Lessons from the Barn

By Doug Russell

October, 2010

When it was first built, the mossy covered building tucked away into a tiny little hidden corner at the end of

7^th Street

in Neenah was a simple horse barn. It certainly was nothing special, built in the first half of the 1900’s without heat, running water, or electricity.

As time passed, this tiny barn would evolve into one of the most significant sports venues in Wisconsin history that even the most ardent of fans would never venture to.

Its formal name is the “Neenah Racquet Club” but everyone calls it what it really was first meant to be: “The Barn.” 

Today, the barn’s branches touch some of the best tennis players of the last 15 years, including James Blake, John Isner, Mardy Fish, Jennifer Capriati, and Jim Courier. It is a building that directly produced more than a dozen Wisconsin state championships, seven NCAA titles, and three professional players.

Ironically, however, it all began with someone who never played the game at all.

Warren Whitlinger was born in Barnsville, Ohio two months before World War I broke out in 1914. He was a natural athlete, playing both baseball and basketball at Ohio State. As a Buckeye basketball player, Whitlinger let the Big Ten in scoring while earning All-Conference honors as team captain in 1936.

Today, at 96, Warren Whitlinger is known for an entirely different sport, and not as a player, but rather as a coach. As the revered patriarch of the Whitlinger tennis family, he remains sharp as a tack, and is still sought-after as a mentor of young athletes in the Fox Valley. His lessons are legendary; his philosophies broken down into simple phrases.

Grandson Tate, now 32, took lessons from the man lovingly known by most that know him as ‘Baba’. “We would always have these little note cards he gave at the start of practice with quotes that I’ll never forget,” Tate Whitlinger says. One day it was Make it Happen, the next it was The harder I work, the luckier I’ll get. We would have to rehearse them in front of the whole class.”

How did a former basketball player morph into one of the great tennis minds in the country when he himself never played the sport? Moreover, how does a horse barn in Neenah, Wisconsin become a pipeline to professional tennis?  It all began with Warren’s son, John, during the summer of 1968.

John Whitlinger, like his father before him, was a naturally gifted athlete. He excelled in not only his father’s sport, basketball, but also the game his older sister, Wendy, was playing, tennis.

I loved basketball,” John remembers today. “But my dad and I had a heart-to-heart one evening in the den in our house, and he basically said ‘you can be good in two sports, but if you want to be great in one, you might have to give the other one up.’ I realized that I wasn’t going to be the tallest guy in the world, so we went the tennis route.”

If John Whitlinger was going to be serious about tennis, however, there needed to be a venue that would be suitable year-round for practice. In the late 1960’s in East-Central Wisconsin, there simply was no such structure. As luck would have it, though, the perfect place was just around the corner from the family home located at

810 Hewitt Street

.

“It’s just amazing that that building – a converted horse barn – was transformed into a tennis court,” John says. “It’s just incredible.”

“Dad started reading a lot, and studying and watching a lot, and learning the ins and outs of what needs to be done fundamentally to make a shot right, and then also what you need mentally as an athlete,” according to John Whitlinger.

So off to the barn they would go, not for hours on end, but rather for carefully planned out hour-long sessions that focused on not only the fundamentals of tennis, but also how to be mentally strong. Warren Whitlinger’s coaching ace in the hole, however, was some 1,800 miles to the west.

“John Wooden had a workout for every single practice that UCLA had,” Warren says today. “He would take two hours to develop it, and then he would go out and execute it. Then, afterwards, he would take 10 minutes to evaluate it. He learned from every practice. He reviewed what the plan was, what the impact was, and how effective it was.”

To this day, Warren Whitlinger pays homage to John Wooden, who passed away in June. One of his most prized keepsakes is the picture of the two of them together the one time they met during one of Wooden’s speaking engagements in Green Bay.

After giving up basketball, John Whitlinger went on a tennis tear. He won an eye-popping 109 consecutive matches en route to singles state championships in each of his four years in high school. A two-time All-American at Stanford, John led his team to NCAA team championships in 1973 and 1974. Also in 1974, Whitlinger captured both the NCAA singles and doubles titles himself, then played professionally for six years. During that time, he was ranked among the top 50 in the world in both singles and doubles.

It was then his twin nieces, Tami and Teri, took notice.

“My Uncle John was 15 years older than Teri and I,” Tami says today. “As we grew up, he was almost like a big brother. He was playing tennis at a high level, and we would follow his career through juniors, and then when he got a scholarship to Stanford, and we watched him there. That introduced us to tennis when we were young.”

Considering the success their uncle had with their grandfather, Tami and Teri Whitlinger did the exact same thing. They went religiously to the barn for lessons, even after neighboring Lake Winnebago had frozen solid.

“We would go in there in the middle of winter in your winter jackets, and Baba would turn on the lights and the blowers, and we would just stand there warming up for the first ten minutes in our coats,” Tami remembers. “Little by little, we would peel off layers. It was the place we went to get away and do our thing.”

Like her Uncle John, Tami Whitlinger re-wrote the record books, first in Wisconsin, and then at Stanford. Just like her uncle, Tami won four straight WIAA singles titles, and went undefeated in high school. She was ranked No. 1 nationally before joining her twin sister Teri and Uncle John (by then an assistant coach) in Palo Alto. Tami went on to play professionally for 10 years, and was ranked as high as No. 40 in the world before retiring in 1997.

Even as Tami Whitlinger was circling the globe advancing to at least the third round in each of tennis’ Grand Slam events, she never forgot her training, her roots, or the barn.

“It was just wooden walls, and the court was so fast,” Tami says today. “There were no bells or whistles to it. There was no bathroom, there was no water. You were there to play tennis.”

The Warren Whitlinger story hardly ends with its two most well-known players; son John and granddaughter Tami. Warren’s other son (and Tami’s father) Kip excelled in basketball and is Appleton Xavier’s all-time leading scorer. Kip’s wife, Ruth is the general manager at Fox Cities Racquet Club. Tami’s twin sister, Teri, helped lead Stanford win four straight NCAA team championships, while herself winning the 1990 NCAA doubles title.

Today, Tami Whitlinger is Tami Jones, married to former World No. 1 doubles player Kelly Jones. Together they run an elite tennis coaching school based in Florida and Appleton. Their daughter, Makenna, 12, is an accomplished player in her own right at the junior level.

Teri Whitlinger is married to noted tennis coach Craig Boynton, who has coached players such as Jennifer Capriati and Jim Courier.

Tami and Teri’s brother, Tate, is a teaching pro at Fox Cities Racquet Club, and their sister, Tori, remains actively involved in the game as well.

Warren’s daughter, Wendy, retired last fall as Director of Tennis at Fox Cities Racquet Club and is still the Secretary of the Fox Valley Tennis Association, of which her brother, Kip, is President. Wendy’s daughter, Melissa Chitko, had a successful collegiate playing career at both Tennessee and Wisconsin, and is now the girls tennis coach at Neenah High School. Melissa’s sisters, Meredith and Megan played at Ohio State and Miami of Ohio, respectively.

“Baba has a gift,” Tami Whitlinger-Jones says today. “He I’ve said so many times to myself: where does this come from? Where does he get this gift? I also think it’s a testament to him that so many of us have become coaches. The desire to give back to the game clearly stems from Baba. We’ve been given a gift in him, and now we have to carry this on.”

“I hope Baba lives to be 200,” granddaughter Tori Whitlinger-Pitsch says. Tori hasn’t been able to be as active recently in the game due to illness, but speaks with her grandfather daily. “He is my rock. He is my hero. Every day I try to use something I’ve learned from him to get through every day. We always say: ‘We hope and we pray for the best, but we plan and we prepare for the rest.’”

Even given his accomplishments, Warren Whitlinger knows about adversity. Three years ago, his wife of 66 years, Naomi, passed away after a 9-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Another adversity came when the Whitlinger family home burned down last winter. Engulfed in the flames were many of the mementoes gathered over the last 45 years as Wisconsin’s first family of tennis. However, no one was hurt, and from the ashes rose a renewed sense of purpose and optimism.

“What allowed us to handle the tragedy and be where we are today was the teamwork that Wendy, Kip, Tate, John, and everyone pitched in to make my new home so wonderful,” Warren says today. “It came not because somebody paid a contactor. It came because some of the people in our family wanted to show their respect for me and for our team.”

For Team Whitlinger, even the destruction of their house wasn’t really a loss; they say it was just yet another lesson. The enduring legacy of Warren Whitlinger is the hope that it is a lesson that others can learn from.



The Fool Speaks - Again

It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought of as a fool, rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Jason Whitlock, the race-baiting, jive-talking, name-calling, lunatic fringe conspiracy-theorist for all of sports media is at it again. This time, Whitlock finds himself all alone on his deserted island of delusion in his criticism of Yahoo! Sports investigative journalist Charles Robinson.

Robinson is the reporter that shed light on the improper benefits doled out by former Miami Hurricanes booster Nevin Shapiro to players spanning nearly a decade. The benefits included but were not limited to, according to the story:

“cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and, on one occasion, an abortion.”

Furthermore, and to the NCAA, more damning:

“Shapiro said he violated NCAA rules with the knowledge or direct participation of at least six coaches – Clint Hurtt, Jeff Stoutland, and Aubrey Hill on the football staff, and Frank Haith, Jake Morton and Jorge Fernandez on the basketball staff. Multiple sources told Yahoo! Sports Shapiro also violated NCAA rules with football assistant Joe Pannunzio, although the booster refused to answer any questions about that relationship.”

Overall, Robinson details the most egregious, rampant, willful example of rule breaking in NCAA history. Robinson has been praised by the entire journalistic community for yet another groundbreaking investigation (Robinson also investigated the matter of USC and Reggie Bush, along with the initial memorabilia for tattoos investigation at Ohio State), but of course, as the college football world braces for what will befall Miami, aside from the eight suspensions already handed down, something was missing. There was that voice of un-reason, that loud, screaming voice from that crazy uncle you never-wanted-to-but-always-had-to-invite-to-Thanksgiving-dinner.

Fear not, dear friends. The kook in the corner has spoken.

Jason Whitlock has a history of individual thinking. That in and of itself is not a bad thing. Independent thinkers built this country. Steve Jobs was an individual thinker, and he is responsible for your iPhone, iPad, iPod, and iWorld. Thomas Edison was an independent thinker. So was Sir Isaac Newton. But Whitlock, unlike those revolutionaries, only seeks to bring rational thought down in his shredding of Robinson’s work on the scandal at Miami.

(This) “is how Charles Robinson’s story reads to me — a journalism Ponzi scheme born in truth (Shapiro committed NCAA violations) and told in the most sensational, unfair and exaggerated way possible to produce a return that justifies 11 months of work,” Whitlock writes.

Some further excerpts:

Prostitutes, abortion and a head basketball coach expressing gratitude for a $10,000 cash payment to a recruit justify 11 months of work. Prostitutes, abortion and $10,000 provoke the lazy and the clueless to call for the destruction of a football program known for providing refuge, comfort and a platform to black athletes who specialize in making a mockery of sportsmanship and humility.

That’s not written to dispute the fact Shapiro committed clear NCAA violations. He did.

It’s written to dispute the headline-grabbing aspects of the story, the stuff printed to make ESPN and radio talk hosts take notice in a big way. Printing the abortion allegation is a journalistic crime. Robinson has zero credible proof other than the word of a congenital liar.

Robinson has stated that he included the abortion story to demonstrate that there were little or no boundaries Shapiro wouldn’t go to, to help Hurricanes players.

Whitlock goes on:

Abortion! Prostitutes! Out-of-control Mandingo athletes! The death penalty!

Frank Haith might lose his job because a congenital liar claims he paid a recruit $10,000 with Haith’s knowledge. Really?

There’s no proof. There’s just the word of the poisonous tree. This is how you win a Pulitzer? That’s all you need to torch the career of a basketball coach? As long as “most” of the Yahoo! story is true, it’s OK if Frank Haith is collateral damage? Have we really sunk that low?

How low has Jason Whitlock sunk? This pap from the same narcissist who spent three hours on a Kansas City radio station shredding his former employer, the Kansas City Star; the same “journalist” who held up a disparaging sign directed at then-Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe – during a game from the press box.

Whitlock once told the New York Times, “I will put my first two years as a columnist, working with Dale Bye, up against any columnist in the history of American newspapers. It’s a horribly arrogant statement. It’s a factual statement.”

In the history of American media, there has never been another so-called journalist who tried so hard to be the story rather than comment or report on the story. Whitlock is so overly concerned with his own celebrity that he lost sight of what the role of the media is supposed to be years ago.

But back to Robinson and the Miami story. Whitlock says there is no proof. Where is his proof? What research did he do? Who did Jason Whitlock use as his source?

The fact is that Charles Robinson spent 11 months and countless hundreds of man-hours interviewing witnesses, pouring through thousands of receipts and financial documents, and following the money trail. The documents that Whitlock says Nevin Shapiro (the snake-oil salesman) provided Robinson were, in fact, provided by the federal government under the freedom of information act. If Whitlock had done 10 minutes of investigating his baseless claims rather than just fire off another scud missile from his laptop, he would have known that.

If Jason Whitlock has one actual factual evidentiary piece of proof to substantiate even one of his ridiculous claims, then he should bring it forward. Until then, he should leave journalism to the big boys – the ones that actually do the research and the heavy lifting.

Every village needs an idiot. In the village that is sports media, Jason Whitock is ours.

The Sky Is Falling!

The Brewers are allowed to lose a game once in a while.

You might not have thought that after Tuesday night’s loss to the hated St. Louis Cardinals, who now trail the Brewers by a scant 9 ½ games in the NL-Central with a whopping 26 left to play.

Yes, there were some missed opportunities, but that’s part of baseball.

Back to back errors in the fifth inning by Prince Fielder and Jerry Hairston opened the door for the only two runs St. Louis would score off of Brewers starter Shaun Marcum (11-5), who deserved a better fate. St. Louis righthander Edwin Jackson showed why he was such an important deadline addition for the Cardinals, scattering six hits and surrendering just one earned run over seven innings.

Aside from the defensive meltdown in the fifth inning, there were questions as to why the Brewers bunted Yuniesky Betancourt with no outs and runners at first and second in the bottom of the ninth. Betancourt has yet to successfully sacrifice this season, and Albert Pujols and Daniel Descalso were pinching in halfway up the first and third base lines, respectively. It was a play that had no chance to be successful, especially considering the less than fleet-of-foot Prince Felder was on second base at the time.

One of two things should have happened: Either Craig Counsell should have pinch hit the bunt or Betancourt should have been allowed to swing away with the corners cheating up the line 50 feet.

The other area of fan unhappiness seems to be that rookie Taylor Green has yet to be used. Tuesday night, some fans were clamoring for the talented-but unproven third baseman to make his major league debut in the ninth inning instead of Mark Kotsay.

First of all, Kotsay has a pair of walk-off hits in the last two months, and has ten overall for his career. He has been one of the best clutch players off the bench for the Brewers this season, and he has been through countless major league pressure situations.

Taylor Green has never had a major league at-bat.

The problem is that Kotsay hit into a double play, bringing out from behind the bushes the naysayers who think they can manage a baseball team better than the guy that is in the dugout. While I think it is legitimate to question strategy and even player substitutions, the notion that Ron Roenicke somehow lost this game for the Brewers is absurd.

The Brewers are now 81-55, which is the fourth-best record in all of baseball. With a 9 ½ game lead, they are virtually assured of making the playoffs, and will win their first division title in 29 years. There are 26 games left, and the Brewers certainly will lose some of them.

It is Brewers fans’ nature to be pessimistic. This a team afterall that has a history of wilting in September. It is understandable that some are not yet convinced that the Brewers will see October. Even in 2008, with a 4 ½ game lead over the Mets in the wild card on September 1, the Brewers bats went ice cold. Over the next two and a half weeks, they lost 13 of 17 games, fired manager Ned Yost, and fell behind New York in the wild card race.

Of course after that September swoon, the Brewers got back in front of the Mets on the season’s final day, the collective 26 years of postseason failure exploding in a euphoric champagne soaking of everyone that stuck around at Miller Park.

This year, things are different. The Brewers have been the best team in baseball since the All Star Break. They hold an insurmountable lead over a team that has horrifically underachieved in the last three seasons. The Brewers are on pace to win 96 games this season, which would be a franchise record. Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun are both legitimate MVP candidates. Ron Roenicke is one of the two leading candidates for Manager of the Year (Arizona’s Kirk Gibson is the other).

While one game made the difference in 2008, this will not be the case in 2011. If the Brewers do win 96 games, as they are on pace to do, that means they still will lose 11 more times. I know it is agonizing considering the Brewers history, but the team that Doug Melvin and his remarkable staff have put together is the real deal. One game lost, even to St. Louis, is not going to make or break this season. Not at this stage of the year.

Remember: This is supposed to be fun.

What's In a Number?

4, 19, 34, 42, 44

1, 2, 4, 14, 16, 32, 33

3, 4, 14, 15, 66, 92

Powerball numbers? A bingo card?

Nope. Hard-core Wisconsin sports fans will instantly recognize what these numbers represent. Sports historians will see the number 66 and know that it can only be in reference to the great Ray Nitschke. Bucks fans see number 33 and think sky-hook. Number 19 can only be The Kid rapping out his 3,000^th hit off of Jose Mesa on a solid single to right.

These are the retired numbers of our professional sports teams. In order:

Brewers: Molitor, Yount, Fingers, Robinson (MLB-wide), Aaron

Bucks: Robertson, Bridgeman, Moncrief, McGlocklin, Lanier, Winters, Abdul-Jabbar

Packers: Canadeo, Favre (date TBD), Hutson, Starr, Nitschke, White

They are legends. Some are enshrined in their respective sport’s hall of fame, some, notably when the Bucks were fairly liberal with their criteria, are not.

The first number to ever be retired seems to be Lou Gehrig’s No. 4 in 1940 by the New York Yankees. Since then it has become individual team’s highest honor. While most retirements are fitting, others border on the absurd. Michael Jordan never played for the Miami Heat, yet his No. 23 hangs from the rafters at American Airlines Arena, for example.

Jeremy Guthrie is trying to decide whether or not his number should be retired. When Guthrie first joined the Baltimore Orioles in 2007, he was assigned uniform number 46. For 15 years that same number belonged to 1979 Cy Young Award winner Mike Flanagan, a fan favorite in Baltimore who spent more than a quarter-century with the team as a player, executive, and broadcaster.

Flanagan killed himself last week, reportedly distraught over his role in the Orioles plummeting from respectability over the course of the last decade. Since his death, fans and friends alike have been dumbfounded over the demise of someone they thought they had known well.

As for Guthrie himself, he is torn as to what his uniform number represents and whether or not he should continue to wear it. “I really just want to do what people would view as the most respectful to honor him and his memory and what he did for the Orioles,” Guthrie told the Baltimore Sun. “I’ve seen a lot of fan reaction, just through communications. Some say continue to wear it, wear it with pride. There’s also been some sentiment that you can put the number away in his honor. It’s such an emotional situation. … Whatever people think would be the right thing is probably the best thing.”

The Orioles, like the Brewers, only officially retire numbers of players that make it to the Hall of Fame. While Mike Flanagan was a very good pitcher, his numbers are far short of Cooperstown. The Orioles, like the Brewers, are well-intentioned, but horribly misguided in their enforcement of this ridiculous policy.

Even though the Orioles have not officially retired the numbers of fan favorites Cal Ripken, Sr. and Elrod Hendricks, their numbers are being held what amounts to baseball purgatory. Neither late Oriole will ever have their number re-issued, but neither is officially retired either.

Huh?

In Baltimore, the numbers of Earl Weaver, Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, Jr., Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson, and Eddie Murray are retired. It’s a spectacular list, certainly, but there is no reason that a fan favorite like Flanagan (and Ripken, Sr., and Hendricks, for that matter) shouldn’t be up there as well. My suspicion is that Guthrie will be wearing a new number in the very near future, which would seem to be in line with Orioles fans desires.

Likewise, here in Milwaukee, there is no reason a player like Jim Gantner shouldn’t be honored by having his No. 17 hung from the outfield wall.

Gantner spent all 17 (fittingly enough) of his major league seasons with the Brewers, anchoring second base for a team-record 1,449 games. His numbers fall far short of Cooperstown, but he did far more for the Brewers than half of the players that do have their numbers hanging in perpetual honor.

In his first year with the Brewers, Rollie Fingers won the 1981 Cy Young and MVP Awards, leading the Brewers to their first-ever postseason berth. However, injuries and age took their toll sooner rather than later, and he was finished by 1985, spending just four years in Milwaukee, but earning the distinction of having his No. 34 retired by the club.

Henry Aaron is one of the singular greatest baseball players ever. I have no issue with his No. 44’s retirement, but only for what he did while a Milwaukee Brave. However, by that same token, Eddie Mathews and Warren Spahn should also have their numbers retired as well. The Brewers will argue that Aaron did actually play for them, while Mathews and Spahn did not. However, to say that Aaron’s best days were behind him is quite the understatement. In two seasons as the Brewers designated hitter, Aaron hit just .232 with 22 home runs and 95 RBI’s. He was playing out the string of his marvelous career.

Both Fingers and Aaron of course were better players. But Jim Gantner was a far better Brewer.

Using the same litmus test they have used in the past, it’s a wonder that Don Sutton’s No. 21 (then 20 after Gorman Thomas was traded) isn’t retired. Will Trevor Hoffman’s No. 51 be retired then as well? If CC Sabathia becomes a Hall of Famer, will the Brewers retire his No. 52?

There is a reason that not all rules are steadfast. Just as this never should have been an issue in Baltimore with Mike Flanagan and Jeremy Guthrie, this should never become an issue in places where a number that hasn’t been issued for 20 was a good but not great fan favorite. Sometimes policies have to be bent. Not to the extent where the Bucks were retiring numbers in the 1980’s, but a special exception for extenuating circumstances.

Jim Gantner, a Wisconsin native, played the game the right way. Gantner got the most out of his ability and has continued to give back to the Brewers as a coach, first on a full-time basis, then in a part-time role. He has managed young players in the Northwoods League, while never forgetting his roots. This is honorable, and should be recognized.

There is a reason the Brewers have never re-issued No. 17. There is a reason the Orioles won’t ever re-issue No’s. 7 and 44. They shouldn’t have re-issued Flanagan’s No. 46.

It’s time for these almost-great players to receive their due. It’s beyond time for this great Brewer (and great Orioles) to also get theirs.

The Deer in Fear

It’s a bad idea. It’s fiscally irresponsible. School budgets are being cut and yet you want to build a palace for millionaires? Make ‘em pay for it themselves! It’s an empty threat – they’ll never leave! Besides, they’ve been awful for so many years anyway, so what’s the difference if they do leave?

I’m of course talking about the Milwaukee Bucks, right?

Nope. At least not entirely.

All of the arguments being bandied about regarding the Bucks might sound familiar because they were the exact same arguments the hand-wringing naysayers said about the construction of Miller Park in the mid-1990’s.

Go ahead. Read the first paragraph again. You will instantly be transported back to 1995. The fight to finally put shovel in dirt was long and protracted; ugly and intense. Even after the ballpark’s Nov. 9, 1996 groundbreaking there were still some that tried to kill the project and drive the Brewers out of town, most notably former State Sen. Joe Wineke (D-Verona). While Wineke never said that he did not care whether or not the Brewers remained in town, his posturing and stonewalling nearly prevented the passing of the bill in Oct. 1995 in the first place.

Every politician wants to make it clear to their constituents that they are fiscally responsible with the taxpayer’s money. This should be admired. However, you won’t be able to find many people opposed to Miller Park today considering the sold-out crowds and first place inhabitants the facility now hosts.

This brings me to the increasingly-fragile Milwaukee Bucks.

The same arguments we heard in the mid 1990’s about Miller Park we are now hearing for a replacement for the Bradley Center.

Hear me loudly and clearly: Without a new facility in the next 5-8 years, the Milwaukee Bucks will no longer be here.

While the arguments against construction of a new building are virtually the same, economic times are certainly different. In 1996, the dot-com boom helped swell an economy that was more favorable to investing in capital improvement projects. Since the Sept. 2008 Wall Street collapse, discretionary spending has been put on hold by most companies and families.

The other argument against construction is that most of us remember when the Bradley Center opened. It doesn’t aesthetically look all that bad, even if it compares unfavorably to it’s brethren around the NBA.

However, facts are facts. When the NBA season eventually begins, the Bradley Center will be tied with the Detroit Pistons’ Palace at Auburn Hills and the Sacramento Kings’ Power Balance Pavilion for the third-oldest facility in the league. The two buildings that are older, Oracle Arena in Oakland (1966) and Madison Square Garden (1968) have either had or are undergoing a complete refurbishing. In Sacramento, the Kings are on life support, with the looming threat of moving to Anaheim being held over the heads of their fans.

In Seattle, fans never thought that the Sonics would really move. They had just spent almost $75 million in renovations less than 15 years earlier, but Key Arena still lacked the amenities places like the newer Staples Center and Canseco Fieldhouse had. Fans were warned that if a new arena wasn’t going to be built, the franchise’s new owners would take their budding superstar, Kevin Durant, and move them to greener pastures. After 41 years and an NBA championship, the Sonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder because there was a community thirsty for the prestige of professional sports and the nearly brand-new Ford Center ready to be called home.

Currently, there are new arenas in Kansas City, Omaha, and Louisville that are more in line with today’s NBA standards than the Bradley Center. There are plans being drawn for NBA style arenas in Baltimore, Las Vegas, and Virginia Beach.

In Milwaukee, the Bradley Center isn’t thought of as being as badly off as County Stadium was. To that argument, that’s true. County Stadium was a crumbling ruin and was falling apart right before our eyes. The Bradley Center still attracts big-name concerts and still features an elegant entrance to the building. There is a sense of class the Bradley Center has that County Stadium never did. For the most part, the seats are comfortable (if a bit on cramped side). Nothing about the building screams that it is an obsolete relic.

The problem is that it is, at least as far as the economics of the NBA are concerned. Outside of the new scoreboard, very little has been spent on the building since its Oct. 1988 opening. It ranks at the very bottom of the list for producing revenue among other NBA arenas. Today’s NBA buildings have larger suites, year-round restaurants, retail facilities, and in many cases, complete entertainment districts surrounding them.

In Los Angeles, the Staples Center is the centerpiece of the LA Live district which includes the Nokia Theatre, the Grammy Museum, and dozens of retails shops, restaurants, and night clubs. In Dallas, the American Airlines Center is attached to an entertainment venue that includes the storefront news studio of the city’s ABC television affiliate. In Phoenix, the U.S. Airways Center features a Lambeau Field-like atrium that is open to the public on non-game days where you can shop or eat.

The Bradley Center is a facility that in its entirety is asleep when there isn’t a game or concert.

The time to build is now. The NBA is going through the painful process of fixing it’s financial house, and the “c-word” (contraction) is being floated out there as more than just a test balloon. This is not the time for inactivity. Construction costs rise every year, and we now know what mistakes to not repeat in the building process.

Just as public funds have built arenas and stadiums all over the country (including Miller Park and Lambeau Field); the Bucks need help from the public to help build a new facility. The concept isn’t a new one. Businesses are given numerous tax breaks and facilities to entice them to either stay or relocate. Businesses create jobs. Jobs create communities. The more jobs there are, the healthier that community is.

Just as roads, zoos, parks, and museums add value to a community, so do professional sports. Miller Park was a community investment, so would be a new arena for the Bucks. Tens of millions will enjoy going to games during the building’s lifespan, and it helps keep our community “big league.”

There is also no argument that Milwaukee’s downtown business climate needs to have the draw of NBA basketball bringing fans into the city. The Park East corridor directly north of the Bradley Center is a vast wasteland just waiting to be built upon. Just because the Bucks have been more bad than good over the last 10 years-plus is no reason to hold up doing the right thing.

Those that oppose a new arena thinking that the NHL is ready to move in the Bradley Center (a hockey building by design) are fooling themselves. The thought that any NHL team would move into a 23-year old building is as laughable as expecting Prince Fielder to fit into size 30 pants. The same constraints that are hindering the business of the NBA plague the NHL, only to a lesser degree. For now.

To those that oppose a new arena, I ask you to heed two examples. The example of Seattle and the example of the Brewers. The former yearns for a chance to have a do-over, while the latter is the best example anyone can come up with for forward-thinking leadership on a community investment that millions will enjoy for generations.

Watching charcoal smoke billow over the Miller Park parking lots it’s hard to imagine that there were actually well-meaning people that didn’t want it built. That smoke represents so many things: Friends that don’t see each other nearly enough catching up on their lives; fathers and sons bonding over a brat and a game of bags; kids connecting with their sports idols; a community coming together as one despite socioeconomic barriers.

While there wouldn’t be tailgate smoke before a Bucks games, the bonds of sports and society remains. Milwaukee needs the Bucks, even if our elected leaders are loath to admit it for fear of losing reelection. But trying times call for bold leadership. Milwaukee is major league in so many ways. To allow the Bucks to move would knock our collective status down considerably.

The time to act is now.

Big Mistake in Titletown

Seems the Green Bay Packers just can’t leave well enough alone.

Why isn’t it enough to have the best, most historic facility in sports? With all due respect to Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, Lambeau Field has something that neither one of those relics could possible have: A winning tradition. I know the Red Sox have been very good as of late, but what of the 86 years in between World Series victories? And as for the Cubs at Wrigley, they have annually stunk up the joint. Chicago’s “charm and history” is done in when you consider that it’s bad “charm and history.”

Since moving to Lambeau Field in 1957, the Packers have won seven NFL championships (including four Super Bowls) and have featured some of the greatest players to ever play the game of football. Lambeau Field has seen the greatest coach in NFL history (arguably) pace the sidelines, and another likely headed for the Hall of Fame (Mike Holmgren).

During the re-build of Lambeau almost a decade ago, team President and CEO Bob Harlan stressed the importance of keeping the integrity of the seating bowl intact, while bringing the facility up to present day standards. Mission accomplished on all fronts.

The seating bowl looks almost as it did from decades ago, with the majority of seats still the same aluminum benches as there had always been. Sure, there were a few tweaks to the suite areas up top, but the seating bowl essentially looked the same.

So much for history after this monstrosity was unveiled this morning:

When these plans were floated out there as a test balloon, I had hoped – prayed – that they could come up with something better – something more…Lambeau Field.

Nope.

I think the mentality must have been “ah, let’s just slap up some seats somewhere…anywhere! The end zone? Sure, why not? To hell with tradition!”

What sets Lambeau Field’s inhabitant apart is that they aren’t just any other team. They’re the Packers. Now their landmark of an intimate, historic cathedral of sport has taken the first step towards the very thing that it wasn’t: just another stadium.

What I had feared is becoming reality. Lambeau Field will just continue to expand and expand; taking with it the intimacy that made it the envy of professional sports in North America. Watching out-of-town reporters file their stories for the first time on the fabled turf is a sight to behold, because you can see the gleam in their eyes as the camera pans down to their smiling faces after their home town team just got shellacked. Add a second and third deck to the place and it just seems some of what makes Lambeau Field unique is gone.

I know more fans can get in now, and I’m all for that. I just wish that it wasn’t at the expense of turning Lambeau Field into another cold, sterile football stadium. We already have enough of those, don’t we?

If a baseball game was played, but no one was there to see it...

...would that game really have been played?

Here are pictures tweeted by reporters from the Sun Life Stadium press box during yesterday's Marlins-Reds doubleheader.

This proves two theories:

 - Baseball is DEAD in South Florida
 - Miami is the WORST sports city in America

If Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins incompetent owner, thinks his shiny new stadium being built on the site of the demolished Orange Bowl is going to help matters, I beg to differ. By the second year, it will be just as empty.

Flashback Friday - From The Archives

With the Little League World Series going on, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the now-10 year old case of Danny Almonte, the 14-year old man-child posing as a 12-year old phenom.

From SportingNews.com, dated September 3, 2001:

It’s All About the Plushdamentals

In case you weren't able to make it out to Miller Park for this (now) past homestand, here is my cover story from GameDay Magazine on Nyjer "Tony Plush" Morgan:

It’s All About the Plushdamentals

By Doug Russell

Baseball is a game whose history is chocked full of colorful characters.

Mark Fidrych used to talk to the ball and manicure the pitcher’s mound with his hands. Larry Andersen used to ponder things such as whether or not one could run out of invisible ink. Al Hrabosky used to menace batters with not only his long hair and Fu Manchu mustache, but his in-between pitch antics which included walking off the mound, turning away from the batter, and rubbing the baseball after every pitch.

The Brewers of the early 1980’s had colorful characters as well, featuring players such as Gorman Thomas and Pete Vuckovich, who embodied Milwaukee’s fun-loving, blue-collar work ethic.

Fast forward 30 years later, and Milwaukee once again has one of the game’s most talked about personalities. His birth certificate reads Nyjer Jamid Morgan, but fans and teammates alike have come to know him by his alter ego, “Tony Plush.”

“It came from just me and my friends back home back when we were about 20-years old,” Morgan says today about the origin of what he calls his ‘gentleman’s name.’ “They were just our little scumbag names, and they basically just stuck.”

When Morgan arrived in Milwaukee, it was with little fanfare and was thought to be simply a depth move made by General Manager Doug Melvin. At the time, Morgan was thought to be nothing more than a spot-starter until the injured Corey Hart could return to the lineup from a strained oblique. In center, the Brewers were set with the speedy and defensively-minded Carlos Gomez patrolling Miller Park between their two All-Star outfielders.

However, it did not take long for the man known as “T-Plush” to make his presence felt. April 7, in the Brewers seventh game of the season, Morgan took out Atlanta Braves All-Star catcher Brian McCann in a collision at home plate, scoring his first run as a Brewer. Less than a week later, he did the same thing to his former teammate with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Ryan Doumit. A legend had been born.

Morgan says that’s just the way he plays. Considering that he was an elite youth hockey player as a teen, it has been suggested that Morgan brings a hockey player’s mentality to baseball. Morgan was so good on skates, as a matter of fact; he left his San Francisco home as a youth to play for the North Okanagan Kings of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. From there, he played with the Nelson Leafs and then the Delta Ice Hawks of the Pacific International Junior Hockey League, before reaching the Major Junior level of the Western Hockey League where he played briefly for the legendary Regina Pats.

Morgan dismisses the idea that hockey’s violence has anything to do with the way he plays baseball, even with an opposing catcher standing in the way.

“No, I don’t think so,” Morgan says. “It’s just understanding that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard, so I just go out there and try to leave it all out there on the field. It’s for that one person who has never seen me play before understanding the way I play, that I always go out and play hard.”

So far, the only thing making more headlines nationally than Morgan’s play has been his “Tony Plush” personality. Morgan has particularly become a favorite of national media personality Jim Rome, who featured Morgan recently on his ESPN television show. Morgan’s loose attitude and megawatt smile were on full display for the entire country to see.

“This is me,” Morgan says of his persona. “I mean, we’re going out there playing a kid’s game even though it’s our job and our livelihood, but I just never forgot the fact that this is still a game. If things are going bad, I try to go back to when I was in Little League, where if you took an 0-for-4, the first thing you were worried about is who’s parents are bringing the orange slices and Twinkies! I just try to make it fun.”

For Brewers manager Ron Roenicke, part of the fun has been watching his new centerfielder’s stellar defense and clutch hitting from the dugout. For most of the season, Morgan’s batting average has been around .320, but gets even better when the stakes are higher. As of August 1, Morgan leads the Brewers with a .378 average with runners in scoring position, a statistic in where the team has struggled.

However, even with Morgan making his manager’s job easier on the field, Roenicke at times has had to reign in Morgan’s alter-ego.

After an incident in San Francisco late last month where Giants fans misinterpreted Morgan’s gesture to them, Roenicke had to have a talk with his talented centerfielder. “A lot of it is having fun,” Roenicke told reporters after the game. “It's not like its all malice when he’s doing things. This whole ‘Tony Plush’ thing where he thinks he’s an entertainer, there is a point where you've got to be a little careful.”

One question that Morgan has been asked repeatedly is where Nyjer Morgan ends and Tony Plush begins. For Morgan, “Plush” starts once he enters Miller Park.

“Tony Plush is clocked in right now!” Morgan explained with a broad smile while sitting in the Brewers dugout after batting practice recently. “When I step on the field, I’m an entertainer. I try to let people get their money’s worth when they come to watch the Brewers or T-Plush play. Everybody has a better half, I’m just not afraid to go and throw it out there!”

Considering the success Morgan has had since arriving in Milwaukee, Brewers fans are just glad that he is patrolling centerfield at Miller Park, no matter what his name is.

Is Anyone Clean in College Sports?

The system is broken.

Reggie Bush taking a house seems tame compared to what has been going on for the last decade at the University of Miami. Tyrell Pryor and teammates trading memorabilia for tattoos is a drop in the bucket for what may rain down on “The U” for what can only be described as a total, systematic, 100% failure on the part of the school to monitor what was going on within their athletic department.

Yesterday, Yahoo! Sports investigative journalist Charles Robinson blew the lid off of Miami’s decade-old dirty little secret in the single most damning set of NCAA violations we have ever seen.

In a nutshell, millionaire booster Nevin Shapiro lavished gifts ranging from cash, to jewelry, to cars, to prostitutes over the course of a 10-year span. For the full Yahoo! Sports report: http://tinyurl.com/4xduewx

There are no such things as “isolated incidents” in college sports anymore. If there is one problem, you haven’t looked hard enough. There is no altruism anymore. There is no one out there who gives an impermissible benefit to be nice to a poor kid. If a “booster” gives a kid $1,000 or a new car, or anything else, it’s so that kid, once he becomes a pro, will remember that favor.

The schools are complicit in this because they choose to not investigate things they don’t want to investigate. Don’t insult my intelligence by contending that Miami administrators really didn’t know what was going on. All they had to do was open their eyes. Considering the history of the athletics department in Coral Gables, one would think that they would know a violation when they see one.

Just as Jim Tressel conveniently “forgot” he had a compliance officer in April 2010, the University of Miami did nothing when it was discovered that one of their most prolific boosters owned a stake in a sports agency. Miami buried its collective head in the sand so badly after Shapiro got into a drunken rage-filled fracas with the school’s athletics compliance director in the crowded press box during a game that they chose to sweep the entire matter under the rug.

Shapiro even says today that if school officials wanted to hire a private detective to look into whether or not players were receiving improper benefits, “it would have been the easiest job that guy ever had,” Shapiro told Yahoo’s Robinson. “It would have been over in five minutes. You would have had all the information you needed. Follow me to a nightclub or a strip club. Lunches. Dinners. The boat. Hotels for parties. All the outings at Lucky Strike. These guys were at my house. There was all kinds of (expletive) going on in. Gambling. Pool tournaments. Prostitution. Drinking.”

The irony is that former Miami athletic director Paul Dee (then in his role as the NCAA’s chairman of the NCAA’s infractions committee) was the one handing down the sanctions to USC a year ago, lecturing them about institutional control. Dee, in fact, appears to be one of the most corrupt administrators in college athletics history.

Not only did Dee oversee an athletics department that Nevin Shapiro lavished impermissible “benefits to athletes included but were not limited to cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and, on one occasion, an abortion,” according to Yahoo’s Robinson, but he was also the school’s AD in 1995 when 80 students, 57 of whom were football players, falsified their Pell Grant applications, illegally securing more than $220,000 in federal grant money. Federal officials described the scam as “perhaps the largest centralized fraud ... ever committed in the history of the Pell Grant program.”

Remember, THIS is the guy the NCAA had chairing their enforcement committee! Don’t forget that this is the guy who famously told USC a year ago that “high-profile athletes demand high-profile compliance.”

Paul Dee never had any business anywhere near the NCAA Committee on Infractions unless he was on the other side of the room answering their questions.

The system is broken. There is no going back. There are too many incidents at too many schools to make sure everyone is clean. Does anyone truly run a clean program anymore? In the last year, we have seen public allegations or sanctions against:

• USC
• Ohio State
• Miami
• North Carolina
• South Carolina
• Florida
• Alabama
• Georgia Tech
• Auburn
• Oregon
• Tennessee

Is there a way to clean up college athletics? Probably nothing any of the schools would consider, but as is the case with most things, money truly is the root of all evil.

My solutions:

1. Ban all boosters. All of them. If you cut their access, yes, schools would lose millions of dollars annually. But most of those boosters aren’t simply giving money to their schools to improve facilities or help pay for scholarships, they are paying for access. Access to administrators, access to players…access. They want to be in charge. They want to have a say in who gets hired and who gets fired. Hey want their names on buildings, and they want to puff up their own egos. Ban them from campus. All of them. Every single last one.

2. Miami, long since considered the most renegade of all college football programs dating back more than 20 years probably deserves the NCAA’s so-called Death Penalty. It’s the last resort for the NCAA in any matter, and it is a measure that hasn’t been used since SMU was banned from fielding a football team in the 1987-1988 seasons. No matter who has been at the helm, since the 1980’s it has been the single dirtiest program in college sports. It is harsh, no question. It’s also warranted.

3. Schools must immediately stop selling merchandise that trade on a player’s name and/or likeness. If you are a student-athlete, how would you feel if your member institution was selling your jersey in the bookstore for $100 and you don’t get a cut of that? How would you feel if your likeness was in video games that are sold and everyone gets a cut but you? It’s no wonder that kids don’t think it’s wrong to take from the leeches around them…the schools are leeching off of them, too.

4. If a school is caught cheating, rather than punish the kids that are on the team now, fine the school the amount of money they earned while participating in however many illegal games they played. Is it fair that USC kids today are paying for the sins of those that went before them? Matt Barkley was in middle school when Reggie Bush’s family was living in a free house. How is that fair and just? It’s not. But if you fine USC $13 million dollars from their BCS game take that season, they may have taken compliance a little more seriously (especially if there are no more boosters to bail them out of these messes).

5. Just as scholarships are limited to 80, limit the number of games that are nationally televised. Why should Notre Dame get to have their entire home games televised? How is that creating a level playing field? How is Texas allowed to have its own network? Remember, these are college kids, not professional athletes.

Don’t hold your breath for any of these measures to be taken seriously by anyone in charge. University presidents long for athletics department revenues and prestige. Often times, the public persona of a school is directly related to how the football team does on Saturday. It’s a perverted relationship, but no one will ever admit it. Wins on Saturday means its more likely some rich alumnus will build you that building on the south end of campus. Bowl trips and national television exposure translate into new medical centers or law schools.

Even if the relationship isn’t a linear one, it does exist. And no one in charge wants that gravy train to stop – even if it means a return to amateur athleticism on their campus.

Even with these measures in place, collegiate athletics will still see allegedly poor kids with diamond-stud earrings, designer clothes, and new cars. At what point, however, will we as a sporting society finally wake up and raise a red flag when we see such things?

The final perpetrator of how college athletics became as corrupt as they are?

For all of us, that answer simply lies with a look in the mirror.

Nevin Shapiro and a second source said this photo of the booster and Kellen Winslow Jr. was taken in Shapiro’s VIP section of Opium Garden nightclub in 2003. (source: Yahoo! Sports)



If You're Headed to Miller Park...

...over the next couple of days, be sure to check out my cover story in the Brewers GameDay magazine on centerfielder Nyjer "Tony Plush" Morgan.

Where did Nyjer's alter ego originate? How similar is baseball to his other passion, hockey? All that and more - only in Brewers GameDay!

What Goes Up...

I’m not sure what else can be said about the Brewers that hasn’t already been said.

Monday night’s game against the Dodgers saw all of the ingredients of a championship caliber team. Outstanding pitching, incredible defense, and timely hitting.

As my friend and colleague, 540 ESPN’s Drew Olson pointed out via Twitter tonight, on this current 4-game homestand, the Brewers have pitched 37 innings and surrendered 3 earned runs. That’s an ERA of 0.72. In the last month, the Brewers have gone 22-6, and separated themselves by 6 games in the NL-Central.

All of these are incredible numbers. All of these statistics are what championship teams are made out of. All of these statistics don’t lie. They tell the story of a team that has legitimate talent, believes in one another, has incredible chemistry, and would run through a wall for their low-key manager.

But they can’t keep this up.

Brewers fans need to brace themselves for the inevitable lull. At some point within the next six weeks, this Brewers team will hit a funk. They may lose four or five games in a row. They may see their lead in the division shrink as the Cardinals go on a tear.

My message for when (not if) this happens: Chill. Relax. It’s baseball.

Before the angry e-mails start flowing my way, please know that I still think the Brewers are the best team in the division. I also think they’re better than every other team in baseball except for the Phillies, Yankees, and Red Sox. They’re on par with Atlanta, but that’s rarefied air. Even though the Crew still has a slump left, wrap your minds around this:

The Milwaukee Brewers have a very legitimate chance to play in the 2011 World Series.

That doesn’t mean they won’t need to snap out of a funk before we see October. Let’s step into the “wayback machine” for a moment, shall we?

Remember when the Brewers got out to that rancid 0-4 start? Remember all of the panic buttons pushed all over town? It’s human nature. Don’t forget that the Boston Red Sox went through the exact same thing, only worse in April. Just as Brewers fans were lining up to jump off the Hoan Bridge, the Red Sox 0-6 (and then 2-10) start had Bostonians lined up at the Bunker Hill Bridge. Seems the Red Sox bounced back pretty nicely.

What gets me about poor starts are even the educated baseball fans and analysts pushing the panic button. Even the New York Times ran a headline that stated the Red Sox were “Doomed in April.”

No team is ever doomed in April.

My point of all this is simple. Enjoy the ride. This has been fun. However, in the last month, the Brewers have played .786 baseball, which is impossible to sustain over an entire season. Mathematically, that’s winning between 127-128 games in a single season. It’s never going to happen.

The slump? The lull? The funk?

It’s coming. It’s inevitable. But you know what else it is? It’s ok. And it’s baseball. It’s just part of the game.

So I suggest you enjoy the ride.