Sportsman of the Month: July (not August. Duh.)

Sportsman of the Month: Kevin Durant

Pop quiz: Which organization allegedly received the financial benefits from LeBron James' one-hour ESPN special three weeks ago?

Quick! Which interviewer sat down with LeBron and asked him about 38 useless questions before asking him the only question that counted (where ya goin')?

Without hesitating, can you recite the exact words LeBron used to announce his Decision on where to play basketball for the next five years?

And one last pop quiz: what did Kevin Durant announce via Twitter on July 7, the day before LeBron's Decision?

Admit it. The answers to the first three questions sprung to mind automatically, in the same manner as "what is your birthday?" and "when's the last time the Cubs won the World Series?"

Admit this, too: you didn't immediately recognize that Kevin Durant signed a five-year extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder. That's because Durant's TV special took exactly 60 minutes less than Lebron's, ahem, one-hour circus.

Put it this way, folks: type "LeBron James signs" into a Google search. Then try "Kevin Durant signs". One of them yields 23.8 million results. The other gives you a smidge over 600,000. Guess which one's which.

Now, I'm not saying I like my athletes to be bland, boring, excessively married to the norm. I miss the days when athletes could say and do as they pleased without getting ripped for showing a little color.

But LeBron's Decision was Decisively stupid. There's not much left to say at this point, obviously, but the way he left Cleveland was shameful. And addressing himself multiple times in the third person that night? A pity to see a wondeful athlete and affable personality tear down his good-guy persona in just one night.

That only serves to make Kevin Durant look that much better. A man whose talent gap from James is smaller than you think, and a man who has won the same amount of NBA Finals games as James, showed humility and loyalty with "The Tweet".

So good for Kevin Durant. If Carmelo Anthony makes the hard Decision to leave Denver in 2011, and if I'm forced to make the impossible Decision of divorcing the Nuggets, I think I know which bandwagon I'm jumping on.

-AJ

Sportsmen of the Month: Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce

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So I must be weird or something. When I first saw the realtime replay (meaning no slo-mo) of Jason Donald's foot meeting the bag at roughly the same time as that of Armando Galarraga, I thought it was a close play. Probably out, but a close play. However, first-base umpire Jim Joyce extended his arms to signal a safe runner.

Subsequently, the Detroit Tigers raised their arms and opened their mouths in bitter shock. Jim Leyland was apoplectic. The Tigers radio announcers went berzerk. The fans at Comerica booed effusively. The boys in Bristol cued up the replay to be reshown 3,000 times from 28 different angles. The nation's columnists and talking heads prepared their outrage, and so did the nation's sports fans.

And Armando Galarraga smiled.

He just stood their and smiled. Out of disappointment, out of frustration, out of hard luck, out of whatever emotion he was feeling, who knows. But the point was, he acted in such a foreign manner that 99.9 percent of us could never fathom expressing under the circumstances.

In the aftermath of Galarraga being, well, cheated out of joining the elusive MLB perfect game club, he never said an ill word toward Joyce, toward the umpires, toward Miguel Cabrera (who had tossed Galarraga the ball perhaps a tad casually), toward God, toward karma, toward anyone. He just took life as it happened, like a gentleman.

In the aftermath of Joyce's bang-bang call cheating Galarraga's perfection, he never uttered an excuse. Never got on the defensive. Never tried to stammer some half-baked reason for his call. He simply saw the replay, knew he screwed up, and dug into his internal resources for something that way, WAY too many people in this world don't comprehend.

He was accountable. He made a mistake, he owned up to it, and he apologized.

Isn't that what sports is all about? Nay ... isn't that what LIFE is all about???

I'm also weird for thinking that this story was completely overblown. If Joyce had made a bad call in the 12th inning of Game 7 of the World Series, I'd be screaming for universal instant replay like everyone else. But this, to me, doesn't fit the bill. Wins and losses and championships count more than personal achievements.

I'm also weird for thinking that Bud Selig did the right thing by upholding the call and not reversing Joyce's decision, thus officially keeping Galarraga out of the archives as a perfect-game pitcher. Talk about opening a can of worms the size of Mongolia if Selig had done that (and I'm not a Selig fan by any means).

So this was a story that filled the airspace for a good week or two. But what's splendid is, it only lives on not in a negative light by Joyce's mistake or the instant replay controversy.

It lives on because of the sportsmanship, the integrity, and the high character two men showed on and after June 2. Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce had a beautiful story written about them by Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci in June.

Wouldn't surprise me if there was another story penned in 6 months. One of the SOTY variety.

-AJ

Sportsman of the Month: August

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Sportsman of the Month: Danny Macaskill

Guarantee you've never heard of Danny Macaskill.

Guarantee you need only reason for Danny Macaskill to drop your jaw with his talent, and it's in the video posted below.



Oh yeah. Macaskill's got mad skills.

Past Sportsmen of the Month
July - Roger Federer
June - Ed Thomas
May - Calvin Borel
April -Crazylegs runners/walkers
March - Team Japan baseball team
February - Rafael Nadal
January - Larry Fitzgerald

-AJ

Sportsman of the Month: June

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Sportsman of the Month - Ed Thomas


If you know me at all, and you know my writing fairly well, then you know that I have something to say about just everything; in most cases, I'll write plenty about any topic. This is one rare issue where I have little to say, and everything to defer to others on the subject.

I didn't know Ed Thomas. Never even heard of him before last week. And I'm still new to the high school football circuit; I haven't spent enough time around big-time preps programs to truly appreciate what coaches mean to their schools and communities. So I'm not going to B.S. you all by extending a blind eulogy in public like this.

Rather, I implore you to read the following stories for perspective from those in the know.

Former player arrested in connection with shooting death of football coach - June 24, 2009

Comments on the above story - June 24, 2009

Column remembering Ed Thomas - June 25, 2009
More news comes out about Mark Becker's drug usage - June 25, 2009
Ed Thomas Memorial page on Facebook
Twitter reaction to Ed Thomas' murder
Sports Illustrated set to put Ed Thomas on the cover
Officials look into Becker's hospital release - July 1, 2009

Ed Thomas coached 34 years at Parkersburg and won well over 80 percent of his games. His teams went to the playoffs 19 times - unthinkable to sustain that kind of success - and won a pair of state titles. Parkersburg has four linemen in the NFL - I'm not sure all of Colorado's high schools have four. But more importantly than anything else, Ed Thomas led the charge to rebuild a tornado-ridden town, when many cranky old football coaches would go all prima-donna on everyone and demand that his pretty little football field be cleaned up.

I don't know Ed Thomas, and I can't ever compare what he's meant to Iowa. I honestly can't think of a coach in Wisconsin or Colorado who is like that state's Ed Thomas. I don't know why this deranged player did what he did, and I don't know why he was even on the streets in the first place. I don't even know how this affects my current stance on gun control (stance being, there should be more of it.)

Here's what I do know: this should open the argument. If you read the comments on the QC Times story - or the hundreds of comments on the ESPNRise story - you'll notice that most people are more interested in kneejerk reactions to why Mark Becker had a gun than actually honoring Ed Thomas' life. That's natural, and it should open up the discussion.

Because Parkersburg, Iowa, high schools, and Americana lost a good football man and a better person on June 24. One can only hope two things: that he did not die in vain if any sort of changes are made to gun security; and that people are inspired to live a valued life like Ed Thomas.

Past SOTM winners:
May - Calvin Borel
April - Crazylegs runners/walkers
March - Team Japan baseball
February - Rafael Nadal
January - Larry Fitzgerald

-AJ

Sportsman of the Month - May

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Sportsman of the Month - Calvin Borel

I think I jinxed the guy. I go and select him for my June award, and he blows the Belmont on Mine that Bird, a 2-1 favorite. Shucks. I guess I have the same power as that magazine, huh?

Even so, Borel has to receive some big-time props for reigniting popularity into a beautiful sport that lacks star power, since, well, horses can't go on Pardon the Interruption or make it rain on the Vegas strip to enhance or destroy their reputations. And not only did Lil' Calvin win both the Derby and Preakness; he did it on two different horses! Now granted, the latter race was won by Rachel Alexandria, who apparently could have won the Belmont running backwards had she entered. But turning a 51-1 underdog in Kentucky to a 2-1 in New York? Unless Mine that Bird was shot full of amphetamines, that's impressive stuff, and Borel is to be credited for that.

More than anything else, Borel gave us something great to talk about for horse racing. We fretted last year when Eight Belles was euthanized right on the track. Rather than waiting anxiously to hear what he'd say next, we instead cringed every time Big Brown's obnoxious owner Rick Dutrow opened his mouth. We continuously deal with PETA's crap, pleading America to humanize horse racing by taking away the whips and improving their training and basically taking all the fun out of horse racing despite the fact that these animals lead extremely comfortable lives.

But 5-foot-5 Calvin Borel, good ol' Cajun Cal, joined the Mount Rushmore of Inspirational Little People, right there along with Billy Crystal, Muggsy Bogues and Jason "Wee Man" Acuna. To me, anytime you do something that ignites your sport all by yourself, that's worthy of SportsMan of the Month.

Past SOTM winners:
April - Crazylegs runners/walkers
March - Team Japan
February - Rafael Nadal
January - Larry Fitzgerald

-AJ

Sportsman of the Month - April

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Actually, I don't have a sportsman of the month. I don't have a sportswoman of the month, either.

I've got 18,541 of them.

Sportsmen and sportswomen of the Month:

The 18,541 Crazylegs Classic Record-Setters

I mean, if you looked outside and saw recurring downpours, in about 45-degree weather, just one day after enjoying a 75-degree day in late April, would you voluntarily lace up your running shoes, grab a towel and water bottle, and go run 8 kilometers or walk 2 miles?

A record-setting amount of Madisonians and out-of-town racers did just that on Apr. 25. Not once before in the 28-year history of the Crazylegs Classic - a run-and-walk event that starts at the Capitol building, winds around the University of Wisconsin campus and ends at the 50-yard-line at Camp Randall Stadium - had so many as 18,541 people participate. Considering the awful elements, that just made Crazylegs officials that much prouder.

“I think this is an exclamation point for Badger fans,” Terry Murawski told me during the closing ceremony under a tent's shelter on the soaked Camp Randall turf. Murawski is the Executive Director of the W Club and helps coordinate Crazylegs each year.

“You could not have scripted a worse day unless you had snow; it’s chilly, it’s raining, it’s rained hard through the race, and people are still coming over the finish line an hour after we started.”

Crazylegs features people from just about any background. You've got world-class racers including UW cross country and track superstars Katrina Rundhaug and Ann Detmer (whose recent graduation finally made them eligible to participate in the event); you've got local college students who go with friends as a fun end-of-the-semester outing; you've got casual runners who want to test their speed in a mini-marathon-type race, as well as people just looking to walk a little bit in late April as part of a large group.

But perhaps most impressively, you had large groups who coordinated to run or walk together, wearing matching shirts and racing for a common goal.

221 "Fun and Fitness" teams entered Crazylegs, including an eye-popping 4,000 individuals. The second-largest group, the Kevin Peyton Crazylegs Memorial Team, had 150 people in black shirts screaming "Running for Kevin". Kevin Peyton died last fall of autism at just 14 years old.

“This was one of his favorite things to do," Kevin's father, Steve, told me after the race. "We enjoyed it together as a father-and-son duo, and now to have 150 people here, it’s unbelievable. We’re just a bunch of friends and families; we’re not a corporation or business. It’s pretty neat, I’m very proud.”

It was an emotional day, too, for Elli Tarnutzer, whose 14-year-old son Lance was diagnosed with diabetes in September. Before long, his football and basketball teammates started spreading the word to create "Lance's Team", girls at Lance's high school were making and posting flyers, and 55 participants came out on a rainy day to help raise money for juvenile diabetes research.

When asked what it meant to have so many supporters for her son, who along with other Type 1 Diabetes combatants wore a red headband during Crazylegs, Elli teared up.

“He’s a real outgoing, personable kid,” said Elli Tarnutzer, Lance’s mother. “Everybody likes him. He’s just a good kid overall.”

On a lighter note, I, the Crazylegs newbie, had to ask Elli, a Crazylegs vet, just what does her group do if somebody has to stop and use the facilities during the race. Do they all stop? Do they go ahead and hope the individual catches up?

She shrugged and grinned. "Pretty much, you just grin and bear it."

More than 18-grand brave souls did just that on Apr. 25. And that made for a very proud day in the Madison community.

Past SOTM winners:
Team Japan – March
Rafael Nadal – February
Larry Fitzgerald – January

April honorable mentions:
North Carolina Tar Heels: No. 1 when they started, No. 1 when they finished. Just a couple bumps in the road, but overall a terrific season for clearly the best team in the land.
Albert Pujols: For singlehandedly carrying my fantasy team in Weeks 1 and 2. Not that I'm biased or anything.
Zach Greinke: For being the freaking man. He's now 6-0 with a 0.40 ERA? WHAT?!?! Too bad he'll be an overpaid Yankee by 2012.

April dishonorable mentions:
Al Davis: For being you. Darrius Heyward-Bey? I mean, seriously? Does Al enjoy making Mel Kiper Jr. tear his bizarro hair out?
Detroit Pistons: For deciding not to show up to these playoffs. Way to keep one foot on the basketball court and one foot on the yacht in Bermuda, boys.
Chien-Ming Wang: For singlehandedly destroying my fantasy team in Weeks 1 and 2. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Alex Rodriguez: for forcing Hooters waitresses everywhere to put up dartboards with his mug on it. And doing non-sexual things with it.
Brett Favre: ... oh wait. All this has taken place in May. OK, Brett, we'll get to you next month. Don't think you're not immune to this infamous list.

Sportsman of the Month - March

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Didn't get a chance to post this amid the Final Four, Masters and Opening Day hoopla, so here we go. Expect some Masters updates from B-Dubs as we get closer to Tiger's eventual comeback to win the Green Jacket. It's gonna happen.

March: Team Japan, World Baseball Classic Champions

Two tournaments in its existence, two world championships. Doesn’t get much better than that, does it?

The WBC is one of those oddball “is it overrated or is it underrated?” events that garners a ton of hype (overrated) and seems like it’s one of the greatest ideas known to modern man (underrated), until you just can’t get excited about the tournament, try as you might (overrated) but then when you look back at it, you wish it would come along next year as opposed to waiting ‘till Obama’s in his second term (underrated).

I sort of watched the tournament myself, but wasn’t truly riveted until the championship game. Apparently, Japan-South Korea baseball is a bitter rivalry among the ranks of Yanks-Sox, Federer-Nadal and McShay-Kiper Jr. Japan and South Korea put on a show at Dodger Stadium, with Korea mounting a comeback in the final two innings before Ichiro hit a two-run single in the top of the tenth to lift Japan to its second straight WBC title.

In a tournament where the American players barely seem to care, and talented powers Cuba and the Dominican Republic have underachieved, Japan has shown the world that baseball isn’t just America’s pastime. Led by Ichiro and Daisuke Matsuzaka – and armed with just five MLB players on its roster – the likeable Japanese team has ruled the four-year domain of the WBC. Unfortunately, when the third installment is played in 2009, Japan’s quest for a three-peat will be hindered by aging stars like Ichiro (who will be 39 then), Kosuke Fukudome (35) and Kenji Johjima (36).

But even so, I wouldn’t bet against Japan, if a battle of nations is at stake.

Past SOTM winners:
Rafael Nadal – February
Larry Fitzgerald – January

March honorable mentions:
Tiger Woods: Really, Tiger? It took you three tournaments to win a title after coming back from a year’s absence? Stiff.
Dominic James: for showing us what it means to love the game, refusing to let that “season-ending” foot injury end his season – or his Marquette career – on a sour note.
Michigan State Spartans: for lifting the spirits of the U.S. state most troubled by this recession, and for proving consistency throughout Tom Izzo’s MSU career. Spend four years in East Lansing, you WILL go to a Final Four.
Nate Miles (the ex-UConn guard): for being the centerpiece March’s official “Overblown Non-Story of the Month.”

-AJ

Sportsman of the Month - retro to Jan/Feb

You know how Sports Illustrated does its "Sportsman of the Year" thing every December? They leave out so many good candidates, and, well, they can only choose one man or woman each year. So I came up with this idea to spread it out, and do a Sportsman of the Month that helps give more great athletes and sports personalities their props. I'll have my March choice at the end of the month; but in the interest of spreading it out, here's my January and February picks.
-AJ

January: Larry Fitzgerald

Celebrities behaving badly seem to dominate the headlines so much more than celebrities doing positive, enlightening things. That’s why when we are blessed with a feel-good story, ESPN is so good at ramming it down our throats so much that we can eventually get sick of many “good guys.” Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Tim Tebow, Stephen Curry, even lovable Jason McElwain… hate to say it, but I grew tired of hearing about each of them. (No offense to J-Mac and his cool story...I just think it got overblown, particularly due to those annoying "G" commercials.)

Well, I hope I never, ever, ever get sick of Larry Fitzgerald, Jr.

(Now his dad, that’s another story. Larry Senior showed up at the Big Ten Tournament wearing his kid’s jersey to cover … who, exactly, I don’t know. Seems that fame got to the old man’s head. But I digress from a wonderful story.)

In lifting the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl (think how ridiculous that sounds), Fitz put up one of the greatest back-to-back-to-back-to-back efforts in the history of postseasons. Many people labeled this the greatest postseason ever, but I use the words I do because it properly illustrates that he did it consistently in four straight games, instead of having one monster game and a couple of okay efforts.

One great game against the Falcons (six catches, 101 yards, and a touchdown) and one massive game at the Carolina (eight, 166 and a score) wasn’t enough to convince the two Keystone State teams. Even when everybody in the ballpark knew that Fitz was getting the ball, the Eagles (nine, 152 and three touchdowns) and Steelers (seven, 127 and two scores, including the go-ahead 64-yarder with 2:37 to go that nearly won it for ‘Zona) couldn’t stop him. Then just for good measure, Fitzgerald went down to Hawaii and was the MVP of the 2009 Pro Bowl with five, 81 and two scores (only the AFC All-Stars could keep Fitz under the century mark for yards).

How colossally insane is that? 33 catches, 627 yards, and nine touchdowns. In five games. And unless you were living under a rock in January, you already know that Fitzgerald ranks in the top five humblest, most soft-spoken athletes in America today.

Let’s just make sure Fitzgerald, 25, doesn’t go the obnoxious ways of Terrell Owens or Chad Johnson.

January honorable mentions: Tebow, Tony Dungy, Barack Obama, Michael Phelps’ bong

February: Rafael Nadal

On the night the calendar flipped to February and America slept soundly in preparation for another Super Bowl, a remarkable accomplishment was happening on the other side of the planet, and I’m proud to say I pulled the all-nighter to witness it live.

Rafael Nadal officially grabbed the reins of the men’s tennis circuit from the potential GOAT, Roger Federer, with a gutsy, gripping, high-octane, not-as-great-as-their-Wimbledon-final-but-pretty-darn-close five-set victory down at the Australian Open. Nadal now has six Grand Slams, to his name, at age 22. The Fed Express, who sits at 13 majors (one shy of Pete Sampras’ all-time mark), had the grand total of one Grand Slam on his 22nd birthday.

Most telling that Nadal is officially inside Federer’s head was seeing Federer weep at the post-match ceremony – any sort of outward emotion from Roger has been extremely uncharacteristic throughout the past five years. Perhaps he’s starting to realize that not only will every Grand Slam title he shoots for from here on out will be a daunting task, but he’s also gotta be thinking: even if I do surpass Sampras, how long will I actually hold the record?

The world took a long time to embrace Roger as an all-time great. Let’s not make the same mistake with Rafa.

February honorable mentions: Santonio Holmes, Big East men’s basketball coaches, Nate Robinson, A-Rod’s cousin

-AJ