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| E-GIANTS By
DAVE KLEIN He has been one of the best in this franchise's 85-year history. He has been a glorious spokesman for the team. He has been a classy performer on a classy stage, and he has performed with glory and guts, courage and bravery. It is going to be difficult not to picture number 21 (and here's hoping the Giants retire that number soon) when some other running back takes his place next summer. It might be Brandon Jacobs, the hulking man-child who cannot seem to stay out of head coach Tom Coughlin's doghouse. On the other hand, Coughlin might not be back, which would give Jacobs, as well as the rest of the Giants, some chance of scenery. It is also probable that some of the current players will undergo a change of venue, too, with home being the most logical destination for many of them. But Tiki, the team's leader in almost every rushing and all-purpose statistic, did not play out his final home game in a winning effort. It may well have been the most embarrassing, inglorious game in his 10-year career, in fact, and that will go somewhat unrecorded but perhaps not as unnoticed. "This is not the way you want to end anything," he said. "We just haven't played well. We've made countless mistakes, we've been too emotional. Personal foul penalties put us in difficult situations. We haven't stopped the run defensively or moved the ball offensively, and when that happens, obviously you're going to lose. We're on a slide. We had one break in it [the victory over Carolina] but we've been on a slide and it's frustrating." The game for Tiki was less than ordinary. He carried the ball 16 times. He gained 71 yards. He was struggling to find a block, struggling to find that magical opening through which he used to flit. Amazing, isn't it, just how much left tackle Luke Petitgout is missed after all those years of criticism? Barber has one more game to play for the Giants -- perhaps another, if they somehow squeeze into the playoffs, which would be a most undeserving honor. He will do what he has always done -- try hard, focus intently, concentrate more than any other athlete this reporter has seen in way too many seasons of Giants ups and downs. Someone asked him what he thought about the fans chanting for Coughlin to be fired. He has been critical of the head coach, frequently. But his class showed again yesterday. "I don't pay any attention to it," he said softly. "It's not my decision, obviously. It's their opinion [the fans] just like anybody else's opinion." I remember when he showed up as a rookie drafted in the second round 10 years ago, a brainiac from the University of Virginia. He sat in his locker stall, smiling pleasantly, wearing a t-shirt that read: "Danger. Educated Black Man." No one took it badly. No one was offended. It was the Tiki Barber we have come to know, the man who approaches everything in his life -- football included -- straight-on and in-the-eyes. Last summer, at training camp in Albany, N.Y., Barber walked into the team cafeteria with a book under his arm. It was entitled "Separated at Birth." Your correspondent inquired what it was about, suspecting a mystery or a convoluted murder plot. He smiled, turned the book over and it said: "Separated at Birth -- A History of North and South Vietnam." Go figure a pro football player would occupy his time with that kind of reading. But there was never a way to figure out Tiki Barber. He was not in the mold of most players. Someone asked him what caused the dramatic change from a team that was 6-2 into a collection of bumbling, stumbling dolts who have a chance of finishing 1-7 in the second half. "I wish I knew," he said. "If I had that answer, we wouldn't be 1-6 these last seven games. We just haven't done the things fundamentally that it takes to win a football game. That's on the field. That's execution. That's being a team that plays smart, doesn't make mistakes, and frankly we haven't done any of those things." Amen. This unique young man is going to move on to the rest of his life. He will probably land in broadcasting for a while, but don't rule out politics. He is conscious of what's going on all around him. He would be a great political spokesman, as he was a student-athlete and a thinking man's professional athlete. This wasn't about the game yesterday, the one the Giants didn't really play. They were terrible, they were pitiful, and they knew it. Tempers were lost, composure went out the window and it was nothing that would bring a smile or a sense of accomplishment to the most forgiving critic. This was about Tiki Barber and the class with which he played this game, the honor which he brought to it and the distinguished manner in which he chose to leave it. Perhaps, in fact, he chose to make his announcement public too soon. He gave the critics a chance to poke fun at him, to invoke that old cliché: "When an athlete says he is thinking about retirement, he is already retired." No, that's not true. Barber hasn't retired and he won't do that until he carries the ball for the last time. He doesn't much agree with how Coughlin handled the team. He hates the losing. He will be leaving without the one thing he never achieved -- a Super Bowl ring. "There is always someone trying to replace you," he said, "and there is always someone looking to be replaced. So it's important in every game, no matter what, that you give it your best. Otherwise, you don't really have a chance." Barber took all the challenges and worked harder than anybody, and in his case, perhaps his alone, he didn't deserve this final send-off in "his" stadium. Check
out Dave's website at E-GIANTS
where you can subscribe to his newsletters which
run much more frequently than what is available here. NEW - Send a request to davesklein@aol.com for a free week's worth of news!
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