I Owe This Man An Apology

I didn't know who Mike Woodson was when the Hawks hired him 5 years ago. And I'd like to think I judged him on his body of work over the first few years as head coach of my Atlanta Hawks. But now I think I may have been a bit too harsh. He had a very young group to work with, and what I termed as squandering talent, now appears to have been much more of a maturation process. Add to that, the general manager hadn't been very good at building a complete team, rather we had a habit of just trying to get a good player, whether or not it fit into some coherent and cohesive team building strategy.

Well, you know how us fan(atic)s get sometimes. I'm pretty sure I publicly called for Woodson's firing on more than one occassion, in terms that bordered on inciting a riot. I blamed the man for making basketball hard for me to watch, and I really didn't watch too much Hawks ball between 2003 and 2006, because I was disgusted with the team I had grown up loving.

So Woody, I apologize. I'm a big enough man to admit publicly when I have wronged someone. And I wronged you man. I bad mouthed this cat like nobody's business, talked about him on blogs all over the place like he stole my woman and shot my dog. You probably got ulcers from dealing with the stress fans like me put on your head over the past few years. I can't change the past, but I'm gonna back up off you now and give you the props you deserve for turning this team around.