Tom Talks

Hey, did Spurrier fix the traffic?

When South Carolina plays football at Williams-Brice Stadium, the distance between Charlotte and Columbia usually is the longest 90 miles in the Southeast. We left downtown – never uptown – Charlotte for Columbia At 3 p.m. and worried we left too late. At 4:32, we pulled off the freeway onto Bluff Road. We could see the stadium. We couldn’t believe it! We knew, however, that the last mile was going to take at least two hours because this was Columbia.

Yet we cruised right in. We never had to wait for more than three minutes. We found our parking place right away. We walked past George Rogers, the South Carolina running back who won the Heisman Trophy in 1980.

He was selling autographs from the back of his black Lincoln Navigator. The back gate was down. For a $5 donation to the George Rogers Foundation, you could pose with the Heisman Trophy. The SUV was parked very close to George Rogers Boulevard.

There are three possibilities for the ease with which we drove in:
A. Traffic control has come to Columbia.
B. Fans are so excited about the beginning of football season that the traffic jams came three hours earlier.
C. Gamecocks coach Steve Spurrier fixed the traffic.

U.S. Olympic boxing not impressive

I didn’t plan to watch the Olympics every night. But I do. I’ve become hooked. I was hooked on swimming and now I’m hooked on track. I wish I could say I was hooked on boxing.

   I love boxing, amateur and professional. Olympic boxing, however, is almost unwatchable. The computer scoring system, which was designed to remove favoritism and bias from the judging, is flawed. I see punches that clearly land for which boxers fail to get credit.

   Even more frustrating is the U.S. boxing team.

   Eight years ago I covered the U.S. team in Tampa, where the Olympic qualifiers were held, and again at the Olympics in Sydney. Calvin Brock, from Charlotte, was the superheavyweight on the team. When he and the fellows trained in a little Ybor City gym, the temperature about 100 degrees, I thought, “I have never seen so much boxing talent.”

   But the team went on to win only four medals -- two silver and two bronze. And Brock lost his first fight.

   Brock’s father and trainer, Calvance, was banned from ringside. All individual coaches were. So he sat next to me on press row.

   Meanwhile, the U.S. coach yelled at Calvin to “Stay busy!” He yelled the same advice at his little boxers and his medium-sized boxers. Staying busy – moving and throwing lots of punches – is one way to fight.

   There are others. You can conserve energy, for example, by calmly picking your shots instead of throwing punches simply to be throwing punches. Blind aggression does not impress computers.

   Finally, I couldn’t stand it, and I asked the coach why he yelled “Stay busy!” regardless of boxer, the size of the boxer or the situation.

    “What am I supposed to say?” he asked.

   Many coaches are political appointees. They work in the sport for years and they’re rewarded with an Olympic assignment. It’s like working on a political campaign and being rewarded with an ambassadorship to the Fiji Islands.

   Meanwhile, there are brilliant coaches in sweaty little gyms all over the country. And those that know their fighters best are shut out at the Olympics.

   There has to be a way to integrate the coach that oversees the program with the coaches that helped their fighters make the Olympics team.

   The U.S. won only two medals four years ago in Athens. They’ll win only one in Beijing. Deontay Wilder, a heavyweight, is the only U.S. boxer still in contention. He fights Friday.

   Yes, the talent has been diluted. Some of our best talent’s are playing linebacker, point guard and centerfield. But there is too much tradition, and too many good fighters, to have only one advance to the semifinals.

Why I'll miss Spartanburg

SPARTANBURG

– When the last practice of training camp ended late Wednesday morning, players ran off the field as quickly as they run after quarterbacks, as quickly as kids leave the hallway on the last day of school.

   Running back DeAngelo Williams was among the first to charge up the hill from the field, several teammates a few yards behind him. It has been that kind of camp for Williams. Nobody has been able to catch him.

   Within minutes some of the players were in their cars. They drove single-file out the gate to freedom. Just to remind them that there are referees away from the field, a

Spartanburg

police officer parked next to Gibbs Stadium, his car apparent to everybody.

Gentlemen, stop your engines. The luxury vehicle parade crawled past.

   “Just want them to slow down a little,” the officer said.

   Three players – quarterback Lester Ricard, receiver Chris Hannon and safety Quinton Teal – stopped to sign autographs. After the others left, Teal continued to sign. Some players had hit I-85 before Teal put down the last pen.

    Maybe Teal, who played at Coastal Carolina, couldn’t tear himself away from

South Carolina

and

Spartanburg

. I understand. I’ll miss

Spartanburg

. I didn’t have to go through two-a-days.

  I’ll miss the Sake Grill, where the employees are friendly, the food is good and you couldn’t blow $25 on dinner and drinks if you tried.

   I’ll miss the Lime Leaf, a tremendous Thai restaurant.

   I’ll miss shooting bad pool on the good table at Club 299, also known as the bar at the Marriott.

   I had it working, rails, bank shots, everything. And then I looked up at the TV and saw Pat Yasinskas, who a year ago covered the Panthers for the Observer and would have been in the bar with me. There he was on ESPN, for whom he reports, wearing the same checked shirt he wore in

Spartanburg

. Keep it real, man. Pat jinxed me. After that my game left me.

   I’ll miss that Marriott. It looks like a big city Marriott but the employees treat you as if you’re at a ma and pa hotel. By the end of camp, they know you. I forgot the charger for my cell phone, saw there was a store on

Main Street

at which I could replace it and stopped at the front desk to ask for directions.

   Mark brought out a box full of chargers, the item most likely to be left behind. We couldn’t find one that fit – my cell phone takes no pictures, sends no text messages and was built in 1959. I wanted to hit the gym before I started writing and thanked him for his help. Mark asked if I could leave the phone.

   About 20 minutes later he brought it, and a charger, to the gym. Service such as that is why customers return – to hotels, bars, restaurants and almost every other business.

   It’s cool to spend most of 2½ weeks in another culture. Observer sports columnist Scott Fowler might have

Beijing

, but I have

Spartanburg

. I eat chicken at the Sake Grill and eggplant at the Lime Leaf. I feel as if I will be infringing on his turf if I eat Chinese.

   I think Teal, a second-year safety from

Bennettsville

,

S.C.

, had finally stopped signing by the time I left.

    I pulled onto

Pine Street

, gave my regards to the $3.52 a gallon gas at Citgo and looked for a shortcut to I-85.

   

   

   

Olympic Games, video games, being cool

The relationship between the Panthers and the Olympics is interesting. Players will sit in soft chairs and watch swimming and basketball and boxing highlights on the two flat screen television sets.

    Running back DeAngelo Williams had a different take. He was walking past one of the big screens in the Wofford Student Union Tuesday morning, saw water polo and stopped.

   “They have water soccer?” he asked.

   

    When the other TV flashed highlights of Madden 09, the EA Sports video game, a group of players who had been passing by stopped, and several were so moved they began to hoot. Replace Olympic baseball with the Madden NFL video game and television ratings jump, I guarantee.

   We’ve been in camp long enough that we should know the players without a roster. So when No. 85 ran deep down the right side in Monday morning’s scrimmage, snatched the ball out of the air and ran to the end zone, I thought, “All right, 85.”

   I didn’t want the other media guys to know that I didn’t know who 85 was, so I said, “Man, you have to love 85. And you can’t be surprised by what he did because that’s what he does.”

   I waited for somebody to give me 85’s name. Nobody did.

   Who is 85, I asked.

   Nobody knew.

   He is, of course, Chad Upshaw, a tight end out of

Buffalo

.

   Remember that name.

   I will.

   I was sitting with an ESPN personality at lunch and one of the Panthers' employees said, “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

 

   The ESPN guy said he didn’t think so.

   The Panther employee insisted and asked him what he did.

   I work for ESPN, the guy said.

   What do you do for them?

   The ESPN guy pointed to a TV screen and said, “I do that show.”

   Cool.

   Speaking of cool, I was standing with the Observer’s Charles Chandler at the same time he appeared on ESPN. So he’s standing next to me and he’s on TV. Technology is so amazing.

   

A limo mystery at Panthers' training camp

  The longest limousine in Spartanburg pulled into the parking lot at Gibbs Stadium after Carolina's first practice Wednesday morning.

  It was longer than the other one.

   The limo was a Chrysler, black, and it took me 10 strides to walk from the back to the front.

   The question, of course, was who would step out of it or into it. The parking lot is as close to the Panthers' training camp as you can get if you don't play or work for the team.

   

   The window on the driver's side was open.

   

   "Hey, Mark!" I yelled in the direction of the back seat.

   

   There was no response.

   

   The team president did not emerge, and none of the Panther players got in or got out.

   

   Finally, a man I had never seen said something to the driver and slipped into one of the back seats.

   

   I have no idea who he is. But he wasn't an agent. He wasn't wearing enough jewelry.