Movin' deck chairs

 I get where the IHSAA is coming from here. I think.

Maybe.

They're trying to gin up March again, see, and so this week they unveiled a major change to the Indiana high school basketball tournament. Beginning next year, the two-game regional will go back to being a one-game regional, as it was when class buckets first came in. And the semistate, now a one-game affair, will become a four-team, all-day event, with a secondary draw after the regional round to spice things up.

The idea is to get everyone ramped up for the last two rounds of the tournament. And also to give sectional winners a breather of sorts after a multi-game sectional.

I get that.

I think.

Maybe.

Of course, what I also get is what legendary Anderson Madison Heights coach Phil Buck told me one time when his Pirates were preparing for the regional.

I asked him something about how tough it was to play two hard games in one day, and Buck just laughed.

"Ah, Benny," he said (Buck being one of the few people who could get away with calling me "Benny"). "These kids play eight hours a day outside in the hot sun in the summertime. This is nothin'."

And that's doubly true today, with more and more kids attending basketball camps in the summer and getting sucked into the voracious maw of AAU ball. Two games in a day? 

It is, as Buck said, nothin'. Especially when it's been a full week between sectional Saturday and regional Saturday.

So that rationale falls flat.

Of course, falling equally flat is the counter-argument to the changes, which is that swapping out the all-day regional for an all-day semistate will mean more travel expense for parents and fans.

Problem with that is, the advent of class hoops has meant even sectionals are no longer as local as they used to be. And the regional round?

Well, this past year, the winners of our "local" sectionals already had to travel a bit for regional play. Sectional winners locally had to travel to Triton and Frankfort in Class A; in 2A, to North Judson from as far away as Bluffton; in 3A, to New Castle from as far away as Garrett and Wawasee; and in 4A, to Logansport from as far away as DeKalb.

Not sure how much more travel we're talking about for a semistate. If any.

So, fine. If the IHSAA thinks this will give the tournament a better contour -- everything building organically toward the state finals -- so be it. But you get right down to it, the changes amount to little more than moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

OK. So bad analogy.

What's in a "the"?

Today we officially celebrate THE Day at the Blob, because THE U.S, Patent and Trademark Office has officially granted THE Ohio State University a trademark on the word "THE," which means OSU can now officially license merchandise using THE as part of it.

The Blob finds THIS ridiculous, but Ohio State has had a bug up its keister about it for at least three years now, when the school first filed to trademark it.

What you can say about that is THE Ohio State University is home to a lot of self-reverential twits, and that they all must have an inferiority complex wider than the Olentangy to make such a fuss over three measly letters. Also they're not real up to snuff on their history.

After all, it was Ohio University over in Athens that was calling itself THE Ohio University before there ever was an Ohio State. Which means Ohio State basically stole it to begin with.

In any case, all THE Buckeyes have done is set themselves up for some nuclear ridicule down the road. No one's more inventive at ridicule than college students, after all. And so imagine the banner the rival student section will unfurl should the Buckeyes ever again lose to Wisconsin or Penn State or, God forbid, even Michigan.

THE Losers, it will read.

Ouch.

Commissioner MIA

 I don't know. Few more days of this, and a police report might be in order.

"I'd like to report a missing person, officer."

"Name?"

"Roger Goodell."

"Occupation?"

"Commissioner of the NFL. Well, he was, anyway."

"Where was he when you last saw him?"

"I'm not sure. Someone claiming to be him is still around, and it does look like him, but it's not him. Used to be we called him Roger the Hammer because of the way he'd bring the pain when a player stepped out of line. But now?

"Now he's got a player who's been accused by 26 women of waving his tallywhacker at them like a conductor's baton, and who just settled with 20 of them because he didn't want to get his a** kicked in court. Meanwhile, he's got an owner who's a worse dirtbag than any player he's ever disciplined. And he hasn't lifted a finger to deal with either of them."

And so it goes, and so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say.

Roger the Hammer has morphed into some gelded imposter, and heaven knows where the real Rog has gotten to. This one dithers and frithers (not a word, but it should be) while Deshaun Watson all but admits to harassing a battalion of women, and Daniel Snyder, mouth-breathing owner of the Washington Commanders, flees overseas to avoid testifying before a congressional committee.

Which hasn't stopped the committee from issuing a damning report that fairly begs Goodell to do, well, something. In it, Snyder is accused of trying to cover his club's rampant culture of sexual harassment by smearing former GM Bruce Allen, hiring private dicks to intimidate witnesses and using a backdoor lawsuit to obtain phone records and emails.

This on top of basically pimping out the team's cheerleaders, and bullying anyone who objected by calling him "gay" -- using the word as an epithet, as if this were the 1950s or something.

The Commanders say, ah, all that happened years ago, and they've made a "positive transformation" since. Goodell has backed that play, maintaining the Commanders are shipshape on the culture thing now, and, anyway, he couldn't do anything about Snyder if he wanted to.

"I don't have the authority to remove him," Goodell told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform yesterday.

Which is true, technically, but makes it sound as if he's powerless, which he isn't. Although it would take 24 of 32 owners voting to kick Snyder out of the club, you have to think Goodell's opinion on the matter might exert some sort of influence. He may serve at the pleasure of the owners, but does that mean they never listen to him?

I suppose that's possible. Might even be probable.

But that doesn't mean Goodell shouldn't try. And it for sure doesn't mean he has to publicly defend Snyder and his whole rotten organization.

A strategic lack of comment from the commissioner would  have sufficed. And if that hung Snyder and the Commanders out to dry, so what?

It's the least they deserve.

An unfinished life

 I met Caleb "Biggie" Swanigan one time, when his life was still a Hollywood script in embryo. It was after a basketball game at Carroll High School, and he was polite and kind of shy but neither on the basketball floor, where he'd led Homestead to a win that night.

What I remember about his game is he was a load-and-a-half on the low block, a skilled passer out of the double team and could pop it from the arc when the occasion called.

What I remember about his life is it was straight out of Dickens: Young boy drifts from one homeless shelter to another, lives under a bridge for awhile, finds a home, finally, with a Fort Wayne native and local athletic legend Roosevelt Barnes.

He's 13 years old, and he weighs 360 pounds. But Rosie sees something in him, gives him structure and love, and Swanigan becomes a state champion and an Indiana Mr. Basketball, a beloved star at Purdue, and finally an NBA draft pick.

That's the script. That's the "Miracle" film treatment, with one last lingering shot of Biggie in his Portland Trail Blazers uniform while the musical score soars triumphantly over the closing credits.

If only life were like that. If only, as so many have said, it were like the movies.

But because it's not, Biggie Swanigan is no longer in the NBA today. He's no longer anywhere, at least in this earthly realm.

He died Monday of natural causes, at the age of 25, and the shock waves rolled out from Fort Wayne and West Lafayette and Indiana and all of basketball America. NBA players don't die at 25 of natural causes, in the Hollywood scripts. Life follows the prescribed track, and it doesn't continue on after the closing credits, getting all weird and messy and horrible the way life so often does. 

 For Biggie Swanigan, it got like this: He opted out of the bubble season in 2020, and never made it back to the NBA. His genetic disposition to being heavy allegedly took over from there, and word is he gained back a great deal of the weight he'd worked so hard to shed.

I don't know if that's true or not. And I don't really care, because ultimately that's not what matters here.

What matters is a remarkable young man with a remarkable story is gone at 25, another of A.E. Housman's athletes dying young. That doesn't make his story any more tragic than any other, but it does lend it a certain pathos.  If any death at 25 means a life unfinished, it's underlined even more when that life seemed so physically vital and, well, indestructible. 

In the end, of course, it never is. In the end, life ain't fair, and that's just the hard truth of it.

Dammit.

If wishing made it so ...

 So I see the GOP in the state of Texas (motto: Where Dumb Goes To Live Forever, Like Dracula) has adopted a resolution stating that Joe Biden "was not legitimately elected," and that he therefore should be referred to as "acting President" and not "President."

Which I guess means it's the Texas GOP's position that fairy tales are real and should be taught in our schools as science-based fact. 

(Also, on a grimmer note, that Joseph Goebbels was right when he said if you tell a big enough lie and repeat it often enough, people will eventually believe it.)

In any case, this got me wondering what other realities Texans might decide aren't realities, now that the state GOP has shown them what is possible. And, because the Blob is mostly a sports Blob, it's those possibilities that come most readily to mind.

And so, humbly, the Blob presents Texas Republicans with a few more resolutions for its consideration:

* That it is hereby resolved the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl last year, and that in fact they have won a DOZEN Super Bowls, WAY more than any other team. And that this is why they are the GREATEST  FOOTBALL TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL TEAMS.

* That it is also resolved any team who claims to have "beaten" the Cowboys in the playoffs did not legitimately do so, and that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS. And that is why NFL playoff integrity is of paramount concern to the Texas GOP, until of course the Cowboys win again.

* That it is hereby resolved Nick Saban is a lying, cheating son of a biscuit, and how dare he say bad stuff about our A&M Aggies, and he is therefore declared to be an Enemy of the State. OK, so just our state, but you catch the drift.

* That it is hereby resolved that A.J. Foyt Jr., a loyal and revered son of Texas, in fact won SEVEN Indianapolis 500s, not four, and that anyone who says otherwise is either a BIG POOPY LIAR or Roger Penske, who everyone knows CHEATED HIS GLUTES OFF to win those eleventy-hundred 500s or however many it is.

* That it is also hereby resolved A.J. would have won EIGHT 500s if it weren't for that damn Coogan.

* That it is hereby resolved Notre Dame didn't legitimately beat the Texas Longhorns in the 1970 Cotton Bowl, or in the 1977 Cotton Bowl, or on any of the other seven occasions the Fighting Irish supposedly beat the Horns. There is AMPLE PROOF of scoreboard fraud in ALL NINE of the Irish "victories," and so heretofore Notre Dame will be designated the "acting winner" in those games and not the "winner."

* That it is also hereby resolved the Longhorns did not get "lucky" to beat Arkansas in their 1969 Game of the Century, which is what they say in Arkansas but who cares what those hayseeds in Arkansas say.

And, finally ...

* That anyone who says the Houston Astros "did not legitimately win" the 2017 World Series is also just a big poopy liar, because the Astros DID NOT EITHER cheat, and that therefore baseball integrity is not a priority for the Texas GOP because ... well, because it's just not, OK?

So there.

The inconvenience of history

 Today is the official federal holiday commemorating Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when ex-slaves in Texas became the last to learn they were free. And so, as something of a history nerd, the Blob is calling timeout from Sportsball. 

It would rather acknowledge what a stubborn thing history is, and how you can't escape it no matter how much you try to deny or muzzle it.

For instance, I'm guessing there are more than a few history teachers who are thanking their deities Juneteenth falls in the summer, so the parents of their white students don't start caterwauling about Critical Race Theory again.

See, if school was in, their children would be compelled to talk (and their teachers to teach) about Juneteenth. Which would bring up America's original sin of slavery. Which might lead to discussions that would make their children feel bad.

(They probably wouldn't, kids being kids. But reality intruding on a cherished narrative spoils all the fun.)

In any event, little Johnny or Susie might learn it was white folk who did the enslaving, and how the legacy of that has stained and informed the American experiment to this very day. And that would be history at its most inconvenient.

This means it's history certain people don't want to think about, or want their kids thinking about. So woe betide any teacher who tries to get them to think about it,

That would compel those certain people to grab their torches and pitchforks and run said teacher right out of town on a rail, no matter how accomplished an educator said teacher was. This might seem exaggeration for effect, but the torch-and-pitchfork crowd has already done it, having become that unhinged. Shoot, look at what happened just yesterday in Tennessee, where a bunch of loons with Stop White Replacement (huh?) signs gathered to protest a Juneteenth celebration.

(They were all masked up, in the photos. The Blob figures that was because it's June in Tennessee, and the usual sheets and hoods would have been too hot.)

But I digress.

Point is, we are deep in the days of CRT hysteria, which is why the very inconvenience of history is what makes it most valuable. Santyana brushed up against the truth when he said those who forget history are condemned to repeat it, but that was only a glancing blow. What's more true, in the Blob's humble opinion, is that those who distort history (or who excise certain parts of it because it might make certain people uncomfortable) are not just condemned to repeat it, but to deny its very existence.

This is going on right now in America, where a mountain of evidence is indicting a former president of trying to foment a bloodless coup. That it failed doesn't diminish its threat to  who we are and what we stand for as a nation.

And yet ...

And yet the former president, a gifted liar, has convinced a startling number of Americans that it's all a Democratic witch hunt. This of course ignores that all the Jan. 6 testimony against him is coming from Republicans. But then facts can be such pesky things. 

As is history, which is exceedingly messy as well. Interpreting the past and how it impacts the present is an art, not a science. If it were the latter, historians everywhere would be out of work, and the unemployment rate would be considerably higher. But interpreting and re-interpreting the past is a never-ending job, and so H.W. Brands and S.C. Gwynne and all the rest can breathe a sigh of relief.

Which gets us back to Juneteenth, in the Blob's usual meandering way.

I'm wondering, given all of the above, how teachers fearful of the torches-and-pitchforks crowd would prepare a lesson plan on Juneteenth. Would they dare risk the wrath of the hysterics by actually talking about slavery? Or would they toe the perceived party line, which sounds to the Blob like a passage from "Forrest Gump"?

And then, on June 19, 1865, freedom was proclaimed for all enslaved peoples in Texas. And that's all I have to say about that.

I'd like to think that wouldn't be the case. I'd like to think there would be a discussion of, you know, history, and how we've gotten to where we are as a nation because of it, and how every nation, no matter how great, got there by doing some pretty un-great things.

I'd like to think -- oh, how I'd like to think -- we would never go back to the days when schoolkids were taught that  Washington never told a lie (especially about that cherry tree), and that Davy Crockett died at the Alamo swinging old Betsy at a passel of freedom-hating Mexicans, and that the Civil War wasn't about slavery at all.

The first and third of those aren't true.

The second almost certainly isn't true, or is at best a gross distortion of the truth.

Here's hoping it will always be safe to say that.

One game

 I know what you're thinking this morning. I'd probably be thinking the same thing if history hadn't taught me that momentum is a mythical creature where matters of sport are involved.

You're thinking the Tampa Bay Lightning are done like dinner, after getting Avalanched 7-0 in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final last night.

You're thinking they're toast flambe. Dead men skating. On the waiting list for a trip to Toe Tag City.

Well ... could be you're right.

Could be the Avs are just that much better than the Lightning, who go back to Tampa down two-games-to-none after being outscored 10-2 in the first two games. They lost Game 1 3-2 in overtime, and last night they lost the moment they stepped on the ice, or so it seems.

Seven-to-zip. A touchdown and an extra point to doughnuts. Surely another sweep awaits for Colorado, which bageled Edmonton 4-0 in the conference finals.

Except.

Except this is, again, a sporting deal. And it's a two-time defending Stanley Cup champ we're talking about. And momentum in hockey, even more than pro basketball, has an odd way of turning on a dime when you least expect it.

Like, you know, in 1980, when the U.S. Olympic team shocked the Russians a handful of days after the Russians obliterated it 10-3 in Madison Square Garden.

Or like the Lightning beat Toronto in seven games, in Toronto, after trailing three-games-to-two in these very playoffs. Or, in the round preceding this one, knocking out the Rangers in six games after New York won the first two games.

All of this is not exactly the Blob saying the Lightning are a lock to win Game 3 tomorrow night. I'm just saying don't be surprised if it happens -- and don't be surprised if the Final goes back to Colorado tied at two games apiece.

Of course, it's just as likely the Avs are hoisting Lord Stanley in two more games. Which goes back to my original point.

One game is one game. And so on to the next one.