Hello, Dallas/Fort Worth - Let's Talk Sports!

I had a very strange evening this week.

A guy I worked with at FOX for several years had been very sick.  His family spread the word over the weekend that they'd love to have anyone come by and see him, but we should do it NOW.

Me and a couple of other former work buddies went over to see Max at the hospital around 8pm.  When we arrived we were told that they'd removed all the machines. 

Max died about 15 minutes after we got there. 

In that final moment, surrounded by his wife and his son and his brother and some of his dearest friends, his sister-in-law started singing "Amazing Grace" and we all joined in.  It was so sad, but also so sweet.  I definitely went there preparing to see him near the end, but I certainly didn't expect to be there when he took his last breath.  I'm not going to lie and say that this was an extremely close friend.  Max and I worked together for 8 years, and in the 6 years since I left FOX we'd seen each other maybe 3 or 4 times.  Mostly just a few facebook posts lately.  So you'd think that I would feel strange being there with his closest friends and family at the end, but somehow I'm glad I was there.

The truth is, I wasn't exactly sure if I should even go over there in the first place.  And afterward, I still wasn't 100% sure why I did.  I've decided that it's really two things:

1) Some jobs are like families. 

If you've never had one of those jobs, this may be hard to understand.  But in a newsroom you're under the gun ALL the time and these are the people you go to battle with.  That's probably a bad analogy, but it's intense time together and often long hours and there are wins and losses all the time.  Perhaps a sports team is a more apt comparison.  The point is, you go through a lot in a short period of time - and all of it together.  There's a special bond there.  Case in point - Max worked in Baltimore for a few years before coming to Dallas.  On the night he died, the station he worked for there did a very touching tribute to him on the air.  Again - he had only worked in Baltimore for a short time and it was TWENTY years ago.  These bonds endure.

2) Max was special. 

I first met him when I was working for a small TV station making once-a-week visits to the "big city."  He always greeted me with a smile.  He learned my name.  And when I took a job with him at FOX he became a friend and a cheerleader.  Any time I did something on-air Max would come in the next day and tell me how great it was (even when it wasn't) and he would always tell me that his wife Marla was my biggest fan.  Max was honest and fair, sweet and just so genuine.  Ask around - it's hard to find anyone who can remember seeing Max in a bad mood.

Look, we all know Max wasn't perfect.  Nobody is.  Anyone who knows Max knows that he had his struggles.  But I never once saw him take his problems out on anyone else or try to point fingers.  Max was kind.  Max was caring.  And when Max laughed, his entire body was in on the joke - those high shoulders shook and he almost looked like he had a bobblehead.

You never really know what mark you leave on someone and vice versa.  Watching the outpouring from friends, coworkers and viewers it's obvious that Max had a big impact on those who knew him.  These last few days have taught me that he clearly meant a lot to me, as well. 

And yesterday another former co-worker texted me with this:  "Was at Max's house today.  This photo had a prominent place in his office."

And now I know EXACTLY why I spent Monday night with Max.  And mostly I just wish I had spent more.  Farewell, old friend.

A Farewell to Bowling

Tuesday, August 12^th will be my last day at USBC.  I’ve accepted a position with AT&T in Internal Communications.  They want to change the way they talk to their employees and they think I can help.  Before I go… I’d like to say a few words to my bowling friends.

Six years ago I didn’t know there was oil on the lanes.  I did my best to sound like I knew what I was talking about on-camera, but behind the scenes I was asking a lot of questions and soaking up as much information as I could.  Bowlers and proprietors all over the country were very welcoming and helpful and I thank you all for that.

To those who have worked for USBC – fight on!  Your passion is contagious.  It’s easy for those of us who come from outside the sport to enter into the campus and get a bit lost in the politics and the association structure and get discouraged by what can seem like an impossible task.  Your love for what you do is the best asset the company has.  It makes believers out of those of us who didn’t grow up with bowling.   You make us all want to do better.

And don’t YOU get discouraged!  Yes, membership may be falling, but it’s NOT YOUR FAULT.  Most of the outside world has no idea what you’re up against.  These are the people who ask “what am I getting for my $20?”  They don’t understand that more than half of that money never gets to Arlington.  They see their fees go up but don’t realize that it’s been nearly a decade since USBC asked for a dues increase.  Never forget that you give them the standardization of the sport, rules, protection of their money, certified averages, tournaments, Team USA, a scholarship program, coaching, live streaming of events, continuing research, support of wonderful charities… the list goes on and on - and you do it all for nine dollars!  It’s the best deal I’ve ever seen and those who don’t see it simply aren’t paying attention.  You’re always going to hear from the vocal complainers, but I’ve been in bowling centers all over the nation and there are so many people who light up when they see that logo on my shirt.  Keep doing what you’re doing for those people.

I hear it all over the country – “how do we fix bowling?”  The truth is, that’s the wrong question.  Bowling doesn’t need to be fixed.  The game is fine... it's the perception that has to change.  You just need to find a way to let the rest of the world see bowling the way you see bowling.  The rest will take care of itself.  I should know.  You convinced me.

And finally, to the bowlers – somehow this is the hardest part.  I feel like an honorary member of a very special club.  I’ve been down there on the lanes with you in your finest and worst moments.  I’ve shared victories and failures… dinners and drinks… card tables and the grind of the road with you.  You always made me feel like I belonged in those moments.  Your honest answers when the camera was on, and your friendship when the camera was off, made all of my work better.  You welcomed me with open arms and for that I will always be grateful.

So now it’s on to a new chapter, but don’t worry, bowling… I’ll be watching.  Thank you so much for allowing me into your world for a little while.  I know I’m better off for it.

Class Warfare

If you're a true Longhorn football fan, two things are probably true today:

1) You've been keeping an eye on the happenings of National Signing Day.
2) You've been hearing a lot about how Texas has underperformed in this year's recruting war.

Fear not! I'm here to tell you that all is well in Longhorn Nation.

First, the history: Texas always has a good recruiting class. It's something we've hung our hats on for a while now and for good reason. 6 of the last 7 years Texas came out of National Signing Day with one of the top 5 classes in the country according to Rivals.com. It's one of the reasons Mack Brown has hung on. Coach of the month for February. We've all heard the jokes.

So this year, as the dust settles and the letters are signed, Rivals has Texas #23 in the country while Scout.com has the Horns at 22.

So you see the obnoxious posts from your Sooner and Aggie friends about how Texas' reign at the top of the recruiting heap is finally over and you start to sweat a little. It makes some sense. The Longhorns haven't exactly been flying high on the football field the last couple of years. Maybe it's catching up with them?

Dig a little deeper.

The Horns aren't ranked lower because the good players aren't choosing Texas. They're ranked lower because they don't have that many scholarships to give this year.

Texas only has 15 available scholarships (largely due to LAST year's #2-ranked bumper crop of 28 recruits, most of whom you haven't seen on the field yet).  The consensus top 5 classes this year had an average of 26.5 scholarships to give.  And the truth is, Texas is making the most of the spots they DO have available.

Recruits are assigned a "star" level. 1-star kids don't get to Texas. 5-star kids are wanted by everyone. According to Scout.com the average Texas recruit this year earns 3.67 stars. Only 7 schools in the nation have a higher average. That's higher than Texas A&M and it's higher than Oklahoma. Rivals has the average at 3.60 stars good for 9th best and still ahead of our neighbors.

It's also important to look at position rankings. Sticking with Scout's numbers Texas is bringing in the 10th-rated offensive guard in the country, the 10th-rated outside linebacker, too. The #6 quarterback in the country is a 6'4", 220-pound dual-threat, run-first kid with a big arm named Tyrone Swoopes. He'll be in Austin this year. The top center in America, Darius James is now a Longhorn. And the #2-ranked offensive tackle (that oh so important QB protector) is a 5-star, 6'6" stud named Kent Perkins. Welcome to the team.

It stands to reason that if the Longhorns had another 5 scholarships to give they'd be in the top 10. If they had 10 more, they'd be right there at the top again.

So chin up, Longhorn fans! Aggies and Sooners may be talking smack, but if you know how to read the numbers, you'll be able to give it right back.

An open (and chilly) letter

Dear City of Minneapolis Department of Petty Annoyances,

This is the 4th time I've visited your fair city over the past year and a half.  I've come to appreciate your non-threatening downtown and I make a point of patronizing a local restaurant every trip. (And by that I mean eating there, not pretending to be nice to it.)

Last night I pulled into a metered parking space in weather usually reserved for a Morgan Freeman penguin voiceover.  I took two bucks out of my wallet and walked a half block to one of your machines.  Let me reiterate here: the wind chill was reported to be -20 degrees.

When I got to the machine to pay, the machine informed me that it only takes coins and credit cards. I was either out of silver or it was frozen to my thighs so I was forced to remove a life-saving glove and pull out my AmEx.

After the 3rd consecutive dipping of my card (and there should be NO dipping in this weather) the machine informed me that it was incapable of reading the stripe.  Seeing as how snow blindness makes most any reading difficult, I'm not surprised.  But unless your meter maids are riding around on polar bears, I'm sure we can all agree not to prosecute, yes?

So imagine my surprise after pumping money into your lethargic winter economy (talk about frozen assets) to find a parking citation on my windshield.  How did it even get there?  Did a snow owl screech down from a nearby building like delivering a letter to Harry Potter?

And $42?  Is that because the city needs money for the cleanup and removal of yeti droppings?

I'm hereby informing you that I will not be sending you $42.  I'm keeping 1 dollar of that total for every degree below comfortable that I was subjected to on this trip.

You owe me 20 bucks.

Party Crashers

Six months ago the "powers that be" voted to abolish the BCS system as we know it and move toward a playoff.  That new structure begins with the 2014-2015 season which gives the BCS folks a couple more years to see just how screwed up they can make things - and boy are they taking this opportunity seriously.

A system that was designed to reward the best 8 or 10 teams in the country with more money, higher-profile bowl games and the prestige that goes with it has failed so miserably that you would barely recognize one of the games.

The national championship game is fine.  #1 vs. #2.  Just as it should be.  Oregon and Kansas State will play in the Fiesta Bowl.  Perfect.  #4 and #5.  Florida is ranked 3rd and they're in as an "at-large."  No problem.  Stanford is ranked 6th and won the PAC-19 or whatever.  All good.  The top 6 teams are in.  The next 5, however, are not.

Never mind for a moment that Florida State has two losses and is ranked lower than 5 teams who will NOT get a BCS game.  At least Florida State won one of the "real" conferences.  Never mind that Louisville is ranked 21st in the latest polls or that the Big East really doesn't belong among the "real" conferences.  They, also, won an automatic spot fair and square.  Never mind that Ohio State was ineligible this year and instead we got an unranked Wisconsin team as the Big Ten champions even though there are two Big Ten teams ranked higher than Wisconsin.  Again, the Big Ten champs get a spot.  Those automatic qualifying conferences get a representative.

No, this post is about the final at-large selection.  Congratulations to the folks in Miami who get the #12 Florida State Seminoles versus the #15 Northern Illinois Huskies. Wake me up when that grease fire has been put out.

You see, it seems that the BCS has an obscure clause to allow a team like Northern Illinois to crash the party.  IF a non-qualifying conference has a conference champion that is the highest-ranked team among non-qualifiers... IF that team is ranked in the top 16 in the BCS poll... and IF that team is ranked higher than one of the automatic qualifying conference champs (in this case Louisville AND Wisconsin fit that bill) then this little upstart team gets a BCS bid.  It's hilarious, really.  You can only allow a joke team in if ANOTHER joke team is already in via a weak conference title. 

I've heard a LOT of complaining about this selection, but it really wasn't a SELECTION.  The rules made it so that Northern Illinois HAD to be taken.  So probably the rule is bad, I get that.  But part of the problem here is that it should never have happened because Northern Illinois shouldn't be ranked anywhere near the top 16. 

I'm not hating on the Huskies here.  If they had gone undefeated this year, they'd have a really good claim.  But they didn't.  They lost to Iowa - one of only two teams from real conferences that they played this year.  Iowa was one of the worst teams in the Big Ten, finishing 4-8 overall and 2-6 in the conference.  The other team from an automatic conference that NIU beat?  Kansas.  The Jayhawks went 1-11 this season.  This Northern Illinois team also squeaked out a 1-point win over Army (2-9 this year).

Voters in the human polls are dropping the ball here.  This "selection" doesn't happen if Northern Illinois is ranked 17th.  How can you possibly think that a team that had to score in the final five minutes in order to beat Kansas and Army and who LOST to Iowa is a top 15 team nationally?  Because they won the MAC?  They needed two overtimes to beat Kent State to do it.  Depending on which source you use to calculate strength of schedule, Northern Illinois either played the 100th or 123rd toughest schedule this year.  Laughable.

There's another BCS rule out there that says that you can't take more than two teams from the same conference.  Too bad for the teams ranked 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th since they're all from the SEC.  And too bad for Oklahoma who would have been the next logical at-large selection due to that rule.  But Georgia is the team that gets the worst of it here.

The Georgia Bulldogs are ranked #7.  They battled Alabama in the SEC Championship game and came up about 6 feet short as time ran out on the 2-yard-line going in for the winning score.  They were that close to playing for a national championship and now they get the Capital One Bowl.  Why?  Because of some obscure rules that never really made sense, but it's not until you see them in action that you understand the true damage they cause.

This year the rules cost Georgia (or Oklahoma) about $12 million.  That's the difference in payouts between a BCS bowl and where the Bulldogs and Sooners will land.  But more than that, you've cheated the players, coaches and fans.  Moreso than ever you're creating the culture that WHO you play doesn't matter... just don't lose.  Why would good teams want to schedule other good teams?  It makes no sense anymore.  So get used to teams like Texas A&M scheduling teams like Division I-AA Sam Houston State.  It's better to play the sisters of the poor and get your wins than to test yourself against better competition... and that sucks.

Luckily this will all be over soon.  But in the meantime we have to suffer through #12 vs. a dubious #15 in one of the sport's premiere contests while the teams ranked 7th-11th are left scratching their heads.  Brutal.  There's only one year left, guys.  Change some rules and try and get it right once.  That would be a great way to go out.

Lance, France & Bicycle Pants

It's official.  Lance Armstrong never existed.  At least that's what the world of cycling would have you believe.

Lance has been stripped of his seven Tour De France titles, a lifetime ban has been imposed, and the cycling big wigs couldn't be happier about it.  They've been waiting for this day for a long time.

Let's be clear here.  Lance did it.  He doped.  He cheated and I'm not excusing that here.  But I do find it interesting how in this case the cycling world is laying the hammer down in a before unprecedented way.  Why?  Because Americans aren't supposed to win out there.  Plain and simple.  Before Lance came along, only one American had emerged victorious at the Tour De France in the 100-year history of the event.  That was Greg LeMond and he had to overcome attacks from his own TEAMMATE to get it done.  That teammate being a Frenchman.

As far back as anyone can remember there have been cries in Europe that Lance Armstrong was cheating.  This man had the audacity to come over here and WIN?  The Euros wanted blood - both literally and figuratively.  He was tested more than most lab rats and nobody can provide a single failed sample.  It's the reason Lance can walk away from all of this shaking his head and throwing up his hands.

The thing is, though, EVERYBODY did it.  The official Tour De France record book will now read "no winner" for 1999-2005.  Why not just give it to the guy who finished second you ask?  Well, he's also tied to doping.  Yes, all seven years.  No, not the same guy.  In fact, 20 of the 21 top finishers from those seven years have SOME sort of link to doping. 

Spaniard Alberto Contador won the Tour in 2009 and 2010.  In that last race Contador tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs DURING THE RACE.  That title was supposedly re-assigned to a guy from Luxembourg, but Contador is still listed as winner of both races on the Tour's official website.

Denmark's Bjarne Riis is still listed as the 1996 winner even though he admitted to doping for that Tour after the fact.

In fact, only one other person has ever actually had his title stripped and taken out of the record book.  That would be American Floyd Landis.  And the punchline?  They gave THAT title in 2007 to Contador (he of the previously-reported failed drug test.)

It's pretty simple, really.  If your crime is that you cheated, there will be some sort of consequence, but mostly a slap on the wrist.  If your crime is that you're AMERICAN and you cheated?   Off with his head!

Imagine someone walked up to you in your 20's and said "everyone you're in competition with in your life is cheating.  Here's a pill.  It's the same one they're all taking.  It's illegal... but if you take it, all of your dreams will come true."  No matter what your calling in life.  Take this pill and you'll be the Super Bowl MVP.  Take this pill and you'll be Bob Costas.  Take this pill and you'll be a rock star... or the world's best golfer... or the creator of the iphone.

Again, I'm not saying this excuses the behavior, but can you honestly say you wouldn't think about taking that pill?  When the cycling world is faced with that question, just about everyone takes the pill - and there really isn't even anyone denying that fact.

Cycling is a mess and everyone is cheating.  Some, however, are treated differently.

When they announced their decision, Pat McQuaid (the head of cycling's governing body) said, "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling and he deserves to be forgotten in cycling."

The problem for McQuaid is that Armstrong fits in PERFECTLY with cycling... well, except for one small detail:  he's American.

OUch: A History Lesson

As the horror unfolded at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday, my brother-in-law stood next to me jumping out of his skin.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing in his second trip to the Red River Rivalry, and I think he was equally perplexed at how stoic I was - the biggest Longhorn fan he knew wasn't going crazy and yelling at the field.  I just stood there with a dazed look on my face because as awful as it was... I had seen it before.

Now that the dust has settled I hear my friends and fellow fans calling for Mack Brown's head and saying things like "I thought there was no way we were capable of being THAT bad."  Those people simply haven't been paying attention.

Since the 2000 season Texas has lost to Oklahoma by 38 or more points FOUR TIMES.  Yes.  In those 13 games the Longhorns are only 3-10 and four of them were as bad or worse as what you saw on Saturday.

Let's put that into a little bit of perspective.  Since the Longhorns first ran out onto a football field in 1893 they have lost games by 38 points or more just 18 times.  Ever.  They've played 1,275 games.  And four of those 18 have happened recently... and to the same team.

I know what you're thinking: it goes both ways.  Actually, in this case it doesn't.

The 2005 Texas team bound for a National Championship beat the Sooners by 33.  That matched the biggest blowout for our side in the series' history.  The Horns also beat OU by 32 in 1970 - another national championship season.  Not bad, but those are the best teams in our history laying down a thumping.

So Texas has never beaten Oklahoma by more than 33 points and they needed to have the best team in the country to do it.  Oklahoma has beaten Texas by more than 33 points nine times.

Texas is still well ahead of OU all-time, being on the better end of a 59-43-5 overall record, and while style points don't count in the win column, they certainly help to shape public opinion.  It can be easy sometimes to brush off a bad day and stare straight ahead like I was doing on Saturday, but a little indignation may be ok this time.  It's important to look at the history... so that you don't unwittingly repeat it.

By the way, the worst loss the Longhorns ever suffered came in 1997 when UCLA came into Austin and laid down a 66-3 thumping on Texas, a game forever known on the 40 acres as "Rout 66."  John Mackovic was fired at the end of that season.