D2
EZ SU THE SIDELINE
More Than a Game Views from high school sports from photographer Toni L. Sandys
KLMNO 6
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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
WASHINGTONPOST.COM/SPORTS First things first: Columnist Tracee Hamil- ton and Redskins reporter Jason Reid dis- cuss Sunday’s game at 9:30 a.m.
WASHINGTONPOST LIVEWITH IVAN CARTER 5 P.M. ON COMCAST SPORTSNET Analyst Brian Mitchell and The Post’s John Feinstein will be live in studio.
NORMAN CHAD Couch Slouch
on the world of sports TV T
hese are 23 (more) facts, tried and true, about the widening world of sports
television: 1. Back in the pre-remote days,
I was third-fastest in the state of Maryland for switching channels any time golf came on. 2. DirecTV’s NFL Sunday
Ticket package is so pricey these days, I’mactually considering a New York Jets personal seat license. 3. “SportsCenter” is now on 16
hours a day, which, conveniently, leaves us the other eight hours to sleep. 4. Because I needmy NFL
weather on NFL Sundays, I now pay Jillian Reynolds to come over and give me the forecast. 5. Craig Kilborn is back.We’ve
both enjoyed his time away. 6. Bob Uecker is also back.He
doesn’t have permission to leave again. 7. PatHaden went from NBC’s
TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST Landon’s water polo team treads water with five-gallon jugs held aloft to help the students build strength in their legs.
Water, water everywhere 6
Landon students discover a new sport
with a teacher’s help WhenWalt Bartman began teaching at
the Landon School four years ago, he read an article aboutwater polo reviving a school’s swimming program.Aformer collegiate swimmer andwater polo player himself, Bartman thought thatwas just what the Landon swimteamneeded.While Bartmanmay have succeeded in drawing attention to swimming,water polo at the school has achieved its own status.After three years as a club team,water polowas officiallymade a varsity sport this fall. Water polo at the school has grown
steadily since the first year,when the team had 16 players. This fall, Landon has two teams andmore than 35 swimmers. “This yearwe had 12 freshman come out, and none of themhave ever played a lick of water polo,” Bartman, the head coach, said. “I hadwatched it once on theOlympics,”
said senior JulianHeller, 17,who joined the teamas a freshman in its first year. “I didn’t have a good idea ofwhat Iwas getting into.” Because no one had playedwater polo
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on
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sandyst@washpost.com.
before, therewas a bit of a learning curve that first season. “The first yearwe played Gonzaga andwe lost, 21-3,” said Bartman. “I told the guys, let’s just not expect anything this year. Let’s learn the game and have fun.” The following year, Landon only lost by six. Closer still, last year the Bears lost by two. “None of us really knew whatwewere doing, butwewere all ready to play anyway,” saidHeller. “Therewere no expectations, so you had nothing to lose.” The teamis dedicated to improving, so
no one complainswhen Bartman orders the swimmers out of the pool and “go get the jugs.” The jugs are empty, five-gallon water bottles that have been collected from the school. For a fewminutes, the boys joke aroundwith each other as they bob on the jugs. They soon split into two groups. The
QUOTABLE
“It’s a 14-game season now and we’re sitting at the bottom of it. What we do with it from here remains to be seen.”
only from Comcast. SOCCER
Georgetown women fall to No. 2 Stanford Christen Press scored two sec-
ond-half goals to give No. 2 Stanford a 2-0 victory overNo. 15 Georgetown on Sunday in Santa Clara, Calif., as the Cardinal shut out the nation’s highest-scoring teamin the Santa Clara Classic. The performance capped a
five-goal weekend for Press, who had her first collegiate hat trick Friday in a 6-1 victory over Utah. Stanford improved to 6-0-2,
while the Hoyas fell to 7-2 with their second consecutive shutout loss. They lost to Santa Clara, 1-0, on Friday. The Cardinal outshot George-
town, 22-4, and held the Hoyas without a shot in the second half. . . . Lionel Messi damaged right ankle ligaments during a chal- lenge from Tomas Ujfalusi in Barcelona’s 2-1 win at Atletico Madrid, and the reigning FIFA player of the year is set for more tests to determine the severity of the injury. Coach Pep Guardiola said
Messi “is sad” but “now we can only wait on the diagnosis and help himrecover.”. . . A hat trick from Dimitar Ber-
batov gave Manchester United a 3-2 victory over Liverpool, while Premier League leader Chelsea extended its perfect start to the season by routing Blackpool, 4-0. Chelsea has a four-point lead
—Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre, who had four turnovers as the Vikings dropped to 0-2
DIGEST
Motegi in 2006. “I trustedmy car and trustedmy teamwhich did a great job in the pit stops.” Defending series champion
at the top of the standings over Arsenal and Manchester United, while Manchester City is fourth after beatingWigan, 2-0, on Sun- day. . . . Kei Kamara and Teal Bunbury
scored second-half goals to help the Kansas City Wizards beat Chivas USA, 2-0, in an MLS match in Carson, Calif. Kansas City improved to 8-9-6; Chivas is 7-13-4.
TENNIS Janko Tipsarevic beat Radek
Stepanek, sending Serbia to its first Davis Cup final with a 3-2 victory over the Czech Republic in Belgrade. Tipsarevic’s 6-0, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4
win came after Novak Djokovic had tied the best-of-five tie at 2-2 by beating Tomas Berdych, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4. AfterTipsarevic had converted
his third match point, the Serbi- an players fell into each other’s arms, then dropped to the floor and formed a circle around a Serbian flag. “Thank you, that’s what we
needed, you raised us from the dead,” Tipsarevic told a boister- ous crowd of 15,000 in Belgrade Arena that even used vuvuzelas to fire up their team. Serbia will host France in the final Dec. 3-5. The French beat
JON SUPER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
ManchesterUnited's Dimitar Berbatov, right, scores his third goal and the game winner as his team vanquishes Liverpool, 3-2, in a Premier Leaguematch at Old Trafford Stadium inManchester, England.
Argentina, 5-0, in the other semi- final. . . . Mardy Fish defeated Santiago
Giraldo, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, 4-6, 8-6, to give the United States an insur- mountable 3-1 lead over Colom- bia in the Davis Cup. Winning the playoff match on
outdoor red clay inBogotameans the United States will remain in the World Group, the top tier of the Davis Cup. Colombia was
trying to qualify for the first time. Fish also became the first
American to win three times in a single Davis Cup match since Pete Sampras in the 1995 final in Moscow. Fish won in Friday’s opening singles and teamed with John Isner to win the doubles on Saturday.
AUTORACING Pole-sitter Helio Castroneves
of Brazil won the Indy Japan 300 in Motegi to ensure the IndyCar series championship will come down to the final race of the year. Castroneves took the lead
from Team Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe on a Lap 118 pit stop and held on through 200 laps to earn his third win this season. “It’s always a tough race here,” said Castroneves who won at
Dario Franchitti of Scotland was second, followed by series points leader Will Power of Australia. Franchitti trails Power by just 12 points heading into the final race of the season on Oct. 2 at Home- stead-Miami Speedway.
MISC. Vincenzo Nibaliwon the Span-
ish Vuelta cycling race inMadrid after Tyler Farrar of the United States sprinted to victory in the final stage just ahead of Britain’s Mark Cavendish. Nibali won the overall race in
87 hours 18 minutes 31 seconds, while Ezequiel Mosquera fin- ished 41 seconds back in second. Peter Velits was third, 3:04 be- hind the winner. . . . Benjamin King won the USA
Cycling Professional Road Race Championship in Greenville, S.C., to become the youngest winner in the 25-year history of the event. The 21-year-old rider fromNorth Garden, Va., finished the 110-mile race in 4:44:56.9. . . . English star Laura Davieswon
the Spanish Women’s Open for her 76th worldwide victory, clos- ing with an even-par 71 for a two-stroke victory in Benahavis, Spain, over American Christina Kim, England’s Rebecca Hudson and Australia’s Frances Bondad. —Fromnews services
Notre Dame game analyst to USC’s athletic director. That’s like going from a three-ring circus to a three-pole strip club. 8. On TV, soccer still looks like
an abstract painting. (Column Intermission I:
first group raises the jugs out of thewater —after having filled themone quarter full —and take off across the pool.With their legsmoving in an egg-beatermotion, the boys swim25meters to the far edge. Back and forth, forwards and backwards. By the end of the drill, Bartman has had his players fill the jugs completely. The boys do their best to hoist the 40 pounds out of the water and keepmoving across the pool at the same time. Treadingwater is easy, but this is no
ordinary doggie paddle. The playerswork to build up their leg strength, enabling themto keep their bodies out of thewater while treading. If they speed up the motion, a player can propel himself upwards to block a shot or pass the ball. “It’s tough,”Heller said, “but it’s a difficult game and you have to put thework in if youwant to see results.” Thisweek, the luxury of after-school
practices comes to an end. The school’s small pool is not heated, so the teamwill train at its sister school,Holton-Arms. Unfortunately for the boys, the only pool time available is two hours before school starts. It is the last year theywill have to worry about that:Water polo’s newfound status has brought a change to the campus pool, and a heaterwill be installed this spring.
Jimmy Johnson on “Survivor: Nicaragua” combines countless unseemly elements of modern society into a single weekly entity: The rogue football coach/stock market strategist/male enhancement pitchman on a long-running reality show without a hint of reality filmed in a nation that might be one of the only places on Earth in which the Fox studio analyst never committed a recruiting violation.) 9. Upon further review, the brouhaha over Janet Jackson’s nipple appearing on CBS during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 seems preposterous, particularly considering that Elaine Benes’s nipple appeared in her Christmas cards on NBC’s “Seinfeld” in 1992. 10. Remarkably,my Skip
Bayless bobble head doll does not even bobble. 11. In an unforgivable act,
agelessMarv Albert left the “Monday Night Football” radio booth this season and forgot to take Norman Esiason with him. 12. The only thing worse than
being on line atDMVis being on line atDMVwith Nancy Grace behind you. 13. When Jim Gray got a star
on theHollywoodWalk of Fame in 2005, it reminded me that Hollywood Boulevard is an endless stretch of road with incalculable cracks in its foundation. 14.How can the mad men of
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce also not have a gambling problem? 15.Memo to CBS in regard to
its continuing policy of no sideline reporters on NFL games: Thank you, thank you, thank you. 16. They claim the tropical island of Tetepare is paradise,
but it’s not even wired for cable. (Column Intermission II:
Watching Preston Sturges’s 1944 film “Hail the ConqueringHero” the other day, I heard the line, “Smile and the world smiles with you. Frown and you frown alone.” Couch Slouch needs to heed those words more often.) 17.My last rental car had
SiriusXMRadio, so when I explained to the state trooper that the sound of Chris Russo’s voice caused me to veer onto the shoulder of the road, he graciously declined to give me a ticket. 18. I turned on VH1 last
month to watch some music videos and instead got “The T.O. Show” with Terrell Owens.My bad.
18a. Which brings us to the
brand new “T.Ocho Show” from the forward-looking folks at Versus. Their bad. 19. If they had poker on TV in
the 1880s, you’ve got to figure BatMasterson and DocHolliday would’ve been huge stars. 20. CNN’s “Larry King Live” is
about to go off the air; the studio will be converted into a softball diamond. 21. ABC has a new police
drama called “Detroit 1-8-7,” which, coincidentally, doubles as the Lions’ projected record. 22. Between Olympics, I have
no idea where to find curling. 23. If you sit too close to the
TV,my mother used to tell me, you’ll ruin your vision. She didn’t mention anything about my mind. Ask The Slouch Special Ex-Wives Edition Q. I am enthralled with NFL
Network’s RedZone Channel where they show “every touchdown from every game.” Any chance of a Norman Chad Relationship Channel where they show “every divorce from every marriage”? (Pete Hmel; Gaithersburg) A. Once I secure U.S. broadcast rights to that footage, the next step is to get channel clearance from major cable systems. Q. Big-ticket purchases often
include a “No Interest-No Payment for 12Months” promotion. Is that also standard in all of your pre-nups? (John Swope; Irwin, Pa.) A. Where were you 26 years
ago when I needed you? Q. Any truth to the rumor your
ex-wives are planning to form their own conference? (Bob Mason; Pittsburgh) A. I’mtold they need one more
to be viable for a national TV contract. Q. Do you think your first two
marriages should have been ruled “incidental contact”? (Jeff Dent; South Charleston,W. Va.) A. Pay the man, Shirley.
You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just e-mail
asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!
Some more musings
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