The world according to Jim:
• OK, who ya got?
We are about to start one huge debate. The Los Angeles Sports Council announced Thursday that it is going to establish a Hall of Fame, with a 2027 target date for the first induction ceremony. It’s about time, given the city’s and region’s sports legacy and the number of stars who have either played for our teams or grew up here and played elsewhere.
“Los Angeles is the greatest sports city in the world, and it’s time we had a Hall of Fame that reflects that,” said Matt Cacciato, President and CEO of the Los Angeles Sports Council, in a statement Thursday. “This initiative will elevate our city’s rich sports legacy while engaging fans and residents in meaningful ways.”
We will have more on this development here in the coming days, but we know that nominees must have been either born or raised in greater L.A. or Orange counties, or “arrived in the region during their formative years such as high school, college, or a rookie professional season, or spent the majority of their professional career in greater Los Angeles and achieved distinction here.”
There is no indication yet how many will be in that first class, or what the selection process will consist of. But I know this: Everybody who follows sports in SoCal will have an opinion who should be there, and there are going to be some fun arguments along the way.
So let me throw out the ceremonial first picks for the inaugural inductees: Sandy Koufax, Earvin Johnson, Jerry West (as player and executive), Jackie Robinson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Cheryl Miller, plus Pete Carroll and Tom Lasorda in the coach/manager category and Walter O’Malley as contributor.
I await your rebuttals – er, suggestions. …
• Maybe this was just a sneaky way to get the public’s attention. Or maybe the well-timed leak that Bill Belichick will not be a first-ballot selection to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after all was timed specifically to fill the vacuum in the week before Super Bowl hype ramps up.
Most of the reaction, frenzied as it is, suggests he was snubbed. A closer look suggests that he got a raw deal in the way the ballot has been changed, since coaches and contributors are now lumped with “senior” players. (Think of this as football’s version of “veterans committee picks.”)
Belichick was on that section of the ballot with Patriots owner Robert Kraft (oh, the irony) and players Roger Craig, Ken Anderson and L.C. Greenwood. One voter, Vahe Gregorian of the Kansas City Star, admitted he passed on Belichick because he felt more urgency to recognize those three players. …
• And while the 50-person voting panel is evidently no longer sworn to secrecy the way it once was, there’s nowhere near the same transparency and accountability attached to the ballots cast by those of us who vote for the Baseball Hall. Most of us publish our ballots and are prepared to defend our vote. (Those who don’t are in a distinct minority; then again, we still don’t know who didn’t vote for Ichiro last year.) …
• This week’s quiz: Since 1950, how many championships have Southern Califorrnia major league and Division I college teams won? Answer below. …
• Our annual State of Southern California Sports rankings will be published in the next couple of weeks. And while competitiveness on the field or court is only one of the factors involved in which teams are atop the list, at this particular point in time the best team in town is UCLA’s women’s basketball team. (And No. 2 might be UCLA’s women’s gymnastics team.) …
• As the chaos in college football continues, is it just a matter of time before big time college football and basketball are officially reclassified as the equivalent of Second Division professional leagues, ala soccer? (Maybe that’s what it’ll take for the pro leagues to provide more financial support to college programs?) …
• And yes, there’s plenty of chaos. The recent lunacy includes a settlement that will allow Duke’s quarterback to transfer to Miami after he’d signed an NIL contract at Duke, and Clemson’s Dabo Sweeney publicly accusing Ole Miss coach Pete Golding of tampering with one of his players. Surely that’s not the only case of tampering going on in college football.
There’s one way to solve this, even as coaches and administrators fight it: Make the players employees and work out a collective bargaining agreement. …
• Quiz answer: We first did this count of SoCal champions in 2020, as a way to fill space while the sports world was shut down by COVID-19. Then, the count was 53 championships in major league sports and college football and basketball, and 219 in college Olympic sports.
The count now is 60 of the former (including three Dodgers World Series championships, a Lakers NBA title, a Rams Super Bowl title and MLS championships by LAFC and the Galaxy in the last five years) and 255 of the latter (17 in this half-decade, most by USC and UCLA but also including Pepperdine golf and Long Beach State men’s volleyball).
I know, sports capital of the world sounds awfully boosterish. But who can legitimately argue with the depth in our region? …
• Last reference to halls of fame: This Space’s alma mater, Notre Dame High School in Riverside, welcomed the first inductees into its Athletic Hall of Fame last weekend. It includes two players who went on to the NFL, Marvin Cobb and Kenjon Barner, as well as volleyball/basketball star Amanda Vialpando, wrestlers (and CIF champions) Jackson, Harlan, Lindley and Marty Kistler, coaches Bob Stangel Sr. (football) and Rocky Carlos (softball), and the Titans’ 1970 football team, the school’s first Southern Section champion.
(Also, some scribbler who writes columns for a living. How’d he get on that list?)
jalexander@scng.com
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