“Savior” Zeller ready for the next great challenge - Bob Kravitz via IndyStar.com

Excerpt:

You know who Zeller is, personality-wise? He’s Matt Howard. But taller.

Expectations will not crush him. Other kids, you’d worry. Not this one.

“I knew he was good, but I didn’t know he was this good,” said Indiana All-Star coach Mike Hackett, who coaches at Munster. “He’s a complete basketball player. And it pales in comparison to the kind of kid he is.”

So one remarkable chapter closes, the semi-official end to a brilliant high school career.

And a new chapter begins.

Let’s put it all on the table here, on the table as opposed to under the table. We’re talking about minor-league sports, an entertainment enterprise, grown-up stuff. Amateurism has been dead for decades. Walter Byers, the longtime NCAA director who found religion on his way out the door, properly decried the “neo-plantation” that permeates college sports.

The NCAA and its member schools claim to be in the business of helping student-athletes. I’m hoping to receive a memo when that effort begins in earnest.

Read full article

(Thanks to our own AJ Kaufman for the link.)

“ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — It was dumb and it was disgraceful, maybe as bad, if not worse, than the previous week’s surrender against the New York Jets.

One week earlier, the Indianapolis Colts couldn’t be bothered to pursue one of the most hallowed marks in sports history, a perfect season, something accomplished exactly once, by the 1972 Miami Dolphins. But Sunday, here in suburban Siberia, the Colts played their stars for three full series in a hypocritical effort to get Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark to 100 receptions.

Explain this to me again:

A perfect season, which has been accomplished just once in NFL history, wasn’t important, but 100 catches, accomplished numerous times by numerous receivers, that goal mattered?

Chase statistics, yes. Chase immortality, no. Color me confused.

Not to mention dubious, especially as the Colts insisted after the game that the numbers weren’t on their radar.”

I have already gone on record as saying that I hope Tony Dungy does not retire. Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star obviously disagrees with me; and from the looks of the comments section of the article, he disagrees with about 99% of the Colts fan base as well.

An email exchange I had with a major sports blog earlier today summed it up the best. I emailed them a link to Kravitz article as a tip, hoping they would post it so sports fans around the world could view Kravitz’s drivel and realize what sports fans in Indy have to put up with. Their response: “What a buffoon.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

One line in particular stood out to me in Kravitz’s article about Tony Dungy: “As much as we all respect and like the man, the numbers cannot be ignored.” Kravitz then follows this up by discussing Dungy’s disappointing playoff record. The truth though is that Kravitz is right, the numbers cannot be ignored, he was just right for a reason in opposition of his main point. Tony Dungy’s record as Colts head coach, the numbers, make it implausible for any Colts observer to say the franchise is better off without him. Six straight 12-win seasons, a plus-.750 winning percentage, a Super Bowl championship — the numbers are in Dungy’s favor, not working against him.

And, of course, Bob Kravitz seems to contradict himself by essentially saying that Colts fans would be stuck with Jim Caldwell, and that “the Colts should understand turning to Caldwell will be a tough sell.” Why then is it in the team’s best interest for Tony Dungy to go? If the already determined successor is “Tony Dungy Lite” and would prove a tough sell, how does the franchise improve by Tony Dungy leaving?

Is Bob Kravitz confusing anyone else? If I’m off base here, please tell me. My head was spinning after reading the Kravitz column because it just did not seem to make any coherent sense.

Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk has an interesting take on the issue, while claiming that sources around the Colts say its about 70-30 that Dungy will, in fact, retire:

In a city where the Colts often keep the primary newspaper in town on a choke chain, Kravitz (in our view) wouldn’t be sliding out onto that specific limb unless he already knows what Dungy is going to do.

Of course, there’s also a chance that Kravitz has gotten a nudge from G.M. Bill Polian, who might want to use the transition to a new head coach as cover for the team’s looming struggles in the last capped year under the current CBA, which for the Colts will be the day of reckoning after years of pushing cap dollars into future seasons.

I suppose a gentle nudge from Bill Polian might explain what I consider to be a pretty nonsensical article by Bob Kravitz, but I am having a hard time believing that would be true. Of course, Florio has posted some pretty unflattering remarks about Bill Polian in the past, much to the dismay of some Colts supporters. I’ll be honest and say that I don’t know enough about the situation to accurately comment; but the notion that a GM would give a “nudge” to a local columnist to write a negative article about the most successful coach in franchise history is, well, interesting. I’ll put it that way.

The Colts obviously have some questions heading into 2009, none more important than the status of their current head coach and if he will be there next season. As the Tony Dungy retirement rumors continue to escalate, I just hope we do not see any more stories like the one penned by Bob Kravitz. Tony Dungy deserves far more respect, and not just because he is a good and decent man; but because he is without the question the best person to lead the Colts as head coach for next season. Colts fans and interested observers like myself are anxiously awaiting his final decision, and hopefully we don’t have to sift through any more Kravitzesque drivel while keeping up with the latest Tony Dungy updates.

What do you think? Is Bob Kravitz off base in his criticism of Tony Dungy?

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