The persecution (or not) of Danica

 Danica Patrick will not be part of Sky Sports' coverage of F1 racing this season, and this has predictably provoked the usual howling from the usual suspects from the usual darker corners of the American psyche.

In other words:  That segment of America that loves to pretend it's put-upon, belittled or -- let's go all the way out there -- flat-out persecuted thinks she got axed because of her politics. A victim of the woke hive-mind, as it were.

Yes, I know. It does get a trifle exhausting, this endless grievance mining.

That's especially so in this case, because not only does Danica insist leaving the coverage team was her choice -- maybe so; maybe not -- but her departure seems to be little more than one of those boring corporate deals. In other words, Apple TV is taking over the Sky F1 feed this season for American viewers, as well as the F1 in-house entity. It's one of those changes that usually does result in ... well, changes.

So, Danica is out, either by jumping or being pushed. How much of that had to do with her right-wing political tilt, however, is being grossly exaggerated or out-and-out fabricated by the aforementioned usual suspects.

Mind you, Patrick's political tilt has gotten increasingly more tilt-y as the years have gone by, to the extent that even Generalissimo Francisco Franco might find her a bit off-putting. Not only has she gone full MAGA, she's apparently gone full conspiracy kook, too, as often happens. You know, the whole moon-landing-was-faked, JFK-was-shot-by-the-re-animated-corpse-of-Marilyn-Monroe catechism.

Did that make her, well, somewhat polarizing to F1 viewers?

Perhaps.

Did the fact she wasn't terribly insightful as an F1 analyst, on account of she never turned a wheel in F1?

Even more perhaps.

This is no knock on Danica's overall skills as an analyst, mind you. Put her on the mic as an analyst at the Indianapolis 500, and she's got something to say that's worth hearing, given that she made seven starts there and finished in the top ten in six of those starts. At least at Indianapolis, she has as much insight as most of her broadcast partners.

Of course, admitting that would leave the grievance-miners nowhere to park their persecution complexes. So there's that.

Fixin' to fix ... something

The Fearless Leader of America, President Donald John "Do What We Say Or We'll Bomb You Back To Antiquity" Trump, took time out from his latest military adventure to discuss college athletics yesterday. And I don't know about you, but I feel better already.

I mean, with F.L. on the case, this whole NIL/transfer portal mess will be solved lickety-split, or at least in the blink of an eye. We'll go back to the way things used to be, when college kids played for the love of the game and their school, and let the athletic departments scoop all the dough from it.

F.L. said all of this, or something akin to it, in a two-hour round table at the White House,  attended by the media and various luminaries who mostly just listened to him ramble. None of the various luminaries were college athletes, of course, because this wasn't about them. This was about  getting them back under control.

And, OK, yes, that is way cynical of me. Mark it down to 38 years of covering college sports as one of those cynical sportswriter types.

But if it's my natural state, it's hard to depart from it in this particular case. Not when the "Saving College Sports" roundtable was co-chaired by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, New York Yankees president Randy Levine and Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

"What do any of these people know about college sports?" you're saying now. "And why, in a roundtable about college sports, are the New York Yankees involved?"

Hey, don't ask me. I'm just the messenger here. 

As far as I know Rubio, Levine and DeSantis don't know jack-all about college sports, except DeSantis' state contains Florida State, Florida and Miami, college football powers all. Also Rubio went to law school at The U, so, go, 'Canes.

At any rate, Fearless Leader, as is his wont, says he has a grand plan to solve all the problems in college athletics. It's all contained in the executive order he promises to issue in the next week.

"It will be very all-encompassing," F.L. bragged, er, said. "And we're going to put it forward, and we're going to get sued, and we're going to see how it plays, OK, but I'll have an executive order, which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem, within one week, and we'll put it forward."

Awesome. Terrific. Sounds wonderf--

Wait a minute.

Did he say "and we're going to get sued"?

He did. In fact, he said it's the only thing he knows for sure right now. Which suggests a couple of things to the cynical old sportswriter in me:

1. His Big Fix is supremely half-baked. (Which, let's face it, is pretty much par for the course for F.L.)

2. And a lot of it probably is illegal. (Ditto)

Now, understand, the cynical old sportswriter in me does not disagree with Fearless Leader and his various minions. The whole NIL/transfer portal deal is out of control, thanks to the NCAA's sudden passion for laissez faire stewardship. College athletics is threatening to become the Major League Baseball model, with the Power 4 conferences using the Rest Of 'Em conferences as a de facto farm system. 

Play a couple years at say, Eastern Michigan, then get called up to Ann Arbor -- or Columbus or Tuscaloosa or Athens, Georgia. That sort of thing.

However, Fearless Leader's executive order fixin' to fix everything sounds a lot like Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. And, look, maybe you still trust the guy, and vaya con Dios if you do. But at this point I wouldn't trust him to unclog a toilet.

Especially when even he admits his Secret Plan To Restore College Sports To Greatness has some flaws. Such as, for instance, legality.

Remember that famous line of Ronald Reagan's (speaking of cynicism), about how the worst thing you could ever hear was, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help"?

I've got a new version of that, cynic that I am:

I'm your Fearless Leader, and I'm here to help.

Yikes.

Lou

I don't know how it's going with Lou Holtz this morning at the pearly gates, but I bet he's telling St. Peter he's still scared to death of Rice.

I bet he's doing magic tricks, and saying how "the University of Navy" used to make him tremble, and asking if the good Lord has laid in an adequate supply of Zagnut bars. I bet this tiny man -- this leprechaun, OK? -- is being every bit the Lou Holtz we knew but never really knew, because Lou was always aces at the shake-and-bake, the juke and the deke, the spin move that left us all grabbing air.

Which is to say, Lou Holtz, who died yesterday at 89, was a whole pile of things. What he wasn't was uncomplicated.

He was a comedian and a hard-ass and one hell of a football coach, to start with. He won 33 games in three seasons at William & Mary, for God's sake. At Arkansas, he once suspended his star running back right before the Orange Bowl, replaced him with some kid named Roland Sales, and Roland Sales ran for 200 yards as the Razorbacks crushed No. 2 Oklahoma 31-6.

He won everywhere he coached, unless you count that ill-considered foray into the NFL with the New York Jets. A man who always knew himself and where he belonged better than any of us, Lou bailed on that deal after just 13 games. The Jets were 3-10 at the time.

Of course, Notre Dame is where he made his bones, and if you put him on the coaching Mt. Rushmore two things are going to happen: No Domer's gonna kick, and Lou's gonna crack wise. Say something like, "Fine, but make sure you get the nose right."

Lou took over the wreckage of the Gerry Faust years and produced a national champion in just three seasons, beating archrival Miami 31-30 in an epic October clash and then taking down West Virginia 34-21 in the Fiesta Bowl. He had Tony Rice and Tony Brooks and a freshman named Rocket Ismail on offense, and scary dudes like Michael Stonebreaker and Frank Stams and Ned Bolcar on defense, and the Irish ran the table, finishing 12-0.

That remains, of course, Notre Dame's only national title in the last 50 years. It's partly why there's a statue of Lou outside Notre Dame Stadium now, same as Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy and longtime athletic director Moose Krause.

Lou went on to win 100 games in 11 seasons in South Bend, third on the all-time list behind Brian Kelly and Rockne himself.  His departure in November 1996, on the other hand, was hardly as straightforward. In fact it was downright weird.

On the day he talked about it, see, there were no magic tricks or jokes or one-liners about how special it was to walk outside at night and see the snow falling on the Lady atop the Golden Dome. ("And it's July," was always the punchline). The teevees and deadline grunts kept asking Lou why he was leaving, and all he kept saying was, "It's the right thing to do."

I was there that day, and what comes back to me now is a linebacker named Bert Berry, one of that year's stickout players. He was sitting behind the TV cameras with his head down and his hands folded. His eyes kept opening and closing, and every time he opened them to stare at his shoes, he looked every bit as bewildered as the rest of us.

Lou could do that you. Never uncomplicated, remember?

And so on the day he announced he was walking away from the only place he ever really wanted to coach, he said it was his decision but left the impression it wasn't. That he didn't want to step down, but was somehow left with no choice. And of course, being Lou, he never explained why that was.

There was talk, of course. It was rumored he and athletic director Mike Wadsworth got crosswise over an eligibility crackdown, which Lou vehemently denied. And there were all these stories about a booster/sort-of booster named Kimberly Dunbar who lavished gifts on Notre Dame's players right under Lou's nose.

Notre Dame got in dutch with the NCAA for that -- but not until after Lou left. Same thing happened at North Carolina State, Arkansas, Minnesota and South Carolina, too. And so the perception, fair or not, that Lou got out of Dodge each time just ahead of the law became part of his legacy, too.

On balance, though?

On balance -- the only way truly to measure a man's life -- he belongs up there on Rushmore. He deserves his statuary. Even if, at this very moment, he really is telling St. Peter he's still scared to death of Rice.

Know what the punchline is to that one?

The very week Lou said it, Notre Dame beat Rice 54-11.

Rimshot.

 

Opting out

 I wouldn't know Drew Dalman if he left tread marks on my chest, which, as a Pro Bowl center for the Chicago Bears, it's highly likely he might do. So I can't tell you why he's now a former Chicago Bear.

All I know is what I read in the papers, as they say, and the papers say Drew Dalman is retiring from professional football. This is news because Dalman is only 27 years old.

Other than that, I got nothin', because Dalman hasn't said anything. But it's worth noting because he's just the latest NFL player to walk away from the game in his 20s, before he was forced to limp away.

The most notable, of course, is Andrew Luck, who abruptly retired right before the 2019 season at the age of 29. There are still lint-brains out there who think he's a big wuss for doing that, but that's why they're lint-brains. Plus none of them ever took a hit on a Sunday afternoon from some 280-pound assassin with 4.5 speed.

Luck did, too many times, and paid the price for it. He left pieces of himself all over the En Eff Ell, and finally he wondered why the hell he kept doing it. As has been noted many times, Luck's a smart guy. So it's likely he looked into the future and decided it would be fun to still be able to walk up a flight of stairs by the time he was 45. 

Again, I don't know if that's what Drew Dalman is thinking. But he is a center, and centers get hit on every play with foot-pounds of force the lint-brains and big-talkin' tough guys can't even imagine. So maybe he looked into the future and thought it would be fun to still have a melon that wasn't squash by the time he was 45.

At any rate, after five years, Dalman's decided to opt out of this child's game. You can blame him if you want, but I won't. I've never stood on an NFL sideline during a game, but I have stood on  a few big-boy college sidelines and heard the scholars collide at full speed. It literally sounds like a car crash -- and that's just college.

I can't imagine what it must sound like in the NFL. And neither can you.

So color me un-shocked at Dalman's decision, even though he'll leave a vault of money on the table. He signed a three-year deal with the Bears worth $42 million before last season, and the Bears got their money's worth. Dalman wound up anchoring a rebuilt offensive line that gave quarterback Caleb Williams a fighting chance to avoid being killed, and Williams responded by throwing for 3,942 yards, 27 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. 

He also was sacked only 25 times. And I say "only" because he was sacked 68 times the year before.

Dalman, meanwhile, started all 17 games as a free-agent signing from Atlanta, where he started 40 games in four seasons. Last year he played every one of the Bears' 1,154 offensive snaps.

That's a lot of hits. A lot of car crashes, if you will.

So out the door Dalman goes, leaving the Bears to go looking for another center. It is, of course, a totally Bears sort of deal: Two months ago they won the NFC North title and a playoff game, and now they're shopping for a center for the second offseason in a row.

"Oh, for bleep's sake!" you can imagine them yelping.

Me?

I'll just say what long-suffering fans in Chi have been saying since the days of Bobby Douglass, Jack Concannon and the immortal Ralph Kurek:

Bears gonna Bears.

No littles allowed

 I've never been Bruce Pearl's biggest fan. I suppose we should get that out there right off the hop.

I've always thought he was too slick by half, a genial bender of rules who got Tennessee in trouble with the NCAA and then lit out for Auburn, where he never got caught doing anything shady but probably did. Or so I always figured, perhaps unfairly.

In any case, I freely confess to some bias where he's concerned. So keep that in mind when I say this: Bruce Pearl is an idiot.

The other day he got up in his analyst halftime gig to say Miami (O.), which is 29-0, should have to win its conference tournament to get into the big show. This is because Miami plays in the Mid-American Conference, a mid-major loop considered a rung or two below big-boy conferences like the Big Ten, ACC or SEC. As such, Pearl figures, Miami simply doesn't have the resume to get into the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team.

The Blob considers this elitist garbage. Over and above the fact Pearl has a dog in this particular hunt.

See, his previous gig, Auburn, now is coached by his son. The Tigers are 15-14at the moment, 6-10 in the SEC. But because it is the SEC, they're somehow still regarded as a bubble team.

To his credit, Pearl acknowledged the conflict of interest the other day. But that doesn't let him off the hook for his ridiculous take about Miami, and his apparent cluelessness about the nature of March Madness.

Which is this: It's not mid-or-worse SEC or Big Ten or ACC teams that make the Madness the Madness. It's the Miamis of Ohio.

Everything we all love about the NCAA's big show is about the Miamis, and also the Fairleigh Dickinsons, Maryland Baltimore Countys (UMBC) and Yales or Princetons. No one's tuning into that first weekend, which sells the whole deal, to see some lame seventh-or-eighth-place major conference team take on some other lame seventh-or-eighth-place major conference team.

Except for alums, no one cares about, say, 17-12 West Virginia taking on 18-12 Texas. No, sirree.

What they care about is Miami (O.) vs. whomever.

They want to see if the Red Hawks really are as good as all that. Or to see 16-seed UMBC upend 1-seed Virginia. Or to see Fairleigh Dickenson knock off Purdue. Or to see some kid with a '50s haircut light up lordly Kentucky with 10 threes.

That happened two years ago in the first round of the South Regional. The kid's name was Jack Gohlke, who scored 30 of his 32 points that day from behind the arc. And his team, Oakland out of the Horizon League, did indeed knock out UK, 80-76.

Alas, the ride didn't last long for Oakland; it lost in overtime to North Carolina State in the second round. But did that matter? Hell, no, it didn't matter. For four days, the previously unknown Gohlke was the talk of the tournament.

Meanwhile, on that same day, in the same regional, 20-14 Texas A&M beat 23-9 Nebraska. I know this only because I looked it up. Jack Gohlke, I didn't have to.

And so Bruce Pearl can go on all he wants about strength of schedule and Quad 1 wins and how unbeaten littles like Miami shouldn't be allowed inside the big tent if they lose in their conference tournament. A 15-14 Auburn has it all over, say, a 30-1 Miami in that case.

To which the Blob has but one suitable response:

Yeah, OK, buddy. Whatev'.

Deja Palou

 America's best racing series started up again yesterday, as drab February gave way hey-maybe-there's-hope-after-all March. It started up again, but if it seemed like it never left ... well, in this case that was more than just a saying.

When last seen, after all, Alex Palou was winning a pile of races and his fourth IndyCar title in five years.

When last seen yesterday down in St. Petersburg, Fla., he was leading 59 laps and winning the season opener in a snoozer.

Meet the new boss, same as-

Ah. You know the rest.

All told, Palou and polesitter Scott McLaughlin, who finished second, led 93 of  the 100 laps, and the top ten was stuffed with familiar names. Look, there's Christian Lundgaard in third! And Kyle Kirkwood in fourth! And Pato O'Ward, Marcus Ericsson and Josef Newgarden!

Oh, there were some off-script developments. Old heads Will Power -- driving his new  Andretti ride with the bumblebee paint scheme -- and Scott Dixon wound up at the bottom of the scoring sheet after completing just 55 and 39 laps, respectively. The only thing that saved them from finishing next-to-last and last were Santino Ferrucci and celebrated newcomer Mick Schumacher, who failed to complete lap before getting tangled up one another's deal.

So, yeah. There was that.

Otherwise, here's hoping someone, familiar or not, gives Palou a push and avoids what happened last year, when the back half of the season became something of a coronation because Palou was just too damn good. He won five of the first six races -- including the  the Indianapolis 500, the only significant achievement in IndyCar he hadn't scooped. After that, the points chase was no chase at all.

But, hey. At least this time we've got the Will Power storyline and the Mick Schumacher storyline to go with the Alex Palou storyline. That's something, right?

Um, right?

Playing out

 Weellll ... at least it wasn't in Mackey this time.

Just trying to say something positive here, you Purdue faithful, because, listen, the Blob loves ya and hates to see you down in the dumps. And speaking of "down in the dumps" ...

Come on down, Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer 'n' them!

Who lost for the third time in the last four games yesterday, 82-74, over there at Ohio State. They're 22-7 and 12-6 in the Big Ten right now; Ohio State is 18-11 and 10-8 in the Big Overinflated. And if it seems like only nine days or so ago that Purdue was 22-4 and being penciled in as a 2-seed by the NCAA Tournament bracketheads ... well, that's because it was only nine days or so ago.

On Feb. 20, the Purdues ball-peened archrival Indiana by 29 in Mackey, their fourth W in five games. The only loss, also at Mackey, was to No. 1 Michigan by 11. It looked like the Boilermakers were going to come to March playing their best basketball.

And then they lost by two to Michigan State -- again in Mackey -- when Smith's 3-pointer for the win wouldn't bed down. No worries, a "meh" Ohio State team was up next, just what the Boilers needed to reset the narrati--

Oops.

Oops, because, yeah, Meh Ohio State beat 'em, shooting 51 percent and outrebounding the Boilers 36-29. Smith, Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn, Purdue's three-legged stool, combined for 54 of its 74 points, with Smith scoring 20, TKR 19 and Loyer 15 on five threes in nine tries. C.J. Cox added 13.

Everyone else, however, never showed up. Oscar Cluff, who's been Robin to TKR's Batman inside on occasion, scored just two points to go with five rebounds. And Matt Painter got just five points from his bench, which has proved thinner than previously thought.

And speaking of thin benches ...

Come on down, Indiana!

Who got clipped in Assembly Hall by Michigan State yesterday, 77-64, and are now warming up the NIT  bus. The loss was IU's fourth straight, which means, like Purdue, they're entering March on whatever is the opposite of a roll. The Hoosiers did, however, beat their counterparts in West Lafayette in bench ineffectiveness, however: While the Boilers chair jockeys managed a whole five points, Indiana's managed a whole zero.

Zero points in eight minutes from Reed Bailey. Zero in seven minutes from Tayton Conerway. Zero in 19 minutes from Jasai Miles.

Lamar Wilkerson and Tucker DeVries, meanwhile, scored 26 of Indiana's 27 second-half points, with Wilkerson scoring 29 points an DeVries 20 on the day. He and DeVries, however, were a combined 8-of-26 from Threeville, where Indiana coach Darian DeVries' offense lives and mostly dies. Yesterday the Hoosiers jacked 35 shots from the arc and bottomed just 10 of them; they were 12-of-21 from everywhere else.

Oh, yeah. Also, Michigan State got 22 points -- a 22-0 margin, if you're keeping score at home -- from its bench. Also-also, it outrebounded Indiana 35-27, including 22-12 in the second half. 

"So why didn't Indiana play Reed Bailey more, on account of he's been one of its few effective guys in the paint?" you're asking now.

I dunno. 

"And why did Conerway only play seven minutes?" you're also asking.

Beats me.

"And how come it's March, when you're supposed to be playing your way into stuff, and Purdue and Indiana seem to be playing their way out of stuff? Like, you know, a 2-seed (Purdue) or a seat at the Madness table altogether (Indiana)?" you're also-also asking.

Hey. Do I LOOK like the Shell Answer Man?

(Obligatory geezer reference)

All I know is, yes, there's a lot more playing out than playing in going on in West Lafayette and Bloomington these days. And that figures to make March a lot less fun than it should be.