Uncategorized « 202SportsBlog

Tomlin did not go to far with punishment

August 8, 2008 at 2:33 pm | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: Bob Smizik, Casey Hampton, Dick Lebeau, John Mitchell, Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Steelers

I was reading Bob Smizik’s article today about the punishment handed out by Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin to his starting Nose Tackle Casey Hampton, who reported to training camp overweight. Smizik wondered if Tomlin is being too tough, or at least too public, in his punishment of Casey Hampton. These are good questions to ask and the answer will be known over the course of the season. However, it is very common for the coaching and training staff to give players, particularly those with weight control problems, a target weight that they want them to report to camp at. According to Smizik, “One report had him at 40 pounds overweight, which would have put the scale closer to 400 pounds than 350.”

Mike Tomlin is attempting to ensure that the Steelers return to past success as such he was looking for all members of the team to show up for camp in the best possible condition. When one of your key veterans shows up for camp approximately 40 pounds over the limit it is indicative of a much larger problem for the team and long-term for the player. In a situation like this it is completely appropriate for Mike Tomlin to set an example with Casey Hampton. He is using Hampton to signal to both the veterans and young players that his rules are to be followed. Bob Smizik pointed out that Cowher would let an issue like this slide, and I would quickly point out that the comparison with Cowher should be made with him in the early days and not the later years. I strongly suspect that Cowher became more lenient on certain issues, with certain players, after he set his program. And at some point, the same will likely be true of Tomlin. But, currently he is in the second year on this job with many of the players pre-dating him; it is important that Tomlin remains consistent in the enforcement of his rules.

My belief is that Mike Tomlin and Casey Hampton will get past this. Casey has been a consistent performer on this team and will likely be one this year as well. It would help Casey if he fully appreciates that when there is a change in management, the way business gets done also changes. It is not appropriate in a situation like that to say, this is the way I/we have always done it. It is a new day, with new rules.

One wonders, though, how much better Casey could be if he was in better physical condition. I believe this is the core issue from the coaching staff perspective. Tomlin, Dick LeBeau, John Mitchell and their staff most likely watched film and decided that he could have been an even better player, if he reported to camp at the target weight.

LA Clippers’ Chris Kaman to play for German Olympic basketball team… so what?

July 3, 2008 at 10:36 pm | In Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Tags: Bernard Lagat, CBSSports, Chris Kaman, dual citizenship, New York TImes, Olympics

I admit that when I first read the story on CBSSports.com that Chris Kaman received German citizenship, so he now has dual citizenship – USA and German, my original reaction was to question why he would do such a thing. The article points out that he is not an immigrant, but rather his great-grandparents were German. I was a little bothered by the idea that an athlete would seek citizenship in another country to primarily compete in the Olympics.

I then did a little research. It appears that this phenomenon is more common than one would think – particularly if you primarily follow only the major US sports. The New York Times in its article entitled, Swapping passports in pursuit of Olympic medals, illustrated a number of former foreign Olympic athletes that became US citizens and continued to compete, this time for the USA.

A particularly controversial example, again depending on your perspective, was Kenya-born Olympic medal winner Bernard Lagat. Lagat, who was a distance running star in Kenya, received US citizenship in 2004, just months prior to medaling in the 2004 Athens games. Kenya, as the article points out, prohibits dual citizenship, but Legat did not disclose his changed citizenship due to the knowledge that he would not be able to compete in the 2004 Olympics. However, the Kenyan Olympic committee is not happy that he is currently competing as an American athlete – even though he has been a citizen for just over 4 years.

The point is this phenomenon is not new. It has been going on for a number of years, but mostly in sports that the majority of Americans do not care much about – except for a few weeks every 4 years. The difference in the Kaman story is that he is an (1) American who elected to gain citizenship and compete for another country; and most importantly (2) he plays a sport that is much more important to the majority of American citizens. If he was playing shuffle board, rhythmic gymnastics, table tennis, race walking (the list goes on and on), no one – except for the athletes they compete against and/or the relatively small groups of people who are passionate about those sports – would have even noticed. MAYBE during the actual coverage, assuming one of the previously mentioned sports even gets a few minutes of coverage, would there have been a passing mention, but that’s it.

So in the grand scheme of things, so what. While there doesn’t appear to be very accurate statistics on dual citizenship, the estimates range from 494,000 to 5.7 million US citizens hold dual citizenship. So, Chris Kaman is just one more. Now, what would be truly interesting is… since he is now also a German citizen… if the German government sent him a tax bill on his NBA salary.