Former Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera upbeat, will handle cancer his own way
Exchanged texts with Ron Rivera on Thursday night. Rivera, the former Carolina Panthers coach who is in his first season with the NFL team in Washington, has been diagnosed with the cancer squamous cell carcinoma.
I had the disease in 2009; it started in a tonsil and spread to the lymph nodes. I won’t go into details because it’s different for everybody. I had surgery, radiation, chemo and superb medical care, and when I finished, a new convertible. Still have it. Felt as if I earned it.
Rivera is 58. Don’t know how his cancer and care will manifest itself. He seemed upbeat Thursday night, but he lives that way. He is one of the great people I’ve met in sports, which is to say that he’s one of the great people I’ve met.
He’s tough in a quiet way. He won’t announce it. He’ll live it.
Good luck, coach.
Hornets get a break in NBA lottery
The NBA lottery is not fixed. When something doesn’t go somebody’s way, they claim the fix is in. Why didn’t they get the job or the promotion, the woman or the guy, the house they’d been waiting to go on the market so they could make a bid? There was a fix, there was a conspiracy. They’re out to get me!
If one of my kids ever says, “They’re out to get me!” he’s out of the will.
It’s fair to say, however, that the lottery hates the Charlotte Hornets. The lottery isn’t fixed; the NBA is too damn smart to do such a thing. Sometimes a thing just hates you. Pineville-Matthews Road, for example, hates me.
And then came Thursday night. And the Hornets, who were expected to select eighth, jumped five spots to No. 3, the biggest jump in the draft.
Three players stand out.
They are: Anthony Edwards, 18, a 6-foot-3 shooting guard with remarkable athleticism and talent; LaMelo Ball, 18, the best of the Balls, who is 6-7 and a passer extraordinaire; and James Wiseman, 19, who is 7-1 and moves with the fluidity of a smaller man.
Edwards is the most complete player of the three, Ball the most intriguing. Ball throws outlet passes like a quarterback. He’s not an elite scorer, but he can learn to score. A bonus: We don’t hear as much from LaVar Ball, his attention-seeking dad anymore. LaVar, incidentally, was in 1995 a member of the Carolina Panthers practice squad.
You’ve seen Wiseman. He’s light on his feet and quick. If there’s still a place for a big man in the NBA, here he is.
What do the Hornets need most? They need talent. If I could have one of the three, it would be Edwards. But I suspect he goes to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have the first pick, or the Golden State Warriors, who have the second.
Ball would be my second pick, Wiseman a very close third.
All hail the draft.
The worst – I mean the worst – the Hornets can do is one of these three. They’ll suddenly have a new best player.
Standing on the red X, and it feels good
Stood on a red X on the hill on the practice field at Bank of America Stadium to watch the Carolina Panthers and, despite COVID-19, it was like any other practice.
There was trash talk from the defense, although not the quality trash talk linebacker Thomas Davis delivered when he played for Carolina. There was speed, quarterbacks wearing green jerseys instead of red (which took about two minutes to adjust to), Rae Crowther tackling sleds, “Jump Around,” which I believe is House of Pain’s best work, and tests, many tests.
Before you can go to practice, you walk to a medical station in the parking lot, show your ID and have your temperature taken. Then you turn around and go to another medical station and take a COVID-19 test. Then you walk to another medical station, this one on prime turf because the parking place reserved for owner David Tepper is there.
Before I reached practice, I’d been tested for COVID-19 and, I think, carpal tunnel syndrome and clubfoot.
Then you walk toward the stadium, talk to the friendly security guard, walk up a hill and stop at a table where a woman makes a call to find out if you’re entitled to be there. Then you walk down the hill and walk to another entrance and pick up your credential, an official Bank of America Stadium security band to wrap around your wrist, and an NFL vest, which you have to give back.
A team can say that safety is important. Or it can show that safety is important. The Panthers show it. Kudos.
At practice, an ambulance siren sounds. After jumping 2 feet, I look to see if somebody is injured. Nah. Last season, it was an air horn, this season, a siren. If the idea is to make sure players respond, I believe the siren is a success.
Nice catch by Ishmael Hyman, 25, a wide receiver out of James Madison. Nice scramble by Will Grier, the second-year quarterback out of Davidson Day and West Virginia. Nice spike by Sam Tecklenburg.
After scoring, Jordan Scarlett, the second-year running back out of Florida, hands the ball to Tecklenburg, a center who played for new coach Matt Rhule at Baylor. It would save time if I mention the players who did not play for Rhule in college.
Give Tecklenburg this: He spiked the ball so hard and the end zone might have to be resodded.
At some practices, one player emerges, and it’s tough to watch anybody else. On Tuesday, that player is Robby Anderson. He doesn’t jog back to the huddle from the right corner of the end zone; he trots, all grace and speed.
Nobody could stay with him. As he breaks free it’s as if he says: “I’ll be sure to write.”
His speed is immediate. Man, he was fun to watch.
Practice was fun to watch. How badly have you missed the sights, sounds and speed? We’ve been living behind thick glass since March, getting mostly faded pictures.
We can watch the NBA, Major League Baseball and PGA Tour and NASCAR on TV. But to be there, on that red X, on that hill, made the NFL real.
Tuesday was my turn.
Yours will come.
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 11:22 AM.