Mangini Risks Fury of Scorned Hoodie

By SELENA ROBERTS

Published: September 18, 2007

There is Coach Hoodie, and then there is Coach Hoodwink.

Coach Hoodie is the Patriots’ Bill Belichick. He answers with growls, is hardwired to be ruthless, and would have lost a congeniality contest to the dearly departed Leona Helmsley. He comes as is: obsessive, cold, and brazen enough to have cheated with his video spy games out in the open of a sideline.

Coach Hoodwink is the Jets’ Eric Mangini (pictured). He replies to questions in his library voice, visits Sesame Street in his downtime and readily reveals his soft, fatherly side. He comes off as duplicitous: paranoid, brutal, and nakedly ambitious enough to have double-crossed the organization that nurtured his career.

Mangini didn’t just flip on Belichick, costing his former mentor a celebrated image that has been reflected in a shelf-full of Lombardi Trophies, as well as a $500,000 fine and a prime draft pick. He did more. He also humiliated the respected Patriots owner and league power player Robert K. Kraft.

That sin has left Mangini toxic to some team executives. After all, would you trust him? Is there anyone — a player, assistant, general manager, owner or mascot — that he wouldn’t betray in a pinch?

Bad karma can be a career killer. It took Ted Nolan years to land his current gig as the coach of the Islanders after he was blackballed, in part because he was labeled a traitor of management during his Sabres days.

False righteousness can boomerang. The track coach Trevor Graham once said he anonymously mailed the syringe that started the Balco circus in an effort to clean up the sport, but a grand jury witness told a different tale: He did it to implicate athletes and coaches that his runners competed against. Graham is awaiting trial on charges that he lied to federal agents about the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.

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Videogate isn’t a criminal issue — it’s more of a punch line by now — but it does cast shadows on the league’s integrity.

There is no doubt Belichick’s video trickery was wrong, hubristic and a below-the-belt maneuver of reckless proportion. Commissioner Roger Goodell — the N.F.L.’s overtaxed moral warden — was right in delivering a punitive blow as a scare tactic to a league full of teams that seek a competitive edge by tapping into their inner MacGyvers. Even Kraft understood Goodell’s logic, even if it took him a while.

“I must tell you I was quite upset and perturbed when I saw the penalty, because I didn’t think that the incident deserved this kind of punishment,” Kraft told NBC on Sunday night. “Over the last couple of days, I’ve been thinking about it and have cooled down. I realized he wasn’t just sending a message to the New England Patriots, he was sending it to all 32 teams.”

Belichick wasn’t alone in this race to the bottom of sports ethics. Mangini was very likely, at one point in his Patriot days, the spy who loved Hoodie.

How will we ever know? Maybe the lens will be the judge. In order to eliminate any competitive advantage Belichick might have tucked away in his film files, the Patriots said yesterday that they would comply with Goodell’s request to provide their videotape archive.

How about popcorn and a movie with Goodell? Imagine what’s on those old tapes. Is that Mangini holding the Cheat Cam in 2004? Is that Mangini wiretapping Bill Parcells’s headset in 2003?

A question to Jets officials yesterday about Mangini’s possible role in New England’s spy ring was greeted with the organization mantra: “It’s a league matter.”

The matter has revealed more about Mangini than Belichick. Already, Mangini was known for attempting to raid the Patriots’ cupboards upon his exit in January 2006. He slithered around Foxborough as if he were pilfering Whoville, trying to lift players, assistants and secretaries.

He wanted everything but the picture hooks on the walls. He also wanted to claim Belichick’s mind as his own intellectual property.

But who knew how far he would go for a gotcha of Belichick? Maybe Mangini’s betrayal was a little something he learned from Belichick’s school of calculated callousness. In a way, the two almost deserve each other. Someday, Belichick and Mangini may look up and realize teams can win — and play in Super Bowls — on the strength of a coach’s humanity, not his ability to humiliate.

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Belichick is who he is. Mangini is the one with an identity crisis. He wants to portray himself as the anti-Bill — oozing charm when talking family values — and yet he longs to be Hoodie, to be known as wickedly smart.

Calling out his mentor lacked thought, though. It is not the wisest idea to mess with the N.F.L.’s version of Zeus. The wisdom of Mangini’s decision to flip Bill will play out all season — and maybe beyond. So far, it’s Coach Hoodie, 2-0; and Coach Hoodwink, 0-2.

E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com

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Stop Worrying, and Learn to Love the Yanks

By SELENA ROBERTS

Published: September 16, 2007

BOSTON

In a version of the '80s alternative band The Replacements, a young trio of rockin' pitchers has arrived to push out the cranky, arrogant and gluttonous tenets of Yankee loathing.

Go ahead and despise Planet Pinstripe if you must because the franchise of excess has mistake money to absorb debacles like Carl Pavano or because A-Rod is forever precious. Go ahead and sneer at Yankee Inc., because Boss revulsion is part of your DNA or because you'd rather gnaw your arm off than watch the miracle comeback the Yankees produced against Boston on Friday night.

Otherwise, Yankee hate seems so synthetic, so manufactured. Really, you have to force it when the Boss is only venomous in caricature as he slip-slides away into the background.

Odious is so yesterday now that the Yankees' sleepless crossing guard, Brian Cashman, is directing decisions, now that his boy band of Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain has arrived as cheap, blissful and innocent members of the team's Happy Meal crowd.

They are so cute at this age — before hubris or entitlement or big money kicks in. They come without baggage or attitude or mercenary labels. They come as a refreshing option to the organization's villainous past. Not long ago, the Yankees possessed a crotchety AARP club of antisocial pitchers who could stare holes — or punch holes — into cinder block walls. The oppressive Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson lorded dark clouds over everyone.

Now, there is the sound of children laughing — or at least 20-somethings having a blast.

"I'm excited about any trip; I'm like a kid in a candy store," Chamberlain said Friday after his first tour of Fenway Park. "I've walked around a little bit. You've got to step back and take it all in."

Among the youth crew, Chamberlain is the overnight sensation of mythic proportions who has managed to keep his luminary status from going Britney Spears.

"We're impressed with Joba, how he has handled everything," Cashman said. "That's part of someone's development, not just the physical side on the field, but how they're doing off the field. And we'll take great care to make sure he stays balanced."

Joba Rule No. 1: Bubble Wrap his Yankee arm from harm. Joba Rule No. 54: Bubble Wrap him from the Manhattan scene.

"A lot of times, as you've seen, the extra attention can go to someone's head and make them someone they prefer not to be," Cashman said. "You see that in pop stars. We don't want that."

They have enough leftover divas, if only in reputation. Mike Mussina, the meticulous pitcher of prickly fits, has been humbled a bit as he battles for his spot in the rotation. Roger Clemens, months removed from his Shakespearean balcony scene, doesn't generate the same antipathy for being a luxury-item bust given the way his body has been breaking down.

Jason Giambi, a confessed steroid cheat whose signing before the 2002 season triggered the new Yankee era of greed, is more of a forlorn figure than a detested one. He remains upbeat — if jagged from his Red Bull devotion — but is lost in the field and sporadic at the plate.

Pitiful lot, right? And yet, here the Yankees are, aboard Alex Rod8riguez's magic carpet ride, whisking toward the playoffs with youth to lighten the mood and brighten the outlook and threaten the Red Sox.

Boston, has its own prodigies with the no-hit wonder Clay Buchholz now in the bullpen and the hot-hitting Jacoby Ellsbury pushing center fielder Coco Crisp from Red Sox memory. And Boston, too, has plenty of petty cash to cover bad investments like J. D. Drew.

Both teams are hybrids — partly built for now, partly assembled for the future. More than with Boston, the Yankees' season has been saved by homegrown additions. It's the way it used to be, back in the '90s, before the Yankees' payroll went from $40 million to a peak of $200 million in '05. Farm figures like Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte alighted to change the staid dynamic of the clubhouse.

Now it's child-friendly again, part of the Cashman plan. His panic signing of Clemens aside — call it a momentary relapse in overspending rehab — the team is heading in a better direction with a Yankee version of The Replacements.

"Our business is baseball," Cashman said, "and all I did was simplify it, which is you've got to get back to basics, and that's the amateur pipeline. You can't spend all the money on the top-level guys. There are way too many perils."

Perils, like collapsing in the playoffs since 2001. The Yankees are still an embarrassment of riches — the envy of every general manager under a thrift-shopping mandate — but there is less to loathe with the Boss as a phantom, with the live-for-now era over.

To conjure genuine hate for the Yanks is becoming more difficult — but, of course, not impossible.

E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com

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Willingham Is Vindicated by Early Success

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 15, 2007

About three years ago, I began to carry around an imaginary college football scoreboard. It is a colossal contraption with all sorts of facts, figures and notations that go beyond the mere statistics of a game.

Notre Dame-Charlie Weis is the “team” on one side of the scoreboard; Washington-Tyrone Willingham is on the other. I keep weekly and season-to-season updates.

Today the scoreboard reads Notre Dame-Weis, 0-2; Washington-Willingham, 2-0.

I began keeping score on the imaginary board in 2004 after Willingham was unceremoniously, and unfairly, jettisoned as the Notre Dame head football coach, three days after an embarrassing road loss to Southern California.

In the press box that evening, Notre Dame faces were understandably red with humiliation as No. 1 U.S.C. routed the Irish, 41-10. It was the fifth loss by 30 points or more in Willingham’s three seasons.

After an outstanding first year was followed by a losing season, Willingham had been under fire from rabid Notre Dame alumni. So on Nov. 30, 2004, Willingham, Notre Dame’s first African-American head coach in any sport, was fired. Weis was hired from the New England Patriots a month later amid toasts and platitudes, and I’ve been keeping score ever since.

Even though nearly three years have come and gone, Willingham’s tenure at Notre Dame is frequently mentioned. The nature of Willingham’s firing and Weis’s hiring says a lot about standards and double standards and about the enduring unlevel playing field for African Americans in sports and beyond.

Weis was named the 28th head football coach in Notre Dame history in December 2004 when he agreed to a six-year contract worth a reported $2 million a year.

Weis, unlike Willingham, has always been a news media favorite, with his one-liners and zingers. He was a Notre Dame student, loved Notre Dame and bled Notre Dame, but the Irish really wanted Urban Meyer.

In Weis’s first season, the program improved significantly — with Willingham’s players. You can argue that Weis did a better job of coaching Willingham’s players; I like to think they were older and wiser. Midway through the first season of his six-year contract, Weis signed a new contract: a 10-year deal worth a reported $30 million to $40 million.

The common wisdom is that Weis got the contract on the strength a 5-2 record and Notre Dame’s close loss to a great U.S.C. team. There was also the misguided belief that Weis might run off to the N.F.L. I imagine that the same influential forces behind Willingham’s departure felt they’d better lock up their resident genius.

Newsflash: There are no geniuses in this business, only great players. There is smoke and mirrors, and there are video cameras. No geniuses.

Notre Dame has lost four consecutive games by at least 20 points, going back to last season when they were routed by U.S.C. and Louisiana State. The 2007 Irish have not scored an offensive touchdown and could be looking at 0-3 after today’s game at Michigan.

This season Weis is playing with his own players. He recruited quarterback Jimmy Clausen, the high school all-American, and apparently is going to stick with him through thick or thin.

In Seattle this afternoon, Willingham continues to ride his high school all-American quarterback, Jake Locker. Locker, a redshirt freshman, has led Washington to its first 2-0 start since the 2001 season.

Here are a couple notes to put on the imaginary scoreboard:

¶A fourth season should be mandatory for any head football coach at the Division I level. Every coach needs four seasons, at the very least, to coach the classes he inherited and bring along the players he recruited.

¶When a university finds a gem of a coach like Willingham, keep him. The cost of losing is high. Fishing for talent these days requires “feel” and “touch.” Not looking far enough, wide enough or deep enough for talent, choosing the safe and familiar, is not good business; eventually you will pay.

¶Willingham should not be the last African-American head football coach Notre Dame seriously considers — or hires.

¶Finally, the great thing about football is that results don’t lie. From South Bend to Seattle, 0-2 is 0-2; 2-0 is 2-0.

Washington faces a tremendous challenge against Ohio State this afternoon, and Willingham knows how quickly things can change.

Notre Dame could find its rhythm today and defeat Michigan; Ohio State could easily burst Washington’s bubble. Last season Washington went into October with a 4-1 record, including an upset victory over U.C.L.A. The Huskies lost their next six games and ended up 5-7.

That’s why today is an early-season day of reckoning for Notre Dame-Charlie Weis, and Washington-Tyrone Willingham.

Make no mistake: I’ll be scoreboard watching this afternoon.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Rutgers Has Spotlight and Glare

By HARVEY ARATON

Published: September 14, 2007

Here comes another duck lined up for the shooting — and shouting — gallery known as Rutgers Stadium. Here comes another meal-on-wheels for a new college football carnivore, all the way to central New Jersey from Virginia, by bus.

Here come the Spartans of Norfolk State for what is certain to be a Big East pasting tomorrow afternoon in exchange for a $275,000 payday that will at least spare them an even more arduous journey later this season.

“The money we’ll make from this game will help us with a number of things, and one of them is to be able to fly down to Tallahassee when we play Florida A&M next month,” said Marty Miller, the Norfolk State athletic director. “We’ve always gone by bus — 14 hours.”

Whatever the chances, slim to none, of riding high from Rutgers back to Norfolk, Miller and his head coach, Pete Adrian, leapt at the chance to replace Howard — which, like Norfolk State, is out of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference — on Rutgers’s 2007 schedule.

There are tangible benefits to a Saturday in Piscataway, N.J., as well as exposure and excitement for a team from the division formerly known as Division I-AA. “I was talking with the Rutgers people, and they told me it’s a sellout,” Miller said. “It’ll be the biggest crowd our kids have ever played in front of.”

Exactly what kind of reception awaits Norfolk State is another issue, raised last Friday night by an undetermined number of Rutgers fans in the student section, said to have profanely and drunkenly serenaded Navy’s players during a 41-24 Rutgers victory. The verbal assault — Imus in the evening — was first reported this week in The Star-Ledger of Newark, along with the Rutgers administration’s apologies to the Naval Academy. Writing in Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Targum, Rutgers’s student newspaper, the university’s athletic director, Robert E. Mulcahy III, called the vulgarity “undignified, disrespectful and unacceptable,” adding it had “embarrassed the university, the alumni and Rutgers fans across the state.”

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It was bad enough that it came nearly six months after the Rutgers women’s basketball team was the victim in the infamous case of Don Imus, the subsequently defrocked shock jock. It was worse that the targets were representatives of a military academy. But beyond the characterization of the opponent — ascribed or imagined — is the macro-question of institutional accountability. How rabid is Rutgers? How will it deal with its newfound prominence as a college football power?

Will it pursue an agenda of academic legitimacy even in cases when it risks the possibility of losing the prize recruit and slipping a rung after a long, painful climb? Will it better prepare itself for the greater visibility that comes with an enhanced level of scrutiny?

With the Navy debacle presumably behind it, will Rutgers now realize that the many night games it plays for the sake of national television brings into high definition the fact that on campuses nationwide, sundown for many means the end of sobriety?

There is a very fine line between the raucous crowds and home-field advantages the high-minded sports powers from Duke on down have forever winked at, and the unruliness that can result when students and fans are allowed to do as they please. Just as deserving of an apology from Rutgers were the families now flocking to Rutgers games, many of whom, as Mulcahy wrote in the student newspaper, “were so upset” they “left the game with their children.”

Every player in an opposing uniform happens to be somebody’s child. Every opponent deserves a sporting welcome, and especially the Norfolk State Spartans, given the sacrificial nature of their visit.

They haven’t had a winning season in the 10 years since they joined what is now called the Division I Football Championship Subdivision. They lost to a Howard team last season that was beaten by Rutgers, 56-7. A historically black university, Norfolk State has in Adrian, a former defensive coordinator in the conference at Bethune-Cookman, its first white head football coach, the only current one in the country at a historically black university.

Miller said he had to ask the university president’s permission to make the controversial hire for the 2005 season, after a turbulent period for the program that included N.C.A.A. infractions. Adrian subsequently recruited a quarterback transfer, the 6-foot-5 Casey Hansen, who is also white and is now the starter.

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“There’s been no issues, none whatsoever,” Adrian said when asked about racial complexities or complications. “When they hired me, they told me they just wanted to win. And I always thought that Norfolk State — looking at the area, at the stadium, which seats 30,000 — should be able to. Now we look at a school like Rutgers and say: Why can’t we be that in our conference?”

But what, exactly, is Rutgers after one season of flying? It’s going to take another season or two — and the university’s community at-large — to answer that question.

E-mail: hjaraton@nytimes.com

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From Championship Years to Tarnish on Belichick

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 14, 2007

I can hear it now, the chorus of Patriots haters shouting: “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I knew them guys were cheating.”

The justified cynicism will come forth now that N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell has levied a hefty penalty — a $500,000 fine for Coach Bill Belichick, a $250,000 fine for the team and the loss of draft picks to be determined — for videotaping the Jets’ signals.

That’s right, boys and girls: Santa Claus cheats.

Goodell said that because the video was seized in the first quarter Sunday, he did not believe it affected the game. But knowing Belichick, the video was not for that game, anyway, but for an encounter later in the season.

In the wake of the commissioner’s stiff penalty against the Patriots, announced last night, claims that the Patriots’ successes were counterfeit, sadly, have to be considered.

Goodell came down hard, and he should have. In fact, he should have come down harder, given how he has leveled players like Pacman Jones, Tank Williams and Michael Vick. What New England did cuts to the integrity of the game; what those players did makes the game look seamy, but it does not impact our faith that the game is being played on a level playing field.

Given the commissioner’s harsh action against players who have transgressed off the field, I would have suspended a head coach whose actions strike at the integrity of the game. I would have liked to have seen Belichick suspended and the Patriots stripped of a first- and third-round pick. Under the current penalty, the Patriots only forfeit their first-round pick in 2008 if they make the playoffs.

Why the sudden mercy? Because Belichick’s a coach? When the league suspended the Cowboys’ quarterback coach, Wade Wilson, for five games for buying human growth hormone, Wilson said he was told by Goodell that he held authority figures in higher regard than the players. Goodell said in a statement yesterday that he considered a suspension for Belichick but thought the fines and the loss of draft choices was more effective.

Yesterday’s ruling confirms that the Patriots, held up by the news media as the model of how to run a franchise, had a little bit of help along the way. They cheated. So, is the essence of Belichick’s genius: the X’s and O’s, or the hidden cameras?

In any event, the second-guessing has already started. On Wednesday, Hines Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ star receiver, told reporters that he had always been suspicious of the Patriots and that the Patriots might have cheated during the American Football Conference championship game of the 2001 season.

“Oh, they knew,” Ward said. “They were calling our stuff out. They knew, especially that first championship game here at Heinz Field. They knew a lot of our calls."

Maybe. Maybe not. On the one hand, I feel about the camera scandal the way I feel about drugs and great home run hitters: Drugs don’t help eye-hand coordination, but drugs do help.

Similarly, for all of the cameras and improperly taped hand signals, a team still must execute — and the Patriots have.

But a little extra, ill-gotten information in the hands of a coach like Belichick goes a long, long way.

The next question is, how widespread is this?

The former Steelers running backs coach Dick Hoak recently told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the Steelers once received a suspicious videotape by mistake from an opposing team during a routine tape exchange. The tape focused on a coach making hand signals from the sideline. Hoak said the Steelers did not report the tape to the N.F.L.

Now you wonder: If the Patriots, the N.F.L.’s standard bearer, stooped to cheating, is the practice widespread? I’m curious to hear what Belichick says about this. Is it widespread and the Patriots simply got caught?

Is every team cheating? Is everyone out there trying to steal signs? Does every team have a camera operator slithering around? I doubt it. At least the cheats were caught.

At one level, I’m tempted to pass this off as the pros just trying to get an edge. Hey, everybody tries to get an edge: Players continue to use H.G.H., and some still use steroids. There are tests in place to catch some of those cheats, although the league does not currently test for H.G.H. The N.F.L. more or less operates on an honor system of sorts when it came to its head coaches because head coaches know how difficult it is to get a W in their league.

On the other hand, an edge in the hands of a coach like Belichick is more than an edge. It’s an ax. My mother used to famously say, “Cheaters never prosper.”

Now, we’re left to wonder.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Model Franchise Sprouts an Unsightly Blemish

By DAVE ANDERSON

Published: September 13, 2007

The biography of the Patriots’ owner, Robert K. Kraft, in the team’s 2006 media guide, brags that the three-time Super Bowl champions “are often referred to as a model franchise.” But no longer.

It now appears to be a model fraud, a model cheat.

Coach Bill Belichick apologized yesterday for the video camera, seized by the National Football League, that taped the Jets’ sideline signals Sunday at Giants Stadium. At least, that was presumably what he was apologizing for, although he never said it in so many words. But that’s Belichick at his vaguest best, or worst.

Whatever the semantics, Belichick was simply copping a guilty plea.

Let’s hope Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn’t shed a tear. Let’s hope that Goodell remembers that the Patriots not only were the subject of similar videotape incidents in recent years, but that the issue was discussed at length at league meetings earlier this year. It is also the issue that the Patriots apparently ignored until the Jets’ security director, Steve Yarnell, alerted league officials to a Patriots employee suspected of taping signals Jets coaches were sending to their players.

Such defiance might justify Goodell penalizing the Patriots with the loss of multiple draft choices, possibly even a first-round draft choice. Maybe that would impress upon the rest of the N.F.L. how brazen the Patriots were in videotaping the sideline signals, especially during a game against the Jets, whose coach, Eric Mangini, was once one of Belichick’s trusted assistant coaches.

Mangini hasn’t commented to reporters on the incident or even on Belichick’s apparent apology. Mangini surely doesn’t want to answer the obvious question: Were the signals of opposing teams being videotaped for decoding when Mangini was Belichick’s defensive coordinator in 2005, or earlier when he was the Patriots’ defensive backfield coach for five seasons?

If the commissioner were to ask Mangini that question, the Jets coach can’t (and shouldn’t) say “no comment” or take the Fifth Amendment.

In ruling on Michael Vick and Pacman Jones recently, Goodell cited the importance of the league’s integrity. But Vick and Jones were involved in criminal cases outside the pro football realm. The Patriots case is strictly a pro football crime subject to the commissioner’s jurisprudence.

Goodell doesn’t have to wait for an indictment or a trial. He knows the evidence. He also knows that Belichick, often referred to as pro football’s latest genius coach, has copped a guilty plea.

Not that spying is new to pro football. But the Patriots’ method was not only too high-tech, it had been discussed and denounced as blatant cheating.

In baseball, stealing signs from a third-base coach is considered an art, but the 1951 New York Giants’ use of a telescope and a buzzer system to alert batters to the next pitch would have deserved a commissioner’s punishment had it been discovered and proved.

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Over the years in pro football, spying was usually confined to suspicion. Going back more than four decades, whenever a helicopter appeared anywhere above a Jets outdoor practice before a game with the Oakland Raiders, Coach Weeb Ewbank would blow his whistle.

“Al Davis has somebody up there watching us,” Ewbank would say, referring to the Raiders’ general managing genius. “Don’t do anything until that copter leaves.”

Harland Svare, the San Diego Chargers’ coach who had been a Giants linebacker, once looked up at a light fixture in the visiting team’s locker room at the Oakland Coliseum.

“I know you’re up there, Al Davis,” Svare yelled. “I know you’re up there.”

Told later of Svare’s accusations, Davis was willing to perpetuate his sinister reputation.

“The thing wasn’t in the light fixture,” Davis said slyly. “I’ll tell you that much.”

Ever since the Giants moved to the Meadowlands, their coaches have wondered if their practices at the outdoor field next to the stadium were being watched by spies peering through binoculars from a room in a nearby high-rise hotel. According to a Giants official, Coach Dan Reeves wanted to erect a wall to block that view.

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In 1998, when the Atlanta Falcons, with Reeves as their coach, were about to play the Giants, the Falcons were suspected of planting a spy in that hotel. Just in case, the Giants assigned a club employee with high-powered binoculars to survey the windows of the hotel and a nearby office building. No spies were spotted.

Jim Fassel, the Giants’ coach at the time, solved the issue that week by taking the Giants inside the team’s practice bubble. The Falcons won, 34-20.

Until now, all that spying was mostly mischief that usually was more smoke than fire. But what Belichick and the Patriots did (and got caught at) was a bonfire not normally associated with a model franchise.

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Respect Remains A World Away For U.S. Women

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: September 12, 2007

The current members of the American women’s soccer team seem preoccupied with receiving the same attention their hallowed ancestors did eight years ago.

A good way to start would be learning to survive while short a player. That is how the great teams respond. To date, there is no evidence the new breed has the same resourcefulness displayed by the Fawcetts and Foudys and, oh yes, the Chastains of yesteryear.

The current Yanks did fight back yesterday for a 2-2 draw with a worthy North Korean team in the first match of the Women’s World Cup in Chengdu, China — an event sure to make insomniacs out of soccer die-hards, what with the host nation being 12 hours ahead of New York and 15 ahead of California.

Just to disorient sports fans’ internal time clocks even more, the United States plays Tonga today in the Rugby World Cup in France while all over the continent most nations are playing qualifying matches for the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. And to further complicate things, the great cycling dynasty, now known as the Discovery Channel, is making its last stand before disbanding, racing around that historic and scenic cycling hub of Missouri.

Meanwhile, somebody told me the American football season has begun, but I haven’t had time to investigate, what with the big event in China, available thanks to good old ESPN. It was raining as hard in Chengdu as it was in New York yesterday, as I woke up at the ridiculous hour of 5 a.m. to watch the Americans in their bid for respect.

Recognition seems to be a preoccupation this year. While Kristine Lilly, the last of the great grannies, is as serene as ever, some of the younger players seem caught up in craving the publicity that Mia Hamm got — and, by the way, deserved. The soccer federation doesn’t help by pushing a needy team slogan of “The Greatest Team You’ve Never Heard Of.”

It’s hard to know whether this is a case of puffery imitating life or life imitating puffery, but the ESPN broadcast included a totally inappropriate commercial from Nike showing a creepy publicist wearing a Chastain-style sports bra, advising the players to focus on glitz. A few of the younger guns shoot him a hard look, and one of them boots a shot directly to some unspecified but vulnerable sector of the publicist’s anatomy. It should only be that easy.

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In the actual game, which the ubiquitous sponsor could not control, the results were somewhat the opposite. Abby Wambach, the warrior striker, went off the field for treatment of a scalp wound, and the 10 remaining players failed to regroup, yielding two quick goals.

I once saw my favorite defender, Franco Baresi, wobble around with a head wound during an A.C. Milan match while a teammate, the smooth Paolo Maldini, seamlessly played both defensive sectors until Franco could see and walk again. That poise is not necessarily a guy thing. Carla Overbeck and Michelle Akers knew how to run the clock, but this team, coached by Greg Ryan, has not yet mastered those fine points.

It better rev up the learning curve because the United States plays Sweden at the same hideous time Friday. Ryan may even think about using Briana Scurry instead of Hope Solo, who allowed one shot to squish off her fingers for the first goal.

Halfway between Chengdu and New York, the United States is emphatically not a favorite in the Rugby World Cup. The Eagles, who have won only two matches, both against Japan, in World Cup competition, lost to the defending champion, England, 28-10, in the opener. Paul Emerick, one of the few American professionals, is suspended for three matches for flipping an English opponent into the air. That match will be available at the somewhat more civil hour of 8 a.m. via the dish and satellite version of Setanta Sports, perhaps in the occasional pub or restaurant that caters to international fans.

Then there are the Euro qualifiers featuring the habitual perils of Italy and England, two grand old soccer nations that do not know how to do anything easily. Italy plays Ukraine in Kiev today; England is host to Russia at Wembley. I’m going to watch the England match with an Arsenal fan and a Chelsea fan who will unite temporarily for the common cause.

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Finally, there is the six-day jaunt around Missouri, with the Discovery Channel heading for oblivion after Sunday’s final stage. Having won the Tour de France seven times with Lance Armstrong and once this year with Alberto Contador, and with no Discovery rider ever suspended for testing positive during a race, the team is going out of business because potential sponsors were put off by the reek of scandal from the Tour.

The American soccer players do not have to worry that their team will go out of business, the way Discovery is doing. The women still have time to measure up against their predecessors. The first step would be to lose that disrespectful Nike commercial.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

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A Spectacle the Knicks Don’t Need

By HARVEY ARATON

Published: September 11, 2007

As jury selection began yesterday in the sexual-harassment case against a longtime basketball superstar and his employer, often referred to as the world’s most famous arena, perhaps the essential question was who might be blinded or biased by the presence of Isiah Lord Thomas III and the power of his standing as president and coach of the Knicks.

Lucky for the judge, the Knicks have been lousy, their television ratings could be mistaken for Court TV’s and there are people all over New York who wouldn’t know David Lee from David Lee Roth.

“I’m not a sports fan at all,” said Gretchen Haury from Chappaqua, N.Y., a mother of three. That sounded good enough for the judge, plaintiff and defense.

“I’m a Yankee fan, don’t follow basketball,” said the 67-year-old Phillip Lief, a doctor from White Plains who was accepted without challenge from either side.

“I’m not a crazy sports fan, but I like to watch tennis, or golf,” said Michelle Zelekowitz, 50, of Pleasantville, N.Y.

Have a seat in the jury box, Ms. Zelekowitz, and prepare for some no-holds-barred Madison Square Garden mud-slinging, James Dolan style.

One after another, potential jurors were called to a single seat inside a small selection room through a door from room 23A yesterday in United States District Court in lower Manhattan. The judge, Gerard E. Lynch, sat across from them at a four-sided table with a space in the middle. On the left side, the plaintiff, a former Knicks senior vice president, Anucha Browne Sanders, was mostly expressionless as she watched the proceedings, flanked by lawyers.

Thomas, a defendant, sat with his all-female legal team (wink, wink), opposite Sanders, in a gray suit with a blue hankie folded above the breast pocket of his jacket. He held a blue pen over a yellow notepad, occasionally flashing the megawatt smile that could illuminate the Garden in the middle of a Midtown blackout.

Except here in the legal arena, where the Garden strongman Dolan is Thomas’s co-defendant and not his career enabler, it is a tossup whether the jury of civilians will be as willing as Dolan has been to smile upon the I-Lord.

This is the trial Thomas insisted on, or so he claimed, to defend his honor against Sanders, who charged she was fired for complaining about Thomas’s advances and mistreatment. This is the case that Dolan could have avoided but — true to character — is spending the millions he should have devoted to a quiet settlement by trying to nuke Anucha.

What if Thomas and Dolan lose a case likely to turn on interpretation? Will Dolan jettison Thomas for having to make up to a $10 million payoff? Will N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern, known to punish players for failing to hem their shorts, suspend Thomas and even Dolan for staging a public spectacle the league needs at this point like another crooked ref?

“No comment on pending litigation!” Stern wrote in an e-mail message yesterday. Who could blame him for wanting to drive that exclamation point through Dolan’s thick skull?

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Not surprisingly, Dolan didn’t show up yesterday, and for one day at least set up Thomas, among others, for the collateral damage in what promises to be a two- to three-week trial of juicy headlines.

The judge also remarked that he grew up reading the New York City tabloids from the back, another way of calling himself a fan and apparently one familiar with the biggest, boldest print. But his mission yesterday was more subtle: the formation of a jury impervious to the premeditated persuasions of the celebrity civil trial.

“I don’t follow sports,” said Irene Ray, 58, a receptionist from the Bronx, though she noted on her printed questionnaire that she had heard of one of the players scheduled to testify.

“I know Stephon Marbury got those $15 sneakers out,” she said. “I think that’s great.”

What about when Thomas was great? Where were all the hoop-heads who remembered him in those tight little blue Detroit Pistons shorts, weaving through traffic, all the way to the Hall of Fame?

Edward Watts, 43, a court officer from the Bronx, called himself a “New York fan” who watches games on TV, but only to a point.

“I don’t rush home at 7 o’clock,” he said, turning to Thomas. “Sorry, Isiah.”

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Watching Thomas in the jury selection room, one had to wonder if he wasn’t sorry it had come to this, media day one month too soon, his reputation and possibly his professional fate being placed in the hands of people promising to treat him and Sanders as full-fledged equals, everything in the open, on the table.

“I can speak freely?” Tommy Vasquez, 37, a Bronx maintenance man, said when asked about Thomas. “He’s a pretty good talent evaluator, but he’s not so good a G.M.”

He got a laugh from everyone but Thomas, whose lawyers objected to Vasquez as a juror. The judge overruled. Score the goal for the plaintiff.

E-mail: hjaraton@nytimes.com

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Some Clues to the Future Emerge From Week 1

Jets Coach Eric Mangini, right, had little to say
about Chad Pennington’s ankle sprain Sunday.
Photo: Barton Silverman/The New York Times

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 11, 2007

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y.

In New York City, where the news media specializes in making mountains out of mole hills, the area’s two professional football teams — the Jets and Giants — have quarterback issues right out of the box.

The Giants’ Eli Manning, playing perhaps the best game of his career against Dallas on Sunday, sustained a right shoulder injury that may force him to miss a start.

The Jets face a more delicate problem: Chad Pennington, the 31-year-old quarterback who has battled back from an assortment of shoulder and arm injuries, was temporarily knocked out of Sunday’s 38-14 loss to the New England Patriots with a high ankle sprain. Pennington returned to the game, but judging from the nasty reaction of many fans, there seems to be a sense — maybe a consensus — that Pennington is not the one to lead the Jets to the Super Bowl. But who is — Kellen Clemens?

Welcome to Jets/Giants 2007.

The opening of an N.F.L. season is like the first day of school: fresh, new back-to-school-clothes, new classmates, new teachers, the promise of a clean slate. Unlike baseball, basketball and hockey and their marathon seasons, the N.F.L.’s 16-game regular season gives every contest, every quarter and every play great weight.

So while a result in Week 1 is not necessarily a death sentence or a ticket to the Super Bowl, you can draw some general conclusions from the first day of school.

If you’re an Oakland Raiders fan, you can look at the season-opening loss to Detroit and safely predict another disappointing season. Perhaps Raiders fans should petition the image-conscious commissioner, Roger Goodell, to take the reins from Al Davis, the Raiders’ managing general partner, and have the N.F.L. operate Oakland as a trust until the league finds a suitable owner.

Similarly, I could fully understand Atlanta Falcons fans who watched a 24-7 loss to Minnesota petitioning United States District Judge Henry E. Hudson to sentence Michael Vick as harshly as he pleases — if he will just let him play for the Falcons on Sundays.

What Jets fans should take away from Week 1 is that the Jets and Patriots are still oceans apart. When the Patriots lost receiver Deion Branch, Tom Brady complained. The franchise then gave him Randy Moss.

Pete Kendall, the Jets’ former valuable veteran guard, wanted a million dollars more. The franchise traded him, and if Sunday is any indication, there is no replacement in view.

A rejuvenated Moss treated the Jets’ secondary like a collection of schoolboys. The Patriots treated the Jets the way the Patriots usually treat the Jets: like little brothers who needed to be reminded who was still the boss.

Moss gives the Patriots personality and reminds Jets fans that their team really doesn’t have one. Organizations like New England, Indianapolis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and, recently, San Diego, have mastered the art of getting players who fit into their respective identities.

The Jets are a franchise in search — for the last 38 years — of an identity.

Without a Curtis Martin, there is no offensive player who terrifies the opposition; no one who keeps coordinators awake trying to figure out “how do we stop this guy?”

Coach Eric Mangini’s message after Sunday’s dismal loss was to change the team’s focus as rapidly as possible. “It’s never about what happened,” he said. “It’s about how you respond to what happened. It’s about the adversity; it’s how you respond to the adversity.”

Jets fans don’t respond so well. Never have.

When Pennington was injured in the third quarter, a large number of moronic Jets fans actually cheered, validating arguments in some quarters that football fans — witnesses to an absolutely brutal sport — are only a few steps removed from devotees of animal fights.

Who would cheer a player’s injury?

Pennington’s replacement, Kellen Clemens, said yesterday that he was flabbergasted by what he heard.

“For anybody who knows Chad, there should be nothing but concern for him at that moment,” he said.

Clemens said his wife did not notice that he was going into the game but cried for Pennington. “She was crying because he was hurt,” he said.

Someone quipped, “Are you sure she wasn’t crying because you were going in?”

Clemens laughed.

You can laugh in early September with 15 games to go because the end of an N.F.L. season rarely looks like the beginning.

But if the Giats lose Eli Manning and the Jets lose Chad Pennington for any significant time, pro football season in New York will be a catastrophe.

And that’s no hype.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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After Off-Season of Grandeur, Hint of Delusions in a Defeat

By SELENA ROBERTS

Published: September 10, 2007

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.

Celebrity is heady stuff for a former ball boy. For the past few months, Eric Mangini (left) has indulged in his overnight sensational-ness by trying to top his own Rubik’s Cube mind.

He unveiled Mozart to stimulate the brains of his Jets players at practice. He whisked out surprise guest speakers to motivate and inspire his team. He played into his own instant fame with his cameo as Mangenius on “The Sopranos.”

So outside the box, so Mensa, so Bill Belichick. That was Mangini’s rep for the past year. And yet as the Jets’ season-opening misery unfolded against his former employer yesterday at the Meadowlands, Mangini and his sidekick personnel wiz, Mike Tannenbaum, revealed how far removed they are from the brilliance of Bill.

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For one thing, they are dimwits at math. The Jets made a $1 million mistake when they refused to pay guard Pete Kendall — the mentor and anchor of their offensive line — that negligible extra amount to make him happy.

Even Belichick, the prize winner in the socially awkward sweepstakes, understands the value of joy. He used the off-season to make up with Tom Brady by fetching a reinvigorated Randy Moss to please his quarterback, who had felt lost since the departure of Deion Branch before last season.

Meanwhile, Mangini left Chad Pennington unloved, unprotected and vulnerable to calamity.

The inevitable occurred in the third quarter. There was Pennington on the field, left at the mercy of the Patriots’ second-string right end, Jarvis Green. In an instant, Green wrapped up and spun down Pennington, whose knee buckled and ankle rolled in unnatural ways.

“Honestly, I don’t know what happened,” said Jets left guard Adrien Clarke, Kendall’s replacement, who along with left tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson couldn’t stop Green or anyone else as the Patriots racked up five sacks. “I’m not sure what went on. I just happened to turn around and I saw Chad on the ground.

“That’s our job, to get out there, hands down, and protect him. We didn’t do a great job of that.”

Pennington wasn’t let down by his line. He was let down by his coach.

Is he Mangenius or Mandevious? The way Mangini left Pennington exposed to enter this season is close to cruel. Is his system so exceptional that Pennington is simply a widget in his machinery? Is his strategy to push Pennington out so he can bring in his own master QB? Is his idea to copy his idol, Belichick, who once cast away Drew Bledsoe for Brady?

Whatever Mangini is up to, he stood there, hands on his hips, as Pennington, who is keenly aware of the expanding Kellen Clemens fan club, limped back onto the field with the Jets down, 28-7, with seven minutes left in the third quarter.

Yes, Pennington gamely led the Jets on a touchdown drive, but it included a warped play call from Mangini: a quarterback sneak. Pennington pushed off on his bad leg, struggled to leap into a pile, all on a quick count that drew the Patriots offside.

“At that time, Coach is going to call the plays to help us win,” Pennington said. “And if I’m out there, I’m saying I can run our plays.”

Fair enough. But even Pennington — with a pain threshold fit for a sword eater — had to end the absurdity of Mangini’s wicked decision making. It was Pennington who took himself out in the fourth quarter, not Mangini.

“He left it in my hands,” Pennington said. “With six minutes left, down 31-14, I had to, for the first time, be brutally honest with myself as far as injuries are concerned, and say that without the threat of the run, I’m kind of a sitting duck.”

Everyone saw the obvious but Mangini. In the last throes of a rout, the Patriots were playing the pass, with an immobilized Pennington as an easy target.

•

In reality, the bull’s-eye existed before the game. The risk to Pennington was high from the moment the Jets decided to cut coupons to assemble their offensive line, to cut corners in preserving the health of Pennington.

Pennington deserved better. Certainly, Kendall was not the god of left guards. Who knows if Pennington would have been hurt anyway? But Kendall was a solid ounce of protection in the prevention of a pound of injury to Pennington. Perhaps a prevention plan didn’t enter Mangini’s beautiful mind.

Does that make his Mangenius more Mandubious? There is no doubting his creativity and ingenuity as a coach. And he rightly earned praise for his rookie season with the Jets last year.

Mangini may indeed rise again. But celebrity can lead to delusions of grandeur. And fame can cloud even the most gifted thinkers. All the props and ploys and playacting didn’t translate into preparation for the Patriots.

Mangini wasn’t outsmarted by Belichick. He and Tannenbaum outsmarted themselves.

E-mail: selenasports@nytimes.com

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From Ballpark to Courts, an Odd Coupling

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: September 10, 2007

On one end of the boardwalk, Pedro Martínez took a curtain call like Pavarotti after hitting a high C. On the other end of the boardwalk, a few hours later, Roger Federer fell to his knees like Baryshnikov in a moment of joy.

There was passion in Queens yesterday, with Federer celebrating his latest United States Open championship after Martínez staged an unusual midgame celebration of his comeback from shoulder surgery.

The two sports overlap in these parts only a few days every year, putting the upscale tennis fans in the same traffic jam as the blue-and-orange-clad Mets fans (pictured) in their shirts honoring Piazza, Alfonzo, Seaver and many of the current worthies.

On this particular Sunday, Flushing Meadows had its own odd couple: Federer in his man-in-black garb in one arena and Martínez making his first appearance of the season in the Mets’ tacky old dive.

They both knew how to carpe the olddiem. Federer, 26, hit the floor after the final point of a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory over Novak Djokovic, the 20-year-old who captivated tennis fans these past two weeks. (Federer is decidedly not amused by his imitations.) Martínez, soon to turn 36, gave the home fans a bonus when he emerged from the dugout to wave and do an odd little dance step after pitching five scoreless innings in what would become a 4-1 victory over Houston.

These tennis-baseball doubleheaders do not always work out for the Metsies. On a damp, ominous final Friday in 1987, Lori McNeil duffed an approach shot that would have put Steffi Graf in big trouble in their semifinal, and McNeil never recovered. A few hours later, Terry Pendleton of the Cardinals silenced Shea with a home run into the mist against Roger McDowell, effectively destroying the Mets’ hopes of repeating as champions.

The two sports coexist despite the lack of parking spaces, now exacerbated by the construction of the new Mets ballpark (Why do I keep wanting to call it the New Shea?). But everybody gets along, mostly in hope of witnessing something glorious north of the tracks or south of the tracks, connected by a wooden boardwalk with pedicabs shuttling fans back and forth.

The Mets went on first, with Martínez the main attraction. He came to New York three seasons ago to try to help win a World Series, but he was in tears last September when his body broke down. After surgery and hard training, he made it back for five innings in Cincinnati last week. Yesterday he came home, surviving his wildness on the mound and a couple of romps on the basepaths.

Normally charismatic, Martínez squirmed through 92 pitches, then openly celebrated after the Astros were retired in the fifth. Surprisingly, Martínez emerged from the dugout, a jacket on his arm, taking a wave, which no doubt thrilled the Astros. In the old days, a celebration after five innings would have earned a fastball in the ribs, and Roy Oswalt did indeed drill the Mets’ Lastings Milledge one inning later.

“I wanted to do something back for my fans and in front of my fans,” Martínez said later.

“I’m going to savor every little bit that I can get from the game from now on,” he continued. “I’m just coming back from a surgery that, if I have to do it again: ‘See you guys. No more.’ I’m going to enjoy every little moment that I have. Sign as many autographs as I can because it’s not going to last too long.”

He was entitled.

Petey went out before Federer and Djokovic took the court, with the usual assortment of celebs in attendance — Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, Charlie Rose, David Stern and, oh, lookie here, Maria Sharapova, who, for the record, was sitting in the Djokovic box. Djokovic says they are friends.

In a quickie television interview before the match, Federer said he was curious how Djokovic would handle his first slam final. Djokovic later said that he was affected by the stress, flubbing seven set points. (“My next book is going to be called ‘Seven Set Points,’ ” he joked afterward, as charming as ever.)

Nevertheless, Djokovic played three competitive sets, and Federer said he was sure Djokovic would be back in many more Grand Slam finals. Roger did not exactly predict that Djokovic would win those finals. That, for the foreseeable future, seems to be Federer’s job, since he has won 12 of his 14 finals so far. His presence is as emphatic as the one-handed backhand winner he struck down the line to win the second set.

Federer doesn’t waste energy on gestures, but he pumped his fist at that one. Later, he hit the deck after winning another slam title. No doubt Martínez can also fall to his knees in ecstasy and would be delighted to unveil this move in a month or so, on the north end of the boardwalk.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

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Decoding the Style of Federer’s Game

By SELENA ROBERTS

Published: September 9, 2007

In his Eddie Haskell moments, Novak Djokovic can mimic Maria Sharapova down to the way she sweeps away imaginary bangs before every serve, and he can deliver a dead-on Rafael Nadal to include the Spaniard’s habitual tug of his Hanes.

But how do you impersonate an evolving image? How do you copy Roger Federer?

He is fluid, still creating new angles out of geometric impossibilities as he did to close out Nikolay Davydenko yesterday at the United States Open on his way to a 10th straight major final today.

“Some points he play like so good,” Davydenko said. “I don’t understand how you can.”

Federer is adaptable, able to mentally map an opponent, to zoom in with a mind that seems one part Google Earth.

“I don’t need to sit down and talk about an opponent for an hour,” Federer said. “Takes me 15 seconds. I know everything I need to know.”

In so many ways, he is like a fashion line — constantly rolling out a new him. There is the crested Great Gatsby blazer Federer wore at Wimbledon, and the tuxedo shorts he sported during his night matches at the Open.

These aren’t simply wardrobe changes, but this is a look at Federer in a mode of constant self-discovery.

“Maybe seven years ago, when I started to date Mirka, it was, oh, God, you know, I had jogging shoes and a pair of jeans,” Federer said in a recent interview. “That was it, you know. And maybe one T-shirt. I’d wear that out to dinner.

“Then, I started to really enjoy dressing up. What is my style? Is it a suit? Is it casual? What is it? I’m young now. So I can make mistakes with my choices. It’s a way to discover what I like, who I am.”

Djokovic has the task of dismantling an amorphous man, a complicated talent. Is Federer the same Federer he upset in Montreal last month as the surprise Serb? You can tell that Djokovic, the master impersonator, can’t quite figure out Federer.

“Roger is too perfect,” Djokovic said in a YouTube clip of his Rich Little antics. “You cannot imitate him.”

He has tried, though. There is YouTube footage of his Federer attempt. There is proof that Djokovic has studied the ticks and quirks of Federer.

Djokovic, in many ways, is a reasonable facsimile of Federer in terms of his touch and speed, serve and versatility. He is a multitasker, just like Federer.

It makes for an intriguing final. This is the way it was supposed to be: the rising phenom vs. the establishment.

This is the way it had to be if you’re the United States Tennis Association. By dispatching Davydenko, Federer saved tennis from an awkward ending. Imagine a major final with all the scrutiny swirling around Davydenko, who is at the center of a match-fixing controversy triggered when a British Internet betting firm voided $7 million in wagers on one of his matches. Did the mob know Davydenko would retire in the middle of a match? Was it just a coincidence? Imagine the U.S.T.A. searching Davydenko’s box today for Sopranos-like figures.

Instead, the class clown will play best in class.

“I’d like to know if Roger is carbon-based like the rest of us,” the CBS analyst Mary Carillo said in an interview before the Open. “I’m not sure he has a navel. It’s like you need proof he’s human.”

Djokovic has the chance to uncover Federer’s faults. Federer doesn’t take any threat lightly. He is more protective of his history the closer he gets to making it. He is one final victory away from 12 majors, two short of Pete Sampras’s record. The burden has created pressure for Federer.

“It’s not like I’m 25 away from Pete Sampras,” Federer said. “I’m so close. So I think about it.”

Djokovic is so far away. He is new to this. If he can deal with the moment, Djokovic will be free to come out swinging, with nothing to lose.

“I’m not trying to look at Roger,” Djokovic said. “Roger has his own career, his own life. I have my own thing. We are two different personalities.”

True, Federer is more wry. Djokovic’s humor is overt — a Chevy Chase type in love with physical comedy. At 26, Federer is an adult. At 20, Djokovic is working on it.

Federer plays to sophisticated audiences. He is close friends with Tiger Woods, icon of the globe, and Anna Wintour, the fashion stickler of Vogue. Djokovic goofs around with his locker-room pals, nameless players who egg him on to be a ham.

Yes, Djokovic has pulled some impressive upsets — and he has earned his No. 3 seeding — but it is hard to take him seriously. Is he for real? Or just a copycat?

“Actually, I need to say in the last two days the people were more congratulating me for the impressions than for my tennis,” Djokovic said. “I was wondering, guys, am I here for the impersonations, entertaining, or to play tennis?”

Can Djokovic impersonate a fluid champion?

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Sisters of the World United 50 Years After Gibson

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: September 9, 2007

Exactly 50 years ago yesterday, Althea Gibson (pictured) became the first African-American to win the American tennis championship, receiving a trophy from Vice President Richard M. Nixon.

It was her second major celebrity encounter of the season. In early summer, she had received the Wimbledon trophy from none other than Queen Elizabeth — not a bad season for a woman from uptown.

After winning in the United States, Gibson spoke from her heart and from her pocketbook, saying, “After all, I’ve got to start earning a living,” a reference to the prevailing pretense of amateurism, with its meager under-the-table payoffs.

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Gibson never did make much money from her sport, but 50 years later Justine Henin earned a cool $1.4 million last night for winning the modern version of that tournament, now known as the United States Open — “open” referring to the coffers.

Henin defeated Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 6-3, on a night when Carole King sang “Girl Power” in the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, named after the instigator of the Open era for women. Billie Jean, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Tracy Austin and Pam Shriver were all present, from the far more lucrative golden age.

It is fair to say that Gibson, who died in 2003 at age 76, would recognize as her spiritual heirs not only the two African-American sisters, Serena and Venus Williams, but also Henin and Kuznetsova.

The Belgian and the Russian surely caused conniptions for CBS, which would have much preferred to show the two American sisters or the glamorous, and don’t you forget it, Maria Sharapova from that posh Russian tennis resort of Bradenton-on-Gulf.

None of these were available, having lost earlier in the tournament. Althea Gibson’s spiritual daughters run in all sizes and shapes, colors and humors. The Williams sisters annoy some people with their self-preoccupation. Then again, Henin turns off some fans because of her tense demeanor and a few past examples of gamesmanship, the type that made icons of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. Can’t please everybody.

Gibson ran into the perceptions of her own generation. After her great triumph in 1957, The New York Times used words like “lithe” and “muscular” and “saunters.” She was said to display “little emotion” and demonstrated a “powerful net attack” and was said to be “too strong” for her opponent in the semifinal, Dorothy Knode, who was described as “tenacious.”

These days it is somewhat more acceptable for the trim Henin to be a driven jock with a killer one-handed backhand. Looking like a waif with her oversized ball cap and rather Spartan outfit, Henin whacked sister Serena in the quarterfinals and sister Venus in the semifinals.

Half a century after Gibson expressed gratitude for being allowed into the white enclave, the Williamses behave exactly as they want, even if they are criticized for it. Serena was a tad grumpy after her loss to Henin, but no more than Andy Roddick was after losing yet again to Roger Federer one night later. Apparently, white males still have more leeway in the churlishness department.

After losing to Henin on Friday, Venus answered all the questions properly peppered at her by reporters about the trainer’s visit late in the match as well as her moments of lethargy. Her family is saying she may have anemia and they may have to check it out, but Venus did not push any alibis.

In this multicultural age of tennis, the tone is also set by people from different lands. On Sept. 11, 2004, two Russian finalists in prime time, Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva, mourned violence in both nations, the horrors in the United States in 2001 as well as the more recent massacre of innocents at a school in Beslan, Russia, on Sept. 3, 2004.

In this Open, three of the most charismatic figures have come from war-ravaged Serbia. Novak Djokovic, who will meet Roger Federer in the men’s final today, has not only been hilarious in his imitations of his peers, but has also been thoughtful in interviews, as have the two vanquished Serbs, Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic.

With her warm smile, Jankovic captivated the crowd by applauding a few great shots by Venus, who beat her in the quarterfinals. Later, Jankovic said: “I think you have to have fun sometimes on the court. I don’t think you have to always be so serious like some of the players are. You have to enjoy it.”

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Gibson might recognize Venus Williams’s stoic refusal to go easily in several taut matches. Asked if she had faith in her ability to bounce back, Venus said quickly, “Always.”

Going into this Open, Venus had career earnings of $17,801,117 50, a heritage from Althea Gibson, whose frank faith in professionalism helped open the door so all her sisters could make a living.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

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It Is Time for Vick’s Deeds to Speak for Him

Atlanta Coach Bobby Petrino

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN

Published: September 7, 2007

Flowery Branch, Ga.

Alge Crumpler sat in a small office inside the Atlanta Falcons’ training facility earlier this week, talking about his friend and teammate, the fallen Falcon, quarterback Michael Vick.

Crumpler, Atlanta’s tight end, said he spoke with Vick several times a week — not so much about football, but about life. Crumpler passes along scripture passages from his mother, and well wishes from teammates. The last time they spoke, Crumpler said, they joked about playing the Madden NFL 08 video game online. But even that was bittersweet: Yesterday, EA Sports pulled Vick from the rosters of Madden NFL 08.

Vick’s fall from grace is stunning, so traumatic that its effect on the team is difficult to measure. Crumpler and his teammates have spent the past several weeks putting this situation into perspective, trying to keep a team that once had lofty aspirations inspired.

Vick and Crumpler were members of the 2001 draft: Vick was the first player taken. Crumpler, taken in the second round, was the 35th player selected. They were going to contend for the Super Bowl together; Crumpler said he could feel it. In fact, Crumpler said he saw it.

“I had a vision that we were going to win the Super Bowl together,” Crumpler said. “I had a vision of winning the Super Bowl, and it was always going to be with Mike. I’ve had that vision since the day we were drafted. I want to still have it, but I just don’t.

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Would Crumpler ever catch another pass from Vick?

“Not here,” Crumpler said, referring to the Falcons.

“I think Mike is going to be back in the league,” he added, and then said: “I think it’s going to take a lot of ‘show me’ for Mike to get back into the league. It’s going to have to be more than words.”

Everyone has carved out their turf on this issue. Like Crumpler, I feel that Vick should and will return to the N.F.L., as a quarterback. Suggestions to the contrary betray an underlying prejudice that goes far beyond the legal issue at hand. Vick should receive a yearlong sentence for pleading guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy stemming from his connection to dogfighting but should serve no more than six months in jail.

The more intriguing question is how Vick’s fall from grace will affect a city that had become deeply invested in him.

Friends of mine who live in Atlanta say, half-jokingly, that the Falcons are black America’s team. The city has a large African-American population, and a substantial portion of the team’s season-ticket holders are African-Americans.

On the other hand, Atlanta has had an up-and-down relationship with its pro football team, and the fans are largely regarded as fair-weather ones. Right now, the weather is stormy.

The Falcons may have to deal with empty seats this season. Last year, they drew an average of 55,000 fans in two preseason games; this year they drew an average of 40,000.

In many ways, Atlanta’s fans have never stood on solid ground. The Vick episode is simply the latest blow.

Atlanta played its first season in 1966 and didn’t have a winning season until 1971. The Falcons have never had back-to-back winning campaigns, with or without Vick.

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The Falcons did reach the Super Bowl in the 1998 season but that moment was tarnished when Eugene Robinson, a star safety, was arrested on charges of soliciting a female undercover police officer posing as a prostitute the night before the game. The Falcons lost, 34-19, to the Denver Broncos. The next season they finished a dismal 5-11.

In 2004, Vick led Atlanta to an 11-5 record and the National Football Conference championship game. In 2005, the Falcons finished 8-8. Last season, they finished 7-9.

Before Vick officially pleaded guilty 11 days ago, there was a sense in Atlanta that the African-American community was split down the middle regarding its star quarterback.

Now there’s a resignation in that community that he did something seriously wrong, that he will have to atone for what he did and that in all likelihood he will never play for the Falcons again.

“But if we can win, if we can show some form of competitiveness on a consistent basis, I think we’ll be all right,” Crumpler said.

Vick apologized the day he pleaded guilty. He apologized to the Falcons’ owner, Arthur Blank, to Falcons fans, to the city of Atlanta. But when Vick said that he had also found Jesus, I felt that the time for talking had come to an end. Faced with being hemmed in, as Vick was, one can easily find the Lord.

At this point, Vick has to demonstrate his remorse, not only enunciate it.

As for Crumpler; the new starting quarterback, Joey Harrington; the new coach, Bobby Petrino; and Blank, the challenge is to move on and build a consistent winner, something Atlanta has never had even with Vick running the show.

In Atlanta, this is a time for deeds, not words.

E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com

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Laughs Can’t Bring Wins for Roddick

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: September 6, 2007

It was the ninth of August, summer of 2003, when Andy Roddick beat Roger Federer in a semifinal in Montreal.

“It’s about time,” Roddick said that day, smiling at his own audacity. “No one beats me five times in a row.”

Roddick can be a funny dude, full of sardonic asides while coping with spending his career bumping into Federer in major tournaments.

Since that day in 2003, Federer has beaten Roddick 10 consecutive times, including last night’s quarterfinal at the United States Open. Federer edged Roddick, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-2, a match so close that it could only break Roddick’s heart a little that he served so well and still lost in straight sets.

Roddick generally walks the fine line between being what no athlete at this exalted level wants to be — the proverbial good sport — and the kind of cranky loser that Serena Williams was Tuesday night.

Roddick has not made any recent pronunciamentos about beating Federer. He has been equal parts respectful and remorseful while running up a 1-14 record against Federer in official tournaments. He did beat Federer in the final of an exhibition in Melbourne early this year, but that does not count for much.

None of this has been easy for Andrew Stephen Roddick, who does not have the hustler’s patience of Brad Gilbert, his coach for that memorable match in 2003, or the monomaniacal gall of Jimmy Connors, his current coach.

If the naughty Jimbo had run into a serene force like Federer during his estimable career, he would have aggressed the gracious Swiss or upended the potted flowers at center court or bent the rules about bathroom breaks or trainer visits, just to disrupt the flow. Jimbo is older and wiser now, sitting in Roddick’s box last night and looking conservative of dress and demeanor. He knows Roddick will not pull any of his patented disruptive stuff. He urges Roddick to concentrate, to play hard, but it’s not easy.

Although Roddick is still relatively one-dimensional, throwing serves 10 miles an hour faster than Federer’s, he does have top-five skills. Still, he finds himself locked outside the rivalry between Federer and Rafael Nadal. Now, with the aching Nadal bounced out Tuesday night, there is the busy-haired and versatile Novak Djokovic looking to invade that rivalry — three in a marriage, as Diana, Princess of Wales once said in a context decidedly not about tennis.

That leaves Roddick to confront his own place in the world, often with a smirk and a comeback as quick as Federer’s returning his serve.

The other day, a sportswriter suggested that because of defaults by two injured opponents, Roddick had not yet found his “emotional rhythm” in this tournament.

“You sound like my therapist,” Roddick said.

The other day when Tomas Berdych had to default, Roddick admitted, “Then, of course, I’m trying to eavesdrop on his whole conversation he’s having with the trainer.” One reporter said Berdych was having trouble breathing. “Yeah, that’s what I heard,” Roddick said. “That makes tennis difficult.”

The transcripts from Federer-Roddick outings, courtesy of asapsports.com, demonstrate that Roddick has been mostly a mensch, an adult, even after his worst moments. Immediately after the 6-4, 6-0, 6-2 drubbing by Federer over 83 minutes in this year’s Australian Open semifinal, Roddick used words like frustrating, miserable and terrible, and even earthier than that. “Besides that, it was fine,” he added.

What did Connors say to Roddick right after the match? “He gave me a beer,” Roddick said.

Asked after that match whether he would read about it the next day, Roddick said: “Probably not. But it’s kind of tough, though. I read the sports section every day of my life. I’m going to kind of have to like maneuver my way around it somehow — like get an oversized coffee mug, kind of like smoke and mirrors or something.”

When Roddick lost to Federer in the final at the United States Open last year, he said: “He’s the best player in the game. There’s no question in my mind or if you ask any player’s mind about that.”

After the three-set loss in the Wimbledon final in 2005, Roddick said, “You know, listen, I want another crack at him till my record is 1-31.” And he added: “I still want to go against him again. You want to compete against the best. He’s the measuring stick, so you kind of know where you are and where you go. So, you know, I’d love to keep playing him.”

Roddick also volunteered: “I have loads of respect for him, as a person as well. I told him, I’ve told him before, ‘I’d love to hate you, but you’re really nice.’ ”

Isn’t there something negative about Federer? “I’m sure there is, but I don’t know if I know him that well,” Roddick said, adding, “I can look into it for you.”

To date, he has come up with nothing. But in showing respect for Federer, Roddick has earned respect for himself.

E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com

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