Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
It's sad to see old guys kicked around. Joe Paterno is 76, Bobby Bowden nearly 74. Combined, they're almost 150 years old and have coached 668 winning college football games.
What have you done for me lately?
Expectations never ease at Penn State or Florida State, where glory Saturdays are the anticipated autumnal norm for Paterno's Nittany Lions and Bowden's Seminoles, playing to loud and critical juries of 110,000 at State College and 80,000 in Tallahassee.
A thousand times every season, the resilient coaching relics hear whispers and shouts of, "He's gotten too old. Football has passed him by. Time for a change."
JoePa is 336-101-3 with two national championships and three unbeaten PSU teams that did not wind up No.1, but memory can be short-term in a furnace of long-running greatness. Frowns have dominated over Paterno records of 5-7, 5-6 and 9-4 the past three seasons.
Better in 2003? Maybe.
Bowden's record is 332-96-4, four strides behind fellow geezer Joe, the winningest Division I-A coach ever. FSU's latest records have been 8-4 and 9-5, comparatively sour for a chop-chop 'Noles constituency spoiled by the greatness of two national champs and what had seemed an unbreakable run of 13 years of finishing no worse than No.4 in the country.
Bowden has complications unlike Paterno, absorbing bashings from media and rivals for being too light-handed in handling occurances of moral and physical disobedience by FSU players.
Bowden has become less open, less giddy. He's feeling the slams. His job isn't as much fun, even as the Alabaman's grit grows. He closed FSU's locker room to reporters. Feelings are strained, screws tightening.
I've been around Joe and Bobby 30 years plus. Like them both. I've seen Paterno and Bowden repeatedly celebrate. We've shared a lot of laughs. Whatever the justification, it is no joy to see them turned into aging dartboards.
This could be an FSU/PSU season of escalating waves of gulping and ducking for two renowned coaching antiques. Even if you can say, well, they asked for it ... even if the pepperings are at least somewhat merited ... watching Bowden and Paterno could get painful.
TAP INS, TAP OUTS: Too bad Derrick Brooks didn't have the presence of mind to introduce Bucs teammates on the stage as they accepted a coaching Espy for Jon Gruden. ... My favorite Texas sports writing elders, Blackie Sherrod (83) of Dallas and Dan Cook (77) from San Antonio, both hung up columnist boots this year, but Furman Bisher (84) keeps churning them out in Atlanta. ... Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi are parents, so do you think the kid will have a forehand? ... Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery are parents, so you think the kid will be able to run fast? ... Sammy Sosa drinks wine from bottles with screw-off caps: no cork. ... Mike Tyson told Fox News, "I hate my life now." Hey, knucklehead, most of us have felt that way about your life for years. ... Speaking of Mikey, although I'm anti-boxing, how about matching him with John-Henry Williams in a food locker?
PULLING FOR YOU, DOUBLE D: David Duval must feel like he's shooting 110. His average score this year is 73.36, which is like Jeff Gordon jamming his accelerator and being unable to break 90 mph.
It's not just a slump, the 2001 British Open champion is lost in a PGA Tour crater deeper than the Marianas Trench. Vertigo is but one of Double D's demons.
We once watched Duval in wonder; now it's a repetitive wince. He ranks 194th in hitting tour greens in regulation, sits 194th in ball striking, 193rd in driving accuracy, 188th in money won and, in a runaway, No.1 in confusion.
David has entered 18 tournaments this year and 14 times has been deleted at halftime due to poor scores. In golf it's a killer to have weekends off.
Duval's problems, I think, are 95 percent mental, though analysts keep taking stabs, including "He lost too much weight" or "Duval is overly muscular" or "A bust-up with his longtime girlfriend shattered the guy."
Four years ago, before Tiger Woods commandeered the throne, Duval briefly ranked No.1 in the world. He now wobbles at 109th, which isn't accurate. Double D truly is not, this morning, one of the best 250 golfers. I mean, if Ben Curtis was 396th two weeks ago.
Duval hasn't come close to making a 36-hole cut in a 2003 major championship, shooting 79-83 at the Masters, 78-72 in the U.S Open and 83-78 in the British Open.
It's silly, I think, for critics to suggest Duval doesn't try hard enough or doesn't care enough. This is a Georgia Tech bloke, just 32 years old, who is highly complex, tightly wound, extremely private and who, I'm convinced, has whopping desire to revert to golfing splendor he probably once took for granted.
I await Duval's rebirth. I'm sure he will not be another Ian Baker-Finch, who went from British Open king to teeball basket case. When it happens for Duval, I will cheer. Tell him somebody cares.
Whatever happened to Reggie Theus?