Oden's injury tells a different story this time around

In 2007, when I first saw the news that Greg Oden would miss his entire rookie season with a knee injury, I fell to the floor like I'd been shot.

I screamed.

I pounded my fists against the ground.

I cursed in front of my journalism professor.

In short, I was angry. Angry at the world, at the basketball gods, at everything.

I was angry at the thought of the Blazers' number 1 pick being a bust. Angry at the uncertain outlook the Blazers' season now had. Angry at the concept of a year full of "Sam Bowie" quips.

It was simply a searing, unrelenting anger at it all.

But last night, as I received the news that Greg Oden would miss the rest of the 2009-2010 season with a knee injury, I had a different reaction:

I sat quietly, hung my head, and felt nothing but emptiness.

There was no anger this time. Only a sense of unfairness, and sadness.

Man Blazer fans are feeling the same way right now. "How could this happen to Greg?" We're wondering. "After everything he's been through, after everything that has happened in the last 3 years, why? It's not fair, not fair at all."

Unlike what we felt two years ago, the emotions we're feeling now aren't anger, but regret that something so bad could happen to someone like Greg Oden. As bad as Blazer fans may feel about the ramifications on the team, fans are feeling even worse about how this could happen to Greg.

To me, those feelings - regret, sadness, sympathy - speak volumes about just how important Greg Oden is to the Portland Trail Blazers, and how much he means to us fans.

Two years ago we didn't know Greg Oden well, and when he was injured we quickly let anger flow through us, because that was all we had. It's easy to get angry over someone you don't know.

But in the time since then, we've gotten to know Oden. We saw his heart, strength, and determination in coming back from knee surgery. We saw his commitment to returning to the team and helping the Blazers get better. We saw him strive to improve his game. And we slowly saw his wonderful personality shine through again. With every step he took in his return, we saw the dedicated person that Oden is.

He earned a spot in the hearts of Blazer fans.

And that's what made it hurt so much to see him writing on the floor in pain Saturday night. Here was a young man who did everything right: he bided his time, waited his turn, worked hard every day, and was finally starting to reap the benefits of his long journey back. We were there along with him every step of the way, cheering him on and encouraging him, because, well, he's family now.

Seeing him clutch his knee in agony was one giant gut punch for Blazer fans.

My friend Alex called me shortly after it was announced that Oden would miss the rest of the season. We talked about how the Blazers will adjust and any moves they should make. Then he asked me whether I thought it would be wise to extend Oden's contract next year, considering his number of injuries.

I immediately answered yes.

The feelings that Blazer fans have right now after his injury prove that he is someone worth keeping around.

The fact that we can be so heartbroken over this, instead of feeling angry or jaded, shows that on some level we have acknowledged the tremendous strides Oden has made, and the great things that are still in store. We've seen Greg grow both in his game and personality, and we've seen the beginnings of a franchise cornerstone.

The situation is making us feel so empty because we know how great things are going to be. We've seen the first steps being made.

Right now it's a devastating setback, but Blazer fans know that Oden will be worth the wait ... again. It may kill us inside to not see him on the court this year, and we may be filled with doubt and uncertainty until he takes the court again, but there's a reason we're feeling sad instead of angry.

We've seen Greg Oden experience daunting obstacles before and emerge from them. We know he can do it again.

We're not angry that Oden will never enjoy amazing heights in his career - we're sad because he has to wait a little longer to reach them.

You say goodbye, I say hello

March 2006:
"Steven, we really liked your column. Would you be interested in writing one for us every week? We’re thinking of calling it Sandberg On Sports..."

How could I have ever imagined the amazing future I had in store?

It seems like such a long time ago that I was sitting in my freshman dorm at Gonzaga reading those words. I had recently watched the 2006 Gonzaga Bulldogs drop a heartbreaker to UCLA in the Sweet Sixteen, and wrote a column about the mood in my dorm. I submitted it to the school paper, “The Gonzaga Bulletin,” and they liked it so much they brought me on board full-time.

At first I was just happy to be providing a different perspective within the pages of the newspaper, and wrote about things like why April is a good month for baseball, or Andre Agassi’s final match. But as I grew older and became more involved with the school, I started to use my space to highlight or comment on things that mattered to people. At the beginning of my third year, my former editor, Tim Bross, challenged me to dive in and take a stand on important topics instead of sitting on the sidelines. If something needed criticizing, then criticize it, but if something was worthy of praise, praise it. As a result, I became a better writer, because through my work after Tim’s challenge I realized that a good columnist can’t be a blatant homer or overly-critical; they just need to write how they truly feel. No gimmicks, no phoned-in topics, no attempts to stir up controversy; just write what you really mean, and mean what you say.

That column became my identity; a large part of who I was. Other students got involved with Gonzaga by joining service groups, devoting themselves to their studies, or other activities. I got involved by commenting on Gonzaga through the lens of sports, and having those thoughts printed in the student newspaper. There were always stories to tell, people who deserved recognition, or acts that should be praised or condemned, and my goal was to use my column to help the Gonzaga community by allowing it to be aware of these stories.

I thought Josh Heytvelt and Theo Davis deserved a second chance. I thought that the women’s basketball team’s response to Rachel Kane’s knee injury was inspiring. I thought that certain actions by some students in the Kennel Club were getting out of line. People may not have always agreed with me, but that’s not the point. My goal was to use my opinion in order to get others to look around and decide for themselves.

At Gonzaga, my column helped define me.

As I began this summer 2009, I hadn’t been a full-time columnist in over a year. This Web site, which had been used for republishing my columns from the Bulletin, had gone largely unused for quite some time. But as the days of summer rolled on, and my search for a television reporter job took longer and longer, I found myself feeling empty inside. As each day went by without a job offer, I became more and more frustrated. I needed something to help fill the void I was feeling during this transitional period of my life.

So that’s when I starting writing again. My columns became a blog. And I realized how much I missed doing this.

Days, weeks, and months went by without a job, but I wasn’t as disheartened as I was before, because I had devoted myself to this blog, trying to make it the best that it could be. My blog became a sanctuary for me during a time when so many things were still uncertain in my life. With every post, column, or anecdote, I was having a blast, and it was all coming back to me how important my sportswriting was to the kind of person that I am. With a sense of purpose, I pushed on, trying to write something every day, but more importantly, having fun with it all. Writing here for the past few months helped me find some peace, and was an outlet for my creativity during a time when I needed it most. I’ve had so much fun.

But sometimes life gives you a pitch you weren’t expecting: I finally found a reporter job.

I was recently hired to be a news reporter for KDRV Newswatch 12 in Medford, Ore., and I couldn’t be more excited. After months of searching, I’ve finally found a job, and I’ve finally become a reporter (for the record, it’s in NEWS, not SPORTS. You don’t know how many times I’ve had to clear that one up with friends and relatives. And yes, I do know things that aren’t sports-related). I’m going to be moving to Medford soon, and within a few months my fiancé will finish her student-teaching and join me there, when my professional and personal lives will finally come together and I begin a new life.

It’s everything I’ve wanted, but with a drawback. A full-time reporting gig in a new city plus wedding plans and future marriage doesn’t leave me much time for blogging.

Unfortunately, this site is going to take a bit of a hit.

Wait! Don’t take me off your bookmarks just yet! And don’t stop checking for updates! I’m not stepping out of the game completely, but there is going to be a significant drop-off in the amount that I write. With a job and a burgeoning new life, I won’t be able to write as frequently as I used to.

Invariably in life, things change. It’s a part of growing up. For me, I’m starting a career and, soon, a family. I’m going to devote myself completely to those things. That means that other aspects of my life, including my writing for this blog, are going to change.

That being said, I want to let you know that I am determined to continue with this site, even in a small way. I may only write once a week or less, but I am still going to write. My tone, subject matter, and excitement won’t change one bit, only the frequency of my updates.

As Tom Hudson confusingly once said “I’m saying so long. But I’m still going to be around.”


So now I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to the people who helped me achieve all the success I’ve had, both in television and in sportswriting.

First, this Web site wouldn’t even be here without Travis Lucian, who encouraged me to cut costs by taking my stuff to Blogspot instead of wasting money on a domain name. I owe you big time, buddy.

To all of GUTV, for giving me the best four years of my life working in that studio. Dan Garrity, thanks for always believing in me despite all the odds. Phil Taylor, thank you so much for all of the perspective and insight you gave me when I was sitting in your office. Mike Lavelle, thanks for pushing to get more basketball games for the GUTV remote crew. And a big thanks to all of the shooters I’ve worked with, who made me look good enough to get a job. James Churchill, Nate Coombs, Sebastian Robertson, Dee Phillips, Dave Heil, Brad Gowing (WSU), Megan McGovern, and more.

To Tony Schick, whose passion for journalism is unmatched. We used to joke that the two of us were like Woodward and Bernstein, but really he was both wrapped up into one package.

To Kevin O’Brien, a constant source of inspiration and laughs. Working with you this summer was definitely a highlight. You’re one of the most talented writers I have ever had the privilege of working with. In Tony’s words “your sensual eloquence makes readers blow a load.”

To Tom Miller, Susan English, and John Kafentzis, whose advice and copy editing skills I’ve sorely missed since I’ve graduated.

To Dave and Ben of Blazer’s Edge. You write my favorite blog on the Web, and seeing you link to my Pargo article was one of my biggest thrills of the summer.

To my parents, who have read every single one of my columns since I was in high school, and always encouraged me to try for new heights. It meant so much to me, because I couldn’t have done it without your love and support.

To my fiancé Amanda, who listened over the phone as I read her the rough drafts of all my columns. Whenever I couldn’t find the right word to finish a thought, you could always find one for me. I can’t thank you enough for sticking by me despite all my madness.

And finally, I have to thank You, my readers. Your support and enthusiasm for my work continually inspired me to be my best. In the past, I had always joked that I had “about three or four” devoted readers, while secretly knowing that I had less than that. But these past few months, I was shocked at the response this blog was getting. Sure, compared to other blogs it was small, but to me, seeing people comment on articles or send me Facebook messages about a post meant the world. I couldn’t have done all of this without you, my readers. Thank you.

Now, if you’ve read this entire piece, then you’ll know that there’s no way I could ever tear myself away completely from my sportswriting. After all, it is a huge part of who I am. So I’ll still be around. I may not be here as often as I’ve been these past few months, but I’ll still be here. It just means that there may be a wider gap between posts. Still, I won’t let it change me, or what I’ve strived to do here since June. The circumstances may be changing, but it won’t change who I am.

I have no idea what the future has in store, but I look forward to seeing it all unfold as I enter the next phase in my life, and I hope you will all follow along with me. As my journalism professor Tom Miller says: "Stay tuned."

The Brady-Kolber interview: How to create an awkward situation

By now everyone has seen the infamous video of ESPN sideline reporter Suzy Kolber vainly trying to catch a postgame interview with a disinterested Tom Brady after the Patriots defeated the Bills on Monday Night Football. What you may not know is what contributed behind the scenes to make that awkward situation happen.

In my years at GUTV, I had the opportunity to work as a sideline reporter on a few occasions (even despite my lack of blond hair or attractive features). I've also worked in the production trucks for sports telecasts with ESPN and KHQ (Spokane). And I can tell you, postgame interviews in a sports broadcast require the coordination of everybody - the reporter, the producer, the director, the athlete, and the play-by-play announcer. It's a tough situation, because if any one of those people screw up, the interview is ruined.

Let's take a look at the Kolber/Brady interview, and break it down Hubie Brown-style:


0:00 - All right, our analysis begins before the video even starts. In a live sports broadcast, the decision on who will be interviewed after the game is made by the producer with several minutes to go. The producer picks the player of the game, and informs sideline reporter, so he/she (in this case, she) can prepare her questions. The director is told of this decision, that way he knows who to search for with the dozens of cameras in the stadium. This decision is forwarded to the play-by-play announcer, who then will know how to segue into the interview. Ok, roll it.

0:02 - OK pause it! See, here we see Suzy Kolber approaching Tom Brady, obviously not having arranged the interview with him yet. Normally, in this situation, the director will have a camera spying Suzy and Tom the whole time, that way, once it's clear that Tom's ready to answer her questions, the director can cut to the 2-shot. The director jumped the gun, and showed Suzy following an oblivious Brady to a national audience. Roll it.

0:04 - Stop! Now someone else is leaving Kolber out to dry, and it's either the producer or the play-by-play man Mike Tirico. As we see that Kolber still doesn't have the interview yet, Tirico tosses it over to her anyway, saying "Suzy Kolber, live with Tom Brady! Take it away Suze!" What should normally happen here, is that, once the director confirms that Suzy is ready with Tom, the producer tells Tirico to toss it down. Either the producer told Tirico too early, or Tirico himself ran out of things to say and immediately sent it down.

0:10 - Now here's the next misstep. On live TV, we've turned on Suzy's microphone, where a national audience can hear her yelling "Tom! Tom!" and being ignored. This goes on for several excruciating seconds. This is on the director and producer. When they saw that Suzy still didn't have the interview, they could have bailed, cut her mic, and sent it back to Tirico. But instead, they stuck around to see what would happen next. So did the rest of us.

0:14 - After pretending to not hear Suzy, Tom finally attempts to brush her off by saying "I'm going in. I'm going in," and jogging toward the locker room. The next decision for Kolber is a catch-22 that will be broadcast live to millions of people. If she realizes that Tom won't talk and gives up, she'll be viewed as a weak sideline reporter, and her dissing will be seen across the country. But if she tried to play catch up and still get an interview, she'll be viewed as pestering Tom Brady. In the end, Suzy chooses option B. Again, we've been watching on national TV for a good 20 seconds and the situation is only getting more awkward. The director, rather than saying "go to camera 3," instead gets some popcorn and continues watching the train wreck.

0:21 - Tom keeps his stride and heads toward the locker room, saying that it's so loud that he can't hear the question. I don't want to put too much fault on Tom Brady at the beginning of this thing, because as it turns out he had already said earlier that day that he didn't want to be interviewed after the game. Plus, he had no way of knowing that this was all going out live. However, as she continued to ask the question, it dawned on him that this was live TV. Still instead of stopping for 5 seconds to spout a meaningless cliche, he still attempted to head toward the locker room, hoping that Suzy would give up. This part of the awkward situation falls on Tom Brady's shoulders.

0:32 - What a block of the cameraman! You don't draw it up any better that that! The cameraman is blocked! All he can do is give us a wide shot! Suzy's on her own! Can she pull it off???

0:35 - He said something! Something we've heard every athlete say a thousand times before!

So Suzy Kolber, ESPN, and the production staff, was it all worth it? 38 seconds of awkward, bad TV, in order to get nothing out of it (except comedy, of course).

Sideline reporting is a surprisingly tough, but often meaningless job, and every once in a while you get a situation like this. But in these situations it takes everyone working together to screw it up. The director, producer, and play-by-play man are all involved, but it's only the people on camera who take the flak. In this case, it was very much the production crew's fault as much as it was Suzy and Tom's.

Blazers are partying like its 1995

That's right, Juwan Howard, star of the Michigan Fab Five teams of the early 90s, is officially a Blazer. No word yet on whether Jimmy King or Jalen Rose will be signed to the final roster spot.

Howard will be filling the Channing Frye role of "big man who can't rebound," albeit with less personality.

Today's signing got me thinking of the Blazer teams of the early 00s, who had a knack for signing aging superstars who were years past their prime. The Blazers of 2000-01 fielded a roster that included Scottie Pippen, Shawn Kemp, Rod Strickland, Detlef Schrempf, Damon Stoudamire, Stacy Augmon, and Steve Smith. All of them were great players ... before they joined the Blazers. By that year, they were either aging veterans with little left in the tank (Augmon, Strickland), on the downswing of their careers (Pippen, Stoudamire, Smith), or legendary examples of a superstar who wasted his talent (Kemp). I remember saying to my friends "man, imagine if this team was together in 1995? They would be unstoppable!"

The Howard signing today makes me realize just how many of the great mid-90s players played for the Blazers at one time or another. It's just too bad none of them played here at the top of their game.

That's why I'm pulling for a Juwan Howard Comeback Tour, 09-10!

Juwan, don't go quietly into that good night, like so many others before you! This is your chance to reassert yourself as the superstar you once were! Make the most of this final opportunity! Exclamation points!!!

The mid-90s will always be my most memorable era of the NBA. Growing up in the 90s, my friends and I collected so many basketball cards that I could look at a picture of a player from 15 years ago and tell you exactly who he was. Names like Grant Long, Carl Herrera, and Todd Day are still familiar to me (and yes, we still thought they sucked even back then). And to this day, I still have a soft spot for the superstars of the mid-90s. The leading scorers, the all-stars with cactus uniforms, the cast of NBA Jam for Super NES, those were the biggest names of an era.

Believe it or not, Juwan Howard is one of the few remaining links to the superstars of the mid-90s, even if he is a shell of the player he once was. There's only a handful of those players left in the league.

So Juwan Howard, I'm pulling for your comeback. Bring a little of that 90s talent back to the league as it approaches a new decade. Make every night Turn-Back-The-Clock Night, and give a little nostalgia to those of us who have an old book full of worthless 90s NBA trading cards. Do it for all the people who saw you team with Chris Webber and Gheorghe Muresan on the Bullets.

Better yet, why don't you bring back big Gheorghe with you? We could also get Muggsy Bougues, and Loy Vaught, and Jamal Mashburn, and Dino Radja, and Penny Hardaway, and Glenn Robinson, and ...

Weekly Sportscamp - September 16

-Sorry for the week's layoff. Multiple things have come up in my professional life (more on those later) that have forced me to take the past week off. During that time, I witnessed a fight over a bicycle at a bar downtown (somebody stole a bike, then rode it around the same block three times and allowed the owner to catch up to him), I attempted to grow a Rudy Fernandez beard (unsuccessfully), and was once again beaten by my dad at tennis (he's crafty). Let's catch up on what we missed in the past week.

-Fire Joe Morgan was back, and guest-edited Deadspin today. You won't have more fun reading someone deconstruct poorly-written sports columns. God, I missed these guys.

-Yesterday, ESPN columnists chose to rag on things I enjoy. Greg Easterbrook said The Dark Knight was an awful movie (some people just have no fun), and Paul Shirley, the musical connoisseur that he is, said The Beatles were "simple." Next week, Marc Stein makes a crack at freshly ironed shirts, and Jamele Hill compares Apple Pie to Japanese internment camps.

-Rumor has it that John Stockton's son, David, is walking-on to the Gonzaga men's basketball team. No word yet on whether this will make John actually smile for once.

-The Blazers signed Jeff Pendergraph to a three year deal. Pendergraph, if you remember, just underwent hip surgery and will be sidelined the entire 09-10 season. Years 2 and 3 are unguaranteed. Year 2 becomes guaranteed if Pendergraph plays in at least 10 games this season, something that is unlikely to happen. This is an example of the Blazers covering themselves in case the injury is worse than it appears, or as Paul Allen calls it "The Darius Miles Corollary."

-In sadder news, NCAA president Myles Brand passed away today after losing his fight with pancreatic cancer.

I was lucky enough to interview Mr. Brand once for a Gonzaga Bulletin article, and I was very surprised that he actually got back to me. This was the President of the entire NCAA, and yet he took the time to answer every one of my questions on the recent release of NCAA Graduation Success rates, a subject he seemed very proud of.

One of Brand's biggest goals was to improve the graduation rates of student-athletes, something he set out to do through the Academic Performance Program, which rewarded or punished schools based on graduation rates. It was his effort to let it be known that these student-athletes were there to do more than just play a sport, and that schools and the NCAA needed to do everything they could to help these young men and women graduate. He had set a goal of an 80 percent graduation rate for all Division-I athletes, and last fall the recent results showed that they had reached 79 percent.

At the time, Brand said he was pleased with the results, but not satisfied. He recognized that there was still work to be done with individual sports that were struggling, and that the NCAA shouldn't stop in this effort to help all of its student athletes succeed in the classroom.

He had the perfect mindset for student-athlete academic success, and a great vision. I hope that whoever takes over the job can continue the great things that Brand had started.

The Beatles and Sports: Combining two loves

In honor of today's re-release of the entire Beatles catalogue on remastered CD, I thought I'd take a moment to pay tribute to the world's most famous band.

I grew up listening to The Beatles' music, and they have inspired my creativity on many occasions. During the past few years at Gonzaga working at GUTV, I managed to put a little Beatles influence into some of the sports coverage.

First up is the intro to GUTV's broadcast of Gonzaga women's basketball, set to the tune of - appropriately - "Hey Bulldog." I think it's a very underrated, rockin' song, and I had always wanted to use it in some fashion. With our basketball broadcasts, I finally got that opportunity.



Next up, the open for a Gonzaga Baseball broadcast, in which I used "Tomorrow Never Knows." The intro and first few bars of that song are so unique; it's in one chord the whole time, and yet The Beatles managed to get an incredible sound out of it. John Lennon's vocals are so haunting on it, and even though the song entirely wouldn't make sense in a baseball open, I knew I wanted some snippet of John's voice. I convinced play-by-play man Travis Lucian to include the word "shine" at the end of a sentence, and everything came together. The ominous tone of the song worked perfectly with the storyline of the game - the sense of desperation from the fading Bulldogs.



It just shows that The Beatles' music is universal; it even works perfectly with the sports teams of a private college in Washington.

Weekly Sportscamp - September 8

-According to the Portland Trail Blazers, Jeff Pendergraph is going to need hip surgery and will miss most of the 2009-10 season. Please feel free to use obligatory "I was sure the first Blazer with hip surgery would've been Greg Oden" joke here.

Now, if they had just drafted David Pendergraft instead, they might have avoided all of this.

-If you would've asked me for the most random football-related headline heading into this season, I never would have come up with anything as crazy as "Shawne Merriman attacks Tila Tequila." Seriously, you couldn't have picked two more random people to be listed in a domestic dispute.

Although this is starting to make me think that her reality show where she searches for love was all a sham. I didn't see Merriman as a contestant...

-Every once in a while, Kevin O'Brien manages to sneak some Internet time and post something new about the San Francisco Giants at "Remember '51." This week it's about Giants' closer Brian Wilson (who, in addition to holding down the 9th inning for SF, also wrote some great songs for the Beach Boys).

-A reminder by the Gonzaga Bulletin's Zach Stratton that, at Gonzaga, there are other successful sports besides men's basketball, and they should be supported with the same fervor. Amen. Women's basketball, baseball, and both soccer teams have consistently been at the top of the WCC for years, so they deserve to play in front of packed crowds, too.

-What's creepier, Jay Mariotti calling the sunshine at a USC game "orgasmic" or Alex Trebek looking at three Teen Jeopardy contestants and remarking "so young ... so young..."? (true story)

-At a speech in Philadelphia, Michael Vick told high school students to avoid peer pressure. He "warned against the dangers of peer pressure and offered himself as a cautionary tale of what can happen when someone is a follower instead of a leader."

It's a wonderful sentiment, until you remember that Vick was convicted of "organizing" and bankrolling the dogfighting ring. Usually the guy who organizes something is the leader, not a follower.

Vick said: "I was influenced by so many people when I should have been a leader, not a follower."

Mike, you were the leader. Don't blame peer pressure, blame yourself.

Oudin shows why we love sports

She's toppled one big name after another at the U.S. Open, and she's only 17 years old. She's battled back from losing early sets and has shown the intelligence, strength and fortitude to make improbably comebacks, continuing the most unlikely story of this whole tournament. In doing so, she's become the darling of the tennis world, and has the entire country rooting for her.

In short, Melanie Oudin is the best story in sports.

She's been the little tennis player that could; defeating Elena Dementieva, Maria Sharapova, and Nadia Petrova in the last three matches. And through it all, the girl from Georgia has kept fans riveted with her outstanding play, her Cinderella run, and a personality that goes from fiery during the match to bubbly after each win.

In a U.S. Open where the big name, seeded players are dropping like flies, Oudin has been the spark that has kept fans coming. And why not: here is a player who is charismatic, determined, and - frankly - a good tennis player. The fact that she's doing all of this despite all the odds against it just makes her story even more special.

Sports fans are suckers for underdogs. We cheered when Y.E. Yang defeated Tiger Woods at the PGA Championship. We enjoyed seeing the New York Giants put an end to the New England Patriots' perfect season in the Super Bowl. But Oudin is different; watching her play pulls you in more than anything else ever could. She's just a 17-year-old girl out there by herself, playing her heart out, with no one to rely on but herself. You can see her emotions and feel her determination. You watch in anticipation each time the ball is served, and get caught up in her reaction to every point. And when she finally does win the match, and explodes into a huge smile, you can't help but smile with her.

There's an innocence about Oudin that is making people connect with her. She's not a big name, doesn't have large-scale endorsements, and was virtually unknown until recently. She smiles and cheers when she wins, even acting shocked afterward while searching for words to describe her improbable run. When she says to the fans "thank you so much for cheering for me!" you know how much all of this means to her. She's just your average teenage girl who happens to be beating the best tennis players in the world, and it's like rooting for your sister or your daughter every time she takes the court.

She's on a roll, and fans are finding themselves rolling along with her.

Because in Melanie Oudin, fans are seeing all of the great things that sports can bring. There are many underdog stories out there, but only the best underdogs can make people so emotionally invested. Oudin's run is reminding us of the joy of watching an unknown succeed on talent, will and moxie, despite overwhelming odds. We can relate to her. We're inspired by the heart she has shown and the excitement she's displayed along with it.

We watch sports in order to see people succeed because of hard work and perseverance. It shows us that sometimes heart and willpower can triumph in the face of a seemingly impossible situation. Watching this excited young talent Oudin appreciate the significance of her success makes you pull for her even more.

Oudin is now in the quarterfinals, and there will be plenty of challenges ahead if she wants to continue her storybook run through the U.S. Open. There will be tougher, more seasoned opponents who won't want to lose to a 17-year-old, and the road will only be harder from here on out. But still, you can't help but feel like Oudin could pull it off, even if all logic says it won't happen. That's the beauty of her success: Watching Oudin's run, it makes you believe that anything is possible.

Get the hell off my air!

Imagine having a conversation with your friends about sports. Maybe you guys are hanging out at a bar, having a good time, and enjoying the debate back and forth. Nothing gets too heated, because you all know how each other thinks anyway, so you enjoy the company and take part in the banter.

Then, another random bar patron butts into the conversation, completely unannounced. You don't know him, you've never met him, but something you guys have said completely set him off.

"Man, the only good team in the PAC-10 is USC. Trojans, baby! Wooo!"

You look around at your buddies, wondering how this douchebag got involved. "Yeah, cool man. Whatever..."

These type of people are regular callers to sports talk radio.

No one cares what they think, and 99 percent of the time what they have to say isn't at all original or relevant. Yet, for some reason, these people feel compelled to make their voices heard over the airways of sports radio.

The truth is, nobody cares, guys.

Callers are an overabundant annoyance in an already annoying medium. Sports talk radio is basically one show after the other in which the host or hosts sit there and spew their opinions on the world of sports. Sometimes they're entertaining, sometimes they're obnoxious, sometimes they just stir up unnecessary controversy. But its a medium that has its followers, and people love to hear about sports.

When the hosts open up the phone lines, however, is when things get unbearable. People call in, and are often more misinformed than the hosts, and a whole lot less interesting or charismatic. As soon as the host says "let's go to the phones" it makes you want to switch stations, just to avoid the rambling, unoriginal thoughts that are about to fill the airwaves. The warning lights go on in your head, as you hear yet another caller begin by saying "Yeah, um, listen, about this whole Brett Favre thing ... I think it's really stupid, and um ... he should stay retired." It's embarrassing for me as a listener, hearing how bad these callers are. And yet, they're a staple of the show, often on for large chunks of time!

After listening to enough sports talk, you begin to notice that there are three types of callers, each of whom clutter the airwaves in their own unique way:

The Nervous Guy - Maybe he actually had something important to say when he dialed the phone number, but we'll never know. As he is put on hold, his heart is pounding so fast he can't think straight, and by the time he is put on the air, the sudden realization has rendered coherent thought impossible for him. So he stumbles through a sentence or two, utters a lot of "um's", takes too long to get to his point and doesn't add anything to the conversation. The host usually responds with shorts pause "... OK thanks caller," and moves on quickly.

The Pranksters - These are the same type of people who laugh at their own jokes. They'll call in, pretending to be a real caller, wait until they're on the air, and then try to say something like "I have a huge penis" before they get cut off by the annoyed host. Then they laugh their asses off with their buddies before taking another hit off the bong.

The Lifers - These guys truly believe that their calls are a regular part of the programming schedule. They're usually unemployed, allowing them to spend their entire day listening to the show and waiting for the right moment to call in. Lacking any sort of social life or real friends to talk sports with, these guys calls into the show every day - sometimes more than once - to give his thoughts on the day's sports news. Sometimes they will even give themselves clever nicknames so that they can be easily identified, things like "Kool-Aid Guy" or "Mike from up North." Deep down inside, these people think that they're friends with these hosts they've never met, the same way that World of Warcraft players think that they're best friends with their guild of elves.

Sports talk radio is driven by talk, so taking callers kills time and makes things easier on the host. But in the end, the callers seem unnecessary.

Listeners are tuning in to listen to the opinions of the host, not the ramblings of Joe From The Beach. Callers usually only get about a minute to speak, which doesn't leave a lot of time to give an informed opinion. And the callers are never used to spark or continue a conversation, only to fill time before the next commercial break. We'll get a little stuttering from the Nervous Guy, an attempted joke from a Prankster (who always manages to get past the screeners) and the expected daily call from the Lifer, and by the end of it, the host thinks "another day down, let's do it all again tomorrow."

Does anyone remember a time where a caller made everyone stop and say "I never thought of that?" Of course not, because in a medium that is driven by 24/7 talk, all of the angles of a particular issue have already been addressed by the host, leaving callers to only be able to repeat the same things over and over. Anyone who actually has anything interesting to say has the good sense to bring it up with their friends, instead of wasting their time for 30 seconds on the radio.

Just because you posses the ability to call in to a sports radio show doesn't mean you posses the ability to be intelligent or entertaining. If you don't have anything original to say, then it's best for all of us if you don't say anything at all.

What a difference a day makes

Remember all of that excitement yesterday about the Oregon Ducks opening the college football season on national TV?

It seems like a long time ago, after last night's game.

The Ducks had the entire country watching them as they kicked off the college football season, and the game went in the worst possible way. I'm not just talking about a pathetic, uninspired loss to Boise State - although that was sufficiently embarrassing to Duck-faithful - because a simple loss would've only meant that fans across the country would ignore the Ducks. "Oh, they're not very good. Let's just forget about them." Just losing to Boise State would only lead to apathy and obscurity.

But Murphy's law decided to kick in. Whatever could've gone wrong, did.

Zero points and zero first downs in the first half. It was so pathetic, even Lou Holtz and was slurring jokes about the Ducks at halftime on ESPN. But as if the poor performance on the field wasn't enough, the post game was even worse.

Ducks' running back LeGarrette Blount, who had promised an "ass-whooping" before the game, suckerpunched a Bronco player in the face as the teams left the field. Yes, the Boise State player was taunting Blount and even smacked his shoulder pads, but Blount went too far and reacted like a pissed off little kid. He punched the player in the face when he wasn't looking, and then had to be restrained from going after fans as he was pulled kicking and screaming off the field by teammates and coaches.

What should have been apathy and obscurity after the game turned into a feeling of disgust. Now, instead of being ignored by fans and the media, Oregon is still in the spotlight, only this time it is for Blount's punch and poor sportsmanship. The punch is being replayed non-stop on TV, sports columnists are calling for Blount to be kicked off the team, and Oregon is being used as an example of the poor sportsmanship in college football.

The eyes are still on Oregon, but in a worse way than anyone had anticipated.

For an entire state of fans that had put their hearts into that opening game, this is the most embarrassing situation they could've endured. The Ducks disrespected the entire state of Oregon in front of a national TV audience with their performance and their actions. And it's not going to be easily forgotten.

Blount needs to be dealt with, whether that's by suspending him or kicking him off the team. His actions embarrassed himself, his team, his university, and his state. I know he was emotional after the loss, and that the Bronco player was taunting him. But you can't punch him in the face on national TV; no good could've come of that. You yell back, you shove him, you do anything except land a right jab on the guy's chin. And with multiple ESPN cameras on the incident, it meant that the replays on national television and the Internet won't end. Oregon has no choice but to discipline Blount severely, if only to save face nationally. They need to send a message that Blount's childish actions do not belong on that team and at that school.

But I fear that the damage has already been done. Every ounce of excitement that had surrounded the Ducks from fans and media has now been replaced by disgust and embarrassment. While yesterday fans couldn't wait until the Ducks opened the season, now those same fans are looking for a hole to crawl into and hide. In a span of less than 24 hours, all the feelings about the Ducks season have taken a complete 180. To lose like the Ducks did was bad enough. To have a player turn your team into a national punchline is even worse.

Yesterday, I said that deep down, we were all Ducks. Today, there's not a speck of green in sight.

Today, Oregon has its Ducks in a row

Apparently something big is happening today, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Let's head to Facebook and see what my friends are saying.

"For the first time in seven years I'm thinking of rooting for the Ducks."

"Big day today ... LET'S GO DUCKS!!!"

"Ducks by two scores at least."

"Ducks will run wild on the blue turf."

"I love the Ducks!"

"It's about time; I've been having withdrawls. Go Ducks!"

"DUCKS."

Oh.

Yes, The Oregon Ducks take the field today to open the college football season, when they take on Boise State on the Smurf Turf. And right now, as the hours tick away before the game, the hype is reaching a fever pitch.

Radio stations have been talking Ducks all week. The Oregonian put out a special College football preview section today that rivals the one they make for the Blazers. Fans across the state are pumped for the game, to see how well Oregon plays on the national stage, to see if the Ducks can get revenge on the Broncos after the loss at Autzen, and to finally see Oregon football take the field again.

The suspense is terrible ... I hope it'll last.

College football in the state of Oregon has always drawn fans to one side or the other. You're either with the Ducks or the Beavers (and no, Portland State, you aren't in the picture. But isn't it adorable that you have a football team just like a real school!). Because of this division, rooting for both teams is strictly not allowed, and no Duck or Beaver fan would be caught dead rooting for their in-state rival.

But today, with this Oregon matchup, you're starting to sense something different. Although no Oregon State fan will ever admit it, they're feeling a little excited inside for tonight's Ducks game, too.

It's because the excitement for this game tonight is sweeping across the entire state. A college football team from the state of Oregon is headlining the start of college football season by playing on national TV. People across the country, looking for their college football fix on opening night, will tune in and watch the Oregon Ducks play. This is big, and Beavers fans are getting wrapped up in it, too.

Sports teams in the state of Oregon have always suffered from Small-State Syndrome. It's not a big market, and therefore fans feel like their teams don't get the credit they deserve when things are going well. The USCs and Notre Dames of the college football world will always get the attention and publicity, while teams like the Ducks and Beavers, even if they are at the top of the PAC-10 and beating those big-time programs, don't get that same level of nationwide notoriety. Beavers and Ducks hate each other, but they both feel like they get the short end of the stick because of their location in "Orah-Gone."

So to see one of the state of Oregon's teams headline college football opening night is something that electrifies the entire state, from Portland to Eugene to Medford, and yes, even to Corvallis. A team from Oregon will have the eyes of viewers from across the country on them tonight, which means the entire state of Oregon is gaining attention as well. The state is excited to see one of its teams in prime position to flourish on the national stage.

Naturally, Beavers fans won't ever admit this, and I don't blame them. But inside, part of them understands that tonight isn't about school rivalry. There will be time for that tomorrow and in the coming months. Tonight, though, is about the state of Oregon being at the forefront of the college football world. The Ducks carry the support of the entire state with them into Boise tonight.

The rivalries will always remain, as they should, but when one team from Oregon gets the national spotlight, they find support from all over the state, even in the hearts of their rivals. The same thing happened last season when Oregon State defeated USC - even Duck fans couldn't help but smile that a power program was taken down by a team from Oregon.

A win is expected for the Ducks, and therefore won't give any more national cred to the U of O program, but a dominant showing in a win gets the name "Oregon" into the minds of college football fans across the country tomorrow. If that happens, you can't help but think of the other programs in the state, too.

There will be bigger matchups, and better games this season. Tonight, the excitement felt around the state isn't for the matchup against a team from the WAC, it's for the return of college football, with a team from Oregon leading the charge.

Tomorrow, Oregon and Oregon State can go back to hating each other. But tonight, as Oregon takes the field and rings in a new year of college football, deep down inside, we're all Ducks.

Goodbye Ricky, we hardly knew ye

ESPN is reporting that Ricky Rubio will be playing in Spain for at least two more years, costing the Timberwolves their point guard of the future and David Kahn thousands of dollars on international flights to Spain.

It's not like none of us saw this coming. Rubio's face on Draft Night said it all. "Where is Minnesota? They did not teach me about this state in school. At least I get to play with Garnett." (Has something whispered to him) "Whaaaaaa?"

But you've got to hand it to David Kahn. In only two months on the job he's already surpassed Kevin McHale in overall ineptitude! He managed to turn Randy Foye, Mike Miller, and the 5th and 6th picks in the draft into Jonny Flynn!

And the most crushing blow of all to Minnesota fans: With only a half-second of playing time, Rubio will have spent more time on the court for Gillette than he will for the Timberwolves in the next two years.

Five columns I won't be writing in September

We can rebuild him, we have the technology
"Yao Ming had broken down; his bones cracking under the weight of his 7-foot-6, 300 pound body and from the lofty expectations placed on him by his country and the city of Houston. His body finally couldn't take it anymore, and as the injuries piled up, there was talk that he might never step foot on an NBA court again.

That's when Rockets' GM Daryl Morey stepped in and said "bring in the scientists."

Driven by his belief that the Rockets' championship window was still open, Morey assembled a team of the world's top scientists, engineers, and robotics specialists and gave them one task: Get Yao back on the court, no matter the cost. The fate of a franchise and its relationship with a foreign power depended on it.

So the team worked night and day, exhausting every resource they had. They combined elements from other machines and human beings, creating a hodgepodge of features in their Ultimate Player: Shaq's girth, the robotic arms of Jax from Mortal Kombat, Tracy McGrady's lazy eye.

The result was Mecha-Yao. And NBA teams are quickly taking notice."

Beer Pong, now with a full-ride scholarship
"With colleges beginning their academic year, the NCAA was looking for a sport they could put their trust into. After all, in the past year two Division-I coaches were involved in major controversies, with John Calipari lying about a player's eligibility and Rick Pitino violating restaurant health codes. And one of the nation's most recognizable football programs - Michigan - was facing accusations of mistreating its student athletes.

So in response, the NCAA turned to the one pure sport it had left: Beer Pong.

By making Beer Pong an NCAA-sanctioned sport, new doors are being opened left and right for student-athletes and the Universities. With players policing themselves, there was no controversy from slimy coaches. With its simple rules and fun atmosphere, schools could save money on uniforms and arenas while still drawing crowds to the house party. And of course, the Beer sponsorships went through the roof and brought the schools even more money.

The only controversies that remained were whether a player's cup was filled high enough. Hardly something for Yahoo Sports to make a big deal out of."

Finally, a line is drawn in the sand with press conferences
"The trend had become popular: whenever disparaging facts were revealed by the media, a coach would call a press conference and read a speech about how everyone else was lying. No questions would be allowed from the press, only a written statement from a coach in which only one viewpoint is allowed. This made things very easy, PR-wise, because coached could use those press conferences to spin the topic whichever way they wanted. Whether they used crying, yelling, or references to 9/11 were optional (and highly irrelevant).

So the media banded together and made a decision: If they wanted the coach's side of a story, they would get it by asking questions and getting interviews, not by being lectured with a prepared statement.

So when the next controversy-addled coach approached the podium to try to spin his situation, he was shocked by the scene:

No one had shown up."

Fall sports, the most wonderful time of the year
"You can feel it in the air. The leaves are falling, it's getting colder, and sports fans everywhere are gearing up for the most exciting season in the sports calendar year.

It was a long summer, but now that's finally over. At long last, fans will finally get what they've been craving for months.

College soccer is back."

My unemployment continues
(By hook or by crook, I'm getting a job.)

Weekly Sportscamp - August 30

-My dad has always maintained that the NBA is fixed. He thinks that home teams are rewarded and big-market teams always end up winning, in order to draw in more fans and money. While his theory may not be entirely true, it's appearing that certain aspects of NBA games are fradulent.

Deadspin's Tommy Craggs wrote a fantastic article about the life of an NBA scorekeeper, in which this person reveals to him that the home scorekeepers are basically an extension of the team's PR staff, and are often encouraged to pad stats. These are the official stats that the NBA keeps, and scorekeepers are regularly adding more rebounds or assists to a player's total. Not only does Craggs get great quotes from his subject, he also brings out home and away splits to go along with it.

Amazingly, this article has gotten no play outside of Deadspin. None. The national media has completely missed it. Here is an article that could open up a can of worms with the NBA, which is already fighting for credibility, but no one has taken the next step and gotten the league's thoughts. Someone needs to throw that article at David Stern and say "explain that."

-Garrett Ross, an old high school chum of mine, is an Art student at Southern Oregon University, where he dabbles in 3D and Animation. He recently took my up on an offer to design a Sandberg On Sports logo. Here's what he came up with:
Pretty damn good, I'd say. As I figure out a way to incorporate it, you should check out the gallery on his Web site.

-For the right perspective on David Kahn's quest to free Ricky Rubio from Spain, we turn to The Matrix's Agent Smith:

Smith: Why, Mr. Kahn? Why do you do it? Why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? You must know it by now. You can't win. It's pointless to keep fighting. Why, Mr. Kahn? Why? Why do you persist?

Kahn: Because I choose to.

-D-Generation X + Teaming with Vince McMahon & John Cena + this being marketed as a good thing = loss of whatever appeal WWE had left.

-No wonder Sergei Monia and Viktor Khryapa didn't pan out. Just look at their entourage on draft night.

-The Little League World Series is over? Does this mean I have to wait another year to laugh at the failure of children?

Giving to the troops instead of taking for ourselves

You know those "buy 2 get 2 free" deals that they have at Hollywood Video? It's almost never worth it to actually take part in the deal. Usually, there's only two movies that you really want to purchase anyway, and yet you still convince yourself to buy two other mediocre ones, simply to take part in the deal. So if you're dead set on owning "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Wrestler," you're almost guaranteed to also be taking home "Paul Blart" or "Knowing."

I recently went into my local Hollywood Video knowing that I wanted to buy "Frost/Nixon" and "Watchmen." As I grabbed the two movies from the rack, I noticed that the display was advertising something called "DVDs for the Troops." Basically, if you bought two movies, Hollywood Video would donate three movies to Operation Homefront, who would then send those movies to deployed troops overseas. The sign also said that if you didn't want to participate in that, you could do a "buy 2 get 2" deal.

After looking around at some of the other crappy titles that I could've lumped together, I finally decided that there really wasn't anything else that was worth owning. I only really wanted the two movies anyway, so I figured "what the hell, I'll help out a good cause."

I took my movies to the register, where Misty the cashier (sounds like a children's book title) told me that I could get "buy 2 get 2" if I wanted.

No, I told her, there wasn't really anything else I wanted. I was going to do the other thing for the troops.

"Oh. OK ..." she said, fumbling around in a training manual. "Um, I may need a minute to figure out how to ring this up on the computer. You're like the first person who has done this."

She told me that the promotion had be running for about two weeks, and it was being presented as an either/or situation. Customers could either send three movies to the troops with their purchase of two movies, or take two free ones. She said that in the entire time the promotion has been going, she didn't think that a single person had chosen to send the movies.

"But do people still pick the 'buy 2 get 2' option?" I asked.

"Oh yeah," she said. "Tons of people do that!"

I couldn't believe it. Here is an opportunity to help our troops overseas, to send them a few movies from home and give them a little entertainment if only for a few hours, and no one was taking part at that store.

"It's the way people are around here," Misty said. "When I was putting up the signs, I had a feeling that no one was going to do it."

I have three good friends who are serving in the military. One is in the Navy, two are in the Marines, and all three are in different parts of the world. But one thing that all three of them have said was that getting mail was like Christmas morning. It didn't matter if it was letters, pictures, books, or cookies; it felt good for them to be remembered by their loved ones and to get a little distraction for a short while.

But no one at this particular Hollywood Video wanted to participate in sending some DVDs to our men and women overseas. When given the option of choosing something for yourself or giving something to people you don't even know, most of the people at that store were opting for getting a themselves couple more movies. And to be honest, I wasn't any different. Hell, the only reason I chose the DVDs for the Troops option initially was because I couldn't find two more good movies. Had there been a couple more good titles available, I wouldn't have had a second thought.

It's lazy thinking. But this doesn't even take much effort. Instead of picking out two movies you'll probably never watch, you could pick three that would mean the world to a soldier overseas. No, you don't get any special deal out of it, but you shouldn't have to.

I hope the trend at that particular store isn't happening at other Hollywood Videos. But still, it doesn't bode well that two days before the promotion was set to end, the workers at that store don't remember a single person taking part. It shouldn't be that way. When given the option of choosing for others or choosing for yourself, especially with something as trivial as DVDs, the majority shouldn't be picking the latter.

My friend Adalid, a Marine serving in Afghanistan, told me once that in whatever little down time his squad had, they would watch movies together. It didn't matter what genre or even if they movies were any good. It was simply for the fact that, for a couple hours, they were all just buddies gathered around a TV, laughing and enjoying themselves. They knew they would have to get back to work eventually, but for the time being, they had a little entertainment.

I don't mean to sound preachy. I just know that the feeling my friends in uniform have when they get mail, even if it's something as small as a movie, means more than someone grabbing two free DVDs in a Hollywood video just because it's a limited-time deal. What's in it for you? You might be tempted to say, nothing. But what's in it for the people you're helping? A package from home, which sometimes means the world.

For Your Viewing Enjoyment: Bo Jackson, video game god

Madden is a great video game. But never could you do this in Madden.

From Tecmo Super Bowl, The Oakland Raiders receive the opening kickoff and run out of bounds at their own 1-yard line. Then Bo Jackson takes over.




That just happened. Essentially a 205-yard run to end the quarter.

An inexplicable love of football

I've never had a favorite football team.

Part of the problem with growing up in a one-sport town like Portland is that it forces you to look elsewhere for a favorite team in a lot of sports. For me, things fell in place easily for most sports: The Trail Blazers have always been my number 1 team, my parents raised me as a Cubs fan, and I became a Zag fan when I enrolled at Gonzaga in 2005.

But football has always been different. There is no major football program in the city of Portland, meaning that if you want a team to root for, you have to venture outside your borders. For college football, the decision for most Portlanders is easy - it's either Oregon or Oregon State. But I've never felt an attachment to either team; they've always felt so disconnected and distant from me. Other than sharing the same state, I've never felt a connection with them. In professional football, the Seahawks are shoved down Portland's throat in an effort to regionalize the team to the entire Northwest. But again, there's no connection for me there. The Seahawks are Seattle's team, and I didn't want to root for them simply because they're the closest team to me geographically (I also got sick of having to watch Seahawks games every Sunday instead of better NFC matchups).

I've tried to latch onto teams now and again, but it never felt genuine. My best friend is a Raiders fan, but I could never get into the silver-and-black the way he does. Other teams just couldn't hold me, either. There just isn't really a team out there for me.

But despite all of that, despite the absence of an emotional connection to any one team, I am more excited for football season this year than I have ever been.

Every time I've seen highlights or caught a glimpse of a preseason game, I realize just how much I've missed watching the sport since last season ended. When I hear about the big college football matchups, I mark my calendar. I love watching every play, whether it's a tight game in the 4th quarter or a blowout by halftime. Every pass, every run, every hit; for some reason the game of football is gripping me more than ever in anticipation of the upcoming season.

I don't understand this about myself. I don't have a favorite team in college or the pros, not even one that I casually follow, and yet I still dive into football season excited and anxious.

If you talk to most people who are fans of a particular sport, and they'll tell you that they have a particular favorite team. It's only natural that someone who devotes a lot of time to a particular sport does so because they have a team that they support. Anyone who says "I don't care who wins or loses, I just like watching the game," is lying to you. (In retrospect, you probably think that about me right now. Am I nothing more than one of those people??? Don't worry, I can assure you that I do care who wins or loses, simply because there are teams that I hope lose. Patriots, you've been warned.)

No, for me, there are teams that I would prefer to win each matchup, but in the end, there isn't one team that I can devote my fanhood to. It's not that I don't care or I don't want a team, it's just that there is no natural connection between for me with any one team. And yet still, I'm excited for football.

I asked my friend Alex if this was a normal situation, if it was weird that someone without a favorite team could still love football.

"No," he said. "It just means you love the game."

"How many people are like that?" I asked.

"Not many."

But even those people have reasons. Those people that love football simply because they love the game are emotionally vested in football somehow, whether it's through their upbringing or environmental circumstances. I never had anything like that. I never played competitive football - no Pop Warner, no high school ball, no nothing. I wasn't a student of the game and I didn't really start watching it a lot until late in middle school. My college hadn't fielded a team since 1941. I had no family who played, I wasn't raised on it like I was with baseball and basketball, and, oh yeah, I don't have any favorite teams. What is there that connects me to the game itself?

I don't know. I may never know. And I don't really care.

For whatever reason, whenever football season rolls around, I find myself glued to all the action, examining the plays, reading the updates, humming the Monday Night Football theme. I'll dig out the football that's been buried under my bed for six months and toss it around. Every August and September, I start to realize how much I missed the game while it was gone, and when the seasons end in January and February, I kick myself for not appreciating the short time we had together.

This season it's happening all over again. I can't wait until week 1 of the NFL season, when I can flip between three channels to catch the games. I can't wait for that first primetime college football matchup. I want to see a running back rip off a 25-yard run, or a linebacker burst through the line and sack the QB. I can't wait to watch some football.

It's a beautiful game, whether it's in a packed stadium with 80,000 screaming fans or on a converted baseball field. Every matchup, every game, every storyline, every play, it's so much fun to be a fan of it.

I may not have a favorite team and probably never will. But I am a fan of the game of football, and I'll take that all the same.

The evolution of a player efficiency system

The other day I was going through some old junk in my room when I stumbled upon a long-forgotten collector's item: the Premiere Issue of Rip City Magazine from November 1992.

Inside the issue, there was a long feature on Clyde Drexler's experience at the Olympics, a Q & A with the newly-acquired Rod Strickland ("I'm looking forward to going back home to New York City with a championship ring on my finger.") and a bold prediction by Mike Rice that Dikembe Mutombo would be a bust (Short answer: he wasn't).

As I was flipping through it, I got to an article by Pat Lafferty called "Inside Player Ratings." In it, Lafferty describes the increase in the use of player efficiency evaluation.

"In the age of computer technology," he wrote "most clubs measure the production of their own players and those on other teams as well."

He wrote that one formula being used to measure player efficiency did so by adding the positive stats of a player (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks), subtracting the negative ones (missed shots, missed free throws, turnovers, and 50 percent of fouls), and dividing the net figure by minutes played, thereby giving a performance grade for each player per minute.

Michael Jordan, for example, was the league's most efficient shooting guard, with an efficiency rating of .769. David Robinson was the most efficient center, with a rating of .814. And in large part, the system was very effective in charting the efficiency and value of the league's top players, especially when viewed nearly 20 years after the fact.

But as I read all of this, I thought "well this sounds familiar." And then I remembered John Hollinger.

Hollinger is ESPN's resident basketball statistical genius, and rose to fame after creating the Player Efficiency Rating, or "PER" for short. PER has been widely viewed as the sabermetrics of basketball, and is taken to be a very accurate account of measuring the offensive efficiency of NBA players in a way that normal individual stats cannot. Hollinger has used his PER every year to chart NBA player efficiency, and has been a go-to-source in recent years for anyone who wants to see if a player is as good as the numbers say he is.

In his words, this is how he measures PER: "To generate it, I created formulas ... that return a value for each of a player's accomplishments. That includes positive accomplishments, such as field goals, free throws, 3-pointers, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals, and negative ones, such as missed shots, turnovers and personal fouls. Two important things to remember about PER is that it's per-minute and pace-adjusted."

The two ratings systems are remarkably similar on the surface, with Lafferty's formula already in use nearly 10 years before Hollinger discovered PER. No one had ever even heard of a Player Efficiency Rating until Hollinger came around, and yet, tucked away on a two-page spread in a 1992 Portland Trail Blazers fan magazine, was a system that seemed to have been built on the same concept. Curious, I went about comparing the two formulas to see how much the two shared.

If you look closer at the actual formula that is used to calculate PER, Hollinger's is slightly modified. In Hollinger's equation, there are some fractions and percentages thrown in, as well as league averages in various statistics and a league-wide PER set at 15.00 PER also adjusts for a team's pace, because a fast-break team will have higher statistics than a team that plays at a slower pace (and I'm not even going to begin to describe how pace is factored into the equation).

Working with only the general description that Lafferty gives the 1992 formula, I can't say with certainty whether it goes more in-depth than the simple formula he described. But I think it's fascinating how something that was so simple and obscure 20 years ago turned into the most talked-about statistic today. Hollinger took something that just barely scratched the surface of player efficiency, altered it, adjusted it, expanded it, and made it into something more in-depth and complex.

Yes, Hollinger invented his PER, but the concept of a player efficiency system dates back to the years when Hakeem Olajuwon was patrolling the paint and Kevin Johnson was manning the point. Even in 1992, years before Hollinger even stepped on the scene, there was a system that accurately measured which players were better than others; creating a numerical value to take the place of personal fan debates.

But it never became popular until Hollinger's updated version was developed. In the cases where an efficiency system was used, it was relegated to fan newsletters or someone's blog. No matter what the system was or how they differed, it wasn't taken seriously, and didn't catch on in the mainstream. Maybe fans weren't ready for it in 1992, or maybe PER caught on because of the rise of the popularity of sabermetrics in baseball.

Now, it seems like efficiency matters more than individual stats like points and rebounds, and is used as a more effective tool for measuring a player's value. Any way you look at it, the concept was there, it only needed to be refined and revised, which Hollinger did with great success.

I'll bet that back in 1992, Lafferty and Rip City Magazine had no idea that the small concept they used in a filler piece would take off the way it did.

Embracing the dark side

If there's one thing that sports routinely gives us, it's heroes.

We see Willis Reed limping onto the court in the 1970 NBA finals to inspire the Knicks to victory. We see Lance Armstrong beating cancer and conquering the Tour De France. We see Roberto Clemente dying tragically in a plane crash while on his way to deliver aid to earthquake victims.

We see all these things, and in our minds, they become heroes for their efforts. They sacrifice themselves and their well-being for the good of a team, or a city, or a the fans. In the minds of fans, the heroes' actions represent something more than just a game, something that speaks to the human spirit.

Sports at its essence is entertainment, and the creation of heroes in sports is an extension of the storytelling and mythmaking that accompanies the games. If fans are to devote their minds and their hearts to sports, then having heroes to cheer on makes it even more worthwhile.

But today, real sports heroes are hard to come by. Except for the wonderful exceptions like Armstrong, most of the athletes that pass for heroes are all the same: they play a game, they're good at it, they don't say anything bad in the press, rinse, repeat. Guys like Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, and LeBron James may be great athletes and good people, but from a storytelling, entertainment standpoint, there's nothing really heroic about about them.

It's so ... boring.

What's needed then, is a foil for these so-called heroes. Something to spark the heroic nature of others. Something that polarizes the sports world.

We need villains.

Sports is in need of a really evil villain, someone who is despised by all and loves that fact. We need someone really diabolical, whose actions and words inspire a sense of conflict and compels the heroes go against him. We need someone who lies, cheats, backstabs, and does it all with a smile on his face.

Good vs Evil. Right vs Wrong. Heroes vs Villains. It's what sports need.

The entertainment aspect of sports is all about creating a narrative, and the way to do that is to frame sports as a clash between two sides, which often means our favorite team is "good" and the opponent is "bad." But where is the drama? A team cannot simply be good or bad just because we say so. I want to see a real conflict, where fans can actually see the good guys become heroes. And you can't have a hero without a villain.

The problem is, sports needs a real villain, someone who is really evil, and unfortunately, the athletes who have been labeled as quasi-villains at the moment don't really fit the bill.

Michael Vick did some horrible things, but players and many fans genuinely like him and think he's repented. Alex Rodriguez cheated, but is more of a pompous prima donna than a real villain. And at the same time, it needs to be someone big, who is in the spotlight regularly. Some scrub on the bench or a corrupt, faceless executive won't do it.

No, we need someone really devious. Someone who will makes fans think "we need someone to stand up and stop this guy!"

It's all about drama. With a real villain in the sports world, no one would ever have to make an issue bigger than it really is simply to inflate the sense of drama and entertainment. There would be less media posturing, less sensationalism and less vilifying of athletes who don't deserve it. A real villain would be a bad guy, and he would revel in that fact. We need someone who doesn't give a damn about others, and is willing to use any means necessary to benefit himself.

So is there anyone out there in the sports world who has what it takes? Is there someone who has the cunning, the attitude, and the power be an effective bad guy?

We've got options.

Brett Favre. The farmboy that everybody admired turned his back on the city that loved him, joining with a purple-clad rival. If he were to come out and say that Green Bay is an awful city and he's glad he left, the transformation to the dark side would be complete. Not only would people already be sick of his lying and un-retiring, now everyone else would turn against him and make the defeat of his powerhouse Vikings the main goal.

Kobe Bryant. We've all heard about his clashes with teammates and coaches, his solitude, and his unrelenting, everyone-else-be-damned pursuit of another championship ring to prove his worth. This guy has all the ingredients of a classic villain! All he has to do is stop pretending to like his teammates and stop forcing a false persona upon us and he'd be perfect.

Clay Bennett. The man hijacked the Seattle Sonics despite vehement protests and moved them halfway across the country to Oklahoma City (forcing his team to play there should be reason enough for villainy). The e-mails that revealed he was planning something like that all along is further evidence. Some public, anti-Seattle comments would be enough to turn the NBA against him and start an effort to save the Thunder from their horrible plight in OKC under his tyrannical rule. And if David Stern admits to being in on it, we could have a Vince McMahon, corrupt CEO situation on our hands. Even better!

One or both of the Williams sisters. If both are evil, it creates an unstoppable duo. If it's just one of them, then we get the family-struggle.

Michael Phelps. Just to mess with people. Wouldn't it be the ultimate shock if Phelps turned heel on us?

With a few villains around, things always get a little more interesting.

Villains inspire heroes. There's no Batman without a Joker. There's no Spider-Man without an uncle-murdering burglar. There's no Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader. There are no heroes without villains. I think it's about time the sports world embraced this concept to bring a new level of conflict and drama to the table.

It's the most basic and enduring element of storytelling: the good guys vs the bad guys. The sports world is all about storytelling, too, that's why you see so many bland personality profiles of athletes. It's done in an effort to give personalities to athletes, to make them more than faces, to try to find characters. But in any good story, a character remains flat if there isn't anything to test his resolve or something that inspires him to change. In stories, there's usually one thing that sparks that transformation.

Imagine the character development we'd see when the villains get involved.

Moving on at the top of his game

I first met Kevin O'Brien three years ago at Gonzaga. I was in my second week on the job as Sports Editor of the Gonzaga Bulletin, and I was meeting with prospective writers for the page. I had never seen any writing examples from the reporters I was talking to, so I figured that this would just be an informational meeting so they could get their feet wet and learn how to contribute in the future.

At the end of the meeting, I asked if anyone had any story ideas for the next issue. After some silence, one man spoke up and said that he had an idea for a sports column about the need for college football at Gonzaga. I had never seen this guy's work before, so I had no idea what kind of writer he was, or if he was just more interested in getting his name published. After all, at the time, the sports section was notorious for employing flaky and unpolished writers. For some reason, I agreed to let him do it.

One impressive debut column later, and Kevin O'Brien's sportswriting career had begun.

He became the hardest worker I had seen on the Sports staff, taking any story assignment that was thrown his way and producing well-written articles every time. Later, he moved on to the position of sports editor and columnist, where he and his co-editor Travis Lucian hit a home run with their in-depth and unique sports coverage. And of course, during this past year, he authored the excellent blogs "The Ex-Call Taker" and "Remember 51," from which I drew inspiration constantly.

He was a wealth of sports knowledge, and could turn any situation into an obscure sports reference ("God, I feel worse than I did when the Warriors picked Todd Fuller 11th in the 1996 Draft"). He even got one of his columns published on ESPN.com, and was able to have it referenced live on College GameDay.

Why all the love for Kevin right now, you ask? Well, because in a Barry Sanders-like move, Kevin is leaving the sportswriting world at the top of his game. But not because of a lack of desire or ideas or any selfish reason. In fact, it is because of the most unselfish reason of all.

You see, there was always another side to Kevin that wasn't as obvious as his love for sports, but it still was in important factor in his life, and that's why he is doing what he is doing now: joining the Priesthood. Kevin O'Brien, writer, columnist, blogger and sports fan extraordinaire, is in training to become Fr. Kevin.

This was his plan all along, this is where is biggest passion lay. He finished what he set out to do this summer by writing about the Giants every day, and now he is moving on with the next chapter in his life. And I couldn't be more proud of him.

When I first heard the news, I had trouble wrapping my brain around it, but then I remembered the way he was when he worked at Gonzaga's Jesuit House, or the way he interacted with many of the Jesuits at GU, and I understood. When you find your calling, you have to answer.

So this is merely an attempt to say thanks. Thanks for the hard work and great writing, thanks for your knowledge, and thanks for teaching me a thing or two. I'll miss your regular blog updates and the quality that came with it, but in the grand scheme of things its not as important as taking an important next step in your life.

It takes an awful lot of dedication to be as good of a writer as he is, but it takes even more dedication to leave it behind because of a higher calling. Based on the way he's talked about his next step, I know he'll approach it with the same excitement as he did with his love of sports.

Sports and the Priesthood aren't things that seem to go hand-in-hand very often, but I have a feeling that Kevin will figure out a way to balance his passions. When we were getting ready to graduate from Gonzaga last May, Kevin mentioned that graduations should be held like the NBA draft, where each graduate is selected by a group for their immediate future. "With the first pick, the Jesuits select ... Kevin O'Brien!"

Yeah, I think he'll do just fine.

I'm proud to have worked beside him for so many years, and I'm proud of the next steps he is now taking.

Weekly Sportscamp - August 24

-I've been wondering, since the announcement came down that Memphis would have to vacate their 39-win season in 2008 because of Derrick Rose's phony SAT scores, has any media outlet bothered to talk to Rose? I don't remember seeing a single quote from Rose this entire week. It seems to me that it would be worthwhile to talk to the main figure in this case, if only to ask him why he cheated, how it happened, and why he can't figure out analogies. Sure, Rose probably doesn't care one bit about what happened at Memphis, and most likely wouldn't comment about it, but it's still worth a shot to see what he says. I think the media has been dropping the ball on this issue.

-Uh oh. Adrian Peterson went duck hunting. Although in actuality, he missed the ducks with his three shots, and was laughed at by his dog.

-You can tell it's a slow news day at ESPN when they've run out of Vick and Favre news and are forced to rehash the old "Pete Rose is banned FOR-EV-ER" story.

That's the tough part of covering sports in late august: there's really not a whole lot to talk about. Baseball hasn't hit its stretch run yet, football is deep enough in the preseason that the hype has worn off and the hype of the regular season hasn't heated up yet, and basketball is still months away. At this point, I'm sure most sports news outlets will take anything they can get their hands on.

-Was it because of the mysterious baggies in the background of his Twitter picture? Michael Beasley apparantly checked into rehab this week, according to Slam. This isn't what you want from one of the futures of your franchise.

-The Blazers just signed second-round draft pick Dante Cunningham. I like the move. I think Cunningham can be an effective backup small forward/power forward, like a Travis Outlaw who doesn't take bad shots. He's got the range to shoot from the outside and the size to be a good power forward. The only thing I want to see him improve on is his inside game, because Portland has enough shooters. Here are some highlights of Cunningham from the Blazers' Summer League, although you might want to watch it with the sound turned off to get rid of the annoying techno music.

-Look, I'm a Cubs fan. But with that being said, even I think that it's time to pack in this season and look to 2010. Give it up, Lou.

Forget the extra numbers, let baseball stand on its own

My friend Brian is a pretty knowledgeable guy, and considers himself a casual sports fan. He's not a die-hard by any means, but he can still sit down with you and have a conversation about sports ranging from football and basketball to soccer and golf.

One sports that he absolutely doesn't care for, though, is baseball. He doesn't watch it, doesn't read about it, and can't really talk about it. His main reasoning, aside from the game's pace, is that he doesn't understand it; that it's too complicated.

As I was talking with Brian about this the other day, I had a thought: "When did baseball become a complicated sport?"

In reality, it isn't, but to outsiders it only seems that way because of the influx of too much unneeded, complicated statistics.

You know what I'm talking about. It's the current baseball mindset that every single moment and situation needs to be expressed and anylized statistically. It's regular statistics, advanced statistics, and sabermetric statistics, and every time a baseball player so much as sneezes, there's a statistic for that.

OBP, OPS, RISP.

WHIP, Runs created, Balls in play average.

Average with a 2-2 count. Average with a full count. Average with a 1-1 count with no outs on the road after the 6th inning.

It's every single possible moment, instance and situation being described by numbers. It's a push from baseball to have the entire game and any possible outcome to be expressed as a stat.

In basketball, a player can be described as being so much better when his teammates are involved, or a football player can be thought to be more effective in a certain formation, but in those sports commments like these are just speculation, even if they are perceived as accurate. In baseball, it's as if the only way you can think about a player's value is through the numbers.

"I like our starting pitcher, he seems to pitch better in tight games."

"Oh yeah? Well according to his ERA-per-27-innings-in-games-within-2-runs, he's actually in the bottom half of the league."

It just takes the fun out of it, and turns it into math class.

Statistics are a valuable tool in any sport, but in baseball its seemed to have gone overboard. For some, like Oakland's Billy Beane, baseball is a math equation where everything can be expressed or predicted numerically. But that concept takes away most of what makes sports so fun and unpredictible: things like gut instincts, hunches, hot streaks, and risky moves. In my mind, statistics are great and can be very useful, but the influx of unnecessary sabermetric statistics can never fully replace player or coach judgement and insight.

But unfortunately, baseball seems to be entrenched with this current mindset that statistics are needed to create something more out of a simple game.

David Halberstam once wrote that with the rise of televised sports, fans flocked to the more up-tempo, fast-paced games like basketball and football because it was more exciting to watch. Baseball, he said, then turned to countless new statistics - every situation and tendency broken down into stats - to try to make up for the fact that its pace was slightly slower than the other games on TV. He said that the soul of the game was pushed aside because an unnecessary need to have the statistics make baseball seem like more than it really is.

Some stats may be very accurate, others may be completely bogus, but baseball doesn't need to have everything measured with numbers in order to makes things more interesting. It's the simplicity of the game that is interesting.

Fans watch basketball because it's easy to understand. They watch football because, at its essence, its fun and straightforward. Baseball needs to understand that the majority of its fans feel the same way. Fans don't like a better because his OPS is out of this world, they like him because he's a good hitter. They don't like a pitcher because he's the league leader in WHIP, they like him because he can strike guys out.

And fans do like statistics, too. They love seeing a pitcher's ERA, or who leads the league in hits. But for fans, baseball should still be left as a game, instead of an equation. Not everything needs to be analyzed from all angles.

Instead, leave the advanced statistics to the eggheads who use them while running a team. If they think that it's useful to learn a player's RC27 (runs created per 27 innings) or ISOP (Isolated power), then let them go nuts. It's their team.

(And let's face it, sabermetrics doesn't always yield big results. The Oakland A's, for all their years of "Moneyball" tactics, aren't exactly a powerhouse.)

Baseball is a simple game, and that's where the fun lies. Fans have loved it for over a hundred years because of its players, its games, and its stories. Like any other sport, it's about the feeling you get from being there, from watching it, from taking it all in. You can measure things in statistics all you want, but in the end, fans will always care more about the fun and the entertainment of baseball.

You don't need a calculator to figure that out.