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.

Can the Broncos stop Cam Newton, er, the Panthers?

January 25, 2016

A good defense stops a good offense like good pitching stops good hitting – or so running quarterback Quinn Novak wonders in my forthcoming novel, “The Penalty for Holding.”

Anyone who thinks that, he reasons, has never considered Alexander the Great taking it to the Persians in 331 B.C.

And indeed, while the Denver Broncos’ defense surely stopped Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the American Football Conference Championship, that defense is going to be hard-pressed to stop the Carolina Panthers’ electrifying running game as encapsulated by their QB Cam Newton in Super Bowl 50 Feb. 7. ...

QBs vs. haters in digital duels

February 20, 2015

The latest tempest in a teapot comes courtesy of Washington Redskins’ quarterback Robert Griffin III and his San Francisco 49ers’ counterpart Colin Kaepernick, who recently took on critical fans via Instagram and Twitter respectively.

In RG’s case, he was jamming to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” on Instagram when a fan called him out for not acting like a quarterback.

Colin meanwhile tweeted a litany of “recovery day” activities – 1,000 abs, arm workout, 10 minutes straight on the jump rope, a two-hour study session. To which fan Stephen Batten replied, “ab workout won’t help find open receiver.” Which in turn led to a verbal pummeling from Colin that ended with “get better at life.”

My first reaction was, Why bother? Why bother to respond? In a 35-year career as a journalist, I’ve been praised and vilified, even threatened. Rarely have I responded, preferring instead to follow the dictum of my favorite British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli: “Never complain, never explain.”

And yet, I can understand. The fluidity and anonymity of the Internet are such that people respond with immediate, unfiltered vehemence. You’re punched, you counterpunch.

I think, however, this is about more than the culture of hatred bred by the web. It’s about our expectations of the quarterback, perhaps the most traditionally masculine occupation in the United States – expectations that weigh heavily on the gay, biracial quarterback at the heart of my upcoming novel “The Penalty for Holding.” ...

RG III sacked

November 26, 2014

Big pre-Thanksgiving sports news: Robert Griffin III is out at quarterback for the Washington Redskins’ Nov. 30 game against the Indianapolis Colts and Colt McCoy is in.

Head coach Jay Gruden, who has publicly lambasted RG III, made the announcement Nov. 26, so this is not a surprise. But it is a shame. When he blazed across the draft in 2012 – in the same QB class as the Colts’ ascendant Andrew Luck – RG brought an excitement and promise to the beleaguered Redskins. Maureen Dowd even compared him to Mr. Darcy – perhaps the highest compliment from we women of a certain vintage. But now injuries and the sense among some of the team’s Powers That Be that RG has hit a wall have made the Baylor University star’s stock plummet.

I have to laugh – bitterly, but laugh nonetheless. When I was plotting my forthcoming novel “The Penalty for Holding” – the second in my series “The Games Men Play” – I wrestled with how psychologically acute it was to create a coach who has no confidence in the team’s quarterback, my main character. I guess I now have my answer. It turns out you can’t make this stuff up.

The NFL, Colin Kaepernick and the R-word

October 21, 2014

Well, thank God Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos beat Colin Kaepernick and the San Francisco 49ers on “Sunday Night Football,” with Manning breaking Brett Favre’s record for most touchdowns thrown (508). All’s right with the universe – the universe that sees Colin Kaepernick as such a threat, that is.

All last week we had to hear how Manning, legend, is an elite pocket passer who knows how to read the field when he throws to receivers while Kaepernick, overrated upstart, is a hybrid QB – part running back, part major league pitcher – who may be excitingly unpredictable and talented enough but no Manning.

That may very well be the case, but what grates is that the argument seems to extend beyond football to the realm of the personal where race and sexuality intersect.

Let’s stay with football for a moment, shall we? In three seasons thus far, Kaepernick has put up numbers comparable to the first three seasons of the Niners’ last great quarterback, Steve Young, who was also a running QB. Indeed, Kap was about the only one who kept his injury-riddled team on the field at all in the abysmal 43-17 loss to the Broncos. So he’s the real deal.

But he’s not the real deal in a traditional way. He’s a QB who’s a brilliant runner in a sport where “running quarterback” is code for “black” (Michael Vick, Russell Wilson, Robert Griffin III, Cam Newton) and “elite pocket passer” is code for “white” (both Mannings, Peyton and Eli, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, etc.) ...

WWPMD?

December 23, 2013

This past weekend, I found myself wondering: What Would Peyton Manning Do?

The question was actually posed by A., the administrator and editor of this blog. We were out to lunch, and I was explaining that I was torn between visiting my family for Christmas (and winding up hopelessly behind in my work) or foregoing the visit to fulfill my deadlines. Somehow we got on the subject of how I consider myself to be the Peyton Manning of women, not because I’m so great but because I’m an intense person who believes in Alexandrian leadership (that is, leading from the front) and in what Louis Pasteur said: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

So WWPMD? To answer that question I read the cover story of the Dec. 23 issue of Sports Illustrated, which has proclaimed Peyton Manning “Sportsman of the Year.” (Talk about fortuitous: Sunday, the Denver Broncos won the AFC West as Manning broke Tom Brady’s record for most touchdowns in a season, 50.)

The article contains things I knew and many I didn’t. Read more