Author Archives: Mark Dent

Feb 25 2010
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Much Ado About Dunking

OK, so this is a little bit late, but I’ve been busy. Anyways, here is a story about NBA All Star Weekend in Dallas a week and a half ago.

Scene 1: Before Saturday’s contest, at a massive hall in a Dallas hotel
Enter Nate Robinson, Shannon Brown, DeMar DeRozan, Gerald Wallace and a horde of media ready to probe as if they are trying to provoke the release of state secrets. There is no HERO in this story.

The grand banquet hall of the Dallas Hyatt Regency sits on the second floor of the downtown hotel.

Outside the room on this Friday, the day before the dunk contest, Stephen Curry talks to an autograph seeker who must have snuck past security. Media shuffle about. Rookies wearing their team warm-ups step on the escalator, descending downstairs, where there appears to be a photo shoot for a new Wolfgang Puck cook book. This doesn’t make sense at all. But cameras and those felt-covered lights surround an area that features a cover with Wolfgang Puck’s picture

Inside the hall, Magic Johnson finishes up a press conference. Chandeliers hanging from the ceiling provide light. Tables, at least 20, are situated about seven feet from each other throughout the room.

Nate Robinson leans back in a chair at one of these, the always-hungry New York media surrounding him with bright lights and massive cameras. He has won the dunk contest twice. No one has won it three times. He will have the opportunity to do so on Saturday night.

They want to ask him about the contest.

As a general rule, though, no one asks a productive question at a massive event such as the All-Star Game. More than 1,800 people have credentials here.

The list of names includes reporters from El Pais and L’Equipe. It includes someone who has a Maxim microphone, and it includes McLovin. Yes, really. I wanted to joke that Cat Fancy has three reporters, and Horse and Hound has another, but the reality of McLovin is funny enough.

This saturation leads to an environment of disorder and thus bad questions. And based on the Fox Sideline Reporter Law of Questioning, an athlete must respond to a cliché question with an equal and opposite unproductive answer.

This is apparent throughout the weekend, although, nothing brings out the FSR Law like the dunk contest.

Media: Nate, what do you want to achieve this weekend?

Robinson: I just want to have a natural dunk contest.

At least the environmentalists are smiling.

Shannon Brown sits across the room, diagonally from Robinson. He’ll go against Robinson in Saturday’s contest. Gerald Wallace, another contestant, sits two tables down from Brown.

I can’t recall seeing Wallace, even through a picture or a highlight, since the McDonald’s All-American game many years ago. His sight alarms me.

He has dread locks longer than Bob Marley. He looks and acts higher than Jim Breuer.

Upon hearing him talk, I realize he is as interesting as a tree stump. But to say he is as interesting as a tree stump wouldn’t quite capture his display of general detachment toward any topic. After all, tree stumps have those circles that help signify their age, which is actually kind of interesting.

Media: Gerald, how have you done in previous dunk contests?

Wallace: (gargling sound)

Media: Gerald, what do you have planned for Saturday night?

Wallace: (closes eyes)

Then, he speaks. It isn’t a complete sentence, only a run-on, but progress is progress, right?

He speaks of his goal in the contest.

Wallace: Try not to get hurt, try not to pull anything.

Scene 2: The confused, inner workings of my mind, used as a vehicle to hopefully portray everyone’s thoughts.
Enter: Memories

Thing is, I love dunk contests. Have since seventh grade. Back then, I didn’t really know anything about them. I had seen the Sportscenter highlights of Julius Erving leaping from the free throw line, and Michael Jordan leaping from the free throw line, and Brent Barry leaping from the free throw line.

The old tapes left me with a lingering thought: How exactly did Brent Barry win a dunk contest? But that uncertainty never led me to watch one.

Before classes started at Holy Spirit grade school, we would sit around the desks in our white uniform shirts and dark Dockers slacks and discuss the weekend, our distaste for our teacher, Mrs. McKinzie, or I don’t know, just talk about whatever seventh graders talk about.

On a Monday morning in February, a friend began talking about Vince Carter and the dunk contest from Saturday night. I, like most of the seventh grade class, had spent that evening at Chili Bingo.*

*The Cub Scouts put on Chili Bingo every year. It was the social event of a lifetime, along with the Pinewood Derby, for sixth, seventh and eighth graders. You ate Chili, and you attempted to talk with girls, and you played Blackout for a $100 reward, and you bought tickets for door prizes.

That seventh-grade year, I won a door prize. There were two choices left. I can’t remember the other one, but I decided to grab a video titled “Golf With Steve J.” Steve J, apparently, was so well-known that he didn’t even need to endorse his instructional videos with his surname.

This friend, Drew, didn’t go that night. He watched the dunk contest.

Drew spoke, admiringly, about Vince Carter and how he bounced the ball, grabbed it mid-air and brought it between his legs before dunking, all in one motion.

Someway or another, I think, I ended up seeing those highlights. I was amazed. Carter did the legs thing, and he stuck his full arm down the rim. He also twisted his body the opposite way most people would on his way to a 180 or something.

I wanted to watch dunk contests. All of them.

I watched David Lee, at the McDonald’s All-American game, bounce the ball, then take off his red jersey, then grab the ball and do a reverse slam to win that contest. I watched some sort of Kansas City high school all star showcase that probably no longer exists. Jeff Hawkins tried to dunk in it. He didn’t do so well. Jamar Howard won, jumping over a few young children before doing a one-handed slam.

I watched those as often as I could, and I also watched the NCAA dunk contests. I bought this VHS tape called “Ball Above All.” Among other cool basketball moves, it featured a high-school-aged James White, who I still believe is the greatest dunker of all time.

And, of course, I watched the NBA dunk contests, starting in eighth grade.

I sat in our half-finished, always-cold basement and looked on as DeShawn Stevenson completed something called the “Off the Heezy for Sheezy” dunk; as Baron Davis cut eyeholes in his headband and pulled it down over his eyes for a dunk; as Desmond Mason jumped over a crouched Rashard Lewis in what was good enough for the victory.

Kenny Smith complained the whole time. He complained that they weren’t even “sweating.” Not sure how perspiration helps with the gripping of a ball, but you get the point. The dunk contest had lost its luster. That’s what everyone said, and they would continue saying it over the years.

The NBA started calling it the Rising Stars Dunk Contest for a while, thinking they could convince us that Fred Jones would become someone we might not confuse with Tom Jones. Players like Jonathan Bender and Corey Magette competed. Vince Carter would never return, nor would Tracy McGrady or Kobe Bryant.

I didn’t care. I enjoyed that 2001 dunk contest, and I continued to watch them in high school and college.

I remember the infamous dunk wheel. I remember Andre Igoudala completing the greatest dunk of all time, where he jumped from behind the goal, and then e-mailing one of my NBA-loving professors the next day just to talk about it.

The contestants always smiled and laughed. They wore Superman suits and they blew out candles on frosted cupcakes.

Celebrities like Usher and Puff Daddy watched from courtside, mere mortals as giddy as anyone watching from home. They watched the same way we all did.

I knew I would never be able to dunk. Even if I lowered our driveway basketball goal to 7 ½ feet and used a miniature ball, I couldn’t do a 360 or even a 180.

These athletes could do it on regulation goals, and once a year they would put on a show so we could admire the creativity, the grace, the way they had to exercise caution to prevent their foreheads from banging into the rim when they floated up there.

We could watch an already impossible display of athleticism become fortified with tricks and showmanship when we watched them. That’s why I loved dunk contests.

Scene 3: Saturday’s contest, at the American Airlines Center
Enter the valiant contestants, Craig Sager’s screaming suit and unfortunate Cheryl Miller.

Wolf* Blitzer walks down the aisle of American Airlines Center and takes a courtside seat in the third row. Darryl Dawkins, in a suit ostentatious by everyone’s standards except for Craig Sager, sits next to Dominique Wilkins and Robert Horry, looking very Fresh Prince-esque, in the first row on the court, diagonally in front of Blitzer. Spike Lee has a courtside seat across the floor from them.

*Who would have thought? A blog post that includes two people named after Wolves.

Saturday is officially here. Dunk contest night. This is about star-studded glitz, through your-legs-flash, off the heezy for sheezy power.

Let’s have Gerald Wallace explain to Cheryl Miller and the whole arena the exact superlatives that this contest is about.

Miller (talking to Wallace at halfcourt on the loudspeaker): How much creativity will it take to get by Robinson?

Wallace: I don’t know.

Yep, that’s how it all starts on Saturday night. Gerald Wallace, looking like he just stumbled off the set of Half-Baked, says his first complete sentence of the weekend.

You might guess that now the crowd is ready to erupt. NBA dunk contest excitement, after all, had already reared its head a month earlier courtesy of Robinson and LeBron.

Robinson, the two-time winner and former “rising” star like Fred Jones, told New York media that he didn’t want compete. He would compete, though, because he had had to.* He certainly didn’t desire the championship, and he said this.

*Someone later explained to Robinson that this was not the case. He did not HAVE to compete. At this point, though, he had already committed.

LeBron, apparently, didn’t either. Captivated by Dwight Howard and Robinson in 2009, he made an on-air promise to Miller that he would compete in the Dallas 2010 contest. The NBA’s greatest theater would again have its King, the great James.

When January rolled around and the NBA asked for a commitment…uh, not so much.

LeBron’s spurn left the league in a predicament. It needed a fourth dunker. But we all know how the NBA reacts to predicaments. It creates the Dunk-In, a wonderful televised event for “rising” stars to introduce themselves.

DeMar DeRozan wins this over Eric Gordon and says he hasn’t lost a dunk contest since the ninth grade, a Roman-Empire-grand period of domination that has lasted all of five years.

So there you have it. Saturday’s storylines: Will DeRozan preserve his Ripken-esque streak, will Nate Robinson have to accept the inconvenience of winning another contest, will Shannon Brown show off his “rising” star-ness, will Gerald Wallace do his best Gerald Green impression and place a weed brownie on the rim so he can blow out the candle?

DeRozan is the first contestant to dunk, the first one with the opportunity to build on the fervor started by Wallace’s announcement.

He completes a been-there-done-that reverse, going through his legs after jumping from under the goal. He scores a 42, and the on-court announcer says DeRozan is setting the tone. Oh my.

Next up is Shannon Brown. Brown actually seems like he wouldn’t rather be spending his millions of dollars on one of the strippers that were flown into Dallas solely for this All Star Weekend. He got into the dunk contest because of fans. They started a Web site, LetShannonDunk.com, petitioning for his spot.

His story line actually is interesting. Like Jason Richardson or Desmond Mason in the past, he really has the opportunity to spice up a contest that on paper looks like a dud.

Brown fails on a running dunk from midcourt. Then he jumps, and in mid-air switches from his right hand to his left hand for a dunk. Uh-oh.

Wallace is now up. Uh-oh, indeed. He performs a standard reverse dunk. Repeat. He performs a standard reverse dunk.

On-court announcer: Wallace, with the old-school!

Time for Robinson, time for Krypto-Nate, time for the one of the smallest, most creative dunkers we’ve seen. He gulps energy gel on the court. OK, this looks promising. Then he begins his run to the hoop and completes an average two-handed dunk off the bounce.

It may just have been a coincidence but the arena’s giant TV screen shows Spike Lee. He’s covering his eyes.

I look over at Blitzer. He’s tinkering with his phone.

We know what happens after this. DeRozan finishes a nifty, 50 dunk after taking a pass from the side of the backboard, but the pass, from Sonny Weems, seems more remarkable. Brown fails again. Wallace decides to go even more old school and shoots a jump shot on his next turn. Robinson wins because he asks Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to stand next to him on the court for seven seconds.

Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, I can only guess, must be ravenous with disgust. Blogs and columns will be all over this. Where’s Vince Carter? Where’s Kobe? The dunk contest is dead, again.

But there is progress. This dunk contest isn’t all about nothing. In the media room afterwards, with Robinson sitting next to his trophy, the Fox Sideline Reporter Law of Questioning is finally broken.

Media: Nate, are you going to try and go for a fourth title.

Robinson: No, no, no. I can’t bear that anymore.

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Feb 10 2010
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Deep thoughts, only not so deep

Here are two random, unrelated thoughts. One is about KU basketball, and the other is about going green. Neither is likely productive, or even sensible.

1. I’ve been playing a decent amount of FIFA lately for XBOX 360. Those who follow soccer casually know there is a famous player named Thierry Henry.

Henry plays on the French national team and for Barcelona. He’s known as a superstar, even a French legend. Of course, he’s also known as the guy whose handball cheated Ireland out of a possible berth in this year’s World Cup.

Americans unfamiliar with Henry probably don’t correctly pronounce his last name. It is not “Hen-ree.” It is “On-ree.”

Kansas has a basketball player whose name causes great mispronunciations as well. That player is Xavier Henry.

People not familiar with Kansas basketball or college basketball in general often call him “Zavier,” using the common American pronunciation. In fact, he is “Zauv-e-ay.”

That pronunciation comes from Belgium. During the early years of his childhood, his parents lived there. The natives called him “Zauv-e-ay,” and his parents liked the way it sounded. So “Zavier” became “Zauv-e-ay.”

His last name, though, is normal. It is “Hen-ree.”

But here comes the random thought. Henry should start pronouncing his name in the European way, a la Thierry Henry.
His first name is pronounced in the European way, so too should his last. It would also sound more cool, and more natural for that matter. And it would invite comparisons to Thierry Henry.

Henry is a legend, a spokesman for Gillette and a guy so good that apparently referees don’t even call handballs against him. Who wouldn’t want to be more like him?

2. I came home to my apartment complex the other day and saw shiny orange plastic bags sitting in front of everyone’s front door. At first, I thought it might be a gift. Maybe our rent money isn’t just for rent. Maybe the pirates who run the woefully corporate-sounding Jefferson at the North End actually do care.

I wasn’t completely off base. Without picking the bag off the ground, I peered inside and saw it did contain something. Each one stored a brand new phonebook.

Once I saw the phonebook, I closed the bag, not brining it inside the house or throwing it away. I left it there. My roommates did the same. They left it there.

The next day, when walked out of the apartment for work, the majority of the orange bags still rested in front of everyone’s doors. No one wanted their phone book. No one cared.

Because, really, who uses a phone book? And here comes the random thought. Let’s get rid of them.

Think about it. Every metropolitan area in the country releases a white-pages phonebook and a yellow-pages phonebook once a year. These contain thousands and thousands of pieces of paper. A study, by the online phonebook service WhitePages, showed that five million trees are cut down every year for this worthless endeavor.

Every single of one those phonebooks is also placed in a plastic bag. As we all know, plastic bags will never ever ever decompose. When we leave this planet for Mars, the moon, or high-tech spaceships with powerful laser guns in 500 years and robots like WALL-E are the only things left, he’ll be puttering around on his robotic legs picking up those damn plastic orange bags.

And all of this is done, once a year, so we can leave the phonebooks on our front stoop until finally someone yells at us to bring it inside where it can waste away in that cupboard in our house we never open.

At best, a family with young children might use the phonebook as a booster seat for dinner time. But that’s it. People look up numbers on the Internet nowadays.

Look, phonebooks aren’t completely evil. Opt-in movements are gaining steam, meaning that phonebooks might soon be delivered only to those who request them.

They can be recycled – although the previously stated study suggested that only 16 percent of Americans do it – but why not just get rid of them altogether.

This move wouldn’t save the environment. It wouldn’t even come close. But it would be a start. We have the technology to move beyond the phonebooks’ perilous paper trail; let’s do it.

Then again, I do work for a newspaper, so maybe someone else should write this letter to their local congressman.

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Feb 04 2010
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Just thinking about Sherron

He looks like the old man in the rec league out there, the one who doesn’t quite understand that his legs and game have deserted him.

He weighs a little more than everyone else. Maybe that’s why. His back aches, and his quads aren’t firing. Maybe that’s why.
Whatever the reason, he is stumbling. This is ESPN Game Day. This is against a rival. This is Bramlage Coliseum. This is the Octagon of Doom or whatever the heck they’re calling it.

And Sherron Collins looks like that damn old man everyone at the gym would pay if he promised to never play again.

They take him out. They stretch his lower back. They massage his upper legs. When they put him back in the game, he hobbles around for a while longer.

So then it makes perfect sense that he makes the game’s most important shot.

***
A couple of weeks ago, a cousin of Nic Wise tried telling me that his Arizona point guard relative played the game of college basketball better than Collins.

Of course I laughed.

A friend of mine who graduated from Kansas State said point blank that he would prefer to have Jacob Pullen on his team rather than Collins.

Another K-State fan soon told him to shut up.

Reason prevailed during these arguments. Notions of basketball insanity were quickly dismissed. But a worry still lingers. These people erroneously questioned the value of Sherron Collins, and I fear it happens on a larger scale.

It seems strange. Collins is flashy, and he’s undersized, and he loves crunch time. He shoots the three. He often drives like a mad man. He’s been part of a national championship. He has what casual observers might refer to as intangibles.

These characteristics normally pop out for admirers of college basketball.

Yet the devaluation occurs. Sherron Collins, a fireball, one of the gutsiest players to wear a Kansas uniform, always does what he needs to do. The moment calls, and he’s there. Situations and games change, and he’s there.

***
Go back to early November, 2, 2006. In his first college game, an exhibition, Collins came off the bench for 24 minutes. He dribbled wildly, navigating his own way to the basket where he missed as many layups as he made.

He would score eight points and contribute five assists.

The crowd would pine for Shady.

Yep, Darrell Arthur did everything that night. He flashed NBA-ready post moves, jammed a couple of times and, of course, he introduced us to that nickname, Shady, one people would repeat for a long time*.

*And Dave Armstrong would improperly join the nickname with his last name, calling the big man “Shady Arthur” for the next two years and producing an untold number of cringes for listeners.

I remember walking home with a fellow group of KU fans. Someone talked about getting Arthur’s jersey. Another person told him not to bother because with that kind of game he would certainly leave after one season. Someone else said he couldn’t believe that he was a year older than Arthur.

What about Sherron? What about that 5:1 assist-to-turnover night? What about the way he darted into the lane, so quick that his own body sometimes couldn’t react?

***
Go back to April 2008. For the major KU fans, I suspect I don’t need to recount the date. However, for the less studious, it was Monday the seventh, and the game was the championship, and the opponent was Memphis.

We all know what happened.

Mario Chalmers stroked a fall-away three-pointer that sent the game into overtime. It would send the Lawrence crowds pouring out of Mass. Street bars and into the streets. It would send the “One Shining Moment” editor scrambling to make that the permanent ending.

Everyone, rightfully, raved about “The Shot.” Few noticed “The Pass.”

The pass came three months after a fight erupted in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Well, it wasn’t quite a fight. People who use the thesaurus too often would probably refer to it as a fisticuff or something.

It started when Boston College’s Rakim Sanders took offense to Chalmers. Chalmers had accidentally slipped into his chest, and Sanders started jawing at him, a little too close for just friendly chatter.

A second later, Collins was there. He could have knocked Sanders’ head off – and probably wanted to – or he could have played the role of peacemaker. In the end, he really didn’t do either. Darnell Jackson calmed the situation down.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about Collins. He ran from the other side of the court in a second to be there for his teammate. I had never seen a person move quite like that when no one else really saw the argument coming.

And it illustrated a point. When his team needed something, Collins would do anything, and he would do it reflexively, as though it were second nature.

And that’s what connects Boston College with “The Pass.” No man could have consciously done what Collins did on that play. It was reflex. It was natural.

View after view on YouTube can’t bring about a clear picture. One second, he’s dribbling, the next he’s falling and still dribbling and making a perfect pass all at once. It almost seems like he skips a frame, like he transcends time.

Joe Posnanski ( I think) would later write a column about Collins’ pass. I unfortunately can’t find it.

This gave “The Pass” its due, its rightful justice. Only, it didn’t. Nothing could. Collins defied basketball logic with that play. He saw an opening few could have seen, burst through it and did something that can’t even be properly interpreted on film.

****
For a while, Collins struggled with his role as the man. And at the beginning of last season, he had to be the man. He couldn’t quite trust anyone else.

Cole Aldrich was still unproven. He had outplayed Tyler Hansbrough months before, of course, but this wasn’t the Aldrich Kansas could lean on just yet.

Tyshawn Taylor and the Morris twins were enigmatic at best. Brady Morningstar and Tyrel Reed hadn’t become the ultimate glue guys and so on.

So against Syracuse, he tried a little too hard. Jonny Flynn made him. Flynn plays basketball with what the players like to call swagger.

Nobody outswaggers Collins, and he wanted to prove it. He did in the first half, scoring 15 points to Flynn’s eight. Then Flynn started scoring and talking and running with a little more energy. He scored 17 points the rest of the way.

Collins tried to keep pace, and made just one shot in the last nine minutes of regulation. At one point, he tried driving on Flynn, who stripped the ball, and Syracuse then went on a 13-2 run.

Kansas had a big lead. It lost in overtime. And it was easy, and probably rightful, to blame Collins.

A month later, he shot the ball too many times against Massachusetts. Kansas lost again.

Then came the Tennessee game. Bill Self said then that it was the kind of victory that could turn around a season. And something changed in Collins, too.

This was the first time since the Massachusetts debacle that Kansas played a tight game. Collins could have reverted to old form and tried to do too much. He didn’t.

In the last five possessions, the last few minutes, he got to the free throw line, and he passed the ball inside to Aldrich. The occasion called for that, and he delivered.

Of course, the occasions change. That’s why he shot and made all those three-pointers against Oklahoma. That’s why he came in at just the right time on Saturday against Kansas State. That’s why, though he could put 25 up if he wanted, sometimes he lets the Morris twins and Xavier Henry do most of the work in other games.

It goes back to his natural ability to respond to situations. He understands the subtleties of the given game and then delivers.

***
Go turn on ESPN. You may have to wait a few hours, or likely just a few minutes, but at some point on any given day, a talking head will gush about John Wall.

Everybody loves John Wall. Did you know he hit a shot to beat Miami of Ohio? Did you know he may or may not have feuded with his hot-headed coach over the weekend?

Wall averages gaudy numbers. He deserves much praise. But he gets it largely because of the numbers and general freshman hype.

Collins doesn’t always put them up. Against Missouri, he hardly scored. He really didn’t have to.

Last night, against Colorado, he hardly cared in the first half. He didn’t have to. Then in the second half, he erupted.
Collins just does what he needs to do, reflexively.

“The kid’s legacy to me is, there’s been a lot of good players here,” Bill Self said, “and he’s gonna win more games than any of them.”

Self said that to the Kansas City Star the other day, and I think you can read even further into the quote.

Collins isn’t just some guy who ends his career with a bunch of victories because he played on good teams.

Of all the recent Kansas players and all the college basketball players in general, no one does more to get his team those wins. There’s no other player who wins games like Collins.

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Jan 22 2010
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Ode to the Aussie Open

A quick thank you to Rustin, for keeping this blog afloat as I slacked for about two weeks. Maybe I’ve just been too busy watching the Australian Open…

If you stare long enough, the rubberized blue surface begins to morph from mere tennis court to bottomless ocean.

This happens after hours of watching the men and women who are standing on top of it as they hit the golden ball back and forth, lulling you with repetition and pulling you under.

And I greatly enjoy sinking into this sea.

The above happens every year; it, in fact, is happening right now. The best tennis players in the world are playing in the world’s most tennis-mad country, Australia, in the Australian Open.

Rafael Nadal thrashed his first two opponents then needed a little extra effort against Philipp Kohlschreiber. Roger Federer had a little trouble in round one. America’s sweetheart Melanie Oudin lost, so too did Motherhood’s sweetheart, Kim Clijsters. Serena Williams didn’t threaten anyone yet. Justine Henin upset a top-10 player. And James Blake came heartbreakingly close to beating Juan Martin del Potro in five sets.

There’s the hot news from Australia. The short summary tells everything that’s apparent on the surface.

But the Australian open has never really been about what’s on the surface. Indeed, the literal surface has changed several times throughout the years. As recently as 1987, the major was played on grass courts. Since then, it’s moved to the greenish Rebound Ace to what it is now: the deep blue Plexicushion.

Anyways, like I said, the Australian Open is about so much more than surface characteristics. The tennis played there once a year is the kind that makes you think.

In a way, tennis has always been like that. It’s only natural. Games of tennis begin with the score at Love-Love, and the back and forth patter of the ball from each person’s racket creates a steady rhythm incomparable to any other sport.

All kinds of writers have captured this sort of phenomena. A book called “Tennis and the Meaning of Life” features brilliant authors all telling their tennis stories.

With that book containing only pieces of fiction, the Australian Open gets no mention. In real life, though, the event is mesmerizing, boasting a setting, a time and place, no work of tennis fiction can match.

That time is, of course, right now, in January. I suspect many people would consider January the worst month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the only month that doesn’t include a real holiday (no offense to MLK, but that doesn’t count). It’s the only month that doesn’t include warm weather. It’s a month that follows Chrismukah and New Year’s Eve and the college football season.

And it’s a month of transition. A new year has begun and with it comes all the hopes and challenges of something different.
For college students, the second semester begins. For businesses, the new fiscal year starts. The classes might get easier, or they might not. Investors might become bullish or they might not.

In short, January is a month of harsh uncertainty. There are no breaks from the routine and no breaks from the conditions.

You’re in Dallas. You’re in Kansas City. You’re in New York. You’re in the best place in the world. You’re in the worst place in the world.

You are where you are and transition doesn’t come quick or easy. You push through January knowing the weather will get warmer and that the new problems you encounter will go away when you discover solutions.

But when I watch the Australian Open, it feels like I’m cheating. It feels like the solutions are here, and I’m moving to some place else entirely.

The month is January, yet the women tennis players wear tank tops. The time on your cell phone says 8 p.m., yet Marin Cilic is pounding serves in 99-degree heat and sunlight.

On Sunday, I watched Yanina Wickmayer win her first round match while writing a small piece for the Dallas Morning News. Three years ago, I watched Andy Roddick defeat a young J.W. Tsonga the night before Daily Kansan orientation. Five years ago, I listened to my high school locker partner discuss how he stayed up until 2:30 a.m. so he could watch Marat Safin defeat Roger Federer.

Time, place and circumstances change. The Australian Open doesn’t.

Some may argue this same point about other sporting events. The World Series happens every fall, the NCAA Tournament every spring and so on.

But they don’t carry the same magic as the Australian Open. They don’t take place during one of the strangest times of the year, and they don’t provide such a drastic change to that setting.

And every year, the Australian Open does.

It begins in January and brings with it the comfortable certainty of men and women slapping a ball back and forth over a blue expanse.

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Jan 05 2010
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Tech, tech, tech, tech, nine, nine, nine

Everyone from the Kansas City area has a Tech N9ne story.

There was one time that he showed up in the parking lot at a Saint Thomas Aquinas football game.

He arrived in a massive van, decorated with a mural of his recent album, “Absolute Power.” The car was somewhat out of place. This was St. Thomas Aquinas for a Friday night football game. The parking lot was filled with mothers’ minivans, Leawood* students’ Lexus’s and the car jockeys’ Preludes and souped-up Civics.

*My bad, I mean Leahood.

Tech N9ne styled his hair in orange dreads that night, just like on the album cover/side of the touring van. He didn’t quite fit in.

No, the car, the hair, the fact that Tech N9ne was rumored to have worshipped Satan – it all didn’t quite feel right in a parking lot in a southern Johnson County Catholic school.

But no one seemed to care. A celebrity had come to Aquinas. This was automatically big news, no matter the person. Fran Drescher could have arrived, giving out free DVD’s of “The Nanny,” and we would have thrown a parade.

And here was Tech N9ne. Tech-FREAKING-N9ne at our high school. He was famous. Yeah, he must have been famous. He was Tech N9ne.

That mattered to us.

***

I write this blog now because I just noticed that Tech N9ne has a new CD. I saw it at Best Buy in Dallas on Sunday afternoon. It’s called K.O.D., an acronym for King of Darkness. I don’t expect many people down here will buy it.

They won’t understand it. They won’t understand Tech N9ne. They’re not from Kansas City.

To us, he’s the most famous rapper to ever come out of the city, probably the most famous musician of the last 10 to 15 years, assuming you don’t count David Cook (and I don’t).

When he released his “Killer” album in 2008, Kansas City Star music critic Timothy Finn called it a classic. Jason Whitlock called it the best rap album since Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic.”

It sold 36,000 copies in its first week. That’s certainly not bad, but something hailed as a classic in Kansas City carried little weight anywhere else.

And that makes total sense.

To everyone outside of Jackson, Johnson, Cass and Douglas Counties, Tech N9ne is nothing. He’s a guy who likely seems disturbed given his album covers and song titles. He’s a guy who hasn’t appeared on MTV, who has done few songs with other reputable musicians in this decade. He’s a guy who’s not…famous.

Those of us in Kansas City don’t quite understand that.

***

There was one time a friend of my brother’s hung out with the fast crowd at Shawnee Mission South during his freshman year.

One of the passengers on this night smoked what may or may not have been an illegal substance and didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the group.

He was Tech N9ne.

This story, along with mine from the beginning, should illustrate a bigger point. Think about it. Two times, at least, Tech N9ne was spotted hanging out among people I know in Johnson County.

That doesn’t exactly help out with street cred*. And if you’re interested in becoming a famous rapper, you need street cred, something that doesn’t come easy in hip-hop.

* Whenever people say “street cred,” it’s always “cred” never “credit.” What, does it show a lack of street cred to use the word credit?

You see, rap music is strange in that lame suburbanites such as myself buy the great majority of records. So to become famous and keep your street cred you have to make music that alternately pleases this suburban crowd, yet also alienates them so as to impress the urban crowd.

This can be done in multiple ways.

One, you can include words and messages that lame suburbanites don’t quite understand. An example of this would be the famous song by Lil’ Jon, “Get Low.” He repeated a highly explicit word in the chorus that I will not write because this is a family blog. No one who lived within 10 miles of a cul de sac knew what that word meant until Dave Chappelle hilariously brought this up on his TV show, sending suburbanites scrambling to urbandictionary.com.

Two, you can glorify crime and boast of a criminal background. 50 Cent does this as well as anyone. He talks about how he was shot several times before he got famous. Every once in a while he makes sure to get accused of a minor crime for which he will get acquitted, allowing him to skate off freely yet still put on the façade that he is a gangster/thug.

Three, you can start an imaginary feud with another rapper. Just mention some obscure line that doesn’t quite call someone out, but under the right circumstances could be interpreted that way. Then, six months later, declare that “the beef is on wax,” meaning it was all in good fun and won’t lead to any real fighting.

Tech N9ne didn’t pull this off. At the beginning of his career, he rapped about more standard topics such as repping his neighborhood and visiting far away hoods.

Then he dyed his hair orange. Then he wrote songs like “Slacker” and deeper, almost scary songs like “This Ring.” Then he started showing up in St. Thomas Aquinas parking lots and Shawnee Mission South social functions.

He didn’t hang around 56th and Highland too often.

He made moves that were innovative and bold, but in rap music, where clichés and catchy, formulaic hooks equal money, that’s not how you become famous.

***
Kansas City always wanted Tech N9ne to break through.

Maybe it was because of the way he uttered the name of our city in nearly every song, not to mention outlying places like Lawrence and Cameron, Mo. Maybe it was because he invented or at least popularized the drink, Caribou Lou*.

*That’s 151, Malibu Rum and pineapple juice. And if you are to listen to Tech, you can’t get the party started without it.

Maybe it was because no famous musicians (again, I’m not counting David Cook) have come from Kansas City since the Jazz age.
We knew we couldn’t compete with LA or New York, but other Midwest cities had their artists.

St. Louis had Nelly and even a one-hit wonder from J-Kwon. Omaha had 311. Chicago had Common and Kanye. Denver had India.Arie.

We knew Tech N9ne was our opportunity. So we built him up. We imagined that “I’m A Playa” would be a perfect club anthem, and that yes, the album “Killer” could be a classic.

In the ears of outsiders, the lyrics and beats didn’t sound the same. I remember asking people who lived at my dorm my freshman year in college about Tech N9ne. I would always get the same response. Yeah, he’s OK.

Tech N9ne is OK. That’s the prevailing opinion, not that he is too out there or that he doesn’t have enough street cred, and it leads into the final Tech N9ne story.

There was one time a reporter from Yahoo conducted a Q&A session with Aqib Talib during KU’s dream football season of 2007.
He asked him about the year, asked him about his daughter, asked him about coach Mangino and asked him about music and Tech N9ne.

“Yeah, he’s a Kansas City guy,” Talib said. “I haven’t gotten into him yet. I haven’t lived up here long enough.”

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Dec 20 2009
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An early Christmas story from Dallas

A common saying people reserve for small towns often goes something like this: If you blink, you’ll miss it.

You could say this about Dallas Academy.

Dallas Academy is a tiny private school north of the city, in the area next to White Rock Lake. The school has all the amenities of modern schools; it’s just exceptionally small. The main building is probably the size of a local restaurant and hides behind a curve on the road and several trees, obscuring it from view.

On Friday, I sped over to Dallas Academy and, of course, had to break and swerve to make the turn when I finally caught the glimpse of the school.

I was there to write about a miracle victory.

***

At about 10 a.m. that day, I got an e-mail from my editor asking me to do a story about this team. As someone new to this job, I knew nothing about Dallas Academy. It’s sort of a general rule about all the work I do as a newcomer to high school sports coverage: I know nothing.

Anyways, in the e-mail, he wrote that their girls basketball team defeated another team that I know nothing about by one point. This mattered because Dallas Academy hadn’t won in EIGHT years.

It gets worse.

Last year, Dallas Academy lost to another private school team 100-0. The coach, Jeremy Civello, talked about how proud he was that his team battled. However, he decided to cancel the rest of the team’s season.

Soon, the story made national headlines.

Good Morning America shot a feature of the team from their home gymnasium, as did the Early Show. A player told me Ellen almost invited them on to her show. Nike sponsored them, giving them a free trip to the NBA All-Star Game. They got the opportunity to sit close to LeBron and Paul Pierce.

I had no idea any of this happened until Friday morning, when I got that e-mail.

I called the school’s principal, who said the team was leaving to go back to the tournament in 45 minutes. So that’s why I sped over there.

I parked in the back of the school, next to two small school buses reserved for the athletic teams, and walked around to the front door.

They were all gathered in the office, in a completely comfortable manner, as if they were a family settled around a fireplace.

They tried recounting what happened on Thursday night. They couldn’t quite do it. Laughter interrupted every single thought.

Four girls began talking at once, then the coach interrupted them and then the principal wanted to say something and then another girl wanted to make a comment about the coach’s husband and he started laughing and then another girl who couldn’t make it to the game said how she couldn’t believe it when one of the players texted her to say they won.

I have never seen a group of more joyous people. You probably don’t believe this, and that is natural.

People in sports often go overboard to describe the routine. Announcers call three-pointers and dunks “unbelievable.” Dick Vitale anoints North Carolina players who average seven points a game “special.”

The over-usage takes away the luster. Miracles don’t mean as much when any comeback victory fits the mold.

So when life intersects with sports and something really is “special” and “unbelievable,” those descriptive words don’t fit.

Friday brought forth that kind of situation. That room was filled with literal bliss. This was your favorite song, the first time you hear it. This was a feeling that transcended words.

But I had to describe it.

My job was to recreate this feeling and put it into 400 words so the miniscule number of people who still read newspapers could experience the joy present in that room.

I tried to describe it. But I know I didn’t succeed. Hemingway couldn’t have. Well, he probably could have. Mere mortals, though, couldn’t.

So instead, I give you the attempt and wish you all could have sat in that glorious room for just a few minutes.

***

DALLAS — Nine victorious girls, a coach and her husband and the headmaster sat in the main office of tiny Dallas Academy on Friday, cramming into small couches and chairs and spilling out onto the floor.

They teased Jeremy Civello, the husband and last year’s coach, for leaving the game early. They recounted how half the boys team met them at Schlotzsky’s afterwards and dog-piled them as soon as they got off the bus. They repeated the word amazing, with major emphasis on the “UH,” often between long bouts of laughter.

If you want a concrete image to describe satisfaction, it was this room.

Dallas Academy defeated Johnson County, 34-33, on Thursday, the school’s first victory in eight years.

The girls laughed freely, the way one would laugh at graduations or weddings, because they could now forget the past. They could forget about the losing streak and last season’s infamous 100-0 loss.

“We had just been waiting to win one game,” senior Teodora Palacios said. “We broke it.”

Given the team’s record, nobody saw this coming, particularly after the first quarter.

Dallas Academy trailed, 9-0. Then the Bulldogs caught fire.

They pulled within seven in the second quarter, and then Lauren Oelke made a half-court shot at the halftime buzzer.

“When I made the half-court shot,” she said, “I lit up.”

Oelke, new to the team this year, scored 31 points, more than double her career high. She made a free throw with under a minute left to give her team its 34-33 lead. From there, they waited for what seemed like an eternity.

Senior Jackie Alas held coach Deanna Civello’s hand on the bench. On the court, the five girls made a stop and then dribbled and passed until the clock ran out.

“That was the best minute they ever played,” Civello said.

When time did expire, Civello said she had never seen her players’ eyes that wide. And of course, the girls screamed. They screamed, expressing an achievement they hadn’t experienced in high school.

“Everybody there watching us,” Alas said, “was like ‘why are they screaming? They won by one point.’ But they don’t understand. We haven’t won in five years.”

As soon as Alas finished her thought, they all reminded her that it had been eight years, and the room erupted with deep laughter again.

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Dec 16 2009
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More List Mania

Listing season is again upon us.

Kids have Chrismukah lists, Kelly Clarkson (or Vanessa Williams, whichever you version you prefer) has a grown-up Christmas list, mom has a longer than usual grocery list, Rustin Dodd just made a Christmas movies list, TIME has end of the year and decade lists and soon so will just about any other form of media.

Everyone loves a good list.

With that in mind, here is a nice December addition of List Mania. For those not in the know, List Mania is an ode to Joe Posnanski, who famously wrote lists until one day, many years ago, he wrote a column saying he would never list again.

So here goes…

Two ideal next jobs for Mark Mangino (not including obvious weight-related jokes, like donut taster)
1. Lumberjack (who’s better at sawing wood?)
2. Stunt double for a movie about “Baby Mangino”

Three places where Mark Mangino need not apply for work (not including obvious weight-related jokes, like a gym)
1. The BCS committee
2. KU Parking
3. Philosophy department (We all know Mangino never deals with hypotheticals)

Three regular songs that sound like Christmas songs
1. Vanessa Carlton, “1,000 Miles*”
2. Michael Buble, “Home”
3. Norah Jones, “Don’t Know Why”

*And this is not because it was featured on one of those old Christmas jewelry/Lexus holiday commercials. Trust me, listen, and you’ll think Christmas.

Four really good modern Christmas songs
1. “Winter Song” by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson
2. “Christmases When You Were Mine” by Taylor Swift
3. “Believe” by Josh Groban
4. “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” by NSync

Five places you never visit once you graduate college
1. The library
2. The student union
3. The rec center
4. Office hours
5. The quad

Six reasons why, if not for Stephen Colbert, no one would have even noticed that the Winter Olympics begin in about two months
1. Usain Bolt and the Jamaican bobsled team didn’t make it.
2. When the water is frozen, Michael Phelps can’t swim as well.
3. Campbell’s got rid of those Nancy Kerrigan commercials a long time ago.
4. Bode Miller hasn’t partied often enough.
5. The Russian judges can’t cause controversy like they used to.
6. They’re in Canada.

Three of the best Kansas City ways to enjoy the Christmas season
1. A drive through Mission Hills
2. Ice skating at Crown Center
3. Dinner at the Plaza

Two people who weren’t considered for flipping the lights at the Plaza on Thanksgiving night
1. Larry Johnson
2. Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s wife

One disturbing, yet entertaining holiday Web site to check out
1. Sketchy Santas

Five college basketball players who are as fun to watch as John Wall
1. Xavier Henry, Kansas
2. Greg Monroe, Georgetown
3. Denis Clemente, Kansas State
4. James Anderson, Oklahoma State
5. Isaiah Thomas, Washington

Four wishes for 2010
1. USA making it out of pool play in the World Cup
2. The ending of the Tiger Woods media frenzy
3. Matt Cassell having a QB rating higher than 34
4. Sherron Collins getting drafted in the first round

Six questions
1. Did he get her a Jared?
2. What happened in Vegas?
3. Did Sarah Palin mean rouge, instead of rogue?
4. How long until one of Tiger Woods’ mistresses writes a book?
5. Could Scot Pollard please replace Greg Gurley on the Jayhawk Network?
6. Do you hear what I hear?

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Dec 07 2009
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Amazed that this is all scarily real

For two hours the other night, four heavily-tanned men hollered at morally questionable women, fought a man who dared look at them and spent plenty of quality time getting jacked. In the same time frame, four self-described “classy” women, also bronzed past the point of comfort, detailed their desire to hook up with guidos and called any girl who was not her a “slut” or a “whore.”

Strangely, I couldn’t change the channel, and I suspect that there is only one way to describe this phenomena: I was vibing.

Not familiar with that word? Don’t worry. No one is. At least, no one was.

MTV changed that.

Yes, on Thursday night MTV aired the first episode of the reality series, “Jersey Shore.” In short, this is a show about eight guidos, an obnoxious subculture of Italian-Americans, living together on the East Coast.

But that’s just a cosmetic description. For those of us in the Midwest, the show is eye-opening confirmation of what had been a mystery. We have finally discovered that there really are people who act like complete meatheads and are proud of it.

Others have been equally impressed. Notably, the Web site “Gawker,” has gone as far as to call “Jersey Shore” a reality TV show revolution.

And Gawker is correct.

Reality shows have long been artificial. Paris Hilton looking down on farmhands in Arkansas is not real. Living with 15 jerks and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on a deserted island and eating worms is not real.

Neither is vying for the love of a 50-year-old washed up rapper with gold teeth who can say his name in a mildly funny tone, or attending Tool Academy.*

*I just found out what this show was on Saturday. Later that day, I read a blog on Joe Posnanski’s Web site about Tiger Woods and in it, he mentions “Tool Academy” because apparently one of Woods’ alleged mistresses appeared on that show. He didn’t know what it was either. There are so many reality shows out there, and I bet most people couldn’t name half of them.

“Jersey Shore,” though, is real, more of a National Geographic special about the Galapagos Islands, than “Temptation Island.” Rather than put people in a fake, made-for-TV environment, MTV has filmed eight obnoxious people in their natural habitat, the Jersey Shore, or as the show’s creators cleverly wrote on a wall decoration in the house, “Nu Joisy.”

This is a true depiction of a culture where vibing is acceptable lingo for getting along well with someone or something, where men need 15 bottles of hair gel and an hour to prepare to “get after it,” and where a “situation” is not a state of affairs but rather an obnoxious man’s description of his abdomen muscles.

Indeed, Gawker’s blog about the show is not a story but a “field study.”

One thing missing from its study, though, is how truly captivating all this is to those of us who don’t live on the East Coast, among guidos.

Through the eyes of a Midwesterner, like video-taped activities of Amazonian tribes, the documentation of these people truly provides an educational experience, a lesson in the art of narcissism and abrasiveness.

Here in the Midwest, guidos were previously known almost entirely through the YouTube video “My New Haircut.”

This video features a young man who is sporting the same new greasy haircut all of his friends have. He is sitting at a bar ordering Jaeger bombs.

But before he does this, he talks of “stotting” fights. He calls the bartender “chief,” the same name that one of his friends uses for the desk worker at his apartment complex.

This friend, who has curly hair, is noticeably upset. There is, of course, a plausible reason. His mother has forgotten to restock his protein stash.

Without protein, he can’t grunt while “getting his swell on” at the gym so people can see how “jacked and tan” he is.

Without protein, he can’t join his friend at the bar, who by the end of the video, has yelled Jaeger bomb several times while wildly gesturing to no one in particular, before slamming his drink in one gulp.

People like this are rarely, if ever, seen in Midwest cities.

Instead, arrogance reaches its peak with the collar popper, a person so cool that his neck is adversely affected by cold climates causing him to fold up the uppermost part of his polo, and even that subset of jerk is quickly fading.

We hear about guidos from college friends who hail from New York, New Jersey, Boston or another East Coast city. We might even catch glimpses of them if we travel to those places, if we visit bars in those places.

But we really knew guidos only from “My New Haircut.”

It all seemed like a joke. People didn’t actually act like that. They couldn’t actually act like that.

But now we have “Jersey Shore.” Already, by watching only one program, I’ve learned so much.

Guidos are actually just the males. Girls are called guidettes. These women love guidos and as one expresses, her desire is to meet the ultimate guido one day and start a guido family.

The males and females share several characteristics. They love to spray chemicals in their hair for long periods of time. They often own personal tanning beds. They have nicknames, ranging from “The Situation,” to “Snookie” to “J-Woww.”

Despite these similarities, when placed in Seaside Heights, N.J., in a house that features a garage decorated with an Italian flag that has the outline of the state of New Jersey emblazoned in the middle, not surprisingly, the guidos and guidettes clash.

As one might predict, a disagreement breaks out because of “sluts.” The boys invite three of them into the hot tub, and the guidettes go crazy.

And it is all real. The fights, the people, ther personalities, everything except the steroid-produced muscles and surgery-enhanced physiques. THEY ARE REAL.

Mike, who goes by the name “The Situation” because he has the aforementioned abs, is not playing to the cameras when he convinces a girl shopping at the T-shirt store he works at to make pink shorts that read “We’ve Got a Situation” on the rear.

Other examples: Sammi, a guidette, spurns “The Situation,” even though she was clearly vibing with him and discussed with him this instance of vibing, stating solely that fellow housemate Donnie, a behemoth of a man with spiky hair, is hot.

Nicole aka Snookie really doesn’t know how to use a land-line telephone. Pauly D, at 29 years old, really does want to make out with two 20-year-old “sluts” at the same time and style his hair for 20 minutes every day.

These people aren’t provoked. This show is a medium for them to express their true desires and feelings, for them to demonstrate and educate to those of us who didn’t believe this type of behavior was possible, that they truly are attempting to reach hair-gelled, tanning-oil-soaked nirvana.

Of course, the depiction of the guidos and guidettes is causing a bit of controversy. Italian-Americans aren’t laughing so hard. Neither, I would suspect, is the state of New Jersey.

But my advice?

Just vibe with it.

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Dec 03 2009
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Perspective and Agassi

Before the post, some housekeeping: It’s been a while. Wow, looks like almost three weeks since either of us wrote a blog. Yikes. Well, here’s one, a genuine rambler about Andre Agassi that might or might not make sense. Anyways, let’s hope this starts a hot streak for more posts…

I finished reading the Andre Agassi autobiography a week or so ago.

Everyone knows about this book. We know because of the crystal meth. The passage has been repeated so many times.

Agassi does the drug more than once. He gives it up but not before he tests positive, lies to the ATP and gets released because the ATP believes his painfully bogus excuse.

And for about two weeks everyone cared. Katie Couric interviewed him on “60 Minutes.” Jim Rome talked about it on his TV show. People wrote columns. Sports Illustrated featured that segment in an issue. Ryan Seacrest* even had him on his radio show.

*I’ve now mentioned Ryan Seacrest in consecutive posts. Feel free to make fun of me as much as you please.

Once the meth passage broke, others weighed in. Andy Roddick stood up for Agassi, as did a few other players. Most didn’t. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal expressed dismay, mainly because they said it tainted tennis.*

*This is completely ridiculous, especially for Nadal. Hard-core tennis fans will know that earlier this summer, he stood up for his friend, French tennis player Richard Gasquet, who tested positive for cocaine, another recreational drug. Yet, when Agassi, who did it 10 years earlier and confessed when he really had no need to do so, reveals himself to have done a recreational drug, Nadal expresses anger.

It’s unfortunate that his drug use has caused such a stir because that news has shrouded the importance of his biography. In it, he does what few public figures have done. He gives a clear image of one of the more complex athletes in recent history.

We finally meet the real Andre Agassi.
***
There’s a book, a wonderful book, called “Hard Courts.” John Feinstein wrote it, and in it, he details the 1990 season on the professional tennis tour. No one has written this complete of a book about tennis since.

He writes about a young kid with Greek ancestry named Pete Sampras who surprises everyone at that year’s U.S. Open.

He writes about John McEnroe, who threw maybe his most infamous temper tantrum at the 1990 Australian Open and had to forfeit his match.

He writes about Aaron Krickstein, a young Monica Seles, Peter Graf, the Davis Cup, a very young Jennifer Capriati, and of course, Andre Agassi.

At this point, Agassi was already the villain. He had refused to play at Wimbledon for a couple of years. Clothes, the media would say. Agassi wouldn’t play there because he didn’t want to trade his raggedy jean shorts and tropical t-shirts for Wimbledon white.

Feinstein also mentions his entourage. He talks about Phil Agassi, Gil Reyes and Nick Bolletieri and how they let Agassi get away with everything, how they coddled Agassi.

Feinstein’s view is clear. Other writers at the time were too. Mike Lupica, who Agassi singles out in his book, wrote several negative columns about him.

Agassi was a punk, they all said. He hurt the game because he didn’t care about tennis. He cared about winning fans with publicity stunts, strange fashion and long hair. He threw a Davis Cup match. And don’t even get them started on that “Image Is Everything” commercial.

In his book, Agassi explains. His brother was one of his best friends. They lived off three baked potatoes a day when he started his tennis career. Reyes transformed his body and mentored him in his personal life.
They were familiar. That’s why Agassi wanted them to stick close.

He didn’t throw Davis Cup matches. He tried harder in them.

He chose those strange looking jean shorts for Nike because John McEnroe turned them down, and he thought they looked cool. He didn’t think they would cause a stir.

His hair was long, because he didn’t know who he was yet. The hair was a coping mechanism.

Agassi notes he never told the media any of this because, well, he was immature and didn’t expect anyone to believe it.

But what if he did tell the truth?

If Agassi told us back then that he surrounded himself with his brother, his best friend and Gil Reyes because he was scared and immature; if he told us that he didn’t play Wimbledon because he hadn’t figured out the grass court game yet and wanted to save himself for the other majors; if he told us yeah, he did once throw a match but never would have done that at the Davis Cup; if he told us he shot the “Image” commercial in one quick take because he wanted to spend time with his girlfriend and didn’t think about the message, how would everything have changed?

We already had him penciled in as the rebel, the racket-carrying prima donna.

That was what we knew.
***
The 2006 U.S. Open rolled around, and this was the last go-round for Andre Agassi.

NBC aired a montage of his early, rebel years. The Who’s “Teenage Wasteland” played in the background. Then the background music changed and Agassi was bald and winning Grand Slams and earning admiration from crowds.

Yes, Agassi had transformed.

Writers, maybe the same ones who accused him of throwing matches, adored him for his apparent love for the game and the gentleman way he now carried himself off of it.

I recall watching the entire five sets of his second-round night match against Marcos Baghdatis. He easily won the first two sets, then lost the next two. By the end, both men could barely walk. And Agassi won.

He would play one more match, a loss against Benjamin Becker, and afterwards, Agassi blew kisses to the crowd and gave a speech. That had never been done before.

The loser, especially a loser in the U.S. Open’s third round, didn’t speak to the crowd. But we all loved Agassi.

Everyone loved Agassi. James Blake wore a retro, pink and black shirt with a bandana in his first round match out of respect for Agassi. Baghdatis admitted to emulating Agassi’s game when he grew up.

After that match against Becker, after the ovation and speech, all the men in the locker room, except for Jimmy Connors, stopped what they were doing and congratulated him.

In his book, Agassi details this. He also details how on the morning before his match against Baghdatis he thought about how he wanted everything to end and how he hated tennis.

No one knew any of that though. The 2006 U.S. Open was about Agassi because he had said all the right things.

But what if he told the truth?

If Agassi told us he hated tennis, that he couldn’t wait for it to end, that he lied about his love for the sport and how he wanted his son to love it as much as he did, how would everything have changed?

We loved Andre Agassi and thought of him as a hero, a legend, a person who had really changed.

That was what we knew.

***

It’s all out there, now. Everything. That’s why he called the book “Open.”

Who is Andre Agassi?

We finally know.

He hated tennis, hated how his father forced him to play it. He did throw a match once.

And yes, he tried meth when his career and personal life teetered toward disaster and lied about it. But he also donated lots of time and money to save a prematurely born child of one of his friends.

He wasn’t the devil wearing Nike of the early 90s or the saint of 2006.

In reality, he’s always been human.

And we finally figured that out.

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Nov 15 2009
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Turn the Radio Off

“Radio, radio,” as Brooke White would say. And she does say it. She sings it. I hear her words at least once a day.

But once, maybe twice, is all I hear of this song by Brooke White. It’s not like “Three,” Britney Spears’ newest musical controversy that emanates loud and clear and often plenty more than three times a day on my car’s FM radio.

Yes, the radio. I listen to it all the time now.

Steve Allen once called the contraption “the theater of the mind,” not specifying if radio’s play were a light-hearted comedy or an epic tragedy.

Bob Dylan once said the radio “makes hideous sounds.” He was on to something.

So you might ask, as I’ve recently heard the artist Ne-Yo ask in his song, “So Sick,” why can’t I turn off the radio?

Well, I usually have a tape adapter in my Chevy Malibu that allows me to plug in a discman or an IPod, saving me from radio’s repetition and monotony in a car that doesn’t have a CD player. A month ago, on the way home from a high school football game, the cassette deck spit the adapter out. The tape deck was fried. I haven’t been able to listen to my IPod or a CD since. 

It was the day the music died, at least, the good music. Indeed, I haven’t heard Don McLean since.

For some people, a radio-only world wouldn’t bring about a daily, Daughtry-induced headache. In fact, in small doses, I enjoy the radio. But now I live in the Dallas area.

You see, the urban planners here realized that sprawl was the most efficient way to build a metropolitan area. Dallas statutes mandate that the city limits of one suburb can’t come within 10 miles of another, with a bylaw stating that a congested four-lane highway is the only way to connect each town.

Because of this, and a job that requires me to travel to these suburbs on a near-daily basis, sometimes I drive up to three hours a day, a long time to get acquainted with FM radio.

In the mornings, there’s the Billy Madison show. He tells enlightening stories on the air about human waste. On his Web site, he classily chose to honor Veteran’s Day by featuring a section of “Hott Girls Wearing the Flag.”

When afternoon rolls around, Ryan Seacrest begins babbling, only stopping when he shares short, groundbreaking interviews in which Megan Fox can explain her maturation as an actress through her critically-acclaimed role in “Jennifer’s Body.”

In the evenings on the soft rock station, two women swap stories about how they believe daylight savings time is causing more traffic. They tell people, two days after the episode aired, that Katherine Heigl’s character was fired off Grey’s Anatomy.

Somewhere, Guglielmo Marconi is turning the radio dial in his grave.

Marconi* invented the radio, or at least the version of radio we know. He saw it as a way to spread information, not as a wasteland of repeated songs, gabbing DJs and Creed.

*When I hear this name, I automatically think of KU professor Chuck Marsh. Besides Marshall McLuhan, Marconi had to have been Marsh’s favorite guy to discuss.

Fortunately, I may never have to hear “With Arms Wide Open” again. A reprieve from radio sits in the driveway of my parents’ house, my brother’s Hyundai.

My brother is leaving the country soon. He won’t need his car for some time.

The Hyundai has a CD player. As far as I know, the cassette deck works.

I will soon get to experience radio-free bliss, an ending befitting a theatrical comedy for sure.

And given that ending, if it seems like I’ve been blathering on about nothing like a radio DJ, if it seems as though I’ve been crying a river (heard that song on the radio on Friday), then consider this.

The car lies at the end of an eight-hour cosmic journey, an Odyssey I must undertake in my Malibu, in which the radio may force me to battle with evil muses, or Muse anyways, and partake in a trip down the River Styx. 

Oh well, at least I like Styx.

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