Voices carry

This morning, I watched Serena Williams cruise into her ninth Wimbledon final, barely breaking a sweat in her elegant white tennis dress as she won her semifinal in 49 minutes. She stands just one win away from her 22nd Grand Slam championship, which would tie her for the most all-time and cement her status – which was already pretty well cemented, at least in my mind – as the greatest ever.

Another black woman got some air time on Thursday morning – or at least, her work did. Diamond Reynolds live-streamed the aftermath of a Minnesota police officer shooting her fiancé four times. Pulled over for a broken tail light, Philando Castile, 32, died with his 4-year-old daughter in the backseat of the car as Reynolds prayed on the sidewalk.

I didn’t watch the video, and I didn’t watch Alton Sterling die after being shot while lying on his belly in a Baton Rouge parking lot the day before. I’m not sure why. I watched Tamir Rice gunned down, and he was only 12. I watched Michael Brown get shot, and I watched Missouri burn. I heard Eric Garner say he couldn’t breathe.

I guess I’ve just had enough.

As I watched Serena glide across the grass at the All England Club - 41 years after Arthur Ashe became and remains the only black man to win Wimbledon -  I wondered. I wondered if, were she not who she is, she might have to worry if she were pulled over for not using a turn signal, like Sandra Bland. I remembered James Blake slammed to the ground outside a New York hotel and wondered if, even being who she is, she might still, given the exact wrong circumstances.

I wondered about a society that celebrates the athletic prowess and achievements of people like Serena, and her sister Venus, and the NBA players whose free-agent decisions have dominated sports talk radio this week. I wondered about a society that clamors to hear what such people have to say when a microphone is in their faces, then demands that they shut the fuck up when their words are no longer convenient, or easy, or totally on topic.

Last night, I watched a young lady I know and greatly admire win the U.S. Olympic Trials in the hammer throw to earn her third Olympic trip. Amber Campbell is a beautiful spirit and person. But I wondered how her braids, her powerful arms, her sassy smile might play in another, less well-defined arena.  

Stick to sports, you might think if you’re reading this blog, as athletes like LeBron James were told when they donned hoodies in protest of the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin, who was not killed by police but by a neighborhood watchman/menace with delusions of importance.

In a word, no.

Jesse Owens did not stick to sports. Tommie Smith and John Carlos did not stick to sports. Muhammad Ali did not stick to sports. Venus Williams, playing a leading role in at last securing equal pay for women players at Wimbledon, did not stick to sports, like Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova before her.

Sports is a stage. Voices carry from stages.

I, in no way, think this little voice crying in the wilderness has any comparable power. But if it has any, it must be projected.

I have a dear friend with whom I have a lot in common. We’re both journalists. We’re both from the South. We both love the Dodgers and the Gamecocks. We also have a few differences. Issac is smarter than me, and a better writer. He’s black, and I’m white. And he’s had to think about how to tell his teenage son to avoid being shot by the police.

Philando Castile’s mother tried to tell her son how not to be shot by the police, for all the good it did. If you have not had to do that, then your voice is just not as important as Issac’s, and hers, and all the other fathers and mothers who have, right now.

That’s also why, right now, black lives matter. Full stop. Because all lives can’t matter until they do. And when another cop shoots another black man every damn day, it’s fairly clear that they don’t.

We can’t laud our black athletes for their accomplishments while asking our black population to deny its experience. We can’t twist ourselves into blind knots insisting it’s not about race when there is no other explanation. It was about race when Dylan Roof opened fire in a Charleston church, and it was about race when he walked out of that church alive.

I hope Serena wins Wimbledon, and I hope Amber gets an Olympic medal. And I hope, in my lifetime and maybe even in the foreseeable future, that all people get a chance to realize their dreams, on whatever stage, without having a split-second judge, jury and executioner tally their worth, and find it lacking.

Cheers to the Chants

Amber Campbell is going to the Olympics for the third time - as the U.S. Olympic Trials champion in the hammer throw.

Campbell's achievement, on a heave of 74.03 meters (242 feet, 10 inches) on her last throw Wednesday in Eugene, Ore., marked a lifetime best (and the best throw by an American this year) and capped possibly the greatest stretch in the history of a collegiate athletic program - without question one the size and previous scope of Coastal Carolina University, a school with an enrollment pushing 10,000 and a mascot few have heard of or can pronounce.

Campbell is a graduate of Coastal Carolina, home of the Chanticleers (SHONT-a-cleers, a bad-ass rooster and the king of the barnyard in The Canterbury Tales) and a member of the school's athletic hall of fame. On June 19, former CCU golfer Dustin Johnson won the U.S. Open, and on June 30, the Chanticleers' baseball team, led by alum and 21-year coach Gary Gilmore, won the College World Series.

I covered Coastal Carolina for eight years when I worked at The Sun News in Myrtle Beach. Things were a bit less heady then, but the people were warm and welcoming pretty much across the board, and there was no shortage of athletic success. The Chants were becoming a nationally respected baseball program, the men's soccer team was already there, and CCU's softball team was a power that boasted the nation's best base stealer.

Coastal formed a football team - which has become a perennial playoff contender while producing NFL stars such as Josh Norman and Mike Tolbert - during my Sun News tenure. Chronicling that team's journey in its first season, which included the use of driving ranges and farm land as practice fields, remains one of the best experiences of my career.

A lot has changed since I left that paper in 2005. A weekend trip to the beach drove that point home. Coastal now boasts a fancy entrance, a gussied-up football stadium preening on the side of 544, and a whole neighborhood of shops and apartments that did not exist a decade ago. Target clerks scramble to find Chanticleer merchandise, and the town of Conway holds victory parades for a national championship team a few dozen fans would turn out to see in the late 1990s.

I have changed a lot since I left that paper, a fact driven home by every passing day, every return beach trip, every joy and disappointment as life marches inexorably forward. I've traveled quite far from Coastal, only to end up two and a half hours away. I've covered many things since - the Washington Redskins, Florida high school football, and now the Columbia business community. 

Time-worn and tenuous though my connection may be, the Chants' recent run of unprecedented success makes me smile and cast a fond glance over my shoulder. Campbell's smile is one of my brightest memories, and seeing it today on such a grand stage provided balm to a savagely sad few days. It must've also provided some sweet solace for Campbell, who fouled on all three of her final-round attempts at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing.

The top three finishers in Wednesday's finals qualified for Rio. Already assured of no worse than a third-place finish and a third Olympic trip, Campbell unleashed a no-doubter in her final go-round, jumping up and down in excitement as the silver hammer flashed through the air. Moments later, Campbell hugged second-place finisher DeAnna Price, who was in tears after realizing her Olympic dream.

"OK, stop crying," Campbell said laughingly. "Knock it off, or I'll start crying."

Campbell finished 12th at the 2012 Olympics with a best-ever mark for a U.S. hammer thrower of 69.93 meters.

"We are sending a super-strong squad (this year)," Campbell told NBC Sports. "I expect us to come home with some hardware."

I can't wait to watch her in Rio, and I can't imagine what CCU might do next.

Below is the first blog I wrote about Campbell, published in August 2012 and titled LASTING IMPRESSION. 

I forget what year, exactly, I met Amber Campbell. The stories were archived pre-SEO (way, way pre-SEO), and my memory has been a lot of places and done a lot of things.

Let's call it at least 10 years ago, and let's remember the salient points: the smile that could light the way to Mars, the humility that didn't waver whether she'd (often) just set a conference record or (rarely) not won her event. The politeness that went beyond courtesy, that made a reporter feel she was almost glad to see you - again. The work ethic, the determination - all that, clearly. But something more.

I've met a lot of athletes in my career. Interviewed a multitude and been struck, here and there, by a quote, by a story. Amber, I remember. That smile. That joy. That certainty that talk of the Olympics on a Saturday afternoon at a Big South Conference meet at Coastal Carolina, 20 minutes removed from the Atlantic Ocean and home of the Chanticleers, was, somehow, rooted in something real.

The hammer (or the weight, in indoor track season) is not for dainty daises, and Amber wasn't. She was strong, powerful, full of confidence and skill - which made her soft voice and sweet disposition all the more disarming. You'd inwardly quake for fear of asking a dumb question about a sport you were far from an expert on, but she'd laugh, kindly, and explain, patiently, the finer points of hand placement or leg torque.

Throughout the years, I'd catch up with Amber, after she graduated and was training professionally. I'd walk up on her in practice, in a brown, summer-fatigued field somewhere, endlessly tossing the hammer or the weight, that smile never far from her face, still able to almost convince me she was glad for the interruption of my presence.

She was far from arrogant, though - quick to say how much she had to learn. She believed completely in her Olympic dream, but she also - in a nod to the tone of a oh-so-smart, world-wise 25-year-old reporter's question - acknowledged how difficult reaching it would be. 

What's Amber doing? one of the two, three, four sports editors who came and went would ask. Sometimes I'd answer enthusiastically, having just wondered and answered that myself. Other times, my first mental response would be, Probably still throwing the same damn hammer in the same damn field, and less than eager to tell me what's happened in the six months since she last told me what's happened.

I lost touch with Amber when she was still in the promising local athlete-verging on national recognition stage, with a sprinkling of All-American honors to her credit. Life happens, careers take different paths. I knew that Amber made the 2008 Olympics, like she always believed she would. She didn't qualify for the hammer finals.

She competes tomorrow in London to better that result. There's a small, selfish, bitter part of me that wants to see her try, that thinks that if circumstances had been different, this business better, more rewarding, more ... just, I would see it.

That part has no place in Amber's dream. If there is justice, for genuinely good, hard-working people, Amber will make the 2012 Olympic finals.

And I'll be blessed to know what that smile looks like, up close.

PDATE: Amber came up one spot shy of qualifying for the final, but if anyone could handle that oh-so-close disappointment with grace, I know she did. 

Still sports

In the face of an awful thing, I’m once again left contemplating my level of concern for the sports-related universe.

The question, again, is: Does any of it matter? And the answer remains, to me anyway: In some ways.

Given that, and understanding the much larger lens through which such trivial things must sometimes be viewed, I have come to a few conclusions.

I do not care where Kevin Durant plays basketball, or why he wants to play there.

I do not care who wins the Euro Cup, though I am sad to see Iceland go.

I do care that Roger Federer showed the immense heart of an incomparable champion, inspiring me a bit when I accidentally served myself anxiety with my morning coffee.

I do care that a great person and phenomenal athlete has a chance to make her third Olympic team later this afternoon.

I’m not bothered by the fact that the Chicago Cubs have the entire MLB All-Star infield and an outfield spot to boot, but I do think that if something as major as home field advantage in the World Series is going to ride on an exhibition game, metrics other than fan voting must be factored into determining the starting lineup for that game.

As was the case after Orlando, none of these things matter in the face of unimaginable pain. But they can lend a peace and a sense to an often chaotic and senseless world.

It does not really affect my life – or, obviously, the larger world – in any way that Federer, 34, saved three match points in rallying from two sets down to beat Marin Cilic in Wednesday’s Wimbledon quarterfinals – marking the 10th time he’s overcome an 0-2 set deficit in a career that includes 17 Grand Slam titles. Not really, except that as someone trying to fight the perception – mainly my own – that my best professional days may be behind me as well, I can take some encouragement that I too may have a bit left in the tank.

It won’t change my daily routine in any way if Amber Campbell crushes the hammer throw in today’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. But it will make me believe that, sometimes, good things happen to those who deserve them and work their asses off for years to achieve them. Campbell, whom I covered during her record-shattering career at Coastal Carolina, came up one spot shy of qualifying for the Olympic finals in London in 2012. I want to believe, and I do believe, that when she gets to Rio, she’ll take home a medal.

I didn’t lose any sleep over the fact that Dodgers rookie shortstop Corey Seager didn’t get the starting All-Star spot he and his 18-game hitting streak deserve (he was chosen as a reserve). I do think that affinity for the nation’s long-suffering lovable losers may have influenced some voters – the same voters who kept making Cal Ripken Jr. an All-Star years after his numbers last warranted it and whose only glimpse of West Coast or small-market candidates may have come via a glance at the stat line on the MLB ballot. The fans should most definitely have a say in who plays in the Midsummer Classic. But now that said classic carries so much more weight, others – managers, players, sportswriters (pitching staffs and reserves are chosen by a combination of manager choice and player’s ballot) – should get to weigh in as well.

None of these things matter, not really. But they kind of do, a little.

So, thanks, Roger, and go, Amber. And get over yourself sometimes, self.

UPDATE: Campbell isn't just going to the Olympics for the third time. She's going as the 2016 Olympic Trials hammer throw champion, unleashing a throw of 74.03 meters (242 feet, 10 inches) on her last throw of the finals. 

Simply sad

I don’t have a Pat Summitt story. I briefly crossed paths with her at an NCAA regional years ago in Norfolk, Va. I am just sad.

I don’t have a Buddy Ryan story, beyond being the proud owner of a vinyl copy of The Super Bowl Shuffle. The ‘85 Bears were my jam, man. I am just sad.

I am sad kind of a lot, which makes me also feel guilty. But I have come to understand you can appreciate what you have while missing what you don’t. I have given myself permission – Facebook memes be damned – to be both grateful and sad, often at the same time. Should you need it, I give you permission, too.

It has been a grayish day that I am winding down on my gray couch with my gray cat. Last night we had a crash-boom-bang thunderstorm with electric boogaloo lightning. I thought it was cool, but said cat, my 10-year-old adoptee from the shelter where I got my first stand-alone adult cat 20 years ago, did not enjoy it.  He slept on my bed for most of the night for the first time since he arrived three weeks ago.

We woke up to sad news – though I didn’t realize Summitt had died until I got to work. News about Ryan soon followed.

In past lives, work would have been spent arranging sadness on a sports front. I thought of friends who were doing just that.

Now, I watch the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, because I am an unabashed and unashamed Olympics geek, while I wait for Coastal Carolina to force a Game 3 in the College World Series final. Michael Phelps just swam. Such sustained excellence for so long amazes me. Me, who sometimes finds sustaining interest in a whole movie challenging.

Some things have been the same for 16 years, in Phelps’ case, or, in Summitt’s, for 40. I have been three different people in the past six months. I do not know who I am becoming. I have no clear sense of direction or destination. For the control freak I think I still am, this is slightly terrifying, but at a distance – like my twisted, turbulent uterus under a blurry layer of painkillers.

I admire those who achieve pinnacles of success in places that become synonymous with who they are. I identify with the more nomadic of the species, who belong in one place for a time before something begins to chafe, or the universe, like a dyspeptic whale, vomits them somewhere else, sleepy-eyed and confused upon landing.

The world is hard to figure out sometimes. Today, a pair of departures has left it diminished.

That is sad, and that is fine.

When sports don't - and do - matter

Today, at least 50 people died in a shower of terror and blood.

Today, sports do not seem relevant.

But, as the clock rounds the 11 o’clock hour and heads for midnight, I watch a school I used to spend most of my waking hours covering trying to make history, and I think, somehow, they still are.

Coastal Carolina University beat mighty LSU 11-8 on its home field in the first game of the Super Regional last night. A win tonight would give the Chanticleers (SHONT-a-cleers, it’s Chaucer) their first ever trip to Omaha and the College World Series.

Currently, CCU holds a one-run lead in the eighth inning. The bases are loaded. My heart is taking up a lot of room in my throat.

When I watch Coastal play baseball, I think about one of the single worst moments of a kid’s life I ever saw, and the steely grace with which he handled it. I try to imagine the inner strength his reaction took, and I try to summon some of it when I have to do something hard.

It was the early 2000s. The exact year is lost to the fog of my 40-year-old memory. The Chants, on their way to becoming the nationally respected program they are today, were playing at Georgia in a regional, the first round of the NCAA baseball playoffs. They had beaten the host Bulldogs, fearsome in their home park in Athens, Ga., a day earlier, only to lose in a rematch to set up a decisive Game 3 in the double-elimination format that would send the winner a step closer to Omaha.

In said Game 3, because of NCAA rules that attempted to maintain a semblance of neutrality despite thousands of fans chanting “G-E-O-R-G-I-A! Gooo Dawgs! Sic 'em!”, Coastal was the home team. It took a two-run, to the best of my memory, lead into the top of the ninth inning.

The main thing separating big D-I baseball schools like Georgia from mid-majors like Coastal is pitching depth. Judging by the Chants’ performance in Baton Rouge, that gap has closed, but as I sat in the press box many years ago, it was substantial. It led to the CCU starter who had thrown a complete game to beat Georgia a day and a half earlier coming on in late relief.

Scott Sturkie was a friendly, amenable kid, well-liked and easy-going. He had a slider that was hard to hit.

He threw one too many to Jeff Keppinger, the 2001 fourth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates. With two runners on and two outs, Keppinger crushed the pitch over the fence for a three-run homer that gave Georgia the lead and, soon enough, the win.

Thousands of fans unleashed a primal roar that followed Keppinger around the bases. Sturkie, hearing that sound, thought what any pitcher in his position would: walk-off. Ball game. Forgetting that the for-all-intents-and-purposes home team was hitting in the top of the ninth, he walked slowly off the mound, head down, cap obscuring his face.

He reached the dugout before realizing his error. He turned around and walked back to the mound.

He struck out the next batter to end the inning.

I cannot imagine how hard that was. I tried to ask him, but for the first time in four years of wins and losses, Sturkie didn’t want to talk. I couldn’t blame him.

As I watch, over and over, people carrying wounded friends away from horror while illuminated by flashing blue-and-red police lights, I wish someone, somewhere, in a position of power in this country would show a sliver of that courage.

I think of the reporters covering the 50 people, as it stands tonight, shot dead at an Orlando nightclub. I remember, on a much smaller scale, talking to witnesses after a tree, uprooted by a tropical storm, crushed a child huddled with his mother on her bed, then returning home to a house that had no power but did contain a peacefully sleeping 11-year-old who somehow, some way been entrusted to me.

Now, it feels as though I failed that trust, and that’s harder than I choose to face most days.

As much as I miss the people with whom I found such happiness in that house, they are still within my reach. I can still talk to them, send them videos of my new cat, make plans to be able to touch them.

There are dozens upon dozens of families who will never be able to do that again.

There are plenty of social media buzzwords to accompany this latest atrocity. Guns. Gay. Muslim.

Others come to my mind. Loss. Pain. Senseless.

I pray, but I am tired of praying. Someone here, on this earth, by the power vested in him or her, needs to fucking do something.

Tomorrow, I will make an appointment to give blood.

Tonight, I watch baseball. It does not matter, and yet it does.

Throughout this day, young men have celebrated coming that much closer to achieving dreams that began in tee ball games and backyard batting cages. Earlier, a freshman stepped to the plate to pinch hit in his team’s final at-bat, and sent that team to Omaha for the first time in its history with a walk-off grand slam against the No. 2 seed in the country.

That moment cannot erase today. But it does ease it, ever so slightly.

The courage that kid, and these kids I’m watching now, show every time they put everything they have on the line takes me back to a sweltering Georgia Sunday almost two decades ago, and makes me believe in strength for tomorrow.

For me, and for those who need it so much more.