Weekend winners
Lucas Glover. Hard to believe that a dude in his early 40s who could not make a 4-footer a decade ago and had his wife get into a police-involved fight with his mother has now become the hottest PGA player on the planet. But this is where we live, and Glover, who won the St. Jude Championship and became the first 40-plus back-to-back PGA Tour winner since Vijay 15 years ago, is hard to handle.
Braves bats in general, Matt Olson in particular. Yep, as consistently entertaining as a swimming pool in the South in August. When you head to NYC and score 41 runs in four games, well, that's a pretty good clip, right Spy? As for Olson, well, he now leads the majors in homers (43) and RBIs (107, which is 17 ahead of Ozzie Albies in the MLB rankings). Which begs two questions: Would you trade Olson for Freddie Freeman at this moment? And has Olson passed Ronald Acuña in the NL MVP voting? Discuss.
Football fans. And yeah, that's all of us. But the NFL preseason is rolling. The college football news is starting to be about depth charts and predictions — which is way better than conference realignment — and high school football starts Friday. Giddy-up.
This dude. Yeah, fishing is fun. I like it more now than I used to for sure. This would be a lot more fun, as an angler caught a record-setting Blue Marlin that was worth more than $6 million. Yes, please.
Weekend losers
My sports watching. Egad, getting back to school and all the things to get ready for the week caused me to watch no football, little Braves and only a little more golf. I have to get into better shape for football season, friends.
Buck Showalter. So if your team quits on you and then ownership quits on you, well, part of that issue has to be you, right? Plus, every time the camera shows Buck, it's hard not think, "Man, that guy looks like a curmudgeon," no?
Young millionaire QBs. Man, the preseason highlights are filled with bloopers from the highlights of CJ Stroud, Bryce Young, Trey Lance and Anthony Richardson looking lost. Wait, isn't this kind of factual statement what got Rush fired from ESPN?
Phil. Yeah, there are a lot of options for this choice — do you think Mrs. Phil knew he bet $1 billion and lost more than $100 million? — but this one is golf-related. Phil was in the final group at the LIV event and promptly went old-school Phil. Side question: Did Phil underachieve as a PGA player? Discuss.
James Harden. So dude is a former MVP and likely a basketball hall of famer and nobody wants him on their team and no one wants to play with him? That has to be a you issue, James.
As for leadership
So, how about the excellent records-based reporting in Sunday's TFP about the Chattanooga PD?
Excellent work by all involved, especially writer Ellen Gerst.
Here are the two key excerpts that jumped off the pages to me:
First: "The central problem, I think, is that police score at the top of the scale on 'authoritarian' personalities, which implies at the extremes a need to almost deify leadership — and they are just never going to accept a Black woman in that role," (Mayor Tim) Kelly wrote to his chief operating officer, Ryan Ewalt, on June 2, records show. "But we have to continue to work the project to improve the morale and address these concerns."
This was in response to the poor results of internal surveys the Mayor's Office commissioned.
And, as Murphy handled the results, the insinuations and the accompanying questions with an extreme amount of grace, the second passage was even more telling to me.
From the story: "For Mayor Tim Kelly to see the results of the survey and then state its causation is the officers' unwillingness to accept an African American woman as our chief is disingenuous, politically self-serving and is designed to be a wholesale dismissal of the survey results," the Fraternal Order of Police Rock City Lodge, which represents around 300 Chattanooga officers, said in a statement released to the Times Free Press by chapter President Chris Mullinix.
From my seat, "disingenuous, politically self-serving" is the perfect description of Tim Kelly's time leading our city.
But for those of us who have been paying attention, that is doubly true.
Back in the day, I used to write a non-sports column. Here's what I wrote in June 2021, when then-CPD Chief David Roddy stepped down.
(Side note: Roddy is now the COO of Hamilton County after being appointed to that job by Weston Wamp. Roddy is supremely qualified, and is a quality addition to any staff. It did make me wonder, though, if we didn't elect Weston to be COO of the county, what exactly is his job description then? Side question on the side note: Did anyone else see the Rant on Sunday that asked "How did Jim Coppinger get along for more than a decade as Hamilton County mayor without a chief operating officer and two deputy mayors?" Must have been the mustache, right?)
From my June column more than two years ago: Think back when then-mayoral candidate Tim Kelly "reaffirmed" his support of Roddy during the heated runoff race against Kim White in the days after a city council candidate said publicly that Kelly intended to replace Roddy with a Black woman.
Hmmmmmmm.
That was widely believed to be part of the political machinations that pushed Kelly by run-off opponent Kim White as Kelly garnered the support of the Black political bigwigs and religious leaders.
But now, Kelly apparently appears to have a completely different view — about police leadership and who can handle it.
Man, this would be a fun day to write that kind of column. Heck, this may be one of my greatest handicapping moments in some time.
But I don't want to sound "disingenuous, politically self-serving" you know?
This and that
— Speaking of the PGA Tour, well, Stephan Jaeger birdied the 18th Sunday to finish in a tie for 20th — yep, that was one of my PGA picks — and it moved him along in the PGA playoffs. He made $233,000 for his T20. That's a great weekend for sure, but a par-filled Sunday left him just 80 FedEx points shy of playing in this weekend's BMW Championship.
— Kudos to the TFP sports crew and Matt McClane's design work on a glorious Prep Blitz preview section. Right behind the Best of Preps hoops tournament, the pullout high school preview section — and what used to be the Weekend Blitz — as well as the Dynamite Dozen are two of my more favorite legacies from my time in sports.
— You know the rules. Here's Paschall with a look at the growing talent in the UT QB room.
Today's questions
Weekend winners and losers. Go.
We have a few questions up there already, but here is a multiple choice Monday on which we will expand more tomorrow: Which NFL rookie QB was the best in week one of the preseason?
— Bryce Young.
— CJ Stroud.
— Anthony Richardson.
— Will Levis.
Discuss.
As for today, Aug. 14, let's review.
Japan surrendered — known as V-J Day — to end WWII on this day in 1945.
Man some boss birthdays today: Doc Holliday would have been 174. (Best Val Kilmer performance, right?); Magic Johnson is 64; Halle Berry is 57.
Also, Steve Martin is 78.
Rushmore of Steve Martin movies, and who has a better comedy movie collection?
Go.