Sports weekend report cards

When a bench champion meets a parquet champion, the older champion says: extend my contract because I want to coach him. And so Greg Popovich, 74, the longest-serving coach in any American professional league, has accepted from the Spurs (where he joined as general manager in ’94) a five-year contract extension for the monstrous (and record) sum of 80 million dollars for being able to wean the immature talent of Victor Wembanyama, the French first pick of the draft who promises to revolutionize NBA basketball. Five rings won in Texas, plus Olympic gold with the USA dream team at the Tokyo Games, plus everything else, weren’t enough for Coach Pop. To whom, more than the millionaire contract (which he will have the right to re-evaluate, and if anything, tear up at the end of each season if he decides to take the golden pension) or the umpteenth record of victories to beat at the helm of the Spurs, he is interested in taking the whim to raise the boy from Nanterre, shaping his extraordinary talents as he likes. Other than withdrawal into private life, bye bye Hall of Fame. Coach Pop is shouting at the top of his lungs on the sidelines, with a white beard and bad joints, because nothing lengthens life like a passion for what you do.