You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will (8 page)

The Rebels’ starting five, despite coming from some less-than-ideal
backgrounds, drove nicer cars than the media members who covered them. Yet for the bench players—the guys who were six through twelve on the roster—it was the same beat-up Datsuns or creaky bicycles popular with the rest of the student body.

Convicted points shaver Richie “The Fixer” Perry in a hot tub with UNLV players might have seemed outrageous to the national press, but I had only one question: Was it the players’ hot tub, or Richie’s?

This wasn’t Iowa State. Then again, Vegas isn’t Ames.

Tarkanian argued with me one day about the players he recruited. Some of them had checkered backgrounds, but Tark’s voice rose as he told me his kids just deserved a chance in life and that they’d never hurt a soul.

His voice grew reflective when he asked, “Without opportunities, where would I be?”

He was a really good guy that day.

Or maybe he wasn’t.

John Henderson covered the program at the time for the
Las Vegas Review-Journal
. He once came home after writing a negative story to find his apartment trashed. He never found out who did it, but we all had our suspicions that it was connected to his not-always-glowing coverage of Tark and the Runnin’ Rebels. I got anonymous death threats on my voicemail and was angrily confronted in grocery stores for commentaries that were considered anti-Tark.

Tark’s response to all of this? “Some of the fans are a little crazy,” he said, smiling and shaking his head.

He preferred media coverage that was close enough to hear his thoughts but distant enough to … well … just distant enough. Leave it at that.

Without knowing it, Tarkanian provided a helpful glimpse at
how complex people can be. Like Tark, none of us are one thing; we’re a collection of conflicts. We’re all good in our own ways and troublesome in others. Tarkanian was different only in the way he wore his conflicts right out in the open, on his trademark short-sleeved shirts.

He was both caring and callous, loyal and self-serving, modest and egomaniacal.

Even the NCAA seemed conflicted on how to handle Tarkanian. After he sued the institution for harassment after repeated investigations, the NCAA settled on a $2.5 million payout but refused to admit it was actually guilty of harassment.

I know how the NCAA felt. Covering the man for six years was similar to riding a roller coaster: you’re exhilarated while it’s happening, glad and relieved when it’s over.

All of these years later, what am I to think of Tark? Or should I look at it another way and just thank him for making me think?

Bobby Knight condemns coaches who manipulate the system. Knight is regarded as a squeaky clean arbiter of collegiate ethics. But look at his methods—he bullied everyone from students to officials to athletic-department personnel.

So, is Knight the good guy or is Tark?

Both?

Neither?

Tark leaves me as conflicted today as I was while covering him and his teams.

Two years ago at a Penn State radio remote, his nieces approached me and said Jerry insisted they stop by and say hello. He had nothing to gain. The gesture felt genuine.

Despite everything, I think Tark was really a good man.

There are others who think,
You know what? Maybe he wasn’t
.

Is it a copout for me to say I understand both sides? Because I do. I understand how Tark could be a cold, all-consuming coach who constantly fought The Man and tried to bend the rules in his direction. I also understand how Tark tried to bend those rules and fight that fight because he truly cared about the poor and disadvantaged kids who came to play in his program.

It makes sense that Tark’s nieces—years after our contentious relationship ended—would be asked to relay a kind message from their uncle. By that time, he was no longer coaching and I was no longer a threat. Once upon a time, we both had a job to do, and each of us understood the other within that context.

It’s a perspective I don’t ever want to lose, and I have Tark to thank for the lesson.

People say they want something but sometimes are better served without it. Transparency comes to mind.

Politicians say they’ll deliver it. Your boss promises he’ll manage with it. Maybe sometimes we’re just better off not knowing things.

Everybody knows that CEO pay is out of control in many sectors. The big guy is making way too much compared to the average worker. At least too much for most people’s taste. The vitriol, though, has ramped up in recent years.

People don’t seem to get nearly as agitated over this fact: 60 percent of corporations are not paying taxes. Yet you can’t put a singular face to that. At least that rich CEO is ponying up a large chunk to the IRS.

I would argue part of that current animosity over wealth isn’t just about the gap between rich and poor, but it’s also due to an expanded media, where we see and hear daily how we all stack up. From the Internet to social media, blogs, and reality shows on every other cable channel, we get lavish lifestyles poured into our glass nightly and hourly. You see the faces of wealth.

It’s one thing to have a more successful family member, but what if he was your neighbor? What
if you had to watch him routinely upgrading his landscaping—the kind you only wish you could afford? What if he pulled into the driveway with a new SUV every twelve months while your 1993 model was in and out of the shop? Sometimes the harsh truth isn’t that much fun when it’s pushed into your face.

Animosity and jealousy, two very ugly words, only arrive after disclosure. The same goes for sorrow and heartbreak.

If God didn’t really exist, is the public better off knowing that? Don’t many people rely on that existence for comfort and guidance?

There’s a reason the media doesn’t televise suicides. We don’t need to see it. Nobody really does. Whose life is really elevated by seeing someone else take theirs?

We often demand total transparency but, number one, total transparency doesn’t exist, and two, we’re all probably happier if we don’t know everything about everything.

I hereby present two words no guy wants to read:

Menstrual synchrony
.

It’s an unproven theory most guys don’t know about, and those who
do
know about it would rather not discuss it.

Don’t bother looking it up. I already did.

The theory suggests that menstrual cycles of women who live together—in homes, convents, prisons—can become synchronized over time. The concept first came to the public’s attention in 1971, in an article in
Nature
magazine that studied the menstrual cycles of young women in a college dormitory. Supposedly women can sense the pheromones of other women and eventually their cycles synchronize, like an airborne virus.

Menstrual synchrony
was brought to my attention years ago by a female friend who happened to play college basketball. She swore it was true. Research is split on whether it’s a scientifically verifiable phenomenon, and frankly I would like to move on, regardless of the evidence.

But it does get me to my point: If it’s possible for women to share such an experience, isn’t it also true for men?

I would say it is, but unfortunately for men, the “shared experience” is far more embarrassing.

Because for men, the experience is stupidity.

Anytime you get more than three men together in a room, on a golf trip, on a Las Vegas weekend, at a poker game, in a bar, or at a ballgame, it’s a virtual certainty that one of them will morph into a cross between Johnny Knoxville and Andy Dick.

It’s a $2.99 testosterone combo deal, with a side of moron.

Even smart, thoughtful men can’t help but lose fifty IQ points in the company of other men.

Would any guy—by himself—jump off the roof of a house?

Nope.

Would any guy—by himself—light a bottle rocket in his hand?

Nope.

But that just described Daniel Tosh’s television career.

I know: let’s find four or five guys, turn on a camera, and give them beer. The rest, I guarantee you, will be a waterslide through Neanderthal hell.

When NBA center Jason Collins became the first active player in a major American sport to come out as gay, the news was illuminating in so many ways. The announcement shed light on small-minded bigots and open-minded NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash.

More than anything, though, it showed just how little we think of groups of men. I mean,
Wow
. It’s just amazing how little regard we have for men who congregate in groups.

For one, they’re dangerous. For another, they’re stupid.

And that’s just the beginning.

It might be hard to believe, but immediately after Collins’s announcement, the story shifted to focus on how men might react to another man’s sexual orientation. This idea—that a man within one of these hypermacho groups might be attracted to other men—was so unsettling that it consumed the narrative.

By the way, it’s worth noting that players on six different teams over the course of twelve NBA seasons had already been showering next to this guy long before he made his historic announcement. So there’s that.

It’s also instructive to note that this problem—or perceived problem—was limited to groups of men. In other words, the guys who gather together and end up jumping out of a window or blowing up a firework in their hands.

Individually, men have handled this alleged issue just fine.

Greg Louganis, the Olympic diver, announced he was gay and nobody seemed to care much. Of course, he was in an individual sport, where men weren’t coming together in a big group to act like idiots. When it’s a team sport, where a collection of men engages in low-level
groupthink
, somebody better call security. We could have a problem here.

We all know that men, especially young men, commit most of the crime in any country. The likelihood of arrest for men rises sharply in the late teens and remains high through the early twenties before dropping off when marriage and families and a decrease in testosterone brings some sanity to the proceedings.

But consider the poor opinion that society has of young men. They can go to war, vote for the leader of the free world, but can’t rent a car before 25 or drink a beer legally until 21. Essentially, society feels it has to babysit you young fellas. We’ve installed layers of rules and laws to stop you from hurting yourself—and us.

Your parents must be proud.

That’s not to say that groups of men can’t be heroic or capable
of great things. But it seems like those great things are always framed within an organization that prides itself on the leadership and guidance of older men. Think about military groups or sports teams; they’re supervised and motivated by older, wiser men who are less prone to the irrational antics of the childish and impulsive.

Left to their own devices, young men all too often fall into the sad and pathetic frat mentality.

Not even our smart and civilized neighbors to the north are immune from this dynamic. The conclusion of the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins got ugly. The Bruins beat the Canucks and a riot erupted in the streets of Vancouver. An eyewitness reported hearing a group of young men (of course) chanting, “Let’s go riot!” In the end, more than 140 people were hurt, more than 100 were arrested, and the property damage estimate hit $4.2 million.

What’s hockey’s main demographic?

Young men.

Obviously.

You can picture the scene, can’t you?

Hey man, we just lost. I think the only thing that could make me feel better is to light a Chevy on fire
.

That’s the mentality that creates concern for Jason Collins’s future as an active athlete. In his profession, he can’t help but be surrounded by groups of young men who are so consumed with protecting and promoting their masculinity that they become incapable of common decency and tolerance.