On May 18, 1989, Dexter Manley left the country in shock when he testified before a U.S. Senate panel on literacy. At least for those who didn’t know the score until then.
Manly was the star of the NFL defensive end in Washington at the time. Before that, he attended college under his coach Jimmie Johnson Heads at Oklahoma State University, later he coached in the NFL and Fox where he joined the sport.
That day, Manley revealed that his entire experience as a fully-scholarship college athlete had been a fraud because he was illiterate.
Manly had a learning disability that made it difficult for him to succeed or even get into most colleges. Yet the system predictably failed him.
Many were shocked and appalled. A moral outrage spread by the state-run news media followed.
And that gnashing of teeth at such nauseating talk of winning at all costs lasted for about a week.
After that, I went back to the big college football and basketball business as usual. Universities serve as fronts for teams assembled by any design: loopholes, winks, and nods.
By 1989, television money had long been established as the root of both semi-literacy and increasing criminality among “student-athletes.”
Enablers such as ESPN made no value judgments beyond national rankings and popularity on which schools to schedule.
In fact, in a surprising streamlining on air, ESPN college basketball know-it-all Jay Bilas once said that recruited players attend classes because just being on campus improves their “socialization skills.” Declared it doesn’t matter if
Then there was the University of North Carolina academic scandal. Over the course of 18 years, the scandal saw an athlete recruit maintain his A-grade qualification on a no-show or fabricated course. In 2005 he was named the NBA’s first-round pick after his Rashad McCants nearly failed and without attending classes he was named UNC’s Academic Dean on his list (including four of his A’s). ). That claim was refuted by some teammates and coaches.
Today, virtually every day, for years in a row, NFL and NBA players fresh out of college show minimal literacy and lack of social skills.
After the Bears’ win over the 49ers last Sunday, Chicago defensive back Jaron Johnson, who spent three years at the University of Utah, was asked to rate the play of opposing QB Trey Lance.
Johnson: “He doesn’t do anything.”
The latest in the endless series.
This is what high-priced college football and basketball are increasingly producing. And the vast majority of uneducated semi-literate and socially unskilled people (all college students) never become professionals, but can return from where they were hired.
All downwards, not upwards. Dexter Manley’s shocking Senate testimony was hardly worth the shrug.
Torres show-off costs Yanks base, again
It doesn’t matter if the Amazon Prime Video Yankees are running away in the AL East. If they continue to play Aaron Boone Baseball, they will be in postseason jeopardy.
Wednesday, Gleyber Torres. Also. Leading 4–2 in the ninth, with runners on second, Torres hit a single deep down center. At first he posed near the plate as if he thought he had hit a home run. Only when he saw the ball drop from the heel of Abraham Almonte’s glove near Fenway Park’s center field roll-up gate did he run.
Torres was standing in second, but should have been standing in third. Still, he had a grinning, self-aggrandizing energy against the Yankees dugout.
Yes, I presented an isolated recording next. Torres was seen posing and jogging. But neither Michael Kay nor David Cohn said anything. His standard YES network insult: viewers are too dazed to see or know better.
The Yankees were one game out last season in a wild card game loss to the Red Sox, 6-2, in Boston. In one of them, on All or Nothing, Giancarlo Stanton threw an off-the-wall “Home Run” to a single.
From day one of this season, Boone should have told his men that those days were over. They are no longer going to choose to minimize the Yankees’ chances of winning. Running to first base is no longer an option.
But nothing has changed. Anytime, anywhere, he is good at baseball so bad that he can’t make excuses.
A dear friend and elder of a generous volunteer community in central New Jersey attended a recent board meeting and said a Jewish Family Services therapist was “overwhelmed” by young gambling-related clients.
My friend paraphrased the therapist’s words.
Makes sense. These sports betting businesses know who they are targeting and why. You can see their mark in TV commercials — young adult high-fiving men often turn their team caps inside out to celebrate another goldless victory.
And everyone is on board with this fix, eager to cut losses. Our sports commissioners, team owners, television and radio network owners, and all forms of commercial media want a piece of the action and devastation.
SNY is a tight strike zone
Reader Jim Curnal, an astute baseball observer, pointed out that SNY’s superimposed “tell it all” strike zone box was way off, and sent in screenshots as proof. The box indicates that the strike zone is from hip to knee. The strike zone defined by MLB is the so-called “letter” from the hip to just below the knee.
So? The same media outlets that spent a week of conspicuous lies about Serena Williams being the greatest person to ever play tennis, said Roger Federer, the gracious champion and gentleman retiring next week, is Williams? Ultimately, the best Federer could do was finish second.
What we speculated here a few months ago is still possible: Aaron Judge’s record-breaking home run will only appear exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, which just pays us instead of the Yankees’ Ch. . 11.
What you need to know about Aaron Judge and his home run record chase:
Slightly exaggerated claim of the week: Ch. Monday 4-Sports anchor Bruce Beck declared the Giants’ Week 1 game “a win for many years!”
Reader Joe Martingano has this to say about Jets head coach Robert Saleh:
There’s a new movie on TV. Rather than “groping”, it’s a long-winded “ball security” failure. It is the cousin of the twins of discipline, Arms and Eyes.
Think about what Jack Buck, the pro’s pro, called “Monday Night Football” on national radio. The key to his modern success is yelling so often that listeners often have no idea what he is yelling.
It may be time to refresh a little. Mets radio via WCBS 880 continues to include ads for Key Foods supermarkets reminding them, “Baseball is back!”
As Anthony worked his way up to pitching for the Braves in the 2010s, it was nice to get an update from Anthony Barbaro’s proud grandfather. Big guys or not, he was said to be special and a sweetheart to friends, family and strangers.
Barbaro, a St. John graduate and a Port Authority police officer and father of three, was reportedly killed last week when his car was hit by a wrong-way car while en route to a 9/11 memorial service. . he was 37 years old.
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