Spring Loaded

No one will ever accuse me of being a great athlete.

Or even an athlete, for that matter.

But the one thing I do pretty well is play ping-pong. Okay, not exactly a sport in the minds of some, but those are small minds. Hey, there’s a ball. What more do you need to qualify?

Anyway, back in my days as a Laker beat writer, I got into a battle of the paddles with Bob McAdoo in a rec room at the Cleveland hotel where we were staying.

McAdoo may have been a three-time NBA scoring champion and the league’s MVP in 1975, but on the ping-pong table he was mine.

I beat him, giving me bragging rights that certainly impressed my friends.

McAdoo didn’t mention our game again for year. Then, we found ourselves back in the same Cleveland hotel.

McAdoo casually asked if I wanted to play again, I obliged, looking for the back-to-back. Instead, McAdoo solidly whipped me.

When we were done, he admitted that he had gone out and bought a ping-pong table after losing to me, He spent a year honing his game, waiting for the return trip to Cleveland.

Imagine that, an NBA player on the Showtime Lakers in the midst of their championship years obsessing about losing a ping-pong match.

McAdoo validated the old cliché about athletes being so competitive that they hate to lose at anything, even if its tiddlywinks.

Nice cliché, but not always true. Many athletes, lugging around those big egos, won’t play another sport if they don’t think they can win.

I bring that up because of the new ABC sports/reality show, "Shaq Vs." Each week, Shaquille O’Neal takes on a star athlete in the sport that athlete excels.

Okay, “takes on” might be stretching it a bit.

In the first episode, he squared off against the Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger in a battle of quarterbacks.

Sort of.

Each of them got three possessions in a seven-on-seven format with no kicking allowed. Either get the ball in the end zone or get a big, fat zero on the scoreboard. There was no rushing allowed by the



defense and Shaq started from the opponents’ 20-yard line while Roethlisberger began from the 40.

Given enough time to run out a 24-second clock, Shaq was eventually going to find an open receiver. Especially if the defenders had read the script.

Still, he showed a good arm, throwing one bomb for a TD, and hung in there until losing on the last possession.

In the coming weeks, Shaq will take on champions in everything from beach volleyball to boxing.

Sure, it’s just entertainment. Yes, the rules will be bent and the opponents will flow with the story line. But, as Roethlisberger demonstrated at the end, he wasn’t about to lose at his own sport, entertainment or no entertainment.

When they had the old Superstars competition, all the athletes competed in sports other than their own. But none of them were competing in their own sport.

Shaq has put his ego aside, no small feat, and allowed himself to enter arenas where he can’t possibly win in order to bask in the glow of his own show.

He even allowed footage of his loss to Roethlisberger in a game of HORSE to be shown.

What’s the big deal, you say. It’s only dancing with the stars in cleats. Who cares?

Many athletes would care, would not want to be seen losing to anybody in anything.

But Shaq, the man who has long referred to himself as the best basketball player on the planet, the man who resorted to bitter rips at Kobe Bryant after leaving the Lakers, seems to be genuinely enjoying his new status as an elder statesman of his sport, anxious to leave the bitter image behind and dispel the idea that he’s not a good sport.

For the sequel, I’d love to see Shaq Vs. Mac as in McAdoo.

Or, how about Shaq Vs. Kobe?

Think that might get some good numbers?