1. The coaching life and times of Mickey Moran
WHEN DAVID BRADY arrived at Molly Fulton’s restaurant a mile outside Sligo, he had never met Mickey Moran before.
2005 had been a frustrating year for the Mayo midfielder-cum-full-back. He and John Maughan didn’t get on and, troubled by a back injury, the pin was ripped out mid-season.
As far as he was concerned, his days chasing Sam Maguire were over.
“The first 25 minutes, we didn’t talk about football,” Brady says, recalling the meeting that winter.
“I had enough done in my mind and body and soul.
“But he was talking about me and life and work. He knew where I worked, he knew about me.
2. The troubled life of Pele’s son Edinho
On the afternoon of New Year’s Day, a riot broke out in the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary in Manaus, Brazil. Beheaded bodies began to be thrown over the boundary wall, and by the time police restored control at 7 the following morning, 56 lay butchered.
Last October, in the Boa Vista prison in the next-door northern state of Roraima, a video shot on a mobile phone captured inmates playing football with a dead man’s head. By the end of January, 26 more killings occurred at Alcacuz Prison in Natal with many of the victims decapitated while one man was barbecued over a courtyard fire having been impaled on a stick.
3. James McCarthy: That feeling is something I’ll take to the grave
On another day, it could’ve been a picture of me kissing Philly McMahon. For anything other than winning a club All-Ireland title with Ballymun, you wouldn’t dream of going near him! But winning it means that much.
I’ve seen that picture of Shane ‘Cake’ Curran locking lips with Frankie Dolan many times since they beat us four years ago on Paddy’s Day.
It’s a great picture and it brings back to me the memories of their elation. I’ve no ill feelings towards them because the way they came back to beat us was amazing, and there was no badness on the field.
We got a great start, went 2-3 to a point ahead but they had that pared back to four or five points by half-time when we should’ve kicked on. Dolan hit the winner at the end: right man, right place, their time.
It’s something I’ll take to the grave. When you’ve one set of players that happy, the flipside is always what’s being felt by those in the other set of jerseys.
Ugh, our dressing-room was a dark place, just bleak. It was like a death in the family, a morgue of a place. More than crushing, and a tough few days followed.
4. The Life Lessons of Villanova’s Jay Wright, the Anti-Coach
The night before home games, Wright and his players stay at a local hotel. The team eats a meal together and watches video of the next day’s opponent. And then the coach dispenses a little insight—along with bottled water and a healthy snack—before everyone heads for bed.
One such night this winter, with his top-ranked team seemingly on a cruise course to the tournament, Wright stood to address the players. As usual, he began by plunging a dagger into the group’s collective ego.
“Being ranked number one?” Wright says. “It’s bullshit. We haven’t played teams like Kentucky or Kansas. It means nothing. This season is all about dealing with the ‘disease of me.’ You’re 22 years old, and you’re walking around campus and everyone is telling you you’re a rock star, which is why I’m inspired by you seniors, because you work to get better every day.”
5. The driving force of Russell Westbrook
The task of describing Russell Westbrook’s play this season, his ninth in the NBA, is a challenge readily accepted but rarely completed. His style is portrayed as angry, or vengeful, or enraged, or ferocious, but when I ask him if he feels all those primal emotions when he’s playing, he says, “Not at all. I feel fine.”
It’s a funny line, and he delivers it with suitable nonchalance. I feel fine. There’s a rubber bracelet on his wrist that expresses his attitude toward just about everything: Why not? It’s his slogan-turned-koan-turned-trademark. It describes his shot selection, his fearlessness, his wardrobe. So yes — of course he feels fine. But he’s not finished. He tilts that jaw, highlighted by whiskers that emerge like weeds through concrete, and says, “That’s always the perception, that I don’t have control and that I’m mad. I don’t know why people say that — ‘He looks angry, he looks mad.’ No. I’m focused. I’m locked in on what’s important, and the extraterrestrial stuff doesn’t matter.”
