TELLING IT LIKE IT IS
I don’t think this is unexpected news: I like tough guys. I would take tough guys over more talented guys every time. You win with toughness, no matter the sport.
I remember doing some street fighting in my young days and I never worried much about the guy who did all the talking. It was the guy on the other side who wasn’t talking. He was going to be the tough one.
So I was a little surprised and sad to learn the Denver Nuggets had let George Karl go with one year left on his contract. George can be moody, he can say things you wish he didn’t, but I don’t think there is any question he is tough. For that, I like him.
The Nuggets won 57 games this year but management didn’t want to extend Karl out another three years and didn’t want to deal with him after refusing to do so. So they let him go.
I understand that. It’s a business and because Karl is emotional and is likely to say anything, and when he’s ticked it’s not going to be pretty, he was fired. But I think that the Nuggets have made a mistake, one they will come to regret.
Although I’m probably in the minority on this one, I don’t think LeBron James is tough. Yes he’s big, strong and an incredible athlete, but I don’t see that extreme toughness you saw in, say, Michael Jordan.
Jordan wouldn’t let you beat him. You can beat James. He’ll get his triple-double because he’s so good – probably currently the best in basketball land – but he doesn’t very often arch his back and take over a game like other greats in the history of the game.
He’s not Larry Bird in that sense. And he’s certainly no Jordan.
In fact, I may have made a mistake in saying James is among the top five best players in NBA history. Elgin Baylor maybe should be ahead of him. Even Jerry West.
What James has among his other extraordinary gifts is the ability to see the whole floor and be a coach out there while playing. But what I don’t see is him picking it up a notch or two when the outcome of the game is in doubt. The great ones excel at crunch time. They don’t back off. They want the ball and they attack and do what they do best.
James does not. He will drive in, be blocked and pass off, time after time. I silently scream “Just take it to the rack, you idiot” The guy is so big and strong and can leap tall buildings, he can take it in heavy traffic, get off his shot and either score or be fouled. So why doesn’t he do it?
The answer is that he’s not tough. He has plenty of people fooled, but I’m not.
James is also a cherry picker. Not that there is anything wrong with hanging back, taking a long pass off a defensive rebound and dunk.
But what is a guy like him doing hanging back? Shouldn’t he be in the paint battling? Yeah, I know he got like 18 rebounds against the Spurs the other day in the first round of the championship series, but it’s almost a given he should get that many. If he worked hard at it, he might get 30.
You know why Tiger Woods won so often in his first reincarnation?
He was mentally tough. He would not back down. He would take his incredible golfing talent and just cram it down everybody’s throat. If he was close to the lead or leading on the final day, forget it, he was going to win. He was going to crush everybody.
That’s not so much the case these days. Other players have decided they can challenge him and get away with it. They are not afraid anymore. Tiger has lost that mental toughness he once had.
It is what happens when you run into a fire hydrant.
I’ll tell you who is also Ram Tough, as the Dodge Truck ad says. That’s Russell Wilson. From the first day he showed up at Seahawks’ camp last year he was as cool as a cucumber. And it helps that he has the intelligence and the athletic gifts to get ‘er done, as the Cable Guy would say.
And he’s not stupid tough, either. He knows when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. Which helps him avoid getting killed out there among those 350-pounders that would like nothing better than to stuff him in a mole hole.
There are plenty of NFL quarterbacks on active rosters who don’t see much playing time, not because they don’t have the arm or legs to get ‘er done, but because they flinch when those defensive monsters start breathing down on them.
To be honest, I think I’m tough, but I don’t believe if I had the talent – which I didn’t – I would want to be an NFL quarterback. Yes, the pay is good. But I don’t want to be mincemeat for those humongous defensive lineman and speedy linebackers.
Bottom line is that toughness is something that gets earned over time and is a result most of the time of genetics. When I played football as a young kid I was scared all the time. And I think it’s healthy to be scared so you don’t try to do something that would really get you hurt.
There is something in my character that is telling. I don’t get too fired up over many things. But when I do I’m Hell on Wheels. When I was a young athlete I stepped it up a notch whenever somebody did something to me that either hurt me or embarrassed me. Then my competitive juices would kick in and scared or not war was declared.
And I like that character in others. Line up the tough guys on one side and all the LaBron James’ on the other, and I will go for the tough guys. We may lose, but you will know you have been in a fight. And I know the tough guys will give 100 percent, and if that happens and we still lose I can’t be sad or sorry. We all did our best and that’s all one can ask.
That reminds me of the two times years ago when I challenged a couple basketball players to a game of horse at the YMCA. I used to be a pretty good three-point shooter. I could hit a high percentage, just as long as nobody was guarding me.
One day there was a girl at the YMCA who was shooting around and after watching her for a while I decided I was hot enough to take her in a game of horse. I challenge her and she accepted. I blistered the net, but as well as I was shooting she was better.
She beat me.
It was only after that I found out she had played four years at Western Washington.
Not much later John Coker was shooting around at the Y and I figured I could take big John out to the three-point line and destroy him.
Coker was a seven-footer who played at Olympic High School and then at Boise State (1991-95). He briefly played in the NBA on several 10-day contracts with Phoenix, Washington and Golden State.
I had forgotten that Big John was a finesse player and when I began to sink three-pointers he followed suit. Just like the girl, I could not shake him and he hit more threes than I did and again I was beaten.
I guess I wasn’t as tough as I thought.
That reminds me of one other story. I was covering a local high school football game for the old Bremerton Sun years ago and there was a sweep around end by the offensive team and the guy who was leading the blocking made a half-hearted attempt to block the cornerback and the running back was stuffed.
It was an obvious lack of toughness on the blocker. Had he made the block the running back might be still running down the sidelines. But he didn’t and I called it out in my story. No, I didn’t name the kid, but I did say that the blocker made a “Look-out Block”, as in saying to his running back, “look out.”
But that’s the way it goes in high school athletics, coaches have to deal with that they have been dealt. Some coaches – like the late Chuck Semancik – demanded toughness or you didn’t play. He did nothing fancy with his team. He just lined his kids up and might as well told the opponent in advance what he was going to do because he just ran straight at teams between the tackles, and dared opponents to stop them.
Ground Chuck, as his ground-pounding offense was nicknamed, won him over 200 games in his career and got him into the Washington State Football Coaches Hall of fame as well as in the Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame.
And Chuck was as tough as they come.
So, again, toughness wins.
Except, in my case, when our teenage daughter asks for anything. Then my toughness melts away and she wins.
Be well pal.
Have a great day.
You are loved.
