I started this sports blog to have a place where I can articulate my thoughts and opinions about things going on in the NFL, NBA and MLB. The only problem was I didn’t know where to start. There has been enough happening in my sports world to have a place to start.
Two places, in fact.
A bit of a background on me, I am from Sacramento, CA and I currently reside in San Jose, CA. You can guess my teams. The Giants, The 49ers and the (Sacramento) Kings. I think you can see the two storylines I could really attack here. Sunday was one of the best and worst sports experiences of my life. The 49ers rallied back from a 17-0 deficit to punch their ticket to New Orleans, and as I drove home, my ESPN ScoreCenter app let me know that the Maloofs finalized the deal to transfer majority ownership to a Seattle-based group whose intent was relocation to the Grunge Capitol.
Instead I decided on kicking off with an idea that I’ve had for a while now, to have a simple goal: average 1,000 words a day written to get to the lofty goal of 365,000 written in a year—1,000 a day. That may seem like a daunting task at first glance, but I think it can be reasonably done.
Will it all be good? Probably not. This is called My Stupid Sports Opinions, not My Extremely Insightful and Well Thought Out Sports Opinions. The goal of this is merely to write, to put though through keystrokes to web space.
Obviously the major first hurdle is that I’m already 22,000 words behind pace. Well, this isn’t a precise science. This isn’t Twitter, I’m not capped. Hopefully across the pieces remaining this year, I can make up the 22,000. If not, expect some entries padded worse than an eighth grader’s essay on the American Revolution.
With that out of the way, today’s entry is about one simple issue: guts. As the cliché goes, “No Guts, No Glory.” This is also the story of two sets of brothers: The Maloofs and the Harbaughs.
The Maloof brothers inherited an empire from their father; they were successes before they even tried. The Maloof brothers inherited George Maloof, Sr.’s Coors distribution empire and promptly drove the whole thing into the ground. They listened to the people around them and threw all their cash into the Palms casino, which promptly cost them all their money. They sold off their various holdings in order to fund their primary toy, which became their majority holding: The Sacramento Kings.
For years, it has been apparent that they are not fit to run the franchise, especially financially. Since the Kings last made the playoffs in 2006, they have become increasingly conservative and close to the vest with their acquisition of talent in Sacramento. They are concerned only with reaching the cap floor, and not with putting a competitive product on the floor. They were so afraid to overspend their means that it ended up costing them in the end.
Fans left in droves. Ask Kings fans, and their reactions will be the same: love the Kings, hate the Maloofs. This came about due to their inability to display guts, the central theme of this post. Their gutlessness caused them to retract in the face of potential adversity, rather than embrace it and make the best of it. They were adamant that the team was theirs rather than cutting bait on their final holding, retreating to nurse their wounds, and moving on. Instead they put increasingly terrible products on the floor, flirted with several different cities, backed out of a deal to keep the team in Sacramento and eventually became the villains of the city.
They were adamant for years that they were not going to be selling the Kings; it was their team. The first opportunity to purchase the team was not even given to a Sacramento-based organization. The Maloofs could not even envision a post-Maloof Kings. What if they were suddenly good, because they had ownership that would pay for talent? The losses would be blamed on the Maloofs. They couldn’t have that. They were afraid.
They simply did not have the intestinal fortitude to look within, admit they were wrong, cut bait and move on. Because of this they are universally reviled in Sacramento and currently on their way out of town. They were too scared about what might happen that they made a deal with a group who has designs on destroying the Sacramento Kings name. They will become the Seattle Supersonics, a team that hasn’t existed in the half decade since the city lost the original Supersonics to Oklahoma City—they subsequently became the Thunder. They took the chicken’s way out; the Kings will cease to exist. They will get a hefty payday and in exchange, there’s a cloak of separation between the organization they ran into the ground and the phoenix rising in Seattle in upcoming years.
The Maloofs had no guts, and subsequently, are on the receiving end of no glory.
Contrast this with Jim and John Harbaugh, the brothers who will face off in the Super Bowl as the head coaches of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens, respectively. They came from simple beginnings; they never had much money, but their parents instilled in them something that cannot be bought: guts. Jim Harbaugh took over a team that had seen a long stretch of mediocrity after their dynastic years in the 1980s and 1990s. When he came to the NFL from Stanford, he was the hot commodity. Everybody wanted Coach Harbaugh. He could have gone to a myriad of teams but he chose the misfits down the road from Stanford and Palo Alto: The San Francisco 49ers.
The rally cry of the 49ers was first uttered by their father, Jack Harbaugh. They understood that every benefit is a blessing. He asked his family, “who’s got it better than us?” His family would respond, “nobody!”
The 49ers had seen years and years of rotating head coaches, coordinators, GMs, and even quarterbacks. Only a few years removed from the 49ers starting JT “Just Touchdowns” O’Sullivan at quarterback, they brought in a former QB who vowed to turn the franchise around. How did he do it? Guts. More on that, later.
Jim’s brother John has been the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens since 2008. He succeeded Brian Billick who had constructed a winning team in 2006, but that floundered in 2007. John Harbaugh took the reins knowing he could put a great product on the field. He’s done just that; the Ravens are, year in and year out, considered one of the top teams in the AFC.
The coaches taking over floundering organizations isn’t what took guts; most head coaches take over because their predecessor failed to meet expectations. The guts the Harbaughs displayed this year is from unconventional and controversial decision made this year. They each made a change that, if asked, I guarantee most NFL coaches would say they would never do.
Jim Harbaugh switched quarterbacks mid-season, which, except in the case of injury, is unthinkable. He went from the “steady Eddie” of the past season and a half (the much maligned under previous coaches) Alex Smith to the “New Hotness” Colin Kaepernick. John Harbaugh did something even more unthinkable: he fired his Offensive Coordinator, Cam Cameron. Cameron was a “steady Eddie” in his own right. He was steadily feeding the offense a series of terrible, but safe, playcalling.
In the 49ers home tilt (ding!) against the Rams this year, Alex Smith suffered a concussion. He failed his concussion tests headed into their contest the next week against the Chicago Bears. Young Colin Kaepernick, the Turlock Tornado destroyed the Bears and continued the 49ers Curse (more on that in another post). When Alex Smith was set to come back, conventional wisdom would have given him another opportunity. After all, in the game prior to the Rams game, he was the NFC Offensive Player of the Week. Who would have the guts to bench that person? Jim Harbaugh. He knew that Colin Kaepernick was his guy. His dual threat of a QB who can run as well as he can throw—two things he does extremely well—was the future of the organization. He had to bench the suddenly popular Alex Smith. Many people, myself included, hated the decision. They thought he was playing for the future of the franchise rather than the present, a present that had seen them reach an NFC Championship game in the same calendar year.
It worked. I was wrong. Colin Kaepernick in the Pistol Formation is extremely dangerous. When he is up for a contract, Kap’s agent only needs to pull roll from two games: the NFC Divisional Game and the NFC Championship Game. These games, one wherein he rode roughshod over the terrible Green Bay defense and one wherein he was down 17-0 on the road, in a super loud dome, and lead a storming comeback to victory IN HIS TENTH START. He showed the poise and confidence of someone in his tenth year, not his tenth game. Jim Harbaugh had guts, and he was right.
John Harbaugh made another gutsy decision that is paying huge dividends; he fired his Offensive Coordinator for years, Cam Cameron. They started off 9-2 on the back of their defense. After dropping 3 games thanks to a stagnant offense, they cut ties with Cam Cameron and promoted their QBs coach to OC. Jim Caldwell had previously overseen the fall of the Peyton Manning Era in Indianapolis.
Very few coaches would fire the man who designs, runs and executes their offense 14 games into a 16 game season. Even fewer are successful. Fewer, even, and without even looking this up, make it to the Super Bowl. John Harbaugh had the guts to roll the dice, and it is paying dividends. Huge dividends.
“Is Joe Flacco Elite?” echoed on every sports news outlet after he claimed he was a top-five QB. He showed he is; he’s thrown 9 touchdowns and no interceptions this offseason, and the Ravens offense is flourishing.
This post has been the stories of two sets of brothers raised two different ways. The Maloofs were raised in the lap of luxury and never taught to fend for themselves. As a result, they were gutless, and they are currently reviled and considered to be terrible ownership. The Harbaughs were raised in the lower-middle class; the sons of a football coach themselves. Their fortitude was forged in iron and they showed resolve in the face of adversity and will face off in the Super Bowl, the ultimate goal for any NFL player or coach.
Sometimes “No Guts, No Glory” has merit. The Maloofs and Harbaughs prove this. Plan accordingly.
- JK
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