*South Carolina received lots of plaudits for the way it honored the military last Saturday against Florida. Their uniforms featured camouflage design touches and labels such as “Duty,” “Service” and “Integrity” replaced players’ names on the backs of jerseys.
Thin line, however, between patriotic salute and gimmick. That was borne out early when the first personal foul — for unsportsmanlike conduct — was called on “Integrity.”
*We know these are tough times for newspapers, and “beats” aren’t what they used to be. But it still seems strange, in this football-crazy market, to see the hometown newspaper “cover” Gator, Seminole and, even, Hurricane games via Florida Today, the Tallahassee Democrat and the Associated Press, respectively.
*A major milestone for USF football and basketball, in addition to becoming more competitive within the Big East, will be when the programs are less reliant on transfers – especially from junior colleges.
*Good for Raheem Morris, the Bucs’ beleaguered but buoyant first-year coach. Control the things you can control in a season that is now an unadulterated salvage project. Finally letting Josh Freeman play was, of course, the biggest change. But good move in implementing a game-day dress code. “Make them look like winners,” explained Morris.
Left unsaid: “Win or lose, you can always show some class. This isn’t the NBA.”
*Granted, professional sports is a parallel universe. Salaries are obviously a prime example. What recession? What’s even more unfathomable sometimes are the disparities – in the context of past performance, long-term contracts and free agency – that so often manifest themselves.
No better example in Major League Baseball than that of the Tampa Bay Rays’ Pat Burrell and Ben Zobrist. At an obscene $9 million, the ineffective designated hitter made more than 22.5 times that of Zobrist, an All-Star and the team’s Most Valuable Player.