April 2008 - Posts
Stanford Athleticcs Director Bob Bowlsby -- who once worked in this less-cosmopolitan area of the nation -- hired 11-year Duke assistant coach Johnny Dawkins to run his men's basketball program.
San Francisco-area columnists weren't too taken with Bowlsby letting Trent Johnson leave that job to go to LSU when Johnson wanted to stay put, and didn't have a lot of faith in Bowlsby's ability to find a coach who would equal Johnson.
There didn't seem to be enormous ink spilled about the hire in Tuesday's San Francisco/Oakland editions, because the NHL's San Jose Sharks are in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the San Francisco Giants sent $126 million pitcher Barry Zito to the bullpen, and the Oakland A's opened a series with the Los Angeles Angels for the AL West lead.
Early returns show there isn't great excitement for the Dawkins hire, though. Which may be a good sign for Bowlsby, since Iowa heartily endorsed his hire of Steve Alford a decade or so ago, and felt less warm about it several years later.
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News was none too overwhelmed with Bowlsby's latest appointment, however. He wrote: "Dawkins, not surprisingly, sounds like he wants to transfer Coach K's philosophies from Cameron Indoor Stadium to Maples Pavilion, and I don't think it works that way.
"Of course, Bowlsby is praying it works that way. He has no other choice. He messed up with Johnson and missed on everybody else, now he's stuck."
The link:
Kawakami: Hire is Doomed
Ah, what might have been ...
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/6dgqjw"</a>
We're talking divorce, folks. Expensive. Messy. Potentially ugly. Real ugly.
It involves someone who coached the Iowa men's basketball team a million years ago, Lute Olson. Lute is being accused by his estranged wife, Christine Olson, of moving money from a Charles Schwab account last Dec. 7, a day after he filed for divorce and the same day he asked Arizona for a leave of absence.
A nice subplot is that 73-year--old Lute recently retook control of the Arizona basketball program. He ousted interim coach Kevin O'Neill from his staff altogether in the process, and then acted mighty huffy - yes, Lute acted huffy - during the press conference announcing his official return.
Good old Lute.
Here's the link to the Arizona Republic's story on Lute, divorce, and nasty allegations. Click the URL between the weird coding, and enjoy.
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/5xreyy"</a>
Two weeks ago, popular Stanford men's basketball coach Trent Johnson left the school to take a similar job at LSU.
This inspired San Francisco Chronicle sports columnist Ray Ratto to compare Stanford Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby to a "drunken sailor." Ratto calls Bowlsby's handling of Johnson's departure "textbook awful."
Wow.
Here's the link:
I've known Keno Davis since he was 14. If I'd told him then that I was talking to a future millionaire, we'd have both laughed.
One time in the early 1990s, I was heading back to Cedar Rapids from Ames after an Iowa State basketball game. I stopped in the Meskwaki casino to play some two-dollar craps when such a thing existed. There at the table was college student Davis, not playing particularly well. College kids.
Several weeks ago, Drake sports information director Mike Mahon introduced Keno to me, but he quickly told Mike he already knew me. "Tama," he said. It took me a while to remember what he was talking about.
Tuesday, Keno inked a seven-year, $7 million contract with Providence. At 36, he's a Big East head coach. He's a good guy from a good family. Here's hoping he drives the likes of Rick Pitino and Bob Huggins crazy in that conference.
And here's hoping Drake Athletic Director Sandy Hatfield Clubb weighs all her options before deciding on Keno's replacement. Private schools with smaller budgets than BCS conference schools can win and be nationally ranked, but they have no margin for error when it comes to hiring a coach.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Tom Brokaw, who was the anchorman of NBC's nightly newscast for 22 years, asked me something as we parted ways after a five-minute conversation Sunday morning at Augusta National.
"Does Cedar Rapids still smell like Quaker Oats?" he asked semi-jokingly after we had gone through security at the same time at the Masters.
I gave the same answer I give to some of my smart-aleck friends from other Iowa newspapers: "That's the smell of money."
Brokaw spoke highly of Iowa. One of his early jobs in television was in Sioux City. He attended the University of Iowa for a year in the late 1950s. He has told people that he majored in "beer and co-eds" there.
I told him that the school still uses his photos in athletics media guides as a famous alumni, and he said the U of I wanted to give him some sort of alumni honor, but he declined, saying "it would be a fraud."
Brokaw went on to get a degree from the University of South Dakota in his home state, and has certainly been no fraud in his adult life as a distinguished reporter, anchor and author.
He was here with Golf Digest executive editor Mike O'Malley, a Waterloo native who is a U of I graduate. Brokaw is here to write an essay on the Masters for the magazine.
They asked me about Dan Gable, wanting to know how he fuels his competitive drive since he got out of coaching.
Brokaw spoke of Barron Bremner, the former athletic director at Coe and Cornell. Bremner was an equipment manager at Iowa when Brokaw was a student there.
Anyone who has known Bremner remembers him. Brokaw said back then, Bremner was besieged with requests by fans for items that would become memorabilia. Iowa football was a powerhouse in the late 1950s.
Randy Duncan quarterbacked Iowa to two Rose Bowl wins in the late '50s. Brokaw said Bremner got a bunch of footballs, "and I could sign Randy Duncan's name very well ..."
You can imagine the rest.
Brokaw was genuinely interested in talking about Iowa, and waited for me to pass through security after him, so he could introduce me to O'Malley and chat a little bit.
"Iowa is a special place," O'Malley said, and Brokaw nodded in agreement.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- It was Johnson's best score in his 13 rounds at the Masters.,/p>
The weather delay of 45 minutes didn't hurt him a bit. He came right out of the delay and sank a 15-foot birdie putt.
Johnson is 2-under-par entering Sunday's final round.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- No one who was on the Augusta National golf course wanted to see the deluge of rain or hear the rolling thunder that got play suspended at 1 p.m., local time. It is set to resume at 12:40 ... Iowa time.
But no one, and I mean no one, was probably less pleased about the intensified rain and delay of play than Zach Johnson.
Through five holes, he was back on his game. A recap:
No. 1, par-4. Fairway, green, 20-foot two-putt, par.
No. 2, par-5. He almost reached the green in two shots, softly placed his chip to within 3 feet, and birdied.
No. 3, par-4. Middle of the fairway, approach to a foot of the cup, birdie.
No. 4, par-3. Johnson's only poor shot was a tee shot that went left of the left greenside bunker. But his chip over the bunker was precise, and he made the 2-foot par putt.
No. 5, par-4. Tee shot was just off the fairway. He backed off the approach, then the rain got heavier, but he stepped up and landed his shot 15 feet from the hole. He just missed the birdie putt and tapped in for par.
No. 6, par-3. Tee shot 15 feet from the jar, then play was halted. It's about to start in 15 minutes, so your drenched correspondent has to get moving.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- It's 11 a.m., at Augusta National, and it's started to rain.
It has the feel of one of those rains that could set in for a while and pretty much make the day here miserable. It's gray as far as the eye can see.
I've seen what it's like when it rains here, and it takes a whole lot of the prose and poetry out of the place.
In 2005, it rained a lot during the tournament. It made for some very sloppy areas for spectators, or as they're called here and in the Augusta Chronicle, patrons. I'm not the only one who thought the mud and whatever it is they put on it to help people getter walking traction made the grounds smell like a hog pen.
Which is nobody's fault. Rain makes mud, and mud doesn't smell like azaleas or pine. As much control as the Augusta National Golf Club has in golf and in Augusta, it still can't influence the weather.
The weather has been terrific every day this week up until now, which is a lot more than I can say about my two other trips here, in '05 and last year.
Into every life a little rain must fall, so let's get it out of the way in time to get play finished by tomorrow night. The 10 names that adorn the leaderboard feature eight players without a Masters win, Mike Weir, and Phil Mickelson.
A whole lot of people are saying Mickelson is set up to win. With half the tournament left, nobody really knows anything.
Here's what we do know: Miguel Angel Jimenez, playing alone today as the first player out because there was an odd number of players who made the cut, just birdied the first hole to get to 2-over.
I wandered into the players' dressing room early in the week and was leaving as Jimenez was arriving. He greeted a clubhouse attendant, then looked at my press badge, and warmly said "How are you, Mike?" Then he shook my hand.
Jimenez, 44, has been known to wear his hair in a ponytail. He likes cigars. He was stopped at U.S. Customs two years when he tried to bring 50 Cuban cigars into the country while on his way to the Masters. They were confiscated. He plays on.
I am happy to finish this report by noting Jimenez just birdied No. 2 to get to 1-over. My new Spanish friend must like the rain, even if it makes it harder to keep his cigar lighted.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Zach Johnson shot a 76 Friday and there isn't much that's cute or colorful to say about it.
Since Johnson's 18 holes (and those of playing partners Luke Donald and Geoff Ogilvy) were the only golf I saw at the Masters on a warm Friday afternoon, I'll instead recount a story from Thursday night.
It was late and I was looking for something quick and easy to eat before retiring for the night. Living on the road, my friends, means you don't always eat well.
Not being picky at 10:30 p.m., I saw a sign for a sports bar that touted "good food." It was in a shopping center. I parked my car - which has an "eternal patch" on its back driver's side tire after I ran over a nail and had a flat tire just a few blocks from Augusta National Tuesday morning - and walked toward the sports bar, called Robbie's.
Next door was another bar, this one called the Country Club. Blaring from the bar was what sounded like Eddie Money singing his late 1980s hit "Walk on Water." But it didn't sound like a record, but rather, live music.
I asked the doorman if that was a cover band. He said no, it was Eddie Money. The Eddie Money of "Baby Hold On," "Two Tickets to Paradise," and my personal Money favorite, "Take Me Home Tonight." That's because he features the great Ronnie Spector on vocals. That girl can sing.
So, always in search of cultural treasures, I started to wander into the Country Club. But the doorman says, uh no, there's a $30 cover.
I went to Robbie's instead, had a cheeseburger, and listened to the jukebox.
If I could toss away thirty bucks on an oldies act like Eddie Money without deep regrets, I'd feel like I could walk on water.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- It's only 18 holes, not 72.
Co-leaders Trevor Immelman and Justin Rose shot 4-under 68, the immortal Brian Bateman had a 69. We know no more about how the 2008 Masters will turn out than we did yesterday, other than to say Woody "Aquaman" Austin (7-over 79) probably won't be swimming in Rae's Creek come Sunday.
But Zach Johnson's 70 was solid stuff, reminiscent of much of his work here last year in his triumph. He was fairways-and-greens.
While few ever go on putting rampages here, Johnson did make a lot of important putts to go with some that missed and cost him birdies.
Forget the 40-foot snake that curled in on No. 5. Johnson admitted that was lucky. It was very lucky. Had it not gone in, it might still be rolling.
No, Johnson's putts of true accomplishment included two 15-footers (his estimated distance, not mine) for birdies, an 8-footer to save par on 11, and a 4-footer on 17 to prevent a bogey from turning into his first double-bogey here since 2006.
Putting, normally a Johnson strength, has not been such for much of the 2008 season.
"I've put myself in positions at times to do some damage on the weekends and just didn't do it," Johnson said. "The reason has been my putter. It just wasn't on like it was, certainly last year, especially at the end of the year.
"I remember in Tucson (at the World Match Play Championships), I lost in the first round and I flew to Dallas and met with my (putting) coach, Pat O'Brien. A few things were off, and some things I needed to pay attention to, and fortunately I'm not worrying about those things anymore."
A good thing it is, because as you may have heard, the greens at Augusta are more difficult than playing an oboe while on a unicycle.
OK, maybe the CBS boys never say that while speaking in their hushed, reverential tones about this tourney, but they know it's true.
The odds on Zach Johnson to win the 2008 Masters were 40-1 according in many Las Vegas sports books.
The Woods kid was the favorite at 7-5. Phil Mickelson was next at 8-1, followed by Ernie Els at 15-1 and Vijay Singh at 18-1.
Were it me taking three flyers (and playing with your money), I'd have taken Adam Scott at 25-1, K.J. Choi at 30-1, and Angel Cabrera at 50-1.
With my money, I'd take Woods at 7-5.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- After a fog delay of an hour, the 2008 Masters is underway.
Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel are even-par through one hole. Both failed to put their tee shots in the fairway. Maybe they couldn't see the fairway.
Anyhow, everyone in the tournament is tied for first place. This logjam will probably be broken sometime before late Sunday afternoon.
In the interest of always mentioning Zach Johnson somewhere, note that his tee time will be around 10:23 a.m., Iowa time.
Oops. Brett Wetterich and Fuzzy Zoeller just finished No. 1 with bogeys. But the sun is breaking through.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- When a couple of adult males who presumably are doing all right for themselves in life looked at the leader board at the Masters' Par 3 Contest Wednesday afternoon, they were venomously gleeful.
Seeing that Rory Sabbatini appeared destined to win the event - and he did - one of the men said "Good. He's a *****"
They didn't really call him five asterisks, but you get the idea.
They didn't like the South African for whatever reasons. And they believed in the jinx of the Par 3 Contest. None of its winners since it debuted in 1960 have gone on to win the Masters the same year.
Some players believe in the jinx and have sabotaged their scores if they were getting too close to winning. Other top players like Vijay Singh and David Toms have ignored the "jinx" and won the contest. Others like Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson say they want to win it.
"I'd love to be the first to win them both, but I just have not ever had a chance to win the Par 3," Mickelson said Tuesday. "My caddie gave me some terrible reads last year. Of course, she was only 5."
Many small children toted their fathers' clubs for them Wednesday. It's just a putter and a couple of wedges. The kids wear white jumpsuits just like the adult caddies wear. They look funny.
Johnson's 15-month-old son, Will, got some more national television time Wednesday when his dad brought him onto the ninth green and helped him use a baby putter to try to make a 3-footer. It missed.
Then 3-month-old Will was captured for posterity on CBS when his daddy kissed and embraced him following his final round here last year.
Between that moment and telling the world he was "Zach Johnson from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I'm a normal guy," he may have made as many fans as his play here did. I overheard a man from Mississippi recounting the Cedar Rapids comment to a friend in the Par 3 Contest crowd with delight.
Back to little Will. As he was toddling off the green with his dad, he dropped a ball about 15 feet from the hole and wanted to try a longer putt. He didn't get to, but he was a big boy about it and didn't cry.
I think we're going to see that kid at a lot more Par 3 Contests here over the years.
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- On a wall in the stately clubhouse of Augusta National Golf Club are 43 portraits. They are the men who have won the Masters since the tournament began in 1934.
The newest addition to the collection is one of Zach Johnson, holding a golf ball in his extended right hand. It was his pose after his tap-in on the final hole of his win here last year.
The permanent Masters trophy is made of over 900 pieces of silver. It depicts the clubhouse and carries the names of the 43 champions. Johnson's, obviously, was added since last April.
This week, Johnson gained access to the Champions Room for the first time. That's the locker room on the second floor of the clubhouse that's off limits to all but, of course, Masters champions.
It has small lockers made of oak, and brass nameplates. The room isn't very big, but every golfer here who has never won this tourney wants to one day be able to climb the spiral staircase from the ground floor, and get a friendly greeting from the security guard standing sentry as he's welcomed inside.
Masters Club Room -- Private. That's what the plaque on the door to the room says. Like everything else here, the words are to be taken literally.
A display cabinet in the room changes every year, always honoring the current champion.
But what may bring Johnson the clearest reality that he is forever a Masters champion is what occurred Tuesday night when he hosted the annual Champions Dinner.
"He'll look and see the champions that are there tonight," two-time Masters winner Ben Crenshaw (1984, 1995) said Tuesday, "and he'll get a look at his future.
"That's what's so much fun, because he'll know tonight that he'll be a champion for the rest of his days.
"When you see (1957 champion) Doug Ford at age 86, Bob Goalby (79 years old, and the 1968 winner), he'll get a glimpse tonight of what it means. Which is the neatest thing."
Arnold Palmer, 78, was in attendance. So were 70-somethings Billy Casper, Gary Player and Charles Coody. Jack Nicklaus, 68, too.
Crenshaw said Johnson "will know that this is a distinctively different championship here. It's something, the feeling of winning here and returning here. Sometimes it gets a deeper emotion over the years. It has that capacity."
The Masters tee times have just been released, and defending champion (you did know he was the defending champion, right?) Zach Johnson will play Thursday at 9:23, Iowa time.
Johnson's playing partners are 2006 U.S. Open champ Geoff Ogilvy, and Luke Donald. Their second-round will start Friday at 12:19 p.m.
Tiger Woods is playing two groups behind Johnson's. Just like last year on Sunday.
AUGUSTA, GA. -- Was it only a year ago that Zach Johnson won the Masters?
Almost. Johnson set the golf world on its ear last April 8. Today (Monday, April 7) begins a whole lot of focus on Cedar Rapids native Johnson as he gets tens of thousands eyeballs and questions his way as the defending Masters champ.
Your Gazette sportswriter guy is here once again, by way of Cincinnati and Savannah, and over 100 miles in a rental car. When I got to Augusta on Tuesday of last year's Masters week, Johnson was able to go about his business without much hubbub.
He gave me 10 minutes of one-on-one time that day, something that will be virtually impossible this year because of the interest in the defending champ.
Unlike last year, The Gazette won't be the only Iowa media outlet here this time around. That's OK. I'm still not quite ready to say I knew Johnson would win the Masters before last year's tourney started, so you could say we were kind of lucky.
Heck, one of my co-workers questioned the merit of coming here last year before I left Cedar Rapids, saying he thought we had pretty much told the Zach Johnson story. He was right, to a degree.
I'm glad I came, though. It turned out that Johnson's story had a fairly significant chapter to add to it. In the last year, a whole lot of people around the nation and beyond have told Johnson's tale.
One of the better comprehensive pieces on Johnson was in Sunday's Augusta Chronicle, which had a Masters special section about as thick as the Augusta phone book. Here's the link:
Augusta Chronicle on Zach
Oh, note the newspaper that Dave and Julie Johnson are holding up in one of several photos the Augusta newspaper came all the way to Cedar Rapids to get. That would be The Gazette.
The Indiana University basketball team needs a new coach, and is apparently getting one in Marquette's Tom Crean. But that's not all it needs.
This storied program, hyped to the strasophere by *** Vitale, may face a similar talent drain to the one Iowa was stuck with when Steve Alford and Tyler Smith left after last season.
Senior star big man D.J. White is leaving, of course, and it's hard to imagine freshman sensation Eric Gordon not turning pro. Now, interim coach Dan Dakich is doing his best to leave a lasting impression on the program by kicking starters Armon Bassett and Jamarcus Ellis off the team.
Apparently, Bassett and Ellis missed a pre-arranged appointment last week, then didn't report for a 6 a.m. run the next day. Dakich told them they'd be kicked off the team if they didn't show up for the run. Maybe the players didn't believe Dakich was still their coach.
Bassett, a 6-foot-1 sophomore guard, was a third-team All-Big Ten selection with an 11.4-points average. Ellis, a junior, averaged 6.8 points and 3.4 assists. Maybe Crean can get both back in the fold. It would be a good start.
Ohio State has two McDonald's All-Americans coming in next season. Michigan State and Wisconsin are perennials, Purdue has lots of talent coming back, Illinois and Michigan and Minnesota should only get better. Iowa, too.
Suddenly, however, Indiana is a reclamation project. Given the way the Hoosiers played in the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments, they don't have all that far to travel to hit bottom. Crean is a terrific coach. It can only help him that he's used to swimming in a shark-infested conference.