The Future is Now!

Let’s hear it for Jason Campbell. The second year player showed great poise and skill Sunday as he tried to lead an undermanned Redskins team to a win on the road in Tampa. It would have been Campbell’s first ever NFL win in his first ever NFL game; but the wins will come. What impressed me was how the young man from Auburn University handled himself under what should have been considerable pressure. There was no Santana Moss to reel in that first toss in their first possession from scrimmage that should have been caught for a touchdown. There was no Clinton Portis who almost certainly would not have fumbled that ball in the fourth quarter with the game on the line. Still, Jason Campbell threw for two touchdowns and several first downs when the team had to have them. He avoided the rush several times, in one instance, tossing for a first down while in the grasp; and Campbell never turned the ball over. He’ll have better games. He’ll win a lot of games for the home team; but this was a very good start.

While I’m playing sports columnist, (Levan Reid, listen up) how about those Buckeyes. In the best college football game of the season, number one ranked Ohio State squeezed by number two Michigan this past weekend. I’ve been a Buckeye fan since my first two years of high school in Cincinnati. I landed my first gig at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati where I also got a graduate degree from U.C. Didn’t the Bearcats knock off undefeated Rutgers this weekend?

Congrats to the Maryland men’s basketball team for their wins over Saint John’s and Michigan State in the Garden this past week. Looks like a couple of freshmen guards are what were needed to get this team back on track. Anybody think the Wizards will win a road game before the year is out?

Ed Bradley

Jim Vance knew him far better. They were the best of friends for the longest time; But I consider Ed Bradley a friend and mentor even though we met maybe two or three times in the thirty or so years that the two of us have been in the TV news business, much of it right here in Washington. My first image of Ed was on one of those rare assignments that took this local DC reporter inside the White House grounds. My photographer and I had just cleared security and were proceeding down the driveway to the press room when a group of white house photographers and reporters came charging out and looking for someone important. They looked like a herd of horses. In the back of the pack, seemingly, not wanting to break the crease in his slacks was Ed Bradley. Mister Cool walked slowly but with all the confidence in the world. It was as if  he expected that important person to wait until Ed Bradley got there. You couldn’t help but be impressed. I almost forgot why I began to admire Ed so much in the first place.  He was the first black TV network correspondent to cover the White House. One of the bravest reporters in Vietnam. The first and only African American to regularly report for “Sixty Minutes”. His exclusives are too many to mention but the Mohammed Ali and Timothy McVeigh stories are at the top of my list.

As one who began his first four years in the TV news business, as the only black in a Cincinnati TV station, I can only imagine the pressure Ed must have been under on that national stage.  “Don’t blow it boy” “You’ve go to be twice as good” “Make us proud”. That kind of talk always comes from one’s own people with the best of intention, but it certainly can amount to an incredible amount of weight on one’s shoulders. Ed Bradley had broad shoulders. He helped carry a lot of us younger journalists.   Thanks Ed.    

Ellington School of the Arts

Last week we aired a series of reports that included exclusive videotape of the deplorable conditions at the District’s Duke Ellington School for the Arts. For starters the seventy students in the dance department have been unable to use the dance studio because the floor has buckled in several spots from constant water damage, making the surface dangerous to even walk on, much less try and dance. There are eight showers for the dancers use after practice; but the students have never been able to use them because they have never worked. The gym at Ellington has been closed and locked to students for the past six months. The reason, a light fixture fell from the ceiling one day while a Phys Ed class was underway. Several other lights are now hanging by a thread and could fall at any time. Students meanwhile are taking gym outdoors. How cold will November be, Topper? The school system has not seen fit to send someone out to repair the lights, the leaking roof, the showers, the theatre seats, the carpet, walls, hallways, and the crumbling plaster. The list goes on and on. DC school officials responded to our reports saying The Duke Ellington School for the Arts is but one of many city schools in dire need of repairs or renovation. The money is now available because of a multi million dollar bill approved by the DC Council and the Mayor. However, under school Superintendent Clifford Janey’s modernization plan Ellington isn’t scheduled for renovation for another six years, in the year 2012. Parents say they can’t and won’t wait that long. Fortunately, a work crew was dispatched to Ellington on Saturday, October 28^th, to begin ripping up the dance floor for a new one. As of this writing on Wednesday, November 1^st, my inside sources tell me two studios are sealed off with no use to anyone while officials try to find the source of the water leaks, make the repairs, and then build new floors. We’ll let you know if and when the Ellington students will dance again.