Conference tournaments in college basketball are a waste

Do you ever see something that takes place annually that serves no
purpose at all?

I could make a point and put Hallmark holidays like Valentine’s Day
on the list. Though I have been married to my wife for 15 years, I tell
her “I love you” every day. I don’t need a special day to do that gesture.
Anyhow, I’ll keep my lead to sports.

By my own admission, I do not follow college basketball closely like
I do football. I have not filled out an NCAA Tournament bracket in at
least five years. Though I watch the NCAA Tournament, I have found
myself enjoying it more since opting not to fill out a bracket. With the
first round upsets that take place, I would have been better off throwing
it into the BBQ to start the flame.

Conference tournaments in college basketball are held at the end of the
regular season to determine a conference tournament champion. It is
usually held in four rounds, but can vary, depending on the conference.
All Division I Conferences hold a conference tournament with the
winners of each tournament getting an automatic bid to the NCAA
Tournament.

It is that time of the year, except I’m doing myself a favor and not
watching because I think conference tournaments are a farce and a
waste of time. For openers, it is a gateway to denying teams that are
worthy of making the NCAA Tournament just because a mediocre
team that would have otherwise had a resume for the NIT (National
Invitational Tournament) suddenly goes on a 3-4 game winning streak.
That’s akin to a student that does C work in class all semester but gets
an A just because he aces the final exam.

The stock answer people give as to why conference tournaments take
place is money. While there is no question the television networks make
money during this time and it cranks out money for the schools but are
fans really interested? Attendance figures would suggest they are not
because turn on the TV and at least half the arena is empty if not more.
These games have attendance similar your low tier college football bowl
games that are pitting two 6-6 teams.

The conference tournaments might make financial sense but that doesn’t
make it practical.

Most college basketball teams play about 30 games during the regular
season, plus or minus a few. The teams will also play 18 conference
games, plus or minus a few. Last season, Middle Tennessee State got
royally screwed by this nonsense. The Blue Raiders won the Conference
USA regular season title with a 16-2 record only to lose to a Southern
Mississippi team in the conference tournament that went 7-11. As a
result, Middle Tennessee State was shut out from going to the NCAA
Tournament and relegated to the NIT.

Last time I checked, a team’s resume is a body of work over a period of
time, not one game. The conference tournament format suggests otherwise
and it is a complete damn joke.

The conference tournaments are also a demonstration of hypocrisy in that
the powers-that-be claims to be all about the student-athlete in one breath
but demonstrates the opposite. The conference tournaments do nothing
but add more wear and tear, especially the Power 5 conferences like the Pac
12, Big 12, Big 10, SEC and ACC because those leagues are overgrown.
That means a low seeded team that unexpectedly gets hot has to play five
games in a 120 hour span.

It makes no sense because teams do not play on back-to-back days during
the regular season. Even in the NBA scheduling back-to-back games have
been reduced which makes three games in three nights a no go.

As much as I think postseason formats are watered down worse than a flat
Budweiser at every level of sport, I say put conference tournaments and
the NIT out to pasture and expand the NCAA to 96 teams.

In the meantime, I loathe conference tournaments. They have outlived their
usefulness. Wake me up when the NCAA Tournament begins.

Lewis sisters leave a legacy for Napa High girls basketball

Since 1974, Napa High basketball and the last name Lewis have been
synonymous, like rims, backboards and nets.

For the first time since Jimmy Carter occupied the Oval Office, the last
name Lewis and Napa basketball will not be linked together as Darci
Ward announced that she will be resigning as the school’s girls basketball
head coach after 16 seasons. Ward’s younger sister, Michelle Lewis, will
also join Darci in stepping away from coaching. Ward’s father, Denny
Lewis, was the boys basketball head coach from 1974-2002, leading
Napa to 15 CIF Sac-Joaquin section playoff berths, including a section
title in 1991-1992. Michelle posted a heartfelt message on her Facebook
page.

In an interview with Napasportsnews.com reporter Kyle Foster, Ward
sited the need to spend more time with her family as her reason for
resigning. Ward is married to former Vintage High boys basketball head
coach Ted Ward. The couple has children that are 3 and 5 years of age.
Ward is also the school’s co-athletic director with Tom Petithomme but
hopes to continue in that capacity. Ward will remain at Napa as a
physical education and AVID teacher.

In her 16 seasons, Ward led Napa to a 295-149  record with nine playoff
appearances, seven league titles and six seasons with 20 or more wins.
The program’s finest hour came in 2005-2006 when Napa went 31-3 on
the way to reaching the CIF NorCal Playoffs. The team also had a
23-game winning streak. In that stretch, Napa had a few down years but
one never morphed into say, two or three.

I could wax poetic all day about Napa’s accomplishments under Ward
but there are a few things to unpack. By my own admission, I have gotten
cynical when I hear that a coach is resigning to spend more time with
family, mainly because in some cases it is a smokescreen to a back story
of conflict with coach and administration. However, in this case, I believe
Ward’s reasons to be true. Being a father of three kids myself and a
former sports reporter, I know that while having an adult life in sports
is rewarding, the time away from family is real. You sacrifice time away
from your kids to be with the youngsters of others.

Then you factor in Ward’s role of co-athletic director and at some point,
the sacrifice becomes even more immense. Plus, her kids are 3 and 5,
not 23 and 25.   

I would also be remiss not to mention Michelle’s role in the program’s
success. It’s easy to fixate on the head coach because they are front and
center. However, you could ask any head coach of a program that is
considered successful and they will tell you it is never the work of one
person. Though the work of assistant coaches often go unnoticed, those
who understand the game know the importance of their role. In a nutshell,
the head coach is the driver of the racecar, the assistant coach/coaches are
the pit crew. You need both to be successful.

It also stands to reason that having seen and/or heard various coaching
stories from their father’s coaching tenure, the Lewis sisters applied what
they learned from him. Granted, coaching boys and girls are different in
some ways but coaching is coaching. It’s still Xs and Os and Jimmies
and Joes -- or Jennys and Janes.

The Lewis sisters were accomplished student-athletes that became coaches
that helped their team achieve at a high level. Darci, who like her father,
is in the Napa High Athletic Hall of Fame, graduated from Napa in 1995
and competed in cross country, basketball, track and field and tennis. She
went on to become the Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year at College of
San Mateo where she also participated in basketball, cross-country and
track & field before continuing her education at the University of
Montana. At Montana, Ward earned a scholarship for her efforts on the
cross-country and indoor and outdoor track & field teams while also
being named to the All-Academic team.

Michelle, who graduated in 1997, was an all-league performer in basketball
who went on to play at Solano Community College and Eastern Illinois. In
her senior season, Lewis set a record for 3-pointers made and attempted.

When you get high achieving athletes that become coaches, it is often a
crapshoot. Some see that success translate to their coaching career while
others flop for an assortment of reasons. The Lewis sisters had that success
carry into their coaching careers.

However, when you look at the Lewis sisters in their coaching roles, you
have to peel another layer off the onion. I have only known them on the
periphery since I covered the Upvalley beat, I always glanced at their
team’s success from afar. Two of my cousins’ daughters played for them,
shoutout Noelle Roldan and Alivia Trzesniewski. Shoutout also to their
mothers, my cousins, Robin Patterson and Roseanne Trzesniewski.  

Their families and numerous others that I have spoken to evoke vibes of
how they made meaningful differences in their youngsters’ lives. Much
the same narrative was uttered for years about their father, Denny. At the
high school level and younger, impact on lives is most important because
you cannot tangibly measure that quality but when you marry it with on
court success -- even better.

In the meantime, Ward has not ruled out a return to coaching in the future
but sometimes life has a greater calling.

It won’t be the same not uttering the words Lewis and Napa High
basketball together.

Here’s hoping that the next coach sustains the culture and success
established under Darci and Michelle.

Rainouts can muck up spring sports schedules

When you are a sports fan, or even a reporter, in Northern California, spring
sports are such a confounding dynamic.

The winter weather here in Northern California ranges from cool to cold outside
but involves watching basketball games and wrestling matches inside the gym.
Granted, in some areas, soccer, which is an outdoor sport, has become a winter
event but you get the initial point. The more extended point is that when we think
of spring sports, we think outdoors, warmer weather, flowers and trees blooming
and allergies among other things.

Here in Northern California, various parts of the Bay Area endured flooding, in
particular Sonoma and Napa Counties last week. As of this writing, we have gotten
a reprieve from the rain but more is likely to happen in March. I’m not a
meteorologist, I just play one on the internet.

The spring sports of choice are baseball, softball, track and field, tennis, swimming,
golf and though it’s an indoor sport, badminton. The general trend in terms of
weather tends to be in the winter time while the indoor sports are taking place, the
amount of rain is minimal. Once winter sports season ends, however, here comes
the rain. Then, the next thing you know it’s the Eurythmics 1980s hit song “Here
Comes The Rain Again.” Shoutout 1980s music. So as March events keep getting
rained out, you ask, “Where was all of this rain in December and January?”
Translation, take pictures of baseball/softball diamonds, tracks, and tennis courts,
and you feel like it’s an image of Lake Michigan around second base.

When covering high school athletics, you contact the athletic director about
mid-January to request spring sports schedules so you can input them to run in
the newspaper. When I was a sports reporter in St. Helena and Calistoga, CA,
which is located in the Northern part of the Napa Valley, for two community weekly
publications, the schedules were an expectation for the local readership. Rainouts
are not easy on sports parents either, I have gotten a taste.

The noticeable trend when spring sports started was that you could look at the
March schedule and say to yourself, “There’s a good chance at least half of these
events are not going to happen.” Why? Let’s just say that water falls out of the sky,
as in that thing we call rain.

The rain makes everyone’s life difficult: student-athletes, coaches, athletic directors
and yes, media. Games end up getting rescheduled and finding time to practice
indoors can be an issue because in most cases, there is only one gym. After all,
being the best indoor whiffle ball team only goes so far. The result ends up being
cabin fever. The rain can also make life difficult for physical education teachers
because in the springtime, most of the teaching is outdoor oriented activities.

Though I was a high school student-athlete about half of my life ago, I can most
prominently identify with how rainouts effect local sports media. Since I worked
for community weekly and daily publications with a two-year stint at an online
news service, our news organizations relied on having local stories, game and
feature stories. When rain washes out a multitude of events, it forces your hand
to pursue other stories.

By far the worst year I faced was the Spring of 2006 when it rained for all of about
six days in March and about half of April. The rainouts in March were overcome by
running spring sports preview stories. When April arrived, however, I was so
desperate for stories that I reached out to PE teachers. The reaction was
predictable, “Damn, Vince you really are hard up for stories.” Once I decided to
have fun with the idea, life was much easier.

Being an Upvalley sports reporter presented an even bigger challenge since St.
Helena and Calistoga play teams in Lake and Mendocino Counties, which involve
an hour long bus ride at the bare minimum but often are closer to two hours. That
set of circumstances means deciding early in the day whether or not the event is
getting played.

I remember the Calistoga High softball team reaching the CIF North Coast Section
Class B playoffs despite playing only 12 games when most regular seasons are 25.
The Wildcats went 9-3 so they were deserving of a berth.

With daylight savings looming, it is known as spring forward but the next rainout
you know of, just ask yourself, “How far did spring go forward?” Visualize using
binoculars in the process.

Harper mega-deal another example of a vicious cycle

Whenever a megastar in professional sports signs a multi-million deal, the chain
reaction of comments from media and fans alike remain the same -- comical.

Bryce Harper is the latest to get heavier in the wallet as the Philadelphia Phillies
signed the 26-year old left-handed slugger to a 13-year contract worth $330 million
dollars. The Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants
were also considered potential landing spots for Harper, who spent his previous
seven seasons with the Washington Nationals.

Harper hit 184 home runs in that span with Washington, where he also won an MVP
award. Harper saw time in the limelight at an early age, appearing on the cover of
Sports Illustrated, becoming the first overall pick in the Major League Baseball
draft at age 19 and making the All-Star team at age 19. Harper’s aforementioned
MVP came at age 22.

The Giants reportedly offered 12 years before the Phillies offered him the biggest
contract in North American pro sports history. As a lifelong Giants fan, I wish he
were wearing Orange & Black but it did not pan out that way.

I’m not going to get into how Harper’s signing effects the landscape of Major League
Baseball, and more specifically the National League and the NL East. Harper’s
contract speaks to a more grand issue. Reaction to the amount of money of Harper’s
contract ranges from excitement to outrage.

It is astounding how many casual fans show their lack of scruples when they link a
player’s salary with his resume, stats and where they rank among their peers. Though
most people consider Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels to be the game’s best
player, Harper is in the conversation and has not yet entered his prime.

When a player signs a record-setting contract, some fans have an orgasm with statements
like, “He’s not worth that money!” or “How can he be making that much money when
this player over here has better stats” or things to that effect. Basing a player’s salary on
where he ranks among his peers is flawed logic because careers have peaks and valleys.
You just hope their performance averages out relevant to their salary.

Contracts are about timing, leverage and economics. If you think they are about resumes,

stats or ranking peers, you are naive by definition. Short of teams losing revenue, player

salaries are only going to skyrocket.

I remember when Jim Kelly signed a contract with the Buffalo Bills signed a contract
worth $1 million dollars per year in 1986. I recall people being astounded in those days
because $1 million dollars was so much money in that time.

I would argue that the same fans and media that grovel about athlete’s exorbitant salaries
are at least partially responsible for those heavier pocketbooks. I’m among the enablers
but I can humble myself enough to admit it. Think about it, fans keep flocking the
turnstiles at games and if they are not doing that, they are involved in the following:
a) Contributing to ratings by watching the games or listening on radio, b) Purchasing
the team’s clothing or c) Calling talk radio and/or expressing their views on social media.

As astronomical as Harper’s latest contract appears to be, it won’t be much longer before
that amount is considered a drop in the bucket because until people’s interest level in pro
sports diminishes, teams and owners will keep benefiting financially. Where then does
that money go? Back to the players.

Relevant to the idea of “is the player worth the contract?” That notion is very subjective.
Define being “worth your contract?” In many cases, I would argue that the years that the
player is producing his best numbers often come before the big payday. In which case,
he is outperforming the contract. On the flip side, when the player receives his big
payday, he is older and not many of the years on the contract are in his prime. In which
case, he underperforms the contract.

As it pertains to Harper, barring injuries, he figures to be enormously productive for most
of those years because even if his skills diminish, he can be a designated hitter. Granted,
the National League has not adopted the DH yet but it’s only a matter of time, for better
or worse, before both leagues incorporate it.

As salaries keep escalating, the question begs, “Is anyone really worth their contract?”

Playing for a sports journalism version of a super team

Sometimes you have to wait several years to share impactful experiences.

My time as a sports reporter for long since defunct GetLocalNews.com is one
of them. I could have shared the experience years ago but it was difficult to do
so publicly for the longest time.

First to set the scene, I respect the entire staff in their role in making our product
superior but I can most accurately describe my experience with my sports cohorts
Brian Cornelius and Chris Navalta since I was most actively involved with them.
However, everyone’s individual effort on the entire staff contributed to the news
organization winning a national Online News Organization general excellence award.

I moved back to California in 1998 after getting my journalism degree from the
University of Nebraska in 1997. I began newspaper career with my hometown
newspaper, the Napa Valley Register. I knew Navalta and Cornelius from afar,
both were sports reporters for the Vallejo Times Herald. The latter eventually
became sports editor.

Navalta eventually moved on to GLN.com, which was a startup online news
organization. The company launched BeniciaNews.com in 2000 and later
VallejoNews.com, in early 2001. Cornelius, who tried to recruit me on various
attempts, joined forces with Navalta. Well, Cornelius convinced me to join him
at GLN.com.  

Being part of something new felt like such an appealing motivator because we
were not inheriting past problems from a prior regime. There was talk of expanding
to neighboring cities. For two years, I firmly believe that Cornelius, Navalta and I
were a sports journalism version of a super team, the term you frequently hear in
reference to NBA teams. We were a three man band covering six high schools,
providing everything from event coverage, features, player bios, photos and
boxscores. I would also be remiss not to mention the regular contributions of
freelancers Marcas Grant and Patrick Creaven. While Cornelius, Navalta and I
were the stars, they were the complimentary players that helped us achieve
greatness in terms of coverage volume that was second to none. When I refer to
coverage volume, it was not just the major sports like football and basketball.
We’re talking badminton and tennis as well as every sport offered.

From March 2001-May 2003, we were an unbeatable combination. Then May 2003
happened, when the company experienced a staff-wide layoff. We sensed that event
would occur at a staff meeting in March. They turned the website into citizen
journalism rather than the labor intensive variety that had been so successful.

We knew the layoff was coming but for me, the timing could not have been
worse. Granted, we got a severance package but I was engaged to my then fiance
and we were closing escrow on our home. I managed to rustle enough freelance
work for seven months to stay afloat before landing back at NVR, which had
purchased the St. Helena Star and Weekly Calistogan. I took over the Upvalley beat
and stayed there for nearly 11 years before changing careers.

For the longest time, I was bitter about our staff-wide layoff, and to a certain extent
still bothers me today. Time, however, has taught me not to dwell on the end, instead
to see the time I had together with Cornelius and Navalta as a great ride. Those guys
were Vallejo natives that had the respect of locals. Since I was the outsider from
Napa, for Cornelius to reach out to me was meaningful. Napa and Vallejo are only
25 minutes apart but in some ways they are colonies apart in terms of lifestyle and
demographics. To this day, I could not be more thankful for how Cornelius and
Navalta along with the communities of Vallejo and Benicia accepted me.

In one respect, I look at our format and say we were ahead of our time. The narrative
of news consumption today is that the print version of newspapers have become
de-emphasized because with rare exception, people receive their news via internet.
If there was breaking news, it would be online immediately as opposed to having it
printed in the next day’s newspaper or putting it online at midnight.

In that era, newspapers had deadlines where the press would have to run at midnight
or whatever time was set. As an online newspaper, we had no hard deadline but it was
generally understood that we were going to get our stories posted as soon as possible.
Nowadays, newspaper deadlines are closer to 9 p.m., which means that late night
football game will not be in the print edition until two days later but stories are going
online immediately.

So much of the narrative today is “24 hour news cycle.” At GLN.com, we were the 24
hour news cycle before the term was en vogue.

When it comes to working relationships in my career, Randy Johnson and Garrett
Whitt are undoubtedly No. 1 because I spent nearly 11 years with them during my
years in St. Helena and Calistoga, where we achieved greatness of our own. However,
my time with Cornelius and Navalta, though cut short for reasons beyond our control,
was like playing on a dream team.