Who Owes What to Whom?

In the middle of the National Basketball Association’s finals, with the Golden State Warriors leading the Cleveland Cavaliers three games to one, the Warriors star forward Draymond Green was suspended for one game. If Golden State won game five, played on their home court, they would have clinched their second straight NBA Championship. They racked up an impressive regular season at home, where they won thirty-nine regular season games, and lost only two.

But now they would have to win without “the heart of their team,” so labeled so by their coach, and anointed so by some of the fawning local media writers. At 6’7”, 230-lbs., Green was a tenacious, driven, man-child of a competitor, and a favorite of most of the sports writers at the San Jose Mercury News because of his loquacious manner and the bombastic quotes he would give them.

No Rhyme…

Unfortunately, Green also had a tendency to get flagrant fouls, primarily for kicking or grabbing the groin of opposing players. This might have been part of a street game played by youth in Saginaw. Without this twenty-six-year-old demon in the lineup, the Warriors were badly outplayed in Game 5, and lost 112-97, Green was banished from being in the arena during the loss, unless he was willing to pay a $140,000 fine, but instead was discovered exiting a restroom in the nearby Oakland Coliseum. He could have afforded the fine since his elevated status had “earned” him a massive new five-year, $82 million contract.

…Nor Reason

Warriors’ management had tried to find a reason to let him play, and indignant fans were visibly upset, especially those who had paid hundreds or thousands of dollars for overpriced tickets to see Green help the Warriors win the championship at home. The city of Oakland had already prepared for a victory gathering at Lake Merritt.

The Write Way?

Several sports writers at the Mercury News tried to explain the situation and attach blame on someone, other than themselves. They had always sought Green out for a notable quote, and the kid from Saginaw always supplied them with interesting fodder for their columns.

The front page of the sports section after the demoralizing defeat read “NO DRAY, NO WAY,” as if without him, a mini-miracle couldn’t have taken place.

In a backhanded way, Carl Steward professed Green’s value under the headline, “Green’s missing defense dooms Warriors in Game 5.” Other columnists praised Green, but were upset that he wasn’t there when the team really needed him. Tim Kawakami added pressure on Green when he returns to the starting line-up in Game 6, as the headline of his story challenged the youngster with “Green owes Warriors one after this.”

Is It Their Fault, Too?

The sports columnists had elevated Green to a God-like status, crowding around his locker, probing him for unique quotes, many of which were oblique words from a young, sometimes immature, man. But as long as he was the center of their undivided and loyal attention, they may have convinced Green to believe he was immune from any negative action against him.

The NBA thought differently, and with their imposed one-game penalty, perhaps other players will refrain from similar underhanded attacks on their opponents.

FULL DISCLOSURE:

I was born in Michigan, and until 1986, I had lived there off and on for nearly forty years; my daughter Amy Gotliffe graduated from Michigan State University, Draymond Green’s school; I have family living in the Saginaw area where Green was born; I was a fan of the Detroit Pistons from 1957 when they first came to Detroit, and watched them play at Olympia Stadium, at Caliban Hall at the University of Detroit, at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit, at the Silverdome in Pontiac, and at the Palace of Auburn Hills. In 1986 I moved to California, stayed both a Piston fan during their 1989 and 1990 NBA Championship seasons; and once again became a fan of the Warriors, whom I supported in the early 1960s as the San Francisco Warriors, and whom I have supported since I returned to Northern California in 1986.

Feeling Blue

The website for the University of Michigan’s Athletic Department is “MGOBLUE.COM.” The “go blue” part of it was sadly apropos after its October 17^th last-second football game 27-23 loss to in-state rival Michigan State University Spartans.

The U. of Michigan Wolverines were leading 23-21 with ten seconds left in the game. They had the ball on the 47-yard line, and all they needed to do on fourth down was punt the ball deep and let time run out.

The ball was snapped low, the punter fumbled it and a MSU player scooped up the loose ball, and ran it into the end zone for the winning score.

THE NUMBERS GAME

Most of the 111,740 people in the stadium were U. of M. fans (short for “fanatics”) and had paid $95 for one end zone seats, $105 for one Maize and Blue seat, and $115 to sit in the Victors/Valiant section. The revenue for that one game could have been as high as $10 million.

U. of M’s 234-piece performance band stirs up the crowd before and during every game, playing rousing renditions of the university’s “theme” song, “Hail to the victors valiant, hail to the conquering heroes, hail, hail to Michigan, the champions of the west.” A student wrote the song in 1898 after Michigan beat the University of Chicago to win the Western Conference, which became the Big Nine Conference, and now is known as the Big Ten, and naturally has fourteen member schools. (See more on the band members later on)

IT AIN”T OVER UNTIL

The victors weren’t valiant last night, and as the ESPN television camera swept across the stands after the final exciting, game-ending play, one young man's face exemplified what all of the U. of M. faithful had just experienced.

The camera stayed on the be speckled student, adorned in a maize hooded sweater had his hands on top of his head, his eyes wide open, and a distraught look of total disbelief upon his face. 

You can recap the day is several ways.  In 2014, Ann Arbor had an estimated population of 117,770, and they could have all nearly fit into the stadium. More than 111,000 people did fit in, and they had nothing better to do on a fall Saturday. The fumbling punter, a former Australian rugby player, may have lost his scholarship. The Spartan who scored the winning touchdown, also paid a price, for after the score, he was at the bottom of a celebratory pile of players, and his hip was dislocated.

WHAT CAN YOU SAY?

Michigan’s head coach Jim Harbaugh, responded to reporters’ questions with his usual stoic replies. In trying to find something positive about the game’s outcome, Harbaugh said, “They played their guts out,” and followed with, “We have to have resolve, steel in our spine and move forward.”

Michigan State’s coach Mark Dantonio simply summed up the ending by saying,  “Football is a crazy, crazy game.”

I tried to convince myself that I didn’t care who won, but perhaps I did, for my daughter graduated from Michigan State. (See story that follows on Thailand))

Michigan is now at 5-2, and Michigan State improved to 7-0.

Good news for Michigan fans, their next home game is with Rutgers, and the prices for tickets for the public have been reduced to as low as $65 each.

The battle was only a game. Renowned sports writer Grantland Rice put sports in perspective in 1908, when he wrote in his poem Alumnus Football, “For when the One Great Scorer comes, to mark against your name. He writes — not that you won or lost —But how you played the Game.”

I seriously doubt that Jim Harbaugh read that poem to his dejected team after last night’s loss. 

IN THAILAND WITH THE COACHES

In 1985 when I was visiting a friend in Bangkok, Thailand, he shipped me off by bus to visit the ancient capital of Ayutthaya. I came back on a riverboat, and saw Michigan State’s former football coach and Athletic Director Duffy Daugherty playing cards with Tennessee’s Johnny Majors, and two other coaches.

Since I was paying my daughter’s tuition at the time, I asked Duffy what he and the others were doing there. “Oh, we are on recruiting trip.”

With the average Thai male less than 5’8” tall and under 150 pounds, I now knew how some of the tuition money was used. MSU’s basketball coach was probably recruiting players in Central Africa, where pygmies reside. The average height of a pygmy is below 5-feet tall, and anyone taller is described as a pygmoid.

PERFORMANCE BAND MEMBERS

Their high-stepping band has students playing 12 piccolos, 25 clarinets, 12 alto saxophones, 12 tenor saxophones, 48 trumpets, 24 horns, 33 trombones, 3 bass trombone, 12 euphoniums, 24 tubas, and 30 percussionists.

When marching, they round out their array of performers with 24 flags, 3 twirlers, and one drum major.