Only way Magic fans would forgive Shaq and accept him as GM would be if he convinced Dwight Howard to sign long-term extension

At first blush, Shaquille O’Neal being interviewed for the Orlando Magic general manager’s job seems preposterous.

Would Magic fans really except the old franchise wrecker as the new franchise builder?

And what would happen if Shaq did build the Magic into a championship contender? Would he then leave to become the new GM of the Lakers?

I must admit, I’m not surprised by this development in the least. Shaq was on our Open Mike radio show a few weeks ago and was openly lobbying Magic GM Alex Martins for the job.

“I would love to be the general manager of the Orlando Magic,”  Shaq said. “Alex Martins, you’ve got my number. Call me!”

Looks like Martins must be an Open Mike listener.

There is major part of me that thinks the entire idea is buffoonery, but there is a small part of me that’s intrigued. Shaq has no experience, but he’s a mega-personality who might be able to recruit talented free agents to Orlando.

Here’s the only way I believe Magic fans would ever accept Shaq as the GM: If he can convince Dwight Howard to sign a long-term extension in Orlando. If he can do that then — considering all the drama and dysfunction that has happened over the last season — then he truly is Superman.

Think about it: If Shaq somehow convinced Dwight to sign long-term, the two greatest players in Magic history would once again become beloved by fans in Orlando.

Otherwise, this is all just a bunch of nonsense.

If Shaq can deliver Dwight then the Magic should absolutely hire him as the GM.

If he can’t then give him a courtesy interview and get on the with business of hiring an experienced general manager to run the Magic.

If you want to hear our entire radio interview with Shaq from a few weeks ago when he was talking about the Magic GM job and Dwight Howard, click here.

So let me see if I’ve got this straight.

Now Urban Meyer is NOT for a college football playoff?

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Meyer is not happy about the proposed four-team national championship playoff that is likely coming to college football.

“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I think the ideal setup is what we’ve had the last decade of football,” the Ohio State coach told the Plain Dealer a few days ago.  “I can understand why [the change] is happening, but I was not one of the screamers or yellers saying it was broke before.”

Um, you weren’t?

Urb, I distinctly recall that you were.

And so do all Gator fans who remember back in 2006 when you were screaming and yelling from the highest mountaintop that the system was flawed. You even got UF President Bernie Machen involved, and he threatened to take up the matter with the SEC.  Of course, that was when it looked like there might be a Michigan-Ohio State rematch for the national title, which would have excluded the 11-1 Gators from taking part in the game.

Remember what Meyer said at the time?

“If that (Ohio State-Michigan rematch) does happen, all the presidents need to get together immediately and put together a playoff system,” Meyer said then. “I mean like now, January or whenever to get that done.
 … I do believe as time wears on and you kind of sit back and look, that the only thing justifiable is to [add a playoff].”

Of course when the Gators got into BCS Championship  Game and throttled Ohio State to win Meyer’s first national title, he never uttered another word about a playoff and Machen was not nearly as outspoken and passionate about pursuing a playoff with fellow SEC presidents.

And the moral of the story is this:

Urban Meyer stands for nothing.

Except himself.

(NOTE TO READERS): On our Open Mike radio show this morning, we will tackle this topic,  discuss whether Shaq is truly a GM candidate for the Magic and talk debate whether the Miami Heat are the most-hated team in sports. You can to listen to our show on 740 AM in Orlando every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. or click here if you want to listen live on-line. You can call into the radio show at 407 916-8255 or toll free 1-800-729-8255. And if you want to hit me up on Twitter and follow my clever, witty and insightful comments, click here.

Will Dwight Howard sign an extension if and when the Magic jettison Stan Van Gundy?

In case you are scoring at home, it’s now Day 32 since the Dwight Howard Back Rehab Tour left town for Los Angeles.

In that time, the Magic have started and ended the playoffs; Facebook is now a publicly traded stock; President Barack Obama has come out in favor of same-sex marriage; and, for the first time in history, a private spacecraft is ready to launch from Cape Canaveral for a flight to the International Space Station.

But, still, Orlandoans have not heard anything from Dwight about his plans for the future. Not even a Tweet telling Orlando fans he’s doing well and will soon be back home to sign his longterm extension with the Magic.

He is going to sign the extension, right?

I mean I was at the news conference a couple of months ago where Dwight talked about how much he loves Orlando and wants to remain loyal to the city and the organization.

If that’s the case then I’m sure  – just as soon as the Magic jettison Coach Stan Van Gundy and GM Otis Smith – that CEO Alex Martins will call a news conference to announce Dwight’s long-term extension with the Magic.

That’s what’s going to happen, right, Dwight?

Well … RIGHT?

Dwight, are you there?

Dwight, can you hear us?

Dwight, do you miss us?

Day 32 … and counting.

Dwight, phone home.

(NOTE TO READERS): On our Open Mike radio show Monday morning, we will tackle this topic and  discuss the future of the Magic,  the Miami Heat’s playoff victory over the Indiana Pacers, the new SEC-Big 12 bowl game and hand out our Studs and Duds from the sports weekend. You can to listen to our show on 740 AM in Orlando every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. or click here if you want to listen live on-line. You can call into the radio show at 407 916-8255 or toll free 1-800-729-8255. And if you want to hit me up on Twitter and follow my clever, witty and insightful comments, click here.

FSU is surrounded by the big-money boys in the SEC

Make no mistake about why so many FSU fans, boosters, coaches and trustees want to explore the possibility of leaving the ACC for the Big 12.

It is all about trying to keep up financially with the big boys in SEC.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

“Conference alignment and TV is where all the money’s at,” FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said before a speaking engagement Saturday at the Seminole Club of Greater Orlando. “The powers-that-be need to do what’s best for Florida State.”

Fisher obviously understands that FSU is surrounded on every side by big-budget SEC schools like Florida, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia.  And he needs money and resources if he wants to keep up. Even though the ACC’s new deal with ESPN will bring FSU up to about $17 million annually in TV revenue, that’s still $3 million less than the Big 12. Not only that, but some estimate the recently expanded SEC’s new deal could earn each conference school as much as $25 million per year. Translation: Over the span of the ACC’s 15-year contract, FSU will earn $120 million less than the Gators.

“With the SEC making the kind of money it does it’s time to act,” FSU Board of Trustees Chairman Andy Haggard told Warchant.com over the weekend. ”You can’t sit back and be content in the ACC. This is a different time financially. This isn’t 10-15 years ago when money was rolling in.”

(NOTE TO READERS): On our Open Mike radio show Monday morning, we will interview Gene Williams of Warchant.com about this topic,  discuss the future of the Magic and hand out our Studs and Duds from the sports weekend. You can to listen to our show on 740 AM in Orlando every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. or click here if you want to listen live on-line. You can call into the radio show at 407 916-8255 or toll free 1-800-729-8255. And if you want to hit me up on Twitter and follow my clever, witty and insightful comments, click here.

Brandon Marshall says he is blessed to be with Bears instead of Dolphins

Brandon Marshall says he will miss some of the charitable community work he was doing down in Miami, but says being traded from the Miami Dolphins to the Chicago Bears during the offseason was the best thing that could have happened to him.

“Career-wise this is a better move … this is like a dream job and a dream organization and I’m blessed to have this opportunity to be here,” Marshall said on our Open Mike radio show earlier this week.

Perhaps the main reason Marshall is so excited is because he is being reunited with Jay Cutler, a proven quarterback with whom he had great success in Denver.  Meanwhile, he leaves an organization that hasn’t had a proven quarterback since Dan Marino and just drafted  rookie Ryan Tannehill in the first round. Tannehill may eventurally turn to a good quarterback, but it will take a season or two for that to happen.

“If you don’t have a quarterback, it doesn’t matter who you are,” said Marshall, who will hold a free youth football camp at Lake Howell High School on Saturday, May 19. “You could bring Jerry Rice back in his prime, he’s not going to be effective (without a quarterback). … The fit in Miami just wasn’t there philosphy-wise. … This is the best move that could have happened for both sides. I wish the Dolphins the best of luck.”

If you want to listen to our entire interview with Marshall, click here.

(NOTE TO READERS): On our Open Mike radio show Friday morning, we will discuss whether Shaquille O’Neal is truly a candidate for the the potential Magic general manager’s job, the rumblings that FSU might be considering a move to the Big 12 and the continuing struggles of Tiger Woods at The Players Championship.  We will also have an interview with CBSSports.com college football writer Brett McMurphy, the reporter of record on the realignment of the Big East. You can to listen to our show on 740 AM in Orlando every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. or click here if you want to listen live on-line. You can call into the radio show at 407 916-8255 or toll free 1-800-729-8255. And if you want to hit me up on Twitter and follow my clever, witty and insightful comments, click here.

Did USF President Judy Genshaft mislead legislators about blocking UCF from Big East?

Did USF President Judy Genshaft and her alleged clandestine blocking of UCF from joining the Big East ultimately lead to the league’s current  state of disarray?

And did Genshaft lie to a state lawmaker about her desire to keep UCF out of the Big East?

If you read a report by CBSSports.com writer Brett McMurphy, who used to cover USF for the Tampa Tribune and has been the reporter of record for the Big East realignment, you would be hardpressed to think otherwise.

Many are blaming ousted Big East Commissioner John Marinatto for the league’s current state of instability, but McMurphy writes that Genshaft and other Big East presidents are truly to blame.

Wrote McMurphy after Marinatto was forced to resign Monday: 

“On Monday, Marinatto resigned as the Big East’s commissioner. I don’t have the exact figures, but I’d guess about 99 percent of the college sports fans on Twitter wondered why Marinatto hadn’t been fired months earlier. And that’s sad. Because Marinatto is not solely to blame for the Big East losing four schools since he became commissioner. The league’s presidents are the ones that bumbled and stumbled so that their league became more of a punch line than a BCS conference. The same Big East presidents that make up the league’s board of directors that asked Marinatto to resign on Sunday. …

“With conference realignment sweeping the country, Marinatto still was able to convince TCU in November of 2010 to join the Big East, to help bolster an inconsistent football league. People mocked a Texas team joining the Big East, but it gave the league a solid football addition. That would have given the Big East nine football members in 2012. There was even speculation the Big East might be able to attract an ACC school to join the Big East, which was in the midst of negotiating a huge upcoming media rights deal.

” ‘At that point when the Big East was intact, the only school the Big East could have legitimately added that made sense was UCF,” an industry source said. “Maryland and Boston College? They wouldn’t even return the Big East’s calls. But the Big East couldn’t add UCF because [South Florida president] Judy Genshaft kept shooting down UCF.’

“Genshaft’s continuing insistence to block UCF from the league was a huge contributing factor which ultimately led to the league’s current instability, a league source said. That’s because in April of 2011, with TCU on board, Marinatto and the league negotiated a nine-year deal worth $1.4 billion for its new media rights deal. Marinatto recommended to his presidents that they accept the offer and they promptly voted against it.

” ‘I think that was the stupidest decision ever made [to turn it down] in college athletics,” a league source said. “To have the equity of ESPN as your brand and the stability that would have gone with it.’ “

If what McMurphy writes is true, Genshaft has some serious explaining to do.

Let’s not forget, Genshaft, speaking to the Hillsborough County legislative delegation’s annual meeting on USF’s campus in September, was asked by State Sen. Jack Latvala (R-St. Petersburg) about my column in the Orlando Sentinel urging Gov. Rick Scott and the state legislature to get involved an investigate whether one state-funded institution (USF) is blocking another taxpayer-funded institution (UCF) from gaining access to millions and millions of BCS dollars every year.

“Those statements that are out in the press are not true. That is not the case,” Genshaft said in a story first reported by the St. Petersburg Times. “I am not stopping any university from coming in. … I have not done anything to hurt anybody.”

As I wrote then, I wonder if Genshaft would swear to that under oath because that’s certainly not what former State Senator Lee Constantine, a former UCF student body president, believes.

Here’s what he Constantine told me during the controversy: “Make no mistake about it, Judy Genshaft is behind this. She unsuccessfully tried to stand in the way of UCF getting a medical school and now she’s trying to stand in the way of UCF’s football program. It’s becoming very transparent, and it’s time for our state legislature to say enough is enough. What you have here is one state-funded institution harming another state-funded institution and costing the taxpayers money.”

Ultimately, after she started receiving pressure from the media and from state legislators, Genshaft stepped up and sponsored UCF’s entrance into the Big East.

After reading McMurphy’s report, it was a move that may have been too little too late.

Shame on Judy Genshaft if she really did let a senseless and selfish rivalry with UCF get in the way of the common good of the Big East and her own school’s athletic future.

If so, it would be deplorable.

Almost as deplorable as telling a mistruth to a state legislator.

If the Magic had only taken Danny Granger instead of Fran Vazquez in the 2005 draft

INDIANAPOLIS — The “Curse of the Franbino” continues to haunt the Orlando Magic.

If the Orlando Magic ultimately end up losing their playoff series against the Indiana Pacers, most people will say the series was lost a few weeks ago when Dwight Howard suffered a season-ending back injury.

I say it goes back further than that.

Much further.

In fact, you’ll never guess who I blame for the Magic’s 3-1 deficit in this series

I blame Fran Vazquez.

You heard me.

Fran Vazquez.

Just think if the Magic hadn’t chosen Vazquez at No. 11 in the 2005 NBA draft and instead had picked Danny Granger, who is now the Pacers’ best player and is averaging 20.5 points and 7.8 rebounds in the playoffs. Granger went No. 17 in the 2005 draft.

And if you want to go back even further and play what-if — what if the Magic had chosen the Pacers’ second-best player David West (16.8 ppg, 10.0 rebounds in the playoffs) in the 2003 draft instead of Reece Gaines. Gaines was taken No. 15 in that draft; West No. 17.

Granger and West have gone on to become very good NBA players. Vazquez, of course, never showed up to play for the Magic while Gaines was a complete flop who spent one season on the bench in Orlando and averaged 1.8 points and 1.0 rebounds.

Of course, a lot of other teams missed on Granger and West as well, but a lot of other teams aren’t on the verge of being eliminated by those two players in the playoffs.

The moral of the story is this: If and when the Magic lose this series, don’t blame it on the Magic players of the present; chalk it up to the curse of draft picks past.

You don’t really believe Dwight Howard and Stan Van Gundy have kissed and made up, do you?

After watching Dwight’s recent video interview on TMZ, you’d think that he and Stan  talk on the phone every day and perhaps have put their hard feelings behind them.

Howard said in the video that he has talked with Van Gundy “a bunch of times” since the playoffs started.

That seems to be a slight exaggeration on Dwight’s part. In fact, when I asked Van Gundy if he and Dwight had spoken a “bunch of times” Saturday, Van Gundy never even confirmed if they’d talked at all. ”I don’t know about a bunch … but we’ve communicated before the playoffs started and after Game 2 we texted back and forth,” Van Gundy said. 

Question: Is texting the same as talking to today’s iPhone generation?

Not that it matters. The fact is, these guys are never going to be able to co-exist again. That’s why I wrote a column over the weekend saying Saturday’s Game 4 loss to the Pacers was likely Van Gundy’s last home game as Magic coach. How can Van Gundy ever coach a player who he knows tried to get him fired? And how can Dwight play for a coach who exposed him as a coach-killing fraud? In my opinion, it would be impossible for both Dwight and Stan to return to the Magic next season.

What do you think?

Do you believe Dwight and Stan have truly made up and do you think it’s possible both could actually return to the Magic?

(NOTE TO READERS): On our Open Mike radio show Monday morning, we will tackle this topic, discuss whether the Magic have a chance of coming back and winning the playoff series against the Pacers and debate whether Philadelphia 76ers fans should be chastised for cheering when Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah went down with an injury Friday night. We will also hand out our Studs and Duds from the sports weekend and interview Orlando Predators quarterback Chris Leak, who may be the most underappreciated player in Florida Gators history. You can to listen to our show on 740 AM in Orlando every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. or click here if you want to listen live on-line. You can call into the radio show at 407 916-8255 or toll free 1-800-729-8255. And if you want to hit me up on Twitter and follow my clever, witty and insightful comments, click here.

That didn’t take long.

It was only hours after Junior Seau died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound that talking heads and pseudo psychologists on the Internet began speculating that the NFL ultimately caused Seau to pull the trigger and take his own life.

Analysts and bloggers everywhere now are theorizing that brain-related injuries and concussions Seau may (or may not) have sustained during his playing career might have been the reason he decided to commit suicide.

Such talk is irresponsible guesswork.

Why is it everytime a professional football player commits suicide, it’s the NFL’s fault?

Tragically, tens of thousands of people commit suicide in this country every year and, believe it or not, most of them have never played a down of football.  Rich people, poor people, black people, white people, young people and old people commit suicide not because they have suffered too many blows to the head but because, for some reason, they have lost hope.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying football had nothing to do with Seau’s apparent suicide; I’m just saying let’s not wrecklessly rush to judgement here. Maybe he had personal problems. Maybe he had financial problems. Maybe he had other problems we will never know about. Maybe football was so important to him that once he retired he couldn’t find anything in his life to replace it.

Maybe he had a broken heart instead of a broken head.

I realize there are some studies that say depression is one of the more common symptoms experienced by athletes that have had a history of concussions. But there are also studies that show many NFL players are bankrupt within a few years of retirement.  Both of those scenarios could cause depression and might be a reason a distraught player would make the decision to take his own life.

The fact is we’ll never know why Junior Seau apparently decided to take his own life.

Only he knows for sure.

All of the neophyte psychologists and amateur concussion experts can try to make sense of it all they want, but it is fruitless.

There is no making sense out of a senseless act like suicide.

(NOTE TO READERS): On our Open Mike radio show Friday morning, we will tackle this topic, discuss whether the Magic have a chance of coming back and winning the playoff series against the Pacers and debate whether Florida State football fans should be concerned with the $2.5 million budget shortfall AD Randy Spetman announced earlier this week. If you want to listen, tune into 740 AM in Orlando every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. or click here if you want to listen live on-line. You can call into the radio show at 407 916-8255 or toll free 1-800-729-8255. And if you want to hit me up on Twitter and follow my clever, witty and insightful comments, click here.

In a season of wild twists and turns, Glen Davis has emerged as a Magic team leader

INDIANAPOLIS — This is all you need to know about what a wild, whacked-out season this has been for the Orlando Magic:

Glen “Big Baby” Davis has become a team leader.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Davis, the man who was suspended earlier this year for getting into a verbal altercation with Coach Stan Van Gundy and fined for flipping off fans, has become one of the Magic’s most visible team leaders.

As I wrote about Davis in my column in Monday’s Sentinel:

“He’s playing hurt and he’s playing hard. He played a team-high 41 minutes in Game 1 after badly spraining his ankle last week. Big Baby, it seems, has become Big Brother.

“He’s the one who came up with the playoff mantra – “We All We Got” – that has become a rallying cry for Magic players and fans alike. Team T-shirts are on the way. Jason Richardson went on Twitter after Game 1 and thanked Magic fans for their support and ended his tweet with a hashtag … #WeAllWeGot.”

Who would have ever thought this could happen?

Who would have ever thought that Davis would not only take Dwight Howard’s place of prominence on the basketball court, but in the locker room as well.

Here’s a frightening thought:

With the possibility that Dwight and Jameer Nelson both being gone next season, could the Magic actually become Big Baby’s team?

It truly has been a long, strange season.