sportsbeatnow

As someone who grew up around 4 brothers and 1 sister (she is the oldest) our dad was instrumental in us partcipating in sports. We played all sports including bowling and hockey, not your typical sports growing up in the inner city. Fast forward to present day. Sports is my life. For the last 10 years, I have covered all the major sports beginning as a writer for the largest African American weekly. A year later, was promoted to Sports Editor. In between, produced both television and radio while occasionally hosting my own show. My philosophy is very simple: Sports is about two things. Opinions and facts. Everyone has an opinion. Some are right and some are downright fanatical. Substantiate your opinion with facts and it would be difficult to argue a point. Which brings me to the state of sports and how we evaluate the performance of athletes today. No athlete is above criticism based on a performance that does not live up to the teams or fans expectations. Just do not get “personal”. How many sports talk host or the callers they give air time to make personal comments that have absolutley nothing to do with the players failure? I understand the passion and disappointment fans feel when their team lets them down. But do you have to resort to calling them derogatory and vulgur names? We have seen in soccer matches in Europe where fans have resorted to violence between fans and players. Players have been murdered as a result of losing matches. We have seen fans attack a first base coach during a baseball game a couple of years ago. How many times during the year do fans run on the field during a game? It’s a result of feeling fans have the right to express the frustration they feel rooting for their team year after year, with nothing to show for it. That is understood. But let’s keep it real. Go to the games. Yell, scream and boo when your player or team fail in the clutch. Call the talk shows and vent that “he should have scored” when he was thrown out because he failed to run hard out of the box. Just don’t get personal. The importance of your opinion gets lost. Even if you substantiate it with facts…Let’s Blog: La Troy Hawkins is this years version of Kyle Farnsworth. His stats after the 11-10 loss to Baltimore are horrendous. 24 ip, 25 h, 18 runs all earned. With the Yankees grooming Joba Chamberlain to start, the middle relief will be their weakness. It’s a catch 22 that GM Brian Cashman is in. With the injuries and inconsistent starts by the young guys, Cashman has no choice at this point but to see how Joba can help the team in his new role. Only time will tell. It would help if the bats can start scoring runs on a more consistent basis…There’s no question that wins cure all. But don’t tell me that race is not a factor when and if minorities get hired or fired. First, how many African American coaches are there in division 1 football and basketball? How many in football and baseball? When one is hired in any of those sports, how many interviews do they have to go through before they get hired? How many times has the excuse of “he has no experience” been used when he is passed by? How many of his Caucasian counterparts get hired with “no experience”? Ty Willingham, hired as the first African American head coach at Notre Dame was the first head coach in team history to win 10 games in his very first year. He was also the first head coach fired before his contract was up. His successor, Charlie Weis won  9 games his first year, 10 in his second year. Many said he was merely coaching players recruited by Willingham. Weis’ third year turned out to be the worst in school history as they lost 9 games. For the first time in 43 years, they would lose to Navy. Still, Weis gets a 10 year contract extension. Hmm…Race, like sex and religion are topics that folks are not comfortable discussing. Just don’t be so quick to dismiss the possibility that it is a reason for some of the decisions that are made. Look at the stats. The facts speak for themselves…That’s Blog For Now!!!  

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