A Year That Left Everyone Wrung Out

Today we try again. Today we get a new opportunity to get it right, to regroup, to rebuild, while remembering a promise that went so wrong 365 days ago.

Happy New Year?

During a fretful 12 months in which two of the biggest sports stories involved the Notre Dame football coach lying on his resume and a star Little League pitcher lying about his age, the first untruth of 2001 was uttered, by millions, just as soon as the clock struck midnight on 2000.

Sports are supposed to be our playthings, our diversions, our respite from the everyday madness of real life. But in 2001, a year marred by national tragedy, terrorism and war, there was no escape from the sadness, not when the nightly sports news was leading off with coverage of another memorial service, or the filing of another wrongful death lawsuit, or the discovery of another piece of evidence in the latest athletic scandal.

NASCAR opened its Winston Cup season Feb. 28 with what looked to be a made-for-TV feel-good story: Michael Waltrip, winless in 462 career starts, finally reaching the victory stand at the Daytona 500.

Within minutes of Waltrip crossing the finish line, however, his triumph had become an afterthought. On the final lap, seconds away from a third-place finish, Dale Earnhardt, the folk hero of American stock car racing, was killed when his famous No. 3 car crashed into the wall between turns 3 and 4.

The Minnesota Vikings, who finished one step short of Super Bowl V, reassembled in August to begin preparations for clearing the final hurdle. On a brutally hot day at the team’s training camp in Mankato, Minn., Korey Stringer, the Vikings’ Pro Bowl offensive tackle, staggered off the practice field, suffering from heatstroke, and died in a nearby hospital hours later.

Two days later, Rashidi Wheeler, starting safety at Northwestern University, collapsed during workouts and died. For the next month, the sports page seemed to have mutated into the obituary page, with one report of a football player’s death following another. By the end of the year, at least 17 football players in 2001 had died suddenly, including 17-year-old Matt Colby of Costa Mesa High.

In January, Oklahoma State’s basketball program lost two players and six staff members in a plane crash.

In September, the University of Wyoming lost eight cross-country runners in an automobile accident.

Along the way, the drum banged slowly as some of the brightest personalities to enliven the sporting landscape faded from view--and can you think of a more entertaining talk-show format than Dick Schaap tossing up questions for a panel of Al McGuire, John McKay, Bill Rigney, Willie Stargell and George Young?

After the Sept. 11 attacks, sports was shuttered for a week--no baseball, no NFL, and, after no small amount of public prodding, no college football. The game postponements were unprecedented, as was the brief moment of introspection and self-analysis the industry afforded itself between pregame shows.

What does the outcome of a baseball game mean when bodies are being pulled from the rubble of what used to be the World Trade Center? How important are halftime scores while a nation grieves? With the Pentagon a terrorist target, shouldn’t the hackneyed war metaphors--running backs as “weapons,” fastballs as “ammunition”--be shelved, now and forever? Why do we call $250-million, .318-hitting shortstops “heroes” when New York firefighters are risking their lives trying to save others minutes before a tower collapses?

These were questions worth asking, even if the answers were obvious--and soon ignored, once the games returned and routine was restored and football fans in Cleveland were back to pelting officials with beer bottles because a crucial call had just knocked their team out of playoff contention.

(Worth noting, and remembering: ESPN’s best week of journalism in 2001 occurred during the week after the attacks, when the network sidelined its customary cast of Amateur Night at the Improv acts and turned “SportsCenter” over to Bob Ley. Giving us the necessary news and thoughtful analysis, Ley demonstrated how high the show can aspire when the on-air talent does more than audition next week’s smirk-along-with-us catchphrases.)

At their best, sports should both amaze and amuse, leaving us shaking our heads and smiling at what we’ve just seen. But in 2001, several of the headline-making athletes gave us only half the equation, the feat without the fun.

San Francisco Giant outfielder Barry Bonds broke Mark McGwire’s supposedly unbreakable single-season home run record, finishing with an unthinkable 73. But has there ever been a more joyless pursuit of a major record? In 1998, when McGwire and Sammy Sosa resuscitated baseball with their hugs-and-homers chase of Roger Maris, sportswriters nodded along with a nation transfixed by at-bat updates and mused, “Think it would be like this if Bonds was going for the record?”

Three years later, we had our answer. After a decade spent alienating himself from teammates, media and fans, Bonds went after the most hallowed mark in sports, owned by the popular McGwire, and once he reached 65, found himself greeted by boos on the road and opposing pitchers wanting to avoid the issue entirely.

Intentionally walked and ignored until the season’s last week, Bonds eclipsed the record in San Francisco, against the Dodgers, hitting Nos. 71 and 72 in a game that lasted so long, the ceremony to commemorate the record began after midnight. Bonds seemed so stunned at the response from the home fans--they actually stayed, they actually cheered--that he broke down and cried.

Yet, despite his phenomenal statistical totals (137 runs batted in, .515 on-base percentage, .863 slugging percentage), Bonds was an unwanted man in the free-agent market. Partly because of his age, 38, but partly because of his baggage, Bonds received no multiyear offers to his liking and wound up agreeing to arbitration, and one more season, with the Giants.

The 2001 Super Bowl was won by a worst-case scenario in shoulder pads, the Baltimore Ravens, who, in fairness, should be commended for combining all that ails professional football today into one tidy package.

A run-for-the-money relocation case from Cleveland, the Ravens played the most cynical brand of football in memory, reining in their limited quarterback in a no-risk offense that played for defensive field position and waited for turnovers. They were arrogant and obnoxious, led by a coach, Brian Billick, who figured Lombardi would have gone 8-8 with the same group, and a linebacker, Ray Lewis, who had begun 2000 as a double-murder suspect and freed himself to play by pleading to a lesser charge.

Michael Jordan returned after a three-year retirement from basketball, and immediately wondered what happened to the love. Reaction to his comeback ranged from indifference (it’s a Shaq-Kobe world now) to disdain (he’s spoiling his perfect ending!) to ridicule (Err Jordan). Even close friends such as Charles Barkley wondered what Jordan was thinking and feared for his safety.

For two months, he looked pretty much like what you’d expect from a rusty 38-year-old superstar playing for a bad team--more jumpers than glides to the hoop, a decent performance followed by an awful one. Then, just before year’s end, Jordan decided it was high time to remind his jaded audience of what the original equipment used to manage and scored 51 and 45 points in consecutive games during 2001’s final week.

How old is too old? In the case of the Little League World Series, the answer is 14, which was the actual age of Bronx pitcher Danny Almonte when he competed for the Rolando Paulino All-Stars.

This, then, was the reason Almonte blew fastballs past 11-and 12-year-old hitters like some economy-sized Randy Johnson. Throughout the World Series, there was media speculation that Almonte might be overage, but ABC’s coverage team gave the controversy passing notice, preferring to hype the “Baby Bombers” and the “Baby Unit” and wonder what Almonte was going to say at his Cooperstown induction speech.

News of the scandal broke after the Series, when reporters tracked down the boy’s Dominican Republic birth certificate, revealing his true age. All of Almonte’s accomplishments--including a perfect game--were stricken from the Little League record book, he and his father were banned from Little League activities and his league was suspended from future World Series competition.

Deception was in vogue in 2001, and it had nothing to do with the hidden-ball trick. Butch Davis lied to University of Miami players and boosters, insisting he wasn’t going anywhere while secretly finishing negotiations to coach the Cleveland Browns. Notre Dame fired Bob Davie after a 5-6 season, then hired Georgia Tech’s George O’Leary, who held the job for five days before being forced to resign when it was learned he padded his resume with false athletic and educational histories.

The Lakers deked the country into thinking they were feuding and vulnerable and there for the taking when they were merely pacing themselves for a 15-1 playoff run and their second consecutive NBA championship. Chick Hearn fooled us into thinking he would work forever, then gave us a serious scare by undergoing heart surgery in December, ending the greatest run in Los Angeles sports history--3,338 consecutive games behind the microphone.

Elsewhere locally, the nightly highlight shows delivered a mixed bag. USC reached the Elite Eight and UCLA the Sweet 16 in men’s college basketball, followed a few months later by the Sparks winning the WNBA title, prompting some declarations of “World Capital of Basketball” that conveniently ignored the Clippers.

Then came football season, which saw UCLA threaten for two months for a national championship, then finish 7-4 after two-thirds of its starting backfield got caught in traffic--running back DeShaun Foster suspended for driving a 2002 Ford Expedition that wasn’t his, quarterback Cory Paus benched for not disclosing two alcohol-related driving convictions to his coaches. USC’s major achievement was its victory over the mid-swoon Bruins, which produced a trip to the Las Vegas Bowl, where the Trojans netted one rushing yard and lost to Utah, 10-6.

The Kings had a surprising run to the second round of the NHL playoffs, upsetting Detroit in the first round and taking eventual Stanley Cup winner Colorado seven games. But the Angels and the Ducks were off the radar screen, as usual, and the Dodgers completed their 13th consecutive season without a playoff victory, finishing third in the NL West during a season distinguished by General Manager Kevin Malone getting fired shortly after challenging a fan in San Diego to a fight.

Worth cheering in 2001 were:

* Cyclist Lance Armstrong, who extended his cancer-surviving Tour de France championship streak to three.

* Tiger Woods, who won the Masters to become the first golfer in the modern era to hold all four major championships simultaneously.

* Jennifer Capriati, who won the Australian and French opens after seemingly squandering her career before her 20s.

* Venus Williams, who repeated as women’s Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion, defeating her sister Serena for the latter in an all-family final in New York.

* Goran Ivanisevic, who became the first wild-card entrant to win the Wimbledon men’s title.

* Ray Bourque, who ended a 22-year quest and finally won the Stanley Cup in his last NHL game.

* Alan Webb, who broke Jim Ryun’s 36-year-old high school record in the mile by running 3:53.43.

Today we try again, hoping for a new year better than what has just passed. Initial signs, however, are ominous.

The Rose Bowl, which usually is played today, won’t kick off until Thursday night, two days after the final parade float has been docked, because the game is allegedly being played for the national championship, even though one of the participants, Nebraska, did not win its conference and lost its last game, 62-36.

Baseball, coming off an exciting World Series that saw the 4-year-old Arizona Diamondbacks upset the New York Yankees in seven games, is talking contraction or work stoppage or both.

The Dodgers just lost Chan Ho Park to the Texas Rangers, the Angels are still owned by Disney and UCLA continues to lose to basketball teams it ought to run off the court by halftime.

But Hearn is due back at the announcer’s table sometime this month, Notre Dame hired a football coach with a nonfiction resume and there are no XFL games on the calendar.

It’s still early, but there is reason for optimism.