PANTHER MANIA

Panther linebacker Jon Beason poses for a Charlotte Observer photographer in October 2008. Beason, 23, has quickly become one of the Panthers’ best defensive players and a primary reason why the Panthers have had a nice start to the 2008 season.

Oct.18, 2008

After missing all of the Panthers’ training camp in Spartanburg due to the Olympics, I’ve had to play a little catch-up for the first six weeks of the season. About 50-70 percent of my work as a sports columnist for The Charlotte Observer involves covering the Panthers each year during the fall.

 They are by far the biggest thing going in my region – in terms of sports, anyway. You can tell that by the TV ratings they draw and the hits they get on CharlotteObserver.com – stories about the Panthers always far outdraw those about any other sports team.

 I took this picture during an Observer photo shoot. Panther linebacker Jon Beason was posing for Observer photographer David Foster in this one. Beason reminds me a lot of Sam Mills. He leads like him. He plays like him. He’s a bit undersized like him (Mills was 5-foot-9, Beason is 6 feet). I’ve written a long, in-depth story about Beason that will be available at this link for a few weeks or months at least on CharlotteObserver.com.

 Also, I am now blogging on a daily basis for the newspaper (which is one of the reasons I have a hard time updating this personal blog sometimes). That blog has become quite popular with Observer readers, judging by the numbers, and can be found at scottfowlerobs.blogspot.com.

BYE BYE BEIJING

A panda at the Beijing Zoo enjoys a meal of bamboo.

Sept.5, 2008

The Olympics are over. And while I had a wonderful adventure there, I’m very glad to be back on U.S. soil. I took the picture above when coming out of the Forbidden City near Tianamen Square, but I thought it really could apply to my entire visit.
 
Since I’ve been back in the U.S., folks have asked me a number of times what I will remember most about these Summer Games.Well, the best four events I saw in person were two of Michael Phelps’ very close gold-medal wins (one a relay, one the 100-meter butterfly where he came from behind on the last stroke) and Usain Bolt’s world records in the 100 and 200 meters.
 
Personally, the best thing I saw in my limited sightseeing time was the Great Wall. An amazing place. I also liked the Beijing Zoo, where there were 7 giant pandas in one large cage (one of them is also pictured here). In the tiny American animal display, on the other hand, do you know which animal was most prominently displayed?

The raccoon.
 
I was struck again and again by the friendliness of the Chinese volunteers, many of whom spoke good English. I was also struck by the way there were really two Chinas on display during the Games – the one they wanted you to see, and the one they didn’t. Remember, this was the country where one girl’s voice was dubbed for another girl’s acting in the Opening Ceremonies because the one with the beautiful voice wasn’t deemed pretty enough. That sort of thing happened with some regularity.
 
But now I’m back to my normal life, which is good. People are asking me less about China and more about what I think of the Carolina Panthers’ chances this season. They like my China stories more than my answers about the Panthers, however. On the eve of their 2008 season, I think they are going to go 8-8.
 

Although I won't be quitting my day job, I am doing a bit of TV here in Beijing because my newspaper is linked up with the local NBC affiliate in Charlotte, WCNC, as a news partner. Behind me in this picture is the "Bird's Nest" -- site of track and field as well as Opening and Closing ceremonies. They only shoot me from the waist up in these spots, so it's OK to wear shorts.

Olympic Update

Wed. Aug. 13, 9 p.m. (China time)

Hello, everyone... Just thought y'all might like a China update:

Well I am about one-third of the way through covering the Olympics now. I know mostly where I'm going in Beijing -- well, at least the 3-4 key areas I'm usually in. It's an enormous city -- reminds me of New York.

I am very busy, but in a good way. I haven't gotten sick yet, which was and is my main fear. At one point I thought I might be getting that way, but then slept about 9 hours that night and felt a lot better.

But I do miss Elise and the children terribly and two weeks more away still seems like a long time. We have been able to do a few Skype calls, so I can see them via a webcam, and that has been nice.

The best thing I saw here athletically so far was the swimming relay race Sunday night your time when the U.S. won by a fingertip over France. That was something.

I also have been able today to sneak over to Olympic tennis after finishing my main work of the day and seen Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal play (although not each other). Since I have never seen either of them play in person before, that has been fun.

I am trying to keep a blog for the newspaper and you might find some stuff on that that I have forgotten to mention here -- it is probably 75 percent about the athletes but 25 percent about what I'm doing here. I have put some pictures on it of what I've seen so far.

Here is the link but don't feel compelled to click it -- a lot of it is, I would readily admit, pretty boring.

http://scottfowlerobs.blogspot.com/

Lots of track and field coverage to come for me over the next 10 days or so.... I am hopeful of getting to the Beijing zoo one day for a couple of hours -- they have a lot of pandas there -- but not sure I'll make it.

My hotel is not bad -- about the quality of a Motel 6. Clean and quiet and only a 20-minute bus ride away from the Main Press Center, where I start every day. I try to stay out from about 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. each night and only sleep there. The bed comes up lower than my knee and is nearly as hard as plywood, yet I'm sleeping well.
 
Colleagues of mine have eaten curried goat, grilled turtle (that was alive before they picked it out -- like lobster or something) and (ugh!) dog here. Not me. I am sticking mostly to Chinese food, which as you might guess is widely available (and better -- not fried or breaded as often).

It is very cheap here, mostly. You can ride in a cab for 30 minutes and it costs about $8. You can eat a meal for $5 pretty easily. It cost us $100 apiece, however, for me and a buddy to hire a driver and a tour guide and go about 75 minutes to explore the Great Wall. That was the best $$ I've spent here, though.

A few other things I miss here besides family: Ice in drinks (unheard of, apparently). Salad (can't eat vegetables unless they're cooked, at least that's what people keep warning us). Not going through security every morning to get to work. And also, the SUN! It is depressing to live in a gray haze, as Beijing does most of the time.

But it is quite an adventure, and the people really have tried to bend over backwards to help me out anytime I've needed something. As I always tell people, of all the events I cover, the Olympics is the best overall. Nothing quite like it.

I will leave you with a funny story.

At the security gate there are always 4-6 people around, about half guys and half girls. The Chinese have so many people working here -- they just have so many darn people everywhere -- they are never short of someone to help you. And they do try very hard to help.

Anyway, today a guy was running the metal wand over me, as they do every day even if you get thru the security door without making it beep. You always get wanded no matter what. So he hit my belt. This happens every day, too.

I keep my shirt untucked usually -- it's very casual here, you can wear shorts as a reporter and I do -- so I always have to pull my shirt up to show him it is just a belt. There were a couple of Chinese girls behind him in uniform, too.

This time when I pulled my shirt up to show him the belt, however, I also came to realize that my zipper was undone. At least 4 Chinese people were staring at me when I realized this.

I zipped up quickly and walked out of there, hearing the musical tittering of the Chinese security girls' laughter in the background.

Olympic-bound

July 28, 2008

I’ve spent most of the past few months preparing for a big assignment: covering the Summer Olympics in Beijing for The Charlotte Observer. I will be in China most of the month of August doing this and have mostly good feelings about it . I will miss my family terribly during this time, of course, but it should be quite an adventure. I don’t think I would make it to China in my lifetime except for this assignment (you will be able to see my stories on www.charlotteobserver.com as usual, where I will also be writing an Olympics blog that will be updated daily).

The Olympics themselves are one of my very favorite events in the world to write about. The athletes at the Games are as a rule “purer” than the ones that make millions in the NFL or NBA.

My favorite sports to cover there are swimming and track and field – I have a bit of a prejudice toward judged sports like gymnastics, where one crazy judge can have a huge impact and where too often I can’t understand the difference between very good and great.

I prefer a sport where the winner is clearly visible at the finish line. But I’ve also had some great Olympic experiences in the past at odd events like ping pong (although you’re supposed to call it “table tennis” at the Olympics) and team handball.

The Charlotte region has a number of athletes at the Games that I will concentrate some of my coverage on, including three swimmers, a Greco-Roman wrestler, a sprinter and the head coach of the women’s basketball team. But to me, the U.S. is the “home team” for all of America during these three weeks, so I won’t restrict my coverage to folks who grew up or now live within a 50-mile radius of Charlotte.

It’s funny what you remember from previous Olympics, and what people remember about your coverage. This will be my fourth assignment at the Games: I’ve also covered Summer Games in Atlanta (1996) and Greece (2004) for The Observer and one winter Olympics in 2002 in Salt Lake City. I’ve written hundreds of stories about various athletes and games but the one that seems to stick in most people’s minds was a brief I wrote in 2004 on an unsuccessful search for a restroom in Greece. I’ll leave you with that story here and then go read a Beijing tourbook.

I WAS ON A SEARCH for a restroom at a subway station in Athens and frustrated that it seemed so hard to find. How could there not be a a restroom in a subway? That’d be like not having one in the Charlotte airport.

So I asked three Greek security guards – two men and one woman – for help. In English.

“Rest-au-room?” one inquired. “Ahhhhh, rest-au-room!!! What kind of food you think you want? Greek food? American food?”

“No, no!!” I said. “Restroom. Bathroom. W.C.” I said the word in a couple of other languages with increasing desperation, a lthough unfortunately I didn’t know it in Greek.

The three security guards pondered it out together.

“Can you give an example, please?” the female guard in the threesome asked.

What do you say to that? I just told them my need for a restroom had magically disappeared, thanked them  and jumped onto the subway.

P.S. I heard from many people after that that the magic word is “toilet,” which most people understand no matter where they’re from. Hopefully, that’ll work in Chinese. 

A Whitewater Adventure

WOW! That’s me, Scott Fowler, in the front of this two-person canoe. I’m smiling happily and have no idea what I’m doing. Luckily, the person in the back is David Hepp, an accomplished canoeist who was a member of the U.S. National team for nine years. We are going through the rapids at the National Whitewater Center in Charlotte. (Photo by Jack Horan)

WHOA! What’s a whitewater experience without a crash? We made it nearly all the way through the “competition channel” at Charlotte’s whitewater center before getting sucked up and spit out by an eddy. This picture was taken moments before we capsized. (Photo by Jack Horan)

My job as a sports columnist at The Charlotte Observer has allowed me a good deal of latitude as far as my column subjects over the past few years. One thing I love to do is to try something new and write about it in the column. This is certainly an element that can be overdone, so I try not to do “participatory journalism” too often.

But over my Observer career I have had an opportunity to have a few first-person experiences of the sort that George “Paper Lion” Plimpton made famous: I have played tennis against Anna Kournikova and Jim Courier, ridden in the passenger seat of a racecar alongside Wally Dallenbach and played one-on-one hoops against one of the best women’s basketball players in the country, getting schooled in the process. You can find stories about the Kournikova and Dallenbach experiences elsewhere on this website.

My new favorite first-person experience, however, was the one pictured above. In late April 2008, the U.S. Olympic Trials were coming to Charlotte’s National Whitewater Center in canoeing and kayaking. This is one of those sports where you can basically make no money. You scrape by and oftentimes go in the hole. The best U.S. women’s kayaker at the moment worked at the Whitewater Center in the restaurant for much of the past year just to make ends meet.

So why do these folks do it? Apparently, it’s because of the rush. I didn’t really understand, though. I wanted to experience it, and the whitewater folks were nice enough to let me try it for a column for The Observer. Here’s the story that resulted. Thanks, as always, to The Observer (www.charlotte.com) for letting me reprint some of my work on this website.

UNDERWATER! We’re down there somewhere, still in the canoe. When you’re in one of these canoes, you are literally strapped in, but there is also a way you can pull to “eject” yourself. David Hepp told me when and if this happened to wait 30-40 seconds underwater and see if he could flip us back up. I did so, but we couldn’t quite make it, so we had to eject. Although this looks a little scary, the water is actually only about four feet deep at this point. (Photo by Jack Horan)

ABOVE GROUND: By this time, after drinking a good bit of whitewater, I was just happy to be on my two feet again. I highly recommend the whitewater experience in Charlotte, though – next time I want to try the rafts and the climbing wall (which can he seen in the distance of this picture. Go to USNWC.org for more details (Photo by Jack Horan)

"A Basketball Story"

March 5, 2008

March Madness is upon us. College basketball played at the highest level is about to dominate the next five weeks of my life. A lot of it will be played in Charlotte, which will be awesome.

But I won't enjoy watching those games any more than the ones I've seen in January and February at one of the lowest levels of the sport -- rec league kids' basketball.

I wrote the following story as a gift to my two oldest kids, both of whom just finished their first season of basketball. I am very proud of both of them. I didn't try to make it "publish-able" for  The Charlotte Observer -- I wanted to make it longer than a normal column and also to put in a lot of stuff that was important to my kids in particular but not necessarily to thousands of readers at large.

So here's "A Basketball Story" -- the sort you will rarely see in a newspaper, but that I think any parent who has ever watched their child play sports should appreciate a little.

Click here to read 'A Basketball Story'

A homemade ACC Tournament

Jan.30, 2008

I’ve been neglecting my blog too long – sorry about that. Life seems to get in the way sometimes. But I did take an interesting trip this month that I wanted to tell you about.

Sometimes, an idea for a column takes a couple of years to actually pan out. This was one of those times. With the proximity of the N.C. State, Duke and UNC campuses, I’ve long thought it would be fun to go to an athletic event at all three schools in a single day and write about it for The Charlotte Observer. Once, I nearly did it with football games, but the timing didn’t quite work out.

The three schools play on the same day quite often, but usually at least one of them is out of town. And football wasn’t really the right sport to write this about anyway for this area – basketball dominates at those schools, especially Duke and UNC.

So this year, on Jan.19, all the stars lined up correctly for the story. UNC played at home at 3:30; Duke at 6 and N.C. State at 8. For a bonus, Wake Forest played the next day at 1 p.m.

Charlotte Observer photographer Jeff Siner is one of the most enthusiastic folks in our newsroom, and I knew he’d be excited about this. He was. So we went together to four games in a 24-hour span, and two of the games turned out to be classic. That’s a good batting average – generally, if you see four games, you’re lucky if one is memorable.

In any case, the story that resulted was a lot of fun. It was sort of a homemade ACC basketball tournament – we went to them instead of them coming to us. (The ACC comes to Charlotte March 13-16 – www.theacc.com has more details).

I’ve put two links to my story here: On the first, you can also see some of Jeff’s photos. Try this one first.

If that doesn’t work, try this one – the story only.

This photo was taken early in the Panthers' history, when some Panther fans got angry at Scott about a story he wrote on Kerry Collins. Notice the way the guy spells "credibility." (Photo courtesy of Patrick Schneider)

"Am I a Traitorous Bum?"

Nov.10, 2007

About this time of year, I often start getting unpopular.

Let me explain. November and December are the months where NFL dreams die for the majority of the league's 32 squads. If August is when hope springs eternal for every NFL fan, these two months are when that hope is often crushed. Only 12 of 32 teams will make the playoffs, and only one will ultimately win the Super Bowl.

The Carolina Panthers have only made the playoffs three times in their 12-year history, and so I've seen them fail nine times around this time of year.

Sometimes, fans try to take me down with the Panthers.

A good many of my readers in The Charlotte Observer's sports section seem to understand that the job of a sports columnist is not to cheerlead for the home team, but to tell the truth about the club. All good reporting is like that. If you're cheerleading, you need to go into public relations, not actual journalism.

In any case, in the digital age The Observer often allows fans to write comments below stories. This gives readers a chance for immediate feedback, which ranges from the thoughtful to the passionate to the downright ugly.

I don't read the comments too often on my stories (although if someone e-mails me directly, I always read it and usually answer). But my dad fortunately pointed out to me the other day that -- after I wrote an article criticizing many aspects of the humdrum Panthers -- he saw a diamond in the rough of this criticism.

The e-mailer in question called me a "bumb." Yes, b-u-m-b. That's really the way he spelled it -- it happened many times, so it wasn't a misprint.

And not just a bumb, but a traitorous bumb. One of the exact quotes from this feedback on charlotte.com was: "Somebody fire this bumb, he is a traitor and has no credability."

Everybody has an opinion, of course, and I may well be a bum. But I really can't be traitorous because my loyalty is not to the Panthers, but to the newspaper, and to telling the truth about the Panthers or whatever else I'm writing about.

The e-mailer's spelling of "credibility" also reminded me of the picture above. This is the only time I've ever had my name on a poster at the Panthers' stadium -- it was sort of cool, even though it wasn't a fan letter.

How did this "Fire Fowler" thing happen? I was covering the Panthers regularly at the time, although I wasn't yet a sports columnist. Kerry Collins, then the team's quarterback, was a young guy who didn't always think before he talked. He spoke out one week about his offensive line's problems and the fact he didn't have an experienced former NFL quarterback as his QB coach.

That was it in a nutshell. I quoted Collins directly in a story -- I had the interview on tape -- but he thought he was taken out of context. He got on a local sports radio station in Charlotte and ripped me a few times. Thus, the sign. (My editors supported me, and I wasn't fired, obviously).

This was long before Collins basically quit on the Panthers -- or, at least Dom Capers let him quit on the Panthers -- in 1998. And it was long before Collins and I made up -- I wrote a very long, involved story on him a few years later, when he was the quarterback for the New York Giants. Now he's a backup QB with the Tennessee Titans.

Given Carolina's many injury problems at QB this year, they would be fortunate to have Kerry at this point. And I still have fond memories of Collins' time here -- I don't mind that he ripped me on the radio at all. If you give out criticism, you must be willing to take it, too.

Thoughts on a bizarre Panthers game

Oct.7, 2007
 
NEW ORLEANS – I just got finished watching in person Carolina’s 16-13 win over New Orleans, which was one of the more bizarre victories I’ve seen the Panthers pull off. David Carr was playing on pain-killers and nerve in the second half, Julius Peppers finally showed up five games into the season with a huge field-goal block and then Carolina got a walkoff 52-yard field goal to win from John Kasay on the last play of the game.

Although outplayed for three quarters, Carolina (3-2) finally showed some heart in this game (Kris Jenkins, their 350-pound gadfly, had called out the team for playing with “no heart” and “no passion” the previous week in the 20-7 loss to Tampa Bay). The Panthers also got some luck thrown in and suddenly they had won one they really should have lost.

Covering a good NFL game never gets old to me – the sound of the stadium, the drama of the final few minutes, the exhilaration and the exhaustion and the depression in the locker rooms afterward.

Kasay is such a clutch kicker for Carolina, which is why he’s the last original Panther remaining from the 1995 team. It is unusual to listen to him describe a moment like that after the game. He honestly believes God decides whether every field goal splits the uprights or misses. He has said before after missing kicks that God didn’t want that field goal to go in – once I even remember him saying a small gust of wind came up just as he kicked to blow the field goal wide. After this one, he said: “By God’s grace and God’s grace alone it went in.”

Now I believe in God and am a Christian, but in my view God doesn’t care about football games and doesn’t determine who wins them. In the NFL, both teams have Christians on them, after all, and both include players who pray before and during games. How would God decide? By comparing which team had the most active churchgoers?

But no one knows for sure, and for Kasay, his beliefs bring him a great calmness in last-second situations.

One other note I found amusing about this game: everyone wonders what is wrong with Julius Peppers. He’s the most talented defensive player the Panthers have ever had, but he has zero sacks – ZERO – in five games. Coach John Fox knows that Peppers has been bothered by this. So, as I wrote for The Charlotte Observer after the New Orleans game, Fox tried a motivational tactic with Peppers.

Before the game, Fox told Peppers that the New York Giants’ Michael Strahan had zero sacks through five games in 2001. That was the year Strahan set the NFL record with 22.5. Fox was the Giants’ defensive coordinator at the time, so he should know. (Peppers made a huge field-goal block Sunday and had two pass bat-downs but remains sackless this season).

One small problem with Fox’s words: Strahan actually had 8.5 sacks after five games, not zero. He had zero in the first two games, but then broke out of that mini-slump bigtime by getting 8.5 in the next three.

It sounded good, though. The best motivational speeches are somewhat short of facts – remember John Belushi’s in “Animal House”? – but still sometimes work.
 

East Carolina football coach Skip Holtz, Drew Steele and Mike Steele pose at ECU's home stadium. Holtz has developed a special relationship with Drew Steele, who has Down syndrome, works in the ECU equipment room, has Holtz on his speed-dial and helps lead the Pirates onto the field for every game.

A SPECIAL STORY,
A SPECIAL YOUNG MAN

Sept.1, 2007

If you're a sports reporter in the Carolinas, you really should go to all the big schools at one time or another for a story. I've been to the obvious ones -- Clemson, USC, all the Research Triangle Schools, Appalachian State and so on -- but somehow had never made the 250-mile drive from Charlotte to Greenville, N.C., to East Carolina's campus in 13 years at the newspaper.

I finally rectified that this week with a trip that resulted in one of my favorite stories of the year, about 22-year-old Drew Steele, who has Down syndrome; East Carolina football coach Skip Holtz; Mike Steele, the former ECU basketball coach before he was fired under bad circumstances and the special relationship among that trio. (You can click here to read it).

People often ask me where I get my ideas, and there's no set place, obviously. But I was twice removed from this one and can take no credit for it whatsoever.

My sports editor, Mike Persinger, suggested at the beginning of the summer that I ask for reader feedback on "sports inspirations." I've done this sort of thing before -- I like reader interactivity -- and the result was more than 100 readers writing about the moments in sports that have most inspired them.

We printed some of those in The Observer and many more online. But one seemed to have such a good story behind it, from a reader named Charlie Roakes, that I decided to pursue that one on my own. He told me in his e-mail about Drew Steele, Skip Holtz and their co-hosted golf tournament (www.drewskip.com  for more details on that). I had never heard of any of this, and decided to make the drive to Greenville to explore it.

Because the story happened to run in the middle of a bad spate of sports news -- Michael Vick's dog-fighting, the NBA's crooked referee and so on -- it seemed to strike a nerve. Like most good stories, the best thing to do when you find one as a newspaper writer is just get out of the way and let the story tell itself. And thanks again to Charlie Roakes (I told him the story was coming a little before it made it into the paper, and he was happy about it).

In the meantime, I believe I'm going to adopt Drew Steele's movie-rating system: every movie gets either a 10 or a zero. No in-between. (In his system, movies with a lot of kissing get a zero and a lot of action get a 10 -- a classic male rating system, really).

Drew Steele was on the sideline today in Blacksburg, Va., when Virginia Tech beat ECU by 10. The Pirates turned in a respectable performance on an afternoon that will be long remembered as the day when App. State upset Michigan in Ann Arbor, 34-32.

For me, though, the week before the 2007 Panther season started will always be about the Steele family and coach Holtz.

Drew Steele, a special young man.

Panther Observations

Aug.3, 2007

 I’ve been down in Spartanburg for three days early in camp, covering the Carolina Panther training camp for The Observer. I’ve now seen parts of all 13 of the Panthers’ training camps in their history, and they blend in together after awhile. There’s only so much practice you can watch.

Coaches, on the other hand, often love practice. Dean Smith and Skip Prosser (and you can read my recent column on Prosser’s untimely death by CLICKING HERE) were among those who said their favorite time of any day or any season was practice time. Coach John Fox believes more what I do – games are the best part for him.

In any case, from what I’ve seen so far, the Panthers are going to be pretty good. They traded for another safety, they look healthy and the zone-blocking scheme will help. The difference between 6-10 and 12-4 this season for them, though, is the running game and injuries. I’m convinced of that. The injuries they can’t do much about – I don’t think they have very good depth – but the running game they can.

The Panthers were 24^th last season in rushing the ball in the NFL, out of 32. If they get that to at least a top-15 running team, then defenses actually buy play-action fakes, Jake Delhomme will look much better, the Panthers will control the clock and they’ll win a lot of games. And I do believe Delhomme will rediscover his mojo this season.

Steve Smith, incidentally, is Superman in all practices. He kills anyone who’s guarding him. No one is better to watch.

One last note: My “Fatherhood” column for The Observer’s “Living” section was fun but has come to an end for now, because of all the work involved in the football season to come. I ended up writing seven of them altogether this summer – you can see them all of them, in chronological order, by CLICKING HERE.

July 3, 2007

Hi, everyone. I had to do something this week for the newspaper online site (http://www.charlotte.com) that I thought I might repeat a little of here. It was an update of my "FAQs," or frequently-asked questions. I get a lot of the same ones over and over when I speak to groups in particular, so here are some of those.

Q: How many columns do you write a week for The Charlotte Observer?

A: Usually about four. We have two sports columnists at The Observer - Tom Sorensen is my colleague and good friend. With our editors' help, we split up the big events to cover (Tom usually goes to the Super Bowl and me to the Final Four, for instance, as we both prefer it that way). Some newspapers have "set" days for their columnist to write each week - Tom and I don't. We believe it allows for more flexibility that way.

Q. I thought you were a sports columnist only. Why do I occasionally see something you wrote about being a father in another section of the newspaper or online?

A: In the summer of 2007, I began writing an occasional column for The Charlotte Observer's "Carolina Living" section about fatherhood (read these at http://www.charlotte.com/581). That's my most important job, after all. I get a lot of daily practice with our four kids. Those mostly first-person columns about family life and fatherhood are fun. They stretch a different set of writing muscles.
That's much the same reason I occasionally write non-fiction sports books (I've written or co-written 4, all of which can be purchased on this website). But the daily sports column is where my bread is buttered. I love it, and I never plan to leave it either to write books full-time or for another section of the newspaper or whatever. I would miss the sports column too much if I did.

Q: What's the best part of your job?

A: Getting paid to go to great sports events and write about them is a strong second. But for me, the No. 1 best part is sitting down after a really good interview in front of a blank laptop computer screen and starting to write.

Q: What's the worst part?

A: The weird schedule. I've got a saintly wife and four really adaptable kids, which is fortunate. I work a lot of nights and weekends and am out of town around 50-80 nights per year.

Q: What do you like to read?

A: Novelists Pat Conroy, Dennis Lehane, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling; Sports Illustrated's Gary Smith and Rick Reilly; great sports non-fiction books and/or "as-told-to" biographies like those written by Dave Kindred, Gary Pomerantz, Frank Deford and Sally Jenkins; humorist Dave Barry and other sports newspaper columnists like the L.A. Times' Bill Plaschke.

Q: I want to get into sports journalism. What's the best way to go about it?

A: If you're a student in either high school or college, I STRONGLY urge you to get involved on the school newspaper. That will give you more of a sense of whether you would really want to be a journalist for a living. Also, you have to love to write and to read, and you must do a lot of both.

Remember, sports journalism is not just going to games and getting paid to do so. There is a lot of deadline pressure, a lot of last-minute personal adjustments you will have to make, a lot of strange work hours and a lot of tough questions you will have to ask.

Taking courses in journalism is laudable and I also highly recommend that, but you need to do the real work as well. Most school newspapers are always begging for help. Volunteer for one and see if you still like it before making any rash decisions. If you love it after that - if it's really in your blood - e-mail me at scottfowlerbooks@aol.com and we'll talk more about it.

June 12, 2007

AND BABY MAKES SIX!

I know I've been neglecting my blog, guys, but there's really a good reason. You can see her picture on this entry -- that's Georgia Fowler, born last month and turning our world upside down. With three older brothers, she's got plenty of protectors already, and she's actually a great baby. This summer I am trying something new for The Charlotte Observer, given that I'm now a father of four -- a "fatherhood" column for our "Living" section. The first installment ran today on charlotte.com and in the newspaper and can be read by CLICKING HERE.

And of course I'm continuing my regular sports column, too -- I know where my bread is ultimately buttered! If you want to read about the collision in October 2005 between a Carolina Panther and a Green Bay Packer that ended one of their careers on "Monday Night Football," HIT THIS.

April 30, 2007

Thoughts on the Panthers draft

The Panthers completed their draft this weekend. I thought they had a pretty good one with one glaring exception – they should have found a safety they thought could start right away. Mike Minter is only going to play one more season and the other safety slot, at the moment, will be probably filled by the unknown Nate Salley or the journeyman Deke Cooper.

However, the Panthers did improve themselves in several places. CLICK  HERE for my take on the first day of the draft that was published in The Charlotte Observer.

I hope all of you are getting outside in this beautiful weather. I’m going to be taking a couple of weeks off from the newspaper starting today, but will still be monitoring the e-mail address ScottFowlerBooks@aol.com and you dedicated readers (you know who you are) can reach me there.

A Frantic, fun week

April 9, 2007
 
Having my job as a sports columnist for The Charlotte Observer isn’t always glamorous. All NFL training-camp practices in August look the same. Working most weekends during a year is no picnic, and thank heavens I have a very flexible wife with all the schedule adjustments we have to make as a matter of course. Much of the newspaper business is about adjusting on the fly.

But getting paid to go to and write about sporting events is pretty great most of the time if you like sports, and this past week was a case in point. In a nine-day span, I’ve covered the Final Four in Atlanta, tennis’ Davis Cup in Winston-Salem and The Masters in Augusta. It’s rare, outside of the Olympics, to see that many athletes who are among the best at their sport in three different sports in a single week.

That’s a lot of miles on the ol’ Honda, but also a front-row look at Joakim Noah, Billy Donovan, Andy Roddick, James Blake, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and so on.

The worst of the bunch? The Final Four. Florida was so good that, for the second year in a row, the Final Four was more of a coronation than a drama. The Gators led the entire second half of the NCAA final in both 2006 and 2007.

And Donovan, incidentally, made the right decision by staying in Gainesville.

The best? Zach Johnson’s unlikely triumph at The Masters. It was a weird Masters – five different guys had the lead on Sunday, it was cold all week and a guy who no one other than big-time golf fans had ever heard of won the thing. But it was good stuff to write about. My column on Zach Johnson after he won Sunday can be found by CLICKING HERE.

It’s been a heckuva week, but I’m a little tired. I’ll be happy to be home and see my family for awhile after today. Hope you and yours had a Happy Easter.
 

What will MJ do to the Bobcats?

March 21, 2007

The most expensive interview I’ve ever been a part of came a few days ago, when Michael Jordan said something he shouldn’t have and cost himself $15,000.

Jordan is an enigma these days. He has “yea or nay” decision-making power on all Charlotte Bobcat decisions, but he rarely shows his face outside the Bobcats offices. He still lives in Chicago and flies in occasionally. He will hire the Bobcats’ next coach in a couple of months – Bernie Bickerstaff will stop being coach/GM after this season. (He will likely stay in some sort of front-office role).

That nugget about Bickerstaff was the major news to come out of this interview session, but not what Jordan was fined for. To set the scene, Jordan was at the head of a conference-room table at Charlotte Bobcats arena with about eight Observer reporters and editors, including head Bobcats writer Rick Bonnell and myself. It was the first interview Jordan had granted to local media in about 10 months.

It was Bonnell’s question only a couple of minutes into the interview – about what sort of qualities Jordan admired in players today – that led to Jordan meandering around and getting himself in trouble. As he talked enthusiastically about the versatility of such current NBA players as Dirk Nowitzki and Tracy McGrady, Jordan started thinking out loud about the 2007 NBA draft. Then he said “the kid in Texas” – i.e., Kevin Durant – seemed to have all the skills necessary to be a special player in the NBA.

Pretty innocuous, really, but the NBA frowns on anything said that might influence an underclassman (Durant is only a freshman) to come out early for the NBA draft. It slapped Jordan with a fine of $15,000 a couple of days later, which is like fining you or me five bucks.

Other things I found interesting in this interview: MJ seemed to think more of Matt Carroll than Adam Morrison. He said there was a “35 percent” chance he would leave the Bobcats, where he’s a minority owner, if a chance came up to buy controlling interest in another NBA team. He’s gained a little weight. He claimed his time was spent “50 percent on the Bobcats,” with the rest split between his Nike investment and his kids. (Jordan recently got divorced; he didn’t mention his former wife in the interview). He’s charming and candid when he wants to be. And he wore a sports jacket so red that N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe would have loved it.

An extraordinary reunion

Sam Perkins, James Worthy, Michael Jordan and Dean Smith share a laugh while watching film clips of the 1982 UNC team at the Smith Center on Feb.10th, 2007. Photo by Scott Fowler

Feb.15, 2007
 
I've heard the Smith Center loud many times. It got a deserved rap back in the early 1990s as a "wine-and-cheese" crowd, courtesy of Florida State guard Sam Cassell, but has rebounded with a vengeance since then due to putting a lot more students in the lower bowl and just a general willingness (probably stoked now by the fiery nature of Roy Williams) to yell more.

Still, I don't think I have ever heard it louder than toward the end of the introductions of the 1982 team a few days ago. In celebration of that team's 25th anniversary -- and the 1957 team's 50th anniversary -- a reunion was held. They held Michael Jordan for the next-to-last introductory spot and then Dean Smith very last.

Those two, back to back, nearly blew the roof off the place. People who were there understood how special the moment was. I don't think the effect came through as well on TV, although I'm sure you could still get the general idea. (I was pleased also that my co-author, Jimmy Black, received a very warm ovation when introduced).

I've also posted 8 pictures (including the one above) on the ScottFowlerSports.com home page at the top (click on "Free 1982 Reunion Pictures"). If you'd like any or all of them, just e-mail me at ScottFowlerBooks@aol.com and I'll send you digital copies. No obligation. Hey, we're here to serve.

Reunion of the Title Teams

James Worthy and Sam Perkins are all smiles following the 1982 UNC championship. / Courtesy of Hugh Morton.

Crewcuts and smiles -- the 1957 UNC team celebrates on its way to a 32-0 record and the national championship./Courtesy UNC Athletic Communications.

On Saturday, Feb.10, it will be a pleasure for all UNC basketball fans to be in Chapel Hill. At halftime of the Wake Forest-UNC game, the 1957 and 1982 UNC title teams will be honored.

Both squads are celebrating major anniversaries this season -- No.50 for the '57ers, No.25 for the '82ers. I'm more familiar with the 1982 crowd because of the book that Jimmy Black and I combined on, of course (check elsewhere on this website for more information about that).

But the 1957 team also has some wonderful stories attached to it, and a great book as well. My friend Adam Lucas recently published "The Best Game Ever," referring to the '57 team and its triple-overtime win over Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in the final. It's well worth the time of anyone who wants a dose of what life was like in Chapel Hill in the '50s during that special time. Adam has four members from that team with him for a book signing on Friday, Feb.9 at 1 p.m. at Chapel Hill Sportswear in Chapel Hill.

"The biggest man
I've ever seen"

UNC Asheville's Kenny George, a redshirt sophomore center, is 7-foot-7 and 365 pounds. Seriously. And he wears size 25 shoes.

Jan.13, 2007
 
When I heard about Kenny George, I had to see him in person. It's not every day you get a chance to see perhaps the largest college basketball player ever. So I drove up to Asheville this past week to check out George.

George is very raw. He can't run at all -- it's more of a shuffle-jog. When UNC Asheville is shooting free throws, coach Eddie Biedenbach moves George away from offensive rebounding position and then puts him all the way back on defense. "So they have to come to him," Biedenbach explained. In George's best game so far this season, be blocked seven shots in 14 minutes.
I covered 7-foot-7 Manute Bol for a few months when I was working for The Miami Herald. Bol was maybe 200 pounds -- George is more than a Bol-and-a-half. (George's height is accounted for in part by an over-accelerating pituitary gland).

George has a lot of work to do, but I'm rooting for him. He's a shy guy who's never been able to shrink into the background no matter how hard he tries. He told me that his size 25 shoes are actually built "size 28" in terms of their width, whatever that means.

"But I like to just say they're 25s," George said. "That doesn't sound so big and weird."

Dec.26, 2006

Happy Holidays to everyone! It's been a pleasure corresponding with you over the past year. I continue to get some very good story ideas from this website -- you know, you don't have to be buying a book or anything like that to write me. I'm always welcome to hearing story ideas here -- or general sports comments -- at ScottFowlerBooks@aol.com.
 
The Panthers (7-8) are close to finishing their schizophrenic season. They won 10-3 Sunday at Atlanta because of great defense and a new signature play -- taking Chris Weinke off the field on all key third downs and direct snapping to tailback DeAngelo Williams, who'd take off running wherever he saw daylight. It was a brilliant coaching move -- and one Coach John Fox and his staff desperately needed. They, along with their team, had been under-performing most of the year.
 
Now Carolina is 7-8 and needs three things to happen next weekend to eke into the playoffs at 8-8: A New York Giants loss to Washington Saturday night, a Green Bay loss to Chicago and a Panthers win at New Orleans. I'd put the odds of all three of those happening exactly as Carolina needs them to happen at around 10 percent. Still, that's better than zero percent, and it was good the Panthers showed a few signs of life against the Falcons.
 
I took the week prior to Christmas off but am back to work as of today. You can always read my work at The Charlotte Observer, along with a bank of thousands of questions and answers about Carolina-based sports from readers, at:
 
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/308/index.html

Jimmy Black huddles the troops during the 1982 Final Four in New Orleans. (Photo courtesy of Hugh Morton)

Dec.9, 2006
 
It's been nice over the past couple of weeks to share Jimmy Black's vision of the 1982 UNC championship team with folks. Writing a book can be a lonely enterprise, but this one wasn't so much that way because it was a collaboration. I have been asked a number of times by people at book-signings and events over the past few weeks several questions about "Jimmy Black's Tales from the Tar Heels," which just came out, so I'll try to answer the three most common questions here:
 
Q: Whose idea was this book?
A: Actually, my publisher (Sports Publishing, based in Illinois) thought of it first. I had written a previous book for the company called "Tar Heels: Where Have You Gone?" and they were pleased enough with that one to ask if I had any interest in co-authoring a book on the 1982 UNC team to commemorate its 25th anniversary.
 
Q: Why did you write this book with Jimmy Black as opposed to anyone else associated with that famous team?
A: Jimmy lives in North Carolina -- he's the only one of the starters on that team who still does -- and I wanted to write it with someone I could talk to frequently in person. Also, I knew of Jimmy's reputation as a class act and the underrated senior leader of that team. He was my first choice, and I'm blessed that he agreed to do it.
 
Q: What was the process of writing the book?
A: I would meet with Jimmy, usually at his office in Durham NC (he is a financial broker there, working for Raymond James). We'd do interviews about specific aspects of the season and I'd tape those and transcribe them. I also interviewed about two dozen players, coaches and others closely associated with the book. Their memories are also included, and make it a much richer book. I would write chapters for Jimmy, e-mail them to him, he would change a few things, we would edit it together and then we would send that to the publisher.
 
If you have any other questions about the book or anything else, feel free to e-mail me at ScottFowlerBooks@aol.com and I'll get back to you. Happy Holidays!

Nov.15, 2006
 
Basketball and football seasons are officially overlapping, which makes for one of my favorite times of year. I saw the Panthers play Tampa Bay Monday night -- here was my take in The Observer...
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/
football/nfl/carolina_panthers/16006451.htm

and North Carolina play Winthrop in basketball Wednesday.

It has been a weird week at The Observer. When I walked back from the football game to our office -- the stadium is only about 200 yards away -- I just had gotten in my car when all the lights went out in our parking lot. Thinking not much of it, I drove to the security gate, which wouldn't come up.

After a few minutes, about 6 of us were in line to get out of the gate. We kept calling security, which wouldn't come but never explained why. I just thought it was a gate malfunction -- that's happened a lot of times before -- and ultimately drove over the median to get out. I never thought "big picture" but that's what it turned out to be -- a huge electrical outage at the Observer, which resulted in 156,000 papers not being delivered on time Tuesday.

Most subscribers didn't get the paper until Wednesday, along with their Wednesday paper. At least a lot off people complained -- that was a good sign. If nobody missed the paper when it didn't show up, we'd be in some serious trouble in this business.

Oct.23, 2006
 
Just got back from Cincinnati, where the Panthers were held scoreless in the second half and ended up losing, 17-14, to drop to 4-3. They are no better than an average NFL team right now. Here's my column from Cincinnati on the Panthers' performance:
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/
football/nfl/carolina_panthers/15825226.htm

On the same night the Chase for the Nextel Cup tightened up considerably in Martinsville, the World Series got tied up at 1-all between Detroit and St. Louis and John Bunting was fired as UNC's head football coach. It was a busy night for our sports desk. Bunting's firing was inevitable -- that program was in a downward spiral that it just wasn't going to come out of with him as head coach.

Greg "Catman" Good gives a thumbs-up behind the wheel of his new Ford F-150 pickup.

Fox CEO David Hill -- he's the guy without the blue hair -- flew from Los Angeles to Charlotte to personally present Greg "Catman" Good with his car after the outcry from Charlotte Observer readers.

Scott Fowler and Greg Good at the Dale Jarrett Ford dealership in Indian Trail, just outside of Charlotte. Dale Jarrett Ford was where Good was presented his new truck.

Sept.1, 2006
 
     What a busy August it was! I spent most of the month trying to get a handle on the Panthers, who should be very good this season. They are deeper than they’ve ever been. If the Panthers’ three most indispensable players stay healthy throughout the season – Jake Delhomme, Steve Smith and Julius Peppers – that’s a very good start. The offensive line and the linebackers have to come through as well.
     Rookie DeAngelo Williams has gotten a lot of pub in August because he’s new and the No.1 draft choice, but make no mistake – DeShaun Foster is the No.1 back in Carolina. Delhomme says he believes Foster will have a “humongous” year. I think he’s probably right if – and it’s always a big “if” with Foster – No.26 stays healthy. The offense really didn’t look that good in the preseason – only two offensive touchdowns in four games. But the defense has been so strong that the Panthers were still 4-0 in exhibitions.
     In other news, if you’re in Charlotte anytime soon and looking for some adventure, you really should check out the new Whitewater Center. I came away very impressed with it. Here’s the link to my recent column on the place:
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte
/sports/outdoors/15366666.htm

And check out the e-mail I’ve been receiving lately on my Q and A page on charlotte.com – lots of new stuff there, including various suggestions for what the Panthers’ defense should be nicknamed and why TV announcers can’t seem to get the facts right about the Panthers sometimes:
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/
charlotte/sports/columnists/scott_fowler/qaforum.html

July 25, 2006
 
 
Let's take a break from sports for a minute -- this is the last chance to do it before Panthers training camp starts.

My friend Ron DeShaies, who has taken many of the pictures for my site, recently returned from Africa on a photo safari. He told me he took 10,000 pictures there, and he sent me a few he said I could display on this site. The one above shows two cheetah cubs playing -- Ron said those 2 were playing around for 15-20 minutes while he watched. His website is www.treasuredeventsofcharlotte.com http://www.treasuredeventsofcharlotte.com,
and there's a lot more Africa pictures there. Here's one more:
 

To see several other pictures from Ron's trip on this site,
click here:
 
For those who care, Panther single-game tickets go on sale Saturday, July 29, at 10 a.m. Go to this link and click on my Q and A for The Charlotte Observer to read more about the best way to buy these tickets.
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/
columnists/scott_fowler/qa_forum.html

Members of the Lake Norman 4.5-level state championship tennis team celebrate their five straight victories in Pinehurst, N.C., in the summer of 2006. From left to right: Erik Witten, Nelson Britt, John Tennant, Scott Fowler, Mark Allen, Aaron Morrison, Captain Mike Ferrero, Keith Kye, Chris Butler, Doug Knox, Brad Hobday, Rob Wilson and Richard Moon. (Photo courtesy of Nelson Britt).

July 9, 2006
 
Permit me a bit of self-indulgence. My one big hobby is tennis -- I love the sport and have played it regularly for the past 25 years. I love the competitive nature of it and it's really the only way I can stay in any sort of shape. I play on a 4.5-level team in the Lake Norman, NC area (4.5 is about the equivalent of a five-handicap in golf -- you play other folks who are rated the same as you) and have done so for years. Our team always wins the city championship in Lake Norman but has faltered in the state tournament for many years in a row.
 
That finally changed in early July, when our Team Ferrero (pictured above) swept its way to the state championship with five straight wins over (in order) teams from Greensboro, Cary, Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh. Everyone who played for us at the tournament in Pinehurst, N.C., got at least one individual win and contributed to the team's overall record of 22-3 at the tourney.

Mainly for the entertainment of my tennis teammates and their families, I've written a spoof story about the team. The setup is this: Al Michaels, John Madden and the late Howard Cosell are looking at the picture above and discussing it in great depth. Click here to read that story.

Pinehurst, N.C., was the setting and the Carolina Hotel the headquarters for the N.C. state tennis championships in 2006. (Photo courtesy of Nelson Britt).

June 17, 2006
 
Summertime is usually a sportswriter's slowest time of the year in Charlotte. With no major league baseball team, it's the one season where there aren't that many events to get excited about. It also gives you a chance to write what we in the business call "enterprise" stories -- basically, stories that aren't based on a particular event.

I liken it to a point guard trying to create opportunities, both for himself and others. In my first newspaper job ever, at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, I worked as a summer intern for a couple of years way back in the 1980s, and my boss then (Jim Fair) taught me more about that sort of thing than anyone has since.
But this summer hasn't really slowed down that much yet. J.J. Redick got arrested for DUI. The Carolina Hurricanes are one game from winning the Stanley Cup. Michael Jordan bought part of the Charlotte Bobcats this week -- I don't think this is a magic bullet for the Bobcats, but it certainly is interesting. Here's my take on MJ and his new role:
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/
columnists/scott_fowler/14830860.htm

Also, I recently completed the 10th installment of my "20 questions" series with the Panthers' flamboyant new wide receiver, Keyshawn Johnson. Here's that:
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/
columnists/scott_fowler/14792325.htm

Like so many who live in the Tar Heel State, I mourned the passing of Hugh Morton. Mr. Morton, 85, had an incredible life. The owner of Grandfather Mountain was many things here, and among those, he was a fantastic sports photographer. Here's the tribute column I wrote about Mr. Morton. It's worth checking out just for the photo Hugh took nearly 25 years ago that accompanies the story:
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/sports/
columnists/scott_fowler/14731503.htm

Ivan Lendl and Scott Fowler met in Charlotte recently when Lendl did a tennis exhibition at Carmel Country Club. Lendl smiles all the time now – hard to believe for anyone who remembers his tennis career. Photo by Ron DeShaies /www.treasuredeventsofcharlotte.com)

May 29, 2006
 
I used to hate Ivan Lendl.

He was sort of like Dolph Lundgren in “Rocky IV” – the guy from a communist country who was dour and nearly unbeatable. Lendl was the chief foil throughout the 1980s for John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, who were not nearly as well-behaved on the tennis court but were Americans, so I cut them some slack. Probably too much, really.

Anyway, it was quite a surprise to find Lendl so charming and personable on his recent visit to Charlotte. I wrote about him for The Observer because he’s now a golf father – he and his wife have five daughters (and no sons). They all live in Florida; Ivan Lendl has been an American citizen since 1992.

Three of the girls are heavily into golf and play it very well at a junior national level. Charlotte is hosting a national junior girls’ tournament in July, so Lendl was here promoting that. A friend of mine, Ron DeShaies, snapped this picture before Lendl played a tennis exhibition in Charlotte – Lendl only plays tennis 1-2 times a year now.
 
You can read the Lendl column I wrote by clicking this link:
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte
/sports/columnists/scott_fowler/14559829.htm

I mentioned in a recent blog that I had a very good one-on-one interview with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Of all my “20 questions” continuing series that I do for the newspaper, this one may have been my favorite (J.J. Redick was really fun, too). Earnhardt is so honest, and he really bought into the concept. Here’s a link to that one if you want to take a look:
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte
/sports/motorsports/14625977.htm

I also did a “20 questions” with Jeff Gordon for race week, and really enjoyed that as well. I first met Jeff back in the mid-1990s, when he was new to NASCAR and newly married to a former Miss Winston named Brooke Sealey. A lot has changed since then – Gordon has gray hair prickling his sideburns, he and Brooke are divorced, he’s won four Cup championships and he has a new philosophy he calls “Be More Me.” Check that out at:
 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte
/sports/motorsports/14680150.htm

Phil Mickelson talked under his umbrella to The Charlotte Observer's Scott Fowler (right) and Stan Olson after his disappointing showing at the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte. (Photo by Ron DeShaies /www.treasuredeventsofcharlotte.com)

May 13, 2006
 
May in Charlotte means golf and racing in my profession. Tom Sorensen -- my friend and fellow sports columnist for The Observer -- and I picked two days apiece to cover the Wachovia Championship at Quail Hollow. Tom had some precognitive abilities -- he chose Thursday and Saturday, which were both beautiful and sunny. I got Friday and Sunday, both rainy. The picture above comes from one of the interviews Sunday that me and Stan Olson did with Phil Mickelson. Stan is always good to have around; he once sat on a bag of potato chips at the Super Bowl;  he's always the guy who forgets to turn off his cell phone at a Panthers press conference; he's just great comic relief and, of course, a good reporter, too.
Following the Wachovia, my attention turns to NASCAR. Charlotte is NASCAR central, especially this time of year. I went to Darlington on Friday, May 12, to interview Dale Earnhardt Jr. for this "20 Questions" series I do for the newspaper -- 20 questions about a variety of subjects for various sports stars. Earnhardt spent about a half-hour with me and it was one of the more revealing interviews I've had in the past year. He was more honest and introspective than I thought he would be, so I'm looking forward to publishing that story.

May 3, 2006

The NFL draft is over, and I think the Panthers did a good thing with their No.1 pick. DeAngelo Williams will help the Panthers with their neediest position -- I just can't help but think that DeShaun Foster will be hurt at some point during the 2006 season. Williams and Eric Shelton, who basically had a redshirt season as a rookie last season, will be counted on for support. You watch Williams' highlights and you get an occasional glimpse of Steve Smith-esque moves. Whether he can do that routinely or just once a month in the NFL, who knows?

May is a nice sports month in Charlotte -- the Wachovia golf tournament and several big NASCAR races dominate it. May and October are my two favorite weather months around here, so I'm always looking for stories that take me outside.

April 8, 2006

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- There are worse places to be than Augusta, Ga., when you're waiting for it to stop raining. That's where I am as I type this. You can count on the Masters each year to supply you with pimento cheese sandwiches on white bread, purple azaleas and a whole lot of rain. I've been coming here since 2000 for The Charlotte Observer, and it ALWAYS rains at some point during the four days of play. For the last five years, play has been stopped at some point. You can't live without an umbrella here.

This is the end of a major travel jag for me every year. I cover the NCAA basketball tournament throughout March. This season, I thought the tournament's first two weeks were fantastic - full of thrilling finishes and punctuated by George Mason's stunning run to the Final Four. But my trip to Indianapolis to write about the Final Four ended up being ordinary at best. Of the three games, not a single one included a second-half lead change. B-o-o-o-ring.

Still, I'm in a fine mood. I'm going home very soon, where my wife and kids await. There will be very little travel for the next few months for me - maybe a trip to Raleigh to see Herb Sendek's replacement at N.C. State (that was a marriage that just wasn't worth saving), but hopefully not much more. "Lost," the best show on television, keeps producing one first-rate episode after another. Easter is coming, as well as the kids' spring break. Life is good.

March 13, 2006

I love March Madness, don't you? Particularly the opening weekend, when there is such a glut of games it's hard to keep up with them all. I'll be in Greensboro for the first two rounds for The Charlotte Observer, watching Duke roll again. Hard to imagine the Blue Devils won't be in Atlanta for the Sweet 16. I was hoping UNC would be there in Greensboro, too, but instead the Tar Heels got shipped out to Dayton. I picked a Final Four in the newspaper today -- Gonzaga, Georgetown, Duke and UNC. Undoubtedly wrong, but that's the beauty of the tournament, isn't it? Have fun with your brackets.

The Observer's parent company, Knight Ridder, has been sold to McClatchy. Probably won't affect you much -- I'm hoping it doesn't affect us too much, either. This was the best possible outcome for us. We've known we were going to get sold for a few months now, and McClatchy had the best journalistic reputation among all possible suitors. McClatchy also owns the Raleigh and Rock Hill (S.C.) papers, and now gets The Observer and the Columbia State paper as well. It will really dominate the Carolinas.

I took a week off in early March to work on another book -- more details on that this summer -- and to take a weekend in Charleston. My wife and I went to James Taylor's solo show in Charleston, which was fantastic. We are big JT fans.

Feb.18, 2006

I've really been enjoying answering questions from readers lately. I do a feature on Charlotte.com that is an online Q and A, and after a slow start it has really taken off. I think the first 8-9 months I had it I only answered about 300 questions total, but in the past month or so I've answered another 300 from various readers. Find out what other folks who care about sports in the Carolinas want to know -- check it out here:

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/
sports/columnists/scott_fowler/qa_forum.html

If you click on that and it makes you sign up for Charlotte.com, I'm sorry about the inconvenience. But you only have to do it once, it's quick and it's free.

Feb.9, 2006

With the NFL season finally over, I'm getting into my other sports passion -- college basketball. Went to Chapel Hill Tuesday to see the 220th meeting of Duke-Carolina. Fantastic game, as usual. Duke was up by 17 early in second half, then down by 5 with 4:33 left, then up by 7 with a minute left, then up by only one and about to turn it over with 20 seconds left, and then pulled it out. Fun stuff. You can see the column I wrote by clicking here: http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte
/sports/columnists/scott_fowler/13817613.htm

I didn't go to the Super Bowl. The Charlotte Observer, my employer, would have sent about 20 folks there if Panthers had won NFC championship. Instead, they sent 3. Tom Sorensen, who's the Observer's other sports columnist, went instead. Tom loves the Super Bowl. If the Panthers aren't in it, I'm more of a Final Four guy. So most years -- since we're lucky enough at the moment to have employers who want us to go to these things -- Tom does the Super Bowl and I cover the Final Four.
Have a good Valentine's Day. Do not buy your spouse a bowling ball with the word "Homer" engraved on it, as Homer Simpson did in one of my all-time favorite Simpsons episodes when he had to get Marge a present for some reason or another.

Jan.21, 2005

Here's a small example of what's wrong with the airline industry. I had to buy a plane ticket on Sunday, Jan.14, to go to Seattle the following weekend for the Carolina Panthers/Seattle NFC championship game.

There were lots of options, but USAirways had the best direct flight. I wanted to leave on Saturday afternoon, Jan.21, on a 5:55 p.m. flight and return home sometime Monday. But the fare, with six days advance notice was $1,400.

However, if I drove to the Greenville/Spartanburg airport, flew back to Charlotte, took the exact same 5:55 p.m. flight and then came home at the same time, that was $340.

You can guess which one of those The Charlotte Observer wanted me to do. So I'm sitting here in the very pleasant and nearly deserted GSP airport on Saturday afternoon, typing this and wondering how airlines got so messed up.

Michael Whisnant holds up his copy of Scott's latest book at what Whisnant describes as an "undisclosed location" in the Middle East.

Dec.29, 2005

I have recently had some inspiring correspondence with Michael Whisnant, a 28-year-old American soldier from the Shelby, N.C., area who is stationed in the Middle East. He volunteered to go there and strongly believes in the U.S. mission in Iraq. Michael keeps up daily with the Charlotte Observer and the Shelby Star newspapers online.

Michael sent me a picture of him holding a copy of "North Carolina Tar Heels: Where Have You Gone?" -- the picture above is one of them -- and told me how much he enjoyed the book. He thanked me for writing it.

Of course, it's Michael and the thousands like him to whom all of us owe thanks. I asked Michael via e-mail to describe to me a little about his life in the Middle East and this is some of what he told me. (He can't say exactly where he is in the above picture -- he's told to say "undisclosed location").

From Michael Whisnant: "My name and rank is Staff Sergeant Michael S. Whisnant, 28 years old and born in Shelby N.C. I enlisted in the USAF June 1998 and this is my third deployment to the Middle East. Presently I am the Non-Commissioned Office in Charge, Customs and Immigrations at Yokota AB, Japan but am deployed to an "undisclosed location" and work Supply for CENTAF/Force Protection. My family still resides in the Shelby area. My father is self-employed and my mother is a nurse. I also have a brother and a sister and 6 nephews. I am a huge sports fan. TAR-HEELS BABY!!!

"Christmas was tough this year as it was my first in the Middle East. The base does a great job though keeping morale up and prepared a wonderful Christmas meal. I was one of the lucky ones who had Christmas off. During Thanksgiving and Christmas all of the base leadership serves our meals to us as a way of saying thanks for our outstanding work.... I am scheduled to go all over the war zone and will make sure to bring the book along to record its journey. Basically I will get on either an airplane or helicopter and go to every base in the war."
Thank you, Michael, for all you do there, for reading the book and for giving me permission to post this stuff. Stay safe!

Dec.9, 2005

What a hectic, fun month December has been so far. The Panthers are now 9-3 – the best record in team history at this point of the season – with big home games against Tampa Bay and Dallas looming later this month. Their defense has been so good lately that it’s going to take them deep into the playoffs unless something goes really wrong. Carolina’s 24-6 win over Atlanta Sunday, when they totally flummoxed Michael Vick, was one of the most startling performances in team history.

I’ve also been impressed by the 2005-06 Tar Heels, who I’ve now seen several times in person. Bobby Frasor turns out to be the answer at point guard. Tyler Hansbrough is the best freshman in the ACC this season. North Carolina is still a year away from another serious NCAA tournament run, but I feel more strongly now that they will make the Big Dance this season.

Photo courtesy of Hugh Morton

Nov.23, 2005

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Don't you just love this picture? My friend Hugh Morton -- truly one of the state treasures of North Carolina -- took it a long time ago and sent it to me digitally recently. Mr. Morton, of course, is the man who put Grandfather Mountain on everyone's "must-do" list in North Carolina (and if you haven't been, you need to go. It's gorgeous.
www.grandfather.com for more details).

Mr. Morton is also an accomplished photographer. This shot reminds me of how passionate sports fans are, even during harsh weather. It happens to be a rainy day in Chapel Hill with fans filing into the Smith Center for this game. But that happens everywhere, doesn't it? Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Coming in from the snow in Syracuse for good hoops. Stomping your feet, taking off your coat and almost immediately starting to sweat when you walk into any ACC home arena in the dead of February.

Sports is about passion -- from fans, from players, from coaches, from everyone. This picture reminds me of that.

Nov.1, 2005

Happy November, everyone! The Panthers are 5-2 now and just put together a thoroughly dominant performance for the first time this season, spanking Minnesota 38-13. I covered the game as usual for The Charlotte Observer and had fun writing about Steve Smith afterward. Smith, remember, told Panther GM Marty Hurney very early in his career he would be the best player Carolina ever had, and it’s starting to look that way.

Minnesota Viking coach Mike Tice was unbelievably stubborn in this game, insisting that Fred Smoot try to cover Steve Smith all over the field even though Smith just kept torching him. Smith had a team-record 201 yards receiving, and Tice looked more and more like a coach who will be fired as soon as the season ends (if he lasts that long).

“North Carolina Tar Heels: Where Have You Gone?” is just starting to get into bookstores and it’s been fun hearing what people think of the book. I’m hearing a lot of early positive response from Tar Heel fans. A book is such a solitary project for so long and then you finally get to share it with your little corner of the world. That’s one of the best parts.

Oct.6, 2005

October and November are two of my favorite months on the sports calendar. Basketball is about to start, the NFL and college football is in full swing and it's the only time of the year I really get interested in baseball. The Panthers are 2-2 at the moment but facing a favorable schedule over the next three weeks. The Monday Night game against Green Bay was really fun to cover, although the deadline was a bear for all of us at the newspaper. I've seen Brett Favre play about a dozen times in person now, and he has to be one of the most fun athletes I've ever watched (I'd put Michael Jordan and Pete Sampras high on the list, too).

The Panthers have been a flawed team so far this season, but a very interesting one. Three of their four games have been decided in the final minute. They're good enough to hang around all season in the playoff chase, and I still think they'll make the playoffs, but probably as a wild-card team. I don't think they're good enough to get to the Super Bowl, unless their suddenly suspect defense starts living up to its press clippings.

I had an interesting interview with NASCAR driver Tony Stewart this week. Although I've been critical of his behavior in the past -- as have many others -- he was introspective and honest. Watch for that sometime in next week's Charlotte Observer, before the Oct.15, 2005 race points race here in Charlotte. I'll try to put it up on this website at some point as well.

Sept. 14, 2005

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

At least it seems that way from the reaction of Carolina Panther fans after the team dropped its home opener, 23-20, to New Orleans Sunday and also lost Kris Jenkins to a torn ACL for the entire season.

It’s an overreaction, of course. The Panthers went 6-2 in the second half of 2004 without Jenkins on the field for a single play (a shoulder injury that time).

And there are some positive signs. I thought Stephen Davis might never play again after microfracture surgery on his knee, but he carried 13 times for 81 yards against New Orleans. Steve Smith was acrobatic and amazing.

What I didn’t like at all: Panthers coach John Fox de-activated wide receiver Rod Gardner, whose height and receiving skills make this decision extremely questionable. The Panthers may struggle to find a consistent No.2 receiver all season if that’s the way Fox is going to play it.

If Carolina was going to lose, though, losing to the Saints (fresh off their displacement due to Hurricane Katrina) was fitting. New Orleans was tougher, smarter and better able to deal with adversity in Week One.

You may want to check out my “Jake on Jake” question-and-answer with Jake Delhomme that was in the Sunday, Sept.11 newspaper. You can find it by clicking on the “Read Scott’s latest columns on charlotte.com” page, then scrolling down to the “Jake on Jake” headline. There’s some interesting stuff in there – Jake’s favorite CD, his most depressing moment, the name of his pet Chihuahua and so on.

Also, the new Panthers trivia quiz is online and available – check the right side of the ScottFowlerSports.com homepage.

Aug.19, 2005

Hi, everyone! Glad you're back. Please check out the new "Panther Trivia" portion of the website in the top righthand corner of the scottfowlersports.com homepage if you haven't seen it yet. It's pretty fun, and you might win a signed copy of "Tales from the Carolina Panthers Sideline." I'll post a new "Panther Trivia" quiz every few weeks during football season.

I've had an interesting e-mail exchange recently with a pro basketball player living in Sweden. His name is Toni Caktas, and he's Croatian. He follows American sports and e-mailed me recently about the Panthers book, saying he enjoyed it. It turns out Toni had become a huge Panther fan in Sweden, inspired not by the Super Bowl season but by the team's recovery after a 1-7 start last year.
I asked Toni how he found my book in Sweden and he wrote: "I just searched for any book about the panthers on Amazon.com. Yours got very good Customer Reviews so I took it.

(That link, by the way, is:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
ASIN/1582618356/qid%3D1094675986/
sr%3Dka-2/ref%3Dpd%5Fka%5F2/
002-5568735-6028855. It's the cheapest way to buy the Panthers book now -- or almost any book, for that matter -- if you don't need to have one signed. Toni was kind enough to post a positive review there. He asks that you forgive his English, as it's not his first language).

Anyway, Toni continued: "I played with Earvin Magic Johnson when he had a
team in Sweden so know few things about pro stuff. I had minor knee surgery last year when I was about to reach the top. My leg was so swollen after surgery I thought that I would never play again.

Just then the Panthers had a record of 1-7 and everybody thought that the season was lost -- just as I thought about my career.But no, not the Panthers.They never gave up. They kept fighting, believing and reaching for every inch. And they got up. Man, I could not believe it! I got so inspired that I ordered bunch of Panther T-shirts and became a huge fan of the Panthers. Every time I've got a panthers T-shirt on me when I work out, I work harder.If they could do it from the bottom so could I."
Interesting story, isn't it? Good luck, Toni, on your career.

July 29, 2005

Panthers camp is here again, so I'm stationed in Spartanburg watching Carolina begin the long trudge toward the Sept.11 season opener against New Orleans. A half-dozen quick impressions as camp opens for Carolina:

1) Rod Gardner is really going to help this team quickly. A great trade. The Panthers think he may even start alongside Steve Smith at wide receiver. I think Gardner is good for at least 45-55 catches this season.

2) Don't count on Stephen Davis ever playing another down for Carolina. Certainly, he might. I hope he does. But his body has been banged on an awful lot and this injury is very tricky.

3) Thomas Davis will be an opening-day starter at strong safety -- opposite Mike Minter at free safety -- when Carolina opens Sept.11 at home against New Orleans.

4) Kris Jenkins looks thinner (which for Jenkins, is a relative term) and happier. No one else on the defense is more important than Jenkins, so monitoring his progress is absolutely critical. So is monitoring his weight -- he's about 335 right now, which is pretty good for him.

5) Steve Smith is going to have a huge year if he doesn't get hurt. I think he's totally back.

6) Here's how NFL players are different from you and me. When Brentson Buckner was asked on check-in day at camp how many cars he owned, he said almost apologetically: "I only have six."