Thursday Grab Bag: Coaches Poll Flawed

Despite the 9-5 loss to Farmington on Tuesday, the Piedra Vista baseball team is ranked No. 2 in this week's coaches poll.

The Scorpions are tied for third with Albuquerque Academy, and Artesia retained the No. 1 spot. The Panthers received two first-place votes, Artesia seven and Academy one. FHS didn't get any, having lost to Artesia twice this year.

High school rankings are still subjective and inaccurate. Without widespread broadcasts on TV, the voters likely haven't seen every team in the top 10 play. Plus, 10 voters is a tiny sample for a poll.

Still, there's no excuses for this one. The coaches get an error. FHS should be ranked ahead of PV at this point. They won the most recent contest between the rivals, and won by a larger margin. It's tough to make the argument that PV's played better against the other district teams -- both schools have thrashed the rest of District 1-4A.

Both won more than they lost predistrict and put on similar performances at the spring break tournament in Phoenix. PV's lineup has more pop to it, but the FHS pitching staff is deeper.

PV's expected winning percentage is higher in a one-game scenario than in a three-game series. Yet, FHS built a 9-1 lead Tuesday before holding off a resilient PV team, virtually locking up their ninth consecutive district title. They have to be ranked higher at this point.

Even minimal homework should've solved this problem. If that doesn't happen, there shouldn't be a weekly poll.

In softball, PV and FHS are ranked first and second, respectively. Aztec (No. 7) and Kirtland Central (No. 9) are also ranked.

Bloomfield's softball team is the No. 1 3A school, while its baseball team is ranked No. 2.

Baseball
Class 4A
Team    Pvs    Pts
1. Artesia (7)    1    97
2. Piedra Vista (2)    2    88
3. Farmington    3    77
(tie) Alb. Academy (1)    3    77
5. St. Pius    5    55
6. Belen    7    40
7. Moriarty    8    35
8. Goddard    6    32
9. Bernalillo    9    27
10.  Volcano Vista    10    13
Others: Deming 11, Los Alamos 6, Aztec 2, and Grants 1.

Class 3A
Team    Pvs    Pts
1. Cobre (12)    1    120
2. Bloomfield    2    98
3. Sandia Prep    3    82
4. Socorro    4    74
5. Portales    5    73
6. St. Michaels    9    55
7. Ruidoso    8    51
8. Pojoaque    6    35
9. Hope Christian    6    26
10.  Raton    10    12
Others: Lovington 8, Laguna Acoma 8, Cuba 4, Robertson 4, Dexter 2, and Hatch 1.

Softball
Class 4A
1. Piedra Vista (12)    1    129
2. Farmington (1)    2    103
3. Silver    3    91
4. Artesia    4    82
5. Roswell    5    66
6. Volcano Vista    7    63
7. Aztec    6    50
8. Moriarty    nr    38
9. Kirtland    8    26
10.  Del Norte    9    22
Others: Goddard 13, St Pius 10, Espanola 5, Los Alamos 5, Belen 5, Shiprock 3, Deming 3,  Deming 3, Atrisco Heritage 3, and Bernalillo 1.

Class 3A
1. Bloomfield (14)    1    140
2. St. Michaels    2    121
3. Cobre    4    103
4. Raton    5    93
5. Hope Christian    3    92
6. Santa Fe Indian    6    52
7. Portales    7    48
8. Ruidoso    8    41
9. Miyamura    9    25
10.  Socorro    nr    10
Others: Newcomb 10, Robertson 9, Sandia Prep 7, Hatch 5, Laguna Acoma 5, Lovington 5,  Pojoaque 2, and West Las Vegas 1.

Trouble in Kirtland: In case you missed it, a Kirtland 16-year-old was arrested Monday for allegedly pretending to rape another boy on the bus after a JV baseball game.

Apparently the 'rape game' has existed within the school's athletic program for quite some time. One boy will position himself behind another and make a sexual motion simulating rape, probably to get a rise out of his teammates or embarrass the boy. Basically, an out-of-hand, unchecked version of male teenage horseplay.

It has not been a banner year for the Broncos' baseball program. The varsity (6-16, 2-4 District 1-4A) edged out bottom-dweller Shiprock twice for its only district wins and has dealt with infighting, presumably brought about by frustration.

KC coach James Belveal said this about his players after a 17-0 loss to PV: "They've got to become glue and don't separate. You see some separations coming and you try to get them to bond back together. If they don't bond, you never really recover. A lot of it's in their hands. We just try to facilitate the directions they need to go. You can't force them to overcome it."

He was talking about their attitudes relating to losing, but he might as well be discussing the 'rape game.' The KC coaches can talk about acting mature until they're out of breath, but can they really stop a 16-year-old from a casual act of immaturity? I doubt he thought much about the potential consequences before he did it, and likely didn't view it as a big deal.

I'm sure the coaches will come under criticism from some, and it's probably not justified. If this game has gone on unchecked for years, and it's widespread as the initial investigation hints, then it's hard to believe someone in the administration never caught wind of it. In this particular case, it seems like they're making the kid an example and following through with discipline.

The coaches can't force their players to act like adults, but they can punish them for stupidity. If they knew about this behavior in the past, they deserve blame, but in this case they couldn't have done anything differently.

Hawk on the loose: On to a lighter subject. Wednesday's playoff game between Atlanta and Miami included a hawk delay.

That's right: An actual hawk flew across the court during regulation.

"Spirit" flies from the rafters during the pregame in reference to Atlanta's mascot, the Hawks. It decided to stay around for the game Wednesday, landing on TNT's cameras mounted on the backboards and getting several minutes of live closeups. The bird finally flew to its handler after a brief delay.

"You see Al Horford duck and run, I was like, 'Let me run for cover as well,'" Dwayne Wade told the Associated Press. "It was kind of weird having the hawk fly around. It's hard to play with your back to that hawk on the backboard."

Hilarity ensued during TNT's halftime show. The producers dropped a cardboard cutout hawk from the ceiling, playing a loud sound affect that caused Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith to look like Macaulay Culkin the first time he saw the would-be robbers in Home Alone.

It was the second-most scared I've seen a current or former professional athlete, and over a piece of paper no less. The most scared: A few of the Denver Broncos' offensive lineman on the team plane two seasons ago during some moderate turbulence.

Someone needs to upload the video of Sir Charles freaking out on the set pronto. I'm disappointed it's not already there, and thus I can't share it with you.

Usain Bolt vs. Michael Johnson: Social networking has become a drug. I'm not an addict. I'm more like a recreational uer -- I admit I'll hit up Facebook regularly. The newest application, "Pick Your Five," has me enamored. You pick your top five of anything: fast food joints, people you want to punch in the face, favorite baseball players, etc.

One of my former Samford track teammates posted her top five sprinters of all time this week. She got me thinking: Who's ranked higher at this point? Michael Johnson or Usain Bolt? Both have to be in everyone's top five.

Bolt broke the 100 and 200-meter dash world records at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Bolt's 10.69 in the 100 came despite the fact that he slowed to celebrate 15 meters from the finish, leading to this hilarious parody.

In the 200, he sprinted the entire race and started to lock up near the finish line, breaking Johnson's 12-year-old record by .02 seconds, running 19.30.

When Johnson broke Pietro Mennea's 17-year-old record in the event, he smashed it by .4 seconds. (He ran a 19.66 at the Olympic trials, breaking Mennea's 19.72, before running his 19.32 at the Olympics.) Johnson became the only man to win gold medals in the 200 and 400 at the same Games, setting an Olympic record in the longer event in 1996.

Bolt set two world records, but the 100 WR has been broken nine times since the 1996 Olympics. It isn't as prestigious historically, even if it's the sexier race, so to speak. 

As sprinters have gotten progressively faster, Bolt did turn in the most impressive 100 ever. He's been a 200/400 guy most of his career because of his tall stature, which makes it more difficult for him to come out of the starting blocks. Yet Bolt's maximum effort barely eclipsed Johnson's 200 time over a decade later.

Furthermore, Johnson's 400-meter WR of 43.18, set in 1999, still stands. Try to watch that race without getting chills. That's still the most dominant world-class sprint in our lifetime. He won by over a second, beating a guy that set the Mexican national record by 20 meters. In track lingo, Michael Johnson is The Truth. The strength of his final 100 causes me to drool with jealousy.

And then there's the always-entertaining call from the foreign announcer: "Just have a look at him. No dropping of the arms. The cadence of the arms, which dictate the speed of the legs, absolutely, unfailingly accurate."

Bolt may pass Johnson as the greatest sprinter of all time, but in my mind, Johnson and his gold spikes still hold that crown.

Lions logo: The Detroit Lions unveiled a new, "fiercer" logo this week.

Yes, it does look meaner. The teeth are sharper and the pose is more aggressive. But after an 0-16 NFL season, all you're doing is giving talk shows ammo. You're the butt end of every joke, and you just made it easier. Perhaps not the best season to switch logos.

New team president Tom Lewand said the rebranding of the Lions franchise is "about changing a culture within our organization and within our community that says, 'We are going to do this the right way and we are going to start from the ground floor and we're going to build a championship football team that year-in and year-out the people of the city of Detroit can be proud of.'"

Sorry, but a different-looking helmet paint job isn't exactly going to keep Ray Lewis or Brian Urlacher from leveling quarterback Dante Culpepper, and there are bigger, more relevant issues that Detroit needs to fix. Like maybe fixing your 30th-ranked offense. Or your 32nd-ranked defense.

Quote of the Week: Speaking to ESPN about former MLB star Lenny Dykstra's financial disarray for an investigative piece, Nigerian-born gastric bypass specialist Dr. Festus Dada said:

"He thought he could keep my $500,000 and nobody would have the resources to go after him. But in this case, I am going after him. General surgeons are not intimidated by professional athletes.

"Like I told him, if I can cut somebody from the neck all the way down to the pubis with a scalpel, then I cannot be intimidated."

Link of the Week: Dikembe Mutombo's NBA career may be over after he suffered a knee injury in a playoff game against Portland. Here's a compliation of links about one of the most likeable, entertaining characters in sports. The video at the top is particularly compelling as Mutombo's teammates try to impersonate his gravelly voice.

That's all for today's grab bag.

Stay true,
Christopher