemed to only give him more resolve. For example, he went on to win the first of two MVP awards in 1961. From a mental standpoint, he may have been the toughest hitter in baseball history. He crowded the plate, knowing full well that contemporary pitching intimidators such as Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson would hit him. As a result, he led the league in being hit by a pitch 6 times.

 

Gibson, a Hall of Famer in his own right, said this about Robinson, “As a rule, I’m reluctant to express admiration for hitters, but I make an exception for Frank Robinson”.

 

After the 1965 season, the Reds ownership decided that Robinson was an “old 30” and traded him to the Baltimore Orioles.

 

It was, and still is today, one of the most impactful trades in baseball history.

 

The Orioles were already an up and coming team. Robinson put them over the top. In 1966, Robinson would winFR4 the Triple Crown (leading the league in homers, RBIs, and average), and both the American League (AL) and World Series MVP, as the Orioles would sweep the defending champion Dodgers in four games. The MVP award made him the only player in history to win the award in both leagues, and he still is today. Injuries to Robinson and a young pitching phenom named Jim Palmer would limit the Orioles’ success in 1967-68. But once healthy again from 1969-1971, and with the addition of southpaw pitcher Mike Cuellar, the Orioles would go on to average 106 wins over the next 3 seasons and win another World Series in 1970 over his former team, the Reds. For whatever reason, the Orioles traded Robinson after the 1971 season and dropped to 80 wins in 1972.

 

Robinson would end his career with 586 home runs, but to truly appreciate this, once again one must understand the era in which Robinson played. It was during the golden age of dominant pitching. In 1956, the National League only had 8 teams and they all used a 4-man pitching rotation. Unlike today’s 5-man expansion diluted rotations, every team had good pitching. Over the next ten years, Robinson would face the Braves’ Warren Spahn, the Phillies’ Robin Roberts, the Cardinals’ Gibson, the Giants had both Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry, and the Dodgers had Drysdale and Sandy Koufax. In other words, the Cubs and Pirates were the only two teams that did not have a future Hall of Fame pitcher or pitchers at the top of their rotation.

 

By the time he got to the AL, expansion had begun to dilute pitching. Nevertheless, most teams still had high-level pitchers at the top of their rotations. The Indians had Louis Tiant, the Tigers had Denny McClain and Mickey Lolich, the Twins had Jim Perry and Bert Blyleven, the A’s had Catfish Hunter and Vida Blue, the White Sox had Wilbur Wood, the Yankees had Mel Stottlemeyer, the Angels and Rangers would eventually acquire Nolan Ryan and Ferguson Jenkins. When he returned to the American League in 1973, he had to face his former Orioles teammates in Palmer, Cuellar, and Dave McNally. Every pitcher noted is either a Hall of Famer, or at the very least, a multi-year All-Star, or 20 game-winner over their careers. Pitching was so dominant that the league decided to lower the mound after the historical 1968 season, to try to help hitters.

 

This is the backdrop of Robinson’s offensive accomplishments. It was the equivalent of what Pedro Martinez was able to do as a pitcher, at the height of the steroid era. Robinson was not feasting off 4th and 5th starters who struggled to get through 5 innings.

 

Robinson was the first Black manager in baseball history and though his record was sub-.500, so too was his talent. There are two years that make the case for him being a better manager than the record may indicate. After management decided to trade away the entire starting rotation, led by perennial All-Star Vida Blue, Robinson led the Giants to 87 wins in 1982.

 

In 1988, after an 0-6 start, Robinson took over the Baltimore Orioles, who would go on to lose its first 21 games, which is still a record to start the season. That team would only win 54 games. The next year, without a dramatic roster overhaul, the Orioles won 87 games under Robinson’s leadership, and he would win the AL Manager of the Year award.

 FR3

But his managerial success would always fade, no doubt due at least in part to his personality. Robinson was never shy about his lack of interest in making friends. Furthermore, like Ted Williams, I am not sure how understanding or encouraging one of the games great players can be of a struggling .202 hitter.

 

There is something profoundly sad about a person who seemingly must die before getting his/her flowers. I am not sure if Robinson much cared if it had no bearing on winning. If you look in the baseball dictionary by the term “Old School”, there will be a picture of Frank Robinson, and I doubt that he would have it any other way.

 

Rest in Peace!

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Giving Credit…Even if Grudgingly…Where Credit is Due

Wednesday, February 6th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of DesigningSports.com

Photo courtesy of DesigningSports.com

Let us cut right to the chase: I hate the New England Patriots with a passion impossible to describe in words.

I am sure that I speak for most folks in America outside of the Northeastern part of the country.

It is a team on my short list of most hated, along with Notre Dame Football, Duke Basketball, the Celtics, and the Dodgers.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a method to the madness of hate. For me, within the larger American sports media culture, any team portrayed as the “good guys”, I hate. It is similar to the epiphany the great James Baldwin had when reflecting on how he grew up rooting for the cowboys in their conflicts with Native Americans. Either gradually or via a light bulb moment, he came to realize that there was no significant difference in how the cowboys, portrayed as the “good guys”, were treating Native Americans, and how America treated Black folks.

Simply put, any Black folks who root for the Cowboys are confused. I will allow you to determine of which Cowboys I speak.

It is within that context that I typically root for the “Villains”.

Having said all of that, if you are still one of the holdouts that cannot bring him or herself to acknowledge the greatness of the Belichik/Brady era New England Patriots, there is something seriously wrong with you.

With Sunday’s win, albeit boring, the Patriots have now tied my Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl titles with six.  Their 3 postseason wins this year give them 37, which allowed them to pass the Dallas Cowboys, who have 35, and my Steelers, with 36, for most of all time.

From an organizational consistency standpoint, a case can still be made for my Steelers, given that their level of greatness stretches back to the 70’s, over the span of multiple coaches and QB’s. From a sustained standpoint, the Niners still have a case, going from Montana/Walsh to Young/Siefert 1981-1994, and hardly skipping a beat. Those Niner teams missed the playoffs twice, had only one losing season, and a flawless 5-0 Super Bowl record.

However, for longevity of a single defining QB/Coach core, it is the New England Patriots and then everyone else. Over 18 years they have NEVER had a losing season and have missed the playoffs only twice. One of those missed playoffs seasons occurred when Brady went down with an injury for the season in the opening game. The team still won 11 games.

Still yet, their haters cling to three primary suggested asterisks: they cheat, they have had a weak division, and the owner, Bob Kraft, is a Trump supporter.

Even if all of this were true, the cumulative effect would not account for nine Super Bowl appearances and six wins in an 18-year span.

Let’s look at the cheating with so called “Spygate”. There is definitely an advantage in football if you know what your opponent is going to do. However, that was exposed before the 2007 season. They went 18-1 that year and have won three more Super Bowls since. To suggest that this has been the primary reason for their success is like saying steroids were the primary reason for Roger Clemons and Barry Bonds’ success. Both suppositions are ludicrous.

The “Deflategate” nonsense does not even warrant the space or time to dismiss.

Then there is “they have been in a weak division”. Has anyone ever considered that the 9-7 Bills, Jets, or Dolphins team would have been 10-6 and a likely playoff team if they just could manage a split with the Patriots? Furthermore, while the Broncos have held their own overall, as well as the Ravens in the playoffs, the Patriots have been as dominant over the best AFC teams over that era as they have been within their own division. During the past 18 years, against the other 4 AFC teams to win Super Bowls, which are the Broncos, Ravens, Steelers, and Colts, the Patriots are 44-20, which is a .687 winning percentage.

DTThe last one is not even football based: The owner, Robert Kraft, is a Trump supporter. This is likely true of most of the other owners as well. They are “Made Men”, even among the 1%, and with that makeup, the single demographic that can cite a tangible reason to have supported Trump: HE PROTECTS THEIR LOOT!

One of the more amazing things about the Patriots is that there has only been one year when one can say that they were clearly the most talented team and that was the 2007/18-1 team.

That team DID NOT win the Super Bowl.

One of the signs of emotional maturity is the capacity to lay aside one’s passions to engage in a reality-based assessment of a situation. Anyone who does this and looks at the Patriots’ body of work over the past 18 years can only come to one conclusion: they are some bad MF’s.

If you cannot do this, it says much more about you than it does them. My suggestion: GROW UP, and give credit where credit is due!

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

The 10-Year Super Bowl Rematch Rule

Sunday, February 3rd, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

SB

Tonight will be the 8th Super Bowl rematch.

There is an interesting pattern that may be a predictor of tonight’s winner.

I call it the 10-year rematch rule, which shows that when the two franchises meet again, at least 10 years later, the loser of the first meeting wins the second meeting.

There are 3 precedents: Washington lost to Miami after the 1972 season, but won after the 1982 season. Pittsburgh beat Dallas after the 1978 season, but lost to the Cowboys after the 1995 season. Philly lost to New England after the 2004 season, but won last year.

When the rematch is inside 10 years, the same team wins both: Steelers over Cowboys after the 1975 and 1978 seasons, Niners over Bengals after the 1981 and 1988 seasons, Cowboys over Bills after the 1992 and 1993 seasons, and the Giants over the Patriots after the 2007 and 2011 seasons.

SB XXXVI (Getty Images/Ringer Illustration)

SB XXXVI (Getty Images/Ringer Illustration)

So, according to this pattern, the Rams will win tonight.

Yes, I’m grasping at straws. It’s been a tough year for #SteelerNation and I have no interest in it being topped off by the Patriots joining us on top of the Super Bowl ring mountain.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Respect, Liberation, and Novak Djokovic

Thursday, January 31st, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

ND

It was not a big surprise that World Tennis Number 1 player Novak Djokovic won the Australian Open. What was surprising was how easily he beat rival and number two ranked Rafael Nadal.

The slaughter was in straight sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-3. It was not as close as even that score indicates.

What is amazing is how dramatically Djokovic has flipped his rivalry with not only Nadal, but also with Roger Federer. He is now 28-25 against Nadal (25-22 against Federer). Those numbers look relatively even, but upon closer examination, it is clear that while the others controlled the early stages of the rivalries, “The Joker” has had the last laugh for some time now.

In the case of Nadal, Djokovic lost 14 of the first 18 matches, and the first 8 on Nadal’s “home surface” of clay. Since then, the record is Djokovic 24-11 and 8-7 on clay. They have met in 25 finals. Nadal won the first five but is 5-15 since. Djokovic owns the longest winning streak at seven straight.

So essentially, Nadal dominated only the first third of the rivalry. It has been Djokovic ever since.

A similar pattern is there against Federer, who won the first four matches over Djokovic and seven of the first nine. Since then, it has been Djokovic with a 23-15 advantage and an overall 13-6 record in finals.

So the question is how did Djokovic so dramatically “flip the script”? I believe the answer lies in a 60 Minutes interview from 2012. When asked about Federer and Nadal, Djokovic readily admitted that he had a great deal of respect for them…”maybe too much”.

BINGO!

Respect is an admirable thing among peers. However, that quality will not serve you well when trying to get out from under someone else’s thumb. In fact, it is an albatross. Consider the story Michael Jordan tells about his first time facing Shaquille O’Neal. He readily admitted being intimidated by Shaq’s size alone. The first time MJ went to the hole, his fear was validated when Shaq put him on the floor. Then Shaq made a crucial mistake: he helped MJ get up. That told Jordan that in spite of his superior power and capacity to do serious harm to him, Shaq had too much respect for him to ever really impose on him the way he could.

Be it in sports or liberation efforts, if you want to get someone’s foot off your neck, respecting them is not the way to go. It must be kept in mind that the oppressor benefits from the current state of affairs and will NEVER voluntarily surrender the place of power. Oh they may appear beneficent and agree to modify the manifestation of the oppression, such as was the case in South Africa. However, rest assured, the domination remains and will until those under the foot rise up.

Various writers and thinkers from Franz Fanon to Naim Akbar and even Malcolm Gladwell have clearly illustrated that a prerequisite to changing one’s objective material condition is the changing of one’s subjective psyche about the condition.

Free your mind, the rest will follow.

I would go as far as to say that hate for your oppressor will get you a much greater return toward liberation than respect for them. At least hate can be used as fuel to do what needs to be done.

Once Djokovic figured this out about Federer and Nadal, in about 2011, he has not looked back. Even elbow surgery about a year ago has not suppressed him. Today he is number one again, and for the second time in his career will go into the French Open holding three major titles, and a chance to be the first to hold all four since Rod Laver did so in 1969. It will be no small task with a slew of clay court specialist standing in his way, to include 2018 finalist Dominic Theim and the defending champion and 11-time winner Rafael Nadal.

None of this would have been possible had Djokovic not changed his mind about his situation and those on top of him. So, for those serious about liberation, in simple terms, stick a middle finger up at the one with their foot on your neck.

You may end up being the public villain, as Djokovic often is, but you will also be a lot closer to where you want to be.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

So Much for Alabama or Duke Beating Pro Teams

Sunday, January 27th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

AD

While I was away, two things happened that hopefully finally put to rest a narrative that never had any credence to begin with: the utterly ridiculous notion that a great college football or basketball team could beat the worst pro teams.

Clemson took the big bad Alabama Crimson Tide to the woodshed.

An unranked Syracuse team went on the road into Cameron Indoor to beat Duke.

This is not to take anything away from Alabama or Duke. The high-level performance of both programs is the gold standard for greatness….at the college level. Leave what is already great alone and stop trying to make it something that it fundamentally is not.

I confess that this is a fun bar room discussion. However, you will have to have been in the bar too long if you actually believe a team of college athletes, even the most talented, at 18-22 years of age, are going to beat a team of GROWN ASS MEN, who play the game for a living.

2001 Miami Hurricanes

2001 Miami Hurricanes

Nevertheless, for entertainment purposes only, let us go with the bar room vibe for a minute. The 2001 Miami Hurricanes is the greatest college football team of my lifetime. Consider their depth at running back alone: Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, and Frank Gore. Other future NFL stars included Johnathan Vilma, DJ Williams (his father and uncle were teammates of mine), Ed Reed, Vince Wilfork, Bryant McKinnie, Jeremy Shockey, and Kellen Winslow Jr. So, with that talent, how can I be so sure that it would not have stood a chance against the Carolina Panthers or Detroit Lions, who won a combined three games between them that year? Two words: Ken Dorsey. He was their QB and very good at the COLLEGE LEVEL. However, he was a total dud at the pro level. In other words, he could not beat anyone once he did become a pro. Why on Earth would you believe that he could beat pro teams while he was still in college?

On even the greatest and most talent-rich college team, maybe a 3rd of the starters become NFL players of any note. Simply put, most college starters, even at the highest level, simply are not good enough to play professionally. But you believe that they would beat the pros?

GTFOOHWTBS!

LA

Let us consider basketball. The gold standard historically is without question the Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) era UCLA Bruins. He was there from 1966-69 and I am positive that we will never see another team dominate college basketball as it did. The worst team in the NBA during the 1968-69 season was the Phoenix Suns, winning only 16 games. Yet that team had seven players average double-figures, led by a future Hall of Famer named Gail Goodrich. UCLA would not have stood a chance. Jabbar was going to be Jabbar. Pros could not have stopped him as a freshman. However, they would not beat pro teams.

The only exception to this rule…and it would only be for one game, would be baseball. A college baseball team with a young stud like Roger Clemons from Texas or Sandy Koufax out of Cincinnati, on the rare days he had his control at that stage of his development, could shut down a professional batting lineup. However, no college team will have more than one.

I guess what baffles me most of all is why do we even care? Why this obsession with forcing apples to compete with oranges? Can’t we just appreciate the greatness of Serena Williams and the Lady UConn Huskies basketball team without asking could they beat men?

Greatness is too rare to be subjected to steroid-laced hypotheticals for our unquenchable amusement.  Alabama is the the greatest college football dynasty ever. Duke has been the most high performing college basketball program for 30 years. That is good enough for me.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports

Ode to the Wizard of Baltimore

Sunday, January 6th, 2019

by Gus Griffin

gus

 

 

 

 

ON

If you want to know one of the reasons why six of the eight Black NFL head coaches were fired this year, you can consult with ESPN reporter and NFL apologist Chris Mortenson, who always has the league’s back in his “reporting” on the issue. Or you could ask yourself why there was never any groundswell among the professional sports punditry class about finding the next Ozzie Newsome to be your team’s general manager?

After 16 years at the helm of the Baltimore Ravens, the Hall of Fame Tight End will be retiring.

His resume includes the following:

  • 200 wins for a 54% winning percentage
  • 10 playoff appearances
  • 6 division titles
  • 2 Super Bowl wins
  • 4 of his draft picks are either current or surefire future Hall of Famers in Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Jonathan Ogden, and Terrell Suggs

This is impressive in and of itself. It is even more impressive when one considers that the Ravens have never had an upper-echelon quarterback. Joe Flacco had an upper-echelon season in 2012 and much to the chagrin of Raven fans, parlayed it into a huge and crippling contract extension. However, no one has, nor ever will, mistake him for Johnny Unitas.

Nevertheless, the Newsome-built Ravens have gone toe-to-toe with one of the most stable and consistent franchises in all of sports: MY PITTSBURGH STEELERS. Not only have they more than held their own, but also, in the process, they have created the best rivalry in the NFL, and one of the best in all of sports.

So why hasn’t there been any groundswell to find the next Ozzie Newsome to be the GM of an NFL team? This is where the answers get complicated. Yes, the same ole racial bias is at play on some level or another. However, I suspect that the debt proof model of the NFL is at least as much at play here. In just about any other business, if you show the persistent incompetence that Detroit, Oakland, Washington, Cleveland etc. have shown over the past 20 years, you would either go bankrupt and/or out of business. At the very least, you would leave no stone unturned to fix the problem…even if that means hire Black folks to run the show.

Not in the NFL. Incompetence is no obstacle to profitability and as a result, teams keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. In fact, a case can be made that the uninterrupted profits actually undermine innovative, out of the box thinking, and embolden outdated bigoted attitudes. After all, what price is there to pay? One need go no further than to look at the well-intended but largely ineffective protesting of the league over its treatment of Colin Kaepernick.

The other factor that I believe gets far too little attention is the notion that merely putting Black faces in what have traditionally been White places will in of itself improve the situation. I believe that there is enough evidence both inside and outside of sports to argue that, at best, such is an incomplete solution. It places too much emphasis on individual character (which obviously is important) and too little on the need for systemic and structural changes.  It is akin to putting clean wine into a dirty bottle or lipstick on a pig, or whatever analogy one wants to use. The bottom line is that such cosmetics do not fundamentally change the situation. They merely mask the problem.  If we are sincere in our diversity efforts, be they within sports, politics, business, etc., we must ask ourselves these two fundamental questions: 1) is the issue individual or systemic? If one’s conclusion is that the issues are individual, then question 2 is not necessary. One simply gets better people. However, if the answer to question 1 is systemic, then that brings about question 2, which is: do we really want to change the system or simply improve our own individual place within the system?

As good as Ozzie Newsome has been with the Ravens, there would even be a limit to how much 32 of him as NFL GM’s could change the system. Why? Because they would need the support of owners. It is at this point when some will say that the answer is more Black owners.  Pump the breaks on that as well. Of the few Black folks who have acquired the capital to buy an NFL team, do you really think that their mindsets are dramatically different from the current status quo NFL owners? If it were, could he/she have gotten in a position to buy a team?

BCCapitalism is predatory and therefore most of those who have amassed a significant amount of capital are predators. Short of vulgar opportunism, such mindsets have little interests in social justice in general and particularly how many Black coaches are hired and fired.

So bid a fond farewell and richly deserved retirement to Ozzie Newsome. He has been the single most underappreciated General Manager in all of sports for the better part of the last 15 years. But if you think that more Ozzie Newsomes would have automatically stopped what happened on “Black Monday” you have grossly underestimated what this game is all about.

 

Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports