A Week In The Sports World

As summer slowly wraps us in its warm embrace, the sports world begins to ease into something resembling hibernation. The Stanley Cup champion has been crowned. The NBA finals are winding down toward the inevitable denouement. Major League Baseball is…well, does anyone really care about baseball in June? MLS seems to be the only game around these days. That’s certainly the case in Portland, but with most of the league on a FIFA-mandated break, even the Timbers are fading from the collective consciousness.

The quieter pace of summer allows for an opportunity to focus on sports and athletes who often get overlooked at other times of the year. The first athlete who comes to mind is…

Casey Martin, the golf coach at the University of Oregon. A former PGA player, he managed to qualify for last week’s US Open despite playing with only one good leg. Martin’s lifelong struggle with Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome has been well chronicled. What’s less obvious is the pain Martin endures to play golf, even with a cart. He doesn’t talk about it unless he’s asked, and he doesn’t complain, but watching him walk from the cart to his ball is painful to watch. He missed the cut at the Open; however, merely going through the qualification process in order to secure a tee time at the Olympic Club was impressive in its own right. If you’re looking for a role model- someone who embodies grace, courage, and toughness, you couldn’t do much better than Casey Martin.

Who would have thought you could use “tough” and “golfer” in the same sentence?

A different kind of toughness will come in handy for…

Neil Olshey. The freshly-minted Trailblazers GM is learning that being a GM in Portland is far more challenging than in, say, Boston or L.A. One thing that seems to have taken Olshey by surprise is the passion Blazers fans focus on their team. Until the Timbers came along, the Blazers were the only game in town. When you factor in that many fans are still hoping for a repeat of 1977, you begin to understand the obsessive focus Blazers fans have.

Olshey’s from New York, so he’s got a thick skin…which will come in handy in his new job. It seems everyone in Puddletown has an opinion about what the Blazers should be doing and how they can rebound from last season’s nightmare. Olshey’s first order of business should be to tune out the chatter, chart a course, and stick to it. Even if some Blazers fans disagree with his decisions, most will get in line behind Olshey if those decisions bear fruit.

Between now and the draft on June 28^th, Olshey and his brain trust will make decisions that will determine the Blazers future. It’s an exciting prospect, and after last season, things could hardly be worse, right? For my part, I’m going to sit back and assume that the Blazers have the right man at the helm.

Regardless of what Neil Olshey does, it’ll be fodder for sports talk radio, where his every thought, word, and deed will be parsed to the nth degree. Of course, if Blazers fans are looking for a change of pace, so how about a blast from the past? How about…

Brandon Roy? Yep, Roy announced this past week…to no one’s surprise…that he’s training daily in anticipation of making a comeback. Given the shabby way Roy was shown the door last season, I find it hard not to root for him. That’s not to say that Roy was the blameless victim of ruthless management; he had his own agenda, and ultimately came out pretty well. He got paid, got a season off to rest and rehabilitate his knees, and now he has a measure of control over his future. Evidently the bone-on-bone knee issue that sidelined Roy wasn’t a career-ending quality of life issue after all.

The Blazers aren’t exactly renowned for their classy treatment of players whose productivity has diminished, so I’m planning to enjoy watching this saga play out. I hope Roy lands in a place where he can excel and be happy. After all he did for the Blazers over the years, I can’t find it within myself to root against him.

Wouldn’t it be great to see Roy catch on with, say, the Clippers or Thunder, young teams with great potential? A little veteran leadership might be just what those teams need to climb the final rung to an NBA title. And wouldn’t it be interesting for Roy to run up against the Blazers during the playoffs?

In other news, I hope y’all have been able to catch some of…

Euro 2012. Every two years, whether it’s the World Cup or the European Championships, the world is treated to some truly top-notch soccer. MLS fans like myself look at these tournaments the same way a child sees a toy they want but can’t afford. You can look all you want, but no matter what you do, it seems as if it will always be out of reach. To watch the game played at the Euro or World Cup level is truly sublime. Soccer at that level is really a very simple proposition, but the talent required to play it that simply is something not yet available on these shores.

American professional soccer still has a ways to go before it’ll be able to run with the likes of Brazil, Germany, or Spain. Thankfully, the gap isn’t nearly as wide as it used to be. There’s every possibility that with time and increased commitment, the US National Team will be mentioned in the same breath with other top national teams. In the meantime, top-level tournaments like Euro 2012 provide a glimpse of what soccer can be when a nation’s top athletes put aside ego and agendas. It’s amazing to watch what happens when players take the field to represent what’s on their chest instead of the name on their back.

And if that doesn’t provide you with a much-needed dose of perspective, try the story of…

Teri Mariani. If you didn’t go to Portland State, odds are that Mariani’s name doesn’t ring a bell. True pioneers are often overlooked by history, and in Mariani’s case that’s an injustice. Without Mariani and many others like her, girls today wouldn’t be able to take the games the play for granted.

The truth is that women’s sports haven’t always been what they are today. No, there’s not complete equality, but before Title IX, saying that women got short shrift would be an understatement.

Title IX’s innocuous title gives no indication of its importance to the generations of women that have come and gone in its wake. Title IX required that educational institutions not only treat female athletes equally, but that they have a formal plan to create gender equity in athletics. It hasn’t always been a smooth ride, nor has it been without controversy, but millions of women and girls today take their games for granted, which is how it should be.

Mariani’s chief role over her 29 years as a coach and athletic administrator at PSU was to serve as a bridge between today’s opportunities and the bad old days. With few exceptions, women and girls today can dream the same dreams that men and boys do. No longer do all the resources and attention get focused solely on men’s sports. No longer do women and girls have to tolerate being treated as if their dreams and aspirations are worth less simply because of their gender. Because of Title IX, young girls have had role models like Julie Foudy, Mia Hamm, Sue Bird, and many others too numerous to mention.

Without Teri Mariani’s experience and perspective, the historical context of gender equity may well have been lost. Any female athlete today, and anyone who has a daughter involved in athletics today, owes Mariani and her generation a debt of gratitude. Because of her and so many people like her, it’s possible for women and girls to play and take their athletic opportunities for granted.

You really have come a long way, baby….

Join me next week, when I’ll be wondering if someone broke up the Seattle Mariners and sold them for parts. It seems that it’s been forever since I’ve read or heard anything in the media about them, so I just assumed they’d gone the way of the Sonics (Does Oklahoma City have a Major League Baseball team all of a sudden??)