NFL Draft Number One vs. Number Two

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It makes perfect sense for Jaguars fans to want the number one pick in the 2021 NFL draft. In need of a franchise quarterback, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence is poised to be the top pick next April and create a building block for some NFL franchise in the future. Fans will want the Jaguars to lose their final two games to Chicago and Indianapolis and ensure Lawrence would soon be in Teal and Black.

But Jaguars players and coaches don’t think that way. In fact, no players and coaches think that way.

Remember the whole “Suck for Luck” thing in 2011? It was a complete fan and media fabrication. Fans are going to be fans year in and year out, but players and coaches come and go. It’s the nature of the business side of the game. Players don’t care about the franchise in the future. They care about now.

With a forty percent turnover on every roster every year, professional football players are trying to put their best stuff out there every week to try and keep a job, right now, with one of the thirty-two teams in the league.

Coaches have their reputations to protect and despite Doug Marrone being a good guy and a good coach, it would be an upset if he, or any of his coaching staff, were back on the sidelines next year in Jacksonville.

Marrone knows this and has even addressed the “Tank for Trevor” fervor that has swept over Jaguars fans since the Jets won their first game of the season last week.

“I really don’t pay a lot attention to that because I just have too much going on. But I’m not an idiot either, I understand that there’s talk out there,” he said this week.

“I wouldn’t be able to do that. I couldn’t do it. I just wouldn’t,” he added when asked if he’s ever heard of a coach losing on purpose to get a better draft position. “I’ve never done that with anything in my life. I had trouble letting my kids win when they were little. And I’ve never heard of it, no.”

Marrone even admitted that as a Detroit Lions fan in 1979 he was rooting for them to lose at the end of the year in order to pick Billy Sims with the number one pick in 1980. (Which they did.)

“Then I started thinking to myself, (this week) there I was a kid, I never took into play what those coaches and players on that team must be feeling. I told the players today that obviously that’s a lot of talk now, obviously [with] what’s gone on. I told the players about [how] we don’t know what the future holds, but we’re in here today and our job is to go out there and win and that’s the best thing we can do for each other.”

No matter, win or lose in the last two games, the Jaguars, Jets and possibly the Bengals will have the top three picks in the draft. The Bengals already have three wins so the Jaguars and Jets would have to win their final two games and the Bengals lose their final two to mix up the draft order. But in all likelihood, Jacksonville and New York will pick one, two. Or two, one.

Some years that can be a big difference. Others, not so much.

In fact, the best player in Jaguars franchise history was a number two pick. In 1995 based on a coin flip, the Jaguars selected Tony Boselli with the second pick behind Cincinnati’s choice of running back Ki-Jana Carter.

John Elway and Erick Dickerson went one, two in the ’83 draft and both went to the Hall of Fame. In 1994, defensive tackle Dan Wilkinson was the number one pick by Cincinnati. Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk went second. Last year Joe Burrow was the top pick and Chase Young went second. Both seem on their way to solid careers.

Perhaps the most famous one, two draft reversal in NFL history was in 1998. Future Hall of Fame executive Bill Polian was in his first year as Team President and General Manager of the Indianapolis Colts and had the number one pick. Another future Hall of Fame executive, Bobby Bethard, was the General Manager in San Diego and held the second pick with the Chargers.

Both men were considered ‘gurus’ when it came to personnel and the dominant story was which quarterback, Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf would go first. Polian played it very close to the vest leading up to the draft, having his choice of players with the number one pick. The comparisons between Manning and Leaf were constant, and Polian kept most people guessing about which quarterback he would pick. He called the constant comparisons “The noise.”

It’s hard to fathom now, but at the time, Leaf was considered the better of the two with a stronger arm and as a better athlete. On draft day, Polian did in fact select the future Hall of Fame (eligible this year) quarterback Manning with the number one pick. Beathard was thrilled and didn’t hesitate taking Leaf with the second pick. Manning went on to win two Super Bowls. Leaf, through a variety of physical and mental issues, is considered the biggest flame-out in draft history.

As the first pick in the 2007 draft, JaMarcus Russell comes close to that distinction, taken by the Raiders and signed to a giant contract. Russell stayed in the league three years and won only eight games as the starter before being released. The second pick in that draft was receiver Calvin Johnson, aka Megatron, eligible for the Hall of Fame this year as well.

With the draft sometimes feeling like a roll of the dice, teams need to pick well and be lucky.

The Packers were neither in 1988 when the late Lindy Infante was in his first season as the Head Coach in Green Bay. Infante once told me the story of the last two weeks of the ’88 season as teams were racing for the bottom of the standings looking for the number one pick.

“We were terrible that year,” Infante, the former USFL Jacksonville Bulls head coach said. “I mean really bad. Although we had Don Majkowski as our quarterback, we were in line for the number one pick and we had already decided we’d take Troy Aikman.”

“We were two and twelve with two games to play, tied with Dallas for the worst record in the league. We both won the next week, and we knew we’d have the first pick if we finished the year with the same record as the Cowboys. Somehow, we went to Phoenix and beat the Cardinals in the last game of the year. Dallas lost at home to Philadelphia. They took Aikman, we took (Tony) Mandarich. The rest is history.”

Mandarich is also considered one of the top busts in NFL Draft history. He never developed at the pro level, with steroid testing often being cited as the cause for his diminished ability. Not only was he the second pick in the ’89 draft behind Aikman but Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders, all Hall of Famers were the next three picks.

While Lawrence looks to be a ‘can’t-miss’ prospect and the number one pick, who knows what the rest of next year’s quarterback draft class will produce? The number two pick looks certain to be a quarterback as well.

Is Justin Fields the same sort of prospect? Will Kyle Trask and Mac Jones be able to take their college success to the pro level? There’s a thought that BYU’s Zac Wilson already has the game to compete in the NFL as well as somebody you’ve never heard of, Trey Lance from North Dakota State. What about Kellen Mond or even Jamie Newman who opted out at Georgia this year?

With what’s happened this season it seems only one thing is certain: one of those guys will be in a Jaguars uniform next year.

Jacksonville Suns Bragan Field

AAA Upgrade

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For nearly a hundred years, Major League Baseball had an agreement with numerous minor leagues to operate as a farm system to evaluate and develop talent. The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues represented the minor leagues and franchises but when their agreement with MLB ran out on September 1st, the whole system changed.

“Jacksonville came out smelling like a rose,” former Jacksonville Suns owner and baseball historian Peter Bragan, Jr. remarked this week.

Once the reorganization started, Major League Baseball told team to do what they wanted with their farm clubs. Dominos began to fall, and Jacksonville was positioned, literally on the map, to benefit by upgrading to Triple A baseball.

Since there was no minor league baseball in 2020 and only a sixty-game major league season, MLB teams created what they called an “alternate site” where they stored thirty players who continued to train, play and be ready to be called up to the big leagues.

The Minnesota Twins put their alternate site in St. Paul, using the Independent League’s St. Paul Saints facility. It made it very convenient to bring players up from just across town. It worked so well, the Twins decided they’d put their Triple A in St. Paul and with no agreement with a minor league organization, other clubs followed suit.

Since Jacksonville has a geographic proximity to Miami, the Marlins decided it would be more convenient to have their AAA team in Jacksonville instead of Wichita.

Actually, the Wichita affiliate never played a game. After being promised a Triple A franchise (moving from New Orleans) for building a $73M ballpark, the Marlins decided Jacksonville was closer so no Wichita Wind Surge for the Marlins. Instead, the Wind Surge will be the Double A affiliate of the Twins. And for now, New Orleans has no baseball. Fresno and San Antonio also lost their Triple A franchises.

In all, Major League Baseball is eliminating forty-two teams, streamlining each of the big league’s minor league system to just four teams: Triple A, Double A, hi A and low A.

“Getting rid of forty-two teams puts over a thousand players and coaches out of work,” said former Major League catcher Rick Wilkins. “I don’t think that’s such a great thing.”

MLB has encouraged the forty-two teams to create their own independent leagues, in essence “farming out” their farm system to develop talent without paying for it. So perhaps those jobs won’t be lost.

Our Triple A franchise history started in the early ‘60’s. The Havana Sugar Kings had relocated to New Jersey from Cuba when Fidel Castro nationalized all US interests there. They were bought by a Jacksonville group headed by Sam Wolfson. He had brought baseball back to town with the Single A Jacksonville Jets and in 1962 he brought the Sugar Kings here and they became the Triple A Jacksonville Suns.

The Suns were affiliated with the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Colt .45’s before becoming the Mets affiliate from 1966-1968. They won the International League Championship in 1968. Players like Luis Tiant, Tom Seaver, Tommy John, Nolan Ryan and Tug McGraw all wore the Suns uniform.
Why did we lose Triple A then?
When the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1966, the minor league team, the “Crackers” went to Richmond. Jacksonville was left on an island without a “Southern Swing” partner and the Triple A affiliate here moved to Norfolk in 1969.
And now, fortuitously, we have AAA back, if they start playing minor league baseball in 2021.
“It’ll be great for Jacksonville, it’s great for the perception of the city and the baseball,” Bragan said. “The first few years we were here a lot of our older fans would say, ‘I wish you’d get Triple A back. It was much better baseball.’ It’s a big deal and should translate into more tickets sold and corporate sponsorship.”

And better baseball.

“Double A is considered upper-level baseball but with every step the players get incrementally better,” Wilkins explained. “They’re a lot of good baseball players in Triple A. The pitching gets deeper, the lineups are deeper and better. You have some guys who are outs at the end of the lineup in Double A but in Triple A everybody can hit.”

And more importantly Rick added:

“If you’re playing every day as an established player in Triple A, somebody gets hurt in front of you, you’re going to ‘The Show.’”

Wilkins was on the ‘fast track’ when he signed with the Cubs, playing a year in A ball, Winter Ball in Venezuela, and a year in Double A in Charlotte. He started 1991 in the Cubs ‘big league’ Spring Training camp in Mesa, Arizona. With about a week left in spring training, he was assigned to the Minor League Complex down the street and the Triple A Des Moines Cubs.

“I was a little disappointed, you never know what’s going to happen. You’re getting opportunities to open some eyes in the big-league camp. I felt so good about where I was as a player and mentally, I knew I was ready to play in the big leagues that year and needed to wait on my opportunity.”

After about six months in Des Moines, Wilkins got ‘called up’ on his 24th birthday, June 4th.

While Wilkins spent eleven years in the Majors, he also spent part of eight of those seasons in Triple A at the beginning and the end of his career and on injury rehab assignments. He knows the culture at that level.

“It’s different in Triple A in the clubhouse,” he explained. “Above 24 or 25 years old in Double A you’re wondering what those guys are doing there. In Triple A it’s very serious. There will be guys in their mid 30’s in Triple A and it’s their livelihood. They’re trying to clean something up and get back to the big leagues. There’s no projects in Triple A. It becomes more of a narrow focus.”

In Triple A there are two kinds of players: Young guys trying to break into the big leagues and veterans trying to get back there. It makes for an interesting dynamic in the clubhouse.

“Everybody kind of has an idea about what’s going on,” Wilkins remembered. “Guys are talking about ‘how’s this guy not in the big leagues right now’ because you’re right there. That old saying is true: It’s hard to get to the big leagues and it’s harder to stay there because there are a million guys vying for you spot. It’s every day.”

“It’s like the big-league club’s spare parts bin,” is how Bragan says Triple A has changed. “Your next starters, you hope, are mostly in Double A. In Triple A there are guys who are there “just in case.”

Wilkins agreed that the ‘finishing school’ aspect of Triple A seems to be gone.

“Different clubs have different plans,” he explained. “The Cubs wanted everybody to have a year at every level. The Cardinals wanted everybody out of Double A by the time you were 21-years old. Now they’re rushing a lot of guys to the big leagues and finishing their development up there.”

In the last three years of his career, Wilkins spent about 40% of his time in Triple A and occasionally got the feeling he was one of those ‘spare parts.’

He spent most of the ’99 season with the Dodgers Triple A in Albuquerque when he was 32 years old, had what he called “a pretty good year” but also a revelation.

“I didn’t get called up in September,” he said. “I thought some politics were involved. When you’re in your 30’s and you’re in Triple A you start thinking, ‘how long do I want to stay here.’”

“It’s frustrating for guys who have been established major league players who aren’t getting a chance to show what they can do. You know the front office is saying ‘We know he’s an established big-league player, he can hit and throw and call a game. But we’re going to look at this (younger) guy.”

Finishing his career with San Diego, Wilkins got two hits in his final game, including one in his last at bat of the year. Rickey Henderson got his 3000th hit that day and it was Tony Gwynn’s last appearance in the Major Leagues.

“That’s a fun memory,” he said with a laugh.

And with Triple A coming to Jacksonville?

“People will see a lot of good players come through here,” he added. “It’s serious, it’s a callup away, an injury away, they’re trying to break through.”

Rivalries

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Rivalries come in all shapes and sizes. Two of my children graduated from Florida eight years apart. My oldest says Tennessee was the Gators biggest rival while she was in Gainesville, while my son names Georgia as the team he wanted to beat the most. Neither have very good things to say about Florida State.

In their 26-year history, the Jaguars have counted the Steelers, the Colts, the Texans and most recently the Titans as rivals.

Without much recent Jaguars success against the Titans, is it still a rivalry?

When they were emerging stars early in their careers, Andy Roddick was asked about his budding rivalry with Roger Federer. Roddick and Federer were meeting in the Wimbledon final for the second straight year.

“To be a rivalry, I’ve got to win a few of these,” Roddick said to laughter among the assembled media. But he was right. Despite playing some epic matches, Federer had beaten him eight of the last nine times they had played.

In the last ten years the Titans/Jaguars “rivalry” has shifted Tennessee’s way. The two teams split the first fourteen games of the decade, but the Titans have won six of the last seven, including a 33-30 win this year in Nashville.

“You have to take into account the history,” former Jaguars and Titans linebacker Lonnie Marts said this week. “They want to shut Derrick Henry down. They want to see what Cleveland did last week to keep him in check. They’re thinking, ‘If we can win this game, that means the rivalry is still lit.’”

Most Jaguars fans don’t have to go too far back in their memory to hear then-Titans head coach Jeff Fisher refer to Jacksonville as Tennessee’s “other home stadium.” Fisher made the comment leading up to the Titans appearance in the Super Bowl after beating the Jaguars three times in the ’99 season. That run including the AFC Conference Championship game here in January of 2000.

While Fisher mellowed and distanced himself from that comment in subsequent years, his contempt for the Jaguars as a rival was real. And personal. “He thinks he invented football,” Fisher told a media friend of mine from Nashville when asked what he thought of Tom Coughlin.

Losing those three games to the Titans, in Marts’ mind, “is like it was last week,” he said.

“I didn’t cover a guy down the seam, and they scored a touchdown in the first game. I was too focused on Eddie George. The next time we played them they used some different players and beat us again. So, when we went to play them the last time, we were focused on shutting all of that stuff down. And we did that for the first half. But when it came to the third quarter, they must have wanted it more. I went to tackle Steve McNair and it’s a tackle I make a hundred out of a hundred times and he stepped out it. And to this day, I don’t know how that happened.”

Former Jaguars linebacker Paul Posluszny agrees that the Titans are still a rival for the Jaguars, even with Tennessee’s recent success.

“You play teams in your division all the time, so you get to know them so well,” he said this week. “You know how to tackle them; you know how they run so we’d be prepped on all of that. When you look at game tape, you’re covering and tackling the same guys. From the outside a rivalry has to be close. From the inside, it doesn’t matter. That’s who you want to beat no matter what else is going on.”

Players and coaches universally agree that division games almost count as two in the standings. They’re a pathway to the playoffs. Every division opponent could be considered a rival. When he was with the Colts, Peyton Manning would say “Jacksonville” with a certain disdain. The Texans would wear that silly “Battle Red” at home when the Jaguars were coming to town.

“When I was with Buffalo, we didn’t like Miami, but we really had a thing going with the Jets,” Posluszny said of the Bills’ AFC East rivals. “You might think it was the Patriots, but they just got us twice a year,” he added with a laugh.

Some rivalries look like a real “hate-fest” from the outside. Marts was a part of one of those when he was with the Chiefs.

“In Kansas City it was the Raiders. It was unspoken with the Chiefs. Raider week was when the coaches stressed to putting pressure on them. And you could set your watch by it, they were going to do something stupid, maybe a late hit and give us a chance to score.”

When the Jaguars were in the AFC Central, the Steelers were their unquestioned rival. Tom Coughlin said as much noting that the division title went through Pittsburgh. And he built the Jaguars specifically to compete with the Steelers.

That rivalry was very tense. So tense in fact that being on the field at Three Rivers Stadium after a Jaguars victory could be a dangerous place. That was obvious in November of 2000 after Fred Taylor had rushed for a record 234 yards in a 34-24 win by the Jaguars.

“Stay near me,” one veteran Jaguars defensive lineman told me as we were exiting the field toward the tunnel. “They’ll throw batteries and stuff at you from up in the stands but if I have my helmet on, they won’t try it.”

Lehigh and Lafayette have played each other more times than any other two college football teams in the country. They’ve played so many times their matchup is just called, “The Rivalry.” Georgia and Georgia Tech is known as “Clean, Old Fashioned Hate.” Oregon and Oregon State have called their game the “Civil War” since the 1920’s. Steve Spurrier thought everybody considered Florida a rival, but he took special pleasure in beating Georgia and always referred to Florida State as “FSU,” or “that school up north.” Unless he was coining the phrase “Free Shoes University.”

“I think rivalries comes from personalities,” Marts theorized, admitting he still thinks of his rivals in high school. “Every other Catholic school in our district in New Orleans was a rival. My wife went to my biggest rival in high school. We still talk about it all the time. Heck, my Mom went to my rival high school!”

Posluszny has no problem remembering his college rivalries because they run deep. “At Penn State is was Ohio State and Michigan State. But being over there on the border with Ohio, you knew those guys at Ohio State. You played those guys in high school.”

What can be the difference in a rivalry game?

“Sometimes it was just ‘Who wanted it the most?’ Marts explained.

Posluszny echoed the same thought.

“It just sometimes came down to who played harder. You’re not going to get outsmarted playing your rival.”

Jacksonville Jaguars

Everybody Wins

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Having been in the media for most of my life, and almost all of my professional life (I was a bartender before my first TV job), I’ve lost a lot of confidence in this profession. Between the election, the reporting on the pandemic, lockdowns and everything else, it’s hard to figure out who to believe.

I’ve always been kind of a news junkie, always looking for information to make up my own mind. “News” coverage seems anything but what it supposed to be. Every outlet has an opinion and an agenda and everybody these days, professional reporters and everybody else, has a platform. Social media has given voice to every person with an idea.

Which is why this Lot J situation has me confused. I’m not sure I believe anybody. Not the media, not politicians, pollsters, nor businessmen involved.

I watched as Mayor Lenny Curry, Jaguars Owner Shad Khan and his guy on the ground here, team President Mark Lamping, laid out the scheme with impressive graphics for the whole Lot J plan.

I liked everything about it. It’s vibrant, it’s supposed bring people downtown and start to revitalize that side of the river.

The problem, it seemed, as the plan was fleshed out and scrutinized, was how to pay for it? Who’s making the money and what does the city get for it? Public, private partnerships need to be easy for the public to understand with everything out in the open.

It’s a great looking plan, reminiscent of what happened in New England and other NFL towns near their stadium. A mixed-use spot with entertainment, restaurants, a hotel, apartments and parking garages.

We thought the way downtown would come back to life would start somewhere near the Main Street Bridge. Or somewhere around Hemming Park.

But if it’s Shad’s plan to work on downtown by starting at the stadium and marching west, then so be it. I’m all for hitching our wagon to Shad and seeing where he takes us.

I’m also all for Shad making money. Heck, I’m all for everybody making money. And as Times-Union columnist Mark Woods said earlier this week, having an NFL team and the accouterments that go with it is more valuable than just the dollars it may, or may not contribute to the local economy.

Keeping the Jaguars here is important on a lot of levels.

Mark also pointed out:
“And then there’s the almost comical nature of a franchise that hasn’t won a game since September getting impatient about this. In the two months since the Lot J deal was unveiled, the Jaguars have lost seven games, extending their losing streak to ten.”
It is almost comical. Winning at a 29% clip over the last eight years isn’t any way to build leverage.
What I don’t understand is why all of the cloak and dagger stuff around the whole development? While making a big show about the economic impact and how great this development would be for the city, there were some of the economics involved that, well, just didn’t seem right.

Perhaps the whole deal is on the up and up. Maybe it’s a way the city will continue to prosper and flourish at a new level, Shad will make money, and everybody will be happy. I sure hope that’s the case.

But all along, something just doesn’t feel right. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s that little voice that Magnum used to hear in his head just saying some of the pieces don’t fit. Not enough transparency as Curry made the deal, supposedly on behalf of the city, with Khan and his development group.

This past Thursday the City Council said they didn’t want to push for the Lot J deal for a quick approval. You’ve got to agree with Council President Tommy Hazouri when he said, “If it’s going to take seven to nine years to build this project, what’s another two or three weeks?”

Using a Twitter storm to get his position out, Curry started babbling on about how the city needs to get this deal done, about how we had to decide if we wanted to be an NFL town or not. How we needed a decision by the end of the year and how if we didn’t have one, it would send a clear signal to everybody involved. It all sounded like a bunch of nonsense.

On top of this Lot J deal, Lamping threw out an opening salvo about how the team needed to have stadium improvements in place before signing a lease extension past 2030. I get how negotiations go. The city’s opening position should be, ‘OK, we’ll guarantee stadium improvements when a lease extension is signed.’ After all of that posturing, we all hope, and maybe they do as well, that they’ll meet somewhere near the middle.

And it all needs to be part of a big plan. Lot J, stadium improvements and a new lease all wrapped up in one big, happy deal.

It’ll be a very complicated deal, with tax credits, big loans, long-term payoffs and everybody getting somewhere near what they want.

What never has made sense to me is how these negotiations get played out in public here in Jacksonville. Do we ever hear about the Steelers and Pittsburgh squabbling about a lease extension or stadium improvements? The Chiefs and Kansas City? Chicago and the Bears?

The NFL is a business and good business deals benefit everybody involved. If we’re going to be an NFL city, we’ll have to pony up the money to keep improving the stadium and perhaps at some point, build a new one. That’s the price for playing in that arena.

So, where’s the Jaguars part in all of this? Shad’s ill-advised comments about fans “embracing” the idea of the Jaguars playing two home games in London were met appropriately with a “What?” Luckily, all of that was put on the shelf by the pandemic.

If playing a game in London ensures the financial well-being of the franchise here, that’s fine. Two home games over there won’t cut it. If the NFL wants to see what it’s like to have one team over there for more than one game, the Jaguars can figure out how to play a home game there and stay and play a game as the visitor.

As I’ve said before, oftentimes it feels like the Jaguars are an alien entity operating in our town. When was the last time somebody in management over there went to the Westside or the Northside? That’s where a lot of their ticket-buying fans live and you can learn a lot by hanging out there, talking to people, eating in their restaurants and knowing a little bit about the culture of our city.

Jaguars lobbyist Paul Harden (who has represented me in the past) said this week it was important to Shad to have a deal struck by the end of the year. He cited the changing tax code to “deal fatigue” among the reasons Khan wants an answer.

I can all too well remember the ups and downs of the chase for an NFL team. The times when it seemed dead. The times when Wayne Weaver didn’t see the support he needed and was calling the deal off. The times when some arbitrary deadline was set, only to be moved to see a deal through.

And they got it done.

I’m hoping Harden’s suggestion, that a lot of the issues we know about could be worked out before the council meeting this Tuesday, turns out to be true.

If they all went to the Westside and sat down in Leo’s or sat down in Cotton’s on Main Street and talked to some of the locals there, they’d get a feel for what makes this town tick. Then, on Tuesday they can have an open discussion about how it’s all going to play out.

Something we all can understand.

Something where everybody wins.

Are We The Browns

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Over the past decade or so, my favorite Jaguars fan, at least once during each season will say, “We’re the Browns, aren’t we? We’re the Browns, the Browns of the South.”

I usually scoffed at the comment. “Of course we’re not,” I’d say. “The Browns are always bad.”

But as of late, I’m not sure I’m right. In fact, I am sure there are some Jaguars fans currently who wish we were the Browns.

Since 2000, the Jaguars have had four winning seasons, but only one since 2008. The Browns didn’t play in 1996, ’97 and ’98 as owner Art Modell moved the franchise to Baltimore after the 1995 season to become the Ravens. The NFL put an expansion team back in Cleveland in 1999, but the Browns continued their losing ways going back to 1990.

Fans in Cleveland have had two winning seasons since 2000 and only one playoff appearance. They also endured a 1-31 record starting in 2016, the worst in NFL history over a two-year span, including a winless season the following year.

That’s right. O-fer.

They haven’t had a winning season since 2007. They’ve finished last in the AFC North nine of the last twelve years.

At least the Jaguars have sprinkled in an 8-8 year (2010) and a division championship (2017) in that span. In the last ten years, these two teams have had one winning season. Combined.

And there are more similarities between the clubs. The Jaguars have fifty-one wins in the last ten years: The Browns forty-four, including seven this season. Under their current ownership, Cleveland has won just over 30% of their games. The Jaguars in the Shad Khan era win 29% of the time.

This year is a different story.

Mired in a nine-game losing streak, the Jaguars seem destined for a top-five draft pick. The Browns, on the other hand, are a respectable 7-3 and appear a team on the rise. They seem to have drafted well recently. Quarterback Baker Mayfield looks to be their long-term solution at that position. Myles Garrett is considered the premier player at defensive end across the league. Their receiving corps looks solid.

They’ve had famous misses in the draft as well, most notably Johnny Manziel in 2014. I keep looking at the Jaguars high draft picks since 2014 and keep seeing names like, Fournette, Ramsey, Ngakoue, Fowler, Yeldon, Robinson, Lee and Bortles, none of which are still on the roster.

The Browns have had a colorful history at head coach and at quarterback. They’ve had twelve head coaches in the last twenty years and no less than thirty-two starting quarterbacks since 2000. And we thought six, including Mike Glennon for this game, was a lot for the Jaguars in the last four years.

I happened to be the sideline radio reporter in Cleveland in 2001for the Jaguars network during the infamous game when the Jaguars had to return to the field for two plays to ensure a victory.

Things got ugly at the end of the game as the Jaguars were winning in the “Dawg Pound” end of the stadium. Officials had reviewed a Browns 4th down play in that end, calling it an incomplete pass, turning the ball over to the Jaguars and enraging the fans. They started showering things onto the field from all sections and the officials took both teams to the locker rooms. A full beer bottle whistled by my head on the sidelines, tossed from the upper deck. It didn’t take long to deduce that it was the fourth quarter, and that bottle wasn’t full of beer. After that, the NFL instituted the rule that bottles are served with the tops removed.

In the middle of his post-game press conference, Head Coach Tom Coughlin was told that the Commissioner Paul Tagliabue had ordered the game finished with two final plays. I remember players grabbing their jerseys and helmets and whatever pants they could find and scrambling to the opposite field tunnel with the officials. They, and the Browns, along the with officials, sprinted to the other end of the stadium in Cleveland, had two quarterback kneel downs and hightailed it back to the locker rooms.

And the two cities have a few connections in general as well. Both are on large bodies of water. Cleveland sits on the south shore of Lake Erie; Jacksonville has the St. Johns River flowing through it. There’s a great trivia connection between the two. If you go directly north from Jacksonville, what city do you hit before you get to Canada? The answer is Cleveland.

They two cities even somehow combined for a mistake together, although in name only. When the North Deck of the newly renovated stadium was first opened, it was sponsored by the Clevelander Hotel. Yes, I know it’s operated in South Beach, but an ill-advised connection, nonetheless.

In 1986, former Cleveland Cavaliers owner Ted Stepien moved his Continental Basketball Association team, the Jets, here from Pensacola. Stepien didn’t really tell anybody the Jets were coming here and did no marketing. He threw open the doors of the old Coliseum and expected people to show up.

They didn’t.

One local columnist listed all ninety-eight people in attendance at one game by their first and last name as a column once in these pages. Needless to say, the Jets and Stepien moved on after a few months.

Looking over the two rosters, there are some connections. Joe Schobert left the Browns for the Jaguars as a free-agent last year. Olivier Vernon was considered a prized-free-agent leaving the Dolphins in 2016. The Jaguars made a major play for him, offering him more money than anybody, but he signed with the New York Giants.

“You can’t sign a guy if he says he doesn’t want to play here,” General Manager Dave Caldwell said at the time. Vernon signed with the Browns in 2019.

Ronnie Harrison, a former third-round pick of the Jaguars, was traded to Cleveland before this season. When he remarked how glad he was to be out of Jacksonville, Twitter followers hammered him, one saying, “Dude. You were traded to Cleveland!”

Which, at least right now, doesn’t look like a bad thing.

Jaguars vs Steelers

Jaguars Path to Glory

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We’ve called the Steelers the Jaguars big rival for a long time. When the Jaguars began in the AFC Central, Head Coach Tom Coughlin molded the Jaguars in the Steelers’ image, knowing the only way to the division title was through Pittsburgh.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve seen those television commercials showing Fred Taylor, Rashean Mathis and other Jaguars of a bygone era beating up on the Steelers. Some were night games on national television. Those were fun. They were exciting. It’s hard not to yearn for those “good ole’ days.” Equally as difficult is to imagine those kinds of games for the Jaguars “under the present circumstances.”

Why?

Because they’re just not good enough.

And they know it.

When asked about beating the Steelers in Pittsburgh twice in 2017, one of those wins in the playoffs, Marrone explained how that happened.

“I think it was something that we had, a lot of good players, a lot of people that had a lot of confidence, believed in themselves, a defense that created turnovers. And then in the second game when we needed to score, we were able to score and run the football. So, it was a great moment for those players and those coaches that were there.”

In other words, “We’re not that same team. They might still be good, but we’re not.”

But give Marrone credit. He says losing “rips a part of his soul” that he never gets back. He also knows and has said often it’s a production business. The only thing that counts is winning and losing.

“I don’t want to be one of these guys that (BS’s) and tries to [explain] the philosophy and doing all that stuff; I do see improvement but it’s obviously not at the rate that we need,” he said when asked about the team getting better.

He added, “I don’t want to be that guy that comes out after you lose a game and is like, ‘Oh, we’re getting better.’ I think people don’t want to hear that (stuff), at least in my opinion.”

He’s right.

“A lot of times, the big difference with some of those things is some guy will just make a play, make a catch, break a tackle,” Doug said recently when I asked him if it was about making the difference on game changing plays.

“You see the explosive plays that we had given up, guys that are able to make a play where we can’t get a guy down, things like that,” he added. “I think it’s easier for everyone to kind of look and see you’re in position, but who’s going to be the playmaker? Is it you or is it your opponent?”

When I followed up, asking if it’s just a matter of the players stepping up and making plays, Doug thought for a second and said, “No, we have to do a better job as coaches. I’ll just stick with that.”

Marrone knows that the sum of the pieces deleted, and pieces added since that winning year in 2017 don’t add up. To be fair, no team is the same three seasons out from a championship game run based on the salary cap. But the decisions made by the teams that stay relevant year after year are different than the one’s made by Jaguars General Manager Dave Caldwell.

His moves have been well catalogued and dissected. Letting players like Marcedes Lewis and Calais Campbell slip through their fingers when they still had plenty of gas in the tank are glaring mistakes.

His drafting acumen has been rightly called into question, including missing on character issues when drafting Jalen Ramsey and Dante Fowler. Add Tom Coughlin’s decisions to take Leonard Fournette and Taven Bryant with their first-round picks in ’17 and ’18, adding pieces he thought would complete the puzzle, and the Jaguars cupboard in 2020 is not bare, but a Costco size shopping list is in order.

When Shad decided two years ago to keep Marrone and Caldwell to run his football team, I’m convinced it was Marrone that helped keep Caldwell around. Usually, the General Manager makes the decision on the coach, but I think in this case it was the other way around. My admiration for Marrone as a coach and a person is no secret. And I don’t know Caldwell well enough to have an opinion on anything else but his body of work. But I do think Khan listened to and bought into Marrone’s vision on how to run the team after Coughlin was dismissed and then asked the coach who he thought should run personnel. Marrone has plenty of loyalty and I believe he told Khan he was very comfortable working with Caldwell.

In my colleague Gene Frenette’s column in today’s Times-Union outlining the history of the Steelers and how they went from laughingstock to perennial contender, he defines how Pittsburgh has “set the bar for excellence as high as anyone.” He credits the Rooney’s “impeccable reputation” on and off the field for keeping the Steelers competitive.

“Shad Khan and the Jaguars may never get there,” he added.

I think the easy question is, “Why not?”

I’d agree that under, as Gene notes, “present-day circumstances” it would be, “hard to envision the Jaguars ever becoming the Steelers.”

And those “present day circumstances” include how Shad Khan is operating as the owner of the franchise. It’s a far cry from how the Rooney’s are fully invested in the Steelers. While admittedly, the Jaguars are one of Khan’s forty or so enterprises and the Steelers are the sole business of the Rooney’s, the two franchise couldn’t be run more differently from the top down.

On the business side and on the football side, the Steelers have figured out how to not only be a part of their community but reflect what their community is about.

There were times under Wayne Weaver’s ownership of the club that the team got close to that, but the Jaguars, too often in their history, have felt like an alien entity that happens to operate in our stadium.

Their level of philanthropy is certainly laudable, probably unmatched. But somewhere along the way there has to be a closer connection that differs from a straight line to the checkbook.

Perhaps this column would be better served at the end of the season. But whenever I’m out, if there’s conversation about the Jaguars at all, it’s whether they’ll win another game this year.

With their recent play, yes, they are playing better. But they’re still a double-digit underdog, at home, to the Steelers today. Remaining games against the Browns and Bears here seem within reach, as does the road game against the Vikings. But Indianapolis, Baltimore and Tennessee have plenty of motivation against a Jaguars squad that’s been depleted by injury and personnel moves.

One of the top three draft picks in 2021 would ensure that Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields could be wearing black and teal next year. No matter who’s making that decision next April, they should hope it’s their “Chuck Noll/Terry Bradshaw” moment of fifty years ago that started the Steelers on the path they continue to blaze.

A Walk at the Masters

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I took a few walks this week. That’s not unusual, and this particular walk is one I’ve made perhaps two hundred times before. But this was a special version of that walk. Whenever I get to Augusta National for The Masters, I take part of each day I’m there to walk the back nine. And it’s the same walk every time. I usually make this walk with a friend or colleague but this week with no patrons and limited media, I took this walk alone.

The walk starts just behind the scoreboard to the right of the first fairway. That’s where the original pressroom used to be. A Quonset hut full of the legends of sports journalism before the explosion of media, that press room had a manual scoreboard at the front. It’s where the then PGA Tour Director of Information, Tom Place rescued a lost and bewildered 25-year-old version of me in 1979. It was replaced by the first permanent Press Building in the same place. And now, the golf cart shuttle from the magnificent new Press Building drops you in that same spot.

From there, the hill walking up next to the golf shop and skirting the famous oak tree by the clubhouse is usually worn with patron pedestrian traffic. But this week it was lush and green. And I was the only person there. The first fairway was open, no ropes, just small dark green dashes on the ground, a reminder of where to, and where not to walk. The walkway was marked by a couple of stakes on the ground but only a few maintenance cart tire tracks had passed that way.

Each time I walk by the golf shop, I have the same thought, about a story Jack Nicklaus told me. Chatting during construction of The King and The Bear course at World Golf Village, we were talking about the changes at Augusta in the era before they announced what they were doing to the golf course in the off season. Jack said after one of his wins, the following year he walked out of the golf shop, headed to the first tee. As with most courses of that era, the first tee was right outside the door. Jack’s play had made the game longer as Bobby Jones said, “he plays a game I’m not familiar with.” Nicklaus held his hands out in front of him, palms facing each other and in a very animated voice said, “But it wasn’t there, it was up there,” as he gestured and looked up the hill to his left. Going by the shop, I glanced to my right, looking for any hint of a former tee, but none to be found.

At the top of the hill, I was struck by how still it was. Just some security standing around, nothing going on under the oak tree, the first tee open without any restrictions.

I waited behind the ninth green on Tuesday as Fred Couples, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott finished the front nine, checking green speed and fairway slopes during their practice round.

I’ve known Fred since his win at the ’84 Players and he gestured for me to walk with him to the tenth tee. There were maybe four of us there, including the member assigned to the tee. I stood with Joey LaCava, Fred’s long time caddie who now works for Tiger just trying to blend in. As familiar as I was with the players and the setting, the situation was so different I was trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Although they were working, it felt like a casual game among friends.

Fred mouthed “Wow,” to me as Tiger and Adam blasted three metals down the middle with a high draw, just like you’re supposed to there at ten. Fred hit driver, and the three walked to the clubhouse, leaving their shots in the fairway.

As the players walked away, the member in the green jacket asked me about the logo on my golf shirt. “I’ve played there and they let me buy a shirt,” I explained, somewhat sheepishly. . “I’m a member there,” he said. We spent the next ten minutes talking about golf in different parts of the country, a conversation that couldn’t have happened in any other year.
When Larry Mize won The Masters in 1987, he navigated around the golf course hitting fairways and greens en route to a spot in a playoff. He lead the tournament this year in driving accuracy through two rounds but a combination of lengthening the golf course and the shorter distance that comes with age, Mize, Langer and several other senior past champions oftentimes find themselves with a fairway metal or a hybrid in their hands on many of Augusta’s par four’s.

As I passed the eighteenth green on Friday, Mize had hit two solid shots but was still twenty yards short of the putting surface. I stopped as the only person nearby. I was in what normally is a high traffic area but alone, golf etiquette demanded I be still while Mize played. Trying to be very precise, chipping to a back left hole location, Mize’s shot caught the top of the bunker to the right of the green and rolled in. I didn’t dare move while Mize, obviously disappointed, still very professionally walked into the bunker and saved bogey with a beautiful, long sand wedge to two feet.

One of the things television can’t convey from Augusta National is the elevation changes on the golf course. Walking down next to the tenth and eleventh fairways, you could almost call it steep. Eleven is so directly downhill, that as a par four, it’s actually longer in yardage than the par five thirteenth. Halfway down the hill I had a bit of a wry smile, thinking I might not have been able to make this walk if the tournament was held as scheduled in April. Left hip replacement last November has been very successful but I’m still working on regaining the muscle strength in my left leg. I still struggle a bit downhill, but I’m not sure I’d have gotten even this far eight months ago.

By now on Tuesday, I was virtually alone.

I glanced to my right as a passed by the spot Bubba Watson hit that hook out of the woods to win in a playoff. A few hole monitors were just about to gather their things and finish their days work. We exchanged hellos and I stopped for a second when one asked me how I was doing. “Couldn’t be better,” I said. “I’m here.” “That’s true,” he answered, “Couldn’t be better.” I heard tee shots being hit in the distance on the fifteenth tee.

When I take this walk with somebody attending the Masters for the first time, at this point I usually take them around the back of ten and back up the little hill behind the eleventh tee. It’s a demanding tee shot out of that chute, especially since they added the trees to the right of the fairway. That’s one of my favorite spots in practice rounds or during the tournament. There aren’t many people back there, and the players walk right up and occasionally have to wait on their tee shots. Sometimes they’ll chat up the fans, it’s a little bit of a relaxed moment in an otherwise focused eighteen holes. In the era of persimmon head drivers, the echo through the tall pines of the crack of the club hitting the ball is the most unique, and satisfying golf sound I’ve ever heard.

When the TV station I worked for was the CBS affiliate, I used to scoot to the other side of the eleventh tee and take the short walk up the tree-lined, cinder roadway to the television compound. I knew most of the CBS production crew and the announcers, mainly thanks to my friendship with Pat Summerall. I’d spend time in Producer/Director Frank Chirkinian’s office listening to golf stories, mostly told by his “do everything” producer Chuck Will.

But not today.

Heading down right of the eleventh fairway on Tuesday I was very aware that I was alone. Nobody in sight. Nobody playing number eleven. Nobody on fifteen tee. Nobody on fourteen green. No players, no officials, no workers. I walked around the closed concession stand to Amen Corner, by myself, noticing there were no stands erected there, and still, nobody in sight.

During Friday and Saturday’s competition rounds, there were maybe twenty people at Amen Corner. I stood close, right behind the caddies on the 12th tee Friday as Yuxin Lin an amateur from China, in the field from Southern Cal, hit it to eight feet. In the quiet, I heard the ball hit and plug on the green.

On Tuesday, by myself, I heard a few birds were chirping. I could hear the soft whine of a water pump behind the eleventh green. The distant staccato of mowers cutting grass at Augusta Country Club behind the thirteenth tee was faint in the background. The occasional passenger and private jets executed their climb out just east of The National, only noticeable against the silence.

I thought about walking off a few times, but there, alone, I looked around in a circle, cataloguing and being grateful for some of my shared experiences in that spot. Spending time there each April with friends and co-workers in the past four decades was always fun for me, and especially gratifying to see the joy on their faces. A friend got down on one knee a few years ago and proposed to his now-wife right there. I smoked a cigar there with my Dad in 1979.

Walking up the right of the thirteenth fairway I paused to look at the green in the distance. Normally framed by a splash of azaleas, some of the deciduous trees in the background had begun to change color, adding a hint of autumn to the scene.

To the right is where my brother Gust and I waited for Fred Couples beside the fourteenth fairway before he hit his second shot in a practice round in 2015. I know Freddie pretty well, but he and my brother are actual friends. It was fun to see his face light up and come over to chat when he heard my brother’s voice.

Crossing the fourteenth fairway on an unused walkway, I stopped for a second in the middle to see the golfer’s perspective of that hole. I’ve been fortunate to play Augusta National a few times and I thought about the mix of emotions I’ve had every time I’ve teed it up there. Excitement and fear with a healthy dose of humility, knowing I can’t replicate the shots I’ve seen there by the best players in the world.

Up to the fifteenth fairway and still alone, I looked down at the amphitheater formed by the fifteenth green, the sixteenth, and the seventeenth tee.

With nobody there.

On Friday, still without a group in in sight, I crossed the seventeenth fairway and headed up the hill. I stopped in a grove of trees, remembering standing there on a Sunday looking toward the green when Sergio Garcia’s drive rolled up from my right and stopped at my feet.

Finally seeing some golfers, I stood with about ten officials, watching, Graeme McDowell, Si Woo Kim and Nate Lashley all hit it to inside five feet on number seven.

And not a sound.

“Sad,” one official said to me noting the lack of even a polite golf clap. “But at least we’re getting it in,” he said wistfully. “Maybe again in April,” I said as his eyes gave away the smile behind his mask. Only Kim made his putt.

Walking around the eighth tee and up left of the eighteenth fairway, a group of a hundred people or so were gathered around the ninth green. Easily the largest collection of people in one spot on the golf course.

“Must be Tiger,” I thought. Getting closer I heard a spontaneous golf clap coming from that group as Tiger two-putted from about forty-feet for par.

Only members and officials are allowed in the clubhouse this year, so one of my personal favorite Masters traditions will have to wait. At this point in the walk, I usually head into the clubhouse grill and walk to the end of the bar. For thirty years, “Coach” was on station there, and unfailingly would remember, “Vodka, lemonade?” when I’d ask how he’d been. When he retired, his son was there for a few years and we followed the same routine.

Lingering under the oak tree after the walk I’d renew old acquaintances each year, see some of the celebrities in attendance and generally watch the world go by.

Occasionally, I’d smoke a cigar, away from the crowd, people watching. About five years ago, a gentleman politely came and stood next to me, also a casual observer. I said hello, and he nodded, eyeing my cigar. I asked if he’d like one, (don’t ever smoke in public without an extra in your pocket) and realized quickly we had a bit of a language barrier. Looking at his badge, he was a representative of the Argentina Golf Federation and was here as a guest of the tournament. Miguel spoke no English and I only have a version of ‘restaurant Spanish’ I can muster but somehow, we figured out how to have a whole conversation, without saying much, around two cigars and golf.

The next year, I was standing in the same spot, not smoking, people watching, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Miguel was standing beside me, two cigars in hand, smiling.

Back down the hill by the golf shop, I passed a green-jacketed member coming the other way.

“How are you,” he said as he approached with a wave.

“Couldn’t’ be better,” I said. “I’m here.”

A Walk at The Masters

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I took a walk today. That’s not unusual and this particular walk is one I’ve made perhaps two hundred times before. But this was a special version of that walk. Whenever I get to Augusta National, I take part of the first day I’m there to walk the back nine. And it’s the same walk every time.

Starting just behind the scoreboard to the right of the first fairway, I walk up the hill toward the first tee and just on the outskirts of the famous oak tree that sits behind the clubhouse. The walk starts here each year because that’s where the press room used to be. A Quonset hut full of the legends of sports journalism before the explosion of media, that press room had a manual scoreboard at the front. It was replaced by the first permanent Press Building, but on the same spot. And now, the golf cart shuttle from the magnificent new Press Building drops you in that same spot.

The hill walking up next to the golf shop is usually worn with patron pedestrian traffic. But on this walk it was lush and green. And I was the only person there. The first fairway was open, no ropes, just small dark green dashes on the ground, a reminder of where to, and where not to walk. The walkway was marked by a couple of stakes on the ground but only a few maintenance cart tire tracks had passed that way.

Each time I walk by the golf shop, I have the same thought, about a story Jack Nicklaus told me. Chatting during construction of The King and The Bear course at World Golf Village, we were talking about the changes at Augusta in the era before they announced what they were doing to the golf course in the off season. Jack said after one of his wins, the following year he walked out of the golf shop, headed to the first tee. As with most courses of that era, the first tee was right outside the door. Jack’s play had made the game longer as Bobby Jones said, “he plays a game I’m not familiar with.” Nicklaus held his hands out in front of him, palms facing each other and in a very animated voice said, “But it wasn’t there, it was up there,” as he gestured and looked to his left. Going by the shop, I glanced to my right, looking for any hint of a former tee, but none to be found.

At the top of the hill, I was struck by how still it was. Just some security standing around, nothing going on under the oak tree, the first tee open without any restrictions. I walked around the back of the tee and marveled at how close it was to the practice green that sits outside the clubhouse. That used to be a huge meeting place for patrons. The lengthening of the first hole has made that just a walkway.

This walk always turns right and heads down the right side of the tenth hole. The tenth tee was open, a few players were finishing on eighteen to my right. I stopped as one of them prepared to play a shot out of the right bunker on eighteen. It occurred to me that side of the hill is usually full of fans in a ‘sitting only’ area. Stopping during a practice round on this walk usually isn’t necessary. Patrons are usually streaming to and from the back nine. But I was the only spectator there. The only person not a part of the game. So, stopping just seemed the right golf etiquette. A nearly perfect bunker shot ensued, settling about two feet from the back-pin position.

One of the things television can’t convey from Augusta National is the elevation changes on the golf course. Walking down next to the tenth fairway, you could almost call it steep. Ten is so directly downhill, that as a par four, it’s actually longer in yardage than the par five thirteenth. Halfway down the hill I had a bit of a wry smile, thinking I might not have been able to make this walk if the tournament was held as scheduled in April. Left hip replacement last November has been very successful but I’m still working on regaining the muscle strength in my left leg. I still struggle a bit downhill, but I’m not sure I’d have gotten even this far eight months ago.

By now, I was virtually alone. I glanced to my right as a passed by the spot Bubba Watson hit that hook out of the woods to win in a playoff. A few hole monitors were just about to gather their things and finish their days work. We exchanged hellos and I stopped for a second when one asked me how I was doing. “Couldn’t be better,” I said. “I’m here.” “That’s true,” he answered, “Couldn’t be better.” I heard tee shots being hit in the distance on fifteen.

A couple of carts went by me as I crested the hill to the right of ten green and just to the side of the fifteenth tee. When I take this walk with somebody attending the Masters for the first time, at this point I usually take them around the back of ten and back up the little hill behind the eleventh tee. They’ve moved that tee back in the last ten years, adding yardage to the hole. It’s a demanding tee shot out of that chute, especially since they added the trees to the right of the fairway. That’s one of my favorite spots in practice rounds or during the tournament. There aren’t many people back there, and the players walk right up and occasionally have to wait on their tee shots. Sometimes they’ll chat up the fans, it’s a little bit of a relaxed moment in an otherwise focused eighteen holes. In the era of persimmon head drivers, the echo through the tall pines of the crack of the club hitting the ball is the most unique, and satisfying golf sound I’ve ever heard.

When the TV station I worked for was the CBS affiliate, I used to scoot to the other side of the eleventh tee and take the short walk up the tree-lined cinder roadway to the television compound. I knew most of the CBS production crew and the announcers, mainly thanks to my friendship with Pat Summerall. I’d spend time in Frank Chirkinian’s office listening to golf stories, mostly told by his “do everything” producer Chuck Will.

But not today.

Heading down right of the eleventh fairway I was very aware that I was alone. Nobody in sight. Nobody playing number eleven. Nobody on fifteen tee. Nobody on fourteen green. No players, no officials, no workers. I walked around the closed concession stand to Amen Corner, by myself, noticing there were no stands erected there, and still, nobody in sight.

Earlier in the week, Dottie Pepper, part of the CBS announce crew said she walked down to Amen Corner on Monday and was struck by how quiet it was. Jim Nantz takes that same walk every Wednesday afternoon when the Par 3 tournament is going on to immerse himself in the moment before his broadcast duties begin. Standing there, I thought about what Jim had said Monday, explaining the gratitude he feels every time he takes that walk.

In that setting, I’m not sure I can exactly describe what was running through my mind. A few birds were chirping. I could hear the soft whine of a water pump behind the eleventh green. The distant staccato of mowers cutting grass at Augusta Country Club behind the thirteenth tee was faint in the background. The occasional passenger and private jet executed their climb out just east of The National, only noticeable against the silence.

I thought about walking off a few times, but there, by myself, I looked around in a circle, cataloguing some of my experiences in that spot. Up the hill is where one of the first photographers I worked with, Ramon Hernandez and I watched a lot of golf early in my career. My wife Linda and I walked all eighteen holes a few years ago and I’m pretty sure right where I was standing was her favorite spot. Just down the hill a few steps is where my colleague Tom Wills and I watched action on the twelfth green at the 1985 tournament. Rob Kearney and I always position ourselves in front of the stands, as we’re just tall enough to see over the patrons and onto the twelfth tee. Matt Robinson and I had a head-shaking, eyebrow raising chuckle standing on the twelfth tee the year we played there together. One of those, “How’d we get here?” silent laughs.

Over toward the thirteenth fairway is where my friend Todd Galley got down on one knee and proposed to his now wife Dierdre. My long-time producer, photographer, friend and confidant Matt Kingston liked this spot the best. And I smiled thinking of all the times I stood in this spot with Kevin Talley, my most-often companion at Augusta National and the Masters. I met Kevin at the Masters while he was working with Warren Peper at Channel 5 in Charleston and hired him to come to Jacksonville in 1990. As a professional television producer and photographer, we traveled the US (and the UK), working together with a close friendship, but I never saw him happier than when we were standing in that spot at Augusta National. We’d get there, he’d pull out a cigarette and say, “It’s time for a smoke.” I’d tell him every year it was sacrilegious to smoke in that spot, until I realized it was one of his traditions at The Masters. And in my first trip to The Masters in 1979, I took my Dad as my photographer (there was no such person at the station I worked for that year in Charleston) and we smoked a cigar together in that spot. Still alone, the occasional light breeze going by, I felt that sense of gratitude that comes from remembering shared experiences with people you’re close to.

Walking up the right of the thirteenth fairway I paused to look at the green in the distance. Normally framed by a splash of azaleas, some of the deciduous trees in the background had begun to change color, adding a hint of autumn to the scene.

To the right is where my brother Gust and I waited for Fred Couples beside the fourteenth fairway before he hit his second shot in a practice round. I know Freddie pretty well, but he and my brother are actual friends. It was fun to see he and his then-caddie Joey LaCava light up and come over to chat when they heard my brother’s voice.

Crossing the fourteenth fairway on an unused walkway, I paused in the middle to see the golfer’s perspective of that hole. I’ve been fortunate to play Augusta National a few times and I thought about the mix of emotions I’ve had every time I’ve teed it up there. Excitement and fear with a healthy dose of humility, knowing I can’t replicate the shots I’ve seen there by the best players in the world.

Up to the fifteenth fairway and still alone, I looked down at the amphitheater formed by the fifteenth green, the sixteenth, and the seventeenth tee. With nobody there.

Around the seventh green, the eighth tee and behind the seventeenth green, I walked over to see the tee shot on eighteen. Intimidating to say the least, it would be hard to capture in any medium how narrow the chute is on the tee shot is trying to carve it up the hill on the finishing hole. Freddie always says, “Aim down the middle with a little cut on it and hit it hard.”

Back down to the right of the eighth tee, the walk up the left of eighteen doesn’t flatten out until you get to the clubhouse. I stood by the fairway bunkers in the eighteenth fairway and didn’t recognize the trees that were beyond the bunkers, left of the fairway. Were they new? They look like they’d been there a hundred years. Hitting it over or left of the bunkers now will be no picnic for the second shot.

By now there was a soft rain falling and a few umbrellas were opening at the top of the hill. A half-dozen greenskeepers were putting the finishing touches on the ninth green in the fading light

Back around the first tee, another feature of The Masters was still intact. As I passed each security guard, they greeted me with a polite hello or gesture of recognition. I’ve always liked that. . Call it Southern Hospitality if you like, but it always seems right to me.

Only members and officials are allowed in the clubhouse this year, so one of my personal favorite Masters traditions will have to wait. At this point in the walk, I usually head into the clubhouse grill and walk to the end of the bar. For thirty years, “Coach” was on station there, and unfailingly would remember, “Vodka, lemonade?” when I’d ask how he’d been. When he retired, his son was there for a few years and we followed the same routine.

Lingering under the oak tree after the walk I’d renew old acquaintances each year, see some of the celebrities in attendance and generally watch the world go by. Occasionally, I’d smoke a cigar, away from the crowd, people watching. About five years ago a gentleman politely came and stood next to me, also a casual observer. I said hello, and he nodded, eyeing my cigar. I asked if he’d like one, (don’t ever smoke in public without an extra in your pocket) and realized quickly we had a language barrier. Looking at his badge, he was a representative of the Argentina Golf Federation and was here as a guest of the tournament. Miguel spoke no English and I only have a version of ‘restaurant Spanish’ I can muster but somehow, we figured out how to have a whole conversation, without saying much, around two cigars and golf. The next year, I was standing in the same spot, not smoking, people watching, when I had a tap on my shoulder. Miguel was standing beside me, two cigars in hand, smiling.

Only at The Masters.

Augusta National

A Different Masters

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This year’s Masters Tournament will be historic on many levels. It’ll be the first time the competition has been held in November and it’ll be contested with no patrons (fans) in attendance. The golf course will look different. The course won’t play the same. The Augusta ambience will be different. The Masters has always been the first major championship of the year. In 2020 it will be the last. Whether you’re watching on television or playing in the tournament, the 84th Masters will be different.

Generally, The Masters is scheduled to finish on the second Sunday of April. But that hasn’t always been the case. The first “Augusta Invitational” was held in late March of 1934. Four times the tournament has ended on the first Sunday of April and twice, 1979 and 1984, the third Sunday of the month hosted the final round.

For many golf fans, The Masters marks the start of spring and the beginning of the golf season. Tournament founders, Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts, also placed the tournament on the spring calendar making it easy for sports writers, headed back north from baseball’s Spring Training in Florida, to make a stop in Augusta and cover the competition.

And with Augusta National built on the grounds of a former nursery, the flowering plants and beautiful azaleas are part of the experience of the Masters Tournament in April. The golf course will have a much different look this week than it does in the spring.

“Not knowing how the golf course is going to play in November, when people ask me ‘What’s it going to be like?’ ‘I have no idea’ is my answer,” said Ponte Vedra resident, Billy Kratzert, an eight-time Masters participant and a four-time winner on the PGA Tour.

Kratzert is now doing commentary and analysis for the Golf Chanel and for CBS Sports during Masters week. He says playing the tournament in November will be an added mystery for this year’s Masters.

“I do think if the longer hitter gets there and is in form, they might have an advantage,” he said.

A two-time winner on the PGA Tour, Jacksonville’s Len Mattiace is part of the Masters lore with his runner-up finish in a playoff in 2003; Len played at Augusta once as a amateur as the member of the Walker Cup team and twice as a professional. He says the whole atmosphere of playing The Masters at Augusta National is completely different than any other tournament.

“Like twenty times greater,” Mattiace said of the electricity in the air at Augusta. “There’s a great buzz on the golf course. Those big, John Daly, Tiger Woods, type of great crowds with a really electric atmosphere. When you have those crowds following you, there’s an electricity in the air.”

“The energy the players get at Augusta, that’s one of the special things about the Masters,” Kratzert agreed. “You hear what’s going on on the rest of the golf course.”

He should know. Kratzert finished fifth at Augusta in 1978 and an opening round 68 gave Kratzert a share of the lead after Thursday in 1986. That year’s Masters was eventually won for the sixth time by Jack Nicklaus.

“Without the patrons it’ll affect some players,” Kratzert said, reflecting on the different personalities of professional golfers. “There are players who love to know what’s happening all around the golf course. We talk about the roars at Augusta National. You immediately know if you’re standing on the tenth tee that somebody hit a great shot on Amen Corner. The roars define what players were doing. Then you can look on the leaderboard and actually see it. There are a lot of players who would build off those roars from the patrons.”

Both Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have said playing without a gallery in 2020 has been not only different but sometimes difficult.

“It is very different,” Tiger explained during the FedEx Cup playoffs in August. “You just don’t know where the ball lands sometimes. You’re expecting the roars and you don’t hear anything. … Obviously the energy is not anywhere near the same.”

McIlroy agreed and took it a step further saying he’s looking to the gallery to help get into another gear.

“I want to get an intensity and some sort of fire, but I just haven’t been able to,” Rory also said in August. “And look, that’s partly to do with the atmosphere and partly to do with how I’m playing. I’m not inspiring myself, and I’m trying to get inspiration from outside sources to get something going.”

“You hit good shots and you get on nice little runs. We don’t have the same energy, the same fan energy,” Tiger added.

No doubt it should be different this week with a Green Jacket on the line.

Mattiace is currently playing on the Champions Tour and at a recent event in South Dakota, fans were allowed on the course. But he sees the different situation that golfers are facing.

“The guys have experienced this already,” he explained. “It’s so quiet, there’s no buzz. At Augusta they’ll definitely notice it on the second shots. There won’t be people scattering or talking. You won’t know if it’s on or off the green.”

“If everybody was 100% truthful, the patrons at Augusta bring that special energy to it,” Kratzert said. “Tiger, (Phil) Mickelson, a DJ (Dustin Johnson) a Rory (McIlroy), they’ve all experienced that. I’d like to see (Bryson) DeChambeau react to that. He’s been able to win a major without fans.”

Besides the atmosphere, just playing Augusta National is always a challenge. The speed of the greens, the elevations, the precision necessary to play good shots all put special demands on the players. And without patrons, the golf course will have a very different look to the competitors “inside the ropes.”

“As a player, when you don’t have the patrons back there with no definition, it’ll be different,” Kratzert said. “When I played there as an amateur in ’74 over from the University of Georgia, I couldn’t believe how challenging it was from a size standpoint.”

“When you go there to play casually, the rolling hills, it’s all out in the open,” Mattiace said of the sheer size of Augusta National. “There’s nobody around, nothing defines the buffers of the holes. When there are fans there, it’s like a big block of color that defines the hole.”

Without galleries, often times ten-deep, outlining each hole, players will have a whole different challenge. Kratzert says playing practice rounds at Augusta National is one of the fun things during the week. But it could be different this year.

“It could be more serious. The course will demand very exacting sight lines and landing spots on the green. You’ll have to identify those during the week. There will be a lot of learning. It won’t change the quality of shots that need to be hit. Just the optics for the players.”

Listening to what the players have to say about the golf course this Monday through Wednesday will be a big part of Kratzert’s preparation for his broadcast role this week. He’s especially keen to talk with guys after practice rounds.

“A lot of times on Tour players are like, ‘I have to go play a practice round.’” Kratzert say of the week-to-week grind on the PGA Tour. “I think players at Augusta National get up in the morning wanting to play practice rounds! The difference this week is ‘I want to get out there and see how it is.’”

Both Kratzert and Mattiace thought certain shots will be particularly difficult at Augusta National without the galleries defining each hole.

“That second shot on eighteen, it’s hard to define the outline of the green,” Mattiace said of the elevation change when hitting the second shot on Augusta’s finishing hole. “Same on number one. You can’t see the definition of the green, maybe the top portion of the flag. You have to hit a big drive on fourteen and without people there, you won’t see what’s going on at the right of the green. And maybe even seventeen, any type of shot that’s uphill.”

“With eighteen and all of the patrons around it you get a sense ‘this is a big green’ but in actuality, it’s not that big,” Kratzert explained. “All of the Masters winners have played there without fans. But when you’re used to having the patrons behind the green, you can pick out ‘the gentlemen in the yellow shirt’ and use it as an aiming point. It’ll be more challenging to hit your spots, no question.”

Playing in November will be unique for the players and the tournament, and it’s a bit of a mystery how it will compare to playing in April. But one thing could be the same. The weather this week in Augusta is forecast to be mild with very little, if any, rain and temperatures in the upper ‘70’s and low 80’s.

Perfect golf weather.

Jacksonville Stadium TIAA Bank Field

Sports Media Changing

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In the forty-three years I’ve been working in this business, when asked what I do, or when I’ve had to fill out a form with an “occupation,” slot on it, I’ve always said, “Reporter” or “Journalist.” Sadly, I know a lot of journalism is now tainted with partisan opinion, or has disappeared completely. But in the sports world, sports journalism, real reporting, still survives.

As with every other job, sports reporters have had to adapt to the pandemic, cobbling together stories virtually and otherwise. It’s a whole new way to work and cover a team.

Sports journalism is still about building relationships. Earning the trust of players, coaches and administrators in order to give context to your reporting.

And all of that has changed this year.

Almost all of the contact the media has this year with an NFL team is virtual, originally through Zoom calls and now through Microsoft Teams. It’s been a good work-around developed by the league.

“All of the media policies have come from the league and the NFL Players Association,” Jaguars Senior Director of Communications Dan Edwards explained. “They started formulating what they were going to do in March and came up with a plan in July. But we still get weekly updates.”

Edwards is one of the original Jaguars employees and is among the best in the business at his job across all sports. He hasn’t gotten any pushback from the local media on the “how-to” of doing their jobs. Part of that is the respect Dan commands doing his job, the other is just reality.

“We haven’t gotten any pushback from the Pro Football Writers Association or any of our local media,” Edwards explained. “They understand the circumstances. They saw Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL and what they were doing. The only way to get through this was to watch other leagues and see what worked. Give the media credit, they understand it’s a different year.”

A few years ago, after a regular press conference at the stadium with the assembled media, I was walking down the hall with the Jaguars Head Coach as he headed to the locker room. I casually asked, “What’s the matter with so-and-so?”

He looked over his shoulder, turned back to me and said, “You know he can’t play at all, right?”

“That’s what I thought,” I responded. “But what do I know.”

That quick conversation is something I could never report, having earned the trust of the Head Coach, but it helped in every story about the team, that position group and that player going forward, knowing that they knew. He couldn’t play at all.

“It’s been difficult without that locker room,” Times-Union Jaguars beat reporter John Reid explained. “You can’t establish any kind of relationship with the players, especially the rookies. Training camp was different. In the past I could rely on talking to players off the side. This is probably the most difficult of years.”

Reid has been a sportswriter for more than three decades. As the beat reporter in New Orleans for the NBA’s Hornets, he followed them to Oklahoma City for two years from 2005-2007 when Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Crescent City. Reporting from afar for the New Orleans paper over two seasons, Reid says covering the Jaguars amid the pandemic this year has been equally tough.

“We have two problems here,” he said of covering the 2020 Jaguars. “When they lose as often as they do, there’s not a lot of storylines. They’re 1-6 and we’re still trying to move the needle forward.

Reid also says nothing replaces standing and talking to players face-to-face. He pointed to the Jalen Ramsey drama last year as a case in point, saying if you weren’t in the locker room after that Texans game in Houston when all of that stuff was going on, you’d have no feel of what was happening. With visiting media not allowed to travel, we’d have all missed it this year.

“It’s like looking at what’s going on through a window,” he explained. “A lot of people don’t value off the record. But it’s valuable, you can get a sense of the consciousness of the team by just talking to guys. If there’s an issue, you can get a feel of what’s going on.”

ESPN.com Jaguars reporter Mike DiRocco couldn’t agree more.

“I miss that locker room, you can’t talk to guys,” Mike said. “It’s all done on a ‘Teams’ call. The job is about developing relationships. I haven’t even met any of the rookies.”

“You develop relationships, guys you can count on to tell you the truth,” he added. “Those small conversations you have in the locker room with guys away from the cameras and other reporters. It’s the most important information you can’t write about, but it shapes how you write your stories. That’s the gold stuff.”

I used to trade stories and laughs with Mike after the “media time” at the stadium, getting some background from another reporter I respected and perhaps some perspective I hadn’t considered. None of that is possible this season. You can’t replicate the camaraderie you develop as part of the daily media corps.

“We’d all come off the field after practice or from the locker room after games or after the media time in the locker room and get to work,” Mike lamented. “Now I just get on the Zoom call and take the dog for a walk.”

In his thirty-four years in local television and radio, Dan Hicken admitted he hasn’t seen anything like this year. Dan and I worked together early in his career and have remained friends, colleagues and competitors for what seems like forever. We agreed, hosting sports specials on television, involving the players as guests and hosts, gave us a chance to gain some insight on what’s going on.

Not this year.

“We had Chris Conely on our Monday night show last year and he was great and a great guy. You could pick his brain afterwards and he’d have great insight. This year it’s just us (Dan and Brent Martineau) so that’s so different. Brent has Josh Allen on Thursday nights but it’s a Zoom call! You can’t talk to him afterwards to get some perspective.”

Perhaps there’s no more fertile ground for information than in a post-game locker room. Win or lose, players are always willing to explain what actually happened.

“Guys seem more free at that point, after a win or a tough loss,” Reid added. “To make your story different, you have to capture the emotion of the players. Without being there you can’t build your story around those emotions.”

Building stories off the emotions of the players, especially when those emotions are still evident, is the stock and trade of a good reporter.

“Even though there’s a cooling off period (twelve minutes), after the game on Sunday’s there’s enough of the moment still lingering that you can tell, you can see and feel what’s going on,” Hicken agreed. “That raw emotion is there. That’s missing on those virtual calls after the game.”

But everybody is in the same boat. We’re all watching the TV broadcast like the fans at home. There’s no ability to see something develop away from the ball while sitting in the press box.

The visiting radio broadcast teams are also staying home. The league has helped them get the video feeds they need but the radio broadcasts are basically coming from the announcers watching the game on TV.

“Very few one on one interviews are happening and all of them are virtual,” Edwards explained. “Even the network crews doing the games on Sunday, their meetings with the coaches and the players on Thursday: They’re all done virtually.”

One thing that has changed recently is the makeup of the press corps covering the team. The crowd of newspaper and magazine writers along with TV reporters have been augmented with website and blog personnel.

“The biggest change is how coverage has gone digital,” explained Edwards, whose career included a stint with the Steelers. “Websites like The Maven and The Athletic are covering sports regularly and they’re now part of the regular coverage. Blogs who cover the team locally on a year-round basis, we credential them as well.”

As sports news consumers have transitioned to getting their information online, news outlets have had to adapt. In the last three or four years, reporters have found that a story will develop from a player’s social media post.

“Without access, sometimes that’s the only way we know anything about their actions,” Reid explained. “Four years ago, I had an editor say, ‘make sure you follow every players’ social media.’ A lot of those guys are using their social media posts rather than talking to us. Especially in the off season.”

Citing the Twitter spat between Tony Khan and Yannick Ngakoue, DiRocco say sometimes that’s where news is made, and it requires coverage.

“Like when Gardner (Minshew) documented his RV trip on social media,” “DiRocco said. “Or if somebody posts something controversial. I have to monitor all of their accounts. I have alerts on all of their tweets, so my phone is constantly going off.”

As the business changes, everybody adapts. It’ll be interesting to see if any of these ‘virtual’ situations creep into sports coverage in the future. Does the locker room become off limits to the media like it is in college?

Doubtful.

Dan Hicken and I agreed that if any league ‘gets it’ it’s the NFL. They stay in the fans consciousness by always being there with national and local coverage.

But for now, everybody’s at arm’s length.

“Everybody’s doing the best they can but it’s the situation we’re all in,” Hicken said with a laugh. “It’s a billion-dollar industry they’re trying to protect and rightly so. The last thing they need is one of us walking in there and spreading something around.”

Peter Bragan, Jr.

Bragan Adds to the Legacy

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Watching the World Series the other night I was impressed with the kind of baseball being played by both the Dodgers and the Rays. The long ball is still the biggest part of offensive tactics in this era of metrics, but baserunning, defense and pitching are on display in the 2020 version of the Fall Classic.

“I was worried a good team all season long might not get through,” former Jacksonville Suns owner and lifelong “baseball man” Peter Bragan, Jr. told me when I called him this week to see what he thought about this year’s World Series. “With the two teams in it though, the best two teams are there.”

It’s not unusual for me to pick up the phone just to talk baseball with “Pedro.” We also have dinner together once a month as part of a business group here in town, but I was surprised how candid he was about this season and its eventual playoff format.

“I originally thought it was going to be a joke, just sixty games,” he said. “That’s normally. just about a third of the way through. But in light of the coronavirus, it was wonderful to watch. Even with the canned music and the cardboard cutouts. Some friends said they weren’t going to watch. But I love the game, balls in the gap, defensive players moving. I just liked watching how good these guys are.”

After his father bought the Suns to start the 1985 season, Bragan originally came to town as the Director of Marking for the Double A club. Before getting here, Bragan took what he calls a ‘masters course” on running a minor league baseball franchise from Larry Schmittou in Nashville. Schmittou owned pieces of nearly a dozen minor league teams in his career and was named the Southern League Executive of the Year in 1978. Pedro came home asking his father all of the right questions about running the Suns and was elevated to the General Manager’s role the following season.

This year’s World Series has several Jacksonville connections, starting with Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts. Roberts bounced around in both the minors and the majors in his fifteen-year playing career, including three stops in Jacksonville.

“It was when we were with the Tigers,” Bragan recalled. “We won the championship with him here. He was kind of a fourth outfielder, what I call a good ‘scratch hitter’ with good speed.” Roberts hit .326 in the first half of the 1998 season as the leadoff hitter for the Suns, was traded to Cleveland mid-year and was in the Majors with the Indians the following April.

“Austin Barnes was a big part of that 2014 championship, playing second base and hitting second. He hit great for us,” Bragan said of Clayton Kershaw’s personal catcher. Barnes split time between playing second and catching over two seasons in Jacksonville. He’s done much of the same for the Dodgers.

One of the most dominant pitchers in the game today, Kershaw pitched here over two seasons. “He didn’t pitch that well, a little wild in his first year,” Bragan remembered. Kershaw spent some time with the Dodgers in 2008 but Bragan says his performance in Jacksonville solidified his major league status.

“He was here in July and August and dominated the Southern League,” Bragan said. “He went back up and has been in the rotation ever since.” Kershaw had a 1.91 ERA in thirteen starts in Jacksonville that year and was in the Dodgers starting rotation the following season.

When Pedro sold the Suns in 2015 (for somewhere north of $20 million) it’s the first time in 78 years there hasn’t been a Bragan in baseball. His uncle Bobby was in the game as a player, manager and executive starting in 1937.

With that history, it’s no surprise Bragan says he still misses going to the ballpark every day and admitted it took him about two years to adjust to not heading downtown.

As you might imagine, he still has some specific ideas about the current state of the game.

“We need an electronic strike zone,” he started with, pointing out his displeasure with umpires still calling balls and strikes. “These guys are better athletes. It showed up in this shorter season. Pitchers are all throwing 98-100, curveballs look unbelievable”.

“I hate the idea of the pitchers never batting again because sometimes it was fun,” he said of the National League adopting the Designated Hitter. “That was a one-year experiment in the American League, but crowds and scoring went up. And they never went back.”

Bragan has no problem with some of the other changes proposed to shorten games but doesn’t think you can “legislate” the shift out of baseball. I thought that was a funny answer having played a bunch of baseball with Pedro in Senior Leagues and Fantasy Camps in the past. A left-handed hitter, I never saw him hit a ball to left field.

“I hit some to left field,” he disagreed with a laugh. “When we played the Vikings (a great amateur team here in town from the Northside). “I’d have to wait on the fastball from their best pitcher and hit it to left.”

“It’s up to the coaches and hitter to beat the shift,” he explained. “I hate seeing that scalding ball hit right by the pitcher that’s supposed to be a single to center. You can’t legislate against that. You have to work the game around it. The hitters can handle it.”

Since getting out of the game, Bragan and his wife are building a house in St. Johns County. He’s been working on a book and has “seven or eight chapters written” and he’s playing more golf. He’s very interested in building a Jacksonville Baseball Museum and is willing to fund a big part of it but hasn’t been able to get a meeting with the current political placeholders.

“Down by the ballpark would be perfect,” he said with enthusiasm. ”I have a collection of historical things about baseball in Jacksonville. I’d finance most of it to get it done and work with the city. Hopefully that will happen sometime in the future.”

As much of a baseball legacy that Bragan has, perhaps the biggest part of his notoriety is his recitation of “Casey at the Bat” at schools and civic clubs. He encouraged kids to read and learn the famous baseball poem in schools and is reminded of his presentations almost every day.

“I did over a thousand clubs and schools over twenty years,” he said. “The other day we were moving my sister into her house and somebody there asked her about ‘Casey at the Bat.’ Said they saw me when they were in school.”

Bragan is obviously and rightfully proud of his impact with ‘Casey’ and offhandedly said, “I could fall out of bed and get that done with a one word start.”

So I said, “Oh, somewhere in this favored land, the sun is shining bright.” And without hesitation, Pedro picket it right up. “The band is playing somewhere, somewhere hearts are light. And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout. But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out.”

It was impressive, as was Bragan’s stewardship of baseball in Jacksonville.

“I love baseball,” he said.

Kyle Brady

Mastery Takes Time

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It’s not hard to understand why Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone likes this year’s team. He’s said more than once how close he feel to the 2020 Jaguars. And it’s easy to see why. They play hard, they’re fun and they’re an easy group to root for.

But watching them can drive you crazy.

They’ll play great for a couple of plays, then look like they just drew something up in the dirt on the next. Talent and consistency win in the NFL. The Jaguars have plenty of the former and not much of the latter.

Even Gardner Minshew admitted that after last week’s loss to Houston. “We were actually just talking about that in the locker room,” he said. “Trying to figure out what it is, what’s missing, because we have moments where we feel really good about it, and then moments that it just all goes to s***.” kind of, and we just got to figure out how to be more consistent.”

In his book “Outliers” Malcolm Gladwell popularized the theory that it takes 10.000 hours to “master” a particular skill. Ten-thousand hours equates to about five years of work in the professional business world. I know it took me that long doing daily sportscasts before I felt like I could compete at the highest level. In TV you go through the 1) “terrified” phase (Yikes! I’m on TV!). Then 2) “creating an on-air persona you think is appealing. It’s usually followed by 3) acting like yourself (a lot of TV people get stuck there) and finally getting to 4) actually being yourself. (which is also terrifying since you know you’re really exposing who you are every time you’re in front of the camera.)

Ten-thousand hours is a good number to use in the professional sports world as well. With the current twelve-month schedule for players in the NFL, they reach that threshold somewhere in their fourth or fifth year. That’s where having a young team sometimes hurts. Their effort is great, but they don’t have the depth of experience that leads to “mastery.” The Jaguars have fewer than a dozen players with four or more years in the league, and only eight or nine of those get significant playing time.

“You need that unconscious confidence,” former Jaguar and thirteen-year NFL veteran Kyle Brady said this week. “It’s a process, it takes time.”

Brady was a first-round pick of the Jets and his first two years with the franchise was so disjointed he didn’t have a position coach. He split time between the offensive line and the receivers.

“(Bill) Parcells changed the whole situation,” he explained of the Hall of Fame coach coming to the Jets in Brady’s third year. “He righted the ship. He liked tight ends. Mark Bavaro came in to coach me and put my mind at ease. I was pressing, griding my teeth in the huddle, they taught me professionalism. They encouraged me. They said ‘you have everything you need. Just work at it.’”

Brady was one of the first NFL players to work on getting better in a dedicated “away” setting during the offseason. Now it’s commonplace for players to travel to Arizona or Pensacola to work at a sports performance center. Brady says working on the nuance of his position lead to a mantra of what he calls “being committed to ongoing skill mastery.”

“You never come off the field thinking you had a perfect day or a perfect practice,” Brady explained. “You don’t get to the pros unless you have some skill mastery in college. But in the pros, you have a lot of polishing to do. To be committed to the mastery, that’s being a professional.”

Former Jaguars linebacker Lonnie Marts had to earn his way into the league in order to have a ten-year career. Marts signed with Kansas City as an undrafted free agent out of Tulane and carved out a starting spot through hustle and consistency.

“When they cut a guy in camp at your position you’re close to, you realize there wasn’t that much difference between you and him,” he explained. “You start working on self-mastery. You want to be better. You realize ‘I can be the guy to make the team better.’ You get more film time, more practice time. Because you’re the guy they keep, you’re privileged to be there. So, you need to make the team better. You have to be present. You have to concentrate on getting better.”

Basketball Hall of Famer Pat Riley has won at every stop in his career as a player, coach and executive. He agrees with Marts in his book “The Winner Within,” saying “Mastery demands and intense awareness of the present moment.” He adds, “Mastery is built on excellence, the gradual result of always wanted to do better.”

Following that line, Marts caught the eye of the late, legendary line coach Howard Mudd who told him he wasn’t Derrick Thomas, but he could be effective. Marty Shottenheimer was the Chiefs head coach and told Marts if he kept the effort up, they’d put him in the right position and work on his technique. From a free-agent, Marts became a starter in year four and for the rest of his career. He credits working on that “mastery” as the tipping point.

“(Defensive Back) Albert Lewis was cussing me out for not covering the flat in one game and told (Defensive Coordinator) Bill Cowher to get me out of there,” Marts recalled. “I had been working hard on covering the flat but just couldn’t get it. But I worked and worked on it and in one game I got out there and Jeff Hostetler just threw the ball right to me! After the interception, Albert was the first to tackle me out of bounds and yelled, ‘That’s what I’m talking about!”

Marts noted that working on that “mastery” and consistency kept him in the league.

“I had to learn where my faults were. Of course, a coach tells you that every Monday watching film, so it wasn’t hard,” he said with a laugh. “But I think four to five years into the league, you start to search out those vets after games who have been around for a while to tell them ‘Keep working, keep getting better. You’re doing it.”

Two things Hall of Fame Coach Vince Lombardi said apply to what consistent, winning teams have. “Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing, he said. You don’t do things right once in a while . . . you do them right all the time

He also talked about seeking perfection, knowing it was “not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

That takes some time to realize in the professional sports world. Athletic talent alone isn’t going to allow you to win at the highest level

“Obviously you need the talent to be able to go out there on the field and to be able to do it and then to prove that you can do it day in and day out,” Marrone said this week. “I think the players that are able to do that and show that consistency, they’re the ones that get the second contracts, play for a long period of time and play at a level where you can win.”

“Some guys come in the league and think they’re going to dominate. They usually get cut down quick,” Brady added. “My fourth year I played with more confidence. I could see it on film, and other players can see it as well. They know, “this guy is coming into his own.”

Marts agreed that it’s the other players that first notice your “mastery.”

“I felt like I was working hard, getting better, but then the offensive linemen on my own team started to notice,” he said. “Irv Eaton yelled at the coaches saying he wanted me off scout team, ‘Because he’s killing us over here.’”

“It comes from the ongoing commitment to skill mastery,” Brady concluded “Things you used to have to think about your first or second year start to come naturally.”

Tony Trabert

Tony Trabert – 70 Years Later…

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As sports fans we’re all getting used to the different time lines that are happening in 2020. The NBA, NHL, college and pro football have all had jumbled schedules. In golf they played the U.S. Open in September and the Masters is in November.

In tennis they cancelled Wimbledon but the French Open will conclude today, five months after it’s normal spot on the sports calendar.

I called my friend Tony Trabert to talk about what was going on at Roland Garros in Paris this week and he casually mentioned, “I won that seventy years ago.”

Whoa. “Seventy years ago,” I said to myself. “That’s a big number.”

Trabert turned 90 in August and his Hall of Fame career has been well documented: Instrumental in America’s Davis Cup success and eventually the Davis Cup Captain, Trabert won ten Grand Slam titles, back-to-back French Championships and three of the four Majors in 1955. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

But an offer and a little help from a fellow Cincinnatian in 1950 really got things started.

Already an accomplished junior player, Trabert won the Ohio state high school singles championships three straight years, He was at the University of Cincinnati when his idol, Bill Talbert called to offer him a chance to play as his doubles partner in Europe that spring and summer.

“Talbert had taken me under his wing when I was twelve,” Trabert recalled. “He saw me swinging at volleys and came out on the court to help.”

Trabert asked both the president of the University of Cincinnati and his parents about going. The school President said, “You’ll learn more in three months there than you would in three months going over books at school.”

Talbert told the national tennis governing body, then the United State Lawn Tennis Association, he was taking the fledgling star, Trabert, to Europe as his doubles partner and asked for some financial assistance.

“They said no,” Trabert recalled with a laugh. “They didn’t think I was going to be any good.”

Talbert was determined. As one of the top players in the world, he had never played in Europe and told Tony he’d figure it out. So Trabert, Talbert and his wife Nancy traveled through Europe in the spring and summer of 1950 playing in all of the big tournaments as doubles partners.

And winning everything.

They flew to Nice and played at Monte Carlo, winning in five sets in the final.

“We played Jaroslav Drobny, a lefthander from Czechoslovakia, and his partner in the final,” Trabert remembered in vivid detail.” He’d kick his serve to my forehand, and I’d never seen that before. I finally figured that out and we won in the fifth set.”

They played in Monte Carlo and won in April. They went on the road and won in Nice, in Rome at the Italian Championships,(where Talbert lost to Drobny in the singles finals) the Paris City Championships, the French, and at Queens Club in London on grass.

The only tournament they didn’t play as doubles partners was at Wimbledon.

Talbert felt that he owed it to his regular doubles partner, Gardnar Mulloy, to play at Wimbledon. Talbert had won the U.S. Championships (now the US Open) with Mulloy four times before 1950. At Wimbledon that year, Talbert and Mulloy lost in the third round. Meanwhile, Trabert and his partner, Budge Patty, the eventual singles champion, made it to the semifinals losing to the eventual champions.

After Wimbledon, they came back to the States and Trabert returned to the University of Cincinnati.

“That was a big jump start,” Trabert said. “By far the most important thing, tennis wise, to happen to me. I saw more silverware in front of me at dinner one night in Europe than we had in our whole house. I learned so much, and not just about tennis. Writing thank you notes, how to dress, all of that.”

“Each tournament gave you something for your travel and per diem,” he added. “When I finally made a little money I told Bill I wanted to repay him. He said just do something nice for another tennis player. Which was typical of Talbert.

Back to the University of Cincinnati in the fall of 1950, Trabert won the NCAA singles championship in ‘51 and played guard on the Bearcat basketball team that played in the NIT at Madison Square Garden that year. The NIT was much bigger than the NCAA’s at the time.

Trabert also beat Talbert for the first time in singles in ‘51 at the Cincinnati International Championships, now known as the Cincinnati Masters.

“I had played him four or five times before that,” Trabert said. “He was better than I was, he was ten years older than me. But he was my idol and it was hard for me to want to beat him. I have a picture of us shaking hands after the first time I beat him and he has the most beautiful smile on his face.”

Drafted by the Navy in 1951 during the Korean War, Trabert reported to Bainbridge, Maryland for boot camp that fall.

“They joked I’d be playing tennis with Admirals soon. I got orders to Norfolk next and found myself hanging off the deck of the aircraft carrier Coral Sea, chipping paint off the sides of the ship.”

Looking around for something different as a Seaman Apprentice, Trabert was offered a job as a quartermaster aboard the ship.

“I figured anything was better than what I was doing,” he explained. “I was on the bridge a lot as the ‘Captains Talker’ on air defense.” He was on the carrier for sixteen months, including a six month cruise in the Mediterranean.

The Coral Sea was deployed to “the Med” in the spring of ’52 so there was a chance Trabert could get some leave and possibly play at the French and Wimbledon once again.

“I got liberty and went to play in the French championships. I won a couple of matches but lost to Felicisimo Ampon from the Philippines in the fourth round. He got everything back.”

Another trip to play at Wimbledon the next month on liberty seemed to be in the plans but it wasn’t to be.

“The Navy department sent a message to the captain that it was OK for me to go play at Wimbledon but the captain turned me down,” he explained. “I was on the bridge and the captain said, ‘I guess you’re mad at me.’ He had already made Admiral. ‘I said, ‘No sir,’. Who was I as just a Seaman to be mad at an Admiral? ‘Nothing to do with you,’ he told me. ‘I just wanted to let them know who was in charge of this ship.’”

The next year Trabert was out of the Navy and playing at Wimbledon. The Admiral contacted him to see if he could get him tickets to the tournament.

“I wish I could but I didn’t have any juice. I couldn’t help him.”

Trabert played singles in three of the four Grand Slam tournaments that year, only missing the Australian Championships. During his stint in the Navy he missed nine of the twelve major tournaments he was eligible for, but finished 1953 with a victory at the US Championships (now the US Open) at Forest Hills. In the next two years he won four of the eight majors, was a semi-finalist in two and a quarterfinalist in another.

His 1955 season is considered one of the best ever in tennis history. After a famous, tight ,Davis Cup victory over the Australians in December of 1954, Trabert stayed to play in the Australian Open three weeks later. A loss to eventual champion Ken Rosewall in the semi-finals was one of the few losses he’d have that year.

“We went to Australia to get acclimated in November,” he recalled. “It was fifty hours of flying to get there. Five, ten hour legs. We stopped off in Hawaii for six hours or so to get gas. Vic (Seixas) and I went and played in an exhibition at the Royal Hawaiian hotel, in Honolulu, jumped in the ocean and got back on the plane.”

Trabert went on to win Wimbledon, the French and the US Championships in ’55 among his eighteen tournament victories.

He helped Rene Lacoste develop what became the ‘T2000’ racket and promote the now famous Lacoste “alligator” logo shirts. In Paris for three years to develop professional tennis in Europe, Asia and Africa, Trabert signed Rod Laver to his first professional contract in 1963. He served as president of the International Tennis Hall of Fame and had more than a three decades long career as a television commentator for CBS here in the US and Channel 9 in Australia.

While equipment has changed the game in the last seventy years, Trabert says the top players of any era could compete against each other. The difference is the depth of the draw.

“Now guys have to be ready to play in the first round,” he said. “When I was playing if you didn’t go to sleep it was hard to lose before the quarterfinals. Now you have to be ready on the first Monday. Players are taller and bigger, better servers. Players come from all over these days. It’s about as international a sport as you can get. It’s great for the game.”

Trevor Lawrence

It’s the Quarterback

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There’s always been a discussion about the most important position in sports. It usually comes down to the pitcher in baseball and the quarterback in football. If baseball was only played every four days, pitcher would be the runaway winner in that discussion. A pitcher can control a baseball game from the mound nearly singlehandedly. Individually, it’s the most dominant position in sports.

But from a team standpoint, they’re playing baseball every day. A pitcher can’t throw every day. With football games that count being played once a week, the quarterback is the most important player on the field for both teams.

History bears that out in both professional and college football.

Twenty-one of the last twenty-five Super Bowls have been won by teams with a quarterback who’s either in the Hall of Fame or appears headed there.

Just a quick look back at the College Football Playoff and the National Championship in recent years turns up names like Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Tua Tagoviaola, Jalen Hurts, and Deshaun Watson.

How do you win a football game? Have a quarterback.

Part of the discussion about championship quarterbacks always includes Trent Dilfer and the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl title in 2000. Dilfer is cited as the only non-elite quarterback, a game manager, who wears a Super Bowl ring. But that’s it. A list of one. You could throw Brad Johnson in there, but in the last twenty-five years, it’s elite quarterbacks who have gotten their team to the title.

To win at football, the quarterback is the lynchpin, often the difference between victory and defeat. That’s why you can’t pass on acquiring that “franchise” quarterback if you’re trying to build a winner at any level.

I asked Sam Huff once about the difference between the Giants and the Colts in their two NFL championship games in ’58 and ’59.

“They had (Johnny) Unitas and we didn’t. End of story,” he deadpanned.

It didn’t sit well with Brett Favre when the Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers in the first round. But it kept Green Bay competitive as Favre’s Hall of Fame career waned. Rodgers wasn’t happy this year when the Packers took Jordan Love in the first round, but Green Bay is already looking to the future.

When that quarterback is there, you can’t pass him up.

The Jaguars opponent this week, Cincinnati, is a good example of making that move. The Bengals had Andy Dalton as their starter for nine years but quickly moved onto Burrow when they had the chance.

But it’s never a lock drafting a quarterback and the Bengals are also a good example of that. They took Akili Smith with the third pick in the 1999 draft and he only played 22 games for Cincinnati. Famously, the Chargers took Ryan Leaf with the second overall pick in 1998, now commonly thought of as the biggest bust of a first round pick ever.

As the game has evolved, the quarterback position has become more important.

There have been twenty-six drafts since the Jaguars started in 1995. In those twenty-six drafts, seventeen quarterbacks were the overall first pick. In the twenty-five years before that, eight quarterbacks were the first pick. And in the twenty-five years before that just six: Terry Baker, Randy Duncan, King Hill, George Shaw, Bobby Garrett and Bill Wade. While Hill and Shaw had extended careers, none of those players are in the Hall of Fame.

Hindsight might be 20-20, but at this point it’s hard not to notice that nine teams passed on Patrick Mahomes and eleven passed on Deshaun Watson in the 2017 draft, including the Jaguars. Despite their interest in Watson, the Jaguars thought they were just one piece away. They stayed with Blake Bortles and took Leonard Fournette with the fourth pick in that draft. It paid off with a trip to the AFC Championship game that year, but then it fell apart quickly.

When Florida, Florida State, Miami and Georgia were regular contenders for the National Championship, quarterbacks were the key.

Steve Spurrier was a quarterback, Bobby Bowden was a quarterback. Both knew the importance of that position from a performance and leadership perspective. Both collected quarterbacks on their roster regardless of who was already there.

“Who’s the quarterback,” was a daily story for the Gators under Spurrier. Steve wasn’t shy recruiting quarterbacks, changing them or rotating guys between snaps. He took Danny Wuerffel out of the Georgia game in ’93 in favor of Terry Dean. Dean, Eric Kresser, Doug Johnson, Noah Brindise, Jesse Palmer and Rex Grossman all made news as quarterbacks under Spurrier. Getting Chris Leak out of North Carolina changed the entire recruiting dynamic at Florida and led them to two National Championships. Tim Tebow won the Heisman wearing the Orange and Blue. Jacoby Brissett, Jeff Driskel, Will Grier and Cam Newton were on the Gators’ roster before a career in the NFL.

Charlie Ward, Chris Weinke and Jameis Winston all won the Heisman Trophy at FSU. Casey Weldon, Peter Tom Willis, Danny Kanell and Christian Ponder all kept the Seminoles competitive. E.J. Manuel was a first round pick out of Tallahassee.

It’s an eye opener to see Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar and Vinny Testaverde on the same Miami roster in 1982. Mark Richt was also a quarterback on that team, The Hurricanes continued their success with Ken Dorsey, Heisman winner Gino Toretta and Steve Walsh.

At Georgia in the last thirty years Eric Zeier, Quincy Carter, D.J. Shockley, Matt Stafford, Jacob Eason and Jake Fromm all brought success to the Bulldogs.

When did those programs begin to falter? When the quarterback came into question. This might be a weird year in college football but it’s still the quarterback who will make the difference.

Kyle Trask presents as many questions as answers for the Gators. Georgia’s uncertainty at quarterback has called their whole season into question. James Blackman has never been able to establish himself in Tallahassee. Miami’s search for a quarterback at “Quarterback U” has landed on D’Eriq King to lead them out of the college football wilderness.

This year’s contenders for the National Championship revolve around quarterbacks. Trevor Lawrence leads Clemson as the overwhelming favorite to win the title. Alabama’s hopes are pinned on Bolles graduate Mack Jones. Justin Fields makes Ohio State dangerous once they start playing later this month. And even Texas is back in the picture because of Sam Ehlinger.

So learn the lesson. No matter who you have, if the quarterback is there, take him.

Mark Brunell

Can The 2020 Jaguars Repeat ’96

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There are three teams that stand out in Jaguars history as the best in the team’s 26 seasons. All three went to the AFC Championship game, in 1996, in 1999 and in 2017.

And all three lost.

The ’99 team is one of the best I’ve seen assembled and clearly the best in Jaguars history. They were 14-2 in the regular season and probably the best team in the league that year. The 2017 team had a lot of good ingredients and talent as they battled all the way into the fourth quarter in New England only to be beaten by Tom Brady and a quick whistle.

That ’96 team is the one that’s an anomaly in the group. They weren’t overly talented, didn’t have a lot of veterans and came into the year with low expectations.

Very similar to the 2020 Jaguars. Young, with low expectations and maybe most importantly, no drama.

After Thursday’s loss to Miami, this year’s team is tracking much like that ’96 team. Both opened with wins and fell to 1-2. In ’96, they were 2-4, 3-6 and 4-7 before getting their act together.

Ninety-six was the second year of the franchise after going 4-12 in their inaugural season. They added some pieces to that team, Clyde Simmons, John Jurkovic and Keenan McCardell but the bulk of the team was made up of young players trying to establish themselves in the league.

This year’s squad doesn’t have a single player over thirty. The ’96 team had just four: Clyde Simmons and Dave Widell as starters, Paul Frase, a defensive lineman and Bryan Barker as the punter.

“We didn’t have any prima-donnas on that team, nobody we deferred to,” Kevin Hardy, the Jaguars first round pick that year said this week. “We had one, Andre Rison, and Tom (Coughlin) got rid of him.”

Hardy played all 16 regular season games that year for the Jaguars and through the playoffs. He remembers the team just going out and playing football.

“We were just young guys right out of college just out there playing football as hard as we could. We were 4-7 before we went on that run,” he recalled. “But we were in every game before that. We didn’t get blown out at all. The New Orleans game and the loss to the Rams, we could have easily won both of those games.”

Amazing how vivid his memory was of that season, 25 years ago And accurate.

Four games into the ’96 season Tom McManus took over at middle linebacker and started there the rest of the year. He finished the year third on the team in tackles. His memory of what happened that year is just as clear.

“Willie Jackson scored at the end of the New England game but they didn’t give it to us,” he recalled. “ We had New Orleans and the Rams beat but didn’t finish it. I knocked a ball down against the Saints that I should have picked. If I pick it off, that game’s over. But once we beat Seattle on Sunday night here to go 8-7 we were like, ‘Hey, this is real. It’s happening. We thought ‘We can beat anybody.’”

Only three games into the season, despite the disappointment against Miami, this year’s Jaguars squad has that same gritty feel the ’96 team displayed.

A couple of times in the past two weeks Head Coach Doug Marrone has said he feels really “close to this team.” I asked him to explain a little of that before Thursday’s game against Miami. He broke it down to good communication between the players and with the coaches and a common goal.

“The vision that you have for what you want to look like as a team, that I share with the players and we talk about quite a bit, is a shared vision,” he explained. “I think when you have that with no little groups on one side or a couple groups here and people trying to tear it down or question it, I really feel good about it.”

While you all can be on the same page and blend well, you still have to have talent and that talent still has to produce. This year’s Jaguars have shown some of that early in the season. The ’96 Jaguars also depended on some young players to get things done.

“That was my rookie year and I was just trying to come in and help the team,” Hardy. “There were guys like me, (Aaron) Beasley and (Tony) Brackens who were getting a lot of playing time as rookies and we were expected to contribute.”

“Everybody knows you need talent but it’s talent with the right personality,” McManus added.
“We had that in ‘96. We fit together. We were a tough team, mentally physically and emotionally.”

McManus likens this year’s Jaguars squad to that one from ’96 in a lot of ways. He particularly likes how they’ve ‘cleaned up’ the roster.

“We didn’t have any distractions (in ’96). These guys in 2020 been through a lot of upheaval with this team. They have a lot to prove. For years it was about ‘pay me money and showing up in Brinks trucks.”

Credit Marrone with creating an environment where the players feel free to play their best. There are consequences for making mistakes, but you can’t play worried if you’re going to make a mistake or not.

“I learned early on that you had to really work as a head coach to either create or break down those barriers so that you can communicate,” Marrone emphasized. “Communication’s obviously a two-way street so a lot of times you try to have conversations and you try to learn about people and it really has nothing to do with football. [It’s] just to get to know people and get a feel for them.

“This team is young and hungry,” McManus added. “A collective group like that can be dangerous. They have a lot of young guys they’re counting on. We had a lot of young guys who were contributing in ‘96. Draft picks that could play right away. Guys like Robert Massey and Travis Davis who nobody knows but they were a part of the success.”

“We didn’t have anything to lose,” he said. “We were 4-12 the year before. Same as these guys. Nobody expects them to do anything.”

Not every team is like that and not every team can be like that. Money, contracts, a lot of things can get in the way. In the professional game.

“Team success breeds individual success,” Hardy said of how things can start to fall apart. “Guys start looking around, thinking about getting paid. It just throws the team off a little bit.”

Not hard to think that happened to the Jaguars in 2000 and again in 2018. Marrone is committed to that not happening again.

“Everyone has a really good vision on how we practice, how we play, how we approach things and that’s what we’re talking about ,” he concluded. “I feel like we have a shared vision which I think creates the closeness.”

One thing they shared after the loss to Monday night: “We have to play better.”

“There seems to be, on all of us, that we just have to do a better job early on,” Marrone said. “This has been going on now for a couple weeks, as the game goes on, you can see where now all of a sudden, it’s starting to play the way we want them to play from the beginning. We just have to be able to get them off to that start.”

Gardner Minshew

Minshew Likes to Play

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Gardner Minshew likes to play football. And he wants to win.

I know those statements sound like a call from “Captain Obvious” but have you always thought that about the Jaguars quarterback?

It’s easy to pick on Blane Gabbert and his time here but consider this: Did you think Gabbert acted as if he liked playing football while he was here? In fact, Minshew is almost the anti-Gabbert. Blaine was 21 years old when he was drafted out of Missouri in the first round by the Jaguars. He had played 31 games in college. Minshew was two weeks short of his 23rd birthday when the Jaguars drafted him in the 6th round out of Washington State. He played 42 games at three different schools in his college career. Gabbert was one of the greatest practice players anybody has ever seen. He couldn’t replicate that on Sunday’. Minshew takes that practice acumen to another level on game day.

And Minshew’s teammates love him. That Gardner Minshew you see in interviews and commercials is the same guy his teammates know on the field, in the locker room and when it’s game time.

“We’re looking at the same Gardner Minshew, that’s what I see. I see a superstar,” Josh Allen, who’s emerging as a leader on this young Jaguars team said. “I think, in my eyes,. I think he’s a great quarterback. He has the whole team, the whole organization behind him. And I feel like that’s all you really need as a football player.”

And Allen wasn’t finished. He recognized that intangible thing that the “it” players have, regardless of position.

“He has the look, he has the swag, he has the arm and he has the plays to make—to be who I consider a great quarterback in the NFL. That’s my guy.”

We don’t know what the Jaguars will do this year. A win in their opening game against the Colts as a 7 ½ point underdog was a surprise to everybody outside the Jaguars locker room. Most wrap-ups of the game blamed Phillip Rivers and the Colts instead of giving the Jaguars credit. Which is typical as we know.

“There’s time to have some fun. He’s a fun guy to hang around with, he’s a funny guy, entertaining,” Jaguars Offensive Coordinator Jay Gruden said this week about working with Minshew. “But for the most part, when it’s business, it’s business and he takes good notes, he studies the game, he spits out the plays in the huddle, which quarterbacks have to do It’s exciting to work with him because guys that are aware of how necessary it is to prepare and the guys that do prepare, it’s fun to watch them and develop.”

Minshew has deflected a lot of the praise he’s gotten this year and last when it comes to “Minshew Mania,” just what a quarterback should do. And he projects his feelings on to his team.

“I think one of the things that served us well today was that we all have so much belief in each other,” he said after the game last Sunday. “Whether it is me in them or them in me, when you have that, you can trust people to do their jobs.”

Knowing the Jaguars are the youngest team in the league, he reflected back on last year when he was thrust into the lineup and figured out how to play in the NFL.

“Until you actually do it, there’s a part of it you have to prove it to yourself,” he said. “You always say ‘I know I can play in this league’, but until you do it…you know, I know this time last year that was the time when I was really like ‘I really can do it’.

Didn’t it make you laugh when at the Super Bowl last year Minshew said on radio row, “It’s been great, I think I kinda found my people in Jacksonville you know, just the right amount of white-trashiness for me,” he said. “So we’re having a great time down there and lovin’ it.”

Clearly he’s not taking himself too seriously and neither do we.

Just this week NFL analyst Nate Burleson said, “I want to be in the huddle with this guy. Heck, I want to be in a street fight with this guy.”

For all of the moves the Jaguars have made I don’t like, they seem to have put together a receiving corps that takes a backseat to no one. D.J. Chark can take the top off of any defense. Collin Johnson is the real athlete they’ve missed in that group since Allen Robinson left. Laviska Shenault literally could become the next Larry Fitzgerald. Keelan Cole has a chemistry with Minshew you can’t just make happen. He had five catches and a touchdown against the Colts. Chris Conley provides leadership. And Dede Westbrook hasn’t even seen the field yet because of injury. They’re all growing up together with Minshew as their quarterback.

“They got that swag about them,” Gardner said of the young players on the Jaguars. “Our guys have that same confidence where they know that they belong here, and not only do they belong but they can be really good players for us.”

Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone admits he didn’t know much about Minshew when the Jaguars drafted him except that “he played for 14 colleges” he joked this week.

“He had to learn different playbooks, so I knew he could do that,” Marrone said. “I knew he could handle that. He’s got a taste of it and I know he wants a bigger bite of it now.”

And for all of the preseason talk about “tanking” for Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence in next year’s draft and now the revival of “Minshew Mania,” where does the Jaguars quarterback fall in all of this?

“I don’t care what you all talk about.,” he told the media this week. “We’re going to do what we do. Try to win one game a week. That’s all we can do. We’re very excited about this start.”

Marrone & Caldwell

At Least A Year Away

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A few years ago I was sitting in the Jaguars locker room during training camp next to a veteran player just after a very tough practice. He took his shoulder pads off and let out a long breath.

“We could be in trouble,” he said quietly.

“Why’s that? I said.

As he looked around the room he said, “It’s a team thing. Some of the rookies just don’t get it.”

Knowing just what he meant I still asked “What’s up?”

“Ramsey’s out on his own. He says he’s not doing rookie stuff,” he explained. “Yan is a hothead and we can’t get through to him. Yet. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“So just tape Ramsey to a goal post for a while.,” I said, referring to a time honored tradition dealing with rookies. “He’ll come around.”

“Nooo,” he said. “’Cause as soon as he got loose he’d go directly to Caldwell and then he’d file a complaint with the Players Association.”

“Really?” I quired.

“Oh yeah, he won’t even carry shoulder pads and stuff,” he said.”

“And what about Yannick?” I asked.

“Oh, he’ll come around. We’ll beat the hell out of him every day. He’ll be OK.”

Anybody around the team at the time knew something was rotten in Denmark.

Talking to Jalen Ramsey in the locker room always left reporters shaking their heads. He was clearly more interested in his “brand” than anything else. Playing football, something he’s very good at, was a means to an end. His recent contract extension puts him in the perfect place for him over the next few years. He’s a phony who happens to be a great athlete. I was amazed he could find his way to his car after practice.

Ramsey, from that 2016 draft, along with Ngakoue and prized free agent Calais Campbell were important parts of the 2017 team that was within eight minutes of going to the Super Bowl.

While most teams would build on that success, for some reason, that team had been dismantled. Four players from that year’s starting twenty-two remain. And three of them are offensive lineman. Only Abry Jones remains from the second best defense in the league just two years ago. That team had five Pro Bowlers and two All-Pros on it.

And it’s not as if most of those guys couldn’t play any longer. Paul Posluszny retired, Barry Church’s career was over and Telvin Smith went off the deep end. Everybody else on defense is still in the league. Ramsey from the first round and Ngakoue from the third were unhappy and are gone. Calais Campbell has been traded to Baltimore.

How did this happen? It happened on purpose.

Like or don’t like what General Manager Dave Caldwell has done to this team, but know that he’s a true believer in what he’s doing.

“Shad gave us a directive to put the best team out there and we feel like we did that with the players that we have,” Caldwell said when the roster was cut to fifty three players. “I love this team. I love the energy this team brings. I love some of the veteran leadership we brought in with Joe Schobert and Tyler Eifert.”

I understand the salary cap. But I don’t understand the philosophy. They had great veteran leadership and they let it slip away.

Campbell, Posluszny and Marcedes Lewis were the unquestioned leaders on that 2017 team. They set the tone, they were the veterans who helped create the culture for the success that year.

Under Caldwell, and even before, the Jaguars have a penchant for moving players off the roster who end up elsewhere, when they can still play. Fred Taylor, Mark Brunell and Tony Boselli, all members of the Pride of the Jaguars, ended their careers elsewhere.

Yes, they all were on the downside of their career, Boselli’s was cut short by injury, but name the players who have ended their career with the Jaguars as a simple retirement? Jimmy Smith’s retirement was anything but simple.

Paul Posluszny is one. And he was, and is, sorely missed.

After that run in 2017, Poz retired and Marcedes Lewis was allowed to become a free agent. Lewis is still playing, starting his third year with the Packers.

When Poz and Marcedes left, the culture changed overnight. You could feel it. Campbell tried to hold it together alone. The same thing happened when Jack Del Rio became the Jaguars head coach. From a lot of guys working together as a team, individual stats and performance, and most importantly their “brand” became the focus. There’s a reason Leonard Fournette’s locker was next to Campbell’s.

Keeping Lewis should have been a priority. Was he still the player he was when he came out of UCLA as the Jaguars first round pick? Of course not. Did he still have tremendous value? Absolutely. And the Packers, a perennial contender, are reaping the benefits.

And when it came to Poz, keeping him in the organization should have been job one. If he was done as a player, keeping him as the assistant to the assistant whatever, at whatever salary, could have helped save the culture.

Somewhere in the Jaguars organizational psyche, even back to players like Rashean Mathis, Daryl Smith and Montel Owens, the thought seems to be only about a player’s cost and on-field production. Not much credit is given to what they bring to the locker room, teaching, creating the culture and leading.

These are the kinds of discussions you would hope are happening inside the Jaguars offices. But it seems too often, they are not.

Go back to the beginning of the franchise and look at the pieces added in different years trying to be competitive. Clyde Simmons and John Jurkovic were a presence on the defensive line and in the locker room when they were added right before the 1996 season. That team was very young as well with only four players and two starters, Simmons and center Dave Widell over thirty.

It sure doesn’t seem like the Jaguars have been in the market for those one or two pieces that would keep that “sustainable success” model they keep talking about for the last twenty years.

Were the Jaguars in the hunt for Jadveon Clowney before he signed with Tennessee? When Oakland had their fire sale on Amari Cooper and Khalid Mack, were the Jaguars suitors?

With that as background, here we are on the opening weekend of 2020. The Jaguars are the youngest team in the league. They don’t have a player over thirty. They have sixteen rookies among the 53 man roster. There’s not a Simmons or Jurko in sight.

Their quarterback produced some magic in his first go ‘round in the league. Now that defensive coordinators have seen what he’s good at, they’ll take that away. And he’ll have to figure something else out. The really good ones always do. They’re universally considered the least talented team in the NFL. Nobody’s picked them to win more than four games.

As the architect of the team, you’d expect Caldwell to strike an optimistic tone. And he does have a point when he says nobody actually knows whether the Jaguars are any good or not. They’ll find out quickly today against Indianapolis and next Sunday at Tennessee. Both teams are considered contenders this year.

“We feel like these guys, the guys in this locker room, nobody has seen them play together.” Caldwell said when asked about the team trying to “tank” this year to acquire the 2021 top pick in the draft.

“Don’t count this team out yet and I think they’ll tell you the same thing,” he added. “We can’t afford a rebuilding year and that’s not our mindset. Our mindset is to put the best team out there to play, to compete, and to win. Nobody has seen them play a game so, like I said, we’re going to know where we measure up.”

I don’t dislike Caldwell at all and in fact, I like Doug Marrone, both as a person and as a coach. I’d really like to see him succeed.

“I really think that this team can be special, I really do,” Marrone said this week. “And that’s what I feel, that’s what we put together. I don’t have the opportunity to go through a rebuild, right. I mean, we all know that, so that’s being realistic. We’ve got to go out there and win games and I’m confident that this football team will be able to do that.”

When it comes to pure, raw talent, the Jaguars have that.

And it could pay off in the future.

It just doesn’t seem they’re ready to do that this year. Players who were on the roster just two years ago who allowed the team to occasionally play “above the x’s and o’s” aren’t there any longer. The leaders they do have are still proving themselves.

I hope they prove me wrong.

Virtually A “Fan”

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This week’s column had been on the books for months. I had penciled “Kentucky Derby” into the calendar for this Sunday since yesterday I was supposed to be in Louisville. Excited about writing about the Derby, it would have also been the first live sporting event I’ve attended since Thursday of this year’s Players.

“Everything I’ve been looking forward to, the Derby, The Masters, everything’s been cancelled,” lamented my friend “Wooly”. The last time I was in Las Vegas with Wooly, his nephew, “Big Handle” had invited us to sit in his box at the finish line at Churchill Downs for the rescheduled Kentucky Oaks and The Derby. Just a few weeks ago they called that off. Both Wooly and I were disappointed, but we had talked about just getting together for a weekend watching sports, including the Derby, somewhere here in town.

But we agreed, watching sports on TV right now is weird.

“Those virtual fans and those cutouts, they don’t do anything for me,” Wooly explained. “I do like the different camera angles, like the one running the length of the court. I like the sound of the ball and the squeak of the sneakers. But I’m a different audience.”

He was right about the appeal of the actual competition. That might be the attraction for him, but for a lot fans of when they go to an arena, the game is secondary. Going to a game is now an entertainment experience instead of a competitive experience. Right now, the different leagues are trying to make the games kind of “look” normal because they are anything but.

The NBA has collaborated with Microsoft to create virtual fans in the stands at the Disney arena in Orlando. They’ve installed 17-foot video boards behind the benches.

Numerous Major League Baseball teams have put “cut-outs” in the stands. But most of that is a side-show, not close to the real thing.

“I want to see the Kiss-Cam and the Dance-Cam and the Weiner races,” my friend ‘Ghost of Chuck’ told me this week. “Baseball is tough to watch without the instant fan reaction. Basketball doesn’t seem to have any enthusiasm. And in hockey you don’t see the fans anyway.”

Among the MLB teams using cutouts, the Atlanta Braves are selling them to fans for $50, and they’re sold out. Watching a game the other night, the Ghost thought he saw a friend behind home plate.

“I was looking from the center field camera and recognized my friend ‘Thurman,’ Ghost said with a laugh. “So I called him and sure enough, he had bought one behind home plate.”

A member of the “A-List” as a Braves season ticket holder, Thurman was offered a cut out when the season started for $25.

“I have friends call me from all over the country,” he explained. “Luckily I’m not right behind home plate or my phone would never stop ringing”.

Placement of the cutouts was a totally random by the Braves PR staff. Thurman ended up behind the on-deck circle. So he gets plenty of ‘face time.”

“It was just a goof,” he said with a laugh. “I thought it would be the funniest thing. Kind of a once in a lifetime thing.”

Buying the cutout was a total lark for Thurman. While he got a kick out of getting his cut out at a Braves game, some of my friends were less enthusiastic.

“Not at all,” the “BQ” said flatly when I asked if he’d be interested in being a virtual fan at a game. “I guess there are people who will be a part of history. You know, ’I was at a game when you couldn’t go to a game.’ That kind of stuff.”

“Those people are reflective of our society,” was Wooly’s take. “You can pay for your 20 seconds of fame. The only people looking at the cutouts are the people who bought them. Although when I saw Dwayne Wade as a virtual fan at the Heat game, I thought that was funny.”

I don’t know, I thought the whole thing was funny.

Several NBA teams have enlisted some of their former players as virtual fans. Bill Walton, Paul Pierce, Dirk Nowitzki and Steph Curry have all appeared in the “stands.” Shaquille O’Neal spent an entire day as a virtual fan watching every game.

MLB teams are doing the same, and taking it a step further. The Dodgers have former “Entertainment Tonight” host Mary Hart in her regular spot behind home plate, The guy in the panama-hat, Dodgers scout Mike Brito, is there as well, holding a radar gun. Celebrity spotting is still a sport at Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers have placed plenty of Hollywood types in the “crowd.” Most asked for their traditional seat. So far the Dodgers have sold 8500 cutouts raising $1.5M for local charities.

The Twins have gone with the “Big Head” approach instead of cutouts. It’s their 60th anniversary so to celebrate, for one game they had 80 former players “at” the stadium.

The A’s have had some fun trying to give the Oakland Coliseum a “home park’ feel. They have cutout sections for pets, visiting fans, their mascot, the mule “Charlie O” and even Tom Hanks dressed in his old uniform selling hot dogs with his voice blaring over a loudspeaker. That’s the first job Hanks had in the ‘70’s.

The guy from “Weekend at Bernie’s” has made an appearance and some clubs have followed Seattle’s lead trying to keep fans engaged. If a foul ball hits your cutout, a staff member verifies it actually hit you, retrieves the ball and sends it to you.

Cut outs run from $35 in Philadelphia to $299 at Dodger stadium. Most of the money goes to charity.

“It’s like watching a sitcom,” BQ added when asked about flipping on a game. “Canned Laughter, the whole thing. I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm about sports right now. I’m following along but there’s a lot that’s distracting from the game right now.”

That seemed to be the consensus among my friends, but they all also agreed that golf might be the big winner.

“The way the courses are presented, in their normal state, that’s really nice,” “Pliers” told me last week. “Getting to see them without fans, without ropes or hospitality tents really shows them off.”

When you see the Stadium Course on television for The Players, it looks completely different than it does the other fifty-one weeks of the year. And it plays differently as well.

“I’ve loved golf without fans,” Ghost agreed. “You get to see more of the course. Even from the green to the next tee. Plus when they miss a fairway, the ball runs out. It doesn’t hit anybody.”

Maybe the virtual fans in the stands aren’t there for our viewing pleasure at all.

“I figured they put them there for the players,” ‘Jaguar Fan’ told me. “But they’re grown men, paid professionals. Fans or no fans, it shouldn’t matter.”

Give teams credit, trying to keep fans as part of the game. And they’ve made it fun for some.

“I’ll have this goofy cutout from this terrible pandemic year forever,” Thurman said. “Maybe I’ll get some players to sign it someday.”

John Carlos and Tommie Smith

The Athlete’s Voice

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It was 1968 when I first was made aware of racial inequities in America. I was twelve years old. Growing up in Baltimore in an integrated environment, I had Black friends and Black teammates. I didn’t know they were different. I didn’t know anything about anything. I was twelve.

In my short lifetime I was aware that President John Kennedy had been assassinated. I knew Malcom X had been shot. And Dr. Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. They were political figures I didn’t know anything about except their names. That seemed to be just what happened.

My life was full of baseball fantasies, the Orioles and the Colts, school, my afternoon paper route and curb ball with my friends. When the Orioles had acquired Frank Robinson two years earlier from Cincinnati, I asked my Dad if he was Brooks’ brother. I verified that with my Dad this week because then, I was just a kid.

In October of ’68, my level of awareness took a giant leap forward. Tommie Smith and John Carlos had won the Gold and the Bronze in the 200 at the Olympics in Mexico. When they stood on the podium with no shoes and gloved-fists raised, I wanted to know what that was about. Smith and Carlos were two of my heroes. Both tall and fast, I wanted to be like them. They were sports icons to me and they had something to say. When they raised their fists in what Smith describes as “a cry for freedom,” my twelve-year-old mind weas jolted out of youthful innocence and into my first awareness of the real world. It essentially ended both of their athletic careers.

Do athletes have a voice? The answer is yes. Do you always have to agree with them? Of course not.

Perhaps 2020 is this generation’s version of 1968. An election year, protests in the streets and a spotlight on racial tensions.

When the Milwaukee Bucks decided to not play their scheduled playoff game in protest of a Black man being shot by a police officer in an altercation, it was a bold step taken by professional athletes not unlike Smith and Carlos’ action fifty-two years ago. Other teams and leagues followed suit, not just calling attention to the shooting but demanding change, now.

What kind of change? When the Jaguars postponed their practice for two hours on Thursday, they spent the time talking about “actionable” change that can happen right now.

Wide receiver Chris Conley has become a vocal leader for the Jaguars players efforts toward social justice. He described it this way:

“The thing that I really want people to get to a point of realizing that this is about life.’ This is about a life. And who are you to put a value on a life? Who am I to put a value on a life?” Conley said in a video conference with the media after Thursday’s practice. “And if we can—we need to get to that baseline of saying that a life matters. And that it has value beyond what his warrant was, beyond what his circumstances were, what he looked like, what was going on, whether he listened or not. And that’s the baseline that I want to get to people, that frustrates me more.”

While “actionable change” is an idea to talk about, the Baltimore Ravens went a step further, issuing a statement with specifics.

“This is bigger than sports,” their statement reads. “Racism is embedded in the fabric of our nation’s foundation and is a blemish on our country’s history. If we are to change course and make our world a better place, we must face this problem head-on and act now to enact positive change.
It is time to accept accountability and acknowledge the ramifications of slavery and racial injustice.”

Agree with that statement or not, the Ravens then outlined seven action points they want implemented immediately including arresting certain police officers involved in shootings as well as “encourage every citizen to act with respect and compliance when engaging with the police.”

Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone echoed the thoughts of much of his team.

“As a white guy, a white man in this country, I can’t even imagine what it’s like,” Marrone said on Thursday. “And I’ll never say I know what it’s like. But I do know this, the fire and intensity to make a difference, grows. I know we have a good understanding of what’s not acceptable in our country today. And I think that somewhere along the line we’ve got to figure that out, because obviously we want to do something that’s actionable, something that could create a change.”

“I can’t even explain or really put into words the emotion of the sadness, frustration, confusion,” he continued, adding he was fully committed to the process. “Where I beat myself up is like when you’re in a position of leadership or you have a voice within a team, you want to be able to show a path, show a way.”

One path to follow is what tennis star and Wimbledon finalist MaliVai Washington has done with his foundation. A Black man, Mal has, for nearly the past 25 years, gone directly into Black communities and schools here in town and effected real, “actionable” change. His foundation focuses on education and life skills. Calais Campbell, in his short three years here, did the same. He didn’t just write checks, he took real “actionable” steps in Black communities.

There’s no question athletes have a voice. And the question of “should they have a voice?” was answered by Jaguars wide receiver DJ Chark.

“I mean, I say, take away sports, at the end of the day, we’re all Americans,” he said this week when asked about someone saying athletes should stick to sports. “So, that’s like me telling someone who has a 9-5, whatever the job may be, to stick to that and not venture out and try to make your community better. If you’re not trying to make your community better, what are you doing? If you’re not trying to lead this world, lead this earth with making a positive impact, what are you here for? Whether it’s sports that gives you the platform, whether it’s music, entertainment, whatever it is. If you have a voice, I think if you’re contributing to something that is going to help, something that is positive, I think you should use it.”

A few years back I was inducted into the Bob Hayes Hall of Fame. I was thrilled at the honor, particularly because Tommie Smith was also a part of that year’s induction class. At the dinner that night, I happened to be seated right next to Smith.

“You changed my life,” I told him as we initially shook hands.

He turned his head and said, “How so?” with a quizzical look.

I explained the impact he had, from thousands of miles away, on a young kid from Baltimore.

Smith smiled and said, “Then it was good.” And we chatted all through the evening about our different and shared experiences in sports.

Telling that story to a Black NFL executive recently, he shook his head and noted, “Most of our guys, sadly, don’t know who Tommie Smith or John Carlos are.”

We might not know the names of all of the players across sports who are raising their voices and asking questions today. And we might agree or disagree with what they’re saying.

But there’s one thing we can all do:

Listen.

No Fans

No Fans Changes The Game

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As we inch closer to the proposed opening of the NFL season, teams are also getting closer to a decision whether to allow fans to attend games. No fewer than a dozen franchises have already announced they’ll play with without fans in attendance for the first few weeks. Some have said no fans for the month of September. And a few have announced they’ll play in front of an empty stadium for the entire season.

So far, the Jaguars have said they’re plan is to allow 25% of the stadium’s capacity for home games, meaning 16,791 fans would be allowed in an arena built for nearly 70,000. That could change, but just last week the Jaguars sent ticket holders their seat assignments for the 2020 season.

Watching athletes perform in front of tens of thousands in person and millions more on television seems routine. But even for those who have reached the highest level of competition, there was still that first time they walked onto a field and said to themselves, “Whoa. There’s a lot of people here.”

“I think more than anything else, the butterflies prior to the game were at the highest of anytime throughout my entire playing career,” former Jaguars Pro Bowl and Florida All-American running back Fred Taylor said of his first time going onto Florida Field as a freshman for the Gators.

When Taylor first came to the Jaguars I asked him about playing in front of big crowds in Gainesville. Taking the field against New Mexico State for the Gators opener in 1994, Fred said emerging the tunnel, “It was the most people I’d seen in one place in my whole life. I literally couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch my breath.”

Obviously Taylor learned how to use those emotions to his advantage. He was the top running back for Florida that year as a freshman and is the Jaguars all-time leading rusher.

Coming out of high school, former Jaguars Tight End Kyle Brady was considered the top recruit in the nation. He had played in big high school games with decent crowds, but nothing prepared him for going onto the field at Happy Valley at Penn State for the first time.

“It felt like lightning was going through your veins. You never forget the first few times,” Brady, an All-American, for the Nittany Lions, said. “When I played there, Happy Valley held 96,000. The chills you get up your spine. You could run through a brick wall.”

Former Major League catcher Rick Wilkins had an eleven year career in the big leagues. He was a mid-season call up from Iowa to the Chicago Cubs and spent his first game on the bench in the dugout at Wrigley Field taking it all in.

“The next day I got my first start in the big leagues and it was overflowing at Wrigley. Stands full, people standing on rooftops,” Wilkins remembered in vivid detail. “I remember my first at bat, I could swear everybody on the planet could see my knees shaking. I was so hyped up and wanted to do so well, I couldn’t dial my adrenaline down.”

The Cubs manager at the time, Jim Essian, teased Rick after the game about finding “a higher league for you to play in to catch up with your bat speed,” Wilkins recalled.
“I started again the next day against the Dodgers and settled down a little bit, went three for three. But I struck out in my first two at bats in the majors.”

When his pro career started, Taylor said he had those same, intense feelings running on to field here in Jacksonville

“The adrenaline rush was extreme to the point tears would come to my eyes,” he explained.

Fred also explained how he got his mind and body under control, ready to play.

“Once the competitive juices begin to flow, the adrenaline takes over and I would always go to my happy place. I called it, ‘Kick-Ass Island.’”

That ‘game day” experience, especially in football with so few games, is something recognized by fans and players alike.

“It’s going to make the game day experience not as lavish, not as grand,” Jaguars tight end James O’Shaughnessy said this week at the prospect of playing in front of no fans. “The game day feeling is a special feeling, it’s what you work every day, week, after week, month after month, to get to that game to showcase what you can do, in front of all these eighty, 70-thousand fans in person, and millions of fans on the TV.”

Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone says with spectators or not, players at the highest level in any sport come to each game fully prepared. As a big baseball fan, Marrone has talked with managers and coaches in the big leagues about getting players ready to play in front of different size crowds and says the approach is the same in any sport.

“I think it goes from individual to individual,” Marrone said. “Meaning that if you used those situations to help you perform, then you’ve got to find a different avenue to help yourself there.”

“But if you’re the guy that’s really focused in on your job, it wasn’t a big deal,” he continued. “A lot of the players at that level, they’re focused in, they’re locked in, they’re working with each other.”

Brady and Wilkins agree. Professional athletes who get to, and stay at the highest level know how to get themselves prepared to be at their best at game time.

“It’s part of human nature to react to your environment,” Brady, who spent 13 years in the NFL, explained. “But as a professional you’re preparing for each game as the most important game of your career. Because it is. In the NFL, it could be your last. Some guys do feed off the crowd but I don’t think at that level you’ll see much drop off in performance.”

Wilkins was the fifth catcher in Major League history to hit 30 homers and hit .300 in the same season when he accomplished that feat in 1993. (Since then there have four others.) He believes, like Brady, that part of staying at the highest level is knowing how to prepare.

“You develop a routine, you find a routine that works for you,” he explained.” I knew I needed to get myself mentally, physically and emotionally prepared to go on the field and be my best for every game. Most big leaguers internalized that process to get ready.”

As far as feeding off the fans, or lack thereof at the stadium or ballpark, every player reacts differently.

“It’s the world we live in now, we’ve just got to handle it,” O’Shaughnessy explained. “And us as players, we’ve just got to rise up to the challenge, because I think it will bring a little bit of a challenge for most because it’s a new thing. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t change our job. We still have to come in and win, whether it’s a home game, road game, fans, 20-percent, no fans.”

“Every ball park has its own energy,” Wilkins added. “When I went on the field at game time, some players pick up on that and it helps some take their game to another level. On the road it can be negative energy, at home it’s constructive and positive. If you’re in New York and they’re throwing batteries at you it gets some of your juices flowing. At game time your body starts to react and it’s a magnifier to get you ready to play.”

Fred Taylor understands the severity of the current situation but wants to see some fans at the games.

“Because of those feelings I had, I’ve always been a proponent of having fans in the stands,” Taylor said. “I can’t imagine playing in an empty stadium. Football will be weird this year but I’m sure the guys who love competing will black it out and in their minds, bring their own fans with them.”

“Some guys feed off of that in pregame and others think it’s a distraction,” Wilkins said of the stadium environment. “I’m sure for some guys it’s an issue. But guys on the professional level have their own thing, they’re ready to compete and play the game with or without fans. It’s a great relationship you have with the fans at the game but the players are still going to be professional.”

Jacksonville Jaguars

Would You Play?

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Sitting down at lunch this week, a friend of mine posed a hypothetical situation.

“The Jaguars need a quarterback and despite the fact that you’re on the wrong side of fifty, they think you’re the answer,” he said. “They’re offering you a $2M contract. The caveat is you might catch the virus. Will you sign?”

“That’s a big stretch,” I said with a laugh, “But yes, I’d sign.”

Over the course of the next hour we talked about the risk involved to the people around me, the risk to my health and who I’d have to give up seeing, specifically my parents who are in their mid 80’s.

It was a lot to think about, but in the end I still decided I would play.

Why?

My age puts me in what they’re calling the “vulnerable demographic” but other than that, I don’t know of any other underlying conditions that would accelerate my risk. It’s not all about the money either, but that was a factor, equal to how I remember how much I liked playing football.

“Put that equation in a 23-year old, established professional football player’s mind, and it’s easy to see why they’re playing,” he concluded.

“In the past six months there’s been a big learning curve about this virus,” Dr. Brian Turrisi, a retired pulmonologist from Georgetown and George Washington University Hospitals said recently “The vast majority of people very sick or dying are over 50 and the larger group is over 70. Pro sports are played by people younger than forty. When we confine this to young people who play professional sports, they’re the healthiest of all,”
All professional leagues have had players opt out of this season, most citing family concerns.

Several Jaguars players confirmed they considered sitting out but weighed the options and decided to play.

“I definitely thought about it because I do have two younger daughters,” defensive back D.J. Hayden said. “I felt like this year is a big year for me. I did not want to sit the season out. But I think the best thing for my family is for me to play this year.”

“I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t,” second year defensive end Josh Allen revealed when asked if he thought about opting out. “Family is first. I don’t want to put my family in jeopardy of any harm that I bring to them. That was always something that I kept close to me. Kate, my wife, she really encouraged me to keep playing football this year because she knows what I’m striving for in my career.”

With no traditional “training camp” situation, the Jaguars players are coming to the stadium each day, and then going home. The potential for exposure increases exponentially outside of their work environment, meaning the players have to put a lot of trust in their teammates to follow the protocols when they’re not at work.

“Yeah, no doubt,” Jaguars Quarterback Gardner Minshew explained. “I told all of the guys that we have a responsibility to each other and each other’s families to be safe. Sometimes it’s not fun and sometimes it’s not what you want to do, but it’s what we need to do.”

Besides organizing practices, evaluating talent and installing the playbook, one of Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone’s jobs is to keep the conversation going about Covid-19, Marrone is hammering home the trust teammates are putting into one another each day. He recounted a story he told the players about getting ready to walk out of the door of the coaches’ offices without his mask on.

“So I immediately put my shirt up, turn back and go put it on,” he said. “And I was telling those guys, ‘Hey listen, we’ve got to help each other, we’ve got to be responsible.’ I said things like this will happen, and I would appreciate it if I would’ve gone into the hallway and walked down, if someone would’ve seen me, I would’ve hoped they’d say something like, ‘Hey coach!”

There’s been some talk about putting NFL teams in a “home bubble” once they cut down to the 53 players on the regular season roster. That means everybody coming in contact with the players over sixteen weeks and through the playoffs would stay together and be shut off from the rest of the world.

That’s a tough ask, even for the outsized money professional football players make. But what about the coaching staffs? The support staffs? Would the team doctors, Dr. Kevin Kaplan and Dr. Anthony Iselborn be willing to give up their practices for four months? Probably not.

“It’s very difficult to do for a long period of time,” Marrone said of the bubble idea this week. “I think that for us, I just think it’s a level of responsibility until they tell [us] anything else. You know, if someone did come to us and said, ‘Hey listen, I don’t feel that I’m in a safe environment when I leave this building,’ we would be very proactive in doing whatever we can to make sure that that player feels safe and we put him in an environment where he can feel that way.”

Marrone said the protocols in the stadium regarding everything Covid-19 related make him feel very safe and secure.

Despite the Jaguars having more players than any other team on the league’s new Covid-19/Reserve list, the NFL’s rate of positive tests for the virus is less than one percent. Zero point eight-four to be exact. A player doesn’t have to test positive to be put on the list.

Minshew revealed he was on the list and missed a couple of days with the team because he was around another player who did test positive. He and teammates Andrew Wingard and Michael Walker were roommates until they decided the best course of action to combat the virus at home was to live alone.
“They’ve moved out this year, but I think everybody in the league just can’t afford to be around somebody,” Minshew said. “Even if you’re not going to contract it, you can’t afford sitting out those couple days. We are all just going to ride it out solo this year. But, that’s honestly a good thing that it happened now. It was a thing that we all agreed that was best for us.”
Minshew said it was like the first day of school when he rejoined the team, even having his outfit picked out for his return. He doesn’t want to go through that again and has adopted a “just get to work” leadership attitude when it comes to the virus.
“If I am here in the building, it’s all I can do, until they tell me I have to leave, and I’m going to give it all I have here,” he said. “And if I can’t be in here, then I am going to figure out how I can get better at home and how I can participate from home.”

Sports Injury

New Hip, No Problem!

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You might remember I talked with Joe Namath recently about his book, “All The Way.” During some small talk in our conversation, I mentioned I had my hip replaced at the end of last year.

“I’ve had both knees and a hip,” Joe responded. “They’re great. Do the rehab. Those cats know what they’re talking about.”

Namath had celebrated knee problems during his career but three joint replacements? Apparently these days, that’s not unusual.

Ten-time Grand Slam tennis champion Tony Trabert also has two artificial knees and a new hip. He had his knees replaced two months apart twenty years ago.

“I haven’t had one ounce of problem with any of them, I don’t even think about it, Just do the rehab.” Trabert explained.

Former Jaguars offensive tackle Tony Boselli has had both hips replaced.

“Best thing I ever did,” he said.

Namath is 77 years old. Trabert is 90 and Boselli is 48. All are former professional athletes who used their bodies in extraordinary ways. It wouldn’t be unusual to think they put undue wear and tear on their joints as part of their professions.

But it’s not just professional athletes who are choosing to get new knees, hips and shoulders. In 2020, an estimated 1.1 million people in the US will have a joint replaced. That number is expected to nearly double in the next twenty years. More women, 62%, than men have joint replacements and although the average age is creeping down each year, 95% of the patients are 45 and older. It’s the number one elective surgery, by far, in the US and the UK.

“Baby Boomers, no question, “ Dr. John Redmond of Southeast Orthopedic Specialists said when asked about the fastest growing population of people needing joint replacement. Redmond has seen research that says the number of people who will elect to have joint replacements could triple to over three million by 2030.

“Ten years ago If somebody who came in for joint replacement was under 50 we told them there was a 40% chance of it wearing out in 20 years,” Redmond explained. “There’s a new plastic that we use now and some ceramics. The failure rate now is far less than 5%. Somebody comes in now at 50 years old, I can say I’m pretty confident it’s going to last the rest of your life.”

“There are so many ideal candidates coming in these days,” agreed local orthopedic surgeon Dr. Paul Shirley also of SE Orthopedic.

“Baby boomers are coming in to continue an active lifestyle. When it hurts, people have to give up a level of participation that they still enjoy. They don’t want to do that.”

Shirley completed his first joint replacement as an assistant in Gainesville in 1972 to Dr. John Charnley, the British surgeon who pioneered the modern hip replacement procedure. A lot has happened in medicine since then.

“I wasn’t particularly interested in that,” Shirley said. “I wanted to do more arthroscopy and do preventative. At the time there wasn’t anything that lasted more than ten years. Now with all of the scientific advancements, the new metallurgy and materials, using computers. They get it perfect and reduce the stresses, they could last 30 years or more.”

Medical experts have seen a generation of people being active into adulthood for the first time, not just as school kids or into their 20’s and 30’s. That leads to injuries and arthritic damage. There’s also a change in the expectation people have of their activity level into their 50’s and beyond.

Former Georgia, NFL and USFL quarterback Matt Robinson, who turned 65 in June, is having his knee replaced this month after limping around for several years.

“I held on as long as I could,” Matt said of his lingering knee problems from his football career. “It’s having a negative effect on the active lifestyle I want to have. I want to hunt, fish, scuba dive. I want to keep active.”

Surgeons agree that playing sports, especially professional sports, takes a toll on your body,

When he originally saw the surgeon Matt was told, “Your knee is terrible.”

“I was hoping for a more clinical diagnosis,” he said with a laugh. “So he said, ‘Ok, your knee is horrible.’”

Robinson added that his knee pain had kept him away from staying in the kind of physical condition he’d like

“I stayed away from the weight room and other stuff because I didn’t want to make my knee any worse than it is,” he explained,

Weight gain in America also seems to be playing a role. Fifty-four percent of hip patients and 79% of knee patients have a body mass index greater than 30. In other words, they’re considered obese.

“It’s like putting one ton of stuff in a half ton pickup,” said Dr. Steve Lucie a 40-year veteran of orthopedic surgery, currently with Jacksonville Orthopedic Institute.

“The weight hastens the deterioration of the joints by overloading them. If you could lose a little weight before getting a replacement done, that makes it a lot better.”

We’re lucky in North Florida to have so many options to choose from when it comes to joint replacement. Between Southeast Orthopedic, Jacksonville Orthopedic Institute, the Mayo Clinic and others, some of the best orthopedic surgeons in the world are right here in our backyard.

“Because of the training programs in town at UF Health, Nemours and Mayo, Jacksonville is a bio-medical hotspot,” said Dr. Steve Lancaster who recently retired from JOI after nearly forty years as an orthopedic surgeon.

“The improvement is in technology and techniques like using robotics.” Lucie explained. “It allows us to make the replacement be more balanced, more precise. That’s what we’re hoping makes patients knees back closer to what their expectations are. Plus, the pain management is so much better.”

“If I see x-rays of a knee replacement I did five years ago it’s not near as precise as what we’re doing now,” Dr. Redmond agreed.. “I use robotics for 100% for my knee procedures now. It’s almost routine that the knee looks perfect. Inherently there’s human error, but with the robotics we don’t rely on our eyeballs as much as the machine.”

All of this expertise and advancements in technology comes at a price. Joint replacements are generally covered by insurance and can run between $70-$100K. With the number of procedures being done, it’s big business.

“The nature of a surgical practice is doing stuff,” Dr. Lancaster added. “We don’t get paid to not due stuff. Athletes destroy their knees, shoulders and hips and that’s when they come to us to consider surgical options.”

When you factor in all of the different people, hospital staff and procedures necessary to complete a joint replacement, the numbers add up.

“I get calls from patients asking about paying for lab results, the pathologist, the x-rays,” Lancaster explained. “Patients wonder why they’re paying all these different people.”

“Medicare is driving the numbers,” he added. “Whatever number they’ll pay for is where the dollar number is for the doctors. The average here in town is probably about $2K for a procedure for the surgeon.”

Nonetheless, choosing to get a joint replaced rather than limp around is now nearly routine.

“Surgeons are getting more confident,” Redmond added. “If you take a look at quality of life between 50 and 60, it’s generally higher than between 70 and 80. To tell a patient to live with a bad hip for ten years now is bad advice.”

“More and more people are doing well,” Lancaster agreed. “Even with higher expectations. We would have never have considered putting anything in somebody under fifty fifteen years ago.”

And Redmond said patient expectations are very high.

“I saw an 80 year-old woman yesterday who said she wants to get this fixed as soon as possible because she wants to play tennis every day.”

Training Camp

Camp Changes For 2020

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When he first popped up on the video conference this week, Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone looked like he either had a mask under his chin or a weird shadow on his face. Turns out he’s grown a beard since the last time we saw him. I don’t know if Marrone has ever had a beard before but it’s another one of those strange, different things that are happening in this pandemic era.
Marrone admitted as much as the players have started to report for this year’s version of training camp: Everything’s different.

“As a coach, you want to get back on the field and that’s where we are now,” Marrone said, standing in a room alone, with two video monitors in front of him. “I think when people think of training camp or preseason, I think we can all paint a picture of what we expect. I think this is a very unique year, so I don’t really put it under that category of training camp and preseason because we are in a ramp-up period now and it’s a little bit different.”

By now in a “normal” year, we’d be approaching the first practice where players will put on pads and actually do some hitting. This year, the beginning of August has players undergoing a minimum of three Covid-19 tests before they’ll even be allowed in the building. If all goes well with the protocols in place, they don’t expect to be on the practice field in a traditional sense until August 17th.

“It’s been crazy,” Jaguars first round pick C.J. Henderson said on Friday of the virtual meetings and physical “walk-through’s” the rookies have been a part of. “We are learning how to adapt and live in these strange ways. I don’t know, it’s just different for everyone, so we are just trying to find a way since it’s new for all of the guys here.”

Usually, ninety players, twenty or so coaches, medical and training personnel, team media and video staff are all jammed into the team facility and a camp hotel for about six weeks during training camp and the preseason. There’s rarely any free time, all staying together, packed into meeting rooms, eating meals together, showering and dressing in the locker room and going to the practice field, together, twice a day.

Now, none of that is happening. The Houston Texans have posted a video overview of what their “training camp” set up looks like. No touch doors, physical distancing and signs everywhere reminding everybody of the current dangers. The Jaguars have four locker rooms they’re using at the stadium just as a start to achieve social distancing. There are arrows on every hallway showing which way to walk.

“I feel really comfortable about the protocols,” Marrone explained while wearing a “tracker” around his neck.

“When we’re in the building, one of the things is that you can see that it just flashed blue which means that I am in good physical distance from everyone that’s involved,” he said. “When it flashes red, then I know I’m too close to someone and so I can take two or three steps back until it flashes blue.”
That would be weird in any work situation.

While the NFL isn’t technically working in a bubble environment, they’re trying to keep everybody as isolated as possible. The NHL’s bubble has been successful in Canada with zero positive tests so far. The NBA has had some issues, specifically with players not following the protocols. Major League Baseball is in danger of cancelling their season, mainly because some players are ignoring the rules in place.

Every coach in every sport talks about team building, character and relying on each other. This year takes the idea of “teammates” to another level.

“I think that there’s a lot of self-discipline involved, there’s a lot of relying on your teammates, and that’s self-discipline,” Marrone said. “Unfortunately for me, fortunately maybe for my wife, I’ve really been staying away from my wife and children. That’s just a responsibility that we all have to each other to not bring this virus into the building and not to really spread it.”

From a competition standpoint, the pandemic has put the Jaguars in a conundrum. Players hurt the most by the lack of practice time and mentoring by fellow teammates will be the young players, especially rookies. The Jaguars are relying on rookies to fill key roles and for now, they’re the youngest team in the league.

“Everything is obviously strange right now with the limited access we have,,” said the Jaguars second, first-round pick, K’Lavon Chaisson. “t’s been hard to find some places to get some real work in as well try to stay socially distant from many people and try to stay safe.”

Hardly the situation you want when you’re bringing a new player to the team with high expectations for production right away.

“I learn great from the book, but even better when you walk me through things,” Chaisson explained. “I know we don’t get as much time on the field as we want to and there’s only so much we can do while we practicing with social distance.”

In recent years there’s been a lot more emphasis on the mental health and mental state of players in professional sports. They’re all great athletes. If you were in a pickup game with a guy recently cut by any team he’d be so good you’d think it was unfair. There are certain guys who can adapt to the mental pressures of the game, an others who can’t perform in that environment. Leagues and teams are trying to unlock the difference between the two and this year that effort is paramount.

“I think that the league is taking great strides in making sure that there is support available to them outside of just the coaching staff and player development,” Marrone said. “I mean, really truly some professional help because one of the things you look at as a coach is, ‘Okay what can come up? What can be one of those things that cause a lack of focus or anxiety that’s really going to hurt the player and the team?”

Making the team is the only thing on the minds of most players in training camps starting this week. Every step, every comment, every reaction is recorded and noted and can have an impact on whether they’re playing football this fall or looking for a job. It adds up.

Marrone knows that feeling.

“I think that stuff always does take away because there’s going to be some guys in the locker room that ignore things and some guys that can’t. Everyone handles that stuff differently.”
Although they won’t say it, it already felt like a rebuilding year for the Jaguars. They’ve shipped out productive veterans like Calais Campbell and have put their stock in a second-year quarterback and a draft full of team captains. They’re looking for leaders for the future.

I wouldn’t call it a throw away year, but measuring success in this environment will have very different criteria than just wins and losses.

They’ve had one player, newly signed defensive tackle Al Woods, opt out of the season. They were counting on him to be a force in the middle against the run. Will there be more once “camp” starts? There’s already talk of “quarantining” a quarterback throughout this year so there’s always one available to play.

Fielding a young team that is already rated as the least talented in the league is difficult enough. Take a few key components away and it’s a daunting task.

Gate River Run Jacksonville

Would You Run or Ride

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We’ve always been an events town. You could set your schedule around what was happening during the year. Just about everybody knew when the Daytona 500 was happening, the Gate River Run, The Players, The Kingfish Tournament, opening weekend for the Jaguars and Florida/Georgia. Add in the Jazz Festival, the various shrimp festivals, opening of the beaches, World of Nations and a variety of other yearly events and there was always something going on.

I’d get about a dozen calls in the first three months of every year from women asking the specific date of the Florida/Georgia game. I’d pass it along and the response would always be the same.

“Good, I wanted to make sure I don’t get married that weekend.”

I always thought it was amusing that no guys called and asked me that question.

For the past few months, all of that has been gone. The number of events happening is near zero and just now organizers are exploring how to get people together for an event while keeping them apart.

“We want people to feel comfortable,” Gate River Run director Doug Alred said this week. Alred’s 1st Place Sports running organization administers the Gate River Run each year along with over 120 other races on the calendar. Since the Gate on March 7th there have been almost none. Over a hundred races and runs have been cancelled.

“I did hear about a run on the 4th of July in Ponte Vedra but we haven’t been able to put anything on,” Alred explained. “I shouldn’t say none,” he added. “We did something for Marathon High last month. We started ten people every ten minutes over two days. We told them ‘Don’t come hang around the start or the finish.’ We had 320 people participate with no problem. Chip timing helps with holding people back and not starting in one pack. They cross over the mats at the start line and go.”

Trying to figure out how to get “participation sports” back on the calendar, Alred’s organization sent out a survey last week trying to gauge what people are looking for when it comes to being in large groups. Eight percent of the respondents said they’re not coming out no matter what. Seventy percent said they’d probably participate. But almost everybody’s comfort level dropped off when the races got longer than a 5K. And if the event was more than 500 participants, interest started to wane.

“Nobody wanted to run in a 1000 person event,” Alred said of the results.

“We’re more worried about everybody’s safety, the athletes, the staff, the families,” Rich Hincapie, President of Hincapie Sports explained. Hincapie Sports puts on national bike rides around the country called “Gran Fondo’s” every year but none have happened in 2020. “We called off our Ft. Worth ride in March because we didn’t have enough knowledge at the time.”

Hincapie joined a national Cycling Event Task Force with twenty other event organizers, cyclists and medical professionals from around the country to try and figure out how to get things done. Over the last five months they’ve gone through multiple scenarios and put together a sixteen-page guide called “Race Management Guidelines for the Covid-19 Era.” It covers medical considerations, government regulations, athlete, fan and sponsorship guidelines as well as marketing ideas for the future.

“The more education we get the better,” he explained. “Having specific starting times, corrals for small groups, how to social distance at the start and the finish, all of those things that go into putting an event on safely.”

Both Hincapie and Alred agree that it’ll be an evolving consideration about how to put on events where people will feel comfortable participating.

“Things like keep your mask on until the start, or you can wear it if you want to,” Alred said. “Maybe a loosely fitting bandana. I’m sure somebody will come up with something that works for runners soon.”

“Most everybody we talked to, athletes, sponsors, volunteers had the same response: ‘Do something.’” Hincapie explained. “That’s what people are looking for, the idea that as the organizer you’ve taken the precautions, you’ve thought it out with social distancing, mask wearing, hand sanitizer, all of that.”

Using the current guidelines, organizers are trying to restart very soon. Just this week the annual “Tour de Pain” road race was moved to the beach and scheduled for August 22nd. The annual Hincapie Gran Fondo in Greenville, S.C. is on the calendar for late October.

The cost of organizing a run or a ride will be a factor in how many can happen going forward.

“We want to return to running but we’ll have to pick and choose what we can afford to do,” Alred, who has a four person, full-time organizing staff, explained.

“We can do a 250-person run on the beach because we don’t have to hire the number of police we’d need for a run on the roads.”

“Cycling events aren’t necessarily a money making proposition,” Hincapie explained. “With around two thousand riders we can use them as a marketing tool for our sportswear company.” He added that the plan to expand to ten events a year is still on the table. And Jacksonville is one place Hincapie admitted would be attractive for a future Gran Fondo.

Alred explained that the Tour de Pain will start with 250 spots open to see what kind of response they get. If it fills up they’ll have five different starting times of fifty runners each starting ten minutes apart.

“We’ll spread things out at the beach, no sense crowding up, no packet pick up and have no crowds, that’s our goal,” Alred said.

With that kind of spacing, and if there’s enough interest, they might be able to expand the number of participants. But projecting that out to 20,000 runners for the Gate River Run next March is a stretch.

“Under the current guidelines, the Gate is in peril,” Alred said. “I’ve got my fingers crossed that Covid cases are decreasing over the next few months. Even after a vaccine I think people will wait and see what happens.”

“The responsibility eventually falls to the athlete,” Hincapie said. “We’re not going to test everybody, that’s not for us to say, ‘You’re ok, go do what you want.’ There’s a small chance of transmission on a bike ride. It’s our responsibility to make things as safe as possible.”

Covid-19 Science Versus Social

Science Versus Social

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In the next couple of weeks Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL are set to start or resume their 2020 seasons. The NFL plans to open training camps within the next ten days. And while the PGA Tour has been back on the schedule for just over a month, they said this week they’d play with no fans for the rest of the year.

The NFL also announced that no jersey exchanges would be allowed after games this fall. When I heard that I wondered, “Really?” Football is a game played with full contact, guys piling on each other over sixty minutes. But they can’t exchange jerseys after the game? That sounds silly.

“It is,” said Dr. Brian Turrisi, a pulmonologist who spent 40 years studying and treating viruses in Washington D.C.. Turrisi practiced at various hospitals including the ones at Georgetown and George Washington universities. “If the league wanted to worry about something, they’d worry about passing the virus under the circumstances of the playing of the game.”

Turrisi spent much of his career in ICU’s treating patients with respiratory ailments and is puzzled why sports are so concerned about their players contracting Covid-19.

“In the past six months there’s been a big learning curve about this virus,” he said. “The vast majority of people very sick or dying are over 50 and the larger group is over 70. Pro sports are played by people younger than forty.”

“It’s at the level we see with the common flu with the same demographic group,” he added. “When we confine this to young people who play sports, they’re the healthiest of all, so their death rate is near zero.”

Turisi’s thoughts are backed up by recent happenings on the PGA Tour. Several players have tested positive for the virus but have gotten better. Same with the Clemson football team where nearly forty players have tested positive with “no serious cases” according to their sports information office.

“No worse than if they had the common cold,” Turrisi explained.

Part of the problem with making decisions about public safety and safety in sports is the lack of reliable data. Scientific studies are showing that the infection rate in the general population is much higher than originally thought. Testing now available is revealing positive results with no symptoms. And the number of fatalities, from a percentage standpoint, is substantially lower than originally predicted. It’s hard to get facts not colored by some political agenda.

“We should be doing everything we can to have sports out there. It’s important,” said Turrisi, who crossed paths with Dr. Anthony Fauci during his career in D.C., of the need for psychological as well as physical health.

“When we talk about people’s health, we have to talk about their psychological health. Part of living in this society is waking up and saying, ‘I want to go to a sporting event this weekend.’ Drug use, suicide, domestic abuse all are up because people haven’t been able to live their normal lives.”

While the PGA Tour is traveling from city to city with strict guidelines about health qualifications to play, the NBA is staying in one place, creating a campus “bubble” in Orlando to play their games. Still, players have tested positive and some have left the bubble to possibly be exposed. Originally, the NBA tested 302 players with 16 testing positive.

“It’s not alarming based on what we’re seeing in the broader population,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told Time. “In many ways, it was somewhat predictable. Where I’m most relieved … is that among those 16 positive tests, there are no severe cases.”

Still, Silver says the league will stop playing if they have “a lot of cases.” He hasn’t quantified what that number might be but added; “It’s never ‘full steam no matter what.'”

Several NBA players have already opted out of playing in Orlando. The league and MLB are giving players a chance to ‘opt out’ of playing this year.

Baseball has had several stars already say they’re not playing in 2020. Buster Posey, Ryan Zimmerman, Joe Ross, and David Price among others. Some citing “personal reasons,” others for family concerns:: Parents with preexisting conditions, pregnancy or out of an abundance of caution for their children.

With a short, 60-game season, the possibility of an entire team testing positive and not playing puts the whole MLB plan in jeopardy.

“I think the way that I think about it is in the vein of competitive integrity, in a 60-game season,” Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said this week in a radio interview. .
“If we have a team or two that’s really decimated with a number of people who had the virus and can’t play for any significant period of time, it could have a real impact on the competition and we’d have to think very, very hard about what we’re doing.”
Playing the games in a bubble is one thing, having fans attend is something totally different. The Jaguars announced this week that they’d allow twenty-five percent capacity in the stadium at their home games this fall.
“That’s a guess,” Dr. Turrisi theorized. “Is 30% worse than 25%? Open sporting events and let people come. People in the vulnerable population shouldn’t go. It’s about personal responsibility.”

And what’s the turning point? Is the vaccine the panacea that will change how sports are played and how fans can attend? Most scientists believe it is not the end-all, be-all answer. For some people it won’t work and the availability worldwide is not in the near future.

“We know the flu better than anything else,” Dr. Turrisi explained. “All viruses have a weird way they can auto mutate. The virus wants to infect people but not kill off everybody. With he Spanish flu in 1918 and 1919, a hundred million people died worldwide. That flu just kind of petered out. It stopped killing people.”

Will there be a turning point where sports and sporting events look like they used to?

“This virus isn’t coming out six months from now and hold up a big sign that says ‘I’m done,’ Dr. Turrisi added. “What’s going to turn the tide when we learn how to live with this? It’s a psychological problem. We’ve created a fear of something that has proven to not be that scary from a scientific standpoint.”

“There’s a problem with social media and news coverage. Why did this happen? Social media makes information travel faster before the actual facts come out. So all kinds of bad and false information got out there early. And all of the models were wrong. And wrong by an exponential factor. So people got very scared early on.”

Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament

Fish Tales

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After the early news broadcast one night in 1981 the phone at my desk rang and it was Don Brewer. Don was well known and active in the community so when he asked me to come meet him at some trailers on Beach Blvd, I didn’t think twice.

“We’re going to have a fishing tournament,” he exclaimed as we made our way through a temporary, makeshift office.

Spread out on some tables in the room was plans for the tournament as Don explained the idea. Don, Ed Bell,, John Lowe, Pete Loftin, Bob Gipson, Bob Pittman, Charlie Hamaker, Dave Workman Sr. and Gene Leary were all well known names in town and especially in the fishing community. They came up with the idea in 1980 and put the first tournament together a year later with Don as the chairman. And the Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament was born.

“This is a tournament that everybody can fish,” he continued, likening it to other tournaments. “No matter what kind of boat you have, you can get in this tournament.”

“I need to call the station,” I told him explaining that I wanted to get the story on the late news.

“Use my phone,” he said, pointing to the edge of the table.

I looked around but there wasn’t a phone in sight. I must have had this perplexed look on my face because Don laughed and said, “It’s in the briefcase.”

That’s when I laughed, opening the briefcase looking for some kind of “Slimline Princess” phone inside. Instead, it looked like something from the “Get Smart” TV show: A handle, a cord and a rotary dial.

“It’s a mobile phone, use it,” Don said as he gestured to the parts.

It was the first cell phone I had ever seen, remember this was 1981, and the first one I ever used. I did call the station and even remember saying, “Can you hear me?” when they answered.

When you hang around long enough you reach certain milestones. This is the 40th Annual Greater Jacksonville Kingfish Tournament. I’ve attended and covered and reported on every one. I’ve seen the ups and downs, the moves, the trials and triumphs of every iteration of the GJKT.

That first year the tournament was at Beach Marine. A long run from the ocean to weigh fish, but over 500 boats registered. Everything from fifteen to fifty-footers were entered. I saw one guy drop his fish in the water handing it over from the barge to the dock. He dove for it for the next ten minutes until they made him come out.

For a few years the tournament was housed at the Pablo Creek Marina. Those years were highlighted by a dedicated home for the tournament and unprecedented growth. Everybody wanted to be in the tournament or just part of the social atmosphere. It was kind of like the TPC, but different at the same time. Anyway you looked at it though, it was a big deal.

While at Pablo Creek, the tournament committee consulted the Coast Guard one year when three guys in a ski boat wanted to weight a fish they had caught in the “Chum Hole” just outside the Mayport Jetties. Their motor quit heading to the weigh-in on the Intracoastal. So they started swimming the boat to the marina.

“If the tide wasn’t coming this way,” the tournament chairman told me, “We’d have never let them do that.” Imagine, three guys, all with lines to the boat, swimming it under the Intracoastal Bridge at Atlantic Boulevard to the dock. It was quite a sight.

I’ve covered the tournament from a helicopter, seeing hundreds of boats around the “Chum Hole.” I’ve watch a wild scramble of boats coming out of the jetties, and a “Bimini” start with boats lined up along the beach. I’ve covered it from a boat and even fished in it a few years, with no success. And on Friday of the tournament in 1990, my wife called me while I was a couple of miles offshore (I had a cell phone that looked like something out of WWII) to say she was in labor. I had to get a special ruling to allow me to get off the boat and to allow the rest of the crew continue to fish and not be disqualified. I headed to the hospital and our youngest was born that night.

Over the 40 years of the GJKT, it’s had ups and downs some related to the economy, the competition, tournament leadership and location. From having to put a limit of 1,000 boats, this year’s tournament hopes to have 300 or so.

“We had no idea what to expect with the corona virus,” this year’s tournament chairman Glenn Morningstar sad this week. “We’re excited because we’re ahead of last year and if the weather looks good, we’ll have a lot of boats register before Thursday.”

Morningstar is determined to bring the tournament back to what it once was. In a way they’ve gone back to their roots with the “High Roller” tournament on Monday and the Jr. Angler kids day on Tuesday. They’re adding a past champions tournament as well.

“I’ll seek the advice of the captains and the fishermen in the area,” Morningstar said of his chairmanship. “They know what’s going on out there. They fish these tournaments and they can make it better.”

In recent years the GJKT has tried to level the competition by added a single engine class and creating north and south boundaries.

Last Wednesday I fished aboard the “Ankle Shot” with my long-time friend Billie Nimnicht in the media day tournament. We actually caught fish! Billie’s back as a sponsor of the tournament this year despite the smaller numbers expected.

“We’re just back this year,” he explained. “When my dad was running the dealership, It was the Big 5 and Big 6 Chevy dealers who were the big sponsors.”

The Nimnicht family has always been civic minded since opening their first business on Riverside Avenue in 1941. Billie’s mother Anne is a former Chairman of The Players. His uncle Ed was chairman of the GJKT. So there’s a community involvement background that ties him to the tournament, but he says it’s practical as well.

“It’s the perfect demographic for our potential customers,” he said. “They have nice boats and want to have a good-looking truck to pull it.”

As the boats got bigger, and the motors multiplied, fishermen from all over, and especially the Carolina’s showed up at the GJKT and started dominating. No longer was a ski boat in the chum hole competitive. That’s one of the things that caused the GJKT’s boat number to dwindle.

“I’m leaning on the experts on our board who are fishermen to give us things we can do to make the tournament better for fishermen,” Morningstar explained.

A one-day tournament with an affordable entry fee, a limited fishing area and a great prize turned out to be the exact formula for a successful tournament this year. The “Old School Kingfish Shootout” happened on June 13 with perfect weather, a three-mile offshore limit, and defined fishing area and a $250 entry fee.

This year’s “Old School Kingfish Shootout” was such a success, organizer Paul Dozier is hoping that rubs off on the GJKT.

“It would be good for everybody,” he said. “The better everybody does, the better it is for everybody,” he added.

With nearly 650 boats registered in their first year, the Old School Shootout’s success was a surprise to everybody.

“The fishermen spoke and showed up in droves,” Dozier explained. “I had no idea, (it would be as big as it was) it just worked out perfectly, the weather, the fishing, It was everything we needed. Maybe it was everybody wanting to get out after being stuck at home. It was families fishing together, everybody having fun. We had the small guys competing with the big guys on a level playing field.”

My memories of the Kingfish Tournament are pretty special. The people I’ve met, the friends I’ve made. Those would have never happened without this weekend in July.

Walking through the aptly named “Liar’s Tent” at the GJKT was always a treat, especially in the early years of the tournament when Anheuser-Busch was involved. It wasn’t unusual to see Joe Frazier, Mickey Mantle or a number of other sports celebrities who were sponsored by the brewery. Frazier even won the VIP tournament one year.

Taking a polygraph has become part of tournament fishing prize winning. There’s a lot at stake and organizers want to keep things on the up and up. One night the tournament winner called me to complain that he had been harassed that night in the Liar’s Tent after taking his polygraph.

“You know it’s called the “Liar’s Tent” right?” I asked. “At a fishing tournament?”

He understood and eventually laughed it off.

It was always amazing to watch Jim King identify the boats and the captains and even the fish from a stand on the dock at the new Sisters Creek Park. I knew he had a little crib sheet on the stand and an assistant but he barely ever looked at it. He was doing that well before he ran for public office and served in the state capitol. He knew everybody and their boats by name. The park was built with funds raised by the tournament. That why, rightfully, the park now bears his name.

It was a great idea forty years ago and it still has a chance to be a fun summer weekend for competitors and spectators alike.

Dozier says the Shootout will return next year without much change.

“I’m not going to change much,” he said. “We’ll expand what we’re doing for women and kids in the future to encourage those people to keep fishing together.

Morningstar says the lessons learned from the Shootout will rub off on the GJKT, but agreed, people fishing together is the key.

“The best part is the kids day, the Jr. Angler. They’re the future of the tournament.”

There are a couple of changes to the weigh-in procedure to accommodate social distancing. You might be surprised they’re holding the tournament at all in the current public health climate. Morningstar says not to worry.

“We’re having the tournament with the current Covid orders in mind,” he explained. We know the fishing community wants to fish so we’re following the orders and we’re going to fish.”

What Are You Watching?

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While we’re waiting for a vaccine and to see if some professional sports will start, or others will continue, what are you watching?

We’ve gone into unknown territory when it comes to a lack of professional sports on TV. On of the great trivia questions I was asked during the “Stump Sam” days was, ‘What are the two days there are no professional sports played during the calendar year? I got the answer, only because it’s a trick question: ‘The day before and the day after the Major League Baseball All-Star Game” is the answer. Those were the only days of the year no sports were scheduled. Sports are scheduled, and shown on television on all holidays, overlapping one another and fighting for viewers.

If you only count the NFL, MLB, the NBA and the NHL, 1918 was the last year we went this long without any of those sports being played. The NFL and NBA hadn’t formed yet and there were 101 days between the end of the World Series in September that year and the start of the NHL season in December. We blew past that number two weeks ago.

If the schedule goes as planned, it’ll be 134 days between the last NBA and NHL games played in 2020 on March 11th and the start of the MLB season on July 23rd.

Obviously we’ve been many nights without sports to watch. But we’re all still watching something. Viewership numbers are up across the board in every category.

But no sports.

Sports on television is the ultimate reality show. There’s competition, drama, personalities and the outcome is unknown. How many times have you heard somebody say, “Well, I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve never seen that before!”

With some down time, I’ve been scanning through the channels to see if there’s anything interesting.

It’s hard to watch any news. Nationally it’s all about which side of the political spectrum you’re on, coverage of protests and counter-protests. Locally, they’re still trying to tell us how important the same weather is six different ways every hour. We already know it’s going to rain around five o’clock for the next three months. We live here.

Looking at the sports channels, I saw two guys fake arguing about something. I watched for a minute to see how good of an actor either was. Then I realized they really didn’t know what they were talking about at all, weren’t very good actors either and moved on. That format repeated itself a few times on other networks, which only made me laugh harder.

There were some radio shows being shown live. Opinionated, minutiae mongering, and making up lists just to have lists, none of it was very compelling television. There’s a reason they’re on radio.

I’m really not interested in years-old games, no matter how “classic” they are purported to be. I did stop and watch part of the 1971 MLB All-Star Game only because it had more than 25 future Hall of Famers on both rosters, possibly the greatest collection of baseball talent on one field in history.

No matter how “live” it is, I’m sorry, I’m not watching corn hole. Even if it’s the championship game.

My choices this week were all over the place. Who knew there was Spanish League Basketball broadcast live here in the US? I know it’s on but I’m not getting up at five o’clock to watch Korean League Baseball. Old college football, baseball and basketball games keep me for about 30 seconds just to see some current pro superstar back in their college days. I’ve watched some European Soccer and I have been impressed with the sound engineers ability to make the matches sound like they have fans in the stands. I’ll watch some of the top teams compete but Brighton Hove Albion vs. Watford isn’t keeping me for long.

There are a lot of fishing shows on now. I like to fish so I’ll stop to see what they’re catching, but knowing a lot about television production, I see that the show really belongs to the editor in post-production. Three long days of fishing can make a pretty compelling 30-minute television show.

I don’t hunt but the shows now on make it pretty exciting. A lot of my friends hunt and away from the hours and hours of sheer boredom for the possibility of 20-seconds of excitement, most of their stories are about just-misses or the evening activities that involve beer and brown liquor. They don’t show any of that on TV.

Looking for something live, I came across some thoroughbred racing. I like racing and watched that for a while. In person the time between races gives you some time to study and get to the window. On television the interval is terminal. And I came across something I’d never seen before on that network. It resembled barrel racing except with four horses, a wagon, a “driver” and two other people on the wagon. Clearly highly skilled competitors and highly trained horses. But not for me.

“Live” I suppose, is a relative term. There were two guys playing a video game being televised “live.” Really?

And I found some live tennis. It looked like a weekday match in somebody’s backyard. It was an exhibition for charity and I did recognize some of the names but none were Federer (I know he’s rehabbing his knee) nor Nadal nor Djokovic. I appreciated the effort but after a few minutes I had the remote going again.

As I was scanning the other night I did catch the second half of “DodgeBall.” It seemed kind of sports-y and it certainly lightened the mood. We occasionally re-watch some movies at my house. You do catch some things you didn’t see the first time, especially if the plot is based on dialogue.

I’m trying to justify “The Big Lebowski” as a sports movie because it’s based around the bowling. But that would be disingenuous. Anytime it’s on, the next two hours of my life are spoken for. I don’t have any control over that. And any guy who doesn’t stop what they’re doing and watch “Caddyshack” when it crosses their scan hasn’t figure out how life works yet.

Keep scanning. Have some time available though. You never know what might catch your eye. Unless you come across “Caddyshack II.” Then get up off the couch and go do something.

Will They Play?

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This week there were a lot of signs that we’ll see sports restart soon in July. Major League Baseball came to an agreement to start in a couple of weeks. The NBA says they’re going to have games and a version of the “playoffs” in a campus setting at Disney in Orlando. The NCAA has allowed some teams to begin voluntary workouts and the NFL has a plan to open training camps in late July preparing for a full, on-time season to start in September.

But it’s all experimental and speculative at this point with protocols for health and safety changing almost daily. On one hand it seems possible to play games but on the other it’s a daunting task.

“Everyone wants to make sure we get this thing right,” Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone has said.

But what is “right?”

Nobody knows is the honest answer.

Perhaps following what the Premier League is doing in the UK can be a guidepost. Last week they announced they had tested players and staff for the tenth week in a row, and started playing games on June 17th, joining the Bundesliga in Germany, La Liga in Spain and Serie A in Italy.

Of the 1,829 people tested this week, one was positive for Covid-19. They put together what they called a “health and safety” policy for the clubs and the players with part of it absolving the league from any legal action a player might take if they were to contract Covid-19 while playing. They can’t sue the league.

They’re playing without fans in the stadiums, making every game free on television and using a “sound carpet” on the broadcasts run by the audio technicians blended with the authentic sounds from the match. The players don’t hear the broadcast sound in the stadium.

A couple of weeks ago the PGA Tour started back up, playing tournaments with no fans. The Tour anticipates allowing 8,000 fans at The Memorial tournament in a couple of weeks. They have a very direct set of protocols to try and protect the players, yet Nick Watney tested positive a week ago Friday at the Heritage.

“Since March we have been working to develop a comprehensive health and safety plan that would be considered a best practice among professional sports leagues,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said on Wednesday. “While we’ve been thorough in building a plan that would mitigate as much risk as possible, we knew it would be impossible to eliminate all risk.”

They put contact tracing in effect and are testing players, caddies and officials regularly, yet several caddies tested positive causing Graham McDowell, Brooks and Chase Koepka and Webb Simpson to withdraw from this week’s event in Connecticut.

At what point do they call off the competitions to let things “cool down?”

Who knows?

Monahan didn’t give any specific scenarios where the PGA Tour would stop playing. He did admit if there were a significant number of positive tests, it would be something to consider.

Are the players going to continue to show up knowing the possibility of exposure to the virus?

“We continue to learn from an operational standpoint,” Monahan continued. “Every number hurts. We all need to remind ourselves that we’re all learning to live with this virus. It’s pretty clear that this virus isn’t going anywhere.”

Watney had an inkling he might have contracted the coronavirus when the “Whoop” strap on his wrist detected shallow breathing while he was asleep. It’s one of the signs of Covid-19. He tested positive the next day.

The Whoop strap is used by many athletes and a lot of players on the PGA Tour have been wearing one to collect physiological data throughout the day: How’s my breathing, my activity, my temperature, how am I sleeping? All of the things involved with trying to stay in peak physical condition.

Watney’s detection, even though he was asymptomatic, reportedly has pushed the Tour to purchase a thousand bands and distribute them to players, caddies and essential staff.

Those bands are also going to be made available to NBA players in what’s being called their “bubble” in Orlando. One player referred to the bands as “a tracking device.”

Testing will be almost daily at Disney but the NBA says ““a small or otherwise expected number of COVID-19 cases will not require a decision to suspend or cancel the resumption,” in their 113-page handbook for players and staff on health and safety in Orlando.

So what number constitutes “small” or “expected?”

Add to that question that a single day record of 5500 new cases were reported in Florida this week and again, nobody knows.

Baseball will rely on local governments to allow, or not allow fans into stadiums. “That’s the plan,” was Houston Astros’ owner Jim Crane’s answer when asked if he expects fans at Minute Maid Park.

“We still have to go through the player protocol,” he said. “I think the intent at some point is to get the fans in the ballpark,” alluding to the economics of the game.

Major League Baseball didn’t really address having fans at the games in their 101-page health and safety protocol, leaving the decision up to the teams and local governments.

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said, “For one, we hope to have the coronavirus better under control. We look forward to working with the teams to find their strategies to make sure that they’ll be able to open their stadiums safely.”

In Illinois, they’re saying, “If and when play resumes with fans, clubs must adhere to all requirements of the 2020 Best Stadium Operating Practices unless MLB specifically provides otherwise.”

So for baseball the policy remains fluid leading up to Opening Day. Last week MLB reportedly had 40 players and staff test positive.

Will that change the owner’s or the player’s minds? What number is too many?

Last week at Talladega, NASCAR experimented with have fans live at the race. In a grandstand that can hold 175,000, 5,000 fans were allowed to buy tickets to the race. They also opened forty-four RV spots. All with the restriction that you had to live within 150 miles of the track to attend. And you had to live in Alabama. No crossing state lines to see the race.

They might be able to do that at some other tracks. Bristol can hold 162,000 and Daytona 101,000 just in the main grandstand. But at both of those tracks, out of state fans are staples.

Along with basketball, operating a football team and playing that particular sport under the current conditions without acknowledging there’s a possibility of not playing or stopping because of the coronavirus seems a stretch.

“We realize we are going to have to live with COVID,” Stacey Higgins, the University of Florida’s associate athletic director for sports health said this week. “We’re going to have positive cases to deal with.”

“We’re fully prepared that we’re going to have a positive and we’re going to have to isolate that individual,” she added “If it gets to be too many, that’s where the UF Health people will help us with that process.”

Again, what’s “too many?” Nobody knows.

Florida has confirmed they have had at least 11 student-athletes from football, volleyball and soccer test positive. Their official position is that they are “well positioned to manage those cases.”

NCAA President Mark Emmert has said that without students on campus there can’t be any student-athlete activity. Add to that his comment to congressional leaders this week that all teams might not be ready to start at the same time and the uncertainty grows.

Just this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the NFL might have to follow the NBA’s lead and play in a “bubble” environment.

The NFL Players Association’s medical director also advised players to “stop practicing together in private workouts.” All this, after as many as ten teams in the league have reportedly had players and coaches test positive.

There are no reported cases among the Jaguars. The team started an Infectious Response Team in May to put their preventative protocols in place.

“The place feels deserted,” is how one Jaguars employee described the team’s stadium offices and training facilities downtown.
With all of the social distancing, temperature checks and constant cleaning, “It’s weird,” they added.

Don’t we all know that feeling.

Can Fun Save Golf

Can Fun Save Golf?

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Driving down Ponte Vedra Boulevard you can see the Ocean Course at the Ponte Vedra Inn and Club is starting to come back after being torn up for renovation. Same thing in town when you drive down San Jose. San Jose Country Club is re-doing their fairways and greens and changing one of their par threes nobody liked anyway. You can’t see it from the road but Pablo Creek off Butler Boulevard has also been taken down to the dirt and being rebuilt. And driving down A1A in Ponte Vedra you might notice the part of the Oak Bridge golf course you could see from the road is gone. Leveled to make way for an expansion of the Vicars Landing assisted living facility.

The Ocean Course, San Jose and Pablo Creek are going through the kind of renovation maintenance any golf course needs for long-term viability.

But at Oak Bridge, they’re doing something completely different.

“We’re looking to change the golf experience,” Oak Bridge Head Professional and General Manage Mike Miles said this week.

Miles is a former PGA Tour player who still has plenty of game, playing in the Senior PGA last year in Rochester. He shot 69 in the opening round at Oak Hill and played well enough to be paired with Bernhard Langer on Sunday. He hit it past Langer off the first tee but said he didn’t play well alongside the former Masters champion.

“He shot 67 and when I took my hat off to shake his hand on 18 I told him what an honor it was to play with him,” Miles recalled. “And I joked that I hoped my playing wouldn’t hinder his game in the future. He looked right at me and said, ‘I don’t think so.’”

Ponte Vedra resident David Miller is the developer of the project and brought Miles in to make it happen. They met through golf when they both lived in Southern California and have a big vision when it comes to what Oak Bridge will become when it’s opened under it’s new name, “The Yards.”

The “Front Yard” is an update of the front nine at Oak Bridge.

“It’ll be plenty of a challenge for what I like to call the ‘Big G’ golfer,” Miles explained. “But we’ll also have it set up so just about anybody can play here.”

Miles oversaw the re-construction and redesign of the new/old nine holes, with MacCurrach Golf giving it plenty of “playability” with only ten bunkers in the loop. He recreated the holes with a nod throughout to famed golf course architects like Jack Nicklaus, Pete Dye, Arnold Palmer and others.

“We want people to have fun while they’re here,” he said pointing to a spot on the ninth hole where there used to be a bunker that everybody seemed to hit into. “I want guys to come in and have a beer and a hamburger when they’re done. Not stomp over to their car, throw their clubs in the trunk and drive off.”

I heard the word “fun” a lot talking to Miles this week, especially when we moved to the “Backyard.” What used to be the back nine on the old golf course is now unrecognizable. A beautiful new lake, stately oaks, practice greens, a huge putting green and a walking three-hole short par three course called the “beer loop” fill your vision as soon as you clear the back of the clubhouse.

“We want people to have options,” Miles said. “You can come over here from the Front Yard and play 12, 15 or 18 holes. Or just come straight here sit on the patio with your friends, enjoy the view, laugh, walk the beer loop, whatever.”

That’s a far cry from the rules-laden, stiff upper lip image that golf has in a country club setting.

Is this where golf is going? Judge Smails probably would not approve.

“I call it ‘fun golf,’” golf course architect Erik Larsen said when I asked him about the concept. Larsen is a past president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects and was the Executive Vice President of Palmer Course Design in Ponte Vedra. He redesigned Selva Marina into today’s Atlantic Beach Country Club. He’s seen plenty of hidden entrances and stuffy locker rooms but thinks there’s a change in the game on the horizon.

“There will always be a demand for traditional 18-hole golf courses,” he explained. “But golf play has reduced because of the time it takes. Time is a valuable commodity. Want to play less? Just go play three, four, six and come back. No big deal. We don’t have to recreate the wheel, there’s a practicality to all of it.”

When Larsen’s former colleague and fellow golf course architect Harrison Minchew did the redesign at the Jacksonville Beach Golf Course he specifically was thinking about giving players a chance to play, but play in less time.

“There are some scenarios at Jax Beach where they could play six or nine or twelve holes,” he said noting that the operator of any golf course has to be willing to create that scenario “Part of the design philosophy is to allow clubs to have players play less than 18 holes. You bring them back to the clubhouse not just at nine and eighteen. There are ways to do that if that’s part of your market.”

The popularity of Top Golf facilities around the country (there’s one you can see from I-295 at the Town Center) has brought a lot of new people to the game, somewhat unexpectedly.

“More than 70% of the people who go to Top Golf have never touched a club before,” former TPC at Sawgrass General Manager Bill Hughes explained. Hughes is now the GM and CEO at the Country Club of the Rockies outside of Vail, Colorado but while in Ponte Vedra was an early advocate for a new kind of facility for Miles and Miller at Oak Bridge.

“You can’t just be another golf course,” he explained. “I love the ‘fun golf’ thing. Ponte Vedra already has world-class golf courses. You have to build something that fits the population. An aging community along with a lot of young people you want to bring to the game.”

Nobody is going from Top Golf to the first tee at the Stadium Course. But that’s where the new Yards and places like Jax Beach get involved.

“Top Golf is that kind of phenomenon,” Larsen added. “It’s fun, and that’s what a practice facility can be. Light it, put some targets out there, play some music, have a bar and make it fun. That experience is fun and successful, so some resorts are looking into that.”

“Fun golf has to be beautiful,” he continued. “Lighting and landscaping will be the key. It’s on top of what the game is built on. Will it bring people to the game? Maybe. But it’s an interim step to bring non-players eventually to the first tee of a golf course.”

“Oak Bridge is going to fill a void, introducing people to golf,” Minchew added. “They’re playing music at Jax Beach outside the clubhouse. There’s room for them to expand the putting green to a putting course. They’re covering the practice tee. There’s a Top Golf feel going on there. I think most places are going in that direction. Golf needs to be fun, if that’s part of it, they should have at it.”

And Minchew added an important part of the equation.

“They made money in their first year and that’s unheard of these days. That’s a success story, making it fun, playing music. Just being there is fun, that’s what it’s all about.”

Larsen agreed that the new Yards is a perfect fit for the shifting demographics in Ponte Vedra and golf in general.

“The location makes it popular because Oak Bridge is in a community with a young population. It fits what’s going on there. If they promote things for kids, evening play, take two clubs, walk a few holes, they’ll hit a home run.”

Hughes believes The Yards will be the start of a trend in the golf business.

“The game has to figure out how to get people over to the ‘green grass,’” he said. “Building a facility like this can become the epicenter of health and wellness, a hub of activity for an entire community.”

In addition to the golf, The Yards will have a state-of-the-art pickle ball facility starting with twelve courts. A new grill with an outdoor patio as an adjunct to the Three Palms restaurant that’s in there now and they’ve even planned a spot for weddings under the oaks and alongside the lake.

“That’s exactly what we’re looking for,” Miles said with a smile. “We’ll have members but we’ll be open to the public. We’ll make it affordable. We want people to come out and enjoy themselves. There’s no better place to do this than right here.”

Do Sports Need Fans

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As sports begin to dip their toe into what their post-pandemic product will look like, fans haven’t been a part of the equation. NASCAR, UFC, some European soccer leagues and now the PGA Tour have held competitions, but no “in-person” fans have been allowed.

Without fans, races have been won, fighters have had their hands raised and money has been doled out to golfers. So do they even need fans?

Watching the Colonial this week on television I didn’t miss seeing fans there. Charities in Ft. Worth won’t benefit from money generated by the tournament, but the actual competition didn’t suffer. As an individual sport, most of the players in golf naturally “social distance.”

They’re reportedly going to allow fans at The Memorial in Ohio next month. Early indications are that about 8,000 will be spread out over the 18 holes at Murifield Village allowing everybody their own space.

When the first UFC event was held here, former NFL player Greg Hardy won his match and said afterwards, “Thank God for not having the crowd,” Hardy explained after winning a unanimous decision. He was able to hear the announcers next to the octagon doing the broadcast and took some advice.
“Shout out to D.C. (Daniel Cormier) I heard him tell me to check him, so I started trying to check him. Game changer.”

Professional wrestling had its stars in the era of Bruno Sammartino, Jim Londos and Gorgeous George Wagner but it wasn’t until it moved onto television did the sport gain any traction. In fact, most regional wrestling groups started as a “studio” sport: no fans, just the performers and the announcers in a television studio.

That popularity led to the massive crowds that are on hand now at every appearance. It spawned the movie careers of Dwayne Johnson and John Cena. But if need be, wrestling could go right back to a TV production and not skip a beat.

For decades, the NFL has fought against being a studio sport. You’ve probably seen and heard the commercials produced by the Jaguars about “being there.”

It’s true, the sights and sounds and even the smells of being at a sporting event give some context to what that sport is about. That doesn’t translate through the television screen.

I’ve often said everybody should go to at least one Daytona 500. The spectacle of that day is jarring to the senses and gives you a sense of how invested fans are in the sport. To see the coordination of what happens on pit road and in the garage is impressive. The smell of grease, gasoline and burnt rubber, the sound of forty cars coming across the start/finish line make it unmistakable that you’re at a racetrack. You don’t get that on television. Seeing it in person is a whole different experience. But even without fans there, the racing, the pit stops, the preparation all happens the same way.

In 2017, the New York Knicks played half of a game against Golden State at Madison Square Garden presenting the game in what they called “it’s purist form.” No music, no PA announcer, no iconic organ in the background. Just ten players on the floor, shoes squeaking and the trash talking that goes on between teams.

Everybody hated it.

“It felt like church,” Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr told the media outlet The Ringer.

Draymond Green was more direct

“That was pathetic,” he said. “It changes the flow of the game, it changed everything. It was ridiculous. It just helps you get into a certain area. It takes you to a certain place.”

Perhaps that’s why the NBA is considering piping in crowd noise from their NBA 2K video game when they resume their competition, without fans.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has told teams there’s a real possibility that no fans will be allowed at games through next season as well. Will they use paper cutouts or perhaps robot dolls as some teams in the Korean Baseball League have?

“There’s no excitement. There’s no crying. There’s no joy. There’s no back-and-forth. …” LeBron James said on the “Road Trippin’” podcast in March when asked about playing in front of empty arenas.

“That’s what also brings out the competitive side of the players, to know that you’re going on the road in a hostile environment and yes, you’re playing against that opponent in front of you, but you really want to kick the fans’ a** too.”

We would get a little closer to the games with no fans according to Steph Curry. “It would be raw,” he said on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. “This would take it a whole ‘nother level of just pure insanity of what we say on the court. That trash talk that happens. That might be something that’s really appealing from a fan perspective to get real up close and personal with what we do on the court.”

Hockey could probably do the same as basketball because it’s indoors. Pipe in crowd noise, have music and the PA announcer to give it the right ambience. But it still might have the feel of a glorified scrimmage once the players take the ice.

How many times have you been watching an event on television and heard the broadcaster, who’s in the arena say, “You can really feel the momentum shifting here.” None of that would be a part of the competition.

Could sports get along without fans from an economic standpoint?

Every viable professional sport has a television contract that makes it a profitable enterprise. It’s not whether the teams and the owners will make money; it’s only about how much.

In the NFL, the TV contract the league has and shares with the teams covers the total operating cost of running the franchise. Ticket sales, parking, concessions, club seats, sky suites, local radio and TV contracts and in stadium sponsorships all go right to the bottom line. It’s why the Giants and the Jets owners will always make more money than the Jaguars owner.

The local broadcast money available in in New York alone dwarfs what’s available in Jacksonville. It’s why the Jaguars, sellouts or no sellouts, will always be in the bottom half of revenue earners in the league.

Ticket sales in the NFL account for around fifteen percent of their total revenue. A 65,000-seat stadium, sold out at an average ticket price of $50, (which is probably a low number), brings in $3.25 million. Multiply that by ten games and you get a sense of how much money is flowing through that sport. They could get along without fans, no problem.

Minor league baseball and college football are a different story. With no major television deal and small rights fees, if any for radio broadcasts, minor league owners around the country rely on ticket sales, concessions and in stadium sponsorship to stay in business.

College football television contracts mostly are negotiated with the conference. It’s why college football programs count on ticket sales and in stadium purchases for 75% of their revenue. When you look at how many other programs on campus the football program supports, you can see how they need fans in the stands to flourish.

As we move into the summer, the prospect of Major League Baseball having a season becomes more remote. It’s not that they couldn’t play, but the players and the owners can’t come to an agreement on how much money both sides will make. Player’s contracts are guaranteed for the season if only one game is played. But the owners don’t want to pay full salaries for a limited number of games, which are moneymaking opportunities. Both sides have rejected the other’s offers.

“It’s going to be strange,” Angels All-Star outfielder Mike Trout told FOX Business when asked about playing with no fans. “I think any baseball is better than no baseball, so if we have to do it, we have to do it. It’s definitely something to get used to. It’s the world we’re living in right now.”

And as much as they’ve talked about fans or no fans, all of the team sports are also dealing with the health of the players with Covid-19 still around. The leagues are putting out guidelines on how to do things, social distancing and cleaning, but the team sports we’re talking about are all “contact” competitions in one way or another.

So there’s a risk to the players no matter what precautions are taken. But fans or no fans, with the money there is to be made, no doubt games will be played.

Can Sports Help?

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It’s a slippery slope when any columnist writes about race relations.

But I think this is a critical juncture and that having these conversations, discussions and debates are important.

With thirteen per cent of America, sixteen per cent of the State of Florida and thirty per cent of the residents of the City of Jacksonville identifying themselves as Black or African American, if we’re not having these discussions we’re just talking at, and not with each other.

And sports can be a starting point. Teams that we all report on and cheer for are made up of different races and cultures. Players will tell you though, on a team, race isn’t an issue, it’s a meritocracy.

“Inside that team, we’re family,” former Jaguars linebacker Lonnie Marts said this week of race relations during his college career at Tulane and ten years in the NFL. “If you offer respect in the locker room, sometimes it changes how guys think. I have guys tell me they’re relationship with me changed their perception. So that’s good.”

“We need to keep having these discussions because the more we keep talking the more we have an understanding of different cultures,” former Jaguars Vice President Michael Huyghue added this week.

“I’m African American when I fill out a form but “black” in conversation,” he explained. “That in itself creates a separation, an instant distinction. It’s as if we’re considered outside of America like people who came here from other countries. I was born here.”

Marts agreed.

“I’m a Black-American. I have to select “African American” on forms but I was born here. Some people want to tell me I’m African but I’m not. I’m from here. I’m an American.”

“One of my coaches asked me about it last year,” Marts, also a former high school head coach and athletic director, told me this week about growing up Black in America. “He called me the other day and said ‘I wouldn’t have known anything about this.’ The more we talk to each other the better off we’ll be. I told him what it was like (to be Black in America) and he was shocked. He had no idea.”

That seemed to be the consensus among the friends I talked with this week. All men of color who have been made keenly aware their whole lives that they’re black.

“My perception of being Black in America has had my feelings all over the place,” former Jaguars defensive back and Englewood High product Rashean Mathis told me this week.

“It’s way bigger than George Floyd. It’s just the tipping point. I didn’t have empathy for George Floyd; It was much stronger than that. I literally felt myself in his place. I thought of my son in his place.”

Mathis lives in Ponte Vedra, raising his three children, including his seven-year-old son.

“I’m raising two boys, and the talks I have to have with my seven year old are heart wrenching,” Mathis said while acknowledging he supports the protests over the last week.

“Why are we marching in the streets, why are we blocking highways? Because we need to be heard,” he explained. “We’re trying to raise families and live our lives. You can’t silence truth. And what is true is that there is injustice. You can’t protest just to make everybody comfortable.”

“Most African American’s experience elements of bias on a daily basis,” Huyghue explained. “I don’t go one week without something happening that reminds me of the difference. There are stereotypes that people have and they’re always something you have to explain to your kids.”

Huyghue worked in the legal department for both the NFL and the NFL Players Association. He was the first black agent who represented a white player in the NFL. (He was my agent for twenty years) He cited an example from early in his career where his skin color impacted his work.

“The first time I was a lawyer representing the NFL,” he said. “I went into one of the hearings and the judge said ‘We’ll get started when the NFL lawyer gets here.’ I said ‘your honor, I am the NFL lawyer’. And he said ‘Well when your boss gets here we’ll get started.’ I told him I was the only one.”

It’s that kind of unspoken bias that is a reality according to Huyghue, Mathis and Marts when growing up Black in America.

“I think all black families have an understanding that you have to explain to your kids about the inequities they’ll experience with the police, in the classrooms and other places,” Huyghue said on how he has explained to his children what to expect.

“I let my kids know there are things you can and cannot do,” Marts said. “If you get pulled over you keep your hands where you can see them and you say yes sir and no sir. It’s the perception. You have to teach them. There’s no way around it.”

Several times security guards in Marts’ neighborhood have stopped and questioned his kids about being on the local basketball courts.

“They said, ‘We live here,’ Lonnie explained. “Racial profiling is wrong,” he added. “If my boys aren’t doing anything wrong, why mess with them. Why did you pick them out here?”

“I don’t think we’re acknowledging the problem yet,” Mathis said. “There are still people who have been taught generationally to think like this. Until we acknowledge the state of this country was built upon, we won’t move in the right direction.”

“We cannot fail our children,” Jaguars Owner Shad Khan said in an editorial penned this week. “Children who deserve to know they have the same opportunity to earn a living have a family and live safely — no matter the color of their skin.

Khan, who identifies himself as a person of color and as a Muslim-American, says while he can’t claim to know what it means to be a young African American today, he has been “the frequent target of prejudice, discrimination and hatred.”

He added that he has also felt the kindness and generosity of people in what he calls “the greatest nation on the planet.”

“While I am often described as “self-made,” he wrote, “The truth is I benefitted tremendously from hundreds of good and generous people early on, from all walks of life, who supported me unconditionally and contributed mightily to my realization of the American Dream.”

My friend Calvin and I worked together for over three decades. We met in the early ‘80’s, had children the same age, ate meals together, talked sports, played basketball and generally hung out during breaks at work. We often talked about how his experience, as a black man living and growing up in downtown and Northwest Jacksonville, was very different than mine.

He told me the story this week of being stopped by the police just outside of his neighborhood, walking down the street.

“A white cop and a black cop stopped me and said I looked like somebody they were looking for,” he explained. “I said to myself, ‘I wonder who I look like?’ We have to prove who we are and that’s not right for just walking down the street.”

Calvin’s story continued, “I asked the black cop, ‘Why are you stopping me, the guy you’re looking for is 5’5” and 180 lbs.! I look nothing like that! He said, ‘It’s his call’ pointing to the white cop. That’s where the police need to have some accountability to each other. Why didn’t one of those other officers get that guy off of Floyd’s neck? He’d be alive today if that happened.”

Everybody agrees that what happened to George Floyd was heinous and criminal and hopes justice will be served for Floyd and his family. Calvin believes in taking to the streets to protest but says, “The whole movement got sideways because of those agitators who promoted violence.”

It reminded him of a similar time when he was young.

“We went to Hemming Plaza in the ‘60’s to listen to H. Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael who were in town. We had some agitators from my neighborhood that just wanted to stir things up. Their incentive was selfish. They were looking at their own personal interest. They weren’t interested in the cause at all.”

“I think peaceful protesting is a way to get things done,” Marts agreed. “Not violence, that’s a low means of communication. Tearing up stuff or attacking the cops, that’s backwards.”

“It’s always going to be rough on the edges,” Huyghue responded when asked about protesting. “Protests are intended to shock the system. There’s no perfect way to protest. You can go back to Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Olympics. They (the protests) have value because they stop us and force us to look at things in a different way.”

Rashean’s take was a little different.

“I don’t agree with looting or rioting,” he said. “I’m a law-abiding citizen and that’s against the law. But I understand it. Some people are taking advantage of the situation; others are expressing their frustration. If you kick a dog enough, eventually he’s going to bite you. People are screaming because their parents and grandparents haven’t been heard.”

With the influence sports and famous athletes have on young people through social media, Calvin believes they can make a difference.

“The more pressure that is put on by athletes that kids look up to will cause the dialogue to start again and work toward the changes that we need,” he said. “The difference will be made when black leaders and athletes keep bringing attention what’s going on.”

Mathis is one of those athletes who are leading the conversation, trying to effect change.

“I spoke to the Vanderbilt football team today,” he said. “I told those guys, black and white, that they have to have these conversations together. They will be the ones to affect some sort of change. Change will not happen without both sides going together. We need white America to stand with us. We need more. We need to do our part as a black society, but we need white America to go with us.”

I tried to get Calais Campbell to add his voice to the discussion and was disappointed I couldn’t reach him. He’s the kind of guy you hoped would stay in your city after he retired from playing and I told him so many times during his tenure with the Jaguars. He could have an impact on our city that’s always been divided by roads and rivers, oftentimes along racial lines. He tweeted this week:

“The ballot is more powerful than the bullet! Put people in office that can and will create legislation that will make a difference. And most importantly do it locally because the federal govt can only do so much! City and state govt is just as important.”

It’s one of the reasons I was so disappointed when Calais was traded to the Ravens. As the Walter Payton Man of the Year in the NFL for 2019, Campbell’s work in the community is unparalleled.

Mathis believes there is a lot of work to be done, more than has ever been done before.

“We have made progress for sure, there’s been a lot of change, but the majority are still suffering,” He explained. “I acknowledge there has been change. I mean, I live in Marsh Landing. But we can’t let the change we’ve already made outweigh the fact that the problem that still exists.”

Perhaps somebody like Leonard Fournette can pick up the mantle locally and continue the work players like Mathis and Campbell have started. I’ve seen the charity work he’s done here and it’s heartfelt. He’s inviting people to join him in a peaceful march this coming week.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who would love to join him but would like to know who “they” are in this tweet from last Wednesday:

“They’ll never understand until it’s one of there (their) kids or friends . . .. “

Because if the conversation starts off with “us” and “them” we’ll never get to “we.”

Gardner Minshew

Can the 2020 Jaguars Be Virtually Good?

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It appears we’ll have some sort of NFL season in 2020. Several owners this week thought out loud that fans would be allowed, but the decision on that is a while off. With only fifteen percent of each team’s revenue coming from ticket sales, they could play a season without fans in the stands. It would be weird, like the fourth quarter of a preseason game but they could do it. Add in the money lost for concessions and in game sponsorship, and the money still made through the television contracts would make playing a season worthwhile.

Contrast that with college football, where about seventy-five percent of the revenue comes through ticket sales. Add in the support the football program gives to the other sports on campus and you can see it would be a difficult, and devastating blow to college sports if they can’t play a season.

Nonetheless, the NFL is plowing along, making preparations to play, albeit without any OTA’s or mini-camps, with the plan to have teams gather in person for the first time at the end of July for training camp. The current virtual team meetings will give way to actual coaching, on and off the field.

“It’s still difficult,” Jaguars new Offensive Coordinator Jay Gruden said this week about not being able to see players in person. “It’s one thing to install plays on a chalk board and virtual meetings getting to know the concepts and all that stuff, but it’s another thing to go out and execute and see what we’re good at, to see what guy can do.”

“I don’t have a lot of information as far as how these guys can handle different positions and how to run different routes and all that stuff, “ Gruden continued. “We have to get these guys on the field but then getting them out there and seeing them execute it. We got to get out on the field soon.”

Taking this time at home in Mississippi, Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew has been able to focus on one thing in the last four months: getting better.

“Since the day after the Super Bowl, I’ve been going six days a week for the last, however many months it’s been,” he said via video conference call with the media this week “It’s been a lot of fun seeing growth in yourself and your game. I’ve been talking to the receivers, and everybody.

Minshew said he’s been tinkering with his weight and his strength trying to find the right combination. He was up to 230 lbs. about the first of March, but is back down under 225 now and feels comfortable with his size and speed as well as his arm strength at that weight. He’s also been leading his offensive teammates, albeit virtually, to try and stay ahead of things.

“We’ve been doing some players only walk throughs virtually that have been helping guys learn and also just getting us together,” he explained. “Then, moving forward we’re also going to try and get together a little bit more before camp to kind of get what reps we can, while being safe and smart.”

How does that even work? Minshew said he’s been getting the offensive guys together to just go through plays so his teammates can hear the call and understand what they need to do on each play.

“So on Microsoft TEAMS there is an application that is called white board and so you are basically on a group call,” he said. “I will call out a play and like whoever is in for that play will just draw their assignment and we just kind of go around and talk about it. I think it is a good way, it is one thing to learn it on paper but to hear the call and then know what to do right there, I think it has been a good way, got to make the best of a bad situation.”

Officially, the Jaguars coaching staff is meeting, virtually, with each other and with their position groups to install the offense, bit by bit, as if they were going through OTA’s and mini-camp. Minshew is trying to go the extra mile as the leader on offense.

“When you talk about the whiteboard and what Gardner is doing, that’s totally separate from the staff,” Head Coach Doug Marrone said Friday. “So, that pretty much, probably, for lack of a better way to describe it, really takes the place of, you know, you read about these quarterback that get together with their receivers and work on things extra during the off season. That’s separate.”

Marrone is the first to admit each season is different, each team is different and you have to build your team from the bottom up every year.

“I like that because obviously you have our players, they’re talking to each other, they’re trading some chemistry, and I think it creates accountability amongst themselves,” he said. “They’re also going to be even more so accountable, in my opinion, when you’re working with each other. I think that’s the best way to create accountability is when the players are keeping themselves accountable.”

So where do the wins come from for this young team that nobody expects to do anything? The over/under number for wins for the Jaguars out of Las Vegas is 4 ½. It’s the lowest total in the league, so they’re not expecting much out of Doug Marrone’s team, no matter how much they believe they’ve done the right things in this offseason.

“I think it should put a chip on everybody’s shoulder on our team, know being kind of counted out like that,” Minshew said of the low expectations for the Jaguars.

“I think we do have a lot to prove, prove that we are not what anybody says about us, the only people that really know, the only peoples whose opinions matter is who is in that huddle, who is on that team and I think we are going to set those expectations for ourselves and not worry about what anybody else has to say about us.”

We all play the game when the schedule comes out, but now that the Jaguars roster seems to be set, either with or without Yannick Ngakoue or Leonard Fournette, can they be a surprise team in 2020?

In the opening six games, let’s say they win a game they’re not supposed to and win one on the road and they’re 3-3. It’s possible they could be 0-3 in the division at that point since their only home division game is the opener against the Colts and Phillip Rivers as their new quarterback. Never a good scenario for the Jaguars. In the last ten games of the year, they might be an underdog in every game and will have a tough time beating the Chargers to start, because they rarely play well on the West Coast. Games against the Packers, Steelers, Ravens, Vikings and the Colts in Indy will all be uphill battles.

That leaves four home games against Houston, Cleveland, Tennessee, and Chicago.

If they win a couple of those and Minshew works his magic a few other times during the season, the 2020 Jaguars are still looking up at a .500 record.

We’re all hoping Las Vegas is wrong, but going through the schedule, they don’t seem that far off.

Hopefully these young guys will surprise us.

Fenway Park

Wait! It’s Almost June? I Miss Baseball

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As a kid growing up in Baltimore I was a big baseball fan. Still am. Often if I’m just scanning through the channels I default to the MLB Network.

When my TV career was ended, I was home nights for the first time in my professional life. That was different for my wife, who after ten days looked at me and said, “OK, the only rule is we’re not going to watch baseball every night.”

So I guess I’m still a big baseball fan.

Recently they’ve been running classic games on TV and the other day I stopped to watch Dave McNally, a pitcher, hit a Grand Slam for the Orioles in Game 3 of the 1970 World Series to beat the Reds. I hung around to watch the first couple of innings of the 1971 All-Star Game. I was fixated on the talent in the game.

Vida Blue started for the American League and faced Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Johnny Bench, all future Hall of Famers, at the top of the National League order. I counted no fewer than 25 future Hall of Famers in that game. And I realized, wow, I miss baseball.

Apparently, I’m not alone.

“I miss it. I miss watching baseball, I miss trying to figure out a trip to Atlanta or Tampa,” former Suns owner Peter Bragan Jr. said this week. “I want to go see that ballpark in Pittsburgh.”

Baseball has been in Bragan’s whole life, literally, since he was born. His is a baseball family from his uncles through his father, his own college career at Southern Alabama playing for former Major Leaguer Eddie Stanky and into his days of minor league ownership.

“You have no good idea when they’ll come back. Maybe July? Maybe with just a quarter of the fans,” he said when I asked about the uncertainty of the game being played. But then he reminded me about one of the threads that runs through the game.

“I miss the game terribly, he said. “But the greatest thing about baseball is ‘hope springs eternal.’ All baseball fans have that in their DNA.”

I’ve been told feeling nostalgic during this pandemic time is normal. But I’m not nostalgic for baseball of a bygone era. I just miss baseball. I glanced at a calendar the other day and said, “Wait, it’s almost June?”

Growing up in the game, with a college and an 11-year Major League career, followed by running a baseball academy and coaching his own son, Rick Wilkins has been around baseball since he can remember.

“I’ve never not had a baseball in my hand for more than a month in my life,” he said.

“It’s a marker and a measurement of time for me,” he explained this week. “My rhythms seem to be a little bit off. I’m used to having spring training, Opening Day, the first half, the All-star break. My timing is off.”

A pitcher for the JU Dolphins and now president of the university, Tim Cost agreed.

“I live by when pitchers and catchers are reporting,” Cost said of matching the calendar with the game. “I miss baseball in our lives terribly. It’s a great right of spring. When is Opening Day? The second week of July is the All-Star break. It marks time.”

When I asked my former dentist Dr. Ron Elinoff, the biggest baseball fan I know, if he was a little out of sync without baseball, he just laughed.

“Not a little, I’m a lot out of sync. Particularly growing up in New York,” he said.

Ron knows more about baseball than anybody I’ve ever met. Most of my visits to the dentist were dominated by baseball talk. A picture that hung on the wall in his practice even helped me answer a Stump Sam question once.

“We had three Major League teams in New York when I was growing up,” he said, recalling his roots in the game. “We’d cut school to go to Opening Day, Tuesday was Ladies Day; the games were in the afternoon.”

Marking time through the game started when Ron was just a kid in Brooklyn, long before a stint in the Navy that included service in Vietnam found him stationed at NAS Jax.

“April we really looked forward to,” he explained. “Days were getting longer. My grades went down. April and May it was hard to hit the books we were so thrilled to be at a game.”

Elinoff has been visiting the Dodgers in Spring Training since 1980 and has followed them to Arizona since they moved to Glendale eleven years ago. He’s one of about 10,000 fans who saw the last Major League Spring Training game played. Ron was at the Dodger game on March 11th, shortened to 6 ½ innings by rain. The next day they called the games off.

“I was there for five straight days of baseball and to see John Shoemaker (the former Suns manager). So I flew back Friday. Coming back the Brazilian baseball team was on my flight to Atlanta. They were out there trying to qualify for the World Baseball Championships. We all weren’t sure what was going on.”

Both Elinoff and Cost talked about being at a game, the lack of a clock, and the symmetry of the field, the game itself.

“Basketball and football are built around massive personalities,” Cost explained. “Sometimes baseball is seen as not of this time, but the beauty of the game is how much is going into every matchup per at bat, per inning. Pitcher against hitter, fielder against runner, catcher against base stealer.”

Elinoff agreed. “There’s no sport you can appreciate as much as baseball by being there,” he explained. “TV is fine, but you can’t visualize what the players are doing. It’s like a ballet going on, there’s artistry to it. The cutoff man, the catcher running down the first baseline to back up the first baseman.”

“Just to watch them chalk the lines and see the green grass,” he continued. “The grounds crew working, getting the mound ready. I really miss that. If you show up for just the Star Spangled Banner, that’s not enough.”

Ron and his wife Susan have made the trip to Cooperstown for the last thirty years for the annual late summer induction ceremony. He knows the city will suffer since there will be no ceremony for Derek Jeter this year, perhaps expecting their biggest crowds ever.

As you can tell, Elinoff and Cost are big baseball fans. Elinoff eventually bought ten season tickets to Dodger games when they were in Vero Beach and set his professional calendar around spring training games in March.

“I’d look at the spring training calendar in December and go to my book and block off the days I’d be in Vero. I’d take the kids to Sunday games and a guy’s trip to the Wednesday games,” he said, marking time through the game.

When Cost was the Executive Vice President of the Aramark Company in Philadelphia they ran more than twenty stadiums in Major League Baseball. It was his job to check on the stadiums, meet with the owners and make sure things were going right. He always had great tickets. At home at Phillies games he’d make a walk to the upper reaches of the stadium to find a parent and a child together and give them his tickets right behind the screen.

“The more you give to the game, the more it gives back,” he said, somewhat wistfully. “I’d be in a coat and tie so they knew I was somebody official. When I’d escort them down to my seats, to just see the look in the kid’s eyes to be that close to the game . . . it was fantastic.”

I caught up with former Major League pitcher Brett Myers right as he was heading out to practice with one of his three sons this week. Between his 12-year career and working with his kids, Brett couldn’t remember the last time he went this long without a baseball in his hands. But he didn’t mind it.

“When this thing came through we had a chance to do some different things,” he said. “We kind of took it as our summer. We’ll be back into it with lots of travel ball.”

Myers is generally concerned that young players are asked to “overthrow” their arms when they’re young, so forcing them to rest through this shutdown might be helpful in the long run.

“This whole thing gave me time to breathe. My older boy has had tournaments on the weekend since August. We cancelled our nine-year-old’s season just go keep their arms safe. Some parent weren’t happy but I think it’s the best thing to do.”

Throwing batting practice is a natural thing for Myers to do with all of his sons teams, sometimes four times a week. He hasn’t done that in a while and it gave him some new perspective.

“I just threw for 2 ½ hours just yesterday,” he explained of the first day they were allowed back on the field. “That’s one of the things I think about. If I’m sore, what are they going to feel like?”

There’s currently a debate as to whether baseball will have a Major League season this year. Wilkens, Myers, Cost and Elinoff all have differing opinions on how that can, or even should happen.

“It’s tough for the major leaguers,” Myers said. “They can’t take a chance to get hurt. They make a financial decision. How many guys are throwing bullpens? They’re not facing live hitting. Who knows how they’re going to come back.”

“If the issue is really the health of the players it doesn’t make sense,” Elinoff said. “Are 24 year olds going to get on the bus in their uniforms, go to the hotel, shower and stay there? Of course not. My hope is that it’s conveyed as a health issue and not as a money issue. If it’s a money issue, then they’re in trouble.”

Cost hoped the games would return but with a renewed idea.

“I hope it comes back in a form where they rethink how they’re presenting the game. Maybe more afternoon games, a chance to bring more kids and more young people to the game.”

“There’s no families out on the weekend, no kids playing, it’s just bizarre,” Wilkins said of the absence of the game. “It’s a Wilkins family way; the boys play baseball. It’s strange. It’s part of the fabric of who we are. It’s no good, not being able to go to games and watch kids grow as people and as players. There’s no other way to say it, it’s something that needs to be there. I just miss it.”

I used to say when I was asked to speak at banquets that baseball is the game that best emulates life. It’s an individual performance as part of a greater team goal.

That’s never been truer than now. We’re all in this game together, marking time. Let’s keep doing our part.

For The Last Two Months . . .

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You might have to tilt your head a little, and maybe even squint a bit, but it appears there is a light at the end of this pandemic tunnel we’ve been living in.

It feels like forever, but it’s been about two months since the first calls from politicians to try and “flatten the curve” mandating we have smaller gatherings that eventually led to the “stay at home” guidelines issued by the city and the state.

We’ve seen hundreds of celebrities on television and on social media telling us “we’ll get through this together, and we’ll come out stronger on the other end.”

So with an optimistic eye toward that end, will we be stronger? What will we look like anyway? Besides our hair looking like something out of the ‘70’s, gyms and parks have been closed, social distancing has been in place and people’s routines have been upended.

As we look back on the past two months, what did we do? Did you fulfill your goals to lose weight, learn a new skill, or do those things you’ve been putting off? Which direction did we take our lives, our fitness and our mental health?

“From a clinical standpoint, the world is turned upside down,” Frank Palmieri a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, explained this week. Palmieri has been walking more and doing more yard work with his free time and doing many of his professional tasks by video conference. But he understands how the coronavirus is a constant presence in the back of everybody’s mind.

“We’re constantly aware of the danger of something being wrong. The whole situation can be depressing. There’s a constant drumbeat about what we have to be doing with schools, work and staying apart. That can make people confused and disoriented.”

Anytime I go out, I see more people walking or running or riding their bikes than I have in the last thirty years. Some of that might have to do with the sidewalk project in Mandarin nearing the halfway point of completion but there are people getting out and doing stuff who haven’t thought about walking any further than to the refrigerator in years.

One of the people trying to manage the pandemic is Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry. He’s always been visibly engaged with the fitness level of people here in town as well as his own. What did he do?

“Molly and I got a Peloton for each other for Christmas so that couldn’t have been better timing,” the Mayor said this week. “I’ve spent a lot of time on that and I’ve been running some.”

Curry’s son Boyd has been lifting weights in the garage, and the Mayor has joined in.

“I get about 45 minutes in each day, and the mental health aspect is great,” he explained, noting it’s a family affair. “My daughters Bridget and Brooke are running in the evenings. And Bridget does a virtual dance class a few times a week.”

Curry had gone to a plant-based diet at the end of last year and was pleased with the results. But in the last two months he admits, his diet hasn’t ben great.

“Even though I’ve been working out I’ve gained weight. I want to get back to it,” he said. “I’ll tell you this though, when I’m coming home from work it’s great to see the neighborhoods in the evenings have families walking together, jogging, riding bikes, walking the dog. Lock down doesn’t mean don’t leave your house, it means get outside and be smart. I’m really proud of how people have handled this.”

With the NFL still operating, albeit virtually, Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone has still had his share of work responsibilities. He’s moved his entire office to his home and has tried to keep a routine, which he said was initially tough. But he added there’s been an unexpected silver lining.

“You get back into a family situation, as tough as these times are,” Marrone said. “We’ve been a lot more fortunate than a lot of other people.”

Both of Doug’s parents worked when he was young, so having dinner together was a family tradition, a time to catch up. He’s had a chance to do that with his own children.

“With three teenagers they’re always running out,” Marrone explained. “We’ve tried to take advantage of that. We’ll look back and hopefully understand, but if you’re looking for a positive, you can find things you appreciate.”

Marrone has caught up on some reading and has tried to stay in front of planning for mini-camps and training camp if they happen at all.

“I don’t want to be scrambling,” he said.

As somebody who jokes about his weight on a regular basis, Doug laughed when I asked him about keeping on schedule.

“I was on this big kick trying to help all of the local restaurants early on, so that didn’t help my diet,” he said with a laugh. “But I’ve gotten to that point last weekend where I have to get my stuff together. Normally we’ll be on the field and running around. But sitting at a desk doing virtual meetings? That’s not going to cut it.”

Former Jaguars linebacker Lonnie Marts has been juggling his professional and family life from home like everybody else. Marts is the Athletic Director at Harvest Community School and has been preparing as if there will be athletic seasons next year. At the same time all of his children are home, making for some challenging logistics.

“I’m enjoying my kids being home because I never expected to have this time,” Marts said of having his college age children back under one roof. “But we did have to come up with a family strategy how to survive with everybody in the house together.”

Marts partitioned off his garage, with one half acting as a gym and the other as a podcast studio.

“We’ve had college exams, podcasts and Tik-Tok videos going on all at the same time,” he explained.

Staying fit is something Marts and his family has paid attention to for the last two months. His son Gavin is back from the Naval Academy and has been designing body-weight workouts for the family. Lonnie says he’s been lifting in his garage and trying to walk a lot.

“I kind of over-did it with walking and my knee started swelling up so I had to back off,” he said adding that he’s maintained his weight with a little fluctuation. “But what’s the new normal? With gyms and parks closed we had to find something.”

That knee-swelling Marts experienced isn’t unusual according to Matt Serlo, the Master Physical Therapist at PT Solutions in Ponte Vedra. A lot of those “home gym remedies” have resulted in more calls to his clinic.

“I’m happy that people are doing that,” Serlo said of the uptick in many people’s activity level. “But I’ve gotten a lot of calls in the past few weeks from patients who’ve said, ’I think I over-did it!”

While his doctor referrals are down about 50%, in Florida you can see a physical therapist without a physician’s referral for thirty days. So he’s seen more “walk-in” business.

“I get calls saying ‘This is sore, I twisted this or I wrenched that’, I’m hearing a lot of that,” said Serlo who has kept his own routine up, getting in a workout at least three times a week in the morning before seeing patients.

I checked back with Jane Alred of First Place Sports and Phil Foreman at Champion Cycling here in town. With all of this new activity, demand for them is up.

“Our maintenance requests continue to go way up,” Foreman said of the service at their three stores. “We’re also selling a lot of bikes. We’ve literally run out of some bikes. Some bike deliveries were shut down in Asia so they’re eight weeks behind.”

More women are buying bikes than men and because of that their most popular bike could now take three months to deliver. Beach cruisers and comfort bikes are flying out the door.

“I’ve been in this business for thirty eight years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Foreman said. “We’re just calling it ‘Groundhog Day.’ We’re pedaling as fast as we can from open to close.”

And the stress fracture in Phil’s right foot isn’t getting much better.

“I’m on my feet all day, doing repairs,” he said. “I’d love to be out riding my bike.”

At First Place Sports, their four stores were closed for six weeks but they’ve stayed busy.

“We did curbside and virtual fittings,” Alred said. “We were delivering shoes, painting buildings, pressure washing sidewalks, doing inventory. Our online is more robust.. Sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Our stores have never been cleaner.”

Because of hospital closures, Jane’s previously scheduled foot surgery was put off for about a month. Her injury had limited her to walking 2-3 miles a day after being an active runner most of her life. And the combination of the coronavirus shutdowns and her foot problems had her focus on other habits.

“I’m much more cautious about what I eat,” she explained, adding that she’s been doing non-impact workouts on a Precor machine she bought her husband Doug for Christmas.

“I’ve been reading more, maybe watching Netflix at night. I get a little stir crazy. Sometimes I don’t want to get off the video calls I do for work during the day because it’s like the only human contact besides Doug.”

And no matter what happens with the re-opening of the stores and the economy, Alred believes she’ll be permanently changed.

“My new normal will be things like grocery delivery. I don’t know when races will start up again. I’m not sure I want to be around large groups of people right now.”

Two common threads emerged from the people I spoke to this week: Weird dreams and sometimes a feeling of the “blahs.”

“People who are optimistic by nature would find this strange,” Palmieri explained. “We are so used to going through our day automatically. We don’t have to think about what we’re doing. This compels us to think about every place we go, every person we talk with. We’re not relaxed. The process of change is uncomfortable. Every thing you do takes more mental energy.”

My guitar playing has gotten better. That’s what happens when you practice every day. My chainsaw and power tools have gotten a workout. I’ve been back on my bike after a hip replacement.

I got on the scale the other day, with plenty of trepidation, and I’m two pounds heavier than I was in mid-February. While that’s disappointing, at least it’s not the ten I thought it might be. And I think I know why; I had too much fun in the first month of the “stay at home” order. So that’s something I can fix.

I hope.

Where’s Shad?

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In these “social distancing” times, it’s pretty normal to not see some people you’re used to seeing.

But where’s Shad?

In a literal sense,
I’m sure he’s working on one of the myriad of forty-plus companies he owns. The last time we saw him was in a picture during the NFL Draft, sitting at a table with his son Tony, apparently at his home in Illinois in their den, basement or office, watching and working on the Jaguars draft.

But I thought he was conspicuously absent from the Jaguars landscape this week when it was confirmed that the International Series for the NFL was cancelled for 2020. As the “face” of the International Series for the league in the last seven years and with two games scheduled in London this year, it’s a big move for the Jaguars to play all eight of their regular season home games in Jacksonville.

But we never heard from Shad.

Jaguars President Mark Lamping had a statement about playing here and tickets were available but nothing from Shad. As big a deal as they’ve made in the last few years about the revenue stream the London games put to the bottom line and how important the game has become to the franchise’s viability in Jacksonville, you’d have thought Shad would have something to say.

No doubt this is a difficult time for any business owner, and Shad, I’m sure, is no exception. His commitment to his employees is always evident and laudable.

“I know where my bread is buttered,” he told me at an NFL Owners meeting when I asked where the Jaguars fit into his portfolio. “I have 20,000 employees at Flex-N-Gate who are counting on me to help them take care of their families, pay their mortgages and fund their kids education.” I was impressed by that comment because of the spontaneity and the sincerity that came through as he sat next to me. It wasn’t a canned line written by some PR department.

So I’m sure he’s fully immersed in trying to keep his companies and employees fed and clothed and back on their feet as soon as possible.

But we need some of that. From him.

Even some kind of “Hey, we’re sorry we’re not playing in London but wow, it’s just great to be able to play those games in front of our fans here at home,” would have been great.

Owning an NFL team is a different venture than owning any other kind of business. You’re going to make money as the owner; the only question is, how much? And nobody has much of a problem with that.

But there’s a raw, visceral connection between a town and it’s football team. And here in Jacksonville, a working-class city, that connection is even more primitive. Part of it is being a “football town” and part of it has to do with the nearly two decades long chase for an NFL team.

And part of that connection has to be with the owner. We had some of that with Wayne Weaver. He lived here, you’d see him around, at restaurants at charity events. His philanthropy is unparalleled. Shad has also been very generous with his many donations both personally and through the Jaguars.

But we need more of him.

I told Weaver many times he was the most under utilized promotional tool the Jaguars had during his ownership. He usually laughed me off. But I believed that then and I believe that about Shad Khan as well.

When Shad bought the team and took over in 2012, we couldn’t get enough of him. Every appearance was sold out; every comment was dissected for meaning and nuance. His spontaneous cameo in a “Gangnam Style” video went viral immediately.

We haven’t seen that Shad in a while.

We’ve seen him at games and official events. He’s involved in the political and development landscape with several proposals for a Shipyards and Lot J development. His yacht the “Kismet” is parked in the St. Johns downtown. He usually stays at the beach when he’s in town. He’s a presence here.

Since he’ll be 70 this year, maybe he’s turning some things over to his family? Maybe we’ll see more of Tony than in the past as fans of the Fulham soccer club have seen? I doubt that. Shad has too much vitality to step away from what he’s built. And he has too much of a sense of responsibility to the people who count on him.

If he showed up here in town now he might have to undergo a 14-day quarantine based on the Governor’s order. So we don’t want that. But if we’ve learned anything in these pandemic times it’s how easily accessible everybody is by video at a moment’s notice.

I don’t expect him to open a Twitter account like Jim Irsay of the Colts. Nor do I expect him to dance on the sidelines with an umbrella like Tom Benson of the Saints used to do. But some more of the Shad who danced with fans in the parking lot eight years ago would go a long way.

There’s a video of Shad being interviewed on the Jaguars website dated the beginning of February. He talks about how paramount it is to win on the field. He’s obviously a fan and somebody who has learned a lot about football. But he also talks about winning “off the field” with the development of Daily’s Place and the money invested in the stadium. He outlines the plans to help develop downtown. And he says, as he has often, ‘judge actions not words.” And added, “If Jacksonville is growing, it’s better for the Jaguars.” When asked about his slightly different role with the team he said, “there’s a fine line between abdication and delegation.”

I like al of that. So this isn’t so much of a complaint as a suggestion. We want to see more of you Shad. A quick video of encouragement in these tough times from a man of your stature would go a long way. Comments from your surrogates are fine but our connection is with you.

With your backstory, if there’s anybody who knows how the common touch is a powerful tool, it’s you.

Use it.

Draft Shows What Jaguars Think of 2020

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“Read your article on the draft today,” my friend ‘Wooly’ texted me last Sunday. “Really liked it but thought you were holding something back,” he added.

It’s not that I was holding anything back, I told him. But the Jaguars clearly have their own ideas about how this team should be built and what it will be able to do.

And you can agree with that or not.

“I think you have to expect them to lie,” season ticket holder ‘Ghost of Chuck’ said as we talked about what the Jaguars said they were doing and what they’re actually doing.

While ‘lying’ might be a bit harsh, there’s no question that the days and weeks leading up to the draft are a time of, let’s say ‘disinformation’ in the NFL.

When you look at what the Jaguars did with the draft and what they said afterwards, it gives a pretty clear picture where Head Coach Doug Marrone and General Manager Dave Caldwell think this team can compete.

When asked if he thought about taking an offensive lineman with the ninth pick in the first round, Caldwell gave a direct and pretty revealing answer.

“We did, but the one we may have considered was probably gone at the time.” In the top eight picks before the Jaguars were on the board, the only offensive lineman taken was Georgia’s Andrew Thomas, a tackle, selected fourth by the Giants.

Cleveland took Alabama’s Jedrick Wills, another tackle, right after the Jaguars at the tenth spot. Tristen Wirfs another tackle from Iowa went 13th to Tampa Bay. Southern Cal’s Austin Jackson went to Miami 18th, Cesar Ruiz from Michigan and Isaiah Wilson of Georgia were also taken in the first round.

So elite offensive linemen were available in this draft, but the Jaguars didn’t select any at that position until Ben Bartch from Division III St. John’s of Minnesota in the fourth round. Bartch looks to have great potential but even the Jaguars admit he’s a ‘project.’

Clearly this draft and the renegotiated deal they made with Andrew Norwell sends the current Jaguars offensive line a message: “You’re it, get better.” Doug Marrone admitted as much.

“I think we have some good competition behind those guys right now,” Marrone said while the draft was going on. “Will Richardson, we have to get him locked him into a position. Tyler Shatley has done a good job for us I think those players have a lot on their plate to make sure they improve. We’ve said that. We really think they’re going to make a big jump.”

In other words, as my friend and colleague Mike DiRocco said in response to a question about the lack of offensive line picks, “They clearly have more confidence in the offensive line than you or the media do.”

Caldwell didn’t use any of his “ammo,” as he put it, of twelve picks to move up or back to get the players they wanted. According to him, they didn’t have to.

“We didn’t acquire picks to get less players, we acquired picks to get more players, and like I said there were so many players that we liked that at the end of it, we were like, ‘I wish I had a couple more picks in the seventh round.”

He admitted they’d have been happy to take wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr. in the first round if they didn’t think he’d be there when they selected in round two.

“Should we go get Laviska?” Caldwell said about the conversations in the draft room when wide receivers started coming off the board. “We thought about it and I think we just said, ‘Let’s stick to the philosophy of this year’s draft. I’m not saying that’s every year’s draft. Next year, it may be different.”

A deep receiver class and Shenault falling “by the wayside a little bit,” allowed the Jaguars to wait and take him with the 42nd selection.

“If by chance he did go,” Caldwell said of his contingency plan, “We had enough players there where we would have felt good about possibly trading back and still getting one of the players we liked.”

Getting better up front on defense was a big priority; Caldwell said it helps him sleep at night knowing there are guys on the roster who can rush the passer. Marrone also likes the size they now have up front.

“Well the No. 1 identity that we have been talking about is the identity to be able to stop the run. In order to do that, you have to be big up front, you have to be physical and you are going to have to be able to tackle. That is something that has hurt us. That is something that we have put a priority on.”

Part of Marrone’s vision of what kind of defense the Jaguars can have relied on getting a “Number one type corner.” Either Jeff Okudah or C.J. Henderson would have fit the bill and when Henderson was there with the ninth pick, they didn’t hesitate.

“He is a big guy. He can play against guys that have speed, he can play against guys that are big and try to outmuscle them,” Marrone said, explaining why that position let’s them do so many things elsewhere on defense. “At the same time, we want to be able to cover on third down and let our rushers go.”

At quarterback, Marrone said Gardner Minshew would be the guy behind center if they rolled the ball out there right now. And Caldwell said they’d look at signing a veteran QB in addition to selecting Jake Luton from Oregon State in the sixth round. It’s the third year in a row the Jaguars have used their sixth round selection on a quarterback.

Based on Marrone’s “no drama” emphasis, the Jaguars aren’t going to sign Cam Newton and Jameis Winston said he wanted to get a “Harvard education” by signing with New Orleans. Now that Andy Dalton has been released by the Bengals, his logical connections to the Jaguars through offensive coordinator Jay Gruden make him an easy choice if he’s willing to work for a reduced rate. And former Jaguars QB Blake Bortles, a Caldwell 1st round draft pick, is still a free agent. Before you say that’s crazy, as sturdy and athletic as Blake is, couldn’t he fit a Taysom Hill kind of role for the Jaguars?

When asked if he’d told Leonard Fournette’s agent to tell Leonard to prepare to play in Jacksonville this season, Caldwell gave a quick, “No,” and didn’t elaborate.

But he gave some insight into how the Jaguars seem to think they can move on, if necessary, without Fournette, and with the guys they have and not address running back in the draft.

“I think maybe it’s misunderstood of how we feel about the other guys we have in our room besides Leonard and Roc(quell Armstead) and Devine (Ozigbo),” Caldwell explained. “And those are two guys that as you look down, you start to get into the fourth, fifth round, and you’re like, ‘Do we like these guys better than Rock and Devine?’ And the real answer is no.”

Regarding the Yannick Ngakoue situation, Caldwell said they’d welcome him back with ‘open arms.’ He also noted that there weren’t any offers for Yan from other teams, mainly because of his long-term contract demands. Expect the Jaguars to be willing to let Ngakoue sit if he doesn’t sign the franchise tender. That would be really dumb on his part. As I’ve said, he’s getting bad advice.

What kind of team will they be?

“Young, smart, tough. Guys that love football,” Marrone said. “Everything that we’ve talked about, not a lot of stuff going on that’s going to distract them, a bunch of guys that are excited for their opportunity, appreciative. These guys want to go to work. They want to play.”

“You’re never going to come out of a draft completely satisfied. But this is about as satisfied as we’ve been,” Caldwell said in summary. “We feel good about the players we got and filled some needs.”

Agree or disagree with what they’re doing, the Jaguars brass are true believers in their vision. They got the players they wanted, and the kind of players they wanted and expect to compete now. Not rebuild, not ‘roll into it’ but compete in the AFC South if they have an NFL season in 2020.

Jaguars Get What and Who They Wanted

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There’s always been a two-way discussion for NFL teams about the college draft: Do you pick for need or just draft the best player available?

For the Jaguars this year they were picking for something different: No drama.

Head Coach Doug Marrone stressed that point several times leading up to the draft and the Jaguars followed through, picking players who aren’t bringing a lot of baggage to Jacksonville.

“Is it big? Absolutely,” Marrone said of getting rid of any drama surrounding the Jaguars. “Is this something that we’ve stressed? Yes. But we were able to do that without sacrificing the talent or potential.”

They call these types of players “high-character guys” in the NFL. There is a theory that you need some “low-character guys” on your team to win in the league just to keep the other team honest.

This year, the football staff and the personnel department had a plan and they stuck to it. The draft was deep so they felt like they could not only get the player they liked but the kind of player they liked as well.

“So our goal was, ‘we have 12 draft picks, we don’t want to be flippant with the picks.’’ General Manager Dave Caldwell explained. “It’s easy to be like, ‘I have 12 picks, so let’s use this pick to trade up and trade that,’ but let’s just let the draft come to us and still get talented players that fit our culture, fit our locker room and that can come in and compete at a high level.”

There are team captains all over this Jaguars draft. Ten of the first eleven players selected by Marrone and Caldwell were named captains in college. The eleventh, Davon Hamilton (who might have the biggest arms you’ve ever seen) played on the defensive line at Ohio State where Chase Young was the captain but was described by Gene Smith, the Buckeye’s Athletic Director as, “A Sunday kind of guy. He’s disruptive. He’s smart. I love Davon because on top of everything he’s a great human being.”

So coming out of this draft, even if the Jaguars don’t win, you can have them all over for dinner.

“When they’re good players and they’ve been good in the locker room and they’re good on these college campuses and in their community, and then really what that means is now you can coach football and whole focus can be on football,” Marrone explained.

The Jaguars had specific needs, but he wanted players to come into the locker room not worried about their “brand” or their Instagram account. Marrone was looking for workers. He personally talked to college assistants about what kind of workers and teammates potential draft picks were, looking for a specific type of player to come to Jacksonville.

“I really believe that when you don’t have a lot of things going on on the outside with this person or that person or whatever it may be, and you can totally focus just on football when you’re in the building, you have a chance to be a pretty good player,” he added.

That’s not to say they didn’t address their needs, or give up on getting talent either. This draft was so deep at the positions the Jaguars were looking for they could get the guys they wanted without a lot of jumping around. Marrone was quick to say the Jaguars didn’t “settle” on anybody. He claims the players they took early were the highest rated players on their board.

“That is the one thing. I don’t want these players from a situation of, ‘Well, you know what. Jacksonville went ahead and they took two guys that are really great guys, but they may not be talented,’ Marrone said. “We feel that we have gotten great talent, guys that can produce at positions that we needed, but we did not have to go and take them [out of position]. They were the highest rated players on our board when we were going to go and pick.”

And Marrone even leaned on some of his current players when deciding whether a potential draft pick would fit with the culture he’s trying to build. He talked to Jawaan Taylor about C.J. Henderson. They were teammates at Florida. Same with D.J. Chark and K’Lavon Chaisson at LSU, and he was happy with the answers he got.

“There’s players in our locker room that know these players, and that’s important for me to get a sense of, ‘Hey, are these guys going to fit? Are they what we’re looking for?’ Marrone said of his internal research.
“They understand the challenges we have as a team. ‘How are they going to be there?’ I was very comfortable with that. I couldn’t be happier about where we are right now. Who we’re bringing in, we still have that responsibility trying to create this locker room.”

Prior to the draft, Caldwell said that his twelve picks gave him some “ammo” to move around and get the players the Jaguars wanted. So we anticipated some fireworks. That just didn’t happen. The draft unfolded just about how everybody predicted. No big surprises.

“I haven’t been reluctant, I just felt like we had options at every pick,” Caldwell said after day two.

Every time the Jaguars were getting close to their pick, Caldwell said he was ready to make a trade to move up to get who they wanted but he didn’t need to.

‘”Okay, well there’s two picks to go and we feel good about three players or five players,” is how explained what happened. “So there’s no real need to trade up. There’s been enough players that we like. I think sometimes patience pays off.”

This collaboration between Marrone and Caldwell has worked well: at least at getting players and the kind of players the Jaguars wanted. You can disagree with what they’re doing, but they’re building the team they think will work. The model of everybody reporting to one football czar, didn’t work, at least from a personnel perspective.

Marrone told everybody what kind of team he wants the Jaguars to be and the coaching staffs and personnel department worked together to find the players that would fit that model.

Caldwell says the idea they presented to Owner Shad Khan about how to build a team after Khan fired Executive VP Tom Coughlin has worked.

“The process has been really good and it’s been really seamless and enjoyable on my part with our coaching staff and our personnel staff,” he explained. “Good dialogue where everyone can speak freely and not be judged.”

I’ve often thought that the Jaguars should reflect what kind of people live in Jacksonville. Like the Steelers reflect Pittsburgh, the Bills reflect Buffalo and the Ravens reflect Baltimore: Tough, hard working, “I don’t care who gets the credit let’s just get the job done” kind of guys. You know, the anti-Jalen Ramsey type.

This draft seems to have accomplished that. Now let’s see if they can play.

A Complicated Draft, In More Ways Than One

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There are a lot of moving parts for any NFL team when it comes to the yearly college draft.

This year there will be even more moving parts as the NFL will conduct the draft virtually with everybody, from GM’s, scouts, coaches, medial staff and anybody else with input to a team’s pick meeting via video conference. NFL organizations will use Microsoft Teams to communicate. The Jaguars expect to have everybody who is normally in the draft room on that call. From there, all thirty-two teams will use WebEx to be in touch with the league. If it all crashes, they’ll pick up the phone.

So it’ll be a complicated process, seven rounds over three days with the first round this coming Thursday. There was some lobbying for more time in the first round and even more picks and honestly in this environment, it sounded like whining.

Jaguars General Manager Dave Caldwell wasn’t part of that carping chorus. He said he’s pretty comfortable with the mechanics of how it will happen this week. There won’t be any time problems making trades in the ten minutes allowed in the first round according to Caldwell but he did say, “I might have to see if my left hand is as good as my right to get something done in the later rounds.”

Teams have all kinds of questions as they go into the off-season and prepare for the draft. Decisions made in the draft can impact franchises for years.

What did they do in free agency? What specific needs to they have? Do they want to get younger? Can they fit players under the salary cap? Are they rebuilding or just reloading for a playoff run?

That’s why when Jaguars General Manager Dave Caldwell said, “We want to hit on all twelve,” when asked about the big number of draft picks he has on Thursday, he might have been giving a standard answer but he might also be thinking that’s exactly what the Jaguars need to happen to be competitive. “We want to make every one of them count,” he added.

The Jaguars don’t have one of those questions to answer. They have all of them. And not much time to find solutions.

“If we went to play right now and Gardner Minshew is our guy, I’m excited about that,” Head Coach Doug Marrone said. So they appear to be confident enough in Minshew that quarterback with their ninth pick doesn’t seem like a possibility.

While saying he feels like he could line up and play with the guys on the roster right now, Marrone was excited about the draft possibilities.

“Do we want to add players? Absolutely,” he said. “We are going to have a great opportunity to do so in this draft with 12 picks. My personal philosophy is you can never go wrong with taking who you view is the best player.”

Marrone was also open to developing a team based on the talent available, and not the other way around.

“We want to get playmakers and make them make plays,” he said. “When you put a player on the field as a starter, you’re saying ‘I have confidence in that player.’ Am I happy with Gardner,? Absolutely.
A lot depends on how Gardner progresses. If he’s hot, we’ll roll with him.”

And he hammered home the point of what kind of team he expects the Jaguars to be in 2020.

“We’re going to be a younger football tem. Team concept, not a lot of drama,” he said, emphasizing the ‘no drama’ point again. “Great teammates and guys in the locker room.”

As you might imagine, teams rehearse what is going to happen on draft day, coming up with all kids of scenarios in their own mock drafts leading up to that day. They feel like they’re prepared for any eventuality.

Last year though, was pretty unique.

“We ran over a hundred scenarios in our draft room,” one senior Jaguars personnel official told me, “and not once did Josh Allen fall to us.”

Perhaps that was a bit of hyperbole since Jaguars General Manager Dave Caldwell denied that this week saying, “There were a few scenarios where Josh fell to us.”

Either way, they were surprised, and fortunate when the player they considered one of the top two in the draft fell in their lap.

You can tell when that happens for a team by the amount of time it takes for the previous pick announcement to be made and when the “pick is in” graphic comes up on the screen. Last year, it was almost immediate.

This year the number of players in the draft the Jaguars consider elite is a little higher.

“Four,” Caldwell said without hesitation when I asked him how many players in the top nine this year he wouldn’t hesitate to take if they’re still available when the Jaguars are on the board. You’d figure that Joe Burrow and Chase Young would be two of them.

Overall, the Jaguars have the draft split by offense and defense.

“Offensively you can get a good player late,” Caldwell said. “Defensively there’s a big drop off and there’s not as much depth.”

It’s apparent Alabama Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is the lynchpin to what happens in the first 20 picks in this year’s draft. Some teams covet him; others aren’t convinced, based on his injury record that he can hold up under the pounding an NFL quarterback must endure.

One thing seems certain: If there’s a run on quarterbacks in the top six or seven, one of the four players the Jaguars would like to have at nine will still be there.

With two picks in the first round the Jaguars have plenty of options and lots of possibilities. Caldwell said he’d let it play out in front of him. If all of the players they like are gone early they could trade back.

Or if the exact opposite is happening, the Jaguars could go in the other direction.

“If you are sitting there at No. 9 and No. 20 and there is only one guy you like left at pick No. 5,” Caldwell said. “You might have to use some of that ammo to go up and get the guy that you want.”

He added that the Jaguars have worked some scenarios to trade up or back and have been in touch with GM’s across the league to discuss some of the possibilities.

Just a couple of years ago, Caldwell didn’t hesitate to call Jalen Ramsey when the FSU cornerback fell to the Jaguars with the fifth pick in the 2016 draft. The Cowboys had the pick in front of the Jaguars and as soon as Roger Goodell in Chicago announced “Ezekiel Elliott, running back, Ohio State”, Caldwell was on the phone. It was a situation the Jaguars knew was a possibility, but considered it very remote. When a player like Ramsey falls in the draft, some teams might pass but others will snatch him right away, and that’s what the Jaguars thought about Ramsey that spring.

That’s why when a player of the talent level Josh Allen has does fall, some teams start to wonder why and pass while others have such high marks on him they can’t say no.

You might remember Dan Marino’s Hall of Fame career started with him falling all the way to the second to last pick in the first round in 1983. He was the sixth quarterback taken after drug rumors scared teams off. It’s why the Packers took Aaron Rodgers in the first round with Hall of Famer Brett Favre still on the roster. Rodgers could have been the number one pick but when the ‘Niners took Alex Smith he started to fall. Green Bay didn’t need a quarterback but they couldn’t pass on him.

In 1995, he Jaguars did the same with Rob Johnson. They didn’t need a quarterback; they already had Steve Beurlein and Mark Brunell. But after the first day, Johnson was the only player left on their board they thought would be picked in the first three rounds. Tom Coughiin considered him borderline first round talent. They took Johnson, who won an important game for them a couple of years later in Baltimore, then traded him to Buffalo for the draft pick that eventually became Fred Taylor.

One thing that wasn’t evident during their pre-draft conference call was panic. Neither Caldwell nor Marrone seemed under undue stress or pressure although Shad Khan seems to have given both men one year to get this right. They didn’t have and telltale paranoia that usually shows itself when decision-makers are under the gun.

So good for them, and let’s hope they have a little luck. They could use it.

Author’s Note:

I wanted to just take a second here to give you a sad update on two people you might have read about in this column over the last year.

My friend of nearly forty years, Sharon Siegel-Cohen lost her battle with ALS last week. Sharon was a newscast line producer when I first arrived in television here in Jacksonville in 1981. We became friends right away as I got my feet wet and she helped me learn about the city. She was so talented, she was promoted out of that position quickly and moved on to stations in Atlanta and Tampa before coming back to Jacksonville in a management role. Because of her promotions and moves we didn’t work closely together at our jobs but we became close friends. Sharon was about the kindest and most easygoing person I’ve ever met who also kept one foot firmly planted in reality. I don’t know that I ever heard a cross word out of her and she was such a superb judge of character that just one tilt of her head was all you needed to know. Her fight with ALS seemed supremely unfair but I never heard her complain and she always kept her wry sense of humor. As said in her obituary, which she wrote, “I am lucky to have had a wonderful life. My final wish is to find a cure for ALS. Lou Gehrig was diagnosed in 1939. It’s time to find a cure.” Sharon was only 62 years old and I’ll miss her terribly.

We also lost Jim Frey last week. Frye had a lifelong career in baseball with a storied minor league playing career and even more success as a coach, manager and GM during stops in Baltimore, Kansas City and Chicago. Frey spent most of the year in Ponte Vedra near his family after retiring and when he found out I was from Baltimore, we spent a lot of hours talking baseball and the Orioles. An avid golfer, Frey shot his age (88) at Marsh Landing last summer. It was the 500th time he’d done that in the last 20 years. Jim was smart, a great storyteller and fun to be around. I’ll miss him as well.

Sports During A National Crisis WWII

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It’s not hard to find the last example of all of America in crisis. Nearly eighty years ago, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Young men enlisted and were sent off to fight. Every other American was asked to do the same as now: Stay home and do your part.

“Everything came to a halt,” ten-time Grand Slam tennis champion Tony Trabert said this week. Trabert will turn ninety this summer and remembers, “It was all focused on the war effort.”

It’s the last time a national crisis has had this kind of impact on American sports, or America in general. The NFL has stopped any face-to-face contact and will hold its draft later this month in a full virtual environment. Every team’s brain trust will stay home.

This was supposed to be Masters Week. Instead, they announced they’d try and play The Masters the second week of November due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s the first time they haven’t played The Masters in April since WWII when the tournament was cancelled from 1943-1945.

They cancelled The Open Championship this week in the UK. The last time that happened was also during WWII from 1940-1945. And the same with Wimbledon and the French Open. They’ll try and play the PGA Championship, originally scheduled for next month, in August. The PGA only missed one year, 1943. The Rose Bowl was played in Durham, North Carolina in 1942 and the Florida Gators didn’t field a football team in ’43.

I asked my Dad if he remembered what was happening to sports in American during the last national crisis during WWII. As an eleven year old, he and some friends were recruited to sell Pepsi’s at the 1944 Army-Navy game in Baltimore.

The game had been moved to Baltimore from the Navy campus in Annapolis to accommodate the unprecedented interest in the matchup billed as the “Game of the Century” between the service academies. They were the top two ranked teams in college football and this game would determine the National Champion. Nearly 67.000 fans bought war bonds to be eligible to buy a ticket to the game. They filled Municipal Stadium in Baltimore and raised $58 million for the war effort.

As the youngest child of immigrants who had barely ever been out of his neighborhood, it was easily the largest gathering my Dad had ever seen. The size of the crowd scared him so that he “put the box of Pepsi’s down and ran away.”

“There were certain things you couldn’t get, like butter. And you had to be inside by dark every night,” Sam Sr., who turned eighty-seven in February, recalled of life in an East Coast port city during the war. “There were neighborhood ‘wardens.’ They had a badge and a whistle. You had to be inside and pull your ‘blackout shades’ down with no light coming out of the sides.” Government authorities were leery of a German bombing attack and wanted the cities on the East Coast dark at night.

There were no blackout shades in Cincinnati but Tony Trabert remembers some things being in short supply.

“Butter and meat were rationed, we had shortages with anything and everything that had to do with the war effort,” Trabert said this week.

“I remember listening to Joe Louis’ fights and Reds games on the radio,” Trabert recalled. “But I also remember the battles being reported, hearing about fighting Rommel in Africa and D-Day and all of the names of the battles in the Pacific, places like Okinawa and Guadalcanal.”

Trabert returned to Europe less than five years after the war at the start of his tennis career and the remnants of the battles were still apparent.

“I played a doubles exhibition in Berlin with Bill Talbert in 1950 against two Germans, (Gottfried) von Cramm, a great player (a three time Wimbledon runner-up) and a guy named Saas. Von Cramm was a real gentleman player who got into trouble in Germany because he wouldn’t cooperate with the Nazi’s. I remember we played at the Red and White Club had steaks for dinner. But you’d look out the window and as far as you could see there was rubble. When we went to Wimbledon we had to bring our own steaks. They still had some rationing nearly five years later.”

Professionals didn’t rule the sports landscape at the time, outside of baseball and boxing. Joe Louis ended up not fighting as the heavyweight champ for four years during WWII. As a Sergeant in the Army, he fought ninety-six exhibition matches in front of two million troops.

Five hundred MLB players went off to military service during WWII but baseball kept playing. The game was deemed non-essential in WWI so Commissioner Kennesaw “Mountain” Landis wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt asking for advice. FDR responded the next day in what has come to be known as the “Green Light Letter.”

“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going,” Roosevelt wrote. He thought that baseball could be a source of relaxation for American workers, “Baseball provides a recreation which does not last over two hours or two hours and a half, and which can be got for very little cost. And, incidentally, I hope that night games can be extended because it gives an opportunity to the day shift to see a game occasionally.”

Different parts of the country had different experiences as the war effort took over daily life.

“I was up in Kentucky at that time, I remember stamps and you couldn’t get much gas,” Eighty-eight year old Herb Peyton said this week.

There wasn’t a lot of interest in sports in Kentucky at the time outside of Western Kentucky University football; The Hilltoppers stopped playing from 1943-45. The Kentucky Wildcats basketball team from Lexington did go to their first Final Four in 1942

“I do remember there were a lot of opinions on the war,” Peyton recalled, his memory sharpened by his love of reading WWII History. Peyton remembered people were on both sides during his years pre-teen leading up to the U.S. entering the conflict. “Lindberg led the people who didn’t want to get involved. Roosevelt didn’t like that. Of course, all that changed after Pearl Harbor. It motivated everybody.”

My late friend Arthur Smith would have been eighty-eight this year. He was the player personnel director for the Jacksonville Tea Men in the NASL but also served as the color commentator on their TV broadcasts when I did the play-by-play. When we traveled together he would regale me with stories of what life was like in England, without sports, as the war raged in Europe. He ran home from school each day to be inside by dark.

“We’d played in the street,” he once told me, recalling soccer games as a kid in his hometown of Retford, England. “But we’d have to stand on the side of the road when the tanks came through.”

Retford is between soccer hotbeds Sheffield and Nottingham in central England and only seventy miles from Manchester. While national competitions were called off, regional matches were set up, oftentimes with guest players who were stationed nearby.

Manchester United’s home stadium, Old Trafford had been requisitioned as a military depot and was bombed by the Germans in 1941. Manchester City offered their home ground at Maine Road as an alternative and both clubs played there through the war and for the next eight years. Talk about resilience!

Smith also remembered running into the “bog” next to town to survey a freshly downed German fighter plane. “We were trying to get some Perspex (Plexiglas),” he said. “It was worth something.”

Arthur’s mother-in-law had a very different experience in the small town of Americus, Georgia. Growing up, there were always “half-rubber” games in the streets with a broomstick as a bat and people listening to baseball on the radio, but that all changed in December of ’45.

“Things got pretty quiet,” ninety-four year old Sybil Crawford said of life in her town when the country went to war. “They still had high school sports but all of the boys went off to fight,” she added this week. “It stayed pretty quiet until the British boys showed up.” British aviators were learning to fly at the Souther Field training base nearby.

As a young teenager in Grove City, PA, former PGA Tour Director of Information Tom Place remembers very well when US citizens who were staying home were asked to do their part.

“There were rations on gasoline and just about everything else,” Place, who was born in 1927, said from his home in Ponte Vedra this week. “We had Oleo instead of butter. You didn’t think much about it, you just did it.”

Gasoline was rationed with “A,” “B,” and “C” cards depending on what people needed at the time. The “A” card was for business owners and down to the “C” cards for general use

“A couple of my pals had a car we called the “hunk of junk,” an old Studebaker,” he remembered. “My friend Rick worked at a dairy farm so he had an “A” coupon for gas. He’d stick that in the window and we’d fill up. Just kids acting like kids.”

Place heard about Pearl Harbor when he and some friends were headed to the store to buy some more BB’s to play with in the fields around Grove City. He had two older brothers who went to serve but at home he was doing his part.

“I was a ‘messenger’ with the rest of the kids when we’d practice for possible air raids,” Place said. “There was a diesel engine plant close by that we thought could be a possible target. They’d blow the siren and everybody would head to the basement of one of the two banks downtown. I even had an armband.”

Keeping some sense of normalcy, Place remained a big sports fan as a teenager during the war, listening to the Pirates on the radio and said he ‘vaguely” remembered when they called off the Masters and the other golf majors in ’43. “There wasn’t much going on,” he said. He also remembered listening when the Steelers and the Eagles merged to form the “Steagles” to keep playing in the shrunken eight-team NFL in 1943.

Anxious to join the war effort, he enlisted in the Marines when he turned 18 in 1945 and went to basic training at Parris Island and then to Camp Lejeune in California.

“They told us from the start we were going to the invasion of Japan and it would be tough,” Place said of his days as a young Marine. “I was at Camp Lejeune when President Truman dropped the bomb and probably saved my life,” he recalled.

“I was on a train on my way to Des Moines as a 15 year old to play a tournament,” Trabert remembered, from his Ponte Vedra home. “I saw a bunch of people jumping up and down on a street corner. I asked the conductor when he came by what all the commotion was about and he said it was V-E day.”

While it took some time, things eventually got back to normal. Sam Snead went to Scotland the year after the war in 1946 and won The Open Championship at St. Andrews, beating Bobby Locke by four shots. George Halas returned from the Navy to coach the Bears that same year to the NFL Championship and the LA Rams became the league’s first West Coast team. Ted Williams was back in a Red Sox uniform from the Marines and was the American League MVP leading Boston to the AL Pennant. Stan Musial also came back from the Navy in ‘46 and was the NL MVP. The Cardinals won the World Series in seven games.

So it might take some time, but we’ll get back to normal. For now, let’s just do our part.

Boselli Battles COVID-19

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When his best friend Mark Brunell talks about Tony Boselli, he says he didn’t like him much at first.

“He thought he was the best player on the team,” Mark says. “Which he was.”

“And he thought he was the toughest guy on the team,” Brunell usually continues. “Which he was.”

I can attest to Boselli’s toughness. Having known him for over 25 years, I’ve seen his toughness as a football player during his career in the NFL That toughness continued when I’d see him in the gym once his career ended. A different kind of toughness showed itself when he emerged as a community leader in the political arena. He values toughness in his current role as an analyst for the Jaguars radio broadcasts and nationally on Westwood One.

But no level of toughness prepared him for his latest battle with Covid-19.

“I don’t know if I ever was like I thought I was going to die,” he recalled this week. “But I remember having the conversation with myself: ‘I don’t want to die here.’”

That conversation with himself happened for Boselli while he was in the ICU at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville. After a few rounds of golf the weekend The Players was cancelled, Boselli started to feel bad on Monday, March 16th. He thought it was just a cold.

Two days later he felt worse and was told he had been exposed to the Coronavirus. He called his doctor and got tested that day. Two days later the results showed he tested positive for COVID-19.

“When I first got it, I thought, ‘Oh, gosh, this is a headache,” Boselli said. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m like, ‘I’m 47 and I’m healthy. This is going to be three-to-five days, then I’ll be back.'”

A couple of days later his “cold” lingered but the following Tuesday he says he was going downhill fast.

“That’s when I was like, ‘Holy cow … this is real.’ When I went to the hospital, I thought I was going to get some fluids and some meds. They took an X-Ray and said, ‘You’re not leaving. You’re going to ICU.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ You realize that this stuff gets out of control pretty quick.”

Things got serious when during his stay in the ICU, doctors were trying to get a handle on the severity of his condition.

“It was kind of fuzzy, but I remember (the pulmonologist) saying, ‘If we don’t get your oxygen stabilized, we’re going to have to go to the next level,'” Boselli said. “I remember laying there thinking, ‘What do you mean, if this doesn’t work?’ He says, ‘We don’t know what direction this is going to go.’

Doctors did get his oxygen stabilized and Boselli started to recuperate. After a few more days of recovery in the Mayo Clinic, he was discharged last Tuesday after nearly a week in the hospital and two weeks after starting to feel bad. He’s had additional tests for the virus and so far, the results have been negative.

During his hospital stay, Boselli was quarantined, only staying in contact with his family via text when he had enough energy to grab his phone. He credits the health care workers with his recovery. They were the only people allowed near him, wearing full protective gear.

“They were great,” Tony said with a strong sense of gratitude. “Those doctors and PAs and nurses and techs, everyone, they’re amazing. These people were absolutely amazing. Superstars.”

Having lost twenty pounds in the last two weeks during this ordeal, Boselli says he’s still weak but hopes to be back on his bike soon: his current choice of a cardio workout.

Tony’s wife Angie also tested positive but had much more mild symptoms. “She’s tougher than me,” Tony said with a smile. The rest of his family is also fine.

“I’m on the right side of this thing now but I can tell you, the thing is, it’s real,” he added as an alarm to those not heeding the warnings. “These health care experts and workers that are talking about this? They’re not making this up.”

“Take it from someone who was in the hospital and had these people working on me: They’re risking everything themselves to take care of people. It’s serious. It’s real. We need to do what people are being asked to do.”