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A long, twisted T.O. journey: Does it end in Seattle or is it already over?

Expect high gridiron drama in the Northwest this fall.

No, Coach Eric Taylor from “Friday Night Lights” — played by Emmy winner Kyle Chandler — is not headed for a chance to coach the Oregon Ducks nor even the Western Oregon Wolves for that matter. No indeed, the drama will be real and plenty if the past is an indication. Yeah buddy, we’re talking T.O.

Drama seems to follow Terrell Owens at every stop. Negotiations are under way so that the next stop on the T.O. Traveling Show is Seattle.

Like the proverbial bad penny, Terrell Eldorado Owens, might catch a pass in the NFL for the first time in almost 30 months if he signs with the Seattle Seahawks. And that possibility seems to be more than idle chatter right now. ESPN reports that the Seahwaks liked what they saw when T.O. worked out Monday. The star receiver, now 37 years old, was not offered any NFL deals last year after knee surgery. Owens ended up playing in a very contentious situation with the Allen Wranglers, an Indoor Football League team that is based just north of Dallas. The Wranglers released Owens, who is No. 2 on the list of all-time NFL career receiving yards, at 15,934, behind Jerry Rice, in something akin to a bad divorce. The Wranglers reportedly took the Jeep Wrangler the team had given him and evicted him from a house in which he was allowed to stay by the team.

Folks sometime get a shock when they recall just how prolific a receiver T.O. has been. No. 2 behind Rice? That’s ahead of receiving legends like Randy Moss and Cris Carter, Michael Irvin, Lynn Swann, Mike Ditka and Rocket Ismail. There is a reason though why Owens is sometime overlooked for his greatness. That reason is called “drama.”

What T.O. doesn’t create in the way of drama while playing for a team — he’s played for five teams — then that drama seems to follow him around.

Here is a list of his “antics” as called by About.com. It’s amazing someone had the time to research and write them up. A few stick out in my own head:

  • Star stealer — I remember driving back to Waco after a weekend out of town in Dallas in September 2000 . Driving the 90 or so miles down I-35E, I was listening to the Cowboys and 49ers game on the radio. Owens scored and then created a big fuss when he ran with the ball to mid-field and posed on the Dallas star. He repeated that action and got hammered by Cowboy free safety George Teague. That is pretty much Teague’s legacy as “Defender of the Star.” It pretty much was the start of the drama in the professional life of T.O.
  • Here you go — Owens scored a touchdown against what may be his sixth team in 2002 during a game in Seattle. He pulled a “Sharpie” out of his sock and autographed the ball, then handed it to his financial adviser who was sitting in the end zone luxury suite that was rented by the Seahawks cornerback he beat for the TD.
  • You damn dance stealer — T.O.  stole the dance of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and performed it after scoring a touchdown.
  •  Return to the Star — Spending three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, Owens managed to spread what was his signature discontent. In September 2006, while I was staying in Allen for awhile, I saw a breaking news story about T.O. being taken to the hospital after what was reported and seemingly verified in police reports to be a suicide attempt. Owens said he had a reaction taking supplements and pain pills, the latter turned out out to be hydrocodone.

T.O. finished a relatively (relatively speaking) calm season with the Buffalo Bills and was productive with the Cincinnati Bengals before suffering a knee injury. After failing to land a spot after knee surgery came the ridiculousness with the Allen Wranglers, which I suppose was not around when I spent about a half year in Allen in 2006. Still, Owens seemed to leave discontent wherever he has ended up.

I watch the USA Network television series “Necessary Roughness” although I have mixed feelings about it. I haven’t read anything to indicate that it is so but the main character “Terrance (T.K.) King,” a pro football receiver who regularly sees the Callie Thorne psychologist character, certainly seems as if it is based on Terrell Owens. Owens even showed up as a guest on a season finale show which threw a wrench in the works as far as I was concerned.

The way I feel about great pro football players is that they should go out at their zenith. Owens has had his stunts in reality TV. He has played in a Super Bowl. He is fourth in career NFL TD receptions along with his 2nd in reception yards. No doubt he is, or was, a great player. Maybe we will see if he had gone to the mountain top if he gets the gig with the Seahawks. Most often, Owens has come off looking like a caricature of himself. He has seemed a Typhoid Mary of discontent, a person one step removed from real greatness and whose attention seeking always seems to grab the better of him.

Could this be his chance, a real chance for greatness for Terrell Owens? Stay tuned. It hasn’t been a boring journey so far, albeit many times a sad one.

 

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Weep no more: Mint juleps for Derby Day

Weep no more my lady. Oh! Weep no more to-day.

That’s right. There is no cause for weeping except perhaps when hearing the sentimental, Kentucky State Song, “My Old Kentucky Home,” played tomorrow preceding the 138th running of the Kentucky Derby. Oh, of course, if you bet a bundle and lost big, then by all means, bawl your head off.

Who will win the Derby? Well, the current, as-of-this-moment, favorite at 1542 Central Time, May 4, 2012, is Bodemeister. The 3-year-old comes from the stables of Ahmed Zayat, an Egyptian-born, New Jersey resident who made a very handsome fortune when he developed and sold non-alcoholic beverages to Heineken. Bode has lifetime earnings of $704,800, which if those were my earnings I would take them and go to some place tropical. Then again, I’m not a racehorse.

Who wins doesn’t really matter much to me. I would like to see a Triple Crown winner since there hasn’t been one since just before I left the Navy in 1978. That seems so long ago.

Honestly, I don’t know that much about horse racing even though I love watching it. I’ve only bet on horses once and didn’t win anything, but didn’t lose much either. I did work at a training track for horses one time selling beer, supervising some girls at the concession stands and filling in as bartender toward the end of the day. That was when I learned to make a mint julep, the traditional Derby Day drink. My first one turned out perfect, at least that is what the elderly rich lady said who ordered and consumed the drink. How many drinks she had before, I don’t know. She might have been hammered for all I know. But though it appears that I seemed to do that well, I thought I’d share my secret recipe for mint julep with you. Try it today and tinker with it until you get it just as you want it, not that you should have to adjust anything. By tomorrow you should be all ready for the party. Note: This is a recipe for just one drink. Should you want to make a pitcher, look it up. Sorry. Have a great Derby and, remember, weep no more my lady.

Pineywood Downs Mint Julep

2 1/2 oz. bourbon*

1 tsp. water

1 tsp. sugar**

5-6 mint leaves

Use a pestle, muddler or similar tool from your kit (not your tool kit unless it’s absolutely necessary then make sure there is no grease!) to gently press the ingredients. Strain into a glass filled with ice. Garnish with a mint sprig.

*Bourbon is a matter of taste, economics or both. Use whatever bourbon that tastes good and that you can afford. Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam Black, Rebel Yell are a few suggestions.

**If you are trying to avoid extra sugar then the equivalent amount of a substitute will not ruin your barkeep standing as long you don’t go blabbing it. That is, unless your guest asks for it.

Sound complicated? Then just have some bourbon and water then insert a mint sprig.

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A prom queen and World Peace

The perpetual beauty queen cliché says all she wants is world peace.

Really? Probably not if she is speaking of Metta World Peace, at least not today.

Metta, as we shall call him, is the Los Angeles Lakers power forward once known as Ron Artest. It doesn’t take a math major, as Artest once was at St. John’s University in Queens, to calculate an answer to why he chose such a name. Perhaps it is irony, but it is of little wonder to those whose minds run cynical.

The NBA handed the once Ron Artest of the Indiana Pacers an 86-game suspension in 2004 because he jumped into an Autumn Hills, Mich., crowd and began beating upon Detroit Pistons fans. Bad boy, bad boy, what’cha gonna do … ? Artest, or so my cynicism says, did what any great athlete who wants to keep his day job does. He transforms into a saint doing charity work. After all, “Metta” is a Buddhist term for loving-kindness.

Unfortunately, the 6-foot, 7-inch, 260-lb. Laker might have ignored “Good St. Metta” poised on his left shoulder — visible only to World Peace — opting instead for “Mean St. Metta” on his right. Metta says it was an accidental blow Sunday night when his elbow decked Oklahoma City’s James Harden. The Thunder’s guard suffered a concussion, which World Peace said happened, when his elbow slipped after a celebratory chest thump. Loving? Kindness?

Well, that just kind of stinks, provided World Peace intentionally elbowed Harden into a concussion.

Metta will likely receive a suspension but a real, sort of, beauty queen may receive more severe punishment. No, she wasn’t wishing for world peace, not even Ron Artest Metta World Peace. Actually, she wasn’t even a beauty queen but rather a prom queen. Hey it’s a queen! At least it wasn’t RuPaul.

It was one of those heart-warming stories I see every Saturday and Sunday evening on the local TV news where the one reporter working that day apparently has to cover every fund-raising, analeptic that will fill the 10-minute hole of “newscast.”

A 19-year-old Angie Gomez of the El Paso suburb of Horizon City claimed she was dying of cancer and managed to collect more $17,000 in donations.  Gomez professed that she had only six months to live. Angie also said she had to miss her high school prom because of cancer treatments. Her classmates were so touched they threw a prom for her which did double duty as a fundraiser. There turned out to be a problem, however. The prom queen wasn’t sick with cancer.

Wait, it’s a miracle!

It isn’t a miracle that she was charged with felony theft. It is strange that her mother didn’t know about the “extent of the fundraising,” according to numerous stories today. What does that mean? What did her mother know and when did she know it? I mean, the El Paso Times ran a story and everything! Well, maybe her Moms doesn’t read the paper.

What a wonderful world full of inspiring people. It’s enough to make one want to wish for, well, maybe not world peace but perhaps a little karma.

 

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Home team sports “Son of Knight” in the “Big Dance”

Let’s talk a little sports.

There is a university in the town where I reside. I didn’t go there. One of my brothers did. A bunch of people from my high school went there. But I didn’t. The biggest connection to Lamar University that I have is that it’s located down M.L.K. Boulevard a couple of miles. It was practically in the neighborhood when I lived in Beaumont the first time, some 33 years ago. Back before my South Park neighborhood was transformed into a poorer and blacker shell of itself by White Flight. That sounds racist. It isn’t meant to be. It is just one of those urban phenomenons which always seems to be tinged by race that happens these days. It’s akin to the NBA having evolved from the days its star players were medium-sized Jewish guys to the present with gigantic fellows of all ethnicities, albeit mostly Black Americans.

Your geography/sports history lesson out of the way, I don’t go to Lamar athletic games. I should, especially since the school has fielded a football team for the last couple of years after abandoning the sport in the late 1980s. That team is coached by someone I know, or at least had a decent conversation with one time.

I sat and talked with the now-Lamar football coach, Ray Woodard, one time a bit more than 20 years ago. He came to where I edited a small-town weekly newspaper to see my secretary — yes I had a secretary once; three different ones actually– with whom he went to school. So I was glad when Woodard was hired to resurrect the Cardinals football team.

But I wanted to say a few words about the Lamar basketball team. The Cardinals are in the NCAA tournament for the first time in more than 12 years and have been guided to the “Dance” in the Bobby Knight tradition. That’s because Lamar is coached by Pat Knight, his son.

Lamar Cardinals Head Coach Pat Knight, far right, as an assistant for his father, Bob Knight at Texas Tech. The younger Knight had a losing record after replacing his father as Red Raiders head coach. Now Pat Knight leads the Cardinals to the NCAA tournament. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Steven Wilke

Pat Knight isn’t Bobby Knight, but he is his father’s son. He also learned from the master as a player under Knight Sr. at Indiana and later as an assistant coach under the elder Knight at Indiana and Texas Tech. Pat Knight took the reins from his Dad at Lubbock. It wasn’t the best of times. He was fired at Tech with a 62-69 record after three seasons as head coach.

Knight inherited a group of talented underachievers at Lamar. The mostly junior-senior group will play Vermont in the first round of the NCAA tournament Wednesday in Dayton. The Cardinals should win this game and go on to face No. 1 seed North Carolina. “Should” is the operative word. Pat Knight garnered quite a bit of media attention when he ripped his team during a news conference after losing in the Southland Conference tournament to my alma mater Stephen F. Austin. Said the younger Knight:

“We’ve got the worst group of seniors right now that I’ve ever been associated with,” Pat Knight said. “Their mentality is awful. Their attitude is awful. It’s been their (custom) for the last three years.

“We’ve had problems with these guys off the court, on the court, classroom, drugs …. If you act this way in the real world, you’re going to be homeless, without a job.

Here is a great story by David Whitely in Sporting News that puts the “rant” — which turned out to be the motivation the Lamar bunch needed — in context. The blast and others Knight made this season toward an often listless Cardinal team were controversial but also applauded by many. I didn’t care for a lot of the temper tantrums shown by Bob Knight during his coaching years, but I still admire that the man expected more out of the young players than just bouncing a ball. It just so happens that he is a big fan of — surprise — education. Imagine that at a college! Some 80 percent of Bob Knight’s Indiana players graduated while the NCAA average was 40 percent. The younger Knight also seems follow his father’s sense of priorities.

Can the “Son of Knight’s” Cardinals get past the first round? On paper they should. They appear to be favored to beat the Catamounts. What the hell is a catamount anyway? Well, according to Western Carolina University’s site — their moniker also is the Catamounts — it a wildcat found in the Appalachians which is kind of like a cougar or puma or maybe a lynx or some other “souped-up wildcat.” Getting back to the game, the Cards past performances and the rants which followed, show that nothing is a given for this bunch that was recruited B.K. (Before Knight.)

Knight also had his Lamar team square off with top contenders during the regular season which resulted in 20-point-land losses but apparently with a decent effort against then-No. 3 Kentucky and then-No. 2 Ohio. So if this Cardinal team plays a good game against North Carolina after having to first dispose of the Catamounts, it will not be surprising.

If Lamar beat a North Carolina or replayed Kentucky to a win, I will be shocked. If they were somehow to come from out of nowhere and make and win the Fab Four or Terrible Two or the Awesome One or whatever the last of the big NCAA tournament hype is called, I would be flabbergasted. I would have a lot of company, like most of the remaining world which first and foremost would probably include that underachieving team from Beaumont, Texas.

 

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Wherever Manning goes, the best to him

This afternoon I have tried to write a few thoughts concerning the so-called “amicable divorce” between 11-time Pro Bowl quarterback Peyton Manning and his longtime team the Indianapolis Colts. Nothing has come together. There are a number of reasons, mostly the fact that I have had similar cervical spine surgeries. Mine have left me with chronic pain treated with methadone.

Manning said he plans to play somewhere despite being cut by the Colts as a means of saving more than $30 million. I wish that he would retire, for his own safety and perhaps to save him a little pain although the latter is maybe just wishful thinking. I used to not understand why a man would do such a thing. I guess listening to sports talk radio has helped me realize that football is a way of life for Manning as well as those of his ilk, and not just a sport guys play professionally on Sunday afternoons — or Monday nights or Thursday nights or Sunday nights or Thanksgiving Day, and so forth. It is a job. It is a game. It is more. Okay, I get it.

Eventually, Manning will retire. It might happen after he is brought out of the game on his own power or on a gurney. It may be three years. It might be less.

Bearing all that in mind, the most important facet of the story today in my mind is that Manning will likely not play for my favorite team, the Houston Texans. That is good because I think Texans QB Matt Schaub can lead the team next season to a Super Bowl, a thought that even people more knowledgeable of the game than I have discussed. Whether Manning ends up in a division opponent or even another AFC team might be of concern. Likewise if he plays for a NFC team that will face the Texans next season.

I believe great athletes should, at every opportunity, go out on top. I feel that way for Manning because he is one hell of a quarterback, football player and as well seems like a pretty good guy to boot. But just as was the case when Manning led Indianpolis as an intra-divisional rival against Houston, if he plays my team I hope his team gets beat though I wish him the best of luck and safety. It’s his party and he can cry if he wants to.