This Week's Sports Hero & Zero: Oakland Sharp-Shooter, People Not Letting a Major Story Play Out

by Julian Spivey

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Hero

​Every March Madness is going to feature multiple heroes in both the NCAA men’s and women’s college basketball tournaments. Some will be heroes for one day, others throughout the entire tourney. Hell, there have already been multiple heroes of the men’s tournament after day one of the round of 64 on Thursday, March 21.

There was the entire Dayton Flyers squad who came back from a 17-point deficit with just 7:39 remaining in the game on Thursday to beat 10-seeded Nevada.

There was the entire 11-seed Duquesne Dukes team, which upset Brigham Young University to win its first NCAA tournament game in 55 years.

There was Oregon Ducks senior guard Jermaine Couisnard, who dropped 40 points on his former team South Carolina, whom he spent four years with before transferring after the team fired coach Frank Martin last season. Couisnard’s Oregon record-setting performance helped the Ducks upset the 6-seed Gamecocks.

But the No. 1 hero of day one of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament has to be Oakland Golden Grizzlies guard Jack Gohlke, whose 10 three-pointers helped sink the 3-seed Kentucky Wildcats for the biggest upset of day one.

Gohlke’s 10 three-pointers are second in NCAA men’s tournament history to only Loyola-Marymount’s Jeff Fryer’s 11 in a win against Michigan in 1990.

The great thing about Gohlke’s Cinderella moment is that five years ago he was merely a redshirt freshman at a Division II school, Hillsdale College. After graduating from Hillsdale College with eligibility remaining he entered the transfer portal and only one Division I team took a chance on him – Oakland University. Now he’s sent the Golden Grizzlies to their first Round of 32 appearance in school history. 

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Zero

​The biggest story in the world of sports right now is seemingly what’s going on with Los Angeles Dodgers superstar and two-time MVP Shohei Ohtani and his longtime interpreter, who was abruptly fired on Wednesday, March 20 following the Dodgers Opening Day game against the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea.

There’s a whole lot we still need to learn about this situation but what we know thus far is that Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara was fired and Ohtani was “a victim of a massive theft,” according to an Ohtani spokesperson when reporters began asking about why $4.5 million in wire transfers had been sent from Ohtani’s bank account to a bookmaking operation.

This theft allegation, according to ESPN, came after the spokesman and Mizuhara had both told ESPN that Ohtani had transferred the funds to cover the gambling debts of his friend and longtime interpreter.

Mizuhara subsequently told ESPN he hadn’t been truthful about Ohtani’s knowledge about his gambling, debts or efforts to repay him.

The confusion may have been a case of being lost in translation as it was literally the translator Ohtani’s handlers were solely relying on for explanation, according to ESPN.

On Thursday, March 21, representatives (though names have not been given) of Ohtani contacted law enforcement authorities (the agency wasn’t given) and asked for an investigation into the theft.

The only statement from Major League Baseball is that the league is monitoring the situation and Ohtani is not currently facing discipline.

Baseball players are allowed to place legal bets on other sports that are not baseball (or softball). But they are not allowed to use illegal bookmakers.

I would give my sports zero of the week to Mizuhara. But we don’t know enough about this story for that. Authorities and MLB need time to investigate the situation and reporters need time to search out the truth and report it. One should expect this to take more than the immediacy with which some baseball fans seem to expect.

As I write this it has been less than 48 hours since the story broke. Sometimes it takes a while for an entire story to come forth. Within hours people were already accusing Ohtani of improprieties and calling Mizuhara a “patsy.”  

And that’s exactly why my sports zero of the week is all of those Twitter/X and other social media posters who’ve been in a rush to accuse Ohtani of being the next Pete Rose. Not only are so many in the social media world rushing to conclusion on the Ohtani/Mizuhara situation but so many seem to be gleeful about it as if the sport’s biggest superstar getting into gambling trouble wouldn’t be the absolute worst possibility for baseball.

Give this story time to completely come to light before we overreact and start accusing athletes of the kind of thing that could get one banned from the sport for life.