It shows us all that we really shouldn’t settle for much less

I had the idea for this winter’s sports season to devote one of the windows in the Athlete of the Week section to a student/athlete from out of town and not from the “resort region.” I often tell people that an upside to being a sports journalist is that I meet great young people from all over the place. I truly believe it is inspirational to talk with athletes from other schools who are leaders and competitors and just “good people,“ and it shows us all that we shouldn’t really settle for much less.

GOOD GRACIOUS - I watched my first start-to-finish college basketball game last Wednesday night as Kentucky remained undefeated edging Connecticut 64-61 in Madison Square Garden as part of the SEC/Big East challenge. I did doze on occasion only to be abruptly awakened by the voice of Dick Vitale screaming, “Are you kidding me?” There were more dunks in the game than at a Sunday morning doughnut counter. I’d say at least 30, and all I could think was, “Where do they find these players, and what are their SAT scores?”

John Calipari of Kentucky is so circumspect you wouldn’t buy a low-mileage Toyota from him below Blue Book price. The game was like the seventh game of an NBA playoff but with fewer tattoos.

FLAILING AND FOULING - Good defense on the basketball court is often mistaken by young players as reaching and grabbing in the backcourt and once in the front court the wild defender resorts to hacking and mugging and the question remains, “Whatever happened to good defense?”

Slide the feet, keep the player in front of you, never reach in the backcourt and never give up the baseline. Here’s another concept: don’t foul for no reason late in the game when your team is nursing a lead.

TIGER TALES - I believed all that kung fu focus stuff about Tiger Woods on the golf course, but looking at it now, we can see the crack in the windshield of his arrested personality development. I think it was his opponents who believed it because under the pressure of the focused championship moment it was they who withered and Tiger seemed impenetrable and impervious and to beat him a golfer would have to stare down the moment.

Now to me - this sheltered, poorly educated superstar of golf is in a life struggle way over his head, but as least Oprah has invited Tiger for a private interview - the questions agreed upon in advance and no studio audience.

I’d like to see a “quid pro quo” interview: “How many girlfriends did you have, Tiger?”

“Thirty-seven, Oprah. How many girlfriends have you had besides Gayle King? This is Tiger talking. Have the lambs stopped screaming?”

POST CONCUSSION SYNDROME - Back in the way day playing guard for the Temple Owls at Bucknell University in the battle for the Little Brown Shoe (“Brown Shoes Don’t Make It” sang Frank Zappa) I was kneed through the face mask, then collided head-to-head with the other guard who was pulling in the wrong direction. And, finally, I was kicked in the occipital bone by a mercurial punt return man on a would-be shoestring tackle. This all happened in the first quarter.

Another player grabbed an assistant coach who, under the most ideal times, had no time for me and told him, “I think Frederick may have a concussion.” This boneheaded, clipboard-carrying, polyester bike shorts wearing, X and O charting, one-dimensional coach asked me, “Well do you or don’t you?”

I just stared and waited until he asked, “Do you have a concussion?”

My answer was, “Wouldn’t I be the last to know?”

I was kept on the sidelines the rest of the game which was good because I was getting my head beaten in. Troy Aikman was asked about residual effects from his 11 concussions and Aikman said, “To tell you the truth I never think about it.”

Keep a close eye on Troy Boy.

SNIPPETS - I have tried to cover swim meets but my glasses get fogged up and I don’t even wear any. Heads in the water back and forth, endless races and written results all wet and incomprehensible, it’s hard to determine if the meet is going well because you don’t even know the order of events and then there are B relays. Is anyone feeling me or is Darby Dog just licking my leg? But seriously, swimming is more a picture-driven sport - the downside is that moisture will eat up a digital camera.

Golfer John Daly has recorded a country album - Daly and his Lap Band Surgeons - not really - but the wild man who never met a vice he could resist has dropped 110 pounds, and for my money he looks really strange. I saw Daly in an online video playing golf in jeans, no shoes or shirt with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Tiger should insist on having Daly as a permanent partner when he goes out on tour this spring. No standards but low standards. Now there’s a country song waiting to be written.