The NBA playoffs started a few weeks ago, and the second round is more than half over. There has been plenty of drama, and much of it has recently been focused on the Miami Heat, as expected. Once the Heat assembled its current roster before the 2010-2011 season, adding LeBron James and Chris Bosh to a team that already had Dwyane Wade, the expectations for this bunch went through the roof. They are currently being severely tested by the Indiana Pacers, a team that was given little chance coming into the series. The drama of the games themselves is great, but most of the theatrics have been off the court.  I have little patience for any of it, honestly.

After the Pacers won a thriller to take game two and steal home court advantage, the team had a very brief celebration on the court before Indiana forward David West herded his teammates to the locker room. I guess he didn’t do it quickly enough, though, as Dwyane Wade mouthed off about it in a post-game interview, suggesting that the Pacers must not have expected to win. Considering the scope of the so-called “celebration,” Wade came off as a sore loser, which is exactly what he was at that point. If you don’t like seeing the other team celebrate, beat them.

Game three was a runaway win for Indiana, as the Heat were really never in it after the first quarter. Lance Stephenson, a guard for the Pacers, made news by making a choking gesture after a missed free-throw by LeBron James. It was certainly not a very sportsmanlike move, but it was nothing all that shocking. Stephenson even apologized the next day, saying that he never should have done what he did.  Miami forward Juwan Howard took exception anyway, however, and confronted Stephenson before game four. The two had to be separated. Everything about this particular story is irritating, really. Neither of these guys has been playing much at all in this series, so we should not need to talk about them. The part that grabbed me about it, though was this: who knew Juwan Howard was still in the league?  Isn’t he about 700 years old by now?

Finally, after falling behind by 10 points early in the third quarter on Sunday, the Heat roared back to win game four and even the series at two games apiece. LeBron James had an epic game, with 40 points, 18 rebounds, and 9 assists. Unfortunately, following the game, my Twitter feed came alive with comment after comment to the effect of “where are all the LeBron haters now??” This is such a tired argument. I will freely acknowledge James’ skill as a basketball player. My dislike of him has nothing to do with his ability. Yes, I have heard the refrain of “he’ll never win a championship” numerous times, but the people defending LeBron are missing the point. I, and many others like me, dislike him almost entirely because of “The Decision,” the television special from July of 2010, during which he announced that he would be “taking his talents to South Beach” and signing with the Heat. The towering arrogance it took to put on that dog-and-pony show was enough to put me in that “hater” camp forever.

I am rooting for the Pacers to take the series. I still expect the Heat to move on to the next round, and they showed in game four that they still have it in them. If nothing else, I hope we can manage to finish the matchup with a minimum of additional histrionics.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Philadelphia Eagles tackle Jason Peters suffered a huge setback in his recovery from Achilles surgery this week, as he managed to tear the Achilles again during a fall. A device he had been using to allow him to walk apparently malfunctioned, causing the fall.

3) Brett Lawrie, a third basemen for the Toronto Blue Jays, lost his mind after being called out on strikes by umpire Bill Miller on Tuesday in a game against the Tampa Bay Rays. The player spiked his helmet to the ground in anger as he walked back toward Miller. Unfortunately for him, the helmet bounced and actually hit the umpire. Lawrie was ejected from the game and was subsequently suspended for four games by Major League Baseball.

4) Jonathan Vilma, the linebacker for the New Orleans Saints who was recently suspend for the entire upcoming season for his role in the bounty scandal that rocked the football world this offseason, has sued NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for defamation. Vilma continues to deny any involvement in the scandal, and says that Goodell has permanently damaged his reputation.

5) This was weird and scary. Tampa Bay Rays second basemen Will Rhymes was hit in the arm by a pitch from Franklin Morales of the Boston Red Sox in the eighth inning on Wednesday. As he headed toward first base, Rhymes collapsed and fainted into the arms of coach George Hendrick. Reports are that it was adrenaline that caused the issue, and there appears to be no significant injury.

6) In the midst of the NCAA Softball playoffs, the University of Florida suspended three of its players for the remainder of the season for an undisclosed reason. Despite this, the Gators managed to win on Saturday and move on in the playoffs.

Good sports:

1) NBA Hall of Famer Larry Bird added another huge accomplishment to his incredible resume. After winning the league Most Valuable Player award three times and winning Coach of the Year once, Bird, now President of the Indiana Pacers, has now won the league’s Executive of the Year award. Amazing.

2) Rhein Gibson, an Australian golfer, shot a 55 at the River Oaks Golf Club in Oklahoma last week, tying a world record set by Homero Blancas in 1962.

3) Last week, I took New York Giants defensive end Osi Umneyiora to task for his repeated attemptts to essentially use “girl” as a derisive term. Sarah Spain, an anchor for ESPN Chicago, had the same idea and lambasted the football player. To his credit, Umenyiora issued a thoughtful apology, indicating that he understood why his comments were wrong.

4) Surprise Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another showed Saturday that maybe his victory in the Derby should not have been so much of a surprise, as he won the Preakness in dramatic fashion. He will now move on to the Belmont Stakes, attempting to become the first Triple Crown winner in over 30 years.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

I guess I am naive. I tend to believe that adults, by their very nature, should be reasonable people. I manage to be regularly amazed by how often that belief is proven wrong. The world of sports is as susceptible to this as anything else, of course, and this column is usually dedicated to illustrating all kinds of foolish behavior. This week is no exception. On Wednesday night, two high school baseball teams from Arizona were scheduled to play each other in the state championship game for their classification. Instead of playing, however, one of the schools, Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, forfeited the game. Why would they do this, you ask? Because Mesa Preparatory Academy, the other school, has a girl on its team.

Our Lady of Sorrows Academy is a private school that is associated with something called the Society of Saint Pius X, which split off from the Catholic Church about 30 years ago due to difference of opinion about the Vatican II Council reforms from the Sixties. I know little about this group’s beliefs, but apparently one of them is that boys and girls should not play baseball together. The two teams played twice earlier this season, and Paige Sultzbach, who plays second base for Mesa Prep, sat out those games in an attempt to appease the other school’s beliefs. On Wednesday, though, Sultzbach chose to not step aside. It was the championship game, after all, and she had worked hard all season to be there. Instead of letting its team compete for the title it had been striving for, the religious school decided to quit.

OLSA’s actions are just so wrong on a number of levels. First of all, to be so openly chauvinistic shocks me, despite the fact that it’s not as rare as it should be. What exactly are they afraid of? I am not even sure I want an answer to that, as I have little doubt that it would disgust me. The school not only denied its own kids the chance to compete, it denied Mesa Prep the same thing. Sure, they were crowned champions, but anyone who has ever played a sport knows that players want to win it on the field. A forfeit win is just not the same thing as a real victory. Sultzbach should feel insulted and disrespected, and I imagine she does. Honestly, as an intelligent, thinking human being in the 21st century, I feel insulted by this myself. Mesa’s athletic director Amy Arnold was quoted as saying, “I respect their views, but it’s a bit out of the 18th century.” I agree with the latter but not the former. I don’t respect those views at all. Sure, the school and its players have a right to their beliefs, but that sure does not mean that I have to respect them. To the contrary, those beliefs nauseate me, and I know a few others who felt similarly. I was sent this story by several different people who had spotted it this week, as it is the kind of story that evokes a visceral reaction from a lot of people. As a father of two girls, I shudder at the thought that there are still people and organizations out there that would like to set them and all other females back decades to a time when women were regularly treated as if they were less than their male counterparts.

The decision-makers at OLSA should be ashamed of themselves. Any parent who would allow his or her child to attend a school that could make that decision should be similarly ashamed. Paige Sultzbach and her teammates should be applauded for not giving in this time. They never should have had her sit out the other games, and I am glad they did not do so this time.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Guillermo Mota, a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, has been suspended for 100 games by Major League Baseball after failing a test for performance enhancing drugs for a second time. 100 games may seem like a lot, but I feel this is far too lenient. If you fail a steroids test, get suspended for 50 games, and then fail another, you should be out of the game forever. This isn’t marijuana…this is cheating.

3) Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels was suspended for five games after admitting he intentionally hit Washington Nationals rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch last week. He said he was trying to deliver a message to Harper that he needed to tone down his act. Whether or not you agree with Hamels throwing at Harper, there is no doubt that admitting it to the media was a seriously dumb move.

4) Speaking of Bryce Harper, he made an awfully dumb move of his own later in the week. After escaping injury from that beaning by Hamels five days earlier, Harper was having a rough game against the Cincinnati Reds. He went 0-5 with three strikeouts, prompting him to swing a bat against the wall of the tunnel behind the dugout. The bat bounced back and hit Harper in the face, opening a gash near his eye that required ten stitches. Something tells me Hamels was onto something, as far as Harper needing to calm down a bit.

5) Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, arguably the two best men’s tennis players in the world, are talking about boycotting next year’s Madrid Open if the organizers don’t change the surface by the time the tournament comes around. This year’s tournament, which concluded this week, was played on a surface that was not only bright blue, but was also quite slippery, according to the players.

6) With the whole Bobby Petrino mess still a very recent memory, the University of Arkansas football team was back in the news this week. Three of the team’s players were arrested on Saturday, charged with burglarizing several dorm rooms on campus.

7) Sixteen people were injured in a fire in a Formula One garage on Sunday at the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid. The race winner, Pastor Maldonado, was the driver for one of the team’s involved in the fire.

8) Boston Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett is in trouble in his home city. After sitting out a start last week due to some kind of injury, Beckett went out and played golf the next day. When questioned about it after getting hit hard in his Thursday night start against Cleveland, Beckett was surly and arrogant, stating that he could do anything he wanted with his precious days off. Way to endear yourselves to the fans who buy the tickets there, Josh.

9) Osi Umenyioria, continued his feud with Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy on Sunday, tweeting a Mother’s Day greeting to McCoy. This started last summer, after McCoy referred to Umenyioria as “soft,” and the defensive end for the New York Giants replied by calling McCoy “Lady Gaga” and referred to him as “she.” Oh, haha, I get it. You’re saying he’s a girl, and that is inherently funny, because, well, you know…girls are so beneath you. Maybe you should go to Our Lady of Sorrows Academy.

Good sports:

1) Josh Hamilton had a rough offseason, which included a partial relapse into his well-documented alcoholism. It does not appear to have impacted his season, however. The Texas Rangers outfielder hit four homeruns in a 10-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday. As of Sunday night, Hamilton not only leads the league in homeruns with 18, but he has five more than anyone else does.

2) Manchester City won its first EPL title in 44 years in amazing fashion on Sunday, scoring two goals within four minutes during extra time to beat Queens Park, 3-2.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Greetings from Las Vegas. I used to come out here every year for the opening weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. In fact, that was the subject of my very first Bad Sports, Good Sports column back in early 2009. I had not been out here since we stopped going for basketball, though, until today, when I arrived for a work conference. Although this city gave me fodder for that initial weekly missive, today it is likely to only keep this column short, as a long travel day has left me pretty beat, and the clock is simply mocking me with its bogus three-hours-earlier-than-it-feels-like reading glowing in green letters next to the bed.

The big news of the week was the untimely death of former NFL great Junior Seau. The long-time San Diego Charger was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest on Wednesday in his home in Oceanside, California. Seau played in the NFL for 20 seasons, most of them with the Chargers, and the last few of his career with the New England Patriots. He retired for good in 2009. He made the Pro Bowl 12 consecutive times, from 1991 to 2002, and was one of the best linebackers of this era. He also seemed to be one of those guys that was beloved by everyone. His suicide has come as a shock to most people, although there was an incident back in 2010 that might have been an early indicator of what was to come. Seau was arrested on a domestic violence charge after a reported attack on his girlfriend in October of that year, and then, just hours later, was in a scary car crash that saw his vehicle plunge down a 100 foot cliff. He survived that crash, amazingly, and told police that he had fallen asleep while driving.

This whole incident has intensified the focus on the problem of concussions in football, which remains a very hot topic, as it has been for the last couple of years. Seau would appear to have suffered his share of concussions over his long career, and the details of his death are very reminiscent of those of another former NFL player, Dave Duerson, who also shot himself in the chest. Duerson had left a note indicating that he killed himself that way, rather than with a shot to the head, so that his brain could be studied and more could be learned about the dangers of concussions. Seau’s family initially said that his brain would be donated for the same kind of study, although, at the time of this writing, they may be changing their minds on that, due to religious concerns. For the sake of so many other football players and their futures, I do hope that they decide to go ahead with the donation. The man is dead, and certainly has no current need of his brain. If he killed himself the way he did in order to facilitate that research, it would be a real shame if the family denied that final wish. It must be an extremely difficult time for them, of course, but this would seem to be a pretty clear decision.

It is clear that there is still a lot to learn about the dangers of head injuries. Current and future players will benefit greatly from the research that is being done. Yes, as a fan, it is easy to lament the rule changes in football that have seemed to make the game much less macho than it used to be, but these are people’s lives we are talking about here. It is important to keep that in perspective.

Bad sports, continued:

2) In the aftermath of Seau’s death, former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, now a commentator for the NFL Network, stated that he would prefer that his sons grow up to do something other than play football, as he is scared for their health. Amani Toomer, the one-time New York Giant, took exception to Warner’s comments, saying that Warner should keep his mouth shut since he benefitted so much from the sport. I am not sure what one thing has to do with the other. Warner was simply being a concerned dad, and Toomer should think before he speaks.

3) New York Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire punched a glass fire extinguisher case as he left the court after his team lost to the Miami Heat in game two of their playoff series on Monday. What a genius. The damage to his hand forced him to miss game three.

4) Dale Oen, a champion swimmer from Norway, died on Monday at the age of 26. He suffered an apparent heart attack during training for the upcoming Olympics.

5) Long-time New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, a sure-fire Hall-of-Famer, will miss the remainder of the 2012 season after tearing his ACL during pre-game warmups on Thursday. Although he is 42 years old, Rivera insists he will make a comeback.

6) Clemson star receiver Sammy Watkins was arrested on drug charges on Friday. A traffic stop led to the discovery of marijuana and some pills in Watkins’ car.

Good sports:

1) New Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano bought himself a lot of goodwill this week when he signed one of his former players from his time at Rutgers. Eric LeGrand was paralyzed back in 2010 when he made a tackle that broke his neck. He will never play for Tampa, as he remains partially paralyzed, but the gesture was a great one.

2) The Miami Dolphins signed linebacker Cameron Wake to a contract extension this week that includes $20 million in guaranteed money. Wake’s story is a great one, as he went undrafted out of Penn State and ended up playing in the Canadian Football League. He became a dominant pass rusher there, and that led to him being signed by Miami. He has been a great player for them for the last three seasons, and they have rewarded him for his persistence.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Have you ever watched an all-star game and thought it had been time well spent? At least in the major sports, those games are usually pretty awful, if not completely unwatchable. Baseball probably has the best one, as the game usually involves pretty full effort on the part of the participants. Sure, catchers are unlikely to block the plate and risk injury, especially after the Pete Rose-Ray Fosse incident in the 1970 MLB All-Star game, but the hitters try, the pitchers try, and the fielders try. The worst thing about baseball’s game is that the commissioner decided to make the game count for something a few years back, and now the league that wins gets home field advantage in the World Series. That was a horrible decision and needs to be changed. Still, the game is usually a gem compared to the defense-less circuses put on by the NHL and the NBA. The scoring in those games rarely resembles that of a real game, as no one shows any interest in playing defense at all. Amazingly, even those games look like must-see TV when compared to the crapfest that is the NFL Pro Bowl.

This week, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell made comments suggesting that the league was considering doing away with the Pro Bowl entirely. If you watched this year’s game back in January, you’ll know why. For years, this game has been different from the other leagues’ all-star games, as it happened after the season had ended and a champion had been crowned, while the others all occurred around mid-season. With the risk of injury so much greater in football, it made sense to not have the game at a time when an injury could debilitate a team. Still, playing the game the week after the Super Bowl was the ultimate anti-climax, and few people cared or bothered to watch. A couple of years ago, in an effort to jolt some life into the game, the NFL moved it to the week before the Super Bowl. No luck. It was still far less than exhilarating. The 2012 edition, though, was the worst of all. No one seemed to put forth any effort whatsoever, and the game was an absolute joke. So much so, I guess, that the league is seriously contemplating simply not having the game. Sounds like a great idea to me. What’s the point, really? I imagine they will still name a Pro Bowl team, or something like one, as the real interest in that kind of thing lies in who makes it, not in the game itself. I play in a computer-simulation keeper league (don’t ask), and the Pro Bowl roster plays a significant part in the player ratings for each season. I wouldn’t want to lose that, but I am glad to sacrifice the actual event.

Exhibition games before the season are a chance to get your interest revved up for the return of the sport. Exhibition games during the season are a chance to change the channel. Once you get to the ones after the season, there is just no reason for it. Baseball, hockey, and basketball can all keep their games, I suppose. Baseball needs to change the home-field rule, and hockey and basketball need to find ways to get people to play at both ends of the ice/court. The skills competitions at these events are far more interesting than the games themselves, actually.  Maybe football can do something like that, and just leave the game out.

Good sports, continued:

2) Rafael Nadal became the first tennis player to ever win two different events seven times each on Sunday, beating David Ferrer to take the Barcelona Open. Monte Carlo is the site of his other seven-plus win tournament.

3) The Oakland Raiders decided that they will be donating ten percent of every season-ticket package sold in May and June of this year to the Oakland public school system.

Bad sports:

1) An Israeli basketball team has hired former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine as a consultant. I know that charges have not yet been filed related to the accusations that Fine sexually molested two former ball boys, and the man has a right to make a living, but I don’t think I would want to be the team that hired this guy while that investigation is ongoing.

2) Some racist idiots tweeted slurs at Joel Ward, a forward for the Washington Capitals, after Ward scored in overtime to send the Boston Bruins home for the season on Wednesday. Revolting.

3) Not long after being suspended for half of the next NFL season for his part in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, it was revealed that team GM Mickey Loomis is being investigated for allegedly having a device in his box at the Superdome that would allow him to eavesdrop on opposing coaches during the 2002, 2003, and 2004 seasons. Aside from punishment by the league, Loomis could be charged with federal crimes for this.

4) Delmon Young, who plays left field for the Detroit Tigers, was charged with something called “hate crime harassment” for a fight that he was in on Friday at the team hotel in New York. Young is accused of yelling some kind of anti-semitic comments at the person with whom he was having the confrontation.

5) The Chicago Bulls’ chances of getting to the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight season seemed to go down the tubes on Saturday, as star player Derrick Rose tore his ACL as the team’s game was ending against the Philadelphia 76ers to open their first round playoff series.

6) Rajon Rondo, point guard for the Boston Celtics, was ejected from the team’s loss to the Atlanta Hawks in the first game of their first-round playoff series on Sunday. Rondo was given two technical fouls, earning him the automatic ejection, after he vehemently complained about a call and then appeared to bump into a referee.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Every once in a while, an athlete or coach transcends sports. The group of these individuals is small and obviously quite distinguished. Those of you who read my column regularly know that Joe Paterno was one of these in my eyes. Whatever you feel about the Jerry Sandusky situation and Joe’s role in it, it is hard to dispute his place in the pantheon of college football figures. This week, another towering figure has exited the sports scene, and her sport will be much the worse for it. Pat Summitt, the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball program, has retired.

Summitt coached the Lady Vols (why can’t they just be called the Vols, by the way?) for 38 years, winning eight NCAA championships along the way. She retires as the all-time winningest coach in the history of college basketball, having compiled 1098 wins during her career. Her teams won titles in three different decades and took home the championship of the Southeastern Conference 15 times. The last time a team of hers won fewer than 20 games in a season was in 1975, her second season as head coach, when they went 16-11. The numbers are simply staggering. She is to women’s college basketball what John Wooden, the legendary coach of UCLA, was to men’s college basketball, and, yes, what Paterno was to college football.

Last year, Summitt was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. She finished out the season, taking her team to the semi-finals of the NCAA Tournament, before an eventual loss to the Baylor Bears, who went on to win the whole thing. It was a very cool thing to watch Kim Mulkey, Baylor’s head coach, talk extensively about her respect for Summitt in the on-court interview at the end of that game. The respect and admiration was obvious, and she was clearly not doing it to just pay lip-service to what the fans wanted to hear.

The University of Tennessee faces the impossible task of replacing such an icon. Holly Warlick, who had been an assistant coach under Summitt for the last 26 years, has taken over as head coach. I don’t envy her the challenge she faces in trying to reach a standard to which no one could measure up. I hope the fans give her a chance, and I am certain Pat Summitt will be rooting for her.

Good sports, continued:

2) Chicago White Sox pitcher Phillip Humber threw only the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history on Saturday, shutting down the Seattle Mariners in a 4-0 win.

3) Jamie Moyer, now pitching for the Colorado Rockies, became the oldest pitcher to record a victory in a major league game on Tuesday, leading his team to a 5-3 win over the Sam Diego Padres with seven solid innings. Moyer is 49 years old.

Bad sports:

1) People need to stop listening to this guy. Zach Tomaselli, the Bernie Fine-accuser who recently recanted his statement and said he never even met Fine, has changed his tune yet again. Now he is again saying Fine molested him.

2) The parent of a recruit who was visiting the University of Alabama somehow kicked over a stand that was holding the school’s BCS National Championship trophy from last year. The crystal football, formerly valued at $30,000, is now valued at zero, and is in many more pieces than it had once been. Oops.

3) Alfonzo Dennard, a cornerback from Nebraska, who was expected to be a pretty high pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, got himself arrested less than a week before said Draft. He was reportedly in a bar fight that police tried to stop, and the charges indicate that Dennard must have assaulted one of the officers.

4) Raffi Torres, a left wing for the Phoenix Coyotes, was suspended for 25 games by the NHL after a nasty hit on Marion Hossa of the Chicago Blackhawks. Replays show that Torres clearly intended to injure Hossa, leaving his feet to deliver a shoulder to the head. Hossa was taken off the ice on a stretcher.

5) The Boston Red Sox have started the season off very poorly, going 4-10 in their first 14 games. The worst of those losses happened Saturday, when they blew a 9-0 lead against the New York Yankees, eventually losing 15-9. Ugly.

6) Delonte West, a guard for the Dallas Mavericks, has proven a number of times over the years that he is an idiot. He took that idiocy to new heights this week, incurring a $25,000 fine for delivering what amounted to a “wet willy” during a game against the Utah Jazz on Monday. I guess West thought it would be amusing to stick his finger in the ear of Gordon Hayward in the first half. The NBA obviously did not find it quite so funny.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Earlier this week, a Dallas television station reported on a story about a local coach/teacher who had been fired from her job for having a child despite being unmarried. Cathy Samford, who had coached volleyball at the Heritage Christian Academy for the last three years, and who had also recently started teaching science, was let go by the school in the fall. She has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and is considering a lawsuit. I am quite surprised by this, but I find myself siding with the school.

I want to be clear that I find the idea of firing someone for having a child out of wedlock to be reprehensible. The very idea goes against every instinct toward fairness that I possess. I am regularly amazed that people are still judged by social mores that either did or should have gone out of style decades back. The world is a very different place than it was 100 years ago. Will a single mother have a hard time raising a child in 2012? Perhaps. The thing is that Samford will not be a single mother. She is in a committed relationship…she just doesn’t happen to be married. The current debate about gay marriage tells me that I should not be surprised that there are people who would openly judge a woman as being immoral for being pregnant without being married. I fail to understand how people can think this way, but I certainly know that many do.

Here’s the thing, though: Samford was not a public school teacher. She taught at a Christian school. I do not know this for a fact, but I would not be at all surprised to learn that she had signed some kind of contract with a morals clause when she took the job. As much as I dislike this kind of archaic thinking and basic unfairness, a school like that has the right to dictate a code of behavior to its employees. People enroll their kids in a school like that because they want them to receive a very specific type of education. I would assume that they would prefer that the teachers who are imparting that specific education be held up as excellent examples of the types of people being discussed in the material being taught. If fairness and equal opportunity were the goal, they would send their kids to public school. I am sure that sounds like a condemnation of religious education, and it probably is, but that is beside the point. These people made that choice, and I am sure they paid good money as part of that decision. Ms. Samford chose to ignore the teachings of the private organization that employed her. They had the right to terminate her employment.

I know this is a bit off of my usual subjects, and it is only barely sports-related, but I thought it was an interesting case. I hate to agree with the school here, but I really do feel that they were within their rights here.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Skiing great Lindsay Vonn has had a huge tax lien filed against her by the I.R.S. Apparently she owes over a million dollars for the 2010 tax year which was never paid.

3) One of the accusers of former Syracuse assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine has changed his story. Zach Tomaselli, who, along with several other men, accused Fine of sexual abuse a few months ago, now says that he never even knew Fine.

4) Piermario Morosini, an Italian soccer player who played for Livorno, collapsed and died during a match at Pescara on Saturday. He suffered cardiac arrest early on in the match and was dead before he reached the hospital. Morosini was 25.

5) This has been a fantastic year for Baylor athletics, but it hasn’t all been good news. The school was put on probation for three years by the NCAA this week for a number of secondary violations in recruiting that occurred over the last several years. The number of transgressions is what brought on the punishment, as opposed to the nature of them individually. The issue involved text messages and phone calls during times that those things should have been limited or not happening at all.

6) Lamar Odom has essentially been sent home by the Dallas Mavericks. After spending much of the season disgruntled after being traded to Dallas from the Los Angeles Lakers, the Mavericks decided, ostensibly with Odom’s agreement, that the team would be better off without him. They did not waive him, however, so he is not eligible to sign with another team this season.

7) If you want to see one of the worst baseball slides ever, watch this video.

Good sports:

1) Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Aaron Harang struck out nine consecutive batters in a game against the San Diego Padres on Friday, setting a team record. The major league record was 10, and it was set by Tom Seaver back in 1970.

2) Alabama running back Trent Richardson, who is likely to be a top five pick in the upcoming NFL Draft, showed that he is also a pretty good guy this week. Richardson attended a senior prom in Birmingham with Courtney Alvis, a high school senior who is suffering from Leukemia.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

During the heart of the Tiger Woods drama of a couple of years ago, I wrote about the fact that I was pretty uninterested in the personal lives of professional athletes. The same goes for coaches in professional sports. I am not totally immune to the off-the-field stuff, of course. I am prone to disliking players who are simply bad teammates (see Terrell Owens) or coaches who lose their minds on a very regular basis (see Brian Kelly), but, for the most part, I look for results. Amateur sports, on the other hand, are a different story. College coaches, for example, have a very different kind of responsibility than pro coaches. Parents have entrusted their 18-year-old kids to these people, so college coaches need to hold themselves to a higher standard, whether that means their in-game demeanor or their off-the-field behavior. Of course, winning usually trumps the bad stuff, which is why a lot of these guys manage to end up in top jobs. The latest offender is University of Arkansas head football coach Bobby Petrino, who found himself in hot water this week after injuring himself and another person in a motorcycle crash.

The story that has been circulated is that Petrino was riding his motorcycle in the Fayetteville area with a passenger when he lost control of the bike and crashed, sliding off the road into a ditch. Petrino suffered numerous injuries, including a broken vertebra. The passenger was Jessica Dorrell, a 25-year-old former volleyball player whom Petrino had recently hired to a position with the football team. I have not read specifics of her injuries, but it appears that they were less serious than those of the coach. Rather than calling 911, Petrino called a local police officer who also worked for Petrino doing security. He then lied to the university about the details of the accident, only changing his story when he found out that the police report would be made public.

So let’s review the details here. This 51-year-old married father of four was having an affair (yes, he has admitted that) with a woman half his age, whom he had just hired to come work for him at the university. He was riding a motorcycle with her on the back and with no helmet on. After crashing, he tried desperately to cover up what had occurred, including lying to his employer. The most amazing thing about this is that he has not yet been fired. Instead, the school has put him on administrative leave. Are they waiting for him to display more incredibly bad judgment? What more does he need to do?

Petrino was no angel before this, as you can imagine, although his previous offenses centered mostly around being an untrustworthy employee. Shortly after insisting that the University of Louisville, where he was head coach from 2003 to 2006, add a clause to his contract extension requiring a large payment from him if he were to leave (to prove how serious he was about staying), he jumped ship and headed to the NFL to coach the Atlanta Falcons. He then bailed on the Falcons after less than a full season, leaving a 3-10 team to take the job at Arkansas before his first season was even over.

I hate the fact that guys like this keep getting hired at the college level. A college football coach needs to set an example for his players, whether it be by demonstrating a strong work ethic, stressing academics, or by being a decent person. Most of all, they need to have good judgment. I have two girls about to head to college, and although neither one is an athlete, I can still identify with the parents who send their kids to play for some college coach. A professional athlete is responsible for himself, but a college kid is a kid. Sure, it is the parents who have the ultimate responsibility for setting the right example, but these coaches have such enormous significance to these kids, influencing them in every facet of their lives during their time at school. The University of Arkansas can not retain Bobby Petrino if it wants to have any credibility as an institution of higher learning.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Detroit Lions defensive lineman and recent first-round pick Nick Fairley was arrested on Tuesday for possession of marijuana. He is the second Lion to be arrested on that charge in recent days, following running back Mikel Leshoure’s arrest a few weeks ago.

3) Stephen Gant, a high school pitcher from Tennessee who was expected to be a high pick in the next amateur draft, was found dead by a roadside this week. It is believed that he committed suicide. He was supposed to head to Vanderbilt this fall.

4) A linebacker from the University of Minnesota was found dead in his apartment on Friday. Gary Tinsley was 22 years old. The cause of death has not yet been determined.

5) One of my favorite sports memories involves a time when I got to watch the annual regatta between Cambridge and Oxford on the Thames back in 1987. It was a fantastic experience, and quite unlike most other sporting events I have attended in my life. On Saturday, this year’s race was interrupted by some moron who jumped into the water and swam between the two boats, causing the whole thing to be held up for 31 minutes while they fished him out and got him out of harm’s way.

6) Miami Marlins head coach Ozzie Guillen has managed to prove, yet again, that he should not be allowed to speak to the media unless it’s absolutely necessary. This time, while talking to Time Magazine, Guillen actually uttered this bit of genius:

“I love Fidel Castro … I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last sixty years but that [expletive] is still there.”

I have no idea why the magazine was asking him about Castro, so yes, I am clearly taking this quote out of context. That said……what??  In your first week as the head coach of a team in Miami, of all places, you are going to praise Castro? Wow. I am guessing this will not ingratiate him to many of the people that the team has been trying to bring to its new stadium in South Florida.

7) Some fans were so excited about Kentucky’s win over Kansas in Monday’s national title basketball game that they started shooting each other.

8) The Baltimore Orioles finished their exhibition season on Tuesday by losing to a community college.  Awesome.

Good sports:

1) The Baylor women’s basketball team capped off a perfect 40-0 season by defeating Notre Dame in the national championship game on Tuesday. Star center Brittney Griner is a pretty fantastic player, and at 6’8 and very athletic, she is extremely difficult to stop.

2) The final day of The Masters was a great one on Sunday. It began with an incredibly rare double eagle by Louis Oosthuizen, who managed to hole out from 253 yards away on his second shot at the par-5 second hole. It ended on the second hole of a playoff between Oosthuizen and Bubba Watson, with Watson making a par to take the green jacket. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, the two favorites coming into the tournament, were non-factors.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

There are a variety of reasons why a pitcher will intentionally hit a batter with a pitch. Often, it is done as a retaliation after a slow homerun trot or a batter on the pitcher’s team had already been hit by the opposing pitcher. Baseball is filled with “unwritten rules” that dictate when various things need to happen, and “purpose” pitches certainly fall into this category. Many times, the pitch does not actually hit the batter, but merely makes him dive out of the way. Baseball writers sometimes call this “chin music,” romanticizing the concept of revenge in the national pastime. Is this all really okay? I guess it depends on who you ask. There are times, though, when it is very clearly not okay. Sunday’s preseason game between the Colorado Rockies and the Cleveland Indians in Scottsdale, Arizona, was one of those times.

Indians’ pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez was traded to Cleveland from Colorado during the 2011 season. Jimenez had been a very good player for the Rockies for a number of years, particularly during the 2010 season, when he won 19 games and had an E.R.A. under 3, and also pitched his first career no-hitter. He had recently told a reporter from the Denver Post that he had been upset at not receiving a contract extension while with the Rockies, despite the fact that they had extended other players, including Troy Tulowitzki, the Rockies’ spectacular star shortstop. Tulowitzki was quoted in that story as saying that Jimenez needed to move on. Sunday, the two faced each other in the first inning of a meaningless preseason game. Jimenez hit Tulowitzki on the left arm, knocking him from the game and causing him to be sent for x-rays (which were negative). Lots of yelling and posturing followed the incident, but no punches were thrown.

If this happens so often in baseball, why I am calling this incident out as being a problem? For a number of reasons.  First and foremost, this was a preseason game! Intentionally hitting one of the game’s best young stars and taking the chance of seriously injuring him in order to send a message regarding your displeasure at something that not only happened last year but also really had nothing to do with that player is way over the line. To do so in an exhibition game is unforgivable. Jimenez claims it was not done on purpose, but that was clearly a lie. He deserves a serious suspension. The Indians do not face the Rockies this season, which Jimenez surely knew, so he did not put himself at risk in some future game. It was a thoroughly spineless move. Fortunately, Tulowitzki was not seriously hurt and expects to be ready for the impending start of the regular season.

The baseball fan in me is revolted by what Jimenez did. If the “baseball gods” so many people reference are real, the pitcher has a rough season ahead of him.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Newport Harbor High School, which is in Southern California, suspended its entire basketball team last week after threats were made against the head coach and his wife. The coach, Larry Hirst, has since resigned from his position. He coached at Newport Harbor for 15 years.

3) Has there ever been a more put-upon athlete than Donovan McNabb? This week, McNabb, who has been popping up on a lot of ESPN broadcasts, found a couple of new ways to continue his “oh woe is me” campaign that he has been on for a number of years now. First, on Thursday, McNabb stated that Robert Griffin III would not do well in Washington playing for Mike Shanahan, which is likely where he is headed after the Redskins traded up to the second overall spot in the upcoming NFL Draft. This theory was predicated on the fact that McNabb himself did horribly playing for Shanahan a couple of years back, which clearly had to be someone’s fault other than his own. Later in the week, McNabb referred to himself as the most unfairly criticized player in the history of the NFL. Hey Don – there was nothing unfair about much of that criticism. I was a fan of McNabb’s for years, but his incredible ability to always say the wrong thing eventually wore me down, especially when combined with all of those passes thrown in the dirt.

4) Former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf, often called the biggest bust in NFL Draft history, continues to make news for the wrong reasons. The one-time quarterback was arrested in Montana on Friday on charges of burglary and drug possession after he allegedly broke into a friend’s house to steal Oxycodone.

5) Erving Walker, a guard on the University of Florida basketball team that made it to the Elite Eight in this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, was arrested on Friday for allegedly stealing a taco from a street vendor.

6) Kentucky and Louisville played each other on Saturday in one of the two Final Four games for the NCAA Tournament. These two schools are bitter rivals, and Kentucky, the overall top seed in the tournament, outlasted the Cardinals to take the victory. The Louisville side did take an earlier decision, though. Two men, one 68 years old and the other 71, got into a fistfight in a dialysis clinic in Georgetown, Kentucky, while arguing about the upcoming game. The Louisville fan landed the only punch in the fight.

7) Dwight Freeney, a star defensive lineman for the Indianapolis Colts, had over two million dollars stolen from him over the last several years by his financial adviser, according to a story by the Associated Press.

8) Micah True, a runner and author best known for running what are known as Ultra Marathons, races often far longer than the traditional 26.1 miles, was found dead near a stream in southern New Mexico on Saturday after a lengthy search. He had been missing since leaving for a run on Tuesday.

Good sports:

1) Back in November, Kurt Budke, the head coach of the Oklahoma State women’s basketball team, died in a plane crash that also claimed the life of one of the team’s assistant coaches along with the plane’s pilot and his wife. On Saturday, the team took the title in the Women’s NIT, beating James Madison, 75-68. What a great way for them to end what had to be a very difficult season.

2) Novak Djokovic continues to dominate men’s tennis. On Sunday, he won his third Sony Ericsson Open, defeating Andy Murray to take the title. Djokovic did not lose a single set during the tournament.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Railing against media-created drama is a self-defeating proposition when you are contributing to the problem in the process. All I can do is plow ahead, I guess, and discuss the carnival atmosphere surrounding the National Football League this week. The draft is in a few weeks, free agency is well underway, one of the greatest quarterbacks in league history, Peyton Manning, signed with a new team this week, and a franchise’s head coach was just suspended for an entire season. What, then, was the talk of the sports world this week? Tim Tebow, of course.

The Manning signing is where this all started. After spending a week or so evaluating the situations of the interested teams, Manning chose the Broncos over the Tennessee Titans and the San Francisco 49ers. It appears that Denver team vice president John Elway was the key to signing the future Hall-of-Famer, as he was able to use his experience as a top signal-caller who had his greatest success in his late 30s to convince Manning that he could win in Denver. It was actually a stroke of brilliance on the part of Elway, who not only got Manning to lead his team, but who also found possibly the only way to divorce himself from Tim Tebow without a fan revolt. It was clear from the beginning that Elway was not a fan of Tebow and his unconventional method of playing quarterback. He and head coach Jon Fox were essentially forced into playing Tebow when last season started off badly under Kyle Orton. The team saw greater success under Tebow, and the attention he received was so intense that the team had no choice but to continue with him. By bringing in as decorated a guy as Manning, Elway has redirected his franchise while shielding himself from most criticism.

The only part of the Manning side of the story that I would characterize as “Bad Sports” would be the idea that he would not consider any team in the NFC East because he would have then had to face his brother Eli, the quarterback for the New York Giants, twice each season. I hope that is just speculation on the part of the media, as opposed to it being something that Manning actually stated, as I would lose a lot of respect for him if that were the case. A winner plays and beats whomever is put in front of him. Being scared or unwilling to face your brother on a regular basis is embarrassing.

Once Manning was signed, Elway traded Tebow to the New York Jets, a team in turmoil after a messy season that saw a divided team underachieve. The Jets expressed interest in Manning as well, and after he rebuffed them, they tacked a couple of years onto starting quarterback Mark Sanchez’ contract as an apology for hurting his feelings, I guess. Now, they have brought in the biggest sideshow in the sport. Sanchez’ sensitive ego is sure to be put to the test, as some Jets fans are already calling for Tebow, who team officials say is there to be the backup quarterback, to start. Head coach Rex Ryan says he plans to use Tebow in the wildcat package that new offensive coordinator Tony Sparano used so effectively as head coach of the Miami Dolphins. If things do not start off well for Sanchez, the Tebow calls will be deafening.

For those of us who were extremely tired of constantly hearing about Tim Tebow last season, the idea that he now plays in New York, one of the two centers of the media universe (along with L.A.), is truly revolting. There have already been several unnamed Jets players who have spoken out about the team not needing Tebow, which is sure to stoke those fires. I have read so many stories about him this week, I can not even count them. Yes, I have just produced another one. The worst part is it’s only March. By September, this will be unbearable.

Bad sports, continued:

2) As I mentioned in the first paragraph above, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton was suspended for an entire year this week by league commissioner Roger Goodell. The punishment is for his part in the recent scandal involving bounties paid by the coaching staff for injuring certain opposing players. Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, now with the St. Louis Rams, has been suspended indefinitely.

3) A ten-year-old boy in Hong Kong was arrested after intentionally kicking another kid in the head during a soccer match.

4) Colin Clark, a midfielder for the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer, is about to be punished for using a gay slur during a match against Seattle on Friday. The insult was directed at a ball boy.

5) A woman from Kazakhstan won an event at the 10th Arab Shooting Championship in Kuwait on Thursday. As she stood on the medal stand, the national anthem of her country was played, as is tradition. It wasn’t the actual national anthem of Kazakhstan, however. What they played was a song from the movie Borat, which most Kazakhs would find offensive, I am guessing.

6) Boston Red Sox pitcher Bobby Jenks was arrested and charged with DUI in Dunedin, Florida, this week. I would love it if we were able to go a single week without there being an athlete arrested for driving drunk. Is that too much to ask?

7) Another week, another crap-tastic NASCAR race. This time, Sunday’s race in Fontana, California, was ended after only 129 laps due to rain. I am not sure what winner Tony Stewart proved by leading after 129 laps, but it got him a win. I know it was painful to see the Daytona 500 run on a Tuesday a few weeks ago, but the sport should do whatever it needs to do to ensure that each race runs to its scheduled distance. I felt like my time had been totally wasted watching 65% of a race.

8) Legendary boxing writer Bert Sugar died on Sunday after a heart attack.  He was 75 years old.

Good sports:

1) Last week, I wrote about some members of the Southern Mississippi pep band that had been chanting racist comments at an opposing player during the school’s NCAA Tournament game against Kansas State. This week, the school took action, revoking the scholarships of those five band members. Well done.

2) Tiger Woods finally won a PGA tour event on Sunday, winning the Bay Hill Invitational by five strokes over Graeme McDowell. It was Tiger’s first official tour win since 2009. You may not like him, but golf is infinitely more interesting when Tiger is winning.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Watching your children play sports is fun. My girls did not spend a great deal of time playing sports, being more inclined toward the performing arts, but they did play basketball for several years when they were younger. They were never more than role players on their teams, but I used to love sitting and watching them play. I am a hot-headed sports fan, so my grumbling about bad calls was occasionally louder than it should have been, but I never went too far with it. I did once tell our coach, after listening to him tell me about bad officiating, that we would probably get better calls if his own daughter didn’t repeatedly mouth off to the referees and show up her teammates. He reacted negatively to my comments, but he kept his daughter on a very short leash for the rest of that season. Many people would look at that situation as far more confrontation than they would be comfortable with. Shelly Miller, a man from the oddly named Michigan City, Indiana, would probably see my little incident as child’s play.

One day last week, Miller’s daughter, who played for her middle school’s basketball team, got in an argument with another player on her team during practice. An assistant coach disciplined the two girls by making them run laps around the gym. Sounds reasonable, right? I can not think of a more obvious punishment in that situation, and I would guess that most coaches have made that same choice at one time or another. I have never coached, but I have no problem at all with a coach meting out that sort of simple discipline. Mr. Miller apparently felt differently. When he arrived at the end of practice, his daughter told him of the punishment. Miller’s response was to walk up to Jeffrey Yackus, the coach in question, and punch him in the face, knocking him to the floor. Not content to stop there, Miller then jumped on Backus and punched him in the head repeatedly until he lost consciousness. The team’s head coach jumped in and pulled Miller off of Yackus, and the police were called.  Miller was arrested and charged with battery.

I realize this may sound like a silly question, but what the hell is wrong with people? On what planet is that any kind of reasonable response? Has our sense of entitlement grown so large that no punishment is ever acceptable, regardless of how well-deserved it might be? I am sure there are coaches out there that cross the line, whether it be with physical or verbal abuse, although I would suggest that it is a small minority of that population. I am certain that it would take a whole lot more than a coach having one of my daughters run laps to elicit even a fraction of Miller’s response. I read stories involving sports quite often, as you might imagine, and many of them involve some kind of negativity. Despite that, I still managed to be astonished when reading this story. I guess the fact that it involved kids and a middle school basketball team brought it closer to home. Fortunately, not so close that I ever saw something like this occur.

Bad sports, continued:

2) It was a bad week for middle school basketball coaches. An assistant coach in Massachusetts attacked the coach of the team that had just defeated his squad on Friday, biting off part of his ear. Maybe it was a protest on behalf of his fellow assistant coach in Indiana. Either that, or he is a huge fan of Mike Tyson.

3) Fabrice Muamba, a midfielder for Bolton of the English Premier League, collapsed in the middle of a match on Saturday. He suffered an apparent cardiac arrest and remains in critical condition in a hospital in London.

4) Officially ending what was a tumultuous time at Georgia Tech, Glen Rice Jr., son of the former NBA player, was kicked off the school’s basketball team this week after being involved in yet another incident. This time, he was a passenger in a vehicle that was stopped after a report of a gunshot being fired in the car. Rice was neither driving nor the alleged shooter, but his involvement in the bizarre event was enough for the university to cut ties.

5) The Southern Mississippi basketball team lost its opening round game in the NCAA Basketball Tournament on Thursday, but that was not the worst thing to happen to that program that night. Several members of the school’s band were overheard chanting “where’s your green card?” to a Latino player on the opposing Kansas State team whenever he touched the ball.  You stay classy, Southern Miss.

6) A night before signing a free-agent contract with the Chicago Bears, former Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall was accused of assaulting a woman at a New York nightclub. The Bears say they were aware of the charge before signing Marshall.

Good sports:

1) The NFL punished the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins on Monday, docking them large sums of money against their salary caps for the next two seasons for the way they handled some contracts during the uncapped year of 2010. Honestly, I am not sure whether or not this punishment is fair or justified, but those teams are two of my least favorite teams in the league, so I feel okay laughing at their misfortune. I never said I was objective.

2) Philadelphia Flyers goalie Ilya Byrzgalov set the team record for consecutive shutout minutes this week. His streak of over 249 minutes ended in the 3rd period of Thursday’s game against the New York Islanders, when Michael Grabner scored on him.

3) The NCAA Basketball Tournament started this week, and there were many great moments in the first couple of rounds. Only four 15-seeds had ever won a game in the tournament before this year, but that didn’t stop two of them from winning on the same day this time around. Norfolk State beat Missouri early in the day on Friday, and then Lehigh beat Duke that night.

4) Dallas Seavey became the youngest-ever winner of the Iditarod on Tuesday, crossing the finish line of the world’s most famous dog sled race at the age of 25.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday