About Dejan Kovacevic

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Dejan Kovacevic, a lifelong Pittsburgher, is an award-winning sports columnist who has covered the Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, Pitt and, recently, his fourth Olympics in Sochi, Russia. For 2011, he was named one of the country's top four columnists by the AP Sports Editors. For 2012, he was named one of the country's top three columnists by the National Headliners. For 2013, he was named the state's top columnist by the Keystone Press Awards and top columnist in Western Pennsylvania by the Golden Quills.

Posts by Dejan Kovacevic:

Column: Never forget that No. 7 is No. 1

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Ben Roethlisberger is crushed by the Ravens' Courtney Upshaw Thursday in Baltimore. -- GETTY IMAGES

Ben Roethlisberger is crushed by the Ravens’ Courtney Upshaw on Thursday in Baltimore. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Marcus Gilbert allowed Elvis Dumervil to get around him. And to go right through him.

But on this day, the Steelers’ right tackle wasn’t allowing anything to slip by.

He stood in the locker room and faced wave after wave of cameras, microphones and reporters with pointed questions about his perfectly miserable performance Thursday in the 26-6 loss at Baltimore. The room was open to media access for a half-hour, and he was at his stall answering for 25 minutes of it.

“You’re out there for 60-some snaps, and you have those two plays … it’s frustrating. It is,” Gilbert was saying with the first of those waves. “You can’t take those back. But you can’t give them up, either. I know I’ve got to be better. And I will be.”

He’d better be.

Because it isn’t just those two plays. Gilbert allowed two sacks in the opener against the Browns, as well. That total of four ties him with the Redskins’ Tyler Polumbus for most in the NFL by a tackle — left or right — with only two other players, the Cowboys’ Doug Free and the Packers’ Derek Sherrod, having as many as three. Add the two QB hurries Gilbert’s given up, and you’re now easily quantifying the worst offensive lineman in the league.

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Column: The pen is mightier than before

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Russell Martin connects on a two-run blast in the second inning Tuesday at PNC Park. -- GETTY IMAGES

Russell Martin connects on a two-run blast to right-center in the second inning Tuesday at PNC Park. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Tony Watson held the game in his left hand, essentially, and only he and Russell Martin knew what was coming next.

Except that they really didn’t.

“I called for a changeup. I know that much,” the catcher was telling me after the Pirates’ 4-0 blanking of the Red Sox on Tuesday night at PNC Park. “What happened to it after that …”

What happened to it after that was that Yoenis Cespedes, Boston’s light-tower-power with the 21 bombs, swung over it for strike three to end the eighth inning and, in all reality, bury any chance for a Red Sox rally. Two were aboard, two were out, and it was all or nothing.

Nothing won in a landslide.

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Tuesday 12 Qs: Charlie, Rocky, Pascal, Teke

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

photoWelcome to Tuesday Twelve Qs, our chat that takes place each week at 1 p.m., shortly after the Mike Tomlin news conference. I won’t be covering that this week because of Pirates-Red Sox tonight, but I’ll be as riveted as the rest of the city, if not the Nation.

The format is simple: Use the comments section below to submit an entry, with no more than one per person, please. Submit it anytime you want. I’ll pick from those to get the thing rolling, then monitor new entries once we go live.

All topics welcome, as always.

IndyPittFan: I thought starting Charlie Morton tonight would allow the Pirates to reset the rotation in advance of the Brewers/Braves series. Now seeing that Francisco Liriano and Gerrit Cole will still make planned starts against the Red Sox. Isn’t it a bit risky to plug a less-than-100-percent Morton in at this point?

DK: Risky might be too kind a word. It really doesn’t make much sense, and that’s independent of the wholly justified debate as to whether Morton should be supplanting Vance Worley at all.

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News/views: Pitt can’t pass on passing

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Chad Voytik breaks loose for a 32-yard touchdown run Saturday at Florida International. -- PETE MADIA / PITT ATHLETICS

Chad Voytik breaks loose for a 32-yard touchdown run Saturday at Florida International. — PETE MADIA / PITT ATHLETICS

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

NEWS: Paul Chryst spoke about Pitt’s offense being capable of an upgrade, all the bodacious numbers aside, at his weekly press conference Monday on the South Side. Even the running game, which has averaged, um, 344.4 yards.

VIEWS: Well, yeah.

Because, as Chryst tried to put it carefully in respecting the three teams over whom the Panthers have run roughshod: “The numbers are misleading on a lot of things. We can be cleaner. We can do a better job of the receivers blocking, we can do a better job getting through the second level, getting on our pulls. I mean, there are a lot of things we can get better at in the run game.”

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Exclusive: Teke has successful heart transplant

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

04-12-new-tekulve-kent*304

Tekulve

Kent Tekulve, the closer for the Pirates’ World Series champions in 1979 and popular analyst on their current games for Root Sports, had a heart transplant Sept. 5 and is “feeling surprisingly great right now,” he told me Monday night.

Details of the transplant are expected to be made public at a Tuesday press conference by the Pirates, Root and Allegheny General Hospital.

Tekulve, 67, had a heart episode on Christmas Eve 2013 that he described as “the heart basically quitting on me.” A pump was installed shortly thereafter, and in April, he was placed on the heart transplant list. Earlier this summer, he and Root agreed he would take a break from his duties as postgame studio commentator and, at the time, he asked for privacy and did not divulge his condition.

“The pump was never designed to be a lifelong thing,” Tekulve said. “It was a bridge to a heart replacement.”

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Column: Crazy little thing called tackling

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Ike Taylor covers the Panthers' Kelvin Benjamin in a preseason game last month. -- GETTY IMAGES

Ike Taylor covers the Panthers’ Kelvin Benjamin in a preseason game last month at Heinz Field. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Well, ‘Hm-hah!’ as the late, great Myron Cope used to exclaim.

What did we witness at the Steelers’ Monday practice, their first since being obliterated on both sides of the ball in Baltimore, other than defensive players performing the rough equivalent of calculus majors learning to work an abacus?

“We tackled,” defensive lineman Cam Thomas was telling me, almost by way of confession, afterward at his stall. “That was pretty much it. We worked on our footwork, our leverage and …”

And tackling. Honest to Mean Joe, Jack and Dobre Shunka. They worked on tackling.

Not that this should either surprise or disappoint anyone. If anything, it’s an infinitely more commendable response to the rancid work Thursday against the Ravens — 16 missed tackles, just two tackles for losses, zero sacks, zero turnovers, 157 yards rushing against — than how Mike Tomlin thoroughly dismissed my question on that count after that game.

Remember that?

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Monday planner: Not all at once, please

by • Site stuff

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

A look at the week ahead on DKonPittsburghSports.com:

• Monday: Crazy week coming. Seriously, glance ahead, and you’ll see one of the few times all of our big-league teams have something important happening in the same span. I’ll start this one by covering Paul Chryst and the Pitt football press conference at noon, followed immediately by the Steelers’ first player availability of the week.

• Tuesday: Tuesday Twelve Qs chat at 1 p.m. All topics welcome, as always. Later, I’ll cover the opener of the Pirates-Red Sox series with a column.

• Wednesday: Column advancing Steelers-Panthers. This will be posted in the afternoon after the players’ — and Ben Roethlisberger’s — media session.

• Thursday: Pucks! The Penguins report to training camp, and a column follows in the early afternoon. Later that night, I’ll be over at PNC Park for the Boston finale.

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Column: When a magic moment becomes more

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Josh Harrison shouts toward the Pirates' dugout after his two-run double tied the score in the fifth inning. -- GETTY IMAGES

Josh Harrison shouts toward the Pirates’ dugout after his two-run double tied the score in the fifth inning. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The instant the ball made impact with Matt Szczur’s bat and seared toward third base, with fellow Cubs already at first and second, the entirety of the Pirates’ infield experienced individual flashes. You know, the kind only baseball players can fully appreciate. These guys wait, they weigh the whole scene and most everything that can happen, they wait some more, and, just like that, they’re expected to be nothing less than perfect.

Well, this one played out in in perfect harmony, as it turned out.

Let’s start with Russell Martin’s view behind the plate, if only because it’s a wonderful foundation: “All I’m thinking, honestly, is let’s get out of this inning.”

OK, nothing too sophisticated there, but then, that’s by far the most pragmatic view and so very Martin. To that point in the top of the fourth, Chicago’s severely depleted lineup had stacked up a three-run lead and was set for more. And hey, there are losses that sting, there are losses that devastate, and then there are losses to an opponent with five starters batting .214 or lower. In a pennant race. With one of your best, Edinson Volquez, on the mound.

So yeah, pragmatic would have worked fine in the moment.

Only the moment would, instead, morph into magic.

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Column: A new norm for baseball in Pittsburgh

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Chicago Cubs v Pittsburgh Pirates

Josh Harrison and Gaby Sanchez celebrate a third-inning run Friday night at PNC Park. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

It was 57 degrees pretty much all through the Pirates’ 7-3 cutdown of the Cubs on this crisp, cool Friday night in September, and all around PNC Park the patrons had broken out out their hoodies, sweatshirts and windbreakers.

All 35,638 of them. I had mine on, too.

In our little corner of the world, we don’t describe fall weather the way they do elsewhere. To us, this is the meteorological phenomenon known as “high school football weather.” No temp needed, thanks. This is how it feels when you raise a foam finger at WPIAL and City League stadiums from Aliquippa to Zelienople, where roughly a quarter-million fans at any given time are cheering their children, supporting the bands, buying up the 50/50s.

If you want a far prettier mental picture, here’s how Steve Blass described it after this game: “I’ve flown into Pittsburgh on a Friday night, and it’s amazing. It’s like a diamond field with all the lights sparkling everywhere. And to think, all those places are packed with people …”

Right. And to think, they were again. Except, of course, for the exactly 35,638 watching baseball.

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Saturday site stuff: For our military

by • Site stuff

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PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: ALEX MESSMER

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

A weekly look at what’s new and what’s coming on our site …

• Before I get to all the usual technical stuff, I’m proud and thrilled to introduce a new program for our active military men and women, here and abroad, who are Pittsburgh sports fans: A very generous benefactor has stepped up to help me cover free subscriptions for anyone in this category.

If I told you how I felt about this gesture, I’d cover this page in sap. I’ll bet you get it.

So I’ll put this next in your hands: If you know of a friend or loved one in this category and can email us any form of verification of their service, we’ll be delighted to sign them up and, above all, to express gratitude.

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