June 4, 2020
TODAY’S COLUMNS: Scott addresses his altered sports time-clock
Dennis rails against professional athletes
Jon is a social commentator… Please scroll down for our columns.
OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS GO OUT TO ONE AND ALL AS WE TRY TO MAKE OUR WAY SAFELY THROUGH THE PANDEMIC. WE STAND WITH THOSE THAT ARE PEACEFULLY PROTESTING AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY AND RACISM.
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I ask you to strongly consider supporting local businesses as much as you can. Stay safe. Be careful. Follow all of the precautions that have been mentioned. But, there are a lot of businesses that are the backbone of our communities that could really use you as a customer in these challenging times. Purchasing gift cards at these restaurants would also be a wonderful idea. Here is the status of our restaurant sponsors in the Denham Springs Community:
Big Mike’s Sports Bar & Grill Buddy’s Bar B Q
Drive-Thru
Duke’s Seafood & Steakhouse
Maria’s Mexican Restaurant Swamp Box Café
Mr. Gattis Pizza
Swamp Box Cafe
Please try to patronize these outstanding businesses and shop locally when you can. THANK YOU
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
By Scott Osborne
Assistant Basketball Coach at Central High School
Sports needs to get going soon. It is the first week of June and I am resorting to the “mailbag.” Away we go with questions I received in the mail this week.
Q: What do you think about the Saints off season?
A: I love it. The Saints have a process that is consistent and works for them. They don’t make the biggest “splash” moves, but they make moves that make sense for their situation. A signing like Ty Montgomery doesn’t get on the national radar, but it is brilliant for the Saints. He will be used in a manner that will use his abilities and fill in for Kamara if Kamara goes down for a couple of weeks.
Q: Did you watch the golf with Brady, Manning, Tiger, and Phil?
A: No. I don’t know why. I think I have gotten out of the routine. It sounds like it was entertaining, though.
Q: High school sports can start easing back to action June 8. Thoughts?
A: My first thought is that it will be great to be around the guys again. In basketball, it is easy to socially distance for summer workouts. That being said, it is bizarre that I'm not going to a summer league game tonight. For the first time since 1995, I am not organizing or working a youth summer basketball camp this week.
These are personal rituals that set my internal clock to the season of the year. While we have dates that declare the first day of a new season, I have events that signal the start of a new school year, basketball season, off season, and summer workouts.
The signal that ends the school year and starts summer is the one I have missed the most. The last day of the school year is typically a half day. I come home, sit on the back porch, and get ready to relax while watching LSU play baseball in the SEC Tournament. That sequence of events gives me closure. I haven’t had that and as a result, my internal clock is late. I am stuck in a world that is not the school year and not summer.
I am hoping that starting summer workouts next week gives that closure and signals my internal clock that the new season has begun.
Q: Looks like the NBA is headed for a 22 team tournament, and you got your July Madness wish. Excited?
A: VERY! I don’t care if the NBA chose the number of teams just to get the Pelicans in or not. There is most likely to be a basketball tournament that has never happened before with the best players in the world at the end of a long break from competitive basketball. I am ALL IN!!
Thanks for your questions. Hopefully, real sports news starts breaking soon and I don’t need to invent any more mail.
HEY REF
“Play it again” (Sam) is a very famous line from one of the all-time greatest movies. But when we talk about one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time voicing his opinion it’s as if he’s not allowed to do that. New Orleans’ own, Drew Brees, voiced his feelings concerning the possibility of NFL players once again kneeling during the National Anthem as a protest in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. While those that demand freedom of speech must be guarded as an American right they turn around and want to keep others from voicing their right to free speech when it’s not their opinion being voiced. They’re better known as HYPOCRITES!
Yes, I understand that I’m being paid to write a sports themed weekly column but there have been times and happenings in our recent day to day lives that demand we stop and take notice. Without any hint of doubt Mr. Floyd WAS MURDERED last week by police officers and those officers deserve to do some very serious jail time for their actions. There is a time and a place for everything but there isn’t a time or place for anyone to trash our flag.
And of all people that want to point a finger there aren’t any bigger hypocrites than professional athletes. There’s no need for me to point out that these mega-millionaires live in mansions behind high walls with around the clock security personnel and far away from those that’ve put them where they are; the fans! They want us all to pretend they’re doing something to end racism and are helping the poor from where they came.
I laugh when they claim they’re helping their communities by hosting weekend football and/or basketball camps. Handing out T-shirts with the player’s image on them does nothing to feed, house or employ any of them. They all want us to be amazed at how they climbed out of poverty and ‘da hood to reside in lavish compounds around the country. But what happens to most of them in less than a single decade when their playing days are over?
Most of them have lost their fortunes due in part to bad business decisions and excessive partying and a total wasted style of living. I don’t feel sorry for them one bit, they get what they deserve but what we don’t deserve is for them to blame society’s problems on everybody else but them. All right, I’m done; this will be my non-sports weekly column.
Till next week… …
FINE IDEAS
Late last week I was talking to a dear friend (DF as an abbreviation), commiserating about the Minnesota murder of George Floyd by policemen. Then, the subject turned to the Georgia incident, in February, where 2 White men killed an African American man who was jogging. A quick consensus was established that these killings were unconscionable. When the conversation took us to Central Park in New York, it, unexpectedly, provided some subject matter for this column. Both DF and yours truly are White. When we talked, DF and I knew many of the basics of the Central Park disturbance, but not as many details as has come to light subsequently.
What is known, today, in the Central Park controversy, is largely through a recording on social media. What the video shows is that a Caucasian lady, Amy Cooper, is being recorded (by a Black man, Christian Cooper (no relation to Amy).) Amy has a phone in one hand and her unleashed dog in another. Amy asks Christian to stop recording her or she is going to call the police and tell them that an African American man is recording her and threatening her and her dog. Christian tells her to please do so. Amy calls the cops and does tell them that an African American man is threatening her and her dog. Christian says Thank You. The recording ends. Christian revealed in an ensuing interview that what prompted this exchange was Amy having her dog running through the Ramble--a bird-watching area where dogs must be on a leash. Christian says he had asked Amy to put her dog on a leash. Then, the camera rolls.
What has come out since is that Amy has lost her job as a result of the Central park incident and the ASPCA has taken her dog. Christian has said that Amy has apologized to him. To the best of my knowledge, we have not heard Amy’s view of what transpired during this incident.
DF opined that what the lady in Central Park did was wrong, yet he could see where she was coming from. After all, this was a Black man who was approaching a White woman. She could be plausibly afraid. Statistically, DF asserted that a woman is 7 times more likely to be mugged by a Black male than a White male. Unless the woman was just crazy, evil or a racist like David Duke, there had to have been some rational basis for her reaction. Why did the lady act this way. DF reiterated that what the lady did was not right. But, DF could understand how she could act in this manner.
I am incredibly blessed to have DF in my life. He is a successful businessman, a great husband and a terrific father. He is smart, kind, charitable, funny, caring. He has been an incredible friend--having always been there for me with the voice of reason, especially in my times of trouble. One other salient attribute of DF particularly germane to the issue at hand needs to be stated. DF does not have a prejudiced bone in his body.--He is the ultimate egalitarian.
The DF discussing the Central Park incident is diametrically opposed to the DF that I know. I can’t begin to try to understand or reconcile any of this.
It was a late Friday night, if not early on a Saturday morning, a little over a 15 years ago. Having consumed a number of beverages in what was then known as Fat City (in Metairie Louisiana—a suburb of New Orleans), I was ready to wind it down. The very last establishment I patronized featured a damsel and several Mexicans. I asked the young lady if I could have a sip of her drink.—Yes, I did not (do not) have Game. She declined. The next thing I know a bunch of policemen are ushering everyone out of the bar. As I exit, I see a couple of policemen, with one having a baton in hand, hovering over a cowering Mexican man. The ranking officer—we will give him a fictitious name of Derek-- tells me to leave and points to me to walk to the right as I exit.
After walking a couple of blocks to the right, curiosity got the best of me and I also believed I was walking in the wrong direction back to my hotel room. So, I made a U-turn and walked back left—in the direction of the saloon. I did make sure to walk back on the other side of the street from where the police officers were situated. As I passed the bar, which I viewed with my peripheral vision, Derek yelled out something to the extent of “Hey you, didn’t I tell you to walk in the other direction? Come here.” The officer and 3 of his colleagues were outside the establishment.
I walked over. Here is a paraphrased version of the conversation I had with the Derek.
Jon: Officer, what do you want?
Derek: I told you to walk in the other direction.
Jon: I did, but then I realized that my hotel room was in the opposite direction.
Derek: A lady in there said you solicited her for sex. Is that true?
Jon: No sir.
Derek: Are you calling me a liar?
Jon: No sir
Derek: Then you did proposition the lady.
Jon No sir
Derek: Then you are calling me a liar?
Jon No sir. I am not calling you a liar and I did not proposition the lady.
This repeated itself another 2 or 3 times. The next thing I know I’m in handcuffs and being charged with Disturbing The Peace and Resisting Arrest.
As I’m in the backseat of the police car being transported who knows where, I thought about trying to escape from the vehicle. Who knows what this rogue cop was going to do. First trumped up charges.—Then being served up as an early morning snack to an alligator in one of Louisiana bayous? I even asked him if he was going to kill me. There was no response. After an interminable 20 minute ride, the police escorted me into their jail. This would be my makeshift hotel for the night. I was booked and was locked up about 6 hours, when I was released and a friend picked me up and drove me to my initial hotel.
The charges, ultimately, were expunged. To my present regret, I never did pursue a complaint/legal charges against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department.
As I was locked up, I remember thinking that I was fortunate I was not Black. If this is what this miscreant police officer did to a white person, imagine what would have transpired if I was a person of color. At present, I can look back and envision being Black and this hooligan putting his knee on my neck, sucking the life out of me, while his 3 accomplices watched.
This is my example of White Privilege. I got to live.
Writing this week’s column is a form of catharsis. I realize it is not sports-oriented, but to me, this subject matter transcends my usual subject matter. Sports seem less important today. Thanks for indulging me as I try to make sense of all of this.
Next week, we’ll revert back to the fun and games department—sports—for a more conventional FINE IDEAS.
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