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“Aztecs Football–It Must Be Different”

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He had a fire in his gut. His face got flaming red. He spoke with resolve, he talked with passion.

It was Rocky Long and it was San Diego State’s preseason press conference.

It might be a new football season coming, but you can tell the ‘sting’ or the ‘stink’ of what happened last year, is still very much there in his gut.

The Aztecs open preseason camp on Friday, and things are different, and will be different.

The team that collapsed after a (6-1) start, the one that lost 5-games late in the season, then got punched in the mount by Ohio in a (27-0) loss in a bowl game, has not been forgotten.

Long promised in January a full evaluation of the program after an extraordinary finish to a campaign, football like we haven’t seen on Montezuma Mesa since the Chuck Long era.

Lots of things are different, starting with maybe the two most important acquisitions in the off season, not players, but coaches.

Ron Caragher, former head coach at USD, San Jose State, with a strong reputation from his days at Kentucky, joins the staff as passing game coordinator with the responsibility, install the ‘spread’ attack and rejuvenate a dormant passing game.

Brady Hoke returns, as defensive line coach, after losing his job at Michigan, and bouncing around to Oregon, Tennessee, and the Carolina Panthers. He brings emotion, teaching skills, motivation techniques, to that side of the football.

Those two are difference makers, so give Long credit with having the brass to want to add more quality assistants, former head coaches, to what had become a younger coaching staff.

He tore down the team’s off-season training regimen. They ran, ran, and ran more. Conditioning will be their middle name. They had huge gains in the weight room. Spring ball was the most physical it’s been in the last four years. Long went back 8-years to revisit fundamental drills that had been on the shelf.

SDSU replaces a near four year starter at quarterback, but fiesty competitor Ryan Agnew, out of Texas, got tons of experience last yer year when he was forced to play because of the injuries to Christian Chapman, the long term starter. He brings a strong personality to the huddle, and makes plays..

Injuries wrecked the offensive side of the ball. The quarterback, then the star running back Juwan Washington, then the fullback Issac Lassard, and then problems in the offensive front, with injuries and attitudes. They staggered to the finish line.

The Ty Roemer suspension was something we had not seen in years with a Long team up on the hill. A poison in the lockeroom, possibly. For the first time in years, there seemed to be no leadership from the players themselves. There was no Damontee Kazee, no Rashard Penny, no DJ Humphrey.

Long has gone heavy into the transfer venue. Former starting offensive linemen from Oregon and BYU have arrived, and are ready for starting jobs. Transfers from Arizona and Nebraska are on the roster. A couple of hot JUCO’s have arrived, and four more could be here by opening day.

Chemistry and attitude, two things missing last fall, look to be back on campus. That looks like it will change. Offensive center Keith Ishmael, a 3rd year starter, says there won’t be any ‘dark days’ in that locker room now. Agnew exudes spark as a personality in the huddle. Tariq Thompson seems ready to assume a role as a verbal leader.

It’s been two years since the Chargers left town, and yet this city, and those alumni have not embraced the program the way you would imagine. Long is (71-35) with the Red & Black. They’ve been to 8-Bowl games. They’ve beaten teams from the Power 5-Conferences.

The Aztecs have been everything that Boise State was when the Broncos moved to the upper echelon of the conference. But the crowd support has not grown as the program has grown.

A school trying to build a new football stadium, needs a return to the top and be in the running for a New Years Day Bowl Game.

Long pulled his new found phrase out of his pocket….’being just OK is not OK at San Diego State, championship matter.’

The term ‘redemption’ seemed to emminate from different coaches offices I visited on Tuesday. Talk is one thing. Results are important.

Long talked a good game on Tuesday. Now we see if the new quarterback, the load of transfers, the coaching additions, can make a difference.

San Diego State needs it to..
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“Padres Clubhouse-You’ve Been Traded”

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Everyone around the country is talking about them, the Padres, and the trading deadline, that comes up at 1pm on Wednesday.

The Padres, the players, the manager, they’re not talking about it, at least not much for public consumption.

But every baseball insider thinks the Padres should trade, or will trade for, New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndegaard. The names being floated range from hot young pitching, to struggling veterans and more.

A bunch of teams will be buyers. A select few sure look like sellers. The Padres could be one or the other, or could sit tight, and just continue to play the kids they have spent so much money on.

What’s it like to have your named tossed around in all these trade rumors?

I asked Padres reliever Craig Stammen, the senior member of the pitching staff, who has been thru a lot of these trade deadline scenarios. Interesting candid answers to my questions.

CLUBHOUSE….It’s harder on the older players, because they don’t know what other teams think of them, or what their own club really thinks of them. The younger players, they don’t know because they have not been thru this. If you get dealt, leaving teammates is hard.

THE STANDINGS….If you are on a team out of contention, those type of teams make these kind of deals. Take a veteran player, send him to another club in a pennant race, get younger parts to build with. Trade impending free agents, you can’t sign, for prospects. It’s the way the business is right now. If you look at the pennant races, you do think about what a team would do, who they would get.

A FAN….I love baseball, I play baseball, I’m a fan of baseball. Do I play GM and wonder what I’d ask for in a Noah Syndegaard trade, no. But it’s fun, if a guy gets dealt, to figure out how he helps a team. I pay attention to see who gets traded where and then what other teams do in response. I’m a fan.

THE MEDIA…There’s a lot of noise out there. I’m a fan, so I like to read about the teams and players. You have to take the attitude, if your name is out there, I’m glad to be wanted. I don’t have ups and downs, I’d rather concentrate on who I have to get out the next time I pitch in this Orioles series. I watch ESPN for game highlites and pay attention to the stories. Do I live on twitter or the internet, no.

TEAMMATES…Some guys get caught off guard. Some get upset. Brad Hand was like that, caught off guard.. Other wives rallied around his wife to help her pack and deal with move to Cleveland. Chase Headley’s wife was 8-months pregnant when he was moved tot he Yankees. Some guys are shocked by it. Families are leaving friends and moving, and it’s hard on them. I go to a clubhouse and meet new guys. Wives and kids go to cities as strangers.

AT HOME….My wife is 8-months pregnant-due next month, so we have talked about ‘what if’ and how we’d handle it. The reality, I have no control over this, so let’s not worry. It’s tough on a family. I have a clubhouse, they have to leave a home.

MOVING….The teams take care of everything, that’s part of our union deal, packing, moving, paying for things, your apartment lease.. But when you have schools and kids, it’s complex, families take care of that, especially just weeks before kids start classes..

NEXT 24 HOURS….The phone might ring, it might not. It’s part of baseball. I like this team, we have so many good young starting pitchers, I’d like to see this grow. It’s fun to look around this clubhouse, and to watch the kids grow. It’s amazing we have 10-potential starting pitchers now, starters who could be in the rotation a long, long time. They are learning to be their best when they have to be their best. It’s baseball.

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“Trade Deadline Day–Make or Break Time”

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They’re on the clock, the teams trying to make their season, or save their season.

The baseball trading deadline is 1pm on Wednesday, and the dominoes have started to fall in baseball, with the July 31st trading deadline straight ahead.

Deals at the deadline have become part of baseball lore, but this is a different time in baseball. This year, there is just one deadline, Wednesday. After that teams can no longer make trades, different than years gone by, where you could put players on waivers in August, and trade them to another team if they cleared waivers. Not part of the game now.

There are sellers, and there are buyers, team that are in a pennant race and those falling out of the race.

Teams are always in need of pitching, so there will be moves to rent starters, about to become free agents, or deal for relievers who can make a difference. There will be teams dumping bad contracts in return for a bunch of prospects.

Out of the pennant race, in last place, no problem, move an arm and get young players in return so today’s bad team might be better next year.

The New York market is the focal point of all things baseball right now. The Yankees, with all those bats, but with a horrid starting rotation (7.09-ERA) since the end of June. A deep farm system, they will be a buyer, trying to stay infront of the Red Sox and Rays in the AL-East and be ready for the postseason.

The other team in town, the Mets, made the first big acquisition of the deadline, getting frontline starter Marcus Stroman from Toronto for a package of players, including 2-top pitching prospects. The Blue Jays future is down the road..

The Mets could likely make the second big deal of the final hours, shopping frontline starter Noah Syndegaard for hot prospects, though it is stunning you’d want to subtract his talent. The Mets won’t play in October this year, but think about a rotation of Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, plus Syndegaard-Stroman Why would you break that up? And though closer Edwin Diaz has not been the dominant pitcher of a year ago, why move him too?.

The Padres, Angels, Houston, could all be in the mix for Syndegaard. Diaz could be a Dodger, if teams are willing to overpay.

The Giants, in the midst of an amazing hot stretch, 18-wins in 24-games, are listening to offers for ace Madison Bumgarner and closer Will Smith. But San Francisco has made itself a wild card team, so why give it up now. They haven’t signed Bumgarner to an extension though, so who knows what they are thinking.

Arizona is shopping big money pitcher Zach Grienke, but no one wants that contract, but will take a run at younger starter Robbie Ray. The D-Backs look like they are in strip down mode. Atlanta might be where Roy goes.

Cleveland is hot, and chasing down Minnesota in the pennant race, but is considering moving Trevor Bauer in an ever-continuing move to pare payroll. Closer Brad Hand could be on the move again.

Pittsburgh, which doesn’t have much talent, is shopping its closer Felipe Vasquez, but wants a truckload of talent. The Dodgers are interested there too.

Texas is shopping left-hander Mike Minor, and maybe his value helps Houston or even the Angels.

The Tigers headed for a 100-loss season, are willing to move starter Matt Boyd and closer Shane Green, but want multiples of players in return. Tampa Bay is interested.

.The Padres have closer Kirby Yates and teams are calling, but why would San Diego create a hole of massive proportions in the bullpen, if they hope to have all these young pitchers as part of a playoff team next year?.

There have been great baseball trades at the deadline that made a big difference for franchises in the pennant race.

In recent years, the Indians sending pitcher CC Sabathia to Milwaukee, to get them the pennant.

Manny Ramirez from the Red Sox to the Dodgers created a huge uproar.

Randy Johnson went to the Houston Astros and got them to the World Series.

Curt Shilling wound up a Diamondback and headed to a World Series too.

But there have been failures.

Back in the day, the Red Sox dealt a prospect, Jeff Bagwell to Houston for pitcher Larry Anderson. Bagwell became a Hall of Fame star for the Astros. Anderson became a journeyman.

Atlanta wanted a minor league pitcher, and was willing to give up a veteran starter. Doyle Alexander, at the end of his career, went to Detroit. We all know what John Smoltz became in Atlanta.

Toronto shipped an aging David Cone, who wasn’t done, as he pitched the Yankees to a World Series.

Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop both wound up with the Cubs while Baltimore got Scott Feldman. Look where the Cubs are, what the Orioles have become.

The next 3-days become ‘Risk & Reward” time in baseball, for pennant contenders.

Here comes the trading deadline. There go the pitchers and the prospects.

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“Chargers-1st Day-Bad Day-Camp”

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We all knew what to expect with the opening day of the Chargers preseason training camp.

There would be no sighting, nor signing, of Melvin Gordon, the holdout running back.

What we did not imagine was the seriousness of the health issues involving starting left tackle Russell Okung.

Gordon took it upon himself last week to announce he would not come to camp without a contract extension and salary upgrade. The holdout is underway.

The Chargers took it upon themselves to spend nearly 6-weeks of silence, before they then announced that Okung was seriously ill. No transparency on something so serious, it could have been addressed in OTA workouts the first week of June, when he was no longer at practice.

Okung finally revealed the scary story of driving himself to an LA hospital with serious chest pains on Saturday night June 1st, in the midst of off season workouts.

He now calls it a life-and-death experience. Blood clots can arise quickly, damage can be serious, if not life threatening.

Okung credits doctors for saving his life that night. They found blood clots near a lung,ones that could have easily broken loose into his blood stream, travelled to his brain, or his heart, and been fatal.

The venerable left tackle, who counts 13M against the NFL salary cap, is out for at least 6-weeks, if not part of the season, if not the rest of his NFL career.

Players have come back form serious illnesses. The latest information was that Patriots linebacker Teddy Busch suffered a stroke in the middle of his career, but recovered and came back and played 6-more seasons.

But this is not a torn knee ligament, a sprained ankle, a torn pectoral muscle. This is not repairable by a typical surgery.

Okung has been a warrior in an injury marred career. Much of his early career was sidetracked by shoulder injuries while with the Seattle Seahawks. When it appeared he was about to become just another journeyman, who succumbed to injury after injury, he got healthy, got lucky, and got to San Diego, where he became the trusted protector of QB-Philip Rivers.

He’s been active to in the Players Association, a strong advocate of the concussion discussions, programs to help players. He is an advocate on the formation of the newly installed Mental Health Committees and the Pain Management Committee, put in place by his Union.

His beliefs include the need to change equipment, helmets, in addition to the rules, and a sense that Medical Marijuana maybe better than the dangers of painkillers.

He may be facing the end of his NFL career. Living on blood thinners is one thing. Trying to play on them is something very different.

No one knows what the future holds for Russell Okung. If it is over, he has been well compensated, and he has gotten out with his health and is alive.

You are shaken by all this news, especially when we are still dealing with the sadness and the mysterious death of Angels young pitcher Tyler Skaggs just two weeks ago. No one knows why, yet.

But Okung knows for sure, his life was saved that Saturday night in June. He has life, and that is really important. The Chargers don’t have their left tackle, and that’s a bad break for them, but that’s the NFL.

Melvin Gordon absent. Russell Okung missing. Not the way the Chargers could have imagined their preseason starting.

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“NBA–Nothing But Arrogance”

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Adam Silver has a problem, he, the NBA Commissioner.

A lot of owners, spread across the US map, should have a problem.

The NBA Union might be facing a problem.

The Players, the superstars, don’t seem to care about the problem.

The league, after a tense, confrontational, nasty meeting of the Board of Governors, needs to retake control of the league.

Take it back from the players and from the agents.

At issue is the reality that the players are running the league, not the commissioner, not the owners, not the most esteemed basketball people, the GMs, in the league.

The Toronto Raptors, aghast at the demands made by Kawhi Leonard’s agent, his uncle, have turned over evidence to the league office, that Dennis Robertson made contract demands that involved guaranteed marketing money, use of private jets, hotels, houses and vacation trips, in addition to the 32M-per year Leonard would get in a ‘max contract’. An outright violation of the NBA salary cap.

Other NBA teams, who had dialogue with Leonard, have alleged the same.

The Lakers are upset that Leonard waited a full week after a sales pitch, to allow some of his other friends to sign contracts elsewhere, meaning the Lakers wouldn’t get Leonard, and would lose out on other free agents they could have signed.

Other issues involve players going public they had decided on joining teams even before the free agent window actually opened for negotiations..

Kevin Durant notified everyone he was going to the Brooklyn Nets and Kemba Walker did the same, leaving Charlotte for Boston, before opening hours of free agency took place. That meant deals were in place before bidding was supposed to start.

Complicating all this are the friendships players have with each other, players who talked to each other about forming ‘Dream Teams’ by trying to pull off power plays to engineer deals.

Was Leonard tampering with Paul George in Oklahoma City, to try and force a trade to join him with the Clippers, even though George was just year one into a multi9-year deal with the Thunder. It wound up being ‘7-for-1’ trade the Clippers made.

And Durant contacting Kyrie Irving about joining him in Brooklyn in a mega deal, eventhough Irving was still under contract to Boson.

At last count, the NBA is looking at 6-clubs and their contacts with agents representing the marquee free agents.

This has been brewing for awhile. Only twice in the David Stern era, were players or teams disciplined in the past. A huge fine and the voiding of a Minnesota Timberwolves contract with Joe Smith, a decade ago for illegal guarantees. it cost the T-Wolves millions and draft picks.. And sanctions against Miami’s signing of Juwan Howard, years back too.

In the past year, the NBA handed fines to the Lakers and Dallas for comments about impending free agency, but little else happened. Now something must happen.

Owners argued the league has to do something to control this oil fire, where the rules don’t mean anything to the top teams in the league, and surely don’t mean anything for the star players, who only care about their next big payday.

This all started with the LeBron James ‘Dream Team’ concept in Miami, you know, ‘taking my talents to South Beach’.

Yes it may be fun to watch what the Heat did to stockpile super talent, or what Golden State did.

You wonder if the 25-other teams in the league, will rise up and revolt against what has been allowed to happen.

Baseball and the NFL have been harsh to deal with people who violate the salary cap, tamper with other team’s players, or do under the table deals.

The NBA has been loathe to deal with what has been out there. Now they really have a problem.

It’s about right and wrong, and different rules for different folks. It’s about the lack of competitive balance.

Players run the league. Everyone is making 30M a year max contracts. No one cares about the rules.

The NBA, the street game, has allowed its players and agents to take the game into the gutter. .

The NBA stands for Nothing But Arrogance, and they have a huge crisis infront of them.