Tom Talks

Sizing up the Panthers at mini-camp

I love mini-camp, love to see the new guys and the veterans and the long shots and the stars and try to figure out how they’ll come together and how good they’ll eventually be.

Some, of course, are good when they get out of bed. There were some outstanding catches Saturday, the best of them by the Panthers' Steve Smith. Smith had beaten two defenders, broke wide open and didn’t get the ball. I believe he alluded to that as he returned to the huddle.

Soon he sprinted down the left side and cut toward the middle in front of cornerback Ken Lucas. Matt Moore led him too much with his pass but Smith caught the ball anyway, diving to the ground and hanging on and drawing raves from his teammates.

The most unstoppable receiver was not 89, however. It was 81.

Who is 81?

"Dominique Thompson," says Panthers general manager Marty Hurney.

Thompson is one of the great receivers in William & Mary history. He, too, dove for a ball, successfully grabbing it.

Chris Hannon, a receiver out of Tennessee, also went high, way high, to snatch the ball out of the air.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, Hilee Taylor, the rookie defensive end out of North Carolina, showed a consistently good first step. By that, I mean that both times I watched him he was quick off the line.

But what do I know. Jeff Otah, the 6-foot-6, 324-rookie offensive lineman, was standing on the sideline. And I lost track of him.

Larry Brown lives for thrill of game

Charlotte center Nazr Mohammed played for Larry Brown in Detroit. I ask him how he’d describe Brown to somebody who had never met him and he says, "I have an example."

It’s this.

One day before a Detroit practice, Brown stopped Mohammed and asked if he had seen Kentucky play the night before night.

Of course Mohammed had watched the Wildcats. He played for the Wildcats. He is a Wildcat for life.

Brown began to talk excitedly about a play Kentucky ran and the more he talked the more excited he became. Here’s a guy who has been coaching so long he used to wear leisure suits to basketball games, and he still gets thrilled when he sees a new twist.

So at practice that day he taught his professional players the college play he had seen on TV. And when the Pistons played, they used it.

Did it work?

"Of course," said Mohammed. "It was Kentucky."

Inspired by the Mitey Riders

Perspective is a beautiful thing. I woke up Saturday thinking about the NFL draft and would the Carolina Panthers get it right and would I get it right with my prediction that they’d take an offensive lineman, and who would the Panthers take in the second round and, and, and…

And then I went to the Mitey Riders’ Spring Festival & Horse Show at the Misty Meadows farm. The farm has a Waxhaw mailing address but is not far from the Charlotte line. And the draft became less important.

If you want to be taken out of your little world, get on Providence Road and drive out here.

Marilyn and Harry Swimmer began the therapeutic riding program in 1993. They give 70 kids with special needs the opportunity to ride a horse every week. Those needs range from cerebral palsy to Down Syndrome to autism.

The Swimmers offer the farm. More than 125 volunteers help them run the program. The families of the kids don’t have to pay.

On Saturday, the Mitey Riders showed off. Family and friends came to watch, cameras snapping and video whirring as the kids mounted the horses. Each horse is led by a walker, with another walker on the side.

Yet it is the rider who is in control. To see the kids high on a horse named Joe or Jimmy or Otis is thrilling.

The horses and riders make their way to a ring. And one by one the horses break into a trot.

Joy Simon, who directs the program, begins to run and the horse follows. The riders hang on and the fans cheer. When the horse stops, the rider gets more applause and a trophy. The kids pump their fists, laugh, hold their trophies high or exchange a high-five with Harry Swimmer.

If you aren’t moved, you aren’t alive.

For more information, try www.miteyriders.com.

If you would like to contribute, send your donation to Mitey Riders, Inc., 455 Providence Rd. S., Waxhaw, N.C., 28173.

Wrestling with idea of Rucker retirement

   The good guys keep leaving. First Ric Flair retires. And then Mike Rucker does.

   Coincidence?

   Rucker says he’ll tell his kids that he retired when Flair did.

   Rucker is the Carolina Panthers biggest wrestling fan, and he is a huge fan of Flair. He read Flair’s best-selling biography, spent time with him backstage at matches and has come to know the Nature Boy.

   Just as Flair became emotional at his retirement, Rucker became emotional Tuesday afternoon at his. Man, was Big Mike classy. He remembered everybody in the Panther organization, and made a point of thanking them.

   If I had to describe him in one word, it would be, honorable.

   You saw Rucker on the field. You didn’t see him in the locker room. Whether the Panthers won or lost, whether he played well or didn’t, he was always gracious and always willing to talk to the media no matter how badly a loss hurt.

   It was tough to walk into the Carolina locker room last season and look at Mike Minter’s locker and think, he’s gone. But at least Minter’s good friend, Rucker, was still there. It will be tough this season to look at Rucker’s locker and think, he’s gone, too.

  There are people who enhance their community simply by being part of it. Some of those people are athletes, Rucker is one of them.

At some point, someone had to say it

I finally heard a "You the Man!"

Phil Mickelson was walking from the putting green to the first tee Sunday morning and a fan saw him and the fan began to roil up inside. Stuff was going on in there. That’s how excited he was. The fan’s face turned red and he began to shake. I stepped back so that if he exploded I wouldn’t get anything on me.

Instead, he yelled, "Phil! You the man! You the man, Phil!"

The yell was as incongruous at Augusta National Golf Club as Trevor Immelman was atop the leader board.

Drugs are bad. So are outdated clichés.

-- Nineteen of the 45 golfers competing in the Masters on Sunday were from the U.S. and 26 were from outside the U.S.

-- Sunday’s celebrity encounter: Barry Switzer. The former Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys coach wore jeans as he worked his way around the putting green. Nobody bothered him.

-- A fan at No. 8 leaned against the ropes and yelled at Tiger Woods.

"You’re my boy, Red!" the man yelled, probably because Woods wore a reddish shirt.

When Tiger hit his tee shot, the man yelled, "That’s a stinger!"

As Tiger approached, the man leaned against the rope that separates fans from golfers and yelled, "You’re my boy, Red!"

As the fan, a bald guy, loudly yelled, a security man worked his way to him.

"Excuse me," the security man said to each of the fans he had to move past.

Finally he reached the bald guy and talked softly to him.

Not sure what he said, but the shouting stopped.

"Top notch," the loud bald guy said to the security guard.

-- It’s Sunday, 6:14 p.m. Call me when the drama begins.

Life is good, even when it's slippery at the Masters

The grounds at Augusta National Golf Club Saturday are slippery. Fans forget and sometimes they pay, losing their footing in the hilly mud and the mire. Saw a woman fall, get up and continue her walk, oblivious to the muck that encased the left side of her pants and shirt. What else can you do?

A man wearing white pants and a shirt that is almost white slides, tries to catch himself and falls. The guy walking behind him, a stranger to the first guy, laughs uproariously. The Masters promotes sportsmanship but not everybody gets it. The guy that laughs so hard? He falls and plops into the muck. Everybody laughs.

Life is good.

I had my first celebrity sighting late Friday afternoon – Venus Williams. She’s leaner than I expected and not as tall. And, no, I didn’t mix her up with Serena.

You might ask how many people it takes to change the numbers on a scoreboard. At the scoreboard on No. 10, it takes six. At least, there are six guys on the platform behind the numbers they manually change. Some might just be hanging out, though.

I joined Tiger’s galleries Saturday. You want diversity? On the first four holes I saw at least 10 Masters caps, four Georgia caps and two Virginia caps. I also saw caps that represented the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Detroit Pistons, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, the U.S. Open, every major golf manufacturer, Key West, Illinois, Florida, California and Illinois and Texas.

Edwin Pope, the legendary Miami Herald sports columnist, celebrated his 80^th birthday Friday. Somebody asked him how he celebrated.

"Tried to stand upright," Pope said.

I hope I’m that funny when I’m 80. I wish I were that funny now.

Some surprises from the Masters galleries

Seven things I never thought I would hear in the galleries at the Masters but have:

(1) "The Charlotte Bobcats."

(2) "With Ric Flair retired, what are you going to write about?"

(3) "Plaid is my favorite color."

A guy said this to his buddy. In front of them was a woman in a plaid sundress. I'm just guessing here.

(4) "Martha Burk."

Her name has come up twice.

(5) "I'm a tire man from Cincinnati."

(6) "I was playing one side of the course and Clint Eastwood came up the other side."

(7) "Don't you love limo races?"

Seven words I thought I would hear in the galleries but have yet to:

(1) Muffy.

(2) Buffy.

(3) Fluffy.

(4)  Cody.

(5) Carson.

(6) Carlton.

(7)  Colter.

The two golfers whose names continually come up: Gary Player and Fuzzy Zoeller.

My new favorite golfers, not that I had favorite golfers before I got here: Shingo Katayama, Ian Poulter and Brandt Snedeker. If these guys could drive a race car, their style, plus Humpy Wheeler would make them stars.

Lessons from the Augusta gallery

  The teachers who told you to study algebra or German or social studies because there would come a time in your adult life when you would need those skills might or might not have been accurate.

   But there are childhood skills that come in handy almost daily, and one of them is running with a football and another is leading a three-on-two fast break. Each teaches you to anticipate where the opposition is going and to go where they aren’t.

   That skill is essential at Augusta National Golf Club. I had been walking the course Thursday morning, following golfers such as Fuzzy Zoeller.

   Three things strike me about Fuzzy. The fans love him, he has a putter the size of an NBA forward and he has not been working out.

   After more than an hour with the Fuzzman and other golfers, I head from No. 14 to No. 1. As I do, I encounter a herd. It was like the folks that show up for an 8 a.m. Saturday morning yard sale at 7.

   They keep coming. Run on $1.50 sandwiches? No. It is the personal entourage of Tiger Woods. There are thousands of fans. Everybody is moving in one direction, everybody but me.

   It’s fun. I lose the first two guys, one of whom wears a Clemson cap and the other a Georgia cap, with sharp cut to the right. The old guy dressed like a grape? See you. The woman with the sweater tied around her shoulders. Bye, bye.

   But now I am trapped. There’s a guy with a cigar, a guy with a Titleist cap, a big man in a big straw hat, a woman in a Red Sox World Champions cap. There are too many to lose with a stutter step, so I gamble and move to the extreme right and find a lane and suddenly I am free. 

   Man, I am Jimmie Johnson (the 2007 Jimmie Johnson).

   Spoke too soon. Here comes a woman in her mid-60s with hair the color and texture of steel wool and she is in my way and even though she is tiny it is evident she won’t move. I suspect she has a deed.

    To avoid a collision, I move left. Compromise also is essential. I think I learned that in social studies.

Supporting your right to work at Hooters

   Driving down Washington Road this morning to Augusta National Golf Club in Daytona 500-like traffic I saw a group of women, most of them in pink, holding signs and rallying for women’s rights.

   HONK IF YOU SUPPORT WOMEN’S RIGHTS, one sign said.

   I couldn’t honk; I’m leading a one-man campaign to reduce unnecessary noise. But I could wave. So I stuck my arm out the window and waved and a few of the women waved back.

   Across the street was the Hooter’s at which John Daly hangs out when he’s in Augusta. If you truly embrace women’s rights – and I do – you have to acknowledge that women have the right to work at Hooter’s.

Smoke free at Augusta? Nah

    The U.S. Open will be smoke free this year, but the Masters is not. So you encounter groups of guys on the golf course with fat stogies hanging between their lips. There’s nothing wrong with smoking a cigar and humming "Born to be Wild."

   But I have a question. How many of the guys with the cigars are not allowed to smoke them at home?

We're not the only one

    The folks that run most sporting events act as if theirs is the only one going on. So if there are eight TVs in the press room, each is turned to a particular game or race or event. Give the Masters credit. There are three huge screens in the press center. As I write this, one shows the leaderboard, one shows footage from the tournament and one shows highlights from Wednesday night’s Phoenix-San Antonio game.

It was cool hanging around Davidson ... and the White Lobster

Davidson guard Bryant Barr is the White Lobster. As you know, a name such as White Lobster has to be earned. You can’t go to your teammates and say, "I’m White Lobster, call me White Lobster, please, OK?"

Barr did not do this.

Barr earned the moniker.

After hitting only two baskets in the NCAA tournament and failing to score in the first half Sunday, Barr all by himself stopped Kansas from taking control of the game.

The Wildcats were tired. You could see it in Stephen Curry and Jason Richards, their stars. So Barr pops a 3-pointer from the extreme left corner. He pops another from the same spot, almost out of bounds. He hits a third.

In 2 minutes, 18 seconds, he hits three 3-pointers.

But wait. Are you typecasting the White Lobster? Are you saying, all he can do is shoot from far away?

My friends do not underestimate the White Lobster. Yes, he is one of the 25 best shooters to emerge from Falmouth, Maine.

But he is more. He goes to the hoop and the ball goes off the glass and in. He shoots four times in the second half and makes them all. In nine second-half minutes, he scores 11 points.

And he’s only a sophomore. So unless he leaves school early, expect to hear the name for two more seasons.

WL was good. And those were gutsy shots he took in a game of this import in front of anybody.

But even though this is Curry’s team, Curry and Richards, everybody has a role and everybody plays it well.

Max Paulhus Gosselin, a 6-6 junior guard, can play defense for anybody.

Kansas has all those future NBA studs going high beneath the hoop, and Davidson junior forward Andrew Lovedale hangs and leaps and bumps with the best of them.

Senior forward Thomas Sander has a broken right thumb. When you shake hands with him after the game, he quickly offers his left. He sets his picks and goes to the basket and scores eight points and has two one-hand assists and one one-hand steal.

This was a cool team to be around.

I watched most of the Georgetown game (I had come from the regional in Washington) and saw them beat Wisconsin and lost to Kansas.

Felt like an honor to watch them and talk to them and hang with some of their fans at Ford Field and, briefly, at the Detroit Brewing Co., their downtown headquarters here.

Davidson – thanks.

Let’s do this again.