Just call him Traitor Trent.
Not that he gives a you know what about my feelings for him, but I've lost all respect for Trent Johnson, the former Wolf Pack men's basketball coach.
Last week, the new Stanford head coach bailed out of Nevada's holiday tournament which has forced his friend and new Nevada coach Mark Fox to search for a replacement team for this year's event. Somehow I sensed when I asked Fox about the status of Stanford a couple of weeks ago that he didn't think the Cardinal would be coming.
You see, Johnson would only agree to come if he didn't have to play Nevada. Idiotic. Is Johnson already backing away from tough games? Does he think that based on last year's upset win over Kansas that Stanford would have problems with Nevada? Is he concerned an early season loss to an underdog team would hurt him?
C'mon Trent get real. You are a great coach. Now, be a great man and show some class by honoring a commitment. You wanted Stanford in the tournament, and it shouldn't make any difference whether Mike Montgomery was coaching the team, or you were coaching the team.
You talk about how you didn't want to be a one-hit wonder and how grateful you were to Chris Ault for giving you a chance, yet you stiff the university the first chance you get. To me, that says a lot about character.
I know the people of Nevada, and the athletic folks at Nevada, are disappointed. This would have been a big coup to get a Pac-10 team at Lawlor, especially the one the caliber of Stanford.
I think this move may have cost Johnson a few supporters around Reno. It certainly wasn't a classy act.
The Peppermill is the site of this year's Western Athletic Conference football media conference. Each head coach and one or two players from each school will be present for the two-day event.
I'm anxious to hear the questions that will be directed at UTEP coach Mike Price, who was fired by Alabama even before he coached a game. Price, for those of you hiding under a rock, was let go for poor moral conduct. He got himself in trouble at an Alabama fund-raising event. Hopefully Price has learned his lesson, and I was happy to see another school take a chance on him. He was one of the best coaches in the Pac-10 for several years when he was at Washington State.
I had the opportunity to visit one of the nicest ballparks in the majors last week - Edison Field - when I was on a brief visit to Anaheim. The park is immaculate, easy to get in and out of, and there is plenty of food choices.
My only knock on it is the lack of many seats in the shade. It seems that there are only a few rows in both the upper and lower deck that are covered by the cement overhang. It was blistering hot in Anaheim last week, and after five innings of the sun beating down on me, I finally had to move. I kept hoping, especially since we were near the land of Disney, that misters would magically appear. No such luck.
And, to make matters worse, I had the fans from hell sitting a few rows in front of me. Four young men, who obviously were drunk before they came to the 1 p.m. game, were being loud to be noticed. One family with two small children asked them to tone it down to no avail, which forced an usher to come down and speak to them. That really didn't help either, but in the end it didn't matter because most of the fans in that area had already looked for better, cooler seats.
What was the score of the game? Well my wife and I left with Anaheim trailing 10-1 after seven. Cleveland ended up winning 14-5. The Angels have some holes to fill, and I'm not sure even getting Randy Johnson from Arizona would be enough to get them into the playoffs.
By now many people are aware of the tragic passing of 16-year-old Nicole Snyder, a junior-to-be at Douglas. Snyder was involved in the tragic accident along Highway 395. She was killed instantly when an airborne car coming from the opposite direction landed on top of her automobile.
Nicole was a pleasant young lady. I umpired many of her ASA softball games during the summer, and she had played junior varsity softball for coach Tom Keck the past two seasons.
The summer ASA team she played for pulled out of last week's Summer Sizzler in Sparks, and John Glover, Douglas baseball coach, pulled his team out of the state Joe DiMaggio tournament because of her death. I thought that was a classy move.
The bulk of the people that attended last Friday's funeral were Douglas High students, and the main speakers during the funeral were the students.
Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1281.
