DALY: Giving soccer a fighting chance

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The Washington Times

Sunday, November 8, 2009

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Question of the Day

Sen. John Cornyn says it's "past time" for Attorney General Eric H. Holder to step down. Do you agree?

Have you seen the clips of this female soccer player at New Mexico who roughed up half the BYU team? She kicked one opponent, tackled another and nearly decapitated another by yanking on her ponytail.

And that was just trying to fight her way to the mirror in the ladies' room.

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BYU finally got her to settle down when it put Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the game.

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Amazingly, it wasn't until the 76th minute that the officials gave Elizabeth Lambert a yellow card. Of course, the only player who's ever gotten a red card in women's soccer, from what I understand, is Lizzie Borden.

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Neal from Gaithersburg e-mails: "Compared to Elizabeth Lambert, Jack Lambert was a wuss."

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Elizabeth is banned from practices, games and conditioning drills indefinitely, her coach announced.

Yeah, but something tells me the next time she plays, the game will be on pay-per-view.

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Celtics bruiser Glen "Big Baby" Davis says he'd like to give pro football a shot someday. Imagine the possibilities:

A 6-foot-9, 290-pound tight end.

A 6-9, 290-pound offensive tackle.

A 6-9, 290-pound defensive end.

A 6-9, 290-pound outside linebacker.

Heck, I'd give him $5 million a year just to see him kick off.

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Davis was a tremendous two-way player in high school in Baton Rouge, La. In fact, several of the opponents who lined up against him in his last season are still listed as missing.

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Hard to believe Adidas dropped its sponsorship deal with the University of Central Florida because Michael Jordan's son Marcus insisted on wearing Air Jordans. I mean, was Marcus really going to generate a lot of business for them? He played 23 minutes the other night in an exhibition game against St. Leo and scored one point.

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Then again, Nike's stock closed at $64.76 the next day - up more than two dollars - so maybe Adidas knows what it's doing.

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On his way home early Thursday after the Yankees finished off the Phillies, New York skipper Joe Girardi stopped to help a woman who'd crashed her car.

"It never would have happened," she told him, "if I hadn't been driving on only three days' rest."

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Joe Girardi: your full-service manager. He wins the World Series and provides roadside assistance.

I see an OnStar commercial in Mr. Girardi's future.

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News item: San Francisco Giants ace Tim Lincecum gets caught with marijuana in his home state of Washington.

Comment: It'll never be the same anymore when the broadcaster says Lincecum throws "in the high 90s."

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The Colts' Bob Sanders, I've decided, is the Gale Sayers of safeties - a fabulous talent whose career is being cruelly cut short by injuries. He's on IR again with a biceps tear, making this the fourth time in six seasons he'll miss at least 10 games. The two years he was healthy he was first team all-pro, and in one of them he was the Associated Press' NFL defensive player of the year. I know he's "just" 28... but what might have been.

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Is anybody else tired of sports writers trying to compare Dan Snyder and George Steinbrenner - as if they have much of anything in common? OK, so they might have some similarities of temperament, but other than that...

Allow me to point out a few of the not-so-subtle differences between these two men:

Steinbrenner: Was a top hurdler at Williams College under coach Tony Plansky, a star in the early NFL with the Giants.

Snyder: Wore a Redskins belt buckle as a kid.

Steinbrenner: Coached football at Lockbourne Air Force Base in Columbus, Ohio, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Was later the football and basketball coach at Columbus' Aquinas High School. Got his master's degree in physical education at Ohio State, during which time he served as a graduate assistant to football coach Woody Hayes.

Snyder: Wore a Redskins belt buckle as a kid.

Steinbrenner: Went on to become a football assistant at Northwestern and Purdue before turning to business.

Snyder: Wore a Redskins belt buckle as a kid.

Steinbrenner: Owned a franchise in the American Basketball League more than a decade before he bought the Yankees - and won a title with Hall of Famer Bill Sharman as his coach.

Snyder: Wore a Redskins belt buckle as a kid.

My point is simply this: Steinbrenner had a great deal of experience in sports when he became the Yankees' boss. He'd competed. He'd coached. He'd even been an owner briefly.

Snyder, on the other hand, wore a... oh, you know.

So, please, let's not raise false hope that the Snydermen might eventually resemble Steinbrenner's Yankees in any way, shape or form. Dan is no George, he's never been George and he never will be George. He is who he is, for better or for worse, until death do us part.

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As for Greg Blache's defense of Snyder last week - a defense that, in typical Redskins fashion, involved the taking of no questions from the media - I have just this to say:

Two years ago, when Blache, an avid hunter, was thinking of retiring, the owner presented him with a Beretta over-and-under, the Stradivarius of shotguns. (We know this because Mike Wise of The Washington Post wrote a terrific column about it.) Anyway, it's been Greg's great fortune so far to be on the right side of the shotgun with Dan. If he'd ever been on the wrong side of the barrels, as plenty of others have, he might feel differently.

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And finally...

Two signs I'd love to see confiscated at the next Redskins home game:

"Please Check Your Freedom of Speech at the Door."

And: "Now Leaving the United States of America."

About the Author

Dan Daly

Dan Daly has been writing about sports for the Washington Times since 1982. He has won numerous national and local awards, appears regularly in NFL Films’ historical features and is the co-author of “The Pro Football Chronicle,” a decade-by-decade history of the game. Follow Dan on Twitter at @dandalyonsports –- or e-mail him at ddaly@washingtontimes.com.