If there is one thing that unites the modern-day sports fan, it is the belief that modern-day coaches and managers aren’t tough enough on modern-day athletes.

Fans just love when gruff old guys with paunches or even gruff middle-aged guys with six-packs — but preferably all former hard-nosed players themselves — put the shoe to a player’s hind end, rip them in the press and really get after the lazy, overpaid good-for-nothings.

That is, unless, that particular tactic does not result directly in a world championship, preferably within 30 days.

Then the gruff coach or manager is vilified as being out of touch, his players quit on him and he is summarily fired.

The rumblings are starting up again about Cubs manager Lou Piniella.

I started hearing it last season, this Lou-is-old, Lou-has-lost-it, Lou-is-soft routine. These are the same people who believe Lou should pull second base out of its mooring once a month just to get his team jacked up and really show his players he means business.

Even when this seemed to work for him, it never really did.

His family was embarrassed, the effect on his teams was short-lived if it did anything at all, and occasionally he’d pull a hamstring or worse.

And at 65, you no longer pull hamstrings. You herniate discs and give yourself cardiac arrhythmias.

Tonight, in a radio show on WGN promoting my biography of Lou Piniella, former White Sox, then Cubs and now Sox broadcast analyst Steve Stone brought up the subject. I told him that Piniella has spoken about the concept of “old-school managers” and that he doesn’t think they can survive in today’s game with today’s players if they refuse to adjust.

Stone said that he doesn’t believe in that and told the story about how successful managers Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox scoffed at that notion.

It sounded familiar because I had actually quoted Stone telling the same story in my book.

“I don’t think Lou today is the same manager he was when he was tackling Rob Dibble,” Stone said in my interview with him last summer, referring to Piniella’s infamous 1992 wrestling match Dibble, then his player on the Cincinnati Reds. “I don’t think he’s mellowed in terms of intensity. I think he realizes there are ways to do things now maybe he couldn’t before. And there are things he did before he can’t do now. But one thing I disagree with, he said you can’t handle players today the way you did in 1990. I posed that same scenario to [Atlanta Braves manager] Bobby Cox and he said that’s a bunch of horseshit. He said you make a set of rules, they apply to everybody and you live with that set of rules. Players will get used to whatever set of rules you implement. And I do know there are certain things Lou tolerates that most likely Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa wouldn’t.
 

“Can you imagine a guy in leftfield walking after the ball in the corner [as Sorianao did in ‘08] for Tony La Russa?” Stone continued. “Bobby Cox was a guy who stopped a game in the sixth inning, got up out of the dugout and pointed out to centerfield and then-rookie Andruw Jones, who dogged it after a fly ball that dropped in front of him. And [Cox] said, ‘Come on in,’ in the middle of the inning and only when Jones got in did he take somebody from the dugout and run him out to centerfield. Then he told Jones, ‘Go in and sit down in the lockerroom. You obviously don’t want to play. . . ’ ”
 

When Piniella was first hired as the Cubs’ manager, he was asked about his style and replied, “You appeal to people’s pride. That’s where it starts. You can’t be a hard-ass as a manager, and I’m not a hard-ass. . . .
 

“When I came up to the big leagues . . . boy, you had to respect the manager because if you don’t, you’re not going to play on that team. Now the manager basically has to earn the respect of the players, and that’s my job – earn their respect, so I can expect respect back at the same time.
 

“That’s really the way I operate. These are the guys with the longer-term contracts. And they’re the ones who are the most important cogs because they’re the talent.”

In other words, don’t upset the high-priced, veteran talent.

Is that wrong? Perhaps in theory, but not in practice.

If a person is capable of evolving after the age of 60, Piniella has. He was still maturing at the age of 63, the last time he kicked dirt on an umpire’s shoes.

“After that, he was embarrassed, he was,” Trammell in an interview for the book last year.  “[The umpire, Mark] Wegner said he felt it was degrading and Lou said, ‘You know what? I’ve done that a half a dozen times in my career and nobody ever said that to me. I never realized it.’ And he told me, ‘I’ll never do that again.’ “

So call him soft.

Or call him a horse’s you-know-what.

If he doesn’t win here, that’ll hurt a lot more.

Pressure, some genius coach or manager once said, comes from within.

So brilliant was this proclamation, that every other coach and manager alive picked up on it, unimaginative athletes followed and a cliché was born.

Clearly, none of the geniuses had the kind of day I had Sunday.

This is pressure, my friends.

Pressure is navigating O’Hare with your 13-year-old daughter, who you are about to release into the jaws of air travel, a world now so sinister that signs warning of flying with Swine Flu assault the senses and a simple clearing of your throat is grounds for arrest. When you no longer travel often, as I once did, you forget all the savvy traveler shortcuts.

For example, avoid waiting for 15 minutes in a line marked INTERNATIONAL, when you’re holding a ticket to Phoenix.

When your on-line boarding pass isn’t scanning properly in the e-ticket kiosk, repeatedly jamming it in there isn’t your best option, especially when perfect strangers are shouting instructions to you like, “PUT IN YOUR CONFIRMATION NUMBER,” and then muttering bad words to themselves.  

 And when your child calmly leads you to her gate, puts herself on-board and sends you on your way, you should heed her commands.

In my defense, I was jittery not so much because Amanda was on her way to visit relatives in Arizona by herself, but because I was on my way to speak to a women’s group by myself.

No one can really help you when you’re a public speaker. It’s you, the microphone and in my case, dead air when, in the middle of a really rousing story, you start thinking about your little girl sitting in a Swine-infested airplane, lose your train of thought and require an audience member to remind you where you were.

OK, so maybe you’re saying this is self-imposed pressure. And you might be right. When speaking to a large group, unless it is as a warden at a state penitentiary, the audience is generally rooting for you to succeed. No one boos when a joke falls flat. And only occasionally will someone sitting right up front doze off. It’s usually always the ones in back.

And besides, this was nothing compared to what awaited at my next stop of the day, my 11-year-old son’s playoff baseball game.

So here’s the question? Were we as parents adding to the incredible, almost unbearable pressure of the moment by wildly cheering each ball and strike as the lead changed hands in the sixth inning? Or were we as parents the only ones aware of the incredible, almost unbearable pressure?

Was it really necessary for the other’s team’s coaches to call timeout after every other pitch to change pitchers, catchers and hold impromptu infield meetings on the mound? And do we all need to be institutionalized after many among us on the sidelines had to stop watching altogether when the game went into extra innings?

Of course, because it was the kind of day it was, this was not my family’s biggest concern. Rather, as the game neared it dramatic conclusion and – THANK THE GOOD LORD ABOVE — a victory for our team – MY GOD, A DELICIOUS VICTORY — my husband Rick and I were equally concerned that we make the start of Alec’s piano recital.

You want pressure? How about possessing the nerves necessary to make that split-second decision of whether to go straight to the recital with your son dirty and smelly, or make the detour home to bathe and thus risk being late and having to bang through the door during some other child’s performance?

We didn’t bang through the door that loudly.

And Alec made it all the way through “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” without the help of anyone in the audience.

Now that’s pressure.Read Melissa on ESPNChicago.com.

I almost didn’t write about Derrick Rose tonight.

I don’t have to, after all. No editor is asking me to do it. No one is paying me to do it. I’d rather not do it. And here’s why.

I don’t know Derrick Rose.

What I do know, I like. I had to chase the 20-year-old Chicago Bulls rookie guard for over a month to interview him for an in-depth feature story this past winter for the Tribune, but I never blamed him for the runaround.  There were always plans he did not know about and demands he seemingly could not control, and he always seemed sincerely sorry each time the interview would get postponed at the last minute.

Getting blown off in our business is like getting a paycheck for people in other jobs. You expect it on a regular basis. And when someone like Rose acts genuinely sorry about it, you’re almost grateful. Pathetic, I know.  But it’s our cross to bear.

Eventually, I had to fly to Dallas to do the interview and was impressed with who I perceived as a shy, but  very thoughtful  young guy.

We talked for more than an hour in the lobby of the Bulls’ team hotel and again the next day in the lockerroom before their game.  He told me about the first time he experienced the death of a close friend at 19 and how angry he was when it came out that the cause of death was Russian Roulette when he knew differently.

He told me about his dreams — not of playing pro basketball, which was too lofty a goal for him before high school, but just getting out of his neighborhood.

“I just knew I had to do something, I had to be something where I was going to take care of my mom,” he said. “I knew my brothers and others in my family would be all right but I felt like my mother was working too hard. She used to cry when she’d get the bills. . . .”
 

He also told me his mother Brenda was his role model and how much he counted on her after the death of his friend, when she urged her youngest child to channel his grief into something positive.
 

“And that’s what I did,” he said. “When I got to college, I made sure I did everything right.”
 

I want to believe him. Even after the almost inevitable first scandal surfaced several weeks ago linking him to alleged academic fraud, which he denied.
 

Even after Thursday, when an old photo surfaced of Rose flashing a gang sign while at a party during his only year in college at the University of Memphis.
 

Many people take gang signs very seriously, regardless of the context and the intent intended. And when the NBA’s No. 1 draft choice pops up like Rose did, regardless of how young, foolish or innocent it may have been, it merits attention.
 

So much so that Rose quickly issued a statement apologizing: “I want to emphatically state, now and forever, that Derrick Rose is anti-gang, anti-drug and anti-violence,” it began.
 

I hate that I’m suspicious. Not that Rose is lying about his hatred of gangs and violence. But that I don’t know him well enough to know what to believe. That I’m suspicious about everything these days regarding public figures. That a story starts in the tabloids or on someone’s blog, spreads to the mainstream press and gets repeated and re-told so many times, it is legitimized.
 

I became part of it tonight when I repeated these transgressions and suspected transgressions. I was part of it when I wrote for a major newspaper. You’re a part of it if you’ve ever watched Entertainment Tonight or, heaven forbid, bought a National Enquirer or clicked on the photo of Derrick Rose.    
 

I hate that I once did a heartwarming story that ran on the day of Super Bowl XXIII about how Cincinnati running back Stanley Wilson had kicked his drug problem, but that the night before, after my deadline, Wilson’s teammates found him in a cocaine stupor in the hotel bathroom.
 

I hate that I can’t get to know athletes better so that I’m better equipped to defend them.
 

I hate that I have to defend them.

Excuse me if I drift off occasionally. I [po[a

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Sorry. You go away for seven weeks and the first day back is exhausting. Even if the first day back only lasts for about two hours.  And I don’t even know if “back” is the right word. But I am going to start writing for ESPNChicago.com, I did venture into the White Sox clubhouse today with an actual working credential and I did experience once again the singular wonder of listening to Sox manager Ozzie Guillen up close and in person.

I never realized how much I missed that.

Dropping into a baseball clubhouse that you haven’t been in all season, not to mention one going through a horrific (can you call it a slump when it has lasted the better part of the last two and a half months?), is not exactly the ideal situation.

I took the safe route and hovered around Jim Thome, who would be courteous to the reporter who just did a scathing expose on him, I’m sure (a scathing expose on Jim Thome amounting to something along the lines of Jim being caught using more than the dentist’s recommended daily amount of fluoride).

It was about that time that Ozzie came by with the newest issue of Sports Illustrated, disgusted at the photo of the miscreant who had to be dragged off the court at the French Open after charging up to Roger Federer in mid-match and trying to put a hat on Federer’s head.

His point was that putting this guy’s picture in a national magazine would only encourage other morons to behave similarly. Sox general manager Kenny Williams suggested it may have been more useful to photograph what went on once the security guards got the guy under the stands.

Guillen explained in a way only he could, that in his country, they’d just pummel the guy in front of the entire stadium: “There, now who else wants to run out here?” he demonstrated with a few extra words thrown in.

I’m so glad Ozzie isn’t one of those men who utters a single curse word and feels compelled to apologize to a woman who has spent her entire career inside men’s lockerrooms. Ozzie lets them fly around women like me, utilized as verbs, adjectives and even the occasional noun, and I view this as the ultimate show of respect. Ozzie being Ozzie.  

I had actual work to do and I managed to do it, getting one entire interview completed before running out of battery power for my tape recorder. Lest you misinterpret, this was a good day for me. Throughout my career, I have carved out a well-earned reputation for having just about every mechanical malfunction a print reporter could possibly have, dead batteries being the very least of it.

The humorous part for my colleagues has been that the malfunctions always seemed to occur at the key moments of every press conference and interview. The non-humorous part is that it often elicited from me one of Ozzie’s favorite words within microphone range of pretty much every TV and radio reporter in attendance.

Reporters can be very kind, very sympathetic people in real life. Many of us would surely stop and open a door for someone older than ourselves. We donate money to charity. We tear up at sad movies. But if one of us trips and falls on the way into a clubhouse on deadline, we all know that being trampled is a perfectly acceptable consequence for our carelessness.  

I was feeling very lucky to be back in this humorless, miserable company again.

We will see what tomorrow brings.

Yes, I am still browsing through the same issue of Sports Illustrated.  Sorry, but it has to wait until my People Magazine is completely consumed first and that can easily take a good 10, 12 minutes.

So I’m reading and I laugh — that sarcastic, self-righteous laugh — because I see a story about a 16-year-old baseball player from Las Vegas.

I am not laughing that self-righteous laugh because Sports Illustrated and Tom Verducci, a gifted writer l once worked with for one day on the staff of Today newspaper, chose to write the story on the fabulously gifted Bryce Harper.

Verducci, who was already on his way to sportswriting greatness when he graciously shared his going-away cake with me on his way out of Cocoa, Florida in 1983 en route to New York Newsday, and recently wrote The Yankee Years with Joe Torre, knows a great story like he knows a great baseball player. And this kid is clearly both.

But I laugh because I know that at precisely the same time I am reading the story, at least a couple thousand crazy parents of semi-talented eight-year-olds are also reading and envisioning similar scenarios for their kids.

I know this because I live in a place – it’s called America, maybe you’ve heard of it – where in the absence of more serious concerns in life or sometimes despite more serious concerns in life – there is a serious break from reality when it comes to children and sports.

Now granted when our 11-year-old son Alec won his baseball playoff game the other day, I found myself thrusting my fist so hard that my husband gave me a look that suggested I was one step away from becoming the kind of troubled parent I have read about in People Magazine.

Also, I will admit that when we found out last night that Alec made the travel soccer team again this year, thus granting us the privilege of writing out a check for $850, not including travel and uniform expenses, I was a little too relieved.

I am told that the $1,100 total is inexpensive compared to other suburbs and other sports but I don’t need to be told. And let’s not even discuss a sport like hockey.

I am now trying to picture my father paying over a thousand bucks for us to play sports, or even the $150 we pay for Alec to play house league baseball, and this makes me laugh as well.

But once again, I stray.

Recently, I watched as the father of a 10-year-old pitcher on an opposing team yelled for his son not to give the hitter “anything good,” and to pitch it “low and inside.”

Mind you, it’s a good night when Chicago White Sox pitcher Bartolo Colon can keep a pitch low and inside, and that the father yelled this with a straight face and a serious tone, and you will appreciate the hilarity of the moment. At least for me, anyway.

I also love the dad who’s as tall as he is wide, taking his seven-year-old’s dominance in pee-wee basketball as a sure sign that he’s headed to Duke.

When Bryce Harper was nine, Verducci tells us, he was recruited to play for travel teams all over the country who offered to pay his plane fare , hotel expenses and meals. He would go, sometimes alone when his parents could not accompany him, and for the past seven years he has played between 80 and 130 baseball games annually.

For the elite children athletes in this country, this is standard procedure and for kids like Bryce Harper, it helped him flourish. Harper, whom they call “the LeBron James of baseball,” has hit the longest home run in the history of Tropicana Stadium, the home park of the Tampa Bay Rays. But take it down a notch, to the kids who  merely play 50 or 60 games a year, drive to the next state instead of flying cross-country and hit baseballs 200 feet as opposed to 500, and the odds of them getting any closer to Sports Illustrated than standing next to a newsstand, are infinitesimal.

Take it down a level further to the kids who play in the games I watch, and they would have a greater chance of getting hit by a meteor shortly after winning the lottery.

But I also know that SI article is pinned up in some kids’ bedrooms tonight. And worse, on some parents’ refrigerators.