TRIBUNE COLUMN

TRIBUNE COLUMN
Taking time to reflect on kids, coach, Congress

By BILL CLARK

Published Friday, December 21, 2007

As you read these words of wisdom, the author will be enjoying the evening in Las Vegas with the first student body president at Rock Bridge High School and his family. That’s the Clarks’ eldest, Sean.

That’s the same Sean who was the boyfriend in "On Golden Pond" with Carla Waal Johns and Weldon Durham at the University of Missouri 25 years ago - a show remembered by local theatergoers as a classic.

That’s the same Sean who won the national collegiate playwriting contest as an MU student with "Eleven Zulu," earned his master of fine arts degree from the University of Iowa and went on to Hollywood to spend a dozen years as a television writer for "Sirens," "Coach," "Evening Shade," "Man for the People" and "Early Edition."

He’s now an associate professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, teaching screenwriting and playwriting and still in the commercial market as time allows.

Sean and his wife, Stephanie, also an Iowa graduate, have a pair of preteens who are excellent soccer players. Granddad, an old baseball man, has struggled with having soccer players in his family but has finally come to accept the fact. They’re both really good. So, too, is another granddaughter in upstate New York.

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The Christmas spirit has been dampened by the death of George Pruitt, a former All-America basketball player at Lincoln University and one of the first black basketball officials in Central Missouri.

He died Dec. 16 in Chicago, where he was a coach and administrator for more than three decades. George is survived by his wife, the former Florence Horrell of Columbia; and four children, all of whom played basketball, volleyball or football at the NCAA Division I level.

Their youngest son, Mickey, was a two-time Big Eight all-star linebacker at the University of Colorado, a Jim Thorpe Award nominee and a member of the 1991 Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl squad.

Old-timers still talk about the shootout between Lincoln and Tennessee State that the Tennesseans won, 108-104, and the personal battle between George and Dick Barnett, who went on to a career in the National Basketball Association. George scored 42, but Barnett trumped him with 49.

George had suffered from diabetes for years. He had undergone heart surgery and seemed to be on the road to recovery until his condition worsened.

For George’s life story, check out Ol’ Clark’s column of Feb. 23, 2007.

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The phone line has been busy since the Mitchell Report came out last week naming 86 players as abusers of the major league policies concerning performance-enhancing chemicals.

Remember that two years ago I wrote a column about a situation in 1987 in which a fourth outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds had become the poster boy for anabolic drug abuse. It was ignored because it was not a violation of the game’s rules at the time.

I spoke out loud and clear to baseball’s deaf ear about the problem with drug use in weightlifting. Ever talk to a brick wall?

The time to control performance enhancers was in 1987, not 2007.

So what happens now? Essentially nothing. If a player has been caught after the game’s drug policy was enacted, he has been penalized. Most of the names involved were cited for conditions before the current policies were enacted. No doubt they’ll be home free. The matter becomes "he said, she said."

The Hall of Fame? Take in no one who has been penalized for drug use. No Rafael Palmeiro. He was a bald-faced liar. He told Congress he had never, ever used the stuff, then failed a drug test. Gone!

Barry Bonds? If he’s convicted of perjury, etc., he’s both banned from the game and barred from the Hall of Fame. Forget the home run record. After all, the all-time hit leader is Pete Rose, and he’s ineligible for the Hall for betting on his team to win.

Mark McGwire? Not for me - or anyone else. He avoided lying by not answering questions before Congress. Refuse a drug test and you’re considered positive. Guilty! Sammy Sosa? He has always admitted to heavy dependence on creatine. He has always tested negative for the other stuff. A corked bat? Don’t forget George Brett’s pine tar bat. Roger Clemens? No positive test since the current drug policy was announced.

Answer this: Is drug use any worse than the grease balls allegedly thrown by Gaylord Perry or the scuffed balls thrown by Don Sutton? Both are 300-game winners and in the Hall of Fame. Neither was ever suspended for cheating.

Mitchell had it right when he said knowledge of the past is important, that we should penalize those who violated current rules, to be more vigilant in the future and to move on. Let the past bury its dead.

Just remember, Mitchell came up with only 2 percent of the players who have been major leaguers in the past decade. In all probability, the number should have been 860, not 86.

Baseball must keep its testing policy in place and not blink. Above all, don’t revert to 1987. The game’s leaders must understand that for the past four decades in weightlifting, excellent testing has always been a step behind the chemists. We still have no test for human growth hormone.

The alternative? Simply forget testing. Then everyone can take what they want and the playing field is level again. Then everyone can hit 50 homers a year.

Bill Clark’s columns appear Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 474-4510.