And now a special Halloween edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature of which terrified moviegoers have shrieked "Aiee!", and "I thought this thing was DEAD!", and "Don't open that door! That stupid NFL thing is behind it!":
1. Don't open that door! Deshaun Watson is behind it, wielding another razor-sharp touchdown!
2. Don't open that door! The Indianapolis Colts are behind it, wielding another razor-sharp defeat!
3. And then, rising from the primordial ooze, a horrifying vision of corrupted humanity. Bill Belichick LIVED!
4. And so did BOB MCNAIR!
5. The door banged open, and in shuffled the Ghost of Jay Cutler Past, wearing the chain he forged in life.
6. The door banged open, and in shuffled the Ghost of Bears Quarterbacks Past. It was Bobby Douglass! "I am here for your welfare, Mitch Trubisky," he said, staring fixedly at some long-dead horror.
7. Sometimes, in the dead of night, Trevor Siemian could hear the awful scuttling of the bench, beckoning him in a greedy whisper. "Treeeee-vorrr ... Treeee-vorrr ..."
8. Sometimes, in the dead of night, Chuck Pagano could hear the awful scuttling of his pink slip, beckoning him in a greedy whisper. "Chuuuuuck ... Chuuuuuuck ..."
9. Aiee! The Browns!
10. Aiee! The 49ers! (Jimmy Garoppolo version)
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Monday, October 30, 2017
Epic
So maybe, like many, you are not paying attention to the World Series. Maybe this is because the storylines do not trace back to baseball's primordial ooze, the way they did last year with the Cubs and the Indians. And maybe it's because you can't get your head around the idea of two National League teams playing each other, because that's essentially what you've got with the Astros and Dodgers.
(Yes, I know the Astros allegedly are an American League team now. But they've only been one for about five minutes, which means they're really not an American League team to those of us with some historical perspective).
Anyway ... you're not paying attention. Which is a shame, because you're missing one of the most insane World Series ever played.
Forget Game 2, itself one of the most insane World Series games ever played, with its record eight home runs and five from the ninth inning on. That was nothing. That was a warmup act.
Because here came Game 5 last night, and you cannot make this stuff up. The Astros won 13-12 in 10 innings. The teams combined for seven home runs, 28 hits and 25 runs. The Astros erased three-run deficits three times, two of them in consecutive innings. Then the Dodgers erased a three-run deficit in the ninth to force extra innings.
Insane. Totally, President L'Orange-quality insane.
And now it goes back to Los Angeles, with the Astros up 3-2 and (presumably) sending the virtually untouchable Justin Verlander to the hill to close it out. Those of you who have been paying attention know this means nothing. The Dodgers probably will light him up like a Roman candle. Then the Astros will light up the previously untouchable Dodgers bullpen again. There will be 10 gazillion homers and 50 gazillion lead changes and Justin (Hermit Period Jack Crabb) Turner's beard will catch fire, and by the time it's over, Dodgers' manager Dave Roberts will be calling his old Red Sox teammate Pedro Martinez to come out of the studio and save L.A.'s season.
What do you mean that can't possibly happen?
Hey. This Series passed Can't Possibly Happen awhile ago.
In case, you know, you weren't paying attention.
(Yes, I know the Astros allegedly are an American League team now. But they've only been one for about five minutes, which means they're really not an American League team to those of us with some historical perspective).
Anyway ... you're not paying attention. Which is a shame, because you're missing one of the most insane World Series ever played.
Forget Game 2, itself one of the most insane World Series games ever played, with its record eight home runs and five from the ninth inning on. That was nothing. That was a warmup act.
Because here came Game 5 last night, and you cannot make this stuff up. The Astros won 13-12 in 10 innings. The teams combined for seven home runs, 28 hits and 25 runs. The Astros erased three-run deficits three times, two of them in consecutive innings. Then the Dodgers erased a three-run deficit in the ninth to force extra innings.
Insane. Totally, President L'Orange-quality insane.
And now it goes back to Los Angeles, with the Astros up 3-2 and (presumably) sending the virtually untouchable Justin Verlander to the hill to close it out. Those of you who have been paying attention know this means nothing. The Dodgers probably will light him up like a Roman candle. Then the Astros will light up the previously untouchable Dodgers bullpen again. There will be 10 gazillion homers and 50 gazillion lead changes and Justin (Hermit Period Jack Crabb) Turner's beard will catch fire, and by the time it's over, Dodgers' manager Dave Roberts will be calling his old Red Sox teammate Pedro Martinez to come out of the studio and save L.A.'s season.
What do you mean that can't possibly happen?
Hey. This Series passed Can't Possibly Happen awhile ago.
In case, you know, you weren't paying attention.
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Playoffs?! Yes, playoffs
Or, in other words, the first College Football Playoff rankings come out two days from now -- appropriately, on Halloween.
Appropriately, because fan bases who've deluded themselves into thinking they're close will run screaming in horror when they come in, like, 13th or something. And fan bases whose schools at least come within striking distance of The Four will say, like kids after visiting the Haunted Castle, "That wasn't so scary."
In any case, you can probably pencil in Alabama and Ohio State, because Alabama is still cruising despite feasting largely on cupcakes, and the Buckeyes managed to elude capture against Penn State. If there's any justice, Penn State will be one of The Four, too, because the Nittany Lions only lost to the Buckeyes by one in the Horseshoe after leading virtually all the way, and still look like one of the top four teams in the country.
Which brings us to Notre Dame, who smash-mouthed once-beaten North Carolina State 35-14 in its latest impersonation of an I'm-scared-to-death-of-Rice Lou Holtz team. The Irish, it seems, win in a way unseen in South Bend since the Holtz era: They punch people in the mouth, ramming the football down everyone's throats and strangling them defensively. Like Holtz's teams, they aren't just beating decent teams up front where football games are won, they're punishing them -- the way, say, an Alabama punishes people up front.
It's why the Blob is starting to think the Irish wind up in the playoff. I know, heresy.
Heresy, because, in Brian Kelly's hands, Notre Dame has fooled us before. They suck you in with a big win or two, and then they lose to a Navy or a Boston College or a West Virginia. And so the possibility still exists they could impale themselves on a Wake Forest or a Miami or a Stanford.
But I don't think so this time. Back in 2012, when the Irish ran the table until Alabama ran them out of the national title game, any objective observer knew they were as phony as Monopoly money. Far more lucky than good, they were barely beating teams they should have been crushing.
This team?
This team is crushing everyone.
Its only loss was by one point to an unbeaten Georgia team that is itself crushing everyone. It's a different team with an entirely different look, and that's why I don't think this is the traditional Notre Dame over-hype this time.
It is, however, still Notre Dame -- and more to the point, Brian Kelly's Notre Dame.
Dining on the aforementioned words therefore remains on the table. So to speak.
Appropriately, because fan bases who've deluded themselves into thinking they're close will run screaming in horror when they come in, like, 13th or something. And fan bases whose schools at least come within striking distance of The Four will say, like kids after visiting the Haunted Castle, "That wasn't so scary."
In any case, you can probably pencil in Alabama and Ohio State, because Alabama is still cruising despite feasting largely on cupcakes, and the Buckeyes managed to elude capture against Penn State. If there's any justice, Penn State will be one of The Four, too, because the Nittany Lions only lost to the Buckeyes by one in the Horseshoe after leading virtually all the way, and still look like one of the top four teams in the country.
Which brings us to Notre Dame, who smash-mouthed once-beaten North Carolina State 35-14 in its latest impersonation of an I'm-scared-to-death-of-Rice Lou Holtz team. The Irish, it seems, win in a way unseen in South Bend since the Holtz era: They punch people in the mouth, ramming the football down everyone's throats and strangling them defensively. Like Holtz's teams, they aren't just beating decent teams up front where football games are won, they're punishing them -- the way, say, an Alabama punishes people up front.
It's why the Blob is starting to think the Irish wind up in the playoff. I know, heresy.
Heresy, because, in Brian Kelly's hands, Notre Dame has fooled us before. They suck you in with a big win or two, and then they lose to a Navy or a Boston College or a West Virginia. And so the possibility still exists they could impale themselves on a Wake Forest or a Miami or a Stanford.
But I don't think so this time. Back in 2012, when the Irish ran the table until Alabama ran them out of the national title game, any objective observer knew they were as phony as Monopoly money. Far more lucky than good, they were barely beating teams they should have been crushing.
This team?
This team is crushing everyone.
Its only loss was by one point to an unbeaten Georgia team that is itself crushing everyone. It's a different team with an entirely different look, and that's why I don't think this is the traditional Notre Dame over-hype this time.
It is, however, still Notre Dame -- and more to the point, Brian Kelly's Notre Dame.
Dining on the aforementioned words therefore remains on the table. So to speak.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Language barrier
I get what Houston Texans owner Bob McNair was trying to say. And that, not what he actually said, is the problem here.
What he actually said we all know by now: That the NFL can't have "the inmates running the asylum." Which is an old-as-Methuselah bit of idiom, and whose obvious translation in this instance is that the NFL can't have the players running the show.
And that's the problem.
Like it or not, see, the players are the show. There isn't a show without them.
They are proud men who have spent their lives being, yes, coddled and cottoned to, but who also do not abide being trifled with. And the owners, and the power structure they represent, have trifled with them in big ways and small for years.
They consistently lied about the concussion issue for almost two decades until finally forced by the overwhelming weight of evidence to acknowledge it. They used up and discarded the players who built the league, climbing over a pile of broken lives to enrich themselves. And they continue to disrespect their African-American employees in particular, saying (at least in incorrigible blowhard Jerry Jones' case) that by God they're going to stand for the national anthem or be fired.
That this had the undeniable whiff of massa laying down the law was perhaps inevitable, given that the reason for the kneeling -- an act in no way disrespectful to America or the flag or "the troops", considering it was endorsed by a military man himself -- was to protest the egregious shooting of African-Americans by law enforcement. The owners seem to have dismissed this very real issue out of hand, or at the very least given it the shortest of shrift.
And so of course the players felt disrespected themselves, and therefore naturally overreacted to McNair's use of the word "inmate" to describe them. That it was the use of a common idiom and was not intended literally to characterize the players as inmates didn't matter. What did matter is that the owners have historically regarded the players as, if not inmates exactly, something of equal value. And the players know it.
Even though they are the only real value the league has. Even though, again, there is no league without them.
What he actually said we all know by now: That the NFL can't have "the inmates running the asylum." Which is an old-as-Methuselah bit of idiom, and whose obvious translation in this instance is that the NFL can't have the players running the show.
And that's the problem.
Like it or not, see, the players are the show. There isn't a show without them.
They are proud men who have spent their lives being, yes, coddled and cottoned to, but who also do not abide being trifled with. And the owners, and the power structure they represent, have trifled with them in big ways and small for years.
They consistently lied about the concussion issue for almost two decades until finally forced by the overwhelming weight of evidence to acknowledge it. They used up and discarded the players who built the league, climbing over a pile of broken lives to enrich themselves. And they continue to disrespect their African-American employees in particular, saying (at least in incorrigible blowhard Jerry Jones' case) that by God they're going to stand for the national anthem or be fired.
That this had the undeniable whiff of massa laying down the law was perhaps inevitable, given that the reason for the kneeling -- an act in no way disrespectful to America or the flag or "the troops", considering it was endorsed by a military man himself -- was to protest the egregious shooting of African-Americans by law enforcement. The owners seem to have dismissed this very real issue out of hand, or at the very least given it the shortest of shrift.
And so of course the players felt disrespected themselves, and therefore naturally overreacted to McNair's use of the word "inmate" to describe them. That it was the use of a common idiom and was not intended literally to characterize the players as inmates didn't matter. What did matter is that the owners have historically regarded the players as, if not inmates exactly, something of equal value. And the players know it.
Even though they are the only real value the league has. Even though, again, there is no league without them.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Building to last
They reached the NLCS for a third straight autumn, won their first World Series in 108 years last fall, failed to reach the World Series again only because they were facing a clearly superior team in the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This would qualify as outrageous success for the Chicago Cubs, back in the days when being Lovable Losers was their cultural identity. Any success that strayed beyond that identity was regarded as endearing and winsome and just enough balm to keep the good times rolling on summer afternoons and evenings in the Friendly Confines.
Making the playoffs used to be enough on the north side of Chicago. You watched the vines grow rusty with fall color out there on the Wrigley Field walls, and you were happy, if you were a Cubs fan.
Now?
Well, not so much.
And so a week after bowing out in the NLCS, the Cubs cleaned house. Pitching coach Chris Bosio, hitting coach John Mallee and third-base coach Gary Jones were shown the door. Jim Hickey, Chili Davis and Brian Butterfield arrived to replace them. And isn't this a brave new world on the north side of Chicago?
Three straight NLCS appearances and a World Series title would have gotten the deposed coaches chunky raises back in the old Lovable Losers days. Now it gets them replaced for not getting the Cubs to a second World Series. And now you understand that all the talk last fall that the Cubs were serious about all this winning was not just talk.
Theo Epstein said he was building something to last that was not just venerable old Wrigley, and it appears he meant it. Who knew?
This would qualify as outrageous success for the Chicago Cubs, back in the days when being Lovable Losers was their cultural identity. Any success that strayed beyond that identity was regarded as endearing and winsome and just enough balm to keep the good times rolling on summer afternoons and evenings in the Friendly Confines.
Making the playoffs used to be enough on the north side of Chicago. You watched the vines grow rusty with fall color out there on the Wrigley Field walls, and you were happy, if you were a Cubs fan.
Now?
Well, not so much.
And so a week after bowing out in the NLCS, the Cubs cleaned house. Pitching coach Chris Bosio, hitting coach John Mallee and third-base coach Gary Jones were shown the door. Jim Hickey, Chili Davis and Brian Butterfield arrived to replace them. And isn't this a brave new world on the north side of Chicago?
Three straight NLCS appearances and a World Series title would have gotten the deposed coaches chunky raises back in the old Lovable Losers days. Now it gets them replaced for not getting the Cubs to a second World Series. And now you understand that all the talk last fall that the Cubs were serious about all this winning was not just talk.
Theo Epstein said he was building something to last that was not just venerable old Wrigley, and it appears he meant it. Who knew?
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Bringin' the heat, Part Deux
In which the Blob revises what it said yesterday, because it was actually 103 degrees at first pitch for Game 1 of the World Series, which the Dodgers won 3-1 thanks to a first-pitch home run by Chris Taylor and another home run by Hermit Period Jack Crabb, aka Justin Turner.
(And if you don't get the Hermit Period Jack Crabb reference, it's because you've never seen "Little Big Man." Which means you are culturally deprived and deeply wanting in context. I suggest you watch it immediately to remedy that.)
Anyway, Dodgers win as Clayton Kershaw brought the heat (see what I did there?) and silenced all those potent Astros bats. And the Blob spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if Hermit Period Jack Crabb was rethinking that look, considering. And then thought ahead to tonight, when the Blob predicts Justin Verlander will put a padlock on the Dodgers batrack, and we'll be 1-1 going to Houston.
Where it will likely not be 103 degrees at gametime. As it shouldn't be anywhere in this part of the world in the last week of October.
Although the climate-change Flat Earthers continue to insist all this is perfectly normal, no doubt.
(And if you don't get the Hermit Period Jack Crabb reference, it's because you've never seen "Little Big Man." Which means you are culturally deprived and deeply wanting in context. I suggest you watch it immediately to remedy that.)
Anyway, Dodgers win as Clayton Kershaw brought the heat (see what I did there?) and silenced all those potent Astros bats. And the Blob spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if Hermit Period Jack Crabb was rethinking that look, considering. And then thought ahead to tonight, when the Blob predicts Justin Verlander will put a padlock on the Dodgers batrack, and we'll be 1-1 going to Houston.
Where it will likely not be 103 degrees at gametime. As it shouldn't be anywhere in this part of the world in the last week of October.
Although the climate-change Flat Earthers continue to insist all this is perfectly normal, no doubt.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Bringin' the heat
I know who's going to win Game 1 of the World Series tonight. It's the water bottle guy.
Also the fan guy. Also the ice bag guy.
This is because it's supposed to hit 101 in Los Angeles today, which is not all that unusual for late October if you listen to the climate change Flat Earthers, and completely bizarre if you listen to anyone with a working synapse. By gametime, it likely will have cooled down to 98 or so, which would make it the hottest game-time temp for an MLB playoff game since they began recording such things.
What this will do is add a touch of the surreal to what already is real, given that Dodgers-vs.-Astros would have been an NLDS game not all that long ago. Some of us still can't wrap our heads around the Astros in the American League, just as some of us can't wrap our heads around the Astros wearing semi-normal-looking uniforms instead of the famous Technicolor yawn unis worn by this guy.
Anyway ... it's Dallas Keuchel against Clayton Kershaw in Game 1, and the last one to dissolve into a puddle of sweat wins. And, yes, that will be surreal, watching guys sweat during a World Series. Usually they all look like the Michelin Man during the Series, bundled up in layers with towels wrapped around their necks.
Well, not tonight. And so you can officially dub this the Weird Series, which suggests the Astros have the edge because they've never won a World Series and if they win this one it would only be the storyline remaining faithful to the theme.
Unfortunately, storylines hardly ever stick to the theme. And so the Blob is picking the Dodgers in six, because their pitching is a tad better and their bats are a tad better, too.
Sorry, Houston.
Also the fan guy. Also the ice bag guy.
This is because it's supposed to hit 101 in Los Angeles today, which is not all that unusual for late October if you listen to the climate change Flat Earthers, and completely bizarre if you listen to anyone with a working synapse. By gametime, it likely will have cooled down to 98 or so, which would make it the hottest game-time temp for an MLB playoff game since they began recording such things.
What this will do is add a touch of the surreal to what already is real, given that Dodgers-vs.-Astros would have been an NLDS game not all that long ago. Some of us still can't wrap our heads around the Astros in the American League, just as some of us can't wrap our heads around the Astros wearing semi-normal-looking uniforms instead of the famous Technicolor yawn unis worn by this guy.
Anyway ... it's Dallas Keuchel against Clayton Kershaw in Game 1, and the last one to dissolve into a puddle of sweat wins. And, yes, that will be surreal, watching guys sweat during a World Series. Usually they all look like the Michelin Man during the Series, bundled up in layers with towels wrapped around their necks.
Well, not tonight. And so you can officially dub this the Weird Series, which suggests the Astros have the edge because they've never won a World Series and if they win this one it would only be the storyline remaining faithful to the theme.
Unfortunately, storylines hardly ever stick to the theme. And so the Blob is picking the Dodgers in six, because their pitching is a tad better and their bats are a tad better, too.
Sorry, Houston.
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 7
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the too-hip-only-for-senior-citizens Blob feature of which America's grandmothers have said "Well, I never!" and also "You should have your mouth washed out with soap, young man!":
1. "Our O-line needs to block better!" -- T.Y. Hilton, immediately after Jacksonville 27, Colts 0.
2. "Sorry, guys! I messed up!" -- T.Y. Hilton, shortly after being paid a visit by the O-line.
3. "Sorry, guys! I messed up!" -- DeShone Kizer, after being seen out late on Friday night.
4. "S'OK! We weren't gonna win anyway!" -- The rest of the awful, winless Cleveland Browns.
5. "Why is Jay Cutler on this team again?" -- Every Dolphins fan everywhere.
6. "Why is Jay Cutler on this team again?" -- Matt Moore, after leading the Fish back against the Jets.
7. "This fog is very strange-looking!" -- Adrienne Barbeau, "The Fog."
8. "Aieee! I'm being chased by dead sailors with boat hooks!" -- Tom Brady, "The Fog That Ate Sunday Night Football."
9. "Aieee! I'm being chased by the ghosts of Super Bowl XLI!" -- Matt Ryan, after the Falcons were waxed by the Patriots again.
10. "Man, those Browns. They're awful and winless." -- The Blob.
1. "Our O-line needs to block better!" -- T.Y. Hilton, immediately after Jacksonville 27, Colts 0.
2. "Sorry, guys! I messed up!" -- T.Y. Hilton, shortly after being paid a visit by the O-line.
3. "Sorry, guys! I messed up!" -- DeShone Kizer, after being seen out late on Friday night.
4. "S'OK! We weren't gonna win anyway!" -- The rest of the awful, winless Cleveland Browns.
5. "Why is Jay Cutler on this team again?" -- Every Dolphins fan everywhere.
6. "Why is Jay Cutler on this team again?" -- Matt Moore, after leading the Fish back against the Jets.
7. "This fog is very strange-looking!" -- Adrienne Barbeau, "The Fog."
8. "Aieee! I'm being chased by dead sailors with boat hooks!" -- Tom Brady, "The Fog That Ate Sunday Night Football."
9. "Aieee! I'm being chased by the ghosts of Super Bowl XLI!" -- Matt Ryan, after the Falcons were waxed by the Patriots again.
10. "Man, those Browns. They're awful and winless." -- The Blob.
Monday, October 23, 2017
The mouth goes south
If only T.Y. Hilton could get as open as his mouth.
If only it were as easy as simply opening his mandibles and letting the words spill out, maybe the Indianapolis Colts would not be where they are, which is 2-5 and thrashing around in the sludge at the bottom of the NFL. Alas, it apparently isn't that easy.
Three catches in the last two games for T.Y. are not only proof of that, they do not a bully pulpit make. But Hilton availed himself anyway. And that not only was a bad look, it's the kind of thing that puts a football team on the road to dissolution.
Hilton's been around long enough to know that, but apparently he just couldn't help himself, calling out his offensive line for subjecting Jacoby Brissett to near-historic abuse in the Colts' most pathetic loss so far. It's not just that Jacksonville came into their house and shut them out, 27-0. It's the ease with which the Jaguars did it -- especially on the defensive side, where they sacked Brissett 10, count 'em, 10 times, one shy of the franchise record.
Which happened before the Colts moved to Indy, mind you. And that was 33 years ago.
And so Hilton was right about the Seven Blocks of Al Dente Spaghetti. They were awful. Couldn't block a gentle breeze. You could almost see Andrew Luck over there on the sideline, suddenly discovering even MORE soreness in his surgical throwing arm.
Hey, guys? You know my shoulder? Feels a bit more, ah, stiff all of a sudden. Yeah, stiff, that's it. Maybe we should back this up until, I don't know, 2020 or so.
Anyway ... TY was right. But he was wrong to say so.
He was wrong, because part of this unnatural disaster is on him, too. Maybe if he gets himself open a few more times Sunday, Brissett doesn't get sacked 10 times. Maybe if he beats his man once in awhile, the Colts actually move the chains. Maybe if he realizes the O-line is getting beaten like an omelet back there, he breaks off the route and comes back to the football a few times.
That's what a wideout with some awareness would do. Unfortunately, Hilton's not playing with anymore of that commodity than anyone else. Which is why the Colts are right now one of the worst three teams in football.
You know that old saying? You win as a team and you lose as a team?
Yeah, well. The Colts are Exhibit A for the latter.
If only because only losers point fingers.
If only it were as easy as simply opening his mandibles and letting the words spill out, maybe the Indianapolis Colts would not be where they are, which is 2-5 and thrashing around in the sludge at the bottom of the NFL. Alas, it apparently isn't that easy.
Three catches in the last two games for T.Y. are not only proof of that, they do not a bully pulpit make. But Hilton availed himself anyway. And that not only was a bad look, it's the kind of thing that puts a football team on the road to dissolution.
Hilton's been around long enough to know that, but apparently he just couldn't help himself, calling out his offensive line for subjecting Jacoby Brissett to near-historic abuse in the Colts' most pathetic loss so far. It's not just that Jacksonville came into their house and shut them out, 27-0. It's the ease with which the Jaguars did it -- especially on the defensive side, where they sacked Brissett 10, count 'em, 10 times, one shy of the franchise record.
Which happened before the Colts moved to Indy, mind you. And that was 33 years ago.
And so Hilton was right about the Seven Blocks of Al Dente Spaghetti. They were awful. Couldn't block a gentle breeze. You could almost see Andrew Luck over there on the sideline, suddenly discovering even MORE soreness in his surgical throwing arm.
Hey, guys? You know my shoulder? Feels a bit more, ah, stiff all of a sudden. Yeah, stiff, that's it. Maybe we should back this up until, I don't know, 2020 or so.
Anyway ... TY was right. But he was wrong to say so.
He was wrong, because part of this unnatural disaster is on him, too. Maybe if he gets himself open a few more times Sunday, Brissett doesn't get sacked 10 times. Maybe if he beats his man once in awhile, the Colts actually move the chains. Maybe if he realizes the O-line is getting beaten like an omelet back there, he breaks off the route and comes back to the football a few times.
That's what a wideout with some awareness would do. Unfortunately, Hilton's not playing with anymore of that commodity than anyone else. Which is why the Colts are right now one of the worst three teams in football.
You know that old saying? You win as a team and you lose as a team?
Yeah, well. The Colts are Exhibit A for the latter.
If only because only losers point fingers.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Irish rising
You could see the hype beginning to gather, there in the last ruined minutes for USC. Sam Darnold, eons ago a Heisman Trophy candidate, was long gone, helmet off, prowling the visitors' sideline. So, for Notre Dame, was Josh Adams (maybe now a Heisman candidate), butt-dancing on the Irish bench after hitting the Trojans in the mouth for 191 and three scores.
And here came the hype, a ghost in the October night, as the clock ran down on Notre Dame 49, USC 14.
Statement game for the Irish ...
Puts them right in the mix for the playoff ...
Looked like one of those old slobber-knocker Lou Holtz teams ...
JOSH ADAMS FOR THE HEISMAN!
And so on, and so on.
And all the Blob will say about that is, slow your roll, Domers. While understanding that when you ball-peen an alleged top-ten USC team by 35, at home or not, the roll is going to roll no matter how many words of caution get parceled out.
That's because this is Notre Dame and you are not, and the lore will be served. The place is a National College Football Museum like no other, with those statues and those Heismans and that endless celebration of a storied past. That there's nowhere quite like Notre Dame is both gospel and delusion at once; it really is like nowhere else, in that it's the last great independent (although these days only kinda-sorta), and it's just like everywhere else in that football is as corporate there as anywhere.
And so, yes, the hype will circle now. How much of it's reality and how much of it is the customary We Won A Big Game So Look Out World over-inflation remains to be seen.
Here's what the Blob thinks: Notre Dame is a legitimate top ten team.
Also, Josh Adams is going to enter the Heisman conversation now because A) he's a really good running back; B) he's a really good running back who plays for Notre Dame; and C) he's a really good running back who plays for Notre Dame and who's encroaching on the lore, seeing how his yards-per-carry could wind up knocking George Gipp out of the record books.
You get your name in the same sentence with George Gipp at Notre Dame, it's pretty much required that you also get your name in the same sentence with the Heisman. So there's that.
As to whether Notre Dame really is an emerging team of Holtzian dimensions ...
Well. Couple things about that.
One, Notre Dame is now 6-1 and has lost only to Georgia, a legit playoff contender, by one point at home. So it was probably underrated before last night.
Two, the much-hyped (that word again) Murderer's Row is probably not a Murderer's Row. A Mugger's Row, maybe, but not a Murderer's Row.
True, the end-game stretch includes six teams with a combined 32-9 record, and one of them (Miami) is undefeated at 6-0. And the Irish have to play the Hurricanes in their house.
But the notion that this is an exceedingly brutal stretch has, frankly, been as overblown as a lot of things inevitably tend to get in South Bend. USC was always a suspect 6-1, and no one should be surprised that the Irish handled them. North Carolina State is also 6-1, but the Irish get the Wolfpack at home next week. And, yes, Navy is 5-2 and always gives the Irish fits, but the Irish get the Middies at home, too -- and in any case, Navy always seems to jump up and bite Notre Dame only when no one expects it to.
Half of America expects it to this time. So it won't.
Then there's Wake Forest, a 4-3 ACC team. And finally there's Stanford, who always seem to give Notre Dame fits, too, but who lost to USC by 18 and lost to San Diego State. Not quite the same Stanford team, it would seem.
And so, going forward?
Well, the obvious loss in this stretch would seem to be Miami. And I, for one, could see the Irish getting knocked off by NC State, because it happens right after the huge win last night. Beyond that ...
Beats me. The Blob's prodigious gut tells it Notre Dame winds up 10-2 and either in the playoff or just out of it. At which time, of course, arguments will ensue as to whether (in the first case) they got in just because they're Notre Dame, or (in the second case) they got hosed just because they're Notre Dame.
That, after all, is also part of the Notre Dame experience. Just like the hype, beginning to circle now in the chill October air.
And here came the hype, a ghost in the October night, as the clock ran down on Notre Dame 49, USC 14.
Statement game for the Irish ...
Puts them right in the mix for the playoff ...
Looked like one of those old slobber-knocker Lou Holtz teams ...
JOSH ADAMS FOR THE HEISMAN!
And so on, and so on.
And all the Blob will say about that is, slow your roll, Domers. While understanding that when you ball-peen an alleged top-ten USC team by 35, at home or not, the roll is going to roll no matter how many words of caution get parceled out.
That's because this is Notre Dame and you are not, and the lore will be served. The place is a National College Football Museum like no other, with those statues and those Heismans and that endless celebration of a storied past. That there's nowhere quite like Notre Dame is both gospel and delusion at once; it really is like nowhere else, in that it's the last great independent (although these days only kinda-sorta), and it's just like everywhere else in that football is as corporate there as anywhere.
And so, yes, the hype will circle now. How much of it's reality and how much of it is the customary We Won A Big Game So Look Out World over-inflation remains to be seen.
Here's what the Blob thinks: Notre Dame is a legitimate top ten team.
Also, Josh Adams is going to enter the Heisman conversation now because A) he's a really good running back; B) he's a really good running back who plays for Notre Dame; and C) he's a really good running back who plays for Notre Dame and who's encroaching on the lore, seeing how his yards-per-carry could wind up knocking George Gipp out of the record books.
You get your name in the same sentence with George Gipp at Notre Dame, it's pretty much required that you also get your name in the same sentence with the Heisman. So there's that.
As to whether Notre Dame really is an emerging team of Holtzian dimensions ...
Well. Couple things about that.
One, Notre Dame is now 6-1 and has lost only to Georgia, a legit playoff contender, by one point at home. So it was probably underrated before last night.
Two, the much-hyped (that word again) Murderer's Row is probably not a Murderer's Row. A Mugger's Row, maybe, but not a Murderer's Row.
True, the end-game stretch includes six teams with a combined 32-9 record, and one of them (Miami) is undefeated at 6-0. And the Irish have to play the Hurricanes in their house.
But the notion that this is an exceedingly brutal stretch has, frankly, been as overblown as a lot of things inevitably tend to get in South Bend. USC was always a suspect 6-1, and no one should be surprised that the Irish handled them. North Carolina State is also 6-1, but the Irish get the Wolfpack at home next week. And, yes, Navy is 5-2 and always gives the Irish fits, but the Irish get the Middies at home, too -- and in any case, Navy always seems to jump up and bite Notre Dame only when no one expects it to.
Half of America expects it to this time. So it won't.
Then there's Wake Forest, a 4-3 ACC team. And finally there's Stanford, who always seem to give Notre Dame fits, too, but who lost to USC by 18 and lost to San Diego State. Not quite the same Stanford team, it would seem.
And so, going forward?
Well, the obvious loss in this stretch would seem to be Miami. And I, for one, could see the Irish getting knocked off by NC State, because it happens right after the huge win last night. Beyond that ...
Beats me. The Blob's prodigious gut tells it Notre Dame winds up 10-2 and either in the playoff or just out of it. At which time, of course, arguments will ensue as to whether (in the first case) they got in just because they're Notre Dame, or (in the second case) they got hosed just because they're Notre Dame.
That, after all, is also part of the Notre Dame experience. Just like the hype, beginning to circle now in the chill October air.
Friday, October 20, 2017
As Luck would have it
Or, you know, not.
Not, because at this point the inhabitants of the grassy knoll enter the picture, after Indianapolis Colts GM Chris Ballard announced they were shutting Andrew Luck down again, barely four days after he began throwing a football. Apparently there was some soreness in his surgical right shoulder, even though Luck was not, apparently, launching rockets. Word out of Indy is he was chucking it 30 or 40 yards downfield, but with nothing on it.
And so ...
And so now with the conspiracy theories.
Now the moment when the Blob was informed by an acquaintance who lives in Indy, and who has seen Luck on local TV a few times, that, beyond just the shoulder, the Colts' franchise QB looks seriously unhealthy. Pale, thin, shockingly frail. So there's that.
(Of course, when you've been virtually inactive since January, you're probably not going to look like some cartoon muscle-y superhero. So there's that, too).
Anyway ... the suspicion grows that the Colts are hiding something, fueled by the conventional wisdom that, when it comes to injuries, NFL teams tend to be less than forthright. Is there something else going on besides the shoulder? Was the shoulder itself far more extensively damaged than the Colts are letting on, necessitating a far more extensive surgical procedure than the simple labrum repair we've been led to believe?
I don't know. Maybe this really is just the Colts being super-cautious. Maybe it really is the customary recovery timeline for this sort of surgery. But ...
But it's been, what, nine months since the surgery? And yet Luck is only now beginning tentatively to throw. And after just four days of throwing, his shoulder is hurting again. So it is reasonable to suspect that this is a lot more serious than the Colts have led us to believe, given that initially they were talking about him being ready for the start of the season.
Now we're six weeks past that, and he's no more ready than he was in August. So, yes, the grassy knoll people are starting to whisper among themselves.
Me?
I think now that his return this season is more than just problematical. And I didn't before.
So there's that, too.
Not, because at this point the inhabitants of the grassy knoll enter the picture, after Indianapolis Colts GM Chris Ballard announced they were shutting Andrew Luck down again, barely four days after he began throwing a football. Apparently there was some soreness in his surgical right shoulder, even though Luck was not, apparently, launching rockets. Word out of Indy is he was chucking it 30 or 40 yards downfield, but with nothing on it.
And so ...
And so now with the conspiracy theories.
Now the moment when the Blob was informed by an acquaintance who lives in Indy, and who has seen Luck on local TV a few times, that, beyond just the shoulder, the Colts' franchise QB looks seriously unhealthy. Pale, thin, shockingly frail. So there's that.
(Of course, when you've been virtually inactive since January, you're probably not going to look like some cartoon muscle-y superhero. So there's that, too).
Anyway ... the suspicion grows that the Colts are hiding something, fueled by the conventional wisdom that, when it comes to injuries, NFL teams tend to be less than forthright. Is there something else going on besides the shoulder? Was the shoulder itself far more extensively damaged than the Colts are letting on, necessitating a far more extensive surgical procedure than the simple labrum repair we've been led to believe?
I don't know. Maybe this really is just the Colts being super-cautious. Maybe it really is the customary recovery timeline for this sort of surgery. But ...
But it's been, what, nine months since the surgery? And yet Luck is only now beginning tentatively to throw. And after just four days of throwing, his shoulder is hurting again. So it is reasonable to suspect that this is a lot more serious than the Colts have led us to believe, given that initially they were talking about him being ready for the start of the season.
Now we're six weeks past that, and he's no more ready than he was in August. So, yes, the grassy knoll people are starting to whisper among themselves.
Me?
I think now that his return this season is more than just problematical. And I didn't before.
So there's that, too.
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Statuesque, Part Deux
So they're going to erect some statuary in Assembly Hall honoring Indiana University's rich basketball legacy, and you-know-who will not be among them.
Some people think this is classless on the part of IU, ignoring Robert Montgomery Knight like that.
Other people actually conversant with the facts know IU is simply honoring Knight's request that they not include him in the display, on account of he's still miffed at the school even though no one but Knight cares anymore.
And so one sculpture will depict Everett Dean, a member of the basketball Hall of Fame and Indiana's first All-American player and first iconic coach. Another will honor Branch McCracken and the late Bill Garrett, who broke the Big Ten color barrier.
A third will include six players from IU's undefeated 1975-76 national championship team, a fourth will feature Steve Alford, Keith Smart and the 1987 title team, and a fifth will feature Isiah Thomas, star of the 1981 IU national champs.
Knight, of course, coached those last three teams. And, frankly, I think he deserves his own sculpture whether he wants it or not -- if only so IU could return his extended middle finger with one of its own.
And so the question becomes, what signature IU basketball moment would it portray?
Knight with one granite arm extended and one eye closed, aiming a starter's pistol at reporter Russ Brown?
Knight in mid-fling, with a marble chair in bas relief?
Knight in mid-fling again, this time with a marble flower vase in bas relief?
Personally, I'd go with bookend images of Knight grabbing Jim Wisman by his limestone jersey and Knight with his hand around the late Neil Reed's limestone throat. Or maybe Knight and NCAA Tournament moderator Rance Pugmire in profile, commemorating the time Knight publicly humiliated Pugmire over a simple honest mistake.
So much stone. So many choices.
Some people think this is classless on the part of IU, ignoring Robert Montgomery Knight like that.
Other people actually conversant with the facts know IU is simply honoring Knight's request that they not include him in the display, on account of he's still miffed at the school even though no one but Knight cares anymore.
And so one sculpture will depict Everett Dean, a member of the basketball Hall of Fame and Indiana's first All-American player and first iconic coach. Another will honor Branch McCracken and the late Bill Garrett, who broke the Big Ten color barrier.
A third will include six players from IU's undefeated 1975-76 national championship team, a fourth will feature Steve Alford, Keith Smart and the 1987 title team, and a fifth will feature Isiah Thomas, star of the 1981 IU national champs.
Knight, of course, coached those last three teams. And, frankly, I think he deserves his own sculpture whether he wants it or not -- if only so IU could return his extended middle finger with one of its own.
And so the question becomes, what signature IU basketball moment would it portray?
Knight with one granite arm extended and one eye closed, aiming a starter's pistol at reporter Russ Brown?
Knight in mid-fling, with a marble chair in bas relief?
Knight in mid-fling again, this time with a marble flower vase in bas relief?
Personally, I'd go with bookend images of Knight grabbing Jim Wisman by his limestone jersey and Knight with his hand around the late Neil Reed's limestone throat. Or maybe Knight and NCAA Tournament moderator Rance Pugmire in profile, commemorating the time Knight publicly humiliated Pugmire over a simple honest mistake.
So much stone. So many choices.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Baseball, in short
Briefest possible reaction to Yankees 6, Astros 4 and Dodgers 6, Cubs 1 last night:
1. Well, crap.
2. Well, crap.
1. Well, crap.
2. Well, crap.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Planet Pitino
The world Rick Pitino inhabits is not this world. That ought to be crystal to everyone by now.
No, on Planet Pitino, the head coach never sees nothin'. He's not accountable for what goes on in his program, even when it happens right under his nose. If his awful, awful assistants do something corrupt, how can their stink ever touch him?
After all (just to remind you), he didn't see nothin'. And if he didn't see nothin', how can he be fired?
This is essentially the argument his lawyers are making, as Pitino claims once more that he's blameless as a babe in the latest corruption to embroil his Louisville program. First it was hookers turning the basketball building into a bordello; now it's the shoe company that pays Pitino millions bribing his underlings.
But, hey. He's just the head coach. All he's done is pocket 98 percent of the money Adidas threw at Louisville to wear its shoes. If his assistants were taking additional bribes under the table, how's he responsible for that?
And so he's contesting his firing by Louisville, an act of chutzpah breathtaking in its scope. Never mind the fact he should have been gone after the hooker thing, when he presented the absurd argument that, nope, he didn't see nothin', even though it was happening in a building he inhabited every day. Now he's claiming, essentially, that he can't be fired for this, either, on account of he's not accountable for the actions of those who work for him.
On Planet Pitino, this makes perfect sense.
Everywhere else ...
Well, everywhere else, it's pretty much revealed truth that when you make as much money as Pitino did as coach of a premier college basketball program -- a Hall of Fame coach, by the way -- you are damn skippy responsible for everything that goes on in your program, whether you knew about it or not (and in Pitino's case, the "not" remains highly suspect). The greater your reward, the greater your accountability. Especially when you have the track record for sleaze Pitino does.
The man is slipperier than an oiled eel, and he's gotten away with it for a long time. It's not just the Adidas thing, which is the subject of a criminal investigation. It's not even just the hooker thing, or the having-sex-on-a-table-in-a-restaurant thing -- which should have gotten him fired, too, but didn't because the woman he had sex with was foolish enough to try to blackmail him.
Still, it added to his body of work, so to speak. And if it took the FBI to wake Louisville up to that body of work, then good for the FBI.
He's claiming Louisville doesn't have the right to fire him?
Wait'll the Hall of Fame tries to fire him, which ought to happen next.
That sound you hear is Pitino's head exploding.
No, on Planet Pitino, the head coach never sees nothin'. He's not accountable for what goes on in his program, even when it happens right under his nose. If his awful, awful assistants do something corrupt, how can their stink ever touch him?
After all (just to remind you), he didn't see nothin'. And if he didn't see nothin', how can he be fired?
This is essentially the argument his lawyers are making, as Pitino claims once more that he's blameless as a babe in the latest corruption to embroil his Louisville program. First it was hookers turning the basketball building into a bordello; now it's the shoe company that pays Pitino millions bribing his underlings.
But, hey. He's just the head coach. All he's done is pocket 98 percent of the money Adidas threw at Louisville to wear its shoes. If his assistants were taking additional bribes under the table, how's he responsible for that?
And so he's contesting his firing by Louisville, an act of chutzpah breathtaking in its scope. Never mind the fact he should have been gone after the hooker thing, when he presented the absurd argument that, nope, he didn't see nothin', even though it was happening in a building he inhabited every day. Now he's claiming, essentially, that he can't be fired for this, either, on account of he's not accountable for the actions of those who work for him.
On Planet Pitino, this makes perfect sense.
Everywhere else ...
Well, everywhere else, it's pretty much revealed truth that when you make as much money as Pitino did as coach of a premier college basketball program -- a Hall of Fame coach, by the way -- you are damn skippy responsible for everything that goes on in your program, whether you knew about it or not (and in Pitino's case, the "not" remains highly suspect). The greater your reward, the greater your accountability. Especially when you have the track record for sleaze Pitino does.
The man is slipperier than an oiled eel, and he's gotten away with it for a long time. It's not just the Adidas thing, which is the subject of a criminal investigation. It's not even just the hooker thing, or the having-sex-on-a-table-in-a-restaurant thing -- which should have gotten him fired, too, but didn't because the woman he had sex with was foolish enough to try to blackmail him.
Still, it added to his body of work, so to speak. And if it took the FBI to wake Louisville up to that body of work, then good for the FBI.
He's claiming Louisville doesn't have the right to fire him?
Wait'll the Hall of Fame tries to fire him, which ought to happen next.
That sound you hear is Pitino's head exploding.
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 6
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the numbingly formulaic Blob feature of which critics have said "It's a touchdown!" and the replay booth has said "No, it's not!":
1. It's a touchdown, New York Jets! (In every known universe except Alpha Replayus Examinus Every Playus At The Cellular Levelus).
2. Sorry, New York Jets, it's not! (In the aforementioned universe)
3. Can we have a replay of the replay booth? (Pretty much everyone in America who is not a New England Patriots fan)
4. Meanwhile, the Titans!
5. Kept us from saying "The Colts!" for the first time in a dozen meetings!
6. In other history news, the Bears!
7. Won a road game?
8. Sorry. Wrong punctuation. Won a road game!
9. Sad news of the week (in Green Bay): The Vikings broke Aaron Rodgers.
10. Sadder news of the week (everywhere football is cherished): The Browns are still Brownsing.
1. It's a touchdown, New York Jets! (In every known universe except Alpha Replayus Examinus Every Playus At The Cellular Levelus).
2. Sorry, New York Jets, it's not! (In the aforementioned universe)
3. Can we have a replay of the replay booth? (Pretty much everyone in America who is not a New England Patriots fan)
4. Meanwhile, the Titans!
5. Kept us from saying "The Colts!" for the first time in a dozen meetings!
6. In other history news, the Bears!
7. Won a road game?
8. Sorry. Wrong punctuation. Won a road game!
9. Sad news of the week (in Green Bay): The Vikings broke Aaron Rodgers.
10. Sadder news of the week (everywhere football is cherished): The Browns are still Brownsing.
Monday, October 16, 2017
A most American act
And now the painfully obvious reaction to Colin Kaepernick, Super Bowl quarterback, filing a grievance against the NFL owners who have kept him out of a league over-served with QB mediocrities and worse:
What took you so long, man?
Also, how ironic is it that a man blackballed for kneeling before the flag (on the advice of one of "the troops" he was accused of disrespecting, btw) is now the man standing tallest for the values that flag represents?
Good for Kaepernick.
Heck. Good for America.
What took you so long, man?
Also, how ironic is it that a man blackballed for kneeling before the flag (on the advice of one of "the troops" he was accused of disrespecting, btw) is now the man standing tallest for the values that flag represents?
Good for Kaepernick.
Heck. Good for America.
Karma 1, Cubs 0
Remember last October, when everyone was talking about karma, and how it felt like it was finally on the Cubs' side this time, and that was great because karma had always been the prettiest girl in school and the Cubs had always been the nerdiest nerd?
Well ...
Welcome back to Nerdsville, Cubbies.
Not because you're down 2-0 in the NLCS, mind you. Because of how it happened.
How it happened was a walkoff three-run homer by Justin Turner in Game 2 last night, which handed the Dodgers a 4-1 win. It was only the second walkoff postseason jack in Dodgers' history. The first, of course, was the most famous postseason walkoff in baseball history, Kirk Gibson's "I Can't Believe What I Just Saw" homer in the 1988 World Series.
Turner's blast?
Happened 29 years later to the day.
Karma.
Well ...
Welcome back to Nerdsville, Cubbies.
Not because you're down 2-0 in the NLCS, mind you. Because of how it happened.
How it happened was a walkoff three-run homer by Justin Turner in Game 2 last night, which handed the Dodgers a 4-1 win. It was only the second walkoff postseason jack in Dodgers' history. The first, of course, was the most famous postseason walkoff in baseball history, Kirk Gibson's "I Can't Believe What I Just Saw" homer in the 1988 World Series.
Turner's blast?
Happened 29 years later to the day.
Karma.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Fraud, un-frauded
Gotta say it. The world must look pretty interesting from the angle in which the NCAA views it.
You know, upside-down. Through squinty eyes. With the head cocked at a verrry precise tilt, because only at that tilt does the inexplicable look explicable, the patently false look true and what's black-and-white to the rest of us is not, you know, black-and-white at all.
For instance: Can anyone explain to me, a mere mortal, how a university can commit blatant academic fraud for almost two decades in the service of its basketball program, and not get turned into a smoking crater by the NCAA's enforcement wing?
The ruling body for collegiate athletics will hammer schools (mostly not the big revenue producers, of course) for all manner of silliness, up to and including dinging athletes for selling the bowl swag the NCAA itself says is OK for them to get. (But don't buy that kid a cheeseburger, Coach! Improper benefit!)
Yet here we have the University of North Carolina, which ran the long academic con with such breathtaking gall, getting a free pass because ... well, because why?
Because the phony courses many of its basketball players were taking were open to all students, thereby removing the "improper benefit" tag?
Because the students taking the fraudulent courses were assigned papers, did turn them and were graded according to the professor's guidelines, fraudulent though they were?
Well ... yes. Or so the NCAA Committee on Infractions said when it refused to penalize the North Carolina basketball program for its involvement in this decades-long scam.
In other words, in the NCAA's world, you can now commit academic fraud that benefits your athletic programs (because the "papers" invariably received high grades) as long as the assigned work is completed. By whom, of course, is a question the NCAA prefers you don't ask.
You want to know how insane is this?
It's so insane that the NCAA investigators who uncovered this mammoth scam wanted to throw the book at North Carolina. They were, quite properly, appalled. But they were overruled by their own COI -- even though, in its own report, it admitted that the "courses" involved classes that never met, nonexistent faculty oversight and papers that were graded by a secretary who herself admitted she sometimes didn't read all of them.
Are you kidding me? Are ... you ... kidding me?
The nut of all this, of course, is that by not laying a glove on North Carolina, the NCAA is finally admitting that what it oversees is purely a business. This comes as no surprise to those of us who for some time have been watching the emperor prance around naked. But now the NCAA itself has admitted its garments are nonexistent.
Its argument against paying the hired help, after all, has always been that it isn't hired help at all. Its athletes are students pursuing college degrees. That their labor generates billions in revenue for their schools is offset by a higher purpose: They're getting a free education as a tradeoff.
A grand notion. And one totally undermined when a member school is allowed to funnel its "student-athletes" into fraudulent courses without a twinge of conscience, thereby rendering that education worthless. That's what the University of North Carolina has been doing for 20 years. And the NCAA let the Tar Heels get away with it.
Can there be a more blatant betrayal of college athletics' alleged mission? Or a more stark example of just whose tail is wagging what dog?
You know, upside-down. Through squinty eyes. With the head cocked at a verrry precise tilt, because only at that tilt does the inexplicable look explicable, the patently false look true and what's black-and-white to the rest of us is not, you know, black-and-white at all.
For instance: Can anyone explain to me, a mere mortal, how a university can commit blatant academic fraud for almost two decades in the service of its basketball program, and not get turned into a smoking crater by the NCAA's enforcement wing?
The ruling body for collegiate athletics will hammer schools (mostly not the big revenue producers, of course) for all manner of silliness, up to and including dinging athletes for selling the bowl swag the NCAA itself says is OK for them to get. (But don't buy that kid a cheeseburger, Coach! Improper benefit!)
Yet here we have the University of North Carolina, which ran the long academic con with such breathtaking gall, getting a free pass because ... well, because why?
Because the phony courses many of its basketball players were taking were open to all students, thereby removing the "improper benefit" tag?
Because the students taking the fraudulent courses were assigned papers, did turn them and were graded according to the professor's guidelines, fraudulent though they were?
Well ... yes. Or so the NCAA Committee on Infractions said when it refused to penalize the North Carolina basketball program for its involvement in this decades-long scam.
In other words, in the NCAA's world, you can now commit academic fraud that benefits your athletic programs (because the "papers" invariably received high grades) as long as the assigned work is completed. By whom, of course, is a question the NCAA prefers you don't ask.
You want to know how insane is this?
It's so insane that the NCAA investigators who uncovered this mammoth scam wanted to throw the book at North Carolina. They were, quite properly, appalled. But they were overruled by their own COI -- even though, in its own report, it admitted that the "courses" involved classes that never met, nonexistent faculty oversight and papers that were graded by a secretary who herself admitted she sometimes didn't read all of them.
Are you kidding me? Are ... you ... kidding me?
The nut of all this, of course, is that by not laying a glove on North Carolina, the NCAA is finally admitting that what it oversees is purely a business. This comes as no surprise to those of us who for some time have been watching the emperor prance around naked. But now the NCAA itself has admitted its garments are nonexistent.
Its argument against paying the hired help, after all, has always been that it isn't hired help at all. Its athletes are students pursuing college degrees. That their labor generates billions in revenue for their schools is offset by a higher purpose: They're getting a free education as a tradeoff.
A grand notion. And one totally undermined when a member school is allowed to funnel its "student-athletes" into fraudulent courses without a twinge of conscience, thereby rendering that education worthless. That's what the University of North Carolina has been doing for 20 years. And the NCAA let the Tar Heels get away with it.
Can there be a more blatant betrayal of college athletics' alleged mission? Or a more stark example of just whose tail is wagging what dog?
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Why baseball is great
In which the Blob will not point out that it took the Nationals and Cubs four hours and 37 minutes to decide the NLDS last night, which of course is insane on its face. But which of course was ultimately not as insane as what happened during those interminable four hours and 37 minutes.
Insane and wonderful, one might add. Yes, that, too.
What happened was the Nats choked on the big moment again, same as ever, but in the sort of wildly spectacular and head-grabbing ways only baseball in October seems to produce. They had a 4-1 lead at home! They had Max Scherzer on the hill with two out and nobody on in the fifth! The Cubs couldn't drive in a run if someone held a gun to Clark the Bear's head!
And so of course the Cubs won.
They won 9-8 even though their pitchers walked nine batters. They won, and scored nine runs, even though they were 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. They won even though they stranded nine baserunners, because the Nats stranded -- are you ready for this? -- 13.
They won, in the signature inning, by scoring four two-out runs off Scherzer in the fifth.
As Jack Buck famously said when ancient, crippled-up Kirk Gibson came out of the clubhouse to hit the most famous walk-off (actually limp-off) home run in history: "I don't believe what I just saw!"
If October baseball has a better epitaph, I can't imagine what it would be.
Insane and wonderful, one might add. Yes, that, too.
What happened was the Nats choked on the big moment again, same as ever, but in the sort of wildly spectacular and head-grabbing ways only baseball in October seems to produce. They had a 4-1 lead at home! They had Max Scherzer on the hill with two out and nobody on in the fifth! The Cubs couldn't drive in a run if someone held a gun to Clark the Bear's head!
And so of course the Cubs won.
They won 9-8 even though their pitchers walked nine batters. They won, and scored nine runs, even though they were 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. They won even though they stranded nine baserunners, because the Nats stranded -- are you ready for this? -- 13.
They won, in the signature inning, by scoring four two-out runs off Scherzer in the fifth.
As Jack Buck famously said when ancient, crippled-up Kirk Gibson came out of the clubhouse to hit the most famous walk-off (actually limp-off) home run in history: "I don't believe what I just saw!"
If October baseball has a better epitaph, I can't imagine what it would be.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Two brief thoughts on the baseball last night
In which the Blob hijacks its own wretched work product, The NFL In So Many Words, to encapsulate a gloomy day in playoff baseball for all those who believe in truth, justice and the Cubs Way:
1. I KNEW he wasn't sick! (Nats 5, Cubs 0, the Deathly Ill Stephen Strasburg 7 innings pitched, 3 hits, 12 strikeouts)
2. Are you kidding me, Cleveland? (Yankees 5, Indians 2 in Game 5, in Cleveland)
Wait. Did I say two brief thoughts?
Make it four:
3. Gaah! Stupid Yankees!
4. Dammit! The Yankees!
There.
1. I KNEW he wasn't sick! (Nats 5, Cubs 0, the Deathly Ill Stephen Strasburg 7 innings pitched, 3 hits, 12 strikeouts)
2. Are you kidding me, Cleveland? (Yankees 5, Indians 2 in Game 5, in Cleveland)
Wait. Did I say two brief thoughts?
Make it four:
3. Gaah! Stupid Yankees!
4. Dammit! The Yankees!
There.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Yankee go home
Trinidad and who?
Trinidad and Tobago, and there goes U.S. men's soccer, slinking right back to 1986. In case you missed it in all the furor over the NFL knuckling under to the false-flag-flying creature in the White House, the U.S. men lost to T&T in the World Cup qualifying last night, 2-1. T&T had diddly-boo to play for, and was a vastly inferior side to boot. Yet it beat a listless U.S. side that had everything to play for.
As a result, the U.S. men will not be playing in the World Cup for the first time since 1986 -- when, presumably, U.S. men's soccer was light years less advanced than it is today.
Well. Apparently not.
Despite a handful of talented up-and-comers -- including 20-year-old Christian Pulisic, who could wind up being the first Ronaldo-level American superstar -- American soccer on the male side is right back where it was 31 years ago. And that says nothing good whatsoever about its leadership from head coach Bruce Arena on down.
Too harsh?
Perhaps. But how is it men's soccer in America continues to tread water (or, in this case, drown) while women's soccer has been one of the premier sides in the world for 20-some years?
To be sure, the women have some advantages. Basketball and football don't vacuum up a lot of their prospective talent the way they do on the men's side. And the sustained success of the U.S. women has created a culture that is itself sustaining.
Little girls in America grow up wanting to be Mia Hamm or Carly Lloyd. Little boys don't grow up wanting to be Jozy Altidore or Clint Dempsey -- or even Christian Pulisic.
Still ... that U.S. men's soccer would fail so spectacularly at this particular moment is especially disheartening, because it did so against the backdrop of increasing concerns about football and its long-term effects. Little boys may still grow up wanting to be Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but not as much as they once did. The NFL ignored the concussion issue for years, and now that disastrous decision is coming back to bite it at every level of the sport.
Which would seem to benefit soccer.
And which is why not making the World Cup at this precise time in history especially ruinous.
You make the World Cup, after all, and you give kids coming up whose parents want to steer them away from football something to dream of. You stoke a fire for which conditions right now are better than they've perhaps ever been. And you get to sell your game at a time when it's perhaps never been more saleable.
But now?
Now your game goes off the radar at the worst possible time. And the hell of it is, it's off the radar because you failed in a qualifying region that's so forgiving it's almost impossible to fail -- especially for a nation that pours as much money into the sport as the United States.
It's the own goal of all own goals. Or something comparable, surely.
Trinidad and Tobago, and there goes U.S. men's soccer, slinking right back to 1986. In case you missed it in all the furor over the NFL knuckling under to the false-flag-flying creature in the White House, the U.S. men lost to T&T in the World Cup qualifying last night, 2-1. T&T had diddly-boo to play for, and was a vastly inferior side to boot. Yet it beat a listless U.S. side that had everything to play for.
As a result, the U.S. men will not be playing in the World Cup for the first time since 1986 -- when, presumably, U.S. men's soccer was light years less advanced than it is today.
Well. Apparently not.
Despite a handful of talented up-and-comers -- including 20-year-old Christian Pulisic, who could wind up being the first Ronaldo-level American superstar -- American soccer on the male side is right back where it was 31 years ago. And that says nothing good whatsoever about its leadership from head coach Bruce Arena on down.
Too harsh?
Perhaps. But how is it men's soccer in America continues to tread water (or, in this case, drown) while women's soccer has been one of the premier sides in the world for 20-some years?
To be sure, the women have some advantages. Basketball and football don't vacuum up a lot of their prospective talent the way they do on the men's side. And the sustained success of the U.S. women has created a culture that is itself sustaining.
Little girls in America grow up wanting to be Mia Hamm or Carly Lloyd. Little boys don't grow up wanting to be Jozy Altidore or Clint Dempsey -- or even Christian Pulisic.
Still ... that U.S. men's soccer would fail so spectacularly at this particular moment is especially disheartening, because it did so against the backdrop of increasing concerns about football and its long-term effects. Little boys may still grow up wanting to be Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but not as much as they once did. The NFL ignored the concussion issue for years, and now that disastrous decision is coming back to bite it at every level of the sport.
Which would seem to benefit soccer.
And which is why not making the World Cup at this precise time in history especially ruinous.
You make the World Cup, after all, and you give kids coming up whose parents want to steer them away from football something to dream of. You stoke a fire for which conditions right now are better than they've perhaps ever been. And you get to sell your game at a time when it's perhaps never been more saleable.
But now?
Now your game goes off the radar at the worst possible time. And the hell of it is, it's off the radar because you failed in a qualifying region that's so forgiving it's almost impossible to fail -- especially for a nation that pours as much money into the sport as the United States.
It's the own goal of all own goals. Or something comparable, surely.
Sick leave
This is the part, in "Welcome Back, Kotter," where Juan Epstein used to bring a note from his legendary mom.
Dear Dusty: Please excuse Stephen from pitching tonight. The air conditioning has made him sick.
(Signed)
Epstein's Mom.
Or ...
Dear Dusty: Stephen is feeling under the weather today. Tanner Roark should pitch instead. I'm sure Stephen will be ready for Game 5.
(Signed)
Epstein's Mom.
And then ...
What do you mean there might not be a Game 5?
(Signed)
Epstein's Mom.
And if you're wondering, at this point, "What is this man talking about?", well ... we're talking about mold.
Which, according to manager Dusty Baker, apparently has gotten into the air conditioning in the Washington Nationals hotel in Chicago, and caused several of them to feel icky. Including, it turns out, ace pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who allowed just three hits and no earned runs and struck out 10 in the NLDS opener against the Cubs, and whose ERA after the All-Star break is a barely visible 0.86.
That will do neither home nor the Nats any good in Game 4 tonight, however. Strasburg, scheduled to go on full rest after Game 4 was rained out last night, will not be going after all. Baker will go with Tanner Roark instead, saying Strasburg was feeling "under the weather."
Of course, given that this is an elimination for the Nats, perhaps he should have said "on his deathbed."
Because, listen, you'd hope that Strasburg would at the very least be gasping his last if he's going to sit this one out, because ... well, because the season's over if the Nats lose. "Under the weather" does not quite rise to the level of an acceptable absence given the circumstance. Or so one would think.
But then, the Blob is a Cranky Old-School Guy Zone, where, if your team needs you to save its season, you drag an oxygen tank out there if you have to. Hardly anything short of Strasburg's pitching arm actually falling off should keep him off the bump. And even then, there's always Scotch tape.
But, hey. Maybe he really is on his deathbed. In which case mold becomes the unlikely MVP of the series.
Or ...
Or maybe this is just a mind-trick by Dusty the Zenmaster, and Strasburg really is going to pitch.
Guess we'll see.
Update: Guess we will. Sources say Strasburg is now scheduled to start Game 4. Dusty the Zenmaster, playin' games.
Dear Dusty: Please excuse Stephen from pitching tonight. The air conditioning has made him sick.
(Signed)
Epstein's Mom.
Or ...
Dear Dusty: Stephen is feeling under the weather today. Tanner Roark should pitch instead. I'm sure Stephen will be ready for Game 5.
(Signed)
Epstein's Mom.
And then ...
What do you mean there might not be a Game 5?
(Signed)
Epstein's Mom.
And if you're wondering, at this point, "What is this man talking about?", well ... we're talking about mold.
Which, according to manager Dusty Baker, apparently has gotten into the air conditioning in the Washington Nationals hotel in Chicago, and caused several of them to feel icky. Including, it turns out, ace pitcher Stephen Strasburg, who allowed just three hits and no earned runs and struck out 10 in the NLDS opener against the Cubs, and whose ERA after the All-Star break is a barely visible 0.86.
That will do neither home nor the Nats any good in Game 4 tonight, however. Strasburg, scheduled to go on full rest after Game 4 was rained out last night, will not be going after all. Baker will go with Tanner Roark instead, saying Strasburg was feeling "under the weather."
Of course, given that this is an elimination for the Nats, perhaps he should have said "on his deathbed."
Because, listen, you'd hope that Strasburg would at the very least be gasping his last if he's going to sit this one out, because ... well, because the season's over if the Nats lose. "Under the weather" does not quite rise to the level of an acceptable absence given the circumstance. Or so one would think.
But then, the Blob is a Cranky Old-School Guy Zone, where, if your team needs you to save its season, you drag an oxygen tank out there if you have to. Hardly anything short of Strasburg's pitching arm actually falling off should keep him off the bump. And even then, there's always Scotch tape.
But, hey. Maybe he really is on his deathbed. In which case mold becomes the unlikely MVP of the series.
Or ...
Or maybe this is just a mind-trick by Dusty the Zenmaster, and Strasburg really is going to pitch.
Guess we'll see.
Update: Guess we will. Sources say Strasburg is now scheduled to start Game 4. Dusty the Zenmaster, playin' games.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Gators gone wild
And now, because the Blob is an official Hideous Uniform Shaming Zone, we present this, which is the getup Florida will be wearing at home against Texas A&M this weekend.
According to the promotional copy, they're "gator-inspired." I guess, although I've never seen a gator with a shiny silver head. I think they're "gator-inspired" in much the same way a guy wearing a charcoal-gray suit is "charcoal-inspired."
Also, it would have been nice if, somewhere in all that "swamp-green" and silver, they might have included a few touches that would remotely identify the wearers as, you know, the University of Florida football team.
Oh, wait. I guess the numbers will be orange, and there's a smidge of blue on the sleeves that you'll be able to see if you squint really hard. So I guess it's all good.
I also guess the reaction of fans in Ben Hill Stadium will include this:
"Where are the Gators?"
"Cool, it's the X-Men!"
"Hey, look, they must be filming a sequel to 'Any Given Sunday'."
"WHERE ARE THE GATORS??"
According to the promotional copy, they're "gator-inspired." I guess, although I've never seen a gator with a shiny silver head. I think they're "gator-inspired" in much the same way a guy wearing a charcoal-gray suit is "charcoal-inspired."
Also, it would have been nice if, somewhere in all that "swamp-green" and silver, they might have included a few touches that would remotely identify the wearers as, you know, the University of Florida football team.
Oh, wait. I guess the numbers will be orange, and there's a smidge of blue on the sleeves that you'll be able to see if you squint really hard. So I guess it's all good.
I also guess the reaction of fans in Ben Hill Stadium will include this:
"Where are the Gators?"
"Cool, it's the X-Men!"
"Hey, look, they must be filming a sequel to 'Any Given Sunday'."
"WHERE ARE THE GATORS??"
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 5
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature much lauded by people who say, "Oh, wait. I thought you said much-larded":
1. It's Tuesday morning and Alex Smith, That Guy Who Isn't That Good, is 5-0 with 11 touchdowns, no interceptions and a 125.8 QBR.
2. Meanwhile, Mitch Trubisky!
3. Upooted the Sears Tower with his bare hands last night and hurled it like a javelin into Wisconsin!
4. OK, so he didn't.
5. But he was kinda good.
6. For a guy who completed less than half his passes and lost.
7. In other news, Adam Vinatieri revealed that he is "not actually 44" but "I tell people that so they'll say 'Hey, look, 44-year-old Adam Vinatieri just kicked a 51-yard game-winning field goal!'"
8. Odell Beckham, ouch. J.J. Watt, ouch squared.
9. Don't look now, but here come the Browns!
10. No, really. Don't look.
1. It's Tuesday morning and Alex Smith, That Guy Who Isn't That Good, is 5-0 with 11 touchdowns, no interceptions and a 125.8 QBR.
2. Meanwhile, Mitch Trubisky!
3. Upooted the Sears Tower with his bare hands last night and hurled it like a javelin into Wisconsin!
4. OK, so he didn't.
5. But he was kinda good.
6. For a guy who completed less than half his passes and lost.
7. In other news, Adam Vinatieri revealed that he is "not actually 44" but "I tell people that so they'll say 'Hey, look, 44-year-old Adam Vinatieri just kicked a 51-yard game-winning field goal!'"
8. Odell Beckham, ouch. J.J. Watt, ouch squared.
9. Don't look now, but here come the Browns!
10. No, really. Don't look.
Monday, October 9, 2017
Stage play
The statue, posted like a sentry outside the north end of Lucas Oil Stadium, is every inch No. 18. David Letterman had a nice Letterman-ly schtick, punctuated by a great line about how Indianapolis now has a skyline because of No. 18. And on Sunday afternoon, No. 18 went up on the ring of honor in the house No. 18 built.
Then No. 2 decided to horn in on Peyton Manning's big weekend.
That would be Mike Pence, former governor of Indiana and architect of the Great I-69 Extension Calamity, and now the nation's No. 2 man behind our only available president. He showed up to honor Peyton, or so he said. Then he trampled all over Peyton's weekend with a cheap political stunt.
Insufferable sanctimony is the province of all political animals, and Pence is nothing if not a pure political animal. So he did what political animals do, which is stage a sanctimonious "walkout" that was pure political theater -- and not even good political theater, given that everyone with a working brain cell knew the "walkout" was entirely calculated.
Look. I get it. The political game now is always to throw red meat at your base, and Pence's phony walkout was calibrated to the inch to do exactly that. Like everyone in America, he knew the San Francisco 49ers were going to kneel with their heads bowed for the national anthem, because they always do. And so you have to figure he knew exactly what he was going to do long before he stepped foot in The Luke yesterday.
He was going to walk out. Then he was going to tweet the usual blowholing nonsense about how he, Mike Pence, was not going to frequent an event where the American flag and American soldiers were disrespected. Because he, Mike Pence -- like his boss, Our Only Available President -- are patriots, by God, who respect America and the troops and apple pie and the purple mountains' majesty.
Of course, he didn't include this little tidbit: That reporters covering Pence were told before the game by Pence's handlers that he likely would be leaving early.
And so all of this was as transparent a load of cowflop as you're ever going to step in, which is saying something. That it was done at the taxpayers' expense, and at Peyton Manning's, made it all the more crass.
So does the fact that, like a lot of the "patriots," Pence doesn't even know what he's allegedly outraged by.
That business about disrespecting our soldiers by kneeling?
Hard to imagine how that's the case, considering it was a soldier's idea that they kneel.
Here's the story: When Colin Kaepernick first begin sitting out the anthem last year, he was contacted by a veteran. A dialogue was struck, and the vet and Kaepernick eventually got together. It was then the vet suggested that, rather than sit, they kneel -- because at a military funeral, the flag is presented to the widow by a kneeling member of the color guard.
And so they do. It's a compromise that's supposed to send the message this isn't about disrespecting those who've served. And indeed it isn't, considering so many of those kneeling come from military families, or who have relatives who currently serve in the military.
Unfortunately, that message got lost when the politicians decided to get involved. Unfortunately, largely, so has Kaepernick's original point, which is that police officers really shouldn't go around shooting unarmed black folk when they probably don't need to.
How this became a controversial position is a neat window into just how thoroughly the nation and rational thought have parted ways. As is the fact Pence and Our Only Available President decided to become self-appointed (and completely unrequested) champions of "our soldiers."
The former, after all, never served. And the latter not only never served, but actively ducked military service when it was his turn to stand up for the flag he claims to revere so much.
What a crazy country.
Then No. 2 decided to horn in on Peyton Manning's big weekend.
That would be Mike Pence, former governor of Indiana and architect of the Great I-69 Extension Calamity, and now the nation's No. 2 man behind our only available president. He showed up to honor Peyton, or so he said. Then he trampled all over Peyton's weekend with a cheap political stunt.
Insufferable sanctimony is the province of all political animals, and Pence is nothing if not a pure political animal. So he did what political animals do, which is stage a sanctimonious "walkout" that was pure political theater -- and not even good political theater, given that everyone with a working brain cell knew the "walkout" was entirely calculated.
Look. I get it. The political game now is always to throw red meat at your base, and Pence's phony walkout was calibrated to the inch to do exactly that. Like everyone in America, he knew the San Francisco 49ers were going to kneel with their heads bowed for the national anthem, because they always do. And so you have to figure he knew exactly what he was going to do long before he stepped foot in The Luke yesterday.
He was going to walk out. Then he was going to tweet the usual blowholing nonsense about how he, Mike Pence, was not going to frequent an event where the American flag and American soldiers were disrespected. Because he, Mike Pence -- like his boss, Our Only Available President -- are patriots, by God, who respect America and the troops and apple pie and the purple mountains' majesty.
Of course, he didn't include this little tidbit: That reporters covering Pence were told before the game by Pence's handlers that he likely would be leaving early.
And so all of this was as transparent a load of cowflop as you're ever going to step in, which is saying something. That it was done at the taxpayers' expense, and at Peyton Manning's, made it all the more crass.
So does the fact that, like a lot of the "patriots," Pence doesn't even know what he's allegedly outraged by.
That business about disrespecting our soldiers by kneeling?
Hard to imagine how that's the case, considering it was a soldier's idea that they kneel.
Here's the story: When Colin Kaepernick first begin sitting out the anthem last year, he was contacted by a veteran. A dialogue was struck, and the vet and Kaepernick eventually got together. It was then the vet suggested that, rather than sit, they kneel -- because at a military funeral, the flag is presented to the widow by a kneeling member of the color guard.
And so they do. It's a compromise that's supposed to send the message this isn't about disrespecting those who've served. And indeed it isn't, considering so many of those kneeling come from military families, or who have relatives who currently serve in the military.
Unfortunately, that message got lost when the politicians decided to get involved. Unfortunately, largely, so has Kaepernick's original point, which is that police officers really shouldn't go around shooting unarmed black folk when they probably don't need to.
How this became a controversial position is a neat window into just how thoroughly the nation and rational thought have parted ways. As is the fact Pence and Our Only Available President decided to become self-appointed (and completely unrequested) champions of "our soldiers."
The former, after all, never served. And the latter not only never served, but actively ducked military service when it was his turn to stand up for the flag he claims to revere so much.
What a crazy country.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Requiem for a Hawk
One by one they take their quiet leave, all the names who made sports sing for me as a kid. I'm no kid myself anymore, is one dully obvious thing this tells me. Another is that underneath all my hard-won cynicism a foolish romantic clings to life, because whenever a boyhood idol passes I always say "But he wasn't that old!"
Connie Hawkins died the other day, is what I'm trying to say. And, no, he wasn't that old.
He was 75 -- which is nothing, really, especially when he'll always in my memory be the long, ramshackle coil of muscle and spring who stared from the wall in my dorm room at Ball State. That poster went up the day I moved in, if I remember right, and it stayed there: Connie Hawkins in his glory days with the Phoenix Suns, holding the basketball in his huge hands as he contemplated a free throw.
Now both poster and dorm room are gone. The poster vanished who knows when. The dorm room in Hurst Hall disappeared in a shower of rubble this summer, as Ball State demolished LaFollette Complex to make room for newer, better dorms. Hurst, naturally, was the first dorm they took down.
The Hawk, on the other hand, endures. He was my favorite basketball player when I was growing up, even if he wasn't as well known as a lot of his contemporaries. This is because the NBA banned him for most of his prime years, punishment for alleged involvement in a college point-shaving scandal. As it turns out, Hawk was innocent. He was a wronged party, and I've always been a sucker for wronged party stories.
But I also dug his game. Hawk, you see, is the guy who taught basketball how to fly.
He was 6-foot-8 with huge hands and crazy hops, a 1960s New York playground legend as famous in his own sphere as Wilt Chamberlain or Oscar Robertson were in theirs. The man was Dr. J before there was a Dr. J, Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan. He was the first superstar of the fledgling ABA, led the Pittsburgh Pipers to the first ABA title, played for a time with the Globetrotters during his long and undeserved exile.
The great parlor game with Hawk was just how great he would have been had he not had to spend so much of his career in the bushes. By the time he came to the NBA, he was 27 years old, but it was an old 27. As it was, he still made the Hall of Fame.
And now he is gone. At 75.
Not that old. No, not that old at all.
Connie Hawkins died the other day, is what I'm trying to say. And, no, he wasn't that old.
He was 75 -- which is nothing, really, especially when he'll always in my memory be the long, ramshackle coil of muscle and spring who stared from the wall in my dorm room at Ball State. That poster went up the day I moved in, if I remember right, and it stayed there: Connie Hawkins in his glory days with the Phoenix Suns, holding the basketball in his huge hands as he contemplated a free throw.
Now both poster and dorm room are gone. The poster vanished who knows when. The dorm room in Hurst Hall disappeared in a shower of rubble this summer, as Ball State demolished LaFollette Complex to make room for newer, better dorms. Hurst, naturally, was the first dorm they took down.
The Hawk, on the other hand, endures. He was my favorite basketball player when I was growing up, even if he wasn't as well known as a lot of his contemporaries. This is because the NBA banned him for most of his prime years, punishment for alleged involvement in a college point-shaving scandal. As it turns out, Hawk was innocent. He was a wronged party, and I've always been a sucker for wronged party stories.
But I also dug his game. Hawk, you see, is the guy who taught basketball how to fly.
He was 6-foot-8 with huge hands and crazy hops, a 1960s New York playground legend as famous in his own sphere as Wilt Chamberlain or Oscar Robertson were in theirs. The man was Dr. J before there was a Dr. J, Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan. He was the first superstar of the fledgling ABA, led the Pittsburgh Pipers to the first ABA title, played for a time with the Globetrotters during his long and undeserved exile.
The great parlor game with Hawk was just how great he would have been had he not had to spend so much of his career in the bushes. By the time he came to the NBA, he was 27 years old, but it was an old 27. As it was, he still made the Hall of Fame.
And now he is gone. At 75.
Not that old. No, not that old at all.
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Statuesque
And now, a few brief words about the appropriateness of a Peyton Manning statue, which today is unveiled in front of Lucas Oil Stadium, aka, the House That Peyton Built:
Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell outside PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
Magic Johnson outside the Staples Center in L.A.
Michael Jordan outside the United Center in Chicago.
Knute Rockne, Lou Holtz, Frank Leahy and Dan Devine outside Notre Dame Stadium.
Gordie Howe inside Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
Peyton Manning outside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Which one of these is not like the others?
Correct. None of these are not like the others.
Case closed.
Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell outside PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
Magic Johnson outside the Staples Center in L.A.
Michael Jordan outside the United Center in Chicago.
Knute Rockne, Lou Holtz, Frank Leahy and Dan Devine outside Notre Dame Stadium.
Gordie Howe inside Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
Peyton Manning outside Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Which one of these is not like the others?
Correct. None of these are not like the others.
Case closed.
Friday, October 6, 2017
Sack of the year
So this was the day I was going to say all sorts of mean yet completely appropriate things about Cam Newton, Caveman of the Year, who tried to make a sexist joke at the expense of a woman sportswriter the other day and discovered that nobody thought it was funny, on account of it wasn't.
I was going to respond by saying something like "Dude, it's 2017. Maybe you heard about it."
Or, "Shut up and go make me a sandwich."
Or even, "It's funny to hear a male athlete talk about a female sportswriter like he thinks it's 1956 or something."
But then I read this. And I figured nothing I could write would be more sublime than the headshot Sally Jenkins delivers here.
Add another concussion to Cam's collection.
Update: Apparently the sportswriter Cam ridiculed is no prize, either. The author of a number of blatantly racist tweets. Here's hoping someone picks up where Jenkins left off and takes her down a peg, too.
I was going to respond by saying something like "Dude, it's 2017. Maybe you heard about it."
Or, "Shut up and go make me a sandwich."
Or even, "It's funny to hear a male athlete talk about a female sportswriter like he thinks it's 1956 or something."
But then I read this. And I figured nothing I could write would be more sublime than the headshot Sally Jenkins delivers here.
Add another concussion to Cam's collection.
Update: Apparently the sportswriter Cam ridiculed is no prize, either. The author of a number of blatantly racist tweets. Here's hoping someone picks up where Jenkins left off and takes her down a peg, too.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Slow ride
It was W.C. Fields, or so legend has it, who once said he spent a week in Philadelphia one night.
I can't say for sure, but I bet he was at a baseball game.
Comes now October baseball, the most wonderful time of year as long as you lay in the kind of provisions Lewis and Clark did when they set off to explore the western half of America. Of course, Lewis and Clark were only gone two years. October baseball might require some extra stores of jerky and pemmican.
Yes, if you haven't guessed it already, this is the Blob's annual old-man-shouting-at-the-clouds rant at the state of baseball -- once a fast-paced National Pastime and now, especially in the playoffs, an excruciating slog resembling the Indianapolis 500 if the Indianapolis 500 were contested by snails.
In the NL wild-card playoff last night, Colorado and Arizona played a hell of a baseball game, apparently, as long as you weren't a pitcher. The teams combined for 30 hits and 19 runs in 8 1/2 innings as the home-standing Diamondbacks won, 11-8. And it didn't even take four hours to play!
No, sir. It only took 3 hours and 54 minutes.
To play a game that, because the home D-Backs were leading, didn't even go the designated nine innings.
I didn't watch it, on account of I am not genetically disposed to spend almost four hours watching anything, let alone a game where so little is happening so much of the time. My attention span, alas, never got out of A-ball. And so I would have nodded off, or changed channels, long before that exciting moment when Paul Goldschmidt or Charlie Blackmon called time to adjust their batting gloves for the 16th time, or that other exciting moment when Diamondbacks catcher Jeff Mathis trotted out to the mound for the 12th time to discuss china patterns with whoever was pitching.
But I shouldn't pick on the poor Rockies and Diamondbacks. The Yankees and Twins played a wowser the other night in the AL wild-card game, too. And that one didn't last four hours, either.
It only lasted 3 hours, 51 minutes before the Yankees won 8-4 in another slugfest.
Look. I get it. Baseball is the only game that doesn't have a time clock, and that lends it a certain charming timelessness, a boundless romp across Elysian fields that's over when it's over. And baseball has marked the time, and America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers, and blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda.
People will come, Ray. People most definitely will come.
But they'd better pack a lunch if they do.
The aggravating thing about all this, of course, is baseball has rules in place to speed up the pace of play, but it won't enforce them. A player calling time to step out of the box and adjust his batting gloves or admire the grain of his bat does so at the discretion of the plate umpire. If ump says no, you have to stay in the box and play on.
But when is the last time you actually saw an umpire say no?
You see the problem. And because it's not a problem anyone seems to want to solve, I will predict right now who the MVP of the playoffs will be.
My DVR.
I can't say for sure, but I bet he was at a baseball game.
Comes now October baseball, the most wonderful time of year as long as you lay in the kind of provisions Lewis and Clark did when they set off to explore the western half of America. Of course, Lewis and Clark were only gone two years. October baseball might require some extra stores of jerky and pemmican.
Yes, if you haven't guessed it already, this is the Blob's annual old-man-shouting-at-the-clouds rant at the state of baseball -- once a fast-paced National Pastime and now, especially in the playoffs, an excruciating slog resembling the Indianapolis 500 if the Indianapolis 500 were contested by snails.
In the NL wild-card playoff last night, Colorado and Arizona played a hell of a baseball game, apparently, as long as you weren't a pitcher. The teams combined for 30 hits and 19 runs in 8 1/2 innings as the home-standing Diamondbacks won, 11-8. And it didn't even take four hours to play!
No, sir. It only took 3 hours and 54 minutes.
To play a game that, because the home D-Backs were leading, didn't even go the designated nine innings.
I didn't watch it, on account of I am not genetically disposed to spend almost four hours watching anything, let alone a game where so little is happening so much of the time. My attention span, alas, never got out of A-ball. And so I would have nodded off, or changed channels, long before that exciting moment when Paul Goldschmidt or Charlie Blackmon called time to adjust their batting gloves for the 16th time, or that other exciting moment when Diamondbacks catcher Jeff Mathis trotted out to the mound for the 12th time to discuss china patterns with whoever was pitching.
But I shouldn't pick on the poor Rockies and Diamondbacks. The Yankees and Twins played a wowser the other night in the AL wild-card game, too. And that one didn't last four hours, either.
It only lasted 3 hours, 51 minutes before the Yankees won 8-4 in another slugfest.
Look. I get it. Baseball is the only game that doesn't have a time clock, and that lends it a certain charming timelessness, a boundless romp across Elysian fields that's over when it's over. And baseball has marked the time, and America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers, and blah-blah-blah, yadda-yadda-yadda.
People will come, Ray. People most definitely will come.
But they'd better pack a lunch if they do.
The aggravating thing about all this, of course, is baseball has rules in place to speed up the pace of play, but it won't enforce them. A player calling time to step out of the box and adjust his batting gloves or admire the grain of his bat does so at the discretion of the plate umpire. If ump says no, you have to stay in the box and play on.
But when is the last time you actually saw an umpire say no?
You see the problem. And because it's not a problem anyone seems to want to solve, I will predict right now who the MVP of the playoffs will be.
My DVR.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 4
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the unremittingly tiresome Blob feature of which people (this week) are saying "Hey, no fair! You can't do this on Wednesday!" and "What a cruel joke, making us think you were skipping it this week!":
1. Sorry, Tennessee, you will not be getting your Titans back today. We're still waiting on parts. (Signed) Andy Jackson's By The Eternal Service And Repair.
2. Who is this Jay Cutler fellow who plays for the Porpoises? Heavens, isn't he the dour one. And is that how an NFL offense is supposed to look? (Signed) Jolly Old England.
3. I don't care what you say. Alex Smith still blows. (Signed) The Society of People Who Care Too Much That Alex Smith Isn't Throwing 60-Yard Bombs, And Not Enough That He's 4-0.
4. Hey, look! We're leading! (Signed) The Tru Blu Colts Crew (halftime)
5. Uuhhh ... (Signed) The Tru Blu Colts Crew (postgame).
6. Man, do we stink. (Signed) The Bear Down Chicago Bears Fan Club, before learning Mike Glennon had been benched for Mitch Trubisky.
7. Woo-hoo! We're going to the Super Bowl! (Signed) The Bear Down Chicago Bears Fan Club, after it was announced Glennon had been benched for Trubisky.
8. Man, do we stink. (Signed) The J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets Fan, before the Jets beat the Jaguars in overtime.
9. Woo-hoo! We're going to the Super Bowl! (Signed) The J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets Fan, after the Jets beat the Jaguars in overtime.
10. Sorry, Tennessee. Looks like a total rebuild of the Stopping Deshaun Watson micro-defensive fuel cell. (Signed) Andy Jackson's By The Eternal Service And Repair.
1. Sorry, Tennessee, you will not be getting your Titans back today. We're still waiting on parts. (Signed) Andy Jackson's By The Eternal Service And Repair.
2. Who is this Jay Cutler fellow who plays for the Porpoises? Heavens, isn't he the dour one. And is that how an NFL offense is supposed to look? (Signed) Jolly Old England.
3. I don't care what you say. Alex Smith still blows. (Signed) The Society of People Who Care Too Much That Alex Smith Isn't Throwing 60-Yard Bombs, And Not Enough That He's 4-0.
4. Hey, look! We're leading! (Signed) The Tru Blu Colts Crew (halftime)
5. Uuhhh ... (Signed) The Tru Blu Colts Crew (postgame).
6. Man, do we stink. (Signed) The Bear Down Chicago Bears Fan Club, before learning Mike Glennon had been benched for Mitch Trubisky.
7. Woo-hoo! We're going to the Super Bowl! (Signed) The Bear Down Chicago Bears Fan Club, after it was announced Glennon had been benched for Trubisky.
8. Man, do we stink. (Signed) The J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets Fan, before the Jets beat the Jaguars in overtime.
9. Woo-hoo! We're going to the Super Bowl! (Signed) The J-E-T-S Jets-Jets-Jets Fan, after the Jets beat the Jaguars in overtime.
10. Sorry, Tennessee. Looks like a total rebuild of the Stopping Deshaun Watson micro-defensive fuel cell. (Signed) Andy Jackson's By The Eternal Service And Repair.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
The sound of madness
Turn on your TV anytime in the last two weeks, and there they were again, kids in camo helmets with peace signs and subversive little messages ("War is hell") markered onto them. Half a century has come and gone since they were humping it through the bush, but Ken Burns and Lynn Novick took you right back there, took you back to a crazy time in America when delusion and duplicity and death in all its forms ruled.
"The Vietnam War" was a tour de force from America's master documentarian, 18 hours that made time sideslip. Suddenly it was all real, again. Occasionally it was too real, as when the kids humping it through the bush got caught in an ambush. Then there would be chaos and shouting and the morbidly cheery sound of automatic weapons fire, pop-pop-pop-pop.
It was the sound Vietnam made in 1967, '68, '69, '70.
Now it's the sound Las Vegas makes in 2017, right here in the good old USA.
I don't know what you can say about 59 dead and 500 injured the other night, except that it is madness unbound and a human tragedy of unfathomable proportions. This is not about the Second Amendment anymore, stretched all out of round these days by zealots. It is not about more background checks, or about craven politicians who offer the usual thoughts-and-prayers charade while they finger tattered copies of their NRA bullet points.
This is not even about simple murder anymore.
No, this is about hearing the same pop-pop-pop-pop in the middle of a country music concert that you heard all week watching "The Vietnam War." It's about a crazy white guy in a high place (not, ahem, a Muslim or a Syrian refugee, Mr. President) committing the terror homegrown this time. It's about chaos and shouting and, yes, the same sounds produced by the same type of small-arms fire, achieving the same results.
Fifty-nine dead and 500 injured, you see, means we have come to a place in America where gun crime figures have become full-on combat casualty figures. The metrics of what happened on an American street on a normal American night rival the metrics of America's last combat operation in Iraq (Operation New Dawn). Fifty-nine dead and 500 injured in the former; 73 dead and 295 wounded in the latter.
And the dismaying thing about all of that is none of it should shock us anymore.
The harsh truth is what happened in Vegas has happened before -- Charlie Whitman in the Texas Tower was the first killer in a high place, 51 years ago -- and it will happen again, because this is who we have decided we want to be as a country. We vote for it. We make excuses for it. We become wild-eyed hysterics whenever someone even mildly suggests we might want to try to slow it down a bit.
Obama's comin' to take your guns. Remember?
Look. I grew up around firearms, grew up in a family of hunters and target shooters. My dad had a reproduction 1774 Charleville musket hanging over our fireplace. He had a service carbine in his bedroom closet, and several handguns. He had a pair of matching cap-and-ball Kentucky horse pistols that now rest on a shelf in my closet.
I believe in the Second Amendment.
But I also believe that at some point, and I don't know when, a certain segment of the country lost its collective mind over it. When I was growing up, the right to bear arms meant you had a hunting rifle or two and maybe a handgun, or maybe, yes, a service carbine in your closet. It didn't mean you armed yourself like the 82nd Airborne. It didn't mean you felt it necessary to sling an AK-47 on your back when you went off to buy a gallon of milk, or had military-grade small arms stashed all over a hotel in Las Vegas, the way the shooter did the other night.
And it for sure didn't mean you thought someone was coming to take your guns just because they suggested a few background checks. Background checks are about a little inconvenience, not about depriving you of your inalienable rights as an American. Get a grip, people.
It's true a few background checks probably won't stop what happened in Vegas. On the other hand, we're never gonna hear about the shootings that didn't happen because someone couldn't pass a background check. And it's absolutely stone certain that making it easier instead of harder for the crazies to slaughter our friends and loved ones won't slow that slaughter.
There has to be some sort of balance, in other words. There has to be a way to get back to a place where exercising your Second Amendment rights means, yes, you own a hunting rifle or two, and where common sense rules instead of hysteria.
Until that time, expect more Las Vegases.
And do you know how much I hate writing that?
"The Vietnam War" was a tour de force from America's master documentarian, 18 hours that made time sideslip. Suddenly it was all real, again. Occasionally it was too real, as when the kids humping it through the bush got caught in an ambush. Then there would be chaos and shouting and the morbidly cheery sound of automatic weapons fire, pop-pop-pop-pop.
It was the sound Vietnam made in 1967, '68, '69, '70.
Now it's the sound Las Vegas makes in 2017, right here in the good old USA.
I don't know what you can say about 59 dead and 500 injured the other night, except that it is madness unbound and a human tragedy of unfathomable proportions. This is not about the Second Amendment anymore, stretched all out of round these days by zealots. It is not about more background checks, or about craven politicians who offer the usual thoughts-and-prayers charade while they finger tattered copies of their NRA bullet points.
This is not even about simple murder anymore.
No, this is about hearing the same pop-pop-pop-pop in the middle of a country music concert that you heard all week watching "The Vietnam War." It's about a crazy white guy in a high place (not, ahem, a Muslim or a Syrian refugee, Mr. President) committing the terror homegrown this time. It's about chaos and shouting and, yes, the same sounds produced by the same type of small-arms fire, achieving the same results.
Fifty-nine dead and 500 injured, you see, means we have come to a place in America where gun crime figures have become full-on combat casualty figures. The metrics of what happened on an American street on a normal American night rival the metrics of America's last combat operation in Iraq (Operation New Dawn). Fifty-nine dead and 500 injured in the former; 73 dead and 295 wounded in the latter.
And the dismaying thing about all of that is none of it should shock us anymore.
The harsh truth is what happened in Vegas has happened before -- Charlie Whitman in the Texas Tower was the first killer in a high place, 51 years ago -- and it will happen again, because this is who we have decided we want to be as a country. We vote for it. We make excuses for it. We become wild-eyed hysterics whenever someone even mildly suggests we might want to try to slow it down a bit.
Obama's comin' to take your guns. Remember?
Look. I grew up around firearms, grew up in a family of hunters and target shooters. My dad had a reproduction 1774 Charleville musket hanging over our fireplace. He had a service carbine in his bedroom closet, and several handguns. He had a pair of matching cap-and-ball Kentucky horse pistols that now rest on a shelf in my closet.
I believe in the Second Amendment.
But I also believe that at some point, and I don't know when, a certain segment of the country lost its collective mind over it. When I was growing up, the right to bear arms meant you had a hunting rifle or two and maybe a handgun, or maybe, yes, a service carbine in your closet. It didn't mean you armed yourself like the 82nd Airborne. It didn't mean you felt it necessary to sling an AK-47 on your back when you went off to buy a gallon of milk, or had military-grade small arms stashed all over a hotel in Las Vegas, the way the shooter did the other night.
And it for sure didn't mean you thought someone was coming to take your guns just because they suggested a few background checks. Background checks are about a little inconvenience, not about depriving you of your inalienable rights as an American. Get a grip, people.
It's true a few background checks probably won't stop what happened in Vegas. On the other hand, we're never gonna hear about the shootings that didn't happen because someone couldn't pass a background check. And it's absolutely stone certain that making it easier instead of harder for the crazies to slaughter our friends and loved ones won't slow that slaughter.
There has to be some sort of balance, in other words. There has to be a way to get back to a place where exercising your Second Amendment rights means, yes, you own a hunting rifle or two, and where common sense rules instead of hysteria.
Until that time, expect more Las Vegases.
And do you know how much I hate writing that?
Monday, October 2, 2017
Fantasy land
OK, OK. Just this once. Just this once will the Blob, a resolute No Fantasy Football Posts Ever zone, comment on ... fantasy football.
That's because Richard Sherman said something about it yesterday, and he was dead-on, four-square right.
Yes, Richard, fantasy football does dehumanize NFL players. It does turn them into inanimate game pieces to be moved around the board at will by "fans" who never stop to think these are flesh-and-blood human beings with real lives and real families and people who love them.
"(We) don't care about your fantasy team," Sherman said.
Nor should they. For all the reasons stated above.
Of course ...
Of course, that still does not stop me from being mad at Deshaun Watson for accounting for five touchdowns in a week when I decided not to play him.
Dammit, Deshaun! How could you?
That's because Richard Sherman said something about it yesterday, and he was dead-on, four-square right.
Yes, Richard, fantasy football does dehumanize NFL players. It does turn them into inanimate game pieces to be moved around the board at will by "fans" who never stop to think these are flesh-and-blood human beings with real lives and real families and people who love them.
"(We) don't care about your fantasy team," Sherman said.
Nor should they. For all the reasons stated above.
Of course ...
Of course, that still does not stop me from being mad at Deshaun Watson for accounting for five touchdowns in a week when I decided not to play him.
Dammit, Deshaun! How could you?
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Wide open
The word came down on a perfect college football Saturday, crystalline blue skies and burnished-gold sunlight and the crispness of early autumn in the air. Joe Tiller's teams would have thrown it all over the lot on such a Saturday, which is a notable observation only because Joe Tiller's teams threw it all over the lot every Saturday.
Born a year to the day after Pearl Harbor, he died yesterday at the age of 74, in Buffalo, Wyoming, his favorite place on earth. He was a football coach and a husband and a father and a grandfather, and a hell of a guy. There will be tributes, surely, a lot of them flowing out of West Lafayette, In., where he lifted football at Purdue to its feet and made it Quarterback U. again.
But the best tribute is what you saw on your TV screens yesterday afternoon and evening, because what you saw in a great sense is what Joe Tiller wrought.
He opened up the game, Joe Tiller did. He brought the spread offense to Purdue and to the Big Ten and eventually, in an ancestral sort of way, to the entire country.
Not bad for a guy everyone scratched his head over when Purdue announced his hiring.
The Big Three in Indiana all hired new coaches that year, 1997, and, from a pure buzz standpoint, Joe Tiller was the least of these. Indiana hired Cam Cameron, who was a high school football and basketball legend in Indiana and who had a reputation as a budding young coaching genius. Notre Dame elevated Bob Davie, Lou Holtz' faithful and accomplished lieutenant, to replace Holtz in South Bend. And Purdue?
Purdue hired ... Joe Tiller.
Who had just finished six successful seasons at Wyoming. But it was Wyoming, and Tiller was in his mid-50s by then, and so the general reaction around the state was this:
Oh, yeah, Cameron. Bright young guy. Good hire, IU.
Oh, yeah, Davie. Great coordinator. Good hire, ND.
Oh, ye-- wait, who? Joe Tiller? Who the hell is Joe Tiller?!
The guy partially responsible for putting Cameron and Davie out of work, as it turns out.
Cameron and Davie both departed after the 2001 season, by which time everyone knew who Joe Tiller was. He'd just taken Purdue to the 2001 Rose Bowl, its first trip there in 34 years. He was the midst of taking the Boilermakers, who previously had been to just five bowl games in their history, to 10 bowl games in 12 years. And he'd turned the plodding Big Ten into a wide-open passing league with the spread offense he brought from Wyoming.
In his first season he took a defensive back, Billy Dicken, and turned him into an all-conference quarterback. He strung wide receivers like Christmas lights along the line of scrimmage, made the words "bubble screen" into a staple in every Purdue game story, threw the football -- and won doing it -- in a way the old-timers said would never work in the Big Ten.
Well, it worked. To the tune of 85 victories in 12 seasons, which made Joe Tiller the winningest football coach in the history of a school that had had some coaches who won a lot. And by the time he left, a lot of other coaches in the Big Ten were using the spread offense, or variations of it.
As are coaches all over the country now.
As for Tiller, his last act at Purdue was to retain the Old Oaken Bucket in 2008. The Boilers laminated Indiana 62-10 that day. By that time, Tiller had outlasted two coaches in South Bend, and the third, Charlie Weis, was on his last legs. And he'd outlasted three in Bloomington -- including, tragically, Terry Hoeppner, who seemed to have IU on the right track when his life was cut short by a brain tumor.
Now Tiller is gone, too. And you'd like to think that, somewhere up there in the great beyond, he and Hoeppner are even now planning one last celestial tussle.
Joe brings the spread to heaven. Now there's a headline for ya.
Born a year to the day after Pearl Harbor, he died yesterday at the age of 74, in Buffalo, Wyoming, his favorite place on earth. He was a football coach and a husband and a father and a grandfather, and a hell of a guy. There will be tributes, surely, a lot of them flowing out of West Lafayette, In., where he lifted football at Purdue to its feet and made it Quarterback U. again.
But the best tribute is what you saw on your TV screens yesterday afternoon and evening, because what you saw in a great sense is what Joe Tiller wrought.
He opened up the game, Joe Tiller did. He brought the spread offense to Purdue and to the Big Ten and eventually, in an ancestral sort of way, to the entire country.
Not bad for a guy everyone scratched his head over when Purdue announced his hiring.
The Big Three in Indiana all hired new coaches that year, 1997, and, from a pure buzz standpoint, Joe Tiller was the least of these. Indiana hired Cam Cameron, who was a high school football and basketball legend in Indiana and who had a reputation as a budding young coaching genius. Notre Dame elevated Bob Davie, Lou Holtz' faithful and accomplished lieutenant, to replace Holtz in South Bend. And Purdue?
Purdue hired ... Joe Tiller.
Who had just finished six successful seasons at Wyoming. But it was Wyoming, and Tiller was in his mid-50s by then, and so the general reaction around the state was this:
Oh, yeah, Cameron. Bright young guy. Good hire, IU.
Oh, yeah, Davie. Great coordinator. Good hire, ND.
Oh, ye-- wait, who? Joe Tiller? Who the hell is Joe Tiller?!
The guy partially responsible for putting Cameron and Davie out of work, as it turns out.
Cameron and Davie both departed after the 2001 season, by which time everyone knew who Joe Tiller was. He'd just taken Purdue to the 2001 Rose Bowl, its first trip there in 34 years. He was the midst of taking the Boilermakers, who previously had been to just five bowl games in their history, to 10 bowl games in 12 years. And he'd turned the plodding Big Ten into a wide-open passing league with the spread offense he brought from Wyoming.
In his first season he took a defensive back, Billy Dicken, and turned him into an all-conference quarterback. He strung wide receivers like Christmas lights along the line of scrimmage, made the words "bubble screen" into a staple in every Purdue game story, threw the football -- and won doing it -- in a way the old-timers said would never work in the Big Ten.
Well, it worked. To the tune of 85 victories in 12 seasons, which made Joe Tiller the winningest football coach in the history of a school that had had some coaches who won a lot. And by the time he left, a lot of other coaches in the Big Ten were using the spread offense, or variations of it.
As are coaches all over the country now.
As for Tiller, his last act at Purdue was to retain the Old Oaken Bucket in 2008. The Boilers laminated Indiana 62-10 that day. By that time, Tiller had outlasted two coaches in South Bend, and the third, Charlie Weis, was on his last legs. And he'd outlasted three in Bloomington -- including, tragically, Terry Hoeppner, who seemed to have IU on the right track when his life was cut short by a brain tumor.
Now Tiller is gone, too. And you'd like to think that, somewhere up there in the great beyond, he and Hoeppner are even now planning one last celestial tussle.
Joe brings the spread to heaven. Now there's a headline for ya.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)