On the national scene some very interesting things have happened over the past few days.

One, the most interesting to me, has been the Patriots’ videotaping of the Jets’ sideline to uncover defensive signals. Honestly, I’ve rarely been as dumbfounded by anything in sports ever. This is a big deal? Seriously?

I just always took it for granted that everybody in the NFL did this to some extent — I mean doesn’t every head coach in the league block their mouth with a play-call sheet to keep people from reading their lips? Does the NFL really believe that if it comes down to it, a franchise can’t send an advance scout into an opposing stadium with a recording device of some kind and tape the sideline anyway? Shouldn’t you expect that if you’re in a stadium with 70,000 people and millions watching on TV that everything you do is being watched and/or recorded? Anyway, I’m really having a hard time getting terribly worked up about it. Figuring that stuff out is what a coaching staff is supposed to do. It may not be what an English gentleman sitting down for tea and crumpets after a cricket match might expect from his sportsmen, but it’s certainly the American way. And it’s certainly Bill Belichick’s way. We’re talking about a football coach, a group notorious for comparing their “battles” to actual war, who grew up at the Naval Academy where his dad was a coach. (Sidenote: Look for former Belichick assistant Charlie Weis to be involved in the ending of the longest losing streak in the country when his Notre Dame team loses to Navy for the first time in something like 400 years this season.) Somebody’s going to try to tell me this guy isn’t into the war games and espionage-like intricacies of winning that battle, a battle where millions of dollars and jobs hang in the balance, every week? And in this whole million-dollar game we’re supposed to be shocked that somebody is trying to figure out the hand signals a defensive coordinator is sending into his middle linebacker? Gimme a break.

Secondly, I was sad to see the Pats’ Rodney Harrison get rung up on a suspension for admitting to using HGH (while he routinely beat up on my Chiefs when he was a Charger, he plays the game with a ferocity and intelligence that you can’t help but respect and admire as a football fan). But it comes back to one of the things I’ve always said about the performance-enhancing drug debate — where does the line start and stop? I’m almost 100 percent sure that Lance Armstrong used the moral calculus that modern medicine saved his life, so why shouldn’t modern medicine also help him regain his form as one of the top cyclists in the world. Harrison plays the most violent game on the planet, and as a result he suffered a completely destroyed knee and a completely destroyed shoulder in the span of two years. He admitted to using HGH to help in the recovery process. How much different is that than somebody taking a cortisone shot and painkiller to go out and play in the biggest game of the year? How much different is it than a lineman going in after every year and getting a new synthetic knee ligament put in to get through the next season? It’s all “performance-enhancing” isn’t it?

Third thing is how bad is the Portland Trail Blazers’ luck? Top pick Greg Oden is going to miss the entire season as a result of having to undergo microfracture knee surgery. Only three players in NBA history have come back successfully from that procedure (Amare Stoudemire, Jason Kidd and Zach Randolph). Kidd and Randolph never were the type of players to get off the floor much (they’re both high-IQ ball players) while Stoudemire has been something of the one-in-a-million shot, coming back pretty closely, although not as explosively, to his previous form. The Blazers have to be feeling sick. They passed on a kid that is going to be one of the greatest scorers ever in Kevin Durant, and now they’ve got a 7-footer who looks like he’s 45 and whose body may actually be as worn down as a 45-year-old’s. Tough.

But, not as tough as Kevin Everett. The Buffalo Bills tight end shattered his spinal cord on a special teams play on Sunday playing the Broncos. The injury was described as “life-threatening” and “catastrophic” by his doctors, but now he’s moving his legs and there is real hope that he may some day lead a normal life. That is phenomenal and uplifting news. It’s always good to get some of that every now and again. Good luck to Mr. Everett and his family.

- Padraic

I didn’t know Kevin Morsching really well. His run through the halls of St. Thomas More came half a decade or more after mine, but our paths crossed on occasion — once for an athlete of the week story, plenty of times at Fitzgerald Stadium — and he was always the same, highly impressive young man, no matter when you saw him. The last time I talked to him was after the SDSU-Northern Colorado game at Fitzgerald Stadium last spring. I’ll never forget how warm and kind his spirit was. Kevin Morsching was the type of man that you don’t forget, the type that you want your little brothers or sons to grow up to be like.

I’ve probably written one hundred high school athlete of the week stories in my time at the Journal. There are a handful that stick out in my mind and Kevin Morsching was definitely one of them. He was smart and humble and had an easily detectable burning competitiveness and deep laugh that was truly infectious. That combined with a keen awareness of the feelings and needs of others around him — particularly his teammates — that you just don’t see in young people very often.

He was a credit to his family, first and foremost, but also to every organization and team that he represented in his full life. He made me so proud to be a graduate of STM, so I guess it’s little wonder that his life so touched others that he would have tributes like these … 

http://www.redwoodtimes.com/localsports/ci_6725361

http://arcataeye.com/albums/album13/20070828_G.jpg

… written about him in a place where he only spent a few short months. It may sound cliched, but he was simply a great person. His family obviously has much to grieve over — but they also have much, so much, to be proud of. Thank you, Kevin Morsching, for showing everybody everywhere you went just how great we Rapid Citians can be. And thank you to the Morsching family for bringing Kevin and all of his gifts to this place for the all too short period of time that he was with us. Your son’s kind laugh and competitive fire will always be remembered. I hope that sometime, somewhere, I have the pleasure of interviewing another high school athlete something like him. But I won’t be surprised if I don’t.

- Padraic     

I never thought I’d see the day when a team like Appalachian State (two-time defending champ in what used to be classified as Div. I-AA) would go into one of the most intimidating stadiums in all of college football and beat a top-10 team like Michigan. The final score was 34-32 in what has to be the biggest upset in college football history.

Basketball sees upsets somewhat similar in scope if only because it’s easier for a smaller basketball team to play against a big-time school, mostly because of simple numbers. You don’t need to field a huge team like you do in football and getting hot from the 3-point line is a little more feasible than all of a sudden getting bigger and faster. But even the biggest upset in college hoops history (Chaminade over Virginia in the early 80’s) happened on the little guy’s home floor.

This was such a “gimme” that there was no betting line in Vegas. Michigan returned potential first-round NFL picks Chad Henne, Mike Hart, Mario Manningham and Jake Long and got handled by a school with nowhere near the resources (money, scholarships, tradition, etc.).

Is there anything in sports history quite like the Wolverines dropping this game? Is there hope for the rest of Michigan’s year?

- Padraic