Coaching Question to be Answered at SDSU

When San Diego State’s football team begins its first pre-season workout Monday, it will not only usher in the new era with head coach Brady Hoke, but it will answer a question asked by local fans for years: can the Aztecs program find success if it ever gets a good coaching staff?

The group under Hoke certainly qualifies. Al Borges (offense) and Rocky Long (defense) are among the game’s best coordinators over the past couple decades and Brian Sipe, brought in to tutor the quarterbacks, is merely a former NFL Player of the Year. There’s something to say for the other guys on the staff, too.

I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say this is the best group of football coaches assembled on the Mesa since the beginning of the Ted Tollner-era in the mid-1990s. Those guys, remember, led the Aztecs to two 8-win seasons. The current staff might not rival the NFL coaching factory under Don Coryell and Claude Gilbert but that’s only because they’re just now getting their first season underway.

There’s plenty of reason for the diminished number of Aztec faithful to be desperate for a quality staff:

After the news of the past couple of weeks, I don’t think I need to pile on the legacy of Chuck Long, who now goes down as one of the worst coaching hires in the history of American sports.

As great an offensive mind as he has, Tom Craft needed an offensive coordinator to help with in-game adjustments, but the athletic department wouldn’t spend enough money. The lack of financial support resulted in a low-quality staff that recruited poorly and left their successors in a lurch.

Tollner had the great staff initially but those early successes were stymied by the development of the BCS, which redirected players and assistants to the Pac-10 and other major conferences. They ran out of steam by the new millennium.

(By way of full disclosure, from my dealings with both men, I really like and respect both Craft and Tollner personally. Both had nothing but love for SDSU. Tollner was beat down by the changed landscape of college football and Craft’s resurrection program simply didn’t work.)

Longtime fans are certainly aware that Al Luginbill, Denny Stolz and Doug Scovil all had their issues, too.

Now a good staff is on hand, guys with solid track records. One gets the impression of a sea change at San Diego State because of these coaches. We’ll finally find out what SDSU football can do with another great coaching staff -- especially interesting because the sport’s landscape has swayed back into State’s favor with the ascent – finally – of the Mountain West Conference.

How long it will take to get the answer is obviously unclear. It took Tollner and Luginbill two seasons each to find success. Stolz did it his first year, before he discovered he liked golf even more than Steve Spurrier. I bet we’ll have our answer, good or bad, sometime in November 2010. However, anyone who prays for something – and Aztecs fans have prayed for salvation for years now – knows the answer sometimes is “no.”

Assault Prompted Long's Firing, Little League

Considering that San Diego State University has one of the finer business schools in the country, it's perhaps fitting that a highly teachable episode of mismanagement occurred on campus last fall and apparently led to the removal of Chuck Long as head coach of the football team. This could serve as a great "how not to" lesson, in case management professors believe that students won't be able to relate to General Motors.

According to Friday's edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune, former offensive lineman Lance Louis, apparently annoyed by being poked with a stick by safety Nick Sandford, later came up from behind and attacked his then-teammate in an athletic building meeting room, injuring him enough to require hospitalization. The article said that Louis went ahead and played the Aztecs final three games, as Long tried to handle the matter internally and protect Louis' chances to move on to professional football. When Athletic Director Jeff Schemmel found out about the incident and aftermath two weeks later, that's when he went to school President Stephen Weber with the recommendation that Long be fired, the article read.

There are so many problems that come out of this episode. Remember that SDSU was mired in an injury-plagued 2-10 season and was getting absolutely crushed by teams both good and mediocre. The preparation for the season and individual games by the coaching staff was some of the worst I've seen in my decades of watching college football.

An attack like this shows two things:

1. Morale among the players must have been horrible. Even in a losing season, Louis must have recognized that he had NFL potential (and is now in the Bears training camp), which should have given him light at the end of the tunnel. That he didn't see it and studiously avoid confrontation, even if provoked, is a sign of how bad things must have been in the locker room.

2. The coaches completely lost control of the players, and the players had no respect for the coaching staff. When you have a group of 100 people in close proximity nearly year-round, things are going to happen. Guys will confront each other somewhere, usually after drinking, throw some punches, and teammates will break it up. Happens. Not in a meeting room of the athletic administration building. No way.

Clearly, Long had a problem and should have taken it to higher-ups. I understand his reasoning in wanting to cut Louis a break. The kid suffered a terrible injury early in his career and spent the last two seasons playing out of position, sacrificing himself for the good of the team. You want someone like that to leave school with a chance for a career, not as a criminal. He should have gone right to Schemmel and incorporated his concern for Louis into a plan of action.

I think that the ultimate blame goes to Schemmel, who supported Long through all the horrible losses until he learned about the alleged assault. It's his job to determine how well things are going for any Aztecs team, and for him to back Long and completely miss the inner turmoil among the football players is absolutely inexcusable. I've never thought much of him as an athletic director, was not surprised when Weber led the effort to fire Long, and I now think that Schemmel needs to go, too.

The bottom line for management students: you have to draw the line in the sand early. I have a hard time believing the alleged assault came out of nowhere. As a manager, coach, administrator, you have to recognize problems in their early stages and solve them immediately or they will snowball. Enterprises go bad, God knows we've seen that in the current economy. The big wigs in the failing entities still have to maintain some discipline, amongst themselves and their employees. Frustration needs to be taken out elsewhere, in some other manner. Respect has to be maintained and recognition has to be made that despite everyone's best efforts, sometimes the best-laid plans don't work. If you're in middle management and a situation is spiraling out of control, you take it to upper management. You can't hide the problem, you'll be found out. If you're in upper management, your focus can't just be on the one level below you. You have to go all the way to ground level and see how life is for the line employees. Taking interest in their welfare doesn't mean you're passing up middle management. Eyes open, all the time. It's called diligence.

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No surprise that they brought in a disciplinarian like Brady Hoke, huh?

And also, congrats to Sandford for staying the course for his senior year. I don't know whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, but the easy thing would have been to leave and point fingers at everybody. Not only is he back, but he won a starting role in the new rover position in defensive coordinator Rocky Long's 3-3-5 scheme.

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I can't tell you how thrilled I am that Chula Vista's Park View Little League baseball team made it to the Western Regionals this week. There was so much excitement from recent Little League World Series appearances by Oceanside and Vista, and the anticipation of Solana Beach making it to the regional final, that I'm glad we're able to experience it again. My own son has played LL ball the past two years, and I find those games and the kids far more interesting than major league ball. Good luck.

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Kyle Banks sucks! There's the dose of karma, go have a big weekend.

Short Stuff

This has been a good year for young local baseball players, with Sean O'Sullivan of Valhalla HS being called up to the Angels for a few successful starts and Adam Jones of Morse HS making the American League All-Star team for the Orioles. Add now Brian Matusz of USD, who will be making his first big league start for the O's tonight. Who is next? ... The down side was the Padres releasing Mark Prior of USDHS, who just couldn't overcome his shoulder injuries. Another year or two of rest and rehab might give him another chance, but by then he's going to have to do an awful lot of talking to get a team to give him a minor league roster spot over a deserving youngster. That said, I think the Padres made a reasonable move in signing him. He was a great pitcher at one time and wow, what could have been ... I think the Padres recent winning ways have mainly come against teams -- Reds and Brewers -- heading into the tank, yet the success of young starters Mat Latos and Tim Stauffer is encouraging ... Weekly rant against Kyle Blanks for the sole purpose of keeping up the karma which has improved his hitting: against struggling Brewers starter Braden Looper Friday, he twice missed on a couple straight fastballs so we all knew what was coming next, a breaking ball in the dirt. He swung like he was fooled. Why? I guess that's a young player for you. I do like how he knocked one of those lifeless fastballs 428 feet in his next at bat -- I hope the nice word doesn't send him into a slump.

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Tough crowd! QB Alex Smith gets booed on the first day of the 49ers camp. This is what happens when people don't read newspapers, because there's tons of news reports out there saying the Helix HS product has been sensational during off-season practices and may be ready to reclaim the starting position ... Kevin O'Connell of La Costa Canyon and SDSU suddenly has competition for the backup QB spot for the Patriots, who signed big-armed former Raider Andrew Walter. There had been talk of the Pats signing less-threatening Cleo Lemon, but Walter is a former (not-too-successful) starter ... Reggie Bush of Helix not only no longer has no GF but his surgically-repaired left knee is proving balky, so he's going to sit out a couple practices for the Saints ... Kellen Winslow Jr. of Scripps Ranch is missing a couple practices for the Buccaneers with an ankle sprain ... Remember Teyo Johnson, who came down with Amon Gordon from Washington state to play at Mira Mesa HS for their senior seasons before going on to Stanford? He's now a slotback for Toronto in the CFL. Gordon was recently waived from the Eagles after rupturing his Achilles tendon.

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If SDSU's mens basketball team jells and becomes as good as it could be, the Mountain West Conference schedule appears favorable, at first glance. The Aztecs last two games are against Colorado State at home and at Air Force, a school that Coach Steve Fisher's bunch has taken to physically dominating. The week before is a potential match to determine the league title at BYU.

Peavy Trade

Okay, I know I said I wouldn't start another post with a Padres comment, but I really didn't foresee them trading away injured P Jake Peavy, who was sent to the White Sox for four hurlers, three of them minor leaguers.

Immediate reaction: there are fewer true number one starters than major league baseball teams, so if you have one, you don't get better by sending him away.

The logical argument for trading Peavy is that his injury is nowhere close to healing and the front office is concerned about his future, whether he'll ever approach what he once was. GM Kevin Towers has unloaded damaged goods on other teams before, after all. However, you'd have to wonder what the White Sox are thinking in bringing such a guy to their ballclub.

The Padres organization has alienated local fans to the point where no one will buy the logical baseball argument. It's all about dumping salary. I gotta think the fans are right on this one.

The Padres are a better team today than they were yesterday for bringing in the new blood to the pitcher's mound, since Peavy was still on the DL. Lefty Aaron Poreda is a top prospect and could have some good years at Petco Park. But today no longer matters. What's important is whether the Padres will be better for this trade in April 2010 when everyone is healthy again, and the answer is clearly no.

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Randy Ready for Jim Lefebvre, who took over from Wally Joyner and on it goes with the batting coach position for the Padres. As long as they're trying to coax hits from the same ballplayers, it doesn't matter who the coach is.

Last Chance for Current Chargers?

With LaDainian Tomlinson's advancing age, unsettled lines and injuries catching up to Shawne Merriman and Antonio Gates, one of the themes we'll be hearing as training camp opens this week is whether 2009 is the last legitimate Super Bowl opportunity for this crop of Chargers.

I tend to think not. My belief is more that core players including those three have a two-year window before age and injuries begin to take their toll and reduce their status as contenders. By way of clarification, Philip Rivers is clearly part of the core but he's emerging as one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the NFL and has plenty of good years in front of him unless he's injured.

It would make us all feel better, of course, if they get off to a decent start, if Merriman can reignite the aggressive butt-whipping style of the defense of years-past, and Tomlinson and Gates can pair with Rivers to score points aplenty. An opening trio of the Raiders in Oakland, and the Ravens and Dolphins at home, is encouraging. A Chargers team headed for a deep playoff run emerges 3-0 before a showdown in Pittsburgh.

I'm still old school and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face -- or blew in my nose -- that the Bolts front office is ignoring the line of scrimmage at its peril. The offensive line is now subpar at three of the five positions, a ratio that will increase to four of five if Marcus McNeill doesn't return to the form of his rookie season. The defensive line offers aging Jamal Williams, career backup Ryon Bingham and inconsistent Luis Castillo. An improvement at linebacker will do no good if opposing blockers are allowed to get in their way. Therefore, I suspect teams with good running games will be the Chargers Achilles heels. Uh, the first three opponents were among the better rushing ballclubs in the league last year. Oops.

Therefore, you might see Coach Norv Turner come out with very aggressive offensive gameplans early in order to get a jump on the other team and force them to pass.

That's how I see things. It's a long season, and one of the things we learned last year is that the first half of the epic is not necessarily a predictor of the second half. There's also the advantage in competing in the AFC West, which might not be as strong as the SEC.

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Speaking of college football, San Diego State opens camp Aug. 10 and it will be very interesting to see how Brady Hoke and his staff have molded their players. By the end of spring practice, it was clear this team was lacking in experienced talent. The kids who were playing, with a couple of notable exceptions, weren't all that good. The promising younger players were just that, promising.

A lot can happen in a few months, though, and by all accounts just about the entire roster and most of the incoming recruits have been working diligently. How Hoke, Al Borges, Rocky Long, Brian Sipe and the others on the staff can "coach them up" will be interesting to see.

One of the themes we could have for the Aztecs this year is turnover -- not just of the coaching staff taking over for Chuck Long, but for the two-deep of players. It wouldn't be too suprising to see a wholesale number of younger players in the lineup by the end of the season. Hopefully, that will be from a talent infusion instead of an injury siege like last year.

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Back in the old days, 13-1 losses to the team with the worst record in baseball would get someone fired. For the Padres, it was just another day at the office ... Will someone end the misery for Josh Geer? Jeez, four earned runs and three homers in four innings pitched? I know Cincinnati is a hitter's park, but come on ... Kyle Blanks sucks. There, I wrote it. Last week I mentioned the young outfielder's inability to reach the cheap seats and he suddenly knocked a few out. He got some other hits too and has his average nearly up to .200. So now that my latest criticism has been offered, maybe he'll go out and have another big week ... I'm not a huge animal rights activist, but as time goes on and there continues to be fatalities at Del Mar, the validity of the protestors arguments improves. You can't ignore a problem and hope it will go away.

Baseball America was Right

Remember the uproar when Baseball America a few years ago called the Padres minor league system the worst in baseball? They were right, weren't they? Oh, yeah.

Because of injuries and poor performances by veterans, the Padres have had to pull up a bunch of players this year from Portland and San Antonio, and they're not exactly cutting the mustard.

Last season's savior-to-be, Chase Headley, is batting just .239 with 9 home runs and 34 RBI through Sunday. Will Venable is at .227 with 5 RBI in 75 at-bats. Luis Rodriguez is looking more like Mario Mendoza every day, batting .205 with 9 RBI in 132 at-bats. This season's savior, the tall Kyle Blanks, is hitting .163, hasn't knocked one out of the park and appears to have too giant of a strike zone for his swing.

And those are just the hitters. Don't get me started on pitching. Let's hope Tim Stauffer has another good start vs the Marlins tonight, which would give him a pair of quality outings in his second stab at a big league career. He is the only guy among the youngsters who seems to have a chance at fulfilling his promise this season. I think Blanks still has potential. He's very athletic for such a big guy. If he's smart and a hard worker -- and I don't know if he is or is not -- then he could iron out his problems at the plate and turn himself into a solid outfielder. It's up to him.

Otherwise, no one the Padres have brought forth from their system has impressed me a bit, so I'd have to say Baseball America's editors knew what they were writing about. I don't know where Mat Latos fit into their thinking. At the time, he was so low in the Padres system that he might not have been much of a factor. Now he's in San Diego after only a few AA starts and actually looked like he had a clue against the Rockies on Sunday. He's still tender young so there's no sense counting on him. I just hope he's a sign of what's to come from the lower levels of the farm system in future years, because the guys brought up to help this year aren't helping much.

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Whenever someone of Slavic descent would come into the sports world someone would throw out a stupid joke like, so-and-so needs a vowel. Latos could use a consonant.

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Interesting article in The San Diego Union-Tribune by Mark Zeigler Sunday about how most professional sports teams in the world, if they finish in the last couple places in the standings, are relegated to a lower division. It would be like the Padres being sent to AAA for next year.

I just don't see how that can happen in the American system of sports, with the vast financial commitments made by the teams and communities to be of major league caliber and our natural abhorrance of caste systems so prevalent around the world.

There are instances, however, of professional sports franchises that have become so used to losing that they need to have some sort of wake-up call. Just a few off the top of my head:

1. Detroit Lions. No doubt they should be punished for the past two decades. There is no minor league pro football, but if there was, they should go.

2. Arizona Cardinals. Until the last couple years, the face of futility in the NFL. No longer applies, but I think you get my drift.

3. Philadelphia 76ers. They haven't done anything since Dr. J was around.

4. Los Angeles Clippers. Their logo might be next to the word 'losing' in the dictionary.

5. Pittsburgh Pirates. How they can co-exist in the same city with the Steelers and Penguins is beyond me. You have two stellar franchises right there to emulate.

6. Kansas City Royals. Starting the beautiful ballpark trend no longer excuses their annual losing.

Sure, the Padres are bad now, but they do have a few division titles in the middle of the decade along with the 1998 World Series appearance and 1996 NL West crown. So they don't deserve to be on the above list, but they are so bad right now it's interesting to talk about.

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I'm sorry, but we're headed into late-July and I'm ready for football. Unless something wild happens I doubt if I'll lead any posts with baseball for the rest of the year, until October demands season-ending comments.

Meanwhile, I promised to mention kayaking if the Padres were this bad in the middle of the summer. Santa Clara Sports Center on Mission Bay. Rent one and get some good exercise. I'm actually waiting until our strangely cold water warms up. The weather people claim El Nino is coming, so I think all the warm ocean water has congealed over the mid-Pacific.

Ups and Downs of Baseball, SDSU Stadium

Baseball, the good: Stephen Strasburg of San Diego State and West Hills HS in Santee wins the Golden Spikes Award as the Player of the Year in college baseball. No surprise there and congratulations. Strasburg, with all the stories about how he came to college soft and turned himself into the monster pitcher that he is, makes for a great life story for parents to use with their children.

Baseball, the good: Adam Jones of Morse HS and now the Orioles drives home the winning run in the All-Star game with a sacrifice fly off the Padres' Heath Bell.

Baseball, the bad: The Padres Heath Bell is the losing pitcher in the mid-summer classic.

Baseball, the worse: The Padres really suck. I accept to a certain degree that their poor play of the past month is, in part, due to injuries. They were within hailing distance of .500 when starting pitchers Jake Peavy and Chris Young went down with injuries. Add to that the loss of 2B David Eckstein and C Nick Hundley, and that hurts a bit, no question.

What really strikes me about the team's futility is that the Friars have the second worse team ERA and have given up the second-most runs in the National League despite playing half their games at pitching-friendly Petco Park. If these guys hurled in Cincinnati, the team ERA would be over 6.00.

I have to admit to not being impressed by the recent statements made by Padres president Tom Garfinkel, who is busying himself with improving the "fan experience" at a relatively new baseball park. As one letter writer to the Union-Tribune mentioned, get a better team and the fan experience will be great. Garfinkel's reaction to the current predicament is to baffle us with BS. I know it will take a couple of years probably to turn things around, but we'd rather see progress on the field than a new video board.

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A barely noticed tidbit from Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani on XTRA 1360 Tuesday: SDSU AD Jeff Schemmel has mentioned a couple times something about building the school's own stadium. Interesting. He also said with the state's budgetary difficulties that any talk was unrealistic, and his NFL team fully considered SDSU to be the main tenant of their new facility.

As reported here recently, Fabiani says the Bolts have talked to the city of San Diego more the past few months than in the four years that Michael Aguirre was the city attorney, and they were looking at sites downtown, though nothing has jelled.

Fabiani also said the state of the nation's monetary system means financing will take a while for a new Chargers stadium, so my thinking is by the time they come up with money, the state of California also might come up with money. I can see a lag time of a couple of years between private and public capital markets returning to normal, but the Aztecs might be able to get their own place sometime in the next few years.

Jones to All-Stars, Hairston Trade

Another blog entry, another "local baseball product makes good" story. Gotta love it.

This time it's Adam Jones, who was named to the All-Star Game as a reserve outfielder representing the Baltimore Orioles. Jones was the great shortstop and pitcher who, with help from a then-young Bruce Billings and if memory serves right Glenn Swanson, led Morse to the semifinals of the Division I baseball playoffs. The Tigers, who really never had much happening in baseball before Jones showed up and haven't done much since the Billings brothers left, really pressed Rancho Bernardo hard before falling.

Jones was a clearly dominant presence, easily the best baseball player on the field that day or just about any day he showed up. That was back in the day when I had a say in who was selected the CIF Player of the Year, and I pushed really hard for Jones. I wish I could have been more persuasive, because events since have proved out what a great high school ballplayer he was. The award isn't to honor the best pro prospect. It's for the best high school player, no matter whether he plays another inning anywhere. But pro success certainly proves vindicating, and what Jones has done this season makes me feel better for standing up on his behalf.

His stat line as of this writing is .308-12-46 as the regular number two hitter in the Birds lineup. He's struck out only 60 times in nearly 300 at-bats. He's only 23 years old and is exciting an organization that traded P Erik Bedard to get him. There hasn't been much to cheer for during the summer in Baltimore since I was a young adult.

On the other hand, as in the post on Sean O'Sullivan, there's always a downside. Jones was hurt over the weekend when he crashed into the outfield wall chasing down a fly by Kevin Youkilis. That's the same guy Jones stole a home run from a week earlier. It doesn't look too bad, and hopefully he'll be able to make his appearance in St. Louis.

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It's tempting with the Padres back in last place to think that Kevin Towers will start trading everyone in sight since the deadline is only a few weeks away. He started by trading OF Scott Hairston to Oakland Sunday for pitching prospects. But the question becomes who do they trade?

I looked through the Padres roster and, assuming the Padres don't trade pitching, there's no one I want besides OF/1B Kyle Blanks. Gonzalez, of course, but he's not going anywhere. With Peavy on the DL, don't expect any more significant trades unless some GM gets blinded by Kevin Kouzmanoff. Cough, cough, hack. Sure.

Good News on Chargers Stadium Search

At this point you might think that just about all is lost on the Chargers stadium front, what with the Chula Vista option closing and the new potential site in Oceanside being rife with likely insurmountable problems. But that assessment of the situation would be wrong. There's some very good news here, actually.

I spoke Friday with Mark Fabiani, the Chargers point man on the stadium search, and a spokesman for the city of San Diego, and lo and behold, the Bolts and San Diego are talking again. I wrote a story for my employer that you can find on Web sites of various local television stations.

Fabiani cautioned that nothing really substantive is in the works, but he did say the team and city have spoken more in the past four months than they did in the four years when Mike Aguirre -- an opponent of Chargers hopes for a new facility -- was city attorney. The city spokesman confirmed "informal" discussions.

According to Fabiani, there's even been discussions of potential sites: a plot of land just east of Petco Park and maybe part of the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal again. That strikes me as being a little more substantive than not.

What really struck me was the tone of his voice. My original question to him was whether, with other hopes fading, there was any microscopic grain of possibility that America's Finest City might re-enter the picture? He proceeded to give me the information I'm sharing here, but he sounded genuinely excited about the prospect. Not only that, it sounded like he was home washing dishes, judging by some clanking noises in the background. What guy sounds excited when he's doing dishes? So he had to be happy about the Chargers and San Diego talking again.

After probing the topic a little deeper with him, it turns out that certain conditions are favoring San Diego's return to the game:

1. Fabiani claims the city is losing millions of dollars annually at Qualcomm Stadium, and city officials recently learned the extent of the problem. I have no independent confirmation of this myself, but its true that we have an aging concrete stadium sitting empty except for about 20 football games a year and a remarkably few special events.

2. The economy has dragged down the local real estate market, so any land purchases the Spanos family has to make will be less expensive than they would have been a few years ago. That's particularly important for downtown property.

3. No one is getting financing for large projects right now, so the Spanoses have time to extend their site search and get their ducks in a row before hitting the financial markets.

4. The financial picture for the city of San Diego has cleared dramatically in recent years. The city's problems are all about the larger economy -- they're battling the same deficits all the other governments are. But the fix they were in with with SEC has been resolved. When the time comes, the city should be ready to move, and the city spokesman said Mayor Jerry Sanders is committed to getting the Chargers a stadium somewhere in the region.

Again, excitement needs to be tempered with reality, but this is the first sign of progress between the NFL franchise and the city of San Diego in many years. We'll just have to see how it goes.

Glover Retires

The signing of La'Roi Glover ushered in a new era at San Diego State, where the fierce defensive players would come from high schools, not junior colleges or four-year college transfers. Glover is the second athlete of his surname to make news on this Monday as he retired from the Saint Louis Rams following 13 NFL seasons.

Glover recorded 83 and a half sacks in his career, which also included stints with the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. His best years were in the Big Easy, where he led the league with 17 sacks in 2000, and had 10 sacks two seasons prior.

At Point Loma High School, Glover was a man among teenage boys, throwing opposing linemen out of the way so he could make a tackle. He was going to be a star wherever he went, so when wherever turned out to be San Diego State, it was something of a surprise. For years, SDSU struggled to keep elite high school players at home. They finally scored some breakthroughs in the 1980s, bringing in Helix QB Jim Plum, Lincoln WR Patrick Rowe and, in 1990, Kearny WR Darnay Scott.

Glover was different. He was a defensive player, and in 1992 the Aztecs under head coach Al Luginbill were desperate for defense. They were just beginning the Marshall Faulk hysteria. One of the reasons why Faulk scored so many touchdowns is the Aztecs needed every single one of them -- sometimes more. Bringing in Glover was a coup.

He was everything he was advertised to be. He started all four seasons, clogging the middle and chasing opposing passers. He still ranks third in SDSU history in career tackles for loss and fourth with 18 and a half sacks. While the defense worsened in terms of yardage allowed, it improved by a touchdown in points allowed per game over the Glover-era.

Glover toiled in anonymity at State, never winning All-American status and gaining first-team All-WAC only once. This for a guy who consistently held up his end. Might be the most overlooked player I can remember. He'd have had far greater acclaim if he'd gone to a Pac-10 school, but instead he chose to stay home and help build up SDSU football.

It nearly worked. Luginbill was an awesome recruiter and brought in a number of other top- flight defenders such as S Robert Griffith and CB Ricky Parker, and successor Ted Tollner's staff showed they could make good use of the bounty with a pair of 8-win seasons once Glover had gone pro.

The era of elite defenders flocking to Montezuma Mesa was short-circuited when the "haves" of college football took it upon themselves to cut off the "have nots" by forming what eventually became the BCS, and elite recruits of all positions no longer considered attending SDSU nor other WAC schools. Under those conditions, there is no way Glover would have stayed home. A little illustration of the travesty the BCS has been for college football.

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What would the odds have been before spring training that here in late-June Kevin Correia would be the Padres best starting pitcher? Yes, of course, if Jake Peavy and Chris Young are on the disabled list as they are. But Correia is doing this legitmately -- he's dealing. Over the past three weeks, he's been by far the Padres best starter. In his last four outings, he's won three times with a 2.02 ERA and has allowed just 12 hits in 26-plus innings. Three of those starts were in the pitcher-friendly confines of Petco, though he won the other with a superb performance in LA.

O'Sullivan

Sean O'Sullivan carried that "can't miss" label through his years of baseball at Valhalla High. Now, after a call up to the Angels, the former San Diego County Player of the Year is a "didn't miss."

In my five years of operating Sandiegosportstown.com, I came across a lot of really good high school baseball players, including some who made it to the big leagues, like Junior from Poway, Wes Littleton from Vista and Adrian Gonzalez of Eastlake. None were quite the sure thing as O'Sullivan.

Baseball, as we all know, is a humbling game. There are people who insist that Barry Bonds was the greatest hitter they ever saw, steroids or no, and look at how he struggled so badly in the postseason with the Pirates and Giants. Same to some extent for A-Rod. It's something they carry with them. For O'Sullivan, as a senior he carried the Norsemen into the CIF final at SDSU and got crushed by El Capitan. He had a few shaky starts that year. He won awards when pitching at Grossmont College but my increasingly feeble memory makes me think he wasn't quite himself there, either.

His initial rise in the Angels organization was typical, not the swift sort of jump through the lower rungs that you expect from phenoms. He was in the Pioneer League before a year at Cedar Rapids in what's described as "low-A" ball. He spent 2008 in "high-A" at Rancho Cucamonga, where he was 16-8 but with an ERA of 4.73 and a stat line that showed more hits than innings pitched and too many BBs.

Then there was this year, where he went 1-2 in three starts at AA Arkansas. He rose to Salt Lake City in AAA and went 5-2. His ERA was 6.02 but the Pacific Coast League, filled with small stadiums at high altitudes, is notoriously rough on pitching stats.

The next thing you knew, Angels starter Ervin Santana was hurt and manager Mike Scioscia needed a pitcher. O'Sullivan got the call, allowing just one run in seven innings, giving up just five hits and a walk and striking out five. That's dealing. He also singled and scored in the Halos 8-1 win in San Francisco, close enough for the family to travel.

O'Sullivan's rapid rise turned out to be through the high end of the minors, making him a rare commodity indeed.

Alas, Santana is due back for his next start and, as I wrote this, O'Sullivan was returned to Salt Lake City. That's baseball for you -- a humbling game. But Sean O'Sullivan didn't miss and, if his first major league start is any indication, he'll be back for more.

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You can never really tell who'll be the next local kid to make The Show. So much is dependent on injuries and teams that suddenly go into an early-summer tailspin. You can be batting .350 in AAA but if your major league club is solid, you might be stuck.

One of the SD Sports Town faves, former USD and Grossmont High infielder Mike McCoy, has made AAA look easy in the Rockies organization. As of today, he's hitting .338 with an outstanding .445 on-base percentage and has 21 steals while playing third base. Of course, he needs Garret Atkins to get hurt or traded. Fat chance.

Braves infielder Brooks Conrad has been playing well at AAA Gwinnett. He's a longtime minor leaguer who has been on the cusp for years.

Otherwise, there aren't too many local kids who look ready to make the jump, that I can see.

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Speaking of Junior, it seems like Major League Baseball came to him, not the other way around. Anthony couldn't make the Brewers fulltime because they were still looking for big boppers to go with Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun, while discounting whether any runners would be on base ahead of them. So bringing Gwynn to San Diego where his speed and ability to draw walks and make contact will be huge assets at the top of the batting order -- along with his defense on the field -- made sense.

But the Brewers, while moderately successful, in recent years, are playing yesterday's game. Baseball is thankfully bringing speed, defense and contact hitting back into the fold after a 10-year-plus absense. That will only benefit Gwynn The Younger even more. And I still can't get over how much he sounds like his father.

Aztecs Flog Demons, Padres at .500

Demons are really hard to kill. Ask anyone who has an addiction or depression.

I am one of those who actually believes San Diego State athletics has been cursed over the past several decades. I've seen too many weird things here that I can't logically explain, so I guess I turn to the supernatural.

The past six months or so have shown me, however, that the Aztecs are finally throwing off the shackles. What few big-money men we have shower the university with money so the ineffectual Chuck Long can be replaced as football coach by Brady Hoke, who merely goes out and hires two of the best coordinators in recent history and convinces Brian Sipe to leave his comfortable situation to coach the QBs. The women's basketball program goes worst to first in three years in the MWC and wins an NCAA Tournament game on its home floor.

The men's basketball team missed the Big Dance as part of the major conference takeover of the once thrilling event -- like I say, demons are hard to kill, but cruises to Madison Square Garden for the NIT Final Four and hosts one of the most exciting sporting events in the history of the city. The softball team goes to the NCAA regionals as an at-large participant, continuing a string of recent success.

Now, the baseball team has just been chosen to play in the NCAA regionals for the first time since 1991, an obscene drought considering the talent this area produces. The demons might have clung harder to the baseball program than anything, because there are some SDSU teams over those years that appeared to be good enough, but always fell short.

Even this year, the breaking of the drought was uncertain. The Aztecs were ranked for several weeks at one point, but went through a mid-season slump that knocked them all the way to a fourth place finish in the MWC. Then they reached the conference tournament, caught some breaks to reach the final without a loss and only had to beat sixth-seeded Utah once, and couldn't come through. It was the Utes who were hot at the right time.

With the demons hanging by a fingernail, the Aztecs woke up on Memorial Day unsure of whether they'd make the regionals even though their roster included the nation's best starting pitcher in Stephen Strasburg, the nation's best closer in Addison Reed, some good young position players and Hall of Fame manager Tony Gwynn. Thankfully, the NCAA selection committee -- no doubt with some convincing from ESPN -- gave the Aztecs one more chance and placed them in the regional at UC-Irvine beginning Friday. The Aztecs are seeded third of four teams and will play Virginia. The nationally top-ranked hosts will play defending champion Fresno State in the other game.

The demons have been flogged, stomped on and nearly put out of existence. Maybe that SDSU was put in by far the toughest of all the regionals shows some bad karma is still out there. If SDSU can put forth a good showing, the demon might finally be dead.

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I never figured this Padres team, really with few changes, would get back to .500 so quickly. It's amazing. The biggest turnaround has come from the starting pitching and the bullpen, both of which were getting ripped during the long road trips that marked the season's first two months. After some good home cooking, the Padres head out onto the road at Arizona and Colorado with signs that 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff and RF Brian Giles are finally warming up at the plate. It could be an interesting week.

Someone Finally Gets it With Stadium Plan

Entering the far turn with the lead in the race to develop a new football stadium in San Diego, Perry Dealy. And if that's not a brilliant last name for the kind of person needed to kick-start such a development in this town, nothing is.

Dealy is thinking big, which strikes me as being the right way to go if we're ever going to get a new facility for the Chargers, Aztecs, and Holiday and Poinsettia bowls. As a former president of Manchester Development, I'm sure this man is quite capable of thinking big.

His plan includes gobs of office space, hotel rooms and commercial development to go along with a stadium. I'm not sure about the office space, I think the vacancy rate in this town is rather high no matter what the economy is doing, but I always thought if the stadium was combined with a major retail and entertainment center, along with hotels and residential units, then this project could get off the ground.

The Chargers original proposal included a lot of those points, but it came at a time when the city of San Diego was incapable of making any moves. With the down economy, the city will not be able to play ball for at least another year, the better for Dealy to fine-tune his plans. But go big. There will be people who will be repulsed by the idea of a massive project but, in my mind, the bigger the plans the more capacity you can build into it to mitigate some issues, such as traffic. And, yes, the project needs to include a significant amount of public parkland.

My idea of a mitigant: I think The Q is kind of ugly plopped right there in the middle of Mission Valley. In a major redevelopment, you can build the stadium first (I envision the trolley line going through the stands where people can see it and riders can momentarily experience whatever event is taking place) and then surround the stadium with more attractive residential and hotel buildings -- not nearby, but lining the outside of the actual stadium building.

I know it's counter-intuitive to think big in this economy and against some of the opposition a stadium project has already encountered, but in this case, bigger might truly be better.

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Next day update: both the mayor's office and Chargers have come out against the plan, basically citing an unworkable density. The devil is in the details, of course, and I'm sure there's specifics in Dealy's plan I wouldn't support myself. However, Dealy might have provided a road map out of the current stalemate in regards to a new stadium. If the mayor's office and Chargers can think big, they might get a project rolling.

Padres Judgment Week Unimpressive

So in my last post I decided it was best to hold off on the doom and gloom surrounding the Padres, because the National League West other than the Dodgers didn't seem too lively. I was half-right. The division indeed stinks, as evidenced by the Friars at least splitting in its homestand with the Rockies and Diamondbacks. However, they then went to Houston and were swept in three by the Astros.

In the week in which I suggested the Padres could reasonably be judged, they won two games and lost five.

That's not good. Sure, they might compete for third place in the division -- San Francisco appears to have the best pitching outside LA -- but they'll be 20 games under .500 as they go.

My biggest problem with this team right now is the lack of hitting. We all knew they wouldn't be able to pitch, having just two quality starters and a bullpen thrown together at the last minute. That part was obvious. But even though the lineup looked pretty good in April, this team just doesn't hit well at all, especially with Brian Giles and Kevin Kouzmanoff off to such slow starts.

What do I do if I'm Jeff Moorad and seeing 2009 getting away from me? Two words: youth movement.

The worst part of the Padres struggle is we're not watching a bunch of kids trying to get used to major league ball and jelling with each other. This is a hodge-podge team of some veterans, some youngsters and far too many journeymen brought in to plug gaps. There are few people like Chase Headley to give us hope for coming seasons. That has to change right now.

1. As bad as P Josh Geer was Sunday, he has to stay in the rotation to give him the experience he needs so he can be more consistant. Heck, he was pretty good in his previous outing. That's youth for you.

2. I give Kyle Blanks a week of left field at AAA Portland and then promote him. Headley and Kouz then platoon at third base until one of them really claims the position. Blanks is hitting .290 with 7 HR and 20 RBI.

3. Promote P Mike Ekstrom, a reliever who has had a fabulous start to the season in Portland.

4. Assuming the front office doesn't know anything I don't, I think you have to give Giles until June to straighten things out at the plate. He's too experienced to not figure it out if still capable. If the front office does know something I don't, then make the move now.

5. Set up a frequent flyers account with Alaska Airlines. While Blanks and Ekstrom appear to be the only Beavers right now ready to come up, there are others down there who are on the radar screen and need to be promoted as soon as it makes sense. Some names: pitchers Josh Banks, Wade LeBlanc and Cesar Ramos; and outfielders Emil Brown, Will Venable and Chad Huffman. Banks and Brown have big league experience and Huffman is considered a top prospect who is new to AAA and might not be ready until August.

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Trade update: as poorly as P Luke Gregerson has worked out for the Padres, SS Khalil Greene is at .235 with just 2 HR and 11 RBI, though he seems to have cut down a little on his strikeouts. He also missed time with a sore arm.

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Baseball's fickle fortunes are well on display all over San Diego, where north of Petco Park, the USD Toreros are just 28-25 after losing two of three games at home to San Francisco this past weekend. They will not participate in the WCC Tournament championship series, which will be between Gonzaga and Loyola-Marymount.

The Toreros led the league in team batting, slugging percentage and a bunch of other offensive statistics, but were undone by a pitching staff with an ERA over 5.00 and gave up more walks than all but one team. They also had the league's worst fielding percentage.

After scrapping so hard to get his once-bare bones program into the NCAA Regionals on a regular basis, I bet Coach Rich Hill is re-energized by this setback of a season and will get back to rebuilding right away. The Toreros finish at top-ranked UC Irvine Tuesday, so figure Hill to be ready for the job ahead first thing Wednesday.

Padres Relative Standing Remains Unclear

By the tone of newspaper columns the past couple days, you'd think the Padres season was over right now, here in the first full week of May. There's some truth to what's written. The Dodgers are clearly better and, unless injuries happen, will likely win the National League West by a comfortable margin. If that's all you care about, strictly winning the division, then it's time to put up those remaining Padres tickets on Stub Hub.

However, if you're still interested in exciting major league baseball, stay tuned. While LA is the class of the division, I don't at this point see much difference between the Friars and Arizona, Colorado or San Francisco. We will learn more this week as the locals host the Rockies and Diamondbacks for a pair of games each. If they're swept, I'll be back with other ideas of how to spend the summer, like kayaking on Mission Bay, taking the canines to Dog Beach or saving up some extra dollars to bet on the horses in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. I'm betting that the Padres will at least split, particularly since pitchers Jake Peavy and Chris Young will get a shot at the Snakes.

While no one likes to suffer a four-game sweep, especially in LA -- where tweaking the early-leaving "fans" is a sport in itself --the fact remains that the Dodgers are off to a hot start, which says little about the way the Padres are playing even when it generates angry newspaper columns. When you run into good pitching and what turned out to be very strong unDodger-like defense, you're going to look bad. It's just how it is.

So let's move on to some other division opponents and host the apparently really bad Astros for the weekend and then we'll have a much better idea of how things are going to be this year.

For me, nothing has changed since my preseason assessment of the team. There's Peavy and Young and nothing else in the starting rotation and the bullpen beyond Heath Bell and Cla Meredith is a mess. Manager Buddy Black is desperate for RF Brian Giles to begin hitting.

My eyes, and I think yours, too, are on 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff and CF Jody Gerut. Kouz we know is a slow starter but usually warms up in May. If he still has only a couple home runs and a small number of RBIs at the end of the month, you might start looking at him as a bust. Right now, the only thing keeping him in the lineup is his surprisingly strong defense. If he remains cold, he might be traded for a pitcher, which would bring Chase Headley in from left and result in the promotion of slugger Kyle Banks from Portland, whose been practicing in the outfield. Gerut, mainly because of injuries, has never been a regular before, so he doesn't have Kouzmanoff's track record. Everyone thought after 2008 how nice it would be if he only had a chance. The shot he's getting might not be a long one.

The bottom-line is, sure, the Padres are on a bad streak right now but it was exacerbated by four road games against a strong team, and they've had a hot streak as well when they played good ball and were interesting to watch. I think we all know where the truth really sits, but if they can at least get back to the "interesting to watch" mode, the season will in no way be a total loss.

Chargers Draft

I really don't understand the choice of Northern Illinois' Larry English with the first round pick. Some have him listed as a pass rushing DE, which is good, but he's pretty small for a 3-4 DE at 254 pounds, so he's going to just be a situational guy. You don't take situational guys with your top pick.

ESPN had him figured as an OLB, which makes more sense on his weight. If true, that tells you much about how the Chargers view the potential recovery of Shawne Merriman and their view of Shaun Phillips 2008 performance.

On the other hand, I'm not so sold on anyone drafted behind English that I'll jump off a ledge. I hope the offensive line gets addressed on Sunday.

Chargers Lines Cry for Help, Sordid Hoops

If you've read my Chargers comments in the past, you know the drill. I think the Bolts need improvement on the offensive line. GM AJ Smith doesn't seem to hold that unit with the highest of priorities, ever. In this particular year, the defensive line appears to need help, too.

So, when the Chargers pick 16th in the first round of Saturday's draft -- barring trade -- should they go for an offensive lineman? Maybe. Those halfway-through-the-round selections are tough. In good, deep drafts, there's game-changing talent still available. However, by the time your selection comes, you've just about run out of the impact guys. It's highly unlikely the remaining potential superstars are going to be in your area of need. So I say take the game-changer.

From there, however, there's no question that the lines need help. More so than a ball-carrier to groom as LT's replacement, more so than inside linebacker and more so than safety. The Chargers currently have nothing at right guard, very little at tackle and while Nick Hardwick is popular at center, even he can be improved upon. The draft gurus who talk tackle always focus on left tackles who protect a passer's blind side. I'm willing to try Marcus McNeill another year. They need a solid blocker on the right side of the offensive line more than anything.

The defensive line is a problem across the board. Jamal Williams is getting old, Luis Castillo was revealed to be pretty average last season and Ryon Bingham is a career backup. This is a group that's going to get flattened in 2009.

Despite brilliant skill talent, the Chargers have are trying to support them with mediocrity. No matter what happens in the first round of the 2009 draft, upgrades are necessary up front or the Bolts will not reach .500 this fall.

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The seamy underside of basketball was never demonstrated so well as the story of San Diego High School basketball star Jeremy Tyler leaving for Europe to play his senior season before entering the NBA draft. By doing so, he will void his scholarship to Louisville and be ineligible to play college basketball.

Tyler is quoted as saying he won't get any better playing for a team without a coach and against San Diego County hoops "talent" that is regressing to traditional levels. Both points are valid and are good reasons to either return home to Eastlake HS where he should have stayed in the first place, or move to either LA to battle the superior talent or somewhere in Kentucky where he'll be close to what might have been his future coach.

The trouble is Tyler bit from the apple several years ago, when he ditched Eastlake for San Diego High's brighter lights. I'm sure he had no idea, certainly no intention, of the trouble that joined him, but his initial transfer set in motion the reasons why he can't simply move to another school now. Any change now would be for pure basketball reasons, which are against the same rules that made three other SDHS transfers ineligible. If none of that happened, he could have quietly transferred this year and none would be the wiser.

It's a shame. I hope Tyler makes it in the NBA and gets his millions. He appears to come from a solid family. Unfortunately, he's learning some awful lessons along the way -- courtesy of supposed grown-ups -- which won't help him become a mature adult. If there's anything the game of basketball needs right now, at any level, its a mature adult.

Moorad's Tasks for Padres; Aztecs Hoops

Here are what I see as the primary tasks for new Padres CEO Jeff Moorad, who took over for Sandy Alderson during spring training and eventually will become the majority owner.

1. Improving relations with fans. Since Petco Park opened in 2004, attendance at Padres games has dwindled. The first couple years after, it was by just a thousand or two per game. Last year, the drop from 2007 was 4,500 fans per game. A total reduction of around 7,500 fans from that inaugural season. More ominously, the Padres went from well above average National League attendance to well below.

The case should not be overstated. The 2.4 million total draw in 2008 was higher than all but two seasons at the various incarnations of Qualcomm Stadium. Still, the Friars had something going there for a few seasons and they're in the process of losing it.

An open and honest dialogue between Moorad and the fans, something that, fairly or unfairly, they didn't perceive they were getting from his predecessor, would be very helpful here.

2. Making baseball decisions based on baseball, not the bank account or over-reliance on computer analysis. No one is saying blow the checkbook or ignore the stats, but there's gotta be a happy medium. Our first hint of how this works out will likely come in the June amateur draft, unless a major early-season trade is made at the big-league level.

3. Lower the ticket and concession prices. I have no problem with field level seats being $30 a game and up to $57. What I have a problem with is upper reserved at $14. Those $9 bleacher seats they advertise are never actually available, in my experience. The cheap seats have got to be truly inexpensive and they're not. I have also lost my interest in the Park in the Park, where you just simply can't see the darn game. If you want to spend your evening in an interesting atmosphere, fine, but you're not going to watch a game. I do think they've made headway on concessions, in which there's a plan to get a hot dog, snacks and soft drink for $5.

If he does those things and re-establishes a solid working relationship with the players, in order to prevent future Trevor Hoffman fiascos, then he'll do well here.

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Here we are the Friday before the season and the starting pitching situation has not improved a bit. It shows how bad things are with the pitching staff that the powers-that-be thought the bullpen was an even bigger priority. Now even the Peavy-Young duo is uncertain because Peavy trade rumors have resurfaced -- though I doubt them -- and Young was lit up like a stogie in Arizona last month.

Opposed to last year, I like the Padres in the field and their lineup in 2009. They might turn out to have the worst sea-level pitching staff since the Astros posted a 5.42 team ERA in 2000. The Astros, of course, play in the hitter-friendly confines then known as Enron Field. The Padres, in hitter-adverse Petco Park, will have a similar ERA hearing into June and will be well under.500.

Perhaps that's when we'll see what we have in our new CEO/future owner.

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It was a shame that San Diego State's men's basketball team had to play Baylor in a semifinal of the NIT instead of the title game because the Bears, as expected, presented the sort of matchup that gave the Aztecs problems all season long. Still, it was an excellent season and you can't sneeze at a school-record for wins and a deep post-season tournament run.

As sad as it was for the season to conclude a game early, the arrival of the offseason is not the worst thing in the world, for the next seven basketball-free months should be very interesting.

First, there are a lot of key players leaving and a lot of top recruits taking over. Some services rate the class coming in this fall as the 15th best in the nation. I'm sure that's over-rating the case, but even if it is they're well-regarded. A good thing. How it all shakes out, who takes what role, who garners the playing time and who becomes the star, are all interesting questions.

Plus, Coach Steve Fisher and his staff will have two scholarships available for the next recruiting class, if my figuring is accurate, maybe three since kids on the lower rungs of the roster tend to transfer or quit to concentrate on academics. Can these coaches capitalize on success and the excitement of the Saint Mary's game to take their already very good recruiting even a notch higher? Some folks said that potential recruits were in Cox for the NIT quarterfinal. If those kids liked the atmosphere, maybe they come.

There's two clear areas of personnel improvement for SDSU that make the difference between the good program they are now and the very good or great teams from the BCS conferences. They don't have size at center. In the years they did have size, the players weren't terribly good. Can Fisher now bring in serious quality for the post? Size is also the issue at guard. The Aztecs are simply too short and skinny. Physical guards like Baylor's have been the primary reasons why SDSU struggles with power conference teams even as they beat nearly everyone else. The guards coming in this fall are only a little bigger than what they've had previously. If Fisher can just get someone with Richie Williams' talent in someone with Matt Thomas' body size, then the Aztecs program would be on the cusp of the Sweet 16.

Imagine that. Then people will hardly remember that quaint little run in the NIT.

Aztecs NIT Win Scatters Demons

Some who were there will tell you that Wednesday night's San Diego State men's basketball 70-66 victory over Saint Mary's in the NIT quarterfinals was the greatest Aztecs sports event they've ever experienced. They're almost right, but there's more.

What we witnessed was an exorcism. This was 12,000 screaming fans who sent packing whatever demons have been infecting the school's athletic programs over the last couple of decades.

I don't need to rehash the litany of disasters SDSU fans have experienced just as it appeared their team was about to scale the precipice. And it would take away from our good feelings. We know about them all too well.

The game Wednesday night was a tangible sign that SDSU is turning the corner, something we've been so close to for so long -- not just in men's basketball but other sports.

It's my position that 2009 is the dawn of a new era for athletics at San Diego State University. You can really sense things changing and people around town are slowly but surely figuring it out. The past two days at my work, a place where few folks attended or even noticed SDSU, people have been talking about the game.

But back to the new aura at SDSU. Consider that the women's hoops team both hosted the NCAA Tournament and won a game, just three years after going winless in conference play, and all the key players return next year. Water polo is ranked fifth in the nation. The best college baseball pitcher in the past decade is hurling for SDSU as I write. Softball is still good.

Then there's football. I really think this is where everything started to turn around. Following last fall's 2-10 disaster, what big-money boosters we have stepped forward with a whopping million bucks to buy out coach Chuck Long. That people are willing to fork over serious money during the worst economy in years to get rid of someone is telling.

Somehow, be it fate suddenly turned kind or what, we ended up with Ball State's Brady Hoke taking the reigns. Hoke knows how to turn around bad programs with no resources. This program, despite the 2008 record, is not in horrible shape overall and SDSU has a lot of resources. That potential exists here, along with obvious respect for the new coach, attracted Al Borges and Rocky Long to the mesa. They're merely two of the best coordinators in college football over the past two decades. Adding an NFL legend in Brian Sipe to the staff and bringing in a very solid recruiting class considering the time available only made things look better.

Hoke started the turnaround the moment he was introduced at his press conference. With a commanding "Good afternoon" and his expectation of a response from the gathered media, he woke people up very quickly. Whoa! This guy is different! Things are going to be different in Aztecland with him around. And they have been -- ever since.

I have no idea if coach Steve Fisher's men's basketball Aztecs will defeat Baylor Tuesday at the NIT semifinals in New York. The Bears have beaten some pretty good teams and their midseason slump was courtesy of some very good opponents. Plus, with good perimeter shooters and a 7-footer inside, they present the matchup combination (think Utah and BYU) that has caused them some trouble this year.

If the Aztecs lose, it doesn't matter, because they were playing in Madison Square Garden at a time when only seven other basketball teams are still alive.

In those troubling past couple of decades, they wouldn't have made it this far. They'd have approached the summit, against a great Saint Mary's team, and fallen short. That the Gaels gave the Aztecs all they wanted and the home team still prevailed as the fans went bananas, is further evidence that times are finally changing for the better.

March 09 Notes

Back again. I'm working on a pretty major project right now that's keeping me away from the blogs but I'm close to the point where I might start becoming a more regular poster again. We'll see.
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Good for the Chargers, LaDainian Tomlinson and his agent to come together on a deal to stay in San Diego for three more seasons. Cooler heads prevailed. It was clear to team officials that the fans wanted LT to remain, and the player and his handlers understood his age and injury history.

It's likely that LT's best years are behind him but he could be productive for several more years yet. Now I'd like to see GM AJ Smith grab a blocker or two for him. Once again, I'm afraid a below-average offensive line is going to keep the Chargers from mounting a serious Super Bowl drive this fall.
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In the late-1950s, fans of the then-Milwaukee Braves had a saying: "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain," in reference to high-quality starting pitchers Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain and the lack of anything behind them.

The Padres apparently go into the 2009 season with something like: "Peavy and Young and a bunch of dung." I am relatively okay -- not thrilled by any stretch -- with the lineup on the field, especially if Kevin Kouzmanoff or Chase Headley come into their own. The starting pitching depth, however, is a joke. Cha Seung Baek as a third starter is a reach, followed by whom? Wade LeBlanc? Josh Geer?

The Friars are headed for a 100-loss season.
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Make up for it by going to San Diego State to see Stephen Strasburg. He is as dominant as a pitcher for the Aztecs as Marshall Faulk was as a football running back.
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Concerning San Diego State, is there any remaining question that Beth Burns is the best coach on campus? She turned a women's basketball team winless in conference play to a co-champion in three seasons. What's more, the nucleus of the team is in sophomores and juniors and with more talent slated to come in, what's happening this year is merely an appetizer.

The women's season has been quite a bit more satisfying than that of the men, who at times appear to be the most talented team in a conference where the top four teams were separated by a game in the standings and the fifth, UNLV, swept tournament top-seeded BYU and hosts this week's tourney.

It's a shame how the community has failed to embrace coach Steve Fisher's Aztecs, who have won 20-games four years in a row and will go into the NCAA Tournament or NIT for the fourth straight season. However, a lot of it is their own doing, from Lorrenzo Wade's brush with the law to getting out-hustled on television in the last couple weeks of the year. The one thing this team can't do is shoot, and poor-shooting teams always look ugly no matter all the other things it does well.

The fans' reception to the Aztecs -- and I toss out last week's UNLV game because that's the one all the diehards bought tickets for months ago -- confirms my suspicion of the San Diegans will support a winner theory. No, they want a quality product that will leave them satisfied at the end that they didn't waste their hard-earned money.

I suspect the Aztecs will handle UNLV surprisingly easily in their first-round MWC contest Thursday. I think their defense has the cold Rebels so flummoxed that SDSU might run them out of their own house. But then all bets are off. The Aztecs are good enough to win the whole thing and inconsistant enough to go home early. I think they have to make the MWC final and hope small conference upsets are few -- Cleveland State's Horizon final defeat of Butler has already removed an available at-large slot -- for the Aztecs to be chosen for the NCAA field.

The women made their first splash in the MWC Tournament last year. I'd like to say the right now, on paper, they're hotter than anyone and should be favored to win it. But there's teams that owe them some payback this time around, and there's some good women's teams in the league capable of knocking them off. We'll have to hold our breath and hope for the best.
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Love the Brady Hoke football hire. I wish I'd been available to comment on it at the time. The respect shown him by his peers is all you need to know, and the recruiting class appears phenomenal for the short time the new staff had available.

Chargers Season on Smith, Aztecs Coaching

Lay the blame of this stinker of a Chargers season at the feet of General Manager A.J. Smith. People instinctively want to blame head coach Norv Turner for the 4-8 disaster, but the poor guy probably should not be there in the first place.

It is Smith who couldn't get along with Turner's predecessor, Marty Schottenheimer, and fired him. It is Smith who replaced one of the most successful coaches in NFL history with one of the least successful, then saddled him with out-of-place defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell, who might have been outstanding if his players had different sets of skills. It is Smith who then emasculated Turner by describing him as a system coach and intimating that he was calling the shots, thereby costing the new guy any chance of gaining respect from players or fans. It is Smith who ran Donnie Edwards out of town, a linebacker who always has well over 100 tackles a year. No Chargers linebacker will this year.

It is Smith who seems to place little value on arguably the most important unit in football, the offensive line. In Monday's San Diego Union-Tribune, columnist Tim Sullivan hits the nail on the head. The offensive line, once very good, is not so hot anymore. With Cris Dielman out with the flu against the Falcons, there was no room for the Chargers greatest weapon, LaDainian Tomlinson, to run. He got just 22 yards on 14 carries Sunday, and is averaging just 3.7 yards per carry this season, something he hasn't been remotely close to since 2004's 3.9 ypc. He's on track to his lowest number of touchdowns since his rookie season. Their starting right tackle is a second-year former sixth round draft choice.

Now Smith is no terrible GM by any means. He's done a pretty good job in trying to hold the nucleus of this team together under sometimes difficult circumstances. Some in this town try to annoint him a genius, however, and it just isn't the case. He's made some good decisions and some bad ones. The 2008 season is one in which his poor decisions have come back to bite us all in the butt.

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The Chargers experience of firing Schottenheimer in an attempt to bring in a supposedly better coach should give pause to Aztecs fans, who let go Chuck Long in, well, an attempt to bring in a supposedly better coach. You get someone like Turner who fits the system, created it, even, and you think its ideal. But it doesn't work out.

If a pretty good GM like Smith can blow the biggest decision he'll ever make, how will a below-average athletic director like Jeff Schemmel do for San Diego State's football opening? Fans are cringing over the very real possibility that Schemmel will try to bring in his old buddy Glen Mason who, like Turner, has a career losing record at Kansas and Minnesota.

The encouraging sign regarding the Aztecs situation is the high profile role being played by university President Dr. Stephen Weber. I honestly don't remember his presence at the news conference in which the firing of Tom Craft was announced. Maybe he was there. But he apparently played a major role in getting rid of Long. Maybe he can prevent Schemmel from making a huge mistake.

Mason not only doesn't equal Turner, he is far less than Chargers coach.

While I've been upfront with my contention that SDSU had to bite the bullet to fire Long, I am agnostic about his replacement. All of the potential new coaches who've been mentioned have points both good and bad, including Mason.

Whoever it is, though, has a chance to do something no Aztecs coach has been able to do since Denny Stolz in 1986 -- hit the ground running. All coaches since then had to come in and repair damage before they could even think of winning. Long has fixed many of the troubles he inherited in 2005. His problem, the reason why he wasn't ever going to be a winner, is he couldn't inspire the troops, come up with a decent game plan or manage a game properly. If the next coach can do that, and take advantage of some of the gifts the outgoing staff will leave behind, the Aztecs could reach .500 quickly and start going to bowl games if not next year then the year after.

The new coach will have an outstanding sophomore quarterback, a decent corps of receivers, an offensive line that while young will be much bigger and have more depth than before, a deep and experienced defensive line, and young linebackers who might supplant the starters of the past couple of years. Large holes exist at running back and the secondary.

Stolz, by the way, went to the Holiday Bowl his first season.

Comments on Aztecs Football, Peavy

I can't believe it's been so long since I've updated this blog but my attention has been on some other projects. However, I just added an election prediction post to my similarly ignored political blog so I thought I would add some sorely needed comments here, too.

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Separated at birth: the San Diego State football team and the U.S. financial markets. As soon as you think things have hit bottom, you get a new lesson in how much lower things can go. The Aztecs are like a cartoon character who falls off the side of a cliff and keeps falling, falling and falling with no apparent bottom in sight. For SDSU's football team, we know there is an end after three more games but we don't know just how bad things will get before the final whistle vs. UNLV.

That I'm not talking about any hope for success or that SDSU will suddenly pull out of its descent and play three competitive games at season's end is indicative of how things are. There is almost nothing good about this program at all. There were three things early this season that we could hang our hats on and all three have been taken away from us -- QB Ryan Lindley, and let me be the first to say that I fear that his shoulder injury could have long-term implications for whether he'll be as great as we thought he'd be; WR Vincent Brown, one of the many Aztecs to have suffered a concussion, which can be a capricious injury; and LB Russell Allen, whose exploits have been swallowed up by the monstrous failures of his defensive teammates.

Call 2008 an utter and complete disaster for the football program.

I don't think athletic director Jeff Schemmel helped much when he said coach Chuck Long would absolutely return in 2009. Schemmel's explanation was that Long hasn't had a chance to prove whether he could be a winner with a healthy program, which includes physical health, a full roster and academic success. As bad as the team's injury plague is, there are so many other problems that if Schemmel can't judge Long by now, then there's not much hope for him, either. One gets the impression that Long is only being kept around because his buyout is too expensive, not that he's still wanted. So either Schemmel is dumb or his coach is unwanted. Not good.

I still think that Long needs to be presented with a creative settlement to his buyout clause, perhaps something like what Tennessee is apparently going to do with Phillip Fulmer, spread his payments out over several years. I think if he bows out gracefully now, he has a chance to resume his career elsewhere. People in athletics understand that sometimes you're not a good fit in certain places, and it's no reflection on the person. I think that's a wrong assessment, but I think that's how sports professionals not close to the program will see it. My own view is that the even-handed, steady Long was a perfect fit for the program but he made some horrible choices as his assistant coaches and has been too loyal to those who've served him poorly.

The biggest problem this year besides the injuries has been the management of an offensive unit that was relatively intact until Lindley went down at TCU in early October. Scheme, game plans, play calling and clock management have been such that most high school coaches could do better.

So let's say Long refuses all overtures to leave on his own. Drastic action is needed to place this program back on track. As a hypothetical boss, I would order him to fire both coordinators, his running backs coach, his linebackers coach, his secondary coach and his special teams coach. That's rough, but covers all the underperforming units. The defensive line has sustained seven season-ending injuries and two other hurt players have missed multiple games. Their coach was only brought in for this season, so he gets a pass.

I also think that, with all the injuries -- many of them to young players -- it could take a long time for them to heal. I think the coaches have to take a time-out from their long-term building process and recruit a large number of junior college linemen, along with a JC running back and defensive backs. Because of scholarship limitations, there won't be many recruits anyway, so I think some offers are going to have to be pulled back and redirected for immediate help. The benefit is added depth for the next two seasons and a chance for the current group of youngsters to not have to take all the heat until they're upperclassmen.

Lastly, I also think that whoever is coaching the Aztecs needs to consider not renewing scholarships of underperforming players, a la Steve Fisher after his first year on the Mesa. Man, that was brutal, but it was also necessary and started the men's basketball team down the path toward consecutive NIT and NCAA Tournament seasons. Nothing was as heart-rending as pulling the rug out from under some young men, many of them local, who'd worked so hard to be successful for us on the basketball court, but it had to be done. It might have to be done here, too, in order to free up scholarships for some JC transfers. I'd be on the telephone right now to every JC coach in the country telling him that every job is open but QB and Brown's receiver spot.

Speaking of Fisher, the way Schemmel has handled this mess reminds me of a post this spring about how nice it would have been for Kansas State to take our athletic director home so we could promote Fisher to the AD spot. I think Fisher would be a natural for the position. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. If he was in charge, I don't think Long would have as much rope as he seems to hold now, unless it were a noose.

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Speaking of complete messes, let's bring up the Padres. A team that barely missed a 100-loss season is shopping around it's number one starter? Huh? And the team will get better how? This makes absolutely no sense. So he's going to make big money the next couple of years. Work around it. Sorry.

In the entire National League, there are seven stoppers among starting pitchers, that's it. I'm talking about the unquestioned number ones in a rotation, the kind that can lead you to a World Series title like Cole Hamels did. Besides Peavy and Hamels, you have Johan Santana, Brandon Webb, Roy Oswalt, Carlos Zambrano (who had a sort of off-year) and now Tim Lincecum. CC Sabathia might make an eighth depending on where he ends up. Therefore, these types of pitchers don't grow on trees, know what I mean? Giving one up even for quality elsewhere makes no sense when you might not get a quality number one starter for 20 years. You can always find a good outfielder.

Suggesting that Peavy might be traded is bad enough. That the Dodgers are one of the three top contenders for his services is mind-boggling. If he is dealt to LA, then Kevin Towers and Sandy Alderson should be run out of town. Literally. Maybe they can take Long with them.

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Thank God for USD basketball. And here's a cheer for Hamels, whose high school story was as compelling as any I've reported on. That high school championship game in which he took the mound for the last inning with his teammates and fans yelling encouragement was one of the great moments in local prep sports history.

Otherwise, 2008 has been the worst sports year around here for quite a while.

Truth Hurts for Long, Staff

Last week I wrote that the San Diego State football season opener was the moment of truth for head coach Chuck Long and his staff. Well, the truth is known and it hurts.

The 29-27 loss to Cal Poly, State's second to the Mustangs in three years, demonstrated that Long and his bunch have not only made no progress, but have driven the SDSU program backwards.

The 2006 setback could be chalked up to uncaring players, and play-calling designed to try to toughen them up. This time, the Aztecs were simply manhandled at the line of scrimmage and the defense, in particular, was awful in overpursuing and arm tackling.

Many Aztecs fans, well many of those who remain Aztecs fans and there aren't many anymore, want Long to be fired immediately. I disagree.

There were a number of factors that were out of Long's control that contributed to Saturday's embarrassment. First, Cal Poly was pretty good and experienced for an FCS team, plenty capable of taking advantage of SDSU mistakes. They might contend for a national title in that division. Second, the defensive line came in beat up and things just got worse. Third, WR Roberto Wallace, who otherwise showed a world of potential, dropped several passes at critical moments.

The rest of the problems, like a bad game plan out of the gate, a horrible game by the defensive back seven except for Vonnie Holmes and poor clock management, fall at Long's feet.

So while we need to hold off on judgment right now, Judgment Day is close at hand. Like Sept. 14. By then, the Aztecs will be home from consecutive road contests at Notre Dame and San Jose State. If the Aztecs play well in both games, fine. If not, there are two weeks until the next contest, and Long and or defensive coordinator Bob Elliott will have to go.

It's highly unusual to make changes at this juncture in the season, but if SDSU is killed in both games and get off to an 0-3 start, drastic measures will be necessary. If nothing else, the program will get an infusion of new blood and maybe some fans will decide to keep coming. No one will come watch a thrice-ripped team play at Qualcomm.

If I'm Jeff Schemmel, the athletic director, and I'm getting an earful from rich boosters, my response is to ask whether they're willing to contribute to a contract buyout. I'm also contacting some out-of-work coaching contacts to see they might want to come back to work. Simply losing both games, bad as that prospect sounds, won't be enough to pull the trigger, but getting pounded will.

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The biggest reason Schemmel probably won't do anything is he should then be fired himself. If no one comes to watch the Aztecs play their final five home games, he'll lose his job anyway.