Tom Talks

Hansbrough must listen to doctors ...

I never had a stress reaction, the precursor to a stress fracture, in my right shin. According to North Carolina, that’s what Tyler Hansbrough has.

But I had a stress fracture in my left shin. And it’s a frustrating injury. You do what the doctor tells you, and stop running and stop putting pressure on the shin. Then you get bored and feel thick so you go out and run. And you’re fine and you’re fine and – and the pain returns.

I was training for a marathon, believed all the junk people told me about running through the pain, picked up a shin splint, and continued to run. After the marathon, I was diagnosed with the stress fracture. I was told not to run for six weeks. I obeyed for two weeks, even three. Then I felt fine. Hooray, I’m healed. So I ran. The stress fracture was merely lurking, and it came roaring back. This time I had to give up running for a full six weeks.

So listen to your doctors, Tyler. As badly as you want to charge up and down the court, that will be tough. We think of Hansbrough as a banger, and although undersized, he is. But you can’t find a big man in college basketball that runs the court as well as he does.

For a few days or weeks, however, they all will.

Press Box food for Detroit game a mystery ...

The press box at Bank of America Stadium features cuisine from the city whose team is playing Carolina. When New Orleans came to town, the Panthers featured bread pudding and jambalaya. With Arizona in town today, the Panthers featured fajitas and guacamole. Carolina’s next home game is against Detroit, a good, solid, interesting, working class burg. What are the Panthers going to do, feature domestic beer and with a shot on the side? If so, I don’t anticipate a lot of complaints.

There was more traffic en route to the stadium Sunday than for any game this season, and more traffic downtown, also. Chicago, back on Sept. 14, also attracted a huge, early-arriving crowd. The difference is that the Chicago crowd featured a lot of Chicago jerseys. Based on what I saw, I don’t know if Arizona sells jerseys.

Tailgating on my to-do list ...

I parked, as always, in the Charlotte Observer parking lot this morning. Football fans also have access, provided they pay $30. I drove to my customary spot and a few spaces away was a truck with the tailgate open.
I saw one of the guys looking at me as I put the top up on my convertible.
“How can you tailgate without a tailgate?” he asked.
“I can’t tailgate,” I said. “I have to work.”
I wasn’t complaining. We talked awhile, and I told the guy to drink a beer for me. He said as the designated driver, he couldn’t.
As I walked away, something hit me. I have never tailgated.
Every time I go to a Panthers game, I’m working. Every time I go to a college game, I’m working.
One of these Saturdays, I’ll give it a try. Maybe drive to Davidson, or to UNCC, when it gets a team.
Even though I’m a rookie, I suspect I’ll know what to do.

I loved the piece Charles Chandler did about Carolina’s 15th birthday, and was happy to see he included Dan Morgan and Michael Bates on his 15 greatest Panthers of all time. I would not have ranked linebacker Kevin Greene as highly as he did, I would have tried to get Steve Beuerlein and Eric Davis on the list. But I’m not sure who I’d remove.

I’m still picking Tampa Bay over Philadelphia (in the Worls series).

Rays have pitching edge, will win in 6

Tampa Bay beats Philadelphia in six. The Rays' pitching is superior. Plus, teams from Philadelphia never win championships. It is written. I think it’s written on a stone tablet.

- I talked to Wesley Walls, who played tight end for the Panthers from 1996 to 2002, Wednesday afternoon.

Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammad have made phenomenal catches. But if the ball came near Walls, he snatched it out of the air and hung onto it.

I don’t ever remember you dropping a pass, I tell him.

"I remember one," he says.

He laughs.

"The older I get, the better I get, and the fewer passes I dropped," says Walls.

I contend Walls has the best hands of any receiver in Panthers history.

Who's truthful, Glazer or Favre?

   Jay Glazer of Foxsports.com said Sunday that Brett Favre fed the Detroit Lions information about Green Bay before Detroit played the Packers Sept. 14.

   Favre angrily denounced the report at a news conference today. Favre said he did nothing more than talk to his friend Matt Millen, who then ran the Lions (into the ground), about hunting and such. Favre said Millen called him and they talked animals and then talked football.

   The break-up between Favre and the Packers was bitter, and neither is having a particularly good season.

   If Favre did offer the Lions inside information, he didn’t break any league rules. But he broke the hearts of the Green Bay fans that wore his jersey, bowed their heads when they publicly spoke his name and made him one of their own.

   Realistically, all Favre could do is offer Millen an outline of the offense the Packers run. Favre has not been with the team all season, and the offense is tweaked and amended throughout camp and throughout the season.

   Maybe Favre could offer tendencies. This is what the Packers like to do in this situation.

   Under Millen, Detroit’s tendency is to lose. Green Bay beat the Lions 48-25.

   So far, it’s Glazer against the world. The story has been his and his alone.

   I don’t know what’s true.

   But I can tell you that I’ve spent time in a few press boxes and on a few practice fields with Glazer. My sense is that he does not dislike himself, and is not adverse to attention.

   My sense also is that he tends to get it right.

 

Sad state of events...

It’s tough to fathom some of the things people do. Sending a bullet through the head of a 75-pound bear cub and putting the cub in front of the administration building at Western Carolina, with Obama signs stapled together over him, is one of them.

That the signs were Obama’s, and not McCain’s, is not the issue. The issue is who would do this, and why? Imagine how proud the perpetrator’s parents must be. You shot a bear cub and dumped signs onto it and left it on campus?

We’re proud of you son.

And we’ll be even prouder when you move out of the basement.

That was one story in Tuesday’s Charlotte Observer that stayed with me. Fortunately, another story did for a completely different reason.

We wrote about Jimmy Justice, who died last week at the age of 90. Anybody that walked into the men’s locker room at the Dowd YMCA knew Jimmy. He was always upbeat, always curious, always wanted to talk about sports. A lot of people want to talk about sports. What distinguished Jimmy is that he also wanted to listen.

As sorry as I was to hear about his death, I have to believe that his was a life well-lead. You can’t fake the outlook and attitude he brought.

One way you know you made an impact: when people think about you, they smile.

I smile when I think about Jimmy.

Five quick hits...

   -- Chuck Amato's sad yet heartwarming return to Raleigh, where he coached N.C. State before getting canned, has been a big deal all week. Amato is an assistant at Florida State now, and the Seminoles play the Wolfpack tonight. But Amato had to go. He was terrible. His ego was bigger than his chest.

   -- I'm thrilled that the Boston Red Sox advanced to the ALCS. I'm also thrilled that Tampa Bay is pounding them. The Rays are new blood, and all the critics that expected them to fold in August and September failed to appreciate Tampa Bay's superior pitching.

   Somebody linked with Tampa Bay will undoubtedly say at some point in the next week, "We have the best baseball fans in the world." Somebody from a winning playoff team always says that. The Rays, however, don't have the best fans. They don't even have real fans. They have temps. Until the playoffs, they averaged about 900 fans a game.

   But they have baseball's best team, as Boston is learning and Philadelphia will.

 

-- The best new show on television is HBO's TrueBlood. It's in my top five with Entourage, Californication, Weeds and Prison Break. Curb Your Enthusiasm is hovering. Not sure about Life on Mars, but I'll give it a cahnce.

 

-- Love what Dallas did, acquiring Roy Williams, the former Texas star who played for Detroit. Also love what Detroit did. As bad as the Lions are, draft choices, and patience, are the most reliable path to respectability.

   The Cowboys now have two Roy Williams on the roster. In fantasy baseball, I once drafted all Guzmans.  Hope Dallas has better luck than I did.

   

-- Highlights from Charlotte's loss to the Orlando Magic Thursday include: Raymond Felton hitting Gerald Wallace inside with a stunning pass; Wallace playing a strong game in every way; Adam Morrison making his 12 minutes count with eight points and two assists; Sean May showing what he can do early by hitting jumpers and spinning to the hoop; Matt Carroll taking a shot and the ball going in; and former Duke villain J.J. Redick giving fans no reason to boo him, not Charlotte fans, anyway.

Bowden never reached Ford's standard

Other coaches had good seasons. Clemson football coach Tommy Bowden had good recruiting classes.

    He would bring in dazzling talent, and unleash it against somebody terrible, and pound them, and fans would allow themselves to get excited. The Tigers were going to be good. This was going to be their season. I’m not talking about 2008. I’m talking about every season.

  And then came the big game they had to win. And they failed. As a result, they never moved past pretty good, and they always ended their season in National Invitational Tournament bowls such as the Gator and Music City and Peach.

The Tigers opened this season ranked ninth nationally but instead of waiting to lose the big game, they opened the season by getting pounded by Alabama. The mistakes they made throughout Bowden’s 10 years at Clemson have been repeated. Clemson fired him Monday.

Bowden was 3-3 this season and 72-45 overall. That would be sufficient at most ACC schools, including North Carolina and N.C. State. But Clemson is a school at which football counts. The pressure is greater and the expectations higher and the fans care more, and they show it every Saturday.

Bowden never fit.

None of the coaches that have followed the legendary Danny Ford have fit. Each has been measured against Ford’s standard, and each has failed.

It's a high standard. Not only did Ford win, he won the Clemson way. He wasn’t fancy or pretty. His offensive line overpowered the other guy’s defensive line and his defensive line overpowered the other guy’s offensive line.

Ford was and is grizzled and tough and country and funny, and no coach meshed with his school’s base as well as he did.

Wonder if he has a few seasons left in him.   

Latte at the Speedway? Hurray!

Civilization has come to the track.

    Walk into the Sprint Cup garage at Lowe's Motor Speedway, past the four tires stacked atop each other, past the Yacing Racing garage, past the Juicy Fruit 42 hauler and, in a tent beneath a green umbrella, there it is.

   Starbucks! Starbucks has come to the track. There were only two people at the counter in front of me. Judging from the handcuffs, they were both cops. No jokes -- Starbucks doesn't sell donuts.

   A young man waited for his order, a couple of milkshake-looking drinks. Behind me came some public relations and marketing folks, all of whom knew the rules and spoke the language. They ordered latte, machiato and paid up to $5 for a cup and didn't complain.

   This is Starbucks first foray at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Next up: sushi.

   

UNC football bigger deal than Simpson?

Jessica Simpson was performing on the stage in front of the grandstands and North Carolina and Notre Dame were playing football in Chapel Hill.

   One of every two television sets in the pit area at Lowe's Motor Speedway featured the Tar Heels and Fighting Irish. The sets that didn't were turned off.

    So fans could walk onto the track and watch Jessica. They could watch Jessica on a big screen in the pit area. Or they could watch the Tar Heels and Fighting Irish.

   An unofficial poll: For every fan watching Jessica, two watched the football game.