Sean Payton: Beyond the Bounty
Outside the Lines (Sunday, 9a.m. ET, ESPN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ur4bIZ0P-g
Sean Payton, serving an unprecedented one-year suspension for his role in the bounty scandal, remains beloved by many Saints fans for delivering a long-awaited Super Bowl championship to Katrina-devastated New Orleans. Recently, however, he has been no stranger to controversy. John Barr takes a closer look at the embattled coach and reveals a side of Payton’s personality many outside of New Orleans may not know.
“I always knew Sean had an ego. I mean we all do. That’s not a fault. It’s just that sometimes can lead you down the wrong path.” — Jim Fassel, former Giants’ head coach who hired Payton as quarterbacks coach in 1999
“He is cocky as hell. He is arrogant. He is abrupt. And I think those attributes were some of the main reasons the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV.” —Kaare Johnson, talk show host, WIST-AM in New Orleans
“They like to see their head coach on a stage at a concert ‘cause the fans say ‘He’s like us! He’s not a stuck up coach.’ They like to see coach Payton down at a restaurant and he’s havin’ a couple of beers. And that’s how Louisiana — that’s how New Orleans — is.” — Joe Horn, former Saints wide receiver
“In New Orleans they don’t bury people below ground, they bury them above ground. Sean Payton has been keeping that city — since he got there — above water.” — Charles Grant, former Saints defensive end
Dead Man Fighting
SportsCenter (Sunday, 10 a.m., ESPN)
The Sporting Life with Jeremy Schaap (Friday, 10 p.m., ESPN Radio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jp5Sf4NNV8
Ultimate Fighter Court McGee understands how uncertainty looms before every fight, but the opponents he faces in the octagon don’t compare to the hold that alcohol and drug addictions had on his life. In 2005, he was clinically dead for eight minutes after a day-long binge on booze and heroin, only to be revived by paramedics. Tom Rinaldi reports on how that dreadful day uncovered a new fighting spirit in McGee.
“To tell you the truth, I was disappointed that I was alive, you know, because I had to wake up in this hellhole, in this hell of an earth, and go back to the only thing I knew, and that was getting high. And, I didn’t want to do that anymore.” – McGee, on how he felt after being clinically dead
“I figured him coming in and having gone through what he had that he would not be one that’s going to quit. He’s not going to quit on the stool in the cage, not going to quit in the middle of a fight because he didn’t quit on life.” — Jason Mertlich, McGee’s MMA coach
“It makes me want to fight harder, so when I step in that ring, you know I just don’t go in there just to beat that guy. I go in there to beat that guy to carry that message to people that there’s a way out.” – McGee, on his new devotion to help others suffering addictions
Uganda Team Finally Arrives at Little League World Series
ESPN.com
Steve Wulf writes in this Outside the Lines piece:
“What distinguished this parade (annual Grand Slam Parade in downtown Williamsport) from the others were some of the players waving from the float shared by the teams from the U.S. Southwest Region and the Mideast and Africa Region. They were the ones from Lugazi, Uganda, a town 30 miles west of the capital of Kampala, and as they smiled and mugged and threw candy alongside their counterparts from San Antonio, Texas, the spectators on the mile-long route gave the first African team to play in Williamsport the warmest of receptions. After all, the Little League World Series is now a little bigger — and the world is a little smaller.”