The Sports Curmudgeon®

In response to yesterday’s rant about five things I can do without in the world of sports, a friend sent me a note saying that he could easily do without smarmy sports agents. I have to admit that there are a few agents out there who seem always to be representing clients embroiled in the midst of controversy or caught in the midst of some form of anti-social behavior. I can do without folks like that and I was thinking about adding them to my list until my mind got stuck on something that I just don’t understand about sports agents.

For the most part, agents are attorneys; they certainly act like attorneys when they negotiate contracts for clients and negotiate endorsement deals. I want to focus on that large fraction of sports agents who are actual attorneys and who are admitted to the bar in multiple states. I thought that attorneys were bound by very strict ethical canons regarding the solicitation of clients and it sure seems to me that sports agents solicit clients in ways that a real estate attorney would not/could not. So, how do those attorneys/sports agents manage not to run afoul of the ethics rules here?

And while we are at it, the top shelf sports agents represent multiple clients and there have to be times when two clients could benefit from acquiring one available job. How can one agent represent these two clients fully and aggressively when achieving success for one demands that the second client fail to get the position? Again, it seems to me that the ethical canons of the profession charge attorneys to avoid such situations and to represent only one client in such a situation.

Maybe someone can explain to me how all this works sometime…

The last time I heard about Quincy Carter, he had been arrested in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and was bailed out of jail by Randy Galloway – a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and local radio host. Carter’s NFL career was in the toilet, but like every ex-athlete, he hoped that he’d be able to resurrect that career. To that end, Carter signed on to play for the Shreveport Battlewings in Arena Football League #2. I read a report over the weekend that Carter has been suspended by the team for missing team meetings. According to the Battlewings’ website, the other QB on the team is named Gary Cooper – no, not the one from High Noon.

One of the cable channels in this area telecast a program hosted by Stephon Marbury. No, I don’t now why; they just did. Marbury was interviewing Randy Moss on the program and Moss said that he still had no idea why he was traded from the Vikings to the Raiders; no one has ever explained it to him. Well, I think it’s sad for a young man to go the rest of his life with that kind of uncertainty and misunderstanding hanging over his head and so I’ll take a stab at trying to come up with a plausible explanation.

1. You embarrassed the Vikings’ organization with the “fake mooning incident” in Green Bay and by trying to make a traffic control officer into a hood ornament.

2. You quit on your teammates leaving the sidelines before time had run out on the clock.

3. You announced to the world that you did not – and would not – play hard on every play.

4. You were a generalized pain-in-the-ass.

I hope that helps…

Speaking tangentially about the Vikings, the team this year is an enigma. They have a good defense; they have a good offensive linie; and they have two good RBs. In essence, they will be adding two first round picks to the squad this year because last year’s first round pick - Chad Greenway - never played a down for them after blowing out a knee on special teams in the first Exhibition Game. Some folks are already saying they could be one of this year’s “sleeper teams”. But they also have the most precarious QB situation in the NFL. Tarvaris Jackson is listed at the starter; based on what we’ve seen so far, Jackson has all upside and no downside because he hasn’t achieved much of anything so far. I guess he could get worse if he started tripping over his own shoelaces on every other snap, but that’s about what it would take. Behind him at QB are Brooks Bollinger and Tyler Thigpen. Like I said, the Vikings are an enigma…

Here is Reason Number 3,478,226 that the NCAA is useless. That entity just completed a 16-year study and determined that the highest rates of injury in collegiate sports are in football and men’s hockey. Slow down there, Hoss, and let me catch my breath here. It took 16 years to figure out that more people get hurt in violent collision sports like football and hockey than in bowling or tennis or swimming. Give me some time here to try to get my brain around that concept…

Sylvester Stallone entered a guilty plea to bringing several dozen vials of human-growth hormone into Australia. Stallone also apologized saying that he was not aware that he had violated any laws in so doing but that he accepted responsibility for his actions. Based on Rocky VI, I think it is safe to say that human-growth hormone is not something that artificially augments one’s acting capabilities…

Finally, an observation from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“After watching Kirilenko for five games, I have an irresistible urge to get my lawnmower sharpened.”

For me, when I see Kirilenko on the court, I suspect that Stevie Wonder has opened a barbershop in Salt Lake City.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…