Wait, Did John Feinstein Really Delay A Basketball Game Five Hours For His Book About Selfless Student Athletes? [Media Meltdowns]

Tuesday morning, we flagged an article in The Millions called "The Problem with Sportswriting." In it, the author, Sebastian Stockman, having dived 544 pages deep into John Feinstein's navel, resurfaces with a great head-slapper. Stockman writes:

Feinstein was researching his book The Last Amateurs, on The Patriot League, a scholarship-free, NCAA Division I athletic conference. Basically, he wanted to attend two games on a certain Saturday, one was at noon, one was at two p.m., and the venues were two-and-a-half hours apart. So, he asked the Holy Cross athletic director to change the time of its game with Lehigh. And, because Feinstein was by this time a perennial bestselling author whose book was sure to give the Patriot League and its schools unpurchasable publicity, the two teams acquiesced, and Feinstein — the reporter who was observing a typical season in the Patriot League — got his way.

Well, we couldn't resist: We dropped $15 on the e-book and can now give you the whole weird story, which is a sort of dickhead's parable about the observer effect. Feinstein, who moonlights as a Washington Post columnist when he's not farting out mediocre books, introduces the anecdote as if confessing to something for which—as you'll see—he feels not the least bit sorry: "Since eleven years have passed, I can now reveal that for all the complaining I've done throughout my adult life about game time being changed for TV, I was responsible for a game time being changed while I was researching The Last Amateurs." He goes on:

Each week I would sit down on Sunday night and plan my schedule for the next week. It would be based on who was playing whom, logistics (a day like the one where I could see two games back-to-back was an obvious choice), and whomever I hadn't seen in a while. I was driving everywhere, knew the hotels cold by midseason, and didn't even really need my credentials since everyone working in all seven buildings knew me by then.

Looking ahead to the last weekend of the season, I saw a problem. Army and Navy were closing out their regular season at Army at noon on Saturday. That was a game I needed to see because it was Army-Navy, because it was the last home game for the Army seniors, and because Navy needed to win to keep pace with Lafayette in the race to finish first. The highest-seeded team hosted the championship game and, given that each had beaten the other at home, that figured to be critical. Lafayette would be at Bucknell on Sunday to close out the season, so there was no problem getting there.

The problem was Chris Spitler.

Had it been early in the season, Lehigh at Holy Cross, scheduled for Saturday at two o'clock, would hardly look like a game I needed to attend. And at this point, both teams were in the bottom half of the league. But Spitler had become a central figure in the book and it was his last home game. Not only that but he was the only Holy Cross senior left and there was certainly something symbolic in that.

There was no way I could be at West Point for a noon game and then at Holy Cross—about two-and-a-half hours away—for a two o'clock game.

I called Mastrandrea. "I know this is crazy," I said, "but do you think there's any way you could play your game that day at seven instead of two?"

Frank thought for a minute. "Logistically, I don't see why not," he said. "There's no TV involved. We could easily get word to our season ticket holders [of whom there were at most three hundred at that point] and our students. As long as Ralph and Sal don't object, I don't see why not."

Neither Ralph nor Sal objected. In fact, they were glad to help me out. It would mean Lehigh would get home much later, but it was a Saturday, so the players could sleep in on Sunday. No one bothered to check with the league office because there would have been such paralysis in making a decision we might still be waiting for an answer right now.

So the game was changed to a seven o'clock tip. The only complaint I heard was from one of the women's assistant coaches at Lehigh. In those days the men and women played doubleheaders in the Patriot League, and the women's tipoff was moved from 12:00 to 4:30. When the women's coaches asked why—a reasonable question—they were told it was to accommodate me.

I guess they didn't like that and one of them decided to tell me so. "You should be ashamed of what you did," she said to me in the hallway of the Hart Center when I walked in at about five o'clock. The women's game was at halftime and Holy Cross, which back then had the best team in league, was winning easily. Apparently that was because of the time change.

I wasn't ashamed and it was well worth the effort.

This is all pretty amazing. (You have to wonder what his bosses at the Washington Post would think if Feinstein ever pulled shit like this for his column. Oh wait—no, you don't.) What's even more amazing is that Feinstein is telling this story himself, in his memoirs, as if it were something noble and brave, an honored veteran's old war story. "Apparently that was because of the time change," Feinstein quips, determined to get in the last word on a Lehigh assistant, unaware that his own memoir makes him out to be a total knob. Hey, at least it's accurate.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Hours After Defeat, An Australian Rower Was Smashing Store Windows: Foreign Olympics News That Couldn't Fit On The Desk Of Bob Costas [Zooming In]

Deadspin and Gelf Magazine bring you the best (or at least the most interesting) foreign-produced journalism about the London Olympics.

After a disappointing sixth-place finish in the men's rowing final, Australian coach Andrew Matheson (who apparently knows his players quite well) took his team aside and warned them not to completely let loose now that the racing schedule had concluded.

The Age reports that the warning did not work, as the team went out drinking in the village of Egham (near the Lake Dorney Olympic rowing venue), and 21-year-old-rower Josh Booth allegedly destroyed two storefront windows. He was subsequently arrested by London Police at 1:40 am. After being taken to the station, he fainted (whether from shock or as a euphemism for "passed out drunkenly" isn't clear) and hit his head on something in the Egham police station. He spent the rest of the night in the hospital. Rowing Australia CEO Andrew Dee is withholding his comment on the incident until he is fully aware of the details.

In response to that incident, and to cyclist (and British Olympic hero) Bradley Wiggins announcing on Twitter that he was "blind drunk," IOC spokesman Mark Adams released a statement suggesting that athletes "drink wisely."

It's never good to be accused of embarrassing your country in front of the whole world and "[hogging] all the limelight," but those are the allegations against Olympic ceremony crasher Madhura Nagendra from chef-de-mission of India's Olympic delegation, Muralidharan Raja, according to the Agence France-Presse.

Nagendra caused quite the stir when she strolled up beside Indian team's flag bearer in her out-of-place red top during the opening ceremony.

She was one of 7,5000 volunteers taking part in the opening ceremony, when Olympic spirit got the best of her and she made an "error of judgment."

"I'm a proud woman of India and I was taken aback seeing all the comments. I hope this will be forgiven," she added.

India, however, is still hung up on the incident. Several people have taken to Twitter to vent about this injustice while, inevitably, someone has even created a Facebook page about Nagendra "dropping in" on other important events around the world.

According to Vanguard, the Nigerian government has allocated 2 billion naira ($12.4 million USD) for the country's Olympic team, but one "official who begged for anonymity" said the funds were released far too late to truly help the Nigerian team.

The official claims that the funds were turned over to the team at the last minute, rendering them effectively useless as they could not be used for the training or improvement of Nigerian athletes. The official also believes that releasing the funds so late greatly increases the likelihood of corruption, as the money can more easily be used for things that have nothing to do with Nigeria's Olympic team.

So why is the Olympic team receiving its money now rather than, say, four years ago, when it could have been used for the training of athletes? The problem rests with Nigeria's bureaucracy, which makes it very difficult for money to be allocated and spent quickly. The process of approving and implementing funds is so arduous that the Nigerian National Sports Commission actually had to borrow money in order to compete in some Olympic qualifying events, even though it now has more money than it needs with the release of this latest round of funds.

The anonymous official hopes to convince Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan to restructure the funding process for the Nigerian Olympic team.

As recently as the 1996 Olympics, the French swim team was more of a laughing stock than the powerhouse it is today. After the debacle in Atlanta—in which no French swimmer brought back a medal of any color—Claude Fauquet, the swim team's technical director, overhauled the entire system.

No longer were local swim clubs allowed to send their champions to regional meets; instead swimmers had to meet rigorous qualifying standards to have the opportunity to advance.

That severely limited the pool(!) of athletes, but those who made it through were battle tested and prepared, and the entire culture of the sport has been refocused on beating specific times.

In an article in France24.com, Tresor Kibangula explains how the now-revered Fauquet method has produced impressive results, including at least six French swimming medals in the last three Olympics.

The French stars of these games, 22-year-old Camille Muffat who set a new Olympic record in the 400m freestyle, and 20-year-old Yannick Agnel who powered past Ryan Lochte to help the French get revenge in the 4 x 100m freestyle, both started their careers at the Olympic Nice Natation training centre, one of the government-subsidized swim clubs to first adopt the Fauquet method.

In 1972, Anatoly Bondarchuk won a gold medal in the hammer throw. Four years later, he won a bronze in the same event while at the same time serving as coach to Yuriy Sedykh, his countryman and the eventual gold medal winner.

Bondarchuk's Wikipedia article says he's "regarded as the most accomplished hammer throw coach of all time," and we are not in a position to disagree. He has been awarded both The Order of the Badge of Honour and Order of the Red Banner of Labour, which both sound very prestigious and very, very Soviet.

Bondarchuk has coached athletes to medals in five different Olympic games, and has a PhD in pedagogical science (education, broadly speaking). He wrote this well-regarded book about athletic training and performance.

And now, for reasons the locals don't entirely understand, he's landed in Kamloops, British Columbia, where he's been coaching shot putter Dylan Armstrong. He applied for what the Globe and Mail describes as a "lowly assistant track and field coach [position]." What did the aforementioned locals think? "They thought it might have been a joke or a different Anatoly Bondarchuk."

As it turns out, aside from wanting to be closer to his daughter in Calgary, Bondarchuk had heard of Dylan Armstrong. At the time, the mountainous Armstrong was struggling as a young hammer thrower, laden with potential but unable to make the leap to the elite level. Bondarchuk switched him to shot put and started coaching him in "limited English." Canada's Athletics head coach Mike Gardiner said of the communication between Armstrong and Bondarchuk, "It was a series of hand movements and looks and single-syllable words. And everything seemed to work out. It was a code they were using, there's no doubt." Bondarchuk also has some unusual training methods: the coach has suspended a medicine ball against the ceiling and has Armstrong bat at it like a tetherball, and Bondarchuk has Armstrong and the other athletes he coaches throwing weight plates around. Those techniques don't generally make it into other Olympians' regimens.

This morning, after a close call that included a foul and one less-than-stellar attempt, Armstrong gathered himself and qualified for the shot put finals.

Kate Bennert, Isaac Rauch, Dan Gartland, David Goldenberg, and Tom Ley contributed to this article.

Gelf Magazine, the purveyor of fine NYC-based events including the Varsity Letters speaking series, has been looking over the overlooked since 2005.

For a handy master schedule of every Olympic event, click here.

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.