No Sports, No Problem

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I have an eclectic group of friends.

My wife says that’s because they make me feel like I’m normal. That’ might be true. They’re a diverse group for sure. One thing that binds most of them is that they’re sports fans.

They’ve all laughed at this meme going around on social media:

Day Six Without Sports on TV: I noticed a cute girl sitting on my couch. Turns out she’s my wife. She seems nice.”

Checking in with friends has been suggested as a good mental health exercise during this somewhat “homebound” time. I did that this week to see what my normal group of friends has been up to, what they’ve missed and what they haven’t missed.

“I haven’t missed the XFL, that’s for sure,” my friend “The BQ” said when I asked him about his regular TV viewing habits. “I’ve really enjoyed how the NFL free agency season has developed. That’s been fun to follow.”

The BQ is single, but says he’s also been able to fortify his relationship with his post-college age daughter during this time.

“We’ve been fishing, just sitting around talking,” he said. “That’s really been nice.”

That sentiment seemed to be pervasive through all of the conversations with my friends.

“What it’s done for me has reinforced what I think is important,” ‘Baldy’ told me this week. ‘Baldy’ is retired, has kept playing golf pretty regularly and does some day trading as a hobby.

“I realized, again, most of this doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t need more than I have. Friendships, family, those are the important things. I’ve reached out to some of my old friends from years ago, back to high school. It’s amazing the response I’ve gotten.”

Almost all of my friends said they’ve missed watching the NCAA basketball tournament on television. You might remember my friend ‘Wooly.’ We’ve been to Las Vegas together a few times, spending time in the sports books. The NCAA Tournament is a big wagering enterprise but since there are no sports, there’s no sports betting.

And if you’re somebody who likes the ‘action,’ there is no action.

“Of course I miss the action,” Wooly said with a laugh. “If that’s something you enjoy, you miss it.”

I did some checking and you could still get ‘action’ from the sports books in the UK on: Soccer in Belarus, table tennis in Hungary and the weather in England. They’ll take action on what the high wind gust of the day will be.

“I miss going and watching the golf the most, frankly,” Wooly said. “It provides a level of relaxation I don’t get anywhere else. I always try and go to The Players, The Masters, and The Heritage. All of those, I value each one I get a chance to attend.”

“I haven’t missed watching sports on TV,” he added. I miss my buddies.”

Being in a business that’s significantly impacted by social distancing, Wooly has been working more this time of year than he normally would.

“That’s OK,” he said. “Everyday I appreciate the fact that I have a job to go to. I’m in a “no risk” job. I get to go to work everyday.”

Things haven’t been as good for my friend ‘Goose,’ at least not professionally.

Goose runs a company in town that would be called a “small business.” He’s been looking forward to Congress passing the stimulus bill because regrettably, he had to lay off his entire staff this week. He’s hoping that with the stimulus they all can collect unemployment and stay solvent. Most of them will come back to work, but in his business, there will be a significant lag before he’s back up to where he was two weeks ago.

“We’re shut down, and we have to react to that,” he added somewhat wistfully. “But everybody’s going through it so it’s not ‘woe is me,’ its ‘woe is the whole country.’”

While most of his time has been focused at work, Goose has been spending some of his extra personal time redoing a condo himself, ripping out floors, replacing the ceilings. His honey-do list is longer than ever, he says. Both of his college age children have moved back home so he’s been enjoying the time with his family.

“Our kids still kind of like us at this point, so it’s been fun to hang out with them a lot more,” he said of he and his wife who suddenly have two more adults living in their house.

“Like most guys, I miss watching basketball with my son. Watching golf on weekends. I always loved watching the 10 o’clock basketball game from the West Coast. I miss going to play golf, hanging out with some friends. But we’re getting along fine.”

At seventy-six years old, “Big Beef” is still involved with his business, a very big business. He says he’s been staying home mostly, being very careful.

“I’m very cognizant of the six-foot rule,” he said. “I’ve taken it very seriously. Being in my house isn’t all that bad. We’re not confined to a small apartment in New York or anything like that.”

“Beef” says his business is still going along pretty well. Some of his customers are looking for relief and he expects the government stimulus will be able to help them.

“This isn’t an economic problem with the country so we’re still moving forward and expect a good bounce when things work back toward normal.”

With a lot of options, Beef says he and his wife decided to stay in town. He’s misses traveling and some of the day-to-day contact in his office. But staying home has given him a chance to catch up on some things he’s been putting off.

“I’ve been going through old photographs. I’m doing business from home.” he said. “Taking life easy. I’m not anxious. I go out on the golf course in the cart. We’re getting take out and eating on the porch.”

“I think things will get back to normal and people will forget about this assuming they get a vaccine,” Beef said. “It has given me a new awareness of how serious the flu and things like it can be, that’s for sure.”

On the contrary, “True Blue” thinks this will have a long-term effect on how people think and act.

“My kid’s education will be much different. They’ll finish their school year online with their teachers. It’ll change the way we greet each other. Probably a lot less hand shaking. It’ll be long and painful enough that people will remember this.”

Blue works in the financial sector so he’s been working a lot more but he and his wife have school age kids that so he’s enjoyed spending some of this beautiful springtime with them.

“I’ve enjoyed the time with my family and I don’t mind the pace,” he added. “Once you calm down from the pace of what your typical day is like, you can enjoy time with your family. I’ve certainly gained a lot more patience.”

When my friends get antsy sitting around at home, they all have the same solutions: Go for a walk, get in the car and go for a drive. Blue is even making gourmet meals, doing things that take more time when you don’t usually have the time for.

And despite the total disruption of everybody’s lives, some things go on as normal.

“I took my son to get his drivers license,” Blue said with a laugh. “That’s a real right of passage. It was awesome. Of course he said that night he wanted to go out and I told him “no way.’”

Every one of my friends said they’ve had a chance to look around, and appreciate some of the things we all call normal.

“We have to appreciate all of the things we have,” Wooly said. “ When things get back to normal, “normal” will be appreciated with a higher value. I think that’s good.”

“This is a big deal,” said Baldy, who has enough of a scientific background to know. “The world won’t be the same after this. It’ll be a better place. I hope it helps relationships in this country and internationally. We’re going to get through this and we’ll be better for it.”

What Are They Up To

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Like most everybody else, I’ve been staying home, following the guidelines, working on some projects, talking on the phone with friends and tracking the progress against the coronavirus.

And just like most everybody else, I’ve had a chance to let my mind wander about a lot of subjects.

Looking back over the last month or so here in North Florida there hasn’t been a lot of good news. Good journalism revealed an underhanded scheme to sell the JEA. The PGA Tour had to cancel The Players
The Jaguars announced they’re sending a second home game to London.

And they traded Calais Campbell to Baltimore.

The feds will get to the bottom of the JEA fiasco. There’s nothing good for fans the in Jacksonville as the Jaguars move another home game away. At least they say it’s temporary. And The Players will be back next year and I’ll look forward to that.

But I don’t think I’ll ever get over trading Calais Campbell. For now, at least, I don’t understand it.

There’s no way to replace Calais. His production on the field is easily quantified. It resulted in three Pro Bowl seasons while he was here. But his locker room presence and his off-field impact on the community can’t be measured.
Yes, he donated his time and money to local groups, but the goodwill he spread and the positive feelings people had about him, and consequently the Jaguars. are things that can’t be duplicated.

His efforts saw him named the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year for how he represented the league, the Jaguars and himself in the community. No matter whom else they send out there, Calais can’t be replaced.

Who asked about that at the stadium? Did anybody from the business side ask what else they could do besides getting rid of Calais?

From a football perspective, I hope Doug Marrone was banging on the table saying “Absolutely not” when the idea of trading Campbell was floated.

We haven’t been able to ask any of those questions of Jaguars General Manager Dave Caldwell or Marrone, yet, because of league rules relating to the coronavirus. Those rules, rightly in place, have kept the Jaguars brass isolated from the media. When a transaction is completed, the team sends it out on their website and their social platforms. The Jaguars PR staff has been in touch with the media via text and email.

It’s a good process under the circumstances but we haven’t been able to ask how some of these decisions came about. They tells us there might be some conference calls this week so we might get a chance to ask some questions.

Campbell was due $15M from the Jaguars this year. He signed an extension with the Ravens for $27M over two years. So it’s not as if he had some outrageous contract demands. But the Jaguars clearly thought the money they could save on Calais could fund what they wanted to do in free agency. They got a fifth round draft pick in return.

“With more draft capital, we’ll be prepared to acquire new players via trade or in the upcoming 2020 NFL Draft in April,” Caldwell said in a press release. “The acquisitions that we add to our team via free agency and the draft will complement the weapons that we already have on our roster, which allows our coaches and scouts to look at all opportunities to put the best possible team on the field in 2020 and beyond.”

That’s a pretty stock answer, and with the money they’ve created under the cap, the Jaguars have made some free-agent acquisitions.

Their biggest move is signing Pro Bowl linebacker Joe Shobert. Shobert is 6-1, 245lbs, so he’s Paul Posluszny. That moves Myles Jack back outside where he belongs. It’s a big improvement not just in talent but also in the personnel they have to run the kind of defense they like. It also atones for some of the strategic errors they’ve made since Poz retired.

Doug Marrone admitted as much.

“He brings an ability to tackle and diagnose plays. He’s a true middle linebacker.” Marrone said of Shobert in a prepared statement. “This gives us the ability to move Myles Jack to outside linebacker, which I feel is a more natural position for him.”

Otherwise, they’ve signed and resigned some players to fill some of the roster spots they think will be an upgrade to the 2019 roster.

But none of them are Calais Campbell. Nice players, good players, but not Calais Campbell.

So where will the leadership come from? Campbell was the undisputed leader in the locker room and showed it on the field. Gardner Minshew and Leonard Fournette will have to step up on offense. On defense, Shobert will have to quickly adapt and Josh Allen and Jack will have to be out front immediately.

“I hope all of this works,” one Jaguars insider told me.

It’s not the first time the Jaguars have made moves too early, looking at the salary cap and not paying enough attention to what’s going on in the locker room. You might think, “they’re professionals, none of that matters,” but it does. Teams that win have a culture and a social structure that’s set from the inside. Leaders are important. None has been more important than Calais.

Early on, the Jaguars let linebackers Tom McManus, Jeff Kopp and Brant Boyer go a year too early in each case. None were full-time starters but they were good stopgap players and excellent on special teams. But it was their presence in the locker room, the weight room and on the practice field that couldn’t be replaced. Younger players were cheaper but the Jaguars suffered each time when those three departed.

Same with guys like Montel Owens and even Daryl Smith. They were rebuilding the team for Gus Bradley but the locker room was set adrift when those veteran players were sent off. And wins were scarce.

There’s a leadership vacuum that happens immediately. Young players need other players to show them the way and lead by example.

When my friend Jim called the Jaguars offices this week to cancel his season tickets, the salesperson on the other end of the line said, “Can I ask why?”

“You got twenty minutes?” Jim responded.

At least the salesperson had the smarts to say, “Yeah, I get it,” as the conversation ended.

“What the heck are they doing down there,” my friend Harry said as I answered his call on Monday.

“Maybe that’ll be the headline of my column this week,” I said with a laugh.

Perhaps a better headline would be, “I hope they know what they’re doing down there.”

For their sake, and for ours.

Sam Kouvaris

We’ll Get Through This

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We’ve been at this a while, you and me. About forty years actually. Mostly we’ve talked about sports, but you even embraced me when they asked me to anchor the news on television for a few years. Some of you laughed, and even said you were inspired when I used to do those silly pep talks on the radio.

So let’s talk about what’s going on. Right here, right now.

They cancelled The Players. Nobody liked that. I’m not a fan-boy for the PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan but he did the right things at the right time this week. Anybody critical of the decisions Monahan made isn’t paying attention. He made the calls about what to do in real time, and at each step did the right thing.

Monahan was talking about golf, but he was spot on about all sports when he said games “unify and inspire us.”

That doesn’t mean I like any of it. Or that I haven’t missed it.

I’ve missed seeing Rory play the weekend and try to defend his title. Like a lot of you, I like it when Rory plays well. He’s authentic, honest and without pretense when it comes to being a superstar on the world stage. He also has the swing I’d love to have, just once.

But mostly I’ve missed talking to Ferdinand, one of the security guards near the clubhouse. I only see him a few times a year, sometimes at Jaguars games, but every year at The Players. We don’t talk about much, but each time I see him, it brightens my day.

I’ve missed the small talk with the guys who volunteer behind the reception desk at the media center. I never see them outside of this week, but It’s a nice feeling to walk in there, talk about the long hours, who’s playing well, the weather, whatever comes to mind.

I’ve missed talking with John the ticket taker and Bekka, the bartender at the Greenside Lounge. Neither is from here, but they make the trip to North Florida every year to work The Players from points west and north. Neither will make the money they were counting on this week before they headed home. But both promised they’d be back next year.

And I’ve missed the time I usually spend with the former Chairmen of The Players, Buster Browning, Mike Hartley, Anne Nimnicht, Lynn Stoner and others. Just hanging out, talking about past Players and the tournament’s bright future. And I’ve missed the chats I have every year with the volunteers around the back of the 9th green.

So I’m sure you’ve missed some of the same things. The cocktails you’ve had with the same friends overlooking 17 year after year. Watching players trying to make birdie on number two, marveling at their short game. Or watching them bomb it off the 16th tee knowing an eagle could be waiting ahead.

And you know what? That’ll all come back. That’ll be there next year, and we’ll look back and marvel at how we came together and got through this tough time.

Because that’s what we do.

Not just as sports fans but as American’s and especially as people who live here in North Florida and South Georgia. We’re used to being picked on, overcoming adversity and getting things done. It’s nothing new to us.

We lean on our families, our friends and each other to get through things. I’ve seen it time and time again in our time together. Sometimes it’s when bad weather hits, other times its when we’re counted out of some competition, only to surprise everybody else.

So this is no different. The coronavirus will, we’re told, get worse before it gets better. But it will get better. We have the best minds in the world working on a solution. Politics shouldn’t have a role in this and we already know one thing: The person sitting at your kitchen table has a lot more to do with how you’re doing than some politician sitting behind a desk in Washington.

There won’t be any sports on television or live in arenas we can attend for a month, maybe longer. That’s inconvenient, and also a little weird. No March Madness? No Masters to signal the beginning of spring? No Spring Training games? It won’t be snowing anywhere on Opening Day if they start the baseball season in late April!

But all of that will be ok. We’ve got a bigger purpose that we’re working on right now. Sports have always been part of the fabric of our lives, but they don’t define us. You spend your money on cable or streaming to watch your favorite teams. Or you plunk down plenty of cash to cheer your club in person. You choose to do those things. You don’t have to do those things. You, hopefully for the short term, have more important things to do.

Like taking care of yourself and your family. Helping your neighbors. Washing your hands and doing all of the other recommended things to keep the coronavirus at bay.

I like what Tom Hanks said from quarantine with his wife in Australia after contracting the virus:

“Remember, despite all the current events, there is no crying in baseball.”

So there’s not a game on the TV in the background while you’re eating dinner? Use that time to talk with your spouse and your kids. Get closer to them. Go for a walk. I’d say go to a park but Mayor Lenny Curry closed all of the public parks. He didn’t think that one through. We know to practice “social distancing.” We can go to a park without being on top of one another.

Practice your guitar. Help your kids with a project they’re working on. Fix that fence in the backyard you’ve been avoiding. Or my favorite: Go out and play some catch.

Maybe say a prayer for safety and gratitude.

Be smart. Follow the best practices for staying healthy. Hug your family.

Perhaps the highest compliment I’ve ever gotten was at the summit of a grueling climb on my bicycle in Europe. One of the wives of my fellow cyclists, she reminded me several times she was German, was there at the top when I arrived, last in the group.

“I told them you’d finish,” she said. “I told them ‘He’s an American. American’s finish.”

And she was right. We’ll finish this. Together.

On The World Stage, THE PLAYERS Is Still Ours

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This would seem to be a week all about golf here in North Florida. With The Players being contested at PGA Tour’s Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra, the best players in the world will be playing for the largest prize money total in golf, $15 million, with $2.7 million going to the winner.

This week involves a golf tournament. Most of the people who will go to the tournament, volunteer, or watch it on TV play golf. All of them know a lot about golf. But this week is not only all about golf.

You could call it the continuation of a love story.

Although the PGA Tour uses The Players as its signature event, The Players is still, on many levels, the Greater Jacksonville Open. Watching the golf on TV, there will be a few mentions of Jacksonville, but the focus will be, and rightly so, on the competition inside the ropes. But if you’re at the tournament, you can watch some golf, but the stories outside the ropes are more about community, giving, family, fellowship and charity.

Through years of promotion, the PGA Tour has successfully brought the tournament to the national and international stage. This year, fans outside of the local six county area will purchase more than fifty percent of the tickets sold for the week. For a while, the Tour disassociated The Players with the local fans, trying to make it a destination for golf fans from around the country and around the world. While a laudable goal, they realized that their ties with North Florida couldn’t be discounted or replaced. In the last few years, they’ve repaired their bond with North Florida. If half of the fans are from somewhere else, that means half of them are from here.

How else would an idea of bringing Arnold Palmer to town for a golf tournament that was an adjunct to a football game in the mid-1960’s lead to over $100 million donated to local charities in the next 60 years?

Most of the more than two thousand volunteers are from here. The idea of getting people together to volunteer and help run the golf tournament started here. The fact that the PGA Tour operates events to benefit charity has part of that idea rooted in the $19,000 the original GJO donated to the Junior League and their charities in 1965.

Golf brings people together.

In Jacksonville, golf brought the whole community together.

Wesley Paxson asked John Tucker, his regular golf partner at San Jose, to see if he couldn’t get a big name player for the Gator Bowl Pro-Am to raise the profile of the annual tournament. Paxson was going to be the President of the Gator Bowl and asked Tucker, only because John had free long distance calling as the District Manager of the phone company. That was a big deal at the time.

Through a series of events, and long-distance phone calls, Tucker secured a full-fledged professional golf event with an unheard-of $50,000 guaranteed prize money.

They didn’t have the money, a golf course or any idea of how to run a golf tournament.

Not a problem. They had friends.

Meeting at Silver’s Drug Store in Jacksonville Beach, Paxson, Tucker and a few friends asked a few more of their friends to get involved. They asked the Times-Union to put up the $50,000. Their friends donated everything, from courtesy cars, to rope to steel poles. They amassed a cadre of volunteers and the Greater Jacksonville Open, with a sense of community ownership, was born at Selva Marina.

Those things aren’t all supposed to happen together. But they did. If it seems like luck, the success of the GJO and now THE PLAYERS follow all of the notions about good fortune: The harder you work, the luckier you get. Add one more idea to that: love what you do and the people you’re doing it with.

With foresight unknown even to them, the GJO leadership invited everybody to get involved. They invited groups from Hidden Hills, Deerwood, Timiquana, and Ponte Vedra and all over the city.

Golf might have connected all of these people but it was a sense of community, a sense of ownership and fellowship that brought them all together. New chairmen brought new friends and new ideas. No turf guarding, no agendas except to get better every year.

The Swinger’s Tent was born. The hospitality tents grew. The gallery swelled. From $19,000 in the first year, money raised for charities in North Florida multiplied each spring.

The committees, the volunteers and eventually the Honorable Company of Redcoats, the leaders of the volunteer force, came to define what made this community special.

It became THE event of the year where the community came together to have some fun and raise money for charity.

And the PGA TOUR noticed.

Then-Commissioner Deane Beman took notice of the growing volunteer force, the interest in the tournament and the players enthusiasm for coming here and saw the perfect spot to grow the game of professional golf.

And again, the community, and not just the golf community, in Jacksonville and all over North Florida responded.

From a local event, Jacksonville’s community golf tournament cascaded into the Tournament Players Championship, the Senior TPC and eventually The PLAYERS, the signature event of the PGA TOUR. All thanks to the time, energy and commitment from the volunteers and their leadership. The sense of community and ownership of the tournament was unmatched anywhere else.

The Stadium Course was built. Beman, architect Pete Dye and champion Jerry Pate ended up in the water.
A sleepy stretch of beach called Ponte Vedra, framed by Butler Boulevard to the north and Sawgrass Country Club to the south, was transformed into a vibrant, growing community.

Want to know what Jacksonville and North Florida are about? Spend some time with the volunteers at THE PLAYERS. Listen to the Redcoats, who can recount, in detail, their years leading the tournament. They mostly talk about the other volunteers who make this all possible.

It’s best defined by the first Redcoat, John Tucker who called THE PLAYERS “a ‘WE’ undertaking.”

It’s a love story.

Author’s Note: This column, in large part, is contained in the foreword to the book “The Honorable Company of Past Chairmen” a look at each year of the GJO and The PLAYERS through the eyes of each of the leaders of the volunteers of the tournament, published by Hartley Press. It will be available in the volunteer areas of THE PLAYERS this week for $40 and at Redcoatfoundation.org. All proceeds will go to the Redcoats Foundation and their various local charities.