Bottom of the Bird Cage 4/28

We are in Day No. 118 of the year.

On April 28, 1945 Benito Mussolini and his mistress were executed by a firing squad of the Italian resistance movement. And talk about juxtaposition: born on this day in 1908 was Oskar Schindler, the Austrian businessman who saved more than a thousand Jews from the Nazi death camps. And born on this day in 1937 was Saddam Hussien, who killed many thousands of people during his time as dictator of Iraq.

And on this day in 1993, Jim Valvano died of bone cancer. He was 47 years old. Less t han two months before he passed, Valvano spoke at the ESPY Awards where he received the Arthur Ashe For Courage. Jimmy V loved to talk, but his speech that night will always be his most remembered words, especially this passage:

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week you’re going to have something special.”

Here’s a link to the whole 10-minute speech back in March of 1993. It’s worth the time.

Jim Valvano was something special.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: The Eagles’ first-round draft pick arrived at the NovaCare Complex for the first time yesterday with a father who didn’t look anything like him and, in fact, didn’t even know him for the first eight years of his often turbulent life. Jeremy Maclin, a star wide receiver during his two seasons at Missouri, met Jeff Parres when he joined a peewee football team in Kirkwood, Mo., at the age of 9. “I’ve coached little league football for 20 years,” Parres said. “It’s my passion and I was coaching my older son’s team. Jeremy joined the team when he was nine.”

Parres, a urologist, said it was evident early that Maclin had special athletic talent. “We play in the city of St. Louis, and it’s a pretty competitive league,” Parres said. “You could see Jeremy was good. He was one of the two or three better athletes in his age group.”

In time, something else besides Maclin’s immense talent on a football field became obvious to Parres and his eldest son, Tyler. “On weeknights, we’d take him home after practice and there were times when there was no one at home and the doors would be locked, and he’d have to climb through the windows to get in,” Parres said. “And then he wouldn’t have any dinner sometimes. Those were the tough times.”

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Mizzou fans have known the story of Jeremy Maclin’s life for years, but now the rest of the country is getting a chance to find out how lucky the young man has been. He was lucky in the athletic abilities that he was born with and lucky in the fact that in the worst possible time in his life, he found Jeff Parres and his family. And he was lucky again when the NFL Draft led him to a winning, stable franchise, rather than a struggling, rebuilding team. We can only hope that Jeremy Maclin knows is a lucky young man.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:
All the national analysts wanted to talk about were the two players Oakland picked Saturday: Maryland wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey at No. 7 overall and little-known Ohio safety Michael Mitchell in the second round. Cable couldn’t care less about their overall F report cards if he tried, and he’s not about to try.

“I don’t need to stand up and beat my chest and say, ‘The hell with everyone,’ ” Cable said. “I’m going to take a statement, if you will, from Bill Walsh. When you find a player you want, go get him. And that’s what I did. Don’t let anyone detract you, and don’t worry about what they say.”

Some look at Shaughnessy and see someone who broke his leg and tore his ACL in college, then had a down year as a senior. The Raiders see a high-motor pass rusher similar to Raiders defensive end Trevor Scott.

Others look at Murphy and see the second-best receiver at Florida who might have been a product of the spread-offense system. The Raiders see a 6-foot-2 threat with sub-4.4 speed akin to Raiders wide receiver Chaz Schilens.

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The Raiders have their way of doing things … rather Al Davis has his way of doing things, and thus the Raiders work in that direction. Whether Oakland screwed up its draft class worse than anybody else is something we must all wait and see. Recent history says they are likely to have problems. But I’ve got to hand it to Al: the Raiders are going to be doing it his way down to his final breath. And, maybe beyond.

From Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell:
One more two-hour meeting with Jason Campbell ought to be enough. The Redskins’ brass can explain to him that, even though they tried to move heaven and earth to trade for airhead, pouting, party boy passer Jay Cutler three weeks ago, and despite the fact that they were still trying to trade up to grab USC quarterback Mark Sanchez on draft day yesterday, the team’s top executives still love him madly.

Or, as Vinny Cerrato, executive vice president of football operations, said, “Jason was always going to be the starter next season,” even if the Redskins had gotten Sanchez. Would that have been before or after Campbell requested a trade?

The day before the draft, NFL sources said Campbell’s agent, Joel Segal, said that if the Redskins drafted Sanchez, Campbell would make a get-out-of-town request. For the last 10 years, the Redskins have treated far too many people like trash. Maybe that’s why their results so often look like “garbage in, garbage out.” Now, with their whole Campbell calamity, they risked treating their dignified starting quarterback like disposable refuse. At least that potential showdown has now been avoided.

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Seriously, are the Raiders any more screwed up than the Washington Redskins? If you’ve have a halfway decent young quarterbacks, and the Redskins do in Jason Campbell, then you do everything you can to make him feel like he’s Godzilla. But if you don’t think he’s good enough, and you want to get into the dance to see if you can land a Jay Cutler or Mark Sanchez, then as a team/owner/GM, you had better make sure you land your man. I’m sorry, but the Skins are giving the Raiders a real run for the money when it comes to befuddling decisions.