NFL out in force for Mara service

Associated Press

NEW YORK -- In a big turnout of football star power, family, friends and admirers gathered Friday for an emotional send-off to New York Giants owner Wellington Mara, one of the founding fathers of the NFL.

An overflow crowd packed St. Patrick`s Cathedral for the funeral Mass honoring Mara, who died Tuesday at 89. Mara, elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997, died of cancer at his home in Rye. - NFL Football -

Giants players and office staffers arrived in seven charter buses led by a New Jersey State Police cruiser on a crisp, fall morning perfect for Mara`s beloved football.

Former Giants great Frank Gifford spoke during the 1-hour, 45-minute service before an assemblage of NFL celebrities usually reserved for a Hall of Fame ceremony.

``I`m so honored to stand here and say a few words about this man that I love,`` Gifford said. ``I had three stages of knowing Wellington Mara. He was my boss for a long time, and he was a father figure. And finally, as we got older, he was my friend.``

The alter was simply decorated with four bouquets of red flowers, two on either side. Mara`s casket was brought into the cathedral accompanied by a bagpiper playing ``Amazing Grace.``

Running back Tiki Barber, a Mara favorite, led the team into the cathedral, followed by a parade of somber teammates that included quarterback Eli Manning and tight end Jeremy Shockey.

Among the other mourners were Phil Simms, Phil McConkey and Harry Carson, members of the Giants` 1986 Super Bowl team. - NFL Football -

``Giant fans from all around the country wish they could be here,`` Carson said. ``It is sad, but we also know his spirit will be with us no matter what.``

Other former players arriving early included tight end Mark Bavaro and quarterback Dave Brown. - NFL Football -

Among those in the crowd were former Giants coach Bill Parcells, who came with his current boss, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones; Carolina Panthers coach John Fox, a former Giants assistant; and Cleveland Browns coach Romeo Crennel, another ex-Giants assistant.

The presence of NFL coaches from around the league, just two days before their Sunday games spoke volumes about the level of regard for Mara.

Packers RB Davenport goes on IR

GREEN BAY, Wis. (Oct. 10, 2005) -- Running back Najeh Davenport underwent season-ending surgery to repair his broken right ankle and the Green Bay Packers placed him on injured reserve. - - - Football NFL - - -

The Packers, who are off this weekend, probably won't replace him on the roster until next week.

"We're going through our options, and we don't feel compelled to fill the spot right away," general manager Ted Thompson said. - - - Football NFL - - -

Thompson, who signed free-agent running back ReShard Lee last week, said he wouldn't necessarily sign another running back, either.

Davenport is the third Green Bay player to go on IR this season, joining wide receivers Javon Walker, who blew out a knee in the opener and underwent an operation in Houston, and Terrence Murphy, who bruised his spinal cord on a helmet-to-helmet hit against Carolina last week. - - - Football NFL - - -

Davenport was hurt in his second career start when he was dragged down from behind by New Orleans linebacker Courtney Watson on a 2-yard reception late in the first half of Green Bay's 52-3 rout of the Saints.

Starter Ahman Green was sidelined with a strained thigh tendon, and Davenport carried 12 times for 54 yards and TDs of 1 and 4 yards, the Packers' first touchdown runs of the season, before getting hurt. - - - Football NFL - - -

Davenport, in the final year of his contract, is eligible for free agency after the season and was hoping to take advantage of his rare start to earn a starting job next year in Green Bay or elsewhere.

If Green can't play against Minnesota in two weeks, third-down back Tony Fisher would almost certainly get the start and share snaps with Lee. - - - Football NFL - - -

"We're going to work with ReShard this week," coach Mike Sherman said. "I think he has a pretty good chance to become a good running back. The bye week affords him the opportunity to grow a little bit." - - - Football NFL - - -

Fisher, who ran seven times for 19 yards and caught six passes for 40 yards in his first extensive action of the season, said he's ready to be the featured back. He previously was for one game in 2002, when he rushed for 96 yards against Minnesota while spelling an injured Green.

"Let's go. I mean, it's the same situation I was in my rookie year," Fisher said. "I probably get lost in the shuffle just because I do so much third-down stuff. But people forget I am a running back. I can the run the ball." - - - Football NFL - - -

© 2005, NFL Enterprises LLC.

Football Alive and Well in Mexico

By WILL WEISSET, Associated Press

When the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers play at Azteca Stadium on Sunday, they'll discover something Mexicans have known for some time:Football is alive and thriving in this country.

And that's without the NFL.

Consider the annual Clasico, a nasty rivalry that goes back decades and pits the National Autonomous University of Mexico's Pumas against the Aguilas Blancas, or White Eagles, of the National Polytechnic Institute. - Football Gambling -

This is Redskins vs. Cowboys, Raiders vs. Chiefs — Mexican style. "What a game," gasped the stadium announcer, his voice straining over the din of 45,000 fans. "And you, the fans, are witnessing history!" Gloria Gonzalez, a 22-year-old school teacher and Pumas fan, was crying herself hoarse at the game, which her team won 37-28. "When people think Mexico, they think soccer," she said. "But here we are, the entire stadium full, crazy for football." The Cardinals-49ers game will be the first in the regular season played outside the United States in the NFL's 83-year history.

Attempts to sustain a Mexican professional league have fizzled, but ONEFA is the country's answer to the NCAA. The Pumas, Aguilas Blancas and 10 other teams play a nine-week schedule that draws hundreds of thousands of fans to stadiums all over the country. The champion is decided by a playoff. - Football Gambling -

Youth leagues are prominent in most major cities, and 100,000 Mexican youngsters participate in an NFL-sponsored touch-football series, said Joaquin Del Rivero, general director of NFL Mexico. "When you talk to people here you realize, they know football," Del Rivero said. "They know the teams and the players of the NFL, and many of them have played the sport." Unlike Mexican League soccer, where university teams enlist professionals with no affiliation to the schools they represent, ONEFA teams are made up of students, whose eligibility ends between 25 and 26. Salomon Yanez, the 48-year-old owner of an exporting company cheering for the Aguilas Blancas, said soccer had become too commercial.

"This is much more dignified — pure," said Yanez, who said he bought tickets to the Cardinals-49ers game. "Here the youngsters are defending their colors, their universities."

Mexican games follow U.S. rules, but there are differences. Both teams in the Clasico spent little time in the huddle and the game clock was not shown on the scoreboard. The end to quarters — even the game itself — is a mystery to all but the referees. Also, special teams and kickoffs clearly need work. - Football Gambling -

Lately, the ONEFA has been dominated by rich, private universities that offer scholarships, topflight training facilities and experienced coaching staffs. First among them is Tec Monterrey, with campuses across the country.

The Tec is the alma mater of Rolando Cantu, a guard on the Cardinals practice squad and a celebrity in his hometown of Monterrey. "The magnitude of the event, a game that counts, a division game both teams really will fight to win, will bring out hundreds of thousands of fans," Cantu said.

The first NFL game in Mexico was in 1994, an exhibition in which the Houston Oilers beat the Dallas Cowboys 6-0. It set the league record for attendance by drawing 112,376 to Azteca. The stadium, home of soccer's World Cup final in 1986, has since hosted four other exhibitions. Renovations have made it impossible for attendance to top 105,000. - Football Gambling -

Cardinals-49ers tickets cost between $23 and $80, and NFL Mexico's Del Rivero said there's a 50-50 chance of a sellout. He said the league will look at attendance, Mexican TV ratings and the stadium atmosphere in determining whether it's been a success. NFL games have been televised on Mexican networks since 1966, and ESPN covers Sunday and Monday night games in Spanish while also broadcasting the ONEFA.

The most popular U.S. teams are those whose games were televised most often in the country during the 1970s: Cowboys, 49ers, Raiders, Miami Dolphins and Denver Broncos. Del Rivero said the short travel time to Mexico City and the league's attempt to reach Hispanic fans in the U.S. played key roles in bringing the game to Mexico. - Football Gambling - So far, only Mexican kickers have had lasting NFL careers. But the league has hired Marcos Guirles, who worked with New York Jets coaches during the offseason from 1998 until 2000 to act as a scout.

Raul Allegre, a Mexican who kicked for the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants between 1982 and 1993, will call Sunday's game for ESPN Deportes' Spanish-language broadcast. "I played soccer in Mexico all my life. I never even watched football games," he said. "The first game in which I kicked was the first game I ever saw. I didn't even know you had to kick an extra point." The point after — and many other of the game's nuances — were also lost on 16-year-old Marcos Galvez, a Pumas fan. - Football Gambling - "When you grow up with soccer, you are accustomed to constant motion," he said. "With American football it's hit. Stop. Hit." Then he grinned, and added, "Oh, but those hits!"

There's a reason the NFL is the king of American pro sports leagues. In fact, there are at least 10 reasons:

1. It's perfect for the American attention span.
Whether it's baseball's 162 games or the 80-something in basketball and hockey, other sports play too many games for anyone with a job or family to watch them all. Each NFL team plays just 16 regular-season games, most -- if not all -- on Sunday. Even the pace of play is perfect for today's addled minds: six seconds of intense action followed by plenty of standing around to recuperate.

2. Every team has a chance.
Even the perennially lousy Cardinals are picked by some wags as a dark-horse playoff team, and why not? This is the NFL, where it's no longer a statistical oddity when a team follows up a sub-.500 season with a trip to the Super Bowl. Even the sainted Patriots were 5-11 in 2000 before winning three out of the last four Super Bowls, back when genius Bill Belichick was still known as the dunce who was fired by the Browns and walked out on the Jets.

3. Fans can't pretend they can play pro football.
Many couch potatoes have hit a jump shot, caught a fly ball or sunk a par putt, albeit in rec leagues rather than the big time. But not even the most deluded fans can claim they know what it's like to catch a pass over the middle and get drilled by a 240-pound linebacker who runs a 4.6 40. Unless, of course, the fan is Jerry Rice.

4. It's gambling-friendly.
Paul Tagliabue doesn't want you to talk about this, but the NFL is tailor-made for side action. Whether it's an office suicide pool, a fantasy league or a straight-up wager placed with some guy named Lenny, more money changes hands during an NFL Sunday than on April 15. Plus, anybody can understand a football point spread, unlike baseball's bizarre "5½-6½" hieroglyphics.

5. Nobody whines about "small market" teams.
Thanks to the NFL's far-sighted strategy of revenue sharing (with much more impact than the salary cap), the league doesn't have franchises without the financial ability to compete -- or the ability to use lower revenues as an excuse for constant losing. While baseball has the woebegone Pirates, Brewers and Royals, for example, the NFL has the very competitive Steelers, Packers and Chiefs. Added bonus: No Clippers.

6. Big boys need love too.
According to a recent study, nearly all NFL players qualify as overweight and some 56 percent would be classified as obese. In a country whose residents are literally bursting at the seams, that's something American sports fans can relate to.

7. Steroids are old news.
The NFL started dealing with its steroids problem back in the late '80s and has suspended more than 50 players since then, enough that it's no longer a stop-the-presses bulletin when it happens. That's not to say the NFL is steroids-free, but it's nice to know even the stars have faced frequent random testing in the past decade.

8. It's the Broadway musical of sports.
Americans love a show with a huge cast and dazzling coordinated sequences. The NFL is a true spectacle, what with entire squads of men shuffling on and off the field to execute movements carefully choreographed by men sitting in luxury boxes, then communicated to the field by encrypted radio transmissions and complicated signals. Plus, the tickets cost about the same.

9. It takes itself so seriously.
The NFL fits right in with a nation where garbage men bill themselves as sanitation engineers and barbers are hair stylists. If only our nation could harness the energy spent studying the West Coast offense into, say, curing the West Nile virus. Then again, when's the last time 80,000 people gathered to cheer a guy with a test tube?

10. People like to see other people get hit.
There's a dark part of the human psyche that we don't like to talk about at dinner parties, and that part loves to see a great collision. Of course, it's much better when somebody else is absorbing the blow, especially if the lick is being laid by someone in a home jersey.

Coaches and teammates agree: Grady Harmon is a football player

By John Boyle
Seattle Times

Asked what his favorite part of football is, Grady Harmon answers without hesitation: "hitting people." - Football Gambling -

That seems like a normal response for a high-school football player until you realize that Grady Harmon is a kicker.

Scratch that. Harmon is not just a kicker. He doesn't like to be pigeonholed like that.

The Edmonds-Woodway senior is a football player, and that's how he'd like to be known — even if the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Harmon's ability to drill 40-plus-yard field goals will be what gets him onto a collegefootball field.

"People always say, 'He's just a kicker, he doesn't do anything else,' " said Harmon, who runs 40 yards in 4.7 seconds and bench presses 245 pounds. "Kickers don't get a lot of respect; that just goes with the territory. When I go out there, I try to do my best to show that I can do more than just kick." - Football Gambling -

After his junior year, Harmon was named to The Associated Press Class 4A all-state first team as a kicker, and was a WesCo South first-team selection as a kicker and punter.

This summer, Harmon's name graced the pages of Sports Illustrated when he made the Reebok Preseason All-America West Region team as a punter.

Harmon's teammates also see him as more than a kicker.

"He can play running back, he's a good defensive player, he's just a good athlete," said senior quarterback Randy Anderson, who will hold for Harmon this year. "He's definitely more than just a kicker. Usually the kicker's just some soccer player who stands around for most of the game, but this guy's afootball player." - Football Gambling -

Anderson said teammates call Harmon G-Money, "because his field goals are money every single time."
Harmon, who lists Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri as his favorite football player, has received scholarship offers from Idaho and Air Force, and recruiting interest from Arizona.

Last season, he made 34 of 36 extra points, and 12 of 15 field goals, including a long of 43 yards. Harmon says his best practice kick was 57 yards, and he hopes to make at least a 50-yarder in a game this season.

Harmon's off-the-field interests include hunting, snowboarding and wakeboarding, as well as beating his teammates in pool and bowling. - Football Gambling -

Even though his teammates praise Harmon as a football player, they'll remind him from time to time that he is a kicker.

"They'll joke with me saying, 'You're just a kicker. Anyone could do that,' " he said. "But that's what's great about playing linebacker. ... Then I can go out on the field and hit them.

"I like kicking, and I know that's what I'm going to be doing in college, but I just don't want people thinking I can't do anything else."

So far, no one is making that assumption.

"He's a football player," said Edmonds-Woodway coach John Gradwohl. "Obviously kicking is a big part of it, but he loves all aspects of the game. He is involved in all the drills. He doesn't stand on the sideline and wait to kick. He's just a good athlete." - Football Gambling -

Around the county

• Heading into her final soccer season, Jackson midfielder Dani Oster can cross choosing a college off her to-do list.

Oster, 17, made a verbal commitment to Oregon, choosing the Ducks over Washington, Washington State, Gonzaga, Oregon State and Stanford, to name a few.

"It's such a relief to have that decision out of the way," said Oster, who scored 20 goals while leading the Timberwolves to the Class 4A state girls soccer semifinals. "That takes some pressure off me and I can just enjoy life and enjoy this season."

Oster said she chose Oregon, in part, because she will likely be able to contribute to the rebuilding program right away. - Football Gambling -

• Team White knocked off Team Green 2-1 in the Everett Silvertips annual Green vs. White scrimmage Sunday. Kyle Annesley scored both goals for Team White, and John Lammers scored for Team Green.

Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company

Critics pan football for South plan
Cable TV viewers may be 'lured to gambling'

Opposition is building to Interior Minister Kongsak Wantana's idea of giving young people in the South access to free cable television to watch football matches.Critics are worried it would not only fail to divert them from separatism but lure them into gambling and drugs.Muslim leaders and National Reconciliation Commission chairman Anand Panyarachun said it made no sense to offer free cable television to every village community in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces and expect southern hostility to be tamed as a result.Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, said the project was put forward not by the government but a private sector party, understood to be a cable television operator. Installation costs and other expenses would be paid for by the company.The cable operator wished to do its part by sponsoring useful viewing programmes to alleviate hardship for southern residents as suggested by Her Majesty the Queen during her Aug 12 annual birthday speech.ACM Kongsak said the project would mainly broadcast football matches to keep young people focused on sports. He was convinced that if their minds were occupied with constructive activities, the youths would be less inclined to cause trouble and give the separatist movement a wide berth.The cable channels would be installed at popular hangouts such as tea houses.Critics believed keeping young people glued to television would not weaken separatist-instigated terror campaign.Mr Anand said youth who watched football could be lured into vice such as drugs and betting.The government should concentrate on the ''tangibles'' by building sports facilities and supplying equipment.''One doesn't get work up any sweat watching football on television. It should be about getting physical,'' he said. Mr Anand said football was usually associated with betting. Many unemployed and uneducated people in border provinces hung around tea shops to watch football and placed stakes on the game.Drugs in the deep South were also available in many types. Cable television would be the perfect excuse for youths to stay up late in an environment that could persuade them to make trouble.Chairmen of the Islamic committees in the southern provinces also said the television was no solution to the unrest. Abdullah Jaesae, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Yala, said southern youths were already able to watch international football matches. Yet the violence carried on unabated. ''It's irrelevant. They could go out there and attack people right after watching the game,'' he said. Most households owned television sets and subscribed to the cable service.During football seasons, teenagers crowded tea houses and shops to follow the matches and were often involved in brawls with caretakers of community mosques, said Abdullahman Abdulsomat, chairman of Narathiwat's Islamic Committee. He said if the project went ahead, it should offer a variety of programmes besides sports. Watching football and betting often went together.Waedueramae Mamingji, who chairs Pattani's Islamic Committee, said he could not understand how television would reduce the violence. Asri Ya, a third-year humanities student at Prince of Songkhla University's Pattani campus, said football would not stop or even distract separatist militants. Ason Sani, 45, owner of a tea house in downtown Pattani, said many customers watched football at his shop and passed around lists of pundits joining the bet and the value of the stakes. Many youths were drawn to gambling and in his view making televised football games more readily accessible would only worsen the situation.Muhamad Nasir Hayeeraya, a Muslim cleric, said cable programmes aired content that contradicted local traditions.Problems with drugs and gambling were becoming so serious that some grassroots leaders and Muslim teachers were pushing to have entertainment outlets with cable TV closed down.Nujjarin Benrahim, a Narathiwat resident, said the cable television could be a good thing, but it should be installed at schools instead of tea houses so programmes could be regulated.

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