Winter Olympics and et

Let's get one thing straight, there is not a single athlete that plays our so-called major sports that can hold a candle to Olympic quality snowboarders and figure skaters (I'm not talking about the dancers, although they are awesome athletes) for a combination of athleticism, coordination, and grace. It's time our sports pages stop giving preferential treatment to the Big Four: Basketball, Football, Baseball, and Hockey. Skaters and skiers should not be relegated to the back pages of sports unless it's Winter Olympics time.

Okay, so the Cleveland Cavs owners fired Christ Grant, its General Manager. That's only half the solution. They needed to bite the bullet and fire Coach Mike Brown. Why, oh why is Brown considered such a great coach. When was that myth started and who perpetuated it? Did he ever use LeBron James properly during James years with the Cavs? Where was his vaunted defense then, or later with the Lakers, or these days with the sorry-ass Cavaliers? Check his games out. Do you see an ounce of Defense being played?

Alabama wins the sweepstakes for the best college football players. LSU comes in second. I noticed that the Oregon Ducks did not pick up one of the top 50 players in the country. I live in Sacramento, which produces some terrific football college prospects. In the past, Oregon usually got letter of intents from some of our best players. Not this year. When Chip Kelly left for the pros, did that signal the demise of Duck football?

Ralph Kiner died. He was one of my favorite baseball players as a kid when I was still trying to decide between being a baseball pitcher and a basketball player. I don't think any player since Kiner has hit the ball as high and as far.

For me, when a great athlete dies, it's not the same as grandma or grandpa or even great humanitarians or world leaders going into the beyond. I remember when Wilt Chamberlain died, I couldn't believe that his body betrayed him that much. Sure, Kiner was 91, but there is something strange in my thinking that says athletes should live forever. Perhaps, such silliness is only wishful thinking of yours truly, hoping for the fountain of youth.

I'm still not counting the Spurs out of the Finals in the West if they can get healthy by the last month of the season. My reasons have to do with my lack of faith in the Clippers and Trailblazers. Clippers can't seem to find a consistent rotation and the Trailblazers still do not have a strong bench. As for the Warriors, read on.

The Warriors' chances for a Western Division Championship depend entirely on health and injuries. When all their players are injury free, they are a tough and efficient team. But if only one player goes down, the team becomes less efficient. It's sort of like a stew. If you leave out one ingredient, the stew is still pretty good, but is not the same high quality. Leave out two ingredients and the stew is inedible. Of course, the Warriors last night proved my analogy wrong, beating the Bulls with Bogart and Lee. But I'm sticking to my guns. The Warriors need all four tires on the car and a couple of good spares to get past the first round of the playoffs.

A skating poem in honor of the start of the Sochi Winter Olympic

Skating  by Phillip Dacey

Skating on the surface of my life,
I saw myself below the ice,
another me, I was moving fast
above him, he was  moving slow,
though he kept up.
there must have been
some warp of being twisting
us together so, two different speeds
head to head, of feet to feet, or,
better, shoulder to shoulder, brothers,
that's the way it felt, but separated
by a death, an ice, a long wall
laid down upon the world to lock us 
into rooms. Knock,knock. Are you 
there? He was, and waving, though 
it was a distant wave, an outer-space
wave, as if he were umbilicated
and drifting off between the stars. The stars
skated on that ice, too, and went so fast
they seemed not to move at all. Perhaps
he was the one sped swerveless home,
an arrow, while I dream-skated,
my two blades, for all their dazzle,
leaving the ice unchanged, and the top was
bottom and bottom top, but who could say?
I only knew I wanted to break through.
I wanted the ice to melt to let
us sink together, two lovers in a bed,
or crack, a warning sign missed, while
the stars swam around us like fish
lit up from within by something
we could never name, nor wished to,
lest the light fade. But the ice held,
because it was wiser than I was,
because two is more than twice one,
because the air and water made a pact
to disagree while I skated on
the surface of a life I thought was mine.