A column by CHUCK POLLOCK, Senior Sports Columnist
Some thoughts from the weekend involving high school basketball and the passing of a boxing legend:
OTHER THAN a few minor league baseball games, it’s been years since I paid my way into a sporting event … such is the privilege of a media credential.
But Friday afternoon and Saturday night, I actually bought tickets to the New York State High School Athletic Association Class C Final Four at Vision Veterans Memorial Arena in Binghamton.
Oh, I wasn’t covering anything, just observing the undefeated Berne-Knox-Westerlo team of which my nephew is an assistant coach in charge of the defense.
Understand, since I became a sports writer 53 years ago, I’ve lived by the credo “No Cheering in the Press Box.” Even when my own kids were in high school — they were swimmers and tennis players — when I went to their events I sought a seat away from the crowd and no matter what they did, I avoided cheering. We talked about their performances when we got home.
Anyway, on Friday evening, BKW played Tuckahoe in the first semifinal, winning 70-46. I sat by myself in an elevated area behind the Berne-Knox bench, the closest fan to me was three seats away. We didn’t converse but he seemed pleasant enough … then the game started. He spent all 32 minutes “coaching” and griping at the officials.
The next night, for the championship game, I made the mistake of sitting with my nephew’s wife in the heart of the BKW fan base for a 63-47 decision over Honeoye. The experience was “ahem” uncomfortable.
Both sides of the arena booed the officials for the whole game … leaving me to conclude they were doing a good job and wondering why anybody would wear a striped shirt to mediate a youth basketball game. I have a number of friends who are hoops officials and they all have their stories … especially about helicopter parents.
I know this, they don’t get paid enough for performing their jobs especially with the so-called ‘fans” on top of them.
THAT SAME night, a regrettable incident occurred at Hudson Valley Community College following a Class D girls championship game.
Northville, the defending champion, had just lost a 43-37 decision to LaFargeville and video shows 81-year-old Jim Zullo, the losing coach, pulling the ponytail of his star player, Hailey Monroe, jerking her head back. Next, another player, supposedly Zullo’s niece, can be seen yelling and pointing at him as she pulls her teammate away.
Subsequently. a mortified Zullo said he had instructed Monroe to join the handshake line and that she swore at him, apparently precipitating the hair pull.
He was immediately fired by the school district that night and afterward issued this apology: “I deeply regret my behavior following the loss to La Fargeville Friday night in the Class D state championship game. I want to offer my sincerest apologies to Hailey and her family, our team, the good folks at Northville Central Schools and our community. As a coach, under no circumstance is it acceptable to put my hands on a player, and I am truly sorry. I wish I could have those moments back. I am grateful for the opportunity to have coached girls basketball at Northville the past two years, especially last season, which was a difficult time for our family (during which his wife passed away from cancer). I am super proud of every one of these young women and what they accomplished. I know each of them will go on to do great things and I wish them well.”
Zullo won a state championship in 1987 at Shenendehowa, one of the largest rural high schools in the state, and was inducted into the NYS Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
It’s tragic that his career ended in disgrace the way Woody Hayes’ and Bobby Knight’s did.
You can’t do what Zullo did … period.
But it occurs to me, though, that there are some senior citizens who might take a different view. Some who have an old-time view of coaching might look at it as the game was being disrespected as was the coach, who was supposedly sworn at.
They might rationalize an irrational act.
But this isn’t the time we live in … put your hands on a high school athlete and you’re begging for a lawsuit.
THE DECEASED boxing legend?
George Foreman, of course.
The former heavyweight champion died Friday at age 76 in Houston.
I had the privilege of interviewing him at Niagara Falls in the mid-1970s, shortly after joining the Times Herald. Foreman had just lost the “Rumble in the Jungle” to Muhammad Ali who used a tactic he called the “rope-a-dope.”
As somebody who covers NFL players, Foreman’s size — 6-foot-4, 260 pounds — and conditioning — back then he was ripped — was impressive.
He unretired a couple of times, his last fight at age 48. But by then he had logged a 76-5 record and was viewed as one of the 10 best heavyweights of all time. Ring Magazine ranking him seventh.
Foreman was at a press conference in Niagara Falls promoting some product or another but as we mediatypes say, “He was a great talker.”
But even as he fought into his fifth century, he spent more time being a minister, motivational speaker and, of course, pitchman for George Foreman Grills.
First I bought a small one, then the largest. But my favorite was a rotisserie that came as a gift. I thought I’d never use it until I cooked pork and turkey tenderloins on it as well as Cornish Game Hens. As a sports writer with an avocation for cooking, I loved George’s alternative to outdoor charcoal grilling and the fact they weren’t junk.
He was a man with wit and a sense of humor — how would you not naming all five of your sons George? — and career-wise, he was a two-time world heavyweight boxing champion and an Olympic gold medalist.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
