No Mas

---

---

"It would require a deal of convincing to shake the conviction here that Duran had to be sick or injured because Roberto Duran was not, is not and never could be a quitter."

Red Smith

---

The Belfast Telegraph recently published a list of the 10 greatest fighters of all time.

The sixth–greatest fighter, the Telegraph said, was Roberto Duran, and he beat the fifth–greatest fighter of all time, Sugar Ray Leonard, for the welterweight title in Montreal on June 20, 1980.

They met in a rematch in New Orleans on this day in 1980 in what became one of the most famous fights ever. It is known to history as the "No Mas fight" because that is what Duran said to the referee at the end of the eighth round, indicating that he was conceding the fight. In case you aren't fluent in Spanish — and I certainly am not — "no mas" is Spanish for "no more."

After the fight, Duran tried to save some face by insisting that he was suffering from stomach cramps, but I always thought it was because he just couldn't reconcile the Sugar Ray he fought in New Orleans with the fighter he fought in Montreal five months earlier.

It was a moment that really defined both men.

My memory of Leonard is that he was like Muhammad Ali, light on his feet in the ring, always moving. But Leonard, in the face of Duran's prefight taunting, adopted more of a flat–footed style and went toe to toe with Duran in that first fight. He wanted to beat Duran at his own game. He didn't. Duran won by a decision.

Five months later, they met again in New Orleans, and the old Sugar Ray appeared to be back.

---

---

Gone was the plodding flat–footed style. It was like watching an entirely different fighter in the ring, one who looked like that other Sugar Ray Leonard but certainly didn't fight like him.

Apparently Duran was baffled by it as well. He shouldn't have been, though — if he prepared for that first fight by observing footage of Leonard in the ring. That Leonard was back.

Leonard was always the good guy in the equation. Duran was the bad guy, known at one time as the meanest man in boxing. He was said to have knocked out a woman and a horse.

Boxing is a macho sport, and Duran, with his cold, demonic eyes, was the most macho man in boxing 35 years ago. My guess at the time was that Leonard didn't just want to win the fight. He wanted to seize the crown of most macho fighter from Duran as well.

I didn't see either fight in progress; I saw them after the fact, in replays on TV, but what stands out in my mind about that first fight was that, even before it was over, the announcers were talking about how they could see a rematch coming in the final rounds, when Leonard tried desperately to retake ground he lost to Duran in the early rounds — resuming the style with which he had succeeded in the past. But it was too late.

Not long after he lost the fight, Leonard actively pursued a rematch. Duran had been celebrating his victory in New York, partying and overeating. Leonard felt a key to winning the rematch would be to have it as soon as possible — before Duran could lose the celebratory weight he had gained.

Nevertheless, by the time of the fight, both men were in great condition.

Millions of dollars were offered to both fighters for a rematch, and the agreement was reached. The fight would be in the New Orleans Superdome.

Once the fight was in progress, it seemed pretty even — until the seventh round, when Leonard began to openly taunt Duran, and Duran had no answer for it. He seemed lost, and Leonard appeared to be in control.

It was a part of fighting that a lot of people overlook — the psychological fight. Sure you hear people speak about fighters getting inside each other's heads, but I think a lot of people just see that as descriptive speech, allegorical — when it is much more accurate than most people probably want to believe. On this night in 1980, Leonard wasn't toying with Duran. He was implementing part of his strategy, just as he did when he used the bolo punch.

He was turning the tables on Duran, making him the object of the laughter instead of the other way around. For five months, Leonard had felt as if people were snickering at him over his loss to Duran. He wanted to make Duran the object of the ridicule he had been feeling — and probably imagining. I don't recall hearing anyone — in my personal conversations or in boxing programs I saw on television — who thought any less of Leonard for going the distance with Roberto Duran and losing.

---

---

In the eighth round, Duran had had enough. He looked at the referee and said, "No mas."

On this night in 1980, Leonard avenged his loss. Duran couldn't even go the distance. Leonard frustrated him, bewildered him. He got inside his head. It was not allegorical. It was definitely real.

The outcome was unheard of. Boxers just don't quit. They'll let their heads get beaten to mush, and they still won't quit.

Yet the most macho fighter on the planet quit. And when he did, everyone forgot his triumph over Leonard five months earlier. Few people remember it today. If you speak to a boxing fan about Leonard and Duran, the phrase "no mas" comes springing to mind, not images from that night in Montreal.

His Finest Hour

---

---

"The only way it could have been better would have been for Henry to hit the very first pitch, the one thrown by Gerald Ford."

Red Smith
April 5, 1974

---

On a sun–drenched Thursday afternoon in April 1974, Hank Aaron hit the home run that everyone had been waiting for since the last regular–season game of 1973.

It was the 714th home run of his career, pulling him even with Babe Ruth on the all–time list.

He had been one home run behind the Babe since Saturday, Sept. 29, 1973, when he hit a homer off Jerry Reuss. He went three for four the next day, the last of the '73 season, but he didn't hit the tying home run.

What is remembered the most about the next six months is that Aaron was subjected to the most bigoted series of attacks since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier a quarter of a century earlier. That is certainly true. By the time Hank Aaron and the Atlanta Braves opened the 1974 season, the hype had reached a level that was unheard–of in my then–young life but has been exceeded several times since.

What is less remembered is another controversy that surrounded the Braves' season opener. Atlanta's first three games were in Cincinnati. The Braves' front office wanted him to tie and then break the record — as everyone, even those who still hoped he would not, believed he would do — and also wanted him to sit out that three–game road series.

When the Braves left Cincinnati, they would open an 11–game home stand in Atlanta. Aaron was 40 years old, but, surely, the Braves' management reasoned, he could hit two home runs at home.

Baseball's commissioner, Bowie Kuhn, ruled that he had to play in two of the three games in Cincinnati.

---

"When they said, 'Suppose the commissioner orders the Braves to play you,' he said that in that event he guessed the commissioner would have to make out Cincinnati's batting order, too. This smart–aleck line must have been fed to him for Henry isn't a smart aleck."

Red Smith

---

And he did. He played on Thursday, April 4, with Vice President Gerald Ford on hand to throw out the ceremonial first pitch, and he played on Sunday.

He quickly pulled even with the Babe, hitting a home run on his first swing of the season. He went hitless when he played in the Sunday game, but he had eliminated half of the Braves' marketing ploy with his home run.

The next day, as the Braves and Reds took the day off before resuming the series on Saturday, sportswriter Red Smith wrote, "What really counts is that when Henry laid the wood on Jack Billingham's fastball, he struck a blow for the integrity of the game and for public faith in the game."

Smith observed that "there was nothing contrived about the locale or the timing of the event. ... It was witnessed by a standing–room–only crowd of 52,154 who weren't lured in by Aaron but rather by the local tradition that dictates that every ambulatory citizen of Cincinnati must attend the opening game even if he doesn't show up again all summer."

It was a great opening–day story, all right.

"The way Henry did it removed all taint of commercialism," wrote Smith. "For this day, at least, the business of baseball made way for sport."

Shaking Up the World

---

---

"Clay comes out to meet Liston, and Liston starts to retreat.
If Liston goes back an inch farther, he'll end up in a ringside seat.
Clay swings with his left, Clay swings with his right.
Look at young Cassius carry the fight.
Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room.
It's a matter of time till Clay lowers the boom.
Now Clay lands with a right, what a beautiful swing,
And the punch raises the Bear clean out of the ring.
Liston is still rising, and the ref wears a frown
For he can't start counting till Sonny goes down.
Now Liston is disappearing from view, the crowd is going frantic,
But radar stations have picked him up, somewhere over the Atlantic.
Who would have thought when they came to the fight
That they'd witness the launching of a human satellite?
Yes the crowd did not dream when they put up the money
That they would see a total eclipse of the Sonny."

Cassius Clay (1963)

---

Sonny Liston was the most fearsome fighter of his day.

Heck, he would be fearsome in any era. Sports Illustrated ranked him third among all the heavyweights — behind only Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis.

Fifty years ago tomorrow, Liston was the heavyweight champion about to defend his title in Miami Beach against an up–and–comer named Cassius Clay (soon to be Muhammad Ali), and most observers believed the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Modern boxing fans who grew up knowing Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield as the fiercest fighters around would be astonished by Sonny Liston. Many of his contemporaries were hesitant to fight him. There were boxing writers who believed he could not be beaten.

How tough was Liston? His nickname was "The Big Bear."

Liston was a brawler who learned to fight while serving time for armed robbery. He was sent back to prison for beating up a policeman. Through most of his professional career, Liston's majority owner was a former Mafia hit man; because of that association, Liston had a reputation for being everything that was bad about the sport even though his criminal record was a thing of the past, a relic of his reckless youth.

Clay was known to be loquacious, young and arrogant. He had won a gold medal as a light heavyweight in the 1960 Olympics, but he had struggled as a professional. Most boxing writers believed Liston would win easily.

Liston may have thought so, too. The 31–year–old Liston was a 7–to–1 favorite over the 22–year–old Clay.

Clay did everything he could to capitalize on that. He cultivated the image of a naive youngster in an attempt to lull Liston into a false sense of security.

---

---

Any thoughts that Liston might have had about knocking Clay out in the first round the way he had disposed of the previous heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, disappeared quickly as Clay proved to be too slippery. He constantly frustrated Liston by backing just out of range of the champion's punches.

Then, in the third round, Clay staggered the champ. Liston didn't go down, but he was bleeding from his nose and a cut just below his left eye when the round ended.

By the fifth round, Liston's right eye was beginning to swell, but Clay was having his own vision problems. Something appeared to be in one of his eyes, and he was blinking rapidly as the round began. Sensing a vulnerability, Liston tried to move in for the kill, but Clay bounced away every time Liston tried to connect, and Liston seemed to be tired by the end of the round.

When the fighters came out for the sixth round, Liston was dragging. The fight was stopped before the start of the seventh round.

And Clay jumped around the ring, repeatedly shouting, "I shook up the world!"

Clay leaned over the ropes of the boxing ring and told the working press to "eat your words." Sports writer Red Smith wrote that "nobody ever had a better right" to demand that.

"He might have been nailed if the bout had continued," Smith wrote, "but, on the evidence of 18 frenzied minutes, Cassius was entitled to crow, 'I'm the greatest. I'm gonna upset the world.' "

Smith's words were a glimpse into the mindset of many who had been skeptical of Clay before the fight. Perhaps they felt he had been lucky. He was still a brash youngster, and upsets do happen. Clay "might have been nailed if the bout had continued," Smith had written, but he won "on the evidence of 18 frenzied minutes."

Evidence, of course, is what it is, whatever it is, not what someone might wish that it is. The fight did not continue. It was the end of the Liston championship.

---

---

Within a few days, Clay joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali.

It was the start of a new era in boxing. Liston got a rematch with Ali in Lewiston, Maine, in May of 1965, which he lost, and he was never to be a contender again. Less than six years later, he was found dead of what was originally ruled to be a heroin overdose. Police could find no paraphernalia that would have been necessary to inject the fatal dose, however, so his death remains officially unresolved.

For Ali, it was the beginning of a remarkable professional career.

The Fight of the Century, Part II

---

---

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought three times.

The first was known as the "Fight of the Century." Frazier was the defending world champion, and he defeated Ali on that occasion. It was Frazier's only victory in three bruising confrontations.

The third fight, the "Thrilla in Manila," was fought a year and a half after the second fight, which took place in New York's Madison Square Garden 40 years ago tonight.

Neither man was champion on this night 40 years ago. Frazier had lost his title a year earlier to George Foreman, and the winner of the second fight figured to get a shot at Foreman's crown.

In boxing lore, the second fight between the two men is seen as the least significant of the three, but I disagree with that assessment. It was scheduled for 12 rounds, and it went the distance — no quick decision. Ali was the winner by unanimous decision, but that does not mean it was a lopsided fight.

---

---

It is an exercise in futility to rank the Ali–Frazier fights. It was a great rivalry, and each fight had its unique traits.

I always believed Ali–Frazier II was not the least significant of the three fights. True, no title was on the line, but the winner was expected to get a shot at the heavyweight championship — and, in fact, it did lead to a title shot for Ali later that year.

What's more, Ali cashed in on his opportunity, defeating Foreman in the famed "Rumble in the Jungle" in October.

But that was still nine months in the future. On this night in 1974, Ali got off to the kind of start that was typical for him — scoring enough points to be the unanimous winner of the first two rounds. That came as no real surprise to veteran fight watchers. Frazier always was a slow starter.

Frazier — who was thought to be seriously hurt near the end of the second round — began to score some points with the judges, winning the third round and doing well enough in the fourth to get two of the judges to score the round a draw.

The fifth and sixth rounds went to Ali, then the seventh and eighth went to Frazier. Ali was the unanimous winner of the ninth and 11th rounds while Frazier won split decisions in the 10th and 12th rounds.

It was a unanimous decision — all three judges had Ali winning — but it was far from unanimous as far as all observers were concerned. Sports writer Red Smith of the New York Times, for example, thought Frazier had won a narrow victory.

The rivalry had what any good rivalry should have — a healthy dose of good old–fashioned hate. At least, it appeared to have plenty of hate coming from the Frazier corner. Prior to their rematch, the men reviewed the tape of the first fight at the ABC studio, during which Ali called Frazier "ignorant," and a fight broke out in the studio.

That might have been a show. Ali was known to be a showman, and Frazier might have been persuaded to play along.

But, if it was a show, it was mighty convincing.

The Punch Heard 'Round the Football World

---

---

"Evidently nobody in authority realized that a full–grown man who attached such importance to a game was, at best, immature, not to say a case of arrested development. The saddest part of the whole affair is that nobody at Ohio State saw the denouement approaching and protected Hayes from himself."

Red Smith (1905–1982)

---

Red Smith is one of my favorite journalists. I guess it is appropriate to call him a sports journalist, and he probably accepted that during his lifetime, but he wrote that he always "wanted to be a newspaperman and came to realize I didn't really care which side of the newspaper I worked on."

Frankly, I felt the same way. Smith had a philosophy about sports journalism that I tried to keep in mind when I worked on the sports side of newspapers.

"[P]eople go to spectator sports to have fun and then they grab the paper to read about it and have fun all over again," he wrote. "I've always tried to remember ... that sports isn't Armageddon. These are just little games that little boys can play, and it really isn't important to the future of civilization whether the Athletics or the Browns win."

Thirty–five years ago, Woody Hayes would have been smart to heed those words, especially the part about how sports isn't Armageddon. If he had, Hayes' 28–year coaching career at Ohio State might not have come to an end when it did.

Hayes had a reputation for being a disciplinarian, a man who would take young men and mold them into leaders. He was a military historian who often applied principles from military history to his coaching.

It was known that Hayes had a temper that he couldn't always control. He once tried to punch a sportswriter following a loss, but he missed and hit the brother of the sports editor of another paper instead. A few years later, he almost got into a fight with the athletic director of another school during a meeting of Big Ten Conference athletic directors and coaches.

Late in his career, he seemed to have a particular animosity for photographers. He shoved a camera in the face of a photographer before a Rose Bowl game, leading to a three–game suspension, and about a year before the 1978 Gator Bowl, he took a swing at a TV cameraman late in a loss to Michigan.

In spite of his history, no one suspected, when Dec. 29, 1978 dawned, that the Gator Bowl between #20 Ohio State and #7 Clemson in Jacksonville, Fla., that night would be Hayes' last game as a college football coach.

But when Clemson's Charlie Bauman intercepted a pass late in the game to seal a 17–15 victory, Hayes punched him in front of God and the TV cameras — and, at that moment, I knew Hayes was finished.

I'll never forget that night. I was in my grandmother's home. My family had been visiting her for Christmas, but we were frantically preparing to leave Dallas ahead of an ice storm that was expected within a few days. That night, for whatever reason, my father and I decided to stop packing and watch the football game. We both watched in utter disbelief as Hayes struck the opposing player.

An era was ending in college football. It had been kind of a comforting, reassuring era when the giants from the ranks of college coaches were always there on the sidelines of the truly big games. One by one, though, they were stepping aside, and the next generation was taking over.

It was an inevitable transition. It happens in all walks of life with the passage of time, but we all know that people still get sentimental about endings. It is true of coaches, too; people are always wistful when longtime coaches leave. The coaches themselves are often wistful. It is a bittersweet time.

In many ways, the sports world is the same as it was when Hayes walked the sideline. But in other ways it has changed dramatically. One has to wonder, in hindsight, if Hayes could have remained the Ohio State football coach for much longer.

In the years after the legends of the 20th century roamed the sidelines, that drill sergeant mentality gradually fell out of favor with college athletic directors. There may be a few of them out there, but, for the most part, they have vanished.

---

"... Charlie Bauman intercepted a pass and went out of bounds right where the Ohio State coach stood. That architect of young manhood laid hold of Bauman and fetched him a roundhouse right to the chops. Fists flailing, he tried to charge onto the field, but his own scholar athletes, already bruised and bleeding from their pursuit of culture, overpowered him."

Red Smith

---

Hayes, it was said more and more frequently, physically assaulted his players during practice, and that did bother some people at the time, but most folks were willing to ignore it as long as he didn't do that kind of thing in public. After all, this was football, a man's game, and men are tough.

Today, a college coach who struck an athlete, whether in view of only his peers or a national TV audience, would most likely get the boot regardless of who he was. Politics — and political correctness — won't tolerate that sort of thing.

Three decades ago, schools were more protective of their star coaches, firing them only when they had no choice. And, on this day in 1978, Ohio State was left with no choice.

There really wasn't anything special about the 1978 Gator Bowl. It was the first time — and, until Clemson and Ohio State meet in Friday night's Orange Bowl, the only time — the schools faced off in football.

But the game set no records for scoring or anything else, as I recall. It is remembered only for Hayes' punch.

Bert Sugar Dies

---

---

Unless you follow boxing, you may not know who Bert Sugar was.

Bert Sugar was a sports journalist. I prefer that term to sports writer because sports writer sounds like the writer in question could have written about anything but settled for sports — or was forced to do so by circumstances.

Sugar may have chosen to write about sports, but he didn't settle, and he wasn't forced into it. I always felt he was born to write about sports, particularly boxing. It was his passion, the way it is some sports journalists' passion to write about horse racing.

How ironic it was that he should die a couple of days after the 50th anniversary of the fight that, reportedly, led to boxing's first televised fatality.

I'm tempted to compare him to Red Smith, but Smith was a true sports journalist, writing about every sport with equal enthusiasm — whereas Sugar really was more of a specialist.

Sugar wrote more than 80 books, but most of them dealt with boxing. He was a boxing historian. Some of his books were about baseball — one was even about early 20th century escape artist Harry Houdini — but most were about boxing — the great fights, the great fighters — filled with nuggets that most casual observers would never know otherwise.

I read some of his books. I saw him on TV more frequently, commenting on the sport, offering insights no one else could. He was always easy to spot with his tradmark fedora hat. He was kind of an amiable, informal version of Tom Landry, I suppose.

He was afflicted with lung cancer — no doubt an outcome of his long cigar habit — and that, apparently, was what finally took his life.

He will be missed, especially whenever a significant fight comes along.

Taking Sides

---

---

The Penn State story — and it really isn't necessary for me to elaborate on that at this point, is there? — is one that will not go away.

I was talking about it with my father yesterday. A lifelong sports fan, he reminded me during our conversation that, when choosing sides in a game, he ordinarily prefers to support a team rather than oppose one.

It's kind of like voting, really. My parents preferred to vote for someone they admired rather than against someone they despised, but they didn't always have a choice. Sometimes, they had to select "the lesser of two evils."

Dad said that, until the middle of last week, he hadn't decided whether he would root for Nebraska or Penn State in today's football game.

He's always been relatively neutral about both football programs. There are some football teams he just doesn't like, for one reason or another (and some of them go back to things that most people either never knew or forgot long ago), and he pulls against them on a regular basis, but, as I say, he's always been neutral about Nebraska and Penn State.

Maybe it's a regional thing. Dad respects Nebraska and Penn State and their accomplishments. But he was born and raised in the South, and he prefers to pull for a good Southern team any day. Once, when I was in high school, my family went to New Orleans during the Christmas break, and we attended the Sugar Bowl football game. Penn State was playing Alabama, and my father pulled for Alabama. It was a Southern team, and, even though my father was opposed to the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, he didn't hold that against the football team.

Anyway, when we spoke yesterday, he still wasn't speaking about pulling for either team today — but he said he had decided which one he would pull against. Penn State, of course.

I understand his anger and frustration, and there probably were millions of football fans who watched the game and pulled for Nebraska because of what happened at Penn State. (Those who did surely were pleased with the outcome.)

But that wasn't really fair.

Joe Paterno deserves to be the target of people's anger. He is no longer the coach. But he isn't the only guilty party.

The headline writer in me kind of wishes that the perpetrator of the child abuse, retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, had been a basketball coach — because the evidence of his guilt is so great that the case against him appears to be a slam dunk for the prosecution.

He, too, is no longer on the Penn State coaching staff.

But pulling for the team to lose, it seems to me, amounts to punishing the team and the students — and that is guilt by association.

The incident that led to the unraveling of the Penn State coverup took place nearly a decade ago when the victim was 10 years old. Most of the players who took the field today are the victim's contemporaries. Any one of them could have been — and, when all the details are known, it may be revealed that some were — assaulted around the same time.

It may have been blind luck if some or all of them were spared.

If we do not blame the victim — and I have heard no one who has — it is not fair for us to blame his teammates, either (that is, if he became a member of Penn State's football team).

Or his classmates, for that matter. There are roughly 45,000 students on Penn State's flagship campus. At a major university like that, which recruits athletes from across the country, the likelihood that any of your high school classmates would also be your teammates in college is probably very small — but there are bound to be some of your high school classmates in the general university population.

I grew up in Arkansas, in a town that was more than a bump in the road — but it wasn't a city, either. My graduating class set a school record — which is bound to have been eclipsed, probably on more than one occasion, since then — with slightly more than 300 graduates.

I went to college at the University of Arkansas, the largest campus in the state, and its enrollment at the time was about one–third of Penn State's on–campus enrollment today. I encountered at least one–tenth of my high school classmates there, either in class or in the campus bookstore — or at a Razorback football game.

I even knew some of the people who played in the band at the football games — so I know it is more than possible that the young man has run into people from his hometown if he is part of the Penn State student body.

Whether that young man is now a student at Penn State or not, though, his contemporaries there held a candlelight vigil last night for him and the other victims.

Well, they did it for themselves, too. There can be no doubt that, after the week they have endured, the students desired closure — and a return to semi–normalcy. Some also probably wanted to relieve any feelings of guilt they may have.

But I think they also wanted to express their solidarity with the victims in some way.

They weren't to blame for what happened — or what was done to cover it up. They should not be made the scapegoats.

Role Models

---

---

Everyone has an opinion on the tragedy at Penn State.

I've been trying to avoid jumping in because, frankly, the pool seems pretty crowded.

But, when you get past the posturing and the judging, it still comes down to one thing, even though that one thing often seems to get lost.

Children were victimized by adults — in the original assault and in the effort to cover it up.

They are the victims — not Joe Paterno, not Jerry Sandusky, not Graham Spanier, not anyone in Penn State's administration — although, in true football fashion, there's been plenty of misdirection.

And even some who have defended the actions — or inactions, if you prefer — of the adults.

I have known about this matter for only a few days, and my conscience won't permit me to remain silent any longer.

But silence has been the problem at Penn State, as it has been in other organizations, for a long time.

In fact, until Penn State dismissed Paterno for not doing anywhere near enough after he became aware of his assistant's crimes, it seemed that the university would do as others have done — and conclude that protecting the institution is more important than justice for children.

Our society talks a good game when it comes to protecting children — but it is rare when a mafia mentality of circling the wagons and protecting one's own, even when one's own is clearly guilty, does not take over, and the code of silence descends on all.

In schools. In churches. In athletic locker rooms.

The really heinous part of this is the betrayal of the faith that children place in authority figures — like parents, coaches, pastors and teachers. Children don't always outgrow that absolute allegiance, either. Some adults continue to revere the authority figures from their childhoods long after those authority figures are revealed to be less than superheroes.

(My understanding is that the assistant who witnessed the assault waited a day before taking it to Paterno. He had to consult with his real father first.)

Those relationships have lives of their own, and so do violations of that trust. They live on, influencing others in due course. Whether one prays or not, the victims deserve whatever support we can give them. Most, if not all, will struggle with this for years.

Paterno, in an attempt to appear gracious after his dismissal, urged everyone to pray for the victims, and, on the surface, that does seem to be generous and compassionate.

But "JoePa," the father figure for countless young men, was not being selfless. He was being selfish.

It was face–saving misdirection.

A football coach to the end, he tried to fake out everyone with a little play–action that would give the appearance that he still called the shots. He would leave when the season was over — which, presumably, would have included the Big Ten Championship Game (if the Nittany Lions qualified for it) and perhaps the Rose Bowl.

That would have been the proper way for college football's winningest coach to exit.

He was still trying to exercise control in a situation where he had no more. He lost his credibility when he abandoned his responsibility.

And it is to the credit of Penn State's trustees that they were not faked out.

I have heard it argued by some that it is not always easy to know what to do, that Paterno may have believed he did what was expected of him, and I will concede that point. But JoePa was obliged to do more than the minimum. He occupied a special place in the state of Pennsylvania, not just Penn State.

In most places, a coach does not have more power than the school president, but coaches like Paterno do. With such authority comes an obligation to go beyond the very least that you can do. There may have been acceptable reasons for his actions — and, more significantly, his inactions — but that does not excuse the fact that, when he was told that a member of his staff had assaulted a child, he was obligated to do more than pass the buck, and he did not.

Maybe there was a time when he understood the special role he played in molding the lives that were placed in his care — perhaps, early in his tenure at Penn State, when he watched Woody Hayes strolling the Ohio State sidelines in three encounters in the 1970s.

I thought of Hayes when all this surfaced about Penn State. Hayes was another role model from an earlier era whose career came to an abrupt end under less than ideal circumstances — when he punched an opposing player whose interception secured a bowl game victory for his team.

Everyone always knew that Hayes was a volatile drill sergeant kind of guy, a human volcano, barking out orders and demanding that his players give every ounce of energy to the cause. His bark may have been worse than his bite, but nobody wanted to hear his bark.

Even so, Hayes was considered the kind of man that young men could look up to, and countless fathers wanted their sons to play football for him.

That changed in the blink of an eye.

A role model is expected to do more than talk the talk. He is expected to walk the walk, too.

I guess I first thought of Hayes' case in relation to Paterno's when I heard people say — as I have been saying for years — that Paterno should have retired a long time ago. I was reminded of something I read when Hayes was dismissed.

"People keep saying that Woody Hayes is a great football coach who overstayed his time," wrote the great Red Smith in 1979. "This implies that there was a time when slugging a member of the opposing team was proper coachly deportment."

Or that there was a time when it was OK for a coach to pass the buck when his assistant — who was, for a time, regarded by many as his hand–picked successor — sexually assaulted a child in the locker room.

When Reality Intrudes

---

---

I've heard this said in other ways — more eloquent ways — so please forgive my feeble and wholly inadequate paraphrase:

People watch sports in part to escape from reality.

They may wish to get away from any one of several kinds of realities, and sports events are diversions. They're almost like fiction, like a movie or a TV show, a drama that people watch for a few hours before returning to their lives and whatever it was they wished to escape.

Sports events are the way we wish our lives could be. Someone wins and someone loses. No one wins all the time. But athletes learn from their failures, and they know that tomorrow is another day — a new day. No mistake, no miscalculation is final. Redemption is always possible.

Sure, sometimes there are tears in the losing locker room after a particularly hard fought athletic contest. But deep down, most athletes know — even if they have just lost a championship — that they will have another opportunity. The sun will come up tomorrow. The slate will be wiped clean.

Perhaps one of my favorite journalists of all time, sportswriter Red Smith, once wrote that people go to athletic events to have fun — and then they pick up the newspaper the next day to read about it and have fun all over again.

And, nearly every time that people have gathered for sports events in human history, it has been fun.

But what happened last night at a Texas Rangers baseball game in Arlington, Texas, definitely was not fun, particularly for the folks sitting in an upper section of the Ballpark. A man was reaching over a railing, trying to catch a ball, and he fell head first to his death after he apparently lost his balance.

The Dallas Morning News quotes a witness as saying that "[i]t looked awful because you knew there was no way he was going to land on his feet."

The man's young son was with him and, presumably, saw the whole thing.

Since I heard about this tragic story, I've been thinking about the (admittedly few) times that I have gone to professional baseball games.

Most of the time, I've attended minor league games in small, intimate ballparks where virtually all the seats were on the ground level — so such a tragedy was not really possible.

But there have been times when I have attended major league games in their palatial stadiums, and I have sat in upper decks — although never on the front row behind a railing.

Nevertheless, from time to time, it did cross my mind, as I ascended each level, that the farther up we went, the greater the chance of something bad happening.

But something bad never did happen. It was just my imagination running away with me. The fantasy was safe.

That fantasy has been shattered now for a young boy — and countless others, too, although his loss is clearly the greatest.

I presume that his father, like most of the men who live in Texas, was a sports fan who would have wanted to pass on his love of sports to his son.

But, after watching his father die, I can only wonder if such a thing is possible for that young boy now.

Will he ever be able to watch a baseball game — or any sports event — without seeing his father tumbling over the railing in Rangers Ballpark?

Will he ever be able to erase the memory of seeing his father on the pavement below, his head apparently bleeding profusely?

I have loved sports since I was small. It was a passion my father passed along to me. Dad was never much for "having a catch," as Kevin Costner put it in "Field of Dreams," but he has always loved the drama of athletic competition and admired the skill it takes to excel.

And, if I outlive my father, one of the ways I will honor his memory is by watching and savoring athletic contests.

I hope that young boy will be able to do the same.