Lookin’ Back

By: Chicago Sports Review

It was about two months ago that I was sitting in the interview conference room of the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. At either end of the roughly 120-foot long room were podiums fronted by rows of chairs, while the center of the room maintained stands for cameras. The center of the room was also broken up by groups of round interview tables.The podiums, of course, were where the likes of Leinart, Cutler, Young and Hawk gave their first “I’m here!” interviews, tried to display a sense of humor, and gain a few early allies in the speculation game. There were also pure “story” guys, like Jeremy Bloom fresh off the plane from Turino, that were deemed podium-worthy, even if their likely draft place wasn’t.

With virtually every writing grunt that covers the NFL roaming around the convention center, the league had to carefully determine who was a podium guy, and which players were round table guys. It is a careful science, this journalist-dispersement theory. Place the sandwiches here, the podiums there, Leigh Steinberg here, internet connections there, and voila! A masterpiece!

The round-table guys are the wannabe knights mostly guaranteed to be second-round-on-down folks. Or they are small school hopefuls, or just big guys that you can barely recognize if they don’t turn around and reveal the name on their NFL issued gray official combine jersey. I was sure Notre Dame’s Anthony Fasano was a Soprano’s cast member here for a promo until he sat down. I stood directly behind him and wondered if his head was in fact bigger than my torso.

All I remember now is how much I thought of the NFL for making Vick do the round table when his ego was pure podium. He will be on a short leash - at least it’s not a police tether - under Nick Saban in Miami, and he deserves it.
 And it didn’t seem by coincidence that when the great, err, enigmatic Marcus Vick walked into the room - shortly after some defensive end named Mario out of NC State had exited the podium - he was led to a small conference table with only six or seven chairs.Media members scrambled in, at least 30 tape recorders and mic’s loaded in front of Vick in close quarters, and I listened for a moment to a player who’d memorized the book Damage Control For Dummies before I decided to skip the reporter sweat-farm and head over to chat with a quiet kid from Western Michigan named Greg Jennings.

Jennings was alone with me at a table, along with longtime Detroit Lions beat writer Mike O’Hara. We could have been sharing a table in an empty bus station. It was quiet. He was “blessed,” “happy to be here,” blah blah blah, but he was also “sure” he could stack up with the other receivers. It was his lone moment of hubris and even as he said it, he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince us.

“Good luck” I told him as I walked away. “You’ll be fine.” I did think he’d be fine, but I also consider this to be one of the weakest drafts for receivers in recent memory, so his stock was already up based on a lack of competition. It was a safe bet.

“I hope so,” he said. Sounded like he meant it.

Twenty feet away, a player who was already “fine” in the way Greg Jennings wanted to be fine so he could support his wife, and already with a few millions to the family name, Marcus Vick and the media machine were still going, so I left to go watch Drew Rosenhaus balance seventeen phones in the lobby and autograph hounds heckle Bryan Cox, which seems like one of the more hazardous things I can think of. I was actually hoping Cox would snap. A bloodbath would have ensued.

Two weeks ago, Jennings was drafted in the second round by a team that also employs Brett Favre. Tough gig. He was the fourth receiver taken, the 52nd pick overall. Not bad for a pure hopeful. Vick, we know, was drafted … well, he wasn’t. Two days ago Miami and Saban, now Ricky-free for at least one year, took on another high character guy and agreed to sign the troubled younger brother of Ron Mexico.

All I remember now is how much I thought of the NFL for making Vick do the round table when his ego was pure podium. He will be on a short leash - at least it’s not a police tether - under Nick Saban in Miami, and he deserves it.

He also won’t make nearly what Greg Jennings makes when the receiver signs with Green Bay.

I’m actually happy for Vick, and his signing re-affirms my cold capitalistic NFL beliefs. The league still is about talent first, and GM’s who don’t start there are mostly unemployed. And there is no way that Marcus Vick was anything less than an upper-round pick were talent the only variable. But he’s got a lower-round rap sheet, and draft day reflected that fact as much as the media hordes that followed him at the combine reflected true curiosity.

And I’ll be curious to see how he does far more than I will be curious to follow Greg Jennings. It’s just a football fact. Good guys with skill are a good buzz, fools blessed beyond belief are intoxicating.

But Vick got round-tabled, and it was a great sight. This football, of all sports, is all about performance, and even when the spotlight is glaring on you, it can leave you feeling cold.

Playing Up to Z

We heard the whispers again when Carlos Zambrano broke a bat over his knee two weeks ago. We might have been doing some of the whispering. They were the same whispers we always hear when Zambrano as much as cusses on the mound, a Maddux standard. Zambrano’s talent is still sublime, his ability to season his gifts with outbursts of passion still remains a lingering issue.

And yesterday, after an eight-inning masterpiece versus the admittedly fungo-wielding Washington Nationals, he was just what the Cubs needed. Passion and performance.

Thing is, during this period of profound malaise with this team, (you could call it losing) even when he struggles, Zambrano’s fire is one of the only signals I get that somebody cares deeply. We’ve talked to the players numerous times. We know they do. But Z’s desire I can see.

Even when he acts the bat-breaking fool.

If this team is about winning against the odds, which are clearly stacked unfavorably, perhaps we should encourage them to do something a little loco and mimic Zambrano a little more and insist that he load up on the Valium and “get with the program” a little less.

I mean, just what exactly is the “program” with this team?

If it means that some newfound passion will make up for what is clearly some deficient levels of talent, at least we won’t have to question their motives. See, we know Carlos is exceptionally talented, even as we questioned his antics or his consistency.

Yet we’ve never had to question his outward desire to win.

Reminds me of another Venezuelan in town.

New Kinds of Trouble

I had to report on the Northwestern hazing incident that broke two days ago.

I talked to people in the athletic department that try to balance an exceptional academic institution with a solid, competitive athletic environment, and field teams capable of working the classroom and the Big Ten Conference. I could hear their concern. It was real, and because of that, they acted remarkably quickly on multiple fronts.

What I also thought was that it was barely four years ago that my own college soccer career ended, and furthermore, I don’t remember flash bulbs on digital cameras or camera phones going off at some of our team parties. We weren’t technological fools, or just a’learnin’ about this here intra-net thang … we just didn’t have them. And more, we didn’t have a way of broadcasting our idiocy to the world. File sharing photo programs weren’t at all as prevalent. We - just barely - missed the MySpace generation.
People rightfully won’t condone what happened at Northwestern, or those who took part. But they’ll also realize, in this society, new technology has meant lots of new things. Some good, some bad.

People rightfully won’t condone what happened at Northwestern, or those who took part. But they’ll also realize, in this society, new technology has meant lots of new things. Some good, some bad. As one player told columnist Greg Couch in Wednesday’s Sun-Times, they were doing it for fun.

But there are lots of new ways to document “fun.” Lots of new ways to allow the rest of the nation to try to decipher the difference between fun and abuse.

Lots of new ways to get in trouble.

A picture can tell a thousand words, but it can also lead to a thousand assumptions.

And sometimes, even assumptions have merit.

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