I’m going to Nantucket for a week of surf fishing for stripers, smoking cigars, eating fried clams and drinking gin. If it were any more a male bonding experience, there’d be a fight club taking place.

I won’t be posting columns, or writing them, or brainstorming anything other than how to nap on the beach while continuing to suck in my gut. That’s pretty much it. So, this is my saying so long for a week. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

According to the local reports, the fishing on Nantucket is better than it has been in a decade. My friend Dave and I plan to catch and release a whole mess of them.

But…if you want to keep apprised of my exploits on Twitter, follow me on @microtony. I will be posting photos and updates, as often I am able to. And by that I mean…never mind. I think you know exactly what I mean.

Bye, folks.

Expiration dates. Food has them. Medicine too. If you ask me, so do relationships. Sometimes you make friends that last you a lifetime, and in other instances they burn white hot for a short period of time and then fizzle out. The thing is: you can’t predict which ones are which.

Tonight I had dinner with someone who I was thicker than thieves with for a about a decade. And then he had kids and I had Gina (just kidding) and we drifted apart. It was fine. Neither of us was the dumper or the dumpee, we just sort of dissipated. The arc of the story was over.

And tonight at a place called Rub and over a platter of twelve kinds of meat called “The Baron” (seriously) we kind of picked up where we left off, finishing each other’s jokes, and it was easy. I walked away knowing that we were going to be friends again.

Lately, when I look through my mind’s contacts list (because I’m a Grade A psycho) I realize that there are people that I once thought were lifers may not even make it past the end of this column. They’ve been transitioned to Facebook friends. And eventually I’ll probably quit Facebook.

But I still have more friends this year than last. And, you know what? As long as the ledger tilts more toward that way, I’m cool with it.

Yesterday was quite a day — the culmination of nearly six months of anticipation, ever since South Africa’s greatest export, Charlize Theron, announced the 2010 World Cup draw, where the United States would be playing England.

But for me, the waiting lasted longer than half a year. I had been pining for the U.S. to play England in a meaningful soccer match for pretty much my entire life.  To me, they have always been soccer’s gold standard–even though Brazil and Italy have had greater World Cup success, and Spain and Portugal are squads perennially stuffed with talent.

The Premiership is clearly the world’s most important and competitive professional sports league, and its top homegrown players like Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard are larger than life icons. They aren’t just on a different level than America’s best, they’re on a different planet, in terms of the ruggedly intuitive manner in which they compete. To misappropriate an analogy, the difference between U.S. soccer and English soccer is the difference between throwing a bullet and shooting a bullet.

So yesterday, I had my best friend Dave over to watch the match. He’d never seen one in his life. Literally. Yesterday was his first. I explained to him the odds against us. How soccer works best when all of the players move in concert, and how that is part of the English DNA. How our best athletes are dispersed over a half-dozen sports and how a promising 11 year-old named David Beckham was once shepherded into a soccer school by a professional team named Manchester United.

His response: “Jesus, T, you sound like you think we’re gonna lose.” He had no preconceived notion of how things were supposed to go. It was a game and we both had the same number of guys. Someone had to win. Why not us? Optimistic, with a dash of obliviousness. Which, I guess, is part of the American DNA.

I had a hundred answers to my friend’s question. Besides for goalkeeping, there was not one aspect of the squads where we had the edge in talent.  And so the two of us sat there, him continually shouting, “Shoot the fucking thing!” and “Kick the fucking ball all the way down!” and me wringing my hands every time England had a set piece, or even any time they had the ball on our side of the pitch. I kept saying, “See, this is bad,” whenever “Terrible Friend” John Terry joined the play on full sprint or Cole calmly worked the ball around the fringes of our goal box.

When England scored so early and effortlessly, my friend looked at me as if to say, “Okay, I get it now.” But then I immediately noticed something: the U.S. players began to press the English side. Slowly. Rather than just continually clearing the ball, the U.S. was passing within its own end. We were gaining set pieces, and beginning to keep the ball on their side.

England seemed temporarily flummoxed. They made a couple of substitutions that didn’t impress me, including inserting the tiniest, full-grown black man I have seen this side of the late Gary Coleman. His name was Shaun Wright-Phillips and he was fast. That pretty much sums up his contribution to the match.

Then the miracle happened. The English goalkeeper did what English goalkeepers do: cock up an easy chance. And we were tied. At the half. I was ecstatic, but also really terrified.

The second half was a blur. Me, in my Clint Dempsey jersey, pacing and murmuring, “Slow it down, slow it down” while my friend urging the U.S. to attack, attack, attack. I was overjoyed at the mere promise of gaining a point, in a 1-all tie, while he wanted the three points that accompany a win. Bless his heart.

The last five minutes seemed like hours. When it was over I did what any jerk would do: I went on Twitter and Facebook to see if I could harass my friends. Alas, they had disappeared into the fog of liquor and familiar cloak of disappointment. No one does sports disappointment like the English. If there were a World Cup for enduring crushing defeats, its trophy would forever live in London.

I then sat here and watched the players’ post-match interviews, savoring every moment. The English were gracious and composed, as expected, and the Americans were trying hard to mask their incredulity. Had Jay Demerit really contained Wayne Rooney? Had Michael Bradley and Steve Cherundolo actually kept Frankie Lampard and Emile Heskey from completely controlling tempo?

The answer is “yes.” England played a mediocre, uninspired match and still had multiple opportunities to put the ball into the back of our net. And we played tenaciously, with a scrappy determination, and nearly scored a 2-to-1 win, if not for a pesky post. They really dictated the action for much of the match, but we exhibited greater intangibles, like heart and effort. And we were incredibly lucky. (Then again, another friend reminded me yesterday of Wayne Gretzky’s most famous quote: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”)

The difference was that the U.S. players were willing to sacrifice their bodies to disrupt the English attack, diving, sliding and, in the case of goaltender Tim Howard, getting a boot to the ribs. Suddenly, the English team looked not like a group of world-beaters, but a team of untethered millionaires who expected a walk-through in group play. “EASY” blared headline from The Sun the day after the draw was announced. Today, it is “ROBBED!”

Eventually, Steven Gerrard, who had scored England’s lone goal, conducted his on-field interview wearing a U.S. jersey that he had swapped with one of our players. It was a sign of respect that I hadn’t anticipated, and it gave me chills. At that moment, I could not only visualize the U.S. eventually fielding a team of players all with Gerrard’s talent, I could see the future with my own two eyes.

I’m the worst. Okay, maybe not the worst, but certainly top five. What I am referring to is my propensity to RSVP to events and then not show. I did it tonight, but there were extenuating circumstances; I had two events to attend, went to the first one, bumped into all sorts of people I knew, had a few and, as if that wasn’t enough, ran into my wife who was on her way home. So I blew off the second event, even thought it was on the top floor of a swanky NYC hotel. Poolside, no less.

The event was for the preview launch of a new web site called Topguest and I think it certainly merits mention for a couple of reasons: 1) You will be able to accrue points for staying at cool hotels like The Standard chain, and get all kinds of other membership benefits; and 2) Liz Cebron from WFG Media, the woman handling PR for the company, is one of those “superfit” types who would probably invite me hiking and then push me off a cliff due to my kvetching about not bringing gin, or something. Every photo I have ever seen of her she is involved in outdoor activities like surfing or this other nighttime one that looks like a cross between sitting in a chair and skiing. With a headlamp. (Seriously.)  I have a feeling that, even though she is a perfectly lovely person, if I miss one more of her events I will wake up extruding snowboard shards from my head.

On a related note, a friend and I have recently been discussing the validity of rewards programs, because I feel that eventually most every business, from your dry cleaner to your pet store, will  employ them as a way to build customer loyalty. People are stretching every dime and want to believe that when they spend, they earn. One for hotels and travel stuff certainly makes sense.

While topguest.com is still brand new, you would do well to go to the site and register. Otherwise, I’ll tell Liz and…well, let’s not go there. Just register.

I am constantly giving advice to people, some of who actually ask for it. I don’t know what makes me the expert on anything other than doomed sports fandom. Nevertheless, as many of you can attest, I am ready, willing and able to tell you just what I think at any given moment. If someone asks me for an honest opinion I will provide one. (Except in the case of a woman’s appearance. Then I choose my words far more carefully. You understand.)

I have a handful of close friends whose opinions carry great weight with me. My friend Matty, for example, could tell me to go stand outside and a bag of money would fall from the sky. And I would stand there waiting. He would also tell me if I was wasting my time, with a person or on a project. And just like that, I’ll cease and desist.

And I guess that’s all you need: A handful of people who will give it to you straight. These days it seems that a lot more decisions are collective ones. Do you find that? I know with my friends, especially those between jobs, do lean on each other more for everything from writing the “Did you happen to read my pitch?” emails to deciding how to best disentangle ourselves from distant family gatherings. (Anything contagious, y’all.)

But earlier today, I was asked to weigh on an affair of the heart, and my militancy was evident (and regretful), so much so, that I began doing something I normally don’t: backpedal furiously. I did it by stating: “But what the hell do I know? Do what you think is right.”

I wish I wasn’t so opinionated. I really do. And I also wish that I was less predisposed to giving the answers that I know to be the truth, but I also know to be hurtful.

Here’s a good example of that: Responding to a heartfelt question, I once told a good friend that his wife was both “mean and scary.” Occasionally, I still miss the Knicks games we used to attend together.

About 1,000 years ago, when SLAM basketball magazine was still in its infancy, I made a trip down to meet one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all-time, Coach Dean Smith at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We were doing a feature on him, even though the earliest days of the magazine were trying so hard to be hip-hop. Coach Smith was about as hip-hop as The Mentalist. So I called the school’s athletic director, sent him a couple issues, he showed them to Coach Smith, who accepted, and I packed a bag and headed South.

The coach was incredibly gracious to me, and let me watch a practice (which he rarely did) and also let me shoot around on the court. He showed me around his facility and then we sat in his office and talked about basketball and life—and how so many of his former players still call regularly for advice. He was like a basketball buddha—wise and serene. I was swooning.

But I was also 28 and had no idea how to carry on a conversation with a legend. I was probably sweating and blinking rapidly, looking like Shrek on Adderall. He made me feel like I was Gay Talese. And when I was leaving he squeezed my shoulder and said, “You look like you played a little ball, Tony.”

“Not really, Coach Smith,” I said blushing, because even “not really” was probably an overstatement. Okay…it was an overstatement. Not probably. (Don’t start with me.) But my point is, I instinctively called him “Coach Smith” and showed him the respect commensurate to his presence.

I was thinking of him today because when I asked him who his role model was told me that, while he probably could never reach such a level, he wanted to be “as fine a man as John Wooden.”

Former UCLA head basketball coach John Wooden died yesterday at 99, and while I could talk about his accomplishments and mourn his loss (knowing that many of you would have no idea of whom I was referring), I immediately (literally) thought of a story I had read a decade ago, by Rick Reilly, who used to write the back page for Sports llustrated.

I really admire Reilly’s writing and feel better for having read many of his stories. This, in my eyes, is his finest work (although others may disagree…including Rick Reilly himself, who writes for ESPN the Magazine.) I have trouble reading it without becoming emotional despite the fact that the Coach Wooden retired when I was a little kid. It’s because his story has a happy ending, even in death. Especially in death.

I decided to re-run it here. I’m curious to hear what you think:

___________________

A Paragon Rising above the Madness

By Rick Reilly for Sports Illustrated, March 14, 2000:

On Tuesday the best man I know will do what he always does on the 21st of the month. He’ll sit down and pen a love letter to his best girl. He’ll say how much he misses her and loves her and can’t wait to see her again. Then he’ll fold it once, slide it in a little envelope and walk into his bedroom. He’ll go to the stack of love letters sitting there on her pillow, untie the yellow ribbon, place the new one on top and tie the ribbon again.

The stack will be 180 letters high then, because Tuesday is 15 years to the day since Nellie, his beloved wife of 53 years, died. In her memory, he sleeps only on his half of the bed, only on his pillow, only on top of the sheets, never between, with just the old bedspread they shared to keep him warm.

There’s never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach. He won 10 NCAA basketball championships at UCLA, the last in 1975. Nobody has ever come within six of him. He won 88 straight games between Jan. 30, 1971, and Jan. 17, 1974. Nobody has come within 42 since.

So, sometimes, when the Madness of March gets to be too much — too many players trying to make SportsCenter, too few players trying to make assists, too many coaches trying to be homeys, too few coaches willing to be mentors, too many freshmen with out-of-wedlock kids, too few freshmen who will stay in school long enough to become men — I like to go see Coach Wooden. I visit him in his little condo in Encino, 20 minutes northwest of L.A., and hear him say things like “Gracious sakes alive!” and tell stories about teaching “Lewis” the hook shot. Lewis Alcindor, that is. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

There has never been another coach like Wooden, quiet as an April snow and square as a game of checkers; loyal to one woman, one school, one way; walking around campus in his sensible shoes and Jimmy Stewart morals. He’d spend a half hour the first day of practice teaching his men how to put on a sock. “Wrinkles can lead to blisters,” he’d warn. These huge players would sneak looks at one another and roll their eyes. Eventually, they’d do it right. “Good,” he’d say. “And now for the other foot.”

Of the 180 players who played for him, Wooden knows the whereabouts of 172. Of course, it’s not hard when most of them call, checking on his health, secretly hoping to hear some of his simple life lessons so that they can write them on the lunch bags of their kids, who will roll their eyes. “Discipline yourself, and others won’t need to,” Coach would say. “Never lie, never cheat, never steal,” Coach would say. “Earn the right to be proud and confident.”

You played for him, you played by his rules: Never score without acknowledging a teammate. One word of profanity, and you’re done for the day. Treat your opponent with respect.

He believed in hopelessly out-of-date stuff that never did anything but win championships. No dribbling behind the back or through the legs. “There’s no need,” he’d say. No UCLA basketball number was retired under his watch. “What about the fellows who wore that number before? Didn’t they contribute to the team?” he’d say. No long hair, no facial hair. “They take too long to dry, and you could catch cold leaving the gym,” he’d say.

That one drove his players bonkers. One day, All-America center Bill Walton showed up with a full beard. “It’s my right,” he insisted. Wooden asked if he believed that strongly. Walton said he did. “That’s good, Bill,” Coach said. “I admire people who have strong beliefs and stick by them, I really do. We’re going to miss you.” Walton shaved it right then and there. Now Walton calls once a week to tell Coach he loves him.

It’s always too soon when you have to leave the condo and go back out into the real world, where the rules are so much grayer and the teams so much worse. As Wooden shows you to the door, you take one last look around. The framed report cards of the great-grandkids. The boxes of jelly beans peeking out from under the favorite wooden chair. The dozens of pictures of Nellie.

He’s almost 90 now, you think. A little more hunched over than last time. Steps a little smaller. You hope it’s not the last time you see him. He smiles. “I’m not afraid to die,” he says. “Death is my only chance to be with her again.”

Problem is, we still need him here.

“Drill, baby, drill!…Drill, baby, drill!”

As the chant echoed off the walls of the Target Center during the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, I sat in a San Diego hotel room nursing a beer and a persistent lunchtime hangover. In other words, I was in zero mood.

GG had called earlier and expressed apprehension as Boom Boom Palin trotted out her “hockey mom” routine, despite the fact that six in 10 Americans think hockey is a defunct sport. GG was worried about the woman’s crossover appeal and I assured her that while redneck male voters would want to share a sleeping bag with her, very few of them would actually vote for any woman, no matter how qualified. And Sarah Palin is qualified for a good many things, but holding political office isn’t on that list.

What had disturbed me (besides for my nausea) was that the mocking chant kept building through the crowd of people who apparently believed that Barack Obama was the only person who stood between them and the promised land: unfettered access to offshore oil drilling.

Obama had been speaking about both patience and caution and was lambasted by the pre-Teabag crowd of frighty whiteys. They were pale and angry, but had yet to talk about “taking their country back” despite the fact that they were at the wheel when it was driven into a ditch.

Wonder how that hope-y drill-y thing is working out for them? Like the rest of us, not too well. (No pun intended. For once.) It’s amazing to witness FOX “News” pundits playing all outraged at the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a plan in place to stop the horrific leak. All we’re left with is Dick Cheney’s former company (and Iraq debacle MVP) Halliburton throwing its hands up. Hands, I may add, that are stuffed with our cash.

As in many sectors, there has been precious little oversight over energy companies during the past decade, much of it when Republicans controlled both houses of congress and the presidency. Fact. And when small government is at work, the first thing to go is oversight. Make no mistake: small government is the cornerstone of true Conservatism (and not the wigged-out religious fanaticism that is currently destroying the party.)

Remember, a few years ago, when the energy company executives met with then VP Dick Cheney, allegedly to write the Bush administration’s energy policy? I’m no rocket scientist, but I’ll bet that they weren’t begging for a babysitter.

Now we are left with a world that is irreparably damaged due to our own negligence and carelessness. The thing is: we need offshore drilling to sustain our current lifestyle. We do. But it should be done safely at the expense of oil company profits, not the environment.

And I’m certainly not blaming those people who continue to support Republicans for the oil leak—even though some of them seem to be blaming President Obama for it. But for the lack of a plan to clean it up? That’s all theirs.

Those votes they cast let a blind eye be turned here. Anyone who thinks Obama should’ve or could’ve prevented this must not have been living in America, when the economy collapsed. The president’s eye was elsewhere: making sure we didn’t starve to death. Or cauterizing the 8 million other wounds inflicted during Bush’s rule.

The “Drill, baby, drill!” crowd trusted that the oil industry would regulate itself, and that they would put the public good over profits. As with the banking industry, they were dead wrong. And that fact’s a stain on their conscience that won’t dissipate no matter how hard they scrub.