By Pete Williams

As a sports-crazed kid growing up in Northern Virginia, George Michael was my lifeline. My parents never paid for cable TV – a streak that still stands – and until I left for college in the fall of 1987, I rarely had caught a glimpse of ESPN, CNN, WGN, or WTBS.

That left Michael, the longtime WRC Channel 4 sports anchor who died today, as my main source for sports. I watched his reports at 6 and 11 and his Sunday night “Sports Final,” which later became the syndicated “Sports Machine.” To get updated scores during other hours, I’d call his constantly-updated sports line.

I wasn’t that interested in rodeo or pro wrestling, but Michael made them interesting. There’s no way I would have become a NASCAR fan were it not for Michael.

I loved the banter Michael had with the other WRC anchors, especially the way he constantly busted the balls of Jim Vance during sports highlights and how you could hear movie critic Arch Campbell in the background erupting in laughter.

Once Michael became syndicated, it was always funny to watch him push the same button of his “sports machine” to queue up the next highlight. The set looked like the Star Trek bridge when it debuted and always seemed to be a few years behind when it came to set design, but that was part of the charm.

I used to think some of Michael’s profiles and interviews with big-time athletes were a little too fawning, but that’s nothing compared to the shameless jock-sniffing Stuart Scott and others provide on ESPN.

These days, I’m unable to watch ESPN’s SportsCenter. I can’t stand the endless teasers, the non-stop cross-promotional nonsense and the insufferable anchors and their lame attempts at being hip. Give me Michael and his timeless approach, his honest enthusiasm, and his non-stop energy.

Because of ESPN’s success, there are few big-time local sports anchors left. Cash-strapped affiliates can’t afford them. Even WRC parted ways with Michael several years ago. But it wasn’t that long ago that D.C. had three giants as sports anchors: Michael, Frank Herzog, and the late Glenn Brenner.

Eleven years ago, I fell into a role as a weekend sports anchor here in Tampa Bay. I did it for about two years and even now fill in occasionally on the Bright House Sports Network. It’s much harder than it looks and, of course, I’m no George Michael.

But from my first broadcast, I adopted Michael’s approach of introducing highlights by saying, “We/let’s head out to (insert sports venue or city).” I didn’t notice I was doing it until another D.C. area transplant pointed it out.

It’s something I’ve continued doing, something I’ll do tomorrow night when I happen to be guest anchoring on BHSN.

I’ll miss George Michael.

The man was a sports machine.

By Pete Williams

It’s not every day you get to re-live the first day of your professional career.

That’s pretty much what I did last night, covering the NCAA women’s volleyball Final Four in Tampa, writing a story on the Minnesota-Texas semifinal for The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. (These are tough times in the newspaper business and the Star-Tribune could not afford to send a writer to Tampa.)

There were differences, to be sure. On September 9, 1987, I covered a volleyball game between George Washington University and the University of Virginia for our U.Va. student newspaper. There were no laptops or e-mail. If memory serves, we were a year away from getting a fax machine at The Cavalier Daily. I was a month shy of my 18th birthday and though “The CD” was a pretty professional operation, there was no compensation involved. After the game, I wandered up to the newspaper office and typed the story into a “computer” bigger than a Microwave oven.

In 1987, there were no college volleyball games on television, let alone webcast, and few players who stood more than six feet tall. I covered a lot of volleyball that fall, a little more the following year, but until last night had gone more than two decades without writing about college volleyball.

In the meantime, the powers that be in the NCAA and NBA made the boneheaded decision to market women’s basketball instead of volleyball. I’ve never understood this. Women’s basketball is horrible to watch. It’s played below the hoop, with a smaller ball, with women wearing baggy, unflattering uniforms.

Women’s volleyball, like women’s tennis, is better than the men’s version because of longer rallies. There’s still a power game at the net, and women wear tight, flattering outfits.

It doesn’t help that the AVP, the main professional volleyball circuit, was for many years a mostly men’s tour run by the male players themselves. Only in recent years, with the success of Olympic beach volleyball, has the AVP realized that people care more about the women’s game.

Watching the Minnesota-Texas game last night, I wondered if it was the same sport I covered in 1987. The rally scoring was new, along with the designation of a defensive specialist as a “libero” with a different colored jersey.

But the main difference was that the rosters included a combined 16 players that stood 6-feet or taller. If you’ve ever doubted those studies that suggest girls of this generation are developing more quickly and growing taller because of hormones in our food and milk, just watch some women’s volleyball. (The best player on the court was 6-4 Destinee Hooker of Texas, a three-time NCAA high jump champ and possessor of one of the great sports names of all time.)

Covering volleyball is a little different than it was in 1987. I sat on press row with my laptop and Blackberry, checking e-mail and posting Facebook updates, texting and taking a few calls. A writer next to me from Honolulu was tweeting. There was a CBS crew in front of us, including color analyst Karch Kiraly, one of those male players who ran the AVP as a men’s tour for most of the ‘80s and’90s.

After the game, I wrote a 500-word story, about the same length as my 1987 piece on the Virginia home opener. This time, I filed it electronically, packed up and went home. I’ll never see today’s Star-Tribune newspaper – I’ve only been to Minneapolis once – but this morning I read the piece online. I never spoke to the editor who hired me – just e-mail and a quick call to the desk before I left.

Since that first 1987 story, I’ve written several thousand articles and a dozen books, dabbled in radio, TV, and every other media form created. Jack of all trades, master of some on certain days, I suppose. Newspapers, the most powerful news medium in ‘87, are on the verge of extinction.

So perhaps that’s why I felt nostalgic as I composed a 15-inch volleyball game story in pretty much the same fashion as I did 22 years ago. I was feeling pretty good about the evening until someone asked the Texas players how they felt to have an opportunity to win the program’s first national title since 1988.

Juliann Faucette, a junior on the team, spoke up. “I think that 1988 was a really long time ago. I wasn’t even born yet.”

By Pete Williams

Here’s a rule that would go a long way toward solving the problems of parents and youth sports: Kids can play only sports that their parents never played.

We also should eliminate football from the discussion because every guy thinks he’s an expert at football even if never strapped on a helmet.

This dawned on me over the weekend as I worked my son’s first home swim meet. Club rules dictate that parents must work five of eight sessions of a three-day swim meet, which comes to about 15 hours. That’s a huge commitment, which weeds out a lot of meddling parents.

As I worked as a timer and a marshall (more on that in a moment), I had time to talk with other parents. The common denominator between us is that none of us had been involved in organized swimming as kids. Heck, I didn’t learn to swim properly until two and a half years ago. Even after 20 triathlons, all I have is a basic freestyle stroke. No backstroke, fly, or breast. I can’t dive and I’m more likely to dunk a basketball before I execute a flip turn.

So I am in no position to ever second guess coaches or comment on anything they do. Our coaches seem to be doing a terrific job. Our son, Luke, is having a blast and becoming a better swimmer with each practice. What’s not to like?

I’ve become a huge fan of youth swimming and wish I had been on a swim team as a kid. I played baseball from the age of 8 through high school and do you know how many legitimate workouts I had in all of those years of “practice?” Absolutely none. Luke gets more out of his 200-yard warm-up swim than I did in any youth baseball practice.

Most every sport – baseball, football, basketball, hockey, volleyball, and soccer – is plagued by obnoxious parents convinced that their kids should be getting more playing time. This doesn’t happen in swimming. That’s because the clock doesn’t lie. You think your kid is faster? Let’s look at the stopwatch.

One of the best experiences I’ve had as a sportswriter was spending a few days at Harry Wendelstedt’s Umpire School, which is run by big-league umpires. Everyone should have to strap on the gear, stand behind the catcher, and call balls and strikes. Do that for five minutes and you will never criticize a sports official ever again.

As a marshall at the swim meet, my one and only job was to keep parents off of the pool deck, making sure they sat in the bleachers upstairs. I policed the pool entrance from the men’s locker room exit, but my female counterpart must not have been so diligent.

Before one session, a coach approached me and said, “Hey, buddy. Don’t look up, but you see that blonde behind me.”

“One of your parents, Coach?”

“Yeah, she’s driving me nuts. Could you boot her upstairs?”

She didn’t go quietly, yet another helicopter parent. When did parents decide they have to micromanage every aspect of their children’s lives? If they’re not second-guessing coaches and teachers – even at the college level – they’re scheduling “play-dates.”

Heaven forbid kids would go outside and play on their own. I dealt with a steady parade of parents coming on to the pool deck “just to see if he’s okay” or to relay a snack or bottle of water. They didn’t think to pack everything in the swim bag at once?

Swimming is not immune to bad parents. My masters swim coach, a local legend who has been coaching for 40 years, gave up on coaching kids. It’s not that the kids were any better or worse than they were a generation or two ago.

It’s because he no longer could tolerate the parents.

By Pete Williams

The paperback edition of CORE PERFORMANCE GOLF comes out this week. It’s the latest version of the book I wrote with prominent trainer Mark Verstegen.

Unlike the hardcover, which featured a picture of Mark on the cover, the paperback has a photo of an unnamed golfer who bears a resemblance to Tiger Woods, right down to the wardrobe and black hat. The subtitle of our book is “The Revolutionary Training and Nutrition Program for Success On and Off the Course.”

That’s not the “off-the-course success” and performance Mark is referring to, though this program will help golfers feel stronger, healthier, and more powerful.

Our publisher came up with this cover image months ago. What timing.

By Pete Williams

When the New York Jets visit the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, there won’t be one-tenth the interest that there was the last time the Jets came to town.

It was late September 2000. Keyshawn Johnson had just joined the Buccaneers after a bitter departure from New York. The Jets were in a weird place, with Bill Parcells having resigned the previous offseason and Bill Belichick turning down the job after initially accepting it, bolting for New England.

That left Al Groh as the Jets’ head coach. Groh, who had bombed as a head coach at Wake Forest early in his career, was best known as a longtime Parcells/Belichick assistant.

I knew little about Groh at the time, but fortunately Keyshawn was willing to bring all of us in the Tampa Bay media up to speed. He began the week ripping Groh, the Jets, and especially pint-sized wide receiver Wayne Chrebet. It was epic. Each day at the old One Buc Place Keyshawn staged an impromptu news conference to reiterate his stance, just to make sure we understood. As the week progressed, the New York tabloids began sending reinforcements. Keyshawn was happy to repeat himself, famously referring to Chrebet as a “flashlight,” himself a “star.”

The Bucs were off to a 3-0 start following a loss the previous season in the NFC title game and looked like favorites to play at home in the Super Bowl. The locker room included Warren Sapp, John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, Shaun King, and of course Tony Dungy – all now national TV types. (Trent Dilfer, perhaps the best future TV analyst, had departed the previous season.) But the biggest quote machine was Johnson, who all but guaranteed a victory.

Groh, if nothing else, knows how to game-plan defense. He shut down Keyshawn, holding him to one catch on a one-yard shovel pass. The Jets won in the waning seconds when – who else? – Chrebet hauled in the winning touchdown. The Bucs lost their next three and rallied to make the playoffs, where they lost to Philadelphia.

After the Flashlight Game, Groh said little at Raymond James Stadium, but dropped this line: “Sometimes forty flashlights shine brighter than one star.”

In twenty years of covering sports, I’ve never seen a player look so foolish. This Al Groh guy looked pretty smart. I don’t think it registered at the time that we shared an alma mater, the University of Virginia. Less than three months later, after just one (9-7) season as an NFL head coach, Groh resigned to succeed the retiring George Welsh at U.Va.

Four years later, I was writing THE DRAFT, a book that chronicled the year-long talent evaluation process leading up the NFL Draft. Since U.Va. had a lot of top draft-eligible players (Heath Miller, Chris Canty, among them), I visited Groh in his office in Charlottesville. On a shelf he had one of the Jets team-logo flashlights he issued players after the Bucs game. I mentioned I had covered that game and we spent a few interesting minutes reliving it.

U.Va. fired Groh two weeks ago after nine seasons, including three losing campaigns in the last four. Groh produced a lot of NFL talent, but struggled to win college games with it. These days, I wonder if Keyshawn Johnson wasn’t right. Al Groh is a terrific defensive mind, one of the best at coaching the linebacker position. But given his tenure at Wake, Virginia, and the Jets, it’s fair to say he was not head coach material.

But for one afternoon, he looked like the best head coach in the NFL.

By Pete Williams

It’s the time of year to take stock of one’s accomplishments. I’m proud that I completed a bunch of triathlons, accomplished some professional goals. But nothing compares to reading the entire seven-book Harry Potter series….aloud.

I have new respect for the guy who does the Harry Potter audiobooks. He apparently knocks them out in two or three days and uses dozens of different voices. This is amazing.

I know. Early in the year, I took the first Harry Potter book off the shelf and decided to read a chapter to my six-year-old. He liked it. So I read another chapter the next night, and the next night, and the next night.

When we were done with the first book, we started the second. Some nights we read two or three chapters. One night we read five. If we finished a book and it wasn’t quite bedtime, we’d start the next one. We took a few months off during the summer and missed some nights when I was away, but other than that we were consistent.

Reading aloud is like distance running. The first time you do it, it’s impossible to complete more than ten pages. It doesn’t matter how many children’s books you’ve read, it’s like going from 5K races to marathons. Your mouth gets dry, you begin to feel hoarse, and your throat begins to ache. I’ve done three-hour sports radio shows, but that’s easier. There are commercial breaks, callers, guests, and co-hosts.

But like distance running, endurance develops. When I need a break, I have Luke read a page. He’ll never need to know words like “occlumency,” “quidditch,” and “Avada Kadavra,” but they’re now part of his vocabulary.

I read all seven books as they were released, but reading aloud is a different experience, especially with a kid raising good questions. (“Why can’t they just turn things into money?”) Plus, you find yourself asking questions (“If Hagrid’s father was human and his mother a 20-foot giant, how exactly did….never mind.”)

It helps that the Harry Potter movies stay more true to the books than perhaps any other film adaptations. Driving back from a family trip to Miami last month, I climbed in the back with the boys and watched one of the movies. We’ve had the minivan for five years and I’ve never done that. The sound and picture quality was amazing. Where was this car-trip technology thirty years ago?

By the end of the month, we’ll be finished with the seventh and final book, which means we need to find new reading material. For now, I hope Luke goes back to the first book and reads to himself for a while.

My voice needs a rest.

By Pete Williams

Congrats to my alma mater, the University of Virginia, for hiring the right guy as football coach. Mike London is the best choice for any number of reasons.

There’s a tendency of some to wonder if London will be an Al Groh disciple, yet another micromanaging, just-coach-the-team, control freak to fall from the Parcells/Belichick coaching tree.

That’s a ridiculous notion. Not just because London in his introductory remarks in Charlottesville said he’ll allow assistant coaches to speak to the media. Not because he has no use for the spread offense or Groh’s beloved 3-4 defense. Not because, unlike Groh, he knows his way around the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Nope, it’s because London is more than a football coach, as detailed in this Washington Post story last August. He’s a father of seven who early in his career spent three years as a cop in Richmond chasing drug dealers.

You get the impression London will prepare players for the NFL, if they’re so qualified, but won’t construct his program like an NFL prep school as Groh did. You get the impression the ex-cop will have zero tolerance for the knuckleheads and miscreants that were so much a part of Groh’s tenure.

You get the impression London knows every nook and cranny of football talent in the state, but will bring in only players who will fit the school in terms of character and academics, guys like native Virginians Chris Slade, Chris Long, Terry Kirby, Tiki and Ronde Barber, Herman Moore, Shawn Moore, and Heath Miller.

You get the impression London will be more of a speak-softly, tough-love kind of guy like Tony Dungy. Perhaps it’s appropriate London became Virginia’s coach less than 24 hours after Dungy ripped the NCAA for its lack of African-American head coaches.

I’ve been around a lot of coaches and managers in my 22-year sports writing career and the two I’ve been most impressed with are Dungy and Terry Holland, the last guy to have any long-term success as Virginia’s basketball coach. Both inspired calm and confidence in their teams. Both are level-headed and even-keeled. Both seem like boring guys during interviews, but then you replay the tape and hear something profound and insightful. Both lack that raging ego gene that’s so prevalent among modern coaches and managers. That’s probably why Holland and Dungy retired from coaching at a young age.

Mike London reminds me of those two guys, though he’s clearly his own man.

He seems exactly the man for the job.

By Pete Williams

In the new movie “The Blind Side,” based on the Michael Lewis book written mostly about Michael Oher of the Baltimore Ravens, there’s a rapid-fire sequence of scenes where numerous big-time college football coaches pay Oher a visit at home.

There’s Nick Saban of LSU, Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville, Lou Holtz of South Carolina, Ed Orgeron of Ole Miss, and Phillip Fullmer of Tennessee.

The scene is from the fall of 2004, Oher’s senior year of high school. None of those five coaches is still in the same job, though they all donned the gear of their old employers for the film.

Turnover like this is not unusual, which is why it’s ridiculous for college coaches to bad-mouth their embattled competitors, telling recruits that they should not sign with a school about to have a coaching change. These days, it’s a 50-50 bet at best that a coach will stay in a new gig for four years.

Like Lewis, I also wrote a football book (The Draft) in the fall of 2004. It centered on the year-long talent evaluation process that goes on before the NFL Draft. I spent a lot of time with players, college coaches, agents, and NFL executives.

In the last week, three of the central figures in the book have been fired or forced out. The University of Virginia fired its coach, Al Groh. Bobby Bowden, the longtime head coach at Florida State, retired amid pressure. And Tim Ruskell stepped down today as president of the Seattle Seahawks after a five-year run.

They actually were among the last people in the book still in the same job. Chan Gailey and Larry Coker are long gone from Georgia Tech and Miami, respectively. Two years ago, the Atlanta Falcons replaced Rich McKay as general manager, though kept him on as president. Jon Gruden is out in Tampa, though thriving at ESPN. Even Tony Dungy retired. Many of the players from the 2005 NFL Draft are out of football. After all, the average NFL career is just three years.

I spent a lot of time with the Atlanta Falcons for the book. They have three players left from the 2004 roster. Back then, Michael Vick was the starting quarterback and Matt Schaub the back-up.

Most of the other people I dealt with for the book have new jobs: scouts, PR people, college administrators, assistants. Some agents have left the business, others have merged with other firms.

That’s why if someone ever wants to make a film of “The Draft” (and the rights are available!), it will be a lot like “The Blind Side,” with characters wearing the gear of former employers.

Nothing lasts forever or even very long in sports.

Or anywhere else these days.

By Pete Williams

One man is best qualified to help Tiger Woods through these trying times and he has plenty of time to talk. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall for this conversation?

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Tiger. Chelsea gave me your number.”

“Hey, Man. Hold on. MJ’s teeing off.”

“Jordan?”

“Oh! Nasty slice, your Airness. Looks like another five grand for the Presidential library!”

“Mr. President, I need to talk.”

“I’ll say. I was just discussing your crisis management strategy with Big Mac and A-Rod. We love the stonewalling, the non-denial. Using the Web site to communicate, just brilliant. Then yesterday you cave. C’mon. You’re better than that. Who’s advising you? Ari Fleischer?”

“It’s complicated…Wait a minute. McGwire and Alex are there?”

“That’s us. The Teflon Foursome. Hold on. Mac in the box.”

“What’s he looking at?”

“Four-seventy-five, dogleg left. Oh! He got all of that one. Man, the Cardinals are going to love their new hitting coach. Big Mac is back!”

“That’s kind of what I want to talk to you about, Mr. President.”

“Baseball? I get it. A-Rod was just saying how you’re finally one of them. ‘Course, A-Rod’s old lady was just a kindergarten teacher. Cheating on a nanny? Damn, Tiger, usually guys cheat with the nanny.”

“I don’t know how to handle this. You made it look so easy.”

“That’s different. People expected it. My wife is no Elin. And it’s not like I was tapping Miss US Weekly. Who’d I have? Jones? Flowers? Lewinsky? Even the Republicans felt sorry for me.”

“But you and Mrs. Clinton are still married.”

“Got to love cabinet posts with lots of travel! Barack in 2012!”

“With all due respect, Mr. President, I feel like you got off easy, even with the impeachment stuff. It’s not 1998 anymore.”

“No kidding. Jaimee was what, 13? Back then, Olbermann was doing Lewinsky shows every night. Now he’s my biggest fan. Who knew? Shoot, I can remember when he was on ESPN making Dick Trickle jokes.”

“Please, no jokes.”

“Okay, though I got to tell you, the four of us have been talking about getting some of those Tiger sock protectors – the ones you put on your club head.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Jesper Parnevik called. He wants his nanny back.”

“Please stop.”

“I’ve got the Eye of the Tiger!”

“Was that MJ?”

“Yeah, he’s been talking trash all morning. He can’t wait to get you on the course and take some of your money.”

“See, that’s what I don’t get. Entire books were written about his gambling, his treatment of teammates, and nothing ever sticks to him. He spends more time on the course than I do, even though he works for the Bobcats. Did you hear his Hall of Fame speech? And don’t get me started with A-Rod. He cheated with a stripper, used steroids, annoyed everyone in baseball, makes almost half as much as I do, and never won anything until the Yankees bought six other comparable players. And he gets a complete pass.”

“That’s why you have to learn from these guys, Tiger. Mike never pretended to be anything else. A-Rod used to try to be Cal Ripken and was exposed as a fraud. Now he’s embraced his inner dog and people love him.”

“I don’t know, Sir.”

“Look, you can continue this Mr. Goody Two Shoes act and you know who you’ll be? Pete Sampras. Best in the world and everyone thinks you’re boring. Plus, you’re held up to an impossible higher standard. We know you’re not that guy. This will blow over. As you said, you’re human. You’re also now interesting.”

“You’re right, but I’m going to lay low for a while. Maybe I can sneak out and play with you guys. Tell MJ to bring his wallet.”

“Looks like the Teflon Foursome is expanding!”

“I guess. Hey, I hear Chelsea got engaged.”

“That’s right. Hillary and I are very excited. They’re going to be so happy together.”

By Pete Williams

I watch little television and what I do is on cable. When HBO’s True Blood and Entourage finished their seasons a few months ago, my TV viewing dropped to zero.

That is, until I caught a glimpse of “Hoarders,” the A&E program about people who collect so much junk that their homes become health hazards. Many of these folks, who suffer from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), reach a point where they stop putting anything in the trash. If a toilet stops working, they continue to use it. Junk is piled four feet high throughout the house. Rodents and cockroaches are present. Children are taken away for their own safety. Usually there are dead cats.

It’s like watching post-hurricane news footage of damaged homes, with junk strewn everywhere, only the homes are still intact.

Hoarders, which debuted its second season last night, was one of the top new shows of last year. Each episode begins with family members of the hoarder, usually a parent in their late 60s, staging an intervention. A psychologist specializing in OCD arrives, along with a cleaning crew. When the hoarder cooperates, it’s not uncommon for them to remove up to 10,000 pounds of junk.

The show is addictive because most of us have a quirky old relative who is a hoarder. Maybe not to this degree, but well on their way. Others watch the show and feel better about their own cluttered homes – or get inspired to purge.

One hoarder could not stop purchasing junk from clearance tables at Home Depot. He filled a house along with a would-be rental apartment that he could not lease because it was storing his junk. His wife estimated they had lost $250,000 in potential rental income over the years.

One woman hit thrift stores three times a week. When the cleaning crew arrived, she went ballistic when one of them tried to toss an old Slurpee cup. She agreed to the intervention only if her stuff could be put in storage. So the crew, using snow shovels to pick up garbage, filled 1,200 boxes. Presumably, she was going to pay for storage.

Another guy had the U.S. tax guides for the past 30 years. When the psychologist pointed out that such information is now online, the hoarder said he liked to have a hard copy available.

“Okay,” the shrink said, holding up the 1985 edition. “But do you think maybe we could save the last couple of years and discard the rest?”

“I don’t know,” the hoarder said, agonizing. “You never know when you might have to look something up.”

I keep waiting for a cleaning crew to unearth a treasure trove of sports memorabilia only to find it’s been destroyed by cats and vermin. It’s going to happen.

There’s a fine line between hoarding and collecting. I’ve spent a lot of time around sports memorabilia collectors, many of whom are obsessive compulsive. The difference is that that they’re usually organizational freaks, spending hundreds of hours sorting, displaying, and inventorying their collections.

They’re not hoarders, but they’re distant cousins. Watching this show, you realize we’re all hoarders waiting to happen.