Frontpage Features

BY RON BARR

They’re already calling the Duke-Butler NCAA Championship game a classic.  Indeed it was.  Duke claimed their 4th National Championship by beating the Bulldogs 61-59.  A Butler game winning shot almost went in at the buzzer, and if it had, you would have seen screenwriters falling all over themselves trying to be the first ones to turn out the latest Hoosiers type movie script.

The game had a “David and Goliath” feel.  Mighty Duke from the basketball powerhouse ACC conference against Butler from the mid-major Horizon conference. Besides being a classic, also it was a throwback.  Two teams representing what’s good about college athletics, education and the good old love of the game.  Adding to the appeal is where the game was played, in Indianapolis in the heartland of America.  It also didn’t hurt that Butler’s arena was the backdrop for the championship game in the movie Hoosiers.  No, it had all the elements of something special.  The only thing it didn’t have was a happy ending for underdog Butler, which would have made the screenwriters happier.

McNabb

Donovan McNabb is now a Washington Redskin.  At first thought I didn’t think it made any sense for the Eagles to trade him, especially to an in-division rival.  Revenge can be a bitch.  But, further reflection and closer analysis shows the wisdom of the deal and how everyone benefits.

New Skins Coach Mike Shanahan took the Washington job and I’m sure his first words to also new G.M. Bruce Allen was, “Get me a quality quarterback.”  In the NFL you don’t win without one and the Redskins didn’t have one.  McNabb is now Shanahan’s John Elway, and they both want the same thing, a Super Bowl title. Everyone got what they wanted. 

McNabb is 33 and says he wants to play four more years and desperately wants a Super Bowl ring to enhance what could be a Hall of Fame career.  If the Eagles had dealt him to Oakland or Buffalo he could have kissed any hopes of a ring goodbye.  McNabb was Reid’s first draft choice when he took over the Eagles in 1999 and he always said he’d do the right thing by McNabb.  Reid kept his word and sent him to a team who has an owner who will pay anything to win a championship and to a coach who has an offensive system similar to the Eagles.  Reid and McNabb are principled guys and it’s nice to see both hold to their principles, not something always done in the NFL.      

Also, Andy Reid got what he wanted.  After having McNabb as his quarterback for 11 years, and not win a Super Bowl, he fully realized he needed to make a change.  The game film doesn’t lie.  Reid saw an Eagles team that was highly competitive each season, but because of offensive futility couldn’t climb to the top of the Championship mountain. Since the Super Bowl loss to New England, Philadelphia is eight games over .500 in all games, and Reid saw the team hitting a wall. Two things set in motion the McNabb trade.  One was the no-touchdowns-in-the-first-21-possessions frustration in the final two games against Dallas last season. And the other was that Reid has a capable young QB in Kevin Kolb, along with backup Michael Vick.  He saw making a McNabb trade to be like playing with house money in Las Vegas.  One other thing gave Reid comfort in making the deal.  Nine years ago Bill Belichick shipped his star and established quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, to Buffalo, also a division rival.  Belichick decided to go with his young, 6th round drafted quarterback, Tom Brady, and we all know how well that’s worked out.

Only time will tell how this trade will workout for all involved, but right now it looks like there are no losers and everyone’s smiling.

Tragedy

Any loss of life is a tragedy.  In my trips to Iraq, Afghanistan and Landstuhl, the military hospital in Germany, I’ve seen the ravages of war.  It has heightened my appreciation for life and the pain I feel when I see useless suffering and death.  My indignation goes to a higher level when I see self-inflicted death.  An example is the recent death of young Matt James; a talented high school football player who was one of Notre Dame’s prized recruits.  James died after a fall from a hotel balcony during spring break in Panama City, Florida.  The shock of a young person losing their life is hard enough.  But, the loss of this life was preventable and shouldn’t have happened.  You see Matt James was drunk.  While an autopsy and toxicology report is still pending, witnesses confirm that James was drunk and combative.  The drinking age in Florida is 21 years old and James is 17.  While there’s certainly culpability in his death for anyone who helped him get or gave him alcohol, the final responsibility in his death lies with James, and the bad decision he made to drink himself to death.  Adding to the senselessness of his death is that by all accounts he was a good kid who always had a smile on his face.

Nothing good happens from over drinking, especially by kids who see themselves as carefree and bullet proof.  They’re full of life and trying to develop and mature socially. A federal government study in 2005 found that three out of every four high school students drank alcohol by the time they graduated. And, more boys like Matt (28.9 percent) than girls drank, participated in binge drinking (21.3 percent) and drank heavily (7.6 percent). Another national study found that excessive drinking in college contributed to more than 1,700 college student deaths and more than 500,000 student injuries, not to mention sexual assaults among college students.  The numbers and the resulting problems from over drinking don’t lie.

I’m sure those closest to Matt James’ circle of young friends and classmates will learn from his tragic decision to drink and his resulting death.  It will be a lesson that will stay with them the rest of their lives and hopefully influence them in making right decisions.  It’s too bad the further away you get from James’ circle of young friends and classmates the less impact the lessons will have on young people.  Those not personally touched by his death will brush it aside and kids will simple say, “That won’t happen to me.”  That kind of thinking is stupid, and it can be deadly.  

I’m Ron Barr.

Ron Barr is an Emmy award winning writer and the host of the nationally and internationally syndicated sports talk show, Sports Byline USA.