This opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo
-Eminem ‘Lose Yourself’
Unfortunately in sports, we tend to remember the bad more then the good. Sure the thrill of victory is nice, but for most sports fan, the agony of defeat is what keeps us interested.
Everybody knows the ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs in the ’86, but how many people could tell you that Ray Knight scored the game winning run, or that Calvin Schiraldi was the losing pitcher? It’s common knowledge that Scott Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal with the clock running out in Super Bowl XXV, but I doubt that many people know that when Norwood retired, he had more career points then OJ Simpson. (And less murder convictions) And it’s sad that Sleepy Brown’s pass to James Worthy at the end of the 1982 NCAA Final is more memorable then that shot by the skinny freshmen on North Carolina.
In the past five days, I have witnessed four monumental collapses. These all occurred in different sports, on different days, and in different ways. So before I give you my rankings on who failed more, I will provide you with my five star scale of failure:
*---‘Ouch, that hurts.’
Example: Jason (Jay) Williams missing what would have been the game tying free throw versus Indiana in the 2002 Sweet Sixteen.
**---‘What were you thinking?’
Example: USC giving the ball back to Vince Young with two minutes and 24 seconds left in the Rose Bowl, knowing that there defense was so tired it wouldn’t be able to stop Vince McMahon if he left the pocket.
***---‘Your career will never be the same’
Example: Mike Tyson loses the heavyweight title by losing to Buster Douglas in Tokyo in 1991.
****---‘This will haunt you for the next twenty years’
Example: “And with the second pick in the NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers select Sam Bowie from the University of Kentucky.”
*****---‘Every fan, player, coach, trainer, front office official, ticket taker, grounds crew worker, parking attendant, and beer vendor for the team will be in some sort of psychiatric counseling for the rest of their lives.’
Example: The New York Yankees blow a 3-0 series lead against there longtime nemesis, the Boston Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series.
So where do the events of the past week rank? Here goes:
Choker: Me
Event: ‘Stump the Schwab’ tryouts
Score: *
Yes, I qualify for the list. In an attempt to earn a spot on ESPN sports-trivia show ‘Stump the Schwab’, I took a 30-question in eight minutes quiz. To advance for the next round of qualifying, I needed to score an 18. Unfortunately, the pressure got to me, and I scored a 17. It was still better then all but one of the other competitors, and I was at lest ten years younger then the other eight guys in the room. Questions I got correct included naming the only WNBA team to play games in a casino (Connecticut), knowing which leg of the triple crown is the longest (the Preakness), and listing four of the six coaches in Miami Dolphins history (Shula, Jimmy Johnson, Wanny, and Nick Saban). If only I knew the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that Jim Brown starred as the villain in.
I get only one star because this wasn’t the biggest moment of my life, it was my first time trying out for one of these things, and I was still more successful then seven of the eight other sports nerds that took the test.
Choker: Phil Mickelson
Event: U.S. Open
Score: ***
It used to be that we expected Phil to choke in majors. Up until the ’04 Masters, he was the Dan Marino, Charles Barkley and Ted Williams of the PGA, meaning he was the best player to never win a title (or in golf’s case, a major tournament). But then he won that Green Jacket, won last years PGA, and then won the Masters again this April. Suddenly he went from having an empty trophy case to becoming a real Tiger challenger. A win at the Open would have given him three consecutive major titles, making him one away from the MickelSlam. And he had everything going his way. Tiger missed the cut at a major for the first time in his pro career. The guy Phil was paired with on Sunday, Kenneth Ferrie, had never won a tournament in the United States. And most of all, nobody could make a putt. All Mickelson had to do was shoot a plus-three on his last 18 holes.
So why does Phil get three stars? Because he lost it. There was no triumphant comeback by eventual champ Geoff Ogilvy. His caddie didn’t forget to pack the putter. Phil was just dumb. 18th hole, up one stroke on a par four. Four shots away from a title. Five away from an 18-hole playoff to be played the next day. You think Ogilvy, who had never won a major, wanted to play 18 more holes against the second-best golfer in the world who was aiming to make history? Nope. But instead of playing it safe, Mickelson gets aggressive and shoots the ball into the gallery. Shot two puts him under a tree. Then he gets in a sand trap. Finally he reaches the green, but he’s so far away from the pin, he has to chip. Eventually he puts the ball in the hole, but by then its too late. Six shots. Lefty’s first double bogey of the tournament. Championship goes to Ogilvy, and the label of choker goes back to Mickelson.
Choker: Mark Cuban
Event: NBA Finals
Score: ****
I’ve been a fan of Cuban’s for a while. I read his blog way before the ‘Sports Illustrated’ articles and the sweaty Stuart Scott interviews (Why couldn’t Stu just wait for Mark to finish working out?) I think what he has done for the league is comparable to what LeBron and Wade are doing. But plain and simple, he blew it. Now I know, he never missed a jumper, never forgot to switch on a screen and roll, never blew a timeout. But he did put his team in the impossible position of not having anybody to blame but themselves.
Yeah, that last sentence looks a bit awkward. I bet you’re thinking: If they had won the games, they wouldn’t need to blame anybody. And anyways, the refs screwed em. True, they could have just won and not had to worry about the ref’s calls. But Dwayne Wade wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Wade was determined to win those games, especially in South Beach. But Cuban’s antics, and not just his recent ones, gave the series and the title to Will Smith’s favorite city. Supposedly Cubes sent tape to the commissioner’s office after every Dallas game for the past few seasons to have them judge the officials. You think that makes the Steve Javie’s and Bennett Salvatore’s of the world want to give your team breaks? Then after game three, the one wear Dallas was leading by 13 with under six minutes to play only to give it all away, Cuban goes on Letterman and all but says that the series has already been wrapped up. How does that make Avery Johnson and his squad feel?
So Cuban gets four stars because he failed at his job of owner. Instead of making his team comfortable and ready to play, he did the exact opposite. And this was Dallas’ chance. San Antonio will be back next year, looking for revenge. The Lakers will get some players around Kobe. Amare and Nash will be healthy. Cuban blew it, and this time, he can’t blame anyone but the man in the mirror.
Choker: United States soccer team
Event: World Cup
Score: *****
This is not something I wanted to do. I really didn’t want to rip this team. I hate it when people criticize something they have little or no knowledge about. But this just was too much of a blown opportunity to be excluded. The US team messed up horribly in game one versus the Czech’s. It didn’t take Pele to figure that out. They were slower, less aggressive, and showed no heart. And the result was a 3-0 loss. After that, it looked like the end for the red, white and blue. (Though there are like 14 countries in this World Cup with those same colors, so I’m sure some of them are still doing well) But then something amazing happened: The US tied Italy and the Czechs lost to Ghana. Hope had sprung. All the US had to do was beat Ghana, a good squad but widely considered to be the weakest in the group, and then pray that Italy defeated the Czech Republic. Well like Season 3 of ‘Chappelle’s Show’, only half of that got done. The Italians beat the dumplings out of the Czech team (who scored as many goals as Team Canada did after playing the US), but the American’s couldn’t come through. They fell to Ghana 2-1, ending their World Cup and probably several of their players’ careers.
OK, so the American’s lost in a sport we aren’t known for. Why is that a choke job? Two reasons: First off, because the expectations for the stars and stripes were so high. After the 2002 Cup, the one where America finished in the top eight, it looked as if we were finally making progress in the soccer world. Follow that up with some big international wins and a number five FIFA ranking, and you can see why finishing fourth in a group is bad. The second reason is because it’s not like the World Cup comes around every year, like the Super Bowl or World Series. You plan for four years for these first two weeks. So when you come out rusty and un-prepared, it shows a lack of dedication and heart. It shows that winning wasn’t too important to Team USA. And in a sports crazy country like this, we may not know what the difference between a striker and a forward is, or what it means to actually ‘Bend it like Beckham’, but we do know that if you aren’t trying to win, you aren’t worthy of our time. And unfortunately this choke job, like most failures of this proportion, won’t be felt hardest by those who actually messed up. It will be the American soccer players of the future who feel it. We tried backing you, and you let us down. Ask hockey, we may forgive you but we don’t forget.
So there you are. The best of the worst from the past weeks. Some will get over it. Some may not. But like Slim Shady says:
‘So here I go is my shot.
Feet fail me not
this may be the only opportunity that I got’
When you have your chance, don’t let it go through your legs like Buckner or wide right like Norwood. Cause if you do, people will remember you for it.
By the way, props to you if you knew the answer to the Schwarzenegger question. For those of you like me and had no clue,
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