Rants, raves and insights as seen through my myopic world view. And I mean that in a good way…

2012 is a big year for track and field participants and enthusiasts. The London Olympics are naturally the biggest event on the calendar, but there are a multitude of other events that should make this a very interesting season.

Already in 2012 we have had the World Indoor Championships, which featured a great couple of races for Sanya Richards-Ross, (400 meters and anchoring the silver medal 4×400 team) and a triumphant Justin Gatlin winning his first championship since his drug suspension, taking the 60 meter in a season best 6.46 seconds.

We also had the Boys and Girls Championships in Jamaica, where Calabar High School won the boys title with a great team effort. The girls title was won by Edwin Allen HS (R) breaking the nearly decade long stranglehold of Holmwood on first place.

And now, on the last weekend of April, comes the Penn Relays. This year Penn will be missing some of the biggest names. No Usain Bolt,  Yohan Blake or Asafa Powell  for Jamaica, but that doesn’t mean the stars wont be present.

Sanya Richards-Ross, Allyson Felix, the aforementioned Gatlin, Nesta Carter, Walter Dix and Kirani James are all named as participants in what should be a great weekend of races. I don’t see any real challenges to the American teams in the USA versus the World events, as while they have loaded teams competing in Philly this year, the other countries don’t seem to have the depth this year to beat them. As history has shown however, upsets at Franklin Field do happen.

Watch the Great Britain team competing in the Women’s 4×400 relay in particular; they could spring a major surprise.

The high school relays are of particular interest to Jamaicans living in the US. Coming into this week, the top schools by time and event are as follows:

High school boys 4×100:
Kingston College                                   40.17            
Wolmers’ Boys School                           40.21            
Munro College                                       40.41            
St. Elizabeth Technical High                 40.44              
Herbert Morrison Tech.                       40.55  
Jamaica College (under 16 team)         40.75
DeSoto HS (Texas)                 40.59

High School Boys 4×400:
Calabar HS(R) 3:10.19
DeSoto, Tx         3:14.88
Kingston College         3:12.64
Laurel HS (Maryland) 3:15:65
Boys & Girls, Brooklyn, NY     3:15.12
Jamaica College 3:13.64
Long Beach Poly         3:18:55

High School Girls 4×100:
Edwin Allen 45.28
Herbert Morrison 45.61
Boyd Anderson HS (Florida) 45.66
Long Beach Poly 46.04
Vere Technical 46.00
St. Jago HS 46.60
St. Andrews HS 46.93

High School Girls 4×400:
Vere Technical High                             3:38.91          
American Heritage HS (Florida) 3:43:15
St. Thomas Aquinas (Florida)         3:44:50
Holmwood Technical                               3:44.04          
Edwin Allen High                                 3:44.51          
St. Andrew High                                   3:45.07          

There should also be some great college races, with UWI, UTech and GC Foster competing with the traditional US college relay powerhouses; Florida, Texas A&M, LSU and Arkansas, who have all run under 39.70 this season.

One thing is for sure, this meet is not going to disappoint fans of track and field, and should give us a early look at some of the names we will see in London and also, maybe Brazil 2016.

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The modern footballer is a wealthy, globally recognizable star. The top players on the big teams, elite guys like Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney are icons, and the players who are not on that level or playing for non-traditional powers are still well known and major attractions for advertisers and headlines. With that being said, I also say this: Lionel Messi, as great as he is, is not Pele. He’s not even Maradona. And he may never be.

Messi is so good that the mythical title of world’s greatest player has not been in dispute the last two years. Actually Messi and Ronaldo, the clear second best player have separated themselves so much from the rest of the pack the only comparisons for them that can be made are with the all time greats. And therein lies the biggest knock on Messi.

As great a player as Messi has been, his achievements have been almost exclusively on the club level. Barcelona has used their considerable resources to surround Messi with some of the most talented players in the world. They, along with Real Madrid, Chelsea and Manchester City have created a chasm between themselves and the other teams domestically by throwing millions of dollars at player after player to win every year. George Steinbrenner would be proud of the zeal in which these team owners collect stars and assemble teams.

More than half of the World Cup winning team from Spain wears the red and blue of Barcelona and that incredible collection of talent and cohesiveness is breath taking to watch and almost impossible to defeat. Champions League, La Liga and World Club titles have all been won by Barcelona in the last three years, prompting talk of them being the best club team of all time.

Messi has not been able to even come close to matching those accomplishments with his Argentine national team. And when you want to be named among the greatest of all time, the measuring stick is World Cup titles. Pele won his first at seventeen in 1958 and his 3rd in 1970. Maradona went to two finals, winning in 1986 and finishing second in 1990.

While the Brazil teams of Pele and Maradona’s Argentina teams were comprised of some of the best talent in their eras, the Argentina team that played in the 2010 World Cup also had very good not great players and a plethora of world class strikers. But led by Messi and coached by Maradona they couldn’t even make the semi-finals.  Its worth noting that the only international title Messi has won is the 2008 Olympics gold medal.

One of the true marks of greatness is elevating the play of others around you. While the current crop of Argentine players may not be as good as some of years past, they are still one of the top 10 national teams, and that doesn’t figure to change before the next World Cup.

Having the transcendent best player of this generation should make them the prohibitive favorite for the next trophy in 2014, but if Messi doesn’t raise his game even higher when he puts on the Albiceleste jersey, his place in the pantheon of greats will reside below the likes of Pele, Maradona, Ronaldo (Brazil) and Zidane.

I’ve been closely following this crazy NBA season, and the more I see him, the more I think Derrick Rose’s playing style is the closest I have seen to Allen Iverson (minus the cornrows.) Like Iverson, I don’t see him having a long NBA career, because at the rate he’s getting dinged up, he will quickly lose his speed and once he does, he’s an average PG.

The baseball season starts this week, and my NY Yankees are reloaded for another pennant run. The AL is going to be stacked this year, with Texas, Detroit, Anaheim, Boston and Tampa Bay all legitimate contenders for a World Series spot.

In the National League, I don’t think any team can beat the Phillies, but I do think the Washington Nationals will be a contender this year. They are putting together a good young team in DC, and they will make the NL East interesting this year. Pitching is the major factor in a 162 game season, and the Nationals have some good arms on their team. They will be fun to watch.

Congrats to Calabar High School and Edwin Allen High School for winning the 2012 Boys and Girls Champs respectively. Penn Relays is coming up, and should be quite competitive. Some of the best individual performers at Champs; Shauna Helps, Delano Williams, Tiffany James and Shericka Jackson look like they will have very bright futures in track.

Check out the times below for the fastest US high school 4×400 times in all of 2012:
3:14.88 DeSoto, Tx
3:15.12 Boys & Girls, Brooklyn, NY (indoor.)
3:15.16 Timberview, Mansfield, Tx

Below are the times for the top three boys finishers at Champs 2012:
3:10.19 Calabar HS
3:12.64 Kingston College
3:13.64 Jamaica College

The Girls 4×400 breaks down like this:
3:43.01 Wakefield, Raleigh (indoor)
3:45.16 Lancaster, Tx
3:47.49 Garden City, NY ( indoor)
3:47.56 Aquinas, Fort Lauderdale
3:47.70 DeSoto, Tx
3:48.86 American Heritage, Plantation, Fl
3:49.25 Medgar Evers, Brooklyn (indoor)

The top three HS girls finishers at Champs 2012:
3:38.91 Vere Tech
3:44.04 Holmwood
3:44.51 Edwin Allen

Here’s to a great, competitive track season coming up in 2012!

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 The petition from MoveOn.org is here. Please sign and pass on.

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The Giants did it. They came in and played a very good game against a well prepared Patriots team and pulled out a thrilling victory. Eli Manning, he of the very confident quote prior to the 2011 season, backed it up once again and won his second Super Bowl MVP (for the record, I think Justin Tuck could have had a case for deserving that MVP also.)

While I have always admitted to a deep seated dislike of all teams from the New England region (Red Sox, Celtics, Patriots, Bruins even some random high school teams) I have to say this in the wake of the game last night:

Tom Brady is quite possibly the best quarterback ever, and there is no greater testament to that than this: He does more with less than any great player i’ve ever seen.

In my last post I said his coach was too full of himself. After watching the Super Bowl, I believe that even more. The Patriots have no number 1 receiver. None. Their best receiver is a tight end. Their second best receiver is another tight end. Impressive to some, but not to me.

The late Al Davis always said ‘speed kills.’ You could say that Brady has had a legit game breaking receiver for only one season in his career. In that one season, when he paired with Randy Moss they went 18-1, Brady rewrote the NFL record books and they lost their only game in the Super Bowl against the Giants.

Since that  2007 run, Brady has continued to shine and rack up double digit wins every season, but as Manningham, Hicks and Cruz caught clutch passes from Eli Manning in the Super Bowl, it was hard not to look at the other sideline and wonder what Brady would have done with a legitimate deep threat wide receiver. And more importantly, why is the “genius” Belichick not getting him help?

In the 2011 draft, both Torrey Smith and Randall Cobb were drafted after New England selected. In 2009, they selected Brandon Tate over Mike Wallace and in 2008 Mario Manningham-who caught a great pass in the game that helped to clinch the victory in Super Bowl 46-was available and they passed.

The current Patriot wide receivers could walk through ESPN headquarters unnoticed. Even Chad ’85′ Johnson has disappeared since joining the team. Belichick is clearly drinking his own Kool Aid, believing he can create schemes to make average players perform above average feats. It may work in the regular season, but when the level of competition increases and your opposition is just as smart, talent is the great equalizer, and Brady has been doing it with a collection of average players for way too long. Belichick has 18 undrafted players on his roster, more than any other team in the NFL. He also has a slew of draft picks in the upcoming draft. Lets see if he finally focuses his renowned eye for talent on getting his QB help.

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“What difference does it make if it’s true? If it’s a story and it breaks, they’re gonna run with it.”

Robert DeNiro as Conrad ‘Connie’ Brean, from Wag the Dog 1997

Two headlines over the last couple of weeks have me shaking my head and wondering about the state of our collective mindset as Jamaicans and people of color.

The first was the characterization of PNP leader Portia Simpson Miller by JLP Finance Minister Audley Shaw as “Jumping around like a leggo beast” while at a recent PNP conference.

I may not share the outrage of some on this topic, mainly because I have long felt, said and maintain that the public behavior of Ms. Simpson-Miller is a constant embarrassment to her party and our country. The gift that keeps on giving to her political foes and critics of Jamaica.

There are those in Jamaican society however that are enthralled with her, and even want to overlook her behavior. We’ll get to those people on a minute. What is undeniable however is this:  The party of Norman and Michael Manley has not moved forward in either public esteem or meaningful achievement under her stewardship.

The PNP cannot point to one sustained successful initiative undertaken by the party while they were in power for eighteen years, when Simpson-Miller and her mentor PJ Patterson, were in charge. The Economist magazine, a well respected international magazine last week referred to Bruce Golding as ‘Jamaica’s best Prime Minister in decades’ a direct and accurate dismissal of the PNP’s nearly two decade stretch as leaders of Jamaica.

Eighteen years of political rule gives one the authority to do a lot of things-namely enact your entire political agenda.  The well documented scandals that point to a fattening of pockets by some in the PNP is clearly one of the only things that was achieved, but gives any intelligent person pause when they now hear stalwarts of the same party questioning and demanding answers ‘on behalf of the people.’

Yes, the same people they did nothing for in eighteen years of political control.

And on the heels of the ‘leggo beast’ brouhaha comes the innuendo rife Gleaner report about the HEART program and demands/requests/statements by private employers that they prefer ‘light skinned’ AKA ‘browning’ applicants from this program for placement in their companies.

I will not even get into speculation as to whether there is any truth to this Gleaner report. That is immaterial, because it names no names, gives no facts and sheds no light on anything of substance. What it does do however, is create a controversy where none exists. It’s a small morsel of meat thrown at dogs for them to bray and howl and gnash their teeth, but not full their stomachs. Kind of like the Hollywood movie scene quoted above.

Some would like to take this Gleaner report and accept it as factual, and demand changes, accountability or heads to roll. The only heads that should roll are the ones of the reporter and the editors who let that drivel go to press.

A responsible news agency that just recently touted its abstention from partisan politics should not print a story this incendiary and bereft of facts.

But lets assume for a second that the allegations in the “Browning Report” are true. The real problem isn’t with the private employers who made these requests/demands, it is squarely in the lap of the public sector officials who knew of this and either did nothing, said nothing or acquiesced to the demands.

The private sector people should be dealt with by the public they seek business from. If you as a member of the public is offended at the hiring practices, don’t support those companies. Simple as that.

A government agency however that receives these types of requests and does nothing is a government agency that should be completely overhauled-at all levels. They as representative of the people have the absolute responsibility to regulate and prosecute on behalf of all Jamaicans, black, brown or otherwise. Which of course plays into the political imbroglio that some seek to start and others never fail to react to.

Which int turn brings me to the “leggo beast” comment. As stated, I didn’t have much of a problem with what was said. If you conduct yourself publicly in a certain manner, its hard to be mad at people who may call you out on said conduct. The comment was crude and showing a distinct lack of respect for Mrs. Simpson-Miller and her position in Jamaican politics. However the only two questions I have to ask those who are offended is (1) Is the comment misplaced?  and (2) Who gains politically from this type of rabble rousing about brownings and name calling? Not the people of Jamaica, that’s for sure.

The political cesspool that has been Jamaican politics in my lifetime has now also claimed the scalp of the current Prime Minister, Bruce Golding and over the years tarnished the reputation of several other politicians.

Prime Minister Golding’s departure leaves the party of the ‘leggo beast’ gearing up for another shot at political power next year.  As mentioned previously I have noticed over the years a lot of sentiment from people in Jamaica towards Mrs. Simpson-Miller. There are those who feel she has been unfairly criticized and singled out because she is (take your pick) a woman, unpolished, not a browning, not of the right background etc. I tend to believe there are elements of accuracy in both the criticism and the position of her defenders. She has done little if anything however to dispel the criticism.

What can be readily agreed upon however is that she didn’t learn one of the truisms of political life; it is much harder to be the one in charge than to be in the background; harder to govern than to be a critic of government. It is a lesson Golding has been learning and one that despite her past position as the first female PM, she apparently also failed to grasp.

The next twelve months are going to be an interesting time for Jamaica, primarily because of the changes in the JLP leadership with elections on the horizon. Whatever the circumstances are that led to the hasty exit of Mr. Golding, make no mistake, sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. His resignation, long clamored for by the PNP, has now eliminated that distraction and possibly put to bed forever the Dudus saga. So when the dust clears, it will be a new JLP leader squaring off against the old PNP leader.

I wonder how comfortable her party is about that scenario going into another election, considering how wonderfully she articulated her leadership skills in the last election.

Let the theatrics begin.

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