There's a reason it's 'center' stage
Sept. 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
What do we know from football centers? If they did one of those old “Do you know me?” American Express Card commercials, they'd have to bend over and look through their legs to be recognized. You just have to wait until they walk by a ways and then turn and stare before you can say, “Oh, yeah, that's who it is.”
A center snaps the ball to the quarterback and then tries to block a defensive tackle who hasn't missed a meal since he was a Chinese gymnast in another life. Tough guy, OK, but what's so complicated?
More Nick Canepa Columns
Sept. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Schemmel willing to cut Long more slack: Coaches have the shelf life of Labor Day potato salad left out in a Phoenix backyard. If their pink slips aren't showing, they always seem this far from the hem. Even good coaches know the Turk is going to pay them a visit. It's just a matter of when.
Sept. 3 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Aztecs may need ears checked after shaking down the thunder: This could be uglier than a blind date in prison. No matter. Waken the echoes, Aztecs football fans. Send the volley cheer on high. Shake down the thunder from the sky.
Sept. 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Cottrell's defense took sweet time to find identity: The Chargers didn't have to begin their 2007 season staggering out 1-3 for the buzzards to swarm. They'd been circling for many months prior to the false start. The naysayers were having a rowdy convention, dropping vitriolic water balloons from hotel windows on team management.
Aug. 31 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
'Cake' tasting quite bitter for beaten Aztecs: Everyone – well, maybe not, if you're a Mitt Romney follower or a Chuck Long disciple – enjoys a good laugh. So, there's nothing wrong with San Diego State getting a good yuk and playing Cal Poly in a football game. If it was OK in 1968, it's all right now.
Aug. 29 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Nowhere to go but up for bottom-ranked Long: A preseason college football article in Sporting News has gone so far as to rank the top 52 coaches from non-BCS schools. SMU's June Jones is No. 1. San Diego State's Chuck Long? 52. There's a joke in there someplace, maybe that Long ranks 52nd because there isn't a 53.
Aug. 28 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
It's his knee, so it's also his decision: This isn't “Fantastic Voyage,” so I can't shrink and get into Shawne Merriman's body. Nor can he get into mine, which I'm sure would make for a terribly upsetting visit.
Aug. 26 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
For Merriman, lights out now is a bright idea: Shawne Merriman's motor is one of those freak things you find in Popular Mechanics. It never stops. But, if what the Pro Bowl outside linebacker and his disciples say is true – and I'm without X-ray vision and far more Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jekyll – the Chargers' most decorated defender should turn it off and coast into his garage.
DEL MAR, Aug. 25 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Desperate for stars, racing sabotages itself: OK, so maybe water polo doesn't need a Secretariat. But horse racing could use a Usain Bolt, or at the very least an equine facsimile, maybe with Jamaican breeding.
Aug. 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Bolts on Bolt: Speed's nice, but can he catch?: The 2008 Olympic Games weren't necessary for me to become skeptical of Jamaicans. It's hard not to be, when you and your wife disembark a cruise ship in Ocho Rios and they're trying to peddle you dope on the dock. Happened to us, all right.
Aug. 20 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Stable team lets Chambers thrive: Unlike baseball teams, some of which harbor no misgivings over unconscionably, inexcusably trading players during the season – even to dreaded, hated intradivision rivals (see Padres, Maddux, Dodgers) – the NFL doesn't work that way. At least not very often.
Aug. 10 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
It's a huge victory . . . for the owners: The Chargers played the Cowboys here last night in what was certain to be a preview of the Super Bowl. Well, I lie. You could cut the tension with a Himalaya. It wasn't even a preview of next Saturday's second exhibition in St. Louis. If you TiVoed it, congratulations. You're Mel Kiper Jr.
CAMP PENDLETON, Aug. 6 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
San Diego State roams 'Halls of Montezuma': If the Marines had played as well down through history as San Diego State's football team has in recent years, at the very least we'd all be speaking broken English. So Chuck Long has taken his Aztecs to boot camp, where they get to meet Marines, eat with Marines and, he hopes, win like Marines.
Aug. 5 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
With family stuck in Nigeria, Nande fights for roster spot: Now that the age of too much information has ripped off the clothes of so many athletes, sports pretty much has become a naked city. If you've done something, if it's happened to you, we can find out about it. Stories leap from Google's cliff like so many lemmings.
Aug. 4 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
When duty calls, NFL must take backseat: If you've served in the Army, then you know. The military reserves the right to change its mind. And no one on this square side of the Oval Office can do a thing about it.
Aug. 1 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Osgood's brother is badged brawler: Kassim Osgood may be the best special teams player in the NFL, which means he has a spine the size of Point Loma. Try running out in the middle of Interstate 5 at rush hour. Similar.
July 30 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Air Coryell's most frequent flier now home: The first week of the Chargers' 1983 training camp provided a most unusual ride. A stabilizer was missing from the Air Coryell flying machine that had become the greatest, most persistent, most terrifying football offense ever conceived.
July 27 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The package, not punches, sells WNBA: Sez Me . . . It won't be forever known as The Brawl. Quit your blogging, get out of the garage and think about it.
CHARGERLAND, July 26 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
One of the happiest places on earth has to be Chargers camp: Welcome, one and all, to the second-happiest place on earth. No Mickey. No Goofy. No Donald. No ducking. No cover charge. No kidding. And, if you're looking for the Seven Dwarfs, brother, are you in the wrong place.
July 24 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
What's worse than bad? Boring: Admittedly a glutton when one of the goodies at baseball's buffet table is all-you-can-eat punishment, I've been watching the major league Padres since their inception in 1969. I go back many years before that with the minor league Pads, but never could have guessed we'd be watching them again in 2008.
July 23 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
The QB arrived that day: On Jan. 20, 2008, Philip Rivers became the undisputed leader of the Chargers. If there had been doubts before then, they ended on a day when global warming somehow missed Foxborough, Mass. The Kid became The Man in the New England chill.
July 21 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Norman a ray of hope for golfers of all ages: Sez Me . . . It was a pretty good week for AARP card holders, but it didn't quite end the way so many golfing baby boomers would have preferred.
July 20 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Catcalls hurt, but Turner has felt bigger pain: Norv Turner was born with a tarnished spoon in his mouth. So it figures that, given all the fights he's had to fight in his personal and professional life, the Chargers' head coach would be immune to the criticism and catcalls. A pittance, next to the nothing of poverty and disease.
July 18 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Refreshing Brees has no hard feelings: Drew Brees had every right to be as bitter as a 10-cent beer. But his taste runs more toward diplomatic cognac.
July 17 (UNION-TRIBUNE)
Where turf meets surf and splits wallet from money: “Where the turf meets the surf, down at old Del Mar, take a . . . horse. It's much cheaper than gas, of course.”
