Those Mid-February Sports Doldrums

Spring is still five weeks away, I have no idea what that darned Groundhoug said in Punxatawney, PA, this year anyway, and outside of a passing glance here and there at Torino's Olympics, there's not a lot going on that excites me much right now on the athletic scene. Where's March Madness when you need it? Give me a big-time buzzerbeater that gets me out of my chair already!

Of late a number of big names are going through their personal February struggles. Oklahoma State basketball coach Eddie Sutton---a lock for the Hall of Fame even without a national title---had his season (and possibly his career) ended abruptly after getting arrested for a DUI. Sutton's saga may not be over yet, but it's hard to sell the old fella on too many more postseason runs when he's already been on the verge of retirement for a couple years anyway. Oh poor Eddie. Get somebody else to drive for ya!

You want bottom of the glass sorrow? Take a look at my beloved New York Knicks. At 14-37, they've lost 16 of their last 17 games and have essentially given up on the season in front of (finally) unpacked houses at Madison Square Garden. Larry Brown offered it up himself earlier this season when he publicly issued: "This job is way more difficult than I possibly could have imagined." That pretty much says it all right there. And it's not like Larry is getting a lot of help decisionwise in the front office right now either. Isiah Thomas has taken an atrocity the size of Little Bighorn and turned it into Pickett's Last Charge. Blindly maneuvering his way through a series of ill-fated trades, Thomas has mortgaged the Knicks future without improving the present. He gave up two unprotected first round picks (including this year's) for Eddy Curry. Unprotected means even if the draft pick ends up in the top of the draft lottery selection order, the Knicks will still not get to keep it. And the worst part of this whole situation is that nobody else was offering anything near what Isiah Thomas did for Curry. The guy had major health questions after suffering from heart troubles the previous season. Now the Knicks have a bunch of out of position combos in Stephon Marbury, Jamal Crawford, Question Richardson, Nate Robinson and the recently-acquired Jalen Rose. It's all over in the Big Apple, folks. The only question now is who will leave first: Larry or Isiah?

Then there's Wayne Gretky. The Great One has maybe had the worst month of anybody, what with his wife and close friend both being targeted in a criminal gambling investigation at the same time. Wife Janet and close friend Rick Tocchet are both in a lot of hot water right now, and the big questions are how much did #99 know and when did he know it? Obviously the guy was aware of what was going on, but was he profiting from it any kind of way? Probably not, but then, you never know about these things. Odds are, teflon Wayne will salvage his job after his first and only real public persona hit. If anything, it probably gives the Great One a little more gangsta flava, which never hurts the mystique....

Still, I can't close out the mid-February Doldrum Round-Up without harping at Boh-dee Miller. Mr. Miller couldn't even complete his big slalom event, but the bigger point is that nobody was really rooting for the guy anyway. Sure he's an American, and that's always the big rallying factor for the TV audiences at the Olympic Games, but the guy isn't somebody most folks would be proud to root for, what with the recent public statements and all. In case you forgot, Miller disclosed that he was a pretty regular drinker, to the extent that he claims he has competed "half-drunk" several times in the past. As if that's something to be proud of.

Not surprising then, out of all these troubled characters, the one who's pain I feel the least is the Bodester.

March can't come soon enough.


-JAB