‘Border’line psychosis

June 24, 2018

President Donald J. Trumpet has rescinded the order separating children from their parents when they arrive at the southern border but, get this, some 2,300 kids who have already been separated from their parents have not been grandfathered in. Not only have they not been grandfathered in, but they have already been scattered to the four winds – to cities in Michigan, New York and Rhode Island – which came as a distressing surprise to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Members of the conference hastily gathered in El Paso at the behest of that city’s mayor, Dee Margo, a Republican no less, who painted a very different picture of life at the border than President Donald J. Trump has – one of low crime and entwined Hispanic-American cultures.

So, what the hell is going on? You’ve got mayors – for the most part, men – who are so distressed about children who have just disappeared into their cities that the distress is palpable. You’ve got parents who are so distraught that one even killed himself. Most of all, you’ve got kids who are being traumatized …

Of talent and temperament: Nick Kyrgios and Tim Tebow

November 16, 2016

In his new book, “Shaken” (Waterbrook, 213 pages, $25), Tim Tebow considers the failure of his NFL career after his successful run with the Denver Broncos. He’s now trying to make it as a baseball player with the Arizona Fall League, where, once again, he’s been hailed for his good work ethic, leadership skills and clutch play but is still struggling to master the outfield. NFL legend and ESPN analyst Steve Young is among those pulling for him. But many who admire Tebow say he simply doesn’t have pro-quality aptitude.

He has, in other words, the temperament but not the talent. ...

Fortunate son: Steve Young’s ‘age of anxiety’

November 1, 2016

When I heard former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young speak at his 2013 induction into the Greenwich High School Sports Hall of Fame – wittily, for 45 minutes, without notes – I thought, Here’s a real golden boy.

Brilliant, handsome, talented, rich, famous, with a stunning wife, four lovely kids and a varied professional life beyond the spiral as a lawyer, equity fund founder/manager and creator of the Forever Young Foundation. Check.

A child of East Coast privilege – grounded by a protective mother and a tough-minded father, who taught their children to make their own way in the world. Check.

An NFL and Super Bowl MVP and a pillar of the Mormon community, an all-American dream. Check, check and check.

When it comes to the NFL and concussions, denial runs deep

March 26, 2016

The first thing I thought about was “The Dying Gaul.”

That poignant Roman marble – a copy of a late Hellenistic work that depicts a Celtic warrior wounded on the ground – was precisely what I flashed on when I saw the photo of Steve Young on the front page of The New York Times March 25.

It was as if it were yesterday – if yesterday were 1999. Young, then the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, lay crumpled, seemingly lifeless after a concussive hit on the field. The photo accompanied the story headlined “NFL Concussion Studies Found to Have Deep Flaws.” ...

Ken Stabler’s CTE and the threat to quarterbacks

February 4, 2016

A few days before Super Bowl 50 this Sunday comes sobering news: Onetime Oakland Raiders quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Ken Stabler had CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a kind of dementia related to concussions and sub-concussive hits.

Stabler, who died in July of cancer at age 69, left his brain to be studied by researchers in Massachusetts.

Of the 91 brains of ex-players that have been tested – you can’t test for this except after death – 87 had brain trauma. ...

Deflategate – of waistlines, frown lines and men

May 15, 2015

Deflategate gets curiouser and curiouser and curiouser. Now the New England Patriots would have you believe that it wasn’t about deflated balls but inflated bladders and waistlines.

In an attempt to seize control of the narrative, the Pats now contend that the time equipment manager Jim McNally spent in the bathroom before the AFC Championship game against the Indianapolis Colts wasn’t about emptying balls of their air but emptying his bladder. And his “Deflator” nickname referred to his trying to lose weight.

You know that when men start talking about their waistlines and their bladders it’s a sure sign they’re desperate.

I think, in the end, however, that we shall discover that this is less a story about waistlines than frown lines and perhaps being a step slower and seeing the young guns who idolize you making their way up the ranks, standing across the field where you once were.

Tom Brady has it all except for one thing – youth. Turning 38 on Aug. 3, he’s actually a middle-aged man. (The life expectancy for an American man is 76.4 years. What’s two times 38? Oh.) ...

The QB: alone at the top of the world

January 30, 2015

Much of the hoopla surrounding Super Duper Bowl weekend revolves around the two opposing quarterbacks – one of whom, the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady, is trying to perpetuate a dynasty; the other of whom, the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson, is trying to start one.

Both are featured in the superb new coffee-table book, “Sports Illustrated NFL QB: The Greatest Position in Sports” ($29.95), a tome you’ll want to tackle again and again. It’s one I particularly love poring over as I prepare my novel about a gay, biracial quarterback’s quest for acceptance in the NFL, “The Penalty for Holding.”

“NFL QB” takes you down to the field and past the locker room into the mind, body, heart and soul of the quarterback, who more than any other player on the world stage represents the quintessence of masculinity. Walter Iooss Jr.’s double-page photograph of New York Jet Joe Namath – shirtless and hirsute, casting an appreciative leer at two ladies of a certain vintage as he sits on the beach surrounded by equally admiring males – says everything you need to know about the QB: He’s the big man on the campus of life.

But being special cuts both way, and both Tim Layden’s introduction and former Cincinnati Bengals’ QB Boomer Esiason’s foreword do much to capture the aloneness, pain and vomit-inducing terror of a job on which cities as well as teams rise and fall.

As in Sports Illustrated itself – from which most of the words and images were taken – the words and images here serve as a counterpoint as they chart the course from the blocker of the single-wing formation to the QB taking the snap from center in the T formation; from the pocket passer (Brady, Peyton Manning) to the running QB (Wilson, Colin Kaepernick, Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III); and, perhaps most important of all, from sideshow to icon.

While “NFL QB” captures the glamour – what a babe Peyton Manning was on the September 1997 cover of Esquire – what lingers is the grit (brother Eli bloodied yet unbowed in a local showdown between the New York Giants and Jets in 2010). ...