Ailing Wizards Don't Expect Sympathy, but They Deserve Some

By George Solomon
Sunday, October 12, 2008

Washington Wizards captain Antawn Jamison, out of action with a right knee contusion suffered in the first quarter of the team's first preseason game Tuesday night in Dallas, said it best last night: "No one is going to feel sorry for us."

What a shame, too, because if any NBA team deserved some sympathy, it would be the Wizards, who last season endured eight players missing a combined 225 games and will begin 2008-09 with Jamison, Gilbert Arenas (knee) and Brendan Haywood (wrist) sidelined.

At least Jamison was optimistic about a quick recovery in a group interview Friday night before the Wizards hosted Detroit at Verizon Center as they prepared to leave yesterday for a weeklong trip to Europe. There will be games Tuesday (Berlin) and Friday (Barcelona), sandwiched around basketball clinics and sightseeing and, hopefully, no visit to a medical clinic.

"I'll be ready to start the regular season" Oct. 29, promised Jamison, even suggesting he could play in one of the team's games next week. "We have to be patient; but we've been in this situation before."

His coach, Eddie Jordan, knows too well the team's script and continues to put a positive spin on what has become a familar story. "How can we absorb this?" asked Jordan, answering his own question. "We've been through this before, so you look to which players will step up. But our young guys have developed; we're young, deep and flexible."

Jordan was referring to JaVale McGee, Dominic McGuire, Andray Blatche, Oleksiy Pecherov, Darius Songaila, Nick Young and Dee Brown, also noting the return of veteran Etan Thomas after missing last season after heart surgery strengthens the center spot.

"You take it all as it comes," said Caron Butler, one veteran still standing.

Another veteran, owner Abe Pollin, was in the house Friday night to wish his players bon voyage and reminisce about the team's last overseas journey and how he could not persuade Elvin Hayes to get off the bus in China to see the Great Wall. "Elvin told me 'Abe, I've seen a lot of walls and don't need to see another.' "

On Any Given Sunday

In the 17 years since the Redskins won their last Super Bowl -- a season (1991) in which they went 17-2 and dominated the NFL -- rarely have they been 13 1/2 -point favorites in a game.

But that's the scenario today when the scalding-hot Redskins host the St. Louis Rams (0-4) at FedEx Field in a contest the late Coach George Allen would have called "the game of our lives." Joe Gibbs would have castigated the Las Vegas oddsmakers for denigrating the onetime "Greatest Show on Turf."

But Jim (Coach of the Year, five games worth) Zorn can open the history books and show his guys that danger lurks on such slippery fields.

Has it been 17 years since a Dallas Cowboy team, with a 6-5 record, came into RFK Stadium and handed the 11-0 Redskins their first loss, 24-21, in a game retired quarterback Mark Rypien remembers?

"We had a good run going and that loss kind of stung," Rypien said Friday in a telephone interview. "But that loss refocused our team and got us back to playing at the level that eventually brought us the championship."

Rypien, who runs his charity foundation in Spokane, Wash., was, like many, greatly impressed by the Redskins' wins in Dallas and Philadelphia. "This team is headed in the right direction."

Veteran tackle Jon Jansen remembers that the 2001 Redskins (0-5) under Marty Schottenheimer were in the same position as the Rams of today, only with an additional loss and "looking for a spark." That spark was LaVar Arrington's 67-yard interception return for a touchdown that brought the Redskins from behind to a 17-14 win en route to an 8-8 record.

"A lof of stuff happens in a game," Jansen said. A team like the Rams doesn't "have any pressure; they have nothing to lose."

"This is the NFL," guard Randy Thomas said. "You'd better be ready. They have a new head coach [Jim Haslett] and this could be a fresh start for them."

As a quarterback at Indiana, Redskins wide receiver Antwaan Randle El often was in the same position as the Rams. "You feel desperation and a sense of urgency," he said. "That's how you play."

Rypien also remembers 1989 when the 0-8 Cowboys upset Washington (4-4) at RFK for their only win of the season, knocking the Redskins, who finished 10-6, from the playoffs. "I don't care who you're playing, it's hard to win in the NFL."

Alex the Great

The subject at Caps' media day, of course, was Alex Ovechkin. The most valuable player of the National Hockey League is still only in his fourth season at age 23 and already is clearly the best player in the history of the Caps.

Maybe the best pro athlete to play in Washington since Sammy Baugh?

Close to the equal of Walter Johnson? Hmmm.

Superior to Elvin and Wes Unseld? Sugar Ray Leonard? Even better than Riggo. Hondo? Southeast Jerome?

At this point, beyond the injured Gilbert Arenas.

Ovechkin is "the most dominant athlete in the world," Caps General Manager George McPhee said.

"A freak," declared Caps owner Ted Leonsis. "He never gets tired."

"He understands the game," veteran Sergei Fedorov said. "The way he's going, he could become one of the best. For someone to score more than 50 goals in a season, as he did last year [with 65], is amazing. He's physical and fast."

And he plays here tomorrow night.

College Daze

Halfway through the college football season, the local teams have perplexed their fans more than their own coaches.

· Maryland (4-2): Flying high after their upset victory at Clemson, the Terrapins laid an egg last Saturday, losing at Virginia, 31-0. Coach Ralph Friedgen told reporters afterward he wasn't "reaching" the team, adding, "I wish I had an answer for it." When I'm not reaching my journalism students at the same institution, I give 'em more homework.

· Navy (4-2): New coach Ken Niumatalolo has the Mids cruising toward a spot in the EagleBank Bowl, Dec. 20 at RFK Stadium, with three straight wins, overcoming key injuries and Feinstein doing color commentary on their radio broadcasts.

· Virginia (3-3): Coach Al Groh needed that win over the Terps to quiet disgruntled alumni, who have shifted their anger to Friedgen.

· Virginia Tech (5-1): Our Hokies have stormed back after that fluke loss in the opener to East Carolina. But their excruciating postgame show on WTEM-980 makes Vinny Cerrato's "Inside the Red Zone" sound like NPR's "All Things Considered."

· Howard (1-4): I miss Jay Walker.

· Georgetown (1-4): Pass the Pepto-Bismol.

· James Madison (6-1): Our division I-AA Dukes can play, I'm told.

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